{"nodes":[{"node":{"title":"A huge thanks and wishes for wellbeing as we end 2021 ","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Steering committee","field_url":"","body":"We thank the many people we have exchanged, interacted, worked and struggled with in 2021 for the reflections, perspectives, experiences and energy you bring to efforts to advance equity and justice in our countries, region and globally. We see clearly the many challenges we face, old and new, but also the opportunities, alliances, ideas and capacities we can build on to confront and propose alternatives to the baggage of policies, systems and injustices that undermine our physical, social, economic, ecological health and well-being. Wishing you a healthy, restful year end. We look forward to our joint endeavours in 2022!   ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Analysis of the management of the tenth Ebola virus disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo: developing a multidisciplinary response model to strengthen the healthcare system during disease outbreaks","field_subtitle":"Vivalya B M; Ayodeji O K; Bafwa Y T;   et al.: Globalization and Health 17:121, 1-7, 2021  ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/286e2c8f","body":"The declaration of any public health emergency in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is usually followed by the provision of technical and organizational support from international organizations, which build a parallel and short-time healthcare emergency response centred on preventing risks spreading, including to other countries. The authors propose a contrasting model of strengthening of preparedness and response structures to public health emergencies vis-\u00e0-vis the existing health systems in DRC. This is argued to be important to reduce tensions between local recruitment, the impact on the quality of wider healthcare in regions affected by EVD on one hand, and the involvement of international recruitment and its impact on social trust in the emergency response on the other. The authors propose providing a local healthcare workforce skilled to treat infectious diseases, the compulsory implementation of training programs focused on the emergency response in countries commonly affected by EVD outbreaks including the DRC. These innovations are proposed to reduce the burden of the range of health problems prior to and in the aftermath of any public health emergency in DRC as well as early recognition and treatment of EVD.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Barriers to, and facilitators of, the adoption of a sugar sweetened beverage tax to prevent non-communicable diseases in Uganda: a policy landscape analysis","field_subtitle":"Ahaibwe G; Karim SA; Thow AM; et al.: Global Health Action, 14:1, 1-9, 2021","field_url":"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/16549716.2021.1892307","body":"Uganda is experiencing an increase in nutrition-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) including from overconsumption of sugar-sweetened beverages. Fiscal and taxation policies aim to address this, but make their adoption and implementation are constrained by political and economic challenges. The authors  investigated the policy and political landscape related to this in Uganda, using a desk-based policy analysis  and four key informant consultations. While nutrition-related NCDs were recognised as an emerging problem in Uganda and government has adopted a comprehensive approach to improve diets, its implementation is slow. There is limited recognition of the consumption of sugar and sugar-sweetened beverages as a contributor to these NCDs in policy documents, existing taxes on soft drinks are lower than the WHO recommended rate of 20% and do not target sugar content. The authors report that the soft drink industry has been influential in framing the taxation debate, with the Ministry of Finance reducing taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages to maintain competitiveness in a regional market. The Ministry of Health and other public health actors in civil society have been successful (albeit marginally) in countering reductions in taxation, and a platform for sugar-sweetened beverage taxation advocacy exists in Uganda. Compelling local research that explicitly links soft drink taxes to health goals is argued to be essential to advance sugar-sweetened beverage taxation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Beyond Corporate Social Responsibility: Strengthening Human Rights Due Diligence through the Legally Binding Instrument on Business and Human Rights","field_subtitle":"Ter\u00e1n D: The South Centre, Research Paper 138, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y28efu7b","body":"Mandatory human rights due diligence (HRDD) requirements can serve to promote the adoption of a strong international framework of corporate accountability and remedy for human rights violations in the context of business activities. This paper identifies the elements of a human rights due diligence and their implementation through analysing current regional and State practice in the adoption of mandatory HRDD legislation in different sectors. It discusses the principles that characterize the approach taken by the United Nations Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group on the adoption of a Legally Binding Instrument on transnational corporations and other business enterprises and how it could serve as an important cornerstone for modern rule making on the issue of business and human rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges in health service delivery under public-private partnership in Tanzania: stakeholders\u2019 views from Dar es Salaam region","field_subtitle":"Nuhu S; Mpambije CJ; Ngussa K: BMC Health Services Research 20, 765, 1-12, 2020","field_url":"https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-020-05638-z#citeas","body":"Public-private partnership in the health sector was introduced to improve the delivery of health services in Tanzania, but the expected outcomes have not been fully realised. This study investigated challenges encountered in implementing public-private partnership (PPP) institutional arrangements in health service delivery in Kinondoni Municipality, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania through interviews and document review. Findings revealed that although PPPs are hailed for supplementing the government\u2019s efforts in the provision of health services, institutional arrangements for the smooth provision of these services are lacking. The challenges include inadequate resources, ineffective monitoring and evaluation, insufficient consultations between partners, inadequate legal and policy frameworks and ineffective implementation practices. The authors suggest that these areas need to be addressed in pursuing PPPs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"COP26 Special Report on Climate Change and Health: The Health Argument for Climate Action","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2021","field_url":"https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/cop26-special-report","body":"The 10 recommendations in the COP26 Special Report on Climate Change and Health propose a set of priority actions from the global health community to governments and policy makers, calling on them to act with urgency on the current climate and health crises. The recommendations were developed in consultation with over 150 organizations and 400 experts and health professionals. They were intended to inform governments and other stakeholders ahead of the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and to highlight various opportunities for governments to prioritize health and equity in the international climate movement and sustainable development agenda. Each recommendation comes with a selection of resources and case studies to help inspire and guide policymakers and practitioners in implementing the suggested solutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"COVID-19: Comparison of the Response in Rwanda, South Africa and Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Dzinamarira T;  Mapingure M; Rwibasira G; et al.: MEDICC Review 23:3-4, 15-20, 2021 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/3h2wtnev","body":"African countries have mounted different response strategies to COVID-19, eliciting varied outcomes. In this paper the authors compare these response strategies in Rwanda, South Africa and Zimbabwe and discuss lessons that could be shared. In particular, Rwanda has a robust and coordinated national health system that has effectively contained the epidemic. South Africa has considerable testing capacity, which has been used productively in a national response largely funded by local resources, while Zimbabwe has an effective point-of-entry approach that utilizes strategic information. The authors propose meetings between countries to share experiences and lessons learned during the COVD-19 pandemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Do international trade and investment agreements generate regulatory chill in public health policymaking? A case study of nutrition and alcohol policy in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Milsom P; Smith R; Modisenyane S M and Walls H: Globalization and Health 17:104, 1-17, 2021 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/3kucxxzt","body":"This study identified barriers to setting regulation (regulatory chill) and implementing regulation related to nutrition and alcohol as a result of trade or investment dispute measures in South Africa. The work was implemented through semi-structured interviews with 36 policy actors, analysed using thematic analysis. Trade obligations were found to generate a significantly greater anticipatory-type chilling effect on nutrition and alcohol regulation than investment treaty obligations, and investor-state and WTO state-state disputes affected implementation of regulation. No cases were reported of trade threats an investor disputes but there were reported cases of these actors using arguments related to South Africa\u2019s trade obligations to oppose policy action in these areas.  The risk of policy action was related to the perceived legitimacy or bias of the dispute system, costs involved in pursuing and capacity to pay costs of regulation/defending disputes and social views and confidence in a successful dispute outcome. The authors observe that currently, South Africa\u2019s trade obligations have a more prominent role in inhibiting nutrition and alcohol regulation than investment treaty-related concerns, but that strategies to protect public health policy space in the context of both international trade and investment treaty and dispute settlement contexts remain important.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Emerging Voices for Global Health (EV4GH) 2022","field_subtitle":"Call for applicants: Submission deadline 15 April 2022","field_url":"https://ev4gh.net/emerging-voices-for-global-health-2022/","body":"EV4GH 2022 is a blended learning training program that uses innovative training methods and activities to enable emerging researchers, other health system actors, and change agents born after 1 January 1982 to present their work and engage on various global health platforms. It consists of an e-coaching and distance learning phase, followed by a face-to-face training phase held prior to the 2022 Health System Global Symposium. The global network of emerging voices (EVs) fosters networking and learning across contexts and regions. After the training program, EVs become members of the EV4GH thematic working group (TWG) and can then join other HSG TWGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out quarterly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 230: We are struggling for health equity in Africa\u2026 is victory certain?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Feasibility and acceptability of a peer youth led curriculum to improve HIV knowledge in Northern Tanzania: resilience and intervention experience from the perspective of peer leaders","field_subtitle":"Hosaka K R J; Mmbaga  B T; Gallis J A; Dow D E: BMC Public Health 21:1925, 1-9, 2021 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/hfs6jehz","body":"The authors describe the change in 12-24 year old peer leaders' knowledge and leadership of a peer youth led HIV curriculum applied during monthly Saturday adolescent HIV clinics at two clinical sites in Moshi, Tanzania. Peer leaders previously participated in a mental health and life skills intervention called Sauti ya Vijana and were recommended for leadership by Sauti ya Vijana facilitators and clinic staff. Peer leaders demonstrated high fidelity to activities in each lesson and participant feedback was positive for curriculum delivery. Participants\u2019 knowledge improved in nine of ten sessions. Peer leaders reported improved leadership confidence and resilience, and their perception was that the curriculum helped normalize the HIV experience for Youth Living with HIV attending clinic. Nevertheless, anticipated stigma, difficulty disclosing HIV status, and teaching ability remained barriers. This study provides evidence to support efforts to scale and sustain peer youth led interventions for Youth Living with HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Female adolescents living with HIV telling their story through \u2018my story\u2019 book in Malawi: A visual methodology innovation","field_subtitle":"Mwalabu G;, Mbendera I; Petrucka P; Manjanja V: PLoS ONE 16(10), e0257126, 2021","field_url":"https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0257126","body":"Female adolescents living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) face lifelong challenges in reproductive and sexual health ranging from relational, social and legal-ethical considerations. A visual method and storybook research innovation was used with young female adolescents in Malawi that initiate sex as early as 15 years, mostly with adult partners,  given their reluctance to discuss sexual matters through more direct questions during interviews. The researchers thus used invoke youth-friendly research approaches to address these issues and enable these vulnerable individuals to articulate their experience and advocate their preferred changes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Feminists for a People\u2019s Vaccine","field_subtitle":"Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) and Third World Network (TWN): 2021","field_url":"https://feminists4peoplesvaccine.org","body":"DAWN and TWN are facilitating the Feminists for a People\u2019s Vaccine Campaign (FPV) for equitable, accessible, and affordable COVID-19 vaccines, drugs, therapeutics, and equipment and access to Medicines. The campaign brings the perspective of feminists from the Global South and partners and allies in the North to challenge the causes and consequences of extreme inequalities in access to medicines. Geography, wealth, income, gender, race, caste, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and other factors shape who has access and who has not, who will live and who will die. The FPV Campaign analyses the changing pandemic panorama and initiatives such as the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS) Waiver proposal, the COVAX Facility and South versus North imbalances in global trade, investment and financing affecting access to these technologies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health insurance and health system (un) responsiveness: a qualitative study with elderly in rural Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Amani P J;  Hurtig A; Frumence G; et al.: BMC Health Services Research 21:1140, 1-11, 2021 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/49v2v84n","body":"This study explored the experiences and perceptions of healthcare services from the perspective of insured and uninsured elderly in rural Tanzania, using eight focus group discussions with 78 insured and uninsured elderly men and women 60 years of age or older who had utilised healthcare services in the past 12 months prior to the study. Elderly participants appreciated that health insurance had facilitated the access to healthcare and protected them from certain costs, but also complained that health insurance had failed to provide equitable access due to limited-service benefits and restricted use of services within schemes. Although elderly perspectives varied, insured individuals generally expressed dissatisfaction with their healthcare. The authors argue that the national health insurance policy should be revisited to improve its implementation, expand the scope of service coverage and improve service quality issues, including long administrative procedures related to health insurance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Systems Performance in the Political Agenda: Sharing lessons for current and future global challenges:  7th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"October 31 \u2013 November 4, 2022, Bogot\u00e1, Colombia","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/3rzwsp9a","body":"The 7th Global Symposium will share and learning from the experiences of the last two years. Strong health systems build on foundation of primary health care and empowered communities. The challenge ahead is to explore the role values such as trust, solidarity, equity, and social justice play moving forward. HSR2022 will explore this in the following sub-themes: The politics and policies of health systems; Intersectoral collaboration and integrative governance on the road for health in all policies; The changing dynamics of health provision models to promote equity and the central role of human resources for health; The role of comprehensive primary care in promoting sustainability and The contribution of new technologies. The deadline for abstract submission for organised sessions is 15th February, 2021, and for individual papers is 15th April, 2021. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"I don\u2019t know when he will be back\u201d: life-changing events challenge the community ART Group model\u2013 a qualitative research study, Tete, Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Tarquino IAP; Venables E; Simone RR; et al.:  BMC Public Health 21:2004, 1-9, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/8btrpvzt","body":"Since 2008 in Mozambique, patients stable on antiretroviral therapy (ART) can join Community ART Groups (CAG), peer groups in which members are involved in adherence support and community ART delivery. More than 10 years after the implementation of the first CAGs, this study explored the impact of changes in circumstances and daily life events of CAG members. The CAG dynamic was affected by life events and changing circumstances including a loss of geographical proximity or a change in social relationships. Family CAGs facilitated reporting and antiretroviral therapy distribution, but conflict between CAG members meant some CAGs ceased to function, pill counts were not carried out, members met less frequently or stopped meeting entirely and ART uptake declined. In a more positive contrast, some CAGs responded to adherence challenges by strengthening peer support through counselling and observed pill intake. Health care providers were reported to push people living with HIV to join CAGs, instead of allowing voluntary participation.  They agreed that strengthening CAG rules and membership criteria could help to overcome the identified problems. The authors propose that changing life circumstances of, relationships between and participation by CAG members need to factored into a more flexible implementation model, including intensified peer support and feedback mechanisms between CAG members and health-care providers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"I have started the change I want: advocating for climate change in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Nyathi N: Voices of Youth, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybz8kstr","body":"This young writer explains: \"What keeps me on the frontline for climate justice is the notion that I don't only represent my nation but my entire generation because climate justice concerns our future...We deserve to live happily as well, but to attain that healthy, happy living we will not stop speaking out for what we want and what we deserve, to bring about a child-safe and sustainable future. I have dedicated my voice as a voice of the voiceless, to call for immediate action and there is no better time for acting than now\". UNICEF teamed up with 'Fridays for Future' to highlight young activists on the front lines of climate change, like Nyathi. Discover other climate activists and stories on how climate change is affecting young people today.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Information sheet 6 on COVID-19: Long COVID in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, TARSC and the Post COVID Treatment Network - Africa: Harare, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/324zbnb3","body":"This sixth EQUINET/TARSC information sheet on the COVID-19 pandemic in east and southern African (ESA) countries has been produced in co-operation with the Post COVID Treatment Network - Africa.  In a prolonged pandemic, capacities and understanding have grown around various dimensions of the management of COVID-19. There is now growing evidence of people who continue experience symptoms more than 12 weeks after their initial infection, or \u2018long COVID\u2019. This information sheet summarises information on long COVID, and its distribution in the ESA region, responses to it and the equity issues it raises.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Inter-sectoral financing is essential to address the social determinants of health","field_subtitle":"Peter Binyaruka, Ifakara Health Institute, Tanzania","field_url":"","body":"The Commission on Social determinants of Health showed persuasively in 2008  that health is determined by the social conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, referred to as the social determinants of health (SDH). These conditions are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources from global, to local levels. \r\n\r\nHealth is therefore everyone\u2019s business. Efforts to address SDH should be taken by all policy makers, and not just those within the health sector. Health services play a role but cannot do it on their own. For example, Kuruvilla and others in 2014 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4121875/) showed that almost a half of the reduction in under-5 children\u2019s deaths globally between 1990 and 2010 resulted from investments outside the health sector, such as in education and infrastructure. This was also recognised in the 1978 Alma-Ata Declaration on primary health care (PHC), with inter-sectoral action central to comprehensive PHC and \u2018Health for All\u2019. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) also call for simultaneous, coordinated action across a range of sectors. \r\n\r\nDespite this recognition, economists particularly in a \u2018STRIVE\u2019 consortium noted that cross\u2013sectoral interventions are often underfinanced and their potentials benefits undervalued. \r\n\r\nThe consortium, with others such as UNDP, identified \u2018co-financing\u2019 as an approach where two or more sectors or budget holders, each with different development objectives, can co-fund an intervention or investment to advance their respective objectives simultaneously. Cross-sectoral co-financing does not necessarily need additional resources, therefore, but rather optimal allocation of existing resources. It is a relevant approach in financing high-impact interventions that leads to multi-sectoral benefits across the interconnected development goals and targets.\r\n\r\nOne example of such co-financing to address SDH is a conditional cash transfer that aims for multiple outcomes across sectors. In Mexico, for example, two social protection programmes, PROGRESA in 1997 and OPORTUNIDADES from 2002 gave such cash transfers directly to low-income rural households to enable and encourage parents to send their children to school, to use preventive and care services, and to improve child feeding and nutrition. Positive experience of this multi-sectoral approach has stimulated its spread to other Latin American countries. Malawi\u2019s introduction of a cash transfer in 2008/9 to keep girls in school was found after 18 months to have led to improved girls\u2019 school enrolment, test scores and reduced school drop-out, to have reduced girl\u2019 risk of HIV by 64%, and to have reduced teen pregnancy and depression (https://tinyurl.com/96ktkyuj).\r\n\r\nEconomists argue for co-financing for SDH to improve public policy intervention, and value for money. \r\n\r\nPublic intervention is argued to be essential in SDH to correct for market failures in relation to efficiency, to deliver maximum outcomes at the lowest cost. Public intervention is needed to address market failures in relation to equity and the distribution of outcomes according to need. These market failures arise for various reasons, including asymmetries in access to information, barriers to using services and as a profit-focused market is a poor performer on public good. With many SDH influenced by markets in our current global and national economies, there is a clear economic rationale for public intervention to ensure equity in health.  \r\n\r\nEconomists also argue that we need to integrate \u2018health value for money\u2019 to make optimal use of limited available funds, including by using innovative cross-sectoral co-financing approaches to address multiple SDH. Economic evaluations thus prefer cost-benefit analysis to assess whether multiple benefits across sectors outweigh the associated costs, to be able to point to \u2018good value for money\u2019. This does face challenges of measuring the multiple benefits accrued from multiple sectors, and the various opportunity and inter-sectoral costs. Notwithstanding these challenges, a cost-benefit analysis is argued to be more useful for public policy than cost-effectiveness analyses, as the latter have limited scope and focus on single outcomes, undermining the potential for achieving benefits across multiple sectors. \r\n\r\nWe thus have public health and economic arguments to encourage and inform co-financing investments to address SDH. In doing this, there are some issues to consider.\r\n\r\nCountries in our region are already facing constraints, fluctuations and uncertainty in domestic and public financing. There is also limited financial autonomy within and between sectors. This implies that the resources for co-financing should be mobilised and pooled from multiple funders/ sectors and are best spent in the first instance on SDH that will have highest impact, to generate confidence in the approach. \r\n\r\nCo-financing needs to address budgeting and reporting issues. In most setting, governments have siloed budgeting within single sectors, with little focus on cross-sectoral budgeting. The resource allocation and spending approach is also rigid, constrained, and slow to reform. Going forward, co-financing calls for a change in public budgeting and accounting and a move from input-based to output-based budgeting, that is the allocation of resources based on shared interventions and goals across sectors.  \r\n\r\nWe need to recognise that the involvement of many funders may lead to mistrust in managing the pooled funds, including between ministries. Ministries may fear losing budget control and visibility with pooled funds and co-financers may fear weak accountability or corruption in use of such pooled funds. Strengthening the public finance management system to ensure transparency and accountability can help to address such mistrust, while visibly showing joint ministry contributions to a common programme, as was the case in Oportunidades in Mexico, can help to promote visibility in co-financing.\r\n\r\nHigh-level policy stakeholders have critical role in decisions on co-financing, including in supporting its implementation in practice. For example, there might be a clear agreement to co-finance but political uncertainty and bureaucratic issues may limit the disbursements of funds to it. This needs time and engagement to inform and ensure the \u2018buy-in\u2019 of co-financing by national leaders and ministries. We also need to build the necessary cross sectoral dialogue and coordination mechanisms, and to facilitate the leadership and capacities for the approach.\r\n\r\nAll of this calls for evidence, including on successful experiences of cross-sectoral financing.  Here we need to acknowledge an evidence gap in making the case in our region. We need in our region to generate and share evidence on the impacts and value for money evidence when making multi-sectoral interventions on SDH. This includes addressing the currently weak monitoring and evaluation of these initiatives and implementing research that informs policy decisions towards co-financing. \r\n\r\nIt is clear that we not only need attention to innovative ways of raising resources for health, but also innovative ways of using those resources to address SDH, especially those that are leading to inequities across multiple health and wellbeing outcomes. Co-financing offers one such approach. It calls for evidence and processes to build political and implementer support, trust and confidence, including to lever necessary reforms in our public finance management systems. If we can address the challenges, even for focused initiatives that we can learn from, we have the opportunity to use co-financing to support interventions that have greater value for money and multiple benefits across sectors, including for equity. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.  More information on the STRIVE consortium can be found at http://strive.lshtm.ac.uk/.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Interactive: Who's funding the COVID-19 response and what are the priorities?","field_subtitle":"Cornish L: Devex, Online, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/3pdxctay","body":"In this online resource Devex has tracked COVID-19 funding for combating the coronavirus, including the contracts, grants, new programs, tenders, and direct funding from global, bilateral, regional, state and non-state actors. Funding data is available through an interactive dashboard that shows where the funding is going, who is supplying the money, and what funding is focusing on.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"It was hell in the community\u2019: a qualitative study of maternal and child health care during health care worker strikes in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Scanlon M L; Maldonado L Y; Ikemeri J E; et al:  International Journal for Equity in Health 20:210, 1-12, 2021 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yu8v333f","body":"This paper investigated maternal and child health care and services during nationwide strikes by health care workers in 2017 from the perspective of pregnant women, community health volunteers, and health facility managers, using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Participants reported that strikes by health care workers significantly impacted the availability and quality of maternal and child health services in 2017 and had indirect economic effects due to households paying for services in the private sector. Participants felt poor households, particularly poor women, were most affected since they were more likely to rely on public services, while community health volunteers highlighted their own poor working conditions. Strikes strained relationships and trust between communities and the health system that were identified as essential to maternal and child health care and highlighted and exacerbated inequities in the health system. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Losses to OECD tax havens could vaccinate global population three times over, study reveals","field_subtitle":"Mansour M: Tax Justice Network, November 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/3va4as47","body":"Countries globally are losing a total of $483 billion in tax a year to global tax abuse committed by multinational corporations and wealthy individuals \u2013 enough to fully vaccinate the global population against Covid-19 more than three times over. The State of Tax Justice 2021 \u2013 published by the Tax Justice Network, the Global Alliance for Tax Justice and the global union federation Public Services International \u2013 reports that of the $483 billion in tax that countries lose a year, $312 billion is lost to cross-border corporate tax abuse by multinational corporations and $171 billion is lost to offshore tax evasion by wealthy individuals. The 2021 edition of the State of Tax Justice documents how a small number of rich countries with de facto control over global tax rules are responsible for the majority of tax losses suffered by the rest of the world, with lower income countries hardest hit by these tax losses. The findings are galvanising calls to move rule-making on international tax from the OECD to the UN, and to adopt more equitable unitary systems of tax collection and disbursement that would apply total tax revenue on TNCs to where their production activities and revenue generation is taking place. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Making Change Visible: Evaluating Efforts to Advance Social Participation in Health, An Implementer\u2019s Resource","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Simpson S; Dudding R; Obando F; et al:  TARSC, Shaping Health, 2021","field_url":"https://www.shapinghealth.org/reports-and-papers","body":"If you are responsible for\u2014or engaged or interested in\u2014advancing social/community participation in health (SPH) in your local area, this resource was developed for you. There are a variety of resources available on how to organise SPH, but there is limited guidance on how to evaluate its effectiveness. This publication aims to fill that gap. It is thus not about how to implement SPH, but rather how to evaluate SPH efforts. The Resource outlines how to conduct a baseline assessment, creating a critical reference point at the start of the SPH intervention to plan work and enable you to track changes as they are achieved. It guides you in carrying out a performance evaluation, to assess how well the SPH intervention is performing during implementation, for you to review and make any 'course corrections' needed. Finally, it explains how to conduct an outcome or impact evaluation, assessing the changes achieved, directly and indirectly, as a result of the SPH intervention. The use of the Resource is being piloted  in 2022, so if you are interested, please get in touch. .","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Neoliberal disease: COVID-19, co-pathogenesis and global health insecurities","field_subtitle":"Sparke M; Williams O: Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 1-18,  2021","field_url":"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0308518X211048905","body":"The authors present how COVID-19 has exposed, exploited and exacerbated the health-damaging transformations of neoliberal globalization. To explain why, the authors point to a combinatory cascade of socio-viral co-pathogenesis that they call neoliberal disease. From the vectors of vulnerability created by unequal and unstable market societies, to the reduced response capacities of market states and health systems, to the constrained ability of official global health security agencies and regulations to offer effective global health governance, they authors show how the virus has found weaknesses in a market-transformed global body politic. Turning the inequalities and inadequacies of neoliberal societies and states into global health insecurities, the pandemic raises questions about whether the world now faces an inflection point when political dis-ease with neoliberal norms will lead to new kinds of post-neoliberal policy-making. The authors conclude, however, that the prospects for such political-economic transformation on a global scale remain quite limited. despite the evidence of the extraordinary damage described.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New scientific research and writing mentorship initiative towards diversity in research on alcohol control policies","field_subtitle":"Call for applications: Closing date: 15 December 2020 ","field_url":"https://www.who.int/news/item/08-11-2021-new-scientific-research-and-writing-mentorship-initiative-towards-diversity-in-research-on-alcohol-control-policies","body":"The World Health Organization\u2019s Less Alcohol Unit, Department of Health Promotion, the Alcohol Research Group (ARG) and the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research have launched a new scientific research and writing mentorship initiative. The initiative aims to support early-stage researchers from low- and middle-income countries in their work to analyse, report and publish a study related to strengthening alcohol policies tackling the determinants driving the acceptability, availability and affordability of alcohol consumption. Overall, the initiative seeks to accelerate the finalization of scientific research with the support of expert mentors. Mentees (early-stage researchers) will be paired with mentors (senior academics) to participate in this 9-month initiative commencing no later than 1st January 2022. Through regular, at-distance access to mentors, the initiative aims to ensure researchers have the necessary guidance to finalize a study with contextually relevant results. Mentees are encouraged, and will be supported by their mentors, to submit their study findings for scientific publication. As an output of the initiative, a summary slide deck should be prepared for the further dissemination of results. A maximum of ten (10) mentees will be selected for the initial cohort.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Nutrition related non-communicable diseases and sugar sweetened beverage policies: a landscape analysis in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Mukanu M;  Karim SA; Hofman K;  Erzse A; et al:  Global Health Action, 14:1, 1-11, 2021","field_url":"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epub/10.1080/16549716.2021.1872172?needAccess=true","body":"This study identified opportunities to strengthen policies relating to sugar-sweetened beverage taxation in Zambia, through: (1) understanding the policy landscape and political context in which policies for nutrition-related non-communicable diseases are being developed, particularly sugar-sweetened beverage taxation, and exploring the potential use of revenue arising from sugar-sweetened beverage taxation to support improved nutrition. The authors conducted a retrospective qualitative policy analysis and key informant interviews with 10 policy actors. Increased regulation of sugar-sweetened beverages was a priority for the health sector, in conflict with economic interests to grow the manufacturing sector, including the food and beverage industries. The authors suggest that this conflict between public health and economic priorities, poor public information and incoherent policy objectives might have contributed to the adoption of a weakened excise tax. The authors suggest that the fact that it did not prevent the introduction of a differential sugar tax on sugar-sweetened beverages implies that there are opportunities to strengthen the existing taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages in Zambia, especially if backed by inclusive in policy formulation and comprehensive monitoring of risk factors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Patient-public engagement strategies for health system improvement in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic scoping review","field_subtitle":"Ankomah S E; Fusheini A; Ballard C; et al.: BMC Health Services Research 21:1047, 1-16, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/z8tnh79c","body":"This systematic review of 18 papers published between 1999 and 2019 describes Patient-Public Engagement (PPE) research in Sub-Saharan Africa in relation to theories of PPE; and identifies knowledge gaps to inform future PPE development. Five PPE strategies implemented were traditional leadership support, community advisory boards, community education and sensitisation, community health volunteers or workers, and embedding PPE within existing community structures. PPE initiatives were located at either the \u2018involvement\u2019 or \u2018consultation\u2019 stages of the engagement continuum, rather than higher-level engagement. Most PPE studies were at the \u2018service design\u2019 level of the health system or were focused on engagement in health research. No identified studies reported investigating PPE at the \u2018individual treatment\u2019 or \u2018macro policy or strategic\u2019 level. The authors suggest that the findings call expanding for PPE at all health system levels and different areas of health system improvement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Practical Epidemiology: Using Epidemiology to Support Primary Health Care","field_subtitle":"Vaughan JP, Victora C, , Chowdhury AMR: OUP, 2021","field_url":"https://global.oup.com/academic/product/practical-epidemiology-9780192848741?q=Practical%20Epidemiology&lang=en&cc=gb","body":"This book focuses on district health systems and is intended for those working in primary health care. It presents practical uses for epidemiological concepts and methods and how to use population information to strengthen planning, management and evaluation. It is available open access online as a downloadable pdf, and a hardcopy can also be purchased. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reflections on participating in the Regional People Health University","field_subtitle":"Mevice Makandwa, EQUINET newsletter team ","field_url":"","body":"Every three months, together with others, I read and capture a wide range of materials on health equity in the region for the EQUINET newsletter. But the East and Southern Africa Regional People\u2019s Health University (RPHU) has been a learning curve for me in many ways! I learned a lot in terms of the struggles for health equity. The information shared depend my understanding of the political economy of health, reclaiming the resources for health, of equity in health technology, and the commodification, privatisation in health and on building a movement for health equity. The sessions provided me with insight on how the corporate world is affecting health in the region and why.  I learned about multiple dimensions of injustice bedevilling our health systems and our need to strengthen our various platforms that are engaging on health equity. \r\n\r\nOur sessions were organised and flowed. From the coordination between PHM and EQUINET we were exposed to different areas of expertise from within our region, and to people who shared vast experience with us. We heard contributions, rich in evidence based research, and exchanged ideas and experiences from countries in the region that demonstrated solidarity in action. COVID-19 was not dealt with separately on the agenda but was a topical issue in different sessions as many countries in the region are grappling with funding, vaccines and information related to the pandemic and its impacts. What I heard towards the end of the sessions about how solidarity movements are built has made me rethink what I must do in my own actions towards health equity. The RPHU raised the value of actively participating in platforms that might contribute to the health equity agenda through sharing information and experiences and acting upon this.  \r\n\r\nOverall, I realised from the sessions on reclaiming the resources for health, reclaiming public health, the discussions on trade and health, on health rights and on social participation in health of the link of local to national to regional links that we need to build to champion health equity issues. The group work we did gave me a lot of ideas on regional contributions towards health equity through organised work. \r\n\r\nMy expectations of the RPHU were surpassed!  Despite my own experience in this area, the sessions opened me to thinking more critically about what the individuals could do better to advance health equity. Building a consortium is a fantastic way of information dissemination and sharing. In that we need to keep doing better in ensuring equity in our own work. Health equity is about not leaving anyone behind.  While most voices were heard in the RPHU, we did not hear the perspectives of people living with disability, including on their concerns around COVID-19, and we need to. The regional organisers (PHM and EQUINET) have spread to different countries in the region, but the grassroots level still remains too silent, including in our networks. I realised that strengthening grassroots level participation and action will be critical, if we are to build an effective movement for health equity across the countries of the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Report: Rebels, doctors and merchants of violence: How the fight against Ebola became part of the conflict in Eastern DRC","field_subtitle":"Congo Research Group; NYU Center on International Cooperation: Online, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yf3y4c3u","body":"Between 2018 and 2020 in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) the Ebola epidemic hit an area of ongoing hostilities among dozens of belligerents, including Congolese security forces. The Riposte, a combined national and international response to contain the disease, was not only affected by the violence, but the authors argue may have unintentionally contributed to the conflict. Despite the vast sums spent, Ebola continued to spread in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, which were already hard hit by decades of armed violence. On the ground, in an effort to protect itself from armed attacks and reduce community resistance, the Riposte through agents of the National Intelligence Agency (ANR), in collaboration with the Congolese Ministry of Health and the WHO (in contradiction with UN standard operating procedure), agreed to pay both government security forces and non-state armed groups. Over 20 months, between $489 million and $738 million was spent on Ebola in this part of the country.  The authors describe the impact of these payments. By engaging with some armed groups in conflict with others the Riposte is reported to have become embroiled in the violence. The authors point to how this monetized the violence, with some armed groups seeking to prolong the epidemic to continue to profit from what has been called \u201cEbola Business.\u201d The report cautions against making payments to parties to conflict in exchange for access so as not to inadvertently turn humanitarian operations into a source of profit for those involved in conflict and undermine the impartiality of humanitarian action. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Reporting guidelines: simple and powerful tools to increase the impact and visibility of your research: a virtual course on enhancing the value of research with research reporting standards","field_subtitle":"PAHO: Virtual Campus for Public Health, Online, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/2p8y87nf","body":"The EQUATOR Network and the Pan American Health Organization / World Health Organization (PAHO) has developed an online course aimed at increasing the value of research by enabling people who are planning to conduct, report, edit, publish or appraise research for health, with current research reporting standards. This introductory course is targeted at a wide range of actors interested in research quality and the use of reports for decision-making. The course provides an overview of good reporting practice at all stages of the research pathway.  The ideal time to take this course is as an introductory activity before beginning and finalizing your research proposal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Risk assessment for COVID\u201019 transmission at household level in sub\u2010Saharan Africa: evidence from DHS","field_subtitle":"Makinde O; Akinyemi J; Ntoimo L; et al: Genus 77:24, 1-20, 2021","field_url":"https://genus.springeropen.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s41118-021-00130-w.pdf","body":"Although household habitat conditions matter for disease transmission and control, especially in the case of COVID-19, inadequate attention is being given to these risk factors, especially in Africa, where household living conditions are largely suboptimal. This study assesses household sanitation and isolation capacities to understand the COVID-19 transmission risk at household level across Africa, using a secondary analysis of the Demographic and Health Surveys of 16 African countries implemented between 2015 and 2018, exploring handwashing and self-isolation capacities and households with elderly persons most at risk of the disease.  Handwashing capacity was highest in Tanzania (48%), and lowest in Chad (4%), varying by household location (urban or rural), as well as household wealth. Isolation capacity was highest in South Africa (77%), and lowest in Ethiopia (31%). Senegal had the largest proportion of households with an elderly person (42%), while Angola (16%) had the lowest. There were strong, independent relationships between handwashing and isolation capacities in a majority of countries. Also, strong associations were found between isolation capacity and presence of older persons in households. Household capacity for COVID-19 prevention varied significantly across countries, with those having elderly household members not necessarily having the best handwashing or isolation capacity. The authors propose from the findings that each country needs to use such information on household risk at population level to shape communication and intervention strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The potential of school-based WASH programming to support children as agents of change in rural Zambian households","field_subtitle":"Winter J C; Darmstadt G L; Lee S J; Davis J: BMC Public Health 21:1812, 1-13, 2021 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/5ncakbxc","body":"Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions frequently assume that students who learn positive WASH behaviours will disseminate this information to their families. School-based programs rely on students to act as \u201cagents of change\u201d to translate impact from school to home. The authors conducted a quasi-experimental, prospective cohort study in 12 schools in rural, southern Zambia to assess this with students in grades 1\u20134, using in-person interviews with students, their teachers and caregivers. Student knowledge increased significantly, but primarily among students in grade 1. Students reporting sharing messages from the intervention with caregivers rose from 7% to 23%, particularly in students in grade 4. The authors propose that future work should prioritize developing curricula that reflect the variability in needs, capabilities and support in the home and community among primary school students rather than applying a single approach for a wide range of ages and contexts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Videos and readings on health equity on the East and Southern Africa Regional Peoples Health University (ESA RPHU) resources page","field_subtitle":"EQUINET and PHM, 2021","field_url":"https://www.equinetafrica.org/rphu/rphu-resources","body":"The 10 week EQUINET and PHM ESA RPHU ended in mid-November. There are a number of interesting  resources and reading materials on the RPHU website and videos of many of the presentations, that we welcome you to read, view and share more widely and use on your own activities. These materials, made available under fair use for your non-commercial educational purposes, cover topics from the course including on: Political economy and reclaiming resources for health; Ideas of health and wellbeing, SDH and reclaiming comprehensive public health; Health systems and Comprehensive primary health care (PHC); Power, values, rights, law and reclaiming collective agency; Commodification, privatization in health and reclaiming the state; Equity in health technology; Social participation and organising activism for health; and Building a movement for health equity. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Waiver from certain provisions of the TRIPS agreement for the prevention, containment and treatment of COVID-19","field_subtitle":"Third World Network: TWN, 2021 ","field_url":"https://twn.my/title2/intellectual_property/trips_waiver_proposal.htm","body":"TWN provides  gathers a list of interventions by the co-sponsors, statements and op-eds supporting the waiver proposal and news reports about the proposal made by India, South Africa and others (IP/C/W/669) to the World Trade Organization seeking a waiver from certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement (patents, trade secrets, copyright and industrial designs) in relation to the containment, prevention and treatment of COVID-19. This proposal is now co-sponsored by 62 developing countries (the Africa Group, the Least Developed Country Group, Bolivia, Fiji, Indonesia, Pakistan, Mongolia, Vanuatu and Venezuela) and has received global support from most of the other developing countries and the international community, but still faces opposition and counter measures from some high income countries, elaborated on the TWN website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"We are struggling for health equity in Africa\u2026 is victory certain?","field_subtitle":"Danny Gotto, Executive Director, Innovations for Development, Uganda ","field_url":"","body":"On the 29th July this year, I embarked on a three-month training program of an East and Southern African Regional People\u2019s Health University (RPHU) themed \u201cPast, Present and Future struggles for Health equity\u201d. The RPHU was organized by EQUINET and PHM for health activists from the region. As a member of PHM-Uganda and an activist for the struggle for health for all, I couldn\u2019t miss the opportunity. I was enthusiastic to join others from the region to explore these issues further. I wanted to ground myself in the discourse of health equity, to get a firm understanding of what it means in the context and reality of my country and the region, and to appreciate how equity can be achieved for the millions that continue to suffer a wider spectrum of different forms of health injustice. I wanted to learn from others in the region how the struggle for health equity and social justice has evolved over the years, the successes and failures but also opportunities to fight back against systems of oppression and to build a people-centred health system.  \r\n\r\nLike the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda has been battered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The social pains of COVID-19 have been profound in the areas of health, livelihoods, education and governance. Although the COVID-19 pandemic can\u2019t be blamed on anyone in Africa, Africans, and especially the leadership, can\u2019t be excused for any failures to adequately respond to it, for our weak health systems and for an unacceptable absence of an Afro-centric power and strategy to counter the hegemony of global powers in access to essential health technologies. \r\n\r\nThe RPHU brought together a diverse pool of well-informed persons on all the topics covered. The topics and issues included for discussion exposed the wide range of issues affecting health equity. In fact the topics needed more time to articulate and especially for participants to have time to share and reflect on their own lived country-specific experiences. However, the resources availed before and after sessions were sufficient to help those interested to immerse in the literature, to further grasp the subject matter.\r\n\r\nI enjoyed the discussions around the social determinants of health, linking health systems to comprehensive Primary Health Care. These concerns and those of power, values, and laws remain central in building health equity in Africa. The exposure I got to the external factors driving health inequity in our region was a wake-up call, including when global governance frameworks are championed and imposed on Africa by international agencies and western countries. .\r\n\r\nIndeed, I am rethinking my approach to activism and advocacy in general. My quest and challenges continue to be around building a community-driven, people-centred activism that is self-sustaining and able to drive change. In Uganda, the public is often passive and inclined to fall into despondency, especially on political matters. My take-home struggle is to build a mass movement of actors collectively working for a common purpose of health equity. Financing that struggle for health equity, and particularly our dependency on western philanthropy continues, however, to be the \u201celephant in the room\u201d for me. It must be confronted head-on. If indeed we are to achieve health equity on the continent, we must find the drive, resources and strategy within ourselves.\r\n\r\nAs the days of the training moved towards the end, key questions continue to linger in my mind. Is there a correct order in the sequence of actions to realize health equity? What should a country like Uganda prioritize, given the limited resources? Can a country achieve health equity without democracy, or should the struggle first centre on political liberation, and then the rest follows? The RPHU couldn\u2019t cover all these wider issues, but in my mind, I can\u2019t see health equity being realized in a corrupt, inept and undemocratic space, where the voice of a common person doesn\u2019t matter and the abused are so powerless to fight back.\r\n\r\nAs we go into the final week, I recommend to the organizers, lets reimagine the post-training initiatives. We are still discussing the post RPHU activities, but what participants do after the training is the most fundamental aspect. How can the organizers continue to nurture collaboration, and partnership beyond the training? Can EQUINET and PHM continue to provide a platform where peer-activists from the RPHU can continue to share and learn from one another, or engage in joint initiatives of common interest in the region? As was well articulated in the RPHU, no country can achieve health equity alone. We need a concerted effort across the region.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"When will the doctor be around so that I come by?!\u2019 Geo-socio effects on health care supply, access and utilisation: experiences from Kalangala Islands, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Kwiringira J N; Mugisha J; Akugizibwe M; et al.: BMC Health Services Research 21:1163, 1-13, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/d6vj7xzv","body":"This study explored the intersecting geographical, ecological and social factors affecting access to health care in a social epidemiology analysis in Uganda, using literature review and an ethnographic exploration of the lived experiences of community members while seeking and accessing health care, understanding that health system activities are diverse but interconnected in a complex way.  When and how to travel for care was beyond a matter of having a health need/ being sick and need arising. A motivated workforce was found to be as critical as health facilities themselves in determining healthcare outcomes, and geography alone is not a sufficient factor in determining health outcomes.. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Estimates Africa\u2019s COVID-19 Caseload is Seven Times Higher Than Official Count","field_subtitle":"Cullinan K: Health Policy Watch, 2021","field_url":"https://healthpolicy-watch.org/africa-covid-caseload/","body":"Africa is estimated to have seven times more COVID-19 cases and three times as many deaths as officially reported, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) Africa region. This means that the continent could have around 59 million cases and 634,500 deaths. \u201cWe\u2019re using a model to estimate the degree of under-estimation. The analysis indicates that as few as one in seven cases is being detected, meaning that the true COVID-19 burden in Africa could be around 59 million people,\u201d said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO\u2019s Africa executive director.  WHO recommends that countries perform 10 tests per 10,000 people each week yet around 20 countries \u2013 more than a third of African countries \u2013 do not reach this benchmark, said Moeti. The WHO has thus decided to invest $1.8 million to roll out COVID-19 rapid tests in hot spots, starting with pilots in eight countries. Despite this undercount, WHO Africa officials observe lower deaths in Africa than other global regions.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Young Professionals Programme","field_subtitle":"Call for applications: No closing date indicated ","field_url":"https://www.who.int/careers/young-professionals-programme","body":"Apply to the WHO's Young Professionals Programme aimed to provide career support, networking, mentoring, and tailored learning opportunities. The Programme intends to increase the representation of nationals from Least Developed Countries in WHO\u2019s workforce and will develop capacity from and for developing countries through a structured program with clear learning objectives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"10 Images that illustrate the shameful global vaccine inequity","field_subtitle":"Pai M: Microbiology online, August 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/54snw88s","body":"This series of 10 images tell the story behind the \u2018great vaccine apartheid\u2019 argued by the author to be the single biggest moral and scientific failure during this the COVID-19 pandemic.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A critical cartography of domestic violence policies in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Jeth\u00e1 E; Keygnaert I; Seedat M; et al: Reproductive Health 18 (169), 1-11, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/5527rmzy","body":"The authors mapped the Mozambican legislative and policy responses to domestic violence to analyse their alignment with international treaties and conventions and with each other, using a critical cartography and content analysis. The authors identified a total of fifteen national domestic violence documents of which five were on laws, one on policy and nine institutional strategic/action plans. Most of the national domestic violence documents focused on strategies for assistance/care of victims and prevention of domestic violence. Little focus was found on advocacy, monitoring and evaluation. Mozambique has signed several international and regional treaties and conventions on domestic violence, but the authors found an inconsistency in the alignment of international treaties and conventions with national policies and laws, and a gap in the translation of national policies and laws into strategic plans and multi-sectoral approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to water, sanitation and hygiene services in health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa 2013\u20132018: Results of health facility surveys and implications for COVID-19 transmission","field_subtitle":"Kanyangarara M; Allen S; Jiwani S S; et al: BMC Health Services Research 21(601), 1-11, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/7e3fxj4","body":"The authors assessed the availability of water, sanitation and hygiene and standard precautions for infection prevention in 16456 health facilities across 18 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as inequalities by location and managing authority, using data from health facility surveys conducted between 2013 and 2018 in 18 sub-Saharan African countries. Across countries, an estimated 88% had an improved water source, 94% had an improved toilet, 74% had soap and running water or alcohol-based hand rub, and 17% had standard precautions for infection prevention available. There was wide variability in access to water, sanitation and hygiene services between rural and urban health facilities and between public and private facilities, with consistently lower access in both rural and public facilities. In both rural and urban areas, access to water, sanitation and hygiene services was better at health facilities than households. Availability of water, sanitation and hygiene services in health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa has improved but remains below the global target of 80\u2009% in many countries, with improvement essential to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Accredited and non-accredited short courses and programmesin health systems","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Training Institute: HSTi, South Africa","field_url":"https://www.hstinstitute.co.za/Training/Pages/Adult-Primary-Care.aspx","body":"The Health Systems Training Institute (HSTi) is the training arm of the Health Systems Trust in South Africa. It offers a range of courses with different application dates, including in Primary Care; community healthcare stakeholder engagement; health information, indicators and analysis; Research methods for health; and other health system topics.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"An assessment of the knowledge, practices and resources during the delivery of malaria health care services among private health care practitioners: a cross section study in the Mid-Western Region of Uganda","field_subtitle":"Wanzira H; Tumwine D; Bukoma P; et al: BMC Health Services Research 21(788), 1-12, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/jup9kzzs","body":"This study documented the knowledge, practices and resources during the delivery of malaria care services, among private health practitioners in the Mid- Western region of Uganda, an area of moderate malaria transmission. The authors determined the proportion of health workers that adequately provided malaria case management according to national standards in interviews with 135-health facilities staff. The study revealed sub-optimal malaria case management knowledge and practices at private health facilities with only 14\u2009% of health care workers demonstrating correct malaria case management cascade practices. To strengthen the quality of malaria case management, they recommend guidelines and tools, training; continuous mentorship and supervision; provision of adequate stock of essential medicines; and communication and data management at private health facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Asinakuthula Collective","field_subtitle":"Asinakuthula Collective: Online archive and resource, 2021","field_url":"https://www.asinakuthula.org/","body":"Asinakuthula Collective are a Collective of teachers, students, researchers and creatives invested in breaking the silences, marginalised narratives and vacuums of content surrounding the lives, roles, experiences and complexity of black African women in history. The collective has two public events every year, a memorial lecture and a masterclass, and carries out on-going archival work, knowledge production, teaching and learning that is made available online as a resource for those seeking to integrate women\u2019s voices in their work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Botswana pays equivalent of $15 a dose for Sinovac's COVID-19 vaccine","field_subtitle":"Reuters: Gaborone, Botswana, July 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/vf6jhnp3","body":"Botswana's health minister Edwin Dikiloti said on Friday in an address to parliament that the government was paying the equivalent of $15 a dose for the COVID-19 vaccine developed by China's Sinovac Biotech and almost $29 a dose for U.S. company Moderna's vaccine. The minister added that the COVAX facility co-led by the WHO had only delivered 82000 doses despite an upfront payment the government had made as a self-financing participant, in the hopes of securing far more doses. An AU arrangement is expected to deliver over 1.1 million doses of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine in the third and fourth quarters. Apart from the vaccines paid for, the Indian government donated 30000 doses of the COVISHIELD vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India and China donated 200000 doses of Sinovac's vaccine, while Botswana is in talks with Pfizer about a possible 2 million dose deal.  In 2019, Botswana had a total population of 2.3 million people. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Burnt by the scorching sun: climate-induced livelihood transformations, reproductive health, and fertility trajectories in drought-affected communities of Zambia","field_subtitle":"Rosen J G; Mulenga D; Phiri L; et al:  BMC Public Health 21(1501), 1-14, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/3hpdwm2b","body":"The authors explored the impact of severe and prolonged droughts on gendered livelihood transitions, women\u2019s social and financial wellbeing, and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) outcomes in two Zambian provinces through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with 165 adult women and men in five drought-affected districts, and key informant interviews with civic leaders and healthcare providers. Across districts, participants emphasized the toll drought had taken on their livelihoods and communities, leaving farming households with reduced income and food, with many turning to alternative income sources. Female-headed households were perceived as particularly vulnerable to drought, as women\u2019s breadwinning and caregiving responsibilities increased, especially in households where women\u2019s partners out-migrated in search of employment. As household incomes declined, women and girls\u2019 vulnerabilities increased: young children increasingly entered the workforce, and young girls were married when families could not afford school fees and struggled to support them financially. With less income due to drought, many participants could not afford travel to health facilities or resorted to purchasing health commodities, including for family planning, from private retail pharmacies when unavailable from government facilities. Women expressed desires for smaller families, fearing drought would constrain their capacity to support larger families. While participants cited some ongoing activities in their communities to support climate change adaptation, most acknowledged current interventions were insufficient. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Can East African workers overcome cooptation and suppression?","field_subtitle":"Wilmot P; Pius T: Roar Mag, July 2021","field_url":"https://roarmag.org/essays/east-african-labor-organizing/","body":"Are radical worker struggles, which waned as a result of protracted government efforts to infiltrate and co-opt organized labour, making a comeback in East Africa? The authors observe that internal and external challenges workers and unions face today do not lend themselves to simply calling strikes to force collective bargaining agreements, with traditional tools taking a backseat to the ingenuity of informally organized workers. They suggest that a 'development' narrative in East Africa must be challenged or communities will be fighting for incremental compensations for land and livelihoods instead of stopping expansionist projects that will pit them against one another in the long run.  The authors argue that the hope emerging among organized labour in East Africa may not be found in the offices of general secretaries or even necessarily in registered unions, but in collectives of workers that exercise their agency, courage and creative power at the industry level and in their communities and workplaces. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Conflicts of interest: an invisible force shaping health systems and policies","field_subtitle":"Rahman-Shepherd A; Balasubramaniam P; Gautham M; et al: The Lancet Global Health 9(8), E1055-E1056, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/27842vpv","body":"Despite frustration about why public health evidence does not influence policy decisions as much as it should, there has been little attention to a fundamental force in decision making: conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest arise when the potential for individual or group gain compromises the professional judgment of policy makers or health-care providers, and underpin rent-seeking and informal practice across the world. The authors characterise three different types of conflicts of interest that are particularly pervasive in mixed or pluralistic health systems that need to be considered in health policy and research: The first type occurs when policy makers or regulators have multiple or dual roles.The second type occurs because of hidden financial relationships between formal and informal health-care providers. The third type occurs when policy makers are influenced into taking a course of action that is more likely to win political support, rather than following public health evidence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Costs of integrating HIV self-testing in public health facilities in Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Sande L; Matsimela K; Mwenge L: et al: BMJ Global Health, doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2021-005191, 2021","field_url":"https://gh.bmj.com/content/bmjgh/6/Suppl_4/e005191.full.pdf","body":"As countries approach the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets, there is a need for innovative and cost-saving HIV testing approaches that can increase testing coverage in hard-to-reach populations. The HIV Self-Testing Africa-Initiative distributed HIV self-test (HIVST) kits using unincentivised HIV testing counsellors across 31 public facilities in Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. HIVST was distributed either through secondary (partner\u2019s use) distribution alone or primary (own use) and secondary distribution approaches. The authors evaluated the costs of adding HIVST to existing HIV testing from the providers\u2019 perspective in the 31 public health facilities across the four countries between 2018 and 2019 using expenditure analysis and bottom-up costing approaches. They found that costs of integrating HIV self-testing in the public health facilities ranged from US$4.27-US$13.42 per kit distributed. Personnel and cost of test kits were important cost drivers. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"COVID-19: the turning point for gender equality","field_subtitle":"Fisseha S; Sen G; Adhanom Ghebreyesus T; et al: The Lancet 398(10299) 471-474, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/frunjyuu","body":"The authors raise that the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have gone far beyond the disease itself. In addition to the increasing number of COVID-19 deaths, the pandemic has deepened social and economic inequalities. These indirect impacts have been compounded by pervasive gender inequalities, with profound consequences, especially for women, girls, and people of diverse gender identities. There has been an escalation in gender-based violence within households, increasing numbers of child marriages and female genital mutilation, and an increased burden of unpaid care work, with impacts on mental health. Communities of people affected by HIV are, again, at the crossroads of injustice and targeted discrimination. Measures to control the pandemic have reduced access to essential health and social welfare services, including sexual and reproductive health services, reduced employment and labour force participation, and decimated many household incomes. Here again, women have borne the brunt of marginalisation, particularly those working in the informal sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Dispensing antiretrovirals during Covid-19 lockdown: re-discovering community-based ART delivery models in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Zakumumpa H; Tumwine C; Milliam K; et al: BMC Health Services Research 21(692), 1-11, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/hcd6wy8r","body":"This paper explored the health-system resilience at the sub-national level in Uganda with regard to strategies for dispensing antiretrovirals during Covid-19 lockdown. The authors conducted a qualitative case-study of eight districts purposively selected from Eastern and Western Uganda. Between June and September 2020, through interviews with district health team leaders, ART clinic managers, representatives of PEPFAR implementing organizations and focus group discussions with recipients of HIV care. Five broad strategies for distributing antiretrovirals during \u2018lockdown\u2019 emerged: (i) accelerating home-based delivery of antiretrovirals; (ii) extending multi-month dispensing from three to six months for stable patients; (iii) leveraging the Community Drug Distribution Points model for ART refill pick-ups at outreach sites in the community; (iv) increasing reliance on health information systems, including geospatial technologies, to support ART refill distribution in unmapped rural settings and (v) leveraging Covid-19 outbreak response funding to deliver ART refills to rural homesteads. While Covid-19 \u2018lockdown\u2019 restrictions undoubtedly impeded access to facility-based HIV services, they revived interest by providers and demand by patients for community-based ART delivery models in case-study districts in Uganda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Diss 123: Equity in the public and private health sector responses to COVID-19 in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Chanda-Kapata P: EQUINET, Harare, 2021","field_url":"https://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Diss%20123%20PP%20Mix%20in%20COVID%202021.pdf","body":"The COVID-19 pandemic has strained the already stretched health systems in East and Southern Africa (ESA) countries, and was affected by previous levels of public leadership and engagement with the private sector. The response involved a range of collaborations between the public and private sectors. Country plans were public sector-led, in co-operation with international development partners, with partnerships between the public and private sectors in the response both in and beyond the health sector. This desk review commissioned by EQUINET presents evidence from online materials and EQUINET steering committee key informants on features of the public and private sector health system roles in the response to COVID-19. The work differentiates the private for-profit sector from the private not-for-profit sector. The review explores the equity implications of these responses, and suggests implications for (re)investing in strengthened public health system preparedness and functioning and private sector co-ordination in ESA countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Diss paper 122: Youth mental health in the context of COVID-19 in East and Southern Africa: A desk review","field_subtitle":"Muhia J; Nanji N: IWG, TARSC, EQUINET: Harare, 2021","field_url":"https://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Diss%20122%20YMH%20in%20ESA%20_1.pdf","body":"This desk review reports available published information relating to youth mental health in east and southern Africa (ESA). It was implemented within and informs collaborative work on youth mental health in the region in EQUINET between Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC), the International Working Group for Health Systems Strengthening (IWGHSS) and the pra4equity and PAROnline network, specifically Country Minders for Peoples Development (CMPD), Malawi, and the Centre for Youth Driven Development Initiative (CFYDDI), Uganda. The desk review explored patterns and determinants of youth mental health in the region; how the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and responses to it have affected this; where youth seek and obtain support for mental health needs and the perceived challenges and gaps. It presents recommendations for improving the responses to mental health challenges. The COVID-19 lockdown and social distancing measures led to difficulties, with online learning and loss of work and rising costs intensifying some factors and increasing mental stress, as well as suicidal ideas and substance and alcohol abuse among youth. Youth mental health is a pertinent issue for the ESA region, more so due to the impact of the pandemic, but is not well recognised by formal services and policy. The review evidence points to a need, intensified by COVID-19, to co-create with young people strategies for preventing and responding to youth mental illness and its drivers and consequences.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Domesticated Poly-Violence Against Women During the 2020 Covid-19 Lockdown in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Nduna M; Oyama Tshona S: Psychological Studies, doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-021-00616-9, 2021","field_url":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12646-021-00616-9","body":"In South Africa, an increased risk for gender-based domestic violence against women during the COVID-19 lockdown was reported by various sources including the national gender-based violence call centre (GBVCC), the South African Police Service and the civil society. Public life, which is frequently a coping mechanism and an escape for some women and girls at risk of domestic violence, was curtailed by the lockdown rules that forbade movement. Informal sources of help for victims of abuse were limited due to closure of economic activities, and community-based services for domestic violence were not permitted to open. Some victims of domestic violence struggled with public transport to access informal help, or to visit the police, social workers and other sources of help. Some organisations offered online and telephone services and the authors suggest that the risk of violence during crisis periods could be averted by a more sustained and wider focus on reducing risk of all forms of violations against women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out quarterly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 229: Youth mental health facing a deficit of caring ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Fast Facts on Climate Change and Health","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, August 2021","field_url":"https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/fast-facts-on-climate-change-health","body":"Climate change is resulting in poorer health outcomes, increasing mortality and is a driver of health inequities. This fact sheet on climate change and health is part of the Climate Fast Facts series of the United Nations Climate Action team discusses how health is well placed to be a significant part of the solution; the positive health impacts from stronger climate change action can motivate stronger global ambition; how health systems which are resilient to climate change can help protect their populations from the negative impacts (in the short and longer terms); and how sustainable low carbon health systems can make a substantial contribution to reducing national and global emissions.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Gaps and opportunities for cervical cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care: evidence from midterm review of the Zimbabwe cervical cancer prevention and control strategy (2016\u20132020)","field_subtitle":"Tapera O; Nyakabau A M; Simango N; et al: BMC Public Health 21(1478), 1-13, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/42csn4ey","body":"This analysis identified the gaps and opportunities for cervical cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care to inform the next cervical cancer strategy in Zimbabwe.  A mixed methods approach was used. This midterm review revealed a myriad of gaps of the strategy particularly in diagnosis, treatment and care of cervical cancer and the primary focus was on secondary prevention. There was no national data on the proportion of women who ever tested for cervical cancer, or to quantify the level of awareness and advocacy for cervical cancer prevention which existed nationally. Some health facilities were inappropriately screening women above 50\u2009years old using VIAC. Gaps were identified in pathology services, in data on investigations at the national level, in limited funding, personnel, equipment, and commodities as well as lack of leadership at the national level to coordinate the various components of the cervical cancer programme. Numerous opportunities were identified to build upon the successes realized to date, with the findings emphasising the importance of effective and holistic planning and public investment in cervical cancer screening.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Security and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Health and Security for Whom?","field_subtitle":"Almeida C:  Think Global Health, August 2021","field_url":"http://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/health-security-and-covid-19-pandemic-health-and-security-whom","body":"The concept of health security has long been prominent and controversial in global efforts to protect health. The author asserts that paradoxically, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided evidence of this concept's failure and reignited interest in it for the post-pandemic world. The article outlines how past shortcomings and present interest highlight the continued failure to address political and economic structural problems that generate inequities and produce neither health nor security for most of the world\u2019s population. Thinking beyond the pandemic, she proposes that policymakers should reject health security and center policy on promoting human solidarity and protecting the human right to life.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health workers\u2019 perceptions on where and how to integrate tobacco use cessation services into tuberculosis treatment; a qualitative exploratory study in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Rutebemberwa E; Nyamurungi K; Joshi S; et al: BMC Public Health 21(1464), 1-9, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/w2jxb88e","body":"The authors explored perceptions of health workers on where and how to integrate tobacco use cessation services into TB treatment programs in Uganda, using nine focus group discussions and eight key informant interviews in high volume health centres, general hospitals and referral hospitals. Respondents highlighted that just like TB prevention starts in the community and TB treatment goes beyond health facility stay, integration of tobacco cessation should be started when people are still healthy and extended to those who have been healed as they go back to communities. Tobacco cessation activities should be provided in a continuum with coordination of different organizations like peers, the media and TB treatment supporters. TB patients needed regular follow up and self-management support for both TB and tobacco cessation. Patients needed to be empowered to know their condition and their caretakers needed to be involved. Effective referral between primary health facilities and specialist facilities was needed. Clinical information systems should identify relevant people for proactive care and follow up. In order to achieve effective integration, the health system needed to be strengthened especially health worker training and provision of more space in some of the facilities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"I can no longer do my work like how I used to\u2019: a mixed methods longitudinal cohort study exploring how informal working mothers balance the requirements of livelihood and safe childcare in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Horwood C; Hinton R; Haskins L; et al: BMC Women's Health 21(288), 1-15, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/hyfynv5a","body":"A mixed-methods longitudinal cohort study conducted among informal women workers in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa between July 2018 and August 2019 and a photovoice activity with groups of participants to explore the childcare environment explored informal-sector working women's experience of child care. Women returned to work soon after the baby was born, often earlier than planned, because of financial responsibilities to provide for the household and new baby. They had limited childcare choices and most preferred to leave their babies with family members at home, as the most convenient, low-cost option, or mothers paid carers or formal childcare. Formal childcare was reported to be poor quality, unaffordable and not suited to the needs of informal workers. Mothers expressed concern about carers\u2019 reliability and the safety of the childcare environment. Flexibility of informal work allowed some mothers to adapt their work to care for their child themselves, but others were unable to arrange consistent childcare, sometimes leaving the child with unsuitable carers to avoid losing paid work. Mothers were frequently anxious about leaving the child but felt they had no choice as they needed to work. Maternity protection for informal workers would support these mothers to stay home longer to care for themselves, their family and their baby, and good quality, affordable childcare would provide stability for mothers and give children the opportunity to thrive.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Incentive grants for young researchers from LMICs: Implementation research to scale up national NCD and mental health-related responses for achieving SDG 3.4 ","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 30 September 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/27zebcxr","body":"These grants support research projects that Identify gaps, implementation challenges, and national priorities, and propose solutions with the potential to influence policy and practices for NCD prevention and control and promotion of mental health and well-being in LMICs; and that engage diverse stakeholders across sectors and actors throughout the research process;. The would should explore the best strategies to create strong partnerships between governments, NGOs, the private sector, researchers, communities, and individuals (particularly vulnerable populations) to address NCD prevention and control and promotion of mental health and well-being and identify lessons about implementation and propose feasible actionable solutions within the context. The results of this work may inform further research into this area in the future, including testing such practices and mechanisms in various settings. The submitted proposals can address a wide variety of issues aimed at scaling up NCD prevention and control and promotion of mental health and well-being, establishing multisectoral and multistakeholder coordination mechanisms, and understanding innovative integrated delivery models to shift from disease-focused treatment approaches to sustainable person-centered health systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Intervention \u2013 \u201cImpermanence: On Frantz Fanon\u2019s Geographies\u201d","field_subtitle":"Aguiar J; Chowdhury A; Falk M; et al: Antipode Online, August 2021","field_url":"https://antipodeonline.org/2021/08/18/frantz-fanons-geographies/","body":"This 'cartographic' and political economy analysis of Frantz Fanon\u2019s \u2018geographies\u2019 points to a series of narrative maps that draw attention to the differential geographies of racism and colonialism, using geography, landscape, cartography, architecture, space, place, and borders, to make sense of blackness and oppression and liberation. Fanon\u2019s envisions anti-colonial geographies as always in flux, nested in, yet cannot be fully defined by, the colonial imperative. Stasis \u2013 even the street or the walls of the clinic \u2013 is impossible. Colonial geographies are thus identified as unsustainable because, even in their heaviness, they are impermanent, in flux, and alterable. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Limits of neoliberalism: HIV, COVID-19, and the importance of healthcare systems in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Zhou A: Global Public Health 16(8-9), doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2021.1940237, 2021","field_url":"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441692.2021.1940237","body":"How have prior experiences with managing HIV prepared African countries for COVID-19? Drawing on qualitative methods, this article examines the impact of HIV interventions on the healthcare system in Malawi and its implications for addressing COVID-19. The author argues that the historical and continued influence of neoliberalism in global health manifests in the structures and routines of clinical practice. In Malawi\u2019s health centres, a parallel NGO system of care has become grafted onto state healthcare, with NGOs managing HIV commodities and providing care to HIV patients. While HIV NGOs do support the work of government providers, it is limited to tasks that align with their programmatic goals. Outside of external funder priorities, the conditions of public healthcare are said to be lagging, and government providers struggle with shortages of staff, medical resources, and basic infrastructure, all of which has been compounded by COVID-19.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Mapping Algorithms Are Failing to Address Urban Inequalities in the Global South","field_subtitle":"Costa-Lima M; Freitas C; Farias S: Failed Architecture, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ecadmy3","body":"Algorithms act according to what they are trained for, and human beings are the ones training them. Therefore, when algorithms are clearly reinforcing existing inequalities, it is crucial to question who writes these algorithms, and in whose interests they are writing them. More importantly, these people should be held accountable for the socio-spatial effects of their products. As local governments have failed to build a good spatial data infrastructure for informal settlements, other stakeholders are stepping in and the authors raise the threat posed by algorithms moderated by big tech corporations deciding the boundaries ad features of neighbourhoods.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"New consortium working to boost vaccine production in South Africa","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/wuurdurk","body":"The Medicines Patent Pool and the World Health Organization,  Afrigen Biologics Limited, the Biologicals and Vaccines Institute of Southern Africa  (Biovac), the South African Medical Research Council and Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have signed a letter of intent to bring together partners to establish the South African mRNA technology transfer hub to enable greater and more diversified vaccines manufacturing capability, to respond to the current COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemics. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Profiteering from vaccine inequity: a crime against humanity?","field_subtitle":"Hassan F, Yarney G, Abbasi K: BMJ, 374:n2027, 2021","field_url":"https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2027","body":"The rich world is refusing to share vaccines with poorer countries speedily or equitably. Whereas 60% of the population in the UK is fully vaccinated, in Uganda it is only 1%. The 50 least wealthy nations, home to 20% of the world\u2019s population, have received just 2% of all vaccine doses. The authors argue that the rich world should be ashamed. They present evidence of the corporate profits being made on vaccines and posit that pandemic profiteering is a human rights violation that demands investigation and scrutiny. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right \u201cto share in scientific advancement and its benefits. The excess of deaths in Africa, Latin America and Asia is attributed to: a free market, profit driven enterprise based on patent and intellectual property protection, combined with a lack of political will. Contrary to claims, it is possible to make enough vaccines for the world and state that the moral scandal, enabled by corporate and political permission of mass death, is tantamount to a crime against humanity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Proposal for a WHO treaty on pandemics raises concerns ","field_subtitle":"Ramakrishnan N; Gopakumar K: Third World Network, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ny2za8jz","body":"This policy brief critically analyses the option of a new pandemic treaty or other international legal instrument to enhance the pandemic preparedness and response. Part I provides an account of the origin of the idea of the pandemic treaty. Part II examines whether there is any legal vacuum which prevents the needed pandemic preparedness and response. Part III deals with the fragmentation of international health response and raises the concern that the new treaty will exacerbate fragmentation instead of consolidating the response. Part IV explains what to expect from the new treaty and the major process-related issues involved in the new pandemic treaty negotiations. The authors argue that instead of developing a new international instrument it is better to strengthen or amend the existing IHR. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Risk Factors, Mental Health and Psychosocial Needs, and Coping Among the Children Under the Care of Female Sex Workers and Adolescent Girls Surviving in Sex Work Settings","field_subtitle":"Kyomya M; Mukwaya R; Achan E; et al: PEAH \u2013 Policies for Equitable Access to Health, Geneva 2021","field_url":"http://www.peah.it/2021/07/9950/","body":"This assessment identified risk factors, mental health, psychosocial needs and mechanisms of coping by children under the care of female sex workers (FSWs) and adolescent girls surviving in sex work settings of Kampala, Gulu, Mbarara, Wakiso and Busia in Uganda. The study found stigma and discrimination, poor accommodation facilities, sexual abuse by clients of sex workers and substance abuse among children, adolescent girls and mothers, gender-based violence and low levels of literacy, with a high prevalence of mental health disorders, including depression, suicide, post traumatic stress symptoms and generalised anxiety disorder. Adolescent girls surviving in sex work settings, presented higher rates of common mental health disorders. particularly those aged 11-14 years. The study found that the risk factors are not addressed given that children under the care of FSWs and adolescent girls are often neglected by systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening Research and Practice in Community Health Systems: A Research Agenda and Manifesto","field_subtitle":"Tetui M; Hurtig A-K; Jonsson F; et al: International Journal of Health Policy and Management, doi: 10.34172/IJHPM.2021.71, 2021 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/27842vpv","body":"While there have been increased calls for strengthening community health systems (CHSs), key priorities for this field have not been fully articulated. This paper seeks to fill this gap, presenting a collaboratively defined research agenda, accompanied by a \u2018manifesto\u2019 on strengthening research and practice in the CHS. Eight domains of research priorities for CHSs were identified: clarifying the purpose and values of the CHS, ensure inclusivity; design, implementation and monitoring of strategies to strengthen the CHS; social, political and historical contexts of CHS; community health workers (CHWs); social accountability; the interface between the CHS and the broader health system; governance and stewardship; and finally, the ethical methodologies for researching the CHS. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The failure of community-based health insurance schemes in Tanzania: opening the black box of the implementation process","field_subtitle":"Kigume R; Maluka S: BMC Health Services Research 21(646), 1-8, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/wkv8wzrf","body":"This qualitative study investigated the implementation of Tiba Kwa Kadi scheme in four urban districts of Tanzania using semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and review of documents. While Tiba Kwa Kadi scheme contributed to access to health services, many challenges which hindered its performance, including frequent stock-out of drugs and medical supplies. This frustrated Tiba Kwa Kadi members and contributed to non-renewal of membership. The scheme was also affected by poor collections and management of the revenue collected from members, limited benefit packages and low awareness of the community. Similar to rural-based Community Health Fund, the Tiba Kwa Kadi scheme faced structural and operational challenges which subsequently resulted into low uptake of the schemes. The authors recommend that government integrate or merge community-based health insurance schemes into a single national pool with decentralised arms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The failure of private health services: COVID-19 induced crises in low- and middle-income country (LMIC) health systems","field_subtitle":"Williams O; Chun Yung K; Gr\u00e9pin K: Global Public Health 16(8-9), 2021","field_url":"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441692.2021.1874470","body":"For decades, governments and development partners promoted neoliberal policies in the health sector in many low and middle income countries, largely motivated by the belief that public services were too weak to meet population needs. Private health markets as a governance and policy solution to the delivery of health services enabled forms of market failure to persist in these countries. These were exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, as analysed by the authors using data from an assembled database of COVID-19 related news items sourced from the Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone. They identify how pre-existing market failure and failures of redistribution have led to the rise of three urgent crises: a financial and liquidity crisis among private providers, a crisis of service provision and pricing, and an attendant crisis in state-provider relations. They note that COVID-19 has exposed important failures of the public-private models of health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Tobacco supply and demand strategies used in African countries","field_subtitle":"Crosbie E; Defrank V; Egbe CO: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 99(7), 539-540, 2021","field_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8243026/","body":"The number of smokers in Africa is anticipated to rise from 15.8% in 2010 to 21.9% by 2030, the largest projected increase in the world. The authors examine the role of the main tobacco companies operating in Africa: Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco, Imperial Brands and Japan Tobacco International, in this rise, and in the illicit trade in tobacco to force market entry into new and emerging markets. The authors point to the tactics used, including: preventing policy measures designed to control illicit tobacco trade by entering into voluntary partnerships with law enforcement and custom agencies, with governments not effectively enforcing existing laws;  and using promotional tactics, including price reductions, coupons and giveaways to increase the demand and usage of tobacco. Tobacco companies consistently claim on their websites, in the media and in policy circles that they aim to stop illicit tobacco trade and only market to adult smokers. However, the authors raise that these tactics are recruiting a new generation of smokers in Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"University of Global Health Equity and Kigali Public Library Hamwe Festival 2021: Short Stories Contest","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 12 September 2021","field_url":"https://ughe.org/hamwe-festival-2021-short-stories-contest/","body":"The University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) and Kigali Public Library (KPL) are jointly organising a short stories contest as part of the third edition of Hamwe Festival.  The organisers are seeking short stories written in English or in French, about life in the era of COVID-19. Writers from 18 to 30 years old from all countries are invited to participate. With this contest, the organisers wish to highlight stories that showcase how health equity and other areas of social justice have been exacerbated during this global crisis and how the current pandemic has affected the lives of individuals and communities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Urban Studies Foundation: Postdoctoral Research Fellowships","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 1 November 2021","field_url":"https://urbanstudiesfoundation.org/funding/postdoctoral-research-fellowships/","body":"The Urban Studies Foundation (USF) announces a new round of Postdoctoral Research Fellowship funding with up to five fellowships each worth up to a total of \u00a3180,000 over a maximum of three years. Successful candidates may be based anywhere globally, and should propose a programme of work which will advance scholarly knowledge of any element of cities and urbanisation to the highest international standards of peer review. The award will be paid to an eligible institute of higher education (HEI) where the fellowship is to be held. A successful applicant should have a Mentor based in that institution with whom they will work closely for the duration of the fellowship.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Video clips from the East and Southern Africa Regional Peoples Health University, Theme: Past, present and future struggles for Health equity","field_subtitle":"EQUINET and PHM: Clips from weeks 2 and 3, August 2021","field_url":"https://www.equinetafrica.org/rphu/rphu-resources","body":"The first East and Southern Africa Regional People\u2019s Health University (ESA RPHU) jointly convened by PHM and EQUINET is being held virtually between July 29 and November 12 2021 with 10 weeks of interactive sessions to build and share evidence, experience, analysis and knowledge on health equity to support regional co-operation and joint engagement, from local to global level, on shared priorities.  The course programme is at https://www.equinetafrica.org/rphu/rphu-programme with different issues affecting health equity in the region and learning from COVID-19.  Open access online dissemination of plenary presentations and resources is available on the RPHU resources page. It currently includes video clips of a panel discussion moderated by Dr Rene Loewenson TARSC/EQUINET with Dr Firoze Manji, Daraja Press and Professor Patrick Bond, University of Western Cape, explored the Political Economy of Health in East and Southern Africa; David van Wyk from Benchmarks Foundation on a case study of health equity in mining in South Africa; Mariam Mayet, Executive Director of the  African Centre for Biodiversity on global and corporate activities in industrial agriculture and gene technologies in relation to malaria; Thusang Butale BFTU and Danny Gotto I4Dev on experiences of extractive activities in Botswana and Uganda;  Masuma Mamdani, EQUINET on social determinants of health;  Shakira Choonora on an Intersectional lens to health inequities; Sue Godt on Emerging commercial determinants of health and the reality in the region and Peter Binyaruka, Ifakara Health Institute (IHI), Tanzania presentation on co-financing to address social determinants of health equity. The Resources page is being updated with new content as the course progresses. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Virtual Symposium: Finding Joy in Healthcare in Africa ","field_subtitle":"WiSER University of the Witwatersrand, Medical and Health Humanities Africa network, Primary Health Care Directorate, University of Cape Town: 1-2 September, 2021, Online","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/27dtjw68","body":"Dominant perceptions of healthcare in Africa portray it either in terms of failure, disrepair, chaos and disappointment. Little attention is paid, within scholarly research, to the joy that accompanies pursuing or achieving health and wellbeing. This inaugural symposium explores, from past, present and future perspectives, how healthcare practitioners, health systems and people seeking healthcare in Africa approach issues of joy, trust, confidence, or comfort at individual, familial, community or national levels. The organisers invite artists, activists, health practitioners and academics to re-imagine health and healthcare in Africa through workshops, academic papers, discussion forums and two keynote addresses. (Note abstract submission has closed).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Which UHC? Features for Equity and Universalism ","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R: International Journal of Health Policy and Management x(x), 104, doi:10.34172/ijhpm.2021.89, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/6udf6vkt","body":"Equity and universality are implicit in universal health coverage (UHC), although ambiguity has led to differing interpretations and policy emphases that limit their achievement. Diverse country experiences indicate a policy focus on differences in service availability and costs of care, and neoliberal policies that have focused UHC on segmented financing and disease-focused benefit packages, ignoring evidence on financing, service, rights-based and social features that enable equity, continuity of care and improved population health. Public policies that do not confront these neoliberal pressures limit equity-promoting features in UHC. In raising the impetus for UHC and widening public awareness of the need for public health systems, COVID-19 presents an opportunity for challenging market driven approaches to UHC, but also a need to make clear the features that are essential for ensuring equity in the progression towards universal health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Youth mental health facing a deficit of caring","field_subtitle":"Pelagia Nziramwoyo, Wilson Asibu, Joy Muhia, Nadine Nanji, Rene Loewenson","field_url":"","body":"Jacob, an 18 year old youth, lives in an East African country. When the pandemic came to his city, his boarding school shut and he left everything, including his friends, and travelled to be at home during the lockdown.  He thought this would be the best place, but once home he felt rising stress over lack of privacy in an overcrowded home, over trying to keep learning without adequate internet access, and over high data charges to keep in contact with teachers or friends.  He felt pressure from his parents to keep costs down while sustaining his learning  to merit the fees they had paid. They didn\u2019t seem to understand how the isolation and pressure was affecting him, and were preoccupied with their own demands. He became more and more withdrawn and depressed, couldn\u2019t talk to anyone, and fell further and further behind in his studies. When the school re-opened he didn\u2019t have the confidence to return. He felt depressed about his future, and that his life was not worth continuing. \r\n\r\nJacob\u2019s story is not unique. Young people from different east and southern Africa countries have reported or been found to experience a range of stresses and anxieties as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Even before the pandemic, young people in the east and southern Africa (ESA) region were documented to experience depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorders and suicidal ideas, while studies also noted the under-reporting of mental illness in young people.\r\n\r\nIn conversations with forty youth over 18 years of age from two ESA countries, many reported anxieties over relationships, parental expectations and school performance, as well as stresses from living in conditions of poverty, insecurity, hunger and social violence. These conditions were present before the pandemic. However, the pandemic was said to have worsened these sources of stress. Lockdowns in overcrowded homes, closures of schools and community centres disrupted various forms of peer and adult support, and young people reported feeling rising anxiety and frustration over their education and future. The youth pointed to stresses during the pandemic from increased risks of domestic violence and sexual abuse during lockdowns, from lost income, high food, data and other costs, and from uncertainty over the future. \r\n\r\nYoung people noted in the conversations how they were coping with these stresses. They said that social support from friends and peers, from supportive adults in and beyond the family, and from religious institutions played an important role in helping them cope with mental stress. So too did having funds to face challenges and sustain education, and having access to outdoor recreation and cultural activities. Online information, education, games and communication helped to sustain relationships and activities, although data charges were often not affordable. Some reported more harmful coping strategies, such as consumption of alcohol and harmful drugs to suppress anxieties. \r\n\r\nThe literature and the reports from young people themselves indicate that local services generally deal with youth mental health poorly, or not at all, and that there are limited youth-friendly mental health services. This has often placed the burden of care on families who themselves lack the information and tools to respond, and who still experience a stigma around mental disorders. While there is some report of youth counselling services, art therapy, online counselling, and digital applications to promote wellbeing, there is an evident need to expand the availability of a range of mental health services and capacities to manage the spectrum of disorders affecting young people.  In the conversations the youth also observed that families, youth peer counsellors and key adults should get greater support to promote communication and to help those facing mental health challenges. They prioritised prevention of mental ill-health, and recommended investment to tackle drivers of mental stress. They called for investment in jobs and enterprise opportunities, recreation facilities, school services, safe communities and information, and in opportunities for young people to participate in decisions affecting their lives in more mutually respectful interactions with authorities. \r\n\r\nThe way the region deals with this issue, including in the plans for the recovery from the pandemic, will have long term consequences. Jacob and others like him are the future. In one conversation, one young woman facing stress and feeling excluded from support said \u201cWe are in a country living alone and no one cares\u201d. This is a cry for us to address the unfair and unacceptable gap in recognising and responding to youth mental health, as a critical element of the \u2018complete mental, physical and  social wellbeing\u2019 envisaged in the definition of \u2018health\u2019. \r\n\r\nWe welcome your feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped or interest in this work\u2013 please contact the EQUINET secretariat. You can read the literature review on youth mental health (EQUINET Discussion paper 122) at https://tinyurl.com/4vbj87rn  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"#WHA74 WRAP: Pandemic Treaty Talks Eclipse Prevailing Vaccine Inequities","field_subtitle":"P Patnaik: Geneva Health Files, Edition #60, Geneva ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/482h8d6z","body":"More than half way into the 74th World Health Assembly, a serious discussion on the efforts to address vaccine inequities is noted in this article to have been conspicuous by its absence. What has instead dominated much of the Assembly proceedings are talks for a pandemic treaty to address health emergencies in the future, and the important, but continuing push towards investigations on the origins of the virus, among other matters. In an issue that recaps the discussions at the current World Health Assembly, the Geneva Health Files in this piece notes \"it seems that there has not been enough attention on the here and the now in the midst of all the discussions on preparedness. In our view, this risks looking away from and a silent acceptance to the mounting deaths from COVID-19. It also shows unwillingness to acknowledge and accept the limitations of the current mechanisms that have not met expectations on not only vaccine equity but an overall international mechanism for meeting the needs on diagnostics and treatments for COVID-19\".   In a packed agenda for the week long remote meeting, the question is raised of why there is no dedicated forum to discuss why vaccines have not been delivered as promised, including to seek accountability for this and to revisit assumptions made about the mechanisms set up for this, including the ACT Accelerator and COVAX. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"2021 Social Policy in Africa Conference Development, Democracy and Social Policy: Remembering Thandika Mkandawire: 22-24 November 2021 University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Abstracts: Friday, 27 August 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/mw47rhxd","body":"The late Thandika Mkandawire contributed immensely to an intellectual project for a rejuvenation of Africa's developmental. This conference, invites contributions and papers that critically reflect on the exchange between the different literatures and imaginations on development, democracy and social policy, including critical reflections on the social policy responses to COVID-19 in the context of the stratified, segmented, and segregated social policy architecture that has been the staple of international agencies in the last three to four decades. Contributions need not be limited to the African context or experience, but should speak to experiences from the Global South.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"2021-22 Reckitt-LSHTM PhD studentships on Hygiene & Health in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications:  11 July 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/f6f5y62h","body":"The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine invites applications from candidates from Sub-Saharan Africa for fully-funded 4-year PhD studentships to start a research degree programme on 3 January 2022. There are three studentships available, linked to ongoing research projects that address the links between hygiene and health in Sub-Saharan Africa.  Further information and  applicant entry requirements are provided on the website link shown.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A critical discourse analysis of adolescent fertility in Zambia: a postcolonial perspective","field_subtitle":"Munakampe M; Michelo; C and Zulu J: Reproductive Health 18(75), 1-12, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/8azf9fzb","body":"This study explored competing discourses that shape adolescent fertility control in Zambia, through individual interviews and 9 focus group discussions with adolescents and other key-informants. Adolescent fertility discussions were influenced by marital norms and Christian beliefs, as well as health and rights values. While early marriage or child-bearing was discouraged, married adolescents and adolescents who had given birth before faced fewer challenges when accessing Sexual and Reproductive Health information and services compared to their unmarried or nulli-parous counterparts. Parents, teachers and health workers were conflicted about how to package Sexual and Reproductive Health information to young people, due to their roles in the community.  The authors assert that the competing moral worlds, correct in their own right, viewed within the historical and social context unearth significant barriers to the success of interventions targeted towards adolescents\u2019 fertility control in Zambia, propagating the growing problem of high adolescent fertility, and suggest proactive consideration of these discourses when designing and implementing adolescent fertility interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"A New WHO International Treaty on Pandemic Preparedness and Response: Can It Address the Needs of the Global South?","field_subtitle":"Vel\u00e1squez G; Syam N: The South Centre, Policy Brief 93, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/3htf4r8e","body":"A recent joint communiqu\u00e9 by 25 Heads of Government and the WHO Director-General have called for the negotiation of a pandemic treaty to enable countries around the world to strengthen national, regional and global capacities and resilience to future pandemics, as a binding instrument to promote and protect health in the context of pandemics. The authors recommend that if WHO Member States decide that an international treaty is the way forward, it would be important to have clarity from the outset on the elements and areas that will be the subject of negotiation, by identifying aspects that the current crisis has revealed are not working. They recommend building on the existing instruments, notably the International Health Regulations and discuss critical issues that should be addressed in such a treaty if negotiations are launched,given that countries differ in needs, levels of development and capacities to implement treaty obligations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Bayer breathing life into Gates\u2019 failed GM drought tolerant maize: Agrarian extractivism continues unabated on the African continent ","field_subtitle":"Masinjila S; Zendah R: African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), South Africa, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/29hv2hbd","body":"This paper alerts to the implications of a Gate\u2019s funded project, Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA), now known as TELA, for sub-Saharan countries. Bayer, with a stated aim of solving smallholder farmers\u2019 poverty woes, is stated by the authors to be using South Africa\u2019s permissive biosafety regulatory environment to multiply obsolete and deficient genetically modified (GM) seeds, for export to the countries in the project, despite lack of success with drought tolerance and insect resistance in South Africa. The paper indicates that the industry\u2019s claims of the insect resistant trait\u2019s ability to combat the now persistent fall armyworm in Africa have been invalidated with the emergence of resistance in countries in North and South America, including Brazil. The authors question why African countries are allowing the dumping of these obsolete technologies into their countries and urge African governments to reject the imposition of outdated GM technologies and to adopt workable and holistic solutions, including to support food systems.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: East and Southern Africa Regional Peoples Health University, Online 29 July to 12 November 2021 ","field_subtitle":"EQUINET and PHM:  Closing date 25 June 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/4cm9vuxm","body":"The first East and Southern Africa Regional People\u2019s Health University (ESA RPHU) jointly convened by PHM and EQUINET is being held virtually between 29 July and 12 November with the theme \u2018Past, present and future struggles for Health equity\u2019. The course aims to build and share evidence, experience, analysis and knowledge on the drivers of health equity to support efforts and activism within countries, as new and existing members of PHM and EQUINET, and in regional co-operation and joint engagement, from local to global level, on shared priorities. The course aims to link key areas of evidence and knowledge to practical experiences and action to share insights and build learning from action. We invite applicants based / working in the east and southern Africa region in state, non-state, community-based institutions involved in health-related work, from health and other sectors  and disciplines that have an impact on health equity.  See the website link for further details on the course, features for applicant eligibility, and for the online application form. Applicant forms  must be received by 25 June  2021. Applicants will be informed by 12 July.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Applications for the TDR Postgraduate Training Scholarship - University of the Witwatersrand","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 31 July 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/7846fhum","body":"The University of the Witwatersrand\u2019s School of Public Health invites suitably qualified candidates to apply for a full-time funded Master Degree Programme in the field of Implementation Science. The focus is on implementation research on infectious diseases of poverty, including the neglected tropical diseases, malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/TB co-infection and COVID-19. Implementation science is a growing field that supports the identification of health system bottlenecks and approaches to address them, and is particularly useful in low- and middle-income countries where many health interventions do not reach those who need them the most.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for submissions: Thandika Mkandawire Prize for Outstanding Scholarship in African Political Economy and Economic Development and Prize for Young Scholars","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 30 June 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/mkf4hjjy","body":"The African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (Aporde) and the South African Research Chair in Industrial Development (SARChI Industrial Development) are delighted to announce the inaugural Thandika Mkandawire Prize for Outstanding Scholarship in African Political Economy and Economic Development. This prize is to be awarded annually to recognise outstanding research papers by African scholars. A second award, the Thandika Mkandawire Prize for Young Scholars in African Political Economy and Economic Development, is specifically for young researchers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Cape Town in common:  a handbook to reclaim local democracy in our city","field_subtitle":"Rossouw J: Bertha Foundation, South Africa","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/389rj7dy","body":"This handbook aims to support people across the city of Cape Town assert their democratic rights, and to come together to take charge of their wards. Unemployment, poverty and violence are deeply entrenched in the city which remains spatially divided and stubbornly unequal and the handbook discusses ways to bring everybody living in the ward together, across historical divides, to deliberate and get involved in finding practical solutions to the problems. This handbook  supports this with a \u2018manifesto of ordinary ideas\u2019 and practical ideas and tactics to reclaim local democracy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"China, Africa and the Fast-Changing Geopolitics of Vaccines","field_subtitle":"Olander E: The China Africa Project, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/sj9mnxnu","body":"Most African countries expected to receive tens of millions of doses manufactured by Indian companies. But now that New Delhi has halted all exports, African officials have no other choice but to look elsewhere \u2014 and in many cases, that\u2019s leading them to Chinese and Russian suppliers. So far, Covax\u2019s vaccine distribution has failed to meet the needs of developing countries with just 43.4 million doses spread thinly across 119 countries. According to the USAID fact sheets on the US COVID-19 response, the United States has not provided any aid or relief to African countries so far this year. While Washington is refusing to ship vaccines overseas, Chinese vaccine manufacturing output is steadily rising. Both Sinopharm and Sinovac producers now say they are capable of producing at least 2 billion doses in 2021 alone. The author notes that it is entirely possible that the Chinese will be positioned to fill the supply gap in 2021 for a number of low income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic","field_subtitle":"The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness & Response: Geneva, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/2v753de2","body":"The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response was set up by WHO to review the state of pandemic preparedness before COVID-19, the circumstances of the identification of SARS-CoV-2 and responses globally, regionally, and nationally, particularly in the early months of the pandemic, and its health system, social and economic consequences. This report of the panel indicates that preparedness was limited and disjointed, leaving health systems overwhelmed when actually confronted by a fast-moving and exponentially spreading virus. The panel concluded addressing this gap not requires sustained investment, and new approaches to peer review of country preparedness, and to the international alert system. The panel suggests  that the legally binding International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005) did not facilitate rapid action, and that the consequence of delays in response impacted most on already disadvantaged people. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"COVID: Using the rupture for change","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET newsletter","field_url":"","body":"Our editorials usually provide a lens on a perspective and issue occurring within east and southern Africa. But what we currently see in different parts of the world are a call to solidarity and people's connection across regions, including to ensure that what is happening locally is not rendered invisible in global policy and accountability. We have seen scenes of human tragedy unfolding in Gaza and India and military violence faced by people protesting against the privatisation of health care in Colombia. In region to region solidarity this newsletter includes a message from the People's Health Movement in our region protesting those facing injury and threats to health in Colombia.   \r\n\r\nConnecting across regions and peoples seems critical at this moment for what sort of world we will create. Arundhati Roy in 'The pandemic is a portal' (open access) wrote \"Whatever it is, coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to \u201cnormality\u201d, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality. Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it\".   \r\n\r\nOur two editorials both point to global processes that demand engagement, vigilance, support and sustained activism across regions and peoples if we are to use this rupture for change. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Dala Kitchen: More than a cookbook","field_subtitle":"Whyle E, van Ryneveld M, Brady L (eds): Cape Town Together (CAN), South Africa","field_url":"https://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/Dala%20Kitchen%20lowres.pdf","body":"Dala Kitchen (More Than A Cookbook) is a celebration of the work of Cape Town Together. During 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of people came together to support one another in a range of creative and radically generous ways. Through a series of recipes, how-to's, articles and stories Dala Kitchen tells the story of Cape Town Together, the CANs that comprise it, and the people that are at the heart of the network. Together, these stories capture a moment in time and demonstrate that, in the words of Arundhati Roy \"[a]nother world is not only possible, she is on her way.\". The version on this website is a low resolution version- a higher resolution copy will replace this shortly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Domestic violence in Mozambique: from policy to practice","field_subtitle":"Jeth\u00e1 E; Keygnaert I; Martins E; Sidat M; et al: BMC Public Health 21(772) 1-13, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/kpt7twxp","body":"The authors identified gaps in Mozambique in the implementation of existing national policies and laws for domestic violence in the services providing care for domestic violence survivors, through content analysis of guidelines and protocols and interviews with institutional gender focal points. While the guidelines were seen to be relevant, many respondents identified gaps in their implementation, due to weaknesses in penalties for offenders, the scarcity of care providers with appropriate training and socio-cultural factors. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Door opens for TRIPS waiver textual negotiations","field_subtitle":"Third World Network (TWN) Info Service on Health Issues: TWN, issue 6, 2021","field_url":"https://twn.my/title2/health.info/2021/hi210506.htm","body":"With the Biden-Harris Administration taking the United States out of the \"blocking\" countries, all eyes are now on Europe and Japan among others as momentum grows for text-based negotiations on the temporary TRIPS waiver for combating the Covid-19 pandemic. The World Trade Organisation director-general Ms Okonjo-Iweala met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and  the TRIPS waiver is likely to have been included in the talks cannot be ruled out in the wake of a global call from 100 former leaders, including half of the US Democratic Congressmen and women, Nobel Laureates, and around 400 international civil society organizations, to agree to the TRIPS waiver. The EU's evolving positions seem to be focused on a \"third way\" approach\u2014promoted by the European Union and several members of the Ottawa Group- that seeks to address issues such as export restrictions, more bilateral and other licensing agreements, and ensuring the supply of vaccines by countries which have huge stocks of unused vaccines. The authors note that the insistence on a \"360 degree view\" on the waiver could involve a payment from the waiver co-sponsors, as powerful pharmaceutical companies have also stepped up their campaign against the waiver.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Emerging African Scholars' Virtual PhD Workshop, Online","field_subtitle":"The Association for Research On Civil Society In Africa; The Association For Research On Nonprofit Organizations And Voluntary Action; Ford Foundation: 4 June 2021","field_url":"https://arocsa.org/eas-call-2021/","body":"The Emerging African Scholars Program in Africa is hosting a full day virtual PhD Workshop to provide guidance for emerging scholars on career paths, help sharpen research skills and address the challenges that African PhD students face.  The program is open to doctoral students from Africa whose research focus is on non-profit management, philanthropy, civil society, social entrepreneurship and voluntary action studies in Africa. Students who have defended a dissertation proposal, not yet defended a dissertation proposal and whose dissertation plans are not yet fully formed are all encouraged to apply. This workshop is free of charge and will be conducted online.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"End Inequalities. End AIDS. Global AIDS Strategy 2021-2026","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS:Geneva 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/zttdu5xd","body":"The new Global AIDS Strategy (2021\u20132026) uses an inequalities lens to identify, reduce and end inequalities that represent barriers to people living with and affected by HIV, countries and communities from ending AIDS. The Strategy outlines a comprehensive framework for transformative actions to confront these inequalities and to respect, protect human rights in the HIV response. It puts people at the centre to ensure that they benefit from optimal standards in service planning and delivery, to remove social and structural barriers that prevent people from accessing HIV services, to empower communities to lead the way, to strengthen and adapt systems so they work for the people who are most acutely affected by inequalities, and to fully mobilize the resources needed to end AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Engaging globally with how to achieve healthy societies: insights from India, Latin America and East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Villar E; Baru R; Marten R: BMJ Global Health 6(4), e005257, 1-13, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/5nr7d9sn","body":"This paper explores the features and drivers of frameworks for healthy societies that had wide or sustained policy influence post-1978, globally and in selected southern regions, in India, Latin America and East and Southern Africa. The  authors implemented a thematic analysis of 150 online documents and reviewed the findings with expertise from the regions covered. Globally, comprehensive primary healthcare, whole-of-government and rights-based approaches have focused on social determinants and social agency to improve health as a basis for development. Biomedical, selective and disease-focused technology-driven approaches have, however, generally dominated, positioning health improvements as subsequent to macroeconomic growth. Historical approaches in the three southern regions that integrated reciprocity and harmony with nature were suppressed by biomedical models during colonialism and by postcolonial neoliberal economic reforms. With widening differences between biosecurity approaches on the one hand and holistic, ecological approaches on the other, economic, the context in the 2000s of ecological, pandemic crises and social inequality is argued to imply that which ideas dominate will be critical for health futures. The authors point to what this implies for building approaches to healthy societies, including for a more equitable circulation of ideas between regions in framing global ideas. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out quarterly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 228: COVID: Using the rupture for change","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Examining unit costs for COVID-19 case management in Kenya","field_subtitle":" Barasa E; Kairu A; Ng'ang'a W; Maritim M; BMJ Global Health 6(6), e004159, 1-8, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yewn32cc","body":"This paper estimated per-day unit costs of COVID-19 case management for patients from costs in three public COVID-19 treatment hospitals in Kenya, and using input prices from a recent costing survey of 20 hospitals in Kenya and from market prices for Kenya. The paper details the per-day, per-patient unit costs for asymptomatic patients and patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 disease under home-based care,  the significantly higher costs of managing the same patients in an isolation centre or hospital, and the per-day unit costs for patients with severe COVID-19 disease managed in general hospital wards and in intensive care units. COVID-19 case management costs were found to be substantial, ranging between two and four times the average claims value reported by Kenya\u2019s public health insurer. The authors indicate that Kenya will need to mobilise substantial resources and explore service delivery adaptations to reduce unit costs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Infectious Disease Research Training, Fogarty International","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: August 3, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/x8nsfzf6","body":"The Global Infectious Disease research training program addresses research training needs related to infectious diseases that are predominantly endemic in or impact upon people living in developing countries. The training focuses on a major endemic or life-threatening emerging infectious disease, neglected tropical disease, infections that frequently occur as a co-infection in HIV infected individuals, or infections associated with non-communicable disease conditions of public health importance in low- and middle-income countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global progress report on water, sanitation and hygiene in health care facilities: fundamentals first","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: WHO, Geneva, 2020 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/sz6yn2xz","body":"This report provides a comprehensive summary of global progress on improving water, sanitation, hygiene, waste management and environmental cleaning (WASH) in health care facilities and is intended to stimulate solution driven country and partner actions to further address major gaps. It provides practical steps to improving WASH in health care facilities, selected country case studies illustrating bottlenecks, gaps, and successful strategies, and recommendations for addressing gaps and sustaining services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Equity Assessment Toolkit","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2021","field_url":"https://www.who.int/data/gho/health-equity/assessment_toolkit","body":"The Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT) is a software application that facilitates the assessment of within-country health inequalities. It was developed for use on desktop or laptop computers and mobile devices and has a Health Equity Monitor database and a version that allows users to upload and work with their own database. The application allows users to explore current or time trends in inequality in a setting of interest, such as a country, province or district; and compare inequality between settings. Inequalities are visualized in a variety of interactive graphs, maps and tables. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health research knowledge translation into policy in Zambia: policy-maker and researcher perspectives","field_subtitle":"Malama A; Zulu J; Nzala S; et al: Health Research Policy and Systems 19(42), 1-11, 2021 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/3x3c925f","body":"The authors explored how health research knowledge is translated into policy in Zambia, and what facilitates or hinders this, from document review and key informant interview.  While the document review suggested policy efforts to promote knowledge translation, the interviews raised challenges in coordination and linkages between knowledge and policy-making processes, attributed to lack of research knowledge translation capacity, limited resources and lack of knowledge hubs. However, the authors suggest that emerging local research leadership and a stock of underused local health are an opportunity to enhance knowledge to policy links, if supported.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health spending and vaccination coverage in low-income countries","field_subtitle":"Castillo-Zunino F; Keskinocak P; Nazzal D; Freeman M: BMJ Global Health 2021;6:e004823, 1-9, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/2ny6ppmm","body":"The authors investigated what financial changes in low income countries (LICs) lead to childhood immunisation changes, controlling for population density, land area and female years of education. During 2014\u20132018, gross domestic product per capita, total or private health spending per capita and aggregated development assistance for health per capita were not significant predictors of vaccination coverage in LIC. Government health spending per capita and total/government spending per birth on routine immunisation vaccines were significant positive predictors of vaccination coverage. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Hubs of Interdisciplinary Research and Training in Global Environmental and Occupational Health (GEOHealth)","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: July 8, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/3fy759bb","body":"The Fogarty Global Environmental and Occupational Health program calls for applicants from institutions in low- or middle-income countries to function as regional hubs for collaborative research, data management, research training, curriculum and outreach material development, and policy support around high-priority local, national and regional environmental and occupational health threats. GEOHealth hubs are supported by two coordinated linked awards to a LMIC institution for research and a U.S. institution to coordinate research training. Together the GEOHealth hubs form the GEOHealth network, a platform for coordinated environmental and occupational health research and research training activities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Integration of non-communicable disease and HIV/AIDS management: a review of healthcare policies and plans in East Africa","field_subtitle":"Adeyemi O; Lyons M; Njim T; Okebe J; et al: BMJ Global Health6:e004669, 1-9, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/4xn47vvz","body":"This paper assessed the extent in East Africa to which policies reflect calls for HIV-NCD service integration, through document review. Integrated delivery of HIV and NCD care is recommended in high level health policies and treatment guidelines in four countries in the East African region; Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, mostly relating to integrating NCD care into HIV programmes, in response both to increasing levels of NCDs and more person-centred services for people living with HIV. Other countries, however, have no reported plans for HIV and NCD care integration. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Introduction to Global Health, University of Stellenbosch","field_subtitle":"10 weeks, online","field_url":"https://shortcourses.sun.ac.za/courses/c-10/2021-5602.html","body":"This short course aims to provide academic staff, students, researchers, reviewers and editors with the understanding of the global health within the African context and beyond. The course is delivered online over 10 weeks. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Neo-colonial economies and ecologies, smallholder farmers and multiple shocks: The case of cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique and Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB)L ACB, South Africa, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/4js8xnxj","body":"The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB)  exposes how the two cyclones that battered Mozambique and parts of Malawi and Zimbabwe in March and April 2019 must be understood against the backdrop of the political and economic drivers of ecological degradation. These include development loans and aid, rapacious natural resource extraction and social and cultural displacement. The authors examine the interconnections between climate change, deforestation, agricultural expansion and resource extractivism, as drivers of social and political instability and food insecurity in these countries, while enriching a small political elite. The paper unpacks how the national and international disaster response to the cyclones inadequately addressed the scale of the overlapping crises that the cyclones revealed, calling for approaches that go beyond narrow disaster management to one based on equity and justice in local economies and in relationships with the global economy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Peoples Health movement message on Colombia","field_subtitle":"Peoples Health Movement (PHM): South Africa","field_url":"","body":"In an open letter to the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Colombia, the Peoples' Health Movement urged the government to abide by the Constitution, stop the violence, and join hands with citizens in defeating COVID urgently, and enacting policies that promote people\u2019s health, equality and social justice. The PHM wrote: \"We note with deep concern the criminalisation of protest and high levels of violence perpetrated  on legitimate and peaceful protestors by the Colombian government security forces and armed civilian groupings. Credible sources report the use of lethal weapons, including rifles and semi-automatic guns, against protesters around the country by police. At least 37 people have been killed; some reports give larger numbers. There are also reports of disappearances. As a result of extreme militarisation, some cities, including Cali and Palmira, are running out of food and medicine supplies; Internet signals and social networks essential for communication among citizens and communities have been blocked; and levels of fear and uncertainty are growing among the population. The protests occur against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID is exacerbating poverty and inequality. The number of Colombian people living in extreme poverty grew by 2.8 million last year. And more and more people face hunger.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/64836","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and Women\u2019s Human Rights: Feminist Analysis from the Global South","field_subtitle":"Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN): DAWN, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/35rrvavb","body":"Corporations across the globe are capturing more and more of the public sphere, encroaching on all aspects of people\u2019s lives. This publication compiles analyses of different country experiences on public-private partnerships that in themselves have become a powerful tool to achieve what the authors observe is starting to look like the privatisation of life itself. Feminist researchers from the Global South have spent a year researching this theme in their home countries, including in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Together they present an analysis and critique of the state of PPPs today, and the consequences for women\u2019s lives, communities\u2019 wellbeing, and public health and social services. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Water and Covid-19: Dark Clouds and Silver Linings","field_subtitle":"McDonald D; Spronk S; Chavez D: Municipal Services Project, Transnational Institute and Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO): MSP, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/v72uynjc","body":"Covid-19 has again demonstrated the significance of safe, accessible and affordable water for all and the enormous disparities in service provision while at the same time dealing a blow to public water and sanitation operators around the world due to massive drops in revenues, rapidly rising costs and concerns about health and safety in the workplace. This book provides the first global overview of the response of public water operators to this crisis, shining a light on the complex challenges they face and how they have responded in different contexts. It looks specifically at \u2018public\u2019 water and asks how public ownership and public management have enabled (or not) equitable and democratic emergency services, and how these COVID-19 experiences could contribute to expanded and sustainable forms of public water services in the future","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Sales and pricing decisions for HIV self-test kits among local drug shops in Tanzania: a prospective cohort study","field_subtitle":"Chiu C; Hunter L; McCoy S; et al: BMC Health Services Research 21(434), 1-11, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/4pcbj254","body":"From August to December 2019, the authors provided free HIV self-test kits, a new product, to 26 pharmacy shops in Shinyanga, Tanzania to sell to the local community.  Sales volume, price, customer age and sex were measured using shop records, together with willingness-to-pay to restock test kits. Purchase prices ranged from 1000 to 6000 Tsh. Within shops, prices were 11.3% higher for 25 to 34 and 12.7% higher for 45+ year olds relative to 15 to19 year olds and 13.5% lower for men on average. Although prices varied between shops, prices varied little within shops over time, and did not converge over the study period or cluster geospatially. Shopkeepers charged buyers different prices depending on buyers\u2019 age and sex and there was low demand among shopkeepers to restock at the end of the study. The authors propose that careful consideration is needed to align the motivations of retailers with public health priorities while meeting their private for-profit needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"South African physician emigration and return migration, 1991\u20132017: a trend analysis. ","field_subtitle":"Nwadiuko J; Switzer G; Stern J; et al: Health Policy and Planning, doi: 10.1080/17441692.2021.1900316, March 2021","field_url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33734007/","body":"This study used physician registry data to analyse patterns of emigration and return migration only among South Africa-trained physicians registered to practice in top destination countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the USA or the UK between 1991 and 2017, which represent the top five emigration destinations for this group. It found a 6-fold decline in emigration rates from SA between 1991 and 2017, with declines in emigration to all five destination countries. About one in three South Africa physicians returned from destination countries as of 2017. Annual physician emigration fell by 0.16% for every $100 rise in South Africa gross domestic product per capita. As of 2017, 21.6% of all South Africa physicians had active registration in destination nations, down from a peak of 33.5% in 2005, a decline largely due to return migration. Changes to the UK\u2019s licensing regulations were seen to be likely affected migration patterns while the Global Code of Practice on International Recruitment contributed little to changes. The authors propose that return migration monitoring be incorporated into health workforce planning.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The COVID-19 TRIPS Waiver: What happens after grabbing the tail of the tiger?","field_subtitle":"Riaz Tayob, SEATINI, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"Without any doubt, it is a success for South Africa, India and other co-sponsors of the TRIPS Waiver proposal, along with progressive political, professional and civil society voices, that the United States of America changed its position on the TRIPS Waiver. The waiver proposes a time-limited waive of patents and other rights related to essential health products for COVID-19 in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) TRIPS agreement. \r\n\r\nThe TRIPS Waiver proposals are now moving to text-based negotiations. If historical experience on access to medicines and the current power relations are anything to go by, the waiver proposers have grabbed the tail of the proverbial tiger in pushing for more distributed production of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics. What is to be done now that the US has agreed to talks?\r\n\r\nIt is important to understand that this stage does not represent agreement on the waiver. It has now merely advanced as an agenda item for discussion. The terms of the waiver have yet to be worked out. Even once agreed, implementation demands rapid support to increase production capacities for the range of products and systems that are able to distribute them, particularly in resource constrained settings. For all products covered, and particularly for vaccines and therapeutics, the waiver time frame and production capacities would need to be able to deal with current and emergent viral mutations and the updates required for a potentially endemic situation of an evolving virus.\r\n \r\nMuch remains to be done and the convergence of progressive forces that have pushed the waiver to this point need to robustly take on these remaining challenges to realise equitable access to vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics. \r\n\r\nThe text-based negotiations and counter-lobbying by big pharma and others pose a risk of the proposals being diluted. As faced by HIV treatment activists in struggles over access to medicines, the proposals will face an incremental detraction from the largely wealthy countries seeking to preserve economic interests. Germany, the influential European power, remains opposed to the waiver, notwithstanding the US change in position. The tables seem to have turned on this. In the HIV-related Doha negotiations in 2001, the US played the \u2018bad cop\u2019 and the Europeans the \u2018good cop\u2019. While the European Parliament is largely supportive of the waiver it has limited legislative power, as intellectual property is in the European Commission\u2019s domain. Further, the US trade representative to the WTO has said these negotiations will take time, as if they and not they virus are setting the timeline. \r\n\r\nAlready, the revisions that South Africa and India have made point to some of the areas that may be weakened: The duration of the waiver, with proposals for 3 years subject to renewal, must be adequate for the distributed transfer of capacities in an evolving situation. The necessary scope of technologies -vaccines, diagnostics, medical devices and therapeutics \u2013 is in the revised text and should not be whittled down. It is unclear if it will apply to patents only, or as in the current waiver proposal, to other key elements of intellectual property such as trade secrets, industrial designs and copyright. \r\n\r\nThe struggle for access to HIV-related medicines has much to teach. Two agreements were reached at the WTO, the 2001 Doha Declaration on Public Health, and the 2003 \u2018August 30th Decision\u2019. Both were victories to build on, but proved to fall short in meaningfully addressing access. They allowed rich countries that could not be seen to deny access to HIV treatments to virtue signal, but sustained hurdles for countries in applying the flexibilities they provided. This largely sustained dependency on imports for the lower income countries most affected by HIV. \r\n\r\nThe Doha declaration did establish the important principle of trade agreements being \u201cinterpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO members' right to protect public health\u201d, and levered improved, albeit not universal, access to HIV-related medicines. But, as the current pandemic has shown, they do not provide adequate measures for vaccines, diagnostics and other technologies essential for a public health response, and did not adequately shift priorities, power or production capacities to address unfair barriers in global trade rules to meeting public health challenges. \r\n\r\nWhile the World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General has stood fast in articulating support for the waiver and called the inequity in vaccine access \u2018vaccine apartheid\u2019, WHO has less power in this debate and lacks the enforcement mechanism that the WTO has for its rules. WHO was out-manoeuvred by the Gates Foundation and rich countries\u2019 preference for the ACT-Accelerator and COVAX at a time when the deeper proposals for patent pooling and technology transfer were made through the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP). The delay in enabling distributed production and weakness of COVAX is already evident in the shortfalls in supplies reaching low and middle income countries through COVAX, more sharply now with the pandemic demand in India restricting vaccine exports. The African Union recently warned African countries that delays in supplies may mean that they will need to restart their two dose vaccine programmes, or complete them with one dose vaccines that may not be distributed until late 2021. This global failure to meet health need makes virtue signalling on solidarity at the same time as self-protecting a profitable system reliant on patents and other monopoly rights particularly hollow. This is especially so in the context of the massive amounts of public funding that enabled innovations and the public support in opposing high income western countries for the waiver. \r\n\r\nIt can of course be argued that diplomacy involves compromise and that radical change demands sustained struggle. But the process is itself taking place in a space that is biased towards existing wealth. Negotiations at the WTO run on arcane principles and are largely not transparent. The rich countries hold much sway, including through supportive WTO officials. Important negotiations take place in so-called \u2018green rooms,\u2019 where experience indicates that consensus is achieved largely by excluding dissenters from the table. A current proposal by some high income countries to prioritise voluntary licensing arrangements as a solution is a symptomatic treatment, still under the control of big pharma, fails to address the causes of import dependency in Africa and other low and middle income countries and should not be used as a lever to delay or focus attention away from the waiver. \r\n\r\nProposers and supporters of the Waiver have grabbed the tail of the tiger. If the proposals are to avoid a death by a thousand cuts, this is the time to intensify focus. The transparency of these negotiations at the WTO and active vigilance, support and sustained activism will be essential to ensure that the outcomes achieved protect the public health rights and aspirations that have been behind the TRIPS Waiver to date.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The health policy response to COVID-19 in Malawi ","field_subtitle":"Mzumara G; Chawani M; Sakala M, et al:  BMJ Global Health, 6:e006035, 2021","field_url":"https://gh.bmj.com/content/6/5/e006035","body":"Malawi declared a state of national disaster due to the COVID-19 pandemic on 20th March 2020 and registered its first confirmed coronavirus case on 2 April 2020. This paper documents decisions made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic from January to August 2020. Malawi's response to the pandemic was found to have been multi-sectoral and implemented through 15 focused working groups termed clusters. Each cluster was charged with providing policy direction in their own area of focus. All clusters then fed into one central committee for major decisions and reporting to head of state. This led to a range of responses, including an international travel ban, school closures at all levels, cancellation of public events, decongesting workplaces and public transport, mandatory face coverings and testing symptomatic people. Supportive interventions included risk communication and community engagement in multiple languages and over a variety of mediums, as well as efforts to improve access to water, sanitation, nutrition and unconditional social-cash transfers for poor urban and rural households.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Independent Panel did not meet the moment","field_subtitle":"Sara Davis, Global Health Centre, Graduate Institute, Geneva","field_url":"","body":"The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (https://theindependentpanel.org), tasked by WHO with reviewing the global management of the COVID-19 pandemic has fulfilled its terms of reference. But despite the best efforts of the panelists, it did not meet the moment. The world might still need an Independent Panel -- but one that is transparent, accountable and participatory. \r\n\r\nThis Independent Panel report does summarize many of the issues the world has witnessed in the past 14 months: weak pandemic preparedness, lugubrious bureaucracies, and government passivity. It poetically describes global inequalities, including the stark sacrifices of healthcare workers. However, its narrow recommendations sidestep many of these tough challenges in favour of expanding global governance: a Global Health Threats Council with heads of state, adopting new global statements and treaties, greater funding and authority for WHO, and a massive new $10 billion pandemic financing facility. It calls for countries to unite to establish a new international system for outbreak monitoring and alerts. \r\n\r\nSome of these recommendations are sensible, others less likely, but in seeking to avoid assigning blame, the panel ducks accountability, and its vision falls short of the scale of the problems revealed by COVID-19. \r\n\r\nThe recommendations on vaccine access exemplify this. The panel urges funding for COVAX, a worthy goal; but COVAX\u2019s 20% coverage targets cannot reach global herd immunity and prevent the spread of potentially dangerous new variants, and there is no clear plan for the remaining 80%. The panel called for high-income countries to speedily negotiate an intellectual property waiver and donate 1 billion doses by September 1 to low- and middle-income countries. Given the global need of 10 billion doses today, as Madhu Pai argued in his powerful intervention at the launch event of the report, this is vaccine charity, not vaccine equity. The panel does not address the stark inequalities among countries that have fueled the virus.\r\n\r\nTroublingly, considering that several of the panelists have been outspoken human rights advocates in the past, the Independent Panel also sidestepped numerous grave human rights abuses in the COVID-19 pandemic: praising the world\u2019s most brutal authoritarian lockdowns as models, without a single caveat about government overreach. In particular, as critics have pointed out, the report omits mention of Chinese suppression of health data, though it is well-documented that this has caused numerous real headaches for WHO. \r\n\r\nIn March 2020, China\u2019s State Council cracked down on independent research, issuing a directive requiring political vetting of any research on the coronavirus. A Chinese scientist publishing the coronavirus genome sequence on an open platform had his laboratory closed. Over 800 Chinese individuals were sanctioned by police for COVID-related speech, and individual citizen journalists were disappeared while patients who organized online had their chat groups deleted. This is all consistent with the modern history of China\u2019s health system struggling with whether to report up or censor outbreak alerts, from HIV to SARS to, most recently, H1N1. \r\n\r\nGiven this tortured history with health data, which has been repeated in other countries, it would have been reasonable for the Independent Panel to query when and whether the world will learn of the next outbreak of a new virus. If a UN panel cannot state that suppression of scientists is incompatible with the International Health Regulations, or even with the founding principles of the UN itself, how many doctors might hesitate to blow the whistle? \r\n\r\nHowever, this aversion to sensitive political realities threads through the report, which mentions human rights only once, at the end. The report does describe staggering global inequalities, but without recommendations, though these could have been drawn from many sources: guidance from the UN Human Rights Office, from UNAIDS, from global associations of nurses and other medical workers, or even from the panel\u2019s own commissioned background papers . \r\n\r\nThese omissions are concerning, but rather than blaming the panellists, we might reflect on the largely closed process. A process grounded in a robust, public consultation with civil society and community voices, frontline health care workers and trade unions, might have produced a different result.\r\n\r\nTo put an end to and recover from a catastrophe on the scale of COVID-19 requires greater scope. A democratic and public review of what happened and what did not happen in each region, with the public participating to reflect on what we lived through and bore witness to, could build the global public momentum for real learning and change. \r\n\r\nSuch open and transparent processes have taken place effectively as part of transitional justice in many countries. For example, we can reflect on the Global Commission on HIV and the Law: a global commission on a pandemic hosted by UNDP, it included regional desk reviews based on open submissions, public hearings recorded and archived online, and participation of community activists, who could then use the recommendations and tools that came out of the process to advocate for law and policy reforms at the national level. Its reports continue to be a reliable \u2013 and independent -- resource for scholars, officials, policymakers and activists. \r\n\r\nAn independent commission on pandemic policy could enable wider consultation that creates a lasting historical record, greater trust in science, and a global movement for transformational change. Are we ready to face the difficult truths that such a panel might show us?\r\n\r\nThis oped is reproduced with permission from Geneva Health Files Newsletter #57 (https://genevahealthfiles.substack.com/p/at-risk-covax-plans-to-vaccinate ) The report of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response \u2018COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic\u2019 is included in this newsletter issue and the launch of the report can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-OSqIrF0qA&t=2662s. Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in the oped to the author at sara.davis[at]graduateinstitute.ch. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of gender power relations on women\u2019s health outcomes: evidence from a maternal health coverage survey in Simiyu region, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Garrison-Desany H;  Wilson E; Munos M; Sawadogo-Lewis T; et al: BMC Public Health  21(909), 1-15, 2021 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/2smjvfu","body":"The authors investigated how gender power relations within households affected women\u2019s health outcomes in Simiyu region, Tanzania. Women who reported being able to make their own health decisions were 1.57 times more likely to use condoms. Women who reported that they decide how many children they had also reported high contraception use. Seeking care at the health facility was also associated with women\u2019s autonomy for making major household purchases. The authors observe that the association between decision-making and other gender domains with women\u2019s health outcomes highlights the need for heightened attention to gender dimensions of intervention coverage in maternal health. They suggest that future studies should integrate and analyze gender-sensitive questions within coverage surveys.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards universal health coverage in the WHO African Region: assessing health system functionality, incorporating lessons from COVID-19","field_subtitle":"Karamagi CH;  Tumusiime P;  Titi-Ofei R; et al: BMJ Global Health 6(3) 2021","field_url":"https://gh.bmj.com/content/6/3/e004618","body":"The move towards universal health coverage is premised on having well-functioning health systems. The authors present an approach to provide countries with information on the functionality of their systems in a manner that will facilitate movement towards universal health coverage. They propose four capacities: access to, quality of, demand for essential services and its resilience to external shocks and provide results for the 47 countries of the WHO African Region based on this. The functionality of health systems in these countries ranged from 34.4 to 75.8 on a 0\u2013100 scale. Access to essential services represents the lowest capacity. Funding levels from public and out-of-pocket sources represented the strongest predictors of system functionality. The authors propose that such assessment on the capacities that define system functionality  can help countries to identify where to focus to improve the functioning of the health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"We need to rethink the whole international economic system in terms of rights for poor countries","field_subtitle":"Piketty T: Le Monde, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/9z27t29e","body":"By refusing to lift the patents on vaccines against Covid-19, the author argues that western high income countries have shown an inability to take into account the needs of the South. Beyond the right to produce, the commentary proposes that the debate on the reform of international taxation cannot be reduced to a discussion between rich countries aimed at sharing the profits currently located in tax havens. Plans being discussed at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development envisage that multinationals will make a single declaration of their profits at the global level, in itself is an excellent thing. But when it comes to allocating this tax base between countries, the plan is to use a mixture of criteria (wage bills and sales in different territories) which in practice will result in rich countries receiving more than 95% of the reallocated profits, leaving negligible funds for poor countries. The author suggests that low income countries need to be at the table in such discussions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":" Equitable recovery from COVID-19: bring global commitments to community level ","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; D\u2019Ambruoso L; Minh Duc D; Hjermann R; et al: BMJ Global Health 6:e004757, 2021","field_url":"https://gh.bmj.com/content/6/1/e004757","body":"High level speakers at the December 2020 United Nations General Assembly pointed to the growing inequalities and stress to health, social, economic and democratic systems caused by COVID-19, calling for a range of collective interest driven responses and measures for a sustainable recovery. The pandemic, lockdown and other responses, along with underfunded, poorly prepared and overstretched public sector social and health systems in many countries worsened many dimensions of health and well-being that were already facing deficits, generating a rising health and social debt in communities, the scale and long-term consequences of which are as yet unknown, especially for the most marginalised in society. Rather than \u2018getting back to normal\u2019, the authors argue that recovery and \u2018reset\u2019 demands change to tackle the inequalities, conditions, services, socioeconomic and environmental policies that made people susceptible and vulnerable to COVID-19. Economic recovery should not replicate the features of the global economy that are generating pandemic and other crises. The authors suggest further that for global aspirations to translate into benefit for communities, an equitable recovery should include significant investment in: (1) universal, public sector, primary health care-oriented health services; (2) redistributive, universal rights-based and life course based social protection; and (3) people, especially in early childhood and in youth, as drivers of change. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A People\u2019s Vaccine or Apartheid Vaccine? Challenging WTO and Big Pharma","field_subtitle":"Daraja Press, January 2021","field_url":"https://darajapress.com/2021/01/29/a-peoples-vaccine-or-apartheid-vaccine","body":"Access to health technologies (vaccines, medicines, diagnostics, PPE, ventilators etc) depends on distributed local production. Nationalism and protectionism on these technologies has implied a sustained struggle to get sufficient access to meet population needs, and global measures such as CTAP (for voluntary patent pooling) and COVAX (for vaccine and technology pooling) have not had the support that matches need. One of the barriers is the patent protection in the TRIPS agreement. In this interview, Firoze Manji speaks with Leslie London, Professor of Public Health in the School of Public Health and Family Medicine University at the Cape Town (and an EQUINET steering committee member), and Jens Pedersen from Medicins Sans Frontiers on the issues of access. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"An Assessment of Domestic Financing for Reproductive, Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health (RMNCH) in Sub-Saharan Africa: Potential Gains and Fiscal Space","field_subtitle":"Atim C; Arthur E; Achala D; Novignon J: Applied Health Economics and Health Policy 18, 789\u2013799, 2020","field_url":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40258-019-00508-0","body":"This study analysed the gains from increased domestic financing for improving RMNCH outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). While there were significant gains from both domestic and external financing, the  estimated elasticities suggest that the gains from domestic public financing were much stronger. The fiscal space options identified include tax revenue performance improvements, improved public financial management, and borrowing, at least in the short to medium term. The results show that fiscal space from improved tax systems ranged from US$34.6 per capita in Uganda to US$310.6 per capita in Nigeria. The authors recommend increased domestic financing for health through innovations in domestic resource mobilization, particularly by improving the performance of tax systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Approaches to motivate physicians and nurses in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic literature review","field_subtitle":"Gupta J; Patwa M; Khuu A; Creanga A: Hum Resources for Health 19(4), 1-20, 2021 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ov477hyt","body":"The paper reviews evidence on interventions used to motivate health workers in low- and middle-income countries. The review found supervision, compensation interventions and systems support to play a role.  The authors found there is limited evidence on successful interventions to motivate health workers in low- and middle-income countries and the authors call for studies that use validated and culturally appropriate tools to assess worker motivation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Brief: Ensuring access to COVID-19 related vaccines and health technologies in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET: SEATINI and TARSC, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/guehqw9o","body":"The ability of African countries to mount effective and equitable responses to COVID-19 reflects in part the access that countries have to reliable, sustained, distributed supplies of diagnostics, medicines, vaccines and other health technologies. By 2021 significant inequality in access to vaccines has become clearly evident, a situation that the World Health Organisation director-general called a \u201ccatastrophic moral failure\u201d in January 2021. While noting that vaccine roll out in East and Southern Africa (ESA) is a dynamic situation, this brief discusses the different vaccines and the distribution of vaccines in the region and issues involved in the development and production of vaccines and other health technologies in the region. It raises areas where regional co-operation is taking place and suggests where it could be strengthened.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for expression of interest for Global Health Systems and Health Security Programme","field_subtitle":"Closing date for applications Friday 12th March","field_url":"","body":"University of Leeds Crucible programme is inviting  early career academics from different disciplines in institutions to apply for a transdisciplinary programme on Health Systems for Health Security. The programme is designed to introduce new ways of thinking and working and create long-term collaborations. it will have facilitated sessions, speakers from WHO, NGOs, private and public sector and time to collaborate. Participants will be invited to form project ideas together and for selected projects, Leeds University offers small funding awards to explore preliminary data. This will be a virtual event via zoom in 2021: 29-30 March; 24-25 June and 8-9 September and participants should commit to all dates and complete and send the expression of interest form by the closing date (contact K Banger for further information).\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/64830","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Community health workers\u2019 involvement in the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases in Wakiso District, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Musoke D; Atusingwize E; Ikhile D; Nalinya S; et al: Globalization and Health 17(7), 1-11, 2021 ","field_url":"https://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12992-020-00653-5","body":"This paper assessed the involvement of Community health workers (CHWs) in the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases (NCDs)in Wakiso District, Uganda with a focus on their knowledge, attitudes and practices, as well as community perceptions, through a cross-sectional mixed-methods study. The majority of CHWs correctly defined what NCDs are and mentioned high blood pressure, diabetes and cancer. Many CHWs said that healthy diet, physical activity, avoiding smoking/tobacco use, and limiting alcohol consumption were very important to prevent NCDs. The majority of CHWs who were involved in NCDs prevention and control reported challenges including inadequate knowledge, lack of training, and negative community perception towards NCDs. Community members were concerned that CHWs did not have enough training on NCDs and the community did not have much confidence in them regarding NCDs and rarely consulted them concerning these diseases. The authors recommend enhanced training and community engagement for CHWs to contribute to the prevention and control of NCDs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Community perspectives on the COVID-19 response, Zimbabwe ","field_subtitle":"Mackworth-Young C; Chingono R; Mavodza C; Grace G; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 99(2) 85\u201391, 2021","field_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7856363/","body":"The authors investigated community and health-care workers\u2019 perspectives on COVID-19 and on early pandemic responses during the first 2 weeks of national lockdown in Zimbabwe between March and April 2020.  Phone interviews were done with with one representative from each of four community-based organizations and 16 health-care workers involved in a trial of community-based services for young people. In addition, information on COVID-19 was collected from social media platforms, news outlets and government announcements. Data were analysed thematically. It  emerged that individuals were overloaded with information but lacked trusted sources, which resulted in widespread fear and unanswered questions; communities had limited ability to comply with prevention measures, such as social distancing, because access to long-term food supplies and water at home was limited and because income had to be earned daily; health-care workers perceived themselves to be vulnerable and undervalued because of a shortage of personal protective equipment and inadequate pay and other health conditions were side-lined because resources were redirected, with potentially wide-reaching implications. The authors recommend providing communities with basic needs and reliable information to enable them to follow prevention measures, health-care workers with personal protective equipment and adequate salaries and sustaining health-care services for conditions other than COVID-19.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Corona Diaries: Open source audio stories from around the world","field_subtitle":"Nieman Foundation for Journalism: USA, 2020","field_url":"http://www.deathcertification.org","body":"Corona Diaries is an open platform allowing people around the world to voice their experiences during the pandemic. It\u2019s a place for stories big and small, joyful or sad, one off contributions or daily audio blogs. Every story is welcome. Initiated by former fellows of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, the platform is intended for journalists, artists and creators of all types to then use to make into any media they choose under the Creative Commons licence. It is an open database of recordings forever growing and always accessible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Covid-19 deaths in Africa: prospective systematic postmortem surveillance study","field_subtitle":"Mwananyanda L; Gill C; MacLeod W et al., :BMJ 372 :n334, 2021","field_url":"https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n334","body":"The authors measured the fatalities from Covid-19 in Lusaka. PCR tests were done post mortem on 372 deceased people of all ages at the University Teaching Hospital morgue in Lusaka, Zambia, enrolled within 48 hours of death between June and September 2020; PCR results were available for 364 (97.8%). SARS-CoV-2 was detected in 58/364 (15.9%). Most deaths in people positive for covid-19 (51/70; 73%) occurred in the community and none had been tested for Covid-19 before death. Among the 19/70 people who died in hospital, six were tested before death, while for the 52/70 people with data on Covid-19 related symptoms, only five were tested before death. Covid-19 was identified in seven children, only one of whom had been tested before death. While the proportion of deaths with covid-19 increased with age, 76% were aged under 60 years. The authors  conclude that deaths with covid-19 were more common in Lusaka than indicated in official reports, with most occurring in the community, where testing capacity is lacking, but also due to lower levels of testing in facilities and in those presenting with typical symptoms of covid-19. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Covid-19 Vaccine Equity Tracker","field_subtitle":"Pandem-ic: Online, 2021","field_url":"https://pandem-ic.com/","body":"This site tracks the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of the country income classification. It tracks vaccine distribution relative to global needs and the coverage of total and priority populations, dividing countries into high-income; upper middle-income; lower middle-income and low income The site is refreshed daily.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Environments by Design: Health, Wellbeing and Place: Virtual conference 1-3 December 2021","field_subtitle":"Call for abstracts: submission date 25 June 2021","field_url":"https://architecturemps.com/design-health/","body":"It is tempting to see the recent global concern about health and environments as new. The reality is, it has a long history. The public health profession grew in the housing conditions of the 19th century urban poor, demands for walkable neighbourhoods are long standing and the broader healthy cities agenda globally all pre-date COVID-19. This conference seeks to bring recent experiences and responses into dialogue with longer-standing areas of research into health, wellbeing and environments. The event will have multiple thematic strands built around submissions. The conference welcomes case studies, design proposals, research projects, investigative papers and theoretical considerations as written papers, Zoom and pre-recorded presentations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Information sheet 5 on COVID-19: Pandemic impacts on labour \u2013 experience and responses","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, TARSC, SATUCC, 2021 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/44lpu1i9","body":"This fifth information sheet in the COVID-19 series summarises information on how COVID-19 has affected working people in the ESA region, and the response by workers, unions, states and others, with recommendations for how to better address the impacts. Nearly a million African workers are estimated to have had COVID-19 in 2020, probably more given the low level of testing. Health workers (HWs), those in crowded or poorly protected workplaces or in crowded accommodation, those in common contact with the public and those in caring roles may be more at risk. Informal, migrant, young, disabled and female workers may be more vulnerable to COVID-related disease. Lockdowns and blocks in supply chains have disrupted key areas of employment, affecting working people\u2019s livelihoods, jobs and mental health, and leading to stigma and social insecurity and falling remittances from African migrants and revenues for social protection. Possible responses include public health measures, including now equitable access and vaccines; workplace infection control; social protection to prevent impoverishment; protection of jobs and wage subsidies. Workers and unions have contributed to these responses, despite the pandemic undermining union operations. The brief outlines recommendations to protect workers and their rights at work, noting that not implementing such measures makes the whole of society vulnerable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out quarterly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 227: Working people have experienced COVID-19\u2019s blows, but are central to the region\u2019s recovery","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluating the African food supply against the nutrient intake goals set for preventing diet-related non-communicable diseases: 1990 to 2017 trend analysis","field_subtitle":"Gebremedhin S; Bekele T: Plos One 16(1), 2021","field_url":"https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0245241","body":"The authors evaluated African food balances against the recommendations for macronutrients, free sugars, types of fatty acids, cholesterol and fruits and vegetables over 1990 to 2017, with regional, sub-regional and country-level estimates. In Africa the energy supply increased by 16.6% from 2,685 in 1990 to 3,132 kcal/person/day in 2017. However, the energy contribution of carbohydrate, fat and protein remained constant and almost within acceptable range around 73, 10 and 9%, respectively. In 2017, calories from fats surpassed the 20% limit in upper-middle- or high-income and Southern Africa countries. Energy from free sugars remained constant around 7% but the figure exceeded the limit of 10% in upper-middle- or high-income countries (14.7%) and in Southern (14.8%) and Northern (10.5%) sub-regions. Between 1990 and 2017 the availability of dietary cholesterol per person surged by 14% but was below the upper limit of 300 mg/day. The supply of fruits and vegetables increased by 27.5% from 279 to 356 g/capita/day, but remained below the target of 400 g/capita/day in all sub-regions. While most population intake goals were found to be within acceptable range, the supply of fruits and vegetables are suboptimal and the increasing energy contributions of free sugars and fats are emerging concerns in specific sub-regions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Explaining covid-19 performance: what factors might predict national responses?","field_subtitle":"Baum F; Freedom T; Musolino C; Abramovitz M; et al: BMJ 372(91), 2021","field_url":"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/99/1/20-250456/en/","body":"The Global Health Security Index predicted that the world in general was not well prepared for the pandemic but did not predict individual country preparedness. Ten factors seem to have contributed to the index failing to predict country responses, including limited consideration of globalisation, geography, and global governance, bias to high income countries, failure to assess health system capacity, overlooking the role of political leadership and ideology, overlooking the importance of context, the limits of national wealth as a predictive factor, no examination of inequalities within countries, the importance of social security and the provisions to protect people from losing their jobs and homes. The authors note that civil society capacity was not assessed, and the gap between capacity and its application was also not assessed. The authors argue that future assessments of pandemic preparedness need to take these 10 factors into account by adopting a systems approach which enables a focus on critical system components ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Wage Report 2020-21: Wages and minimum wages in the time of COVID-19 ","field_subtitle":"International Labour Organisation, Geneva, ILO, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/42h2cyye","body":"This ILO report examines the evolution of real wages globally and by region, as well as the relationship between minimum wages and inequality, and the wage impacts of COVID-19 . It identifies the conditions under which minimum wages can reduce inequality and how adequate minimum wages, statutory or negotiated, can play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the  pandemic. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Immunity certification for COVID-19: ethical considerations ","field_subtitle":"Voo T; Reis A; Thom\u00e9 B; Ho C; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation99(2),155\u2013161, 2021  ","field_url":"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/99/2/20-280701/en/","body":"Some countries have considered using immunity certification as a strategy to relax restrictive measures by issuing an immunity passport for people certified as having protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The World Health Organization has advised against the implementation of immunity certification because of uncertainty about the length of time of immunity and concerns over the reliability of methods for determining immunity. However, even if immunity certification became well supported by science, the authors note many ethical issues in terms of the implementation process, its uses, measures in place to reduce potential harms, prevention of disproportionate burdens on non-certified individuals and potential violation of individual liberties and rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Investigation of an anthrax outbreak in Makoni District, Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Makurumidze R; Tafara Gombe N;Magure T; Tshimanga M:  BMC Public Health 21(298), 1-10, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/4g2pgnfn","body":"The authors investigated an anthrax outbreak in Makoni District, Zimbabwe, and assessed the environment, district preparedness and response, and outbreak prevention and control measures. They found that most of the cases were managed according to the national guidelines. Multivariable analysis demonstrated that meat sourced from other villages, skinning, and belonging to religions that permit eating meat from cattle killed due to unknown causes or butchered after unobserved death were associated with contracting anthrax. The poor availability of resources in the district caused a delayed response to the outbreak. Although the outbreak was eventually controlled through cattle vaccination and health education and awareness campaigns, the authors report that the response of the district office was initially delayed and insufficient. They call for strengthened emergency preparedness and response capacity at district level, for revival of zoonotic committees, awareness campaigns and improved surveillance, especially during outbreak seasons.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"It is painful and unpleasant: experiences of sexual violence among married adolescent girls in Shinyanga, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mwanukuzi C; Nyamhanga T: Reproductive Health 18(1), 1-7,  2021","field_url":"https://reproductive-health-journal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12978-020-01058-8","body":"This article reports on a qualitative study of 20 married girls aged 12-17 years' experiences of sexual violence in the Shinyanga Region, Tanzania where there is high prevalence (59%) of child marriage. The study identified four analytical themes regarding the experience of sexual violence, namely: forced sex; rape; struggling against unpleasant and painful sex; and inculcation of the culture of tolerance of sexual violence. The study found that married adolescent girls suffer sexual coercion in silence, increasing their risk of acquiring sexually transmitted infections and or unwanted pregnancies. The authors make recommendations for sexual violence prevention strategies .","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"It\u2019s a secret between us: a qualitative study on children and care-giver experiences of HIV disclosure in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo","field_subtitle":"Sumbi E; Venables E; Harrison R; Garcia M: et al: BMC Public Health 21(313), 1-9, 2021","field_url":"https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-021-10327-5","body":"This paper explored child and care-giver experiences of the process of disclosing HIV statuses to children, including reasons for delay, through 22 in-depth interviews with care-givers and 11 in-depth interviews with HIV positive children in Kinshasa.  Care-givers included biological parents, grandmothers, siblings and community members and 86% of them were female. Many care-givers had lost family members due to HIV and several were HIV positive themselves. Reasons for non-disclosure included fear of stigmatisation; wanting to protect the child and not having enough knowledge about HIV or the status of the child to disclose. Several children had multiple care-givers, which also delayed disclosure, as responsibility for the child was shared. In addition, some care-givers were struggling to accept their own HIV status and did not want their child to blame them for their own positive status by disclosing to them. The authors identify that child disclosure is a complex process for care-givers, health-care workers and the children themselves. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"IWG Fireside Chat: Looking Back, Looking Ahead","field_subtitle":"International Working Group on Health Systems Strengthening: IWG. February 2021","field_url":"https://iwghss.org/2021/02/09/iwg-fireside-chat/","body":"In December, the IWG hosted an event with health professionals with experience in different fields to better understand leadership in health systems, and consolidated the reflections from the discussions. The discussion raised several key features, including: Investing in gender, racial, and geographic equity among global health leaders and health activists; improving teamwork and multidisciplinary collaborations between individuals and communities of diverse skills, capabilities and backgrounds; networking across health leaders and communities and promoting local ownership and leadership. The session also pointed to the importance for the success of public health interventions and initiatives that those affected and implementing them be at the centre of the design and interactions. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Market strategies used by processed food manufacturers to increase and consolidate their power: a systematic review and document analysis","field_subtitle":"Wood B; Williams O; Nagarajan V; Sacks G: Globalization and Health 17 (17), 2021","field_url":"https://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12992-021-00667-7#citeas","body":"The authors reviewed the market strategies deployed by processed food manufacturers to increase and consolidate their power from a systematic review of public health, business, legal and media content databases and of grey literature. The market strategies identified related to six interconnected objectives: i) reducing competition with equivalent sized rivals and maintaining dominance over smaller rivals; ii) raising barriers to market entry by new competitors; iii) countering the threat of market disruptors and driving dietary displacement in favour of their products; iv) increasing firm buyer power over suppliers; v) increasing firm seller power over retailers and distributors; and vi) leveraging  informational power asymmetries in relations with consumers. The authors note that analysing such market strategies promoting unhealthy foods helps to identify countervailing public policies, such as those related to merger control, unfair trading practices, and public procurement, as part of efforts to improve population diets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Planetary Health Online Course","field_subtitle":"Planetary Health Alliance in partnership et al:Online and registration open","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/msh7hos9","body":"The course includes undergraduate-level modules, quizzes, activities, discussion forums, and supplementary resources on the following topics: Planetary health and climate change, Heat waves and heat stress, Air pollution and health, Infectious diseases sensitive to climate change, Pathways for planetary health: from social participation to management, Mental and relational health, Food and planetary health, Water and planetary health. The course is free.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Possible causalities between malnutrition and academic performances among primary schoolchildren: a cross-sectional study in rural Madagascar","field_subtitle":"Aiga H; Abe K; Randriamampionona E; Razafinombana A: BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health 0, 1-12, doi:10.1136/ bmjnph-2020-000192, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ymov83uo","body":"A cross-sectional household survey in Antananarivo-Avaradrano district, Madagascar in November to December 2017 in 404 first and second grade pupils 5\u201314 years of age enrolled in 10 public primary schools explored the link between their nutritional status and academic performances. Not being stunted and attendance rate were identified to be possible causes of higher mathematical proficiency because they satisfied all conditions for a causality.  A hypothetical causal path indicates that \u2018not being stunted\u2019 is likely to have caused higher \u2018attendance rate\u2019 and thereby higher \u2018mathematical proficiency\u2019 in a two-step manner.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Preparedness of health care systems for Ebola outbreak response in Kasese and Rubirizi districts, Western Uganda","field_subtitle":"Kibuule M; Sekimpi D; Agaba A; Halage A; et al: BMC Public Health 21(236), 1-16, 2021","field_url":"https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-021-10273-2","body":"This study assessed the preparedness of the health care facilities for the Ebola (EVD) outbreak response in Kasese and Rubirizi districts in western Uganda. It involved interviews with 189 health care workers and visits to 22 health facilities. Twelve out of the 22 of the health facilities did not have a line budget to respond to EVD and the majority of the facilities did not have case definition books, rapid response teams and/or committees, burial teams, and simulation drills. There were no personal protective equipment that could be used within 8\u2009h in case of an EVD outbreak in fourteen of the 22 health facilities. All facilities did not have viral haemorrhagic fever incident management centers, isolation units, guidelines for burial, and one-meter distance between a health care worker and a patient during triage. The authors recommend proactively tracking the level of preparedness to inform strategies for building capacity of health centers in terms of infrastructure, logistics and improving knowledge of health care workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevalence and Factors Associated with Mental and Emotional Health Outcomes among Africans during the COVID-19 Lockdown Period\u2014A Web-based Cross-Sectional Study","field_subtitle":"Langsi R; Osuagwu U; Goson P; Abu E; et al: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18(3), 899, 2021","field_url":"https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/3/899","body":"This online study assessed the prevalence of mental health symptoms as well as emotional reactions among  2005 respondents aged 18 years and older in seven African countries between 17 April and 17 May 2020 corresponding to the lockdown period in these countries. Respondents self-reported feeling anxious, worried, angry, bored and frustrated. Multivariate analysis revealed that males, those aged >28 years, those who lived in Central and Southern Africa, those who were not married, the unemployed, those living with more than six persons in a household, had higher odds of mental health and emotional symptoms. Health care workers were less likely to report feeling angry than other types of workers. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Putting the public back into public health: Communities organising solidarity responses to Covid-19","field_subtitle":"Whyle E; van Ryneveld M; Brady L; Loewenson R: Maverick Citizen, December 2020 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/1x1pzgl8","body":"This oped draws on EQUINETs 42 case studies of community action on Covid-19 that collectively show innovative and solidarity-based approaches to prevent and care for Covid-19, to address social needs and hold states accountable, and in more detail on the experience with the Community Action Networks in South Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Recorded sessions at the Alternative Mining Indaba (AMI)","field_subtitle":"AMI, February 2021","field_url":"https://altminingindaba.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Alternate-Mining-Indaba-Recording-Report.pdf","body":"Seven hundred participants gathered in the virtual 2021 Alternative Mining Indaba (AMI) on 8-12 February from trade unions, faith-based organizations, community-based organizations, civil society organizations, mining companies, academics and other stakeholders. The AMI, which supports a \u201cjust and people centred\u201d approach to mining, started as a civil society and community grassroots organizations platform to engage with the business-oriented African Mining Indaba, held annually in Cape Town, South Africa. This year, both events were hosted virtually. The sessions under the AMI theme 'Building forward together pivoting the extractives sector for adaptation and resilience against Covid-19' can be viewed online.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"SCORE global report on health data systems and capacity, 2020","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: WHO, Geneva, 2021","field_url":"https://www.who.int/data/data-collection-tools/score/dashboard#/","body":"The World Health Organization provides the first global assessment of country data and health information systems capacities in terms of five 'SCORE' aspects: Survey, Count, Optimize, Review and Enable. The report addresses gaps and inequalities in health information systems and provides recommendations for investment in areas that will have the greatest impact on the quality, availability, analysis, accessibility and use of data. There is a link to the SCORE Online Data Portal and an accompanying Visual Summary of country-level SCORE assessments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania\u2019s Ministry of Health now urges precaution against Covid-19","field_subtitle":"Owere P: The Citizen, Tanzania, February 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/dwju0o7r","body":"The Tanzanian Ministry of Health has now urged citizens to take all the required precautions against Covid-19 including wearing face masks. The statement issued on Sunday, February 21, 2021 by the Head of the Public Relations Unit, Gerard Chami said the Ministry continues to monitor and stress the implementation of precautionary measures against various non-communicable and communicable diseases including outbreaks and Covid-19. Precautions included hand washing, use of sanitizer, exercising, and protection for all those at risk such as the elderly, obese people, and those with chronic illnesses. The statement also urged Tanzanians to get proper nutrition including fruits and vegetables, use natural remedies registered by the council of traditional healers and as advised by relevant professionals and to visit health facilities on witnessing symptoms of illness.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The Contribution of Social Dialogue to Gender Equality","field_subtitle":"International Labour Organisation: ILO, Geneva, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/3byjqhzp","body":"This thematic brief discusses actions that governments, employers\u2019 and workers\u2019 organisations, can take to advance gender equality through social dialogue, drawing on case studies from around the world, in different sectors, in the formal or the informal economy, and during the pandemic. It identifies the circumstances and factors that can help bring about transformative change. The brief examines the role of social dialogue in the application of relevant International Labour Standards on gender equality, including the ground-breaking Violence and Harassment Convention, 2019 (No. 190) and Recommendation No. 206 on the same subject matter. It concludes with some key recommendations for governments and employers\u2019 and workers\u2019 organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of introducing ambulance and delivery fees in a rural hospital in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Vossius C; Mduma E; Moshiro R; Mdoe P; et al: BMC Health Services Research  21 (99), 1-9, 2021 ","field_url":"https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-021-06107-x","body":"This study assessed the impact of introducing user fees on 28 601 births at Haydom Lutheran Hospital, Tanzania, comparing the period before introduction of fees from February 2010 through June 2013 and the period after from January 2014 through January 2017.  The monthly number of births fell by 17.3% after fees were introduced. After the introduction of ambulance and delivery fees, the study found an increase in labour complications and caesarean sections and a decrease in newborns with low birthweight. The authors suggest that this might indicate that women delayed seeking skilled birth attendance or did not seek help at all, possibly due to financial reasons, and argue that free delivery care should be a high priority.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Inequality Virus: Bringing together a world torn apart by coronavirus through a fair, just and sustainable economy","field_subtitle":"Berkhout E; Galasso N; Lawson M; Morales P; et al: Oxfam Briefing Paper, Oxfam International, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/kkykhkee","body":"This report highlights the ways that the coronavirus pandemic has the potential to lead to an increase in inequality in almost every country at once, the first time this has happened since records began. The virus has exposed, fed off and increased existing inequalities of wealth, gender and race. Over two million people have died, and hundreds of millions of people are being forced into poverty while many of the richest \u2013 individuals and corporations \u2013 are thriving. Billionaire fortunes returned to their pre-pandemic highs in just nine months, while recovery for the world\u2019s poorest people could take over a decade. While the pandemic has exposed a collective frailty and the inability of a deeply unequal economy to work for all, it has also shown the vital importance of government action to protect health and livelihoods. Transformative policies that seemed unthinkable before the crisis have suddenly been shown to be possible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Unhealthy geopolitics: can the response to COVID-19 reform climate change policy?","field_subtitle":"Cole J; Dodds K: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 99(2), 77-168, 2021","field_url":"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/99/2/20-269068/en/","body":"The geopolitics of pandemics and climate change intersect. Both are complex and urgent problems that demand collective action in the light of their global and trans-boundary scope. In this article a geopolitical framework is used to examine some of the tensions and contradictions in global governance and cooperation that are revealed by COVID-19. The authors argue that the pandemic provides an early warning of the dangers inherent in weakened international cooperation. The world\u2019s states, with their distinct national territories, are reacting individually rather than collectively to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many countries have introduced extraordinary measures that have closed, rather than opened up, international partnership and cooperation, including in border closures, restrictions on social mixing, domestic purchase of public health supplies and subsidies for local industry and commerce. For the poorest countries of the world, pandemics join a list of other challenges that are exacerbated by pressures of scarce resources, population density and climate disruption, and have a disproportionate impact on those living with environmental stresses. The authors highlight the need for a coordinated global response to addressing challenges that cannot be approached unilaterally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"What do we know about COVID-19 spread in Africa?","field_subtitle":"Daraja Press, 5 February 2021","field_url":"https://darajapress.com/2021/02/05/what-do-we-know-about-covid-19-spread-in-africa","body":"This interview between Firoze Manji Daraja press and Dr Rene Loewenson, Training and Research Support Centre explores evidence and knowledge gaps on COVID-19 in east and southern Africa, drawing on EQUINET information briefs and other sources. The interview identifies positive examples of state and public proactive responses to the pandemic in the region, the challenges faced and what learning that brings for equity in responding to pandemics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Working people have experienced COVID-19\u2019s blows, but are central to the region\u2019s recovery","field_subtitle":"Matsiame Mafa, Rene Loewenson, Paliani Chinguwo, Mavis Koogotsitse","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThere is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected working people. In September 2020, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) reported that beyond workers exposure to COVID-19 infection in their living and working conditions and experience of COVID-19-related disease, workplace closures and job losses have significantly reduced workers\u2019 incomes. \r\n\r\nAn EQUINET information sheet included in this newsletter, produced jointly with the Southern African Trade Union Co-ordination Council (SATUCC), outlines how COVID-19 has affected working people in the East and Southern Africa region, and the responses to these impacts. \r\n\r\nPublicly reported data on COVID-19 is not disaggregated by economic activity or occupation. It is thus difficult to know how the pandemic has differently affected different categories of workers. Health workers (HWs) are, however, widely understood to be at greater risk of infection due to the nature of their work, especially when they work without adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) or in conditions that lack adequate infection control measures. \r\n\r\nHowever other workers are also at risk, such as those who work in crowded, poorly ventilated workplaces. The Minerals Council of South Africa reported in June 2020, for example, that mineworkers had twice the rates of infection than the general population. Carers, vendors or service providers who are in common contact with the public may also have higher risk of exposure. There is a gender dimension to this, as many of these workers are women. Most HWs are female and African countries that disaggregate their data found that 72% of all HWs testing positive for COVID-19 were women. \r\n\r\nMigrant labour is common in the region. Migrant workers have faced challenges in accessing services or been trapped when lockdowns close borders on them. Border closures and costs of testing can lead to crowding at borders and an increase in use of irregular travel routes across frontiers, as was reported when migrants returned home at the end of 2020. \r\n\r\nWhile remote work is indicated as an option to prevent transmission, only about 10% of workers are estimated to be able to do this in the region, largely those at higher incomes who can afford data charges to the internet.  This is not possible for most workers. While workers are increasingly aware of what raises their risk of infection, the precarious nature of many jobs and incomes in the region mean that many continue to work in environments that they know put them at risk. As a union official from the metal workers union in South Africa (NUMSA) noted: \u201cThe workers are aware that these are extremely dangerous spaces, but decide to risk it simply because they don\u2019t have the means to stay in isolation, feed their children, or care for themselves without due pay.\u201d  \r\n\r\nBeyond the risks of infection, the response to COVID-19 has raised its own stresses for working people. Lockdowns and blocks in supply chains have disrupted jobs, livelihoods and mental health. \r\n\r\nA SATUCC study found that by mid-2020 over 42 000 labour contracts had been suspended in Mozambique; 680 000 employees had lost jobs in Malawi, and 70 000 in Zambia. An East African Confederation of Trade Unions (EATUC) assessment found that already by mid-May 2020, one million informal jobs and over 200 000 formal jobs had been lost in Kenya in the wake of the pandemic.  The pandemic meant that 68% of people with disabilities in Kenya were not able to work and perceived their jobs to be insecure due to their disability.  Where COVID-19-related messages have induced fear of outsiders, migrant workers may be stigmatized. Migrant job losses are reported to have reduced remittances that many families in the region rely on. \r\n\r\nThere is now guidance, including from the ILO and World Health Organisation, on the public health, workplace infection control and personal protective equipment measures required for different employment settings. Some ESA governments have also reduced income tax and VAT, provided wage subsidies and distributed food and other basic goods, as important areas of support for working people. \r\n\r\nHowever, there has often been a gap between guidance and practice, and schemes have not always reached the most insecure workers who need them the most. HWs in Zimbabwe, Kenya and South Africa have protested over lack of PPE, and the ILO reports that migrant workers often do not access the testing, treatment, wage subsidy and other social protection measures that are provided to other workers. Informal sector workers have difficulties with the formal documentation that social protection systems ask for. Vital information does not effectively reach workers with disabilities if it is not made available in sign languages, video captioning, or other forms that they can access. \r\n\r\nTrade unions have engaged on these issues, even though the pandemic has undermined union communication and operations. Beyond their contribution to national task forces on COVID-19 in some countries, unions have engaged when employers have taken wage subsidies but still imposed unpaid leave on or retrenched workers, or failed to provide PPE. Unions have also flagged wider concerns, such as how the conditions accompanying with international funding of rescheduled debt repayments may further undermine employment and the funding of public services.\r\n\r\nWhile there is now a significant focus on access to vaccines and technologies, a comprehensive public health response to the pandemic, including to distribute vaccines, depends on formal and informal, male and female workers from many sectors, and the full involvement and protection of communities. \r\n\r\nThis link between workers and communities is fundamental. As a union shop-steward noted in the recent Alternative Mining Indaba, \u201cin the day I am a mineworker,   but when I go home to my family I am the community.\u201d  \r\n\r\nWorking people of different types fill the gaps in the social protection systems in the region so that vulnerable people in communities are not further impoverished by the pandemic. The economic recovery that is now critical in our region will not be possible without workers and communities. It will also not be meaningful unless it is a recovery of the productive opportunities, jobs, incomes, capacities and protection of all working people in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"WTO COVID-19 TRIPS waiver proposal: Myths, realities and an opportunity for governments to protect access to lifesaving medical tools in a pandemic","field_subtitle":"Medecins Sans Frontieres: Access Campaign, 2021","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/v4t2rb9n","body":"One of the challenges faced in the COVID-19 pandemic is the negative impact that intellectual property (IP) barriers have had in the past and are anticipated to have on the scale up of manufacturing and supply of lifesaving COVID-19 medical tools across the world. Because the pandemic is an exceptional global crisis, the World Trade Organization (WTO) can invoke a waiver of certain IP rights on these technologies under WTO rules. Given this, South Africa and India submitted a landmark proposal earlier this year to the WTO requesting that WTO members waive four categories of IP rights \u2013 copyright, industrial designs, patents and undisclosed information under the Agreement of Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) until the majority of the world population receives effective vaccines and develops immunity to COVID-19. In the course of discussion, opponents of the TRIPS waiver proposal have raised arguments against the waiver. This brief presents the reasons for the waiver, and addresses the counter arguments to the points raised by those opposing it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Young public health professionals reflect on leadership for just health systems","field_subtitle":"Ghiwa Nasser Eddine, Laura Haywood, Malvikha Manoj, Magali Collonnaz, IWG","field_url":"","body":"For emerging public health professionals like ourselves, the COVID-19 pandemic has lifted a smokescreen on inequities in health and made clear that we need to invest in and strengthen our health systems. While the pandemic is all consuming, other challenges have not stopped, and we face public health demands on many fronts. Antimicrobial resistance, social injustice, forced displacement, non-communicable diseases, and climate change are real concerns. \r\n\r\nWhile it should not have taken a pandemic to provoke self-reflection, it has opened a window of opportunity for new thinking, to transcend silos that have traditionally existed within public health, and to re-imagine a world where health systems work for all and not just for some. \r\n\r\nThis takes leadership. So as emerging public health professionals in the International Working Group for Health Systems Strengthening (IWG) we have been exploring and stimulating open discussion between ourselves on what it takes to build the sort of bold, committed, responsible and innovative health leadership that can face such challenges in a world that we see as ever-changing and often chaotic. We also do this by learning from health trailblazers that have accumulated experience, such as in a fireside chat we held at the end of 2020 on the theme \u2018Looking Back, Looking Forward\u2019 (at https://iwghss.org/2021/02/09/iwg-fireside-chat/). \r\n\r\nThese interactions have pointed to the importance of core values as the basis for a leadership that can guide efforts and rally others to collaborate on a common cause.  We have seen how public health efforts to tackle challenges advance when collective success is valued over individual success. In public health, the success of one requires the success of many. We also understand that health leadership means building people-centered comprehensive public health systems, where public health professionals consider, dialogue and work with the members of the community as the most critical aspect of every intervention or initiative they work on. \r\n\r\nThese insights led us to reflect on what health leadership means for us as emerging public health professionals, as we move forward on our career paths. \r\n\r\nFirst, we believe that we need to understand the history that lies behind today\u2019s realities and power, if we are to understand how the work we do will confront or shape this distribution of power. For example, colonial legacies that informed the emergence of global ideas in health persist today and continue to affect power imbalances across gender, race, and geography, among others. We see this when northern institutions and knowledge sources frame the dominant narrative in a way that minimizes the rich history of leadership and innovation in the global south. It is our responsibility to understand this history of health and development and what it has meant for public health today, to shape the actions we take.  \r\n\r\nSecondly, in our reflections, we perceive that we must constantly return to our values and convictions. These are not just words to write down, but actions to live by, whether in the organizations we work in, the work we do, or in our interactions with people. For example, \u2018respect for diversity, equity, and equality\u2019 is a core value for IWG, so we see that we need to reflect this in our own processes, by giving space for different perspectives, and co-producing outcomes that are the result of a united team effort that captures the diversity among all our members.\r\n\r\nFinally, in the face of pressures to compete, we see finding your team and collaborating as a critical feature of leadership in health. Health systems that work for all need diverse, empowered voices that work as a team, where we keep asking who is at the table, and more importantly, who is not at the table; and why. Having a collaborative, interdisciplinary, diverse team seems to not only strengthen practice, but also to mitigate blind-spots that may otherwise be ignored, particularly in efforts to advance justice and equity. \r\n\r\nAs emergent public health professionals we appreciate that the field we are in is complex and dynamic, but also fulfilling. What we think and do now is shaping our futures, but also the future of public health. Ultimately, it is up to each of us to be the change we want to see around us. The pandemic has opened a window of opportunity for us to step up and step into a more just vision for public health. Now, it is our turn as young professionals to make that vision happen.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in the two editorials to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2021-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"'We are subjects, not objects in health\u2019: Communities taking action on COVID-19","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Colvin C; Rome N; Nolan E; et al: Training and Research Support Centre in the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) and Shaping Health, September 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yxrekzre","body":"This document provides evidence of practical and affirmative options of people-centred, participatory forms of community organising and engagement in diverse areas of prevention, care and wider social protection in responding to COVID-19. The 42 case studies from different regions intend to inspire, inform and support. They report the creative development and use of social media platforms for action across all areas of response, connecting people within and across communities and countries, giving voice and visibility to community experiences and linking people to key resources and services. They demonstrate that a compassionate society enhances public health. Many build on histories, ideologies, structures, organisation and relationships that began long before the pandemic, enabling a relatively rapid response to new challenges posed by COVID-19 and with an intention to sustain relevant innovations after the pandemic. They reach to socio-economically disadvantaged groups within communities, strengthening collective organisation, investing in capacities and leadership and making links with more powerful groups to address local priorities and negotiate delivery on state obligations. They build new relationships between communities and producers and between communities and health workers, and solidarity interactions with international agencies and diaspora communities. The challenges presented by the pandemic are creating demand and space for innovation, and in many settings communities are rising to that demand. The mobilization of affirmative community effort and creativity needs to be recognised in the story of the 2020 pandemic. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"All Risk and No Reward: How the Government and Mine Companies Fail to Protect the Right to Health of Miners and Ex-Miners in Botswana","field_subtitle":"Botswana Labour Migrants Association, Centre for Economic and Social Rights, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law Centre for International Human Rights, Botswana, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y6adg245","body":"All Risk and No Reward presents the findings of a two-year investigation into the right to health of miners and ex-miners in Botswana. It describes in vivid detail a series of critical issues for their health and the health of their communities. The report also considers the Government and mine companies' financial responsibilities to equitably generate, allocate and spend sufficient funds for health. The report is based on extensive desk research, and interviews and focus groups discussions with more than 50 miners, ex-miners, family and community members, doctors and nurses, and government and industry officials in Botswana.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"An overview of reviews on strategies to reduce health inequalities","field_subtitle":"Garz\u00f3n-Orjuela N; Samac\u00e1-Samac\u00e1 D; Angulo S; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 19(192), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-020-01299-w, 2020","field_url":"https://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-020-01299-w","body":"Governments are incentivized to develop and implement health action programs focused on equity to ensure progress with effective strategies or interventions. This study identified strategies that facilitate the reduction of health inequalities. A systematic search strategy identified 4095 articles, of which 97 were included in the synthesis. Most of the studies included focused on the general population, vulnerable populations and minority populations. The subjects of general health and healthy lifestyles were the most commonly addressed. According to the classification of the type of intervention, the domain covered most was the delivery arrangements, followed by the domain of implementation strategies. The most frequent group of outcomes was the reported outcome in (clinical) patients, followed by social outcomes. The authors note that the strategies that facilitate the reduction of health inequalities must be intersectoral and multidisciplinary in nature, including all sectors with the health system. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Announcement on the Maternal Health Judgement, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Centre for Human Rights and Development: Youtube, Uganda, 2020","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwU4KRraomw","body":"After a long nine years of waiting, the Centre for Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) finally received the judgment in the famous Petition 16 maternal health case on 19th August, 2020. The Constitutional Court agreed with CEHURD submissions and all judges accepted all the grounds of the petition. Through this judgment, the right to maternal health care (and the right to health broadly) has been granted a place in Uganda\u2019s Constitution. This judgment recognizes provision of basic maternal health care services and emergency obstetric care as an obligation by the government. It\u2019s through unremitting advocacy, litigation and activism that CEHURD achieved this landmark decision. It took a whole movement/coalition on maternal health to realize what a few thought would be possible. CEHURD now turn their efforts to the implementation. Investing in maternal health is a political and social imperative, as well as a cost effective investment in strong health systems overall. The #Petition16 judgment entails some very powerful declarations and orders on health financing. This case creates positive jurisprudence and makes it possible for people to sustain a cause of action in the right to health against the state for failing to provide the basic minimum health care package.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Archive of Forgetfulness: Conversations with Neighbours","field_subtitle":"Tayob H; Kona B: Archive of Forgetfulness, South Africa, November 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yxwzqxby","body":"Archive of Forgetfulness presents a podcast series: Conversations with Neighbours. The conversations explore, among other themes, art in times of crisis, questions around memory and archival absences, and the possibilities and limitations of translation. You will hear from artists, musicians, curators, researchers and theatre-makers in Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa and Sudan. The conversations interrogate ways of narrating movement across borders, suggesting a re-mapping of relations across the continent, north and south, east and west, home and away.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing the geographical distribution of comorbidity among commercially insured individuals in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Mannie C; Kharrazi H: BMC Public Health 20(1709), 1-11, doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09771-6, 2020","field_url":"https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-020-09771-6","body":"This study assessed the geographical distribution of comorbidity and its associated financial implications among commercially insured individuals in South Africa. The authors aggregated individual risk scores to determine the average risk score per district, also known as the comorbidity index, to describe the overall disease burden of each district The authors observed consistently high comorbidity index scores in districts of the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal provinces for all population groups before and after age adjustment. Some areas exhibited almost 30% higher healthcare utilization after age adjustment. Districts in the Northern Cape and Limpopo provinces had the lowest comorbidity index scores with 40% lower than expected healthcare utilization in some areas after age adjustment. The results show underlying disparities in the comorbidity index at national, provincial, and district levels. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Basic Epidemiological Concepts - 2020 (2nd cohort)","field_subtitle":"Pan American Health Organisation: PAHO, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y6nxdmrl","body":"This Skills Online Program aims to help public health practitioners develop and strengthen their knowledge and skills in order to make better-informed public health decisions. The EPI1: Basic Epidemiological Concepts module is the first in a set of three modules on epidemiology in public health and is the only one currently being offered through PAHO's Virtual Campus for Public Health. The module provides an introduction to some key epidemiologic concepts, allowing participants the opportunity to enhance their understanding of the fundamentals of epidemiology, and build skills in applying basic epidemiological principles to their work as public health practitioners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Cape Town Together: organizing in a city of islands","field_subtitle":"Writers\u2019 Community Action Network: ROAR Mag, South Africa, June 2020","field_url":"https://roarmag.org/essays/cape-town-together-organizing-in-a-city-of-islands/","body":"An emerging movement of self-organized, decentralized community action networks is responding to the local realities of COVID-19 in Cape Town, South Africa. It reflects an unprecedented city-wide response to COVID-19, based on principles of self-organizing, mutual aid and social solidarity. In early March 2020, just as South Africa was waking up to the spectacle of COVID-19 within its borders, a group of community organizers, activists, public health folk and artists came together and kick-started a community-led response to the pandemic. This became known as Cape Town Together, a growing network of neighbourhood-level Community Action Networks (CANs) spread across the city. The CANs act locally, while also sharing collective wisdom and various resources through the broader network of Cape Town Together. They work collaboratively, recognizing that everyone brings something to the table. Some are weavers and builders, others are storytellers, caregivers or healers. Some are disruptors whilst others are experimenters and guides. The CANs have galvanized a significant number of people from across the city around a shared experience. Many are seeing the inequality exposed by COVID-19 in a new light and will remain galvanized beyond the immediate crisis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges and Opportunities in China\u2019s Health Aid to Africa: Findings from Qualitative Interviews in Tanzania and Malawi","field_subtitle":"Daly G; Kaufman J; Lin S; Gao L; et al: Globalization and Health  16(71), 1-10 doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00577-0, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3ue299l","body":"This paper presents a qualitative study of perceptions and opinions regarding Chinese-supported health related activities in Africa through in-depth interviews among local African and Chinese participants in Malawi and Tanzania. The findings revealed shared experiences and views related to challenges in communication; cultural perspectives and historical context; divergence between political and business agendas; organization of aid implementation; management and leadership; and sustainability. Participants were broadly supportive and highly valued Chinese investment in health. However, they also shared common insights on challenges in communication between health teams; and limited understanding of priorities and expectations, and the need to improve needs assessments, rigorous reporting, and monitoring and evaluation systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Communities, universal health coverage and primary health care ","field_subtitle":"Sacks E; Schleiff, M; Were M; Ahmed Mushtaque Chowdhuryc A; et al:  Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 98, 773\u2013780, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.20.252445, 2020  ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yx9sxlcz","body":"With much of the world\u2019s population still lacking access to basic health services, evidence shows that community-based interventions are effective for improving health-care utilization and outcomes when integrated with facility-based services. Community involvement is the cornerstone of local, equitable and integrated primary health care (PHC). Policies and actions to improve PHC must regard community members as more than passive recipients of health care. Instead, they should be leaders with a substantive role in planning, decision-making, implementation and evaluation. Metrics used for evaluating PHC and Universal health coverage largely focus on clinical health outcomes and the inputs and activities for achieving them. Little attention is paid to indicators of equitable coverage or measures of overall well-being, ownership, control or priority-setting, or to the extent to which communities have agency. In the future, communities must become more involved in evaluating the success of efforts to expand PHC. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Community engagement: a health promotion guide for universal health coverage in the hands of the people ","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: WHO, Geneva, 2020","field_url":"https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240010529","body":"WHO has defined community engagement as \u201ca process of developing relationships that enable stakeholders to work together to address health-related issues and promote well-being to achieve positive health impact and outcomes\u201d. The organisation notes undeniable benefits to engaging communities in promoting health and wellbeing. This guide is intended for change agents involved in community work at the level of communities and healthy settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"COVID-19\u2019s impact on HIV treatment less severe than feared","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: UNAIDS New York, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yythw3x6","body":"Recent data has shown that the COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on HIV testing services, but the impact on HIV treatment is less than originally feared. As of August 2020, the UNAIDS, World Health Organization and United Nations Children's Fund data collection exercise to identify national, regional and global disruptions of routine HIV services caused by COVID-19 had collected treatment data from 85 countries. Of these, 22 countries reported data over a sufficient number of months to enable the identification of trends.  Only five countries reported monthly declines in the number of people on treatment after April\u2014these include Zimbabwe in June, Peru and Guyana in July, the Dominican Republic in April, and Sierra Leone in May through to July. The remaining 18 countries did not show a decline and some countries showed a steady increase (e.g. Kenya, Ukraine, Togo and Tajikistan). However, among the 22 countries with trend data on numbers newly initiating treatment, all countries except Jamaica showed declines for at least one month or more relative to January. Only around eight of those countries showed a rebound in the number of people newly initiating treatment between January and July. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Davidson Gwatkin Equity Measurement Prize ","field_subtitle":"Date to submit nominations: 1 May 2021","field_url":"https://www.equitytool.org/equity-measurement-prize/","body":"Metrics for Management is excited to announce the launch of the Davidson Gwatkin Equity Measurement Prize. This annual juried competition will award up to four cash prizes each valued between $5,000 and $10,000 to an individual or team of authors for research that uses the EquityTool and its data to assess and improve services that reach the poor or to gain insight into wealth equity in low- and middle-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Developed countries continue to block TRIPS waiver proposal","field_subtitle":"TWN: Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Nov20/24), November 2020","field_url":"https://www.twn.my/title2/wto.info/2020/ti201124.htm","body":"Following the waiver proposal to suspend various provisions of the WTO\u2019s TRIPS Agreement in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States, the European Union, Japan, and Switzerland among others are reported to have adopted \u201cstonewalling\u201d tactics to block progress towards a General Council decision on this issue. These countries have described the waiver as a departure from the past WTO agreements, lacking specific measures, arguing also that not protecting intellectual property (IP) will reduce investment in medical technology.  In response South Africa commented that current \u201cbilateral deals do not demonstrate global collaboration but rather reinforce nationalism, enlarging chasms of inequality.\u201d India said that while \u201cthe TRIPS flexibilities do allow limited policy space for public health, they were never designed to address a health crisis of this magnitude (such as the COVID-19 pandemic).\u201d The waiver proposal has come into a global stage where it is increasingly clear that the developing and least-developed countries are unlikely to get easy and affordable access for the new therapeutics and vaccines for COVID-19, calling for human lives to take precedence over the profits of the big pharmaceutical companies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Engaging with faith groups to prevent violence against women in conflict-affected communities: results from two community surveys in the DRC","field_subtitle":"Le Roux E; Corboz J; Scott N; Sandilands M; et al: BMC International Health and Human Rights 20(27), 1-20, doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12914-020-00246-8, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yy5bpgbj","body":"This paper addresses interventions to address intimate partner violence (IPV) against women and girls by engaging with faith communities and their leaders. Two community surveys were conducted, one before and one after the intervention, in three health areas in Ituri Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Questionnaires were interviewer-administered, with sensitive questions related to experience or perpetration of violence self-completed by participants. The study showed significantly more equitable gender attitudes and less tolerance for IPV after the interventions. Positive attitude change was not limited to those actively engaged within faith communities, with a positive shift across the entire community in terms of gender attitudes, rape myths and rape stigma scores, regardless of level of faith engagement. There was a significant decline in all aspects of IPV in the communities who experienced the intervention. This intervention was premised on the assumption that faith leaders and faith communities are a key entry point to influence an entire community. The research affirmed this assumption.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out quarterly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 226: Putting the public back into public health: communities organising solidarity responses to COVID-19","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Examining determinants of gender attitudes: evidence among Tanzanian adolescents","field_subtitle":"Palermo T: Chzhen Y:  Balvin N; Kajula L; et al:  BMC Women's Health  20(195), doi:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-020-01057-8, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3n7lv3x","body":"This study examines determinants of gender attitudes among some of the poorest and most vulnerable adolescents in Tanzania using an ecological model. Data come from baseline interviews with 2458 males and females aged 14\u201319\u2009years conducted within a larger impact evaluation. Secondary school attendance was associated with more equitable gender attitudes. Females had less equitable gender attitudes than males in the sample. Having had sexual intercourse was associated with more gender equitable attitudes among females, but the reverse was true among males. Addressing gender inequity requires understanding gender socialisation at the level of social interactions. The finding that females had more inequitable gender attitudes than males in the study is argued by the authors to suggest that more emphasis be given to highlighting the rights of women with female adolescents. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Feral Atlas: The More-Than-Human Anthropocene","field_subtitle":"Tsing A; Deger J; Saxena A; Zhou F: Stanford University, doi: 10.21627/2020fa, 2020 ","field_url":"https://feralatlas.org","body":"Feral Atlas invites you to explore the ecological worlds created when nonhuman entities become tangled up with human infrastructure projects. Seventy-nine field reports from scientists, humanists, and artists show you how to recognize \u201cferal\u201d ecologies, that is, ecologies that have been encouraged by human-built infrastructures, but which have developed and spread beyond human control. These infrastructural effects, Feral Atlas argues, are the Anthropocene. Playful, political, and insistently attuned to more-than-human histories, Feral Atlas does more than catalogue sites of imperial and industrial ruin. Stretching conventional notions of maps and mapping, it draws on the relational potential of the digital to offer new ways of analysing\u2014and apprehending\u2014the Anthropocene; while acknowledging danger, it demonstrates how in situ observation and transdisciplinary collaboration can cultivate vital forms of recognition and response to the urgent environmental challenges of our times.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Hostile Environment(s) \u2013 Designing Hostility, Building Refugia","field_subtitle":"Pezzani L:  ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, unibz \u2013 Faculty of Design and Art in collaboration with Z33 \u2013 House of Contemporary Art, Design & Architecture, Hasselt, 2020","field_url":"http://www.hostileenvironments.eu/about","body":"Hostile Environment(s) \u2013 Designing Hostility, Building Refugia is an expanded programme investigating the political ecology of migration and border violence. Through a series of lectures, workshops, screenings, commissioned texts and other materials delivered both online and in-person it provides an index and archive of materials that are regularly be updated with new content. The term \u201chostile environment\u201d draws from legislation in UK, denying migrants from Africa and other countries deemed to be illegal access to work, housing, services and education. Far from being an exceptional condition, however, this process of making (urban) space unlivable for some resonates with the ways in which certain \u201cnatural\u201d terrains (oceans, deserts, mountains) have been structured to deter and expel migrants. These materials seeks to capture these interconnected processes, investigating how certain forms of racialized violence have become as pervasive as the climate. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"How should community health workers in fragile contexts be supported: qualitative evidence from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Democratic Republic of Congo","field_subtitle":"Raven J; Wurie H; Idriss A; Bah A; et al: Human Resources for Health  18(58), 1\u201414, doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-020-00494-8, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y4od9ztn","body":"This paper presents evidence from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Democratic Republic of Congo on how community health workers (CHWs) are .managed, the challenges they face and potential solutions. According to the findings: fragility disrupts education of community members so that they may not have the literacy levels required for the CHW role; with implications for the selection, role, training and performance of CHWs. Policy preferences about selection need discussion at the community level, so that they reflect community realities. CHWs\u2019 scope of work is varied and may change over time, requiring ongoing training. The modular, local and mix of practical and classroom training approach worked well, helping to address gender and literacy challenges and developing a supportive cohort of CHWs. A package of supervision, community support, regular provision of supplies, performance rewards and regular remuneration is argued to be vital to the retention and performance of CHWs, as are predictable supervision, supplies, community recognition and allowances. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"How to talk about COVID-19 in Africa","field_subtitle":"Nyabola N: The Boston Review, USA, October 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y5wwpyl4","body":"To ask why COVID-19 hasn\u2019t been deadlier in Africa is to suggest that more Africans should be dying. We need better questions. Almost every major international news outlet has asked a variation of the question. Some speculate that something structural or physiological has dampened the impact of COVID-19 on Africa\u2019s population; otherwise, Africa would be faring worse. Others argue that African governments are simply doing a better job of managing the disease than other regions, despite evidence to the contrary. Neither analysis reflects the complex realities of COVID-19 in Africa. The question itself, in its crudest form, has provoked considerable, justifiable anger on social media in various African countries. Yet as the deaths mount in Brazil, India, the United States, and the UK, and as Europe prepares for its second wave, the official death toll in African countries remains low. Even in South Africa, the most severely affected African country, confirmed deaths are far fewer than predicted. Experts are left wondering why their predictions were wrong. To ask why more Africans aren\u2019t dying of COVID-19 exposes the expectation that when the world suffers, Africa must suffer more. We can learn collectively from the questions we ask. Knowledge-making is about grappling with useful questions\u2014those that move humanity toward a greater understanding of shared circumstances. But questions that distract from meaningful comparisons dominate the current moment. \u201cWhy aren\u2019t more Africans dying of COVID-19,\u201d like so many questions about Africa, fails to illuminate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Imagining Impacts \u2013 The Goethe-Institut in Africa","field_subtitle":"African Centre for Cities, October 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y69cx3qw","body":"The African Centre for Cities and the Goethe-Institut are collaborating on a project entitled Imagining Impacts that explores the role of culture on the continent through a range of regionally focused, and locally specific projects  related to 1) decolonisation and just transitions in Africa; 2) solidarity, support and social cohesion; 3) spaces for daring and dissent; and 4) power and agency. The project will provide events and activities in 2021 where these issues can be thought through collectively.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"In, against, beyond, corona","field_subtitle":"Butler M, Church Land Programme: Daraja Press, October 2020","field_url":"https://darajapress.com/publication/in-against-beyond-corona","body":"The authors raise that the COVID-19 pandemic reveals what is wrong and toxic \u2014 in ourselves, in relation with others, and in relation with the rest of non-human nature and ask: 'is it possible to also look for what is good and life-affirming?' The authors argue that the future must be founded on \u2018kindness, social solidarity and an appropriate scale of time\u2019, a future that cherishes life and the connections that transcend borders. This pamphlet, part of Daraja Press\u2019s Thinking Freedom Series, distills learnings from the work of activists on the ground in the Church Land programme in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"International AIDS Society\u2019s (IAS) COVID-19 Conference: Prevention!","field_subtitle":"Online, registration closes 14 January 2021","field_url":"https://covid19.iasociety.org/about/","body":"IAS \u2013 the International AIDS Society \u2013 will host the IAS COVID-19 Conference: Prevention, with a special focus on prevention, on Tuesday, 2 February 2021. In recognition of the urgent need to analyse research, review policy and exchange frontline experiences related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2nd IAS COVID-19 Conference with a special focus on prevention will feature the latest in prevention related science, policy and practice. The conference will take place virtually and will include invited-speaker sessions and abstract presentations. The conference programme is designed to include the latest science on COVID-19 and its impact on health and beyond \u2013 with perspectives on policy, access and financing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Legal and institutional foundations for universal health coverage, Kenya ","field_subtitle":"Mbindyo R; Kioko J; Siyoi F; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 98, 706\u2013718, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.19.237297, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y2upkm4h","body":"To gain a picture of the extent of the health reforms over the first 10 years of the Kenyan constitution, the authors developed an adapted health-system framework, guided by World Health Organization concepts and definitions. The analysis revealed multiple structures (laws and implementing public bodies) formed across the health system, with many new stewardship structures aligned to devolution, but with fragmentation within the regulation sub-function. By deconstructing normative health-system functions, the framework enabled an all-inclusive mapping of various health-system attributes (functions, laws and implementing bodies). The authors believe their framework is a useful tool for countries who wish to develop and implement a conducive legal foundation for universal health coverage. Constitutional reform is argued to be a mobilizing force for large leaps in health institutional change, boosting stakeholder acceptance and authority to proceed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Letter supporting proposal by India and South Africa on waiver from certain provisions of the TRIPS agreement for the prevention, containment and treatment of COVID-19","field_subtitle":"Civil society signatories: 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3q9oc95","body":"This open letter calls on WTO Members to strongly support the adoption of the text proposed by India and South Africa in their proposal for \u201cWaiver from certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement for the prevention, containment and treatment of COVID19\u201d (Waiver Proposal), recognising the consensus that curbing the spread of COVID-19 demands international collaboration to speed and scale up development, manufacturing, and supply of effective medical technologies, with calls including from several Heads of State for medical products for COVID-19 to be treated as global public goods. Seven months into the pandemic, there is no meaningful global policy solution to ensure access, inequality in access to critical technologies, rejection by the pharmaceutical industry of the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) launched by WHO to voluntarily share knowledge, IP and data, has been rejected by the pharmaceutical industry and intellectual property infringement disputes.  While the TRIPS Agreement contains flexibilities that can promote access, many WTO Members may face challenges in using them promptly and effectively. The signatories argue that unless concrete steps are taken at the global level to address intellectual property and technology barriers, the above mentioned failures and shortcomings will replay as new medicines, vaccines and other medical products are rolled out. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal and newborn care during the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya: re-contextualising the community midwifery model","field_subtitle":"Kimani R; Maina R; Shumba C; Shaibu S: Human Resources for Health 18(75), 1-5, doi:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-020-00518-3, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y5j3p37q","body":"Peripartum deaths remain significantly high in low- and middle-income countries, including Kenya. The authors outline how the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted essential services, which could lead to an increase in maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity. The lockdowns, curfews, and increased risk for contracting COVID-19 may affect how women access health facilities. They argue for a community-centred response, not just hospital-based interventions. In this prolonged health crisis, pregnant women deserve a safe and humanised birth that prioritises the physical and emotional safety of the mother and the baby. The authors propose strengthening community-based midwifery to avoid unnecessary movements, decrease the burden on hospitals, and minimise the risk of COVID-19 infection among women and their newborns.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Measures to strengthen primary health-care systems in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Etienne V Langlois E; Andrew McKenzie A; et al.: Bulletin World Health Organisation 98, 781\u2013791, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.20.252742, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yyd7okxn","body":"In this paper, the primary health-care (PHC) systems in 20 low- and middle-income countries were analysed using a semi-grounded approach. Options for strengthening PHC were identified by thematic content analysis. The authors found that despite the growing burden of non-communicable disease, many low- and middle-income countries lacked funds for preventive services;  community health workers were often under-resourced, poorly supported and lacked training;  out-of-pocket expenditure exceeded 40% of total health expenditure in half the countries studied, which affected equity; and health insurance schemes were hampered by the fragmentation of public and private systems, underfunding, corruption and poor engagement of informal workers. In 14 countries, the private sector was largely unregulated. Moreover, community engagement in PHC was weak in countries where services were largely privatized. In some countries, decentralization led to the fragmentation of PHC. Performance improved when financial incentives were linked to regulation and quality improvement, and community involvement was strong. The authors argue for policy-making to be supported by adequate resources for PHC implementation and that government spending on PHC should be increased by at least 1% of gross domestic product. Devising equity-enhancing financing schemes and improving the accountability of PHC management is also said to be needed. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"None of us are safe, until we are all safe","field_subtitle":"Valley D; Brady L; Magiligwana A; Mgedle M: Cape Town Together, 2020","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTyacJioDsA","body":"This video, accompanying a song by Mzikhona Mgedle from the Langa Community Action Network (CAN), captures the dynamism and energy of Cape Town Together and the Community Action Networks while highlighting the many ways in which COVID-19 has challenged South Africans to demonstrate new and better forms of solidarity. Across the geographic, economic and social barriers that are a consequence of Apartheid history, community-led COVID-response networks are forming partnerships based on trust, inter-personal connection and shared goals. The music video draws footage from a range of CAN projects, including community kitchens, medicine-delivery schemes and food gardens to demonstrate the power of collective action. As the song states, none of us are safe, until we are we are all safe","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Over 80 per cent of IMF Covid-19 loans will push austerity on poor countries","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: Oxfam UK, United Kingdom, 2020","field_url":"http://oxfamapps.org/media/wjo37","body":"Over 80% of the International Monetary Fund\u2019s (IMF) Covid-19 loans recommend that poor countries hit hard by the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic adopt tough new austerity measures in the aftermath of the health crisis. Since the pandemic was declared in March, 76 out of 91 IMF loans \u2013 84% \u2013 negotiated with 81 countries push for belt-tightening that could result in deep cuts to public healthcare systems and social protection. Government failure to tackle inequality \u2015through support for public services, workers\u2019 rights and a fair tax system\u2015 left them woefully ill-equipped to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic. The authors argue that the IMF has contributed to these failures by consistently pushing a policy agenda that seeks to balance national budgets through cuts to public services, increases in taxes paid by the poorest, and moves to undermine labour rights and protections. As a result, when Covid-19 hit, only one in three countries, covering less than a third of the global workforce, had safety nets for workers to fall back on if they lost their job or became sick. The analysis also found that just 8 out of 71 World Bank health emergency response projects approved between April and end of June this year aim to eliminate healthcare fees, which are prohibitive in at least 56 of these countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"PHASA 2021: \u2018Keeping the promise: closing the gap'","field_subtitle":"15 - 17 February 2021, University of Pretoria, City of Tshwane, South Africa ","field_url":"http://phasa.samrc.ac.za/theme.html","body":"The Public Health Conference is organized every year by Public Health Association of South Africa to bring together public health professionals, researchers, policy-makers, academics, students and trainees to strengthen efforts to improve health and well-being, share the latest research and information, to promote best practices and to advocate for public health issues and policies grounded in research. The organisers note that 2020 stands at a cross road of two major events: it marks 20 years\u2019 anniversary of PHASA; and 10 years away from the 2030 sustainable development agenda. The Symposia core themes include: \u2018health and wellbeing\u2019, \u2018universal health coverage\u2019, and \u2018sustainable cities and communities\u2019. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevalence and patterns of gender-based violence across adolescent girls and young women in Mombasa, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Bhattacharjee P;  Ma H; Musyoki H; Cheuk E; et al: BMC Women's Health 20(229), 1-11,  doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-020-01081-8, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yy8jhp2g","body":"This study sought to estimate the prevalence of gender-based violence (GBV) in adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) through a cross-sectional survey in Mombasa, Kenya in 2015. The main perpetrators of violence were intimate partners for young women engaged in casual sex, and both intimate partners and regular non-client partners for young women engaged in transactional sex. For young women engaged in sex work, first-time and regular paying clients were the main perpetrators of physical and sexual violence. Alcohol use, ever being pregnant and regular source of income were associated with physical and sexual violence though it differed by subgroup and type of violence. AGYW in these settings experience high vulnerability to physical, sexual and police violence. However, they are not a homogeneous group, and the variation in prevalence and predictors of violence needs to be understood to design effective programmes to address violence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Putting the public back into public health: communities organising solidarity responses to COVID-19","field_subtitle":"Eleanor Whyle, University of Cape Town, Manya van Ryneveld, University of the Western Cape, Leanne Brady, University of Cape Town, Rene Loewenson, TARSC","field_url":"","body":"The COVID-19 pandemic and its socioeconomic consequences have affected all Eastern and Southern African (ESA) countries. The long-term impacts still remain to be seen. While COVID-19 affects everyone, it does not affect everyone equally. It has entrenched and exacerbated the extreme inequalities and injustices that existed before the pandemic. \r\n\r\nThe collective insecurity generated by the pandemic requires a decisive public health response. This response has, however, tended to apply centralised, top-down and undemocratic decision-making, often using \u2018war\u2019 narratives that prompt or reinforce fear, and that promote individual self-protection. Reactive interventions have not adequately taken local conditions and rights into account, prevented longer-term harms to health, including from gender violence, nor protected income, food security or social trust.\r\n\r\nHowever, the pandemic also offers an important opportunity to demonstrate that alternative, people-centred, democratic and collective responses are possible. Indeed they are essential, not just to prevent and contain infection and mitigate the impact of the pandemic, but also to \u2018build back\u2019 using a stronger, more compassionate and equity-driven form of public health. \r\n\r\nIn October, EQUINET published 42 case studies of community action on COVID-19 that collectively demonstrate examples of this (see https://tinyurl.com/yxrekzre).  The case studies come from different settings, income levels and dimensions of the response. They show innovative and solidarity-based approaches to prevent and care for COVID-19, to address social needs and hold states accountable. They provide a powerful argument for public participation and collective action in health. \r\n\r\nOne of the case studies, the Cape Town Together Community Action Network (CAN), tells the story of a self-organising network that emerged in March 2020 in South Africa as a community-led response to COVID-19.\r\n\r\nIn early March, it was clear from other countries that formal responses would struggle to keep up with the pace of the virus. As a network of autonomous, neighbourhood-level groups working together to respond to local challenges as and when they emerge, Cape Town Together felt that bottom-up community organising could spread faster than the virus and could rapidly identify and respond to its emerging health, social and economic impacts. \r\n\r\nThe Community Action Networks (CANs) actively work against a tendency to centralise planning, decision-making and management. They reject hierarchies of knowledge, resources and power. Each neighbourhood CAN operates independently and autonomously, while drawing on the collective energy and wisdom of the network as a whole. The hyper-local nature of the CANs allows for street-level organising, reminiscent of anti-apartheid activism. Generosity, trust and solidarity are important foundational principles. The CANs prioritise relationships over bureaucracy.  They are enabled by inter-personal connections built during lockdown conditions largely through online co-learning, WhatsApp groups and Zoom meetings. \r\n\r\nAt the peak of the pandemic this decentralised, self-governing structure provided vital support where formal social safety nets failed, including public health guidance, mask-making clubs, community gardens, community care centres for COVID-positive people who could not safely self-isolate at home, and food and medicine deliveries to elderly people.\r\n\r\nA few weeks after South Africa initiated its hard lockdown, 47% of households were suffering from extreme food insecurity. Across Cape Town, CANs distributed food parcels and established community kitchens. With rapid communication across the network, CANs shared experience and resources, learned from each other and worked with public health services to follow COVID-19 safety protocols in the community kitchens. Beyond the hot meals provided, the community kitchens became safe, organic spaces, enabling protective behaviours and information sharing. They responded to local social needs in a way that was inclusive, welcoming and free of stigma and shame. \r\n\r\nThe CANs generated community-level intelligence. In their inclusion of community members, researchers and local public servants, they enabled informal communication. They built trust between communities and health system actors, through dialogue and co-learning forums between CANs and health sector decision-makers. They made input into educational materials developed by the health department. With the lived local realities of those most affected by the pandemic often very different to that of health department officials, these connections proved invaluable in framing appropriate measures. \r\n\r\nThe CANs aim to support and not substitute state efforts, and this was initially possible. However, the shortcomings within state efforts became a subject of an increasingly politicised debate. For example, some CANs and local civil society organisations formed a coalition that protested the unlawful eviction of residents in informal settlements. Political actors reacted by asserting that the CANs were acting unlawfully and presented a political threat. When another CAN renovated a badly vandalised and unused public community hall, the local ward councillor accused them of unlawfully occupying the space. \r\n\r\nSuch tensions may be inevitable where community initiatives highlight deficits in state responses and provide different approaches. Bottom-up initiatives such as the CANs call for and contribute to alternative forms of governance that celebrate, enable and invest in community-led public health responses.  \r\n\r\nThe case studies in the EQUINET report show that community-engaged and -led responses and relationships are more likely when they build on prior histories of social networking and organisation around social justice. The relationships, the citizen scientist and activist leadership, the connections with public, professional and civil society organisations and prior activities on different dimensions of wellbeing enabled a relatively rapid, collectively-organised range of health responses to the pandemic. Information technology was used to organise collective understanding and action.  The case studies also show the importance of investing in comprehensive primary health care systems for an effective and equitable response to pandemics. If we continue to frame our health systems only in terms of efficiency-led measures to treat particular diseases and top-down responses to emergencies, we weaken the ability mobilise the relationships, capacities and creativity within communities, networks and service personnel, or the multi-sectoral responses needed to prevent and address the many health challenges we face from such crises. \r\n\r\nWe hear many negative stories about COVID-19. Yet these compassionate stories of equity, rights-driven and holistic responses also need to be documented and told. They show a solidarity-driven response to COVID-19, and that people are subjects not objects in health. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the CANs please visit the https://capetowntogether.net/  and https://www.facebook.com/groups/CapeTownTogether","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Racial Equity 2030","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: January 28, 2021","field_url":"https://www.racialequity2030.org","body":"Racial Equity 2030 calls for bold solutions to drive an equitable future for children, their families and communities. This $90 million challenge seeks ideas from anywhere in the world and will scale them over the next decade to transform the systems and institutions that uphold inequity. Solutions may tackle the social, economic, political or institutional inequities one sees today. Teams of visionaries, change agents and community leaders from every sector are invited to join. Up to 10 Finalists will each receive a one-year $1 million planning grant and nine months of capacity-building support to further develop their project and strengthen their application. At least three awardees will each receive a $20 million grant and two will each receive a $10 million grant. Grants will be paid out over nine years. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaiming comprehensive public health","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Accoe K; Bajpai N: Buse K: et al: BMJ Global Health 5(9) 1-5, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003886, 2020","field_url":"https://gh.bmj.com/content/5/9/e003886.full","body":"Global and national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic highlight a long-standing tension between biosecurity-focused, authoritarian and sometimes militarised approaches to public health and, in contrast, comprehensive, social determinants, participatory and rights-based approaches. Notwithstanding principles that may limit rights in the interests of public health and the role of central measures in some circumstances, effective public health in a protracted pandemic like COVID-19 requires cooperation, communication, participatory decision-making and action that safeguards the Siracusa principles, respect for people\u2019s dignity and local-level realities and capacities. Yet there is mounting evidence of a dominant response to COVID-19 where decisions are being made and enforced in an overcentralised, non-transparent, top-down manner, often involving military coercion and abuse in communities, even while evidence shows the long-term harm to public health and human rights. In contrast, experiences of comprehensive, equity-focused, participatory public health approaches, which use diverse sources of knowledge, disciplines and capabilities, show the type of public health approach that will be more effective to meet the 21st century challenges of pandemics, climate, food and energy crises, growing social inequality, conflict and other threats to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaiming Comprehensive Public Health: A Call to Action","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A growing group of public health, social justice and human rights advocates, including a number from EQUINET, have released a Call to Action to heads of state and government at the 3-4 December UN General Assembly Special Session on COVID-19 to promote comprehensive, equity-focused and participatory public health approaches in countering the pandemic, drawing on and using diverse sources of knowledge, disciplines and capabilities.\r\n\r\nThe Call builds on a recent commentary by on Reclaiming Comprehensive Public Health in BMJ Global Health (the link is included in a later section in this newsletter) and contributions by a group of people working in public health from different regions globally, including a number from east and southern Africa. Over 250 individuals and leading organisations and networks have signed the Call so far and signatories are still invited. The full Call is at https://bit.ly/RCPHcall together with a link to sign on and other resources. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Recovering Better from COVID-19 Will Need a Rethink of Multilateralism","field_subtitle":"Kozul-Wright R: Development (2020) 1-5, doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41301-020-00264-y, 2020","field_url":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41301-020-00264-y","body":"The world economy is experiencing a deep recession amid a still unchecked pandemic.  The author argues that the commitment to recovering better will not materialize if, as happened after the global financial crisis, high income countries resort to a policy mix of austerity, liberalization and quantitative easing. Such an approach will only worsen a whole set of pre-existing conditions and in particular, high inequality, excessive debt (both public and private and weak investment\u2014that will lead to a lost decade, particularly for low income countries. What is proposed to be needed instead is an expansionary plan for global recovery, that can return even the most vulnerable countries to a stronger position than before the crisis. This paper sets out some of the key elements of such a plan and argues that its implementation will require systematic reforms to the multilateral trade and financial system if a more resilient recovery is to turn into a sustainable and inclusive future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Spending, Accountability, and Recovery Measures included in IMF COVID-19 loans","field_subtitle":"Oxfam, United Kingdom, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y2v4f3na","body":"To respond to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has committed $1 trillion and so far provided $89 billion worth of financial assistance to countries around the world. Oxfam has tracked this COVID-19 financing and fiscal measures referenced in each of the 91 packages approved so far using official IMF reports for the respective countries. The tracker covers the amounts of funding IMF committed and disbursed to borrowing countries by region, types of financing instruments the Fund has employed, the borrowing countries\u2019 current debt situation, fiscal policy measures, particularly social spending aimed at addressing the crisis, anti-corruption and transparency measures which countries have committed to undertake, and proposed fiscal measures for the recovery period. The text provided in this tracker is a compilation of select and relevant quotes/excerpts from official IMF reports while the debt data was drawn from the World Bank\u2019s Debtor Reporting System. The tracker has been compiled for the benefit of persons and institutions wanting a snapshot view of what governments are borrowing, what they intend to do with these funds, what the IMF is encouraging countries to take during the pandemic and in the recovery period, and to give citizens and civil society a tool to hold their governments and the IMF accountable. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Thandika Mkandawire: A \u2018young\u2019 African economist\u2019s appreciation","field_subtitle":"Chelwa G: Journal of African Studies, doi: 10.1080/00020184.2020.1836913, 2020","field_url":"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00020184.2020.1836913","body":"At the invitation of African Studies, Grieve Chelwa reflects on Thandika Mkwandawire\u2019s life and work and impact on the social and economic sciences in Africa. Mkwandawire\u2019s career spanned over four decades with a long and diverse list of publications. Chelwa refers to five specific publications that have helped to make sense of Africa\u2019s place and the place of African economists in the seemingly never-ending debates about the continent\u2019s prospects for economic development. Chelwa calls these his favourite things, \u2018because Thandika was African development scholarship\u2019s saxophonist.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Using evidence and analysis for an adaptive health system response to COVID-19 in Uganda in 2020","field_subtitle":"Kadowa I: EQUINET Case study paper, Ministry of Health Uganda, TARSC:  EQUINET: Harare, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yyqrt6r4","body":"Uganda reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19 on 21 March 2020. The country has since implemented a series of public health measures to limit the spread of the virus. The pandemic has progressed from imported cases through sporadic community cases to stage four, with widespread community transmission. This paper documents how evidence and analysis were used to support decision-making for an adaptive health system response to COVID-19 in Uganda in 2020. A desk review was thus implemented using published and grey literature covering the period from February to October 2020 to document the nature and organisation of different data and related evidence used to support projections, planning and decision-making on the surveillance, prevention, care and health system response to COVID-19. The desk review also looked at how evidence was used and communicated across different actors to support adaptive responses. While there have been challenges, Uganda\u2019s response to COVID-19is reported to have been dynamic, responding to different sources of evidence, and through different institutional channels and actions, with the latter generating evidence and experience that feeds back to the response.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"What Does the Seventy-third World Health Assembly Mean For Socio-economic Survival of Countries, Food Security, and International Cooperation in the COVID-19 Pandemic","field_subtitle":"Ssemakula M: People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM) and Human Rights Research Documentation Centre (HURIC) \u2013UGANDA, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y6xj6vwq","body":"COVID-19 has underpinned unprecedented economic instability and global food supply disruptions in Africa. This has put global cooperation (aid, partnerships and concession finance) on test after the economic downturn in the world economy performance. This article provides a discourse on damaging interruptions caused by the pandemic on socio- economic survival of countries and food security, and how that relates to the gaps in interventions in IHR core principles reported by WHO member states and UN agencies at seventy-third World Health Assembly, which PHM closely followed through its WHO Watch programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"What Is COVID-19 Teaching Us About Community Health Systems? A Reflection From a Rapid Community-Led Mutual Aid Response in Cape Town, South Africa\u2019","field_subtitle":"Van Ryneveld M; Whyle E; Brady L;  Int Jo Health Policy and Management x(x), 1-4, doi: 10.34172/ijhpm.2020.167, 2020","field_url":"https://www.ijhpm.com/article_3904_e4aea0e55d269d384d5371f3009ff358.pdf","body":"COVID-19 has exposed the wide gaps in South Africa\u2019s formal social safety net, with the country\u2019s high levels of inequality, unemployment and poor public infrastructure combining to produce devastating consequences for a vast majority in the country living through lockdown. In Cape Town, a movement of self- organising, neighbourhood-level community action networks (CANs) has contributed significantly to the community- based response to COVID-19 and the ensuing epidemiological and social challenges it has wrought. This article describes and explains the organising principles that inform this community response, with the view to reflect on the possibilities and limits of such movements as they interface with the state and its top-down ways of working, often producing contradictions and complexities. This presents an opportunity for recognising and understanding the power of informal networks and collective action in community health systems in times of unprecedented crisis, and brings into focus the importance of finding ways to engage with the state and its formal health system response that do not jeopardise this potential. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"What role can health policy and systems research play in supporting responses to COVID-19 that strengthen socially just health systems? ","field_subtitle":"Gilson L; Marchal B; Ayepong I; Barasa E; et al: Health Policy and Planning (czaa112), doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czaa112, 2020","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/advance-article/doi/10.1093/heapol/czaa112/5918196","body":"In the context of COVID-19, this paper outlines how health policy and systems research (HPSR) can both address current short-term challenges, and support the system transformations needed to strengthen people-centred and equitable health systems over the long term. Due to the acute nature of  the pandemic, few papers have yet focused on how health systems are coping with or adapting to the pandemic, or how health policy-making and decision-making has (or has not) changed in this time of crisis. This paper makes proposals for a structured research agenda to inform health policy and system responses to COVID-19 that can move us beyond the current crisis, and into the future, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cThey have been neglected for a long time\u201d: a qualitative study on the role and recognition of rural health motivators in the Shiselweni region, Eswatini","field_subtitle":"Walker C; Burtscher D; Myeni J et al: Human Resources for Health 18(66) 1-9, doi:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-020-00504-9, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y68e27a9","body":"This study was implemented to understand the role of rural health motivators (RHMs) in decentralised HIV/TB activities.  Participants were purposively selected RHMs, community stakeholders and local and non-government personnel. Significant confusion of the RHM role was observed, with community expectations beyond formally endorsed tasks. Community participants expressed dissatisfaction with receiving health information only, preferring physical assistance in the form of goods. Gender emerged as a significant influencing factor on the acceptability of health messages and RHM engagement with community members. The findings highlight the lack of recognition of RHMs at community and national levels, hindering their capacity to successfully contribute to positive health outcomes for rural communities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to sexual and reproductive health commodities in East and Southern Africa: a cross-country comparison of availability, affordability and stock-outs in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia","field_subtitle":"Ooms G; Kibira D; Reed T; van den Ham H; et al: BMC Public Health 20(1053) doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09155-w, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y4l594od","body":"Price, availability and stock-out data was collected in July 2019 for over fifty lowest-priced sexual and reproductive health (SRH) commodities from public, private and private not-for-profit health facilities in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Affordability was calculated using the wage of a lowest-paid government worker. Accessibility was illustrated by combining the availability and affordability measures. Overall availability of SRHC was low at less than 50% in all sectors, areas and countries, with highest mean availability found in Kenyan public facilities. Stock-outs were common; the average number of stock-out days per month ranged from 3\u2009days in Kenya\u2019s private and private not-for-profit sectors, to 12\u2009days in Zambia\u2019s public sector. In the public sectors of Kenya, Uganda and Zambia, as well as in Zambia\u2019s private not-for-profit sector, all were free for the patient. In the other sectors unaffordability ranged from 2 to 9 SRH commodities being unaffordable. Accessibility was low across the countries, with Kenya\u2019s and Zambia\u2019s public sectors having six SRH commodities that met the accessibility threshold, while the private sector of Uganda had only one meeting the threshold. Accessibility of SRH  commodities remains a challenge. Low availability in the public sector is compounded by regular stock-outs, forcing patients to seek care in other sectors where there are availability and affordability challenges. The authors propose that the findings be used by national governments to identify the gaps and shortcomings in their supply chains.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"An overview of the commercial determinants of health","field_subtitle":"Mialon M: Globalization and Health 16(74), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00607-x, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yyyjl3w3","body":"This desk review provides an overview of the commercial determinants of health. The commercial determinants of health are reported to cover three areas. First, they relate to unhealthy commodities that are contributing to ill-health. Secondly, they include business, market and political practices that are harmful to health and used to sell these commodities and secure a favourable policy environment. Finally, they include the global drivers of ill-health, such as market-driven economies and globalisation, that have facilitated the use of such harmful practices. The discussion on the commercial determinants of health is argued to offer an opportunity to shift the dominant paradigm in public health, so ill-health, damages to the environment, and health and social inequalities, might be better understood through a commercial determinant lens.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Brief: COVID-19 in East and Southern Africa: developments in the pandemic, July 2020 ","field_subtitle":"EQUINET and ECSA HC: Mimeo, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yxrqw9e4","body":"This information sheet is the second presenting work summarising evidence as of July 17 2020 from official and scientific population data across countries in east and southern Africa (ESA) on the COVID-19 pandemic, the responses to it and the relationship with other indicators of population health, health systems and health determinants. The information sheet aims to address four questions: What is happening with COVID-19 testing and detection? How and where is the epidemic progressing over time? How has the health system responded? What are the implications for wider vulnerability? In terms of the epidemic profile, increased testing has improved case detection, although still at low levels for an effective public health response. The pandemic continued to take different forms in different ESA countries. In terms of the health system response, the evidence in July indicated continued constraints in accessing diagnostics, limiting case detection, despite reasonable surveillance capacities. In terms of wider vulnerability, the slower, sustained increase in cases in the ESA region were noted to raise concern on the effects of sustained implementation of measures such as school and workplace closures. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges and Opportunities in China\u2019s Health Aid to Africa: Findings from Qualitative Interviews in Tanzania and Malawi","field_subtitle":"Daly G; Kaufman J; Lin S; Gao L; et al: Globalization and Health 16(71) doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00577-0,  2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y2o5uxtm","body":"Perceptions regarding Chinese-supported health related activities in Africa were gathered through in-depth interviews among local African and Chinese participants in Malawi and Tanzania. The findings revealed shared experiences and views related to challenges in communication; cultural perspectives and historical context; divergence between political and business agendas; organization of aid implementation; management and leadership; and sustainability. Participants were broadly supportive and highly valued Chinese health aid. However, they also shared common insights that relate to challenging coordination between China and recipient countries; impediments to communication between health teams; and limited understanding of priorities and expectations. Further, they share perspectives about the need for shaping the assistance based on needs assessments as well as the importance of rigorous reporting, and monitoring and evaluation systems. The authors\u2019 findings suggested that China faces similar challenges to those experienced by other longstanding development aid and global health funders. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Community Statement on Covid-19 Realities, and Demands for a More Adequate and People-centred Response - Chiawelo Budgeting for Change","field_subtitle":"Chiawelo Budgeting for Change (CBC) group: Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute, South Africa, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yy8hhkf2","body":"\u201cIn Chiawelo, we are united as a community; people are kind, loving and supportive but most of all it's a place full of diversity- it allows us to learn different cultures, languages and teaches us to respect different people\u201d. These are the words of eighteen-year-old Sanele Nkosi, the youngest member of the Chiawelo Budgeting for Change (CBC) Group, based in Soweto, Johannesburg. The group is a reflection of Sanele\u2019s words, including many different people from many different walks of life: traditional Healers, local community members, clinic workers, community health workers, ward based outreach teams, clinic committee members and local government officials amongst others. In this Community Statement, the group highlight with evidence the health realities and resource gaps faced around the COVID-19 pandemic, including lack of access to social protection, food security, sanitation and adequate health care, gender-based violence, unsafe transport and reopening of educational institutions, youth unemployment, lack of support to the small business sector, for those in chronic unemployment and for community-led COVID-19 responses and safety initiatives and poor working conditions for Community Health Workers.  They call for resources for a people- centred response to the COVID-19 pandemic and access to the rights people are entitled to.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Comparisons of social and demographic determinants of tobacco use in the Democratic Republic of the Congo","field_subtitle":"Colwell B; Mosema K; Bramble M; et al: Globalization and Health 16(66), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00593-0, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y5jbk4f6","body":"This study examined social determinants of tobacco use in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), including region, sex, ethnicity, education, literacy, wealth index and place of residence, to gain insights on tobacco use among sub-national groups. The project analysed data from the DRC 2013\u20132014 Demographics and Health Survey. Tobacco use was found to be highest among working poor people, those with less education and low literacy. Older age people and those living in larger cities were more likely to smoke , although the relationship between age and smoking was not linear. Wealth was strongly related to smoking as was being engaged in services, skilled and unskilled manual labour and the army.  Being in a professional, technical or managerial position was highly protective against smoking.  The authors observe that the data indicate that tobacco use in the DRC, as is common in low income countries, is heavily concentrated in working poor people with lower educational status. Higher educational status is consistently predictive of avoiding tobacco use. They argue that examining only national-level data to ascertain tobacco use levels and patterns may lead to mistaken conclusions and inefficient and ineffective allocation of resources for control of tobacco use.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Conclusions and outcomes from SATUCC seminars during the 16th Southern African Civil Society Forum","field_subtitle":"SATUCC: Botswana, August 2020","field_url":"https://satucc.org/2020/08/21/conclusions-outcomes-from-satucc-seminars-during-16th-civil-society-forum/","body":"The 16th Southern African Civil Society Forum (CSF) was held remotely in late August due to the challenges posed by COVID-19. In seminars at the forum hosted by SATUCC, and with evidence presented from studies implemented for SATUCC, it was noted that the pandemic has amplified a number of challenges that workers were already facing before COVID-19, such as increase of insecure and informal work, lack of social protection and rising unemployment, exacerbating poverty and inequalities. Youth were found to be more vulnerable due to high youth working poverty rates and because the youth are over-represented in vulnerable and informal employment. Young women are facing an increasing double burden to manage both paid work and unpaid care and household work due to widespread school closures. The sessions identified that trade unions should be actively involved in the formulation and implementation of responses to COVID-19 at both national and regional level and that the issues facing workers should be addressed in social dialogue and in the collective bargaining agreements. Trade unions should be pro-active in bringing alternative proposals for building sustainable economies after the pandemic. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Coronavirus: Ten African innovations to help tackle Covid-19","field_subtitle":"BBC, August 2020","field_url":"https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53776027","body":"As Africa passes more than a million confirmed Covid-19 cases, innovators on the continent have responded to the challenges of the pandemic with a wide range of creative inventions. These innovations include the \u2018Doctor Car\u2019 designed by students from the Dakar Polytechnic School. This multifunctional robot is designed to lower the risk of Covid-19 contamination from patients to caregivers. The device is equipped with cameras and is remotely controlled via an app. The designers say it can move around the rooms of quarantined patients to take their temperatures and deliver drugs and food. Nine-year-old Kenyan schoolboy Stephen Wamukota invented a wooden hand-washing machine to help curb the spread of coronavirus. The machine allows users to tip a bucket of water to wash their hands by using a foot pedal. This helps users avoid touching surfaces to reduce the risk of infection. Other innovations include portable ventilators designed in Nigeria, 3d printed masks in South Africa, solar powered hand sinks from Ghana, and online platforms for x-rays from Tunisia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"COVID-19 in East and Southern Africa: Rebuilding Differently and Better Must Start Now","field_subtitle":" Loewenson R: MEDICC Review 22(3), doi: https://doi.org/10.37757/MR2020.V22.N3.13, 2020","field_url":"http://mediccreview.org/covid-19-in-east-and-southern-africa-rebuilding-differently-and-better-must-start-now/","body":"This paper outlines how for ESA countries, COVID-19 has exposed the weakness in being dependent on research and production outside the region of commodities that are needed in good time for communities and services across the region. This not only relates to current demand, like test kits. It forewarns that African countries will be last in the queue when COVID-19 treatments and vaccines are approved. Tariff reductions and reduced protections for domestic industry have suited a global strategy of \u2018lowest-cost-production\u2019 but leave ESA countries vulnerable in the global competition for products. The author also notes that COVID-19 has pointed to resources in the region that could play a more significant role in public health. The Ebola experience showed that an effective response demands collaborative work that involves communities and is supported by professionals, governments and accessible, capable public services. This is the same lesson learned from the gains made in health by applying primary health care strategies in the region, despite their being weakened by underfunding of public services. In contrast, the response to COVID-19 has often generated a self-protective response across countries in global trade and a command-and-control response within countries. Yet neither are effective strategies for a global pandemic that demands distributed local capacities and action. Noting the UN call to use COVID-19 as an opportunity \u201cto rebuild differently and better, the author observes that this begins with how we respond to COVID-19 today, and raises what this implies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"COVID-19 Pandemic Disrupts HIV Continuum of Care and Prevention: Implications for Research and Practice Concerning Community-Based Organizations and Frontline Providers","field_subtitle":"Pinto R; Park S: AIDS and Behaviour 24(286-2489) doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-020-02893-3, 2020","field_url":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10461-020-02893-3#citeas","body":"More quickly than they could have anticipated, people living with (PLWH) and those at-risk for HIV felt the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, as they were asked to shelter in place and distance themselves from others. In March and April 2020, community-based organizations (CBOs) closed, medical offices cut hours, and medical personnel shifted from primary care to COVID-19 hospital units, affecting the HIV Continuum of Care and Prevention\u2014that is, testing, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), and primary care. The authors call for further research, review and monitoring to provide evidence on referral practices and links that could help clients access the HIV services to which they are referred (\u201creferral completion\u201d). ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"COVID-19: South Africa, India call for enabling technology transfer in TRIPS","field_subtitle":"Third World Network: TWN Info Service on Health Issues, August 2020","field_url":"https://twn.my/title2/health.info/2020/hi200805.htm","body":"At the WTO\u2019s TRIPS Council meeting on 30 July, members discussed South Africa\u2019s proposal (IP/C/W/665) for members to come up with proposals, share information and national experiences, pointing out how the 2030 SDGs may be achieved through an effective framework for technology transfer. India reminded the TRIPS Council that any discussion on \u201cE-Commerce will lack meaning if the gaping digital divide, partly arising out of lack of access to technologies and furthered by the pandemic, continues to exist.\u201d In conclusion, India said that \u201cit is of utmost importance for developing countries to adopt e-commerce and IP policies that are mutually supportive and in line with their developmental goals and policy specificities.\u201d ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"COVID-19: The place of the right to health in the national response for Uganda","field_subtitle":"Mulumba M: Center for Health Human Rights and Development (CEHURD), May 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y5gkdvo3","body":"As the state and non-state actors take steps in dealing with COVID-19, the author argues for an awareness of the need to urgently strike a balance between prevention approaches and rights with collective responsibilities. From a right to health perspective, it is important for the government of Uganda to ensure that prevention and treatment measures and commodities are available, accessible, and affordable for the most vulnerable communities including: the older persons, those under incarceration, refugees and very poor people. Community participation and solidarity are pillars that have historically been critical in controlling and managing similar outbreaks in Uganda. The author argues for an attentiveness to ensure that research and clinical trials comply with key ethical and human rights principles and that government makes full use of the policy space Uganda has in intellectual property as an LDC to enable it utilise new innovations. The paper points to the need to review and ensure provisions under the Public Health Act enable an effective and equitable response to pandemics like COVID-19, to ensure regulatory approval for new medicines and attention to developing new formulations for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out quarterly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 225: Experiences and insights on COVID-19 and equity","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evidence for decisions in the time of COVID-19: Eyes on Africa","field_subtitle":"Jessani N; Langer L; van Rooyen C; Stewart R: The Thinker, Vol 84, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yyuppbpr","body":"In this article the authors argue that many African governments have so far responded more proactively and effectively to Covid-19 than some governments in high income countries (HICs). Much of this capacity to respond effectively can be explained by an existing culture of using evidence to inform policy decision-making. African researchers are producing evidence on how to protect and prioritise already existing health interventions which can increase health system resilience and preparedness for Covid-19. The authors argue that African nations have generated and used evidence for decision- making on solutions to tackle the pandemic. Data-poverty and technology deficits are a challenge. The authors note that partnerships to assist with production, collation, and use of evidence are appearing nationally, regionally, and globally to support quick but measured evidence-informed decisions. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Experiences and insights on COVID-19 and equity","field_subtitle":"EQUINET steering committee ","field_url":"","body":"Equity issues infuse our experience of COVID-19 in the region and globally. It should also infuse the response. \r\n\r\nIt is not well measured in the aggregate data commonly reported, nor in the media profile given to individual cases in elite groups, but COVID-19 spreads through and worsens social inequality.  While the first spread of the pandemic may have come through richer, more mobile people and while all social classes have been affected by COVID-19, it would appear that the spread of the coronavirus exploits and exacerbates the social inequalities in the way we live, work, trade and travel in the region. \r\n\r\nPeople living in lower income areas are often crowded in smaller, poorly ventilated homes, with many generations living in the same crowded home, without safe water supplies to wash hands and immune systems are already battered by undernutrition, infectious and chronic diseases. Crowded transport systems, dusty, poorly ventilated working environments and pollution from cooking fuels and houses sited near landfills and industries raise the risk of respiratory diseases, asthma and occupational lung diseases, making people more susceptible to severe effects of the virus. If resilience refers to the ability to restore the \u2018normal\u2019 that we had before COVID-19 and all the inequalities that put people at risk, then we should not aim for resilience. We should aim for change. \r\n\r\nThere are also social inequalities in a response to COVID-19 that provides less access to and continuity of care for COVID-19 and other health problems. It raises burdens on those who are already more vulnerable.  As is happening in all countries affected by austerity, the chronic underfunding of and weaknesses in our public health services undermine care for poorer communities and protection of the health workers who work in them, notwithstanding the efforts being made by health ministries and other stakeholders. Private providers have expanded their role, but often without adequate public co-ordination and leadership and generally unaffordable for low income communities and enterprises. As noted by UNFPA, women represent a large share of health and social sector workers who are more at risk, while increased household tensions during lockdowns are increasing domestic and gender violence.\r\n\r\nWe are learning that a well-funded public health infrastructure is essential to keep all healthy and safe, that investing in prevention is primary and that transparency on resource flows is critical.  Globally, with protectionist responses from high income countries, patent barriers and past policies of importing rather than locally producing medicines and other health technologies in the region, ESA countries, like poor households, are last in the purchase queue. ESA countries are often dependent on charitable contributions or rising debt to obtain health technologies that should be regarded as a right and as public goods. Global mechanisms that depend on charity and two tier systems risk aggravating inequality in access across countries.\r\n\r\nWithout a vaccine, the response has largely been one of command and control, sometimes militarised, putting whole sectors, areas and communities into lockdown. Many households in the region already live hand-to-mouth and do not have the social security to stop work, or the means to work remotely, so lockdowns increase income inequality. Restrictions on public transport without safe alternatives leave poor households trying to reach essential services stranded. Macro-economic concerns have motivated formal sectors like mining to restart, but do not address these socio-economic insecurities in more marginalised communities. Migrants returning home or located away from home are sometimes stigmatised and treated more as a public health risk than a vulnerable community.  \r\n\r\nThese inequities call for local, national and regional responses. Social isolation measures have proved critical for the technical response to COVID-19. Yet for people who are compelled to work to secure daily incomes for their families, dialogue to find the best ways to protect both public health and livelihoods would seem to be more effective and sustainable than criminalising their actions. A biosecurity, top-down, secretive and militarised response to COVID-19 in the name of public health damages the trust, participation and collective solidarity that are essential for effective public health. In part this reflects whose knowledge and experience counts. Importing modelled concerns from high income countries on the adequacy of hospital resources can focus attention away from areas that the specific epidemiological and health system conditions in the region demand. While journal articles and scientific advisors compete for political attention, the experience, ideas and agency of those directly affected by the epidemic is often marginalised. \r\n\r\nYet there are many positive experiences in the region to report. Public officials, health workers, volunteers, including community health workers and health facility committees, have worked overtime to reach households, trace contacts and organise responses. Communities have formed solidarity networks to support vulnerable households with food and care and have held the state accountable for interventions. Parents have schooled children and teachers have found alternative ways to teach students during lockdowns. Small enterprises and local universities have produced affordable face masks and other technologies; local producers have switched lines to produce ventilators and local artists have produced music and murals to promote social awareness. Communities have provided support for returning migrants; diaspora and local people have crowd funded for support initiatives and local enterprises have contributed to solidarity funding of health technologies. COVID-19 has provoked social attention on health worker and gender rights. It has shown that ignoring social inequalities in health and their determinants and under-investing in comprehensive primary health care and public health threaten our society and economies as a whole. \r\n\r\nWe need to measure, publicly report on and visibly address these dimensions of inequality and to integrate the experience and ideas of all those affected. Not doing so undermines the effectiveness of our current and future responses. As Anand Giridharadas has said: \u201cYour health is as safe as that of the worst-insured, worst-cared-for person in your society. It will be decided by the height of the floor, not the ceiling\u201d.  Even while African political leaderships are calling for global leaders to stop the debt outflow and patent and procurement barriers that are undermining responses within the region, we need to also confront the inequality that COVID-19 is intensifying within our countries. \r\n\r\nSo we are reaching out to you! Are you working on or concerned by any of these dimensions of inequality?  Are there others that you want to raise? If so, please share your concerns, ideas and work! As a community that promotes equity values, EQUINET would like to learn more, share more, inform and voice more on these issues. If you have blogs, webinars, poems, art, stories, case studies, published work or videos on these issues or other equity concerns in the region that you want to share, please let us know so we can provide a platform to share them. Let us know if there are interesting case studies that we can support, or if you have ideas for joint work with EQUINET. Send feedback to us by email or on the feedback form on the EQUINET website and we will follow up with you.  \r\n\r\nThe pandemic is a threat. It must also be an opportunity in our region to confront conditions and mantras that have generated the worsening inequality, rights violations, precarious labour, capital outflows, underfunded and commercialised systems and ecological decline that make us vulnerable to epidemics and that undermine capacities to respond in our collective interest. \r\n\r\nWe welcome your feedback on the issues and invitation in this oped \u2013 please send them to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. Please visit our website for information sheets produced by EQUINET.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Fostering local production of essential medicines in Nigeria ","field_subtitle":"Fatokun O: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 98, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.19.249508, 2020","field_url":"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/98/7/19-249508/en/","body":"Consistent availability and access to medicines in low- and middle-income countries is a challenge. As a result, the governments in these countries have shown increasing interest in local pharmaceutical production as a means of promoting technology transfer, building capacity and improving access to essential medicines. In Nigeria, the Five Plus Five-Year Validity (Migration to Local Production) policy aims to reduce the number of pharmaceutical products imported into Nigeria and encourage local production of essential medicines. The Five Plus policy follows a fiscal policy measure implemented since 2016 which reduced the import adjustment tax under the Economic Community of West African States Common External Tariff on pharmaceutical raw materials from 5\u201320% to 0% and imposed a 20% import adjustment tax on four groups of imported drugs that can be produced by local manufacturers, including antimalarials, antibiotics, alkaloid derivatives and vitamins. While local pharmaceutical production in some low-income countries is not viable because of limited local technical expertise or low economies of scale, this issue may not be the case in Nigeria, given its large population, huge potential market and local expertise and experience for the manufacture of essential medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequalities in access to water and soap matter for the COVID-19 response in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Jiwani S; Antiporta D: International Journal for Equity in Health 19(82) doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-020-01199-z, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y668qmjp","body":"This paper explored the inequalities in access to water and soap for the COVID-19 responses since December 2019. . Although access to clean water and soap is universal in high-income settings, it remains a basic need many do not have in low- and middle-income settings. according to data from Demographic and Health Surveys of 16 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, using the most recent survey since 2015. The authors propose that interventions such as mass distribution of soap and ensuring access to clean water, along with other preventive strategies should be scaled up to reach the most vulnerable populations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Lessons from COVID-19: Pharmaceutical Production as a Strategic Goal ","field_subtitle":"Correa C: South Centre, South Views 202, 2020 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yyxp3vb9","body":"The economic and financial crisis generated by COVID-19 has deepened initiatives - which are not entirely new - to sustain local production of pharmaceuticals through a variety of mechanisms aimed at recovering 'strategic autonomy'. The pharmaceutical industry (including biotechnological products) can be one of the axes in new policy frameworks oriented to local production. A UNCTAD study concluded that in many developing countries companies have achieved the economies of scale required to produce medicines competitively and will expand over the next decade. Taking advantage of these opportunities to strengthen a pharmaceutical/ biotechnology industry may require the reformulation of industrial policies, to promote the sector as a generator of value added, employment and foreign exchange, as well as an instrument for achieving health autonomy to address public health needs. The author argues that this requires the deployment of well-articulated instruments, in line with the concept of 'mission-oriented industrial strategy'. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Parent-child communication about sexual issues in Zambia: a cross sectional study of adolescent girls and their parents","field_subtitle":"Isaksen K; Musonda P; Sand\u00f8y I: BMC Public Health 20(1120), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09218-y, 2020 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y4jy6ph8","body":"This study from Zambia in 2018 examines the sociodemographic and psychosocial factors that are associated with whether parents communicate with their daughters about sexual issues, through structured, face to face interviews with 4343 adolescent girls and 3878 parents. Adolescent girls who felt connected to their parents and those who perceived their parents to be comfortable in communicating about sex were more likely to speak to their parents about sexual issues than those who did not. Girls whose parents used fear-based communication about sexual issues, and those who perceived their parents as being opposed to education about contraception, were less likely to do so. Girls enrolled in school were less likely to communicate with their parents about sex than those out of school. The authors suggest that parents can improve the chances of communicating with their children about sex by conveying non-judgmental attitudes, using open communication styles and neutral messages. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Postgraduate diploma and Masters in public health, School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Applications close 30 September 2020 ","field_url":"http://www.uwcsoph.co.za/index.php/academic-programmes","body":"The School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, equips graduates with the knowledge and skills to contribute to transforming the health and social development sectors in developing countries and improving the health status of populations. Students can study while they work, and gain credits incrementally towards a Master of Public Health (MPH) or Postgraduate  Diploma (PGD) in Public Health. These flexible, modular programmes use e-learning as its key learning and teaching medium, with optional contact sessions in Cape Town in February/March and June/July every year. Entry requirement is a three year Bachelor\u2019s degree or equivalent in any relevant discipline; and a minimum of one year work experience in the health or social development sectors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Redressing the gender imbalance: a qualitative analysis of recruitment and retention in Mozambique\u2019s community health workforce","field_subtitle":"Steege R; Taegtmeyer M;  Ndima  S; Give C; et al: Human Resources for Health 18(37) doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-020-00476-w,  2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yyva8gew","body":"Mozambique\u2019s community health programme has a disproportionate number of male community health workers (known as Agentes Polivalentes Elementares (APEs)). This paper seeks to explore the current recruitment imbalance processes for APEs and how these are shaped by gender norms, roles and relations, as well as how they influence the experience and retention of APEs in Maputo Province, Mozambique. The authors employed qualitative methods with APEs, APE supervisors, community leaders and a government official in two districts within Maputo Province. Women reported difficulty leaving family responsibilities behind, and men reported challenges in providing for their families during training as other income-generating opportunities were not available to them. These dynamics were particularly acute in the case of single mothers, serving both a provider and primary carer role. Differences in attrition by gender were reported: women are likely to leave the programme when they marry, whereas men tend to leave when offered another job with a higher salary. Age and geographic location were also important intersecting factors, younger male and female APEs seek employment opportunities in neighbouring South Africa, whereas older APEs are more content to remain. The authors suggest that responsive policies to support gender equity within APE recruitment processes are required to support and retain a gender-equitable APE cadre.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reimagining the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"HSR 2020: Sixth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, November 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y28w79yl","body":"This year the Global symposium on health systems research will take place over a three-phase virtual symposium. During the original dates scheduled for the event in Dubai \u2013 8th to 12th November \u2013 there will be a shorter and smaller version of the usual symposium, with skills building sessions, and special panels, and three half days (10th to 12th) of plenary, a parallel sessions, and virtual networking. The second phase will feature two rounds of parallel sessions every two weeks from the end of November through to March 2021. This will enable more opportunities to more speakers than otherwise would have been possible. The second phase will be organised according to the HSR2020 sub-themes and some of these series will be hosted by Thematic Working Groups. The organisers aim for the third phase in March 2021 to take place face-to-face in Dubai, that will seek to synthesize the main learnings coming from HSR2020 and consider how they can best be applied to health systems. This will likely be a smaller invitation-only event and will have a strong focus on engaging with policy and decision-makers who can translate evidence into action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Regional Response to COVID-19","field_subtitle":"Southern African Development Community: Bulletin 11, SADC, Botswana, August 2020","field_url":"https://www.sadc.int/news-events/news/bulletin-11-sadc-regional-response-covid-19/","body":"The 11th Bulletin of the SADC Response to COVID-19 in English, French and Portuguese provides an overview of the global, continental and regional situation as well as the measures that have been put in place with the support of WHO. It reports that the COVID-19 situation continues to rise in some states in the region, destabilizing the economies and other systems, and leading to a precarious food and nutrition situation.  The report provides the short, medium and long term interventions that countries can put in place to address the situation in relation to issues such as food security, transport, health and economic recovery.  Transport and trade facilitation is noted to remain a major challenge while noting achievements in this, including the Tripartite Guidelines on Trade and Transport Facilitation for Safe, Efficient and Cost Effective Movement of Goods and Services during the COVID-19 Pandemic which harmonise the guidelines of SADC, East African Community (EAC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Sociodemographic Predictors of HIV Infection among Pregnant Women in Botswana: Cross-Sectional Study at 7 Health Facilities","field_subtitle":"Hamda S; Tshikuka J;  Joel D:  Journal of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (19) doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2325958220925659, 2020 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yxm9g8ts","body":"The authors determined the prevalence and sociodemographic predictors of HIV among pregnant women in Botswana through a cross-sectional study of 407 randomly enrolled women aged 18 to 49 years, attending 7 health facilities between November 2017 and March 2018. The HIV prevalence was 17%. Women aged 35 to 49 years had higher HIV prevalence than those 18 to 24 years. Illiterate and elementary school educated women had higher HIV prevalence than those with a tertiary education. Those with a history of alcohol intake had a higher HIV prevalence than those without. While HIV prevalence was lower than it was in 2011 the authors call for targeted interventions that integrate these identified dimensions of susceptibility.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Socioeconomic inequalities in food insecurity and malnutrition among under-five children: within and between-group inequalities in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Lukwa A; Siya A; Zablon K;  Azam J; et al: BMC Public Health 20(1199), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09295-z, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yykdb57n","body":"The authors explored socioeconomic inequalities trend in child health using Demographic Health Survey data sets of 2010\\11 and 2015. Food insecurity in under-five children was determined based on the World Health Organisation dietary diversity score. Theil indices for nutrition status showed socioeconomic inequality gaps to have widened, while food security status socioeconomic inequality gaps contracted for the period under review. The study concluded that unequal distribution of household wealth and residence status play critical roles in driving socioeconomic inequalities in child food insecurity and malnutrition. Child food insecurity and malnutrition are greatly influenced by where a child lives and their parental wealth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa, Kenya and Zimbabwe: Repression and state violence are not public health strategies","field_subtitle":"Essop T; the Anti-Repression Working Group of the C-19 People\u2019s Coalition: Daily Maverick, South Africa, August 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y335qmd8","body":"The securitised interventions by the South African, Kenyan and Zimbabwean governments are argued by the author to be fundamentally out of tune with the needs of the moment and ineffective in dealing with the pandemic\u2019s multiple crises. They note that lockdown regulations have been used as a cover for suppressing legitimate concerns around the socio-economic fallout from nationwide lockdown measures that have undermined livelihoods and disproportionately affected poor people. This pattern of conduct calls into question the use of securitised approaches to the global health emergency and what it means for the broader public health response that is needed. In South Africa, Kenya and Zimbabwe, the brutality and heavy-handedness of the security forces is argued to not be new and that the current responses are rooted in systemic problems and failures of accountability  in policing in poor communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Status of COVID-19-in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Minja C: The East Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC), July 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y2oc4l6b","body":"The East Central and Southern Africa Health Community has continued to monitor the status of COVID-19 in Burundi, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Mauritius, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe and to support countries mitigate effects of COVID-19. Due to the prevailing restrictions of travel, much has been provided through online discussions and support. The report indicates that the number of reported confirmed cases of COVID-19 and cases under care in the region is increasing, in spite of the context of under-reporting. The authors note that governments wish to open up economies to take care of individual and national economic survival and call for targeted and population interventions for modified social distancing mechanisms and for support for diagnostics, care of recovering cases, contact tracing and surveillance across countries, taking note of the fluid movement of people across borders. Adopting regional collaborative efforts is argued to be cost-efficient. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The COVID-19 Action Fund for Africa","field_subtitle":"Fund oversight committee, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yxphxc3n","body":"The COVID-19 Action Fund for Africa is an action-oriented collaborative of over 30 organizations dedicated to protecting Community Health Workers (CHWs) on the frontlines of Africa\u2019s COVID-19 response. The Fund\u2019s goal is to raise up to $100 million to supply personal protective equipment (PPE) to CHWs in as many as 24 African countries for approximately one year; shipments have already begun. The Fund matches donated PPE with government-identified gaps and conducts end-use verification processes with in-country partners to document arrival and distribution of the supplies. Integrated with national responses, this is the only known effort that pools resources for PPE items specifically for community health workers in Africa","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The COVID-19 pandemic and health inequalities","field_subtitle":"Bambra C; Riordan R; Ford J: et al: Epidemiology & Community Health, doi: 10.1136/jech-2020-214401, 2020","field_url":"https://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2020/06/13/jech-2020-214401.info","body":"This essay examines the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for health inequalities. It outlines historical and contemporary evidence of inequalities in pandemics\u2014drawing on international research into the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918, the H1N1 outbreak of 2009 and the emerging international estimates of socio-economic, ethnic and geographical inequalities in COVID-19 infection and mortality rates. It then examines how these inequalities in COVID-19 are related to existing inequalities in chronic diseases and the social determinants of health, arguing that this is a syndemic pandemic. The authors explore the potential consequences for health inequalities of the lockdown measures implemented internationally as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the likely unequal impacts of the economic crisis. The essay concludes by reflecting on the longer-term public health policy responses needed to ensure that the COVID-19 pandemic does not increase health inequalities for future generations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The South African Health Review (SAHR) 2021 Call for Abstracts ","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Abstracts: 31 October 2030","field_url":"https://www.hst.org.za/media/Pages/SAHR-2021-Call-for-Abstracts.aspx","body":"The editors of the 2021 edition of the South African Health Review (SAHR) invite the submission of abstracts that examine health-sector responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Preference will be given to abstracts on topics that consider: the impact of COVID-19 on existing health services and programmes; the impact of socio-economic disparities on prevention and treatment; the rationing of healthcare services and implications for equity of access; strengthening of the country\u2019s social compact, and emergence of innovative collaborations and partnerships; impact of measures taken to balance saving lives with saving livelihoods; and/or emerging lessons for the future management and prevention of pandemics and other public health emergencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Training Exposure and Self-Rated Competence among HIV Care Providers Working with Adolescents in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Karman E; Wilson K; Mugo C; Slyke J; et al: Journal of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (19) doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2325958220935264, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y6yhfke7","body":"This paper examined the training coverage and self-reported competence, knowledge, abilities, and attitudes, of health care workers caring for adolescents living with HIV in Kenya. Surveys were conducted with 24 managers and 142 health care workers. Health care workers had a median of 3 years of experience working with adolescents living with HIV, and 40% reported exposure to any adolescents living with HIV training. Median overall competence was 78%. More years caring for adolescents living with HIV and any prior training in adolescent HIV care were associated with significantly higher self-rated competence. Training coverage for adolescent HIV care remains sub-optimal. The authors suggest that targeting health care workers with less work experience and training exposure may be a useful and efficient approach to improve quality of youth-friendly HIV services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in climate, extractives and health equity in the east and southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association for the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET), 2020 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y35lna4e","body":"This paper presents the current situation and projected trends related to climate change in east and southern Africa (ESA); the implications for the health of current and future generations of these trends and; the policy choices and alternatives to respond to them. ESA contributes the least of any world region to global greenhouse gas emissions yet will be more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than any other region. Extractive sectors exacerbate climate change through deforestation and high emission levels of greenhouse gases. Climate change is expected to cause reduced rainfall and a greater frequency of extreme events in the region, and ESA countries will be vulnerable due to their economic reliance on rainfed agriculture and water resources.The region faces resource and other constraints to implement adaptation policies, or for key areas such as the development and production of green technologies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in extraction of biodiversity and genetic resources in east and southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"Mayet M, Mentz-Lagrange S, African Centre for Biodiversity:  EQUINET, 2020 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y5llp3fm","body":"This paper presents the current situation and projected trends related to biodiversity and genetic resources in east and southern Africa (ESA), the implications for the wellbeing of current and future generations of these trends, and the policy choices and alternatives to respond to these trends and the factors that influence policy design and uptake of choices. The biodiversity, genetic diversity of plants, animals and forests in ESA countries are declining at alarming rates, risking the health and wellbeing of populations in the region. Losses of biodiversity and genetic resources have led to poorer diets, poorer living conditions, encroachment on areas with animal populations and an erosion of wild foods and medicinal plants that raise the risk of chronic and zoonotic diseases and pandemics. Current policies have not reversed these trends, nor met the targets of the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD). The authors argue that this calls for an urgent paradigm shift from industrial agriculture to diversified agro-ecological systems and a one health approach, that recognise the complex, intergenerational interconnections between human and animal health, plants and a shared environment. The authors call for a movement to defend genetic diversity as a common good, not something that can be extracted and privately profited from. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in extraction of mineral resources in east and southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"Caramento A: EQUINET, 2020 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y2fmcj9y","body":"This paper presents the current situation and projected trends related to extraction of mineral resources in east and southern Africa (ESA), the implications for the wellbeing of current and future generations of these trends, and the policy choices and alternatives to respond to these trends and the factors that influence policy design and uptake of choices. The author notes several changes in the coming decades that have numerous implications for health and wellbeing in ESA, including as a result of land displacement and precarious jobs. A demand for greater and wider health and developmental benefits from current and future mineral extraction has led to resource nationalism. The paper notes that it means effectively projecting, monitoring and preventing the impacts of mineral extraction on health and environments; adopting financial transparency and accountability measures and employing strategies and responses that are built from bottom-up through consultation with small scale miners, communities, workers and the wider public.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in water resources in east and southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R, Training and Research Support Centre: EQUINET, 2020 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yyygmzbb","body":"This paper presents the current situation and projected trends related to water in east and southern Africa (ESA), the implications for the wellbeing of current and future generations of these trends, and  the policy choices and alternatives to respond to these trends and the factors that influence policy design and uptake of choices. Maldistribution and water scarcity and stress are predicted to intensify in coming decades. Southern countries will become significantly drier and east Africa will have higher rainfall. Climate change will amplify existing variability but may be less critical than growing demand for water. A growing, urbanised population, expanded enterprise and agriculture will deplete and can pollute water resources, with lowest income households least served. Water scarcity contributes to ill health, food insecurity, poverty and increases women\u2019s burdens. There is a potential for vicious or virtuous cycles between these impacts and water resources, depending on the policy choices made.  Inequality and stress is not inevitable. There is potentially adequate water to meet the basic needs of all in the region and for sustaining ecosystems if managed through co-operation, paying attention to equity, interdependence and long-term outcomes. The dividends from investments in water systems thus need to be made more visible as well as the harms of competitive, short term choices. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal Health Coverage: From aspirations to reality","field_subtitle":"Mamdani M: Global Social Policy 20(2) 242-246, doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1468018120922227, 2020","field_url":"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1468018120922227","body":"Written in response to the United Nation\u2019s High Level Political Declaration on UHC in September 2019, this issue has a focus on universal health coverage (UHC). Written before the COVID-19 pandemic, the articles reiterate that robust health systems matter and that the implications of a system\u2019s universality, accessibility and quality reach far beyond any particular nation. The articles are open access for a limited period of time. This paper in the series examines the experience of advancing UHC in East and Southern Africa, drawing in part on learning from work in EQUINET.  Underpinning the UHC agenda is the belief that access to health care is a fundamental human right that advances equality and safeguards human dignity. Achieving UHC is a huge endeavour and requires buy-in at all levels of the system. It calls for strategic leadership, evidence and review. There has been a significant expansion in the technical information and knowledge available to support UHC. Making progress towards achieving it is, however, not simply a technical issue: it is an issue of power, political choice and leadership. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Watch the GAP! A critical civil society perspective on the development, potential impact and implementation of the \u2018Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-Being for All\u2019","field_subtitle":"Koutsoumpa M; Nsibirwa; Schwarz T; et al: Kampala Initiative, July 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y5d7svee","body":"The authors review how the global plan fits with national health policies and ownership in Uganda, and global health governance. They report that despite a \u2018whole-of-society\u2019 approach, the decision-making power in the global plan remains with governments. Community and civil society participation are highlighted throughout the GAP and comprise one of its seven core themes. However, despite the announcement of the GAP plan in October 2018, it was not until June 2019 that a public consultation process started, seeking feedback from non-state and state actors to some chapters of the GAP. At the same time, the authors raise concern that a  \u2018whole-of-society\u2019 approach opens the door for the private-for-profit corporate sector to engage in health, further encouraging a move to a privatised, undemocratic and inequitable global health governance. Without explicit and concrete frameworks for monitoring, mutual accountability and clear and effective participation to address ever-growing power imbalances, they question whether the goal of accelerating achievement of health for all by 2030 can be met, and suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic could be a first test case for the GAP. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Water, sanitation, hygiene, and waste management for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, WHO/2019-nCoV/IPC_WASH/2020.4, July 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yxflygtu","body":"The provision of safe water, sanitation and waste management and hygienic conditions are essential for protecting human health during all infectious disease outbreaks, including of COVID-19. Ensuring evidenced-based and consistently applied WASH and waste management practices in communities, homes, schools, marketplaces, and healthcare facilities will help prevent human-to-human transmission of COVID-19. This guidance provides additional details on risks associated with excreta and untreated sewage, hand hygiene, protecting WASH workers and supporting the continuation and strengthening of WASH services, especially in underserved areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"We all have the same right to have health services: a case study of Namati\u2019s legal empowerment program in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Schaaf M; Falcao J; Feinglass E; Kitchell E; et all: BMC Public Health 20(1084) doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09190-7, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y58n7got","body":"This paper is a case study of legal empowerment through community paralegals and Village Health Committees in Mozambique. The authors explored how community paralegals solved cases, the impact they had on health services, and how their work affected the relationship between the community and the health sector at the local level. Case resolution conferred a sense of empowerment to clients, brought immediate, concrete improvements in health service quality at the health facilities concerned and seemingly instigated a virtuous circle of rights-claiming. The program also engendered improvements in relations between clients and the health system. The authors identified three key mechanisms underlying case resolution, including: bolstered administrative capacity within the health sector, reduced transaction and political costs for health providers, and provider fear of administrative sanction.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Wealth-related inequalities in the coverage of reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health interventions in 36 countries in the African Region ","field_subtitle":"Wehrmeister F; Mback\u00e9 Fay\u00e9 C; da Silva I; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 98(6), 2020","field_url":"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/98/6/19-249078.pdf","body":"The authors investigated whether sub-Saharan African countries have succeeded in reducing wealth-related inequalities in the coverage of reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health interventions, using post 1995 survey data from 36 countries, grouped into Central, East, Southern and West Africa subregions. Wealth-related inequalities were prevalent in all subregions, highest for West Africa and lowest for Southern Africa. Absolute income was not a predictor of coverage, as higher coverage was observed  in Southern (around 70%) compared with Central and West (around 40%) subregions for the same income. Wealth-related inequalities in coverage were reduced by the greatest amount in Southern Africa, and no evidence was found of inequality reduction in Central Africa. The data show that most countries in sub-Saharan Africa have succeeded in reducing wealth-related inequalities in the coverage of essential health services, even in the presence of conflict, economic hardship or political instability","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"What has been the progress in addressing financial risk in Uganda? Analysis of catastrophe and impoverishment due to health payments","field_subtitle":"Kwesiga B; Aliti T; Nabukhonzo P; Najuko S;   et al:  BMC Health Services Research 20(741) doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05500-, 2020 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3262voc","body":"This study of progress in financial risk protection in Uganda used data from the Uganda National Household Surveys for 2005/06, 2009/10, 2012/13 and 2016/17, measuring financial risk protection in terms of catastrophic health care payments and impoverishment. Although catastrophic health payments at the 10% threshold decreased from 22.4% in 2005/06 to 13.8% in 2012/13, they increased to 14.2% in 2016/17. The percentage of Ugandans pushed below the national poverty line decreased from 5.2% in 2005/06 to 2.7% in 2016/17. The distribution of both catastrophic health payments and impoverishment varied across socio-economic status, location and residence. The authors suggest targeted interventions reduce \u2018out-of-pocket\u2019 (OOP) payments among those affected and ensure that public health services are funded adequately, through forms of mandatory prepayment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":" Securing COVID-19 related diagnostics, health technology, medicines and vaccines for African public health","field_subtitle":"ECSA HC; EQUINET: EQUINET, Harare","field_url":"https://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20ECSA%20brief%20COVID19%20health%20tech%20May2020.pdf","body":"The ability of African countries to mount effective and equitable responses to COVID-19 reflects in part the access that countries have to reliable, sustained, distributed supplies of diagnostics (antigen and antibody test kits and equipment for decentralised laboratories) and health technologies (personal protective equipment (PPEs), oxygen and constant positive airway pressure equipment). As medicines and vaccines are developed and approved for COVID-19 they too need to be available at mass scale and locally distributed. Currently, African countries, like many others, face shortfalls in all of these essential commodities relative to need. Various global, multilateral and bilateral arrangements have been proposed to address innovation in and access to these technologies. This brief shares information on initiatives related to diagnostics, health technologies, medicines and vaccines, the issues for African countries and options for addressing them in the dialogue and negotiations at global fora. It covers African interests and options in relation to (i) securing solidarity-based bilateral and multilateral resource streams for supply needs; (ii) using existing TRIPS flexibilities (iii) enabling open innovation and sharing of intellectual property and (iv) enabling open manufacturing and distributed and local production of these technologies. The pressure is thus growing for all COVID-19 related drugs, diagnostics, vaccines and health products, existing or future, to be considered global public goods, as expressed by the UN Secretary General on 24 April. At the same time, the brief argues that the way to make these products available to everyone, everywhere, must be by structurally linking open innovation and open manufacture to distributed production and access. Current experience suggests that any other approach may fall short on delivering timely and equitably distributed access for African countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"4th CODESRIA/CASB Summer School in African Studies and Area Studies in Africa: The Normative Order in African Studies, Dakar, Senegal, 14-18 September 2020","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 17 July 2020 ","field_url":"https://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article3025&lang=en","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa and The Centre for African Studies in Basel call for applications for their 4th Summer School in African Studies and Area Studies in Africa. The overall objective of the Summer School is to stimulate and consolidate interdisciplinary approaches to research on Africa, but also on other regions of the world undertaken from within the African continent. The Summer School is open for PhD students and emerging scholars enrolled and working at Higher Education institutions in any country. Applications in the following disciplines are highly encouraged: Social Anthropology, Sociology, History, Religion, Philosophy, Gender studies and Political science. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A crisis to learn and change from","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET newsletter","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn the past two months, drawing on a diversity of inputs, EQUINET has produced a series of information sheets on different aspects of COVID-19 in ESA countries. For  1st June we take a pause on these information briefs to send out our regular quarterly newsletter, with thanks to the newsletter team for meeting the challenges of co-production from various corners of a lockdown. Given the context, there are many articles and resources in the newsletter relating to COVID-19, but there are also those relating to other health challenges and health system developments that continue to be present, to offer learning and to demand attention in our region.\r\n\r\nYet we are in a crisis, not understood as an event to recover from, but in the way the Chinese word for crisis brings together two characters \u2013 \u201cwei ji\u201d, with wei standing for danger and ji standing for opportunity. A crisis to learn and change from.\r\n\r\nDifferent dangers and risks in the COVID-19 pandemic are emerging and are the subject of an explosion of information and exchanges across countries, institutions and disciplines. The information exchanges range from stories of lived experience, responses and ideas to evidence from trials, information systems, global case tracking, reviews and analyses. Constrained by size, the newsletter only points to some of these in the region and many many more are reported daily in different platforms.\r\nThe pandemic tells us a lot about the status of our societies. COVID-19 has shown us how globalisation has opened up multiple digital channels for information to flow, how scientific collaboration can rapidly advance and share knowledge and how communities show solidarity, initiative and empathy.\r\n\r\nIt also shows where there are gaps. We talk about the poorest but the voices of the poorest communities and poorest countries are often overshadowed or absent, sometimes even silenced by the very responses to COVID-19. We see the limits in global solidarity as many African countries struggle with the diversion of critical resources to debt repayment and fail to access key diagnostics and medicines. We talk about causes, but treat each outbreak, including COVID-19, as disconnected emergencies, delinked from their deeper, sustained and common drivers in the nature of production and commercial systems, in the destruction of habitats and biodiversity and in the lack of investment in basic standards of water, sanitation, housing, clean energy and other public health inputs, drivers that converge to expose significant concentrations of people to new and old pathogens and to repeated pandemics. The 2008 Commission on the Social Determinants of Health used to say of the health sector \u201cwe cannot keep treating people to send them back to the same conditions that made them ill\u201d. It seems we need to expand this to \u201cwe cannot keep responding to public health and climate emergencies and sending ourselves as a global community back to the same conditions that led to them.\u201d\r\n\r\nThere are also signs of opportunities for recalibrating this pathway that is externalising and distributing pollution, climate change, precarious employment, different forms of malnutrition, pandemics, violence and other harms that threaten us as a society and as a species. The online conversations often flag responses to COVID-19 that work with and support communities and local health workers as more successful, especially when built on prior investments in distributed primary health care and socio-economic well-being. There are items in the newsletter that raise similar themes around responses to HIV, health workforce management or gender based violence.\r\n\r\nBut recalibration also needs to take place at global level. The recent World Health Assembly (WHA) resolution on COVID-19 (included in the newsletter) refers to vaccines as a global public good (implying free from intellectual property protection). There is also a link to a call from leaderships from across all regions that COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics, tests and treatments be provided free of charge to everyone, everywhere. At the opening of the WHA, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres stated that \u201cthe recovery from the COVID-19 crisis must lead to more equal, inclusive and sustainable economies and societies\u201d , as \u201can opportunity to address the climate crisis and inequality of all kinds\u201d\u2026 and \u201cto rebuild differently and better\u201d. \r\n\r\nThe pandemic has provoked a sense that it cannot be \u2018business as usual\u2019 . For example, the Africa Group, Zambia and other country inputs to the WHA, and an ECSA HC and EQUINET brief included in this issue, raise some immediate, practical issues, including debt relief or cancellation for African countries to invest in the response and rebuild, and the removal of barriers to innovation and technology transfer for local manufacturing of diagnostics, medicines, vaccines for COVID-19 in Africa. How such issues are now treated in global forums, such as the forthcoming World Trade Organisation Ministerial and beyond, and how far our international, national and local responses reflect \u2018more equal, inclusive and sustainable economies and societies\u2019 will signal how far and for whom this crisis has been an opportunity for change, or a continuity of danger.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"A Preliminary Human Rights Assessment of Legislative and Regulatory Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic across 11 Jurisdictions ","field_subtitle":"Bonavero Institute of Human Rights: Bonavero Report No 3/2020, May 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9ugfesg","body":"The current context indicates that exceptional measures designed to combat the spread of COVID-19 need to be continually evaluated, taking into account the positive obligations that States bear to protect life, access to health and health security, and the extent to which these obligations should be shaped by countervailing negative rights. The authors indicate that striking an appropriate balance between these positive obligations and countervailing negative rights, in this rapidly evolving environment, can only be successfully achieved in an environment of democratic, judicial and scientific contestation. Moreover, in the context of positive obligations, it is imperative to emphasise the least coercive means through which public health can be achieved. This report provides a human rights analysis using this lens of a cross section of jurisdictions from different countries globally, including South Africa and Zimbabwe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A scoping review on family medicine in sub-Saharan Africa: practice, positioning and impact in African health care systems","field_subtitle":"Flinkenfl\u00f6gel M; Sethlare V; Cubaka V; Makasa M; et al:  Human Resources for Health  18(27), 1-18, 2020 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8adha6x","body":"This review describes, from a systematic review, the current status of family medicine in sub-Saharan Africa and maps existing evidence of its strengths, weaknesses, effectiveness and impact, and identifies knowledge gaps. Family medicine was first established in South Africa and Nigeria, followed by Ghana, several East African countries and more recently additional Southern African countries. Implementation varies between and within countries. The strengths were found to be having \u201call- round specialists\u201d, providing mentorship and supervision, and there were positive perceptions of the impact of family medicine. Family medicine was found to be a developing discipline in sub-Saharan Africa. The authors indicate that assessing its impact on the health of populations requires a more critical mass of family physicians and clarity on their position in the health system and their role in universal health coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"An assessment of workers\u2019 rights in the mining sector during the COVID-19 Lockdown","field_subtitle":"Mlevu S: Centre for Natural Resource Governance, Zimbabwe, May 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y94t63sh","body":"This situation update from the Centre for Natural Resource Governance Zimbabwe looks at how the mining companies have been handling labour concerns as they have been operating during the lockdown. The authors report from various mines that companies have been making piecemeal commitments to health and safety of the employees, with some ignoring stipulated health measures. It also identifies only one company in Mutoko that invested time and money towards the health and safety of their employees during the lockdown. During the lockdown, the authors report that some workers have failed to get their salaries, while some workers have gone for 3 months without pay. The authors recommend that government convene a Tripartite Negotiating Forum to discuss the conduct of employers and their employees during the lockdown, that the Labour Act be revised to provide for the conduct of employers and employees during emergencies; that companies provide decent accommodation to their employees to minimise staff movements and contact with community members and protective equipment for all workers despite rank or grade who are working during the pandemic. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing the relationship between gender based violence and COVID-19 pandemic in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Kabonesa C; Kindi F: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, April 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7aafs9h","body":"The authors interrogate the relationship between gender based violence (GBV) and COVID-19 in Uganda through documentary reviews and in-depth interviews from selected key informants. The authors find an increase in cases of GBV that calls for government ministries and agencies to prioritize measures to address the issue. They recommend gender sensitization of communities on GBV and its effects especially in situations of health related emergencies. The authors find that the majority of the fights are heightened by men having limited funds to fulfil their provisioning roles, and recommend that vulnerable households should be identified and provided with food. They also argue that is important to provide women with a platform where they can air their views and concerns about COVID-19 and GBV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Papers: International Labour Review","field_subtitle":"Deadline for abstracts: 30 June 2020","field_url":"http://www.ilo.org/revue","body":"The International Labour Review (ILR) is calling for the submission of papers related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the world of work with a view to the publication of a special multidisciplinary issue in English, French and Spanish. Submissions are encouraged from all fields related to the world of work, such as economics, law, industrial relations, social policy, sociology, psychosocial studies, environmental studies and history. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Constitutional implications of COVID-19: Arrests and the use of force to enforce lockdown","field_subtitle":"Brickhill J: JUTA Talking Points, Issue 11, South Africa","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybm2sova","body":"This brief is one of a weekly analysis of constitutional issues arising from COVID-19 and the responses to it. In this instalment, the author outlines the role of the courts and the arrest and the use of force by the police and the military in enforcing the lockdown, following the judgment in Khosa v Minister of Defence and Military Veterans [2020] ZAGPPHC 147 in South Africa. The author finds that arrest in the context of COVID-19 runs the risk of subverting the very purpose of the lockdown regulations, by exposing enforcement officers and arrested civilians to a greater risk of contracting the virus. The South African Police Service has released guidelines on the use of force by security services, in a circular dated 19 May 2020 that set out principles on the use of force, the prohibition of torture and provide information on where to make complaints about police misconduct. The author proposes that thorough investigation and action on those implicated in any injury related to lockdown enforcement and ensuring an effective complaints mechanism are the crucial.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Coordinating health workforce management in a devolved context: lessons from Kenya","field_subtitle":"Thuku M; Muriuki J; Adano U; et al: Human Resources for Health  18 (26), 1-7, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8u4tawf","body":"This case study describes how Kenya created an inter-county, multi-stakeholder coordination framework that promotes consensus, commitment, and cooperation in devolved human resources management. The coordination framework has been instrumental in expediting development, customization, and dissemination of policies, enabling national human resources for health officers to mentor their county counterparts, and providing collaborative platforms for multiple stakeholders to resolve challenges and harmonize practices nationwide. Successes catalyzed through the inter-county forums include hiring over 20 000 health workers to address shortages; expanding the national human resources information system to all 47 counties; developing guidelines for sharing specialist providers; and establishing professionalized human resources for health units in all 47 counties. The coordination framework supports alignment of county health operations with national goals while enabling national policy responses to health gaps in the counties. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"COVID-19 in Africa: care and protection for frontline healthcare workers","field_subtitle":"Chersich M; Gray G;  Fairlie L;  Eichbaum Q; et al: Globalization and Health 16(46), 1-6, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybhtm4dx","body":"This paper provides a survey of the challenges and proposed interventions to protect healthcare workers on the continent, drawing on articles identified on Medline (Pubmed) in a search on 24 March 2020. Global jostling means that supplies of personal protective equipment are limited in Africa. Even low-cost interventions such as facemasks for patients with a cough and water supplies for handwashing may be challenging, as is \u2018physical distancing\u2019 in overcrowded primary health care clinics, raising the risk for healthcare workers and their families. The authors argue, however, that the continent has learnt invaluable lessons from Ebola and HIV control. HIV counselors and community healthcare workers are key and could promote social distancing and related interventions, dispel myths, support healthcare workers, perform symptom screening and trace contacts. Staff motivation and retention may be enhanced through carefully managed risk \u2018allowances\u2019 or compensation. International support with personnel and protective equipment, especially from China, could turn the pandemic\u2019s trajectory in Africa around. Telemedicine holds promise as it rationalises personnel and reduces patient contact and thus infection risks. The authors argue that healthcare workers, using their authoritative voice, can promote effective COVID-19 policies and prioritization of their safety. Prioritizing healthcare workers for SARS-CoV-2 testing, hospital beds and targeted research, as well as ensuring that public figures and the population acknowledge the commitment of healthcare workers may help to maintain morale, while international support and national commitment could help safeguard healthcare workers in Africa, essential for limiting the pandemic\u2019s impacts on the continent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"COVID-19 soars women\u2019s water burden","field_subtitle":"Gender desk team: Daily Nation, Kenya, April 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y886gn4v","body":"Coronavirus has increased demand for and consumption of water in households. At the same time this presents Water scarcity presents a challenge for women in rural areas and informal settlements. Rural women walk up to 30 kilometres to fetch water from rivers, dams and boreholes. This may mean that some rural family members minimise use of the water; exposing them to health risks. Urban slum women now spend up to an extra Kenya Sh120 daily on water, and those that can't afford to buy are reported to resort to the polluted city river. This article highlights the experiences of women in rural and urban Kenya in gathering water needed for their work and families in light of COVID-19. It illustrates the lived experience of additional burdens that the pandemic now places on them, affecting their livelihoods and their physical and mental wellbeing.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Diss 121: Public health and mining in East and Southern Africa: A desk review of the evidence","field_subtitle":"Chanda-Kapata P: EQUINET Discussion paper 121, EQUINET, Harare, 2020","field_url":"https://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Diss121%20Mining%20and%20health%20April2020.pdf","body":"This desk review, commissioned by EQUINET through TARSC as part of the ongoing work on the extractive sector in the region aims to inform public sector professionals, policy-makers, civil society and parliamentarians on the population health impacts of large- and small-scale mining activities in East and Southern Africa. The paper specifies the known health risks for the different types of small- and large-scale mines in the ESA region. Poor communities are likely to be more affected as they have limited choices for employment, sub-optimal housing and limited access to safe drinking water. People living close to mining sites or near mine dumps and those whose livelihoods are tied to rivers for domestic and agriculture water are exposed to polluted environments due to mining wastes and contaminated air and drinking water. Discrepancies exist between what is documented and known about the health risks of mining globally and documented levels of these health outcomes in the ESA region. The author presents various reasons for this. Health impacts assessments are not always done before mines are licensed. After mines are licensed, these health outcomes may be poorly monitored. Information on the numbers and health status many living and working in mining and of ex-miners remains limited.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Information sheet 1 on COVID-19","field_subtitle":"TARSC: March 2020","field_url":"https://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQUINET%20COVID%20brief1%20%2020March.pdf","body":"This information sheet aims to assist by bringing together information and links to resources from various sources on a range of issues related to COVID-19 covering: 1: Basic information on the virus and its health impact 2: The level and growth of the pandemic 3: What individuals and communities can do to prevent and respond to COVID-19 4: What workplaces and organisations can do to prevent and respond to COVID-19 5: Protection and support of health and other frontline workers 6: What countries are doing to prevent and respond to COVID-19. While the specific focus intends to be on east and southern Africa, this first information sheet provides information drawn from other regions and more mature epidemics that may be useful for those in the ESA region or that may raise issues to discuss and plan for in the region. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Information sheet 2 on COVID-19","field_subtitle":"TARSC: EQUINET, April, 2020","field_url":"https://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQUINET%20COVID%20brief2%20%201April2020.pdf","body":"This is the second information brief from EQUINET to summarise and provides links to official, scientific and other resources as of April 1st 2020 to support an understanding of and individual to regional level responses to COVID-19. This brief complements and does not substitute information from your public health authorities. This brief covers: 1: Developments in the COVID-19 epidemic 2: The health system response 3: Policy, politics and rights 4: Support for and in different communities 5: The macro-economic challenges 6: What does this all mean for equity?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Information sheet 3 on COVID-19","field_subtitle":"TARSC: EQUINET, April 2020 ","field_url":"https://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQUINET%20COVID%20brief3%20%2015April2020_0.pdf","body":"This is the third information brief from EQUINET to summarise and provides links to official, scientific and other resources as of April 14 2020 to support an understanding of and individual to regional level responses to COVID-19. This brief complements and does not substitute information from your public health authorities. This brief covers: developments in the COVID-19 epidemic; a discussion on population evidence and models; initiatives on health technologies; an update on the African engagement on releasing resources from debt and various resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Information sheet 4 on COVID-19","field_subtitle":"TARSC: EQUINET, May 2020","field_url":"https://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQUINET%20COVID%20brief4%20%201May2020.pdf","body":"This is the fourth information sheet on COVID-19 from EQUINET. It summarises information from and provides links to official, scientific and other resources as of end April 2020 on 1: Developments in the COVID-19 epidemic 2: Rolling back lockdowns- when and what next? 3: What COVID-19 has meant for the risks and returns from migration 4: An update on access to medicines and vaccines, and 5: Resources, COVID-19 and the creative economy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out quarterly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 224: ","field_subtitle":"A crisis to learn and change from","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Estimates of the Potential Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Sexual and Reproductive Health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries","field_subtitle":"Riley T; Sully E; Ahmed Z; Biddlecom Z: International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 46, 73-76, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yctkd3rl","body":"The strain that the COVID-19 outbreak imposes on health systems will undoubtedly impact the sexual and reproductive health of individuals living in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs); however, sexual and reproductive health will also be affected by societal responses to the pandemic, such as when local or national lockdowns close services not deemed to be essential, as well as from consequences of travel restrictions and economic slowdowns. Previous public health emergencies have shown that the impact of an epidemic on sexual and reproductive health often goes unrecognized, because the effects relate to indirect consequences of strained health care systems, disruptions in care and redirected resources. The authors argue for the learning from prior epidemics to be used to put in place critical resources and systems, and ensuring the provision of essential sexual and reproductive health services to avoid health system disruptions that would have devastating, lasting effects on individuals and communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Ethics of instantaneous contact tracing using mobile phone apps in the control of the COVID-19 pandemic","field_subtitle":"Parker M; Fraser C; Abeler-D\u00f6rner L: Journal of Medical Ethics, doi:10.1136/medethics-2020-106314, May 2020","field_url":"https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2020/05/05/medethics-2020-106314","body":"In this paper the authors discuss ethical implications of the use of mobile phone apps in the control of COVID-19. Contact tracing is a well-established feature of public health practice during infectious disease outbreaks but the high proportion of pre-symptomatic transmission in COVID-19 means that standard contact tracing methods are too slow to stop the progression of infection through the population. To address this many countries globally have deployed or are developing mobile phone apps capable of supporting instantaneous contact tracing. Informed by the on-going mapping of \u2018proximity events\u2019 these apps are intended both to inform public health policy and to provide alerts to individuals who have been in contact with a person with the infection. The proposed use of mobile phone data for \u2018intelligent physical distancing\u2019 in such contexts raises a number of important ethical questions that need to be understood and analysed against the public health benefits. The authors explore the relative benefit and harms; the impact on identified individuals; the implications for privacy and liberty; the responsibilities of institutions and professionals; and the longer term equity, ethical and public trust issues of how the data is deleted or used, issues that are not only relevant for COVID-19 but also for future outbreaks. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Evidence for Transformative Change: UNRISD Survey on Responses to Covid-19 and Vulnerable Communities","field_subtitle":"United Nations Research Institute for Social Development: UNRISD, Geneva, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ydx65u28","body":"The Covid-19 pandemic is hitting vulnerable people the hardest in both high- and low-income countries. At the same time, in areas where infection rates are currently lower and policies still taking shape, there is a window of opportunity for informed analysis to provide added value. With the help of its global network of experts, UNRISD is gathering and quickly analysing how well current government policies on Covid-19 in all countries and regions are responding to the needs of vulnerable people. The result will be evidence-based recommendations on how governments can make sure their Covid-19 response policies leave no one behind. There can be no one-size-fits all answers and national and local government policy making in different regions must also respond to different social, economic, political and cultural contexts. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploring barriers to seeking health care among Kenyan Somali women with female genital mutilation: a qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Kimani S; Kabiru C;  Muteshi J;  Guyo J:  BMC International Health and Human Rights 20(3), 1-12, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9fazw39","body":"This paper explored barriers to care seeking in public health facilities in Kenya among Somali women after complications related to female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). The authors used interviews and focus group discussions to collect data from women aged 15\u201349\u2009years living with FGM/C, their partners, community leaders, and health providers in Nairobi and Garissa Counties. Barriers to care-seeking included the high cost of care, distance from health facilities, lack of a referral system and concerns on quality and privacy of care. Women faced cultural taboos in discussing sexual health with male clinicians, while fear of legal sanctions given the anti-FGM/C laws deterred women with complications from seeking healthcare. The authors suggest that the health system consider integrating FGM/C-related interventions with existing maternal child health services for cost effectiveness, efficiency and quality care, address health-related financial, physical and communication barriers, and ensure culturally-sensitive and confidential care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender, HRH, COVID-19 Resources","field_subtitle":"Open source Google doc","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9mlkhrc","body":"This open source Google doc is collating resources on gender and COVID-19. The doc comprises short summaries of articles which are organised under themes including \u2018data and resources\u2019, \u2018gender based violence\u2019, \u2018women\u2019s contributions\u2019, \u2018women\u2019s leadership\u2019, \u2018unpaid care work\u2019, \u2018PPE\u2019, \u2018gender transformative policy\u2019 and \u2018gender pay gap\u2019. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender-based violence prevention, risk mitigation and response during COVID-19","field_subtitle":"United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees: UNHCR, Geneva, March 2020","field_url":"https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/75296","body":"This briefing gives an overview of risks of gender-based violence (GBV) in the context of COVID-19. Confinement is expected to increase risks of intimate partner violence for displaced women and girls, worsened socio-economic situation exposes refugee women and girls to increased risks of sexual exploitation by community members and humanitarian workers and there will be challenges in access to regular GBV services. The briefing includes recommendations to mitigate risks and ensure access to GBV services. They include considering from the outset, the gendered impacts of COVID-19, considering the different physical, cultural, security and sanitary needs of women, men, boys and girls in quarantines, providing dignity kits to ensure menstrual health and consulting women and girls on preparedness plans and interventions. Programming through women-led organizations should be prioritised whenever feasible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"How best we can achieve a universal health system: a public conversation ","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D: Health Systems Trust, March 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yd9vkr8k","body":"Emeritus Professor Diane McIntyre presents her chapter on: 'How best we can achieve a universal health system: a public conversation'. The chapter was published in the recent South African Health Review. She calls for a broadening of the national discourse on universal health coverage and proposes that the term is replaced with the term 'universal health system' which she suggests is less open to misinterpretation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"IHEA webinars on health economics and COVID-19","field_subtitle":"IHEA: Online, May 2020","field_url":"https://www.healtheconomics.org/page/webinars","body":"iHEA runs a webinar series on a range of health economics topics, with a current emphasis on issues related to COVID-19 . The website provides a list and link to all upcoming webinars, with new webinar details being posted regularly.  Several of these webinars will be held on a multilingual webinar platform to enable wider reach.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Managing the pregnant woman during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa: A clinical guide for health workers and clinical managers ","field_subtitle":"Department of Health: Republic of South Africa, April 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8ccegcm","body":"These guidelines provide guidance to healthcare workers and managers for the management and treatment of pregnant women in the context of COVID-19, read in conjunction with current Maternal and Neonatal health Guidelines and Guidelines for Clinical Management of suspected or confirmed COVID-19 disease. The guidelines change as knowledge regarding strategies to address COVID- 19 develop globally and in South Africa and are updated regularly online.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"OPEN LETTER: Uniting Behind A People\u2019s Vaccine Against COVID-19","field_subtitle":"Heads of state and Oxfam International: May 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yatbwjz9","body":"This open letter signed by presidents, ministers of state, professors and heads of institutions calls for a people\u2019s vaccine against COVID-19, available to all, in all countries, free of charge. The signatories argue that the World Health Assembly must forge a global agreement that ensures rapid universal access to quality-assured vaccines and treatments with need prioritized above the ability to pay. Access to vaccines and treatments as global public goods are in the interests of all humanity. Signatories call for a global agreement on COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics and treatments \u2014 implemented under the leadership of the World Health Organization \u2014 that ensures mandatory worldwide sharing of all COVID-19 related knowledge, data and technologies with a pool of COVID-19 licenses freely available to all countries.  Further, signatories call for a global and equitable rapid manufacturing and distribution plan \u2014 that is fully-funded by rich nations \u2014 for the vaccine and all COVID-19 products and technologies that guarantees transparent \u2018at true cost-prices\u2019 and supplies according to need. The signatories call for an agreement to guarantee COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics, tests and treatments are provided free of charge to everyone, everywhere. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Overcoming the \u2018tyranny of the urgent\u2019: integrating gender into disease outbreak preparedness and response","field_subtitle":"Smith K: Gender and Development 27(2) 355-369, 2019","field_url":"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13552074.2019.1615288","body":"This article provides a multi-level analysis of gender-related gaps in outbreak responses and illustrates the national and local impacts of failures to challenge gender assumptions and incorporate gender as a priority. The implications of neglecting gender dynamics, as well as the potential of equity-based approaches to disease outbreak responses, is illustrated through a case study of the Social Enterprise Network for Development (SEND) Sierra Leone, a non-government organisation (NGO) based in Kailahun, during the Ebola outbreak. Global policy responses can learn from examples such as SEND Sierra Leone. SEND did not include a gendered approach in its response as an afterthought; it was at the heart of the response because SEND had an established gender strategy. The authors argue that all levels of outbreak response need specific policies to ensure sexual and reproductive health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Patient and nurse perspectives of a nurse-led community-based model of HIV care delivery in Malawi: a qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Sande O; Burtscher D; Kathumba D; Tweya H; et al: BMC Public Health 20(685), 1-8, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8y42b33","body":"The authors explored how the nurse-led community-based ART programme in Malawi was perceived, through interview of patients and nurses providing the care. Patients reported saving money on transportation and the time it took them to travel to a health facility. Caseloads and waiting times were also reduced, which made patients more comfortable and gave nurses the time to conduct thorough consultations. Closer relationships were built between patients and care providers, creating a space for more open conversations. Patients\u2019 nutritional needs and concerns related to stigma remain a concern, while operational issues affect the quality of the services provided in the community. The patients interviewed in this study preferred the nurse-led community ART programme approach to the facility-based model of care because of the features above. The authors note that  community-led healthcare programmes need to plan for the provision of transportation for care providers; the physical structure of community sites; the timely consolidation of data collected in the field to a central database; and the need for care providers to cover multiple facility-based staff roles. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Research Ethics and COVID-19","field_subtitle":"Rings Research in Gender & Ethics, Health Systems Global, Resilient and Responsive Health Systems, REACH, Wellcome: 2020","field_url":"https://ethicsresource.ringsgenderresearch.org/covid-19-resources/","body":"In the light of the COVID-19 pandemic a collective of organisations have taken urgent action to collate useful guidance and resources related to research ethics. The resources are organized under the following categories: general guidance, social justice, health systems strengthening, preparedness, care and resource rationing, emergency powers, health care worker wellbeing, gender, quarantine and other mandatory measures, clinical trails, guidance for funders and other resource collections. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Seventy Third World Health Assembly and Resolution 73.1 on the COVID-19 response","field_subtitle":"World Health Assembly: WHA 73.1 Geneva, 19 May 2020 ","field_url":"https://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA73/A73_CONF1Rev1-en.pdf","body":"The May 2020 session of the World Health Assembly was held as a virtual 'de minimis' meeting by video conferencing, with consideration of most items deferred to written procedure or a resumed meeting later in the year. In opening the Assembly the WHO Director General Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus stated \"COVID-19 is not just a global health emergency; it is a vivid demonstration of the fact that there is no health security without resilient health systems, or without addressing the social, economic, commercial and environmental determinants of health\".  The full speech is available at https://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA73/A73_3-en.pdf.  The virtual WHA discussed and endorsed a key resolution sponsored by multiple countries, including Zambia in the east and southern Africa region  and the Africa group and its member states. The resolution is shown at the website provided. The chair of the Africa group noted in the deliberations the importance of making full use of the flexibilities contained in the TRIPS Agreement and the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health and called for the transfer of technology and know-how for medicines for vaccines, diagnostics and other commodities to meet demand and ensure equity. He also called for debt relief to enable countries to meet the demands of responses and the economic impact of the pandemic. The statements by countries to the WHA73 are reported at https://apps.who.int/gb/statements/WHA73/ ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Impact of COVID-19 on SADC Economy","field_subtitle":"SADC Macroeconomic Subcommittee, SADC Secretariat: SADC, Gaborone, May, 2020 ","field_url":"https://www.sadc.int/files/8015/8988/3255/COVID-19_SADC_Economy_Report.pdf","body":"This report presents the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic and implications for SADC Region as monitored by the SADC Macroeconomic Subcommittee, supported by the SADC Secretariat. It provides policy recommendations to Member States. The report recommends policy interventions in the face of the significant global economic downturn from COVID-19, including adding to the focus on health and humanitarian responses, strengthening early warning systems, response and mitigation of pandemics and disasters that have proved to be major threats to education, tourism, informal sector and other sectors; and developing Roadmaps and Action Plans that prioritize investments and channel scarce resources to identified economic sectors to resuscitate their economies, strengthen resilience and improve competitiveness, based on the SADC macroeconomic convergence programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The integration of occupational- and household-based chronic stress among South African women employed as public hospital nurses","field_subtitle":"Cohen J; Venter W: PLOS One 15(5), e0231693, 2020","field_url":"https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0231693","body":"This study explored the lived experience of public hospital-employed, black women nurses\u2019 to better understand their stressors and what may help to reduce it. Through semi-structured life history interviews with 71 nurses in Johannesburg, nurses described daily lives of chronic distress, with extreme pressures on their incomes, time, and resources. Much of this pressure was said to come from the number and intensity of family dependents, related financial obligations and debt. This revised from social norms which assign women primary responsibility for unpaid household work, which nurses struggle with as unsustainable, anxiety-inducing and with pay and paid work schedules that make meeting that responsibility virtually impossible. The structure of the nursing occupation contributes to stress outside the workplace, while the structure of nurses\u2019 households contributes to stress and emotional exhaustion. This implies that workplace-oriented interventions may assist but alone are unlikely to adequately address the overall level of stress. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda\u2019s experience in Ebola virus disease outbreak preparedness, 2018\u20132019","field_subtitle":"Aceng J; Ario A; Muruta A; Makumbi I; et al: Globalization and Health 16(24), 1-12, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yad79k6v","body":"In August 2018, the Uganda Ministry of Health activated the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre and the National Task Force for public health emergencies to plan, guide, and coordinate Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) preparedness in the country. The National Task Force selected an Incident Management Team, constituting a National Rapid Response Team that supported activation of the District Task Forces and District Rapid Response Teams that jointly assessed levels of preparedness in 30 designated high-risk districts. The Ministry of Health, with technical guidance from the World Health Organisation, led EVD preparedness activities and worked together with other ministries and partner organisations to enhance community-based surveillance systems, develop and disseminate risk communication messages, engage communities, reinforce EVD screening and infection prevention measures at points of entry and in high-risk health facilities, construct and equip EVD isolation and treatment units, and establish coordination and procurement mechanisms. As of 31 May 2019, there was no confirmed case of EVD as Uganda has continued to make significant and verifiable progress in EVD preparedness. The authors observe the need to sustain these efforts as a multi-hazard framework to avail resources for preparedness and management of incidents at the source, effectively cutting costs of using a \u201cfire-fighting\u201d approach during public health emergencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"UN Women Calls for Integration of Violence Against Women Data and Services in COVID-19 Surveys","field_subtitle":"UN Women East & Southern Africa: Kenya, 2020","field_url":"https://mailchi.mp/6f266ed24b49/covid-19-gender-equality-matters","body":"To understand better both impact of and responses to COVID-19, UN Women is recommending stand-alone surveys or integration of questions on violence against women in socio-economic and gender surveys to assess the prevalence and responses to gender based violence during COVID-19.  This data is argued to be critical to support evidence-based interventions and to make available lifesaving services. UN Women in East and Southern Africa is working closely with the partner agencies and providing technical support to develop model surveys and guidelines to support quality assessments. This briefing also provides case study analyses of gendered effects of COVID-19 in Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Webinar: Africa and the Pandemic: Clampdown, Survival and Resistance","field_subtitle":"Review of African Political Economy: ROAPE, May 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycoa7qwh","body":"The webinar, chaired by ROAPE\u2019s Yao Graham in Ghana, asked what is happening across Africa since governments ordered the clampdown. The discussants looked at the impact on the continent of the Covid-19 pandemic and the measures taken against it. All the speakers addressed what was happening at grassroots and national level, and how the popular classes were being affected. Reporting from Kenya, Gacheke Gachihi and Lena Anyuolo asked if the state was really fighting Covid-19 or the poor? They argued that since the curfew was enforced across the country the police continue to brutalise and terrorise people living in informal settlements. Femi Aborisade reported a constant struggle for food and survival in Nigeria, and an intensification in the repression of the poor during the country\u2019s lockdown. In South Africa, Heike Becker looked at the reaction of the government, the struggles of poor communities and the urgency of building new activist groups and politics in the country. Tafadwza Choto from Zimbabwe reported that the government was using the virus as a cover for wider repression. Taking on the broader political economy of the crisis, Gyekye Tanoh addressed how economies and politics are likely to be reshaped by the virus and its consequences, with a likely impact of the global recession on the continent, the IMF and IFI responses and the  costs for workers, peasants, social movements, activists, and radical projects. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cGet us partnerships!\u201d - a qualitative study of Angolan and Mozambican health academics\u2019 experiences with North/South partnerships","field_subtitle":"Craveiro I; Carvalho A; Ferrinho P; et al: Globalization and Health 16(33), 1-10, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9deunat","body":"This paper examines how Angolan and Mozambican health sciences researchers experience international collaborations,  using evidence from semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions. Participants shared a sense of asymmetry between African researchers and European trainers in processes that did not fully acknowledge their local contexts, compromising the prospective development of partnerships in health. They argue that more attention be devoted to understanding how participants experience capacity building processes, integrating the diversity of their aspirations and perceptions. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"'Alternative Mining Indaba': you should not only take oil and diamonds","field_subtitle":"Evans J: News 24, February 2020","field_url":"https://www.medicusmundi.org/kampaladeclaration/","body":"A group of about 70 people from the Alternative Mining Indaba marched to the Mining Indaba 2020 held at Cape Town International Conference Centre to highlight their concerns over the problems extractive mining is causing for communities who live near mines. Rev. Martha Mutswakatira, from the Reformed Church in Zimbabwe, who had walked down Adderley Street with the civil society activists in her white collar on Wednesday, said communities are carrying the cost of damages caused by extractive mining. One man from Angola among the Alternative Mining Indaba picket said: \"When you come to Africa you need to invest in people: You should not only take oil and diamonds, and leave people with their hands empty.\" They demanded legal reforms, responsible supply chains, and that mines that pollute be prosecuted.  They also called for the legalisation of artisanal mining, with licences being granted to these miners, and that miners and mineworkers be entitled to health and social care. They recommend carbon taxing of mining companies, not allowing social initiatives by mines to be tax deductible, and a move away from fossil fuels. The group also called for the mining industry to provide compensation for former miners' whose health has been adversely affected. Their memorandum was accepted by a delegation which included the International Council on Mining and Minerals; the Department of Minerals and Energy and the Minerals Council South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"6th SA TB Conference 2020","field_subtitle":"2-5 June, Durban, South Africa","field_url":"https://tbconference.co.za","body":"The 6th South African TB Conference is a platform for stakeholders from government, the private sector, academia, NGO\u2019s, and advocacy groups to share experiences and plan strategic initiatives.  The programme will include international faculty and globally recognised local participants that will cover key cross-cutting themes (drug-sensitive TB, drug-resistant TB, paediatric TB, HIV/TB co-infection, EPTB, and prevention, diagnosis and treatment) across 4 thematic tracks (clinical science, basic science, public health including health systems and surveillance and human rights/ stigma/ advocacy).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A just economy needs to tackle the climate and health debt from mining","field_subtitle":"Extractives and Health Group, East and Southern Africa","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe ongoing extraction of minerals and biodiversity from Africa is not only a contributor to climate change. It leaves us less able to respond to climate change and is generating a social, health and natural resource debt burden for current and future generations. \r\n\r\nThat is why in the recent 2020 Alternative Mining Indaba (AMI), delegates from trade unions, ex-mineworkers, civil society and technical institutions who came together in Extractives and Health Group claimed that any framing of a just transition to address climate change must at the same time address the legacy of past health burdens and prevent such burdens now and into the future. \r\n\r\nWhat are these \u2018debts\u2019? They don\u2019t appear in the balance sheets of banks, ministries of finance or international finance institutions. They appear in the form of lead poisoning in children living in the shadow of mines, undermining their development; as mercury poisoning in communities living near mine dumps; or as chronic silicosis in thousands of ex- mineworkers across the region.  They appear in the displacement of people away from fertile land, in contamination of drinking water, land and air and in the cancers, respiratory and other diseases this causes. The debt grows as an opportunity cost when mining companies do not contribute to local infrastructures, economies and services, or to skills and capacities for technological innovation, or when taxes collected do not return to develop local communities. The debt is there in the absence of information and voice given to communities in decisions and claims that affect their lives. \r\n\r\nSometimes part of the debt is translated into a number. In July 2019, the South Gauteng High Court approved a class action settlement worth at least 5 billion Rand (approximately USd350 million), to be paid as compensation for injury and illness for eligible ex-mineworkers and their dependents in Southern Africa. However, the Southern African Miners Association (SAMA), who organise ex-mineworkers, told the AMI that this figure is only the tip of the still buried level of occupational illness in ex-mineworkers.\r\n\r\nAt a regional workshop held before the AMI, convened by EQUINET with the regional trade union body, SATUCC and with SAMA and Benchmarks Foundation, delegates from organisations representing or working with mineworker, ex-mineworker, community, health and economic justice constituencies identified a shared concern over the way mining is affecting our current and future environments for health. It was perceived that we are not getting the current or future economic and social benefit we should get from mining and that rights are not being protected and claims ignored. \r\n\r\nFrom the work that different organisations are already doing on these issues and from work in the region on HIV, TB and occupational health, it was evident that we have a platform to build on to address this. The meeting identified the building blocks of what needs to be done, not as isolated pockets of activity, but in a more integrated way across all countries of the region. \r\n\r\nWe must prevent the harms. The information, tools and capacities to map, assess and report on the conditions affecting health should be in the hands of communities, workers and ex-mine workers across the region, to be able to bring conditions affecting health to wider attention. While environment impact assessments are done in many countries, this is not enough. There should be a legal duty to carry out health impact assessments before licensing and during mine operations in all countries. These assessments should ensure, implement and monitor plans to prevent risks to health from mining. They should also assess the living conditions, the potential impacts on displaced communities and post closure and set plans to prevent negative impacts. They should be done jointly with workers and communities and publicly reported. \r\n\r\nThe rights of current and future generations should be protected. In many of our countries the laws are outdated, have gaps, or are not well enforced. As the AMI declaration stated, the right to life and to health for current and future generations must be central in whatever laws, policies and practices we design and implement. Health cannot be left to voluntary corporate social responsibility. There are over 25 international standards from United Nations and other institutions on the social obligations of the sector. SADC itself said in 2006 that it should set harmonised health standards in mining and that \u2018member States should develop, adopt and enforce appropriate and uniform health, safety and environmental guidelines for the sector as an immediate milestone area\u2019. It is time we implemented this commitment, not just for TB, HIV and occupational diseases, but for all the public health issues being faced in the sector. \r\n\r\nThe regional meeting shared information on efforts underway to inform and organise affected communities in the region. They included health literacy activities and the Tunatazama action voices alert where community activists share their knowledge and experiences on mining on a website at http://communitymonitors.net/.  There are efforts underway to identify clean energy and green technologies that can limit health damage at source and measures to promote recycling and reuse of metal products. Accessing such information, building capacities for healthy innovation and having a voice in decisions is a right and an investment, especially for the young people whose futures depend on the choices we make today. The trickle of resources that goes to this in comparison to the flow of investment funds that go to the extraction of materials suggest that we have an imbalance that needs to be addressed in the value we are placing on the relative contribution of economic, social and natural resource inputs to our future wellbeing.\r\n\r\nThe regional meeting and the AMI highlighted many practical things we can do to meet the health and natural resource debt and to rebalance future policies and practices. We know that the right to life and health supersedes all other claims and that the natural resources of the region are ours to guard for future generations. We also know, as stated in the 2020 AMI declaration, that these  rights \u201chave been won through social struggle and are a source of social power and organization\u201d. The formation of an Extractives and Health Group that crosscuts different constituencies and disciplines recognises the need to work collectively if we are to advance alternatives that meet past debts and that prevent the current and future liabilities of extraction.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. You can read the meeting report and further information on this work on the EQUINET website. Please also find further information on the websites of the partner institutions named in the oped and of the Alternative Mining Indaba.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Action Voices: Bench Marks Foundation Community Monitoring School ","field_subtitle":"Bench Marks Foundation: South Africa, 2013","field_url":"http://www.bench-marks.org.za/publications/action_voices_2013.pdf","body":"The Bench Marks Foundation developed the concept of the Community Monitoring School because a vacuum of knowledge exists within communities when dealing with big corporations. The message of the Community Monitoring School is \u201cnothing for us without us\u201d. Tunatazama is a Kiswahili word that means \u201cwe are watching\u201d and the 2013 school\u2019s motto was \u201cWe are Watching You!\u201d For any significant reform in the mines to occur, the present power and knowledge imbalances between corporations and communities need to be overcome. In Phase One of the school programme, the focus is on helping participants develop confidence and skills in documenting and analysing community problems. They write short articles on their observations and post these on the project\u2019s website. Some of these articles appear in the first section of this publication. In Phase Two of the programme, direct action in the community is combined with school sessions on planning, review and evaluation. In the second section a reflective analysis is conducted on the process. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Is a Country Fellowship","field_subtitle":"Rolling deadline","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/w4xt256","body":"The purpose of the AIAC Fellowship is to support the production of original work and new knowledge on Africa-related topics that are under-recognized and under-covered in traditional media, new media, and other public forums. It particularly seeks to amplify voices and perspectives from the left that address the major political, social, and economic issues affecting Africans in ways that are original, accessible, and engaging to a variety of audiences. Fellows will be writers and/or other cultural/intellectual producers who can contribute meaningfully to transforming and expanding knowledge about Africa and the diaspora. Each fellow will receive a grant of up to US$3,000 to create original work on a topic of their choice for AIAC over a 9-month period. While most fellows will produce essays and/or reporting and analysis, AIAC are also open to work in other formats, such as photo essays, documentary videos, and more. Fiction, poetry, and fine and performing arts are not eligible for support from this program.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"African Guest Researchers\u2019 Scholarship Programme","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 1 April 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/tle76kd","body":"There is an opportunity for postdoctoral researchers in Africa to pursue their own research projects, thereby indirectly strengthening academia in African countries. The scholarship offers access to the Institute's library and other resources that provide for a stimulating research environment. The maximum duration of the stay is 90 days, minimum is 60 days. The scholarship includes a return air-fare (economy class), accommodation, a subsistence allowance  plus an installation grant and access to a workspace and desk computer.  Guest Researchers have the possibility to present their research at the Nordic Africa Institute and to visit other institutions in the Nordic countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Aliens\u2019 on the Copperbelt: Zambianisation, Nationalism and Non-Zambian Africans in the Mining Industry","field_subtitle":"Money D: Journal of Southern African Studies 45(5), 859-875, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/tl3cpb9","body":"Following Zambia\u2019s independence in 1964, several thousand non-Zambian Africans were identified and progressively removed from the Copperbelt mines as part of a state-driven policy of \u2018Zambianisation\u2019. Curiously, this process has been overlooked among the multitude of detailed studies on the mining industry and Zambianisation, which is usually regarded as being about the removal of the industrial colour bar on the mines. This article challenges that perspective by examining the position and fate of non-Zambian African mineworkers, beginning with patterns of labour recruitment established in the colonial period and through the situation following independence to the protracted economic decline in the 1980s. Two arguments are made by the author. First, Zambian nationalism and the creation of Zambian citizenship were accompanied on the Copperbelt by the identification and exclusion of non-Zambians, in contrast to a strand in the literature which stresses that exclusionary nationalism and xenophobia are relatively recent developments. Second, one of the central and consistent aims of Zambianisation was the removal of \u2018alien\u2019 Africans from the mining industry and their replacement with Zambian nationals as a key objective of the Zambian government, supported by the mineworkers\u2019 union.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"BMJ Global Health Grant 2020","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 20 April 2020","field_url":"https://gh.bmj.com/pages/bmj-global-health-grant-2020/","body":"In support of early career researchers working in the field of global health from low-income and lower-middle-income countries, BMJ is offering the BMJ Global Health Grant to one successful applicant. Applicants may apply for up to \u00a35,000 to your attendance at the Sixth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR 2020), taking place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 8\u201312 November 2020. The grant will be used to cover costs of attending the conference, including the event registration fee, return travel and accommodation costs, visa application fee and subsistence for the days on which the conference is held. The grant will be awarded to the applicant whose abstract describes the most original methodological contribution to the field of global health and whose summary demonstrates the greatest importance and potential impact in advancing the field.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Busting four myths about Universal Health Coverage","field_subtitle":"Samman E: Overseas Development Institute, December 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/tdorn9h","body":"New research sheds light on the experience of almost 50 countries that have attained Universal Health Coverage (UHC) or made strides toward doing so. This research indicates that while there isn\u2019t a one-size-fits-all approach, there are parallels \u2013 and opinions on what aids or prevents UHC are often misinformed. It\u2019s often thought that countries strive for UHC during periods of stability but research shows that most major moves towards UHC are triggered by a change in circumstances that breaks a country\u2019s usual pattern that has prevented healthcare reform. It\u2019s much more difficult to roll out UHC during fragile times \u2013 finances are often limited and subject to competing claims. But fragility appears to be a powerful motivation for UHC: disruption weakens powerbases that may oppose UHC and governments use healthcare to build legitimacy. Cost is often cited as a barrier to UHC but the gross national income in low- and middle-income countries where UHC is seen as cost-effective is only $1,524 more than those that think it is not \u2013 a 13% difference. Healthcare can be a contentious political issue. Dissatisfaction often remains strong until countries reach universality. But once achieved, UHC is usually robustly accepted across the political spectrum. Moreover, this consensus tends to prevail even in difficult situations. Around eight countries in the sample (15%) appear to have faced threats to their health system \u2013 including armed conflict in Ukraine and state fragility in Tanzania. The implications are argued to be clear: all countries have the potential to move towards UHC. The main barriers to UHC roll-out are political.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Desk review on \"Public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the health sector- what implications for equity in east and southern Africa\"","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 9 March 2020","field_url":"https://www.equinetafrica.org/content/grants","body":"This is a call for a desk review of public private partnerships (PPPs) in the health sector (health services) in east and southern African countries commissioned by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET). The paper aims to inform public sector professionals, policy makers, civil society and parliamentarians on the health sector and health equity impacts of PPPs in health services in the countries of east and southern Africa. It will cover the full spectrum of services provided in the health sector, viz promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative in East and Southern African countries.. The paper will be drafted, reviewed and final version produced between March and end July 2020. EQUINET will organise internal and external review. The commissioned author will be paid a gross fee of US$6000 for the paper. See the website for further detail. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Children\u2019s rights provide a powerful lever to challenge chronic disease risks ","field_subtitle":"Leslie London, School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIndustry marketing aimed at children presents a major challenge to efforts to control the global crisis of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Advertising and promotion of tobacco, alcohol, sugar-sweetened drinks and other unhealthy processed foods are common in all countries. They are a particular threat in countries with weak laws, poor enforcement and political cultures that are beholden to foreign investment. Africa is particularly vulnerable to unhealthy marketing by corporates. \r\n\r\nInternationally, attention is growing on what works best to reduce the risk of NCDs, and to the role that human rights-based approaches have in this. In particular, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) can act as a strategic lever against health risks from corporate practice. Under the CRC, governments have obligations to protect children from economic exploitation and harm generated by the activities and products of tobacco, food and beverages industries. Governments are also obliged to protect children from information harmful to their health and development. This includes the marketing of unhealthy goods. However few governments in low-income countries implement measures to meet these particular obligations to protect the best interest of the child. \r\n\r\nThe European Scientific Network on Law and Tobacco (ESNLT) hosted a roundtable in mid-2019 to generate a better understanding of the successes and potential constraints of a child rights-based approach to address the global NCD epidemic. (See  https://www.rug.nl/rechten/onderzoek/expertisecentra/ghlg/outcome_document_25_june_geneva.pdf). Participants were researchers, mainly from high-income countries, with some from low- and middle-income countries. The meeting also involved personnel from World Health Organisation and UNICEF staff working on NCDs and human rights. In the meeting, participants shared experiences of using a child-rights approach in domestic and international responses to NCDs and identified new opportunities to use a child-rights approach and to advocate for these approaches to be applied in addressing industry behaviours relevant to the risk factors for NCD. \r\n\r\nParticipants in the meeting explored how to apply a child rights-based approach to support regulation of NCD-related risks, particularly in low-income countries, vulnerable settings and trade policies, and how best to disseminate this knowledge more widely. Various recommendations were made in the meeting.  Participants proposed networking with academics and civil society working with broader child rights and health equity issues to advance awareness, advocacy and implementation of these approaches, working also with public health networks like EQUINET in low- and middle-income countries, especially where civil society space is constrained.  It was proposed that regional blocs such as the East Africa Community and Southern African Development Community be engaged to promote effective regulation of NCD risks related to marketing practices, including in relation to online and cross-border marketing and trading. Participants observed that evidence needed to be generated and shared on effective strategies and that this knowledge be brought into online and distance training courses to strengthen regulatory capacities and into postgraduate training linking human rights, law and public health. One suggestion was for a test case to be brought in one country that has constitutional provisions protecting these rights, such as South Africa. These actions could tap into existing resources. For example, the World Federation of Public Health Nutritionists has set up a mechanism for reporting conflicts of interest. The learning from this could be consolidated and shared. \r\n\r\nIt was significant that the ESNLT engaged beyond high-income countries and is addressing wider risk factors for NCDs. Bringing together a diverse set of actors in the meeting helped to build links across different disciplines and opened avenues for future collaboration.  Linking with existing networks can help to identify capacity gaps and to stimulate and support research and advocacy. Education of both public health and law professionals can expose each to the respective field of the other to promote collaboration and team approaches. This interaction has already been stimulated by the meeting. For example, soon after it, one of the participants was invited to give a keynote address at the Association of Schools of Public Health Conference in Africa to highlight the role of law in public health.  \r\n\r\nThe meeting also proposed that international organizations, such as WHO, UNICEF, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Human Rights Committee and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, link to reduce capacity gaps and overlaps in their work and outputs. A child rights-based approach and qualitative assessment of country performance could be included in WHO assessments of how far regulations targeting the main risk factors are implemented. Evidence on NCD-related issues could be included in country reporting to the Committee on the Rights of the Child and shadow reporting by civil society promoted. \r\n\r\nThis is not simply a technical matter. Industry actors are well-resourced, powerful and able to thwart regulation of NCD risk factors.  This power imbalance calls for co-operation across international and national organizations, civil society organizations, academia and public officials. For regional networks such as EQUINET, the fact that every country in Africa has ratified the CRC and all but 6 have ratified the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child offers an opportunity and policy space to use human and child rights-based approaches to tackle health equity challenges, including the prevention of corporate and market-induced risks for NCDs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Contradictions within the SDGs: are sin taxes for health improvement at odds with employment and economic growth in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Hangoma P; Surgey G: Globalization and Health 15(82)1-9, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/uv98jyc","body":"To achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3.4, countries have been urged to introduce sin taxes, such as those on sugar. Others have argued that such taxes may affect employment, economic growth and increase poverty. There is limited or no reliable evidence on this. Using a conceptual framework of relationships among SDGs as contradictory, reinforcing, or neutral, the authors used the recent introduction in Zambia of an equivalent 3% tax on non-alcoholic beverages, implicitly targeted at sugar-sweetened beverages to test the issue. While the goal of reducing non-communicable diseases is stated, concerns were raised that such a tax would be detrimental to the Zambia sugar value chain which contributes about 6% to GDP. The authors discuss that contradictions depend on a number of contextual factors, and make two conclusions about sugar taxation in Zambia. First, they argue that the current tax rate of 3% is likely neutral to be because it is too low to have any health or employment effects. However, the revenue raised can be reinvested to improve livelihoods. Secondly, they suggest increasing the tax rate but taking care to ensure that the rate is not too high to generate contradictions, carefully assessing important parameters such as elasticities and alternative economic livelihoods. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Crowdfunding and global health disparities: an exploratory conceptual and empirical analysis","field_subtitle":"Kenworthy N: Globalisation and Health 15(70, Suppl 1), 1-10, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/uawuhym","body":"The use of crowdfunding platforms to cover the costs of healthcare is growing rapidly within low-, middle-, and high-income countries as a new funding modality in global health. To map and document how medical crowdfunding is shaped by, and shapes, health disparities, this article offers an exploratory conceptual and empirical analysis of medical crowdfunding platforms and practices around the world. Data are drawn from a mixed-methods analysis of medical crowdfunding campaigns, as well as an ongoing ethnographic study of crowdfunding platforms and the people who use them. Drawing on empirical data and case examples, this article describes three main ways that crowdfunding is impacting health equity and health politics around the world: 1) as a technological determinant of health, wherein data ownership, algorithms and platform politics influence health inequities; 2) as a commercial determinant of health, wherein corporate influence reshapes healthcare markets and health data; 3) and as a determinant of health politics, affecting how citizens view health rights and the future of health coverage. Rather than viewing crowdfunding as a social media fad or a purely beneficial technology, researchers and publics must recognize it as a complex innovation that is reshaping health systems, influencing health disparities, and shifting political norms, even as it introduces new ways of connecting and caring for those in the midst of health crises. More analysis, and better access to data, is needed to inform policy and address crowdfunding as a source of health disparities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Decentralising Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) management in rural southern Africa: evaluation of a pilot implementation study","field_subtitle":"Sharp A; Riches N; Mims A; Ntshalintshali S; et al: BMC Public Health 20(44)1-8, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ww3ot3j","body":"This study assessed the feasibility and impact of decentralised care for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) within nurse-led clinics in order improve access and inform healthcare planning in Eswatini and similar settings. In collaboration with the Eswatini Ministry of Health, the authors developed and implemented a package of interventions to support nurse-led delivery of care, including clinical desk-guide for hypertension and diabetes, training modules, treatment cards and registries and patient leaflets. One thousand one hundred twenty-five patients were recruited to the study. Of these patients, 573 attended for at least 4 appointments. There was a significant reduction in mean blood pressure among hypertensive patients after four visits of 9.9 mmHg systolic and 4.7 mmHg diastolic, and a non-significant reduction in fasting blood glucose among diabetic patients of 1.2 mmol/l. Key components of non-communicable disease care were completed consistently by nurses throughout the intervention period, including a trend towards patients progressing from monotherapy to dual therapy in accordance with prescribing guidelines. The findings suggest that management of diabetes and hypertension care in a rural district setting can be safely delivered by nurses in community clinics according to a shared care protocol. Improved access is likely to lead to improved patient compliance with treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Development assistance for community health workers in 114 low- and middle-income countries, 2007\u20132017 ","field_subtitle":"Lu C; Palazuelos D; Luan Y; Sachs SE; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 98(1) 1-76, 2020 ","field_url":"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/98/1/19-235499.pdf","body":"This study estimated the level and trend of development assistance for community health worker-related projects in low- and middle- income countries between 2007 and 2017. Data was extracted from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development\u2019s creditor reporting system on aid funding for projects to support community health workers (CHWs) in 114 countries over 2007\u20132017. Between 2007 and 2017, total development assistance targeting CHW projects was around US$ 5 298 million, accounting for 2.5% of the US$ 209 278 million total development assistance for health. Sub-Saharan Africa received a total US$ 3 718 million, the largest per capita assistance over 11 years. Development assistance to projects that focused on infectious diseases and child and maternal health received most funds during the study period. The share of development assistance invested in the CHW projects was, however, small, unstable and decreasing in recent years. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out quarterly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 223: A just economy needs to tackle the climate and health debt from mining","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Health equity monitoring is essential in public health: lessons from Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Llop-Giron\u00e9s A; Cash-Gibson L; Chicumbe S; Alvarez F; et al: Globalization and Health 15(67) 1-7, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/s4a4af7","body":"This paper presents an evaluation of the current capacity of the national health information systems in Mozambique, and the available indicators to monitor health inequalities, in line with Sustainable Development Goals 3. A data source mapping of the health information system in Mozambique was conducted. Eight data sources contain health information to measure and monitor progress towards health equity in line with the 27 Sustainable Development Goal 3 indicators. Seven indicators bear information with nationally funded data sources, ten with data sources externally funded, and ten indicators either lack information or it does not applicable for the matter of the study. None of the 27 indicators associated with Sustainable Development Goal 3 can be fully disaggregated by equity stratifiers; they either lack some information or do not have information at all. The indicators that contain more information are related to maternal and child health. The authors report that there are important information gaps in Mozambique\u2019s current national health information system which prevents it from being able to comprehensively measure and monitor health equity. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Human Development Report 2019. Beyond income, beyond averages, beyond today:  Inequalities in human development in the 21st century ","field_subtitle":"United Nations Development Programme, New York, 2019","field_url":"https://www.hst.org.za/publications/NonHST%20Publications/hdr2019.pdf","body":"Inequalities in human development are a roadblock to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. They are not just about disparities in income and wealth and cannot be accounted for simply by using summary measures of inequality that focus on a single dimension. This 2019 Report explores inequalities in human development by going beyond income, beyond averages and beyond today. It asks what forms of inequality matter and what drives them, recognizing that pernicious inequalities are generally better thought of as a symptom of broader problems in a society and economy. It also asks what policies can tackle those drivers\u2014policies that can simultaneously help nations to grow their economies, improve human development and reduce inequality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Hwange women exposed to the vagaries of coal mining. . . as one dies poaching coke","field_subtitle":"Mlevu S: Centre for Natural Resource Governance, 2020 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/s7mw5mq","body":"Centre for Natural Resource Governance shared, with sorrow, news of the death of a Hwange woman after a tunnel she was using to sneak into Hwange Colliery Company Limited\u2019s (HCCL) premises collapsed on her and her colleague. As Zimbabwe\u2019s economy declines the Hwange Community now survives largely through several illicit activities, which include sneaking into the company premised through a tunnel to steal coking coke. The centre makes several recommendations. Firstly, that the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Women Affairs and Small to Medium Enterprises should immediately avail grants for income generating projects to support women in Hwange. This will help women who are not on formal employment to avoid risky livelihood options. They propose that the HCCL must provide safety and security measures that will inhibit people from illegally taking coal coke in their premises. HCCL should also fully implement safety, health and environment initiatives around their premises so that lives can be saved. The centre also recommends that the government provides social and economic security for women mining affected areas and that the Environmental Management Agency regularly monitors SHE compliance in all companies without bias.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Justice for South African Gold Miners","field_subtitle":"Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA); South Africa, 2020","field_url":"https://actsa.org/campaigns/justice-for-south-african-gold-miners/","body":"Thousands of ex-gold mineworkers in South Africa are suffering from silicosis and lack the medical screening, compensation, healthcare and support they need and deserve. Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) led a campaign calling on gold companies to provide decent health and compensation in a campaign for justice for Southern African gold mineworkers with silicosis and tuberculosis.  The campaign included: protesting outside the High Court; attending and speaking at many Anglo American AGMs; organising petitions; and producing campaign briefings. On 26 July 2019, the South Gauteng High Court approved a class action settlement worth at least R5 billion (approximately \u00a3268 million). The settlement establishes the Tshiamiso Trust, which will be responsible for paying compensation to eligible gold mineworkers and their dependents in Southern Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Kampala Declaration on cooperation and solidarity for health equity within and beyond aid","field_subtitle":"Medicus Mundi International Network: Kampala, Uganda, January 2020","field_url":"https://www.medicusmundi.org/kampaladeclaration/","body":"The authors contend that the priorities of Northern donors dictate the aid agenda, implemented by the non-state and Southern \u2018partners\u2019 they fund. These priorities often clash with the needs and concerns of communities, governments and civil society in many countries around the world. The aid space is dominated by powerful interests, while the voices of those most affected by health inequity are regularly tokenised or excluded from the conversation. The authors argue that many actors within the sector \u2013 even among communities and civil society \u2013 do not question the underlying premise and structures of health aid. Their own ideas and world views have been shaped by, and for, aid and the industry that supports it. Questioning aid poses challenges to the professions, livelihoods and sources of power for those who work within the sector. Furthermore, whilst health aid is important in some situations, on its own aid can never lead to a world where all people can live healthy lives. Signatories of the declaration believe that collective social action in solidarity as one global community, working together to address the root causes of the struggle for health, can transform aid into an equitable means of ensuring health rights. Through the Kampala Initiative, the signatories commit to expose, explore, challenge and transform health aid through dialogue, advocacy, activism and action. They commit to build cooperation and solidarity for health, within and beyond the practice of aid, to build a future where health justice and equity are realised, and aid is no longer a necessity. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Legislative landscape for traditional health practitioners in Southern African development community countries: a scoping review","field_subtitle":"Abrams A; Falkenberg T; Rautenbach C; et al: BMJ Open 10(1) 1-10, 2019","field_url":"https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/1/e029958","body":"This study mapped and reviewed traditional health practitioners (THPs) -related legislation among SADC countries. Four of 14 Southern African countries have legislation relating to THPs. South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe have acknowledged the roles and importance of THPs in healthcare delivery by creating a council to register and formalise practices, although they have not operationalised nor registered and defined THPs. In contrast, Tanzania has established a definition couched in terms that acknowledge the context-specific and situational knowledge of THPs, while also outlining methods and the importance of local recognition. Tanzanian legislation; thus, provides a definition of THP that specifically operationalises THPs, whereas legislation in South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe allocates the power to a council to decide or recognise who a THP is. This council can prescribe procedures to be followed for the registration of a THP. While South Africa, Tanzania, Namibia and Zimbabwe have legislation that provides guidance as to THP recognition, registration and practices, THPs continue to be loosely defined in most of these countries. Not having an exact definition for THPs are argued to hamper the promotion and inclusion of THPs in national health systems, but it may also be something that is unavoidable given the tensions between lived practices and rigid legalistic frameworks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"NGOs, austerity, and universal health coverage in Mozambique ","field_subtitle":"Pfeiffer J; Chapman R: Globalization and Health 15(Suppl 1) 1-6, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/sro26nx","body":"In many African countries, hundreds of health-related non-government organisations (NGOs) are fed by a chaotic tangle of donor funding streams. The case of Mozambique illustrates how this NGO model impedes Universal Health Coverage. In the 1990s, NGOs multiplied across post-war Mozambique: the country\u2019s structural adjustment program constrained public and foreign aid expenditures on the public health system, while donors favoured private contractors and NGOs. In the 2000s, funding for HIV/AIDS and other vertical aid from many donors increased dramatically. In 2004, the United States introduced PEPFAR in Mozambique at nearly 500 million USD per year, roughly equivalent to the entire budget of the Ministry of Health. PEPFAR funding has helped thousands access antiretroviral treatment, but over 90% of resources flow \u201coff-budget\u201d to NGO \u201cimplementing partners,\u201d with little left for the public health system. After a decade of this major donor funding to NGOs, public sector health system coverage had barely changed. In 2014, the workforce/ population ratio was still among the five worst in the world at 71/10000; the health facility/per capita ratio worsened since 2009 to only 1 per 16,795. Achieving UHC will require rejection of austerity constraints on public sector health systems, and re-channelling of aid to public systems building rather than to NGOs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) Research Symposium","field_subtitle":"4 March 2020, Lord Charles Hotel, Somerset West, South Africa","field_url":"https://www.cebhc.co.za/research-key-outputs/ncd-research-symposium/","body":"The National NCD Research Symposium is an opportunity to bring together researchers, policymakers and practitioners to exchange knowledge on prevention and treatment of diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease risk factors, and related mental health conditions; identify the gaps in knowledge base; and discuss implications for healthcare policy and practices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) technical guidance","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: Geneva, January 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/v98z4v9","body":"On 31 December 2019, WHO was alerted to several cases of pneumonia in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. The virus did not match any other known virus. This raised concern because when a virus is new, it is not known how it affects people. One week later, on 7 January, Chinese authorities confirmed that they had identified a new virus. The new virus is a coronavirus, which is a family of viruses that include the common cold, and viruses such as SARS and MERS. This new virus was temporarily named \u201c2019-nCoV.\u201d The World Health Organisation has released a number of guidelines aimed at preventing the spread and proliferation of the virus. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevalence and determinants of recent HIV testing among older persons in rural Uganda: a cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Wandera S; Kwagala B; Maniragaba F: BMC Public Health 20(144) 1-10, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/srkkhka","body":"This study investigated the socio-demographic determinants of recent HIV testing among older persons in selected rural districts in Uganda using a cross-sectional survey of 649 older men and women age 50\u2009years and older, from central and western Uganda. Prevalence of lifetime HIV testing was 82% and recent HIV testing was 53%. HIV testing in the last 12\u2009months was associated with age, self-reported sexually transmitted infections, male circumcision, and sexual activity in the last 12\u2009months. Recent HIV testing among older persons was associated with younger age, self-reported STIs, male circumcision, and sexual activity among older persons in rural Uganda. The authors propose that HIV testing interventions target persons 70\u2009years and older, who were less likely to test.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Programme Officer, Training, Grants and Fellowships (TGF) Programme","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 15th April 2020","field_url":"https://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article3009&lang=en","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa invites applications from African scholars to fill a vacant position of Programme Officer in its Training, Grants and fellowships Programme at its pan-African Secretariat located in Dakar, Senegal. Candidates wishing to apply for the position should note that they will work under the supervision of the Senior Programme officer and Head of the Training, Grants and Fellowships Programme. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Prolonged health worker strikes in Kenya- perspectives and experiences of frontline health managers and local communities in Kilifi County","field_subtitle":"Waithaka D; Kagwanja N; Nzinga J; Tsofa B; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 19(23), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-020-1131-y, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/vdykk5k","body":"The authors explored the perceptions and experiences of frontline health managers and community members of the 2017 prolonged health workers\u2019 strikes in Kenya, using informal observations, reflective meetings, individual and group interviews and document reviews, analysed using a thematic approach. In the face of major health facility and service closures and disruptions, frontline health managers enacted a range of strategies to keep key services open, but many were piecemeal, inconsistent and difficult to sustain. Interviewees reported huge negative health and financial impacts on local communities, and especially poor people. They found limited evidence of improved health system preparedness to cope with any future strikes. The 2017 prolonged strikes highlight the underlying and longer-term frustration amongst public sector health workers in Kenya. Reactive responses within the public system and the use of private healthcare led to limited continued activity through the strike, but were not sufficient to confer resilience to the shock of prolonged strikes. To minimise the negative effects of strikes when they occur, the authors suggest that careful monitoring and advanced planning is needed. Planning should aim to ensure that emergency and other essential services are maintained, threats between staff are minimized, health worker demands are reasonable, and that governments respect and honour agreements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Psychological wellbeing in a resource-limited work environment: examining levels and determinants among health workers in rural Malawi","field_subtitle":"Lohmann J; Shulenbayev O; Wilhelm D; Muula A; et al: Human Resources for Health (2019) 17(85) 1-11, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/wkuuuu2","body":"Ensuring health workers\u2019 psychological wellbeing is critical to sustaining their availability and productivity. This study investigated levels of and factors associated with psychological wellbeing of mid-level health workers in Malawi, using a cross-sectional sample of 174 health workers from 33 primary and secondary level health facilities in four districts of Malawi. Twenty-five percent of respondents had World Health Organsation-5 scores indicative of poor psychological wellbeing. Analyses of factors related to psychological wellbeing showed no association with sex, cadre, having dependents, supervision, perceived co-worker support, satisfaction with the physical work environment, satisfaction with remuneration, and motivation; a positive association with respondents\u2019 satisfaction with interpersonal relationships at work; and a negative association with having received professional training recently. The high proportion of health workers with poor wellbeing scores is concerning in light of the general health workforce shortage in Malawi and strong links between wellbeing and work performance. While more research is needed to draw conclusions and provide recommendations as to how to enhance wellbeing, the results are argued to underline the importance of considering wellbeing as a key concern for human resources for health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health Care Spending in South Africa and the Impact on Nurses: 25 years of democracy?","field_subtitle":"Valiani S: Agenda, 33 (4) 67-78, 2019","field_url":"https://www.academia.edu/41929022/Public_Health_Care_Spending_in_South_Africa_and_the_Impact_on_Nurses_25_years_of_democracy","body":"Nurses in South Africa - as in the rest of the continent - are the backbone and oxygen of public health care though not adequately acknowledged. This article traces the pattern of public health care spending and its impact on nurses since 1994. Given the nature and quantity of demand for public health care in South Africa, deemed the most unhealthy nation in the world in the 2019 Indigo Wellness Index, the article shows that the 25 year record of democratic South Africa registers low public health care expenditure and nurses are at the coal face of this contradiction. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Purchasing reforms and tracking health resources, Kenya ","field_subtitle":"Vilcu I; Mbuthia B; Ravishankar N: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 98(2), 77-148, 2020","field_url":"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/98/2/19-239442.pdf","body":"As low- and middle-income countries undertake health financing reforms to achieve universal health coverage, there is renewed interest in making allocation of pooled funds to health-care providers more strategic. To make purchasing more strategic, countries are testing different provider payment methods. They therefore need comprehensive data on funding flows to health-care providers from different purchasers to inform decision on payment methods. Tracking funding flow is the focus of several health resource tracking tools including the System of Health Accounts and public expenditure tracking surveys. This study explores whether these health resource tracking tools generate the type of information needed to inform strategic purchasing reforms, using Kenya as an example. A qualitative assessment of three counties in Kenya shows that different public purchasers, that is, county health departments and the national health insurance agency, pay public facilities through a variety of payment methods. Some of these flows are in-kind while others are financial transfers. The nature of flows and financial autonomy of facilities to retain and spend funds varies considerably across counties and levels of care. The government routinely undertakes different health resource tracking activities to inform health policy and planning. However, a good source for comprehensive data on the flow of funds to public facilities is still lacking, because these activities were not originally designed to offer such insights. The authors therefore argue that the methods could be enhanced to track such information and hence improve strategic purchasing, and also offer suggestions how this enhancement can be achieved. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional Meeting of the Extractives and Health Group","field_subtitle":"TARSC; EQUINET; SATUCC; SAMA; Benchmarks: Meeting report, 1-2 February 2020, Cape Town, South Africa ","field_url":"https://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EHG%20Mtg%20Rep%20Feb2020.pdf","body":"EQUINET, SATUCC, SADC CNGO and Benchmarks Foundation have co-operated on regional engagement on extractives and health at the Alternative Mining Indaba, and with the Southern African ex mineworkers Association met in a regional meeting on health literacy in the mining sector in March 2019 to form a mining and health group to strengthen alliances and co-operation in the grassroots to regional and global engagement on the issue. The March 2019 meeting agreed to hold a follow up meeting at the time of the Alternative Mining Indaba (AMI) in February 2020 to follow up on the agreed actions, exchange information and widen the alliances and health literacy activities and processes in the region. The meeting was organised by TARSC / EQUINET and held in co-operation with SATUCC, SAMA and Benchmarks. It was held in Cape Town in the two days before the AMI to enable delegates to also engage in the AMI. It was supported by Medico International and OSF and by TARSC and all the organisations involved who also contributed own resources to their participation. The meeting aimed to  i. Share information on mining and health in the region in terms of the risks, responses, rights and actions ii. Review activities on health literacy in mining and use of the EQUINET health literacy module on Mining and health iii. Review the work of the mining and health working group and its members in various platforms and proposed work on extractives and health equity in the region and identify priorities, alliances, actions and roles for follow up and iv. Identify issues to take forward in the AMI and other regional platforms. This report presents the information shared and discussions at the meeting and the plans for follow up work. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Rights for People, Rules for Corporations - #BindingTreaty","field_subtitle":"Democracy Centre: Film, December 2019","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdX3Mrhf7pY","body":"#COP25 can barely break into the news cycle - but the public is well aware by now that business-as-usual is not an option if ecological breakdown is to be averted and move to a fairer, safer and more peaceful ways of co-existing on the planet are to be found. Business-as-usual means maintaining trade rules and treaties that give corporations enormous power to endlessly extract natural resources; sacrificing communities and ecosystems in those places to feed rampant consumerism for the profit of a powerful minority. This film\u2019s calls on us to reject business-as-usual and advocate for a #BindingTreaty on Transnational Corporations and Human Rights and are building solidarity across countries and movements to demand Rights for People, Rules for Corporations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Societal risk factors for overweight and obesity in women in Zimbabwe: a cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Mangemba N; Sebastian M: BMC Public Health 20(103) 1-8, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yx2oy6jp","body":"This study determined the socioeconomic risk factors for overweight and obesity in non-pregnant adult Zimbabwean women. A cross-sectional study was conducted using the 2015 Zimbabwe Demographic Health Survey data on the adult female population aged 15 to 49. The weighted prevalence of overweight and obesity in adult females was 34% and 12% respectively. The prevalence of overweight and obesity among women in Zimbabwe was high. The key social factors associated were older age, being married, being wealthy and using hormonal contraception. Having a higher education and being Christian also increased the risk of being obese and overweight respectively. The design of multi-faceted overweight and obesity reduction programs for women that focus on increasing physical activity and strengthening of social support systems are argued by the authors to be necessary to combat this epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tackling injustices of occupational lung disease acquired in South African mines: recent developments and ongoing challenges","field_subtitle":"Kistnasamy B; Yassi A; Yu J; et al: Globalization and Health 14(60), doi: 10.1186/s12992-018-0376-3, 2018","field_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6022447/","body":"This study aimed to assess developments over the last 5 years in providing compensation, quantify shortfalls and explore underlying challenges for ex mineworkers and their families. Using the database with compensable disease claims from over 200,000 miners, the medical assessment database of 400,000 health records and the employment database with 1.6 million miners, rates of claims, unpaid claims and shortfall in claim filing were calculated for each of the southern African countries with at least 25,000 miners who worked in South African mines, by disease type and gender. Interviews were also conducted in Johannesburg, Eastern Cape, Lesotho and a local service unit near a mine site, supplemented by document review and auto-reflection, adopting the lens of a critical rights-based approach. A myriad of diverse systemic barriers persist, especially for workers and their families outside South Africa. Calculating predicted burden of occupational lung disease compared to compensable claims paid suggests a major shortfall in filing claims in addition to the large burden of still unpaid claims. Despite progress made, our analysis reveals ongoing complex barriers and illustrates that the considerable underfunding of the systems required for sustained prevention and social protection (including compensation) needs urgent attention. With class action suits in the process of settlement, the globalized mining sector is now beginning to be held accountable. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The access paradox: abortion law, policy and practice in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia","field_subtitle":"Blystad A; Haukanes H; Tadele G; Haaland M; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 18 (126) 1-15, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/qpzldng","body":"This paper explored the relationship between abortion law, policy and women\u2019s access to safe abortion services within the different legal and political contexts of Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with study participants differently situated vis-\u00e0-vis abortion, exploring their views on abortion-related legal- and policy frames and their perceived implications for access. The abortion laws have been classified as \u2018liberal\u2019 in Zambia, \u2018semi-liberal\u2019 in Ethiopia and \u2018restrictive\u2019 in Tanzania, but what the authors encountered in the three study contexts was a paradoxical relationship between national abortion laws, abortion policy and women\u2019s actual access to safe abortion services, and that the texts that make up the three national abortion laws are highly ambiguous. While Zambian and Ethiopian laws are more liberal on paper, they in no way ensure access, while the strict Tanzanian law does not prevent young women from seeking and obtaining abortion. The authors observe that the findings demonstrate that the connection between law, health policy and access to health services is complex and dependent on contexts for implementation. They suggest that broad contextualized studies rather than classifications of law along a liberal-restrictive continuum provide better evidence of real access to safe abortion services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The effects of maternity waiting homes on the health workforce and maternal health service delivery in rural Zambia: a qualitative analysis","field_subtitle":"Kaiser J; Fong R; Ngoma T; McGlasson K; et al: Human Resources for Health 17(93) 1-12; 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ru4csds","body":"This study assessed how maternity waiting homes (MWHs) affect the health workforce and maternal health service delivery at their associated rural health centres. Four rounds of in-depth interviews with district health staff and health centre staff were conducted at intervention and control sites over 24\u2009months. Nearly all respondents expressed challenges with understaffing and overwork and reported that increasing numbers of facility-based deliveries driven by MWHs contributed substantively to their workload. Women waiting at MWHs allow staff to monitor a woman\u2019s final stage of pregnancy and labour onset, detect complications earlier, and either more confidently manage those complications at the health centre or refer to higher level care. District, intervention, and control site respondents passionately discussed this benefit over all time points, describing it as outweighing challenges of additional work associated with MWHs. Intervention site staff repeatedly discussed the benefit of MWHs in providing a space for postpartum women to wait after the first few hours of clinical observation through the first 48\u2009h after delivery. Additionally, intervention site staff perceived the ability to observe women for longer before and after delivery allowed them to better anticipate and plan their own work, adjust their workloads and mindset accordingly, and provide better and more timely care. The authors recommend future studies consider how MWHs impact the workforce, operations, and service delivery at their associated health facilities and strategic selection of  locations for new MWHs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The mediating role of social capital in the relationship between socioeconomic status and adolescent wellbeing: evidence from Ghana","field_subtitle":" Addae E: BMC Public Health 20(20) 1-11, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/um5dn7a","body":"This paper presents evidence on the potential for social capital to be a protective health resource by mediating the relationship between socioeconomic status and wellbeing of Ghanaian adolescents. A cross-sectional survey involving a randomly selected 2068 adolescents from 15 schools in Ghana was conducted. Relationships were assessed using multivariate regression models. Three measures of familial social capital were found to protect adolescents\u2019 life satisfaction and happiness against the effects of socioeconomic status. There were variations in how socioeconomic status and social capital related to the different dimensions of adolescents\u2019 wellbeing. Social capital was reported to be a significant mechanism through which socioeconomic status impacts the wellbeing of adolescents. The authors suggest that it can be utilised by public health and that the findings show that the role of the family in promoting adolescents\u2019 wellbeing is superior to that of the school. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in prevalence and correlates of intimate partner violence against women in Zimbabwe, 2005\u20132015","field_subtitle":"Mukamana J; Machakanja P; Adjei N: BMC International Health and Human Rights 20 (2),1-11, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/r8p95v5","body":"Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a widespread problem affecting all cultures and socioeconomic groups. This study explored the trends in prevalence and risk factors associated with IPV among Zimbabwean women of reproductive age (15\u201349 years) from 2005 to 2015, analysing data from the 2005/2006, 2010/2011 and 2015 Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Surveys. The prevalence of Intimate partner violence was found to have decreased from 45% in 2005 to 41% in 2010, and then increased to 43% in 2015. Some of the risk factors associated with Intimate partner violence were younger age, low economic status, cohabitation and rural residence. Educational attainment of women was not significantly associated with Intimate partner violence. The findings indicate that women of reproductive age are at high and increasing risk of physical and emotional violence. The authors argue that there is a need for an integrated policy approach to address the rise of IPV related physical and emotional violence against women in Zimbabwe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tunatazama ","field_subtitle":"An online network for Southern African Communities Living Near Mines","field_url":"http://communitymonitors.net","body":"This website is a space for community activists living near mines in southern Africa to share information, resources and experiences. The countries currently participating in this project are: Lesotho, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Mozambique and Tanzania. Activists in each country document problems they experience and events they participate in and share this on a WhatsApp group. These posts are then shared on this site in the respective country blogs. Each country, in addition, maintains their own country blog.  Additionally, Activists can view the posts on a mobile app called \u201cAction Voices\u201d which can be downloaded on an Android phone from the Google Play store. The activities of this project are managed by the Bench Marks Foundation on behalf of regional organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"User-provider experiences of the implementation of KidzAlive-driven child-friendly spaces in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Mutambo C; Shumba K; Hlongwana K: BMC Public Health  20(91) 1-15, 2020","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/vj74m5m","body":"KidzAlive is a child-centred intervention aimed at improving the quality of HIV care for children in South Africa. The authors conducted qualitative interviews with children, their primary caregivers, and KidzAlive trained healthcare workers using and providing child-friendly spaces, respectively. Child-friendly spaces contributed to child-centred care in primary healthcare centres. This was evidenced by the increased involvement and participation of children, increased primary caregivers participation in the care of their children and a positive transformation of the primary healthcare centre to a therapeutic environment for children. Several barriers impeding the success of child-friendly spaces were reported including space challenges; clashing health facility priorities; inadequate management support; inadequate training on how to maximise the child-friendly spaces and lastly the inappropriateness of existing child-friendly spaces for much older children. Child-friendly spaces are observed to promote HIV positive children\u2019s right to participation and agency in accessing care. However, more rigorous quantitative evaluation is required to determine their impact on children\u2019s HIV-related health outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO response to WTO member state challenges on tobacco, food and beverage policies","field_subtitle":"Barlow P; Labonte Rl McKee M; Stuckler D: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 97(1) 846-848, 2019","field_url":"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/97/12/19-231985.pdf","body":"In 2013, the World Health Assembly endorsed the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) Global action plan for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) 2013\u20132020 to achieve a 25% reduction in mortality from NCDs by 2025. WHO\u2019s Global Action Plan is ambitious. In the late 1990s, WHO used its treaty- making powers to address the issue of tobacco use, leading to the Frame-work Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). It enabled WHO to have a greater presence at World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings, supporting countries in their efforts to protect their populations against the harms from tobacco. While WHO was present when tobacco trade may conflict with public health concerns, this was not the case in WTO discussions concerning nutrition policy. Even though the Global action plan for the prevention and control of NCDs 2013\u20132020, fully recognizes the need for action on trade in certain foods and beverages, it was not possible to find any evidence of WHO participation in nutrition-related trade challenges, such as those related to unhealthy food high in salt, fat and sugar, alcohol, soft-drinks and infant milk formulae. The authors suggest that WHO can learn from its past successes in championing tobacco control at the WTO. The lack of a treaty similar to the FCTC for nutrition-related diseases may discourage WHO participation because such absence limits the perceived legitimacy of WHO input. Further investigations are necessary to understand why WHO has yet to comment on food and beverage regulations at WTO\u2019s committee. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2020-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"7th International Conference on the History of Occupational and Environmental Health, 27 \u2013 29 May, Durban, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Abstract submission date extended to 10 December","field_url":"https://icohhistory2020.ukzn.ac.za","body":"The theme for the 7th International Conference on the History of Occupational and Environmental Health is \u2018Occupational and Environmental Health: At the Crossroads of Migrations, Empires and Social Movements\u2019. The scientific programme will focus on the migration of workers in various time periods, the interconnections of empires, public health in post-colonial periods, and the role of trade unions and other social movements in occupational and environmental health. The evolution of occupational and environmental health especially in Africa, as well as globally, will be addressed. The conference is intended to promote interconnections among historians, social scientists and occupational and environmental practitioners/researchers. Leading historians in occupational and environmental health have been invited to give keynote lectures. In addition, there will be an open call for abstracts for oral and poster presentations and a pre-conference methods training workshop. Please visit the conference website for instructions on submission of your abstract: You may now register for the Conference at https://icohhistory2020.ukzn.ac.za/registration-information/. Early bird registration will close on 15 January 2020. Early and mid-level academics from African countries are encouraged to apply for the fee waiver. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Adult and young women communication on sexuality: a pilot intervention in Maputo-Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Frederico M; Arnaldo C; Michielsen K; Decat P: Reproductive Health 16(144) 1-12, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/u2al9gu","body":"With young women increasingly exposed to sexualized messages, they are argued to need clear, trustful and open communication on sexuality more than ever. However, in Mozambique, communication about sexuality is hampered by strict social norms. This paper evaluates an intervention aimed at reducing the generational barrier in talking about sexuality to contribute to better communication within the family context. The intervention consisted of three weekly one-hour coached sessions in which female adults and young people interacted about sexuality. Realist evaluation was used as a framework to assess context, mechanisms and outcomes of the intervention. Interviews were conducted among 13 participants of the sessions. The interaction sessions were positively appreciated by the participants and contributed to a change in norms and attitudes towards communication on sexuality within families. Recognition of similarities and awareness of differences were key in the mechanisms leading to these outcomes. This was reinforced by the use of visual materials and the atmosphere of respect and freedom of speech that characterized the interactions. Limiting factors were related to the long-standing taboo on sexuality and existing misconceptions on sexuality education and talks about sex. By elucidating mechanisms and contextual factors, the study adds knowledge on strategies to improve transgenerational communication about sexuality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"BAT faces landmark legal case over Malawi families' poverty wages","field_subtitle":"Boseley S: The Guardian, October 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y4d3xgmr","body":"Human rights lawyers are reported to be preparing to bring a landmark case against British American Tobacco on behalf of hundreds of children and their families forced by poverty wages to work in conditions of gruelling hard labour in the fields of Malawi. Leigh Day\u2019s lawyers are seeking compensation for more than 350 child labourers and their parents in the high court in London, arguing that the British company is guilty of \u201cunjust enrichment\u201d. Leigh Day says it anticipates the number of child labourer claimants to rise as high as 15 000. While BAT claims it has told farmers not to use their children as unpaid labour, the lawyers say the families cannot afford to work their fields, because they receive so little money for their crop. Many of the families are from Phalombe, one of the poorest regions in the south of the country. Children as young as three are involved in tobacco farming, the letter of claim says, often during harvest when the work can be especially hazardous. Children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of toxic pesticides, fertiliser and green tobacco sickness, from nicotine absorption while handling the leaves. Symptoms include breathing difficulties, cramps and vomiting. BAT is one of the most profitable companies in the world, making an operating profit last year of \u00a39.3bn on sales of \u00a324.5bn. Like other big tobacco companies, it has distanced itself from the farmers by commissioning a separate company to buy a stipulated amount of tobacco leaf each year. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts for the Sixth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR2020)","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 6 February 2020","field_url":"https://hsr2020.healthsystemsresearch.org/abstracts","body":"The Sixth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR2020) is now accepting individual abstracts (including oral presentations and posters), multimedia abstracts and skills-building sessions. You can find out more about key dates and how to submit on the HSR2020 abstracts webpage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program (CADFP)","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 9 December 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yhelrm3d","body":"The CADFP is a scholar exchange program for African higher education institutions to host a diaspora scholar for 14-90 days for projects in curriculum co-development, research collaboration and graduate student teaching and mentoring. Accredited universities in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda and member institutions of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) can submit a project request to host a scholar. Scholars born in Africa, who live in the United States or Canada and work in an accredited college or university in either of those two countries, can apply online to be placed on a roster of candidates for a fellowship. Scholars must hold a terminal degree in their field and may hold any academic rank. Links and information about the African host institution project request application, scholar roster application, and review guidelines are posted on the CADFP website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Children with hearing impairment in Malawi, a cohort study","field_subtitle":"Mulwafu W; Tataryn M; Polack S; Viste A; et al.: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 97(10) 654\u2013662, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/u7jvfgw","body":"This study assessed the outcomes of children diagnosed with hearing impairment 3 years earlier in terms of referral uptake, treatment received and satisfaction with this treatment and social participation. A population-based longitudinal analysis of children with a hearing impairment was conducted in two rural districts of Malawi. Key informants within the community identified the cohort in 2013. Informants clinically screened children at baseline and by questionnaires at baseline and follow-up in 2016. 752 children were diagnosed in 2013 as having a hearing impairment and 307 traced for follow-up in 2016. Referral uptake was low, more likely among older children and less likely for those with an illiterate caregiver. Few of the children who attended hospital received any treatment and 63.6% of caregivers reported satisfaction with treatment. Difficulty making friends and communicating needs was reported for 10.0% and 35.6% of the children, respectively. Lack of school enrolment was observed for 29.5% of children, and was more likely for older children, girls and those with an illiterate caregiver. The authors propose that more widespread and holistic services are required to improve the outcomes of children with a hearing impairment in Malawi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Corporations\u2019 use and misuse of evidence to influence health policy: a case study of sugar-sweetened beverage taxation","field_subtitle":"Fooks G, Williams S, Box G, Sacks G: BMC Globalization and Health,  15, 56,  doi:10.1186/s12992-019-0495-5, 2019.","field_url":"https://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12992-019-0495-5","body":"Sugar sweetened beverages (SSB) are a major source of sugar in the diet. Although trends in consumption vary across regions, in many countries, particularly LMICs, their consumption continues to increase. In response, a growing number of governments have introduced a tax on SSBs. SSB manufacturers have opposed such taxes, disputing the role that SSBs play in diet-related diseases and the effectiveness of SSB taxation, and alleging major economic impacts. Given the importance of evidence to effective regulation of products harmful to human health, the authors scrutinised industry submissions to the South African government\u2019s consultation on a proposed SSB tax and examined their use of evidence. The findings not only highlight the value of improving the transparency and scrutiny of regulatory impact assessments and consultations in health policy-making, but also other modes of industry political activity. The authors argue that. efforts need to be made to enhance appraisal of industry use of evidence. Ideally, there should be a presumption in favour of in-depth critical appraisal, organised and financially supported by national governments. Beyond this, there is a strong case for closer transnational collaboration between civil society actors and academics that centres on producing real-time appraisals of companies\u2019 use of evidence in both public consultations and other contexts in which they provide information to policy actors and the public.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Crowdsourcing in Health and Health Research: A Practical Guide","field_subtitle":"WHO/TDR and SESH in collaboration with the Social Innovation in Health Initiative: WHO, Geneva, 2019","field_url":"https://www.who.int/tdr/publications/year/2018/crowdsourcing-practical-guide/en/","body":"Crowdsourcing tools, such as challenge contests, are increasingly used to improve public health. Crowdsourcing is the process of having a large group, including experts and non-experts, solve a problem and then share the solution with the public. This guide provides practical advice on designing, implementing and evaluating crowdsourcing activities for health and health research \u2013 with descriptions and examples of contests collected through a challenge contest The guide includes: descriptions of and methods for challenge contests for health and health research; how to organize and evaluate contests; practical resources, such as a challenge contest checklist; case studies; and a table of commended challenge contests for health submitted through the report\u2019s challenge contest in 2017. The report was developed by the Social Entrepreneurship to Spur Health (SESH) and the TDR-supported Social Innovation in Health Initiative (SIHI). ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 120: Research that supports health equity: Reflections and learning from EQUINET","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Mamdani M; Loewenson T; Dambisya Y; Chitah B; Kaim B; Machemedze R; Gilson L; Zulu A: EQUINET, Harare, 2019","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Diss120%20Research%20for%20HE%202019%20lfs.pdf","body":"This paper reflects on experience from over two decades of EQUINET research practice to promote health equity in east and southern Africa. The paper was written by members of the EQUINET steering committee and the newsletter team. It draws examples and research features from EQUINET publications available online, a search of publications in the 221 issues of the EQUINET newsletter, and papers, reports, blogs, articles and editorials obtained from key word searches in Google. Despite policy commitments and gains in selected aspects of health, conditions in the region are increasingly driven by a global economy and a regional response that is generating instability, environmental and social costs; intense extraction of natural resources; rising levels of precarious labour, social deficits and weakened public institutions, disrupting social cohesion, solidarity and collective agency. These conditions call for certain features and forms of research. The paper describes diverse research on the costs to health equity of social deficits, inequitable resource outflows and the commodification of public services, as well as research on alternatives and policies on food security, health services, environment and rights that confront these trends. The paper describes specific features of research that respond more directly to the understanding that power relations are central to inequities in health. These research processes explain and show alternatives to disempowering narratives of the inevitability of the status quo and generate knowledge in ways that intend to empower those affected. They pay attention to who defines the research questions, who designs, implements and uses the research. This implies designs and methods that involve people in affirming and validating their realities, generating reflection on causes and building analysis, self-confidence and organisation to act and to learn from action. It presents specific examples of research approaches and the role of a consortium network in advancing them, while noting the ways in which many researchers face the double task of investigating inequities, while also challenging inequity in a global research system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Disrespectful treatment in primary care in rural Tanzania: beyond any single health issue ","field_subtitle":"Larson E; Mbaruku G; Kujawski A; Mashasi I; et al.: Health Policy and Planning 34(7) 508\u2013513, 2019","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/34/7/508/5542613","body":"Little is known about the prevalence of disrespectful treatment of patients in sub-Saharan Africa outside of maternity care. Data from a household survey of 2002 women living in rural Tanzania was used to describe the extent of disrespectful care during outpatient visits, who receives disrespectful care and the association with patient satisfaction, rating of quality and recommendation of the facility to others. Women were asked about their most recent outpatient visit to the local clinic, including if they were made to feel disrespected, if a provider shouted at or scolded them, and if providers made negative or disparaging comments about them. Women who answered yes to any of these questions were considered to have experienced disrespectful care. The most common reasons for seeking care were fever or malaria, vaccination and non-emergent check-up. Disrespectful care was reported by 14.3% of women and was more likely if the visit was for sickness compared to a routine check-up. Women who did not report disrespectful care were 2.1 times as likely to recommend the clinic. While there is currently a lot of attention on disrespectful maternity care, the authors suggest that this is a problem that goes beyond this single health issue and should be addressed by more horizontal health system interventions and policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Ensuring that target-driven funding supports and does not harm comprehensive primary health care in east and southern Africa: Briefs for local, district, regional and international level","field_subtitle":"EQUINET PAROnline community: EQUINET, Harare, 2019","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/PARonline%20brief%20international%202019.pdf","body":"Primary Health Care (PHC) has inspired and galvanized action on health. PHC affirms that health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease and that health is a fundamental human right. In the past decade, global institutions have promoted and channeled external funds through performance-based financing (PBF), as a strategy to improve service delivery and access. While there have been studies on whether these particular services targeted under PBF have improved, there has been little systematic evaluation of its system-wide effects, nor of its impacts on comprehensive PHC. In EQUINET, we thus saw it to be important to ask: How is the use of targets in PBF affecting health workers\u2019 professional roles, work and interaction with communities and their ability to deliver comprehensive PHC? In 2018-2019 the PAR involved 21 online participants from seven sites in five ESA countries, including health workers from primary health cent res, community members in HCCs and country site facilitators from seven national health civil society organisations in the region, referred to in this brief collectively as the \u2018online participants\u2019. We also included offline local discussions with an average of 19 community members and 15 health workers per site. Four major areas of action and ten proposals were made within them for PBF to enable and not detract from PHC. These are 4 briefs each of which present the general findings and proposals from the work with separate final points in the first brief for local level; in the second for district and national level; in the third brief for regional level agencies and in the fourth brief for international agencies. The link is to one of the briefs  but all four are on the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 222: How can research promote equity and justice in health?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET workshop on health literacy for the mining and extractive sector ","field_subtitle":"1-2 February, 2020, Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/meetings","body":"Most countries in east and southern Africa have rich deposits of a range of mineral reserves that are highly sought after in global trade. Extractive industries (EIs), largely multinationals from all regions of the world, extract these minerals, oil and gas from the earth through mining, dredging and quarrying. Countries in east and southern Africa thus face a challenge to make and implement policy choices that link these natural resources to improved social and economic development, and to ensure that extraction processes do not harm health or environments.  EQUINET is working with trade union partners in the Southern Africa Coordination Council (SATUCC), Ex mineworkers in the Southern Africa Miners Association (SAMA) and civil society through Benchmarks SA on health in the mining sector in east and southern African (ESA) countries. EQUINET are holding a regional meeting on February 1 and 2 2020 in Cape Town South before the Alternative Mining Indaba to share health literacy information on mining and health, distribute the health literacy module on mining and health, and share other materials and experiences in EQUINET\u2019s ongoing programmes and advocacy on mining and health in the region. The workshop is aimed at trade union, ex mineworker and civil society  health organisers. There are very limited sponsored places and self-sponsored places left so those interested, and those attending the AMI who wish to join the meeting, are asked to apply soonest by email.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Farmworkers want 67 pesticides banned","field_subtitle":"Hendricks A: Ground up, August 2019","field_url":"https://www.groundup.org.za/article/farmworkers-want-67-pesticides-banned/","body":"Over 200 women farm workers from across the Western Cape marched to Parliament on Wednesday demanding that the Department of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries (DAFF) and the Department of Labour work together to ban 67 pesticides to protect the health of farm workers. They also want farmers to be held accountable if they disobey labour practices. Research done by the 'Women on Farms' project showed that 73% of women seasonal workers interviewed did not receive protective clothing and 69% came into contact with pesticides within an hour after it had been sprayed. For safety, different pesticides have their own \u201cre-entry period\u201d that has to be adhered to. The WFP campaign to ban pesticides is also being supported by Oxfam South African and Oxfam Germany. With the memorandum, members from Oxfam Germany handed over a placard with 29,302 signatures on it from German consumers supporting the ban.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"From primary health care to universal health coverage\u2014one step forward and two steps back","field_subtitle":"Sanders D, Nandi S, Labont\u00e9 R, Vance C, Van Damme W: The Lancet, Vol 394; 10199, 619-621, 2019","field_url":"https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)31831-8/fulltext","body":"Primary health care (PHC), codified at the historic 1978 Alma Ata Conference, was advocated as the means to achieve health for all by the year 2000.  The principles of PHC included universal access and equitable coverage; comprehensive care emphasising disease prevention and health promotion; community and individual participation in health policy, planning, and provision; intersectoral action on health determinants; and appropriate technology and cost-effective use of available resources. These principles were to inform health-care provision at all levels of the health system and the programmatic elements of PHC that focused primarily on maternal and child health, communicable diseases, and local social and environmental issues. PHC emphasised community participation through a network of workers at all levels who would be trained both \u201csocially and technically\u201d. UHC is concerned with improved access to quality health services and protection from financial risks associated with health care. However, UHC, unlike PHC, is silent on social determinants of health and community participation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Generating statistics from health facility data: the state of routine health information systems in Eastern and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Ma\u00efga A, Jiwani S, Mutua M, et al.: BMJ Global Health; 4:e001849. doi:10.1136/ bmjgh-2019-001849, 2019","field_url":"https://www.hst.org.za/publications/NonHST%20Publications/Generating%20Statistics.pdf","body":"Health facility data are a critical source of local and continuous health statistics. Countries have introduced web-based information systems that facilitate data management, analysis, use and visualisation of health facility data. Working with teams of Ministry of Health and country public health institutions analysts from 14 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa, the authors explored data quality using national-level and subnational-level (mostly district) data for the period 2013\u20132017. The focus was on endline analysis where reported health facility and other data are compiled, assessed and adjusted for data quality, primarily to inform planning and assessments of progress and performance.  The analyses showed that although completeness of reporting was generally high, there were persistent data quality issues that were common across the 14 countries, especially at the subnational level. These included the presence of extreme outliers, lack of consistency of the reported data over time and between indicators (such as vaccination and antenatal care), and challenges related to projected target populations, which are used as denominators in the computation of coverage statistics. The authors propose continuous efforts to improve recording and reporting of events by health facilities, systematic examination and reporting of data quality issues, feedback and communication mechanisms between programme managers, care providers and data officers, and transparent corrections and adjustments will be critical. to improve the quality of health statistics generated from health facility data.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and Aging in Africa: A Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH Community in South Africa (HAALSI)","field_subtitle":"Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and the INDEPTH Network: 2019 ","field_url":"https://haalsi.org/about","body":"The Health and Aging Study in Africa: A Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH Community in South Africa (HAALSI) is led by an interdisciplinary team of collaborators from Harvard School of Public Health, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and the INDEPTH Network, a global network of health and demographic surveillance systems based in Ghana. By integrating the HAALSI data with cause of death data from the INDEPTH Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) data at the MRC/Wits Agincourt research site, the authors explored the interrelationships between physical and cognitive functioning, lifestyle risk factors, household income and expenditure, depression and mental health, social networks and family composition, HIV infection and cardio-metabolic disease. In South Africa, the research found that people who were participating in the national HIV treatment programme were more likely to receive care for high blood pressure and achieve control of both blood pressure and blood sugar. This finding suggests that strong primary care systems are an important part of the answer to the disease trends of older adults and that South Africa\u2019s national HIV treatment programme may offer a great platform for expanding primary care for all South Africans. Good health habits formed in childhood and in young adulthood \u2013 including avoiding smoking and alcohol overuse, engaging in physical activity and eating a nutritious diet are identified as being crucial to healthy ageing of the society of a whole.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health system constraints affecting treatment and care among women with cervical cancer in Harare, Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Tapera O; Dreyer G; Kadzatsa W; Nyakabau A:  BMC Health Services Research 19(829) 1-10, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/tfa9dhp","body":"This study investigated health system constraints affecting treatment and care by women with cervical cancer in Harare, Zimbabwe. A sequential explanatory mixed methods design was used. Phase 1 comprised of two surveys namely: patient and health worker surveys with sample sizes of 134 and 78 participants respectively. In phase 2, 16 in-depth interviews, 20 key informant interviews and 6 focus groups were conducted to explain survey results. Health system constraints identified were: limited or lack of training for health workers, weakness of surveillance system for cervical cancer, limited access to treatment and care, inadequate health workers, reliance of patients on out-of-pocket funding for treatment services and lack of back-up for major equipment. The qualitative inquiry found barriers to be: high costs of treatment and care, lack of knowledge about cervical cancer and bad attitudes of health workers, few screening and treating centres located mostly in urban areas, lack of clear referral system resulting in bureaucratic processes and limited screening and treating capacities in health facilities due to lack of resources. The study showed that the health system and its organization present barriers to access of cervical cancer treatment and care among women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health systems must go beyond \u2018sick care\u2019 for universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"Bennett S; El-Jardali F: Health Systems Global, September 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/vk5tu5u","body":"Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is normally understood as \u2018people being able to access curative, preventive and palliative health services without incurring financial hardship\u2019. Yet this interpretation is only one part of the overall picture of health. To mitigate and prepare for such environmental and societal changes and the subsequent impact on health the authors suggest that there are at least three major ways in which health systems need to radically transform. Firstly, health systems across the world continue to be predominantly \u2018sick care\u2019 systems. Despite the success of immunization campaigns, the availability of contraceptive services and other preventive interventions, most investment is in healthcare facilities that provide primarily personal, curative health services. The World Health Organization estimates that low- and middle-income countries direct only 11-12 per cent of their total health spending towards preventive services. Secondly, animal and wildlife information systems vary enormously across countries in their objectives and structure but rarely interact with systems for tracking human health. This means that opportunities to identify dangerous viruses and diseases in the animal population before they crossover into humans are frequently missed. Thirdly, at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) the community of academics and activists concerned with non-communicable diseases were vocal, and rightly so. Such diseases now account for 41 out of the world\u2019s 57 million deaths each year. The authors suggest that there is a need to move away from a narrow view of \u2018sick care\u2019 to one that prepares for and acknowledges present day complexities and challenges to achieve UHC.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health, life and rights: a discourse analysis of a hybrid abortion regime in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Sambaiga R; Haukanes H; Moland K; Blystad A: International Journal for Equity in Health 18(135) 1-12, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/swnfsss","body":"This paper explores how major global abortion discourses manifest themselves in Tanzania and indicates potential implications of a hybrid abortion regime. The study combined a review of legal and policy documents on abortion, publications on abortion in Tanzanian newspapers between 2000 and 2015 and 23 semi-structured qualitative interviews with representatives from central institutions and organizations engaged in policy- or practical work related to reproductive health. Tanzania\u2019s abortion law is highly restrictive, but the discursive abortion landscape is diverse and is made manifest through legal- and policy documents and legal- and policy related disputes. The discourses were characterized by diverse frames of reference based in religion, public health and in human rights-based values, reflecting the major global discourses. The paper demonstrates that a hybrid discursive regime relating to abortion is found even in the legally restrictive abortion context of Tanzania. The authors argue that a complex discourse cuts across the restrictive - liberal divide and opens avenues for enhanced access to abortion related knowledge and services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Hearing and vision screening for preschool children using mobile technology, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Eksteen S; Launer S; Kuper H; Eikelboom R; et al.:  Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 97 (10) 672\u2013680, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/vakbpxl","body":"screening programme for preschool children in the Western Cape, South Africa, supported by mobile health technology and delivered by community health workers. The authors trained four community health workers to provide dual sensory screening in preschool centres of Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain during September 2017\u2013December 2018. Community health workers screened children aged 4\u20137 years using mobile health technology software applications on smart-phones. Community health workers screened 94.4% of eligible children at 271 centres at a cost of US$5.63 per child. The number of children who failed an initial hearing and visual test was 435 and 170, respectively. Of the total screened, 111 children were diagnosed with a hearing and/or visual impairment. Mobile health technology supported community health worker delivered hearing and vision screening in preschool centres provided a low-cost, acceptable and accessible service, contributing to lower referral numbers to resource-constrained public health institutions. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV self-testing services for female sex workers, Malawi and Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Napierala S; Desmond N; Kumwenda M; Tumushime M; et al.: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 97(11) 764\u2013776, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ucwuy3a","body":"n Zimbabwe, research was conducted to assess the acceptability and accuracy of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) self-testing. During implementation, the authors evaluated sex workers\u2019 preferences for and feasibility of distribution of test kits before the programme was scaled-up. In Malawi, the authors conducted a rapid ethnographic assessment to explore the context and needs of female sex workers and resources available, leading to a workshop to define the distribution approach for test kits. Once distribution was implemented, the authors conducted a process evaluation and established a system for monitoring social harm. In Zimbabwe, female sex workers were able to accurately self-test. The preference study helped to refine systems for national scale-up through existing services for female sex workers. The qualitative data helped to identify additional distribution strategies and mediate potential social harm to women. In Malawi, peer distribution of test kits was the preferred strategy. The authors identified some incidents of social harm among peer distributors and female sex workers, as well as supply-side barriers to implementation which hindered uptake of testing. Involving female sex workers in planning and ongoing implementation of human immunodeficiency virus self-testing is essential, along with strategies to mitigate potential harm. Optimal strategies for distribution and post-test support are argued to be context-specific and to need to consider existing support for female sex workers and levels of trust and cohesion within their communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How can research promote equity and justice in health?","field_subtitle":"EQUINET steering committee members","field_url":"","body":"\r\nWhen EQUINET was formed in 1998, all east and southern African countries had public policy commitments to improve health equity.  This was a statement of values, and needed to be protected socially, as much as it demanded information on how to achieve it. As people from government, unions, civil society, parliament, academia from other institutions in the region, we saw that research could inform and reinforce this policy intention. We could expose the extent and forms of avoidable, unfair inequality and their determinants and propose ways of advancing equity in health. With inequalities a reflection of the power people have to direct resources towards their wellbeing, we saw research and knowledge as not neutral in these power relations. \r\n\r\nThis year we reflected on our experience from over two decades of EQUINET research on how, and how far our research practice had achieved these intentions. \r\n\r\nPolicies have been articulated and knowledge generated in our region by many, including ourselves on the inclusive economic policies, comprehensive public services and rights-based approaches to addressing social inequality. Yet our realities are increasingly driven by a global economy and a regional response that is generating instability, environmental and social costs; increasing extraction and export of natural resources; rising levels of precarious labour, social deficits and destruction of cultures. Our public institutions have become weaker and even basic forms of wellbeing commodified, disrupting cohesion, solidarity and collective agency. ESA countries are framed as \u2018under-developed\u2019 and \u2018aid recipients\u2019, with populations undergoing a \u2018development pathway\u2019, despite the economic insecurity, resource depletion and social deficits associated with this pathway. Responding to these trends, people in the network have done work to expose and show the harms and violations in people\u2019s experience of these trends, and to point to opportunities for alternative policy and practice.\r\n\r\nResearch on these issues has involved relationships and dialogue with key constituencies, from the onset and throughout the process, and efforts to ensure rigour, quality, validity and ethical practice. We have shared results in a range of media and interactions. Implementation research, appreciative inquiry, realist review, benefit incidence analysis, policy analysis and other designs have, with the new lenses brought by diverse disciplines in the network, taken us outside biomedical paradigms and the \u2018core curative care business\u2019 that the health sector has retreated to, exploring the choices made in a range of sectors and what this means for the wellbeing of current and future generations.  \r\n\r\nHowever, the battle of ideas and struggle over wealth and power that lies at the heart of the trends generating inequalities in health in our region raise not just WHAT is investigated, but also WHO asks the questions, WHOSE assumptions are brought to bear and HOW the research is done.  Research can explain and show alternatives to disempowering narratives of the inevitability of the status quo and generate knowledge in ways that empower those affected to affirm their reality, to reflect on the causes of their problems and to more directly articulate alternative explanations and build the self-confidence and organisation to produce change and to learn from actions taken.  \r\n\r\nLike others working on social justice, we are on a constant learning curve on how to do this. Participatory action research has, for example, provided a particularly powerful means for people to create counter-narratives to dominant characterizations that ignore or undermine them, transforming people from objects to subjects and strengthening strategic action and review. Yet we are still learning how to embed PAR within the democratic functioning of social organisations as well as testing, such as through online PAR, how to amplify the organisation, consciousness and voice from largely local PAR processes to engage global level drivers of inequity, without losing their authenticity. We\u2019ve been excited by methods and capacities that allow for the complexity of the many overlapping stories in our lives and countries, including narrative research, \u2018fiction\u2019, theatre, photography, and social media, We\u2019ve appreciated how technologies used in research are deeply connected to the processes and interests that use them. \r\nDoing this work excites, reveals, generates energy and many collective \u2018aha\u2019 moments!. But it also exhausts, demands many hours of time and absorbs all those involved in social processes. Many talk about facing the double task of researching on inequities, while also challenging inequity in a global research system that undervalues the cross disciplinary, reflexive and participatory approaches and interactions that are features of equity related research. People in the region, particularly at local level, face travel, visa, cost, gender, class and racial barriers that exclude them from engaging in northern-based global processes. \r\n\r\nIn this context, being in a consortium network and the partnerships with the network have provided support, resources, exchanges and peer review for more self-determined work. The wide range of disciplines, lenses and constituencies in the network have provoked us to be more creative. Yet our region is changing, encountering new opportunities and challenges. We cannot afford to be over-comfortable in old relationships, methods and practice. So the question stays on the agenda: how can our research practice better promote equity and justice in health?\r\n\r\nWe welcome your feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped \u2013 please send them to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. Please visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Diss120%20Research%20for%20HE%202019%20lfs.pdf  to read the discussions, ideas and examples in the full paper that the editorial draws from. Several papers included in this newsletter also provide interesting experiences and reflections on research for equity and equity in research systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Huawei's pitch to African mayors: \u2018Our cameras will make you safe\u2019","field_subtitle":"Allison S: Mail and Guardian, November 2019","field_url":"https://mg.co.za/article/2019-11-15-00-our-cameras-will-make-you-safe","body":"A conference organised by the Brenthurst Foundation, a Johannesburg-based think-tank and lobby group gave Huawei a slot to pitch its vision for the future of African cities. It is a vision that revolves around surveillance, artificial intelligence and 5G communication networks, creating a world where your every movement is tracked, recorded and searchable. Human Rights Watch describes this technology, however, as \u201calgorithms of repression\u201d, given a potential for abuse of people\u2019s rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"International Conference on Thinking 2020","field_subtitle":"15-18 June 2020, Ekurhuleni, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.icot2020.org","body":"The International Conference on Thinking (ICOT2020) will showcase African thinking and its contribution to shaping the progress of societies around the world. ICOT2020 will take place in Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg, South Africa, with the theme of thinking to transform societies. The core focus is education, with environment, business, health, sport and society as the other strands. Sub-themes engage with teaching for better thinking engagement, impact and innovation, fostering an entrepreneurial mindset, breaking from poverty creating, imagining, innovating, promoting an ethic of care towards a sustainable future and exploring African ways of thinking. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"International Health Economics Association (iHEA) Call for Nominations for the 2020 Student Paper Prize","field_subtitle":"Deadline: January 13, 2020","field_url":"","body":"The International Health Economics Association (iHEA) is pleased to invite nominations for the Annual Student Paper Prize in Health Economics. Nominations should include a brief letter of nomination (250 words max) and a copy of the paper (preferably pdf). A student is defined as someone currently studying (full or part time) at a higher education institution, at either Masters or Doctoral level. In addition, students who have completed their studies in the year previous to the announcement qualify as long as the paper was written while registered as a student. Papers can be published or unpublished, but must be in comparable format to a published paper in Journal of Health Economics or Health Economics, of maximum length 8,000 words. Self nomination is acceptable. Papers should be in English. If a submitted paper has more than one author, the student contribution must be at least 75% overall and an accompanying letter must be signed by co-authors to support this, stating the nature of their contribution (conceptualization, analysis, writing etc.). A joint student paper with 50-50 contributions is acceptable. The Prize will be subsidized travel and attendance at the 2021 iHEA Congress in Cape Town to present the paper in a Student Prize Special Organised Session chaired by the iHEA President, or Chair of the Prize Committee; the equivalent of US$1,000; and the offer (if the author wishes, and the paper is unpublished) of potential fast track publication in Health Economics, subject to Editorial approval. The papers in 2nd and 3rd place will receive the equivalent of US$250 each and free registration (but not travel) at the 2021 Cape Town iHEA Congress. They will be invited to give brief presentations at the iHEA Congress Student Prize Special Organized Session.  Applications and inquiries to the email address below. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Key findings from parliamentary meeting on UK Visa refusals for African visitors to the UK ","field_subtitle":"Bailey H: Royal African Society, February 2019","field_url":"http://www.royalafricansociety.org/analysis/key-findings-parliamentary-meeting-uk-visa-refusals-african-visitors-uk","body":"In January the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Africa working in coalition with the APPG for Diaspora, Development and Migration and the APPG for Malawi hosted a meeting in parliament to hear oral evidence on UK visa refusals for African visitors. Participating organisations and individuals gave numerous accounts of conferences, festivals, collaborations and business and trade partnerships that had been undermined due to legitimate African participants being denied visas. Statistics show that UK visa refusals are issued at twice the rate for African visitors than for those from any other part of the world. Evidence strongly demonstrates that the UKVI system lacks consistency, intelligence and any accountability. The immediate cost, needing to access the internet and to pay in a foreign currency all present initial barriers. Other than the practical barriers faced by the applicants, the huge distances between the place of application and where the decisions are made means they are usually made away from local expertise, context and insight that would have previously be held at the High Commissions. The last report on visa services, from the Independent Chief Inspector in 2014 found that over 40% of refusal notices were \u201cnot balanced, and failed to show that consideration had been given to both positive and negative evidence\u201d. The panel heard that applicants are often refused based on a lack of proof or information that was not required or even mentioned under the guidelines for the application. The meeting concluded that the current system was not designed but has organically grown into something that is not fit for purpose. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal determinants of optimal breastfeeding and complementary feeding and their association with child undernutrition in Malawi (2015\u20132016)","field_subtitle":"Walters C;  Rakotomanana H; Komakech J;  Stoecker B: BMC Public Health  19 (1503) 1-12, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/t9xnuj8","body":"The study determined current breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices to identify maternal determinants of each practice, and their association with stunting, underweight, and wasting. The most recent Malawi Demographic Health Survey 2015\u20132016 was used and data for 2294 children aged 0\u201323\u2009months included. A conceptual framework of five maternal domains: sociodemographic, health status, health behaviors, women\u2019s empowerment, and media exposure was used. Among children, 30.8% were stunted, 9.9% were underweight, and 3.7% were wasted. Many were breastfed within the first hour of birth, 89% were breastfed until their first birthday and 40% were not exclusively breastfed to 6 months. Only 32% met minimum dietary diversity, 23% met minimum meal frequency, 12% met minimum acceptable diet and 12% consumed iron-rich foods. Children whose mothers lived in urban areas were less likely to be breastfed within 1 hour of birth but more likely to meet minimum dietary diversity. Children whose mothers listened to radio were more likely to meet minimum meal frequency. Children who met minimum meal frequency and minimum acceptable diet were less likely to be underweight. Optimal breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices in Malawi remain suboptimal and child undernutrition remains problematic. Maternal characteristics from the five domains were significantly associated with optimal breastfeeding and complementary feeding indicators. Knowledge of these maternal determinants were found to assist in improving nutrition policies and interventions that aim to impact breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices and child growth in Malawi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring progress towards universal health coverage: national and subnational analysis in Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Eregata G; Hailu A; Memirie S; Norheim O: BMJ Global Health 4:e001843 1-9, 2019  ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/vchp5xs","body":"his study aimed to estimate the 2015 national and subnational universal health coverage service coverage (UHC) status for Ethiopia. The UHC service coverage index was constructed from indicators of four major categories using survey data and administrative data. The overall Ethiopian UHC service coverage for 2015 was 34.3%, ranging from 52.2% in Addis Ababa city to 10% in the Afar region. The coverage for non-communicable diseases, reproductive, maternal, neonatal and child health and infectious diseases were 35%, 37.5% and 52.8%, respectively. The national UHC service capacity and access coverage was only 20% with large variations across regions, ranging from 3.7% in the Somali region to 41.1% in the Harari region. The 2015 overall UHC service coverage for Ethiopia was low compared with most of the other countries in the region. There was a substantial variation among regions. The authors argue that Ethiopia should rapidly scale up promotive, preventive and curative health services through increasing investment in primary healthcare if it aims to reach the UHC service coverage goals, and to narrow the gap across regions, such as through redistribution of the health workforce, increasing resources allocated to health and providing focused technical and financial support to low-performing regions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Potential Health Impact of the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCTA)","field_subtitle":"Awosusi A: International Health Policies, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/qpqp4mm","body":"Nearly all African countries have endorsed the continental free trade agreement. Trading is scheduled to commence in 2020 after key negotiations are concluded. Implementation of the agreement is likely to impact health in at least five areas: human capital investments, health innovations, trade for social impact, health security and universal health coverage. The author reccommends that health and development stakeholders take proactive measures to ensure health is protected in policies, programs and negotiations. While the five proposed areas are not exhaustive, they are argued to represent a basic foundation for rigorous research and informed engagement by health and development leaders in AfCFTA and trade-related processes. Other issues such as research and development, biopharmaceutical innovation and intellectual property rights also need to be considered. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Preference and uptake of different community-based HIV testing service delivery models among female sex workers along Malaba-Kampala highway, Uganda, 2017","field_subtitle":"Pande G; Bulage L; Kabwama S; Nsubuga F: BMC Health Services Research 19(799) 1-11, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/tngmf67","body":"The paper assessed preference and uptake for the enabling environment created to deliver the different community-based HIV testing services to female sex workers along the Malaba-Kampala highway. Malaba \u2013 Kampala high way is one of the major high ways with many different hot spots where the actual buying and selling of sex takes place. The authors defined female sex workers as any female, who undertakes sexual activity after consenting with a man for money or other items/benefits as an occupation or as a primary source of livelihood irrespective of site of operation within the past six months. The authors assessed the preference and uptake of different community-based HIV testing services delivery model among female sex workers based on the proportion of female sex workers who had an HIV counseling and testing in the last 12\u2009months and the proportion of female sex workers who were positive and linked to care. Overall, 86% of the female sex workers had taken an HIV test in the last 12\u2009months. Of the 390 Female Sex workers, 72% had used static facilities, 25% had used outreaches, and 3.3% used peer to peer mechanisms to have an HIV test. Overall, 35% of the female sex workers who had taken an HIV test were HIV positive. Of the 159, 83% were successfully linked into care. Ninety one percent reported to have been linked into care by static facilities. Challenges experienced included; lack of trust in the results given during outreaches, failure to offer other testing services including hepatitis B and syphilis during outreaches, inconsistent supply of testing kits, condoms, STI drugs, and unfriendly health services due to the infrastructure and non-trained health workers delivering KP HIV testing services. Most of the Female Sex workers had HIV counseling and testing services and were linked to care through static facilities. Community-based HIV testing service delivery models are challenged with inconsistent supply of HIV testing commodities and unfriendly services. The authors recommended strengthening of all HIV testing community-based HIV testing service delivery models by ensuring constant supply of HIV testing/AIDS care commodities offering Female Sex workers friendly services, and provision of comprehensive HIV/AIDS health care package.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Recognising and responding to the scars of Cyclone Idai ","field_subtitle":"Itai Rusike, Caiphas Chimhete, Edgar Mutasa and Tafadzwanashe Nkrumah, CWGH, Zimbabwe ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nSix months after Cyclone Idai ravaged the eastern province of Manicaland in Zimbabwe, the devastating effects show that there is need for more work to do for the recovery. The survivors are still in dire straits, psychologically, emotionally and materially. \r\n\r\nThe traumatic events of 15 March 2019 remain etched on the minds of the survivors. Any rumbling sound, even light rain, sends them quaking, as a reminder of the tragic events of that \u2018night of death\u2019, when torrential rains and heavy winds claimed their loved ones and left them scarred. \r\n\r\nCyclone Idai resulted in a massive loss of life and injury, as well as destruction of critical infrastructure, including clinics, schools, roads, bridges, electricity base stations and houses. Manicaland province was the most affected, followed by Masvingo and Mashonaland East. The destruction also affected parts of neighbouring Mozambique and Malawi.\r\n\r\nGovernment statistics indicate that 341 people died, 344 were missing, 183 were injured and 2213 people were displaced. Further, 230 dams burst and 20 000 livestock were lost. The loss of electricity compromised communication systems and hampered search and rescue efforts. The damage to communication networks means that many communities remain cut off from essential services.  Despite government, with assistance from South Africa, having mobilized earth-moving equipment, some roads are still not passable.\r\n\r\nThis situation presented a public health threat of water and vector borne diseases, such as cholera, typhoid and malaria. Malaria deaths have spiked in Manicaland following the Cyclone.   The trauma and loss has certainly led to mental health problems.  The damage to infrastructure has impeded access to health services, raising the risk that people cannot access or default on treatment and care. In addition, local health services are understaffed and lack adequate medicines.\r\n\r\nThe magnitude of the disaster was greater than government alone could cope with. The international community, United Nations agencies, civil society organisations and individuals all contributed. For example, the Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) with Medico International provided relief and aid to 171 households in holding camps in April to June 2019. This interaction also led to input to recommendations to the Civil Protection Unit and other inter-ministerial committees responsible for preventing disease outbreaks and ensuring provision of safe and clean water in the holding camps. Yet the high death toll from Cyclone Idai indicated the lack of disaster preparedness and planned mitigation by government, considering the earlier heavy loss from Cyclone Eline in 2000. Many lives could have been saved had the warnings for Cyclone Idai been widely disseminated in the local media to warn households and a response mobilized to evacuate people from the affected areas. \r\n\r\nThe situation continues to be precarious up to today. Manicaland Provincial Affairs Minister Dr Ellen Gwaradzimba noted that the situation in that province is now worsened by drought, affecting about 1.7 million people, in a situation where food reserves and fields were destroyed. Even while the response moves from an emergency to a recovery phase, the need to both learn from the experience and to sustain intervention is clear, including to respond to continuing vulnerability and to resettle internally-displaced people. \r\n\r\nAt a Provincial All-stakeholder Dialogue Meeting on Cyclone Idai in June concern was raised over the weak execution of the disaster emergency plans for evacuation and rescue and the absence of community-based emergency plans. For example, the reluctance of people to leave their ancestral land, even after being alerted of the disaster, was one factor that impeded evaluation. The dialogue meeting recommended that a government emergency response fund be set up; that communities be educated on first aid and disaster risk management in schools and in the community; and that campaigns be undertaken on disaster preparedness and mitigation. \r\n\r\nWhile much effort has already been made in improving access to public and social services, resources are needed to restore roads, bridges, houses and sanitary facilities. Survivors need counseling and psychosocial support services. Displaced people and affected communities need new land for more rapid permanent resettlement and investments in their livelihoods and social services.\r\n\r\nIn all these inputs the planning, preparations, decisions and responses need to be people-centered. Putting people at the centre of the next steps, including in the planning for any future emergencies, is central to the response.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Repositioning Africa in global knowledge production","field_subtitle":"Fonn S; Ayiro L; Cotton P; Habib A; et al: The Lancet 392 (10153), doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31068-7, 2018","field_url":"https://www-sciencedirect-com.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/science/article/pii/S0140673618310687","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 13.5% of the global population but less than 1% of global research output. In 2008, Africa produced 27\u2008000 published papers\u2014the same number as The Netherlands. Informed by a nuanced understanding of the causes of the current scenario, the authors propose action that should be taken by African universities, governments, and development partners to foster the development of research-active universities on the continent. Sub-Saharan Africa depends greatly on international collaboration and visiting academics for its research output. Many researchers whose publications are associated with sub-Saharan Africa are described as non-local and transitory; they spend less than 2 years at sub-Saharan African institutions. Meanwhile, intra-Africa collaboration remains severely restricted. The authors note that research-intensive universities across sub-Saharan Africa need to be identified, recognised, strengthened, and invested in. These research-intensive universities should focus their resources on graduate training and research. Creating and maintaining research-intensive universities will require consistent investment in human capital, research equipment, and relevant administrative support, at far higher levels than is available under current conditions. New funding mechanisms need to be created to support research-intensive Africa universities. At a minimum, research-intensive universities should commit their own resources to research. African Governments must increase their support for research in general and provide targeted funding for research-intensive universities. They suggest that this  will only succeed and be sustained if there is accountability, transparency, and efficiency in the use of funds at research-intensive universities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Revenue-raising potential for universal health coverage in Benin, Mali, Mozambique and Togo ","field_subtitle":"Mathauer I; Koch K; Zita S; Alex Murray-Zmijewski A; et al.: Bulletin of the World Health Organ 97(9) 620\u2013630, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/qkb9dep","body":"Increasing fiscal space is argued to be important for health sector public financing. One strategy is to mobilize additional government revenues through new taxes or increased tax rates on goods and services. The authors illustrate how countries can assess the feasibility and quantitative potential of different revenue-raising mechanisms. The processes and results from country assessments in Benin, Mali, Mozambique and Togo are reviewed and synthesized. The studies analysed new taxes or increased taxes on airplane tickets, phone calls, alcoholic drinks, tourism services, financial transactions, lottery tickets, vehicles and the extractive industries. Study teams in each country assessed the feasibility of new revenue-raising mechanisms using six qualitative criteria. The quantitative potential of these mechanisms was estimated by defining different scenarios and setting assumptions. Consultations with stakeholders at the start of the process served to select the revenue-raising mechanisms to study and later to discuss findings and options. Exploring feasibility was essential, as this helped rule out options that appeared promising from the quantitative assessment. Stakeholders rated stability and sustainability positive for most mechanisms, but political feasibility was a key issue throughout. The estimated additional revenues through new revenue-raising mechanisms ranged from 0.47\u20131.62% as a share of general government expenditure in the four countries. Overall, the revenue raised through these mechanisms was small. The authors advise countries to consider multiple strategies to expand fiscal space for health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Structural adjustment programmes adversely affect vulnerable populations: a systematic-narrative review of their effect on child and maternal health","field_subtitle":"Thomson M; Kentikelenis A; Stubbs T: Public Health Reviews 38(13), doi: 10.1186/s40985-017-0059-2, 2017","field_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5810102/","body":"Structural adjustment programmes of international financial institutions have typically set the fiscal parameters within which health policies operate in developing countries. Yet, a systematic understanding of the ways in which these programmes impact upon child and maternal health is currently lacking. This article systematically reviews observational and quasi-experimental articles published from 2000 onward in online databases and grey literature from websites of IMF, World Bank and African Development Bank. Studies were considered eligible if they empirically assessed the aggregate effect of structural adjustment programmes on child or maternal health in developing countries. Of 1961 items yielded through database searches, reference lists and organisations\u2019 websites, 13 met the inclusion criteria. The authors found that structural adjustment programmes had a detrimental impact on child and maternal health. In particular, these programmes undermined access to quality and affordable healthcare and adversely impacted upon social determinants of health, such as income and food availability. According to the authors, the evidence suggests that a fundamental rethink is required by international financial institutions if low income countries are to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals on child and maternal health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The danger of a single story","field_subtitle":"Adichie C: TEDGlobal, 2009","field_url":"https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/transcript","body":" In this TED talk, Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie warns of \u2018the danger of the single story\u2019.  She describes how impressionable and vulnerable people are in the face of a story, particularly as children.  She notes that stories matter, but also that many stories matter and no single story can portray a reality. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The future of African Studies: what we can do to keep Africa at the heart of our research","field_subtitle":"Nolte I: Journal of African Cultural Studies 31(3) 296-313, doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13696815.2019.1584552, 2019","field_url":"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13696815.2019.1584552","body":"Over the past two decades, Africa has returned to academic agendas outside of the continent. At the same time, the field of African Studies has come under increasing criticism for its marginalisation of African voices, interests, and agendas. This article explores how the complex transformations of the academy have contributed to a growing division of labour. Increasingly, African scholarship is associated with the production of empirical fact and socio-economic impact rather than theory, with ostensibly local rather than international publication, and with other forms of disadvantage that undermine respectful exchange and engagement. This discourages engagement with Africa as a place of intellectual production in its own right. By arguing that scholars can and should make a difference to their field, both individually and collectively, the author suggests ways of understanding and engaging with these inequalities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The pharmaceutical industry in Sub-Saharan Africa: A guide for promoting pharmaceutical production in Africa (UNIDO)","field_subtitle":"White S; Banda G; Chaudhuri S; Chen L; et al.: United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yf2ze9p2","body":"The authors report that there is consensus that local pharmaceutical production in sub-Saharan Africa in close proximity to where medicines are needed can reduce dependence and improve health outcomes for the population. Many African governments, regional economic communities and the African Union have recognized the need for active support to the development of the sector if these benefits are to be realized. However, concrete action on the ground is reported to have remained hesitant and piecemeal to date. This document contains advice for government policy makers, the private sector especially pharmaceutical manufacturers in sub-Saharan African countries, development partners and finance institutions on how to promote pharmaceutical production. The guide focuses on the key areas of competitiveness, market access, technology and access to finance. It further proposes a path of how governments could embark on and steer a policy development process as well as giving guidance on policy interventions. The document especially emphasizes the interconnectedness of key intervention areas and recommends that promotional measures from key areas should be combined to increase impact.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The power of action-based dissemination ","field_subtitle":"Ifakara Health Institute Spotlight: Evidence for policy and action 19.01, IHI, Tanzania,  2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/vftede2","body":"In 2018, Ifakara Health Institute disseminated results emerging from the formative study for Children In the Mining (CIM) seeking to improve access to social- economic and health services for children living in the mining areas in Bukombe, Songwe and Chunya districts of Tanzania. Using an action-based approach, members of the Kerezia community involved reflected on the findings and developed a plan of action to address the social-economic problems that face children living in the mining areas. The villagers prioritized water, roads and schooling. A while later the villagers reported to the IHI researchers: \"We are happy to tell you that one of our priorities has been implemented and through the efforts of community members, we have constructed a foundation for the primary school here in our village [........] I was really wondering how I could see you and inform you about this progress.\" The Kerezia story is argued to highlight how scientists need to go beyond the traditional methods of sharing research findings and apply action-based dissemination where possible to influence change at the grass roots.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The problem of \u2018trickle-down science\u2019 from the Global North to the Global South","field_subtitle":"Reidpath D; Allotey P: BMJ Global Health 4(4), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2019-001719,  2019","field_url":"https://gh.bmj.com/content/4/4/e001719","body":"Countries in the Global South continue to struggle to train and retain good researchers and practitioners to address local, regional and global health challenges. As a result, there is an ongoing reliance on the Global North for solutions to local problems and an inability to develop alternative approaches to problem solving that take local (non-northern) contexts into account. Current paradigms of scientific advancement provide no long-term models to challenge the status quo or privilege knowledge that is generated primarily in the Global South. This has major impacts on access to funding which perpetuates the problem. The authors argue that there needs to be a concerted and demonstrable shift to value and promote the development of research and scientific traditions that are borne out of the reality of local contexts that complement knowledge and evidence generated in the Global North.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Translating political commitment to real action to achieve universal health coverage in Africa","field_subtitle":"Badejo O: Health Systems Global, October 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ros87qu","body":"Following the High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) UN member states are expected to show more financial and political commitment to accelerate progress towards UHC.. Different approaches have been taken by different countries in Africa for this. Rwanda has used affordable health finance and insurance mechanisms - financed by both the national government and individuals - as a crucial driver for UHC. In 2018, Kenya also unveiled a plan for reaching UHC by 2022 by piloting UHC in four counties. The prioritization of such policy options and the ways to implement them are seen to require a. context-dependent balancing act that should be grounded in the correct application of evidence in decision-making processes. This is obserbed to demand measures to build individual and institutional capabilities to generate and use evidence to support value-based design and implementation of relevant system-level policy reforms for UHC. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Who are CHWs? An ethnographic study of the multiple identities of community health workers in three rural Districts in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Rafiq M; Wheatley H; Mushi H; Baynes C: BMC Health Services Research 19(712) 1-15, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/sg3mkp4","body":"unity health workers (CHWs) possess multiple, overlapping roles and identities, which makes them effective primary health care providers when properly supported with adequate resources. This also limits their ability to implement interventions that only target certain members of their community and prevents them from performing certain duties when it comes to sensitive topics such as family planning. To understand the multiple identities of CHWs qualitative and ethnographic methods involved participant observation, open-ended and semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with CHWs, their supervisors, and their clients between October 2013 and June 2014 in Rufiji, Ulanga and Kilombero Districts in Tanzania. The findings suggest that it is difficult to distinguish between personal and professional identities among CHWs in rural areas. Important aspects of CHW services such as personalization, access, and equity of health services were influenced by CHWs\u2019 position as local agents. However, the study also found that their personal identity sometimes inhibited CHWs in speaking about issues related to family planning and sexual health. Being local, CHWs were viewed according to the social norms of the area that consider the gender and age of each worker, which tended to constrain their work in family planning and other areas. Furthermore, the communities welcomed and valued CHWs when they had curative medicines; however, when medical stocks were delayed, the community viewed the CHWs with suspicion and disinterest. Community members who received curative services from CHWs also tended to become more receptive to their preventative health care work. Although CHWs\u2019 multiple roles constrained certain aspects of their work in line with prevalent social norms, overall, the multiple roles they fulfilled had a positive effect by keeping CHWs embedded in their community and earned them trust from community members, which enhanced their ability to provide personalized, equitable and relevant services. However, CHWs needed a support system that included functional supply chains, supervision, and community support to help them retain their role as health care providers and enabled them to provide curative, preventative, and referral services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cAfrica Multiple\u201d Cluster of Excellence: Four Junior Research Group Leaders ","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: December 31, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/sous7kd","body":"The Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth is establishing four Junior Research Groups commencing on July 1, 2020 and is seeking to appoint Four Junior Research Group Leaders for a funding period of four years. The doctoral students will pursue their degrees within the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies. African women and women of colour are strongly encouraged to apply and applicants with children are highly welcome. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":" The toll of the cobalt mining industry on health and the environment","field_subtitle":"CBS News: March 6 2018","field_url":"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-toll-of-the-cobalt-mining-industry-congo/","body":"This CBS News video reports an investigation of child labour in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, revealing that tens of thousands of children are growing up without a childhood today \u2013 two years after a damning Amnesty report about human rights abuses in the cobalt trade was published. The Amnesty report first revealed that cobalt mined by children was ending up in products from prominent tech companies including Apple, Microsoft, Tesla and Samsung. According to the CDC, \"chronic exposure to cobalt-containing hard metal (dust or fume) can result in a serious lung disease called 'hard metal lung disease'\" \u2013 a kind of pneumoconiosis, meaning a lung disease caused by inhaling dust particles. Inhalation of cobalt particles can cause respiratory sensitization, asthma, decreased pulmonary function and shortness of breath, the CDC says. An estimated two-thirds of children in the region of the DRC that CBS News visited recently are not in school. They're working in mines instead. CBS News' Debora Patta spoke with an 11-year-old boy, Ziki Swaze, who has no idea how to read or write but is an expert in washing cobalt. Every evening, he returns home with a dollar or two to provide for his family.\r\n\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"2nd Global Symposium on Community Health Workers Evolving Health Systems to Achieve University Health Coverage through Community Health Workers ","field_subtitle":"22-24 Nov 2019, Dhaka, Bangladesh ","field_url":"http://chwsymposium2019.icddrb.org","body":"The 2nd International Symposium on Community Health Workers, hosted by the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, in collaboration with Directorate General of Health Services, Government of Bangladesh; James P. Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University, Bangladesh; and Save the Children, Bangladesh; will be held during November 22 \u2013 24, 2019 at Pan Pacific Sonargaon, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The organisers invite the local and international community engaged in research or policy making on Community Health Workers to attend the Symposium on Community Health Workers to discuss past successes and challenges with Community Health Workers in order to formulate strategic pathways for better community based health programme for prevention and control of Non Communicable Diseases further to attain Universal Health Coverage and Sustainable Development Goals targets. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"African Governments Urged to move with Speed to Address Over-Dependence on Imported Medicines","field_subtitle":"United Nations Economic Commission for Africa: UNECA Addis Ababa, 2019","field_url":"https://allafrica.com/stories/201907010731.html","body":"At the two-day Horn of Africa trade forum in Addis Ababa,  organized by the ECA, the Government of Ethiopia, the African Union Commission (AUC), and the European Union, participants agreed that with the African Continental Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) in force, it was time for the continent to increase domestic production of pharmaceutical products and end over-dependence on imported medicines. The AfCFTA, they agreed, provides an opportunity for economies of scale necessary for African pharmaceutical production. The Economic Commission for Africa's (ECA) Director for Regional Integration and Trade, Stephen Karingi, in closing the forum said that domestic policies that can be used to support the industry, including through investment assurances, grants, fiscal incentives and local content requirements. Regional centers of excellence could be used to overcome constraints in human capacities and resources for research and development and testing. The forum also agreed on the need to strengthen regulatory frameworks to develop the pharmaceutical sector; to encourage domestic production with a regional focus; and to ensure efficient and safe logistic chains that can bring down the cost of medicines. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Armed conflicts and national trends in reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health in sub-Saharan Africa: what can national health surveys tell us?","field_subtitle":"Boerma T, Tappis G; Saad-Haddad G; Das J; et al: BMJ Global Health 4, i161\u2013i168, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y4x5ffvj","body":"This paper seeks to examine data from national surveys in 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa with major conflicts during 1990\u20132016, to assess the levels and trends in reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health intervention coverage, nutritional status and mortality in children under 5 years in relation to the trends. The surveys provide substantive evidence of a negative association between these indicators at national level and armed conflict, with some exceptions. Major improvements in these indicators took place post-conflict, except for stunting. The short-term conflict in Congo and the Ethiopian\u2013Eritrea war had limited effects on national trends, even though direct local associations with increased child stunting were \r\nfound in Eritrea.  The authors findings suggest that armed conflict can have negative consequences on reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health. They argue that surveys are a critical data source which, in combination with further analysis of the distinct features of each conflict as well as programme data collected to measure conflict impact, can provide a better assessment of the national impact of armed conflicts on health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Breaking down the silos of Universal Health Coverage: towards systems for the primary prevention of non-communicable diseases in Africa","field_subtitle":"Oni T; Mogo E; Ahmed A; Davies J: BMJ Global Health 4(4), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2019-001717, 2019","field_url":"https://gh.bmj.com/content/4/4/e001717","body":"The third sustainable development goal (SDG), ensuring healthy lives and well-being for all at all ages, although comprising multiple components, is often strongly linked with the concept of universal health coverage (UHC) and its underlying principles of equity, quality and financial protection. While addressing the upstream determinants of health is seen as a vital accelerator of progress in achieving the SDGs, in practice, UHC has often been focused on a disease-fighting, healthcare-centric approach. African countries are not on track to achieve global targets for non-communicable disease (NCD) prevention, driven by an insufficient focus on ecological drivers of NCD risk factors, including poor urban development and the unbridled proliferation of the commercial determinants of health. As the risk factors for NCDs are largely shaped outside the healthcare sector, an emphasis on downstream healthcare service provision to the exclusion of upstream population-level prevention limits the goals of UHC and its potential for optimal improvements in (achieving) health and well-being outcomes in Africa. The author argues for a systems for health rather than a solely healthcare-centric approach, that proactively incorporates wider health determinants (sectors)\u2014housing, planning, waste management, education, governance and finance, among others\u2014in strategies to improve health. This includes aligning governance and accountability mechanisms and strategic objectives of all \u2018health determinant\u2019 sectors for health creation and long-term cost savings. Researchers are seen to have a vital role to play, collaborating with policy makers to provide evidence to support implementation and to facilitate knowledge sharing between African countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Papers: Innovations in implementation research in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Deadline for manuscripts: 15 October 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yyrrjxjs","body":"This journal of Health Policy and Planning, and the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research are calling for papers on the theme of: \u201cInnovations in Implementation Research in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs)\u201d. This journal supplement will discuss the concept and usefulness of implementation research in the context of LMICs, and invite contributions to illustrate some of the innovations on this. It will outline trajectories of the development of the field and help to chart the way forward for the further application of implementation research to maximise its impact on policies and programmes in the real world. Articles are sought which speak to innovations in the methods, approaches and governance of research on the implementation of public health policies and programmes in LMICs, including but not limited to the following sub-themes: quantitative assessment of public health policy and programme implementation; multidisciplinary and qualitative approaches and mixed methods assessments of public health policy and programme implementation; health policy implementation analysis, including policy process and power; process evaluation of public health programme implementation; systematic reviews of public health policy and programme implementation; embedding and participatory approaches in implementation research; and governance and ethics of implementation research in LMICs. All papers should clearly identify the specific innovation that it is presenting or illustrating and situate it in the literature. Papers that receive positive reviews but are not deemed suitable for this supplement may be considered for individual publication in Health Policy and Planning. This supplement will be launched to coincide with the Sixth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, taking place in Dubai from 8-12 November 2020.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Decision-making in district health planning in Uganda: does use of district-specific evidence matter?","field_subtitle":"Henriksson D; Peterson S; Waiswa P; Fredriksson M: Health Research Policy and Systems 17(57), 1-11, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3vwunfj","body":"This study investigated how evidence used in the planning process affects decision-making and how stakeholders involved in planning perceived the use of evidence. Quantitative data was collected from district health annual work plans for 2012-2016 and from 'bottleneck analysis reports' for these years. Qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews with key informants from the two study districts. District managers reported that they were able to produce more robust district annual work plans when they used district-specific evidence. Approximately half of the prioritised activities in the annual work plans were evidence based. Procurement and logistics, training, and support supervision activities were the most prioritised activities. District-specific evidence and a structured process for its use to prioritise activities and make decisions in the planning process at the district level helped to systematise the planning process. However, the districts also reported having limited decision and fiscal space, inadequate funding and high dependency on external funding that did not always allow for the use of their own district evidence in planning . ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion paper 118: Comparative review: Implementation of constitutional provisions on the right to healthcare in Kenya and Uganda","field_subtitle":"Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD): EQUINET, Uganda, 2019","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Diss%20118%20Const%202019.pdf","body":"This discussion paper is produced by the Centre for Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) as part of the theme work on health rights and law of the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET). The paper examines the implementation of constitutional provisions on the right to healthcare in Kenya and Uganda, two countries in East Africa. It aims to identify factors and mechanisms that have facilitated implementation of constitutional provisions on the right to healthcare, including how the constitutions were developed and framed. It compares implementation in Kenya, where the right to healthcare is explicit in their 2010 Constitution, and in Uganda, where the right to healthcare is implicit in the National Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy. The paper draws on two EQUINET case studies on implementation of constitutional provisions on the right to health, one each in Kenya and Uganda, published in 2018, a 2017 regional workshop that discussed the implementation of constitutional provisions on the right to health, and additional review of published literature. It presents a thematic analysis of the findings from the two case studies in terms of the judicial, political and popular implementation mechanisms, exploring further the factors and mechanisms that have facilitated or blocked their implementation. As the two constitutions address the right to healthcare differently, this analysis of their application provides insights into the factors and mechanisms for practice that may be useful in other settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 221: Home-grown solutions for the evidence to policy conundrum: Reflections on the ECSA HC Best Practices Forum","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Even Larry Summers Denounces World Bank\u2019s \u201cPEF\u201d Ebola Bonds that Enriched Investors at the Expense of the sick in the Congo","field_subtitle":"Smith. Y: Naked Capitalism, USA, August 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y27zs6fp","body":"The author reports that Larry Summers, a former World Bank chief economist, viewed the Banks Ebola financing scheme as a problem. As recounted by another former World Bank economist, Olga Jonas, the World Bank involvement of the private sector in funding countries affected by Ebola in the wake of the 2014-2016 outbreak led to the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) as a form of investor scheme for private financing. However, as Jonas points out, the PEF stipulates a payout of $45 million for Ebola if the officially confirmed death toll reaches 250 (which occurred in the DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo] by mid-December 2018), but only if at least 20 deaths occurred in a second country. Given that the WHO lists only one multi-country outbreak amid more than 30 that occurred in a single country, this requirement is viewed as inappropriate.  Rather than a lack of funds, the author argues that vigilance and public-health capacity have been the main deficiencies. When governments and the World Bank are prepared to respond to infectious-disease threats, money flows within days. The World Bank has said that the PEF is working as intended by offering the potential of \u2018surge\u2019 financing. However its triggers are said to guarantee that payouts will be too little because they kick in only after outbreaks grow large. The author concludes that the best investment of funds and attention is in ensuring adequate and stable financing for core public-health capacities, that the PEF has failed. It should end early \u2014 and that IDA funds should go to poor countries, not investors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Free online course on Health Systems Strengthening","field_subtitle":"The University of Melbourne, The Nossal Institute for Global Health, UNICEF: FutureLearn. ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y363mvae","body":"The Nossal Institute, in collaboration with UNICEF and FutureLearn, has developed a free online course in health systems strengthening. This course aims to develop skills and confidence in policy makers, managers and clinicians working in health systems to analyse system problems and take decisive, evidence-based actions to strengthen their system. It covers health system structures, functions and components, and how they interact. How to use evidence, and analysis of inequity, to drive interventions to strengthen health systems. It also addresses strengthening health systems through action in areas such as health policy, financing, human resources, supply chain management, quality of care and private sector engagement and using complex systems thinking to address health system problems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health workers\u2019 strikes in low-income countries: the available evidence","field_subtitle":"Russo G; Xu L; McIsaac M; Matsika-Claquin M; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 97(7) 460\u2013467H, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y53qdfcf","body":"In this paper, the authors analysed the characteristics, frequency, drivers, outcomes and stakeholders of health workers\u2019 strikes in low-income countries, using published and grey online sources for 2009 to 2018. They identified 70 unique health workers\u2019 strikes in 23 low-income countries during the period, accounting for 875 strike days. 2018 had the highest number of events, with 170 work days lost. Strikes involving more than one professional category were more frequent, followed by strikes by physicians only. The most commonly reported cause was complaints about pay, followed by protest against the sector\u2019s governance or policies and safety of working conditions. Positive resolution was achieved more often when collective bargaining institutions and higher levels of government were involved in the negotiations. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthcare equity analysis: applying the Tanahashi model of health service coverage to community health systems following devolution in Kenya","field_subtitle":"McCollum R; Taegtmeyer M; Otiso L; Mireku M; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health volume 18(65) 1-12, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y36djtv4","body":"The authors applied Tanahashi\u2019s equity model to review perceived equity of health services by actors across the health system and at community level, following changes to the priority-setting process at sub-national levels post devolution in Kenya. A qualitative study was implemented between March 2015 and April 2016, involving 269 key informant and in-depth interviews from different levels of the health system in ten counties and 14 focus group discussions with community members in two of these counties. Qualitative data were analysed using the framework approach. The findings revealed that devolution in Kenya has focused on improving the supply side of health services, by expanding the availability, geographic and financial accessibility of health services across many counties. However, there has been limited emphasis and investment in promoting the demand side, and limited efforts to promote acceptability or use of services. Respondents perceived that the quality of health services has typically been neglected within priority-setting to date. The authors suggest that if Kenya is to achieve universal health coverage, then county governments must address all aspects of equity, including quality, including through community health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Home-grown solutions for the evidence to policy conundrum: Reflections on the ECSA HC Best Practices Forum","field_subtitle":"Yoswa M Dambisya, ECSA Health Community, Tanzania ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn June, at the East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA HC) 12th Best Practices Forum held under the theme: Innovation and Accountability in Health Towards Achieving Universal Health Coverage, about 130 participants deliberated for three days and proposed recommendations for policy and practice, including to enhance delivery on existing policy commitments. The recommendations covered diverse areas relating to the theme, covering: improving adolescent and young people\u2019s health; equity in access to eye health; innovative approaches for food safety and improved quality of life; addressing harmful substance use and mental health problems; achieving water and sanitation global health targets; tackling emerging and re-emerging health threats and a regional \u2019One Health Approach\u2019 for managing recurrent outbreaks.  The full recommendations can be found on the ECSA HC website. What is also important, however, is the process by which these proposals are made and reviewed.\r\n\r\nThe East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA HC) is a regional inter-governmental organisation. It reports to, and receives guidance from the Conference of Health Ministers (HMC).\r\n\r\nOver the years, ECSA HC has held a Best Practices Forum (BPF). The BPF aims to encourage and strengthen policy dialogue among the diverse stakeholders involved in evidence-based policy decision making. The BPF attracts a wide range of health actors, including senior officials from ministries of health of ECSA-HC member states, the constituent health professions colleges of the ECSA College of Health Sciences, health research institutions, collaborating partners, civil society organisations and other health experts and implementers from the region and beyond.  \r\n\r\nWhile the HMC is the highest policy organ of ECSA HC, the Directors Joint Consultative Committee (DJCC) is its highest technical organ. The DJCC consists of the directors of health services, the deans or heads of health faculties and training institutions, the heads of health research institutions and senior officials in the constituent colleges within the ECSA College of Health Sciences. The DJCC informs the health ministers through persuasive evidence-based recommendations. The BPF, in turn, is a critical step and an important platform for presenting and interrogating findings from the member states, from the region and beyond. It provides a platform for a free participation and open exchange of ideas by technical people, researchers, civil society, partner organisations and ministry of health senior officials. The experience, evidence and analysis from the region presented and debated in this forum inform the recommendations to the DJCC and from there to the health ministers in the HMC. \r\n\r\nAs applied in the recent 12th BPF, the main theme and sub-themes are set by the health ministers at their previous HMC. Submissions are then invited from the countries and from ECSA HC partners, stakeholders and researchers within the thematic areas. Suitable abstracts are then selected for presentation to prime the discussions in these areas at the BPF. It is a unique feature of the BPF that at the start of the meeting there are no draft recommendations tabled for discussion. Rather the participants draft them in an open and free spirit of intellectual engagement, drawing on their collective experience and the evidence presented. These recommendations are then submitted to the DJCC for their consideration. \r\n\r\nTo complete the loop, the recommendations made at the BPF, as validated by the DJCC, are presented to the HMC. For example for the 12th BPF held in June this year followed by the 28th DJCC, the recommendations will be presented to the HMC in October this year. The HMC will be held under the same theme as for the BPF and DJCC, and the recommendations will be tabled for the Ministers to consider as the basis for their resolutions. While the recommendations of the DJCC may be used as a guide to enhance the programming and prioritisation of their activities, until they are affirmed or changed by the HMC, the resolutions of the HMC are binding on member states and on the ECSA HC secretariat. \r\n\r\nMost of the follow up work to implement the recommendations happens within the countries. However, there are also regional approaches that are within the mandate of ECSA HC and in association with partners for some priority areas. The action points are thus directed to both the member states and the ECSA HC Secretariat as appropriate. \r\n\r\nOver the past twelve years by convening the BPF, ECSA HC has developed and institutionalised a mechanism and processes by which it engages both the \u2018consumers\u2019 and \u2018producers\u2019 of research evidence in policy dialogue. This is often done in a demand-driven manner, with the HMC and DJCC identifying gaps and calling for evidence in areas that draw presentations at the subsequent BPF. However, some presentations and research findings also emerge \u2018bottom-up\u2019 from work by stakeholders in the region that raise new evidence and issues within the broad thematic areas under consideration.  Some presentations report on the implementation and findings of work that was mandated in prior DJCCs and HMCs and what it means for the health system. Some also track delivery on prior policy commitments, the outcomes achieved and the barriers faced. \r\n\r\nECSA-HC continues to work towards strengthening this approach in the hope that it helps to close the gaps in evidence for policy dialogue from the region and in channels for researchers and implementers to present their experience and findings in a way that influences policy. In doing this, the organisation hopes that relevant research and policy, which are two sides of the same coin, can be increasingly connected. The BPF model is being replicated in West Africa through the West African Health Organisation (WAHO), suggesting that it is perceived as a worthwhile effort. \r\n\r\nOne major challenge with the BPF approach, however, is in the identification of \u2018best practices\u2019. While this is based on an open call for and submission of abstracts, the ECSA HC does not have the capacity to ensure that all the best practices in each area come to the fore and there may be limited publicity of the BPF as the outlet for relevant research findings. It has also become evident  that a lot of experience and research evidence that is seen to be relevant and useful by policy actors in the DJCC and HMC does not make its way into formal journals for wider dissemination. \r\n\r\nNotwithstanding such challenges, the BPF stands out as a useful and unique home-grown solution to the false divide between researchers and implementers on the one hand, and decision and policy makers on the other. It does so by providing a platform for the free input, exchange of and debate on ideas, embedding this within the policy processes and structures of the organisation. Looking at the journey over the last twelve years, one is justified to suggest that in the next twelve years, the BPF could itself be identified as a \u2018best practice\u2019 for the East, Central and Southern African region.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the ECSA HC BPF please visit https://ecsahc.org/ ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrating community health assistant-driven sexual and reproductive health services in the community health system in Nyimba district in Zambia: mapping key actors, points of integration, and conditions shaping the process","field_subtitle":"Zulu J; Kinsman J; Hurtig A; Michelo C; et al: Reproductive Health 16(122) 1-11, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3npydvp","body":"This study aimed to identify the conditions and strategies through which Community Health Assistants gained entry and acceptability into community health systems to provide sexual and reproductive health services services to youth in Nyimba district, Zambia. Community Health Assistants worked with a range of community actors, including other health workers, safe motherhood action groups, community health workers, neighborhood health committees, teachers, as well as political, traditional and religious leaders and took services to health facilities, schools, police stations, home settings, and community spaces. They used their health facility service delivery role to gain trust and entry into the community, and built relationships with other community level actors by holding regular joint meetings, and acting as brokers between the volunteer health workers and the Ministry of Health. They used their existing social networks to deliver sexual and reproductive health services to adolescents, and embedded this into general life skills at community level, the improving its acceptability. Support from community leaders also promoted their legitimacy. The acceptability of their services was limited by a taboo of discussing sexuality issues, a gender discriminatory environment, competition with other providers, and challenges in conducting household visits. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Kader Asmal Fellowship Programme","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 11 September 2019","field_url":"https://www.canoncollins.org.uk/apply/scholarship/kader-asmal-fellowship","body":"The Embassy of Ireland in South Africa in partnership with Canon Collins Trust invites applications for scholarships for postgraduate study in Ireland commencing in September 2020. In 2020 fellowships will be offered for postgraduate study in: Agriculture, Environmental Science, Conservation, Rural Development; Food Science, Food Engineering and related; Pharmacy and Biotechnology; Health, Medicine and Health Economics; Development Studies, Peace Studies, Conflict Resolution and Humanitarian Action; Social Policy, Social Research, Community Development and Sociology; Law, Human Rights, Women\u2019s Studies, Gender Studies, Equality Studies; Engineering, Hydrology, Sustainable Technology; Economics, Finance, Accounting, Management and Business; Information Systems and Communications Technology and Tourism. Applicants must be a resident national of South Africa and have a minimum of two years relevant work experience. Applicants already in possession of a Masters degree are not eligible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of the EAC Regional Contingency Plan for Public Health Emergencies","field_subtitle":"East, Central and Southern African Health Community (ECSA HC): Arusha,  July 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3v9mcqu","body":"In 2014, the EAC regional Technical Working Group for Communicable and Non-Communicable Diseases conceived the idea of developing a regional plan for preparedness and response to public health emergencies. ECSA-HC, through the World Bank-funded East Africa Public Health Laboratory Networking Project, supported the drafting and development of the initial version of the plan. This is a multi-hazard preparedness and response plan whose scope includes epidemic prone diseases, and other known and unknown hazards that may have overwhelmed individual countries or are spreading across international border(s) in the EAC region.  The Incident Command System describes teams of stakeholders involved in triggering and managing the preparedness, response and recovery phases of public health emergencies, all implemented in a One Health context.  The command system is triggered by the national disease surveillance system at a point they determine to be in need of regional assistance. The plan was launched on June 11th 2019 at a ceremony in Namanga at the inauguration of the field simulation exercise for a fictitious Rift Valley fever outbreak spreading across the border between Kenya and Tanzania. ECSA-HC provided technical support in the planning and execution of the World Health Organization-led exercise.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Profits Over People: Mining in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Human Rights Watch: Malawi, 2016","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD4WlqL5fwg","body":"New mining activities are playing an increasing role in Malawi's economy. This video reports on the situation of families in Malawi affected by new mining activities , and the health problems of families living near coal and uranium mining operations. It reports on the gap in health system capacities to diagnose and address these challenges. While the mining company indicates that they test the water used by these communities and provides the results to government, people in the community are not aware of the results. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health Association of South Africa Conference 2019: the Right to Health \u2013 25 years into a Constitutional Democracy","field_subtitle":"16-18 September 2019, College of Cape Town, Athlone, Cape Town","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3oswcom","body":"The 2019 Public Health Association of South Africa conference will reflect on the intersections between democracy and health, and the progressive realisation of health care in South Africa. Despite the legislative, economic, social and cultural accomplishments since 1994, South Africa is facing a quadruple burden of diseases; increasing corruption; the grossly inequitable distribution of access between public and private health care sectors and governance crises in provincial health departments. These have seriously compromised the right to health care and many South Africans remain desperately deprived. This year\u2019s conference will focus on the status of health care since 1994 in South Africa and what can be done to move closer to achieving the targets of the National Development Plan and equity in universal health coverage. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Realizing Universal Health Coverage in East Africa: the relevance of human rights","field_subtitle":"Yamin A; Maleche A: BMC International Health and Human Rights 17(21) 1-10, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3d4upmo","body":"The authors propose that applying a robust human rights framework would change thinking and decision-making in efforts to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC), and advance efforts to promote women\u2019s, children\u2019s, and adolescents\u2019 health in East Africa, a priority under the Sustainable Development Agenda. Nevertheless, they point to a gap between global rhetoric of human rights and ongoing health reform efforts. This article seeks to fill part of that gap by setting out principles of human rights-based approaches and then applying those principles to questions that countries face in undertaking efforts toward UHC and promoting women\u2019s, children\u2019s and adolescents\u2019 health, particularly to ensure enabling legal and policy frameworks, establish fair financing and priority-setting and provide meaningful oversight and accountability mechanisms. In a region where democratic institutions are weak, the authors argue that the explicit application of a human rights framework could enhance equity, participation and accountability, and in turn the democratic legitimacy of UHC reforms being undertaken in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaiming African knowledge systems - what does it mean?","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET Newsletter","field_url":"","body":"There has been growing engagement around the inequitable benefit from the extraction of minerals, genetic and biological resources from the continent. Attention is now also growing on the exploitation of local and indigenous knowledge, and as captured in some of the articles in this newsletter, the injustice of knowledge systems that extract empirical evidence for analysis in other countries, and impose barriers to those most directly exposed to conditions being able to travel and participate in scientific programmes and forums, to bring direct knowledge on those conditions into global health forums. This international context contrasts with the experience described in this month's editorial of a sustained initiative within east, central and southern Africa to facilitate dialogue between researchers, service implementers, civil society and government policy makers in and from the region, to share and review knowledge for health and health systems within the region. How actively do we use, engage in and benefit from such platforms?  What do we need to do reclaim, build and assert the knowledge systems in the region - and from the region, globally- to advance health equity? We invite you to share your experiences and perspectives as comments, opeds, or links to relevant papers and reports for our next newsletter.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional Research\u2013Policy Partnerships for Health Equity and Inclusive Development: Reflections on Opportunities and Challenges from a Southern African Perspective","field_subtitle":"Yeates N; Moeti T;  Luwabelwa M: Institute for Development Studies Bulletin 50(1) 121-142, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3huoqps","body":"This article critically reflects on the experience and lessons from a health-focused social policy research project involving a partnership spanning multiple countries across southern Africa and Europe. It asks what factors condition the efficacy of the partnership\u2013policy nexus. The policy research project Southern African Development Community partnership case study used participatory action research to create a regional indicators-based monitoring toolkit of pro poor health policy and change for the region. The article addresses the partnership drivers, features, methodological context, and process of the project, and the wider implications for constructing partnerships for social change impact. Lessons drawn from this case study underscore the importance of participatory action research -inspired partnership structures and working methods while querying assumptions that the relationship between participatory action research and policy change is seamless. The authors argue that greater focus is needed on the wider institutional context conditioning the work of partnerships when considering the efficacy of a nexus between partnerships and policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Remembering women\u2019s struggles against destructive mining","field_subtitle":"Mugari T: Centre for Natural Resource Governance, Zimbabwe, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yyh6rrcb","body":"In 1972, disaster struck the coal mining town of Hwange killing 427 workers following an underground explosion at the No.2 Colliery, also known as Kamandama Mine, part of Hwange Colliery. Forty-seven years later, the author reports that the widows of the victims of the Kamandama mine disaster live in neglect and abject poverty. Following the death of their husbands, they were forced out of colliery houses to pave way for new workers and their families. Many who had no relatives in town moved to rural areas. In a commemoration to remember the women\u2019s struggles, convened by Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG) and Greater Hwange Residents Trust, with the support from Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, the surviving widows said that they are only remembered once per year, in June, when the mining town commemorate the Kamandama mine disaster. The widows called on the government and Hwange Colliery Company to compensate them and ensure they get improved access to health care. The CNRG called on the government of Zimbabwe, as the majority shareholder in Hwange Colliery Company Limited, to compensate the widows and ensure decent housing in the villages for them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Salaried and voluntary community health workers: exploring how incentives and expectation gaps influence motivation","field_subtitle":"Ormel H; Kok M; Kane S; Ahmed R; et al: Human Resources for Health 17(59) 1-12, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y692j4d4","body":"This paper aims to critically analyse how using incentives affected community health worker motivation in six countries was undertaken. The motivational factors were defined as financial, material, non-material and intrinsic and semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with community health workers, supervisors, health managers and selected community members were used. The authors found that incentives influence motivation in similar and sometimes different way across contexts. Motivation was negatively influenced by gaps between incentives and expectations, including lower than expected financial incentives, later than expected payments, fewer than expected material incentives and job enablers, and unequally distributed incentives across groups of community health workers. Furthermore, it was found that incentives could cause friction in the interface between community health workers, communities and the health sector. Whether they are employed or volunteers has implications for the way incentives influence motivation. Intrinsic motivational factors are important to and experienced by both types of community health workers, yet for many who are salaried, payment does not compensate for the demotivation derived from the perceived low level of financial reward. The authors suggest that managing expectations and consistency in payments may be as important as the absolute level of incentives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening ethical community engagement in contemporary Malawi","field_subtitle":"Nyirenda D; Gooding K; Sambakunsi R; et al: Wellcome Open Research, Lilongwe, 2019","field_url":"https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/3-115/v2","body":"Although community engagement is increasingly promoted in global health research to improve ethical research practice, the authors observe that there is sometimes a disconnect between the broader moral ambitions for community engagement in the literature and guidelines on the one hand and its rather narrower practical application in health research on the other. In practice, less attention is said to be paid to engaging communities for the \u2018intrinsic\u2019 value of showing respect and ensuring inclusive participation of community partners in research design. Rather, more attention is paid to the use of community engagement for \u2018instrumental\u2019 purposes to improve community understanding of research and ensure successful study implementation. Against this backdrop, the authors reviewed the literature and engaged various research stakeholders at a workshop to discuss ways of strengthening ethical engagement of communities and to develop context-relevant guidelines for community engagement in health research in Malawi. They concluded by proposing a model with three elements that would increase participatory community engagement in health research namely: collaboration, consultation and communication from the onset of research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The ghost battalion: On the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) the organized force behind the revolutionary uprising in Sudan","field_subtitle":"Majdoub S: Africa is a Country, August 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y528s8qo","body":"In Sudan, the Tajamoo al-mihanyin al-sudaniyin or the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) is an alliance of independent professionals shrouded in mystery. Described as the \u201cghost battalion\u201d by the now-deposed president Omar al-Bashir, the contemporary movement led by the SPA exerted influence on mobilizations and protest movements through sustained appeals, and built broad appeal and demonstrated a know-how of protests, applied within the social movement across the country. They initiated civil disobedience, rallies and marches in all parts of the country, focusing on women, displaced and exiled people, and on social justice and life on the margins. Moreover, they have taken the call to protest beyond the limits of major cities like Khartoum and across sectors\u2014from resignation marches in outlying towns and provinces to the mobilization of dock workers in Port Sudan. The For a movement like the SPA there are challenges. Will its spirit remain strong or be exhausted? Will it be the guardian of this transition or its watchdog?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The problem of \u2018trickle-down science\u2019 from the Global North to the Global South","field_subtitle":"Reidpath D; Allotey P: BMJ Global Health 4(4), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2019-001719, 2019","field_url":"https://gh.bmj.com/content/4/4/e001719","body":"Ten years ago, Nigel Crisp observed, with respect to the healthcare workforce that \u2018the global health system is characterised by an import\u2013export business in which rich countries export the ideology of Western scientific medicine and aid predicated on this ideology to poor countries. In return, the poor countries export a portion of their preciously limited pool of trained health workers back to the rich countries\u2019. The authors of the paper suggest that a similar situation holds in scientific research.  Many of the very brightest minds from the Global South go to institutions of higher learning in the Global North, either as graduate students or as fully fledged researchers. They are attracted by better pay, resources, engagement and prestige. There are then three broad outcomes: If the move is a permanent one (which is the case 70% of the time) many turn their focus away from the concerns of the south towards the research priorities in the north, where the funding is. Others remain in the north but keep their focus on the issues of the south, albeit often with limited impact, and sometimes compromising their career progression in the north. The third outcome is the return of the researcher to the south, and frustration over the lack of an enabling environment to apply their skills. Trickle-down science as a strategy for advancing knowledge for current and future challenges has enabled an inequity in the distribution of scientific capacities. However the authors observe that there are ways to engage more effectively with the growing, if disempowered, talent in the south to build of enabling environments, leadership and a quality and volume of home grown, contextually driven knowledge. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The visa conundrum in global health","field_subtitle":"Vervoort D: The BMJ Opinion, June 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yysajrsk","body":"There is a growing push to include local voices in global health initiatives and policies to promote ownership of downstream implementation, but also to get a proper sense of the realities on the ground. Many governments gladly jump on the bandwagon. Yet when it comes to it, visa applications are often rejected on feeble grounds. Physicians and medical students with booked return flights, domestic hospital affiliations, formal invitation letters and even proof that they will not be a financial liability are rejected. Academia increasingly understands the need for local authorship and ownership of global health programmes, and rightfully so. However, a colonial trend persists in the wider community. Policies and resolutions are driven by high income country actors or government officials who are, by definition, detached from what is happening on the ground. Civil society actors who live among the realities of poverty are left behind. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Urban Health Initiative in Accra:  Workshop on planning for climate action, improved air quality and health  ","field_subtitle":"Accra Metropolitan Assembly: Ghana, May 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y4x3coug","body":"The World Health Organisation, Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Ghana Health Service, Environmental Protection Agency, UN-Habitat and ICLEI hosted a two-day workshop with the Accra Metropolitan Assembly in May 2019 to support action towards healthier urban environments and to engage other municipalities to jointly act on air quality, public health and the reduction of short-lived climate pollutants. With representatives from several assemblies and municipalities, ministries and other relevant institutions, the workshop took participants through working sessions to discuss the health and economic impacts of sectoral policies, to inform the development of Accra\u2019s Climate Action Plan and control of air pollution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"We are called the et cetera: experiences of the poor with health financing reforms that target them in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Kabia E;  Mbau R; Oyando R;  Oduor C; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 18(98) 1-14, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y4l7h7o9","body":"This study examined the experiences of poor people with health financing reforms that target them. The authors conducted a qualitative cross-sectional study in two purposively selected counties in Kenya, using focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with people in the lowest wealth quintile and health insurance subsidy programme beneficiaries. Health financing reforms reduced financial barriers and improved access to health services for poor people in the study counties. However, various access barriers limited the extent to which they benefited from these reforms. Long distances, lack of public transport, poor condition of the roads and high transport costs especially in rural areas limited access to health facilities. Continued charging of user fees despite their abolition, delayed insurance reimbursements to health facilities that health insurance subsidy programme beneficiaries were seeking care from, and informal fees exposed the poor to out of pocket payments. Stock-outs of medicine and other medical supplies, dysfunctional medical equipment, shortage of healthcare workers, and frequent strikes adversely affected the availability of health services. Acceptability of care was further limited by discrimination by healthcare workers and ineffective grievance redress mechanisms which led to a feeling of disempowerment among poor people.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"When things fall apart: local responses to the reintroduction of user-fees for maternal health services in rural Malawi ","field_subtitle":"Pot H; de Kok B; Finyiza G: Reproductive Health Matters, 26(54) 126-136, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yx8h6kw6","body":"This paper analyses power dynamics at play in the implementation of maternal health policies in rural Malawi, a country with one of the world\u2019s highest burdens of maternal mortality. The authors analysed Malawi\u2019s recent experience with the temporary reintroduction of user-fees for maternity services as a response to the suspension of external funding, a shift in political leadership and priorities and unstable service contracts between the government and its implementing partner, the Christian Health Association of Malawi. The authors report that different actors are frustrated about user fees and their impact on poor people, especially because in Malawi non-institutional deliveries have become strongly associated with maternal deaths.  This especially affects women in rural areas, where access to care is already minimal. In addition, the poorest rural women struggle most to pay user-fees, and would have to travel to the district hospital.  User-fees eroded trust between women and health workers. The authors indicate that the fact that local maternity services excluded of the most vulnerable rural women from care rather than address higher level sources reflect the power dynamics involved in this issue. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Prejudiced\u2019 Home Office refusing visas to African researchers","field_subtitle":"Grant H: The Guardian, June 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y5s2x4ao","body":"The UK Home Office is reported to be accused of institutional racism and to be damaging British research projects through increasingly arbitrary and \u201cinsulting\u201d visa refusals for African academics. In April, a team of six Ebola researchers from Sierra Leone were unable to attend vital training in the UK, funded by the Wellcome Trust as part of a \u00a31.5m flagship pandemic preparedness programme. At the LSE Africa summit, also in April, 24 out of 25 researchers were missing from a single workshop. Shortly afterwards, the Save the Children centenary events were marred by multiple visa refusals of key guests. The article refers to a parliamentary inquiry into visa refusals hearing evidence that there is \u201can element of systemic prejudice against applicants\u201d. In a letter in the Observer, 70 senior leaders from universities and research institutes across the UK warn that \u201cvisa refusals for African cultural, development and academic leaders \u2026 [are] undermining \u2018Global Britain\u2019s\u2019 reputation as well as efforts to tackle global challenges\u201d. The system is reported to be so difficult to predict or navigate that meetings, including conferences funded with British government money, are now being held in other countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":" WHO: Member States adopt resolution on transparency in medicine pricing","field_subtitle":"Third World Network: TWN Information Service on IP and Health, May 2019 ","field_url":"https://www.twn.my/title2/health.info/2019/hi190512.htm","body":"The 72nd World Health Assembly (WHA) of health ministers in May 2019 adopted the resolution on \u201cImproving the transparency of markets for medicines, vaccines, and other health products\u201d in what is considered as a first step to improve the transparency on medicine pricing and other factors impacting prices such as clinical trial costs. The resolution urges the WHO Member States in accordance with their national and regional legal frameworks and contexts to take appropriate measures to publicly share information on the net prices of health products. Further, the resolution urges Member States to take measures to disclose the net price i.e. the price received by the manufacturer instead of the price paid by the government or customers. The resolution requires that costs from human subject clinical trials, regardless of outcomes, be made publicly available or be voluntarily provided. Further, the resolution provides a clear mandate to the WHO Secretariat to \u201canalyse the availability of data on inputs throughout the value chain, including on clinical trial data and price information\u201d. Unlike the initial draft, first proposed by Italy and then supported by a group of countries, the resolution does not create any responsibility on the part of Member States to ensure transparency on R&D cost and clinical trial cost.  TWN report that the debate on the resolution brought out out the division within Europe between the countries with pharmaceutical industry such as Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark on the one hand, and countries that do not have strong pharmaceutical industry such as Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Austria and Norway. The USA supported the resolution, stating the commitment of the Trump Administration\u2019s initiative to legislate to ensure competition in the pharmaceutical market through transparency in pricing. Though the resolution was adopted by consensus i.e. without any objection from the Member States, Germany, Hungary and the UK stated their disassociation from the resolution at the WHA plenary.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A few words on changes in the newsletter","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET newsletter","field_url":"","body":"From July 2019 the EQUINET newsletter will be coming out quarterly in March,  June, September and December of every year. The next issue will thus be in September 2019. After discussion in the EQUINET steering committee we will try where feasible to have a stronger thematic focus on issues, while still keeping a wide range of coverage of resources, announcements and updates and  publications. As a reminder we are keen to share information on and about the region and invite you to share news, information, papers, reports, briefs, announcements and resources of different types and are happy to receive editorials from or on the region. Please submit by visiting the newsletter on the EQUINET site and selecting \"submit news\"  on the online menu. We are also keen to get your feedback on how to improve the newsletter as a resource for you so please do submit your feedback!","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"After the handover: Exploring MSF\u2019s role in the provision of health care to migrant farm workers in Musina, South Africa","field_subtitle":"de Gruchy T; Kapilashrami A: Global Public Health, doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2019.1586976, 2019","field_url":"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441692.2019.1586976","body":"Non-state actors, including humanitarian agencies, play a prominent role in providing health care in low- and middle-income countries. Between 2007 and 2009, Musina, a South African municipality bordering Zimbabwe, became the site of several interventions by non-state organisations as an unprecedented number of Zimbabweans crossed the border, putting strain on already burdened local systems. After the initial need for humanitarian relief dissipated, organisations started to implement projects that were more developmental in nature. For example, M\u00e9decins sans Fronti\u00e8res developed a mobile clinic programme to improve health care access for migrant farm workers, a programme that was subsequently integrated into the Department of Health. Since the handover of the programme, it has faced multiple challenges. Using qualitative methodology and a case study approach, this paper traces the development of the programme, exploring the changing relationship between MSF and the state during this time. This research raises questions about the implications of short-term \u2018innovative\u2019 interventions targeting the access that migrants have to care, within a context in which policy and programmatic responses to health are not 'migration aware'. The authors highlight the ways in which the energies and resources of local health department employees were redirected by MSF's involvement in the area.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Are public\u2013private partnerships the future of healthcare delivery in sub-Saharan Africa? Lessons from Lesotho","field_subtitle":"Hellowell M: BMJ Global Health 4(2), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2018-001217, 2019","field_url":"https://gh.bmj.com/content/4/2/e001217","body":"Many governments in sub-Saharan Africa are seeking to establish public\u2013private partnerships (PPPs) to finance and operate new healthcare facilities and services. While there is a large empirical literature on PPPs in high-income countries, much less is known about their operation in low-income and middle-income countries. This paper seeks to inform debates about the use of PPPs in sub-Saharan Africa by describing the planning and operation of a high-profile case in Maseru, Lesotho. The paper highlights several beneficial impacts of the transaction, including the achievement of high clinical standards, alongside a range of key challenges\u2014in particular, the higher-than-anticipated costs to the Ministry of Health. Governments may use budget-related incentives to promote the use of PPPs which may threaten financial sustainability in the long term. The authors suggest that future proposals for PPPs need to be exposed to more effective scrutiny and challenge, taking into account state capacity to proficiently manage and pay for contracted services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessment of interventions to attract and retain health workers in rural Zambia: a discrete choice experiment","field_subtitle":"Prust M; Kamanga A; Ngosa L; McKay C; et al: Human Resources for Health 17(26)1-12, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yynjettu","body":"The authors examined whether non-monetary employment incentives were cost-effective in attracting and retaining public sector health workers in rural areas of Zambia. The study consisted of two key phases: Firstly, in qualitative interviews with 25 health workers and focus group discussions with 253 health students, participants were asked to discuss job attributes and potential incentives that would influence their job choices. Based on this exercise and in consultation with policymakers, job attributes were selected for inclusion in a discrete choice experiment. A questionnaire, consisting of hypothetical job \u201cchoice sets,\u201d was presented to 474 practicing health workers and students.  Using administrative data, the authors estimated the cost of implementing potential attraction and retention strategies per health worker year worked. Although health workers preferred urban jobs to rural jobs, employment incentives influenced health workers\u2019 decision to choose rural jobs. If superior housing was offered in a rural area compared to a basic housing allowance in an urban job, participants would be five times as likely to choose the rural job. Education incentives and facility-based improvements also increased the likelihood of rural job uptake. Housing benefits were estimated to have the lowest total costs per health worker year worked, and offer high value in terms of cost per percentage point increase in rural job uptake. The authors note that non-monetary incentives such as housing, education, and facility improvements can be important motivators of health worker choice of location and could mitigate rural health workforce shortages.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Association of Schools of Public Health in Africa Conference and Annual Meeting","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Abstracts: 19 July 2019 ","field_url":"http://asphaafrica.net/upcoming-events/","body":"The Association of Schools of Public Health in Africa (ASPHA) welcomes abstract submissions for oral and poster presentations for the 2019 ASPHA Conference and Annual Meeting. The main theme of the conference is \u2018Universal Health Coverage in Africa: The Role of Public Health Workforce.\u2019 The sub-themes of the conference are \u2018Developing Public Health Workforce to expand Universal Health Coverage\u2019, \u2018Innovations to improve Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health Care in Africa\u2019, \u2018Current and Emerging Public Health Issues (Non-communicable and Communicable diseases)\u2019, \u2018Evidence to Policy: Financing Healthcare for Universal Health Coverage\u2019 and \u2018Public Health Education\u2019. Consider including the following information in the abstract, when relevant: objective, problem under investigation, hypothesis, or research goal, the description of research methods, summary of findings and statement of how the research advances public health. See the website for further information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CODESRIA Social Policy in Africa International Conference Theme: Governance of Africa\u2019s Social Policy: Subverting Development and Democracy?","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Abstracts: 30 August 2019 ","field_url":"https://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2934&lang=en","body":"The 2019 2nd Social Policy in Africa International Conference invites abstracts and papers that address the dynamics of social policymaking in Africa, identify the drivers of policies and their policy preferences, and address the issue of the nature of politics and the constitution of the public sphere necessary for enhanced economic transformation, human flourishing, and new forms of social compact in inclusive development. Presenters are invited to engage with these issues and explore the different national and regional experiences of modes of governance of the African social policy space, the drivers of public policy, and explore the modes of governance and politics necessary for enhanced human wellbeing and development. The conference also invites papers in the broad areas of social policy not directly concerned with the theme of the 2019 conference. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Connecting global debates to local realities at the 2019 World Health Assembly ","field_subtitle":"Michael Ssemakula, People\u2019s Health Movement and Human Rights Research Documentation Center, Uganda  ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nGlobal meetings and processes can seem very distant from the realities at local level, despite the fact that the policies being made in global meetings have profound influence on these local realities. The People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM) has for several years implemented a \u2018WHO watch programme\u2019 to follow and provide information, analysis and critical commentary for people on the global health debates taking place at the World Health Organisation (WHO).  \r\n\r\nIn its Global Health Watch activities, PHM follows range of WHO meetings, including the World Health Assembly (WHA) and the WHO Executive Board (EB) and at regional level in the WHO Regional Committees, such as the one for the AFRO region. The analysis that PHM does explores how far these global processes and resolutions respond to local, regional and global contexts and priorities and how far states and other relevant stakeholders\u2019 implement, comply with and are publicly accountable for the resolutions made. \r\n\r\nThe recently ended \u2018WHA72\u2019 that took place in end May 2019 was one such global meeting.\r\n\r\nThere were many debates at the WHA72, but two merit attention. One was on improving the transparency of markets for medicines, vaccines and other health-related products and technologies. A second was on the Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the public health emergency response. Both were critical debates for African countries. Both issues need strong intervention from states, by galvanizing comprehensive workforces and capacities for both health systems and emergency responses, to address disease burdens and respond to disease outbreaks. \r\n\r\nAfter the scrutiny and criticism of its response to the Ebola epidemic in West-Africa in 2014, WHO restructured its health emergencies program in 2016 to provide a more effective response. However, the virtual freeze in member state contributions has meant that the core funding for the program has not improved. The current Ebola outbreak in the DRC thus provided an opportunity to assess how successful the measures and resources are for such emergency responses. The DRC outbreak provided a tough test: it has been termed a complex emergency due to its occurrence in a highly volatile and extremely insecure conflict zone, politicizing the epidemic and raising the challenge of dealing with an outbreak in a war zone. At the recent WHA, WHO reported that its use of vaccination strategies enabled it to achieve unprecedented survival rates. It also pointed to other factors that enabled the response and improved survival, including significant investment in planning and capacities for epidemic preparedness, sustained testing for Ebola, improved screening, vaccination of frontline healthcare-workers and training of multidisciplinary teams for a rapid response mechanism. \r\n\r\nWhile this work has been a significant contribution to addressing the Ebola emergency in DRC, there are still issues to address. PHM observe that WHO should mobilise member states and other relevant-stakeholders to find ethical and valid ways of more rapidly testing interventions to combat diseases like Ebola. A rapidly spreading emergency like Ebola calls for an urgent response, including quick advice on the most effective treatments to use.  The concern is that the pace of development of new vaccines, drugs and diagnostics is not meeting the pace of rapid spread of health emergencies, such as that faced in the DRC. The time consuming nature and wide population enrolment of current medicine trials doesn\u2019t match the urgency needed for responding to such rapidly spreading epidemics. This raises debate on what flexibilities can be introduced that do not compromise the quality and safety of trials. \r\n\r\nAt the same time, there is also a more general demand for improved access to medicines. Accessing medicines would have been critical for the approximately 1.6 million Africans who died of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV-related illnesses in 2015. While many of the diseases in Africa can be prevented or treated with timely access to appropriate and affordable medicines, vaccines and other health interventions, less than two percent of medicines consumed in Africa are produced on the continent. Many people cannot access locally produced drugs and many may not afford imported medicines. \r\n\r\nThe WHA discussed a draft roadmap on access to medicines, vaccines and other health products for 2019-2023. The roadmap proposes strategies to support quality, safety, efficacy and equitable access of health-products. The strategies include strengthening regulation, assessing the quality, safety and efficacy or performance of health products, including through market surveillance and investing in research and development (R&D) that meets public health needs. The strategies also include managing intellectual property so that it contributes to innovation and promotes public health, and ensuring evidence-based selection, fair and affordable pricing, procurement and supply chain management and appropriate prescribing, dispensing and rational use of health products.\r\n \r\nThe resolution on transparency of markets for medicines, vaccines, and other health-related products and technologies adopted at this year\u2019s WHA is a substantial stride towards improving the affordability of and access to medicines and other technologies. For example, there is currently an information gap on what different countries pay for medicines and on the actual cost of R&D and manufacture of medicines. The lack of transparency on this gives pharmaceutical corporations a significant advantage and allows them to charge extortionate prices, maximizing profit over human life. \r\n\r\nDespite the obvious benefit of improved transparency in these issues, the resolution received mixed reactions.  Germany, Hungary and the United Kingdom dissociated themselves from the resolution, using a range of procedural reasons. They claimed that the roadmap was \u201crushed through\u201d and breached procedure, with inadequate consultation with all experts. The dissociation raised governance concerns. However the resolution was approved by a majority of states and will support the space for governments in Africa to negotiate medicine prices. Given the current crisis of unaffordable pricing of many medical technologies, the resolution, if implemented, will support greater public disclosure of prices of medicines and other health-related products. This information should help to reduce the prices of these products, now needed also for rising levels of chronic conditions such as cancers, hepatitis and diabetes, many of which are too costly for universal access in low and middle income countries. \r\n.\r\nThe resolution was thus welcomed by African countries. It needs to be further monitored for its implementation to assess if it achieves its purpose and goal in relation to universal health coverage (UHC). At the same time, as raised by PHM during a debate at the WHA on UHC, accessing medicines also depends on investing in comprehensive primary health care. Further, as was the original intention of Alma Ata, we need to apply human rights-based and comprehensive approaches not just to treating disease, but also to ensuring health. As we address issues of transparency and of responsiveness to emergencies, that also depends on a deeper redistribution of power and wealth.\r\n\r\nYou can read more about PHM \u2018watch\u2019 activities and findings in the Global Health Watch at https://www.ghwatch.org/wha72 . Commentaries, statements and policy briefs can be found on the WHO Tracker at  https://who-track.phmovement.org/. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Draft WHO global strategy on health, environment and climate change: the transformation needed to improve lives and well-being sustainably through healthy environments ","field_subtitle":"Director-General: World Health Organization, Geneva, April 2019","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA72/A72_15-en.pdf","body":"This proposed strategy provides a vision and way forward on how the world and its health community need to respond to environmental health risks and challenges until 2030, and to ensure safe, enabling and equitable environments for health by transforming ways of living, working, producing, consuming and governing. The Health Assembly noted the report, and requested the Director-General to report back on progress at the 74th World Health Assembly in 2022. The WHO draft global strategy envisions a world in which sustainable development has eliminated the almost one quarter of the disease burden caused by unhealthy environments, through health protection and promotion, good public health standards, preventive action in relevant sectors and healthy life choices, and which manages environmental risks to health. The strategy sets six strategic objectives. Strategic objective 1 aims towards primary prevention: to scale up action on health determinants for health protection and improvement in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Strategic objective 2 calls for cross-sectoral action to act on determinants of health in all policies and in all sectors. Strategic objective 3 concerns a strengthening health sector leadership, governance and coordination roles. Strategic objective 4 aims towards building mechanisms for governance, and political and social support. Strategic objective 5 calls for generating the evidence base on risks and solutions, and to efficiently communicate that information to guide choices and investments. Lastly, strategic objective 6 aims to guide actions by monitoring progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion paper 119: Critical assessment of different health financing options in east and southern African countries","field_subtitle":"Doherty J: EQUINET, Harare","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Disspaper%20119%20Fin%202019.pdf","body":"EQUINET commissioned this desk review paper. It aims to contribute to a regional understanding of the positive and negative implications of the different domestic health financing options being explored, advocated and implemented in the East and Southern African (ESA) region. It presents issues to be addressed in the implementation of these financing options from the perspective of equitable progression towards universal health coverage (UHC), to inform policy dialogue and decisions on domestic health financing in ESA countries. The paper considers only one aspect of health financing reform, namely, revenue collection. It distinguishes between policy instruments, i.e., the sources of finance, and policy strategies, i.e., how these instruments are deployed to achieve various objectives or to address contextual features. Non-contributory sources (essentially tax-financed) and contributory (employment-based) options are explored. The paper presents: a. A typology of domestic revenue instruments and strategies; b. Domestic financing trends and options in place, or under consideration, in ESA countries; c. A review of low- and middle-income country experiences of domestic financing options; and d. Conclusions on the findings and lessons for ESA countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 220: Connecting global debates to local realities at the 2019 World Health Assembly","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Facilitators, best practices and barriers to integrating family planning data in Uganda\u2019s health management information system","field_subtitle":"Wandera S; Kwagala B; Nankinga O; Ndugga P; et al: BMC Health Services Research 19(327) 1-13, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y549v27f","body":"This study sought to investigate the facilitators, best practices and barriers of integrating family planning data into the district and national Health management information systems in Uganda. The authors conducted a qualitative study in Kampala, Jinja, and Hoima Districts of Uganda, based on 16 key informant interviews and a multi-stakeholder dialogue workshop with 11 participants. The technical facilitators of integrating family planning data from public and private facilities in the national and district Health management information systems were user-friendly software; web-based and integrated reporting; and availability of resources, including computers. Organizational facilitators included prioritizing family planning data; training staff; supportive supervision; and quarterly performance review meetings. Key behavioural facilitators were motivation and competence of staff. Collaborative networks with implementing partners were also found to be essential for improving performance and sustainability. Significant technical barriers included limited supply of computers in lower level health facilities, complex forms, double and therefore tedious entry of data, and web-reporting challenges. Organizational barriers included limited human resources; high levels of staff attrition in private facilities; inadequate training in data collection and use; poor culture of information use; and frequent stock outs of paper-based forms. Behavioural barriers were low use of family planning data for planning purposes by district and health facility staff. Family planning data collection and reporting are integrated in Uganda\u2019s district and national health management information systems. Best practices included integrated reporting and performance review, among others. Limited priority and attention is given to family planning data collection at the facility and national levels. Data are not used by the health facilities that collect them. The authors recommend reviewing and tailoring data collection forms and ensuring their availability at health facilities. All staff involved in data reporting should be trained and regularly supervised.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthcare equity analysis: applying the Tanahashi model of health service coverage to community health systems following devolution in Kenya","field_subtitle":"McCollum R; Taegtmeyer M; Otiso L; Mireku M; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 18(65) 1-12, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y36djtv4","body":"This paper applied Tanahashi\u2019s equity model to identify the perceived equity of health services by actors across the health system and at community level, following changes to the priority-setting process at sub-national levels post devolution in Kenya. The authors carried out a qualitative study between March 2015 and April 2016, involving 269 key informant and in-depth interviews from different levels of the health system in ten counties and 14 focus group discussions with community members in two of these counties. Qualitative data were analysed using the framework approach. Their findings revealed that devolution in Kenya has focused on improving the supply side of health services, by expanding the availability, geographic and financial accessibility of health services across many counties. However, there has been limited emphasis and investment in promoting the demand side, including restricted efforts to promote acceptability or use of services. Respondents perceived that the quality of health services has typically been neglected within priority-setting to date. The authors observe that achieving universal health coverage means that all aspects of equity need to be addressed, including quality, and that community health services can play a crucial role in this. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthcare Innovation Summit Africa (HISA) 2019","field_subtitle":"16-17 October 2019, Johannesburg, South Africa ","field_url":"http://www.healthcareinnovationsummit.co.za","body":"This conference will tackle  robotics, electronic health records, delivering personalised healthcare, artificial intelligence, IoT in healthcare, driving down the cost of care with technology, security, legal impact of eHealth, healthcare policy, telemedicine advances, future of healthcare and much, much more. The summit will look at the role technology plays in patient empowerment, disease diagnosis and enhancing operational efficiency in medical facilities. HISA 2019 presents the latest healthcare technologies and showcasing their practical application and integration into existing healthcare infrastructure. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Hypertension control in integrated HIV and chronic disease clinics in Uganda in the SEARCH study","field_subtitle":"Kwarisiima D; Atukunda M; Owaraganise A; Chamie G; et al: BMC Public Health 19(511) 1-10, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yy38rwgz","body":"This paper looks at the increasing burden of hypertension across sub-Saharan Africa where HIV prevalence is the highest in the world, but current care models are inadequate to address the dual epidemics. Little data exist on the effectiveness of integrated HIV and chronic disease care delivery systems on blood pressure control over time. Population screening for HIV and hypertension, among other diseases, was conducted in ten communities in rural Uganda as part of the SEARCH study. Individuals with either HIV, hypertension, or both were referred to an integrated chronic disease clinic. Based on Uganda treatment guidelines, follow-up visits were scheduled every 4\u2009weeks when blood pressure was uncontrolled, and either every 3\u2009months, or in the case of drug stock-outs more frequently, when blood pressure was controlled. The authors described demographic and clinical variables among all patients and used multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression to evaluate predictors of hypertension control. Following population screening of 34,704 adults age\u2009\u2265\u200918\u2009years, 4554 individuals with hypertension alone or both HIV and hypertension were referred to an integrated chronic disease clinic. Within 1\u2009year 2038 participants with hypertension linked to care and contributed 15,653 follow-up visits over 3\u2009years. Hypertension was controlled at 15% of baseline visits and at 46% of post-baseline follow-up visits. Hypertension control at follow-up visits was higher among HIV-infected patients than uninfected patients and improved hypertension control was achieved in an integrated HIV and chronic care model. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Incorporating concerns for equity into health resource allocation: A guide for practitioners","field_subtitle":"Love-Koh J; Griffin S; Kataika E; Revill P; et al: CHE Research Paper 160, 2019","field_url":"https://ecsahc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/CHERP160.pdf","body":"This report summaries the methods for analyzing health equity available to policymakers regarding the allocation of health sector resources. The authors provide an overview of the major tools that have been developed to measure, evaluate and promote health equity, along with the data required to operationalise them. These are organized into four key policy questions facing decision-makers: What is the current level of inequity in health? Does government health expenditure benefit the worst-off? Can government health expenditure more effectively promote equity? and which interventions provide the best value for money in reducing inequity? Benefit incidence analysis is identified as the principal tool for estimating the distribution of current public health sector expenditure, with geographical resource allocation formulae and health system reform being the main government policy levers for improving equity. Techniques from the economic evaluation literature, such as extended and distributional cost-effectiveness analysis can be used to identify \u2018best buy\u2019 interventions from a health equity perspective. A range of inequality metrics, from gap measures and slope indices to concentration indices and regression analysis, can be applied to these approaches to evaluate changes in equity. Methods from the economics literature can be used to generate novel evidence on the health equity impacts of resource allocation decisions. They provide policymakers with a toolkit for addressing multiple aspects of health equity, from health outcomes to financial protection, and can be adapted to accommodate data commonly available in either high income or low and middle income settings. However, the quality and reliability of the data are crucial to the validity of all methods.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Just Transition: Crowd-Sourcing City Case Studies ","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 7 July 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y6ykymfo","body":"The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) is seeking potential case studies for its project Cities in Transition\u2014Urban Struggles for Just Transition(s), run by the Just Transition Research Collaborative (JTRC). This project analyses urban approaches to just transition, exploring the role of cities in implementing progressive and transformative just transition strategies and plans. Building on the theoretical framework and assessment carried out by the Just Transition Research Collaborative and published in the report Just Transition(s) to a Low-Carbon World (2018), the project collects new empirical evidence and stories from several cities, and fosters exchange of experience and mutual learning on the role of cities in just transition. The research contributes a better understanding of the potential of city-level just transition policies and frameworks to influence higher level policy change and climate justice. The case studies will be a major part of a research report which will be presented to decision makers and activists at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP 25 in Santiago de Chile in December 2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Learning Network Video Resources ","field_subtitle":"University of Cape Town, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yy24xsvn","body":"This resource provides a range of films which are useful training materials and resources. Films include reflections on community actions towards improving health, such as Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) documentary on \u201cStrengthening Community Feedback Mechanisms for Improved Health Service Delivery\u201d and a documentary film on \u201cHow South Africans are taking food security into their own hands\u201d by a student featuring individuals from Klapmuts, Belhar, and Gugulethu in the Western Cape who are initiating food gardens and other programmes to empower their communities and strengthen food security and sovereignty. A short documentary tells the story of the Network of Community Defenders for the Right to Health, users of healthcare services that have organized themselves to identify problems, engage with authorities for resolutions and demand accountability. Also featured is a training video which explores the role of Health Committees from different perspectives \u2013 from that of a facility manager, a health care provider, health committee members and patients. Two further films from the Community Systems Strengthening (CSS) project reflect on the social determinants of health and the importance of responding to community health issues in a more holistic manner. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Museum of Namibian Music Call for Submissions","field_subtitle":"Museums Association of Namibia ","field_url":"https://twitter.com/MuseumsANamibia/status/1126109049085411334","body":"The Museums Association of Namibia is inviting musicians and members of the public to assist by identifying musical instruments, recordings, photographs or stories that might be included in the museum. They are calling on submissions to the development of the museum by Namibian artists and the general public alike, to contribute ideas about what the museum should contain. The museum will be a museum of Namibian music that will endeavour to showcase all forms of Namibian music across all genres, cultures, instruments, uses and time. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Past, present, and future of global health financing: a review of development assistance, government, out-of-pocket, and other private spending on health for 195 countries, 1995\u20132050","field_subtitle":"Global Burden of Disease Health Financing Collaborator Network: The Lancet, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)30841-4, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y6m9krz3","body":"The authors estimated domestic health spending for 195 countries and territories from 1995 to 2016, split into three categories\u2014government, out-of-pocket, and prepaid private health spending\u2014and estimated development assistance for health (DAH) from 1990 to 2018. Future scenarios of health spending using an ensemble of linear mixed-effects models were estimated, with time series specifications to project domestic health spending from 2017 through 2050 and DAH from 2019 through 2050. Data were extracted from a broad set of sources tracking health spending and revenue, and were standardised and converted to inflation-adjusted 2018 US dollars. Incomplete or low-quality data were modelled and uncertainty was estimated, leading to a complete data series of total, government, prepaid private, and out-of-pocket health spending, and DAH. Estimates are reported in 2018 US dollars, 2018 purchasing-power parity-adjusted dollars, and as a percentage of gross domestic product. Between 1995 and 2016, health spending grew at a rate of 4% annually, although it grew slower in per capita terms and increased by less than $1 per capita over this period in 22 of 195 countries. The highest annual growth rates in per capita health spending were observed in upper-middle-income countries, mainly due to growth in government health spending, and in lower-middle-income countries, mainly from DAH. The decomposition analysis identified governments\u2019 increased prioritisation of the health sector and economic development as the strongest factors associated with increases in government health spending globally. Future government health spending scenarios suggest that, with greater prioritisation of the health sector and increased government spending, health spending per capita could more than double, with greater impacts in countries that currently have the lowest levels of government health spending. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy brief 45: Features of domestic revenue sources for universal health systems: a contribution to policy dialogue","field_subtitle":" University of the Witwatersrand and Training and Research Support Centre: EQUINET, Harare","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQPolbrief%2045%20financing.pdf","body":"This brief aims to present the positive and negative implications of the different domestic revenue sources being explored, advocated and implemented in the East and Southern African (ESA) region. It presents issues to be considered in choosing between, and implementing, the different non-contributory and contributory options for revenue collection, given the policy commitments in the region to equity and universal health coverage (UHC). The brief draws information from experiences of other low and middle income countries globally, including on the fiscal, revenue, progressiveness and acceptability implications of different options. The brief highlights that revenue collection measures need to be accompanied by measures to strengthen strategic purchasing and access to equitable, effective, quality care. The full report  the brief is drawn from is also being made available on the EQUINET website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Posting policies don\u2019t change because there is peace or war\u201d: the staff deployment challenges for two large health employers during and after conflict in Northern Uganda","field_subtitle":"Ayiasi R; Rutebemberwa E; Martineau T: Human Resources for Health 17(27)1-10, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3g73fzb","body":"In this paper, the authors examine how deployment policies and practices were adapted during the conflict and post-conflict periods with the aim of drawing lessons for future responses to similar conflicts. Qualitative data was collected in a cross-sectional survey to investigate deployment policy and practice during the conflict and post-conflict period in Amuru, Gulu and Kitgum districts in Northern Uganda in 2013. Two large health employers from Acholi were selected, the district local government and Lacor hospital, a private provider. Twenty-three key informants\u2019 interviews were conducted at the national and district level, and in-depth interviews with 10 district managers and 25 health workers. There was no evidence of change in deployment policy due to conflict, but decentralisation from 1997 had a major effect for the local government employer. Health managers in government and those working for Lacor hospital both implemented deployment policies pragmatically, especially because of the danger to staff in remote facilities. Lacor hospital introduced bonding agreements to recruit and staff their facilities. While managers in both organisations implemented the deployment policies as best as they could, some deployment-related decisions were noted as possibly leading to longer-term problems. While it may not be possible to change deployment policies during or after conflict, the authors observe that if given sufficient autonomy, local managers can adapt deployment policies appropriately to need, but that they should also be supported with the necessary management skills to enable this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Press Statement on Government\u2019s Continued Non-involvement of Botswana Labour Migrants Association (BoLAMA) in TB Programme Management ","field_subtitle":"Botswana Labour Migrants Association (BoLAMA): Gaberone, May 2019","field_url":"https://www.twn.my/title2/health.info/2019/hi190512.htm","body":"BoLAMA report in a press statement that it has without much success made all efforts to engage and collaborate with the Government of Botswana on miners\u2019 right to health, specifically for those suffering from TB and other occupational diseases. BoLAMA assert that TB rates in Botswana remain high and a multi-sectoral accountability framework is required. This framework which is aligned with the End TB Strategy and UN Political Declaration on TB requires key populations and civil society to work in collaboration with Governments. The regional TB/Silicosis class action is seen as an opportunity to reduce the economic hardships of ex-miners who due to contracting occupational lung diseases have been rendered redundant and not in gainful employment. The court case, to which BoLAMA has been party, is slated to be finalized in 2019. BoLAMA called on the Government of Botswana to; i) remember her commitments under the WHO EndTB Strategy from which the TB National Strategic Plan is aligned; ii) implement the UN Political Declaration on the fight against TB; iii) ensure an inter-ministerial committee including BoLAMA deal with ex-miners issues; and iv) provide support in the TB/Silicosis regional class suit. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevalence of chronic respiratory disease in urban and rural Uganda","field_subtitle":"Siddharthan T: Grigsby M; Morgan B; Kalyesubula R; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 97(5)318\u2013327, 2019","field_url":"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/97/5/18-216523.pdf?ua=1","body":"This paper seeks to determine the prevalence of chronic respiratory diseases in urban and rural Uganda and to identify risk factors for these diseases. The population-based, cross-sectional study included adults aged 35 years or older. All participants were evaluated by spirometry according to standard guidelines and completed questionnaires on respiratory symptoms, functional status and demographic characteristics. The presence of four chronic respiratory conditions was monitored: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, chronic bronchitis and a restrictive spirometry pattern. The age-adjusted prevalence of any chronic respiratory condition was 20.2%; the age-adjusted prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was significantly greater in rural than urban participants, whereas asthma was significantly more prevalent in urban participants: 9.7% versus 4.4% in rural participants. The age-adjusted prevalence of chronic bronchitis was similar in rural and urban participants, as was that of a restrictive spirometry pattern. For chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the population attributable risk was 51.5% for rural residence, 19.5% for tobacco smoking, 16.0% for a body mass index over 18.5 kg and 13.0% for a history of treatment for pulmonary tuberculosis. The prevalence of chronic respiratory disease was high in both rural and urban Uganda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Primary health care is where the battle for health will be won or lost","field_subtitle":"Third World Network: TWN Information Service on Health Issues 19/10, May 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y2vl5gdy","body":"In his address to the 72nd session of the World Health Assembly, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that strong primary health care is the front-line in defending the right to health, including sexual and reproductive rights. According to WHO, the \u201ctriple billion\u201d targets that are at the heart of its strategic plan for the next five years are: one billion more people benefiting from universal health coverage (UHC); one billion more people better protected from health emergencies; and one billion more people enjoying better health and well-being. Dr Tedros cited various initiatives in countries that demonstrate progress and new normative products developed by WHO that are being used globally to protect and promote health. He highlighted three priorities that must guide discussions to make advances in primary health care: health is about political leadership; health is about partnership; and health is about people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Resolution on States\u2019 Obligation to Regulate Private Actors Involved in the Provision of Health and Education Services ","field_subtitle":"African Commission on Human and People\u2019s Rights: ACHPR, Egypt, 2019","field_url":"http://www.achpr.org/sessions/64th_os/resolutions/420/","body":"The African Commission on Human and People\u2019s Rights calls on States Parties to the African Charter to take appropriate policy, institutional and legislative measures to ensure respect, protection, promotion and realization of economic, social and cultural rights, in particular the right to health and education and to fulfil their obligations on this. The Commission calls on States Parties to adopt legislative and policy frameworks regulating private actors in social service delivery and ensure that their involvement is in conformity with regional and international human rights standards. States Parties are invited to ensure that the involvement of private actors in the provision of social services is a result of a participatory policy formulation process and continues to be subject to democratic scrutiny and to the human rights principles of transparency and participation. The Commission considers carefully the risks for the realization of economic, social and cultural rights of public-private partnerships and ensure that any potential arrangements for public-private partnerships are in accordance with their substantive, procedural and operational human rights obligations, and do not violate the norms and principles of the rights contained in the African Charter; and to ensure through regular impact assessments that the involvement of private actors in the provision of health services and education does not create systemic adverse impacts on human rights. Further States Parties are to ensure access to an effective remedy for violations of the right to health and education or other human rights violations by private actors involved in the provision of health and education services. The Commission reminds private actors of their responsibility to respect economic and social rights, particularly the right to health and education and to refrain from infringing on human rights as they engage in the provision of these services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Rights-based training enhancing engagement of health providers with communities, Cape Metropole, South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Zwama G; Stuttaford M; Haricharan H; London L: Frontiers in Sociology, 1-12 doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2019.00035, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y567fa2s","body":"Community participation, the central principle of the primary health care approach, is widely accepted in the governance of health systems. Health Committees (HCs) are community-based structures that can enable communities to participate in the governance of primary health care. Previous research done in the Cape Town Metropole, South Africa, reports that HCs' potential can, however, be limited by a lack of local health providers' (HPs) understanding of HC roles and functions as well as lack of engagement with HCs. This study was the first to evaluate HPs' responsiveness towards HCs following participation in an interactive rights-based training. Thirty-four HPs, from all Cape Metropole health sub-districts, participated in this qualitative training evaluation. Two training groups were observed and participants completed pre- and post-training questionnaires. Semi-structured interviews were held with 10 participants 3\u20134 months after training. Following training, HPs understood HCs to play an important role in the communication between the local community and HPs. HPs also perceived HCs as able to assist with and improve the quality and accessibility of PHC, as well as the answerability of services to local community needs. HPs expressed intentions to actively engage with the facility's HC and stressed the importance of setting clear roles and responsibilities for all HC members. This training evaluation reveals HPs' willingness to engage with HCs and their desire for skills to achieve this. Moreover, it confirms that HPs are crucial players for the effective functioning of HCs. This evaluation indicates that HPs' increased responsiveness to HCs following training can contribute to tackling the disconnect between service delivery and community needs. Therefore, the training of HPs on HCs potentially promotes the development of needs-responsive PHC and a people-centred health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"SA just endorsed a draft resolution that could bring Big Pharma to its knees","field_subtitle":"Van Dyk J: Bhekisisa, April 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yxp2qx4w","body":"A World Health Assembly resolution this year proposed that drug prices could be reduced if countries forced pharmaceutical companies to be open about what it really costs to produce medicines. The plan is to give governments a way to enforce changes in the way medicine prices are set. In South Africa, cancer patients pay exorbitant prices to stay alive. Blood cancer patients are paying over R 800 000 for a year\u2019s worth of one chemotherapy medicine, according to a report by the Cancer Alliance. Loopholes in South African patent laws are said to be one reason medicine prices are this high. Currently, companies that bring new drugs onto the market are awarded market monopolies through being awarded long-term patents that prevent anyone else from manufacturing a similar drug for many years. For example, the company that brought the blood cancer drug in question onto the market has had protection from competitors for 40 years, according to a briefing paper by the Initiative for Medicines, Access and Knowledge. In an overhauled system, it is proposed that market monopolies be capped at 15 years with small rewards offered when new, good drugs enter the market.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Smoke, spies and lies: Should you throw away your e-cigarette?","field_subtitle":"Van Dyk J: Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism, April 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y5n7y8r2","body":"E-cigarettes allow users to inhale solutions that usually contain nicotine in a colourless liquid such as propylene glycol \u2013 an additive typically found in food and cosmetics. This solution is heated in hand-held devices and produces a vapour, which is why smoking e-cigarettes is often called \u201cvaping\u201d. South Africa\u2019s new tobacco control Bill, which was published in July last year, proposes the same harsh regulations for e-cigarettes as their traditional cigarette counterparts. These include advertising restrictions, plain packaging and the banning of smoking areas in restaurants and public buildings. After the Bill\u2019s publication, the Vapour Products Association (VPA), which represents e-cigarette manufacturers and retailers, publicly asserted that e-cigarettes are 95% safer than conventional cigarettes and may even help traditional smokers to quit, quoting an expert review by Public Health England in 2015. The UK study has however been widely criticised with some scientists taking issue with its methodology, arguing the research was based on the opinions of experts, instead of clinical trials. Anthony Westwood, a pulmonologist at the School of Child and Adolescent Health at the University of Cape Town, explains: \u201cOur children cannot afford to find out in 20 years that they\u2019ve got cancer because of e-cigarettes. \u201cWe have a chance to defuse this ticking time bomb.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Medical Association (SAMA) Conference","field_subtitle":"8-10 August 2019, Durban, South Africa","field_url":"https://www.samedical.org/conference/","body":"The theme of the 2019 SAMA conference is \u201cLeadership and Quality in Healthcare \u2013 Let\u2019s close the Gap\u201d and will cover the future direction of healthcare and various initiatives of the National Health Insurance (NHI). It also resonates with the discussions emanating from the private sector in South Africa. The conference will feature a parallel research track and undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as colleagues involved in research are invited to attend and participate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Successes and challenges of the One Health approach in Kenya over the last decade","field_subtitle":"Munyua P;  Njenga K; Osoro E; Onyango C; et al: BMC Public Health 19; 465; Suppl 3; 1-9, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y6to86t3","body":"More than 75% of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic in origin and a transdisciplinary, multi-sectoral One Health approach is a key strategy for their effective prevention and control. In 2004, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention office in Kenya established the Global Disease Detection Division of which one core component was to support, with other partners, the One Health approach to public health science. A Zoonotic Disease Unit has provided Kenya with an institutional framework to highlight the public health importance of endemic and epidemic zoonoses including Rift Valley Fever, rabies, brucellosis, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus, anthrax and other emerging issues such as anti-microbial resistance. The programme is implementing capacity building programs, surveillance, workforce development, research, coordinated investigation and outbreak response. This has led to an improved outbreak response and generated data that has informed disease control programs to reduce the burden of and enhance preparedness for endemic and epidemic zoonotic diseases, enhancing global health security. Since 2014, the Global Health Security Agenda implemented through Centers for Disease Control and Prevention office in Kenya and other partners in the country has provided additional impetus to maintain this effort and Kenya\u2019s achievement now serves as a model for other countries in the region. Significant gaps remain in implementation of the One Health approach at subnational administrative levels. however, with  sustainability concerns, competing priorities and funding deficiencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Systematic looting robs Africa of billions of dollars","field_subtitle":"Centre for Natural Resource Governance, 31 May 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y37va8o6","body":"Natural resource governance activists have called on African leaders and corporates to stop the systematic looting of resources because it deprives the states of meaningful revenue needed for development. The call was made at a regional conference on the political economy of resource looting in the SADC region organized by Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG) Southern Africa Political Economy Series (SAPES Trust) and regional watchdog Southern African Resource Watch (SARW) in Harare in May 2019. Southern Africa is said to be losing tens of billions of American dollars in potential natural resources revenue through systematic looting which includes trade mispricing, tax avoidance, corruption and transnational organized crime involving ruling elites and foreign actors, regional natural resource experts have said.  SADC delegates present at the conference suggested that there is need to harmonise the laws in the region and adopt mineral resource governance and stronger contract negotiations to curb the leakages.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Tech firms to check suppliers after mining revelations in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Watts J: The Guardian, June 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y4hbxwct","body":"A network of journalists report that electronics companies, including Canon, Apple and Nokia, are re-evaluating their supply chains following reports they may be using gold extracted from a London listed Tanzanian gold mine that has been criticised for environmental failures.  More recently, the Tanzanian government has imposed penalties on the mine and ordered the operators to build an alternative to its tailings reservoir, which is used to store potentially hazardous by-products of mining. Under Tanzanian law, no mine should operate within 200 metres of a home or 100 metres of a farm, but the mining company reported that it had not been able to meet this requirement. The company has built a wall in some areas, improved security training and introduced a grievance mechanism, which have led to a marked reduction in conflict over the past two years, but locals claimed there were still accidents and violence as a result of incursions, and toxic wastewater continued to seep from the mine into residential areas and waterways nearby. While there is scrutiny of the supply chain there is concern that this focuses on small-scale miners rather than multinationals, that there is not enough attention to environmental standards and local laws, and that responsibility gets diluted along the supply chain.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The IMF should support the financing of universal social protection, health and education","field_subtitle":"International Trade Union Confederation: Geneva,  June 2019","field_url":"https://www.ituc-csi.org/the-imf-should-support-the","body":"At the International Labour Conference, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde unveiled an institutional view on social spending that will guide Fund staff on social protection, health and education. This responds to an IMF Internal Evaluation Office report noting that the institution was increasingly out-of-step with \u201cthe rights-based approach to social protection espoused by UN agencies including the ILO.\u201d The IMF view is primarily focused on social assistance. These benefits, generally targeted to the poorest, are often advocated by the IMF as a measure to mitigate its conditionality and policy advice including austerity and the expansion of regressive taxation such as Value-Added Taxes. The institutional view argues that regressive taxes can be offset by more progressive social transfers. The Fund\u2019s approach to social assistance and reducing spending has led to the promotion of narrow targeting through proxy means testing in many developing countries that erroneously excludes large numbers of recipients. The difficulties of narrow targeting are acknowledged but do not result in a clear change in policy. The International Labour Conference discussion of the General Survey concerning the Social Protection Floors Recommendation No. 202 highlighted how pressures from the IMF to cut social spending and the wage bill in public sector workers and to reduce the coverage of social protection have impeded the ability of states to deliver on their commitment to deliver adequate, comprehensive social protection systems consistent with ILO standards. In the past, the IMF has been more open to social protection floors, working jointly with the ILO after 2010 to support financing of national floors. Throughout the creation of the institutional view, the ITUC advocated for the IMF to support countries in financing comprehensive social protection systems and close coordination with the ILO. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"When a national referral hospital ceases to be one: Reminding government of its duties","field_subtitle":"Job K: Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD), 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y23konls","body":"The author questions whether Uganda national referral hospitals are performing their function. The author asks why a section of persons should be given special treatment by government in the names of being \u2018Very Important Persons\u2019 to access the best medical services in referral facilities for first line care or in \u2018uptown\u2019 private medical facilities and abroad. The author proposes that government perform its core minimum obligation and ensure that its public health care facilities function effectively. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cWe come as friends\u201d: approaches to social accountability by health committees in Northern Malawi","field_subtitle":"Lodenstein E; Molenaar J; Ingemann C; Botha K; et al: BMC Health Services Research 19(279) 1-14, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y2sp4j8j","body":"This study explores how health facility committees monitor the quality of health services and how they demand accountability of health workers for their performance in Malawi. Documentary analysis and key informant interviews were complemented by interviews with purposefully selected health facility committees members and health workers regarding their experiences with health facility committees.  The informal and constructive approach that most health facility committees use is shaped both by formal definition and expectations of their role and resource constraints. The primary social accountability role of health facility committees appeared to be co-managing the social relations around the health facility and promoting access to and quality of services. The results suggest that health facility committees can address poor health worker performance and the authors suggest that social accountability approaches with health facility committees be integrated in existing quality of care programs and that accountability arrangements and linkages with upward accountability approaches be clarified.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":" Investing in health R&D: where we are, what limits us, and how to make progress in Africa","field_subtitle":"Simpkin V; Namubiru-Mwaura E; Clarke L; et al: BMJ Global Health 4(2), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2018-001047, 2019","field_url":"https://gh.bmj.com/content/4/2/e001047","body":"Global research and development (R&D) pipelines for diseases that disproportionately affect African countries appear to be inadequate, with governments struggling to prioritise investment in R&D. This article provides insights into the sources of investment in health science research, available research capacity and level of research output in Africa. Africa has 15% of the world\u2019s population, yet only accounted for 1.1% of global investments in R&D in 2016. There were substantial disparities within the continent, with Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa contributing 65.7% of the total R&D spending. In most countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the largest source of R&D funding is the private sector. R&D in Africa is mainly funded by the public sector, with significant proportions of financing in many countries coming from international funding. Challenges that limit private sector investment include unstable political environments and poor governance practices. Evidence suggests various research output and research capacity limitations in Africa in terms of university rankings, number of researchers, number of publications, clinical trials networks and pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity and substantial regional disparities within the continent. The authors propose that incentivising investment is crucial to foster current and future research output and research capacity. This paper outlines some of the initiatives under way for this, including through innovative and collaborative financing mechanisms that stimulate further investment. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"72nd session of the World Health Assembly","field_subtitle":"20-28 May 2019, Geneva","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/e/e_wha72.html#informationdocunents","body":"The World Health Assembly is the decision-making body of WHO. It is attended by delegations from all WHO Member States and focuses on a specific health agenda prepared by the Executive Board. Background reports, daily information can be found at the website shown.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A cross-sectional mixed-methods study of sexual and reproductive health knowledge, experiences and access to services among refugee adolescent girls in the Nakivale refugee settlement, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Ivanova O; Rai M; Mlahagwa W; Tumuhairwe J; et al: Reproductive Health 16 (35) 1-11, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y2nw4uxm","body":"Humanitarian crises and migration make girls and women more vulnerable to poor sexual and reproductive health (SRH) outcomes.  This mixed-methods study assessed SRH experiences, knowledge and access to services of 260 refugee girls 13-19 years old in the Nakivale settlement, Uganda between March and May 2018. The majority of girls were born in DR Congo and Burundi. the findings showed weak knowledge of SRH and methods for preventing HIV and pregnancy, school days missed due to menstruation and that 30 of the 260 girls were sexually active, of which 11 had experienced forced sexual intercourse. The latter occurred during conflict, in transit or within the camp. The preferred sources for SRH information was parents or guardians, although participants expressed that they were afraid or shy to discuss other sexuality topics apart from menstruation with parents. Only 30% of the female adolescents had ever visited a SRH service centre, mostly to test for HIV and to seek medical aid for menstrual problems. The authors found that adolescent refugee girls lack adequate SRH information, experience poor SRH outcomes including school absence due to menstruation, sexual violence and FGM and recommend comprehensive SRH services including sexuality education, barrier-free access to SRH services and parental involvement  for refugee communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A qualitative study of the dissemination and diffusion of innovations: bottom up experiences of senior managers in three health districts in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Orgill M; Gilson L; Chitha W; Michel J; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 18(53) 1-15, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y5ugvo6y","body":"The research paper explored, from a bottom up perspective, how efforts by the South African government to disseminate and diffuse innovations were experienced by district level senior managers and why some efforts were more enabling than others. Managers valued the national Minister of Health\u2019s role as a champion in disseminating innovations via a road show and his personal participation in an induction programme for new hospital managers. The identification of a site coordinator in each pilot site was valued as this coordinator served as a central point of connection between networks up the hierarchy and horizontally in the district. Managers leveraged their own existing social networks in the districts and created synergies between new ideas and existing working practices to enable adoption by their staff. Managers also wanted to be part of processes that decide what should be strengthened in their districts and want clarity on the benefits of new innovations, total funding they will receive, their specific role in implementation and the range of stakeholders involved. The authors proposed that those driving reform processes from the top remember to develop well planned dissemination strategies that give lower-level managers relevant information and, as part of those strategies, provide ongoing opportunities for bottom up input into key decisions and processes. Managers in districts should be recognised as leaders of change, not only as implementers who are at the receiving end of dissemination strategies from those at the top. They are integral intermediaries between those at the frontline and national policies, managing long chains of dissemination and natural diffusion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Accelerating universal health coverage: a call for papers","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: 15 June 2019","field_url":"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/97/3/19-230904/en/","body":"In 2020, the world will still have a decade to harness global momentum and advance progress towards UHC by 2030. A special issue of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization will focus on the theme of accelerating progress towards UHC to encourage learning and information sharing on this dimension of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The issue will explore policy options and country experiences on how to expand population coverage, service coverage and financial protection. Manuscripts that capture knowledge and experience in addressing bottlenecks and root causes of stagnation that hamper successful UHC advancement are welcomed. Analysis of breakthroughs in health systems that have been conducive to rapid expansion of coverage are also encouraged. Papers should focus on, for example, implementation science in health systems, innovative health financing, strategic purchasing, UHC and primary health care, the role of the private sector, policy coherence across government levels (particularly in decentralized health systems), the role of innovative technology and the design and use of health information. Best practices in good governance for health, based on transparency and accountability, would also be useful to learn how vested interests that hamper progress towards UHC are countered in different socioeconomic and political contexts. Comparative cross-country analyses are encouraged.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Are foreigners stealing your jobs and healthcare? Find out","field_subtitle":"Heleta S: NGO pulse, Sangonet, April 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y6efwjut","body":"Clinic and hospitals in the public sector in South Africa are stretched, but the author argues that this is not because of immigrants as is being proposed in some quarters, but because of understaffing, poor planning and other problems. A 2018 World Bank study showed that between 1996 and 2011, every immigrant worker generated two jobs for South Africans, mostly because their diverse skill sets led to productivity gains and multiplier effects. Immigrants also contribute to the national fiscus through payment of VAT and purchase goods and services, such as rent, from South Africans. The author calls for xenophobic blaming of foreigners to be resisted and for South Africans to see this for what it is: scapegoating of immigrants to hide domestic failures","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Building a tuberculosis-free world: The Lancet Commission on tuberculosis","field_subtitle":"Reid M; Arinaminpathy N; Bloom A; Bloom B; et al: The Lancet Commissions 393(1017b, p1331-1384, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y54d73c5","body":"Tuberculosis can be treated, prevented, and cured. Rapid, sustained declines in tuberculosis deaths in many countries during the past 50 years provide compelling evidence that ending the pandemic is feasible. Yet this disease\u2014which has plagued humanity since before recorded history and has killed hundreds of millions of people over the past two centuries\u2014remains a relentless scourge. In 2017, 1.6 million people died from tuberculosis, including 300\u2008000 people with HIV, representing more deaths than any other infectious disease. Moreover, in many parts of the world, drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis threaten struggling control efforts. The world can no longer ignore the enormous pall cast by the tuberculosis epidemic. Going forward, the global tuberculosis response must be an inclusive, comprehensive response within the broader sustainable development agenda. No one-size-fits-all approach can succeed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Climate costs South Africa 10% of its GDP","field_subtitle":"Kings S: Mail and Guardian, South Africa, April 2019","field_url":"https://www.pnas.org/content/116/20/9808","body":"Research suggests that poor countries in the south would have 24% larger economies if it wasn\u2019t for global warming. This is because the world is 1\u00b0C hotter than it was a century ago. That warming means crops fail, economic productivity goes down and people get sick or die because of the heat. South Africa is argued to be between 10% and 20% poorer than it would have been without that warming in the last six decades. Nigeria is 29% poorer and India is 30% poorer. The research, titled  \u201cGlobal warming has increased global inequality'  reports that rich countries have benefited from this warming. By calculating temperature and economic growth between 1961 and 2010, the researchers found that already rich countries, mostly in colder climates, have growth spurts during an unusually hot year. This is because hotter weather moves them closer to what is known as the \u201cempirical optimum\u201d \u2014 the closer a country\u2019s average temperature is to 13\u00b0C, the more its economy thrives. South Africa\u2019s average is around 17\u00b0C and is only increasing with global warming. The researchers concluded that global warming has meant countries are also more unequal. Richer people can insulate themselves from extreme events \u2014 by buying food when the price goes up or by being able to claim from insurance \u2014 and keep functioning. Those with few resources to start with do not have such a buffer. This local and global inequality in the impact of global warming is the topic of fierce international negotiation. While China and India are massively growing their emissions, the authors note that they still represent a fraction of total emissions in the last two centuries, with China has emitted half of what the United States has and India a seventh.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Ebola situation worsening while support lags","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: Statement from High-Level Mission to Butembo, DRC, WHO, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y4feombf","body":"WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, visited Butembo, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was in Butembo on 19 April that WHO epidemiologist Dr Richard Mouzoko was killed by armed men while he and colleagues were working on the Ebola response. Dr Tedros and Dr Moeti traveled to Butembo to express their gratitude and show support to WHO and partner organization staff, while also assessing the next steps needed to strengthen both security and the Ebola response effort. They also met with local political, business and religious leaders, and called on them to accelerate their efforts to stabilize the surrounding environment. They urged the international community to step up support to contain the Ebola outbreak, including filling the funding gap that threatens to stymie the Ebola response. Most Ebola response activities, including community engagement, vaccination, and case investigation, have been re-launched following a slowdown in the wake of the attack that left Dr. Mouzoko dead and two people injured. However, they expressed deep concern that a rise in reported cases in recent weeks is straining resources even further. Only half of the currently requested funds have been received, which could lead to WHO and partners rolling back some activities precisely when they are most needed. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 219: Health must not remain a privilege of the powerful alone","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors influencing men\u2019s involvement in antenatal care services: a cross-sectional study in a low resource setting, Central Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Gibore N; Bali T; Kibusi S: Reproductive Health 16(52)1-10, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y39gnwz4","body":"In this paper the authors sought to determine the level of men\u2019s involvement in antenatal care and the factors influencing their involvement in these services. A cross sectional study of 966 randomly selected men aged 18\u2009years or older was conducted in Dodoma Region, from June 2014 to November 2015. Face to face interviews were conducted using a pretested structured questionnaire. The level of men\u2019s involvement in antenatal care was high and 89% of respondents made joint decisions on seeking antenatal care. More than half of respondents accompanied their partners to the antenatal clinic at least once. Less than a quarter of men were able to discuss issues related to pregnancy with their partner\u2019s health care providers, although 77% of respondents provided physical support to their partners during the antenatal period. Factors influencing men\u2019s involvement in antenatal care were occupation, ethnicity, religion, waiting time, information regarding men\u2019s involvement in antenatal care and men\u2019s perception about the attitude of health care providers. Overall, more than half of respondents reported high involvement in antenatal care services. Access to information on men\u2019s involvement, religion, occupation, ethnicity, waiting time and men\u2019s perception about the attitude of care providers were significant factors influencing men\u2019s involvement in antenatal care services in this study. The authors observe that health promotion is needed to empower men with essential information for meaningful involvement in antenatal care services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"G20-Africa engagement: Finding a roadmap to shared development","field_subtitle":"van Staden C; Sidiropoulos E:  South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) Occasional Paper No 294, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y6acnbb8","body":"The G20 plays an important role in global rule-making. Africa is significantly under-represented in this body, with only South Africa a permanent member. This makes Africa a rule-taker.  At the same time the G20 has started to pay more attention to Africa and the continent\u2019s future development now occupies a somewhat more central position on the grouping\u2019s agenda. The G20 Initiative on Supporting Industrialization in Africa and Least Developed Countries, launched under China\u2019s G20 presidency of 2016, and the 2017 German presidency\u2019s Compact with Africa offered unprecedented moments of engagement. However, the question remains how Africa can use these initiatives to deepen its engagement with the G20 and boost its own development. This paper draws on extensive interviews with key stakeholders to analyse G20\u2013Africa engagement by focusing on three presidencies: China in 2016, Germany in 2017, and Argentina in 2018. It shows how China\u2019s Industrialisation Initiative was crucially informed by its pre-existing African engagement, while Germany\u2019s Compact with Africa both gained and suffered from a more narrowly focused commercial engagement. It then shows how Argentina, despite lacking a similar African initiative, managed to continue G20\u2013Africa engagement through person-to-person diplomacy. The paper points out both the benefits and the limits of these engagements and suggests a series of further initiatives that could allow Africa a more significant say in the G20.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Literacy training and processes in the Mining Sector ","field_subtitle":"EQUINET: Regional meeting, Harare and follow up work, March 2019","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/equinet-feedback-form","body":"From 2016, co-ordinated by Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC), EQUINET has implemented research and policy engagement on extractive industries / mining and health in east and southern Africa (ESA), working with regional partners in East Central and Southern Africa Health Community, the Southern African Trade Union Co-ordinating Council, SADC Council of NGOs, the Alternative Mining Indaba ad others. The work and knowledge shared contributed to the development of a Mining and Health Literacy Module, to provide information and support discussion on advancing public health and implementing the right to health in the mining sector in the ESA region. In March 2019, against this background, TARSC in EQUINET organised a regional meeting on health literacy in the mining sector in Harare, Zimbabwe from 28-29 March 2019 for organisations that had been actively involved in planning and leading work on health in mining to date. The meeting involved delegates from Botswana Federation of Trade Unions, Benchmarks Foundation, Swaziland Migrant Mineworkers Association, Southern African Trade Union co-ordinating conference, Botswana Labour Migrants Association, Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, National Mineworkers Union of Zimbabwe, Southern and East African Trade Information and negotiations Institute and TARSC. The meeting discussed health literacy outreach for workers, communities and ex mineworkers in the mining sector; shared information on the scope of and groups covered in current mining and health capacity building programmes and reviewed the methods for and use of the EQUINET health literacy module on Mining and health. Delegates planned collectively subsequent follow up training activities on mining and health, and discussed co-operation on upcoming regional processes on health in mining. The group agreed to continue to work together as a \u2018Mining and Health\u2019 Working group to take follow up work forward, with each contributing inputs related to their work. A health literacy training of trainers workshop on mining and health  will be held in follow and those interested should please contact EQUINET using the feedback form at the website shown.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Health must not remain a privilege of the powerful alone","field_subtitle":"Professor Asha George, Chair, Health System Global Board and University Western Cape ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nForty years on from the Alma Ata declaration, those who are the most vulnerable are still the least likely to access quality healthcare and to live healthy lives. Research is critical for understanding and addressing the systems of power that undermine health and health equity. Leaders must invest in more inclusive, introspective and innovative research partnerships to strengthen robust, resilient and responsive health systems to achieve \u2018health for all\u2019.\r\n\r\nAt the 2018 Fifth Global Symposium for Health Systems Research in Liverpool, UK, delegates made a strong plea for action to address the \u2018power and privilege\u2019 that continues to undermine global health. In supporting health systems as a key foundation for ensuring the health and wellbeing of citizens and communities world over, this call was repeated to those participating in the 2018Global Conference for Primary Healthcare in Astana, Kazakhstan. The call for Astana to renew and build upon a promise made forty years ago in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan to achieve \u2018health for all\u2019 was a reminder for us to reflect on how far we have come, but also how far we have to go. \r\n\r\nWhile the ambition remains as noble and important as it was in 1978, we are living in a completely different world with unprecedented challenges, with pollution, militarisation, unregulated commercial interests, polarising ideologies, pandemics and ageing populations, to name a few. These challenges are marked by increasing and intersecting inequalities, within countries and between them. We know that the impact of these political threats and social inequities affect those at the bottom of the ladder, if they are on the ladder at all.\r\n\r\nAt the same time, social voice and leverage, including social media initiatives like #MeToo, #TimesUp, and #PeriodPoverty, independent journalism, progressive legislative action and everyday activism by citizens and communities do hold those in positions of power to account. Citizen voice and community participation, a hallmark of Alma Ata, merits further consideration, scrutiny and support. They remain essential for mobilising the broader awareness, engagement and political commitment needed for domestic policies to materialize universal principles and goals, including human rights, gender equality, global solidarity, universal health coverage and the sustainable development goals.\r\n\r\nWe have had many recent historical markers raising the profile of health equity, including the birth of the UK National Health Service (NHS), the Alma Ata declaration for primary health care and the Commission for Social Determinants of Health. But, what does that mean in real terms if we do not learn, or change the power structures that continue to undermine health and equity?\r\n\r\nAs raised at the 2018 Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, the causes of bad (and good) health are multiple, and go beyond the health sector, so must we. Just as people\u2019s lives and needs cannot be neatly divided into categories to match government structures or professional disciplines, our research, policy and practice needs to transcend these boundaries. Supporting effective multi-sectoral action for health needs not just greater technical understanding, but also research on how best to facilitate, monitor and govern multi-sectoral action inclusive of actors for whom health is not a shared starting point.\r\n\r\nEngaging communities in policy, practice and research is essential. While recognizing the importance of community health worker programs, further understanding of the diverse actors that make up community ecosystems and who broker social change is needed through context specific, nationally embedded research. Greater understanding of the multiple social networks and power relations within and outside of communities is needed to ensure equitable partnerships to sustain the social changes that underpin effective health interventions.\r\n\r\nAdvances in commercial products, services, technologies, and business models have generated diverse forms of service provision, expanding the influence of the private sector. These advances have created novel opportunities to expand the reach of the health system, as well as challenges due to the misalignment with commercial interests. We need to invest more in learning how to strengthen various government capacities to effectively steer these opportunities and ensure that vigilance and a healthy critique about private sector engagement remains.\r\n\r\nWhile some benefit from improvements in quality, affordable healthcare, healthy environments, and economic opportunities, others remain marginalized without adequate access or voice. We must continue to include and reach the most marginalized, move beyond polarising social identities, to build social solidarity that address systems and structures of power, otherwise we will be having this same conversation in another forty years. Research must not only continue to identify who is left behind and why, but also support understanding of how best to change that.\r\n\r\nWe often talk about power and privilege in terms of \u2018the other\u2019 or \u2018them\u2019 over there in another space. But in all senses we must look inward and reflect on our own position if we are to truly address the pervasive inequities that continue to shape our society and health. This is no truer than in the field of health policy and systems research. Health policy and systems research is more inclusive of marginalized voices than ever, but certain vulnerable populations, geo-political configurations and planetary concerns remain under-represented. The assessment of power, privilege and positionality remains central to our work in health policy and systems research, and so it be must elsewhere if we are to realize health for all.\r\n\r\nThis oped is updated from a blog that first appeared on the Health System Global site in October 2018 at https://tinyurl.com/y4aoz54g. and builds on discussions held at the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in October 2018. Asha George is supported by the South African Research Chair's Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant No 82769). Any opinion, finding and conclusion or recommendation expressed in this material is that of the author and the NRF does not accept any liability in this regard.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Health System Factors Constrain HIV Care Providers in Delivering High-Quality Care: Perceptions from a Qualitative Study of Providers in Western Kenya","field_subtitle":"Genberg B; Wachira J; Kafu C; Wilso I; et al: Journal of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care 18, 1-10, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3zee9f8","body":"This study examined the experiences of HIV care providers in a high patient volume HIV treatment and care program in Western Kenya on health system factors that impact patient engagement in HIV care. Results from thematic analysis demonstrated that providers perceive a work environment that constrained their ability to deliver high-quality HIV care and encouraged negative patient\u2013provider relationships. Providers described their roles as high strain, low control and low support. The study revealed that health system strengthening must include efforts to improve the working environment for providers tasked with delivering antiretroviral therapy to increasing numbers of patients in resource-constrained settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"How can we achieve UHC in Africa by 2030?: Reflection on Africa Health Agenda International Conference (AHAIC) 2019","field_subtitle":"Saha S; Kavattur P; Goheer A: Health Systems Global blog, April 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y36oveha","body":"Health should not be like playing the lottery - but that is what it has become in Africa. If you\u2019re born rich you win, if you are born poor, you lose.\u2019 This statement was made by Dr Githinji Gitahi, Group CEO of Amref Health Africa at the opening ceremony of the Africa Health Agenda International Conference (AHAIC) which took place in Kigali, Rwanda in March 2019. The conference was focused on Multi-Sectoral Action to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in Africa by 2030.  The conference delegates observed that technology and data are needed to achieve UHC but that most of the technology available is focused on secondary and tertiary sectors and on curative care, rather than at community level. There is also need for regulation of new generation actors that are technology-focused. The authors propose that cross-regional dialogue and knowledge sharing is needed where countries can learn from each other, avoiding traditional silos and engaging multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral partnerships and shifting the paradigm from a view of health as an investment rather than an expenditure. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Hundreds march in Cape Town for National Health Insurance","field_subtitle":"Gonstana M-A: GroundUp, April 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yypyswuk","body":"Hundreds of people marched through Cape Town to Parliament in April to demand that government implement the National Health Insurance (NHI) system, including members of Sonke Gender Justice; Movement for Change and Social Justice (MCSJ) and the People\u2019s Health Movement South Africa. They sang and danced holding banners and placards. MCSJ founder Mandla Majola, described the NHI as the \u201cfirst step to better our public healthcare system\u201d. He said the NHI was a fund that would ensure the implementation of proper healthcare for all and would bridge the gap between private and public sectors. Before the march, the MCSJ identified ten private hospitals and sent a small group of people to each hospital to picket outside to try and get help for one member in each group who was struggling to get help at a public clinic. In a memorandum, addressed to Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi, the MCSJ highlights structural problems in public clinics and hospitals, such as overcrowding and bed shortages; understaffing and maladministration, such as the disappearance of patient folders and staff shortages; the rural and urban divide, such as the long commutes to and from facilities; and the disparities between private and public sectors, such as drug shortages and long queues. The marchers demanded that NHI be implemented rapidly and adequately; that national government widen the awareness of NHI through initiatives like road shows and campaigns and that there be transparency in the NHI process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"International Studies Association International Conference 2019: Exploring the agency of the Global South in International Studies (Practices) ","field_subtitle":"1-3 August 2019, Legion Center for International Affairs & Diplomacy, University of Ghana, Accra","field_url":"https://www.isanet.org/Conferences/ISA-Accra-2019","body":"Representing over 100 countries, the International Studies Association (ISA) has more than 6,500 members worldwide and is the most respected and widely known scholarly association in this field. Endeavouring to create communities of scholars dedicated to international studies, the ISA is divided into 7 geographic subdivisions of ISA (Regions), 29 thematic groups (Sections) and 4 Caucuses which provide opportunities to exchange ideas and research with local colleagues and within specific subject areas. This year\u2019s conference explores the theme of the agency of the Global South in International Studies (Practices).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge, attitudes and practices of cervical cancer prevention among Zambian women and men","field_subtitle":"Nyambe A; Kampen J; Baboo S; Van Hal G: BMC Public Health 19(508)1-15, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y4kz78e2","body":"This paper addresses the relationship between knowledge about cervical cancer, attitudes, self-reported behavior, and immediate support system, towards screening and vaccination of cervical cancer of Zambian women and men, as a basis for improving and adjusting existing prevention programs. A cross-sectional mixed methods study was conducted with women and men residing in Chilenje and Kanyama, Zambia. Less than half of the respondents had heard of cervical cancer, 20.7% of women had attended screening and 6.7% of the total sample had vaccinated their daughter. Knowledge of causes and prevention was very low. There was a strong association between having awareness of cervical cancer and practicing screening and vaccination. Social interactions were also found to greatly influence screening and vaccination behaviors. The low level of knowledge of causes and prevention of cervical cancer suggests a need to increase knowledge and awareness among both women and men. The authors note that interpersonal interactions have great impact on practicing prevention behaviors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal overweight and obesity and the risk of caesarean birth in Malawi ","field_subtitle":"Nkoka O; Ntenda P; Senghore T; Bass P: Reproductive Health 16(40) 1-10, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yyv4q4wf","body":"This paper investigated the association between maternal overweight and obesity and caesarean births in Malawi. The authors utilised cross-sectional population-based Demographic Health Surveys data collected from mothers aged 18\u201349\u2009years in 2004/05, 2010, and 2015/16 in Malawi.  The results showed that maternal overweight in 2015/16 and from 2004 to 2015 were risk factors for caesarean births in Malawi. Women who had one parity, and lived in the northern region were significantly more likely to have undergone caesarean birth. In order to reduce non-elective caesarean birth in Malawi, the authors propose that public health programs focus on reducing overweight and obesity among women of reproductive age. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"PhD position in social sciences or humanities or related fields ","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 12 June 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y5u7ww9m","body":"The position is being offered in the context of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche's (ANR) co-funded project, \u201cSelf-Accomplishment and Local Moralities in East Africa\u201d (SALMEA). The selected candidate will serve as a full member of the project and will be fully integrated into the team's activities.   Possible research topics are therefore varied and may cover a wide range of issues related to violence, kinship (including family formation and identity), religion, and wealth (including land ownership) in Eastern Africa. The PhD candidate will be attached to IMAF (Institut des Mondes Africains) in Aix en Provence. Based in Paris and Aix en Provence, the institute brings together scholars with an interest in Africa who are affiliated with the CNRS, IRD, EHESS, EPHE, the University of Paris 1, and Aix Marseille University. The successful candidate will be allowed to write his/her doctoral dissertation either in French or English. He/she will be enrolled at the Aix Marseille University Doctoral School. The candidate must have obtained, or be close to obtaining, an MA or an equivalent degree in a relevant field (demography, history, geography, anthropology, political science etc.). The candidate is expected to demonstrate sufficient skills in both French and English so as to adapt quickly to the working and research environment in Aix and in East Africa. Selection will involve a two-stage process, starting with the consideration of submitted application, and followed by interviews with selected candidates on July 1st 2019. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Postgraduate training support","field_subtitle":"The Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, World Health Organisation","field_url":"https://www.who.int/tdr/capacity/strengthening/postgraduate/en/","body":"The Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) postgraduate training scheme provides a full academic scholarship in collaboration with universities in LMICs to train MSc students. The training is specifically focused on subjects or disciplines relevant to implementation research. Items covered by the scholarship include full time tuition and board, cost of dissertation research / field work, return air travel from home country to institution and contribution towards the purchase of essential textbooks / learning materials. Candidates must apply to institutions in their respective regions (Africa, Asia, Latin America or Middle East) to be eligible for consideration. Prospective candidates are advised to contact the institution directly for details on eligibility and academic requirements for admission. They should also familiarise themselves with the field of implementation research / implementation science which is the focus of this scheme. The participating universities are: James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University, Bangladesh, Universidad de Antioquia, National School of Public Health, Colombia, University of Ghana, School of Public Health, Ghana, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, American University of Beirut, Faculty of Health Sciences, Lebanon, University of the Witwatersrand, School of Public Health, South Africa, and University of Zambia, Department of Public Health, Zambia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Setting the global research agenda for community health systems: literature and consultative review","field_subtitle":"Agarwal S; Kirk K; Sripad P; Bellows B; et al: Human Resources for Health 17(22), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-019-0362-8, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yyhfq2xk","body":"Globally, there is renewed interest in and momentum for strengthening community health systems. Recent reviews have identified factors critical to successful community health worker (CHW) programs but pointed to significant evidence gaps. This systematic review identifies areas for a global research agenda to strengthen CHW programs. Research gap areas that were identified in the literature and validated through expert consultation include selection and training of CHWs and community embeddedness, institutionalisation of CHW programs (referrals, supervision, and supply chain), CHW needs including incentives and remuneration, governance and sustainability of CHW programs, performance and quality of care, and cost-effectiveness of CHW programs. Priority research questions included queries on effective policy, financing, governance, supervision and monitoring systems for CHWs and community health systems, implementation questions around the role of digital technologies, CHW preferences, and drivers of CHW motivation and retention over time. As international interest and investment in CHW programs and community health systems continue to grow, the authors propose that it becomes critical not only to analyse the evidence that exists, but also to clearly define research questions and collect additional evidence to ensure that CHW programs are effective, efficient, equity promoting, and evidence based. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Sociodemographic inequities in cervical cancer screening, treatment and care amongst women aged at least 25 years: evidence from surveys in Harare, Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Tapera O; Kadzatsa W; Nyakabau A; Mavhu W; et al: BMC Public Health 19(428)1-12, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y54rvp94","body":"This paper investigated socio-demographic inequities in cervical cancer screening and utilization of treatment among women in Harare, Zimbabwe. Two cross sectional surveys were conducted in Harare with a total sample of 277 women aged at least 25\u2009years from high, medium, low density suburbs and rural areas. Only 29% of women reported ever screening for cervical cancer. Cervical cancer screening was less likely in women affiliated to major religions and those who never visited health facilities or doctors or visited once in previous 6\u2009months. Ninety-two of selected patients were on treatment. Women with cervical cancer affiliated to protestant churches were 68 times more likely to utilize treatment and care services compared to those in other religions. Province of residence, education, occupation, marital status, income, wealth, medical aid status, having a regular doctor, frequency of visiting health facilities, sources of cervical cancer information and knowledge of treatability of cervical cancer were not associated with cervical cancer screening and treatment respectively. The authors recommend strengthening health education in communities, including in churches, to improve uptake of screening and treatment of cervical cancer.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Health Review (SAHR) 2019 Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 31 July 2019","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/media/Pages/EPHPA2019.aspx","body":"This call invites practitioners to submit a completed manuscript to the South African Health Review (SAHR) to apply for the 2019 Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award. The successful candidate will have their paper published in the 2019 edition of the SAHR. The winner will also receive a cash prize and access to wider networks of practising public health practitioners and researchers in the field. Preference will be given to papers that take cognisance of the World Health Organisation\u2019s six building  blocks for an effective, efficient and equitable health system. The SAHR aims to advance the sharing of knowledge, to feature critical commentary on policy implementation, and to offer empirical understandings for improving South Africa\u2019s health system. To be eligible for the award, the applicant must be a South African citizen or permanent resident, with a valid South African ID number, currently registered for a Master\u2019s degree in health sciences/medicine or public health at a South African tertiary institution. The applicant must be the sole author of the paper. Any other contributions may only be recognised as acknowledgements. Entries will be assessed by a panel of public health experts. The official prize-giving ceremony will take place at the launch of the 22nd edition of the SAHR.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The C-Word: Tackling the enduring legacy of colonialism in global health","field_subtitle":"Saha S; Kavattur P; Goheer A: Health Systems Global blog, April 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y33lcpfq","body":"The authors write that definitions of \u201cglobal health\u201d are generally depoliticized and invoke trans-national health issues and collaboration. Yet they argue that global health is only the newest iteration of what was formerly \u201cinternational health\u201d, \u201ctropical medicine\u201d and \u201ccolonial medicine\u201d, with historical roots lie in colonial endeavours and imperial interests.  They report a widespread frustration with how global health is taught in universities in ways that create and perpetuate neo-colonial relations; and a desire for alternative conceptualizations of the \u201cglobal\u201d that fundamentally tackle structures of power.  The authors observe in the paper the various issues that need to be tackled if  there is an intent to 'decolonise' global health, commenting that it is not a one-day event or a checkbox. It is a process that leads to futures that are unknown, but that one should dare to imagine. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact and cost-effectiveness of community-based HIV self-testing in sub-Saharan Africa: a health economic and modelling analysis","field_subtitle":"Cambiano V; Johnson C; Hatzold K; Terris-Prestholt F; et al: Journal of the International AIDS Society 22(51), doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/jia2.25243, 2019","field_url":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jia2.25243","body":"This study assessed the epidemiological impact and cost-effectiveness of community-based HIV self-testing (CB-HIVST) in different sub-populations and across scenarios characterized by different adult HIV prevalence and antiretroviral treatment programmes in sub-Saharan Africa, using a synthesis model.  In the base case, targeting adult men with CB-HIVST offered the greatest impact, averting 1500 HIV infections and 520 deaths per year in the context of a simulated country with nine million adults, and impact could be enhanced by linkage to voluntary medical male circumcision. However, the approach was only cost-effective if the programme was limited to five years or the undiagnosed prevalence was above 3%. CB-HIVST to women having transactional sex was the most cost-effective. To maximize population health within a fixed budget, the authors argue that CB-HIVST needs to be targeted on the basis of the prevalence of undiagnosed HIV, sub-population and the overall costs of delivering this testing modality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) Global launches crowdfunding challenge to help researchers fund their own research future","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: 30 June 2019","field_url":"http://www.seshglobal.org/Crowdfunding","body":"TDR Global is partnering with SESH to build capacity for crowdfunding among a group of low- and middle-income country researchers focused on infectious diseases. Crowdfunding for infectious diseases research is both a science and an art \u2013 one must have both a compelling research question and also a clear way to effectively communicate this with the public. The team will identify selected individuals and build their capacity to use crowdfunding related to infectious diseases in low- and middle-income countries(LMICs). Submissions should be less than 1200 words of text in English that describe the: scientific question and hypothesis; significance of the project; relevance to the public; personal motivation for research and personal connection to the disease and geographic location; areas for mentorship. The project has three stages. The first is an open challenge contest to solicit infectious diseases research ideas in LMICs, followed by a capacity building workshop to help individuals gain skills and hone their message. Lastly there will be a crowdfunding pilot to seek a limited amount of money (10,000 USD \u2013 50,000 USD) for local research projects. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding factors influencing linkage to HIV care in a rural setting, Mbeya, Tanzania: qualitative findings of a mixed methods study","field_subtitle":"Sanga E; Mukumbang F; Mushi A; Lerebo W; et al: Biological Medical Central Public Health 19(383), 1-15, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y43d9gzz","body":"This study explored facilitators and barriers to linkage to HIV care at individual/patient, health care provider, health system, and contextual levels to inform the design of interventions to improve linkages to HIV care. The authors conducted a descriptive qualitative study nested in a cohort study of 1012 newly diagnosed HIV-positive individuals in Mbeya region Tanzania between August 2014 and July 2015. The authors identified multiple factors influencing linkage to care. HIV status disclosure, support from family/relatives and having symptoms of disease were reported to facilitate linkage at the individual level. Fear of stigma, lack of disclosure, denial and being asymptomatic, belief in witchcraft and spiritual beliefs were barriers identified at individual\u2019s level. At providers\u2019 level; support and good patient-staff relationship facilitated linkage, while negative attitudes and abusive language were reported barriers to successful linkage. Clear referral procedures and well-organized clinic procedures were system-level facilitators, whereas poorly organized clinic procedures and visit schedules, overcrowding, long waiting times and lack of resources were reported barriers. Distance and transport costs to HIV care centres were important contextual factors influencing linkage to care. The authors argue that interventions must address issues around stigma, denial and inadequate awareness of the value of early linkage to care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"When ethics and politics collide in donor-funded global health research","field_subtitle":"Storeng K; Palmer J: The Lancet, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)30429-5, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yyyfltgu","body":"In this paper, the authors share their experience of censorship in evaluation research for global health. Their experience shows a broader trend of external funders and implementing partners who deliberately use ethical and methodological arguments to undermine essential research. In a context of chronic underfunding of universities and their growing dependence on externally-driven research grants, the authors propose several structural and cultural changes to prevent manipulation of research governance systems and to safeguard the independence of research. While they acknowledge censorship to be a strong word, they justify its use in situations found where researchers in commissioned research-based evaluations are asked by funders to omit important results from their final report. The authors note that universities' provide methodological and subject area expertise and strong systems of research ethics and governance, but also observe that current systems are ill equipped to deal with these challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Watch","field_subtitle":"Peoples Health Movement, 2019","field_url":"https://phmovement.org/who-watch/","body":"PHM follows closely the work of WHO, both through the World Health Assembly and the Executive Board. A team of PHM volunteers attends WHO bodies\u2019 meetings \u2013 following the debate, talking with delegates and making statements to the EB. The PHM\u2019s commentaries covers most of the agenda items of the WHO bodies\u2019 meetings and includes a note on the key issues in focus at the meeting, a brief background and critical commentary. Reports on key issues are also prepared. PHM is part of a wider network of organizations committed to democratizing global health governance and working through the WHO-Watch project.  Information from PHM on the proceedings of the May 2019 World Health Assembly can be found at the website provided. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Organisation (WHO) Guideline Recommendations on digital interventions for health system strengthening","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y57qurwa","body":"Digital health, or the use of digital technologies for health, has become a salient field of practice for employing routine and innovative forms of information and communications technology (ICT) to address health needs. The World Health Assembly Resolution on Digital Health unanimously approved by WHO Member States in May 2018 demonstrated a collective recognition of the value of digital technologies to contribute to advancing universal health coverage (UHC) and other health aims of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This guideline presents recommendations on emerging digital health interventions that are contributing to health system improvements, based on an assessment of the benefits, harms, acceptability, feasibility, resource use and equity considerations. This guideline urges readers to recognize that digital health interventions are not a substitute for functioning health systems, and that there are significant limitations to what digital health is able to address. It presents a subset of prioritized digital health interventions accessible via mobile devices, and will gradually include a broader set of emerging digital health interventions in subsequent versions. It includes the following topics: birth notification via mobile devices; death notification via mobile devices; stock notification and commodity management via mobile devices; client1-to-provider telemedicine; provider-to-provider telemedicine; targeted client communication via mobile devices; digital tracking of patients\u2019/clients\u2019 health status and services via mobile devices; health worker decision support via mobile devices; provision of training and educational content to health workers via mobile devices (mobile learning-mLearning).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"'You often get sick': the deadly toll of illegal gold mining in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Clark C: The Guardian, April 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yxzrdhsa","body":"According to a 2015 report by the South African Human Rights Commission, South Africa\u2019s burgeoning illicit gold trade has been fuelled by the formal mining industry\u2019s decline combined with the failure of government to regulate the informal mining sector. The report estimated 30,000 illegal miners were operating across South Africa; about 75% are believed to be undocumented migrants, primarily from Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Lesotho. The authors indicate that hundreds have died due to collapsing mine shafts, gas explosions and turf wars between the criminal syndicates that have seized control of the illegal industry. On Johannesburg\u2019s outskirts, cut off from support networks and services, women are bearing the brunt of the violence and lawlessness associated with illicit mining. With the vast majority of people in the area living off the proceeds of illicit mining, fear of arrest or deportation prevents many women from going to the police or seeking help at overstretched local medical clinics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A panel discussion how to base country health priorities on the Sustainable Development Goals. Zambia and other country cases. ","field_subtitle":"Byskov J; Zulu J; Silumbwe A; et al: Summary of presentation in International Conference on Priorities in Health, Link\u00f6ping, September 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y48aspt9","body":"The ever increasing evidence and technical developments supporting population health have not yet reached the goal of health for all. The decision making for population health has not led to optimally accountable, fair and sustainable solutions. Technical experts, politicians, managers, service providers, community members, and beneficiaries each have their own values, expertise and preferences, to be considered for necessary buy in and sustainability. This presentation discusses Zambia as a case study country, finding that national governance results in policy based choices are not necessarily helpful at implementation and community levels.  The authors present evidence that if one comprehensively addresses a particular disease burden it does decrease, but limits other action. The Sustainable Development goals included democratic cross sector processes in their formulation, but the targets applied in health still tend to receive funding from competing sectors and programs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Association between the Human Development Index and Millennium Development Goals 6 Indicators in Sub-Saharan Africa from 2000 to 2014: Implications for the New Sustainable Development Goals","field_subtitle":"Mabaso M; Zama T; Mlangeni L; Mbiza S; et al: Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health 8(1-2), 77-81, 2018","field_url":"https://www.atlantis-press.com/journals/jegh/125905568/view","body":"It is important to assess whether regional progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has contributed to human development and whether this has had an effect on the triple burden of disease in Africa. This analysis investigates the association between the human development index (HDI) and co-occurrence of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), and malaria as measured by MDG 6 indicators in 35 selected sub-Saharan African countries from 2000 to 2014. The analysis used secondary data from the United Nations Development Programme data repository for HDI and disease data from WHO Global Health observatory data repository. Generalized Linear Regression Models were used to analyze relationships between HDI and MDG 6 indicators. HDI was observed to improve from 2001 to 2014, and this varied across the selected sub-regions. There was a significant positive relationship between HDI and HIV prevalence in East Africa and Southern Africa. A significant positive relationship was observed with TB incidence and a significant negative relationship was observed with malaria incidence in East Africa. Observed improvements in HDI from the year 2000 to 2014 did not translate into commensurate progress in MDG 6 goals. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Clean water and sanitation: Why it matters","field_subtitle":"NGO pulse, Sangonet, March 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y4kw6t3j","body":"Worldwide, more than two million people die every year from diarrhoeal diseases. Poor hygiene and unsafe water are responsible for nearly 90 per cent of these deaths and mostly affect children. A study by the World Bank Group, UNICEF and the World Health Organization estimates that extending basic water and sanitation services to unserved households would cost US$28.4 billion per year from 2015 to 2030, or 0.1 per cent of the global product of the 140 countries included in its study. The economic impact of not investing in water and sanitation costs 4.3 per cent of sub-Saharan African GDP. The paper recommends that civil society organizations work to keep governments accountable, invest in water research and development, and promote the inclusion of women, youth and indigenous communities in water resources governance. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Climate change adaptation in South Africa: a case study on the role of the health sector","field_subtitle":"Chersich M; Wright C: Globalisation and Health 15(22), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-019-0466-x, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yyf9mp36","body":"In this systematic review the authors assessed progress with climate change adaptation in the health sector in South Africa, providing useful lessons for other African countries. Very few of the studies found presented findings of an intervention or used high-quality research designs. Several policy frameworks for climate change have been developed at national and local government levels. These, however, pay little attention to health concerns and the specific needs of vulnerable groups. Systems for forecasting extreme weather, and tracking malaria and other infections appear well established. Yet, there is little evidence about the country\u2019s preparedness for extreme weather events, or the ability of the already strained health system to respond to these events. Seemingly, few adaptation measures have taken place in occupational and other settings. To date, little attention has been given to climate change in training curricula for health workers. Overall, the authors note that the volume and quality of research is disappointing, and disproportionate to the threat posed by climate change in South Africa. This is surprising given that the requisite expertise for policy advocacy, identifying effective interventions and implementing systems-based approaches rests within the health sector. They suggest that more effective use of data, a traditional strength of health professionals, could support adaptation and promote accountability of the state. With increased health-sector leadership, climate change could be reframed as a health issue, one necessitating an urgent, adequately-resourced response. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Commercial determinants of health: advertising of alcohol and unhealthy foods during sporting events","field_subtitle":"Ireland R; Bunn C; Reith G; Philpott M; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 97(4), 290-295, 2019","field_url":"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/97/4/18-220087/en/","body":"Tobacco, alcohol and foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar generate much of the global burden of noncommunicable diseases.  A better understanding is needed of how these products are promoted. The promotion of tobacco products through sporting events has largely disappeared over the last two decades, but advertising and sponsorship continues by companies selling alcohol, unhealthy food and sugar-sweetened beverage. The sponsorship of sporting events such as the Olympic Games, the men\u2019s FIFA World Cup and the men\u2019s European Football Championships in 2016, has received some attention in recent years in the public health literature, as have global football events with which transnational companies are keen to be associated, to promote their brands to international markets. Despite this the marketing and sponsorship portfolio of these events have received very little scrutiny from public health advocates. The authors call for policy-makers and the public health community to formulate an approach to the sponsorship of sporting events, one that accounts for public health concerns.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Determinants of paying national health insurance premium with mobile phone in Ghana: a cross-sectional prospective study","field_subtitle":"Boaheng J; Amporfu E; Ansong D; Osei-Fosu A: International Journal for Equity in Health 18 (50) 1-9, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y2y97wux","body":"This study investigated the determinants of renewing membership and paying the National Health Insurance Scheme premium through a mobile phone. The prospective cross-sectional survey was used to solicit information from 1192 respondents living in Kumasi Metropolis, Atwima Nwabiaya and Sekyere Central Districts of Ghana to estimate the determinants of paying the National Health Insurance Scheme premium with the mobile phone. The study found that residing in an urban area, senior high education, tertiary education and informal employees are the determinants of paying the NHIS premium with the mobile phone. It was recommended that the NHIS consider making the mobile payment as simple as possible for the less educated and for rural members to access it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community Best Practices Forum Conference: \u2018Theme: Innovation and Accountability in Health Towards achieving Universal Health Coverage\u2019","field_subtitle":"19-21 June 2019, Arusha, Tanzania, Deadline for submission of abstracts: 3rd May 2019 ","field_url":"https://ecsahc.org/news/the-12th-ecsa-bpf-and-28th-djcc-meeting/","body":"The East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC) is an inter- governmental organisation, which was established to foster regional cooperation to address priority health problems, in order to attain the highest possible standards of health for the people of the region.  In pursuit of its mandate, ECSA-HC facilitates the convening of regional meetings namely; the Best Practices Forum (BPF) and the Directors Joint Consultative Committee (DJCC). The aim of the BPF and DJCC meetings is to share best practices and research evidence, identify relevant health policy issues and making recommendations to the Health Ministers Conference, towards the improvement of health programming and outcomes in the region. The upcoming conference will provide a forum for health scientists, policy makers, development partners and other stakeholders in health, food and water and sanitation for health to present their best practices and research evidence that inform policies and programming in the ECSA region. The Conference will be organised in two parts as follows; The Regional Forum on Best Practices from 19 to 20 June 2019 and the  Directors Joint Consultative Committee from 21 June 2019. The theme for the 12th BPF is Innovation and Accountability in Health Towards achieving Universal Health Coverage. The theme will be addressed through the following sub-themes: Efforts to improve adolescent and young people\u2019s health; Opportunities for achieving water and sanitation health global target; Equity and access to eye healthcare in the ECSA region; Innovative approaches towards achieving food safety and improving quality of life; Prioritising substance use and mental health challenges in the ECSA Region; Tackling emerging and re-emerging health threats: A regional One Health approach to managing recurrent outbreaks in the region. ECSA-HC invites submission of abstracts for best practices and scientific papers that are relevant to the conference theme or sub themes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion paper 118: Comparative review: Implementation of constitutional provisions on the right to healthcare in Kenya and Uganda","field_subtitle":"Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD): CEHURD, EQUINET: Uganda and Harare, 2019","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Diss%20118%20Const%202019.pdf","body":"This discussion paper is produced by the Centre for Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) as part of the theme work on health rights and law of the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET). The paper examines the implementation of constitutional provisions on the right to healthcare in Kenya and Uganda, two countries in East Africa. It aims to identify factors and mechanisms that have facilitated implementation of constitutional provisions on the right to healthcare, including how the constitutions were developed and framed. It compares implementation in Kenya, where the right to healthcare is explicit in their 2010 Constitution, and in Uganda, where the right to healthcare is implicit in the National Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy. The paper draws on two EQUINET case studies on implementation of constitutional provisions on the right to health, one each in Kenya and Uganda, published in 2018, a 2017 regional workshop that discussed the implementation of constitutional provisions on the right to health, and additional review of published literature. It presents a thematic analysis of the findings from the two case studies in terms of the judicial, political and popular implementation mechanisms, exploring further the factors and mechanisms that have facilitated or blocked their implementation. As the two constitutions address the right to healthcare differently, this analysis of their application provides insights into the factors and mechanisms for practice that may be useful in other settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Disscussion paper 117: Pathways to urban health equity: Report of multi-method research in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Masotya M: TARSC, Working with Harare and Lusaka youth, Civic Forum on Human Development and Lusaka District Health Office, EQUINET, Harare, 2018","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Diss%20117%20%20UHsynth2018.pdf","body":"By 2050, urban populations in Africa will increase to 62%. The World Health Organization (WHO) and UN-Habitat in their 2010 report \u2018Hidden Cities\u2019 note that this growth in the urban population constitutes one of the most important global health issues of the 21st century. In 2016-2018, Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) in the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) explored the social distribution of health in urban areas and the opportunities for and practices promoting urban health and well-being. It focused on youth 15-24 years of age as an important group for both current and future well-being. The paper synthesises and reports evidence from a programme of work that unfolded iteratively over two years. The work involved desk reviews of published literature and analysis of data from international databases for east and southern African countries, and international evidence on practices supporting urban well-being in areas prioritised by urban youth. The findings were subject to cycles of participatory review and validation by young people from diverse urban settings and socio-economic groups in Harare and Lusaka. These methods were applied with an intention to draw on different disciplines, concepts and variables from different sectors and on the lived experience and perceptions of the youth directly affected by different urban conditions. Separate publications produced in the project give more detail on particular methods, and findings and are cited in this paper. A series of dissemination and dialogue activities have been carried out with youth, local authority and policy actors, supported by shorter briefs and technical reports.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 218: It\u2019s not enough to tweak old models: Urban health calls for new approaches","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evidence map of knowledge translation strategies, outcomes, facilitators and barriers in African health systems","field_subtitle":"Edwards A; Zweigenthal V; Olivier J: Health Research Policy and Systems 17(16) 1-14, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y2h6ybtf","body":"This paper provides a systematic overview of the literature on knowledge translation strategies employed by health system researchers and policy-makers in African countries. An evidence mapping methodology was adapted from the social and health sciences literature and used to generate a schema of knowledge translation strategies, outcomes, facilitators and barriers.The knowledge translation literature in African countries is found to be widely distributed, problematically diverse and growing. Significant disparities exist between reports on knowledge translation in different countries, and there are many settings without published evidence of local knowledge translation characteristics. Commonly reported knowledge translation strategies include policy briefs, capacity-building workshops and policy dialogues. Barriers affecting researchers and policy-makers include insufficient skills and capacity to conduct knowledge translation activities, time constraints and a lack of resources. Availability of quality locally relevant research was the most reported facilitator. Limited knowledge translation outcomes reflect persisting difficulties in outcome identification and reporting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender equity in the health workforce: Analysis of 104 countries","field_subtitle":"Boniol M; McIsaac M; Xu Lihui; Wuliji T; et al: Health Workforce Working paper 1, World Health Organisation, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3jfcdyz","body":"The health and social sector, with its 234 million workers, is one of the biggest and fastest growing employers in the world, particularly of women. Women comprise seven out of ten health and social care workers and contribute US$ 3 trillion annually to global health, half in the form of unpaid care work. While gender issues have been at the top of the global agenda, few comprehensive studies on gender in the health and social workforce have been conducted at the global level. This brief is based on an analysis of WHO NHWA data5 for 104 countries over the last 18 years. The analysis confirms previous findings that women\u2019s share of employment in the health and social sector is high, with an estimated 67% of the health workforce in the 104 countries analysed being female. Analysis based on median wages from 21 countries showed health workers face gender-related gaps in pay, with female health workers earning, on average, 28% less than males. This is slightly greater than global estimates of gender pay gap data, showing that women are paid approximately 22% less than men. Data from 56 countries showed higher average working hours per week for men than women for most occupations and regions. This likely reflects different type of contracts, with more part-time jobs occupied by women. Women represent around 70% of the health workforce, but earn on average 28% less than men. Occupational segregation (10%) and working hours (7%) can explain most of this gap, but even when considering \u201cequal work\u201d an \u201cequal pay\u201d gap of 11% remains. The authors note that it must be recognized that much of the work in health done by women is unpaid work and that investments in creating decent work in the health sector are needed to support the translation of informal work into formal sector employment. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health System Factors Constrain HIV Care Providers in Delivering High-Quality Care: Perceptions from a Qualitative Study of Providers in Western Kenya","field_subtitle":"Genberg B; Wachira J; Kafu C:  Journal of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care 18, 1-10, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3zee9f8","body":"This study examined the experiences of sixty HIV care providers in a high patient volume HIV treatment and care program in eastern Africa. The authors conducted in-depth interviews focused on providers\u2019 perspectives on health system factors that impact patient engagement in HIV care. Results from thematic analysis demonstrated that providers perceive a work environment that constrained their ability to deliver high-quality HIV care and encouraged negative patient\u2013provider relationships. Providers described their roles as high strain, low control, and low support. The authors suggest that health system strengthening must include efforts to improve the working environment and easing burden of care providers tasked with delivering antiretroviral therapy to increasing numbers of patients in resource-constrained settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementing prevention policies for mother-to-child transmission of HIV in rural Malawi, South Africa and United Republic of Tanzania, 2013\u20132016 ","field_subtitle":"Jones H; Wringe A; Todd J; Songo J; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 97(3) 200\u2013212, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yy8vz8uh","body":"This study assessed the adoption of World Health Organization guidance into national policies for prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of human immunodeficiency virus and monitored implementation of the guidelines at facility level in rural Malawi, South Africa and the United Republic of Tanzania. The authors summarized national PMTCT policies and World Health Organization guidance for 15 indicators across the cascades of maternal and infant care over 2013\u20132016. Two survey rounds were conducted in 46 health facilities serving five health and demographic surveillance system populations. Structured questionnaires were administered to facility managers to describe service delivery.  In all countries, national policies influencing the maternal and infant prevention of mother-to-child transmission cascade of care aligned with World Health Organization guidelines by 2016; most inter-country policy variations concerned linkage to routine human immunodeficiency virus care. The proportion of facilities delivering post-test counselling, same-day antiretroviral therapy initiation, antenatal care and antiretroviral therapy provision in the same building, and Option B+ increased or remained at 100% in all sites. Progress in implementing policies on infant diagnosis and treatment varied across sites. Stock-outs of human immunodeficiency virus test kits or antiretroviral drugs in the past year declined overall, but were reported by at least one facility per site in both rounds. Progress has been made in implementing prevention of mother-to-child transmission policy in these settings. However, persistent gaps across the infant cascade of care and supply-chain challenges, risk undermining infant human immunodeficiency virus elimination goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Is the Urban Child Health Advantage Declining in Malawi? Evidence from Demographic and Health Surveys and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys","field_subtitle":"Lungu E; Biesma R; Chirwa M; Darker C: Journal of Urban Health 96(1) 131\u2013143, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y4j43xxj","body":"Considerable evidence has emerged that some population groups in urban areas may be facing worse health than rural areas and that the urban advantage may be waning in some contexts. The authors used a descriptive study undertaking a comparative analysis of 13 child health indicators between urban and rural areas using seven data points provided by nationally representative population based surveys\u2014the Malawi Demographic and Health Surveys and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys. Rate differences between urban and rural values for selected child health indicators were calculated to denote whether urban-rural differentials showed a trend of declining urban advantage in Malawi. The results show that all forms of child mortality have significantly declined between 1992 and 2015/2016 reflecting successes in child health interventions. Rural-urban comparisons, using rate differences, largely indicate a picture of the narrowing gap between urban and rural areas albeit the extent and pattern vary among child health indicators. Of the 13 child health indicators, eight show clear patterns of a declining urban advantage particularly up to 2014. However, U-5MR shows reversal to a significant urban advantage in 2015/2016, and slight increases in urban advantage are noted for infant mortality rate, underweight, full childhood immunization, and stunting rate in 2015/2016. The findings suggest the need to rethink the policy viewpoint of a disadvantaged rural and much better-off urban in child health programming. Efforts should be dedicated towards addressing determinants of child health in both urban and rural areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"It\u2019s not enough to tweak old models: Urban health calls for new approaches","field_subtitle":"R Loewenson, M Masotya, Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC)","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIsaac is a 20 year old with aspirations of a better life. He came to urban Harare a few years ago after finishing school to start a new life. In his life in the city he has done this in ways he didn\u2019t predict. He lives as a lodger in a small, smoky backyard shack and earns money from gathering and selling plastic waste. His most prized possession is a smart phone that is his link to friends, humour and, when he can afford data, to social media and market ideas. Behind a \u2018healthy\u2019 appearance he hides stress, hunger, worry about his future and frustration that he cannot afford the food, services, entertainment and life that he sees around him in the city. \r\n\r\nOur growing cities are full of such young people, in urban areas that concentrate opportunities, information, social connections, ideas, enterprise, wealth, technology and services together with substandard living environments, pollution, food and income insecurity, violence and exclusion. \r\n\r\nPublished evidence shows that these risks and benefits are unequally distributed amongst urban residents. Recent migrants, residents of informal settlements and those living in informal housing, as lodgers or \u2018backyard shacks\u2019 have a vastly different experience of urban life than wealthier, more secure groups. These urban conditions pose particular challenges for people at different stages of life, whether as children, adolescents, adults or elderly people. We have for decades measured and implemented measures to address the social gap between urban and rural areas, with the disadvantage in the latter. However the growth in poverty and disadvantage and rising inequality within urban areas now demand attention. Published evidence appears to chase, lag behind or miss the rapid, diverse changes taking place in urban areas and is often silent on the features of urbanisation and social assets that promote wellbeing.\r\n\r\nIn 2016-18 we gathered and analysed diverse forms of evidence and experience on the social distribution of health in urban areas and on the opportunities for promoting health and wellbeing. In Harare, with the Civic Forum on Human Development and Harare youth, and in Lusaka, with the District Health Office and Lusaka youth, we listened to the perceptions and experiences of young people (18-25 year olds) from diverse settings and socio-economic groups in these two cities. We explored how far their experiences were captured in the evidence we collect across the countries in the region.\r\n\r\nFor young people in Harare and Lusaka, \u2018health\u2019 was a biomedical concept, linked to \u2018absence of disease\u2019, and to the various problems they see their health services treating. Indeed, the \u2018health\u2019 data we routinely collect in our region also commonly focuses on mortality, morbidity and negative indicators such as suicide and obesity, and on immediate determinants of these diseases such as food, water, sanitation, education and health care. This is problematic for young people like Isaac. They appear to be in \u2018good health\u2019, despite lacking decent standards of many of these immediate determinants, but this hides the mental and social challenges they experience, and ignores conditions and determinants that have longer term effects across their lives, including for the rising burden of chronic conditions and the growing challenge this poses to our urban health services.\r\n\r\nFor young people in Harare and Lusaka, having secure incomes, opportunities for entrepreneurship, education, shelter, public spaces, participation in government decisions and self-esteem were important for them to be and remain healthy. They believed these issues would become more challenging in the future, envisaging that as the city grew, it would become more competitive and overcrowded, threatening resources for health, including green spaces. Cities would demand even more of young people\u2019s capacities for innovation and entrepreneurship, with a diminishing, rather than an increasing level of social solidarity. \r\n\r\nHow ready are we to address these concerns? The indicators we collect across the countries of the region provide a picture of disconnected facets and fragments that weakly reflect the combined current and future impact of these features of urban life on the different groups in the city. Not surprisingly, therefore, the systems and services that respond to them are also segmented and silo\u2019ed. In 2016, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UN Habitat suggested that we need to reclaim a more multidimensional understanding of equity to address the challenges in urban areas. \r\n\r\nSo what would such a more holistic, integrated and affirmative approach look like? One starting point may be to go back to the first principle of the WHO Constitution, that health is not merely the \u2018absence of disease or infirmity\u2019, it is \u201ca state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing. A concept of \u2018wellbeing\u2019  \u2013 or \u2018buen vivir\u2019 as applied in some countries \u2013 holds the potential to integrate psychosocial, social, time use, political, material, economic, service, governance and ecological determinants, all of which are affecting urban health.  \r\nBy bringing them together, the concept draws attention to what balance (and imbalances) we are generating between these different dimensions of wellbeing and the current and future consequences of imbalances. The structural adjustment programmes exposed the inequalities that grow when economic strategies pursue growth at the cost of social deficits. The recent global student school strikes over climate justice point to young people\u2019s concern that decisions made globally are dominated by certain economic interests to the cost of the degradation of nature and extinction of species. Achieving equity in wellbeing takes us beyond measuring and closing gaps between different groups of people to the strategies needed and assets we have to use to redress the imbalances that are generating these gaps and that have long term consequences. \r\nThe health sector has tried, through \u2018health in all policies\u2019 approaches, to persuade other sectors to adopt policies that promote health. To some extent this is still seen as a \u2018health sector\u2019 campaign, often taking place in parallel with increasingly biomedical personal care services and declining investment in public health capacities and authority.  \r\n\r\nIn contrast, we found many integrated, collaborative approaches addressing these imbalances and the issues raised by Harare and Lusaka youth in different cities globally, from participatory urban planning in Kenya, to strengthening community safety in Honduras, environmental regeneration and urban agriculture in Brazil and urban youth collaborative engagement on school reforms in the USA. They point not only to the importance of public spaces for bringing together diverse services and interventions in area-based approaches, but also to the opportunities that exist in urban areas for encouraging local competencies and innovation and for facilitating the involvement of affected residents, like Isaac, as knowledge producers and participants in planning and action for health and wellbeing.  \r\n\r\nMore detailed information on the evidence and processes referred to in this oped and the different people involved in this work can be found in EQUINET Discussion paper 117  Responding to inequalities in health in urban areas:  Report of multi-method research in east and southern Africa, http://tinyurl.com/y3dv4pvm and other reports referred to in that document. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Landmark Jurisdiction case won by Zambian farmers at Supreme court","field_subtitle":"Foil Vedanta; Lusaka Times, April 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3d5jhae","body":"The Supreme Court in the United Kingdom announced in April a verdict in the landmark case of the Zambian communities consistently polluted by Konkola Copper Mines (KCM), a subsidiary of British miner Vedanta Resources Plc, allowing them to have their case against the parent company and its subsidiary tried in the UK. The ruling sets a strong legal precedent which will allow people with claims against subsidiaries of British multinationals to sue the parent company in the UK. The judgment by Chief Justice Lady Hale, and four further judges, re-affirms the rulings of the Court of Technology and Construction in 2016 and the Court of Appeal in 2017. Lady Hale refused Vedanta\u2019s pleas in appealing the former judgments stating that, contrary to the claims of Vedanta\u2019s lawyers the claimants do have a bona fide claim against Vedanta; the company does owe a duty of care to the claimants, especially in view of the existence of company-wide policies on environment and health and safety. The judgement noted that the size and complexity of the case, and the lack of funding for claimants at \u2018at the poorer end of the poverty scale in one of the poorest countries of the world\u2019 means that they do not have substantive access to justice in Zambia. This has wider implications for other communities affected by multinational mining. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Large-scale health insurance for the informal sector in Sub-Saharan Africa: Six years field experience on creating a large scale health insurance in rural Senegal ","field_subtitle":"Docrat S; Lund C; Chisholm D: International Journal of Mental Health Systems 13(4) https://doi.org/10.1186/s13033-019-0260-4, 2019","field_url":"https://www.itg.be/files/docs/shsop/shsop34.pdf","body":"From 2012 to 2017, the Belgian governmental cooperation and the Senegalese authorities implemented a project aimed at organising health insurance for rural poor  people (\u2018PAODES\u2019) to fund basic health care services at local and district level. It aimed to develop a health insurance model that had been tested long enough on a large enough scale to scale it up. PAODES intervened in four health districts with 480 000 people. The report found that health insurance coverage after two years was at 64% (more than 300,000 people). The health insurance scheme was reported to be financially viable at 30% coverage. Utilisation of primary care was up from 0.6 to 1.2 consultations per person per year for insured people.  The authors report that large-scale health insurance for the informal sector can be efficient if it is operated by professional teams, if it is significantly subsidised by government so as to allow poor people to adhere, and if it is embedded in a nation-wide institution with a public purpose. The authors report that the credibility of a health system depends on the quality and packages of care offered. It is argued that large-scale health insurance cannot exist and function without the government addressing at least technical and procedural matters with regard to governance, such as a uniform and government-regulated fee-paying system and a digitalised accounting system for all health facilities and districts. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Local solutions can boost healthier food choices in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Ndlovu N: The Conversation, March 2019","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y7dedamz","body":"In this article, Ndlovu asks, how should countries like South Africa go about making sure that people \u2013 particularly poor people where the burden of non-communicable diseases is highest \u2013 have access to healthy food?  Recent research from the Wits School of Public Health, the Health Systems Trust and the University of KwaZulu-Natal sheds fresh light on the problem, showing a proliferation of unhealthy food, particularly in poorer communities. The research set out to assess differences in food environment based on socio-economic status. It focused on grocery stores and fast-food restaurants only, with full service restaurants excluded. The analysis used a tool called the \u201cmodified retail food environment index\u201d and show the proportion of food retailers in Gauteng that were \u201chealthy\u201d and what proportion were \u201cunhealthy\u201d. The results showed how fast-food outlets and the unhealthy foods they serve, vastly outnumbered formal grocery stores. In November 2016, there were 1559 unhealthy food outlets in Gauteng compared to only 709 healthy food outlets. Strikingly, the distribution of these outlets are income-based. Most of the poorer wards had only fast-food retailers with no healthy food outlets. Conversely, grocery stores are concentrated in wealthy areas.  The research shows that many wards in Gauteng have high concentrations of unhealthy food \u2013 in other words, they have \u201cobesogenic\u201d food environments. This means the type of food available in this environment promote obesity, leaving their residents little choice. Local as well as national government structures have the authority to license and control food retailers. Alternatively, national level policies can better guide implementation at a local level. This would require governments to adapt existing business licensing and planning frameworks to take into account the lack of healthy food retailers in a particular area. Additionally, municipalities could streamline the process for licensing healthy food retailers, making it easier and faster for them to open in areas most in need. The authors indicate that there is a plethora of options to select from if municipalities want to improve their food environments and can facilitate the right to access to healthy foods for the poorest and most vulnerable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"New app takes African short stories to the world","field_subtitle":"NGO pulse, Sangonet, March 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3rtxb92","body":"Anew local app hopes to give African writers global exposure by connecting them with literature fanatics in SA, US and the UK. Storytelling app BookBeak says it is the first African app-based platform to aggregate African short stories from published, unpublished and self-published writers and serve them to a global audience. The app, available on Android and iOS app stores, was founded by three young South Africans, Kamo Sesing, Cam Naidoo and Louis Enslin, and registered under their business Atheneum. Africans have been telling stories for centuries, passing nuggets of cultural knowledge and heritage from one generation to the next through fables, folktales and narrations. BookBeak aims to make it possible for those new and old African stories to be shared with the world in the form of e-books and audio books, while bridging the gap between traditional and digital reading experiences.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Noncommunicable disease burden among HIV patients in care: a national retrospective longitudinal analysis of HIV-treatment outcomes in Kenya, 2003-2013","field_subtitle":"Achwoka D; Waruru A; Chen T; Masamaro K; et al: Biological Medical Central Public Health 19(372) 1-10, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3qpshom","body":"This paper sought to estimate the burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) among people living with HIV (PLHIV) enrolled in HIV care and treatment in Kenya between 2003 and 2013. The authors conducted a nationally representative retrospective medical chart review of HIV-infected adults aged \u226515\u2009years enrolled in HIV care in Kenya from October 1, 2003 through September 30, 2013. The authors estimated proportions of four NCDs categories among PLHIV at enrolment into HIV care, and during subsequent HIV care visits from 3170 records of PLHIV, 2115 of whom were women and just over half from PLHIVs aged above 35\u2009years. Close to two-thirds of PLHIVs were on ART. The proportion of any documented NCD among PLHIV was 11.5%, with elevated blood pressure as the most common NCD. Despite this observation, only 17 patients had a corresponding documented diagnosis of hypertension in their medical record. Overall NCD incidence rates for men and women were and 31.6%, slightly more in men than in women but with no differences in NCD incidence rates by marital or employment status. At one year of follow up 43.8% of PLHIV not on ART had been diagnosed with an NCD compared to 3.7% of patients on ART; at five years the proportions with a diagnosed NCD were 88.8 and 39.2%, respectively.\u2003PLHIV in Kenya are thus noted to have a high prevalence of NCD, but in the absence of systematic, effective screening, the NCD burden is likely to be underestimated in this population. The authors recommend that systematic screening and treatment for NCDs using standard guidelines be integrated into HIV care and treatment programs in sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases: lessons from the HIV experience","field_subtitle":"Abimbola S; Thomas E; Jan S; McPake B; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 97(3), 169-244, 2019","field_url":"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/97/3/18-216820/en/","body":"In many low- and middle-income countries, the challenges of scaling up successful localized projects to achieve national coverage are well recognized. The wide success of efforts to scale up interventions to prevent and control human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection mean that it is now managed as a chronic condition. Lessons from the HIV experience may thus be transferable to the rollout and scale-up of effective interventions for noncommunicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries.  WHO\u2019s best buys for reducing noncommunicable diseases in low-resource settings suggest several such interventions. They include measures to improve tobacco control, increase public awareness of the health benefits of physical activity, multidrug therapy for people at high risk of cardiovascular disease and the screening and treatment of cervical cancer. While there is much to learn from the HIV experience, noncommunicable diseases have peculiarities that may limit the transferability of learning or require significant adaptation of such learning, while there are also issues to address in transfering learning on noncommunicable disease prevention and control between high-income and low- and middle-income countries. The authors call for the development of research and practice platforms that allow for progressive and systematic accumulation and sharing of field learning from scale-up efforts of HIV interventions and from the scale-up of noncommunicable disease interventions between settings","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) Conference 2019","field_subtitle":"16-18 September 2019, College of Cape Town, Athlone, Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3oswcom","body":"The 2019 Public Health Association of South Africa conference reflects on the intersections between democracy and health, and the progressive realisation of health care in South Africa.  This year\u2019s conference will focus on the status of health care since independence in South Africa and what can be done to move the country closer to achieving the targets of the National Development Plan, achieving equity within universal health coverage and the global Sustainable Developmental Goals by 2030. Through this Conference and its other activities, the Association is working to increase recognition of the importance of maintaining and improving the health of populations by 2030 that is based on the principles of social justice, human rights, equity, evidence-informed policy and practice, and addressing the underlying determinants of health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Spending on Health: A Closer Look at Global Trends","field_subtitle":"Xu K; Soucat A; Kutzin J; Brindley C; et al: World Health Organisation, Geneva, 2018","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y5vkvblq","body":"The 2018 global health financing report presents health spending data for all WHO Member States between 2000 and 2016 based on the SHA 2011 methodology. It shows a transformation trajectory for the global spending on health, with increasing domestic public funding and declining external financing. This report presents, for the first time, spending on primary health care and specific diseases and looks closely at the relationship between spending and service coverage. The key messages include that global trends in health spending confirm the transformation of the world\u2019s funding of health services. Domestic spending on health is central to universal health coverage, but there is no clear trend of increased government priority for health. The report further shows that primary health care is a priority for expenditure tracking. Further, allocations across disease and interventions differ between external and government sources. The report indicates that performance of government spending on health can improve.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Repositioning Africa in global knowledge production","field_subtitle":"Fonn S; Ayiro L; Cotton P; Habib et al: The Lancet 392(10153), 1163-1166, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yybhxlyu","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 13\u00b75% of the global population but less than 1% of global research output. In 2008, Africa produced 27\u2008000 published papers\u2014the same number as The Netherlands. Informed by a nuanced understanding of the causes of the current scenario, the authors propose action that should be taken by African universities, governments, and development partners to foster the development of research-active universities on the continent. Since the 1990s, African universities have sought to regain their role as agents of transformation. On a per capita basis, African universities remain severely underfunded in view of increasing enrolment, the establishment of new universities, and the declining purchasing power of African currencies.  Part of the explanation is that Africa contributes less than 1% of the global expenditure on research and development. By comparison, Latin America and the Caribbean account for 3%; Europe for 27%; Asia for 31%, and North America for 37%. Sub-Saharan Africa depends greatly on international collaboration and visiting academics for its research output. In 2012, southern Africa, east Africa, and west and central Africa produced 79%, 70%, and 45% of all their research output, respectively, through international collaborations. African Education ministers have met several times recently to address challenges in higher education. The authors argue that research-intensive universities across sub-Saharan Africa need to be identified, recognised, strengthened, and invested in through new sources of funding. Creating and maintaining research-intensive universities will require consistent investment in human capital, research equipment, and relevant administrative support, at far higher levels than is available under current conditions. To ensure that designated research-intensive universities do not become complacent and to allow for the entry of upcoming high-achieving universities, the authors propose on-going peer review every 3\u20135 years. At a minimum, the authors propose that research-intensive universities commit their own resources to research and that African governments increase their support for research in general and provide targeted funding for research-intensive universities\u2014in addition to the usual operational funds and tuition income currently available to these institutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Health Review (SAHR) 2019 Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 31 July 2019","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/media/Pages/EPHPA2019.aspx","body":"This call invites practitioners to submit a completed manuscript to the South African Health Review (SAHR) to apply for the 2019 Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award. The successful candidate will have their paper published in the 2019 edition of the SAHR. The winner will also receive a cash prize and access to wider networks of practising public health practitioners and researchers in the field. Preference will be given to papers that take cognisance of the World Health Organisation\u2019s six building  blocks for an effective, efficient and equitable health system. The SAHR aims to advance the sharing of knowledge, to feature critical commentary on policy implementation, and to offer empirical understandings for improving South Africa\u2019s health system. To be eligible for the award, the applicant must be a South African citizen or permanent resident, with a valid South African ID number, currently registered for a Master\u2019s degree in health sciences/medicine or public health at a South African tertiary institution. The applicant must be the sole author of the paper. Any other contributions may only be recognised as acknowledgements. Entries will be assessed by a panel of public health experts. The official prize-giving ceremony will take place at the launch of the 22nd edition of the SAHR.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The future of African Studies: what we can do to keep Africa at the heart of our research","field_subtitle":"Nolte I: Journal of African Cultural Studies (Forthcoming Special Issue: Ethical Collaboration), doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13696815.2019.1584552, 2019","field_url":"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13696815.2019.1584552","body":"Over the past two decades, Africa has returned to academic agendas outside of the continent. At the same time, the field of African Studies has come under increasing criticism for its marginalisation of African voices, interests, and agendas. This article explores how the complex transformations of the academy have contributed to a growing division of labour. Increasingly, African scholarship is associated with the production of empirical fact and socio-economic impact rather than theory, with ostensibly local rather than international publication, and with other forms of disadvantage that undermine respectful exchange and engagement. This article suggests ways of understanding and engaging with these inequalities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The Mandela Institute for Development Studies: Diamond Empowerment Fund Scholarship","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: Friday, 31 May, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yb4bpwmo","body":"The Mandela Institute for Development Studies has partnered with the Diamond Empowerment Fund to establish the first in a series of Diamond Empowerment Fund Scholarships. The Fund was inspired by Nelson Mandela who encouraged Diamond Empowerment Fund\u2019s co-founders to tell the world the positive impact Africa\u2019s diamonds were having in building healthy and educated communities on the continent. The Mandela Institute for Development Studies, Diamond Empowerment Fund Scholarship will be earmarked for students from a diamond producing country whose chosen post-graduate study will be in a field that meets the needs for improving the quality of life for Africans. Preference will be given to students who want to gain critical skills in short supply on the continent. Applications are invited from qualifying students in eligible countries, namely Angola, Botswana, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Liberia, Namibia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A systematic review on occupational hazards, injuries and diseases among police officers worldwide: Policy implications for the South African Police Service","field_subtitle":"Mona G; Chimbari M; Hongoro C: Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology 14(2), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12995-018-0221-x, 2019","field_url":"https://occup-med.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12995-018-0221-x","body":"Occupational hazards, injuries and diseases are a major concern among police officers, including in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, there is limited locally relevant literature for guiding policy for police services. A review was done to describe the occupational hazards, injuries and diseases affecting police officers worldwide, in order to benchmark policy implications for local police services. Police officers\u2019 exposure to accident hazards may lead to acute or chronic injuries such as sprains, fractures or fatalities. These hazards may occur during driving, patrol or riot control. Physical hazards such as noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) arise due to exposure to high levels of noise. Exposure to high concentrations of carbon dioxide and general air pollution was associated with cancer, while physical exposure to other chemical substances was linked to dermatitis. There is a risk of exposure to blood borne diseases from needle stick injuries (NSIs) or cuts from contaminated objects. Musculoskeletal disorders can result from driving long distances and lifting heavy objects, while there is also a risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), stress and burnout. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Abantu Book Festival as an archive of the future","field_subtitle":"Coetzee C: Africa is a Country, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yxpakyvq","body":"Abantu, South Africa, celebrates black intellectual labour and reading cultures. Abantu inter-connects reading and activist work. The third edition of the Abantu Book Festival took place in Soweto in December 2018 adds to a growing collection of images, videos, blog posts, Facebook (Abantu Book Festival) and Twitter updates (@abantu) of a vibrant black literary culture with long histories.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Accelerating universal health coverage: a call for papers","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: 15 June 2019 ","field_url":"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/97/3/19-230904/en/","body":"This issue of the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation will explore policy options and country experiences on how to expand population coverage, service coverage and financial protection. The editors welcome manuscripts that capture knowledge and experience in addressing bottlenecks and root causes of stagnation that hamper successful UHC advancement. Papers which present an analysis of breakthroughs in health systems that have been conducive to rapid expansion of coverage are encouraged. Papers should focus on, for example, implementation science in health systems, innovative health financing, strategic purchasing, UHC and primary health care, the role of the private sector, policy coherence across government levels (particularly in decentralized health systems), the role of innovative technology and the design and use of health information. Best practices in good governance for health, based on transparency and accountability, would also be useful to learn how vested interests that hamper progress towards UHC are countered in different socioeconomic and political contexts. Comparative cross-country analyses are encouraged.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"African Diaspora Support to African Universities: Call for Senior African Diaspora Academics to serve in the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa College of Mentors","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 30 April 2019  ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y6722a7f","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York is implementing an African Academic Diaspora Support to African Universities Program. In the early part of 2019, Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa intends to recruit 50 doctoral students in the social science and humanities from accredited public universities in Africa and place them under the College to benefit from the mentorship program. As part of this initiative, CODESRIA intends to recruit 15 senior academics from the Diaspora to complement existing academics who are already serving in the College of Mentors. Selected mentors and mentees will be brought together at a \u2018College of mentors\u2019 summer institute scheduled to take place in August 2019. The institute will provide the opportunity for mentors and mentees to get to interact directly learn more about each other\u2019s research interests and get to establish supervisory unions on the basis of shared interests. The call specifically targets senior African Diaspora in the social sciences, humanities and higher education studies based at universities in North America, Europe or Asia. African academics based at universities or other higher education and research institutions in Africa but outside of their own countries may also apply. Mentors will be compensated with a modest honorarium after a midterm review of the project. African academics in the Diaspora wishing to be considered should send detailed current CV\u2019s and a brief note expressing interest to serve in the College.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing changes in social determinants of health inequalities in South Africa: a decomposition analysis","field_subtitle":"Omotoso K; Koch S: International Journal for Equity in Health17(181) 1-13, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybpzefdy","body":"This paper examines how changes in the social determinants of health have impacted health inequalities over the last decade, the second since the end of apartheid. Data was drawn from information on social determinants of health and on health status in the 2004, 2010 and 2014 South African General Household Surveys. The results show that inequalities in ill-health are consistently explained by socio-economic inequalities relating to employment status, while provincial differences in ill health narrowed considerably over the studied periods. Disability inequalities were largely explained by socio-economic inequalities relating to racial groups, educational attainment and provincial differences. The authors indicate that the extent of employment, location and education inequalities suggests the need for improved health care management and further delivery of education and job opportunities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Special issue of Critical Public Health \u2018Public health activism in changing times: Re-locating collective agency\u2019 ","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 1 May 2019  ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y3an6pew","body":"The special issue will examine emerging new forms of public health activism, and associated novel sources of collective agency, that are evolving in the fight for health-enabling conditions. Attention to structural forms of power, and the strengths and weaknesses of individual agency have long been cornerstones of critical public health, rooted in a long-established structure-agency binary. The editors seek to disrupt this binary by calling for papers that draw attention to alternative, distributed, networked, disruptive, bottom-up sources of agency that characterise emerging new forms of activism. New and resurgent social movements include attention to issues of anti-austerity, disability rights, new feminisms, defence of public services, housing justice, urban regeneration, anti-racism and advocacy targeting commercial determinants of health. Alternative forms of health-enhancing agency and efforts to connect grassroots collective agency to traditional axes of power are emerging. Papers on any of these, or other, locations of collective agency with potential for innovative public health activism would all be suited to the special issue. The editors invite papers from the full range of public health disciplines, exploring the possibilities of public health activism in contemporary conditions, especially papers with strong empirical bases in studies of recent/contemporary activism. Creative responses to crisis are most often generated in practice rather than theory, and papers rooted in activist and collaborative praxis are particularly welcome.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges to hypertension and diabetes management in rural Uganda: a qualitative study with patients, village health team members, and health care professionals","field_subtitle":"Chang H; Hawley N; Kalyesubula R; Siddharthan T; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 18(38) 1-14, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y2tpt78d","body":"This study aimed to understand the challenges in managing hypertension and diabetes care in rural Uganda. The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 patients with hypertension and/or diabetes, 11 health care professionals, and 12 community health workers in Nakaseke District, Uganda. Data were coded using NVivo software and analyzed using a thematic approach. The results included patient knowledge gaps regarding the preventable aspects of hypertension and diabetes, mistrust in the Ugandan health care system rather than in individual health care professionals and skepticism from both health care professionals and patients regarding a potential role for village health team members in hypertension and diabetes management. In order to improve hypertension and diabetes management in this setting, the authors recommend taking actions to help patients to understand non communicable diseases as preventable, for health care professionals and patients to advocate together for health system reform regarding medication accessibility, and promotion of education, screening and monitoring activities at community level in collaboration with village health team members.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Distribution of out of pocket health expenditures in a sub-Saharan Africa country: evidence from the national survey of household standard of living, C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire","field_subtitle":"Attia-Konan A; Oga A; Tour\u00e9 A: BMC Research Notes 12(25), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-019-4048-z, 2019","field_url":"https://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13104-019-4048-z","body":"This research aimed to identify the determinants of out of pocket (OOP) health expenditures in the Ivory Coast population in Abidjan, a rural and an urban area. The authors used data from the 2015 standard households living survey conducted by the National Institute of Statistics. About 13.3% of the participants experienced OOP expenditures on health with a mean expenditure of US$29. There were significant differences in the self-reported OOP between the three areas. People in Abidjan spent an average of 1.6 and 1.5 times more than those in the rural and urban areas respectively. Hospitalisation is the highest expenditure item in terms of money spent, while medicines are the most common item of expenditure in terms of frequency, regardless of the place of residence. Female gender, high social economic status and large household size increase OOP health expenditure significantly in all areas of residence while having insurance reduces it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 217: Global health is anything but healthy \u2013 we have to reshape our own future ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors affecting the acceptability of isoniazid preventive therapy among healthcare providers in selected HIV clinics in Nairobi County, Kenya: a qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Wambiya E; Atela M; Eboreime E: Infectious Diseases 8(12), doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-024286, 2018 ","field_url":"https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/12/e024286","body":"Despite being globally recommended as an effective intervention in tuberculosis (TB) prevention among people living with HIV, isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) implementation remains limited,  especially in sub-Saharan Africa. This study explored the factors influencing the acceptability of IPT among healthcare providers in selected HIV clinics in Nairobi County, Kenya, a high HIV/TB burden country. A qualitative study was conducted using in-depth interviews with healthcare providers in selected HIV clinics in Nairobi County, Kenya.  Provider acceptability of IPT was influenced by the organisational context, provider training, perceptions of its efficacy, the clarity of IPT guidelines and procedures and the work environment. Inadequate high-level commitment and support for the IPT programme by programme managers and policy-makers were found to be the major barriers to successful IPT implementation. The authors argue for expanded engagement by policy-makers and IPT programme managers with providers and patients, as well as on-the-job design specific actions to support providers in implementation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"French Institute for Research in Africa: Fieldwork Grants 2019","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 28 April 2019","field_url":"http://ifra-nairobi.net/2801","body":"IFRA-Nairobi invites applications for fieldwork grants from Masters and PhD students who conduct research in social sciences and humanities in the East African region (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, and Eastern Congo). IFRA will prioritize support to the following research themes: workers, labour, and employment; decolonizing knowledge and practices in the social sciences; and gender & LGBT in words and in practice. These research areas target studies on workers in industries, in factories and on plantations in East Africa, focusing on working conditions, workers relations (considering gendered issues), workers/employers relations, organized protest or consent, the growth of a working class culture, entertainment and reading practices, political consciousness, etc. Both case-study approaches and comparative approaches are welcome. Read more at the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health is anything but healthy \u2013 we have to reshape our own future  ","field_subtitle":"Barbara Kaim, Training and Research Support Centre, Zimbabwe, Wilson Asibu, Country Minders for People\u2019s Development, Malawi","field_url":"","body":"\r\nA little over 20 years ago the health and social inequities within our region and the opportunity to act on them motivated the founders of EQUINET to come together as an \u2018equity catalyst\u2019. The intention was to bring together our collective knowledge and experiences and to explore the challenges and possible solutions to the broad range of economic, social and environmental factors that determine the opportunities for and deficits in health in our region. Since then, we have built evidence, analysis and dialogue in different communities across the region on where and how to reclaim the resources for health, including through comprehensive, primary health care oriented, people-centred and publicly-led health systems.\r\n\r\nParticipating for EQUINET at the fourth People\u2019s Health Assembly (PHA4) in Savar, Bangladesh  in November last year we found that the People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM) and the over 1200 participants from 80 countries raised the same demands that we are raising in our region.  Yes, there has been growing wealth in the world over the last 20 years, improved access to information and technological innovations, and some people have seen improved life expectancy and falling infant mortality. But the reality is that health is anything but \u2018healthy\u2019 at a global level.  \r\n\r\nAs PHM\u2019s Amit Sengupta succinctly put it: \u201cEight people in the world have more wealth than 50% of the world population.  Medicines exist, but only for some. We are seeing massive migration of populations in search of a more secure life. Our planet stands on the edge of destruction, while our health is for sale in the market.\u201d   We shared evidence at PHA4 of how the majority of people are not even able to meet their most basic needs for health and of how inequality within and between countries and regions in the world has grown and not fallen over the past decades. .\r\n\r\nWhy is this? Delegate after delegate at the PHA4 answered this question with a scathing critique of the neoliberal policies that have dominated the world order for the last four decades.   From different countries people pointed to how a neoliberal ideology, which favours the unrestricted flow of capital between countries globally, drives minimal government social spending and limits regulations on the activities of private transnational corporations, has massively impacted on the health of people throughout the world. \r\n\r\nThis situation makes having a strong, vocal World Health Organisation (WHO) important.  But in a plenary session at PHA4, David Legge explained the crisis in the WHO.  When it was formed in 1948, its main funding came from its member states, who paid \u2018assessed contributions\u2019 according to the size of their population and their economy. Since a 1980 vote in the World Health Assembly to freeze assessed contributions, today only 20% of WHO\u2019s budget is from member states \u2013 barely enough to cover their administrative costs \u2013 while the remaining 80% comes from voluntary contributions from member states, intergovernmental bodies and to a large extent from philanthrocapitalists like the Gates Foundation, often tied to particular programmes. \r\n\r\nAs a consequence, David raised that WHO\u2019s work is controlled by these external funders rather than by its assembly of member states, affecting its independence and distorting its priorities and the coherence of its programmes. This has had a profound impact on WHO\u2019s ability to support the implementation of comprehensive primary health care as set out in the Alma Ata Declaration and adopted by 134 countries in 1978. \r\n\r\nIt has also weakened the protection of health by other global actors. Many conversations in the PHA4 were about the impact of trade agreements on health. Jane Kelsey, a New Zealand lawyer, gave a shocking expose on how new generation agreements between countries and multinational investors are often negotiated in secret, preventing legislatures and the public from getting information on or regulating the health impacts of these corporate activities. She cautioned that this practice could lead to longer monopolies for medicines, to kerbing restrictions on standards for food and alcohol and for tobacco labelling, and to limits on governments\u2019 ability to regulate private hospitals. Such agreements have led to situations where foreign investors can sue governments if state regulation in areas such as patents, mining licenses, privatised water contracts and health insurance substantially affect their profits. In 2017 alone 65 such claims were laid against 48 countries, with the sums claimed ranging from USD15million to USD1.5billion. These court cases can act as a form of intimidation of governments who try to put the health and wellbeing of their citizens ahead of corporate interests.  \r\n\r\nWhile this situation can leave us feeling despondent, in contrast PHA4 left us energised as we shared experiences of action and resistance from local to international level.  At PHA4 we found a growing understanding that if we want change we will have to shape our own future, building alliances between community and civil society groups, academics, civil servants, journalists, international organisations and others.  \r\n\r\nWe have seen evidence of this in our region. The successful campaign for universal access to antiretrovirals undertaken by the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa in the 1990s, for example, saw such an alliance challenging the ethical basis for restricting global access to medicines. We heard at PHA4 about similar national and global struggles to campaign and litigate on critical issues related to the quality of and access to healthcare, to stop mining interests harming health and to advocate for more democratically led global health governance.  These struggles for health are struggles for a more caring world. \r\n\r\nEQUINET is taking forward and is part of this in our region. We are building collective ideas and action in a range of areas, including on the health effects of our extractive industries, on food security, on living and social conditions, on comprehensive primary health care and our laws and rights in health.  PHA4 showed us how many activists there are in the same struggles in all corners of the world and that working at all levels, locally, nationally, regionally and with our comrades internationally is more important than ever.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. Read more about  PHA4 at https://phmovement.org/peoples-health-assembly-dhaka-3/ ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal and newborn health needs for women with walking disabilities; \u201cthe twists and turns\u201d: a case study in Kibuku District Uganda","field_subtitle":"Apolot R; Ekirapa E; Waldman L; Morgan R:  International Journal for Equity in Health 18(43) 1-10, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yxpakyvq","body":"In Uganda 13% of persons have at least one form of disability. This study explores the maternal and newborn health related needs of women with walking disabilities in Kibuku District Uganda. A qualitative study was carried out in September 2017 in three sub-counties of Kibuku district. Four In-depth Interviews among purposively selected women who had walking disabilities and who had given birth within two years from the study date were conducted.  The thematic areas explored during analysis included psychosocial, mobility, health facility and personal needs of women with walking disabilities. Data was analyzed manually using framework analysis. The authors found that women with walking disabilities had psychosocial, mobility, special services and personal needs. Psychosocial needs included, partners, communities, families\u2019 and health workers\u2019 acceptance. Mobility needs were associated with transport unsuitability, difficulty in finding transport and high cost of transport. Health facility needs included; infrastructure and responsive health services needs while personal maternal and newborn health needs were; personal protective wear, basic needs and birth preparedness items. Communities, and health workers need to be sensitized on these needs to meet them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mixed-methods evaluation of mental healthcare integration into tuberculosis and maternal-child healthcare services of four South African districts","field_subtitle":"Lovero K; Lammie S; van Zyl A: BMC Health Services Research 19(83), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-3912-9, 2019","field_url":"https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-019-3912-9","body":"The South African National Mental Health Policy Framework and Strategic Plan 2013\u20132020 was adopted to address the country\u2019s substantial burden and inadequate treatment of mental illness. It outlines measures for full integration of mental health services into primary care by 2020. To evaluate progress and challenges in implementation, the authors conducted a mixed-methods assessment of mental health service provision in tuberculosis and maternal-child healthcare services of forty clinics in four districts in South Africa, interviewing district-level program managers (DPMs) and clinic nurses and mental health practitioners (MHPs). DPMs indicated that nurses should screen for mental illness at every patient visit, but only 73% of nurses reported conducting universal screening and 44% reported using a specific screening tool. For patients who screen positive for mental illness, DPMs described a stepped-care approach in which MHPs diagnose patients and then treat or refer them to specialised care. However, only 41% of MHPs indicated that they diagnose mental illness and 82% offer any treatment for mental illness. The challenges to current integration efforts include insufficient funding and material resources, poor coordination at the district administrative level, and low mental health awareness in district administration and the general population. Though some progress has been made toward integration of mental health services into primary care settings, the authors observe that implementation calls for improved district-level administrative coordination, mental health awareness, and financial and material resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"More talk than action: gender and ethnic diversity in leading public health universities","field_subtitle":"Khan M; Lakha F; Tan M; Singh S; et al: The Lancet 393 (1071), 594-600, 2019","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y5qrruew","body":"Improving the career progression of women and ethnic minorities in public health universities has been a longstanding challenge. The authors believe it might be addressed by including staff diversity data in university rankings. In this study, findings from a mixed methods investigation of gender-related and ethnicity-related differences in career progression at the 15 highest ranked social sciences and public health universities in the world are presented. The study revealed that clear gender and ethnic disparities remain at the most senior academic positions, despite numerous diversity policies and action plans reported. In all universities, representation of women declined between middle and senior academic levels, despite women outnumbering men at the junior level. Ethnic-minority women might have a magnified disadvantage because ethnic-minority academics constitute a small proportion of junior-level positions and the proportion of ethnic-minority women declines along the seniority pathway.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy review on the management of pre-eclampsia and eclampsia by community health workers in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Macu\u00e1cua S; Sharma S; Val\u00e1 A; Vidler M; et al: Human Resources for Health 17(15) 1-9, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y2v99z57","body":"This review identified health policies related to the role of CHWs in the management of pre-eclampsia and eclampsia in Mozambique. It used three methods - policy document review, key informant interview and literature review. Three main themes were identified from the qualitative review as establishment of the community health worker programme and early challenges, revitalization of the community health workers programme and the integration of maternal health in the community health tasks. In 1978, following the Alma Alta Declaration, the Mozambique government brought in legislation establishing primary health care and the community health worker programme. Between the late 1980s and early 1990s, this programme was scaled down due to several factors including a prolonged civil war; however, the decision to revitalise the programme was made in 1995. In 2010, a revitalised programme was re-launched and expanded to include the management of common childhood illnesses, detection of warning signs of pregnancy complications, referrals for maternal health and basic health promotion. The study observe that the role of community health workers has evolved over the last 40\u2009years to include care of childhood diseases and basic maternal health counselling, but do not yet include some possible areas, like management of emergency conditions of pregnancy including pre-eclampsia and eclampsia. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional EQUINET meeting on health literacy in the mining sector","field_subtitle":"Harare, Zimbabwe 28-29 March 2019","field_url":"","body":"The Regional EQUINET meeting on health literacy in the mining sector is being held on March 28 and 29 2019 in Harare to discuss health literacy outreach for workers, communities and ex mineworkers in the mining sector. We will be sharing information on the scope of and groups covered in current mining and health capacity building programmes; the methods for and use of the EQUINET health literacy module on Mining and health and co-operation on key upcoming regional processes on health in mining. The meeting involves EQUINET (TARSC, SEATINI);  Botswana Federation of Trade Unions; Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Southern African Trade Union Co-ordinating Council, Benchmarks Foundation South Africa, Swaziland Migrant Mineworkers Association, Eswatini and BoLAMA Botswana. For those interested in further follow up health literacy  training in the Mining sector being held later in 2019 please contact the EQUINET secretariat.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Stakeholders\u2019 perceptions of policy options to support the integration of community health workers in health systems","field_subtitle":"Ajuebor O; Cometto G; Boniol M; Akl E: Human Resources for Health 17(13) 1-13, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y64tucgg","body":"This study assesses stakeholders\u2019 valuation of acceptability and feasibility of policy options considered for the CHW guideline development. A cross-sectional mixed methods study targeting stakeholders involved directly or indirectly in country implementation of community health workers programmes was conducted in 2017. Data was collected from 96 stakeholders from five World Health Organization regions using an online questionnaire. A Likert scale was used to grade participants\u2019 assessments of the outcomes of interest, and the acceptability and feasibility of policy options were considered. All outcomes of interest were considered by at least 90% of participants as \u2018important\u2019 or \u2018critical\u2019. Most critical outcomes were \u2018improved quality of community health workers health services\u2019 and \u2018increased health service coverage. Out of 40 policy options, 35 were considered as \u2018definitely acceptable\u2019 and 36 \u2018definitely feasible\u2019 by most participants. The least acceptable option was the selection of candidates based on age. The least feasible option was the selection of community health workers with a minimum of secondary education. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"STAR: supporting authors in emerging regions to access journals for free","field_subtitle":"Taylor and Francis, 2019","field_url":"https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/star/","body":"Special Terms for Authors and Researchers (STAR) is a Taylor and Francis initiative developed to provide authors and researchers in emerging regions with free access to articles from their leading international and regional journals across subject areas. Those in eligible countries can register for one voucher, per person, per year. Free access will expire after the fiftieth article or twelve months after registration. It is possible to request more accesses after the fiftieth article","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Sustainable financing options for mental health care in South Africa: findings from a situation analysis and key informant interviews","field_subtitle":"Docrat S; Lund C; Chisholm D: International Journal of Mental Health Systems 13(4) https://doi.org/10.1186/s13033-019-0260-4, 2019","field_url":"https://ijmhs.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13033-019-0260-4","body":"South Africa faces a need to understand how existing reforms may be leveraged to incorporate the objectives of the National Mental Health Policy Framework and Strategic Plan (MHPF) and financed in a context of fiscal constraint. The authors conducted a situational analysis followed by in depth interviews with a range of expert national stakeholders. Although the MHPF is said to be consistent with ongoing efforts toward the implementation of National Health Insurance (NHI), there is clear evidence of discordance between the MHPF and the NHI. The most promising strategies for sustainable mental health financing call for increased decentralization of resources to primary and community mental health services and active integration of mental health into ongoing NHI implementation in district hospitals. The authors suggest several ways in which existing reforms may be leveraged to incorporate the objectives of the MHPF and achieve better mental health outcomes for South Africans, but this needs a costed investment case, projecting potential resource requirements and returns on investment of a strong service platform. In the longer-term, they argue that the NHI benefit package must be expanded to include comprehensive mental health services at all levels, with measures to incentivise quality of care. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The health impacts of extractive industry transnational corporations: a study of Rio Tinto in Australia and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Anaf J; Baum F; Fisher M; London L: Globalization and Health 15(13) 1-20, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y2g3nrbv","body":"This research on extractive industries examined Rio Tinto in Australia and Southern Africa to test methods for assessing the health impacts of corporates in high and middle income jurisdictions with different regulatory frameworks. The authors adapted existing Health Impact Assessment methods. Data identifying potential impacts were sourced through media analysis, document analysis, company literature and semi-structured interviews. The data were mapped against a corporate health impact assessment framework which included Rio Tinto\u2019s political and business practices, productions and workforce, social, environmental and economic conditions. Both positive and detrimental aspects of Rio Tinto\u2019s operations were identified. Positive impacts include provision of direct employment under decent working conditions, but countered by an increase in precariousness of employment. Commitments to upholding sustainable development principles are undermined by limited site remediation and other environmental impacts. Positive contributions are made to national and local economies but then undermined by business strategies that include tax minimisation. This study confirmed that it is possible to undertake a corporate health impact assessment on an extractive industry transnational corporation. The different methods provided sufficient information to understand the need to strengthen regulations that are conducive to health; the opportunity for Rio Tinto to extend corporate responsibility initiatives and support their social licence to operate; and for civil society actors to inform their advocacy towards improving health and equity outcomes from transnational corporations operations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The NeoTree application: developing an integrated mHealth solution to improve quality of newborn care and survival in a district hospital in Malawi ","field_subtitle":"Crehan C, Kesler E, Nambiar B, Dube Q; et al: British Medical Journal of Global Health.  4(e000860) 1-12, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y6osvq3b","body":"An integrated mHealth solution was developed to improve quality of newborn care and survival in a district hospital in Malawi. The NeoTree application described in this paper focused on newborn care in low-income facilities, combining data collection by healthcare workers themselves, with interactive decision support and education for improving quality of care. Focus groups explored the acceptability and feasibility of digital health solutions before and after implementation of the NeoTree in the clinical setting. Healthcare workers perceived the NeoTree to be acceptable, feasible and clinically usable. Healthcare workers reported high perceived improvements in quality of newborn care after using the NeoTree on the ward. They described improved confidence in clinical decision-making, clinical skills, critical thinking and standardisation of care. The authors suggest that such an interactive co-development with healthcare workers can create a highly usable interactive admission platform, providing a teaching resource and improving the perceived quality of care delivered by healthcare workers involved in newborn care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal Health Coverage, Primary Health Care and the role of the Private Sector","field_subtitle":"Ozano K; Simkhada P; Porcellato L; Khatri R: Health Systems Global, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y26p38cp","body":"This report provides an overview of the discussions around Primary Health Care (PHC) and the private sector, which took place during the 5th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research 2018: Advancing health systems for all in the SDG era. Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and how health systems are working to deliver this global goal by 2030 was a major theme of the conference. Discussions were captured through session data capture and semi-structured interviews. 26 conference rapporteurs captured data in 93 sessions; and 21 interviews were conducted with policy makers, implementers and practitioners from the public and private sector.  The discussions referred to initiatives to better engage, train and support small private providers such as community pharmacists to broaden their role and regulate their prescribing to develop safer PHC services. Urgent policy level exploration was called for on public-private links to achieve comprehensive PHC and UHC and clear mechanisms and legal frameworks for strategic purchasing and regulation that consider the power of purchasing medicines and supplies across countries within geographic regions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Urban Studies Foundation International Fellowships","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 7 May 2019 ","field_url":"https://urbanstudiesfoundation.org/funding/international-fellowships/","body":"Applications are invited for an International Fellowship for early to mid-career urban scholars from the Global South, on any theme pertinent to a better understanding of urban realities in the Global South. The Fellowship covers the costs of a sabbatical period at a university of the candidate\u2019s choice in the Global North or South for the purpose of writing up the candidate\u2019s existing research findings in the form of publishable articles or a book under the guidance of a chosen mentor in their field of study. Funding is available for a period ranging between 3-9 months. Applicants must be early to mid-career urban scholars with a PhD obtained within the preceding 10 years who currently work in a university or other research institution within the Global South. Candidates must also be nationals of a country in the Global South, defined here as countries on the OECD\u2019s current ODA recipient list (2018-2020). Preference may be given to candidates from least or low-income countries but middle-income countries on the list are not excluded if the need for support is justified. The candidate must make suitable arrangements to be mentored by a suitably experienced senior urban scholar at the candidate\u2019s chosen research institution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"What do the implementation outcome variables tell us about the scaling-up of the antiretroviral treatment adherence clubs in South Africa? A document review.","field_subtitle":"Mukumbang F; Zaida Orth Z; van Wyk B: Health Research Policy and Systems 17(28) 1-12, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y6bq5vzg","body":"This study reviewed the effectiveness of the rollout of the antiretroviral adherence clubs in South Africa. The authors did a thematic analysis of 32 documents on the adherence clubs programme found in various databases from December 2017 to July 2018. The analysis showed that adherence clubs were highly acceptable as they decongested clinics, increased social support for patients and had a low cost of implementation. Evidence suggests that the model was effective in improving adherence to antiretroviral treatment and retention in care. Based on the success of the clubs in the Western Cape, adherence clubs are currently being implemented in all of the other South African provinces. The challenges include acquiring additional resources and support and the efficient use of available resources. They can be addressed by increasing communication between stakeholders and fostering a culture of learning between facilities, and the authors recommend this as the programme expands.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Why the world needs an African ecofeminist future","field_subtitle":"Kelleher F: African Arguments, March 2019","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y2xxwbhj","body":"The author points to how women and feminist activists are on the front line of the battle for ecological sustainability on the continent. Their everyday struggles, commitment, and willingness to envision a future in which justice, equity and rights harmonise with environmental sovereignty is said to have the potential to save us all. Wangari Maathai and her Green Belt Movement are said to epitomise the essence of African ecofeminism and the collective activism that defines it. As the first environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2004, Maathai highlighted the close relationship between African feminism and African ecological activism, which challenge both the patriarchal and neo-colonial structures undermining the continent. Lesser -known activists, however, have also long been at the intersection of gender, economic, and ecological justice. Ruth Nyambura of the African Eco Feminist Collective, for example, uses radical and African feminist traditions to critique power, challenge multinational capitalism, and re-imagine a more equitable world. Organisations like African Women Unite Against Destructive Resource Extraction (WoMin) campaign against the devastation of extractive industries. Meanwhile, localised organising is also resisting ecologically-damaging corporatisation: in South Africa, Women Mapella residents fought off land grabs by mining companies; in Ghana, the Concerned Farmers Association, led largely by women, held mining companies accountable for pollution of local watersheds; and in Uganda, women of the Kizibi community seed bank are preserving local biodiversity in the face of the commercialisation of seeds by corporate multinationals. From Ghana to South Africa and beyond, women-organised seed-sharing initiatives continue to resist corporatisation. Activists like Mariama Sonko in Senegal continue to lead on agroecological farming initiatives for localised and sustainable food production. The author argues that the crisis of Africa\u2019s current trajectory is a crisis of visioning: the inability of the continent\u2019s leaders to imagine a process of development less destructive, more equitable, less unjust, more uniquely African, and \u2013 quite simply \u2013 more exciting. The positions, passions, and holistic approaches offered by African ecofeminism are argued to provide key ingredients for an alternative to the capital-centric ideals of economic growth that have defined progress so far.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Soda taxes work\u2019","field_subtitle":"Green A: Health-E News, February 2019","field_url":"https://www.health-e.org.za/2019/02/26/soda-taxes-work/","body":"South Africa\u2019s version of a soda tax, called the Health Promotion Levy, will turn one-year-old in April. It was introduced to fight soaring rates of costly health conditions like obesity and diabetes. According to the Healthy Living Alliance\u2019s (Heala) Sbongile Nkosi, excessive consumption of sugary beverages is \u201ca major cause of obesity\u201d and \u201calso increases the risk of diabetes, liver and kidney damage, heart disease and some cancers\u201d. Nkosi also criticised the beverage industry which, she said, \u201chave specifically targeted poor communities who have the least access to quality health services\u201d. In his budget speech, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni announced that the local tax on sugary drinks would be increased slightly in order to account for inflation. But Heala is pushing for the taxation rate to be doubled to bring the country in line with WHO guidelines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Health Agenda International Conference","field_subtitle":"5-7 March 2019, Kigali, Rwanda","field_url":"https://ahaic.org","body":"The Africa Health Agenda International Conference 2019 (Africa Health 2019) in Kigali, Rwanda is geared to be one of the largest health convenings in Africa, with over 1,500 participants expected. Africa Health 2019 will serve as a platform to foster new ideas and home-grown solutions to the continent\u2019s most pressing health challenges, with a focus on achieving universal health coverage (UHC) in Africa by 2030. The conference will be a key opportunity to map a pathway from commitment to action on UHC and to build momentum among diverse stakeholders, including policymakers, civil society, technical experts, innovators, the private sector, thought leaders, scientists and youth leaders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) 5th scientific conference","field_subtitle":"11-14 March 2019, Accra, Ghana","field_url":"https://afhea.org/en/conferences/afhea-2019","body":"The African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) is hosting the fifth Scientific Conference in Accra, Ghana from 11 to 14 March, 2019. The broad theme of the conference is: Securing PHC for all: the foundation for making progress on UHC in Africa. This broad theme acknowledges the important role of PHC in the achievement of UHC. Strengthening PHC improves equity, accessibility and quality of care. Similarly, UHC ensures access to needed good quality health services irrespective of ability to pay. The two are therefore closely related. PHC is the main gateway to healthcare for the majority of the population, especially for those living in rural and underserved communities. A well-functioning PHC system will be able to respond to the health care needs of most of the population, including preventive, promotive and non-specialist clinical care, at a much lower cost than if similar services were provided at higher levels of the health care system. The conference will explore how securing PHC for all is a more cost-effective way to move towards the UHC agenda of any country, particularly for low income and lower middle income countries (LICs/LMICs) where the resource constraints are more severe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Applying an intersectionality lens to examine health for vulnerable individuals following devolution in Kenya","field_subtitle":"McCollum R; Taegtmeye M; Otiso L; Tolhurst R; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health18(24) 1-15, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yyfablta","body":"This paper examines health for vulnerable individuals following devolution in Kenya through a qualitative study between March 2015 and April 2016, involving 269 key informant and in-depth interviews from across the health system in ten counties, 14 focus group discussions with community members in two of these counties and photovoice participatory research with nine young people. The authors adopted an intersectionality lens to reveal how power relations intersect to produce vulnerabilities for specific groups in specific contexts, and to identify examples of the tacit knowledge about these vulnerabilities held by priority-setting stakeholders. The authors identified a range of ways in which longstanding social forces and discriminations limit the power and agency individuals can exercise. These are mediated by social determinants of health, their exposure to risk of ill health from their living environments, work, or social context, and by social norms relating to their gender, age, geographical residence or socio-economic status. While a range of policy measures have been introduced to encourage participation by typically \u2018unheard voices\u2019, devolution processes have yet to adequately challenge the social norms and power relations which contribute to discrimination and marginalisation. The authors conclude that if key actors in devolved decision-making structures are to ensure progress towards universal health coverage, there is need for intersectoral action to address these social determinants and to identify ways to challenge and shift power imbalances in priority-setting processes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Expressions of Interest: Universities and Social Inequalities in the Global South","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Submission of Proposals: 10 March 2019, 23:59 CET ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3fxgu4t","body":"UNRISD invites expressions of interest from researchers to prepare papers that will feed into the development of a research proposal for a project on the relationship between universities and social inequalities in low- and middle-income countries. With the persistent and rising inequalities of present day encompassing not only income and wealth but also inequalities across race, gender, ethnicity and geographic region, it is critical to reinvent, reimagine and strengthen a wide range of policies and institutions that can play a role in overcoming inequalities. This call and the subsequent research project to be developed focuses on universities as one such institution. The project proposal will focus on the role of universities in reinforcing or lessening social inequalities in low- and middle-income countries. It will explore the following questions: What potential does higher education have today to increase social mobility, reduce inequality and contribute to the advancement of society through the production of knowledge and skills? Are institutions of higher education contributing to inequality rather than equality, and if so, through what specific actions and mechanisms? How can the transformative potential of such institutions be fully harnessed for overcoming inequality?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can social network analysis help to include marginalised young women in structural support programmes in Botswana? A mixed methods study","field_subtitle":"Loutfi D; Andersson N; Law S; Salsberg J; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 18(12) 1-11, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yyr9y2af","body":"This paper investigated social networks of young women in Botswana to see if an approach based on an understanding of these networks could help with recruitment into support programmes. A national HIV trial was testing an intervention to assist young women to access government programs for returning to education and improving livelihoods. Structural factors such as poverty, poor education, strong gender inequalities and gender violence render many young women unable to act on choices to protect themselves from HIV. Social network analysis was used to identify key young women in four communities and to describe the types of people that marginalised young women turn to for support. In discussion groups, the same young women helped explain results from the network analysis. Most marginalised young women went to other women, usually in the same community and with children, especially if they had children themselves. Rural women were better connected with each other than women in urban areas, though there were isolated young women in all communities. Peer recruitment contributed most in rural areas; door-to-door recruitment contributed most in urban areas. The authors argue that since marginalised young women seek support from others like themselves, outreach programs could use networks of women to identify and engage those who most need help from government structural support programs. while this alone may be insufficient, a combination of approaches, including, for instance, peers, door-to-door recruitment and key community informants could be explored as a strategy for reaching marginalised young women for supportive interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"e-Learning Course on Health Financing Policy for universal health coverage (UHC)","field_subtitle":"Osseiran N: World Health Organisation, Geneva, Switzerland, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3xa3368","body":"The first e-learning course on health financing policy for universal health coverage has now been launched. This e-learning course comprises six modules which cover the core functions of health financing policy. Each module is divided into a number of sub-topics. This is a foundational course which targets participants of various levels of experience and expertise. The course is designed to be used in a variety of ways: as preparation for those who will attend a WHO face-to-face course, for those who are for various reasons unable to attend a face-to-face course, and for those who have already attended courses and wish to refresh their knowledge. Individual modules can also be used as part of a programme of blended capacity building. Module 1 provides an overview. Module 2 addresses revenue raising and policy objectives. Module 3 looks to pooling and policy objectives, while module 4 and 5 address purchasing and benefit package design. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Diss 117: Pathways to urban health equity: Report of multi-method research in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Masotya M: TARSC, Working with Harare and Lusaka youth, Civic Forum on Human Development and Lusaka District Health Office, EQUINET, Harare","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Diss%20117%20%20UHsynth2018.pdf","body":"By 2050, urban populations in Africa will increase to 62%. The World Health Organization (WHO) and UN-Habitat in their 2010 report \u2018Hidden Cities\u2019 note that this growth in the urban population constitutes one of the most important global health issues of the 21st century. In 2016-2018, Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) in the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) explored the social distribution of health in urban areas and the opportunities for and practices promoting urban health and well-being. It focused on youth 15-24 years of age as an important group for both current and future well-being. The paper synthesises and reports evidence from a programme of work that unfolded iteratively over two years. The work involved desk reviews of published literature and analysis of data from international databases for east and southern African countries, and international evidence on practices supporting urban well-being in areas prioritised by urban youth. The findings were subject to cycles of participatory review and validation by young people from diverse urban settings and socio-economic groups in Harare and Lusaka. These methods were applied with an intention to draw on different disciplines, concepts and variables from different sectors and on the lived experience and perceptions of the youth directly affected by different urban conditions. Separate publications produced in the project give more detail on particular methods, and findings and are cited in this paper. A series of dissemination and dialogue activities have been carried out with youth, local authority and policy actors, supported by shorter briefs and technical reports.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 216: The Price of Life \u2013 WHO\u2019s efforts to justify health protection","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Network of Public Health Nursing 5th International Conference","field_subtitle":"14-16 May 2019, Nairobi, Kenya","field_url":"http://www.gnphn.com/kenya-2019/","body":"This conference aims to provide delegates with an opportunity to present and learn about new evidence-based knowledge concerning health systems/services/practice to enable public health nursing to contribute to the achievement of the targets of Goal 3 of the UN Sustainable Goals. Because of their global significance and relevance to Public Health Nursing, it was agreed to explore the contribution of public health nursing to achieving Goal 3 of the UN Sustainable Development  Goals \u2018good health and well being\u2019 as a working title for the conference. The sub themes will focus on the role of public health nursing in achieving the targets of Goal 3 at every aspect and every population group including the elderly, maternal and child groups, people with disabilities, health care systems and safe environments. The focus is on; HIV/AIDS testing, disclosure, access and adherence to care; adolescent reproductive health; public health leadership and governance; health systems integration; rural, county and national levels; infectious disease management; community health strategy; public health workforce, labour relations and mental health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"How climate change is undermining the war against HIV in Africa","field_subtitle":"Lazareva I: Business Day, January 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y5z96u3q","body":"In a study looking at the link between climate change and HIV infection since antiretroviral (ARV) treatment drugs became widely available in Sub-Saharan Africa, researchers found that severe drought threatens to drive new HIV infections. In the urban areas of Lesotho researchers looked at, droughts were linked to an almost five-fold increase in the number of girls selling sex and a three-fold increase in those being forced into sexual relations. Such findings mean climate shocks \u2014 which can bring displacement, loss of income and other problems \u2014 threaten to undermine progress made in HIV treatment, said Andrea Low, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the International Centre for AIDS Care and Treatment Programmes at Columbia University. \u201cI think the real concern is that we have gained a lot in terms of epidemic control ... but there is always a possibility of  losing all those gains if a lot of people are displaced due to climate extremes [and] forced migration.\u201d People forced to migrate as a result of drought may no longer have easy access to the support of family and friends or to HIV treatment. The researchers indicate that  said ways of reducing HIV risk associated with climate shocks include providing easier access to medical care, distributing HIV self-testing kits and offering cash transfers to pay school fees for drought-hit families forced to migrate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Incorporating concerns for equity into health resource allocation: A guide for practitioners ","field_subtitle":"Love-Koh J; Griffin S; Kataika E; Revill P: CHE Research Paper 160, 1-25, 2019 ","field_url":"http://ecsahc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/CHERP160.pdf","body":"This paper summaries the methods for analysing health equity available to policymakers regarding the allocation of health sector resources. The authors provide an overview of the major tools that have been developed to measure, evaluate and promote health equity, along with the data required to operationalise them. These were organised into four key policy questions facing decision-makers: (i) what is the current level of inequity in health; (ii) does government health expenditure benefit the worst-off; (iii) can government health expenditure more effectively promote equity; and (iv) which interventions provide the best value for money in reducing inequity? Benefit incidence analysis is identified as the principal tool for estimating the distribution of current public health sector expenditure, with geographical resource allocation formulae and health system reform being the main government policy levers for improving equity. Techniques from the economic evaluation literature, such as extended and distributional cost-effectiveness analysis can be used to identify \u2018best buy\u2019 interventions from a health equity perspective. A range of inequality metrics, from gap measures and slope indices to concentration indices and regression analysis, can be applied to these approaches to evaluate changes in equity. Methods from the economics literature can be used to generate novel evidence on the health equity impacts of resource allocation decisions. They provide policymakers with a toolkit for addressing multiple aspects of health equity, from health outcomes to financial protection, and can be adapted to accommodate data commonly available in either high income or low and middle income settings. However, the quality and reliability of the data are crucial to the validity of all methods.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Initiating a participatory action research process in the Agincourt health and socio\u2013demographic surveillance site","field_subtitle":"Wariri O; D\u2019Ambruoso L; Twine R: Journal of Global Health 7(1), doi: 10.7189/jogh.07.010413, 2017 ","field_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5475314/","body":"Despite progressive health policy, disease burdens in South Africa remain patterned by deeply entrenched social inequalities. The authors suggest that accounting for the relationships between context, health and risk can provide important information for equitable service delivery. This research used a participatory research process with communities in a low income setting in the Agincourt health and socio\u2013demographic surveillance site (HDSS) in rural north\u2013east South Africa. Three village\u2013based discussion groups were convened and consulted about conditions to examine, one of which was under\u20135 mortality. A series of discussions followed in which routine HDSS data were presented and participants\u2019 subjective perspectives were elicited and systematized into collective forms of knowledge using ranking, diagramming and participatory photography. The process concluded with a priority setting exercise. Visual and narrative data were thematically analysed to complement the participants\u2019 analysis. Participants identified a range of social and structural root causes of under\u20135 mortality: poverty, unemployment, inadequate housing, unsafe environments and shortages of clean water. Despite these constraints, single mothers were often viewed as negligent. A series of mid\u2013level contributory factors in clinics were also identified: overcrowding, poor staffing, delays in treatment and shortages of medications. However, blame and negativity were directed toward clinic nurses in spite of the systems constraints identified. Actions to address these issues were prioritized as: expanding clinics, improving accountability and responsiveness of health workers, improving employment, providing clean water, and expanding community engagement for health promotion. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrating noncommunicable disease services into primary health care, Botswana","field_subtitle":"Tapela N; Tshisimogo G; Shatera B; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 97(2), 142-153, 2018","field_url":"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/97/2/18-221424/en/","body":"Despite the rising burden of noncommunicable diseases, access to quality decentralized noncommunicable disease services remain limited in many low- and middle-income countries. The authors describe strategies that were employed to drive the process from adaptation to national endorsement and implementation of the 2016 Botswana primary healthcare guidelines for adults. The strategies included detailed multilevel assessment with broad stakeholder inputs and in-depth analysis of local data; leveraging academic partnerships; facilitating development of policy instruments and embedding noncommunicable disease guidelines within broader primary health-care guidelines in keeping with the health ministry strategic direction. At facility level, strategies included developing a multi-method training programme for health-care providers, leveraging on the experience of provision of human immunodeficiency virus care and engaging health-care implementers early in the process. Through the strategies employed, the country\u2019s first national primary health-care guidelines were endorsed in 2016 and a phased three-year implementation started in August 2017. Provision of primary health-care delivery of noncommunicable disease services was included in the country\u2019s 11th national development plan (2017\u20132023). During the guideline development process, the authors learnt that strong interdisciplinary skills in communication, organisation, coalition building and systems thinking, and technical grasp of best-practices in low- and middle-income countries were important. They found that delays and poor communication emerged from the misaligned agendas of stakeholders, exaggerated by a siloed approach to guideline development, underestimation of the importance of having policy instruments in place and weak initial coordination of the processes outside the health ministry. The authors share this experience for its relevance to other countries interested in developing and implementing guidelines for evidence-based services for noncommunicable diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya\u2019s Health in All Policies strategy: a policy analysis using Kingdon\u2019s multiple streams","field_subtitle":"Mauti J; Gautier L; De Neve J et al: Health Research Policy and Systems 17(15) 1-12, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y36cjlu6","body":"This paper assesses the extent to which Health in All Policies (HiAP) is being translated into the process of governmental policy-making and is supported by international development partners and non-state actors. A qualitative case study was performed, including a review of relevant policy documents and 40 key informants with diverse backgrounds. Kenya is facing major health challenges that are influenced by various social determinants, but the implementation of intersectoral action focusing on health promotion is still arbitrary. On the policy level, little is known about HiAP in other government ministries. Many health-related collaborations exist under the concept of intersectoral collaboration, which is prominent in the country\u2019s development framework of Vision 2030, but with no specific reference to HiAP. The paper highlights that political commitment from the highest office would facilitate mainstreaming the HiAP strategy, for example by setting up a department under the President\u2019s Office. The budgeting process and planning for the Sustainable Development Goals were found to be potential windows of opportunity. While HiAP is being adopted as policy in Kenya, it is still perceived by many stakeholders as the business of the health sector, rather than a policy for the whole government and beyond. The authors propose that Kenya\u2019s Vision 2030 use HiAP to foster progress in all sectors with health promotion as an explicit goal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law guide to Health Equity Programs of Action","field_subtitle":"Call for collaboration","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yy2da52w","body":"The O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University Law Center (Washington, DC) has launched a guide to Health Equity Programs of Action. The Institute offers a systematic, systemic, and inclusive approach to reduce unjust health gaps between populations. It aims to empower the people who experience these inequities and help to establish a sustained national focus on health equity. This implementation framework is based on seven principles: Empowering participation and inclusive leadership; maximizing health equity;\r\nhealth systems and beyond: social determinants of health; every population counts; actions, targets and timelines; comprehensive accountability; and sustained high-level political commitment.  The O'Neill Institute is interested to discuss collaborations and opportunities for taking this approach forward.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Perceptions of and support for national health insurance in South Africa's public and private healthcare sectors","field_subtitle":"Booysen F; Hongoro C: The Pan African Medical Journal 30(277), doi: doi:10.11604/pamj.2018.30.277.14147, 2018","field_url":"http://www.panafrican-med-journal.com/content/article/30/277/full/","body":"For the purpose of effective implementation of a National Health Insurance (NHI) policy the authors argue that it is necessary to have an understanding of the awareness and perceptions of and support for such policy among clients using the healthcare system. The South African National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey asked household heads a series of questions on healthcare utilisation and access and collected information on knowledge and perceptions of and support for national health insurance. Comparisons are drawn between private sector healthcare users with medical aid and public sector healthcare users without medical aid, using descriptive and regression analysis. Inequalities in access to quality healthcare remain stark. Only 8.5% of private users had postponed seeking healthcare compared to 23.9% of public users. Only 11.9% of public users were very satisfied with the quality of healthcare services compared to 50.2% of private users. More than eighty percent of healthcare users however were of the opinion that NHI is a top priority. The findings suggest that this requires a national health insurance that provides better quality healthcare, increasing the probability of support for an NHI with lower cost and full coverage by 10.1%. The authors suggest that it is imperative to provide better quality healthcare services in the public sector for private sector users to be supportive of national health insurance. Concerted efforts are also required to develop a proper communication strategy to disseminate information on and garner support for national health insurance, both in the public and private healthcare sectors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Responding to inequalities in health in urban areas in east and southern Africa: Brief 5: What does the evidence indicate for advancing urban health and wellbeing?","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Masotya M: TARSC, EQUINET, Harare","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/Urban%20health%20brief%205%20Dec2018.pdf","body":"Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) as cluster lead of the \u201cEquity Watch\u201d work in EQUINET implemented a multi-methods approach to gather and analyse diverse forms of evidence and experience on inequalities in health and its determinants within urban areas. We explored current and possible responses to these urban conditions, from the health sector and the health promoting interventions of other sectors and of communities. We aimed to build a holistic understanding of the social distribution of health in urban areas and the distribution of opportunities for and practices promoting health and wellbeing from different perspectives and disciplines. We worked with Harare and Lusaka youth, the Civic Forum on Human Development and Lusaka District Health Office for the participatory validation This brief, the fifth in the series on urban health, reports on the combined findings and their implications for improving equity in urban health and wellbeing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Re\ufb02ections of an Engaged Economist: An Interview with Thandika Mkandawire","field_subtitle":"Meagher K: Development and Change 0(0), doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12481, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y4fgokpp","body":"This article reports an interview with Professor Thandika Mkandawire, a leading development economist of Malawian origin specializing in the comparative study of Africa. The interview explores how growing up under colonialism in Zimbabwe meant that huge decisions were being made that had profound effect on one's life, that he saw in the experience of his father as a  unionised worker on a mine and a tailor at home. He recounts the conversations on politics and working conditions on the mines that took place while people waited for their garments, as people tried to  make sense of policies they had no contribution to. As a school student in Malawi doing is 'O levels'  at a time of anti-colonial struggles, he was involved in demonstrations that exposed the brutality of the police. After school and working on a weekly paper his experience of being arrested exposed the facade of rule of law in a trial that he called a farce. His study of economics was initially to be a better journalist. Studying in Latin America he saw the hostility of Latin Americans to the USA as a 'more naked' form of the 'new imperialist order'. The interview traces him to his life in exile from Malawi, living in Sweden, where the thinking of Amartya Sen and others exposed the deeply social and political nature of economics, while the writing of African nationalists exposed the tension between class and nation as the overriding concern, a debate he posits as continuing until today. Living in Sweden at that time provided an experience of a democratic state that could \"tame the structural power of capital\", reinforcing but also moderating his \"leftist inclinations\". The interview continues to track how his life experiences and work at institutions such as CODESRIA and UNRISD influenced his thinking on developmental states, his views on strategic responses to the structural adjustment programmes in Africa, of the role of intelligent, capable and democratic states as the only viable instrument for development, and of  social investment as a developmental tool. The interview explores his views on the implications for the current African political economy and for African scholarship. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Scholarship updates for African students and researchers","field_subtitle":"Strohm R, February 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y286k4ts","body":"This resource provides a list of scholarships for African students, and research funding for African academics. There are three lists of scholarships and grants for African academics: one for MA and PhD study in Anglophone countries, one for Francophone countries, and one for post-doctoral and research funding. In addition, there are resources for research and travel grants for African professors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Sociodemographic patterns of health insurance coverage in Namibia","field_subtitle":"Allcock S; Young E; Sandhu M: International Journal for Equity in Health 18(16) 1-11, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y2ye3l6z","body":"This paper aimed at assessing the prevalence of health insurance, the relation between health insurance and health service utilisation and to explore the sociodemographic factors associated with health insurance in Namibia. Such findings may help to inform health policy to improve financial access to healthcare in the country. Using data on 14,443 individuals, aged 15 to 64\u2009years, from the 2013 Namibia Demographic and Health Survey, the association between health insurance and health service utilisation was investigated using multivariable mixed effects Poisson regression analyses. Just 17.5% of this population were insured. In fully-adjusted analyses, education was significantly positively associated with health insurance, independent of other sociodemographic factors. Female sex and wealth were also independently associated with insurance. There was a complex interaction between sex, education and wealth in the context of health insurance. With increasing education, women were more likely to be insured and education had a greater impact on the likelihood of health insurance in lower wealth quintiles. In this population, health insurance was associated with health service utilisation but insurance coverage was low, and was independently associated with sex, education and wealth. Education may play a key role in health insurance coverage, especially for women and the less wealthy. The authors suggest that the findings may help to inform the targeting of strategies to improve financial protection from healthcare-associated costs in Namibia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategic leadership capacity building for Sub-Saharan African health systems and public health governance: a multi-country assessment of essential competencies and optimal design for a Pan African DrPH ","field_subtitle":"Agyepong  I; Lehmann  U; Rutembemberwa E: Health Policy and Planning 33 (1) (suppl 2), ii35-ii49, 2018 ","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/33/suppl_2/ii35/5050012","body":"Leadership capacity needs development and nurturing at all levels for strong health systems governance and improved outcomes. The Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) is a professional, interdisciplinary degree focused on strategic leadership capacity building. The concept is not new and there are several programmes globally, but none within Africa, despite its urgent need for strong strategic leadership in health. To address this gap, a consortium of institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa, UK and North America have embarked on a collaboration to develop and implement a pan-African DrPH. This paper presents findings of research to verify relevance, identify competencies and support programme design and customisation. A mixed methods cross sectional multi-country study was conducted in Ghana, South Africa and Uganda. Data collection involved a non-exhaustive desk review, 34\u2009key informant (KI) interviews with past and present health sector leaders and a questionnaire with closed and open ended items administered to 271 potential DrPH trainees. Most study participants saw the concept of a pan-African DrPH as relevant and timely. Strategic leadership competencies identified by KI included providing vision and inspiration for the organisation, core personal values and character qualities such as integrity and trustworthiness, skills in adapting to situations and context and creating and maintaining effective change and systems. There was consensus that programme design should emphasise learning by doing and application of theory to professional practice. Short residential periods for peer-to-peer and peer-to-facilitator engagement and learning, interspaced with facilitated workplace based learning, including coaching and mentoring, was the preferred model for programme implementation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Success of a South-South collaboration on Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) in health: a case of Kenya and Zambia HRIS collaboration","field_subtitle":"Were V; Jere E; Lanyo K; et al: Human Resources for Health 17(6), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-019-0342-z, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y2e34beh","body":"This paper is a road map of using a South-South collaboration to develop a Human Resources Information System (HRIS) to inform scale-up of the health workforce. In the last decade, Kenya implemented one of the most comprehensive HRIS in Africa. It was funded by the US President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and implemented by Emory University. The Kenyan team collaborated with the Zambian team to establish a similar HRIS in Zambia. This case study describes the collaboration activities between Zambia and Kenya which included needs assessment, establishment of project office, stakeholders\u2019 sensitization, technical assistance and knowledge transfer, software reuse, documents and guidelines reuse, project structure and management, and project formative evaluation. Furthermore, it highlights the need for adopting effective communication strategies, collaborative planning, teamwork, willingness to learn and having minimum technical skills from the recipient country as lessons learned from the collaboration. As a result of the collaboration, while Kenya took 5\u2009years, Zambia was able to implement the project within 2\u2009years which is less than half the time it took Kenya. This case presents a unique experience in the use of South-South collaboration in establishing a HRIS. It illustrates the steps and resources needed while identifying the successes and challenges in undertaking such collaboration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Sudanese Women at the Heart of the Revolution","field_subtitle":"Gaafar R; Shawkat O: African Feminism, 2019","field_url":"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/97/2/18-221424/en/","body":"Country-wide peaceful demonstrations against the regime in Sudan have involved women as organised activists. Women in marginalized areas of conflict such as Darfur, South Sudan, the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile have lost their children, family and livelihood to war and famine. In addition to their experience of socio-economic deprivation, many of those who fled to the capital Khartoum have been abandoned by their husbands who are unable to support their families. The women\u2019s group No To Women\u2019s Oppression provides legal aid, advocacy and awareness campaigns and monitors violations of human rights, a solid and active component of the resistance. Women activist in the Central Committee for Doctors and other organisations  has, however, made them particularly prone to arrests and harassment. Women have also played a vital part in documenting the movement from the inside, especially in providing footage and proof of women's experiences of activism and of their conditions and the brutality they face.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Commission on the Future of Work calls for fundamental changes in health at work","field_subtitle":"Osseiran N: World Health Organisation, Geneva, Switzerland, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y3m5jgxw","body":"The ILO Global Commission on the Future of Work called for fundamental changes in the way people work in the wave of globalisation, rapid technological development, demographic transition and climate change, according to its report Work for a Brighter Future published in January 2019. The report examines how to achieve a better future of work for all at a time of un\u00adprecedented change and exceptional challenges in the world of work. These changes require placing health higher on the agenda of the world of work. Everybody has the right to health, which is defined by WHO as a state of complete physical and mental wellbeing and not only the absence of disease and infirmity. Working people have the right to health and to health care as close as possible to where they live and work. In 2018, WHO and ILO established a global coalition on occupational safety and health as multi-partner initiative of international and national agencies to create common solutions for the challenges for health and safety at work and to stimulate joint actions by health and labour sectors in countries. WHO welcomed the attention given by the Global Commission on the care economy and healthcare is a major part of it. WHO is also working with ILO and OECD to implement a five-year \u2018Working for Health\u2019 global action plan to create new and decent job opportunities in health care, to ensure the necessary workforce for universal health coverage and at the same time for stimulating economic growth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The International Conference on (Re-) Emerging Infectious Diseases (ICREID)","field_subtitle":"The African Union Commission Conference Center, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 13-15 March 2019","field_url":"http://www.icreid.com","body":"Organized by the Africa Centres for Diseases Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and Virology Education, ICREID is a global platform that will bring together experts from around the world involved in emerging diseases in an interactive conference setting. Being the first to be held on the continent, the organisers invite healthcare professionals, researchers, public health experts and policy makers involved in treatment, research, discovery and development of drugs and vaccines in the field of re-emerging infectious diseases. Presentations include reflections on 100 years of Pandemic Flu and other Emerging Infections and analyses of the World Bank and Pandemic Preparedness. There are also talks on lassa fever, cholera and Rift Valley fever, on health economics in outbreak management and on the standardisation of research ethics during public health emergencies in Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The Politics of Resource Bargaining, Social Relations and Institutional Development in Zimbabwe Since Independence","field_subtitle":"Saunders R: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Working Paper 1, UNRISD, Geneva, 2019 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yyoutwuf","body":"This paper examines evolving models and experiences of domestic resource mobilisation in Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. Grounded in UNRISD\u2019s Politics of Domestic Resource Mobilization and Social Development project, the study explores key questions around the nature and dynamics of resource bargaining over revenue mobilisation and allocation; the changes in relationships among key actors; and the forms and outcomes of institutional development surrounding resource bargaining processes. It adopts a historical approach to explore the balance of forces among actors and institutional constraints in the formulation of successive resource mobilisation strategies. Three case studies in the paper of divergent resource mobilisation innovations underscore the complexity of challenges faced by governments whose actions are shaped by uneven state capacity and policy autonomy; a weak formal sector in which established business actors wield significant power and influence; and growing contestation over legitimacy and participation by political and social actors. The Zimbabwean experience underscores the critical importance of political undercurrents and contesting interests in resource bargaining. It highlights the uneven nature of social actors\u2019 access to and influence in bargaining processes; and of the state itself in the wake of neoliberal austerity, state capture and intra-elite competition. At the same, the author argues that the evidence from Zimbabwe points to the benefits of more transparent, inclusive and capacitated forms of revenue mobilisation involving a wider array of social actors. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Price of Life \u2013 WHO\u2019s efforts to justify health protection","field_subtitle":"Leslie London, University of Cape Town, Sofia Gruskin, University of Southern California, Sharon Fonn, Witwatersrand University, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn the same month that it reaffirmed the 1978 Alma Ata Declaration\u2019s commitment to \u201cthe fundamental right of every human being to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health\u201d in its October 2018 Declaration of Astana, the World Health Organisation (WHO) launched, with much fanfare and hubris, its \u201cfirst investment case\u201d for 2019-2023, as a proposal that could \u201csave up to 30 million lives\u201d. \r\n\r\nDespite the rhetoric of the Astana Declaration, the WHO appears to be in a political moment where it is under pressure to justify, in economic terms, its existence as a global governance structure for health. To convince the doubting reader, the investment case promised \u201ceconomic gains of US$ 240 billion\u201d as the return to be made on increasing annual country contributions by US$10 billion to enable the WHO to meet its annual budget of US$14 billion. \r\n\r\nTwo things are striking. Firstly, the investment case purports to lay the basis for \u201ca stronger, more efficient, and results-oriented WHO \u2026and \u2026 highlights new mechanisms to measure success, ensuring a strict model of accountability and sets ambitious targets for savings and efficiencies.\u201d  This is the language of the private sector. \r\n\r\nThere is nothing wrong with working more efficiently, but the WHO should be placing health equity and human rights at the centre of its work and should guard against efficiency and managerialism coming at the expense of equity and social justice.  The bureaucracy and inefficiency of the WHO needs addressing, but the idea that the solution lies in the application of New Public Management is a political choice, rather than a necessary outcome of clear analysis.\r\n\r\nSecondly, the parlous state of WHO funding is not a coincidence. It is the result of a systematic decline in assessed contributions by member states, particularly the United States, over past decades. Whereas assessed contributions were 75% of WHO\u2019s budget in 1971, the Peoples Health Movement and others showed in 2017 that this is now about 25% of the institution\u2019s budget and that countries that do pay, choose to put most funding into voluntary contributions. Voluntary contributions can be tied to particular programmes, meaning countries can determine the work of WHO through funding dependence. WHO\u2019s budget has also been stagnant for the past eight years, which is why the organisation now has to go cap-in-hand, clutching a seemingly miraculous investment case argument, to beg for the budgets it has been starved of for the past decade. \r\n\r\nIt is astonishing, but deeply revealing, that the WHO has to justify human life in monetary or investment\u2019 terms. Who would have thought the Constitution of the World Health Organization which 70 years ago heralded the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health as one of the fundamental rights of every human being would end up in such abysmal decline? \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.  The WHO Investment case referred to in the editorial can be found at https://tinyurl.com/yavqzjvk ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The Second Africa Health Forum","field_subtitle":"26-28 March 2019, Praia, Cabo Verde","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yy95ofya","body":"The Government of Cabo Verde and the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa will jointly host The Second WHO Africa Health Forum on the theme: Achieving Universal Health Coverage and Health Security in Africa: The Africa people want to see. The WHO Africa Health Forum Organizing team, also take this opportunity to call on partners to report on what they have been doing in delivering on the Call-to-Action from The First WHO Africa Health Forum - Putting People First: The Road to Universal Health Coverage in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Therapeutic citizens and clients: diverging healthcare practices in Malawi's prenatal clinics","field_subtitle":"Zhou A: Sociology of Health and Illness (Epub ahead of print), doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12841, January 2019 ","field_url":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-9566.12841","body":"This article examines how HIV policies and the funding priorities of global institutions affect practices in prenatal clinics and the quality of healthcare women receive. Data consist of observations at health centres in Lilongwe, Malawi and 37 interviews with providers. The author argues that a neoliberal ideology structuring global health produces a fragmented healthcare system on the ground. He found two kinds of healthcare practices within the same clinic: firstly externally funded non government organisations (NGOs) took on HIV services while government providers focused on prenatal care. NGO practices were defined by surveillance, where providers targeted a limited number of pregnant HIV positive women and intensively monitored their adherence to drug treatment. In contrast, state-led practices were defined by inclusion and rationing. Government providers worked with all pregnant women, but with staff and resource shortages, they limited time and services for each patient in order to serve everyone. The author concludes that global health priorities produce different conditions, practices and outcomes between externally funded NGO and state-led care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"A health policy analysis reader: The politics of policy change in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Gilson L; Orgill M; Shroff Z: Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yd3dscn5","body":"This reader aims to encourage and deepen health policy analysis work in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). It presents the range of health policy analysis studies that have been conducted in LMICs, highlights relevant theory, and points to new directions for such work. It also includes methodological and analytical pointers, and considers how to use health policy analysis prospectively to support health policy change. The Reader\u2019s primary audience includes all those with an interest in understanding and influencing health policy change, including researchers and educators, as well as policy advocates, managers, and policy-makers. The Reader will also be of interest to those who have specialist policy studies or public administration backgrounds, and also to those with limited prior engagement with relevant social science perspectives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Accrediting private providers with National Health Insurance to better serve low-income populations in Kenya and Ghana: a qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Suchman L: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(179) 1-18, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y86thh5f","body":"This paper pulled together data collected from private providers, patients, and social health insurance (SHI) officials in Kenya and Ghana to answer the question: does participation in an SHI scheme affect private providers\u2019 ability to serve poorer patient populations with quality health services? In-depth interviews were held with 204 providers over three rounds of data collection in Kenya and Ghana. The authors also conducted client exit interviews in 2013 and 2017 for a total of 106 patient interviews. Ten focus group discussions were conducted in Kenya and Ghana respectively in 2013 for a total of 171 FGD participants. A total of 13 in-depth interviews also were conducted with officials from the Ghana National Health Insurance Agency and the Kenya National Hospital Insurance Fund across four rounds of data collection. Provider interviews covered reasons for enrollment in the health insurance system, experiences with the accreditation process, and benefits and challenges with the system. Client exit interviews covered provider choice, clinic experience, and SHI experience. Focus Group Discussions covered the local healthcare landscape. Interviews with SHI officials covered officials\u2019 experiences working with private providers, and the opportunities and challenges they faced both accrediting providers and enrolling members. Private providers and patients agreed that SHI schemes are beneficial for reducing out-of-pocket costs to patients and many providers felt they had to become SHI-accredited in order to keep their facilities open. The SHI officials in both countries corroborated these sentiments. However, due to misunderstanding of the system, providers tended to charge clients for services they felt were above and beyond reimbursable expenses. Services were sometimes limited as well. Significant delays in SHI reimbursement in Ghana exacerbated these problems and compromised providers\u2019 abilities to cover basic expenses without charging patients. While patients recognized the potential benefits of SHI coverage and many sought it out, a number of patients reported allowing their enrollment to lapse for cost reasons or because they felt the coverage was useless when they were still asked to pay for services out-of-pocket at the health facility. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Health Agenda International Conference 2019, 2030 Now: Multi-sectoral Action to Achieve Universal Health Coverage in Africa","field_subtitle":"Youth Pre-Conference 3-4 March 2019, General Admission 5-7 March 2019, Kigali, Rwanda","field_url":"https://ahaic.org","body":"Every iteration of AHAIC builds on the success of the previous one to bring more nuance and action to conversations on health in Africa. The 2017 conference, which was held in Nairobi, Kenya, brought together over 1000 stakeholders to discuss systems and innovations needed to enable Africa to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. AHAIC 2019 will convene stakeholders from across sectors and around the world to take forward critical conversations initiated in Nairobi to explore what it will take for Africa to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2030. Confirmed speakers include Dr Diane Gashumba, Minister of Health, Republic of Rwanda, Dr. Githinji Gitahi, Group CEO, Amref Health Africa and Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, Regional Director for Africa, World Health Organization. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"African Civil Society Statement on Universal Health Coverage ","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement: PHM, December 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7xuyhdt","body":"This statement from the People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM) asserts a commitment to Comprehensive Primary Health Care and addressing the Social, Environmental and Economic Determinants of Health. To make health care accessible to all, African governments are considering or have implemented policy reforms with a focus on achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC). Examples include, the Community Based Health and Planning Services (CHPS) and National Health Insurance Scheme in Ghana; National Health Insurance Scheme in Uganda, expansion of the National Hospital Insurance Fund in Kenya, National Health Insurance in South Africa and Health Financing Policy and Strategy in Zimbabwe. These policy reforms in different ways aim to provide health financing to protect populations from impoverishing health care costs. Despite this momentum, many African countries still provide limited access to quality health services and only a small percentage of the population is protected from financial risks associated with health care costs. PHM identify that the dialogue on UHC in Africa is strongly influenced by the World Bank and other multilateral and bilateral donors, which promote UHC as predominantly a health financing mechanism. Issues of health equity, including a focus on access for the \u2018uncovered\u2019 poor, community participation and the strengthening of public health systems are largely ignored. Where UHC is framed as a health financing issue, rather than a human right or public good, and supports charging the poor for health coverage and the creation of health markets (privatisation). Instead PHM assert that PHC is the key to achieving health for all. Efforts to achieve UHC should prioritise reviving and strengthening public health systems in African countries within the Primary Health Care framework which permeates all levels of health care including addressing social determinants of health. The statement identifies actions needed towards addressing the social determinants of health, including: that policies for UHC need to clearly prioritise PHC at the primary and community levels. They argue that a whole of government approach must be applied to support UHC, including Health in All Policies, so that all ministries and departments of government are coordinated in promoting healthier working and living conditions and healthy lifestyles, preventing causes of disease and mortality, and supporting equitable access to health services. Further, governments should increase health sector spending to at least 15% of national budgets, as agreed in the 2001 Abuja Declaration. The PHM call for increased fiscal space by expanding and improving current tax collection measures; as well as implementing new taxes that ensure progressiveness and sustainability and strengthening prepayment mechanisms that pool resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Air pollution and child health: prescribing clean air","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2018 ","field_url":"https://www.who.int/ceh/publications/air-pollution-child-health/en/","body":"This report summarizes the latest scientific knowledge on the links between exposure to air pollution and adverse health effects in children. It is intended to inform and motivate individual and collective action by health care professionals to prevent damage to children\u2019s health from exposure to air pollution, a major environmental health threat. Exposure to fine particles in both the ambient environment and in the household causes about seven million premature deaths each year. Ambient air pollution alone imposes enormous costs on the global economy, amounting to more than US$ 5 trillion in total welfare losses in 2013. This public health crisis is receiving more attention, but one critical aspect is often overlooked: how air pollution affects children in uniquely damaging ways. Recent data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) show that air pollution has a vast and terrible impact on child health and survival. Globally, 93% of all children live in environments with air pollution levels above the WHO guidelines. More than one in every four deaths of children under 5 years is directly or indirectly related to environmental risks. Both ambient air pollution and household air pollution contribute to respiratory tract infections that resulted in 543 000 deaths in children under 5 years in 2016.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing changes in social determinants of health inequalities in South Africa: a decomposition analysis","field_subtitle":"Omotoso K; Koch S: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(181) 1 -13, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybpzefdy","body":"This study examines how changes in the social determinants of health have impacted health inequalities in South Africa over the last decade, the second since 1994. Information collected on social determinants of health and on health status was obtained from the 2004, 2010 and 2014 questionnaires in the South African General Household Surveys. The health indicators considered include ill-health status and disability. Concentration indices and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition of change in a concentration index methods helped to unravel changes in socio-economic health inequalities and their key social drivers over the studied time period. The results show that inequalities in ill-health are consistently explained by socio-economic inequalities relating to employment status. Provincial differences narrowed considerably over the studied periods. Relatedly, disability inequalities are largely explained by shrinking socio-economic inequalities relating to racial groups, educational attainment and provincial differences. The extent of employment, location and education inequalities suggests the need for improved health care management and further delivery of education and job opportunities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for contributions to the journal Justice Spatiale | Spatial Justice","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 15 May 2019","field_url":"http://www.jssj.org/appel-a-contributions/","body":"As part of its editorial programming for 2019-2021, the journal Justice Spatiale | Spatial Justice is opening a permanent call for contribution to its different sections : 1) Focus for peer review papers ; 2) Public Spaces for general interventions, interviews or position papers on issues related to spatial justice; 3) JSSJ Reviews for books reviews. Justice Spatiale | Spatial Justice is an international electronic journal whose concept was born in Nanterre, France, precisely where Henri Lefebvre taught, and this is in no way a coincidence as there is a strong relation between the concept of spatial justice and the Lefebvrian concepts of production of space (\u201cproduction de l\u2019espace\u201d) and right to the city (\u201cdroit \u00e0 la ville\u201d).  The journal Justice Spatiale | Spatial Justice is committed to interdisciplinary approaches and encourages cross-cutting research. Another primary objective is to create sustained linkages between the English-speaking and the French-speaking scientific communities. The journal is therefore completely bilingual. The electronic medium also has the potential to expand the traditional definition of the academic article since it enables the combination of text, images (static and animated) and sounds.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges to tuberculosis control in Angola: the narrative of medical professionals","field_subtitle":"Brady P; Vita D: Journal of Public Health 40(4) 820\u2013826, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yc5nzvau","body":"This study interviewed healthcare workers involved in tuberculosis (TB) control on what they consider to be the drivers of the TB epidemic in Angola. Twenty four in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with medical staff working in this field in the provinces of Luanda and Benguela. The healthcare professionals see the migrant working poor as a particular problem for the control of TB. Migrants are constructed as \u2018Rural People\u2019 and are seen as non-compliant and late-presenting. This is a stigmatized and marginal group contending with the additional stigma associated with TB infection. The healthcare professionals interviewed also see the interruption of treatment and self-medication generally as a better explanation for the TB epidemic than urbanization or lack of medication. The local narrative is in contrast to explanations used elsewhere. To be effective policy must recognize the local issues of the migrant workforce, interruption of treatment and the stigma associated with TB in Angola.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) \u2013 South Africa, Programme Manager: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Congenital Syphilis Programs ","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 28 February, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y93g5eyh","body":"The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) is seeking a highly motivated individual with outstanding technical and managerial capabilities to play a key role in either the Sexual and Reproductive Health and/or Congenital Syphilis programs in South Africa.  The Program Manager will shape strategy, manage and provide technical input to a large and growing CHAI team. CHAI works in a fast-paced and results-driven environment. This individual would manage a growing team, at national and provincial levels, and shape CHAI\u2019s engagement. Thus, they should have exceptional communication and analytical skills, be a strong strategic thinker and be able to adapt to differing program needs. CHAI places great value on commitment to excellence, resourcefulness, responsibility, tenacity, flexibility, independence, energy, work ethic and humility. The Manager will be based in Pretoria, South Africa and report to CHAI South Africa\u2019s leadership team. The Manager\u2019s key responsibilities include, but are not limited to support NDoH in all areas ranging from either sexual reproductive health and/or congenital syphilis; with respect to planning and implementation, ensuring CHAI\u2019s ongoing alignment with the DoH strategic goals and priorities, oversee the translation of objectives provided by the government, donors, and other partner organizations into clear activity plans, and provide guidance to a team and DoH on prioritization of initiatives, manage and establish collaborative relationships with the DoH, suppliers, partner organizations and other relevant stakeholders. The qualifications and requirements for the position will include an advanced degree in a related field such as health economics, public health, financial management, business preferred, 5 to 7 years of professional experience in demanding, results-oriented environments in the public sector and/or private sector, excellent problem solving, analytical and quantitative skills, including attention to detail and experience in modeling using Microsoft Excel among others. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) \u2013 South Africa, Senior Programme Manager: Sexual and Reproductive Health, Maternal and Neonatal Health (SRMNH)","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 28 February, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7nuclco","body":"The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) is seeking a highly motivated individual with outstanding technical and managerial capabilities to play a leadership role in the SRMNH program in South Africa.  The Senior Program Manager will shape strategy, manage and provide technical input to a large and growing CHAI team across the areas of Sexual Reproductive Health, Maternal Neonatal Health. S/he will work with a range of partners and subject matter experts and report into CHAI South Africa\u2019s leadership team.  The Manager will be based in Pretoria, South Africa and report to CHAI South Africa\u2019s leadership team. The key responsibilities will not be limited to the following supervise a team of CHAI staff working at the national and provincial level providing strategic direction, managerial and technical support as well as quality assurance for the portfolio, work with CHAI staff and the government in program areas ranging from sexual reproductive health and maternal and neonatal health, work with CHAI staff and the government in the scale-up of a health services including strategy and  design, development and implementation of evidence-based strategic and operational plans, manage senior level stakeholder relationships; coordinate and participate in technical working groups. The qualifications and requirements for the position will include an advanced degree in a related field such as health economics, public health, financial management, business preferred; a clinical background is an added advantage but not required, 7-10 years of professional experience in demanding, results-oriented environments in the public sector and/or private sector, entrepreneurial mindset; demonstrated ability to work independently on complex projects and solve challenging problems, in a high-pressure, fast-paced environment among others. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Coming Full Circle: How Health Worker Motivation and Performance in Results-Based Financing Arrangements Hinges on Strong and Adaptive Health Systems ","field_subtitle":"Kane S; Gandidzanwa C; Mutasa R; et al: International Journal of Health Policy and Management 8(2), doi: 10.15171/ijhpm.2018.98, 2018","field_url":"https://www.ijhpm.com/article_3557_bd535847eb91a6ca69a79c78980ed2b3.pdf","body":"This paper presents findings from a study which sought to understand why health workers working under the results-based financing (RBF) arrangements in Zimbabwe reported being satisfied with the improvements in working conditions and compensation, but paradoxically reported lower motivation levels compared to those not working under RBF arrangements. A qualitative study was conducted amongst health workers and managers working in health facilities that were implementing the RBF arrangements and those that were not. Through purposeful sampling, 4 facilities in RBF implementing districts that reported poor motivation and satisfaction, were included as study sites. Four facilities located in non-RBF districts which reported high motivation and satisfaction were also included. Data was collected through in-depth interviews and analyzed using the framework approach. Findings reveal that insufficient preparedness of people and processes for this change, constrained managers and workers performance. Results based financing arrangements introduce explicit and tacit changes, including but not limited to, incentive logics, in the system. Findings show that unless systematic efforts are made to enable the absorption of these changes in the system: eg, through reconfiguring the decision space available at various levels, through clarification of accountability relationships, through building personnel and process capacities, before instituting changes, the full potential of the RBF arrangements cannot be realised. This study demonstrates the importance of analysing existing institutional, management and governance arrangements and capabilities and taking these into account when designing and implementing RBF interventions. Introducing RBF arrangements cannot alone overcome chronic systemic weaknesses. For a system wide change, as RBF arguably is, to be effected, explicit organisational change management processes need to be put in place, across the system. The authors argue that carefully designed processes, which take into account the interest and willingness of various actors to change, and which are cognizant of and constructively engage with potential bottlenecks and points of resistance, should accompany any health system change initiative.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Courts deliver big wins for environment","field_subtitle":"Sipho Kings: SangoNet Pulse, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ydbcxnhl","body":"South Africa\u2019s environment law has a strange loophole. In theory, every activity that would harm the environment falls under the National Environmental Management Act (Nema) and the Acts linked to it. This allows the government to uphold everyone\u2019s constitutionally guaranteed right to a healthy environment. Nema is what should give the environment department teeth. But mining is exempt because of a 2014 takeover by the mineral resources department of most environmental oversight for mining. Now, far-reaching court decisions are pulling apart the way in which the mining department discharges its job of looking after the environment, and questioning how positive a development this has been. In a stinging rebuke last week, the high court ruled in defence of a wetland in Mpumalanga. This has created a precedent that rights groups say they will use to challenge other cases when mines threaten the environment. This decision follows a judgment earlier this month by the Constitutional Court in a case between residents of villages that fall under the Bakgatla Ba Kgafela tribal administration, near Rustenberg in the North West, and a would-be mining company. Read together, the environmental and land rights judgments are argued by the author to be a serious blow to the carte blanche attitude of the minerals department and its mandate to expand mining. Mining companies will now have to consult all residents. The minerals department will also have to do more than tick boxes based on information given by mines when it comes to looking after the environment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 215: Include a gender and equity lens to effectively tackle antimicrobial resistance","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV prevalence in young people and children living on the streets, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Braitstein P; Ayuku D; DeLong A; Makori D; et al: Bulletin World Health Organisation 97(1) 33\u201341, 2019 ","field_url":"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/97/1/18-210211.pdf?ua=1","body":"This paper seeks to obtain an estimate of the size of and human immunodeficiency (HIV) prevalence among, young people and children living on the streets of Eldoret, Kenya. The authors counted young people and children using a point-in-time approach, ensuring the authors reached a target population by engaging relevant community leaders during the planning of the study. The authors acquired point-in-time count data over a period of 1 week between the hours of 08:00 and 23:00, from both a stationary site and by mobile teams. Participants provided demographic data and a fingerprint and were encouraged to speak with an HIV counsellor and undergo HIV testing. Of the 1419 eligible participants counted, 1049 were male with a median age of 18 years. Of the 1029 who spoke with a counsellor, 1004 individuals accepted HIV counselling and 947 agreed to undergo an HIV test. Combining those who were already aware of their HIV-positive status with those who were tested during this study resulted in an overall HIV seroprevalence of 4.1%. The seroprevalence was 2.7% for males and 8.9% for females. The authors observed an increase in seroprevalence with increasing age for both sexes, but of much greater magnitude for females. By counting young people and children living on the streets and offering them HIV counselling and testing, the authors could obtain population-based estimates of HIV prevalence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Housing impacts health: New WHO Guidelines on Housing and Health","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7rt6lzl","body":"The quality of housing has major implications for people\u2019s health. Poor housing is associated with a wide range of health conditions such as respiratory diseases including asthma, cardiovascular diseases, injuries, mental health and infectious diseases including tuberculosis, influenza and diarrhoea.  Housing is becoming increasingly important to public health due to demographic and climate changes, according to the latest WHO Housing and health guidelines re\u00acleased today.  The guidelines provide new evidence-based recommendations on how to reduce major health risks associated with poor housing conditions in 4 areas:  Inadequate living space (crowding); low and high indoor temperatures; injury hazards in the home; and accessibility of housing for people with functional impairments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Include a gender and equity lens to effectively tackle antimicrobial resistance","field_subtitle":"Sarah Simpson and Victoria Saint","field_url":"","body":"\r\nAntimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the most serious current threats to global public health, food security and thus development.  It may make standard treatments ineffective for many communicable diseases, including pneumonia, tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS.  Without effective antibiotics, chemotherapy and everyday dental and surgical procedures become increasingly dangerous, due to the risk of complications from infection.  \r\n\r\nAMR refers to the ability of microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses, and some parasites to stop antimicrobial medicines such as antibiotics, antivirals and antimalarials from controlling them.   \r\n\r\nOne of the reasons for this resistance across all countries is the overuse of antimicrobials, or use when they are not needed or suitable. This may happen in various sectors beyond the use of medicines in health services. It may happen, for example, in agriculture and aquaculture, such as to prevent infection and increase growth in chickens, cows or fish, and in the environment, where antibiotic residues may be found in waste water from humans and farms, together with unused medicines that are not properly disposed of.  \r\n\r\nSupporting this drive for change, a global action plan to tackle AMR was endorsed in 2015. The 2015 World Health Assembly set the goal of this global action plan as  \u201cto ensure, for as long as possible, continuity of successful treatment and prevention of infectious diseases with effective and safe medicines that are quality-assured, used in a responsible way, and accessible to all who need them.\u201d\r\n\r\nThere is an urgent need for the world to change the way it prescribes and uses antibiotics to address AMR, rather than only relying on the development of more powerful antimicrobials. AMR is often talked about in terms of \u2018drugs and bugs\u2019. We need to move beyond this focus to think about how AMR and interventions to address it affect people in their day to day lives, at home, at work and in their communities. This is important if we are to ensure the reach, effectiveness and impact of the strategies used, so that they leave no one behind. We need to understand how men, women and different groups in society may have different levels of exposure to and risk of AMR, or different levels of impact from AMR, to identify ways of addressing them.  \r\n\r\nFor example, increasing antibiotic resistance and inadequate safe water and sanitation in health care institutions may raise women\u2019s risk during pregnancy and childbirth.  Women and men may have different levels of exposure and vulnerability to diseases that have already shown signs of AMR, such as tuberculosis, HIV, malaria, gonorrhea and urinary tract infections. The World Health Organization (WHO) observed that men who have sex with men may be at greater risk of getting drug-resistant strains of gonorrhea, as some may not seek treatment given the stigma they face. \r\n\r\nWomen make up 67% of the global health and social sectors workforce and are often concentrated in lower-level, lower-paid jobs, with unsafe working conditions. For example, health workers and cleaners may not be provided with gloves, masks and other protective clothing, leaving them exposed to resistant microbes through their work. Likewise in agricultural settings, people working without protective equipment or cleaning facilities with cattle, pigs and poultry that are infected with drug resistant bacteria may also be exposed to these strains. Workers infected with these resistant bacteria in their work may then spread them to family members and friends.\r\n\r\nThere are also different levels of knowledge and different attitudes and practices relating to the use of antibiotics amongst people, prescribers, policy makers and pharmacists. For example, younger people and those with less education may not have correct information and knowledge on what illnesses antibiotics work for. In 2014 in Spain, researchers found, for example, that young men were more likely to believe that antibiotics are effective against viruses such as flu (they are not) and to incorrectly seek prescriptions for antibiotics to manage such conditions. \r\n\r\nGiven that AMR is occurring everywhere in the world, it is critical to effectively cover all these negative effects. This means that in sectors with a known risk of AMR, there are measures to monitor which groups in the population may be experiencing higher exposures to and rates of AMR, or may not have sufficient access to quality-assured and affordable medicines when needed. Monitoring such health impacts thus needs not only to be undertaken by the health sector, but also by other sectors such as agriculture and environment. \r\n\r\nAs the examples in this editorial indicate, a strategy for effective coverage would need to pay attention to the differences in exposure, risk and impact between males and females and between different socioeconomic groups, taking features such as occupation and working conditions into account. It would need to analyse equity and gender differentials to ensure that no one is left behind.  \r\n\r\nA WHO working paper, \u2018Tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR) together \u2013 Working Paper 5.0: Enhancing the focus on gender and equity\u2019 (https://tinyurl.com/yakxvzqo) addresses this issue. It explores how to include a focus on gender and equity in efforts to tackle AMR.\r\n\r\nIt highlights the need to better understand how gender and other social determinants affect the exposure and behavior of different groups in the population in relation to their use of antibiotics and to prescribing practices.   For example, it points to use of existing studies to tailor health campaigns and messages to better reach key groups such as young men or doctors or to reach settings where antimicrobials are mis- or over-prescribed, making use of diverse media. These include, for example, social media, YouTube videos and an interactive game on AMR. These resources can be found at http://apps.who.int/world-antibiotic-awareness-week/activities/en. The WHO paper also provides some guidance for countries on how to explore and manage gender and equity considerations in AMR in their national action plans.  The WHO secretariat is encouraging review, dissemination and feedback to the secretariat at whoamrsecretariat@who.int on this working paper, to support its use in practice.  \r\n\r\nIn July 2018 a WHO survey found that 100 of 194 member state countries had national action plans for AMR in place and 51 countries had plans under development. There is demand, scope and information now available to improve how these action plans are designed and implemented so that no one is left behind.  \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Mapping the constitutional provisions on the right to health and the mechanisms for implementation in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV and AIDS (KELIN): Case study report, KELIN, EQUINET, Kenya, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yc83hf82","body":"This case study is produced by the Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV and AIDS (KELIN), working with Charles Dulo as a contributor, in the theme work on health rights and law of the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET). This Paper\u2019s objective is to answer the question, \u201cWhat difference have constitutional rights to health made in practice and what have been the issues affecting the capacity to claim and deliver on the rights in Kenya?\u201d It is a follow up on the results of work on the right to health that highlighted a need to do further studies in countries that do not have expressed provision on the rights to health. It is a desk review of literature that explores the historical background on the right to health before the current constitution that was promulgated in 2010. This is followed by a review of the legislative framework after 2010 and jurisprudence on the right health, and concludes by highlighting key challenges in the realization of the right to health in Kenya.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Moving to a strong(er) community health system: analysing the role of community health volunteers in the new national community health strategy in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Angwenyi V; Aantjes C; Kondowe K; Mutchiyeni J; et al:  British Medical Journal Global Health 3(e000996) 1-10, 2018 ","field_url":"https://gh.bmj.com/content/bmjgh/3/Suppl_3/e000996.full.pdf","body":"This paper reviews Malawi\u2019s strategy, with particular focus on the interface between health surveillance assistants (HSAs), volunteers in community-based programmes and the community health team. The authors analysis identified key challenges that may impede the strategy\u2019s implementation inadequate training, imbalance of skill sets within community health team (CHT) and unclear job descriptions for community health volunteers (CHVs); proposed community-level interventions require expansion of pre-existing roles for most CHT members; and district authorities may face challenges meeting financial obligations and filling community-level positions. For effective implementation, attention and further deliberation is argued to be needed on the appropriate CHV support, CHT composition with possibilities of co-opting trained CHVs from existing volunteer programmes into CHTs, review of CHT competencies and workload and strengthening coordination and communication across all community actors. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New research chairs program will expand research and innovation in Africa","field_subtitle":"International Development Research Centre, South Africa\u2019s National Research Foundation (NRF): IRDC, December 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8jjdulj","body":"IDRC and South Africa\u2019s National Research Foundation (NRF) have announced a new research chairs initiative. The OR Tambo Africa Research Chairs Initiative, named after Oliver Reginald Tambo, the pre-eminent South African leader and advocate of science and technology, will support up to 10 top researchers from across Africa over the next five years. Through international and regional strategic partnerships, the Chairs will contribute to the development of long-term mutually beneficial research collaborations on the continent. They will focus on world-class research in diverse fields and on training graduate students at leading universities in the 15 sub-Saharan African countries that make up the Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI), a collaboration between IDRC, NRF, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and the UK\u2019s Department for International Development. The application and selection process will be conducted using a two-phase approach coordinated by NRF, which will also manage the Chairs once awarded. The call for institutional expressions of interest was launched in December 2018 and the call for detailed chair-holder applications will be launched in May/June 2019. Councils participating in SGCI are expected to play a key role in the research and grants management, implementation, and sustainability of the Chairs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Oral cholera vaccination in hard-to-reach communities, Lake Chilwa, Malawi","field_subtitle":"Grandesso F; Rafael F; Chipeta S; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 96(12), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.17.206417, 2018","field_url":"https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/12/17-206417/en/","body":"This study aimed to evaluate vaccination coverage, identify reasons for non-vaccination and assess satisfaction with two innovative strategies for distributing second doses in an oral cholera vaccine campaign in 2016 in Lake Chilwa, Malawi, in response to a cholera outbreak. The authors performed a two-stage cluster survey. The population interviewed was divided in three strata according to the second-dose vaccine distribution strategy: (i) a standard strategy in 1477 individuals (68 clusters of 5 households) on the lake shores; (ii) a simplified cold-chain strategy in 1153 individuals (59 clusters of 5 households) on islands in the lake; and (iii) an out-of-cold-chain strategy in 295 fishermen (46 clusters of 5 to 15 fishermen) in floating homes, called zimboweras. Vaccination coverage with at least one dose was 79.5%, on the lake shores, 99.3% on the islands and 84.7%  on zimboweras. Coverage with two doses was 53.0%  91.1%  and 78.8%  in the three strata, respectively. The most common reason for non-vaccination was absence from home during the campaign. Most interviewees liked the novel distribution strategies. Vaccination coverage on the shores of Lake Chilwa was moderately high and the innovative distribution strategies tailored to people living on the lake provided adequate coverage, even among hard-to-reach communities. Community engagement and simplified delivery procedures were critical for success. Off-label, out-of-cold-chain administration of oral cholera vaccine should be considered as an effective strategy for achieving high coverage in hard-to-reach communities. Nevertheless, coverage and effectiveness must be monitored over the short and long term.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Spending on Health: A Closer Look at Global Trends","field_subtitle":"Xu K; Soucat A; Kutzin J; et al: World Health Organisation, Geneva, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9fph8cb","body":"The 2018 global health financing report presents health spending data for all WHO Member States between 2000 and 2016. It shows a transformation trajectory for the global spending on health, with increasing domestic public funding and declining external financing. This report also presents, for the first time, spending on primary health care and specific diseases and looks closely at the relationship between spending and service coverage. The report presents key messages: Global trends in health spending confirm the transformation of the world\u2019s funding of health services; domestic spending on health is central to universal health coverage, but there is no clear trend of increased government priority for health. Primary health care is a priority for expenditure tracking but Government spending accounts for less than 40% of primary health care spending. Allocations across disease and interventions differ between external and government sources. External funding to combat HIV/AIDS does not have a clear relationship with national prevalence or income level. The report argues that  the extent of financial protection of individuals is closely associated with government spending on health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Member States participate in 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence Campaign","field_subtitle":"Dambuza K: SADC Secretariat Monthly Newsletter 12, December 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9emyljb","body":"The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Member States joined the global community to raise their voices against gender based violence (GBV) during the 16 Days of Activism against GBV Campaign. This global Campaign runs from the 25 November to the 10 December of every year. For 2018, this Campaign was implemented under the global theme Orange Your World: #HearMeToo. The SADC Member States commemorated the 16 Days Campaign through localized themes and different activities involving stakeholders and the community. Key messages from some Members States are as follows: Botswana commemorated this Campaign day under the theme: \u201c#HearMeToo; End Violence Against Women and Children\u201d. His Excellency the President of Botswana Mokgweetsi Eric Keabetswe Masisi highlighted Botswana\u2019s commitment to various gender instruments among which is SADC Protocol on Gender and Development. Namibia used this Campaign to bring to the forefront the voices of women and girls who have survived violence and those who are defending women\u2019s rights. The Ministry of Family Affairs launched the 16 Days of Activism against GBV under a local theme of: \u201cOrange Seychelles: Say NO to Gender-Based Violence\u201d. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Temporal trends in the nutritional status of women and children under five years of age in sub-Saharan African countries: ecological study","field_subtitle":"Humbwavali J; Giugliani C; Silva I; Duncan B: Sao Paulo Medical Journal 136(5), 454-463, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9knm3tn","body":"This paper seeks to describe obesity trends among women of childbearing age over recent decades, along with trends in over and under nutrition among children under five years of age, in sub-Saharan African countries. An ecological study with temporal trend analysis in 13 sub-Saharan African countries was carried out covering trends in nutritional status such as adult obesity, childhood overweight, low height-for-age, low weight-for-height, low weight-for-age and low birth weight. Publicly available data from repeated cross-sectional national surveys were used. The authors chose 13 sub-Saharan African countries from which at least four surveys conducted since 1993 were available. The authors investigated women aged 15-49 years and children under five years of age. In multilevel linear models, the prevalence of obesity increased by an estimated 6 percentage points over 20 years among women of childbearing age, while the prevalence of overweight among children under 5 years old was stable. A major decrease in stunting and, to a lesser extent, wasting accompanied these findings. The upward trend in obesity among women of childbearing age in the context of highly prevalent childhood undernutrition suggests that the focus of maternal and child health in sub-Saharan Africa needs to be expanded to consider both nutritional deficiencies and nutritional excess.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The First FAO/WHO/AU International Conference on Food Safety: \u2018The Future of Food Safety: Transforming knowledge into action for people, economies and the environment\u2019","field_subtitle":"Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 12-13 February, 2018","field_url":"https://www.who.int/food-safety/international-food-safety-conference/","body":"Ongoing changes in climate, global food production and supply systems affect consumers, industry and the planet itself. These changes can have an impact on food safety systems and pose sustainability and development challenges. This is a pivotal moment demanding urgent reflection on actions needed to bolster food safety -the impetus for the two international meetings. At the Addis Ababa Conference, priorities will be discussed so that food safety strategies and approaches can be aligned across sectors and borders, reinforcing efforts to reach the SDGs and supporting the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition. Strategic actions will be defined through Ministerial panels involving health, trade and agriculture officials and experts thematic sessions covering the topics of: the burden of foodborne diseases and the benefits of investing in safe food; safe and sustainable food systems in an era of accelerated climate change; science, innovation and digital transformation at the service of food safety; empowering consumers to make healthy choices and support sustainable food systems. The conference will result in a high-level political statement advocating for increased and better coordinated collaboration and support to improve food safety globally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Trade, investment and public health: compiling the evidence, assembling the arguments","field_subtitle":"Labont\u00e9 B: Globalisation and Health 15(1), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-018-0425-y, 2019","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yccxqlo2","body":"Trade has long been an axiomatic characteristic of globalization, although international rules governing trade are of more recent vintage. In the post-World War II period, an increasing number of countries began negotiating treaties to reduce, first, tariff barriers and, later, non-tariff barriers (government measures of any sort) that could impede the cross-border flow of goods. The rationale, in part, was that countries that became more entwined economically would be less likely to go to war with each other. It wouldn\u2019t be in their own economic interests to do so, or at least that of the firms based within their borders but engaged in transnational trade and dependent upon global supply chains. At first primarily an undertaking in high-income countries, low and middle-income countries slowly enjoined in what, in 1995, became the World Trade Organization. The WTO locked in scheduled declines in tariffs (border taxes), albeit with lesser obligations on low income country members. Importantly, a slew of new agreements that coincided with the establishment of the WTO also sought to liberalize trade in services and not just goods in the General Agreement on Trade in Services, with new rules for agricultural trade,  expanded intellectual property rights protections and other agreements ensuring that government food, health, or environmental regulations would not pose an unnecessary barrier to trade. Outside of the WTO system, bilateral or regional investment treaties grant special rights to foreign investors to sue governments for actions perceived to affect the value of their investment similarly exploded in number, dispute frequency, and the size of monetary claims. The breadth and depth of these post-1995 Agreements meant that few areas of general public health concern are potentially untouched. Given mounting evidence that trade and investment liberalization was creating and globally diffusing new health risks, public health researchers began focusing on the specific measures in trade and investment treaties that created such risks, primarily but not exclusively through constraining the \u2018policy space\u2019 for new public health regulations. Globalization processes affect health through multiple pathways and not simply through those more directly linked via changes in health systems.  This issue explores the methods and issues that this poses for research on globalisation and health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Treatment Action Campaign celebrates two decades of fighting against the odds \u2014 and winning","field_subtitle":"Ho U: Daily Maverick, December 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yazxx8fe","body":"December 2018 marked the 20th anniversary of the birth of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC); a story that began with a T-shirt with the slogan \u201cHIV-positive\u201d and came to be a thorn in government\u2019s side, a symbol of hope for people dying from HIV/Aids and an icon of activism still needed in an age of democracy. Days before the protest that founded the TAC, co-founder Zackie Achmat had spoken at the funeral of Aids activist Simon Nkoli. He vowed to fight for access to treatment, knowing from his own experience that if the right medicines were affordable and accessible people would not be dying. Four days after that protest action, activist Gugu Dlamini, who had disclosed her HIV status publicly, speaking on radio in Zulu on World Aids Day, was beaten to death in KwaMashu. \u201cThose two events created the anger and passion that would become the momentum for organising and mobilising,\u201d says co-founder Mark Heywood. As one more person put on an \u201cHIV-positive\u201d T-shirt and stood to challenge HIV stigma, more people joined. Recruitment and empowerment came through a strong treatment literacy programme rooted in spreading the word from neighbour to neighbour, patient to patient. This patient-driven, community activism would become a hallmark of the movement. It meant that people could see the power and the purpose in marching to the opening of Parliament each year, taking part in in civil disobedience campaigns and joining rallies for AZT for pregnant women and pushing big pharmaceutical companies to make drugs available. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"United Towards Achieving Health For All in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Kariuku S; Chatterjee S: Reliefweb, 2018","field_url":"https://reliefweb.int/report/kenya/united-towards-achieving-health-all-kenya","body":"Of all the Sustainable Development Goals, few would rival good health as the definition of a country that has a sustainable, inclusive, peaceful and prosperous future. The authors observe that the launch in December 2018 of the pilot phase of Kenya\u2019s journey towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) heralds a major step towards that future. In Kenya, health-related expenses are driving about one million into poverty every year, and health care is second only in demand on family spending to food in family budgets. Kenya announced that UHC will involve scaling up immunization, prevention of water borne, vector borne, TB, HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, improving maternal and child health as well as nutrition of pregnant women. Kenya will also focus on prevention of non-communicable diseases like diabetes and hypertension. With Kenya\u2019s Vision 2030 ambition of providing a high quality of life to all its citizens, the most urgent need is argued to be that of ensuring that everyone stays healthy to participate in economic development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Using Health Committees to Promote Community Participation as a Social Determinant of the Right to Health: Lessons from Uganda and South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Mulumba M; London L; Nantaba J; Ngwena C: Health and Human Rights Journal 20(2), PMID: 30568398, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9s24oeg","body":" This paper provides perspectives from a three-year intervention whose general objective was to develop and test models of good practice for health committees in South Africa and Uganda. It describes the aspects that the authors found critical for enhancing the potential of such committees in driving community participation as a social determinant of the right to health.  Interventions in South Africa and Uganda indicate that community participation is not only a human right in itself but an essential social determinant of the right to health. The interventions show that health committees provide a mechanism that enables communities to be active and informed participants in the creation of a responsive health system that serves them efficiently. The results are argued to confirm the effectiveness of rights-based trainings and exchanges in strengthening committee members\u2019 sense of agency, their capacity to engage the health system, and their ability to exercise claims to health rights. They also contribute evidence of health committees\u2019 potential to play a critical role in advancing community participation as a social determinant of the right to health.\r\nThese participatory spaces are observed to bridge the gap between communities and health facilities, making services responsive to community needs and contributing to the realization of health as a human right.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"A Healthier Humanity: The WHO Investment Case for 2019-2023","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yavqzjvk","body":"This investment case describes how a stronger, more efficient and results oriented WHO can serve and guide governments and partners in their efforts to improve the health of their populations and to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3. The five years to 2023 will determine whether the world will achieve the health- related SDGs. WHO aims to achieve: One billion more people benefiting from Universal Health Coverage through improving access to quality essential health services, ensuring sustainable financing and availability of essential medicines, through qualified workforces, better governances and monitoring; One billion more people better protected from Health Emergencies through increasing preparedness, prevention, detection and response; One billion more people enjoying Better Health and Well-Being. Further, WHO commits to address specific health challenges through; improving human capital across the life course, noncommunicable disease prevention and mental health promotion, elimination and eradication of high-impact communicable diseases, tackling antimicrobial resistance and ensuring a healthy environment. WHO needs US$ 14.1 billion for 2019\u2013 2023 to deliver on the Triple Billion target, and drive impact in countries. This includes 2.5 billion for humanitarian and emergencies, 1.6 billion for polio eradication and 10.0 billion for the WHO base budget. Over the last decade WHO has seen a rise of earmarked voluntary contributions. Partners are requested to increase flexible sources available to WHO, including funding for strategic priorities and regional funding. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"A longitudinal review of national HIV policy and progress made in health facility implementation in Eastern Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Tlhajoane M; Masoka T; Mpandaguta E; Rhead R; et al: Health Research Policy and Systems 16 (92) 1-13, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9s59dqy","body":"In this longitudinal study from 2013 to 2015 the authors sought to establish how World Health Organization (WHO) HIV guidelines changes have been translated into national policy in Zimbabwe and to measure progress in implementation within local health facilities. National HIV programme policy guidelines published between 2003 and 2013 and 2014 and 2015 were reviewed to assess adoption of WHO recommendations on HIV testing services, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and provision of antiretroviral therapy (ART). Changes in local implementation of these policies over time were measured in two rounds of a survey conducted at 36 health facilities in Eastern Zimbabwe in 2013 and 2015. High levels of adoption of WHO guidance into national policy were recorded, including adoption of new recommendations made in 2013\u20132015. New strategies to implement national HIV policies were introduced such as the decentralisation of ART services from hospitals to clinics and task-shifting of care from doctors to nurses. The proportions of health facilities offering free HIV testing and counselling, prevention of mother-to-child transmission and ART services increased substantially from 2013 to 2015, despite reductions in numbers of health workers. Provision of provider-initiated HIV testing remained consistently high. At least one test-kit stock-out in the prior year was reported in most facilities. Stock-outs of first-line ART and prophylactic drugs for opportunistic infections remained low. Repeat testing for HIV-negative individuals within 3 months decreased. Laboratory testing remained low across both survey rounds, despite policy and operational guidelines to expand coverage of diagnostic services. Good progress has been made in implementing international guidance on HIV service delivery in Zimbabwe. The authors suggest that further novel implementation strategies may be needed to achieve the latest targets for universal ART eligibility.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Health","field_subtitle":"28 May- 30 May, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9fa87dt","body":"Africa Health gathers innovations in healthcare, from state-of-the-art imaging equipment to the most cost-effective disposables; developments in surgery to advances in prosthetics, coming in from more than 40 countries. The show is free to visit if one registers before 28 May 2019. Accompanying the exhibition is a number of business, leadership and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) conferences and workshops providing the very latest updates and insights into cutting edge procedures, techniques and skills. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for contributions \"Pesticide Politics in Africa\" ","field_subtitle":"Conference 29th-31st May 2019, Tropical Pesticide Research Institute (TPRI), Arusha, Tanzania","field_url":"http://iris.ehess.fr/index.php?4187","body":"The current economic boom in many sub-Saharan countries is accompanied by an unprecedented increase in noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) due to industrial pollution, including pesticides. While local and international mobilizations call for more stringent pesticide control measures, African governments often refrain from adopting and enforcing strict regulations \u2013 considered as potential obstacles to \u201cdevelopment\u201d. This interdisciplinary conference aims at laying the foundations for a long-term scientific cooperation between African and European scholars on the management of pesticide-related occupational and environmental health hazards in Africa. It aims at exploring the trade-offs between production and prevention that underlie the expansion of chemical-intensive agriculture on the continent, to understand the relations between technique, knowledge and power that condition the inclusion of African populations in the globalized economy, and to grasp the resulting health and environmental inequalities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Diabetes to be South Africa's leading killer by 2040, study shows","field_subtitle":"Kahn T: BusinessDay, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8urwbzt","body":"South Africans are likely to live, on average, seven years longer in 2040 than they do now, but the country will see only modest improvement in its global ranking as longevity increases worldwide, according to a study published in the Lancet. SA had an average life expectancy of 62.4 years in 2016, and ranked 171 among 195 countries. If recent health trends continue, SA could see life expectancy increasing to 69.3 years. But it will only rise two places in the global rankings, to 169, as life expectancy is expected to increase in most countries. The authors of the study forecast a range of scenarios for each country, which for SA show that life expectancy could increase by as much as 12.9 years to 75.3 years if the country stepped up its efforts to improve the health of the nation. But in the worst-case scenario, life expectancy could fall by as much as 8.1 years. The study forecast a large global shift in deaths from infectious diseases to deaths from noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, kidney disease and lung cancer. The top 10 causes of death in SA in 2016 were HIV/Aids, lower respiratory infections, road injuries, interpersonal violence, tuberculosis, diabetes, ischemic heart disease, diarrhoeal diseases, stroke and premature birth complications. By 2040, however, diabetes will be the leading cause of death, followed by road injuries, lower respiratory infections, HIV/AIDS, interpersonal violence, ischemic heart disease, tuberculosis, chronic kidney disease, stroke and diarrhoeal diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Empowering frontline providers to deliver universal primary healthcare using the Practical Approach to Care Kit","field_subtitle":"Fairall L; Cornick R; Bateman E: BMJ, doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k4451, 2018","field_url":"https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k4451","body":"Global efforts to strengthen primary healthcare are observed by the authors to have generally not focused on the critical interface between provider and patient but rather on policy, financing and infrastructure. Over the past two decades the Knowledge Translation Unit at the University of Cape Town has worked with government, academic, and non-governmental organisation partners to develop and evaluate health systems innovations that empower frontline providers. The unit developed the Practical Approach to Care Kit (PACK), a programme that covers primary healthcare needs across the life course. At the centre of the programme are concise clinical decision support tools (guides) comprising standardised and user friendly algorithms and checklists that provide a comprehensive and integrated approach to screening, diagnosing, and treating common symptoms and chronic conditions in adults, adolescents, and children. The accompanying training programme uses case-based, short training sessions delivered by existing health staff to support frontline providers and their teams. PACK provides decision support tools and training to support frontline providers in low and middle income countries. It prompts primary care health workers to claim \u201csystem agency\u201d based on an intervention that resonates with their primary identity as clinicians. The authors suggest that delivering on universal primary healthcare requires a change in investments to prioritise comprehensive approaches that can meet the changing burden of disease","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 214: Wishing you a creative, collaborative, healthy 2019","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluating health research priority-setting in low-income countries: a case study of health research priority-setting in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Kapiriri L; Schuster-Wallace C and Chanda-Kapata P: Health Research Policy and Systems 16(105) 1-12, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycp63b9p","body":"This paper describes and evaluates health research priority-setting in Zambia from the perspectives of key stakeholders using an internationally validated evaluation framework. This was a qualitative study based on 28 in-depth interviews with stakeholders who had participated in the priority-setting exercises. An interview guide was employed. Emerging themes were, in turn, compared to the framework parameters. Although there is apparent commitment to health research in Zambia, health research priority-setting is limited by lack of funding, and consistently used explicit and fair processes. The designated national research organisation and the availability of tools that have been validated and pilot tested within Zambia provide an opportunity for focused capacity strengthening for systematic prioritisation, monitoring and evaluation. The authors observe that the utility of the evaluation framework in Zambia could indicate potential usefulness in similar low-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploring power and privilege through photovoice","field_subtitle":"Ardrey J: Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Health Systems Global, UK","field_url":"http://healthsystemsresearch.org/hsr2018/news/exploring-power-and-privilege-through-photovoice/","body":"At the recent HSR2018 Symposium delegates explored how to challenge embedded power dynamics in health systems research through participatory methodologies. One of the innovations that the Local Organising Committee (LOC) introduced for HSR2018 was the inclusion in the programme of a multi-project Photovoice exhibition. Photovoice is a participatory action research methodology that involves the taking of images by individuals, the discussion and analysis of these images and the use of the images to communicate the lived experiences, strengths and challenges of the photographers. Colleagues commented that this was the largest health based Photovoice exhibition to date but more significant was the scope of the material displayed. The author argues that Photovoice exhibition activities are a great representation of the strength and challenges of using this visual participatory methodology. Using photos can promote the voice of the less powerful seems such a laudable and simple aim but it is important not to overlook the underlying power shifting aims of the methodology. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Free online course: Global Health and Disability: Leaving no one behind","field_subtitle":"International Centre for Evidence in Disability: UK, 2018","field_url":"https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/global-disability/4%C2%A0","body":"Around 15% of the world\u2019s population, or 1 billion people, live with some form of disability, with numbers continuing to rise over the coming decades. People with disabilities are often overlooked in national and international development, and can face widespread barriers in accessing services, including health and rehabilitation services, even though simple initiatives are available to enable access. This three week course aims to raise awareness about the importance of health and well-being of people with disabilities in the context of the global development agenda: Leaving no one behind. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Government resource contributions to the private-not-for-profit sector in Uganda: evolution, adaptations and implications for universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"Ssennyonjo A, Namakula J, Kasyaba R et al.: International Journal for Equity in Health https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-018-0843-8, 2018","field_url":"https://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-018-0843-8","body":"This case study examined government resource contributions (GRCs) to private-not-for-profit (PNFP) providers in Uganda. It focuses on Primary Health Care (PHC) grants to the largest non-profit provider network, the Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau (UCMB), from 1997 to 2015. The framework of complex adaptive systems was used to explain changes in resource contributions and the relationship between the Government and UCMB. Documents and key informant interviews with the important actors provided the main sources of qualitative data. Trends for GRCs and service outputs for the study period were constructed from existing databases used to monitor service inputs and outputs. The case study\u2019s findings were validated during two meetings with a broad set of stakeholders. Three major phases were identified in the evolution of GRCs and the relationship between the Government and UCMB: 1) Initiation, 2) Rapid increase in GRCs, and 3) Declining GRCs. The main factors affecting the relationship\u2019s evolution were: 1) Financial deficits at PNFP facilities, 2) advocacy by PNFP network leaders, 3) changes in the government financial resource envelope, 4) variations in the \u201cgood will\u201d of government actors, and 5) changes in donor funding modalities. Responses to the above dynamics included changes in user fees, operational costs of PNFPs, and government expectations of UCMB. Quantitative findings showed a progressive increase in service outputs despite the declining value of GRCs during the study period. The authors concluded that GRCs in Uganda have evolved influenced by various factors and the complex interactions between government and PNFPs. The Universal Health Coverage (UHC) agenda should pay attention to these factors and their interactions when shaping how governments work with PNFPs to advance UHC. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"How courts are failing the mentally ill","field_subtitle":"Kwagala P: New Vision, Uganda, 2018","field_url":"https://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1480232/courts-failing-mentally-ill","body":"The author outlines a court case in which the judgment raises concerns that some judicial officers hold deeply misguided notions regarding people with mental health issues, which deprives them of access to justice. Such attitudes are noted to not be restricted to judicial practitioners and discrimination to be nationwide. The judiciary as protectors of the rule of law are argued to be held to a higher standard. In 2014, Mental Health Uganda and Validity (formerly the Mental Disability Advocacy Centre \u2013 MDAC) published research uncovering widespread abuse, ill-treatment and appalling conditions in Uganda\u2019s regional mental health facilities as well as Butabika. The research also investigated the experiences of people in their communities. The report found that most people with mental health issues experience high levels of violence and neglect at the hands of community members and public officials. The lack of local community mental health and psychosocial support services meant that many found themselves pushed towards unregulated traditional and faith-based healers. Many people recounted having endured unspeakably cruel practices including chaining, cutting the skin, being tied to trees, beatings and daily, casual prejudice. The author argues that the law needs to ensure people can access consensual mental health treatment in the community, with the aim of supporting independence and social inclusion. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Mandela Institute for Development Studies Scholarship Programme: Fellowships and Scholarships","field_subtitle":"There is no deadline for submission","field_url":"https://minds-africa.org","body":"Mandela Institute for Development Studies is looking for individuals with a Pan-African outlook, strong leadership potential and a track record of academic excellence. Applications must demonstrate these elements convincingly. Mandela Institute for Development Studies encourages applicants to consider universities that are outside of South Africa. There are two scholarships available for South African citizens wishing to study elsewhere in Africa for studies that relate to Actuarial Sciences, Business Sciences and Accounting. Applicants who wish to conduct such studies at any of the South African, Kenyan and Nigerian institutions that are on the preferred list are encouraged to apply. There is no deadline for submission. Applicants - who meet the criteria - should apply as soon as they have all supporting documents needed submit the application. Mandela Institute for Development Studies will review applications as they are submitted and aim to award scholarships per different university cycles on the continent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Oral cholera vaccine coverage during a preventive door-to-door mass vaccination campaign in Nampula, Mozambique. ","field_subtitle":"Sema  Baltazar C; Rafael F; Langa J; Chicumbe S; et al: PLoS ONE 13(10) 1-13, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yc434jc5","body":"In October 2016, the Mozambique Ministry of Health implemented a mass vaccination campaign using a two- dose regimen of the ShancholTM OCV in six high-risk neighborhoods of Nampula city, in Northern Mozambique. Overall 193,403 people were targeted by the campaign, which used a door-to-door strategy. During campaign follow-up, a population survey was conducted to assess oral cholera vaccine coverage, frequency of adverse events following immunization, vaccine acceptability and reasons for non-vaccination. In the absence of a household listing and clear administrative neighborhood delimitations, the authors used geospatial technology to select households from satellite images and used the support of community leaders. One person per household was randomly selected for interview. In total, 636 individuals were enrolled in the survey. The overall vaccination coverage with at least one dose was 69.5% and the two-dose coverage was 51.2%. The campaign was well accepted. Among the 185 non-vaccinated individuals, 83 did not take the vaccine because they were absent when the vaccination team visited their houses. Among the 451 vaccinated individuals, 47 reported minor and non-specific complaints, and 78 mentioned they did not receive any information before the campaign.  In spite of overall coverage being slightly lower than expected, the use of a mobile door-to-door strategy remains a viable option even in densely-populated urban settings. The authors\u2019 results suggest that campaigns can be successfully implemented and well accepted in Mozambique in non-emergency contexts in order to prevent cholera outbreaks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory meetings in Harare on health and wellbeing of urban youth, 2016-7","field_subtitle":"Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC), Civic Forum on Human Development (CFHD): EQUINET, Harare","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/UH%20Lusaka%20Mtg%20Rep%20June2018%20fw_0.pdf","body":"TARSC as cluster lead of the \u201cEquity Watch\u201d work in EQUINET has been exploring these questions in east and southern African (ESA) countries, gathering diverse forms of evidence from literature review, analysis of quantitative data, internet searches on practices and a participatory validation amongst different social groups of youth in Harare and Lusaka. In Harare, TARSC worked with Civic Forum on Human Development (CFHD) and youth living in low density, medium income suburbs; in formal employment; in tertiary education; unemployed youth; youth in informal employment and in informal settlements. Briefs and reports capturing some of this work are available on the EQUINET website. This report compiles in one document the several rounds of participatory review and validation carried out in Harare with young people from low density, medium income suburbs; youth in formal employment; youth in tertiary education; unemployed youth; youth in informal employment and youth in informal settlements on their perceptions of health and wellbeing, the drivers of wellbeing in their areas,  the approaches and practices that  are and could be implemented to improve their wellbeing and  the implications for urban services, including for health systems.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Ready to deliver maternal and newborn care? Health providers\u2019 perceptions of their work context in rural Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Mocumbi S; McKee K; Munguambe K; Chiau R; et al: Global Health Action, 11(1) 1-13, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycl9wwa7","body":"In this paper, the authors investigated the comprehensibility and the internal reliability of Context Assessment for Community Health and its use to describe the healthcare context as perceived by health providers involved in maternal care in Mozambique. The cross-sectional survey using Context Assessment for Community Health, which contains 49 items assessing eight dimensions, was administered to 175 health providers in 38 health facilities within six districts in Mozambique. Analysis of the survey data indicated that items on all dimensions were rated highly, revealing positive perception of context. Significant differences between districts were found for the work culture, leadership, and Informal payment dimensions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Receding Malawi lake lays bare cost of climate change","field_subtitle":"AFP: Times Live, South Africa, 2018","field_url":"https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/africa/2018-11-27-receding-malawi-lake-lays-bare-cost-of-climate-change/","body":"Just four months ago, the fishing harbour at Kachulu on the western shores of Lake Chilwa in Malawi was bustling with fishermen and traders haggling over the catch of the day. Today hundreds of fishing boats sit marooned on cracked, dry mud as vultures fly above the shores of the once productive fishing zone 30 kilometres (19 miles) east of the southern African country's old capital Zomba. Julius Nkhata, a local villager, says the increasingly dramatic seasonal dry-out of the lake -- blamed by experts on man-made climate change -- has displaced local people and increased joblessness. One-and-a-half million people live in the areas on the Lake Chilwa basin, which is one of the most densely populated areas in southern Africa. Nixon Masi, a government fishery official at Chilwa, said a women's fish-drying cooperative that depends on the lake had been devastated. \"There is no fish. This has resulted in a big problem as the women from the cooperative have no source of income,\" he said. Of the initial 38 members, 21 have left to rebuild their lives elsewhere.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The International Health Regulations and health systems strengthening in east and southern Africa: A desk review","field_subtitle":"Machemedze R: EQUINET discussion paper 116, SEATINI, TARSC, EQUINET, Harare","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20IHR%20Diss%20116.pdf","body":"This review paper examines the extent to which the core, public health capacities developed for the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR) are also being applied in a manner that supports health systems strengthening (HSS). Produced under the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET), the paper reviews evidence on the IHR 2005 design, capacities and implementation on HSS in east and southern African countries, particularly in relation to: a. Capacities of community health and primary-level health personnel and service capacities, including health information systems to this level; b. Public health system capacities and functioning relevant to food safety; and c. Ensuring laboratory and pharmaceutical personnel capacities. The paper explores the synergies and opportunities being generated, or not, between investments in IHR implementations and these three areas of HSS in the 16 ESA countries covered by EQUINET. It identifies key weaknesses and challenges and highlights case studies of good practice within the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Transforming the workplace environment to prevent non-communicable chronic diseases: participatory action research in a South African power plant","field_subtitle":"Schouw D, Mash R, Kolbe-Alexander T: Global Health Action, 11:1, DOI: 10.1080/16549716.2018.1544336, 2018","field_url":"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16549716.2018.1544336","body":"The workplace is an important setting for the prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Policies for transformation of the workplace environment for occupational health and safety in South Africa have focused more on what to do and less on how to do it. There are no guidelines and little evidence on workplace-based interventions for NCDs. This study aimed to learn how to transform the workplace environment in order to prevent and control cardio-metabolic risk factors for NCDs amongst the workforce at a commercial power plant in Cape Town, South Africa. The study used participatory action research in the format of a cooperative inquiry group (CIG). The researcher and participants engaged in a cyclical process of planning, action, observation and reflection over a two-year period. The group used outcome mapping to define the vision, mission, boundary partners, outcomes and strategies required. At the end of the inquiry the CIG reached a consensus on their key learning. Substantial change was observed in the boundary partners: catering services (78% of progress markers achieved), sport and physical activities (75%), health and wellness services (66%) and managerial support (65%). Highlights from a 10-point consensus on key learning included the need for: authentic leadership; diverse composition and functioning of the CIG; value of outcome mapping; importance of managerial engagement in personal and organizational change; and making healthy lifestyle an easy choice. Transformation included a multifaceted approach and an engagement with the organization as a living system. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"What Are Governments Spending on Health in East and Southern Africa?","field_subtitle":"Piatti-F\u00fcnfkirchen M; Lindelow M; Yoo K: Health Systems and Reform, doi: 10.1080/23288604.2018.1510287, 2018","field_url":"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23288604.2018.1510287","body":"This article reviews trends and patterns of government spending in the East and Southern Africa region. It points out methodological challenges with interpreting data from the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) Global Health Expenditure Database (GHED) and other sources. Government expenditure for health has increased for most countries, albeit at a slower rate than gross domestic product (GDP). In most countries there has been a prioritization away from health in government budgets, putting the onus on the private sector and external funders to fill the gap. Reliance on external funding is important in the region but argued to be inconsistent with countries\u2019 stated ambitions of universal health coverage. A number of methodological challenges with estimating health expenditures are identified. Capturing health expenditures adequately across agencies and levels of decentralization can be challenging, and off-budget funds and arrears are evasive. Measurement error can be significant because actual expenditure information can be hard to come by and is often dated and unreliable. Furthermore, how external financing is captured will affect government health expenditure estimates. These factors have contributed to differences in expenditure estimates between WHO and country-specific public expenditure reviews and complicate interpretation. The article concludes that it is critical to strengthen national data capacity and international efforts to promote quality and consistency of data. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Wishing you a creative, collaborative, healthy 2019","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET  newsletter","field_url":"","body":"\r\nWe are starting a new year as the old one ended with a stark warning from Tedros Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general. \u201cWe cannot delay action on climate change. We cannot sleepwalk through this health emergency any longer.\u201d\r\n\r\nA Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change reports that global warming is affecting every aspect of human life, not only in terms of extremes of weather but in terms of falling food security and  access to safe drinking water and clean air. \r\n\r\nIn our region, where people are highly dependent on agriculture, vulnerable to drought and flooding and already facing a deficit in food security, safe water and clean energy, the impact is reported to be increasing already intense social inequality.  WHO estimates that almost one in four premature deaths in Africa have environmental causes, and that climate change is likely to increase the number of health emergencies and disease outbreaks.\r\n\r\nIn November this year, African ministers for health and environment adopted a ten-year framework to direct funds toward joint health and environment initiatives. The Strategic Action Plan to Scale Up Health and Environmental Interventions in Africa 2019-2029 is expected to promote government investment in addressing environmental problems that affect human health, such as air pollution, contamination of water sources, and ecosystem damage.\r\n\r\nThese are important commitments. But in our region most governments are not yet fulfilling the commitment they made in 2011 to allocate 15% of domestic government spending on health. Underfunded health sectors struggle to balance the demand for promotion, prevention and medical care and often retreat into the latter. \r\n\r\nClimate change demands global co-operation and resources. During the COP 16, the world's high income countries agreed to mobilize 100 billion US dollars per year by the year 2020 for adaptation and mitigation in low income countries, through a Green Climate Fund (GCF). We are nearly at 2020 and it is reported by IPS that only 10 billion US dollars has been mobilized so far since the establishment of the Fund in 2006.\r\n\r\nRaising the health consequences of climate change is an important lever for attention and action on these concerns. It should also be a means to put people, social justice and solidarity at the centre of this. The opposite is feared to be happening. For example, at the November World Innovation for Health Summit it was noted that effects such as \u2018environmental migrancy\u2019, as people move away from harsh conditions, and the competition for resources can generate self-protection and discrimination. Vandana Singh, author and professor urges that these challenges not make us surrender \u201cour imaginations, our creativity, our wonderful human capacity to work together, to negotiate and argue and brainstorm\u2014on the altar of fear\u201d.  The solutions to these complex issues are not simply technical. They are inherently social and thus political.\r\n\r\nSo on this and the many other challenges that will certainly confront us in 2019, we wish you righteous anger, imagination and creativity and deepening opportunities to work together, negotiate,  argue and brainstorm in the interest of our collective health and wellbeing. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2019-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":" CATCH","field_subtitle":"Rees-Roberts D; Cooke P: 2016","field_url":"http://www.catchshortfilm.com","body":"CATCH is a fictional short film about a father and daughter quarantined in their home in a post-antibiotic world. CATCH is set in a near future world where antibiotic resistance has made antibiotics useless. Although that is a real potential future, the producers argue that it is possible to work now to stop that future from happening. There are lots of simple things people can all do to try to avoid the post-antibiotic future portrayed in CATCH: Always wash hands when handling and preparing food to avoid cross-contamination, especially between raw and ready-prepared food. Never pressure a doctor for antibiotics, as antibiotics can only treat bacterial infections. Never take unprescribed antibiotics. Always finish a prescribed course of antibiotics. Never stop taking antibiotics before the course is finished as prescribed - even if one starts feel better, see it through to the end. Raise awareness about the issue of antibiotic resistance, and what communities can do to combat it. Talk to friends, family, colleagues, and local politicians!","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"An analysis of the nutrition status of neighboring Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations in Kanungu District, southwestern Uganda: Close proximity, distant health realities","field_subtitle":"Sauer J; Berrang-Ford L; Patterson K; Donnelly B: Social Science & Medicine 217, 55-64, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybhknqqx","body":"This paper analyzed the estimated prevalence, and modeled possible determinants of, moderate acute malnutrition and severe acute malnutrition (SAM) for Indigenous Batwa and non-Indigenous Bakiga of Kanungu District in Southwestern Uganda. The authors characterize possible mechanisms driving differences in malnutrition. Retrospective cross-sectional surveys were administered to 10 Batwa communities and 10 matched Bakiga Local Councils during April of 2014. Individuals were classified as moderate acute malnutrition and SAM based on middle upper-arm circumference for their age-sex strata. Malnutrition is high among Batwa children and adults, with nearly half of Batwa adults and nearly a quarter of Batwa children meeting moderate acute malnutrition criteria. SAM prevalence is lower than moderate acute malnutrition prevalence, with SAM highest among adult Batwa males. SAM prevalence among children was higher for Batwa males compared to Bakiga males. Models that incorporated community ethnicity explained the greatest variance in middle upper-arm circumference values. This research demonstrates inequality in malnutrition between the Indigenous Batwa and non-Indigenous Bakiga of Kanungu District, Uganda, with model results suggesting further investigation into the role of ethnicity as an upstream social determinant of health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Antibiotic resistance has a language problem","field_subtitle":"Mendelson M;  Balasegaram M; Jinks T: Nature, May 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y74aaesz","body":"Clinicians have long known that microbes such as bacteria, viruses and fungi are becoming alarmingly resistant to the medicines used to treat them. But a global response to this complex health threat \u2014 commonly termed 'antimicrobial resistance' \u2014 requires engagement from a much broader array of players, from governments, regulators and the public, to experts in health, food, the environment, economics, trade and industry. The authors argue that people from these disparate domains are talking past each other. Many of the terms routinely used to describe the problem are misunderstood, interpreted differently or loaded with unhelpful connotations. In 2017, the United Nations formed an interagency group to coordinate the fight against drug resistance urging that, as one of its first steps, the group coordinate a review of the terminology used by key actors. They proposed that drug-resistant infection be the overarching term used (in English) to describe infections caused by organisms that are resistant to treatment, including those caused by bacteria that do not respond to antibiotics. They also noted that a blame narrative is unhelpful, failing to acknowledge symbiotic relationships with bacteria. Because terminology has geographic, disciplinary and societal variations that affect understanding and interpretation, research is argued to be needed to optimize the lexicon across different countries and languages. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Botswana Labour Migrants Association (BoLAMA) ","field_subtitle":"BoLAMA: Botswana, 2018","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CguTMeTcusg","body":"Botswana Labour Migrants Association (BoLAMA) is a non-profit organization registered in accordance with the laws of Botswana. The organization is comprised of former migrant mineworkers and their beneficiaries. The organization provides assistance to ex-miners and their beneficiaries by facilitating their access to social security benefits most of which involves occupational compensation from mines. Among other issues BoLAMA works to address social determinants of TB in mining communities. TB is the leading cause of death among ex-miners and it contributes to the socio-economic status of ex-miners. BoLAMA\u2019s mandate is in line with various prescribes and targets set in global, continental, regional and national mining sector related instruments, protocols and frameworks. BoLAMA carries out its work under three (3) thematic areas:- extractives, labour migration and economic empowerment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for contributions \"Pesticide Politics in Africa\" ","field_subtitle":"Conference 29th-31st May 2019, Tropical Pesticide Research Institute (TPRI), Arusha, Tanzania","field_url":"http://iris.ehess.fr/index.php?4187","body":"The current economic boom in many sub-Saharan countries is accompanied by an unprecedented increase in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) due to industrial pollution, including pesticides. While local and international mobilizations call for more stringent pesticide control measures, African governments often refrain from adopting and enforcing strict regulations \u2013 considered as potential obstacles to \u201cdevelopment\u201d. This interdisciplinary conference aims at laying the foundations for a long-term scientific cooperation between African and European scholars on the management of pesticide-related occupational and environmental health hazards in Africa. It aims to explore the trade-offs between production and prevention that underlie the expansion of chemical-intensive agriculture on the continent, to understand the relations between technique, knowledge and power that condition the inclusion of African populations in the globalized economy, and to grasp the resulting health and environmental inequalities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Calling for a New Global Economic Order","field_subtitle":"PHM, Wemos: Astana, November 2018","field_url":"https://vimeo.com/297147040","body":"In 1978, the Alma-Ata International Conference on Primary Health Care stated, in its final declaration, that \u201ceconomic and social development, based on a New International Economic Order, is of basic importance to the fullest attainment of health for all.\u201d In Astana at the Cafe Session this video shares why this call is still relevant today and why it should be recalled and renewed now the world celebrates the 40th Anniversary of the Alma-Ata Declaration at the Global Conference on Primary Health Care in Astana, on 25-26 October. The film reminds that Primary Health Care is more than basic health care and some sort of financial protection but rather a radical comprehensive concept based on economic justice. The video calls for a new economic global order as was called for in 1978.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"CODESRIA 15th General Assembly. Theme: Africa And the Crisis of Globalization","field_subtitle":"17\u201321 December,2018, Dakar, Senegal","field_url":"https://codesria.org/generalassembly15/","body":"The CODESRIA General Assembly is a triennial gathering of scholars and academics drawn from the Social Sciences and Humanities in Africa and its Diaspora. On the back of the scientific sessions of the Assembly, a meeting of members who are in good standing will be held to review the functioning of the Council in the period since the 14th Assembly and decide the broad agenda to be pursued for the subsequent three years. Broad themes for the General Assembly include: Globalisation, its itinerary and iterations, Africa in the iterations of globalisation, Pan-Africanism and African regional integration, The African nation-state and globalization, Peace, security and Africa\u2019s geopolitics, Planning, policy processes and Africa\u2019s globalization, Globalisation and Africa\u2019s economic transformation and Globalization and Africa\u2019s changing ecology, amongst others. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Contracting-out primary health care services in Tanzania towards UHC: how policy processes and context influence policy design and implementation","field_subtitle":"Maluka S; Chitama D; Dungumaro E; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(118) 1-13, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y95ocexr","body":"This paper reports on the design and implementation of service agreements between local governments and non-state providers for the provision of primary health care services in Tanzania. The authors used qualitative analytical methods to study the Tanzanian experience with contracting- out. Data were drawn from document reviews and in-depth interviews with 39 key informants, including six interviews at the national and regional levels and 33 interviews at the district level. The institutional frameworks shaping the engagement of the government with non-state providers are rooted in Tanzania\u2019s long history of public-private partnerships in the health sector. Demand for contractual arrangements emerged from both the government and the faith-based organizations that manage non-state providers facilities. Development partners provided significant technical and financial support, signalling their approval of the approach. Although districts gained the mandate and power to make contractual agreements with non-state providers, financing the contracts remained largely dependent on external funds via central government budget support. Delays in reimbursements, limited financial and technical capacity of local government authorities and lack of trust between the government and private partners affected the implementation of the contractual arrangements. The authors indicate that Tanzania\u2019s central government needs to further develop the technical and financial capacity necessary to better support districts in establishing and financing contractual agreements with non-state providers for primary health care services; and that forums for continuous dialogue between the government and contracted non-state providers be fostered to clarify the expectations of all parties and resolve any misunderstandings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Data value and care value in the practice of health systems: A case study in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Hutchinson E; Nayiga S; Nabirye C; et al: Social Science & Medicine (211) 123-130, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycj8obej","body":"This paper interrogated the relationship between data collection and the delivery of patient care in Kayunga, Uganda in five public health centres. The authors undertook ethnographic research from July 2015 to September 2016 in health centres, at project workshops, meetings and training sessions. This included three months of observations by three fieldworkers, in-depth interviews with health workers and stakeholders and six focus group discussions with health workers. The authors observed that the attempt to improve data collection within health facilities transferred data-value into health centres with little consideration among project staff for its impact on care, and noted both acquiescence and resistance to data-value by health workers. The authors also described the rare moments when senior health workers reconciled these two forms of value, where care-value and data-value were enacted simultaneously. The authors suggest that those seeking to make changes in health systems must take into account local forms of value and devise health systems interventions that reinforce and enrich existing ethically driven practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 213: The African Continental Free Trade Agreement \u2013 what will it mean for our health?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Establishing Standards to Evaluate the Impact of Integrating Digital Health into Health Systems","field_subtitle":"Labrique A; Vasudevan L; Weiss W; et al: Global Health: Science and Practice 6(Supplement 1) S5-S17, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybvgusbs","body":"In this commentary, the authors summarize the key milestones in the rise of digital health, illustrating efforts to bridge gaps in the evidence base, a shifting focus to scale-up and sustainability, growing attention to the precise costing of these strategies, and an emergent implementation science agenda to better characterize the necessary ecosystem of scale\u2014the social, political, economic, legal, and ethical context that supports digital health implementation.  In 2016, WHO established a guidelines development group to assess current evidence and recommendations for digital strategies. The guidelines development process recommends strategies that are adequately supported by sufficient evidence but also highlights promising strategies that currently have a low threshold of evidence that require future research, with a particular eye toward health system integration of these strategies. The evidence base of digital health approaches that have been successfully scaled up is growing, and new technology and shared standards provide a framework that can decrease the risk and amplify the promises of digital health investments. The authors argue that digital health innovations are increasing accessibility, promoting transparency, and have the capacity to increase accountability\u2014all necessary facets of lasting health systems strengthening. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Government resource contributions to the private-not-for-profit sector in Uganda: evolution, adaptations and implications for universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"Ssennyonjo A; Namakula J; Kasyaba R; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(130) 1-12, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycbq3zqr","body":"In this paper, the authors examine government resource contributions (GRCs) to providers in Uganda focusing on Primary Health Care (PHC) grants to the largest non-profit provider network, the Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau (UCMB), from 1997 to 2015. The framework of complex adaptive systems was used to explain changes in resource contributions and the relationship between the Government and UCMB. Documents and key informant interviews with the important actors provided the main sources of qualitative data. Trends for government resource contributions (GRCs) and service outputs for the study period were constructed from existing databases used to monitor service inputs and outputs. The case study\u2019s findings were validated during two meetings with a broad set of stakeholders. Three major phases were identified in the evolution of GRCs and the relationship between the Government and UCMB initiation, rapid increase in GRCs, and declining GRCs. The main factors affecting the relationship\u2019s evolution were: financial deficits at private-not-for-profit (PNFP) facilities, advocacy by PNFP network leaders, changes in the government financial resource envelope, variations in the \u201cgood will\u201d of government actors, and changes in donor funding modalities. Responses to the above dynamics included changes in user fees, operational costs of PNFPs, and government expectations of UCMB. Quantitative findings showed a progressive increase in service outputs despite the declining value of GRCs during the study period. GRCs in Uganda have evolved influenced by various factors and the complex interactions between government and PNFPs. The authors argue that the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) agenda should pay attention to these factors and their interactions when shaping how governments work with PNFPs to advance UHC. GRCs could be leveraged to mitigate the financial burden on communities served by PNFPs. They further suggest that governments seeking to advance UHC goals should explore policies to expand GRCs and other modalities to subsidize the operational costs of PNFPs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Heads of State commit to lead response to beat noncommunicable diseases, promote mental health","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9brxbkd","body":"Heads of state and government in September 2018 committed to 13 new steps to tackle non-communicable diseases including cancers, heart and lung diseases, stroke, and diabetes, and to promote mental health and well-being. World leaders agreed to take responsibility themselves for their countries\u2019 effort to prevent and treat NCDs. They also agreed that these efforts should include robust laws and fiscal measures to protect people from tobacco, unhealthy foods, and other harmful products, for example by restricting alcohol advertising, banning smoking, and taxing sugary drinks. They committed to implement a series of WHO-recommended policies to prevent and control of NCDs - such as public education and awareness campaigns to promote healthier lifestyles, vaccinating against HPV virus to protect against cervical cancer and treating hypertension and diabetes. WHO estimates that implementing all these policies could generate US$ 350 billion in economic growth in low and lower-middle-income countries between now and 2030. Other specific commitments focus on halting the rise of childhood obesity, promoting regular physical activity, reducing air pollution and improving mental health and wellbeing. The political declaration reaffirms WHO\u2019s global leadership of the fight to beat NCDs and promote mental health, and urges the Organization to continue working closely with key partners, including government, civil society and the private sector. In particular, it calls on food manufacturers to take several actions. These include reformulating products to reduce salt, free sugars and saturated and industrially produced trans fats, using nutrition labelling on packaged food to inform consumers, and restricting the marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health system reforms in five sub-Saharan African countries that experienced major armed conflicts (wars) during 1990\u20132015: a literature review","field_subtitle":"Chol C; Negin J; Garcia-Basteiro; et al: Global Health Action 11(1), doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/16549716.2018.1517931, 2018","field_url":"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16549716.2018.1517931","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has had more major armed conflicts (wars) in the past two decades \u2013 including 13 wars during 1990\u20132015 \u2013 than any other part of the world, and this has had an adverse effect on health systems in the region. This study aimed to understand the best health system practices in five SSA countries that experienced wars during 1990\u20132015, and yet managed to achieve a maternal mortality reduction \u2013 equal to or greater than 50% during the same period \u2013 according to the Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group (MMEIG). The study showed three general health system reforms across all five countries that could explain MMR reduction: health systems decentralisation, the innovation related to the WHO workforce health system building block such as training of community healthcare workers, and governments-financing reforms. Restoring health systems after disasters is an urgent concern, especially in countries that have experienced wars. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"IIEP-UNESCO Call for Expressions of Interest for National Researchers in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 31 December 2018","field_url":"http://www.iiep.unesco.org","body":"IIEP, UNESCO\u2019s International Institute for Educational Planning, has issued a call for expressions of interest for national researchers in Sub-Saharan Africa to collaborate in a research project on Use of Learning Assessment Data in the Planning Cycle. The project will explore how countries in this region use learning data produced by large-scale international, regional and national assessments; see how they are used in different phases of the education planning cycle; examine the intended use of these data as foreseen in regulatory documents and the discrepancies between this and observed uses; and explore factors that influence the use of assessment data with a particular focus on elements linked to the political economy of actors. It will take a wider look at the information ecosystem that surrounds learning data, analysing how it is interpreted and considered together with other evidence. IIEP-UNESCO will conduct a number of case studies in Sub-Saharan Africa countries to provide a qualitative comparative analysis and to generate knowledge and recommendations that would inform the work of national officers and international partners. The Institute has put out a call for expressions of interest to work with national researchers from Sub-Saharan Africa universities and institutes in the implementation of this project in conducting a case study in one of the countries in the region. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Moving towards universal health coverage: engaging non-state providers","field_subtitle":"Rao K; Paina L; Ingabire M; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(127) 1-9, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycb8ca5y","body":"This paper provides a unique opportunity to understand the dynamics of non-state providers (NSP) engagement in different contexts. A standard template was developed and used to summarize the main findings from the country studies. The summaries were then organized according to emergent themes and a narrative built around these themes. Governments contracted NSPs for a variety of reasons \u2013 limited public sector capacity, inability of public sector services to reach certain populations or geographic areas, and the widespread presence of NSPs in the health sector. Underlying these reasons was a recognition that purchasing services from NSPs was necessary to increase coverage of health services. Yet, institutional NSPs faced many service delivery challenges. Like the public sector, institutional NSPs faced challenges in recruiting and retaining health workers, and ensuring service quality. Properly managing relationships between all actors involved was critical to contracting success and the role of NSPs as strategic partners in achieving national health goals. Further, the relationship between the central and lower administrative levels in contract management, as well as government stewardship capacity for monitoring contractual performance were vital for NSP performance. The authors suggest that for countries with a sizeable NSP sector, making full use of the available human and other resources by contracting NSPs and appropriately managing them, offers an important way for expanding coverage of publicly financed health services and moving towards universal health coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"New Global Commitment to Primary Health Care for all at Astana Conference","field_subtitle":"Fernandez M: UNICEF, New York, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8tjdw7f","body":"In October 2018, United Nations Member States unanimously agreed to the Declaration of Astana, vowing to strengthen their primary health care systems as an essential step toward achieving universal health coverage. The Declaration of Astana reaffirms the historic 1978 Declaration of Alma-Ata, the first time world leaders committed to primary health care. The Declaration of Astana comes amid a growing global movement for greater investment in primary health care to achieve universal health coverage. Health resources have been overwhelmingly focused on single disease interventions rather than strong, comprehensive health systems \u2013 a gap highlighted by several health emergencies in recent years. The author reports that UNICEF and WHO will help governments and civil society to act on the Declaration of Astana and encourage them to back the movement and will support countries in reviewing the implementation of this Declaration, in cooperation with other partners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"New resources added to the PAR portal","field_subtitle":"EQUINET pra4equity network","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/portal-resources-participatory-action-research","body":"New resources have been added to the Participatory Action Research Portal. The portal has resources on Participatory Action Research (PAR) with a growing number of resources on PAR related to training courses, training guides and reports of training activities; methods, tools and ethics; PAR work and journal publications on PAR. The portal is a resource for all those working with PAR and includes resources in any language. There is a form for people to send videos, photojournalism, organisations, journal papers, training guides and other resources for the portal. The url link shown here is in English but there is also a Spanish version at http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/portal-de-recursos-para-la-investigaci%C3%B3n-acci%C3%B3n-participativa-iap","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy brief on the implementation of devolution in Zimbabwe: recommendations on the structure / composition, functions and funding of Provincial and Metropolitan Councils (PMCs)","field_subtitle":"Centre for Community Development In Zimbabwe, Harare Residents Trust: Harare, November 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ya57gllb","body":"This brief was developed in consultation with key local government stakeholders. It provides an outline of key concerns and issues regarding devolution and proffers recommendations for consideration by government and parliament in crafting the new legislation to guide the implementation of devolution in Zimbabwe. The issue of devolution is topical and government has indicated its commitment to implementing it. However, the delay in the crafting of legislation to guide devolution is a serious cause for concern for citizens and other local government stakeholders. The devolution of power to local and provincial councils helps to achieve fair and balanced development through provincial and metropolitan councils, which are allowed by the Constitution to set local development priorities. The authors argue that governmental powers must be devolved to the local people so that there is increased transparency and accountability in governance and decision-making as well as management of public affairs and resources by local authorities. Provincial governments must be fully in control of their local authorities whilst central government plays an oversight role to ensure that public resources are used in a transparent manner.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Reflecting strategic and conforming gendered experiences of community health workers using photovoice in rural Wakiso district, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Musoke D; Ssemugabo C; Ndejjo R; et al: Human Resources for Health 16(41) 1-9, 2018 ","field_url":"https://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12960-018-0306-8","body":"This paper explores the differential roles of male and female Community health workers (CHWs)in rural Wakiso district, Uganda, using photovoice, a community-based participatory research approach. The authors trained ten CHWs on key concepts about gender and photovoice. The CHWs took photographs for 5 months on their gender-related roles which were discussed in monthly meetings. The discussions from the meetings were recorded, transcribed, and translated to English, and emerging data were analysed using content analysis. Although responsibilities were the same for both male and female CHWs, they reported that in practice, CHWs were predominantly involved in different types of work depending on their gender. Social norms led to men being more comfortable seeking care from male CHWs and females turning to female CHWs. Due to their privileged ownership and access to motorcycles, male CHWs were noted to be able to assist patients faster with referrals to facilities during health emergencies, cover larger geographic distances during community mobilization activities, and take up supervisory responsibilities. Due to the gendered division of labour in communities, male CHWs were also observed to be more involved in manual work such as cleaning wells. The gendered division of labour also reinforced female caregiving roles related to child care, and also made female CHWs more available to address local problems. CHWs reflected both strategic and conformist gendered implications of their community work. The authors argue that the differing roles and perspectives about the nature of male and female CHWs while performing their roles should be considered while designing and implementing CHW programmes, without further retrenching gender inequalities or norms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Results-based financing in health: from evidence to implementation","field_subtitle":"McIsaac M: Kutzin J: Dale E; Soucat A: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 96(11), 729-796, 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/11/18-222968/en/","body":"Results-based financing for health programmes are being piloted in many low- and middle-income countries. While the term results-based financing refers to demand- and supply-side incentives to increase output \u2013 that is, improved access to and quality of health care \u2013 this editorial focuses on the incentives that target service providers, also referred to as performance-based financing or pay-for-performance.  A study in Zambia concluded that the pay-for-performance intervention was cost\u2013effective. However, cost\u2013effectiveness is not the most interesting point of this study, as four policy relevant lessons emerge. First, any output-based provider payment method requires some method of verification. In Zambia, setting up verification mechanisms required new investments, as before the pilot, providers were paid based on inputs. The estimates of the costs of the programme in Zambia, although annualized, are based on only 2.3 years of experience. Given that it is a new programme, one would expect that pay-for-performance verification costs would decline over time. Second, approaching pay-for-performance as an either-or choice of financing is no longer the only frame of reference. The substantive question is how to integrate elements of performance into the mixed provider payment system. Third, as described in the overall evaluation of the project, the direct disbursement of funds to facility bank accounts in the pay-for-performance group was a key ingredient for ensuring better service delivery. Fourth, facility financial autonomy supported by pay-for-performance was found to be key for ensuring progress towards strategic purchasing in Zambia. If balanced with clear accountability for both good results and the use of funds, it should be promoted. In shifting towards mixed provider payment methods with timely disbursement of funds and greater financial autonomy by front-line providers, the budgeting processes need to be considered. In countries such as Zambia, where budgets are mainly formulated, approved and executed based on detailed input lines, the authors argue that shifting to payments based on performance could be challenging. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Role of maternity waiting homes in the reduction of maternal death and stillbirth in developing countries and its contribution for maternal death reduction in Ethiopia: a systematic review and meta-analysis","field_subtitle":"Dadi T; Bekele B; Kasaye H; et al: BMC Health Services Research 18(748)1-10, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8ko8l55","body":"This study synthesised the best available evidence on effectiveness of maternity waiting homes on the reduction of maternal mortality and stillbirth in developing countries. In developing countries, maternity waiting homes users were 80% less likely to die than non-users and there was 73% less occurrence of stillbirth among users. In Ethiopia, there was a 91% reduction of maternal death among maternity waiting homes users unlike non-users and it contributes to the reduction of 83% stillbirth unlike non-users. Maternity waiting home contributes more than 80% to the reduction of maternal death among users in developing countries and Ethiopia. Its contribution for reduction of stillbirth is good. More than 70% of stillbirth is reduced among the users of maternity waiting homes. In Ethiopia maternity waiting homes contributes to the reduction of more than two third of stillbirths.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Seeds of Resistance, Harvests of Hope: Farmers halt a land grab in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Wise T: Food Tank, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ya8fedo7","body":"On July 26, 2018, farmers in Xai-Xai, Mozambique, achieved a milestone. They met to formalize their new farmers\u2019 association, elect leaders, and prepare a petition to the local government for land. The association, christened Tsakane, which means \u201chappy\u201d in the local Changana language, was the culmination of six years of resistance to a Chinese land grab that had sparked protest and outrage. The association now has a request pending for its own land. The difference between a large-scale agricultural development project and a land grab is consultation and consent, and this one had neither. Some 7,000 farmers had moved onto the irrigated lands along the Lower Limpopo River in the 1980s after a state farm ceased operations. Farmers reported that they were encouraged to do so by the local government. Mozambique\u2019s Land Law is one of the most progressive in Africa, recognizing the land rights of peasant farmers whether or not they can show formal title, as long as they have been farming the land for 10 years or more. That applies not only to community or village land, it applies to estate land for which the government holds the formal land title. Instead of giving all the best land and infrastructure\u2014particularly irrigation\u2014to foreign investors who then displace local farmers, they ask why not give the land to those farmers? Help them organize into marketing cooperatives, water use associations, and credit unions. With the formal recognition of the Tsakane Farmers\u2019 Association, the Xai-Xai farmers are planning to do just that. They hope to get collective land title to 750 acres of good land for their 300 members.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Health Review 2019 Call for Abstracts","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submission of abstracts: 14 December 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yadryovh","body":"The South African Health Review (SAHR) is an accredited peer reviewed publication.  The aims of the SAHR are to advance the sharing of knowledge, to feature critical commentary on policy implementation, and to offer empirical understandings for improving South Africa's health system. The editors are pleased to announce that the call for abstracts for the 2019 edition of the SAHR is now open.  Abstracts providing fresh insights into health systems strengthening efforts supporting the realisation of universal health coverage in South Africa are particularly sought.  Preference will be given to manuscripts that take cognisance of the World Health Organization's six building blocks for an effective, efficient and equitable health system. In addition to a primary call for abstracts, there are two other opportunities for potential authors. The first is the launch of the inaugural Healthcare Workers Writing Development Programme offering writing skills training and ongoing coaching throughout the publication process for identified first time authors. Healthcare workers who are interested in contributing to the SAHR and sharing their insights into the challenges and successes of implementation are encouraged to submit an abstract. Further details about this call will be available in January 2019. The second is the annual Emerging Public Health Care Practitioner Award (EPHPA) which is open to South African citizens under the age of 35, who are at Masters' level or below.  Applications for this award will open in February 2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The African Continental Free Trade Agreement \u2013 what will it mean for our health?","field_subtitle":"Rangarirai Machemedze, SEATINI","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn March 2018, when African Union leaders in Rwanda signed the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), there was much talk about it being a new chapter for the continent in furthering the socio-economic integration enshrined in the 1991 Abuja Treaty. It\u2019s important therefore to ask- what implications does it have for health equity?\r\n\r\nThe agreement establishes a free trade area between African countries, liberalising 90% of trade in goods between countries, removing import duties on goods originating from African countries to enhance trade between them. On the one hand this can potentially promote sustained economic progress, with potential health gains if it offers benefits to all local producers, including small scale producers, and if the economic benefits are equitably distributed. On the other hand it can lead to risks to health if the laws and institutional mechanisms protecting health in cross border trade are not adequate.\r\n\r\nOne way to predict what the impacts of the AfCFTA may be on health is to examine what happened in previous trade liberalization experiences, specifically those in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank led Structural Adjustment Programmes. These trade liberalisation policies were implemented across Africa in a context of weak safety nets and protection of public sector services, including in health, education and agriculture. The decline of these services and economic inequality that arose after that experience raise questions on how the AfCFTA will be implemented. \r\n\r\nSupporting a health sector calls for a range of areas of value-added production, such as for medicines and technologies. Our economies have still weak development of these areas of production and tend to import them, while exporting more or less the same products.  So will the AfCFTA be accompanied by measures to promote investment for value added production in an organised collaborative manner, such as for infrastructures, equipment, technology and medicines for the health sector? Given that prior liberalisation policies have been accompanied by cost escalation for the ordinary person, will it assess and take as a measure of its progress a fall for the population in the price of essential medicines, commodities and services for health? \r\n\r\nMost African countries have porous borders and many have weak capacities to check the quality and safety of goods crossing borders. When unsafe food products, chemicals, alcohol and other products that could harm health are poorly checked at borders there is a risk to public health. So too is the risk to health of cross border movement of substandard medicines. There are already reports by WHO of such medicines appearing in markets in some of our countries. Competition and wider markets provide a potentially health incentive for reducing prices of goods,  so the AfCFTA could enhance access to low cost generic drugs from efficient producers within the continent. This benefit and the control of public health risk from harmful products and unsafe foods calls, however for significantly improved port health capacities in all our countries to accompany the flow of goods. Will the AfCFTA thus include specific measures to enhance these capacities in line with the International Health Regulations, and apply them at all the various points where goods cross borders?\r\n\r\nIf the AfCFTA promotes the freer movement of personnel, it could enhance availability and possibly accessibility of skilled personnel, including health workers, especially for countries experiencing acute shortages. But it could also do the opposite, as we have already experienced in our countries, where skilled health professionals are pushed or pulled to higher income areas and services, further deepening existing inequalities in their distribution. And the movement of people itself has the potential to spread disease across countries. So will the AfCFTA be introduced together with measures for training and resourcing personnel to manage the cross border spread of infection and to enhance equity within the continental access to skilled health workers?\r\nThe liberalisation of trade holds the promise of wider access to new goods and services, and to the spread of innovation across the continent. This can be very positive for health. At the same time changes in dietary patterns, employment conditions, physical environments and lifestyles can change consumption patterns in ways that are not always healthy. We have seen the consequences of this in the negative effect of consumption of processed foods and sweetened products in levels of obesity and diabetes for example. Our countries need strong public health laws and capacities and good communication capacities to manage such issues and avoid the epidemic of non-communicable diseases that has been witnessed in other regions. \r\n\r\nThe AfCFTA will certainly lead to changes in production and industries with implications for incomes and public revenues. As tariffs that protect domestic industries are removed, they are exposed to competition. If they have the capital and capacity to manage the change they may succeed, but if not they may close. For the public the question may thus be \u201cwhat will happen to my job and my income?\u201d Without adequate social security schemes in the continent, any significant negative shifts in jobs and incomes for countries who become net importers rather than net producers could be very harmful for health. \r\n\r\nGiven that import duties will be eliminated on 90% of goods traded between countries the public sector will lose the revenues generated from these import duties. Countries will thus need to diversify their sources of revenue. For some the growth in production may generate new tax revenue, for others that do not see the same production growth, their tax revenues may fall.  As we have seen in the structural adjustment programmes, when this happens public health budgets are cut, with increasing dependency on external funders for the right to health care. As our countries intend to mobilise domestic financing for universal health coverage, what plans are there associated with the AfCFTA to make sure that it doesn\u2019t lead to widening inequality in achieving this across the continent?\r\n\r\nThe AfCFTA could be a tool for fostering south-south cooperation on the continent, with a range of potential benefits for health. Countries could provide mutual support to strengthen areas of inadequacies and reduce inequalities across the continent. However, the issues raised above indicate that trade alone cannot achieve this without complementary measures to ensure wider benefits within and between countries, cooperation on production of health commodities and technologies, and strengthened capacities and measures to protect public health. As the negotiations to finalise the texts and implementation continue, it is imperative that the health sector takes an active role, not only to understand the implications of the AfCFTA, but to negotiate for measures in it that will safeguard the health of the people.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the AfCFTA text see https://www.tralac.org/documents/resources/african-union/1964-agreement-establishing-the-afcfta-consolidated-text-signed-21-march-2018-1/file.html","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The health system accountability impact of prison health committees in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Topp S; Sharma A; Chileshe C; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(74) 1-13, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yad62xyr","body":"From 2013, the Zambian Corrections Service (ZCS) worked with partners to strengthen prison health systems and services. One component of that work led to the establishment of facility-based Prison Health Committees (PrHCs) comprising of both inmates and officers. The authors present findings from a nested evaluation of the impact of eight PrHCs 18 months after programme initiation. In-depth-interviews were conducted with 11 government ministry and Zambia Corrections Service officials and 6 facility managers. Sixteen focus group discussions were convened separately with Prison Health Committees members and non-members in 8 facilities. Memos were generated from participant observation in workshops and meetings preceding and after implementation. The authors sought evidence of Prison Health Committees impact, refined with reference to Joshi\u2019s three domains of impact for social accountability interventions in state, society, and state-society relations. Further analysis considered how project outcomes influenced structural dimensions of power, ability and justice relating to accountability. Data pointed to a compelling series of short- and mid-term outcomes, with positive impact on access to, and provision of, health services across most facilities. Inmates reported being empowered via a combination of improved health literacy and committee members\u2019 newly-given authority to seek official redress for complaints and concerns. Inmates and officers described committees as improving inmate-officer relations by providing a forum for information exchange and shared decision making. Contributing factors included more consistent inmate-officer communications through committee meetings, which in turn enhanced trust and co-production of solutions to health problems. Nonetheless, long-term sustainability of accountability impacts may be undermined by permanently skewed power relations, high rates of inmate turnover, variable commitment from some officers in-charge, and the anticipated need for more oversight and resources to maintain members\u2019 skills and morale. The authors showed that Prison Health Committees do have potential to facilitate improved social accountability in both state and societal domains and at their intersection, for an extremely vulnerable population. However, sustained and meaningful change will depend on a longer-term strategy that integrates structural reform and is delivered through meaningful cross-sectoral partnership.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The problem or the solution? Early fertility and parenthood in the transition to adulthood in Khayelitsha, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Swartz A; Christopher C; Harrison A: Reproductive Health Matters 16(32), doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/09688080.2018.1537417, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycvts56c","body":"This article draws on ethnographic data collected between 2014 and early 2016 with young adults (17-25 years) in Town Two, Khayelitsha. Participant observation was the primary data collection method. Narratives and experiences of 15 young people are presented here. The authors argue that in addition to immediate fertility desires, young people\u2019s contraceptive decision-making was significantly shaped by gendered ideals and social norms. Young women\u2019s fertility operated as both an aspiration and a threat within partnerships. Some couples partially achieved relationship stability or longevity through having a child. Entering parenthood in the context of a seemingly stable relationship was perceived as a movement towards an accepted, albeit tenuous, form of social adulthood. Although living up to the ideal of good parent was challenging, it was partially achieved by young mothers who provided care and young fathers who provided financially for children. The authors argue that in the absence of other accepted markers of transition to adulthood and within a context of deprivation and exclusion, early fertility, though clearly a public health problem, can become a solution to social circumstances.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The use of low-cost Android tablets to train community health workers in Mukono, Uganda, in the recognition, treatment and prevention of pneumonia in children under five: a pilot randomised controlled trial","field_subtitle":"O\u2019Donovan J; Taylor C; Chukhina M; et al: Human Resources for Health 16(49) 1-9, 2018  ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yafr6rv7","body":"This pilot study compares traditional training with using locally made videos loaded onto low-cost Android tablets to train community health workers (CHWs)on the pneumonia component of Integrated Community Case Management (iCCM). The authors conducted a pilot randomised controlled trial with CHWs in the Mukono District of Uganda. The unit of randomisation was the sub-county level, and the unit of analysis was at the level of the individual CHW. Eligible CHWs had completed basic iCCM training but had not received any refresher training on the pneumonia component of iCCM in the preceding 2 years. CHWs in the control group received training in the recognition, treatment, and prevention of pneumonia as it is currently delivered, through a 1-day, in-person workshop. CHWs allocated to the intervention group received training via locally made educational videos hosted on low-cost Android tablets. The primary outcome was change in knowledge acquisition, assessed through a multiple-choice questionnaire before and after training, and a post-training clinical assessment. The secondary outcome was a qualitative evaluation of CHW experiences of using the tablet platform. In the study, 129 CHWs were enrolled, 66 and 63 in the control and intervention groups respectively. CHWs in both groups demonstrated an improvement in multiple choice question test scores before and after training; however, there was no statistically significant difference in the improvement between groups. There was a statistically significant positive correlation linking years of education to improvement in test scores in the control group, which was not present in the intervention group. The majority of CHWs expressed satisfaction with the use of tablets as a training tool; however, some reported technical issues. The authors note that tablet-based training is comparable to traditional training in terms of knowledge acquisition. It also proved to be feasible and a satisfactory means of delivering training to CHWs. They argue that further research is required to understand the impacts of scaling such an intervention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Toolkit for International Universal Health Coverage Day ","field_subtitle":"UHC2030 & 12.12 Coordination Group: December 2018","field_url":"http://universalhealthcoverageday.org/","body":"Universal health coverage (UHC) ensures all people, everywhere, can access the quality health services they need without suffering financial hardship.  World leaders have agreed: every person\u2014no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money they have\u2014should be able to access quality health services without suffering financial hardship. To achieve this vision of universal health coverage by 2030, there is a need for collective action now to build strong, equitable health systems in every country. The UHC2030 & 12.12 Coordination Group have built a toolkit to use to promote these goals. It provides actions for policy makers, civil society and individuals, resources to share in communities around the world and key messages to share on social media. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"UN International Day For Older Persons Celebrated In Marondera, Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"263 Chat: Marondera, Zimbabwe, November 2018,","field_url":"https://263chat.com/un-international-day-for-older-persons-celebrated-in-marondera/","body":"The United Nations International Day for Older Persons falls on 1 October every year. This year it was commemorated under the theme celebrating older human rights champions. Belated commemorations were held on Friday 23 November 2018 at Mahusekwa district hospital in Marondera, Zimbabwe.  Representatives from the District Administrator\u2019s office, the Ministry of Public Service Labour and Social Services, Ministry of Health and Child Care, the National Age Network of Zimbabwe (NANZ), chiefs, the private sector, NGOs, older people representative organisations and older people champions among others were in attendance. In line with celebrating older human rights champions the event was run and owned by older persons with Gogo Mufuta and Gogo Nyamande sharing the master of ceremonies platform.  Speeches centred on the important role that older people play in society emphasising their role as custodians of culture. Older people were also noted to be key carers of orphaned and vulnerable children. Dr Guvheya, the former chairman of the Zimbabwe Older Persons Association (ZOPO) praised the constitution which enshrines the rights of older people. He challenged government to operationalize provisions of the constitution and other pieces of legislation to enable older people to enjoy their rights. Dr Guvheya also spoke about the challenges faced by older people, including witchcraft accusations and property grabbing.  He lamented on the current environment where pharmacies are demanding payment in foreign currency for medicines. This point was emphasised throughout the day as older people are in need of holistic health care and support as many are living with diseases including HIV, cancer, diabetes and dementia yet they have lost the capacity to generate income to access health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Who are the male partners of adolescent girls and young women in Swaziland? Analysis of survey data from community venues across 19 DREAMS districts","field_subtitle":"Reynolds Z; Gottert A; Luben E; et al: PLOS One, doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0203208, 2017","field_url":"https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0203208","body":"Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW, ages 15\u201324) are at high risk of HIV in Swaziland and understanding more about their male sexual partners can inform HIV prevention efforts for both. Using the PLACE methodology across all 19 DREAMS implementation districts, 843 men ages 20\u201334 were surveyed between December 2016-February 2017. Surveys were conducted at 182 venues identified by community informants as places where AGYW and men meet/socialize. In multivariate analyses, men who reported three or more AGYW partners in the last year were more likely to be HIV-positive. Men were also less likely to disclose their HIV status to adolescent versus older partners and partners more than 5 years younger than themselves. Results also revealed relatively high unemployment and mobility, substantial financial responsibilities, and periodic homelessness. Most men identified through community venues reported relationships with AGYW, and these relationships demonstrated substantial HIV risk. Challenging life circumstances suggest structural factors may underlie some risk behaviours. Engaging men in HIV prevention and targeted health services is argued to be critical, and informant-identified community venues are suggested to be promising intervention sites to reach high-risk male partners of AGYW.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Willingness to Pay for Condoms in Five Countries Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Ramakrishnan G; Tuchman J; Hartel L: Strengthening High Impact Interventions for an AIDS-free Generation (AIDSFree) Project, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yb72plpw","body":"Though condom use is now higher than ever before, key gaps remain in countries and in certain populations, where use has stagnated or even decreased. This survey comprised five standalone national cross-sectional surveys carried out in randomly selected geographical areas. Quantitative data were collected from adult men who purchased or obtained a condom in the three months preceding the surveys. A minimum of 1,200 participants was enrolled for each country, with quotas for urban and rural respondents; and brand types that a user most often used (i.e., free, socially marketed (SM), and commercial). The AIDSFree team identified important differences in each of the countries\u2019 condom markets. The team noted many overarching themes: Supplies of free condoms appear to significantly exceed use of such condoms; SM brands should set prices based ability-to-pay trends in country, rather than on trends in costs or available subsidies; It is not just price\u2014brand appeal and availability are important factors in men\u2019s choice of condom brands; Low-priced commercial condom brands are emerging, at the same or lower price than SM brands. However, lower awareness and availability appear to limit their market share.; Introducing a single pack of condom brands does not appear to change the market structure significantly. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) conference, 11-14 March, Accra Ghana","field_subtitle":"October 31, 2018 is final deadline for individual abstract submission ","field_url":"https://afhea.org/en/conferences/afhea-2019/call-for-abstracts","body":"The co-chairs of the Scientific Committee and Management of African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) take this opportunity to politely remind practitioners and researchers in the areas of health economists and financing, health systems and policy, public health, implementation science, including policy makers and advocates etc. that the deadline for individual abstract submissions to AfHEA\u2019s 5th scientific conference (to take place from 11-14 March 2019 in Accra, Ghana) will expire on 31st October 2018 at midnight. The broad theme : Securing Primary Health Care (PHC) for all: the foundation for making progress on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in Africa. Sub-Themes are: Health system strengthening; The effectiveness of aid in the building of health systems; PHC and Healthcare financing; Factors affecting access to healthcare and efforts/challenges in securing PHC; Key methodological changes in health economics and policy analysis specific to Africa; The role of research institutions and donors in building capacity in health economics and policy analysis. Abstracts may be submitted in English or French . Authors should submit individual abstracts online by October 31 at http://afhea.org/en/conferences/afhea-2019/submit-individual-abstracts. Proposals  for organised sessions can be submitted by November 30 at http://afhea.org/en/conferences/afhea-2019/organised-session-abstract. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Alternative Civil Society Astana Statement on Primary Health Care","field_subtitle":"Public interest civil society organisations and social movements: open for endorsements up to 15 November","field_url":"http://phmovement.org/draft-alternative-civil-society-astana-statement-on-primary-health-care/","body":"Members of public interest civil society organisations and social movements, some of whom are participants at the Global Conference on Primary Health Care, produced this statement to re-affirm a commitment to primary health care (PHC) in pursuit of health and well-being for all, aiming to achieve equity in health outcomes.  The statement is a re-affirmation of the Alma Ata declaration, which to PHM and others remains the ultimate declaration on primary health care; the principles are clear and remain relevant. This authors invite organisations who agree with the views expressed to  sign on to the statement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Associations between health systems capacity and mother-to-child HIV prevention program outcomes in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Price J; Chi B; Phiri W: PLOS ONE 13(9), doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202889, 2018","field_url":"https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0203043","body":"In this study, the authors investigated the association between health system capacity and use of prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) services in Zambia. They analyzed data from two studies conducted in rural and semi-urban Lusaka Province in 2014\u20132015. Among 29 facilities, the median overall facility score was 72. Median domain scores were: patient satisfaction 75; human resources 85; finance 50; governance 82; service capacity 77; service provision 60. The programmatic outcome was measured from 804 HIV-infected mothers. Median community-level antiretroviral use at 12 months was 81%. Patient satisfaction was the only domain score significantly associated with 12-month maternal antiretroviral use. When the authors excluded the human resources and finance domains, a positive association between composite 4-domain facility score and 12-month maternal antiretroviral use in peri-urban but not rural facilities was found. In these Zambian health facilities, patient satisfaction was positively associated with maternal antiretroviral 12 months postpartum. The association between overall health system capacity and maternal antiretroviral drug use was stronger in peri-urban versus rural facilities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Beyond Familiar Territories: 5th South Africa International Conference on Educational Technologies 2019","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submission of abstracts: 15 January 2019","field_url":"http://aa-rf.org/saicet2019","body":"The South Africa International Conference on Educational Technologies from 7 \u2013 9 April 2019 (SAICET) 2019 is an international refereed conference that is dedicated to the advancement of research on Educational Technologies. The conference is organised by an African Academic Research Forum under the auspices for Association of Academics and Researchers in Africa. SAICET 2019 aims to offer a platform for academics and researchers in educational technologies to deliberate, network and present a wide range of perspectives, scholarship, and expertise in the pursuit of excellence in education. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Breathing life into constitutional rights to health in Uganda ","field_subtitle":"Jacqueline Nassimbwa and Mulumba Moses, CEHURD, Uganda","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn 2011 civil society petitioned the Uganda Constitutional Court (Petition 16 of 2011) for its failure to put in place systems to prevent maternal deaths in public health facilities. This failure was argued to be a violation of the right to the highest attainable standard of health guaranteed in the country\u2019s constitution.\r\n\r\nIn response the judgement stated \r\n\r\n\u201c\u2026Much as it may be true that government has not allocated enough resources to the health sector and in particular the maternal health care services, this court is\u2026\u2026\u2026reluctant to determine the questions raised in this petition. The Executive has the political and legal responsibility to determine, formulate and implement polices of Government\u2026\u2026\u2026.. This court has no power to determine or enforce its jurisdiction on matters that require analysis of the health sector government policies\u2026\u201d \r\n\r\nThe court argued that it had no role in reviewing or commenting on government policies or on how they are operationalized. It stated that  judging on the issues raised in the petition implied taking over the role of the government executive, and that the injustice was not a constitutional but a political issue. \r\n\r\nThe Constitutional court thus dismissed the case. However, in an appeal to Uganda\u2019s High Court the dismissal was struck down, with a ruling that the Constitutional Court had erred and that it indeed had a mandate to hear the case. The case has since gone back to the Constitutional court with a date for the hearing still pending. \r\n\r\nThe to and fro on this case reflects the challenges arising when claiming a right to health that is implicit within a national constitution.  Clearly stating the right to health in the constitution is important for it to be promoted, enforced and safeguarded. If not stated in the constitution, its implementation depends on the actions of politicians, state officials, the courts and civil society. In particular, the preamble, \u201cWe the people\u2026\u201d in the constitution mandates the citizenry to advance these provisions.\r\n\r\nWhile some countries in east and southern Africa do explicitly provide the right to health care, the right to health is often not explicitly stated. In Uganda, the 1995 Constitution, currently in force, has provisions on rights to life, privacy, freedom from torture and education amongst others. It does not, however, explicitly provide for the right to health. This right is rather found in the national objectives and directive principles of state policy. It thus depends on a mix of political, judicial and social action. \r\n\r\nIn an EQUINET case study by CEHURD (https://tinyurl.com/y6uppusb), we reviewed how this less explicitly provided right to health in the Uganda Constitution is being implemented through political, judicial and popular mechanisms. \r\n\r\nPolitically, the government executive has made international commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals in line with a Uganda Vision 2040. This policy vision aligns government initiatives to fulfilling duties and responsibilities, including for health care. It commits government to ensure policies and laws and build state capacities to implement programmes to realise health rights. In the health sector, for example, the ministry of health has a policy commitment and plans to ensure universal health coverage to realise the right to health care. \r\n\r\nSuch positive political intentions draw attention to how far they are being implemented. Parliamentarians as political actors have passed progressive laws to reflect changing social perspectives on health rights. However, there are gaps that need to be addressed. For example, old, colonial laws are still in force that do not reflect human rights principles, such as those governing the control of sexually transmitted diseases (termed \u2018venereal diseases\u2019 in the law). \r\n\r\nFurther, a gap in delivery on political intentions can be seen through the disparities in service coverage for particular social groups and  lack of a clear co-ordinating mechanism for different sectors to address health determinants. It can also be assessed from how far policies are being framed for and services delivered to address controversial issues, such as abortion, access to contraceptives and education on sexuality for sexually active adolescents. \r\n\r\nBeyond these political measures, there is an option for judicial implementation of the right to health. Indeed, there has been some increase in litigation on the right to health in Uganda, although with still few cases filed, and even less with favourable judgements. In a 2009 case the court dismissed a petition on the potential toxicity of chemicals sprayed for malaria prevention as not violating constitutional provisions on the right to health.    In contrast in 2010 the court declared female genital mutilation, being practiced in certain Ugandan cultures, as a violation of the constitution, and specifically a violation of the rights of women and the right to health. \r\n\r\nThese poor outcomes could be explained by a lack of understanding of the human rights doctrine amongst judicial officers and lawyers. This may, for example, be a reason for the dismissal of Petition 16 cited earlier, later overturned by the High Court. It could explain the caution in the courts over litigation on social rights. This suggests a need for advocacy and capacity building with these key judicial stakeholders on their role in taking forward the right to health and the use of appeal processes to take up cases where the outcome may be seen to be unfair. \r\n\r\nBeyond the political and judicial routes to implementation of the right to health, there is also the possibility of social action advancing these rights. There has been a rise in popular implementation of the right to health as implicitly provided in the Constitution in Uganda, more commonly through the actions of organized groups. In our review, we found experiences of campaigns, demonstrations, coalition formation and industrial action. \r\n\r\nFor example, in the  \u2018Walk to Work\u2019 campaign in 2011, people were encouraged to walk to work daily to protest increasing prices of fuel, food, and transportation and poor social service delivery. The campaign, identified as political opposition due to its leadership, met police suppression and incarceration of campaigners and was banned in 2012. \r\n\r\nMore specifically focused on the health sector, in late 2017 the Uganda Medical Association (UMA), launched an industrial action over poor salaries, poor working and living conditions and inadequate medical supplies preventing medical personnel from performing their duties. This too met an immediate government response in a court challenge to the legality of UMA, an order by the Minister of Health for the workers to return to work and deployment of military doctors to hospitals. Later, however, government negotiated with the medical workers, improving their welfare and salaries. This measure for popular implementation yielded more positive results on health rights, perhaps given its less partisan political nature.\r\n\r\nThese diverse experiences found in Uganda, further detailed in the case study report, point to the fact that applying a right to health that is not explicitly provided in the constitution is possible. It calls for and generates political, judicial and popular measures, and possibly demands a mix of all.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. Please visit the EQUINET website to read the case study report and other publications on health rights. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Calling for a New Global Economic Order","field_subtitle":"Peoples Health Movement; Medicus Mundi International; G2H2: Astana 2018","field_url":"https://vimeo.com/297147040","body":"In 1978, the Alma-Ata International Conference on Primary Health Care stated, in its final declaration, that \u201ceconomic and social development, based on a New International Economic Order, is of basic importance to the fullest attainment of health for all.\u201d This video raises why this call is still relevant today and why it should be recalled and renewed now we celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Alma-Ata Declaration at the Global Conference on Primary Health Care in Astana, on 25-26 October 2018.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"COPASAH Global Symposium on Citizenship, Governance and Accountability in Health","field_subtitle":"15-18 October 2019, New Delhi, India","field_url":"http://www.copasahglobalsymposium2019.net/why-participate.html","body":"The practitioner centred COPGS 2019 on Citizenship, Governance and Accountability in Health is designed as meeting point of practice, think-tanks and policy in community centred health systems. Participating in COPGS 2019 will provide a unique opportunity for researchers, policy makers, donors, development and policy experts to interact and dialogue with the 'foot-soldiers' of community-centred accountability practice from around the world. As a participant one will get the opportunity to witness, engage with and experience the following: open sharing and learning on diverse social accountability practices and approaches through practical examples; debates on evolving paradigms and political economy of policy making in global health and its impact on the accountability ecosystem; new insights around the principles and practice of social accountability to achieve global health goals, especially as articulated in SDGs. There are five over-arching themes to the symposium; community action, indigenous people, reproductive health, private health sector and health care workers. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Case study: Review of Constitutional Provisions on the Right to Health in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Centre for Human Rights and Development (CEHURD)","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/CEHURD%20Constitutional%20Review%20Sep2018.pdf","body":"This case study is produced by the Centre for Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) in the theme work on health rights and law of the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET). It examines how the right to health is enforced in Uganda, how it was implemented, and how health rights advocates have suggested the provision be constitutionally interpreted. It is a follow up on the results of work on the right to health that highlighted a need to do further studies in countries that do not have expressed provision on the rights to health. While the right to health is yet to be explicitly incorporated in the Ugandan constitution, the case study points to a number of ways to implement it within judicial, political and popular measures. Several issues merit future attention to support this, including: developing increased measures and capacities for accountability; integrating a rights based approach in a multi-sectoral response; ensuring adequate resources to the health system; strengthening judicial understanding and implementation of health rights; and strengthening issue based civil society groups and processes that are focused on advancing the right to health with the intention to realize positive public and policy outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 212: Breathing life into constitutional rights to health in Uganda ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Feasibility, acceptability and potential sustainability of a \u2018diagonal\u2019 approach to health services for female sex workers in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Lafort Y; de Melo M; Lessitala F; et al: BMC Health Services Research 18(752) 1-11, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7gk93gk","body":"Female sex workers in many settings have restricted access to sexual and reproductive health services. This paper tested a diagonal intervention which combined strengthening of female sex workers targeted services with making public health facilities more female sex worker-friendly. It was piloted over 18 months and then its performance assessed. The intervention, as designed, was considered theoretically feasible by all informants, but in practice the expansion of some of the targeted services was hampered by insufficient financial resources, institutional capacity and buy-in from local government and private partners, and could not be fully actualised. In terms of acceptability, there was broad consensus on the need to ensure that female sex workers have access to sexual reproductive health services, but not on how this might be achieved. Targeted clinical services were no longer endorsed by the national government, which now prefers a strategy of making public services more friendly for key populations. Stakeholders judged that the piloted model was not fully sustainable, nor replicable elsewhere in the country, given its dependency on short-term project-based funding, lack of government endorsement for targeted clinical services, and viewing the provision of community activities as a responsibility of civil society. In the current Mozambican context, a \u2018diagonal\u2019 approach to ensure adequate access to sexual and reproductive health care for female sex workers is not fully feasible, acceptable or sustainable, because of insufficient resources and lack of endorsement by national policy makers for the targeted, vertical component.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Gendered norms of responsibility: reflections on accountability politics in maternal health care in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Lodenstein E; Pedersen K; Botha K; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(131) 1-15, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9emy5qe","body":"This paper aims to provide insights into the role of traditional authorities in two maternal health programmes in Northern Malawi. Among strategies to improve maternal health, these authorities issue by-laws that are local rules to increase the uptake of antenatal and delivery care. The study uses a framework of gendered institutions to critically assess the by-law content, process and effects and to understand how responsibilities and accountabilities are constructed, negotiated and reversed, in a qualitative study in five health centre catchment areas in Northern Malawi. In the study district, traditional leaders introduced three by-laws that oblige pregnant women to attend antenatal care; bring their husbands along and; and to give birth in a health centre. If women fail to comply with these rules, they risk being fined or denied access to maternal health services. The findings show that responsibilities and accountabilities are negotiated and that by-laws are not uniformly applied. Whereas local officials support the by-laws, lower level health cadres\u2019 and some community members contest them, in particular, the principles of individual responsibility and universality. The study adds new evidence on the understudied phenomenon of by-laws. From a gender perspective, the by-laws are problematic as they individualise the responsibility for maternal health care and discriminate against women in the definition and application of sanctions. Through the by-laws, supported by national policies and international institutions, the authors argue that women bear the full responsibility for failures in maternal health care, suggesting a form of \u2018reversed accountability\u2019 of women towards global maternal health goals. This can negatively impact on women\u2019s reproductive health rights and obstruct ambitions to achieve gender inequality and health equity. It is suggested that contextualised gender and power analysis in health policymaking and programming as well as in accountability reforms could help to identify these challenges and potential unintended effects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthcare service delivery to refugee children from the Democratic Republic of Congo living in Durban, South Africa: a caregivers\u2019 perspective","field_subtitle":"Meyer-Weitz A;  Oppong Asante K; Lukobeka B: BMC Medicine 16(163), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-018-1153-0, 2018","field_url":"https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-018-1153-0","body":"This study explored refugee caregivers\u2019 perceptions of their children\u2019s access to quality health service delivery to their young children in Durban, South Africa. This study used an explanatory mixed methods design, purposively sampling 120 and 10 participants for the quantitative and qualitative phases, respectively. The majority (89%) of caregivers were women, with over 70% of them aged between 30 and 35 years. Over 74% of caregivers visited public clinics for their children\u2019s healthcare needs. The majority of caregivers (95%) were not satisfied with healthcare services delivery to their children due to the long waiting hours and the negative attitudes and discriminatory behaviours of healthcare workers, particularly in public healthcare facilities. These findings underscore the need to address health professionals\u2019 attitudes when providing healthcare for refugees. The authors suggest that attitudinal change may improve the relationship between service providers and caregivers of refugee children in South Africa, which may improve the health-related outcomes in refugee children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"High rates of smoking in people with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Carter M: Aidsmap, September 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybjpc3ky","body":"This research analysed data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and AIDS Indicator Surveys (AIS) from 25 sub-Saharan African countries to determine prevalence of cigarette smoking and use of smokeless tobacco according to HIV status. Cross-sectional data were collected between 2005 and 2015 from adults aged between 15 and 59 years. As well as HIV status, data were also collected on gender, marital/relationship status, level of education, income, area of residence (rural/urban) and employment status. These factors were taken into account in statistical analyses of the association between HIV status and tobacco use. Turning to HIV, the prevalence of smoking was higher among HIV-positive than HIV-negative individuals (10.6% vs 8.1%). Analysis by gender showed that 25.9% of HIV-positive men and 1.2% of HIV-positive women smoked, significantly higher than the 16.1% and 0.7% prevalence seen in HIV-negative men and women, respectively. Country-level analyses showed considerable variability in tobacco use between individual countries. The prevalence of smoking ranged from 2.4% in Ghana to 19.9% in Lesotho. Over half of countries (14 of 25) showed a higher smoking prevalence among people with HIV. The difference was significant in five countries: Gambia, Niger, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. But in Ethiopia and Namibia, HIV-positive participants were less likely to smoke than HIV-negative ones. The investigators acknowledge a number of limitations, including the cross-sectional design of their study, failure to collect data on frequency and intensity of tobacco use and a lack of data on use of antiretroviral therapy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV partner services in Kenya: a cost and budget impact analysis study","field_subtitle":"Cherutich  P; Farquhar C; Wamuti B; et al: BMC Health Services Research 18(721) 1-11, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ya3cpo5c","body":"This paper focuses on elicitation of contact information, notification and testing of sex partners of HIV infected patients (aPS). Using study data and time motion studies, the authors constructed an Excel-based tool to estimate costs and the budget impact of aPS in selected facilities in Kisumu County. The authors report the annual total and unit costs of HTS, incremental total and unit costs for aPS, and the budget impact of scaling up aPS over a 5-year horizon. The average unit costs for HIV testing among HIV-infected index clients was US$ 25.36 per client and US$ 17.86 per client using nurses and CHWs, respectively. The average incremental costs for providing enhanced aPS in Kisumu County were US$ 1 092 161 and US$ 753 547 per year, using nurses and CHWs, respectively. The average incremental cost of scaling up aPS over a five period was 45% higher when using nurses compared to using CHWs. Over the five years, the upper-bound budget impact of nurse-model was US$ 1,8mn, 63% and 35% of which were accounted for by aPS costs and ART costs, respectively. The CHW model incurred an upper-bound incremental cost of US$ 1,3mn which was 71% lower than the nurse-based model. The budget impact was sensitive to the level of aPS coverage and ranged from US$ 28 547 for 30% coverage using CHWs in 2014 to US$ 1,3mn for 80% coverage using nurses in 2018. Scaling aPS using nurses has minimal budget impact but not cost-saving over a five-year period. Targeting aPS to newly-diagnosed index cases and task-shifting to community health workers is recommended by the authors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"How a change in US abortion policy reverberated around the globe","field_subtitle":"Bearak M; Morello C: The Washington Post, October 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yc4tvo5z","body":"In January 2017, President Trump signed an executive order that denied U.S. assistance to any foreign-based organization that performs, promotes or offers information on abortion. A similar policy was in effect under past Republican presidents. In 2017 it was expanded exponentially to apply not just to around $600 million in overseas family-planning funds, but to the entire $8.8 billion in annual U.S. global health aid. It will take years to gauge the full impact of the policy, which will affect aid groups as they renew grants or seek new U.S. funding. More broadly, the policy has created a wave of uncertainty in aid-dependent countries. For the first time, groups that treat HIV, malaria and other illnesses will also have to pledge to have no role in promoting abortion \u2014 or forgo American aid. Academics have questioned whether the policy effectively decreases abortions. A 2011 study by Stanford University researchers suggested the policy has actually been \u201cassociated with increases in abortion rates in sub-Saharan African countries.\u201d One possible reason the researchers gave for this was that some organizations that had provided contraceptives lost funding, which may have led to more unwanted pregnancies. While most foreign health groups have committed to following the new rules., a small group , including the International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes, have refused to sign. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"How do gender and disability influence the ability of the poor to benefit from pro-poor health financing policies in Kenya? An intersectional analysis","field_subtitle":"Kabia E; Mbau R; Muraya K; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(149) 1-12, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7qdzcd2","body":"This study employed an intersectional approach to explore how gender disability and poverty interact to influence how poor women in Kenya benefit from pro-poor financing policies that target them. The authors applied a qualitative cross-sectional study approach in two purposively selected counties in Kenya. The authors collected data using in-depth interviews with women with disabilities living in poverty who were beneficiaries of the health insurance subsidy programme and those in the lowest wealth quintiles residing in the health and demographic surveillance system. Women with disabilities living in poverty often opted to forgo seeking free healthcare services because of their roles as the primary household providers and caregivers. Due to limited mobility, they needed someone to accompany them to health facilities, leading to greater transport costs. The absence of someone to accompany them and unaffordability of the high transport costs, for example, made some women forgo seeking antenatal and skilled delivery services despite the existence of a free maternity programme. The layout and equipment at health facilities offering care under pro-poor health financing policies were disability-unfriendly. The latter in addition to negative healthcare worker attitudes towards women with disabilities discouraged them from seeking care. Negative stereotypes against women with disabilities in the society led to their exclusion from public participation forums thereby limiting their awareness about health services. Intersections of gender, poverty, and disability influenced the experiences of women with disabilities living in poverty with pro-poor health financing policies in Kenya. Addressing the healthcare access barriers they face could entail ensuring availability of disability-friendly health facilities and public transport systems, building cultural competence in health service delivery, and empowering them to engage in public participation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Identifying health policy and systems research priorities for the sustainable development goals: social protection for health","field_subtitle":"Mary Qiu M; Jessani N; Bennett S: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(155) 1-14, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7gl8uoh","body":"This paper sought to identify potential research priorities concerning social protection and health in low and middle-income countries, from multiple perspectives. Priority research questions were identified through research reviews on social protection interventions and health, interviews with 54 policy makers from Ministries of Health, multi-lateral or bilateral organizations, and NGOs. Data was collated and summarized using a framework analysis approach. The final refining and ranking of the questions were completed by researchers from around the globe through an online platform. The overview of reviews identified 5 main categories of social protection interventions: cash transfers; financial incentives and other demand side financing interventions; food aid and nutritional interventions; parental leave; and livelihood/social welfare interventions. Policy-makers focused on the implementation and practice of social protection and health, how social protection programs could be integrated with other sectors, and how they should be monitored/evaluated. A collated list resulted in 31 priority research questions. Scale and sustainability of social protection programs ranked highest. The top 10 research questions focused heavily on design, implementation, and context, with a range of interventions that included cash transfers, social insurance, and labour market interventions. The authors observe that there is potentially a rich field of enquiry into the linkages between health systems and social protection programs, but research within this field has focused on a few relatively narrowly defined areas. The SDGs provide an impetus to the expansion of research of this nature, with priority setting exercises such as this helping to align funder investment with researcher effort and policy-maker evidence needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Influence of the WHO framework convention on tobacco control on tobacco legislation and policies in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Wisdom J; Juma P; Mwagomba B: BMC Public Health 18(Suppl 1) 954, doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5827-5, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybqw968f","body":"The World Health Organization\u2019s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, enforced in 2005, was a watershed international treaty that stipulated requirements for signatories to govern the production, sale, distribution, advertisement, and taxation of tobacco to reduce its impact on health. This paper describes the timelines, context, key actors, and strategies in the development and implementation of the treaty and describes how six sub-Saharan countries responded to its call for action on tobacco control. A multi-country policy review using case study design was conducted in Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi, South Africa, and Togo. It involved document review and key informant interviews. Multiple stakeholders, including academics and activists, led a concerted effort for more than 10 years to push the WHO treaty forward despite counter-marketing from the tobacco industry. Once the treaty was enacted, Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi, South Africa, and Togo responded in unique ways to implement tobacco policies, with differences associated with the country\u2019s socio-economic context, priorities of country leaders, industry presence, and choice of strategies. All the study countries except Malawi have acceded to and ratified the WHO tobacco treaty and implemented tobacco control policy. Reviewing how six sub-Saharan countries responded to the treaty to mobilize resources and implement tobacco control policies provided insight for how to utilise international regulations and commitments to accelerate policy impact on the prevention of non-communicable diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Is healthcare really equal for all? Assessing the horizontal and vertical equity in healthcare utilisation among older Ghanaians","field_subtitle":"Dei V; Sebastian M: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(86)1-12, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y99l9ncx","body":"This paper aimed to assess whether horizontal and vertical equity were being met in the healthcare utilisation among adults aged 50 years and above. The paper was based on a secondary cross-sectional data from the World Health Organization\u2019s Study on global AGEing and adult health wave 1 conducted from 2007 to 2008 in Ghana. Data on 4304 older adults aged 50 years-plus were analysed. Horizontal and vertical inequities were found in the use of outpatient services. Inpatient healthcare utilisation was both horizontally and vertically equitable. Women were found to be more likely to use outpatient services than men but had reduced odds of using inpatient services. Possessing a health insurance was also significantly associated with the use of both inpatient and outpatient services. Whilst equity exists in inpatient care utilisation, more needs to be done to achieve equity in the access to outpatient services. The paper reaffirms the need to evaluate both the horizontal and vertical dimensions in the assessment of equity in healthcare access. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Managing Editor: Health-e News Service","field_subtitle":"Health-e News Service","field_url":"http://www.bizcommunity.com/Job/196/1/353653.html","body":"Health-e News Service is looking for a dynamic Managing Editor to lead Africa's first independent health news agency. The successful candidate must have vision about how to develop a multimedia organization; experience in managing a non-profit organization; ability to fundraising; commitment to social justice and a well-functioning public health system. Key performance areas include: managing a diverse multimedia organisation, including editorial oversight over an award-winning team of journalists; overseeing the development and implementation of an annual strategic plan; fundraising and donors relations; managing client relations and expanding the client base. The candidate needs to have at least eight years management experience, extending fundraising experience, editorial management skills and at least a bachelor\u2019s degree. The position is located in Johannesburg although consideration will be given to Cape Town-based candidates. Salary is in line with experience. Preference will be given to candidates from previously disadvantaged groups. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Mental Health Atlas 2017","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8k7rhgc","body":"WHO's Mental Health Atlas 2017 reveals that although some countries have made progress in mental health policy-making and planning, there is a global shortage of health workers trained in mental health and a lack of investment in community-based mental health -based mental health facilities. The inclusion of mental health in the Sustainable Development Agenda, which was adopted at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015, is likely to have a positive impact on communities and countries where millions of people will receive much needed help. Data included in Mental Health Atlas 2017 demonstrates that progressive development is being made in relation to mental health policies, laws, programmes and services across WHO Member States. However extensive efforts, commitment and resources at global and country level are needed to meet the global targets. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Press release on prosecution of SGBC in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Kwagala P: Centre for Health, Human Rights & Development, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yd7okmps","body":"In August 2018, the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD), Nnamala Mary and Simon Kakeeto took the Government of Uganda to the Constitutional Court for failing to put in place shelters for women who have been raped or defiled. CEHURD challenged the unequal punishments that the law provides for sexual offenders as being unjust. Men charged with rape are liable to suffer a maximum penalty of death whereas the law provides for the offense of \u2018defilement\u2019 for persons between the ages of 14-17 and sexual offenders against girls of that category are only given a few years of a jail term. This difference in penalties towards perpetrators who commit the same offense was argued to be unjust and to offend the principle of equality and non-discrimination before the law. It was also observed to have an effect of increasing sexual violence against girls in that particular age group. Women who survive sexual violence need safe spaces, shelters and refuge. The Ugandan Constitution mandates the State to put in place facilities to enhance the welfare of women to enable them to realise their full potential and advancement. It was thus CEHURD's contention that failure by government to construct and finance these shelters is a clear violation of women\u2019s rights guaranteed under article 33(2) of the 1995 Constitution of Uganda. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health approach to hearing across the life course: A call for papers","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: 30 November 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/9/18-221697/en/","body":"Hearing loss, especially disabling hearing loss, is associated with delayed cognitive development in children and early cognitive decline in older adults. Hearing loss was highlighted at the World Health Assembly in 2017, when Member States unanimously adopted a resolution to develop public health strategies to integrate ear and hearing care within countries\u2019 primary health-care systems. Against this background, the Bulletin of the World Health Organization will publish a theme issue on the public health approach of hearing loss. Papers are welcomed which focus on identifying and filling the gaps in evidence across comprehensive hearing-care services, from promotion of ear and hearing care, to screening, hearing devices and rehabilitation. In particular, the papers should report on unmet needs, outcomes of services, and effective and sustainable initiatives to reach underserved groups. Submission of papers reporting on both the magnitude of diseases and conditions, such as ear infections, meningitis and rubella, that can affect hearing, are encouraged, as well as papers addressing health system issues and promoting an intersectoral approach to ear and hearing care, such as looking beyond health. As much as possible, papers should seek to integrate examples from low- and middle-income countries across life course.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Realities and experiences of community health volunteers as agents for behaviour change: evidence from an informal urban settlement in Kisumu, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Aseyo R; Mumma J; Scott K; et al: Human Resources for Health 16(53) 1-12, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycw48nsg","body":"This study examines the behaviour change-related activities of community health volunteers (CHVs) community health workers affiliated with the Kenyan Ministry of Health in a peri-urban settlement in Kenya, in order to assess their capabilities, opportunities to work effectively, and sources of motivation. This mixed-methods study included a census of 16 CHVs who work in the study area. All CHVs participated in structured observations of their daily duties, structured questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and two focus group discussions. In addition to their responsibilities with the Ministry of Health, CHVs partnered with a range of non-governmental organizations engaged in health and development programming, often receiving small stipends from these organizations. CHVs reported employing a limited number of behaviour change techniques when interacting with community members at the household level. While supervision and support from the MOH was robust, CHV training was inconsistent and inadequate with regard to behaviour change and CHVs often lacked material resources necessary for their work. CHVs spent very little time with the households in their allocated catchment area. The number of households contacted per day was insufficient to reach all assigned households within a given month as required and the brief time spent with households limited the quality of engagement. Lack of compensation was noted as a demotivating factor for CHVs. This was compounded by the challenging social environment and CHVs\u2019 low motivation to encourage behaviour change in local communities. In a complex urban environment, CHVs faced challenges that limited their capacity to be involved in behaviour change interventions. The authors argue that more resources, better coordination, and additional training in modern behaviour change approaches are needed to ensure their optimal performance in implementing health programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reflecting strategic and conforming gendered experiences of community health workers using photovoice in rural Wakiso district, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Musoke D; Ssemugabo C; Ndejjo R; Ekirapa-Kiracho E; et al: Human Resources for Health 16(41) 1-9,  2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yao88rdh","body":"This paper explores the different roles of male and female community health workers in rural Wakiso district, Uganda, using photovoice, as a community-based participatory research approach. The authors trained ten community health workers on key concepts about gender and photovoice. The community health workers took photographs for 5 months on their gender-related roles which were discussed in monthly meetings. The discussions from the meetings were recorded, transcribed, and translated to English, and emerging data were analysed using content analysis. Although responsibilities were the same for both male and female community health workers, they reported that in practice, community health workers were predominantly involved in different types of work depending on their gender. Social norms led to men being more comfortable seeking care from male community health workers and females turning to female community health workers. Due to their privileged ownership and access to motorcycles, male community health workers were noted to be able to assist patients faster with referrals to facilities during health emergencies, cover larger geographic distances during community mobilization activities, and take up supervisory responsibilities. Due to the gendered division of labour in communities, male community health workers were also observed to be more involved in manual work such as cleaning wells. The gendered division of labour also reinforced female caregiving roles related to child care, and also made female community health workers more available to address local problems. Community health workers reflected both strategic and conformist gendered implications of their community work. The authors argue that the differing roles and perspectives about the nature of male and female community health workers while performing their roles should be considered while designing and implementing community health workers programmes, without further retrenching gender inequalities or norms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The 7th East African Health and Scientific Conference ","field_subtitle":"27-29 March 2019, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8dkxedf","body":"The main theme for this conference will be \u2018Technology for health systems transformation and attainment of the UN-Sustainable Development Goals\u2019. The key note speech will be on 'Invest in Digital Health to catalyse East Africa to attain the UN-Sustainable Development Goals\u2019. Various sub-themes will be presented and discussed during the first two days of the conference. Each sub-theme will start with a state-of-the-art presentation, after which evidence-based scientific material will be presented. The presentations will lead to recommendations on technologies for health system decision making, diseases and the improvement of healthcare service delivery and health outcomes. Further sub-themes relate to the health financing and health knowledge management through digital technologies and solutions. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The causes of the growth of 'populism'","field_subtitle":"Navarro V: Other News, October 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yd5evqzg","body":"In this article (original in Spanish) the author analyses current movements termed 'populist'. He notes that they have some points in common. One of them is their clear opposition to globalization and economic integration and to the cultural and political homogenization that they entail and that is perceived as a threat to their national identity. A desire to recover identity and national control conditions is a nationalist sentiment based primarily (though not exclusively) on globalization being identified with a decline in the quality of life and well-being of the social classes behind this populism, even while this was due to the enormous increase in the wealth and welfare of wealthy minorities at the expense of the great decline in welfare and standard of living of the majority of the population The author asserts that socialist movements that have an opposition and alternative to a neoliberal conservative establishment  differs from most populisms, which have an anti-establishment dimension but lack a proactive dimension . At the same time he argues that the failure of socialist or social democratic parties to develop an effective response to neoliberalism has been one of the main causes of the growth of right wing populist movements. The author argues for responses that recognise that the different sectors of the population have elements and conditions in common, that also provides more radical proposals for how to address these conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The future of health in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Kidia K: Global Health Action 11(1496888) 1-5, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9xy6zre","body":"The author presents the argument that Zimbabwe is at a critical juncture for health reform and argues that this reform should focus on repairing relationships with the international community by focusing on human rights and eliminating corruption; strengthening the health workforce through retention strategies, training, and non-specialist providers and strengthening community engagement to grow local leadership and ensure that interventions are socially and culturally sensitive. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"This is 18: through girls\u2019 eyes. ","field_subtitle":"Bennett J; Strzemien A: New York Times, October, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7masbol","body":"When Malala Yousafzai turned 18, she opened a school for Syrian refugee girls, calling on leaders from around the world to provide \u201cbooks not bullets.\u201d It was at 18 that Cleopatra became ruler of Egypt, in 51 B.C.E., and Victoria the queen of Great Britain, in 1837. By the time she was 18, Britney Spears had had two No. 1 albums on the Billboard chart, and Serena Williams had won the U.S. Open. Emma Gonzalez, 18 now, has become a global leader in the movement to end gun violence. No pressure, right? Eighteen is an age. But it\u2019s also something more. It\u2019s a moment, a rite of passage, a gateway to adulthood.In the United States, 18 means you can finally vote, sign a lease on an apartment, obtain a credit card and buy a Juul. In China and parts of Canada, 18 grants you entrance to a pub, while for most Israelis, it means a mandatory draft into the military. By 18, one in five women across the globe will be married. Millions will enter college or university. \u201cThis is 18\u201d aims to capture what life is like for girls turning 18 in 2018 across oceans and cultures. The editors asked young women photographers to document girls in their communities \u2014 taking the photos and conducting the interviews themselves. Each photographer was paired with a professional mentor to guide them through the process. The result is a celebration of girlhood around the world \u2014 across 12 time zones and 15 languages, featuring 21 subjects and 22 photographers. #ThisIs18 \u2014 a look at girls\u2019 lives, through girls\u2019 eyes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards a global monitoring system for implementing the Rio Political Declaration on Social Determinants of Health: developing a core set of indicators for government action on the social determinants of health to improve health equity","field_subtitle":"Working Group for Monitoring Action on the Social Determinants of Health: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(136) 1-27, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yce593dj","body":"In the 2011 Rio Political Declaration on Social Determinants of Health, World Health Organization Member States pledged action in five areas crucial for addressing health inequities. Their pledges referred to better governance for health and development, greater participation in policymaking and implementation, further reorientation of the health sector towards reducing health inequities, strengthening of global governance and collaboration, and monitoring progress and increasing accountability. The authors describe the selection of indicators proposed to be part of the initial World Health Organization global system for monitoring action on the social determinants of health. The authors describe the processes and criteria used for selecting social determinants of health action indicators that were of high quality and the described the challenges encountered in creating a set of metrics for capturing government action on addressing the Rio Political Declaration\u2019s five Action Areas. The authors developed 19 measurement concepts, identified and screened 20 indicator databases and systems, including the 223 Sustainable Development Goals indicators, and applied strong criteria for selecting indicators for the core indicator set. They identified 36 suitable existing indicators, which were often Sustainable Development Goals indicators. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards an interdisciplinary approach to wellbeing: Life histories and Self-Determination Theory in rural Zambia","field_subtitle":"White S; Jha S: Social Science & Medicine (212)153-160, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9p9no7a","body":"This paper implemented a qualitative analysis of wellbeing in life history interviews in Chiawa, rural Zambia. The enquiry goes beyond simply reading across methods, disciplines and contexts, to consider fundamental differences in constructions of the human subject, and how these relate to understandings of wellbeing. Field research took place in two periods, August\u2013November, 2010 and 2012. Analysis drew on 46 individual case studies, conducted through open-ended interviews. These were identified through a survey with an average of 390 male and female household heads in each round, including 25% female headed households. As social determinants theory predicts, the interviews confirm elements of autonomy, competence and relatedness as vital to wellbeing. However, these are expressed in ways that highlight material and relational, rather than psychological, factors.  The authors endorsed social determinants theory\u2019s utility in interdisciplinary approaches to wellbeing, but only if it admits its own cultural grounding in the construction of socially and culturally distinctive questions on basic psychological needs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards universal health coverage: a mixed-method study mapping the development of the faith-based non-profit sector in the Ghanaian health system","field_subtitle":"Grieve A; Olivier J: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(97)1-20, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y73ny96a","body":"This paper presents a mapping of faith-based health assets in Ghana using both qualitative and quantitative evidence to provide a visual representation of changes in the spatial footprint of the faith-based non-profit (FBNP) health sector. The geospatial maps show that FBNPs were originally located in rural remote areas of the country but that this service footprint has evolved over time, in line with changing social, political and economic contexts. The sector has had a long-standing role in the provision of health services and remains a valuable asset within national health systems in Ghana and sub-Saharan Africa more broadly. The authors observe that collaboration between the public sector and such non-state providers, drawing on the comparative strengths and resources of FBNPs and focusing on whole system strengthening, is essential for the achievement of universal health coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Two decades of antenatal and delivery care in Uganda: a cross-sectional study using Demographic and Health Surveys","field_subtitle":"Benova L; Dennis M; Lange I; et al: BMC Health Services Research 18(758) 1-14, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yb9en7yq","body":"The authors present a repeated cross-sectional study using four Uganda Demographic and Health Surveys of evidence on births with ANC, facility delivery, caesarean sections and complete maternal care. The authors assessed socio-economic differentials in these indicators by wealth, education, urban/rural residence, and geographic zone in the 1995 and 2011 surveys. ANC coverage with remained high over the study period but ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"United States aid policy and induced abortion in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Brendavid E; Avila P; Miller G: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(12) 853-928, 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/12/11-091660/en/","body":"This study explored the relationship between the reinstatement in 2001 of a US policy requiring all nongovernmental organizations operating abroad to refrain from performing, advising on or endorsing abortion as a method of family planning if they wish to receive federal funding and the probability that a sub-Saharan African woman will have an induced abortion.  The authors used longitudinal, individual data on terminated pregnancies collected by Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to estimate induced abortion rates. The study found robust empirical patterns suggesting that the policy was associated with increases in abortion rates in sub-Saharan African countries. Several observations were identified to strengthen this conclusion. First, the association was strong: and second, there was broad agreement among the aggregate graphical analysis and both unadjusted and adjusted statistical analyses, robust across a variety of sensitivity analyses. Third, the timing of divergence between high and low exposure countries was coincident with the policy\u2019s reinstatement: in high exposure countries, abortion rates began to rise noticeably only after the policy was reinstated in 2001 and the increase became more pronounced from 2002 onward. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal health coverage and community engagement","field_subtitle":"Odugleh-Kolev A; Parrish-Sprowl J: World Health Organisation 96(9)660-661, 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/9/17-202382/en/","body":"In this article, the authors reflect on how efforts towards UHC could offer an opportunity to address those aspects within health systems that continue to hinder efforts to meaningfully engage with patients, their families and local communities. The backbone of these efforts should be a health workforce that is skilled in engagement, responsive to local context and to the needs and expectations of those using their services. Community engagement was introduced in the 2013\u20132016 Ebola virus disease outbreak in recognition of the important role of response staff and their ability to engage with communities, in contrast to social mobilization or behaviour-change interventions. Engagement and empowerment of health service users and community members also re-emerged as a core strategy in the WHO Framework on Integrated People-Centred Health Services, which was formally adopted by Member States in 2016. To move towards a more meaningful understanding of what community engagement is and how it works, the authors suggest that several changes need to take place. First, to recognize that health systems have a fundamental responsibility and obligation for engaging with patients, their families, local communities, as well as a range of stakeholders, partners and sectors, recognising the physiological, emotional, mental and social interconnection of people. Health systems and communities are observed to be in continuous and interdependent action. If community engagement becomes a focus for UHC efforts, it could promote approaches that recognize that health and well-being are co-produced, and that empowers both health-care providers and communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Wellcome Photography Prize 2019","field_subtitle":"Deadline for entries: 17 December 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybqyphtu","body":"The Wellcome Trust invite photographers and other image makers from all disciplines to enter the Wellcome Photography Prize, which celebrates compelling imagery that captures stories of health, medicine and science. Wellcome are looking for entries that can captivate people with stories of science and medicine, and start conversations about some of the health challenges people face. The winner of each category will receive \u00a31,250, with the overall winner receiving a prize of \u00a315,000. Prizes will be presented at an awards ceremony in London on 3 July 2019. All the winning and shortlisted entries will go on show in a major public exhibition at Lethaby Gallery, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, from 4-13 July 2019. If you\u2019re a winner, Wellcome will also offer opportunities to take part in events to showcase your work to a range of audiences. The winning images receive extensive international media coverage each year. There are four categories in the competition: Social perspectives \u2013 explore how health and illness affect the way we live; Hidden worlds \u2013 reveal details hidden to the naked eye; Medicine in focus \u2013 show health and healthcare up close and personal; Outbreaks (2019 theme) \u2013 capture the impact of disease as it spreads.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"2nd International Workshop on HIV Adolescence","field_subtitle":"10-12 October 2018, Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y87vsujg","body":"At major meetings, advances in HIV management focuses mainly on either adults or children, leaving out adolescents. To meet this need for international interchange in order to bring the field forward, Virology Education and partners have initiated the International Workshop on HIV & Adolescence: challenges and solutions. This workshop is for multidisciplinary experts working with adolescents affected by HIV.  It aims to share experiences, knowledge and best practices in optimizing care for adolescents living with HIV. The program will cover the spectrum of developmental changes in adolescents including social, behavioral, physiological and biological aspects and the impact of an HIV positive status, and prevention programs, testing, treatment and support services among adolescents. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A longitudinal perspective on boys as victims of childhood sexual abuse in South Africa: Consequences for adult mental health","field_subtitle":"Richter L; Mathews S; Nonterah E; et al: Child Abuse & Neglect 84, 1-10, 2018","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213418302850?via%3Dihub","body":"Childhood sexual abuse of boys was examined in a longitudinal cohort in South Africa, with data on abuse collected at six age points between 11 and 18 years. Potential personal and social vulnerability of male sexual abuse victims was explored and mental health outcomes of sexually abused boys were examined at age 22\u201323 years. Reports of all sexual activity \u2013 touching, oral and penetrative sex \u2013 increased with age and sexual coercion decreased with age. Almost all sexual activity at 11 years of age was coerced, with the highest rates of coercion occurring between 13 and 14 years of age; 45% of reports of coerced touching were reported at age 14, 41 percent of coerced oral sex at age 13, and 31% of coerced penetrative sex at age 14. Sexual coercion was perpetrated most frequently by similar aged peers and although gender of the assailant was less often reported, it can be presumed that perpetration is by males. Boys who experienced childhood sexual abuse tended to be smaller (shorter) and from poorer families. No relationships to measured childhood intelligence, pubertal stage, marital status of mother or presence of the father were found and there was no significant association between reports of childhood sexual abuse and mental health in adulthood.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Child Rights and Child Law Short Course for Health and Allied Professionals ","field_subtitle":"Course Dates: 3-7 December 2018","field_url":"http://www.ci.uct.ac.za/ci/child-rights-course/overview","body":"The Children\u2019s Institute has developed a cutting-edge short course in child rights and child law for health and allied professionals - including training on consent to medical treatment and the reporting of child abuse and neglect as outlined in the new Children\u2019s Act and amendments to the Sexual Offences Act. This five-day intensive course provides an opportunity for doctors, nurses, social workers and allied professionals to explore how best can better give effect to children\u2019s rights in their practice, and is accredited with both the Health Professions Council of South Africa and the SA Council for Social Service Professions. The course is accredited by both the Health Professions Council of South Africa and the SA Council for Social Service Professions, and is targeted at doctors, nurses, educators, social workers and allied professionals who are responsible for child health at all levels of the health care system. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Chronic respiratory disease among the elderly in South Africa: any association with proximity to mine dumps?","field_subtitle":"Nkosi V; Wichmann J; Voyi K: Environmental Health 14(33), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-015-0018-7, 2015","field_url":"https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-015-0018-7","body":"This study investigated the association between proximity to mine dumps and prevalence of chronic respiratory disease in people aged 55 years and older. Elderly persons in communities 1-2 km (exposed) and 5 km (unexposed), from five pre-selected mine dumps in Gauteng and North West Province, in South Africa were included in a cross-sectional study. Structured interviews were conducted with 2397 elderly people, using a previously validated questionnaire from the British Medical Research Council. Exposed elderly persons had a significantly higher prevalence of chronic respiratory symptoms and diseases than those who were unexposed., Results from the multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that living close to mine dumps was significantly associated with asthma, chronic bronchitis, chronic cough, emphysema, pneumonia and wheeze. Residing in exposed communities, current smoking, ex-smoking, use of paraffin as main residential cooking/heating fuel and low level of education emerged as independent significant risk factors for chronic respiratory symptoms and diseases. This study suggests that there is a high level of chronic respiratory symptoms and diseases among elderly people in communities located near to mine dumps in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Contact tracing performance during the Ebola epidemic in Liberia, 2014-2015","field_subtitle":"Swanson K; Altare C; Wesseh C; et al: PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0006762, 2018","field_url":"https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0006762","body":"During the Ebola virus disease (EVD) epidemic in Liberia, contact tracing was implemented to rapidly detect new cases and prevent further transmission. The authors describe the scope and characteristics of this contact tracing and assess its performance during the 2014\u20132015 epidemic in six counties. Positive predictive value (PPV) was defined as the proportion of traced contacts who were identified as potential cases. Contact tracing was initiated for 26.7% of total EVD cases and detected 3.6% of all new cases during the period covered, with a PPV  of 1.4%. Potential cases were more likely to be detected early in the outbreak; to hail from rural areas; report multiple exposures and symptoms; have household contact or direct bodily or fluid contact; and report nausea, fever, or weakness, as compared to contacts who completed monitoring. Contact tracing was identified to be a critical intervention in Liberia and represented one of the largest contact tracing efforts during an epidemic in history. While there were notable improvements in implementation over time, the study data suggest there were limitations to its performance\u2014particularly in urban districts and during peak transmission. Recommendations for improving performance include integrated surveillance, decentralized management of multidisciplinary teams, comprehensive protocols, and community-led strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) Iso Lomso Fellowships: Call for Applications 2018, The STIAS Iso Lomso Fellowship Programme","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 20 October 2018","field_url":"https://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2872&lang=en","body":"This fellowship programme is aimed at African scholars who have obtained a doctoral degree within the preceding seven years and who hold an academic position at a university or research institution anywhere in Africa. Candidates should have established a research programme and have completed a post-doctoral fellowship or equivalent post-PhD programme. All disciplines are considered. Iso Lomso Fellowships provide an early career opportunity for Africa\u2019s brightest minds in academia. Fellows will enjoy: a three-year attachment during which time they may spend a total of ten months in residence to develop and pursue a long-term research programme at a sister institute for advanced study in North America, Europe or elsewhere. The fellowship includes funding to attend up to two international conferences or training workshops; support to convene a workshop with collaborators and lecturer replacement subsidy for the fellow\u2019s home institution during residency periods.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Country progress in the implementation of the global action plan on antimicrobial resistance: WHO, FAO and OIE global tripartite database","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO Geneva, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9t3fx9a","body":"The World Health Organisation hosts this global open-access tripartite antimicrobial resistance database that provides access to information on the status of countries\u2019 regarding the implementation of the global action plan and actions to address antimicrobial resistance across all sectors. Country responses are visualized through maps and can be sorted by regions and by income groups. Information captured in this database is a result of a country self-assessment questionnaire reporting on progress in: developing national antimicrobial resistance action plans; working with multiple sectors; and implementing key actions to address antimicrobial resistance. The database currently contains data for the reporting year 2016-17 and 2017-18. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Drinking water, sanitation and hygiene in schools, Global baseline report 2018","field_subtitle":"United Nations Children's Fund; World Health Organization: Geneva, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y75qczw7","body":"Millions of children around the world do not have access to clean water or decent sanitation at school, putting their education \u2013 and those of girls in particular \u2013 at risk. The first ever global baseline report on drinking-water, sanitation and hygiene in schools \u2013 carried out by WHO and UNICEF \u2013 shows that 620 million children worldwide do not have access to decent toilets at school, and around 900 million children cannot wash their hands properly. Ensuring that children attend school and complete their education is crucial to a country\u2019s social and economic development, yet a lack of decent hygiene facilities discourages children, particularly girls, from doing so. Nearly 570 million children lacked a basic drinking water service at their school. Nearly half of schools in sub-Saharan Africa had no safe drinking water and a third of schools in sub-Saharan Africa had no sanitation service.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ebola Attacked Congo Again. But Now Congo Seems to Be Winning","field_subtitle":"McNeil D: New York Times, 2 September 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7lmn7l6","body":"The month-old Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which rose quickly to over 100 cases appears to be fading. More than 3,500 contacts of known cases are being followed, more than 4,000 doses of vaccine have been given and officials reported feeling hopeful enough to allow schools in the area \u2014 North Kivu Province, on the eastern border with Uganda \u2014 to open as usual. Although five experimental treatments for infected patients recently won approval for emergency use, the author reports that so far too few patients have received them to draw conclusions about how well they may work. One reason experts are reluctant to declare the outbreak contained is that some remote towns have not been visited because of armed groups in the area. Ebola experts also said they would not let down their guard because they remembered a brief, deceptive lull in the early days of the 2014 West African outbreak before it reached three capital cities and exploded, killing more than 11,000 people. Medically, the most exciting prospect on the horizon is that, as of Aug. 22, DRC has approved the emergency use of five potential treatments: two antiviral drugs, remdesivir and favipiravir; and three cocktails of antibodies originally found in recovered patients, including ZMapp, mAb114 and Regn3450-3471-3479. Previously, only about half of Ebola patients were saved if they got supportive treatment, including fluid replacement and fever control, in time. Being consistently able to cure most patients is reported to be an important  advance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 211: How do we keep our health workers in remote rural areas?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploring multiple job holding practices of academics in public health training institutions from three sub-Saharan Africa countries: drivers, impact, and regulation ","field_subtitle":"Made W; Sanders D; Chilundo B; et al: Global Health Action 11(1491119) 1-10, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycph8xa3","body":"This paper examines and seeks to contribute to understanding of external multiple job holding practices in public health training institutions based in prominent public universities in three sub-Saharan Africa countries. A qualitative multiple case study approach was used. Data were collected through document reviews and in-depth interviews with 18 key informants. Data were then triangulated and analyzed thematically. External multiple job holding practices among faculty of the three public health training institutions were widely prevalent. Different factors at individual, institutional, and national levels were reported to underlie and mediate the practice. While the authors report that it contributes to increasing income of academics, which many described as enabling their continuing employment in the public sector, many pointed to negative effects. Similarities were found regarding the nature and drivers of the practice across the institutions, but differences exist with respect to mechanisms for and extent of regulation. Regulatory mechanisms were often not clear or enforced, and academics are often left to self-regulate their engagement. Lack of regulation is cited as allowing excessive engagement in multiple job holding practice among academics at the expense of their core institutional responsibility. This could further weaken institutional capacity and performance, and quality of training and support to students. The research describes the complexity of external multiple job holding practices, which is characterized by a cluster of drivers, multiple processes and actors, and lack of consensus about its implication for individual and institutional capacity. They argue that in the absence of a strong accountability mechanism, the practice could perpetuate and aggravate the fledgling capacity of public health training institutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health market inquiry: Provisional findings and recommendations","field_subtitle":"Competition Commission: South Africa July 2018","field_url":"http://www.compcom.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Health-Market-Inquiry-1.pdf","body":"The South African private healthcare sector comprises a complex set of interrelated stakeholders that interact in markets that are not transparent and so not easily understood. This report highlights key features that describe how the private healthcare sector operates. The author identifies features of the private healthcare sector that, alone or in combination, prevent, restrict or distort competition. The report presents recommendations to remedy these adverse effects on competition. Overall, the market is characterised by high and rising costs of healthcare and medical scheme cover, highly concentrated funders\u2019 and facilities\u2019 markets, disempowered and uninformed consumers, a general absence of value-based purchasing, ineffective constraints on rising volumes of care, practitioners that are subject to little regulation and failures of accountability at many levels. An incomplete regulatory regime is attributed to a failure in implementation on the part of regulators and inadequate stewardship by the Department of Health over the years. Intrinsic and extrinsic incentives in the market have promoted over-servicing by medical practitioners which include increased admissions to hospitals, increased length of stay, higher levels of care, greater intensity of care or use of more expensive modalities of care than can be explained by the disease burden of the population. The report presents We evidence of supply induced demand. Various marketing choices are reported to leave consumers confused and disempowered, compounding their inability to use choice as a pressure on schemes. The market is characterized by a dominance of a few schemes and by an absence of effective direct competition between the three big hospital groups. The report recommends changes to the way scheme options are structured to increase comparability between schemes and increase competition in that market; a system to increase transparency on health outcomes to allow for value purchasing and a set of interventions to improve competition in the market through a supply side regulator. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Health systems readiness for adopting mhealth interventions for addressing non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries: a current debate ","field_subtitle":"Feroz A; Kadir M; Saleem S: Global Health Action 11(1496887) 1-7, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybzvdgb7","body":"In low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs), epidemiologic transition is taking place very rapidly from communicable diseases to non-communicable diseases (NCDs). NCD mortality rates are increasing faster and nearly 80% of NCDs deaths occur in LMICs, with human and economic costs, increasing treatment costs and losses to productivity. At the same time, the increasing penetration of mobile phone technology and the spread of cellular network and infrastructure have led to the introduction of the mHealth. While mHealth offers a promising approach in prevention and control of NCDs, it is unclear how ready health systems are to adopt it for this. The authors raise a number of factors which determine health systems readiness and response for adoption of mHealth technology including preparedness of healthcare institutions, availability of the resources, willingness of healthcare providers and communities. They discuss these factors and suggest that they be dealt up-front through constant effort to improve health systems response for NCDs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV self-testing perceptions, delivery strategies, and post-test experiences among pregnant women and their male partners in Central Uganda","field_subtitle":"Matovu J; Kisa R; Buregyeya E; et al: Global Health Action 11(1503784) 1-12, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y85jwgl6","body":"This was a qualitative study was conducted in Central Uganda between February and March 2017 through 32 in-depth interviews to document women and men\u2019s perceptions about HIV self-testing (HIVST) strategies used by women in delivering the kits to their male partners, male partners\u2019 reactions to receiving kits from their female partners, and positive and negative social outcomes post-test. Women were initially anxious about their male partners\u2019 reaction if they brought HIVST kits home, but the majority eventually managed to deliver the kits to them successfully. Women who had some level of apprehension used a variety of strategies to deliver the kits including placing the kits in locations that would arouse male partners\u2019 inquisitiveness or waited for \u2018opportune\u2019 moments when their husbands were likely to be more receptive. A few women lied about the purpose of the test kit while one woman stealthily took a mucosal swab from the husband. Most men initially doubted the ability of oral HIVST kits to test for HIV, but this did not stop them from using them. Both men and women perceived HIVST as an opportunity to learn about each other\u2019s HIV status. No serious adverse events were reported post-test. The author\u2019s findings lend further credence to the feasibility of female-delivered HIVST to improve male partner HIV testing in sub-Saharan Africa. They suggest that women need support in challenging relationships to minimize potential for deception and coercion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How do we keep our health workers in remote rural areas?","field_subtitle":"Rambelani Nancy Malema and  Livhuwani Muthelo, University of Limpopo","field_url":"","body":"Although half of the world population lives in rural and remote areas, these areas are serviced by only a quarter of the world\u2019s nurses and less than a quarter of the doctors. In our region the ratios are even worse, where only 16 doctors service every 100 000 people living in remote rural areas. \r\n\r\nThe global shortage of health workers, estimated by World Health Organisation to reach 18 million by 2030, has motivated resolutions in the World Health Assembly and other fora for member states to find ways of retaining their health workers,  through incentives and working environments that encourage people to stay in rural areas.  Most recently in 2016, a High-level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth recommended investing in rural education and creating decent jobs in the rural health sector, particularly recognising the contributions of nurses and midwives to improved health.  \r\n\r\nNotwithstanding these calls, rural and remote areas continue to fail to attract and retain health workers.  So beyond statements of good intention, what practical measures should we be implementing to improve the retention of health workers in our rural areas?\r\n\r\nIt begins with how health workers are enrolled and trained. Our training institutions need to review their admission policies to enrol students from rural backgrounds. They need to include information on rural health care in the curriculum and to integrate rural community experiences to expose students to these environments. Our undergraduate and postgraduate curricula and continuing education programmes should be oriented to building competencies for the shift from hospital-based approaches to preventive, affordable, integrated community-based, people-centred primary and ambulatory care in rural areas, as well as in building capacities for public health and preventing and managing epidemics.\r\n\r\nFinancial incentives have commonly been used to attract and retain health workers in rural areas. In addition to allowances, they may be given as bursaries for further education, study loans and occupation-specific dispensations. There is evidence that these measures have motivated health workers to remain in rural areas. But they can also be eroded if they lose value over time. \r\n\r\nThis makes the living conditions, availability of electricity, proper sanitation, access to schools, telecommunication and internet equally important to enhance retention, together with support for career development and advancement, such as by creation of senior positions in rural institutions. There are new opportunities in using information technologies to enhance rural practice and avoid professional isolation. Providing scholarships, bursaries or other education subsidies and improving living and working conditions can have a more positive effect than compulsory service requirements. Health workers, like others, appreciate their jobs when treated with dignity and respect.\r\n\r\nFrom our review of the literature in a new EQUINET discussion paper 115, we found that many such strategies are being used.  There were some cautions on how we apply these strategies. For example, compulsory measures appear to be best accompanied by relevant support and incentives. Mitigatory strategies such as task shifting should not become \u2018task dumping\u2019 and replace more substantive solutions. Ad hoc financial incentives should not be applied so selectively that they motivate some workers, while demotivating others. They should also not be used as a substitute for a more substantive review of working conditions and of disparities in salaries between different health professionals.\r\n\r\nIt is evident that there is no single approach. There are options, and countries need to choose strategies that are relevant for their own context and in consultation with key stakeholders. This needs to be embedded in the strategic processes for national health planning and financing. Addressing this issue calls for robust management and communication processes and skills, backed by credible evidence from monitoring and evaluation systems, to ensure that the chosen strategies are relevant, appreciated and continually updated.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. Please visit the EQUINET website to read the publications on health worker retention.    ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementing Creative Methodological Innovations for Inclusive Sustainable Transport Planning","field_subtitle":"i-CMiiST,: Urban dialogue, Nairobi,  2018","field_url":"https://cmiist.wordpress.com/urban-dialogue/","body":"In July 2018 i-CMiiST, a Nairobi based organisation held an Urban Dialogue for to discuss the development of two key areas of the city - Yaya junction and Luthuli avenue. The aim of the dialogue was to engage the general public on issues affecting Nairobi streets, transit and mobility to feed into future interventions and approaches in the development of these areas. The theme of the dialogue was \u2018safety on our streets\u2019  looked at from different perspectives: pedestrians, commuters, drivers and cyclist safety. The dialogue involved about 30 people from different professions and backgrounds \u2013 engineers, planners, cyclists, urban designers, state actors, NGOs, business people etc. It was also live streamed on various social media platforms to involve a wider public, viz: KPF, Naipolitans and Placemaking Network Nairobi pages. Views and contributions came from people watching locally and from other countries while the inputs were recorded and an illustrator documented what participants were saying in a visual form.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week of Action","field_subtitle":"21\u201327 October 2018, World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.who.int/ipcs/lead_campaign/en/","body":"The International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week of Action will take place from 21\u201327 October 2018, with particular focus on eliminating lead paint in all countries by 2020. Lead poisoning is preventable, yet in 2016 lead exposure was estimated to account for 540 000 deaths and 13.9 million years lost to disability and death due to the long-term health effects, with the highest burden being in developing regions. Of particular concern is the role lead exposure plays in the development of intellectual disability in children. Even though this problem is widely recognised, it remains a key concern of healthcare providers and public health officials worldwide. The World Health Organisation has produced campaign materials for organisations to plan a local event with government, industry or civil society. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"It\u2019s a stick-up. Your money or your health!","field_subtitle":"Heywood M; Daily Maverick, September 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9pt9yfj","body":"The Health Market Inquiry (HMI) report published in South Africa is a result of widespread complaints about rising prices and declining benefits in 2014, and was set up by the Competition Commission as an inquiry into the private health care market. A panel of independent experts was appointed, chaired by former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo. According to the Competition Commission nearly nine million people in South Africa (16.9% of the population) are members of medical schemes. Many are reported to feel resentful of paying a lot to medical schemes and still having to pay more out of pocket when they need care. The HMI report confirms that premiums are rising and benefits are falling. Expenditure on private health, where R235-billion is spent on nine million people, overshadows the R201-billion the government spends on the other 44-million. Yet the two systems are tied at the hip: they have overlapping staff, overlapping regulatory institutions, and of course an overlapping population for whom healthcare is a right. The National Health Insurance (NHI) reform is raising a need for scrutiny of all providers. The HMI recommends regulations, systems for effective and fair price control and institutions to oversee the market. Scheme members are urged by the author to obtain the report and to challenge the Minister of Health to implement the recommendations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Literature review: Strategies for recruitment and retention of skilled healthcare workers in remote rural areas","field_subtitle":"Malema NR, Muthelo L: EQUINET discussion paper 115, EQUINET (Harare) and University of Limpopo (South Africa), 2018","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Diss%20115%20HR%20ret%20litrev%20Sep%202018lfs.pdf","body":"This literature review, implemented within an EQUINET programme of theme work on health workers at the University of Limpopo, presents published evidence on the recruitment and retention of skilled healthcare workers in rural areas of east and southern Africa. It reviewed published documents in English with a focus on east and southern Africa from 2000-2017.  From the literature reviewed the following strategies emerged as key for health worker retention:  Education and training of healthcare workers; review of regulations and policies regarding provision of healthcare services in rural areas;  provision of financial incentives; and personnel and professional support of healthcare workers. The report identified strategies relating to: Reviewing admission policies and criteria for health worker education; including rural practice issues and skills in health worker training and exposing students to rural areas during training; improving access to continuing professional development (CPD) in rural areas; ensuring that compulsory measures are accompanied by relevant support and incentives; ensuring that mitigatory strategies such as task shifting are not \u2018task dumping\u2019, do not replace more substantive solutions and that they are accompanied by suitable regulatory systems, training and management support; using financial and non-financial incentives to address issues prioritised by health workers, in a way that does not motivate some while demotivating others, and not as a substitute for a more substantive review of working conditions of healthcare workers and strategies to reduce the disparities in salaries between different health professionals; and improving health worker management and support, and the skills of HRH managers.\r\n\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Missing knowledge of gendered power relations among non-governmental organisations doing right to health work: a case study from South Africa","field_subtitle":"Marx M; London L; Muller A; BMC Internatoinal Health and Human Rights 18(33), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12914-018-0172-4, 2018","field_url":"https://bmcinthealthhumrights.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12914-018-0172-4","body":"Despite 20 years of democracy, South Africa still suffers from profound health inequalities and gender roles and norms associated with vulnerability to ill-health. Gender inequality influences women\u2019s access to health care and agency to make health-related decisions. This paper explores gender-awareness and inclusivity in organisations that advocate for the right to health in South Africa, and analyses how this knowledge impacts their work. Ten in-depth interviews were conducted with members of The Learning Network for Health and Human Rights (LN), a network of universities and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) committed to advancing the right to health, but not explicitly gendered in its orientation. The results show that there is a discrepancy in knowledge around gender and gendered power relations between LN members. This suggests that gender is \u2018rendered invisible\u2019 within the LN, which impacts the way the LN advocates for the right to health. The authors thus suggest that even organizations that work on health rights of women might be unaware of the possibility of gender invisibility within their organisational structures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Patient-led active tuberculosis case-finding in the Democratic Republic of the Congo","field_subtitle":"Andr\u00e9 E; Rusumba O; Evans C; et al:  Bulletin of the World Health Organization 96(8) 522\u2013530, 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/8/17-203968.pdf?ua=1","body":"The paper seeks to investigate the effect of using volunteer screeners in active tuberculosis case-finding in South Kivu, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, especially among groups at high risk of tuberculosis infection. In order to identify and screen high-risk groups in remote communities, the authors trained volunteer screeners, mainly those who had themselves received treatment for tuberculosis or had a family history of the disease. A non-profit organization was created and screeners received training on the disease and its transmission at 3-day workshops. Screeners recorded the number of people screened, reporting a prolonged cough and who attended a clinic for testing, as well as test results. Data were evaluated every quarter during the 3-year period of the intervention (2014\u20132016). Acceptability of the intervention was high. Volunteers screened 650 434 individuals in their communities, 73 418 of whom reported a prolonged cough; 50 368 subsequently attended a clinic for tuberculosis testing. Tuberculosis was diagnosed in 1 in 151 people screened, costing 0.29 United States dollars per person screened and US$ 44 per person diagnosed. Although members of high-risk groups with poorer access to health care represented only 5.1% of those screened, they contributed 19.7% of tuberculosis diagnoses. The intervention resulted in an additional 4300 sputum-smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis diagnoses, 42% of the provincial total for that period. Patient-led active tuberculosis case-finding represents a valuable complement to traditional case-finding, and should be used to assist health systems in the elimination of tuberculosis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Perceptions and experiences related to health and health inequality among rural communities in Jimma Zone, Ethiopia: a rapid qualitative assessment","field_subtitle":"Bergen N; Mamo A; Asfaw S; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(84) 1-7, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9ehhkgm","body":"This paper explores community perceptions and experiences related to health and health inequality. The authors conducted 12 focus group discussions and 24 in-depth interviews with community stakeholder groups across six rural sites in Jimma Zone, Ethiopia. Participants described being healthy as being disease free, being able to perform daily activities and being able to pursue broad aspirations. Health inequalities were viewed as community issues, primarily emanating from a lack of knowledge or social exclusion. Poverty was raised as a contributor to poor health that could be overcome through community-level responses. Participants described formal and informal mechanisms for supporting disadvantaged people in form of safety net that provide information and emotional, financial and social support. Understanding community perceptions of health and health inequality can serve as an evidence base for community-level initiatives, including for maternal, new-born and child health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health approach to hearing across the life course: a call-for-papers ","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: 30 November 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/9/18-221697/en/","body":"Hearing loss, especially disabling hearing loss, is associated with delayed cognitive development in children and early cognitive decline in older adults. Hearing loss was highlighted at the World Health Assembly in 2017, when Member States unanimously adopted a resolution to develop public health strategies to integrate ear and hearing care within countries\u2019 primary health-care systems. Against this background, the Bulletin of the World Health Organization will publish a theme issue on the public health approach of hearing loss. Papers are welcomed which focus on identifying and filling the gaps in evidence across comprehensive hearing-care services, from promotion of ear and hearing care, to screening, hearing devices and rehabilitation. In particular, the papers should report on unmet needs, outcomes of services, and effective and sustainable initiatives to reach underserved groups. Submission of papers reporting on both the magnitude of diseases and conditions, such as ear infections, meningitis and rubella, that can affect hearing, are encouraged, as well as papers addressing health system issues and promoting an intersectoral approach to ear and hearing care, such as looking beyond health. As much as possible, papers should seek to integrate examples from low- and middle-income countries across life course.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Q&A: \u2018Research in the global South is of higher quality\u2019","field_subtitle":"Chongwang J: Sci Dev Net, August 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8xkk3z6","body":"An article published in the journal Nature on  July 5 puts forward a new technique for the evaluation of research on development. It marks a departure from conventional approaches that, according to the author, have significant weaknesses. This new method for the evaluation of development research \u2014 known as RQ+ or Research Quality Plus \u2014 emphasises the crucial importance of context, local knowledge and the views of the populations whose lives the research aims to improve. Conventional approaches to evaluating scientific endeavours are argued by the author to have a number of inbuilt constraints. For example, they focus primarily on peer assessment or bibliometrics but don\u2019t explicitly pass judgement on the originality or usefulness of the research, nor do they look at the degree of respect for local knowledge. The RQ+ approach goes beyond an evaluation focused solely on the scientific merit of research outputs and includes other dimensions that are essential to measuring the value and quality of research. RQ+ takes account of what evaluators have to say, but their views should be evidence-based, rather than a simple opinion. Those carrying out the evaluation should take into consideration external points of view \u2014 for example those of users targeted by the research or of the communities it is supposed to benefit \u2014 as well as the perspectives of other researchers working in the same field. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Secretariat Director: International malaria programme","field_subtitle":"No closing date: Applications by email of CV","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybol5m6z","body":"CA Global Headhunters are recruiting for a a position of Director of a Secretariat for an international organisation implementing malaria control in sub-Saharan Africa. The organisation Ministerial Committee and Secretariat Board are now seeking a Director to continue the momentum that has been started, and to allow the organization to consolidate on the lessons and experiences of its start-up period to steer the next phase of the strategy towards malaria-free Regions. The Director will manage a successful transition from the previous head of the Secretariat, while supporting and guiding the regional partnership through a period of focused growth. He/she will work closely with member states, the Board and the Ministerial Committee to steer the organization to a more impactful and sustainable model for regional malaria elimination, including Ministers of Health, Permanent Secretaries, and Malaria Program Directors/Managers. The Director will facilitate negotiation and alignment between member states to allocate resources effectively for regional priorities, while also strengthening mechanisms for joint monitoring and accountability for the mutual elimination goal. The website provides information for submission of applications.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"South African civil society organisations submit a parallel shadow report to the United Nations Treaty Body on the implementation of socio-economic rights ","field_subtitle":"Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI); Black Sash; the Dullah Omar Institute (DOI); et al: South Africa, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CESCR/Shared%20Documents/ZAF/INT_CESCR_CSS_ZAF_32156_E.pdf","body":"In January 2015, South Africa ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).  The South African government submitted its initial report to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in April 2017, raising the steps and measures taken to comply with the provisions of the Covenant, noting its progressive Constitution that includes socio-economic rights. A coalition of civil society organisations called \u201cSouth Africa\u2019s Ratification Campaign of the ICESCR and its Optional Protocol\u201d (the Campaign) submitted a parallel report to the United Nations CESCR. The Campaign\u2019s Steering Group is comprised of the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa, Black Sash, the Dullah Omar Institute, the People\u2019s Health Movement South Africa and the Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute. The Campaign\u2019s parallel report provided a civil society perspective on socio-economic rights realisation in South Africa, and raised questions about areas of the state\u2019s record in fulfilling these rights in order to promote greater accountability. The Campaign's report noted that actions to address the binding constraints to realising socio-economic rights are increasingly urgent in the South African context of severe poverty and inequality. For this reason, the authors identified the need for the state to address forced evictions and displacement; to assess the causes of under-expenditure on informal settlement upgrading; to address a lack of investment in infrastructure maintenance and services provision, and to address intergovernmental cooperation issues that impacted severely in the management of the drought in the Western Cape. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Standing up for our lives: A history of the access to medicines movement in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Section 27: South Africa,  2018","field_url":"https://standingupforourlives.section27.org.za","body":"Twenty years ago, a group of activists came together to demand access to treatment for all people living with HIV. The introduction of highly effective combination antiretroviral (ARV) therapy offered hope. Yet their high price meant that they were entirely unavailable in the public health system and out of reach for millions of people. In 1998, ARVs cost US$10 000 per year. Demanding access to treatments, activists from the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) and the AIDS Law Project, later incorporated as SECTION27 helped to spur a global movement that radically reduced the prices of HIV medicines. Using skilled legal advocacy, high-quality research, social mobilisation, and public education, these activists transformed the global conversation on drug pricing, making it possible for millions of people to access treatment. Yet despite the remarkable success in increasing access to HIV medicines, this paper notes that systemic problems remain entrenched. New medicines to treat drug-resistant TB, cancers, and many other conditions remain far too expensive. As South Africa develops its intellectual property framework, they argue that it is worth revisiting the strategies, successes, and shortcomings of the access to medicines movement for the insights they may offer. The authors observe that a battle that began nearly twenty years ago engaging pharmaceutical giants and recalcitrant governments continues today. This interactive website showcases their story.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The BRICS, climate catastrophe, resource plunder \u2013 and resistance","field_subtitle":"Maguwu F: Pambazuka News, August 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yd8f4gb8","body":"The heads of state from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) met in August for a two-day annual BRICS summit, with one of the issues  that of energy related investments and their impact. The author notes that China and India are investing billions of dollars in coal-fired thermal-power generation in Africa while winning global applause for increasing their solar and wind power at home and suggests that this points to a contradiction and policy inconsistency. China is funding coal projects in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, yet is a global powerhouse in renewable energy. He suggests that Chinese state energy companies losing business due to government slowing of carbon emissions in China are turning to Africa, even while they have first-hand knowledge on the effects of coal on the environment and human health. The Indian Government is also being praised globally for taking steps to halt carbon emissions, but it too has made investments in Africa in coal-based energy. He describes protest against harmful approaches with pickets by activists raising issues and demands to address  exploitation, climate change, pollution and the  looting of Africa resources with inequality and social harm.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The effect of human resource management on performance in hospitals in Sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic literature review","field_subtitle":"Gile P; Buljac-Samardzic M; Van De Klundert J: Human Resources for Health 16(34) 1-21, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8jreokr","body":"In this paper the authors present a systematic review of empirical studies investigating the relationship between human resource management and performance in Sub-Saharan Africa hospitals, based on a total of 111 included studies that represent 19 out of 48 Sub-Saharan Africa countries. From a human resource management perspective, most studies researched human practices from motivation-enhancing, skills-enhancing, and empowerment-enhancing domains. Motivation-enhancing practices were most frequently researched, followed by skills-enhancing practices and empowerment-enhancing practices. Few studies focused on single human resource management practices. Training and education were the most researched single practices, followed by task shifting. Most studies report human resource management interventions to have positively impacted performance in one way or another. The authors found that specific outcome improvements can be accomplished by different human resource management interventions and conversely that similar human resource management interventions are reported to affect different outcome measures. The review also identified little evidence on the relationship between human resource management and patient outcomes and the evidence often fails to provide contextual characteristics which can affect the impact of human resource management interventions. The authors call for more coordinated research efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda embarks on a journey to universal health cover","field_subtitle":"Asiimwe D: The East African, June 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7tgx2lx","body":"Uganda has increased its allocation to the health sector from Ush1.8 trillion ( US $470.6 million) in the 2017/18 financial year to Ush2.3 trillion ($595.6 million), in what the author indicates that some see as an a response to a backlash in 2017 from external funders when the government reduced the nominal value of Ministry of Health\u2019s funding by Ush6 billion ($1.5 million). Officials at the ministry note the increased allocation aims to support the country on a journey to universal health coverage and reduce dependence on external funding. In the 2018/19 financial year, Dr Sarah Byakika, the acting planning commissioner in the Ministry of Health, said the increased allocation will among other things target universal health coverage, recruit community health workers, cover recurrent expenditures at specific hospitals and for the national blood bank. Money is also being provided to avert the perennial strikes of interns and for the drafting of regulations for a new national health insurance law, with national health insurance seen as key for improved domestic financing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"What do we know about community-based health worker programs? A systematic review of existing reviews on community health workers ","field_subtitle":"Scott K; Beckham S; Gross M; et al: Human Resources for Health 16(39) 1-17, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y87fbzrl","body":"The paper synthesizes the current understanding of how community-based health worker programs can best be designed and operated in health systems. The authors searched 11 databases for review articles published between January 2005 and June 2017. The authors identified 122 reviews, 83 from low- and middle-income countries, 29 from high income countries and 10 global. Community-based health worker programs included in these reviews are diverse in interventions provided, selection and training of community-based health workers, supervision, remuneration, and integration into the health system. Features that enable positive community-based health worker program outcomes include community embeddedness, supportive supervision, continuous education, and adequate logistical support and supplies. Effective integration of community-based health worker programs into health systems can bolster program sustainability and credibility, clarify community-based health worker roles, and foster collaboration between community-based health workers and higher-level health system actors. The authors found gaps in the review evidence, including on the rights and needs of community-based health workers, on effective approaches to training and supervision, on community-based health workers as community change agents, and on the influence of health system decentralization, social accountability, and governance. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO guidelines for drinking-water quality","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization:  WHO, Geneva, 2017 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9pe8xh2","body":"The WHO guidelines for drinking-water quality provide recommendations to support countries in developing drinking-water quality regulations and standards, as well as the associated risk management strategies. The guidelines provide an authoritative basis for the effective consideration of public health in\r\nsetting national or regional drinking-water policies and actions; provide a comprehensive preventive risk management framework for health protection, from catchment to consumer, that covers policy formulation and standard setting, risk-based management approaches and surveillance;  emphasize achievable practices and the formulation of sound regulations that are applicable to low-income, middle-income and industrialized countries alike; summarize the health implications associated with contaminants in drinking water, and the role of risk assessment and risk management in disease prevention and control;  summarize effective options for drinking-water management; and  provide guidance on hazard identification and risk assessment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Why India\u2019s IP policy needs a South African tweak","field_subtitle":"Syed S: The Hindu BusinessLine, July 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybxajg6d","body":"South Africa recently adopted a new Intellectual Property Policy, which seeks to align IP with the country\u2019s national development plan. What works for the new SA policy is that it addresses the interface between IP and public health. In facilitating local production and export of pharmaceuticals in line with its industrial policy, the new policy recommends the following changes: introduction of substantive patent search and examination, introduction of patent opposition, strengthening of patentability criteria, incorporation of disclosure requirements, parallel importation, exceptions, provisions to regulate voluntary licensing, compulsory licences, use of IP and competition law. All these provisions use flexibilities provided in the TRIPS (Trade related aspects of IP Rights) Agreement to safeguard development objectives. The South African policy mentions that it must engender the ethos of the South African Constitution and also reflect the country\u2019s broader social economic development objectives. In contrast, India\u2019s IP policy fails to take notice of obligations under Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of the right to health in its Constitution while promoting IP rights. Instead it focuses on enhancing the protection and enforcement of IP rights, which goes beyond its international obligations (referred as \u2018TRIPS-plus\u2019) without taking into consideration their negative implications. Despite being at the forefront of international fora in defending the TRIPS flexibilities, the author observes that India ignores their use for itself at the domestic level, and recommends following the South African approach.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe launches a Health Financing Policy and Strategy","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO Zimbabwe, June 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yadv82ud","body":"Zimbabwe's Health Financing Policy and strategy launched in June 2018 was informed by WHO guidelines on health financing embedded in a health systems framework. The policy and strategy acknowledge that the way funds are raised and allocated and the way services are paid for influences how services are accessed by the population. It focuses on better use of available resources, and increased Government allocation to health leading to reduced direct out of pocket payments by households, which will in turn reduce financial barriers to access for the poor. It also brings in innovation in exploring more options to raise funding for health, and the creation of a pool of funds to ensure better management of health funds.  Emphasis on achieving sustainable health financing is explicit in the Health Financing Strategy so that gains can be sustained. The financing seeks to ensure that the current National Health Strategy (2016-2020) is well financed and implemented to take steps towards financial risk protection and ultimately universal health coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"2018 Africa Scorecard on Domestic Financing for Health ","field_subtitle":"African Union Commission: AU 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybz8upwn","body":"The Africa Scorecard on Domestic Financing for Health is a health financing management tool for governments on the African continent. AidSpan, the independent observer of the Global Fund, describes the scorecard as a tool intended to help with financial planning for the health sector and with monitoring government domestic health spending performance against key global and regional health financing benchmarks. It is also intended to help governments compare their performance with each other. The 2018 Africa Scorecard on Domestic Financing for Health was adopted by the African Union Heads of State and Government Assembly on 2 July 2018 during the Summit in Nouakchott, Islamic Republic of Mauritania. The Scorecard can be accessed in English, French and Portuguese. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"3rd National Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Conference 2018, Makerere University College of Health Sciences 21-22 November 2018","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Submission of Abstracts: 30 September 2018","field_url":"http://chs.mak.ac.ug/amr2018","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) World Antibiotic Awareness Week takes place every year in November, and this year will be 12-18 November, with national events for awareness about antimicrobial resistance. Towards this, the 3rd National Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Conference 2018 for Uganda is being hosted by Makerere University College of Health Science (CHS) in partnership with One Health Central and Eastern Africa (OHCEA, http://ohcea.org), an international network of universities in eight African countries and 16 Universities including Makerere University. This year\u2019s conference will be held at Hotel Africana in Kampala on November 21 \u2013 22 and the theme will be Understanding Drivers and Collective Action against Antimicrobial Resistance. At the conference, the National One Health Platform will launch the National Action Plan (NAP) against Antimicrobial Resistance and it will also one health initiatives in the country.   \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"4th People\u2019s Health Assembly","field_subtitle":"Dhaka, Bangladesh, 15-19 November 2018","field_url":"https://phmovement.org/peoples-health-assembly-dhaka/","body":"The Fourth People\u2019s Health Assembly (PHA 4), will draw on civil society organizations and networks, social movements, academia and other  actors from around the globe. PHA4 will provide a space for strengthening solidarity, sharing experiences, mutual learning and joint strategizing for future actions. The Assembly and associated activities aim to: evaluate and critically analyze current processes and policies that impact on health and healthcare at global, regional and local levels; undertake a collective assessment of PHM\u2019s organizational and programmatic activities and to provide a renewed mandate for the years to come. They also seek to enhance the capacity of health civil society activists to engage with and intervene in the policy making process, to monitor and drive policy implementation and to ensure accountability in the functioning of health systems; to foster and support constructive dialogue, planning and mobilization around health and the broader social determinants of health, involving the widest possible range of practitioners; and to  launch renewed sustainable structures and dynamics, both within and outside the health sector, that will continue to drive coordinated action to secure universal and equitable access to health and health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"5th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"Programme now online: Liverpool, UK, 8-12 October 2018","field_url":"http://healthsystemsresearch.org/hsr2018/","body":"The Global Symposium on Health Systems Research is organized every two years by Health Systems Global to bring together the full range of players involved in health systems and policy research and practice. Beginning with the First Global Symposium in Montreux in 2010, the Symposia have played a crucial, catalytic role in convening a global community dedicated to strengthening health systems and building the field of health systems research. The Fifth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR2018) will take place at the ACC in Liverpool, UK from 8 to 12 October, 2018, bringing together approximately 2,000 health systems researchers, policymakers and practitioners from around the world. The full programme for the symposium is now online at the website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"6th Anniversary of the Marikana Massacre","field_subtitle":"Marikana Solidarity Collective; Review of African Political Economy, August 2018","field_url":"http://roape.net/2018/08/14/6thanniversarymarikanamassacre/","body":"This paper presents a case that six years after the Marikana Massacre, the London-based mining corporation involved (Lonmin) has decided to leave its platinum mining operation in South Africa by preparing to sell to Sibanye-Stillwater. The authors support the demands of women\u2019s organisation Sikhala Sonke and victims\u2019 representatives that Lonmin must fulfil a social covenant with the community,  rather than to the banks. The paper reports the demands of social movements that Lonmin apologise to the South African nation and to the victims of the massacre and pay reparations to the affected parties. The authors also report the call that Lonmin join calls to release the miners in prison as a result of the massacre and to prosecute the police officers and authors of the massacre, take responsibility for the environmental destruction at Marikana and comply with the obligations of its social and labour plan and add its voice to those calling to review the Farlam Commission and finance the legal process. They reject the excuse that the company is now insolvent. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A Rebel in the Marxist Citadel: Tributes to Samir Amin","field_subtitle":"Shivji I; Lawrence P; Saul J; et al: Review of African Political Economy, August 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ydx84cnf","body":"In this journal feature, Issa Shivji, Peter Lawrence, John Saul, Natasha Shivji, Ray Bush and Ndongo Samba Sylla pay tribute to the late Samir Amin. Issa Shivji writes of Amin\u2019s support for younger generations, \u2018His intellectual works, scholarly contributions and political interventions have been sufficiently covered in dozens of tributes that are pouring in every day. I will not go over them. I wanted specifically to capture Samir\u2019s attitude and treatment of younger generations, done as a matter of course and without pretense.\u2019 Peter Lawrence highlights one of Amin\u2019s key ideas, \u2018Amin rejected the prevailing view in both the capitalist \u2018West\u2019 and the socialist \u2018East\u2019 that development entailed catching up with the developed capitalist countries. \u2026 The history of the world was not about followers catching up with leaders but about dominant civilizations being \u2018transcended\u2019 by peripheral ones as the former decline and the peripheral overtake them with different social organizations.\u2019 John Saul illuminates Amin\u2019s concept of \u2018an actual and active \u2018delinking\u2019 of the economies of the Global South from the Empire of Capital that otherwise holds the South in its sway. For Amin, delinking was best defined as \u2018the submission of external relations [to internal requirements], the opposite of the internal adjustment of the peripheries to the demands of the polarizing worldwide expansion of capital\u2019. Amin saw it as being \u2018the only realistic alternative [since] reform of the [present] world system is utopian.\u2019 Ndongo Samba Sylla concludes by writing on Amin\u2019s notion of \u2018daring\u2019 in coordinated struggles, \u2018by the emergence of an anti-monopolies front [in the Global North] and in the Global South by that of an anti-comprador front' challenging subservience to neoliberal globalisation. The authors collectively highlight how through his writings, his interventions and engagement Amin profiled the perspective of the Global South 'and the wretched of the earth.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A tribute to those who provoke us to think again","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET News","field_url":"","body":"While working on this month's issue we got news of the passing of an inspiring African thinker, Samir Amin, and then later in the month of the previous UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and pay our respects to both. In different ways and forums they challenged thinking and agendas from an African and southern lens. From Dakar, Senegal, where Samir Amin led the Third World Forum, Vijay Prashad notes that Amin explored and wrote about both the dangers and possibilities of our current world. In the face of a \"world system with finance in dominance and people whipping from one precarious job to another\"  he pointed to both the need and possibility of Africa making different choices and creating and advancing an alternative. \"As long as we are resisting, he would say, we are free.\"  We include one of the many articles published on his work and ideas in this issue. \r\n\r\nBack to our editorial this month on waiting mother shelters. Papers included in this issue point to a continuing research debate on their effectiveness, with one review  finding no evidence of this from randomised control trials. Yet the  evidence from experience of their use in Zimbabwe in the editorial suggests a need to think beyond measured service and morbidity outcomes to understand their value for improving wellbeing, and to understand how, beyond individual interventions, different elements of comprehensive primary health care come together to improve health and wellbeing. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) Grant to Influence Policy In Your Country","field_subtitle":"Application deadline: 30 November 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yaknfpxm","body":"HER Voice Fund is giving out grants amounting to USD 2000 for activities meant to influence policy processes. The funds are to address the financial access barriers limiting community based organisations (CBOs) working on AGYW issues to fully participate in various stages of Global Fund processes in the 13 target countries. Relevant processes include Global Fund country dialogues across the various stages of the cycle (concept note development, grant-making, grant implementation and grant monitoring); and meaningful participation in related processes including but not limited to: HIV national strategic plans, frameworks, policies, guidelines- development and reviews and their accompanying or related monitoring and evaluation and operational plans; as well as  strategies, policies and guidelines related to adolescent health and their well-being. These funds can be used to support short-term key activities including but not limited to: Transport to attend meetings related to Global Fund processes; meeting arrangements to facilitate dialogue processes by community based organisations and communication processes related to participation in key discussions and forums, among others. Applications can be submitted online or by email ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Advancing Access to SRHRs - Commemoration of The International day for maternal health and Rights","field_subtitle":"Nkoobe F: Centre for Health, Human Rights & Development, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybqmkqr7","body":"On 11th April 2018, Uganda joined the rest of the world to commemorate the International Day for Maternal Health and Rights under the Theme: \u201cRights Based Approach to Maternal Health in Uganda: No Woman Should Die Giving Birth.\u201d Civil Society, led by Center for Health, Human, Rights and Development (CEHURD), and other stakeholders including policy makers marched from the Independence Monument to Parliament where a dialogue with Members of Parliament was held to collectively find sustainable solutions to the alarming maternal mortality rate. Civil Society used dialogue to petition Parliament in demand for the implementation of the resolution that was passed by the house on December 15, 2011 urging Government to institute measures to address Maternal Mortality in Uganda.  Among these included tasking government through the Ministry of Health to strictly enforce maternal health audits and take actions to the established causes, together with developing a policy of compensation to the families of all women who die as a result of maternal related cases through government facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Advancing the right to health in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"CEHURD: EQUINET Regional workshop report, Garuga Country Lake Resort, Entebbe, 30 August 2017","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20CEHURD%20Reg%20Mtg%20Right%20to%20Health%20Aug2017.pdf","body":"In 2015-2018, CEHURD, under the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) conducted a desk review of the implementation of constitutional provisions on the right to health in east and southern Africa. The objective of the workshop was to introduce the OPERA framework in the region, using evidence from Uganda. It aimed to 1. identify the main bottlenecks in implementing the right to health; 2. devise a common advocacy strategy that aims at removing the bottlenecks;. and 3 explore opportunities for applying this within the region. The workshop built on the previous validation of the Ugandan draft report on constitutional implementation of the right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Brain Drain in Africa: The Case of Tackling Capacity Issues in Malawi's Medical Migration","field_subtitle":"The African Capacity Building Foundation: ACBF Occasional Paper No. 31, Zimbabwe, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ya384n7s","body":"Malawi faces severe staffing shortages in the health sector and high migration of health workers. This paper suggests that, like most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, local training of medical personnel has neither plugged these capacities deficits nor increased retention rates. Given the economic realities in Sub-Saharan Africa and the allure of countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, many locally trained physicians migrate. The paper concludes that, like much of Sub-Saharan Africa, Malawi is victim of regional developments. Owing to growth in migration of physicians from South Africa to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, the paper raises that Malawi has turned to recruiting doctors from other African countries, exacerbating capacity constraints elsewhere in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"BRICS-Johannesburg simultaneously disappoints and threatens","field_subtitle":"Bond P: Pambazuka News, August 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ychbc4jw","body":"The author asks whether the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) bloc can rise to the talk in Johannesburg about counter-hegemonic prospects during the BRICS summit held in the last week of July. However he also notes that their ideological diversity means that an excellent opportunity for this was lost and that the unity came rather from a support for mercantilist-neoliberalism. This he notes points to progressive international reform being practically impossible at present. He noted that the BRICS further distorted the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during its 2015 vote restructuring. Four of the five countries took much greater shares for themselves (aside from South Africa which lost 21 percent of its vote) at the expense mainly of poorer countries. He argues that the main site to consider antidote analysis and news is \u201cbrics from below,\u201d a tradition of counter-summit critique begun in Durban five years ago, and also witnessed in Fortaleza in 2014, Goa in 2016 and Hong Kong in 2017. and as found in a protest led by four Goldman Environmental Prize winners and their organisations and allies: Makoma Lekalakala of Earthlife Africa, Bobby Peek of groundWork, Thuli Makama of OilChange International and Des D\u2019Sa of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance. As one outcome the largest proposed mega-project made at prior BRICS summits in 2014 and 2015 on US $100 billion worth of nuclear energy reactors as a deal between former South African president Jacob Zuma and Putin, is now on indefinite hold.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Abstracts: Federation of African Medical Students\u2019 Associations (FAMSA) Conference, Ibadan, Nigeria, November 18th \u2013 24th , 2018","field_subtitle":"Deadline 30 September 2018","field_url":"https://famsaga2018.com/submit-abstract/","body":"The FAMSA General Assembly and Scientific Conference will bring together young vibrant minds as well as professionals and relevant stakeholders in both the public and private sectors from across Africa and beyond to discuss ideas and initiate steps to position Africa on the path to sustainable development in health and by extension in every other sphere of human development. The Conference invites medical students, healthcare professionals and researchers to submit abstracts for oral or poster presentations. Abstracts are to be submitted under any of the two categories; Research or Project. Abstract topics should fall under the subthemes or any other topic of relevance to the theme of the conference.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CODESRIA Humanities Institute: The essence(s), diversity and economies of the (Pan)-African arts - (Re)making and confronting memories and futures, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 30 September, 2018 ","field_url":"https://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2865&lang=en","body":"To mark the 50th anniversary of the bi-annual Pan-Africa Film and Television Festival CODESRIA is organising the Humanities Institute in Ouagadougou on February 25- March 1, 2019. The theme will be \u2018The essence(s), diversity and economies of the (Pan)-African arts: (Re)making and confronting memories and futures.\u2019 The theme intends to promote contemplation of the structural conditions that hinder and facilitate involvement in shaping the future of the African arts and the event seeks to bring together a mixed group of scholars and artists.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Community-based indicators for HIV Programmes","field_subtitle":"MEASURE Evaluation: Online, USA 2018","field_url":"https://www.measureevaluation.org/community-based-indicators","body":"Community-based information systems (CBIS) are key to understanding how HIV programs are working to control the epidemic at the local level in countries with high burden. MEASURE Evaluation developed this collection of indicators to guide community-based HIV programs in monitoring their performance and thereby enhance informed decision making by governments, major donors, and implementing partners. The indicators cover the following themes: vulnerable children, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, key populations, HIV prevention, home-based care and data use cases. The site also provides useful resources and a summary list of indicators. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Countries Pressured to Drop Language on Protecting Access to Affordable Meds from TB Summit Declaration Negotiations","field_subtitle":"Medicins Sans Frontieres; Doctors Without Borders: July 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybxwmv65","body":"Countries negotiating the final declaration text for the first-ever UN High-level Meeting on Tuberculosis in September were put under significant pressure to drop references to protecting countries\u2019 rights to take fully-legal actions to access affordable medicines for their people, M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res reports. One of the final sticking points in the negotiations in New York was language on public health safeguards enshrined in the World Trade Organization\u2019s (WTO) Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). This allows governments, among other things, to issue \u2018compulsory licenses\u2019 to override patents in the interest of public health, so that they can allow generic versions to be produced or imported and more people can receive needed treatment. The \u2018Group of 77\u2019 bloc of developing countries has been under pressure to drop all references to the WTO\u2019s 2001 Doha Declaration that enshrined public health flexibilities and safeguards in the TRIPS agreement. This led to a call by Leena Menghaney, South Asia Head for MSF\u2019s Access Campaign for all countries, including those in the Group of 77, and Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, that have a high burden of TB, to urgently stand up right now against what they refer to as 'bullying', that aims to keep medicines out of the hands of people who need treatment. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award: manuscript submissions open","field_subtitle":"November 18th \u2013 24th, 2018, Ibadan, Nigeria ","field_url":"https://famsaga2018.com","body":"The FAMSA General Assembly and Scientific Conference will bring together young vibrant minds as well as professionals and relevant stakeholders in both the public and private sectors from across Africa and beyond to discuss ideas and initiate steps to position Africa on the path to sustainable development in health and by extension in every other sphere of human development. The conference will feature keynote addresses, plenary sessions, workshops, trainings, hackathon sessions, and scientific presentations on carefully selected subthemes all related and contributory to the goal of repositioning healthcare in Africa for Sustainable Development. Sub themes for the conference include \u2018The African Medical Student and the SDGs\u2019, \u2018Medical Education in Africa\u2019, \u2018Maternal and Child Health in Africa\u2019, \u2018The Burden of NCDs\u2019, \u2018Infectious Diseases in Africa\u2019, \u2018Sustainable Vaccination Schemes\u2019, \u2018Outbreak and Disaster Management\u2019, \u2018Mental Health\u2019, \u2018Health Policy and Financing\u2019 and \u2018Social Determinants of Health\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Call for applicants: Desk review on \u201cA critical assessment of different health financing options in east and southern African countries\u201d","field_subtitle":"Call closes 5pm September 8 2018","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/grants","body":"This critical assessment of different health financing options in east and southern African countries is being commissioned by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) through and in collaboration with key regional partners. It aims to inform policy makers on the positive and negative implications and issues to consider in applying the different domestic public health financing options current being explored, advocated and implemented in east and southern Africa -  including mandatory national health insurance; social health insurance, community based health insurance, voluntary insurance, earmarked taxes, wealth taxes, other direct/ indirect taxes and other sources. Read more at the link shown.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/63573","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 210: Waiting mothers homes save lives: what we have learned from Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Governance and Equity-oriented Policies for Urban Health ","field_subtitle":"Shakim C: ECSA HC Best Practices Forum, Arusha, Tanzania, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybdhe89b","body":"This presentation given at the ECSA HC Best Practices Forum 2018 provides an overview of urban poverty and global commitments to equity oriented policies for urban health; urban health challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa; examples of how youth and community engagement could inform change and how to support the development of governance and equity oriented policies. The author notes that unmanaged urban growth is linked with rising social and economic inequities that benefit the well off and negatively impact health and well-being of the poor and disadvantaged; and that densely packed areas with low levels of sanitation services offer a petri dish for infectious diseases. This contributes to higher cost of living, high risk of school dropout and teenage pregnancy and high rates of crime and violence. Shakim provides evidence of youth as agents of change in urban Tanzania through the Tandale Health Centre.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Market Inquiry: \u2018Nothing we don\u2019t already know\u2019, says Health Minister","field_subtitle":"Unnamed author: Medical Brief, South Africa, July 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yarzkznv","body":"This article raises that the four-year long Competition Commission Health Market Inquiry\u2019s findings reveal what Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi says he already knew \u2013 that South Africa\u2019s private healthcare has become so expensive that even those on medical aid can\u2019t afford it. The article reports that the inquiry singled out the dominance of Discovery Health among medical schemes, and Netcare, Mediclinic and Life Healthcare among hospital groups, as illustrations of competitive market failure. The commission found that the market was characterised by high and rising costs of healthcare and medical scheme cover, by disempowered and uninformed consumers, and by a general absence of value-based purchasing. According to the inquiry\u2019s chair, former Chief Justice, Sandile Ngcobo \u2013 who presented the executive summary of the report \u2013 the private healthcare sector market displayed consistently rising medical scheme premiums accompanied by increasing out-of-pocket payments for the insured, almost stagnant growth in covered lives and a progressively decreasingly range and depth of services covered by scheme options. Although there were 22 open schemes, two medical schemes constitute 70% of the total open scheme market and Discovery Health Medical Scheme comprised 55% of the open scheme market. The Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) was the second largest restricted scheme. There were 16 medical scheme administrators and Discovery Health and Medscheme accounted for 76% of the market based on gross contribution income. The inquiry also found that there was a failure by practitioners to explore multi-disciplinary models of care and that the fee-for-service model of remuneration stimulated oversupply, and incentivised practitioners to provide more services than needed. The inquiry was also reported to raise the issue of an incomplete regulatory regime in the private healthcare sector: Medical facilities were not regulated beyond the requirement to have a licence to operate and practitioners licensed to practice by the Health Professions Council of SA but little more. The report is open for comments until 7 September 2018 and the final report is expected to be released on 30 November.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Home is best: Why women in rural Zimbabwe deliver in the community","field_subtitle":"Dodzo M; Mhloyi M: PLOS One 12(8) e0181771, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0181771, 2017","field_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5549963/","body":"Maternal mortality in Zimbabwe has unprecedentedly risen over the last two and half decades although a decline has been noted recently. Many reasons have been advanced for the rising trend, including deliveries without skilled care, in places without appropriate or adequate facilities to handle complications. The recent decline has been attributed to health systems strengthening. On the other hand, the proportion of community deliveries has also been growing steadily over the years and in this study the authors investigate why. Twelve focus group discussions with child-bearing women and eight key informant interviews (KIIs) were conducted. Four were traditional birth attendants and four were spiritual birth attendants. The study shows that women prefer community deliveries due to perceived low economic, social and opportunity costs involved; pliant and flexible services offered; and diminishing quality and appeal of institutional maternity services. The authors conclude that rural women are very economic, logical and rational in making choices on place of delivery. Delivering in the community offers financial, social and opportunity advantages to disenfranchised women, particularly in remote rural areas. The authors recommend increased awareness of the dangers of community deliveries; establishment of basic obstetric care facilities in the community and more efficient emergency referral systems. In the long-term, they argue that there should be a sustainable improvement of the public health delivery system to make it accessible, affordable and usable by the public.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"How do gender relations a\ufb00ect the working lives of close to community health service providers? Empirical research, a review and conceptual framework","field_subtitle":"Steege R; Taegtmeyer M; McCollum R; et al.: Social Science & Medicine, (209) 1-13, 2018","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953618302375?via%3Dihub","body":"This paper synthesises current evidence on gender and close-to-community providers and the services they deliver. The authors used a two-stage exploratory approach drawing upon qualitative research from six countries in the REACHOUT consortium in 2013 to 2014. This was followed by systematic review that took place in 2017, using critical interpretive synthesis methodology. This review included 58 papers. From this, the authors present the holistic conceptual framework to show how gender roles and relations shape close to community provider experience at the individual, community, and health system levels. The evidence presented highlights the importance of safety and mobility at the community level. At the individual level, in\ufb02uence of family and intra- household dynamics are of importance. Important at the health systems level, are career progression and remuneration. The authors present suggestions for how the role of a close to community provider can, with the right support, be an empowering experience. They argue for policymakers to promote gender equity in this cadre through safety and well-being, remuneration, and career progression opportunities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequalities in health and health risk factors in the Southern African Development Community: evidence from World Health Surveys","field_subtitle":"Umuhoza S; Ataguba J: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(1):52, 1-15, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y83sa9g9","body":"This study investigates inequalities both in poor self-assessed health (SAH) and in the distribution of selected risk factors of ill-health among the adult populations in six Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. Generally, a pro-poor socioeconomic inequality exists in poor SAH in the six countries. However, this is only statistically significant for South Africa, and marginally significant for Zambia and Zimbabwe. Smoking and inadequate fruit and vegetable consumption were significantly concentrated among poor people. Similarly, the use of biomass energy, unimproved water and sanitation were significantly concentrated among poor. people However, inequalities in heavy drinking and physical inactivity are mixed. Overall, a positive relationship exists between inequalities in ill-health and inequalities in risk factors of ill-health. The authors argue for concerted efforts to tackle the significant socioeconomic inequalities in ill-health and health risk factors in the region. Because some of the determinants of ill-health lie outside the health sector, they also indicate that inter-sectoral action is required","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternity waiting facilities for improving maternal and neonatal outcome in low- resource countries ","field_subtitle":"van Lonkhuijzen L; Stekelenburg J; van Roosmalen J: University of Groningen, 2011","field_url":"https://www.rug.nl/research/portal/files/2535123/03_c3.pdf","body":"A Maternity Waiting Home (MWH) is a facility, within easy reach of a hospital or health centre which provides Emergency Obstetric Care (EmOC). The aim of the MWH is to improve accessibility and thus reduce morbidity and mortality for mother and neonate should complications arise. This study assessed the effects of a maternity waiting facility on maternal and perinatal health. The authors searched the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group's Trials Register (April 2009), CENTRAL (The Cochrane Library 2009, Issue 1), MEDLINE (1966 to April 2009), EMBASE (1980 to April 2009), CINAHL (1982 to April 2009), African Journals Online (AJOL) (April 2009), POPLINE (April 2009), Dissertation Abstracts (April 2009) and the National Research Register archive (March 2008) for conducted randomised controlled trials that compared perinatal and maternal outcome in women using a MWH and women who did not. There were no randomised controlled trials or cluster-randomised trials identified from the search. They found from this evidence that there is insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of Maternity Waiting Facilities for improving maternal and neonatal outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Outbreaks: Behind the headlines","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/emergencies/outbreaks-behind-the-headlines","body":"At any one time, dozens of infectious disease outbreaks are happening around the world. Those on the frontlines are often more visible, but behind the scenes, many activities are taking place to control the spread of these diseases. In this special feature, the World Health Organisation highlights a series of recent health emergencies, telling the stories behind the headlines and exploring the many different dimensions of an outbreak response. Humanitarian crises, forced migration, environmental degradation, climate change, reduced access to health services and prolonged conflict often provide exactly the right conditions for an outbreak to occur. Diphtheria - a bacterial disease that is preventable through a simple inexpensive vaccine \u2013 is one such example. Dr. Khadimul Anam Mazhar working in the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox\u2019s Bazar, Bangladesh, found diptheria to be the main focus of his work. The outbreaks of Ebola in DRC and diphtheria among the Rohingya refugees have starkly different profiles. One was a naturally occurring zoonosis in a remote area, the other the result of a major migration of a highly stressed population. For all the differences, however, they also share similar traits: prolonged conflict, inadequate water and sanitation systems, and struggling health systems. The cases highlight two critical and often overlooked issues: 1) multiple countries around the world are facing severe health crises, and 2) many of these countries have several health crises occurring at the same time. While it is critical to treat patients affected by epidemic diseases, the response is much more than purely medical. The range of necessary expertise includes epidemiologists, logisticians, clinicians, data managers, anthropologists and planners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory meeting in Lusaka on health and wellbeing of urban youth","field_subtitle":" Lusaka District Health Office(LDHO); Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC); Civic Forum on Human Development (CFHD): Meeting report 26-27 June 2018, EQUINET, Lusaka, Zambia","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/UH%20Lusaka%20Mtg%20Rep%20June2018%20fw.pdf","body":"TARSC as cluster lead of the \u201cEquity Watch\u201d work in EQUINET has been exploring urban health in east and southern African (ESA) countries, gathering diverse forms of evidence from literature review, analysis of quantitative data, internet searches on practices and a participatory validation amongst different social groups of youth. Lusaka District Health Authority (LDHO) has a history of over a decade of using participatory reflection and action (PRA) approaches to strengthen health literacy, working with TARSC and other organisations in EQUINET. In 2018, TARSC and LDHO colleagues involved with the Zambian health literacy programme identified that it would be important to explore the views of youth in the city on their health and wellbeing to better integrate this group within the health literacy programme. Involving Lusaka youth in a similar process as in Harare of identifying their experiences, perceptions and proposals on health and wellbeing added further grounded evidence in the work in EQUINET. Further, the Harare youth were interested in sharing experience with youth in Lusaka. A two day participatory process was thus held with young people from various social settings in Lusaka on 26-27 June 2018 hosted by LDHO and TARSC, with the objectives to: a. Hear from different groups of Lusaka urban youth their perceptions and experiences on urban health and wellbeing. b. Facilitate exchanges between Lusaka and Harare youth on urban health and wellbeing, and identify their similar and different experiences and priorities. c. Identify what implications the information gathered have for urban health literacy and urban primary health care, and share this with relevant authorities involved in health and wellbeing of urban youth in Lusaka. This report presents the proceedings of the meeting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Patients experiences of self-management and strategies for dealing with chronic conditions in rural Malawi","field_subtitle":"Angwenyi V; Aantjes C; Kajumi M; et al: Public Library of Science ONE 13(7) 1-17: 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycj95pve","body":"This study explored self-management practices of patients with different chronic conditions, and their strategies to overcome care challenges in a resource constrained setting in Malawi. A qualitative study was conducted which involved patients with different chronic conditions from one rural district in Malawi. Data are drawn from semi-structured questions of a survey with 129 patients, 14 in-depth interviews, and four focus-group discussions with patients. Patients demonstrated ability to self-manage their conditions, though this varied between conditions, and was influenced by individual and external factors. Factors included ability to acquire appropriate disease knowledge, poverty level, the presence of support from family caregivers and community-based support initiatives, the nature of one\u2019s social relations; and the ability to deal with stressors and stigma. Non-communicable diseases and HIV co-infected people were more disadvantaged in their access to care, as they experienced frequent drug stockouts and incurred additional costs when referred. These barriers contributed to delayed care, poorer treatment adherence, and likelihood of poorer treatment outcomes. Patients proved resourceful and made adjustments in the face of care challenges. The authors\u2019 findings complement other research on self-management experiences in chronically ill patients with its analysis on factors and barriers that influence patient self-management capacity in a resource-constrained setting. They recommended expanding current peer-patient and support group initiatives to patients with non-communicable diseases, and further investments in the decentralization of integrated health services to primary care level in Malawi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Register for the Shaping health session: Grounding health action in community cultures and systems ","field_subtitle":"9 October 1330-1700 Global Symposium on Health Systems Research Liverpool Conference Room 11C","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yaq52b6n","body":"Join us in this participatory satellite session at the Global Symposium on Health System Research where we will be sharing experiences from diverse countries globally on how social participation and power can make health systems more holistic, responsive and inclusive, and how to facilitate such practice. In this session we will share evidence and learning from a multi-country Shaping health consortium on social participation in local health systems, and use participatory approaches to draw also on the experiences of those participating. These experiences show how social participation and power can make health systems more holistic in approach, more responsive and more inclusive. We will discuss and draw recommendations on practices that ground health action and services within community cultures and systems, what challenges they face, and how to facilitate and encourage such practice. For more information see the website below and sign up at admin@tarsc.org.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Social support under siege: An analysis of forced migration among women from the Democratic Republic of Congo","field_subtitle":"Wachter K; Gulbas L: Social Science & Medicine (208) 107-116, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybvkvc9y","body":"The authors aimed to develop theory to explain how women who migrated from the Democratic Republic of the Congo recreate social support post-resettlement in the United States. An interpretive approach informed by postcolonial feminist perspectives guided the grounded theory methodology. Upon arrival to the United States, women experienced partitioned lives through changing relationships in space and time, which contributed to women being alone and impacted on their well-being. Converging processes propelled women towards learning to stand alone, through which they developed a sense self-reliance, but not without consequences for themselves and their relationships. The analysis contributes to the knowledge of how resettlement is a life altering event that sets into motion psychosocial processes with implications for well-being and health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern Africa HIV and AIDS Regional Exchange (SHARE) Research Digest, April\u2014May 2018 ","field_subtitle":"Southern Africa HIV and AIDS Regional Exchange (SHARE), 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y6w8ljvu","body":"This digest offers article abstracts from peer-reviewed literature related to HIV and AIDS in Southern Africa and is designed to keep readers in touch with the rapidly expanding evidence base pertaining to HIV in the region.  For example in this issue there are 72 abstracts published April through May 2018 that feature articles from Botswana (4), Lesotho (2), Malawi (7), Mozambique (5), South Africa (43), Swaziland (2), Tanzania (4), Zambia (2) and Zimbabwe (9).  Articles include a mixed methods study on access to HIV care and treatment for migrants between Lesotho and South Africa; findings from a cross-sectional study on HIV status disclosure among postpartum women with varied intimate partner violence experiences in Zambia; and lessons learned from the ZENITH trial in Zimbabwe on the role of community health workers in improving HIV treatment outcomes in children. The articles are catered to advocates, health care providers, implementers, lay health workers, policy makers and researchers. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of intimate partner violence on women's contraceptive use: Evidence from the Rakai Community Cohort Study in Rakai, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Maxwell L; Brahmbhatt H: Ndyanabo A; et al: Social Science & Medicine, (209) 25-32, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yaxkf83r","body":"A systematic review of longitudinal studies suggests that intimate partner violence is associated with reduced contraceptive use. The authors used seven waves of data from the Rakai Community Cohort Study in Rakai, Uganda to estimate the effect of prior year intimate partner violence at one visit on women's current contraceptive use at the following visit. The analysis included 7923 women interviewed between 2001 and 2013. Women who experienced any form of prior year intimate partner violence were 20% less likely to use condoms at last sex than women who had not. The authors did not find evidence that intimate partner violence affects current use of modern contraception, however, current use of a partner-dependent method was 27% lower among women who reported any form of prior-year intimate partner violence compared to women who had not. Women who experienced prior-year intimate partner violence were less likely to use condoms and other forms of contraception that required negotiation with their male partners and more likely to use contraception that they could hide from their male partners. Longitudinal studies in Rakai and elsewhere have found that women who experience intimate partner violence have a higher rate of HIV than women who do not. The finding in this paper that women who experience IPV are less likely to use condoms may help explain the relation between intimate partner violence and HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of maternity waiting homes as part of a comprehensive maternal mortality reduction strategy in Lesotho","field_subtitle":"Satti H; McLaughlin M; Seung K: Partners In Health Reports 1(1) 1-24, 2013 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y97gqd7t","body":"Lesotho has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, Partners In Health (PIH) has  included maternity waiting homes since 2009 as part of a comprehensive effort to increase facility-based deliveries and reduce maternal mortality. The maternity waiting homes are located at seven PIH-supported health centres in some of the most remote, underserved areas of rural Lesotho. The homes provide food and shelter for women who live far away from the health centre or have risk factors for potential obstetric complications, and are well-regarded by both health centre staff  and pregnant women. Since the implementation of the Maternal Mortality Reduction Project, PIH has seen waiting home admissions and the number of monthly deliveries at health centres increase dramatically. The authors suggest that failure of previous studies to demonstrate a positive impact of maternity waiting homes may reflect the failure to successfully implement other supporting components of a larger, comprehensive strategy to increase access to maternal health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The Zimbabwe National Maternal and Neonatal Health Road Map 2007-2015","field_subtitle":"Ministry of Health and Child Welfare: Government of Zimbabwe, Harare, 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/pmnch/countries/zimbabwe_roadmap_web.pdf","body":"Zimbabwe's 2007 National Maternal and Neonatal Health Road Map provided an over- arching strategy for scaling up the national response to reduce the current levels of maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity in line with the MDG health related targets, bringing together all national stakeholders to support one national MNH programme, one national MNH coordination mechanism, and one national MNH Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Framework. The concept of the Four Pillars of Safe Motherhood describes comprehensively all prerequisites to be met in order for a woman to safely live through her life cycle, from informed teen age through supervised, healthy pregnancy, through safe delivery and childbirth, the safe-guarding of her newborn\u2019s health start of life, and through a continued, problem free reproductive life. The MNH Road Map sets two clearly defined phases, a first phase of prioritisation on the supply issues of the interventions to make services available first, before fully focusing on a further creation of demand in the second phase. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Waiting mothers homes save lives: what we have learned from Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Nonjabulo Mahlangu, Mandy Mathias, Mongi Khumalo, Thabiso Sibanda, Zimbabwe","field_url":"","body":"Silothemba looks lovingly at the little bundle nestled in her arms and beams with pride.  \u201cIt wasn`t easy,\u201d she says. \u201cI nearly lost this baby. I bled a lot and had I not been here the nurses say I may not have made it too.  I wasn`t eager to come to the waiting mothers home because my friends said the nurses keep you there for long and I have two small children at home.  Actually I didn\u2019t go to the home on the day the nurses said as I decided to go to the clinic when I felt labour pains.  My local village health worker encouraged me to take their advice, however, and I am so happy that I did.  My delivery was very difficult. It started at night and had I not been at the clinic my baby and I might not have survived\u201d.  \r\n\r\nSilothemba is one of the many mothers in Zimbabwe who have benefited from waiting mothers homes. These facilities help to reduce home deliveries as they enable mothers to be at health facilities when labour begins. Nutrition gardens at clinics managed by health centre committees provide vegetables for pregnant women, and boost food security for those from poor households.. Kumbudzi clinic in Umzingwane district also has a kitchen project to support and promote nutrition amongst pregnant women.   \r\n\r\nIn Zimbabwe currently 525 mothers die in every 100 000 live births, one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. Mother and newborn survival in  Zimbabwe is affected by the \u20183 delays\u2019, that is a delay in making a decision to seek health services, a delay in reaching a health facility and a delay in receiving quality services and care upon reaching a health facility.  These delays and the deaths from them are greater in rural areas.\r\n\r\nBefore the waiting mothers homes were introduced, rural women often gave birth at home with the aid of traditional birth attendants.  While convenient, these home births may expose women to risks from unhygienic conditions or limited ability to manage complications. Waiting mothers` homes increase mothers\u2019 access to skilled birth attendants and emergency specialized care.\r\n\r\nWomen who deliver at home often lack adequate information on the risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Health monitors at community level indicate that the delay in deciding to seek health care is a major contributor to maternal deaths, as women decide to seek appropriate health care when it is too late. This delay is exacerbated by the fact that many women do not make these decisions themselves but defer to spouses or relatives, who may also lack knowledge on maternal and child health.   Pregnant women also face barriers from long distances to health facilities, poor road networks, slow transport methods. They may thus deliver before they even reach the clinic. Women in many remote rural and resettlement areas live more than 25 kilometers away from health facilities, above the 10km maximum recommended by government. Going by ox drawn cart is not an option when there are pregnancy related complications have developed and many transport operators fear the risk associated with ferrying such passengers.  \r\n\r\nA waiting mother home reduces the stress of these barriers, giving time to travel to facilities, and reducing costs from different transport options. It brings mothers closer to the skilled health workers they need to manage normal deliveries or obstetric complications. \r\n\r\nThis puts the focus on the third delay, the delay in receiving adequate health care. With postpartum hemorrhage; obstructed labor and hypertensive disorders common causes of maternal death in Zimbabwe, health services need, but often lack,  the staff, training, medicines and equipment to effectively respond to a mother\u2019s needs.  Most rural clinics have at least 2 trained nurses/midwives, but these health workers often face burnout due to overwork and lack electricity, running water and adequate medicines. Higher level referral services may themselves lack skilled personnel.  Antenatal care services and waiting mothers homes allow health workers to monitor the mother before their labour and make early referrals to the next level of care for caesarians, vacuum extraction and induction if this is needed. Referral to these services may also face challenges in some areas from poor road networks, flooding rivers, a shortage of ambulances and poor communication channels. While waiting mother homes cannot solve these referral problems, they can give health workers more time to arrange options to address them.\r\n\r\nTo overcome the three delays, waiting mothers homes need to be backed by other service improvements. Primary health care services need to be available in remote and hard to reach areas, skilled obstetric care needs to be brought closer to rural women through regular visits to health facilities by doctors and stock-outs of relevant medicines avoided. Village Health Workers should be supported by strengthening their knowledge on maternal and child health and support for community led health promotion. Communities especially men should be involved and educated on the risks associated with maternity and the benefits of delivering at health services to encourage their partners to use and benefit from waiting mothers homes, to promote institutional deliveries and to argue for effective primary care and referral services. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Washing with hope: evidence of improved handwashing among children in South Africa from a pilot study of a novel soap technology","field_subtitle":"Burns J; Maughan-Brown B; Mouzinho \u00c2: BMC Public Health 18(709), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5573-8, 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/6/17-207175-ab/en/","body":"While regular handwashing effectively reduces communicable disease incidence and related child mortality, instilling a habit of regular handwashing in young children continues to be a challenging task, especially in low income countries. A randomised controlled pilot study assessed the effect of a novel handwashing intervention \u2013 a bi-monthly delivery of a colourful, translucent bar of soap with a toy embedded in its centre (HOPE SOAP\u00a9) \u2013 on children\u2019s handwashing behaviour and health outcomes. Between September and December 2014, 203 households in an impoverished community in Cape Town, South Africa, were randomised (1:1) to the control group or to receive HOPE SOAP\u00a9. Of all children aged 3\u20139 years and not enrolled in early childhood development programmes,  Two \u2018snack tests\u2019 (children were offered crackers and jam) were used to provide objective observational measures of handwashing. Through baseline and endline surveys, data were collected from caregivers on the frequency (scale of 1\u201310) of handwashing by children after using the toilet and before meals, and on soap-use during handwashing. Data on 14 illnesses/symptoms of illness experienced by children in the two weeks preceding the surveys were collected. At the end, HOPE SOAP\u00a9 children were directly observed as being more likely to wash their hands unprompted at both snack tests (49% vs 39%) and were more likely to use soap when washing their hands. HOPE SOAP\u00a9 children, in general, had better health outcomes, used the soap as intended and were less likely to have been ill. Results point towards HOPE SOAP\u00a9 being an effective intervention to improve handwashing among children. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"What is Zimbabwe\u2019s real maternal mortality rate?","field_subtitle":"Mkudu M; van Wyk A: Africa Check, 2015","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yaofqmtd","body":"The authors report on conflicting figures for pregnancy and childbirth related deaths in Zimbabwe from 525 to 960 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births. It would seem to be a relatively straightforward task to measure maternal mortality, but they note that in reality, that is not the case. Ideally, you would analyse death certificates, but even in countries with well-functioning birth and death registration systems, they report that the number of maternal deaths is routinely undercounted. This is because death certificates are not always complete and in some cases, the person signing a death certificate may not be aware that the woman was pregnant or that her pregnancy contributed in some way to her death. In some instances, health facilities have been known to try and conceal maternal mortalities because of political pressure to reduce the numbers. Zimbabwe is classified as a country with incomplete birth and death records by the UN. Researchers therefore rely on censuses and surveys to estimate maternal deaths. Household surveys reported 614 deaths / 100,000 live births for the period between 2007 and 2014, and 581 / 100 000 for 2009 to 2014, within the range of global organisations\u2019 estimates. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"WHOs First Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health","field_subtitle":"30 October \u2013 1 November 2018, World Health Organisation, Geneva","field_url":"http://www.who.int/airpollution/events/conference/en/","body":"The Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health is the first-ever global event to focus on both air pollution and health. As a contribution towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, the Conference will feature a \u201cCall for Urgent Action\u201d where delegates will reach agreement on a target for 2030 to reduce the 7 million deaths caused by air pollution each year, Countries, urban mayors and civil society will be invited to make commitments to the global advocacy campaign www.BreatheLife2030.org to meet WHO Air Quality Guidelines and reduce climate emissions. The Conference will underline the links between air pollution and the global epidemic of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), and position the health sector to catalyse actions for health-wise policies on clean household energy, transport and waste.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Why indigenous medicine could play a role in rebuilding health systems","field_subtitle":"Falisse J; Masino S; Ngenzebuhoro R: The Conversation, June 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9xpqjr9","body":"This study contributes to the health policy debate on medical systems integration by describing and analysing the interactions between health-care users, indigenous healers, and the biomedical public health system, in the so far rarely documented case of post-conflict Burundi. The authors adopted a mixed-methods approach combining (1) data from an existing survey on access to health-care, with 6,690 individuals, and (2) original interviews and focus groups conducted in 2014 with 121 respondents, including indigenous healers, biomedical staff, and health-care users. The findings reveal pluralistic patterns of health-care seeking behaviour, which are not primarily based on economic convenience or level of education. Indigenous healers\u2019 diagnosis is shown to revolve around the concept of \u2018enemy\u2019 and the need for protection against it. The authors suggest ways in which this category may intersect with the widespread experience of trauma following the civil conflict. They find that, while biomedical staff display ambivalent attitudes towards healers, cross-referrals occasionally take place between healers and health centres. The authors emphasise healers\u2019 psychological support role in helping communities deal with trauma.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"World Intellectual Property Day: Are women in Uganda being priced out of life-saving medicine due to Intellectual Property Rights?","field_subtitle":"Lumbasi A: Centre for Health, Human Rights & Development, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yao6vu33","body":"Although intellectual property (IP) Rights are intended to promote innovation and creativity, the author argues that they act as barriers for access to essential medicines as they create monopolies for pharmaceutical manufacturers who charge exorbitant prices, making these medicines out of reach for many especially in least developed countries. According to 2016 health data compiled by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation , HIV was ranked number one cause for premature death in Uganda. Moreover women, in particular, were disproportionately affected in comparison to men. Many of the medicines they need are noted to be under patent protection and expensive for those who need them, as inventors seek to make a return on the high costs of research and development. The author proposes that the solution to this lies in the effective utilization of provisions incorporated in the WTO- Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreement, commonly referred to as the TRIPS flexibilities. One flexibility is compulsory licensing which allows third parties to use an invention without the holders\u2019 consent. Another is parallel importation which allows procurement of drugs at a lower price from another country without consent of a patent holder of a patented product that is on the market of the exporting country. A further flexibility is the exemption of least developed countries from enforcing pharmaceutical patents until 2033 which can be exploited to promote transfer of technology. The author regards it as imperative to think of those women who are unable to access essential medicines due to their high cost caused by the strict enforcement of IP Rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe: Realising the right to health for mothers and children, a mutli-donor Health Transition Fund helps to revitalise Zimbabwe\u2019s health system","field_subtitle":"UNICEF: UNICEF and MoHCC Zimbabwe 2018","field_url":"https://www.unicef.org/zimbabwe/ZIM_newsline_healthtfundfull.pdf","body":"The Health Transition Fund (HTF) is a $435 million, five-year programme (2011-2015) that aimed to revitalize Zimbabwe\u2019s health sector by improving the lives of children and women. It was funded by multiple external funders from the European Union, Canada, Ireland, Norway, the United Kingdom and SIDA Sweden, and managed by UNICEF in cooperation with the Zimbabwean Ministry of Health. It has four pillars: 1) Improvement of maternal, newborn and child health as well as nutrition, 2) Provision of essential medicines, vaccines and technologies, 3) Human resources including assistance with health worker management, training and retention, 4) Health policy, planning and finance. It aimed to reduce maternal mortality by three quarters and under-5 mortality by two thirds (as stated in the Millennium Development Goals) and eliminate user fees for children under the age of five and pregnant and lactating women by 2015. It sought to support the halving of the number of underweight children under five and combating, halting and reversing trends in HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. A steering committee, chaired by the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Health, oversees and directs the rollout of the fund and defines priority interventions within each of the four thematic areas, while funders provide support to monitoring, evaluation and technical expertise. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"\"Poverty is the big thing\u201d: exploring financial, transportation, and opportunity costs associated with fistula management and repair in Nigeria and Uganda","field_subtitle":"Keya K; Sripad P; Nwala E; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(70) 1-10, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycdhesvx","body":"This paper explored, through women\u2019s, communities\u2019, and providers\u2019 perspectives, the financial, transport, and opportunity cost barriers and enabling factors for seeking services for fistula. A qualitative approach was applied in Kano and Ebonyi in Nigeria and Hoima and Masaka in Uganda. Between June and December 2015, the study team conducted in-depth interviews with women affected by fistula including those awaiting repair, living with fistula, and after repair, their spouses and other family members, and health service providers involved in fistula repair and counseling. Focus group discussions with male and female community stakeholders and post-repair clients were also conducted. Women\u2019s experiences indicate the obstetric fistula results in a combined set of costs associated with delivery, repair, transportation, lost income, and companion expenses that are often limiting. Medical and non-medical ancillary costs such as food, medications, and water are not borne evenly among all fistula care centers or camps due to funding shortages. Women in Uganda spend Ugandan Shilling 10,000 to 90,000 for two people for a single trip to a camp. Factors that influence women\u2019s and families\u2019 ability to cover costs of fistula care access include education and vocational skills, community savings mechanisms, available resources in repair centers, client counseling, and subsidized care and transportation. The concentration of women in poverty and the perceived and actual out of pocket costs associated with fistula repair speak to an inability to prioritize accessing fistula treatment over household expenditures. Innovative approaches to financial assistance, transport, information of the available repair centers, rehabilitation, and reintegration in overcoming cost barriers were recommended. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"African Network for Internationalization of Education (ANIE) 9th Annual Conference 2018: Africa in the global higher education landscape: the role of internationalization","field_subtitle":"3 \u2013 5 October 2018, Nairobi, Kenya","field_url":"https://anienetwork.org/-conference/","body":"ANIEs 10th Anniversary and 9th Annual Conference will debate contemporary trends in internationalization of higher education in Africa, the achievements that have been made over the last one decade, main challenges, and the implications of global internationalization of higher education in Africa. It is a timely opportunity to reflect on the crucial role of Africa in the global higher education and research landscape, especially towards the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).The conference ties in with the goals of Agenda2063; a blueprint for the growth of all the nations of the African continent for coming five decades. It aims to critically consider where African universities find themselves at present in the global higher education landscape. In which ways are the colonial and post-colonial legacies of African higher education playing themselves out in internationalization processes? How has internationalization in Africa helped African universities to claim spaces in the African knowledge domain from their former subservient positions? Who are the narrators of African knowledge and how can internationalization reshape the landscape?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Applications for the 2nd Cohort of Tekano Fellows now open","field_subtitle":"Deadline for  Stage 1 of applications: 31 August 2018","field_url":"https://www.tekano.org.za/apply","body":"Tekano's mission to foster dynamic, visionary, value-based leaders working both individually and in catalytic communities of learning and action who articulate, convey and act to promote health equity by addressing the social and structural determinants of health. Tekano's programme is built around annual fellowships for mid-career people from diverse backgrounds and disciplines who have already shown leadership in addressing the determinants of health equity.  The programme is composed of 6 face-to-face modules, held every two months from January to December 2019. Applicants must be a South African citizen or valid permit holders between 25- 45 of age with evidence of showing leadership and commitment to social justice in South Africa, linked to health equity. Applicants must commit to all program activities of the Fellows Programme in 6 modules in 2019 and either be employed or volunteer with a sending organisation/s. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for expressions of interest on Heightening Institutional Capacity for Government Use of Health Research Award","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 15 August 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8uhryck","body":"Applications are open for Heightening Institutional Capacity for Government Use of Health Research (HIGH-Res) Award. This is a joint call for proposals from the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research and Wellcome to enhance the capacity of ministries of health in lower-middle and low-income countries to use health research evidence in policy-making. This call will fund one consortium up to US$ 1,000,000 for a maximum duration of 36 months. The collaborating research or academic teams must be based at recognized institutions with the capacity to undertake high-quality research. This means an institution that possesses an existing in-house capacity to host a grant and can demonstrate an independent capability to undertake and lead on research programmes. Ministries of health must engage as implementing partners and are required to co-lead the consortium. Applications that include capacity building and comparison across several different institutions and/or countries are encouraged. The primary applicants must be based in at least developed, lower-income or lower-middle income country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Child Rights and Child Law Short Course for Health and Allied Professionals","field_subtitle":"3 - 7 December 2018 Cape Town","field_url":"http://www.ci.uct.ac.za/ci/child-rights-course/overview","body":"Every year the Children\u2019s Institute runs a short course on child rights and child law for health and allied professionals.  This five-day intensive course provides an opportunity for doctors, nurses, social workers and allied professionals to explore how to better support children\u2019s rights in practice. The course aims to build a network of health and allied professionals interested in promoting children\u2019s rights and sharing best practice, and will: deepen understandings of child rights and child law in South Africa; enable participants to apply this understanding in daily practice; enable participants to advocate for children\u2019s health both within and outside the health care system. The course is accredited by both the Health Professions Council of South Africa and the SA Council for Social Service Professions, and is targeted at doctors, nurses, educators, social workers and allied professionals who are responsible for child health at all levels of the health care system. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics","field_subtitle":"Nanjala N: Zed Books, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yajvqfew","body":"From the upheavals of recent national elections to the success of the #MyDressMyChoice feminist movement, digital platforms have already had a dramatic impact on political life in Kenya \u2013 one of the most electronically advanced countries in sub-Saharan Africa. While the impact of the Digital Age on Western politics has been extensively debated, there is still little appreciation of how it has been felt in developing countries such as Kenya, where Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and other online platforms are increasingly a part of everyday life. Written by a respected Kenyan activist and researcher at the forefront of political online struggles, this book presents a unique contribution to the debate on digital democracy. For traditionally marginalised groups, particularly women and the disabled, digital spaces have allowed Kenyans to build new communities which transcend old ethnic and gender divisions. But the picture is far from wholly positive. Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics explores the drastic efforts being made by elites to contain online activism, as well as how \u2018fake news\u2019, a failed digital vote-counting system and the incumbent president's recruitment of Cambridge Analytica contributed to tensions around the 2017 elections. Reframing digital democracy from the African perspective, Nyabola\u2019s work opens up new ways of understanding our current global online era.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"DRAFT Astana Declaration on Primary Health Care","field_subtitle":"WHO: Draft for review for the Global Conference on Primary Health Care, World Health Organisation, Geneva, 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9c9ufrd","body":"On 25-26 October 2018, the world will come together to renew a commitment to strengthening primary health care to achieve universal health coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals. The World Health Organisation (WHO) have received over 500 comments on the Draft Declaration on Primary Health Care and incorporated them in this updated draft. This draft describes the need for Primary Health Care to address today\u2019s health challenges. WHO are reopening the public consultation to ensure that voices of a broad range of stakeholders are included and has circulated a draft declaration for comment.  It goes to in-person member state consultation in early August.  The proposed text is provided at the website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"EAC Executive decries high number of East Africans seeking health services in India ","field_subtitle":"East African Community Secretariat: Arusha, Tanzania, June, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yab2lhe8","body":"The Executive Secretary of the East African Health Research Commission (EAHRC), Professor Gibson Kibiki, has decried the high number of East Africans going to India to seek medical services which can be accessed in hospitals in the region. Prof. Kibiki attributed the huge exodus of patients to India to the lack of information on health services that were available at referral hospitals in the region. He revealed that East Africans may soon be able to access treatment across national borders in addition to enjoying portable health insurance across the region, adding that the Commission would soon undertake research to gauge the feasibility of a regional health insurance scheme before piloting the scheme. He described as counterproductive the tendency by health researchers and medics in the Partner States to work in silos since the region was one and that diseases did not know national borders. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award: manuscript submissions open","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 30 August 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7dpxmnp","body":"The South African Health Review's Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award (EPHPA) is open to young public health practitioners or student researchers in the fields of health sciences, medicine or public health who are currently studying for their Masters or Honours degree, or are in the final year of their Bachelor's degree. Individuals seeking to publish a paper dealing with any of the following issues are encouraged to apply: Health workers (e.g. community health workers, production and distribution of healthcare workers, planning and forecasting, task-shifting, etc.); Responses to the prevention and management of non-communicable diseases.; Progress and challenges towards implementing universal health coverage. The South African Health Review's Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award is offered to South African citizens or permanent residents who are under the age of 35 on 3 August 2018. See website for further details.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 209: Safeguarding the principles of the Alma Ata Declaration on PHC","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Examining equity in health insurance coverage: an analysis of Ghana\u2019s National Health Insurance Scheme","field_subtitle":"Dake F: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(85) 1-10; 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yakfloxp","body":"This paper examines equity in coverage under Ghana\u2019s National Health Insurance Scheme. Secondary data from the 2008 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey based on an analytical sample of 4821 females and 4568 males were analysed using descriptive, bivariate and multivariate methods. As at 2008, more than 60% of Ghanaians aged 15\u201359 years were not covered under the National Health Insurance Scheme with slightly more females than males covered. Coverage was highest among the highly educated, professionals, those from households in the richest wealth quintile and urban residents. Lack of coverage was most concentrated among poor people. The author calls for  deliberate action to enrol the poor under the National Health Insurance Scheme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"From health for all to universal health coverage: Alma Ata is still relevant","field_subtitle":"Raj Pandey K: Globalization and Health 14(62), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-018-0381-6, 2018","field_url":"https://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12992-018-0381-6","body":"With increasing adoption of universal health coverage (UHC), the health for all agenda is resurgent globally.  This commentary discusses the origin of the health for all agenda in the 1970s and the influence of global politico-economic forces in shaping that agenda and its demise. The author proposes that it has resurged in the form of UHC in the twenty-first century, but also discusses UHC\u2019s focus on finances and the increasing role of market economy in health care, and the need to regulate the market based provision of healthcare, and incorporate more of the people and community centred ethos of the PHC of 40 years ago.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Gendered health systems: evidence from low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Morgan R; Ayiasi R; Barman D; et al: Health Research Policy and Systems 16(58) 2-12, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybw3xpcx","body":"This paper synthesizes findings from nine studies focusing on four health systems domains, namely human resources, service delivery, governance and financing. It provides examples of how a  gender approach can be applied by researchers in a range of low- and middle-income settings to these domains and demonstrates that this can uncover new ways of viewing seemingly intractable problems. The studies used a combination of mixed, quantitative, qualitative and participatory methods, including photovoice and life histories, to prompt deeper and more personal reflections on gender norms. Five core themes that cut across the different studies were the intersection of gender with other social stratifiers, the importance of male involvement, the influence of gendered social norms on health system structures and processes, the reliance on unpaid carers within the health system and the role of gender within policy and practice. These themes indicate the relevance of and need for gender analysis by researchers, policy-makers and health practitioners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV infection in patients with sexually transmitted infections in Zimbabwe \u2013 Results from the Zimbabwe STI etiology study","field_subtitle":"Kilmarx P; Gonese E; Lewis D; et al.: PLoS One, doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0198683, 2018","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0198683","body":"HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STI) frequently co-occur. The authors conducted HIV diagnostic testing in an assessment of the etiologies of major STI syndromes in Zimbabwe. A total of 600 patients were enrolled at six geographically diverse, high-volume STI clinics in Zimbabwe in 2014\u201315: 200 men with urethral discharge, 200 women with vaginal discharge, and 100 men and 100 women each with genital ulcer disease (GUD). Patients completed a questionnaire, underwent a genital examination, and had specimens taken for etiologic testing. Patients were offered, but not required to accept, HIV testing using a standard HIV algorithm in which two rapid tests defined a positive result. A total of 489 participants accepted HIV testing; 201 tested HIV-1-positive, including 16 of 134 participants who reported an HIV-negative status at study enrollment, and 58 of 206 participants who reported their HIV status as unknown. Of 147 who self-reported being HIV-positive at study enrollment, 21 tested HIV negative. HIV infection prevalence was higher in women than in men, and was 28.5% in men with urethral discharge, 40.5% in women with vaginal discharge, 45.2% in men with GUD, and 59.8% in women with GUD. The high prevalence of HIV infection in STI clinic patients in Zimbabwe is argued by the authors to underscore the importance of providing HIV testing and referral for indicated prevention and treatment services for this population. The discrepancy between positive self-reported and negative study HIV test results highlights the need for operator training, strict attention to laboratory quality assurance, and clear communication with patients about their HIV infection status.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How do gender relations affect the working lives of close to community health service providers? Empirical research, a review and conceptual framework","field_subtitle":"Steege R; Taegtmeyer M; McCollum R; et al: Social Science & Medicine 209 (2018) 1\u201313, 2018 ","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953618302375?via%3Dihub","body":"This paper synthesises current evidence on gender and close-to-community (CTC) providers and the services they deliver.  The review included 58 papers from literature to inform the development of a conceptual framework. The authors present a holistic conceptual framework to show how gender roles and relations shape CTC provider experience at the individual, community, and health system levels. The evidence presented highlights the importance of safety and mobility at the community level. At the individual level, family and intra-household dynamics are of importance. Important at the health systems level, are career progression and remuneration. The authors present suggestions for how the role of a CTC provider can, with the right support, be an empowering experience. Key priorities for policymakers to promote gender equity in this cadre include: safety and well-being, remuneration, and career progression opportunities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Key Considerations for Accountability and Gender in Health Systems in Low- and Middle-Income Countries","field_subtitle":"Waldman L; Theobald S; Morgan R: Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Bulletin 49(2), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.19088/1968-2018.137, 2018","field_url":"http://bulletin.ids.ac.uk/idsbo/article/view/2967/Online%20article","body":"This article poses questions, challenges, and dilemmas for health system researchers striving to better understand how gender shapes accountability mechanisms, by critically examining the relationship between accountability and gender in health systems. It raises three key considerations, namely that: (1) power and inequities are centre stage: power relations are critical to both gender and accountability, and accountability mechanisms can transform health systems to be more gender-equitable; (2) intersectionality analyses are necessary: gender is only one dimension of marginalisation and intersects with other social stratifiers to create different experiences of vulnerability and there is a need to take account of how these stratifiers collectively shape accountability; and (3) empowerment processes that address gender inequities are a prerequisite for bringing about accountability. The authors suggest that holistic approaches to understanding health systems inequities and accountability mechanisms are needed to transform gendered power inequities, impact on the gendered dimensions of ill health, and enhance health system functioning. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Leveraging the power of partnerships: spreading the vision for a population health care delivery model in western Kenya","field_subtitle":"Mercer T; Gardner A; Andama B; et al.: Globalization and Health 14(44), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-018-0366-5, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9s2tbr9","body":"This paper describes an academic partnership to support the public-sector health care system, with a major focus on scaling up HIV care in western Kenya to build a system able to take responsibility for the health of an entire population. The population health care delivery model involved comprehensive, integrated, community-centred, and financially sustainable services, with a path to universal health coverage. The authors share information on the partnership with strategic planning and change management experts from the private sector to use a \u2018Learning Map\u00ae\u2019 to collaboratively develop and share a vision of population health, and achieve strategic alignment with key stakeholders at all levels of the public-sector health system in western Kenya. The authors describe how the model has leveraged the power of partnerships to move beyond the traditional disease-specific silos in global health to a model focused on health systems strengthening and population health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Managing epidemics: Key facts about major deadly diseases","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/managing-epidemics/en/","body":"This manual provides concise and up-to-date knowledge on 15 infectious diseases that have the potential to become international threats, and tips on how to respond to each of them. The 21st century has already been marked by major epidemics. Old diseases - cholera, plague and yellow fever - have returned, and new ones have emerged - SARS, pandemic influenza, MERS, Ebola and Zika. These epidemics and their impact on global public health have convinced the world's governments of the need for a collective and coordinated defence against emerging public health threats and accelerated the revision of the International Health Regulations (2005), that entered into force in 2007. The diseases covered are: Ebola virus disease, lassa fever, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, yellow fever, Zika, chikungunya, avian and other zoonotic influenza, seasonal influenza, pandemic influenza, Middle-East respiratory syndrome (MERS), cholera, monkeypox, plague, leptospirosis and meningococcal meningitis. Although originally developed as guidance for WHO officials, this publication is available to a wide readership including all frontline responders - communities, government officials, non-state actors and public health professionals - who need to respond rapidly and effectively when an outbreak is detected.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Multimorbidity: a priority for global health research","field_subtitle":"The Academy of Medical Sciences: AMS, London, 2018.","field_url":"https://acmedsci.ac.uk/file-download/82222577","body":"This report summarises available evidence on multimorbidity and highlights key evidence gaps which must be addressed to better understand the issue, and improve care and outcomes globally. The report calls for a standardised definition and reporting system for multimorbidity. It recommends a need to better understand the trends and patterns of multimorbidity across  countries; the determinants of and burden caused by common clusters of conditions and how best to prevent and manage multimorbidity. The report draws on insights from a number of workshops, one of which was held in Johannesburg, South Africa. It raises that many populations in high, middle and low income countries are experiencing multimorbidity on a massive scale but that the available evidence about the burden, determinants, prevention and treatment of patients with multimorbidity is inadequate. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Opposition to Breast-Feeding Resolution by U.S. Stuns World Health Officials","field_subtitle":"Jacobs A: The New York Times, July 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yc32f6gt","body":"A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered in Geneva for the World Health Assembly. Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother\u2019s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes. The United States delegation was however reported to have embraced the interests of infant formula manufacturers and to have upended the deliberations. Health advocates scrambled to find another sponsor for the resolution, but at least a dozen countries, most of them poor nations in Africa and Latin America, backed off, citing fears of retaliation, according to officials from Uruguay, Mexico and the United States. In the end, the Russian delegation stepped in to introduce the measure \u2014 and the Americans did not oppose. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Postgraduate training for trauma prevention, injury surveillance and research, Uganda ","field_subtitle":"Bachani A; Paichadze N; Bentley J; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation; 96(6):423\u2013427, 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/6/17-200949.pdf?ua=1","body":"This paper addressed the gaps in shortage of trained people and lack of national data on non-communicable diseases and their risk factors in Uganda. The authors developed and implemented a new track within an existing master of public health programme, aimed at developing graduate-level capacity and promoting research on key national priorities for trauma and injuries. They also offered training opportunities to a wider audience and set up a high-level national injury forum to foster national dialogue on addressing the burden of trauma, injuries and disability. Over the years 2012 to 2017 there were four cohorts of master\u2019s students, with a total of 14 students. Over 1300 individuals participated in workshops and seminars of the short-term training component of the programme. The forum hosted three research symposia and two national injury forums. The authors note that institutional support and collaborative engagement is important for developing and implementing successful capacity development programmes, and that integration of training components within existing academic structures is key to sustainability and appropriate mentorship for motivated and talented students.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health Association of South Africa Annual Conference: Health for All- Thinking Globally, Acting Locally","field_subtitle":"10-12 September 2018, Khaya iBhubesi, Parys, South Africa","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybqn8a6v","body":"The Public Health Association of South Africa extends a warm invitation to their 14th annual conference in Parys, North West Province. The conference program features expert plenaries and panel discussions, oral and poster research presentations, skills development workshops, and the opportunity to engage with special interest groups. In commemoration of the World Health Organization\u2019s 70th anniversary celebration, the theme for this year\u2019s conference is \u201cHealth for All- Thinking Globally, Acting Locally.\u201d Since its establishment in 1948, \u201cHealth for All\u201d has been an underlying objective of the World Health Organization\u2019s and its member states; traversing strategic milestones from the Alma Ata Declaration in 1978 and the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, to the Sustainable Developmental Goals in 2015. This theme aims to stimulate robust discussions on progress made, critical reflections on the challenges encountered, and vibrant dialogue on how to move closer to a world where all people are able to attain a state of health that enables them to lead socially and economically productive lives. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Responding to inequalities in health in urban areas in east and southern Africa: Brief 3: What do Harare urban youth say?","field_subtitle":"TARSC; CFHD; Harare youth:  TARSC, CFHD EQUINET, Harare, 2018","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/Urban%20health%20Brief3%20May2018%20lfs.pdf","body":"By 2050, urban populations will increase to 62% in Africa. Cities concentrate opportunities, jobs and services, but they also concentrate risks and hazards for health. How fairly are these risks and opportunities distributed across different population groups but also across generations? How well are African cities promoting current and future wellbeing? How far are health systems responding to and planning for these changes? TARSC as cluster lead of the \u201cEquity Watch\u201d work in EQUINET explored these questions in 2016-7, for east and southern African (ESA) countries. We thus integrated many forms of evidence, including a review of literature, analysis of quantitative indicators, internet searches of evidence on practices, thematic content analysis and participatory validation by those more directly involved and affected. This brief covers the participatory validation by youth from six different suburbs in Harare facilitated by TARSC and the Civic Forum on Human Development (CFHD). The six groups of young people involved in the participatory validation came from youth living in northern higher income suburbs; youth in formal jobs (although noting that they may also be in insecure jobs); young people in tertiary education; young people in Epworth, as a suburb with informal settlements.; unemployed youth and youth in informal jobs. In this brief we summarise the findings of the participatory validation in the two meetings in 2016. We present how the views of the Harare youth related to the areas of health and wellbeing identified in the literature, and how far their experiences varied in the different groups. The findings indicate that there is diversity between young people in different parts of the city and different social contexts that affect which dimensions of wellbeing they perceive to be most important. It was evident, however, that the question preoccupying young people was not \u2018how big is the gap between us?\u2019 but \u2018how, collectively do we close the gap\u2019? The brief points to the policies for youth wellbeing in Harare that would be important to closing the gap.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Responding to inequalities in health in urban areas in east and southern Africa: Brief 4: What did we learn from experiences and innovations in other countries to improve youth health and wellbeing?","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Masotya M; CFHD and Harare youth:  TARSC, EQUINET, 2018","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/Urban%20health%20Brief%204%20May2018%20lfs.pdf","body":"Cities concentrate opportunities, jobs and services, but they also concentrate risks and hazards for health (WHO and UN Habitat 2010). How fairly are these risks and opportunities distributed across different population groups but also across generations? How well are African cities promoting current and future wellbeing? How far are health systems responding to and planning for these changes? TARSC as cluster lead of the \u201cEquity Watch\u201d work in EQUINET explored these questions in 2016-7, for east and southern African (ESA) countries. This brief covers the main features of practices found to be important for urban youth wellbeing from the literature, data and participatory validation reported in Briefs 1-3. In particular it explores practices relating to education, and ensuring access and responsiveness of the curriculum to youth needs; job creation and the measures to support job creation for youth; enterprise creation, and support of how health promoting activities support youth entrepreneurship; the creative and green economy, how it is being developed and organised to support youth employment and wellbeing; shelter/social conditions, including youth access to shelter and non-violent enabling community environments; information and communication, how youth are influencing debates, norms and practices and using social media to promote wellbeing, gender equality and solidarity and participatory government. The brief discusses what these findings suggest for urban primary health care systems to promote health and address the health and wellbeing of urban youth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Robert Carr Fund Request For Proposals (RFP) for 2019-2021","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 13 August 2018 at 12:00 (noon) CET.","field_url":"http://www.robertcarrfund.org/funding/request-for-proposals/","body":"The Robert Carr Fund is inviting proposals from global and regional civil society networks addressing critical factors protecting the rights of inadequately served populations (ISPs); scaling up access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support; and assuring that resources are mobilized and utilized appropriately to respond to the global HIV epidemic. The goal of the Fund is to contribute to improved health, inclusion and social wellbeing for inadequately served populations (ISPs). To reach this goal, the Robert Carr Fund provides core funding to strengthen the institutional and advocacy capacity of regional and global ISP and civil society networks and/or their consortia. Global and regional networks and consortia of networks which meet the definitions and criteria set by this RFP are invited to apply for a grant to support core funding and/or activity needs of the networks and/or consortia for up to three years (2019-2021). ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Safeguarding the principles of the Alma Ata Declaration on PHC","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET Newsletter","field_url":"","body":"\r\nFor forty years the 1978 Declaration of Alma Ata on Primary Health Care has inspired and galvanised understanding, analysis and action on health. In our region, the aspirations and content that were included in the 1978 declaration were embedded in liberation movement goals and post- independence policies and informed the organisation and transformation of health services. Indeed a context of growing movements for social justice and emergent national health systems in the South was one source of the political momentum, values and practice that fuelled the Declaration.  In various declarations over the past 40 years, African governments and communities have recognised the contribution of PHC to improved health equity in the region and voiced a need to accelerate efforts to implement it, even while resources bled out of public sector services. \r\n\r\nIn preparation for a Global conference in Astana in 2018 to commemorate 40 years of PHC a new declaration is being drafted: \u201cthe Astana Declaration on Primary Health Care: From Alma-Ata towards Universal Health Coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals\u201d. The text can be found at http://www.who.int/primary-health/conference-phc/DRAFT_Declaration_on_Primary_Health_Care_28_June_2018.pdf.  It notes a \u201crenewed commitment to health and well-being for all based on universal health coverage (UHC)\u201d and locates PHC as \u201ca necessary foundation to achieve UHC\u201d.  Its focus is thus on UHC as the end and PHC as the means.  It makes reference to the work of other sectors to address other health determinants in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, \u201c avoiding political and financial conflicts of interest\u201d.\r\n\r\nBut the Alma Ata declaration was so much more ambitious and comprehensive in its vision and scope! It called for an economic order that would serve the attainment of health and reduce inequalities in health globally, while also recognising that the promotion and protection of people\u2019s health is essential for socio-economic development.  Its language on state duties and public rights is unambiguous. Its principles are no less relevant today than in 1978, even if changing contexts, health profiles and knowledge demand creativity in how it is applied. \r\n\r\nAs new statements and declarations circulate, let\u2019s remind ourselves of key features of what the Alma Ata Declaration says:\r\n\r\n\u201c I The Conference strongly reaffirms that health, which is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, is a fundamental human right and that the attainment of the highest possible level of health is a most important world-wide social goal whose realization requires the action of many other social and economic sectors in addition to the health sector. \r\n\r\nII The existing gross inequality in the health status of the people particularly between developed and developing countries as well as within countries is politically, socially and economically unacceptable and is, therefore, of common concern to all countries. \r\n\r\nIII Economic and social development, based on a New International Economic Order, is of basic importance to the fullest attainment of health for all and to the reduction of the gap between the health status of the developing and developed countries. The promotion and protection of the health of the people is essential to sustained economic and social development and contributes to a better quality of life and to world peace. \r\n\r\nIV The people have the right and duty to participate individually and collectively in the planning and implementation of their health care. \r\n\r\nV Governments have a responsibility for the health of their people which can be fulfilled only by the provision of adequate health and social measures. A main social target of governments, international organizations and the whole world community in the coming decades should be the attainment by all peoples of the world by the year 2000 of a level of health that will permit them to lead a socially and economically productive life. Primary health care is the key to attaining this target as part of development in the spirit of social justice. \r\n\r\nVI Primary health care is essential health care based on practical, scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technology made universally accessible to individuals and families in the community through their full participation and at a cost that the community and country can afford to maintain at every stage of their development in the spirit of self-reliance and self-determination. It forms an integral part both of the country's health system, of which it is the central function and main focus, and of the overall social and economic development of the community. It is the first level of contact of individuals, the family and community with the national health system bringing health care as close as possible to where people live and work, and constitutes the first element of a continuing health care process\u201d. \r\n\r\nThere is more, and the full declaration can be found at http://www.who.int/publications/almaata_declaration_en.pdf\r\n\r\nThose engaging on statements and processes on PHC should carefully compare with the Alma Ata Declaration and ensure that we do not lose or blur its clarity of principles and content. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the Global conference on PHC see http://www.who.int/primary-health/conference-phc/en/ ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Saving lives, spending less: a strategic response to NCDs","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7ohahcs","body":"This report reveals the financing needs and returns on investment of WHO\u2019s cost-effective and feasible \u201cbest buy\u201d policies to protect people from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), the world\u2019s leading causes of ill health and death. It shows that for every US$1 invested in scaling up actions to address NCDs in low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs), there will be a return to society of at least US$7 in increased employment, productivity and longer life. If all countries use these interventions, the world would move significantly closer to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 3.4 to reduce premature death from NCDs by one-third by 2030. Among the most cost-effective \u201cbest buy\u201d interventions are increasing taxes on tobacco and alcohol, reducing salt intake through the reformulation of food products, administering drug therapy and counselling for people who have had a heart attack or stroke, vaccinating girls aged 9\u250013 years against human papillomavirus and screening women aged 30\u250049 years for cervical cancer. LLMICs currently bear the brunt of premature deaths from NCDs: almost half (7.2 million) of the 15 million people who die globally every year between the age of 30 and 70 are from the world\u2019s poorest countries. Yet global financing for NCDs is severely limited, receiving less than 2% of all health funding. The report indicates that taking effective measures to prevent and control NCDs costs just an additional US$ 1.27 per person per year in LLMICs. The health gains from this investment will, in turn, generate US$350 billion through averted health costs and increased productivity by 2030, and save 8.2 million lives during the same period. Saving lives, spending less: a strategic response to NCDs issues a clear call for funding for scaling up the \u201cbest buy\u201d policies which would save millions of lives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Shaping health participatory satellite session, Global Symposium for Health Systems Research, 9 October 2018, Liverpool UK ","field_subtitle":"Session open for registration","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yaq52b6n","body":"In this session at the Global Symposium for Health Systems Research participants will share evidence and learning from a multi-country Shaping health consortium on social participation in local health systems. The session will also use participatory approaches to draw on the experiences of those participating. Experiences in Shaping Health show how social participation and power can make health systems more holistic in approach, more responsive and more inclusive. Participants will discuss and draw recommendations on practices that ground health action and services within community cultures and systems, what challenges they face, and how to facilitate and encourage such practice. The session is open for registration, but there are a limited number of places. See the website for further details on how to register .","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Socioeconomic inequality in self-reported unmet need for oral health services in adults aged 50 years and over in China, Ghana, and India ","field_subtitle":"Kailembo A; Preet R; Williams J; et al.: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(99) 1-14, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7g3s3ce","body":"This study measures and describes socioeconomic inequality in self-reported unmet need for oral health services in adults aged 50 years and over, in China, Ghana and India. The prevalence of unmet need was 60, 80, and 62% in China, Ghana and India respectively. The adjusted relative index of inequality for education was statistically significant for China, Ghana, and India, whereas the adjusted relative index of inequality for wealth was significant only in Ghana. Male sex was significantly associated with self-reported unmet need for oral health services in India. Given rapid population ageing, the author argues that further evidence of socioeconomic inequalities in unmet need for oral health services by older adults in low to medium income countries are needed to inform policies to mitigate inequalities in the availability of oral health services. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Health workers say they are undervalued and poorly equipped","field_subtitle":"Mutandiro K: GroundUp, July 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yc6atreh","body":"Representatives from the Democratic Nursing Organization of South Africa (Denosa), a trade union that represents nurses and professional midwives, say that nursing staff work under bad conditions. A Denosa spokesman said South African nurses and nursing staff were seeking work out of the country where they were appreciated and would get better salaries. \u201cPeople who rely on the services of public healthcare workers are disadvantaged when public health workers are understaffed or strike due to unresolved grievances,\u201d said Ashwell Jenneker of Statistics South Africa. In a dialogue, the South Africa Minister of Health, Aaron Motsoaledi said, \u201cWe will do our best to ensure that all health workers are given better working conditions. We will also work on making sure that the minimum service level of health workers is implemented.\u201d Those attending the dialogue agreed that a formal investigation was needed into the working conditions of all health workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Teenager at centre of Kenyan court case over botched abortion has died","field_subtitle":"Ratcliffe R: The Guardian, July 2018  ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8p7s834","body":"A teenager whose botched abortion was at the centre of a high court case in Kenya has died.  The girl, who was raped aged 14 and then left with horrific injuries after a backstreet termination, had been the subject of a controversy over the liability of the Kenyan government in her case. The girl\u2019s mother and a group of campaigners had filed a case against the government, claiming it had failed to offer the girl \u2013 known as JMM \u2013 adequate post-abortion care. They called for the government to reinstate guidelines on safe abortions. JMM\u2019s mother, as well as the Federation of Women Lawyers-Kenya and two human rights advocates, filed the case in the Kenyan high court in 2015. Campaigners say that if successful it could save the lives of thousands of women a year. The hearings are expected to conclude in July 2018. Access to abortion was widened under Kenya\u2019s 2010 Constitution, which allowed for the procedure in cases where the health or life of a pregnant woman is at risk, and in cases of emergency. But the government has since withdrawn standards and guidelines designed to make legal abortions safer and banned health workers from undergoing training on abortion. In 2012, nearly 120,000 women were admitted to public health facilities for abortion-related complications. The author reports that women seeking post-abortion services face stigma and discrimination in health facilities, particularly poor or young women. The court decision is expected before the end of the year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases in low-middle income countries: the view from Malawi","field_subtitle":"Gowshall M; Taylor-Robinson: International Journal of General Medicine, 2018(11), 255-264, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yaz3a6u6","body":"As a low-income African country that consistently ranks amongst the world\u2019s poorest nations, Malawi as a case study demonstrates how transition due to societal change and increasing urbanization is often accompanied by a rise in the rate of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Other factors apart from changing lifestyle factors can explain at least some of this increase, such as the complex relationship between communicable and NCDs and growing environmental, occupational, and cultural pressures. Malawi and other LMIs are struggling to manage the increasing challenge of NCDs, in addition to an already high communicable disease burden. However, the author proposes that health care policy implementation, specific health promotion campaigns, and further epidemiological research may be key to attenuating this impending health crisis, both in Malawi and elsewhere. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report ","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yaarncr6","body":"Energy is crucial for achieving almost all of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), from eradication of poverty through advancements in health, education, water supply and industriali\u00adzation to combating air pollution and climate change. This new report includes updated data from WHO on household air pollution showing that 3 billion people \u2013 or more than 40% of the world\u2019s popula\u00adtion \u2013 still do not have access to clean cooking fuels and technologies. Household air pollution from burning solid fuels and using kerosene for cooking alone are responsible for some 4 mil\u00adlion deaths a year, with women and children being at greatest risk. The report provides a com\u00adprehensive summary of the world\u2019s progress towards the global energy targets on access to electricity, clean cooking fuels, renewable energy and energy efficiency. It was launched at the Sustainable Energy for All forum held on 2 May 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Trade challenges at the World Trade Organization to national noncommunicable disease prevention policies: A thematic document analysis of trade and health policy space","field_subtitle":"Barlow P; Labonte R; McKee M; et al.: PLOS Medicine, doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002590, 2018","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002590","body":"It has long been contested that trade rules and agreements are used to dispute regulations aimed at preventing noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Yet most analyses of trade rules and agreements focus on trade disputes, potentially overlooking how a challenge to a regulation\u2019s consistency with trade rules may lead to \u2018policy or regulatory chill\u2019 effects, whereby countries delay, alter, or repeal regulations in order to avoid the costs of a dispute. Systematic empirical analysis of this pathway to impact was previously prevented by a dearth of systematically coded data. In this paper, the authors report analysis of a newly created dataset of trade challenges about food, beverage, and tobacco regulations among 122 World Trade Organization (WTO) members from January 1, 1995 to December 31, 2016. The scope and frequency of trade challenges are thematically described, and economic asymmetries between countries are analysed, raising and defending them, and summarised through four cases of their possible influence. Between 1995 and 2016, 93 food, beverage, and tobacco regulations were challenged at the WTO. \u2018Unnecessary\u2019 trade costs were the focus of 16.4% of the challenges. Only one (1.1%) challenge remained unresolved and escalated to a trade dispute. Thirty-nine (41.9%) challenges focussed on labelling regulations, and 18 (19.4%) focussed on quality standards and restrictions on certain products like processed meats and cigarette flavourings. High-income countries raised 77.4% of all challenges raised against low- and lower-middle\u2013income countries. The authors further identified four cases in Indonesia, Chile, Colombia, and Saudi Arabia in which challenges were associated with changes to food and beverage regulations. Data limitations precluded a comprehensive evaluation of policy impact and challenge validity. The authors observe that policy makers appear to face significant pressure to design food, beverage, and tobacco regulations that other countries will deem consistent with trade rules. They note that trade-related influence on public health policy is likely to be understated by analyses limited to formal trade disputes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Ugandan citizens unite against social media tax","field_subtitle":"Agence France Press: News24, July 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yah685x5","body":"Politicians, clerics, feminists and others have formed a broad coalition of Ugandans calling for an end to a social media tax. In July, Uganda's communications regulator blocked access to social media including WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter, as well as dating sites Tinder and Grindr, unless users pay a Shs200 ($0.05) daily tax. Mobile internet users now have to input a telephone code to pay the tax before they are able to access most social media sites, although implementation has proved patchy with some blocked services still available. Some have turned to virtual private networks (VPNs) to disguise their location and avoid the levy, a trick learned during elections two years ago when the government tried to shut down social media. President Yoweri Museveni - a Twitter user with 855 000 followers - is reported to have urged the imposition of the tax earlier this year, to put an end to \"gossip\". The protesters are resisting the measure and calling for it to be lifted. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Global Ambient Air Quality Database ","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO Geneva 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/airpollution/data/cities/en/","body":"More than 80% of people living in urban areas that monitor air pollution are exposed to air quality levels that exceed the World Health Organization (WHO) limits. While all regions of the world are affected, populations in low-income cities are the most impacted.  According to the latest air quality database, 97% of cities in low- and middle income countries with more than 100 000 inhabitants do not meet WHO air quality guidelines. However, in high-income countries, that percentage decreases to 49%. In the past two years, the database \u2013 now covering more than 4000 cities in 108 countries \u2013 has nearly doubled, with more cities measuring air pollution levels and recognizing the associated health impacts. As urban air quality declines, the risk of stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and chronic and acute respiratory diseases, including asthma, increases for the people who live in them. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"13th International Conference on ICT for Development, Education and Skills","field_subtitle":"26-28 September 2018, Kigali, Rwanda","field_url":"http://www.elearning-africa.com","body":"eLearning Africa 2018 is the 13th International Conference on ICT for Development, Education and Skills, in September in Kigali, Rwanda. The programme includes core dialogues, debates, discovery demos, knowledge exchange sessions, knowledge factories, networking meet-ups, panel talks, plenary sessions and poster presentations on specific topics and informal networking opportunities in which practitioners share their experiences, ideas, new information and perspectives. In the exhibition area, leading international eLearning manufacturers, suppliers and service providers present their latest products and services. eLearning Africa will hold a ministerial round table, an annual meeting of African ICT and Education ministers, who take part in a day-long discussion of key issues affecting education, training, skills and technology before the official opening of the main conference. The sub-themes for the conference include: Creating opportunities through education; transforming the continent; boosting competitiveness and ICT-centric growth; matching skills demand and supply in the African and global context; overcoming barriers; integrating Africa; ensuring inclusiveness diversity matters and digital transformation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"22nd International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2018)","field_subtitle":"23-27 July 2018, Amsterdam, the Netherlands","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8vpr7lx","body":"The International AIDS Conference, first convened during the peak of the AIDS epidemic in 1985, continues to provide a unique forum for the intersection of science, advocacy, and human rights, as an opportunity to strengthen policies and programmes that ensure an evidence-based response to the epidemic. The theme of AIDS 2018 is \u201cBreaking Barriers, Building Bridges\u201d, drawing attention to the need of rights-based approaches to more effectively reach key populations, including in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and the North-African/Middle Eastern regions where epidemics are growing. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Accountability for Health Equity: Galvanising a Movement for Universal Health Coverage","field_subtitle":"Nelson E; Bloom G; Shankland A: Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Bulletin 49(2), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.19088/1968-2018.127, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ydymed4g","body":"In July 2017, IDS hosted a workshop on \u2018Unpicking Power and Politics for Transformative Change: Towards Accountability for Health Equity\u2019, with the aim of generating dialogue and mutual learning among activists, researchers, policymakers, and funders working towards more equitable health systems and a commitment to Universal Health Coverage (UHC). This issue of the IDS Bulletin is based around three principal themes that emerged from the workshop as needing particular attention. First, the nature of accountability politics \u2018in time\u2019 and the cyclical aspects of efforts towards accountability for health equity. Second, the contested politics of \u2018naming\u2019 and measuring accountability, and the intersecting dimensions of marginalisation and exclusion that are missing from current debates. Third, the shifting nature of power in global health and new configurations of health actors, social contracts, and the role of technology. For the first time in IDS Bulletin history, themes are explored not only in text but also through a selection of online multimedia content, including a workshop video, a photo story and a documentary. This expansion into other forms of communication is explicitly aimed at galvanising larger numbers of people in a movement towards UHC and the linked agenda of accountability for health equity. The articles and multimedia in this IDS Bulletin reflect the fact that while the desired outcome might be the same \u2013 better health for all \u2013 accountability strategies are as diverse as the contexts in which they have developed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing the community-level impact of a decade of user fee policy shifts on health facility deliveries in Kenya, 2003-2014","field_subtitle":"Obare F; Abuya T; Matanda D; et al.:  International Journal for Equity in Health 17(65), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-018-0774-4, May 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybdjbab8","body":"This paper examined the community-level impact of a decade of user fee policy shifts on health facility delivery among poorest and rural women and compared the changes with those among the richest and urban women in Kenya using data from three rounds of nationally representative surveys. In 2004, the Ministry of Health implemented the \u201c10/20 policy\u201d for maternal health services in public facilities, that removed user fees at the lowest levels of care.  In 2007, the 10/20 policy was removed and a policy of no user fees for deliveries in public facilities was declared. However, no alternative source of funding was offered and the reality of informal fees remained in place for many service users. Government announced\r\nfree maternity services in all public health facilities in June 2013. Data was gathered from births occurring in the 5 years preceding the survey to women aged 15-49 years who were interviewed in the 2003, 2008-2009 and 2014 Kenya Demographic and Health Surveys. There were no statistically significant immediate changes in the proportion of births occurring in public facilities following the 2004, 2007 and 2013 user fee policy shifts among poor or rural women. There was, however, a statistically significant increase in home deliveries among all women and among those from the poorest households immediately following the 2004 policy and a statistically significant increase in public facility deliveries among women from the two top quintiles, and a statistically decline in home deliveries immediately after the 2007 policy shift. Differences in trends in public facility deliveries between pre- and post-policy periods were not statistically significant for all sub-groups of women, indicating that even among the sub-group that experienced significant immediate increase after the 2007 policy shift, this pattern was not sustained over time. The findings provided empirical evidence that poorly implemented user fee removal policies benefit more well-off than poor women and in cases where there are significant immediate effects on uptake of facility delivery, this trend is not sustained over time.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Chronic respiratory disease among the elderly in South Africa: any association with proximity to mine dumps?","field_subtitle":"Nkosi V: The Conversation, May 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ydzcnwkt","body":"There is increasing evidence that environmental factors such as air pollution from mine dumps increase the risk of chronic respiratory symptoms and diseases. This study investigated the association between proximity to mine dumps and prevalence of chronic respiratory disease in people aged 55 years and older. Elderly persons in communities 1-2 km (exposed) and 5 km (unexposed), from five pre-selected mine dumps in Gauteng and North West Province, in South Africa were included in a cross-sectional study. Structured interviews were conducted with 2397 elderly people, using a previously validated ATS-DLD-78 questionnaire from the British Medical Research Council. Exposed elderly persons had a significantly higher prevalence of chronic respiratory symptoms and diseases than those who were unexposed., Results from the multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that living close to mine dumps was significantly associated with asthma, chronic bronchitis, chronic cough, emphysema, pneumonia and wheeze. Residing in exposed communities, current smoking, ex-smoking, use of paraffin as main residential cooking/heating fuel and low level of education emerged as independent significant risk factors for chronic respiratory symptoms and diseases. The study suggests that there is a high level of chronic respiratory symptoms and diseases among elderly people in communities located near to mine dumps in South Africa and that new long term effective dust control measures should be researched and implemented. One possible intervention could be to put buffer zones in place between mining dumps and where people come to settle as a start to what needs to be concerted government efforts to address the problem.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Cochrane South Africa invites applications for the Aubrey Sheiham Evidence-based Health Care in Africa Leadership Award 2018","field_subtitle":"Applications close: 31 July 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7dr4eqs","body":"Since 2001 through the generosity of the late Professor Aubrey Sheiham 16 Cochrane researchers from low- and middle-income countries have been funded and supported to complete Cochrane Reviews on topics relevant to their region, and to cascade knowledge about Cochrane and evidence-based health care (EBHC) to their local networks. In 2014, the scholarship evolved into a new award focusing on leadership in EBHC - the Aubrey Sheiham EBHC in Africa Leadership Award, administered by Cochrane South Africa. With an updated and more concentrated focus, the fellowship is awarded annually to an individual based in Africa, and supports the conduct and dissemination of a high-impact Cochrane Review on a topic relevant to resource-constrained settings. The Cochrane Review should be registered with a Cochrane Review Group at the time of application. An update of an existing review is allowed if it will have high impact. The applicant should provide proof that relevant evidence is available for inclusion in the review. In addition to completing their chosen Cochrane Review and disseminating its findings, the award recipient will support capacity development by mentoring a novice author based in Africa through the review process. This continues the scholarship\u2019s tradition of building knowledge and research networks, which will be actively supported by Cochrane South Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Community health workers and accountability: reflections from an international \u201cthink-in\u201d","field_subtitle":"Schaaf M; Fox J; Topp S; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(66) 1-5, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y6wuf5rx","body":"Community health workers (CHWs) are frequently put forward as a remedy for lack of health system capacity, including challenges associated with health service coverage and with low community engagement in the health system, and as a means for improvement in health system accountability. During a \u2018think in\u2019, held in June of 2017, a diverse group of practitioners and researchers discussed the topic of CHWs and their possible roles in a larger \u201caccountability ecosystem.\u201d This jointly authored commentary resulted from the authors\u2019 deliberations. While CHWs are often conceptualized as cogs in a mechanistic health delivery system, at the end of the day, CHWs are people embedded in families, communities, and the health system. CHWs\u2019 social position and professional role influence how they are treated and trusted by the health sector and by community members, as well as when, where, and how they can exercise agency and promote accountability. Several propositions were made for further conceptual development and research related to the question of CHWs and accountability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Community-based training of medical students is associated with malaria prevention and treatment seeking behaviour for children under 5 years in Uganda: a study of MESAU-MEPI COBERS in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Obol J; Akera P; Ochola P; et al: BMC Medical Education 18(131), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-018-1250-y, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8sngmpp","body":"This paper seeks to assess if targeted community-based medical education programme is associated with better prevention and treatment seeking behaviours in the management of malaria, a leading cause of morbidity and mortality of children under five in Uganda. A cross-sectional survey was done to compare communities around health facilities where medical students were placed at community-based education and Research Service (COBERS) sites with communities around similar health facilities where medical students were not placed (non-COBERS sites). The authors randomly selected two villages near each health facility and consecutively selected 10 households per village for interviews using nearest-neighbour method. The authors used a structured questionnaire to interview household heads on malaria prevention and treatment seeking behaviour for children under 5 years. The authors performed univariate analysis to determine site and demographic characteristics and performed a multivariate logistic regression to assess association between dependent and independent variables. Five hundred twenty-three of the children under 5 years in COBERS communities slept under insecticide treated nets the night before survey compared with 1451 in non-COBERS communities. 100 of children under 5 years in COBERS communities sought care for fever within 24 h of onset compared with 268 in non-COBERS communities. The presence of COBERS in communities is associated with improved malaria prevention and treatment-seeking behaviour for parents of children under 5 years. Further study needs to be done to determine the long-term impact of COBERS training program on malaria control and prevention in Uganda, along with its other effects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award: manuscript submissions open","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 3 August 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7dpxmnp","body":"The South African Health Review's Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award (EPHPA) is open to young public health practitioners or student researchers in the fields of health sciences, medicine or public health who are currently studying for their Masters or Honours degree, or are in the final year of their Bachelor's degree. It is offered to South African citizens or permanent residents who are under the age of 35 on 3 August 2018. To apply, please submit your complete chapter along with a copy of your South African ID and EPHPA Entry form. Individuals seeking to publish a paper dealing with any of the following issues are encouraged to apply: human resources for health (e.g. community health workers, production and distribution of healthcare workers, planning and forecasting, task-shifting, etc.); responses to the prevention and management of non-communicable diseases; and progress and challenges towards implementing universal health coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Ensuring health and access to health care for migrants: A right and good public health practice","field_subtitle":"Ncumisa Willie: Research Advisor, South African Human Rights Commission, South Africa ","field_url":"","body":"According to the United Nation\u2019s 2017 International Migration Report, South Africa is host to an estimated four million migrants. This figure is set against a backdrop of a history of migration into South Africa that was marked by exploitative labour arrangements between South Africa and its neighbouring countries. This history is often treated with a \u2018historical amnesia\u2019 of the contribution of migrants to the South African economy and society. Migrants and particularly African migrants are met with a distrust and hostility that appears as xenophobia. \r\n\r\nThis hostility is also reflected in South Africa\u2019s public health system, which does not adequately incorporate the reality of migration and health, nor address the needs of migrants. The South African Immigration Act is silent on the health rights and needs of migrants, placing them in a vulnerable situation and often leading to their exclusion from the public health system. This situation is worse for undocumented migrants, given their insecure legal status. \r\n\r\nIn contrast, recent media reports have often focused on \u2018how an influx of health migrants\u2019 has placed a strain on the country\u2019s ability to deliver health care to its nationals. Some provincial health departments have lamented the strain on their limited resources due to the demand for services from migrants. These media reports and official pronouncements create conditions for refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants to be denied access to health care services in public hospitals and clinics on the basis of their nationality or legal status. This was described by Crush and Tawonzera in 2011 as a form of \u2018medical xenophobia\u2019. \r\n\r\nDenying migrants access to health care constitutes a violation of the internationally recognized right to access health care services, a right that is also enshrined in South Africa\u2019s national law. The Bill of Rights in the South African Constitution enshrines equal rights for all persons in the country and affirms values of human dignity, equality and freedom. Migrants are covered by these constitutional rights, including the right to life, to dignity, freedom and security, to access information and to just administrative action.  Section 27 of the Constitution guarantees everyone the right to basic health care, affirming that \u201ceveryone has the right to have access to health care services, including reproductive health care\u201d and that \u201cno one may be refused emergency medical treatment\u201d. \r\n\r\nThe violation of migrants\u2019 rights to access health care has grave consequences. For example, in 2015, a migrant woman lost her premature baby, allegedly due to denial of access to health care. In another incident, a migrant woman was forced to give birth at a bus station after allegedly being denied access to two hospitals in Gauteng province. Such denials of care violate rights. They have a gendered, racial and class impact, with poor, black women bearing the brunt of this discrimination. \r\n\r\nBeyond the state\u2019s legal obligation to provide access to health care services, there are public health reasons for providing health care services to migrants. The difficult journeys undocumented migrants, asylum seekers and refugees have had to make from their countries to South Africa may have exposed them to health problems, including communicable diseases. Treating these conditions makes public health sense as we live in a shared social space. The health of the local population is linked to that of the migrant population, given their integration into the wider community. \r\n\r\nI would therefore argue that the South Africa state should develop a comprehensive multi-sectoral approach to migration and health, beyond infectious diseases and border control. Both the National Health Act and the Immigration Act should explicitly provide for migrant health care. The Immigration Act needs to be amended to adequately reflect the health rights of documented and undocumented migrants. The law should be supported by a comprehensive national policy, that also details how undocumented migrants should be treated, and that is applied universally across all provinces. \r\n\r\nWe need to advocate for and train health workers to implement migrants\u2019 health rights. Such training, as a collaboration of the South African Department of Health and the Health Professions Council of South Africa, should create and foster an understanding among healthcare professionals of migrants\u2019 health rights and needs. It should also include health administrators, as they are a point of entry for migrants attempting to access health care services. \r\n\r\nThese measures are necessary as a public health care system that excludes migrants creates conditions for poor public health for all.   It increases the vulnerability of migrants, generates and magnifies discrimination and inequalities in health and violates migrants\u2019 constitutional rights to access health care. \r\n\r\nThis is not just a health and human rights issue. It is also a matter of social justice. Migrant labour, often low wage, has been integral to South Africa\u2019s society and economy, raising the profitability and savings of local business and consumers. It is also a matter of good public health practice. Delivering equitable access to care for migrants can reduce the health and social costs of disease, improve social cohesion, protect public health and human rights and contribute to healthier migrants in healthier local communities. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter  208: Ensuring health and access to health care for migrants: A right and good public health practice","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Policy brief 43: The role of an essential health benefit in health systems in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, TARSC, IHI, et al.: EQUINET, Harare, May 2018","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20policy%20brief%2043%20EHB%202018.pdf","body":"This brief presents evidence, learning and recommendations from a regional programme of work in 2015-2017 on the role of essential health benefits (EHBs) in resourcing, organising and in accountability on integrated, equitable universal health systems. It outlines from the regional literature reviews and the case studies implemented in Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia the context and policy motivations for developing EHBs; and how they are being defined, costed, disseminated and used in health systems. EHBs can act as a key entry point and operational strategy for realizing universal health systems, for making clear the deficits to be met and to make the case for improved funding of health systems. The brief points to areas where regional co-operation could support national processes and engage globally on the role of EHBs in building universal, equitable and integrated health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluating efforts that build social power and participation in health systems: Introduction to the briefs","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Mastoya M; Beznec P; Frenz P; Mbwili Mueya C; Obando F: TARSC Shaping health, 2018","field_url":"http://www.tarsc.org/publications/documents/Shapinghealth%20eval%20brief%20Intro%20May2018.pdf","body":"These four briefs (separately shown on this site) provide information on evaluation of social participation and power in health to support capacity and practice. They are intended primarily for those working directly with social participation and power in health systems, but also for managers, funders and others who engage with them. They intend to inform thinking and approaches and provide links to deeper resources and do not intend to prescribe or be a \u2019how to\u2019 toolkit. The four briefs address:\r\nBRIEF 1: The concepts and approaches applied in \u2018monitoring and evaluation processes at www.tarsc.org/publications/documents/Shapinghealth%20eval%20brief%201%20May2018.pdf \r\nBRIEF 2: Approaches to assessing change in social participation and power in health at www.tarsc.org/publications/documents/Shaping%20health%20eval%20brief%202%202018.pdf \r\nBRIEF 3: The methods used for participatory evaluation at www.tarsc.org/publications/documents/Shaping%20health%20eval%20brief%203%202018.pdf\r\nBRIEF 4: Engaging funders and formal systems on evaluations of social power in health at www.tarsc.org/publications/documents/Shaping%20health%20eval%20brief%204%202018.pdf","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Experimental vaccine to be used against Ebola outbreak in the DRC","field_subtitle":"Branswell H: Stat, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yaghzk4u","body":"A campaign to vaccinate people at risk of developing Ebola in the latest outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo began in May 2018. The government of the DRC has formally asked to use an experimental vaccine being developed by Merck. The WHO has a stockpile of 4,300 doses of the vaccine in Geneva and the company has 300,000 doses of the vaccine stockpiled in the United States. Merck has given its permission for the vaccine to be used in this outbreak. As the vaccine \u2014 provisionally called V920 \u2014 is not yet licensed, the government deployed it under a compassionate use protocol. At this stage, it can only be used in the context of a clinical trial, plans for which are already in the works. The WHO director-general noted that DRC has lots of experiencing combating Ebola, since the first known outbreak in 1976 happened there. The 2018 outbreak marks the ninth known time Ebola has broken out in the DRC. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Grandmothers help to scale up mental health care","field_subtitle":"Fleck F, Chibanda D: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 96(66), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.18.020618, 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/6/18-030618/en/","body":"Dixon Chibanda developed the Friendship Bench approach to mental health care in Zimbabwe. In this interview he tells Fiona Fleck how he is taking the innovative approach to other countries. The idea of the Friendship Bench arose when he lost a patient to suicide in 2005. After identifying a large burden of mental health conditions, Chibanda talked to the authorities, but they had no money, staff or facilities to offer. So in 2007 he worked with 14 grandmothers in Mbare, a suburb of Harare that was badly affected by the clearance operation of informally built suburbs in the city. The grandmothers were from the community and already doing community work and the friendship bench formalized their role. The first four years were focused on developing a culturally appropriate evidence-based intervention that they could deliver. They developed a problem-solving therapy in the local language drawing on familiar concepts in the local culture while incorporating elements of cognitive behavioural therapy. Together with the grandmothers, they came up with key terms \u2013 kuvhura pfungwa, which means opening the mind, kusimudzira, (uplifting), and kusimbisa(strengthening) \u2013 that formed the basis of the Friendship Bench approach.  The benches are outside each health facility, initially they were set apart, but now they are quite public, because the programme is widely accepted in the communities. Harare has more than 53 primary health care facilities, each with one to four of these benches. When people come to these facilities seeking mental health services, they are screened with the Shona Symptoms Questionnaire 14 to determine the level of mental health disorders and referred to the grandmothers \u2013lay health workers who have been trained and who are supervised by health professionals. Chibanda\u2019s own grandmother lived in Mbare and \u2013 although she was not one the therapists \u2013 she was instrumental in coming up with the income generating component of the approach, which is an important part of the group peer support. After finishing sessions on the bench, the grandmothers sit in a circle and share the challenges they face with their colleagues, while crocheting bags with recycled plastic to sell. Now, after completing therapy, the grandmothers give their patients further support and show them how to make the bags, as a forum for problem solving and income generation.  In Zimbabwe, the approach has been scaled up in more than 70 communities in Harare, Chitungwiza and Gweru and further roll out is taking place, with a component for adolescents under development. The approach is being rolled out in Tanzania, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV Adolescence Workshop","field_subtitle":"10-12 October 2018, Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9xsr7ks","body":"At major meetings, advances in HIV management focuses mainly on either adults or children, leaving out this key group of individuals \u2013 the adolescents. To meet this need for international interchange in order to bring the field forward, the International Workshop on HIV & Adolescence: challenges and solutions seeks to redress this gap. This workshop is set up as an inclusive summit for multidisciplinary experts working with adolescents affected by HIV. The objective will be to share experiences, knowledge and best practices with the aim of defining a pathway forward for optimizing care for adolescents living with HIV. The program will cover the entire spectrum of developmental changes in adolescents including social, behavioural, physiological and biological aspects and the impact of an HIV positive status. Prevention programs, testing, treatment and support services among adolescents shall be discussed. The barriers encountered in delivering these services and ways to mitigate these barriers shall be key areas of discussion during the workshop.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"How antiretrovirals have cut the HIV/AIDS burden on SA's economy","field_subtitle":"Mahlakoana T: Business live, May 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycpysssp","body":"Lost earnings attributable to HIV and AIDS as a result of either death or inability to work have declined significantly globally as countries scale up antiretroviral therapy. In 2005 HIV and AIDS were believed to have resulted in about $17bn in lost income, but the figure is projected to fall to $7.2bn in 2020. A study released by the International Labour Organisation shows that the number of employees living with the virus and unable to work has fallen \"dramatically\" since 2005. South Africa has the biggest HIV epidemic in the world with more than 7-million people living with the virus in 2016 and a stubbornly high rate of new infections.  The country also has the largest antiretroviral treatment programme, which has increased life expectancy from 61 years in 2010 to 67 in 2015. The Employee Assistance Professionals Association\u2019s Dr Dennis Cronson said there had been a great improvement in the effect of the virus on workers, especially in South Africa. \"Hundreds of thousands of people are on ARVs and corporate managed programmes, and it\u2019s a major success story \u2026. the impact on productivity and other factors have improved,\" Cronson said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How to stop strikes from killing patients","field_subtitle":"Cullinan K: Health-e News, May 2018","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/2018/05/21/how-to-stop-strikes-from-killing-patients/","body":"How can patients and health workers be protected from becoming victims of a fight that is aimed an employer? Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have asked the SA Human Rights Commission to investigate the violations of patients\u2019 and health workers\u2019 rights during a recent strike in South Africa and to offer guidance on how patients can be protected during future strike action. The human rights group Section 27 believes that such a solution lies in \u201cdetermining essential services from non-essential services, or reaching agreement on the maintenance of some level of services during a legal dispute\u201d. \u201cAddressing the essential services issue is argued to have a two-fold effect. Firstly, those in the public health care system classified as non-essential services personnel would be able to exercise their right to strike. Secondly, patients\u2019 rights would also be protected as they would be ensured of continued access to health care services as those staff properly designated as essential staff would not be striking,\u201d according to a Section 27 opinion on strikes in the essential services. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequalities in health and health risk factors in the Southern African Development Community: evidence from World Health Surveys","field_subtitle":"Umuhoza S; Ataguba J: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(52), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-018-0762-8, 2018","field_url":"https://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-018-0762-8","body":"This study investigates inequalities both in poor self-assessed health (SAH) and in the distribution of selected risk factors of ill-health among the adult populations in six SADC countries. Data come from the 2002/04 World Health Survey (WHS) using six SADC countries (Malawi, Mauritius, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe) where the WHS was conducted. Poor SAH is reporting bad or very bad health status. Risk factors such as smoking, heavy drinking, low fruit and vegetable consumption and physical inactivity were considered, as were other environmental factors. Socioeconomic status was assessed using household expenditures. Generally, a pro-poor socioeconomic inequality exists in poor SAH in the six countries. However, this is only significant for South Africa, and marginally significant for Zambia and Zimbabwe. Smoking and inadequate fruit and vegetable consumption were significantly concentrated among the poor. Similarly, the use of biomass energy, unimproved water and sanitation were significantly concentrated among the poor. However, inequalities in heavy drinking and physical inactivity are mixed. Overall, a positive relationship exists between inequalities in ill-health and inequalities in risk factors of ill-health. The authors argue that there is a need for concerted efforts to tackle the significant socioeconomic inequalities in ill-health and health risk factors in the region. With some of the determinants of ill-health lying outside the health sector, inter-sectoral action is required.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"International Conference on Community Nursing and Public Health","field_subtitle":"19-21 November 2018, Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"https://community.nursingconference.com","body":"This conference on 'Advancement in Public Health by integration of Community Nursing Practices' aims to bring together individuals and organizations from varied fields of healthcare and provide a global platform for the exchange of innovative ideas. Community Nursing 2018 provides an unmatched opportunity for nursing practitioners, healthcare experts, public health organizations, clinical researchers, academics, physicians and students to meet and network with famous individuals and organizations from their respective fields and to get useful insights in the latest clinical researches. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Inverted State and Citizens\u2019 Roles in the Mozambican Health Sector","field_subtitle":"Dias J; Tom\u00e9 T: Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Bulletin 49(2), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.19088/1968-2018.134, 2018","field_url":"http://bulletin.ids.ac.uk/idsbo/article/view/2964/Online%20article","body":"This article explores the inversion of roles between the state and citizens, by exploring its historical roots and current implications for processes of social accountability in Mozambique, particularly in the health sector. This is a practice-based reflection grounded in the evidence collected through the implementation of community scorecards in the health sector in 13 districts of Mozambique. The evidence reveals a transfer of responsibilities from local governance institutions and service providers to the communities; diluting the frontiers between the state and citizens\u2019 duties and rights, resulting in the inversion of roles. This inversion results in the minimisation of the state\u2019s performance of its duties and accountability in the health sector to respond to local communities\u2019 needs, allegedly due to the lack of financial resources. The authors suggest that it leads to the overburdening of local communities, who assume the responsibility of meeting their own demands, risking participation fatigue. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Neglected Tropical Diseases and Equity in the Post-2015 Health Agenda","field_subtitle":"Taylor E; Smith J: Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Bulletin 49(2), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.19088/1968-2018.141, 2018","field_url":"http://bulletin.ids.ac.uk/idsbo/article/view/2971/Online%20article","body":"The Millennium Development Goals\u2019 focus on just three infectious diseases (HIV/AIDS, malaria, and belatedly, tuberculosis) configured the global health funding landscape for 15 years. Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a group of 17 or so diseases that disproportionately afflict the world\u2019s \u2018bottom billion\u2019. They are a symbol of global health inequities, in terms of prioritisation, research attention, and treatment. This article traces efforts to include NTDs in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda and, having achieved that goal, lobby for an influential position in the post-2015 aid agenda. The SDGs herald a shift to a more expansive approach and there is a risk that NTDs will once again be left behind, lost in a panoply of new goals and targets. There is, however, an opportunity for NTDs to lever their \u2018neglect\u2019 and be recast as a tool of accountability, acting as both a target for and proxy indicator of health equity for the SDGs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"No end to cholera without basic water, sanitation and hygiene","field_subtitle":"Montgomery M; Jones M; Kabole I; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 96(66), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.18.213678, 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/6/18-213678/en/","body":"Safe water, sanitation and hygiene are crucial in protecting people from cholera. The oral cholera vaccine is perceived as an interim solution that can be deployed in advance of, or together with, investments in water sanitation and hygiene. Oral cholera vaccine comes at a cost. Efforts to improve water sanitation and hygiene, on the other hand, have a relatively high return: US$ 4.30 for every dollar invested in water and sanitation, in addition to prevention of most waterborne diseases and time saved from not having to fetch water. Furthermore, several water sanitation and hygiene interventions can be implemented quickly and cheaply, such as point-of-use water treatment and safe storage, community action to end open defecation, provision of soap and promotion of handwashing. The authors argue that the reasonable alternative would be to pursue both oral cholera vaccine and water sanitation and hygiene efforts in parallel as done in, for example, Zanzibar, the United Republic of Tanzania and in Zambia. They argue that three main actions need to be taken to ensure that such investments are prioritized as part of the renewed efforts to end cholera. First, when countries request oral cholera vaccine, they should engage in water sanitation and hygiene efforts. Second, efforts should be made to ensure that initiatives to strengthen health systems and provide quality care devote sufficient resources for providing and sustaining water and sanitation services, especially in cholera treatment centres. Third, external funders and partners must align behind national multisectoral cholera control plans, not simply invest in stand-alone interventions. A shared vision and unanimous agreement among Member States, partners and funders to prioritize broader social and environmental determinants of health, including water, sanitation and hygiene, is needed to end cholera. A proposed World Health Assembly resolution seeks to promote this consensus, ensure effective multisectoral collaborations and address cholera in tandem with other diarrhoeal diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Oral cholera vaccine in cholera prevention and control, Malawi","field_subtitle":"M\u2019bangombe M; Pezzoli L; Reeder B; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 96(66), 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/6/17-207175-ab/en/","body":"With limited global supplies of oral cholera vaccine, countries need to identify priority areas for vaccination while longer-term solutions, such as water and sanitation infrastructure, are being developed. In 2017, Malawi integrated oral cholera vaccine into its national cholera control plan. The process started with a desk review and analysis of previous surveillance and risk factor data. At a consultative meeting, researchers, national health and water officials and representatives from nongovernmental and international organizations reviewed the data and local epidemiological knowledge to determine priority districts for oral cholera vaccination. The final stage was preparation of an application to the global oral cholera vaccine stockpile for non-emergency use. Malawi collects annual data on cholera and most districts have reported cases at least once since the 1970s. The government\u2019s application for 3.2 million doses of vaccine to be provided over 20 months in 12 districts was accepted in April 2017. By April 2018, over 1 million doses had been administered in five districts. Continuing surveillance in districts showed that cholera outbreaks were notably absent in vaccinated high-risk areas, despite a national outbreak in 2017\u20132018. Augmenting advanced mapping techniques with local information helped to extend priority areas beyond those identified as high-risk based on cholera incidence reported at the district level. Involvement of the water, sanitation and hygiene sectors is key to ensuring that short-term gains from cholera vaccine are backed by longer-term progress in reducing cholera transmission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) 14th annual conference ","field_subtitle":"10-12 September, Parys, South Africa","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybqn8a6v","body":"In commemoration of the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) 70th anniversary celebration, the theme for this year\u2019s Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) conference is \u201cHealth For All- Thinking Globally, Acting Locally.\u201d Since its establishment in 1948, \u201cHealth For All\u201d has been an underlying objective of the WHO and its member states; traversing strategic milestones from the Alma Ata Declaration in 1978 and the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, to the Sustainable Developmental Goals in 2015. The organisers hope that this theme will stimulate robust discussions on progress made, critical reflections on the challenges encountered, and vibrant dialogue on how to move closer to a world where all people are able to attain a state of health that enables them to lead socially and economically productive lives. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Responding to inequalities in health in urban areas in east and southern Africa: Brief 1: What does the literature tell us? ","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Masotya M: TARSC, EQUINET, Harare, May 2018","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/Urban%20health%20Brief%201%20May2018%20lfs.pdf","body":"By 2050, urban populations will increase to 62% in Africa. The World Health Organisation (WHO) and UN Habitat in their 2010 report \u201cHidden Cities\u201d note that this growth constitutes one of the most important global health issues of the 21st century. Cities concentrate opportunities, jobs and services, but they also concentrate risks and hazards for health (WHO and UN Habitat 2010). How fairly are these risks and opportunities distributed across different population groups but also across generations? How well are African cities promoting current and future wellbeing? How far are health systems responding to and planning for these changes? TARSC as cluster lead of the \u201cEquity Watch\u201d work in EQUINET explored these questions in 2016-7, for east and southern African (ESA) countries. This brief reports what we found from a review of published literature. It draws on an annotated bibliography of the literature can be found in Loewenson R, Masotya M (2015) Responding to inequalities in health in urban areas: A review and annotated bibliography, EQUINET Discussion paper 106, TARSC, EQUINET, Harare. The literature pointed to broad trends, but included less evidence on social inequalities in health within urban areas in ESA countries. The picture presented in the literature is not a coherent one- it is rather a series of fragments of different and often disconnected facets of risk, health and care within urban areas. There is limited direct voice of those experiencing the changing conditions. There is also very limited report of the features of urbanisation that promote wellbeing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Responding to inequalities in health in urban areas in east and southern Africa: Brief 2: What does the data tell us?","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Masotya M: TARSC, EQUINET, Harare, May 2018","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/Urban%20health%20brief%202%202018%20lfs.pdf","body":"Cities concentrate opportunities, jobs and services, but they also concentrate risks and hazards for health. How fairly are these risks and opportunities distributed across different population groups but also across generations? How well are African cities promoting current and future wellbeing? How far are health systems responding to and planning for these changes? TARSC as cluster lead of the \u201cEquity Watch\u201d work in EQUINET explored these questions in 2016-7, for east and southern African (ESA) countries. This brief reports what we found from analysis of data on indicators of wellbeing. Detail on the methods, findings and analyses of data can be found in full in Loewenson R, Masotya M (2018) Inequalities in health and wellbeing in urban areas in east and southern Africa: what does the data tell us? EQUINET Discussion paper 114, TARSC, EQUINET, Harare. Available at ht tps://tinyurl.com/y9nwy9oh. A number of holistic frameworks were found in the literature. They challenge the equation of progress in development with economic growth, when this is at the cost of intense exploitation of nature and significant social inequality. They thus focus on basic needs, wellbeing and quality of life (material, social and spiritual) of the individual and community, and of current and future generations, as a common good. While context dependent and with different terms in different regions, the buen vivir paradigm, (\u2018living well\u2019 or \u2018wellbeing\u2019) best captures their key features. The brief presents evidence from data in several online databases with comparable data across ESA countries to see how far they measured these dimensions of wellbeing. ESA countries face a challenge in tracking progress in wellbeing, with data missing for many of its dimensions, limited disaggregation by social group or area, and more common measurement of negative than positive outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"The 11th ECSA Best Practices Forum and 27th Directors Joint Consultative Committee Meeting ","field_subtitle":"26th to 28th June 2018, Arusha, Tanzania","field_url":"http://ecsahc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Announcement_BPF-and-DJCC-2018-1.pdf","body":"The East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC) will host the 11th Best Practices Forum and 27th Directors Joint Consultative Committee from 26 to 28 June 2018 in Arusha, Tanzania. The meetings bring together senior officials from Ministries of Health, Health Research Institutions and Heads of Health Training Institutions from Member States; diverse collaborating Partners and Experts from the region and beyond. The BPF and DJCC will be convened at a time, when ECSA Member States continue with efforts in pursuit of Universal Health Coverage, which forms part of the 2030 global development agenda. Deliberations of the 2018 conference will  therefore focus on the theme Universal Health Coverage: Addressing Health Needs of the Underserved. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of cash transfers on social determinants of health and health inequalities in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Owusu-Addo E; Renzaho A; Smith B: Health Policy and Planning 33(5) 675\u2013696, 2018","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/33/5/675/4947872","body":"This paper synthesises the evidence on cash transfers (CTs) impacts on social determinants of health and health inequalities in sub-Saharan Africa, and to identify the barriers and facilitators of effective CTs. Twenty-one electronic databases and the websites of 14 key organizations were searched in addition to grey literature and hand searching of selected journals for quantitative and qualitative studies on CTs\u2019 impacts on social determinants of health and health outcomes. Out of 182 full texts screened for eligibility, 79 reports that reported findings from 53 studies were included in the final review. The review found that CTs can be effective in tackling structural determinants of health such as financial poverty, education, household resilience, child labour, social capital and social cohesion, civic participation, and birth registration. CTs modify intermediate determinants such as nutrition, dietary diversity, child deprivation, sexual risk behaviours, teen pregnancy and early marriage. In conjunction with their influence on social determinants of health, there is moderate evidence from the review that CTs impact on health and quality of life outcomes. Many factors relating to intervention design features, macro-economic stability, household dynamics and community acceptance of programs influence the effectiveness of CTs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Trials and tribulations: cross-learning from the practices of epidemiologists and economists in the evaluation of public health interventions ","field_subtitle":"Powell-Jackson T; Davey C; Masset E; et al.: Health Policy and Planning 33(5) 702\u2013706, 2018","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/33/5/702/4955260#116668602","body":"The authors propose that there are some underlying differences between the disciplines of epidemiology and economics how trials are used and conducted and how their results are reported and disseminated. They hypothesize that evidence-based public health could be strengthened by understanding these differences, harvesting best-practice across the disciplines and breaking down communication barriers between economists and epidemiologists who conduct trials of public health interventions. Differences between disciplines suggests that more can be done to incorporate behavioural theory into trials and to improve the reporting of trial results and share data. The authors hypothesize that evidence-based public health can be strengthened by understanding differences in how economists and epidemiologists conduct trials of public health interventions and harvesting best-practice across the disciplines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Use of family planning and child health services in the private sector: an equity analysis of 12 DHS surveys","field_subtitle":"Chakraborty N; Sprockett A: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(50) 1-12, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycql8jzb","body":"This paper seeks to explore improved access to healthcare while minimizing financial hardships or inequitable service delivery. The authors analyzed Demographic and Health Survey data from Bangladesh, Cambodia, DRC, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Haiti, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and Zambia. They conducted weighted descriptive analyses on current users of modern family planning and the youngest household child under age 5 to understand and compare country-specific care seeking patterns in use of public or private facilities based on urban/rural residence and wealth quintile. The modern contraceptive prevalence rate ranged from 8.1% to 52.6% across countries, generally rising with increasing wealth within countries. For relatively wealthy women in all countries except Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Senegal and Zambia, the private sector was the dominant source. Source of family planning and type of method sought across facilities types differed widely across countries. Across all countries women were more likely to use the public sector for permanent and long-acting reversible contraceptive methods. Wealthier women demonstrated greater use of the private sector for family planning services than poorer women. Overall prevalence rates for diarrhoea and fever/ARI were similar, and generally not associated with wealth. Over 40% of children with cough or fever did not seek treatment in DRC, Haiti, Mali, and Senegal. Of all children who sought care for diarrhoea, more than half visited the public sector and just over 30% visited the private sector; with differences more pronounced in the lower wealth quintiles. Use of the private sector varies widely by reason for visit, country and wealth status. Given these differences, the authors suggest that country-specific examination of the role of the private sector furthers an understanding of its utility in expanding access to services across wealth quintiles and providing equitable care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Statistics 2018: Monitoring health for the SDGs","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, Geneva, 2018","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/272596/9789241565585-eng.pdf?ua=1","body":"The World Health Statistics series is WHO\u2019s annual snapshot of the state of the world\u2019s health. This 2018 edition contains the latest available data for 36 health-related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators. It also links to the three SDG-aligned strategic priorities of the WHO\u2019s 13th General Programme of Work: achieving universal health coverage, addressing health emergencies and promoting healthier populations. The latest data available shows that less than half the people in the world today get all of the health services they need. In 2010, almost 100 million people were pushed into extreme poverty because they had to pay for health services out of their own pockets. 13 million people die every year before the age of 70 from cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease, diabetes and cancer \u2013 most in low and middle-income countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia\u2019s drive to eliminate malaria faces challenges ","field_subtitle":"Loewenberg S: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 96(5) 302\u2013303, 2018 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/5/18-020518.pdf?ua=1","body":"Zambia is one of eight southern African countries aiming to eliminate malaria in the next few years. Zambia has switched from the goal of its malaria control from reducing the number of cases to a very low level to elimination, defined as reducing the number of indigenous cases to zero. Supporters of the elimination agenda point to the success of the Maldives and Sri Lanka, which received World Health Organization certification for malaria elimination in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Some parts of Zambia such as the Southern Province have made huge progress in reducing the burden of malaria, but the country has not yet achieved overall control. Challenges include shortages of medicines, supplies and health workers with adequate training and supervision at the community level.  However, community health workers are unpaid volunteers, leading to high turnover. While Zambia remains heavily dependent on external funding for its malaria elimination efforts, critics have questioned whether the disease can be successfully tackled without building stronger health systems first. Officials are worried by the challenge of mosquito resistance to insecticides and recent evidence this may be increasing, especially resistance to pyrethroids, the only insecticide class WHO recommends for use in insecticide-treated nets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"\"Scared of going to the clinic\u2019: Contextualising healthcare access for men who have sex with men, female sex workers and people who use drugs in two South African cities","field_subtitle":"Duby Z; Nkosi B; Scheibe A; et al: Southern African Journal of HIV Medicine 19(1), doi:https://doi.org/10.4102/sajhivmed.v19i1.701, 2018","field_url":"https://sajhivmed.org.za/index.php/hivmed/article/view/701/1078","body":"This study examined the context of access to healthcare experienced by men who have sex with men, female sex workers and people who use drugs in two South African cities: Bloemfontein in the Free State province and Mafikeng in the North West province. In-depth interviews were conducted to explore healthcare workers\u2019 perceptions, beliefs and attitudes. Focus group discussions were also conducted with members of these groups exploring their experiences of accessing healthcare. Healthcare workers demonstrated a lack of relevant knowledge, skills and training to manage the particular health needs and vulnerabilities facing these social groups. Men who have sex with men, female sex workers and people who use drugs described experiences of stigmatisation, and of being made to feel guilt, shame and a loss of dignity as a result of the discrimination by healthcare providers and other community. members. The findings suggest that the uptake and effectiveness of health services amongst these three groups is limited by internalised stigma, reluctance to seek care, unwillingness to disclose risk behaviours to healthcare workers, combined with a lack of knowledge and understanding on the part of the broader community members, including healthcare workers. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"22nd International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2018)","field_subtitle":"23-27 July 2018, Amsterdam, the Netherlands","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8vpr7lx","body":"The International AIDS Conference, first convened during the peak of the AIDS epidemic in 1985, continues to provide a unique forum for the intersection of science, advocacy, and human rights, as an opportunity to strengthen policies and programmes that ensure an evidence-based response to the epidemic. The theme of AIDS 2018 is \u201cBreaking Barriers, Building Bridges\u201d, drawing attention to the need of rights-based approaches to more effectively reach key populations, including in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and the North-African/Middle Eastern regions where epidemics are growing. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A Bitter Harvest Child Labour and Human Rights Abuses on Tobacco Farms in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Wurth M; Buchanan J: Human Rights Watch, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9cn4gu5","body":"Tobacco farming is a pillar of Zimbabwe\u2019s economy. Tobacco is the country\u2019s most valuable export commodity\u2014generating US$933.7 million in 2016\u2014and the crop is particularly significant to Zimbabwean authorities\u2019 efforts to revive the economy. However, Human Rights Watch research in 2016 and 2017 into conditions on tobacco farms in Zimbabwe revealed an industry tainted by child labour and confronted by other serious human rights problems as well. This report\u2014based on extensive field research and interviews with 64 small-scale tobacco farmers, as well as 61 hired workers on tobacco farms in the largest tobacco-growing provinces in Zimbabwe\u2014found several human rights problems in the tobacco sector. Children under 18 were found to work in hazardous conditions on tobacco farms in Zimbabwe, some performing tasks that threaten their health and safety or interfere with their education. Adults involved in tobacco production\u2014both small-scale farmers and hired workers\u2014 were reported to face serious health and safety risks, with insufficient information, training, and equipment to protect themselves. Hired workers on some large-scale tobacco farms said they were pushed to work excessive hours without overtime compensation, denied their wages, and forced to go weeks or months without pay. The authors call on companies and government to prohibit children from any work involving contact with tobacco, as a policy that is both protective and straightforward for companies to communicate, implement, and monitor throughout the supply chain.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A pause for review and one last reminder","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET newsletter","field_url":"","body":"We have a shorter newsletter and no editorial this month as we carry out essential review and maintenance work on our site. We hope the papers and content included still provide you with interesting materials for your work and analysis in and beyond the region. We have appreciated editorial contributions from a range of  experiences and invite you to send us editorials written by you, and any links to videos, blogs, papers or other online resources you want to share on your perspective on the opportunities that we should be tapping in east and southern Africa for making immediate or longer term advances in equity in health. \r\n\r\nIn line with data protection requirements we've asked you in May to confirm that you would like to receive the newsletter from us. Thanks to all those who have responded! We are updating the subscriber lists in June, so if you don't want this issue of the newsletter to be the last emailed to you please take a minute to confirm your subscription by completing the form at http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe. You are free to unsubscribe at any time and you can read our privacy statement on the EQUINET website.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"African Capital Cities Sustainability Forum 2018","field_subtitle":"5-7 June 2018, City of Tshwane, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.africancapitalcities.org/index.html","body":"The African Capital Cities Sustainability Forum (ACCSF) functions as a network for the mayors of capital cities across the continent to achieve the sustainable development goals that are common to all and, in the words of Solly Msimanga, executive mayor of Tshwane, \u201cto establish commonalities and challenges faced by major cities in Africa while showcasing and sharing successful initiatives towards the emergence of truly African, original and appropriate answers in addressing the sustainability imperative at the urban scale.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing the influence of knowledge translation platforms on health system policy processes to achieve the health millennium development goals in Cameroon and Uganda: a comparative case study ","field_subtitle":"Ongolo-Zogo P; Lavis J; Tomson G; et al: Health Policy and Planning 33(4), 539\u2013554, 2018","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/33/4/539/4913682","body":"This paper assessed, whether and how, two knowledge translation platforms housed in government-affiliated institutions in Cameroon and Uganda have influenced health system policy-making processes and decisions aiming at supporting achievement of the health millennium development goals and the general climate for evidence-informed health system policy-making. The authors conducted an embedded comparative case study of four policy processes in which Evidence Informed Policy Network Cameroon and Regional East African Community Health Policy Initiative Uganda were involved between 2009 and 2011. The authors combined a documentary review and semi structured interviews of 54 stakeholders. A framework-guided thematic analysis, inspired by scholarship in health policy analysis and knowledge utilization was used. The coproduction of evidence briefs combined with tacit knowledge gathered during inclusive evidence-informed stakeholder dialogues helped to reframe health system problems, unveil sources of conflicts, open grounds for consensus and align viable and affordable options for achieving the health millennium development goals thus leading to decisions. New policy issue networks have emerged. Knowledge translation platforms were perceived as change agents with positive impact on the understanding, acceptance and adoption of evidence-informed health system policy-making because of their complementary work in relation to capacity building, rapid evidence syntheses and clearinghouse of policy-relevant evidence. The authors indicate that this embedded case study illustrates how two knowledge translation platforms influenced policy decisions through pathways involving policy issue networks, interest groups interaction and evidence-supported ideas and how they influenced the general climate for evidence-informed health system policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Botswana: A model for harnessing Africa\u2019s demographic dividend?","field_subtitle":"Onabanjo J: Pambazuka News, April 2018","field_url":"https://www.pambazuka.org/human-security/botswana-model-harnessing-africa%E2%80%99s-demographic-dividend","body":"On 16 March 2018, Botswana became one of a dozen countries in East and Southern Africa that have launched its national demographic dividend study. A demographic dividend is not only contingent on a rapid decline in fertility and mortality. It also requires strategic investments in promoting equality, health and family planning, education and skills development, and job creation. When countries harness the demographic dividend, their young people are argued to become more empowered, healthier, better educated and have more equal access to opportunities. At the launch of Botswana\u2019s demographic dividend report, President Mokgweetsi EK Masisi acknowledged \u201cthe right investments have to be made in Botswana for us to tap into the potential and skills of young people. Our return on investments isn\u2019t commensurate with the expectations we have for Botswana.\u201d The author argues that this is a golden moment for Botswana and other African countries to reprioritise their investments and tap into the potential of their young people \u2013 and for Botswana to plan for its second demographic dividend.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Cochrane South Africa invites applications for the Aubrey Sheiham Evidence-based Health Care in Africa Leadership Award 2018 ","field_subtitle":"Applications close: 31 July 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7dr4eqs","body":"Since 2001 through the generosity of the late Professor Aubrey Sheiham 16 Cochrane researchers from low- and middle-income countries have been funded and supported to complete Cochrane Reviews on topics relevant to their region, and to cascade knowledge about Cochrane and evidence-based health care (EBHC) to their local networks. In 2014, the scholarship evolved into a new award focusing on leadership in EBHC - the Aubrey Sheiham EBHC in Africa Leadership Award, administered by Cochrane South Africa. With an updated and more concentrated focus, the fellowship is awarded annually to an individual based in Africa, and supports the conduct and dissemination of a high-impact Cochrane Review on a topic relevant to resource-constrained settings. The Cochrane Review should be registered with a Cochrane Review Group at the time of application. An update of an existing review is allowed if it will have high impact. The applicant should provide proof that relevant evidence is available for inclusion in the review. In addition to completing their chosen Cochrane Review and disseminating its findings, the award recipient will support capacity development by mentoring a novice author based in Africa through the review process. This continues the scholarship\u2019s tradition of building knowledge and research networks, which will be actively supported by Cochrane South Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"De-drug RSA and save the economy \u2026 why not?","field_subtitle":"Schorr D: Pambazuka News, April 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ydc5kgu3","body":"South Africa\u2019s GDP is reported to have risen from US $3445 in 1994 to US $5284 in 2016, but far from ushering in overall improvement in health or well-being, the author notes that rising white collar crime, violence, small business failure , un- and underemployment and the flight of skills signpost an unhappy place. He notes that South Africa \u201c\u2026 had the highest number of drunk driving incidents at 58 percent\u201d in the world \u2026\u201d. Alcohol is said to account for 40 percent of violent crime. The author calls more regulations to ensure that alcohol companies pays for the consequences that come with heavy drinking in the country. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Defining the global health system and systematically mapping its network of actors","field_subtitle":"Hoffman S; Cole C: Globalisation and Heath 14(38), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-018-0340-2, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9e6qvnm","body":"The global health system has faced significant expansion over the past few decades, including continued increase in both the number and diversity of actors operating within it. However, without a stronger understanding of what the global health system encompasses, coordination of actors and resources to address today\u2019s global health challenges will not be possible. This study presents a conceptually sound and operational definition of the global health system. Importantly, this definition can be applied in practice to facilitate analysis of the system. The study tested the analytical helpfulness of this definition through a network mapping exercise, whereby the interconnected nature of websites representing actors in the global health system was studied. Using a systematic methodology and related search functions, 203 global health actors were identified, representing the largest and most transparent list of its kind to date. Identified global health actors were characterised and the structure of their social network revealed intriguing patterns in relationships among actors. These findings are argued to provide a foundation for future inquiries into the global health system\u2019s structure and dynamics that are critical to better coordinate system activities and ensure successful response to pressing global health challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers. You are free to unsubscribe at any time by sending an email to admin@equinetafrica.org with unsubscribe in the subject line.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 207: A pause for review and one last reminder","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available on the EQUINET website. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Health-industry linkages for local health: reframing policies for African health system strengthening ","field_subtitle":"Mackintosh M; Mugwagwa J; Banda G; et al: Health Policy and Planning 33(4) 602\u2013610, 2018","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/33/4/602/4942503","body":"A current wave of pharmaceutical industry investment in sub-Saharan Africa is associated with active African government promotion of pharmaceuticals as a key sector in industrialization strategies. The authors present evidence from interviews in 2013\u201315 and 2017 in East Africa that health system actors perceive these investments in local production as an opportunity to improve access to medicines and supplies. The authors identify key policies that can ensure that local health systems benefit from the investments. They argue for a \u2018local health\u2019 policy perspective, framed by concepts of proximity and positionality, which works with local priorities and distinct policy time scales and identifies scope for incentive alignment to generate mutually beneficial health\u2013industry linkages and strengthening of both sectors. This local health perspective represents a distinctive shift in policy framing: it is not necessarily in conflict with \u2018global health\u2019 frameworks but poses a challenge to some of its underlying assumptions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV Adolescence Workshop","field_subtitle":"10-12 October 2018, Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9xsr7ks","body":"At major meetings, advances in HIV management focuses mainly on either adults or children, leaving out this key group of individuals \u2013 the adolescents. To meet this need for international interchange in order to bring the field forward, the International Workshop on HIV & Adolescence: challenges and solutions seeks to redress this gap. This workshop is set up as an inclusive summit for multidisciplinary experts working with adolescents affected by HIV. The objective will be to share experiences, knowledge and best practices with the aim of defining a pathway forward for optimizing care for adolescents living with HIV. The program will cover the entire spectrum of developmental changes in adolescents including social, behavioural, physiological and biological aspects and the impact of an HIV positive status. Prevention programs, testing, treatment and support services among adolescents shall be discussed. The barriers encountered in delivering these services and ways to mitigate these barriers shall be key areas of discussion during the workshop.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Massive Open Online Course (MOOC): \u201cPlanning for Climate Change in African Cities\u201d","field_subtitle":"United Cities and Local Governments of Africa, African Local Government Academy, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Institute for Housing and Urban Development","field_url":"https://www.coursera.org/learn/climate-change-africa","body":"IHS, the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam is launching their 1st MOOC (Massive Open Online Course): \u201cPlanning for Climate Change in African Cities\u201d.  Developed in collaboration with the African Local Governments Academy (ALGA), United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLG) and Erasmus University Rotterdam, this free MOOC is 5 weeks and it offers the basics of urban resilience and adaptation, climate change planning, and policy assessment tools. The course is open to students and professionals in the fields of urban planning, environmental science, climate change, and other related fields.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Nutrition in the WHO Africa Region","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation Regional Office for Africa: Brazzaville, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y93w5jvk","body":"This report explores the current nutrition status of countries in the WHO African Region in relation to the six primary outcomes achievable by 2025 and the other global nutrition monitoring framework indicators. The aim is to highlight where action is needed to drive progress on the global targets for 2025 and Sustainable Development Goal No. 2 that calls on countries to end hunger through achieving food security, improving nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture. A complementary objective of the report was to evaluate existing data sources that countries use to monitor programme performance and track progress on the global targets. A key finding in this report is that undernutrition is still persistent in the WHO African Region, with major implications for health, particularly among poor and vulnerable population groups. It finds that persistent drought, famine, flooding, and civil crises will make it difficult for many countries to achieve the target of reducing and maintaining wasting at less than 5%.  Along with persistent undernutrition, the prevalence of overweight among children under 5 years of age (as well as the overall number of children affected) is rising, whereas the target is to halt its increase. WHO AFRO assert that In the absence of survey data, properly functioning routine surveillance systems could provide invaluable real-time information for decision making in policy and programme design and implementation in this area. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Press Release on the Settlement Agreement of the TB/Silicosis Compensation Class Suit ","field_subtitle":"Botswana Labour Migrants Association: Botswana, May 2018","field_url":"","body":"Botswana Labour Migrants Association and its members from all the four corners of Botswana, present a press release reporting the news of the finalization of the TB/Silicosis class action, by way of a settlement agreement between mineworkers and the mining companies. The settlement ceremony which was held on the 3 May 2018 in South Africa, was reported in the press release to be groundbreaking and a vindication of the dues, sweat and rights of ex-miners in the region, their spouses and children and especially the efforts of the Association and its leadership.. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/63446","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV: a cross-sectional study in Malawi ","field_subtitle":"van Lettow M; Landes M;  van Oosterhout J; et al: Bulletin World Health Organisation96(4) 256\u2013265, 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/4/17-203265.pdf","body":"This paper provided an estimated use and outcomes of the Malawian programme for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of human immunodeficiency virus. In a cross-sectional analysis of 33 744 mother\u2013infant pairs, the authors estimated the weighted proportions of mothers who had received antenatal human immunodeficiency virus testing and/or maternal antiretroviral therapy and infants who had received nevirapine prophylaxis and/or human immunodeficiency virus testing. The authors calculated the ratios of mother-to-child transmission at 4\u201326 weeks postpartum for subgroups that had missed none or at least one of these four steps. The estimated uptake of antenatal testing was 97.8%; while maternal antiretroviral therapy was 96.3%; infant prophylaxis was 92.3%; and infant human immunodeficiency virus testing was 53.2%. Estimated ratios of mother-to-child transmission were 4.7% overall and 7.7% for the pairs that had missed maternal antiretroviral therapy, 10.7% for missing both maternal antiretroviral therapy and infant prophylaxis and 11.4% for missing maternal antiretroviral therapy, infant prophylaxis and infant testing. Women younger than 19 years were more likely to have missed human immunodeficiency virus testing and infant prophylaxis than older women. Women who had never started maternal antiretroviral therapy were more likely to have missed infant prophylaxis and infant testing than women who had. Most women used the Malawian programme for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission. The risk of mother-to-child transmission increased if any of the main steps in the programme were missed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Responding to inequalities in health in urban areas: How well do current data measure urban wellbeing in East and Southern Africa?","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R, Masotya M: EQUINET Discussion paper 114: EQUINET Harare, 2018","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Urban%20Health%20Data%20Diss%20114%20May2018.pdf","body":"By 2050, urban populations in Africa will increase to 62%. The World Health Organisation (WHO) and UN Habitat in their 2010 report \u2018Hidden Cities\u2019 note that this growth constitutes one of the most important global health issues of the 21st century. TARSC as cluster lead of the \u2018Equity Watch\u2019 work in EQUINET implemented a multi-methods approach to gather and analyse diverse forms of evidence and experience of inequalities in health and its determinants within urban areas, and on current and possible responses to these urban conditions, from the health sector and the health-promoting interventions of other sectors and communities. We aimed to build a holistic understanding of the social distribution of health in urban areas and the responses and actions that promote urban health equity. The different stages and forms of evidence are presented in a set of reports and briefs and a final synthesis document. This report presents the findings of the separate search on holistic paradigms relevant to urban wellbeing, and an analysis of statistical evidence on health and wellbeing in east and southern Africa (ESA) countries using indicators drawn from these approaches. The findings indicated that ESA countries face a challenge if they seek to track progress in the multiple dimensions of wellbeing or to build an understanding from the quantitative data gathered. First, there are no data measured across the 16 ESA countries for many dimensions of a more holistic approach to wellbeing. Second, in ESA countries, the indicators that are measured are more commonly those of negative rather than positive wellbeing outcomes. This turns the focus away from the assets in society. It points out where the problems are, but not the progress in achievement of positive or affirmative goals.  Third, where data do exist, they are poorly disaggregated to show urban areas separately or to show intro-urban inequalities or levels in specific social groups. Finally and importantly, the subjective views of people on their life satisfaction do not always match measured data, and needs to be elicited and taken into account more directly in planning for urban wellbeing, including for interpreting, validating, adding to or even challenging quantitative data.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"The burden of tobacco smoking on public health","field_subtitle":"Specioza A: Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8uwnmvh","body":"The tobacco industry has for a long time affected innocent lives world over through several ways including; advertising and encouraging direct smoking of cigarettes, secondhand smoke exposure, smoking of other combustible tobacco products , smokeless tobacco and electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) among others. The WHO report on Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008, confirms that the global tobacco epidemic is one of the greatest public health threats of modern times as smoking causes so many deleterious health effects. Some of these health effects include; diminished health status, susceptibility to acute illnesses and respiratory symptoms, death, coronary heart disease, cancers of any organ of the body, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD, pre-mature births, among others. Uganda has taken a great leap in tobacco control interventions through ratification of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) and consequently the enactment of the Tobacco Control Act of 2016. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The financing gaps framework: using need, potential spending and expected spending to allocate development assistance for health ","field_subtitle":"Haakenstad A; Templin T; Lim S: Health Policy and Planning 33(suppl_1), doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czx165, 2018","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/33/suppl_1/i47/4835244","body":"As growth in development assistance for health levels off, development assistance partners must make allocation decisions within tighter budget constraints. In the \u2018financing gaps framework\u2019, the authors propose a new approach for harnessing information to make decisions about health aid. The framework was designed to be forward-looking, goal-oriented, versatile and customisable to a range of organisational contexts and health aims. The framework brings together expected health spending, potential health spending and spending need, to orient financing decisions around international health targets. As an example of how the framework could be applied, a case study is developed, focused on global goals for child health. The case study harnesses data from the Global Burden of Disease 2013 Study, Financing Global Health 2015, the WHO Global Health Observatory and National Health Accounts. Funding flows are tied to progress toward the Sustainable Development Goal\u2019s target for reductions in under-five mortality. The flexibility and comprehensiveness of the framework makes it adaptable for use by a diverse set of governments, donors, policymakers and other stakeholders. The framework can be adapted to short\u2010 or long\u2010run time frames, cross\u2010country or subnational scales, and to a number of specific health focus areas. Depending on donor preferences, the framework can be deployed to incentivise local investments in health, ensuring the long-term sustainability of health systems in low- and middle-income countries, while also furnishing international support for progress toward global health goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Upholding the rights of urban refugees in Uganda ","field_subtitle":"Monteith W; Lwasa S; Nsangi G; et al:  International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) Briefing, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycb7bpan","body":"Uganda is at the centre of current debate on urban refugees. The country\u2019s Refugees Act 2006, which establishes refugees\u2019 rights to live, work and own land in urban areas, has been hailed as exemplary and a global model for humanitarian responses. However, new evidence on refugee livelihoods in Kampala suggests that the rights to work and move freely, and without fear, are often unmet in urban areas. In the absence of financial assistance, urban refugees often struggle to find gainful employment and report frequent cases of discrimination by both the Ugandan state and the public. This briefing outlines the barriers faced in upholding the rights of urban refugees in Uganda, and recommends ways in which these may be overcome. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"What should the African health workforce know about disasters? Proposed competencies for strengthening public health disaster risk management education in Africa","field_subtitle":"Olu O, Usman A, Kalambay K, et al.: BMC Medical Education, 18; 60, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-018-1163-9, 2018","field_url":"https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-018-1163-9","body":"As part of efforts to implement the human resources capacity building component of the African Regional Strategy on Disaster Risk Management (DRM) for the health sector, the African Regional Office of the World Health Organization, in collaboration with selected African public health training institutions, followed a multistage process to develop core competencies and curricula for training the African health workforce in public health DRM. In this article, we describe the methods used to develop the competencies, present the identified competencies and training curricula, and propose recommendations for their integration into the public health education curricula of African member states. The authors identified 14 core competencies and 45 sub-competencies/training units grouped into six thematic areas: 1) introduction to DRM; 2) operational effectiveness; 3) effective leadership; 4) preparedness and risk reduction; 5) emergency response and 6) post-disaster health system recovery. These were defined as the skills and knowledge that African health care workers should possess to effectively participate in health DRM activities. To suit the needs of various categories of African health care workers, three levels of training courses are proposed: basic, intermediate, and advanced. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":" International Fellowship funded by the Urban Studies Foundation","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 15 May 2018","field_url":"http://codesria.org/spip.php?article2846&lang=en","body":"The ACADEMY project is designed to provide resources and opportunities for student and staff mobility from four regions of Africa, offering support for Masters, Doctoral and short research, teaching and administrative visits between the consortium partners. Applications are particularly invited from female candidates and disadvantaged groups. Applicants should be nationals and residents of eligible African countries, have sufficient knowledge of the language of instruction of courses in the host country and fulfil the criteria of one of the target groups. Target Group 1 is for those students who are registered in one of partner universities and staff must be working in one of the five partner universities. Target Group 2, students must be registered in any African Higher Education Institution and those who have graduated from any African Higher Education Institution. Students having previously benefitted from a scholarship under the Intra-ACP or the Intra-Africa Academic Mobility Schemes are not eligible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"15th International Conference on Urban Health: Managing Urbanisation for Health, 26-30 November 2018, Kampala, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Deadline for abstracts: 14 May 2018","field_url":"http://www.isuhconference.org","body":"The 15th International Conference on Urban Health will bring together interdisciplinary researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, health and urban stakeholders and community leaders to exchange ideas and advance research and practice across sectors on how best to manage the rapid urbanisation occurring in all regions of the world. Abstracts are invited for oral and poster presentations, pre-formed panels, workshops and special tracks on the following conference themes: The Governance of Complex Systems, Culture and Inclusivity, Disasters, Epidemics, and the Unexpected, Cities as Economic Engines, Monitoring and Evaluation of Urban Health Indicators, Safety, Security, and Justice, Spiritual Health in the City. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"22nd International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2018) 23-27 July 2018, Amsterdam, the Netherlands","field_subtitle":"Registration deadline: 17 May 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8vpr7lx","body":"The International AIDS Conference is the largest conference on any global health issue in the world. First convened during the peak of the AIDS epidemic in 1985, it continues to provide a unique forum for the intersection of science, advocacy, and human rights. Each conference is an opportunity to strengthen policies and programmes that ensure an evidence-based response to the epidemic. The theme of AIDS 2018 is \u201cBreaking Barriers, Building Bridges\u201d, drawing attention to the need of rights-based approaches to more effectively reach key populations, including in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and the North-African/Middle Eastern regions where epidemics are growing. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis of 131 countries: which configuration of the structural conditions can explain health better?","field_subtitle":"Paykani T; Rafiey H; Sajjadi H: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(10) doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-018-0724-1, 2018. ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycr9fvqv","body":"In this study, following the World Health Organization Commission On Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) approach the authors aimed to unravel complexity and answer the kinds of questions that are outside the scope of conventional variable-oriented approach. A fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of 131 countries was conducted to examine the configurational effects of five macro-level structural conditions on life expectancy at birth. The potential causal conditions were level of country wealth, income inequality, quality of governance, education, and health system. The data collected from different international data sources were recorded during 2004\u20132015. The analysis indicated a configuration of conditions including high level of governance, education, wealth, and affluent health system to be consistently sufficient for high life expectancy. The configurations linked to high life expectancy were not the opposite of those associated with low life expectancy and the authors identified areas for further research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A more progressive tax regime is a viable and better alternative to addressing revenue shortfalls, civil society organisations tell Parliament","field_subtitle":"NGOpulse: SANGONeT, South Africa, March 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7xjmcah","body":"In February, a broad cross-section of South African civil society organisations (CSOs) called on Parliament to halt the proposed increase in value-added tax (VAT), demonstrating that such a move for general revenue collection would make the tax regime more regressive, potentially violate the equality clause in the Constitution, and worsen already unacceptably high levels of poverty and inequality. They illustrated that more progressive alternatives exist. The organisations argued that a reconsideration of the tax regime was not to be taken lightly and therefore not something National Treasury could unilaterally decide on, without proper public consultation. The CSOs highlighted that tax can and must play a redistributive role in the economy, while ensuring sufficient revenue collection for pressing social needs. Yet the proposed 2018 budget not only increases the fuel levy and VAT, the least progressive tax instruments, but also opts to cut down on social spending in areas such as basic education, health care, housing, municipal infrastructure, informal settlement upgrading and transport. They argue that the VAT increase for general revenue (and not specifically for health), will have negative consequences for service delivery and affect poor and working class communities the most.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"ACADEMY Project: African Trans-Regional Cooperation through Academic Mobility Intra-Africa","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 15 May 2018 ","field_url":"http://codesria.org/spip.php?article2846&lang=en","body":"The ACADEMY project is designed to provide resources and opportunities for student and staff mobility from four regions of Africa, offering support for Masters, Doctoral and short research, teaching and administrative visits between the consortium partners. Applications are particularly invited from female candidates and disadvantaged groups. Applicants should be nationals and residents of eligible African countries, have sufficient knowledge of the language of instruction of courses in the host country and fulfil the criteria of one of the target groups. Target Group 1 is for those students who are registered in one of partner universities and staff must be working in one of the five partner universities. Target Group 2, students must be registered in any African Higher Education Institution and those who have graduated from any African Higher Education Institution. Students having previously benefitted from a scholarship under the Intra-ACP or the Intra-Africa Academic Mobility Schemes are not eligible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa is not poor, we are stealing its wealth","field_subtitle":"Dearden N: Al Jazeera, May 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7sr5lvx","body":"\"Africa is rich, but we steal its wealth\". That's the essence of a report from several campaign groups released in May 2017. Based on a set of new figures, it finds that sub-Saharan Africa is a net creditor to the rest of the world to the tune of more than $41bn. It reports that there is money going in to sub-Saharan Africa the tune of around $161bn a year in the form of loans, remittances from those working outside Africa and sending money back home, and from development aid. There's also $203bn leaving the continent. Some of this is direct, such as $68bn from taxes foregone, such as when multinational corporations legally organise flows to indicate that they are generating their wealth in tax havens. These flows are asserted by the author to amount to around 6% percent of the continent's entire gross domestic product and three times what Africa receives in aid. The report estimates that $29bn a year is being lost from Africa through illegal logging, fishing and trade in wildlife. Given these and other sources of loss the author asserts that if African countries are to benefit from foreign investment, they must be allowed to - even helped to - legally regulate that investment and the corporations that often bring it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship Program (ADDRF) \u2013 Call for Applications","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 15 May 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y6uka8xp","body":"The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) in partnership with Ipas, Guttmacher Institute, Gynuity Health Projects and Ibis Reproductive Health is pleased to announce a call for applications to support up-to four African doctoral candidates undertaking dissertation research on the topic of abortion. These organisations have been involved in efforts to eliminate deaths and injuries from unsafe abortion, as well as increasing women's ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive health and rights globally. The dissertation grant is designed to bridge strategic gaps in research capacity and knowledge management to help researchers, health professionals and policymakers to increase their contribution in addressing issues related to abortion. The ADDRF Program will award up to four (4) fellowships in 2018 to doctoral students. These fellowships will be awarded to doctoral students who are within two years of completing their thesis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Attitudes towards help-seeking for sexual and gender-based violence in humanitarian settings: the case of Rwamwanja refugee settlement scheme in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Odwe G; Undie C;  Obare F: BMC International Health and Human Rights 18(1) doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12914-018-0154-6, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yb3h4w3h","body":"This paper examined the association between attitudes towards seeking care and knowledge and perceptions about sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) among men and women in a humanitarian setting in Uganda. A cross-sectional survey was conducted from May to June 2015 among 601 heads of refugee households in Rwamwanja Refugees Settlement Scheme, South West Uganda. Results showed increased odds of having a favorable attitude toward seeking help for SGBV among women with progressive attitudes towards SGBV; who felt that SBGV was not tolerated in the community; those who had not experienced violence; and those who were aware of the timing for post-exposure prophylaxis. In contrast, results for the male sample showed lack of variations in attitude toward seeking help for SGBV for all independent variables except timing for post exposure prophylaxis. Among individuals who had experienced SGBV, the odds of seeking help was more likely among those with favorable attitude towards seeking help than among those with unfavorable help-seeking attitudes. The findings of the paper suggest that targeted interventions aimed at promoting awareness and progressive attitudes towards SGBV are likely to encourage positive help-seeking attitudes and behaviours in humanitarian contexts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Can essential benefit packages be a lever for universal health systems?","field_subtitle":"R Loewenson, M Mamdani, EQUINET","field_url":"","body":"\r\nCurrent policy agendas raise an impetus for countries in east and southern Africa to be clearer with the public on what health care services they can expect to access. Commitments made to universal health coverage (UHC) and equity in health care point to a need to define the entitlements or service benefits that will be provided universally to respond equitably to population health needs. Constitutional provisions on the right to health care raise a demand to clarify what services people should be legally entitled to. Yet the gap between demand and resources suggest a need to clarify what can be funded and provided universally, taking costs into account. The diversity of funders and providers in most health systems in the region call for funders and providers to be aligned around these entitlements while social demand for public accountability calls for transparency on how resources and capacities are being used to deliver these entitlements.  \r\n\r\nAs one response, many countries in east and southern Africa (ESA) have developed essential health benefit packages (EHBs) in order to define service benefits, to direct resources to priority, relevant and effective areas of health service delivery. EQUINET research in 2015-2017 through Ifakara Health Institute and Training and Research Support Centre working with ministries of health in Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia found that of the sixteen countries in the ESA region, thirteen had an EHB in place by 2016, albeit with different names and at different stages of design and implementation. \r\n\r\nThere was much in common in the way these EHBs were being developed and what they covered. The EHBs in the region cover similar services for communicable and non-communicable diseases, maternal and child health and public health.  They generally combined an analysis of health burdens and cost-benefit or value-for-money to identify what services to include, taking on board policy goals and commitments. In some cases they took into account the priorities reported by stakeholders and external partners and, to a more limited extent, communities and parliamentarians. When countries used consultative, consensus-building design processes with wider stakeholders they widened awareness and debate on the choices to be made in what services to include, on the cost of care and on the entitlements included.\r\n\r\nIt would appear that the process for defining, costing and clarifying service benefits could be a key entry point for policy dialogue across stakeholders and an important basis to build an operational strategy for realising UHC in an equitable manner and for making clear the deficits to be met. \r\n\r\nIndeed, ESA countries report a range of ways they are using their EHBs: They are being used as a tool for budgeting and planning at local government level; to guide priority setting and budgets; to purchase services from private, not-for-profit services and to monitor service performance. These areas of practice depend on quality system data, including from the from the private health sector, good population health information and data on the costs of services to both design, purchase and be accountable for delivery of the benefit. \r\n\r\nWhile there are shortfalls in some of these areas of data, the funding gap has presented perhaps the greatest challenge in delivering on the EHB. ESA countries face clear challenges in reconciling the services they should provide to respond to population health need with the resources they have to do so. The estimates ESA countries calculated for what their EHBs would cost varied widely, from $4-$83/capita at primary care level to $22-$519/capita for referral services. In part this reflects differing assumptions and methods used for capital and recurrent costings. At the same time, in most ESA countries these figures point to a gap between the cost of a benefit package that responds to health needs, and the funds available for it, particularly in the public sector. Having these costs of the EHB raises a question for national and global levels of how, in the face of commitments to UHC, these costs will be met to turn the talk into action.\r\n\r\nIn the face of this funding gap, some countries have begun to explore new revenue sources from innovative financing, linking the EHB to policy dialogue on health financing. Resource constraints and vertical financing have, however, also motivated rationing of scarce resources, reducing the benefit to a smaller subset that can be funded from current budgets. This may focus resources on what is possible and avoid the frustration generated by the gap between aspiration and delivery. However, it also raises concerns on how to ensure fairness and public health effectiveness in the decisions on what services are covered and what is excluded. How should services treat people who present with a combination of conditions, one covered and one not? How to ensure the integration across services when some are funded and others not? How to avoid \u2018minimum\u2019 benefit packages becoming the \u2018maximum\u2019 provided? How to ensure that the poorest in the population get all their health needs addressed without costs that impoverish them?  \r\n\r\nIn a regional dialogue within the countries involved the research, the EHB as a universal benefit was seen to be consistent with policy goals to build universal equitable health systems. It was seen to be a potentially useful measure to engage and build support from high-level political actors, funders, providers and communities on the different challenges that need to be addressed in implementing UHC, and to align public and private actors around national goals.\r\nIn facing the financing challenges given the desire to ensure universal provision of the benefit, it was felt that the EHB would be best funded through progressive tax financing and pooling of other social insurance, earmarked tax and private sector contributions to avoid segmentation and to ensure the universality of the benefit. At the same time it was felt that funding constraints not present a pressure to limit to curative services, and that the EHB include health promotion, public health and prevention measures, as both value for money, important for service integration and key for health sector engagement on inter-sectoral action for health. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.  More information on the issue can be found in the regional meeting report at \r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Regional%20EHB%20Mtg%20Rep%20Nov2017.pdf , the country case study reports on the EQUINET website and synthesis paper at \r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Diss%20113%20EHB%20synthesis%202018.pdf\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) Meaning-making Research Initiatives: Special call for female researchers","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 31 May 2018","field_url":"http://codesria.org/spip.php?article2847&lang=en","body":"In 2017 CODESRIA introduced the Meaning-making Research Initiative (MRI) as its principal tool for supporting research. Projects funded under this initiative should propose research on important aspects of African social realities that fall under CODESRIA\u2019s priority themes as outlined in the CODESRIA Strategic Plan. Projects should be guided by clear questions that explore puzzling aspects of the social realities of Africa and its position in the world while at the same time reflecting an interest in questions of diversity including the gendered one, should engage constructively and rigorously with African futures and be theoretically ambitious with a clear goal of providing new and innovative ways of understanding and making sense of African social realities. Applications should indicate the ways in which the following cross-cutting themes are integrated in their proposals: gender, generations, inequality, rurality and urbanity, memory and history, as well as futures and alternatives. Increasing the participation of female scholars in the work and governance of CODESRIA has been a long-term goal of the Council.  All projects should: 1) be headed by female scholars; and 2) have only women as members.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Engaging Men and Boys in Family Planning: A Strategic Planning Guide","field_subtitle":"Family Planning High Impact Practices, USA, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yaucdk8q","body":"This document aims to lead program managers, planners, and decision-makers through a strategic process to identify effective investments for engaging men in efforts to improve sexual and reproductive health. In this guide, male engagement refers to the involvement of men and boys in family planning programs across life stages, including addressing gender norms and gender equality. The guide follows four steps; defining the behavioural aim of the initiative, assessing men\u2019s and boys\u2019 knowledge and attitudes related to reproduction and contraception, assessing how gender norms affect male engagement in family planning, and identifying programming approaches that engage men and boys. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/subscribe \r\nThe information on subscribers is used only to email the newsletter to subscribers. You are free to unsubscribe at any time by sending an email to admin@equinetafrica.org with unsubscribe in the subject line.\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter  206: Can essential benefit packages be a lever for universal health systems?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluation of results-based financing in the Republic of the Congo: a comparison group pre\u2013post study","field_subtitle":"Zeng W; Shepard D; de Dieu Rusatira J; et al: Health Policy and Planning 33(3) 392\u2013400, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7zm4mfv","body":"In this study on a pilot results based financing (RBF) in the Republic of the Congo from 2012 to 2014, the authors conducted pre- and post-household surveys and gathered health facility services data from both intervention and comparison groups. Using a difference-in-differences approach, the study evaluated the impact of RBF on maternal and child health services. The household survey found statistically significant improvements in quality of services regarding the availability of medicines, perceived quality of care, hygiene of health facilities and being respected at the reception desk. The health facility survey showed no adverse effects and significantly favourable impacts on: curative visits, patient referral, children receiving vitamin A, HIV testing of pregnant women and assisted deliveries. These improvements, in relative terms, ranged from 42% to 155%. However, the household survey found no statistically significant impacts on the five indicators measuring the use of maternal health services, including the percentage of pregnant women using prenatal care, 3+ prenatal care, postnatal care, assisted delivery, and family planning. Surprisingly, RBF was found to be associated with a reduction of coverage of the third diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus immunization among children in the household survey. From the health facility survey, no association was found between RBF and full immunization among children. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Flexibilities provided by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights","field_subtitle":"Correa C: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 96(3) 148, 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/3/17-206896/en/","body":"To minimize the problems caused by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), academics, governments of low-income countries, many nongovernmental organizations, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other United Nations organizations pay special attention to the Agreement\u2019s so-called flexibilities. The extent to which such flexibilities have already been incorporated into national laws and practice shows substantial variation. Several compulsory licenses \u2013 allowing a company to produce a patented product or process without the consent of the patent owner \u2013 have been issued for medicines, mainly to treat infections with human immunodeficiency virus. Most of these licenses have led to substantial reductions in the costs of treatment. The use of such licenses is not limited to low- and middle-income countries. Another important flexibility is provided by the definition of the standards of patentability, and the rigour with which they are applied in determining whether a claimed invention is patentable. Weaknesses or gaps in such standards can allow ever-greening by the pharmaceutical industry. Research has shown that the TRIPS flexibilities are poorly exploited and that much more could be done to align intellectual property protection with public health policies. To support the more extensive exploitation of the flexibilities provided by the Agreement on TRIPS, the author argues that a continuous effort from academics, governments, international and nongovernmental organizations is needed, observing that the health of a large part of the world\u2019s population depends on timely and effective action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"From Kenya\u2019s postelection violence, an online community forms to give aid ","field_subtitle":"Habib J: The Christian Science Monitor, March 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yav7ccb4","body":"Kenya\u2019s post election violence has led to the founding of RescueBnB \u2013 a community with the mission to map the locations of those in need of shelter and connect them with volunteer hosts. With a core team of volunteers, a web developer set up the pro bono website, and Kenyans have spread the word on social media. Within 48 hours of this, they had assembled more than 100 volunteers across the country and had arranged multiple home stays with vetted hosts. To date, RescueBnB has supported 800 people across Kenya, and team members say that\u2019s just the start. RescueBnB has since begun crowdfunding to provide care packages as well as to cover medical expenses. Its partnerships with community organizations and religious groups helped it reach more individuals, and companies stepped in to assist. A supermarket chain welcomed shoppers to drop off donations, and a boda boda (motorbike) delivery company volunteered to get the donations into the hands of people who needed them. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Health-industry linkages for local health: reframing policies for African health system strengthening","field_subtitle":"Mackintosh M; Mugwagwa J; Banda G; et al: Health Policy and Planning 33(4), doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czy022, 2018 ","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/33/4/602/4942503","body":"Low-income African populations continue to suffer poor access to a broad range of medicines, despite major international funding efforts. A current wave of pharmaceutical industry investment in SSA is associated with active African government promotion of pharmaceuticals as a key sector in industrialisation strategies. The authors present evidence from interviews in 2013\u201315 and 2017 in East Africa that health system actors perceive these investments in local production as an opportunity to improve access to medicines and supplies. Key policies are identified that can ensure that local health systems benefit from the investments. The authors argue for a \u2018local health\u2019 policy perspective, framed by concepts of proximity and positionality, which works with local priorities and distinct policy time scales and identifies scope for incentive alignment to generate mutually beneficial health\u2013industry linkages and strengthening of both sectors. This local health perspective represents a distinctive shift in policy framing: it is not necessarily in conflict with \u2018global health\u2019 frameworks but poses a challenge to some of its underlying assumptions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Heterogeneous Infrastructures in African Cities","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 30 May 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yb9nff2o","body":"As part of broader efforts to develop regional learning across the continent, the Situated Urban Political Ecology collective and Urban Action Lab at Makerere University will be hosting a workshop on urban infrastructures in Africa from November 12-15, 2018. Scholars and practitioners are increasingly grappling with alternative modes of infrastructural provision. This is motivated by scholarly interest in everyday infrastructural practices and politics as well as concerns about the economic, environmental, social and political viability of universal, uniform infrastructure networks. In theory and practice, this is resulting in challenges to existing urban theorization, political agendas and infrastructure provision. This workshop will seek to develop new research questions, outputs and networks with the aim of thinking through the heterogeneity of infrastructure provisioning in cities across sub-Saharan Africa, thinking beyond individual artefacts towards understanding dynamic configurations of people and technology.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"How Ugandans are mapping their neighbourhoods to Solve Energy and Health-Related Risks","field_subtitle":"Urban Action Lab, Makerere University Uganda, 2016","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybkjgkdw","body":"The Urban Action Lab of Makerere University Uganda, is a lead partner of Co-designing Energy Communities (CO-DEC), a collaborative research project in Kampala and Nairobi, which is fostering cross-sector learning amongst university students and local community members to scale up local energy solutions, such as briquette-making, and create highly accurate maps of risk-prone businesses, infrastructure and residential dwellings, in regards to the use of traditional and modern energy sources. The community co-researchers collaborated with academics from Makerere University to map their own neigbourhood of Kasubi-Kawaala, in order to address in-and outdoor air pollution associated with poor management of wastes, leaky toilet seals and sewer pits, the use of biomass and fossil fuels from the informal urban economy. The maps were boundary objects for community-led learning and action that linked participating organisations and individual co-researchers to local sustainability-oriented experiments around regenerative use of wastes for energy briquettes; planting of indigenous trees with leafy canopies that reduce air pollutants in homesteads and around business premises; while building consensus on the policy options for enabling actors from Kampala Capital City Authority to own and energetically pursue an agenda for scaling up alternative energy solutions that bring about co-benefits in the health and housing sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"IDRC Doctoral Research Awards 2018","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 30 May 2018","field_url":"https://www.idrc.ca/en/funding/idrc-doctoral-research-awards-2018","body":"IDRC is now accepting applications for this year\u2019s IDRC Doctoral Research Awards (IDRA). This call is open to Canadians, permanent residents of Canada, and citizens of developing countries pursuing doctoral studies at a Canadian university. These awards are intended for field research in developing countries to improve the lives of people in the developing world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"IMF conditionality: still undermining healthcare? ","field_subtitle":"Brunswijck G; Griffiths J: Global Health Check, April 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7huj4xm","body":"An IMF blog in March 2017 claimed that: \u201cA number of studies have found that IMF support for countries\u2019 reforms, on average, either preserve or increase public health spending.\u201d However, the evidence provided was weak. Of the six studies referenced, one, by Oxford and Cambridge university researchers flatly contradicts this claim.  Two were not related to health expenditure: one looked at revenue, not expenditure, and the second had a broader remit and contained no new evidence on the IMF and health. One was over a decade old and did not directly support the claim; while another was a link to an IMF page on the Ebola crisis. In fact  the only referenced study that supported the claim was written by the staff who authored the blog. The IMF\u2019s concern not to be seen to be impacting negatively on health expenditure in the poorest countries can be viewed as an improvement. However, the authors suggest that it is clear that IMF conditionality can constrain expenditure on health and other related services, at odds with the SDG commitment to achieve universal health coverage. The next scheduled review of IMF funding to low-income countries is planned for 2018. The authors argue that it is time for a much broader reform of IMF conditionality. Citing Eurodad\u2019s detailed study, in 2014, that found that IMF conditions are often highly controversial and intrusive on key economic policy issues, they suggest that these policies should be the crux of democratic debate in country, not mandated from Washington. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementation of Urban Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool: a Case of Matsapha, Swaziland.","field_subtitle":"Makadzange K; Radebe Z; Maseko N; et al: Journal of Urban Health, doi: 10.1007/s11524-018-0241-y, 2018","field_url":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11524-018-0241-y","body":"This paper illustrates a case of applying the Urban Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool in Matsapha, Swaziland. A descriptive single-case study design using qualitative research methods was adopted to collect data from purposively selected respondents. The study revealed that residents of the Matsapha peri-urban informal settlements faced challenges with conditions of daily living which impacted negatively on their health. There were health equity gaps. The application of the tools was facilitated by the formation of an all-inclusive team, intersectoral collaboration and incorporating strategies for improving urban health equity into existing programmes and projects. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Jeopardizing quality at the frontline of healthcare: prevalence and risk factors for disrespect and abuse during facility-based childbirth in Ethiopia ","field_subtitle":"Banks K; Karim A; Ratcliffe H; et al: Health Policy and Planning 33(3) 317\u2013327, 2017","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/33/3/317/4772862","body":"The study explored the frequency and associated factors of disrespect and abuse in four rural health centres in Ethiopia. The experiences of women who delivered in these facilities were captured by direct observation of client-provider interaction and exit interview at time of discharge. Incidence of disrespect and abuse were observed in each facility, with failure to ask woman for preferred birth position most commonly observed. During exit interviews, 21% of respondents reported at least one occurrence of disrespect and abuse. Bivariate models using client characteristics and index birth experience showed that women\u2019s reporting of disrespect and abuse was significantly associated with childbirth complications, weekend delivery and no previous delivery at the facility. Facility-level fixed-effect models found that experience of complications and weekend delivery remained significantly and most strongly associated with self-reported disrespect and abuse. The results suggest that addressing disrespect and abuse in health centres in Ethiopia will require a sustained effort to improve infrastructure, support the health workforce in rural settings, enforce professional standards and target interventions to improve women\u2019s experiences as part of quality of care initiatives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge integration in One Health policy formulation, implementation and evaluation ","field_subtitle":"Hitziger M; Esposito R; Canali M; et al: Bulletin  World Health Organisation 96(3) 211\u2013218, 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/3/17-202705.pdf","body":"The One Health concept covers the interrelationship between human, animal and environmental health and requires multi-stakeholder collaboration across many cultural, disciplinary, institutional and sectoral boundaries. Yet, the implementation of the One Health approach appears hampered by shortcomings in the global framework for health governance. Knowledge integration approaches, at all stages of policy development, could help to address these shortcomings. The identification of key objectives, the resolving of trade-offs and the creation of a common vision and a common direction can be supported by multi-criteria analyses. Evidence-based decision-making and transformation of observations into narratives detailing how situations emerge and might unfold in the future can be achieved by systems thinking. Finally, transdisciplinary approaches can be used both to improve the effectiveness of existing systems and to develop novel networks for collective action. To strengthen One Health governance, the authors propose that knowledge integration becomes a key feature of all stages in the development of related policies and suggest several ways in which such integration could be promoted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Lessons learnt from implementation of the International Health Regulations: a systematic review ","field_subtitle":"Amitabh S; Allen L; Cifuentes S: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 96(2)110-121E, 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/2/16-189100/en/","body":"While bi- and multilateral communication and collaboration are the foundation for global control of infectious disease epidemics, they are strengthened by the International Health Regulations (IHR). Although IHR (2005) describes what must be achieved by countries, there is limited knowledge on how countries should proceed in achieving the core capacities. To fill this gap and accelerate implementation of IHR (2005), the World Health Assembly in 2015 identified a need to evaluate and share the lessons learnt from countries that have implemented IHR (2005). This systematic review was conducted in accordance with Enhancing Transparency in Reporting the Synthesis of Qualitative Research guidelines, using a predefined protocol. The authors identified five global lessons learnt that related to multiple IHR (2005) core capacities. Some major cross-cutting themes included the need for mobilizing and sustaining political commitment; for adapting global requirements based on the local socio-cultural, epidemiological, health system and economic contexts; and for conducting baseline and follow-up assessments to monitor IHR (2005) status. The authors argue that despite considerable progress, countries that are yet to implement IHR (2005) core capacities may have insufficient human and financial resources to meet their obligations in the near future. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Militarized Humanitarianism in Africa","field_subtitle":"Rock J: Foreign Policy in Focus,  May 2014","field_url":"http://fpif.org/militarized-humanitarianism-africa/","body":"The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has rapidly expanded its presence on the African continent since its establishment. Emphasizing a \u201c3D\u201d approach of \u201cdefense, diplomacy, and development,\u201d AFRICOM\u2019s charge is described as coordinating \u201clow-cost, small-footprint operations\u201d throughout the African continent. Writing in the New York Times, Eric Schmitt marveled at AFRICOM\u2019s Operation Flintlock, a multinational and multiagency training operation in Niger. He wrote glowingly about fighting terrorism with mosquito nets: \u201cInstead of launching American airstrikes or commando raids on militants,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthe latest joint mission between the nations involves something else entirely: American boxes of donated vitamins, prenatal medicines, and mosquito netting to combat malaria.\u201d The author asks however if AFRICOM\u2019s humanitarian undertakings should be approached as gestures of goodwill or conflict-deterrence, or rather as signs of a militarized U.S. approach to foreign policy in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Mining and Public Health in Zambia Meeting report, 10 April 2018, Lusaka, Zambia","field_subtitle":"Ministry of Health Zambia; EQUINET","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/Zambia%20mining%20and%20public%20health%20Mtg%20Rep%20April2018.pdf","body":"The Southern African Development Community (SADC) framework for harmonising mining policies, standards and laws, approved by the SADC Mining Ministers in 2006, specifies that member states develop, adopt and enforce appropriate and uniform health, safety and environmental guidelines for the sector and seeks to harmonized standardization in health as an immediate milestone area. The Ministry of Health in Zambia is in the process of improving public health in the mining sector in the country as part of its Universal Health Coverage policy, as well as to address the social determinants of health. A meeting was thus held to dialogue with key national level representatives of health and related sectors on evidence and actions related to public health in mining. The meeting aimed to 1. Share and dialogue with key national level representatives of health and related sectors on: evidence from Zambia on mining and health with a focus on population/public health issues and the current responses to health promotion, prevention and management, and on evidence from regional level on public health issues and health standards in mining, and their implications for regional responses. 2. To discuss follow up actions in relation to key areas of health and cross sectoral collaboration on mining and public health in Zambia and for regional co-operation and exchange on setting and implementing harmonised standards on mining and health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Mobilization initiative on gender equity in health research launched","field_subtitle":"TDR: World Health Organisation, Geneva, February 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/tdr/news/2018/mobilization-initiative-gender-equity/en/","body":"TDR Global has launched a 3-month mobilization initiative on gender equity in health research. The aim is to enhance women\u2019s position in health research and to address the impact of gender on infectious diseases of poverty through research. The initiative will share experience and thoughts on gender equity in health research. Challenge-solving workshops are being planned to identify local challenges, create local teams and offer training. TDR Global talks are opportunities to share best practices and experiences on enhancing gender equity in health research. Working groups on specific issues are options for organizing webinars, training and sharing ideas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"National policies on the management of latent tuberculosis infection: review of 98 countries ","field_subtitle":"Jagger A; Reiter-karam S; Hamadab Y; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 96(3) 173\u2013184, 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/3/17-199414.pdf","body":"This paper is a review of policies on management of latent tuberculosis infection in countries with low and high burdens of tuberculosis. The authors divided countries reporting data to the World Health Organization Global Tuberculosis Programme into low and high tuberculosis burden, based on World Health Organization criteria. National policy documents on management of latent tuberculosis were identified through online searches, government websites, World Health Organization country offices and personal communication with programme managers. A descriptive analysis was done with a focus on policy gaps and deviations from World Health Organization policy recommendations. Documents were obtained from 68 of 113 low-burden countries and 30 of 35 countries with the highest burdens of tuberculosis or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated tuberculosis. Screening for children aged < 5 years with household tuberculosis contact was the policy of 25 (83.3%) high- and 28 (41.2%) low-burden countries. In most high-burden countries the recommendation was symptom screening alone before treatment, whereas in all low-burden countries it was testing before treatment. Some low-burden countries\u2019 policies did not comply with WHO recommendations: nine (13.2%) recommended tuberculosis preventive treatment for travellers to high-burden countries and 10 (14.7%) for patients undergoing abdominal surgery. The authors raise that lack of solid evidence on certain aspects of management of latent tuberculosis infection results in national policies which vary considerably and highlight a need to advance research and develop clear, implementable and evidence-based WHO policies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Nursing education challenges and solutions in Sub Saharan Africa: an integrative review","field_subtitle":"Bvumbwe T; Mtshali N: BMC Nursing, 17:3,  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-018-0272-4, 2018","field_url":"https://bmcnurs.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12912-018-0272-4","body":"This integrative review examined literature on nursing education challenges and solutions in Sub Saharan Africa to inform development of a model for improving the quality, quantity and relevance of nursing education at local level through a search of online libraries. Twenty articles and five grey sources were included. The findings of the review generally support World Health Organisation framework for transformative and scale up of health professions education. Six themes emerged; curriculum reforms, profession regulation, transformative teaching strategies, collaboration and partnership, capacity building and infrastructure and resources. Challenges and solutions in nursing education are common within countries. The review shows that massive investment by development partners is resulting in positive development of nursing education in Sub Saharan Africa. However, strategic leadership, networking and partnership to share expertise and best practices are argued from the evidence to be critical. The authors propose that Sub Saharan Africa needs more reforms to increase capacity of educators and mentors, responsiveness of curricula, strongly regulatory frameworks, and availability of infrastructure and resources. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Practitioner Expertise to Optimize Community Health Systems: Harnessing Operational Insight","field_subtitle":"Ballard M; Schwarz R; Johnson A; et al: Community Health Worker Impact, USA, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ya539lkj","body":"To harness the potential of community health workers (CHWs) to extend health services to poor and marginalized populations the authors argue that there is a need to better understand how CHW programs can be optimized. This paper presents the experience of and insights from application by selected organizations that have developed high-impact CHW programs with governments and communities in different countries globally.  They present a series of design principles that, in their experience, drive programmatic quality and are debated or not commonly found in programs across the globe: CHWs must meet minimum standards before working; point of care fees should be avoided when possible; CHWs should go door to door and provide training on when to seek help; continuing training should be a requirement; CHWs should benefit from a dedicated supervisor and be paid and should be part of a strong local health system and data feedback loops. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Scoping literature review on the basic health benefit package and its determinant criteria","field_subtitle":"Hayati R; Bastani P; Kabir M; et al: Globalization and Health 14(26), https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-018-0345-x, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7v8w2qd","body":"This study aimed to extract criteria used in health systems for defining the benefit package in different countries around the world using scoping review method. A systematic search was carried out in online libraries and databases between January and April 2016. After studying the articles\u2019 titles, abstracts, and full texts, 9 articles and 14 reports were selected for final analysis. In the final analysis, 19 criteria were extracted. Due to diversity of criteria in terms of number and nature, they were divided into three categories. The categories included intervention-related criteria, disease-related criteria, and community-related criteria. The largest number of criteria belonged to the first category. Indeed, the most widely applied criteria included cost-effectiveness, effectiveness, budget impact, equity, and burden of disease. According to the results, different criteria were identified in terms of number and nature in developing benefit package in world health systems. The authors conclude that it seems that certain criteria, such as cost-effectiveness, effectiveness, budget impact, burden of disease, equity, and necessity, that were most widely utilized in countries under study could be for designing benefit package with regard to social, cultural, and economic considerations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The African Postdoctoral Training Initiative - a partnership of the African Academy of Sciences, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 11 May 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y6uka8xp","body":"The African Academy of Sciences (AAS), the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are partnering under the auspices of the Coalition of African Research & Innovation (CARI) to establish a post-doctoral training fellowship program, the African Postdoctoral Training Initiative (APTI) at the intramural laboratories of NIH. APTI fellows will train in a global health research area of priority for their home institutions and countries. While at the NIH, the fellows must be on leave or sabbatical from their home institution under the NIH Intramural Visiting Fellow Program. The research priority areas are in infectious diseases, nutrition, and reproductive, maternal, and child health and developing skills for clinical and translational research. Candidates must be citizens of and currently employed in an academic, research, or government position in an African country. Candidates must have less than 5 years of relevant research experience by their entry on duty date at NIH.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The Inverse Equity Hypothesis: Analyses of Institutional Deliveries in 286 National Surveys","field_subtitle":"Victora C; Joseph G; Silva I; et al: American Journal of Public Health 108(4) 464-471, 2018","field_url":"http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304277","body":"This study tested the inverse equity hypothesis, which postulates that new health interventions are initially adopted by the wealthy and thus increase inequalities\u2014as population coverage increases, only the poorest will lag behind all other groups. The authors analysed the proportion of births occurring in a health facility by wealth quintile in 286 surveys from 89 low- and middle-income countries (1993\u20132015) and developed an inequality pattern index. Positive values indicate that inequality is driven by early adoption by the wealthy (top inequality), whereas negative values signal bottom inequality. Absolute inequalities were widest when national coverage was around 50%. At low national coverage levels, top inequality was evident with coverage in the wealthiest quintile taking off rapidly; at 60% or higher national coverage, bottom inequality became the predominant pattern, with the poorest quintile lagging behind. The authors argue that policies need to be tailored to inequality patterns. When top inequalities are present, barriers that limit uptake by most of the population must be identified and addressed. When bottom inequalities exist, interventions must be targeted at specific subgroups that are left behind.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of community health workers in improving HIV treatment outcomes in children: lessons learned from the ZENITH trial in Zimbabwe ","field_subtitle":"Busza J; Dauya E; Bandason T; et al: Health Policy and Planning 33(3) 328\u2013334, 2018","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/33/3/328/4788356","body":"For the Zimbabwe study for Enhancing Testing and Improving Treatment of HIV in Children (ZENITH) randomized controlled trial, the authors based their intervention on an existing evidence-based framework for successful community health worker (CHW) programmes. To assess CHWs\u2019 experiences delivering the intervention, they conducted longitudinal, qualitative semi-structured interviews with all 19 CHWs at three times during implementation. The study explored community health workers\u2019 perceptions of how the intervention\u2019s structure and management affected their performance, and considers implications for the programme\u2019s future scale-up and adoption in other settings. Community health workers expressed strong motivation, commitment and job satisfaction. Intensive supervision and mentoring emerged as critical to ensuring community health workers long-term satisfaction. Provision of job aids, standardized manuals and refresher training were also important, as were formalized links between clinics and community health workers. Concerns raised by community health workers included poor remuneration, their reluctance to stop providing support to individual families following the requisite number of home visits, and disappointment at the lack of programme sustainability following completion of the trial. Furthermore, intensive supervision and integration with clinical services may be difficult to replicate outside a trial setting. This study shows that existing criteria for designing successful community health workers programmes are useful for maximizing effectiveness, but challenges remain for ensuring long-term sustainability of \u2018task shifting\u2019 strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"UN aims to eliminate yellow fever epidemics in Africa by 2026","field_subtitle":"Times LIVE, Reuters, April 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8wmsgqv","body":"Nearly 1 billion people in Africa will be vaccinated against yellow fever by 2026 in an ambitious United Nations campaign to eliminate epidemics of the deadly disease on the continent. The mosquito-borne viral disease is a major killer in Africa, where it can spread fast in highly populated areas with devastating consequences. \"With one injection we can protect a person for life against this dangerous pathogen,\" said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) at the programme's launch in Nigeria, a priority target country. A major vaccination campaign in Angola and Congo in 2016 brought one of the worst outbreaks of the disease in decades under control after more than 400 people died. The vaccination programme is a joint venture by the WHO, UNICEF, the GAVI global vaccine alliance and more than 50 health partners. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"15th International Conference on Urban Health: Managing Urbanisation for Health, 26-30 November 2018, Kampala, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Deadline for abstracts: 14 May 2018","field_url":"http://www.isuhconference.org","body":"The 15th International Conference on Urban Health will bring together interdisciplinary researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, health and urban stakeholders and community leaders to exchange ideas and advance research and practice across sectors on how best to manage the rapid urbanisation occurring in all regions of the world. Abstracts are invited for oral and poster presentations, pre-formed panels, workshops and special tracks on the following conference themes: The Governance of Complex Systems, Culture and Inclusivity, Disasters, Epidemics, and the Unexpected, Cities as Economic Engines, Monitoring and Evaluation of Urban Health Indicators, Safety, Security, and Justice, Spiritual Health in the City. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Advancing public health rights, claims and standards in mining, Report of a Side Session at the Alternative Mining Indaba, 6 February 2018, Cape Town South Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET; TARSC; SATUCC; Benchmarks Foundation; SADC CNGO, EQUINET, Harare, 2018","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/AMI%20side%20session%20on%20mining%20and%20health%20rep%202018.pdf","body":"The Alternative Mining Indaba has been held annually since 2010 at the same time as the Mining Indaba to provide a platform for communities affected by mining to voice their concerns and be capacitated to fight for their rights. The theme for the 2018 AMI was: \u201cMaking Natural Resources Work for the People: Towards Just Legal, Policy and Institutional Reform\u201d. This report presents information on a side session at the Indaba that aimed to raise and discuss the key public health challenges facing workers and communities in the extractive sector / mining in east and southern Africa, the strategies for responding to them, including proposals for harmonised regional health standards, and the proposals made by civil society to advance them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Innovation Summit 2019","field_subtitle":"6-8 June 2018, Kigali, Rwanda","field_url":"http://www.africainnovationsummit.com/about","body":"The 2018 Summit will be a multifaceted event that will bring together stakeholders from various sectors, including decision makers to seek innovative and disruptive solutions for the challenges facing African countries. The focus of AIS 2018 will include energy access, water, health, food security and climate change. AIS II will be a three-day event and the program will include five plenary sessions to introduce major thematic issues followed by a series of facilitated workshops, which will take place in focused workgroups to deepen the dialogue and to seek solutions to address the key challenges facing African countries. Each workshop will focus on a specific theme with three to four panelists and will be led by a facilitator. The aims of the discussions are to seek solutions, develop an agenda and mobilize the people and stakeholders for collective action going forward. The AIS 2018 will include activities before, during and after the Summit.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"African Capital Cities Sustainability Forum 2018","field_subtitle":"5-7 June 2018, City of Tshwane, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.africancapitalcities.org/index.html","body":"The African Capital Cities Sustainability Forum (ACCSF) functions as a network for the mayors of capital cities across the continent to achieve the sustainable development goals that are common to all and, in the words of Solly Msimanga, executive mayor of Tshwane, \u201cto establish commonalities and challenges faced by major cities in Africa while showcasing and sharing successful initiatives towards the emergence of truly African, original and appropriate answers in addressing the sustainability imperative at the urban scale.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"African leaders sign continental free-trade agreement","field_subtitle":"Al Jazeera News: 21 March 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8lmrp5b","body":"African leaders have signed an agreement to set up a massive free-trade area to improve regional integration and boost economic growth across the continent. The deal to create the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was signed at an extraordinary summit in Kigali, Rwanda by representatives of 44 of the 55 African Union (AU) member states. The agreement commits countries to removing tariffs on 90 percent of goods, with 10 percent of \"sensitive items\" to be phased in later. It will also liberalise trade in services and might in the future include free movement of people and a single currency. AfCFTA will now have to be ratified by individual countries. Nigeria pulled out of the signing ceremony. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) had warned government against signing the agreement, calling it a \"renewed, extremely dangerous and radioactive neo-liberal policy initiative\". A further protocol, the Protocol on Free Movement of People has to date been signed by 27 countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Cochrane South Africa invites applications for the Aubrey Sheiham Evidence-based Health Care in Africa Leadership Award 2018 ","field_subtitle":"Applications close: 31 July 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7dr4eqs","body":"Since 2001 through the generosity of the late Professor Aubrey Sheiham 16 Cochrane researchers from low- and middle-income countries have been funded and supported to complete Cochrane Reviews on topics relevant to their region, and to cascade knowledge about Cochrane and evidence-based health care (EBHC) to their local networks. In 2014, the scholarship evolved into a new award focusing on leadership in EBHC - the Aubrey Sheiham EBHC in Africa Leadership Award, administered by Cochrane South Africa. With an updated and more concentrated focus, the fellowship is awarded annually to an individual based in Africa, and supports the conduct and dissemination of a high-impact Cochrane Review on a topic relevant to resource-constrained settings. The Cochrane Review should be registered with a Cochrane Review Group at the time of application. An update of an existing review is allowed if it will have high impact. The applicant should provide proof that relevant evidence is available for inclusion in the review. In addition to completing their chosen Cochrane Review and disseminating its findings, the award recipient will support capacity development by mentoring a novice author based in Africa through the review process. This continues the scholarship\u2019s tradition of building knowledge and research networks, which will be actively supported by Cochrane South Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Determinants of facility readiness for integration of family planning with HIV testing and counseling services: evidence from the Tanzania service provision assessment survey, 2014\u20132015","field_subtitle":"Bintabara D; Nakamura K; Seino K: BMC Health Services Research 17(844), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-017-2809-8, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yc692fcf","body":"This study examined determinants of facility readiness for integration of family planning with HIV testing and counseling services in Tanzania using data from the 2014\u20132015 Tanzania Service Provision Assessment Survey. A total of 1188 facilities were assessed and considered ready for integration of family planning with HIV testing and counseling services if they scored \u2265\u200950% on both family planning and HIV testing and counseling service readiness indices as identified by the World Health Organization. Of all the health facilities, 915 reported offering both family planning and HIV testing and counseling services, while only 536 were considered ready to integrate these two services. Significant determinants of facility readiness for integrating these two services were being government owned, having routine management meetings, availability of guidelines, in-service training of staff, and availability of laboratories for HIV testing. The authors judge the proportion of facility readiness for the integration of family planning with HIV testing and counseling in Tanzania to be unsatisfactory and suggest that the Ministry of Health distribute and ensure constant availability of guidelines, availability of rapid diagnostic tests for HIV testing, and refresher training to health providers, as determinants of facility readiness.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"District Health Barometer 2016/2017, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Massyn N; Padarath A; Peer N; et al: Health Systems Trust, South Africa, 2017 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9c5aqwp","body":"This 12th edition of the District Health Barometer (DHB) covers 52 districts and includes a total of 47 financial and health indicators, 11 of which are new. This annual publication provides an overview of the performance of public health services in South Africa and has become an important planning and management resource for health service providers, managers, researchers and policy makers in the country. The DHB plays an important role in providing information for district mangers to benchmark their districts against the others in the country and in strengthening the use of data for priority setting and decision making. The Barometer is used as the basis for workshops with district managers which provides an opportunity to engage with the data and collaborate with technical experts on how best to use this information for planning. This edition paints a mixed picture, showing significant gains in some areas while highlighting areas that need further attention. Mortality rates in South Africa increased between 1997 and 2006 and declined thereafter until 2015, mainly due to the HIV epidemic and the roll-out of ARTs. Despite this, HIV and AIDS and associated conditions still stand out as being a leading cause of morbidity, together with cerebrovascular diseases, ischaemic heart disease, diabetes mellitus, road injuries, interpersonal violence and hypertensive heart disease. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET discussion paper 113: The role of an essential health benefit in health systems in east and southern Africa: Learning from regional research","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Mamdani M; Todd G; Kadowa I; Nswilla A; Kisanga O; Luwabelwa M; Banda P; Palale M; Magagula S:  TARSC and IHI, EQUINET, Harare, 2018","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Diss%20113%20EHB%20synthesis%202018.pdf","body":"An Essential Health Benefit (EHB) is a policy intervention defining the service benefits (or benefit package) in order to direct resources to priority areas of health service delivery to reduce disease burdens and ensure health equity. Many east and southern African (ESA) countries have introduced or updated EHBs in the 2000s. Recognising this in 2015-2017, the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET), through Ifakara Health Institute (IHI) and Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC), with ministries of health in Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, implemented desk reviews and country case studies, and held a regional meeting to gather and share evidence and learning on the role of EHBs in resourcing, organising and in accountability on integrated, equitable universal health systems. This report synthesises the learning across the full programme of work. It presents the methods used, the context and policy motivations for developing EHBs; how they are being defined, costed, disseminated and used in health systems, including for service provision and quality, resourcing and purchasing services and monitoring and accountability on service delivery and performance, and for learning, useful practice and challenges faced. This research pointed to the evidence within the region for policy dialogue on universal health systems. It raised the usefulness of designing, costing, implementing and monitoring an EHB as a key entry point and operational strategy for realising universal health coverage and systems and for making clear the deficits to be met.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 205: Making markets work for menstrual health: overcoming the \u2018dignity deficit\u2019","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploring the care provided to mothers and children by community health workers in South Africa: missed opportunities to provide comprehensive care","field_subtitle":"Wilford A; Phakathi S; Haskins L; et al: BMC Public Health 18(171), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5056-y, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yd38nuqg","body":"In this study the authors explored the performance of by community health workers (CHWs) providing maternal and child health services at household level and the quality of the CHW-mother interaction using observations and in-depth interviews. Fifteen CHWs and 30 mothers/pregnant women were purposively selected in three rural districts of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. CHWs provided appropriate and correct health information but there were important gaps in the content provided. Mothers expressed satisfaction with CHW visits and appreciation that CHWs understood their life experiences and therefore provided advice and support that was relevant and accessible. CHWs expressed concern that they did not have the knowledge required to undertake all activities in the household, and requested training and support from supervisors during household visits. The authors assert that key building blocks for a successful CHW programme are in place to provide services for mothers and children in households but further training and supervision is required if the gaps in CHW knowledge and skills are to be filled.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Extending coverage to informal sector populations in Kenya: design preferences and implications for financing policy","field_subtitle":"Okungu V; Chuma J; Mulupi S; et al: BMC Health Services Research 18(37),  doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-017-2805-z, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycnswr4p","body":"This study documented the views of informal sector workers regarding different prepayment mechanisms, to inform the design and policy implications of financing Universal health coverage in Kenya. This was part of larger study which involved a mixed-methods approach. Data was collected from informal sector workers: focus group discussions, individual in-depth and a questionnaire survey. The findings showed that informal sector workers in rural and urban areas prefer different prepayment systems for financing Universal health coverage. Preference for a non-contributory system of financing Universal health coverage was particularly strong in the urban study site. Over 70% in the rural area preferred a contributory mechanism in financing Universal health coverage. The main concern for informal sector workers regardless of the overall design of the financing approach to Universal health coverage included a poor governance culture, especially one that does not punish corruption. Other reasons especially with regard to the contributory financing approach included high premium costs and inability to enforce contributions from informal sector. On average 47% of all study participants, the largest single majority, are in favour of a non-contributory financing mechanism. Strong evidence from existing literature indicates difficulties in implementing social contributions as the primary financing mechanism for Universal health coverage in contexts with large informal sector populations. The authors argue that non-contributory financing should be strongly recommended to policymakers to be the primary financing mechanism, supplemented by social contributions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Extractive Laws in Africa: What is the state of these laws? Why are our laws a problem? Why and on what should we call for reforms? ","field_subtitle":"Graham Y: Alternative Mining Indaba, February 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycls8c7v","body":"The overarching legal framework for minerals across Africa is public ownership. Citizens should be the collective beneficial owners of the mineral resources that are managed on their behalf by the state as a trustee. Graham asserts, however, that the reality in  Africa is different. The collective ownership of minerals and the trustee role of the state has been compromised. Mining activists have tended to focus on accountability and transparency in relation to the regimes of mineral exploitation that governments have adopted. Graham asserts that there is a more fundamental accountability question in how the choices being made advance the inter- generational interests of citizens. Graham identifies that the citizen should at the very least not be made worse off by the development of assets of which he/she is part owner. He argues that there should be a stronger accountability framework where a minerals and development policy provides for inter-generational benefit, with linkages to development. There is a need to retreat from a 'first come first served' approach to awarding mining contracts, to collect more geological information to inform award of concessions and reform revenue law to be sensitive to mining price cycles so revenue collection can be optimised. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors associated with household food insecurity and depression in pregnant South African women from a low socio-economic setting: a cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Abrahams Z; Lund C; Field S; et al: Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-018-1497-y, 2018","field_url":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00127-018-1497-y#citeas","body":"This study aimed to assess factors associated with food insecurity and depression in a sample of pregnant South African women in a low-income suburb in Cape Town. Pregnant women attending a local clinic for their first antenatal visit were invited to participate. The shortened form of the US Household Food Security Survey Module was used to measure food insecurity. The Expanded Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview was used to diagnose depression, anxiety, alcohol and drug dependence, and assess for suicidal ideation and behaviour. Logistic regression modelling was conducted to explore factors associated with food insecurity and depression in separate models. The authors found that 42% of households were food insecure and that 21% of participants were depressed. The odds of being food insecure were increased in women with suicidal behaviour, with depression and in those with three or more children. The odds of depression was greater in women who were food insecure, substance dependent or diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Food insecurity and depression are strongly associated in pregnant women. The relationship between food insecurity and depression is complex and requires further investigation. Interventions that improve both food security and mental health during the perinatal period are likely to benefit the physical and mental well-being of mothers and children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors influencing the capacity of women to voice their concerns about maternal health services in the Muanda and Bolenge Health Zones, Democratic Republic of the Congo: a multi-method study.","field_subtitle":"Mafuta E;  De Cock Buning T; Lolobi  D; et al: BMC Health Services Research, Biology 18(37), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-2842-2, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8e99e6r","body":"This paper aims to identify factors that influence the capacity of women to voice their concerns regarding maternal health services at the local level. A secondary analysis was conducted of the data from three studies carried out between 2013 and 2015 in the context of a WOTRO initiative to improve maternal health services through social accountability mechanisms in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Data from 21 interviews and 12 focus group discussions were analysed using an inductive content analysis. The women living in the rural setting were mostly farmers/fisher-women or worked at odd jobs. They had not completed secondary school. Around one-fifth was younger than 20 years old. The majority of women could describe the health service they received but were not able to describe what they should receive as care. They had insufficient knowledge of the health services before their first visit. They were not able to explain the mandate of the health providers. The information they received concerned the types of healthcare they could receive but not the real content of those services, nor their rights and entitlements.  They believed that they were laypersons and therefore unable to judge health providers, but when provided with some tools such as a checklist, they reported some abusive and disrespectful treatments. Factors influencing the capacity of women to voice their concerns in Democratic Republic of the Congo rural settings were found to be mainly associated with insufficient knowledge and a socio-cultural context. These findings suggest that initiatives to implement social accountability have to address community capacity-building, health providers\u2019 responsiveness and the socio-cultural norms .","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Fiscal policy to improve diets and prevent non-communicable diseases: from recommendations to action ","field_subtitle":"Thow A; Downs S; Mayes C; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisatio 96(3) 201\u2013210, 2018","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/3/17-195982.pdf","body":"The World Health Organization has recommended that Member States consider taxing energy-dense beverages and foods and/or subsidizing nutrient-rich foods to improve diets and prevent noncommunicable diseases. Numerous countries have either implemented taxes on energy-dense beverages and foods or are considering the implementation of such taxes. However, several major challenges to the implementation of fiscal policies to improve diets and prevent noncommunicable diseases remain. Some of these challenges relate to the cross-sectoral nature of the relevant interventions. For example, as health and economic policy-makers have different administrative concerns, performance indicators and priorities, they often consider different forms of evidence in their decision-making. In this paper, the evidence base for diet-related interventions based on fiscal policies are described and the key questions that need to be asked by both health and economic policy-makers are considered. From the health sector\u2019s perspective, there is most evidence for the impact of taxes and subsidies on diets, with less evidence on their impacts on body weight or health. The authors highlight the importance of scope, the role of industry, the use of revenue and regressive taxes in informing policy decisions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"From Kisiizi to Baltimore: cultivating knowledge brokers to support global innovation for community engagement in healthcare","field_subtitle":"Ibe C; Basu L; Gooden R; et al: Globalization and Health 14(19), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-018-0339-8, 2018","field_url":"http://bulletin.ids.ac.uk/idsbo/article/view/2917/Online%20article","body":"Reverse Innovation has been endorsed as a vehicle for promoting bidirectional learning and information flow between low- and middle-income countries and high-income countries, with the aim of tackling common unmet needs. One such need, which traverses international boundaries, is the development of strategies to initiate and sustain community engagement in health care delivery systems. In this commentary, the authors discuss the Baltimore \u201cCommunity-based Organizations Neighborhood Network: Enhancing Capacity Together\u201d Study. This randomized controlled trial evaluated whether or not a community engagement strategy, developed to address patient safety in low- and middle-income countries throughout sub-Saharan Africa, could be successfully applied to create and implement strategies that would link community-based organizations to a local health care system in Baltimore, a city in the United States. Specifically, the authors explore the trial\u2019s activation of community knowledge brokers as the conduit through which community engagement, and innovation production, was achieved. Cultivating community knowledge brokers holds promise as a vehicle for advancing global innovation in the context of health care delivery systems. As such, further efforts to discern the ways in which they may promote the development and dissemination of innovations in health care systems is warranted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Guidelines for responsible short-term global health activities: developing common principles","field_subtitle":"Lasker J; Aldrink M; Balasubramaniam R; et al: Globalization and Health 14(18) doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-018-0330-4, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y99m385v","body":"Growing concerns about the value and effectiveness of short-term volunteer trips intending to improve health in underserved Global South communities has driven the development of guidelines by multiple organizations and individuals. These are intended to mitigate potential harms and maximize benefits associated with such efforts. This paper analyzes 27 guidelines derived from a scoping review of the literature available in early 2017, describing their authorship, intended audiences, the aspects of short term medical missions (STMMs) they address, and their attention to guideline implementation. It further considers how these guidelines relate to the desires of host communities, as seen in studies of host country staff who work with volunteers. There is broad consensus on key principles for responsible, effective, and ethical programs--need for host partners, proper preparation and supervision of visitors, needs assessment and evaluation, sustainability, and adherence to pertinent legal and ethical standards. Host country staff studies suggest agreement with the main elements of this guideline consensus, but they add the importance of mutual learning and respect for hosts. Guidelines must be informed by research and policy directives from host countries that is now mostly absent. Also, a comprehensive strategy to support adherence to best practice guidelines is argued to be needed, given limited regulation and enforcement capacity in host country contexts and strong incentives for involved stakeholders to undertake or host STMMs that do not respect key principles.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health system strengthening: a qualitative evaluation of implementation experience and lessons learned across five African countries ","field_subtitle":"Rwabukwisi F; Bawah A; Gimbel S; Phillips J et al: BMC Health Services Research 17(Suppl3)  doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-017-2662-9, 2017 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7qu9p7v","body":"In this study, the authors captured common implementation experiences and lessons learned to understand core elements of successful health systems interventions in Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia. Four major overarching lessons were highlighted. Variety and inclusiveness of concerned key players are necessary to address complex health system issues at all levels. A learning culture that promotes evidence creation and ability to efficiently adapt were key in order to meet changing contextual needs. Inclusion of strong implementation science tools and strategies allowed informed and measured learning processes and efficient dissemination of best practices. Five to seven years was the minimum time frame necessary to effectively implement complex health system strengthening interventions and generate the evidence base needed to advocate for sustainable change for the Population Health Implementation and Training partnership projects. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"How to assess and prepare health systems in low- and middle-income countries for integration of services\u2014a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Topp S; Abimbola S; Joshi R: Health Policy and Planning 33(2) March 2018, doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czx169, 2017 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7qu9p7v","body":"Despite growing support for integration of frontline services, a lack of information about the pre-conditions necessary to integrate such services hampers the ability of policy makers and implementers to assess how feasible or worthwhile integration may be, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The authors adopted a modified systematic review with aspects of realist review of quantitative and qualitative studies that incorporated assessment of health system preparedness for and capacity to implement integrated services. From an initial list of 10 550 articles, 206 were selected for full-text review by two reviewers who independently reviewed articles and inductively extracted and synthesized themes related to health system preparedness. Five \u2018context\u2019 related categories and four health system \u2018capability\u2019 themes were searched. The contextual enabling and constraining factors for frontline service integration were: the organizational framework of frontline services, health care worker preparedness, community and client preparedness, upstream logistics and policy and governance issues. The intersecting health system capabilities identified were the need for: sufficiently functional frontline health services, sufficiently trained and motivated health care workers, availability of technical tools and equipment suitable to facilitate integrated frontline services and appropriately devolved authority and decision-making processes to enable frontline managers and staff to adapt integration to local circumstances. This review demonstrates that synthesis is possible. It presents a common set of contextual factors and health system capabilities necessary for successful service integration which may be considered indicators of preparedness and could form the basis for an \u2018integration preparedness tool\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"How to do (or not to do)\u2026 Measuring health worker motivation in surveys in low- and middle-income countries ","field_subtitle":"Borghi J; Lohmann J; Dale E; et al: Health Policy and Planning 33(2) doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czx153, 2018","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/33/2/192/4641879","body":"A health system\u2019s ability to deliver quality health care depends on the availability of motivated health workers, which are insufficient in many low income settings. Increasing policy and researcher attention is directed towards understanding what drives health worker motivation and how different policy interventions affect motivation, as motivation is key to performance and quality of care outcomes. As a result, there is growing interest among researchers in measuring motivation within health worker surveys. However, there is currently limited guidance on how to conceptualize and approach measurement and how to validate or analyse motivation data collected from health worker surveys, resulting in inconsistent and sometimes poor quality measures. This paper begins by discussing how motivation can be conceptualized, then sets out the steps in developing questions to measure motivation within health worker surveys and in ensuring data quality through validity and reliability tests. The paper also discusses analysis of the resulting motivation measure/s. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Listeriosis: One of many food horrors of South Africa\u2019s profit-driven, corporate-controlled food system","field_subtitle":"COPAC, SAFC: South Africa, March 2018","field_url":"http://www.safsc.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Press-Release_Listeriosis-outbreak_7-March-2018.pdf","body":"The South African Food Sovereignty Campaign (SAFSC) and Co-operative and Policy Alternative Centre issued as press statement calling the outbreak of listeriosis in South Africa as a food horror of a profit-driven corporate food system, with limited state regulation. They blame the current corporate controlled food system for compromised health standards in South Africa, which has led to food horrors of not only listeriosis, but also obesity, hunger, malnutrition, child stunting and diabetes. The private sector with profit as its main motive, claims that it has solutions to end food crises, but these organisations say that it is perpetuating the very crises that the poor and vulnerable face on a daily basis, and that the listeriosis outbreak, as well as ongoing hunger, hiking obesity and diabetes rates and contamination of soils with pesticides, tell a story of the failure of the corporate food system to ensure adequate nutrition for all citizens, and the destruction of natural environments. The South African Food Sovereignty Campaign (SAFSC) calls for greater state regulation based on the People\u2019s Food Sovereignty Act. This Act calls for the democratic planning of the food system, increased state regulation on destructive practices of the corporate controlled food system, prioritising local food supply over trade, a ban on advertising of all junk food, and greater reliance on small-scale food producers to feed citizens culturally appropriate and nutritious food.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Local Government Community of Practice","field_subtitle":"Gender Links for Equality and Justice: website, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycgj9zlo","body":"The Local government Community of Practice is a \u2018virtual\u2019 community that seeks to enable interaction on various gender and governance issues. Ideal for local government practitioners and academia this platform invokes participants to learn and share best practices, resources and critical thinking on gender and service delivery across the SADC region to bring \u2018the local government we want\u2019. Members are encouraged to make use of the Local Government Gender Score Card tool that measures the Centres of Excellence (COE) progress in gender mainstreaming and sensitive service delivery. Aligned is a newly developed Local Government Citizen\u2019s Score Card that provides an opportunity for community members served by COE councils to assess and measure council\u2019s progress towards achieving gender sensitive and responsive service delivery. The results from these tools aim to assist in strengthened policies and development projects that are implemented to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and SADC Gender Protocol Agenda 2030.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Making markets work for menstrual health: overcoming the \u2018dignity deficit\u2019","field_subtitle":"Nolwazi Ncube, Save the Girl Child Movement, Zimbabwe","field_url":"","body":"\r\nMenstrual health is often mistakenly classified solely as a \u2018women\u2019s issue\u2019. Yet with their link to reproduction and fertility, menstrual health and hygiene are not simply women\u2019s issues, but matters of family and national concern. This is even more important in our region given the high share of adolescent females and women of child-bearing age in the population. In addition, the education, survival and health of girls and of women have an impact on the whole family. An appreciation of this impact underpins the global Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 that seeks to ensure inclusive education for all, and SDG 5 that promotes gender equality. \r\n\r\nSo having just commemorated International Women\u2019s day on 8 March 2018, and ahead of Menstrual hygiene day next month on 28 May, it seems fitting to discuss the issue of menstrual health. \r\n\r\nIn 2016, ahead of the 11 October global commemorations of the International Day of the Girl Child, UNICEF released a report entitled \u2018Harnessing the Power of Data for Girls: taking stock and looking ahead to 2030\u2019 (https://data.unicef.org/resources/harnessing-the-power-of-data-for-girls/). The report presented a rather sombre picture of the state of gender equality in low-income countries, pointing to an unequal division of labour in homes that continues to burden the girl child and impede her educational outcomes. \r\n\r\nZimbabwe, like other countries in the region, has recognised the importance of educating girl children. The country has, over time, made strides with regard to gender parity in education, but still faces gaps in achieving it. To address some of these gaps, the 2005 five-year National Strategic Plan for the education of girls, orphans and other vulnerable children set out to accelerate progress towards universal primary education and to promote equity and empowerment through education. However, with the health, social and economic challenges in the country, the subsequent five-year plans launched in 2011 and 2016 gave more focus to orphaned and vulnerable children. It could have been easy to forget the day-to-day problems girls face with their changing reproductive health. But in a positive step in 2017, the Zimbabwe government introduced a duty rebate on the importation of raw materials (pulp, glue and virgin tissue) used in the manufacture of sanitary wear. \r\n\r\nIt is not the only country in the region to be taking up these pro-girl child measures. \r\n\r\nKenya has repealed sales tax on sanitary wear. Furthermore, since 2011 the Kenya government has allocated approximately 3 million US dollars to support the distribution of sanitary wear in schools in low-income communities. In 2016, Zambia\u2019s Ministry of Health launched its \u2018National guidelines for menstrual hygiene management\u2019. In 2017, the Department of Women in South Africa drafted a \u2018Sanitary dignity policy framework\u2019. \r\n\r\nIn August 2017, I had the opportunity to engage the Deputy Director General of the Department of Women, Mr Prince Booi on this policy framework document. He highlighted that the policy aims to widen access to sanitary wear for extremely poor girls and women, where the provision of this service helps to restore their dignity. The name of this policy framework resonates with me, as it underscores the link between menstrual management and dignity. Girls and women without access to methods and materials for the hygienic management of their menstrual periods experience a cyclical threat to their dignity. Monthly, it can strip away their confidence and may even inhibit their mobility and capacity to carry out physical activities.  \r\n\r\nIn the 1960s in America President Lyndon B Johnson declared \u2018a national war on poverty\u2019, using the term \u2018dignity deficit\u2019 to highlight the effect on men of unemployment and their inability to provide for their families as breadwinners within the home. \r\n\r\nWomen were far less in focus at the time. But women\u2019s reproductive health is an even more powerful sign of the dignity deficit as described in 2017 by Arthur Brooks in an essay in \u2018Foreign Affairs\u2019 (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2017-02-13/dignity-deficit). In it he paints the picture of a polarised America in which the rate of births for unmarried mothers is five times higher in women reaching up to high school education than that of college educated women. This is even more profound in girl children. In my own advocacy work in Zimbabwe I have seen how unintended pregnancies lead to dropping out from school and a social reproduction of vulnerability, unemployment and poverty. \r\n\r\nIndeed, when Scottish Member of Parliament Monica Lennon began lobbying in 2017 for a bill to ensure free access to sanitary products in schools, colleges and universities it was profiled as a bid to end \u2018period poverty\u2019. \r\n\r\nThe measures taken by Zimbabwe, Kenya, Zambia and South Africa are thus important equity measures, particularly in overcoming market barriers to menstrual health and dignity. They are also ahead of those taken in many higher income settings. Whilst the City of New York legislated in 2016 for the roll out of free sanitary wear in public schools, homeless shelters and prisons, sanitary wear is still subject to sales tax in other districts in the state and other US states have not followed its example. At the same time, African countries can also look to other countries for further good practice.  The 2013 documentary \u2018Menstrual man\u2019 and the 2018 movie \u2018PadMan\u2019 illuminate the work of Arunachalam Muruganantham in India for example. He confronted gender barriers in championing menstrual management and inventing a low-cost sanitary pad-manufacturing machine that is now used by rural women in India to locally manufacture sanitary pads.\r\n\r\nThese market measures and initiatives signal a potential shift in the recognition of the importance menstrual health in countries \u2013 taking it from a position of being hidden to one that is profiled and addressed in the public sphere, and more importantly an issue that has implications for equity and dignity. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Next wave of interventions to reduce under-five mortality in Rwanda: a crosssectional analysis of demographic and health survey data ","field_subtitle":"Amoroso C; Nisingizwe M; Rouleau D; et al: BMC Pediatrics 18(27) doi: 10.1186/s12887-018-0997-y, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y78ynud5","body":"This paper reports on a cross-sectional study of 9002 births to 6328 women age 15\u201349 in the 2010 Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey to identify correlates of under-five mortality in all children under-five, 0\u201311 months, and 12\u201359 months. The results indicated that of 14 covariates associated with under-five mortality in bivariate analysis, the following remained associated with under-five mortality in multivariate analysis: household being among the poorest of the poor, child being a twin, mother having 3\u20134 births in the past 5 years compared to 1\u20132 births, mother being HIV positive, and mother not using contraceptives compared to using a modern method. Mother experiencing physical or sexual violence in the last 12 months was associated with under-five mortality in children ages 1\u20134 years. Under five survival was associated with a preceding birth interval 25\u201350 months compared to 9\u201324 months, and having a mosquito net. It was concluded that in the past decade, Rwanda rolled out integrated management of childhood illness, near universal coverage of childhood vaccinations, a national community health worker program, and a universal health insurance scheme. The results of the study suggest that Rwanda\u2019s next wave of U5 mortality reduction should target programs in improving neonatal outcomes, poverty reduction, family planning, HIV services, malaria prevention, and prevention of intimate partner violence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Political Priority for Abortion Law Reform in Malawi: Transnational and National Influences","field_subtitle":"Daire J; Kloster M; Storeng K: Health and Human Rights Journal, March 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y73axkrk","body":"In July 2015, Malawi\u2019s Special Law Commission on the Review of the Law on Abortion released a draft Termination of Pregnancy bill. If approved by Parliament, it will liberalize Malawi\u2019s strict abortion law, expanding the grounds for safe abortion and representing an important step toward safer abortion in Malawi. Drawing on prospective policy analysis (2013\u20132017), the authors identify factors that helped generate political will to address unsafe abortion. Notably, the authors show that transnational influences and domestic advocacy converged to make unsafe abortion a political issue in Malawi and to make abortion law reform a possibility. Since the 1980s, international actors have promoted global norms and provided financial and technical resources to advance ideas about women\u2019s reproductive health and rights and to support research on unsafe abortion. Meanwhile, domestic coalitions of actors and policy champions have mobilized new national evidence on the magnitude, costs, and public health impacts of unsafe abortion, framing action on unsafe abortion as part of a broader imperative to address Malawi\u2019s high level of maternal mortality. Although these efforts have generated substantial support for abortion law reform, an ongoing backlash from the international anti-choice movement has gained momentum by appealing to religious and nationalist values. Passage of the bill confronts, for example, the current United States\u2019 government position prohibiting the funding of safe abortion. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Research gaps and emerging priorities in sexual and reproductive health in Africa and the eastern Mediterranean regions ","field_subtitle":"Ali M; Farron M; Ouedraogo L; et al: Reproductive Health 15(39) doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12978-018-0484-9, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8vpr7lx","body":"This paper presented the results of a priority setting exercise that brought together researchers and program managers from the World Health Organization Africa and Eastern Mediterranean regions to identify key sexual reproductive health issues. In June 2015, researchers and program managers from the World Health Organization Africa and Eastern Mediterranean regions met for a three-day meeting to discuss strategies to strengthen research capacity in the regions. A prioritization exercise was carried out to identify key priority areas for research in sexual reproductive health. The process included five criteria which are answerability, effectiveness, deliverability and acceptability, potential impact of the intervention/program to improve reproductive, maternal and newborn health substantially, and equity. The six main priorities were identified as creation and investment in multipurpose prevention technologies, addressing adolescent violence and early pregnancy, improved maternal and newborn emergency care, increased evaluation and improvement of adolescent health interventions including contraception, further focus on family planning uptake and barriers, and improving care for mothers and children during childbirth. They indicate that setting priorities is the first step in a dynamic process to identify where research funding should be focused to maximize health benefits. A focus on priority setting suggests a need to identify who is thus involved in this process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Scholarships available for the Applied Conflict Transformation Studies [ACTS] programme for Africa, 2018 - 2020","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 29th  April 2018","field_url":"","body":"The ACTS programme takes place under the joint auspices of the International Centre of Nonviolence at Durban University of Technology (DUT) and Grace to Heal, an NGO based in Bulawayo. It is taught by a highly skilled and experienced team, with both local and international staff. This practical programme is offered part-time over 2-2.5 years. Stage one involves three coursework modules, each of which requires up to 10 days residence in Bulawayo, plus guided study at home. Subject to satisfactory progress, students may proceed to stage two, a thesis based on action research. This involves two further residential sessions after formal registration at Durban University of Technology. The final qualification is a Master\u2019s Degree in Management Sciences (MManSc). The programme is closely associated with the ACTS programme for Asia, based at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The procedure is for people to make a formal application for the course by filling in the forms, and attach a request for scholarship support. Information can be obtained at the email address below.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Seventy-first World Health Assembly","field_subtitle":"21-26 May 2018, WHO, Geneva, Switzerland","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/e/e_wha71.html","body":"The World Health Assembly is the decision-making body of WHO. It is attended by delegations from all WHO Member States and focuses on a specific health agenda prepared by the Executive Board. The main functions of the World Health Assembly are to determine the policies of the Organization, appoint the Director-General, supervise financial policies, and review and approve the proposed programme budget. The provisional agenda includes: Addressing the global shortage of, and access to, medicines; the global strategy and plan of action on public health, innovation and intellectual property; preparation for a high-level meeting of the General Assembly on ending tuberculosis; physical activity for health; maternal, infant and young child nutrition; safeguarding against possible conflicts of interest in nutrition programmes; and poliomyelitis \u2013 containment of polioviruses.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening health systems to respond to women subjected to intimate partner violence or sexual violence: A manual for health managers","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, WHO, Geneva, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9lwktcs","body":"This manual is intended for health managers at all levels of the health systems. It is based on World Health Organization (WHO) 2013 guidelines for responding to intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women. The manual primarily addresses public sector health services, but is also relevant for health services in the private sector, including services provided by nongovernmental organizations. It is intended for policy-makers, health services managers at hospital or health facility level who have responsibility for facility level planning as well as day-to-day coordination and management of services, and offers easy steps, practical tips and job aids to help plan and manage services. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa 15th General Assembly: Africa and the Crisis of Globalisation 17 \u2013 21 December 2018, Dakar, Senegal","field_subtitle":"Deadline for abstracts or panel proposals: 15 April 2018","field_url":"http://codesria.org/spip.php?article2843","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) announces its 15th General Assembly in Dakar, Senegal from 17-21 December 2018. The theme chosen for the General Assembly is \u2018Africa and the Crisis of Globalization'. Scholars wishing to be considered for participation in the 15th Assembly as paper presenters or convenors of panels are invited to send abstracts or panel proposals for consideration by the CODESRIA Scientific Committee by 15th April 2018. Successful applicants will be expected to submit full papers for a second round of review by 1st July 2018. The selected participants in the GA will be informed in August 2018. Abstracts for paper presentation should not exceed 600 words while panel proposals should not exceed 1,200 words. Each should clearly indicate the sub-theme in which the paper or panel is located. The Council has created a portal on the website through which all abstracts and panel proposals will be submitted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Fund\u2019s paradigm of oversight, monitoring, and results in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Warren A; Cordon R; Told M; et al: Globalisation and Health 13(89) doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-017-0308-7, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8km5vv2","body":"The Global Fund is one of the largest actors in global health, disbursing in 2015 close to 10 % of all development assistance for health. In 2011 it began a reform process in response to internal reviews following allegations of recipients\u2019 misuse of funds. Reforms have focused on grant application processes thus far while the core structures and paradigm have remained intact. The authors conducted 38 semi-structured in-depth interviews in Maputo, Mozambique and members of the Global Fund Board and Secretariat in Switzerland. In-country stakeholders were representatives from Global Fund country structures (eg. Principle Recipient), the Ministry of Health, health or development attach\u00e9s bilateral and multilateral agencies, consultants, and the NGO coordinating body. Thematic coding revealed concerns about the combination of weak country oversight with stringent and cumbersome requirements for monitoring and evaluation linked to performance-based financing. Analysis revealed that despite the changes associated with the New Funding Model, respondents in both Maputo and Geneva firmly believe challenges remain in Global Fund\u2019s structure and paradigm. The lack of a country office has many negative downstream effects including reliance on in-country partners and ineffective coordination. Due to weak managerial and absorptive capacity, more oversight is required than is afforded by country team visits. While decision-makers in Geneva recognize in-country coordination as vital to successful implementation, to date, there are no institutional requirements for formalized coordination, and the Global Fund has no consistent representation in Mozambique\u2019s in-country coordination groups. In-country partners provide much needed support for Global Fund recipients, but the authors argue that roles, responsibilities, and accountability must be clearly defined for a successful long-term partnership. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The institutional context of tobacco production in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Labont\u00e9 R; Lencucha R; Drope J: Globalisation and Health 14(5) doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-018-0328-y, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7w6nvjy","body":"Tobacco production is said to be an important contributor to Zambia\u2019s economy in terms of labour and revenue generation. In light of Zambia\u2019s obligations under the WHO Framework Convention of Tobacco Control (FCTC) the authors examined the institutional actors in Zambia\u2019s tobacco sector to better understand their roles and determine the institutional context that supports tobacco production in Zambia. Findings from 26 qualitative, semi-structured individual or small-group interviews with key informants from governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations were analysed, along with data and information from published literature. Although Zambia is obligated under the FCTC to take steps to reduce tobacco production, the country\u2019s weak economy and strong tobacco interests make it difficult to achieve this goal. Respondents uniformly acknowledged that growing the country\u2019s economy and ensuring employment for its citizens are the government\u2019s top priorities. Lacklustre coordination and collaboration between the institutional actors, both within and outside government, contributes to an environment that helps sustain tobacco production in the country. A Tobacco Products Control Bill has been under review for a number of years, but with no supply measures included, and with no indication of when or whether it will be passed. As with other low-income countries involved in tobacco production, there is inconsistency between Zambia\u2019s economic policy to strengthen the country\u2019s economy and its FCTC commitment to regulate and control tobacco production. The absence of a whole-of-government approach towards tobacco control has created an institutional context of duelling objectives, with some government ministries working at cross-purposes and tobacco interests left unchecked. With no ultimate coordinating authority, this industry risks being run according to the desire and demands of multinational tobacco companies, with few, if any, checks against them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Political Economy of Renewable Energy Investment in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Osiolo H; Pueyo A; Gachanja J: IDS Bulletin 48(5-6),  doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.19088/1968-2017.166, 2017","field_url":"http://bulletin.ids.ac.uk/idsbo/article/view/2917/Online%20article","body":"Kenya has been hailed as a successful sub-Saharan African country in attracting private investment for renewable energy. However, this paper observes that energy poverty remains very high, with connectivity rates lower than the average for sub-Saharan Africa and poor quality of supply for those connected. Several constraints persist to achieve universal access to clean and affordable electricity: high system costs, including a deficient transmission and distribution infrastructure; low rural demand and inadequate planning to meet it; and local opposition to large renewable infrastructure. This article considers the political economy of these constraints, explaining how they arose, which policies can address them and which actors back or oppose these policies. The overarching message is that a prominent state role is required to fund the network components of the electricity system and to reach the less profitable segments of society, namely the rural poor. However, the authors find that this clashes with a dominant private sector-led narrative in the international development community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The unfunded priorities: an evaluation of priority setting for noncommunicable disease control in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Essue B; Kapiriri L: Globalization and Health 14(22), doi:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-018-0324-2, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y93a64tq","body":"This paper examined the influence of national, sub-national and global factors on priority setting for noncommunicable disease control in Uganda. A mixed methods design that used the Kapiriri Martin framework for evaluating priority setting in low income countries  and the evaluation period was 2005\u20132015. Priority setting for noncommunicable diseases was not entirely fair nor successful. While there were explicit processes that incorporated relevant criteria, evidence and wide stakeholder involvement, these criteria were not used systematically or consistently in the contemplation of noncommunicable diseases. There were insufficient resources for noncommunicable diseases, despite being a priority area. There were weaknesses in the priority setting institutions, and insufficient mechanisms to ensure accountability for decision-making. Priority setting was influenced by the priorities of major stakeholders, such as development assistance partners, which were not always aligned with national priorities. There were major delays in the implementation of noncommunicable disease-related priorities and in many cases, a failure to implement. This evaluation revealed the challenges that low income countries are grappling with in prioritizing noncommunicable diseases in the context of a double disease burden with limited resources. The authors propose that strengthening local capacity for priority setting would help to support the development of sustainable and implementable noncommunicable disease-related priorities and that global support to low income countries for noncommunicable diseases must catch up to align with NCDs as a global health priority.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Working with Parliamentary Committees of Health to Tackle Health Issues in Africa","field_subtitle":"African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP),  Network of African Parliamentary Committees of Health (NEAPACOH): Kenya, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yd7h8wcu","body":"The Network of African Parliamentary Committees of Health (NEAPACOH), previously known as the Southern and Eastern Africa Parliamentary Alliance of Committees on Health (SEAPACOH)) is one of the active networks engaging members of parliament in Africa to strengthen the delivery of their functions of oversight, legislation and representation, in tackling health challenges in the region. This study sought to understand NEAPACOH\u2019s contributions in strengthening parliamentary committees in Africa to tackle health and population challenges, and identify ways in which the network can become more effective in the delivery of its mandate. Given the integral role of information or evidence in the delivery of the parliamentary functions, the study had a special interest in understanding how the network promotes evidence-informed discharge of the health committee, to generate learning needed to strengthen NEAPACOH as well as inform future efforts aimed at strengthening the delivery of parliamentary functions in Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"2016 Report of Acute public health events assessed by WHO Regional Offices for Africa, the Americas and Europe under the International Health Regulations (2005)","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: WHO,  Geneva, 2017 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yd5re4y7","body":" The World Health Organization (WHO) and its Member States have committed, within the framework of the International Health Regulations 2005 (IHR), to detect, verify, assess and report events that may pose a risk to international public health. This report summarizes public health events detected, verified, assessed and reported in three WHO Regions, namely Africa, the Americas and Europe from 2001 to 2016, with a focus on 2016. This report illustrates the relevance and importance of conducting and sustaining epidemic intelligence activities in accordance to alleviate the burden and impact of epidemics and emergencies, and thus avoid interference with travel and trade. Achieving this early detection goal\u2014to rapidly and effectively respond to emergencies\u2014requires dedicated human resources, close collaboration across states, partners and other stakeholders, transparent information-sharing and sustained funding.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"5th SA TB Conference 2018","field_subtitle":"12  15 June 2018 Durban, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.tbconference.co.za","body":"Major advances in TB prevention and care have been made, especially in the six high burden countries (India, Indonesia, China, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa) yet an accelerated approach is needed to end TB, despite above 80% treatment success rates for drug sensitive TB, to ensure a more dramatic annual decline in TB incidence and prevention of TB deaths. Furthermore multidrug-resistant TB with an estimated 480 000 cases worldwide and a treatment success rate of just over 50% requires focussed interventions and an aggressive roll-out of available new drug regimens. South Africa has become the leader in the introduction of INH preventive therapy for people living with HIV for latent TB infection. Leadership is also required in other fields affecting progress, i.e. TB research, universal access to care and treatment, continued and energetic efforts for TB/HIV integration and TB financing. This conference brings together those looking to step up strategies and activities to end the TB epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"65th  East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC) Health Minister\u2019s Conference","field_subtitle":"19 - 21 March 2018, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania ","field_url":"http://ecsahc.org/news/1843/","body":"This conference will bring together Ministers of Health, senior officials from ministries of health, experts, health researchers, heads of health training institutions from member states of the ECSA Health Community; diverse collaborating partners in the region and beyond, with the aim of identifying policy issues and making recommendations for strengthening the region\u2019s responses to emerging and re-emerging health concerns, to improve health outcomes. The 65th ECSA Health Ministers Conference will be held under the theme: \u201cMulti-Sectoral Collaboration for Health towards Achievement of the SDGs\u201d. The Conference sub-thematic areas will include: Governance and Leadership Practices in the Health sector; Mitigating the Impact of emerging and re-emerging diseases; Multi-Sectoral responses to Non-communicable Diseases; and Accountability for Women\u2019s, Children\u2019s and Adolescent Health post-2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Alternative Mining Indaba 2018 ","field_subtitle":"Economic Justice Network et al.,: Alternative Mining Indaba, Cape Town, February 2018","field_url":"http://altminingindaba.co.za/documents-of-interest/","body":"The Alternative Mining Indaba (AMI) started in 2010 with a small group of approximately 40 participants lead by Faith Based Organisations. It intended to create space for communities living in and around mines affected by and left out of key discussions of extractive industries in Africa. The theme for the 2018 AMI was: \u201cMaking Natural Resources Work for the People: Towards Just Legal, Policy and Institutional Reform\u201d. The Thematic issues for discussion included: human rights defenders; the curse of natural resource policies; gender and legal reforms; the independent problem solving mechanism;  policies and laws that facilitate the benefit sharing for local people and faith and the extractives sector.  The meeting gathered representatives of over 400 members of faith-based organisations, civil society organisations, community-based organisations, pan-African networks and organisations, labour movements, women movements, human rights activists, media, students from African countries and international partners on February 5 \u2013 7, 2018 in Cape Town. The AMI site provides presentations and proceedings from the indaba.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Antipode Foundation Scholar-Activist Project Awards","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 31 May 2018","field_url":"https://antipodefoundation.org/scholar-activist-project-awards/","body":"The Antipode Foundation exists for the promotion and advancement of social scientific research, education and scholarship in the field of radical geography. Antipode Foundation Scholar-Activist Project Awards are intended to support collaborations between academics, non-academics and activists (from NGOs, think tanks, social movements, or community grassroots organisations, among other places) that further radical analyses of geographical issues and engender the development of a new and better society. They are aimed at promoting programmes of action-research, participation and engagement, cooperation and co-enquiry, and more publicly-focused forms of geographical investigation. The Antipode Foundation strives to fund work that leads to the exchange of ideas across and beyond the borders of the academy, and builds meaningful relationships and productive partnerships. Projects could take many forms including, but not limited to: collaborative research with artistic, community, cultural, grassroots, or social movement groups; the production of educational materials and other innovative pedagogical initiatives; and the promotion of links between universities and institutions/organisations outside the academy. Anyone can apply for an Antipode Foundation Scholar-Activist Project Award (including academics and students, and activists of all kinds), but the grant must be held and administered by a host institution (these could be research, higher education or community-based institutions).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for policymakers to participate in the 5th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research ","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 19th March 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8b3e3wg","body":"Applicants are invited from policy-makers from low- and middle-income countries who are involved and interested in strengthening health systems, to participate in the 5th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research. Policy and decision-makers who are involved in policy and decision making at district, state, regional, provincial, federal or national level, with at least 3 years of senior management and policy-making experience in the health system or related sector are invited to apply. Candidates are also invited if they are confident of retaining such a position for the next three years with a demonstrated interest and commitment to evidence-informed decision-making, including the use of research, is from a low- or middle-income country. Women are especially encouraged to apply and will be given priority. Participants will be expected to share their experiences and contribute to mutual learning and understanding by participating in a daily de-briefing session of approximately 60 minutes to share Symposium experiences and engage with featured guests around the role of health systems research in decision- making. Participants will engage in symposium sessions with researchers and funders to share experiences and discuss the role of policy-making and research for strengthening health systems and addressing the Sustainable Development Goals. All applications will be considered by a selection committee comprised of representatives from the Alliance HPSR and Health Systems Global. The Alliance will cover airfare, accommodation, symposium registration fee, and costs for selected participants.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can cash break the cycle of educational risks for young children in high HIV\u2013affected communities? A cross\u2013sectional study in South Africa and Malawi","field_subtitle":"Sherr L; Tomlinson M; Macedo A; et al.: Journal of Global Health 7(1), doi: 10.7189/jogh.07.010409, 2017","field_url":"http://gh.bmj.com/content/2/4/e000570","body":"This study describes the impact of cash grants and parenting quality on 854 children aged 5\u201315  in South African and Malawi on educational outcomes including enrollment, regular attendance, correct class for age and school progress, controlling for cognitive performance. Consecutive attenders at randomly selected Community based organisations were recruited. The effects of cash plus good parenting, HIV status and gender were examined. Overall 73.1% received a grant \u2013 significantly less children with HIV (57.3% vs 75.6%). Controlling for cognitive ability, grant receipt was associated with higher odds of being in the correct grade, higher odds of attending school regularly, and much higher odds of having missed less than a week of school recently. Grant receipt was not associated with how well children performed in school compared to their classmates or with school enrollment. Grant receipt was associated with a significant reduction in educational risk for girls.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Child Gauge 2017: Investing in children for sustainable development - Survive. Thrive. Transform","field_subtitle":"Jamieson L; Berry L; Lake L: The Children's Institute,  South Africa, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9lawe2f","body":"The South African Child Gauge\u00ae is published annually by the Children\u2019s Institute, University of Cape Town, to monitor progress towards realising children\u2019s rights. This issue focuses on children and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Part one summarises and comments on policy and legislative developments that affect children. These include developments in international and South African law. Part two motivates for greater investment to ensure South Africa\u2019s children not only survive but thrive and reach their full potential, by focusing on the SDGs, ensuring that the 2030 Global Agenda promotes children\u2019s survival and development, identifying local priorities, promoting nurturing care, creating safe environments, improving child nutrition, getting reading right, creating inclusive and enabling environments and reflecting on progress and calling for action. Part three presents child-centred data 2002-2015 to monitor progress and track the realisation of children\u2019s socio-economic rights in South Africa. A set of key indicators tracks progress in demography, income poverty, unemployment and social grants, child health and access to education, housing and basic services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Data-driven quality improvement in low-and middle-income country health systems: lessons from seven years of implementation experience across Mozambique, Rwanda, and Zambia ","field_subtitle":"Wagenaar B; Hirschhorn L; Henley C; et al: BMC Health Services Research 17 (Suppl 3), doi:10.1186/s12913-017-2661-x, 2017 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7sfea9k","body":"This paper describes the similar and divergent approaches to increase data-driven quality of care improvements and implementation challenge and opportunities encountered in these three countries. Eight semi-structured in-depth interviews were administered to program staff working in each country. Project successes ranged from over 450 collaborative action-plans developed, implemented, and evaluated in Mozambique, to an increase from 80% of basic clinical protocols followed in intervention facilities in rural Zambia, and a shift from a lack of awareness of health data among health system staff to collaborative ownership of data and using data to drive change in Rwanda. Based on common successes across the country experiences, the authors recommend future data-driven quality improvement interventions begin with data quality assessments to promote that rapid health system improvement is possible, ensure confidence in available data, serve as the first step in data-driven targeted improvements, and improve staff data analysis and visualization skills. They pose that explicit Ministry of Health collaborative engagement can ensure performance review is collaborative and internally-driven rather than viewed as an external \u201caudit.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Determinants of facility readiness for integration of family planning with HIV testing and counselling services: evidence from the Tanzania service provision assessment survey, 2014\u20132015 ","field_subtitle":"Bintabara D; Nakamura K; Seino K: BMC Health Services Research 17 (1) doi: 10.1186/s12913-017-2809-8 , 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yc692fcf","body":"This paper examines determinants of facility readiness for integration of family planning with HIV testing and counselling services in Tanzania using data from the 2014\u20132015 Tanzania Service Provision Assessment Survey. Facilities were considered ready for integration of family planning with HIV testing and counselling services if they scored \u2265 50% on both family planning and HIV testing and counselling service readiness indices as identified by the World Health Organization.  A total of 1188 health facilities were  included in the study. Of all of the health facilities, 915 reported offering both family planning and HIV testing and counselling services, while only 536 were considered ready to integrate these two services. Significant determinants of facility readiness for integrating these two services were being government owned; having routine management meetings, availability of guidelines, in-service training of staff, and availability of laboratories for HIV testing. The proportion of facility readiness for the integration of family planning with HIV testing and counselling in Tanzania was noted to be unsatisfactory. The authors argue that Ministry of Health should distribute and ensure constant availability of guidelines, availability of rapid diagnostic tests for HIV testing, and the provision of refresher training to health providers, as these were among the determinants of facility readiness.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Engage in World Health Day 7 April 2018","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: WHO, Geneva, 2018","field_url":"http://genderlinks.org.za/gender-links-community/","body":"In this 70th anniversary year, WHO is calling on world leaders to live up to pledges they made when they agreed to the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, and commit to concrete steps to advance #HealthForAll. This means ensuring that everyone, everywhere can access essential quality health services without facing financial hardship. WHO invites everyone to play a part, stimulating conversations and contributing to structured dialogue towards policies that help your country achieve and maintain UHC. WHO also encourages governments to engage in structured conversations with a broad range of community stakeholders who are both affected by and essential to ensuring universal health coverage. Individuals, civil society and health workers are encouraged to communicate their needs, opinions and expectations to local policy-makers, politicians, ministers and other people representatives. The media is encouraged to highlight initiatives and interventions that help to improve access to quality services and financial protection for people and communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 204: We have a right to demand better! Rights based activism in Africa as a determinant of health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors associated with gender equality among church-going young men in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo: a cross-sectional study ","field_subtitle":"Lusey H; Sebastian M; Christianson M; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 16(1), doi: 10.1186/s12939-017-0707-7, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybarg7r5","body":"This study assessed gender-equitable norms and their determinants among church-going young men in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo. A cross-sectional study was carried out among 289 church-going young men, aged 18\u201324 years, residing in three disadvantaged communes of Kinshasa. The findings provide evidence of attitudes and beliefs that act as barriers to gender equality. For instance, the majority of church-going young men agreed that a man is the only decision maker in the home and about half of the respondents supported the statement \u201cThere are times a woman deserves to be beaten\u201d. Similarly, around half of the participants agreed with the idea of men\u2019s uncontrollable sex drive and men\u2019s toughness. Close to half of the participants agreed that it is women\u2019s responsibility to prevent pregnancy. These attitudes co-existed with a few gender-equitable norms as 82% agreed on the importance of joint decisions concerning family planning. An association between education, certain places of residence, being single or separated, and supportive attitudes towards gender equality was found. The study findings indicated that a high proportion of church-going young men do not endorse gender equitable norms. The authors argue that churches and schools urgently need comprehensive gender equality and masculinity policies and programmes to influence young men\u2019s attitudes and behaviours. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Foresight Africa: Top priorities for the continent in 2018","field_subtitle":"Kagame P; Coulibaly B; Sign\u00e9 L; et al: Brookings, January 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yd69f4wo","body":"The Foresight Africa, African Growth Initiative invited scholars and experts to delve into six overarching themes that highlight areas in which African countries and their citizens are taking the lead to achieve inclusive growth. In a world where China and other emerging economies are ascendant, where cooperation on global governance is under challenge, and where free trade faces headwinds, Africa is argued to need its own institutions to play a more assertive role in advancing the continent\u2019s agenda. The report emphasizes that Africa\u2019s future lies in its own hands and that it already has the power to reach its goals. The authors describe, and argue for, new and innovative instruments to better mobilize and leverage resources for development financing. They authors explore and offer recommendations on policy interventions to broaden the benefits of future economic growth. Further chapters explore technological innovations and their potential to transform the continent. The final chapter explores a shifting global landscape of diplomacy \u2013 what will the impact of reduced engagement from the United States be? How do development, defence, and diplomacy best fit into foreign policies toward the continent?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"From bouncing back, to nurturing emergence: reframing the concept of resilience in health systems strengthening","field_subtitle":"Barasa E; Cloete K; Gilson L: Health Policy and Planning 32(Suppl 3) ii91 \u2013 iii94, 2017","field_url":"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jia2.25028/abstract","body":"Recent health system shocks such as the Ebola disease outbreak have focused global health attention on the notion of resilient health systems. In this commentary, the authors reflect on the current framing of the concept of resilience in health systems discourse and propose a reframing. Specifically, the authors propose that: (1) in addition to sudden shocks, health systems face the ongoing strain of multiple factors. Health systems need the capacity to continue to deliver services of good quality and respond effectively to wider health challenges. The authors call this capacity everyday resilience; (2) health system resilience entails more than bouncing back from shock. In complex adaptive systems, resilience emerges from a combination of absorptive, adaptive and transformative strategies; (3) nurturing the resilience of health systems requires understanding health systems as comprising not only hardware elements (such as finances and infrastructure), but also software elements (such as leadership capacity, power relations, values and appropriate organizational culture). The authors also reflect on current criticisms of the concept of resilient health systems, such as that it assumes that systems are apolitical, ignoring actor agency, promoting inaction, and requiring that there is a need to accept and embrace vulnerability, rather than strive for stronger and more responsive systems. They observe that these criticisms are warranted to the extent that they refer to notions of resilience that are mismatched with the reality of health systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender dynamics affecting maternal health and health care access and use in Uganda ","field_subtitle":"Morgan R; Tetui M; Kananura R; et al: Health Policy and Planning 32, Supp 5, v13-v21,  2017 ","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/32/suppl_5/v13/4718137","body":"In an effort to examine ways to sustain the intervention beyond external financial resources, project implementers conducted a follow-up qualitative study to explore the root causes of women\u2019s lack of maternal health care access and utilization. This paper reports the key gender dynamics identified, detailing how gender power relations affect maternal health care access and utilization in relation to: access to resources; division of labour, including women\u2019s workload during and after pregnancy and lack of male involvement at health facilities; social norms, including perceptions of women\u2019s attitudes and behaviour during pregnancy, men\u2019s attitudes towards fatherhood, attitudes towards domestic violence, and health worker attitudes and behaviour; and decision-making. It concludes by discussing the need to integrate gender into maternal health care interventions if they are to address the root causes of these barriers to maternal health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Minding the gaps: health financing, universal health coverage and gender ","field_subtitle":"Witter S; Govender V; Ravindran S; et al: Health Policy and Planning 32(Suppl 5)ppv4\u2013v12, 2017","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/32/suppl_5/v4/4036321","body":"This article provides a reflection on the question of why there is a need to focus on gender, given that a well-functioning system moving towards Universal Health Coverage will automatically be equitable and gender balanced, from a panel of health financing and gender experts. The authors traced the evidence of how health-financing reforms have impacted gender and health access through a general literature review and a more detailed case-study of India. The authors found that unless explicit attention is paid to gender and its inter-sectionality with other social stratifications, through explicit protection and careful linking of benefits to needs of target populations, movement towards Universal Health Coverage can fail to achieve gender balance or improve equity, and may even exacerbate gender inequity. Political trade-offs are made on the road to Universal Health Coverage and the needs of less powerful groups, which can include women and children, are not necessarily given priority. The authors identified the need for closer collaboration between health economists and gender experts, and highlight a number of research gaps in this field which should be addressed. While some aspects of cost sharing and some analysis of expenditure on maternal and child health have been analysed from a gender perspective, there is a much richer set of research questions to be explored to guide policy making. Given the political nature of Universal Health Coverage decisions, political economy as well as technical research should be prioritized. The authors concluded that countries should adopt an equitable approach towards achieving Universal Health Coverage and, therefore, prioritize high-need groups and those requiring additional financial protection, in particular women and children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring SO2 emission trends and residents\u2019 perceived health risks from PGM smelting at Selous Metallurgical Complex in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Gwimbi P: International Journal for Equity in Health 16(1) doi:https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-017-0696-6 , 2017 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycoaghuq","body":"This paper examined sulphur dioxide (SO2) emission trends, emission regulations and residents\u2019 perceived health risks from exposures to such emissions at Selous Metallurgical Complex platinum group metal smelting facility in Zimbabwe. SO2 data from roof monitoring sites at the smelter furnace were aggregated into annual, quarterly and monthly emission trends from 2008 to 2015. The regulatory regime\u2019s ability to protect human health from SO2 pollution in communities located around the smelter was examined. Questionnaire responses to perceived health risks from SO2 exposure from 40 purposively sampled residents were assessed.  Between 2008 and 2015, annual SO2emissions increased from 7951 to 2500 tonnes. Emissions exceeded the recommended standard limit of 50 mg/Nm3, presenting considerable adverse health risks to local residents. Concerns relating to inefficient environmental impact assessment licensing system, poor monitoring and auditing by the environmental management agency, as well as non-deterring SO2emission exceedance penalties were identified as major drivers of emission increase. Thirty-two of the forty respondents perceived exposure to SO2 emissions as adverse and the cause of their illnesses, with coughing, nasal congestion and shortness of breath the most frequently self-reported symptoms. A set of legally-binding SO2 emission standards supported by stringent environmental impact assessment licensing arrangements for smelting industries are suggested for development and enforcement to reduce the SO2 emission problem. Community participation in SO2 emissions monitoring was also proposed as a core part of sustainable environmental management in communities located around smelters.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"MRI, Senior Research Grants 2018","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 15 April 2018","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2831","body":"In 2017 CODESRIA introduced the Meaning-making Research Initiative (MRI) as a tool for supporting research that contributes to agendas for imagining, planning and creating African futures.  MRI aggressively pushes scholars to build on the close observation of African social realities. Projects funded under this initiative should propose research on important aspects of African social realities that fall under CODESRIA\u2019s priority themes as outlined in the CODESRIA Strategic Plan and be guided by clear questions that explore puzzling aspects of the social realities of Africa and its position in the world. Projects should be theoretically ambitious with a clear goal of providing new and innovative ways of understanding and making sense of African social realities and explore multiple spatial, temporal and sectoral settings where this contributes to the process of meaning-making. Interested applicants should submit a proposal, budget, annotated plan of deliverables, cover letter, CV of the scholar and an identification sheet. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"New evidence of Africa\u2019s systematic looting, provided by an increasingly schizophrenic World Bank","field_subtitle":"Bond P: Pambazuka News, February 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9ah5lk5","body":"A recent World Bank report, The Changing Wealth of Nations 2018, offers evidence of how much poorer Africa is becoming thanks to rampant minerals, oil and gas extraction. Yet  the author notes that World Bank policies and practices remain oriented to enforcing foreign loan repayments and transnational corporate profit repatriation. Central to its \u201cnatural capital accounting,\u201d the Bank uses an \u201cAdjusted Net Savings\u201d (ANS) measure for changes in economic, ecological and educational wealth. The Bank asks, \u201cHow does sub-Saharan Africa compare to other regions? Not favourably.\u201d The ANS decline for sub-Saharan Africa was worst from 2001-09 and 2013-15. The author observes that there are two ways to address transnational corporate (TNC) capture of African wealth: bottom-up through direct action blocking extraction, or top-down through reforms. He critiques the latter, such as in the African Union\u2019s 2009 Alternative Mining Vision (AMV) position that foreign resource investors with capital, skills and expertise are critical to development, which ignores these evident trends on the continent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"One year on, Global Observatory on Health R&D identifies striking gaps and inequalities","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycb6zorl","body":"Each year, hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on research and development (R&D) into new or improved health products and processes, ranging from medicines to vaccines to diagnostics. But the way these funds are distributed and spent is often poorly aligned with global public health needs. in 2017, the World Health Organization launched an initiative to gather information and provide an accurate picture of where and how R&D monies are being spent. The Global Observatory on Health R&D has identified striking gaps and inequalities in investment both between countries and between health issues, with frequent disconnects between burden of disease and level of research activity. High income countries have an average of 40 times more health researchers than low income countries. Serious imbalances in funding flows mean countries with comparable levels of poverty and health needs receive strikingly different levels of Official development assistance (ODA) for medical research and basic health sectors (health ODA). As little as 1% of all funding for health R&D is allocated to diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis, despite these diseases accounting for more than 12.5% of the global burden of disease. Investing in R&D to discover and develop medicines and vaccines is argued to be key to improving access to medicines and quality health care for people across the world and to achieving universal health coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"People\u2019s everyday practices, not the elites of Davos, hold the human economy answer to inequality","field_subtitle":"Wegerif M: Pambazuka News, February 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9ah5lk5","body":"The author comments that Oxfam has been successful in highlighting the gross and rapidly growing inequalities in the world in international fora, but critiques the approach of asking rich elites and their allies in governments to do the right thing as perpetuating the myth that there are no alternatives other than to depend on large corporations. The author argues that it is in people\u2019s everyday practices that it is far more likely to find meaningful solutions to inequality and the seeds of a more human economy. He raises, for example, the issue of redistribution of assets, such as to address land inequality, as a more pertinent  pathway for peoples practices to address societal inequality and challenge the structural power of the drovers of inequality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Psychosocial support for adolescent girls in post-conflict settings: beyond a health systems approach ","field_subtitle":"Samuels F; Jones N;  Hamad B: Health Policy and Planning 32(Suppl 5) v40\u2013v51 2017","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/32/suppl_5/v40/4718142","body":"This paper focuses on the importance of psychosocial support services for adolescent girls in fragile contexts. Its starting point is that adolescence is a pivotal time in the life course but given the physical, cognitive and emotional changes triggered by the onset of puberty, it can also be a period of heightened sensitivity and vulnerability to trauma, social isolation, bullying by peers, a lack of supportive adults and gender-based and sexual violence. The authors\u2019 findings highlighted why humanitarian and biomedical approaches in their current form are inadequate to address these complexities. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork, the authors argued that going beyond biomedical approaches and considering the social determinants of health, including approaches to tackle discriminatory gendered norms and barriers to service access, are critical for achieving broader health and wellbeing. While all three case study countries are classified as post-conflict, the political economy dynamics vary with associated implications for experiences of psychosocial vulnerabilities and the service environment. The study concludes by reflecting on actions to address psychosocial vulnerabilities facing adolescent girls through tailoring services to ensure gender and age-sensitivity, investing in capacity building of service providers to promote service uptake and enhancing strategies to regulate and coordinate actors providing mental health and psychosocial support services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Research capacity building integrated into PHIT projects: leveraging research and research funding to build national capacity ","field_subtitle":"Hedt-Gauthier B L; Chilengi R; Jackson E; et al,: BMC Health Services Research 17 (Suppl 3) doi: 10.1186/s12913-017-2657-6, 2017 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybzn8kym","body":"This paper analyses the implementation of health systems strengthening initiatives inclusive of research capacity building. During Population Health Implementation and Training, specific research capacity building activities varied across countries. However, all five countries used African Health Initiative funding to improve research administrative support and infrastructure, implement research training and support mentorship activities and research dissemination. Funders were recommended to provide adequate and flexible funding for research capacity building activities and for institutions to offer a spectrum of research capacity building activities to enable continued growth, provide adequate mentorship for trainees and systematically monitor research capacity building activities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Resource curse or fair benefit?","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R, EQUINET: Alternative Mining Indaba, Cape Town, February 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybetyhno","body":"This plenary presentation at the Alternative Mining Indaba presented work taking place in EQUINET to raise health rights and duties in the extractive sector. Mining was noted to be a key vehicle linking  African countries to neoliberal globalisation, with by 2008, developing countries reported to be transferring about a trillion dollars more a year to wealthy countries than they received in FDI. There is evidence of poor return for local wellbeing, with examples of districts with large EI projects having higher poverty and food insecurity and poorest improvements in these areas than those without, despite the wealth generated. The presentation raised the potential to better use the power of public health rights and laws in mining. Various international standards commit to protecting health in mining for workers and communities and the SADC UNECA harmonisation of policies and standards indicated that Member States should develop, adopt and enforce appropriate and uniform health, safety and environmental guidelines for the sector as an immediate milestone area. However, while there has been progress on doing this for TB and HIV and some attention is now being paid to chronic occupational diseases for ex mineworkers, there is as yet no comprehensive focus on public health in the mines. From an analysis of laws in the region no single country provides adequate legal protection, but different countries have good practice clauses that could be used for regional guidance on minimum standards. At regional level she observed that there is both a need and potential to harmonise rights and duties for health in SADC, to ensure health impacts are assessed and prevented before licenses are granted, mines provide living standards, incomes, health infrastructures and health services before people are resettled, the public health and health care of communities living in and around mines is invested in, including to address longer term impacts from mining that may persist even after mines close.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"SATUCC Holds Its 10th Delegates Congress in Dar-es-salaam","field_subtitle":"SATUCC: SATUCC Blog, Botswana, December 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9gwufpo","body":"SATUCC held a successful 10th Delegates\u2019 Congress in Dar-es-salaam Tanzania under the theme: Defending and promoting democracy, human and trade union rights and decent work for all in SADC Region. The Congress debated and adopted policies on corruption, procurement and ethical guidelines, and on the marginalisation of women and youth in the SADC Region and their exclusion in decision making structures, both within trade unions and in national and regional development processes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Social health insurance contributes to universal coverage in South Africa, but generates inequities: survey among members of a government employee insurance scheme","field_subtitle":"Goudge J; Olufunke A; Govender V; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(1), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-017-0710-z, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7xdmea5","body":"The South African government introduced a voluntary health insurance scheme (GEMS) for government employees in 2005 with the aim of improving access to care and extending health coverage. In this paper, the authors ask whether the scheme has assisted in efforts to move towards UHC. Using a cross-sectional survey across four of South Africa\u2019s nine provinces, the authors interviewed 1329 government employees, from the education and health sectors. Data were collected on socio-demographics, insurance coverage, health status and utilisation of health care.  A quarter of respondents remained uninsured, even higher among 20\u201329 year olds (46%) and lower-skilled employees (58%). The scheme generated inequities in utilisation among its members due to its differential benefit packages, with, for example, those with the most benefits having one outpatient visits/month compared to 0.6/month with lowest benefits. By introducing the scheme, the government chose to prioritise access to private sector care for government employees, over improving the availability and quality of public sector services available to all. Government has recently regained its focus on achieving UHC through the public system, but is unlikely to discontinue GEMS, which is now firmly established. The authors observe that the inequities generated by the scheme have been institutionalised within the country\u2019s financing system, and warrant attention. Raising scheme uptake and reducing differentials between benefit packages will ameliorate inequities within civil servants, but not across the country as a whole.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Socioeconomic differential in self-assessment of health and happiness in 5 African countries: Finding from World Value Survey","field_subtitle":"Adesanya A; Rojas B; Darboe A; et al.,: PLOS One 12(11) doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0188281, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ya649yst","body":"This study compared socioeconomic differentials in self-rated health and happiness in five sub-Saharan countries. Using the 2010/2014 World Values Survey, the authors obtained a sample of 9,869 participants of age 16 and above from five sub-Saharan countries. Socioeconomic inequalities were quantified using the concentration index. Poor self-rated health ranges from approximately 9% in Nigeria to 20% in Zimbabwe, whereas unhappiness was lower in Rwanda and higher in South Africa. Poor self-rated health and unhappiness were excessively concentrated among the poorest socioeconomic strata. Although magnitudes differ across countries, however, the major contributor to wealth-related inequality in poor self-rated health is satisfaction with financial situation whereas for unhappiness the major contributors are level of income and satisfaction with financial situation. This study underscores an association between wealth related inequalities and poor self-rated health and unhappiness in the context of sub-Saharan countries. Improving equity in health may be useful in fighting against the unfair distribution of resources. The authors suggest that knowledge about the self-rating of health and happiness can serve as proxy estimates for understanding the distribution of health care access and economic resources for well-being.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The gendered health workforce: mixed methods analysis from four fragile and post-conflict contexts ","field_subtitle":"Witter S;  Namakula J;  Wurie H; et al.: Health Policy and Planning 32(Suppl 5) v52\u2013v62 2017","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/32/suppl_5/v52/4718141","body":"The authors examine the experiences of health workers through a gender lens, especially in fragile and post-conflict states. In these contexts, there may not only be opportunities to (re)shape occupational norms and responsibilities in the light of challenges in the health workforce, but also threats that put pressure on resources and undermine gender balance, diversity and gender responsive human resources for health (HRH). The authors used a mixed method for research in Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, northern Uganda and Cambodia to understand how gender influences the health workforce. They applied a gender analysis framework to explore access to resources, occupations, values, and decision-making and draw largely on life histories with male and female health workers to explore their lived experiences, complemented by surveys, document reviews, key informant interviews, human resource data and stakeholder mapping. The findings shed light on patterns of employment: in all contexts women predominate in nursing and midwifery cadres, are under-represented in management positions and are clustered in lower paying positions. Gendered power relations shaped by caring responsibilities at the household level affect attitudes to rural deployment and women in all contexts face challenges in accessing both pre- and in-service training. Coping strategies within conflict emerged as a key theme, with experiences shaped by gender, poverty and household structure. Most health worker regulatory frameworks did not sufficiently address gender concerns. The authors argue that unless these are proactively addressed post-crisis, health workforces will remain too few, poorly distributed and unable to meet the health needs of vulnerable populations. Practical steps need to be taken to identify gender barriers proactively and engage staff and communities on best approaches for change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of an essential health benefit in the delivery of integrated health services: Learning from practice in East and Southern Africa, Report of a regional research workshop, November 27-28 2017, Zanzibar, United Republic of Tanzania.","field_subtitle":"EQUINET; Ifakara Health Institute; Training and Research Support Centre","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Regional%20EHB%20Mtg%20Rep%20Nov2017.pdf","body":"An Essential Health Benefit (EHB) is a policy intervention designed to direct resources to priority areas of health service delivery to reduce disease burdens and ensure equity in health. Many east and southern Africa (ESA) countries have introduced or updated EHB in the 2000s. Recognising this, the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET), through Ifakara Health Institute (IHI) and Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC), with country partners from Ministries of Health (MoH) in Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, implemented research to understand the facilitators and the barriers in nationwide application of the EHB in resourcing, organising and in accountability on integrated, equitable universal health services. A regional review of literature on EHBs in the four country case study reports from the research programme are available on the EQUINET website. This report presents the proceedings of a regional consultative meeting convened on November 27-28, 2017 to present and discuss evidence from the research programme. The regional document review covering 16 east and southern African (ESA) countries, the findings from the country case studies in Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, experiences from South Africa and Zanzibar and a regional synthesis of the evidence from across the programme were presented at the meeting, and background documents made available. The meeting aimed to: a. Identify issues arising in the motivations for developing the EHB; the methods used to develop, define and cost them; their dissemination, communication and use within countries, including in budgeting, resourcing and purchasing health services; and, in monitoring health system performance for accountability; b. Identify policy-relevant and operational national and regional level recommendations on the role, design and use of EHB; and c. Propose areas for follow up policy, action and research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Training materials for Health centre committees \u2013 building community participation in health systems","field_subtitle":"Health Rights learning network; UCT, Cape Town, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8cl8f3k","body":"Health Centre Committees are potentially critical vehicles for community voice in health systems. They play not only a service and mobilisation role, but can be effective tools to improve the responsiveness and accountability of services \u2013 and thus have an important governance role to play. UCT\u2019s Health and Human Rights programme in the School of Public Health and Family Medicine has been working with Zimbabwean and Zambian partners in EQUINET, on a project under the leadership of the Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) to strengthen Health Centre Committees (HCC\u2019s) as vehicles for social participation in health systems in East and Southern Africa (ESA). UCT has led work to review and assemble capacity building materials for Health Committee training. . They found HCC training materials and processes in a number of countries, including Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Zambia. The training commonly covered introductions to the health system, its governance, planning and budget processes and HCC roles. It included information on HCCs functions such as problem solving, monitoring and accountability and social mobilization. There were gaps in some areas, such as on conflict management, fundraising, inter-sectoral work and deeper analysis of the causes of social inequalities in ill health and how to address them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal health coverage law approved in Egypt","field_subtitle":"Devi S: The Lancet 391(10117), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)30091-6, 2018","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(18)30091-6.pdf","body":"A new universal health coverage law received parliamentary approval in mid-December in Europe after years of discussion and planning. Health care will be provided for everyone including the estimated 30% of Egyptians who cannot afford to pay at present. Enrolment in the scheme will be obligatory, with fees set according to income with additional sources of funding to include taxes on tobacco and polluting industries including cement. Egypt's population is forecast by the UN Population Fund to reach 119 million in 2030. UNICEF says about three in every ten children suffer from multidimensional poverty, which includes factors such as poor health and lack of education. Tedros Adhanom, director-general of WHO, praised the law for including people with major catastrophic conditions such as cancer. The scheme will be mandatory, with those on low incomes to be covered by the state; with split roles for health-care providers and those bodies to oversee quality and accreditation; and patients would be allowed to choose their own doctor and hospital. However, he raised worries about the level of co-payments that patients might have to make and the long period of implementation that might lead to worsening health disparities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"We have a right to demand better! Rights based activism in Africa as a determinant of health","field_subtitle":"Kristi Heather Kenyon, Global College, University of Winnipeg, Canada","field_url":"","body":"\r\nHIV represents an unprecedented pandemic, and one that is forcing civil society to innovate to meet the challenges. Civil society engaging on HIV has carried out one of the most vocal, widespread and innovative advocacy campaigns in health, drawing on language and approaches from other sectors and regions. HIV activists have in the process brought   human rights into health advocacy, even in settings where rights are perceived to be foreign and confrontational. Why do civil society advocacy groups working on HIV choose to express their claims in the language of human rights? How do they understand this choice? What impact do they see it having? What impact does it have?\r\n\r\nI explored these questions in sub-Saharan Africa, a region hard hit by the pandemic.\r\n\r\nThe answers might surprise: the decision to use rights was fueled by individual belief not pressure from external funders.  It was also the individual empowerment effects of \u2018rights-talk\u2019, rather than their legal effect, that activists felt to be most important.\r\n\r\nI explored the experience of nine local civil society organizations selected from four countries (Ghana, Uganda, South Africa, Botswana), located respectively in three sub-regions of sub-Saharan Africa (West , East and Southern Africa). Choosing from the three regions provided insight into civil societies operating in different contexts and at different levels - local, national, regional. To allow for a systematic comparison, I chose organizations that vary in the extent to which they use human rights in advocacy. The case studies drew on 145 semi-structured interviews conducted with these organizations, as well as with others in the HIV sector. I also reviewed relevant events, documents and press accounts.\r\n\r\nOver the past twenty years many funders have embraced the human rights framework. While I am not suggesting that international funders are not important, I found that their preferences were not particularly influential in whether organizations used rights-based advocacy.  Groups using this framework didn\u2019t lose interest when it became less popular with external funders, nor did their interest rise or fall with changes in funding. Many of the civil society groups have at least a dozen funders who usually support particular projects rather than the organization as a whole. Because organizations have so many funders, any single funder rarely influences the framework an organization chooses for its advocacy.\r\n\r\nThe organizations instead chose human rights primarily due to a mix of principles and structural factors. Organizations with a leader with a strong human rights orientation and regular interaction with other employees were more likely to choose a rights-based approach. In settings where human rights are not a common discourse, groups manage to thrive- even in isolation - when they had powerful \u201crights champions\u201d as leaders. Such leaders have been able to incubate a rights-oriented organizational culture, attracting personnel who have, or will acquire a similar orientation.\r\n\r\nPeople who worked for organizations that gave strong attention to human rights in advocacy often held strong personal belief in the framework. Respondents often explained this passionately, describing human rights as core to their dignity and identity. Rather than being a topic or a strategy, human rights were described as a fundamental part of who they were, what they believed in and how they saw the world. \r\n\r\nI expected that groups would choose human rights over other approaches because they are linked to legal enforcement, in ways that development work or public health may not be. I thought perhaps the choice to use human rights in advocacy was rooted in an expectation of a government response and legal accountability. Instead, respondents saw the most important impact of human rights as their empowering effect for individuals, particularly amongst those seeking health care. They saw rights as empowering people living with HIV to demand services owed to them, and to make requests from a position of power and entitlement, rather than one of weakness and desperation.\r\n\r\nOne respondent described the shift in mindset that she saw accompanying rights-based advocacy, as \u201ccreating in people\u2019s minds\u201d the idea that they \u201chave the right to demand better.\u201d Respondents gave accounts of these demands: \u201cWhen you say, \u2018It\u2019s my constitutional right, doctor. I am not going to leave this room without having treatment,\u2019 therefore the doctor will make sure that you get the treatment [\u2026] They don\u2019t make a mistake.\u201d\r\n\r\nWhile the above quotation is from South Africa, where health rights are included in the Constitution, even in settings without such constitutional provisions respondents gave very similar accounts. They saw rights language as transforming people from passive recipients of care to active participants engaged in their own health, and as engaged citizens rightfully demanding services from the state.  \r\n\r\nThe findings indicated that \u201chuman rights\u201d may yield important effects in places that human rights scholars seldom look. Beyond state actions and high-profile venues such as the United Nations and national courts, people are wielding human rights in their day-to-day interactions in ways that have meaningful influence on their lives. It appears that human rights-based advocacy has a unique impact. It changes people\u2019s self- perceptions of power in relation to the state and enables them to claim services to which they are entitled from a position of greater strength. Those exposed to human rights-based advocacy were reportedly more likely to seek health care services, to be more informed about their rights, to ask questions of health care providers, and to query delays or denials of service.\r\n\r\nIt would be interesting to see what these findings imply for other areas of public health. They suggest that human rights-based activism could be an overlooked, but powerful positive determinant of health. \r\n\r\nA version of this oped was originally published in Open Global Rights: www.openglobalrights.org/empowering-language-of-rights-underlies-increasing-use-in-hiv-advocacy/.  Further information can be found in \u2018Resilience and Contagion: Invoking Human Rights in African HIV Advocacy\u2019, McGill-Queens University Press, at  www.mqup.ca/resilience-and-contagion-products-9780773550995.php?page_id=119256& ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Who benefits from increased service utilisation? Examining the distributional effects of payment for performance in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Binyaruka P; Robberstad B; Torsvik G; et al: International Journal for Equity in Health 17(14), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-018-0728-x, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9cakt8v","body":"The authors examined pay for performance (P4P) effects on service utilisation across different population subgroups in Tanzania. About 3000 households were surveyed of women who delivered in the last 12 months prior to the interview from seven intervention and four comparison districts in January 2012 and a similar number of households in 13 months later. The household data were used to generate the population subgroups and to measure the incentivised service utilisation outcomes, with a focus on the institutional delivery rate and the uptake of antimalarials for pregnant women. P4P led to a significant increase in the rate of institutional deliveries among women in poorest and in middle wealth status households, but not among women in least poor households. The differential effect was marginally greater among women in the middle wealth households compared to women in the least poor households. The effect of P4P on institutional deliveries was also significantly higher among women in rural districts compared to women in urban districts, and among uninsured women than insured women. The effect of P4P on the uptake of antimalarials was equally distributed across population subgroups. The authors suggest that P4P can enhance equitable healthcare access and use especially when the demand-side barriers to access care such as user fees associated with drug purchase due to stock-outs have been reduced.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Independent Global High-level Commission on NCDs","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: WHO, Geneva, February 2018 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/ncds/governance/high-level-commission/en/","body":"The first-ever WHO Independent Global High-level Commission on Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) aims to identify and propose bold and practical ways to curb the world\u2019s leading causes of death and illness. The Commission was announced in 2017 by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General WHO. The Commissioners will recommend actions to accelerate progress in tackling NCDs, primarily cardiovascular disease, cancers, diabetes and respiratory disease, and promoting mental health and well-being. NCDs kill 15 million people between the ages of 30 and 69 each year. Low- and lower-middle income countries are particularly affected by NCDs with almost 50% of premature deaths from NCDs occurring in these countries. In addition, NCDs are responsible for the deaths of 7 in 10 people across all ages globally, equivalent to approximately 40 million people. In 2015, world leaders committed to reduce premature deaths from NCDs by one third by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Recent WHO reports indicate that the world will struggle to meet that target.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Wiki Gap Harare ","field_subtitle":"Wiki Gap Harare Nomination Form, 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ya4lh6m7","body":"Wikipedia is the world\u2019s largest online and user-generated encyclopaedia, and its content has the potential to colour a global view of the world. But women are under-represented there, like in many other parts of society. Sweden is the first country in the world with a feminist foreign policy. The #Wikigap initiative and event is about realising this policy in both word and deed. #WikiGap gathers people around the world to add more content to Wikipedia about women figures, experts, role models and profiles in various fields. Now it is the turn for Zimbabwe. This initiative invites people to help close the internet gender gap by getting more Zimbabwean women featured on Wikipedia. It invites you to nominate a Zimbabwean woman - past and present- who should have a feature/article on Wikipedia. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A comparable yardstick: adjusting for education bias in South African health system responsiveness ratings","field_subtitle":"Rossouw L; Smith A: Health Policy and Planning 32(Suppl3) iii67\u2013iii74, 2017","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/32/suppl_3/iii67/4621471","body":"Health-system responsiveness (HSR) measures the experience of health-system users in terms of the non-clinical aspects of the health system. The authors explore the association between education levels and reporting behaviour in terms of HSR in South Africa using data from the World Health Organization Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health for South Africa (WHO SAGE) conducted in 2007 and 2008. The authors consider the reporting behaviour of 1499 adults aged 50 and older in terms of the reported HSR for their most recent outpatient provider visit during the preceding 12\u2009months. More specifically, they explore whether there are systematic biases in reporting behaviour by education levels and other socio-economic covariates through the use of data from anchoring vignettes. Large differences were found in HSR ratings between the lowest and highest education groups after adjusting for reporting bias using the anchoring vignettes. This finding holds across all seven HSR domains captured in the WHO SAGE dataset. In the most extreme case, individuals with no education are likely to underreport poor HSR by between 2.6 and 9.4% percentage points compared with individuals with secondary schooling or higher. It is proposed that policy-makers take cognizance of potential reporting biases in HSR ratings and make the necessary adjustments to obtain data that are as true and accurate as possible. The need for this is seen to be especially acute in a country such as South Africa with large socio-economic inequalities and disparities in access to healthcare.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Are we making progress in universal access to health workers? Reflections on the global health worker movement","field_subtitle":"Dr Francis Omaswa, ACHEST, Uganda","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe 4th Global forum on Human Resources for Health (HRH) that took place in Dublin, Ireland in November 2017 provided a useful opportunity to reflect on how far we have progressed in the global movement on human resources for health.  The achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3, including Universal Health Coverage will not be possible without universal access to skilled health workers. A global health workforce movement is thus critical to  ensure this and that access to essential health services is not left to market forces alone, leaving many unable to access basic health services.\r\n\r\nI coordinated the convening of the first Global HRH Forum in Kampala in 2008 as the Executive Director of the Global Health Workforce Alliance at the time and have attended all the subsequent forums in Thailand and Brazil. I was thrilled to witness in Dublin how the HRH movement remains alive and vibrant ten years after the first forum. It was attended by over 1000 delegates from over 70 countries representing government leaders,  civil society, academia,  employers, foundations, health care professional associations and unions, youth and the private sector. \r\n\r\nBeyond the numbers, it was the outcomes of the Dublin Forum that represent potential advances in the health worker movement, globally, and in Africa.\r\n\r\nI saw a renewal and rejuvenation of the global HRH movement, with many new champions committed to act on the Dublin call to provide a skilled, supported and motivated health worker for every person in every village everywhere, and the 2008 Kampala Forum call for \u201cHealth Workers for All and All for Health Workers.\u201d   A Global Health Workforce Network (GHWN) hosted in World Health Organization, Geneva now brings together a range of stakeholders in the movement to organise activities around these commitments, with hubs around various fields such as education and training, leadership and governance, labour markets and civil society. A new civil society coalition on HRH was launched in Dublin to drive advocacy and accountability.\r\n\r\nThere was strong participation of Africans from all parts of Africa at the Dublin Forum. The African Platform on HRH held a side event, adopted a business plan and elected a new governing board that was empowered to update the Constitution, to support the visibility of the movement in Africa and to convene the 6th Forum of the African HRH Platform.\r\n\r\nWe were informed that implementation had been initiated of the recommendations and five year action plan of the UN Secretary General\u2019s High Level Commission of Health Employment and Economic Growth. This commission demonstrated that employment in health and the health sector itself should not be seen as a cost but as a significant contributor to economic growth and employment, especially of women. The economies of high income countries all enjoy significant contributions from the health sector.\r\n\r\nA new international fund named \u201cWorking for Health Multi-Partner Trust Fund (MPTF)\u201d  was launched during the 2017 Dublin forum  as a collaboration between the International Labour Organization, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Health Organization to support countries expand and transform their health workforce. The Government of Norway has made the first contribution and urged others to invest. The fund should enable development partners to pool contributions for use by \u2018pathfinder\u2019 countries to apply innovative approaches to building a \u2018fit-for-purpose\u2019 health workforce, especially those countries that are struggling to provide access to health care and facing the threat of emerging epidemics. \r\n\r\nThe Dublin Forum also saw the launch of the International Platform on Health Worker Mobility. This platform seeks to maximize mutual benefits and mitigate adverse effects from the increasing rate and complexity of the movement of health workers. It will strengthen evidence, analysis, knowledge exchange and policy action on health worker migration, including to support implementation of the WHO Global Code of Practice on International Recruitment of Health Personnel. The forum also made commitments to improving the safety and security of health workers by upholding international humanitarian law. It strongly condemned violence, attacks and threats directed against health personnel and facilities, given their long term consequences for health workers, for the civilian population and for the healthcare systems of the countries concerned and their neighbours. \r\n\r\nA special feature not seen in previous forums was the Youth Forum in Dublin that set its own \u2018call for action\u2019. Attracting and retaining young health workers is critical if we are to avert the shortfall of 18 million health workers, and transform the health and social workforce. \r\n\r\nIt was significant that the 2017 forum took place during a doctors\u2019 strike in my own country, Uganda, and a similar nurses\u2019 strike in Kenya.  One of the most powerful take-away reflections for me was that while several speakers from high income countries reported how money is chasing and seeking to attract scarce health workers, in most of our African countries, it is health workers who are underfunded and chasing money. Unless we act to address the imbalance in the demand for health workers between high and low income countries, African countries will continue to be drained of health workers going to high income countries, even while African people continue to suffer the shortages of skilled health workers that undermine their access to health care and delivery on SDG3.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.  More information on the Dublin Forum can be found at http://hrhforum2017.ie/ ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing the health workforce implications of health policy and programming: how a review of grey literature informed the development of a new impact assessment tool","field_subtitle":"Nove A; Cometto G; Campbell J: Human Resources for Health 15(79), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-017-0252-x, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7863ecl","body":"In their adoption of WHA resolution 69.19, World Health Organization Member States requested all bilateral and multilateral initiatives to conduct impact assessments of their human resources for health funding. No standard tools exist for assessing the impact of global health initiatives on the health workforce, but tools exist from other fields. This paper describes how a review of grey literature informed the development of a draft health workforce impact assessment tool and how to introduce the tool. A search of grey literature yielded 72 examples of impact assessment tools and guidance from a wide variety of fields including gender, health and human rights. These examples were reviewed, and information relevant to the development of a health workforce impact assessment was extracted from them using an inductive process. A number of good practice principles were identified from the review. These informed the development of a draft health workforce impact assessment tool, based on an established health labour market framework. The tool consists of a relatively short and focused screening module to be applied to all relevant initiatives, followed by a more in-depth assessment to be applied only to initiatives for which the screening module indicates that significant implications for HRH are anticipated. It thus aims to strike a balance between maximizing rigour and minimising administrative burden. The authors propose that the new tool will help to ensure that health workforce implications are incorporated into global health decision-making processes from the outset and to enhance positive human resources for health impacts and avoid, minimise or offset negative impacts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Emerging Voices for Global Health 2018 (EV4GH 2018)","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submission: 5 March 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yahv6kxj","body":"Emerging Voices for Global Health (EV4GH) is an innovative multi-partner training program for young, promising and emerging health policy & systems researchers, decision makers and other health system actors with an interest to become influential global health voices and/or local change makers. EV4GH coaches \u201cEmerging Voices\u201d to participate actively in international conferences where global health issues are addressed and to raise their voice in scientific and policy debates. The EV4GH programme is managed by an internationally representative governance committee consisting of EV alumni elected by previous EV4GH participants and a few invited members from academia. There are two tracks for which participants can apply to be an EV 2018. While one track is reserved for researchers involved in health policy and systems research, the other track seeks to attract health professionals, activists, decision or policy-makers and/or other health systems actors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Children Count","field_subtitle":"Children\u2019s Institute, University of Cape Town, 2017","field_url":"http://www.childrencount.uct.ac.za","body":"The Children Count website hosts information about children in South Africa: their living conditions, care arrangements, health status, and access to schools and other services. These child-centred statistics are based on the best available national data. The website includes downloadable fact sheets on 40 indicators, as well as an interactive tool that enables you to view tables and graphs for different years and provinces. Children Count / Abantwana Bablulekile is an ongoing data and advocacy project of the Children\u2019s Institute. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Citizen Voices, Community Solutions: Designing Better Transparency and Accountability Approaches to Improve Health","field_subtitle":"Transparency for Development: Harvard Kennedy School, USA, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7nu5saw","body":"This study was designed to address the question of whether a community-led transparency and accountability program can improve health outcomes and community empowerment, and, if so, how and in what contexts. To answer this question, researchers and civil society organization partners co-designed a program that would activate community participation in improving maternal and newborn health outcomes. This report presents the design of the work that was implemented in 200 villages in Tanzania and Indonesia and studied using a mixed methods impact evaluation. The team faced challenges including how to best foster community participation, how to structure the information gathering and sharing component, how to facilitate social action in communities, and how to ensure communities review their successes and failures in implementing social actions.  \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"CODESRIA 2017 Gender Institute: Feminist Scholarship, Universities and Social Transformation in Africa","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 15 March 2018","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2823&lang=en","body":"CODESRIA invites applications from academics and researchers from African universities and research centres to participate in the 2017 session of the Gender Institute, in Dakar, Senegal May 14-25, 2018. The 2017 session of the institute seeks to provide an opportunity for participants to reflect on gains made and persisting challenges, especially in respect of the ways in which the engagements have made universities in Africa better institutions to spearhead social transformation. Candidates submitting proposals for consideration should be PhD students or early career academics in the social sciences and humanities and those working in the broad field of gender and women studies. Scholars outside universities but actively engaged in the area of policy process and/or social movements and civil society organizations are also encouraged to apply. Twenty places are available.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Decision space for health workforce management in decentralized settings: a case study in Uganda ","field_subtitle":"Alonso-Garbayo A; Raven J; Theobald S: Health Policy and Planning 32(Suppl 3) iii59\u2013iii66, 2017","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/32/suppl_3/iii59/4621480","body":"This paper aimed to improve understanding about how district health managers perceive and use their decision space for human resource management (HRM) and how this compares with national policies and regulatory frameworks governing HRM. To assess the decision space that managers have in six areas of HRM (e.g. policy, planning, remuneration and incentives, performance management, education and information) the study compares the roles allocated by Uganda\u2019s policy and regulatory frameworks with the actual room for decision-making that district health managers perceive that they have. Results show that in some areas District Health Management Team (DHMT) members make decisions beyond their conferred authority while in others they do not use all the space allocated by policy. DHMT members operate close to the boundaries defined by public policy in planning, remuneration and incentives, policy and performance management. However, they make decisions beyond their conferred authority in the area of information and do not use all the space allocated by policy in the area of education. DHMTs\u2019 decision-making capacity to manage their workforce is influenced by their own perceived authority and sometimes it is constrained by decisions made at higher levels. The authors conclude that decentralization, to improve workforce performance, needs to devolve power further down from district authorities onto district health managers. DHMTs need not only more power and authority to make decisions about their workforce but also more control over resources to be able to implement these decisions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Director: Comprehensive HIV & AIDS Care Management and Treatment","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 19 February 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybfjvnw4","body":"Applications are open for the above post in South Africa to manage the coordination of programme activities related to the implementation of the Comprehensive Care Management and Treatment plan and National Strategic Plan 2017-2022 for persons living with HIV and AIDS. Oversee the implementation of the Comprehensive HIV, TB, and Branch clinical guidelines and reviews thereof. The candidate will oversee the capacity building of clinicians (basic and advanced), quality improvement implementation for HIV plans. The candidate will liaise with all stakeholders such as NHLS, District Support Partners, MRC, Universities for guideline reviews. The post-holder will be expected to develop effective mechanisms to monitor progress of programme implementation and regular reviews of programme performance, writing reports as per statutory requirements.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 203: Are we making progress in universal access to health workers? Reflections on the global health worker movement","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Free maternity services in Kenya: How can the policy be improved going forward?","field_subtitle":"RESYST, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, 2017","field_url":"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jia2.25028/abstract","body":"In order to increase access to and use of maternal health services, in June 2013, the President of Kenya announced a policy offering free care for all women giving birth in a public health facility. This policy brief highlights both the positive and negative effects of the Free Maternity Services Policy based on research conducted in health facilities in three counties in Kenya. It outlines the challenges to implementing the policy and suggests how the Ministry of Health can make improvements going forward. The policy appears to have increased use of maternity services and provided additional funding for some facilities; however, its hurried implementation led to confusion about what services were included, and some clients were still required to pay for services. The policy was not accompanied by any supportive interventions to increase the capacity of health facilities. As a result, increased demand for services put a strain on health workers and compromised quality of care. The implementation of the Free Maternity Services Policy highlights the need for whole system change as opposed to isolated policy interventions. Going forward, the authors argue that the national Ministry of Health must provide clear guidelines as to what the policy covers and communicate these effectively to health facilities and providers. The county governments should strengthen the capacity of health facilities to cope with additional demand. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"From blockchain technology to global health equity: can cryptocurrencies finance universal health coverage?","field_subtitle":"Till B; Peters A; Afshar S; Meara J: BMJ Global Health 2(4), doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2017-000570,, 2017","field_url":"http://gh.bmj.com/content/2/4/e000570","body":"Blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies could remake global health financing and usher in an era global health equity and universal health coverage. The authors outline and provide examples for at least four important ways in which this potential disruption of traditional global health funding mechanisms could occur: universal access to financing through direct transactions without third parties; novel new multilateral financing mechanisms; increased security and reduced fraud and corruption; and the opportunity for open markets for healthcare data that drive discovery and innovation. The authors present these issues as a paramount to the delivery of healthcare worldwide and relevant for payers and providers of healthcare at state, national and global levels; for government and non-governmental organisations; and for global aid and intergovernmental organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Growing number of resources on the Participatory Action Research Portal","field_subtitle":"TARSC: EQUINET pra4equity network, 2017","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/portal-resources-participatory-action-research","body":"The Participatory Action Research Portal for resources on Participatory Action Research (PAR) on the EQUINET website has a growing number of resources on PAR related to training courses, training guides and reports of training activities; methods, tools and ethics; PAR work and journal publications on PAR. The portal is a resource for all those working with PAR and includes resources in any language. There is a form for people to send videos, photojournalism, organisations, journal papers, training guides and other resources for the portal. The url link shown here is in English but there is also a Spanish version at http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/portal-de-recursos-para-la-investigaci%C3%B3n-acci%C3%B3n-participativa-iap","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Health system strengthening: a qualitative evaluation of implementation experience and lessons learned across five African countries ","field_subtitle":"Rwabukwisi F; Bawah A; Gimbel S; et al.: BMC Health Services Research 17 (Suppl 3), doi: 10.1186/s12913-017-2662-9, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7qu9p7v","body":"This paper captures common implementation experiences and lessons learned to understand core elements of successful health systems interventions. Qualitative data was used rom key informant interviews and annual progress reports from the five Population Health Implementation and Training (PHIT) partnership projects funded through African Health Initiative in Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia. Four major overarching lessons were highlighted. First, a variety and inclusiveness of concerned key players are necessary to address complex health system issues at all levels, with a learning culture that promotes evidence creation and ability to efficiently adapt were key in order to meet changing contextual needs. Also identified was inclusion of strong implementation science tools and strategies that allowed informed and measured learning processes and efficient dissemination of best practices. Five to seven years was seen to be the minimum time frame necessary to effectively implement complex health system strengthening interventions and generate the evidence base needed to advocate for sustainable change for the PHIT partnership projects. The authors conclude that the African Health Initiative experience has raised remaining, if not overlooked, challenges and potential solutions to address complex health systems strengthening intervention designs and implementation issues, while aiming to measurably accomplish sustainable positive change in dynamic, learning, and varied contexts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Systems Governance Collaborative new interactive web platform","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Governance Collaborative: Geneva, 2017","field_url":"https://hsgovcollab.org","body":"The Health Systems Governance Collaborative is a group of practitioners, policy makers, academics, civil society representatives, agencies, decision-makers and other committed citizens seeking to connect and engage about important health systems governance issues. The Collaborative fosters creative and safe spaces to address health systems governance challenges and promote real impact on the ground. It offers a place to connect with the great variety of stakeholders in health systems governance worldwide, confront ideas, disseminate knowledge and share experiences. The Collaborative encourages people to engage through this online interactive platform, where they can participate in consultations and discussions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthy Lives for Vulnerable Women and Children: Applying Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"Godt S; Agyepong I; Flores W; et al: in_focus, IDRC, October 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y88xfg3l","body":"Tremendous challenges remain for the most vulnerable populations, including women, children, and adolescents, to enjoy the healthy lives and well-being. Much of their poor health is caused by poverty, gender, lack of education, and social marginalization as well as inaccessible healthcare services. Strong, equitable, and well-governed health systems can contribute to sustainably improving their lives. But building strong health systems is challenging. This book draws on 15 years of IDRC-funded health systems research undertaken by researchers working closely with communities and decision-makers. They have generated contextually relevant evidence at local, national, regional, and global levels to tackle these entrenched health systems challenges. Six lessons have been distilled to inform and inspire a new generation of health leaders and researchers while some critical reflections on the remaining challenges are shared with others in the global health community, including funding organizations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Honest Accounts 2017: How the world profits from Africa\u2019s wealth","field_subtitle":"Curtis M; Jones T: Curtis Research, Jubilee Debt Campaign and others, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7brab6v","body":"This report presents the movement of all the main financial resources into and out of Africa, mainly using 2012 figures. It found that $134 billion entered the continent in 2017, mainly in the form of loans, foreign investment and aid. However, some $192 billion was taken out, mainly in profits made by foreign companies, tax dodging and the costs of adapting to climate change. Africa was found to suffer a net deficit of $58 billion a year. This is reported to have has led to reductions in government holdings of international reserves and lower (but still significant) multinational company profits taken out of the continent. They report that there are now more loans to African governments, another in inflow, although this comes at the cost of future debt payments and possibly debt crises.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"How do health workers experience and cope with shocks? Learning from four fragile and conflict-affected health systems in Uganda, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe and Cambodia ","field_subtitle":"Witter S; Wurie H; Chandiwana P; et al.: Health Policy and Planning 32(Suppl 3) iii3\u2013iii13, 2017","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/32/suppl_3/iii3/4621476","body":"This article is grounded in a research programme which set out to understand how to rebuild health systems post-conflict. Four countries were studied\u2014Uganda, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe and Cambodia\u2014which were at different distances from conflict and crisis, as well as having unique conflict stories. The authors captured insights from 128 life histories and in-depth interviews with a variety of staff that had remained in service. This article aims to draw together lessons from these contexts which can provide lessons for enhancing staff and therefore health system resilience in future, especially in similarly fragile and conflict-affected contexts. The authors examine the reported effects, both personal and professional, of the three different types of shock (conflicts, epidemics and prolonged political-economic crises), and how staff coped. They find that the impact of shocks and coping strategies are similar between conflict/post-conflict and epidemic contexts\u2014particularly in relation to physical threats and psychosocial threats\u2014while all three contexts create challenges and staff responses for working conditions and remuneration. Health staff showed considerable inventiveness and resilience, and also benefited from external assistance of various kinds, but important gaps were found which point to ways in which they should be better protected and supported in the future. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrating family planning services into HIV care: use of a point-of-care electronic medical record system in Lilongwe, Malawi","field_subtitle":"Tweya H; Feldacker C; Haddad L; et al: Global Health Action 10(1), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16549716.2017.1383724, 2017","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16549716.2017.1383724","body":"Integrating family planning (FP) services into human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) clinical care helps improve access to contraceptives for women living with HIV. However, high patient volumes may limit providers\u2019 ability to counsel women about pregnancy risks and contraceptive options. This study assessed trends in the use of contraceptive methods after implementing an electronic medical record (EMR) system with FP questions and determine the reasons for non-use of contraceptives among women of reproductive age (15\u201349 years) receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) at the Martin Preuss Center clinic in Malawi. The authors conducted a retrospective, longitudinal cohort study using the EMR routinely collected data. Between February 2012 and December 2016, in HIV clinics, the proportion of women using contraceptives increased significantly from 18% to 39% between February 2012 and June 2013, and from 39% to 67% between July 2013 and December 2016. Common reasons reported for the non-use of contraceptives among those at risk of unintended pregnancy were: pregnancy ambivalence and never thought about it. Incorporating the FP EMR module into HIV clinical care was found to prompt healthcare workers to encourage the use of contraceptives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Integration of eye health into primary care services in Tanzania: a qualitative investigation of experiences in two districts ","field_subtitle":"Jolley E; Mafwiri M; Hunter J; et al: BMC Health Services Research 17(1), doi:10.1186/s12913-017-2787-x, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9vy5try","body":"This study seeks to understand how eye health services are delivered by primary health workers who have received training and what constraints remain to effective service provision. A qualitative investigation into the experiences of 20 primary health workers trained in primary eye care and eight key informants working within specialist eye health services or regional and district health management positions in two districts in Tanzania. Despite feeling confident in their own eye care skills, most primary health workers felt constrained in the services they could provide to their communities by insufficient resources needed for diagnosis and treatment, and by lack of systematic supportive supervision to their work. Specialist ophthalmic staff were aware of this issue, although for the most part they felt it was not within their capacity to remedy and that it fell within the remit of general health managers. Many participants discussed the low support to eye health from the national government, evidenced through the lack of dedicated funding to the area and traditional reliance on outside funds including international charities. The authors noted that although training of primary health workers is useful, it is not sufficient to address the burden of eye health disease present in rural communities in Tanzania. It is likely that broader engagement with the general health system, and most likely with the private sector, will be necessary to improve the coverage of eye health care to remote and poor communities such as those in Morogoro. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"International Children\u2019s Peace Prize Nomination ","field_subtitle":"KidsRights: The deadline for entries is March 1st 2018","field_url":"http://www.childrenspeaceprize.org","body":"The nomination process for the International Children\u2019s Peace Prize 2018 has started. KidsRights calls upon individuals and organizations across the globe to nominate eligible children, regardless of race, place of birth or social standing, who have demonstrated the skill and determination necessary to personally improve the rights of children.  The child should not be older than 17 years by the time of the nomination deadline, from anywhere in the world, and have a clear history of standing up and fighting for his/her own rights and/or the rights of other children, which has led to a concrete result. The child should agree to being nominated for the prize.  The messages of all the nominees will be posted on the Kidrights website. The nomination form and the full list of criteria can be found on the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Malaria control in rural Malawi: implementing peer health education for behaviour change","field_subtitle":"Malenga T; Kabaghe A; Manda-Taylor L; et al: Globalization and Health 13(84), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-017-0309-6, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9dshrmj","body":"This descriptive study reports on the feasibility, acceptability and appropriateness of health animator-led community workshops for malaria control. Quantitative data were collected from self-reporting and researcher evaluation forms. Qualitative assessments were done with health animators, using three focus groups in 2015 and seven in-depth interviews (October 2016\u2013February 2017). Seventy seven health animators were trained from 62 villages. A total of 2704 workshops were conducted, with consistent attendance from January 2015 to June 2017, representing 10\u201317% of the population. Attendance was affected by social responsibilities and activities, relationship of the village leaders and their community and involvement of community health workers. Active discussion and participation were reported as main strengths of the workshops. Health animators personally benefited from the mind-set change and were proactive peer influencers in the community. Although the information was comprehended and accepted, availability of adequate health services was a challenge for maintenance of behaviour change. the authors argue that community workshops on malaria are a potential tool for influencing a positive change in behaviour towards malaria, and applicable for other health problems in rural African communities. Social structures of influence and power dynamics affect community response. they suggest that there is need for systematic monitoring of community workshops to ensure implementation and sustain health behaviour change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV in Tanzania: assessing gender mainstreaming on paper and in practice ","field_subtitle":"Nyamhanga T; Frumence G; Simba D: Health Policy and Planning 32 (Suppl 5)ppv22-v30, 2017 ","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/32/suppl_5/v22/3970854","body":"Despite recognition of gender in Tanzania\u2019s political arena and prioritization of  prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) by the health sector, there is very little information on how well gender has been mainstreamed into National PMTCT guidelines and organizational practices at service delivery level. Using a case study methodology, the authors combined document review with key informant interviews to assess gender mainstreaming in PMTCT on paper and in practice in Tanzania. The authors reviewed PMTCT policy/strategy documents using the World Health Organisation\u2019s Gender Responsive Assessment Scale. The scale differentiates between level 1 to 5. Key informant interviews were conducted with 26 leaders purposively sampled from three government health facilities in Mwanza city to understand their practices. The gender responsiveness of PMTCT policy/strategy documents varies. Those which are gender sensitive indicate gender awareness, but with no remedial action developed; while those which are gender specific go beyond indicating how gender may hinder PMTCT to highlighting remedial measures, such as the promotion of couple counselling and testing for HIV. The interviews suggested that there has been little attention to the holistic integration of gender in the delivery of PMTCT services. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Private Sector Participation and Health System Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Yoong J; Burger N; Spreng C; et al: PLoS ONE 5(10), doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013243, 2017","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0013243","body":"The role of the private health sector in developing countries remains a much-debated and contentious issue. Critics argue that the high prices charged in the private sector limits the use of health care among the poorest, consequently reducing access and equity in the use of health care. Supporters argue that increased private sector participation might improve access and equity by bringing in much needed resources for health care and by allowing governments to increase focus on underserved populations. However, little empirical exists for or against either side of this debate. The authors examined the association between private sector participation and self-reported measures of utilization and equity in deliveries and treatment of childhood respiratory disease using regression analysis, across a sample of nationally-representative Demographic and Health Surveys from 34 SSA economies. To measure private sector participation, we computed the percentage of live births that took place in a private (for-profit or non-profit/mission) health facility and the percentage of children with ARI symptoms who were treated at a private health facility.  Private sector participation was positively associated with greater overall access and reduced disparities between rich and poor as well as urban and rural populations, including after controlling for confounders including per capita income and maternal education. However, higher private sector participation may be affected by other variables that also affect access and equity. In addition to an increased level of overall service utilization, countries with a relatively large share of private sector participation tend to also have significantly higher levels of maternal education and also higher levels of GDP per capita, so the relationships may be confounded by differences in socioeconomic development (particularly maternal education, a well-established key determinant of health service utilization and child health outcomes). The authors controlled for maternal education and per capita income but report that other confounders such as better functioning transportation infrastructure may also influence both private sector participation and access.  They further notes that the appropriate role of the private sector might depend on the capacity of governments to provide effective stewardship and regulation, the health care financing environment, and the organization of the public health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The change-makers of West Africa","field_subtitle":"Godt S; Mhatre S; Schryer-Roy AM: Health Research Policy and Systems 15 (52), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-017-0208-6, 2017","field_url":"https://health-policy-systems.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12961-017-0208-6","body":"This journal supplement is a contribution to changing practice by putting the perspectives, experiences and knowledge of West Africans on the table. It presents findings from a series of research and capacity development projects in West Africa funded by the International Development Research Centre's Maternal and Child Health programme. The evidence presented centres around two key themes. First, the theme that context matters. The evidence shows how context can change the shape of externally imposed interventions or policies resulting in unintended outcomes. At the same time, it highlights evidence showing how innovative local actors are developing their own approaches, usually low-cost and embedded in the context, to bring about change. The collection of articles discusses the critical need to overcome the existing fragmentation of expertise, knowledge and actors, and to build strong working relationships amongst all actors so they can effectively work together to identify priority issues that can realistically be addressed given the available windows of opportunity. Vibrant West African-led collaborations amongst researchers, decision-makers and civil society, which are effectively supported by national, regional and global funding, need to foster, strengthen and use locally-generated evidence to ensure that efforts to strengthen health systems and improve regional health outcomes are successful. The authors argue that the solutions are not to be found in the \u2018travelling models\u2019 of standardised interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The importance of gender analysis in research for health systems strengthening","field_subtitle":"Theobald S; Morgan R; Hawkins K; et al.: Health Policy and Planning 32(Suppl 5)v1-v3, 2017 ","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/32/suppl_5/v1/4718143","body":"This editorial discusses a collection of papers examining gender across a range of health policy and systems contexts, from access to services, governance, health financing, and human resources for health. The papers interrogate differing health issues and core health systems functions using a gender lens. Together they produce new knowledge on the multiple impacts of gender on health experiences and demonstrate the importance of gender analyses and gender sensitive interventions for promoting well-being and health systems strengthening. The findings from these papers collectively show how gender intersects with other axes of inequity within specific contexts to shape experiences of health and health seeking within households, communities and health systems; illustrate how gender power relations affect access to important resources; and demonstrate that gender norms, poverty and patriarchy interplay to limit women\u2019s choices and chances both within household interactions and within the health sector. The authors note that health systems researchers have a responsibility to promote the incorporation of gender analyses into their studies in order to inform more strategic, effective and equitable health systems interventions, programmes, and policies. Responding to gender inequitable systems, institutions, and services in this sector requires an \u2018all hands-on deck\u2019 approach. They note that it is not possible to claim to take a \u2018people-centred approach\u2019 to health systems if the status quo continues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The path to longer and healthier lives for all Africans by 2030: the Lancet Commission on the future of health in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Agyepong I; Sewankambo N; Binagwaho A; et al. Kassebaum: The Lancet 390(10114)p2803\u20132859, 2017","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/commissions/future-health-Africa","body":"This Commission was prompted by sub-Saharan Africa's potential to improve health on its own terms, and largely with its own resources. It promotes evidence-based optimism, with caution. Sub-Saharan countries are noted to face difficult development agendas in the decades to come, but also immense opportunities to be acted upon. A key message of this commission is that the opportunities ahead cannot be unlocked with 'more of the same' approaches and by keeping to the current pace. The commission advocates an approach based on people-centred health systems and inspired by progress, which can be adapted in line with each country's specific needs. A comprehensive approach and system-wide changes are required. Broad partnerships beyond the medical and health community are argued to be essential to move the health agenda forward. Without a serious shift in mindsets across all levels of society, all sectors of government, and all institutions it is seen to be difficult to have meaningful and sustainable change. Young people in Africa are observed to be key to bringing about the transformative changes needed to rapidly accelerate efforts to improve health and health equity across sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of NGOs in Africa: are they a force for good?","field_subtitle":"Sangonet Pulse, December 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybrg288v","body":"Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have become key actors in responding to poverty and related suffering. In Africa, NGOs play a leading role in providing health care and education. But NGOs also have their detractors who argue that they are receiving growing amounts of external aid, but aren\u2019t the most suitable actors for really improving people\u2019s lives. Some critics insist that the neoliberal policies advanced by international actors have limited the influence of the state and that NGOs have benefited as a result. NGOs are criticised for their focus on technical solutions to poverty instead of the underlying issues, and for being more dependent and accountable to their funders than those they serve. Instead of empowering local populations to organise themselves, the authors argue that there is a risk that  NGOs empower people to attain licensed, rather than emancipatory, freedoms; these are freedoms achieved \u201cwithin the system\u201d which improve lives, but don\u2019t dramatically change power dynamics. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Toolkit for Integrating Gender in the Monitoring and Evaluation of Health Programs","field_subtitle":"MEASURE Evaluation, December 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9lawe2f","body":"This toolkit aims to help international health programs integrate a gender perspective in their monitoring and evaluation (M&E) activities, measures, and reporting. It is designed for use by health program staff working in various health sectors (such as HIV; malaria; reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health; and tuberculosis), and for various health agencies and initiatives. The toolkit will support health program staff to integrate gender in their programs, projects, and M&E activities. Its objectives are to provide processes and tools for integrating gender in a health program\u2019s M&E activities, guidance on facilitating communication with primary stakeholders on the importance of gender and M&E, and additional resources on gender-integrated programming and M&E. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Uptake and correlates of cervical cancer screening among HIV-infected women attending HIV care in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Wanyenze R; Bwanika J; Beyeza-Kashesya J; et al: Global Health Action 10(1), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16549716.2017.1380361, 2017","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16549716.2017.1380361","body":"This study assessed uptake and correlates of cervical screening among HIV-infected women in care in Uganda. A nationally representative cross-sectional survey of HIV-infected women in care was conducted from August to November 2016. Structured interviews were conducted with 5198 women aged 15\u201349 years, from 245 HIV clinics. Knowledge and uptake of cervical screening and human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination were determined. Overall, 94% had ever heard of cervical screening and 66% knew a screening site. However, 47% did not know the schedule for screening and 50% did not know the symptoms of cervical cancer. One-third rated their risk of cervical cancer as low. Uptake of screening was 30%. Women who had never been screened cited lack of information and no time as the main reasons. Increased likelihood of screening was associated with receipt of HIV care at a level II health center and private facilities, knowledge of cervical screening, where to go for screening, and low perception of risk. HPV vaccination was 2%. Cervical screening and HPV vaccination uptake were very low among HIV-infected women in care in Uganda. Improved knowledge of cervical screening schedules and sites, and addressing fears and risk perception are thus seen to potentially increase uptake of cervical screening in this vulnerable population.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Women on the move: migration, care work and health","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2017","field_url":"http://who.int/gender-equity-rights/knowledge/women-on-the-move/en/","body":"Care workers - who are largely migrant women, often working in informal home settings - make a considerable contribution to public health in many countries but are themselves exposed to health risks, face barriers to accessing care, and enjoy few labour and social protections. This WHO report, and its reflection on potential next steps, aims to foster debate about approaches to ensure that the global community meets its obligations in relation to these care workers. The report focuses on paid home-based care workers who attend to the varied needs of children, older people, people with disabilities and the disabled and ill people.It notes that a significant knowledge gap exists when it comes to how migrant care workers\u2019 health is influenced \u2013 both positively and negatively \u2013 by the labour they perform and the contexts in which they undertake this work. The report highlights three key steps for all countries and regions to consider to improve the health and well-being of migrant care workers and their families:1. To generate evidence on the nature of migrant care work, the contributions to global health care and the terms and conditions of their employment. 2. To improve access to health services through specific measures to address non-discrimination, promote inclusion and participation of migrant care workers. 3. Promote and recognize care as a global public good that contributes to global health and well-being. The authors advocate for holistic, universal and person-centred health and social care systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Workshop: Comparing the Copperbelt: Political culture and knowledge production in Central Africa, 23-24 July 2018 (Kitwe, Zambia)","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 15 February 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yaqds6jy","body":"'Comparing the Copperbelt' is an ERC-funded research project, running at the University of Oxford from 2016-2020. The project aims to examine the Copperbelt (in both Zambia and the DR Congo) as a single region divided by a (post-)colonial border, across which flowed minerals, people and ideas. This workshop aims to bring together researchers on and in the Copperbelt region to share ideas on social, environmental and cultural history. Research papers from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds (history, anthropology, economics, etc.), approaches and regional focuses (both old and new mining regions) are welcomed. The workshop seeks to bring together academics, trade union leaders and environmental activists to foster discussions about the history and current condition of the Copperbelt region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"World's poor to suffer most unless developed countries act fast on climate change","field_subtitle":"Khan A: Pambuzuka News, December 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycqlymps","body":"Storms and hurricanes are becoming more severe due to warmer sea temperatures.  Low lying island nations, like the Maldives, now experience annual flooding with the seawater contaminating groundwater supplies.  Whether flooding, drought or other climate-related catastrophic events, the author observes that low income countries nations and their populations suffer most,  given their lack of resources, infrastructure, emergency services and preparedness. They also point to a further consequence relating to the quality of food.  Rising CO2 levels speed up plant growth increasing carbohydrates through plant sugars and diluting nutrition due to reduced minerals and protein.  The nutrient quality of our food is expected to fall as CO2 levels rise this century.  The effect will be worst felt by the world's poorer populations relying on a plant diet.  Extreme weather events affect production, distribution, spoilage and contamination.  The author notes that those most affected will be people in Africa, Asia and the Americas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cIf it's issues to do with nutrition\u2026I can decide\u2026\u201d: gendered decision-making in joining community-based child nutrition interventions within rural coastal Kenya ","field_subtitle":"Muraya K;  Jones C;  Berkley ; et al.: Health Policy and Planning 32 (Suppl 5) ppv31\u2013v39 2017 ","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/32/suppl_5/v31/4718138","body":"This qualitative study undertaken in rural Coastal Kenya aimed to explore the interaction between household gender relations and a community-based child nutrition programme. It focused on household decision-making dynamics related to joining the intervention. Fifteen households whose children were enrolled in the programme were followed up over a period of 12 months. Over 60 household visits, group and individual in-depth interviews were conducted with a range of respondents, supplemented by non-participant observations. Data were analysed using a framework analysis approach. Engagement with the intervention was highly gendered with women being the primary decision-makers and engagers. Women were responsible for managing child feeding and minor child illnesses in households. As such, involvement in community-based nutrition interventions and particularly one that targeted a condition perceived as non-serious, fell within women\u2019s domain. Despite this, the nutrition programme of interest could be categorized as gender-blind. Gender was not explicitly considered in the design and implementation of the intervention, and the gender roles and norms in the community with regards to child nutrition were not critically examined or challenged. In fact, the authors argue that the intervention might have inadvertently reinforced existing gender divisions and practices in relation to child nutrition, by excluding men from the nutrition discussions and activities and thereby supporting the notion of child feeding and nutrition as \u201cwomen\u2019s business\u201d. To improve outcomes, community based nutrition interventions are argued to need to understand and take into account gendered household dynamics, and incorporate strategies that promote behaviour change and attitude shifts in relation to gendered norms and child nutrition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"3rd Annual Aid & International Development Forum Africa Summit","field_subtitle":"27-29 February 2018, Nairobi, Kenya","field_url":"http://www.africa.aidforum.org","body":"Now in its 3rd year, the Aid & Development Africa Summit returns to Nairobi, Kenya on 27-28 February 2018, uniting humanitarian and development leaders, decision makers and advisors from NGOs, government and UN agencies and the private sector. The Summit will look into latest policy and project updates, best practice and innovations to improve humanitarian aid operations and infrastructure resilience in sub-Saharan East Africa. Participants will gain first hand insights from development banks, donors and government agencies into their financing priorities and funding guidelines as well as benefit from networking opportunities. The agenda is being developed in consultation with key organisations, such as WFP, IRFC, World Vision, USAID, UNICEF, World Bank, Save the Children, UN Habitat, CRS, FHI360, Oxfam, Habitat for Humanity International, IRD and will include case studies, panel discussions, workshops, and interactive roundtable sessions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Academy For African Urban Diversity Launched At The African Centre For Migration & Society","field_subtitle":"African Centre for Migration and Society; University of Witwatersrand, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yb6y44rz","body":"The Academy for African Urban Diversity (AAUD) was launched at the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS) in November 2017. AAUD is a joint initiative of ACMS; the African Centre for Cities; and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. It brings together a cohort of post-fieldwork doctoral students exploring diversity in African cities to debate and theorize the political, social and economic processes surrounding Africa\u2019s growing and diversifying cities. The initiative creates interdisciplinary engagement among young and senior scholars working on urban studies on the African continent and the collaboration will play a role in supporting the development of skills and knowledge of a new generation of Urban African scholars. The next workshop will be held in G\u00f6ttingen, Germany in 2018. PhD applications are considered on a rolling basis throughout the year. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Almost 100 million people a year forced to choose between food and healthcare","field_subtitle":"Bowman V: The Guardian, UK, December 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7z58r24","body":"The author raises that almost 100 million people are pushed into extreme poverty each year because of debts accrued through healthcare expenses. Citing a report, published by the World Health Organization and the World Bank, she highlights that the poorest and most vulnerable people are routinely forced to choose between healthcare and other necessities for their household, including food and education, subsisting on $1.90 (\u00a31.40) a day. Researchers found that more than 122 million people around the world are forced to live on $3.10 a day, the benchmark for \u201cmoderate poverty\u201d, due to healthcare expenditure. Since 2000, this number is reported to have increased by 1.5% a year. She cites Timothy Evans, senior director of health, nutrition and population at the World Bank Group: \u201cUniversal healthcare coverage is not just about better health. The reality is that as long as millions of people are being impoverished by health expenses, we will not reach our collective sustainable development goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030.\u201d\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ashley Kriel Scholarship for Leadership in Community Development","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 5 January 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7yhzkmz","body":"The Community Chest and Cornerstone Institute invite activist and development practitioners to apply for a scholarship to undertake a Bachelor of Arts Honours in Community Development at Cornerstone Institute.  The scholarship provides for 70% of the tuition fee for the programme. Applicants are encouraged to secure the remainder of the fees from non-governmental organisations working in social development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Brief: Strengthening health centre committees for people-centred health systems","field_subtitle":"EQUINET; CWGH; TARSC; LDHO; UCT: EQUINET, Harare, 2017","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20HCC%20Brief%20Dec2017.pdf","body":"Stakeholders working with Health Centre Committees (HCCs) in East and Southern Africa (ESA) raised proposals in EQUINET policy brief 37 to improve the functioning and impact of HCCs as potential contributors to equitable, people centred health services. These proposals advocated for legal, institutional and social measures to support and clarify HCC roles, composition, powers and duties, to ensure the capacities and resources for them to function. They also proposed that HCCs strengthen their communication with the communities they represent backed up by wider measures for health literate and informed communities. Since then, institutions in EQUINET have followed up to act on the recommendations, building on existing work. This brief shares information on these developments. It reports some progress in legal recognition and setting of clearer constitutions for HCCs, clearer guidelines for the functioning, use of community based processes like photovoice to connect them with communities and their conditions in their dialogue with health services and efforts to share resources for capacity building of HCCs. It highlights that HCCs continue to play a role in improved frontline health systems. However the potential of HCCs still needs to be realised and the work continues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call For Papers: Theorising Africa: Reviewing a History of Ideas","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 10 January 2018 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yc4x83pj","body":"Theorising Africa seeks to explore what it means to be human, to be a member of society, through the exploration of identity, aesthetics, and politics by placing cultural theory and African epistemic frameworks in dialogue. For this seminar series, conveners at The University of Leeds are interested in looking to Africa for its history of ideas: How has African thought transcended boundaries and how can it continue to do so? What can African thought contribute to the many blind spots in the fields of cultural theory? How can these contributions account for the work of knowledge-making? In what ways are these contributions necessary? The conveners seek papers and proposals on topics including, but not limited to: African literary theory; Reframing the history of ideas \u2013 philosophical interrogations; Cultural analysis; Psychoanalysis; African Futures; Law; Politics and bio-violence; Feminisms and policy; Community building; The creaturely; Animism; Theology; Art History; Challenges to the legacy of the writer; Any non-conforming inquiry which doesn\u2019t fall into a field. Proposals (max 300 words + bio) in Word format are to be sent to findingpocoafrica@gmail.com ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society brief: Resource curse or fair benefit: Protecting health in the extractive sector in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET; TARSC; SATUCC; SADC CNGO: EQUINET, Harare, 2017","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20EI%20civil%20society%20brief%202017.pdf","body":"The extractive (or mining) sector is a major economic actor in east and southern Africa. The mineral resources extracted are sought after globally, and how the sector operates affects the lives of millions of people. This brief aimed mainly civil society discusses the health impacts of the sector, how far these risks are recognised in policy and controlled in practice, and what civil society can do to ensure that health is protected in EI activity. It presents the proposals made at the 13th Southern Africa Civil society Forum in 2017 to advocate for regional health standards for EIs and a bottom up local to regional campaign for civil society to advocate for these harmonised standards for health in the mining (extractive) sector in SADC.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"CSO statement for the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Forum in Tokyo - Japan","field_subtitle":"Civil society organisations: Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Forum, Japan, December 2017","field_url":"http://www.ghadvocates.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/UHC-forum-CSO-statement-VF1.pdf","body":"In this statement civil society organisations call for a change to the business-as-usual approach to achieving UHC and raise following principles that need greater emphasis in national and global efforts: Health is a human right and the achievement of UHC should ensure that no one is left behind; Out-of-pocket payments should be progressively abolished and public financing for health should be significantly increased; and good governance, robust transparency, and sound accountability must be ensured.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Early antenatal care visit: a systematic analysis of regional and global levels and trends of coverage from 1990 to 2013","field_subtitle":"Moller A; Petzold M; Chou D; et al: The Lancet Global Health 5(10) e977-e983, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ya8tdn5f","body":"The timing of the first antenatal care visit is paramount for ensuring optimal health outcomes for women and children, and it is recommended that all pregnant women initiate antenatal care in the first trimester of pregnancy (early antenatal care visit). Systematic global analysis of early antenatal care visits has not been done previously. This study reports on regional and global estimates of the coverage of early antenatal care visits from 1990 to 2013. Data were obtained from nationally representative surveys and national health information systems. Estimates of coverage of early antenatal care visits were generated with linear regression analysis and based on 516 logit-transformed observations from 132 countries. The model accounted for differences by data sources in reporting the cutoff for the early antenatal care visit. The estimated worldwide coverage of early antenatal care visits increased from 40.9% in 1990 to 58.6% in 2013, corresponding to a 43.3% increase. Overall coverage in the developing regions was 48.1% in 2013 compared with 84.8% in the developed regions. In 2013, the estimated coverage of early antenatal care visits was 24% in low-income countries compared with 81.9% in high-income countries. Progress in the coverage of early antenatal care visits has been achieved but coverage is still far from universal. Substantial inequity exists in coverage both within regions and between income groups. The absence of data in many countries is of concern and the authors argue that efforts should be made to collect and report coverage of early antenatal care visits to enable better monitoring and evaluation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 202: Wishing you roots and wings in 2018!","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors influencing risky sexual behaviour among Mozambican miners: a socio-epidemiological contribution for HIV prevention framework in Mozambique ","field_subtitle":"Martins-Fonteyn E; Loquiha O; Baltazar C; et al: International Journal of Equity in Health 16(179), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-017-0674-z, 2017","field_url":"https://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-017-0674-z","body":"This study seeks to understand the various factors influencing HIV-related risk behaviours and the resulting HIV positive status of Mozambican miners employed by South African mines to inform a broader and more effective HIV preventive framework in Mozambique. It used data sourced from the first integrated biological and behavioural survey among Mozambican miners earning their living in South African mines. The odds of reporting one sexual partner were roughly three times higher for miners working as perforators as opposed to other types of occupation. The odds of condom use \u2013 always or sometimes \u2013 for miners in the 31-40 age group were three times higher than the odds of condom use in the 51+ age group. Miners with lower education levels were less likely to use condoms. The odds of being HIV positive when the miner reports use of alcohol or drugs is 0.32 times lower than the odds for those reporting never use of alcohol or drugs. And finally, the odds of HIV positive status for those using condoms were 2.16 times that of miners who never used condoms, controlling for biological and other proximate determinants. In Mozambique, behavioural theory emphasising personal behavioural changes is the main strategy to combat HIV among miners. The findings suggested that there is a need to change thinking processes about how to influence safer sexual behaviour. This only stresses the need for HIV prevention strategies to exclusively transcend individual factors while considering the broader social and contextual phenomena influencing HIV risk among Mozambican miners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Global infection prevention and control priorities 2018\u201322: a call for action","field_subtitle":"Allegranzi B; Allegranzi B; Kilpatrick C; et al: The Lancet Global Health 5(12) e1178-e1180, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8s75anm","body":"The Ebola virus disease outbreak in west Africa and the rapid spread of other emerging viruses, such as the severe acute respiratory syndrome or the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronaviruses, showed how limited or non-existent infection prevention and control (IPC) programmes, combined with an inadequate water supply, poor sanitation, and a weak hygiene infrastructure in health facilities, can threaten global health security. In such outbreaks, instead of serving as points where disease was controlled, health-care facilities became dangerous places for outbreak amplification among staff and patients and transmission back to communities. The authors argue that it is now urgent to consider IPC capacity building and actual implementation as global health priorities. Among its efforts in this field, WHO coordinates the Global IPC (GIPC) Network. There are strong economic and ethical reasons to enhance IPC within the national and global health security agendas and efforts should capitalise upon evidence-based recommendations, proven and feasible implementation strategies, and awareness raised by AMR and epidemic-prone disease threats. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"How the introduction of a human resources information system helped the Democratic Republic of Congo to mobilise domestic resources for an improved health workforce ","field_subtitle":"Esanga J; Viadro C; McManus L; et al: Health Policy and Planning 32(Suppl 3)  iii25\u2013iii31, 2017","field_url":"https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/32/suppl_3/iii25/4621477#100468305","body":"In the Democratic Republic of Congo,  recognising the need for reliable health workforce information, the government has worked to implement iHRIS, an open source human resources information system that facilitates health workforce management. In Kasa\u00ef Central and Kasa\u00ef Provinces, health workers brought relevant documentation to data collection points, where trained teams interviewed them and entered contact information, identification, photo, current job, and employment and education history into iHRIS on laptops. After uploading the data, the Ministry of Public Health used the database of over 11\u2009500 verified health worker records to analyse health worker characteristics, density, compensation, and payroll. Both provinces had less than one physician per 10\u2009000 population and a higher urban versus rural health worker density. Most iHRIS-registered health workers (57% in Kasa\u00ef Central and 73% in Kasa\u00ef) reported receiving no regular government pay of any kind (salaries or risk allowances). Payroll analysis showed that 27% of the health workers listed as salary recipients in the electronic payroll system were ghost workers, as were 42% of risk allowance recipients. As a result, the Ministries of Public Health, Public Service, and Finance reallocated funds away from ghost workers to cover salaries and risk allowances for thousands of health workers who were previously under- or uncompensated due to lack of funds. The reallocation prioritised previously under- or uncompensated mid-level health workers, with 49% of those receiving salaries and 68% of those receiving risk allowances representing cadres such as nurses, laboratory technicians, and midwifery cadres. The authors observe that assembling accurate health worker records can help governments understand health workforce characteristics and use data to direct scarce domestic resources to where they are most needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Mapping under-5 and neonatal mortality in Africa, 2000\u201315: a baseline analysis for the Sustainable Development Goals","field_subtitle":"Golding N; Burstein R; Longbottom J; et al: The Lancet 390(10108)2171-2182, 2017","field_url":"http://gh.bmj.com/content/2/2/e000224","body":"This study aimed to generate high-resolution estimates of under-5 and neonatal all-cause mortality across 46 countries in Africa. The authors assembled 235 geographically resolved household survey and census data sources on child deaths to produce estimates of under-5 and neonatal mortality at a resolution of 5\u2008\u00d7\u20085 km grid cells across 46 African countries for 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015. Amid improving child survival in Africa, there was substantial heterogeneity in absolute levels of under-5 and neonatal mortality in 2015, as well as the annualised rates of decline achieved from 2000 to 2015. Subnational areas in countries such as Botswana, Rwanda, and Ethiopia recorded some of the largest decreases in child mortality rates since 2000, positioning them well to achieve SDG targets by 2030 or earlier. Yet these places were the exception for Africa, since many areas, particularly in central and western Africa, must reduce under-5 mortality rates by at least 8.8% per year, between 2015 and 2030, to achieve the SDG 3.2 target for under-5 mortality by 2030. In the absence of unprecedented political commitment, financial support, and medical advances, the viability of SDG 3.2 achievement in Africa is argued to be precarious at best. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mine Tailings Storage: Safety is No Accident","field_subtitle":"United Nations Environment Programme: UNEP, December 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yce5bl62","body":"This report was prompted by tailings dams disasters and rising global concerns about the safety, management and impacts of storing and managing large volumes of mine tailings. The report laments that although the number of dam failures has declined over many years, the number of serious failures has increased, despite advances in the engineering knowledge that can prevent them. The report makes two recommendations that can help the industry to eliminate tailing dam failures. Firstly, it calls for a \u201csafety-first\u201d approach to tailings storage that should be reflected in both management actions and on-the-ground operations. The report also recommends establishing a UN Environment stakeholder forum to facilitate international strengthening of tailings dam regulation. These approaches could include establishing a database of mine sites, identifying best practice and developing technical solutions to the main causes of failure. The assessment also discusses how mining firms can adopt cleaner processes, new technologies and re-use materials in order to reduce waste.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Mobile instant messaging for rural community health workers: a case from Malawi","field_subtitle":"Pimmer C; Mhango S; Mzumara A; et al: Global Health Action 10(1), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16549716.2017.1368236, 2017","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16549716.2017.1368236","body":"Mobile instant messaging (MIM) tools, such as WhatsApp, have transformed global communication practice. In the field of global health, MIM is an increasingly used, but little understood, phenomenon. It remains unclear how MIM can be used by rural community health workers (CHWs) and their facilitators, and what are the associated benefits and constraints. To address this gap, WhatsApp groups were implemented and researched in a rural setting in Malawi. The multi-site case study research triangulated interviews and focus groups of CHWs and facilitators with the thematic qualitative analysis of the actual conversations on WhatsApp. The use of MIM was differentiated according to instrumental (e.g. mobilising health resources) and participatory purposes (e.g. the enactment of emphatic ties). The identified benefits were centred on the enhanced ease and quality of communication of a geographically distributed health workforce, and the heightened connectedness of a professionally isolated health workforce. Alongside minor technical and connectivity issues, the main challenge for the CHWs was to negotiate divergent expectations regarding the social versus the instrumental use of the space. Despite some challenges and constraints, the implementation of WhatsApp was received positively by the CHWs and it was found to be a useful tool to support distributed rural health work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Optimising the benefits of community health workers' unique position between communities and the health sector: A comparative analysis of factors shaping relationships in four countries.","field_subtitle":"Kok M; Ormel H; Broerse J; et al: Global Public Health 12(11) 1404-1432, 2017 ","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17441692.2016.1174722?needAccess=true","body":"This qualitative comparative study aimed at understanding similarities and differences in how relationships between community health workers, communities and the health sector were shaped in different Sub-Saharan African settings. The study demonstrates a complex interplay of influences on trust and community health workers\u2019 relationships with their communities and actors in the health sector. Mechanisms influencing relationships were feelings of (dis)connectedness, (un)familiarity and serving the same goals, and perceptions of received support, respect, competence, honesty, fairness and recognition. Sometimes, constrained relationships between community health workers and the health sector resulted in weaker relationships between community health workers and communities. The broader context and programme context in which these mechanisms took place were identified. Policy-makers and programme managers should take into account the broader context and could adjust community health worker programmes so that they trigger mechanisms that generate trusting relationships between CHWs, communities and other actors in the health system. This can contribute to enabling community health workers to perform well and responding to the opportunities offered by their unique intermediary position.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Senior Researcher - African Scholar Program","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 22 January 2018","field_url":"http://nai.uu.se/about/job/senior-researcher-african/","body":"The Nordic Africa Institute\u2019s African Scholar Program is targeted at researchers based in Africa who need time and a conducive environment for finishing and writing up their ongoing research. It offers a Senior Researcher position at the Nordic Africa Institute for 12 months. The Institute is looking for a qualified researcher from African universities and research institutions with demonstrable research interest. The successful candidate might use the period of his/her employment to complete on-going research, develop new research projects, or complete articles, books or monograph manuscripts. The scholar-researcher should take advantage of the intellectual and logistical resources of the institute and is expected to contribute meaningfully towards actualizing its vision and mandate in return.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Service readiness of health facilities in Bangladesh, Haiti, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nepal, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania ","field_subtitle":"Leslie H; Spiegelman D; Zhoub X; et al: Bulletin World Health Organisation 95(11)738\u2013748, 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/95/11/17-191916.pdf?ua=1","body":"This study evaluates the service readiness of health facilities in Bangladesh, Haiti, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nepal, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania. Using existing data from service provision assessments of the health systems of the 10 study countries, the authors calculated a service readiness index for each of 8443 health facilities. This index represents the percentage availability of 50 items that the World Health Organization considers essential for providing health care. For the analysis, the authors used 37\u201349 of the items on the list. The mean values for the service readiness index were 77% for the 636 hospitals and 52% for the 7807 health centres/clinics. Deficiencies in medications and diagnostic capacity were particularly common. The readiness index varied more between hospitals and health centres/clinics in the same country than between countries. There was weak correlation between national factors related to health financing and the readiness index. Most health facilities in the study countries were insufficiently equipped to provide basic clinical care. The authors argue that if countries are to bolster health-system capacity towards achieving universal coverage, more attention needs to be given to within-country inequities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Health Review 2018: Call for Abstracts","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submission: 30 January 2018","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/Pages/SAHR-2018-Call-for-Abstracts.aspx","body":"The South African Health Review (SAHR) is an accredited peer reviewed publication, widely respected as an authoritative source of research, analysis and reflection on health systems.\r\nThe editorial team of the 2018 SAHR is currently seeking abstracts that give consideration to advances made in the health system over the past 21 years, and reflect on areas of improvement for the future. In particular, abstracts that address the following range of topics are requested: Human resources for health, responses to the prevention and management of non-communicable diseases; and progress and challenges towards implementing universal health coverage.  Preference will be given to manuscripts that offer critical review of the implementation of policies and programmes in the health sector and that give examples of good practices and multisectoral partnerships with demonstrated effectiveness, or of implementation and scale-up of initiatives designed to strengthen the health system. Abstracts should be submitted to: sahr@hst.org.za\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening expertise for health technology assessment and priority-setting in Africa","field_subtitle":"Doherty J; Wilkinson T; Edoka I; et al: Global Health Action 10(1), http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16549716.2017.1370194, 2017","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16549716.2017.1370194","body":"This study aimed to identify how research organisations and partnerships could contribute to capacity strengthening for health technology assessment and priority-setting in Africa. A rapid scan was conducted of international formal and grey literature and lessons extracted from the deliberations of two international and regional workshops relating to capacity-building for health technology assessment. \u2018Capacity\u2019 was defined in broad terms, including a conducive political environment, strong public institutional capacity to drive priority-setting, effective networking between experts, strong research organisations and skilled researchers. Effective priority-setting requires more than high quality economic research. Researchers have to engage with an array of stakeholders, network closely other research organisations, build partnerships with different levels of government and train the future generation of researchers and policy-makers. In low- and middle-income countries where there are seldom government units or agencies dedicated to health technology assessment, they also have to support the development of an effective priority-setting process that is sensitive to societal and government needs and priorities. Research organisations were found to have an important role to play in contributing to the development of health technology assessment and priority-setting capacity. In Africa, where there are resource and capacity challenges, effective partnerships between local and international researchers, and with key government stakeholders, can leverage existing skills and knowledge to generate a critical mass of individuals and institutions. It is proposed that these would help to meet the priority-setting needs of African countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania: Campaigners March Peacefully in Dar for Universal Health Coverage","field_subtitle":"Buguzi S: All Africa, 12 December 2017","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/201712130064.html","body":"Campaigners for Universal Health Coverage (UHC) camped at Mwananyamala Regional Hospital in Dar es Salaam in December 2017, raising voices for people who fail to access healthcare services due to financial constraints. Campaigns went out of the hospital as Kinondoni District residents and some health activists carried out peaceful demonstrations as a sign of solidarity for the UHC movement. The Universal Health Coverage Day, marked December 12 every year, is a time when health advocates around the globe join forces to demand action and results in healthcare access in every country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Taxing the ill - How user fees are blocking universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"M\u00e9decins  Sans  Fronti\u00e8res: Belgium, December 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yakxmzyw","body":"Direct payments by patients at the point of health care delivery, commonly known as user fees, lead to low utilisation of or exclusion from available health care services and impoverish households. Vulnerable groups are particularly affected. Over the past decade, many countries transitioned away from their user fee policies in favour of health care free at point of care for all or for specific population groups, such as pregnant women, children, and people with certain illnesses.  M\u00e9decins  Sans  Fronti\u00e8res teams  report in this paper witnessing evidence which starkly contrasts the discourse around UHC. Instead of improved access to care, they report a trend towards the reintroduction of user fees and other direct payments  within  national  health  financing strategies. They also report a lack of commitment and support to implement free care policies that secure access and sufficient coverage for the population\u2019s health needs. The authors argue that if the global health community is serious about making UHC a reality and \u2018leave no one behind\u2019, removal of user fees for essential medicines and services must be tackled as a priority. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Power of 'Know-Who': Adaptation to Climate Change in a Changing Humanitarian Landscape in Isiolo, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Mosberg M; Nyukuri E; Naess L: IDS Bulletin 48(4), doi: 10.19088/1968-2017.154, 2016","field_url":"http://bulletin.ids.ac.uk/idsbo/article/view/2888/ONLINE%20ARTICLE","body":"This article examines adaptation to climate change in view of changing humanitarian approaches in Isiolo County, Kenya. While humanitarian actors are increasingly integrating climate change in their international and national-level strategies, less is known about how this plays out at sub-national levels, which is key to tracking whether and how short-term assistance can support long-term adaptation. The article suggests that increasing attention to resilience and adaptation among humanitarian actors may not lead to reduced vulnerability because resources tend to be captured through existing power structures, directed by who you know and your place in the social hierarchy. In turn, this sustains rather than challenges the marginalisation processes that cause vulnerability to climate shocks and stressors. The article highlights the important role of power and politics both in channelling resources and determining outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tracking Universal Health Coverage: 2017 Global Monitoring Report","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, World Bank: WHO, Geneva 2017 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ycf88vtw","body":"Ensuring that all people can access the health services they need \u2013 without facing financial hardship \u2013 is key to improving the well-being of a country\u2019s population. This report argues that universal health coverage (UHC) is more than that: it is an investment in human capital and a foundational driver of inclusive and sustainable economic growth and development. It is a way to support people so they can reach their full potential and fulfil their aspirations. However, the report indicates that despite some progress on UHC, at least half of the world\u2019s population still cannot obtain essential health services. And each year, close to 100 million people are being pushed into extreme poverty because they must pay for health expenses out of their own pockets, pointing to the challenges in reaching the global goal of UHC by 2030.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"United Nations University Japan Foundation for UNU (JFUNU) Scholarship Programme in Japan","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 28 February 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y997dywx","body":"The United Nations University (UNU) is offering sustainability scholarship for outstanding applicants from developing countries undertaking the MSc programme at UNU. The Japan Foundation for UNU (JFUNU) Scholarship is available for outstanding applicants from developing countries who can demonstrate a need for financial assistance. Candidates should have completed a bachelor\u2019s degree (or equivalent) from a recognized university or institution of higher education in a field related to sustainability.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Using health-facility data to assess subnational coverage of maternal and child health indicators, Kenya ","field_subtitle":"Maina I; Wanjala P; Soti D; et al: Bulletin World Health Organisation 95(10) 683\u2013694, 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/95/10/17-194399.pdf?ua=1","body":"This study seeks to develop a systematic approach to obtain the best possible national and subnational statistics for maternal and child health coverage indicators from routine health-facility data. The approach aimed to obtain improved numerators and denominators for calculating coverage at the subnational level from health-facility data. This involved assessing data quality and determining adjustment factors for incomplete reporting by facilities, then estimating local target populations based on interventions with near-universal coverage. The authors applied the method to Kenya at the county level, where routine electronic reporting by facilities is in place via the district health information software system. Reporting completeness for facility data were well above 80% in all 47 counties and the consistency of data over time was good. Coverage of the first dose of pentavalent vaccine, adjusted for facility reporting completeness, was used to obtain estimates of the county target populations for maternal and child health indicators. The country and national statistics for the four-year period 2012/13 to 2015/16 showed good consistency with results of the 2014 Kenya demographic and health survey. The results indicated a stagnation of immunization coverage in almost all counties, a rapid increase of facility-based deliveries and caesarean sections and limited progress in antenatal care coverage. While surveys will continue to be necessary to provide population-based data, web-based information systems for health facility reporting provide an opportunity for more frequent, local monitoring of progress, in maternal and child health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Using pharmacists and drugstore workers as sexual healthcare givers: a qualitative study of men who have sex with men in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Agardh C; Weiji F; Agardh A; et al: Global Health Action 10(1), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16549716.2017.1389181, 2017","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16549716.2017.1389181","body":"This study explored the perceptions and experiences of seeking treatment and advice from pharmacists and drugstore workers in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, by men who have sex with men (MSM) with regards to their sexual health and STI-related problems. Fifteen in-depth interviews were conducted with MSM with experience of seeking assistance relating to their sexual health at pharmacies and drugstores in Dar es Salaam in 2016. Four themes related to different aspects of MSM\u2019s perceptions and experiences of pharmacy care emerged from the analysis: Balancing threats against need for treatment reflected informants\u2019 struggles concerning risks and benefits of seeking assistance at pharmacies and drugstores; Identifying strategies to access required services described ways of approaching a pharmacist when experiencing a sexual health problem; Seeing pharmacists as a first choice of care focused on informants\u2019 reasons for preferring contact with pharmacies/drugstores rather than formal healthcare services; and lacking reliable services at pharmacies indicated what challenges existed related to pharmacy care. MSM perceived the barriers for accessing assistance for STI and sexual health problems at pharmacies and drugstores as low, thereby facilitating their access to potential treatment. However, the results further revealed that MSM at times received inadequate drugs and consequently inadequate treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Wishing you roots and wings in 2018!","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET  newsletter","field_url":"","body":"At this time last year we wished you progress towards health and justice in the year. \r\n\r\nOur editorials in 2017 reflect some of the mountains that have to be moved for this:  At several points of the year - in February and June - contributors highlighted preoccupations with emergencies, bio-security and migration that trigger discrimination and exclusion, rather than solidarity and shared responsibility.  In March and in September we heard about the increasing privatisation of public spaces, public institutions and public health services, and in April about the extraction of minerals and other resources from our countries without fair benefit for local communities.  \r\n\r\nHowever, the 2017 contributions also point to ideas and forces that move these mountains:  such as the news in February of thousands of people gathering at Habitat3 around people\u2019s right to the city and to healthy urban life;  the demand in March by civil society to open up a closed world of global policy making;  the claim in April for regional economic communities to set health standards in mining that should apply across the region; the organisation of collective African voice May\u2019s World health assembly to more strongly advance ideas and interests from the region;  and examples raised in September and October of how recognising and nurturing people\u2019s rights, evidence and power generates a critical resource for health systems. In the beginning of 2017 one editorial painted a scenario of a future world where inclusion and investment in wellbeing is recognised not only as a matter of rights and justice, but as vital for our collective survival. So it was inspiring in the end of the year to hear a group of young contributors share ideas of urban futures that would overcome the significant differences in opportunities for wellbeing that they seek to demand, contribute to and achieve.\r\n\r\nThese ideas and forces are all rooted in the challenging conditions described. But they are also challenging these conditions, envisaging both a direction for change and a power to transform that lies in people\u2019s hands. A Sudanese proverb says that we desire to bequeath two things to the next generation; the first one is roots, the other one is wings. Let\u2019s move forward into 2018 with both!","php":"","field_issue_date":"2018-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":" ICASA 2017: 19th International Conference on AIDS and STDs in Africa","field_subtitle":"4-9 December 2017, Abidjan, C\u00f4te d'Ivoire","field_url":"http://icasa2017cotedivoire.org","body":"The 2017 ICASA conference theme \u201cAfrica: Ending AIDS-delivering differently\u201d engages the continent and its stakeholders in the post SDG framework, where sustainability of the response in reaching 90, 90, 90 of UNAIDS will not be possible unless human rights are made a key priority with the application of science based evidence, particularly as commitments are threatened as a result of the global economic downturn. The organisers are anticipating 7 000 -10 000 of the world\u2019s leading scientists, policy makers, activists, PLHIV, government leaders and heads of state and civil society representatives as an opportunity to promote inter-sectoral achievements in the AIDS response and to strengthen the partnership among governments, civil society, and development partners. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to medicines and hepatitis C in Africa: can tiered pricing and voluntary licencing assure universal access, health equity and fairness? ","field_subtitle":"Assefa Y; Hill PS; Ulikpan A; et al,: Globalization and Health 13(73)1-11, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yd43ly6v","body":"This paper analyses the implications of a tiered pricing and voluntary licensing strategy for access to Direct Acting Antivirals (DAAs) for treating Hepatitis C Virus (HCV). Seven countries in Africa were examined (Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Rwanda and South Africa) to assess their financial capacity to provide DAAs for treating HCV under present voluntary licensing and tiered-pricing arrangements. The cost of 12-weeks of generic DAA varied from $684 per patient treated in Egypt to $750 per patient treated in other countries. The current prices of DAAs are much higher than the median annual income per capita and the annual health budget of most of these countries. If governments alone were to bear the costs of universal treatment coverage, then the required additional health expenditure from present rates would range from a 4% increase in South Africa to a staggering 403% in Cameroon. The current arrangements for increasing access to DAAs, to eliminate HCV would require increases in expenditure that are too burdensome for governments, individuals and families. The authors argue that countries need to implement the flexibilities in the Doha Declaration on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights agreement, including compulsory licensing and patent opposition to address this, and this requires political commitment, financial will, global solidarity and civil society activism.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Accountability for Health Equity: Reflections for Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Cynthia Ngwalo Lungu, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn July 2017, I attended a conference by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) themed \u2018Unpicking Power and politics for transformative change: Towards Accountability for health equity\u2019. The conference examined the practices and politics shaping accountability in health systems from local to global levels. As a southern African, these are my reflections on this from the conference discussions. \r\n\r\nAccountability for health equity is essentially about citizens being able to hold governments to account to deliver health for all. It is about inclusivity and ensuring better health for the less privileged, marginalised and vulnerable people. \r\n\r\nIt is commonly known that within Southern Africa public sector financing for health is meagre and below the 15% committed to in the Abuja declaration.  People in need struggle to access health care. In some countries people walk up to 30 km to get to the nearest health centre, only to find that it doesn\u2019t have the basic resources to function. In countries where the health system has largely been privatised it can be virtually impossible for poor people to afford health care.  This situation is worsened when there is abuse of resources, a lack of transparency in health management, a lack of public information on health budgets and expenditures, when budget and policy processes are centralised in a top down approach that allows for little or no citizen participation in decision-making. \r\n\r\nIn response, the region has seen a rapid development of social accountability initiatives that trigger active citizenship, where communities actively participate in health decision making and hold governments to account on how resources are mobilised and used. The Centre for civil society capacity building, a Mozambican organisation, recounted in conference how social accountability initiatives in that country have improved transparency in resources for health and but influenced the development of formal national mechanisms for health accountability using scorecards for citizens to input to decisions and provide feedback on services. \r\n\r\nWhile these efforts have achieved varying positive outcomes, they often tackle \u2018low hanging fruit\u2019, addressing local challenges like health worker attitudes or cleanliness within the vicinity of health facilities, thereby bringing about change in local practice. While these changes are commendable, they are often tied to project timelines, are localised and often do not trigger national level changes. Community level initiatives have struggled to address more systemic challenges, such as access to information, budget setting or expenditure tracking and bottlenecks in procuring and supplying medicines. The IDS meeting argued that this is because social accountability efforts have failed to respond to higher level constraints affecting the ability of local service providers to respond to community feedback. Much more broadly social accountability initiatives have in some cases failed to recognise the complex power dynamics that are typical of health systems. Social accountability efforts ought to engage with power if they are to bring about equity and social justice, otherwise, there is the risk that initiatives will simply replicate   existing social hierarchies.  \r\n\r\nAnother factor affecting these social accountability initiatives is sustainability and ability to outlive short-term project timelines. There is a need to cultivate an active citizenship that raises voice to point out accountability concerns without relying on external drivers. Given the weaknesses in general environments to support this, we need to recognise and explore the role of formal structures for accountability in health, notwithstanding their pitfalls. This implies critically considering the extent to which the community voice can be integrated with  local level formal accountability structures without being compromised  or \u2018swallowed\u2019 by them.  In the Northern part of Malawi, for example, the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace has cultivated an active citizenship that engages within the formal mechanisms in health, as a form of structured and sustainable citizen engagement with the health system.\r\n\r\nFrom the convening it was very clear that social accountability initiatives should respond to particular contexts. For example, in the case of politically charged states within Southern Africa, communities and civil society pushing for health rights and social justice are often tackling a wide range of issues that may confront power and carry unintended political connotations. Traditional social accountability tools  and approaches which work in accommodative participatory environments may not be useful in politically charged contexts as Social accountability proponents become human rights defenders who need a unique set of skills to pursue issues without risking their own lives and security.  The operating environment calls for unique capacities, language, strategies and mechanisms to achieve results without exacerbating conflict. \r\n\r\nWhile many of these social accountability initiatives appear to focus on public sector services, there are other non-state and private for profit actors involved in the delivery of health care. Across the region health has attracted markets and business operators resulting in a range of providers, in some cases in public -private -partnerships. How do we ensure that in the face of a growing private sector, public interests continue to take centre stage as a means to achieving equity in health? What mechanisms can be used to hold these private actors to account on social goals and health needs, when their preoccupation is with profit margins and \u2018fair returns\u2019?  Lessons from the negative effects of pluralistic health markets in other countries, such as Mongolia, can be used by the region to inform the development and implementation of sound regulation of the \u2018business of health\u2019 and to ensure that PPP\u2019s and health financing schemes including health insurance are developed in an accountable manner and in line with equity goals. \r\n\r\nThese are significant challenges, but there are also opportunities to strengthen accountability through innovation. Despite low internet penetration and high telecommunication charges in some parts of the region, information technology is spreading. Throughout the region, technology is fast becoming a powerful tool in pushing for social economic rights- with the click of a button communities can voice public health concerns or access critical health sector information. With these tools, the means to accountability for transformative change may indeed lie in people\u2019s hands!\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.  More information on the IDS meeting can be found at  http://www.ids.ac.uk/opinion/naming-the-moment  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Region webinar: How to submit a successful organised session abstract","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Global: HSG, November 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ydfvu2ue","body":"Health Systems Global Africa Region hosted a webinar on \u201chow to submit a successful organised session abstract\u201d, the recording of which is now available to watch online. The webinar offered tips on how participants can increase their chances of having their abstracts successfully accepted for an organised session at the Fifth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Liverpool, October 2018 (HSR2018). It gives an overview of the importance of raising the profile of African health policy and systems research at HSR2018, and how organised sessions can be a powerful way of achieving this.  It presents a brief overview, a series of short presentations, and a question and answer session with participants.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Antimicrobial resistance among children in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Williams P; Isaacs D; Berkley J: The Lancet Infectious Diseases, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(17)30467-X, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7md6eoh","body":"Antimicrobial resistance is an important threat to international health. Therapeutic guidelines for empirical treatment of common life-threatening infections depend on available information regarding microbial aetiology and antimicrobial susceptibility, but sub-Saharan Africa lacks diagnostic capacity and antimicrobial resistance surveillance. The authors systematically reviewed studies of antimicrobial resistance among children in sub-Saharan Africa since 2005. Among neonates, gram-positive bacteria were responsible for a high proportion of infections among children beyond the neonatal period, with high reported prevalence of non-susceptibility to treatment advocated by the WHO therapeutic guidelines. There are few up-to-date or representative studies given the magnitude of the problem of antimicrobial resistance, especially regarding community-acquired infections. Research should focus on differentiating resistance in community-acquired versus hospital-acquired infections, implementation of standardised reporting systems, and pragmatic clinical trials to assess the efficacy of alternative treatment regimens.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Health Systems Trust 2018 Conference","field_subtitle":"9 \u2013 11 May 2018, Birchwood Conference Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa.","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/hstconference/hstconference2018/takingpart/Pages/Submit-an-Abstract.aspx","body":"The HST 2018 Conference is organised under the theme \u201cReimagining health systems towards achieving the SDGs\u201d and follows the inaugural 2016 gathering of health systems stakeholders from around South Africa and the rest of the continent. The call for abstracts is now open. In the spirit of leaving no one behind, submissions are invited that discuss challenges faced and solutions adopted at various levels in the health system towards achieving the transformative Sustainable Development Goals agenda. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call For Papers: African Street Literatures","field_subtitle":"Deadline for abstracts: 15 December 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7a5ptsv","body":"This is an open call for papers for a special issue of English Studies in Africa that will focus on African street literature. This refers to literature that emerges and is shaped by the specific factors determining everyday life in sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s megacities, where new and emergent forms of literary expression dominate cultural circuits and flows. The intensification of social, political, economic, health and environmental precariousness, alongside uneven spurts of economic growth, rapid urbanisation, unprecedented access to technology and global connectivity, and a correlated surge in cultural and aesthetic expression, make African cities concentrated locations of vulnerable modernity. The call thus seeks to give a space for writing that reflects these features of the African city. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for participation VII World Social Forum on Health and Social Security, Brazil ","field_subtitle":"Salvador de Bahia Brazil, 10-12 March 2018","field_url":"http://www.fsms.org.br","body":"The VII World Social Forum on Health and Social Security will be held in Salvador de Bahia Brazil from 10th to 13th of march 2018, immediately before the 11th World Social Forum that will happen from the 13th to the 17h of March. The organisers are inviting suggestions for the definition of contents and methodology of the WSFHSS. Contact armandodenegri@yahoo.com or through the website from the 25th of November 2017. Please look at the invitation video: https://youtu.be/DU_ODDLLaYQ\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Characteristics of community savings groups in rural Eastern Uganda: opportunities for improving access to maternal health services","field_subtitle":"Mutebi A; Kananura R; Ekirapa-Kiracho; et al.:  Global Health Action 10(S4)82-91, 2017 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ya5a9k5k","body":"Data on the characteristics of community-based savings groups were collected from 247 community-based savings group leaders in the districts of Kamuli, Kibukuand Pallisa using a self-administered open-ended questionnaire, and in-depth interviews with seven community-based savings group leaders. Ninety-three percent of the community-based savings groups said they elected their management committees democratically to select the group leaders and held meetings at least once a week. Eighty-nine percent used metallic boxes to keep their money, while 10% kept their money in mobile money and banks. The community-based savings groups were formed mainly to increase household income, to develop the community and to save for emergencies. The community-based savings groups faced challenges of high illiteracy among the leaders, irregular attendance of meetings, and lack of training on management and leadership. Saving groups in Uganda are reported to have the basic required structures, but with challenges in relation to training and management of the groups and their assets, calling for technical support in these areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community burden of undiagnosed HIV infection among adolescents in Zimbabwe following primary healthcare-based provider-initiated HIV testing and counselling: A cross-sectional survey","field_subtitle":"Simms V; Dauya E; Dakshina S, et al.: Public Library of Science Medicine (PLOSMed) 14(7)  doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002360, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y9fu7lm7","body":"The authors investigated the change in the community burden of undiagnosed HIV infection among older children and adolescents following implementation of provider-initiated testing and counselling  (PITC) in Harare, Zimbabwe. Over the course of 2 years (2013\u20132015), 7 primary health clinics (PHCs) in southwestern Harare implemented optimised, opt-out PITC for all attendees aged 6\u201315 years. In 2015, the authors conducted a representative cross-sectional survey of 8\u201317-year-olds living in the 7 communities served by the study PHCs, who would have had 2 years of exposure to PITC. Knowledge of HIV status was ascertained through a caregiver questionnaire, and anonymised HIV testing was carried out.   Of 7,146 children in 4,251 eligible households, 76.8%  agreed to participate in the survey, and 141 were HIV positive. HIV prevalence was 2.6% and over a third of participants with HIV were undiagnosed. Based on extrapolation from the survey sample to the community, the authors estimated that PITC over 2 years identified between 18% and 42% of previously undiagnosed children in the community. The main limitation is that prevalence of undiagnosed HIV was defined using a combination of 3 measures none of which are perfect. Facility-based approaches are argued to be inadequate in achieving universal coverage of HIV testing among older children and adolescents, and community-based approaches are identified as necessary in this age group.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Development of a Hypertension Health Literacy Assessment Tool for use in primary healthcare clinics in South Africa, Gauteng","field_subtitle":"Mafutha N; Mogotlane S; De Swardt H: African Journal of Primary Health Care and Family Medicine 9(1)1-8, 2017 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7u4eb58","body":"This study investigated the development of a hypertension heath literacy assessment tool to establish patients\u2019 comprehension of the health education they receive in primary healthcare clinics in Tshwane, Gauteng, South Africa. The design was quantitative, descriptive and contextual. The study population comprised health promoters who were experts in the field of health, documents containing hypertension health education content and individuals with hypertension. The tool was administered to 195 participants concurrently with a learning ability battery. The health literacy assessment tool was found to be a valid tool that can be used in busy primary healthcare clinics as it takes less than two minutes to administer. This tool can inform the healthcare worker on the depth of hypertension health education to be given to the patient, empowering the patient and saving time in primary healthcare facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Disentangling regional trade agreements, trade flows and tobacco affordability in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Appau A; Drope J; Labont\u00e9 R; et al: Globalisation and Health 13(81) doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-017-0305-x, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8mbojpq","body":"In principle, trade and investment agreements are meant to boost economic growth. However, the removal of trade barriers and the provision of investment incentives to attract foreign direct investments may facilitate increased trade in and/or more efficient production of commodities considered harmful to health such as tobacco. The authors analyze existing evidence on trade and investment liberalization and its relationship to tobacco trade in Sub-Saharan African countries. Comparisons are made between tobacco trading patterns and foreign direct investments made by tobacco companies. The authors estimate and compare changes in the Konjunkturforschungsstelle (KOF) Economic Globalization measure, relative price measure and cigarette prices. Preferential regional trade agreements appear to have encouraged the consolidation of cigarette production, which has shaped trading patterns of tobacco leaf. Since 2002, British American Tobacco has invested in tobacco manufacturing facilities in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa strategically located to serve different regions in Africa. Following this, British America Tobacco closed factories in Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Mauritius and Angola. At the same time, Malawi and Tanzania exported a large percentage of tobacco leaf to European countries. After 2010, there was an increase in tobacco exports from Malawi and Zambia to China, which may be a result of preferential trade agreements the EU and China have with these countries. Economic liberalization has been accompanied by greater cigarette affordability for the countries included in the analysis. Only excise taxes and income are reported by the authors to have an effect on cigarette prices within the region. The results suggest that the changing economic structures of international trade and investment are likely heightening the efficiency and effectiveness of the tobacco industry. As tobacco control advocates consider supply-side tobacco control interventions, the authors suggest that they consider carefully the effects of these economic agreements and whether there are ways to mitigate them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 201: Accountability for Health Equity: Reflections for Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in international health research collaborations in Africa: Perceptions and expectations of African researchers","field_subtitle":"Munung N; Mayosi B; de Vries J: PLOS One 12(10), doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186237, 2017","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0186237","body":"In this paper, the authors report on a qualitative interviewing study in which they involved 17 genomics researchers in Africa. The authors describe their perceptions and expectations of international genomics research and biobanking initiatives in Africa. All interviewees were of the view that externally funded genomics research and biobanking initiatives have played a critical role in building capacity for genomics research and biobanking in Africa and in providing an opportunity for researchers in Africa to collaborate and network with other researchers. Whilst the opportunity to collaborate was seen as a benefit, some interviewees stressed the need for these collaborations to have mutual benefits for all partners, including their collaborators in high income countries. They voiced two major concerns of being part of these collaborative initiatives: the possibility of exploitation of African researchers and the non-sustainability of research capacity building efforts. They thus recommended genuine efforts to create transparent and equitable international health research partnerships through,: having rules of engagement, enabling African researchers to contribute to the design and conduct of international health projects in Africa, and mutual and respectful exchange of experience and capacity between research collaborators. These were identified as hallmarks to equitable international health research collaborations in Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploring how different modes of governance act across health system levels to influence primary healthcare facility managers\u2019 use of information in decision-making: experience from Cape Town, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Scott V and Gilson L: International Journal for Equity in Health 16(159)1-15, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y7bjwery","body":"This paper reports on work to explore how primary healthcare facility managers\u2019 use of information for decision-making is influenced by governance across levels of the health system in Cape Town, South Africa. Central governance shaped what information and knowledge was valued \u2013 and, therefore, generated and used at lower system levels. The central level valued formal health information generated in the district-based health information system which therefore attracted management attention across the levels of the health system in terms of design, funding and implementation. This information was useful in the top-down practices of planning and management of the public health system. However, in facilities at the frontline of service delivery, there was a strong requirement for local, disaggregated information and experiential knowledge to make locally-appropriate and responsive decisions, and to perform the people management tasks required. Despite central level influences, modes of governance operating at the sub-district level had influence over what information was valued, generated and used locally. Strengthening local level managers\u2019 ability to create enabling environments is an important leverage point in supporting informed local decision-making, and, in turn, translating national policies and priorities, including equity goals, into appropriate service delivery practices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing A National Health Insurance for South Africa","field_subtitle":"The Davis Tax Committee: Ministry of Finance, South Africa, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9sbxzy4","body":"The Davis Tax Committee was established in 2013 by the Minister of Finance to inquire into the role of the tax system in promoting inclusive economic growth, employment creation, development and fiscal sustainability. This report concentrates on identifying long term financing principles \u2013 the specific operationalisation which will be informed by more detailed implementation and costing plans in order to manage the transition from the status quo to the financing regime envisaged in the National Health Insurance (NHI) in South Africa. This report examines the definition, rationale and design of the proposed NHI. It explores international experience in financing universal health coverage, with a focus on middle income developing countries and existing sources of health financing in South Africa are analysed. Cost estimates and potential macroeconomic impacts are discussed and the report concludes with an evaluation of options for NHI financing. The authors identify a number of factors in the design of NHI, as well as its implementation, all of which have an impact on its financing trajectory. These include parameters on risk pooling, on health care purchasing and on provision. Risk pooling decisions include whether there would be a single or multiple purchaser, the level of consolidation of risk pools and their coverage and composition as well as the nature of the resources allocation formula (evidence and needs based, risk equalisation etc.). The structure of purchasing encompasses, inter alia, the scope and pricing of the benefit package (which had not yet been defined in the White Paper), contractual arrangements with health care providers such as GPs and hospitals, quality management systems, payment and information systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"How does decentralisation affect health sector planning and financial management? a case study of early effects of devolution in Kilifi County, Kenya.","field_subtitle":"Tsofa B; Goodman C; Gilson L; et al.: International Journal for Equity Health 16(1)151-163, 2017 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ybybopx7","body":"In 2010, Kenya passed a new constitution that introduced 47 semi-autonomous devolved county governments, with a substantial transfer of responsibility for healthcare from the central government to these counties. This study analysed the effects of this decentralization on health sector planning, budgeting and financial management at county level in Kilifi County. The authors found that the implementation of devolution created an opportunity for local level prioritisation and community involvement in health sector planning and budgeting, increasing opportunities for equity in local level resource allocation. However, this opportunity was not harnessed due to accelerated transfer of functions to counties before county level capacity had been established to undertake the decentralised functions. The authors also observed some indication of re-centralisation of financial management from health facility to county level. They conclude that to enhance the benefits of decentralised health systems, resource allocation, priority setting and financial management functions between central and decentralised units need to be guided by considerations around decision space, organisational structure and capacity and accountability. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"If you miss them, then you\u2019re missing out","field_subtitle":"Riria J: Daily Nation, 7 November 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yc8ps42o","body":"The author reports an estimated 65 per cent of women-led small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the developing economies that are either unserved or underserved financially. SMEs provide 80 per cent of Kenya\u2019s employment and contribute 20 per cent of our GDP, according to latest reports from African Economic Outlook. Data on registered firms shows that women hold ownership roles in 48 per cent of Kenyan SMEs. The World Bank says that only 51 per cent of Kenyan women have access to a simple bank account, much less a business loan or insurance to protect them financially. The author notes that microfinance can address this deficit through loans designed specifically for women-led SMEs that need access to working capital to expand their businesses, that have flexible monthly repayment amounts, security and collateral requirements, and longer repayment periods.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the performance of community health workers in Swaziland: findings from a qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Geldsetzer P; De Neve JW; Boudreaux C; et al.: Human Resources for Health 15(68)1-9, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yb7m7ubn","body":"This qualitative formative research study aimed to inform the design of interventions intended to increase the performance of CHW programs in Swaziland. Specifically, focusing on four CHW programs, the authors aimed to determine what leads to improved performance of CHWs. The CHW cadres studied were the rural health motivators, mothers-to-mothers mentors, HIV expert clients, and a community outreach team for HIV. Across the four cadres, participants perceived the following four changes to likely lead to improved CHW performance: increased monetary compensation of CHWs, a more reliable supply of equipment and consumables, additional training, and an expansion of CHW responsibilities to cover a wider array of the community\u2019s healthcare needs. The supervision of CHWs and opportunities for career progression were rarely viewed as key factors. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Job satisfaction and turnover intentions among health care staff providing services for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Helga N; Mujinja P; Kilewo C; et al.: Human Resources for Health 15(61)1-12, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yawlwndc","body":"From March to April 2014, a questionnaire asking about job satisfaction and turnover intentions was administered to all nurses at 36 public-sector health facilities offering antenatal and prevention of mother-to-child transmission services in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Slightly over half of the providers were dissatisfied with their current job, and 35% intended to leave it. Most providers were dissatisfied with low salaries and high workload, but satisfied with workplace harmony and being able to follow their moral values. The following factors were associated with providers\u2019 intention to leave their current job: dissatisfaction at not being recognized by one\u2019s superior, and poor feedback on the overall unit performance. Providing reasonable salaries and working hours, clearer job descriptions, appropriate safety measures, job stability, and improved supervision and feedback are argued to be key to retaining satisfied health workers for prevention of mother-to-child transmission providers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mental health leadership and patient access to care: a public\u2013private initiative in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Szabo C; Fine J; Mayers P; et al.: International Journal of Mental Health Systems 11(52)1-8, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y962732z","body":"Despite the significant adverse social and economic costs of mental illness, psychiatric and related services receive a low level of priority within the health care system. A public\u2013private mental health leadership initiative, emanating from a patient access to care programme, was developed to build leadership capacity within the South African public mental health sector. The projects were varied in nature but all involved identification of and a plan for addressing an aspect of the participants\u2019 daily professional work which negatively impacted on patient care due to unmet needs. Six such projects were included with  personnel from psychiatry, psychology, occupational therapy and nursing. Each project group was formally mentored as part of the initiative, with mentors being senior professionals with expertise in psychiatry, public health and nursing. Participants acquired both skills and the confidence to sustain the changes that they themselves had initiated in their institutions. The initiative gave impetus to the inclusion of public mental health as part of the curriculum for specialist training. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Organisational culture and trust as influences over the implementation of equity-oriented policy in two South African case study hospitals","field_subtitle":"Erasmus E; Gilson L; Govender V; et al: International Journal of Equity in Health 16(1)164-177, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yd4b9beh","body":"This paper uses the concepts of organizational culture and organizational trust to explore the implementation of equity-oriented policies - the Uniform Patient Fee Schedule and Patients' Rights Charter - in two South African district hospitals. The hospitals' implementation approaches were similar in that both primarily understood it to be about revenue generation, that granting fee exemptions was not a major focus, and considerable activity, facility management support, and provincial support was mobilised behind the Uniform Patient Fee Schedule. The hospitals' Patients' Rights Charter paths diverged quite significantly, as Hospital A was more explicit in communicating and implementing the Patients' Rights Charter, while the policy also enjoyed stronger managerial support in Hospital A than Hospital B. Beneath these experiences lie differences in how people's values, decisions and relationships influence health system functioning and in how the nature of policies, culture, trust and power dynamics can combine to create enabling or disabling micro-level implementation environments. Achieving equity in practice requires managers to take account of \"unseen\" but important factors such as organisational culture and trust, as key aspects of the organisational context that can profoundly influence policies. In addition to putting in place necessary staff and resources, tasks such as relationship management, the negotiation of values and paying careful attention to how policies are practically framed and translated into practice are seen to be necessary to ensure equity aspects are not neglected.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Resource curse or fair benefit: Protecting health in the extractive sector in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, TARSC, SATUCC, SADC CNGO: Harare, 2017","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20EI%20civil%20society%20brief%202017.pdf","body":"The extractive (or mining) sector is a major economic actor in east and southern Africa. The mineral resources extracted are sought after globally, and how the sector operates affects the lives of millions of people. This brief aimed mainly civil society discusses the health impacts of the sector, how far these risks are recognised in policy and controlled in practice, and what civil society can do to ensure that health is protected in EI activity. It presents the proposals made at the 13th Southern Africa Civil society Forum in 2017 to advocate for regional health standards for EIs and a bottom up local to regional campaign for civil society to advocate for these harmonised standards for health in the mining (extractive) sector in SADC.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Sharing Histories\u2014a transformative learning/teaching method to empower community health workers to support health behaviour change of mothers","field_subtitle":"Altobelli L: Human Resources for Health 15(54)1-9, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yaysue5n","body":"One way of improving health globally is promoting mothers\u2019 adoption of healthy home practices for improved nutrition and illness prevention in the first 1000 days of life from conception. The challenge is how to promote learning and behaviour change of mothers more effectively in low-resource settings where access to health information is poor, educational levels are low, and traditional beliefs are strong. In addressing that challenge, a new learning/teaching method called \u201cSharing Histories\u201d is in development to improve the performance of female community health workers in promoting mothers\u2019 behaviours for maternal, neonatal and child health. This method builds self-confidence and empowerment of community health workers in learning sessions that are built on guided sharing of their own memories of childbearing and child care. Community Health Workers can later share histories with the mother, building her trust and empowerment to change. For professional primary health care staff who are not educators, Sharing Histories is simple to learn and use so that the method can be easily incorporated into government health systems and ongoing community health workers programs. The author presents the Sharing Histories method, describes how it differs from other social and behaviour change methods, and discusses selected literature from psychology, communications, and neuroscience that helps to explain how and why this method works as a transformative tool to engage, teach, transform, and empower Community Health Workers to be more effective change agents with other mothers in their communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Protection or Humanitarian Assistance: Contested Input Subsidies and Climate Adaptation in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Haug R; Wold B: IDS Bulletin 48(4), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.19088/1968-2017.155, 2016","field_url":"http://bulletin.ids.ac.uk/idsbo/article/view/2889/ONLINE%20ARTICLE","body":"This article assesses factors that contributed to the success of the farm input support programme in Malawi in 2005\u201315, and the lessons from this experience in relation to climate change adaptation. Important factors were the ability to balance external and internal drivers that affected policy formulation, national ownership and prestige that influenced and motivated implementation capability, creation of conducive conditions its demand-driven nature. However, the flooding in 2015 and the drought in 2016 revealed that Malawi needs more effective measures to reduce long-term vulnerability to future adverse impacts of climate change. The authors argue that the lessons learned from this social protection programme can prove useful in relation to efforts to achieve sustainable responses to climate change that could reduce the need for humanitarian assistance. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Teaching videos on human rights","field_subtitle":"Yamin A: Global Health Education and Learning Incubator, Georgetown, 2017","field_url":"https://vimeopro.com/gheli/human-rights-series","body":"These short videos provide an overview of the history of human rights; health and human rights; and health, human rights and development. They were developed to make human rights more accessible to non-lawyers and non-academics. The videos are accompanied by tools for further learning, including an annotated bibliography, glossary of terms, timeline of key events, and fact sheet on universal health coverage. The first video provides an explanation on what human rights are and why they are important.  The second video offers a brief history of health and human rights since World War II. The third video gives a description of how health-related human rights developed during the era of the Millennium Development Goals (2000-2015) and the Sustainable Development Goals (2016-2030). The series concludes by considering the vital role that human rights plays in diverse political environments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The 6th Quadriennial General Meeting and the 13th Scientific Conference of the East, Central and Southern Africa College of Nursing (ECSACON) ","field_subtitle":"ECSACON: Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya, 3 \u2013 7 September 2018","field_url":"http://ecsahc.org/news/1454/","body":"The 2018 ECSACON conference follows the theme \u2018Nurses and Midwives responding to global agenda on sustainable development goals and universal health coverage\u2019. The conference will focus on quality and affordability of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Services and increasing access to health care including GBV services and SRHR among the youth, nursing and midwifery workforce development to achieve HRH2030 Agenda. The conference will showcase innovations in preparing competent, skilled and motivated nurses and midwives, Nursing and midwifery workforce preparedness to respond to global calls, challenges and/or disasters. The conference will prioritize communicable and NCDs including mental health and nutrition. The call is open to ECSACON Members, Non ECSACON Members from the ECSA region and Non ECSACON Members from outside the region","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change","field_subtitle":"Watts, Nick et al.: The Lancet , 389  (10074 ), 1151 - 1164, 2017","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)32124-9/fulltext","body":"The Lancet Countdown: tracking progress on health and climate change is an international, multidisciplinary research collaboration between academic institutions and practitioners across the world that aims to track the health impacts of climate hazards; health resilience and adaptation; health co-benefits of climate change mitigation; economics and finance; and political and broader engagement. The Lancet Countdown aims to report annually on a series of indicators across these five areas in tandem with  existing monitoring processes, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals and WHO's climate and health country profiles. The indicators will also evolve over time through ongoing collaboration with experts and a range of stakeholders, and be dependent on the emergence of new evidence and knowledge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Role of Parliamentarians in Ending Child Marriage ","field_subtitle":"Girls not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage, 2016","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9ysegt6","body":"Developed by Girls Not Brides to promote collaboration between civil society organisations and parliamentarians, this toolkit provides an overview of what child marriage is, and existing international legal instruments that prohibit the practice. It lists concrete examples and recommendations on how parliamentarians can take action, not only in Parliament but in their constituencies and internationally. Parliamentarians are encouraged to take action through means such as parliamentary meetings, establishing forums and meeting with civil society organisations. The toolkit will be particularly useful to hold governments accountable for their commitment to ending child marriage in target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women ","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 5 December 2017","field_url":"http://www.unwomen.org/en/trust-funds/un-trust-fund-to-end-violence-against-women","body":"The UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund) awards grants to initiatives that demonstrate that violence against women and girls can be systematically addressed, reduced and, with persistence, eliminated. Civil society organizations are invited to submit grant proposals for a minimum of US$50,000 up to a maximum of US$1 million for a period of three years. Proposals are invited under the following three programmatic areas: (1) Improving access for women and girls to essential, safe and adequate multi-sectoral services to end violence against women and girls; (2) Increasing effectiveness of legislation, policies, national action plans and accountability systems to prevent and end violence against women and girls; and (3) Improving prevention of violence against women and girls through changes in knowledge, attitudes and practices. This year, the UN Trust Fund is also seeking applications that specifically focus on addressing violence against women and girls in the context of the current forced displacement and refugee crisis; or addressing violence against women and girls with disabilities. Applications from women\u2019s rights, women-led, and small women\u2019s organizations are prioritized, in recognition of them being the driving force of the ending violence against women agenda, as well as being at the forefront of reaching women and girls survivors at the grassroots level. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"UN Environment Assembly ","field_subtitle":"4-6 December 2017, Nairobi, Kenya","field_url":"http://web.unep.org/environmentassembly/assembly","body":"The UN Environment Assembly meeting in 2017 aims to produce a political declaration on pollution, linked to the Sustainable Development Goals, to signal that humanity can work together to eliminate the threat of pollution and the destruction of our planet. There will be resolutions and decisions adopted by Member States to address specific dimensions of pollution and voluntary commitments by Governments, private sector entities and civil society organizations to clean up the planet. The Assembly will also include The #BeatPollution Pledge, a collection of individual commitments to clean up the planet. This year's Assembly will also launch the interactive Leadership Dialogues, which will provide participants with an opportunity for high-level engagement and discussion on how to achieve a pollution-free planet.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Unpicking Power and Politics for Transformative Change: Towards Accountability for Health Equity","field_subtitle":"Accountability for Health Equity Programme: Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, 2017 ","field_url":"https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/123456789/13258","body":"While \u201caccountability\u201d has become an increasingly popular buzzword in health systems debates and health service delivery, it has multiple \u2013 and contested \u2013 meanings. In July 2017, IDS brought together 80 activists, researchers, public health practitioners and policy makers to examine the forces that shape accountability in health systems, from local to global levels. This workshop report records the presentations and discussions on accountability for health equity that are emerging in different country contexts, exploring how accountability relationships develop and change over time. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision for HIV Prevention in 14 Priority Countries in Eastern and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ybmfgwwf","body":"This progress brief outlines key highlights of the VMMC (Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision) intervention in Eastern and Southern Africa. Nearly 15 million VMMCs have been performed for HIV prevention in 14 countries of eastern and southern Africa. These circumcisions are reported to potentially avert over half a million new HIV infections through to 2030. In 2016, 2.8 million VMMCs were performed and all countries in the region, except Uganda and Rwanda, increased the number of VMMCs performed in the year. The majority of clients were aged 15 years or older. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Where does research fit in a post-truth world?","field_subtitle":"Guth J: Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), UNICEF, UNDP, World Bank, WHO, November 2017 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/tdr/news/2017/Where-does-research-fit/en/","body":"A large study in 3 west African countries examined how to increase the numbers of pregnant women receiving malaria preventive treatment, and getting diagnosed and treated. There were many health systems issues that were identified that created barriers, such as lack of transportation or well-trained healthcare providers at the regional health facilities. Video interviews were conducted with people involved in the project and shared with policy-makers, healthcare providers and community members. The use of video helped to provide local context \u2013 of settings and people. It strengthened the understanding and credibility of the associated research results and showed strong collaboration between the research team and community, a proven facilitator in research uptake. The video was reported to have had a profound when it was shared and led to strong statements of commitments to make changes based on this study. The author suggests that it is necessary to use every tool possible to show the utility of science and how it improves people\u2019s lives in ways that they can see and feel. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Working with community health workers to improve maternal and newborn health outcomes: implementation and scale-up lessons from eastern Uganda","field_subtitle":"Namazzi G; Okuga M; Tetui M; et al.: Global Health Action 10(S4)72-81, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ya7klsts","body":"This paper explores knowledge levels of community health workers (CHWs), describes the coverage of home visits, and shares lessons learnt from setting up and implementing the CHW strategy in eastern Uganda. The CHWs were trained to conduct four home visits: two during pregnancy and two after delivery. The visits aimed to promote birth preparedness and utilization of maternal and newborn health (MNH) services. CHWs\u2019 knowledge of MNH improved after training. However, knowledge of new born danger signs declined after a year. The level of coverage of at least one CHW visit to pregnant and newly delivered mothers was 57% and CHW reports complemented the facility-based health information. CHWs formed associations, which improved teamwork, reporting, and general performance, and maintained low dropout rates at 3.6%. Their challenges included dissatisfaction with the quarterly transport refund of 6 USD and lack of a means of transport, such as bicycles. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"9th Alternative Mining Indaba","field_subtitle":"5th to 7th February 2018, Double Tree by Hilton Upper East Side Hotel Cape Town.","field_url":"http://altminingindaba.co.za/","body":"The 9th Alternative Mining Indaba will be held under the theme Making Natural Resources Work for the People: Towards Just Legal, Policy and Institutional Reforms. Attracting several hundred SADC and wider community representatives, civil society organizations, and multi-lateral organizations and other stakeholders it provides a forum to actively participate in discussing and providing viable recommendations for the future of natural resource extraction in Africa.  Registration will be opening soon.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A Political Economy Analysis of Domestic Resource Mobilization in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Kj\u00e6r A; Ulriksen M; Kangave J; Katusiimeh M: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development  WP 2017-8, Geneva, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y9h3gtdo","body":"This synthesis paper brings together the research findings from four papers prepared by the Uganda team in the UNRISD Politics of Domestic Resource Mobilisation for Social Development project. It addresses three broad themes: bargaining and contestation, key relations, and institution building with regard to mobilising resources for social development. The authors analyse how political economy factors affect revenue raising and social spending priorities in Uganda. It applies a political settlement theory, exploring revenue bargaining or political negotiations that shape revenue mobilisation, revenue composition and policy priorities guiding revenue allocation. The authors focus on three instances of revenue bargains: legislative tax reform, institutional performance of the revenue agencies, and policy making. The first two instances relate to the actual mobilisation of resources, whereas the third example focuses on bargains over spending priorities within a given revenue base. The findings indicate that in Uganda, a low-income country with competing political factions, there are specific challenges to mobilising resources for social development. The need to maintain political power is argued by the authors to have led to reduced tax intakes as taxes levied on rural voters are abolished and tax exemptions introduced for powerful supporters. On the spending side, social development concerns are argued to compete with other public policy areas as well as the pressure to allocate resources for political purposes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"A revolutionary power to heal","field_subtitle":"Pashad V: Pambazuka News, October 2017","field_url":"https://www.pambazuka.org/global-south/revolutionary-power-heal","body":"In a letter to his five children written en route to Bolivia, Ernesto Che Guevara said: \u201cAlways be able to feel deep within your being all the injustices committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality a revolutionary can have.\u201d This article about Che Guevara, 50 years after his execution, explores Che\u2019s story and legacy. His tutelage in revolutionary thought came from his experiences among the leprosy patients of Venezuela and the tin miners of Bolivia, among the revolutionaries of Argentina and the 1954 coup in Guatemala. Reality radicalised him. Mario Ter\u00e1n Salazar, the soldier who shot Che, went into hiding. Many years later, in 2006, the Cuban government operated on Che\u2019s killer to remove a cataract from his eye without charge. The author points to this to highlight that Che\u2019s legacy was not revenge, but doctor\u2019s love for humanity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Region webinar on\u00a0\u201chow to submit a successful organised session abstract\u201d","field_subtitle":"Thursday 9 November 2017, 10:00 - 11:30 UTC","field_url":"https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/215412305862675969","body":"The Health Systems Global Africa Region webinar on \u201chow to submit a successful organised session abstract\u201d will be to offer tips on how participants can increase their chances of having their abstracts successfully accepted for an organised session at the Fifth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Liverpool, October 2018 (HSR2018). The webinar will give an overview of the importance of raising the profile of African health policy and systems research at HSR2018, and how organised sessions can be a powerful way of achieving this. Perspectives from the Programme Working Group on the symposium theme and what the Scientific Committee will be looking for in strong abstracts will be shared, as will the experiences of those who have successfully had their organised session abstracts accepted at previous global symposia.\r\n \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts - Fifth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"Deadline for organised session abstracts 15 January 2018","field_url":"http://healthsystemsresearch.org/hsr2018/call-for-abstracts/","body":"The call for abstracts for the Fifth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research is now open. The Fifth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research will take place in Liverpool, UK, on 8-12 October 2018. The Fifth Global Symposium will advance conversations and collaborations on new ways of financing health, delivering services and engaging the health workforce, new social and political alliances, and new applications of technologies to promote health for all. Within the overarching Symposium theme, we welcome abstracts linked to the following four sub-themes: 1. The SDGs as a stimulus for renewed multisectoral action; 2. Polemic and pragmatism: engaging the private sector in moving towards universal health coverage; 3. Leaving no one behind: health systems that deliver for all and 4. Community health systems \u2013 where community needs are located, but often the invisible level of health systems. The deadline for organized session proposals is the 15 January, 2018 and the deadline for individual abstracts is 5 March, 2018. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Capacity and Consent: Empowering Adolescents to Exercise their Reproductive Rights  ","field_subtitle":"Centre for Reproductive Rights:  Center for Reproductive Rights NY 2017","field_url":"https://www.reproductiverights.org/sites/crr.civicactions.net/files/documents/GA-Adolescents-FINAL.pdf","body":"With adolescents and youth constituting a quarter of the global population \u2013 for a total of 1.8 billion people \u2013 it has never been more critical that their human rights be fully recognised and realised within global arenas and at the regional, national, and community level.  This publication sets forth the barriers adolescents face in realising their sexual and reproductive health and rights, discusses recent critical developments in the human rights framework underpinning these rights, and proposes a way forward for guaranteeing all adolescents the full exercise of their sexual and reproductive health and rights. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Commercial determinants of health - the role of governments remains crucial","field_subtitle":"The Graduate Institute: GI, Geneva, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yd4xhkz7","body":"A multi stakeholder panel on \u201cGoverning Non-Communicable Diseases - Addressing the Commercial Determinants of Health\u201d was held as a side-event during the 70th session of the World Health Assembly. It explored the commercial determinants of health, their links to the political determinants of health and how to navigate the narrow space to create both health and wealth, not just the latter at the expense of the first. The panel identified that government has a central role in taking the lead in policy formulation and in creating a political space for this. Rocco Renaldi from the International Food and Beverage Alliance highlighted the need for governments to create a regulated space and to encourage systemic change within the private sector which will allow them to adjust their strategies to meet the challenge. of chronic conditions.  NCD Alliance Executive Director Katie Dain raised in contrast that the private sector has no role in policy development as this remains the responsibility of governments. The event made a case for enhanced engagement between different sectors of government to build systems of accountability, monitoring and implementation to manage the private sector in health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Commons:Wiki Loves Africa 2017/en","field_subtitle":"Wikimedia Commons: Wikimedia, October 2017","field_url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Africa_2017/en","body":"Wiki Loves Africa is an annual contest where anyone across Africa can contribute media that relates to that year's theme to Wikimedia Commons for use on Wikipedia and other project websites of the Wikimedia Foundation. Wiki Loves Africa encourages participants to contribute media (photographs, video and audio) that illustrate the specific theme for that year. Each year the theme changes and is chosen by the community from universal, visually-rich and culturally-specific topics (for example, markets, rites of passage, festivals, public art, cuisine, natural history, urbanity, daily life, notable persons, etc). This year's photo contest is being held under the theme ... People at Work. It invites photographs that document all manner of occupations that are undertaken across the African continent - formal and informal, contemporary or ancient, business-oriented or creative. There are two special prizes for photo essays that capture Women Working or Rare, Fading or Threatened Traditional Crafts, Styles or Way of Working. The competition starts on 1st October 2017 and closes on 30th November 2017. Winners will be announced around February 2018.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa: from clinical care to health policy","field_subtitle":"Atun R; Davies J; Gale E; et al: The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology Commission 5(8), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2213-8587(17)30181-X, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y79rew24","body":"This study analysed factors affecting variations in the observed quality of antenatal and sick-child care in primary-care facilities in seven African countries. The authors pooled nationally representative data from service provision assessment surveys of health facilities in Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania (survey year range: 2006-2014). Based on World Health Organisation protocols, the authors created indices of process quality for antenatal care (first visits) and for sick-child visits. The authors assessed national, facility, provider and patient factors that might explain variations in quality of care, using separate multilevel regression models of quality for each service. Data were available for 2594 and 11 402 observations of clinical consultations for antenatal care and sick children, respectively. Overall, health-care providers performed a mean of 62.2% of eight recommended antenatal care actions and 54.5% of nine sick-child care actions at observed visits. Quality of antenatal care was higher in better-staffed and -equipped facilities and lower for physicians and clinical officers than nurses. Experienced providers and those in better-managed facilities provided higher quality sick-child care, with no differences between physicians and nurses or between better- and less-equipped clinics. Private facilities outperformed public facilities. Country differences were more influential in explaining variance in quality than all other factors combined. The quality of two essential primary-care services for women and children was weak and varied across and within the countries. Analysis of reasons for variations in quality could identify strategies for improving care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET discussion paper 111: A case study of the role of an Essential Health Benefit in the delivery of integrated health services in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Luwabelwa M; Banda P; Palale M; Chama-Chiliba C: EQUINET Discussion paper 111, Zambia Ministry of Health, EQUINET: Lusaka","field_url":"http://w.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EHB%20Zambia%20Case%20study%20Report%20August%202017pv.pdf","body":"This case study report compiles evidence on the experience of the Essential Health Benefit (EHB) in Zambia. The paper aims to contribute to national and regional policy dialogue regarding the role the EHB plays in budgeting, resourcing and purchasing of health services as well as monitoring health system performance for accountability. It outlines the motivations for developing the EHBs in Zambia, the barriers encountered in the process, the methods used to develop EHBs, and issues related to dissemination and communication of its content. The paper was done under the auspices of an EQUINET research programme through Ifakara Health Institute (IHI) and Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC), in association with the ECSA Health Community, supported by IDRC (Canada), and with the permission of the Ministry of Health of Zambia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion paper 112: A case study of the Essential Health Care Package in Swaziland","field_subtitle":"Magagula SV: Ministry of Health Swaziland, with IHI, TARSC, EQUINET, Harare","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/Swaziland%20EHB%20case%20study%20rep%20final2017pv.pdf","body":"The Essential Health Benefit (EHB) is known as Essential Health Care Package (EHCP) in Swaziland. This desk review provides evidence on the experience of EHCPs in Swaziland and includes available policy documents and research reports. It was implemented in an EQUINET research programme through Ifakara Health Institute (IHI) and Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC), in association with the ECSA Health Community, supported by IDRC (Canada). The desk review presents the motivations for and methods used to develop, define and cost EHCP. It includes key informant input from a multi-disciplinary national task team through a workshop of key stakeholders with technical support from the World Health Organisation (WHO). It outlines how the EHCP has been disseminated and used in the budgeting and purchasing of health services and in monitoring health system performance for accountability. The paper also reports on the facilitators and barriers to development, uptake and use of the EHCP. In guiding the provision of services for all, the EHCP was envisaged to contribute towards the alleviation of poverty and as a tool for universal health coverage. Its implementation calls for a health service Infrastructure that is in good condition, competent health personnel, readiness to undergo training in new medical technology, supporting laws and capacity in the health financing unit. The EHCP in Swaziland was intended to guide the provision of health services. However, its costs were beyond the national resources to fund it. The adoption of a more restricted health service package currently being assessed in ten clinics in all four regions of the country suggests that a phased approach to delivery of an EHB may be more affordable financially for the country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 200: What do Harare youth think needs to happen in our cities to improve our wellbeing?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing transformative health systems towards achievement of the health Sustainable Development Goals: a model for projected resource needs in 67 low-income and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Stenberg K; Hanssen O; Edejer T; et al.: The Lancet Global Health 5(9), e875-e887, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y6uh7b62","body":"No estimates of the additional resources needed to strengthen comprehensive health service delivery towards the attainment of SDG 3 and universal health coverage in low-income and middle-income countries have been published. The authors developed a framework for health systems strengthening, within which population-level and individual-level health service coverage is gradually scaled up over time. They developed projections for 67 low-income and middle-income countries from 2016 to 2030, representing 95% of the total population in low-income and middle-income countries. The authors considered four service delivery platforms, and modeled two scenarios with differing levels of ambition: a progress scenario, in which countries' advancement towards global targets is constrained by their health system's assumed absorptive capacity, and an ambitious scenario, in which most countries attain the global targets. They estimated the associated costs and health effects, including reduced prevalence of illness, lives saved, and increases in life expectancy. They projected available funding by country and year, taking into account economic growth and anticipated allocation towards the health sector, to allow for an analysis of affordability and financial sustainability. The authors estimate that an additional $274 billion spending on health is needed per year by 2030 to make progress towards the SDG 3 targets (progress scenario), whereas US$371 billion would be needed to reach health system targets in the ambitious scenario\u2014the equivalent of an additional $41 or $58 per person, respectively, by the final years of scale-up. In the ambitious scenario, total health-care spending would increase to a population-weighted mean of $271 per person across country contexts, and the share of gross domestic product spent on health would increase to a mean of 7.5%. Around 75% of costs are for health systems, with health workforce and infrastructure (including medical equipment) as the main cost drivers. Despite projected increases in health spending, a financing gap of $20\u201354 billion per year is projected. Should funds be made available and used as planned, the ambitious scenario would save 97 million lives and significantly increase life expectancy by 3.1\u20138.4 years, depending on the country profile. All countries will need to strengthen investments in health systems to expand service provision in order to reach SDG 3 health targets, but even the poorest can reach some level of universality. In view of anticipated resource constraints, each country will need to prioritise equitably, plan strategically, and cost realistically its own path towards SDG 3 and universal health coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health systems in low income countries - four new overviews","field_subtitle":"Cochrane: Cochrane EPOC, October 2017","field_url":"http://www.cochrane.org/news/health-systems-low-income-countries-four-new-overviews","body":"Four new Cochrane EPOC overviews of reviews show reliable evidence on the effects of different ways of organising, financing, and governing health systems in low-income countries and identify important evidence gaps. Strengthening health systems in low-income countries is key to achieving universal health coverage and achieving the health-related Sustainable Development Goals. Achieving these goals requires informed decisions about health systems. A team of Cochrane researchers from Argentina, Chile, Norway, and South Africa prepared four overviews of the available evidence from up-to-date systematic reviews about the effects of health system arrangements in low-income countries. They included 124 systematic reviews in the four overviews. For each review, a user-friendly summary of key findings was produced (see http://supportsummaries.org/), enabling users to explore the overview findings in more depth. The summaries include over 480 key messages about the effects of health system arrangements in low-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Longer travel time to district hospital worsens neonatal outcomes: a retrospective cross-sectional study of the effect of delays in receiving emergency cesarean section in Rwanda.","field_subtitle":"Niyitegeka J; Nshimirimana G; Silverstein A; et al.: Biological Medicine Central Pregnancy Childbirth 17(1), doi: 10.1186/s12884-017-1426-1, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y9dz5yfz","body":"In low-resource settings, access to emergency caesarean section is associated with various delays leading to poor neonatal outcomes. In this study, the authors described the delays a mother faces when needing emergency caesarean delivery and assessed the effect of these delays on neonatal outcomes in Rwanda. It included 441 neonates and their mothers who underwent emergency cesarean section in 2015 at three district hospitals in Rwanda. Four delays were measured: duration of labour prior to hospital admission, travel time from health centre to district hospital, time from admission to surgical incision, and time from decision for emergency caesarean section to surgical incision. Neonatal outcomes were categorised as unfavourable and favourable. The authors assessed the relationship between each type of delay and neonatal outcomes using multivariate logistic regression. In their study, 9.1% of neonates had an unfavourable outcome, 38.7% of neonates' mothers laboured for 12-24 h before hospital admission, and 44.7% of mothers were transferred from health centres that required 30-60 min of travel time to reach the district hospital. Furthermore, 48.1% of caesarean sections started within 5 h after hospital admission and 85.2% started more than 30 min after the decision for caesarean section was made. Neonatal outcomes were significantly worse among mothers with more than 90 min of travel time from the health centre to the district hospital compared to mothers referred from health centres located on the same compound as the hospital. Neonates with caesarean deliveries starting more than 30 min after decision for caesarean section had better outcomes than those starting immediately. Longer travel time between health centre and district hospital was associated with poor neonatal outcomes, highlighting a need to decrease barriers to accessing emergency maternal services. However, longer decision to incision interval posed less risk for adverse neonatal outcome. While this could indicate thorough pre-operative interventions including triage and resuscitation, this relationship should be studied prospectively in the future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Mistra Urban Futures Annual International Conference 2017","field_subtitle":"13 \u2013 15 November, Imperial Hotel Kisumu, Kisumu, Kenya","field_url":"https://www.mistraurbanfutures.org/en/rjc-2017","body":"Mistra Urban Futures Annual International Conference is taking place from 13 to 15 November 2017 in Kisumu, Kenya under the banner \"Realising Just Cities - Learning Through Comparison\". The rapidly growing number of people moving into cities all over the world also present a challenge of unprecedented size. It is crucial to find ways to make urbanisation a source for wealth, health and sustainability \u2013 which is shared. Mistra Urban Futures arranges yearly a conference about Realising Just Cities. This year\u2019s conference focuses on learning through comparison covering themes such as transportation, urban food, waste management, migration, participatory cities, neighbourhood transformation and cultural heritage. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Noncommunicable Diseases Progress Monitor 2017","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: WHO, Geneva, 2017 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y7jloxog","body":"In May 2015 the World Health Organization published a Technical Note on its 2017 reporting to the United Nations General Assembly on the progress achieved in the implementation of national commitments included in the 2011 UN Political Declaration and the 2014 UN Outcome Document on NCDs. The Technical Note was updated in September 2017 to ensure alignment with the updated set of WHO \u2018best-buys\u2019 and other recommended interventions for the prevention and control of non communicable diseases that was endorsed by the World Health Assembly in May 2017. The Progress Monitor provides data on the 19 indicators on progress in NCDs and their control and management for all of WHO\u2019s 194 Member States. The indicators include setting time-bound targets to reduce NCD deaths; developing all-of-government policies to address NCDs; implementing key tobacco demand reduction measures, measures to reduce harmful use of alcohol and unhealthy diets and promote physical activity; and strengthening health systems through primary health care and universal health coverage. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Paradigm Shift: South Africa Regional Partnerships Coordinator","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 11 November, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7sm3l2s","body":"The Paradigm Shift Programme is a holistic, economic development outreach tool that connects business men and women within the church to micro entrepreneurs in poor communities. Paradigm Shift seeks to appoint a Regional Partnerships Coordinator to be based in South Africa. This position is part-time, and can be fulfilled working remotely but with frequent teleconferencing and face-to-face meetings built in. The responsibilities include managing communication between volunteer teams and Paradigm Shift, ensuring the training and coaching of Point Persons, creating and executing strategic plans for national expansion, new partnership development and communications. The post requires a minimum of a Bachelor\u2019s Degree, demonstrated expertise in key areas mentioned in job description, interpersonal, written and verbal communication skills and experience of working with people working their way out of poverty. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Pilot study of quality of care training and knowledge in Sub-Saharan African medical schools","field_subtitle":"Bowser D; Abbas Y; Odunleye T; et al.: International Journal of Medical Education 8, 24 doi: 10.5116/ijme.595b.b38c, 2017 ","field_url":"https://www.ijme.net/archive/8/quality-of-care-african-medical-schools.pdf","body":"This study identified the level of knowledge and competencies related to quality of care during medical education in sub-Saharan African medical schools. A cross-sectional study design was utilised to examine the capacity of medical schools in sub-Saharan African countries to teach about the concepts of quality of care and the inclusion of these concepts in their curriculum. A purposeful convenience sampling technique was used to select participants from 25 medical schools in 5 sub-Saharan African countries. Respondents included medical school deans or senior academic personnel. While 45% of the schools surveyed are teaching on at least one of the six domains of the Institute of Medicine\u2019s definition of quality of care, there are some schools who report not teaching about quality at all, or that they \u201cdo not know\u201d. Despite these low numbers, when asked about topics related to quality of care, many schools are teaching applied management related topics and almost all schools teach about equity and patient-centred care. The results have implications for incorporating quality of care in medical education and for practitioners. The tool developed for this study could be used in future qualitative and quantitative studies to further understanding of how to improve the teaching and learning about quality of care in medical schools. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Realizing Universal Health Coverage in East Africa: the relevance of human rights","field_subtitle":"Yamin A; Maleche A: Biological Medicine Central International Health Human Rights 17(1) doi: 10.1186/s12914-017-0128-0, 2017.","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ybcad58k","body":"The authors argue that applying a robust human rights framework would change thinking and decision-making in efforts to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC), and advance efforts to promote women's, children's, and adolescents' health in East Africa, a priority under the Sustainable Development Goals. They point to a gap between global rhetoric of human rights and ongoing health reform efforts,. and seeks to fill part of that gap by setting out principles of human rights-based approaches, and then applying those principles to questions that countries undertaking efforts toward UHC and promoting women's, children's and adolescents' health, will need to face. The paper focuses in particular on ensuring enabling legal and policy frameworks, establishing fair financing; priority-setting processes, and meaningful oversight and accountability mechanisms. In a region where democratic institutions are argued to be weak, the authors argue that the explicit application of a meaningful human rights framework could enhance equity, participation and accountability, and in turn the democratic legitimacy of health reform initiatives being undertaken in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Research priority setting for integrated early child development and violence prevention (ECD+) in low and middle income countries: An expert opinion exercise","field_subtitle":"Tomlinson M; Jordans M; MacMillan H; et al.: Jo Child Abuse Negligence 72,131-139, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ydggms6a","body":"Reducing children's exposure to harmful events and violence is essential for early childhood development. The authors used the Child Health and Nutrition Initiative method for the setting of research priorities in integrated early childhood development and violence prevention programs. An expert group was identified and invited to systematically list and score research questions. A total of 186 stakeholders were asked to contribute five research questions each, and contributions were received from 81 respondents. These were subsequently evaluated using a set of five criteria: answerability; effectiveness; feasibility and/or affordability; applicability and impact; and equity. Of the 400 questions generated, a composite group of 50 were scored by 55 respondents. The highest scoring research questions related to the training of community health workers to deliver early childhood development and violence prevention programs interventions effectively and whether these interventions could be integrated within existing delivery platforms such as HIV, nutrition or mental health platforms. The findings from this research priority setting exercise is argued to potentially help guide funders and others towards funding priorities for important future research related to early childhood development and violence prevention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Socioeconomic differences in mortality in the antiretroviral therapy era in Agincourt, rural South Africa, 2001\u201313: a population surveillance analysis ","field_subtitle":"Kabudula C; Houle B; Collinson M; et al.: The Lancet Global Health 5(9) doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(17)30297-8, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yb25mtzo","body":"The authors assessed socioeconomic disparities in mortality indicators in a rural South African population over the period 2001\u201313 using data from 21 villages of the Agincourt Health and socio-Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS). They calculated the probabilities of death from birth to age 5 years and from age 15 to 60 years, life expectancy at birth, and cause-specific and age-specific mortality by sex (not in children ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania Country Director and Clinical Training Project Manager","field_subtitle":"SolidarMed: Closing date: Thursday, 30 November, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9dbgdxh","body":"SolidarMed is a leading non-profit organization working to improve the health of people in rural Sub Saharan Africa.  This position comprises both the management of the project \u201cSupport to Edgar Maranta School of Nursing\u201d and the coordination of the country program. It is a fixed term appointment based in Ifakara, Tanzania to start as soon as possible, with a certain flexibility. The key responsibilities include coordination, monitoring, budgeting, reporting and annual planning of the country program and providing strategic and public health guidance and leadership to the program. An advanced degree in health and a Master in Public Health, good understanding and clinical experience of issues related to maternal and child health, and infectious diseases such as HIV, TB and malaria are required. Experience in a public health context in Sub-Saharan Africa, ideally at district level, sound knowledge and experience of management and administration and good writing and reporting skills (in English) and basic Kiswahili are required. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The Demographic and Health Surveys Fellows Program","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Submissions: 10 November, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y8cnuob3","body":"The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Fellows Program aims to increase capacity of university faculty from DHS countries and to build long-term institutional sustainability for universities to train students and faculty to further analyze DHS data. The Program provides intensive mentorship to teams of three university faculty members that are selected on a competitive basis from four to six universities every year. The fellowship includes two separate workshops and preparation of publication-quality research papers with mentoring from DHS Program researchers. In addition to original research projects, fellows are also required to design and implement a range of internal capacity strengthening activities at their home universities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The SWPER index for women\u2019s empowerment in Africa: development and validation of an index based on survey data","field_subtitle":"Ewerling F; Lynch J;  Victora C;  van Eerdewijk A;  Tyszler M; Barros A: Lancet Global Health 5(9) e916-e923, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y7n9ukbb","body":"The Sustainable Development Goals strongly focus on equity. Goal 5 explicitly aims to empower all women and girls, reinforcing the need to have a reliable indicator to track progress. This study developed a novel women\u2019s empowerment indicator from widely available data sources, broadening opportunities for monitoring and research on women\u2019s empowerment. The authors used Demographic and Health Survey data from 34 African countries, targeting currently partnered women. They identified items related to women\u2019s empowerment present in most surveys, and used principal component analysis to extract the components. The authors carried out a convergent validation process using coverage of three health interventions as outcomes; and an external validation process by analysing correlations with the Gender Development Index. Findings 15 items related to women\u2019s empowerment were selected. They retained three components (50% of total variation) which, after rotation, were identified as three dimensions of empowerment: attitude to violence, social independence, and decision making. All dimensions had moderate to high correlation with the Gender Development Index. Social independence was associated with higher coverage of maternal and child interventions; attitude to violence and decision making were more consistently associated with the use of modern contraception. Interpretation The index, named Survey-based Women\u2019s emPowERment index, is argued to have the potential to widen the research on women\u2019s empowerment and to give a better estimate of its effect on health interventions and outcomes. It allows within-country and between-country comparison, as well as time trend analysis, which no other survey based index provides.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Tuberculosis, human rights and ethics considerations along the route of a highly vulnerable migrant from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe","field_subtitle":"Wild V; Jaff D; Shah NS; et al.: International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease 21(10)1075-1085, 2017","field_url":"http://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/iuatld/ijtld/2017/00000021/00000010/art00005","body":"Migrant health is a critical public health issue, and in many countries attention to this topic has focused on the link between migration and communicable diseases, including tuberculosis (TB). This paper traces a commonly used migration route from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe, identifying situations at each stage in which human rights and ethical values might be affected in relation to TB care. The authors highlight three strands of discussion in the ethics and justice literature in an effort to develop more comprehensive ethics of migrant health. These strands include theories of global justice and global health ethics, the creation of \u2018firewalls' to separate enforcement of immigration law from protection of human rights, and the importance of non-stigmatization to health justice. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding the relationship between couple dynamics and engagement with HIV care services: insights from a qualitative study in Eastern and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Wamoyi J; Renju J; Moshabela M, et al.: Sexually Transmitted Infections, 93(Issue Supplement 3), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/sextrans-2016-052976, 2017","field_url":"http://sti.bmj.com/content/93/Suppl_3/e052976","body":"This paper explores the interplay between couple dynamics and the engagement of people living with HIV (PLHIV) with HIV care and treatment services in three health and demographic surveillance sites in Tanzania, Malawi and South Africa. A qualitative study was conducted involving 107 in-depth interviews with PLHIV with a range of HIV care and treatment histories, including current users of HIV clinics, and people not enrolled in HIV care. Interviews explored experiences of living with HIV and how and why they chose to engage or not with HIV services. The authors found an interplay between couple dynamics and HIV care and treatment-seeking behaviour in the three countries. Being in a relationship impacted on the level and type of engagement with HIV services in multiple ways. In some instances, couples living with HIV supported each other which improved their engagement with care and strengthened their relationships. The desire to fulfil societal expectations and attract a new partner, or have a baby with a new partner, or to receive emotional or financial support, strengthened on-going engagement with HIV care and treatment. However, fear of blame, abandonment or abuse resulted in unwillingness to disclose and often led to disputes or discord between couples. There was little evidence of intra-couple understanding of each other\u2019s lived experiences with HIV, and the authors found that couples rarely interacted with the formal health system together. Couple dynamics influenced engagement with HIV testing, care and treatment for both partners through a myriad of pathways. The authors propose that couple-friendly approaches to HIV care and treatment move beyond individualised care and which recognise partner roles in HIV care engagement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"What 115 years of data tells us about Africa\u2019s battle with malaria past and present","field_subtitle":"Snow B: The conversation, October 2017","field_url":"https://theconversation.com/what-115-years-of-data-tells-us-about-africas-battle-with-malaria-past-and-present-85482","body":"The author reports on efforts in the last 21 years tracking down malaria survey reports done across Africa. The greatest challenge was that they were mostly hidden in old government archives or curated by the World Health Organisation. Their final report covers over 50,000 surveys dating back 115 years. This is the largest repository containing information on over 7.8 million blood tests for malaria. They analysed malaria infection prevalence for each of 520 administrative units across countries south of the Sahara and Madagascar for 16 time periods. The study suggests that the prevalence of malaria infection in sub-Saharan Africa today is at the lowest point since 1900. The biggest historical reduction in malaria coincided with the introduction of new tools to fight malaria. After the Second World War, the discovery of DDT for indoor spraying and chloroquine drugs made a difference in treating malaria.  In 2005 the rolling out of insecticide treated bed nets and new antimalarial drugs, led to a further drop of malaria cases. The lowest periods of malaria prevalence were evident when the international community abandoned specific malaria control investment in Africa, during the late 1960s, through the 1970s and early 1980s. The gains made after 2005 are also reported to have stalled since 2010. Declining malaria funding, insecticide and drug resistance  are the obvious threats to the elimination of malaria in Africa. The authors observe from the evidence that the malaria map in Africa might shrink a bit at the margins but that middle belt isn\u2019t going anywhere in our lifetimes with what we have at our disposal now \u2013 bed nets and drugs. When insecticide and drug resistance becomes established, they argue that unless we have new classes of both drugs and insecticides or a natural period of drought, malaria will revert in large parts of Africa to what it was in the 1990s, another perfect storm.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"What do Harare youth think needs to happen in our cities to improve our wellbeing?","field_subtitle":"Busisiwe Shumba, Sithembile Zimbeva, Piason Mareya, Simon Kapombe, Bridget Kajawu, Shingirai Denhere, Arthur Nyandwe and Ishmael Makaya, Harare","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn September this year the civic centre of Harare was buzzing with the sound of music and discussions, markets, installations, workshops and multiple activities. It was Shoko Festival time, and the museum, library and other civic buildings transformed into a magnet for young people to get away from the stresses of our shrinking economy and nourish our creativity. \r\n\r\nShoko festival is one of Zimbabwe\u2019s fastest-growing international festivals and over seven years has grown into a major cultural event. The festival this year was held at a time when many are struggling with the socio-economic problems brought about by the myriad of problems in the economy. We wondered \u2013 is art a luxury at such a time? What can it contribute to improving our wellbeing in a harsh climate?\r\n\r\nOur experience at the festival indicates that it is anything but a luxury!\r\n\r\nThis year\u2019s festival was held with the theme \u2018YOUtopia\u2019, as a vibrant creative space in which people could explore and imagine the qualities they seek for themselves and their community or society. So we took advantage of the space and theme to take a discussion that we have been having as young people on what kind of city will improve our wellbeing to a wider audience. \r\n\r\nIn the past year as a group of young people in the Civic Forum on Human Development from diverse settings and suburbs in Harare we have been working with the Training and Research Support Centre in EQUINET to understand what is driving the inequalities in health in our urban areas, at least for ourselves as young people. With our health services often focused on treating diseases, we took a wider lens to build a more holistic understanding of what will promote our health today and in the future. In our own discussions we identified issues that go well beyond the scope of health services, including the way our cities provide spaces for us to create jobs, the green spaces and access to internet that we need to meet, connect and exchange ideas, and the access to urban land we need to have to grow food and build decent housing. We looked at how these issues are being addressed in other parts of the world and found a lot to inspire us on how we could do things differently here in Harare. \r\n\r\nSo we decided to participate in the Shoko festival with a stand on \u201cpicturing our urban futures\u201d to hear and see what other young people thought. Over two days we explored what kind of city people, especially young people coming to Shoko festival wanted to live in? How did they imagine things could be different in ways that promote their wellbeing?  We had an art table, where people drew in one half of the page features of areas they live, work or meet in in the city as they are now, and in the other half how they would like them to be. We had postits where people wrote short text on what they thought was affecting their wellbeing or what changes they wanted to see in for our cities to promote our wellbeing. We discussed what people saw as the different aspects of their wellbeing. \r\n\r\nWe had no rules and gave a free space and materials for young people to draw or write or say what they thought. Many youth preferred drawing their views than writing or talking. \r\n\r\nBy the end of the two days there were pink, yellow and green postits all over the glass wall on one side of the stand and artwork of all colours filling the wall on the other side and young people talking in between. We were surrounded by the analysis and the possible, in a space youth culture that radiated positive activism and ideas. Shoko is about celebrating positive youth culture that is trending and relevant in the cities that has been associated with hip-hop, dancehall to spoken word and comedy as well as graffiti and cutting edge ideas on how to use new media and technology. \r\n\r\nThe drawings were clear and the statements were short but full of meaning: \u201clitter free and free wifi!\u201d \u201ca violence free city\u201d, \u201c a safe city\u201d. The tensions were economic, but also environmental and many were social or linked to mental stress.\r\n\r\nThe art work and postits highlighted how young people vision a different urban future to overcome the significant differences in opportunities for wellbeing that currently exist and to ensure that our cities work and promote health for all. Many showed how much mental stress is caused by bad conditions like public transport systems where touts push people into overcrowded combis, and how much people want to live in communities free of violence and of rising piles of waste and litter. \r\n\r\nThe art and postits showed the desire to move from roads with potholes, traffic congestion and chaos, environments with rubbish and poorly maintained parks to one where public spaces, roads and transport are safe and clean. Rather than have cities where the best buildings are for private finance and vendors compete for space with pedestrians, they visioned cities where the best buildings are for community processes and economic activities. They indicated that cities need to enable people to work and create jobs, including by giving access to free wifi, and people should have community spaces to gather and exchange views. \r\n\r\nAre these visions of the future utopic? We don\u2019t think so. They are a feasible, practical vision of what we should be demanding, contributing to and achieving for all in our cities and would do more for our health and wellbeing than all the medicines we consume. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"World running out of antibiotics, says WHO in new reports","field_subtitle":"Third World Network: TWN Info Service on Health Issues, Oct17/02, 2017","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/health.info/2017/hi171002.htm","body":"On 19 September, the World Health Organization released a new report that reaffirms the world is running out of antibiotics to fight key and deadly infections due to the fast pace of resistance by bacteria and the lack of new antibiotics to replace or supplement the existing antibiotics. Most new drugs in the pipeline are only modifications of existing classes of antibiotics and are short term solutions, says the WHO.  And there are very few potential treatment options for antibiotic resistant infections causing the greatest health threats including resistant TB. This article by TWN explore the issue and the level of (under)investment in new treatments. It argues further for improved infection prevention and control and for fostering appropriate use of existing and future antibiotics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe Parliament To Boycott 2018 Budget Unless It Meets Abuja Target","field_subtitle":": Pembere K: Health Times, 11 October 2017","field_url":"https://healthtimes.co.zw/2017/10/11/parliament-to-boycott-2018-budget-unless-it-meets-abuja-target/","body":"The Zimbabwe Parliamentary Portfolio committee on Health says it will not entertain a flimsy allocation of funds to the health sector in the forthcoming 2018 budget presentation unless the 15% Abuja target is met. Zimbabwe is a signatory to the Abuja Declaration of 2001 in which African Union countries pledged to allocate at least 15 percent of their annual budgets to improving the health sector. Since then, the country is yet to meet the target. In the 2017 budget, the health sector only got 7 percent of total government spending. Non state organisations expect the treasury to meet the Abuja declaration which states that 15 percent of the National budget should be dedicated to health to show commitment to ensuring a healthy and productive nation. Presenting the 2017 national budget, the then Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa announced that $281,9 million will be channeled towards the sector inclusive of remuneration for the public health care personnel ($223 million), operations and maintenance ($29,6 million), as well as capital expenditure that has been pegged at $29,5 million. Binga North MP Prince Dubeko Sibanda sharing his experience in Uganda learnt that if a budget ignores the plight of the marginalized it doesn\u2019t get Parliamentary approval to be passed. \u201cOne thing I took in Uganda, they have got a law which says unless the budget meets certain criteria or takes care of people that are generally marginalized that budget should not be passed. Its part and parcel of their law. Its never passed,\u201d the parliamentarian said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe's public sector health spending one of the lowest in SADC","field_subtitle":"Langa V: NewsDay October 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yay6jk4j","body":"Zimbabwe government spending towards health this year averaged US$21 per person, lower than 2016 levels, the Community Working Group on Health (CWGH), in Zimbabwe, said in its contribution to the 2018 National Budget consultations. CWGH said the per capita allocation towards health is one of the lowest in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region whose average spending on health per person is $146. CWGH raised concerns about the total budget allocation to health, which has remained lower than the 15% of the total budget committed to in the Abuja Declaration. The CWGH said Zimbabwe has made significant gains in the area of HIV prevalence, child and maternal mortality, but noted an over-dependence on external funding, poor infrastructure and ill-equipped hospitals, as well as a worrying ratio of patients to health personnel. The CWGH observed that Zimbabwe relies heavily on imports for drugs, equipment and other hospital consumables, and called for government to broaden the tax base to fund health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018I am treated well if I adhere to my HIV medication\u2019: putting patient\u2013provider interactions in context through insights from qualitative research in five sub-Saharan African countries","field_subtitle":"Ondenge K; Renju J; Bonnington O; et al.: Jo Sexually Transmitted Infections 93 (Issue Supplement 3), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/sextrans-2016-052973, 2017","field_url":"http://sti.bmj.com/content/93/Suppl_3/e052973","body":"The nature of patient\u2013provider interactions and communication is widely documented to significantly impact on patient experiences, treatment adherence and health outcomes. Yet little is known about the broader contextual factors and dynamics that shape patient\u2013provider interactions in high HIV prevalence and limited-resource settings. Drawing on qualitative research from five sub-Saharan African countries, the authors seek to unpack local dynamics that serve to hinder or facilitate productive patient\u2013provider interactions. This qualitative study, conducted in Kisumu (Kenya), Kisesa (Tanzania), Manicaland (Zimbabwe), Karonga (Malawi) and uMkhanyakude (South Africa), draws upon 278 in-depth interviews with purposively sampled people living with HIV with different diagnosis and treatment histories, 29 family members of people who died due to HIV and 38 HIV healthcare workers. Data were collected using topic guides that explored patient testing and antiretroviral therapy treatment journeys. The authors analysis revealed an array of inter-related contextual factors and power dynamics shaping patient\u2013provider interactions. These included participants\u2019 perceptions of roles and identities of \u2018self\u2019 and \u2018other\u2019; conformity or resistance to the \u2018rules of HIV service engagement\u2019 and a \u2018patient-persona\u2019; the influence of significant others\u2019 views on service provision; and resources in health services. They observed that these four factors/dynamics were located in the wider context of conceptualisations of power, autonomy and structure. They argue that patient\u2013provider interaction is complex, multidimensional and deeply embedded in wider social dynamics, and that interventions to improve patient experiences and treatment adherence through enhanced interactions need to go beyond the existing focus on patient\u2013provider communication strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cIf donors woke up tomorrow and said we can't fund you, what would we do?\u201d A health system dynamics analysis of implementation of PMTCT option B+ in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Doherty T; Besada D; Goga A; Daviaud E; Rohde S; Raphaely N: Globalisation and Health 13(51) 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ydaap2ns","body":"In October 2012 Uganda extended its prevention of mother to child HIV transmission (PMTCT) policy to Option B+, providing lifelong antiretroviral treatment for HIV positive pregnant and breastfeeding women. The rapid changes in and adoption of new PMTCT policies are argued by the authors to have not been accompanied by research to explore health system preparedness to implement such programmes. The implementation of Option B+ provides many lessons which can inform the shift to \u2018Universal Test and Treat\u2019, a policy which many sub-Saharan African countries are preparing to adopt, despite fragile health systems. This qualitative study of PMTCT Option B+ implementation in Uganda three years following the policy adoption, uses the health system dynamics framework to explore the impacts of this programme on ten elements of the health system. Qualitative data were gathered through rapid appraisal during in-country field work. Key informant interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs) were undertaken with the Ministry of Health, implementing partners, multilateral agencies, district management teams, facility-based health workers and community cadres. The authors conducted a simple manifest analysis, using the ten elements of a health system for grouping data into categories and themes. Of the ten elements in the health system dynamics framework, context and resources (finances, infrastructure and supplies, and human resources) were the most influential in the implementation of Option B+ in Uganda. Support from international actors and implementing partners attempted to strengthen resources at district level, but had unintended consequences of creating dependence and uncertainty regarding sustainability. The health system dynamics framework is argued to offer a novel approach to analysis of the effects of implementation of a new policy on critical elements of the health system. Its emphasis on relationships between system elements, population and context is helpful in unpacking impacts of and reactions to pressures on the system, which adds value beyond some previous frameworks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cWe are toothless and hanging, but optimistic\u201d: sub county managers\u2019 experiences of rapid devolution in coastal Kenya","field_subtitle":"Nyikuri M; Tsofa B, Okoth P; et al.: International Journal for Equity in Health 16(113)1-11, 2017","field_url":"https://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-017-0607-x","body":"This study presents qualitative research to examine the early experiences of devolution in the health sector in Kenya in March 2013. The authors observed a diverse range of management meetings, support supervision visits and outreach activities involving sub-county managers between May 2013 and June 2015, and conducted interviews with purposively selected sub-county managers from three sub-counties. The authors found that sub county managers as with many other health system actors were anxious about and ill-prepared for the unexpectedly rapid devolution of health functions to the newly created county government. They experienced loss of autonomy and resources and confused lines of accountability within the health system. The study illustrates the importance in accelerated devolution contexts for: mid-level managers to adopt new ways of working and engagement with higher and lower levels in the system; clear lines of communication during reforms to these actors and anticipating and managing the effect of change on intangible software issues such as trust and motivation. More broadly, the authors show the value of examining organisational change from the perspective of key actors within the system, and highlight the importance in times of rapid change of drawing upon and working with those already in the system. These actors have valuable tacit knowledge, but tapping into and building on this knowledge to enable positive response in times of health system shocks requires greater attention to sustained capacity building within the health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"A Practical Guide To Implementing Community-Based HIV-Prevention Services: Experiences shared and lessons learned from South Africa","field_subtitle":"Desmond Tutu TB Centre: Stellenbosch University, South Africa, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8uf7t24","body":"This guide includes case studies, tips, photographs, training materials and an accompanying video on implementing community-based HIV-prevention services. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of implementation, from engaging with stakeholders and communities to how to set up teams and conduct HIV testing services that integrate important other services including screening for TB, sexually transmitted infections and non-communicable diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Adolescent HIV Programming: Ready here we come!","field_subtitle":"International HIV/AIDS Alliance: International HIV/AIDS Alliance. UK 2017","field_url":"http://www.aidsalliance.org/assets/000/003/006/alliance_gpg-hiv_and_adolescents_final_original.pdf?1494841059","body":"This guide is one of a series of good practice guides, and contains information, strategies and resources to help HIV programmers implement HIV programming for adolescents.  Adolescents are now included as a separate target group in global and national strategies. Increased access to HIV testing and treatment means that, more than ever, adolescents living with HIV know their status and are living longer on antiretroviral therapy (ART). Much more work is needed, however, to meet adolescents\u2019 needs for prevention, care, treatment and support services. Barriers to access, poor uptake of both prevention and treatment services, stigma and discrimination, as well as challenges with adherence to treatment contribute significantly to HIV-related morbidity and mortality among adolescents. This Good Practice Guide contains information, strategies and resources to help programmers meet the standards for Alliance HIV programming for adolescents. Implementing these standards is one of the ways that the Alliance, our partners and other organisations define and promote a unified and quality-driven approach to HIV programming. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Is Not Poor, We Are Stealing Its Wealth","field_subtitle":"Dearden N: Sangonet, NGO Pulse, August 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yajkywxt","body":"The report Honest Accounts 2017: how the world profits from Africa\u2019s wealth explores how Africa\u2019s wealth is effectively \u201cstolen\u201d from the continent and \u201ccalculates the movement of financial resources into and out of Africa and some key costs imposed on Africa by the rest of the world\u201d. Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, writes that although there is money coming into the continent in the form of remittances, there is a larger amount leaving the continent in the form of taxes, \u201crepatriate[d]\u201d profits and illegal trade. A 2014 estimate suggests that rich Africans were holding a massive $500-billion in tax havens. Africa\u2019s people are effectively robbed of wealth by an economy that enables a tiny minority of Africans to get rich by allowing wealth to flow out of Africa. With few exceptions, countries with abundant mineral wealth experience poorer democracy, weaker economic growth, and worse development. The author raises that to prevent tax dodging, governments must stop prevaricating on action to address tax havens. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"All roads lead to universal health coverage ","field_subtitle":"Ghebreyesus T: The Lancet, 17 August 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y98umqck","body":"All roads lead to universal health coverage\u2014and this is the top priority at WHO, Dr Ghebreyesus the WHO director general has asserted. The key question of universal health coverage is an ethical one. Should fellow citizens die because they are poor? Or should millions of families be impoverished by catastrophic health expenditures because they lack financial risk protection? Universal health coverage is a human right. The world has agreed on universal health coverage in Sustainable Development Goal 3.8. He asserts that  universal health coverage is ultimately a political choice and responsibility of every country and national government. Countries have unique needs, and tailored political negotiations will determine domestic resource mobilisation. He indicates that WHO will catalyse proactive engagement and advocacy with global, regional, and national political structures and leaders including heads of state and national parliaments. Beyond benchmarking, countries learn from their peers, especially those they see as having similar political or economic contexts. WHO will thus document best practices in universal health coverage at the country level. Once this learning has occurred, countries may request technical assistance and WHO should be prepared to provide technical assistance to countries based on their specific needs, across the full range of health-related Sustainable Development Goals. He further posits that universal health coverage and health emergencies are cousins\u2014two sides of the same coin. Strengthening health systems is the best way to safeguard against health crises. Outbreaks are inevitable, but epidemics are not and strong health systems are the best defence to prevent disease outbreaks from becoming epidemics. Achieving universal health coverage will require innovation. Given that what is measured is managed, data matters and WHO will track progress on how the world is meeting the health-related Sustainable Development Goal indicators. Finally he observes that universal health coverage is not an end in itself: its goal is to improve all health-related Sustainable Development Goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"An assessment of equity in the distribution of non-financial health care inputs across public primary health care facilities in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Kuwawenaruwa A; Borghi J; Remme M; Mtei G: International Journal for Equity in Health 16(124) 2017 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7wsm9k9","body":"This paper assesses equity in the distribution of health care inputs across public primary health facilities at the district level in Tanzania. It reports a quantitative assessment of equity in the distribution of health care inputs (staff, drugs, medical supplies and equipment) from district to facility level. The study was carried out in three districts (Kinondoni, Singida Rural and Manyoni district) in Tanzania. These districts were selected because they were implementing primary care reforms. The authors administered 729 exit surveys with patients seeking out-patient care; and health facility surveys at 69 facilities in early 2014. The authors found a significant pro-rich distribution of clinical staff and nurses per 1000 population. Facilities with the poorest patients (most remote facilities) have fewer staff per 1000 population than those with the least poor patients (least remote facilities): 0.6 staff per 1000 among the poorest, compared to 0.9 among the least poor; 0.7 staff per 1000 among the most remote facilities compared to 0.9 among the least remote. The negative concentration index for support staff suggests a pro-poor distribution of this cadre but the 45 degree dominated the concentration curve. The distribution of vaccines, antibiotics, anti-diarrhoeal, anti-malarials and medical supplies was approximately proportional (non dominance), whereas the distribution of oxytocics, anti-retroviral therapy (ART) and anti-hypertensive drugs was pro-rich, with the 45 degree line dominating the concentration curve for ART. This study has shown there are inequities in the distribution of health care inputs across public primary care facilities. This highlights the need to ensure a better coordinated and equitable distribution of inputs through regular monitoring of the availability of health care inputs and strengthening of reporting systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Community-based initiatives improving critical health literacy: a systematic review and meta-synthesis of qualitative evidence","field_subtitle":"de Wit L; Benenga C; Giammarchi C; di Furia L; Hutter I; de Winter A; Meijering L: BMC Public Health 18(40), 2017, ","field_url":"https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-017-4570-7","body":"This study explored how community-based initiatives address the critical health literacy of older adults and their communities. A systematic literature search was conducted. Two reviewers independently screened titles and abstracts, as well as the quality of the methodological and community-based elements of the studies. In addition, a meta-synthesis was carried out, consisting of a qualitative text analysis of the results sections of the 23 included studies. The authors identified two main themes, which are practices that contribute to the critical health literacy of older adults as well as their communities: collaborative learning, and social support. In these practices they identified reciprocity as a key characteristic of both co-learning and social support. This study provides the first overview of community-based initiatives that implicitly address the critical health literacy of adults and their community. The results demonstrate that in the context of one\u2019s own life collaborative learning and social support could contribute to people\u2019s understanding and ability to judge, sift and use health information. The authors therefore suggest to add these two practices to the definition of critical health literacy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Defending medical malpractice and professional negligence cases: Litigation and mitigation","field_subtitle":"29 \u2013 30 November 2017 Apollo Hotel, Randburg, Johannesburg","field_url":"http://www.secolo.co.za","body":"A 2 day Master class  will be held on Defending Medical Malpractice and professional Negligence Cases scheduled for 29-30 November, 2017 in Randburg, Johannesburg, RSA. Medical malpractice liability is incurred when patients suffer damages, which may be attributed to sub-standard care provided by health practitioners or hospital personnel involved in their treatment. This master class aims to provide a sound knowledge of the legal rules applicable to the practice and administration of healthcare. The master class covers legal relationships of physicians and patients down to legal terms, professional attitudes, and the principles and basic concepts of laws involved in providing medical services. For further information contact SECOLO. For further information contact info@secolo.co.za.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Effect of non-monetary incentives on uptake of couples\u2019 counselling and testing among clients attending mobile HIV services in rural Zimbabwe: a cluster-randomised trial ","field_subtitle":"Sibanda E; Tumushime M; Mufuka J; et al.: The Lancet Global Health 5(9), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(17)30296-6, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yag2p8vj","body":"Couples\u2019 HIV testing and counselling (CHTC) is associated with greater engagement with HIV prevention and care than individual testing and is cost-effective, but uptake remains suboptimal.  The authors aimed in this work to determine the impact of incentives for CHTC on uptake of couples testing and HIV case diagnosis in rural Zimbabwe. 68 rural communities (the clusters) in four districts receiving mobile HIV testing services were randomly assigned to incentives for CHTC or not. Allocation was not masked to participants and researchers. Randomisation was stratified by district and proximity to a health facility. Within each stratum random permutation was done to allocate clusters to the study groups. In intervention communities, residents were informed that couples who tested together could select one of three grocery items worth US$1\u00b750. Standard mobilisation for testing was done in comparison communities. The primary outcome was the proportion of individuals testing with a partner. Analysis was by intention to treat. 3 months after CHTC, couple-testers from four communities per group individually completed a telephone survey to evaluate any social harms resulting from incentives or CHTC.  The study indicated that small non-monetary incentives, which are potentially scalable, were associated with significantly increased CHTC and HIV case diagnosis. Incentives did not increase social harms beyond the few typically encountered with CHTC without incentives. The authors suggest that the intervention could help achieve UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Effectiveness of a brief behavioural intervention on psychological distress among women with a history of gender-based violence in urban Kenya: A randomised clinical trial","field_subtitle":"Bryant R; Schafer A; Dawson K;  et al.: Public Library of Science Medicine( PLOS Med) 14(8) https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002371, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yac5v4tk","body":"Gender-based violence (GBV) represents a major cause of psychological morbidity worldwide, and particularly in low- and middle-income countries). Although there are effective treatments for common mental disorders associated with GBV, they typically require lengthy treatment programs that may limit scaling up in low- and middle-income countries. This study tested the effectiveness of a new 5-session behavioural treatment called Problem Management Plus (PM+) that lay community workers can be taught to deliver. In this single-blind, parallel, randomised controlled trial, adult women who had experienced GBV were identified through community screening for psychological distress and impaired functioning in Nairobi, Kenya. Participants were randomly allocated in a 1:1 ratio either to PM+ delivered in the community by lay community health workers provided with 8 days of training or to facility-based enhanced usual care (EUC) provided by community nurses. Participants were aware of treatment allocation, but research assessors were blinded. The primary outcome was psychological distress as measured by the total score on the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) assessed at 3 months after treatment. Between 15 April 2015 and 20 August 2015, 1,393 women were screened for eligibility on the basis of psychological distress and impaired functioning. Of these, 37% screened positive, of whom 81% were women who had experienced GBV. Of these women, 209 were assigned to PM+ and 212 to EUC. Follow-up assessments were implemented. The study found that  among a community sample of women in urban Kenya with a history of GBV, a brief, lay-administered behavioural intervention, compared with EUC, resulted in moderate reductions in psychological distress at 3-month follow-up.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Environmental health policies for women\u2019s, children\u2019s and adolescents\u2019 health","field_subtitle":"Neira M; Fletcher E; Brune-Drisse M; Pfeiffer M; Adair-Rohani H; Dora C: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 95(7), 2017 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/95/8/16-171736/en/","body":"Environmental health risks especially affect women and children, because they are more vulnerable socially and because exposures to environmental contaminants create greater risks for children\u2019s developing bodies and cognitive functions. According to the 2016 World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates, modifiable environmental risk factors cause about 1.7 million deaths in children younger than five years and 12.6 million total deaths every year. The sustainable development goals (SDGs) offer opportunities for countries to create healthier environments for women, children and adolescents. This paper explores how the SDGs can be used to reduce environmental health risks and enhance the health of women, children and adolescents. In particular, the authors focus on drivers for urbanisation and sustainable development (e.g. transport, housing, urban design and energy provision) that can advance the global strategy, but have not traditionally been a focus of health policy-making. They frame the discussion around the three pillars of the global strategy: survive, thrive and transform, while recognising the inevitable overlap between these objectives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET discussion paper 109: A case study of the Essential Health Benefit in Tanzania mainland","field_subtitle":"Todd G; Nswilla A; Kisanga O; Mamdani M: Ifakara Health Institute, Tanzania, EQUINET Harare, 2017","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EHB%20Tanzania%20case%20study%20rep%20Aug2017pv.pdf","body":"An Essential Health Benefit (EHB) is a policy intervention designed to direct resources to priority areas of health service delivery to reduce disease burdens and ensure equity in health. Mainland Tanzania\u2019s most recent benefit package \u2013 the National Essential Health Care Interventions Package-Tanzania (NEHCIP-TZ) \u2013 describes the EHB as a minimum or \u201climited list of public health and clinical interventions.\u201d The package identifies where priorities are set for improved public health. This report shows the challenges of turning a policy \u2018wish list\u2019 and package into a reality of services that can be accessed across different facility levels. This report describes the evolution of mainland Tanzania\u2019s EHB; the motivations for developing the EHBs, the methods used to develop, define and cost them; how it is being disseminated, communicated, and used; and the facilitators (and barriers) to its development, uptake or use. Findings presented in this report are from three stages of analysis: literature review, key informant perspectives and a national consultative meeting. The case study on Tanzania was implemented in a research programme of the EQUINET through Ifakara Health Institute  and Training and Research Support Centre. The programme is being implemented in association with the East Central and Southern African Health Community, supported by IDRC (Canada).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion paper 110: A case study of the Uganda National Minimum Healthcare Package","field_subtitle":"Kadowa I: Ministry of Health, Uganda, EQUINET, Harare","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EHB%20Uganda%20case%20study%20repAug2017pv.pdf","body":"The Essential Health Benefit (EHB) policy interventions aim to optimize efficiency while extending coverage by increasing equity of access to the defined benefits. Uganda\u2019s EHB is referred to as the Uganda National Minimum Healthcare Package (UNMHCP) introduced in the 1999 Health Policy. The UNMHCP is composed of cost efficient interventions against diseases or conditions most prevalent in the country. This report compiles evidence from published, grey literature and key informants on the UNMHCP since its introduction in Uganda\u2019s health system, and findings were further validated during a one day national stakeholder meeting. It includes information on the motivations for developing the EHBs, the methods used to develop, define and cost them, and how it has been disseminated, used in budgeting, resourcing and purchasing health services and in monitoring health system performance for accountability. It was implemented in an EQUINET research programme through Ifakara Health Institute and Training and Research Support Centre, in association with the ECSA Health Community, supported by IDRC (Canada).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 199: To fight the next Ebola, the G20 need to empower people to respond to everyday challenges","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Fifth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR2018)","field_subtitle":"8 \u2013 12 October 2018, Liverpool, UK","field_url":"http://healthsystemsresearch.org/hsr2018/","body":"The Global Symposium on Health Systems Research is organised every two years by Health Systems Global to bring together the full range of players involved in health systems and policy research and practice. The Alma Ata vision of \u2018Health for All\u2019 remains as compelling today as it was in 1978, as reflected in goal 3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But the world has changed in forty years. Despite improved health outcomes, there remain extraordinary challenges for health equity and social inclusion, such as demographic and disease transitions, conflicts and their subsequent migrations, pluralistic health systems and markets, and climate change. Political systems still marginalise those most in need. Yet there are new opportunities for health systems to achieve universal coverage. The Fifth Global Symposium will advance conversations and collaborations on new ways of financing health; delivering services; and engaging the health workforce, new social and political alliances, and new applications of technologies to promote health for all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa (FIFAfrica) 2017","field_subtitle":"Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa: South Africa, September 2017","field_url":"https://cipesa.org/2017/09/update-forum-on-internet-freedom-in-africa-2017/","body":"The Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa convened stakeholders in end September 2017 from the internet governance and online rights arenas in Africa and beyond to deliberate on gaps, concerns and opportunities for advancing the right to privacy, access to information, free expression, non-discrimination, and the free flow of information online. The Forum gathered human rights defenders, journalists, government officials, private sector players, global information intermediaries, bloggers, developers, the arts community, law enforcers and regulators \u2013 all of whom have a role to play in advancing internet freedom in Africa. Highlights at FIFAfrica include the launch of the annual State of Internet Freedom in Africa research report, as well the commemoration of the International Day for Universal Access to Information (IDUAI), which falls on September 28. Further information, thoughts and ideas can be found at the #InternetFreedomAfrica hashtag.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global funding trends for malaria research in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic analysis","field_subtitle":"Head M: Lancet Global Health 5,  doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ S2214-109X(17)30245-0, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9fbrv6s","body":"Total domestic and international funding for malaria is inadequate to achieve WHO global targets by 2030. The authors describe the trends of investments in malaria-related research in sub-Saharan Africa and compare investment with the national disease burden to identify areas of funding strength and potentially neglected populations, including that for malaria control. Research funding data related to malaria for 1997\u20132013 were sourced from existing datasets, from 13 major public and philanthropic global health funders, and from funding databases. Investments (reported in US$) were considered by geographical area and compared with data on parasite prevalence and populations at risk in sub Saharan Africa. 45 sub-Saharan African countries were ranked by amount of research funding received. The authors found 333 research awards totalling US$814.4 million. Public health research covered $308.1 million (37.8%) and clinical trials covered $275.2 million (33.8%). Tanzania ($107.8 million [13.2%]), Uganda ($97.9 million [12.0%]), and Kenya ($92.9 million [11.4%]) received the highest sum of research investment and the most research awards. Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda remained highly ranked after adjusting for national gross domestic product. Countries with a reasonably high malaria burden that received little research investment or funding for malaria control included Central African Republic (ranked 40th) and Sierra Leone (ranked 35th). Congo (Brazzaville) and Guinea had reasonably high malaria mortality, yet received little investment. Some countries receive reasonably large investments in malaria-related research (Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda), whereas others receive little or no investments (Sierra Leone, Central African Republic). Research investments are typically highest in countries where funding for malaria control is also high. The authors suggest that investment strategies should consider more equitable research and operational investments across countries to include currently neglected and susceptible populations.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health for All, All for Health: Lessons from the universalisation of health care in emerging economies","field_subtitle":"United Nations Research Institute for Social Development:  Research and Policy Brief 22, UNRISD, Geneva, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y99bwd5w","body":"This brief summarizes key findings from the UNRISD research project Towards Universal Social Security in Emerging Economies. The project analysed the efforts of selected emerging economies to move towards universal provision of health care. The brief provides a comparative analysis of the political, economic and social drivers of, and constraints on, the extension of health care service for all and draws out the implications for poverty reduction, equity, growth and democracy. The brief identifies the following factors enabling universalisation: facilitating an empowered civil society, working together with government; political will, institutional capacity and political support for reform to create fiscal space for universal health care; democratic mechanisms to build consensus between different interest groups and maintain reform momentum; strategies to reduce resistance in and from the private sector; comprehensive and coherent national framework for health care, with mechanisms to ensure vertical coherence of policies between different levels of government; and tax- financed health care systems. An overarching finding emerges from the successful cases of the universalisation of health care observed in this UNRISD research: they all adopted integrated approaches that can promote synergies between health and non- health sectors; equally the contestation and consensus that reforms for universal health care entailed were not limited to the health sector alone. Health is interconnected with other areas of social, economic and environmental well- being, so the expansion of health care systems must happen alongside efforts to address the determinants of health that lie beyond the health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthcare is not a commodity but a public good","field_subtitle":"Vermuyten S; Public Services International (PSI): Spotlight on Sustainable Development, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y9k72zf8","body":"The author argues that social protection systems that are based on solidarity, sharing of risks, and built on collective bargaining and social dialogue, democratic structures and long-term strategies are needed to combat poverty and address inequalities and inequity. Universal social protection is essential to achieve gender equality, given a strong link between the provision of public services and the ability of women to enter the labour market, to address unpaid care work responsibilities and to ensure that children have access to health and social services. The push for the individualisation of social protection is reported to have had a major impact on the delivery of these services, including on the provision of health and social care, pensions and unemployment benefits, to which austerity programmes have added perverse effects that lead to social exclusion or risk exposure \u2013 instead of inclusion and protection. Genuine support for universal social security and healthcare could thus, he argues, make important contributions to the achievement of decent work and reduced inequality. However, the international financial institutions (IFIs) continue to promote social protection reforms that focus on targeting, which is less efficient and more costly, rather than broad coverage. Reforms promoted by the World Bank, IFC and Regional Development Banks, including marketisation, decentralisation and corporatization of the public sector, provide opportunities for multinational companies to enter the public health care sector. In addition, public health spending is coming under increasing scrutiny across the world, particularly since the 2008-2009 global financial and economic crisis. Cuts to public sector funding often penalise health workers and lead to reduced services at a time when demand for such services is increasing, as the economic crisis impacts on the wider economy. The author thus argues that the main policy tools in the orthodox approach to health sector financing risk being counter-productive. Efforts to reduce costs by increasing competition have created fragmented structures that work against the integration and coordination of healthcare. Bringing in the private sector is likely to accentuate this silo mentality in provision, in the name of commercial confidentiality and profit maximisation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"In which developing countries are patents on essential medicines being filed?","field_subtitle":"Beall R; Blanchett R; Attaran A: Globalisation and Health 13(38) 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ya733xy7","body":"This article is based upon data gathered during a study conducted in partnership with the World Intellectual Property Organisation on the patent status of products appearing on the World Health Organisation\u2019s 2013 Model List of Essential Medicines (MLEM). It is a statistical analysis aimed at answering: in which developing countries are patents on essential medicines being filed? Patent data were collected by linking those listed in the United States and Canada\u2019s medicine patent registers to corresponding patents in developing countries using two international patent databases (INPADOC and Derwent) via a commercial-grade patent search platform (Thomson Innovation). The respective supplier companies were then contacted to correct and verify their data. The authors tallied the number of MLEM patents per developing country. A subset of 20 of the 375 (5%) products on the 2013 MLEM fit the inclusion criteria. The number of MLEM patents per country was positively associated with human development index (HDI), gross domestic income (GDI) per capita, total healthcare expenditure per capita, population size, the Rule of Law Index, and average education level of the country. Population was a powerful predictor of the number of patent filings in developing countries along with GDI and healthcare expenditure. Broad surveillance and benchmarking of the global medicine patent landscape is valuable for detecting significant shifts that may occur over time. With improved international medicine patent transparency by companies and data available through third parties, the authors suggest that studies such as this will be increasingly feasible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Innovations from BRICS countries on people-centred health reforms at 70th World Health Assembly","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ydgv3arr","body":"At the 70th World Health Assembly, the \u201cBRICS countries\u201d \u2013 Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa \u2013 convened a side event sponsored by China. The aim was to share experiences and innovations on people-centred reforms as a means to making progress towards universal health coverage, The Executive Deputy Director, Office of State Council Healthcare Reform Leading Group in China, Dr Liang Wannian highlighted the importance the Chinese government has placed on providing improved primary health services, by transforming the primary service model and enhancing division and cooperation to build an integrated health service system. For Brazil, Mr Ricardo Barros, Minister of Health shared the aspiration that \u201cwhat we want is to have 80% of problems resolved in primary-level care so that people don\u2019t need to go to the hospital\u201d. He noted that \u201c(delivering) primary-level care is the great challenge that we have\u201d and that although \u201cwe have resources available for health, we don\u2019t use them very wisely, so we are trying to improve that.\u201d Dr Veronika Skvortsova, Minister of Health of the Russian Federation also highlighted the important role of designing a patient-focused system for health care based on accessibility and quality. For India, Mr Sanjeev Kumar, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare highlighted that the country had adopted a new national policy linked to universal health coverage in March 2017. Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, Minister of Health of South Africa, concluded the series of country presentations by returning the conversation to the importance of reorienting the model of care to focus on primary care. He shared South Africa\u2019s \u201cideal clinic\u201d innovation, which encourages the development of more attractive primary care clinics to draw patients away from tertiary care centres. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Legal Empowerment and Social Accountability: Complementary Strategies Toward Rights-based Development in Health?","field_subtitle":"Joshi A: World Development 99, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.07.008, 2017","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X17302425","body":"Citizen-based accountability strategies to improve the lives of the poor and marginalised groups are increasingly being used in efforts to improve basic public services. The latest thinking suggests that broader, multi-pronged, multi-level, strategic approaches that may overcome the limitations of narrow, localised successes, hold more promise. This paper examines the challenges and opportunities, in theory and practice, posed by the integration of two such citizen-based accountability strategies\u2014social accountability and legal empowerment. It traces the foundations of each of these approaches to highlight the potential benefits of integration. Consequently it examines whether these benefits have been realised in practice, by drawing upon five cases of organisations pursuing integration of social accountability and legal empowerment for health accountability in Macedonia, Guatemala, Uganda, and India. The cases highlight that while integration offers some promise in advancing the cause of social change, it also poses challenges for organisations in terms of strategies they pursue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"National health inequality monitoring: a step-by-step manual","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ycpjm8be","body":"This manual provides an accessible, practical reference to encourage and strengthen the practice of health inequality monitoring. It aims to foster regular reporting of inequalities across diverse health topics, and promote greater integration of health inequality considerations in policies, programmes and practices. It is organised according to a flow chart, showing the steps and sub-steps of the health inequality monitoring cycle, with key questions and itemised checklists of data requirements, analysis/reporting activities and/or decision points. The steps include firstly, determining the scope of monitoring, obtaining data, then analysing and reporting results before implementing changes. Relevant examples and resources, including sample table templates and recommended readings, are provided for further exploration. While the manual focuses on health at the national level, the step-by-step approach may be applied to monitor inequalities within any defined population, ranging from a community context to a multi-country context. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Non-physician clinicians in rural Africa: lessons from the Medical Licentiate programme in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Gajewski J; Mweemba C; Cheelo M; et al.: Human Resources for Health 15(53), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-017-0233-0, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yagp2tsy","body":"Most sub-Saharan African countries struggle to make safe surgery accessible to rural populations due to a shortage of qualified surgeons and the difficulty in retaining them in district hospitals. In 2002, Zambia introduced a new cadre of non-physician clinicians, medical licentiates, trained initially to the level of a higher diploma and from 2013 up to a Bachelor of Science degree. Medical licentiates have advanced clinical skills, including training in elective and emergency surgery, designed as a sustainable response to the surgical needs of rural populations. This qualitative study aimed to describe the role, contributions and challenges surgically active medical licentiates have experienced. Based on 43 interviewees, it includes the perspective of medical licentiates, their district hospital colleagues\u2014medical officers, nurses and managers; and surgeon-supervisors and national stakeholders. In Zambia, medical licentiates play a crucial role in delivering surgical services at the district level, providing emergency surgery and often increasing the range of elective surgical cases that would otherwise not be available for rural dwellers. They work hand in hand with medical officers, often giving them informal surgical training and reducing the need for hospitals to refer surgical cases. However, medical licentiates often face professional recognition problems and tensions around relationships with medical officers that impact their ability to utilise their surgical skills. The paper provides new evidence concerning the benefits of \u2018task shifting\u2019 and identifies challenges that need to be addressed if medical licentiates are to be a sustainable response to the surgical needs of rural populations in Zambia. Policy lessons for other countries in the region that also use non-physician clinicians to deliver essential surgery include the need for career paths and opportunities, professional recognition, and suitable employment options for this important cadre of healthcare professionals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Philanthropy in a Recession","field_subtitle":"Gastrow S: Daily Maverick, South Africa, August 2017 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y8dg2erv","body":"The author raises that South Africa has limited data on what grant making takes place and on the size and scope of the civil society sector, despite a a dependency on international funding and support from private philanthropic foundations. According to Nedbank Private Wealth\u2019s Giving Report III, however, only 5% of the high net worth individuals surveyed had actually established a giving trust or foundation. That meant that the balance were giving money on an ad hoc basis. The same report indicated that South African givers \u201cdemonstrated a long-term commitment to the causes they support. Nearly half had supported beneficiaries for longer than five years (and) 22% had been supporting them for their entire lives. The author suggests that in principle, philanthropy should be focusing on organisations that are involved in systemic change and government should be supporting those organisations that deal with basic human requirements. In that case, non-profits are unlikely to be greatly affected by recession. However, that does not apply in South Africa where philanthropy is being stretched to its limits by the high level of needs not being met by the state. The choice of where limited resources can go is a hard one, but it is argued that those donating funds will support those organisations that are aligned with their individual passions for specific causes and their values, combined with effective and efficient outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Portal page on resources for Participatory Action Research now live!","field_subtitle":"TARSC: EQUINET pra4equity network, 2017","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/portal-resources-participatory-action-research","body":"The new \u201cParticipatory Action Research Portal\u201d for resources on Participatory Action Research (PAR) is now live on the EQUINET website. The portal has a homepage and a series of \u2018subpages\u2019 for Training, resources - which will provide links to online training courses, whole training guides and reports of training activities; Methods, tools and ethics - which will provide links to online specific papers on PAR methods, to specific examples of tools, and to discussions/ guidelines on ethical issues; PAR work \u2013 which will provide links to stories, case studies, briefs, videos, text or photojournalism stories of PAR work, including facilitator reflections; Organisations and networks -  which will provide the name, snippet of information, country and link to organisations and networks involved PAR; Publications - which will provide published journal papers and reports on PAR through links to the urls or on the EQUINET database; and Other - which will provide ad hoc information that doesn\u2019t fit anywhere else. The portal is a resource for all those working with PAR and includes resources in any language. There is a form for people to send videos, photojournalism, organisations, journal papers, training guides and other resources for the portal. The url link shown here is in English but there is also a Spanish version at http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/portal-de-recursos-para-la-investigaci%C3%B3n-acci%C3%B3n-participativa-iap ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Practicing governance towards equity in health systems: LMIC perspectives and experience","field_subtitle":"Gilson L; Lehmann U; Schneider H: International Journal for Equity Health, 16(1):171, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yc47zmzu","body":"This introductory paper to a series suggests that rather than seeing governance as a normative health system goal addressed through the architecture and design of accountability and regulatory frameworks, it should be located in the real-world decision-making of health policy and system actors. Their multiple, routine decisions translate policy intentions into practice - and are filtered through relationships, underpinned by values and norms, influenced by organizational structures and resources, and embedded in historical and socio-political contexts. These decisions are also political acts - in that they influence who accesses benefits and whose voices are heard in decision-making, reinforcing or challenging existing institutional exclusion and power inequalities. In other words, the everyday practice of governance has direct impacts on health system equity. Analysis of governance can be viewed through diverse health policy and system issues, considers actors located at multiple levels of the system and draws on multi-disciplinary perspectives. This article introduces papers that present detailed examination of experiences in a range of African and Indian settings, led by authors who live and work in these settings, providing an empirical and embedded research perspective on governance and equity in health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Progress and priorities for reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health in Kenya: a Countdown to 2015 country case study","field_subtitle":"Keats E; Ngugi A;  Macharia W; et al.: The Lancet Global Health 5(8) , 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y9q3rwdh","body":"Progress in reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH) in Kenya has been inconsistent over the past two decades, despite the global push to foster accountability, reduce child mortality, and improve maternal health in an equitable manner.   This report provides a comprehensive assessment of RMNCH in Kenya from 1990 to 2015, using data from nationally representative Demographic Health Surveys implemented between 1989 and 2014. The authors estimated time trends for key RMNCH indicators, as defined by Countdown to 2015, at both the national and the sub-national level, explored the determinants of change in intervention coverage during the past decade and modelled the effect of intervention scale up by 2030. After an increase in mortality between 1990 and 2003, there was a reversal in all mortality trends from 2003 onwards, although progress was not substantial enough for Kenya to achieve Millennium Development Goal targets 4 or 5. Between 1990 and 2015, maternal mortality declined at half the rate of under-5 mortality, and changes in neonatal mortality were even slower. National-level trends in intervention coverage have improved, although some geographical inequities remain, especially for counties comprising the northeastern, eastern, and northern Rift Valley regions. Disaggregation of intervention coverage by wealth quintile also revealed wide inequities for several health service interventions, such as skilled birth assistance.  Maternal literacy and family size were found to be important drivers of positive change in key interventions across the continuum of care.  The analysis highlighted the importance of quality of care around birth for maternal and newborn survival, and for targeting poor households and least educated and rural women, through the scale-up of community-level interventions, to improve equity and accelerate progress.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Seven key messages from the World Health Organisation meeting on Global Strategic Purchasing","field_subtitle":"Barasa E: Resilient & Responsive Health Systems (RESYST), London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, June 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7veok5q","body":"The purchasing function of health financing is gaining increasing attention and traction in global health systems and universal health coverage (UHC) debates, which have, in the past, focused predominantly on revenue collection and pooling. A recent workshop convened by the World Health Organisation on strategic purchasing. In the blog, the author summarises seven key messages from the workshop that are likely to feature in future discussions on strategic purchasing. Purchasing refers to the process by which funds are allocated to healthcare providers to obtain services on behalf of identified groups. Strategic purchasing is a continuous search for the best ways to maximise health system performance, by deciding which interventions should be purchased, how, and from whom. It is typically considered from the point of view of the purchaser. However, by looking at it from the perspective of healthcare facilities, a complex picture of multiple purchasers and funding flows emerges. A key responsibility of healthcare purchasers is in deciding what to include in the benefit package for health. However, decisions about priority setting are often neglected in this process. The governance boards of many purchasing organisations, such as social health insurers, include representatives from the government, employers (e.g. an umbrella employer association) and employees (labour unions). However, in most low and middle income countries, a significant proportion of the population work in the informal sector. They do not belong to the labour unions, and do not have formal employers to represent them on such boards. A further governance issue is the perennial problem regarding oversight of purchasers that are separate entities from the Ministry of  health, such as social health insurers. Strategic purchasing cannot occur in the absence of good quality data. Often information systems are fragmented, presenting a partial view of the system. While it was appreciated that Results Based Financing (RBF) can contribute to strategic purchasing and act as a catalyst for health system reform,  there is a need to ensure that RBF mechanisms are embedded and integrated within the wider health system. Strategic purchasing is argued to be not just a technical issue, but also a political issue. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"SolidarMed: Child Health Project Manager Ancuabe, Mo\u00e7ambique","field_subtitle":"Closing date:  Thursday, 5 October, 2017","field_url":"http://www.ngopulse.org/opportunity/2017/09/11/child-health-project-manager-ancuabe-mo%C3%A7ambique","body":"SolidarMed is a leading non-profit organization working to improve the health of people in rural Sub Saharan Africa. Working together with national partners to strengthen health systems and community capacities, it is committed to scientific evidence and policy dialogue. They are offering an position for an experienced Project Manager as Child Health Project Manager Ancuabe, Mo\u00e7ambique in the Mo\u00e7ambique team. For this key position, they are looking for a well-grounded and experienced professional with strong interpersonal and management skills and an academic background in medical sciences and/or public health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Supporting and retaining Village Health Teams: an assessment of a community health worker program in two Ugandan districts","field_subtitle":"Mays D; O\u2019Neil E; Mworozi E; Lough B; et al.: International Journal for Equity in Health 16(129), doi:10.1186/s12939-017-0619-6, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ydhxl9qp","body":"Uganda\u2019s national community health worker program involves volunteer Village Health Teams (VHTs) delivering basic health services and education. Evidence demonstrates their positive impact on health outcomes, particularly for Ugandans who would otherwise lack access to health services. Despite their impact, VHTs are not optimally supported and attrition is a growing problem. In this study, the authors examined the support needs and existing challenges of VHTs in two Ugandan districts and evaluated specific factors associated with long-term retention. The authors reported on findings from a standardised survey of VHTs and exploratory interviews with key stakeholders and draw conclusions that inform efforts to strengthen and sustain community health care delivery in Uganda. A mixed-methods approach was employed through a survey of 134 individual VHT members and semi-structured interviews with six key stakeholders. Descriptive and bivariate regression analysis of quantitative survey data was performed along with thematic analysis of qualitative data from surveys and interviews. In the regression analysis, the dependent variable is 10-year anticipated longevity among VHTs, which asked respondents if they anticipate continuing to volunteer as VHTs for at least 10 more years if their current situation remains unchanged. VHTs desire additional support primarily in the forms of money (for example transportation allowance) and material supplies (for example rubber boots). VHTs commonly report difficult working conditions and describe a lack of respect from their communities and other health workers. If their current situation remains unchanged, 57% of VHTs anticipate remaining in their posts for at least 10 years. Anticipated 10-year longevity was positively associated with stronger partnerships with local health centre staff and greater ease in home visiting. The authors note that supporting and retaining Uganda\u2019s VHTs would be enhanced by building stronger partnerships between VHTs and other health workers and regularly providing supplies and transportation allowances. Pursuing such measures would likely improve equity in access to healthcare for all Ugandans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Systems science for universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"Evans T; Kieny M: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 95(7) 2017 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/95/7/17-192542/en/","body":"It is 20 years since an international consultation in Lejondal, Sweden, highlighted the need for more and better research \u201cto understand and improve how societies organize themselves in achieving collective health goals, and how different actors interact in the policy and implementation processes to contribute to policy outcomes.\u201d One outcome was the creation of the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research. There have since been several important milestones on the path towards more and better health systems research. Such encouraging developments need to be carefully balanced against areas where progress has not met expectations. The development of national capacity for financing and institutional leadership of health policy and systems research has been slow. The authors ask: how can health policy and systems research seize this favourable context and contribute more effectively to universal health coverage, greater health security, improved value in health and effective engagement of citizens? First, they propose that there is a need a comprehensive review of the progress that has been made and the progress that might be anticipated in the future. Second, there is a need to accelerate the development of capacity and opportunity for health policy and systems research in low- and middle-income countries. Lastly, they suggest that there is a need for a revitalised approach to stewardship that reflects the pluralistic reality of contemporary health systems and prioritises health policy and systems research across all countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of a supportive supervision intervention on health workers in Niassa, Mozambique: a cluster-controlled trial","field_subtitle":"Madede T; Sidat M; McAuliffe E; et al.: Human Resources for Health 15(58), doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-017-0213-4; 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ybhesnqo","body":"Studies have shown the  contribution that supportive supervision can make to improving job satisfaction amongst over-stretched health workers in in resource-constrained settings. The Support, Train and Empower Managers study designed and implemented a supportive supervision intervention and measured its\u2019 impact on health workers using a controlled trial design with a three-arm pre- and post-study in Niassa Province in Mozambique. Post-intervention interviews with a small sample of health workers were also conducted. The quantitative measurements of job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion and work engagement showed no statistically significant differences between end-line and baseline. The qualitative data collected from health workers post the intervention showed many positive impacts on health workers not captured by this quantitative survey. Health workers perceived an improvement in their performance and attributed this to the supportive supervision they had received from their supervisors following the intervention. Reports of increased motivation were also common. An unexpected, yet important consequence of the intervention, which participants directly attributed to the supervision intervention, was the increase in participation and voice amongst health workers in intervention facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Role and Status of National Research and Education Networks in Africa","field_subtitle":"Foley M: World Bank Group, SABER-ICT Technical Paper Series, 2016","field_url":"https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/26258","body":"This report aims to provide guidance to governments, institutions, and development partners on how to approach the provision of advanced information and communication technology (ICT) services to the higher education and research community in Africa. It coincides with a transformation in the telecom infrastructure and services on the continent as fibre optic connectivity, both undersea and on land, is expanding at a rapid pace. The report suggests that the organisation of ICT services and connectivity is best provided by a dedicated organisation called the National Research and Education Network (NREN) based on international best practice and the current plans of the stakeholders in the region. The nature of NRENs and the case for their establishment is outlined and the story of their development in Africa to their current status is described. The report also provides guidance on how to establish or strengthen an NREN, with recommendations to the government, the private sector, institutions, development partners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Threats posed by stockpiles of expired pharmaceuticals in low- and middle-income countries: a Ugandan perspective","field_subtitle":"Kamba P; Ireeta M; Balikuna S; Kaggwa B: Bulletin World Health Organisation; 95(8)594\u2013598, 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/95/8/16-186650.pdf?ua=1","body":"In some low- and middle-income countries, the national stores and public-sector health facilities contain large stocks of pharmaceuticals that are past their expiry dates. In low-income countries like Uganda, many such stockpiles are the result of donations. If not adequately monitored or regulated, expired pharmaceuticals may be repackaged and sold as counterfeits or be dumped without any thought of the potential environmental damage. The rates of pharmaceutical expiry in the supply chain need to be reduced and the disposal of expired pharmaceuticals needs to be made both timely and safe. Many low- and middle-income countries need to: strengthen public systems for medicines\u2019 management, to improve inventory control and the reliability of procurement forecasts; reduce stress on central medical stores, through liberalisation and reimbursement schemes; strengthen the regulation of drug donations; explore the salvage of officially expired pharmaceuticals, through re-analysis and possible shelf-life extension; strengthen the enforcement of regulations on safe drug disposal; invest in an infrastructure for such disposal, perhaps based on ultra-high-temperature incinerators; and include user accountability for expired pharmaceuticals within the routine accountability regimes followed by the public health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"To fight the next Ebola, the G20 need to empower people to respond to everyday challenges","field_subtitle":"Lucy Gilson, Resilient & Responsive Health Systems (RESYST), London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine","field_url":"","body":"\r\nAs global leaders prepared for the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, they prioritised efforts to build functioning health systems \u201cas a prerequisite for safeguarding disease outbreaks.\u201d This is vital as the world prepares for the next Ebola-like emergency, but the organizational stress that comes with these shifts in priorities also requires attention if those efforts are going to succeed. Any attempt to strengthen health systems must take seriously well-recognized stressors such as increasing workloads, changing health needs, resource challenges, and less-often identified but routine challenges. Critical amongst these are the stresses posed by managing people and relationships in the uncertain contexts that are the norm for health systems.\r\n\r\nIntroducing new and revised policies is a major part of this chronic stress, even with the best intentions. The constant, and sometimes unconsidered, imposition of new initiatives and ideas on national health systems places great pressure on those working at the front lines of health care delivery and community engagement. Policy changes may include new treatment guidelines and protocols or quality assurance processes, as well as revised human resource and financial management rules, guidance on management structures such as community committees or new planning processes. New policies are often implemented in a top down manner through the hierarchy of public sector bureaucracy. Often, they are implemented without preparation or adequate information sharing. In addition, new policies frequently come hand in hand with rigid accountability mechanisms \u2014 such as those linked to results and performance-based financing or to targets set for health programs, or to finance-linked audit processes that are part and parcel of \u201cgood governance\u201d strategies.\r\n\r\nThese types of accountability mechanisms contribute to creating a \u201ccompliance culture\" that undermines the managerial flexibility needed to problem-solve and deal with chronic stress or acute challenges. All generally come with yet another new reporting requirement. In fact, the amount of reporting done by frontline health workers in countries such as Kenya and South Africa is simply astounding. As a result, health workers battle to cope with changing demands from managers and communities, whilst remaining poorly supported and resourced.\r\n\r\nSo, what do global leaders need to do to nurture everyday resilience in the face of chronic stress \u2014 and so also strengthen health systems?\r\n\r\nFirst, they need to understand that the \"personal\" is absolutely integral to a functioning and responsive health system. Without emphasis and acknowledgment of this, efforts to strengthen health systems will be futile. Managing human relations is identified by public health system managers in Kenya and South Africa, including primary care clinics, as a constant challenge in their jobs, and one for which they rarely have adequate training, acknowledgment and resources. Constant policy change can undermine relationships, and is part of the wider organizational change commonly experienced by health systems. From the radical devolution of public management in Kenya in 2013, to the continuing processes of change experienced in South Africa since 1994, organizational change creates an unstable environment that makes managing other challenges \u2014 of people and resources \u2014 even more difficult.\r\n\r\nSecond, and most critically, global leaders must pay attention to how they engage with health systems. They should exercise their power much more cautiously than currently and in ways that empower others to lead and take action. They need to support national and local organizational capacity to problem-solve, motivate, and learn. The \u201cThinking and Working Politically\u201d and \u201cDoing Development Differently\u201d networks call wholeheartedly for global leaders to take heed, by refraining from imposing rigid blueprint approaches and paying \u201cfar more attention to issues of power, politics and local context.\u201d Ultimately, strong health systems depend on communities, health workers, managers, researchers and other local stakeholders being empowered to respond to the inevitable, future waves of change we all face. At Health Systems Global, our members represent these multiple groups.\r\n\r\nStrengthening everyday resilience demands that we all \u2014 governments, donors, researchers, communities, health professionals \u2014 work with the resources that health systems already have \u2014 their people and relationships. This must be done as we take wider action to confront inequality at all levels. If we do not do that, then efforts to safeguard disease outbreaks will be meaningless.\r\n\r\nThis oped was originally produced as a blog for the G20 summit in July 2017 and was published on the Devex website and the Resilient & Responsive Health Systems (RESYST) website. For further information on this research programme visit http://resyst.lshtm.ac.uk/. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda\u2019s refugee hospitality is exemplary","field_subtitle":"Woldemariam Y: Pambazuka News, July 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yc6gcud6","body":"Instead of being locked in crowded camps surrounded by barbed wire, the 1.2 million refugees in Uganda are given large plots of land in sprawling settlements to build homes or, if they like, small farms. If agrarian life isn\u2019t for them, they can move freely around the country, traveling to towns or to the bustling capital of Kampala, which 95,000 refugees call their home. The distinguished scholar and humanitarian activist Noam Chomsky characterizes European attitudes towards refugees \u201c[as] among the signs of the severe moral-cultural crisis of the West that is mislabeled a \u2018refugee crisis.\u2019\u201d The five wealthiest countries [the U.S., China, Japan, the U.K. and Germany]\u2014 which make up half the global economy \u2014 are hosting less than 5 percent of the world\u2019s refugees, while 86 percent of refugees are in poorer developing countries that are often struggling to meet the needs of their own people.  The authors argues that Uganda points the way forward and that the country is a good model for compassionate hospitality towards refugees. It is however noted that the country is reaching a breaking point due to increasing demands for accommodation of the large numbers of refugees. What was promised for Uganda from external funders at the 2016 high level summit in New York has not been forthcoming. Supporting viable resettlement programs and working towards durable solutions is argued to be the only way to resolve the crisis. This involves using leverage to promote human rights and good governance in refugee producing countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Variation in quality of primary-care services in Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Kruk ME; Chukwuma A;  Mbaruku G;  Leslie H: Bull World Health Organ 95:408\u2013418, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y79rew24","body":"This study analysed factors affecting variations in the observed quality of antenatal and sick-child care in primary-care facilities in seven African countries. The authors pooled nationally representative data from service provision assessment surveys of health facilities in Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania (survey year range: 2006-2014). Based on World Health Organisation protocols, the authors created indices of process quality for antenatal care (first visits) and for sick-child visits. They assessed national, facility, provider and patient factors that might explain variations in quality of care, using separate multilevel regression models of quality for each service. Data were available for 2594 and 11 402 observations of clinical consultations for antenatal care and sick children, respectively. Overall, health-care providers performed a mean of 62.2% of eight recommended antenatal care actions and 54.5% of nine sick-child care actions at observed visits. Quality of antenatal care was higher in better-staffed and -equipped facilities and lower for physicians and clinical officers than nurses. Experienced providers and those in better-managed facilities provided higher quality sick-child care, with no differences between physicians and nurses or between better- and less-equipped clinics. Private facilities outperformed public facilities. Country differences were more influential in explaining variance in quality than all other factors combined. The quality of two essential primary-care services for women and children was weak and varied across and within the countries. Analysis of reasons for variations in quality could identify strategies for improving care","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO estimates cost of reaching global health targets by 2030","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2017/cost-health-targets/en/","body":"The SDG Health Price Tag estimates the costs and benefits of progressively expanding health services in order to reach 16 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) health targets in 67 low- and middle-income countries that account for 75% of the world\u2019s population. The analysis shows that investments to expand services towards universal health coverage and the other SDG health targets could prevent 97 million premature deaths globally between now and 2030, and add as much as 8.4 years of life expectancy in some countries. While most countries can afford the investments needed, the poorest nations will need assistance to reach the targets. The SDG Health Price Tag models two scenarios: an \u201cambitious\u201d scenario in which investments are sufficient for countries to attain the health targets in the SDGs by 2030, and a \u201cprogress\u201d scenario in which countries get two thirds or more of the way to the targets. These investments would boost health spending as a proportion of gross domestic product across all 67 countries from an average of 5.6% to 7.5%. The global average for health spending as a proportion of GDP is 9.9%. Although higher spending does not necessarily translate to improved health, making the right investments at the right time can. The SDG Health Price Tag does not prescribe what countries should spend on health, but is intended as a tool to inform further research. It also highlights that achieving universal health coverage and the other health targets requires not only funding but political will and respect for human rights. WHO plans to update the estimates every five years and will include other health-related targets and diseases as more evidence becomes available.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"2017 CODESRIA Social Policy in Africa Conference","field_subtitle":"20 - 22 November 2017, Tshwane, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2747","body":"The DST/NRF SARChI Chair in Social Policy and its partners invite abstracts of papers to be presented at the 2017 Social Policy in Africa Conference. The conference will take place from 20-22 November 2017 at the University of South Africa (Pretoria, South Africa). The organisers invite abstracts and papers that offer critical reflections on (a) Africa\u2019s experience with social policy since Africa\u2019s decade of independence in the 1960s, (b) contemporary experiences of social policy, and (c) prospective inquiries into social policy for addressing Africa\u2019s diverse challenges of developmental and human wellbeing. The conference seeks to theorise Africa\u2019s social policy experiences (formal and non-formal) in rethinking social policy to return to a wider vision of social policy and a more holistic development that reinforces the complementarity of economic and social policies. the conference calls for reflections on how the multiple tasks of social policy can be activated to enhance the quality of lives for the rural population. How can land and agrarian reforms be understood from a social policy perspective? ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A global database of abortion laws, policies, health standards and guidelines","field_subtitle":"Johnson B; Mishra V; Lavelanet A; Khosla R; Ganatra B: World Health Organisation, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.17.197442, 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/95/7/17-197442/en/","body":"In June 2017 the United Nations Development Programme in collaboration with other United Nations agencies launched a new, open-access Global Abortion Policies Database. The online database contains comprehensive information on the abortion laws, policies, health standards and guidelines for WHO and United Nations (UN) Member States. It is intended for use by policy-makers, human rights bodies, nongovernmental organisations, public health researchers and civil society. The database is designed to further strengthen global and national efforts to eliminate unsafe abortion by facilitating comparative and country-specific analyses of abortion laws and policies, placing them in the context of information and recommendations from WHO technical and policy guidance on safe abortion. The main objectives of the database are to promote greater transparency of abortion laws and policies and state accountability for the protection of women and girls\u2019 health and human rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A paradigm shift for socioeconomic justice and health: from focusing on inequalities to aiming at sustainable equity","field_subtitle":"Garay J; Chiriboga D: Public Health 149, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2017.04.015, 2017","field_url":"http://www.publichealthjrnl.com/article/S0033-3506(17)30161-0/fulltext","body":"This study measured the \u2018best possible health for all\u2019, incorporating sustainability, to establish the magnitude of global health inequity. The authors identified countries with three criteria: firstly, a healthy population\u2014life expectancy above world average; secondly, living conditions feasible to replicate worldwide\u2014per-capita gross domestic product (GDP-pc) below the world average; and thirdly, sustainability\u2014per-capita carbon dioxide emissions lower than the planetary pollution boundary. Using these healthy, feasible, and sustainable (HFS) countries as the gold standard, the authors estimated the burden of global health inequity (BGHiE) in terms of excess deaths, analysing time-trends (1950\u20132012) by age, sex, and geographic location. Finally, the authors defined a global income \u2018equity zone\u2019 and quantified the economic gap needed to achieve global sustainable health equity. A total of 14 countries worldwide met the HFS criteria. Since 1970, there has been a BGHiE of about 17 million avoidable deaths per year (about 40% of all deaths), with 36 life-years-lost per excess death. Young children and women bore a higher BGHiE, and, in recent years, the highest proportion of avoidable deaths occurred in Africa, India, and the Russian Federation. By 2012, the most efficient HFS countries had a GDP-per capita/ year of US$2165, which the authors proposed as the lower equity zone threshold. The estimated US$2.58 trillion economic gap represents 3.6% of the world's GDP\u2014twenty times larger than current total global foreign aid. Sustainable health equity metrics provide a benchmark tool to guide efforts toward transforming overall living conditions, as a means to achieve the \u2018best possible health for all.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"African peasants highlight their struggles at Via Campesina global conference","field_subtitle":"Monjane B: Pambuzuka News, July 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y7mvgtfn","body":"Peasants across Africa are intensifying their struggles against land grabs and other harmful policies that promote industrial agriculture. At a recent international conference organised by the world\u2019s largest peasants movement, Via Campesina, African peasants had opportunities to share their experiences of struggle and to learn. This conference happens at a time when Africa is undergoing a harsh moment, as indicated by Ibrahima Coulibaly from the National Coordination of Peasant Organizations (CNOP) in Mali. They note that land, mineral resources, seeds and water are increasingly being privatised due to the myriad of investment agreements and policies driven by new institutional approaches, imposed on the continent by western powers and Bretton Woods institutions. Elizabeth Mpofu, from the Zimbabwe Smallholder Farmers Forum, is a small-scale farmer who had access to land after she took part in the radical land occupation that resulted in the fast-track land reform in the early 2000s. According to her, building alternatives is to take direct action. Domingos Buramo, from the Mozambique Peasants Union (UNAC), brought to the conference the experience of the Mozambican peasants and other civil society organisations against land grabbing and large-scale investment projects in Mozambique. He mentioned that the resistance to ProSavana, a large-scale agricultural project proposed for Mozambique, is an example of how transformative articulated struggles could be. \u201cNow the government is changing its vision as a result of our work. We can change our societies\u201d, he said. Africa - including the Maghreb region - was the last continent to be part of Via Campesina. Since 2004 the number of African peasant movements joining La Via Campesina has been increasing. African movements consider their membership to the peasant movement as a strategic process of amplifying their struggles and reinforcing internationalism.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Charter of the North African Network for Food Sovereignty","field_subtitle":"North African Network for Food Sovereignty: Pambazuka News, July 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yc7nd7na","body":"Activists from organisations in North Africa met in Tunis in July 2017 to set up the North African Network for Food Sovereignty. The network\u2019s charter states that food sovereignty is the human right of peoples as individuals and communities to define their own food systems. Food sovereignty is tied to the right of people to self-determination at the political, economic, social, cultural and environmental levels. It means, working with nature and protecting resources to produce sufficient, healthy and culturally appropriate food by giving priority to local production and staple food, putting in place popular agrarian reforms, guaranteeing free access to seeds, protecting national produce and by involving people in elaborating agricultural policies. The charter identifies that this is undermined by  extractivist policies implemented in the name of development and by neoliberal adjustment policies. In order to address this the North African Food Sovereignty Network was formed to achieve food sovereignty, climate and environmental justice, through critical studies; campaigns, workshops, direct actions as well as networking, coordination and solidarity with movements that share objectives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Effect of eliminating CD4-count thresholds on HIV treatment initiation in South Africa: An empirical modelling study","field_subtitle":"Bor J; Ahmed S; Fox M; Rosen S; Meyer-Rath G; Katz I; Tanser F; Pillay D; B\u00e4rnighausen T: PLOS One, doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0178249, 2017","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178249","body":"The World Health Organisation recommends initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART) regardless of CD4 count. The authors assessed the effect of ART eligibility on treatment uptake and simulated the impact of WHO\u2019s recommendations in South Africa, through an empirical analysis of cohort data using a regression discontinuity design, used for policy simulation. They enrolled all patients (n = 19,279) diagnosed with HIV between August 2011 and December 2013 in the Hlabisa HIV Treatment and Care Programme in rural South Africa. Patients were ART-eligible with CD4","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Engaging Parliament to clarify the legal and policy frame work of Abortion in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Juuko D: Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD), Uganda, June 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ydxs5om3","body":"CEHURD within the Coalition to Stop Maternal Mortality Due to Unsafe Abortion (CSMMUA) held a meeting in June 2017 with Uganda Women\u2019s Parliamentary Association (UWOPA) to clarify on the legal and policy framework on sexual and reproductive health and to discuss evidence based approaches to address unsafe abortion even where the law is restrictive. In Uganda, unsafe abortion is one of the leading causes of maternal morbidity and mortality, contributing to approximately 26% of the estimated 6,000 maternal deaths every year and an estimated 40% of admissions for emergency obstetric care. The meeting was motivated by a conviction that as policy makers, Members of Parliament (MPs) have a role to play in law reform on sexual and reproductive health issues and to interact with communities in their various constituencies. The meeting paved a way for an open discussion on unsafe abortions as a public health issue and the different stakeholders\u2019 and policy makers' roles in reducing abortion related deaths in Uganda. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET in the 13th annual Southern African Civil Society Forum ","field_subtitle":"Johannesburg, August 14-16 2017","field_url":"","body":"The  13th Southern African Civil Society Forum was held from  14-17 August 2017 at  Birchwood Hotel and Conference Centre Johannesburg, organised by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Council of Non government organisations (CNGO), Southern African Trade Union  Co-ordinating Council (SATUCC) and   Federation of Churches in Southern Africa (FOCISA). It involved about 300 delegates from different constituencies and civil society organisations across the SADC region.  A commission session was convened by EQUINET and SATUCC within the 13th Southern African Civil Society Forum to share information on the findings and proposals for harmonised regional standards on health in the extractive sector. The session objectives were to discuss the key issues and formulate concrete strategies for responding to the regional context and priority challenges for protection of health in the extractive sector in the region and to make proposals for harmonised regional standards to protect health in the sector.  Delegates recommended that  health be included in the SADC harmonised standards for the mining sector, with a comprehensive focus on public health and environment, with details of what this means and actions proposed at national, regional and local level. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 198: Take health systems out of the market place to build their resilience ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing transformative health systems towards achievement of the health Sustainable Development Goals: a model for projected resource needs in 67 low-income and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Stenberg L; Hanssen O; Edejer T; et al.: The Lancet Global Health, Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ S2214-109X(17)30263-2, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yaeld9k8","body":"The ambitious development agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires substantial investments across several sectors, including for SDG 3 (healthy lives and wellbeing). No estimates of the additional resources needed to strengthen comprehensive health service delivery towards the attainment of SDG 3 and universal health coverage in low-income and middle-income countries have been published. The authors developed a framework for health systems strengthening, within which population-level and individual-level health service coverage is gradually scaled up over time and calculated projections for 67 low-income and middle-income countries from 2016 to 2030. The authors estimated that an additional $274 billion spending on health is needed per year by 2030 to make progress towards the SDG 3 targets (progress scenario), whereas US$371 billion would be needed to reach health system targets in the ambitious scenario\u2014the equivalent of an additional $41 or $58 per person, respectively, by the final years of scale-up. In the ambitious scenario, total health-care spending would increase to a population-weighted mean of $271 per person across country contexts, and the share of gross domestic product spent on health would increase to a mean of 7.5%. Around 75% of costs are for health systems, with health workforce and infrastructure (including medical equipment) as the main cost drivers. Despite projected increases in health spending, a financing gap of $20\u201354 billion per year is projected. Should funds be made available and used as planned, the ambitious scenario would save 97 million lives and significantly increase life expectancy by 3\u00b71\u20138\u00b74 years, depending on the country profile. All countries will need to strengthen investments in health systems to expand service provision in order to reach SDG 3 health targets, but even the poorest can reach some level of universality. In view of anticipated resource constraints, each country will need to prioritise equitably, plan strategically, and cost realistically its own path towards SDG 3 and universal health coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Harmonising community-based health worker programs for HIV: a narrative review and analytic framework","field_subtitle":"De Neve JW; Boudreaux C; Gill R;  Geldsetzer P; Vaikath M; B\u00e4rnighausen T; Bossert T: Human Resources for Health 15 (45), doi:10.1186/s12960-017-0219-y, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ych6olrk","body":"Many countries have created community-based health worker (CHW) programs for HIV, often through national and non-governmental initiatives, raising questions of how well these different approaches co-ordinate. The authors conducted a literature review on the harmonisation of CHW programs, defining harmonisation, and identifying and describing the major issues and relationships surrounding the harmonisation of CHW programs, including key characteristics, facilitators, and barriers for each of the priority areas of harmonisation. The authors found a large number and immense diversity of CHW programs for HIV. This includes integration of HIV components into countries\u2019 existing national programs along with the development of multiple, stand-alone CHW programs. While harmonisation is likely a complex political process, with in many cases incremental steps toward improvement, a wide range of facilitators are available to decision-makers. They can be categorised into those involved in the intervention itself, in relation to stakeholders, health systems, and the broad context. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"How access to knowledge can help universal health coverage become a reality","field_subtitle":"Bruijns S: The Conversation, 29 June 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y8cnbmtm","body":"The WHO Director General Dr Ghebreyesus has set universal health coverage (UHC) as one of the main priorities for his term. His goal is a challenging one, especially for low and middle income countries which make up around 84% of the world\u2019s population. They only have access to half the physicians and a quarter of the nurses that high income countries have access to. Similarly low and middle income countries only spend around US $266 per capita on health care. In contrast, high income countries spend US $5 251 per capita. This means that attaining universal health coverage in poorer settings is challenging. Large cuts to foreign aid investment from a number of high income economies only compound this challenge.  Low and middle income countries also invest around a third of what high income countries invest in research to generate the knowledge needed for UHC. They also have access to around a fifth of the researchers high income countries have access to.  Much of the knowledge required to establish the universal health coverage already exists but poor access presents a major barrier to achieving the goal. To unlock this knowledge for everyone\u2019s benefit, the author proposes that policymakers and publishers consider more innovative ways to provide access to available knowledge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"ICASA 2017: 19th International Conference on AIDS and STDs in Africa","field_subtitle":"4-9 December 2017, Abidjan, C\u00f4te d'Ivoire","field_url":"http://icasa2017cotedivoire.org","body":"The conference theme \u201cAfrica: Ending AIDS-delivering differently\u201d engages the whole continent and all stakeholders in the post SDG framework. The 19th ICASA is an opportunity to renew this global commitment by drawing the world\u2019s attention to the fact that the legacy is now under threat as a result of the global economic downturn. This year\u2019s ICASA is an opportunity for the international community, and all Africans, to join efforts in committing to achieving an AIDS-free Africa. Given the urgency of the issue the organisers are anticipating 7 000 -10 000 of the world\u2019s leading scientists, policy makers, activists, PLHIV, government leaders \u2013 as well as a number of heads of state and civil society representatives \u2013 will be joining the debate on how to achieve this vision. The conference will be chaired by Dr Ihab AbdelRhaman Ahmed, an epidemiologist and President of the Society for AIDS in Africa (SAA). It will be co-chaired by Dr. Raymonde Coffie Goudou, Ministry of Health representing the Government of C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire. The conference will be an opportunity to promote inter-sectoral achievements in the AIDS response and to strengthen the partnership among governments, civil society, and development partners. The objectives of ICASA include promoting innovation, partnerships to increase domestic investments to achieve 90/90/90 targets, integrating approaches for sustainable Responses towards ending AIDS, TB, Hepatitis and associated diseases and translating science into action to maximise programme impact. Further objectives include providing a platform to Maintain and Sustain Investment for CSO and FBO\u2019s, providing a platform to promote rights-based models to overcome structural and policy barriers towards universal access.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementation research to improve quality of maternal and newborn health care, Malawi","field_subtitle":"Brenner S; Wilhelm D; Lohmann J; Kambala C; Chinkhumba J; Muula A; Allegri M: Bulletin of World Health Organisation 95(7), 491\u2013502, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y86o42zy","body":"This study evaluated the impact of a performance-based financing scheme on maternal and neonatal health service quality in Malawi. The authors conducted a non-randomised controlled before and after study to evaluate the effects of district- and facility-level performance incentives for health workers and management teams. The authors assessed changes in the facilities\u2019 essential drug stocks, equipment maintenance and clinical obstetric care processes. The authors observed 33 health facilities, 23 intervention facilities and 10 control facilities and 401 pregnant women across four districts. The scheme improved the availability of both functional equipment and essential drug stocks in the intervention facilities. The authors observed positive effects in respect to drug procurement and clinical care activities at non-intervention facilities, likely in response to improved district management performance. Birth assistants\u2019 adherence to clinical protocols improved across all studied facilities as district health managers supervised and coached clinical staff more actively. Despite nation-wide stock-outs and extreme health worker shortages, facilities in the study districts managed to improve maternal and neonatal health service quality by overcoming bottlenecks related to supply procurement, equipment maintenance and clinical performance. To strengthen and reform health management structures, performance-based financing may be a promising approach to sustainable improvements in quality of health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving primary health care facility performance in Ghana: efficiency analysis and fiscal space implications ","field_subtitle":"Novignon J; Nonvignon J: Biological Medical Central Health Services Research 17(1) 399, doi: 10.1186/s12913-017-2347-4, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybyasxtg","body":"This study estimated efficiency among primary health facilities (health centres), examined the potential fiscal space from improved efficiency and  investigated the efficiency disparities in public and private facilities. Data was from the 2015 Access Bottlenecks, Cost and Equity project conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. The Stochastic Frontier Analysis was used to estimate efficiency of health facilities. Efficiency scores were then used to compute potential savings from improved efficiency. Outpatient visits was used as output while number of personnel, hospital beds, expenditure on other capital items and administration were used as inputs. Disparities in efficiency between public and private facilities were estimated using the Nopo matching decomposition procedure. The average efficiency score across all health centres included in the sample was estimated to be 0.51, about 0.65 and 0.50 for private and public facilities, respectively. Significant disparities in efficiency were identified across the various administrative regions. With regards to potential fiscal space, the authors found that, on average, facilities could save about US$7634 if efficiency was improved. The authors also found that fiscal space from efficiency gains varies across rural/urban as well as private/public facilities, if best practices are followed. They argue for primary health facility managers to improve productivity via effective and efficient resource use, through training of health workers and improving the facility environment alongside effective monitoring and evaluation exercises. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Lawyers for Human Rights: National Director, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Application closing date: 1 October 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ya9n8feg","body":"With six offices spread around the country, Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) has a national footprint and offers specialist public interest legal services in key programme areas such as refugee and migrant rights, land reform, housing, environmental justice, penal reform, gender equality, worker rights and strategic litigation. LHR is seeking to appoint a National Director to lead the organisation with various human rights programmes and law clinics around the country. The candidate will be required to provide strategic thinking, positioning and management of LHR and manage the organisations programmes and law clinics effectively. The candidate will represent the organisation and advocate with government, multilateral organisation, the United Nations and other relevant institutions, and coordinate closely with programs managers on fundraising. The candidate will need to identify and build strategic partnerships and networks and foster meaningful relationships and have a close and interactive relationship with the LHR Board on developmental issues and be accountable to the Board. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Lifestyle and income-related inequality in health in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Mukong A; Van Walbeek C; Ross H: International Journal for Equity in Health 16(103), doi: 10.1186/s12939-017-0598-7, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7yrx69d","body":"Many low - and middle-income countries are experiencing an epidemiological transition from communicable to non-communicable diseases, imposing both economic and health burdens on their societies. While the prevalence of such diseases varies with socioeconomic status, the inequalities can be exacerbated by lifestyles. This paper explored the contribution of smoking and alcohol consumption to health inequalities, incorporating measures of health directly associated with these lifestyle practices from National Income Dynamic Study panel data for South Africa. The authors found significant smoking-related and income-related inequalities in both self-reported and lifestyle-related ill-health. The results suggest that smoking and alcohol use contribute positively to income-related inequality in health. Smoking participation accounts for up to 7.35% of all measured inequality in health and 3.11% of the inequality in self-reported health. The estimates are generally higher for all measured inequality in health (up to 14.67%) when smoking duration is considered. Alcohol consumption accounts for 27.83% of all measured inequality in health and 3.63% of the inequality in self-reported health. This study provides evidence that inequalities in both self-reported and lifestyle-related ill-health are highly prevalent within smokers and poor people. The authors suggest that policies aimed at reducing tobacco consumption and harmful alcohol will improve health and reduce health inequalities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Magufuli: Barrick ready to pay what it owes Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mtulya A: The Citizens, 14 June 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yctn4wcv","body":"President of the United Republic of Tanzania, John Magufuli has met with Prof John Thornton, Chairman of Barrick Gold Canada, parent company of Acacia Mining to discuss the issue of mineral sand exportation in Tanzania. The new development came after Dr Magufuli received two reports on the exportation of mineral concentrates abroad for smelting. The first committee probed at the technical aspects of the concentrate and the second committee examined the economic and legal frameworks around the export. Both reports damned Acacia for foul play and suggested that Tanzania lost over Sh100 trillion since it started exporting concentrates in the late 1990s. Dr Magufuli who was accompanied by the Minister for Legal and Constitutional Affairs Prof Palamagamba Kabuki said the meeting was successful and Barrick have \u201crepented\u201d for what has happened and they are ready to compensate Tanzania for the loss that has been incurred over the years. Dr Magufuli announced on a video clip tweeted on the official government spokesperson account that Barrick have \u201crepented\u201d and are ready to compensate Tanzania for the loss incurred over the years. Garrick Gold Canada is the largest shareholder of the Acacia Mining Company. On March 2017, the export of mineral concentrates by Barrick from Tanzania was stopped by Presidential directive.   ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Measurement and decomposition of socioeconomic inequality in single and multimorbidity in older adults in China and Ghana: results from the WHO study on global AGEing and adult health ","field_subtitle":"Kunna R; Sebastian M; Williams J: International Journal for Equity in Health 16(79), doi: 10.1186/s12939-017-0578-y, 2017","field_url":"https://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-017-0578-y","body":"There is a need for country-specific evidence of NCD inequalities in developing countries where populations are ageing rapidly amid economic and social change. The study measures and decomposes socioeconomic inequality in single and multiple NCD morbidity in adults aged 50 and over in China and Ghana, using data from the World Health Organisation Study on Global AGEing and Adult Health 2007\u20132010.  In China, the prevalence of single and multiple NCD morbidity was 64.7% and 53.4%, compared with 65.9% and 55.5% respectively in Ghana. Inequalities were significant and more highly concentrated among the poor in China. In Ghana inequalities were significant and more highly concentrated among the rich. In China, rural residence contributed most to inequality in single morbidity (36.4%) and the wealth quintiles contributed most to inequality in multi morbidity (39.0%). In Ghana, the wealth quintiles contributed 24.5% to inequality in single morbidity and body mass index contributed 16.2% to the inequality in multi- morbidity. The country comparison reflects different stages of economic development and social change in China and Ghana. More studies of this type are needed to inform policy-makers about the patterning of socioeconomic inequalities in health, particularly in developing countries undergoing rapid epidemiological and demographic transitions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring three aspects of motivation among health workers at primary level health facilities in rural Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Sato M; Maufi D; Mwingira U; Leshabari M;  Ohnishi M; Honda S: PLoS ONE 12(5): e0176973, doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176973 , 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y74pxu2r","body":"Tanzania faces a critical shortage of skilled health workers. While training, deployment, and retention are important, motivation is also necessary for all health workers, particularly those who serve in rural areas. This study measured the motivation of health workers who were posted at government-run rural primary health facilities. The authors sought to measure three aspects of motivation\u2014management, performance, and individual aspects\u2014among health workers deployed in rural primary level government health facilities. In addition, they also sought to identify the job-related attributes associated with each of these three aspects. Two regions in Tanzania were selected for the research. In each region, the authors further selected two rural districts in each in which they carried out their investigation.  Motivation was associated with marital status, having a job description  and number of years in the current profession  for management aspects; having a job description for performance aspects; and salary scale for individual aspects. The authors conclude that having a clear job description motivates health workers, and that the existing Open Performance Review and Appraisal System, of which job descriptions are the foundation, needs to be institutionalised in order to effectively manage the health workforce in resource-limited settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mortality among twins and singletons in sub-Saharan Africa between 1995 and 2014: a pooled analysis of data from 90 Demographic and Health Surveys in 30 countries","field_subtitle":"Monden C; Smits J: The Lancet Global Health 5(7), e673-e679, 2017","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(17)30197-3/fulltext","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa has the world's highest under-5 and neonatal mortality rates as well as the highest naturally occurring twin rates. Twin pregnancies carry high risk for children and mothers. Under-5 mortality has declined in sub-Saharan Africa over the last decades. It is unknown whether twins have shared in this reduction. The authors pooled data from 90 Demographic and Health Surveys for 30 sub-Saharan Africa countries on births reported between 1995 and 2014 to address this question. Under-5 mortality among twins declined from 327 per 1000 live births in 1995\u20132001 to 213 in 2009\u201314. This decline of 35% was less steep than the 51% reduction among singletons. Twins account for an increasing share of under-5 deaths in sub-Saharan Africa: currently 11% of under-5 mortality and 15% of neonatal mortality. Excess twin mortality cannot be explained by common risk factors for under-5 mortality, including birth-weight. The difference with singletons was especially stark for neonatal mortality and 52% of women pregnant with twins reported receiving medical assistance at birth. The authors note that an alarming one-fifth of twins in the region dies before age 5 years, three times the mortality rate among singletons. Twins account for a substantial and growing share of under-5 and neonatal mortality, but they are largely neglected in the literature. They argue that co-ordinated action is required to improve the situation of this extremely vulnerable group.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Open letter to WHO on industrial animal farming","field_subtitle":"Weathers S; Hermanns S; and 270 expert signatories: Open Letter Animal Farming, 2017","field_url":"https://openletteranimalfarming.com/welcome/","body":"In this letter over 200 scientists, policy experts and others concerned persons are urging the new World Health Organisation Director-General to recognise and address factory farming as a growing public health challenge. The authors suggest that WHO negotiate country-level standards for antibiotic use in animal husbandry, in coordination with the Food and Agricultural Organisation. Member states should be encouraged to articulate specific, verifiable standards for what constitutes legal antibiotic use in animal farms. Further, meat producers should dispose of antibiotics and waste residue properly to prevent environmental contamination and excess greenhouse gas emissions and work with all relevant ministries, including those outside of health, to reduce the size and number of factory farms to better balance dietary need and ecological capacity. WHO should discourage member states from subsidising factory farming and its inputs, which can cause significant harm to the public and consider the application of relevant fiscal policies in member states that would help to reduce meat demand and consumption, especially where consumption exceeds health recommendations. WHO should encourage member states to adopt nutrition standards and implement health education campaigns which inform citizens of the health risks of meat consumption and work closely with ministers of health and agriculture to formulate policies that advocate for a greater proportion of plant-based foods in the diets of member states. Lastly, they recommend that the WHO should consider funding the scientific development of plant-based and other meat alternatives, which have the potential to eliminate or reduce the harms of factory farming.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Rural Health Conference 2017","field_subtitle":"22-25 September 2017, North West Province, South Africa","field_url":"http://ruralhealthconference.org.za","body":"The Rural Health Conference is an vibrant event bringing together doctors, therapists, nurses, clinical associates, health students and NGOs, always in a rural location. Attendees will meet up and share ideas and friendship  with colleagues from around South Africa and Africa. The themes for the conference include Recognising Rural Health Challenges, Working together \u2013 Better and Smarter, Use of innovations in Communication Technology and Healthcare, Using Trans-disciplinary Teamwork to find innovative solutions and Working together to Advocate for better Rural Health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Smile Train: Programme Manager","field_subtitle":"Application closing date: 8 September 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yaplmts8","body":"Smile Train is an international children\u2019s charity that provides 100%-free cleft repair surgery and comprehensive cleft care to children in 85+ developing countries. Their sustainable model empowers local doctors to provide cleft care in their own communities. The overall purpose of the role is to devise, plan and implement local strategies to achieve the mission and goals of Smile Train in terms of high-quality and safe cleft lip and palate care through effective management of programmes and partnerships in Southern Africa. Key responsibilities for the position include instituting suitable business processes and necessary control mechanisms for the continual monitoring of financial, programmatic, and medical targets in the region and receiving, reviewing, and analysing all grant requests from local stakeholders. The candidate will need to ensure all operations are legally and financially transparent and in compliance with all local laws and laws of the U.S. that apply to local business practices and lead efforts to share Smile Train\u2019s global messaging locally and help to build the brand and awareness of Smile Train programs in Southern Africa. The candidate will be responsible for capturing and sharing stories, images, and videos that help to tell Smile Train\u2019s story and that could be used across the organisation to further Smile Train\u2019s mission. Lastly the candidate will be required to build and nurture the \u2018Smile Train\u2019 brand, developing an image of a focused, committed, ethical and caring organisation upholding and furthering \u2018best practices\u2019 in cleft care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Take health systems out of the market place to build their resilience","field_subtitle":"Mulumba, Moses, Center for Health Human Rights and development, Uganda","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThere is increasing global focus on building resilient and responsive health systems to improve population health. It raises questions: What constitutes a resilient health system? Is it one that is able to absorb shocks? Is it one that is able to anticipate shocks and engage with their political and economic determinants? To what extent has this language of resilience enabled an approach towards sustaining health systems in the most economically efficient manner feasible, with minimal public sector investments? And what does this mean for people\u2019s rights to health?\r\n\r\nA retrospective look at lessons from key moments in health policy, research and practice sheds light on some of these concerns. Key documents such the 1974 Lalonde Report, the 1978 Alma Ata Declaration on Primary Health and the 1986 Ottawa Charter from the first International Conference on Health Promotion focused policy attention on health systems built on prevention of health problems and promotion of good health. The Alma Ata Declaration emphasized investments in primary health care and highlighted that people have a right and duty to participate individually and collectively in the planning and implementation of their health care. The policy focus moved away from medicalized health systems to more inclusive ones, with community-engagement based on human rights principles. \r\n\r\nThere was however a shift in health policy from the last 1980\u2019s. Primary health care approaches and health promotion strategies were criticized for being unmanageable, lacking clear measurable targets and being costly to sustain. Alternative, selective approaches were advanced, focused on specific diseases and measurable, cost effective interventions. Disease specific programs grew for key areas such as HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and maternal health, with funding mainly targeting these programs. Funding and incentivizing disease specific intervention targets carries the risk of weakening wider primary health care measures, including for community participation in health decision making. A disease focus can ignore determinants of epidemics and other \u2018neglected\u2019 diseases, and set up parallel programming siphoning key health personnel from the wider health system to the better resourced diseases specific projects. These effects lead to health systems that have weak links to communities and wider health problems, that are neither resilient not responsive and that leave people exposed to outbreaks of epidemics, such as Ebola virus disease and cholera. \r\n\r\nThe mindset of efficiency over-riding other considerations in health systems was heavily reinforced in the late 1980s and early 1990\u2019s, when the World Bank and the IMF introduced neoliberal structural adjustment programs as a condition for loans. The major budget cuts to the social sectors, including health, from these programmes are well documented. Economic models that imply that public expenditure on systems and social roles is wasteful or inefficient combined with a pressure of reduced public funding for health services, as reported in EQUINETs regional equity analyses in 2007 and 2012, reducing investment in comprehensive primary health care despite its pro-poor benefit and reinforcing the narrow disease focus. It also enabled the health sector to be judged by the same principles as other areas of the market, within development frameworks that heavily promoted the \u2018free market\u2019, despite the global market being anything but free. At national level, poverty reduction strategy papers that were seen as dealing with \u2018transitional poverty\u2019, segmenting it as an unfortunate by product of an essentially positive approach, metamorphosed into national development plans that conceptualised national health policies and strategies more from an economic than a public health perspective. \r\n\r\nAs raised in various reports, including by EQUINET, Oxfam and the Municipal Services Project, and by S Nishtar in her submission to the 2016 World Economic Forum, this mindset has opened the doorway in the current decade to the commodification of our public health systems in the market place, and in some settings to the sale of public assets or private sector roles that have commercialised the provision of health care and deepened inequities. The effect has been to slowly but surely weaken the role of the state in resilient and responsive health systems. It is therefore not surprising that the private sector role is growing in our health systems in the region, whether in terms of provisioning of services, or in the heavily promoted role of social health insurance and even voluntary and community health insurance (rather than mandatory insurance or taxes) as a vehicle for service funding, with the untested promise in the region of more resources and more efficient funding. As private actors have gained an increasing role in our health systems, they are also giving increasing voice to the private sector in health agenda setting at national and global level, most recently raised in the debates on the Framework for engagement of non-state actors in the World Health Organisation. It is thus not surprising to find that the current proposals on universal health coverage that we hear in the region are dominated by business models centred on health insurance rather than human rights principles.\r\n\r\nThese trends raise a challenge for us: To carry out research that critically interrogates that assumptions and paradigms introduced into our region and to explore how to defend and advance comprehensive primary health care and human rights based approaches in health systems. This implies more questioning from the region at global level of the assumptions that are driving this role of the market and the private sector in our health systems, and what implications it has for rights-holders and duty bearers. This has two evident implications: it implies that we cannot continue to allow a retreat of the state from the health sector, whether in terms of diminished funding, weakened regulatory power, public health services or participatory governance. It also implies that we bring communities, their rights and evidence, more centrally into the setting of policies, priorities and in shaping services, not simply as a means of taking on unfunded service burdens, but as the central resource for the state and public sector in building resilient and responsive health systems.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The Cholera Epidemic in Zimbabwe, 2008\u20132009: A Review and Critique of the Evidence","field_subtitle":"Cuneo N; Sollom R; Beyrer C: Health and Human Rights Journal, Papers in Press Blog, July 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yaegjkvh","body":"The 2008\u20132009 Zimbabwe cholera epidemic resulted in 98,585 reported cases and caused more than 4,000 deaths. In this study, the authors used a mixed-methods approach that combined primary qualitative data from a 2008 Physicians for Human Rights-led investigation with a systematic review and content analysis of the scientific literature. Their initial investigation included semi-structured interviews of 92 key informants, which the authors supplemented with reviews of the social science and human rights literature, as well as international news reports. The authors investigation revealed that the 2008\u20132009 Zimbabwean cholera epidemic was exacerbated by a series of rights abuses, including the politicisation of water, health care, aid, and information. The authors argue that the failure of the scientific community to directly address the political determinants of the epidemic exposes the challenges to maintaining scientific integrity in the setting of humanitarian responses to complex health and human rights crises. While the period of the cholera epidemic is now a decade in the past, the findings remain relevant for contexts where health and rights interact and in contexts where governance concerns affect improvements in health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The future of cities according to women : Interview with Thozama Mputa, Michelle Mlati and Counterspace","field_subtitle":"Interview with Thozama Mputa, Michelle Mlati and Counterspace: Future Cape Town, 9 August 2017  ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ya9l4mpk","body":"In April and May 2017, the Constructing Future Cities project supported by the British Council engaged with 5 women artists on the topic of future cities. Mputa identified the fact that women do not feel safe and are not safe in cities as something that needs to be addressed. Sputa noted that one would experience a space differently if one had an opportunity to contribute and to be informed during the design process. One would take pride in the space, be able to use the space effectively and educate others on spaces in the city. Her vision of a future city; a city that acknowledges its past, celebrates the present and plans for change, an inclusive city designed by its inhabitants and explored by its visitors. Her artwork makes use of hatching to illustrate and merge faces, landscapes and cityscapes. Creating rhythm and pattern emphasised by the use of colour. Mlati identified a need to expand thinking about energy sources, moving beyond solar panels as infrastructure towards thinking of an intersection of art, architecture and energy. Mlati notes that those whose experiences of the city have flourished despite alienation hold clues from future urban practice. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The importance of sexual and reproductive health and rights to prevent HIV in adolescent girls and young women in eastern and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO Evidence Brief, WHO/RHR/17.05, Geneva, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y7z6hx5a","body":"Over the last several years, countries in the eastern and southern Africa (ESA) region have made significant and commendable progress in preventing mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV and in scaling up HIV treatment efforts. However, despite these gains, there have been no significant reductions in new HIV infections and the region continues to be the hardest hit by the epidemic, highlighting the need to place stronger emphasis on HIV prevention. The risk of HIV infection among adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in the ESA region is of particular concern. The 2016 UNAIDS World AIDS Day report, Get on the Fast-Track \u2013 The life-cycle approach to HIV, stated that efforts to reduce new HIV infections among young people and adults have stalled, threatening to undermine progress towards ending AIDS as a global public health threat by 2030. This evidence brief reviews the background and makes recommendations for steps to develop a comprehensive approach to HIV prevention for AGYW in the context of sexual and reproductive health and rights. Firstly, it calls for measures to build on current commitments and national priorities and in a comprehensive approach. Further steps include reviewing evidence-based interventions for AGYW, operationalising and evaluating multisectoral approaches through reviewing different country strategies and identifying funding opportunities. Several next steps were proposed, including exploring and developing a few case studies of specific programme experience or coordination processes and mechanisms to illustrate possible best practices and address outstanding questions and monitoring, evaluating and documenting the scale-up of integrated HIV-prevention and SRHR interventions for AGYW in the context of different initiatives, to identify optimal approaches to scaling up the delivery of successful interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The Land of No Men: Inside Kenya\u2019s Women-Only Village","field_subtitle":"Tadic E: Broadly, 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ycw4rg5f","body":"Titled \u201cThe Land of No Men: Inside Kenya\u2019s Women-Only Village\u201d the 30-minute documentary report takes audiences to northern Kenya, \u201cwhere the foothills of Mount Kenya merge into the desert,\u201d home to the people of Samburu, which is also where Rebecca Lolosoli founded Umoja village as a safe haven for women from a society long-maintained as a strict patriarchy for over 500 years. \u201cUmoja, which means \u201cunity\u201d in Swahili, is quite literally a no man\u2019s land, and the matriarchal refuge is now home to the Samburu women who no longer want to suffer abuses, like genital mutilation and forced marriages, at the hands of men. Throughout the years, it has also empowered other women in the districts surrounding Samburu to start their own men-excluding villages. Broadly visited Umoja and the villages it inspired to meet with the women who were fed up with living in a violent patriarchy.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The potential of task-shifting in scaling up services for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV: a time and motion study in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Naburi H; Ekstr\u00f6m A; Mujinja P; et al.: Human Resources for Health 15(35), doi: 10.1186/s12960-017-0207-2, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y75enjqy","body":"This time and motion study in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania estimated the potential of task-shifting in services for prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) to reduce nurses\u2019 workload and health system costs. The time used by nurses to accomplish PMTCT activities during antenatal care (ANC) and postnatal care (PNC) visits was measured. These data were then used to estimate the costs that could be saved by shifting tasks from nurses to community health workers in the Tanzanian public-sector health system. A total of 1121 PMTCT-related tasks carried out by nurses involving 179 patients at ANC and PNC visits were observed at 26 health facilities. The average time of the first ANC visit was the longest, 54 min, followed by the first PNC visit which took 29 minutes on average. ANC and PNC follow-up visits were substantially shorter, 15 and 13 minutes, respectively. During both the first and the follow-up ANC visits, 94% of nurses\u2019 time could be shifted to community health workers, while 84% spent on the first PNC visit and 100% of the time spent on the follow-up PNC visit could be task-shifted. Depending on community health workers salary estimates, the cost savings due to task-shifting in PMTCT ranged from US$ 1.3 to 2.0 (first ANC visit), US$ 0.4 to 0.6 (ANC follow-up visit), US$ 0.7 to 1.0 (first PNC visit), and US$ 0.4 to 0.5 (PNC follow-up visit). Nurses working in PMTCT spend large proportions of their time on tasks that could be shifted to community health workers, giving them more time for specialised PMTCT tasks and reducing the average cost per PMTCT patient.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of women's leadership and gender equity in leadership and health system strengthening","field_subtitle":"Dhatt R; Theobald S; Buzuzi S; et al.: Global Health, Epidemiology and Genomics 2(e8), doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/gheg.2016.22, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y8o8yjpq","body":"This empirical research examines gender and leadership in the health sector, pooling learning from three complementary data sources: literature review, quantitative analysis of gender and leadership positions in global health organisations and qualitative life histories with health workers in Cambodia, Kenya and Zimbabwe. The findings highlight gender biases in leadership in global health, with women underrepresented. Gender roles, relations, norms and expectations shape progression and leadership at multiple levels. Increasing women's leadership within global health is an opportunity to further health system resilience and system responsiveness. The authors conclude with an agenda and tangible next steps of action for promoting women's leadership in health as a means to promote the global goals of achieving gender equity. This includes leadership that is gender responsive and institutionalised; development of enabling environments for women's leadership; increasing thought leadership events related to women's role in global health; supporting leadership development, including management training and soft skills and building capacity, including formal training in technical skills, research and mentorship. The authors also call for improved policy and practice in terms of the health and safety risks women face in carrying out their health-related roles.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The State of the World\u2019s Children 2016: A fair chance for every child ","field_subtitle":"United Nations Children's Fund: UNICEF, New York, 2016","field_url":"https://www.unicef.org/sowc2016/","body":"Based on current trends, 69 million children under five will die from mostly preventable causes, 167 million children will live in poverty, and 750 million women will have been married as children by 2030, the target date for the Sustainable Development Goals \u2013 unless the world focuses more on the plight of its most disadvantaged children, according to a UNICEF report released today. The State of the World\u2019s Children, UNICEF\u2019s annual flagship report, paints a stark picture of what is in store for the world\u2019s poorest children if governments, funders, businesses and international organisations do not accelerate efforts to address their needs. The publication argues that progress for the most disadvantaged children is not only a moral, but also a strategic imperative. Stakeholders must have an obvious choice to make: invest in accelerated progress for the children being left behind, or face the consequences of a far more divided world by 2030. At the start of a new development agenda, the report concludes with a set of recommendations to help chart the course towards a more equitable world. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tunatazama","field_subtitle":"A Network of Southern African Communities Living Near Mines","field_url":"http://communitymonitors.net/about-us/","body":"This website is a space for community activists living near mines in southern Africa to share information, resources and experiences.\r\nThe countries currently participating in this project are: Lesotho, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Mozambique and Tanzania. Activists in each country document problems they experience and events they participate in and share this on a WhatsApp group. These posts are then shared on this site in the respective country blogs. Each country, in addition, maintains their own country blog. Additionally, Activists can view the posts on a mobile app called \u201cAction Voices\u201d which can be downloaded on an Android phone from the Google Play store. This website and the activities are a joint project of several organisations in southern Africa. These include:The Bench Marks Foundation \u2013 South Africa; Southern Africa Resource Watch (SARW) \u2013 Southern Africa; Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA) \u2013 Zimbabwe; Centre for Environment Justice (CEJ) \u2013 Zambia; Associa\u00e7\u00e3o de Apoio e Assist\u00eancia Jur\u00eddica \u00e0s Comunidades (AAAJC) \u2013 Mozambique; Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), Tanzania and Maluti Community Development Forum \u2013 Lesotho.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"UFS: Master in Development Studies","field_subtitle":"Application closing date: 29 September 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yd8txf77","body":"The Centre for Development Support within the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the University of the Free State is presenting a two-year part-time, interdisciplinary degree - Master of Development Studies. This programme combines distance-based learning with five one-week contact sessions held at the University f the Free State. The programme is a qualification aimed at those in NGOs, government, parastatals or private sector. Candidates with an Honours degree or postgraduate diploma or candidates with a degree and extensive development related work experience are invited to apply. The compulsory first year modules include studies in development, underdevelopment and poverty, governance and development, development and the environment, applied development research and project management. Students select two elective modules with a mini-dissertation in the second year. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Variation in quality of primary-care services in Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania.","field_subtitle":"Kruk M; Chukwuma A; Mbaruku G; Leslie H: Bulletin World Health Organisation 95(6), 408-418, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y79rew24","body":"This study analysed factors affecting variations in the observed quality of antenatal and sick-child care in primary-care facilities in seven African countries. The authors pooled nationally representative data from service provision assessment surveys of health facilities in Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania (survey year range: 2006-2014). Based on World Health Organisation protocols, the authors created indices of process quality for antenatal care (first visits) and for sick-child visits. The authors assessed national, facility, provider and patient factors that might explain variations in quality of care. Quality of antenatal care was higher in better-staffed and -equipped facilities and lower for physicians and clinical officers than nurses. Experienced providers and those in better-managed facilities provided higher quality sick-child care, with no differences between physicians and nurses or between better- and less-equipped clinics. Private facilities outperformed public facilities. Country differences were more influential in explaining variance in quality than all other factors combined. The quality of two essential primary-care services for women and children was weak and varied across and within the countries. The authors propose that analysis of reasons for these variations in quality could identify strategies for improving care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Organisation: What is people-centred care?","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2017","field_url":"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj-AvTOdk2Q","body":"This video from WHO introduces the concept of people-centred care. Globally, one in 20 people still lack access to essential health services that could be delivered at a local clinic instead of a hospital. And where services are accessible, they are often fragmented and of poor quality. WHO is supporting countries to progress towards universal health coverage by designing health systems around the needs of people instead of diseases and health institutions, so that everyone gets the right care, at the right time, in the right place.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"World health statistics 2017: monitoring health for the SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: WHO, Geneva, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y7t7h3fy","body":"The World Health Statistics series is World Health Organisation\u2019s annual compilation of health statistics for its 194 Member States. World Health Statistics 2017 focuses on the health and health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and associated targets by bringing together data on a wide range of relevant SDG indicators. World Health Statistics 2017 is organised into three parts. In Part 1, six lines of action are described which WHO is now promoting to help build better systems for health and to achieve the health and health-related SDGs. In Part 2, the status of selected health-related SDG indicators is summarised, at both global and regional level, based on data available as of early 2017. Part 3 then presents a selection of stories that highlight recent successful efforts by countries to improve and protect the health of their populations through one or more of the six lines of action.  Annexes A and B present country level estimates for selected health-related SDG indicators. As in previous years, World Health Statistics 2017 has been compiled primarily using publications and databases produced and maintained by WHO or United Nations groups of which WHO is a member, such as the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"World poverty could be cut in half if all adults completed secondary education","field_subtitle":"United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation: UNESCO Policy Paper 32, Fact sheet 44, New York, 2017","field_url":"http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0025/002503/250392E.pdf","body":"This UNESCO policy paper reports that the global poverty rate could be more than halved if all adults completed secondary school. Yet, new data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) show persistently high out-of-school rates in many countries, making it likely that completion levels in education will remain well below that target for generations to come. The paper demonstrates the importance of recognising education as a core lever for ending poverty in all its forms, everywhere. The analysis of education\u2019s impact on poverty shows that nearly 60 million people could escape poverty if all adults had just two more years of schooling. Despite education\u2019s potential, new UIS data show that there has been virtually no progress in reducing out-of-school rates in recent years. Globally, 9% of all children of primary school age are still denied their right to education, with rates reaching 16% and 37% for youth of lower and upper secondary ages, respectively. In total, 264 million children, adolescents and youth were out of school in 2015. UNESCO argues that education must reach the poorest households to maximise its benefits and reduce income inequality. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Trade Organisation Public Forum 2017 \u2014 \u201cTrade: Behind the Headlines\u201d","field_subtitle":"Registration closing date: 12 September 2017","field_url":"https://www.wto.org/english/forums_e/public_forum17_e/public_forum17_e.htm","body":"At a time when the debate on trade has rarely been as prominent or controversial, the WTO's 2017 Public Forum, \"Trade: Behind the Headlines\", offers an opportunity to go beyond the rhetoric and examine in detail the realities of trade \u2013 the opportunities it offers and the challenges it can bring. The Forum will provide a platform for discussions among policy makers, civil society representatives, business people and researchers as they consider how to make trade work for more people and ensure that the trading system is as inclusive as it can be. The opportunities that trade generates for greater growth and development and its ability to create jobs, raise incomes and reduce prices is, for some, only part of the story. There is a growing feeling that now is the time to consider the broader picture. While trade has indeed pulled millions out of poverty, the reality is that for some the experience has been different. The Public Forum is the WTO\u2019s largest annual outreach event.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Youth Voices at the 13th Southern African Civil Society Forum","field_subtitle":"Mahlangu S; Dick S; Chizungu R;  Mwanza E: Youth@SAIIA, August 2017","field_url":"https://www.saiia.org.za/youth-blog/youth-voices-at-the-13th-southern-african-civil-society-forum","body":"Each year, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) holds a special Southern Africa Civil Society Forum. The 13th annual Forum took place in mid August in Johannesburg. Members of the SAIIA Youth Policy Committee and alumni of the SAIIA Young Leaders Conference were there, to provide an eye-witness account of the proceedings. Civil society is defined as a \u2018community of citizens linked by common interests and collective activity.\u2019 This was evident at the 13th SADC Civil Society Forum from day one.\r\nThe Forum serves as a platform for civil society organisations from all over the region to meet and consolidate their stance, which is then presented as a declaration to the SADC secretariat. The theme for this year\u2019s forum was \u2018Building People\u2019s Organisations, Securing Our Common Future, Consolidating Our Gains and Confronting Our Challenges\u2019. These four blogs present the voice and reflections of young people attending various sessions at the Forum.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cI cry every day and night, I have my son tied in chains\u201d: physical restraint of people with schizophrenia in community settings in Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Asher L; Fekadu A; Teferra S; De Silva M; Pathare S; Hanlon C: Globalisation and Health 13(47), doi: 10.1186/s12992-017-0273-1, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yb677kqz","body":"A primary rationale for scaling up mental health services in low and middle-income countries is to address human rights violations, including physical restraint in community settings. The voices of those with intimate experiences of restraint, in particular people with mensystetal illness and their families, are rarely heard. This study aimed to understand the experiences of, and reasons for, restraint of people with schizophrenia in community settings in rural Ethiopia in order to develop constructive and scalable interventions. A qualitative study was conducted, involving 15 in-depth interviews and 5 focus group discussions  with a purposive sample of people with schizophrenia, their caregivers, community leaders and primary and community health workers in rural Ethiopia. Most of the participants with schizophrenia and their caregivers had personal experience of the practice of restraint. The main explanations given for restraint were to protect the individual or the community, and to facilitate transportation to health facilities. These reasons were underpinned by a lack of care options, and the consequent heavy family burden and a sense of powerlessness amongst caregivers. Whilst there was pervasive stigma towards people with schizophrenia, lack of awareness about mental illness was not a primary reason for restraint. All types of participants cited increasing access to treatment as the most effective way to reduce the incidence of restraint. Restraint in community settings in rural Ethiopia entails the violation of various human rights, but the underlying human rights issue is one of lack of access to treatment, calling for the scale up of accessible and affordable mental health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"A continuous quality improvement intervention to improve the effectiveness of community health workers providing care to mothers and children: a cluster randomised controlled trial in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Horwood C; Butler L; Barker P; et al.: Human Resources for Health 15(39), doi: 10.1186/s12960-017-0210-7, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ycembflw","body":"Community health workers (CHWs) play key roles in delivering health programmes in many countries worldwide. CHW programmes can improve coverage of maternal and child health services for the most disadvantaged and remote communities, leading to substantial benefits for mothers and children. However, there is limited evidence of effective mentoring and supervision approaches for CHWs. This cluster randomised controlled trial investigated the effectiveness of a continuous quality improvement intervention amongst CHWs providing home-based education and support to pregnant women and mothers. Thirty CHW supervisors were randomly allocated to intervention (n\u2009=\u200915) and control (n\u2009=\u200915) arms. Intervention CHWs received a 2-week training in WHO Community Case Management followed by mentoring for 12 months.  Baseline and follow-up surveys were conducted with mothers of infants ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Adolescent and Youth Health Policy Short Course","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 25 August 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y83pjdsv","body":"This short-course in Cape Town, South Africa, has been developed to support staff of governmental and non-governmental organisations working at national, provincial and district levels, in the implementation of the new Adolescent & Youth Health Policy 2017 and allied policies. It aims to build the capacity of those with management responsibilities for the implementation of policies through improved knowledge about adolescence, key health problems affecting young people and priority evidence-based interventions to address them and strengthen programming skills. This course is provided by the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, housed within the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre (DTHC) at the University of Cape Town. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"AND THEN SHE SAID - 5 Novels, 5 Women, 5 Stories","field_subtitle":"Jallow M: Positively African, October 2016","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXqQLIWbsDQ","body":"Experience African literature in a totally new way through an intimate re-imagining of five acclaimed novels, performed for the stage. Reimagined and retold by five women the stories grapple with questions of race, sexuality, patriarchy, friendship, love, loneliness and much more. Drawing from the historical novel \u2018The Orchard of Lost Souls\u2019 by the young award-winning Somali-British writer Nadia Mohamed, Raya Wambui bears witness to the painful experience of three Somali women. Patricia Kihoro\u2019s presents a performance of Zukiswa Wanner\u2019s painfully funny and profoundly perceptive \u2018Maid in SA: 30 ways to leave your madam\u2019. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Are Health Centre Committees a Vehicle for Social Participation in Health? Report on a Regional HCC Review Meeting, June 2017 ","field_subtitle":"CWGH; TARSC; UCT; LDHO: EQUINET, Harare 2017","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/Equinet%20HCC%20RegMtg%20Rep%20June2017.pdf","body":"EQUINET through the Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) as the cluster lead for the work on social empowerment in health, in partnership with Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC), University of Cape Town (UCT) and Lusaka District Health Office (LDHO), with support from Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa (OSIEA) have embarked on a regional programme, \u2018HCCs as a vehicle for social participation in health systems in East and Southern Africa\u2019 to address some of the outcomes mentioned above. This report documents the proceedings during the Regional HCC exchange visit held at Mwanza clinic, Goromonzi district on the 20th of June 2017 and the review meeting held in Harare on the 21st of June 2017. The meeting aimed to: discuss experiences with laws, policies, guidelines and constitutions on HCCs; share experiences in using Photovoice to enhance the role of HCCs;  discuss current training materials and programmes for HCCs in the region  and discuss strengthening of internal capacities of institutions working with HCCs through information exchange and skills inputs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Capacity-building for a strong public health nutrition workforce in low-resource countries","field_subtitle":"Delisle H; Shrimpton R; Blaney S; Du Plessis L; Atwood S; Sanders D; Margetts B: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 95(5) 385-388, 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/95/5/16-174912/en/","body":"This paper highlights current issues and challenges in public health nutrition in low- and middle-income countries and shares recommendations for the development of this workforce. Several factors are argued to contribute to a scarcity of nutrition professionals in low- and middle-income countries, including: a lack of understanding of the role of public health nutrition in the prevention and management of the various forms of malnutrition; a low-income country priority for doctors and nurses (and sometimes also frontline workers) within meagre health workforce expenditures; a higher priority for undernutrition interventions than for those for nutrition-related chronic diseases, despite their escalation in these countries. Both food system changes, at the level of production, processing and distribution, and behaviour change communication are argued to be needed to reorient the nutrition transition, and nutritionists have a major role to play in this regard. Although it requires sustained efforts, training can be regarded as the easy part of nutrition workforce development in low- and middle-income countries.  More challenging steps are recognition of the nutrition profession and its regulation, opening up government jobs for nutrition graduates and financing local training programmes and nutritionists\u2019 salaries in the public sector. The underlying causes of malnutrition, and hence sustained solutions to the problem, lie to a large extent in the non-health sectors. The authors argue that nutrition has to be addressed not only by other health professionals, but also by agriculture and education professionals and field workers, who need to integrate relevant nutrition tasks into their professional activities (such as orienting food production towards meeting the population\u2019s nutrition requirements or teaching healthy eating to schoolchildren). ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) Court case wins the Gender Justice Uncovered Awards 2017","field_subtitle":"Nanfuka G: CEHURD, June 2017","field_url":"","body":"The Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD), is an EQUINET cluster lead for the theme work on the right to health. CEHURD, Mubangizi Michael and Musimenta Jennifer Vs the Executive Director of Mulago National Referral Hospital and Attorney General of Uganda (Civil Suit No 212 of 2013), \u201cMulago case\u201d and Justice Lydia Mugambe\u2019s judgement won the Gender Justice Uncovered Awards in May 2017 hosted by Women\u2019s Link Worldwide. In this landmark ruling Justice Lydia Mugambe noted that the disappearance of the couple's baby also resulted to psychological torture for the parents as well as putting the spotlight on the State's failure to fulfil its obligations under the right to health. The Court also pointed to the overburdened hospital staff which led to errors as another example of the failure of the State to comply with its obligations. The judgment won with 3,829 votes beating 17 other rulings that were nominated for the best judicial decision from all around the world in the Gender Justice Uncovered Awards under the People's Choice Gavel 2017 category. This award comes at a time when CEHURD is implementing the judgment through discussions and support to Mulago National Referral Hospital to develop and put in place mechanisms to ensure the safety of babies after delivery.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) Humanities Call: Meaning-making Research Initiatives (MRI)","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 15 September 2017","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2734&lang=en","body":"Within the framework of its 2017-2021 Strategic Plan, CODESRIA introduces Meaning-Making Research Initiative (MRI) as the principal tool for supporting research. Like previous tools, MRI will focus on supporting research that contributes to agendas for imagining, planning and creating African futures. The Council is issuing this special call for proposals because of the peculiar challenges that teaching and research in the Humanities are encountering in African universities today. It is also motivated by the important contributions that scholarship in the Humanities can make to an understanding of Africa and efforts to construct African futures. CODESRIA seeks projects that broach new and interesting questions and employs innovative methods to address these issues. Projects that address important social challenges on the continent and that are rooted in conversations between the Humanities and other fields of knowledge like the social and natural sciences are strongly encouraged. Work that examines on the status and importance of the Humanities in society and reflects on how to develop humanities teaching and research in universities are also encouraged. Group initiatives: MRIs under this special call should be groups of researchers from one country or multiple countries. Each group should have between 3 and 5 members and should take into account CODESRIA\u2019s core principles of gender, linguistic, intergenerational, interdisciplinary diversity. All applications must engage with CODESRIA\u2019s 2017-2021 thematic priorities and cross-cutting issues: democratic processes, governance, citizenship and security in Africa; ecologies, economies and societies in Africa; higher education dynamics in a changing Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Determining baselines for human-elephant conflict: A matter of time","field_subtitle":"Pozo R; Coulson T; McCulloch G; Stronza A; Songhurst A: PLOS One, doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0178840, 2017","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178840","body":"Northern Botswana holds the largest population of African elephants in the world, and in the eastern Okavango Panhandle, 16,000 people share and compete for resources with more than 11,000 elephants. Hence, it is not surprising this area represents a human-elephant conflict (HEC) \u2018hotspot\u2019 in the region. Crop-raiding impacts lead to negative perceptions of elephants by local communities, which can strongly undermine conservation efforts. The authors investigated the trend in the number of reported raiding incidents as one of the indicators of the level of HEC, and assessed its relationship to trends in human and elephant population size, as well as land-use in the study area from the 1970s to 2015. They found that the level of reported crop raiding by elephants in the eastern Panhandle appears to have decreased since 2008, which seems to be related more to the reduction in agricultural land allocated to people in recent years, more than the human and elephant population size.  Although the study represents a first step in developing a HEC baseline in the eastern Panhandle, it highlights the need for additional multi-scale analyses that consider progress in conservation conflict to better understand and predict drivers of HEC in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Early menarche: A systematic review of its effect on sexual and reproductive health in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Ibitoye M; Choi C; Lee G; Sommer M: PLOS One, doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0178884, 2017","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178884","body":"Adolescent girls aged 15\u201319 bear a disproportionate burden of negative sexual and reproductive health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. The authors conducted this systematic review to better understand whether and how early menarche is associated with various negative sexual and reproductive health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries and the implications of such associations. They systematically searched eight health and social sciences databases for peer-reviewed literature on menarche and sexual and reproductive health in low- and middle-income countries. The authors\u2019 review of the minimal existing literature (with 24 papers included) showed that early menarche is associated with early sexual initiation, early pregnancy and some sexually transmitted infections in low- and middle-income countries, as has been observed in high-income countries. Early menarche is also associated with early marriage\u2013an association that may have particularly important implications for countries with high child marriage rates. Early age at menarche may be an important factor affecting the sexual and reproductive health of adolescent girls and young women in low- and middle-income countries. Given the association of early menarche with early marriage, the authors propose that ongoing efforts to reduce child marriage may benefit from targeting efforts to early maturing girls.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 196: The EQUINET newsletter as a health equity resource from the region ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Fifth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR2018)","field_subtitle":"8 \u2013 12 October 2018, Liverpool, UK ","field_url":"http://healthsystemsresearch.org/hsr2018/","body":"The Global Symposium on Health Systems Research is organised every two years by Health Systems Global to bring together the full range of players involved in health systems and policy research and practice. The Alma Ata vision of \u2018Health for All\u2019 remains as compelling today as it was in 1978, as reflected in goal 3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But the world has changed in forty years. Despite improved health outcomes, there remain extraordinary challenges for health equity and social inclusion, such as demographic and disease transitions, conflicts and their subsequent migrations, pluralistic health systems and markets, and climate change. Political systems still marginalise those most in need. Yet there are new opportunities for health systems to achieve universal coverage. The Fifth Global Symposium will advance conversations and collaborations on new ways of financing health; delivering services; and engaging the health workforce, new social and political alliances, and new applications of technologies to promote health for all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global mortality variations in patients with heart failure: results from the International Congestive Heart Failure prospective cohort study","field_subtitle":"Dokainish H; Teo K; Zhu J; et al.,INTER-CHF Investigators: The Lancet Global Health 5(7), e665-e672, 2017 ","field_url":"http://thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(17)30196-1/fulltext","body":"Most data on mortality and prognostic factors in patients with heart failure come from North America and Europe, with little information from other regions. Here, in the International Congestive Heart Failure (INTER-CHF) study, the authors aimed to measure mortality at 1 year in patients with heart failure in Africa, China, India, the Middle East, southeast Asia and South America and to explore demographic, clinical, and socioeconomic variables associated with mortality. The authors enrolled 5823 patients within 1 year with a 98% follow-up. Mortality was highest in Africa (34%) and India (23%), compared to an overall average of 16%. Regional differences persisted after multivariable adjustment. Independent predictors of mortality included cardiac variables and non-cardiac variables (body-mass index, chronic kidney disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). 46% of mortality risk was explained by multivariable modelling with these variables; however, the remainder was unexplained. Marked regional differences in mortality in patients with heart failure persisted after multivariable adjustment for cardiac and non-cardiac factors. Therefore, variations in mortality between regions could be the result of health-care infrastructure, quality and access, or environmental and genetic factors. Further studies in large, global cohorts are suggested to be needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Grand Challenges Canada Funding Opportunities","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 3 August 2017","field_url":"http://www.grandchallenges.ca/funding-opportunities/","body":"Through the Stars in Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Request for Proposals, Grand Challenges Canada seeks bold ideas for products, services and implementation models that could transform how persistent challenges in reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health are addressed in low- and middle-income countries. Of particular interest to Grand Challenges Canada are innovations to improve reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health in humanitarian contexts, notably among internally displaced and refugee populations, as well as innovations that improve the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls, so that they are empowered and have greater influence over their lives and futures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health workforce and governance: the crisis in Nigeria","field_subtitle":"Adeloye D; David R; Olaogun A; Auta A; Adesokan A; Gadanya M; Opele J; Owagbemi O; Iseolorunkanmi A: Human Resources for Health 15(32), doi: 10.1186/s12960-017-0205-4, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y8j5636g","body":"In Nigeria, several challenges have been reported within the health sector, especially in training, funding, employment, and deployment of the health workforce. The authors reviewed the recent health workforce crises in the Nigerian health sector to identify key underlying causes and provide recommendations toward preventing and/or managing potential future crises in Nigeria. The authors observe that the Nigerian health system is relatively weak, and there is yet a coordinated response across the country. A number of health workforce crises have been reported in recent times due to several months\u2019 salaries owed, poor welfare, lack of appropriate health facilities and emerging factions among health workers. Poor administration and response across different levels of government were found to have played contributory roles to further internal crises among health workers, with different factions engaged in protracted supremacy challenge. These crises have consequently prevented optimal healthcare delivery to the Nigerian population. The authors argue for various measures, including an inclusive stakeholders\u2019 forum in the health sector; and a  solid administrative policy foundation that allows coordination of priorities and partnerships in the health workforce and among various stakeholders. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthy people and healthy profits? Elaborating a conceptual framework for governing the commercial determinants of non-communicable diseases and identifying options for reducing risk exposure","field_subtitle":"Buse K; Tanaka S; Hawkes S: Globalisation and Health 13(34), doi: 10.1186/s12992-017-0255-3, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybo23n7p","body":"Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) represent a significant threat to human health and well-being, and carry significant implications for economic development and health care and other costs for governments and business, families and individuals. Risks for many of the major NCDs are associated with the production, marketing and consumption of commercially produced food and drink, particularly those containing sugar, salt and transfats (in ultra-processed products), alcohol and tobacco. The problems inherent in primary prevention of NCDs have received relatively little attention from international organisations, national governments and civil society, especially when compared to the attention paid to provision of medical treatment and long-term clinical management. Low political priority may be due in part to the complexity inherent in implementing feasible and acceptable interventions, such as increased taxation or regulation of access, particularly given the need to coordinate action beyond the health sector, and the fact that this brings public health into conflict with the interests of profit-driven food, beverage, alcohol and tobacco industries. The authors use a conceptual framework to review three models of governance of NCD risk: self-regulation by industry; hybrid models of public-private engagement; and public sector regulation. The authors analysed the challenges inherent in each model, and review what was known (or not) about their impact on NCD outcomes. While piecemeal efforts have been established, the authors argued that mechanisms to control the commercial determinants of NCDs are inadequate and efforts at remedial action too limited. The authors set out an agenda to strengthen each of the three governance models, with reforms that will be needed to the global health architecture to consolidate the collective power of diverse stakeholders, its authority to develop and enforce clear measures to address risks, as well as establish monitoring and rights-based accountability systems across all actors to drive measurable, equitable and sustainable progress in reducing the global burden of NCDs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Listen to Civil Society: Medicines for People, Not Profit","field_subtitle":"Quigley F: Health and Human Rights Journal Blog, May 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y7jlwu6c","body":"In her final address to the World Health Assembly (WHA) as WHO Director-General, Dr. Margaret Chan identified access to medicines as the most contentious issue of her decade-long tenure. That struggle was engaged, she said, \u201cespecially when intellectual property and the patent system were perceived as barriers to both affordable prices and the development of new products for diseases of the poor.\u201d Dr. Chan also had advice for the delegates gathered before her at the Palais de Nations in Geneva: \u201cListen to civil society. Civil society are society\u2019s conscience.\u201d Just a few hours after Dr. Chan yielded the podium, a spirited demonstration was held outside the grounds of the Palais de Nation. Organised by the student-led advocacy group Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, the demonstrators called for the WHA delegates and the new director-general to listen to the WHA\u2019s member states from Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Those nations have long called for WHO to prioritise the medicines issue. The term \u201cde-linkage\u201d was repeated by many panellists at an antimicrobial resistance discussion which happened at a side event. It describes a drug development model that is an alternative to the current intellectual property paradigm, where government-granted patent monopolies allow drug prices to be hiked to levels that are sometimes hundreds of times above the price of production. The justification for the high prices is that the price charged for medicines needs to fund research and development. Deliberately \u201cde-linking\u201d the R&D costs from the price of medicines bypasses those calculations, and instead undercuts the very foundation of the monopoly pricing argument. It calls for taking advantage of the already-significant government and philanthropic commitment to research and using it to fund non-profit R&D to a sufficient level that the price of medicines does not need to be connected to research costs. This would allow medicines to be far more affordable","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"MPhil in Public Mental Health: Call for Applications","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications 1 September 2017","field_url":"http://www.cpmh.org.za/teaching/mphil-public-mental-health/","body":"The Alan J. Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health (CPMH), a joint initiative of the Psychology Department at Stellenbosch University and the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at the University of Cape Town, is an independent inter-disciplinary academic research and teaching centre for public mental health promotion and service development in Africa.  The CPMH is proud to invite applications from across the African continent for the MPhil in Public Mental Health in 2018. A key gap in current mental health professional training in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa is an orientation to public mental health. This means an orientation to the mental health needs of populations, and the policies, laws and services that are required to meet those needs. The training offered by the Centre provides clinicians, health service managers, policy makers and NGO workers with crucial skills to enable them to plan and evaluate the services that they deliver and manage; lobby effectively for mental health; take on leadership roles in the strengthening of mental health systems; and conduct research in various aspects of public mental health in Africa. The MPhil in Public Mental Health is a part-time research degree that aims to develop advanced research skills, enabling participants to undertake their own research projects (such as evaluating services, policies and interventions) as well as interpret research findings for mental health policy and practice.  The programme is designed to be accessible to practitioners who work full-time, and who are from a range of backgrounds: social work, psychology, psychiatry, medicine, occupational therapy, nursing, health economics, public mental health, public health, health service management, policy making and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).  The training aims to build the professional capacity and leadership of the participants in their work, while contributing to knowledge generation in Africa. The degree requires the completion of a 3-week residential training module in research methodology for public mental health in Cape Town and the preparation of a dissertation of a minimum of 20 000 words, in either monograph or publication ready format.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"New BMC and HSG webinar series: Understanding the peer review and publication process","field_subtitle":"Logan H: BMC Health Services Research and BioMed Central journals, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybct8ed8","body":"Publishing is an important part of sharing the outcomes of research, but the publication process and requirements may sometimes feel like a closed book. HSG and BioMed Central, publisher of BMC Health Services Research which is affiliated with HSG, have partnered to deliver a series of five webinars to open up the peer review and publication processes. Aimed at researchers at a variety of career stages, the series covered: how to prepare an article and choose the right journal, what happens during peer review, publishing models and open access, research and publication ethics and how to be a peer reviewer. This series is now finished, but information on the full series of webinars is provided, including the recordings and slides of all of the webinars.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Non-communicable diseases and HIV care and treatment: models of integrated service delivery ","field_subtitle":"Duffy M; Ojikutu B; Andrian S; Sohng E; Minior T; Hirschhorn L: Tropical Medicine and International Health 00(00), doi:10.1111/tmi.12901, 2017","field_url":"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tmi.12901/epdf","body":"Non-communicable diseases (NCD) are a growing cause of morbidity in low-income countries including in people living with human immunode\ufb01ciency virus (HIV). Integration of NCD and HIV services can build upon experience with chronic care models from HIV programmes. The authors described the models of NCD and HIV integration, challenges and lessons learned. A literature review of published articles on integrated NCD and HIV programs in low-income countries and key informant interviews were conducted with leaders of identi\ufb01ed integrated NCD and HIV programs. Information was synthesised to identify models of NCD and HIV service delivery integration. Three models of integration were identified as follows: NCD services integrated into centres originally providing HIV care; HIV care integrated into primary health care (PHC) already offering NCD services; and simultaneous introduction of integrated HIV and NCD services. Major challenges identified included NCD supply chain, human resources, referral systems, patient education, stigma, patient records and monitoring and evaluation. The range of HIV and NCD services varied widely within and across models. conclusions Regardless of model of integration, leveraging experience from HIV care models and adapting existing systems and tools is a feasible method to provide efficient care and treatment for the growing numbers of patients with NCDs. The authors argue that operational research should be conducted to further study how successful models of HIV and NCD integration can be expanded in scope and scaled-up by managers and policymakers seeking to address all the chronic care needs of their patients. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Open letter to WHO on industrial animal farming and public health","field_subtitle":"Weathers S; Hermanns S; and 270 expert signatories: Open Letter Animal Farming, 2017 ","field_url":"https://openletteranimalfarming.com/welcome/","body":"Over 200 scientists, policy experts and others concerned persons are urging the new World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General to recognise and address factory farming as a growing public health challenge. Just as the WHO has bravely confronted companies that harm human health by peddling tobacco and sugar-sweetened beverages, they argue that it must not waver in advocating for the regulation of industrial animal farming. Total consumption of antibiotics in animal food production is projected to grow by almost 70% between 2010 and 2030. According to the WHO, two of the three most commonly used classes of antibiotics in U.S. animal farming\u2014penicillins and tetracyclines\u2014are of critical importance to humans. Practices such as the constant low dosing of antibiotics and environmental pollution through animal waste make industrial animal farms the perfect breeding ground for antibiotic resistance by allowing transmission into the environment and nearby community. The authors raise other risks of industrial animal farming and call on WHO to strengthen WHO\u2019s Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance to encourage member states of the WHO to ban the use of growth-promoting antibiotics in animal farming, as well as low-dose \u201cdisease prevention\u201d antibiotics. Member states should be encouraged to articulate specific, verifiable standards for what constitutes legal antibiotic use in animal farms. Amongst other recommendations they argue that WHO should encourage member states to adopt nutrition standards and implement health education campaigns to inform citizens of the health risks of meat consumption and work closely with ministers of health and agriculture to formulate policies that advocate for a greater proportion of plant-based foods in the diets of member states. Lastly, they recommend that the WHO should consider funding the scientific development of plant-based and other meat alternatives, which have the potential to eliminate or reduce the harms of factory farming.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"PHASA Conference 2017 (The Public Health Association of South Africa)","field_subtitle":"4-7 September 2017, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.phasaconference.org.za","body":"The Public Health Association of South Africa invites the local, regional and international public health community  to Johannesburg, South Africa for their 13th annual conference. The theme of the 2017 conference is \u201cA Global Charter for the Public\u2019s Health\u201d: Implications for Public Health Practice in South Africa. Last year, the conference considered public health practices in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals.  This year the conference will critically reflect on the WFPHA/WHO collaboration \u201cA Global Charter for the Public\u2019s Health\u201d and its implications for public health in South Africa. The conference will examine the four enabling functions of the Charter, viz. governance, capacity, information and advocacy. There will be conversations on how these four enabling functions can be strengthened in South Africa and discussions on critical current issues like globalisation and decolonisation in relation to public health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"PhD Bursaries for Researching Obesogenic Food Environments in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Applications considered monthly. Final closing date 31st October 2017.","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybsvq8ad","body":"The Postgraduate Diploma in Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies is a unique programme offered by PLAAS at the University of the Western Cape. It is the only programme in the land and agrarian studies field at a South African university. Two PhD bursaries are available as part of the IDRC-funded project \u201cResearching Obesogenic Food Environments\u201d, which is led by Profs David Sanders and Rina Swart at the UWC School of Public Health in partnership with the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) and with Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana. PLAAS is an excellent platform for academic teaching and learning in land and agrarian reform, poverty and natural resources management. Established PLAAS researchers, involved in socially relevant and innovative research, are also course coordinators. The application of teaching and learning takes place through contact time with coordinators, self-learning through extensive reading and analysis, together with writing assignments. Applicants with extensive work experience (at least ten years) in land and agrarian issues, and with good writing abilities, without an undergraduate degree, may apply to be considered on the basis of recognition of prior learning (RPL).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Quality of care: measuring a neglected driver of improved health","field_subtitle":"Akachi Y; Kruk M: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 95(6), 389-480, 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/95/6/16-180190/en/","body":"The quality of care provided by health systems contributes towards efforts to reach sustainable development goal 3 on health and well-being. There is growing evidence that the impact of health interventions is undermined by poor quality of care in lower-income countries. Quality of care will also be crucial to the success of universal health coverage initiatives; citizens unhappy with the quality and scope of covered services are unlikely to support public financing of health care. Moreover, an ethical impetus exists to ensure that all people, including the poorest, obtain a minimum quality standard of care that is effective for improving health. However, the measurement of quality today in low- and middle-income countries is argued to be inadequate to the task. Health information systems provide incomplete and often unreliable data, and facility surveys collect too many indicators of uncertain utility, focus on a limited number of services and are quickly out of date. Existing measures poorly capture the process of care and the patient experience. Patient outcomes that are sensitive to health-care practices, a mainstay of quality assessment in high-income countries, are rarely collected. The authors propose six policy recommendations to improve quality-of-care measurement and amplify its policy impact: (i) redouble efforts to improve and institutionalise civil registration and vital statistics systems; (ii) reform facility surveys and strengthen routine information systems; (iii) innovate new quality measures for low-resource contexts; (iv) get the patient perspective on quality; (v) invest in national quality data; and (vi) translate quality evidence for policy impact.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaiming policies for the public ","field_subtitle":"Third World Network (TWN): TWN Info, July 2017","field_url":"https://www.2030spotlight.org/en","body":"A global coalition of civil society organisations and trade unions presented a report  on 'Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2017'.  The report provides a comprehensive independent assessment of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In the 2030 Agenda governments committed to a revitalised Global Partnership between States and declared that public finance has to play a vital role in achieving the SDGs. But in recent decades, the combination of neoliberal ideology, corporate lobbying, business-friendly fiscal policies, tax avoidance and tax evasion has led to a massive weakening of the public sector and its ability to provide essential goods and services. The same corporate strategies and fiscal and regulatory policies that led to this weakening have enabled an unprecedented accumulation of individual wealth and increasing market concentration. The proponents of privatisation and public-private partnerships (PPPs) use these trends to present the private sector as the most efficient way to provide the necessary means for implementing the SDGs. But many studies and experiences by affected communities have shown that privatisation and PPPs involve disproportionate risks and costs for the public sector. PPPs can even exacerbate inequalities, decrease equitable access to essential services and jeopardise the fulfilment of human rights. Therefore, it is high time to counter these trends, reclaim public policy space and take bold measures to strengthen public finance, regulate or reject PPPs and weaken the grip of corporate power on people\u2019s lives. These are indispensable prerequisites to achieve the SDGs and to turn the vision of the transformation of the world, as proclaimed in the title of the 2030 Agenda, into reality. The 160-page report is supported by a broad range of civil society organisations and trade unions, and based on experiences and reports by national and regional groups and coalitions from all parts of the world. Its 35 articles cover all sectors of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs, and reflect the rich geographic and cultural diversity of their authors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Scholarship for Research on Demilitarisation in Lesotho","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 31 August 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ydxtokw9","body":"For many countries, there are arguments against military expenditure, including its opportunity costs and the availability of cost effective alternative ways of providing security. A number of countries exist without a military, including Costa Rica, Iceland, Panama and Mauritius. The Peacebuilding Programme at Durban University of Technology is offering a scholarship at master\u2019s or doctoral level to extend this work. In particular, the student might work in the following areas: Examine the findings of the Lesotho foresight and scenarios project, titled \u2018The Lesotho we want: imagining the future, shaping it today\u2019; and ideas towards a demilitarisation initiative which fit with and build on the attitudes and priorities of the population. The student would, in conjunction with others, plan a campaign to build acceptance of the idea of demilitarisation and then implement the plan. Demilitarisation would be a political decision so the idea has to find acceptance in the minds of politicians. In conjunction with others, the student would plan and implement ways to bring this about.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Sex in the shadow of HIV: A systematic review of prevalence, risk factors, and interventions to reduce sexual risk-taking among HIV-positive adolescents and youth in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Toska E; Pantelic M; Meinck F; Keck K; Haghighat R; Cluver L: PLOS One, doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0178106, 2017","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178106","body":"This systematic review synthesises the extant research on prevalence, factors associated with, and interventions to reduce sexual risk-taking among HIV-positive adolescents and youth in sub-Saharan Africa. Studies were located through electronic databases, grey literature, reference harvesting, and contact with researchers. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines were followed. Quantitative studies that reported on HIV-positive participants (10\u201324 year olds), included data on at least one of eight outcomes (early sexual debut, inconsistent condom use, older partner, transactional sex, multiple sexual partners, sex while intoxicated, sexually transmitted infections, and pregnancy), and were conducted in sub-Saharan Africa were included. Forty-two records reported one or multiple sexual practices for 13,536 HIV-positive adolescents/youth from 13 sub-Saharan African countries. Seventeen cross-sectional studies reported on individual, relationship, family, structural, and HIV-related factors associated with sexual risk-taking. However, the majority of the findings were inconsistent across studies, and most studies scored ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"SFH: HIV Self-Testing Programme Manager","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 20 August 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y845nman","body":"The Society for Family Health (SFH) is a South African affiliate of Population Services International (PSI), an international NGO network operational in over 70 countries. SFH in South Africa concentrates on issues of HIV/ AIDS. As part of their HIV/AIDS control efforts, SFH is using social marketing to motivate behaviour change with respect to consistent condom use, HIV testing and other safer behaviours. The duties and responsibilities include project management, monitoring and evaluation, supervision, coordination and relationship management, managing budgets and reporting. The successful candidate will be a creative, innovative and strategic thinker, and will have: excellent communication, analytical, organisational, interpersonal and cross-cultural skills; a strong interest in private sector approaches to development; and a proven ability to produce results and meet objectives under difficult circumstances. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa\u2019s vital statistics are currently not suitable for monitoring progress towards injury and violence Sustainable Development Goals","field_subtitle":"Prinsloo M; Bradshaw D; Joubert J; Matzopoulos R; Groenewald P: South African Medical Journal 107(6), 470-471, 2017","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/11922","body":"Two of the most important targets to achieving the United Nation\u2019s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for reducing violence and other injuries are Target 3.6: to \u2018halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents\u2019 by 2020; and Target 16.1: the significant reduction of \u2018all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere\u2019. Police statistics on homicide, and transport deaths from the Road Traffic Management Corporation, are considered to be under-reported and are not a reliable source for monitoring SDGs. In South Africa (SA), vital statistics data are the only routine source that captures unnatural and natural deaths through death registration. Since the early 1990s, focused initiatives have identified and addressed deficiencies in the completeness of death registration and recent estimates indicate that completeness for persons aged \u22652 years is >90%. However, there are still concerns about the quality of data relating to the cause of death, i.e. under- reporting of HIV/AIDS deaths owing to misclassification to other causes, a large proportion of deaths with ill-defined causes, and the validity of single-cause data. The misclassification of injury deaths is another major limitation. The Inquest Act of 1959 precludes forensic pathologists from reporting the manner of death, i.e. whether it is due to homicide, suicide, transport or other unintentional injuries, on the basis that it may prejudice the findings of the inquest. Homicides are therefore grossly under-represented in official vital statistics. The misclassification of injury deaths was clearly demonstrated in a nationally representative study of injury deaths presenting to state forensic mortuaries in 2009. The absence of information on the manner of injury death in the official statistics needs to be addressed urgently. A review and possible amendment of the Inquest Act would possibly take years. The authors recommend that the death notification form be amended in line with the updated World Health Organisation\u2019s recommendation, to include a stand-alone field for information about the manner of injury death for unnatural causes. Forensic pathologists when uncertain can include a proviso stating that such information is for statistical purposes only. This matter is currently being discussed with relevant stakeholders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Sub-national assessment of aid effectiveness: A case study of post-conflict districts in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Ssengooba F; Namakula J; Kawooya V; Fustukian S: Globalisation and Health 13(32), doi: 10.1186/s12992-017-0251-7, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yb425rth","body":"In post-conflict settings, many state and non-state actors interact at the sub-national levels in rebuilding health systems by providing funds, delivering vital interventions and building capacity of local governments to shoulder their roles. Aid relationships among actors at sub-national level represent a vital lever for health system development. This study was undertaken to assess the aid-effectiveness in post-conflict districts of northern Uganda. This was a three district cross sectional study conducted from January to April 2013. Managers of organisations involved in service delivery were interviewed and asked to list the external organisations that contribute to three key services. For each inter-organisational relationship a custom-made tool designed to reflect the aid-effectiveness in the Paris Declaration was used. Three hundred eighty four relational ties between the organisations were generated from a total of 85 organisations interviewed. Satisfaction with aid relationships was mostly determined firstly by the extent managers were able to negotiate own priorities, by their awareness of expected results, and thirdly on the provision of feedback about their performance. Provider satisfaction was mostly determined by awareness of expected results and feedback on performance. These findings illustrate the focus on \u201cresults\u201d domain and less on \u201cownership\u201d and \u201cresourcing\u201d domains. The capacity and space for sub-national level authorities to negotiate local priorities requires more attention especially for health system development in post-conflict settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The EQUINET newsletter as a health equity resource from the region ","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET Newsletter","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe EQUINET newsletter intends to raise the visibility and accessibility of evidence about and from east and southern Africa on different aspects of equity in health. Now in its 197th issue, it has since its inception shared a total of nearly 12 000 papers, articles, resources and other information on and from the region on areas related to health equity. \r\n\r\nLaunched in May 2001 by EQUINET from within the region and appearing monthly for the sixteen years since then, it has included new knowledge and evidence on a range of areas, from values, policies and rights, financing, health worker issues, clinical and health service practices through to health determinants and governance that have a bearing on improved delivery on policy commitments to equity in health. Thank you to the many people generating evidence and debate on these areas and to those who have helped the newsletter to be a consistent vehicle for sharing this information.\r\n\r\nWhile it appears monthly in members\u2019 email boxes, what may be less well known is that the current database of 11 500 articles compiled over the years on the EQUINET website is a resource that can be searched by themes and by title, author or text key words, to support research and evidence for social and policy dialogue. \r\n\r\nThis database may itself be an interesting source of evidence for those reviewing policy trends in the region. While it provides an accessible source of specific information for people working on equity in health and its determinants, it may also provide an interesting insight into the rise and fall of attention to specific issues in the region, from HIV and the retention of health workers, to emergencies, chronic conditions and universal coverage. Some areas, such as gender equity, poverty and social participation in health, have also had persistent presence since the first newsletter in 2001, albeit with less visible focus and with different lenses and perspectives. For others, such as privatisation and the public-private mix of health services, there appears to have been a deficit in attention, with far less open access publication, despite their importance for health equity in the region. \r\n\r\nThe sixteen years of the newsletter also provide an insight into the changing nature of evidence. In 2001 there was a predominance of formal publications in journals, reports and print media. This continues, with a slow improvement in journal papers being led by authors from within the region. Today, however, there is a more diverse mix in the forms of evidence, adding an increasing presence of blogs, videos, talks, photojournalism and art forms. This has brought new voice to the evidence and analyses on health equity, although many still face barriers in access to digital media.  \r\n\r\nWe\u2019d like to hear your voice.\r\n\r\nAs we head towards the 200th issue, let us know where the newsletter has been useful to you and what improvements you would want to see. \r\n\r\nFor our 200th issue, we invite you to send us in August and September editorials written by you, and any links to videos, blogs, papers or other online resources you want to share on your perspective on the opportunities that we should be tapping in east and southern Africa for making immediate or longer term advances in equity in health (whether generally, or on a specific aspect), and how and by whom they could be taken forward. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries or editorial or url links to information to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The medical device development landscape in South Africa: Institutions, sectors and collaboration","field_subtitle":"De Jager K; Chimhundu C; Saidi T; Douglas TS: South African Journal of Science 13(5/6), 2017","field_url":"http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/sajs/v113n5-6/18.pdf","body":"A characterisation of the medical device development landscape in South Africa would be beneficial for future policy developments that encourage locally developed devices to address local healthcare needs. The landscape was explored through a bibliometric analysis (2000\u20132013) of relevant scientific papers using co-authorship as an indicator of collaboration. Collaborating institutions found were divided into four sectors: academia (A); healthcare (H); industry (I); and science and support (S). A collaboration network was drawn to show the links between the institutions and analysed using network analysis metrics. The academic sector collaborated the most extensively both within and between sectors; local collaborations were more prevalent than international collaborations. Translational collaborations (AHI, HIS or AHIS) are considered to be pivotal in fostering medical device innovation that is both relevant and likely to be commercialised. Few such collaborations were found, suggesting room for increased collaboration of these types in South Africa. These results could inform the development of strategies and policies to promote certain types of medical device development. Further studies could identify drivers and barriers to successful medical device development in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The WHO\u2019s new African leader could be a shot in the arm for poorer countries","field_subtitle":"Sanders D: The Conversation, May 2017","field_url":"https://www.pambazuka.org/economics/new-way-doing-business","body":"Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus is the first African to be elected as the Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in its 70 year history. The massive margin for Tedros \u2013 133 votes vs 50 for the UK candidate \u2013 suggests that the entire Global South voted for him.  Professor David Sanders in this interview suggests that the vote almost certainly represents a vote against big power domination and machinations in the WHO which often appears to ignore the main challenges and aspirations of low and middle income countries. Professor Sanders notes that Dr Ghebreyesus needs to use his strong mandate \u2013 notably from the Global South \u2013 to truly reform the WHO and its operations in favour of the world\u2019s poor majority. To do this, he needs to push strongly for member states to honour their commitments to the WHO and to rapidly and significantly increase their financial contributions. He also needs to ensure that the influence of the food, beverage, alcohol and tobacco industries to control non communicable diseases is resisted. This will be difficult given that a framework has been passed that allows non-state actors to participate in WHO policy-making processes. Further he argues that Dr Ghebreyesus must ensure that the health systems of low and middle income countries are strengthened so that health emergencies such as infectious disease outbreaks can be contained. This will ensure that agenda for health security isn\u2019t focused on securing the health of rich country populations against contagion from the poor but on protecting all, particularly the most vulnerable. Hi raises that what will be interesting to watch over the next five years is whether the evident solidarity between low and middle income counties in voting in Dr Ghebreyesus as their candidate is maintained during the debates and decisions about world health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda\u2019s Achievement in Family Planning and Reproductive Health: Advocacy pays off","field_subtitle":"Partners in Population and Development: PPD, Uganda,  2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/lfmmbnd","body":"Uganda has released the result of Demographic Health Survey (UDHS 2016) highlighting the success in family planning and reproductive health. Uganda\u2019s population is the second youngest in the world, with half of the country younger than 15.7 years old (just older than Niger\u2019s median age of 15.5 years). As of January 2017, the population of Uganda was estimated to be 40 million, the age structure defines 49.9% in the below 15 years, 48.1% in 15-64 year of age group and the rest 2.1% are 64+ n the past 10 years, showing increasing growth rate (3.24 in 2016 est.), the country has added more than 10 million, from 24 to 35 million. DHS 2016 showed noteworthy success in maternal health care. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of live births were delivered by a skilled provider and almost the same proportion (73%) were delivered in a health facility which was almost half in 15 years back. Throughout the course of their lifetimes, Ugandan women have a 1-in-35 chance of dying due to pregnancy-related causes; every day, 16 women die in childbirth. However, the overall trend indicates a decline of pregnancy-related mortality over the time. Infant and child mortality rates are basic indicators of a country\u2019s socioeconomic situation and quality of life. The country\u2019s infant mortality rate was one of the highest in the world, but 2016 DHS showed steep declining trend. The Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) has risen steadily from a low starting point and moved upward sharply in most years in Uganda, on the other hand the unmet need of contraceptive is showing gradual decreasing trend. As the country\u2019s population continues to grow,  the majority of that growth is taking place in rural areas, where access to health services is extremely limited. PPD argues that with the call for universal access to reproductive health and family planning, the country is moving rapidly towards this goal. Such progress will help the country move closer to the targeted demographic that are linked with the larger development goals. Significant effort is argued to still be required to mitigate rural-urban disparity. Political commitment beyond the health sector, partner collaboration, community provision to increase community engagement is reported to lie behind the trends in the DHS key indicators report.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding how domestic health policy is integrated into foreign policy in South Africa: a case for accelerating access to antiretroviral medicines","field_subtitle":"Modisenyane M; Hendricks S; Fineberg H: Global Health Action 10(1), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16549716.2017.1339533, 2017  ","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16549716.2017.1339533","body":"South Africa, as an emerging middle-income country, is becoming increasingly influential in global health diplomacy. However, little empirical research has been conducted to inform arguments for the integration of domestic health into foreign policy by state and non-state actors. This study aimed to address this knowledge gap, as an empirical case study analysing how South Africa integrates domestic health into its foreign policy, using the lens of access to antiretroviral (ARV) medicines. It explored state and non-state actors\u2019 perceptions regarding how domestic health policy is integrated into foreign policy to achieve better insights into health and foreign policy processes at the national level. Employing qualitative approaches, the authors examined changes in the South African and global AIDS policy environment. Purposive sampling was used to select key informants, a sample of state and non-state actors who participated in in-depth interviews. Secondary data were collected through a systematic literature review of documents retrieved from five electronic databases, including review of key policy documents. Qualitative data were analysed for content. The findings showed the interplay among social, political, economic and institutional conditions in determining the success of this integration process. A series of national and external developments, stakeholders, and advocacy efforts and collaboration created these integrative processes. South Africa\u2019s domestic HIV/AIDS constituencies, in partnership with the global advocacy movement, catalysed the mobilisation of support for universal access to ARV treatment nationally and globally, and the promotion of access to healthcare as a human right. The report concludes that transnational networks may influence government\u2019s decision making by providing information and moving issues up the agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Variation in quality of primary-care services in Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Kruk M; Chukwuma A; Mbaruku G; Leslie H: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 95(6), 389-480, 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/95/6/16-175869/en/","body":"This study analysed factors affecting variations in the quality of antenatal and sick-child care in primary-care facilities in seven African countries, using service provision assessment surveys of health facilities in Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania in 2006\u20132014. Based on World Health Organization protocols, they created indices of process quality for antenatal care (first visits) and for sick-child visits and assessed national, facility, provider and patient factors that might explain variations in quality of care. Overall, health-care providers performed a mean of 62% of eight recommended antenatal care actions and 55% of nine sick-child care actions at observed visits. The quality of antenatal care was higher in better-staffed and -equipped facilities and lower for physicians and clinical officers than nurses. Experienced providers and those in better-managed facilities provided higher quality sick-child care, with no differences between physicians and nurses or between better- and less-equipped clinics. Private facilities outperformed public facilities. Country differences were more influential in explaining variance in quality than all other factors combined. The authors conclude that the quality of two essential primary-care services for women and children was weak and varied across and within the countries. They observe that analysis of reasons for variations in quality could identify strategies for improving care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"What is it going to take to move youth-related HIV programme policies into practice in Africa? ","field_subtitle":"Mark D; Taing L; Cluver L; Collins C; Iorpenda K; Andrade A; Hatane L: Journal of the International AIDS Society 20(Suppl 3)21491, 2017","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/index.php/jias/article/view/21491/pdf","body":"HIV has been reported to be the leading cause of mortality amongst adolescents in Africa. This has brought attention to the changes in service provision and health management that many adolescents living with HIV experience when transferring from specialised paediatric- or adolescent-focused services to adult care. When transition is enacted poorly, adherence may be affected and the continuum of care disrupted. The authors present the case that considerable gaps remain in moving policy to practice on this at global, national, and local levels and  that standard operating procedures or tools to support this transition are lacking. Guidance often overlooks the specific needs and rights of adolescents, in particular for those living with HIV. In some cases, prohibitive laws can impede adolescent access by applying age of consent restriction to HIV testing, counselling and treatment, as well as SRH services. Where adolescent-focused policies do exist, they have been slow to emerge as tangible operating procedures at health facility level. A key barrier is the nature of existing transition guidance, which tends to recommend an individualised, client-centred approach, driven by clinicians. In low- and middle-income settings, flexible responses are resource intensive and time consuming, and therefore challenging to implement amidst staff shortages and administrative challenges. They propose that national governments adopt transition-specific policies to ensure that adolescents seamlessly receive appropriate and supportive care, as part of a broader adolescent-centred policy landscape and adolescent-friendly orientation and approach at health system level. Youth involvement and community mobilisation are seen to be essential for this. . ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Organisation (WHO) Call for Research Findings on Digital Health Interventions","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: 15 September 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ybd3qbvw","body":"In response to a global need for evidence-based global recommendations on the use of digital health interventions available via mobile device, the WHO Department of Reproductive Health and Research in collaboration with other WHO departments has commenced the process of developing WHO Guidelines. As part of this process, over the coming months, a series of systematic reviews of research evidence have been commissioned on specific digital health topics. WHO is requesting from the global community any and all relevant primary studies that should be considered for inclusion in the systematic reviews. This is an opportunity to contribute to the literature that will be included in the systematic reviews that will be informing WHO Guidelines on Digital Health Interventions. The Guidelines will systematically consolidate evidence of effectiveness related to these digital health interventions, as well as review associated feasibility, costs, and risks, in order to formulate concrete recommendations to inform evidence-based investments and prioritisation. Studies can focus on issues related to effectiveness, equity, resource use acceptability, feasibility, or resource use/cost-effectiveness, and can be from any setting, can be both published or unpublished, can include both randomised and non-randomised studies and qualitative studies. The systematic review team will review all submitted papers and determine if they fulfil the inclusion criteria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018These are not luxuries, it is essential for access to life\u2019: Disability related out-of-pocket costs as a driver of economic vulnerability in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Hanass-Hancock J; Nene S; Deghaye N; Pillay S: African Journal of Disability 6(0), a280, 2017","field_url":"http://ajod.org/index.php/ajod/article/view/280/566","body":"Middle-income countries are home to a growing number of persons with disabilities but with limited evidence on the factors increasing economic vulnerability in people with disabilities in these countries. This article presents data related to elements of this vulnerability in one middle-income country, South Africa. Focusing on out-of-pocket costs, it uses focus group discussions with 73 persons with disabilities and conventional content analysis to describe these costs. A complex and nuanced picture of disability-driven costs evolved on three different areas: care and support for survival and safety, accessibility of services and participation in community. Costs varied depending on care and support needs, accessibility (physical and financial), availability, and knowledge of services and assistive devices. The development of poverty alleviation and social protection mechanisms in middle-income countries like South Africa should, the authors argue,  better consider diverse disability-related care and support needs not only to improve access to services such as education and health but also to increase the effect of disability-specific benefits and employment equity policies","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"'The one with the purse makes policy': Power, problem definition, framing and maternal health policies and programmes evolution in national level institutionalised policy making processes in Ghana.","field_subtitle":"Koduah A; Agyepong IA; van Dijk H, Social Science & Medicine 167, doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.08.051, 2016  ","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27614028","body":"This paper seeks to advance the authors\u2019 understanding of health policy agenda setting and formulation processes in a lower middle income country, Ghana, by exploring how and why maternal health policies and programmes appeared and evolved on the health sector programme of work agenda between 2002 and 2012. The authors theorised that the appearance of a policy or programme on the agenda and its fate within the programme of work is predominately influenced by how national level decision makers use their sources of power to define maternal health problems and frame their policy narratives. National level decision makers used their power sources as negotiation tools to frame maternal health issues and design maternal health policies and programmes within the framework of the national health sector programme of work. The power sources identified included legal and structural authority; access to authority by way of political influence; control over and access to resources (mainly financial); access to evidence in the form of health sector performance reviews and demographic health surveys; and knowledge of national plans such as Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy. The authors argue that understanding of power sources and their use as negotiation tools in policy development should not be ignored in the pursuit of transformative change and sustained improvement in health systems in low- and middle income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"1st EAC Heads of State Summit on Investment in Health & Joint International Health Sector Investors and Donors Roundtable Meeting","field_subtitle":"27-30 November 2017, Kampala, Uganda","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/y77etzxk","body":"The East African Community (EAC) in collaboration with leading national, regional and international Partners is organising the first ever \u201c1st EAC Heads of State Summit on Investment in Health and Joint International Health Sector Investors and Donors Round-table Meeting and International Trade Exhibition\u201d as part of proceedings of the 19th Ordinary Summit of the EAC Heads of State, from 27th to 30th November 2017 at the Commonwealth Speke Resort Hotel & Conference Centre, Munyonyo, Kampala, Uganda. The Theme of the Summit and Round-table Meeting and Trade Exhibition is \"Investing in Health Systems, Infrastructure, Health Services and Research for accelerated attainment of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the EAC by the year 2030\". The event will incorporate an International Trade Fair and Open Air Exhibitions and it will  provide an opportunity for high level discussions among Partner States, national, regional and international Partners, local investors and other stakeholders aimed at focusing attention on the urgent need for major investments in the health sector. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A new portal page being developed on the EQUINET website on resources for Participatory Action Research ","field_subtitle":"TARSC and pra4equity network: To be launched September 2017","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/governance-and-participation-health","body":"In the evaluation of the Reader on PAR in Health Systems Research (online on this site) one of the proposals made by many respondents was to have a website to share a range of PAR materials, and information on networks, trainers etc online. People indicated and we also noted that there are many existing resources on PAR but that we need to make it easier for people to find what is out there based on specific needs that they have. In response to this EQUINET is setting up in July/ August a PAR portal page called the \u201cParticipatory Action Research Portal\u201d. The new portal will have a homepage and a series of \u2018subpages\u2019 for Training, resources - which will provide links to online training courses, whole training guides and reports of training activities; Methods, tools and ethics - which will provide links to online specific papers on PAR methods, to specific examples of tools, and to discussions/ guidelines on ethical issues; PAR work \u2013 which will provide links to stories, case studies, briefs, videos, text or photojournalism stories of PAR work, including facilitator reflections; Organisations and networks -  which will provide the name, snippet of information, country and link to organisations and networks involved PAR;   Publications - which will provide published journal papers and reports on PAR through links to the urls or on the EQUINET database and  Other resources - which will provide ad hoc information that doesn\u2019t fit anywhere else. The page is being worked on in July  and August and will be launched in September 2017.  A call has been made for institutions working with PAR to provide information on resources they would like the portal to make links to. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Bill Gates Won\u2019t Save You From The Next Ebola","field_subtitle":"Fortner R; Park A: The World Post, May 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/lzsxcgw","body":"The author points out that no single non-governmental institution or individual wields more influence, and no one\u2019s support is more powerful in global health, than the Gates Foundation and its namesake founders, Bill and Melinda Gates. The foundation has $39.6 billion in assets and spent $2.9 billion on developmental assistance for global health in 2015 alone \u2015 more than every country in the world except the U.S. and the U.K.  The author argues that WHO has frequently fallen short of its goal to protect and promote health of all people, leading some to propose returning to a more philanthropy-focused model. That means private charities such as the Gates Foundation might play an even larger role in protecting public health, which calls for scrutiny of the role that philanthropy has played in recent years. When the Gates Foundation takes aim at a disease, it can elicit billions of dollars from governments and reshape the world\u2019s agenda for scientific research, to the cost of  other diseases.  WHO reliance on voluntary contributions from countries and private donors, including the Gates Foundation, for around 80 percent of its budget is argued to make the organisation vulnerable to outside pressure and funder 'pet programs', which skews global health priorities. The author documents trends post 2014 and argues that the world remains grossly underprepared for outbreaks of infectious disease, which are likely to become more frequent in the coming decades, according to a meta-analysis of post-Ebola studies published in January 2017. The author indicates that public and state funding remains critical for international health efforts and cannot be left to private players to fill the void.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Business and human rights: States\u2019 duties don\u2019t end at the national borders A new UN General Comment","field_subtitle":"UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural rights: UN, Geneva, 2017","field_url":"http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=E/C.12/GC/24&Lang=en","body":"States should control corporations across national borders to protect communities from the negative impacts of their activities, UN human rights experts have said in an authoritative new guidance * on the Obligations of States parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in the context of business activities. \u201cStates should regulate corporations that are domiciled in their territory and/or jurisdiction. This refers to corporations which have their statutory seat, central administration or principal place of business on their national territory,\u201d the experts of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural rights say in the guidance*, officially termed the General Comment, published today. In practice, the Committee expects home States of transnational corporations to establish appropriate remedies, guaranteeing effective access to justice for victims of business-related human rights abuses when more than one country is involved. In light of the practices revealed by the Panama Papers and the Bahamas Leaks, the General Comment emphasizes that States should ensure corporate strategies do not undermine their efforts to fully realize the rights set out in the Covenant. The new General Comment sets out what States can and must do in order to ensure that companies do not violate rights such as the right to food, housing, health or work, which the States themselves are bound to respect: \u201cBusinesses cannot ignore that the expectations of society are changing. The first ones to change shall be rewarded by consumers, whose purchasing choices are increasingly driven by immaterial aspects \u2014 the reputation of the company, and the ethical and sustainability dimensions associated with its products.\u201d  The issue of business and human rights has been addressed recently in different forums, including the Human Rights Council and the International Labour Conference, and through a combination of tools \u2014 regulations, self-imposed codes of conduct, economic incentives and action plans.  Zdzislaw Kedzia, the Vice-Chair of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural rights noted that \u201cIt may be tempting for States to seek refuge behind the initiatives taken by the corporate sector, rather than adopting the appropriate regulatory and policy initiatives that they must adopt. Our General Comment seeks to recall their obligations under the Covenant and define the role they must assume in regulating corporate conduct.\u201d ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Capacity for diagnosis and treatment of heart failure in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Carlson S; Duber H; Achan J; Ikilezi G; Mokdad A; Stergachis A; Gollum A; Bushman G; Roth G: Heart, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/heartjnl-2016-310913, 2017","field_url":"http://heart.bmj.com/content/early/2017/05/09/heartjnl-2016-310913","body":"Heart failure is a major cause of disease burden in sub-Saharan Africa. The authors aim to provide a better understanding of the capacity to diagnose and treat heart failure in Kenya and Uganda to inform policy planning and interventions. They analysed data from a nationally representative survey of health facilities in Kenya and Uganda (197 health facilities in Uganda and 143 in Kenya)  and report on the availability of cardiac diagnostic technologies and select medications for heart failure. Facility-level data were analysed by country and platform type (hospital vs ambulatory facilities). Functional and staffed radiography, ultrasound and ECG were available in less than half of hospitals in Kenya and Uganda combined. Of the hospitals surveyed, 49% of Kenyan and 77% of Ugandan hospitals reported availability of the heart failure medication package. ACE inhibitors were only available in 51% of Kenyan and 79% of Ugandan hospitals. Almost one-third of the hospitals in each country had a stock-out of at least one of the medication classes in the prior quarter. Few facilities in Kenya and Uganda were prepared to diagnose and manage heart failure. Medication shortages and stock-outs were common. The authors\u2019 findings call for increased investment in cardiac care to reduce the growing burden of heart failure.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"CODESRIA Democratic Governance Institute: Economic Governance and Africa\u2019s Economic Transformation, 4 \u2013 15 September 2017, Dakar, Senegal","field_subtitle":"Call for Resource Persons and Laureates: Application Deadline: 31 July 2017","field_url":"","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) announces a call for submission of proposals from academics and researchers in African universities and Research Centers for the 2017 session of its annual Democratic Governance Institute. The institute will be held in the Council\u2019s headquarters in Dakar, Senegal from 4 \u2013 15 September 2017 on the theme \u201cEconomic Governance and Africa\u2019s Economic Transformation\u2019. The Democratic Governance Institute, launched in 1992 by CODESRIA, is an annual interdisciplinary forum which brings together about fifteen researchers from various parts of the continent and the Diaspora, as well as some non-African scholars engaged in innovative research on topics related to the general theme of governance. An area where Africa\u2019s play a critical role in the global economy is the resource extraction sector. After the resource boom of the 2000-2010 decade and the confidence attending to the \u2018Africa rising\u2019 narratives, a number of countries are experiencing deeper economic regression. Creative ways to support the extraction of resources have not kept pace with demands of Africans for an interrogation of the place of Africa in the global value chain. Fast and fleeting forms of extraction are now being implemented because appetite for Africa\u2019s resources from external markets remains high and continues to grow. While useful provisions to counter the appetite for African resources exist, many intellectuals have not publicized the African Mining Vision of the African Union to reiterate demands for changing the structures of mining and African economies.The theme of \u201cEconomic Governance and Africa\u2019s Economic Transformation\u2019 has been selected with the hope that laureates will have time to reflect in some depth on the contemporary economic trends in the continent and the kind of governance architecture required to insulate African economies from dangerous global economic networks. Applicants who wish to be considered as laureates should be PhD candidates or scholars in their early career with a proven capacity to conduct research on the theme of the Institute. Intellectuals active in the policy process and/or social movements and civil society organizations are also encouraged to apply. The number of places offered by CODESRIA at each session is limited to fifteen (15). Young African academics from the Diaspora and Non-African scholars who are able to fund their participation may also apply for a limited number of places. All applications or requests for additional information should be sent electronically to the email below.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Community Health Workers feel unrecognised and undervalued","field_subtitle":"Healthcare Information for All, 19 May, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y8ws5kke","body":"Community Health Workers feel unrecognised and undervalued by community leaders and health professionals. This was the central message from a major thematic discussion held on the HIFA forums and sponsored by The Lancet, Reachout Project/Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, World Vision International and USAID Assist Project. More than 60 HIFA members contributed their experience and expertise to the discussion, including CHW programme managers, researchers and policymakers, as well as a large number of CHWs and ASHAs from India and Uganda. Countries represented included Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Ethiopia, France, Ghana, India, Iran, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Rwanda, Switzerland, Tanzania, Uganda, UK, and USA. Other major concerns were lack of training and supervision; access to healthcare information; remuneration; equipment, medicines, and need for mobile phones/computers. CHWs said they are asked to carry out a wide range and ever increasing number of tasks, but often without the appropriate facilities to enable this. CHWs feel unrecognised and undervalued by official health care providers which not only reduces morale but also creates a disjoint between perceived influence by community, and their actual influence, reducing their respect from the community. Furthermore, this lack of respect is reflected in their lack of training and supervision, and results in a paucity of avenues for them to voice their needs and concerns. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Contraceptive uptake after training community health workers in couples counselling: A cluster randomised trial","field_subtitle":"Lemani C; Tang J; Kopp D; Phiri B; Kumvula C; Chikosi L; Mwale M; Rosenberg N: PLoS One 12(4) e0175879, doi:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175879, 2017 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/kndj6mo","body":"Young women in Malawi face many challenges in accessing family planning, including distance to the health facility and partner disapproval. The author\u2019s primary objective was to assess if training Health Surveillance Assistants in couples counselling would increase modern family planning uptake among young women. In this cluster randomised controlled trial, 30 Health Surveillance Assistants from Lilongwe, Malawi received training in family planning. The Health Surveillance Assistants were then randomised 1:1 to receive or not receive additional training in couples counselling. All Health Surveillance Assistants were asked to provide family planning counselling to women in their communities and record their contraceptive uptake over 6 months. Sexually-active women ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Country participatory action research facilitators as participants in a programme to develop online PAR ","field_subtitle":"Call for applicants: Call closes July 7 2017","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/grants","body":"In 2017 EQUINET (through TARSC working with Maldaba a web design company) is developing a web platform for participatory action research (PAR) that would allow us to connect across countries on areas of local community level work and action on areas of health, health determinants  and health systems that have wider regional and global relevance or relate to global policies being applied across our countries. In doing this we are building a new tool that will allow  us to share, discuss,  analyse and design actions across countries in the same way we have done so using PAR at local level, that we can use in future for many purposes. TARSC has opened a call for people with experience of PAR working in east and southern Africa who may be interested in being involved in this process.  We will be taking forward the web platform for PAR between July 2017 and December 2019 working with eight sites and health workers and community members in a primary care facility in the site. We will be exploring how disease programme or funding targets  such as for performance based financing are affecting health workers professionals roles and team work; health workers relationships with communities  and the ability to deliver comprehensive primary health care.  We invite people to apply to join the programme as country PAR facilitators. To participate in this programme we invite people who work in an organisation/ programme in a country in an east and southern African country;  have had some exposure to PAR approaches; have access to internet; have ongoing work or interaction with at least one primary care  centre and with the health workers and community members in it, such as through health centre committees, health literacy or other programmes; have primary care level services that are implementing some form of target driven funding or service delivery, such as in performance based financing or specific disease programmes, and are available for the  activities, in the time frames and for the duration noted in the process above. If you are interested please email EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org  by July 7th 2017 with your name, organisation, country and email address for communication, and: (1)  list of any prior training received on PAR, with the course, institution providing the course and year; (2) A list of any PAR work you have implemented, with a line for each on what it was about and the year; (3) Confirmation that you have direct access to internet and what it costs you for a one hour session (if provided institutionally through your organisation please indicate this). (4) The name, location and urban/ rural location of a primary care  centre that you regularly interact with, including with the health workers and community members,  and  whether the health workers and / or community members at this centre have access to the internet (not essential but useful). (5) The form of target driven funding or service delivery being implemented at the primary care service, (ie. performance based financing or specific disease programmes specify  for what) and (6) Confirmation that you are available for the  activities, in the time frames and for the duration noted in the process above.  We will provide feedback to applicants who provide the full information above by last week of July.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Current and future availability of and need for human resources for sexual, reproductive, maternal and newborn health in 41 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Guerra A; Nove A; Michel-Schuldt M; de Bernis L: International Journal of Equity Health 16(1) 69, 2017","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5415807/","body":"The World Health Organisation African region, covering the majority of Sub-Saharan Africa, faces the highest rates of maternal and neonatal mortality in the world. This study uses data from the State of the World's Midwifery 2014 survey to cast a spotlight on the World Health Organisation African region, highlight the specific characteristics of its sexual, reproductive, maternal and newborn health (SRMNH) workforce and describe and compare countries' different trajectories in terms of meeting the population need for services. Using data from 41 African countries, this study used a mathematical model to estimate potential met need for SRMNH services, defined as \"the percentage of a universal SRMNH package that could potentially be obtained by women and newborns given the composition, competencies and available working time of the SRMNH workforce.\" The model defined the 46 key interventions included in this universal SRMNH package and allocated them to the available health worker time and skill set in each country to estimate the potential met need. Based on the current and projected potential met need in the future, the countries were grouped into three categories: (1) 'making or maintaining progress' (expected to meet more, or the same level, of the need in the future than currently): 14 countries including Ghana, Senegal and South Africa, (2) 'at risk' (currently performing relatively well but expected to deteriorate due to the health workforce not keeping pace with population growth): 6 countries including Gabon, Rwanda and Zambia, and (3) 'low performing' (not performing well and not expected to improve): 21 countries including Burkina Faso, Eritrea and Sierra Leone. The three groups face different challenges, and the authors argue that policy solutions to increasing met need should be tailored to the specific context of the country and that national health workforce accounts be strengthened so that workforce planning can be evidence-informed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Decolonizing technology: A reading list","field_subtitle":"Martini B: Tech and Tools for Justice and Rights Blog, 2017","field_url":"https://beatricemartini.it/blog/decolonizing-technology-reading-list/","body":"Today, the ways and means of technology access and usage are suggested by the author to be driven by power dynamics centering on the needs of specific demographics and experiences, channeling a colonialist exercise of control, establishing who gets to use a tool or service, and to which extent. A growing number of researchers, scholars, artists and advocates has been looking into how a colonialist approach sits at the core of how a great deal of  digital technology is developed, distributed, and capitalised. This has progressively contributed to a new lens through which to analyse the subject matter, which can be referred to as the concept of decolonizing technology. With the objective to build a resource to inspire new learning and reflections on the concept of decolonizing technology, this post includes a reading list on the topic. This list represents a snapshot of some the work done to date on the concept of decolonizing technology. It aims to inspire further research and discoveries of any other possible resource and initiative delving deeper into this subject, from many more and different perspectives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Dentistry in crisis: time to change","field_subtitle":"Lois Cohen, Gunnar Dahlen, Alfonso Escobar, Ole Fejerskov, Newell Johnson, Firoze Manji, La Cascada, Colombia","field_url":"","body":"A group of senior scientists\u2014researchers, academics and intellectuals\u2014from various parts of the world, with over 250 years\u2019 combined experience of working to improve the oral health of communities, independent of any institution, government body or corporate entity, met in Colombia in March 2017 and prepared a statement on their analysis of the problem and recommendations about what should be done. This editorial presents paragraphs extracted from the statement. The full statement, referred to as La Cascada Declaration, together with associated papers, is available at https://lacascada.pressbooks.com/front-matter/introduction/. \r\n\r\nWe are concerned that the dental profession, worldwide, has lost its way. \r\n\r\nDespite current knowledge of the causes of oral diseases, globally most people continue to experience significant levels of disease and disability. Although technological and scientific developments over the last 50 years have contributed to improvements in the quality of life for some, oral diseases continue to cause pain, infection, tooth-loss and misery for a vast number of people. While in many middle and high income countries, there have been marked overall improvements in oral health, oral health inequalities both between and within countries are now a major problem. The overall improvements in oral health have been the result of general improvements in living standards and conditions, changing social norms in society (improvements in personal hygiene and reduction in smoking) and the widespread use of fluoride toothpastes, rather than due to the clinical interventions of dentists. \r\n\r\nGlobally the profession has had little direct impact on the scale of the problem. Clinical interventions account for only a small proportion of improvements in the health of populations. This is as true of oral health as of general health.\r\n\r\nThe world has witnessed significant growth in social inequalities between the rich and the poor. \u2026Austerity policies worldwide (commonly referred to as \u2018structural adjustment programs\u2019 in the global South) have diverted social and welfare spending away from the public to the private sector in the belief that \u2018the market\u2019 can meet social needs, despite evidence to the contrary. This has led to the creation of a two-tier health service\u2014one for the rich, and the other, limited and often of poorer quality, for the majority. \r\n\r\nCorporations and insurance companies are increasingly taking over the provision of health services, including dental services, in many countries. The treatment regimens that they promote are designed more to ensure adequate returns on investment for their shareholders than to improve the health status of the community, resulting in a tendency for the provision of excessive and sometimes inappropriate treatments. \r\n\r\nMajor food and beverage companies continue to promote the consumption of refined carbohydrates, free sugars in drinks, confectionary and in processed foods, even though these are major contributory factors for dental decay, not to mention obesity and diabetes. Advertisements of these products frequently and unjustifiably imply health benefits.\r\n\r\nWe believe that the dental profession, as presently constituted, is inappropriately educated for dealing adequately with oral health problems faced by the public. In many countries, there is an overproduction of dentists, most of whom provide services only in the main urban centers where private practice is more lucrative and services often fail to reach those in more remote areas of the country. In some cases, overproduction results in unemployment.\r\n\r\nWhile there is no doubt that the intention of the profession is to improve health, commonly used treatment regimens for tooth decay (drillings and fillings) and gum diseases (scaling and polishing) do not by themselves arrest or control their progression. Furthermore, filling teeth inevitably leads to a cycle of replacements of increasing size, ultimately shortening the life of the dentition. \r\n\r\nDentistry is drifting, it seems, away from its task of prevention and control of the progression of disease and of maintaining health. The mouth has become dissociated from the body, just as oral health care has become separated from general medicine. \r\n\r\nWe believe dentistry is in crisis. Things must change. \r\n\r\nSince clinical interventions account for only a small proportion of health improvements, the dental professions should be in the forefront of efforts that call for a reduction in income disparities and for a more just world in which everyone has access to resources and conditions for good health and well-being. Those industries whose products are harmful to health, especially producers of free sugars in foods, drinks, and producers of foods containing refined carbohydrates, should be required to label their products as harmful (just as has been done in many parts of the world in relation to tobacco and alcohol). The decline in government spending on the social sector cannot be justified in the light of excessive expenditures on war, the military, arms and other destructive initiatives. Corporations and industry should not be permitted to unduly influence research or clinical practice.\r\n\r\nThe dental profession is over-trained for what they do and under-trained for what they should be doing.  Control of the most common oral diseases requires relatively little training and could and should be performed in most cases by community healthcare workers. Demonstration projects on the effectiveness of such approaches are needed.\r\n\r\nDentistry should become a specialism of medicine, just as ENT (ear, nose & throat), ophthalmology, dermatology, etc. are specialisms of medicine. As such, oral health physicians would be responsible for providing leadership of the oral health team, in the management of advanced disease and the provision of emergency care, relief and management of pain, infections and sepsis, management of trauma, diagnosis and management of soft-tissue pathologies and, where justifiable from the point of view of the maintenance of health, interventions to re-establish a functional dentition and orofacial reconstruction. Since the management and control of most common diseases could be undertaken by primary healthcare workers, a relatively small number of such oral health physicians would need to be trained. In addition, a relatively small number of public health dentists would be needed to coordinate oral health needs assessments, implement and evaluate community-based oral health improvement strategies and to act as oral health advocates to ensure the closer integration of oral health into wider policies. \r\n\r\nThe implications of the above recommendations are obvious: changing dentists into oral health physicians necessitates thorough revision of the education profiles of dental schools: an overhaul of the current curriculum for training of dentists; a reduction in the number of dentists trained; and an improvement in the quality of courses, especially ensuring that training is linked to the needs of the population. \r\n\r\nThe current state of dentistry worldwide is dire. It requires radical solutions. This short declaration has been produced to stimulate discussion about what needs to be done in the interest of the health of the majority of humankind. We recognise that the changes may take time to implement. Each country will need to assess how best to bring these about. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Dr Tedros Promises WHO Reform with Human Rights at the Core","field_subtitle":"Health and Human Rights Journal Blog, 23 May 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y97zwd5b","body":"Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, newly  elected Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) for the next five years, believes WHO must evolve and adapt to urgent global health challenges, and \u201cput the right to health at the core of its functions, and be the global vanguard to champion them.\u201d Universal health coverage will be his topmost priority. \u201cThe growing momentum around universal health coverage\u2014combined with the global commitment to sustainable development and its motto of \u201cleaving no one behind\u201d\u2014offers unique opportunities to advance equity in health.\u201d In a Q&A with Health and Human Rights Dr Tedros discussed the \u201chundreds of millions of people missing out on essential health care or falling into poverty trying to pay for it. That is a violation of the human right to health that demands our full attention and urgent action.\u201d He acknowledged that implementation of policies to achieve universal health cover is difficult and requires collaboration and partnership across stakeholders. He explained this collaborative approach guided Ethiopia\u2019s pursuit of equitable health access when he was minister of health. Dr Tedros told Health and Human Rights that he is committed to transforming the way that WHO operates with the core principles of health as a human right and universal health coverage for the most vulnerable are at the forefront of all our work. Too often, Dr Tedros noted, human rights and gender equity are secondary considerations when UN organisations develop programming. He stressed that this is outdated and must change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Dynamic Facilitation Skills for Participatory Processes","field_subtitle":"25 - 27 July 2017, Cape Town","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/yaqoa9hv","body":"The objective of this course is to help sharpen the facilitation techniques of people who use participatory methods for their projects, and who work with groups. This course will deepen their understanding of group processes, and provides a space for facilitators to learn from each other by sharing knowledge and experiences. The training course will be run in a workshop style with a high degree of participant involvement using adult learning methods. Group work and role plays will be interspersed with input sessions combining theory and practice. The trainers are expert facilitators, and will also demonstrate the skills that they share. The course is also designed to include a range of different method that can be used to facilitate group processes. The training course covers essential skills for facilitation, the roles of a facilitator and interpersonal communication and conversation styles in facilitation. Further, the course will introduce participants to skills on how to manage group dynamics & understanding group decision-making processes, how to design a facilitation process and facilitation tools and techniques and how to use them. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Effects of payment for performance on accountability mechanisms: Evidence from Pwani, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mayumana I; Borghi J; Anselmi L; Mamdani M; Lange S: Social Science & Medicine 179, 61\u201373, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ksv36lz","body":"Payment for Performance (P4P) aims to improve provider motivation to perform better, but little is known about the effects of P4P on accountability mechanisms. The authors examined the effect of P4P in Tanzania on internal and external accountability mechanisms. The authors carried out 93 individual in-depth interviews, 9 group interviews and 19 Focus Group Discussions in five intervention districts in three rounds of data collection between 2011 and 2013. The authors carried out surveys in 150 health facilities across Pwani region and four control districts, and interviewed 200 health workers, before the scheme was introduced and 13 months later. The authors examined the effects of P4P on internal accountability mechanisms including management changes, supervision, and priority setting, and external accountability mechanisms including provider responsiveness to patients, and engagement with Health Facility Governing Committees. P4P had some positive effects on internal accountability, with increased timeliness of supervision and the provision of feedback during supervision, but a lack of effect on supervision intensity. P4P reduced the interruption of service delivery due to broken equipment as well as drug stock-outs due to increased financial autonomy and responsiveness from managers. Management practices became less hierarchical, with less emphasis on bureaucratic procedures. Effects on external accountability were mixed, health workers treated pregnant women more kindly, but outreach activities did not increase. Facilities were more likely to have committees but their role was largely limited. P4P resulted in improvements in internal accountability measures through improved relations and communication between stakeholders that were incentivised at different levels of the system and enhanced provider autonomy over funds. P4P had more limited effects on external accountability, though attitudes towards patients appeared to improve, community engagement through health facility governing committees remained limited. Implementers should examine the lines of accountability when setting incentives and deciding who to incentivise in P4P schemes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 196: Dentistry in crisis: time to change","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Regional review meeting on health centre committees as a vehicle for social participation June 2017","field_subtitle":"CWGH, TARSC, UCT and LDHMT: June 20-22, Harare","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/content/meetings","body":"Community Working Group on Health in partnership with Training and Research Support Centre, University of Cape Town  School of Public Health, and\r\nthe Lusaka District Health Management Team under the auspices of EQUINET held a regional review meeting on Health Centre Committees as a vehicle for social participation in health systems in East and Southern Africa on 20-22 June in Harare. The meeting was held as part of a programme to\r\nexchange experiences and information on the laws, roles, capacities, training and monitoring systems that are being applied to HCCs in the ESA region. The meeting discussed experiences with laws, policies, guidelines and constitutions on HCCs; shared experiences in using photo voice to enhance the role of HCCs; discussed current training materials and programmes for HCCs in the region and the strengthening of internal capacities of institutions working with HCCs through information exchange and skills inputs. The report will be made available on the EQUINET website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity trends in ownership of insecticide-treated nets in 19 sub-Saharan African countries","field_subtitle":"Taylor C; Florey L; Ye Y:  Bulletin World Health Organisation 95(5) 322\u2013332, 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/95/5/16-172924.pdf","body":"This study examined the change in equity of insecticide-treated net ownership among 19 malaria-endemic countries in sub-Saharan Africa before and after the launch of the Cover The Bed Net Gap initiative. To assess change in equity in ownership of at least one insecticide-treated net by households from different wealth quintiles, the authors used data from Demographic and Health Surveys and Malaria Indicator Surveys. The authors assigned surveys conducted before the launch (2003\u20132008) as baseline surveys and surveys conducted between 2009\u20132014 as endpoint surveys and did country-level and pooled multi-country analyses, dividing geographical zones into either low- and intermediate-risk or high-risk. To assess changes in equity, they calculated the Lorenz concentration curve and concentration index (C-index). Out of the 19 countries assessed, 13 countries showed improved equity between baseline and endpoint surveys and two countries showed no changes. Four countries displayed worsened equity, two favouring the poorer households and two favouring the richer. The multi-country pooled analysis showed an improvement in equity. Similar trends were seen in both low- and intermediate-risk and high-risk zones. They conclude that the mass insecticide-treated net distribution campaigns to increase coverage, linked to the launch of the Cover The Bed Net Gap initiative, have led to improvement in coverage of insecticide-treated net ownership across sub-Saharan Africa with significant reduction in inequity among wealth quintiles.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluation of the influenza sentinel surveillance system in Madagascar, 2009\u20132014","field_subtitle":"Rakotoarisoa A; Randrianasolo L; Tempia S; Guillebaud J; Razanajatovo N; Randriamampionona L; Piola P; Halm A; Heraud JM: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 95(5) 375\u2013381, 2017","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5418817/","body":"Evaluation of influenza surveillance systems is poor, especially in Africa. In 2007, the Institut Pasteur de Madagascar and the Malagasy Ministry of Public Health implemented a countrywide system for the prospective syndromic and virological surveillance of influenza-like illnesses. In assessing this system\u2019s performance, the authors identified gaps and ways to promote the best use of resources. The authors investigated acceptability, data quality, flexibility, representativeness, simplicity, stability, timeliness and usefulness and developed qualitative and/or quantitative indicators for each of these attributes. Until 2007, the influenza surveillance system in Madagascar was only operational in Antananarivo and the observations made could not be extrapolated to the entire country. By 2014, the system covered 34 sentinel sites across the country. At 12 sites, nasopharyngeal and/or oropharyngeal samples were collected and tested for influenza virus. Between 2009 and 2014, 177\u2009718 fever cases were detected, 25\u2009809 (14.5%) of these fever cases were classified as cases of influenza-like illness. Of the 9192 samples from patients with influenza-like illness that were tested for influenza viruses, 3573 (38.9%) tested positive. Data quality for all evaluated indicators was categorised as above 90% and the system also appeared to be strong in terms of its acceptability, simplicity and stability. However, sample collection needed improvement. The influenza surveillance system in Madagascar performed well and provided reliable and timely data for public health interventions. Given its flexibility and overall moderate cost, the authors argue that this system may become a useful platform for syndromic and laboratory-based surveillance in other low-resource settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Incidence and risk factors for hypertension among HIV patients in rural Tanzania \u2013 A prospective cohort study","field_subtitle":"Rodr\u00edguez-Arbol\u00ed E; Mwamelo K; Kalinjuma A; Furrer H; Hatz C; Tanner M; Battegay M; Letang E; KIULARCO Study Group: Plos One, doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172089, 2017","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0172089","body":"Scarce data are available on the epidemiology of hypertension among HIV patients in rural sub-Saharan Africa. The authors explored the prevalence, incidence and risk factors for incident hypertension among patients who were enrolled in a rural HIV cohort in Tanzania. A prospective longitudinal study including HIV patients enrolled in the Kilombero and Ulanga Antiretroviral Cohort was carried out between 2013 and 2015. Non-ART subjects at baseline and pregnant women during follow-up were excluded from the analysis. Incident hypertension was defined as systolic blood pressure \u2265 140 mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure \u2265 90 mmHg on two consecutive visits. Cox proportional hazards models were used to assess the association of baseline characteristics and incident hypertension. Among 955 ART-na\u00efve, eligible subjects, 111 (11.6%) were hypertensive at recruitment. Ten women were excluded due to pregnancy. Of the remaining individuals,  9.6% developed hypertension during a median follow-up of 144 days from time of enrolment into the cohort. ART was started in 75.5% of patients, with a median follow-up on ART of 7 months. Cox regression models identified age,  body mass index and estimated glomerular filtration rate  as independent risk factors for hypertension development.  Traditional cardiovascular risk factors predicted incident hypertension, but no association was observed with immunological or ART status. These data support the implementation of routine hypertension screening and integrated management into HIV programmes in rural sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Interview: How do you quantify malaria\u2019s economic damage?","field_subtitle":"China Global Television Network (CGTN) Africa, April 2017","field_url":"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q587OVigbr0&feature=youtu.be","body":"Despite decades of interventions, malaria is still one of the biggest killer diseases in Africa continent. In 2015 alone, an estimated 429 000 people died of malaria according to the World Health Organisation, 90% of them in Africa. Beyond the lives lost, how much economic damage does malaria really do to sub-Saharan economies? That\u2019s a question CGTN's Ramah Nyang explored in conversation with the CEO of the African Medical & Research Foundation.The drug RTSS prevents more than forty strains of malaria in toddlers. It is being rolled out to more than 300 000 children in Kenya, Ghana and Malawi in trials and more vaccines are being tested. It is unlikely that one vaccines will eradicate all malaria, but testing vaccines can significantly reduce the impact of malaria. Malaria was eradicated in Europe and America in the 1930s and many are asking why this cannot be done again in Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"MPhil in Public Mental Health: Call for Applications","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications 1 September 2017","field_url":"http://www.cpmh.org.za/teaching/mphil-public-mental-health/","body":"The Alan J. Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health (CPMH), a joint initiative of the Psychology Department at Stellenbosch University and the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at the University of Cape Town, is an independent inter-disciplinary academic research and teaching centre for public mental health promotion and service development in Africa.  The CPMH is proud to invite applications from across the African continent for the MPhil in Public Mental Health in 2018. A key gap in current mental health professional training in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa is an orientation to public mental health. This means an orientation to the mental health needs of populations, and the policies, laws and services that are required to meet those needs. The training offered by the Centre provides clinicians, health service managers, policy makers and NGO workers with crucial skills to enable them to plan and evaluate the services that they deliver and manage; lobby effectively for mental health; take on leadership roles in the strengthening of mental health systems; and conduct research in various aspects of public mental health in Africa. The MPhil in Public Mental Health is a part-time research degree that aims to develop advanced research skills, enabling participants to undertake their own research projects (such as evaluating services, policies and interventions) as well as interpret research findings for mental health policy and practice.  The programme is designed to be accessible to practitioners who work full-time, and who are from a range of backgrounds: social work, psychology, psychiatry, medicine, occupational therapy, nursing, health economics, public mental health, public health, health service management, policy making and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).  The training aims to build the professional capacity and leadership of the participants in their work, while contributing to knowledge generation in Africa. The degree requires the completion of a 3-week residential training module in research methodology for public mental health in Cape Town and the preparation of a dissertation of a minimum of 20 000 words, in either monograph or publication ready format.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Palm Wine Collectors","field_subtitle":"Weeks K: Lens Culture, June 2017","field_url":"http://www.lensculture.com/articles/kyle-weeks-palm-wine-collectors","body":"In Namibia, a generations-long tradition of tapping the sap of palm trees runs counter to recent environmental protection efforts. Is this an essential cultural practice or merely destructive? These striking portraits investigate. The images in this series portray the Himba men who select, prepare and maintain Makalani palms during the sap tapping process. The Himba people from this area have utilised this plant family for generations, passing down the knowledge and technique needed to carry out the process of obtaining the liquid. Although the Makalani palm is a protected tree in Namibia and the tapping of palms a banned practice, the Himba firmly believe that it is their right to continue the tradition. They argue against Western law and instead follow ancient cultural traditions that respect these palms through their utilisation. In turn, they promote their conservation on a local, cultural level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory evaluation of delivery of animal health care services by community animal health workers in Karamoja region of Uganda","field_subtitle":"Bugeza J; Kankya C; Muleme J; Akandinda A; Sserugga J; Nantima N; Okori E; Odoch T: PLOS One, doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179110, 2017","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0179110","body":"An evaluation exercise was carried out to assess the performance of Community Animal Health Workers (CAHWs) in the delivery of animal health care services in Karamoja region, identify capacity gaps and recommend remedial measures. Participatory methods were used to design data collection tools. Questionnaires were administered to 204 CAHWs, 215 farmers and 7 District Veterinary Officers (DVOs) to collect quantitative data. Seven DVOs and 1 Non Government Organisation (NGO) representative were interviewed as key informants and one focus group discussion was conducted with a farmer group in Nakapiripirit to collect qualitative data. Key messages from interviews and the focus group discussion were recorded in a notebook and reported verbatim. 70% of the farmers revealed that CAHWs are the most readily available animal health care service providers in their respective villages. CAHWs were instrumental in treatment of sick animals, disease surveillance, control of external parasites, animal production, vaccination, reporting, animal identification, and performing minor surgeries. Regarding their overall performance 88.8% of the farmers said they were impressed. The main challenges faced by the CAHWs were inadequate facilitation, lack of tools and equipment, unwillingness of government to integrate them into the formal extension system, poor information flow, limited technical capacity to diagnose diseases, unwillingness of farmers to pay for services and sustainability issues. CAHWs remain the main source of animal health care services in Karamoja region and their services are largely satisfactory. The technical deficits identified are argued to require continuous capacity building programs, close supervision and technical backstopping and strategic deployment of paraprofessionals that are formally recognised by the traditional civil service.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The Contributions of Human Rights to Universal Health Coverage","field_subtitle":"Chapman A: Health and Human Rights 18(2) December 2016 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ldpu9bz","body":"Recently, there has been a growing push for countries to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) in order to strengthen health systems and improve health equity and access to health services. Importantly, not all potential paths to a universal health system are consistent with human rights requirements. Simply expanding health coverage, especially if it continues to exclude poor and vulnerable communities, is not sufficient from a human rights perspective. The author in this paper presents the requirements that a human rights approach to UHC imposes. These include locating UHC within the context of a national effort to provide equitable access to the social determinants of health; making access to essential health services and public health protections a legal entitlement, with redress for failures to provide these benefits; paying explicit attention to equity in the design of the universal health system, including in health financing.  There should be opportunities for consultation with and the participation of the population in the design of the path to UHC and the determination of benefits packages. The process for pursuing the progressive realisation of UHC should first expand coverage for high-priority services to everyone, with special efforts to ensure that disadvantaged groups are reached. The author notes that the goal of achieving UHC can generally be realised only in stages, through a long process of gradual realisation, given limitations in resource availability and administrative capacity, and that this imposes difficult trade-offs along the way. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The political argument for investing in global health","field_subtitle":"Martin K; Mullan Z; Horton R: The Lancet Global Health 5(Special Issue) S1-S2, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ktere2l","body":"The authors argue that an insular, authoritarian wave has been on the rise that is playing on people's fears and insecurities, undermining democratic institutions that are vital to maintaining the ties of accountability between the elected and the public: and multilateral infrastructures. Global health is argued to rely on an outward-looking, internationalist stance, since the threats that are faced know no borders. So how can global health advance in an era of retreat? Politics drive policies and the public drives the political. All sectors must thus, it is argued, be politically active in order to affect the development and implementation of public policies, including academia and the knowledge it brings. To successfully advance financial and political capital investments in global health, arguments must be framed by how they improve the security and prosperity of citizens and the nation. Investing in global health and multinational actions is a path to address these threats that know no borders. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The social accountability of doctors: a relationship based framework for understanding emergent community concepts of caring","field_subtitle":"Green-Thompson L; McInerney P; Woollard B: Biological Medical Centre Health Services Research 17(269),  doi: 10.1186/s12913-017-2239-7, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/map4l76","body":"Social accountability is defined as the responsibility of institutions to respond to the health priorities of a community. There is an international movement towards the education of health professionals who are accountable to communities. There is little evidence of how communities experience or articulate this accountability. In this grounded theory study eight community based focus group discussions were conducted in rural and urban South Africa to explore community members\u2019 perceptions of the social accountability of doctors. The discussions were conducted across one urban and two rural provinces. Group discussions were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Initial coding was done and three main themes emerged following data analysis: the consultation as a place of respect (participants have an expectation of care yet are often engaged with disregard); relationships of people and systems (participants reflect on their health priorities and the links with the social determinants of health) and Ubuntu as engagement of the community (reflected in their expectation of Ubuntu based relationships as well as part of the education system). These themes were related through a framework which integrates three levels of relationship: a central community of reciprocal relationships with the doctor-patient relationship as core, a level in which the systems of health and education interact and together with social determinants of health mediate the insertion of communities into a broader discourse. The paper outlines an ubuntu framing in which the tensions between vulnerability and power interact and reflect rights and responsibility as important for social accountability. Communities are argued to bring a richer dimension to social accountability through their understanding of being human and caring.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Three African countries chosen to test first malaria vaccine","field_subtitle":"Prinsloo K: Associated Press, 24 April 2017","field_url":"https://www.statnews.com/2017/04/24/african-countries-malaria-vaccine/","body":"Three African countries have been chosen to test the world\u2019s first malaria vaccine, the World Health Organisation announced in April 2017. Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi will begin piloting the injectable vaccine next year with hundreds of thousands of young children, who have been at highest risk of death. The vaccine, which has partial effectiveness, has the potential to save tens of thousands of lives if used with existing measures, the WHO regional director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, said in a statement. The challenge is whether impoverished countries can deliver the required four doses of the vaccine for each child. Malaria remains one of the world\u2019s most stubborn health challenges, infecting more than 200 million people every year and killing about half a million, most of them children in Africa. Bed netting and insecticides are the chief protection. A global effort to counter malaria has led to a 62 percent cut in deaths between 2000 and 2015, WHO said. But the U.N. agency has said in the past that such estimates are based mostly on modelling and that data is so bad for 31 countries in Africa \u2014 including those believed to have the worst outbreaks \u2014 that it couldn\u2019t tell if cases have been rising or falling in the last 15 years. The vaccine will be tested on children five to 17 months old to see whether its protective effects shown so far in clinical trials can hold up under real-life conditions. At least 120,000 children in each of the three countries will receive the vaccine, which has taken decades of work and hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. Kenya, Ghana and Malawi were chosen for the vaccine pilot because all have strong prevention and vaccination programs but continue to have high numbers of malaria cases, WHO said. The countries will deliver the vaccine through their existing vaccination programs. WHO is hoping to wipe out malaria by 2040 despite increasing resistance problems to both drugs and insecticides used to kill mosquitoes. The malaria vaccine has been developed by pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, and the $49 million for the first phase of the pilot is being funded by the global vaccine alliance GAVI, UNITAID and Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Time for a global response to labour rights violations in the manufacture of health-care goods","field_subtitle":"Bhutta M: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 95(5) 314-314A, 2017 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/95/5/17-193417/en/","body":"This document discusses guidance on ethical procurement for health and for protecting labour rights in medical supply chains. It is an update to an earlier document in response to evidence of abuse of worker rights at several factories manufacturing health-care products destined for global markets. Poor labour conditions should concern all those in health care. Work is inextricably correlated to physical and mental well-being: unsafe working conditions risk bodily injury; inadequate remuneration links to malnutrition, poor housing and lack of opportunity. Long or irregular working hours and a lack of respect at work contribute to stress, anxiety and depression. Working conditions found in the manufacture of some health-care products have been among the worse encountered anywhere. The document reports on the measures taken by other countries and that comply with the International Labour Organisation Declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work, as well as with local employment and health and safety legislation. For example for high-risk products, suppliers are contractually required to allow independent audit of manufacturing sites to identify problems and to oblige remedial action, a measure that  has led to demonstrable improvements in working conditions for the people making products for the health-care system. The paper also notes that there are still limited measures for protection of health and safety in the growing global market for health-care products, estimated to soon be worth over US$ 500 billion annually.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Tobacco use among people living with HIV: analysis of data from Demographic and Health Surveys from 28 low-income and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Mdege N; Shah S; Ayo-Yusuf O; Hakim J; Siddiqi K: The Lancet Global Health 5(6), e578-e592, 2017","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(17)30170-5/fulltext","body":"Tobacco use among people living with HIV results in excess morbidity and mortality. However, very little is known about the extent of tobacco use among people living with HIV in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). The authors assessed the prevalence of tobacco use among people living with HIV in LMICs. The authors used Demographic and Health Survey data collected between 2003 and 2014 from 28 LMICs where both tobacco use and HIV test data were made publicly available. They estimated the country-specific, regional, and overall prevalence of current tobacco use (smoked, smokeless, and any tobacco use) among 6729 HIV-positive men from 27 LMICs (aged 15\u201359 years) and 11\u2008495 HIV-positive women from 28 LMICs (aged 15\u201349 years), and compared them with those in 193\u2008763 HIV-negative men and 222\u2008808 HIV-negative women, respectively. The authors estimated prevalence separately for males and females as a proportion, and the analysis accounted for sampling weights, clustering, and stratification in the sampling design. They computed pooled regional and overall prevalence estimates through meta-analysis with the application of a random-effects model. They computed country, regional, and overall relative prevalence ratios for tobacco smoking, smokeless tobacco use, and any tobacco use separately for males and females to study differences in prevalence rates between HIV-positive and HIV-negative individuals. The overall prevalence among HIV-positive men was 24\u00b74% for tobacco smoking, 3\u00b74% for smokeless tobacco use, and 27\u00b71% for any tobacco use. The authors found a higher prevalence in HIV-positive men of any tobacco use (risk ratio [RR] 1\u00b741 and tobacco smoking than in HIV-negative men (both p","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in obesity and diabetes across Africa from 1980 to 2014: an analysis of pooled population-based studies","field_subtitle":"NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC) \u2013 Africa Working Group: International Journal of Epidemiology dyx078, doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyx078, June 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ycwsnv3u","body":"The 2016 Dar Es Salaam Call to Action on Diabetes and Other non-communicable diseases (NCDs) advocates national multi-sectoral NCD strategies and action plans based on available data and information from countries of sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. The authors estimated trends from 1980 to 2014 in age-standardised mean body mass index (BMI) and diabetes prevalence in these countries, in order to assess the co-progression and assist policy formulation. They pooled data from African and worldwide population-based studies which measured height, weight and biomarkers to assess diabetes status in adults aged\u2009\u2265\u200918 years. African data came from 245 population-based surveys (1.2 million participants) for BMI and 76 surveys (182\u2009000 participants) for diabetes prevalence estimates. The age-standardised mean BMI increased from 21.0\u2009kg/m2 to 23.0\u2009kg/m2 in men, and from 21.9\u2009kg/m2 to 24.9\u2009kg/m2 in women. The age-standardised prevalence of diabetes increased from 3.4% to 8.5% in men, and from 4.1% to 8.9% in women. Estimates in northern and southern regions were mostly higher than the global average; those in central, eastern and western regions were lower than global averages. A positive association was observed between mean BMI and diabetes prevalence in both sexes in 1980 and 2014. These estimates, based on limited data sources, confirm the rapidly increasing burden of diabetes in Africa. This rise is being driven, at least in part, by increasing adiposity, with regional variations in observed trends. African countries\u2019 efforts to prevent and control diabetes and obesity should integrate the setting up of reliable monitoring systems, consistent with the World Health Organisation\u2019s Global Monitoring System Framework.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Watch The Movements Of Every Refugee On Earth Since The Year 2000","field_subtitle":"Peters A: Fast Company, 31 May 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y8vshbp7","body":"In 2016, more refugees arrived in Uganda\u2013including nearly half a million people from South Sudan alone\u2013than crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. While the numbers in Africa are increasing, the situation isn\u2019t new: As the world continues to focus on the European refugee crisis, an equally large crisis has been unfolding in Africa. A new visualization shows the flow of refugees around the world from 2000 to 2015, and makes the lesser-known story in Africa\u2013and in places like Sri Lanka in 2006 or Colombia in 2007\u2013as obvious as what has been happening more recently in Syria. Each yellow dot represents 17 refugees leaving a country, and each red dot represents refugees arriving somewhere else.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Women who live on the margin of society: A dialogue with Tshepo Jamillah Moyo","field_subtitle":"Mogami G: Africa In Dialogue, 7 June 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ydcahs3c","body":"Born 1994, Tshepo Jamillah Moyo (TJ) is an unapologetic black Pan African Inter-sectional Feminist performance artist. Her work centres on the exploration of black African womanhood. In this conversation, she discusses her provocation at a recent march in Botswana on the 3rd of June where human rights and gender activists, and fellow women marched in the RIGHT TO WEAR WHAT I WANT walk, which aimed to highlight that no one has the right to violate another human being based on what they are wearing. Moyo argues that there is a need for an intersectional feminism that thinks about every single woman, and all the intersections of her life  where oppression derives from. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cGuilty until proven innocent\u201d: the contested use of maternal mortality indicators in global health","field_subtitle":"Storeng K; B\u00e9hague D: Critical Public Health 27(2), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2016.1259459 , 2016","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09581596.2016.1259459","body":"The maternal mortality ratio (MMR) has risen from obscurity to become a major global health indicator, even appearing as an indicator of progress towards the global Sustainable Development Goals. This has happened despite intractable challenges relating to the measurement of maternal mortality. Even after three decades of measurement innovation, maternal mortality data are widely presumed to be of poor quality, or, as one leading measurement expert has put it, \u2018guilty until proven innocent\u2019. This paper explores how and why leading epidemiologists, demographers and statisticians have devoted the better part of the last three decades to producing ever more sophisticated and expensive surveys and mathematical models of globally comparable MMR estimates. The development of better metrics is publicly justified by the need to know which interventions save lives and at what cost. The authors show, however, that measurement experts\u2019 work has also been driven by the need to secure political priority for safe motherhood and by donors\u2019 need to justify and monitor the results of investment flows. They explore the many effects and consequences of this measurement work, including the eclipsing of attention to strengthening much-needed national health information systems. the authors analyse this measurement work in relation to broader political and economic changes affecting the global health field, not least the incursion of neoliberal, business-oriented funders who have introduced new forms of administrative oversight and accountability that depend on indicators.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cIf my husband leaves me, I will go home and suffer, so better cling to him and hide this thing\u201d: The influence of gender on Option B+ prevention of mother-to-child transmission participation in Malawi and Uganda","field_subtitle":"Flax V; Yourkavitch J; Okello E; Kadzandira J; Katahoire A; Munthali A: PLOS One, doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0178298, 2016","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178298","body":"The role of gender in prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) participation under Option B+ has not been adequately studied, but it is critical for reducing losses to follow-up. This study used qualitative methods to examine the interplay of gender and individual, interpersonal, health system, and community factors that contribute to PMTCT participation in Malawi and Uganda. The authors conducted in-depth interviews with women in PMTCT, women lost to follow-up, government health workers, and stakeholders at organisations supporting PMTCT as well as focus group discussions with men. They analysed the data using thematic content analysis. The authors found many similarities in key themes across respondent groups and between the two countries. The main facilitators of PMTCT participation were knowledge of the health benefits of ART, social support, and self-efficacy. The main barriers were fear of HIV disclosure and stigma and lack of social support, male involvement, self-efficacy, and agency. Under Option B+, women learn about their HIV status and start lifelong ART on the same day, before they have a chance to talk to their husbands or families. Respondents explained that very few husbands accompanied their wives to the clinic, because they felt it was a female space and were worried that others would think their wives were controlling them. Many respondents said women fear disclosing, because they fear HIV stigma as well as the risk of divorce and loss of economic support. If women do not disclose, it is difficult for them to participate in PMTCT in secret. If they do disclose, they must abide by their husbands\u2019 decisions about their PMTCT participation, and some husbands are unsupportive or actively discouraging. To improve PMTCT participation, the authors propose that Ministries of Health use evidence-based strategies to address HIV stigma, challenges related to disclosure, insufficient social support and male involvement, and underlying gender inequality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Abstract Submission Open For The 13th International AIDSimpact Conference","field_subtitle":"Deadlines for abstracts:10 July 2017","field_url":"http://www.aidsimpact.com/?utm_source=MG&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=MarchMailOut","body":"Stellenbosch University and the Human Sciences Research Council will jointly host the 13th AIDSImpact Conference at the Century City Conference Centre, Cape Town South Africa. Each AIDSImpact meeting attracts delegates new to the field as well as a core group of loyal psychosocial and behavioral researchers, prevention workers, community members and policy makers from universities and institutes across all five continents who use the biannual meeting to present their studies, interventions and prevention schemes. AIDSImpact has evolved as one of the leading platforms for understanding, updating and debating the behavioral, psychosocial and community facets of HIV in light of changing social conditions and medical advances. A review of past AIDSImpact scientific programs reveals the evolution of the psychosocial and behavioral response to the HIV epidemic over the past 25 years. The 2017 Cape Town conference will promote pioneering work on understanding the dynamics of a changing epidemic. A key focus will be consideration of new choices for HIV - for prevention, treatment, care and strategic planning.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"African app cuts medical costs with community \"virtual pharmacy\" ","field_subtitle":"Reuters: Times Live, February 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ky7jjwd","body":"A mobile app in Senegal helps families save money and reduce waste through a \"virtual pharmacy\" where users can exchange leftover medication for new prescriptions. JokkoSante is scaling up after a two-year pilot phase in one Senegalese town. It aims to reach 300,000 families in the West African nation by the end of the year. The app allows users to trade in unused, packaged medicine for points which can go toward the purchase of new medicine when they need it. All of the exchanges are done at health centres or pharmacies by licensed professionals. Users can send points to family members and friends, and donors can buy points for people in need. The project has been driven by telecoms companies. It reaches a certain demographic, such as women in their thirties, and if a matching user doesn't have enough points to pay for a prescription she will receive a text saying which company donated to complete her purchase.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Proposals: Support to Doctoral schools, Re-building scholarly infrastructures and academic communities in the Social Sciences and Humanities in African Universities","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 15 June 2017","field_url":"http://codesria.org/spip.php?article2726&lang=en","body":"With funding support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, CODESRIA, announces a call for proposals for a new intervention targeting support to doctoral schools and rebuilding scholarly communities in the social sciences and humanities in African universities. The overall goal is to engender a generation of academics and knowledge that can enable the people of the continent critically (re) imagine and (re) create better, freer, more sustainable, and more inclusive communities and worlds. Proposals to be supported under this call are those submitted by individual/ groups of graduate/doctoral schools, SSH faculties, including research and teaching units dealing with higher education studies. Proposals should focus on issues to do with curricular reform, doctoral student supervision practices and mentoring of faculty in graduate supervision; interventions to rebuild/recreate scholarly infrastructures and academic communities through holding faculty seminars, strengthening faculty journals and conferences, systems to recreate strong workshop and seminar cultures; support for scholarly writing and academic publishing workshops especially targeting doctoral students and early career academics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call For Speakers And Papers: Radical Transformations In Africa Today, Interventions From The Left","field_subtitle":"Deadlines for abstracts: Accra meeting \u2013 June 2017, Dar es Salaam \u2013 November 2017, Johannesburg \u2013 January 2018.","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/mwr4rkb","body":"This is an opportunity for activists and scholars to contribute to a series of three linked workshops in Africa. Each two-day meeting will debate current challenges and prospects for Left analysis and action. The organisers are seeking both key speakers and offers of papers, with a plan to publish a selection in the Review of African Political Economy. The workshops are scheduled in November 2017 in Accra, Ghana; April 2018 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; June 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa; September 2018 at the African Studies Association in the UK. These workshops will link analysis and activism in contemporary Africa from the perspective of radical political economy, and will be organised around three linked themes: Africa in a \u2018post-crisis\u2019 world, economic strategy, industrialisation and the agrarian question and resistance and social movements in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Campaigning for a fact-based approach to health journalism","field_subtitle":"Fleck F: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 95(4)248\u2013249, 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/95/4/17-030417/en/","body":"This article reports on the work of HealthNewsReview.org to monitor the quality of health and medical news coverage. To combat inaccuracies, HealthNewsReview requires three reviewers to assess each article, applying 10 criteria. These include whether the journalists have adequately considered the cost of the intervention, its potential harms and benefits, whether they had compared new ideas with existing alternatives, and whether they solely relied on a press release or used independent sources. Projecting forward, the author observes that there should be room for promoting health literacy, for example, explaining that people should focus on absolute not relative risk reduction. People should not be amazed by claims that a drug reduced the risk of a problem by 50% (relative risk reduction) when that may mean that the absolute risk reduction was only from 2 in 100 in the untreated group to 1 in 100 in the treated group \u2013 a 1% absolute risk reduction. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community health worker perspectives on a new primary health care initiative in the Eastern Cape of South Africa","field_subtitle":"Austin-Evelyn K; Rabkin M; Macheka T: PLoS ONE 12(3) 2017, doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0173863","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/ll4ww4t","body":"In 2010, South Africa\u2019s National Department of Health launched a national primary health care initiative to strengthen health promotion, disease prevention, and early disease detection. The strategy, called Re-engineering Primary Health Care, aims to provide a preventive and health-promoting community-based Primary Health Care model. A key component is the use of community-based outreach teams staffed by generalist community health workers. The authors conducted focus group discussions and surveys on the knowledge and attitudes of 91 Community Health Care Workers working on community-based teams in Eastern Cape Province. The community health workers who were studied enjoyed their work and found it meaningful, as they saw themselves as agents of change. They also perceived weaknesses in the implementation of outreach team oversight, and desired field-based training and more supervision in the community. The authors propose providing community health workers with basic resources like equipment, supplies and transport to improve their acceptability and credibility to the communities they serve.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Corporate taxation key to protecting human rights in the global economy","field_subtitle":"Centre for Economic and Social Rights: CESR, USA, 2017","field_url":"http://www.cesr.org/corporate-taxation-key-protecting-human-rights-global-economy","body":"In February 2017, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights \u2013 a UN human rights body \u2013 held a discussion of its draft General Comment on State obligations in the context of business activities. This General Comment \u2013 as an authoritative interpretation of States\u2019 duties under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) \u2013 will fill an important gap in applying human rights law to situations of business-related abuses of these rights occurring within States\u2019 territory as well as overseas. Corporate taxation remains an under-explored yet critical piece of the business and human rights puzzle, as confirmed by various participants in the discussion. Alongside the more direct ways businesses can adversely impact human rights (such as labor abuses, water pollution, etc.), the amount of tax corporations pay, and where they pay them, has profound human rights implications. As detailed in a factsheet co-authored by CESR, tax dodging by multinational copper firms in Zambia are estimated to amount to as much as $326 million annually, equivalent for example to about 60 percent of the country\u2019s health budget. This raises governments\u2019 responsibilities as State parties to international human rights treaties such as the ICESCR, and the phenomenon of tax avoidance and evasion. The ICESR General Comment early draft states that raising revenue through corporate taxation is an important part of the State\u2019s duty to fulfil ESCR in its territory as the realisation of ESCR is dependent upon public resources that can, for example, pay for hospitals, schools and water systems. These resources will be raised from a variety of sources (including aid in some countries), but in all contexts progressive taxation is a lynchpin of public revenue raising. The report argues that those who can most afford to pay (including profitable multinational corporations and their executives and shareholders) must pay their fair share, and loopholes which allow them to escape tax should be closed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Country-specific data on the contraceptive needs of adolescents","field_subtitle":"Hindin M; Kalamar A: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 95(166) 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/95/3/16-189829/en/","body":"As the sustainable development goals (SDGs) require country-level tracking of indicators related to contraception, including met need, a key question is \u201cWhat can be done to support adolescents to prevent unintended pregnancy? To answer this question, the authors developed country-specific fact sheets describing adolescent contraceptive use and non-use in 58 low- and middle-income countries spanning all six World Health Organisation Regions. The authors report the top three reasons adolescent girls give for why they are not currently using contraception, even though they do not want to become pregnant in the next two years. The data are based on responses from 15\u201319 year old adolescent girls, and are presented separately for those unmarried and sexually active and those in a union. Reasons for non-use vary considerably but among the most common reported are, being \u201cnot married\u201d and infrequent sexual relations for unmarried, sexually active adolescents. In contrast, currently breastfeeding or postpartum abstinence are among the most common reasons for non-use reported by adolescents in a union. Fear of side-effects or health concerns was commonly reported by both groups of adolescent girls.The authors report on the two most common sources from which adolescents who are currently using a modern method most recently obtained that contraceptive method. The sources are driven by the types of contraceptive methods available, as well as those that are easy for adolescents to access. In some settings most sources are in the formal sector, including government facilities, private facilities and pharmacies. In other settings most adolescents obtain contraceptive commodities in the informal sector, such as shops, kiosks or roadside stands, or from friends. The data from the fact sheets indicate where best to target investments to improve access to \u2013 and quality of \u2013 contraceptive services for adolescents. The data provided in these fact sheets are disaggregated by age and marital status to address the calls for ensuring that no one is left behind. These data can help policy-makers and programme planners reduce inequities in service provision and access, and to make evidence-based decisions about how to better address adolescents\u2019 contraceptive needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Deepening understanding about the politics of health policy change in low and middle income countries: A PhD mentoring programme for low and middle income (LMIC) students registered in LMIC universities","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 30 June 2017","field_url":"","body":"Health Policy Analysis (HPA), seeks to understand and explain the policy process. The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research is supporting a fellowship programme in HPA for 2017-18, for PhD students, or those registered for an equivalent degree, based in LMICs who seek to research the politics of health policy change \u2013 focussed, for example, on agenda setting, an aspect of policy formulation, an experience of policy implementation, the politics of policy evaluation/learning, or another, relevant, area. The PhD ideas must also be nested in relevant policy, political science, public administration and/or organisational theory. Proposed applicants must be a national of an LMIC already registered or be currently finalising registration for a PhD, or equivalent, in an LMIC university, and at a stage where they have NOT yet finalised their study protocol or started data collection. Those selected as HPA fellows under this programme will be supported to conduct their PhD research and will be required to attend 2 week-long thesis workshops during this time \u2013 broadly, to support the finalisation of their protocol (year 1) and a related paper (year 2). HPA fellows will receive distance learning support between workshops and  receive bursary support for their PhD research, linked to the preparation and completion of workshop-related outputs. Applicants must submit the following: a full and complete CV, with copies of all post-graduate university level academic certificates; a 1-2 page motivational statement for your application, indicating how this programme will fit with their existing PhD plans and timelines; a 4-5 page note outlining the work which they hope/plan to do, the theoretical base and methodology and justifying its significance in terms of current HPA work in LMICs; a letter of support from their supervisor (on their university letterhead), and a brief CV of their supervisor; evidence of registration (completed or in progress) for a PhD or equivalent, at an LMIC university, including the disciplinary area of study, year of entry, expected graduation data and current phase of studies; and the name and contact details of 3 referees, with clarification of their relationship to each; of whom at least 2 should have supervised the applicant an academic capacity. Preference will be given to women candidates, those under 40 years of age and to candidates from low income countries (LICs). ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Docubox","field_subtitle":"East African Documentary Film Fund, Kenya, 2017","field_url":"http://mydocubox.org/about-us/","body":"Docubox was launched in 2012 as a documentary film fund that \u201csupports intimate, character-driven storytelling and encourages new forms of ownership and authorship in East Africa because we believe that true stories well told make the world a better place to live\u201d. Docubox exists to enable talented, driven, focused and accountable East African artists to produce unique films that unearth new realities and cross trans-national boundaries. Through training, development and production grants, screenings for people who love documentary films, it promotes East African filmmakers to share their stories with the world through creative documentary. Docubox believe good documentaries are intimate observations of the world\u2019s identities and people captured by talented, driven, creative filmmakers \u2013films able to uncover new realities because they are authored by authentic local voices, films that offer viewers new perspectives of society. Docubox want to create an authentic body of work that provides personalised glimpses into world, issues and lives that would ordinarily remain undocumented. They want to create a movement that will challenge ideas and assumptions about the world as it is known and provoke healthy, democratic dialogue and debate between our fellow citizens. Docubox believe that to change and inspire society, there is a need to support films that can spark off debate, films that get talked about, films that contribute to the formation of a vibrant documentary film movement across eastern Africa. Docubox want to do this because they believe that stories well told can make the world a better place to live.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"East Central and Southern Africa (ECSA) Health Community Strategic Plan 2017-2022","field_subtitle":"ECSA Health community: Arusha, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/lfk8q5w","body":"This presentation of the ECSA strategic plan provides a situation analysis of the trends in health affecting the region, and health services trends, including a continued inadequacy of human resources for health and high level of out-of-pocket expenditure on health, above 30% of total health expenditure in most countries in the region. The strategic plan seeks to contribute to the health status in the ECSA region by providing leadership towards attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The plan covers six strategic areas. It includes measures to support and promote efforts to build human resources for health and human capacity development; to strengthen health systems towards Universal Health Coverage and to assist countries to develop capacity to implement reproductive and maternal and child health strategies. It seeks to reduce communicable and non-communicable diseases, chronic conditions, injuries and all forms of malnutrition, and to promote the generation, management and utilisation of knowledge to inform decision making and programming in health. A final objective for the ECSA health community in the plan is to set a regional health policy agenda and foster strategic partnerships and collaboration towards achieving of international commitments, including of the SDGs. Several enabling factors are identified, including continued support from the member states as shown through ownership of ECSA resolutions and activities and the remittance of subscriptions; and a diversified funding base through securing new funders and income generation activities such as training. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Engaging with complexity to improve the health of indigenous people: a call for the use of systems thinking to tackle health inequity","field_subtitle":"Hern\u00e1ndez A; Ruano A; Marchal B; San Sebasti\u00e1n M; Flores W: International Journal for Equity in Health 16(26) 2017, doi: 10.1186/s12939-017-0521-2","field_url":"https://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-017-0521-2","body":"Indigenous people remain on the margins of society in high, middle and low-income countries, and bear a disproportionate burden of poverty, disease, and mortality compared to the general population. These inequalities have persisted, and in some countries have even worsened, despite the overall improvements in health indicators. The social determinants of health framework has enriched the understanding of the complex conditions that give rise to inequalities in indigenous health, including the structural and socio-political factors, and the intersecting conditions of poverty, social and political exclusion, discrimination and land loss that shape indigenous people\u2019s health. The authors report in this paper the conditions of marginalisation that impact indigenous health from their work in Guatemala and argue for a citizen-led initiative for state accountability for the right to health in rural indigenous municipalities. The authors argue that the challenge of engaging with the conditions underlying inequalities and promoting transformational change means that equity-oriented research and practice in the field of indigenous health requires: engaging power, context-adapted strategies to improve service delivery, and mobilising networks of collective action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET congratulates the first WHO Director General from Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET steering committee","field_url":"","body":"The World Health Organisation has its first ever director-general from Africa, after the election of Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the former Ethiopian health minister, who will begin his term in July 2017.  In a speech to the World Health Assembly Dr Tedros Adhanom talked about growing up in Ethiopia, saying he comes from a background of \u201cknowing survival cannot be taken for granted, and refusing to accept that people should die because they are poor.\u201d He spoke about the need for universal access to health care, a better response to health emergencies and the need to tackle gender-based violence, as well as threats to global health like climate change. He wrote in his application \"\u201cI envision a world where everyone can lead healthy and productive lives, regardless of who they are or where they live.\u201d  We look forward to contributing to what this implies for health equity, globally and in our region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 195: Improving emergency care in our region is vital for our rights and protection","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Diplomacy and regional health standards in the extractive sector, Session Report, 10 April 2017","field_subtitle":"ECSA Health Community; EQUINET: Arusha, Tanzania, 2017","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/GHD%20session%20report2017.pdf","body":"This 2017 session within the Regional ECSA HC Best Practices Forum was convened by ECSA HC and EQUINET in line with HMC Resolution \u2013 ECSAHMC50/R2 and with proposals from the 2016 Regional meeting on GHD. The objectives of the meeting were to a. To share information on progress in the ECSA HC GHD programme and issues for policy dialogue and follow up work b. To present and discuss evidence supporting and proposals for harmonised regional standards on health in the extractive sector c. To review and discuss positions on selected agenda items in the 2017 World Health Assembly (WHA) agenda The meeting recommendations were further summarised and reviewed in the Best Practices Forum and then in the Directors Joint Consultative conference, where the outcome of what was formally recommended is separately reported by ECSA HC. Delegates were provided with specific background materials through distributed publications. The report is organised by theme, with the presentation and group discussions on each area shown together.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Governing multisectoral action for health in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Rasanathan K; Bennett S; Atkins V; et al: : PloS Medicine 14(4) e1002285, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/mjahcql","body":"The health sectors of most countries focus almost exclusively on health care services. The potential of multi-sectoral collaboration thus remains untapped in many low- and middle-income countries. Different sectors have different contributions to make towards solving specific health problems. The authors argue that in each case, the profile, interests, incentives, and relationships of key individuals and sectors must be mapped and analysed to inform the design of approaches and systems to tackle a shared problem. The authors argue that collaborative and distributed leadership is key for effective governance of multi-sectoral action, with a need to build leadership capacity across sectors and levels of government and cultivate champions in different sectors who can agree on common objectives. They present options for countries to take a multi-sectoral approach for health, including ensuring that the universal health coverage agenda addresses the capacity of the health sector to work with other sectors, learning from multi-sectoral efforts that do not involve the health sector, improving the capacity of global institutions to support countries in undertaking multi-sectoral action, and developing a clear implementation research agenda for multi-sectoral action for health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health workforce metrics pre- and post-2015: a stimulus to public policy and planning","field_subtitle":"Pozo-Martin F, Nove A, Castro Lopes S, et al.: Human Resources for Health 15(11), 3, 2017","field_url":"https://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12960-017-0187-2","body":"In low- and middle-income countries, scaling essential health interventions to achieve health development targets is constrained by the lack of skilled health professionals to deliver services. The authors take a labour market approach to project the future health workforce demand using an economic model based on projected economic growth, demographics, and health coverage, and using health workforce data (1990\u20132013) for 165 countries from the WHO Global Health Observatory. The demand projections are compared with the projected growth in health worker supply and the health worker \u201cneeds\u201d as estimated by WHO to achieve essential health coverage. The model predicts that, by 2030, global demand for health workers will rise to 80 million workers, double the current (2013) stock of health workers, while the supply of health workers is expected to reach 65 million over the same period, resulting in a worldwide net shortage of 15 million health workers. Growth in the demand for health workers will be highest among upper middle-income countries, driven by economic and population growth and ageing. This results in the largest predicted shortages which may fuel global competition for skilled health workers. Middle-income countries will face workforce shortages because their demand will exceed supply. By contrast, low-income countries will face low growth in both demand and supply, which are estimated to be far below what will be needed to achieve adequate coverage of essential health services. In many low-income countries, demand may stay below projected supply, leading to the paradoxical phenomenon of unemployed (\u201csurplus\u201d) health workers in those countries facing acute \u201cneeds-based\u201d shortages. Opportunities exist to bend the trajectory of the number and types of health workers that are available to meet public health goals and the growing demand for health workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of telemonitoring approaches on integrated HIV and TB diagnosis and treatment interventions in sub-Saharan Africa: a scoping review","field_subtitle":"Yah S;  Tambo E; Khayeka-Wandabwa C; Ngogang J: Health Promotion Perspectives 7(2) 60-65, 2017","field_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5350551/pdf/hpp-7-60.pdf","body":"This paper explores telemonitoring/mhealth approaches as a promising real time and contextual strategy in HIV and TB interventions access and uptake, retention, adherence and coverage impact in endemic and prone-epidemic prevention and control in sub-Sahara Africa. A scoping review was applied to identify relevant articles on the theme. The authors found tele monitoring/mhealth approach as a more efficient and sustained proxy in HIV and TB risk reduction strategies for early diagnosis and prompt quality clinical outcomes. It was found to significantly contribute to decreasing health systems/patients cost, long waiting time in clinics, hospital visits, travels and time off/on from work. Improved integrated HIV and TB telemonitoring systems sustainability are thus argued to hold promise in health systems strengthening, including patient-centred early diagnosis and care delivery systems, uptake and retention to medications/services and improving patients\u2019 survival and quality of life. Tele monitoring/mhealth (electronic phone text/video/materials messaging) acceptability, access and uptake are reported to be crucial in monitoring and improving uptake, retention, adherence and coverage in both local and national integrated HIV and TB programs and interventions. Telemonitoring is also argued to be crucial in patient-providers-health professional partnership, real-time quality care and service delivery, antiretroviral and anti-tuberculous drugs improvement, susceptibility monitoring and prescription choice, reinforcing cost effective HIV and TB integrated therapy model and survival rate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving emergency care in our region is vital for our rights and protection","field_subtitle":"I Rusike, E Sharara, C Chimhete, T Munouya, Community Working Group on Health, Zimbabwe ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn front of us in one of our rural districts is a road accident with injured passengers including children. They are distressed - the local public hospital has no ambulance and they are trying to find enough money to assure the private ambulance service that they will be able to pay the fee before they will send the ambulance. The fee is more than they can afford, but if they don\u2019t find someone to pay and get people to care quickly the injured people could have complications or suffer avoidable deaths. \r\n\r\nThis is not the only problem people who have emergencies face. Ambulances can take long to respond. Many ambulances too do not have basic equipment or adequately trained staff to take care of patients during transit, also complicating their recovery or risking fatalities in transit. Emergency departments are under resourced, without adequate equipment and staff to cope with the critically ill patients coming to them, including patients who have delayed seeking care until they have an acute emergency. In some countries in our region, a critical shortage of doctors and other skilled health workers has affected the quality of the response to emergencies. Yet in others, like South Africa and Uganda, ambulances are better equipped and staffed, and people arriving at emergency facilities find doctors and nurses on stand-by and ready to receive patients and give them prompt care. \r\n\r\nThis situation is compounded by conditions that increase the risk of traumatic injury. For example, the state of our roads in Zimbabwe\u2019s road network raises concern, especially when  they are further damaged by heavy rains and other climate disasters. Poor roads not only raise the risk of accidents, but also mean that ambulances cannot easily access patients in need. During the rainy season, rural roads become even more impassable, making access for emergency services even more difficult.  While communities assist with emergencies where they can, local transport operators sometimes take advantage of poor conditions to overcharge desperate patients in need of acute care, including pregnant women, carers of sick children and elderly people. In the absence of adequate investment in roads and services, poor people pay the price. Allocating funds to improve road systems will prevent accidents and also make it easier for ambulances to reach emergencies. Yet in 2017, of the US$15 million that the Harare City Council said it needed to improve the road network in Harare alone, it received only US1.2m from the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara). \r\n\r\nThe situation may be even worse when air rescue emergency services are needed, as a key component of an effective emergency care system. Yet air rescue emergency services are an even more scarce healthcare resource, and as in Zimbabwe, the only public service for this may be the Air Force.  There are private services for those able to afford the costs of private insurance or providers, but these are unaffordable for the majority, and thus only used by a minority of people.  \r\n\r\nIn the common discussions on universal health coverage and emergency responses, it is important that we at minimum ensure availability, accessibility and affordability of effective and good quality emergency medical services for everyone in the public. Good quality emergency medical services provide an immediate response to a variety of illnesses and injuries and the treatment and transportation of people in health situations that may be life threatening. They should provide universal quality care to all those who need it at the time they need it to save their lives, prevent suffering or disability. Although the current situation varies from country to country in the region, for many this is not yet delivered. \r\n\r\nThe situation contradicts the fact that in Zimbabwe, as for seven other countries of the region, according to EQUINET policy brief 27, the constitution guarantees citizens the right to health care, including emergency medical services. Section 76 (3) of Zimbabwe\u2019s Constitution states this as, \u201cNo person may be refused emergency medical treatment in any health care institution.\u201d  Of course no service would refuse care, but a situation of inadequate investment in affordable, accessible and good quality emergency services, including ambulances can be understood to be a form of denial, or refusal. The Zimbabwe Constitution makes this clear in stating that the state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within the limits of the resources available to it, to achieve the progressive realization of this right. Whilst public emergency services offered by state-owned health institutions, the air force, the police and fire brigade are weak and poorly resourced, people\u2019s rights are violated and they are exposed to high payments for private services, or worse still disability or death.\r\n\r\nIt is evident that this is a core duty of the state and must be adequately funded. When public emergency care services are not adequately funded, staffed or provided, it leads to a growth of commercial and privatized services. While this is a private sector response to demand, and can help to minimize morbidity and mortality if of good quality and properly regulated and monitored, it is not appropriate to rely on the private sector for this service, and leads to inequities in access to care. The driving force of private provision is maximizing profits and not the needs of the most disadvantaged members of society. A trend towards privatization of emergency medical services thus has highest burdens for the poorest, adding to the stresses in often tough economic environments of accessing services and meeting medical bills.  A 2016 study by the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development on a public-private partnership in one major central hospital in Zimbabwe found that residents faced challenges in realizing their right to health care, due to the high cost of services, unfair treatment of those who cannot pay, \u2018\u2026deepening inequality between the haves and have-nots\u2019 and report of corruption in the demand by staff  for differing levels of cash payments. They attributed this violation of rights to health care to the \u2018private vendor profit motive\u2019 and diminished public control. \r\n\r\nBeyond improving public funding of emergency care services, we can also take advantage of technology advances. For example, health facilities have used mobile phones to alert ambulance services and to support those attending to patients whilst waiting for an ambulance or medical personnel, improving the possibility of  improved outcomes for patients. A \u2018Dial-a-Doc\u2019 initiative by one mobile operator in Zimbabwe works with enlisted services of medical practitioners at a call center to respond to phone-in requests for information and help from the public. A similar service is available in South Africa, Zambia and Malawi.\r\n\r\nAt the same time, we cannot keep relying on the health services to manage growing risks in the environments we live and work in. Death and disability from traumatic injuries from road traffic accidents on poor roads, from climate disasters and other accidents, and acute health crises in pregnancy, for children and others, and due to unsafe working conditions are largely preventable and should not be filling our health services. We need to have a commitment from all sectors that play a role to identify and reduce their role in traumatic injury and illness. \r\n\r\nAs economies improve they should show marked reductions in such trauma, but even under challenging economic conditions, adequate, affordable and accessible public emergency care services must be secured.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Individual and contextual factors associated with appropriate healthcare seeking behavior among febrile children in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Adinan J; Damian D; Mosha N; Mboya I; Mamseri R; Msuya S: PLoS ONE 12(4) 2017, doi; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175446, ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/mw9mk9t","body":"Fever in malaria endemic areas, has been shown to strongly predict malaria infection and is a key symptom influencing malaria treatment. WHO recommended confirmation testing for Plasmodium spp. before initiation of antimalarials due to increased evidence of the decrease of morbidity and mortality from malaria, decreased malaria associated fever, and increased evidence of high prevalence of non-malaria fever. To immediately diagnose and promptly offer appropriate management, caretakers of children with fever should seek care where these services can be offered; in health facilities. This study was conducted to describe healthcare seeking behaviours among caretakers of febrile under five years, in Tanzania, and to determine children\u2019s, household and community-level factors associated with parents\u2019 healthcare seeking behaviour in health facilities. Of the 8573 children under the age of five years surveyed, 19.5% had a history of fever two weeks preceding the survey. Of these, 56.8% sought appropriate healthcare. Febrile children aged less than a year have 2.7 times higher odds of being taken to the health facilities compared to children with two or more years of age. Febrile children from households headed by female caretakers have almost three times higher odds of being taken to the health facilities compared to households headed by men. Febrile children with caretakers exposed to mass media (radio, television and newspaper) have more than two times higher odds of being taken to health facilities compared to those not exposed to mass media. Febrile children from regions with malaria prevalence above national level have 41% less odds of being taken to health facilities compared to those febrile children coming from areas with malaria prevalence below the national level. Furthermore, febrile children coming from areas with higher community education levels have 57% higher odds of being taken to health facilities compared to their counterparts coming from areas with low levels of community education. To effectively and appropriately manage and control febrile illnesses, the authors propose that the low proportion of febrile children taken to health facilities by their caretakers should be addressed through frequent advocacy of the importance of appropriate healthcare seeking behaviour, using mass media particularly in areas with high malaria prevalence. They recommend that a multifaceted approach be used in malaria control and eradication as multiple factors are associated with appropriate healthcare seeking behaviour.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Malaria Prevention Works: Let's close the gap","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO Geneva, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/l9obbkv","body":"On World Malaria Day the World Health Organisation (WHO) released a publication entitled \"Malaria Prevention Works\". Filled with eye-catching infographics, it presents WHO's recommended malaria prevention tools in a simple and digestible manner. It is divided into two parts: the first chapter focuses on core vector control measures, and the second on preventive treatment strategies for the most vulnerable groups. It touches on a key biological threat, mosquito resistance to insecticides and highlight the need for new anti-malaria tools. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Open letter to WHO DG candidates: keep policy and priority setting free of commercial influence","field_subtitle":"Brown K; Rundall P; Lobstein T; Mwatsana M; Jeffery B: The Lancet 389(10082) 1879, May 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/mq25qvf","body":"An open letter was submitted by the authors on behalf of 61 signatories for the election of the new WHO Director General (DG) to take into account how the new leadership will ensure appropriate interactions with alcohol, food, pharmaceutical, and medical technology industries. In May 2016, WHA adopted the Framework of Engagement with Non-State Actors (FENSA), a policy due to be fully operational by May, 2018. While FENSA envisages that WHO will \u201cexercise particular caution\u2026when engaging with private sector entities \u2026whose policies or activities are negatively affecting human health..\u201d, the rhetoric and direction of WHO's reform process as well as WHO's chronic funding challenges are argued to have left the signatories concerned rather than reassured. They fear that instead of protecting WHO's mandate, FENSA risks relegating WHO to a limited role, unable to stand up for human rights and democratic decision making. The signatories draw attention to the conflict of interest statement signed by more than 175 NGOs and networks representing more than 2000 groups and first launched at the UN High-Level Meeting on Non-communicable Diseases in 2011: \u201cThe policy development stage should be free from industry involvement to ensure a \u2018health in all policies\u2019 approach, which is not compromised by the obvious conflicts of interests associated with food, alcohol, beverage and other industries, that are primarily answerable to shareholders.\u201d  They indicate that alcohol, food, pharmaceutical, and medical technology industries should comply with policies developed by WHO and its Member States, and that their role is not in public health policy formulation, risk assessments, risk management, or priority setting, nor in determining normative quality standards and legally binding regulations to protect and promote public health. These processes, it is argued, must be undertaken in an environment free of commercial influence. The signatories believe that only a WHO that protects its independence and integrity of decision making will have the ability to fulfil its constitutional mandate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Quality of Care in Performance-Based Financing: How It Is Incorporated in 32 Programs Across 28 Countries","field_subtitle":"Gergen J; Josephson E; Coe M; Ski S; Madhavan S; Bauhoff S: Global Health: Science and Practice 5(1) 90-107, 2017","field_url":"http://www.ghspjournal.org/content/5/1/90","body":"This study describe how quality of care is incorporated into performance-based financing (PBF) programmes, what quality indicators are being used, and how these indicators are measured and verified. An exploratory scoping methodology was used to characterise the full range of quality components in 32 PBF programmes, initiated between 2008 and 2015 in 28 low- and middle-income countries, totalling 68 quality tools and 8,490 quality indicators. The programmes were identified through a review of the peer-reviewed and grey literature as well as through expert consultation with key funder representatives. Most of the PBF programmes were implemented in sub-Saharan Africa and most were funded primarily by the World Bank. On average, PBF quality tools contained 125 indicators predominately assessing maternal, newborn, and child health and facility management and infrastructure. Indicators were primarily measured via checklists which largely (over 90%) measured structural aspects of quality, such as equipment, beds, and infrastructure. Of the most common indicators across checklists, 74% measured structural aspects and 24% measured processes of clinical care. The quality portion of the payment formulas were in the form of bonuses (59%), penalties (27%), or both (hybrid) (14%). The median percentage (of a performance payment) allocated to health facilities was 60%, ranging from 10% to 100%, while the median percentage allocated to health care providers was 55%, ranging from 20% to 80%. Nearly all of the programmes included in the analysis (91%) verified quality scores quarterly (every 3 months), typically by regional government teams. PBF is argued by the authors to be a potentially appealing instrument to link verified performance measurement with strategic incentives and could ultimately help meet policy priorities. They also raise substantial variation and complexity in how PBF programmes incorporate quality of care considerations suggesting a need to further examine whether differences in design are associated with differential programme impacts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Research Fairness Initiative (RFI) - making research partnerships work for everyone","field_subtitle":"Council on Health Research for Development: COHRED, Geneva, 2017","field_url":"http://rfi.cohred.org/","body":"Partnerships are essential to deliver research and innovation for global health and partner development. Sustainable Development Goal 17 is all about this. Yet, COHRED argues that there is no framework, no benchmark, no standard of best practice on which to model governmental, corporate, non-profit, or academic collaborations, particularly not for international collaborative research and innovation involving low- and middle-income countries. This is where the Research Fairness Initiative intends to make a difference: to create a reporting system that encourages governments, businesses, organisations and funders to describe how they take measures to create trusting, lasting, transparent and effective partnerships in research and innovation. COHRED prioritises its application in global health because there are many urgent health-related issues, but it can be applied in any other setting also.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Retention and sustainability of community-based health volunteers' activities: A qualitative study in rural Northern Ghana","field_subtitle":"Chatio S; Akweongo P: PLoS ONE 12(3), 2017, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173983","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0174002","body":"The shortage of formal health workers has led to the utilisation of Community-Based Health Volunteers to provide health care services to people especially in rural and neglected communities. This study explored factors affecting retention and sustainability of community-based health volunteers\u2019 activities in a rural setting in Northern Ghana, through a qualitative study with thirty-two in-depth interviews with health volunteers and health workers overseeing their activities. Study participants reported that the desire to help community members, prestige and recognition as doctors in the community were key motivations for the health volunteers. Lack of incentives and logistical supplies such as raincoats, torch lights, wellington boots and transportation in the form of bicycles to facilitate the movement of health volunteers affected their work and discouraged them. Most of the dropout volunteers said lack of support and respect from community members made them to stop working as health volunteers. They recommended that community support, incentives and logistical supplies such as raincoats, torch light, wellington boots and bicycles  can help retain community-based health volunteers and also sustain their activities at community level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Rheumatology in Africa-challenges and opportunities","field_subtitle":"Mody G: Arthritis Research & Therapy 19(49), 2017, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1186%2Fs13075-017-1259-3 ","field_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5341350/","body":"Africa faces many health challenges despite sustained growth and development over the past decade. Contributory factors are the lack of financial resources, an inadequate health professional workforce, a high burden of communicable diseases and an increasing burden of non-communicable diseases. Rheumatology services are limited or non-existent in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Over the past decade, partnerships with international academic institutions have resulted in some progress in the training of rheumatologists and health professionals and development of rheumatology services in countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, and Zambia. Basic diagnostic tests, biological agents and arthroplasty are either unavailable or not affordable by the majority of the population. Urbanisation has resulted in a change in the epidemiology of rheumatic diseases with an increase in the prevalence of gout, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and scleroderma over the past four decades. Future growth of rheumatology services will depend on identifying committed individuals in underserved countries for training and supporting them to educate medical students, physicians, and health professionals in their home countries. The author raises that there is a need to develop models of care using all categories of health workers and identify prevention strategies and cost-effective management programs for low resource settings. Africa affords an opportunity for collaborative research, including genetic and epigenetic studies, to improve regional understanding of many of the rheumatic diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SA AIDS","field_subtitle":"13 - 16 June 2017, International Convention Centre, Durban, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.saaids.co.za/index.html","body":"In the 8th Southern African Conference delegates will find the latest advances in basic sciences alongside an emphasis on how to be part of lasting change to prevent new infections. South Africa\u2019s National Strategic plan includes whole sections on prevention and structural change  policies such as the National Liquor Norms and Standards, the National AIDS Council of the National Sex Worker HIV Plan, will be discussed with other measures to take control of the epidemic. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Should trained lay providers perform HIV testing? A systematic review to inform World Health Organization guidelines","field_subtitle":"Kennedy C; Yeh P; Johnson C; Baggaley R: AIDS Care, 2017, doi: 10.1080/09540121.2017.1317710.","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09540121.2017.1317710","body":"The authors conducted a systematic review of studies evaluating HIV testing services (HTS) by lay providers using rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). Peer-reviewed articles were included if they compared HTS using RDTs performed by trained lay providers to HTS by health professionals, or to no intervention. The authors also reviewed data on end-users' values and preferences around lay providers preforming HTS. Searching was conducted through 10 online databases, reviewing reference lists, and contacting experts. Screening and data abstraction were conducted in duplicate using systematic methods. Of 6113 unique citations identified, 5 studies were included in the effectiveness review and 6 in the values and preferences review. One US-based randomised trial found patients' uptake of HTS doubled with lay providers (57% vs. 27%). In Malawi, a pre/post study showed increases in HTS sites and tests after delegation to lay providers. Studies from Cambodia, Malawi, and South Africa comparing testing quality between lay providers and laboratory staff found little discordance and high sensitivity and specificity between them. Based on evidence supporting using trained lay providers, a WHO expert panel recommended lay providers be allowed to conduct HTS using HIV RDTs. Uptake of this recommendation could expand HIV testing to more people globally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Social and Economic Impacts of Public Private Partnership Agreements to the Realisation of the Right to Health: The Case of Chitungwvza Central Hospital ","field_subtitle":"Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD), Harare,  2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/mfmpzpw","body":"Zimbabwe's  health sector has been under-funded for some time causing public health service providers, including Chitungwiza Central Hospital (CCH), to operate below capacity despite the increasing patient demand. CCH entered into a Public Private Partnership (PPP) agreement, now a Joint Venture Partnership,  to upgrade quality and availability of health services. However, in this report the authors argue that the intended benefits of the PPP are not being realised because the poor people face increasing fee barriers due to the demand for upfront payment. A survey in 2016 included key informant interviews, client interviews and focus group discussions. It found that the majority of respondents have below poverty monthly household incomes. Most users did not understand the PPP model, and indicated that the hospital did\tnot consult residents on the adoption of the PPP model. Two thirds of respondents felt that services were better before the adoption of the PPP model. Poorer respondents mainly raised the fact that they could not afford services after the PPP due to fee charges, while those with higher incomes felt services had improved due to improved availability of medicines and other supplies. The respondents perceived that not accessing services due to cost barriers for example violated their right to health. The authors note that while there are opportunities to adopt PPP models in sectors such as transport for the construction of roads, rails, and toll gates, these models should not be used in health sectors and other essential services where commoditisation of public services affects access. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Social innovation for health-care delivery in Africa","field_subtitle":"Keeton C: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 95(4)246\u2013247, 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/95/4/17-020417/en/","body":"Millie Balamu goes from door to door providing life-saving health care for about 200 households in the Wakiso district of Uganda. Villagers call her masawu (\u201cdoctor\u201d in the local Luganda language), but she is a community health worker.  She has tests and drugs with her to diagnose and treat malaria, diarrhoea and pneumonia and uses her mobile phone to diagnose these diseases and register pregnant women for follow up. This paper reports on the Social Innovation in Health Initiative. The concept of social innovation is taken from economics and business studies and refers to efforts to mobilise and incentivise communities. In health, social innovation may refer to low-fee private delivery of health care, using mobile phone applications \u2013 such as the one Balamu uses to diagnose common childhood diseases \u2013 and other novel ways to make health-care delivery more accessible and affordable in low-income communities. According to a working paper presenting the results of a randomised controlled trial in Uganda of more than 8000 households, published in 2016 the social innovation project helped to reduce child mortality across those households by 27% between 2011 and 2013.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa sets up program to break the link between HIV and violence","field_subtitle":"Westcott L: Newsweek, April 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/kugaccr","body":"South Africa has piloted a new program, 'Safe and Sound' to reduce the common risk of violence against pregnant women in South Africa. Most women were found to not speak about the violence they endure. In addition to rape and sexual violence, coercive or controlling behaviour, such as a man refusing to use a condom or restricting other forms of birth control, is argued to increase the risk of contracting HIV. Women who are HIV-positive and experience intimate partner violence are reported by the author to be half as likely to take their HIV medications as women in nonviolent relationships, leaving them in much poorer health. The author urges that countries adopt programs like Safe and Sound because violence against women, including HIV positive women, can lead to a deterioration in their mental health, with some women stopping their medication and developing suicidal tendencies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Status of Occupational Health and Safety and Related Challenges in Expanding Economy of Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mrema E; Ngowi A; Mamuya S: Annals of Global Health 81(4), 538-547, 2015","field_url":"http://www.annalsofglobalhealth.org/article/S2214-9996(15)01237-0/fulltext","body":"This study describes the status of occupational health and safety in Tanzania and the challenges in provision of occupational health services in an expanding economy, with growth being driven by communications, transport, finance services, construction, mining, agriculture, and manufacturing. The workers exposed to hazards from these activities are found suffer from illness and injuries, but to not access adequate occupational health services, with services limited to a few enterprises that can afford it. Existing laws and regulations are reported by the authors to not cover the entire population and implementation to be weak. The authors argue for an occupational health and safety services strategy, backed by legal review, training and the necessary skills, financial and technological resources to cover the whole working population, to match the growing economy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Importance of Health and Safety at African Mine Sites","field_subtitle":"Bocoum B: World Bank, Live Wire 2017/70, doi: http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25997","field_url":"https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/25997","body":"This brief observes that equity and shared prosperity calls for a closer look at the working and living conditions of millions of mine workers in Africa, where tuberculosis (TB) imposes a high burden on mining economies and constitutes a regional public health crisis. Health hazards are reported to be perpetuated by poor enforcement of mining legislation, limited application of best international practices, weak institutions, and inadequate equipment and skills. In uncontrolled mining operations and communities of the type common in Africa, several factors are argued to combine to form a perfect storm for TB infection and transmission. They argue that the practice of allowing mining companies to self-report on health issues should be eliminated and that legislation on the health aspects of mining operations in Africa must be developed in line with international standards and best practices. The continent\u2019s regional development communities should act urgently to establish public-private partnerships capable of ensuring that mining in fact benefits the region\u2019s people in their path toward sustainable development. The goal should be the adoption of preventive measures to avoid further damage to the region\u2019s health and skilled human capital. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The occupational safety and health of workers in coal mines: filling in the lacuna in Kenyan legislation","field_subtitle":"Muhindi I: Strathmore Law School, Dissertation, 2016","field_url":"https://su-plus.strathmore.edu/handle/11071/4822","body":"This research assessed the extent to which the occupational safety and health act in Kenya safeguards the safety and health of workers in its coal mines. From a comparison with law in other countries, the author identifies gaps and recommends that Kenya should enact more comprehensive clauses for occupational safety and health of coal mine workers, should revise the compensation amounts provided for by the Work Injury Benefits Act; set guidelines and directions encompassing duties of employers and employees in mining and  provide for medical services in coal mines. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Tobacco growing and the sustainable development goals, Malawi","field_subtitle":"Kulik M; Bialous S;  Munthali S; Max W: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 95(5) 362-367, 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/95/5/16-175596/en/","body":"Malawi is the world\u2019s largest producer of burley tobacco and its population is affected by the negative consequences of both tobacco consumption and production. In producer countries, tobacco control involves control of the whole tobacco supply chain, rather than only control of consumption. The authors reviewed the impact of tobacco cultivation in Malawi to illustrate through this example the economic, environmental, health and social issues faced by low- and middle-income countries that still produce significant tobacco crops. The authors placed these issues in the context of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), particularly goal 3a, which calls on all governments to strengthen the implementation of the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Other goals address the negative effects that tobacco cultivation has on development. The authors suggest that without external assistance, Malawi has relatively limited capacity to develop alternatives to tobacco production that are economically viable, but could benefit greatly from becoming a party to the FCTC to receive assistance through the incorporation of the FCTC into the SDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health: Realising Health and Human Rights","field_subtitle":"United Nations Research Institute for Social Development: UNRISD, Geneva, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/kh8zwam","body":"At an official side event of the 34th Session of the Human Rights Council, panelists discussed how people\u2019s sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHRs) around the world could be better protected and promoted. This report presents perspectives raised on challenges and good practices in ensuring full access to SRHRs, environmental dimensions of family planning, the linkages between a human rights-based social protection framework and access to these rights, and current global trends, and what these mean for implementation of the SDGs and their achievement by 2030. Men, women and gender non-conforming persons are all entitled to SRHRs and require these services. And while everyone is affected by limited access to these rights, individuals from already marginalized groups such as children and adolescents, lesbian, gay and trans persons, men who have sex with men, sex workers, drug users, indigenous peoples, and people living in poverty were reported to be the most affected, sometimes fatally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Using Policy dialogue to Strengthen Health Centre Committees as a Vehicle for Social Participation in Health System in East and Southern Africa. Report of Policy dialogue workshop","field_subtitle":"Zambia Ministry of Health; Lusaka District Health Office; TALC, CWGH","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Zambia%20Policy%20dialogue%20meeting%20Rep2016.pdf","body":"In a regional EQUINET programme led by Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) on health centre committees as a vehicle for social participation in health system in east and southern Africa, Lusaka DHO is building capacities and learning for the district and the wider country programme on policy and legal guidelines to support the effective interaction of communities in health centre committees (HCCs) that can be shared regionally. A workshop was held on 7th January 2016 in Lusaka to support and inform the objectives for the Zambia work, viz: 1.To compile and exchange information on the current laws and legal guidelines on the role and functioning of HCCs. 2.To develop through regional dialogue a model HCC guideline to be tabled and reviewed regionally. 3.To analyse and document how current laws compare to this guideline. 4.To advocate for strengthening of law and guidelines in regional and national policy forum.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Where do the three candidates for the next WHO Director General stand on the most challenging global health issues of the decade?","field_subtitle":"AE Birn, YG Pillay, TH Holtz: PLOSBLOGS, 4 May 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/lanlqh9","body":"PLOSBLOGS hosted a question and answer with the three final candidates for the World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General being directly elected by countries in the 2017 World Health Assembly.  The article provides the questions and interview responses in full.  The authors note in an analysis of the candidates\u2019 responses that none of the candidates discussed issues of social justice in their responses regarding the societal determinants of health or mentioned the recommendations of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health on global power asymmetries, specifically the need to \u201ctackle the inequitable distribution of power, money, and resources.\u201d In terms of the role of non-state actors in neutering public accountability at WHO, none of the candidates articulated the intrinsic differences in power and access between public-interest entities and corporate/philanthropic actors under the non-state actor rubric. All three seem to think FENSA will resolve the problems of private influence on the WHO agenda, which the authors of the article doubt. To improve health and health equity, all three candidates invoked Universal Health Coverage without specifying the role of public provision, comprehensive coverage, and equity in access, quality, and financing for health care systems. In relation to health equity and social determinants of health, all three candidates mentioned intersectoralism and social inclusion, partnerships, and WHO technical expertise, but did not give attention to the political context of these challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Who Really Governs Urban Ghana?","field_subtitle":"Awal M; Paller J: Africa Research Institute, UK, 2016","field_url":"http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/newsite/publications/who-really-governs-urban-ghana/","body":"In the past three decades in Ghana, the number of city dwellers has risen from four to 14 million; more than 5.5 million of whom live in slums. Urban growth exerts intense pressure on government and municipal authorities to provide infrastructure, affordable housing, public services and jobs. It has exacerbated informality, inequality, underdevelopment and political patronage. Some commentators warn of an impending urban crisis. Policymakers and international donors continue to prescribe better urban planning, slum upgrading, infrastructure investment and \u201ccapacity building\u201d to \u201cfix\u201d African cities. While these are necessary, the authors argue that the success of any urban strategy depends on an informed appraisal of the political dynamics of urban neighbourhoods that define governance in Ghana\u2019s cities and slums, in the interaction between politicians, entrepreneurs, traditional authorities and community leaders. The authors note that informal networks pervade formal political institutions and shape political strategy, and that political clientelism and the role of informal institutions are deepening alongside the strengthening of formal democratic institutions, but are often overlooked. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Bank declares itself above the law","field_subtitle":"Dolack P: Counterpunch, March 2017","field_url":"http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/24/world-bank-declares-itself-above-the-law/","body":"The author argues that destruction of the environment, human rights abuses and mass displacement have been ignored in the name of \u201cdevelopment\u201d that works to intensify neoliberal inequality. In response to legal attempts to hold it to account, the author argues that the World Bank has declared itself above the law. The latest attempt at accountability is a lawsuit filed in the U.S. federal court in Washington by EarthRights International, a human rights and environmental non-governmental organisation, charging that the World Bank has turned a blind eye to systematic abuses associated with palm-oil plantations in Honduras that it has financed. EarthRights International alleges that the World Bank has \u201crepeatedly and consistently provided critical funding to Dinant, Honduran palm oil companies, knowing that Dinant was waging a campaign of violence, terror, and dispossession against farmers, and that their money would be used to aid the commission of gross human rights abuses.\u201d  The lawsuit reports that the International Finance Corporation\u2019s ombudsman said the World Bank division \u201cfailed to spot or deliberately ignored the serious social, political and human rights context.\u201d These failures arose \u201cfrom staff incentives \u2018to overlook, fail to articulate, or even conceal potential environmental, social and conflict risk\u2019 and \u2018to get money out the door.\u2019 \u201d Despite this internal report, the suit says, the World Bank continued to provide financing and that the ombudsman has \u201cno authority to remedy abuses.\u201d  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Report on Health Policy and Systems Research","field_subtitle":"Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/255051/1/9789241512268-eng.pdf?ua=1","body":"The first-ever, World Report on Health Policy and Systems Research, was launched recently by the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research. The report provides practical recommendations on how to reorient health research to more effectively address public health challenges on a national and global level. It describes the evolution of the field and provides figures on the number of publications produced, funding trends and institutional capacity in LMICs to conduct health policy and systems research. Low- and middle-income countries now have guidance for not only being users of research, but also producers. The report describes the state of the HPSR field in 1996, identifying three broad challenges to its progress that were clearly visible at that time. In the mid-1990s there were three principal challenges to the growth of the field of HPSR: (i) the fragmentation and lack of a single agreed definition of the field; (ii) the ongoing dominance of biomedical and clinical research; and (iii) a lack of demand for HPSR. Cross-cutting all these challenges was the problem of relatively limited capacity to undertake high-quality health policy and systems research. Subsequent sections then analyse how these challenges have been addressed over the intervening 20 years, resulting in greater recognition of and investment in HPSR. The report raises challenges to be addressed, including confronting the dominance of biomedical and clinical research as the primary channel for health research investments through a sustained advocacy campaign; seeking to clarify the scope and methods of the field; and finally nurturing closer collaboration with research users, in particular by capitalizing on the growth of interest in evidence-informed policy. It also collects together for the first time figures on various significant aspects of health policy and systems research: growth in the number of publications, collaboration between researchers in different parts of the world, funding trends and institutional capacities in low- and middle-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"XMINUSY Grants","field_subtitle":"Deadlines for applications: 30 June 2017","field_url":"https://www.xminy.nl/english/","body":"IXminusY supports social movements, action groups and change makers who are fighting for a fair, democratic, sustainable and tolerant world. Projects that are supported by XminusY can take place on a broad variety of topics. But more important than the topic, is that the people involved take action themselves to change their own society. An application needs to have background information, concrete data, your planned activities and a detailed budget up to 3,000 euros. XminY doesn't support conferences, seminars, debates or other meetings unless they clearly aim to prepare for actions. In Africa, XminY only supports groups that can supply at least two references from other organisations or individuals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"'Those were taken away and given money': power and reward expectations' influence in the selection of village health teams in rural Uganda","field_subtitle":"Turinawe E: Rural and Remote Health 16(3856), 2016","field_url":"http://www.rrh.org.au/articles/subviewnew.asp?ArticleID=3856","body":"With the renewed call for community participation in health interventions after the Alma Ata Declaration, interest has been raised in volunteer community health workers (CHWs) acting as representatives of local communities. This study interrogates the dynamic interface between local communities and the government in the selection of CHW volunteers in a rural community. Data were collected through participant observation of community events, 35 in-depth interviews, 20 focus groups and 15 informal conversations and review of documents about Luwero district. Ambiguous national guidelines and poor supervision of the selection process enabled the powerful community leaders to influence the selection of village health teams (VHTs). Intended to achieve community involvement, the selection process was found to produce a disconnect in the local community where many members saw the selected VHTs as having been \u2018taken away\u2019. The authors argue that community involvement in the selection of VHTs took a form that, instead of empowering the local community, reinforced the responsibility of those in power and thus maintained the asymmetrical status quo.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"10 Ways to improve the quality of care in health facilities","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO Geneva, 2017 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/kqdsdbx","body":"In this article, a photo story is used to describe some of WHO\u2019s recommendations on how countries can improve quality of care in their health facilities and prevent maternal and newborn deaths, based on its standards for improving quality of maternal and newborn care in health facilities. The photo story shows that health facilities must have an appropriate physical environment and that communication with women and their families must be effective and respond to their needs. The story shows further that women and newborns who need referrals should obtain them without delay, no woman should be subjected to harmful practices during labour, childbirth and the early postnatal period, and that health facilities need well-trained and motivated staff consistently available to provide care. Lastly, the story presents images showing that every woman and newborn should have a complete, accurate, and standardised medical record. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Abstract submission open for the 13th International AIDSImpact Conference","field_subtitle":"Deadlines for abstracts:10 July 2017","field_url":"http://www.aidsimpact.com/?utm_source=MG&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=MarchMailOut","body":"Stellenbosch University and the Human Sciences Research Council will jointly host the 13th AIDSImpact Conference at the Century City Conference Centre, Cape Town South Africa. Each AIDSImpact meeting attracts delegates new to the field as well as a core group of loyal psychosocial and behavioral researchers, prevention workers, community members and policy makers from universities and institutes across all five continents who use the biannual meeting to present their studies, interventions and prevention schemes. AIDSImpact has evolved as one of the leading platforms for understanding, updating and debating the behavioral, psychosocial and community facets of HIV in light of changing social conditions and medical advances. A review of past AIDSImpact scientific programs reveals the evolution of the psychosocial and behavioral response to the HIV epidemic over the past 25 years. The 2017 Cape Town conference will promote pioneering work on understanding the dynamics of a changing epidemic. A key focus will be consideration of new choices for HIV - for prevention, treatment, care and strategic planning.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"An African lens on the World Health Assembly 2017","field_subtitle":"Dr E Makasa, Counsellor-Health, Permanent Mission of the Republic of Zambia, Dr R Loewenson, TARSC ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe 2017 World Health Assembly (WHA70) will be held in Geneva from 22 to 31 May 2017. The agenda and initial documents are being made available at http://apps.who.int/gb/e/e_wha70.html. \r\n\r\nWHA70 has a wide ranging agenda, including the election of a new Director General; the management of emergency responses and antimicrobial resistance; research and development (R&D) for neglected diseases; the capacities for and evaluation of preparedness for the International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005, migrant health; and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), amongst other items. It will discuss progress in the implementation of resolutions from prior WHAs and the governance and programmes of the World Health Organisation (WHO).\r\n\r\nThe WHA is being held at a time when military conflict has terrorized populations and forced displacement internally and across borders, disrupting lives, livelihoods and food supplies, and heightening the risk of epidemic outbreaks. African migrants leaving due to conflict or to seek economic opportunity face many health challenges, including physical and psychological stress and abuse, and poor access health services. Migrancy affects transmission of infectious diseases, including to northern countries now experiencing warmer temperatures due to climate change. WHO has proposed migrant-sensitive health policies that incorporate a public health approach, with universal, equitable access to quality health services that would also assist in surveillance, detection and control of infectious and other health problems and financial protection for migrants. However, there is a wide gap between this and the situation in practice.\r\n\r\nProgress has been made in the development of a vaccine against Ebola and control of the yellow fever epidemic in central Africa. The accelerated process for use of the former as an experimental vaccines in health care and frontline workers has raised ethical and equity concerns, while non availability of yellow fever vaccine stocks in the latter case led to fractional dosing (of one fifth of the normal vaccine dose) to stretch resources as an emergency response, which, as indicated by WHO, does not confer longer term protection and is not a measure for routine vaccination. These issues and a Zika virus disease outbreak recently reported in Angola from the Aedes vector responsible for transmitting dengue fever, yellow fever and chikungunya virus infections points to the need for strengthened public health measures to prevent, detect and control communicable diseases, within and across countries. Although much attention has been given to acute infectious disease emergencies, the rising level of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in ESA countries, including trauma/injuries and cancers represents a major immediate and long term challenge, driven largely by conditions and policies outside the health sector, with health systems that are poorly equipped to detect, prevent and manage them.\r\n\r\nThese health threats take place against the backdrop of underfunded health systems and inadequate skilled health workers and medicines in our region, particularly in areas of high health need. While 18 million workers are estimated to be needed globally to achieve Universal Health Coverage and maintain pace with SDGs, by 2030 Africa is projected to have a shortage of 6 million health workers. Inadequate and increasingly costly medicines and health technologies undermine equitable access, in a global environment of growing microbial resistance and one that still raises investment, technology transfer and intellectual property barriers to development and production in areas of high health need. This directly links measures to combat antimicrobial resistance to those that ensure community health literacy and equitable access at affordable cost to good quality old and new antibiotics, vaccines and diagnostic tools, and measures for public investment in R&D, local production, pooled procurement and the lifting in practice of intellectual property barriers affecting public health. \r\n\r\nThere has been progress, particularly in emergency responses. For example, the WHO has set up a Health Emergencies Programme to co-ordinate emergency prevention and response; a collaboration agreement with the Africa Centre for Disease Control (AU-CDC) has stimulated work to build a regional health workforce for emergencies. Incident Management Systems have been established in a number of African countries to strengthen coordination of responses to emergencies and nine African countries have implemented Joint External Evaluations of their IHR core capacities. The WHO Contingency Fund for Emergencies and the Africa Public Health Emergency Fund have been established and have enabled quick response to zika, cholera and yellow fever outbreaks, although with challenges to address, including their alignment to national resources and delays in operationalising and slow disbursement of these funds.  \r\n\r\nThis investment in detection and control of epidemics is welcomed, but the concern in the region is also to prevent epidemics from occurring in the first place. This needs continuous strengthening of health information systems and population surveys to map disease risks and burdens and assess vulnerabilities in the region, to raise and ensure that African priorities are planned for and responded to at local, national, regional and global level. \r\n\r\nAn East Central and Southern African Health Community (ECSA HC) April 2017 meeting of senior officials and technical actors with input from Geneva-based diplomats in the Africa Group of Health Experts noted that this calls for a pooling of efforts, to respond to emergencies, to co-ordinate R&D and to share capacities and experience in building integrated health systems. Such comprehensive measures recognise that health systems are not simply technical in nature, but signal our social values, including for example in the way migrants are treated, or in how the health workers in conflict and emergency zones are cared for and protected.\r\n\r\nDelegates at the ECSA HC meeting called for integrated systems and a one-health approach, rather than a proliferation of new silo\u2019ed vertical programmes and committees. Health for population groups like mothers and children or for settings like urban health should not be treated as another vertical programme, but addressed through making clear linkages with comprehensive health systems and \u2018health-in-all-policies\u2019. After a long period of investment in specific disease programmes, investments are now seen to be needed in the institutional arrangements, processes and information systems that support coordination, collaboration and integration of actions within health systems, with other sectors and within and across countries. \r\n\r\nA focus on prevention demands action upstream, to map and identify risk and vulnerability and to control vectors and risk environments, both for infectious and non-infectious risks, including those related to chemicals, radiation and food safety. Integration calls for resources and strategies for prevention and response to epidemics and emerging challenges such as NCDs to be linked to broader measures applied to build robust, competent and comprehensive health systems that enroll and involve their communities. It calls for measures to reduce the costs of health technologies and treatment programmes, and to strengthen the independent country and regional regulatory agencies, databases and public health agencies needed to inform and support responses within and across countries.\r\n\r\nThis resonates with the WHO 2030 agenda calling for a One World One Health approach, that involves strengthening health systems for universal health coverage and inter-sectoral action for health. However two years from the declaration of the SDGs, it is surely time to focus attention on moving from pronouncements to what actions have been taken to implement the SDGs, particularly in terms of the public health issues that are a priority for the region. These are issues for whoever is elected as the new DG, whether from Africa or not. How far are the necessary actions being financed and delivered? What progress has been made in equitable development of and access to research and innovation? What progress is WHO making in reclaiming its leading role in health within the United Nations system, backed by the necessary increase in fixed contributions from countries to ensure its autonomy as global public health authority? What progress have countries made in improving progressive financing and reducing dependence on out of pocket funding? How far have all countries put in place the integrated, comprehensive primary health care oriented systems and public health leadership and capacities needed to meet these challenges and to progressively meet the right to health, leaving no-one behind?\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Antimicrobial resistance: translating political commitment into national action","field_subtitle":"Inoue H; Minghui R: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 95(4) 241-312, 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/95/4/17-191890/en/","body":"Antimicrobial resistance is one of the most complex global health challenges today. Worsening antimicrobial resistance could have serious public health, economic and social implications around the world and could cause as much damage to the global economy as the 2008 financial crisis. Since May 2015, progress has also been made in the implementation of global commitments in this area. Over one hundred countries have completed, or are about to complete, their national multi-sectoral action plans. WHO has established a global antimicrobial resistance surveillance system to track which drug-resistant pathogens are posing the biggest challenge. Based on a review and analysis of national guidelines and prescribing practices for 20 common syndromes, WHO is revising the antibiotics included in the WHO model list of essential medicines. The organisation has also rolled out a global awareness-raising campaign targeting policy-makers, health and agriculture workers and communities. To scale up activities, the authors suggest that governments can build on existing regulatory frameworks, surveillance systems, laboratory and infection control infrastructure and human resources that are already in place to manage drug resistance in tuberculosis, HIV and malaria. Both at global and country level, much more still needs to be done. An ad hoc interagency coordination group is being established by the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, in consultation with WHO, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN and the World Organisation for Animal Health. WHO is preparing proposals for a global development and stewardship framework to support the development, control, distribution and appropriate use of new antimicrobial medicines, diagnostic tools, vaccines and other interventions. By May 2017, all countries should have their national action plans ready, as called for by World Health Assembly resolution 68.7. To see tangible progress, the authors argue that these global commitments must be translated into coherent regional and national action across the entire spectrum of diseases and pathogens.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Antimicrobial-resistant infections among postpartum women at a Ugandan referral hospital","field_subtitle":"Bebell L; Ngonzi J; Bazira J et al.: PLoS ONE 12(4) 2017, doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175456 ","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/mmgo9g2","body":"Puerperal sepsis causes 10% of maternal deaths in Africa, but prospective studies on incidence, microbiology and antimicrobial resistance are lacking. The authors performed a prospective cohort study of 4,231 Ugandan women presenting to a regional referral hospital for delivery or postpartum care. The study found for women in rural Uganda with postpartum fever, a high rate of antibiotic resistance among cultured urinary and bloodstream infections, including cephalosporin-resistant Acinetobacter species. They recommend that increasing availability of microbiology testing to inform appropriate antibiotic use, development of antimicrobial stewardship programs, and strengthening infection control practices should be high priorities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for speakers and papers: Radical transformations in Africa today, interventions from the left","field_subtitle":"Deadlines for abstracts: Accra meeting \u2013 June 2017, Dar es Salaam \u2013 November 2017, Johannesburg \u2013 January 2018.","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/mwr4rkb","body":"This is an opportunity for activists and scholars to contribute to a series of three linked workshops in Africa. Each two-day meeting will debate current challenges and prospects for Left analysis and action. The organisers are seeking both key speakers and offers of papers, with a plan to publish a selection in the Review of African Political Economy. The workshops are scheduled in November 2017 in Accra, Ghana; April 2018 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; June 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa; September 2018 at the African Studies Association in the UK. These workshops will link analysis and activism in contemporary Africa from the perspective of radical political economy, and will be organised around three linked themes: Africa in a \u2018post-crisis\u2019 world, economic strategy, industrialisation and the agrarian question and resistance and social movements in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Do Ugandan mining companies ignore the social license to operate? Reflecting on community perspectives","field_subtitle":"Namusobya S: Oped Space, Uganda, 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/m4y9r4c","body":"During a recent civil society consultative meeting held in Karamoja sub-region in North Eastern Uganda to discuss with locals the review of mining law and policy in Uganda, participants from the community made statements about mining operations in the region: One participant stated; \u201cAs we talk here trucks and trucks ferry marble and the people of Rupa swallow dust.\u201d Another participant said; \u201c they come here and cordon off large pieces of land beyond what is allowed under their licenses and the locals have nowhere to graze their cattle. They forget we are a pastoralist community. No one asks us whether we want the mining in the first place. We just see companies show up in our midst.\u201d Karamoja sub-region in Uganda is endowed with a number of minerals including gold, marble limestone, gemstones and silver among others, and plays host to roughly 20 companies involved in the mining sector at different stages. However, this report suggests that there is a disconnect between local communities and the mining companies. Community members said they had very limited information about the sector, and complained of lack of consultation, exploitation and human rights abuses by the mining companies. The authors argue that local communities and indigenous people have the right to be consulted about mining projects because they bear the brunt of the negative impacts of mining, and as prior, informed consent is now a well recognised international best practice. This should, they propose, be included in law. They point, for example, to the Tanzania Mining Act 2010 that ensures that no discussions of mining can be engaged in without the representation of civil society and local small scale miners. In Ghana, New Mont Gold Company has adopted the use of community agreements, while the World Bank has published a Source Book \u2013 Mining Community Development Agreements, 2012 on how to develop and implement such community agreements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"e-Learning Course on Health Financing Policy for Universal Health Coverage (UHC)","field_subtitle":"WHO: Geneva 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/health_financing/training/e-learning-flyer.pdf?ua=1","body":"The first e-learning course on health financing policy for universal health coverage has now been launched. This e-learning course comprises six modules which cover the core functions of health financial policy as conceptualised by WHO. Each module is divided into a number of sub-topics. This is a foundational course which targets participants of various levels of experience and expertise. The course is designed to be used in a variety of ways: as preparation for those who will attend a WHO face-to-face course, for those who are for various reasons unable to attend a face-to-face course, and for those who have already attended courses and wish to refresh their knowledge. Individual modules can also be used as part of a programme of blended capacity building. The course will work on a range of devices, operation systems and browsers. The introductory module covers the goals of UHC and health financing. Module 2 addresses revenue raising and module 3 discusses the desirable characteristics of pooling revenues. Module 4 addresses the purchasing of health services and module 5 discusses benefit package design including coverage choices and how to promote UHC through benefit package choices. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Ecological and human health risks associated with abandoned gold mine tailings contaminated soil","field_subtitle":"Ngole-Jeme V; Fantke P: PLoS One, 2017, doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172517","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0172517","body":"Studies were carried out in Krugersdorp, South Africa, to evaluate the ecological and human health risks associated with exposure to metals and metalloids in contaminated soils in mine tailings from gold mining. Human health risk was assessed using Hazard Quotient (HQ), Chronic Hazard Index (CHI) and carcinogenic risk levels, where values of HQ > 1, CHI > 1 and carcinogenic risk values > 1\u00d710\u22124 represent elevated risks. Values for HQ indicated high exposure-related risk for arsenic, chromium, nickel, zinc and  manganese. Children were more at risk from heavy metal and metalloid exposure than adults. Cancer-related risks associated with metal and metalloid exposure among children were also higher than in adults.  The authors identify that there is significant potential ecological and human health risk associated with metal and metalloid exposure from contaminated soils around gold mine tailings dumps. They note that this could be a potential contributing factor to poor health of residents in informal settlements in the mining area, particularly for those whose immune systems are already compromised by HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic burden of family caregiving for elderly population in southern Ghana: the case of a peri-urban district","field_subtitle":"Nortey S; Aryeetey G; Aikins M; Amendah D; Nonvignon J: International Journal Equity Health 16(16), 2017, doi: 10.1186/s12939-016-0511-9.","field_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5237474/","body":"Close-to-client community-based approaches are argued by the authors to be a low-cost way of providing basic care and social support for elderly populations in such resource-constrained settings and that family caregivers play a crucial role in that regard. However, family caregiving duties are often unpaid and their care-related economic burden is often overlooked, despite this knowledge being important in designing or scaling up effective interventions. This study, therefore, estimated the economic burden of family caregiving for the elderly in southern Ghana. It used a retrospective cross-sectional cost-of-care design in 2015 among family caregivers for elderly registered for a support group in a peri-urban district in southern Ghana. A simple random sample of 98 respondents representative of the support group members completed an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Costs were assessed over a 1-month period. Direct costs of caregiving (including out-of-pocket costs incurred on health care) as well as productivity losses (i.e. indirect cost) to caregivers were analysed. The estimated average cost of caregiving per month was US$186.18, 66% of which was a direct cost. About 78% of the family caregivers in the study reported a high level of caregiving burden with females reporting a relatively higher level than males. Further, about 87% of the family caregivers reported a high level of financial stress as a result of caregiving for their elderly relative. The study shows that support/caregiving for elderly populations imposes economic burden on families, potentially influencing the economic position of families with attendant implications for equity and future family support for such vulnerable populations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Environmental and health impacts of mining in Africa","field_subtitle":"Mapani B; Kribek B: Proceedings of the annual workshop IGCP/SIDA No. 594, Windhoek, Namibia, 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/l2jkfvj","body":"As the demand for mineral resources and fossil fuels continues to grow worldwide, the impact of mining will be an increasingly important concern. In Africa, local communities have been exposed to the detrimental effects of contamination arising from mining and its effects on public health, agriculture and the environment. The legacy of mining has left thousands of sites in Africa contaminated by mining and associated mine dumps such as tailings and slag material. The number of studies focused on the impacts of mining on the environment and human health in Africa have increased during the last decade. This paper reports on a project designed to correlate and integrate the results of multidisciplinary studies carried out in contaminated sites and areas using the best contemporary procedures for statistical analysis, management and compilation of the geochemical data; to strengthen the capacity of African institutions in environmental geochemistry, to raise public awareness of the impacts of mining on the environment and human health and to facilitate cooperation among geoscientists and medical scientists.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 194: An African lens on the World Health Assembly 2017","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evidence for scaling up HIV treatment in sub-Saharan Africa: A call for incorporating health system constraints","field_subtitle":"Mikkelsen E; Hontelez J; Jansen M et al.: PLoS Medical Journal 14(2), 2017, doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1002240","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/m4gymwe","body":"The scale-up of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV-infected people in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) over the past 15 years is one of the most remarkable achievements in public health. With approximately 12 million people on treatment in 2015, life expectancy on the subcontinent has vastly improved. Nevertheless, ART coverage in SSA is still suboptimal, HIV incidence remains high, and improved survival due to ART implies ever increasing numbers of people on treatment. Substantial additional resources are needed to further scale up ART, yet funding has recently levelled off, increasing the need to optimise the allocation of limited resources. This presents local policy makers with complex dilemmas. The authors argue that the current evidence base for prioritising ART scale-up strategies leads to recommendations that are theoretically optimal but practically infeasible to implement. They argue that cost-effectiveness analyses of scaling up ART in SSA take into account the local health system by integrating supply- and demand-side constraints in mathematical models and improving the dialogue between researchers and policy makers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Trends: Challenges and Opportunities in the Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals","field_subtitle":"Dugarova E; G\u00fclasan N: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Geneva, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/mnyg7l5","body":"This joint UNDP-UNRISD report reviews recent trends in six areas that are fundamentally important to achieving the 2030 Agenda. These six \u201cmega-trends\u201d relate to (i) poverty and inequalities, (ii) demography, (iii) environmental degradation and climate change, (iv) shocks and crises, (v) development cooperation and financing for development, and (vi) technological innovation. The report explores whether these trends are having positive or negative effects on development and discusses policy implications for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. The report raises that some of the trends displayed currently are positive and supportive, including in the reduction of absolute poverty and technological innovation. Yet negative trends in several of the other target areas pose a significant risk to the realisation of the SDGs. They suggest that evidence-generating processes should be designed so as to take interactions between areas into account, whether that be through the use of interdisciplinary teams who can bring different insights to research, or through modelling and simulations of complex interactions. The potential for policy coherence manifests itself in two ways in the 2030 Agenda. First, there is a need to pursue progress across goals at the same time (e.g. employment guarantee programmes that focus on the provision of the safeguarding of environmental goods and services), while recognising and minimising the negative interactions. Second, there is the issue of coherence at different levels of decision-making and implementation, primarily local, national, regional and global\u2014for example, whether local policies on education service provision are supported by fiscal policies at the national level, especially the decentralisation of tax policy.  All of the issues discussed in the report are argued to point to the need for collective action so as to maximise the positive dynamics in these areas and minimise risk, and for processes that build trust and inclusiveness of participation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Tuberculosis Report 2016","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO, Geneva, 2016","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/lozhszh","body":"The Global Tuberculosis Report provides a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the TB epidemic, and of progress in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the disease at global, regional and country levels. This global TB report provides an assessment of the TB epidemic and progress in TB diagnosis, treatment and prevention reports, as well as an overview of TB-specific financing and research. It also discusses the broader agenda of universal health coverage, social protection and other SDGs that have an impact on health. Data were available for 202 countries and territories that account for over 99% of the world\u2019s population and TB cases. Six countries accounted for 60% of the new cases: India, Indonesia, China, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa. Global progress is argued to depend on major advances in TB prevention and care in these countries. Worldwide, the rate of decline in TB incidence remained at only 1.5% from 2014 to 2015. This needs to accelerate to a 4\u20135% annual decline by 2020 to reach the first milestones of the End TB Strategy. TB treatment averted 49 million deaths globally between 2000 and 2015, but important diagnostic and treatment gaps persist. US$ 6.6 billion was available for TB care and prevention in low and middle-income countries in 2016, of which 84% was from domestic sources. Nonetheless, national TB programmes in low-income countries continue to rely on international funders for almost 90% of their financing. The report notes that investments in low and middle-income countries fall almost US$ 2 billion short of the US$ 8.3 billion needed in 2016. This annual gap will widen to US$ 6 billion in 2020 if current funding levels do not increase. Despite some progress in the pipeline for new diagnostics, drugs and regimens, and vaccines, TB research and development is also argued to remain severely underfunded.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Gold mining pollution and the cost of private healthcare: The case of Ghana","field_subtitle":"Akpalu W; Normanyo A: United Nations University, WIDER Working Paper 2016/121, 2016","field_url":"https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/wp2016-121.pdf","body":"To attract greater levels of foreign direct investment into their gold mining sectors, the authors observe that many mineral-rich countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been willing to overlook serious instances of mining company non-compliance with environmental standards, and that these lapses in regulatory oversight and enforcement have led to high levels of pollution in many mining communities. This is argued to raise the risk of pollution-related sicknesses, such as skin infections, upper and lower respiratory disorders, and cardiovascular diseases, will necessitate increasingly high healthcare expenditures in affected communities. In this study, the authors propose and estimate a model that relates healthcare expenditure to the degree of residents\u2019 exposure to mining pollution using data obtained on gold mining in Ghana. The empirical results confirm that, after controlling for factors such as current and long-term health status, increased mining pollution leads to higher healthcare expenditure.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Hope for HIV control in southern Africa: The continued quest for a vaccine","field_subtitle":"Bekker Linda-Gail; Gray G, PLoS Med 14(2) 2017, doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002241","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/n3cqsd6","body":"Southern and eastern Africa, with 6.2% of the world\u2019s population, bear a disparate half of the world\u2019s HIV infection burden and would benefit greatly from inexpensive innovations aimed at curtailing the epidemic. A recent modelling study showed that introducing a partially (30%) effective vaccine for HIV in resource-limited settings such as southern Africa would result in an estimated 67% reduction in HIV incidence compared to a non-vaccine scenario. As sub-Saharan Africa has the highest incidence of HIV infection in the world, that the introduction of a vaccine with only partial efficacy could have such a dramatic effect, despite the existing availability of comprehensive prevention methods, is argued by the authors to be strongly persuasive for the pursuit of a vaccine-based approach. Whilst there is great optimism that increasing access to antiretroviral treatment in the region will reduce infection incidence, there is also recognition that epidemic control will not be achieved without a substantial and sustained scale-up of additional primary prevention resources. There are challenges to HIV prevention in resource-limited settings that a vaccine alone is seen to be well positioned to meet. These include the rate of HIV infections and the scale and complexity of the HIV epidemic in the region, juxtaposed with ailing health systems ill equipped to respond effectively. Challenges with antiretroviral drug therapy adherence, poor linkage to care following diagnosis, multiple and diverse vulnerable populations who require population-specific services (such as women, adolescents, and men who have sex with men, stigma, and discrimination, as well as generally limited health care facilities and health personnel impair the region\u2019s capacity to manage the scale of the epidemic. Even with the success of pre-exposure prophylaxis demonstration projects and the encouraging results emerging, the extent of protection relies on fidelity to adherence, continuous uninterrupted access, and sustainable resources for provision. It is well documented that in resource-restricted areas, where education levels and access to health care are low, reliance on behavioural and structural support is also an enormous challenge. A vaccine, even if partially effective, is argued by the authors to be a way of filling these prevention gaps in a cost-effective manner. Whilst countries in this region must find ways to access all the available opportunities that the modern HIV prevention toolkit has on offer, such a vaccine is seen to potentially change the prevention landscape.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Intellectual property rights initiative (IPRI-Africa): Partial scholarship announcement","field_subtitle":"Deadlines for applications: 15 May 2017","field_url":"https://media.wix.com/ugd/9854aa_f08ddb96c4744c7c80479aeb6f349b18.pdf","body":"IPRI-Africa has announced partial scholarship opportunities for three upcoming courses: 1. \"Negotiations, Drafting and Management of Contracts\"- July 10-14, 2017;  2. \u201cIntellectual Property Law and Practice in the World Today\" - Aug 1-5, 2017; and 3. \"Mediation, Arbitration and ADRs\" - Aug 7-11, 2017. The courses are being held in Kampala, Uganda and cover up to half of the full $1200 tuition fees including lunch, tea, refreshments, receptions, IPRI-Africa certification, course materials (soft and hard copy), and links to legal updates. It does not include airfare or accommodation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Is Socio-Economic Status a Determinant of HIV-Related Stigma Attitudes in Zimbabwe? Findings from Project Accept","field_subtitle":"Mateveke K; Singh B; Chingono A; et al.: Journal of Public Health in Africa 7(1), 2016, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4081/jphia.2016.533","field_url":"http://www.publichealthinafrica.org/index.php/jphia/article/view/533","body":"HIV related stigma and discrimination is a known barrier for HIV prevention and care. The authors aimed to assess the relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and HIV related stigma in Zimbabwe, using data from a project that examined the impact of community-based voluntary counselling and testing intervention on HIV incidence and stigma. A total of 2522 eligible participants responded to a psychometric assessment tool, which assessed HIV related stigma and discrimination attitudes on 4 point Likert scale. The tool measured three components of HIV related stigma: shame, blame and social isolation, perceived discrimination, and equity. Participants\u2019 ownership of basic assets was used to assess the socio-economic status. Shame, blame and social isolation component of HIV related stigma was found to be significantly associated with medium and low SES indicating more stigmatising attitudes by participants belonging to medium and low SES in comparison to high SES. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenyan medical students are learning through a community outreach model","field_subtitle":"Mining S: The Conversation, March 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/mqgyu8o","body":"This is a time of unprecedented change in medical education globally. Medical schools, postgraduate bodies and other organisations are responding to rapid advances in medicine and changes in health care delivery. New education approaches are being adopted to exchange information. This enables the institutions to produce relevant health professionals. There are a number of innovations and models that are being explored to improve the learning of students studying medicine and public health. This Kenyan case study reports on how partnerships between the higher education institution and the community are working. It gives an account of the Moi University community programme that uses adaptive instruction for health trainees in the schools of medicine and public health. Adaptive instruction is a student centred approach where they are given real life cases to solve health problems theoretically as tutorial cases. This discussion, with the guidance of a tutor, promotes active learning. The model encourages active learner participation in the provision of health services. It introduces the students to a community health framework where they work in rural health facilities as part of their continuous assessment. It means that graduates entering the profession are able to apply and practise knowledge and skills beyond the theory learnt at the university. The students diagnose issues affecting the local community, develop a research proposal, work with district health management teams and implement activities. They conduct surveillance and monitor diseases and in the event of an epidemic, they are expected to respond effectively. They master the principles of how rural health facilities are run. The programme is divided into five phases: Introduction to the community, Community diagnosis,  Writing a research proposal, Investigation executing the research plan, District health service attachment.  The research projects designed and implemented in phase three and four have produced fascinating reports with research topics that address issues affecting the communities. It takes 20% to 30% of curriculum content and makes the graduand socially responsible and accountable team players in health care delivery. The authors hope that other tutors in Kenya, Eastern Africa and beyond the continent will benefit from this model. The experience provides tutorial guidance towards building a resilient and experienced crop of health professionals at par with global health training standards.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge, attitudes and practices of South African healthcare workers regarding the prevention and treatment of influenza among HIV-infected individuals","field_subtitle":"Duque J; Gaga S; Clark D et al.: PLoS ONE 12(3) 2017, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173983","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0173983","body":"The South African Department of Health publishes annual guidelines identifying priority groups, including immunosuppressed individuals and healthcare workers (HCW), for influenza vaccination and treatment. How these guidelines have impacted HCW and their patients, particularly those infected with HIV, remains unknown. The authors aimed to describe the knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding influenza and the vaccine among South African HCW. Surveys were distributed by two local non-governmental organisations in public health clinics and hospitals in 21 districts/municipalities (5 of 9 provinces). There were 1164 respondents. One-third (34%) of HCW reported getting influenza vaccine and most (94%) recommended influenza vaccine to patients infected with HIV. The ability to get vaccine free of charge and having received influenza government training were significantly associated with self-reported vaccination in 2013/2014. Self-reported vaccination and availability of influenza vaccine during the healthcare visit were significantly associated with recommending influenza vaccine to patients infected with HIV/AIDS. Free and close access to influenza vaccine were associated with a higher likelihood of getting vaccinated. HCW who reported getting the influenza vaccine themselves, had vaccine to offer during the patient consult and were familiar with guidelines and training were more likely to recommend vaccine to HIV-infected patients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mining and Risk of Tuberculosis in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Stuckler D; Basu S; McKee M; Lurie M: American Journal of Public Health 101(3), 524-530, 2105","field_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3036676/","body":"This paper aimed to investigate the relationship between mining and tuberculosis (TB) in sub-Saharan Africa. The authors used multivariate regression to estimate the contribution of mining activity to TB incidence, prevalence, and mortality, as well as rates of TB among people living with HIV, with control for economic, health system, and population confounders.  Mining production was associated with higher population TB incidence rates, with an increase of mining production of 1 SD corresponding to about 33% higher TB incidence or 760 000 more incident cases, after adjustment for economic and population controls. Similar results were observed for TB prevalence and mortality, as well as with alternative measures of mining activity. Independent of HIV, there were significant associations between mining production and TB incidence in countries with high HIV prevalence and between log gold mining production and TB incidence in all studied countries. The authors conclude that mining is a significant determinant of countrywide variation in TB among sub-Saharan African nations. Comprehensive TB control strategies should explicitly address the role of mining activity and environments in the epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Power and glory: applying participatory action research in public health","field_subtitle":"Baum F: Gaceta Sanitaria 30(6) 405\u2013407, 2016","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0213911116301194","body":"Participatory action research seeks to understand and improve the world by changing it. At its heart is collective, self-reflective enquiry that researchers and participant\u2019s undertake so they can understand and improve upon the practices in which they participate and the situation in which they find themselves. This article describes that ways PAR has been applied to a wide range of issues in public health, including in community asset mapping, participatory evaluation of public health programs, community monitoring of health service quality, research documenting and advocating to remove threats to health including poor water and sanitation and environmental pollution and participatory health policy research. A systematic review indicated most health service PAR has been conducted in low and middle income countries. In high income countries it is often used as a method to empower groups who are excluded and hold little power including Roma peoples in Europe and Indigenous peoples in Canada and Australia. PAR is often not reported in the academic literature despite its application in local projects. The most important aspect of PAR is that it relies on a cycle of reflection, planning, acting, further observing and reflection, then new plans and action. This reflexivity is central and is deeply relational in that the researchers and the other actors (community members or service or policy players) are engaging together in these processes. The author  observes that PAR holds great, and as yet largely unrealised promise, to create greater mobilisation and community interest and action on health inequities and action on the social determinants of health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Progress in promoting data sharing in public health emergencies","field_subtitle":"Littler K; Boon W; Carson G et al.: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 95(4) 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/95/4/17-192096/en/","body":"In February 2016, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the Zika virus-related cluster of microcephaly cases and other neurological disorders reported in Brazil, a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). Following the declaration, over 30 global health bodies issued a joint statement committing to data sharing to ensure that the global response to the Zika virus and future emergencies, could be informed by the best and most current evidence. The statement represented a concerted effort by those involved to address past failures of timely access to relevant data. It also highlighted the lack of a clear path to implementation for data sharing during public health emergencies. In March 2016, the Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness established a data-sharing working group which has been working in coalition with other stakeholders including WHO, scientists, nongovernmental organisations, journals and other agencies. This group is working to identify barriers to data sharing in public health emergencies that should be addressed to better prepare for any future epidemic. The experiences from the 2013\u20132016 Ebola virus disease outbreak and the 2015 Zika virus outbreak demonstrated the importance of research in public health emergencies and the difficulties associated with sharing research findings rapidly and outside of conventional scientific publications. The WHO consensus and policy statements called for a paradigm shift in information sharing in public health emergencies and described the particularities to consider in dealing with different data types. Despite these efforts, rapid data sharing during public health emergencies remains challenging for various reasons. First, there are limited incentives for researchers and other people responding to the emergency to share data. Second, there is a lack of appropriate infrastructure for data sharing such as repositories and information technology platforms. Such rapid data sharing requires a clear governance structure that ensures a balance between privacy and access, as well as adheres to national and international ethical and legal requirements. The GloPID-R working group has developed, and requests comment on, a set of principles to underpin future implementation of timely data sharing. These new principles draw on others, such as the FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship, and are intended to provide an initial framework for discussion. The collective work is intended to support WHO\u2019s Research and Development Blueprint and include other stakeholders, such as the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness. Effective data sharing requires flexibility by all stakeholders to adapt to unforeseen events and challenges. A data-sharing system needs to allow collaboration between stakeholders in the absence of pre-existing relationships and all collaborators need to adhere to fundamental ethical principles of data use. Above all, it must ensure that people in all affected countries benefit from timely access to evidence-based interventions in emergencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Revolutionary Change in Africa: an Interview with Samir Amin","field_subtitle":"Zeilig L: Review of African Political Economy, March 2017","field_url":"http://roape.net/2017/03/16/revolutionary-change-africa-interview-samir-amin/","body":"Samir Amin is one of Africa's foremost radical thinkers. In this interview  organised by African Research and Cooperation for Endogenous Development Support, Amin reflects on a life spent at the cutting edge of radical theory and practice and African politics. Amin questions what social progressive change means today. He argues that there needs to be a strengthening of socialist consciousness - instead of \u2018moving up\u2019 within capitalism, people need to orientate in the opposite direction, and intensify the contradictions between an anti-capitalist alternative and what capitalism can offer. He argues against the concept of a single \u2018revolution\u2019, preferring instead to talk about advances and changes which create the possibility of later, further advances. He also rejects the view that it is possible to produce change without political and state power. Amin notes that all the peoples of Africa are today facing a big challenge.  African societies are integrated in a form of  globalisation that is damaging for the continent. He argues that Africans must 'delink\u2019 from it and reject the logic of unilateral adjustment to the needs of further capitalist and imperialist expansion, starting at national level. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Significance of informal (on-the-job) learning and leadership development in health systems: lessons from a district finance team in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Choonara S; Goudge J; Nxumalo N; Eyles J: BMJ Global Health 2 (e000138); 2017, doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2016-000138","field_url":"http://gh.bmj.com/content/bmjgh/2/1/e000138.full.pdf","body":"Effective district management, particularly leadership is considered to be crucial element of the district health system. Internationally, the debate around developing leadership competencies such as motivation or empowerment of staff, managing relationships, being solution driven as well as fostering teamwork are argued to be possible through formal and informal training. This paper reports findings on the significance of informal learning and its practical value in developing leadership competencies. A qualitative case study was conducted in one district in the Gauteng province, South Africa. Purposive and snowballing techniques yielded a sample of 18 participants, primarily based at a district level. Primary data collected through in-depth interviews and observations (participant and non-participant) were analysed using thematic analysis. Results indicate the sorts of complexities, particularly financial management challenges which staff face and draws attention to the use of two informal learning strategies\u2014learning from others (how to communicate, delegate) and fostering team-based learning. Such strategies played a role in developing a cadre of leaders at a district level who displayed essential competencies such as motivating staff, and problem solving. It is crucial for health systems, especially those in financially constrained settings to find cost-effective ways to develop leadership competencies such as being solution driven or motivating and empowering staff. The authors note that the study illustrates that it is possible to develop such competencies through creating and nurturing a learning environment (on-the-job training) which could be incorporated into everyday practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Slum Upgrading and Health Equity","field_subtitle":"Corburn J; Sverdlik A: International Journal of Environment Research and Public Health 14(4), 2017","field_url":"http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/4/342/htm","body":"Informal settlement upgrading is widely recognised for enhancing shelter and promoting economic development, yet its potential to improve health equity is usually overlooked. Slum upgrading is the process of delivering place-based environmental and social improvements to the urban poor, including land tenure, housing, infrastructure, employment, health services and political and social inclusion. The processes and products of slum upgrading can address multiple environmental determinants of health. This paper reviewed urban slum upgrading evaluations from cities across Asia, Africa and Latin America and found that few captured the multiple health benefits of upgrading. With the Sustainable Development Goals focused on improving well-being for billions of city-dwellers, slum upgrading should be viewed as a key strategy to promote health, equitable development and reduce climate change vulnerabilities. The authors conclude with suggestions for how slum upgrading might more explicitly capture its health benefits, such as through the use of health impact assessment and adopting an urban health in all policies framework. Urban slum upgrading must be more explicitly designed, implemented and evaluated to capture its multiple global environmental health benefits.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa District Health Barometer 2015/16","field_subtitle":"Massyn N; Peer N; English R; Padarath A; Barron P; Day C: Health Systems Trust, South Africa, 2016","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/mbh6pp5","body":"The District Health Barometer (DHB) 2015/16, in its 11th edition, seeks to highlight, health system performance, inequities in health outcomes, and health-resource allocation and delivery, and to track the efficiency of healthcare delivery processes across all provinces and districts in South Africa. It has become a planning and management resource for health service providers, managers, researchers and policy-makers. This DHB contains 44 indicators, with trend illustrations and health profiles across South Africa\u2019s nine provinces and 52 health districts. It includes a chapter on the burden of disease, as well as seven additional indicators, including: inpatient under 5 years death rate, percentage of ideal clinics, percentage of assessed PHC facilities with patients who have access to a medical practitioner and the MDR-TB treatment success rate. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The Africa Mining Vision:  A Long Overdue Ecofeminist Critique","field_subtitle":"Valiani S: WoMin Analytical Paper, South Africa, 2015","field_url":"https://womin.org.za/images/docs/analytical-paper.pdf","body":"The Africa Mining Vision (AMV) signed in 2009 by African Ministers responsible for mineral resources development throughout the continent, and its accompanying policy framework, Minerals and Africa\u2019s Development, provide a comprehensive strategy for mineral and other natural resource extraction to be used in manufacturing within the continent, rather than exported from Africa for the industrial development of other continents. The authors note that while comprehensive and bold, it does not incorporate the effects of such a development strategy on African women, even though extraction primarily affects rural populations and particularly women. They note the mounting drought in the continent and other consequences of climate change attributing it in part to excessive, worldwide extraction and combustion of minerals and fossil fuels. Showcasing seven community based studies in sub-Saharan Africa, this paper aims to fill this gap. The authors argue from the evidence in the case studies that mineral and oil-based development undervalues community wealth, food production systems and female labour. They make two policy recommendations: Firstly in order to enable meaningful public participation in the policy framework and vision provided in the AMV  they call on the African Union to make public the number of displacements estimated for the African continent over the next half-century. They estimate that as many as 90 million displaced across the continent. Secondly, they call on African states to carry out national studies of the socioeconomic, environmental and thus human impacts of existing and abandoned mineral and oil-based development projects post-independence period, with active participation of women\u2019s organisations, mining affected communities, policy think tanks, and academics in the fields of social and human development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The coping mechanisms of women in the mining industry","field_subtitle":"Mokotong R: University of Pretoria, South Africa, 2016, doi: http://hdl.handle.net/2263/53441","field_url":"http://www.repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/53441","body":"Internationally, the involvement of women working underground is a relatively new phenomenon. In South Africa, women were recently allowed to work in the underground mines. However, the challenges of women and men are different and their coping mechanisms are not the same. This research investigated how women cope under the occupational and labour culture, and health and physical demands inherent to this type of work. By means of the non-probability sampling method, ten (10) women were purposively selected and a qualitative collective case study design was used. The findings illustrate that women in the mining industry experience challenges with regard to labour, health, occupational challenges, work-life balance, sanitation facilities and sexual harassment. They were found to use different mechanisms to cope with the challenges they face on a daily basis. The authors call for the mining industry management to devise ways to meet the needs of women and offer support in response to their daily challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The cost of free health care for all Kenyans: assessing the financial sustainability of contributory and non-contributory financing mechanisms","field_subtitle":"Okungu V; Chuma J; McIntyre D: International Journal for Health in Equity 16(1), 2017, doi: 10.1186/s12939-017-0535-9","field_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5327514/","body":"In many developing countries where the majority of the population works in the informal sector, there are critical debates over the best financing mechanisms to progress towards UHC. In Kenya, government health policy has prioritized a contributory financing strategy (social health insurance) as the main financing mechanism for UHC. However, there are currently no studies that have assessed the cost of either social health insurance (SHI) as the contributory approach or an alternative financing mechanism involving non-contributory (general tax funding) approaches to UHC in Kenya. This study critically assessed the financial requirements of both contributory and non-contributory mechanisms to financing UHC in Kenya in the context of large informal sector populations, to provide estimates of financial resource needs for UHC over a 17-year period (2013-2030). The 17-year period was necessary because the Government of Kenya aims to achieve UHC by 2030. The results show that SHI is financially sustainable (that is expenditure does not outstrip revenue) within the first five years of implementation, but it becomes less sustainable with time. Modelling for a non-contributory scenario, on the other hand, showed greater sustainability both in the short- and long-term. The financial resource requirements for universal access to health care through general government revenue are compared with a contributory health insurance scheme approach. Although both funding options would require considerable government subsidies, given the magnitude of the informal sector in Kenya and their limited financial capacity, a tax-funded system would be less costly and more sustainable in the long-term than an insurance scheme approach. However, more innovative financing for health care as well as giving the health sector higher priority in government expenditure will be required to make the non-contributory financing mechanism more sustainable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Standard 2016","field_subtitle":"EITI International Secretariat:  EITI Norway, 2016","field_url":"https://eiti.org/sites/default/files/migrated_files/english_eiti_standard_0.pdf","body":"The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Standard is in its fifth version since the first principles were agreed in 2003. The principles on which the EITI is based state that the wealth from a country\u2019s natural resources should benefit all its citizens and that this requires high standards of transparency and accountability. Revenue transparency remains a fundamental aspect of the EITI. The requirements follow the extractive value chain order and cover: first oversight by the multi-stakeholder group, then legal and institutional frameworks, exploration and production, revenue collection, revenue allocation, and finally social and economic spending and outcomes. It encourages countries to make use of existing reporting systems for EITI data collection and make the results transparent at source, with recommendations on the actions to take and the plans for taking them. It raises that the identity of the real owners \u2013 the \u2018beneficial owners\u2019 \u2013 of the companies that have obtained rights to extract oil, gas and minerals will have to be disclosed from 2020. It introduces a new validation system which aims to better recognise efforts to exceed the EITI requirements and sets out fairer consequences for countries that have not yet achieved compliance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of multi-morbidity on disability among older adults in South Africa: do hypertension and socio-demographic characteristics matter?","field_subtitle":"Waterhouse P; van der Wielen N; Banda P; Channon A: International Journal Equity Health 16(62), 2017, doi: 10.1186/s12939-017-0537-7","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/m3kjyug","body":"This study in South Africa investigated the association between multi-morbidity and disability among older adults; and whether hypertension (both diagnosed and undiagnosed) mediates this relationship. The authors consider whether the impact of the multi-morbidity on disability varies by socio-demographic characteristics. Data were drawn from Wave 1 (2007-08) of the South African Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health. Disability was measured using the 12-item World Health Organisation Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS) 2.0.  Nearly half of the respondents had a hypertensive blood pressure when measured during the interview, but had not been previously diagnosed. A further third self-reported they had been told by a health professional they had hypertension. The logistic regression showed in comparison to those with no chronic conditions, those with one or two or more had significantly higher odds of severe disability. Hypertension was insignificant and did not change the direction or size of the effect of the multi-morbidity measure substantially. The interactions between number of chronic conditions with wealth were significant. The diagnosis of multiple chronic conditions, can be used to identify those most at risk of severe disability and to prioritise limited resources for such individuals for preventative, rehabilitative and palliative care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The imperative for systems thinking to promote access to medicines, efficient delivery, and cost-effectiveness when implementing health financing reforms: a qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Achoki T; Lesego A: International Journal for Equity in Health 16(53) 2017 doi: 10.1186/s12939-017-0550-x","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/lvydq4f","body":"Health systems across Africa are faced with a multitude of competing priorities amidst pressing resource constraints. Expansion of health insurance is being promoted in the quest for sustainable healthcare financing for many of the health systems in the region. However, the broader policy implications of expanding health insurance coverage have not been fully investigated and contextualised to many African health systems. The authors interviewed 37 key informants drawn from public, private and civil society organisations involved in health service delivery in Botswana. They aimed to determine the potential health system impacts that would result from expanding the health insurance scheme covering public sector employees. Study participants were selected through purposeful sampling, stakeholder mapping, and snowballing. The authors thematically synthesised their views, focusing on the key health system areas of access to medicines, efficiency and cost-effectiveness, as intermediate milestones towards universal health coverage. Participants suggested that expansion of health insurance would be characterised by increased financial resources for health and catalyse an upsurge in utilisation of health services particularly among those with health insurance cover. As a result, the health system, particularly within the private sector, would be expected to see higher demand for medicines and other health technologies. However, majority of the respondents cautioned that, realising the full benefits of improved population health, equitable distribution and financial risk protection, would be wholly dependent on having sound policies, regulations and functional accountability systems in place. It was recommended that, health system stewards should embrace efficient and cost-effective delivery, in order to make progress towards universal health coverage. Despite the prospects of increasing financial resources available for health service delivery, expansion of health insurance is reported to come with many challenges. They argue that decision-makers keen to achieve universal health coverage, must view health financing reform through the holistic lens of the health system and its interactions with the population, in order to anticipate its potential benefits and risks. Failure to embrace this comprehensive approach, would potentially lead to counterproductive results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The right to health of non-nationals and displaced persons in the sustainable development goals era: challenges for equity in universal health care","field_subtitle":"Brolan C; Forman L; Dagron S; et al.: International Journal for Health in Equity 16(14), 2017, doi: 10.1186/s12939-016-0500-z.","field_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5319040/","body":"Under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), United Nations Member States reported progress on the targets toward their general citizenry. This focus repeatedly excluded marginalised ethnic and linguistic minorities, including people of refugee backgrounds and other vulnerable non-nationals that resided within a States' borders. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to be applied to all, nationals and non-nationals alike. Global migration and its diffuse impact has intensified due to escalating conflicts and the growing violence in many countries. This massive migration and the thousands of refugees crossing borders in search for safety led to the creation of two-tiered, ad hoc, refugee health care systems that have added to the sidelining of non-nationals in reporting frameworks. The authors have identified four ways to promote the protection of vulnerable non-nationals' health and well-being in States' application of the post-2015 SDG framework: In setting their own post-2015 indicators states should explicitly identify vulnerable migrants, refugees, displaced persons and other marginalised groups in the content of such indicators. The authors\u2019 recommend that communities, civil society and health justice advocates vigorously engage in country's formulation of post-2015 indicators and that the inclusion of non-nationals be anchored in the international human right to health, which in turn requires appropriate financing allocations as well as robust monitoring and evaluation processes that can hold technocratic decision-makers accountable for progress.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowship Program","field_subtitle":"Deadlines for applications: 14 May 2017","field_url":"https://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/apply/","body":"The Shuttleworth Foundation offers fellowships to individuals to implement their innovative idea for social change. They are most interested in exceptional ideas at the intersection between technology, knowledge and learning, with openness being the key requirement. Applications are invited from people from all over the world regardless of gender, age, nationality or experiences. The Foundation invite individuals with a fresh approach to solving a social challenge, using openness, to apply.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Voter Sentiment on Governance in South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Good Governance Africa: GGA, South Africa, 2017","field_url":"http://www.gga.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/LocGov-VSS-full-Analysis-1-1.pdf","body":"In 2015 Good Governance Africa (GGA), in conjunction with specialist researchers MarkData, conducted a survey to test public attitudes towards key aspects of governance in South Africa. In 2016 GGA commissioned MarkData to conduct a Voter Sentiment Survey. Respondents were selected using a random multistage sampling process. The survey findings are to some extent in line with the 2011 South African Reconciliation Barometer. The survey showed that in cases relating to government performance, the widely held view was that all areas (administration, economic development and service delivery) required attention and improvement. Participants suggested that service delivery is the priority, followed by economic development and then administration. It was also found that more voters are deploying their vote strategically in relation to their perceptions of governance, despite feeling that they have little say in how they are governed. The authors argue that this reinforces the need for further research and for greater engagement with the voters on the ground, particularly in areas where poor local government performance has been detected.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"World TB Day: Campaign Materials","field_subtitle":"Stop TB Partnership, March 2017","field_url":"http://www.stoptb.org/events/world_tb_day/2017/materials.asp","body":"This year's Stop TB Partnership campaign runs under the tagline \"Unite to End TB!\". This campaign draws on the goals set out in the Global Plan to End TB, the roadmap to accelerating impact on the TB epidemic and reaching the targets of the WHO End TB Strategy. To amplify the message the Stop TB Partnership has developed a set of campaign materials, which are free to use. The campaign materials include a \u2018Call to Action\u2019 logo, a \u2018World TB Day\u2019 logo, social media tiles and e-cards, posters, t-shirts and pin templates and identity guidelines for communities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"XminusY grants","field_subtitle":"Deadlines for applications: 30 June 2017","field_url":"https://www.xminy.nl/english/","body":"IXminusY supports social movements, action groups and change makers who are fighting for a fair, democratic, sustainable and tolerant world. Projects that are supported by XminusY can take place on a broad variety of topics. But more important than the topic, is that the people involved take action themselves to change their own society. An application needs to have background information, concrete data, your planned activities and a detailed budget up to 3,000 euros. XminY doesn't support conferences, seminars, debates or other meetings unless they clearly aim to prepare for actions. In Africa, XminY only supports groups that can supply at least two references from other organisations or individuals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"10th ECSA Best Practices Forum and 26th Directors Joint Consultative Committee Meeting","field_subtitle":"ECSA HC: 10 to 12 April 2017, Arusha, Tanzania","field_url":"http://www.ecsahc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Announcement_BPF-and-DJCC-2017-2-1.pdf","body":"The East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC) will host the\r\n10th Best Practices Forum and 26th Directors Joint Consultative Committee from 10 to 12 April 2017 in Arusha, Tanzania. The theme is Promoting Multi-Sectoral Collaboration for Health through Sustainable Development Goals. The Conference will address its Theme through the following sub-themes:\r\n1. Good Governance and Leadership Practices in the Health sector\r\n2. Mitigating the Impact of emerging and re-emerging diseases.\r\n3. Multi-Sectoral responses to Non-communicable Diseases.\r\n4. Accountability for Women\u2019s, Children\u2019s and Adolescent Health post-2015\r\nThe scientific papers and best practices will form the basis for the recommendations that will be presented to the Health Ministers for further deliberation and adoption as resolutions. Further information is available on the website. EQUINET has a formal association with ECSA HC and will be represented at the meeting. EQUINET will host a joint session at the Best Practices Forum on Global Health Diplomacy including inputs on health standards in the extractive industries and on the forthcoming World Health Assembly agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"3rd Board Meeting of the African Platform on Human Resources for Health (APHRH)","field_subtitle":"APHRH: Kampala, Uganda, 2016","field_url":"http://www.aphrh.com/3rd-board-meeting-of-the-african-platform-on-human-resources-for-health/","body":"The Board of the APHRH met on the 30th Nov 2016 in Kampala to discuss key issues that concerning the Health Workforce in Africa. A resolution was made to convene a regional consultation meeting of key stakeholders and networks to develop a consensus on ways to accelerate advocacy for a strengthened health workforce in Africa.  The Board made a number of decisions to initiate acceleration of the work of the platform at all levels and enhance lobby and advocate for the prioritization of the Health Workforce agenda in Africa, outlined in this document, including: to request the WHO Regional Director for Africa to urgently consider an enhanced technical support program to African countries to strengthen country level health workforce development and management departments, especially at the ministries of health headquarters of member states; to support African Member states in translating for action key regional and global policies including the African Health Strategy, the Global Health Workforce Strategy and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to fast track the strengthening of Health Workforce information systems of countries to manage workforce inflows, stock and outflow by implementation of the WHO code on International Recruitment and track progress of strengthening through improved reporting on the code at the 3rd round due in 2018.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"4th Global Forum on Human Resources for Health","field_subtitle":"Dublin, Ireland, 13-17 November 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hrh/events/4th-global-forum-hrh/en/","body":"The 4th Global Forum on Human Resources for Health will be held in Dublin, Ireland from 13-17 November 2017 hosted by the World Health Organization, the Global Health Workforce Network, Trinity College, Dublin, Irish Aid and the Department of Health. The Forum represents a unique opportunity to engage a multisectoral group of actors across the education, finance, health and labour sectors; multilateral and bilateral agencies; academic institutions; health professional associations and civil society, in a coherent advocacy platform. The Forum will be an occasion to address the health workforce agenda with a multisectoral lens. The theme of the 4th Global Forum is achieving the Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health milestones and the Commission\u2019s recommendations. The Forum will: take stock of progress since the 3rd Global Forum; inform on innovations in workforce policy and practice; engage with and capture the views of various stakeholder groups on advancing implementation to reach the agreed GSHRH milestones by 2020 and 2030; promote collective actions across various stakeholder groups to accelerate implementation towards achieving global and national priorities and targets; and promote learning, sharing, networking, and collaboration among HRH stakeholders. The Forum will also facilitate special sessions to debate and discuss issues of global relevance such as, but not limited to, emergency preparedness & response, antimicrobial resistance, 90-90-90 and others.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"5th Forum of the African Platform on Human Resources for Health","field_subtitle":"Kampala, Uganda, 19-21 April 2017","field_url":"","body":"The African Platform on Human Resources for Health will hold its 5th Forum in Kampala, Uganda, from Wednesday 19th to Friday 21st April 2017. The African Platform is the regional arm of the Global Health Workforce Network (GWN) that was launched in Geneva last December, 2016 as the successor the Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA). The Forum will review the status of implementation of the \u201cRoad map for scaling up human resources for health for improved health service delivery in the African Region 2012\u20132025\u201d that was launched in 2012; build understanding  of relevant recent developments such as  the \u201cGlobal strategy on human resources for health: (Workforce 2030)\u201d; the African Health Strategy.; the Five-Year Action Plan to implement the recommendations of the High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth; and discuss the implications for African countries of the establishment of the Global Health Workforce Network (GHWN), at the WHO secretariat in Geneva. The forum will review the role of the health workforce (HWF) in Africa in advancing the movement towards Universal Health Coverage, as a part of the means to attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Forum will be conducted through Plenary, Break out and Poster sessions under the following five thematic streams: HWF Education and Training;       Preparing the African HWF for Universal Health Coverage ; Leadership for Development, Management and Regulation; Nursing; as the Backbone of the Health and HWF Migration. Participation is open to a broad range of stakeholders especially from the African region.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A realist review of mobile phone-based health interventions for non-communicable disease management in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Opoku D; Stephani V; Quentin W: BMC Medicine 15(24), 2017, doi: 10.1186/s12916-017-0782-z","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/m3zjsqr","body":"The prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is increasing in sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, the use of mobile phones is rising, expanding the opportunities for the implementation of mobile phone-based health (mHealth) interventions. This review aims to understand how, why, for whom, and in what circumstances mHealth interventions against NCDs improve treatment and care in sub-Saharan Africa. Four main databases and references of included articles were searched for studies up to March 2015  reporting effects of mHealth interventions on patients with NCDs in sub-Saharan Africa. All studies published up until May 2015 were included in the review. Following a realist review approach, middle-range theories were identified and integrated into a 'Framework for Understanding the Contribution of mHealth Interventions to Improved Access to Care for patients with NCDs in sub-Saharan Africa'. The main indicators of the framework consist of predisposing characteristics, needs, enabling resources, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use. Studies were analysed in depth to populate the framework. The search identified 6137 titles for screening, of which 20 were retained for the realist synthesis. The contribution of mHealth interventions to improved treatment and care is that they facilitate (remote) access to previously unavailable (specialised) services. Three contextual factors (predisposing characteristics, needs, and enabling resources) influence if patients and providers believe that mHealth interventions are useful and easy to use. Only if they believe mHealth to be useful and easy to use, will mHealth ultimately contribute to improved access to care. The analysis of included studies showed that the most important predisposing characteristics are a positive attitude and a common language of communication. The most relevant needs are a high burden of disease and a lack of capacity of first-contact providers. Essential enabling resources are the availability of a stable communications network, accessible maintenance services, and regulatory policies. Policy makers and program managers should consider predisposing characteristics and needs of patients and providers as well as the necessary enabling resources prior to the introduction of an mHealth intervention. The authors argue that researchers would benefit from placing greater attention on the context in which mHealth interventions are being implemented instead of focusing (too strongly) on the technical aspects of these interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"A realist review of mobile phone-based health interventions for non-communicable disease management in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Opoku D; Stephani V; Quentin W: BMC Medicine 15 (24), doi: 10.1186/s12916-017-0782-z, 2017","field_url":"http://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-017-0782-z","body":"The prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is increasing in sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, the use of mobile phones is rising, expanding the opportunities for the implementation of mobile phone-based health (mHealth) interventions. This review aims to understand how, why, for whom, and in what circumstances mHealth interventions against NCDs improve treatment and care in sub-Saharan Africa. Four main databases (PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and Google Scholar) and references of included articles were searched for studies reporting effects of mHealth interventions on patients with NCDs in sub-Saharan Africa. All studies published up until May 2015 were included in the review. Following a realist review approach, middle-range theories were identified and integrated into a Framework for Understanding the Contribution of mHealth Interventions to Improved Access to Care for patients with NCDs in sub-Saharan Africa. The main indicators of the framework consist of predisposing characteristics, needs, enabling resources, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use. Studies were analyzed in depth to populate the framework. The search identified 6137 titles for screening, of which 20 were retained for the realist synthesis. The contribution of mHealth interventions to improved treatment and care is that they facilitate (remote) access to previously unavailable (specialized) services. Three contextual factors (predisposing characteristics, needs, and enabling resources) influence if patients and providers believe that mHealth interventions are useful and easy to use. Only if they believe mHealth to be useful and easy to use, will mHealth ultimately contribute to improved access to care. The analysis of included studies showed that the most important predisposing characteristics are a positive attitude and a common language of communication. The most relevant needs are a high burden of disease and a lack of capacity of first-contact providers. Essential enabling resources are the availability of a stable communications network, accessible maintenance services, and regulatory policies. The authors propose that policy makers and program managers consider predisposing characteristics and needs of patients and providers as well as the necessary enabling resources prior to the introduction of an mHealth intervention. They argue that researchers would benefit from placing greater attention on the context in which mHealth interventions are being implemented instead of focusing (too strongly) on the technical aspects of these interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Adapting global health aid in the face of climate change","field_subtitle":"Gupta V, Mason-Sharma A, Caty S, KerryV: Lancet Global health Volume 5, No. 2, e133\u2013e134, 2017","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(17)30002-5/fulltext","body":"WHO estimates an additional 250\u2008000 mortalities between 2030 and 2050 will be attributable to climate-associated increases in malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea, respiratory disease, water inaccessibility, and heat stress. Spillover effects on state and regional security are argued to be inevitable. The World Economic Forum has identified climate change as the single greatest threat to global stability because of its considerable consequences on the health and stability of developing nations. The complex interaction between climate change, health system burdens, and poor health outcomes, and their subsequent impact on politics, security, and society can be captured within the concept of a so-called climate-health-security nexus. Many of the world's poorest and most politically fragile nations lie at the centre of this nexus. Within this nexus, poverty, state fragility, poor pre-existing health outcomes, and high susceptibility to climate change converge to amplify the effects of future famines, droughts, and neglected tropical diseases. This amplification subsequently leads to worsened economies, social instability, and reliance on external support. The nations most at risk for climate-triggered health crises are primarily scattered throughout sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia and are already afflicted by the highest rates of disease burden globally (table, appendix). Notably, most of these countries are low-income nations without the resources to adequately contend with climate-related challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Advancing the right to health: the vital role of law","field_subtitle":"Magnusson R: World Health Organization, Geneva, 2017","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/advancing-right-health-vital-role-law","body":"This report aims to raise awareness about the role that the reform of public health laws can play in advancing the right to health and in creating the conditions for people to live healthy lives. By encouraging a better understanding of how public health law can be used to improve the health of the population, the report aims to encourage and assist governments to reform their public health laws in order to advance the right to health. The report highlights important issues that may arise during the process of public health law reform. It provides guidance about issues and requirements to be addressed during the process of developing public health laws. It also includes case studies and examples of legislation from a variety of countries to illustrate effective law reform practices and some features of effective public health legislation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"As New AU Chair Mahamat Takes Office: The African Union\u2019s Financing Headache, In Two Charts","field_subtitle":"Mungai C: Africapedia, March 2017","field_url":"http://www.africapedia.com/2017/03/20/au-financing-headache-two-charts/","body":"The new chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat formally took office in Addis Ababa in March, outlining his top priorities for his four-year tenure. Mahamat said he would focus on implementing structural and financial reforms at the AU, place women and youth at the centre of Africa\u2019s development agenda, accelerate intra-African trade and free movement of people, goods and services in the continent, silence the guns by 2020 and strengthen Africa\u2019s voice in the global arena. However, it is the financing plan that is likely to get the most attention in the short term. It was unveiled at the 2015 AU summit in Kigali by Donald Kaberuka, former president of the African Development Bank (AfDB). As of 2015, more than half of the African Union\u2019s budget is funded by outside funders, compromising the independence of the organisation. The Kaberuka plan is intended to change that, and would see member states finance 100% of the AU\u2019s operating budget, three-quarters of the programmes budget and a quarter of the peace and security budget, starting from January 2016 and phased in incrementally over five years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessment of the World Health Organisation\u2019s HIV Drug Resistance Early Warning Indicators in Main and Decentralised Outreach Antiretroviral Therapy Sites in Namibia","field_subtitle":"Mutenda N; Bukowski A; Nitschke A; et al.: PLoS ONE 11(12): e0166649, 2016, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0166649","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0166649","body":"The World Health Organization early warning indicators (EWIs) of HIV drug resistance (HIVDR) assess factors at individual ART sites that are known to create situations favourable to the emergence of HIVDR. In 2014, the Namibia HIV care and treatment program abstracted adult and paediatric EWIs from all public ART sites (50 main sites and 143 outreach sites) related to on-time pill pick-up, retention in care, pharmacy stock-outs, dispensing practices, and viral load suppression. Comparisons were made between main and outreach sites and between 2014 and 2012. The national estimates were: On-time pill pick-up 81.9% for adults and 82.4% for paediatrics, Retention in care 79% retained on ART after 12 months for adults and 82% for paediatrics, Pharmacy stock-outs 94% of months without a stock-out for adults and 88% for paediatrics. Viral load suppression was significantly affected by low rates of viral load completion. Main sites had higher on-time pill pick-up than outreach sites for adults and paediatrics and no difference between main and outreach sites for retention in care for adults or paediatrics. From 2012 to 2014 in adult and paediatric sites, on-time pill pick-up, retention in care and pharmacy stock-outs worsened. Results of EWIs monitoring in Namibia provide evidence about ART programmatic functioning and contextualise results from national surveys of HIVDR. These results are worrisome as they show a decline in program performance over time. The national ART program is taking steps to minimise the emergence of HIVDR by strengthening adherence and retention of patients on ART, reducing stock-outs, and strengthening ART data quality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for a consultant to facilitate a review and organisation development process with the Community of Practitioners on Accountability and Social Action in Health","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applicants: 15 April 2017","field_url":"http://www.copasah.net/uploads/1/2/6/4/12642634/copasah_od_tor.pdf","body":"The Community of Practitioners on Accountability and Social Action in Health (COPASAH) is a global network of community of practitioners who share a people\u2013centric vision and human rights based approach to health, health care and human dignity. COPASAH\u2019s Steering Committee, represented by the COPASAH Global Secretariat, is seeking a resource person to facilitate a review and Organisation Development (OD) process. The primary task of the consultant will be to determine the value-addition and impact of COPASAH\u2019s activities for the network\u2019s membership base, examine its organisational structure, and advise on the future structure, strategies and activities within the context of the broader field of social action and accountability for health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals for edited volume on: Making visible the invisible: African women in mining","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submission of abstracts: 20 April 2017","field_url":"","body":"Scholars working on Women in Mining across Africa  are invited to contribute to an edited book volume which aims to focus on contributions (through labour and otherwise) and roles (through social reproduction or resistance struggles) played by African women in mining/ extractive industries. African mining historiography has largely erased or silenced women and neglected their contribution in mining. In this literature and popular culture, mineworkers are almost always seen as men, as though mines are, and have always been, inhabited by men. This is despite evidence from as early as the 1500s which shows women as \u2018pit people\u2019. Scholarship which acknowledges women\u2019s presence tends to portray women as outsiders who inhabit the \u2018peripheries\u2019 of mining and hardly as \u2018centres\u2019 or key players in their own right. This book project aims to address this bias by revisiting and interrogating, from a feminist perspective, the contributions of women in mining and the historiography of mining in Africa, as a way of re-claiming \u201cher-story\u201d and re-insert it into \u2018hi-story\u2019 of mining, to recover and resurrect women\u2019s voices, centre their role and attest to their presence and make visible their contributions in mining. The gaps the editors seek to address include; different roles played by women who work/worked in mining (underground, open cast, artisanal and alluvial mines) and the invisible social reproduction work done by women in mining communities. The editors are also interested in chapters that revisit and critically re-examine archival material, and insert African women in the dominant mining historiography which currently excludes and or marginalises them. Authors who are interested in submitting a paper should, in the first instance, send a short abstract-length proposal (not more than 500 words) outlining the scope of their paper and its novelty by the 20th of April 2017. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for speakers and papers: Radical transformations in Africa today, interventions from the left","field_subtitle":"Deadlines for abstracts: Accra meeting \u2013 June 2017, Dar es Salaam \u2013 November 2017, Johannesburg \u2013 January 2018","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/mwr4rkb","body":"This series of meetings is an opportunity for activists and scholars to contribute to three linked workshops in Africa. Each two-day meeting will debate current challenges and prospects for analysis and action. The organisers are seeking speakers and offers of papers, with a plan to publish a selection in the Review of African Political Economy. The workshops are scheduled in November 2017 in Accra, Ghana; April 2018 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; June 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa; and September 2018 at the African Studies Association in the UK. These workshops will link analysis and activism in contemporary Africa from the perspective of radical political economy, and will be organised around three linked themes: (1) Africa in a \u2018post-crisis\u2019 world, (2) Economic strategy, industrialisation and (3) The agrarian question and resistance and social movements in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Community health worker perspectives on a new primary health care initiative in the Eastern Cape of South Africa","field_subtitle":"Austin-Evelyn K; Rabkin M; Machete T; Mutiti A; Mwansa-Kambafwile J; Dlamini T; El-Sadr W: PLoS ONE 12(3) 2017, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173983","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0173863","body":"In 2010, South Africa\u2019s National Department of Health launched a national primary health care (PHC) initiative to strengthen health promotion, disease prevention, and early disease detection. The strategy, called Re-engineering Primary Health Care (rPHC), aims to provide a preventive and health-promoting community-based PHC model. A key component of rPHC is the use of community-based outreach teams staffed by generalist community health workers (CHWs). The authors conducted focus group discussions and surveys on the knowledge and attitudes of 91 CHWs working on community-based rPHC teams in the King Sabata Dalindyebo (KSD) sub-district of Eastern Cape Province. The CHWs studied enjoyed their work and found it meaningful, as they saw themselves as agents of change. They also perceived weaknesses in the implementation of outreach team oversight, and desired field-based training and more supervision in the community.  The authors find that there is a need to provide CHWs with basic resources like equipment, supplies and transport to improve their acceptability and credibility to the communities they serve.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Does health-related content in a major Ugandan newspaper reflect the changing burden of disease in East Africa?","field_subtitle":"Cooper M; Aiyer R; Sornalingam S; Lawrence D: International Journal of Communication and Health 10, 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/za5vnwx","body":"The disease burden in urban sub-Saharan Africa is changing rapidly. Mortality and morbidity from chronic physical disease (heart, disease, stroke and cancer) is rising rapidly and believed to equal that from infections. Other increasing disease burdens in sub Saharan Africa include mental illness, substance abuse and accidents, especially road traffic collisions (RTC). Newspaper readership is rising in Uganda. This study used content analysis to examine health-related coverage in one major Ugandan newspaper (New Vision). Twenty-nine consecutive paper copies from September/October 2013 were examined independently by two researchers. Health-related articles were identified, counted and coded according to clinical content. Clinical and healthcare-related coverage was present in every edition and represented approximate proportions of 2.6% and 0.4% respectively of total newspaper content. Of 214 news articles identified, these covered the following clinical themes: general well-being (15.4%), healthcare services (14.5%), HIV (12.1%), violence/accidents (11.2%), chronic physical disease (11.2%), sexual, maternal and reproductive health (SMRH) (10.8%), non-HIV infective diseases (10.8), malnutrition (7.9%), substance misuse (3.3%) and mental health (2.8%). Coverage of RTCs, alcohol, smoking, and cancers other than of the breast and cervix was minimal. Health-related content was dominated by infections, healthcare quality, general wellbeing, SMRH and malnutrition. This does not represent the changing burden of disease in Uganda. There may be scope for targeted interventions with editors to promote coverage of growing challenges, including lifestyle advice to prevent chronic diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 193: From \u2018resource curse\u2019 to fair benefit? Protecting health in the extractive sector ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Policy brief 42: Harmonising regional standards for extractive industry responsibilities for health in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Hinricher J; Papamichail A: TARSC, EQUINET, Harare","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/gr6yyza","body":"This brief aims to inform policy dialogue on the protection of health in extractive industries (EIs) in the mining sector in east and southern Africa (ESA). It outlines on pages 5-7 a proposal for a \u2018Regional guidance on minimum standards for the duties and responsibilities of parties in the extractive sector for health and social protection\u2019. EIs play a key economic role, but also bring health, environmental and social risks. International codes and guidance exist on the duties of corporate actors to control these risks and contribute to health. ESA country laws provide for some health protection in EIs, but all have gaps in legal provisions. In line with the intentions of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and other regional economic communities, standards and laws for the sector should be harmonised and brought in line with international standards. The proposal for regional guidance draws clauses from current laws in ESA countries, suggesting the feasibility of their wider application across the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Establishing the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention: responding to Africa's health threat","field_subtitle":"Nkengasong J; Maiyegun O; Moeti M: The Lancet Global Health 5(3), e246-247, 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/mq6yoma","body":"On Jan 31, 2017, heads of states and governments of the African Union and the leadership of the African Union Commission officially launched the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. As detailed in the African Union's Africa Agenda 2063\u2014a roadmap for the development of the continent\u2014some of the concerns that justified the establishment and initiation of an Africa-wide public health agency include rapid population growth; increasing and intensive population movement across Africa, with increased potential for new or re-emerging pathogens to turn into pandemics; existing endemic and emerging infectious diseases, including Ebola; antimicrobial resistance; increasing incidence of non-communicable diseases and injuries; high maternal mortality rates; and threats posed by environmental toxins.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Fair publication of qualitative research in health systems: a call by health policy and systems researchers","field_subtitle":"SHaPeS thematic working group of Health Systems Global, EQUINET, and Emerging Voices for Global Health, Daniels K; Loewenson R et al.: International Journal for Equity in Health 2016 15:98 doi:10.1186/s12939-016-0368-y","field_url":"https://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-016-0368-y","body":"An open letter from Trisha Greenhalgh et al. to the editors of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) triggered wide debate by health policy and systems researchers globally on the inadequate recognition of the value of qualitative research and the resulting deficit in publishing papers reporting on qualitative research. One key dimension of equity in health is that researchers are able to disseminate their findings and that they are taken into account in a fair and just manner, so that they can inform health policy and programmes. While the 170 researcher cosignatories to this paper work on different aspects of health systems, all feel that more serious recognition of the value of qualitative research is required, including to disseminate evidence and contribute voice to advance equity in health. The researchers are particularly disenchanted by a general experience of the limited and often inadequate publication of qualitative research in the major health and medical journals, and the resultant loss of important insights for those working in, or concerned with, health services and systems, including around clinical decision-making. The article reports on the value of qualitative research to health systems and the ways it should be given greater profile in research publications.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Free Zimbabwean contraceptives smuggled for sale in South Africa","field_subtitle":"K Mutandiro: Groundup, Times Live, March  2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/knagnpq","body":"This article tells a story of Nancy (not her real name), who every month travels to Zimbabwe to stock up on Marvelon family planning pills distributed at hospitals\u201a clinics and pharmacies through the Family Planning Council of Zimbabwe. She smuggles them back into South Africa\u201a where she sells them at a healthy profit to other Zimbabweans who for various reasons don\u2019t want the contraceptive pills dispensed in South African clinics. Nancy\u2019s suppliers are hospital staff in Zimbabwean hospitals who sell the pills to her for R5 a blister pack. If she runs short of stock\u201a she buys packets for R10 from a \u201cwholesale\u201d supplier in Johannesburg who also illegally imports the pills from Zimbabwe. Nancy says she has a 100 customers a month in Springs alone\u201a and she sells the packets for R20 to bulk buyers or R30 to individuals. By contrast\u201a Marvelon tablets were reported to be sold for about R130 per 28 tablets in Johannesburg pharmacies","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"From resource curse to fair benefit? Protecting health in the extractive sector ","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson, Training and Research Support Centre","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe African Union (AU) African Mining Vision envisages a mining sector on the continent that contributes to the continent\u2019s development, not only in terms of its economic growth, but also through mining processes that are \u201csafe, healthy, gender and ethnically inclusive, environmentally friendly, socially responsible and appreciated by surrounding communities.\u201d  An increasing number of multinational companies from all regions globally are extracting mineral resources in east and southern Africa (ESA), but how far are these extractive industries (EIs) delivering on this vision of flourishing, healthy communities in their vicinity? \r\n\r\nNotwithstanding the price fluctuations in the sector, EI exports have yielded significant returns, with oil, gas and mineral exports from the continent estimated in 2009 to be worth roughly five times the value of international aid inflows. They have, however, been associated with rapid but unsustainable growth and high levels of inequality, especially where they have limited forward or backward linkages into the national economy, and where they do not adequately invest in or protect the social and economic development of local communities.  \r\n\r\nA demand for socially responsible EI practice has already led to over 25 international standards, codes, performance standards and guidance documents from United Nations (UN) institutions, international agencies, including the International Finance Corporation, civil society and from business itself.  The standards relate to business and human rights, to labour, health, environmental and social obligations, to socially responsible investment and practice and to transparency in governance of the sector. The international standards relating to health in EIs are detailed in a recent EQUINET report (Discussion paper 108) and policy brief available on the EQUINET website. As a condition for granting mining or prospecting rights, they cover duties to assess and prevent health, social and environmental risks and to ensure fair process and health, social and livelihood protections for communities that are relocated due to mining. During the mining processes, they include prevention of harm to the health of workers and surrounding communities, making fair fiscal contributions to health care and ensuring fair benefit and transparency in their operations. They also include post closure obligations in relation to any longer term health and social harm.\r\n \r\nRecognising regional need and benefits, African states have resolved to harmonise standards and laws for the sector at sub-regional level, in west Africa, through ECOWAS, and southern Africa, through SADC.  A number of ESA countries, such as South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia and Kenya, have also set in place initiatives to bring local standards and practice for EIs in line with global best practices. \r\n\r\nThe rapid expansion of the sector into new areas, the legislative gaps in countries with newer sectors, the differences in power between multinational actors and under-resourced states and communities, amongst other factors, have led to various areas of harm and conflict that call for such rights and duties to be made clear. Notwithstanding the employment, income and fiscal contributions they bring, EIs have been reported to bring health risks for workers and surrounding communities. These risks arise from hazardous working conditions and degraded or polluted environments, from the displacement of local people, several thousand in some cases, without adequate replacement of living conditions, resources, services and livelihoods, and from generous tax exemptions that limit EI contributions to social services. The EQUINET discussion paper summarises some of this published evidence. It also reports evidence of discontent or protest from local communities, who feel excluded from decisions and frustrated by grievance handling mechanisms. Indeed, the African Commission on Human and People\u2019s Rights has established a Working Group on Extractive Industries, Environment and Human Rights Violations in Africa to examine and propose measures to prevent and provide reparation for such negative impacts, while civil society campaigns, like \u2018Publish  what you pay\u2019 have sought greater transparency in EI operations. These conditions suggest that it would be timely to give more attention to realising the intentions to harmonise regional standards on EIs and to ensure that health is included within this.  \r\n\r\nAn analysis of the laws on EIs and health in the ESA region in Discussion paper  108 indicates some general findings across the region: There is generally protection in current ESA laws of occupational health for workers employed by EIs, of duties to the environment, and of fiscal and post mine closure duties. There is, however, weaker protection in current ESA laws of the health and social wellbeing of communities displaced by mines, of families living around mines and of health duties post-closure, such as in relation to chronic diseases. In the laws analysed, fewer countries included duties on forward and backward links with local sectors, communities  and services. \r\n\r\nIt was however a positive finding that where there are gaps in the law, there are also clauses in the law of one or more individual ESA countries that are aligned to international standards that may guide what may be included in the laws of others. \r\n\r\nSuch \u2018good practice\u2019 clauses could inform the content of harmonised regional standards. Their origin from ESA countries of different size and income also suggests that it would be feasible to apply them more widely across the region. The EQUINET discussion paper and policy brief  at http://tinyurl.com/gr6yyza  present suggested clauses for regional guidance on health in EIs (and the laws they derive from), in line with international and continental standards. \r\n\r\nImplementing the vision of a socially responsible, healthy and inclusive mining sector clearly calls for more than law. In relation to health, there is evidence of the need for strengthened enforcement and practice, such as to revisit over-generous fiscal exemptions, to integrate health more centrally in tools for and approvals from impact assessment, to strengthen public sector co-ordination and capacities to monitor and prevent health risks, and to provide public information and meaningful mechanisms for community voice and agency in measures to protect their health. However, having harmonised regional standards may help to raise awareness and understanding amongst the different public sectors, private actors and communities of their roles, rights and duties in relation to health in EIs, and give support to the social and institutional processes and measures needed to promote healthy practice. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. You can read further evidence in EQUINET Discussion paper 108 Corporate responsibility for health in the extractive sector in East and Southern Africa at  http://tinyurl.com/zm7afbk  and  Policy brief 42 at  http://tinyurl.com/gr6yyza ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Workforce Labor Market Projections for 2030","field_subtitle":"Liu J; Goryakin Y; Maeda A; Bruckner T; Scheffler R: Human Resources for Health 15(11) 3, 2017","field_url":"https://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12960-017-0187-2","body":"In low- and middle-income countries, scaling essential health interventions to achieve health development targets is constrained by the lack of skilled health professionals to deliver services. The authors project the future health workforce demand based on projected economic growth, demographics and health coverage. They used health workforce data  for 1990\u20132013 for 165 countries from the WHO Global Health Observatory. The demand projections are compared with the projected growth in health worker supply and the health worker \u201cneeds\u201d as estimated by WHO to achieve essential health coverage. The model predicts that, by 2030, global demand for health workers will rise to 80 million workers, double the current (2013) stock of health workers, while the supply of health workers is expected to reach 65 million over the same period, resulting in a worldwide net shortage of 15 million health workers. Growth in the demand for health workers will be highest among upper middle-income countries, driven by economic and population growth and ageing. This results in the largest predicted shortages which may fuel global competition for skilled health workers. Middle-income countries will face workforce shortages because their demand will exceed supply. By contrast, low-income countries will face low growth in both demand and supply, both of which are estimated to be far below what will be needed to achieve adequate coverage of essential health services. This may lead to the paradoxical phenomenon of unemployed (\u201csurplus\u201d) health workers in those countries facing acute \u201cneeds-based\u201d shortages. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global inequality: Bridging the gap - Counting the Cost","field_subtitle":"Riley G: tutor2u, Video feature, January 2017","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzN5YKHL3jE","body":"A new Oxfam report claims that the scale of wealth inequality has grown and that eight people in the world have as much wealth as the poorest fifty per cent of the global population. This video presents the information from the report in a video overview.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Observatory on Health R&D","field_subtitle":"WHO: WHO Geneva online resource, 2017","field_url":"http://www.who.int/research-observatory/en/","body":"The Global Observatory on Health R&D (hereafter called \u2018the Observatory\u2019) is a global-level initiative that aims to help identify health R&D priorities based on public health needs, by: consolidating, monitoring and analysing relevant information on the health R&D needs of developing countries; building on existing data collection mechanisms; and supporting coordinated actions on health R&D. Investments in health R&D are still insufficiently aligned with global public health demands and needs. As little as 1% of all funding for health R&D is allocated to diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis (diseases that are predominantly incident in developing countries), despite these diseases accounting for more than 12.5% of the global burden of disease. Governments, policy-makers, funders and researchers need an accurate picture of the current situation so as to spot R&D gaps and ensure that funds and resources are used in the best possible way. The primary scope of the Observatory as outlined by Member States in World Health Assembly resolution WHA69.23 is: type II and type III diseases (i.e. diseases incident in both rich and poor countries, especially the latter; the specific R&D needs of developing countries in relation to type I diseases; potential areas where market failures exist and antimicrobial resistance and on emerging infectious diseases likely to cause major epidemics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Gold Mining in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Berry I: Magnum Pro, March 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/mfyhkt7","body":"The author argues that fair trade isn\u2019t only about coffee and bananas. The Fairtrade Foundation points out that it doesn\u2019t matter what the commodity is, people should get a fair price for the work they do. African gold miners are often exploited, but the author argues that workers do not have a choice; it\u2019s dig or starve and it\u2019s accept a pittance for their labors or work harder the following day. The Fairtrade Foundation is reported to have intervened and to be gradually improving conditions on mines. In this photo - essay Ian Berry reflects on the Ugandan gold trade as efforts are made to encourage fairer trading practices. He follows the gold from Ugandan mines to the London workshops of jewellers. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Impoverishing effects of catastrophic health expenditures in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Mchenga M; Chirwa G; Chiwaula L: International Journal for Health in Equity 16(25), 2017","field_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5251219/","body":"Out-of-pocket (OOP) health spending can potentially expose households to risk of incurring large medical bills, and this may impact on their welfare. This work investigates the effect of catastrophic OOP on the incidence and depth of poverty in Malawi. The paper is based on data that was collected from 12,271 households that were interviewed during the third Malawi integrated household survey (IHS-3). The paper considered a household to have incurred a catastrophic health expenditure if the share of health expenditure in the household's non-food expenditure was greater than a given threshold ranging between 10 and 40%. As the authors increase the threshold from 10 to 40%, they found that OOP drives between 0.73%-9.37% of households into catastrophic health expenditure. The extent by which households exceed a given threshold (mean overshoot) drops from 1.01% of expenditure to 0.08%, as the threshold increased. When OOP is accounted for in poverty estimation, an additional 0.93% of the population is considered poor and the poverty gap rises by 2.54%. The authors\u2019 analysis suggests that people in rural areas and middle income households are at higher risk of facing catastrophic health expenditure. The authors conclude that catastrophic health expenditure increases the incidence and depth of poverty in Malawi. They call for financing measures to minimise the incidence of catastrophic health expenditure especially to the rural and middle income population.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Incentives to change: effects of performance-based financing on health workers in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Shen G; Nguyen H; Das A; Sachingongu N; Chansa C; Qamruddin J; Friedman J: Human Resources for Health 15(20), 2017, doi: 10.1186/s12960-017-0179-2","field_url":"https://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12960-017-0179-2","body":"Performance-based financing (PBF) has been implemented in a number of countries with the aim of transforming health systems and improving maternal and child health. This paper examines the effect of PBF on health workers\u2019 job satisfaction, motivation, and attrition in Zambia. It uses a randomised intervention/control design to evaluate before\u2013after changes for three groups: intervention (PBF) group, control 1 (C1; enhanced financing) group, and control 2 (C2; pure control) group. Mixed methods were employed. The quantitative portion comprises of a baseline and an endline survey. The survey and sampling scheme were designed to allow for a rigorous impact evaluation of PBF or C1 on several key performance indicators. The qualitative portion sought to explain the pathways underlying the observed differences through interviews conducted at the beginning and at the three-year mark of the PBF program. Econometric analysis shows that PBF led to increased job satisfaction and decreased attrition on a subset of measures, with little effect on motivation. The C1 group also experienced some positive effects on job satisfaction. The null results of the quantitative assessment of motivation cohere with those of the qualitative assessment, which revealed that workers remain motivated by their dedication to the profession and to provide health care to the community rather than by financial incentives. The qualitative evidence also provides two explanations for higher overall job satisfaction in the C1 than in the PBF group: better working conditions and more effective supervision from the District Medical Office. The PBF group had higher satisfaction with compensation than both control groups because they have higher compensation and financial autonomy, which was intended to be part of the PBF intervention. While PBF could not address all the reasons for attrition, it did lower turnover because those health centres were staffed with qualified personnel and the personnel had role clarity. In Zambia, the implementation of PBF schemes brought about a significant increase in job satisfaction and a decrease in attrition, but had no significant effect on motivation. Enhanced health financing also increased stated job satisfaction.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Is it all about the money? A qualitative exploration of the effects of performance-based financial incentives on Zimbabwe's voluntary male medical circumcision program","field_subtitle":"Feldacker C; Bochner A; Herman-Roloff A et al.: PLoS ONE 12(3), 2017, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0174047","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0174047","body":"In 2013, Zimbabwe\u2019s voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) program adopted performance-based financing (PBF) to speed progress towards ambitious VMMC targets. The PBF intended to encourage low-paid healthcare workers to remain in the public sector and to strengthen the public healthcare system. The majority of the incentive supports healthcare workers who perform VMMC alongside other routine services; a small portion supports province, district, and facility levels. This qualitative study assessed the effect of the PBF on healthcare worker motivation, satisfaction, and professional relationships. The study objectives were to: 1) Gain understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of PBF at the healthcare worker level; 2) Gain understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of PBF at the site level; and 3) Inform scale up, modification, or discontinuation of PBF for the national VMMC program. Sixteen focus groups were conducted: eight with healthcare workers who received PBF for VMMC and eight with healthcare workers in the same clinics who did not work in VMMC and, therefore, did not receive PBF. Fourteen key informant interviews ascertained administrator opinion. Findings suggest that PBF appreciably increased motivation among VMMC teams and helped improve facilities where VMMC services are provided. However, PBF appears to contribute to antagonism at the workplace, creating divisiveness that may reach beyond VMMC. PBF may also cause distortion in the healthcare system: Healthcare workers prioritised incentivised VMMC services over other routine duties. To reduce workplace tension and improve the VMMC program, participants suggested increasing healthcare worker training in VMMC to expand PBF beneficiaries and strengthening integration of VMMC services into routine care. In the low-resource, short-staffed context of Zimbabwe, PBF enabled rapid VMMC scale up and achievement of ambitious targets; however, side effects make PBF less advantageous and sustainable than envisioned. Careful consideration is warranted in choosing whether, and how, to implement PBF to prioritise a public health program.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenyan doctors\u2019 strike: Why the centre can no longer hold","field_subtitle":"Oyoo S: Pambuzuka News, February 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/mv44coe","body":"The doctors\u2019 strike now in its third month in Kenya has caused great suffering to the majority poor people who cannot afford medical care in private hospitals. The author writes that the strike is not merely about the welfare of the healthcare workers, but about a public health system crumbling under deliberate state neglect and corruption. By mid-February Kenyan doctors had been on strike for over two months. They have made several demands including: better remuneration, availability of more doctors in public hospitals, better equipment and availability of drugs in these facilities, and more allocation of funds to health research. They are, according to the author, demanding better healthcare for all Kenyan citizens. The author comments that the doctors\u2019 demands have been spurned by government, and the media to some extent, in what is part of a wider effort to portray the doctors as greedy individuals. The negotiation process has been long and tortuous, with the government side not keen on implementing a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) it signed with the doctors in 2013. Private healthcare providers on the other hand are argued to stealthily lie like vultures \u2013 waiting for the public healthcare system to implode so they can expand their \u2018investments\u2019 in Kenya, a country that\u2019s been described as \u2018a lucrative market for private healthcare service provision\u2019. One can almost imagine that this is part of a wider scheme to privatise the Kenyan healthcare system, a move which would drive the cost of treatment beyond reach of the majority. Kenya was ranked 145 out of 176 in Transparency International\u2019s corruption perception index in 2016. The author writes that it is no longer possible to stand by and watch as up to a third of the Kenyan budget is lost to corruption, and disappears into the pockets of a select few. Kenyans can no longer stand by and watch the state audaciously claim it cannot pay their doctors. Kenyans just cannot afford to be spectators in such a matter of life and death.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Negotiating better contracts in collaborative research partnerships","field_subtitle":"Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED): Geneva, 2017","field_url":"http://frc.cohred.org/","body":"Fair Research Contracting equips research partners with key resources on how to build sustainable, equitable global research partnerships. The rise in international research partnerships means that developing countries need to be better positioned to deal with complexities in collaborative research contracting. COHRED argues that better contract negotiation expertise in LMIC institutions will help improve the distribution of benefits of collaborative research, such as overhead costs, data ownership, institutional capacity in research management, technology transfer, and intellectual property rights. With this in mind, COHRED has developed guidance aimed at optimising research institution building through better contracts and contracting in research partnerships. The guidance highlights the key issues for consideration when entering into formalised research partnerships, and provides tools and resources for negotiating fairer research contracts. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"New Open Access Book: Sustainable Food Systems: The Role of the City","field_subtitle":"Biel R: UCL Press, UK, December 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/kyx84fv","body":"Faced with a global threat to food security, it is perfectly possible that society will respond by reasserting co-operative traditions. This open access book, by a leading expert in urban agriculture, proposes a solution to today\u2019s global food crisis. By contributing more to feeding themselves, it argues that cities can allow breathing space for the rural sector to convert to more organic sustainable approaches. Biel\u2019s approach connects with current debates about agroecology and food sovereignty. It asks key questions, and proposes lines of future research. He suggests that today\u2019s food insecurity \u2013 manifested in a regime of wildly fluctuating prices \u2013 reflects not just temporary stresses in the existing mode of production, but more profoundly the troubled process of generating a new one. He argues that the solution cannot be implemented at a merely technical or political level: the force of change can only be driven by the kind of social movements which are now daring to challenge the existing unsustainable order. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Online course on Global Adolescent Health","field_subtitle":"Enrolment open: Course begins 22 May 2017","field_url":"https://www.coursera.org/learn/youth-health","body":"The University of Melbourne is offering an online course that will explore the factors affecting the health and wellbeing of young people around the world. The course will be relevant for anyone with an interest in the health and wellbeing of young people. Applicants don't need to be of any particular personal or professional background to benefit from this course, but having some basic undergraduate study experience will be helpful for learning. Financial support is available for learners who cannot afford the fee.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Primer In Systematic Reviews  Online Short-Course May 2017","field_subtitle":"Closing date for Bursary applications 14 April 2017","field_url":"http://southafrica.cochrane.org/news/cochrane-sa-fellowship-programme","body":"Cochrane South Africa, in its role as coordinating unit of the Cochrane African Network, has bursaries available to participate in the Primer in Systematic Reviews online short-course, running from 1 May to 14 July or 1 October to 8 December 2017. This course is being offered by the Centre for Evidence-based Health Care in collaboration with Cochrane South Africa, as part of the Effective Health Care Research Consortium. It aims to build capacity of participants to find, appraise, interpret and consider the use of systematic reviews of effects of interventions. If you would like to apply for a bursary please complete the application form and submit to ameer.hohlfeld@mrc.ac.za by 14 April 2017. The Primer in Systematic Reviews online short-course duration is 6 weeks (excluding orientation) and requires up to 4 hours of effort a week.  The course is purely online and uses an e-learning platform called SUNLearn. At the end of the course participants should be able to: 1. Outline the rationale for research synthesis and phrasing questions 2. Identity the principles of randomised controlled trials and risk of bias 3. Find, read and appraise systematic reviews (SRs) 4. Interpret findings of reviews of effects, including statistical interpretation of meta-analysis 5. Be able to interpret a  GRADE profile and Summary of Findings table 6. Outline key components of a systematic review of effects that need to be considered in applying to health policy and practice. See website for application information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Safe and inclusive cities survey","field_subtitle":"Institute of Environmental Studies, University of Zimbabwe, 2015","field_url":"http://www.searcwl.ac.zw/downloads/Safe-and-inclusive-2015.pdf","body":"The proportion of people worldwide living in urban areas has been increasing over the past century. Southern Africa is one of the least urbanised but fastest urbanising region. The pace of urbanisation in sub-Saharan Africa is twice the global average, making it the highest in the world. The urban population annual growth rate for the region is pegged at 3.75%. South Africa and Botswana have urban populations of more than 60% and Zimbabwe 33%. The survey was conducted in 4 purposively sampled urban high density suburbs. A multi-stage random sampling was then used to select households in the 4 suburbs. The sampling frame for selecting households was obtained from ZIMSTAT, the country\u2019s statistical office. Data was collected over a period of a week in each of the sampled suburbs. During the week the enumerators would conduct household interviews in the Enumeration Areas (EAs). Household questionnaire were used to collected data from the sampled households.  The questionnaire covered: characteristics of household members; availability of and access to shelter, water and sanitation; energy sources; income sources; assets. Results shows that where the council provided the houses, the critical services were provided and water, electricity and sanitation were not an issue. The urban councils developed the properties, but their role was not clear in the new urban landscape. Issues of restitution in the event of evictions in these areas were grey areas and people did not know where to go to get assistance when evicted, to where to access legal advice. Residents wanted advice on issues to do with access to land for vending, law enforcement and women empowerment, on land tenure and how to get title deeds. Most lease agreements and title deeds were in the name of the husband, giving men more access to land for housing than women. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"SexRightsAfrica Network ","field_subtitle":"Regional Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Fund: South Africa ","field_url":"http://www.sexrightsafrica.net/","body":"The SexRightsAfrica Network brings together organisations and individuals working to realise Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights across Eastern and Southern Africa, and beyond. It is intended to complement, promote and strengthen existing networks and knowledge management platforms. It provides a meeting and referral point at the busy intersection of HIV and AIDS, health and well-being, and economic, social and cultural rights. There are many ways to participate in the network.  This website is the platform for the network, as a regional networking hub to share evidence and strengthen action to realise sexual and reproductive health rights. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual and reproductive health services utilization by female sex workers is context-specific: results from a cross-sectional survey in India, Kenya, Mozambique and South Africa","field_subtitle":"Lafort Y; Greener R: Roy A: et al.: Reproductive Health 14 (13) DOI: 10.1186/s12978-017-0277-6, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jjya8vv","body":"Female sex workers (FSWs) are extremely vulnerable to adverse sexual and reproductive health (SRH) outcomes. To mitigate these risks, they require access to services covering not only HIV prevention but also contraception, cervical cancer screening and sexual violence. To develop context-specific intervention packages to improve uptake, this paper identified gaps in service utilization in four different.  A cross-sectional survey was conducted, as part of the baseline assessment of an implementation research project. FWSs were recruited in Durban, South Africa (n\u2009=\u2009400), Mombasa, Kenya (n\u2009=\u2009400), Mysore, India (n\u2009=\u2009458) and Tete, Mozambique (n\u2009=\u2009308), using respondent-driven sampling (RDS) and starting with 8-16 \u2018seeds\u2019 identified by the peer educators. FSWs responded to a standardised interviewer-administered questionnaire about the use of contraceptive methods and services for cervical cancer screening, sexual violence and unwanted pregnancies.  Current use of any modern contraception ranged from 86.2% in Tete to 98.4% in Mombasa (p\u2009=\u20090.001), while non-barrier contraception (hormonal, IUD or sterilisation) varied from 33.4% in Durban to 85.1% in Mysore (p\u2009","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Size of Cabinets in Africa, as Ghana\u2019s Akufo-Addo Names \u2018Elephant\u2019 Team of 110 Ministers, and Counting","field_subtitle":"Mungai C: Africapedia, March 2017","field_url":"http://www.africapedia.com/2017/03/18/cabinets-africa-ghana-akufo-addo/","body":"Ghana\u2019s president Nana Akufo-Addo came under fire for naming what has been described as an \u2018elephant\u2019 cabinet \u2013 with 31 cabinet portfolios, several ministries have two or more deputies, bringing the total size of cabinet to 110 ministers and perhaps more. Such a large team may have significant financial implications, in a country where the debt-to-GDP ratio is about 74%, with a $1 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2015. Looking at Africa more broadly, the median size of cabinets is 30 (excluding deputies). The largest such cabinet is in Cameroon with 63 ministers. Uganda\u2019s cabinet has 31 full cabinet ministers and 49 ministers of state, bringing the total number to 80. In Africa, larger cabinets are more common in post-conflict countries that are trying to build a broader national consensus, especially in countries with high political or ethnic fragmentation, as ministerial appointments are an easy way to build loyalty to the regime of the day. The author indicates that they are also common in resource-rich countries, and in those that have had long-serving heads of state, which tend to have heavy patronage networks. In that way, they serve an important political, if not economic or technocratic function \u2013 they create compromise and cohesion within the political class.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Accountability Dialogue Series 2017","field_subtitle":"Community of Practitioners on Accountability and Social Action in Health (COPASAH):2017","field_url":"http://www.copasah.net/uploads/1/2/6/4/12642634/copasah_announcement_2.pdf","body":"COPASAH is a global network of accountability practitioners who share a people centric vision and human rights based approach to health, health care and human dignity.  COPASAH is holding a series of social accountability online dialogues to further share mutual learning through the use of virtual platforms and communication technologies. The online platform will support different streams of accountability practice - such as budget monitoring, struggle based health rights groups, health movements and technical resource groups on community monitoring \u2013 to interact and share experiences.  COPASAH is looking for partners to facilitate online Social Accountability Dialogues, to facilitate discussions on a range of health rights themes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Socioeconomic status and non-communicable disease behavioural risk factors in low-income and lower-middle-income countries: a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Allen L; Williams J; Townsend N; Mikkelsen B; Roberts N; Foster C; Wickramasinghe K: The Lancet Global Health, 5(3), 2017","field_url":"https://tinyurl.com/kaoh6u4","body":"This study aimed to review evidence on the association between socioeconomic status and harmful use of alcohol, tobacco use, unhealthy diets, and physical inactivity within low-income and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs). The authors searched 13 electronic databases, grey literature, and reference lists for primary research published between Jan 1, 1990, and June 30, 2015.  They used a piloted version of the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Group data collection checklist to extract relevant data at the household and individual level from the included full text studies including study type, methods, outcomes, and results. Low socioeconomic groups were found to have a significantly higher prevalence of tobacco and alcohol use than high socioeconomic groups. These groups also consumed less fruit, vegetables, fish, and fibre than those of higher socioeconomic status. Groups at higher socioeconomic status were found to be less physically active and to consume more fats, salt, and processed food than individuals of low socioeconomic status. Despite significant heterogeneity in exposure and outcome measures, the evidence shows that behavioural risk factors are affected by socioeconomic position within LLMICs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The conceptualization of family care during critical illness in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa ","field_subtitle":"de Beer J; Brysiewicz P: Health SA Gesondheid (22), 2017, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.hsag.2016.01.006","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1025984816300436","body":"In recent years there has been a movement to promote patients as partners in their care. However, in the case of critically ill patients, who are often sedated and mechanically ventilated, family members may be more involved in the care of the patient. To date, this type of care has been represented by three dominant theoretical conceptualisations and frameworks one of which is family centred care. There is, however, a lack of consensus on the definition of family centred care. This study explored the meaning of family care within a South African context. This study adopted a qualitative approach and a grounded theory research design by Strauss and Corbin (1990). Participants from two hospitals: one private and one public were selected to participate in the study. There was a total of 31 participants (family members, intensive care nurses and doctors) who volunteered to participate in the study. Data collection included in-depth individual interviews. The findings of this study revealed that family care is conceptualised as togetherness, partnership, respect and dignity. During a critical illness, patients' families fulfil an additional essential role for patients who may be unconscious or unable to communicate or make decisions. Family members not only provide vital support to their loved one, but also become the \"voice\" of the patient.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The health impact of sexual violence among women in a platinum mining belt","field_subtitle":"Zhang M; Steele S; Shroud A; Van Cutsem G; Khan J; Barnwell G; Hill J; Duncan K: Medecins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/kccwg7c","body":"New analysis of data detailing the extent of sexual violence in the Rustenburg area indicates that one in five HIV infections (approximately 6,765 of all female cases) and one in three cases of depression among women (5,022 cases) are attributable to rape and intimate-partner violence (IPV), while one in three women inducing abortion (1,296 cases) was pregnant as a result of sexual violence.  These results have emerged from an in-depth 2015 survey conducted by  Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) among more than 800 women living in communities along the mining belt where the health consequences of sexual violence remain largely unaddressed and demand urgent action. Much additional suffering could have been prevented if survivors had been able to access a basic package of healthcare services, but opportunities are missed each day to prevent HIV infection, psychological trauma, and unwanted pregnancy for victims of sexual violence in on the platinum mining belt, because there are too few health facilities with the capacity to provide essential care. As South Africa finalises its next five-year National Strategic Plan (NSP) on HIV, TB and STIs (2017-2022), MSF is calling for the inclusion of ambitious targets for increasing sexual violence survivors\u2019 access to medical and psychosocial services at all health facilities. Key interventions include providing post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, psychosocial support including trauma counselling, emergency contraception, other basic medical services (e.g. first aid), and the option of forensic examination.. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Mozambican debt crisis: How a sovereign state was sold","field_subtitle":"Serumaga M: Pambazuka news 808, February 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/j3njnu2","body":"The author reports on 2013 loans taken without parliament approval in Mozambique totaling $2 billion. External funders suspended credit to Mozambique because of the loans, and the national currency fell by 70% in 2016. Restructuring the loans means imposed austerity on a population already living in extreme austerity and eventually repaying the creditors from revenues derived from Mozambique\u2019s natural gas deposits that come on the market in 2023. The author presents information on the case, the funders and the implications for other African countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Second National Burden of Disease Study for South Africa: Cause of death profile Report, 1997 \u2013 2012","field_subtitle":"Msemburi W; Pillay-van Wyk V; Dorrington RE et al: South African Medical Research Council: Cape town, 2016 ","field_url":"http://www.mrc.ac.za/bod/SouthAfrica2012.pdf","body":"This report estimates consistent and coherent cause-specific death rates for the period 1997\u20132012 and identifies the leading causes of death and premature mortality for South Africa, taking into consideration and adjusting for the data deficiencies. The report used the methodology of the Global Burden of Disease Study 2005 in secondary analysis of data obtained from Statistics South Africa (Stats SA), the Injury Mortality Survey 2009 (IMS) and National Injury Surveillance System 2000 (NIMSS). For the non-communicable diseases, there was an increasing trend in numbers over the whole period while the trends for communicable disease combined with maternal causes, perinatal conditions and nutritional deficiencies, remained fairly stable between 1997 and 2009, decreasing slightly thereafter. HIV/AIDS and TB increased between 1997 and 2006, where it peaked at 687 deaths per 100,000 population and then decreased steadily each subsequent year. The report points to a considerable burden from non-communicable diseases and concerning signs of an increase in diabetes mortality. The authors say that efforts targeting prevention and management of non-communicable diseases and their risk factors need to be scaled up.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Urban Health Research in Africa: Themes and Priority Research Questions","field_subtitle":"Oni T; Smit W; Matzopoulos R; Adams J et al.: Initiative for Cities and Health (RICHE) members: Journal of Urban Health 93(4) 722-730, 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/glbu63x","body":"In Africa, urbanisation and urban growth are dramatically restructuring the nature of cities. The growing majority of urban dwellers now live in informal conditions that, without access to basic services or public amenities, expose residents to greater health risk, and health-care systems are unable to provide affordable or comprehensive cover. The differential exposure to these urban conditions is compounded by social and economic vulnerability, resulting in health inequities. Yet despite pressing needs driven by Africa\u2019s considerable and complex burden of disease and high levels of health inequity, urban health and urban health equity have not yet emerged as major research and policy priorities in Africa. This commentary presents a conceptual framework, using a public health approach, for interdisciplinary research aimed at contributing to the understanding and mitigation of urban health issues and challenges in Africa. It identifies downstream and upstream factors, based on published literature, associated with key determinants in each theme. It represents a collective effort by interdisciplinary academics from public health; anthropology; civil engineering; architecture, planning and geomatics; human biology; psychiatry and mental health; medicine; pathology; and paediatrics, from the Research Initiative for Cities and Health (RICHE), University of Cape Town, to generate African perspectives on urban health and urban health equity. The six focus areas identified as important include obesity and food insecurity, the urban context as a tool for health promotion, urban health governance and policy, community strengthening for healthy inclusive cities, health systems in an urbanising context and migration, urbanisation and health. The authors argue that a complex systems approach is required to investigate and improve understanding of health and well-being in a changing urban context with a view to developing sustainable and cost-effective interventions. This acknowledges the different dimensions of determinants that influence health and understands the need to address gaps in data and access to information from across these dimensions, and to engage all relevant stakeholders across sectors prioritise the interventions to improve health.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Urban Studies Foundation International Fellowships for Early to Mid-Career Urban Scholars from the Global South","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 28 April 2017","field_url":"http://www.urbanstudiesfoundation.org/funding-opportunities/","body":"Applications are invited for an International Fellowship for urban scholars on any theme pertinent to a better understanding of urban realities in the global south funded by the Urban Studies Foundation. The Fellowship covers the costs of a sabbatical period at a university of the candidate\u2019s choice in either the global north or the global south (facilitating south-south exchange) for the purpose of writing up the candidate\u2019s existing research findings in the form of publishable articles or a book under the guidance of a chosen mentor in their field of study. Funding is available for a period ranging between 3-9 months. Applicants must be early career urban scholars with a PhD obtained within the preceding 5 years who currently work in a university or other research institution within the global south. Candidates must also be nationals of a country in the global south. Preference may be given to candidates from least or low-income countries but middle-income developing countries are not excluded if the need for support is justified. The candidate must make suitable arrangements to be mentored by a suitably experienced senior urban scholar at his/her chosen research institution. The application must include: an outline of the planned research, demonstrating its originality, rigour and value to the field of urban studies; with a statement of the intended research outputs; and further information provided on the website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Using mHealth for HIV/TB Treatment Support in Lesotho: Enhancing Patient\u2013Provider Communication in the START Study","field_subtitle":"Hirsch-overman Y; Daftary A; Yuengling K; Saito S; Ntoane M; Frederix K; Maama B;  Howard A: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 74, S37\u2013S43, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zoxja3t","body":"mHealth is a promising means of supporting adherence to treatment. The Start TB patients on ART and Retain on Treatment (START) study included real-time adherence support using short-text messaging service (SMS) text messaging and trained village health workers (VHWs). The authors describe the use and acceptability of mHealth by patients with HIV/tuberculosis and health care providers. Patients and treatment supporters received automated, coded medication and appointment reminders at their preferred time and frequency, using their own phones, and $3.70 in monthly airtime. Facility-based VHWs were trained to log patient information and text message preferences into a mobile application and were given a password-protected mobile phone and airtime to communicate with community-based VHWs. The use of mHealth tools was analysed from process data over the study course. Acceptability was evaluated during monthly follow-up interviews with all participants and during qualitative interviews with a subset of 30 patients and 30 health care providers at intervention sites. Use and acceptability were contextualised by monthly adherence data. From April 2013 to August 2015, the automated SMS system successfully delivered 39,528 messages to 835 individuals, including 633 patients and 202 treatment supporters. Uptake of the SMS intervention was high, with 92.1% of 713 eligible patients choosing to receive SMS messages. Patient and provider interviews yielded insight into barriers and facilitators to mHealth utilisation. The intervention improved the quality of health communication between patients, treatment supporters, and providers. HIV-related stigma and technical challenges were identified as potential barriers. The mHealth intervention for HIV/tuberculosis treatment support in Lesotho was found to be a low-tech, user-friendly intervention, which was acceptable to patients and health care providers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"What Does the End of Africa's Boom Mean for Universal Health Coverage?","field_subtitle":"Russo, G; Bloom, G: IDS Rapid Response Briefing 16, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jc8klep","body":"According to the authors, achieving universal health coverage by 2030, as stated in UN Global Goal 3, will require substantial increases in health spending and the proportion funded through taxation or social insurance to make health care affordable for all. Not only will institutions need to be established to ensure sustainable arrangements for social finance, it will also be vital to ensure that health financing is resilient to economic and other shocks if Global Goal 3 is to be realised. This is argued to present a major challenge in Africa, where an economic downturn is projected in a number of resource-dependent countries, such as Mozambique and Guinea Bissau and where countries such as Sierra Leone have weakened health systems. The response to these challenges by governments and development partners, will have important effects on how well people, and the health services on which they rely, cope in the short term and longer-term evolution of health coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"World Malaria Report 2016","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: WHO Geneva, 2016","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/252038/1/9789241511711-eng.pdf?ua=1","body":"The World Malaria Report, published annually by WHO, provides an in-depth analysis of progress and trends in the malaria response at global, regional and country levels. It is the result of a collaborative effort with ministries of health in affected countries and many partners around the world. The 2016 report spotlights a number of positive trends, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the region that carries the heaviest malaria burden. It shows that, in many countries, access to disease-reducing measures is expanding at a rapid rate for those most in need. The proportion of the population at risk in sub-Saharan Africa sleeping under an insecticide-treated mosquito net (ITN) or protected by indoor residual spraying (IRS) is estimated to have risen from 37% in 2010 to 57% in 2015. The proportion of the population at risk in sub-Saharan Africa who are infected with malaria parasites is estimated to have declined from 17% in 2010 to 13% in 2015. Further data on malaria prevention, treatment and outcomes are presented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Young people building a new vision for Port Elizabeth : Young Urbanists meet in Nelson Mandela Bay","field_subtitle":"Coetzee L: Future Cape Town, 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/z8ktmmx","body":"In 2016, a hundred-strong group of young Port Elizabethans gathered at the Athenaeum in Central, for the city\u2019s first YOUNGURBANISTS meeting. A historic building and national monument situated on the corner of Castle Hill and Belmont Terrace, the Athenaeum is not a typical art gallery. It has reinvented itself as a community hub for emerging creatives in Nelson Mandela Bay and surrounds. Set in the heart of the \u2018old city,\u2019 the Athenaeum sets out to be a tangible example of a reimagined, multi-use urban space \u2013 a fitting location for a Young Urbanists event. Speakers included Oyama Vanto, project leader in Development and Infrastructure for the Mandela Bay Development Agency (MBDA), who introduced the audience to the MBDA\u2019s goals of reversing urban decay and attracting people and businesses back into the inner city, and to its current projects:  the resurrection of Zola Nqiri Square, the development of Vuyisile Mini Square and the extension of Route 67. Oyama\u2019s passion for the democratization for city spaces resonated clearly in his talk, and he called out for a safer city for women and children as the starting point in enabling a more inclusive city. The audience were invited to share their vision for the future of our city, and to record it on a piece of paper and placed into a box. Young urbanists in attendance voiced their ideas and their concerns, calling for clear objectives through which they could move Nelson Mandela Bay forward as a model for future cities. One issue in particular was to identify the many pockets of multidisciplinary communities in our cities, with the hope of promoting synergy and fostering a participatory environment. Grand visions in place, the attendees are reported to now be reflecting on the ways that they can begin to take steps towards making such visions a reality, and dwell on the question of how, as young urbanists of PE, they can collectively propel a momentum shift and foster a culture of pride in their city.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018You must carry your wheelchair\u2019 \u2013 barriers to accessing healthcare in a South African rural area","field_subtitle":"Vergunst R; Swartz L; Mji G; MacLachlan M; Mannan H: Global Health Action 8(1); http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/gha.v8.29003, 2017","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/gha.v8.29003","body":"There is international evidence that people with disabilities face barriers when accessing primary healthcare services and that there is inadequate information about effective interventions that work to improve the lives of people with disabilities, especially in low-income and middle-income countries. Poor rural residents generally experience barriers to accessing primary healthcare, and these problems are further exacerbated for people with disabilities. This study explored the challenges faced by people with disabilities in accessing healthcare in Madwaleni, a poor rural Xhosa community in South Africa. Purposive sampling was done with 26 participants, using semi-structured interviews and content analysis to identify major themes. The study showed a number of barriers to healthcare for people with disabilities. These included practical barriers, including geographical and staffing issues, and attitudinal barriers. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"10th ECSA Best Practices Forum and 26th Directors Joint Consultative Committee Meeting","field_subtitle":"ECSA HC: 10 to 12 April 2017, Arusha, Tanzania; Submission of Abstracts deadline: March 17, 2017 ","field_url":"http://www.ecsahc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Announcement_BPF-and-DJCC-2017-1.pdf","body":"The East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC) will host the\r\n10th Best Practices Forum and 26th Directors Joint Consultative Committee from 10 to 12 April 2017 in Arusha, Tanzania. The theme is Promoting Multi-Sectoral Collaboration for Health through Sustainable Development Goals. The Conference will address its Theme through the following sub-themes:\r\n1. Good Governance and Leadership Practices in the Health sector\r\n2. Mitigating the Impact of emerging and re-emerging diseases.\r\n3. Multi-Sectoral responses to Non-communicable Diseases.\r\n4. Accountability for Women\u2019s, Children\u2019s and Adolescent Health post-2015\r\nThe ECSA-HC is inviting abstracts of best practices and scientific papers that are relevant to the conference sub themes. The scientific papers and best practices should consist of case studies and evidence based programme experiences that are innovative, unique or have added value and new thinking in health. The abstracts and scientific papers will form the basis for the recommendations that will be presented to the Health Ministers for further deliberation and adoption as resolutions. Further information is available on the website. EQUINET has a formal association with ECSA HC and will be represented at the meeting. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Addressing Health Inequities Conference","field_subtitle":"Century City Conference Venue, Cape Town, South Africa. 10-12 February 2017","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/events/addressing-health-inequities-conference","body":"This conference is a Joint initiative of the South African Medical Association (SAMA), World Medical Association (WMA) and the School of Public Health at the University of Witwatersrand. The keynote speaker is Sir Michael Marmot, ex-Chair of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Antibiotic Resistance in the Food Chain: A Developing Country-Perspective","field_subtitle":"Founou L; Founou R; Essack S: Frontiers in Microbiology, 2016","field_url":"http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmicb.2016.01881/full","body":"Food animals are considered as key reservoirs of antibiotic-resistant bacteria with the use of antibiotics in the food production industry having contributed to the actual global challenge of antibiotic resistance (ABR). There are no geographic boundaries to impede the worldwide spread of ABR. If preventive and containment measures are not applied locally, nationally and regionally, the limited interventions in one country, continent and for instance, in the developing world, could compromise the efficacy and endanger ABR containment policies implemented in other parts of the world, the best-managed high-resource countries included. Multifaceted, comprehensive, and integrated measures complying with the One Health approach are thus imperative to ensure food safety and security, effectively combat infectious diseases, curb the emergence and spread of ABR, and preserve the efficacy of antibiotics for future generations. The World Health Organisation, World Organisation for Animal Health, and the Food and Agriculture Organisation recommend implementing national action plans encompassing human, (food) animal, and environmental sectors to improve policies, interventions and activities that address the prevention and containment of ABR from farm-to-fork. This review covers (i) the origin of antibiotic resistance, (ii) pathways by which bacteria spread to humans from farm-to-fork, (iii) differences in levels of antibiotic resistance between developed and developing countries, and (iv) prevention and containment measures of antibiotic resistance in the food chain.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing fiscal space for health expansion in low- and middle-income countries: a review of the evidence","field_subtitle":"Barroy H; Sparkes S; Dale E: Working Paper, World Health Organisation, WHO/HIS/HGF/HF Working Paper/16.3, 2016 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/gl69wvk","body":"Despite the proliferation of the term \u2018fiscal space for health\u2019 in recent years, there has been no comprehensive review of how the concept can be applied to assess and support the expansion of resources for the health sector. There is also a certain amount of confusion regarding the conceptual underpinnings and application of fiscal space for health analysis, notably regarding the way in which such analysis can help countries realise potential fiscal space for health expansion. In this paper, a qualitative review of 35 studies was undertaken in four stages to identify all fiscal space for health studies and to systematically assess their findings and methods. These four stages involved a literature search, crowd-sourcing techniques, data extraction, and comprehensive qualitative analysis. The study shows that economic growth, budget re-prioritisation and efficiency improving measures are the main drivers of fiscal space for health expansion. There is scarce evidence regarding the prospective role of earmarked funds, and development assistance for health in expanding fiscal space for the sector. The lack of standardised methods and metrics to systematically assess fiscal space for health results in variations in the analytical approaches used, and limits study relevance and applicability for policy reform. The paper concludes that a more contextualised approach to fiscal space analysis is required, which focuses on key sources of fiscal space for health expansion and includes efficiency enhancements. Fiscal space analysis should be systematically embedded in domestic budgeting processes and explicitly consider both technical and political feasibility of assessed options. Adopting this approach could offer considerable potential for optimising government budget and expenditure decisions and more effectively support progress toward UHC.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Atlas of health and climate","field_subtitle":"Department of Public Health and Environment: World Health Organisation, Geneva","field_url":"http://www.who.int/globalchange/publications/atlas/en/","body":"Human health is profoundly affected by weather and climate. Extreme weather events kill tens of thousands of people every year and undermine the physical and psychological health of millions. Droughts directly affect nutrition and the incidence of diseases associated with malnutrition. Floods and cyclones can trigger outbreaks of infectious diseases and damage hospitals and other health infrastructure, overwhelming health services just when they are needed most.  The Atlas of health and climate is a product of a unique collaboration between the meteorological and public health communities. It provides sound scientific information on the connections between weather and climate and major health challenges. It outlines the consequences for a range from diseases of poverty to emergencies arising from extreme weather events and disease outbreaks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Building Children's Nursing for Africa Conference","field_subtitle":"28 - 30 March 2017, Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.buildingchildrensnursing.co.za/index.php/tophome","body":"The theme for the 2017 conference is \u2018Pillars of Practice\u2019 in paediatric and children\u2019s nursing and will showcase recent research, clinical practice projects, education and leadership initiatives. The organisers are excited about showcasing good clinical nursing. More and more research confirms the parents vital role in improving outcomes for children, so workshops and conversations about collaboration and innovative strategies of enrolling people are anticipated. The conference themes cover what nurses measure - how and why - and how this is turned into data, clinical leadership, establishing families into the care hub, clinically relevant teaching and sustainable innovation in paediatrics. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Papers: Law and the New Urban Agenda, 4th Annual International & Comparative Urban Law Conference","field_subtitle":"Deadline for proposal submissions:  March 6, 2017","field_url":"http://www.urbanlawcenter.org/sacallforpapers","body":"The Fordham Urban Law Center, in conjunction with the University of Cape Town (UCT), is pleased to announce a call for participation in the 4th Annual International and Comparative Urban Law Conference, to be held on Monday July 17th and Tuesday July 18th, 2017. The Conference will be held at UCT in Cape Town, South Africa. The Conference will provide a dynamic forum for legal and other scholars to engage and generate diverse international, comparative, and interdisciplinary perspectives in the burgeoning field of urban law. The Conference will explore overlapping themes, tensions, and opportunities for deeper scholarly investigation and practice with a comparative perspective. The Conference is open to urban law topics across a broad spectrum, such as: Structure and workings of local authority and autonomy; urban and metropolitan governance and finance; economic and community development; housing and the built environment; unique challenges facing cities in developing nations and the global south; urban public health; migration and citizenship; urban equity and inclusion and sustainability and resilience. While the Conference will foster a broad dialogue about cities and legal systems in comparative and international perspective, we specifically invite submissions to focus on the role of law in New Urban Agenda adopted this past October by the United Nations at the Habitat III Conference in Quito, Ecuador. In keeping with this framework, the conference seeks to investigate the role of laws in promoting the New Urban Agenda in a manner that is democratic, sustainable and equitable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can the private sector help achieve universal health coverage?","field_subtitle":"Nishtar S: World Economic Forum, 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hfpefyx","body":"When the world committed to ending poverty, protecting the planet and ensuring prosperity for all with the 17 Sustainable Development goals, we knew no single entity would be able to achieve such lofty goals \u2013 it would take collaboration. \u201cA successful sustainable development agenda requires partnerships between governments, the private sector and civil society,\u201d Goal 17 stated. The author argues that in  few areas is that more obvious than in the fight to achieve universal health coverage, which falls under Goal 3 of Good Health and Wellbeing. If universal health coverage in all countries is to be achieved, even those where privately-financed market delivery is predominant, this will depend on the ability of governments to harness their potential. In such contexts, she observes, it is critical to build the stewardship capacity of public agencies so that they can frame and implement rules that define the environment and the incentives that guide the behaviours of health system players. Rather than focusing on privatisation, marketisation or the scaling up of private provision, the idea would be to get private actors involved in the pursuit of universal health coverage and financial protection goals. Although the private sector often has a dominant role in the provision of healthcare, too often governments do not know enough about how these providers operate, and there is little, if any, regulation in place. She recommends that countries examine if service delivery models incorporating tools such as franchising and social marketing and utilising economies of scale, standardisation, and/or market incentives can enable universal health coverage within their respective health systems. In recent years, public ownership and not-for-profit service provision and autonomous governance arrangements have been promoted over publicly financed, owned and operated models. However, gains due to hospital autonomy should go beyond revenues for hospitals and incentives for staff and must also enhance quality and equity. New frameworks of participatory governance and appropriate channels of accountability and regulation need to be established. She notes however that the commercial presence of a foreign service provider could create a dual market structure, with high-quality services being provided to affluent consumers to the detriment of the healthcare needs of poorer people. Additionally, the movement of healthcare providers and brain drain \u2013 both internal and external \u2013 can lead to a loss of trained healthcare providers in the home country. Policy safeguards will be needed to prevent this type of situation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Change a life with just one swipe!","field_subtitle":"Matroos J: Design Indaba, 2016","field_url":"http://www.designindaba.com/videos/creative-work/change-life-just-one-swipe","body":"The Radi-Aid Awards celebrates creativity in fundraising campaigns worldwide. Specifically, it challenges the perception of the global south as helpless victims who are dependent on donations from the West. The initiative is best known for its videos that debunk and poke fun at the stereotypes perpetuated by aid campaigns. This recent video, \u201cThe Radi-Aid App: Change A Life With Just One Swipe\u201d flips the script on the usual aid campaign. In it Africans are asked to donate to the cold citizens of Norway, challenging the notion that  the material circumstances of others are easily fixed by single interventions and raising that   perpetuating stereotypes can do more harm than good. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil Society Scholar Awards 2017 -2018","field_subtitle":"Open Society Scholarship Programs, Deadline 31 March 2017","field_url":"https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/grants/civil-society-scholar-awards-20170123","body":"The Civil Society Scholar Awards (CSSA) support international academic mobility to enable doctoral students and university faculty to access resources that enrich socially-engaged research and critical scholarship in their home country or region. Civil Society Scholars are selected on the basis of their outstanding contributions to research or other engagement with local communities, to furthering debates on challenging societal questions, and to strengthening critical scholarship and academic networks within their fields. The Awards are open to the following academic populations:\r\n\u2022 Doctoral students of eligible fields studying at accredited universities inside or outside of their home country; or\r\n\u2022 Full-time faculty members (must have a minimum of a master\u2019s degree) teaching at universities in their home country;\r\nWho are citizens of: Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Haiti, Kosovo, Laos, Libya, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Myanmar/Burma, Nepal, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Serbia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, or Yemen. See more information on the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 192: The World Health Organisation should counter the privatization of health governance, but does it?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Food security and coping strategies of an urban community in Durban","field_subtitle":"Mtolo A: Durban University of Technology Thesis, 2016","field_url":"http://ir.dut.ac.za:8080/handle/10321/1736","body":"This study determined the food security status, coping strategies, food intake and the nutritional status of the Kenneth Gardens community, in urban KwaZulu-Natal. Residents are low income bracket earners and many rely on state disability and pension grants for survival. The research tools included; a food security questionnaire, anthropometric measurements, a socio-demographic questionnaire, a food frequency questionnaire, and 24-hour recall questionnaires conducted in triplicate. The most commonly used coping strategy during periods of food scarcity was \u201cRely on less expensive and preferred food\u201d. The second used coping strategy was \u201cReduce the number of meals eaten in a day\u201d , followed by \u201cContribute to a food stokvel in order to ensure food over a scarce period\" and \u201cRestrict consumption by adults in order for small children to eat\u201d. Utilisation of these food coping strategies indicate a degree of food insecurity. Low income and high unemployment increased the prevalence of food insecurity, leading to the coping strategies reported. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"From Corn to Popcorn? Urbanisation and food consumption in Sub-Sahara Africa: Evidence from rural-urban migrants in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Cockx L; De Weerdt J: 2016 AAAE Fifth International Conference Paper Number 249270, 2016","field_url":"https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaae16/249270.html","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa is currently in the midst of an unprecedented wave of urbanisation that is expected to have wide-ranging implications for food and nutrition security. Though this spatial transformation of the population is increasingly put forward as one of the main drivers of changes in food consumption patterns, empirical evidence remains scarce and the comparative descriptive design of existing research is prone to selection bias as urban residence is far from random. Based upon longitudinal data from the Tanzania National Panel Survey and the Kagera Health and Development Survey, this study is the first to assess the impact of urbanisation on food consumption through comparing individuals\u2019 food consumption patterns before and after they have migrated from rural to urban areas. The authors find that even after controlling for individual fixed heterogeneity, baseline observable characteristics and initial household fixed effects, urbanisation is significantly associated with important changes in dietary patterns, including a shift away from traditional staples towards more processed and ready-to-eat foods. While there is some evidence of changes that can be deemed beneficial from a nutritional point of view - including increased consumption of vegetables and animal source foods - the results also largely confirm concerns about the association between urbanisation and heightened consumption of sugar and fats. In addition, the authors find no support for the hypothesis that urbanisation is associated with more diverse diets. Finally, the results indicate that rural-urban migration significantly contributes to reducing volatility in food consumption.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health system learning sites: understanding health systems through research collaboration and engagement","field_subtitle":"Resilient and Responsive Health Systems (RESYST), 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zsse5nj","body":"Health policy and systems research is centrally concerned with people, their relationships and the actions that they take towards strengthening health systems. To understand complex health systems, researchers must actively engage with system actors, ranging from health managers to service users, learning from their tacit knowledge and about their experience. In Kenya and South Africa, researchers have established learning sites specifically to support a wide range of research focused on health systems governance issues at the district level. Both countries have devolved government structures and county (Kenya) and provincial and district (South Africa) managers now play a pivotal role in the development, management and delivery of health services. Learning sites provide unusual opportunities to learn about the daily processes of decision-making that comprise health system governance, and to support managers in taking action to strengthen them. This brief covers: What is a learning site? How did learning sites emerge? What happens in a learning site? What is the value of learning sites for researchers and health managers? and what small-scale steps are being taken to strengthen the health system?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health systems context(s) for integrating mental health into primary health care in six Emerald countries: a situation analysis","field_subtitle":"Mugisha J; Abdulmalik J; Hanlon C; Petersen I; Lund C; Upadhaya N; Ahuja S; Shidhaye R; Mntambo N; Alem A; Gureje O; Kigozi F: International Journal of Mental Health Systems 11(7), 2017","field_url":"http://ijmhs.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13033-016-0114-2","body":"Mental, neurological and substance use disorders contribute to a significant proportion of the world\u2019s disease burden, including in low and middle income countries. In this study, the authors focused on the health systems required to support integration of mental health into primary health care (PHC) in Ethiopia, India, Nepal, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda. A checklist guided by the World Health Organisation Assessment Instrument for Mental Health Systems was developed and was used for data collection in each of the six countries participating in the Emerging mental health systems in low and middle-income countries (Emerald) research consortium. The documents reviewed were from the following domains: mental health legislation, health policies/plans and relevant country health programs. Data were analysed using thematic content analysis. Three of the study countries (Ethiopia, Nepal, Nigeria, and Uganda) were working towards developing mental health legislation. South Africa and India were ahead of other countries, having enacted recent Mental Health Care Act in 2004 and 2016, respectively. Among all the 6 study countries, only Nepal, Nigeria and South Africa had a standalone mental health policy. However, other countries had related health policies where mental health was mentioned. The lack of fully fledged policies is likely to limit opportunities for resource mobilisation for the mental health sector and efforts to integrate mental health into PHC. Most countries were found to be allocating inadequate budgets from the health budget for mental health, with South Africa (5%) and Nepal (0.17%) were the countries with the highest and lowest proportions of health budgets spent on mental health, respectively. Other vital resources that support integration such as human resources and health facilities for mental health services were found to be inadequate in all the study countries. Monitoring and evaluation systems to support the integration of mental health into PHC in all the study countries were also inadequate. Integration of mental health into PHC will require addressing the resource limitations that have been identified in this study. There is a need for up to date mental health legislation and policies to engender commitment in allocating resources to mental health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Immunisation drive hailed as watershed for Africa as leaders target public health","field_subtitle":"Kodal H: The Guardian, February 2017","field_url":"https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/feb/01/africa-public-health-immunisation-african-union","body":"In a double move hailed as a milestone for public health, African leaders have launched an agency to tackle global threats such as Ebola and pledged to make immunisation available throughout the continent by 2020. Under the twin commitments, African heads of state will establish regional health centres around the continent, increase funding for immunisation, improve supply chains and delivery, and prioritise vaccines as part of broader efforts to strengthen health systems. At the heart of the new health push will be the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, which will help countries across the continent to deal with major health emergencies by establishing systems for early warning and response surveillance. Based in Addis Ababa, the new organisation will liaise with regional centres in Zambia, Gabon, Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt. Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) regional director for Africa, said the announcements, made on Tuesday at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, demonstrated a strong commitment by African leaders to \u201csave lives across the continent\u201d. \u201cThis is a very important milestone,\u201d said Moeti. \u201cWe are extremely excited to have got here with the immunisation declaration. It\u2019s something we worked on for quite a few months with a range of partners, and it includes commitments with heads of state and partners in mobilising finances for the vaccines.\r\n\u201cIt shows leaders reiterating their commitments to saving the lives of children across the continent, and contributing their own funding, as they transition into middle-income states.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Limits and opportunities to community health worker empowerment: A multi-country comparative study.","field_subtitle":"Kane S; Kok M; Ormel H; Otiso L; et al.: Social Science & Medicine 164, 2016, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.07.019","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953616303732","body":"In LMICs, Community Health Workers (CHW) increasingly play health promotion related roles involving 'empowerment of communities'. To be able to empower the communities they serve, the authors argue, it is essential that CHWs themselves be, and feel, empowered. The authors present here a critique of how diverse national CHW programs affect CHW's empowerment experience. They present an analysis of findings from a systematic review of literature on CHW programs in LMICs and 6 country case studies (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique). Lee & Koh's analytical framework (4 dimensions of empowerment: meaningfulness, competence, self-determination and impact), is used. CHW programs empower CHWs by providing CHWs, access to privileged medical knowledge, linking CHWs to the formal health system, and providing them an opportunity to do meaningful and impactful work. However, these empowering influences are constantly frustrated by - the sense of lack/absence of control over one's work environment, and the feelings of being unsupported, unappreciated, and undervalued. CHWs expressed feelings of powerlessness, and frustrations about how organisational processual and relational arrangements hindered them from achieving the desired impact. While increasingly the onus is on CHWs and CHW programs to solve the problem of health access, attention should be given to the experiences of CHWs themselves. CHW programs need, it is argued, to move beyond an instrumentalist approach to CHWs, and take a developmental and empowerment perspective when engaging with CHWs. CHW programs should systematically identify disempowering organisational arrangements and take steps to remedy these. Doing so will not only improve CHW performance, it will pave the way for CHWs to meet their potential as agents of social change, beyond perhaps their role as health promoters.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring the implementation of the right to health under the constitution of Kenya: A training manual","field_subtitle":"Kenya Legal & Ethical Issues Network (KELIN): Nairobi 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jo43jbn","body":"This training manual is intended to enhance the role of civil society in promoting and protecting of the right to health under the Constitution. It will play an integral part in ensuring that civil society organisations have the knowledge and skills to hold duty bearers accountable to effective and efficient health service delivery. Schedule Four of the Kenya Constitution creates two levels of governance with distinct functions. The national government is mandated to formulate health policy and manage national referral health facilities while the county government is responsible for delivery of health services at the local level. The civil society groups that are working on health issues must therefore understands the roles and responsibilities of the different actors at both levels if they are to meaningfully engage in national and county processes. The manual is presented in four modules. The first module outlines the constitutional provisions on the right to health and what these provisions mean to the implementation of health as a right. The second module addresses the substance of the right to health including the international standards developed for the implementation of this right. The third module outlines the systems and structures of the devolved government and the role of the different state organs and agencies at national and county level in health service delivery. The fourth module then focuses on the role of the civil society in monitoring the implementation of the right to health. It also highlights the key issues concerning the right to health and outlines the specific responsibilities of civil society in holding each level of government to account for their mandates to deliver on the right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"New WHO data portal to help track progress towards universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"WHO: Geneva, December 2016","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gho/cabinet/uhc.jsp","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) has launched a new data portal to track progress towards universal health coverage (UHC) around the world. The portal shows where countries need to improve access to services, and where they need to improve information. The portal features the latest data on access to health services globally and in each of WHO\u2019s 194 Member States, along with information about equity of access. In 2017 WHO will add data on the impact that paying for health services has on household finances. The portal shows that less than half of children with suspected pneumonia in low income countries are taken to an appropriate health provider. Of the estimated 10.4 million new cases of tuberculosis in 2015, 6.1 million were detected and officially notified in 2015, leaving a gap of 4.3 million. High blood pressure affects 1.13 billion people. Over half of the world's adults with high blood pressure in 2015 lived in Asia. Around 24% of men and 21% of women had uncontrolled blood pressure in 2015.  About 44% of WHO\u2019s member states report having less than 1 physician per 1000 population. The African Region suffers almost 25% of the global burden of disease but has only 3% of the world\u2019s health workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme","field_subtitle":"Okello M; Oenga I; Chege P: Practical Action, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zarp23z","body":"Launched in 2008, the Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme (PSUP) is a joint effort of the  African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, the European Commission (EC) and UN-Habitat. To date, the programme has reached out to 35 countries, 160 cities, and 2 million slum dwellers. The approach is grounded in integrating slum dwellers into the broader urban fabric using city-wide participatory planning methods. In practical terms, PSUP puts slums on the \u2018urban\u2019 maps and facilitates dialogue at local, national and regional levels that is necessary for a \u2018mind-set change\u2019, key for inclusive urbanisation. PSUP provides tools and practical experience of inclusive integrated slum upgrading through which all stakeholders learn key lessons. It builds confidence in participatory planning; institutionalises partnerships and improved governance arrangements, equips government with key financing mechanisms for slum upgrading including mechanisms to engage and empower slum dwellers themselves to advance delivery of relevant, community led improved infrastructure in slums. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Patterns and determinants of malaria risk in urban and peri-urban areas of Blantyre, Malawi","field_subtitle":"Mathanga D; Tembo A; Mzilahowa T; Bauleni A; Mtimaukenena K; Taylor T; Valim C; Walker E; Wilson M: Malaria Journal 15(590), 2016","field_url":"https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12936-016-1623-9","body":"Although malaria disease in urban and peri-urban areas of sub-Saharan Africa is a growing concern, the patterns and drivers of transmission in these settings remain poorly understood. Factors associated with variation in malaria risk in urban and peri-urban areas were evaluated in this study. A health facility-based, age and location-matched, case\u2013control study of children 6\u201359 months of age was conducted in four urban and two peri-urban health facilities (HF) of Blantyre city, Malawi. Children with fever who sought care from the same HF were tested for malaria parasites by microscopy and PCR. Those testing positive or negative on both were defined as malaria cases or controls, respectively. A total of 187 cases and 286 controls were studied. In univariate analyses, higher level of education, possession of TV, and electricity in the house were negatively associated with malaria illness; these associations were similar in urban and peri-urban zones. Having travelled in the month before testing was strongly associated with clinical malaria, but only for participants living in the urban zones. Use of long-lasting insecticide nets the previous night was not associated with protection from malaria disease in any setting. In multivariate analyses, electricity in the house, travel within the previous month, and a higher level of education were all associated with decreased odds of malaria disease. Only a limited number of Anopheles mosquitoes were found by aspiration inside the households in the peri-urban areas, and none was collected from the urban households. Travel was the main factor influencing the incidence of malaria illness among residents of urban Blantyre compared with peri-urban areas. Identification and understanding of key mobile demographic groups, their behaviours, and the pattern of parasite dispersal is argued to be critical to the design of more targeted interventions for the urban setting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Psychosocial risk and protective factors associated with perpetration of gender-based violence in a community sample of men in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Mngoma N; Fergus S; Jeeves A; Jolly R: The South African Medical Journal 106(12), 2016 ","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/11600/7748","body":"Rates of gender-based violence (GBV) in South Africa (SA) are among the highest in the world. In societies where social ideals of masculinity encourage male dominance and control over women, gender power imbalances contribute to male perpetration and women\u2019s vulnerability. The drivers that cause men to perpetrate GBV and those that lead to HIV overlap and interact in multiple and complex ways. Multiple risk and protective factors for GBV perpetration by males operate interdependently at a number of levels; at the individual level, these include chronic anxiety and depression, which have been shown to lead to risky sexual behaviours.  This study examined psychosocial risk factors (symptoms of anxiety and depression) as well as protective factors (social support and self-esteem) as self-reported by a cohort of males in rural KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Province, SA; to determine whether there are differences in anxiety, depression, social support and self-esteem between perpetrators and non-perpetrators. A cross-sectional study using quasi-probability cluster sampling was done in 13 wards in Harry Gwala District, KZN. Participants were then randomly chosen from each ward proportionate to size.  The participants were relatively young (median age 22 years); over half were schoolgoers, and 91.3% had never married. Over 43% of the sample reported clinical levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms on the Brief Symptom Inventory. Rates of GBV perpetration were 60.9%, 23.6% and 10.0% for psychological abuse, non-sexual physical violence and sexual violence, respectively. GBV perpetration was associated with higher depression, higher anxiety, lower self-esteem and lower social support.  The authors propose that interventions to address GBV need to take modifiable individual-level factors into account. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Risk of poor development in young children in low-income and middle-income countries: an estimation and analysis at the global, regional, and country level","field_subtitle":"Lu C; Black M; Richter L: The Lancet 4 (12) e916\u2013e922, 2016","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(16)30266-2/fulltext","body":"In this paper the authors used 2010 estimates to assess how many children aged younger than 5 years were exposed to stunting or extreme poverty. The authors used country-level prevalence of stunting in children younger than 5 years based on the 2006 Growth Standards proposed by WHO and poverty ratios from the World Bank to estimate children who were either stunted or lived in extreme poverty for 141 low-income and middle-income countries in 2004 and 2010. To avoid counting the same children twice, the authors excluded children jointly exposed to stunting and extreme poverty from children living in extreme poverty. To examine the robustness of estimates, the authors also used moderate poverty measures. The estimated number of children exposed to the two risk factors in low-income and middle-income countries decreased from 279 million in 2004 to 249 million in 2010; and the prevalence of children at risk fell from 51% to 43% globally. Sub-Saharan Africa had the highest prevalence in both years, however. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Socioeconomic and modifiable predictors of blood pressure control for hypertension in primary care attenders in the Western Cape, South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Folb N; Bachmann M; Bateman E; Steyn K; Levitt N;  Timmerman V; Lombard C; Gaziano T; Fairall L: The South African Medical Journal 106(12), 2016","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/11603/7751","body":"There are few reports of the effect of socioeconomic and potentially modifiable factors on the control of hypertension in South Africa (SA). This study investigated associations between patients\u2019 socioeconomic status and characteristics of primary healthcare facilities, and control and treatment of blood pressure in hypertensive patients. The authors enrolled hypertensive patients attending 38 public sector primary care clinics in the Western Cape, SA, in 2011, and followed them up 14 months later as part of a randomised controlled trial. Blood pressure was measured and prescriptions for antihypertension medications were recorded at baseline and follow-up. Blood pressure was uncontrolled in 60% of patients at baseline, less likely in patients with a higher level of education or in English compared with Afrikaans respondents. Treatment was intensified in 48% of patients with uncontrolled blood pressure at baseline, more likely in patients with higher blood pressure at baseline, concurrent diabetes, more education and those who attended clinics offering off-site drug supply, with a doctor every day or with more nurses.  Patient and clinic factors influence blood pressure control and treatment in primary care clinics in SA. Potential modifiable factors include ensuring effective communication of health messages, providing convenient access to medications, and addressing staff shortages in primary care clinics. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"South Centre Statement on the Amendment to the WTO TRIPS Agreement to Ease Access to Affordable Medicine  ","field_subtitle":"South Centre: Geneva, January 2017","field_url":"https://www.southcentre.int/statement-january-2017/","body":"An amendment to the TRIPS Agreement that aims to facilitate the access to affordable medicines has entered into force upon approval by two thirds of the WTO members. The amendment reflects the recognition by WTO Members of the need for the continued enhancement of global intellectual property rules to allow Members to systematically take measures to protect public health. The United Nations Secretary General\u2019s High Level Panel on Access to Medicines has highlighted the importance of designing legislation that allows for quick, fair, predictable and implementable compulsory licenses for legitimate public health needs, and recommended WTO Members to revise the paragraph 6 system in order to find a solution that enables a swift and expedient export of pharmaceutical products produced under compulsory license. The South Centre stresses the continued importance for Least-Developed Countries (LDCs) to make full use of the special status they enjoy in not being required to adopt rules on patent protection and most other rules of the TRIPS Agreement, in order to build their technological capabilities and reduce obstacles to affordable access to medicines. The LDCs would not need, in this case, to make use of the system. Close attention will need to be paid to the design of national implementing legislations and the feedback from potential user entities of the system on any hurdles they may face that diminish interest in its use. The evaluation of the system must continue in the TRIPS Council.  The South Centre offers to provide assistance to countries in examining national implementing legislations, and providing information to potential interested parties. Templates for facilitated implementation and meeting of conditions required under the system may be provided. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategising national health in the 21st century: a handbook","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 2016","field_url":"http://www.who.int/healthsystems/publications/nhpsp-handbook/en/","body":"This handbook is designed as a resource for providing up-to-date and practical guidance on national health planning and strategising for health. It establishes a set of best practices to support strategic plans for health and represents the wealth of experience accumulated by WHO on national health policies, strategies and plans (NHPSPs). WHO has been one of the leading organisations to support countries in the development of NHPSPs. The focus on improving plans has grown in recent years, in recognition of the benefits of anchoring a strong national health sector in a written vision based on participation, analysis, and evidence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s \u2018exceptional\u2019 progress against HIV \u2013 surveys","field_subtitle":"African Medical Media Digest: Medical Brief, December 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zletkfz","body":"National surveys in Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia reveal exceptional progress against HIV, with decreasing rates of new infection, stable numbers of people living with HIV, and more than half of all those living with HIV showing viral suppression through use of antiretroviral medication. For those on antiretroviral medication, viral suppression is close to 90%. These data are the first to emerge from the Population HIV Impact Assessment (PHIA) Project, a unique, multi-country initiative funded by the US President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The project deploys household surveys, which measure the reach and impact of HIV prevention, care and treatment programs in select countries. The data demonstrate that the 90-90-90 global targets set forth by UNAIDS in 2014 are attainable, (that is for 90% of people with HIV to be diagnosed, 90% of those diagnosed to receive HIV treatment, and 90% of those on treatment to be effectively treated and achieve suppression of their infection). This would translate to 73% of all HIV-positive people being virally suppressed. The data show that once diagnosed, individuals are accessing treatment, staying on treatment, and their viral load levels are suppressed to levels that maintain their health and dramatically decrease transmission to others. Preliminary data analyses show that, as of 2016: In Zimbabwe, among adults ages 15 to 64, HIV incidence is 0.45%; HIV prevalence is 14.6% (16.7% among females and 12.4% among males); 60.4% of all HIV-positive people are virally suppressed, and 86% of those on treatment are virally suppressed. In Malawi, among adults ages 15 to 64, HIV incidence is 0.37%; HIV prevalence is 10.6% (12.8% among females and 8.2% among males); 67.6% of all HIV-positive people are virally suppressed, and 91% of those on treatment are virally suppressed. In Zambia, among adults ages 15 to 59 years, HIV incidence is 0.66%; HIV prevalence is 12.3% (14.9% among females and 9.5% among males); 59.8% of all HIV-positive people are virally suppressed, and 89% of those on treatment are virally suppressed. The results from the first three PHIA surveys are argued to compel the global community to strengthen its efforts to reach those who have yet to receive an HIV test and to engage, support, and enable those who test HIV-positive to start and stay on effective treatment in order to achieve long-term viral suppression.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Sugar tax could make SA a world leader in obesity prevention \u2013 WHO","field_subtitle":"Medical Brief: African Medical Digest February 2017.","field_url":"http://www.medicalbrief.co.za/archives/sugar-tax-make-sa-world-leader-obesity-prevention/","body":"South Africa could prevent almost half-a-million deaths over 40 years by introducing its proposed tax on sugary drinks, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). \u201cNo country in the world has hit obesity with a 20% tax, so South Africa could be a world leader and reduce childhood obesity,\u201d said the WHO\u2019s Dr Temo Waqanivalu. He was speaking at the recent public hearing on the proposed tax on sugary drinks, convened by parliament\u2019s committees of finance and health. \u201cA child eating burger and chips, washed down with sugary drink and followed by crisps and chocolate bar, would have to run a half-marathon to get rid of the effects. You cannot out-exercise a bad diet,\u201d said Waqanivalu. The report says at the packed meeting, all parties agreed that South Africa had a significant problem with obesity but while academics praised the tax, industry players pleaded for other measures. Treasury has proposed a tax of 2.29c per gram of sugar on soft drinks, which would work out to be about a 20% tax on a Coca Cola.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The feasibility of measuring and monitoring social determinants of health and the relevance for policy and programme \u2013 a qualitative assessment of four countries","field_subtitle":"Blas E; Ataguba J;  Huda TM; Bao GK; Rasella D; Gerecke MR: Global Health Action 9 (1)  http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/gha.v9.29002, 2017","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/gha.v9.29002","body":"ince the publication of the reports by the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH), many research papers have documented inequities, explaining causal pathways in order to inform policy and programmatic decision-making. At the international level, the sustainable development goals (SDGs) reflect an attempt to bring together these themes and the complexities involved in defining a comprehensive development framework. However, to date, much less has been done to address the monitoring challenges, that is, how data generation, analysis and use are to become routine tasks. In an attempt to explore these monitoring challenges, indicators covering a wide range of social determinants were tested in four country case studies (Bangladesh, Brazil, South Africa, and Vietnam) for their technical feasibility, reliability, and validity, and their communicability and usefulness to policy-makers. Twelve thematic domains with 20 core indicators covering different aspects of equity, human rights, gender, and SDH were tested through a review of data sources, descriptive analyses, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions. To test the communicability and usefulness of the domains, domain narratives that explained the causal pathways were presented to policy-makers, managers, the media, and civil society leaders. For most countries, monitoring is possible, as some data were available for most of the core indicators. However, a qualitative assessment showed that technical feasibility, reliability, and validity varied across indicators and countries. Producing understandable and useful information proved challenging, and particularly so in translating indicator definitions and data into meaningful lay and managerial narratives, and effectively communicating links to health and ways in which the information could improve decision-making. This exercise revealed that for monitoring to produce reliable data collection, analysis, and discourse, it will need to be adapted to each national context and institutionalised into national systems. This will require that capacities and resources for this and subsequent communication of results are increased across countries for both national and international monitoring, including the successful implementation of the SDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The influence of power and actor relations on priority setting and resource allocation practices at the hospital level in Kenya: a case study","field_subtitle":"Barasa E; Cleary S; Molyneux S; English M: BMC Health Services Research, 2016, doi: 10.1186/s12913-016-1796-5","field_url":"http://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-016-1796-5","body":"Priority setting and resource allocation in healthcare organisations often involves the balancing of competing interests and values in the context of hierarchical and politically complex settings with multiple interacting actor relationships. Despite this, few studies have examined the influence of actor and power dynamics on priority setting practices in healthcare organisations. This paper examines the influence of power relations among different actors on the implementation of priority setting and resource allocation processes in public hospitals in Kenya. The authors used a qualitative case study approach to examine priority setting and resource allocation practices in two public hospitals in coastal Kenya. They collected data by a combination of in-depth interviews of national level policy makers, hospital managers, and frontline practitioners in the case study hospitals (n\u2009=\u200972), review of documents such as hospital plans and budgets, minutes of meetings and accounting records, and non-participant observations in case study hospitals over a period of 7 months. The authors applied a combination of two frameworks, Norman Long\u2019s actor interface analysis and VeneKlasen and Miller\u2019s expressions of power framework to examine and interpret findings. The interactions of actors in the case study hospitals resulted in socially constructed interfaces between: 1) senior managers and middle level managers 2) non-clinical managers and clinicians, and 3) hospital managers and the community. Power imbalances resulted in the exclusion of middle level managers (in one of the hospitals) and clinicians and the community (in both hospitals) from decision making processes. This resulted in, amongst others, perceptions of unfairness, and reduced motivation in hospital staff. It also puts to question the legitimacy of priority setting processes in these hospitals. The authors suggest that designing hospital decision making structures to strengthen participation and inclusion of relevant stakeholders could improve priority setting practices. This should however, be accompanied by measures to empower stakeholders to contribute to decision making. They also suggest that strengthening soft leadership skills of hospital managers could also contribute to managing the power dynamics among actors in hospital priority setting processes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The link between the West African Ebola outbreak and health systems in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone: a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Shoman H; Karafillakis E; Rawaf S: Globalization and Health 13(1), 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jpqewpq","body":"This study determined the effects of health systems\u2019 organisation and performance on the West African Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and lessons learned. The WHO health system building blocks were used to evaluate the performance of the health systems in these countries. A systematic review of articles published from inception until July 2015 was conducted following the PRISMA guidelines. Electronic databases including Medline, Embase, Global Health, and the Cochrane library were searched for relevant literature. Grey literature was also searched through Google Scholar and Scopus. Articles were exported and selected based on a set of inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data was then extracted into a spreadsheet and a descriptive analysis was performed. Each study was critically appraised using the Crowe Critical Appraisal Tool. The review was supplemented with expert interviews where participants were identified from reference lists and using the snowball method. Thirteen articles were included in the study and six experts from different organisations were interviewed. A shortage of health workers had an important effect on the control of Ebola but also suffered the most from the outbreak. This was followed by information and research, medical products and technologies, health financing and leadership and governance. Poor surveillance and lack of proper communication also contributed to the outbreak. Lack of available funds jeopardised payments and purchase of essential resources and medicines. Leadership and governance had least findings but an overarching consensus that they would have helped prompt response, adequate coordination and management of resources. Ensuring an adequate and efficient health workforce is thus judged to be of high importance to ensure a strong health system and a quick response to new outbreaks. Adequate service delivery results from a collective success of the other blocks. Health financing and its management is crucial to ensure availability of medical products, fund payments to staff and purchase necessary equipment. The authors also note that leadership and governance needs to be explored for their role in controlling outbreaks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Health Organisation should counter the privatization of health governance, but does it?","field_subtitle":"Claudio Schuftan, Peoples Health Movement, Ho Chi Minh City","field_url":"","body":"While economics is not World Health Organisation (WHO)\u2019s core expertise, the impact of poverty and income maldistribution on population health clearly justifies the organisation working with other agencies within or outside the UN system to focus much more attention on questions of disparity. Things being the way they are right now, it is thus difficult to make sense of the shrinking scope of WHO\u2019s role in global health governance. \r\n\r\nOne factor could be the wide and ambiguous use of slogans about \u2018stakeholders\u2019 and the fait-accompli of \u2018multi-stakeholder platforms\u2019 and \u2018public-private partnerships\u2019. The term \u2018stakeholders\u2019, bundling together public interest civil society organizations with international NGOs, private sector enterprises and philanthropies under the term \u2018non-state actors\u2019, appears to endow all of these private \u2018stakeholders\u2019 with the right to a \u2018seat at the table\u2019, with only the tobacco and arms industries declared off limits. Such \u2018sitting rights\u2019 jeopardize people\u2019s human rights as enshrined in various instruments, including the right to health. \r\n\r\n\u2018Donor\u2019 countries (the US in particular) continue to push the WHO towards working with industry through such \u2018multi\u2010stakeholder partnerships\u2019, rather than giving it the chance to implement regulatory and fiscal strategies that could make a real difference. Bilateral funders and big philanthropies demand that WHO provide data according to their particular interests, beyond the compilation of country-reported statistics. They focus on providing technical interventions, and introduce a bias away from interventions on the right to health or social determinants. \r\n\r\nThis treatment of WHO is part of a wider onslaught on the UN system generally. The whole UN system is held hostage to short-term, unpredictable, funding. The freezing and periodic withholding of countries\u2019 assessed contributions and tightly earmarked voluntary contributions creates dependence on private philanthropy. It applies a sustained pressure to adopt the multi\u2010stakeholder partnership model of program design and implementation that gives global corporations an undeserved \u2018seat at the table\u2019. \r\n\r\nIf the WHO reform is to realise the vision of its Constitution, it will require a global mobilization around the democratization of global health governance, within the wider global mobilization for human rights and equity in global economic and political governance.  Globalization has created new collective health needs that cross old spatial, temporal and political boundaries. In response, we need global health governance institutions that represent the many, not the few; and that are sufficiently agile to act effectively in a fast-paced world and capable of bringing together the best ideas and boundary-shattering knowledge available. \r\n\r\nYet the WHO seems strangely detached from the broader political turmoil and changes unfolding around the world. WHO may point to its 193 member states and claim to be universally representative, but it is far from politically inclusive. Like the alienation felt by millions around the world, many members of the global health community have turned elsewhere to move issues forward and get things done. We thus see a steady decline of WHO, clinging to obsolete political institutions and bureaucratic models, yet kept alive by member states as an essential public institution. This decline is not because WHO is not needed, but because it has not adapted to and is not publicly financed for a changing world. It is not the WHO that we need today. \r\n\r\nPolitical innovation must thus become a fundamental part of the process of WHO reform. We need to think: How might virtual and interactive town halls improve communication between global health policy-makers and the constituencies they serve? How might the closed world of global policy-making be opened up and strengthened through virtual public consultations, feedback and monitoring systems? How might the concept of global citizenship become institutionalized within our global health institutions, especially WHO? \r\n\r\nWe also need to challenge the re-legitimation of the \u2018free trade agenda\u2019 in health that has strengthened intellectual property (patent) protection regimes despite their well-known negative consequences for public health. We need to question the mantra of the \u2018realistic costing of outputs\u2019 that prescribe programme implementation models where programmes comprise a set of planned outputs from prescribed activities with known costs. This approach leaves little, if any, room for flexibly managing complexity in planning and implementing systems. It makes health actors, including WHO, wary of the longer term implementation processes needed in health systems, partly because they disrupt \u2018production schedules\u2019 demanded by funders. \r\n\r\nThese models also contradict our understanding that health care is just one of the factors influencing health and can only be considered part of the solution. As the 2008 WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health stated, \u201cSocial injustice is killing people on a grand scale and constitutes a greater threat to public health than a lack of doctors, medicines or health care services\u201d. The conditions under which people live and work, their socioeconomic development, education, housing and other conditions have a major impact on health behaviours and outcomes.  A robust analysis of the root causes of the preventable global disease burden is thus essential to understand which \u2018stakeholders\u2019, or duty bearers, are part of the problem and which are part of the solution. Consistent with human rights principles and the findings of the 2008 Commission report, such analysis enables us to identify which can be trusted to have a seat at the policy table. \r\n\r\nThis influence of social injustice on health and the analysis of root causes of preventable disease appears most obscured in the influence of external funders over health ministries in the global south. It keeps them focused slogans such as \u2018development assistance\u2019 and \u2018public-private partnerships\u2019 that in their design serve the agenda of the richest 1%. In so doing it sustains a world view of the beneficence of private enterprise and that accepts as natural and unchanging conditions of global inequality and environmental degradation. \r\n\r\nThis editorial draws on points raised in the work of PHM and other colleagues, including  K Detavernier, M Kok, K Lee, D Legge and E Pisani.  For further information visit the PHM website at http://www.phmovement.org/ . Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Transactional sex and risk for HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis","field_subtitle":"Wamoyi J; Stoebenau K; Bobrova N; Abramsky T; Watts C: Journal of the International Aids Society 19(20992)  2016","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/index.php/jias/article/view/20992/pdf_1","body":"Young women aged 15 to 24 years in sub-Saharan Africa continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV. A growing number of studies have suggested that the practice of transactional sex may in part explain women\u2019s heightened risk, but evidence on the association between transactional sex and HIV has not yet been synthesised. The authors set out to systematically review studies that assess the relationship between transactional sex and HIV among men and women in sub-Saharan Africa and to summarise the findings through a meta-analysis. Nineteen papers from 16 studies met the inclusion criteria. Of these 16 studies, 14 provided data on women and 10 on men. The authors found a significant, positive, unadjusted or adjusted association between transactional sex and HIV in 10 of 14 studies for women, one of which used a longitudinal design. Out of 10 studies involving men, only two indicate a positive association between HIV and transactional sex in unadjusted or adjusted models. The meta-analysis confirmed general findings from the systematic review. Transactional sex is associated with HIV among women, whereas findings for men were inconclusive. Given that only two studies used a longitudinal approach, there remains a need for better measurement of the practice of transactional sex and additional longitudinal studies to establish the causal pathways between transactional sex and HIV. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"TRIPS amendment on access to cheaper drugs comes into force","field_subtitle":"Third World Network: SUNS #8387 January 2017 ","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/health.info/2017/hi170103.htm","body":"A protocol amending the WTO TRIPS Agreement that would enable developing countries with insufficient or no manufacturing capacities in the pharmaceutical sector to import cheaper generic medicines produced under compulsory licencing came into force on Monday, 23 January. The annex to the protocol amending the TRIPS Agreement contains a new Article which contains five paragraphs on the  obligations of exporting Members in relation to compulsory licences, AND the modification of  obligations to the extent necessary to enable a pharmaceutical product produced or imported under a compulsory licence to other countries within a regional trade agreement. \"This is an extremely important amendment. It gives legal certainty that generic medicines can be exported at reasonable prices to satisfy the needs of countries with no pharmaceutical production capacity, or those with limited capacity,\" said WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo. Ambassador Modest Mero of Tanzania, Chair of the TRIPS Council, underlined the importance of the entry into force of the first-ever amendment of the multilateral agreements administered by the WTO but also a concrete response by trade ministers to address the concerns in the area of public health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Using Minecraft for Youth Participation in Urban Design and Governance","field_subtitle":"Banks N: Global Development Institute, 2015","field_url":"https://vimeo.com/116674116","body":"UN-Habitat believes that ICT can be a catalyst to improve governance in towns and cities and help increase levels of participation, efficiency and accountability in public urban policies, provided that the tools are appropriately used, accessible, inclusive and affordable. Research shows that ICT use by youth can have a direct impact on increasing civic engagement, giving them new avenues through which to become informed, shape opinions, get organised, collaborate and take action. Youth are at the centre of the ICT revolution, both as drivers and consumers of technological innovation. They are almost twice as networked as the global population as a whole, with the ICT age gap more pronounced in least developed countries where young people are up to three times more likely to be online than the general population. This video shows UN-Habitat\u2019s approach to using Minecraft  to encourage youth participation in urban design and governance, to design and present their vision for public spaces in the city, as an input to planning.  UN-Habitat\u2019s experiences of using the video game Minecraft as a community participation tool for public space design is reported to show that providing youth with ICT tools can promote improved civic engagement. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Walter Rodney and the racial underpinnings of global inequality","field_subtitle":"Paschal T: Pambazuka News, January 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/h59v2pu","body":"While inequality has become a topic of increased popularity and politicization in recent years, most of the attention has focused on how 1% own an increasingly large share of the world\u2019s wealth, rather than on inequalities between nations. In a global context in which national borders and citizenship pose few barriers to the mobility of capital, the reality is also a story of the world\u2019s richest nations continuing to reap a disproportionate amount of the globe\u2019s profits. Contemporary analyses of global inequality, capitalism, and development would benefit from the lessons of earlier works concerned with similar questions decades before. One example is the classic work written by Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. While some contemporary accounts recognise that the problems of African countries do not lie exclusively in Africa, they do not go far enough. Piketty\u2019s discussion of the extraction of wealth from the African continent, for example, is largely independent from his analysis of the accumulation of wealth in other parts of the globe. For Rodney, it was impossible to explain development and the accumulation of wealth in one region without deeply understanding its relations to other regions of underdevelopment and the extraction of wealth. This relation, he argued was not accidental; it was endemic to capitalism itself.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Why do an MPH?\u2019 Motivations and intentions of physicians undertaking postgraduate public health training at the University of Cape Town","field_subtitle":"Zweigenthal VE, Marquez E; London L: Global Health Action, 9(1) http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/gha.v9.32735, 2017","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/gha.v9.32735","body":"Public health (PH) approaches underpin the management and transformation of health systems in low- and middle-income countries. Despite the Master of Public Health (MPH) rarely being a prerequisite for health service employment in South Africa, many physicians pursue MPH. This study identified their motivations and career intentions and explored MPH programme strengths and gaps in under- and post-graduate PH training. A cross-sectional study using an online questionnaire was completed by physicians graduating with an MPH between 2000 and 2009 and those enrolled in the programme in 2010 at the University of Cape Town. Nearly a quarter of MPH students were physicians. Of the 65 contactable physicians, 48% responded. They were mid-career physicians who wished to obtain research training (55%), who wished to gain broader perspectives on health (32%), and who used the MPH to advance careers (90%) as researchers, policy-makers, or managers. The MPH widened professional opportunities, with 62% changing jobs. They believed that inadequate undergraduate exposure should be remedied by applying PH approaches to clinical problems in community settings, which would increase the attractiveness of postgraduate PH training. The MPH was found to allow physicians to transition from pure clinical to research, policy and/or management work, preparing them to innovate changes for effective health systems, responsive to the health needs of populations. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"#KnowYourCity website","field_subtitle":"Slum Dwellers International, 2017","field_url":"http://knowyourcity.info/explore-our-data/","body":"Know Your City is a global campaign of Slum Dwellers International (SDI) and UCLG-A. Around the world, slum dwellers collect city-wide data and information on informal settlements. This work creates alternative systems of knowledge that are owned by the communities and have become the basis of a unique social and political argument that supports an informed and united voice of the urban poor. SDI\u2019s databases are becoming the largest repositories of informal settlement data in the world and the first port of call for researchers, policy makers, local governments and national governments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A memo from the virtual desk of the Department of Urban Rights, Southern Africa, 2036","field_subtitle":"Thandiwe Loewenson, PhD student, Bartlett School of Architecture","field_url":"","body":"Comrades, colleagues, citizens\r\n\r\nAs we prepare to host the UN Habitat 4 it is timely to reflect on the declarations made and the journey we've taken since the last conference in Quito, Ecuador in October 2016. (Is really it only the fourth conference - many of us weren't even born when the first was held in 1976!) We are fortunate here in Harare to be part of a regional movement, together with our strategic partner cities, towards more equitable and inclusive urban environments. Habitat 3 gave early voice to many of the changes that were nascent in our cities at the time: greater networking between cities, space for people to influence urban design in their cities, a consciousness of climate challenges and an awareness of the intertwined fortunes between urban and rural areas. Our cities today are not isolated. Whilst retaining their unique qualities and idiosyncrasies, they are part of highly globalised, networked ecosystems where our futures are deeply connected.    \r\n\r\nOur archives reveal that the atmosphere in Quito was aspirational. From the records excavated after the Great Data Crash of 2025, we reconstructed video footage of Habitat 3.  The voice in it of the then Secretary-General of United Cities and Local Governments Africa, Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi still rings clear: \u201cLocal authorities are now on the map, what we want next is to be around the table\u2026we hope that people will realise that without local authorities, there\u2019s no way we can implement the global agendas adopted in 2015 and 2016\u201d.  This was echoed by the World Mayor\u2019s Assembly who asserted two key demands: The first that city, metropolitan and regional governments be involved in UN negotiations, with powers to make decisions independent of national government; and the second that mayors have access to international finance and that instruments such as a Green Climate Fund also be allocated to and handled directly by cities. \r\n\r\nIn 2036, with collective, participatory urban budgeting now commonplace and seamless networks between cities, it is easy to forget that only a few decades ago cities were primarily considered national hubs, managed by nation states. We in East and Southern Africa have especially benefited from the Ore to Information Fund through which finance raised from the last mining operations was invested in open access technology infrastructure. This has allowed us to have the fastest data connectivity in the world, bringing huge benefits for technological innovation and education, access to health information, for the reach of health and economic services and capacities and new resources for community dialogue and action.   \r\n\r\nThis month we celebrate 68 years since the principle of the \u2018right to the city\u2019 was first proposed by Henri Lefebvre. UN Habitat 3 was a critical marker for those campaigning for this right. We take it as commonplace today, but respect that those early struggles were not easily won.\r\n\r\nChampioned by Brazil and Ecuador, the ratification at Habitat3 of a New Urban Agenda (NUA) made this the first internationally negotiated document to reference the right to the city and encourage nation states to enshrine it in their laws.  Under the slogan \u201cCities for people, not for profit!\u201d civil society from various campaigns against gentrification, privatisation of public space and criminalisation of homeless and vulnerable citizens lobbied for the inclusion of the right.  They called for governments to put citizens before private sector interests in the city, building on the 2004 World Charter on the Right to the City and the 2010 UN World \u201cRight to the City\u201d Urban Forum in Brazil.\r\n\r\nAt that time, Brazil and Ecuador were the only two countries to have this right enshrined in law. Still the Habitat3 negotiations saw large parts of the right to the city excluded from the final document. It did not mention the \u2018social function of land\u2019 or \u2018participatory approaches at all stages of the urban policy and planning processes\u2019. These clauses were struck off during the drafting.  The NUA was also non-binding. As we look back in 2036, we owe a debt to the global Right to the City movement that brought together civil society, local government and other actors around the world, including from health, who picked up the baton after Quito, to implement the principles of equity and inclusivity in the 2016 NUA.  Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing had already by 2016 publicised the economic, social and environmental contribution to cities of women informal sector workers and Colombia\u2019s waste pickers had already won a court ruling to block a waste management contract that did not provide opportunities for informal recyclers. We have seen others follow suit, including those living in slums, health activists from communities affected by pollution and urban waste, increasingly bringing previously excluded groups to the policy making and planning table, affirming their rights to a city that ensures wellbeing for all.  This has not been easy, especially given the legacies we inherited from the early years of the 21st century of  unpredictable weather, rising sea levels, pollution and waste threatening the ecosystems of all in  our cities, of massive socio-economic inequalities, of destructive wars and of big population movements across countries. However we now fully understand that inclusion and investment in wellbeing is not only as a matter of rights and justice, but is vital for our collective survival.\r\n\r\nWe were fascinated to find in our excavated websites an account by Barcelona's first female Mayor (to think - that city is now on its fifth female mayor!). Writing after Quito, Ms Colau said that Habitat 3 saw women coming to the forefront of political change. She noted that \u201cthe 21st Century is the century of cities - in part because this is a moment of great political uncertainty at many levels. But within that uncertainty, we see empowered citizens asking to be protagonists, and the city is the place to do this.\u201d \r\n \r\nWe are looking forward to hosting Habitat 4 this year here in our region in real and virtual space. We welcome all joining us in our increasingly inclusive understanding of \u2018the city\u2019 with all the people and connected spaces that are critical to healthy urban life. As we gather to debate new challenges, we are fortunate to reflect on the debates, advances and still unresolved issues from Habitat 3 that we have found, to reflect on where we reached in 2030 with our sustainable development goals, and to bring in the voice of all to craft our Agenda for Habitat 4. \r\n\r\nThis oped was sent in response to our invitation for reflections post Habitat III. This issue provides a range of resources and publications related to urban health. Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Antibiotic Resistance in the Food Chain: A Developing Country-Perspective","field_subtitle":"Founou L; Founou R; Essack S: Frontiers in Microbiology, 2016, doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2016.01881","field_url":"http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmicb.2016.01881/full","body":"Food animals are considered as key reservoirs of antibiotic-resistant (ABR) bacteria with the use of antibiotics in the food production industry having contributed to the global challenge. There are no geographic boundaries to impede the worldwide spread of ABR, and limitations in the interventions in one country could compromise the efficacy and endanger containment policies implemented in other parts of the world. Multifaceted, comprehensive, and integrated measures complying with the One Health approach are argued to be imperative to ensure food safety and security, effectively combat infectious diseases, curb the emergence and spread of ABR, and preserve the efficacy of antibiotics for future generations. Countries are urged to follow the World Health Organisation, World Organisation for Animal Health, and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations recommendations to implement national action plans encompassing human, (food) animal, and environmental sectors to improve policies, interventions and activities that address the prevention and containment of ABR from farm-to-fork. This review covers (i) the origin of antibiotic resistance, (ii) pathways by which bacteria spread to humans from farm-to-fork, (iii) differences in levels of antibiotic resistance between developed and developing countries, and (iv) prevention and containment measures of antibiotic resistance in the food chain.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Building Children's Nursing for Africa Conference","field_subtitle":"28 March - 30 March 2017, Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.buildingchildrensnursing.co.za","body":"The theme for the 2017 Building Children's Nursing for Africa Conference is \u2018Pillars of Practice\u2019 in paediatric and children\u2019s nursing and will showcase recent research, clinical practice projects, education and leadership initiatives.  The Child Nurse Practice Development Initiative is an established and strategically significant nurse-led programme which is now the main training hub for children\u2019s nursing on the African continent. The conference themes include establishing families as the care hub, clinically relevant teaching: breaking the mould of parrot-style learning, sustainable innovation in paediatrics, thinking nurses who collaborate across disciplines, and examining what nurses measure - how and why?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Papers: Law and the New Urban Agenda, 4th Annual International & Comparative Urban Law Conference","field_subtitle":"Deadline for proposal submissions:  March 6, 2017","field_url":"http://www.urbanlawcenter.org/sacallforpapers","body":"The Fordham Urban Law Center, in conjunction with the University of Cape Town (UCT), is pleased to announce a call for participation in the 4th Annual International and Comparative Urban Law Conference, to be held on Monday July 17th and Tuesday July 18th, 2017.  The Conference will be held at UCT in Cape Town, South Africa. The Conference will provide a dynamic forum for legal and other scholars to engage and generate diverse international, comparative, and interdisciplinary perspectives in the burgeoning field of urban law. The Conference will explore overlapping themes, tensions, and opportunities for deeper scholarly investigation and practice with a comparative perspective.  The Conference is open to urban law topics across a broad spectrum, such as: Structure and workings of local authority and autonomy;Urban and metropolitan governance and finance; Economic and community development; Housing and the built environment; Unique challenges facing cities in developing nations and the Global South; Urban public health; Migration and citizenship; Urban equity and inclusion; Sustainability and resilience. While the Conference will foster a broad dialogue about cities and legal systems in comparative and international perspective, we specifically invite submissions to focus on the role of law in New Urban Agenda adopted this past October by the United Nations at the Habitat III Conference in Quito, Ecuador. In keeping with this framework, the conference seeks to investigate the role of laws in promoting the New Urban Agenda in a manner that is democratic, sustainable and equitable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Community ART Support Groups in Mozambique: The Potential of Patients as Partners in Care","field_subtitle":"Jobarteh K; Shiraishi R; Malimane I; Samo Gudo P; Decroo T; Auld A; Macome V; Cuoto A: PLoS ONE 11(12): e0166444. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0166444","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0166444","body":"High rates of attrition are weakening Mozambique\u2019s national HIV Program\u2019s efforts to achieve 80% treatment coverage. In response, Mozambique implemented a national pilot of Community Adherence and Support Groups (CASG). CASG is a model in which antiretroviral therapy (ART) patients form groups of up to six patients. On a rotating basis one CASG group member collects ART medications at the health facility for all group members, and distributes those medications to the other members in the community. Patients also visit their health facility bi-annually to receive clinical services. A matched retrospective cohort study was implemented using routinely collected patient-level data in 68 health facilities with electronic data systems and CASG programs. A total of 129,938 adult ART patients were registered in those facilities. Of the 129,938 patients on ART, 6,760 were CASG members. A propensity score matched analysis was performed to assess differences in mortality and loss to follow-up (LTFU) between matched CASG and non-CASG members. Non-CASG participants had higher LTFU rates than matched CASG participants; however, there were no significant mortality differences between CASG and non-CASG participants. Compared with the full cohort of non-CASG members, CASG members were more likely to be female, tended to have a lower median CD4 counts at ART initiation and be less likely to have a secondary school education. ART patients enrolled in CASG were significantly less likely to be LTFU compared to matched patients who did not join CASG. CASG appears to be an effective strategy to decrease LTFU in Mozambique\u2019s national ART program.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Crisis and resilience at the frontline: Coping strategies of Kenyan primary health care managers in a context of devolution and uncertainty","field_subtitle":"Nyikuri M; Barasa E; Molyneux S; Tsofa B: Kemri Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Kenya, 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zbj8ay4","body":"Primary health care (PHC) plays a vital role in maintaining population health, preventing suffering and providing coverage of essential services. In Kenya, primary health centres and dispensaries are often managed by the most senior clinical staff member at the facility who is responsible for performing both clinical and managerial duties. PHC managers, also known as in-charges, play a key role in the functioning of health services on a day-to-day basis. KEMRI-Wellcome Trust has conducted research in one of the 47 counties in Kenya to better understand the role and responsibilities of PHC managers and their coping strategies within the context of devolution and uncertainty. The key findings from the research are set out in this brief, as well as recommendations to support PHC managers. The research found that PHC managers carry out a variety of tasks to ensure facilities can function effectively. These include: developing annual work plans, ensuring coverage and delivery of services, providing leadership and management to frontline staff. Despite the challenges faced by PHC managers in the period since devolution, facilities remained open and functioning. A key support system for in-charges was the sub-county managers, some of whom had played the role of line managers to in- charges for decades. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 191: A memo from the virtual desk of the Department of Urban Rights, Southern Africa, 2036","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing the HIV response in sub-Saharan Africa from domestic sources: Moving beyond a normative approach","field_subtitle":"Remme M; Siapka M; Sterck O; Ncube M; Watts C; Vassalla A: Social Science & Medicine 169, 66\u201376, 2016","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953616305342","body":"This paper examines the potential to expand public HIV financing, and the extent to which governments have been utilising these options. First, with data from the 14 most HIV-affected countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the authors estimate the potential increase in public HIV financing from economic growth, increased general revenue generation, greater health and HIV prioritisation, as well as from more unconventional and innovative sources, including borrowing, health-earmarked resources, efficiency gains, and complementary non-HIV investments. The authors then adopt a novel empirical approach to explore which options are most likely to translate into tangible public financing, based on cross-sectional econometric analyses of 92 low and middle-income country governments' most recent HIV expenditure between 2008 and 2012. If all fiscal sources were simultaneously leveraged in the next five years, public HIV spending in these 14 countries could, it is estimated, increase from US$3.04 to US$10.84 billion per year. This could cover resource requirements in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Swaziland, but not even half the requirements in the remaining countries. The empirical results suggest that, in reality, even less fiscal space could be created (a reduction by over half) and only from more conventional sources. International financing may also crowd in public financing. The authors observe that most HIV-affected lower-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa will not be able to generate sufficient public resources for HIV in the medium-term, even if they take very bold measures. Considerable international financing will be required for years to come. HIV funders will need to engage with broader health and development financing to improve government revenue-raising and efficiencies","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"From global health security to global health solidarity, security and sustainability","field_subtitle":"Antoine Flahault, Didier Wernli, Patrick Zylberman, Marcel Tanner: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2016;94:863.","field_url":"","body":"The concept of global health security underpins the current framework for global preparedness and response to emerging infectious diseases. The Global Health Security Agenda \u2013a collaboration between governments\u2013 was launched in 2014, aiming to make our interconnected world safe from infectious disease threats. The governments involved in the Global Health Security Agenda focus on strengthening their countries\u2019 capacities for detection, response and prevention.\r\n\r\nIn the context of public health emergencies, the Agenda has received financial and political support from international organizations and almost 50 countries. However, there is tension between the aims of global health security and governments\u2019 mandate to ensure national security. The 1994 United Nations Development Programme\u2019s Human Development Report first introduced the concept of human security, referring to security of citizens as individuals rather than that of the states in which they live. We posit that the use of the term global health security can have a negative unintended effect on the ultimate goal of improving health for all. There are three reasons why this term potentially privileges the security of the state rather than the security of individuals.\r\n\r\nFirst, global health security, in its current use, is largely focused on protecting high-income countries against public health threats coming from low- and middle-income countries. Ebola virus, Marburg, Zika virus, dengue, chikungunya, Rift Valley and Lassa fevers, originated in low- and middle-income countries. If the Agenda is used to prioritize global health risk depending on the origin of infections, resource allocation may become even more skewed towards high-income settings. To ensure that a health security agenda is an integral part of national and foreign policy of each country, political attention and coordination between national ministries is needed as well as support from the national security budget.\r\n\r\nSecond, global health security tends to emphasize disease containment to protect national security rather than the prevention of future local outbreaks. Disease containment is common practice in the control of emerging infectious diseases. A national security perspective often results in unilateral, neo-colonial and/or short-term solutions designed to protect national borders. For example, many countries and airline companies imposed travel restrictions during the 2013\u20132016 Ebola virus disease outbreak in western Africa, contrary to World Health Organization recommendations.\r\n\r\nThird, we argue that respect for human rights and values such as equity and solidarity should underlie each national security agenda. Such values are consistent with the motives of many people who provide health services in public health emergencies. Health security agendas should aim to build resilience to future outbreaks of infectious diseases, and require a long-term systems approach based on surveillance and national health system strengthening.\r\n\r\nProtecting the world from infectious disease threats requires that national governments share the responsibility of serving those most in need, wherever they live. We believe that the concept of global health security should be expanded to include solidarity and sustainability. In this way, we will be able to develop a long-term approach and overcome the limitations of current responses to global health emergencies.\r\n\r\nThis editorial appeared first as an open access editorial in the WHO Bulletin in December 2016 at n/volumes/94/12/16-171488/en/.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Watch 5: A Call for Case Studies","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Submissions: 31 March 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zdljpfo","body":"The Global Health Watch is an alternative World Health Report that incorporates the voices of marginalised people and civil society into discussions around social justice and global health. The Global Health Watch aims to monitor the activities of global institutions, shift the health policy agenda to recognise the political, social and economic determinants of health, provide a forum for global civil society to question and challenge the influence of neoliberalism on health and global health policy and make recommendations for change and highlight alternatives. Global Health Watch (GHW) have identified broad areas to be covered in the 5th issue of the Watch, which is officially scheduled for release in the end of 2017. GHW are now seeking your assistance in sourcing case studies that can add value to each of these important topics. These case studies and testimonies will form part of the electronic accompaniment to the development of the Watch and in some cases may also appear in the electronic or print edition of the Watch. The case studies will amplify and give a more personal voice to the contents of the Watch. They will also make the issues more accessible and meaningful to readers who may be able to see their own experiences reflected in the experiences of others.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Guidelines on HIV self-testing and partner notification: Supplement to consolidated guidelines on HIV testing services","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: Geneva December 2016","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hiv/pub/vct/hiv-self-testing-guidelines/en/","body":"In an effort to support countries, programme managers, health workers and other stakeholders seeking to achieve national and international HIV goals, this 2016 update of the WHO guidelines issues new recommendations and additional guidance on HIV self-testing (HIVST) and assisted HIV partner notification services. The guidelines support the routine offer of voluntary assisted HIV partner notification services as part of a public health approach and provide guidance on how HIVST and assisted HIV partner notification services could be integrated into both community-based and facility-based approaches and be tailored to specific population groups. The guidelines support the introduction of HIVST as a formal intervention using quality-assured products that are approved by WHO and official local and international bodies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Health as the Pulse of the New Urban Agenda","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, 2016","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/250367/1/9789241511445-eng.pdf?ua=1","body":"For the Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, Habitat III agenda for the next 20 years of urban development to succeed, the health of the nearly four billion people who dwell in cities today must be a central concern. Decisions related to urban planning and governance can create or exacerbate major health risks \u2013 or they can foster healthier environments and lifestyles, that in turn reduce the risks of both communicable and noncommunicable diseases. The New Urban Agenda adopted at Habitat III, clarifies that health is not only about the provision of health care services, recognising that the shape and form of urban development influences the health of city residents. Those who design, plan, build and govern cities exercise great influence over the basic ingredients of a healthy life, including access to decent housing, clean air and water, nutritious food, safe transport and mobility, opportunities for physical activity, and protection from injury risks and toxic pollutants. Cities that offer these fundamentals can dramatically reduce the incidence and associated costs of a wide range of diseases \u2013 from heart disease and stroke, to vector-borne diseases and childhood illnesses \u2013 while improving health equity for those most often exposed to such risks, such as children, older people, women, people with disabilities, and the poor. Cities that offer health-enabling environments and coordinated support for healthy lifestyles can ensure that their citizenry are not only healthier and happier, but more economically productive, with far lower costs to both families and societies due to work-related illnesses and injuries. This paper clarifies these and other critically important connections between health and urban policies. It also provides a detailed vision for integrating health into urban planning and governance, and offers practical guidance on health-promoting approaches for those tasked with implementing the New Urban Agenda in the years to come.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"How can health systems research reach the worst-off? A conceptual exploration","field_subtitle":"Pratt B; Hyder A: BMC Health Services Research 16(1868), 2016 ","field_url":"http://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-016-1868-6","body":"Health systems research is increasingly being conducted in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Such research should aim to reduce health disparities between and within countries as a matter of global justice. For such research to do so, ethical guidance that is consistent with egalitarian theories of social justice proposes it ought to (amongst other things) focus on worst-off countries and research populations. Yet who constitutes the worst-off is not well-defined. By applying existing work on disadvantage from political philosophy, the paper demonstrates that (at least) two options exist for how to define the worst-off upon whom equity-oriented health systems research should focus: those who are worst-off in terms of health or those who are systematically disadvantaged. The paper describes in detail how both concepts can be understood and what metrics can be relied upon to identify worst-off countries and research populations at the sub-national level (groups, communities), considering real-world cases of health systems research in Uganda and India in 2011. It is recommended that health researchers (or other actors) should use the concept that best reflects their moral commitments\u2014namely, to perform research focused on reducing health inequalities or systematic disadvantage more broadly. If addressing the latter, it is recommended that they rely on the multidimensional poverty approach rather than the income approach to identify worst-off populations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"How do community health committees contribute to capacity building for maternal and child health? A realist evaluation protocol","field_subtitle":"Gilmore B; McAuliffe E; Larkan F; Conteh M; Dunne N; Gaudrault M; Mollel H; Tumwesigye N; Valli\u00e8res F: BMJ Open 6(11), 2016","field_url":"http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/11/e011885.full","body":"This study aims to identify key context features and underlying mechanisms through which community health committees build community capacity within the field of maternal and child health. Since such groups typically operate within or as components of complex health interventions, they require a systems thinking approach and design, and thus so too does their evaluation. Using a mixed methods realist evaluation with intraprogramme case studies, this protocol details a proposed study on community health committees in rural Tanzania and Uganda to better understand underlying mechanisms through which these groups work (or do not) to build community capacity for maternal and child health. It follows the realist evaluation methodology of eliciting initial programme theories to inform the field study design. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving priority setting practices in Kenya's hospitals: Recommendations for county decision-makers and hospital managers","field_subtitle":"Barasa E; English M: Kemri Wellcome Trust, Kenya, 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hv89e3l","body":"KEMRI-Wellcome Trust has conducted research to understand how county hospitals in Coastal Kenya set priorities and allocate resources between services. Data was collected in 2012 and 2013. This brief presents the key findings from the research, showing how hospital managers set priorities and the reasons behind their decisions. Even though the study was conducted pre-devolution, findings remain relevant post-devolution, especially in counties where hospitals still enjoy financial autonomy and as they plan ways to structure hospital financing and priority setting. The brief provides recommendations for county departments of health to improve hospital financing and budgeting, and for hospital managers to improve priority setting and ensure a fair allocation of resources between services. Key messages from the report included that hospitals lack explicit processes for setting healthcare priorities; this provides room for the use of inappropriate priority setting criteria such as lobbying and favouritism. Evidence is not used in decision- making.  Hospitals are severely under-resourced and depend on user fee revenues. This has turned hospitals into revenue-maximisers whereby managers prioritise services that generate revenue through user-fees and overlook services with limited moneymaking potential, including those for young children and disabled people.  Many key stakeholders including middle level managers, clinicians and community members, are not included in priority setting processes. It is important for hospital managers to institute clearly defined procedures and ensure that priority setting is inclusive.  Hospital managers are often clinicians with limited training and skills in management and leadership. Many did not choose to become leaders. Educational institutions and county departments of health both have a role to play in strengthening management and leadership capacity, as well as incentivising hospital managers. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Innov8 approach for reviewing national health programmes: Promoting Health Through Life Course","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: Geneva 2016","field_url":"http://www.who.int/life-course/partners/innov8/en/","body":"The Innov8 approach is a resource that supports the operationalisation of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) commitment to \u201cleave no one behind\u201d. Innov8 is an 8-step analytic process undertaken by a multidisciplinary review team. It results in recommendations to improve programme performance through concrete action to address health inequities, support gender equality and the progressive realisation of universal health coverage and the right to health, and address critical social determinants of health. The Innov8 Technical Handbook is a user-friendly resource that includes background readings, country examples and analytical activities to support a programmatic review process. The Technical Handbook will be complemented by the release of a wider set of materials currently under development by WHO as part of the Innov8 resource package.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Is social cohesion relevant to a city in the global South? ","field_subtitle":"Barolsky V: SA Crime Quarterly 55, 2016, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2413-3108/2016/v0n55a753 ","field_url":"http://journals.assaf.org.za/sacq/article/view/753/967","body":"The concept of social cohesion is increasingly being used in local and international policy discourse and scholarship. The idea of collective efficacy, defined as \u2018social cohesion among neighbours combined with their willingness to intervene on behalf of the common good\u2019, has been posited as having an important protective effect against violence. This article investigates the relevance of international framings of social cohesion and collective efficacy, - largely conceptualised and tested in the global North - to the conditions of social life and violence prevention in a city in the global South. These circumstances are interrogated through an ethnographic study conducted in Khayelitsha township in the Western Cape, where a major internationally funded and conceptualised violence prevention intervention, Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading (VPUU), has been implemented. The ethnographic material contests some of the key assumptions in international discourses on social cohesion and the manner in which social cohesion has been interpreted and effected in the violence prevention initiatives of the VPUU. Khayelitsha communitarian world views support forms of mutual sociality that are underpinned by a philosophy of ubuntu in which personhood is achieved through social relations rather than through individual empowerment. However, these communitarian networks and \u2018ways of life\u2019 are argued to be under social and structural strain and can be conduits not only for reciprocity, but also for violence. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Male circumcision in Uganda will only improve if local beliefs are considered","field_subtitle":"Mbonye M; Seeley J; Kuteesa M: The Conversation, 4 December 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zz69ypq","body":"For the past 10 years voluntary medical male circumcision has been recommended as a way of reducing female-to-male transmission of HIV. Estimates show that it could reduce infections by 60%. Several sub-Saharan African countries with high rates of HIV prevalence but low rates of male circumcision have rolled out the procedure as part of their HIV prevention initiatives. Since 2007 more than 9 million circumcisions have been performed in eastern and southern Africa. But to cover more than 80% of men on the continent by 2025, about 20 million more men need to be circumcised. If this happens about 3.4 million new HIV infections could be averted, reducing the number of people who would need HIV treatment and care. While circumcision has been encouraged there are many places where it has faced challenges. This is linked to misconceptions about the purpose of circumcision as well as religious and cultural concerns which prevent men from getting circumcised. Uganda is argued in this article to be a case in point. By the end of 2015 the country\u2019s health ministry aimed to circumcise 80% \u2013 or 4.2 million \u2013 men aged between 15 and 49. But between 2008 to 2013 the country only managed to circumcise 50% of this population. Most of these were young boys. This research found that religious and cultural beliefs compete with the messages about the purpose of circumcision. The authors found that this got in the way of men deciding whether or not to be circumcised medically and also affected the way they behaved afterwards. When medical circumcision is introduced in settings where there are high rates of HIV, the authors argue that it must take into account local beliefs about circumcision and local religious and social group leaders and women must be involved in the roll-out.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Many Voices Make a City","field_subtitle":"Collaborative Media Advocacy Platform, Port Harcourt, 2016","field_url":"http://www.cmapping.net/many-voices-make-a-city-market-woman-2/","body":"Many Voices Make a City is a series of mini-dramas written, performed and produced by Chicoco Radio trainees, each explores an aspect of participatory urban design. This episode features a starchitect, a celebrity engineer and feisty market woman who knows what she wants. For those who need a little help with Pidgin English, this version is subtitled. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Marketing of breast-milk substitutes: national implementation of the international code: status report 2016","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: WHO Geneva, 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/z7rofpj","body":"This report provides updated information on the status of implementing the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and subsequent relevant World Health Assembly resolutions (\u201cthe Code\u201d) in and by countries. It presents the legal status of the Code, including - where such information is available - to what extent Code provisions have been incorporated in national legal measures. The report also provides information on the efforts made by countries to monitor and enforce the Code through the establishment of formal mechanisms. Its findings and subsequent recommendations aim to improve the understanding of how countries are implementing the Code, what challenges they face in doing so, and where the focus must be on further efforts to assist them in more effective Code implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory Urban Planning Toolkit Based On The Kitale Experience: A guide to Community-Based Action Planning for Effective Infrastructure and Services Delivery","field_subtitle":"Okello M; Oenga I; Chege P: Practical Action, 2005","field_url":"https://practicalaction.org/docs/ia3/participatory-urban-planning-toolkit-kitale.pdf","body":"Whilst the peoples\u2019 right to participate in making decisions that affect them, many governments and development agencies still apply top- down development paradigms. This toolkit's strength is the fact that it has been developed based on empirical project work undertaken in Kitale, a secondary town in Kenya. It is targeted at social workers, planners, development workers, community groups and development agencies operating at the micro-level through existing government structures, in this case the local authority. As a tool, it is intended to mobilise and create synergy with local residents, local development institutions and development agency workers; and demonstrate how locally available resources and experiences may be harnessed in order to improve access to basic infrastructure and services for improved urban livelihoods. The toolkit has been divided into three parts; the first part looks at the philosophical foundation, origin, development and strengths of participatory planning methodologies globally, regionally and locally; the second part looks at the processes that are mandatory in any given participatory planning exercise; while the third gives an empirical and step wise account of the Kitale projects implementation processes; key milestones, challenges faced, innovations and/or best practices, and lessons learnt. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Pearls of wisdom for the young health systems researchers","field_subtitle":"Khalid F: International Health Policies, 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jjovh3m","body":"Faraz Khalid, a 2016 Emerging Voice for Global Health, a PhD candidate at Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, USA, and a health financing consultant with the Prime Minister National Health Insurance Program, Pakistan, shares quotes from senior researchers gathered at meetings and conferences attended throughout the year, including the Emerging Voices in Global Health 2016 training program preceding the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research 2016 in Vancouver. These include Gorik Ooms, Professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) who notes \u201cIf one accepts that health is a human right, one can only assess the present situation of global health (and its enormous inequalities) as a massive and continued human rights violation. Young (and older) health systems researchers must find a middle ground between assuming that states will continue to behave more or less as they currently are (which leaves little room for improvement), or assuming that states will live up to their domestic and international responsibilities (which seems unlikely to happen). In this uncomfortable position, it is important to be aware that whatever solutions we recommend, they will shape the future, one way or the other.\u201d ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Picture a Poverty Free City, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mtwapa Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme, 2015","field_url":"https://vimeo.com/116674116","body":"What would a city free from poverty really look like for urban youth in Tanzania? Dr Nicola Banks, ESRC Future Research Leader, in this video presented information from local research on young people\u2019s vision for a poverty-free city in Tanzania.  The video reports evidence from participatory discussion with youth. Urban youth make up a huge proportion of city populations- and the video highlights the economic and social opportunities Tanzanian youth raised in their discussions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Predictors of nurses\u2019 and midwives\u2019 intentions to provide maternal and child healthcare services to adolescents in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Jonas K; Reddy P; van den Borne B; Sewpaul R; Nyembezi A; Naidoo P; Crutzen R: BMC Health Services Research 16(658) 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/gtwsd3e","body":"This study was conducted to gain an understanding of nurses\u2019 and midwives\u2019 intentions to provide maternal and child healthcare and family planning services to adolescents in South Africa. A total of 190 nurses and midwives completed a cross-sectional survey. The survey included components on demographics, knowledge of maternal and child healthcare (MCH) and family planning (FP) services, attitude towards family planning services, subjective norms regarding maternal and child healthcare and family planning services, self-efficacy with maternal and child healthcare and family planning services, and intentions to provide maternal and child healthcare and family planning services to adolescents. Self-efficacy to conduct MCH and FP services and years of experience as a nurse- midwife were associated with stronger intentions to provide the services. Self-efficacy had a strong and positive association with the intentions to provide both MCH and FP services, while there is a moderate association with attitude and norms. The authors argue that there is a need to improve and strengthen nurses\u2019 and midwives\u2019 self-efficacy in conducting both MCH and FP services in order to improve the quality and utilisation of the services by adolescents in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Psychosocial risk and protective factors associated with perpetration of gender-based violence in a community sample of men in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Mngoma N; Fergus S; Jeeves A; Jolly R: South African Medical Journal 106(12) 2016","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/11600/7748","body":"Rates of gender-based violence (GBV) in South Africa (SA) are among the highest in the world. In societies where social ideals of masculinity encourage male dominance and control over women, gender power imbalances contribute to male perpetration and women\u2019s vulnerability. The drivers that cause men to perpetrate GBV and those that lead to HIV overlap and interact in multiple and complex ways. Multiple risk and protective factors for GBV perpetration by males operate interdependently at a number of levels; at the individual level, these include chronic anxiety and depression, which have been shown to lead to risky sexual behaviours. This study examined psychosocial risk factors (symptoms of anxiety and depression) as well as protective factors (social support and self-esteem) as self-reported by a cohort of males in rural KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Province, SA; and to determine whether there are differences in anxiety, depression, social support and self-esteem between perpetrators and non-perpetrators. The participants were relatively young (median age 22 years); over half were school goers, and 91% had never married. Over 43% of the sample reported clinical levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Rates of GBV perpetration were 61%, 24% and 10% for psychological abuse, non-sexual physical violence and sexual violence, respectively. GBV perpetration was associated with higher depression, higher anxiety, lower self-esteem and lower social support.  Interventions to address GBV need to take modifiable individual-level factors into account. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Scoping review: national monitoring frameworks for social determinants of health and health equity","field_subtitle":"Pedraza L; Pamponet M; Walker R; Costa F; Rasella D: Global Health Action 9(10.3402), 2016","field_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4744868/","body":"The strategic importance of monitoring social determinants of health (SDH) and health equity and inequity has been a central focus in global discussions. This study aims to define a framework for monitoring SDH and health equity. This review provides a global summary and analysis of the domains and indicators that have been used in recent studies covering the SDH. It describes the range of international and national studies and the types of indicators most frequently used; reports how they are used in causal explanation of the SDH; and identifies key priorities and challenges reported in current research for national monitoring of the SDH. The authors conducted a scoping review of published SDH studies in PubMed 2004-2014 to obtain evidence of socio-economic indicators. The final sample consisted of 96 articles. SDH monitoring is well reported in the scientific literature independent of the economic level of the country and magnitude of deprivation in population groups. The research methods were mostly quantitative and many papers used multilevel and multivariable statistical analyses and indexes to measure health inequalities and SDH. In addition to the usual economic indicators, a high number of socio-economic indicators were used. The indicators covered a broad range of social dimensions, which were given consideration within and across different social groups. The authors identified a need to make indicators more wide-ranging in order to include a broader range of social conditions, and for WHO to provide intersectoral and interdisciplinary means of building a more comprehensive standardised approach to monitoring the SDH and improving equity in health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Setting healthcare priorities: a description and evaluation of the budgeting and planning process in county hospitals in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Barasa E; Cleary S; Molyneux S; English M: Health Policy and Planning, 2016, doi: 10.1093/heapol/czw132","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zqthaap","body":"This paper describes and evaluates the budgeting and planning processes in public hospitals in Kenya. The authors used a qualitative case study approach to examine these processes in two hospitals in Kenya and collected data by in-depth interviews of national level policy makers, hospital managers, and frontline practitioners in the case study hospitals (n\u2009=\u200972), by a review of documents, and non-participant observations within the hospitals over a 7 month period. The budgeting and planning process in the case study hospitals was characterized by lack of alignment, inadequate role clarity and the use of informal priority-setting criteria. The hospitals incorporated economic criteria by considering the affordability of alternatives, but rarely considered the equity of allocative decisions. In the first hospital, stakeholders were aware of - and somewhat satisfied with - the budgeting and planning process, while in the second hospital they were not. Decision making in both hospitals did not result in reallocation of resources. With regard to procedures, the budgeting and planning process in the first hospital was more inclusive and transparent, with the stakeholders more empowered compared to the second hospital. In both hospitals, decisions were not based on evidence, implementation of decisions was poor and the community was not included. There were no mechanisms for appeals or to ensure that the procedures were met in both hospitals. Public hospitals in Kenya could improve their budgeting and planning processes by harmonising these processes, improving role clarity, using explicit priority-setting criteria, and by incorporating both consequences (efficiency, equity, stakeholder satisfaction and understanding, shifted priorities, implementation of decisions), and procedures (stakeholder engagement and empowerment, transparency, use of evidence, revisions, enforcement, and incorporating community values).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexuality, Poverty and Politics in Rwanda","field_subtitle":"Haste P; Gatete K: Institute of Development Studies, Evidence Report No 131, 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jrkc62h","body":"Recent legislative developments in Africa have focused international attention on the legal status of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in the continent. Attempts by various African governments to revise or introduce new legislation on same-sex sexual conduct and marriage, and the response of the international community, has sparked extensive coverage of the associated political, social and cultural controversies. Away from the headlines are several African countries that have never criminalised same- sex sexual conduct and that are outliers to the apparent \u2018trend\u2019 of discriminatory legislation in the continent. One of these is Rwanda. Compared with the situation in neighbouring countries, state-sponsored homophobia appears negligible in Rwanda, and violent attacks are minimal. In the international arena, Rwanda has emerged as an unlikely champion for LGBT rights, and domestically has designated sexual orientation as a \u2018private matter\u2019. This study explores Rwanda\u2019s relatively progressive position on LGBT-related issues and its implications for Rwandan civil society. It examines the strategies employed by national as well as international actors to advance LGBT rights and to address social and economic marginalisation. The study questions assumptions about the uniformity of the \u2018African experience\u2019 and seeks to enhance understanding of the nuance and diversity that exists both within and between countries on the continent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Skills building on methods and tools for learning from action in participatory action research: Building action learning within affected actors and communities","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Flores W; Amaya A; London L; Koffa Kun K: Report of the workshop at the Global Symposium for Health Systems Research, November 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/j5ved9c","body":"This three hour participatory skills session discussed methods/ tools to build learning from action  as a key element of participatory action research (PAR) and briefly the implications for what this means for an understanding of \u2018resilience\u2019 in health systems.  It was held as a satellite session at the 2016 Global Symposium on Health Systems Research. The session drew on approaches and experience from Africa, Latin America and participants globally to discuss the methods/tools, their application and their integration in health systems. It integrated input from two rounds of moderated discussion on these questions held on the pra4equity list prior to the Global Symposium. The EQUINET,TARSC, AHPSR, WHO, IDRC  Methods Reader on PAR was also distributed. The session was attended by 62 delegates from all regions of the world. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Social cohesion: The missing link in overcoming violence and inequality?","field_subtitle":"University of Western Cape: HumanSciencesRCSA, South Africa, 2016","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX5sFeRg9Ic","body":"The study reported in this video sought to understand the role of strong social cohesion in the cities of Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro, both of which suffer from high levels of inequality, poverty, and violence. In response, local governments and non-governmental organisations in both cities have tried to counteract these phenomena through a variety of strategies, programs, and projects. This work explored the role played by social cohesion in the cycle of inequality, poverty, and violence, noting that social cohesion can act as one of a number of violence-prevention factors.  The project provides theoretical, methodological, and practical insights, which contribute to better public policies in the domain of poverty and violence reduction, replicable in other regions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Socioeconomic and modifiable predictors of blood pressure control for hypertension in primary care attenders in the Western Cape, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Folb N; Bachmann M; Bateman E; et al: South African Medical Journal 106(12), 2016","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/11603/7751","body":"This study investigated associations between patients\u2019 socioeconomic status and characteristics of primary healthcare facilities, and control and treatment of blood pressure in hypertensive patients in South Africa. The authors enrolled hypertensive patients attending 38 public sector primary care clinics in the Western Cape, SA, in 2011, and followed them up 14 months later as part of a randomised controlled trial. Blood pressure was measured and prescriptions for anti-hypertension medications were recorded at baseline and follow-up. Logistic regression models assessed associations between patients\u2019 socioeconomic status, characteristics of primary healthcare facilities, and control and treatment of blood pressure. Blood pressure was uncontrolled in 60% of patients at baseline, which was less likely in patients with a higher level of education and in English compared with Afrikaans respondents. Treatment was intensified in 48% of patients with uncontrolled blood pressure at baseline, which was more likely in patients with higher blood pressure at baseline, concurrent diabetes, more education, and those who attended clinics offering off-site drug supply, with a doctor every day, or with more nurses. Patient and clinic factors influence blood pressure control and treatment in primary care clinics in SA. Potential modifiable factors include ensuring effective communication of health messages, providing convenient access to medications, and addressing staff shortages in primary care clinics. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s \u2018exceptional\u2019 progress against HIV \u2013 surveys","field_subtitle":"Medical Brief, Online African Medical Media digest, December 2016","field_url":"http://www.medicalbrief.co.za/archives/sub-saharan-africas-exceptional-progress-hiv-surveys/","body":"National surveys in Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia reveal exceptional progress against HIV, with decreasing rates of new infection, stable numbers of people living with HIV, and more than half of all those living with HIV showing viral suppression through use of antiretroviral medication. For those on antiretroviral medication, viral suppression is close to 90%. These data are the first to emerge from the Population HIV Impact Assessment (PHIA) Project, a multi-country initiative funded by the US President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The project deploys household surveys, which measure the reach and impact of HIV prevention, care and treatment programs in select countries. Importantly, the data positively demonstrate that the 90-90-90 global targets set forth by UNAIDS in 2014 are attainable, even in some of the poorest countries in the world. The data show that once diagnosed, individuals are accessing treatment, staying on treatment, and their viral load levels are suppressed to levels that maintain their health and dramatically decrease transmission to others. In Zimbabwe, among adults ages 15 to 64, HIV incidence is 0.45%; HIV prevalence is 14.6% (16.7% among females and 12.4% among males); 60.4% of all HIV-positive people are virally suppressed, and 86% of those on treatment are virally suppressed. In Malawi, among adults ages 15 to 64, HIV incidence is 0.37%; HIV prevalence is 10.6% (12.8% among females and 8.2% among males); 67.6% of all HIV-positive people are virally suppressed, and 91% of those on treatment are virally suppressed. In Zambia, among adults ages 15 to 59 years, HIV incidence is 0.66%; HIV prevalence is 12.3% (14.9% among females and 9.5% among males); 59.8% of all HIV-positive people are virally suppressed, and 89% of those on treatment are virally suppressed. The results from the first three PHIA surveys compel the global community to strengthen its efforts to reach those who have yet to receive an HIV test and to engage, support, and enable those who test HIV-positive to start and stay on effective treatment in order to achieve long-term viral suppression.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Synergies, strengths and challenges: findings on community capability from a systematic health systems research literature review","field_subtitle":"George A; Scott K; Mehra V; Sriram V: BMC Health Services Research 2016 16(Suppl 7) 2016","field_url":"http://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-016-1860-1","body":"Community capability is the combined influence of a community\u2019s social systems and collective resources that can address community problems and broaden community opportunities. The authors frame it as consisting of three domains that together support community empowerment: what communities have; how communities act; and for whom communities act. The authors sought to further understand these domains through a secondary analysis of a previous systematic review on community participation in health systems interventions in low and middle income countries (LMICs). The authors searched for journal articles published between 2000 and 2012 related to the concepts of \u201ccommunity\u201d, \u201ccapability/participation\u201d, \u201chealth systems research\u201d and \u201cLMIC.\u201d They identified 64 with rich accounts of community participation involving service delivery and governance in health systems research for thematic analysis following the three domains framing community capability. When considering what communities have, articles reported external linkages as the most frequently gained resource, especially when partnerships resulted in more community power over the intervention. In contrast, financial assets were the least mentioned, despite their importance for sustainability. With how communities act, articles discussed challenges of ensuring inclusive participation and detailed strategies to improve inclusiveness. Very little was reported about strengthening community cohesiveness and collective efficacy despite their importance in community initiatives. When reviewing for whom communities act, the importance of strong local leadership was mentioned frequently, while conflict resolution strategies and skills were rarely discussed. Synergies were found across these elements of community capability, with tangible success in one area leading to positive changes in another. Access to information and opportunities to develop skills were crucial to community participation, critical thinking, problem solving and ownership. Although there are many quantitative scales measuring community capability, health systems research engaged with community participation has rarely made use of these tools or the concepts informing them. Overall, the amount of information related to elements of community capability reported by these articles was low and often of poor quality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Paradox of a Global Urban Agenda Led by Nations, Not Cities","field_subtitle":"Poon L: The Atlantic CityLab, 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/h8sze42","body":"The author claims that the battle for global sustainability will be won or lost in cities. Yet the UN\u2019s Habitat III conference was argued in a 10-point manifesto that resulted from a convening of the Second World Assembly of Local and Regional Governments to miss the voices of the individuals and groups who actually run those cities. Mayors and other leaders from more than 500 cities formed a collective voice calling for \u201cA Seat at the Global Table.\u201d Their manifesto lays out why local governments need to be integrated into international talks traditionally reserved for national policymakers. With support from key figures such as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the assembly pushed for a \u201cparadigm shift in global governance\u201d that would give local leaders more say in what strategies to implement and how. sign and adopt it. The UCLG named Parks Tau, the former mayor of Johannesburg, as their new head.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The Slum Dwellers","field_subtitle":"Skoll Foundation, November 2016","field_url":"https://vimeo.com/191067281","body":"Jockin Arputham from the Indian slums came up with an idea to organise marginalised communities in slums to improve conditions for themselves, in the form of a Slum Dwellers union. This organisation now exists in over 30 countries: This video describes how it works in Kenya.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The South African Health Review\u2019s Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award (EPHPA) 2017","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 28 February 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zmeuast","body":"The South African Health Review\u2019s Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award (EPHPA) is open to young public health practitioners or student researchers in the fields health sciences, medicine or public health who are currently studying for their Masters or Honours degree, or are in the final year of their Bachelor\u2019s degree. Individuals seeking to publish a paper dealing with public health policy development or implementation in a respected and widely read South African peer-reviewed journal are encouraged to apply. The South African Health Review\u2019s Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award is offered to South African citizens or permanent residents who are under the age of 35 on 28 February 2017. The applicant must be first author on the paper. Any other authors may only be cited in a supervisory capacity. To apply, submit a complete chapter along with a copy of your ID and EPHPA Entry form. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards the Human City","field_subtitle":"Collaborative Media Advocacy Platform: Port Harcourt, Nigeria","field_url":"http://www.cmapping.net/the-human-city-project","body":"The Human City Project is a community-driven media, architecture, urban planning and human rights movement in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. It is a collaboration between local and international community organisers, filmmakers, broadcasters, urban planners, architects, designers, university researchers and ordinary people from across Port Harcourt\u2019s informal settlements. Those involved share skills and technologies for communities to record their experiences, tell their stories and change their lives. They are moved by the conviction that democratic design principles can make cities more creative and just. Based on community mapping of needs and priorities, a community radio station was started \u2013 Chicoco Radio \u2013 formally owned by Chicoco Community Media Initiative, an incorporated board of trustees drawn from communities across the city.  With a campaign of 'the people live here' communities in the informal settlements in Port Harcourt have resisted eviction, and are carrying out activities to map and make visible their conditions and needs, develop their voice and capacity to participate meaningfully in the shaping of their city, including to change the way the city is imagined and inhabited on principles of social justice and equity. With the means to tell their stories on film, on air and in court, charting their reality on maps and describing their visions in urban action plans, these communities are changing their lives and shaping their city.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in Between-Country Health Equity in Sub-Saharan Africa from 1990 to 2011: Improvement, Convergence and Reversal","field_subtitle":"Jin J; Liang D; Shi L; Huang J: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 13(6), 620; 2016","field_url":"http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/6/620/htm","body":"It is not clear whether between-country health inequity in Sub-Saharan Africa has been reduced over time due to economic development and increased foreign investments. The authors used the World Health Organization\u2019s data about 46 nations in Sub-Saharan Africa to test if under-5 mortality rate (U5MR) and life expectancy (LE) converged or diverged from 1990 to 2011. The authors explored whether the standard deviation of selected health indicators decreased over time (i.e., sigma convergence), and whether the less developed countries moved toward the average level in the group (i.e., beta convergence). The variation of U5MR between countries became smaller from 1990 to 2001. Yet this trend did not continue after 2002. Life expectancy in Africa from 1990\u20132011 demonstrated a consistent convergence trend, even after controlling for initial differences of country-level factors. The lack of consistent convergence in U5MR partially resulted from the fact that countries with higher U5MR in 1990 eventually performed better than those countries with lower U5MRs in 1990, constituting a reversal in between-country health inequity. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Unearthing exclusions: Towards more inclusive Zimbabwean cities","field_subtitle":"Institute of Environmental Studies, University of Zimbabwe, Kadoma Research Report: 2013","field_url":"http://www.searcwl.ac.zw/downloads/Unearthing-exclusions-kadoma.pdf","body":"The Zimbabwean study on safe and inclusive cities seeks to research on manifestations of urban violence, poverty exclusion and inequalities informed by the following underlying research questions: Can the State in terms of both its direct and indirect actions, be implicated in promoting urban violence when its role in addressing issues of urban poverty, inequality and exclusion is examined? Has the state embraced laws and policies founded on continuities of inequalities, rather than a focus on structural change in framing state urban policy in townships, in a manner which does not address those factors that link poverty, inequality and exclusion to urban violence? At municipal level, have laws and policies consolidated rather than shifted gender inequalities in urban townships, thereby continuing to contribute to women\u2019s vulnerability to urban poverty, inequality, exclusion and urban violence? Have communities participated in addressing these problems? The research into context and lived realities took place in Kadoma, Zimbabwe, drawing on the services of 38 masters in women\u2019s law research students who worked in six groups in four broad thematic areas: poverty families and employment, urban environmental health issues, security challenges in Kadoma especially for women girls and access to courts and access to justice. The Women\u2019s law approach assessed the gap between what laws such as Legal Aid Act; Maintenance Act, Administration of Estates Act and Domestic Violence Act against women\u2019s lived experiences and impact of such laws on issues of equality, exclusion and poverty related issues.  The human rights approach sought to understand the role of the state in practice against human rights standards as provided in selected human rights instruments on matters such as social and economic rights particularly relating to matters such as the right to housing, the right to work; the right to health; the right to food and equality before the law and fair representation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Unlocking community capabilities for improving maternal and newborn health: participatory action research to improve birth preparedness, health facility access, and newborn care in rural Uganda","field_subtitle":"Ekirapa-Kiracho E; Namazzi G; Tetui M; et al: BMC Health Services Research 16(Suppl 7) 2016","field_url":"http://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-016-1864-x","body":"This paper reflects on gains, challenges and lessons learnt from working with communities to improve maternal and newborn health in rural Uganda. A participatory action research project was supported from 2012 to 2015 in three eastern districts. This project involved working with households, saving groups, sub county and district leaders, transporters and village health teams in diagnosing causes of maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity, developing action plans to address these issues, taking action and learning from action in a cyclical manner. This paper draws from project experience and documentation, as well as thematic analysis of 20 interviews with community and district stakeholders and 12 focus group discussions with women who had recently delivered and men whose wives had recently delivered. Women and men reported increased awareness about birth preparedness, improved newborn care practices and more male involvement in maternal and newborn health. However, additional direct communication strategies were required to reach more men beyond the minority who attended community dialogues and home visits. Saving groups and other saving modalities were strengthened, with money saved used to meet transport costs, purchase other items needed for birth and other routine household needs. Saving groups required significant support to improve income generation, management and trust among members. Linkages between savings groups and transport providers improved women\u2019s access to health facilities at reduced cost. Although village health teams were a key resource for providing information, their efforts were constrained by low levels of education, inadequate financial compensation and transportation challenges. Ensuring that the village health teams and savings groups functioned required regular supervision, review meetings and payment for supervisors to visit. This participatory program, which focused on building the capacity of community stakeholders, was able to improve local awareness of maternal and newborn health practices and instigate local action to improve access to healthcare. Collaborative problem solving among diverse stakeholders, continuous support and a participatory approach that allowed flexibility were essential project characteristics that enabled overcoming of challenges faced.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Video: The role of private nurse training institutions in the production of nurses in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Mwita N; Ngwawe C; Okaro S: AMREF Health Africa, Kenya, 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zr3hdfa","body":"Kenya faces severe health workforce shortages, especially at the primary health care level. Currently, the density of nurses per 100,000 of the population is 103.4, far below the World Health Organisation minimum target threshold of 500 nurses per 100,000 required to provide sufficient coverage for essential interventions. RESYST research has shown that private and faith-based training institutions currently make up 30% of admissions for nursing courses in Kenya, and are increasingly being considered an important way of increasing nurse production. Students from private nursing institutions are much more likely to graduate than public sector students; of which up to 40% do not successfully complete their training. The curriculum of private institutions, however, is more limited with less focus on public health issues such as health equity and the social determinants of health. Whilst Kenya has increased capacity to train nurses in recent years, severe blockages remain in the system, including in nurses\u2019 employment prospects upon graduation. This video is based on research carried out as part of the RESYST health workforce theme, which looks at the role of the private sector in addressing human resource constraints in Kenya.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cLike we don\u2019t have enough on our hands already!\u201d: the story of the Kenyan slum youth federation","field_subtitle":"Makau J: Environment & Urbanization 23(1) 203\u2013206, 2011 ","field_url":"http://knowyourcity.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/EU2011231Makau2.pdf","body":"Slum dweller federations, like many other social movements, cater for the youth in their constituencies. This is critical to their relevance as agents of change and contributes to the sustainability of the movements. This story is a case study of the youth federation that is aligned to Kenya\u2019s slum dwellers federation.  At the slum level, the youth had organized themselves into junior councils that discussed various issues, like how to gain access to football pitches in neighbouring schools. When the annual Youth Council elections came around that year, for the first time slum youth showed up in great numbers and elected their own for all the posts, including junior mayor.   From its beginnings in a couple of slums, the movement spread to slums in four of the city\u2019s eight divisions, and the youth called it \u201cMwamko wa Vijana\u201d (\u201cYouth Awakening\u201d). Three years after it was initiated, a range of activities are underway: a football team, acrobatic and dance troupes, a study group, and a waste collection business. They note: \u201cWe share issues in common that we can federate around \u2013 education, recreation, income generation and mentoring.\u201d The prospect of renewing the youth federation every year is a daunting task but each year new youth come in that are charged up and compelling in their aspirations, so that there is little choice but to do it again.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research Essay Competition","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: 31 January 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zdg96ho","body":"The Alliance for Health Policy Systems Research (AHPSR) is pleased to announce its first ever essay competition on the future of health policy and systems research. The winning paper will be published as a background paper for a high level conference on \u201cHealth Policy and Systems Research: 20 years on\u201d that will take place in Stockholm Sweden, in April 2017. In addition, a cash prize of USD $7,500 will be awarded to the authors of the winning paper. Prizes of USD $2,500 and USD $1,000 will be awarded to the authors of the 2nd and 3rd place papers. Much has changed in the 20 years since the WHO Ad-Hoc Committee on Health Research highlighted the need to strengthen Health Policy and Systems Research which was followed by an international consultation in Lejondal, Sweden in 1997 that led to the establishment of the AHPSR. Today as the world transitions from the MDGs to the SDGs, and in light of recent crises resulting from outbreaks, disasters, and conflicts, the need for health policy and systems research in ensuring resilient health systems and improving health is increasingly recognised. How the field can continue to evolve to respond to these and other needs, as well as the role that international entities can play in shaping this evolution, is the topic to be addressed by this essay. In no more than 5000 words, essays \u2013 written in English, should reflect on the role and contributions of Health Policy and Systems Research in strengthening health systems and future challenges in the context of Agenda 2030; identify strategies and innovative approaches to ensure the greater use of health policy and systems research by relevant actors and stakeholders; and explore opportunities to further strengthen the position and role of the AHPSR  in advancing the field.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"An assessment of private General Practitioners contracting for public health services delivery in O.R. Tambo District, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Hongoro C; Funani I; Chitha W; Godlimpi L: Journal of Public Health in Africa 6(2) doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4081/jphia.2015.525","field_url":"http://www.publichealthinafrica.org/index.php/jphia/article/view/525/264]","body":"Low- and middle-income countries are striving towards universal health coverage in a variety of ways. Achieving this goal requires the participation of both public and the private sector providers. The study sought to assess existing capacity for independent general practitioner contracting in primary care, the reasons for the low uptake of government national contract and the expectations of general practitioners of such contractual arrangements. This was a case study conducted in a rural district of South Africa. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. Data were collected using a general practitioner and practice profiling tool, and a structured questionnaire. A total of 42 general practitioners were interviewed and their practices profiled. Contrary to observed low uptake of the national general practitioner contract, 90% of private doctors who had not yet subscribed to it were actually interested in it. Substantial evidence indicated that private doctors had the capacity to deliver quality care to public patients. However, low uptake of national contract related mostly to lack of effective communication and consultation between them and national government which created mistrust and apprehension amongst local private doctors. Paradoxically, these general practitioners expressed satisfaction with other existing state contracts. An analysis of the national contract showed that there were likely to benefit more from it given the relatively higher payment rates and the guaranteed nature of this income. Proposed key requisites to enhanced uptake of the national contract related to the type of the contract, payment arrangements and flexibility of the work regime, and prospects for continuous training and clinical improvements. Low uptake of the national General Practitioner contract was due to variety of factors related to lack of understanding of contract details. Such misunderstandings between potential contracting parties created mistrust and apprehension, which are fundamental antitheses of any effective contractual arrangement. The authors suggest that the idea of a one-size-fits-all contract was probably inappropriate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Building the capacity of policy-makers and planners to strengthen mental health systems in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Keynejad R; Semrau M; Toynbee M; et al.: BMC Health Services Research 16(601), 2016","field_url":"https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-016-1853-0","body":"Little is known about the interventions required to build the capacity of mental health policy-makers and planners in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The authors conducted a systematic review with the primary aim of identifying and synthesising the evidence base for building the capacity of policy-makers and planners to strengthen mental health systems in LMICs. The authors searched MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, Web of Knowledge, Web of Science, Scopus, CINAHL, LILACS, ScieELO, Google Scholar and Cochrane databases for studies reporting evidence, experience or evaluation of capacity-building of policy-makers, service planners or managers in mental health system strengthening in LMICs. Reports in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French or German were included. Additional papers were identified by hand-searching references and contacting experts and key informants. Database searches yielded 2922 abstracts and 28 additional papers were identified. Following screening, 409 full papers were reviewed, of which 14 fulfilled inclusion criteria for the review. Data were extracted from all included papers and synthesised into a narrative review. Only a small number of mental health system-related capacity-building interventions for policy-makers and planners in LMICs were described. Most models of capacity-building combined brief training with longer term mentorship, dialogue and/or the establishment of networks of support. However, rigorous research and evaluation methods were largely absent, with studies being of low quality, limiting the potential to separate mental health system strengthening outcomes from the effects of associated contextual factors. This review demonstrates the need for partnership approaches to building the capacity of mental health policy-makers and planners in LMICs, assessed rigorously against pre-specified conceptual frameworks and hypotheses, utilising longitudinal evaluation and mixed quantitative and qualitative approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society petition to Kenyatta for decisive action against corruption","field_subtitle":"Kenya Civil Society: Pambuzuka News, November 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/grfszyu","body":"After a series of multi-million-dollar scandals recently unearthed in Kenya, the Auditor General\u2019s report for 2015 says only 1% of the national budget was properly accounted for. In this letter, civil society organisations (CSOs) in Kenya express deep concern and consternation for the worrying escalation of corruption scandals in Kenya in the recent past with little or no consequences for perpetrators, many of whom are reported by the author to have been heavily mentioned in a series of scandals and continue to unashamedly occupy, and therefore bring dishonour, to public office. The CSOs rebuke what they cite as the culture of impunity that continues owing to an apparent lack of political will to address corruption. They make 14 demands to the president and government including the immediate sacking of state and public officers within the Executive adversely mentioned in corruption scandals, initiating legal process of freezing of bank accounts of all those implicated in grand corruption scandals pending investigations, instantaneously stopping and recovering salaries paid illegally to officers who have been suspended or removed from public service on graft allegations","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community-Based ART Programs: Sustaining Adherence and Follow-up","field_subtitle":"Mukherjee W; Barry D; Weatherford R; Desai I; Farmer P: Current HIV/AIDS Reports 13(6) 359\u2013366, 2016","field_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5106499/","body":"The advent of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in 1996 brought with it an urgent need to develop models of health care delivery that could enable its effective and equitable delivery, especially to patients living in poverty. Community-based care, which stretches from patient homes and communities\u2014where chronic infectious diseases are often best managed\u2014to modern health centres and hospitals, offers such a model, providing access to proximate HIV care and minimising structural barriers to retention. In this paper the authors first review the recent literature on community-based ART programs in low- and low-to-middle-income country settings and document two key principles that guide effective programs: decentralisation of ART services and long-term retention of patients in care. They then discuss the evolution of the community-based programs of Partners In Health (PIH), a nongovernmental organisation committed to providing a preferential option for the poor in health care, in Haiti and several countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Russia and Kazakhstan. As one of the first organisations to treat patients with HIV in low-income settings and a pioneer of the community-based approach to ART delivery, PIH has achieved both decentralisation and retention through the application of an accompaniment model that engages community health workers in the delivery of medicines, the provision of social support and education, and the linkage between communities and clinics. The authors conclude that PIH has leveraged its HIV care delivery platforms to simultaneously strengthen health systems and address the broader burden of disease in the places in which it works.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 190: Wishing you progress towards health and justice in 2017","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"eSIP-Sa\u00fade: Mozambique\u2019s novel approach for a sustainable human resources for health information system","field_subtitle":"Waters K; Mazivila M; Dgedge M; Necochea E; Manharlal D; Zuber A; de Faria Le\u00e3o B; Bossemeyer D; Vergara A: Human Resources for Health 14(66), 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/gpa5t3f","body":"Over the past decade, governments and international partners have responded to calls for health workforce data with ambitious investments in human resources information systems (HRIS). However, documentation of country experiences in the use of HRIS to improve strategic planning and management has been lacking. This case presentation documents for the first time Mozambique\u2019s novel approach to HRIS, sharing key success factors and contributing to the scant global knowledge base on HRIS. Core components of the system are a Government of Mozambique (GOM) registry covering all workers in the GOM payroll and a \u201chealth extension\u201d which adds health-sector-specific data to the GOM registry. Separate databases for pre-service and in-service training are integrated through a business intelligence tool. The first aim of the HRIS was to identify the following: who and where are Mozambique\u2019s health workers? As of July 2015, 95 % of countrywide health workforce deployment information was populated in the HRIS, allowing the identification of health professionals\u2019 physical working location and their pay point. HRIS data are also used to quantify chronic issues affecting the Ministry of Health (MOH) health workforce. Examples include the following: HRIS information was used to examine the deployment of nurses trained in antiretroviral therapy (ART) vis-\u00e0-vis the health facilities where ART is being provided. Such results help the MOH align specialized skill sets with service provision. Twenty-five percent of the MOH health workforce had passed the 2-year probation period but had not been updated in the MOH information systems. For future monitoring of employee status, the MOH established a system of alerts in semi-monthly reports. As of August 2014, 1046 health workers were receiving their full salary but no longer working at the facilities. The MOH is now analysing this situation to improve the retirement process and coordination with Social Security. The Mozambican system is an important example of an HRIS built on a local platform with local staff. Notable models of strategic data use demonstrate that the system is empowering the MOH to improve health services delivery, health workforce allocation, and management. Combined with committed country leadership and ownership of the program, this suggests strong chances of sustainability and real impact on public health equity and quality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV vaccine test hopes for breakthrough in combat against the virus","field_subtitle":"Boseley S: The Guardian, 27 November 2016","field_url":"https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/27/hiv-vaccine-test-hvtn702-virus-aids-southafrica","body":"The first new trial of a potential vaccine against HIV in seven years has begun in South Africa, raising hopes that it will help bring about the end of the epidemic. Although fewer people are now dying from Aids because 18.2 million are on drug treatment for life to suppress the virus, efforts to prevent people from becoming infected have not been very successful. The infection rate has continued to rise and experts do not believe the epidemic will be ended without a vaccine. The vaccine being tested is a modified version of the only one to have shown a positive effect, out of many that have gone into trials. Seven years ago, the vaccine known as RV144 showed a modest benefit of about 31% in a trial in Thailand. The aspiration is to push the effectiveness up from 31% to between 50% and 60% for use in combination with other prevention tools, such as condoms, antiretroviral drugs and circumcision. According to Professor Linda-Gail Bekker, of the University of Cape Town, \u201cWe\u2019ve never treated our way out of an epidemic. There\u2019s no doubt we have to have primary prevention alongside treatment in order to get HIV control, but we are not going to get HIV eradication without a vaccine. That is very clear.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Indigenous Sengwer minority in Kenya oppose EU-funded project","field_subtitle":"Sengwer Community Leaders: Pambuzuka News, November 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zr6ytly","body":"This article outlines the Sengwer Community Leaders position that a water towers project in their area is being implemented without free, prior and informed consent of the community. As a forest community, who have been subject to part evictions, there is fear of more violations under the current project. For instance, during Natural Resources Management Project, a World Bank funded project (2007-2013), Sengwer peoples living in Kapolet and Embobut forests had some community members arrested and taken to police custody and accused of trespass while they were within their ancestral, community land. They report further than a woman was shot by KFS guards in the same Kapolet Forest. In Embobut Forest, the Sengwer write that there have been arrests and evictions (burning of houses and destruction of property). Today, they say that the Sengwer are forced to live in caves, thick inside the forest...as aliens in their own ancestral lands and territory, despite the stipulation of Art. 63 (2) (d) ii of the Constitution of Kenya. This forced some members of the community to file a complaint with the World Bank Inspection Panel which went into full investigation. The authors call on the European Union to suspend the Water Towers Protection and Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Programme with immediate effect, carry out adequate, effective and efficient free prior and informed consent (FPIC) with members of Sengwer and let the community make decision after proper understanding of the Water Towers programme. The Singer fully support conservation programmes and projects that recognise, respect, protect and promote their rights as traditional forest indigenous peoples (hunters and gatherers) to live in and own their ancestral lands and territories their community land in forest/protected area sustainably on conservation conditions working closely with state agencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequalities in full immunization coverage: trends in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Restrepo-M\u00e9ndez M; Barros A; Wong K; et al.: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 94(11) 2016,","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/11/15-162172/en/","body":"This study investigated disparities in full immunisation coverage across and within 86 low- and middle-income countries. In May 2015, using data from the most recent Demographic and Health Surveys and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, the authors investigated inequalities in full immunisation coverage \u2013 i.e. one dose of bacille Calmette-Gu\u00e9rin vaccine, one dose of measles vaccine, three doses of vaccine against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus and three doses of polio vaccine \u2013 in 86 low- or middle-income countries. The authors then investigated temporal trends in the level and inequality of such coverage in eight of the countries. In each of the World Health Organisation\u2019s regions, it appeared that about 56\u201369% of eligible children in the low- and middle-income countries had received full immunisation. However, within each region, the mean recorded level of such coverage varied greatly. In the African Region, for example, it varied from 11.4% in Chad to 90.3% in Rwanda. The authors detected pro-rich inequality in such coverage in 45 of the 83 countries for which the relevant data were available and pro-urban inequality in 35 of the 86 study countries. Among the countries in which the authors investigated coverage trends, Madagascar and Mozambique appeared to have made the greatest progress in improving levels of full immunisation coverage over the last two decades, particularly among the poorest quintiles of their populations. Most low- and middle-income countries are affected by pro-rich and pro-urban inequalities in full immunisation coverage that are not apparent when only national mean values of such coverage are reported.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrated agriculture programs to address malnutrition in northern Malawi","field_subtitle":"Kerr R; Chilanga E; Nyantakyi-Frimpong H; Luginaah I; Lupafya E: BMC Public Health 16(1197), 2016","field_url":"http://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-016-3840-0","body":"In countries where the majority of undernourished people are smallholder farmers, there has been interest in agricultural interventions to improve nutritional outcomes. Addressing gender inequality, however, is a key mechanism by which agriculture can improve nutrition, since women often play a crucial role in farming, food processing and child care, but have limited decision-making and control over agricultural resources. This study examines the approaches by which gender equity in agrarian, resource-poor settings can be improved using a case study in Malawi. A quasi-experimental design with qualitative methods was used to examine the effects of a participatory intervention on gender relations. Thirty married couple households in 19 villages with children under the age of 5 years were interviewed before and then after the intervention. An additional 7 interviews were conducted with key informants, and participant observation was carried out before, during the intervention and afterwards in the communities. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, and analysed qualitatively for key themes, concepts and contradictions. Several barriers were identified that undermine the quality of child care practices, many linked to gender constructions and norms. The dominant concepts of masculinity created shame and embarrassment if men deviated from these norms, by cooking or caring for their children. The study provided evidence that participatory education supported new masculinities through public performances that encouraged men to take on these new roles. Invoking men\u2019s family responsibilities, encouraging new social norms alongside providing new information about different healthy recipes were all pathways by which men developed new \u2018emergent\u2019 masculinities in which they were more involved in cooking and child care. The transformational approach, intergenerational and intra-gendered events, a focus on agriculture and food security, alongside involving male leaders were some of the reasons that respondents named for changed gender norms. Participatory education that explicitly addresses hegemonic masculinities related to child nutrition, such as women\u2019s roles in child care, can begin to change dominant gender norms. Involving male leaders, participatory methods and integrating agriculture and food security concerns with nutrition appear to be key components in the context of agrarian communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Interpreting the International Right to Health in a Human Rights-Based Approach to Health","field_subtitle":"Hunt P: Health and Human Rights Journal, December 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jf7p79l","body":"This article tracks the shifting place of the international right to health, and human rights-based approaches to health, in the scholarly literature and United Nations (UN). From 1993 to 1994, the focus began to move from the right to health toward human rights-based approaches to health, including human rights guidance adopted by UN agencies in relation to specific health issues. There is a compelling case for a human rights-based approach to health, but it runs the risk of playing down the right to health, as evidenced by an examination of some UN human rights guidance. The right to health has important and distinctive qualities that are not provided by other rights\u2014consequently, playing down the right to health can diminish rights-based approaches to health, as well as the right to health itself. Because general comments, the reports of UN Special Rapporteurs, and UN agencies\u2019 guidance are exercises in interpretation, the author discusses methods of legal interpretation. The author suggests that the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights permits distinctive interpretative methods within the boundaries established by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. The author calls for the right to health to be placed explicitly at the centre of a rights-based approach and interpreted in accordance with public international law and international human rights law.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Litigating the Right to Health in Africa: Challenges and Prospects","field_subtitle":"Durojaye E: Routledge, 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hc4uxlj","body":"Health rights litigation is still an emerging phenomenon in Africa, despite the constitutions of many African countries having provisions to advance the right to health. Litigation can provide a powerful tool not only to hold governments accountable for failure to realise the right to health, but also to empower the people to seek redress for the violation of this essential right. With contributions from activists and scholars across Africa, the collection includes a diverse range of case studies throughout the region, demonstrating that even in jurisdictions where the right to health has not been explicitly guaranteed, attempts have been made to litigate on this right. The collection focuses on understanding the legal framework for the recognition of the right to health, the challenges people encounter in litigating health rights issues and prospects of litigating future health rights cases in Africa. The book also takes a comparative approach to litigating the right to health before regional human rights bodies. This book will be valuable reading to scholars, researchers, policymakers, activists and students interested in the right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Making health systems research work: time to shift funding to locally-led research in the South","field_subtitle":"Hasnida A; Borst R; Johnson A; Rahmani N; van Esland S; Kok M: The Lancet Global Health, 2016, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(16)30331-X","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/h56but5","body":"In November 2016, the global health systems research community gathered in Vancouver, Canada, for the Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research. The current movement for health systems research developed out of a need to strengthen health systems in low-income and middle-income countries. More than 25 years ago, the Commission on Health Research for Development published a report that represented a pivotal change in thinking about health research for development. The main argument of the report was that research contributed little to health in low-income and middle-income countries, because it matched poorly with needs in the global South, was dominated by researchers from the North, and had a narrow biomedical focus. While health systems research has taken off in some high-income countries, progress in low-income and middle-income countries has not kept up. The 2008 Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health in Bamako, Mali, concluded with the recommendation to increase investments in health systems research and organise a global symposium specifically focused on improving health systems in low-income and middle-income countries. Since then, the field has expanded rapidly. To contribute to the debate concerning the status and future of the health systems research field, the authors assessed the research presented at the previous global symposia. They systematically analysed the 1816 abstracts that were presented at the global symposia in Beijing (2012) and Cape Town (2014) and the participant lists of the Cape Town, Beijing, and Montreux (2010) symposia. The findings present several promising developments but also highlight that research inequities persist. While the authors observe a gender balance (51% of first authors are female) and substantial contributions from countries such as India, China, and South Africa, the North-South imbalance that was described 26 years ago remains.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternity waiting homes in Namibia: Hope for the future","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation Afro: Namibia, 2015","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiUPw9h4vN8","body":"This documentary \u201cMaternity waiting homes in Namibia: Hope for the future\u201d focuses on one of the core components of PARMaCM, the importance of keeping pregnant women and young mothers safe via the construction of maternity waiting homes in Namibia. PARMaCM stands for \u201cThe Programme for Accelerating the Reduction of Maternal and Child Mortality\u201d and its objective is to accelerate the achievement of MDGs 4 and 5 of reducing child mortality and improving maternal health in Namibia. The movie is the product of concerted efforts of the Namibian TV Production Company Quiet Storm and the three PARMaCM stakeholders, the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS), the European Union (EU) and the World Health Organization (WHO). It explores why maternal health statistics are not higher given the income and service levels and how these challenges are being addressed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"MSF Southern Africa: Learning Unit Administration and Resources Officer","field_subtitle":"Closing date:  Tuesday, 10 January, 2017","field_url":"http://www.ngopulse.org/opportunity/2016/12/01/learning-unit-administration-and-resources-officer","body":"Doctors without Borders (MSF) is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation committed to two objectives: providing medical assistance to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, healthcare exclusion, natural and man-made disasters; and speaking out about the plight of the populations assisted. MSF offers assistance to people based only on need and irrespective of race, religion, gender or political affiliation. The learning activities of MSF's Southern African Medical Unit (SAMU) have substantially increased in the past 3 years as the demand for learning opportunities as increased in the many projects that SAMU supports. These activities in turn support the requirements of staff that they contribute to achieving operational objectives of MSF mission/projects. The MSF SAMU learning unit\u2019s purpose is to ensure that MSF field projects, HQs and all MSF partners have access to quality learning opportunities in HIV/TB, both programmatically and clinically. Although learning opportunities are often seen as the provision of trainings, they also include managing and making available a range of medical resources such as guidelines, reports, toolkits and journal articles. One of the most important media for this is the SAMU website. The post requires a candidate with a tertiary qualification, a Diploma in Public Relations, Office Management or similar, 5 Years work experience with two years in similar post and experience in organisation and/or coordination of meetings and trainings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Much shorter TB treatment offers hope","field_subtitle":"Green A: Health E-News, November 2016","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/2016/11/03/hope-drug-resistant-tb-shorter-treatment-success/","body":"There is hope for people living with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) as the \u201cgruelling\u201d two-year treatment with \u201cterrible side-effects\u201d such as deafness can now be successfully shortened to just nine months. A team of TB experts at the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease has announced the final results of the Francophone study which evaluated the efficacy of a shorter MDR-TB treatment regimen in nine African countries. Three quarters of people in the study were cured with the new nine-month regimen. Of the patients who successfully completed the treatment \u2013 the cure rate was almost 90 percent. Only half of patients taking the older regimen can expect to be cured even after taking drugs for over 20 months. Just completing this course, whether it cures one or not, is a feat of sheer determination, according to TB advocates speaking at the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health. The study was conducted among 1006 people with MDR-TB in Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger and Rwanda. Based on the preliminary results of this study, in May this year the World Health Organisation (WHO) officially recommended this regimen for MDR-TB patients who have not taken treatment before and who are not resistant to the drugs contained in this regimen. These final results are expected to give countries the data needed to start rolling out the regimen to all eligible patients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Orange the World: Raise Money to End Violence against Women and Girls in support of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence ","field_subtitle":"UNITE: UN Secretary General's campaign to end Violence against women, December 2016","field_url":"http://www2.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/what%20we%20do/unite-fundraising-toolkit-2016-en.pdf?v=1&d=20161012T172555","body":"This document is a resource to support resource mobilization efforts for the \u2018Orange the World: Raise Money to End Violence against Women and Girls\u2019 initiative. It provides background information on the UNiTE campaign, the 2016 campaign theme and gives tips and advice on how to make the most of your fundraising activities. All funds raised aim to support UN Women\u2019s Flagship Programmes on ending violence against women \u2013 \u201cPrevention and Essential Services,\u201d \u201cSafe Cities and Safe Public Space\u201d and the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women- that challenge harmful norms and practices to break the vicious cycle of violence and expand the provision of services and access to safety for survivors of violence to enable them to speak out and rebuild their lives. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The effects of Maternal and Child Health insurance cards on improving equity in access and use of maternal and child health care services in Tanzania: a mixed methods analysis.","field_subtitle":"Kuwawenaruwa A; Mtei G; Baraka J; Tani K: Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition 35(37), 2016","field_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5116140/","body":"Inequity in access and use of child and maternal health services is impeding progress towards reduction of maternal mortality in low-income countries. To address low usage of maternal and newborn health care services as well as financial protection of families, some countries have adopted demand-side financing. In 2010, Tanzania introduced free health insurance cards to pregnant women and their families to influence access, use, and provision of health services. However, little is known about whether the use of the maternal and child health cards improved equity in access and use of maternal and child health care services. A mixed methods approach was used in Rungwe district where maternal and child health insurance cards had been implemented. To assess equity, three categories of beneficiaries\u2019 education levels were used and were compared to that of women of reproductive age in the region from previous surveys. To explore factors influencing women\u2019s decisions on delivery site and use of the maternal and child health insurance card and attitudes towards the birth experience itself, a qualitative assessment was conducted at representative facilities at the district, ward, facility, and community level. A total of 31 in-depth interviews were conducted on women who delivered during the previous year and other key informants. Women with low educational attainment were under-represented amongst those who reported having received the maternal and child health insurance card and used it for facility delivery. Qualitative findings revealed that problems during the current pregnancy served as both a motivator and a barrier for choosing a facility-based delivery. Decision about delivery site was also influenced by having experienced or witnessed problems during previous birth delivery and by other individual, financial, and health system factors, including fines levied on women who delivered at home. To improve equity in access to facility-based delivery care using strategies such as maternal and child health insurance cards it is necessary to ensure beneficiaries and other stakeholders are well informed of the programme, as only giving women insurance cards does not guarantee their access to facility-based delivery.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Uhuru HIV List declared unconstitutional","field_subtitle":"KELIN: KELIN news, Kenya, December 7 2016","field_url":"http://www.kelinkenya.org/2016/12/uhuru-hiv-list-declared-unconstitutional/","body":"The High Court in Nairobi has on 7 December 2016 declared unconstitutional a presidential directive seeking to collect names of people living with HIV, including names of school going children among others. The court declared that the directive issued by H.E Uhuru Kenyatta on 23 February 2015 is in breach of the petitioner\u2019s constitutional rights under Articles 31 and 53(2) which safeguard the right to privacy and best interest of the child respectively. The court further declared that the actions and omissions of the respondents in relation to the directive violated fundamental rights and freedoms of the petitioners. The case was filed by KELIN, Children of God Relief Institute (Nyumbani), James Njenga Kamau and Millicent Kipsang challenging the directive in court on the grounds that it was a breach to the right to privacy and confidentiality and was likely to expose persons living with HIV to stigma and discrimination, among other human rights violations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal Health Coverage Data Portal: Supporting the Universal Health Coverage Coalition","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: Geneva, December 2016","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gho/cabinet/uhc.jsp","body":"To mark Universal Health Coverage Day, WHO launched a new data portal to track progress towards universal health coverage (UHC) around the world. The portal shows where countries need to improve access to services, and where they need to improve information. The portal features the latest data on access to health services globally and in each of WHO\u2019s 194 Member States, along with information about equity of access. In 2017, WHO will add data on the impact that paying for health services has on household finances. The portal shows that less than half of children with suspected pneumonia in low income countries are taken to an appropriate health provider. Of the estimated 10.4 million new cases of tuberculosis in 2015, 6.1 million were detected and officially notified in 2015, leaving a gap of 4.3 million. High blood pressure affects 1.13 billion people. About 44% of WHO\u2019s member states report having less than 1 physician per 1000 population. The African Region suffers almost 25% of the global burden of disease but has only 3% of the world\u2019s health workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Urgent Action Fund-Africa Communications & Knowledge Management Programme Officer","field_subtitle":"Vacancy open until filled","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jmqc65d","body":"Urgent Action Fund-Africa (UAF-Africa), registered in Nairobi, Kenya. UAF-Africa seeks a Communications & Knowledge Management Programme Officer who will translate UAF-Africa\u2019s strategic plans into effective social justice initiatives and results. Guided by feminist principles and values, the Fund advocates for gender equality, not only as a matter of human rights, but also as a fundamental prerequisite for social change, global security, and sustainable peace. In addition to her core business of Rapid Response Grant making, UAF-Africa also runs alliance building and advocacy initiatives in collaboration with other national, regional and international social justice organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Urgent Action Fund-Africa Partnerships & Development Manager","field_subtitle":"Vacancy open until filled","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zwebryw","body":"Urgent Action Fund-Africa (UAF-Africa), is a consciously feminist and women\u2019s human rights pan- African Fund, registered in Nairobi, Kenya. UAF-Africa seeks a Partnerships & Development Manager who will translate UAF-Africa\u2019s strategic plans into effective social justice initiatives and results. Guided by feminist principles and values, the Fund advocates for women\u2019s equality, not only as a matter of human rights, but also as a fundamental prerequisite for social change, global security, and sustainable peace. In addition to her core business of Rapid Response Grant making, UAF-Africa also runs alliance building and advocacy initiatives in collaboration with other social justice organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO recommends tax on sugary drinks","field_subtitle":"Cullinan K: Health E-News, October 2016","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/2016/10/14/recommends-tax-sugary-drinks/","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) in October 2016 recommended that governments should tax sugary drinks as part of the global campaign against obesity, type 2 diabetes and tooth decay. South Africa\u2019s Treasury plans to introduce a tax on sugary drinks in April 2017, while Ireland announced it would also introduce a sugary drinks tax in 2018. \u201cConsumption of free sugars, including products like sugary drinks, is a major factor in the global increase of people suffering from obesity and diabetes,\u201d said Dr Douglas Bettcher, Director of WHO\u2019s Department for the Prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). \u201cIf governments tax products like sugary drinks, they can reduce suffering and save lives. They can also cut healthcare costs and increase revenues to invest in health services.\u201d Taxes that result in a 20% increase or more in the retail price of sugary drinks would result in proportional reductions in consumption of such products, according to the WHO report, \u201cFiscal policies for Diet and Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs)\u201d. Obesity has more than doubled between 1980 and 2014. By 2014, almost 40% of adults worldwide were overweight, with 15% of women and 11% of men obese. Meanwhile, diabetes has almost quadrupled since 1980, rising from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014. In 2012, 38 million people lost their lives due to NCDs, 16 million or 42% of whom died prematurely \u2013 before 70 years \u2013 from largely avoidable conditions. More than 80% of people who died prematurely from a NCD were in developing countries. Governments have committed to reduce deaths from NCDs, and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda includes a target to reduce premature deaths from diabetes, cancers, heart, and lung diseases by one-third by 2030. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Wishing you progress towards health and justice in 2017","field_subtitle":" EQUINET steering committee","field_url":"","body":"\r\nAs usual this is a short newsletter, given the time of year. Our newsletter is now on its 190th issue and we appreciate the range of creative work reported in all the 16 years of its existence. The 245 editorials written by a range of people from community, civil society, parliament, government, technical and research institutions provide comment and reflection on a diversity of health issues and debates. The over 11000 entries in the 190 newsletters all available in a searchable database on the EQUINET website carry a wide range of ideas, experiences, evidence, analysis and voice from and on east and southern Africa. The newsletter database is a rich searchable resource of how policy and publication focus has shifted over nearly two decades and of whether writing on the region is increasingly being led from the region. \r\n\r\nWe continue to encourage you to document your work and to send us send your blogs, and links to your reports, papers, news, conference announcements, videos or other forms of  information so the newsletter can assist to share experience, evidence and learning from work on health equity in the region. As we said last year, 'Until the lions write their story, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter'. We encourage you to roar even louder in 2017! \r\n\r\nPlease send your blogs, and links to your reports, papers, news, conference announcements, videos or other forms of  information from your work on health in the region, and we will be happy to share it. \r\n\r\nWe look forward to working with you in the coming year and wish you a healthy 2017, and a thoughtful, steady and exuberant progress in our struggles for health equity. . ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"World AIDS Day: Lessons for reversing inequality","field_subtitle":"Goldring M: Oxfam UK, Global Health Check, December 2016","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/?utm_source=Global%20Health%20Check&utm_campaign=b1a3e0a194-Global%20Health%20Check%20email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_89f8d74097-b1a3e0a194-12084821","body":"On World AIDS Day 2016 Mark Goldring Oxfam UK Executive Director reflected on what we have learnt from working to address the inequality challenges of the HIV epidemic. He focuses on 4 lessons. First, that inequality kills. Millions have died because they were too poor to pay the exorbitant prices of medicines and  hospital fees. Investing in public health systems to offer free service as the point of use and in affordable medicines are essential to save lives and tackle inequality \u2013 both health and economic inequality. The second lesson is that inequality in accessing health services needs to be addressed, especially by overcoming impoverishing costs of care, with women bearing the brunt of this burden. \u0650\u0650\u0650\u0650The third less is that access to HIV treatment could not happen without securing adequate financing. The final lesson is that active citizenship \u2013 people\u2019s involvement in decision making - is at the heart of the success in the response to HIV and in applying the lessons on addressing inequality. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2017-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A victory today for Universal Health Coverage - Statement from Oxfam","field_subtitle":"Kamal-Yanni M: Global Health Check, November 2016","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/?p=1943","body":"Oxfam have announced that it is now possible to count the cost of paying for healthcare for  households around the world. A group of experts tasked with developing the indicator framework to measure progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), have agreed to measure financial risk protection of universal health coverage by \u2018\u2019proportion of the population with large household expenditures on health as a share of total household expenditure or income\u201d. This signals a great shift in from the previous dangerous indicator that would just measure population with access to health insurance or a public health system. The previous indicator was flawed because it did not measure whether or not people were actually financially protected against potentially catastrophic costs for health care. It would have also failed to measure progress across different income groups or by gender. It was also dangerous as it sent a signal to governments around the world that health insurance was the route to achieving Universal Health Coverage despite robust and scientific evidence that many voluntary health insurance schemes have exacerbated inequality. The change to the new indicator that \u2018measures what matters\u2019 was advocated for civil society organisations, academics, development agencies and statistical authorities expressed their deep concerns through letters, lobbying and public statements. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Accounting for variations in ART program sustainability outcomes in health facilities in Uganda: a comparative case study analysis","field_subtitle":"Zakumumpa H; Bennet S; Ssengooba F: BMC Health Services Research 16(584),2016","field_url":"http://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-016-1833-4","body":"Uganda implemented a national ART scale-up program at public and private health facilities between 2004 and 2009. Little is known about how and why some health facilities have sustained ART programs and why others have not sustained these interventions. This study in 2015 identified facilitators and barriers to the long-term sustainability of ART programs at six health facilities in Uganda which received donor support to commence ART between 2004 and 2009. A case-study approach was adopted. Six health facilities were purposively selected for in-depth study from a national sample of 195 health facilities across Uganda which participated in an earlier study phase. The six health facilities were placed in three categories of sustainability; High Sustainers (2), Low Sustainers (2) and Non- Sustainers (2). Semi-structured interviews with ART Clinic managers (N\u2009=\u200918) were conducted. Several distinguishing features were found between High Sustainers, and Low and Non-Sustainers\u2019 ART program characteristics. High Sustainers had larger ART programs with higher staffing and patient volumes, a broader \u2018menu\u2019 of ART services and more stable program leadership compared to the other cases. High Sustainers associated sustained ART programs with multiple funding streams, robust ART program evaluation systems and having internal and external program champions. Low and Non Sustainers reported similar barriers of shortage and attrition of ART-proficient staff, low capacity for ART program reporting, irregular and insufficient supply of ARV drugs and a lack of alignment between ART scale-up and their for-profit orientation in three of the cases. The authors found that ART program sustainability was embedded in a complex system involving dynamic interactions between internal (program champion, staffing strength, M &E systems, goal clarity) and external drivers (donors, ARVs supply chain, patient demand). ART program sustainability contexts were distinguished by the size of health facility and ownership-type. The study\u2019s implications for health systems strengthening in resource-limited countries are discussed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"African Guild of Filmmakers and the Pan African Film & Television Festival \u2018Emergence\u2019 on Screen and on Stage, February 27-28, Burkina Faso","field_subtitle":"CODESRIA: Deadline: 27th December 2016","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2672","body":"CODESRIA\u2019s Program on Humanities is organising a two day workshop on the sidelines of the bi-annual Pan-Africa Film and Television Festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in partnership with la Guilde Africaine des R\u00e9alisateurs et Producteurs on \u201c\u2018Emergence\u2019 on Screen and on Stage.\u201d It explores the idea of emergence in various forms: the spouse emerging from an abusive marriage, the student emerging from a period of scholarly mediocrity, the person emerging from a life of poverty and hardship, the community finally freeing itself from the oppressive tyrant and the poor society attaining the heights of wealth all embody the idea of the shedding of shackles to achieve better states of being. Practitioners interested in participating in the workshop are invited to send papers of 5000 words and a CV with full contact details including email addresses and phone numbers to CODESRIA no later than December 27. See website for details.\r\n\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Alliance for Health Policy & Systems Research Essay Competition","field_subtitle":"Deadline 31 January 2017","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zdg96ho","body":"The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (AHPSR) announces its first ever essay competition on the future of health policy and systems research. The winning paper will be published as a background paper for a high level conference on \u201cHealth Policy and Systems Research: 20 years on\u201d that will take place in Stockholm Sweden, in April 2017. In addition, a cash prize of USD $7,500 will be awarded to the authors of the winning paper. Prizes of USD $2,500 and USD $1,000 will be awarded to the authors of the 2nd and 3rd place papers. Much has changed in the 20 years since the WHO Ad-Hoc Committee on Health Research highlighted the need to strengthen Health Policy and Systems Research  that led to the establishment of the AHPSR. Today as the world transitions from the MDGs to the SDGs, and in light of recent crises resulting from outbreaks, disasters, and conflicts, the need for health policy and systems research is increasingly recognised. The AHPSR invites essays on how the field can continue to evolve to respond to these and other needs, as well as the role that international entities can play in shaping this evolution. Essays should be no more than 5000 words, essays and written in English. They should reflect on the role and contributions of Health Policy and Systems Research in strengthening health systems and future challenges in the context of Agenda 2030; identify strategies and innovative approaches to ensure the greater use of health policy and systems research by relevant actors and stakeholders; and explore opportunities to further strengthen the position and role of the AHPSR in advancing the field.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Area-based units of analysis for strengthening health inequality monitoring","field_subtitle":"Hosseinpoor A; Bergen N: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 94(11), 2016 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/11/15-165266/en/","body":"Inequalities in health persist worldwide and one of the starting points for remedial action is collecting data that reveal patterns of inequality. Yet countries have varying capacities for monitoring health inequality. This is due in part to data-related issues such as weaknesses in the health information systems, especially in many low- and middle-income countries; lack of availability or poor quality of health data; and a limited ability to disaggregate data across all health topics within countries. Overcoming these challenges in the long term requires substantial investments in the health information infrastructure. In the short-term, countries need innovative approaches to best harness the potential of their existing data to improve monitoring efforts. In this article the authors make the case for stratifying data at the level of subnational geographical regions, such as provinces, states or districts. The wider use of an area-based unit of analysis as a complementary way to analyse data at the individual or household level has certain practical advantages that are relevant to low- and middle-income countries as well as high-income countries. First, this approach opens up new possibilities concerning the data that can be used for within-country monitoring, in terms of both health data and data about dimensions of inequality. Second, since interventions to reduce inequities are likely to be implemented at the local administrative level, regional monitoring of health inequalities may be a useful tool for benchmarking, with implications for resource allocation, planning and evaluation.  Third, area-based measures may provide a more intuitive understanding of health inequalities and may help to identify possible points for intervention. Alongside these advantages, some caution is needed when adopting an area-based unit of analysis. There is the risk of committing a so-called ecological fallacy (i.e. making assumptions about individuals based on population-level patterns, or in this case, erroneously drawing conclusions about the health of individuals using area-based data). In many countries, health inequality monitoring systems could be strengthened by expanding the capacity for, and practice of, area-based health inequality monitoring. Adopting an area-based unit to express health inequality has several merits. Monitoring health inequalities by geographically defined subgroups can help to identify disadvantaged regions that are falling behind in terms of health indicators and to guide improvements in these areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Beyond Addis: Financing Social Protection in the 2030 Agenda","field_subtitle":"Kaltenborn M: Social Protection and Human Rights, September 2016 ","field_url":"http://socialprotection-humanrights.org/expertcom/4258/","body":"the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) expressly identifies establishing universal social protection systems as in several of the international community\u2019s new goals. The SDGs, unlike the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), explicitly state the need for social protection. Target 1.3 calls on states to \u201cimplement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including social protection floors (SPFs)1, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable\u201d. SPFs are not only an essential tool in combating poverty, but also form the basis for food security and housing, especially for vulnerable groups; they have the power to promote social cohesion, make an important contribution to helping people into decent employment and enable parents to send their children to school even during economic crises; all goals which are outlined in the Agenda 2030. By securing household incomes, social protection leads to an increase in private consumption and boosts domestic demand. Finally, well-implemented social protection programmes that give households a predictable source of income may also be able to reduce pressures for migration: there is a broad consensus that besides economic growth and investment in human development (in particular in education and health), social protection is one of the core requirements of any poverty reduction strategy, and is an important precondition for an inclusive and cohesive society, and for stabilising fragile states. Consequently, it is also an indispensable instrument in combating the root causes of migration. Establishing SPFs on sound financial footing is primarily a task for the national governments. The ILO Social Protection Floor Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202) urges governments to consider using a variety of methods to mobilise the necessary resources for their nationally-defined social protection floors. Such methods may include effective enforcement of tax and contribution obligations, but also setting new priorities in their spending behaviour. To solve the problem of funding for SPFs, a Global Fund for Social Protection is proposed, with resources from both the high- and low-income countries to close the funding shortfall between what poorer countries can reasonably afford and address funding for emergencies. The author argues also that developed countries have an obligation to support partner countries in their efforts to strengthen their social security systems, while simultaneously ensuring that the partner countries will be able to sustain these systems themselves in the long run.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"BRICS emerges as a global political force","field_subtitle":"Singh S: New Development Bank, October 2016","field_url":"http://www.ndb.int/BRICS-emerges-as-a-global-political-force.php","body":"The author argues in relation to the BRICS summit in October 2016, that BRICS is no longer just an economic grouping but is fast emerging as a political force in global decision-making. Having successfully launched its New Development Bank and Contingent Reserve Arrangement, BRICS now plans to launch its own credit rating agency to end the dominance of the likes of Standard & Poor's or Moody's and Fitch and to bring in emerging economies' perspectives to further enhance their standing and competitiveness in international markets. Similarly, learning from the July 12 Arbitration on South China Sea, BRICS Legal Forum endorsed in August 2016 its own robust arbitration mechanisms to address the problem of double standards of advanced nations. In addition to a now-functioning disputes resolution centre in Shanghai, such as a BRICS-wise arrangement will include commercial arbitration allowing BRICS to resolve disputes for foreign investors. Faced with continuing global financial crisis, leaders have also been discussing developing a BRICS bond market to address challenges of debt securities trading to strengthen their existing lack of liquidity making them vulnerable to foreign portfolio investors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"CBOs are key in promoting sustainable development in Africa","field_subtitle":"Kakonge J: Pambuzuka News, September 2016 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/gqgnyav","body":"As special-interest associations, community-based organisations fill an institutional vacuum, providing basic services to ensure a robust response to crises of poverty. It is at this local level that people, however limited their incomes or their assets, tend to reveal their true wealth: the ingenuity that they need to solve their own problems and those of their communities. Community based organisations (CBOs) are locally based membership organisations that work to provide services to their own communities. They have emerged in response to the need for collective social action. Their main characteristic is the importance that they attach to self-help, based on the principle of traditional communal values, reciprocity and interdependence. The author argues that CBOs can serve as a channel through which African governments can facilitate development at the grassroots level. While the CBOs need capacity-building to strengthen their skills in areas such as bookkeeping and accounts, experience indicates that the related needs assessments should be carried out jointly with communities. Examples show considerable grassroots enthusiasm for decentralisation within communities that can be mobilised by winning the confidence and trust of local and traditional communities and their leaders. CBOs are argued to provide the basis for a bottom-up approach in the fight against social exclusion and in national decision-making. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Changing global policy to deliver safe, equitable, and affordable care for women\u2019s cancers","field_subtitle":"Ginsburg O; Badwe R; Boyle P; et al.: The Lancet, 1 November 2016, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31393-9","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jkwqofv","body":"Breast and cervical cancer are major threats to the health of women globally, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries. Radical progress to close the global cancer divide for women requires not only evidence-based policy making, but also broad multisectoral collaboration that capitalises on recent progress in the associated domains of women\u2019s health and innovative public health approaches to cancer care and control. Such multisectoral collaboration can serve to build health systems for cancer, and more broadly for primary care, surgery, and pathology. This Series paper explores the global health and public policy landscapes that intersect with women\u2019s health and global cancer control, with new approaches to bringing policy to action. .","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"COSATU Statement on the SADC Summit: Business unusual or business as usual?","field_subtitle":"Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU): South Africa, August 2016 ","field_url":"http://www.cosatu.org.za/docs/pr/2016/pr0830c.html","body":"COSATU reflected in relation to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) heads of states summit the need for concrete solutions to the concrete problems faced rather than  policy statements that do not improve the lives of the people. COSATU identifies the following key issues as key for SADC: desperate conditions of poverty, hunger, and unemployment, human rights abuses, exploitation of natural resources and environmental degradation, job losses and starvation wage crisis, policy crisis and poverty. They call for policies for active industrialisation and to tackle underdevelopment, as raised at the 2016 SADC Civil society Apex Forum and the Southern African Peoples Solidarity Forum held on the sidelines of the SADC Summit. Whilst COSATU welcomed small steps towards a paradigm shift in the Industrialisation policy debate, they called for concrete steps to build the regions manufacturing base and industrial capacity to produce goods and services, in order to stimulate economies and create the much needed jobs, enhance decent work and improve the quality of life for the majority of people and called for bold and inspiring leadership.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Countdown to 2015 country case studies: systematic tools to address the \u201cblack box\u201d of health systems and policy assessment","field_subtitle":"Singh N; Huicho  L; Afnan-Holmes H, et al: Countdown to 2015 Health Systems and Policies Technical Working Group: BMC Public Health 16(Suppl 2) (790), 2016 ","field_url":"http://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-016-3402-5","body":"The tools presented in this publication assess mother and child health (RMNCH) change over time and include: (i) Policy and Programme Timeline Tool (depicting change according to level of policy); (ii) Health Policy Tracer Indicators Dashboard (showing 11 selected RMNCH policies over time); (iii) Health Systems Tracer Indicators Dashboard (showing four selected systems indicators over time); and (iv) Programme implementation assessment. To illustrate these tools, results are presented from Tanzania and Peru. The Policy and Programme Timeline tool shows that Tanzania\u2019s RMNCH environment is complex, with increased funding and programmes for child survival, particularly primary-care implementation. Maternal health was prioritised since mid-1990s, yet with variable programme implementation, mainly targeting facilities. Newborn health only received attention since 2005, yet is rapidly scaling-up interventions at facility- and community-levels. Reproductive health lost momentum, with re-investment since 2010. Tanzania developed a national RMNCH plan in 2006 but only costed the reproductive health component. All lifesaving RMNCH commodities were included on their essential medicines lists, but the health worker density (7.1/10,000 population), is below the 22.8 WHO minimum threshold. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 108 Appendices, Corporate responsibility for health in the extractive sector in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Hinricher J; Papamichail A: Training and Research Support Centre, EQUINET: Harare, November 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/h5egdsa","body":"This document provides the detailed legal frameworks and relevant legal clauses from 16 East and Southern African countries for Diss paper 108: Corporate responsibility for health in the extractive sector in East and Southern Africa (ESA) produced by EQUINET through Training and Research Support Centre to inform policy dialogue to improve the legal frameworks for the duties and corporate social responsibility of extractive industries in the ESA region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 108: Africa Corporate responsibility for health in the extractive sector in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Hinricher J; Papamichail A:  Training and Research Support Centre, EQUINET: Harare, November 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zm7afbk","body":"While international and global guidance documents set out health obligations for extractive industries (EIs), these standards, including UN conventions, may be voluntary if they are not included in national laws, unless the national constitutions specifically provide otherwise. Given the spread of EIs across the ESA region, it would be important to ensure that corporate duties in relation to health are upheld across the region, including through regional guidance to harmonise laws. This document was produced by EQUINET through Training and Research Support Centre and with support from Medico International. It aims to inform policy dialogue to improve the legal frameworks for the duties and corporate social responsibility of EIs in the ESA region. It presents evidence to support policy dialogue and health advocacy. It reviews the literature on EIs and health in ESA countries, explores key guidance principles/ standards on health in EIs, and analyses from review of laws how far they are contained in domestic legislation of ESA countries. Using good practice in existing ESA laws and international guidance, the document proposes the content for regional guidance for policy and law in the region. As is being implemented in other regions of Africa, there is scope for regional guidance and harmonisation of laws relating to EIs, including in relation to health. While no single law in ESA countries addresses all aspects of international guidance on protection and health and social welfare in EIs, in combination the laws in ESA countries provide clauses that could form the basis of such regional guidance. Drawing from different ESA laws legal guidance is proposed for health and social protection covering: 1. Award of prospecting rights/licenses and EI agreements; 2. Resettlement of affected communities due to mining activities; 3. OHS for employed workers and contractors in the mining sector; 4. Health benefits for workers, families and surrounding communities; 5. Environment, health and social protection for surrounding communities; 6. Fiscal contributions towards health and health services; 7. Stimulation of forward and backward links with local sectors and services supporting health; 8. Post-mine closure obligations for public health; and for 9. Governance of these issues, including for good corporate governance practices, public transparency and accountability, constructive dialogue, reporting and oversight, to foster a relationship of confidence and mutual trust between EIs and the societies in which they operate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 189:  Farewell to a champion of health justice","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Ethical research code influenced by San leader","field_subtitle":"Harmon S: SciDevNet, 20 October, 2016","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/global/ethics/multimedia/ethical-research-code-san-leader.html","body":"The San of South Africa are one of the most researched communities in the world. Their indigenous knowledge and genetic makeup have been of great interest to researchers as they are ancestors of the first hunter-gatherers in Africa. While the media and researchers have continued to want to engage with the community, TRUST, a global initiative which seeks to reduce exploitation in North-South research collaborations, alongside the San Council created a contract to protect the community from exploitation, and to ensure that the San also benefit from any research. This paper outlines a locally driven Code of Ethics for involving San people in research that has been initiated by a range of organisations in Southern Africa. Referencing the original research and media contract, this is now being finalised into the first indigenous-developed ethics code in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Farewell to a champion of health justice ","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET newsletter","field_url":"","body":"Fidel Castro, leader of the Cuban revolution, passed away on Friday 25 November. He was a towering figure and one of the defining leaders of the 20th century.  Leaders across Latin America sent tribute. Chile's Michelle Bachelet  called him a 'leader for  dignity and social justice in Cuba and Latin America\", while El Salvador's president, Salvador S\u00e1nchez Cer\u00e9n, said \u201cFidel will live forever in the hearts of those of us who fight for justice, dignity and fraternity.\u201d  As China\u2019s official news agency Xinhua noted, he was \u201ca pioneer in battling ... neoliberal globalisation, foreign debt and exploitation of natural resources.\u201d  CLASCO in Argentina pointed to his role, together with the Cuban people, of pointing to an alternative of a world \"without injustices, without exclusions, without exploitation\" (\"Fidel era un hombre, como tantos otros. Pero Fidel se transform\u00f3, y lo hizo junto a las luchas del inmenso pueblo cubano, en un horizonte, en una promesa, en un destino ut\u00f3pico: el de construir un mundo sin injusticias, sin exclusiones, sin explotaci\u00f3n; un mundo emancipado, liberado, solidario\"). \r\n\r\nThe transformation in Cuba was profound. Manuel Garcia Jr reflected the day after Fidel's death on the transformation he experienced first hand in 1959 Havana: \"Every person, every place, every moment exuded the same sense of uplift. I was immersed in a national sense of freedom, and it soaked into my psyche and bones. This experience permanently magnetized my political compass, so that regardless of verbal arguments and logical constructs in later years, my compass always points my sympathies toward freedom for any people\". The nearly 60 years since of struggle  in Cuba, a small island of 11 million people, often battling powerful global forces, unquestionably generated some contradictions. Ahmed Kathrada in the Mail and Guardian notes that \"history will always judge people differently based on who is writing it\". \r\n\r\nHe also notes, however, together with many other voices from Africa, that Fidel Castro came from \"a generation of leaders, who envisioned a more equitable society, based on mutual cooperation, especially between developing nations\" and that he was one of the foremost supporters of Africa's liberation movements and anti-colonial struggles. The internationalism of Cuban people in Africa has been sustained to today: whether in the support by Cuban troops of Angola's resistance to an apartheid military attack in the 1970s, whether through providing medical education in Cuba for thousands of African doctors over many years, or sending many Cuban doctors to African countries, including the many who came to West Africa to help in the efforts to control Ebola in 2014/5. At the same time, Castro also pointed to the rift between rich and poor in African countries, as he did at the speech to the South African parliament in 1998. \r\n\r\nWhatever the context and debates, Fidel was an unwavering champion of health justice, of the right to health and of progress in social determinants like literacy and food security. He was a driving force of a universal health care system in Cuba that is a responsible for making Cubans some of the healthiest people in the world. As the journal MEDICC noted in a tribute the day after his death: \"Over the years, President Castro took an abiding interest in health and was at the forefront of promoting advances in health care, research and medical education: establishing rural hospitals and a national network of hundreds of community-based clinics, making prevention a cornerstone of training and service; generating extraordinary investments in biotechnology to develop novel vaccines and cancer therapies, and specialized services for Cuban newborns with heart disease. Finally, he considered the most significant \u201crevolution within the revolution\u201d to be the creation in the 1980s of the family doctor-and-nurse program, posting their offices on every block and farmland in Cuba. The outcomes of these efforts were not achieved by one man, but by 500,000 Cuban health workers, who were able to count on health as a government priority. Together, they faced dengue and neuropathy epidemics; and the scarcity of medicines, including for HIV-AIDS patients, after the collapse of the socialist bloc and tightening of the US embargo on Cuba in the 1990s. Their dedication has won a healthier nation\".  \r\n\r\nIt falls to us to continue the struggle for health justice with the same compass, solidarity and tenacity. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender Assessment Tool for National HIV and TB Responses","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: Geneva, August 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/z2c4eg5","body":"This  HIV Gender Assessment Tool, published by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and the Stop TB Partnership, aims to assist countries in assessing their HIV and tuberculosis (TB) epidemics and responses from a gender perspective, to ensure that the responses are gender-sensitive, transformative and effective in responding to HIV and TB and to support countries in the submission of gender-sensitive concept notes to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM).  The UNAIDS HIV Gender Assessment tool was developed recognising the need for more systematic data collection on gender equality and HIV, as revealed by the mid-term review of the UNAIDS Agenda for Accelerated Country Action for Women, Girls, Gender Equality and HIV 2010\u2013 201410 and was developed in a UNAIDS Secretariat led consultative, multi-stakeholder process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Cooperation: Its relevance, legitimacy and effectiveness  as a contribution to achieving universal access to health","field_subtitle":"Leschhorn M;  van de Pas R; Schwarz T: Medicus Mundi International, October 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/grj25h5","body":"This paper aims at contributing to the debate on ways in which actors in development cooperation such as international NGOs or bilateral agencies could engage in a relevant, legitimate and effective way to achieving universal access to health. MMI identify that relevant, legitimate and effective health cooperation contributes to achieving universal access to health and is fully aware of its structural role, responsibilities and limitations; and continuously reflects on how to improve its approaches and practices. MMI argue that there is still a lack of platforms in which actors in health cooperation can critically reflect their own practices and approaches, share information and experiences, learn from each other and have an opportunity to further develop their institutional and personal skills and practices. They also suggest that a paradigm shift is required that breaks with the continuum process of development cooperation for health as it has been conducted during the last 50 years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Systems Global Speaks: Interview with Christina Zarowsky and poster presenters","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Global: Vancouver, 18 November 2016","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=608MtWMq8gE&feature=youtu.be","body":"In this video from Health Systems Global, Professor Christina Zarowsky and poster presenters from the symposium explain their understanding of and debates on the concept of resilience.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health system\u2019s barriers hindering implementation of public-private partnership at the district level: a case study of partnership for improved reproductive and child health services provision in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Kamugumya D; Oliver J: BioMed Central 16(596), 2016","field_url":"https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-016-1831-6","body":"Public-private partnership (PPP) has been suggested as a tool to assist governments in lower to middle income countries fulfil their responsibilities in the efficient delivery of health services. In Tanzania, although the idea of PPP has existed for many years in the health sector, there has been limited coordination, especially at a district level \u2013 which has contributed to limited health gains or systems strengthening obviously seen as a result of PPP. This case study was conducted in the Bagamoyo district of Tanzania, and employed 30 in-depth interviews, document reviews, and observations methods. A stakeholder analysis was conducted to understand power distribution and the interests of local actors to engage non-state actors. The study findings reveal several forms of informal partnerships, and the untapped potential of non-state actors. Lack of formal contractual agreements with private providers including facilities that receive subsidies from the government is argued to contribute to inappropriate distribution of risk and reward leading to moral hazards. Furthermore, findings highlight weak capacity of governing bodies to exercise oversight and sanctions, which is acerbated by weak accountability linkages and power differences. Disempowered Council Health Services Board, in relation to engaging non-state actors, is shown to impede PPP initiatives. Effective PPP policy implementation at a local level depends on the capacity of local government officials to make choices that would embrace relational elements dynamics in strategic plans. Orientation towards collaborative efforts that create value and enable its distribution is argued to facilitate healthy partnership, and in return, strengthen a district health system. This study highlights a need for new social contracts that will support integrative collaboration at the local level and bring all non-state actors to the centre of the district health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Male involvement in the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF/KfW) prepaid insurance card for pregnant women in Pangani District, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Kassimu T: Resilient and responsive health systems (RESYST) blog, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Tanzania, September 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hmt5m75","body":"In Tanzania, reasons for low use of maternal care are complex, including shortage of resources, long distances to services, high costs and low capacity to provide services. \u2018Gender exclusion\u2019, in this case the exclusion of men in planning or implementing interventions, is also identified to be a major barrier to achieving improved maternal and child health. The author reports that men were involved in the implementation of Tanzania's NHIF/KfW prepaid health insurance card scheme in various ways: during its design; inauguration; registration; and in community sensitisation at the village level and health facilities. At the health care facilities, women are encouraged to attend with their partners during antenatal visits. This is to ensure they are all tested together for HIV, as well as educated on how to take care of the pregnancy and prepare for delivery. This encouraged male involvement and payment of because of any costs of using services. Women had a different views with regard to men\u2019s involvement in the provision of reproductive and child health care services. Participants identified strategies to improve male involvement in the implementation of NHIF/KfW prepaid insurance card in Pangani District. Communication between partners was one of the ways to increase their men\u2019s involvement. In the villages, there are routine meetings every three months. During the meeting, participants discussed various topics and made decisions together for the betterment of the whole community. Men pointed out that giving them more knowledge about health care services and facility practices would enhance their participation in care. The author argues that improvement in the health care provision and community sensitisation of the importance of male partner involvement in the implementation of maternal and child health care programmes needs to be prioritised in order to improve their participation and mitigate the effect of socio-economic and cultural  barriers to access. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Men, masculinity, and engagement with treatment as prevention in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Chikovore J; Gillespie N; McGrath N; Orne-Gliemann J; Zuma T; ANRS 12249 TasP Study Group: AIDS Care 28 (Iss Sup3), 2016","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09540121.2016.1178953","body":"Within the HIV public health domain, interest is growing in universal test and treat (UTT) strategies. This refers to the expansion of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in order to reduce onward transmission and incidence of HIV in a population, through a \u201ctreatment as prevention\u201d (TasP). This paper focuses on how masculinity influences engagement with HIV care in the context of an on-going TasP trial. Data were collected in January\u2013November 2013 using 20 in-depth interviews, 10 of them repeated thrice, and 4 focus group discussions, each repeated four times. The accounts detailed men\u2019s unwillingness to engage with HIV testing and care, seemingly tied to their pursuit of valued masculinity constructs such as having strength and control, being sexually competent, and earning income. Given fears regarding getting an HIV-positive diagnosis, men preferred traditional medicine. Further primary health centres were not seen to be welcoming to men discouraging their readiness to test for HIV. These tensions were amplified by masculinity norms. Men struggled with disclosing their HIV status, and used various strategies to avoid or postpone disclosing, or disclose indirectly. In contrast women were found to access care readily. The authors argue that UTT and TasP promotion should use health service delivery models that address these tensions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Position Announcement: Executive Director Sam Moyo African Institute For Agrarian Studies (SMAIAS)","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 9 January 2017","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2666&lang=en","body":"Previously known as the African Institute for Agrarian Studies(AIAS), and renamed to SMAIAS in 2016 in honour of its late Founder and Executive Director, Professor Sam Moyo, the SMAIAS in Harare has been in operation for over thirteen years. The SMAIAS aims to enhance Africa\u2019s agrarian transformation by promoting informed participation towards effective land and agrarian policies and reform, by means of Pan- African and South-South partnerships, interdisciplinary research initiatives, policy dialogues, training, and information dissemination. It interacts with various organisations and countries to assist them in developing capacity for policy formulation and research. It also facilitates policy dialogue among governments, academics, civil society and others on land and agrarian developments, especially on the land rights of marginalised social groups. Under the overall authority of the Board of Trustees and the direct supervision of the Chairperson of the Board of Trustees, the Executive Director will be expected to provide intellectual, administrative and strategic leadership to the secretariat of the SMAIAS. Only African citizens will be considered for this post.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Rising Healthcare Costs in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Chowles T: EHealth News, South Africa, September 2016 ","field_url":"http://ehealthnews.co.za/rising-healthcare-costs/","body":"The funding of healthcare in South Africa is a highly contentious issue, involving a variety of stakeholders. Royal Philips released the South Africa results of the first edition of its Future Health Index (FHI) in July 2016. The FHI is an extensive international study which explores how countries around the world are positioned to meet long-term global health challenges through integration of health systems and adoption of connected care technologies. The report revealed that cost is a significant barrier to healthcare in South Africa and that HCPs and patients indicate improving access to healthcare services as a core priority for local government. Health status indicators in South Africa as a whole are reported to be worse than that in other upper middle income countries. Privately insured people though have outcomes comparable to best in world. However, this comes at a high cost. People in South Africa who cannot afford private medical insurance have some of the worst outcomes in terms of healthcare. The report identifies that approximately 40% of total healthcare funds in South Africa flow via public sector financing intermediaries (primarily the national, provincial and local Departments of Health), while 60% flow via private intermediaries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa and the DRC: Evaluating a South\u2013South Partnership for Peace, Governance and Development","field_subtitle":"Besharati N; Rawhani C: SAIIA Occasional Paper No 235, 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jofq4nc","body":"The \u2018Rise of the South\u2019 and the role of \u2018emerging powers\u2019 in global development has animated much of the political and economic discourse of the past decade. There is, however, little empirical evidence on the contribution that emerging Southern partners make to sustainable development, due to the lack of common measurement systems for South\u2013South cooperation (SSC). This case study utilises the analytical framework developed by the Network of Southern Think Tanks (NeST) to assess the range, extent and quality of South Africa\u2019s peace, governance and economic support to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The study reveals that South Africa, in absolute financial terms, is a significant development partner in the DRC, and even exceeds the traditional donors when its aid is measured in proportion to gross national income. The qualitative field research highlights that South Africa\u2019s approach to development co-operation to a large extent reflects the core values of SSC, although with a mixed bag of successes and failures in terms of the results of co-operation activities. This pilot study of the South Africa\u2013DRC development partnership is one of the first in which the NeST conceptual and methodological framework has been tested for the purpose of further refining tools and indicators for SSC analysis, so as to assist the future monitoring and evaluation endeavours of South Africa and other emerging development partners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"South African National Department of Health (NDoH) Finalising Draft of National Health Insurance Financing Models","field_subtitle":"Hlabangane S: EHealth News, South Africa, September 2016 ","field_url":"http://ehealthnews.co.za/ndoh-nhi-financing-models/","body":"South African Health Minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, announced that a draft set of the National Health Insurance (NHI) \u2018financing scenarios\u2019 are ready for provincial health Members of Executive Councils (MECs) in October 2016. According to the legal brief Policy Watch, the Minister said that \u2013 in finalising government policy on universal healthcare \u2013 the department will consider each scenario and carefully reflect on the \u201dvery useful suggestions\u201d received from stakeholders following the release of a draft White Paper in December 2015 for comment. Noting that the costs associated with implementing universal healthcare are \u201dinfluenced by many factors, including design elements and the pace of implementation,\u201d Dr Motsoaledi emphasised the importance of focusing on the implications of each funding scenario for incrementally introducing the necessary reforms.  With that in mind, the draft scenarios will be informed by an \u201cestimation framework\u201d based on \u201cconfigurations\u201d of projected service demand, service delivery and associated costs \u2018at each level of care. There are views that there are many uncertainties and unaddressed issues in the White Paper, including in the funding model. Meanwhile, the Treasury has allocated South African Rand 4.5bn to renovate healthcare facilities across 11 NHI pilot projects and allocated SAR300 million on developing a national electronic medicine stock management system, a key element for NHI outlined in the White paper. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The People\u2019s Coalition on Food Sovereignty Statement for World Food Day 2016","field_subtitle":"The People\u2019s Coalition on Food Sovereignty: Pambuzuka News, October 2016","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/food-health/fight-food-injustice-and-repression","body":"The People\u2019s Coalition on Food Sovereignty unites with the farmers, agricultural workers, small-scale food producers, indigenous peoples and the peoples of the world in commemorating World Food Day 2016. To call attention to the hunger being experienced by the majority of the world\u2019s population, the coalition has called it World Hunger Day with the theme \u201cFight Food Injustice and Repression!\u201d This calls attention to repression of farmers and activists for food justice. In 2015, the Pesticides Action Network \u2013 Asia-Pacific claimed that almost six farmers, indigenous people and/or land activists were being killed every month in relation to land struggles and conflicts, and many cases remain unreported. In 2016 they argue that there has been intensifying repression of farmers, indigenous peoples, agricultural workers, and other small-scale food producers. People\u2019s Coalition on Food Sovereignty condemn this repression and point to the need to change the structural causes of widespread hunger and intensifying monopoly control over the world\u2019s agriculture and food systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Prevention Gap","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: Geneva November 2016","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/documents/2016/prevention-gap","body":"A new report by UNAIDS released prior to World AIDS Day 2016 reveals concerning trends in new HIV infections among adults. The Prevention gap report shows that while significant progress is being made in stopping new HIV infections among children (new HIV infections have declined by more than 70% among children since 2001 and are continuing to decline), the decline in new HIV infections among adults has stalled. The report shows that HIV prevention urgently needs to be scaled up among this age group. The Prevention gap report shows that an estimated 1.9 million adults have become infected with HIV every year for at least the past five years and that new HIV infections among adults are rising in some regions. New HIV infections among adults declined by only 4% in eastern and southern Africa since 2010. The Prevention gap report gives the clear message that HIV prevention efforts need to be increased in order to stay on the Fast-Track to ending AIDS by 2030. \u201cWe are sounding the alarm,\u201d said Michel Sidib\u00e9, Executive Director of UNAIDS. \u201cThe power of prevention is not being realized. If there is a resurgence in new HIV infections now, the epidemic will become impossible to control. The world needs to take urgent and immediate action to close the prevention gap.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Role of Nurses and Community Health Workers in Confronting Neglected Tropical Diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review","field_subtitle":"Corley A; Thornton C; Glass N: PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 10(9), 2016, ","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0004914","body":"Neglected tropical diseases produce an enormous burden on many of the poorest and most disenfranchised populations in sub-Saharan Africa, where a dearth of skilled health providers limits primary care efforts to address such diseases. Consequently, many countries rely on nurses and community health workers to engage with under-served and hard-to-reach populations. This review of the literature was conducted to assess the role nurses and community health workers play in the primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention of neglected tropical diseases in sub-Saharan Africa. Articles published between January 2005 and December 2015 were reviewed in order to capture the full scope of nurses\u2019 and community health workers\u2019 responsibilities for neglected tropical disease control within their respective countries\u2019 health systems. A total of 59 articles were identified that fit all inclusion criteria. It reports that successful disease control requires deep and meaningful engagement with local communities and that horizontal or multidisease control programs can create complimentary interactions between their different control activities as well as reduce costs through improved program efficiencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Trump and Trumpism: Reflections on post US elections geopolitics","field_subtitle":"Tandon Y: Pambuzuka News, November 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jlnrjec","body":"The author analyses that Trump\u2019s victory in the US elections is partly because the world is changing. He writes that the world is witnessing a civilisational shift \u2013 the slow, painful death of the Western Empire. Even in rich America millions of people go hungry and without shelter. He argues thus that Africa will in this current era use its own resources and ingenuity to prosper. He notes that if Trump rejects the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) and the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) then he can count on his support. Tandon welcomes the idea that he might scrap AGOA (which he sees as divisive of Africa) and Obama's \"Power Africa\" $7 billion initiative. These \u201cinitiatives\u201d he argues are to help corporate America, not Africa. He also notes that if Trump talks with Russia, China, Iran and Syria, then he could help forces of peace and reconciliation that the world badly needs. He notes that Trump does not have Africa on his map and has criticised the notion of \"exporting democracy\", which Tandon also welcomes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"UN Human Rights Council creates position of Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development","field_subtitle":"Timosi A: SOUTHNEWS Issue 127, 2016","field_url":"http://www.alainet.org/es/node/180636","body":"The UN General Assembly Human Rights Council on 29 September 2016 adopted a resolution (A/HRC/33/L.29) which established a mandate for a Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development. The draft of the resolution was presented by Venezuela on behalf of the member states of the Non-aligned Movement and China, and was adopted by a vote of 34 in favour, two against and 11 abstentions. The Council decided to appoint, for a period of three years, a Special Rapporteur on the right to development, whose mandate will include: to contribute to the promotion, protection and fulfilment of the right to development in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and other internationally agreed outcomes of 2015; to engage and support efforts to mainstream the right to development among various United Nations bodies, development agencies, international development, financial and trade institutions, and to submit proposals aimed at strengthening the revitalized global partnership for sustainable development from the perspective of the right to development; to contribute to the work of the Working Group with a view to supporting the accomplishment of its overall mandate, taking into account, inter alia, the deliberations and recommendations of the Working Group while avoiding any duplication;  to submit any specific study by the Human Rights Council in accordance with its mandate;  to submit an annual report to the Human Rights Council and to the General Assembly covering all activities relating to the mandate. In his remarks introducing the draft proposal, Ambassador Mr. Jorge Valero (Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela), on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), recalled that in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action on the Right to Development, the Council committed to elevate the right to development to the same level as other human rights and fundamental freedoms. South Africa\u2019s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Ambassador Nozipho Joyce Mxakato-Diseko, speaking on behalf of the African Group expressed the support of the African continent for the draft resolution proposed by NAM and China. Ambassador Mxakato-Diseko underscored that 2016 was a crucial year for the start of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal Health Coverage in Africa: A framework for action. Joint UHC working paper","field_subtitle":"World Bank: World Bank Group, August 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jd8p2z6","body":"Africa\u2019s population is estimated to reach 2.5 billion by 2050, raising a challenge for  progress toward Universal Health Coverage (UHC), the principle that everyone receives needed health services without financial hardship. The primary reason for investing in UHC is argued to be a moral one: it is not acceptable that some members of society should face death, disability, ill health or impoverishment for reasons that could be addressed at limited cost. However, UHC is also argued to be a good investment. Prevention of malnutrition and ill health is likely to have enormous benefits in terms of longer and more productive lives, higher earnings, and averted care costs. Effectively meeting demand for family planning will accelerate the fertility transition, which in turn will result in higher rates of economic growth and more rapid poverty reduction. And strong health and disease surveillance systems halt epidemics that take lives and disrupt economies. The authors report for example that In 2015, the forgone economic growth due to Ebola amounted to more than a billion US dollars in the three countries hit by the epidemic. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Urgent Action Fund-Africa Communications and Knowledge Management Programme Officer","field_subtitle":"Vacancy open until filled","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jmqc65d","body":"Urgent Action Fund-Africa (UAF-Africa) seeks a Communications and Knowledge Management Programme Officer who will translate UAF-Africa\u2019s strategic plans into effective social justice initiatives and results. Guided by feminist principles and values, the Fund advocates for gender equality, not only as a matter of human rights, but also as a fundamental prerequisite for social change, global security, and sustainable peace. In addition to her core business of Rapid Response Grant making, UAF-Africa also runs alliance building and advocacy initiatives in collaboration with other national, regional and international social justice organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Urgent Action Fund-Africa Partnerships and Development Manager","field_subtitle":"Vacancy open until filled","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zwebryw","body":"Urgent Action Fund-Africa (UAF-Africa), is a consciously feminist and women\u2019s human rights pan- African Fund, registered in Nairobi, Kenya. UAF-Africa seeks a Partnerships & Development Manager who will translate UAF-Africa\u2019s strategic plans into effective social justice initiatives and results. Guided by feminist principles and values, the Fund advocates for women\u2019s equality, not only as a matter of human rights, but also as a fundamental prerequisite for social change, global security, and sustainable peace. In addition to her core business of Rapid Response Grant making, UAF-Africa also runs alliance building and advocacy initiatives in collaboration with other social justice organisations,","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Vancouver Statement from the Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Global: Vancouver, Canada, 18 November 2016","field_url":"","body":"From 14-18 November 2016, 2,062 delegates from 101 countries assembled in Vancouver, Canada, for the Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research on the theme of \u2018Resilient and responsive health systems for a changing world\u2019. This year\u2019s Symposium consisted of five days of 53 organised sessions, 248 oral presentations, 74 satellite and skills building sessions, 385 posters, and 155 e-posters. Social media played a great part in whipping up the spirit of engagement, before and during the Symposium. Blogs also played a role in generating energy before the Symposium; the most popular of these was a blog from the SHAPES thematic working group challenging the concept of resilience in health systems.\r\n\r\nSince Cape Town, the world has shifted from efforts to achieve the MDGs to the launch of the SDGs, which maintain a focus on UHC, but call more strongly for a systems-orientated approach by embedding health in broader social and environmental perspectives. In support of these goals, there is even greater focus on research to reduce inequities in relation to marginalised and vulnerable groups. On the policy and implementation front, there has been a transition in the funding landscape from donor funding for interventions, towards emphasis on locally generated funds. In this context, the local production of health policy and systems research is also increasingly valued. \r\n\r\nSeveral themes emerged from the discussion and debate during this Symposium. First, it is important to recognise the many meanings of resilience. Health system resilience and responsiveness is anchored in people living and working within their communities. But, we need to be cautious not to romanticise communities as resilient, when what they are doing is coping in difficult situations. Systems need to be resilient precisely so that the burden of such  resilience does not fall on the most vulnerable in our societies. Health systems resilience needs to be qualified by an explicit focus on equity and social justice, and support the empowerment of the most vulnerable. Second, discussions amongst participants highlighted the importance of resilient and responsive health systems as ones which provide integrated, people-centred services, with a focus on primary health care as the frontline of routine services and outbreak response. Subnational actors, including communities, are reservoirs of resilience for health systems. Resilient health systems are those which operate from the \u201cend-user back\u201d, and not from the organisation forward. Nevertheless, governments have the responsibility for steering all actors \u2013 public and private \u2013 in the interests of the broader community.\r\n\r\nThird, while some discourse on resilience emphasises health security, such a perspective can sometimes be counter-productive, and should be balanced with the protection of health rights and health system strengthening. Health security should be an inclusive concern of the entire global community, and never a reason to exclude or marginalize. Fourth, the resilience discourse should be positioned within achieving the SDGs and mobilising collaboration and leadership across sectors. This together with integration and a move away from vertical approaches will help achieve the sustainable management of health systems. Symposium delegates repeatedly stressed the importance of people and relationships, flexibility and the capacity to mobilize new resources. Fifth, the Symposium gave occasion to highlight the struggles of indigenous peoples against historic privileges, including in high income countries. This has received insufficient attention in the Symposia to date. People in high income countries have much to learn from the experiences of low and middle income countries as well as from their own indigenous or marginalized populations.\r\n\r\nThe Symposium identified several areas for action for HSG, for researchers, funders and policy makers. \r\n\r\nThe Fourth Global Symposium has allowed our community to hold a light to the concept of resilient and responsive health systems, recognising their importance for achieving UHC and the SDGs, while acknowledging the potential shortcomings. Resilience adds a useful lens to our existing concepts and approaches, but it does not replace or supersede them. The world is changing, and resilience and responsiveness are needed now more than ever. The accumulated knowledge we have as a community builds on the continuing Symposia agenda of improving the science needed to accelerate Universal Health Coverage; to be more inclusive and innovative towards achieving UHC; and to make health systems more people-centred. For the next two years, Health Systems Global as a community of practitioners and researchers will look to remain at the vanguard of defining the field of health policy and health systems, while impacting our broader communities, and improving our global society.\r\n\r\nThe full statement is found at http://healthsystemsresearch.org/hsr2016/wp-content/uploads/Vancouver-Statement-FINAL.pdf  and further information on Health Systems Global and the conference can be found on the HSG website at http://healthsystemsresearch.org/hsr2016/ ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Reform: the need for a global mobilisation directed to the democratisation of global health governance","field_subtitle":"Legge D: People\u2019s Health Movement, 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hf7wrg9","body":"The author observes that the role and reach of the World Health Organisation has been contested since it was created in 1948. The debate is commonly couched in terms of whether the organisation is \u2018fit for purpose\u2019 although whose purpose is not always made clear. There have been several attempts at WHO reform since its establishment, directed to making it fitter for a still contested purpose. The current round of \u2018WHO reform\u2019 was launched in 2010 following a budget crisis and it continues as the new director\u2010general settles into the job. The current reform program addresses: funds mobilisation, budgeting, evaluation, relationships with non\u2010state actors, relationships within the secretariat (between headquarters, the regions and the country offices), WHO\u2019s role in global health governance, the emergency program and the management of the WHO\u2019s staff. The capacity, effectiveness and accountability of WHO is critical to the project of equitable health development globally. Nevertheless, there have been shortfalls. The root causes of WHO\u2019s disabilities are argued to include the freeze on WHO revenues, the dysfunctions associated with WHO\u2019s highly decentralised organisational structure, and the lack of accountability of member states for their contribution to WHO decision making and their implementation of WHO resolutions. In this paper the author reviews the evolution of the current reform program and some of the major elements of the reform, with the shortfalls, disabilities and reform options within the broader context of global health governance. The author argues that the reform of WHO, to realise the vision of its Constitution, will require a global mobilisation around the democratisation of global health governance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Aids Day: Hands Up Campaign","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: Geneva, November 2016","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/WAD2016-brochure_en.pdf","body":"The decline in new HIV infections among adults has stalled. The UNAIDS Prevention gap report shows that worldwide an estimated 1.9 million adults have become infected with HIV every year for at least the past five years and that the number of new HIV infections is rising in some regions. The report shows that HIV prevention efforts must be reinvigorated if the world is to stay on the Fast-Track to ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030. In the lead-up to World AIDS Day 2016, the hands up for #HIVprevention campaign will explore different aspects of HIV prevention and how they relate to specific groups of people, such as adolescent girls and young women, key populations and people living with HIV. Starting in September 2016, the campaign will offer people a space to express their views on what they think needs to be done to strengthen HIV prevention efforts. UNAIDS is asking people around the world to submit: A photograph of a word or short phrase written on the palm of their hand summarising what is needed to strengthen HIV prevention efforts, for example more condoms, empowerment, inclusion, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), rights for women and girls. People may also submit a short video message (maximum 30 seconds) explaining what in their view needs to be done to reduce new HIV infections in their community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"'Hiigsiga Nolosha': How Has a Youth Radio Show Given Young Somalis Hope for Their Future?","field_subtitle":"BBC Media Action: Somalia, August 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jsvlks8","body":" The Media Action radio programme Hiigsiga Nolosha (meaning desire or aspirations for life) is designed for Somali youth as a discussion platform to prompt \"dialogue and interaction across divides, create... understanding and acceptance between youth from different parts of the country, improve... how youth are viewed (by themselves and adults), give... young people hope and motivation for the future and help... them to believe they can positively contribute to their country.\" The project was created to improve capacity of local Somali partner radio stations to deliver audience-driven, and particularly youth-focused, media programming. Hiigsiga Nolosha \"has been broadcast via the BBC Somali Service and three partner community radio stations and included both a drama Maalmo Dhaama Maanta (A Better Life than Today)  and discussion segments produced by each partner radio station.\"  Phase I formative research showed a need for programming in which youth could exchange \"ideas and experiences and come up with solutions to the challenges they face. The impact evaluation at the end of Phase I found that the programme had given Somali youth an opportunity to interact and express their ideas, had helped to highlighted commonalities of young people, had positively shifted how young Somalis viewed themselves and contributed to youth empowerment.\" ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"2nd World Breastfeeding Conference 2016","field_subtitle":"11-14 December 2016, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://worldbreastfeedingconference.org/doc/Concept-Note_WBC2016.pdf","body":"The International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) and the Department of Health - Republic of South Africa are co-hosting the 2nd World Breastfeeding Conference in collaboration with WHO, UNICEF, WABA and gBICS partners in Johannesburg South Africa from 11th to 14th December 2016. The Conference will  provide an opportunity to review the global investment promises for maternal, infant and young child nutrition in light of resolutions from the 65th WHA of 2012, and to generate ideas for further resource mobilisation and/or strengthening of interventions. In addition, the conference will provide an opportunity to broaden understanding barriers to breastfeeding including promotion of artificial feeding by manufacturers, unsupportive health facility practices, more working mothers, inadequate traditional support, among others and address breastfeeding in a human rights framework. Furthermore, the conference will raise awareness on progress so far made in improving breastfeeding rates, which has occurred at different speeds in many countries and raise awareness on a number of challenges to the promotion, protection and support of breastfeeding and other IYCF interventions due to the funding, structural, policy and political environment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"59th International Conference on Multidisciplinary Research","field_subtitle":"9 - 10 November 2016, Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.academicsera.com/Conference/SouthAfrica/2/ICMRP/","body":"59th International Conference on Multidisciplinary Research & Practice(ICMRP) is to bring together innovative academics and industrial experts in the field of Science Technology and Management to a common forum. All the registered papers will be published by the World Research Library and will be submitted for review for indexing by Google Scholar etc. All submissions to the conference will be reviewed by at least two independent peers for technical merit and content. It is anticipated that a broad range of research and applied topics will be covered during the conference.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"After Habitat III: a stronger urban future must be based on the right to the city","field_subtitle":"Colau A: The Guardian, October 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jctjsvh","body":"Innovative and agile cities are better placed to solve major global challenges than national governments \u2013 in thrall to the momentum of the last century \u2013 but the fight must start now, argues Barcelona\u2019s first female mayor. Colau argues that all the major global challenges \u2013 climate change, the economy, inequality, the very future of democracy \u2013 will be solved in cities. If nations want to succeed with their policies, cities must be counted as serious actors on the global stage. She argues that national governments are hostages to the momentum of the previous century \u2013 but that\u2019s not the real world any more. We live in a world that functions by networking, by faster and more agile contact between cities. Colau notes that it is not possible to talk about a just, sustainable, equitable or inclusive city without speaking about the right to the city - a model of urban development that includes all citizens. She argues that the reference to it in the UN\u2019s New Urban Agenda document ratified at Habitat III in Quito this week could be more ambitious. However it is necessary to recognise the problems overcome just to get this far. She comments that some global powers such as the United States and China resisted it completely; they didn\u2019t want the right to the city in the declaration at all. Thanks to popular mobilisation in Latin America and in some European countries, this political movement has won its place on the agenda \u2013 and she notes it as a significant achievement.  For the right to the city to become real, however, needs action to transform it into concrete policies and regulations. Colau notes that the most important tests will come after the summit finishes \u2013 when we find out whether all these statements can translate into commitments that create positive solutions for urban citizens.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Building capacity to use research evidence (BCURE)","field_subtitle":"Department for International Development (DFID): UK, November 2014","field_url":"https://bcureglobal.wordpress.com","body":"Building Capacity to Use Research Evidence (BCURE) is a programme of work funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) which aims to build the skills, knowledge and systems that will allow policy makers and practitioners in low income countries to access, appraise and use rigorous evidence. BCURE works through a consortium of organisations, focusing on building capacity to make evidence informed decisions. Examples of some of the different interventions are incorporating processes to improve evidence use by Cabinet Ministers, using innovative online training methods to improve the skills of individuals to make evidence informed decisions, establishing open policy dialogues between government officials, civil society and the research sector  to promote the use of evidence in decision making and developing the African Evidence Network \u2013 where policy makers and practitioners can discuss and share lessons on evidence use. Each project has a primary provider, who oversees the management of that work.  BCURE is being delivered with a specific focus on building the capacity of locally based partner organisations in the countries where projects are operating, as essential for the sustainability of the programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts and announcement: 21st to 23rd February 2017, Kampala, Uganda Contribution of Community Health Workers in attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals","field_subtitle":"Deadline for abstract submission: 30 November 2016","field_url":"http://chwsymposium.musph.ac.ug","body":"Makerere University College of Health Sciences, School of Public Health, Uganda in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, UK and Ministry of Health, Uganda invites submissions of abstracts for the symposium on Community Health Workers (CHWs) and their contribution towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Sub themes include CHWs programmes (past, present and future), CHWs and health systems and the role of CHWs in the SDGs era. For further details on the symposium themes, the abstract format, dates for registration and the conference details see the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: WHO Health Systems Cluster Sierra Leone Technical Officer on District Strengthening","field_subtitle":"Deadline 10 November","field_url":"https://erecruit.who.int/public/hrd-cl-vac-view.asp?o_c=1000&jobinfo_uid_c=34544&vaclng=en","body":"The Health Systems Cluster in Sierra Leone is recruiting a P3 Technical Officer to work on District Strengthening. This is an extremely exciting position and opportunity to become part of our small, but dynamic health systems strengthening cluster within the WHO Sierra Leone office. The deadline for applications is 10 November, and more information is available in the website. The WHO Country Office is also supporting Sierra Leone\u2019s College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences (COMAHS) by helping to recruit a number of short-term faculty as found in other folders on the other current vacancies on the website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Calling for examples of great research on human resources for health","field_subtitle":"University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zaxtjon","body":" Do you know of excellent health policy and systems research publications on human resources for health (HRH)? Health Systems Global at the University of Western Cape are looking for submissions for a reader that provides guidance on and examples of excellent HRH research within the broader rubric of people-centred health policy and systems research. Please see the blog post for more detail and submit your suggestions using the google sheet. Submit publication suggestions here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18B7QW5Xv-RLyiz0i-oxLigvtecJObhbyaW3lEffUXvI/edit#gid=0","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can Habitat III mark a watershed for women informal workers?","field_subtitle":"Chatterjee P: Cityscape, October 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/h3ueyqw","body":"Informal employment makes up more than half of non-agricultural employment in most developing regions, according to Women in Informal Employment Globalising and Organising (WIEGO). In three major regions (South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean) plus urban China, informal employment is a greater source of non-agricultural employment for women than for men. Elsewhere in East and Southeast Asia, these shares are roughly the same. WEIGO advocates made this case at Habitat III, urging national and local governments to support the urban informal economy. The group released a paper listing the sector-specific needs of urban informal workers from local and national governments, noting that despite their contributions, informal workers\u2019 lives and livelihoods continue to be vulnerable in many cities. Many myths persist about the informal economy in the minds of policymakers and the general public, such as the conflation of the informal economy with illegal activities. Sally Roever, urban policies programme director for WIEGO, pointed to \u2018micro-innovations\u2019, which can make a huge difference....Like a municipality issuing identity cards to waste pickers. Residents view a waste picker with an ID card as legitimate entity and are more likely to be cooperative. This enhances the productivity of waste pickers.\u201d  She gave the example of Bogota, where recyclers are formally recognised stakeholders in the city's waste-management system. WIEGOs efforts also have prompted the creation of two labour groups \u2014 the Association of Recyclers of Bogot\u00e1 organisation that represents the city\u2019s 3,000 informal recyclers, while the National Association of Recyclers in Colombia represents 12,000 members. These are argued to serve as precedent and inspiration for other informal workers globally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Commission hears data on WHO report on high price of hospital care in SA","field_subtitle":"Pitso R: BusinessDay, August 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jpf24qw","body":"The South African Competition Commission\u2019s healthcare market enquiry on Tuesday convened a special session in Pretoria, at which stakeholders were due to give oral presentations in response to a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The report, contested by the private actors, concluded that the cost of hospital care in SA was high when measured against GDP per capita and that the driving forces were in-house hospital and specialist fees. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) collected the data and conducted the study, which compared the prices of South African private hospitals to those of 20 OECD countries. The health market inquiry was established to determine why medical inflation has historically risen faster than consumer price inflation, and whether there are barriers to effective competition in the private healthcare sector. The public hearings aim to explore the relationships among different players. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"COSATU Hosts the 3rd Africa Trilateral Summit in Johannesburg ","field_subtitle":"Southern Africa Coordination Council (SATUCC) Blog, September 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hrstb92","body":"The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) hosted the 3rd Africa Trilateral Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa in September 2016. Attended by the delegates from the unions affiliated to the three federations; Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and Trade Union Congress, Ghana (TUC); the Summit was held under the theme: Building a progressive workers movement for development alternatives for Arica: Decent work, industrialisation and Job Creation NOW. The Summit proposed formulating alternative growth and development path for both Africa\u2019s industrialisation and a re-industrialisation approach to create jobs and fight poverty and to actively campaign against corruption, illicit financial flows and for tax justice, fair trade and inclusive development. The Summit proposed that unions work to build a democratic developmental state that serves the needs of its people and guarantees peace, justice and security, and to fight for a comprehensive social security system for all workers. The Africa Trilateral Cooperation is the historic relationship between COSATU (South Africa), NLC (Nigeria) and TUC (Ghana) on the African continent. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Countdown to 2015 country case studies: what can analysis of national health financing contribute to understanding MDG 4 and 5 progress?","field_subtitle":"Mann C; Ng C; Akseer N; Bhutta Z; et al.: BMC Public Health 16(Suppl 2) (792), 2016, doi: 10.1186/s12889-016-3403-4","field_url":"http://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-016-3403-4","body":"Countdown to 2015 (Countdown) supported countries to produce case studies that examine how and why progress was made toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5. Analysing how health-financing data explains improvements in RMNCH outcomes was one of the components to the case studies. This paper presents a descriptive analysis on health financing from six Countdown case studies (Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Malawi, Pakistan, Peru, and Tanzania), supplemented by additional data from global databases and country reports on macroeconomic, health financing, demographic, and RMNCH outcome data as needed. It also examines the effect of other contextual factors presented in the case studies to help interpret health-financing data. Dramatic increases in health funding occurred since 2000, where the MDG agenda encouraged countries and donors to invest more resources on health. Most low-income countries relied on external support to increase health spending, with an average 20\u201364 % of total health spending from 2000 onwards. Middle-income countries relied more on government and household spending. RMNCH funding also increased since 2000, with an average increase of 119 % (2005\u20132010) for RMNH expenditures (2005\u20132010) and 165 % for CH expenditures (2005\u20132011). Progress was made, especially achieving MDG 4, even with low per capita spending; ranging from US$16 to US$44 per child under 5 years among low-income countries. Improvements in distal factors were noted during the time frame of the analysis, including rapid economic growth in Ethiopia, Peru, and Tanzania and improvements in female literacy as documented in Malawi, which are also likely to have contributed to MDG progress and achievements. Increases in health and RMNCH funding accompanied improvements in outcomes, though low-income countries are still very reliant on external financing, and out-of-pocket comprising a growing share of funds in middle-income settings. Enhancements in tracking RMNCH expenditures across countries are still needed to better understand whether domestic and global health financing initiatives lead to improved outcomes as RMNCH continues to be a priority under the Sustainable Development Goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Decolonising the University: The African Politics Reading List","field_subtitle":"Democracy in Africa: 2016","field_url":"http://democracyinafrica.org/decolonising-the-university-the-african-politics-reading-list/","body":"Democracy in Africa, a site promoting writing from African authors, have assembled a reading list on African Politics. This reading list is collated in solidarity with those who are currently attempting to decolonise the university across Africa, and beyond. It includes readings on themes such as Citizenship and Statehood, Social Movements and Civil Society, the Politics of Gender and Youth, the Politics of International Development  amongst others. The hosts welcome your recommendations of outstanding scholarship to add to it.   Currently, the list focuses on English translations and texts but the site hosts are in the midst of developing lists in other languages and would welcome suggestions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Discourse, ideas and power in global health policy networks: political attention for maternal and child health in the millennium development goal era","field_subtitle":"McDougall L: Globalization and Health 12(21), 2016 doi: 10.1186/s12992-016-0157-9","field_url":"http://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12992-016-0157-9","body":"Maternal and child health issues have gained global political attention and resources in the past 10 years, due in part to their prominence on the Millennium Development Goal agenda and the use of evidence-based advocacy by policy networks. This paper identifies key factors for this achievement, and raises questions about prospective challenges for sustaining attention in the transition to the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, far broader in scope than the Millennium Development Goals. The paper uses participant observation methods and document analysis to develop a case study of the behaviours of global maternal and child health advocacy networks during 2005\u20132015. The development of coordinated networks of heterogeneous actors facilitated the rise in attention to maternal and child health during the past 10 years. The strategic use of epidemiological and economic evidence by these networks enabled policy attention and promoted network cohesion. The time-bound opportunity of reaching the 2015 Millennium Development Goals created a window of opportunity for joint action. As the new post-2015 goals emerge, networks seek to sustain attention by repositioning their framing of issues, network structures, and external alliances, including with networks that lay both inside and outside of the health domain. Issues rise on global policy agendas because of how ideas are constructed, portrayed and positioned by actors within given contexts. Policy networks play a critical role by uniting stakeholders to promote persuasive ideas about policy problems and solutions. The author argues that the behaviours of networks in issue-framing, member-alignment, and strategic outreach can force open windows of opportunity for political attention -- or prevent them from closing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 188: Transforming not absorbing: Messages from a dialogue on participatory learning from action","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Policy Brief 41: Giving new momentum to strategies for retaining health workers","field_subtitle":" Dambisya Y:  ECSA HC, TARSC and U Limpopo, Policy brief 41 , EQUINET Harare","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Polbrief%2041%20HR.pdf","body":"This brief discusses the strategies used for attracting and retaining skilled health workers in ESA countries, especially to address under-served rural and remote areas, primary care settings and in the public sector. It reviews practice to date and identifies strategic options, given both regional learning and the opportunity of the 2016 Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health. Whereas ESA countries have implemented various attraction and retention regimes, the results have not been well documented, with still limited evaluation and reporting of impact of these strategies. The evidence suggests a need for a comprehensive, multi-sectoral and co-ordinated approach to planning and implementation, to make the case for improved funding and with greater use of information and monitoring systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors influencing motivation and job satisfaction among supervisors of community health workers in marginalised communities in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Akintola O; Chikoko G: Human Resources for Health 14(54), 2016 ","field_url":"https://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12960-016-0151-6","body":"Management and supervision of community health workers (CHWs) is important for the success of CHW programmes. This study explored factors influencing motivations of supervisors in CHW programmes. The authors conducted qualitative interviews with 26 programme staff providing supervision to CHWs in eight community-based organisations in marginalised communities in the greater Durban area of South Africa from July 2010 to September 2011. Findings show that all the supervisors had previous experience working in the health or social services sectors and most started out as unpaid CHWs. Most of the participants were poor women from marginalised communities. Supervisors\u2019 activities include the management and supply of material resources, mentoring and training of CHWs, record keeping and report writing. Supervisors were motivated by intrinsic factors like making a difference and community appreciation and non-monetary incentives such as promotion to supervisory positions; acquisition of management skills; participation in capacity building and the development of programmes; and support for educational advancement like salary, bonuses and medical benefits. Hygiene factors that serve to prevent dissatisfaction are salaries and financial, medical and educational benefits attached to the supervisory position. Demotivating factors identified are patients\u2019 non-adherence to health advice and alienation from decision-making. Dis-satisfiers include working in crime-prevalent communities, remuneration for CHWs, problems with material and logistical resources, job insecurity, work-related stressors and navigating the interface between CHWs and management. While participants were dissatisfied with their low remuneration, they were not demotivated but continued to be motivated by intrinsic factors. The authors findings suggest that CHWs\u2019 quest for remuneration and a career path continues even after they assume supervisory positions. Supervisors continue to be motivated to work in mid-level positions within the health and social services sectors. Global efforts to develop and increase the sustainability of CHW programmes will benefit immensely from insights gained from an exploration of supervisors\u2019 perspectives. Further, they suggest that national CHW programmes be conceptualised with the dual purpose of building the capacity of CHWs to strengthen health systems and reducing unemployment especially in marginalised communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Habitat 3: Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi on the importance of cities in implementing the SDGs","field_subtitle":"Global Goals UN: Quito  19 October 2016","field_url":"https://vimeo.com/187999676","body":"Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi, Secretary-General of United Cities and Local Governments Africa, speaks about how cities help with implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Paris Agreement and more. He noted that it was a positive move to have had the second world assembly of local and regional governments in Quito in the framework of the UN Habitat 3 conference. This was an accomplishment from Habitat 2 when they were not included. This shows that local authorities are not part of the process, and the next step is to bring them around the table with higher level decision making authorities. He argued that without local authorities there is no way to implement global agendas and that if governments and regional bodies listen to cities, the SDGs, climate agendas, and related agreements will stand a significantly better chance of realisation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Habitat III: How will the New Urban Agenda promote health and wellbeing?","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET Newsletter","field_url":"","body":"In this issue we have a numerous papers and videos reporting the discussions, debates and policy proposals at Habitat III in Quito, Ecuador in October. They provide evidence of the challenges for and visions of life in today's and tommorrow's cities, including in relation to improvements in health for all in the city. We will keep an eye on these debates from Habitat III that affect urban health equity and invite you to send us your views for the next newsletter. What do you see as the major urban health challenges in our region? What success stories do we have? And how has Habitat III has contributed to meeting challenges for and nourishing success towards meeting the right to health in our cities?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Financing Assessment and Policy Analysis toward Universal Health Coverage: A Systematic Review of Qualitative Research","field_subtitle":"Sakha M; Rashidian A; Bazyar M; Sari A; Yazdani S; Moghadam A: Global Journal of Health Science 9(5) 2016, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/gjhs.v9n5p131 ","field_url":"http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/gjhs/article/view/61901","body":"This research explored health financing policies for universal health coverage to identify issues that need to be addressed and approaches that can fruitfully be pursued in future policy design. The authors systematically searched the following databases: PubMed, SCOPUS, and COCHRANE up to January 2016 and included health financing policy assessment toward universal health coverage followed by a thematic and descriptive synthesis of data. Twenty three papers were included. The authors categorised dimensions that were important in health financing assessment to achieve UHC into nine groups as follows: stewardship, raising revenues and contribution methods, risk pooling and financial protection, resource allocation purchasing, human resources, policy stakeholders, policy content, policy context, and policy process. As countries commit to expand universal health coverage, the authors argue that these dimensions identified from the literature can help policy makers to prioritise competing demands, make rational choices, and adapt their approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Here\u2019s what happened at Habitat III \u2013 the world\u2019s biggest conference on cities","field_subtitle":"Cast\u00e1n Broto V: The Conversation, October 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zoec5a8","body":"Habitat III \u2013 the United Nation\u2019s global conference on the future of cities \u2013 came to a close in late October. About 30,000 people gathered in Quito, Ecuador, to discuss the key issues facing cities today and sign off on the New Urban Agenda \u2013 the global strategy which will guide urban development over the next 20 years. The author describes the event: Efforts to make the conference inclusive \u2013 it was free and anyone could register \u2013 materialised in a big jamboree of all kinds of people interested in urban affairs (as well as complaints about long queues). The overall message of the conference emphasised the need to address social, economic and material inequalities in cities and urban areas. Yet - he notes- international experts often appeared oblivious to the enormous progress that the poorest urban communities have made to organise themselves and finance their futures. The main outcome of Habitat III was that UN nation states agreed on the New Urban Agenda (NUA): a non-binding document, which will guide policies over the next 20 years with the goal of making cities safer, resilient and sustainable and their amenities more inclusive. The NUA itself emerged from a consultative process, whereby UN-Habitat collected the inputs of a diverse community of urban scholars, leaders, planners and activists. Its key message was \u201cleaving no one behind\u201d. Its vision for the future of cities was one where aspirations of prosperity and sustainable development are linked to a desire for equality. Yet the document did not escape criticism: How far did it grassroots perspectives? How far did the consensual approach and redrafting exclude key issues? How will it be put into practice? Some proposed, for example, that 20% to 25% of global finance for development \u2013 in instruments such as the Green Climate Fund \u2013 should be allocated directly to cities. The author calls the consensus around the \u201cright to the city\u201d \u2013 an idea championed by Ecuador and Brazil \u2013 historical. The \u201cright to the city\u201d generally refers to the capacity of urban citizens to influence processes of urban development, and make a city they want to live in. Social movements promoted this right to denounce urban processes that generate injustices, such as gentrification, privatisation of public spaces, forced evictions and the mistreatment of urban refugees. But as it is not explicitly recognised as a universal human right, the NUA merely encourages governments to enshrine it in their laws. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementing Eco-Social Policies: Barriers and Opportunities: A Preliminary Comparative Analysis","field_subtitle":"Carmi D: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva, Working Paper 2016-12","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/gnp9zt3","body":"Despite the global consensus on the importance of shifting to a model of sustainable development, identifying pathways that can simultaneously and equally fulfil social, economic and environmental goals remains extremely difficult. After briefly tracing the evolution of the concept of sustainable development to its central place in current international development debates, the paper explains what is understood by eco-social policies. This paper analyses opportunities for and barriers to the effective adoption of eco-social policies in national programmes by undertaking a comparative analysis of three case studies: Payment for Ecosystem Services in Costa Rica, the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputin (ITT) proposal for Yasuni\u0301 National Park in Ecuador and the Virunga Alliance in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The three programmes had varying degrees of success. The Virunga Alliance is a development project that aims to foster peace and prosperity through the responsible economic development of natural resources for 4 million people who live within a day\u2019s walk of the park\u2019s borders. The project identified poverty and the lack of a sustainable business sector as the root causes of Virunga\u2019s problems, forcing the park\u2019s inhabitants to over-exploit natural resources for their daily fuel and food needs. While the Payment for Ecosystem Services was a successful national programme that led to unprecedented forest recovery in Costa Rica, the ITT proposal was a governmental policy initiative that failed due to various national and international issues. The Virunga Alliance operated with an eco-social logic by involving job creation and clean energy provision. While the outputs were successfully achieved, the outcomes were at risk in part due to regional insecurity and a fragile national economy. The author looks at the different approaches taken in each country, analysing the benefits and trade-offs as well as the factors that led to their adoption or defeat.  After briefly tracing the evolution of the concept of sustainable development to its central place in current international development debates, the paper explains what is understood by eco-social policies. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"In the Spirit of Marikana: Disruption, Workers and Insourcing","field_subtitle":"Grossman J: Review of African Political Economy, March 2016","field_url":"http://roape.net/2016/02/18/in-the-spirit-of-marikana-disruption-workers-and-insourcing/","body":"In a penetrating analysis of events in South Africa, Jonathan Grossman writes a linked analysis of the student mobilisations and of the workers at Marikana. The author that an old legacy of struggle is being rediscovered and rescued,  reflecting a solidarity between workers and students taking action.  Grossman argues that the struggle for free education and against outsourcing in the public sector at the universities now needs to become the struggle for free education at all levels and free basic services, against outsourcing and for a living wage across the whole of the public sector. He argues that this is necessary for the renewal of the workers movement to tap into the vitality of a student-worker alliance that enriches both struggles in South Africa with a more holistic vision. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"International Panel on Social Progress ","field_subtitle":"International Panel on Social Progress: France, September 2016","field_url":"https://www.ipsp.org","body":"The International Panel on Social Progress (IPSP) is a global initiative that brings together a large group of scholars brought together to compile evidence across disciplines to rethink ideas of a just society. They recognised the interconnected forces of: weakening traditional nation states; technological change; profound and unequal transformations in health and education outcomes; and contestations between the religious and secular. IPSP have produced this report aimed at social actors, movements, organisations, politicians and decision-makers, to provide them with the best evidence on questions that bear on social change. The report has 22 chapters covering a comprehensive range of areas that have an important bearing on society now and into the future. It is the first comprehensive synthesis of social sciences knowledge about key issues facing humankind today.  This first draft is available for public consultation and comment and IPSP invite comments from all concerned citizens and organisations. There is a web based platform for comments and inputs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Keynote address by WHO DG Margaret Chan at a TICAD high-level side event on UHC in Africa","field_subtitle":"Chan M: WHO, Tokyo International Conference of Africa's Development (TICAD), Nairobi, Kenya August 2016","field_url":"http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2016/universal-health-africa/en/","body":"Director General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Margaret Chan, addressed the Tokyo International Conference of Africa's Development (TICAD) held in Nairobi, Kenya, in August 2016. She raised the issue of Ebola as an example of the consequences of failing to invest in the community and resilient health systems. Dr Chan noted that well-functioning health systems that cover entire populations are now regarded as the first line of defence against the threat from emerging and re-emerging diseases. Apart from strengthened health security, Africa has much to gain from its commitment to universal health coverage (UHC). For decades, the biggest barriers to better health in Africa have been weak health systems and inadequate human and financial resources. A commitment to UHC means a commitment to address these barriers. UHC also addresses a third barrier to progress of dire poverty, including poverty caused by catastrophic spending on health care. A commitment to UHC, backed by country-specific plans for implementation gives African countries a huge opportunity to leap ahead. Dr Chan offered three pieces of advice. First, to understand that UHC is a direction for a journey, not a destination. Second, use the power of robust data to shape equitable policies in line with national contexts. For example, Kenya used the results from a survey of public expenditure to launch its innovative Health Sector Services Fund that provides direct cash transfers to primary health care facilities. Third, if UHC is to work as both a poverty-reduction strategy and a boost to health security, countries need to ensure that reforms reach health systems at the district level that support impoverished communities, and are best placed to engage them in health promotion, prevention, and the delivery of services that match perceived needs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge and Engagement: Building Capacity for the Next Generation of Community Based Researchers","field_subtitle":"Tandon R; Hall B; Lepore W (eds); Singh W: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zpuowh9","body":"This open access book presents findings of and separately authored case study examples of work in a global study titled \u2018Building the Next Generation of Community-Based Researchers\u2019 (a.k.a. the Next Gen project), funded by the Social Science and Human Research Council of Canada. The Next Gen project aimed to increase access to high quality training in Community-Based Research (CBR) within higher education institutions (HEIs) and civil society organisations (CSOs). The book presents a state-of-the art in pedagogies and strategies for building CBR capacities, to strengthen the existing training for fieldwork and theoretical and curricular content on participatory research within and outside academia. It outlines a number of important trends, approaches and challenges in the field of training the next generation of researchers in CBR; through a comparative analysis of 21 institutional case studies of CBR training providers from around the world and includes the results of a global survey of training CBR in HEIs & CSOs. With over 40 contributing authors from all around the world, Knowledge and Engagement is the first book of its kind, which represents a collective effort to bring many note-worthy aspects within one umbrella (i.e., \u2018Community Based Research\u2019), analyse the current scenario and training opportunities, and provide recommendations with regard to what can be done in the best possible manner. It includes two case studies from East and Southern Africa, namely Training And Research Support Centre Zimbabwe and Umphilo waManzi South Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mainstreaming gender into PMTCT guidelines in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Nyamhanga T: Resilient and responsive health systems (RESYST) blog, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Tanzania, September 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zgctdmd","body":" In Tanzania, the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) is a health sector priority, but there is very little information on how well gender mainstreamed in relation to national PMTCT guidelines. In this paper the authors research assessed the gender content of key policy documents in order to better understand how this area could be strengthened, using a WHO Gender Responsive Assessment Scale (GRAS). The GRAS divides gender responsiveness into 5 levels. Level 1, gender unequal, contains content which perpetuates gender inequality by reinforcing unbalanced norms, roles and relations. Level 2, gender blind, contains content which ignores gender norms, roles and relations and differences in opportunities and resource allocation for women and men. Level 3, gender sensitive, contains content which indicates awareness of the impact of gender norms, roles, and relations, but no remedial actions are developed. Level 4, gender specific, contains content which goes beyond indicating how gender may hinder PMTCT to highlighting remedial measures, such as the promotion of couple counselling and testing for HIV. Level 5, gender transformative, contains content which includes ways to transform harmful gender norms, roles and relations. The findings showed that gender-related issues are mentioned in all of the guidelines, indicating some degree of gender responsiveness. The level of gender responsiveness of PMTCT policy documents, however, varies, with some graded at GRAS level 3 (gender sensitive), and others at GRAS level 4 (gender specific). None of the reviewed policy documents could be graded as gender transformative. While the policy documents indicate recognition of gender inequality in decision-making and access to resources as a barrier to accessing PMTCT services by women, no attempt is made to transform harmful gender norms, roles, or relations. Overall, gender was not mainstreamed into any of the documents in the sense that gender was not considered in all key sections. Overall, the study revealed limited integration of gender concerns (less or lack of attention on the disadvantageous position of women in terms of  inequality in ownership of resources, power imbalance in decision making, asymmetrical division of roles, and masculine norms that distance men from maternal  and child care) in PMTCT guidelines. The authors suggest that revision of guidelines to mainstream gender is greatly needed if PMTCT services are to effectively contribute towards a reduction of child and maternal morbidity and mortality in Tanzania","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Motivation and incentive preferences of community health officers in Ghana: an economic behavioural experiment approach","field_subtitle":"Shiratori S; Agyekum EO; Shibanuma A; et al., EMBRACE Implementation Research Team: Human Resources for Health 14(54), 2016","field_url":"https://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12960-016-0148-1","body":"The health worker shortage in rural areas is a problems in many African countries, in part due to fewer incentives and support systems available to attract and retain health workers in these areas. This study explored the willingness of community health officers (CHOs) to accept and hold rural and community job postings in Ghana. A discrete choice experiment was used to estimate the motivation and incentive preferences of CHOs in Ghana. All CHOs working in three Health and Demographic Surveillance System sites in Ghana, 200 in total, were interviewed between December 2012 and January 2013. Respondents were asked to choose from choice sets of job preferences.  Mixed logit analyses of the data found a shorter projected time frame before study leave as the most important motivation for most CHOs, while an education allowance for children, a salary increase and housing provision also played a role. While male CHOs had a high affinity for an early opportunity to go on study leave, CHOs who had worked at the same place for a long time valued more a salary increase. To reduce health worker shortage in rural settings, policymakers could provide \u201cneeds-specific\u201d motivational packages. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Pambazuka Special Issue: Call for Articles","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 30 November 2016","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/announcements/pambazuka-special-issue-call-articles","body":"Pambazuka News is preparing a special issue on the labour movement and the struggles for Africa's liberation today. Pambazuka News wishes to dedicate a Special Issue to the labour movement and the struggles for Africa's liberation today. Labour has a mission that goes beyond agitation for worker rights towards the bigger project of concrete self-determination of the African people through ownership of their resources and means of production, etc. Shaun Whittaker of the Marxist Study Group of Namibia and former member of the Workers' Organisation for Socialist Action (South Africa) is guest editor for the special issue.  Authors are urged to write on their own countries and not generalize about the entire continent. They should try to only focus on one of the sub-themes or a related sub-theme. Articles should be up to 3, 000 words. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Position Announcement: Executive Director Sam Moyo African Institute for Agrarian Studies (SMAIAS)","field_subtitle":"Application Deadline: 9 January 2017","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2666&lang=en","body":"Previously known as the African Institute for Agrarian Studies(AIAS), and renamed to SMAIAS in 2016 in honour of its late Founder and Executive Director, Professor Sam Moyo, the SMAIAS in Harare has been in operation for over thirteen years. The SMAIAS aims to enhance Africa\u2019s agrarian transformation by promoting informed participation towards effective land and agrarian policies and reform, by means of Pan- African and South-South partnerships, interdisciplinary research initiatives, policy dialogues, training, and information dissemination. It interacts with various organisations and countries to assist them in developing capacity for policy formulation and research. It also facilitates policy dialogue among governments, academics, civil society and others on land and agrarian developments, especially on the land rights of marginalised social groups. Under the overall authority of the Board of Trustees and the direct supervision of the Chairperson of the Board of Trustees, the Executive Director will be expected to provide intellectual, administrative and strategic leadership to the secretariat of the SMAIAS. Only African citizens will be considered for this post.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Positioning women's and children's health in African union policy-making: a policy analysis","field_subtitle":"Toure K; Sankore R; Kuruvilla S; Scolaro E; Bustreo F; Osotimehin B: Globalization and Health 8(3), 2012 doi: 10.1186/1744-8603-8-3","field_url":"http://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1744-8603-8-3","body":"In this paper, the authors assess the evolution of African Union policies related to women's and children's health, and analyse how these policies are prioritised and framed. It used a document review of all African Union policies developed from 1963 to 2010, focusing specifically on policies that explicitly mention health. The findings were discussed with key actors to identify policy implications. With over 220 policies in total, peace and security was the most common AU policy topic. Social affairs and other development issues became more prominent in the 1990s. The number of policies that mentioned health rose steadily over the years (with 1 policy mentioning health in 1963 to 7 in 2010). This change was catalysed by factors such as: a favourable shift in AU priorities and systems towards development issues, spurred by the transition from the Organisation of African Unity to the African Union; the mandate of the African Commission on Human and People's Rights; health-related advocacy initiatives, such as the Campaign for the Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA); action and accountability requirements arising from international human rights treaties, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and new health-funding mechanisms, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Prioritisation of women's and children's health issues in AU policies has been framed primarily by human rights, advocacy and accountability considerations, more that by frameworks looking at their economic impact. The authors suggest that more effective prioritisation of women's and children's health in African Union policies could be supported by widening the policy framework to integrate their economic benefit  and strengthening the evidence base of policies and strengthening multi-stakeholder advocacy for them. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Problem or Promise? Harnessing Youth Potential in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Banks N; Sulaiman M: Building Resources Across Communities, 2012","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/governance-africa/content/problem-or-promise-harnessing-youth-potential-uganda","body":"This report from Building Resources Across Communities\u2019s (BRAC) Youth Watch team in Uganda. It shares lessons from the Research and Evaluation Unit's mixed-methods research, including a nationally representative survey of youth, focus groups, and in-depth case studies. Chapter 1 introduces the conceptual framework used in this report and describes the research methodology. Chapter 2 presents the asset portfolio of Ugandan youth. Chapter 3 outlines the position of youth in the family, community and political participation. Chapter 4 discusses the perceived opportunities of Ugandan youth, versus their aspirations. Chapters 5 to 7 outline the health outcomes for Ugandan youth, focusing on risky sexual behaviour, examples of success stories among youth and policy recommendations. The report points out the need for a comprehensive approach that emphasises employment and institutional support to avoid conditions that lead to early pregnancy in young women and sexually transmitted infections and HIV. \"Improved support from communities and local governments along with increased access to financial services and vocational training are key to facilitate healthy transition of youth into adulthood.....The combination of the multiple barriers facing youth - including limited assets and support, difficult economic, political and social environments, and limited perceived opportunities for the future - negatively influences the self-esteem, motivations, and aspirations of youth.\" ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Schools of Public Health in Low and Middle-income Countries: An imperative Investment for Improving the Health of Populations?","field_subtitle":"Rabbani F; Shipton L; White F; et al.,: BMC Public Health 16(941) 2016","field_url":"https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-016-3616-6","body":"Public health has multicultural origins. By the close of the nineteenth century, Schools of Public Health (SPHs) began to emerge in western countries in response to major contemporary public health challenges. The Flexner Report (1910) emphasised the centrality of preventive medicine, sanitation, and public health measures in health professional education. The Alma Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care (PHC) in 1978 was a critical milestone, especially for low and middle-income countries (LMICs), conceptualising a close working relationship between PHC and public health measures. The Commission on Social Determinants of Health (2005\u20132008) strengthened the case for SPHs in LMICs as key stakeholders in efforts to reduce global health inequities. This scoping review groups text into public health challenges faced by LMICs and the role of SPHs in addressing these challenges. The challenges faced by LMICs include rapid urbanisation, environmental degradation, unfair terms of global trade, limited capacity for equitable growth, mass displacements associated with conflicts and natural disasters, and universal health coverage. Poor governance and externally imposed donor policies and agendas, further strain the fragile health systems of LMICs faced with epidemiological transition. Moreover barriers to education and research imposed by limited resources, political and economic instability, and unbalanced partnerships additionally aggravate the crisis. To address these contextual challenges effectively, SPHs are offering broad based health professional education, conducting multidisciplinary population based research and fostering collaborative partnerships. SPHs are also looked upon as the key drivers to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Skills Building on Methods and Tools for Learning From Action in Participatory Action Research","field_subtitle":"Tuesday 15 November 2016 8:30am\u201312pm Room 17 Convention Centre, Health System Global, Vancouver, Canada","field_url":"","body":"This participatory skills session convened under the umbrella of the pra4equity network is being held at the Heath System Global Conference. In the session we will discusses methods and tools to build learning from action as a key element of participatory action research, directly engaging affected communities to build responsive health systems. The session draws on approaches and experience from Africa, Latin America and participants globally to discuss the methods/tools, their application and their integration in health systems. From prior global symposia, methods for learning from action were identified as weak in PAR practice. This session seeks to address this gap. It is targeted at researchers and practitioners. It uses methods resources and group discussions of case studies from health managers, policy actors, civil society and researchers in low and middle income countries to discuss the participatory processes and methods for learning from action at different levels, and the issues in applying and institutionalising these methods. We will also review what these participatory efforts to transform and build knowledge on health systems implies for the understanding of \u2018resilience\u2019. As the places are limited if you will be in Vancouver on the 15th November morning and would like to participate in this skills session please can you notify on the email shown with your name, institution and a line or two on any prior PAR experience.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"The Inequality Question Project","field_subtitle":"Rodney N: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Alumni Blog, October 2016","field_url":"http://inequalityquestion.com","body":"The Inequality Question is a unique project to debate global inequality issues. On the last Thursday of each month \u2013 #ThoughtfulThursday \u2013 children formerly or currently living on the streets of Uganda choose one inequality question to discuss and lead a live conversation online, with participants worldwide. These conversations give participants and facilitators the opportunity to discuss their thoughts, experiences and aspirations on how to make the world a more equal place. Individuals, classes, groups and organisations are joining into the conversation, not only to have direct discussions with children experiencing many inequalities, but also to spark ideas that lead them to undertake an \u201cInequality Challenge\u201d, so that they can become a catalyst for change. Samuel Woria undertook one of the Inequality Challenges that focused on gender. For one week, six women dictated all of Samuel\u2019s decisions. Samuel chose to take part in this challenge because he believes that men in Uganda do not treat women fairly and equally. His experiment not only facilitated challenging conversations, but also made an impact in his community. Many men have contacted Samuel to say they are trying to alter their behaviour towards women, and women have expressed their happiness to be shown such public support in their struggle for equality. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Next WHO Director-General\u2019s Highest Priority: A Global Treaty on the Human Right to Health","field_subtitle":"Gostin L; Friedman E; Buss P; et al.,: Lancet Global Health, October 2016","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/langlo/PIIS2214-109X(16)30219-4.pdf","body":"Amidst the many challenges facing the next WHO Director-General, the authors argue that the new WHO head should prioritise the right to health. They call for leadership on a Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH), based in the right to health and aimed at national and global health equity. The treaty would, they argue, enhance accountability, transparency, and civil society participation and protect the right to health in trade, investment, climate change, and other international regimes, while catalysing governments to institutionalise the right to health at community through to national levels. With the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control having served as a proof of concept, the FCGH would be an innovative treaty finding solutions to overcome global health failings in accountability, equality, financing, and inter-sectoral coherence, with a national and global health financing framework. They raise options for reaching beyond the health sector with right to health assessments, public health participation in developing international agreements, and responsibility for all sectors for improving health outcomes. Finally they propose that the FCGH would reinvigorate WHO\u2019s global health leadership, breathing new life into its founding principles and bringing badly-needed reforms to the institution, such as community participation, new priorities favouring social determinants of health, and a culture of transparency and accountability. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Transforming not absorbing: Messages from a dialogue on participatory learning from action","field_subtitle":"Members of the EQUINET pra4equity network","field_url":"","body":"\r\nWhen the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (GSHR) gathers health systems researchers in November 2016 to explore \u2018resilience\u2019 in health systems in a context of inequality and economic, social, environmental and health challenges, what learning and insights will we bring to the table?\r\n\r\nBetween August and October this year we carried out two rounds of discussion drawing in diverse voices from amongst the over 300 people globally in our pra4equity list, hosted by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET).  The first was to discuss our experiences in learning from action in participatory action research (PAR) and the second on what that implies for how we understand the concept of resilience. \r\n\r\nThe PAR process involves gathering and systematising lived experience to collectively analyse and validate the underlying causes, set, take and reflect on actions on these causes and draw knowledge from it. In earlier meetings we realised that people are less confident of this phase of learning from action. There was a demand to discuss further the processes for building the understanding, power and self-confidence to produce and evaluate change. \r\n\r\nIn the discussions, people drew attention to various  methods they used to facilitate learning from action, including through the \u2018but why\u2019 method, progress markers and wheel charts,  and mapping or taking photographs of change from initial findings as a means to reflect on the change and what has enabled or blocked it.  These processes and tools have not only been used to review how far we have achieved intended actions and outcomes, but also to reflect on the thinking and hypotheses on what produces change.  The collaborative development of hypotheses for change by those involved in the PAR (as a form of critical theory or using PAR forecasts,  like weather forecasts) was seen to be integral to learning from action. So too was helping people to document their ongoing learning. \r\n\r\nIn our learning network we\u2019ve also used the reflections across countries on actions on the same problem area as a form of \u2018meta-analysis\u2019,  to share insights on what facilitates the implementation of change, what blocks it and why, drawing learning also from what is similar and different across countries. \r\n\r\nThe steps of action and learning often take several PAR cycles to address deeper determinants and build meaningful change. This is especially relevant when people are engaging on deeply rooted power relations or determinants that are beyond local control, such as addressing gender in South Sudan or commercial sex work in Malawi. While not always the case, some noted that this can take more than a decade of work in both high and low income settings, calling for sustained processes.  \r\n\r\nThis raises challenges in some settings. Tracking of change may stop too early, those working in communities may lack the time or resources to record and report the change and the resources and attention to do this may not last for the time needed.  Researchers or facilitators may not always be included in or able to stay with change processes that take place over years.  PAR processes may also differ from the institutional cultures or priorities of universities or of the trade unions, social movements and other organisations that represent or work with the social groups involved.  \r\n\r\nThe power imbalances involved are often protected by strong interests. We reflected that before applying any method, including PAR, we need to be clearer on its strategic possibilities, given the contexts and social actors.  While this may lead to choices within range of approaches and forms of activism,  it was asserted that a self-determined understanding of the symbolic and material dimensions of inequalities remains a powerful starting point for any approach.\r\nNotwithstanding the difficulties, numerous examples of positive experience were shared!  In Monrovia, for example, PAR implemented after the Ebola epidemic led to a shared, more comprehensive understanding of maternal health amongst the health workers and community members involved, pointing to actions to strengthen the continuity and interaction of the different services and roles needed to improve maternal health care.  \r\n\r\nIn our discussions it was also suggested that the action and change in PAR should not only be seen in terms of material changes in conditions, although this is important.  It can in addition be seen in the change in the people involved. As one participant noted in the discussion, \u201cwe pay too much attention to the actions and not enough to the actors.\u201d  For those often excluded from formal planning and decision making, it is important to appreciate how far they themselves are transformed in the process, in terms of their consciousness and self- confidence to produce change.  This can start early in the PAR process, even from the first step of recognising and listening to shared experience. \r\n\r\nGiven these reflections, we had a second, equally challenging discussion on the concept of resilience from a PAR lens. In part this was due to its adoption as a theme by the GSHSR and in part its increasing use in global discourse.  Resilience has been used in environmental and physical sciences to describe the stability of a system against interference from external disturbances, but has migrated to the social sciences.  The GSHR website says:  \u201cResilience: absorbing shocks and sustaining gains\u2026. Health systems must be resilient \u2013 able to absorb the shocks and sustain the gains already made\u2026.\u201d\r\n\r\nAs was raised in June by Topp, Flores, Sriram and Scott, our network also challenged use of a term that implies \u2018absorbing shocks\u2019 and \u2018stability\u2019 when the system is an outcome of unjust and structural inequalities that undermine health. PAR has developed in many settings as a direct confrontation with these inequities, seeing their disruption as necessary for health. It would thus not comfortably be applied in the science of \u2018absorbing shocks\u2019, when these derive from such injustice.  \r\n\r\nAt the same time some noted that there appears to be a second set of meanings to the term. Resilience has also been used in some contexts to refer to the capability to sustain a positive change or to resist negative change, to transform and move from a harmful equilibrium to new more positive one and the ability to self-organise into a healthier state.  This appears to have greater resonance with the process in PAR, given that it draws in the learning from action on a system and intends to raise the direct power and capability of those directly affected.\r\n\r\nGiven how different these \u2018meanings\u2019 are, we noted that we need to understand explicitly and not assume how people are using the term resilience, including at GSHSR.  It has often been applied in relation to shocks and emergencies, for example. However participants raised that \u2018emergency\u2019 responses commonly use command and control styles that do not strengthen the capacity of or build co-determination with the affected community.  If resilience refers to the ability to move to a healthier state, then systems need to transform the conditions producing shocks to prevent them, and not merely to absorb them, and to do so in ways that are defined with and build the capabilities, voice and power of those directly affected. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped or interest in the pra4equity list to the EQUINET secretariat at  admin@equinetafrica.org.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"UN political declaration on antimicrobial resistance signals high level recognition","field_subtitle":"Alas M: TWN Info Service on Health, Sustainable Agriculture and UN Sustainable Development, September 2016","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/health.info/2016/hi160904.htm","body":"On 21 September 2016 the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted the political declaration on antimicrobial resistance. Its adoption provides recognition of the critical nature of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) at the highest political level. It recognises the World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Action Plan on AMR as the blue print of action.  It also acknowledges that the lack of access to health services and antimicrobial medicines continues to affect more people than resistance, as a major challenge for developing countries. The document clearly states that research and development efforts should be guided by need and by the principles of affordability, effectiveness, efficiency and equity as well as be de-linked from the price and volume of sales. There are two calls for action in the text. The first one calls upon the WHO \u201ctogether with Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), to finalise a global development and stewardship framework. \u201d Preliminary discussions on this framework have taken place in Geneva at the WHO Headquarters in early 2016 but this call for action gives an explicit mandate to continue the negotiations that will define and structure how this framework would look like. The second call for action requests the Secretary-General to establish an ad hoc interagency coordination group co-chaired by the Executive Office of the Secretary-General and the WHO. During the negotiations for the political declaration civil society groups that were following the process in New York told Third World Network that it was necessary that the UN, with all its agencies, participated in creating actions within their mandates to complement and support the WHO leadership in this issue due to the fact that AMR is interconnected with many other aspects beyond human health. According to several civil society organisations that attended the panel, while the declaration is a good step and recognition at the highest level of this critical issue the declaration had few commitments on the mobilisation of funds to support developing countries. It did not make specific commitments in the animal health sector. The declaration calls for a report back in 2018 at the UNGA and hopefully some of the commitments discussed in this meeting can be truly realised.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Urban Governance in Africa Today: Reframing, Experiences, and Lessons","field_subtitle":"Obeng-Odoom F: Growth and Change, August 2016, doi: 10.1111/grow.12164","field_url":"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/grow.12164/full","body":"Progress in analysing the instrumental view of governance as an engine for growth, poverty reduction, and inclusive development has been held back by the difficulty in framing governance. This essay seeks to address this problem by 1) reframing urban governance 2) evaluating its aims, processes, and outcomes, and 3) explaining those outcomes on the basis of which some lessons are teased out. Using examples from Africa and an institutional political economy approach the author argues that, overall, while urban economies are growing; both urban poverty and inequality levels have risen substantially. Urban governance has paved the way for new forms of urban development that only benefit the few, including in how differences in how urban services and resources are experienced, accessed, and controlled. The author argues that the underlying reasons for this disjuncture between \u201curban governance\u201d in theory and \u201cactually existing urban governance\u201d are 1) difficulties in implementing urban governance theory consistently in practice, 2) problems arising because urban governance theory has been implemented in practice, 3) tensions that would entangle most policies which do not address historical and structural economic issues, 4) restrictive assumptions, and 5) incoherence among the different dimensions of urban governance. To resolve these contradictions, the author puts the case for major structural and institutional change involving: 1) the re-ordering of the roles of the state, market, and society as institutions of change; 2) re-working the relationships that bind together land, labour, capital, and the state, and 3) re-organising the channels for keeping the attainment of the ends of urban governance in check.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"What is Habitat III and why does it matter? A beginner\u2019s guide to the new urban agenda","field_subtitle":"Robin E: The Conversation, October 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/h8y4ts4","body":"The Habitat process was launched by the UN in 1976, when governments began to recognise the risks of rapid urbanisation: in particular, rising inequality, falling quality of life and unsustainable development. More than half of the world\u2019s population now lives in urban areas, and this figure is predicted to rise to almost 70% by 2050. As a result, cities have become focal points for addressing many of humanity\u2019s greatest challenges. Economic inequalities have dramatically increased, and are heavily concentrated in urban areas: almost one third of city-dwellers live in informal settlements, such as slums. Habitat is a state-led process, so many world leaders and UN representatives will be at the conference. The UN also established a General Assembly of Partners to encourage the participation of local authorities, grassroots and indigenous organisations, women\u2019s and youth groups, as well as the private and charitable sectors. The main topic of discussion was the Zero Draft of the New Urban Agenda (NUA): a 24-page document, which outlines the nation states\u2019 shared vision for a sustainable urban future. The NUA has undergone three rounds of revisions between May and September 2016, to iron out conflicts and reach a consensus between the UN nation states. The \u201cright to the city\u201d is also enshrined in the document, calling on governments to create \u201ccities for people, not for profit\u201d, ensuring an inclusive, gender and age sensitive approach to city planning, as well as continuing efforts to reduce urban poverty. Unlike the Paris climate agreement or the SDGs, the NUA is non-binding \u2013 it merely provides guidelines for those involved in urban development. It does not give practical advice about how the NUA should be carried out, and who is in charge of implementing it. It does recognise the need for producing evidence to inform the implementation of the NUA, but does not indicate how progress should be measured and assessed. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Why are maternal health outcomes worse for migrant women in Masindi, Uganda?","field_subtitle":"Ayiasi R; Mangwi A; Kiiza A; Orach C: Resilient and responsive health systems (RESYST) blog, Makerere University, School of Public Health, September 2016 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/gnemeao","body":"Globally, 298,000 women die due to pregnancy related causes each year and half of these occur in Africa. In Uganda, maternal mortality has marginally reduced from 526/100,000 to 435/100,000 livebirths between 2001 and 2011. The presence of a skilled attendant during the entire continuum of care for maternal and new born care has great potential to reduce maternal and new born morbidities and mortality. In 2013, an intervention to mobilize communities in Masindi, Uganda for maternal and new born health was introduced and the results showed marked improvement in utilization of maternal health services such as antenatal care and health facility delivery. However, non-indigenous populations were found to use maternal health services less compared to the indigenous populations. The non-indigenous population are mainly from the West Nile region of Arua and Nebbi. These group of people provide a cheap source of labour for the sugar plantation and sugar factory in Kinyala. This study could not adequately explain why migrants were using maternal health services less. The aim of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of internal migrant\u2019s low access and utilisation of maternal and new born care services in Masindi, Uganda. Key barriers to access were identified as lack of financial resources, social beliefs, neglect by health workers, lack of education and lack of male involvement. There are a number of barriers to access to maternity care among migrant women in Masindi, Uganda. These barriers can be addressed at two levels. At the household level, there should be deliberate efforts to engage with men to support their partners during pregnancy and childbirth for example, by saving money and preparing for transport to the health facility in case of antenatal care and delivery. At the district level, there is need for district local managers together with district health managers to create a dialogue platform in which communication barriers and the mistreatment of migrant women can be addressed in the health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe\u2019s child marriages on the rise as food runs short","field_subtitle":"Mutizwa G: CNBC Africa, August 2016","field_url":"http://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/southern-africa/2016/08/16/zimbabwes-child-marriages/","body":"The author reports that food is becoming scarce in large parts of rural Zimbabwe with United Nations agencies and government warning more than one in three Zimbabweans may need food assistance by next March. The government has appealed for $1.5 billion in emergence support to cover the food and nutrition, agriculture, water, education, and health sectors. Mbire is a traditionally rain starved area, which lies in the Zambezi escarpment, near the border with Zambia. In Mbire, George Nyarugwe, the Acting District Administrator, said at the local clinics there was growing anecdotal evidence of forced child marriages with many of the young mothers telling nurses they were forced to marry because of the drought. Similar reports have been made in Mt Darwin in the country\u2019s northeast and in Seke, near Harare, according to the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee report released in January. Between last December and April, UNICEF says 3,042 new child protection cases were reported in 65 districts in Zimbabwe, with child neglect showing the highest incidence at 568, followed by sexual abuse at 306 and physical abuse at 218. There are plans to train government, non-government organisation and community social workers to better protect children in drought afflicted areas. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cOne-stop shop\u201d brings life-saving HIV care, reproductive health to Botswana\u2019s women","field_subtitle":"United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Geneva, September 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/z5z7rrl","body":"When Rose Matuulane was pregnant five years ago, she had to wait for a nurse to visit her small village, Otse in Botswana,  to provide antenatal check-ups. When the nurse could not make it, Ms. Matuulane had to travel 84 km to the nearest clinic, in Shoghong, arriving the day before so that she could rise early and queue for hours. If she or any other woman additionally needed a family planning consultation, cervical cancer screening, HIV testing and counselling, or HIV treatment, they would have to come back another day, waiting again for hours. Ms. Matuulane, 24, is now a mother of two. The experience she had with her second pregnancy was worlds apart from the first. In 2011, shortly after she had her first baby, UNFPA helped to introduce integrated reproductive health care services at the Otse Health Post. It meant Ms. Matuulane no longer had to travel all the way to Shoshong. The new approach \u2013 called a \u201cone-stop shop model\u201d \u2013 also meant women no longer had to return time and again for different sexual and reproductive health services. The one-stop shop model is helping to increase women\u2019s access to life-saving maternal health care and family planning. It is also a critical tactic in the fight against Botswana\u2019s devastating HIV epidemic. The country has an HIV prevalence of 22 per cent among 15-to-49 year olds, according to 2015 UNAIDS estimates. A staggering 18 per cent of maternal deaths in the country are due to HIV-related causes. By integrating a full suite of reproductive health care together with a full range of HIV services \u2013 including prevention, testing and antiretroviral treatment \u2013 health workers have more opportunities to provide both kinds of care. The project \u2013 a partnership between the Ministry of Health, UNFPA and UNAIDS, with funding from the European Union, and the Swedish and Norwegian development agencies \u2013 is being piloted in seven countries in the East and Southern Africa Region. Botswana is the first of the pilot countries to implement the approach nationwide. Since the programme\u2019s launch, the number of women visiting clinics for post-natal care, who are then able to simultaneously receive HIV and family planning services, has increased by 63 per cent, according to a recent report. The number of women seeking family planning, who are now able to access HIV services at the same time, has increased by 89 per cent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":" Skills Building On Methods And Tools For Learning From Action In Participatory Action Research","field_subtitle":"Tuesday 15 November 2016 8:30am\u201312pm Convention Centre, Health System Global, Vancouver, Canada","field_url":"","body":"This participatory skills session convened under the umbrella of the pra4equity network is being held at the Heath System Global Conference. In the session we will discusses methods and tools to build learning from action as a key element of participatory action research, directly engaging affected communities to build responsive health systems. The session draws on approaches and experience from Africa, Latin America and participants globally to discuss the methods/tools, their application and their integration in health systems. From prior global symposia, methods for learning from action were identified as weak in PAR practice. This session seeks to address this gap. It is targeted at researchers and practitioners. It uses methods resources and group discussions of case studies from health managers, policy actors, civil society and researchers in low and middle income countries to discuss the participatory processes and methods for learning from action at different levels, and the issues in applying and institutionalising these methods. We will also review what these participatory efforts to transform and build knowledge on health systems implies for the understanding of \u2018resilience\u2019. As the places are limited if you will be in Vancouver on the 15th November morning and would like to participate in this skills session please can you notify on the email shown with your name, institution and a line or two on any prior PAR experience.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"2016: Old Challenges, New Hopes","field_subtitle":"Independent Accountability Panel, September 2016","field_url":"http://iapreport.org/","body":"The Independent Accountability Panel (IAP) inaugural report '2016: Old Challenges, New Hopes' was launched September 18, 2016 in conjunction with the Partnership for Maternal Newborn and Child Health and Countdown to 2030 and  formally submitted to the Secretary-General at the Every Woman Every Child high level reception on the 20th September 2016. The report details how inequalities within and between countries are leaving women, children and adolescents at a disadvantage. It argues that more must be done to give every woman, every adolescent, and every child the opportunity to survive and thrive. In a statement at http://tinyurl.com/hadb8np  the O\u2019Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University Law Center endorsed the report noting \"The IAP\u2019s report encompasses remedies as a necessary part of an accountability framework, building on the earlier work of the Commission on Information and Accountability and its accountability framework of monitor, review, and act. The inclusion of remedies rounds out a cycle of accountability that is necessary to realize the right to health and other health-related rights, which must extend beyond the traditional emphasis on monitoring and evaluation. This report is intended to help catalyze the use of national, regional, and global accountability mechanisms \u2013 and vitally, to ensure that all people, with special attention to the most marginalized, have the resources and respect that empower their ability to access them\". \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A focus on parliamentary roles in health in the region","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET newsletter","field_url":"","body":"In 2008 parliamentarians from Parliamentary Committees on Health in East and Southern Africa committed to raising the profile of health in all parliaments in the region, to strengthen their leadership, roles, capacities in and evidence for promoting, monitoring and advancing equity in health and health care. In this issue we have given attention to the role and work of African parliaments in health, both in the editorial and in various recently published items. Parliaments play a critical role in health, promoting public information and dialogue, scrutinising and reviewing laws, reviewing budget proposals and overseeing the implementation of policy and the functioning of the executive.  There are numerous documents on the EQUINET site that report this parliamentary work in health since 2008, including on raising accountability on the Abuja commitment on domestic financing for health. This issue gives a glimpse into the more recent work and debates on health underway in African parliaments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"A tale of two worlds \u2013 Vedanta AGM 2016","field_subtitle":"Whitmore A: London Mining Network, August 2016","field_url":"http://londonminingnetwork.org/2016/08/a-tale-of-two-worlds-vedanta-agm-2016/","body":"Vedanta Ltd is a mining company which various subsidiaries has operations in India, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Liberia, Ireland and Australia in copper, zinc, silver, aluminium, oil, gas, iron ore and power segments. This article reports on Vedanta\u2019s annual general meeting in London and some of the debates that took place at the meeting, including in relation to the report back by shareholders who visited mine sites and reported on what they had seen on working and environmental conditions. The author comments that in part a promise of \u201czero harm\u201d by large extractive corporations is illusory and can lead to real problems being hidden. The author argues for reports to rather be clearer about the real conditions and situation on the ground to include and allow debate on the improvements intended to manage them. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"African Health Economics and Policy Association 4th Biennal Scientific Conference ","field_subtitle":"26-29 September 2016, Rabat, Morocco.","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jse64y3","body":"The African Health Economics & Policy Association (AfHEA) was set up in March 2009 as a membership-based non-profit association of Africans and non-Africans including students working on Africa-related issues in the fields of health economics, financing and policy. The theme of the 2016 AfHEA  conference will be: \u201cThe Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Grand Convergence and Health in Africa\". The conference aims to: help define the research agenda and identify research gaps regarding the conference theme; ensure a minimum of 20 African countries and 200 participants from Africa (both Francophone and Anglophone) attend conference; attendance from at least 10 globally recognised experts on African health economics and policy; at least 120 abstracts presented; publish all abstracts and posters of conference both in hard copy and electronically (online); identify currently emerging and priority research areas for African countries and regional bodies; outputs from the AfHEA conference are translated into policy notes and communicated to decision makers. The target audience is researchers, policy makers, health professionals, academics and students, practitioners from Ministries of Health, Finance and related agencies, individuals from the NGO and community-based organisations, and others with a research or policy interest in the subject areas covered by AfHEA.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP) conducts training for Parliament Staff from across Africa on evidence use","field_subtitle":"Oronje R: African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP), Uganda, July 2016","field_url":"https://www.afidep.org/?p=4341","body":"The African Institute for Development Policy AFIDEP conducted a training workshop for more than 15 parliament staff from 10 African countries on evidence-informed decision-making (EIDM) on June 27-28, 2016 in Munyonyo, Uganda. The parliamentary staff included researchers and clerks who support parliamentary health committees. These staff provide committees with briefings on issues to inform their debates and decisions, and therefore play a crucial role in the ecosystem of evidence use in parliament. The workshop equipped the parliamentary researchers and clerks with knowledge and skills in: the critical place of evidence in the legislature; knowledge of where and how to effectively search for evidence, assess its quality, and synthesise and package it appropriately for use by MPs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"African parliaments networking to ensure delivery of key health goals","field_subtitle":"Hon Blessing Chebundo, Network of African Parliamentary Committees of Health","field_url":"","body":"\r\nOne reason why many of our health policies fail to be fully implemented in our region is that we lack a robust mechanism to make sure of this. Parliaments play a key role in this. They provide a link between government and citizens on laws and treaties, budgets and in overseeing in implementation of national programmes. In the early 1990s, most African countries initiated reforms for their parliaments to play a more effective and visible role in these functions. \r\n\r\nThe idea to bring the Portfolio Committees on health in the region together was first mooted in 2003, in part due to falling budget allocations to health, to the devastating impact of AIDS and to evident inequalities in access to funds and services. We recognized that as members of parliament (MPs) we needed to use our representative mandate to communicate social expectations and strengthen social voice and power in health.  A core group of MP used our own resources to visit other parliaments in the region to share the idea and listen to the feedback. The network was finally launched in 2005 as the Southern and East Africa Parliamentary Committees on Health (SEAPACOH). Today we have widened to all of Africa and are the Network of African Parliamentary Committees on Health (NEAPACOH).  So far we have active participation from Angola, Botswana, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Kingdom of Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe and we welcome other parliamentary committees on health in the continent. \r\n\r\nSince 2008 and with technical partners like EQUINET and Partners in Population and Development Africa Regional Office, the network has annually brought together the health committee chair, clerk and several other MPs from committees across the continent. This provides a forum for parliamentary committees on health to share concerns, unify voice on common concerns and calls for action, to advocate for health as a fundamental human right and promote democratic principles in health, including in our engagement with global processes. It also allows us to share promising practice and lessons learned. Strategically, we use the annual conference to identify common challenges and resolve on areas for action and on commitments that national health committees/delegations undertake to implement and report progress on at the next conference. We have found that identifying joint areas of action that brings us on the same \u2018wave length\u2019 strengthens our effectiveness, individually and collectively. The experiences, views and success stories that we share inspire and inform the individual committees. For example from 2005 we took up a common cause on advocating our Ministries of Finance to meet the Abuja commitment of 15% of the government budget going to health, that raised attention to this issue and contributed to improved allocation in a number of countries. We also raised issues that affect other sectors and committees, such as the positions on intellectual property that are needed to support access to medicines. We produced with EQUINET parliamentary briefs on international treaties affecting health and other health issues that are common for all parliaments in the region. We have in the process built solidarity and collaboration with civil society organisations and regional networks, and with health professionals, academics, non-state actors, research institutes and international agencies.  This has enabled us to better understand and synergise our different but complementary roles across all actors to ensure we deliver on social values and policy commitments, such as on health equity.\r\n\r\nIn our recently held 2016 NEAPACOH conference we have identified some key areas of attention and work for the coming year. Some are platforms we are sustaining from prior years, including to: facilitate greater public participation in health; to pursue and monitor achievement of equity in health; to advocate for improved health budgets and financing (in line with the Abuja commitment); and to promote access to key reproductive health, family planning and HIV/AIDS services. We agreed, further, to evaluate how far our governments have ratified and domesticated health related treaties and to engage on how far actions have been institutionalized and implemented to advance Universal Health Coverage and other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that affect health, including within parliament. We see a need to mainstream the SDGs within the diverse areas of work of parliament, including the public information and consultation for them, and would want to spearhead work on this in health. We also plan to develop a handbook for African parliamentary health committee members as a practical resource to support their role. \r\n\r\nThe 2016 conference also raised a proposal for NEAPACOH to work with technical partners to evaluate how effectively parliamentary committees are taking forward resolutions, to understand the barriers and support practice. We will do this by visiting a selection of member committees in their countries before the next meeting.\r\n\r\nThe process of building this network has itself been a learning experience. Indeed we understand that the longevity of this network of parliamentary committees is unique in the continent, outside the formal all parliament unions.  We have grown stronger over the years building on our constitution and founding values, and have a board of serving MPs from all five African regions chosen in our annual conference and an office hosted by the Parliament of Uganda. Over the 13 years since we were formed we have benefited from perseverance of leadership and retention of key founding personnel, from sound founding principles, and from a consistent collaboration with key technical partners in the region. At the same time we still have much to do to deliver on our mandate, to be more robust and effective at national, regional and continental level to protect shared health values and to play our role in ensuring that they are delivered on in practice. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. You can find out more on NEAPACOH at www.seapacoh.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"African Speakers of Parliament commit to support maternal, newborn and child health: Resolution on Declaration of Commitment to Prioritize and Increase Budget Support to Maternal, Newborn and Child Health","field_subtitle":"The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health: October 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/pmnch/media/news/2011/20111024_africanspeakersdeclaration/en/","body":"African Speakers of Parliaments and Presidents of Senate have unanimously adopted a landmark resolution on a Declaration of Commitment to prioritise parliamentary support for increased policy and budget action on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health in African countries. The milestone Declaration of Commitment was adopted at the 3rd Pan African Speakers Conference 17th \u2013 18th October 2011, in Midrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. In the communiqu\u00e9 issued at the end of the conference, the speakers committed to \u201cprioritise policy and budget support for implementation of African Union Summit Decisions, in particular the \u2026 Kampala July 2010 Summit Declaration on the Summit theme of \u201cActions on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Development in Africa\u201d. The Commitment was the first of its kind by African Speakers of Parliament, and marks a significant milestone in accelerating progress in Africa towards the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5 on Child and Maternal Health, respectively. It also promises high-level parliamentary support to hasten implementation of the Africa Parliamentary Policy and Budget Action Plan on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, agreed by Chairs of Finance and Budget committees of national parliaments in October 2010.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Aspirations and realities in a North-South partnership for health promotion: lessons from a program to promote safe male circumcision in Botswana","field_subtitle":"Katisi M; Daniel M; Mittelmark M: Globalization and Health 12(42), 2016, doi: 10.1186/s12992-016-0179-3","field_url":"http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12992-016-0179-3","body":"Government of Botswana partners with two international organisations: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Africa Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnership to implement Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision with the target of circumcising 80 % of HIV negative men in 5 years. This paper uses a systems model to establish how the functioning of the partnership on Safe Male Circumcision in Botswana contributed to the outcome. Data were collected using observations, focus group discussions and interviews. Thirty participants representing all three partners were observed in a 3-day meeting; followed by three rounds of in-depth interviews with five selected leading officers over 2 years and three focus group discussions. Financial resources, \u201cownership\u201d and the target were found to influence the success or failure of partnerships. A combination of inputs by partners brought progress towards achieving set program goals. Although there were tensions between partners, they worked together in strategising to address some challenges of the partnership and implementation. The authors found that pressure to meet the expectations of the international funders caused tension and challenges between the in-country partners to the extent of Development Partners retreating and not pursuing the mission further. Target achievement, the link between financial contribution and ownership expectations caused antagonistic outcomes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"CODESRIA Vacancy Announcement: Programme Officer (Research)","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 23 October 2016","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2660&lang=en","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) invites applications from African scholars to fill a vacant position of Programme Officer (Research) in its pan-African Secretariat located in Dakar, Senegal. This position is categorized as belonging to the senior staff of the Council and as such is filled on the basis of an international announcement. The successful candidate will work as a member of the Secretariat under the overall supervision of the Executive Secretary of the Council. For further details see the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing a mHealth intervention to promote uptake of HIV testing among African communities in the conditions: a qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Evans C; Turner K; Suggs L; Occa A; Juma A; Blake H: BMC Public Health 16(656), 2016, doi: 10.1186/s12889-016-3278-4 ","field_url":"https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-016-3278-4","body":"HIV-related mHealth interventions have demonstrable efficacy in supporting treatment adherence, although the evidence base for promoting HIV testing is inconclusive. Progress is constrained by a limited understanding of processes used to develop interventions and weak theoretical underpinnings. This paper describes a research project that informed the development of a theory-based mHealth intervention to promote HIV testing amongst city-dwelling African communities in the conditions. A community-based participatory social marketing design was adopted. Six focus groups (48 participants in total) were undertaken and analysed using a thematic framework approach, guided by constructs from the Health Belief Model. Key themes were incorporated into a set of text messages, which were pre-tested and refined. The focus groups identified a relatively low perception of HIV risk, especially amongst men, and a range of social and structural barriers to HIV testing. In terms of self-efficacy around HIV testing, respondents highlighted a need for communities and professionals to work together to build a context of trust through co-location in, and co-involvement of, local communities which would in turn enhance confidence in, and support for, HIV testing activities of health professionals. Findings suggested that messages should: avoid an exclusive focus on HIV, be tailored and personalised, come from a trusted source, allay fears and focus on support and health benefits. HIV remains a stigmatised and de-prioritised issue within African migrant communities in the UK, posing barriers to HIV testing initiatives. A community-based participatory social marketing design can be successfully used to develop a culturally appropriate text messaging HIV intervention. Key challenges involved turning community research recommendations into brief text messages of only 160 characters. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Dirty Diesel","field_subtitle":"Gu\u00e9niat M, Harjono M, Missbach A, Viredaz GV: Public Eye, Lausanne, September 2016 ","field_url":"https://www.publiceye.ch/fileadmin/files/documents/Rohstoffe/DirtyDiesel/PublicEye2016_DirtyDiesel_A-Public-Eye-Investigation.pdf","body":"A new report published by Public Eye, 'Dirty Diesel'  reports that Swiss commodity trading firms exploit lax regulatory standards to sell African customers fuel with high sulfur content that have been banned in Europe. Operating behind the Energy brands, trading companies have a dominant position in the import and distribution of petroleum products in many African countries. Public Eye researchers drew fuel at local pumps in eight countries, viz: Angola, Benin, the Republic of the Congo, Ghana, C\u00f4te d'Ivoire, Mali, Senegal and Zambia. The result revealed that the diesel samples contained up to 378 times more sulfur than is permitted in Europe. Furthermore, other toxic substances, such as benzene and polycyclical aromatic hydrocarbons, were also found in concentrations that are also banned in Europe. The 160-page report further indicates that the traders mix up a petrochemical cocktail from refinery products and other components known in the industry as \"African Quality\". These toxic fuels are reported to be mainly mixed in the ARA-Zone (Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp) where Swiss trading firms have their own refineries and storage facilities. Many West African countries that export high grade crude oil to Europe receive toxic low quality fuel in return. The authors indicate that these fuels investigated contribute to rising air pollution in African cities and jeopardise health, as noted in studies on rapidly increasing levels of air pollution and estimates that by 2030 Africa will have three times as many deaths from traffic-related particle dust than Europe, Japan, and the US combined. Respiratory illnesses are already a major health issue and diesel fumes can cause cancer. The authors argue that African governments need to set and enforce stricter standards. In a petition addressed to Trafigura, Public Eye and its West African partners call on the Geneva-based commodities giant to only sell fuel that meets European standards in all of its global operations, and the UN-Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights adopted in 2011.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Drama for Conflict Transformation Toolkit: Youth Theatre for Peace","field_subtitle":"International Research & Exchanges (IREX): July 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jazlzwl","body":"The Drama for Conflict Transformation (DCT) methodology introduced in this toolkit is used to create community conversation about conflict issues, piloted in conflict-prone areas in Kenya, amongst other countries. Since 2010, participants have collaborated with more than 50,000 audience members to talk about solutions to bullying in schools, labour migration, bride kidnapping, resource scarcity, and substance abuse. The idea is that, \"when youth are engaged positively and given a voice, they can play vital roles in building peace. This toolkit is designed to introduce young people to an innovative theatre methodology that creatively examines and transforms conflict. After working through the exercises in this manual, youth will be equipped to lead community dialogue as agents of positive change.\u201d This toolkit guides facilitators in creating a custom workshop to introduce youth to the DCT methodology. The material can be adapted by the facilitator to be culturally or regionally specific and to integrate various themes important to the participant group. Many options for workshop modules - including lead-in activities, warm-up modules, main sessions, energisers, and closing activities - are included to allow the facilitator to craft workshops that best fit their local context and needs. After working through these exercises, participants are expected to be able to analyse conflicts in their communities using theatre exercises, create a Forum Theatre performance based on a community conflict issue, and engage with their local communities through DCT. The toolkit is divided into two sections. Section I: Introduction to DCT Methodology and Facilitation includes hints on organising a DCT workshop, structuring exercises, and establishing group dynamics, as well as an illustration of good facilitation to create a safe, fun, and informative space for participants. Section II: DCT Activities and Theatre Techniques includes a toolbox of DCT activities, arranged by type (warm-up, lead-in, main activity, energiser, or closing activity). Notations on sequencing indicate when certain exercises should be used to build upon earlier trust-building or skill-building work. A glossary of terms, bibliography of relevant works, and selection of handouts are found at the end of the manual.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Economics, financing and HIV: Reflections from the 2016 International AIDS Economics Network Preconference","field_subtitle":"Forsythe S; Barker C; Chaitkin M: Results for Development, August 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/joxdjp7","body":"The International AIDS Economics Network (IAEN) Preconference in Durban in July 2016 demonstrated the strong political will to prioritise financing and harness economics to sustain the global HIV response and end AIDS, with high-level participation by ministers of health from Lesotho, Namibia, Botswana, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, along with the heads of UNAIDS and PEPFAR and experts from the CDC and the World Bank. At the policy level, a high-level panel discussed how evidence generated by economists can help facilitate engagement between the ministries of health and treasury and with civil society to keep health and HIV as a top priority in many countries. They also argued that investment cases should be made alongside human rights cases. These messages were echoed throughout the main conference. The face of HIV economics has changed, with young researchers from low- and middle-income countries making most of the presentations. The community\u2019s focus has also changed in other promising ways. In 2000 health economists were just starting to explain why it makes economic sense to introduce antiretroviral (ARV) medicines into low-resource settings, and responsibility for financing HIV programs was seen to lie squarely in the hands of rich countries. In contrast, today energy is channeled towards sustaining the response and striving toward the 90-90-90 targets as efficiently as possible. Critically, the International AIDS Economics Network are supporting countries to mobilize ever more domestic resources and take ownership of their national programs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Educate public on GMOs ","field_subtitle":"Parliamentarians: Parliament of Uganda: Kampala, August 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hv468tc","body":"Members of the Ugandan Parliament (MPs) under the Parliamentary Committee on Science and Technology have tasked scientists at Kawanda Agricultural Research Institute(KARI) to educate the public more on Genetically Modified crops. The MPs raised concern over the unawareness of the public about genetically modified crops, the misconceptions people have concerning genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and problems in some of the genetically modified crops that have been introduced locally. This was during a meeting at  the Agricultural Research Institute.  Hon. Rose Mutonyi (Bubulo West) said the public is not convinced about genetically modified crops.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 187: African parliaments networking to ensure delivery of key health goals ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Policy Brief 41: Giving new momentum to strategies for retaining health workers","field_subtitle":"Dambisya Y: EQUINET with ECSA HC, TARSC and U Limpopo, September 2016","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Polbrief%2041%20HR.pdf","body":"This brief discusses the strategies used for attracting and retaining skilled health workers in ESA countries, especially to address underserved rural and remote areas, primary care settings and in the public sector. It reviews practice to date and identifies strategic options, given both regional learning and the opportunity of the 2016 Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health. Whereas ESA countries have implemented various attraction and retention regimes, the results have not been well documented, with still limited evaluation and reporting of impact of these strategies. The evidence suggests a need for a comprehensive, multi-sectoral and co-ordinated approach to planning and implementation, to make the case for improved funding and with greater use of information and monitoring systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Forum 2015 dialogue on \"From evidence to policy - thinking outside the box\": perspectives to improve evidence uptake and good practices in the African Region","field_subtitle":"Kirigia J; Pannenborg C; Amore L; Ghannem H; IJsselmuiden C; Nabyonga-Orem J: BMC Health Services Research 16(Suppl 4), 18 July 2016, doi: 10.1186/s12913-016-1453-z","field_url":"https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-016-1453-z","body":"The Global Forum 2015 panel session dialogue entitled \u201cFrom evidence to policy \u2013 thinking outside the box\u201d was held on 26 August 2015 in the Philippines to debate why evidence was not fully translated into policy and practice and what could be done to increase its uptake. This paper reports the reasons and possible actions for increasing the uptake of evidence, and highlights the actions partners could take to increase the use of evidence in the African Region. The Global Forum 2015 debate attributed African Region\u2019s low uptake of evidence to the big gap in incentives and interests between research for health researchers and public health policy-makers; limited appreciation on the side of researchers that public health decisions are based on multiple and complex considerations; perception among users that research evidence is not relevant to local contexts; absence of knowledge translation platforms; sub-optimal collaboration and engagement between industry and research institutions; lack of involvement of civil society organisations; lack of engagement of communities in the research process; failure to engage the media; limited awareness and debate in national and local parliaments on the importance of investing in research and innovation; and dearth of research and innovation parks in the African Region. The actions needed in the Region to increase the uptake of evidence in policy and practice include strengthening national health research governance; bridging the motivation gap between researchers and health policy-makers; restoring trust between researchers and decision-makers; ensuring close and continuous intellectual intercourse among researchers, ministry of health policy-makers and technocrats during the life course of research projects or programmes; proactive collaboration between academia and industry; regular briefings of civil society, media, relevant parliamentary committees and development partners; development of vibrant knowledge translation platforms; development of action plans for implementing research recommendations, preferably in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals; and encouragement of competition on health research strengthening and research output and uptake among the countries using a barometer or scorecard to review their performance at various regional ministerial forums and taking into account the lessons learned from the MDG period.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Indian Private Sector Investments in African Healthcare","field_subtitle":"Ngangom T; Aneja U: ORF Issue Brief 145, 2016 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/gu6aw49","body":"This paper examines India's partnership with Africa in four sectors \u2013 medical tourism, tele-health, frugal innovations, and the pharmaceutical industry. It examines the nature of Indian private sector investments in African healthcare. It analyses their effectiveness in dealing with the issues around equity of access, the establishment of comprehensive 'prevention- based' health systems, and the creation of mutual benefit. The author reports that there is significant Indian commercial presence in Africa's health systems but the engagement needs a broader conception of the 'private sector' to include traditional healers and social entrepreneurs engaged in innovation for healthcare. Given their common health challenges, the authors argue that India and African countries must work towards crafting innovative low-cost healthcare models, and invest in the production and research of pharmaceutical products, especially for neglected diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Intellectual Property and Access to Science","field_subtitle":"South Centre: Research Paper 69, 2016","field_url":"https://www.southcentre.int/research-paper-69-july-2016/","body":"The boundaries between scientific and technological knowledge are nebulous in some technical fields, such as the biological sciences and their applications. This has led to the appropriation under patents of knowledge (such as on specific genes) of scientific nature, which may not only have negative effects for the further development of science and new technological contributions, but also encroach on the fundamental right of access to science. The South Centre argues in this paper that the patenting policies adopted by some universities and other research institutions may aggravate this problem. Court decisions in the USA and Australia and some national laws (e.g. Brazil) have limited the possibility of that appropriation, but this is still feasible in many jurisdictions. The authors argues that other measures \u2013 such as a well formulated research exception, the limitation of the patent claims\u2019 scope, and legislation mandating open access to research results achieved with public funding \u2013 may mitigate the effects of the exclusivity granted by patent rights, but more fundamental policy changes may be necessary in order to preserve scientific outcomes in the public domain for free use and follow-on research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya women Parliamentarians speak out on the need for evidence to improve legislation and governance","field_subtitle":"Warira D: African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP), July 2016","field_url":"https://www.afidep.org/?p=4557","body":"Members of the Kenya Parliament, specifically women, have expressed the need to close the evidence gap currently curtailing effective legislation and policy formulation. Speaking at a workshop organised by African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP) and the Parliamentary Caucus on Evidence-Informed Decision-Making (PC-EIDM), the Members of Parliament (MPs) acknowledged the critical role evidence plays towards enhancing their effectiveness in legislation, representation and policy-making. The workshop, which specifically targeted members of the Kenya Women Parliamentary Association (KEWOPA), provided an excellent opportunity for the women Parliamentarians to speak out on the challenges they are grappling with as legislators. Hon Naisula Lesuuda, a nominated Senator, Samburu County and the Deputy Chairperson of KEWOPA in the Senate, said that through the Association, women in Parliament play a critical role since KEWOPA\u2019s mandate is to ensure that policies are gender-responsive, and that programmes related to women\u2019s affairs get adequate resource allocation. Evidence is therefore of essence as the Association needs to ensure that its recommendations are evidence-informed. The MPs expressed their desire to use evidence to debate policy issues but the evidence is not readily available. There were also calls to digitise all data in the custody of various government ministries and to have it uploaded to an online portal to enhance its accessibility by Parliamentarians when need arises. In addition, the MPs noted that they would have achieved more during their current tenure had relevant evidence on pressing socio-economic challenges in their areas of jurisdiction been presented immediately they took over office. In a bid to identify strategies to enhance evidence use in Parliament, the members called attention to the need for the training of research and personal assistants.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Leaving no one behind: a critical path for the first 1,000 days of the Sustainable Development Goals","field_subtitle":"Stuart E; Bird K; Bhatkal T; Greenville R; Rabinowitz S; Samman E; Sarwar M; Lynch A: Overseas Development Institute, 2016","field_url":"http://www.developmentprogress.org/leave-no-one-behind","body":"The authors argue that leaving no one behind is the moral issue of our age, and is at the heart the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One specific goal is \u2018ending poverty, in all its forms, everywhere\u2019, but the SDGs also aim to tackle marginalisation. The SDG outcome document specifies that the goals should be met for all segments of society, with an endeavour to reach those furthest behind first. Now the focus is on implementation, particularly at the national level. This report makes the case for early action, and quantifies its benefits. The report outlines the actions that governments can take in the first 1,000 days of the SDGs to respond to what poor people want and to deliver for the most marginalised people and groups. The evidence shows that achieving the SDGs and the ambition to leave no one behind will become far more difficult the longer governments delay. The report concludes that early action is critical for the achievement of the SDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Linkages between researchers and legislators in developing countries: A scoping study","field_subtitle":"Datta A; Jones N: Overseas Development Institute, Working paper 332, 2011","field_url":"http://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/2989.pdf","body":"The need for legislative information and research, especially in developing and transition countries, is growing as policy-making processes become more complex, particularly in the context of globalisation, regional integration and decentralisation. Since the executive branch of governments generally has access to a larger pool of knowledge and expertise than the national legislature, there is a need to address the imbalance in access to knowledge between the executive, legislature and judiciary in order to promote better quality policy-making. Better access to information and research can help empower legislatures to formulate and pass effective legislation and perform effective scrutiny of government. Using the Research and Policy in Development (RAPID) framework, this study maps the links between researchers and legislators in a number of transition and developing countries; explores the role of politics in influencing researcher\u2013legislator linkages; and comments on the type of research produced as well as the credibility of the research/researchers. Civil society organisations (CSO) particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, perhaps because of weak political parties, play a key role in representing grassroots constituencies in legislative processes. Legislative committee hearings across all legislatures tend to be a key mechanism through which researchers\u2019 voices can be heard in the processes of law-making and oversight. Some legislatures, particularly those in East Asia, have substantial in-house technocratic capacity, including library and research services and the capacity to commission research. In Sub-Saharan Africa, a number of (donor-funded) organisations have been set up to provide the legislature with input and capacity, particularly on management of public finances. Researcher\u2013legislator linkages, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, tend to be stronger or more visible in areas that are perceived to require hard data, such as quantitative analyses. These include public financial management, particularly budgeting and budget control. In Sub-Saharan Africa, these formal mechanisms were found in the study to be externally funded and/or -inspired. Where hard data is concerned, research tends to be demand-oriented; in the softer sectors, CSOs have tended to take the initiative to engage legislators. The relationship between political context factors and researcher\u2013legislator links was found to be  complex. Legislators\u2019 personal motivations, such as the desire for political advancement, to influence policy, for power in a legislative body and for private gain, can affect the way they view or use evidence in the policy process. The capacity provided by a legislature\u2019s procedures, structures and support mechanisms also influences the role of research in law-making and oversight processes. They propose that researchers work harder to ensure evidence is accessible by legislators and related to legislative decisions, that fits tightly with legislative processes. Legislators emphasised the need for researchers to go beyond stating research findings to actually narrate a compelling story with practical policy recommendations. Moreover, evidence is more likely to be taken up if messages resonate with broader national policy agendas, such as economic growth. Given the pressures on their time and relatively low research literacy levels, research intended for legislators needs to be presented in short summaries, where possible illustrated by pictures and/or charts. Nevertheless, Legislators\u2019 staff prefer formats that present more detail.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Mega-philanthropy: Charitable deeds or monopoly tyranny?","field_subtitle":"Pheko L: Pambazuka News, 28 July 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zbo6mfb","body":"The author of this article suggests that the individual multi-billionaire philanthropists who control and define the work of their foundations are able to exert massive influence in public policy and political agendas far beyond the average citizen. He questions this significant entitlement that money gives to a few people to influence global health, environment, education, food, medical, housing policies, whilst benefiting from global and economic inequality, including from the tax exemption they obtain. He cautions on the regression of the power of the state that this may imply, and calls for the legacy of the liberation struggle to be redeemed by building countervailing options and influence that increase citizen voice and engagement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"METHOD(E)S: Call for Papers","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 30 October 2016","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2652&lang=en","body":"The recurrent allusion to the \u201cglobalisation of the social sciences\u201d validates the idea of the dominance of Western scientific norms and practices over those of \u201cthe rest of the world\u201d. In preparation for the next issue of M\u00e9thod(e)s, CODESRIA invites colleagues to critically engage with the production of methods and knowledge in the social sciences: that explore modes of domination and resistance in the social sciences. The editors are particularly interested in seeing contributions based on experiences in the field, using empirical materials. Various formats are invited. For  further information visit the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Pan African Parliament Endorses Ban on Female Genital Mutilation","field_subtitle":"Latham D: Inter Press Service, August 2016","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/2016/08/pan-african-parliament-endorses-ban-on-fgm/","body":"After years of wrangling and debates among African leaders, the movement to end female genital mutilation (FGM) is gaining real momentum, with a new action plan signed in August by the Pan African Parliament (PAP) representatives and the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) to end FGM as well as underage marriage. The UNFPA has already trained over 100,000 health workers to deal specifically with aiding victims of FGM, while tens of thousands of traditional leaders have also signed pledges against the practice. In some African countries, girls as young as eleven and twelve are forced to marry much older men, leading to an increase in serious health problems, including cervical cancer and a host of social problems. UNFPA East and Southern Africa Deputy Regional Director Justine Coulson said if the current trend continues, the number of girls under 15 who had babies would rise by a million \u2013 from two to three million. There are believed to be at least seven million child brides in Southern Africa alone. While underage marriage and childbirth is a major health risk, the Pan African Parliament UNFPA workshop also heard how FGM had led to an increased likelihood girls and women would be exposed to sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS. Globally, an estimated 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone some form of FGM. In Africa, FGM is practiced in at least 26 of 43 African countries, with prevalence rates ranging from 98 percent in Somalia to 5 percent in Zaire. The buy-in of African political leadership is argued to be crucial if this latest move is to succeed, with up to 140 million women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa who\u2019ve been forced to submit to FGM. The aim is to influence people on the ground as well as effect legislation banning the practice. There are no health benefits in the process and it can cause severe bleeding, problems urinating, cysts, infections and a host of childbirth complications. The PAP also agreed to work with the UNFPA in seeking to overturn the practice of marrying off children under the age of sixteen. In June 2016, the UNFPA worked with Southern African Development Community Parliamentary Forum representatives at a meeting in Swaziland which voted through a Model Law on eradicating child marriage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Pan-African Parliament Committee members emphasise women\u2019s rights and access to land","field_subtitle":"Pan-African Parliament (PAP): South Africa, March 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jer24ub","body":"The Rural Economy, Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment Committee of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) organized a joint workshop with the committees on gender, agriculture, justice and bureau of women on the 1st of March 2016 during the Committee Sittings in Midrand, South Africa. The Maputo Protocol ON \u201cProtocol to the African Charter on Human and People\u2019s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa.\u201d was originally adopted by the \u201cAssembly of the African Union\u201d in Maputo, Mozambique July 2003. It provides that women have access to opportunities as well as resources that are available in the country. The PAP aims to ensure that the policies and objectives of the AU are implemented.  The members agreed that as a team they need to adopt laws to secure women\u2019s access to land and ensure that they be given a chance to play productive roles with regards to economic development in the agriculture sector. Article 15 of the Maputo protocol raises women\u2019s rights to food and security as well as land access. Granting women access to land was seen to not only improve their lives but to enable food security and sustainable development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Parliament committee welcomes probe into deaths of psychiatric patients","field_subtitle":"Gqirana T: News 24, 16 September 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hbugdh3","body":"The South African parliament\u2019s social services select committee has welcomed the investigation into the death of 36 psychiatric patients in Gauteng. This comes after Gauteng Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu revealed during an oral reply to questions in the legislature that 36 psychiatric patients, who had been transferred from Life Healthcare Esidimeni, had died while in the care of NGOs. The psychiatric patients were relocated to 122 NGOs after the department cancelled its contract with Life Healthcare, which looked after almost 2 000 patients. Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has called for the Office of the Health Ombudsman to investigate the allegations. The committee conveyed its condolences to the families of the patients. \"While the Committee is cognisant of the need to find alternative measures to care for patients, these measures should have been made with the clear understanding and guarantees that the care of patients will not deteriorate. Every decision that is made must have as its central pillar the delivery of quality care for our people,\" committee chairperson Cathy Dlamini said in a statement. The committee called for the investigation to be sped up, in order to avoid further loss of life. They would engage with the health department at national and provincial levels to ensure quality care of all patients, the committee said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Perception and attitude of healthcare workers towards the use of a female condom in Gaborone, Botswana","field_subtitle":"Mashanda-Tafaune B; Monareng L: Health SA Gesondheid 21, 163-170, 2015","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S102598481500037X","body":"Although the female condom (FC) is viewed as an effective female controlled barrier contraceptive device that can be used by women to prevent them from contracting the Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS), other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unwanted or unintended pregnancy, the perception and attitude of healthcare workers (HCW) plays a key role in its effective use and distribution amongst women. This study aimed to identify and examine factors that influences the perception and attitude of HCWs towards the use and distribution FCs. A quantitative, explorative and descriptive design was used to conduct the study based on the Health Belief Model as a conceptual framework in June 2013 with a convenience sample of 164 HCWs. The results showed that 64% of the respondents perceived unavailability of FCs as contributing to lack of adequate use. Only 32% of them reported using the FC. There was an association with increasing use of a FC with age, marital status and training. The results revealed that lack of knowledge and training on the use of a FC might prevent its effective use and distribution. The results showed evidence that the FC was a safe method of contraception and protection against STIs and that it empowers women to make decisions related to sexuality. However, awareness campaigns, increased availability of FCs and training of HCWs are essential to enhance positive perception and attitudinal change to reduce sexual risks related infections and poor quality of life for women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reforming essential health competencies and training in Africa in light of the Sustainable Development Goals","field_subtitle":"Houeto D; Bambini N: Global Health Promotion 23(1), 2016, doi: 10.1177/1757975916629737 ","field_url":"http://ped.sagepub.com/content/23/1/3.full.pdf+html?rss=1","body":"Many African countries were not able to meet their Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the 2015 deadline. While this poor performance can be attributed to several factors, many analyses have revealed the main cause to be the absence of systematic and coordinated action on the social determinants of health, which are in large part outside of the health sector. Today, in light of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is absolutely necessary to address this shortcoming. The authors indicate that reaching the SDGs calls for action on the social determinants of health and reduction of social inequalities. However, the current way health systems in the region operate emphasise treatment of disease, as if health systems are waiting for people to fall ill before taking care of them. In light of the SDGs, they argue that it has grown urgent for the African region to accelerate training of professionals who are skilled in acting on the social determinants of health to help reorient health services and place health in all policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Report of the Reflection Group on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development","field_subtitle":"Social Watch; Global Policy Forum; Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era; Third World Network; Arab NGO Network for Development; Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2016","field_url":"https://www.2030spotlight.org","body":"Independent monitoring and review of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and its structural obstacles and challenges are key factors for the success of the SDGs. For this reason, the Reflection Group on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development together with other civil society organisations and networks has produced the first annual Spotlight Report assessing the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the structural obstacles in its realisation. The report puts a spotlight on the fulfilment of the 17 goals, with a particular focus on inequalities, responsibility of the rich and powerful, means of implementation and systemic issues. It raises the main obstacles to achieving the SDGs and explores transnational spill over effects that influence or even undermine the implementation of the goals. It comments on whether the current policy approaches, as reflected in the 2030 Agenda, are an adequate response to the challenges and obstacles or are part of the problem and discusses necessary policy changes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Report on the Proceedings of the Network of African Parliamentary Committees of Health Meeting: From Millennium Development Goals to Sustainable Development Goals","field_subtitle":"NEAPACOH and PPD Aro: June 2016, Kampala, Uganda","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/h7beo2x","body":"This meeting, organized under the auspices of the Network of Africa Parliamentary Committees on Health (NEAPACOH), and organised by PPD Aro, focused on implementation of regional and international commitments including the International Congress on Population and Development, Program of Action, the Maputo Plan of Action, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and the FP2020 commitments, among others. The meeting provided a platform for building capacity and raising awareness of members of parliament on sustainable development. At the meeting parliamentarians from across the continent assessed progress made, challenges and lessons learned on achieving the country commitments made at its previous 2014 NEAPACOH meeting, built a common understanding of the challenges and opportunities for sexual and reproductive health in the post-2015 development agenda, shared experiences and innovative practices on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to enhance accountability, political leadership and stewardship for implementation over the coming 12 months. By the end of the meeting, a resolution (The Kampala Call for Action) was adopted by participants, on their commitments to address these issues. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Second Annual Paula Kantor Award for Excellence in Field Research","field_subtitle":"Deadline for nominations: 14 October 2016","field_url":"http://www.icrw.org/media/icrw-now-soliciting-nominations-second-annual-paula-kantor-award","body":"The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) is soliciting nominations for the second annual Paula Kantor Award for Excellence in Field Research. The 2016 award will be given to a young female researcher who is a citizen of a sub-Saharan African country in order to recognise and honour outstanding achievement in the fields of gender and empowerment of women and girls. The 2016 Paula Kantor Award for Excellence in Field Research will be conferred to the winner at the launch of ICRW\u2019s Africa Regional Office in December in Kampala, Uganda. Nominations must be made by a third-party. The 2016 award will again be given as part of ICRW\u2019s annual Champions for Change awards, which honours the work of thought-leaders and visionaries. The award will provide the recipient recognition and bring greater visibility to the researcher\u2019s work and to the populations on which they focus. At the awards ceremony, the recipient of the award will have the opportunity to present in front of an esteemed global audience, comprising those in the development, business, NGO, and government sectors, and will receive opportunities to promote their research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Seven Traditional African Sports that Should Be in the Olympics","field_subtitle":"Robertson E: Okay Africa, August 2016","field_url":"http://www.okayafrica.com/news/7-traditional-african-sports-olympics/","body":"The Olympic Games may go back 3,000 years to Ancient Greece, but the international sporting event that takes place every four years didn\u2019t take on its modern form until 1896. And while the games claim to represent global sporting culture, as suggested by the Olympics\u2019 logo, the author argues that many of the sports seem to have uniquely European aristocratic origins. He asks, what would the Olympics in Rio look like if traditional African sports were included? This article discusses seven traditional African sports that would be welcomed additions to the games: including Ngolo and capoeira, Afro-Brazilian and West African martial arts, Senegalese wrestling, donkey racing and Dambe boxing.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians holds a Sub-regional sensitization Workshop in Kigali","field_subtitle":": Parliament of the Republic of Rwanda: Kigali, July 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/j8b6yn7","body":"The Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (CWP) which is an organ of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (Africa Region) held a two day East Africa Sub-Regional sensitization workshop in July 2016. Themed \u201cEstablishing CWP Chapters to Leverage Women Representation and Advocacy,\u201d the CWP sensitization workshop is to encourage all branches to set up CWP Chapters and functional structures and adoption of the guidelines fully and to advocate for policies legislation and programmes that eradicate social, cultural and religious practices that are harmful to the women. Rt. Hon. Mukabalisa said that Rwanda\u2019s achievements in gender  equality and women empowerment have been made possible by the strong political will and the commitment from the highest  level, accompanied by innovative, home-grown  and people centered development approaches. Hon. Angela Thoko Didiza Vice Chairperson of CWP Africa Region and its current Acting Chairperson stated that despite the recognition of women\u2019s rights and need for deliberate action towards the empowerment of women; there remains a marked difference in the status and access of men and women in political, social, economic domains. She confirmed that even where has been progress, there are still challenges in ensuring the full participation of women, \u201censuring gender equality and participation of women in decision-making position is imperative to human development. There is a need to change the traditional roles that limit women\u2019s potential, as well as acknowledge women\u2019s full contribution to social and economic development.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The race to UHC \u2013 How Malawi has outperformed most in Africa but risks going off course","field_subtitle":"Yates R: Global Health Check, August 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zqz95la","body":"Malawi has been the only country in Sub-Saharan Africa to provide universal free health services throughout its public health system and never charge user fees \u2013 with the exception of some recent worrying user fee experiments. Conversely in Nigeria, which only spends 0.9% of its GDP in the form of public health financing and where user fees are charged at all levels, private out-of-pocket health financing accounts for 72% of total health expenditure \u2013 one of the highest rates in the world. Perhaps the most stark illustration of the difference in performance between these two countries at the opposite ends of this curve, is that whereas Nigeria is 8 times richer than Malawi, Nigeria\u2019s child mortality rate (109 deaths per 1000 live births) is 70% higher than Malawi \u2019s (64 deaths). In reviewing these records, the obvious policy recommendation for Nigeria is that it too should increase its public health spending and abolish user fees in its public health system. And for Malawi, the authors argue that the lesson should be to build on this success and use further increases in public financing to improve the availability and quality of free services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The Use Of Information And Communication Technology, And Social Networking Sites In Political Governance Of East African Legislative Assembly Parliament","field_subtitle":"Robert A; Namusonge G: International Journal of Scientific and Technology Research 4(6), June 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ha5v327","body":"This research project was carried out to ascertain the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Social Networking Sites (SNSs) in political governance of East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) Parliament. It was based on the conviction that in this era of globalisation use of ICTs and SNS\u2018s are fundamentally important and will have tremendous impact on governance, leadership and legislation. The findings showed that that all the parliamentarian respondents were subscribed to social networking sites and used them from time to time. The EALA parliamentarians had a disparity when it came to use of SNSs to interact with constituents, 73% indicated that they have used SNSs to interact with constituents on matters affecting the community from time to time however 27% did not. The use of ICTs and SNSs by EALA was argued by the authors to enable citizens to view Assembly proceedings in real time. The recommend that Parliamentarians in Africa embrace SNS\u2018s as major tools in interacting with and being accountable to their constituents.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Think Again - A film on Women in Energy","field_subtitle":"ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, 4 March 2016","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo2cRJO3CDY","body":"ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency ( ECREEE) presents \u201cThink Again\u201d, a film on women who have made it as leaders in the energy sector in West Africa. The video documentary goes beyond the common understanding of gender and energy issues by replacing the traditional story of women as victims in energy development with stories of women as influential contributors to improving energy access. If you thought women were only end-users of energy, Think Again.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding Ebola: the 2014 epidemic","field_subtitle":"Kaner J; Schaak S: Globalization and Health 12(53), 2016, doi: 10.1186/s12992-016-0194-4 ","field_url":"http://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12992-016-0194-4","body":"Near the end of 2013, an outbreak of Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV) began in Guinea, subsequently spreading to neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone. As this epidemic grew, important public health questions emerged about how and why this outbreak was so different from previous episodes. This review provides a synthetic synopsis of the 2014\u201315 outbreak, with the aim of understanding its unprecedented spread. The authors present a summary of the history of previous epidemics, describe the structure and genetics of the ebolavirus, and review our current understanding of viral vectors and the latest treatment practices. They conclude with an analysis of the public health challenges epidemic responders faced and some of the lessons that could be applied to future outbreaks of Ebola or other viruses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"What are the benefits and risks of using return on investment to defend public health programs?","field_subtitle":"Broussellea A; Benmarhniab T; Benhadjc L: Preventive Medicine Reports 3, 135-135, 2016","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211335516000036","body":"Return on investment (ROI) is an economic measure used to indicate how much economic benefit is derived from a program in relation to its costs. Interest in the use of ROI in public health has grown substantially over recent years. Given its potential influence on resource allocation, it is crucial to understand the benefits and the risks of using ROI to defend public health programs. In this paper, the authors explore those benefits and risks. They present two recent examples of ROI use in public health and conclude with a series of proposals to minimise the risks associated with using ROI to defend public health interventions. ROIs are increasingly being calculated to demonstrate the value of investments and ultimately to reinforce funding. Consequently, they argue that careful reflection is needed on how their use influences allocation decisions, especially given their role as an advocacy tool in the political arena. It is therefore crucial to understand the basics of how ROIs are calculated and to know their limitations and risks, rather than blindly accepting black-box numbers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Women rise","field_subtitle":"Tay K: Accra dot Alt, Live from the Ghana Space Station, August 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zzg9psp","body":"A new project \u2018woman, rise\u2019 is a special collaboration project with Ghanaian muralist, Ayambire Faustina Nsoh, who descends from a tradition of women-led painting that carries lessons and messages around ethics and social relations, as well as a practice in space and design making daily life more beautiful. Visually, \u2018woman, rise\u2019, draws on how Nsoh learned how to paint from her grandmother in Sirigu, northern Ghana, and the global activist tradition of political murals, graffiti and stenciling. Horn\u2019s project asks some critical probing by asking these questions: When we dream of African freedom, do we dream in the colours of our grandmothers\u2019 cloths? Do we dream in the voice of young women rallying in a public square for an end to tyranny? And as we dream, do we hear the sound of women spirit mediums fortifying our souls by humming the ancestors into our midst? These women crafters of our liberation- do we know their names? These women who have offered heartbeat and intellect and magic to clear space in the world so all of us can breathe, do we know their faces? \u2018Woman, rise\u2019 explores the spirit of African women\u2019s dynamic contributions to shaping selves, communities and a world that is equal. It invokes the history of African women who have worked against the grain of social expectations and offered their spiritual, intellectual and emotional power to the work of social change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"A Decade of Biomedical Research in West Africa (2005\u201314): A Bibliometric Analysis of the Ten Most Productive Countries in Medline","field_subtitle":"Nwagwu W: Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, July 2016","field_url":"http://codesria.org/spip.php?article2637","body":"This research determined the quantity and quality of publications in biomedical research in top-producing countries in West Africa during 2005\u201314 as well as characteristics of journals and collaborative evidence in the area. Data was drawn from MEDLINE/PubMed and Google Scholar while the impact factors of the journals were retrieved from the SCImago Journal and Country Rank portal. Quantity of publications was measured by counting the number of publications attributable to a country while h-index was extracted to measure quality. Productivity was analysed by sorting the data according to their first named authors, journals and publication dates, and analysed using MS Excel and LOTKA\u00ae. Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Mali had the highest number of publications. In respect of productivity, apart from C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire that had an \u03b1 value less than 2 indicating a higher level of productivity, all other countries had an \u03b1 value greater than 2. West African Journal of Medicine is the only journal of West African origin in the list of top ten journals where the authors from the sub-region published their papers, and it ranked tenth. Nigeria and Ghana published more of their research in local journals in comparison with other countries, but these journals have very low mean impact factors. This study reinforces the need for improved research production and collaboration between the big and small countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"A Story in Words and Images from Cassa Banana Informal Settlement, Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Kaim B: Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) Cassa Banana Community Health Committee and Community (CBCHC), August 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jsxa98y","body":"The Training and Research Support Centre  and Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights reported on how Participatory Action Research (PAR) was used in the Cassa Banana community to explore, analyse and take action on priority health problems faced by the community. PAR activities led to the formation of a Community Health Committee (CHC) and the development of a community action plan that prioritised lack of clean water and poor sanitation as the key health problem in the area. The work in Cassa Banana is building a body of knowledge on strategies to support community efforts to take action and on how to hold duty bearers accountable. As part of this process, in October 2015, nine community members were trained as community photographers using a PAR tool called Photovoice. The photographers took hundreds of photographs reflecting the lives and struggles in their community. They then self-edited the photographs to be included it in a 12-page advocacy booklet that described their community. It showcases challenges in the community and the community\u2019s response to it. Some of the questions included are: Has the process of taking and using the photos deepened understanding of underlying conditions at community level? Has it changed relations and/or levels of organizing between community members (both photographers and non-photographers)? And what impact has use of the booklet had in facilitating changes in interactions with duty bearers? Cassa Banana and partners will be reflecting on these questions in the coming months. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa\u2019s demographic future: why Africa should take the lead","field_subtitle":"Sankoh O: The Lancet Global Health 4(8), pp.e522-e522, 2016","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/langlo/PIIS2214-109X(16)30103-6.pdf","body":"In 2010, the UN\u2019s Population Division predicted that the African continent, the population of which is now 1\u00b72 billion, will have 3\u00b75 billion people by the year 2100. By 2015, the projection for the year 2100 had risen to 4\u00b74 billion. In many ways this is good news for Africa\u2014the population increase reflects impressive progress in reducing mortality, especially child mortality, and improving life expectancy. But the response to the news in developed countries has been of concern, often turning into panic. John Bongaarts, vice president of the Population Council, warned that \u201cMost of these people are going to end up in slums. That\u2019s not good news.\u201d Mertule Mariam said: \u201cAlarmingly, population growth in Africa is not slowing as quickly as demographers had expected...the number of Africans seeking a better life in Europe and other richer places is likely to increase several times over\u201d. These reactions have revived discussions in developed countries on what should be done to alleviate the apparent crisis. Policy prescriptions in developed countries focus on family planning services and education of girls. The author argues that these recommendations might be sensible, but if Africans do not take the lead in framing the population discourse, their motivations and needs could be overlooked. New policies must consider African development. An African-led response to population change might begin with efforts to establish the size of the population Africa wants, in the context of broader developmental ambitions. Rather than being dictated by fears in developed countries of mass emigration, conflict, and environmental destruction, such a strategy would be based on the needs of African people. As well as national objectives, a continent-wide perspective on population goals led by the African Union, might be useful. Just as many of the drivers of population change are pan-national (eg, armed conflict, environmental damage, or economic pressures), so are some of its results. In consultation with their people, African Governments will no doubt propose further population policies that are closely tailored to the needs of their societies. What is important, the author poses, is that these objectives and policies are established by Africans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"China loans Africa much less than you think (and four other lessons from a new database)","field_subtitle":"Benabdallah L; Robertson W; Wang Y: African Arguments, June 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jjjahql","body":"A detailed new database provides information on Chinese loans to African governments and state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Started in 2007 the database details a total of $86.9 billion of Chinese loans from 2000 to 2014, with the loans verified on the ground or with relevant stakeholders and cross-checked the data in multiple languages. This paper reports five initial lessons that emerge from the endeavour. Media perceptions of Africa-China relations tend to emphasise high sums of money going from China to Africa \u2013 such as reports that $1 trillion in Chinese financing destined for Africa by 2025 \u2013 but the reality appears far more modest. According to the database, China loaned $86.9 billion to African governments and SOEs from 2000 to 2014.  Although the average value of Chinese loans to Africa from 2000-14 may be just $6.2 billion/year, this number has been growing in recent years. While China is sometimes portrayed as only being interested in Africa\u2019s natural riches, the data paints a more complex picture. 28% of Chinese financing goes to transport; 20% to energy; and 8% communication. When China\u2019s engagement in Africa is talked about in the international media, \u201caid\u201d, \u201cloans\u201d, \u201cinvestment\u201d, and \u201cdevelopment finance\u201d are often mixed up or used interchangeably. That means that whenever China offers any money to an African country, it is typically interpreted as a combination of aid and development assistance. The database avoids these conceptual confusions by focusing on loans without trying to define these as either aid or not. It tracks both concessional and commercial lines of credit extended by government, policy, and commercial banks and their corresponding suppliers/contractors. The project shows that using clearly defined categories such as loans can be a much more meaningful and unambiguous approach to understanding the impacts of Chinese money in African countries than many previous methods.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society: the catalyst for ensuring health in the age of sustainable development","field_subtitle":"Smith J; Buse K; Gordon C: Globalization and Health 12(40), 16 July 2016, doi: 10.1186/s12992-016-0178-4","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/j3qcxsj","body":"Sustainable Development Goal Three is rightly ambitious, but achieving it will require doing global health differently. Among other things, the authors argue that progressive civil society organisations will need to be recognised and supported as vital partners in achieving the necessary transformations. The authors argue, using illustrative examples, that a robust civil society can fulfil eight essential global health functions. These include producing compelling moral arguments for action, building coalitions beyond the health sector, introducing novel policy alternatives, enhancing the legitimacy of global health initiatives and institutions, strengthening systems for health, enhancing accountability systems, mitigating the commercial determinants of health and ensuring rights-based approaches. Given that civil society activism has catalysed tremendous progress in global health, there is a need to invest in and support it as a global public good to ensure that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development can be realised. Given that civil society activism has catalysed tremendous progress in global health, the authors consider civic engagement as vital to the transformation promised by the SDGs. The authors recognise the need for further research on role of CSOs in health governance at national and global levels. Many of the leading civil society organisations in global health, as well as those providing direct services, are struggling for survival, due to decreased resources. The authors suggest that this trend will have to be reversed if SDG3 is to be achieved. The historic commitment to finance civil society, made in the 2016 UN Political Declaration on Ending AIDS, recognises both the essential functions CSOs fulfil and the need to support them in doing so. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community health worker programmes after the 2013\u20132016 Ebola outbreak","field_subtitle":"Perry H; Dhillon R; Liu A; Chitnis K; Panjabi R; Palazuelos D; Koffi A; Kandeh J; Camara M; Camara R; Nyenswah T: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 94(7) 551-553, 2016","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/7/15-164020/en/","body":"The 2013\u20132016 Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa exposed an urgent need to strengthen health surveillance and health systems in low-income countries, not only to improve the health of populations served by these health systems but also to promote global health security. Chronically fragile and under-resourced health systems enabled the initial outbreak in Guinea to spiral into an epidemic of over 28 616 cases and 11 310 deaths (as of 5 May 2016) in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, requiring an unprecedented global response that is still ongoing. Control efforts were hindered by gaps in the formal health system and by resistance from the community, fuelled by fear and poor communication. Lessons learnt from this Ebola outbreak have raised the question of how the affected countries, and other low-income countries with similarly weak health systems, can build stronger health systems and surveillance mechanisms to prevent future outbreaks from escalating. Factors that were important in the growth and persistence of the Ebola virus outbreak were lack of trust in the health system at the community level, the spread of misinformation, deeply embedded cultural practices conducive to transmission (e.g. burial customs), inadequate reporting of health events and the public\u2019s lack of access to health services. Community health workers are in a unique position to mitigate these factors through surveillance for danger signs and mobilisation of communities when an outbreak has been identified. In this paper the authors make the case for investing in robust national community health worker programmes as one of the strategies for improving global health security, for preventing future catastrophic infectious disease outbreaks and for strengthening health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Corporations and Human Rights Database ","field_subtitle":"Corporations and Human Rights Global, 2016","field_url":"http://www.chrdproject.com","body":"Businesses are often implicated in human rights violations. Yet the patterns behind claims of corporate human rights abuses and the pursuit of justice and remedy associated with those claims remain unstudied and thus unknown. Who makes claims about corporate human rights abuse? How do companies respond? And, what explains why some claims are addressed and others are not? To address some of these gaps, the CHRD team is currently creating a database of claims of corporate human rights abuses from 2000 through today. The database intends to inform practitioners, policymakers, and academics alike and the data will be made readily available. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) Vacancy Announcement: Executive Secretary","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 15th September 2016","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2629&lang=en","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) invites applications from suitably qualified senior African scholars for the position of Executive Secretary in its pan-African Secretariat located in Dakar, Senegal. This position, which will fall vacant in 2017, is the most senior management post in the Executive Secretariat and the successful candidate will be expected to function as the leader of the institution and a diverse team of staff under the overall supervision of the Executive Committee of the Council. Established in 1973 as a pioneering, independent, pan-African and not-for-profit organisation for the development of social research in Africa, CODESRIA is today widely recognised as the premier institution on the continent for the generation and dissemination of multidisciplinary research knowledge in the social sciences and humanities. The position of Executive Secretary is a key one both in the development of the programme mandate of the Council and the realisation of the strategic institutional objectives set by the triennial General Assembly of its members. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing the African national health research systems barometer","field_subtitle":"Kirigia J; Ota M; Senkubuge F; Wiysonge C; Mayosi B: Health Research Policy and Systems, 14(53), July 2016, doi: 10.1186/s12961-016-0121-4","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/j9nxps3","body":"A functional national health research system (NHRS) is crucial in strengthening a country\u2019s health system to promote, restore and maintain the health status of its population. Progress towards the goal of universal health coverage in the post-2015 sustainable development agenda will be difficult for African countries without strengthening of their NHRS to yield the required evidence for decision-making. This study developed a barometer to facilitate monitoring of the development and performance of NHRSs in WHOs African Region. The African national health research systems barometer algorithm was developed in response to a recommendation of the African Advisory Committee for Health Research and Development of WHO. Survey data collected from all the 47 Member States in the WHO African Region using a questionnaire were entered into an Excel spreadsheet and analysed. The barometer scores for each country were calculated and the performance interpreted according to a set of values ranging from 0% to 100%. The overall NHRS barometer score for the African Region was 42%, which is below the average of 50%. Among the 47 countries, the average NHRS performance was less than 20% in 10 countries, 20\u201340% in 11 countries, 41\u201360% in 16 countries, 61\u201380% in nine countries, and over 80% in one country. The performance of NHRSs in 30 (64%) countries was below 50%. An African NHRS barometer with four functions and 17 sub-functions was developed to identify the gaps in and facilitate monitoring of NHRS development and performance. The NHRS scores for the individual sub-functions can guide policymakers to locate sources of poor performance and to design interventions to address them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"e-Learning Course on Health Financing Policy for universal health coverage (UHC)","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 30th September 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jzcudon","body":"WHO's new e-learning course on health financing policy for UHC has now been launched. This e-learning course comprises six modules which cover the core functions of health financial policy as conceptualised by WHO. Each module is divided into a number of sub-topics. This is a foundational course which targets participants of various levels of experience and expertise. The course is designed to be used in a variety of ways: as preparation for those who will attend a WHO face-to-face course, for those who are for various reasons unable to attend a face-to-face course, and for those who have already attended courses and wish to refresh their knowledge. Individual modules can also be used as part of a programme of blended capacity building. The course is also designed to work seamlessly on a range of devices, operating systems, and browser in a responsive fashion, in order to maximise ease of use. Module 1 provides an overview of the goals of universal health coverage, health financing and what UHC brings to health financing policy. The following modules cover revenue raising, pooling revenues, purchasing and benefit package design. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 186: Will the new global health emergency funds secure or securitise health?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Facing up to the world\u2019s critical health crises","field_subtitle":"Khor M: Third World Network Info Service on UN Sustainable Development, 2016","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/unsd/2016/unsd160601.htm","body":"The global health situation is facing many critical challenges, and multiple actions must be taken urgently to prevent crises from boiling over. This paper reflects on the 2016 World Health Assembly (WHA) as the world\u2019s prime public health event, attended by 3,500 delegates, including Health Ministers from most of the 194 countries.World Health Organisation director-general Dr Margaret Chan gave an overview of what went right and what is missing in global health. 19,000 fewer children dying every day, a 44% drop in maternal mortality, the 85% cure rate for tuberculosis, and 15 million people living with HIV now receiving therapy, up from just 690,000 in 2000. Chan also described how health has become a globalised problem, with air pollution becoming a transboundary health hazard, and drug-resistant pathogens being spread through travel and food trade. The recent Ebola and Zika outbreaks showed how global health emergencies can quickly develop. The world is not prepared to cope with the dramatic resurgence of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Chan said the global health landscape is being shaped by three slow-motion disasters: climate change, antimicrobial resistance and the rise of chronic non-communicable diseases. The assembly agreed that the WHO set up a new Health Emergencies Programme to enable it to give rapid support to countries and communities to prepare for, face or recover from emergencies caused by health hazards including disease outbreaks, disasters and conflicts. On anti-microbial resistance, many developing countries stressed the importance of funds and technology to help them develop national action plans by 2017. The WHA called on the WHO to develop an implementation plan and urged governments to develop national policies on marketing unhealthy foods to children. Two environment-related health issues were discussed. Air pollution accounts for eight million deaths worldwide annually \u2013 4.3 million due to indoor and 3.7 million to outdoor air pollution. The assembly welcomed a new WHO road map for actions in 2016-19 to tackle the health effects of air pollution. A controversial issue is how the WHO should relate to \u201cnon-state actors\u201d. After two years of negotiations, the WHA adopted the Framework of Engagement with Non-State Actors (FENSA), which provides the WHO with policies and procedures on engaging with non-governmental organisations, private sector entities, philanthropic foundations and academic institutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"For sexual minorities, \u201cclosing space\u201d for civil society means losing access to critical services","field_subtitle":"Mbote D: Pambazuka News, July 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jge8z7y","body":"Closing space for African sexual and gender minority groups is argued by this author to affect access to critical services that no one else provides. In Kenya, for example, the Muslims of Human Rights (MUHURI) provide safe injection sites to prevent the sharing of needles among drug users, as studies show that needle sharing facilitates the spread of HIV. As a result, when the state froze the group's bank accounts, the crackdown also threatened the safety and wellbeing of people who need HIV treatment and care. To fight on their own, many GSM groups have been using the courts to help win victories. Whether it has been appealing the repressive Ugandan anti-gay law, or ordering the un-freezing of bank accounts in Kenya, or ruling against the denial of registration of LEGABIBO (an LGBT rights group in Botswana), most of these court victories are based on constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms of most open and democratic countries, and held under the International Declaration of Human Rights.  Fostering partnerships with international organizations such as UNAIDS and the UN Human Rights Council has been very helpful for GSM organizations to facilitate their role in service access. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"14-18 November 2016, Vancouver, Canada","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qfof3jo","body":"The Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research will be held in Vancouver at the Vancouver Convention Centre. The theme for 2016 is \u201cResilient and responsive health systems for a changing world\u201d. The Global Symposium on Health Systems Research is hosted every two years by HSG to bring together its members with the full range of players involved in health systems and policy research. There is currently no other international gathering that serves the needs of this community. The Symposium aims to share new state-of-the-art evidence; review the progress and challenges towards implementation of the global agenda of priority research; identify and discuss the approaches to strengthen the scientific rigour of health systems research including concepts, frameworks, measures and methods; and facilitate greater research collaboration and learning communities across disciplines, sectors, initiatives and countries. Participants will include researchers, policy-makers, funders, implementers, civil society and other stakeholders from relevant national and regional associations and professional organisations. The program will include plenary addresses from world experts, as many as 12-15 concurrent sessions made up from abstracts and other proposals, an estimated 600 poster presentations, a vibrant marketplace and many other networking opportunities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Gendered Navigations: Women in Mining","field_subtitle":"Benya A: Review of African Political Economy, August 2016","field_url":"http://roape.net/2016/08/09/gendered-navigations-women-mining/","body":"In reflections on her fieldwork in South Africa, Asanda Benya writes about the difficulties and insights she gained while researching underground female mine-workers. Through immersive anthropological research she examined how women make sense of themselves against the masculine underground and mining culture. Some women often remarked that they were \u201cmen at work, and women at home\u201d. They admitted to changing how they behaved in the multiple spaces they navigated. It is these shifts in women\u2019s gender performances and identities that the study explored. To get at these gender performances and gendered identities she spent almost a year working underground as a winch operator, and a general labourer, pulling blasted rock from the stope face to the tip. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Helpdesk report: Comparative advantage of the private sector in delivery of health services","field_subtitle":"Browne E: Health and Education Advice and Resource Team, June 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/juvljz9","body":"This report explores evidence on the private sector in delivery of health care services for public health goals particularly in the areas of MNCH and SRH. It finds that there is a considerable body of evidence on the private provision of healthcare in low- and middle-income countries, often focusing on SSA, but that the evidence base is not robust. The arguments in favour of private healthcare suggest it is more responsive and efficient, while arguments in favour of public services suggest they are more equitable and better equipped than the market to respond to health needs. Some studies find that the private sector is unregulated, has financial incentives for inappropriate healthcare, and is expensive. There is very little evidence on the comparative cost-effectiveness of the private sector. This varies considerably across country contexts and types of services. There is no conclusive evidence that the private sector is more cost-effective or more efficient than the public sector. The literature warns that increased use of private services may crowd out or decrease the funding available to the public sector. The major criticism of private sector services is that their higher user fees create inequality of access, limiting their use by the poor. The literature is quite clear that private for-profit health services create inequality. Private non-profit, or services run by NGOs, appear to mitigate some of the inequality effects. In practice, boundaries can be blurred between public and private; both formal and informal cost recovery schemes operate at public facilities. NGOs providing healthcare are generally seen as private, although they may not charge for their services. The difference between free-at-the-point-of-use NGOs and out-of-pocket-expenditure on private doctors can be enormous, and it is important to differentiate between the types of providers when reviewing the evidence on private services. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"How home HIV testing and counselling with follow-up support achieves high testing coverage and linkage to treatment and prevention: a qualitative analysis from Uganda","field_subtitle":"Ware N; Wyatt M; Asiimwe S; Turyamureeba B; Tumwesigye E; van Rooyen H; Barnabas R; Celum C: Journal of the International AIDS Society 19(20929), 2016","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/index.php/jias/article/view/20929/html","body":"The successes of HIV treatment scale-up and the availability of new prevention tools have raised hopes that the epidemic can finally be controlled and ended. Reduction in HIV incidence and control of the epidemic requires high testing rates at population levels, followed by linkage to treatment or prevention. As effective linkage strategies are identified, it becomes important to understand how these strategies work. The authors use qualitative data from The Linkages Study, a recent community intervention trial of community-based testing with linkage interventions in sub-Saharan Africa, to show how lay counselor home HIV testing and counselling (home HTC) with follow-up support leads to linkage to clinic-based HIV treatment and medical male circumcision services. They conducted 99 semi-structured individual interviews with study participants and three focus groups with 16 lay counselors in Kabwohe, Sheema District, Uganda. The participant sample included both HIV+ men and women (N=47) and HIV-uncircumcised men (N=52). Interview and focus group audio-recordings were translated and transcribed. The transcripts were  analysed to identify emergent themes. Trial participants expressed interest in linking to clinic-based services at testing, but faced obstacles that eroded their initial enthusiasm. Follow-up support by lay counselors intervened to restore interest and inspire action. Together, home HTC and follow-up support improved morale, created a desire to reciprocate, and provided reassurance that services were trustworthy. In different ways, these functions built links to the health service system. They worked to strengthen individuals\u2019 general sense of capability, while making the idea of accessing services more manageable and familiar, thus reducing linkage barriers. Home HTC with follow-up support leads to linkage by building \u201csocial bridges,\u201d,  viz: interpersonal connections established and developed through repeated face-to-face contact between counselors and prospective users of HIV treatment and male circumcision services. Social bridges are found to link communities to the service system, inspiring individuals to overcome obstacles and access care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge, opinions and practices of healthcare workers related to infant feeding in the context of HIV","field_subtitle":"Janse van Rensburg L; Nel R;  Walsh C: Health SA Gesondheid 21, 129-136, 2016","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1025984815000368","body":"This study aimed to determine the knowledge, opinions and practices of healthcare workers in maternity wards in a regional hospital in Bloemfontein, Free State Province, South Africa, regarding infant feeding in the context of HIV. For this descriptive cross-sectional study, all the healthcare workers in the maternity wards of Pelonomi Regional Hospital who voluntarily gave their consent during the scheduled meetings (n = 64), were enrolled and given self-administered questionnaires. Only 14% of the respondents considered themselves to be experts in HIV and infant feeding. Approximately 97% felt that breastfeeding was an excellent feeding choice provided proper guidelines were followed. However, 10% indicated that formula feeding is the safest feeding option. 45% stated that heat-treated breast milk is a good infant feeding option; however, 29% considered it a good infant feeding option but it requires too much work. Only 6% could comprehensively explain the term \u201cexclusive breastfeeding\u201d as per World Health Organisation (WHO) definition. Confusion existed regarding the period for which an infant could be breastfed according to the newest WHO guidelines, with only 26% providing the correct answer. Twenty per cent reported that no risk exists for HIV transmission via breastfeeding if all the necessary guidelines are followed. Healthcare workers' knowledge did not conform favourably with the current WHO guidelines, even though these healthcare workers were actively involved in the care of patients in the maternity wards where HIV-infected mothers regularly seek counselling on infant feeding matters.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Making aid and domestic public finance work for Africa and its people","field_subtitle":"Chagutah T: Pambazuka News, June 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/grl5ema","body":"The author argues that the key to sustainable, adequate and predictable financing of Africa\u2019s development no longer lies in the delivery of aid from traditional donors but largely in unlocking the domestic resource potential, so that the continent can harness more of its own revenue for development. Africa\u2019s much celebrated growth over the last two decades has benefited in large part from public revenues derived from the sale of natural resources. While the tax base remains narrow, and tax compliance levels low on the continent, revenues from tax collection continue to increase, rising from USD 259.3 billion in 2005 to USD 527.3 billion in 2012. A 2013 study by NEPAD and UNECA shows that the fundamentals and resource potential exist for the continent to raise more financial resources domestically to implement its development programmes and finance its own institutions. At the same time, South-South Cooperation in Africa is increasing, with more public finances being channelled from emerging economies to Africa via various bilateral and multi-lateral arrangements. In contrast, there is clear evidence that Official Development Assistance (ODA) from traditional donors is dwindling \u2013 falling from 38% as a proportion of all external financial flows to Africa in 2000 to 27% in 2014. Africa\u2019s reliance on aid and the sale of natural resources, as opposed to broad-based tax collection, for example, is argued to have distorted accountability over public expenditure, with governments incentivised to meet the needs of the extractive and commodity private sector corporations and the priorities of external funders, as opposed to those of their citizens. The author suggests that aid will achieve its best outcomes when it is used in ways that complement and bolster domestic financing, support other financing mechanisms and help African countries to better manage revenues for their citizens\u2019 development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Managing the public-private mix to achieve universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"Hanson K; McPake B: The Lancet, June 2016, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)00344-5","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(16)00344-5.pdf","body":"The private sector has a large and growing role in health systems in low-income and middle-income countries. The goal of universal health coverage provides a renewed focus on taking a system perspective in designing policies to manage the private sector. This perspective requires choosing policies that will contribute to the performance of the system as a whole, rather than of any sector individually. This paper draws and extrapolates main messages from the papers in the Lancet series and additional sources to inform policy and research agendas in the context of global and country level efforts to secure universal health coverage in low-income and middle-income countries. Recognising that private providers are highly heterogeneous in terms of their size, objectives, and quality, the authors explore the types of policy that might respond appropriately to the challenges and opportunities created by four stylised private provider types: the low-quality, underqualified sector that serves poor people in many countries; not-for-profit providers that operate on a range of scales; formally registered small-to-medium private practices; and the corporate commercial hospital sector, which is growing rapidly and about which little is known. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Medicine and the Arts: Humanising Healthcare","field_subtitle":"Free online course, University of Cape Town, starting 29 August 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zoxu3hf","body":"This free online course will explore the intersection of medicine, medical anthropology and the creative arts. Through each of its six weeks, participants visit a new aspect of human life and consider it from the perspectives of people working in health sciences, social sciences and the arts. The course will introduce participants to the emerging field of medical humanities and the concept of whole person care, via these six themes: The Heart of the Matter: A Matter of the Heart, Children\u2019s Voices and Healing, Mind, Art and Play, Reproduction and Innovation, Tracing Origins, Death and the Corpse. Participants will question the propensity to separate the body from the mind in healthcare, consider what defines humanity, and share points of connection and difference between art and medicine. Contributors to the course will include a psychologist, heart surgeon, pathologist, oncologist, geneticist, sociologist, poet and visual artist. They will pose critical questions about how we deal with health, healing and being human. Each has been filmed on location in Cape Town, including at the Red Cross War Memorial Children\u2019s Hospital, the Heart of Cape Town Museum, and the Pathology Learning Centre.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"New report exposes impact of Uganda\u2019s abortion law through personal stories","field_subtitle":"Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development: Blog, July 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zhkqqww","body":"This new report by the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD). \u201cFacing Uganda\u2019s Law on Abortion: Experiences from Women and Service Providers\u201d raises that an unclear abortion law in Uganda means that women and adolescents seek unsafe abortions and are vilified by their families and communities, with doctors and health workers who provide legal post-abortion care being arrested. This report highlights experiences and perspectives of individuals who have been affected by or have dealt with abortion. It includes interviews with women and girls who ended pregnancies, as well as doctors, nurses, health worker, lawyers, police and community members. Abortion in Uganda is legal in limited circumstances, yet approximately 85,000 women each year receive treatment for complications from unsafe abortion and an additional 65,000 women experience complications but do not seek medical treatment.  The CEHURD report also draws on a research report by the Center for Reproductive Rights in 2012 on Uganda\u2019s laws and policies on termination of pregnancy that found that the laws and policies are more expansive than most believe, and that Uganda has ample opportunity to increase access to safe abortion services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Outcomes and costs of implementing a community-based intervention for hypertension in an urban slum in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Oji Oti S; van de Vijver S; Gomez G; Agyemang C; Egondi T; Kyobutungi C; Stronks K: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 94(7) 501-509, 2016","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/7/15-156513/en/","body":"Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death globally, killing 17.5 million people per year and 80% of deaths from these diseases occur in low- and middle-income countries. Evidence suggests that the main drivers of the global cardiovascular disease epidemic are urbanisation and industrialisation, which lead to an increase in sedentary lifestyles, unhealthy dietary patterns, tobacco consumption and increased alcohol consumption. Hypertension is a leading risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, and its prevalence is increasing worldwide \u2013 from 25% in 2000 to a projected 40% in 2025. The rising burden of hypertension in low- and middle-income countries is amplified by the public\u2019s low levels of awareness, treatment and control of this condition, particularly among slum residents, who typically constitute a large portion of neglected urban populations in such settings. Studies in slum populations suggest that when people are made aware of having hypertension they do tend to seek care. However, the level of adherence to treatment for hypertension remains low for several reasons, including, but not limited to, the high costs of treatment and to patients\u2019 perceptions of a low risk of cardiovascular diseases and belief in a one-time cure for disease rather than to lifelong preventive treatment and monitoring. In response to the rising burden of cardiovascular disease risk factors in slum populations in Kenya, a community-based intervention was developed and implemented in the capital city, Nairobi. This intervention, known as SCALE UP (the sustainable model for cardiovascular health by adjusting lifestyle and treatment with economic perspective in settings of urban poverty), has been described in detail elsewhere. The intervention had multiple components with the overall aim of reducing cardiovascular diseases risk through awareness campaigns, improvements in access to screening and standardised clinical management of hypertension. This paper shares experiences of implementing a comprehensive intervention for primary prevention of hypertension in a slum setting and to examine the processes, outcomes and costs of the intervention. It raises lessons for policy-makers and other stakeholders looking to implement similar interventions in highly resource-constrained settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Performance of private sector health care: implications for universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"Morgan R; Ensor T; Waters H: The Lancet, June 2016, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)00343-3","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(16)30242-2.pdf","body":"Although the private sector is an important health-care provider in many low-income and middle-income countries, its role in progress towards universal health coverage varies. Studies of the performance of the private sector have focused on three main dimensions: quality, equity of access, and efficiency. The characteristics of patients, the structures of both the public and private sectors, and the regulation of the sector influence the types of health services delivered, and outcomes. Combined with characteristics of private providers\u2014including their size, objectives, and technical competence\u2014the interaction of these factors affects how the sector performs in different contexts. Changing the performance of the private sector will require interventions that target the sector as a whole, rather than individual providers alone. In particular, the performance of the private sector seems to be intrinsically linked to the structure and performance of the public sector, which suggests that deriving population benefit from the private health-care sector requires a regulatory response focused on the health-care sector as a whole. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"PhD-fellowships within the research program \u201cWest and Central African partnership for Health Policy and Systems strengthening to support Maternal, New born, Child and Adolescent Health\u201d","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 30th September 2016","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/jobs/phd-research-fellowship","body":"High rates of maternal death and teen pregnancy persist in West and Central Africa.  Research and programming efforts are not sustainably reducing these rates. The challenge is how to link the evidence on useful health interventions with evidence on how to effectively deliver the interventions within the health systems of West and Central Africa.   This project aims to build the foundation for delivering better maternal, new born, child and adolescent health care by addressing this gap and enhancing the capacity of researchers and leaders. As part of the South-South collaborative approach the program is partnering with consortiums led from the University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape in South Africa and is offering PhD fellowships within the programme, including using mixed qualitative and quantitative methods for building explanations for what mechanisms underpinned the outcomes observed as a result of the program through the doctoral level training of young researchers from Anglophone and Francophone countries and institutions in the sub-region. The PhD fellows /researchers in Maternal, New born, Child and Adolescent health and Health Policy and Systems research will develop their thesis projects as sub-projects of the larger monitoring and evaluation.  Participation in the project is a full time commitment for four years.   The successful fellow will be based in the project office, which is currently located in the Dodowa Health Research Centre of the Ghana Health Service. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Podcast: Sustainable funding for Africa\u2019s cities","field_subtitle":"African Research Institute, July 2016","field_url":"http://www.urbanafrica.net/urban-voices/sustainable-funding-for-africas-cities/","body":"Governments are being overwhelmed by the rapid growth of Africa\u2019s cities. Strategic planning has been insufficient and the provision of basic services is worsening. Since the 1990s, widespread devolution has substantially shifted responsibility for coping with urbanisation to local authorities, yet municipal governments across Africa receive a paltry share of national income with which to discharge their responsibilities. Responsible city authorities are examining how to improve revenue generation and diversify their sources of finance. Following the creation of a sustainable development goal for cities (SDG 11), and ahead of the Habitat III summit in October 2016, this Africa Research Institute event examined some of the financing options and the urgent need for a proactive approach on the part of national and municipal governments. The speakers in the podcast include, Professor Susan Parnell Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, Jeremy Gorelick, Lead technical adviser, Dakar Municipal Finance Program and Dr Beacon Mbiba, Senior Lecturer, Urban Policy and International Development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Post Graduate Diploma in Public Health","field_subtitle":"Applications close: 30th September 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/z3aechy","body":"This post graduate diploma in Public Health aims to strengthen the ability of middle managers to manage various programs and strengthen the health system as a whole as a bridge into the Master of Public Health. It aims to equip graduates with the critical knowledge skills to be able to engage in reflection on public health practices for eg. Health system, health service management, service delivery and critically analyse existing data sources to be able to engage in operational research, plan, implement, monitor and evaluate programs. Graduates will be provided with the skill and expertise to manage the health system and health programmes at district, provincial and national levels. The following learning outcomes are expected of the student: to have gained an understanding of the key components of public health and its application to the relevant context and apply the necessary principles within the local context; to be able to measure at a descriptive level health and management indicators such that they may be analyse the relevant program outputs; to have an insight on the organisation of services and programs to be able to optimise and better manage the relevant programs; to be able to identify challenges within the health system and programs so that they may be able to generate workable solutions to local; to be able to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate public service interventions that results in action planning and optimal use of resources. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Progress achieved in restricting the marketing of high-fat, sugary and salty food and beverage products to children","field_subtitle":"Kraak V; Vandevijvere S; Sacks G;Brinsden H; Hawkes C; Barquera S; Lobsteind T; Swinburn B: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 94(7), 540-548, 2016 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/7/15-158667.pdf","body":"In May 2010, 192 Member States endorsed Resolution WHA63.14 to restrict the marketing of food and non-alcoholic beverage products high in saturated fats, trans fatty acids, free sugars and/or salt to children and adolescents globally. The authors examined the actions taken between 2010 and early 2016 \u2013 by civil society groups, the World Health Organization (WHO) and its regional offices, other United Nations (UN) organisations, philanthropic institutions and transnational industries \u2013 to help decrease the prevalence of obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases among young people. By providing relevant technical and policy guidance and tools to Member States, WHO and other UN organisations have helped protect young people from the marketing of branded food and beverage products that are high in fat, sugar and/or salt. The progress achieved by the other actors the authors investigated appears variable and generally less robust. The authors suggest that the progress being made towards the full implementation of Resolution WHA63.14 would be accelerated by further restrictions on the marketing of unhealthy food and beverage products and by investing in the promotion of nutrient-dense products. This should help young people meet government-recommended dietary targets. Any effective strategies and actions should align with the goal of WHO to reduce premature mortality from non-communicable diseases by 25% by 2025 and the aim of the UN to ensure healthy lives for all by 2030.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Realising the Right to Health in the WHO African Region: Issues, Challenges and the Way Forward","field_subtitle":"Motari M; Kirigia JM: Health Systems and Policy Research 3(2), 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hzcstte","body":"The right to health has been enshrined in a number of core international and regional human rights treaties, to which WHO African Region Member States are signatories. This therefore imposes an obligation on them to make every possible effort using available resources to respect, protect, fulfil and promote the right to health of their citizens. This study analysed key issues and challenges affecting the realisation of the right to health in African countries. A survey questionnaire was sent by email to the then 46 Member States in the African Region through the WHO Country Representatives, and explored legal, policy and institutional aspects that affect the realisation of the right to health and the main health related human rights issues, and challenges in implementing the right to health. Twenty-five (54%) countries responded. The main findings were that all countries were signatories to at least one human rights treaty that recognises the right to health; all countries had national legislation touching on aspects of the right to health but only 12 countries (48%) had policies or strategies for mainstreaming human rights in healthcare. On issues affecting the realisation of the right to health: 88% identified access to health care services, medical products, and technologies; 52% identified inadequate financing for health; 28% cited marginalisation, stigma and discrimination of some groups and communities; and 24% cited gender-related inequities and violations. Lack of awareness of the right by the general population and health workers was cited by 52% of the respondents. A lot remains to be done towards the realisation of the right to health in the African Region. Member States are encouraged to review their legislation and policies to assess their consistency with human rights standards, and put in place institutional mechanisms and adequate resources that will ensure their implementation, enforcement and monitoring. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Sad passing of Dr TJ Ngulube, Zambia","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET is saddened by the news of the passing of Doctor TJ Ngulube, a long-time colleague in EQUINET, director of the Center For Health Science and Social Science Research in Zambia and significant contributor to  EQUINETs early work on social participation in health, on parliamentary roles and equitable health systems. Colleagues in EQUINET have noted memories of TJ\u2019s warmth, wisdom and friendship; his leadership and his consistent contribution to work in the region. We send sympathies to his family and colleagues and are the poorer for his passing. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Skills building on methods and tools for learning from action in participatory action research: Building action learning within affected actors and communities for resilient and responsive health systems","field_subtitle":"Tuesday 15 November 2016 8:30am\u201312pm Convention Centre, Health System Global, Vancouver, Canada","field_url":"","body":"This participatory skills session convened under the umbrella of the pra4equity network is being held at the Heath System Global Conference. In the session we will discusses methods and tools to build learning from action  as a key element of participatory action research, directly engaging affected communities to build responsive health systems.  The session draws on approaches and experience from Africa, Latin America and participants globally to discuss the methods/tools, their application and their integration in health systems. From prior global symposia, methods for learning from action were identified as weak in PAR practice. This session seeks to address this gap. It is targeted at researchers and practitioners. It uses methods resources and group discussions of case studies from health managers, policy actors, civil society and researchers in low and middle income countries to discuss the participatory processes and methods for learning from action at different levels, and the issues in applying and institutionalising these methods. We will also review what these participatory efforts to transform and build knowledge on health systems implies for the understanding of \u2018resilience\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern Africa: Food Insecurity - 2015-2016","field_subtitle":"ReliefWeb, June 2016","field_url":"http://reliefweb.int/disaster/dr-2015-000137-mwi","body":"Indications of significant food supply shortages are likely to impact on the next marketing season. The rains experienced in late March and early April provided some relief to livestock farmers, but arrived too late for both staple foods and cash crops. These adverse weather conditions are likely to reduce crop production in southern Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Malawi, Madagascar and South Africa. The negative impact of flooding will also affect food security in Malawi, Madagascar and Mozambique. Nearly 29 million people are currently food insecure in southern Africa region mainly due to the carry-over effects of the past poor harvest season combined with other structural factors. Unless a two-track approach is quickly taken to address the current food insecurity and to establish measures to mitigate against the El Ni\u00f1o effects, the existing food insecurity will deepen and increase in scope with its effects will last till 2017. In July, Southern African Development Community (SADC) launched the Regional Appeal seeking US$2.7 billion. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The HIV and AIDS Tribunal of Kenya: An Effective Mechanism for the Enforcement of HIV-related Human Rights?","field_subtitle":"Eba P: Health and Human Rights Journal 18(1), 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hjefgzg","body":"Established under Section 25 of the HIV Prevention and Control Act of 2006, the HIV and AIDS Tribunal of Kenya is the only HIV-specific statutory body in the world with the mandate to adjudicate cases relating to violations of HIV-related human rights. Yet, very limited research has been done on this tribunal. Based on findings from a desk research and semi-structured interviews of key informants conducted in Kenya, this article analyses the composition, mandate, procedures, practice, and cases of the tribunal with the aim to appreciate its contribution to the advancement of human rights in the context of HIV. It concludes that, after a sluggish start, the HIV and AIDS Tribunal of Kenya is now keeping its promise to advance the human rights of people living with and affected by HIV in Kenya, notably through addressing barriers to access to justice, swift ruling, and purposeful application of the law. The article, however, highlights various challenges still affecting the tribunal and its effectiveness, and cautions about the replication of this model in other jurisdictions without a full appraisal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The Need for Global Application of the Accountability for Reasonableness Approach to Support Sustainable Outcomes; Comment on \u201cExpanded HTA: Enhancing Fairness and Legitimacy","field_subtitle":"Byskov J; Maluka S; Marchal B; et al.: International Journal of Health and Policy Management, 5(x), 1-4, 2016","field_url":"http://www.ijhpm.com/article_3252_f14a5cd0ccc3301ad179acbcc7635c45.pdf","body":"The accountability for reasonableness (AFR) concept has been developed and discussed for over two decades. Its interpretation has been studied in several ways partly guided by the specific settings and the researchers involved. Its potential use in health technology assessments (HTAs) has recently been identified another justification for AFR-based process guidance, but it has also raised concerns from those who primarily support the consistency and objectivity of more quantitative and reproducible evidence. With reference to studies of AFR-based interventions, the authors argue that increasing evidence and technical expertise are necessary but at times contradictory and do not in isolation lead to optimally accountable, fair and sustainable solutions. Technical experts, politicians, managers, service providers, community members, and beneficiaries each have their own values, expertise and preferences, to be considered for necessary buy in and sustainability. They suggest that legitimacy, accountability and fairness do not come about without an inclusive and agreed process guidance that can reconcile differences of opinion and differences in evidence to arrive at a decision.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The prevalence of self-reported vision difficulty in economically disadvantaged regions of South Africa","field_subtitle":"Naidoo K; Jaggernath J; Ramson P; Chinanayi F; Zhuwau T; \u00d8verland L: African Journal of Disability 4(1) 2015","field_url":"http://www.ajod.org/index.php/ajod/article/view/136/346","body":"Vision impairment is a leading cause of disability, and a barriers to access education and employment, which may force people into poverty. This study determined the prevalence of self-reported vision difficulties as an indicator of vision impairment in economically disadvantaged regions in South Africa, and to examine the relationship between self-reported vision difficulties and socio-economic markers of poverty, namely, income, education and health service needs. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 27 economically disadvantaged districts (74901 respondents) to collect data from households on poverty and health, including vision difficulty. As visual acuity measurements were not conducted, the researchers used the term vision difficulty as an indicator of vision impairment. The prevalence of self-reported vision difficulty was 11.2%. More women (12.7%) compared to men (9.5%) self-reported vision difficulty (p < 0.01). Self-reported vision difficulty was higher (14.2%) for respondents that do not spend any money. A statistically significant relationship was found between the highest level of education and self-reporting of vision difficulty; as completed highest level of education increased, self-reporting of vision difficulty became lower (p < 0.01). A significantly higher prevalence of self-reported vision difficulty was found in respondents who are employed (p < 0.01). The evidence from this study suggests associations between socio-economic factors and vision difficulties that have a two-fold relationship (some factors such as education, and access to eye health services are associated with vision difficulty whilst vision difficulty may trap people in their current poverty or deepen their poverty status). ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The retreat of neoliberalism","field_subtitle":"Gumede W: Pambazuka News, 21 July 2016","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/economics/retreat-neoliberalism","body":"An internal IMF report admitting the destructive nature of neoliberalism may have come too late for many African countries. The neoliberal structural adjustment programs have led to economic hardships, political instability and conflicts in most African countries where they have been implemented. The report makes three devastating conclusions: One, that the neoliberal reform program has not delivered increased economic growth. Secondly, neoliberal reforms have increased inequality. And thirdly, the increased inequality caused by neoliberal reforms has in turn undermined the level and sustainability of economic growth. The report states that the removal of barriers to capital flows, or financial openness, has often resulted in short-term speculative, so-called \u201chot\u201d inflows, in developing countries. However, such speculative capital inflows to African countries are often quickly withdrawn by industrial country investors as they seek better returns elsewhere, destabilising African economies which were initial recipients of such \u201chot\u201d inflows. Such speculative inflows neither boost growth nor allow the African country to share the costs of such destabilisation with the industrial countries from which speculators originate. The authors conclude that there was an increased \u201cacceptance of controls to limit short-term debt flows that are viewed as likely to lead to \u2013 or compound \u2013 a financial crisis\u201d. They argue that while exchange rates and financial policies could help to alleviate risks of increased financial instability, \u201ccapital controls are a viable, and sometimes the only, option when the source of an unsustainable credit boom is direct borrowing from abroad\u201d. The report says that although high public debt is detrimental to growth and welfare, it would be better for African and developing countries to pay off their public debt over a longer time, rather than cut current productive spending needs. To lower public debt, proponents of neoliberal reforms have proposed that taxes should be raised or public spending cut, or both. If African countries do not come up with quality policies, or if they have them, but the policies are captured by corrupt elements, or half-heartedly implemented, or not implemented at all, they won\u2019t be able to take advantage of the seeming retreat of the four-decade long globally dominant \u201cneoliberalism\u201d.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends and challenges toward integration of traditional medicine in formal health-care system: Historical perspectives and appraisal of education curricula in Sub-Sahara Africa","field_subtitle":"Innocent E: Journal of Intercultural Ethnopharmacology, 2016, doi: 10.5455/jice.20160421125217","field_url":"http://www.scopemed.org/fulltextpdf.php?mno=220532","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) communities suffer a disease burden that is aggravated by shortage of medical personnel and medical supplies such as medical devices. This paper outlines how for a long time, observation and practical experiences meant that people learned to use different plant species that led to the emergence of traditional medicine (TM) systems. The ancient Pharaonic Egyptian TM system is for example, said to be one of the oldest documented forms of TM practice in Africa and a pioneer of world\u2019s medical science. These medical practices diffused to other continents and were accelerated by advancement of technologies while leaving Africa lagging behind in the integration of the practice in formal health-care system. The author raises issues that drag back integration, such as the lack of development of education curricula for training TM experts as the way of disseminating the traditional medical knowledge and practices. A few African countries such as Ghana have managed to integrate TM products in the National Essential Medicine List while South Africa, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania have TM products being sold over the counters due to the availability of education training programs. This paper analyses the contribution of TM practice and products in modern medicine and gives recommendations that Africa should take in the integration process to safeguard the SSA population from disease burdens.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Will the new global health emergency funds secure or securitise health?","field_subtitle":"Garrett Wallace Brown, Olivia Wills, University of Sheffield, Rene Loewenson, TARSC","field_url":"","body":"\r\nWhen leaders at the 2015 G7 summit called the 2014 Ebola epidemic  \u2018a wake-up call for all of us\u2019 they acknowledged that the global response had been too slow, with inadequate health leadership, coordination and emergency funding.   At the same time, as argued in the May 2016 editorial in the newsletter, emergency responses cannot be delinked from the strength and authority of health systems to prevent, detect and respond to emerging public health threats, nor to their power to engage sectors on their role in the economic, social, environmental, trade and other determinants of these threats. Shortfalls in public health capacities, including those set in the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHRs) are a warning sign of future outbreaks, often due to neglected diseases or public health risks that get inadequate attention or resources until they trigger large-scale and highly expensive outbreaks. \r\n\r\nThe two new global financing mechanisms introduced in 2015 to support health emergency responses are thus important additional resources.  These are the World Health Organisation (WHO)\u2019s Contingency Fund for Emergencies (CFE) and the World Bank\u2019s Pandemic Emergency Facility (PEF). \r\n\r\nThe CFE emerged from discussions on the IHRs and was adopted at the 2015 World Health Assembly. It aims to fill the gap from the first 72 hours of a declared health emergency until resources from other financing mechanisms begin to flow. It covers all countries regardless of income to prevent events that have substantial public health consequences. As defined in the IHR, these may be due to infectious agents, chemicals, radiation, food safety or other hazards that can escalate into a public health emergency of international concern. The fund is triggered by national request and the level of funding is decided on a case-by-case basis from a $100m fund. It can support personnel; information technology and information systems; medical supplies; and field and local government support. To date, the CFE has disbursed $8.5 million for interventions related to the Zika virus in South America, on yellow fever in central Africa, and drought related food insecurity in Asia.  \r\n\r\nThe 2015 G7, indicating reasons of accountability and effectiveness, located the PEF at the World Bank. It is currently being finalized for launch at the end of 2016, uniquely as an insurance mechanism rather than a grant fund,  to support follow up measures in emergencies after initial funding, such as from CFE.  It is only focused on infectious disease outbreaks that could become cross border epidemics. Unlike the CFE, only low income countries are eligible for PEF financing.   Funds are provided through two delivery windows: an insurance mechanism for up to $500 million per outbreak, and a cash injection between $50 and $100 million. The disbursement criteria are yet to be clarified. The World Bank expresses its anticipation that an insurance model will bring \u2018greater discipline and rigor to pandemic preparedness and incentivize better pandemic response planning\u2019, including by building \u2018better core public health capabilities for disease surveillance and health systems strengthening, toward universal health coverage\u2019. However it is both ambiguous and problematic that the PEF is yet to state the specific measures for supporting and measuring these aims. \r\n\r\nAlthough born from different governance processes, the two funds do have some links. For example, the CFE intends to be a first response and the PEF a subsequent deeper resource package. They make reference to one another, recognizing the need to interact for coherence of emergency responses.\r\n\r\nHowever, only the CFE has a formal relationship with the IHRs and its core capacities, only the CFE is universal in coverage of all countries, comprehensive in addressing the full spectrum of cross border public health risks enumerated in the IHRs, including radiation, chemical and other risks, and only the CFE is managed under intergovernmental funding rules and institutional frameworks, with explicit support for system functions such as health information, planning and health worker mobilization.\r\n\r\nIt is not clear why the PEF seemingly circumnavigates the institutional and intergovernmental mechanisms of the IHRs. Two explanations stand out: Firstly, the PEF is a product of G7 processes, which similar to the establishment of the Global Fund in 2000, have supported funds that are independent of WHO governance processes. Secondly the PEF seeks to create an insurance market that will incentivize certain health system conditions to access the funds. The funding mechanism involves reinsurance and proceeds of \u2018catastrophe bonds\u2019 (capital-at-risk notes) issued by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development purchased by insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bond investors, with development partners and international agencies covering the cost of the premiums and bond coupons.  As a new financing mechanism drawing in development funds the trigger criteria for funding and reforms to be incentivized, as yet unstated, need to be carefully reviewed. \r\n\r\nG7 countries are presently encouraging G20 countries to financially back the PEF and its insurance agenda this September in Hangzhou.  But what of the CFE?  It covers a wider spectrum of public health risks, fits most comfortably within the IHR framework and aligns more clearly with efforts to strengthen core IHR capacities and national response plans.  How far will the PEF, despite its role to fund the \u2018deeper\u2019 response, strengthen the health systems to be more effective in detecting and responding to emergencies, and even more importantly in preventing them.  How will the PEF explicitly strengthen capacities for the IHR, provide direct funding support for system capacities and align with existing national plans and intergovernmental frameworks?  How far will both funds strengthen the community literacy, networks and capacities and the primary health care systems that are needed for effective prevention, preparedness and containment, or link with the rising mobilization of resources and personnel from within Africa, noting the significant role these played in the last major Ebola epidemic.  \r\n\r\nThe addition of new global resources for managing public health are welcome. However, global measures need to reach beyond measures for surveillance and containment if they are to stretch beyond a remedial securitization of global health. Securing health calls for local, national and regional capacities for and global investment in systems that can identify, prepare for, prevent and manage significant public health risks, and for a re-invigorated public health authority and capability to mobilise attention to those communities and action on those key determinants of health that are often ignored, until the onset of such mass scale events. \r\n\r\nPlease see the full brief at http://tinyurl.com/jsgsgnh and send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Neoliberal Epidemics\u2019 in Global Context","field_subtitle":"Schrecker T; Bambra C: Policies for Equitable Access to Health, 2016","field_url":"http://www.peah.it/2016/02/neoliberal-epidemics-in-global-context/","body":"Conditionalities attached to loans from the World Bank and IMF were among the key negative influences  on health and its social determinants between 1980 and 2000 in many of the more than 75 low- and middle-income countries in which they were applied. Best available evidence suggests that this 'neoliberal epidemics' era is not over. In the future, neoliberalism is likely to reflect the erosion of territorial divisions between core and periphery, or the global North and the global South, in the world economy. The authors write that the success of efforts to fight neoliberal epidemics and reduce health inequalities will depend on blurring boundaries: between the global and local frames of reference, and between public health practice and the politics of health.  This last blurring means a return to the wisdom of Rudolf Virchow, to the effect that \u2018medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale\u2019.  As Martin McKee and colleagues wrote in a 2012 commentary on the failure of austerity policies, \u2018Virchow\u2019s words are as relevant today as they ever were\u2019.  Understanding how to translate that insight into political action will require the development of a comparative political science of health inequalities \u2013 a critically important project that remains in its infancy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A political economy analysis of human resources for health (HRH) in Africa","field_subtitle":"Fieno JV; Dambisya YM; George G; Benson K: Human Resources for Health 14:44 2016 ","field_url":"https://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12960-016-0137-4","body":"Despite a global recognition from all stakeholders of the gravity and urgency of health worker shortage in Africa, little progress has been achieved to improve health worker coverage in many of the African human resources for health (HRH) crisis countries. The problem consists in how policy is made, how leaders are accountable, how the World Health Organization (WHO) and foreign funders encourage (or distort) health policy, and how development objectives are prioritized in these countries. The paper uses political economy analysis, which stems from a recognition that the solution to the shortage of health workers across Africa involves more than a technical response. A number of institutional arrangements dampen investments in HRH, including a mismatch between officials\u2019 tenure in office and program results, the vertical nature of health programming, the modalities of Overseas Development Assistance in health, the structures of the global health community, and the weak capacity in HRH units within Ministries of Health. A major change in policy-making would only occur with a disruption to the political or institutional order. The case study of Ethiopia, who has increased its health workforce dramatically over the last 20 years, disrupted previous institutional arrangements through the power of ideas\u2014HRH as a key intermediate development objective. The framing of HRH created the rationale for the political commitment to investment in health workers. The authors argue that Ethiopia demonstrates that political will coupled with strong state capacity and adequate resource mobilization can overcome the institutional hurdles above. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"African Economic Outlook 2016","field_subtitle":"African Development Bank (AfDB); Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; UN Development Programme (UNDP): 2016","field_url":"http://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/en/outlook","body":"How Africa urbanises will be critical to the continent\u2019s future growth and development, according to the African Economic Outlook 2016. Africa\u2019s economic performance held firm in 2015 amid global headwinds and regional shocks. The continent remained the second fastest growing economic region after East Asia. In 2015, net financial flows to Africa were estimated at USD 208 billion, 1.8% lower than in 2014 due to a contraction in investment, while official development assistance increased by 4%; and remittances remain the most stable and important single source of external finance at USD 64 billion in 2015. According to the authors, if harnessed by adequate policies, urbanisation can help advance economic development through higher agricultural productivity, industrialisation, services stimulated by the growth of the middle class, and foreign direct investment in urban corridors. It also can promote social development through safer and inclusive urban housing and robust social safety nets. Finally, it can further sound environmental management by addressing the effects of climate change as well as the scarcity of water and other natural resources, controlling air pollution, developing clean cost-efficient public transportation systems, improving waste collection, and increasing access to energy. Seizing this urbanisation dividend requires bold policy reforms and planning efforts, however, such as by strengthening local governance, tailoring national urban strategies to specific contexts and diverse urban realities and harnessing innovative financing instruments. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"An Independent Review and Accountability Mechanism for the Sustainable Development Goals: The Possibilities of a Framework Convention on Global Health","field_subtitle":"Friedman E: Health and Human Rights Journal 18(1), 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hlgx3tt","body":"The author argues that the proposed Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH) could establish a nuanced, layered, and multi-faceted regime of compliance and accountability to the right to health and strengthen accountability for the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). If legally binding, he argues that the FCGH could facilitate accountability through the courts and catalyze comprehensive domestic accountability regimes, requiring national strategies that include transparency, community and national accountability and participatory mechanisms, and an enabling environment for social empowerment. A \u201cRight to Health Capacity Fund\u201d could ensure resources for these strategies. Inclusive national processes could establish targets, benchmarks, and indicators consistent with FCGH guidance, with regular reporting to a treaty body, which could also hear individual cases. State reports could be required to include plans to overcome implementation gaps, subjecting the poorest performers to penalties and targeted capacity building measures. Regional special rapporteurs could facilitate compliance through regular country visits and respond to serious violations. And reaching beyond government compliance, from capacity building to the courts and contractual obligations, the author proposes that the FCGH could establish nationally enforceable right to health obligations on the private sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Associations in the continuum of care for maternal, newborn and child health: a population-based study of 12 sub-Saharan Africa countries","field_subtitle":"Owili P; Muga M; Chou YJ; Elsa Hau YH; Huang N; Chien LY: BMC Public Health 16(414), 2016","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4869316/","body":"Despite the progress in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5, inequity in the utilization of maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) care services still remain high in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In this study, the authors explored the distributions in the utilisation MNCH services in 12 SSA countries and further investigated the associations in the continuum of care for MNCH as key for health equity, using Demographic and Health Surveys data of 12 countries in SSA.  Some countries have a consistently low (Mali, Nigeria, DR Congo and Rwanda) or high (Namibia, Senegal, Gambia and Liberia) utilisation in at least two levels of MNCH care. The path relationships in the continuum of care for MNCH from \u2018adequate antenatal care\u2019 to \u2018adequate delivery care\u2019 (0.32) and to \u2018adequate child\u2019s immunisation\u2019 (0.36); from \u2018adequate delivery care\u2019 to \u2018adequate postnatal care\u2019 (0.78) and to \u2018adequate child\u2019s immunisation\u2019 (0.15) were positively associated and statistically significant. Only the path relationship from \u2018adequate postnatal care\u2019 to \u2018adequate child\u2019s immunisation\u2019 (\u22120.02) was negatively associated and significant. In conclusion, utilisation of each level of MNCH care is related to the next level of care, that is \u2013 antenatal care is associated with delivery care which is then associated with postnatal and subsequently with child\u2019s immunisation. At the national level, identification of communities which are greatly contributing to overall disparity in health and a well laid out follow-up mechanism from pregnancy through to child\u2019s immunisation program could serve towards improving maternal and infant health outcomes and equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: CODESRIA Executive Secretary","field_subtitle":"Deadline : 15th September 2016","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2629&lang=en","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) invites applications from suitably qualified senior African scholars for the position of Executive Secretary in its pan-African Secretariat located in Dakar, Senegal. This position, which will fall vacant in 2017, is the most senior management post in the Executive Secretariat and the successful candidate will be expected to function as the leader of the institution and a diverse team of staff under the overall supervision of the Executive Committee of the Council. Established in 1973 as a pioneering, independent, pan-African and not-for-profit organisation for the development of social research in Africa, CODESRIA is today widely recognised as the premier institution on the continent for the generation and dissemination of multidisciplinary research knowledge in the social sciences and humanities. The position of Executive Secretary is a key one both in the development of the programme mandate of the Council and the realisation of the strategic institutional objectives set by the triennial General Assembly of its members.  More information can be obtained from the website. CODESRIA policy is to reflect the disciplinary, gender, generational and linguistic diversity of the African social science community in its structures. In this connection, female candidates meeting the required qualifications are especially encouraged to send in their dossiers for consideration for this position.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Proposal-Research on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) in Migration Affected Communities of East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 5 August 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/gl66a4k","body":"IOM, through the PHAMESA programme seeks to carry out a study that examines SRH challenges faced by migrants and barriers to access to SRH care services in migration affected communities and migration corridors. In addition, the study should identify gaps in existing SRHR programmes and policies in the selected migration affected communities and migration corridors. The research institution/consortium will lead the research in all selected migration corridors and migration affected communities, and is expected to carry out the following activities: Produce inception report and detailed plan to carry out the study; develop study protocol and data collection tools and translate into local languages as appropriate; conduct detailed desk review including sexual and reproductive health policy analysis at national and regional levels; conduct semi-structured interviews with policy makers, key stakeholders and actors (state and non-state) and migrants at community, national and regional levels; develop a field manual to guide on the data collection process; develop and administer appropriate data collection instruments/tools in line with the study purpose, objectives, study population and the outlined SRHR focus areas and submit a narrative report of findings and recommendations using a format that shall be agreed upon.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for submissions Cities & Health","field_subtitle":"Now accepting submissions for the first issue ","field_url":"http://explore.tandfonline.com/cfp/pgas/cities-and_health_cfp","body":"Cities & Health aims to provide an innovative new international platform for consolidating research and know-how for city development to support human health. The journal will publish papers and commentary from researchers and practitioners working to build stronger relationships and a better understanding for supporting healthier cities. Unique to the journal, authors are asked to provide a one page lay summary of their papers specifically to illustrate its relevance for the practitioner community and to inform city authorities. A forum of city leaders and practitioners who are already fostering change will be asked to review and comment on these summaries. The journal invites contributions from a broad range of disciplines, including, but not limited to: built environment, including: urban design, planning, architecture, transport, landscape and city governance; public health, including: epidemiology, health economy, public health advocacy and community health; experts in many other relevant fields, such as psychology, human behaviour, geography, environmental resources, cultural studies, communications and the arts. The paper is to be published bi-annually, starting from 2017. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call to Sign: The Second Durban Declaration: Access Equity Rights - Now!","field_subtitle":" International AIDS Society: Geneva, July 2016","field_url":"http://www.iasociety.org/Second-Durban-Declaration","body":"There has been remarkable progress in the response to AIDS since the global HIV community last convened in Durban in 2000. Curbing the spread of HIV was the first step . Accelerating investment and action on a robust human rights and social justice agenda is the next. Despite significant scientific advancements, the authors argue that we continue to encounter structural barriers that impede real world progress. Realising the promise of scientific achievement requires a greater commitment to removing barriers between discovery and implementation. The 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) must bring these pieces together \u2013 the key scientific advances needed to end the epidemic and the key structural barriers impeding progress \u2013 and secure greater political commitment including financial resources to get the job done. They argue that it is key to focus on five key scientific advances; ensuring access to antiretroviral therapy for all people living with HIV, scaling up modern combination HIV prevention packages, treating and managing co-infections and co-morbidities, amplifying research efforts for a vaccine and a cure, optimising implementation research. They argue that there is a need to address five key structural barriers; focusing on key populations within and across various HIV epidemic scenarios, addressing gender inequality and empowering young women and girls, challenging laws, policies and practices that stigmatise and discriminate against people living with HIV and key populations, increasing investment in civil society and community lead responses, and enhancing the capacity of front-line healthcare workers. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Caring for a child with Cerebral Palsy: The experience of Zimbabwean mothers","field_subtitle":"Dambi J; Jelsma J; Mlambo T: African Journal of Disability 4(1) 2015 doi: 10.4102/ajod.v4i1.168","field_url":"http://www.ajod.org/index.php/ajod/article/view/168/352","body":"The needs of caregivers of children with disability may not be recognized despite evidence to suggest that they experience increased strain because of their care-giving role. This strain may be exacerbated if they live in under-resourced areas. The authors set out to establish the well-being of caregivers of children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) living in high-density areas of Harare, Zimbabwe. In addition, the authors wished to identify factors that might be predictive of caregivers\u2019 well-being. Finally, they examined the psychometric properties of the Caregiver Strain Index (CSI) within the context of the study. Caregivers of 46 children with CP were assessed twice, at baseline, and after three months, for perceived burden of care and health-related quality of life. The psychometric properties of the CSI were assessed post hoc. The caregivers reported considerable caregiver burden with half of the caregivers reporting CSI scores in the \u2018clinical distress\u2019 range. Many of the caregivers experienced some form of pain, depression and expressed that they were overwhelmed by the care-giving role. No variable was found to be associated with clinical distress. The authors propose that caregivers be monitored routinely for their level of distress and that there is an urgent need to provide them with support. The CSI is likely to be a valid measure of distress in this population.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Case studies on improving tax collection: How can progressive financing systems be developed in different contexts, particularly through increasing domestic public funding?","field_subtitle":"Resilient and Responsive Health Systems (RESYST): London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 2016","field_url":"http://resyst.lshtm.ac.uk/research-projects/case-studies-improving-tax-collection","body":"This research project investigates how governments can generate more of their own national resources for health and reduce their dependence on donor funding, which can be both unstable and unsustainable. Case studies in Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya, document country experiences of increasing the effectiveness of their tax collection services and investigate how this has contributed to increased health sector spending. Governments in Kenya, Lagos State (Nigeria) and South Africa have increased domestic tax revenue by expanding the tax base and improving the efficiency of tax collection systems. Specific efforts have been made to reach the informal sector by taxing businesses (in Kenya) and reaching informal trade associations (in Nigeria). Political support to tax policy reforms and the tax collection agencies led to additional funding for their operations and strengthened human resource capacity. Despite achievements in raising tax revenue, the share of government spending allocated to the health sector has not increased. A critical challenge for Ministries of Health is to make a better case for health during budget negotiations, and to demonstrate the social and economic benefits of health investments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Charting a path to end the AIDS epidemic","field_subtitle":"Sidib\u00e9 M: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 94(6) 408, 2016, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.16.176875","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/6/16-176875/en/","body":"From 8 to 10 June 2016, heads and representatives of states and governments, along with other key stakeholders, assembled at the United Nations (UN) in New York, for the High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS. There are three reasons why this meeting is an important milestone for the global response against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). First, the meeting provides an opportunity to reflect on the extent of progress and unprecedented achievements that have been made in responding to the AIDS epidemic, as described in the UN Secretary-General\u2019s report. Second, the meeting served as an occasion to galvanise support from the global community to scale up the AIDS response. The 90\u201390\u201390 treatment target calls for 90% of people living with HIV to know their status, 90% of people who know their HIV status to have access to treatment and 90% of people on treatment to achieve suppressed viral loads by 2020. Third, the meeting was an opportunity to reflect on specific challenges that need to be addressed going forward. Among them is a treatment gap and inadequate global investments in prevention. The UNAIDS 2016\u20132021 Strategy integrated efforts towards ending the AIDS epidemic fully into Transforming our world: the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. The strategy sets out the links between the HIV response and several sustainable development goals (SDGs), from SDG 1 on ending poverty to SDG 16 on promoting inclusive societies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Creating a supportive legal environment for universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"Clarke D; Rajana D; Schmets G: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 94(7), 481-556, 2016 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/7/16-173591/en/","body":"The authors note a proposal for the World Health Organization (WHO) to provide capacity-building for drafting health laws in Member States. They highlight that WHO has the authority and credibility to work with countries to make their national laws easier to access and understand, and to monitor and evaluate their implementation. WHO\u2019s new technical support work related to universal health coverage (UHC) laws is observed as one example of its support for Member States in this important area. Strengthening countries\u2019 legal and regulatory frameworks and engaging in universal health coverage-compliant law reforms has been missing from the universal health coverage agenda. WHO calls on Member States to align their health system policies with universal health coverage goals such as equity, efficiency, health service quality and financial risk protection. Strengthening health systems using health laws and legal frameworks is a pivotal means for attaining these goals and achieving sustainable results in health security and resilience.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Do academic knowledge brokers exist? Using social network analysis to explore academic research-to-policy networks from six schools of public health in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Jessani N; Boulay M; Bennett S: Health Policy and Planning 31(5), 600-611, 2016 ","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/31/5/600.full","body":"The potential for academic research institutions to facilitate knowledge exchange and influence evidence-informed decision-making has been gaining ground. Schools of public health (SPHs) may play a key knowledge brokering role\u2014serving as agencies of and for development. Understanding academic-policymaker networks can facilitate the enhancement of links between policymakers and academic faculty at SPHs, as well as assist in identifying academic knowledge brokers (KBs). Using a census approach, the authors administered a sociometric survey to academic faculty across six SPHs in Kenya to construct academic-policymaker networks and identified academic KBs using social network analysis (SNA). Results indicate that each SPH commands a variety of unique as well as overlapping relationships with national ministries in Kenya. Of 124 full-time faculty, they identified 7 KBs in 4 of the 6 SPHs. KBs were also situated in a wide range along a 'connector/betweenness\u2019 measure. The authors propose that  SNA is a valuable tool for identifying academic-policymaker networks in Kenya. More efforts to conduct similar network studies would permit SPH leadership to identify existing linkages between faculty and policymakers, shared linkages with other SPHs and gaps so as to contribute to evidence-informed health policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"East Central and South Africa Health Community Global Health Diplomacy Course, Arusha, 22-26 August 2016","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 15th August 2016","field_url":"http://www.ecsahc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/GHD-Bronchure.pdf","body":"Globalisation has been portrayed to developing countries as a panacea for under development, poverty, inequality and ill health. After two decades, (since the structural adjustment programmes) of operating in a globalised world the Health Sector has increasingly borne the brunt of failed globalisation, increased poverty and inequality through higher investments in health and mitigating against an ever increasing burden of disease. What has become apparent to developing countries is that they need to be very prepared for international meetings and to improve diplomacy and negotiations skills as they participate in these meetings so that they can accrue the most benefits for their citizens and countries. This five day course is offered by the ECSA Health Community and presented by experts on issues especially for the World Health Assembly and trade and Health agenda. For further information and an application form please visit the website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"El Nin\u0303o: Undermining Resilience - Implications of El Nin\u0303o in Southern Africa from a Food and Nutrition Security Perspective","field_subtitle":"World Food Programme, February 2016","field_url":"http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/ena/wfp282004.pdf","body":"Southern Africa\u2019s unprecedented El Nin\u0303o-related drought and weather-related stress has triggered a second shock-year of hunger and hardship for poor and vulnerable people with serious consequences that World Food Programme (WFP) say will persist until at least to the next harvest in 2017, with the 2015-16 maize harvest insufficient to cover full cereal needs for the region without significant importation. El Nin\u0303o conditions have caused the lowest recorded rainfall between October 2015 and January 2016 across many regions of Southern Africa in at least 35-years. The period also recorded the hottest temperatures in the past 10 years. Short-term forecasts, based on more recent data, (February to May) indicate the high probability of continuing below-normal rainfall across the region, signalling this may become one of the worst droughts in recent history. El Nin\u0303o\u2019s impact on rain-fed agriculture is severe. Poor-rainfall, combined with excessive temperatures, has created conditions that are unfavourable for crop growth in many areas. In Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe, planting was delayed by up to two months or more and is expected to severely impact maize yields. Already by early 2016 an estimated 15.9 million people in southern Africa were highly food insecure, not including a growing number in South Africa. Zimbabwe, Malawi, Lesotho, Madagascar were the hardest hit from the 2015 poor harvest and early impacts from El Nin\u0303o, with Swaziland, Angola and Mozambique show increasing signs of concern. WFP note that El Nin\u0303o is usually accompanied by economic slowdown in Southern Africa, associated with reduced agricultural output and contraction in industrial activities. Current macro-economic conditions, including falling international commodity prices and currency depreciations, may inhibit countries\u2019 capacity to secure sufficient food supply. Crop failure and economic contraction threaten both rural and urban livelihoods as it undermines people\u2019s capacity to meet their basic social and economic needs, coupled with increasing levels of livelihood stress and unemployment, El Nin\u0303o incurs social, economic and political consequences. The WFP note that regional coordination and government leadership of critical contingency, preparedness and response planning is crucial to guarantee sufficient food supply and access for the most vulnerable people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Information brief: Global emergency financing and health system strengthening","field_subtitle":"Brown G; Wills O; Loewenson R","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Emergency%20Funds%20brief%202016.pdf","body":"The 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR) adopted by member states in the World Health Organization (WHO) require that all countries have the ability to detect, assess, report and respond to potential public health emergencies of international concern at all levels of government, and to report such events rapidly to the WHO to determine whether a coordinated, global response is required. Recent epidemics have strengthened the demand to improve the capacities to implement the IHR and the effectiveness of health system prevention and detection of and responses to epidemics. Evidence from ESA countries suggests that this demands effective communication between local levels of health systems and national responses, and capacities for prevention, detection and response at community, primary care and district level. In 2016 two new global financing mechanisms were introduced to support emergency responses, the WHO Contingency Fund for Emergencies (CFE), that aims to fill the gap from the beginning of a declared emergency and a World Bank Pandemic Emergency Facility (PEF), to support follow up measures after initial CFE funding. This report provides information on the new CFE and PEF financing mechanisms, to explore any stated or implied links with the IHR goals and health system strengthening in the response to emergencies. It is based on a desk review of available literature by the University of Sheffield and the Training and Research Support Centre, under the umbrella of EQUINET. The report aims to inform African policy-makers and stakeholders about the CFE and PEF financial mechanisms and their relationship to the IHR to locate areas where links could be more explicitly made between the new financial mechanisms, the IHR and the health system strengthening needed for longer-term preparedness for and prevention of emergencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 185:We need to understand beyond what the numbers show to improve health systems","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Essential Medicines in National Constitutions: Progress Since 2008","field_subtitle":"Perehudoff S; Toebes B; Hogerzeil H: Health and Human Rights Journal 18(1), June 2016","field_url":"http://www.hhrjournal.org/2016/05/essential-medicines-in-national-constitutions-progress-since-2008/","body":"A constitutional guarantee of access to essential medicines has been identified as an important indicator of government commitment to the progressive realisation of the right to the highest attainable standard of health. The objective of this study was to evaluate provisions on access to essential medicines in national constitutions, to identify comprehensive examples of constitutional text on medicines that can be used as a model for other countries, and to evaluate the evolution of constitutional medicines-related rights since 2008. Relevant articles were selected from an inventory of constitutional texts from WHO member states. References to states\u2019 legal obligations under international human rights law were evaluated. Twenty-two constitutions worldwide now oblige governments to protect and/or to fulfil accessibility of, availability of, and/or quality of medicines. Since 2008, state responsibilities to fulfil access to essential medicines have expanded in five constitutions, been maintained in four constitutions, and have regressed in one constitution. Government commitments to essential medicines are an important foundation of health system equity and are included increasingly in state constitutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Fair publication of qualitative research in health systems: a call by health policy and systems researchers","field_subtitle":"SHaPeS TWG of Health Systems Global; EQUINET; Emerging Voices for Global Health; Daniels K; Loewenson R; et al.: International Journal for Equity in Health 15(98) June 2016, doi: 10.1186/s12939-016-0368-y","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ztaglj2","body":"An open letter from Trisha Greenhalgh et al. to the editors of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) triggered wide debate by health policy and systems researchers (HPSRs) globally on the inadequate recognition of the value of qualitative research and the resulting deficit in publishing papers reporting on qualitative research. One key dimension of equity in health is that researchers are able to disseminate their findings and that they are taken into account in a fair and just manner, so that they can inform health policy and programmes. The Greenhalgh et al. letter and editorial responses were actively discussed within \u201cSHAPES\u201d, a thematic group within Health Systems Global, focused on Social Science approaches for research and engagement in health policy & systems (http://healthsystemsglobal.org/twg-group/6/Social-science-approaches-for-research-and-engagement-in-health-policy-amp-systems/) and within EQUINET (www.equinetafrica.org). The discussion precipitated this follow up open letter/commentary, which has 170 co-signatories. Collectively, the signatories feel that barriers to publication of qualitative research limit publication of many exemplary studies, and their contribution to understanding important dimensions of health care, services, policies and systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Fellowships for threatened scholars around the world: Scholar\u2019s Rescue Fund (SRF)","field_subtitle":"Institute of International Education (IIE)","field_url":"http://www.scholarrescuefund.org","body":"The IIE-SRF selects outstanding professors, researchers, and public intellectuals for fellowship support and arranges visiting academic positions with partnering institutions of higher learning and research. Their fellowships enable scholars to pursue their academic work in safety and to continue to share their knowledge with students, colleagues, and the community. If conditions in the scholars\u2019 home countries improve, scholars may return after their fellowships to make meaningful contributions to their national academies and civil society. If safe return is not possible, scholars may use the fellowship period to identify longer-term opportunities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Focus on young women\u2019s sexual health on World Population Day","field_subtitle":"Davids N: Times Live, 11 July 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zu6lowg","body":"World Population Day in July 2016 was held with the theme \u201cInvesting in teenage girls\u201d. \u201cThe teenage years are for some girls a time of exploration\u201a learning and increasing autonomy. But for many others\u201a it is a time of increasing vulnerability and exclusion from rights and opportunities\u201a or just plain discrimination\u201a'\u201d said Babatunde Osotimehin\u201a UN under-secretary-general and executive director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). \u201cWhen a teenage girl has the power\u201a the means and the information to make her own decisions in life\u201a she is more likely to overcome obstacles that stand between her and a healthy\u201a productive future. This will benefit her\u201a her family and her community.\u201d According to the UN\u201a 20 000 girls under the age of 18 give birth every day in developing countries. Siyabulela Mamkeli\u201a Cape Town mayoral committee member for health\u201a said good health and access to services were \u201ccrucial to help young women on the road to success\u201d. In conjunction with other organisations\u201a the city has been involved in pilot projects to provide girls who have started with their menstrual cycle with reusable sanitary towels. Meanwhile\u201a the UNFPA's initiative - to end child marriages\u201a curb adolescent pregnancy and encourage girls to make informed decisions about their futures - helped more than 11-million girls between the ages of 10 and 19 gain access to sexual and reproductive health services and information in 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"From publish or perish to publish and perish: What \u2018Africa\u2019s 100 Best Books\u2019 tell us about publishing Africa","field_subtitle":"Nyamnjoh F: Journal of Asian and African Studies 39(4), 2004","field_url":"http://www.nyamnjoh.com/files/publish_or_perish.pdf","body":"This paper draws on the African publishing industry initiative to determine \u2018Africa\u2019s 100 Best Books of the 20th Century\u2019, to discuss writing, scholarship and publishing in and on Africa. It argues that it is not enough to publish or read about Africa, just as it is not enough to pass for an African writer or scholar. There is need to problematise what is published and read on Africa, and how sympathetic to Africa culturally, morally and scientifically authors and publications are. The author argues that it is not enough to simply assume Africanness from the fact that a publication is produced by an African, or that 'non-Africans\u2019 cannot competently and positively articulate African causes in ways relevant to ordinary Africans, and poses challenge as one of how to promote commitment to African humanity and creativity without producing a simplistic reductionism or the inflation of belonging in Africa. The paper pursues these considerations, by focusing on how \u2018Africans\u2019 and \u2018non-Africans\u2019 alike have tended to represent Africa in publications. The author states \"Often missing have been perspectives of the silent majorities deprived of the opportunity to tell their own stories their own ways or even to enrich defective accounts by\r\nothers of their own life experiences. Correcting this entails paying more attention to the popular epistemologies from which ordinary people draw on a daily basis\".... \"It also means encouraging \u2018a meaningful dialogue\u2019 between these epistemologies and \u2018modern science\u2019, both in its old and new forms, as a way of enhancing rather than simply trampling and crushing the past with modern creativity. For publishers to play a part in this rehabilitation, a deliberate effort must be made to privilege people over profit, and to do more than reproduce the rhetoric of equality of humanity and the celebration of creative diversity. So far, publishing Africa for most is much less an\r\nideological commitment than a commercial option...\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health diplomacy in east and southern Africa, Report of a Regional Meeting, 8-9 April 2016, Nairobi Kenya","field_subtitle":"ECSA HC; EQUINET","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/Regional%20GHD%20meeting%20report2016.pdf","body":"This 2016 regional meeting was convened by ECSA HC with EQUINET in line with HMC Resolution \u2013 ECSAHMC50/R2 to prepare and discuss issues on the 69th World Health Assembly (WHA) Agenda and Regional GHD work. The objectives of the meeting were to 1. Update participants from ECSA-HC member states on Global Health Diplomacy (GHD) and its health impact. 2. Share information and discuss, from a GHD perspective, selected WHA agenda items and related issues from other key global health platforms. 3. Present and discuss research findings, recommendations on effective engagement on GHD and proposals for future work. 4. Discuss proposals for strengthened regional co-ordination and communication on GHD and a framework for monitoring progress. The meeting included senior officials delegated or responsible for health diplomacy from ECSA HC member states and South Africa, diplomats from the Africa group from ECSA HC member states, technical personnel from EQUINET and other institutions, including regional organisations and partners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Grants to research the \u201cEnergy - Health - Natural Disasters\u201d nexus in African cities","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 15 August 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/j2cwqz6","body":"International Council for Science, together with Network of African Science Academies and the International Social Science Council, will support 10 research projects across Africa. These projects are expected to generate new solutions-oriented knowledge that will help develop new urban paradigms in Africa and make African cities more resilient, adaptable and healthier. This is the first call in a five-year, 5 million EUR project that seeks to increase the production of high quality, integrated (inter- and transdisciplinary), solutions-oriented research on global sustainability by early career scientists in Africa. With the impending adoption of the New Urban Agenda at the Habitat III conference in Quito, Ecuador, later this year, it is imperative to ensure that science can effectively contribute to the implementation of this Agenda. The International Council for Science (ICSU), in partnership with the Network of African Science Academies (NASAC) and the International Social Science Council (ISSC) will support research projects across Africa to the value of up to 90,000 Euro each over two years. The call is part of the 5-year \u201cLeading Integrated Research for Agenda 2030 in Africa\u201d programme funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. The goal of the call is to better understand inter-relationships between energy systems, air pollution, health impacts and provision of health services, climate adaptation opportunities, land use and urban planning, and disaster risk reduction in the urban environment in Africa. The call for pre-proposals aims to identify collaborative research projects in Africa interested to explore inter-relationships across at least two domains of the nexus and that clearly indicate the inter- and trans-disciplinary nature of the research project. Successful applicants will be invited to join a training workshop on integrated research in Nairobi, Kenya, on 3-7 October 2016. Applicants should have no more than 10 years work experience following their PhDs or equivalent research experience.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health financing lessons from Thailand for South Africa on the path towards universal health coverage ","field_subtitle":"Blecher M; Pillay A; Patcharanarumol W; Tangcharoensathien V; Teerawattananon Y; Pannarunothai S; Daven J: South African Medical Journal 106(6) 533-534, 2016 ","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/10953/7375","body":"This paper argues that there are useful lessons for South Africa (and other countries in putting into place the legal and institutional frameworks system and systems for implementation of universal health coverage (UHC). Thailand has received widespread international recognition as one of several middle-income countries that have made enormous progress in building a UHC system and in achieving \u2018good health at low cost. Thailand has a strong national fund called the Universal Coverage (UC) Fund,  which covers 75% of its population, the rest being covered by social health insurance and the Civil Servant Medical Benefit Scheme. Thailand has a well-developed purchaser-provider split, with the independent UC Fund established by legislation, with a multi-stakeholder governing body including private and civil society representatives. Its internal structure, operating systems, procedures and information technology are firmly established, accessible and affordable in the middle-income country context. It uses capitation purchasing, with a focus on primary care systems. The National Health Security Office (NHSO), which manages the UC Fund, concentrates on pooling and strategic purchasing; it has no revenue collection function, as the scheme is financed through an annual budget. The NHSO manages the disease prevention and health promotion budget for all Thai citizens, thus assisting the other schemes and providing a strong focus on prevention and promotion. The article discusses these and other positive features and the challenges as learning for South Africa and other countries financing UHC.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"How equitable are community health worker programmes and which programme features influence equity of community health worker services? A systematic review","field_subtitle":"McCollum R; Gomez W; Theobald S; Taegtmeyer M: BMC Public Health 16(419) 2016 doi: 10.1186/s12889-016-3043-8","field_url":"https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-016-3043-8","body":"Community health workers (CHWs) are uniquely placed to link communities with the health system, playing a role in improving the reach of health systems and bringing health services closer to hard-to-reach and marginalised groups. A systematic review was conducted to determine the extent of equity of CHW programmes and to identify intervention design factors which influence equity of health outcomes. In accordance with published protocol, the authors systematically searched eight databases from 2004 to 2014 for quantitative and qualitative studies which assessed access, utilisation, quality or community empowerment following introduction of a CHW programme according to equity stratifiers (place of residence, gender, socio-economic position and disability). Thirty four papers met inclusion criteria. A thematic framework was applied and data extracted and managed, prior to charting and thematic analysis. The authors believe this to be the first systematic review that describes the extent of equity within CHW programmes and identifies CHW intervention design features which influence equity. CHW programmes were found to promote equity of access and utilisation for community health by reducing inequities relating to place of residence, gender, education and socio-economic position. CHWs can also contribute towards more equitable uptake of referrals at health facility level. There was no clear evidence for equitable quality of services provided by CHWs and limited information regarding the role of the CHW in generating community empowerment to respond to social determinants of health. Factors promoting greater equity of CHW services include recruitment of most poor community members as CHWs, close proximity of services to households, pre-existing social relationship with CHW, provision of home-based services, free service delivery, targeting of poor households, strengthened referral to facility, sensitisation and mobilisation of community. However, if CHW programmes are not well planned some of the barriers faced by clients at health facility level can replicate at community level. CHWs promote equitable access to health promotion, disease prevention and use of curative services at household level. However, care must be taken by policymakers and implementers to take into account factors which can influence the equity of services during planning and implementation of CHW programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"International Call for Admission BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University: Master of Public Health 2017-18, Scholarship Available","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 15 September 2016 ","field_url":"http://www.bracu.ac.bd/academics/institutes-and-schools/jpgsph/master-public-health","body":"In January 2005, James P Grant School of Public Health initiated its flagship Master of Public Health (MPH) programme with the aim of developing public health leaders. As of now 395 students from 26 countries including South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, Australia, North and South Americas, and Europe have graduated from this programme. The MPH curriculum is designed on experiential learning around the health problems faced by communities in rural and urban areas. This includes extensive field-based instructions complemented by innovative pedagogic approaches such as case study and collaborative project based learning. In 2015 JPGSPH has been selected as one of the global seven educational institutes to implement WHO TDR Postgraduate International Training on Implementation Research through MPH Programme. The next MPH batch will start in the last week of January, 2017.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Leaving no child in Africa behind: Financing public investments in children in the post-MDGs era","field_subtitle":"Muchabaiwa B: Pambazuka News, June 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jksdhqo","body":"The author observes that insufficient, ineffective and inequitable public spending on child-focused sectors and programmes stands as the biggest barrier to enjoyment of rights by all children. To date, only 7 countries in Africa have at some point in time met the Abuja target for African governments to allocate at least 15% of their budgets to health. Furthermore, no African country has so far met the Dakar Commitment on Education for All to allocate at least 7% of its GDP to education, which should have increased to 9% in 2010. In 2014, with the exception of Malawi, Niger and South Africa, who have come close by spending between 5.5-7%, the rest of African states are spending below 5% of their GDP on education, well below the Dakar Commitment. The author asks: What then are some of the concrete actions that African states should undertake to ensure sufficient, equitable, sustainable and effective public investments in children? Domestic revenue from effective and progressive taxation will continue to be the most significant and sustainable source of revenue for states to finance investments in children. He argues that, in line with the overarching SDG focus on \u2018leaving no one behind\u2019, African governments should develop and implement fiscal policies and budgets that promote equity. In line with the spirit of SDGs and of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, African states should create formal platforms and opportunities for children and their representatives to meaningfully participate in planning and public budgeting, including to hold duty bearers to account for their commitments to children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Namibia: Drought funds to last until month end","field_subtitle":"The Namibian, 5 July 2016","field_url":"http://www.namibian.com.na/Drought-funds-to-last-until-month-end/42557/read","body":"The N$90 million for drought relief set aside by the government from April 2016 to feed the 595 000 needy people in Namibia will last only until the end of July said Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa- Amadhila. In the  light of this, she said that the government needs to raise N$659 million for the drought relief programme from 1 August 2016 until March 2017. President Hage Geingob declared a state of emergency in 2016 due to the ongoing drought in the country. This is the second time in three years that the Namibian government has declared a state of emergency. The 2016/17 Rural Food Security and Livelihood Vulnerability Forecast report presented yesterday by Obert Mutabani from the Prime Minister's Office shows that the price of maize meal increased from N$8 per kilogramme in 2012 to N$18 now. Millet now costs about N$14 from N$7 in 2012, while sorghum is at N$29, up from N$7. The report also revealed that about 595 839 people have been affected by the drought, and will need assistance. It gave recommendations that government should set up programmes to help communities become self-reliant.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Physical, emotional and sexual adolescent abuse victimisation in South Africa: prevalence, incidence, perpetrators and locations","field_subtitle":"Meinck F; Clever L; Boyes M; Loening-Voysey H: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 2016, doi:10.1136/jech-2015-205860 ","field_url":"http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2016/03/09/jech-2015-205860.full","body":"Physical, emotional and sexual abuse of children is a major problem in South Africa, with severe negative outcomes for survivors. This study investigated the prevalence and incidence, perpetrators, and locations of child abuse in South Africa using a multicommunity sample. 3515 children aged 10\u201317 years (56.6% female) were interviewed from all households in randomly selected census enumeration areas in two South African provinces. Child self-report questionnaires were completed at baseline and at 1-year follow-up (97% retention). Prevalence was 56% for lifetime physical abuse (18% past-year incidence), 36% for lifetime emotional abuse (12% incidence) and 9% for lifetime sexual abuse (5% incidence). 69% of children reported any type of lifetime victimisation and 27% reported lifetime multiple abuse victimisation. Main perpetrators of abuse were reported: for physical abuse, primary caregivers and teachers; for emotional abuse, primary caregivers and relatives; and for sexual abuse, girlfriend/boyfriends or other peers. This is the first study assessing current self-reported child abuse through a large, community-based sample in South Africa. Findings of high rates of physical, emotional and sexual abuse demonstrate the need for targeted and effective interventions to prevent incidence and re-abuse.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Pooling of resources for NHI could lower cost of universal access.","field_subtitle":"Nkosi S: Health E-news, June 2016","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/2016/06/30/pooling-resources-nhi-lower-cost-universal-access/","body":"In June 2016, South African Minister of Health Dr Aaron Motsoaledi addressed the media to respond to criticism over the high cost associated with rolling out universal health care in South Africa. \u201cThe National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme is the only way to ensure that everyone is not excluded to quality health because of their socio-economic status, \u201d said Motsoaledi. The NHI White Paper was released last year and plans to reform both public and private health sectors by combining all South Africans into one purchasing pool. The cost of NHI has been estimated to be R256-billion by 2025, which is higher than the current national budget allocation toward healthcare. But according to Motsoaledi, the figure is a projection and could change with the process. Arguing the benefit of pooling resources, he stated that in 2002, the department of health combined all South Africans into one purchasing pool and were able to lower the costs of antiretroviral treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty amidst plenty: How Africans are robbed of benefits of mineral wealth","field_subtitle":"Obeng K: Pambuzuka News, June 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/z5uobfc","body":"The author argues that Africa has not benefited substantially from its mineral wealth and that it is essential for resource-rich African countries to tailor their economic policies to harness and utilise mineral revenues to improve the productivity of non-mineral sectors to break out of the extractive enclave. The article observes that the remarkable extractives-driven economic growth of the last decade across Africa failed to trickle down. It was jobless, benefited foreign corporates and the local elite, and it widened the gap between the rich and the poor. If Africa is to avoid the failures of the previous decades and successfully transition from its present state to that foreseen by Agenda 2030 then the author proposes that it must better harness the potential benefits of its vast mineral wealth. African countries must institute fiscal reforms that will ensure that they are better positioned to derive maximum benefit from the next commodity price super cycle; they must plug loopholes that continue to facilitate the bleeding of much needed development revenues via illicit flows; countries must align all relevant local frameworks to the African Mining Vision, thereby putting the needs of citizens at the centre of their natural resource management agenda; and Africa must unite in a broad and strong push for long overdue global tax reforms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Pressure to publish is choking the academic profession","field_subtitle":"Vale P; Karataglidis S: The Conversation, 6 July 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hduyqsx","body":"The regime of publication pervades contemporary academic life across countries. The obligation that academic staff must publish is invariably presented as a virtuous thing. It is right and proper for academics to expand and extend the boundaries of their respective disciplines by publishing in outlets, as approved by their peers. Moreover, a public that is often sceptical of the usefulness of universities is often told that academics publish in \u201cthe public good\u201d. But, the authors ask, if academic publishing is so significant in the profession, why is it that the young and talented in the academy increasingly resist it, calling it formulaic, at best, and, at worst, a sweatshop? And they ask, why is it that old academic hands are simply no longer interested in contributing to the peer-review system that is at the heart of the system and without which the standing of the entire industry will falter? For one thing, the authors argue, there is a dark side in the ceaseless pressure to publish. Funding agencies use publication records to distribute money or rank scholars and academic managers use the publication record as a means to manage people. For another, the current system privileges the journal over the book, which is argued to be damaging to the humanities. They argue for the need to recognise that \u201cslow scholarship\u201d is as important as it is necessary, and that deep research \u2013 especially, but not exclusively in the humanities \u2013 requires what strategic theorist Albert Wohlstetter once called a high thought to publication ratio. Research and publishing is the oxygen of academic life, but the authors suggest that the regimes of control that surround contemporary approaches to publishing are choking creativity and, with it, the profession itself.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Priority-setting for achieving universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"Chalkidou K; Glassman A; Marten R; Vega J; Teerawattananon Y; Tritasavit N; Gyansa-Lutterodt M; Seiter A; Kieny M; Hofman K; Culyer A: B: Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 94(6), 405-480, 2016","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/6/15-155721/en/","body":"Governments in low- and middle-income countries are legitimising the implementation of universal health coverage (UHC), following a United Nation\u2019s resolution on UHC in 2012 and its reinforcement in the sustainable development goals set in 2015. UHC will differ in each country depending on country contexts and needs, as well as demand and supply in health care. Therefore, fundamental issues such as objectives, users and cost\u2013effectiveness of UHC have been raised by policy-makers and stakeholders. While priority-setting is done on a daily basis by health authorities \u2013 implicitly or explicitly \u2013 it has not been made clear how priority-setting for UHC should be conducted. The authors provide justification for explicit health priority-setting and guidance to countries on how to set priorities for UHC.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Private sector, for-profit health providers in low and middle income countries: can they reach the poor at scale?","field_subtitle":"E Tung; S Bennett: Globalization and Health 10(52), 2014","field_url":"http://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1744-8603-10-52","body":"This paper analyses private for-profit (PFP) providers currently offering services to the poor on a large scale, and assesses the future prospects of bottom of the pyramid models in health. The authors searched published and grey literature and databases to identify PFP companies that provided more than 40,000 outpatient visits per year, or who covered 15% or more of a particular type of service in their country. For each included provider, the authors searched for additional information on location, target market, business model and performance, including quality of care. Only 10 large scale PFP providers were identified. The majority of these were in South Asia and most provided specialised services such as eye care. The characteristics of the business models of these firms were found to be similar to non-profit providers studied by other analysts. They pursued social rather than traditional marketing, partnerships with government, low cost/high volume services and cross-subsidization between different market segments. There was a lack of reliable data concerning these providers. The authors observe that there is very limited evidence to support the notion that large scale bottom of the pyramid PFP models in health offer good prospects for extending services to the poor in the future,  while successful PFP providers often require partnerships with government or support from public funding. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Prohibit, constrain, encourage, or purchase: how should we engage with the private health-care sector?","field_subtitle":"Montagu D; Goodman C: The Lancet, June 2016, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)30242-2","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(16)30242-2.pdf","body":"The private for-profit sector's prominence in health-care delivery, and concern about its failures to deliver social benefit, has driven a search for interventions to improve the sector's functioning. The authors review evidence for the effectiveness and limitations of such private sector interventions in low-income and middle-income countries. Few robust assessments are available, but some conclusions are argued to be possible. Prohibiting the private sector is said by the authors to be unlikely to succeed, and regulatory approaches face persistent challenges in many low-income and middle-income countries. Attention is therefore turning to interventions that encourage private providers to improve quality and coverage such as social marketing, social franchising, vouchers, and contracting. However, evidence about the effect on clinical quality, coverage, equity, and cost-effectiveness is inadequate. Other challenges concern scalability and scope. This  indicates the limitations of such interventions as a basis for universal health coverage, though they can address focused problems on a restricted scale. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Regulating the for-profit private health sector: lessons from East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Doherty J: Health Policy and Planning 30(suppl 1), i93-i102, 2014","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/suppl_1/i93.full","body":"This article explores the areas of likely comparative advantage of the private sector in delivery of health care services for public health goals. It finds that there is a considerable body of evidence on the private provision of healthcare in low- and middle-income countries, often focusing on SSA. However, the evidence base is not robust. Evidence is often mixed and sometimes conflicting and policy implications are unclear. The arguments in favour of private healthcare suggest it is more responsive and efficient, while arguments in favour of public services suggest they are more equitable and better equipped than the market to respond to health needs. Some studies find that the private sector is unregulated, has financial incentives for inappropriate healthcare, and is expensive. There is very little evidence on the comparative cost-effectiveness of the private sector. This varies considerably across country contexts and types of services. There is no conclusive evidence that the private sector is more cost-effective or more efficient than the public sector. The literature warns that increased use of private services may crowd out or decrease the funding available to the public sector. The major criticism of private sector services is that their higher user fees create inequality of access, limiting their use by the poor. The author suggests that the literature is quite clear that private for-profit health services create inequality. Private non-profit, or services run by NGOs, appear to mitigate some of the inequality effects. In practice, boundaries can be blurred between public and private; both formal and informal cost recovery schemes operate at public facilities. NGOs providing healthcare are generally seen as private, although they may not charge for their services. It is observed that the difference between free-at-the-point-of-use NGOs and out-of-pocket-expenditure on private doctors can be enormous, and that it is important to differentiate between the types of providers when reviewing the evidence on private health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Research Fairness Initiative Website","field_subtitle":"Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED): Geneva, 2016.","field_url":"http://rfi.cohred.org","body":"Hosted by COHRED, the Research Fairness Initiative aims to create a reporting system that encourages governments, business, organisations and funders to describe how they take measures to create trusting, lasting, transparent and effective partnerships in research and innovation. The RFI prioritises its application in global health because there are so many urgent health-related issues, but it can be applied to other settings as well. By providing a guide to high quality reporting on measures and conditions that promote fair research partnerships, the RFI encourages all stakeholders in research and innovation for health to describe what is done within their organisation to promote fair partnerships. Through an extensive global consultative process, the RFI have identified 17 key areas of relevance to effective and lasting partnerships. The RFI acknowledges that successful partnerships often start at personal level but are then continued at institutional or national levels. While mutual admiration, respect and friendship are essential to create the foundation of effective partnerships \u2013 it is the institutional and national dimensions of research collaboration that define how, ultimately, benefits are shared. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Scholars at Risk Network","field_subtitle":"Applications accepted at any time","field_url":"https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/secure-submission/","body":"Scholars at Risk protects scholars suffering grave threats to their lives, liberty and well-being by arranging temporary research and teaching positions at institutions in our network as well as by providing advisory and referral services. In most cases this is a one-semester or one-year position as a visiting scholar, researcher or professor at a higher education institution in a safe location anywhere in the world. SAR provides advisory services for displaced scholars who are struggling to restart their lives and their careers in their new location. Since the Network\u2019s founding in 2000, more than 700 scholars have found sanctuary and hundreds more have benefited from SAR\u2019s advisory and referral services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern Africa Network for Biosciences ","field_subtitle":"African Union: New Partnership for Africa's Development, 2016","field_url":"http://www.nepad.org/resource/southern-africa-network-biosciences-sanbio","body":"The Southern Africa Network for Biosciences (SANBio) is a platform to address and find means to resolve key bioscience concerns in health, nutrition, agriculture and environment in the Southern Africa.  SANBio, was established alongside four other networks under the African Biosciences Initiative (ABI), for the SADC region. Thirteen countries of the SADC region are part of the SANBio network, supporting each other to be acknowledged as the biosciences network improves livelihoods in Southern Africa through research and innovation. The platform provides access to world-class laboratories for African and international scientists conducting research on Africa\u2019s biosciences challenges. SANBio\u2019s Mission is pursued through functions for : Research, development and innovation; and increasing capacity (human resources and infrastructure) to strengthen the network. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Tackling Zika: What health communicators can learn from Ebola","field_subtitle":"Wilkinson S: BBC Media Action, July 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/h9o7bd2","body":"Since the World Health Organisation declared Zika a global public health emergency in February of this year, much attention has been brought to bear on applying lessons learned during the Ebola crisis of 2014-15. This blog draws on the lessons for the health communication sector explored through a new practice briefing from BBC Media Action, Using media and communication to respond to public health emergencies - lessons learned from Ebola, and the unique role media and communications can play in effectively tackling Zika. BBC Media Action has responded to 28 humanitarian emergencies since 1994 \u2013 including Ebola. One recurring lesson has been that interventions are most effective if the formats and technologies used to communicate give affected communities a chance to participate and have a voice. This ensures that content reflects local realities, needs and concerns. People need to be told more than just what they should or should not do. They need to be engaged in a discussion around the \u2018how\u2019 and the \u2018why\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The burden of road traffic crashes, injuries and deaths in Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis","field_subtitle":"Adeloye D; Thompson J; Akanbi M; Azuh D; Samuel V; Omoregbe N; Ayo C: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 94(7), 510-521A, 2016 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/7/15-163121/en/","body":"Road traffic injuries are among the leading causes of death and life-long disability globally. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports road traffic injuries as the leading cause of death among young people aged 15\u201329 years globally and are among the top three causes of mortality among people aged 15\u201344 years.  In Africa, the number of road traffic injuries and deaths have been increasing over the last three decades. According to the 2015 Global status report on road safety, the WHO African Region had the highest rate of fatalities from road traffic injuries worldwide at 26.6 per 100 000 population for the year 2013. In 2013, over 85% of all deaths and 90% of disability adjusted life years (DALYs) lost from road traffic injuries occurred in low- and middle-income countries, which have only 47% of the world\u2019s registered vehicles. The increased burden from road traffic injuries and deaths is partly due to economic development, which has led to an increased number of vehicles on the road. Given that air and rail transport are either expensive or unavailable in many African countries, the only widely available and affordable means of mobility in the region is road transport. However, the road infrastructure has not improved to the same level to accommodate the increased number of commuters and ensure their safety and as such many people are exposed daily to an unsafe road environment. The 2009 Global status report on road safety presented the first regional estimate of a road traffic death rate, which was used to statistically address the under-reporting of road traffic deaths by countries with an unreliable death registration system. In the 2009 report, Africa had the highest estimated fatality rate at 32.2 per 100 000 population, in contrast to the reported fatality rate of 7.2 per 100 000 population. The low reported death rate is said to reflect missing data due to non-availability of road traffic data systems. This has a direct impact on health planning including emergency care and other responses by government agencies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"THE CAADP Results Framework (2015 - 2025)","field_subtitle":"African Union: New Partnership for Africa's Development, Adis Ababa, 2016","field_url":"http://www.nepad.org/resource/caadp-results-framework-2015-2025","body":"The Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) Results Framework is an essential component in facilitating CAADP implementation. The AU Malabo Declaration in June 2014 sent the goals for African countries, including a 10% public spending target for agriculture, a commitment to zero hunger  by 2025, reducing stunting to 10%, halving poverty, by 2025, and providing preferential and participation for women and youth in gainful and attractive agribusiness This document  presents the critical actions required to achieve agricultural development agenda targets. The indicators are accompanied by baseline data and targets that can be achieved within the next 10 years. The framework provides standardised tools which can be used by CAADP stakeholders at country, REC (Regional Economic Community) and continental level to measure agricultural performance and progress. It intends to be used in improving planning processes and strengthening existing monitoring and evaluation systems to achieve CAADP targets within the next 10 years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The experiences of clients and healthcare providers regarding the provision of reproductive health services including the prevention of HIV and AIDS in an informal settlement in Tshwane","field_subtitle":"Mataboge M; Beukes S; Nolte A: Health S A 21(1) 67-76, 2016","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1025984815000150","body":"Globally challenges regarding healthcare provision are sometimes related to a failure to estimate client numbers in peri-urban areas due to rapid population growth. About one-sixth of the world's population live in informal settlements which are mostly characterised by poor healthcare service provision. Poor access to primary healthcare may expose residents of informal settlement more to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) than their rural and urban counterparts due to a lack of access to information on prevention, early diagnosis and treatment. This study explored and described the experiences of both the reproductive health services' clients and the healthcare providers with regard to the provision of reproductive health services including the prevention of HIV and AIDS in a primary healthcare setting in Tshwane. A qualitative, exploratory and contextual design using a phenomenological approach to enquire about the participants' experiences was implemented. Purposive sampling resulted in the selection of 23 clients who used the reproductive healthcare services and ten healthcare providers who were interviewed during individual and focus group interviews respectively. The findings revealed that females who lived in informal settlements were aware of the inability of the PHC setting to provide adequate reproductive healthcare to meet their needs, as were providers. The authors argue that inputs from people at grass roots level be integrated during policy development to ensure that informal settlement residents are provided with accessible reproductive health services. It was further found that the community members could be taught how to coach teenagers and support each other in order to bridge staff shortages and increase health outcomes including HIV/AIDS prevention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The political and economic challenges facing provision of municipal infrastructure in Durban","field_subtitle":"Zikode S: Pambazuka News, 14 July 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zkrmbls","body":"Started 10 years ago, South Africa\u2019s shack dwellers movement Abahlali baseMjondolo has mounted a remarkable struggle \u2013 often at a terrible cost - to protect and promote the rights of impoverished people in the towns. This inspirational story shows what poor people can achieve when they organise themselves. The Abahlali baseMjondolo movement was formed in the Kennedy Road shack settlement in Clare Estate in Durban in 2005. It was formed to fight for, protect, promote and advance the interests and dignity of shack dwellers and other impoverished people in South Africa. At the time of the movement\u2019s formation Kennedy Road was facing eviction. The conditions were very bad in the settlement due to the lack of infrastructure. At the time the government had a policy of \u2018eradicating slums\u2019 and promised that there would be no more \u2018slums\u2019 by 2014. However the process left some people homeless and others would be taken to tiny and badly made \u2018houses\u2019 far outside of the cities. So the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement successfully organised to stop the evictions and the \u2018slum eradication\u2019 program. They organised clean ups and brought \u2019Operation Khanyisa\u201d (self-connection to electricity) which started in Soweto to Durban. Abahlali aims to build the power of the impoverished from below.  However they write that they have faced serious repression in their struggle and that basic rights, like the right to protest, have been denied to them. They reject that others should speak for them and that municipalities should work with people in shack settlements to plan participatory upgrades so that the impoverished can live a dignified life.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Video on Health Committees","field_subtitle":"Learning Network for Health and Human Rights: University of Cape Town, South Africa, July 2016","field_url":"http://salearningnetwork.weebly.com","body":"The Learning Network for Health and Human Rights is a network is a collection of 5 civil society organisations (The Women's Circle, Ikamva Labantu, Epilepsy South Africa, The Women on Farms Project and the Cape Metro Health Forum) as well as 4 higher education institutions (UCT, UWC, Maastricht University, in the Netherlands, and Warwick University in the UK). The network collaborates to explore how collective action and reflection can identify best practice with regard to using human rights to advance health issues. The work of the Learning Network seeks to operationalise the right to health as stated in South Africa\u2019s Constitution and other international treaties and agreements. This is accomplished through a programme in which research, training and advocacy are linked to empower organisations and their members to assert rights for health. One of their latest training materials, this video explores the role of Health Committees from different perspectives \u2013 from that of a facility manager, a health care provider, health committee members and patients. It aims to enhance understanding of what Health Committees can do, what the challenges are in building effective health committees and how they can strengthen the health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"We need to understand beyond what the numbers show to improve health systems","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET newsletter","field_url":"","body":"The barriers researchers face in having qualitative research published in many mainstream health and medical journals is limiting our understanding of important dimensions of health care. At a time when health systems are increasingly involving a range of disciplines in health teams and using more holistic models to respond to the mix of physical, psycho-social and  environmental factors that lead to ill health, excluding qualitative work deprives decision makers of a significant body of knowledge that could inform decision making on health systems. \u201cFurthermore, this effectively silences the voices of community members, particularly those who are marginalised across all countries\u201d.\r\n\r\nSo argued 170 co-signatories from all regionals globally of a letter from the Social science approaches for research and engagement in health policy & systems (SHaPeS) thematic working group of Health Systems Global, the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET), and the Emerging Voices for Global Health.  The full letter was published in June in the International Journal for Equity in Health and can be read at http://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-016-0368-y \r\n\r\nThe signatories raised that many issues that affect both the effectiveness and equity of health systems cannot simply be \u2018measured\u2019 by numbers alone. Issues such as the subjective relationships and communication between health workers, clients and communities, the perceptions of and trust in services, the role of social literacy, or the values and preferences that managers, health workers and communities bring to systems affect health outcomes and therapeutic relationships.  One young researcher argues in the letter that qualitative work \u201cfacilitates my understanding beyond what the numbers show\u201d.\r\n\r\nResearchers in east and southern Africa have in past EQUINET forums voiced similar views. They have raised the difficulties they face in publishing generally, not only in meeting the format, style and other demands of a journal paper, but also in finding the time for the process, given competing time pressures.  Those working with qualitative research appear to face even higher barriers. The signatories to the letter stated \u201cWe are particularly disenchanted by our general experience of the limited and often inadequate publication of qualitative research in the major health and medical journals, and the resultant loss of important insights for those working in, or concerned with, health services and systems, including around clinical decision-making\u201d.\r\n\r\n For those working with participatory approaches the barriers can seem even more insurmountable. At a 2014 regional workshop on participatory action research, researchers raised that most traditional journals - and many funders - do not understand or appreciate these approaches. One researcher, from Malawi, described that despite his research leading to real changes, publishing it was an uphill task, calling for constant efforts to make to justify the approach, the role of community members as partners in the research and the use of subjective or qualitative evidence. Indeed in another article in this issue of the newsletter the authors comment: \"research and publishing is the oxygen of academic life. But the regimes of control that surround contemporary approaches to publishing are choking creativity...\" \r\n\r\nThe letter published by the health system researchers argues for methodological diversity in mainstream publication on health systems research, to build a more holistic and richer understanding of complex systems. Given the multiple factors, including subjective, dynamic and social factors, that influence health and the way services are delivered and experienced, it would indeed seem to oversimplify reality to give singular dominance to the old maxim that \u201cwhat is measured counts\u201d at the cost of the wider range of methods and lenses that we have to explore, analyse, and understand what counts.  \r\n\r\nThe full letter referred to in this editorial was published as SHaPES, EQUINET, Emerging voices for global Health, Daniels, Loewenson et al., 2016, International Journal for Equity in Health 15:98 DOI: 10.1186/s12939-016-0368-y.  Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org or to the SHaPES working group in Health Systems Global  http://www.healthsystemsglobal.org/  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"What is the private sector? Understanding private provision in the health systems of low-income and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Mackintosh M; Channon A; Karan A; Selvaraj S; Cavagnero E; Zhao H: The Lancet, June 2016, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)00342-1","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(16)00342-1.pdf","body":"Private health care in low-income and middle-income countries is noted to be extensive and heterogeneous, ranging from medicine sellers, through millions of independent practitioners\u2014both unlicensed and licensed\u2014to corporate hospital chains and large private insurers. Policies for universal health coverage (UHC) must address this complex private sector. However, no agreed measures exist to assess the scale and scope of the private health sector in these countries, and policy makers tasked with managing and regulating mixed health systems struggle to identify the key features of their private sectors. In this paper, the authors propose a set of metrics, drawn from existing data that can form a starting point for policy makers to identify the structure and dynamics of private provision in their particular mixed health systems; that is, to identify the consequences of specific structures, the drivers of change, and levers available to improve efficiency and outcomes. The central message is that private sectors cannot be understood except within their context of mixed health systems since private and public sectors interact. The authors develop an illustrative and partial country typology, using the metrics and other country information, to illustrate how the scale and operation of the public sector can shape the private sector's structure and behaviour, and vice versa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"ZimVAC Rapid Assessment Report","field_subtitle":"Government of Zimbabwe Food and Nutrition Council, Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee: Food Security Cluster, April 2016","field_url":"http://fscluster.org/sites/default/files/documents/zimvac_rapid_assessment_final.pdf","body":"In response to the advent of the El Nino phenomena which has resulted in the country experiencing long dry spells, the ZimVAC undertook a rapid assessment focussing on updating the ZimVAC May 2015 results. The process followed a 3 pronged approach which were, a review of existing food and nutrition secondary data, qualitative district Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and for other variables a quantitative household survey which in most cases are representative at provincial and national level. This report provides a summation of the results for the 3 processes undertaken. The report concludes that there is an urgent need to strengthen and expand current livestock support programmes to prevent further deterioration of livestock condition and deaths; to implement a Drought Relief Policy and Food Deficit Mitigation Strategy through multi-sectoral participation of all relevant Government structures, and to adopt registration, distribution and monitoring strategies that are inclusive. Gender based violence cases were found to be on the increase in most districts, while noting that this may be attributable to an increase in awareness and reporting and not necessarily to an increase in incidents.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"5th Annual Outbreak Control and Prevention Africa Conference","field_subtitle":"23 - 24 August 2016, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/j5jse59","body":"The Intelligence Transfer Centre is hosting the 5th Annual Outbreak Control and Prevention Africa Conference. The two day conference will enable participants to network with key role players in the industry, and to analyse disaster risk management and preparedness plans, and look surveillance and clinical treatment of infectious diseases in hospitals and confined spaces. Speakers will also examine the role of medical and health innovation to prevent and treat deadly infectious diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A Free Course on Medicines in Health Systems working towards UHC","field_subtitle":"World Bank Open Learning Campus, 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jcpur99","body":"Many countries are reforming their health systems working toward universal health coverage (UHC). These reforms can be harnessed to increase equity in medicines access, affordability, and appropriate use of medicines. However, they also have the potential to decrease the effectiveness of prescribing and dispensing, increase unnecessary use of medicines, and derail systems from a path toward sustainable universal coverage. The goal of the Medicines in Health Systems course is to strengthen the capacity of practitioners working toward universal health coverage in low- and middle-income country health systems to design, implement, and monitor evidence-informed pharmaceutical policy and management strategies. Specifically, after completing the course, participants will be able to explain the different roles medicines play in health systems, and the roles and responsibilities of different system actors with respect to medicines in systems. They will be able to illustrate the competing objectives that system stakeholders face when striving toward greater availability of and more equitable access to high quality medicines, at affordable costs for households and the system, and with appropriate use to achieve target health outcomes. Participants will learn to assess the potential of different medicines policy and management approaches to balance these competing objectives, and identify the facilitators of and barriers to success of specific strategies, in a given context. Lastly, participants will learn to lay out strategies for monitoring desired and potential unintended outcomes of specific medicines policy and management strategies in a given setting. It provides step-by-step guidelines for clinicians, ranging from diagnoses to correct medicine dosages, and how to administer the medicine. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Adapting HIV patient and program monitoring tools for chronic non-communicable diseases in Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Letebo M; Shiferaw F: Globalization and Health 12(26), June 2016","field_url":"http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12992-016-0163-y?view=classic","body":"Chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have become a huge public health concern in developing countries. Many resource-poor countries facing this growing epidemic, however, lack systems for an organised and comprehensive response to NCDs. Successfully responding to the problem requires a number of actions by the countries, including developing context-appropriate chronic care models and programs and standardisation of patient and program monitoring tools. In this cross-sectional qualitative study the authors assessed existing monitoring and evaluation tools used for NCD services in Ethiopia. Since HIV care and treatment program is the only large-scale chronic care program in the country, they explored the tools being used in the program and analysed how they might be adapted to support NCD services in the country. Document review and in-depth interviews were the main data collection methods used. The interviews were held with health workers and staff involved in data management purposively selected from four health facilities with high HIV and NCD patient load. Thematic analysis was employed to make sense of the data. The authors findings indicate the apparent lack of information systems for NCD services, including the absence of standardised patient and program monitoring tools to support the services. They identified several HIV care and treatment patient and program monitoring tools currently being used to facilitate intake process, enrolment, follow up, cohort monitoring, appointment keeping, analysis and reporting. Analysis of how each tool being used for HIV patient and program monitoring can be adapted for supporting NCD services is presented. Given the similarity between HIV care and treatment and NCD services and the huge investment already made to implement standardised tools for HIV care and treatment program, adaptation and use of HIV patient and program monitoring tools for NCD services can improve NCD response in Ethiopia through structuring services, standardising patient care and treatment, supporting evidence-based planning and providing information on effectiveness of interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Health Budget Network & International Budget Partnership - Transparency and Participation Scorecard","field_subtitle":"Africa Health Budget Network & International Budget Partnership, 2016","field_url":"http://www.mamaye.org/en/evidence/africa-health-budget-network-international-budget-partnership-transparency-and","body":"This scorecard can help one see at a glance how a country is doing on the areas of budget transparency and participation most relevant for the health sector. All the information in the scorecard comes from the Open Budget Survey 2015. The information collected by the Open Budget Survey is not health specific, but the authors have selected the indicators most relevant to the health sector. Budget documents in different countries display how much will be spent on what priorities in different ways, with more or less detail. For citizens and civil society to understand what is being spent on their health, a high level of detail is required: one doesn\u2019t just need to see the amount as classified by Ministry (e.g. what is allocated to the Ministry of Health) but also by function (e.g. primary healthcare), by economic classification (e.g. how much is spent on health workers\u2019 salaries) or by programme (e.g. how much is spent on free healthcare for pregnant women). There is also an indicator which measures whether budget documents explicitly make the link between money spent, intended health outcomes, and actual results. Information is not enough for accountability. Civil society and citizens also need entry points to influence decisions during the budget process: this is what participation in budgeting provides. There are many ways to facilitate this, from releasing the budget timetable so that Civil Society organisations can get ready for important meetings or information release, to holding formal hearings at different stages in the budget process for the public to feed in their priorities. The scorecard is available in English and French.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa's Blue Economy: A policy handbook","field_subtitle":"United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, March 2016","field_url":"http://www.uneca.org/publications/africas-blue-economy-policy-handbook","body":"Africa\u2019s 'Blue world' is made of vast lakes and rivers and an extensive ocean resource base. The Blue Economy can play a major role in Africa\u2019s structural transformation, sustainable economic progress, and social development. The largest sectors of the current African aquatic and ocean based economy are fisheries, aquaculture, tourism, transport, ports, coastal mining, and energy. This Policy Handbook, offers a step by step guide to help African member States to better mainstream the Blue Economy into their national development plans, strategies, policies and laws. The Blue Economy approach is premised in the sustainable use, management and conservation of aquatic and marine ecosystems and associated resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Almost Two Years Passed, No Member State Has Ratified SADC Employment and Labour Protocol","field_subtitle":"Southern Africa Coordination Council (SATUCC), 8 June 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ht4b48q","body":"Two years after it was signed in August 2014, SATUCC reports that no Member State has ratified the SADC Employment and Labour Protocol as of June 2016. The SADC Employment & Labour Protocol was developed to serve as legal framework for the cooperation of SADC Member States on matters concerning employment and labour in line with Article 22 of the SADC Treaty which provides as follows: \u201cMember States shall conclude protocols as may be necessary in each area of cooperation, which shall spell out the objectives and scope of, and institutional mechanisms for cooperation and integration\u201d. This Protocol was then finally endorsed by nine Member States during the SADC Heads of States Summit held in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe in August of 2014. These are: DRC, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. However, for this Protocol to enter into force, it is required that at least 10 Member States representing two-thirds ratify it. Since then, no single Member State has ratified the Protocol. It is against this that the SADC Ministers of Labour and Social Partners during their meeting on 12th May 2016, directed the SADC Secretariat with support of the ILO to conduct a study to establish the problems and challenges underlying the non-ratification of the Protocol and further explore ways how to promote its ratification by Member States. SATUCC is conducting a regional campaign on the ratification and implementation of the SADC Employment and Labour Protocol.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Amitav Ghosh - The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable","field_subtitle":"Schmidt J: The Anthropo.scene, June 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/gl9m9bb","body":"Are we deranged? The acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh argues that future generations may well think so. How else to explain our imaginative failure in the face of global warming? Ghosh examines in a series of video lectures our inability\u2014at the level of literature, history, and politics\u2014to grasp the scale and violence of climate change. The extreme nature of today\u2019s climate events, Ghosh asserts, make them peculiarly resistant to contemporary modes of thinking and imagining. This is particularly true of serious literary fiction: hundred-year storms and freakish tornadoes simply feel too improbable for the novel; they are automatically consigned to other genres. In the writing of history, too, the climate crisis has sometimes led to gross simplifications; Ghosh shows that the history of the carbon economy is a tangled global story with many contradictory and counterintuitive elements, and suggests that global crises like the climate crisis challenge our thinking and ask us to imagine other forms of human existence\u2014a task that fiction can support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Amnesty International Refugee and Migrant Rights MOOC 2016","field_subtitle":"Course launches: November 2016 ","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/sites/default/files/Refugee_and_Migrants_Rights_MOOC_Briefing.pdf","body":"In November 2016 Amnesty International will launch a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on the subject of refugee and migrant rights to educate and empower audiences in the 25 to 35 age range to take action on the human rights issues associated with Amnesty\u2019s Global Campaign on People on the Move. The 3-4 week course requiring 2-3 hours of participants\u2019 time per week, will be launched in November in Spanish, French and English. The introductory course will remain open for people to complete the course anytime over a six month period. The three overall objectives of the MOOC are to provide knowledge and empower people to take action for refugee and migrant rights and to do so on a large scale, contributing to the campaign and growth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessment of universal health coverage for adults aged 50 years or older with chronic illness in six middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Goeppel C; Frenz P; Grdabenhenrich L; Keil T; Tinnemann P: Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 94(4), 276-285C, 2016","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/4/15-163832/en/","body":"This study assesses universal health coverage for adults aged 50 years or older with chronic illness in China, Ghana, India, Mexico, the Russian Federation and South Africa. The authors obtained data on 16 631 participants aged 50 years or older who had at least one diagnosed chronic condition from the World Health Organization Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health. Access to basic chronic care and financial hardship were assessed and the influence of health insurance and rural or urban residence was determined by logistic regression analysis. The weighted proportion of participants with access to basic chronic care ranged from 21% in Mexico to 48% in South Africa. Access rates were unequally distributed and disadvantaged poor people, except in South Africa where primary health care is free to all. Rural residence did not affect access. The proportion with catastrophic out-of-pocket expenditure for the last outpatient visit ranged from 15% in China to 55% in Ghana. Financial hardship was more common among poor people in most countries but affected all income groups. Health insurance generally increased access to care but gave insufficient protection against financial hardship. No country provided access to basic chronic care for more than half of the participants with chronic illness. Poor people were less likely to receive care and more likely to face financial hardship in most countries. However, inequity of access was not fully determined by the level of economic development or insurance coverage. The authors argue that future health reforms should aim to improve service quality and increase democratic oversight of health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Black Girl","field_subtitle":"Mohdin A: Quartz, June 2016","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ElkpBCDFhU","body":"The writer and director, Ousmane Semb\u00e8ne, uses a then newly independent Senegal, hungry for political and social alternatives, as the backdrop for this widely acclaimed film. Through the film\u2019s main character, Diouana Semb\u00e8ne makes a powerful argument about Senegal\u2019s independence and the impact of colonialism in Africa. It was one of the first African films to receive international acclaim. The short one-hour film, released in 1966, is a simple yet powerful story of a Senegalese nanny, who hopes and dreams of a better future, but is tied down by the French couple who hire her. Sembene presents a powerful critique of black aspiration to be in a France, or more broadly, in a colonizer\u2019s country. Though people are now free in Senegal, they will in many ways still be seen as colonial objects. At a time where issues of race and class are resonating more than ever, and countries are struggling to come to terms with their colonial legacies, Black Girl remains a powerful story about personal and political freedom\u2014one that stills hits just as hard.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Close-to-community providers of health care: increasing evidence of how to bridge community and health systems","field_subtitle":"Theobald S; Hawkins K; Kok M; Rashid S; Datiko D; Taegtmeyer M:Human Resources for Health 14(32), June 2016","field_url":"https://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12960-016-0132-9","body":"The recent thematic series on close-to-community providers published in this journal brings together 14 papers from a variety of contexts and that use a range of research methods. The series clearly illustrates the renewed emphasis and excitement about the potential of close-to-community (CTC) providers in realising universal health coverage and supporting the sustainable development goals. This editorial discusses key themes that have emerged from this rich and varied set of papers and reflect on the implications for evidence-based programming. The authors argue that it is a critical stage in the development of CTC programming and policy which requires the creation and communication of new knowledge to ensure the safety, sustainability, quality and accessibility of services, and their links with both the broader health system and the communities that CTCs serve.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Critiquing the response to the Ebola epidemic through a Primary Health Care Approach","field_subtitle":"Scott V; Crawford-Browne S; Sanders D: BMC Public Health16(410), 2016, ","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4869325/","body":"The 2014/2015 West Africa Ebola epidemic has caused the global public health community to engage in difficult self-reflection. First, it must consider the part it played in relation to an important public health question: why did this epidemic take hold and spread in this unprecedented manner? Second, it must use the lessons learnt to answer the subsequent question: what can be done now to prevent further such outbreaks in the future?  The authors contribute to the current self-reflection by presenting an analysis using a Primary Health Care (PHC) approach. This approach is appropriate as African countries in the region affected by EVD have recommitted themselves to PHC as a framework for organising health systems and the delivery of health services. The approach suggests that, in an epidemic made complex by weak pre-existing health systems, lack of trust in authorities and mobile populations, a broader approach is required to engage affected communities. In the medium-term health system development with attention to primary level services and community-based programmes to address the major disease burden of malaria, diarrhoeal disease, meningitis, tuberculosis and malnutrition is needed. This requires the development of local management and an investment in human resources for health. Crucially this has to be developed ahead of, and not in parallel with, future outbreaks. In the longer-term a commitment is required to address the underlying social determinants which make these countries so vulnerable, and limit their capacity to respond effectively to, epidemics such as EVD. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Brief","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, June 2016","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQUINET%20brief%202016.pdf","body":"This brief introduces EQUINET, our organisation, work and the lessons we have learned in the struggle for equity and social justice in health. EQUINET is a consortium network of institutions registered in different countries in the region, with its secretariat at TARSC, a non-profit organization registered in Zimbabwe. The network constitution sets out its vision, principles, composition, structures, governance and procedures. The network is governed by a steering committee of institutions leading key areas of work from within and beyond east and southern Africa. The steering committee includes academic, government, civil society, parliament and non-profit institutions that co-ordinate different theme, process and country activities in the network and the secretariat. The five clusters of EQUINET work are: 1. Cross cutting equity analysis, integrating work in other clusters and the pra4equity network on PAR and the newsletter, together with theme work on the equity watch and district health systems. 2. Health rights and the law, integrating work of the learning network on heath rights, theme work on law and constitutional rights in health, and work in national networks. 3. Fairly resourcing health systems, integrating theme work on health financing and health workers. 4. Social empowerment for health, integrating theme work on health centre committees, and with parliamentarians and civil society. 5. Global engagement, including work on trade and health and health diplomacy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion paper 107: Literature Review: Essential health benefits in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Todd G; Mamdani M; Loewenson R: IHI, Tanzania, TARSC, EQUINET, Harare, June 2016","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/EQ%20Diss%20107%20EHB%20litrev%20May2016.pdf","body":"An Essential Health Benefit (EHB) is a policy intervention designed to direct resources to priority areas of health service delivery to reduce disease burdens and ensure equity in health. Many east and southern Africa (ESA) countries have introduced or updated EHBs in the 2000s. Recognising this, EQUINET, through Ifakara Health Institute and Training and Research Support Centre is implementing research to understand the role of facilitators and the barriers to nationwide application of the EHB in resourcing, organising and in accountability on integrated health services. This literature review provides background evidence to inform the case study work and regional dialogue. It compiles evidence from published and public domain literature on EHBs in sixteen ESA countries, including information on the motivations for developing the EHBs; the methods used to develop, define and cost them; how they are being disseminated and communicated within countries; how they are being used in budgeting, resourcing and purchasing health services and in monitoring health system performance for accountability; and the facilitators and barriers to their development, uptake or use.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 184: Learning from regional work on health centre committees","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender Equality and Equity in Health Will Anchor Drive Towards a Sustainable National Development","field_subtitle":"Chatterjee S; Kariuki S: Inter Press Service, April 2016","field_url":"http://kenya.unfpa.org/video/launch-assessment-report-unfpa-advocacy-campaign","body":"The Government of Kenya (GoK) in partnership with United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) at the sidelines of the 60th Session of the UN Commission of Women in New York launched the report on the \u2018Assessment of the UNFPA Campaign to End Preventable Maternal and New-born Mortality in support of the Campaign for Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa\u2019  The report captures the important strides the country has made to significantly address disparities in advancing maternal and new-born health at all levels, as part GoK's commitment to address inequalities, as a key principle of Agenda 2030, to ensure that no one is left behind. This video records the event.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Report on Diabetes","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, Geneva, 2016","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/204871/1/9789241565257_eng.pdf?ua=1","body":"Diabetes prevalence is steadily increasing everywhere, most markedly in the world's middle-income countries. In many settings the environments and services do not enable the prevention and management of diabetes. As part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Member States have set an ambitious target to reduce premature mortality from non communicable diseases - including diabetes \u2013 by one third. This report presents trends in diabetes prevalence, in the contribution of high blood glucose (including diabetes) to premature mortality, and outlines actions governments are taking to prevent and control diabetes. From the analysis it is clear that stronger responses are needed not only from different sectors of government, but also from civil society and people with diabetes themselves, and also producers of food and manufacturers of medicines and medical technologies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Systems Global seeks views on its next five years","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Global: June 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zgb3c43","body":"HSG is asking its members and other interested parties to share their views to inform HSG\u2019s priorities over the next five years. HSG\u2019s 2016-2020 Draft Strategic Plan sets out the membership network\u2019s strategic objectives and what actions should be taken in pursuit of these. Please also see the slideshow outlining the 2016-2020 Draft Strategic Plan. The HSG Strategic Plan 2016-2020 consultation process will run from 17 June until the end of 22 July 2016. HSG particularly welcomes ideas and suggestions in response to the following questions: How can HSG be an attractive home and effective voice for a diverse membership of policy-makers, researchers, NGOs, media and funders? And what can HSG do to bring these different groups together? What are the key Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) issues that HSG should be actively advocating on and should HSG be a more conspicuous campaigner for its members and the wider health systems community? If so, how? How can HSG grow its membership in geographic regions and stakeholder communities (policy-makers, researchers, NGOs, media and funders) where its membership base is currently smaller? HSG members and other stakeholders can participate in this consultation process in a number of different ways, including two face-to-face consultation meetings, an online consultation and feedback submission via email.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"How can health ministries present persuasive investment plans for women\u2019s, children\u2019s and adolescents\u2019 health?","field_subtitle":"Anderson I; Maliqi B; Axelson H; Ostergren M: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 94(6) 468-474, 2016","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/6/15-168419/en/","body":"Most low- and middle-income countries face financing pressures if they are to adequately address the recommendations of the Global Strategy for Women\u2019s, Children\u2019s and Adolescent\u2019s Health. Negotiations between government ministries of health and finance are a key determinant of the level and effectiveness of public expenditure in the health sector. Yet ministries of health in low- and middle-income countries do not always have a good record in obtaining additional resources from key decision-making institutions. This is despite the strong evidence about the affordability and cost\u2013effectiveness of many public health interventions and of the economic returns of investing in health. This article sets out 10 attributes of effective budget requests that can address the analytical needs and perspectives of ministries of finance and other financial decision-makers. The authors developed the list based on accepted economic principles, a literature review and a workshop in June 2015 involving government officials and other key stakeholders from low- and middle-income countries. The aim is to support ministries of health to present a more strategic and compelling plan for investments in the health of women, children and adolescents.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"International AIDS Conference","field_subtitle":"17th-22nd July 2016, Durban, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.aids2016.org/","body":"The International AIDS Conference is a gathering for those working in the field of HIV, as well as policy makers, persons living with HIV and other individuals committed to ending the pandemic. It is a chance to assess state of affairs, evaluate recent scientific developments and lessons learnt, and collectively chart a course forward.  The AIDS 2016 programme will present new scientific knowledge and offer many opportunities for structured dialogue on the major issues facing the global response to HIV. A variety of session types \u2013 from abstract-driven presentations to symposia, bridging and plenary sessions \u2013 will meet the needs of various participants. Other related activities, including the Global Village, satellite meetings, exhibitions and affiliated independent events, will contribute to an exceptional opportunity for professional development and networking. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Joint Statement - First Plenary Meeting of the Africa Global Partnership Platform","field_subtitle":"African Union: New Partnership for Africa's Development, Dakar, October 2015","field_url":"http://www.nepad.org/resource/joint-statement-first-plenary-meeting-africa-global-partnership-platform","body":"The first plenary meeting of the Africa Global Partnership Platform (AGPP/the Platform) was held in Dakar, Senegal on 22 October 2015. The meeting re-affirmed the strong commitment of African countries and partners to achieving food security for the continent, through agricultural growth and transformation to create agricultural commodity value chains for smallholder farmers, create job opportunities for the youth in food and agricultural value chains, and support entry and participation of women and youth in agricultural and agri-food SMEs, in line with SDG 8. This was also seen as the most viable entry point for sustainable industrialization on the continent. The meeting also underlined the need to promote further regional integration, particularly through the development of intra-African trade of food and agricultural commodities. The signing of the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Free Trade Agreement and the fast-tracking of negotiations for the Continental Free Trade Area was seen as important to contribute to more stable food and agricultural markets at regional and country levels in Africa. The meeting highlighted the gaps in implementation of the  CAADP goal of allocating at least 10% of public expenditure to the agricultural sector. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Learning from regional work on health centre committees","field_subtitle":"I Rusike, T Nkrumah, C Chimhete, F Kowo and E Mutasa, Community Working Group on Health","field_url":"","body":"\r\nHealth Centre Committees (HCCs) are a mechanism through which community participation can be integrated into the health system to achieve a sustainable people-centered health system. \r\n\r\nThese community-based committees are increasingly becoming an established voice of the communities providing input into the health service delivery processes in the 16 East and Southern Africa (ESA) countries covered by EQUINET. In the Ngombe area of Lusaka, Zambia, for example, the Neighborhood Health Councils with local government have successfully addressed water and sanitation, garbage and housing concerns. In Kenya, Health Facility Committees manage funds from the Health Sector Services Fund for primary care, outreach and community based services. They link the facility with the community, to plan and oversee the performance of the services. \r\n\r\nIn a regional dialogue, delegates from ESA countries urged national authorities to better recognize and work with HCCs. Their recommendations, captured in EQUINET Policy Brief 37, included reforming public health laws to include provisions for participation and public information and to set laws that provide for the roles and duties of HCCs, backed by adequate information, training and resources for them to play these roles. \r\n\r\nTo advance these recommendations a consortium of organizations have come together in EQUINET to build and strengthen the capacity and effectiveness of HCCs, led by the Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) in partnership with the Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) on photovoice and information sharing; University of Cape Town (UCT) School of Public Health on training programmes; and the Lusaka District Health Management Team (LDHMT) on legal provisions.  With work in Kenya, Zambia, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe and at ESA regional level, we are advocating for policy and legal recognition of HCCs, giving visibility to their roles as well as identifying and strengthening the different capacities that committees, communities and the health systems need for HCCs to implement these roles. This includes areas such as tracking and monitoring health system budgets and resources and their use and health system performance as well as the building social dialogue and accountability. \r\n\r\nAs part of the work, UCT in South Africa is building a database of information on the current training materials and training programmes for HCCs to enable us to share materials, skills and experiences on capacity building in the region, and to advocate for HCC training that addresses their roles comprehensively. and their coverage of the key areas of functioning.  LDHMT in Zambia has initiated an in-country process to review the laws and regulations that provide for the establishment and functioning of HCCs, and to document the Zambia experience for wider regional exchange. In Zimbabwe, the CWGH has supported the HCCs to engage with government, so that HCC members can speak out about their concerns on the health system and on the support they need to successfully implement their roles. Training on community photography by TARSC means that the members have visual tools as well as words to raise evidence on their problems and progress. \r\n\r\nMost ESA countries still do not have laws that explicitly or adequately recognise the functioning of the HCCs. We are thus advocating for their legal status and for them to have constitutions. This is important for their accountability to communities. It is also necessary if they are to directly receive, manage and account for public funds as was the case with Neighbourhood Health Committees in Zambia in the 1990s. The HCCs\u2019 current vague mandates weaken their effectiveness, role and legitimacy, for communities and local actors and at national-level.  We are thus sharing information on HCC constitutions, and on laws, statutes or guidelines on HCCs in the region and promoting their inclusion in law, including by showing their important positive role in the health system.\r\n\r\nAs a consortium, we are building a regional database of institutions and organizations working with HCCs in ESA countries so that we can better exchange and share information on the training materials, programmes underway with HCCs and the learning from them. We invite colleagues to send information to EQUINET if they are working in this area.  We are building innovative ways of sharing and learning from our work, that build more direct voice, such as through photovoice where cameras are being put into the hands of communities and HCC members to identify and document community perspectives, experiences and actions related to their health conditions to be used in local HCC dialogue and wider reflection and learning. \r\n\r\nMembers of HCCs are carrying out exchange visits to allow for more direct learning and collective understanding of problems and achievements, creating inspiration to keep working and resulting in the launch of new initiatives. \r\n\r\nWe have seen evidence of the positive impact of HCCs in improved health outcomes. In Zimbabwe for example, since 2009, HCCs have played a role in in decision-making on the use of performance based funds at clinics, promoting improvements in facility-based deliveries, improving uptake of antenatal care and postnatal care visits and supporting demand by communities for these resources to be used to ensure delivery on patients\u2019 rights at clinics. They have also mobilized resources to develop clinics such as by building waiting mothers\u2019 homes, fencing clinics, supporting community health workers and raising advocacy on the needs of local services at higher levels. \r\n\r\nWe are seeing an increasing appreciation of the role of HCCs in community and primary care health interventions, with increasing attention and support from government, international and national partners. Our HCC in-country exchange visits are proving to be an effective way of sharing knowledge  and good practice, inspiring others to see their own potential and act when they see the practical successes of other HCCs.  \u201cHCC exchange visits are rich in knowledge and should always be a key part of HCC activities carried out at local, district, provincial and national levels,\u201d  said Brighton Ngoteni, the HCC chairperson of Mudanda Clinic in Manicaland, Zimbabwe.\r\n\r\nOur regional exchanges have also shown us that HCCs can only be as strong as the communities that support them. For this, we need to have recognition of the right to health, including on constitutions in the region, and comprehensive primary health care approaches that support health literacy and that inform communities, include communities and the views they bring in plans and services and give feedback to the communities for a people centred approach to universal health systems. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org and find further publications on the issue on the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"MamaYe Factsheet on Malawi\u2019s Blood Services","field_subtitle":"MamaYe \u2013 Evidence for Action, Dar es Salaam, 2016","field_url":"http://www.mamaye.org/en/evidence/mamaye-factsheet-malawi%E2%80%99s-blood-services-2016","body":"MamaYe is a campaign initiated by Evidence for Action, a multi-year programme which aims to improve maternal and newborn survival in sub-Saharan Africa. It is led by African experts in the six countries, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Malawi and Tanzania and supported by experts in academic and other institutions specialising in maternal and newborn health. MamaYe has produced a factsheet to summarise the evidence on Malawi\u2019s blood services, including how much blood is collected and how much is needed. Just over one third of blood needed in Malawi is being collected. The factsheet covers the importance of blood for preventing maternal deaths, the 4 key components of World Health Organization\u2019s strategy for safe and effective use of blood and achievements in Malawi in blood donation and availability. The factsheet also reviews continued challenges for availability of blood in Malawi and an overview of Malawi\u2019s blood transfusion services, including: the organisation of the blood transfusion services; blood supply; donor population; blood use towards maternal, newborn and child health; and blood safety and screening.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Medical savings accounts: assessing their impact on efficiency, equity and financial protection in health care","field_subtitle":"Wouters O; Cylus J;  Yang W; Thomson S; McKee M: Health Economics, Policy and Law, 1(3)321-35, 2016 ","field_url":"http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/65448/1/Medical%20savings%20accounts.pdf","body":"Medical savings accounts (MSAs) allow enrolees to withdraw money from earmarked funds to pay for health care. The accounts are usually accompanied by out-of-pocket payments and a high-deductible insurance plan. This article reviews the association of MSAs with efficiency, equity, and financial protection. The authors draw on evidence from four countries where MSAs play a significant role in the financing of health care: China, Singapore, South Africa, and the United States of America. The available evidence suggests that MSA schemes have generally been inefficient and inequitable and have not provided adequate financial protection. The impact of these schemes on long-term health-care costs is unclear. Policymakers and others proposing the expansion of MSAs should make explicit what they seek to achieve given the shortcomings of the accounts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Meet BRCK, Internet access built for Africa","field_subtitle":"Juliana Rotich: TED Talk, June 2013","field_url":"http://www.ted.com/talks/juliana_rotich_meet_brck_internet_access_built_for_africa","body":"Tech communities are booming all over Africa, says Nairobi-based Juliana Rotich, cofounder of the open-source software Ushahidi. But it remains challenging to get and stay connected in a region with frequent blackouts and spotty Internet hookups. So Rotich and friends developed BRCK, offering resilient connectivity for the developing world. Juliana Rotich is co-founder and executive director of Ushahidi, a nonprofit tech company, born in Africa, that develops free and open-source software for information collection, interactive mapping and data curation. Ushahidi builds tools for democratizing information, increasing transparency and lowering the barriers for individuals to share their stories. Through Crowdmap.com, Swiftly.org and accompanying mobile applications, Ushahidi is making crowdsourcing tools available and useful. Their latest product is BRCK, a tool for resilient connectivity -- anywhere.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Metrics in Urban Health: Current Developments and Future Prospects","field_subtitle":"Prasad A; Gray C; Ross A; Kano M: Annual Review of Public Health 37, 113-133, 2016","field_url":"http://qhr.sagepub.com/content/26/8/1019.full.pdf+html","body":"The research community has shown increasing interest in developing and using metrics to determine the relationships between urban living and health. In particular, the authors have seen a recent exponential increase in efforts aiming to investigate and apply metrics for urban health, especially the health impacts of the social and built environments as well as air pollution. A greater recognition of the need to investigate the impacts and trends of health inequities is also evident through more recent literature. Data availability and accuracy have improved through new affordable technologies for mapping, geographic information systems and remote sensing. However, less research has been conducted in low- and middle-income countries where quality data are not always available, and capacity for analysing available data may be limited. For this increased interest in research and development of metrics to be meaningful, the best available evidence must be accessible to decision makers to improve health impacts through urban policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Millions of Malawians hungry as food crisis deepens","field_subtitle":"Henderson P: Pambuzuka News, 16 June 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/z8b35pt","body":"The author reports that Almost four million Malawians are battling severe famine due to poor or no harvests because of the effect of El Nino, which last year affected most of the country\u2019s southern and northern regions, and that this could double by the end of the year. The number of hungry people is expected to rise to eight million by December 2016 and this is exactly half of the population. Torrential rains in the north aggravated the already dramatic situations, and in February a state of emergency was declared. In the meantime food prices continue to rise as Malawi\u2019s Kwacha continues to lose value, forcing the poorest families to further reduce their already precarious daily meals, or to sell goods in order to make ends meet. According to a report by World Food Program (WFP) of May, 2016, in most parts in Southern Africa harvesting was underway, temporarily alleviating some market pressure and allowing for food price improvements in pockets of the region as people consume their own production. The report, however, states that, crop expectations remain poor following one of the driest seasons in 35 years with seasonal rainfall deficits experienced throughout the region, particularly in central and southern Malawi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"New health sector strategies on HIV, viral hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: Geneva, June 2016","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hiv/strategy2016-2021/en/","body":"Three global health sector strategies on HIV, viral hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) for 2016-2021 were adopted by the 2016 World Health Assembly, outlining key actions to be undertaken by countries and WHO, along five strategic directions, over the course of the next six years. The HIV strategy aims to achieve \"fast-track\" targets by 2020 towards ending AIDS by 2030. The hepatitis strategy \u2013 the first of its kind - introduces the first-ever global targets, including the target to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030.  For the HIV strategy, a central element for success will be country efforts to implement \"Treat All\" recommendations. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"No health security without health systems","field_subtitle":"Kamal-Yanni M: Global Health Check, May 2016","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/?p=1865","body":"The Ebola outbreak shocked the world of global health. Even while Ebola lingers in West Africa the future of health security and the organisation of health systems are being debated. There have been many conferences held and reports published to provide \u201clessons learned from the Ebola crisis. A thread running through all of these events has been an agreement on the need to build resilient health systems. Yet building such a system requires planning, investment and serious long term commitment. Short term investment does not produce the necessary workforce needed for a functioning health system. Dhillon and Yates identified 5 key areas that require immediate attention in order to rebuild health systems: community based systems; access to generic medicines; restoring preventive measures; integrating surveillance into health systems and strengthening management. The author identifies 6 critical foundations for resilient health systems: An adequate number of trained health workers, including non-clinical staff and Community Health Workers (CHWs), available medical supplies, including medicines, diagnostics and vaccines, robust health information systems, including surveillance, an adequate number of well-equipped health facilities including access to clean water and sanitation, adequate financing and a strong public sector to deliver equitable, quality services. The author argues that building resilient systems that protect people\u2019s health and deal with outbreaks has to address all the six elements of the system simultaneously and systematically and that a long term global commitment for building health systems must start now.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Pain in amaXhosa Women Living With HIV/AIDS: Translation and Validation of the Brief Pain Inventory\u2013Xhosa","field_subtitle":"Parker R; Jelsma J; Stein D: Journal of Pain and Symptom Management 51(1)126-132, 2016","field_url":"http://www.jpsmjournal.com/article/S0885-3924(15)00449-2/fulltext","body":"Pain has been reported as the second most commonly reported symptom in people living with HIV. In South Africa, there are more than five million people living with HIV. Approximately, two million belong to the Xhosa cultural group. A culturally appropriate, valid, and reliable instrument is required to measure pain and its impact in this population. This article documents the process of translation of the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) into the BPI-Xhosa and presents the results of the validity and reliability testing of the instrument. The translated BPI-Xhosa, a demographic questionnaire and the European Quality of Life-5 Dimensions Xhosa version (EQ-5D-Xhosa) health-related quality of life instrument were administered to 229 amaXhosa women living with HIV in a resource-poor urban settlement in South Africa. A 74% prevalence of pain was recorded. The BPI-Xhosa had good concurrent validity when compared with the previously validated EQ-5D-Xhosa. The BPI-Xhosa was found to be a valid instrument to measure pain prevalence, severity, and interference in amaXhosa women living with HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Questioning Photovoice Research: Whose Voice?","field_subtitle":"Evans-Agnew R; Rosemberg MA: Qualitative Health Research 26(8) 1019-1030, 2016","field_url":"http://qhr.sagepub.com/content/26/8/1019.full.pdf+html","body":"Photovoice is an important participatory research tool for advancing health equity. This paper critically reviews how participant voice is promoted through the photovoice process of taking and discussing photos and adding text/captions. PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, and Web of Science databases were searched from the years 2008 to 2014  and reviewed for how participant voice was (a) analysed, (b) exhibited in community forums, and (c) disseminated through published manuscripts. Of 21 studies, 13 described participant voice in the data analysis, 14 described participants\u2019 control over exhibiting photo-texts, seven manuscripts included a comprehensive set of photo-texts, and none described participant input on choice of manuscript photo-texts. The findings indicate that photovoice designs vary in the advancement of participant voice, with the least advancement occurring in manuscript publication. The authors indicate that future photovoice researchers should expand approaches to advancing participant voice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Ministers of Labour & Social Partners Approve Policy Frameworks on Youth Employment and Portability of Social Security Benefits","field_subtitle":"Southern Africa Coordination Council (SATUCC), 8 June 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/htjc57a","body":"In May 2016, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Ministers of Labour and Social Partners at their meeting in Gaborone, Botswana, considered and approved two regional policy frameworks pertaining to employment and labour as part of the milestones for the SADC Regional Decent Work Programme (2013-2019). These are: SADC Youth Employment Promotion Policy Framework and the Cross boarder Portability of Accrued Social Security Benefits Policy Framework. The SADC Youth Employment Promotion Policy Framework guides SADC Member States on a harmonised, integrated and coherent approach to realising decent, secure and sustainable employment and entrepreneurship for the youth in the SADC region. The SADC Cross boarder Portability of Accrued Social Security Benefits Policy Framework responds to the fact that non-citizens are quite often discriminated against when it comes to access to social security. Portability of social security benefits is limited because SADC countries do not have a common regional policy framework on the matter despite that a few countries had already concluded bilateral labour and social security agreements. The main aim of the SADC Cross boarder Portability of Accrued Social Security Benefits Policy Framework is thus to provide mechanisms to enable workers moving within the SADC region to keep the social security benefits which they might have acquired under the legislation of one Member State or to enjoy corresponding rights under the legislation of the other Member State.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Setting targets for human resources for eye health in sub-Saharan Africa: what evidence should be used?","field_subtitle":"Courtright P; Mathenge W; Kello A; Cook C; Kalua K; Lewallen S: Human Resources for Health14(1)11, 2016","field_url":"http://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12960-016-0107-x","body":"With a global target set at reducing vision loss by 25% by the year 2019, sub-Saharan Africa with an estimated 4.8 million blind persons will require human resources for eye health (HReH) that need to be available, appropriately skilled, supported, and productive. Targets for HReH are useful for planning, monitoring, and resource mobilization, but they need to be updated and informed by evidence of effectiveness and efficiency. Supporting evidence should take into consideration (1) ever-changing disease-specific issues including the epidemiology, the complexity of diagnosis and treatment, and the technology needed for diagnosis and treatment of each condition; (2) the changing demands for vision-related services of an increasingly urbanized population; and (3) interconnected health system issues that affect productivity and quality. The existing targets for HReH and some of the existing strategies such as task shifting of cataract surgery and trichiasis surgery, as well as the scope of eye care interventions for primary eye care workers, will need to be re-evaluated and re-defined against such evidence or supported by new evidence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Simon Njami on the restitution of African art and artists\u2019 huge potential for subversion","field_subtitle":"Cessou S: _TRUEAfrica, April 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zqsdmpv","body":"This is an interview with Simon Njami, a curator responsible for many exhibitions of contemporary African art gathering artists from 20 different African countries. On African photography he notes \u2018Photography is necessarily contextual. First, it\u2019s about the gaze and who is taking the picture. In Africa, it\u2019s also a matter of re-appropriating one\u2019s own image. The South African photographer Santu Mofokeng questions the role of humanity in his work. Africa is only 50 years old. It has done a lot to rebuild the past, live the present and look towards the future.\u2019 On art and politics on the continent he argues \u2018Egyptian artists were at the forefront of the protest before the Revolution. Senegalese young rappers launched the movement Y\u2019en a Marre (\u2018Enough is enough\u2019) in 2011...Art has a dual function....It\u2019s a space of relative freedom\u2019 . He raises the huge social potential of art, but also says 'Having said that, one has to tickle an elephant for a while before it starts laughing. In practice, change takes a while, even if it seems inevitable'.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Health Review 2016","field_subtitle":"Padarath A; King J; Mackie E; Casciola J: Health Systems Trust, 2016","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/south-african-health-review-2016","body":"The 2016 South African Health Review presents evidence on the current legislative and policy framework guiding healthcare delivery, the challenges that underpin the performance of the health system, on water and food; and on personnel and programmes in the public health system. The report indicates that although tackling HIV targets will be daunting, they are likely to be affordable and cost-effective if implemented in a phased way and if annual increments to Government AIDS budgets are sustained. The report also discusses South Africa\u2019s pharmaceutical pricing and transparency and the concept of and benefit from health research observatories. Finally the report provides a wide range of information on health trends, with a specific focus on the data needed to monitor non-communicable diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Spatial modelling of perinatal mortality in Mchinji, Malawi","field_subtitle":"Banda M; Kazembe L; Lewycka S; King C; Phiri T; Masache G; Kazembe P; Mwasambo C: Spatial and spatio-temporal epidemiology16, 50-58, 2016","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877584515000490","body":"Annual global estimates of perinatal mortality show Malawi among sub-Saharan Africa with the highest rates. Targeted interventions are required to reduce this mortality. This study aimed to quantify small-scale geographical variations in perinatal mortality, and estimate risk factors associated with perinatal mortality in Mchinji district. Factors associated with reduced perinatal mortality were: previous pregnancy; early and consistent use of antenatal care; syphilis test; abdominal examination; pregnancy danger signs advice; skilled birth attendant; normal labour duration; gestation period of at least 9 months; and normal delivery. Perinatal babies whose mothers had a blood test were associated with high probability of dying. Perinatal babies from mothers between 16 and 40 years had reduced prevalence of dying while those aged less than 16 years and greater than 40 years were associated with higher prevalence of dying. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The History of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Africa","field_subtitle":"Kagaayi J; Serwadda D:  Current HIV/AIDS Reports, doi 10.1007/s11904-016-0318-8 May 2016","field_url":"http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11904-016-0318-8","body":"HIV testing of African immigrants in Belgium showed that HIV existed among Africans by 1983. However, the epidemic was recognized much later in most parts of sub-Saharan Africa due to stigma and perceived fear of possible negative consequences to the countries\u2019 economies. This delay had devastating mortality, morbidity, and social consequences. In countries where earlier recognition occurred, political leadership was vital in mounting a response. The response involved establishment of AIDS control programs and research on the HIV epidemiology and candidate preventive interventions. Over time, the number of effective interventions has grown. Triple antiretroviral therapy (ART) has led to a rapid decline in HIV-related morbidity and mortality in addition to prevention of onward HIV transmission. Other effective interventions include safe male circumcision, and pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis. However, since none of these is sufficient by itself, the authors argue for a combination package of these interventions in the public health response.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The People Versus The Rainbow Nation","field_subtitle":"Alyssa Klein: OkayAfrica, 19 May 2016","field_url":"http://www.okayafrica.com/film/the-people-versus-the-rainbow-nation-documentary-south-africa/","body":"\u201cIs South Africa\u2019s rainbow nation a myth? What is race in 2016?\u201d These are the questions explored in a powerful new documentary film from South Africa. The People versus the Rainbow Nation investigates what drove the country\u2019s students towards mass action in 2015, between the successful #RhodesMustFall campaign to the nationwide #FeesMustFall protests. Filmmaker Lebogang Rasethaba (Future Sound of Mzansi) and producer Allison Swank follow the lives of students across four South African universities as they explore the notion that more than two decades since South Africa\u2019s first democratic elections, the struggle is far from over. \u201cI think it\u2019s about to get really intense in South Africa,\u201d says one student. \u201cI don\u2019t believe in the Rainbow Nation. The Rainbow Nation is a fallacy,\u201d says another.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of the law in reducing tuberculosis transmission in Botswana, South Africa and Zambia","field_subtitle":"Verani A; Emerson C; Lederer P; Like G; Kapata N; Lanje S; Peters A; Zulu I; Marston B; Miller B: Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 94(6), 405-480, 2016","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/6/15-156927/en/","body":"This study determined whether laws and regulations in Botswana, South Africa and Zambia \u2013 three countries with a high tuberculosis and HIV infection burden \u2013 address elements of the World Health Organisation (WHO) policy on tuberculosis infection control. An online desk review of laws and regulations that address six selected elements of the WHO policy on tuberculosis infection control in the three countries was conducted in November 2015 using publicly available domestic legal databases. The six elements covered: (i) national policy and legal framework; (ii) health facility design, construction and use; (iii) tuberculosis disease surveillance among health workers; (iv) patients\u2019 and health workers\u2019 rights; (v) monitoring of infection control measures; and (vi) relevant research. The six elements were found to be adequately addressed in the three countries\u2019 laws and regulations. In all three, tuberculosis case-reporting is required, as is tuberculosis surveillance among health workers. Each country\u2019s legal and regulatory framework also addresses the need to respect individuals\u2019 rights and privacy while safeguarding public health. These laws and regulations create a strong foundation for tuberculosis infection control. Although the legal and regulatory frameworks thoroughly address tuberculosis infection control, their dissemination, implementation and enforcement were not assessed, nor was their impact on public health. The authors argue that future research should assess the implementation and public health impact of these laws and regulations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The world's health sector is expanding. Can it heal our economies?","field_subtitle":"Tulenko K: World Economic Forum, May 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jm8scvb","body":"The author writes that the health sector is predicted to be the largest source of job creation for the next decade globally. Its growth is being driven by increasing numbers of older people and by the expansion of the global middle class. As these two groups grow, the higher levels of healthcare they demand will cause seismic shifts in the amount of money being spent in the health sector, driving employment. Even without these trends, the world would need millions more health workers. Despite increased training, it is not meeting population demand. The world no longer dominated by infectious diseases requiring episodic treatment, and is instead becoming dominated by non-communicable, chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and mental-health conditions, which require continuous treatment. Unlike traditional employment sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing, which shed jobs as technology advances, healthcare tends to add jobs with increasing technology. The author argues that the health sector will be an economic engine that not only creates new jobs and business but, by making workers in other sectors healthier and more productive, will enable those sectors to grow faster creating tens of millions of new jobs. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends and risk factors for childhood diarrhoea in Sub-Saharan countries (1990 - 2013): Assessing the neighbourhood inequalities.","field_subtitle":"Bado A; Susuman A; Nebie E: Global Health Action 9(30166), May 2016, ","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/30166","body":"This paper assesses the risk factors of and neighborhood inequalities in diarrhoeal morbidity among under-5 year old children in selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa over the period 1990\u20132013, using DHS data from selected countries. The findings showed that the proportion of diarrhoeal morbidity among under-5 children varied considerably across the cohorts of birth from 10% to 35%, with increasing inequalities across DHS rounds. The main risk factors were the child\u2019s age, size of the child at birth, the quality of the main floor material, mother\u2019s education and her occupation, type of toilet, and place of residence. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal Health Coverage\u2019s evolving location in the post-2015 development agenda: Key informant perspectives within multilateral and related agencies during the first phase of post-2015 negotiations","field_subtitle":"Brolan C; Hill P: Health Policy and Planning 31(4) 514-526, 2015","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/31/4/514.full","body":"This study examines health\u2019s evolving location in the first-phase of the next iteration of global development goal negotiation for the post-2015 era, through the synchronous perspectives of representatives of key multilateral and related organizations. As part of the Go4Health Project, in-depth interviews were conducted in mid-2013 with 57 professionals working on health and the post-2015 agenda within multilaterals and related agencies. Using discourse analysis, this article reports the results and analysis of a Universal Health Coverage (UHC) theme: contextualizing UHC\u2019s positioning within the post-2015 agenda-setting process immediately after the Global Thematic Consultation on Health and High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda (High-Level Panel) released their post-2015 health and development goal aspirations in April and May 2013, respectively. Although more participants support the High-Level Panel\u2019s May 2013 report\u2019s proposal\u2014\u2018Ensure Healthy Lives\u2019\u2014as the next umbrella health goal, they nevertheless still emphasize the need for UHC to achieve this and thus be incorporated as part of its trajectory. The final post-2015 SDG framework for UN General Assembly endorsement in September 2015 confirmed UHC\u2019s continued distillation in negotiations, as UHC ultimately became one of a litany of targets within the proposed global health goal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"\"I don't have options but to persevere.\" Experiences and practices of care for HIV and diabetes in rural Tanzania: a qualitative study of patients and family caregivers.","field_subtitle":"Mwangome M; Geubbels E; Klatser P; Dieleman M: Int Jo for Equity in Health 15(1)56, 2016, doi:10.1186/s12939-016-0345-5","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4818906/","body":"The high prevalence of chronic diseases in Tanzania is putting a strain on the already stretched health care services, patients and their families. This study sought to find out how health care for diabetes and HIV is perceived, practiced and experienced by patients and family caregivers, to inform strategies to improve continuity of care. Thirty two in-depth interviews were conducted among 19 patients (10 HIV, 9 diabetes) and 13 family caregivers (6 HIV, 7 diabetes).  The innovative care for chronic conditions framework informed the study design. Three major themes emerged; preparedness and practices in care, health care at health facilities and community support in care for HIV and diabetes. In preparedness and practices, HIV patients and caregivers knew more about aspects of HIV than did diabetes patients and caregivers on diabetes aspects. Continued education on care for the conditions was better structured for HIV than diabetes. On care at facilities, HIV and diabetes patients reported that they appreciated familiarity with providers, warm reception, gentle correction of mistakes and privacy during care. HIV services were free of charge at all levels. Costs involved in seeking services resulted in some diabetes patients to not keep appointments. There was limited community support for care of diabetes patients. Community support for HIV care was through community health workers, patient groups, and village leaders. Diabetes and HIV have socio-cultural and economic implications for patients and their families. The HIV programme is successfully using decentralization of health services, task shifting and CHWs to address these implications. For diabetes and NCDs, decentralization and task shifting are also important and, strengthening of community involvement is warranted for continuity of care and patient centeredness in care. While considering differences between HIV and diabetes, the authors show that Tanzania's rich experiences in community involvement in health can be leveraged for care and treatment of diabetes and other NCDs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"5th Annual East African Health and Scientific Conference and Exhibition Concludes in Kampala, Uganda","field_subtitle":"East African Community Headquarters, Kampala, Uganda, March 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/glt3t8p","body":"The EAC Sectoral Council of Health Ministers Regional Health Sector Strategic Plan (2015-2020) is a roadmap for improving and strengthening of the regional health sector through implementation of the various approaches, interventions and innovation in the region.  The 5th EAC Health and Scientific Conference  contributes to and is a catalyst for strengthening regional cooperation in the health sector especially with regard to the improvement of health care service delivery and patient care outcomes. It is a platform for synthesizing, sharing and dissemination of research findings to inform policy makers, scientists and programmers on evidence-based decision-making and mobilization of political will and resources for the Health Sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety Issue of Infectious Diseases","field_subtitle":"African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety 25 (1), 2015","field_url":"http://www.ttl.fi/en/publications/electronic_journals/african_newsletter/Documents","body":"This issue of the African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety examines infectious disease and occupational health. Marie-Paul Kelly explores governance and leadership, both at regional and global levels in preventing health emergencies.  The issue explores guidance to workplaces and occupational health professionals in prevention of occupational infections and examines the workplace as an arena for raising awareness on infectious diseases. Further papers look at protecting front-line health care workers and enterprise workers from Ebola. Jeanneth Manganyi and Kerry Wilson author a paper on the importance of respirator fit testing and proper use of respirators. Further articles in the issue explore food-borne illnesses at workplaces, the effectiveness of personal protective equipment to prevent Ebola transmission and the use of blunt suture needles to halve the risk of needle stick injuries among surgeons.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing equitable health financing for universal health coverage: a case study of South Africa","field_subtitle":"Ataguba J: Applied Economics, 3 February 2016, doi: 10.1080/00036846.2015.1137549","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00036846.2015.1137549","body":" This article argues that an assessment of progressivity over time can provide an indication of progress towards a \u2018more\u2019 progressive or a \u2018less\u2019 regressive health financing system and can be useful to policymakers. It introduces a framework to characterize \u2018shifts\u2019 in progressivity in health financing between two time periods using the popularly known Kakwani index of progressivity and other associated indices. It also decomposes the \u2018shifts\u2019 in progressivity into the relative contributions of the changes in income distribution and the changes in the distribution of health payments. Further, it proposes graphics that statistically analyses how the \u2018shifts\u2019 in progressivity vary along the distribution of income. A pro-poor (pro-rich) shift implies that the health financing mechanism is becoming more (less) progressive or less (more) regressive between two time periods. A proportional shift means that progressivity is constant between the two periods. This framework is applied to nationally representative household data from South Africa. It emerged that such characterization is a very useful tool for policy in assessing progress towards equitable health financing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 21 September 2016","field_url":"http://banting.fellowships-bourses.gc.ca/en/home-accueil.html","body":"The Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships program provides funding to the very best postdoctoral applicants, both within Canada and internationally, who will positively contribute to the country's economic, social and research-based growth. The fellowship covers health research, natural sciences and/or engineering and social sciences and/or humanities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Blueprint for an Integrated Approach to Implement Agenda 2063","field_subtitle":"African Union: New Partnership for Africa's Development, 2014","field_url":"http://www.nepad.org/resource/blueprint-integrated-approach-implement-agenda-2063-0","body":"This synthesis paper offers a broad framing of the issues to consider in implementing the proposed African Agenda 2063. In doing so, it re-interprets the African historical experience  to underscore the point that the core pillar and contribution of Agenda 2063 must be to help translate centuries of efforts to regain freedom, and to rebuild the self-reliance and dignity of Africans. The paper also identifies some of the possible challenges to which the Agenda must respond if it is to be effective and relevant, the existing policy and institutional pillars into which it fits and on which it must build, and a broad menu of issues which would need to be further reflected upon towards its full-fledged articulation. A set of background papers annexed to the synthesis offer a more in-depth assessment of some of these issues, as a foretaste of the kind of additional technical work required in the course of articulating a robust 2063 Agenda for the continent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges of partnerships: Some lessons from Africa","field_subtitle":"Kakonge J: Pambuzuka News, 5 May 2016","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/global-south/challenges-partnerships-some-lessons-africa","body":"Sustainable, effective and successful partnerships need to be built on mutual trust, on an explicit programme, clearly defined responsibilities, champion figures and financial resources. In this article, Dr. Kakonge outlines positive and negative factors that influence development assistance partnerships in Africa. The article notes that partnership demands creativity, compromise, commitment, consistency, flexibility and fairness. Some scholars argue that partnerships do not work when there is poor coordination relating to external assistance. . The author reviews factors that are critical in making development assistance partnerships successful in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges to antiretroviral adherence among MSM and LGBTI living with HIV in Kampala, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Therkelsen D: HEARD, Durban, December 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.heard.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/CHALLENGES-TO-ANTIRETROVIRAL.pdf","body":"\u2018Treatment as prevention\u2019 has become the cornerstone of UNAIDS\u2019s post-2015 global strategy to end AIDS by 2030. As the expansion of treatment provision continues, and access improves, adherence becomes a determining factor in the impact of ART for both treatment and prevention. HEARD are conducting a number of small scoping studies on challenges to ART adherence in men who have sex with men (MSM) and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) communities living with HIV in East and Southern Africa (ESA), as key populations in the AIDS response. This report presents findings from a scoping study carried out in Kampala, Uganda, in December 2015. The findings suggest that (double) stigma and criminalisation of behaviour of people living with HIV (PLHIV) in MSM and LGBTI communities cut across almost every perceived challenge to ART adherence as a driving or contributory factor. As a result, indications suggest MSM and LGBTI experience challenges that are similar in type to the general population, but that these population groups experience the challenges more often, more acutely, and with less opportunity to overcome the challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Choosing the next UN boss: A political quagmire","field_subtitle":" Bochaberi D: Pambuzuka News, 12 May 2016","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/global-south/choosing-next-un-boss-political-quagmire","body":"Ban Ki-Moon\u2019s term as UN Secretary General ends this year and already political jostling is underway ahead of the selection of the new head of the world body. There are strong indications that favour a woman candidate. And how has Africa positioned itself for the unfolding contest? A number of African female candidates with the right credentials fit to lead the UN exist. The author discusses which African candidates could be in the running and whether a candidate from Kenya might have the diplomatic weight to lobby and get elected. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community Health Worker Data for Decision-Making","field_subtitle":"One Million Community Health Workers (1mCHW) Campaign; mPowering Frontline Health Workers (mPowering): 2016","field_url":"http://1millionhealthworkers.org/files/2016/03/HIFA-Report.pdf","body":"In 2015, the One Million Community Health Workers (1mCHW) Campaign and mPowering Frontline Health Workers (mPowering) conducted a series of interviews and held an online discussion, hosted on the Healthcare Information for All forum, on the need for improved data on community health workers (CHWs) to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The key findings showed that CHWs deliver life-saving health care services than can address health issues in poor rural communities. They help keep track of disease outbreaks and overall public health, and offer a vital link between underserved populations and the primary health care system. CHWs have been recognised for their success in reducing morbidity and averting mortality in mothers, newborns and children. While they have proven crucial in settings where the primary health care system is weak, or where there are health workforce shortages, they are most effective when properly supported and deployed within the context of an appropriately financed health system. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Community participation for transformative action on women\u2019s, children\u2019s and adolescents\u2019 health","field_subtitle":"Marston C; Hinton R; Kean S; Baral S; Ahuja A; Costello A; Portela A: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 94(5) May 2016","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/5/15-168492/en/","body":"The Global strategy for women\u2019s, children\u2019s and adolescents\u2019 health (2016\u20132030) recognizes that people have a central role in improving their own health. The authors propose that community participation, particularly communities working together with health services (co-production in health care), will be central for achieving the objectives of the global strategy. Community participation specifically addresses the demand to transform societies so that women, children and adolescents can realize their rights to the highest attainable standards of health and well-being. This paper examines what this implies in practice. The authors discuss three interdependent areas for action towards greater participation of the public in health: improving capabilities for individual and group participation; developing and sustaining people-centred health services; and social accountability. They  outline challenges for implementation, and provide policy-makers, programme managers and practitioners with illustrative examples of the types of participatory approaches needed in each area to help achieve the health and development goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Critiquing the Concept of Resilience in Health Systems","field_subtitle":"Stephanie Topp, Walter Flores, Veena Sriram and Kerry Scott","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn social theory, the dominant state is known as the hegemon. In the 19th century, hegemony came to denote the \u2018Social or cultural predominance or ascendancy; predominance by one group within a society or milieu\u2019. However, commentators on power have also used the term to describe the power of discourse - particularly in the field of governance. In this note we wish to draw attention to, and challenge, what we fear is an emerging hegemonic discourse in the field of health policy and systems work - the discourse of resilience.\r\n\r\nIn the past five years \u2018resilience\u2019 has been increasingly applied in health policy and systems research (HPSR) to refer to the need for distressed health systems (micro or macro) to \u2018bounce back\u2019 from shocks. Often implicit in this discourse, is the assumption that such systems were \u2018there\u2019 in the first place, or at the very least, that with a concerted effort they can get there. What a resilient health system means in this context is not clear - but we contend that, in a form of technocratic reductionism, resilience strategies and solutions are often divorced from meaningful assessment of the political economy and power dynamics that produced the health system crises in the first place. \r\n\r\nHealth systems in crises suffer from chronic deficiencies in many things - material and human resources central-level planning and coordination capacity and domestic financing to name but a few. The populations and communities seeking services from these deficient systems are more likely to have low levels of education, weak citizen engagement and to experience deep class inequity. Much of the technocratic discussion around \u2018building resilience\u2019 appears to bypass these issues, however, often focusing on tweaking inputs or health system components, and frequently emphasising self-reliance and behaviour change. This technocratic and formulaic approach to building resilience is at odds with the complex reality of health systems in each country. \r\n\r\n\u2018Building resilience\u2019 rarely seems to involve a direct examination of, or challenge to, the structural conditions that contribute to overarching health system dysfunction, including historical colonial legacies, current trade and aid structures, tax and health insurance structures. We are concerned that the discourse of resilience will follow the trend of global health policy reforms being fuelled by the perceived immediacy of a problem instead of careful analysis of root causes and strategies likely to prevent recurrence in the long-term. Recent examples include the Ebola epidemic and now Zika, in which resilience discourse is getting close to that of the global health security agenda in which the main concern is transnational epidemics from the south to the north. The rise of hegemonic resilience discourse has effectively enabled global health stakeholders to replace the conversation about systemic failures at multiple levels which supports a far more long term vision, with an action-oriented discourse that implies much shorter time-frames. \r\n\r\nA conscious discussion is needed to reframe what the health system community means when we use the term \u2018resilience\u2019. Resilience and the linked concept of sustainability of health programming have value, as long as they are not divorced from the material changes that need to occur to support them and the requirement for a more balanced relationship among national states (trade, flow of resources, and others). Use of these terms should build on previous work and consensus around social determinants of health, right to health and people-centered health systems. This means resilience should be situated on a continuum rather than replacing important advances around health systems and its relation with equity, fairness and human rights. \r\n\r\nUltimately, we contend that a more ambitious and nuanced application of the term \u2018resilience\u2019 is required if the term is to contribute to improving LMIC health systems\u2019 capacity to withstand political, financial, epidemiological and environmental shocks. We must also do everything possible to prevent such shocks in the first place. But at the very least, we in the health policy and systems community need to start acknowledging the dangers of using \u2018resilience\u2019 as part of a de-politicised and technocratic discourse. \r\n\r\nThis piece was first posted as a blog for Health Systems Global (HSG) http://tinyurl.com/j968dqc. The authors are thematic leads of the cluster on Power in Health Systems in the SHaPeS Technical working group of HSG. Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 183: Critiquing the Concept of Resilience in Health Systems","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Policy brief 40: Implementing the International Health Regulations in east and southern Africa: Progress, opportunities and challenges","field_subtitle":"SEATINI, TARSC","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/Pol%20Brief%2060%20IHR%20April2016%20.pdf","body":"When the International Health Regulations (IHR) were adopted in 2005 by member states of the World Health Organisation (WHO), State Parties were given up to June 2012 to have developed minimum core public health capacities to implement them. This included having surveillance, reporting and response systems for public health risks and emergencies and measures for disease control at designated airports, ports and ground crossings. In East and Southern Africa (ESA), the IHR are being implemented within an Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDRS), which is a comprehensive, evidence-based strategy for strengthening national public health surveillance and response systems in African countries. This policy brief outlines the progress made and deficits in ESA countries in achieving the core capacities to implement the IHR. It proposes national measures to strengthen public health systems to both meet gaps in the implementation of the IHR and to link responses to health emergencies and outbreaks to health systems strengthening in ESA countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in Extractives: Stewarding Africa\u2019s natural resources for all","field_subtitle":"Africa Progress Panel: Africa Progress Report, 2013","field_url":"http://www.africaprogresspanel.org/publications/policy-papers/africa-progress-report-2013/","body":"This Africa Progress panel Report argues that African policy makers have critical choices to make. They can either invest their natural resource revenue in people to generate jobs and opportunities for millions in present and future generations, or they can squander this opportunity, allowing jobless growth and inequality to take root. In many African countries, natural resource revenues are widening the gap between rich and poor. Although much has been achieved, a decade of highly impressive growth has not brought comparable improvements in health, education and nutrition. The Africa Progress Panel is convinced that Africa can better manage its vast natural resource wealth to improve the lives of the region\u2019s people by setting out bold national agendas for strengthening transparency and accountability. The Panel consists of ten distinguished individuals from the private and public sector who advocate for equitable and sustainable development for Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in Health Care Financing in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review of Evidence from Studies Using Benefit and Financing Incidence Analyses","field_subtitle":"Asante A; Price J; Hayen A; Jan S; Wiseman V: PLoS One11(4) e0152866, 2016","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4827871/","body":"Health financing reforms in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs) over the past decades have focused on achieving equity in financing of health care delivery through universal health coverage. This systematic review assesses progress towards equity in health care financing in LMICs through the use of benefit incidence analysis (BIA) and financing incidence analysis (FIA). A total of 512 records were obtained and 24 were judged appropriate for inclusion. Twelve of the 24 studies originated from sub-Saharan Africa. The evidence points to a pro-rich distribution of total health care benefits and progressive financing in sub-Saharan Africa. In the majority of cases, the distribution of benefits at the primary health care level favoured the poor while hospital level services benefit the better-off.  Studies evaluated in this systematic review indicate that health care financing in LMICs benefits the rich more than the poor but the burden of financing also falls more on the rich. There is some evidence that primary health care is pro-poor suggesting a greater investment in such services and removal of barriers to care can enhance equity. The results overall suggest that there are impediments to making health care more accessible to the poor and this must be addressed if universal health coverage is to be a reality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Financial accessibility and user fee reforms for maternal- health care in five sub-Saharan countries: a quasi-experimental analysis","field_subtitle":"Leone T; Cetorelli V; Neal S; Matthews Z: BMJ Open 6(1), e009692, 2016","field_url":"http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/1/e009692.full","body":"This paper aimed to measure the impact of user fee reforms on the probability of giving birth in an institution or receiving a caesarean section (CS) in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Cameroon and Nigeria for the poorest strata of the population.  The authors analysed data from consecutive surveys in five countries: two case countries that experienced reforms (Ghana and Burkina Faso) in contrast to three that did not experience reforms (Zambia, Cameroon, Nigeria). User fee reforms are associated with a significant percentage of the increase in access to facility births (27 percentage points) and to a much lesser extent to CS (0.7 percentage points). Poor (but not the poorest) and non-educated women and those in rural areas benefited the most from the reforms. Findings show a clear positive impact on access when user fees are removed but limited evidence for improved availability of CS for those most in need. More women from rural areas and from lower socioeconomic backgrounds give birth in health facilities after fee reform. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"For Poor Children, Two Healthy Meals a Day Can Keep Obesity Away","field_subtitle":"Graham L: NGO Pulse, April 2016 ","field_url":"http://www.ngopulse.org/article/2016/04/14/poor-children-two-healthy-meals-day-can-keep-obesity-away","body":"Access to poor quality and inexpensive food that are high in fats and refined carbohydrates have the potential to expose children to obesity. Fighting obesity could translate into a decrease in the number of adults who suffer from non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. In this edition of NGO Pulse, Lauren Graham, a senior researcher at the University of Johannesburg\u2019s Centre for Social Development for Africa, writes that with the current drought and increased food prices, it is becoming more expensive and difficult for families, especially those in poor communities, to afford and opt for healthier food baskets. Graham, who argues that it is easy and cost effective to prevent obesity and overweight, adds that: \u201cObesity is not necessarily driven by overeating, as is commonly thought.\u201d She notes that children who grow up in poor communities are at high risk for obesity and \u2018hidden hunger\u2019 since they have no option but to consume food that lacks the right balance of nutritious meals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"From Resilience to Resourcefulness: A Critique of Resilience Policy and Activism","field_subtitle":"MacKinnon D; Driscoll Derickson K: Progress in Human Geography 37(2) 253\u2013270, 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/z5cbrsu","body":"This paper provides a theoretical and political critique of how the concept of resilience has been applied to places. It is based upon three main points. First, the ecological concept of resilience is conservative when applied to social relations. Second, resilience is externally defined by state agencies and expert knowledge. Third, a concern with the resilience of places is misplaced in terms of spatial scale, since the processes which shape resilience operate primarily at the scale of capitalist social relations. The authors argue that resilience is fundamentally about how best to maintain the functioning of an existing system in the face of externally derived disturbance. Both the ontological nature of \u2018the system\u2019 and its normative desirability escape critical scrutiny. As a result, the existence of social divisions and inequalities tends to be glossed over when\r\nresilience thinking is extended to society. Ecological models of resilience are thus argued to be fundamentally\r\nanti-political, viewing adaptation to change in terms of decentralized actors, systems and relationships and failing to accommodate the critical role of the state and politics. In place of resilience, the authors offer the concept of resourcefulness as an alternative approach for community groups to foster. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender and health inequalities: Intersections with other relevant axes of oppression","field_subtitle":"Deadline: end of August 2016","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/30292","body":"This call for papers entitled \u2018Gender and health inequalities: intersections with other relevant axes of oppression\u2019 aims to generate knowledge about how gender inequalities in health/disease/mortality/and access to health care systems interact with other important axes of oppression (race/ethnicity, social class, religion, and/or migratory status, among others) through different levels of power (from the global to the local) at different lifetime stages for a population. It aims to contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between gender (in)equalities and health (inequalities). The editors welcome different types of contributions: empirical research, theoretical papers, methodological papers, and reviews. The editors also welcome papers that address not only issues of dominance and/or suffering but also those about resistance, agency, resilience, and/or empowerment. Submissions are encouraged from researchers working in low-, middle-, and high-income countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Systems Trust Conference Presentations","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust (HST), May 2016","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/hst-conference-presentations","body":"The HST Conference 2016 programme included 90 oral and poster presentations from a wide range of presenters in the South African public health policy, research and implementation field. Presentations range from health governance and health financing to  health counselling and electronic medical records. The presentations are available at this site..","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Historic silicosis and TB judgment","field_subtitle":"Treatment Action Campaign (TAC); SECTION27: Section 27, 13 May 2016 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jopf628","body":"A judgment handed down in May 2016 in the South Gauteng High Court in the case of Bongani Nkala and 68 Others v Harmony Gold Mining Company Ltd and 31 Others is reported an important step toward providing just compensation for the many thousands of miners who contracted silicosis or tuberculosis on South Africa\u2019s gold mines. The court certified two classes. The first and larger is gold miners and former gold miners who have contracted silicosis and the second is those who have contracted TB. The class requires that a person has worked underground in the mines for at least two years since 1965 and contracted either disease. The lawsuit, unless settled, will now proceed into trials in which common issues relevant to all class members will be determined. The court confirmed that for mineworkers, \u201cit is class action or no action at all. Class action is the only realistic option open to mineworkers and their dependents. It is the only way they would be able to realise their constitutional right of access to court bearing in mind that they are poor, lack the sophistication to litigate individually, have no access to legal representatives and are continually battling the effects of two extremely debilitating diseases.\u201d [para 100] The judgment is also important for all vulnerable people in South Africa. A class action is a powerful mechanism by which poor or vulnerable people can access justice. It is however not commonly used in South Africa. This judgment is argued to help those who do not have resources on their own to pool efforts in order to access justice. The authors argue that it recalibrates the balance of power to give the poor a better chance of holding the powerful to account. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"In Tanzania, 22.8% of Teen Girls Are Mothers","field_subtitle":"Mwijarubi M: VITAL, 16 May 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zjkjh8u","body":"In this blog, the author reports that in Tanzania, less than one in 10 (9%) of sexually active youth who want to avoid pregnancy use modern contraceptives and that 22.8% of young women between the ages of 15 and 19 are mothers, according to the Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey 2010. Tanzanian women, the survey shows, have an average of 5.4 children each. Early childbearing and high rates of fertility put stress on the health and education systems, on the availability of food and clean water, and on natural resources, according to the country's National Family Planning Costed Implementation Plan. Tanzania has committed to Family Planning 2020 (FP2020), to ensure that, in line with the United Nations secretary general's global strategy for women, children, and adolescent health, all women have access to contraceptives by 2020. The aut5hor indicates that its needed: 47% of Tanzania's population is 15 years or younger. In Tanzania, family planning has been synonymous with child spacing for married men and women, as typified by posters and brochures featuring monogamous couples with their three distinctly spaced children. But the term \"family planning\" doesn't resonate with young people because they are not yet ready to start families. He notes therefore that as a result, the global health workers' advocacy and support group, IntraHealth International, has started referring to it as \"future planning.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequality in disability-free life expectancies among older men and women in six countries with developing economies","field_subtitle":"Santosa A; Schr\u00f6ders J; Vaezghasemi M; Ng N: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, March 2016, doi:10.1136/jech-2015-206640","field_url":"http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2016/03/18/jech-2015-206640.full","body":" Evidence on trends and determinants of disability-free life expectancies (DFLEs) are available in high-income countries but less in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). This study examines the levels of and inequalities in life expectancy(LE), disability and DFLE between men and women across different age groups aged 50 years and over in six countries with developing economies. This study utilised the cross-sectional data (n=32 724) from the WHO Study on global AGEing and adult health in China, Ghana, India, Mexico, the Russian Federation and South Africa in 2007\u20132010. Disability was measured with the activity of daily living  instrument.. The disability prevalence ranged from 13% in China to 54% in India. Women were more disadvantaged with higher prevalence of disability across all age groups. Though women had higher LE, their proportion of remaining LE free from disability was lower than men. There are inequalities in the levels of disability and DFLE among men and women in different age groups among people aged over 50 years in these six countries. Countermeasures to decrease intercountry and gender gaps in DFLE, including improvements in health promotion and healthcare distribution, with a gender equity focus, are needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"International AIDS Conference","field_subtitle":"17th-22nd July 2016, Durban, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.aids2016.org/","body":"The International AIDS Conference is a gathering for those working in the field of HIV, as well as policy makers, persons living with HIV and other individuals committed to ending the pandemic. It is a chance to assess state of affairs, evaluate recent scientific developments and lessons learnt, and collectively chart a course forward.  The AIDS 2016 programme will present new scientific knowledge and offer many opportunities for structured dialogue on the major issues facing the global response to HIV. A variety of session types \u2013 from abstract-driven presentations to symposia, bridging and plenary sessions \u2013 will meet the needs of various participants. Other related activities, including the Global Village, satellite meetings, exhibitions and affiliated independent events, will contribute to an exceptional opportunity for professional development and networking. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Is any wheelchair better than no wheelchair? A Zimbabwean perspective","field_subtitle":"Visagie S; Mlambo T; van der Veen J; Nhunzvi C; Tigere D; Scheffler E: African Journal of Disability 4(1) doi: 10.4102/ajod.v4i1.168, November 2015","field_url":"http://www.ajod.org/index.php/ajod/article/view/201/387","body":"Within a rights-based paradigm, wheelchairs are essential in the promotion of user autonomy, dignity, freedom, inclusion and participation. This paper described a group of 94 Zimbabwean wheelchair users\u2019 satisfaction with wheelchairs, wheelchair services and wheelchair function in a mixed method, descriptive study using the Quebec User Evaluation of Satisfaction with Assistive Technology for adults and children and Functioning Every day with a Wheelchair questionnaire. Qualitative data were collected through two focus group discussions (22 participants) and two case studies with participants purposively sampled from those who participated in the quantitative phase. More than 60% of participants were dissatisfied with the following wheelchair features: durability (79%), weight (76%), ease of adjustment (69%), effectiveness (69%), safety (67%), reliability (67%), and meeting user needs (61%). Similarly, more than 66% of participants were dissatisfied with various services aspects: professional services (69%), follow-up (67%), and service delivery (68%). Although 60% of participants agreed that the wheelchair contributed to specific functions, more than 50% of participants indicated that the features of the wheelchair did not allow in- (53%) and outdoor (53%) mobility. Findings indicate high levels of dissatisfaction with wheelchair features and services, as well as mobility. It is recommended that minimum service standards are set incorporating evidence and good practice guidelines for wheelchair services and management of wheelchair donations in Zimbabwe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Is There Evidence for a Subnational Resource Curse?","field_subtitle":"Cust J; Viale C: Natural Resource Governance Institute, April 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/haugr8n","body":"This paper examines the evidence for a 'resource curse' at subnational level. Natural resource extraction can have positive effects, generating profits, tax revenue for government, and economic linkages to other sectors. It can also have negative economic, environmental and social consequences, including changes in local relative prices that might crowd out other productive activities; deforestation; pollution and degradation; and the potential for social dislocation and displacement. This paper evaluates the evidence for how these effects accrue specifically to the subnational economy and whether government policy can lead to positive development impacts, while avoiding the challenge of unbalanced costs borne locally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of the first Call for Proposals of the new \"Intra-Africa Academic Mobility Scheme\"","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 15 June 2016","field_url":"http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX%3AC2016/092/05&from=EN","body":"This programme\u2019s objective is to improve the skills and competences of students and staff through enhanced intra-African mobility and cooperation between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Africa to encourage and enable African students to undertake postgraduate studies in the African continent. The call is for partnerships between a minimum four and maximum six African HEIs including the applicant) and one technical partner from the EU. Eligible applicants and partners are HEIs registered in Africa that provide courses at postgraduate level (master\u2019s and/or doctorate degree) of higher education leading to a qualification recognised by the competent authorities in their own country. Only HEIs accredited by relevant national authorities in Africa are eligible. Branches of HEIs from outside Africa are not eligible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi and Millennium Development Goal 4: a Countdown to 2015 country case study","field_subtitle":"Kanyuka M; Ndawala J; Mleme T; Chisesa L; et al.: The Lancet Global Health  4(3) e201-e214, 2016","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(15)00294-6/fulltext?rss=yes","body":"This in-depth country case study aimed to explain Malawi's success in improving child survival. The authors estimated child and neonatal mortality for the years 2000-14 using five district-representative household surveys. The study included recalculation of coverage indicators for that period, and used the Lives Saved Tool (LiST) to attribute the child lives saved in the years from 2000 to 2013 to various interventions. They documented the adoption and implementation of policies and programmes affecting the health of women and children, and developed estimates of financing. The estimated mortality rate in children younger than 5 years declined substantially in the study period, from 247 deaths per 1000 livebirths in 1990 to 71 deaths in 2013, with an annual rate of decline of 5\u00b74%. The most rapid mortality decline occurred in the 1-59 months age group; neonatal mortality declined more slowly, representing an annual rate of decline of 3\u00b73%. Nearly half of the coverage indicators increased by more than 20 percentage points between 2000 and 2014. Results from the LiST analysis show that about 280\u2008000 children's lives were saved between 2000 and 2013, attributable to interventions including treatment for diarrhoea, pneumonia, and malaria (23%), insecticide-treated bednets (20%), vaccines (17%), reductions in wasting (11%) and stunting (9%), facility birth care (7%), and prevention and treatment of HIV (7%). The funding allocated to the health sector increased substantially, particularly to child health and HIV and from external sources, albeit below internationally agreed targets. This case study confirmed that Malawi had achieved MDG 4 for child survival by 2013. The authors\u2019 findings suggest that this was achieved mainly through the scale-up of interventions that are effective against the major causes of child deaths (malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhoea), programmes to reduce child undernutrition and mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and some improvements in the quality of care provided around birth. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"One year into the Zika outbreak: how an obscure disease became a global health emergency","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: Geneva, May 2016","field_url":"http://www.who.int/emergencies/zika-virus/articles/one-year-outbreak/en/","body":"By May 2016, tests conducted at Brazil\u2019s national reference laboratory conclusively identified that a new mosquito-borne disease - Zika- had indeed arrived in the Americas, though no one knew what that might mean. Although the re-profiling of Zika from a benign disease to a global health emergency stimulated a flurry of research, the disease remains poorly understood at levels ranging from its virology and epidemiology to the clinical spectrum of complications it can cause. No one can answer questions about further international spread with certainty, though theories abound. As the virus has been detected in parts of Asia and Africa for several decades, some level of endemicity is assumed, though no one knows whether presence of the virus over time has resulted in widespread or low-level immune protection or possibly no protection at all. In April 2016, researchers in Ecuador and the northeastern part of Brazil reported the detection of Zika in monkeys, suggesting a new transmission cycle that could allow the virus to persist. In Brazil, the virus detected in monkeys was identical to the one circulating in humans. Researchers at a government laboratory in Mexico reported detection of the Zika virus in female Aedes albopictus mosquitoes collected in the wild, as opposed to experimentally infected \u2013 a first for the western hemisphere. As the mosquito can survive the winter in temperate climates, its ability to carry the Zika virus could expand the map of areas at risk of Zika virus transmission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Open Access Teaching & Learning Resources on Health Policy & Systems Research","field_subtitle":"KEYSTONE India Initiative, 2016","field_url":"http://www.phfi.org/index.phpoption=com_content&view=article&id=1593&Itemid=619","body":"The KEYSTONE open access teaching and learning materials on Health Policy and Systems Research (38 videos and 43 slide presentations across 13 modules) are now live online. These teaching and learning resources were developed for the inaugural KEYSTONE India short course on Health Policy and Systems Research. They include 38 videos and 43 slide presentations organized across 13 modules and cover a range of foundational concepts and common approaches used in HPSR. This suite of teaching and learning materials was developed in the process of delivering the inaugural KEYSTONE course, and is being made available as an open access resource under the Creative Commons license.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Our future: a Lancet commission on adolescent health and wellbeing","field_subtitle":"The Lancet Commission:  11 May 2016","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/commissions/adolescent-health-and-wellbeing","body":"Decades of neglect and chronic underinvestment have had serious detrimental effects on the health and wellbeing of adolescents aged 10\u201324 years, according to a major new Lancet Commission on adolescent health and wellbeing. Two-thirds of young people are growing up in countries where preventable and treatable health problems like HIV, early pregnancy, unsafe sex, depression, injury, and violence remain a daily threat to their health, wellbeing, and life chances. Evidence shows that behaviours that start in adolescence can determine health and wellbeing for a lifetime. Adolescents today also face new challenges, including rising levels of obesity and mental health disorders, high unemployment, and the risk of radicalisation. Adolescent health and wellbeing is also a key driver of a wide range of the Sustainable Development Goals on health, nutrition, education, gender, equality and food security, and the costs of inaction are enormous, warn the authors. While efforts to improve the health of children under 5 have led to major improvements in younger ages, the leading causes of death for young people aged 10-24 years have changed remarkably little from 1990 to 2013, with road injuries, self-harm, violence, and tuberculosis remaining in the top five.  Maternal disorders were the leading cause of death in young women in 2013, responsible for 17% of deaths in women aged 20\u201324 years and 11.5% in girls aged 15\u201319 years. The leading risk factors for death in young people aged 10\u201314 years have not changed in the past 23 years, with unsafe water, unsafe sanitation, and handwashing remaining in the top three. Diarrheal and intestinal diseases are still responsible for 12% of deaths in 10\u201314 year old girls.  Injuries, mental health conditions, common infectious diseases, and sexual and reproductive health problems are the dominant health problems in young people. The two main contributors to health loss worldwide for both sexes are mental health disorders and road injuries.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Pharmaceutical Public Health Short Courses and Online Modules","field_subtitle":"University of the Western Cape, South Africa, 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/z47swes","body":"The University of the Western Cape (UWC) School of Public Health presents the 38th Short Course School in a series of Winter and Summer Schools held at UWC since 1992. These courses expose health and health-related workers to the latest thinking in Public Health and enable them to discuss and exchange ideas on improved planning and implementation of Primary Health Care in the changing environment of the developing world. To date, some 12,000 participants, mainly nurses and middle level managers have attended these courses, from all over South Africa and many other African countries. As many of these courses are also used as the teaching blocks of the UWC Master of Public Health degree, the highest academic and practical standards are maintained. Most courses are one week long to allow busy health workers to receive continuing education with minimal disruption of their services. Selection of subjects reflects the main public health priorities. This year UWC are offering courses covering a wide range of management, programme development and policy and planning issues. The cost of courses is kept to an absolute minimum, to allow for the fullest participation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty Remains World\u2019s Biggest Challenge","field_subtitle":"Commission for Social Development, Forty-fourth Session: United Nations, February 2016","field_url":"http://www.un.org/press/en/2016/soc4837.doc.htm","body":"The Commission for Social Development concluded its fifty-fourth session approving three draft resolutions for adoption by the Economic and Social Council. One on Africa\u2019s development, while traditionally endorsed by consensus, required a rare vote to address the United States\u2019 concerns over language around trade issues, and more generally, \u201cthe right to development\u201d. The Commission approved a draft on \u201cSocial dimensions of the New Partnership for Africa\u2019s Development\u201d by 29 in favour, to 12 against, with no abstentions (document E/CN.5/2016/L.5).  This emphasizes that \u201cincreasingly unacceptable\u201d poverty, inequality and social exclusion in most African countries requires social and economic policies to be devised through a comprehensive approach.  African countries are encouraged to prioritize structural transformation, modernize smallholder agriculture, add value to primary commodities and improve public and private governance institutions.While the United States\u2019 delegate, whose delegation had requested the vote, said her Government would vote against the text, as it viewed the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the main venue for trade negotiation, and could not support a text calling on WTO members to conclude the Doha Round of trade negotiations and improve market and duty-free access, South Africa\u2019s representative, associating with the Group of 77, said South Africa would continue to advocate for social development as part of the global agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Reports from WHO Watch","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM) and Medicus Mundi International: May 2016","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/who-watch/events","body":"WHO Watch is a civil society project, coordinated by People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM) and Medicus Mundi International, directed both to supporting WHO and holding it accountable. WHO Watch involves a team of \u2018watchers\u2019 attending WHO governing body meetings, lobbying delegates, speaking from the floor, documenting and reporting on the debate and the decisions, and preparing commentaries on each of the agenda items.  These commentaries are designed to support progressive delegations (in particular from smaller countries who have only limited human resources to devote to these issues) as well as arguing for progressive outcomes.  The Sixty Ninth World Health Assembly (WHA69) convened in Geneva from 23 \u2013 28 May 2016. The Watch reports on the debates on various items, including: managing conflicts of interest in global health; maternal, infant and young child nutrition; ending childhood obesity; ageing; air pollution; the \u2018sound\u2019 management of chemicals; antimicrobial resistance; polio; managing global health emergencies; the health of migrants; lessons from Ebola in West Africa; HIV, viral hepatitis, STIs; vaccination; global health workforce issues; medicines and intellectual property.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Resilience in the SDGs: Developing an indicator for Target 1.5 that is fit for purpose","field_subtitle":"Bahadur A; Lovell E; Wilkinson E; Tanner T: Overseas Development Institute, 2015","field_url":"http://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/9780.pdf","body":"The authors outline a comprehensive approach for developing a cross-sectoral, multi-dimensional and dynamic understanding of resilience. This underpins the message of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that development is multi-faceted and the achievement of many of the individual development goals is dependent on the accomplishment of other goals. It also acknowledges that shocks and stresses can reverse years of development gains and efforts to eradicate poverty by 2030. The authors argue that this approach to understanding resilience draws on data that countries will collect for the SDGs anyway and entails only a small additional burden.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Risk factors affecting child cognitive development: a summary of nutrition, environment, and maternal\u2013child interaction indicators for sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Ford N; Stein A: Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease 7(2) pp 197-217","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/h3mkrax","body":"An estimated 200 million children worldwide fail to meet their development potential due to poverty, poor health and unstimulating environments. Missing developmental milestones has lasting effects on adult human capital. Africa has a large burden of risk factors for poor child development. This paper identifies the scope for improvement at the country level in three domains \u2013 nutrition, environment, and mother\u2013child interactions. It uses nationally representative data from large-scale surveys, data repositories and country reports from 2000 to 2014. Overall, there was heterogeneity in performance across domains, suggesting that each country faces distinct challenges in addressing risk factors for poor child development. Data were lacking for many indicators, especially in the mother\u2013child interaction domain. The authors argue that there is a need to improve routine collection of high-quality, country-level indicators relevant to child development to assess risk and track progress.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Stand Up for African Mothers Campaign","field_subtitle":"AMREF: Amref Health Africa in the USA, 2016","field_url":"http://www.amrefusa.org/usa/en/what-we-do/maternal-health-/","body":"Every year, nearly 200,000 women die during childbirth in sub-Saharan Africa in part due to poor access to basic reproductive and maternal health services. The author argues that Over 80 percent of these deaths could have been prevented with the assistance of a midwife. This campaign, Stand Up for African Mothers. aims to ensure that more African women can count on the assistance of a trained midwife during pregnancy and childbirth, and promotes reproductive rights and education to help women and their partners make informed choices about family planning. Through campaign, Amref is training 15,000 midwives to reduce the high rate of maternal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa through both traditional classroom-based teaching, and innovative methods such as distance learning and mLearning, which allows midwives to study using basic mobile phone technology. With a skilled midwife providing care to 500 mothers annually, over seven million African women each year could benefit from this campaign in 13 African countries. By 2016, almost 7,000 midwives had been trained since the campaign began in 2010.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The complexity of rural contexts experienced by community disability workers in three southern African countries","field_subtitle":"Booyens M; van Pletzen E; Lorenzo T: African Journal of Disability 4(1) doi: 10.4102/ajod.v4i1.167, 2015","field_url":"http://www.ajod.org/index.php/ajod/article/view/167/318","body":"An understanding of rural communities is fundamental to effective community-based rehabilitation work with persons with disabilities. The authors argue that insufficient attention has been paid to the challenges that rural community disability workers face. This qualitative interpretive study, involving in-depth interviews with 16 community disability workers in Botswana, Malawi and South Africa, revealed the complex ways in which poverty, inappropriately used power and negative attitudes of service providers and communities combine to create formidable barriers to the inclusion of persons with disabilities in families and rural communities. The paper highlights the importance of understanding and working with the concept of \u2018disability\u2019 from a social justice and development perspective. It stresses that by targeting attitudes, actions and relationships, community disability workers can bring about social change in the lives of persons with disabilities and the communities in which they live.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The slow shipwreck of the World Health Organization?","field_subtitle":"Velasquez G; Alas M: Third World Network Info Service, May 2016","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/health.info/2016/hi160503.htm","body":"In this article the authors argue that the World Health Organisation (WHO) Secretariat, Member States and observers should honestly admit that they have so far fallen very short of the WHO Mission. The authors argue that the organization has become a huge bureaucratic structure while at the same time under-resourcing its needs has made it incapable of providing a timely response to the urgent health needs happening in the world.  The organization is argued to be being privatized with influence from small group of private funders.  This authors observe that the limited participation sometimes turns into an uncomfortable position for many, when faced with the lack of progress in the debates or with the endless diplomatic language that is used without reaching any concrete agreements and with resolutions and decisions where that make it almost impossible to identify the substance and therefore difficult to see their real value. In the meantime millions of diseases and preventable deaths are happening far away from what is being discussed at \u201cthe highest levels\u201d of international public health policy arena. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards environmental justice success in mining resistances: An empirical investigation","field_subtitle":"\u00d6zkaynak B; Rodr\u00edguez-Labajos B; Ayd\u0131n C: Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade (EJOLT) Report No. 14, 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/h9d76no","body":"This report explores evidence of success in environmental justice (EJ) activism on socio-environmental mining conflicts by applying a collaborative statistical approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methods. The empirical evidence covers 346 mining cases from around the world in the EJOLT Atlas of Environmental Justice, and is enriched by an interactive discussion of results with activists and experts. The authors used a social network analysis to study the nature of the relationships both among corporations involved in the mining activity, on the one hand, and among EJ organisations, on the other. Multivariate analysis methods were used to examine the defining factors in achieving EJ success and qualitative analysis, based on descriptive statistics, was conducted to investigate factors that configure the perception of success for EJ and incorporate activist knowledge into the theory of EJ. The authors argue that overall, such analytical exercises, coproduced with activists, should be seen as a source of engaged knowledge creation, which is increasingly being recognised as a pertinent method to inform scientific debate with policy implications, and that it can also be insightful and relevant for activism. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Tracking implementation and (un)intended consequences: a process evaluation of an innovative peripheral health facility financing mechanism in Kenya.","field_subtitle":"Waweru E; Goodman C; Kedenge S;  Tsofa B; Molyneux S: Health Policy and Planning 31(2) 137-47, 2015","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/31/2/137.long","body":"The authors describe early implementation of an innovative national health financing intervention in Kenya; the health sector services fund (HSSF). In HSSF, central funds are credited directly into a facility's bank account quarterly, and facility funds are managed by health facility management committees (HFMCs) including community representatives. The authors conducted a process evaluation of HSSF implementation. Methods included interviews at national, district and facility levels, facility record reviews, a structured exit survey and a document review. They found impressive achievements: HSSF funds were reaching facilities; funds were being overseen and used in a way that strengthened transparency and community involvement; and health workers' motivation and patient satisfaction improved. Challenges or unintended outcomes included: complex and centralized accounting requirements undermining efficiency; interactions between HSSF and user fees leading to difficulties in accessing crucial user fee funds; and some relationship problems between key players. Although user fees charged had not increased, national reduction policies were still not being adhered to. Finance mechanisms can have a strong positive impact on peripheral facilities, and HFMCs can play a valuable role in managing facilities. Although fiduciary oversight is essential, mechanisms should allow for local decision-making and ensure that unmanageable paperwork is avoided. There are also limits to what can be achieved with relatively small funds in contexts of enormous need. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"UnderMining Life: Activists threatened in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Mazibuko S: Earthlore, April 2016","field_url":"https://vimeo.com/161007908","body":"Sphiwe Mazibuko's 9 minute documentary exposes the intimidation and violence facing anti-mining activists on the Wild Coast and Zululand, in South Africa. Xolobeni residents have fought for 10 years to prevent an Australian company from mining their titanium rich dunes.  The film documents how an unwavering response of the Pondo people to protect their traditional Wild Coast lands, where they have lived for over 1500 years, has been met by increasing intimidation and violence with activist lives threatened and attacked.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO: Health Assembly adopts framework for non-State actor engagement","field_subtitle":"TWN Info Service: Geneva, 31 May 2016","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/unsd/2016/unsd160514.htm","body":"The 69th World Health Assembly (WHA) adopted the Framework of Engagement with Non-State Actors (FENSA) on the concluding day of Assembly. The adoption of FENSA is the conclusion of a process initiated as part of the WHO reform in 2011. FENSA consists of an overarching framework of engagement with Non-State Actors (NSAs) and four separate policies for governing the engagements with four categories, i.e. Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), private sector, philanthropic foundations and academic institutions. The overarching principles set out the common rules for all NSAs and treat all NSAs on an equal footing. The separate policies provide certain customised aspects of the overarching principles to the respective categories of NSAs. The framework regulates five types of engagements: participation, resources, advocacy, evidence, and technical collaboration. The WHA resolution that adopts the FENSA decides to replace the two existing policies governing WHO engagements with NGOs and the private sector. Further, the resolution requests the Director-General to start the implementation immediately and take all necessary measures to fully implement FENSA.  Further, it requests the Director-General to expedite the full establishment of WHO\u2019s NSA register.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018The mercurial piece of the puzzle\u2019: Understanding stigma and HIV/AIDS in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Gilbert L: Journal of Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS Research Alliance (SAHARA-J)13(1) 8-16","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17290376.2015.1130644","body":"Although stigma and its relationship to health and disease is not a new phenomenon, it has not been a major feature in the public discourse until the emergence of HIV. The range of negative responses associated with the epidemic placed stigma on the public agenda and drew attention to its complexity as a phenomenon and concept worthy of further investigation. Despite the consensus that stigma is one of the major contributors to the rapid spread of HIV and the frequent use of the term in the media and among people in the street, the exact meaning of \u2018stigma\u2019 remains ambiguous. This paper re-visits some of the scholarly deliberations and further interrogates their relevance in explaining HIV-related stigma evidenced in South Africa. In conclusion a model is presented. Its usefulness \u2013 or explanatory potential \u2013 is that it attempts to provide a comprehensive framework that offers insights into the individual as well as the social/structural components of HIV-related stigma in a particular context. As such, it is argued by the authors to have the potential to provide more nuanced understandings as well as to alert us to knowledge-gaps in the process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":" Rural Health Care Access and Policy in Developing Countries","field_subtitle":"Strasser R; Kam S; Regalado S: Annual Review of Public Health 37, 395-412, 2016 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/gndp4ok","body":"Compared to their urban counterparts, rural and remote inhabitants experience lower life expectancy and poorer health status, and a shortage of health professionals. This article explores rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Using the conceptual framework of access to primary health care, sustainable rural health service models, rural health workforce supply, and policy implications, this article presents a review of the academic and gray literature as the basis for recommendations designed to achieve greater health equity. An alternative international standard for health professional education is recommended. Decision makers should draw upon the expertise of communities to identify community-specific health priorities and should build capacity to enable the recruitment and training of local students from under-serviced areas to deliver quality health care in rural community settings. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Activists lead fight for the right to cheaper drugs","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust, 12 April 2016","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/activists-lead-fight-right-cheaper-drugs","body":"Southern African states are being alerted to the concessions on intellectual property rights that they can take advantage of within the agreement on Trade-Related Aspects on Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)  by the Southern African Regional Programme of Access to Medicines and Diagnostics (SARPAM). SARPAM is communicating the flexibilities within the TRIPS to protect public health, including compulsory licensing and parallel importation, as they note that many of these  concessions are not yet being used by African countries to access essential medicines. They article reports ways that states and activists have advanced use of these flexibilities. For example in 2002, Zimbabwe used of one of them after declaring a period of emergency to override anti-retroviral medicine patents to import generic medicines for HIV. The article notes that the issue still demands activism. In March 2016, for example, activists marched to the Johannesburg offices of the multinational pharmaceutical company Roche to put pressure on the company to lower the extremely high cost of a life-saving cancer drug.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"African Union model law on medical products regulation","field_subtitle":"African Union Heads of State: African Union, Addis Ababa, 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zam6lyf","body":"Member States of the African Union endorsed in 2015 the milestones for the establishment of a single medicines regulatory agency in Africa within the context of the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonization programme. Concerned that the proliferation of Substandard/Spurious/Falsified/Falsely- labelled/Counterfeit medical products on the continent poses a major public health threat and noting that regulatory systems of many African countries remain inadequate the states called for legislation relating to medical products through Regional Economic Communities and the African Union to ensure access to medical products that are safe, efficacious, and of assured quality to the African population. They called for the adoption and domestication of a model law on medical products regulation in Africa for the creation of a harmonized regulatory environment on the continent; and adopted the African Union Model Law on Medical Products Regulation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Agenda for zero discrimination in health care","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS, Geneva, 2016","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/Agenda-zero-discrimination-healthcare_en.pdf","body":"People around the world face barriers to accessing quality health care and enjoying the highest attainable standard of health. Why this occurs varies between countries and communities, but some barriers are present everywhere. These include the various forms of discrimination faced by people who are marginalized, stigmatized, criminalized and otherwise mistreated because of their gender, nationality, age, disability, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, religion, language, socio-economic status, or HIV or other health status, or because of selling sex, using drugs and/or living in prison. One in eight people living with HIV report having been denied health care. Examples of HIV-related stigma and discrimination go beyond denial of care or lower quality care, and include forced sterilization, stigmatizing treatment, negative attitudes and discriminatory behaviour from providers, lack of privacy and/or confidentiality and mandatory testing or treatment without informed consent. UNAIDS argue that such discriminatory practices undermine people\u2019s access to HIV prevention, treatment and care services and the quality of health-care delivery, as well as adherence to HIV treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"AU Policy Framework and Plan of Action on Ageing","field_subtitle":"African Union, HelpAge International Africa Regional Development Centre; Addis Ababa, 2002","field_url":"http://sa.au.int/en/sites/default/files/AU%20Policy%20Framework%20on%20ageing.pdf","body":"The population of older people throughout the world is increasing rapidly, with Africa projected to have about 210 million older people by 2050. In addition to the usual physical, mental and physiological changes associated with ageing, old people in Africa are argued to be particularly disadvantaged due to lack of social security for everyday social and economic needs. This policy framework binds all AU member countries to develop policies on ageing and is being used as a guide in the formulation of national policies to improve the lives of the continent\u2019s older people. The authors argue that advocacy efforts need improve the adaptation and domestication of the policy and encourage appropriate consultations with older people in these processes, including to ensure the allocation of resources for the implementation of commitments. Notably, the International Plan of Action on Ageing agreed upon in Madrid during the Second World Assembly on Ageing in April 2002, borrowed significantly from the AU Policy Framework.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism Website","field_subtitle":"Bhekisisa, Mail and Guardian, 2016.","field_url":"http://bhekisisa.org/","body":"The South African-based Mail & Guardian newspaper has launched an Africa wide  health journalism centre, Bhekisisa.  Bhekisisa means \"to scrutinise\" in Zulu. It has its own website.  is mentoring reporters in African countries to file solutions-based health features for the website and is working with health policymakers, activists and researchers to write opinion pieces for the website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Applicants: South African Field Epidemiology Training Programme","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 30 June 2016","field_url":"http://www.nicd.ac.za/?page=call_for_applications_-_2015&id=188","body":"The South African Field Epidemiology Training Programme (SAFETP) is requesting applications for the incoming 2017 class from qualified health professionals with an interest in public health and commitment to public service.  The programme is a combination of didactic and practical training in which the resident is grounded in the academic basics of public health and is assigned to field sites where s/he learns by doing while being mentored by supervisors in projects that address key public health priorities. This residency programme is a two year, full time training, from which residents graduate with a Masters in Public Health (MPH) from the University of Pretoria. The 2017 cohort will begin in January 2017 and end in December 2018. The training focuses on investigations of public health outbreaks (an acute health event or other epidemiological activity) and using epidemiology and biostatistics to conduct descriptive and analytical studies. Bursaries/stipends may be available for select South African applicants fulfilling predefined criteria. For applicants applying from other African countries - the eligibility requirements still apply and the international applicant must have the required visa and permissions to study in South Africa.  The applicants must ensure that all the costs related to participation in SAFETP are fully covered for the 2 years of training \u2013 salaries/stipends, university registration and tuition fees, accommodation, travel and accommodation to investigate outbreaks. Further information available on the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Cardiovascular disease and impoverishment averted due to a salt reduction policy in South Africa: an extended cost-effectiveness analysis","field_subtitle":"Watkins D; Olson Z;  Verguet S; Nugent R; Jamison D: Health policy and planning 31(1) 75-82, 2015","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/31/1/75.long","body":"The South African Government recently set targets to reduce cardiovascular disease (CVD) by lowering salt consumption. The authors conducted an extended cost-effectiveness analysis to model the potential health and economic impacts of this salt policy. They used surveys and epidemiologic studies to estimate reductions in CVD resulting from lower salt intake; the reduction in out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditures and government subsidies due to the policy and the financial risk protection (FRP) from the policy. The authors found that the salt policy could reduce CVD deaths by 11%, with similar health gains across income quintiles. It could save households US$ 4.06 million (2012) in OOP expenditures (US$ 0.29 per capita) and save the government US$ 51.25 million in healthcare subsidies (US$ 2.52 per capita) each year. The cost to the government would be only US$ 0.01 per capita, so the policy would be cost saving. If the private sector food reformulation costs were passed on to consumers, food expenditures would increase by ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Collected readings on post extractivism","field_subtitle":"Various authors: Yes to Life, No to Mining, 2016","field_url":"http://www.yestolifenotomining.org/collected-readings-on-post-extractivism/","body":"This collection of writings draws together the thoughts of scholars, activists, historians and social commentators on post-extractivism in different contexts. As a system of thought and action, post-extractivism offers a new and radical approach to the problems caused by mining and extractivism in general. Founded in philosophies of Buen Vivir (Good Living) it proposes radical alternatives to current models of \u2018development\u2019 thinking that support an oppressively extractive, non-reciprocal relationship with Earth and each other, and suggests fields of action and transition to change the current status-quo. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Developed countries turning against non-State actor WHO engagement framework","field_subtitle":"Gopakumar K: Third World Network (TWN) Info Service on Health Issues 5, 21 April16","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/health.info/2016/hi160405.htm","body":"Developed countries are reported to be  turning against the World Health Organization\u2019s framework of engagement with non-State actors (FENSA), by putting conditions for its adoption as negotiations on it enter into the last stage. Member States from Europe are reported to be raising three issues to block the adoption of FENSA. First, that the adoption of FENSA is possible only when there is a clear understanding on the implications of its implementation, especially financial and human resource implications. Secondly, that the Secretariat be given flexibility to suspend FENSA norms while engaging with non-State actors to respond to emergencies, and thirdly that the implementation of FENSA be at all three levels of WHO viz. headquarters, regional and national. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Effects of Response to 2014\u20132015 Ebola Outbreak on Deaths from Malaria, HIV/AIDS, and Tuberculosis, West Africa","field_subtitle":"Parpia A; Ndeffo-Mbah M; Wenzel N; Galvani A: Emerging infectious diseases 22(3) 433-41, 2016","field_url":"http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/22/3/15-0977_article","body":"Response to the 2014\u20132015 Ebola outbreak in West Africa overwhelmed the healthcare systems of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, reducing access to health services for diagnosis and treatment for the major diseases that are endemic to the region: malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis. To estimate the repercussions of the Ebola outbreak on the populations at risk for these diseases, the authors developed computational models for disease transmission and infection progression. They estimated that a 50% reduction in access to healthcare services during the Ebola outbreak exacerbated malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis mortality rates by additional death counts of 6,269 (2,564\u201312,407) in Guinea; 1,535 (522\u20132,8780) in Liberia; and 2,819 (844\u20134,844) in Sierra Leone. The authors report that the 2014\u20132015 Ebola outbreak was catastrophic in these countries, and its indirect impact of increasing the mortality rates of other diseases was also substantial.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 182: Implementing the International Health Regulations cannot just be about epidemic emergencies","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET PRA paper: Reflections on actions and learning from participatory work on health in Cassa Banana, Zimbabwe.","field_subtitle":"Kaim B: TARSC, ZADHR, Cassa Banana Community Health Committee, EQUINET, Harare, 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/z2svfhe","body":"Over the last two years (2014-2015), the Training and Research Support Centre in cooperation with the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights has been building a programme that aims to foster local and national dialogue to build active citizenship and public and private accountability on water and sanitation, as a key element of primary health care. The work draws on experiences and learning arising from the Health Literacy programme and pra4equity network within EQUINET. This paper explores the Cassa Banana residents\u2019 response to their health situation over the last two years, with a particular focus on the role of the Community Health Committee (CHC) in meeting community health needs and in trying to strengthen relations with the Harare City Council and other key stakeholders. In doing so, the paper reflects on the successes and challenges faced by the CHC, and looks at issues of leadership, social cohesion and power within the community as key components to the successful mobilisation of a diverse and fractured community in trying to get its needs met. It ends by recommending possible actions to deal with the problems identified and comments on the extent to which the challenges faced in Cassa Banana can be generalised to other communities in Zimbabwe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity and achievement in access to contraceptives in East Africa between 2000 and 2010","field_subtitle":"Shah C; Griffith A; Ciera J; Zulu E; Palermo T: International Journal of Gynaecology and Obstetrics 133(1), 53-58, 2016","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0020729215007298","body":"This paper presents trends in equity in contraceptive use and contraceptive-prevalence rates in six East African countries. In this repeated cross-sectional study, Demographic and Health Survey data from women aged 15\u201349 years in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda between 2000 and 2010 were analysed. Individuals were ranked according to wealth quintile, urban/rural populations stratified, and a concentration index calculated. Equity and contraceptive-prevalence rates increased in most country regions over the study period. In rural Rwanda, contraceptive-prevalence rates increased from 3.9 to 44.0. Urban Kenya showed highest equity with a concentration index of 0.02. The Pearson correlation coefficient between improvements in concentration index and contraceptive-prevalence rates was significant. The results indicate that countries seeking to increase contraceptive use should also prioritize equity in access.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Expensive private healthcare highlighted at inquiry","field_subtitle":"Mashego P: BDLive, February 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zytdy5q","body":"The high cost of private health care in South Africa was profiled in a February 2016 health market inquiry amid revelations that South Africans pay six times the international average for hospital stays. A World Health Organisation study on price levels for private hospitals found that 42% of the funds spent on private voluntary health insurance in South Africa were equivalent to 4% of the country\u2019s gross domestic product. This is six times the average in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, despite the expenditure in SA only covering 17% of the population. The report found that South Africans stayed in hospitals for an average of 3.9 days compared to 5.1 days in OECD countries and paid an estimated R20bn in out-of-pocket payments for healthcare. Speaking on the sidelines of the inquiry, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said that healthcare prices were \"exorbitant\" and that needed to change. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Explaining retention of healthcare workers in Tanzania: moving on, coming to \u2018look, see and go\u2019, or stay?","field_subtitle":"Shemdoe A; Mbaruku G; Dillip A; Bradley S; William J; Wason D; Hildon Z: Human Resources for Health14(1)2, 2016","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4717661/","body":"In Tanzania staff shortages in the healthcare system are a persistent problem, particularly in rural areas. To explore this the authors explored which cadres are most problematic to recruit and keep in post, for what reasons and why do some stay and cope? Qualitative data were generated through semi-structured interviews with Council Health Management Teams, and Critical Incident Technique interviews with mid-level cadres. Complementary quantitative survey data were collected from district health officials. Mid-level cadres were problematic to retain and caused significant disruptions to continuity of care when they left. Reasons for wanting to leave included perceptions of personal safety, feeling patient outcomes were compromised by poor care or as a result of perceived failed promises. Staying and coping with unsatisfactory conditions was often about being settled into a community, rather than into the post. The Human Resources for Health system in Tanzania was reported to lack transparency. The authors suggest that centralised monitoring could help to avoid early departures, misallocation of training, and to enable other incentives. It should match workers' profiles to the most suitable post for them and track their progress and rewards; training managers and holding them accountable. In addition, they argue that priority should be given to workplace safety, late night staff transport, modernised and secure compound housing, and in measures to involve the community in reforming the culture and practices in services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploring perceptions of community health policy in Kenya and identifying implications for policy change","field_subtitle":"Mccollum R; Otiso L; Mireku M; Theobald S; de Koning K; Hussein S; Taegtmeyer M: Health Policy and Planning 31(1),10, 2016","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/03/26/heapol.czv007.full","body":"Kenya is currently revising its community health strategy (CHS) alongside political devolution, revisioning responsibility for local services. This explores drivers of policy change from key informant perspectives and perceptions of current community health services from community and sub-county levels, including perceptions of what is and what is not working well. It highlights implications for managing policy change. The authors conducted 40 in-depth interviews and 10 focus group discussions with a range of participants to capture plural perspectives from policymakers, sub-county health management teams, facility managers, community health extension worker (CHEW), community health workers (CHWs), clients and community members in two purposively selected counties: Nairobi and Kitui.  There was widespread community appreciation for the existing strategy. High attrition, lack of accountability for voluntary CHWs and lack of funds to pay CHW salaries, combined with high CHEW workload were seen as main drivers for strategy change. Areas that informants felt should change included: lack of clear supervisory structure and adequate travel resources, uneven coverage and inequity in community health services, limited community knowledge about the strategy and home-based HIV testing and counselling. The recommendations point towards a more people-centred health system for improved equity and effectiveness, if the policy is to be effectively implemented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"14-18 November 2016, Vancouver, Canada","field_url":"http://www.csih.org/en/events/fourth-global-symposium-on-health-systems-research/","body":"The Canadian Society for International Health (CSIH) is organizing the Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Vancouver at the Vancouver Convention Centre on behalf of Health Systems Global (HSG). The theme for 2016 is \u201cResilient and responsive health systems for a changing world\u201d. The Global Symposium on Health Systems Research is hosted every two years by HSG to bring together its members with the full range of players involved in health systems and policy research. The Symposium aims to share new state-of-the-art evidence; review the progress and challenges towards implementation of the global agenda of priority research; identify and discuss the approaches to strengthen the scientific rigour of health systems research including concepts, frameworks, measures and methods; and facilitate greater research collaboration and learning communities across disciplines, sectors, initiatives and countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Action (GHA) Call for Papers: \u2018Gender and health inequalities: intersections with other relevant axes of oppression\u2019","field_subtitle":"Deadline: End of August 2016 ","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/30292","body":"This call for papers entitled \u2018Gender and health inequalities: intersections with other relevant axes of oppression\u2019 aims to generate knowledge about how gender inequalities in health/disease/mortality/and access to health care systems interact with other important axes of oppression (race/ethnicity, social class, religion, and/or migratory status, among others) through different levels of power (from the global to the local) at different lifetime stages for a population. It also aims to contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between gender (in)equalities and health (inequalities). The editors welcome different types of contributions: empirical research, theoretical papers, methodological papers, and reviews. Studies aiming to contribute to developing gender and social theories building on intersectional, ecosocial, relational, or biosocial approaches are welcome. Also of interest are methodological papers using qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods, and are particularly studies that explore means of better addressing the complexity of analysing health inequalities according to this multidimensional or multiple approach. The editors also welcome papers that address not only issues of dominance and/or suffering but also those about resistance, agency, resilience, and/or empowerment. They encourage submissions from researchers working in low-, middle-, and high-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementing the International Health Regulations cannot just be about epidemic emergencies","field_subtitle":"Rangarirai Machemedze, SEATINI, Rene Loewenson, TARSC ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nSuccessive epidemics of international concern such as SARS, Ebola, Zika have raised the focus on responses to health emergencies, as \u2018global health security\u2019. It has also given new attention to the implementation of the International Health Regulations (IHR), including as an agenda item in the World Health Organisation\u2019s 2016 World Health Assembly. \r\n\r\nThe IHR were adopted globally by member states in the WHO in 2005, including by all 46 countries in its Africa region. They seek to prevent, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of diseases \u201c\u2026in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks, and which avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade.\u201d  Countries were required by June 2012 to have developed core public health capacities for surveillance, reporting on and response to public health risks and emergencies, including at ports of entry.  This includes capacities to provide specialized staff, multi-sectoral teams and laboratories and local investigations to prepare for, prevent and rapidly contain and control cross border public health risks that may be due to infectious diseases, food safety, and to chemical, radiation and zoonotic hazards. Countries unable to meet these core capacities by June 2012 could request for an extension to 2014 and in exceptional circumstances to June 2016. So we are now a month away from the time all countries were expected to have achieved these core capacities. \r\n\r\nThese capacities are not delinked from the core capacities needed to protect public health within countries, nor from comprehensive primary health care approaches that seek to engage all sectors to promote health and prevent ill health. Within countries, these capacities are not just a matter for the health sector. They call for society, state, private sector and non-state organizations to promote public health. For example, preventing communities living near mines from being poisoned by arsenic or mercury contamination of water, soil, and food calls for intervention from local authorities, planners, mine managers, state sectors responsible for infrastructure, mining, environment, health and labour, workers and communities. This includes workers and families who migrate from other countries to work on mines and who may otherwise return with long term lung, gastrointestinal, neurological or renal problems. While focusing on cross border risks, the presence of uncontrolled environmental risks, or of cholera, typhoid and other epidemics within African countries is not unimportant for the IHR, and certainly not for people in that country. These problems signal weaknesses in public health that may lead to risks spilling across borders. They may also arise from trade or economic determinants that are international in scope. \r\n\r\nHence, as we approach June 2016, while there has been progress in implementing the IHR, it is a matter of concern that there are still deficits in the core capacities. An October 2015 WHO report compiled feedback from 118 of 196 States Parties to the IHR on a self-assessment questionnaire on progress made in developing these core capacities. It showed that progress had been made globally in legislation and policy; coordination and collaboration with other sectors; improved detection, early warning, preparedness and emergency response capacities and in communication with the public and to stakeholders. \r\n\r\nFor the African region, reporting by March 2015 showed that African countries were also making progress on a number of core capacities. Not surprisingly given the responses and investments after the Ebola epidemic, the most notable improvements were in surveillance and laboratory capacities. Improvements in these areas are seen to be essential for early warning system for detection of any public health events for rapid response and control, to prevent them spilling over borders. There has been investment in surveillance and laboratory capacities in Africa through an Integrated Disease Surveillance Response, and international support for African and sub-regional communicable disease control centers for detection and early warning of infectious disease risks. There has, however, been less progress in preparedness, in capacities at ports of entry, and in capacities to deal with chemical and food safety risks. It suggests that while the region may be better prepared to deal with infectious disease epidemics, this may not be the case for other public health risks.\r\n\r\nThe progress suggests that the global health security agenda has given great focus to control of infectious diseases and \u2018biosecurity\u2019, not least as a response to the international spread of recent epidemics of Ebola virus and Zika virus. Significant new global resources are being mobilised for emergency responses. Assessment tools and reporting systems are being discussed in the WHO, with some proposals for new global mechanisms, global financing facilities and independent assessment by global actors.\r\n\r\nHowever global health security cannot be reduced to emergency responses and infectious disease control, nor can the prevention of cross border disease be delinked from the measures taken from local to national level within countries and between countries in their regions to strengthen the primary health care and public health functioning of health systems.  Uganda was able to respond to its 2000 Ebola epidemic within two weeks from first case to confirmation and controls being implemented. This speed of response was as much to do with the strength of systems within districts and the strength of communication between local and national levels of the health systems as the sophistication of its laboratory capacities. The spread of cholera and typhoid epidemics in Africa draws more from inadequate investment in safe water, sanitation and waste management systems and weak public health inspection than from gaps in emergency preparedness. New viral epidemics are emerging as poor communities and animal vectors are being squeezed into closer proximity by mono-cropping and mining activities; and new emergencies such as rising antimicrobial resistance are deeply embedded in how health systems function and interact with the public and with the pharmaceutical industry. Rising levels of chronic conditions in many African countries that foretell a future crisis of escalating unaffordable costs for countries and households are contributed to by cross border trade in harmful processes and products. \r\n\r\nThe global health security agenda cannot thus be narrowed to one of emergency responses to infectious disease. Instead, global health security also needs to identify and act on the determinants to prevent such emergencies. The IHR as an overarching umbrella for international public health obligations recognises this. So too, in their intent, do the Sustainable Development Goals. While many determinants of global health security lie outside the health sector, and while resources are indeed needed to deal with emergencies and their economic and social impacts, a health sector response to preventing and controlling emergencies needs to link with and support longer term health systems strengthening. This starts locally, within countries and particularly with the comprehensive primary health care and public health approaches that are needed to identify, prevent and manage risk before it grows into an emergency. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Increasing Access to High-Quality, Safe Health Technologies Across Africa: African Union Model Law on Medical Products Regulation","field_subtitle":"PATH, NEPAD, March 2016","field_url":"http://www.path.org/publications/files/APP_au_model_law_br.pdf","body":"The regulation of health technologies is a critical component of every country\u2019s public health system and ensures that high-quality, safe health technologies reach the people who need them most. To harness momentum for regulatory harmonization, the Pan-African Parliament, New Partnership for African Development, and African Union Commission spearheaded the development of the African Union Model Law on Medical Products Regulation, which guides member states and regional economic communities in harmonizing regulatory systems and providing an enabling environment for the development and scale-up of health technologies. This paper outlines the measures for implementation of the law. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"International AIDS Conference","field_subtitle":"17th-22nd July 2016, Durban, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.aids2016.org/","body":"The International AIDS Conference is a gathering for those working in the field of HIV, as well as policy makers, persons living with HIV and other individuals committed to ending the pandemic. It is a chance to assess state of affairs, evaluate recent scientific developments and lessons learnt, and collectively chart a course forward.  The AIDS 2016 programme will present new scientific knowledge and offer many opportunities for structured dialogue on the major issues facing the global response to HIV. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Making the SDGs Transformational: UNRISD and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development","field_subtitle":"Ladd P: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/gkwkjr7","body":"UNRISD director Paul Ladd shares his reflections on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He argues that social development means keeping people at the centre, and recognising the contributions that can be made by all people, regardless of gender, age, race, ethnicity, physical ability, sexuality or any other characteristic. Enhancing well-being means that processes, relationships and institutions need to be transformed into ones that are based on equity and justice. This is critically shaped by how governments are run, how technology is used, how people adapt to demographic change, and how economies are structured, all of which depends on the political agenda. He argues that the 17 SDGs have many welcome innovations, including the aspiration to not tackle issues in silos, to leave no one behind and the recognition that all countries have problems. This presents a more political agenda than the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that preceded them, with solutions largely found in policy change and doing things differently, rather than solely spending more money on technocratic 'solutions' that, while well-meaning, ignored the power dynamics that determine who benefits from them and who is left by the wayside. Finally he observes that UNRISD\u2019s three research programmes\u2014social policy, gender and development, and the social dimensions of sustainable development\u2014intend to make a critical contribution to debates on which policies and institutions, in which contexts, will make the most progress towards achieving the SDGs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Modelling the impact of raising tobacco taxes on public health and finance","field_subtitle":"Goodchild M; Perucic AM; Nargis N: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 94(4), 233-308","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/4/15-164707-ab/en/","body":"This study investigated the potential for tobacco taxes to contribute to the 2030 agenda for sustainable development by reducing tobacco use, saving lives and generating tax revenues. A model of the global cigarette market in 2014 \u2013 developed using data for 181 countries \u2013 was used to quantify the impact of raising cigarette excise in each country by one international dollar (I$) per 20-cigarette pack. All currencies were converted into I$ using purchasing power parity exchange rates. The results were summarized by income group and region. According to the study model, the tax increase would lead the mean retail price of cigarettes to increase by 42% \u2013 from 3.20 to 4.55 I$ per 20-cigarette pack. The prevalence of daily smoking would fall by 9% \u2013 from 14.1% to 12.9% of adults \u2013 resulting in 66 million fewer smokers and 15 million fewer smoking-attributable deaths among the adults who were alive in 2014. Cigarette excise revenue would increase by 47% \u2013 from 402 billion to 593 billion I$ \u2013 giving an extra 190 billion I$s in revenue. This, in turn, could help create the fiscal space required to finance development priorities. For example, if the extra revenue was allocated to health budgets, public expenditure on health could increase by 4% globally. The authors argue that tobacco taxation can prevent millions of smoking-attributable deaths and create the fiscal space needed to finance development, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Out-of-pocket expenditure and its determinants in the context of private healthcare sector expansion in sub-Saharan Africa urban cities: evidence from household survey in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso","field_subtitle":"Beogo I; Huang N; Gagnon MP; Amendah D: BMC Research Notes 9(1)34, 2016","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4721044/","body":"This study investigated the level and determinants of  out-of-pocket (OOP) spending among individuals reporting illness or injury in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and who either self-treated or received healthcare in either a private or public facility. A cross-sectional study was conducted with a representative sample of 1017 households in 2011. Among the surveyed sample, 29.6% persons reported a sickness or injury. Public providers were the single most important providers of care, whereas private and informal providers accounted for 29.8 and 34.0%, respectively. Almost universally (96%), households paid directly for care, with an average expenditure per episode of illness of 17.4USD. The total expenditure was higher for those receiving care in private facilities compared to public ones and the insured patients\u2019 bill almost tripled uninsured. Medication was the most expensive component of expenditure in both public and private facilities. OOP was the principal payment mechanism of households. Considering the importance of private healthcare in Burkina Faso, the authors argue that regulatory oversight is necessary and an extensive protection policy to shield households from catastrophic health expenditure is required.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory Governance Toolkit","field_subtitle":"Christian C: All Africa, 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hvwezq3","body":"This toolkit contains tools and resources relating to different categories of participatory governance practices, including for (1) public information, for citizens to access relevant information about government policies, decisions and actions; (2) education and deliberation; (3) public dialogue for communication between citizens and state; (4) design and implementation of public policies and plans that respond effectively to citizens\u2019 priorities and needs; (5) public budgets and expenditures to help citizens understand and influence decisions about the allocation of public resources, monitor public spending and hold government actors accountable for their management of public financial resources (6) monitoring and evaluating the accessibility, quality and efficiency of public services  and (7) monitoring and overseeing public action and seeking retribution for injustices or misdeeds.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Partnerships, Power and the SDGs","field_subtitle":"Faul M: UNRISD seminar, Geneva, March 2016","field_url":"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kROW3cXOxvk","body":"Partnerships, and their accompanying networks, are now presented as an essential ingredient for fair SDG implementation. But what happens in practice? Network analysis reveals how development \u2018partners\u2019 may in fact informally depart from established rules and relationships, with the end result that networks may amplify the very disparities of power they were intended to reduce. In this seminar, Moira Faul argues that with a better understanding of how partnership works, network members could rewire relationships for more inclusion, and ultimately better policy and practice solutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health Association of South Africa 2016 Conference","field_subtitle":"19th - 22th September 2016, East London Convention Centre, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.phasa.org.za/conference/","body":"The Public Health Association of South Africa 2016 Conference builds on the 2015 Conference theme of \u201cHealth and Sustainable Development: The Future\u201d. The 2016 Conference will focus on how public health education as well as practice will need to transform to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 2016 Conference will feature workshops, satellite sessions, panel discussions, oral and poster presentations and site visits. The panel debate format of 2015 will be retained with National Health Insurance a potential topic. The 2016 Conference forms part of the University of Fort Hare\u2019s centenary and this very special occasion will be marked during the opening of the conference.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"SDGs indicators: more about politics than statistics","field_subtitle":"Vandemoortele J: Deliver 2030, February 2016","field_url":"http://deliver2030.org/?p=6738","body":"In his book Damned Lies and Statistics (2001), Best points out that \u2018people who bring statistics to our attention have reasons for doing so\u2019. Some statistics are manufactured and manipulated as ammunition for political struggles, although their purpose is hidden behind assertions of objectivity and accuracy. The author argues that numbers often get amplified in the echo chamber of mainstream media and that one should never accept on face value that statistics always reveal truths. He argues that they are often used to manage perceptions more than to help analysis and  understanding of complex realities.  He thus urges people to be involved in reviewing and commenting on the work of and proposals from the UN Statistical Commission as they develop indicators for the SDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The China Africa Project","field_subtitle":"Olander E; vanStaden C: China Africa Project, 2016","field_url":"http://www.chinaafricaproject.com","body":"The China Africa Project is a multimedia resource dedicated to exploring various aspects of China\u2019s growing engagement with Africa.  Through a combination of original content and curation of third-party material from across the Internet, the CAP\u2019s objective is purely informational. The site states that none of the blog\u2019s authors or producers have any vested interest in any Chinese or African position.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The West African Health Organization\u2019s experience in improving the health research environment in the ECOWAS region","field_subtitle":"Aidam J; Sombi\u00e9 I: Health Research Policy and Systems14(30), 20 April 2016","field_url":"http://health-policy-systems.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12961-016-0102-7","body":"The West African Health Organization (WAHO) implemented a research development program in West Africa during 2009\u20132013  with components of  stewardship, financing, sustainable resourcing and research utilization. This paper describes how programme and lessons learnt, triangulating activity reports, an independent evaluation and the authors\u2019 experiences with stakeholders. WAHO and major stakeholders validated these findings during a regional meeting. All 15 ECOWAS countries benefited from this regional research development programme. WAHO provided technical and financial support to eight countries to develop their policies, priorities and plans for research development to improve their research governance and organised capacity-strengthening training in health systems research methodology, resource mobilization, ethical oversight and on HRWeb, a research information management platform. WAHO helped launch a regional network of health research institutions to improve collaboration between regional participating institutions and mobilised funding for the programme. It supported 24 health research projects. High staff turnover, weak institutional capacities and ineffective collaboration were some of the challenges encountered during implementation. The regional collaborative approach to health research was found to be effective given the challenges in the region, and with research partnerships and funding helped strengthen local health research environments. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in socioeconomic disparities in a rapid under-five mortality transition: a longitudinal study in the United Republic of Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Kant\u00e9 A; Nathan R; Jackson E; Levira F; Helleringer S; Masanja H; Phillips J: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 94(4), 233-308","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/4/15-154658.pdf","body":"This study explored trends in socioeconomic disparities and under-five mortality rates in rural parts of the United Republic of Tanzania between 2000 and 2011. The authors used longitudinal data on births, deaths, migrations, maternal educational attainment and household characteristics from the Ifakara and Rufiji health and demographic surveillance systems. They estimated hazard ratios (HR) for associations between mortality and maternal educational attainment or relative household wealth, using Cox hazard regression models. The under-five mortality rate declined in Ifakara from 132.7 deaths per 1000 live births in 2000 to 66.2 in 2011 and in Rufiji from 118.4 deaths per 1000 live births in 2000 to 76.2 in 2011. Combining both sites, in 2000\u20132001, the risk of dying for children of uneducated mothers was 1.44 times higher than for children of mothers who had received education beyond primary school and in 2010\u20132011, the HR was 1.18. In contrast, mortality disparities between richest and poorest quintiles worsened in Rufiji, from 1.20 in 2000\u20132001 to 1.48 in 2010\u20132011, while in Ifakara, disparities narrowed from 1.30 to 1.15 in the same period. While childhood survival has improved, mortality disparities still persist. The authors thus argue for  policies and programmes that both reduce child mortality and address socioeconomic disparities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"UNU-WIDER PhD Internships","field_subtitle":"Applications open 1 March and 1 September of each year","field_url":"https://www.wider.unu.edu/opportunity/unu-wider-phd-internships","body":"The UNU-WIDER PhD Internship Programme gives registered doctoral students an opportunity to utilize the resources and facilities at UNU-WIDER for their PhD dissertation or thesis research, and to work with UNU-WIDER researchers in areas of mutual interest. PhD interns typically spend 3 consecutive months at UNU-WIDER and return to their home institution afterwards. They prepare one or more research papers and present a seminar on their research findings. PhD interns may also have the opportunity to publish their research in UNU-WIDER\u2019s working paper series. Applicants must be enrolled in a PhD programme and have shown ability to conduct research on developing economies. Candidates working in other social sciences may apply but should keep in mind that UNU-WIDER is an economics-focused institute. Candidates should be fluent in oral and written English and possess good quantitative and/or qualitative analytical skills. Preference is given to applicants who are living or working in developing countries and who are at later stages of the PhD. For further information see the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Video: Health care in Cuba and the Philippines: what are the differences?","field_subtitle":"Third World Health Aid, April 2016","field_url":"https://vimeo.com/160877078","body":"April 7 was World Health Day and the European Day of Action against commercialisation of Health Care. For this occasion, Third World Health Aid launched its new video that compares the health system of Cuba with the privatized system in the Philippines and its impact on the population. It spreads a strong message of the necessity of free and accessible health care, and community involvement. In this video, Third World Health Aid compare the situation in two developing countries. Cuba is famous for its excellent health care, which is free of charge for its citizens. In the Philippines, access to health care is not so evident. Third World Health Aid see a big inequality. What explains this big difference.? The video shows a walk together with local health workers in the neighbourhoods of Havana and Manilla, the capitals of these two countries. It shows the different experiences of the broad range of factors affecting health, including health care. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Wellbeing Economics and Buen Vivir: Development Alternatives for Inclusive Human Security","field_subtitle":"Ruttenberg T: Wellbeing Economics and Buen Vivir, XXVIII, 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/glgj8wd","body":"As international development strategies struggle to address issues of human insecurity and socioeconomic inequality, inspiring alternatives are taking shape outside the traditional development discourse. The author argues that locating development strategies within the current neoliberal capitalist framework limits the possibility of success of development goals and strategies, largely designed by 'the North' and argued to be rarely successful in 'the South'. The author argues that these have potential to transform development policy in the South. This article discusses well-being economics, questioning the notion that high income and consumption constitutes genuine wealth, noting that income contributes up to the point of satisfying basic needs, after which human well-being is argued to rest on supporting the development of human potentialities through meaningful livelihoods, strengthening social relations and promoting ways of life in harmony with nature. She argues that this is being applied in the political philosophy of \u201cbuen vivir\u201d (living well) in selected Latin American social movements and states to guide  a development policy that is more inclusive of human security and their environments. The paper explores the manner in which the concept puts  improvement of the quality of life, capacities and potential of the population and its harmonious coexistence with nature at the centre of the economic system, within constitutions, policies  in selected countries and in relation to their impact.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"White Paper: National Sanitation Policy","field_subtitle":"South African National Department of Health: Pretoria,  2016","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/160212draftnationalsanitationpolicy.pdf","body":"The sanitation sector in South Africa is currently regulated by three policy documents, namely the White Paper on Water Supply and Sanitation (1994); the White Paper on a National Water Policy of South Africa (1997) and the White Paper on Basic Household Sanitation (2001). These documents provide procedures, rules and allocation mechanisms for sanitation, implemented through laws, regulations; economic measures; information and education programmes; and assignment of rights and responsibilities for providing services. After several years of implementation, a number of challenges and unintended consequences were identified. The regulatory responsibilities were unclear, shifting between departments. Devolving responsibility for implementation to local government resulted in significant changes in the sector. Increased urbanisation is noted to increase stress on urban sanitation systems, but so too is changing human settlement in rural areas placing increased strain on small and limited sanitation systems. The department thus argues for policy review to address these challenges to deliver sanitation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Nutrition Congress 2016","field_subtitle":"30th Aug - 2nd Sept 2016, Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.wncapetown2016.com","body":"This congress is taking place at a time of unprecedented challenges in population nutrition. Global and national food systems are increasingly concentrated and globalised, with small scale food production being rapidly marginalised in countries where such activity previously predominated. In many countries people are mobilising to defend their rights and taking action to recover and preserve indigenous and environmentally sustainable food systems. Several African countries are experiencing a \u2018nutrition transition\u2019 but are not yet as advanced along this trajectory as is South Africa, your host country. Together with \u2018Big Food\u2019 \u2013 large corporations in the food system \u2013 South African food companies (manufacturers and retailers) are expanding into Sub-Saharan Africa, influencing many countries\u2019 food environments and nutritional indicators. Hence, South Africa\u2019s experience and policies can inform improved understanding and policy making on the continent and can also provide a platform for all concerned with the impact of the food system on the health of humanity and our planet. The holding of the WPHNA Congress in South Africa has the potential to inform key policy makers and researchers and significantly shape the food and nutrition policy landscape in South Africa, Africa and beyond.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Yellow fever vaccine supply: a possible solution","field_subtitle":"Monath T; Woodall J; Gubler D;  Yuill T; Mackenzie J;Martins R; Reiter P; Heymann D: The Lancet 387;10028; 1599\u20131600, 2016 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)30195-7/fulltext","body":"The authors note the emerging epidemic of yellow fever in Angola and spread of similar Aedes aegypti mosquito-borne viruses including dengue, chikungunya, and now Zika, albeit with differences noted. Yellow fever was first identified as a viral infection in 1900, has been reported from more than 57 countries and yellow fever outbreaks have case fatality rates as high as 75% in hospitalised cases. There has been an effective yellow fever vaccine since the late 1930s, but with outbreaks in unvaccinated populations in 1987 in urban Nigeria,  despite a mass vaccination campaign. According to WHO, the current yellow fever outbreak is in more than six of Angola's 18 provinces, and there has been movement of unvaccinated travellers from Angola to neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, but also to further states, including Mauritania, and China. Southeast Asian countries are now considered at risk because the Aedes vector is present and the population is unvaccinated.  However should yellow fever outbreaks occur elsewhere in Africa, in Latin America, or in Asia, the authors note that the current global supplies of yellow fever vaccine may be inadequate. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Applications: 2016 Small Grants Programme for Thesis Writing","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 30 April 2016","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2524&lang=en","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) has announced the twenty-seventh session of its Small Grants Programme for Thesis Writing. The grants serve as part of the Council\u2019s contribution to the development of the social sciences in Africa, and the continuous renewal and strengthening of research capacities in African universities, through the funding of primary research conducted by postgraduate students. Hence, candidates whose applications are successful are encouraged to use the resources provided under the grants to cover the cost of their fieldwork, the acquisition of books and documents, the processing of data which they have collected and the printing of their dissertations. The CODESRIA Small Grants Programme is opened to students currently registered in PhD in African universities, and preparing their research in all social science fields and other disciplines involving social or economic analysis. The research proposal should be based on an innovative problematic which sets out the originality of the theme in relation to on-going research in the same area. Candidates\u2019 research proposals should each contain a clear statement of the research hypotheses, a critical review of the existing literature, the methodology to be used, the expected results of the work, and a detailed work plan and timetable. Grants are awarded solely on merit. All applicants are required to use the application forms designed by CODESRIA, accessible via their website.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Papers: Writing South Africa Now: a Colloquium, 16-17 June 2016, ","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 4 March 2016","field_url":"https://writingsouthafricanow.wordpress.com","body":"In 2013, it was reported that more than two-thirds of South Africa\u2019s citizens now live in the country\u2019s sprawling urban areas. The Gauteng region alone saw its population swell to some 12 million, an increase of more than 30% in 10 years and more than double the national average. Such statistics, while significant, are not in themselves very instructive. The everyday impact of South Africa\u2019s urbanisation in the years since apartheid, the daily struggles the the poor urban infrastructure imposes, the expanding social and spatial inequalities that fragment the city, and the architecture of anxiety that determines so many ordinary urban habits, are better understood through the narratives crafted by the city\u2019s writers, filmmakers, performers and visual artists, In the imaginative writing of the city, established authors such as Ivan Vladislavic, William Kentridge, and Willie Bester contribute as much to our understanding of the South African city as the emerging voices of photographers and filmmakers such as Mikhael Subotzky, Ramadan Suleman, and Oliver Hermanus. Moreover, like the graffiti commonly daubed on the M1 underpass in Newtown, Johannesburg and the fiction titles that line the shelves of Cape Town\u2019s Book Lounge, the form these stories adopt and the networks through which they find expression are as diverse and uneven as the cityscapes themselves.  Now in it\u2019s fourth year, Writing South Africa Now calls for academic papers that contribute to the ongoing writing of the South African city. For academic papers, send an abstract of 300 words and brief biography to the organisers by 4th March. For artistic contributions, send an outline of the proposed contribution of examples of work, along with a brief biography to organisers as soon as possible. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Coursera: Systems Thinking in Public Health","field_subtitle":"Johns Hopkins University: Next course enrolment ends May 2 ","field_url":"http://www.coursera.org/learn/systems-thinking/","body":"This course provides an introduction to systems thinking and systems models in public health. It requires 4 weeks of study, 4-5 hours/week, as an online course. Problems in public health and health policy tend to be complex with many actors, institutions and risk factors involved. If an outcome depends on many interacting and adaptive parts and actors the outcome cannot be analyzed or predicted with traditional statistical methods. Systems thinking is a core skill in public health and helps health policymakers build programs and policies that are aware of and prepared for unintended consequences. An important part of systems thinking is the practice to integrate multiple perspectives and synthesize them into a framework or model that can describe and predict the various ways in which a system might react to policy change. Systems thinking and systems models devise strategies to account for real world complexities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Delivering Social Protection Systems for All: Why Taxes Matter","field_subtitle":"Bastagli F: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), 5 October 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zgcyjdu","body":"Social protection and taxation feature prominently as key policy instruments available to governments in the pursuit of development goals in both the Financing for Development (FFD) Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This reflects a growing recognition among policy makers in the international development context of the powerful role fiscal policy plays in shaping development outcomes. It also represents an important opportunity for closer consideration of the ways in which taxation and social protection operate jointly in practice. Taxes and transfers commonly continue to be discussed separately, yet in practice they interact to shape the distribution and redistribution of income and wealth both directly \u2013 through the distribution of transfers and the tax burden \u2013 and by influencing processes of government accountability and legitimacy, the quality of service provision and people\u2019s willingness to pay taxes. If appropriately designed and implemented, taxes and transfers can make a significant dent in poverty and inequality. In high-income OECD countries, direct taxes and transfers alone contribute to an average 30% reduction in income inequality, reducing the average Gini coefficient from 0.41 to 0.29. In comparison, in developing countries, their impact is more muted. There is thus scope to strengthen these systems, particularly as in July 2015, world leaders in Addis Ababa agreed on a commitment to delivering social protection and essential public services for all through a new social compact to \u2018end poverty in all its forms everywhere\u2019. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"ECSA Health Community and EQUINET Regional workshop on global health diplomacy","field_subtitle":"ECSA HC and EQUINET: April 7-8 2016, Nairobi, Kenya","field_url":"","body":"In 2012 EQUINET initiated a three year policy research programme working with government officials, researchers, diplomats and others in the ESA region on the role of  health diplomacy and international co-operation in health, including south \u2013south diplomacy, in addressing selected key challenges to health and strengthening health systems. We aimed to use the evidence and learning to inform African policy actors and stakeholders within processes of health diplomacy. The work was done in association with the Strategic Initiative of Global Health Diplomacy co-ordinated by the East Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC). The research reports and policy briefs have been produced and are included in the EQUINET publications on this website. A March 2015 workshop included senior officials from national and regional organisations, health diplomats, researchers from the EQUINET work and others working on health diplomacy and on south-south co-operation in the region and internationally. The workshop discussed the evidence from the EQUINET research and from research on GHD from other institutions with a particular focus on east and southern Africa and proposed areas for follow up policy, action and research, within ESA and through south-south collaboration. The meeting report is on this website. EQUINET is now taking forward the proposals from this meeting in association with a consortium of institutions in the region, and is working with the ECSA Health Community in its Strategic initiative on global health diplomacy to share evidence and analysis for key global processes, including in the forthcoming regional workshop on GHD hosted by the ECSA HC with EQUINET. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 181: Human rights approaches can advance maternal health: Lessons from Uganda","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Fighting the scourge of female genital mutilation in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Mmaka V: Pambuzuka News 762, 18 February 2016","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/features/96643","body":"Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is outlawed in Kenya. In this interview, Kenyan activist John Wafula holds the view that: \u201cFGM is not a culturally enriching choice but rather a tool to isolate women and girls for disempowerment, domination and stagnation. If FGM negates girls\u2019 right to education and healthy bodies then it ceases to be tenable as a cultural identity\u201d. Prior to interventions to address FGM, he reports undertaking a baseline study to establish the prevalence of FGM in refugee camps, survivors, practitioners. The reasons why FGM was practiced, mostly among refugees of Somali descent, included perceptions that uncircumcised women would otherwise be unfaithful and ineligible for marriage. Their efforts to prevent FGM entailed creating awareness about its health, social and psychological consequences at the community level. They also invited religious scholars to engage the community on religion-based myths that were peddled to justify FGM. They sensitized school children on human rights, which also encompassed protection against any form of violence, FGM included. They targeted refugee community leaders for sensitization because of their visible position as community gatekeepers. The 2014 Kenya Demographic Health Survey indicated a nation-wide prevalence of 23%, down from 27% in 2008-09 and 32% in 2003. After enactment of the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act in 2011, an Anti-FGM Board was established that is reviewing a FGM policy with vigorous media campaigns to sensitize the public on the Act, supported by insights from research. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth AfHEA Scientific Conference","field_subtitle":"Rabat, Morocco, 26-29 September 2016","field_url":"http://afhea.org/en/conferences/conference-2016-rabat/call-for-abstracts","body":"The overall theme of this conference is \u201cThe Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Grand Convergence and Health in Africa\u201d. This theme recognizes the new international health economics and policy landscape with the end of the MDGs and the adoption in September 2015 of the successor SDG global initiative. It seeks to provide an African perspective and analysis of this emerging landscape and agenda. AfHEA will publish a policy paper on this new agenda and the perspectives after the conference. Visit the website for more details.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender, Diseases and Public Health Governance in Africa, 4th -15th July 2016, Dakar, Senegal","field_subtitle":"Deadline for Applications: 15 April 2016","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2528","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) invites researchers to submit their applications for participation in the 2016 Gender Institute to be held from 4th to 15th of July, 2016 in Dakar, Senegal. The re-emergence of a more virulent strain of the Ebola Haemorrhagic Fever (EHF) in West Africa in 2014 has brought to light some key issues of public health governance in Africa. One such issue is the gendered nature of epidemic-prone infectious diseases in Africa. Current epidemiological statistics on Ebola indicate that though the initial cases were predominantly male, the disease is slowly becoming a female epidemic in the affected countries in Africa. This gendered pattern of female vulnerability to disease in its progression and as it progresses in the population, mirrors that of HIV/AIDS. Understanding gender and disease has serious implications for governance of public health in Africa. Governance of public health in Africa relates to more than just the role of government. The relationship between gender, disease and governance of public health raises some key questions which this Institute will explore. Applicants should be PhD candidates or scholars in their early career with a proven capacity to conduct research on the theme of the Institute. Intellectuals active in the policy process and/or social movements and civil society organisations are also encouraged to apply. The number of places offered by CODESRIA for this session is limited to ten (10). Non-African scholars who are able to raise funds for their participation may also apply for a limited number of places. Applicants\u2019 proposals must bring together the three components of the topic: gender, diseases and governance of public health In Africa. The proposed work can be based on empirical studies including field work using quantitative or qualitative methodologies; analytical work involving analysis of existing data or case studies. All work must have some theoretical grounding. Papers can be from any social science discipline including gender studies, sociology, anthropology, demography, economics; or health sciences like epidemiology or biostatistics. Scholars are encouraged to show through their work the way in which gender, diseases and public health governance are linked.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Wealth Inequality - What you never knew you never knew","field_subtitle":"TheRulesOrg: You tube, April 2013","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWSxzjyMNpU","body":"While global inequality has become even more intense since this it was made, this short 4 minute video has some quick visuals on global inequalities in wealth. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health care is a social investment: An interview with South Africa's Minister of Health","field_subtitle":"Smith J: Mercury, 22 January 2016","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/mercury/health-care-is-a-social-investment-1.1974711","body":"This paper presents an interview with South Africa's Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi. in which he answers six big questions about the National Health Insurance White Paper: Are you intending to stop medical schemes providing the same services as NHI? Are you intending to curb, if not entirely limit, private health care? Was a battle with the Treasury over the enormous amounts of public money it\u2019s going to take to fund NHI a main reason behind the delay in releasing the White Paper? What\u2019s the point in the Healthcare Market Inquiry (HMI)? You\u2019re looking at full implementation of the NHI by 2025. Is that fair? It presents the Minister's answers. He notes that the NHI envisages a society based on values, justice, fairness and social solidarity. Health care is a social investment, therefore it should not be subject to the normal market forces and treated as a normal commodity. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health System Global call for multimedia for the Global Symposium for Health Systems Research, November 2016","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: April 28 2016","field_url":"http://healthsystemsresearch.org/hsr2016/call-for-multimedia/","body":"Health system global is calling for short films, documentaries, animated films, photo-essays, and other multimedia, that address any of the six symposium themes of the 4th Global Symposium for Health Systems Research in Vancouver this year (14-18 November).  Submissions welcomed from health researchers, film-makers, activists and artists engaging with the content outlined in themes. Submissions will be peer reviewed and selected on the basis of the relevance of the content to the symposium and the ability to convey the message of the thematic areas. Please note that the technical quality of the media (cinematography, animation, professional editing) will not be the primary criteria for selection. Full details on submissions found at the website indicated.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Systems Trust Conference 2016","field_subtitle":"4th-6th May 2016, Gauteng, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.hstconference2016.org.za","body":"Health Systems Trust (HST) is hosting a conference from 4-6 May 2016 at the Birchwood Conference Centre, Boksburg, Gauteng.  Under the banner of Health for all through strengthened health systems: sharing, supporting, synergising, the event is designed to advance the global public health agenda in improving health outcomes. The conference will provide a forum in which those who contribute in various ways to the South African health system can exchange ideas, develop support mechanisms for common challenges, and foster synergies between interested groups. The three-day conference will convene approximately 300 healthcare workers from the public and private sectors as well as policy- and decision-makers, civil society groupings and academics. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"How Kenya confirmed the deathbed of WTO","field_subtitle":"Campbell H: Pambuzuka News 756, 8 January 2016","field_url":": http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/features/96304/print","body":"The author argues that the outcome of the last WTO Ministerial, the 'Nairobi Package', was in fact a slap in the face for the peoples of the South. He observes it to be especially egregious that the US used the 10th Ministerial, with the help of the Kenyan leadership, to undermine the future of Pan-African trading relations and to drive a wedge between the BRICS societies and those that the US wants to manipulate in the poor countries.  He further argues that the 10th Ministerial has hastened the demise of the WTO in an article which charts the various trade agreements and roles played by state actors in the North and South in achieving unfair and unequal global agreements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights approaches can advance maternal health: Lessons from Uganda","field_subtitle":"Mulumba, Moses, Primah Kwagala, The Center for Health, Human Rights and Development","field_url":"","body":"\r\nOne question being asked in relation to the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is how they relate to human rights based approaches. In the health sector for instance, SDG 3 aims to ensure healthy lives and the promotion of well-being for all ages. This includes a target of reducing the global ratio of women dying in childbirth to less than 70 in every 100 000 live births. While maternal mortality has fallen by almost 50 per cent since 1990, fourteen times more mothers do not survive childbirth in developing countries than in developed countries. \r\n\r\nBy 2014, Uganda\u2019s maternal mortality rate was amongst the highest, with 360 mothers dying in every 100 000 live births, according to Uganda\u2019s 2014/5 Annual Health Sector Performance Report. The country has failed by a large margin to realise the target set for maternal mortality in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGS), and what should be a healthy reproductive event continues to claim women\u2019s lives in the country. The 2014 figures indicate that 6 000 Ugandan mothers die in childbirth annually, which is an average of sixteen daily, or one death every 90 minutes. \r\n\r\nThere have been a number of promising policy statements and interventions suggested by government to address this unacceptable level of mortality. Bottlenecks in the financing, delivery and uptake of maternal health services have however led to a shortfall in the delivery of these interventions. We view this situation as a complete failure by the state to deliver its constitutionally mandated obligations under Article 33 of the Constitution to provide the facilities and opportunities needed for women to realise their full potential; and to protect women and their rights, including their reproductive rights and functions in society. \r\n\r\nThe shortfall in maternal health services has been a focus of civil society advocacy in Uganda for some time. Civil society has consistently argued for the state to resolve the poor conditions in which mothers have to give birth in Uganda. It has used a human rights based approach in this, framing the demands in the language of legal rights and constitutional obligations. There is evidence of some success in this. A group of civil society organisations, led by the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD), acting together with two aggrieved families brought before the courts the deaths of two mothers. This was led as a constitutional challenge, arguing that the deaths occurred as a result of failures in the health system to provide basic commodities for safe deliveries.  In this case, the Supreme Court directed the Constitutional Court to hear the case, on the basis that the failure by the government of Uganda to provide women with basic essential care was being challenged as a contravention of Uganda\u2019s Constitution and the women\u2019s rights. \r\n\r\nThe legal battle did not go without challenges. There were constant delays, with frequent adjournments due to non-appearances by the state or the failure to assemble a full panel of judges to hear the case. The state objected to the case, claiming that the judiciary had no authority to question the political decisions of the state.  Initially the Constitutional court agreed with the state and dismissed the case. This was, however, reversed on appeal to the Supreme Court. In his judgment at the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Bart Katureebe stated that \u201c\u2026.if a citizen alleges that a health policy or actions and omissions made under that policy are inconsistent with the constitution\u2026., then the constitutional court has a duty to come in\u2026\u201d. The case is thus now before the Constitutional Court, as directed by the Supreme Court. The process to date raises an important point of law for the SDGs, and particularly Goal 16. This goal focuses on promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development. It emphasizes access to justice for all and building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. For the health sector, traditionally a reserve of public health and medical actors, the SDGs and human rights approaches indicate that other actors will now have a significant role to play. \r\n\r\nThe experience in Uganda already raises learning on this: The court process motivated civil society to advocate for health issues with one voice. It created awareness that social and economic rights are justiciable in Uganda, and that citizens can seek justice in the courts if other arms of government do not deliver on their obligations. The Ministry of Health has since pushed for increased funding for maternal health and parliament has made resolutions to support increased health financing and asked government to recruit more health workers to strengthen health services. The Ministry of Health has also now developed guidance on the mainstreaming of human rights in the provision of health care in Uganda.\r\n\r\nThe judiciary has also increased its understanding of health rights.  Subsequent court judgments have, for instance, pronounced that access to emergency obstetric care is a human right, which was not the case previously. The courts have also held a local government authority accountable for a mother\u2019s death where it failed to properly supervise the health professionals falling within its mandate. \r\n\r\nWhile there is still a lot to be done, and while the constitutional case is still pending, the experience indicates that framing health demands in the language of legal rights and constitutional obligations, including through litigation and other legal processes, can assist to place health rights as a more central issue for the court of judges and the court of public opinion. Our experience indicates that such human rights based approaches have a role to play in taking action to implement global goals to ensure healthy lives and the promotion of well-being for all ages. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Implications of dual practice for universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"McPake B, Russo G, Hipgrave D, Hort K, Campbell J: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2016;94:142-146","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4750430/","body":"Over the last five years, universal health coverage (UHC) has become an agreed goal of global health policy and planning initiatives. However, scholars and health policy-makers have noted that attaining this goal will require a sufficient number of prepared and motivated health workers. The World Health Organization (WHO) is developing a global strategy on human resources for health. A consultation has concluded that progress towards UHC will require integrated, people-centred health services, a motivated health workforce and adequate financing from domestic and other sources. While the importance of human resources in UHC and the SDG agenda has been recognized, the extent and impact of health workers\u2019 dual practice \u2013 that is, concurrent clinical practice in public and private sectors \u2013 has not received much attention. However, given the pervasiveness of dual practice and the growing prominence of the private sector in the provision of health services worldwide, its dynamics and impact on the attainment of UHC should not be ignored. Failure to understand why, how and to what extent health workers engage in dual practice may compromise attempts to regulate it and undermine progress. This paper presents dual practice examples, focusing on UHC-associated policy relevance of the available evidence, especially in low- and middle-income countries. It presents regulatory options in a range of contexts and future research needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"International AIDS Conference","field_subtitle":"17-22 July 2016, Durban, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.aids2016.org/","body":"The International AIDS Conference is a gathering for those working in the field of HIV, as well as policy makers, persons living with HIV and other individuals committed to ending the pandemic. It is a chance to assess state of affairs, evaluate recent scientific developments and lessons learnt, and collectively chart a course forward.  The AIDS 2016 programme will present new scientific knowledge and offer many opportunities for structured dialogue on the major issues facing the global response to HIV. A variety of session types \u2013 from abstract-driven presentations to symposia, bridging and plenary sessions \u2013 will meet the needs of various participants. Other related activities, including the Global Village, satellite meetings, exhibitions and affiliated independent events, will contribute to an exceptional opportunity for professional development and networking. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"International AIDS Conference","field_subtitle":"International Convention Centre, Durban, South Africa, 17-22 July 2016","field_url":"http://www.aids2016.org/","body":"The International AIDS Conference is the premier gathering for those working in the field of HIV, as well as policy makers, persons living with HIV and other individuals committed to ending the pandemic. It is a chance to assess where we are, evaluate recent scientific developments and lessons learnt, and collectively chart a course forward. Keynote speakers will cover areas such as Universal Access: Systems for health in the immediate treatment era, medicines and intellectual property, human rights and stigma.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"It\u2019s time for African leaders to take decisive action on vaccines","field_subtitle":"Ajayi A: Pambazuka News, 761, February 2016","field_url":"http://pambazuka.net/en/category/comment/96556","body":"The first-ever ministerial conference on immunization in Africa was held in February in Addis Ababa. According to the author it presents the perfect opportunity to acknowledge the benefits of vaccine programs, celebrate the successes on the continent, look seriously at what needs to be done to make sure all children get the vaccines they need, and then commit to making that happen. A new study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimates that between 2011 and 2020, the majority of countries in Africa will collectively see a net economic benefit of $224 billion by investing in immunization programs. The study also found that, in 94 low- and middle-income countries around the world, for every dollar invested in vaccines during the decade, there will be an estimated return of 16 times the costs, taking into account treatment costs and productivity losses. Unfortunately, at the current rate of progress, we are not on track to meet the ultimate goal of reaching all children with vaccines. Right now, one in five African children still do not receive the vaccinations they need. Of the 10 countries around the world with the most unvaccinated children, five are African: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge, Equity and Health in post-Apartheid South Africa...What's Race got to do with it?","field_subtitle":"University of Cape Town South Africa: September 2013","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEDF3rKx_68","body":"The School of Public Health and Family Medicine hosted a seminar and panel discussion, \"Knowledge, Equity and Health in post-Apartheid South Africa...What's Race got to do with it?\" on 1 August 2013. The guest speaker was Professor Lundy Braun from Browns University, USA. As part of its on-going programme on transformation, Professor Mohamed Jeebhay, head of the School of Public Health and Family Medicine the School of Public Health and Family Medicine invited Professor Braun to draw on her own research in reflecting on the topic. The panellists included Professor Raj Ramesar (human genetics), Glenda Wildschut (Transformation Services Office), Dr Sophia Kisting-Cairncross. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Lay Health Workers experience of a tailored knowledge translation intervention to improve job skills and knowledge: a qualitative study in Zomba district Malawi","field_subtitle":"Ritchie L;  van Lettow M; Barnsley J; Chan A; Schull M; Martiniuk A; Makwakwa A; Zwarenstein M: BMC Medical Education 16(54), 9 February 2016, doi: 10.1186/s12909-016-0580-x","field_url":"https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-016-0580-x","body":"Like many sub-Saharan African countries, Malawi is facing a critical shortage of skilled healthcare workers. In response to this crisis, a formal cadre of lay health workers (LHW) has been established and now carries out several basic health care services, including outpatient TB care and adherence support. While ongoing training and supervision are recognised as essential to the effectiveness of LHW programs, information is lacking as to how these needs are best addressed. The objective of this qualitative study was to explore LHWs responses to a tailored knowledge translation intervention they received, designed to address a previously identified training and knowledge gap. Forty-five interviews were conducted with 36 healthcare workers. Fourteen to sixteen interviews were done at each of 3 evenly spaced time blocks over a one year period, with 6 individuals interviewed more than once to assess for change both within and across individuals overtime. Reported benefits of the intervention included: increased TB, HIV, and job-specific knowledge; improved clinical skills; and increased confidence and satisfaction with their work. Suggestions for improvement were less consistent across participants, but included: increasing the duration of the training, changing to an off-site venue, providing stipends or refreshments as incentives, and adding HIV and drug dosing content. Despite the significant departure of the study intervention from the traditional approach to training employed in Malawi, the intervention was well received and highly valued by LHW participants. Given the relative low-cost and flexibility of the methods employed, this appears a promising approach to addressing the training needs of LHW programs, particularly in Low- and Middle-income countries where resources are most constrained.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Lessons from the Ebola Outbreak: Action items for emerging infectious disease preparedness and response","field_subtitle":"Jacobsen K; Aguirre A; Bailey C; Baranova A; Crooks A; Croitoru A; Delamater P; Gupta J; Kehn-Hall K; Narayanan A; Pierobon M; Rowan K; Schwebach J; Seshaiyer P; Sklarew D; Stefanidis A; Agouris P: EcoHealth, 1-13,  February 2016","field_url":"http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10393-016-1100-5","body":"As the Ebola outbreak in West Africa wanes, the author argues that it is time for the international scientific community to reflect on how to improve the detection of and coordinated response to future epidemics. The interdisciplinary author team identified key lessons learned from the Ebola outbreak that can be clustered into three areas: environmental conditions related to early warning systems, host characteristics related to public health, and agent issues that can be addressed through the laboratory sciences. In particular, they argue there is a need to increase zoonotic surveillance activities, implement more effective ecological health interventions, expand prediction modeling, support medical and public health systems in order to improve local and international responses to epidemics, improve risk communication, better understand the role of social media in outbreak awareness and response, produce better diagnostic tools, create better therapeutic medications, and design better vaccines. This list highlights research priorities and policy actions the global community can take now to be better prepared for future emerging infectious disease outbreaks that threaten global public health and security.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Making a Killing: How tax scams are robbing poor countries of life-saving healthcare","field_subtitle":"O\u2019Meara C; Hanna L; Gugushvili D: Save the Children, UK, 2015","field_url":"http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/resources/online-library/making-killing#sthash.a9K8mGmt.dpuf","body":"The authors report that the world\u2019s poorest countries are losing billions of potential tax revenue each year as a result of illicit financial flows and the tax dodging schemes associated with them. These complex and shadowy tax dealings are robbing developing countries of revenue they need to spend on essential public services. Making a Killing analyses one part of the web of illicit financial flows, the \u2018misinvoicing\u2019 of international trade \u2013 a way of hiding the true value of imports and exports, shifting profits and evading taxes. The figures are staggering. The sums being lost are comparable to the amounts currently missing from the health budgets of very poor countries \u2013 lost money that could boost total budgets and pay for desperately needed doctors, nurses, clinics, hospitals and medicines, and provide the basic minimum of decent healthcare to mothers and children. If the world is to meet its ambitious targets on health and child survival, let alone the broader objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals, illicit financial flows must be urgently addressed. This reports sets out recommendations for action by the international community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Making Medicines in Africa: The Political Economy of Industrialising for Local Health","field_subtitle":"Mackintosh M; Banda G;  Tibandebage P;  Wamae W: Palgrave Connect, December 2015","field_url":"http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/doifinder/10.1057/9781137546470","body":"The importance of the pharmaceutical industry in Sub-Saharan Africa, its claim to policy priority, is rooted in the vast unmet health needs of the sub-continent. Making Medicines in Africa is an open access online book that is a collective endeavour, by a group of contributors with a strong African and more broadly Southern presence, to find ways to link technological development, investment and industrial growth in pharmaceuticals to improve access to essential good quality medicines, as part of moving towards universal access to competent health care in Africa. The authors aim to shift the emphasis in international debate and initiatives towards sustained Africa-based and African-led initiatives to tackle this huge challenge. The authors argue that without the technological, industrial, intellectual, organisational and research-related capabilities associated with competent pharmaceutical production, and without policies that pull the industrial sectors towards serving local health needs, the African sub-continent cannot generate the resources to tackle its populations' needs and demands. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Making public in a privatised world: The struggle for essential services","field_subtitle":"McDonald D: Zed Books, 15 February 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jgh9d7s","body":"In the wake of recent widespread failures of privatisation efforts, many communities in the global south now seek new, progressive ways to revitalise the public sector. From rural Guatemalan towns holding the state accountable for public health to an alliance of waste pickers in India and decentralised solar electricity initiatives in Africa, people worldwide are rising up with innovative public service solutions to difficult issues. Making Public in a Privatised World explores such cases, with essays that uncover the radically different ways grassroots movements have proved themselves as successful alternatives in providing essential public services where privatised efforts have failed. Using numerous in-depth case studies, this book offers probing insights from a diverse range of contributors from across the world, including academics, activists, unionists, and social movement organisers. Making Public in a Privatised World addresses the growing worldwide interest in exciting alternatives to privatisation in both developed and developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal mental health in primary care in five low- and middle-income countries: a situational analysis","field_subtitle":"Baron E; Hanlon C; Mall S; Honikman S; Breuer E; Kathree T; Luitel N; Nakku J; Lund C; Medhin G; Patel V; Petersen I; Shrivastava, S; Tomlinson M: BMC Health Services Research 16(53), 16 February 2016, doi: 10.1186/s12913-016-1291-z","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4754802/","body":"The integration of maternal mental health into primary health care has been advocated to reduce the mental health treatment gap in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This study reports findings of a cross-country situation analysis on maternal mental health and services available in five LMICs, to inform the development of integrated maternal mental health services integrated into primary health care. The situation analysis was conducted in five districts in Ethiopia, India, Nepal, South Africa and Uganda, as part of the Programme for Improving Mental Health Care (PRIME). The analysis reports secondary data on the prevalence and impact of priority maternal mental disorders (perinatal depression, alcohol use disorders during pregnancy and puerperal psychosis), existing policies, plans and services for maternal mental health, and other relevant contextual factors, such as explanatory models for mental illness. Limited data were available at the district level, although generalizable data from other sites was identified in most cases. Community and facility-based prevalences ranged widely across PRIME countries for perinatal depression (3\u201350 %) and alcohol consumption during pregnancy (5\u201351 %). Maternal mental health was included in mental health policies in South Africa, India and Ethiopia, and a mental health care plan was in the process of being implemented in South Africa. No district reported dedicated maternal mental health services, but referrals to specialised care in psychiatric units or general hospitals were possible. No information was available on coverage for maternal mental health care. Challenges to the provision of maternal mental health care included; limited evidence on feasible detection and treatment strategies for maternal mental disorders, lack of mental health specialists in the public health sector, lack of prescribing guidelines for pregnant and breastfeeding women, and stigmatising attitudes among primary health care staff and the community. It is difficult to anticipate demand for mental health care at district level in the five countries, given the lack of evidence on the prevalence and treatment coverage of women with maternal mental disorders. Limited evidence on effective psychosocial interventions was also noted, and must be addressed for mental health programmes, such as PRIME, to implement feasible and effective services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring health inequities in low and middle income countries for the development of observatories on inequities and social determinants of health","field_subtitle":"Guerra G; Borde E; Salgado de Snyder V: International Journal for Equity in Health 15(9), January 2016,","field_url":"http://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-016-0297-9","body":"Almost seven years after the publication of the final report of the World Health Organisation\u2019s Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH), its third recommendation has not been attended to properly. Measuring health inequities (HI) within countries and globally, in order to develop and evaluate evidence-based policies and actions aimed at the social determinants of health (SDH), is still a pending task in most low and middle income countries (LMIC) in the Latin American region. In this paper the authors discuss methodological and conceptual issues to measure HI in LMIC and suggest a three-stage methodology for the creation of observatories on health inequities (OHI) and social determinants of health, based on the experience of the Brazilian Observatory on Health Inequities. The authors describe the three stages and discuss the replicability of this methodology in other Latin American countries. The authors also carried out a search of suitable national information systems to feed an OHI in Mexico, along with an outline of the institutional infrastructure to sustain it. When implementing the methodology for an OHI in LMIC such as Mexico, the authors found that having strong infrastructure of information systems for measuring HI is required, but not sufficient to build an OHI. Adequate funding and intersectoral network collaborations lead by a group of experts is a requirement for the consolidation and sustainability of an OHI in LMIC. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"New SADC regional standards for HIV care along road transport corridors","field_subtitle":"Southern African Development Community: Botswana, November 2015","field_url":"http://www.africanstrategies4health.org/uploads/1/3/5/3/13538666/rmsb_for_hiv_and_other_health_services_along_the_road_transport_corridors_in_the_sadc_region.print.pdf","body":"Expanded mobility and cross-border trading across the road transport sector in Southern Africa have contributed to increased HIV prevalence rates among key populations and communities living in the region. To support a strengthened and co-ordinated response to the unique public health challenges this presents, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) approved the Regional Minimum Standards and Brand for HIV and other Health Services Along Road Transport Corridors in the SADC Region (RMSB) in November 2015. It includes guiding principles on the right to health; health-promoting workplaces; gender mainstreaming; empowerment of commercial sex workers and effective partnership. It sets minimum standards on service delivery and a minimum package of services for those involved in road transport corridors. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"No cause for panic stations over SA Zika case, says expert","field_subtitle":"Skosana I: Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism, February 2016","field_url":"http://bhekisisa.org/article/2016-02-22-no-cause-for-panic-stations-over-sa-zika-case-says-expert","body":"South African health authorities say the visitor diagnosed with the mosquito-spread Zika virus has recovered and there is minimal likelihood of a local outbreak. The visiting Colombian businessperson who was diagnosed with the Zika virus in South Africa last week is \u201ccompletely well\u201d and \u201cposes no risk to anybody\u201d, says Lucille Blumberg, the deputy director of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. Blumberg says the man presented with a mild illness four days after his arrival in the country. After he underwent a number of tests, \u201cZika was confirmed as the cause of his illness\u201d.  Blumberg further confirmed, \u201cWe\u2019re not going to have local transmissions because of one incoming traveller with Zika. You\u2019ll need multiple people with the virus in their blood and many mosquitoes around with the competent vectors to set off a local outbreak.\u201d ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional monitoring and review mechanism for effective implementation of the Post-2015 Development Agenda","field_subtitle":"Bhattacharya D: Southern Voice, February 2016","field_url":"http://southernvoice-postmdg.org/regional-monitoring-and-review-mechanism-for-effective-implementation-of-the-post-2015-development-agenda/","body":"Inadequate regional provisions have been one of the weak links in the global monitoring of, and accountability for, implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As a result, the question now is how does the regional monitoring and review process need to improve as a more demanding post-2015 development agenda is introduced? To address this question, the paper follows three analytical approaches. First, by reviewing various global-level inputs channelled towards articulating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it teases out the implications of the new agenda for a Regional Monitoring and Review Mechanism (RMRM). Second, by revisiting the experiences of various existing frameworks for a regional mechanism, it highlights the strengths and weaknesses of their varying approaches and instruments. Third, the paper tries to identify the critical attributes of the institutional structure and modalities that have to characterize such a mechanism in the new context. In conclusion, the paper underscores the need to bolster regional statistical capacity, particularly in the field of regional public goods and the proposed regional indicators of the sustainable development goals. It also proposes elements of a possible mechanism, building on the existing practices of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Rejoinder: In defence of the Alternative Mining Indaba","field_subtitle":"Capel J; Lorgat H: Pambuzuka News 763, February 2016","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/features/96672","body":"In a response to critiques of the 2016 Alternative Mining Indaba, the Bench Marks Foundation asserts their commitment to a popular movement of workers and poor people in contesting corporate power and elite control over mining processes.  The authors define their approach as evidence or research-based activism, accompanied by community organising and monitoring of corporate conduct with the view of challenging corporate power and continuing to agitate wherever power lies. To date, they have followed an advocacy strategy built on research, community organising, building alliances with organised workers and other communities. The organisers of the Alternative Mining Indaba argue that it is a time for governments to rededicate themselves with concrete deeds to protect and prevent harm for poor people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Reporting guidelines for implementation and operational research","field_subtitle":"Hales S, Trevino A, Ford N, Maher D, Ramsay A, Tran N: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 94:58-64; 2016","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/94/1/15-167585/en/","body":"New reporting guidelines have been published for the growing area of implementation and operational research. The field utilises a range of different research designs, so existing reporting guidelines only partially cover the need for guidance. Wide consultation through the World Health Organization (WHO), the Alliance for Health Policy & Systems Research (AHPSR) and TDR resulted in these recommendations. The paper provides a practical reference for funders, researchers, policymakers, implementers, reviewers and editors working with implementation and operational research. Given that this is an evolving field, they plan to monitor the use of these guidelines and develop future versions as required.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Social efficiency and the future of water operators\u2019 partnerships","field_subtitle":"B\u00e9langer Dumontier M, McDonald D, Spronk S, Baron C, Wartchow D: MSP Occasional paper, February 2015","field_url":"http://municipalservicesproject.org/publication/social-efficiency-and-future-water-operators-partnerships","body":"Much of the benchmarking that takes place in the water sector today focuses on financial and technical performance, making it difficult for water operators to pursue broader social, political and environmental objectives. As an alternative this paper introduces the concept of social efficiency; to widen the scope of performance evaluation by adding new indicators that emphasize equity and promote publicness, informed by extensive field research in Africa and Latin America. We argue that advancing social efficiency could be the most important contribution the Global Water Operators Partnerships Alliance (GWOPA) makes to knowledge transfer in the water sector, given the relatively small budgets it can leverage. WOPs may be the proverbial drop in the bucket when it comes to improving water and sanitation services around the world, but they could be a significant drop in that bucket.The paper examines two WOPs. The first is between Morocco Office National de \u00c9lectricit\u00e9 et de l'Eau Potable (ONEE) and Burkina Faso Office National de Eau et de Assainissement (ONEA). The second is between Uruguay Obras Sanitarias del Estado (OSE) and Porto Alegre Departamento Municipal de \u00c1gua e Esgotos (DMAE) in Brazil. The research shows that both of these partnerships reflect the general trend of prioritizing technical and financial efficiency. Despite having innovative social programs at home, neither WOP has formal pro-poor objectives or evaluation mechanisms to assess pro-poor outcomes, highlighting the untapped potential for knowledge sharing on this type of expertise. Platforms such as GWOPA could provide the necessary guidance and incentives to match water operators interested in pro-poor initiatives and prioritize social efficiency in partnership activities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening national capacities for researching on Social Determinants of Health (SDH) towards informing and addressing health inequities in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mtenga S, Masanja I, Mamdani M: International Journal for Equity in Health, 15:23; January 2016","field_url":"http://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-016-0308-x","body":"Tanzania\u2019s socio-economic development is challenged by sharp inequities between and within urban and rural areas, and among different socio-economic groups. This paper discusses the importance of strengthening SDH research, knowledge, relevant capacities and responsive systems towards addressing health inequities in Tanzania.The conceptualization of SDH varies considerably among stakeholders and their professional background, but with some consensus that it is linked to \u201cinequities\u201d being a consequence of poverty, poor planning, limited attention to basic humanity and citizenship rights, weak governance structures and inefficient use of available resources. Commonly perceived SDH factors include age, income, education, beliefs, cultural norms, gender, occupation, nutritional status, access to health care, access to safe water and sanitation and child bearing practices. SDH research is in its infancy but gaining momentum. In the absence of a specific \u201cSDH portfolio\u201d, SDH research is scattered and hidden within disease specific, poverty-related research and research on universal health coverage. Research is mainly externally funded, which has implications on the focus of context specific SDH research, national priorities and transfer to policy. This create mismatch with population and research capacity needs. Establishing a system to promote collaboration across sectors and strengthen collective capacities for individuals and institutions researching in SDH will augment existing SDH research initiatives and better inform appropriate intersectoral policies towards addressing prevailing health inequities across the country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening pharmaceutical systems for palliative care services in resource limited settings: piloting a mHealth application across a rural and urban setting in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Namisango E; Ntege C; Luyirika E; Kiyange F; Allsop M: BMC Palliative Care 15(20), 19 February 2016, doi: 10.1186/s12904-016-0092-9","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4759774/","body":"Medicine availability is improving in sub-Saharan Africa for palliative care services. There is a need to develop strong and sustainable pharmaceutical systems to enhance the proper management of palliative care medicines, some of which are controlled. One approach to addressing these needs is the use of mobile technology to support data capture, storage and retrieval. Utilizing mobile technology in healthcare (mHealth) has recently been highlighted as an approach to enhancing palliative care services but development is at an early stage. An electronic application was implemented as part of palliative care services at two settings in Uganda; a rural hospital and an urban hospice. Measures of the completeness of data capture, time efficiency of activities and medicines stock and waste management were taken pre- and post-implementation to identify changes to practice arising from the introduction of the application. Improvements in all measures were identified at both sites. The application supported the registration and management of 455 patients and a total of 565 consultations. Improvements in both time efficiency and medicines management were noted. Time taken to collect and report pharmaceuticals data was reduced from 7 days to 30 min and 10 days to 1 h at the urban hospice and rural hospital respectively. Stock expiration reduced from 3 to 0.5 % at the urban hospice and from 58 to 0 % at the rural hospital. Additional observations relating to the use of the application across the two sites are reported. A mHealth approach adopted in this study was shown to improve existing processes for patient record management, pharmacy forecasting and supply planning, procurement, and distribution of essential health commodities for palliative care services. An important next step will be to identify where and how such mHealth approaches can be implemented more widely to improve pharmaceutical systems for palliative care services in resource limited settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"To corporatise or not to corporatise (and if so, how?)","field_subtitle":"McDonald D: Utilities Policy, 2016, doi: http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.jup.2016.01.002","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jcw7vy7","body":"Governments around the world are increasingly turning to the use of stand-alone, state-owned utilities to deliver core services such as water and electricity. This article reviews the history of such \u2018corporatisation\u2019 and argues that its recent resurgence has been heavily influenced by neoliberal theory and practice, raising important questions about whether it should be adopted as a public service model. Not all corporatisations promote commercialisation, however. The article also discusses stand-alone utilities that have managed to stave off market pressures and develop in more equity-oriented directions. The scope for non-commercialised corporatisation is narrow, but given the expansion of this organisational model, the author argues that it is important that we understand both its limitations and potentials, particularly in low-income countries where service gaps are large and equity is a major challenge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Ghana: an analysis of national programme data","field_subtitle":"Dako-Gyeke P; Dornoo B; Ayisi Addo S; Atuahene M; Addo NA;  Yawson AE: Int Jo Equity Health. 15: 5.2016","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4711073/","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa alone contributes more than 90 % of global Mother-to-Child Transmission (MTCT) burden. As part of efforts to address this, African countries were earmarked in 2009 for rapid Preventing Mother to child HIV Transmissions (PMTCT) interventions scale-up within their primary care system for maternal and child health. In this study, the authors reviewed records in Ghana, on ANC registrants eligible for PMTCT services to describe regional disparities and national trends in key PMTCT indicators. They also assessed distribution of missed opportunities for testing pregnant women and treating those who are HIV positive across the country. Although there was a decline in HIV prevalence among pregnant women, untested ANC registrants increased from 17 % in 2011 to 25 % in 2013. There were varying levels of missed opportunities for testing across the ten regions of Ghana. Overall, HIV positive pregnant women initiated onto ARVs remarkably increased from 57% (2011) to 82 % (2013). Missed opportunities to test pregnant women for HIV and also initiate those who are positive on ARVs across all the regions pose challenges to the quest to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Ghana. For some regions these missed opportunities mimic previously observed gaps in continuous use of primary care for maternal and child health in those areas. The authors contend that increased national and regional efforts aimed at improving maternal and child healthcare delivery, as well as HIV-related care, is paramount for ensuring equitable access across the country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal access to immunization as a cornerstone for health and development in Africa","field_subtitle":"African Ministers of Health, Finance, Education, Social Affairs, Local Governments:  Ministerial Conference on Immunization in Africa, February 2016","field_url":"http://immunizationinafrica2016.org/ministerial-declaration-english/","body":"African Ministers of Health, Finance, Education, Social Affairs, Local Governments attended the Ministerial Conference on Immunization in Africa in February 2016 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, convened by the World Health Organization in collaboration with the African Union Commission. The ministers collectively and individually commited themselves to keeping universal access to immunisation at the forefront of efforts to reduce child mortality, morbidity and disability; to increasing and sustaining domestic investments and funding, including innovative financing, to meet the cost of traditional vaccines and fulfil new vaccine financing requirements, and to support EPI programs. They sought to address persistent barriers in vaccine and healthcare delivery systems, especially in the poorest, vulnerable and most marginalized communities, including through strengthening data collection, reporting and use and building effective and efficient supply chains and integrated procurement systems as part of strong and sustainable primary health care systems. The agreed to develop a capacitated African research sector and to work with communities, civil society organizations,  traditional and religious leaders, health professional associations and parliamentarians to promote universal access to vaccines, and to invest in regional capacities for the development and production of vaccines in line with the African Union Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan. They called on African development banks and regional economic communities to support the implementation of the Declaration, and on member states and partners to negotiate with vaccine manufacturers to facilitate access to vaccines at affordable prices and to increase price transparency in line with resolution WHA68.6. They called on GAVI to consider refugees and internally displaced populations as eligible recipients of support for vaccines and operational costs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal Health Coverage Assessment: Zambia","field_subtitle":"Chitah B; Jonsson D: Global Network for Health Equity (GNHE), June 2015","field_url":"http://gnhe.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/GNHE-UHC-assessment_Zambia1.pdf","body":"This document provides a preliminary assessment of the Zambian health system relative to the goal of universal health coverage, with a particular focus on the financing system and related aspects of provision. Zambia is making continuous progress in all the key areas of its health system. However, there are gaps which need to be resolved for the country to be able to realise the goal of universal coverage, including universal financial protection and access to care. First, a more equitable distribution of resources between urban and rural areas is required. Second, resources need to be allocated to promote access to, and utilisation of, health care by the poorer socio-economic groups. The higher consumption of public inpatient health care services by wealthier groups is a striking example of inequitable utilisation, as is the relatively greater levels of government subsidy received by wealthier groups, even for primary health care. Third, the impoverishing effect of out-of-pocket payments exposes poorer households to financial risk, driving households into poverty or further into poverty. This requires reconsideration of public hospital user fees, both in terms of the level of fees and the application of bypass fees (which are charged when patients bypass primary\r\nhealth care facilities, including because of the severity of their conditions and their proximity to higher-level health facilities). Finally, Zambia\u2019s ambition to introduce social health insurance as a mechanism for improving the pooling and purchasing of services needs to be scrutinised for its possible impacts on equity. The proposed social health insurance scheme would require co-payments and perhaps other contributions, which would increase the financial burden on households. This means that the proposed scheme could effectively run counter to the ambition of attaining universal health coverage. There should be a critical evaluation of the alternative option of simply continuing \u2013 and strengthening - the current tax-based financing system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Framework of engagement with non-state actors (FENSA) ","field_subtitle":"People's Health Movement: Youtube, 5 February 2016","field_url":"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MelXUq1hAOE","body":"This video shows a recording of the statement made by People's Health Movement and Medicus Mundi International at the Executive Board 138 of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in January 2016.  In it they highlight their assertion that the FENSA proposal constitutes a Trojan horse, which will legitimise the influence of private sector interests in WHO decision-making. They argue that FENSA is symbolic of a more fundamental issue - that of WHO\u2019s independence - which is compromised by its financial crisis, lack of member contributions and crippling dependency on tightly earmarked voluntary contributions. They call for the WHO to have strong safeguards to protect it from undue influence from funders and conflicts of interests on the part of industry partners and a robust conflict of interest policy should also include appropriate protection of whistleblowers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zika Virus Fact Sheet","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: Geneva, 2016","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/zika/en/","body":"This fact sheet provides information on the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne virus that was first identified in Uganda in 1947 in rhesus monkeys, and subsequently identified in humans in 1952 in Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania. Outbreaks of Zika virus disease have been recorded in Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific. The incubation period (the time from exposure to symptoms) of Zika virus disease is not clear, but is likely to be a few days. The symptoms are similar to other arbovirus infections such as dengue, and include fever, skin rashes, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, malaise, and headache. These symptoms are usually mild and last for 2-7 days. Zika virus disease is caused by a virus transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. People with Zika virus disease usually have symptoms that can include mild fever, skin rashes, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, malaise or headache lasting for 2-7 days. There is no specific treatment or vaccine currently available. The leaflet provides updated information on the virus given its recent spread in Latin America.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"#FeesMustFall and the campaign for universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"Doherty J; McInytre D: The South African Medical Journal 105(12), 1014-1015,  2015","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/10339","body":"This article reflects on how #FeesMustFall highlighted the political and social upheaval that results from extreme income inequity and inequitable access, problems that beset the health sector as well. It presents data showing how per capita health expenditure declined for a decade after 1994, despite the burgeoning HIV/AIDS epidemic, a blow from which the health system is still trying to recover. The underlying reason for this was a macroeconomic policy that placed constraints on taxation and government expenditure on social services. The article shows how South Africa (SA)'s tax-to-GDP ratio is much lower than other middle-income countries, and argues that raising this limit is essential for development. Spending on health and education should be seen as an investment in the SA economy. The authors suggest that the Department of Health needs to argue this case in Cabinet and demonstrate the effectiveness of health spending through efficient service delivery and fighting corruption.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"A Resolve to Reform - A look at the Director-General's Opening Address at the 138th Meeting of the Executive Board (EB138)","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement: Geneva, 25 January 2016","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/who-watch/eb138","body":"The 138th Meeting of the Executive Board (EB138) of the World Health Organisation (WHO) taking place from 25 to 30 January 2016 in Geneva includes a host of issues, including reviews of the WHO\u2019s governance, finance and emergency structure.  In the opening remarks of WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, the topics touched on ranged widely from Ebola to Road Safety, with an emphasis on Universal Health Coverage in her final paragraph. A pointed reference to the \u201cexplosive spread of Zika virus in new geographical areas\u201d, was a conscious effort to highlight the potential threats of infectious disease beyond Ebola, and the much needed reform of the WHO\u2019s emergency structures. She commented on Universal Healthcare Coverage as \u201cthe most efficient way to respond to the rise of non-communicable diseases\u201d , although the PHM note the debates on how the proposal for UHC has shifted the focus from how services should be provided to how services should be financed, with private sector providers and private insurance assumed to be part of the solution, despite evidence that this can lead to \u2018health-defeating\u2019 market failures. The Director General noted, however, that some policy recommendations on child obesity \u201cpick a fight with powerful economic interests\u201d. These remarks were welcomed by PHM if followed through with changes in the organisation\u2019s relationship with big business. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"A Trojan horse of the private sectors interests at the World Health Organisation","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement; Medicus Mundi International: 26 January 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jnh4gzk","body":"A January 2016 statement of the People's Health Movement (PHM) and Medicus Mundi International (MMI) identified that the Framework of Engagement with Non-State Actors (FENSA) currently under discussion at the World Health Organisation (WHO) fails to provide a robust framework against undue influence of the corporate sector and its philanthropies. In the statement the PHM and MMI argue that FENSA is symbolic of a more fundamental issue of the compromise to WHO\u2019s independence due to its under-funding and tightly earmarked voluntary contributions making it vulnerable to such influence. They argue for an end to the dual freeze on the WHO Programme Budget and on assessed contributions which severely limits WHO\u2019s functioning. \"Until and unless this is addressed, WHO stands at risk of private sector capture and further loss of its integrity, independence, and credibility\", the statement warned. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Anchoring universal health coverage in the right to health: What difference would it make?","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation Policy Brief: November 2015","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/199548/1/9789241509770_eng.pdf","body":"Universal Health Coverage UHC is a critical component of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which include a specific health goal: \u201cEnsure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages\u201d. Within this health goal, a specific target for UHC has been proposed: \u201cAchieve UHC, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all\u201d. In this context, the opportunity exists to unite global health and the fight against poverty through action that is focussed on clear goals. For WHO, \u201cUHC is, by definition, a practical expression of the concern for health equity and the right to health\u201d; thus promoting UHC advances the overall objective of WHO, namely the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible standard of health as a fundamental right, and signal a return to the ideals of the Declaration of Alma Ata and the WHO Global Strategy for Health for All by the Year 2000. Yet some argue that the \u201ccurrent discourse on UHC is in sharp contrast with the vision of Primary Health Care envisaged in the Alma Ata declaration of 1978\u201d. The underlying assumption of this paper is that efforts towards achieving UHC do promote some, but not necessarily all, of the efforts required from governments for the realisation of the right to health. While this publication explores how efforts to advance towards UHC overlap with efforts to realise the right to health, its main focus is the gaps that exist between UHC efforts and right to health efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Announcement on the newsletter and website","field_subtitle":"Editor","field_url":"","body":"The EQUINET website and bibliography and newsletter databases will be undergoing a significant software upgrade in February 2016 so we will not be producing a March issue of the newsletter on 1 March 2016. We hope we have given you alot of interesting material ranging from papers, reports, bibliographies, online books and graphics in this issue the meantime and the newsletter will resume on 1 April 2016. We aim to ensure that any periods in which the bibliography databases will be unavailable during the upgrade are as brief as possible. Please email us on admin@equinetafrica.org if you have any queries or feedback, and we also look forward to receiving submissions, reports and articles from you!","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing Coverage, Equity and Quality Gaps in Maternal and Neonatal Care in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Integrated Approach","field_subtitle":"Wilunda C; Putoto G; Dalla Riva D; Manenti F; Atzori A; Calia F; Assefa T; Turri B; Emmanuel O; Straneo M; Kisika F; Tamburlini G; Tarmbulini G: PloS one 10(6), May 2015","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127827","body":"The authors present the base-line data of a project aimed at simultaneously addressing coverage, equity and quality issues in maternal and neonatal health care in five districts belonging to three African countries. Data were collected in cross-sectional studies with three types of tools. Coverage was assessed in three hospitals and 19 health centres (HCs) utilising emergency obstetric and newborn care needs assessment tools developed by the Averting Maternal Death and Disability program. Emergency obstetrics care (EmOC) indicators were calculated. Equity was assessed in three hospitals and 13 HCs by means of proxy wealth indices and women delivering in health facilities were compared with those in the general population to identify inequities. All the three hospitals qualified as comprehensive EmOC facilities but none of the HCs qualified for basic EmOC. None of the districts met the minimum requisites for EmOC indicators. In two out of three hospitals, there were major quality gaps which were generally greater in neonatal care, management of emergency and complicated cases and monitoring. Higher access to care was coupled by low quality and good quality by very low access. Stark inequities in utilisation of institutional delivery care were present in all districts and across all health facilities, especially at hospital level. The authors findings confirm the existence of serious issues regarding coverage, equity and quality of health care for mothers and newborns in all study districts. Gaps in one dimension hinder the potential gains in health outcomes deriving from good performances in other dimensions, thus confirm the need for a three-dimensional profiling of health care provision as a basis for data-driven planning.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for case studies: Reducing the risk of exporting unethical practices to low and middle income countries","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 2 March 2016","field_url":"http://announcementsfiles.cohred.org/competition_trust.pdf","body":"TRUST Equitable Research Partnerships invites the submission of case studies identifying the risks of exporting non-ethical research practices to low and middle income countries. The TRUST project addresses the risks of ethics dumping - that is the export of research practices that would be considered unethical in Europe - for both public and privately funded research. With the globalisation of research activities, there is an increasing risk of research involving sensitive ethical issues being conducted by European organisations outside the European Union, without proper compliance structures and follow-up. To contribute to the research, TRUST are launching this bottom-up call. Five full case studies will be funded from successful applicants to this competition. These cases must refer to research undertaken in low or middle income countries by researchers, sponsors or funders from high income countries; in any field of research (e.g. life sciences, social sciences, agriculture, environment, animals, security, etc.). The deadline for submission of abstracts is March 2nd, 2016 with full submission of selected proposals on May 2nd 2016. The five winners will each receive \u20ac2,000. The competition is part of the TRUST project, co-funded by the European Commission under grant number 664771.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for contributions: UN Secretary-General\u2019s High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines","field_subtitle":"Closing date for contributions: 18 February 2016 ","field_url":"http://www.unsgaccessmeds.org/call-for-contributions/","body":"The United Nations Secretary-General\u2019s High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines is calling for contributions by interested stakeholders that address the misalignment between the rights of inventors, international human rights law, trade rules and public health where it impedes the innovation of and access to health technologies. In particular the High-Level Panel will consider contributions that promote research, development, innovation and increase access to medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and related health technologies to improve the health and wellbeing of all, as envisaged by Sustainable Development Goal 3, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development more broadly. Submitted contributions should be evidence-informed and include references to the principles, literature and models upon which the contribution is based. The contributions should reflect, align and demonstrate how it will support the attainment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and in particular, Sustainable Development Goal 3, that aims to improve the health and wellbeing for all, and where applicable, indicate the political, financial or other requirements to the implement of the proposed ideas.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for individual abstracts: Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, 2016","field_subtitle":"Closing date for submission: 20 Mar 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/gq9j3n5","body":"The Symposium invites abstracts for individual presentations, linked to the following sub-themes: Enhancing health system resilience: absorbing shocks and sustaining gains in every setting; Equity, rights, gender and ethics: maintaining responsiveness through values-based health systems; Engaging power and politics in promoting health and public value; Implementing improvement and innovation in health services and systems; New partnerships and collaborations for health system research and development; Future reciprocal learning and evaluation approaches for health system development. Abstracts in a given sub-theme may address any of the Symposium\u2019s traditional \u2018field-building dimensions\u2019: Cutting-edge research, Innovative research approaches and measures, Novel strategies for developing capacity, Learning communities and knowledge translation, Innovative practice in health systems development. See website for details. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Common Declaration for Responsible Partnerships","field_subtitle":"International Forum on Public-Private Partnerships for Sustainable Development, December 2015","field_url":"http://www.un-ppp.org/common-declaration-responsible-partnerships","body":"In the context of the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, COP 21, an International Forum on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) for Sustainable Development has been held in Annemasse. Within this framework and in view of the Sustainable Development Goals defined by the UN, the Cit\u00e9 de la Solidarit\u00e9 Internationale organised on October 30 2015 a collective intelligence workshop gathering representatives from the civil society as well as public and private stakeholders. The assembly called for PPPs that guarantee access for all to common goods and the respect of Human Rights to foster an economy of human dimension. They recommended to: Include the civil society in the entire process of public-private partnerships, upstream to downstream, by identifying the genuine needs, promoting the general interest as the final goal and avoiding conflict of interest and controlling the services of which they are the main beneficiaries. They argued that it is necessary to create a legal framework and appropriate tools to strengthen civil society legitimacy, to guarantee co-construction of equal win partnerships with general interest as a common objective to avoid an unbalanced or competitive approach and to consider alternative approaches and initiatives of collaboration (such as social and solidarity-based economy) as an evolution towards more balanced and inclusive partnerships favouring a participatory democracy. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) Job Vacancy Senior Programme Officer ","field_subtitle":"Closing date for applications: 28 February 2016","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2513&lang=en","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) invites applications from African scholars to fill the vacant position of Senior Programme Officer (Research) in its pan-African Secretariat located in Dakar, Senegal. This position is categorised as belonging to the senior staff of the Council and as such is filled on the basis of an international announcement. The successful candidate will work as a senior member of the Secretariat under the overall supervision of the Executive Secretary of the Council. Candidates wishing to apply for the position are requested to note the following: The Senior Programme Officer (Research) has as his/her primary responsibility the management of the Council\u2019s Research Programme including overseeing National, Multinational and Trans-National Working Groups, Comparative Research Networks, as well as thematic and issue-specific research programmes, special initiatives and projects. In this connection, the Senior Programme Officer will be responsible for managing all aspects of the portfolio of programmes entrusted to him/her, and overseeing the work of Programme Officers managing programme clusters within the Research Programme, each of which may include several of the following programmes: the Gender Programme, the Academic Freedom Programme, the African Humanities Programme, the Governance Programme, the Health, Politics and Society Programme, the Programme on Children and Youth, the Higher Education Leadership Programme, the Environmental Governance Programme, the Economic Policies Programme, the Lusophone Initiative, and the South-South Tri-continental Collaborative Programme. The Research Programme also organises major conferences tied to the Council\u2019s programmes and strategy. In addition to his/her specific responsibilities, the successful candidate will be called upon to perform the following functions: initiate, develop and, where appropriate, manage new projects and programmes; lend support for the realisation of the other scientific activities of the Council; organise academic and policy meetings; promote contacts with researchers, professional associations and regional organisations; prepare research and funding proposals on themes connected to his/her areas of expertise as may be requested by the Executive Secretary; and where appropriate, liaise with funding organisations under the direction of the Executive Secretary.See website for application details. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 106: Responding to inequalities in health in urban areas: A review and annotated bibliography","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Masotya M: TARSC, EQUINET, Harare","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss%20106%20Ann%20Bib%20Urban%20health%20in%20ESA%20Dec2015.pdf","body":"Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) as cluster lead of the \u201cEquity Watch\u201d work in EQUINET is following up on the findings of the 2012 Regional Equity Watch and the country Equity Watch reports with a deeper systematic analysis of available evidence on inequalities in health and its determinants within urban areas and the responses to urban inequalities from the health sector and through health promoting interventions of other sectors and communities acting on public health and the social determinants of health. This document presents evidence from 105 published papers in English post 2000 on patterns of and responses to urban inequalities in health in east and southern African countries. The evidence is presented in an annotated bibliography and analysis. It is being used to identify key areas of focus and parameters for deeper review and analysis. The picture presented in the literature is not a coherent one- it is rather a series of fragments of different and often disconnected facets of risk, health and care within urban areas. There is also limited direct voice of those experiencing the changes and limited report of the features of urbanisation that promote wellbeing. The literature found was significantly more focused on the challenges than on the solutions. The papers sourced confirmed the relevance of primary care and community-based approaches, with CHWs, to carry out participatory assessments, promote new PHC approaches, use social media and support service uptake to address urban determinants. However the documented interventions made weak links between PHC services, urban public health and the work of other sectors. The rapid, diverse and multifactorial changes taking place in urban areas, some of which are poorly documented, also call for participatory approaches that include the direct voice of those experiencing urban life.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Do financial contributions from \u2018pharma\u2019 violate WHO Guidelines?","field_subtitle":"Gopakumar K: Third World Network (TWN) Info Service on Health Issues Dec 15(01), December 2015","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/health.info/2015/hi151201.htm","body":"Millions of dollars given by major pharmaceutical companies to the World Health Organisation (WHO) raise questions of compliance with the organisation\u2019s guidelines on interactions with commercial enterprises. Currently, WHO\u2019s relations with commercial enterprises are guided by the \u201cGuidelines on interaction with commercial enterprises to achieve health outcomes\u201d . The 107th Session of the Executive Board in 2001 \u201cnoted\u201d the Guidelines that cover cash donations, contributions in kind, seconded personnel, collaboration for product development, collaboration for meetings etc.  Compliance with the Guidelines has essentially been left to the Secretariat. According to paragraph 11 of the Guidelines, \u201cCommercial enterprises working with WHO will be expected to conform to WHO public health policies in the areas of food safety, chemical safety, ethical promotion of medicinal drug products, tobacco control, and others\u201d. It is notable that the draft Framework of Engagement with Non-State Actors (FENSA) currently being finalised by WHO Member States does not contain a provision that requires a commercial enterprise to conform to WHO\u2019s polices, norms and standard. In the absence of such a clear provision FENSA could legitimise engagement with the private sector, which does not follow WHO\u2019s policies in the areas of food safety, chemical safety, ethical promotion of medicinal drug products, tobacco control, and others. WHO Member States at the resumed session of the Open Ended Intergovernmental Meeting (OEIGM) on FENSA is expected to look at the regulation of WHO\u2019s engagement with the private sector.  The experience with the implementation of the Guidelines on interaction with commercial enterprises to achieve health outcomes would be useful for the consideration of Member States. In 2014, WHO received USD 6,158,153 from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). It received USD 5,785,000 and USD 8,266,284 in 2012 and 2013 respectively from GSK. GSK Biologics paid USD 17,000.  Novartis AG donated USD 5,300,000 in 2014 and USD 4,500,000 in 2013.  Hoffmann-La Roche donated USD 6,158,153 in 2014 and USD 4,806,492 in 2013.  The purposes of those donations were not disclosed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Eliminating stigma and discrimination in health-care systems","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: Geneva, November 2015","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2015/november/20151113_healthcare","body":"Widespread HIV-related stigma and discrimination in the health-care sector impedes access to services and impairs the quality of health-care delivery for people living with HIV and other key populations. It also undermines efforts to achieve the highest attainable standard of health for everybody. At a two-day meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland, on 10 and 11 November 2015, key stakeholders came together to discuss ways to eliminate all forms of discrimination in health-care settings, using the lessons learned from the AIDS response as an entry point. The event, organised by UNAIDS and the Global Health Workforce Alliance, also focused on the UNAIDS 2016\u20132021 Strategy and the upcoming Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030. Stigma and discrimination in health takes many forms\u2014the denial of health care and unjust barriers to service provision, inferior quality of care and a lack of respect. Abuse and other forms of mistreatment, violation of physical autonomy, mandatory testing or treatment and compulsory detention are other forms of stigma and discrimination encountered by people living with HIV. The meeting concluded with a clear call for more coordinated action. UNAIDS and the Global Health Workforce Alliance were asked to develop a plan before next year\u2019s Zero Discrimination Day, on 1 March 2016, to work towards ending discrimination in health-care settings. Priorities include political advocacy, strengthening accountability mechanisms, sharing existing evidence and best practices and building evidence-informed policy for implementation and scale-up of programmes to reduce stigma and discrimination at all levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 180: Will the Sustainable Development Goals deliver on African solutions to African problems?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in Maternal Health in South Africa: Analysis of Health Service Access and Health Status in a National Household Survey","field_subtitle":"Wabiri N; Chersich M; Zuma K; Blaauw D; Goudge J; Dwane N: PLoS One 8(9), 2013","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0073864","body":"South Africa is increasingly focused on reducing maternal mortality. Documenting variation in access to maternal health services across one of the most inequitable nations could assist in re-direction of resources. This analysis draws on a population-based household survey that used multistage-stratified sampling. Women, who in the past two years were pregnant (1113) or had a child (1304), completed questionnaires and HIV testing. Poorest women had near universal antenatal care coverage (ANC), but only 39.6% attended before 20 weeks gestation; this figure was 2.7-fold higher in the wealthiest quartile. Women in rural-formal areas had lowest ANC coverage (89.7%), percentage completing four ANC visits (79.7%) and only 84.0% were offered HIV testing. Testing levels were highest among the poorest quartile (90.1% in past two years), but 10% of women above 40 or with low education had never tested. Skilled birth attendant coverage (overall 95.3%) was lowest in the poorest quartile (91.4%) and rural formal areas (85.6%). Around two thirds of the wealthiest quartile, of white and of formally-employed women had a doctor at childbirth, 11-fold higher than the poorest quartile. Overall, only 44.4% of pregnancies were planned, 31.7% of HIV-infected women and 68.1% of the wealthiest quartile. Self-reported health status also declined considerably with each drop in quartile, education level or age group. Aside from early ANC attendance and deficiencies in care in rural-formal areas, inequalities in utilisation of services were mostly small, with some measures even highest among the poorest. Considerably larger differences were noted in maternal health status across population groups. This may reflect differences between these groups in quality of care received, HIV infection and in social determinants of health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Fellowships to Support Doctoral Research on Gender-Based Violence (GBV)/ Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG)","field_subtitle":"Closing date for applications: 31 March 2016 (11:59pm, Nairobi time)","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hj5pvpb","body":"As part of efforts to increase capacity to conduct research on GBV/VAWG in the continent, the African Population and Health Research Center, in partnership with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, International Rescue Committee and the Department for International Development has announced a call for applications to support 3 doctoral students interested in working in and contributing to this field of research. The expectation is that the fellows will contribute to the field through their doctoral research and, in future, will work in this field, applying their knowledge and expertise. The award of these fellowships is contingent on funding availability. See website for details.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Framework for monitoring equity in access and health systems issues in antiretroviral therapy Programmes in southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Kalanda B; Kemp J; Makwiza I: Malawi Medical Journal19(1) 20\u201324, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3615312/","body":"Universal provision of antiretroviral therapy (ART), while feasible, is expensive. In light of this limitation, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has launched the 3 \u00d7 5 initiative, to provide ART to 3 million people by the end of the year 2005. In Southern Africa, large-scale provision of ART will likely be achieved through fragile public health systems. ART programmes should therefore be developed and expanded in ways that will not aggravate inequities or result in the inappropriate withdrawal of resources from other health interventions or from other parts of the health system. This paper, proposes a framework for monitoring equity in access and health systems issues in ART programmes in Southern Africa. It proposes that an equity monitoring system should comprise seven thematic areas. These thematic areas encompass a national monitoring system which extends beyond one agency or single data collection method. Together with monitoring of targets in terms of numbers treated, there should also be monitoring of health systems impacts and issues in ART expansion, with reporting both nationally and to a regional body.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health as seen by Congo's sapeurs","field_subtitle":"Muvudi M: Health Financing Africa, 22 December 2015","field_url":"http://www.healthfinancingafrica.org/home/global-health-as-seen-by-congos-sapeurs","body":"Health Financing Africa host a cartoon showing a satirical response to the global development agendas. This cartoon draws on the \"Sape\" movement (The Society of Ambiance-Makers and Elegant People) in Brazzaville and Kinshasa. Universal Health Coverage figures into the new Sustainable Development Goals and, with a wink, Michel Muvudi (Democratic Republic of the Congo) warns us not to be overly optimistic about the impact of such international objectives at the country level.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health leadership training in resource-limited settings: a collaborative approach by academic institutions and local health care programs in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Nakanjako D; Namagala E; Semeere A; et al: Afya Bora Consortium members: Human Resources for Health 13(87), November 2015","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/13/1/87","body":"Due to a limited health workforce, many health care providers in Africa must take on health leadership roles with minimal formal training in leadership. Hence, the need to equip health care providers with practical skills required to lead high-impact health care programs. In Uganda, the Afya Bora Global Health Leadership Fellowship is implemented through the Makerere University College of Health Sciences (MakCHS) and her partner institutions. Lessons learned from the program, presented in this paper, may guide development of in-service training opportunities to enhance leadership skills of health workers in resource-limited settings. The Afya Bora Consortium, a consortium of four African and four U.S. academic institutions, offers 1-year global health leadership-training opportunities for nurses and doctors. Applications are received and vetted internationally by members of the consortium institutions in Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and the USA. Fellows have 3 months of didactic modules and 9 months of mentored field attachment with 80% time dedicated to fellowship activities. Fellows\u2019 projects and experiences, documented during weekly mentor-fellow meetings and monthly mentoring team meetings, were compiled and analysed manually using pre-determined themes to assess the effect of the program on fellows\u2019 daily leadership opportunities. Between January 2011 and January 2015, 15 Ugandan fellows (nine doctors and six nurses) participated in the program. Each fellow received 8 weeks of didactic modules held at one of the African partner institutions and three online modules to enhance fellows\u2019 foundation in leadership, communication, monitoring and evaluation, health informatics, research methodology, grant writing, implementation science, and responsible conduct of research. In addition, fellows embarked on innovative projects that covered a wide spectrum of global health challenges including critical analysis of policy formulation and review processes, bottlenecks in implementation of national HIV early infant diagnosis and prevention of mother-to-child HIV-transmission programs, and use of routine laboratory data about antibiotic resistance to guide updates of essential drug lists. In-service leadership training was feasible, with ensured protected time for fellows to generate evidence-based solutions to challenges within their work environment. With structured mentorship, collaborative activities at academic institutions and local health care programs equipped health care providers with leadership skills.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Equity: The Key for Transformational Change","field_subtitle":"Garay J; Kelley N; Chiriboga D: Editorial Nacional de Salud y Seguridad Social (EDNASSS), Costa Rica,  2015","field_url":"http://www.dropbox.com/s/bd0k0ey7u95koka/Dualbook%20EQUIDAD%20EN%20SALUD%20CCSS%20Ingl%C3%A9s%20WEB.pdf?dl=0","body":"The authors of this paper, drawing also on experience in primary health care in Zimbabwe, developed a \"healthy, feasible and sustainable (HFS)\" model utilising trends in readily available data from 1960s onwards in detailed tables, figures and maps and identifying specific countries which fit the criteria of the model. They also identify countries and population subgroups affected by inequity, with practical insights to eliminate global health inequities.  They quantify the cost of bridging the global health equity gap, and outline mechanisms to finance the necessary interventions through a binding global redistribution system. This is compared with what is considered to be an outdated, arbitrary and inefficient international cooperation model. The approach considers global levels of poverty and excessive global accumulation, which abuses natural resources in such a way as to deprive current and future generations from the access they deserve, making reference to the concept of inter-generational equity. The online book discusses the difference between equity and equality, the global burden of health equity, the minimum income threshold for dignity, the maximum threshold of income above which excessive accumulation or hoarding occurs, and how resource hoarding is directly linked to the burden of health equity; while also proposing a holistic health index, including healthy life expectancy by gender, the happiness index, and life-years lost of others due to the hoarding effect and to exhausting effect. The methodology provides tools to defend the right to health for all by supporting the development of binding instruments linked to concrete health standards attainable through a financially sustainable mechanism. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health governance in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Mooketsane K; Phirinyane M: Global Social Policy15(3): 345\u2013348, December 2015","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4639823/","body":"The interdependence of states and increasing movement of people, the spread of contagious diseases and the heightened complexity of global health issues make cooperation among countries indispensable. Unfortunately resourcing remains a critical challenge to effective health governance. The authors argue that financial resources are not really a major challenge for Sub-Saharan Africa as it is usually perceived. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s economic growth has been robust and capital inflows  higher than the developing countries\u2019 average. Notwithstanding threats to the region seems poised for better prospects. The authors argue that health governance should be given a higher significance if growth rates are to be sustained and strategies developed for collaboration between governments and non-state actors. Many Sub-Saharan Africa countries still view non-state actors with suspicion, but the authors argue that those that have embraced them as development partners have reaped some positive results in the provision of health services, such as in the role of mission services in health care provision in Botswana and Malawi. They suggest enhancing a multi-pronged cooperation between African state and non state actors and that the porous borders across countries necessitate regional cooperation to effectively combat the spread of diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Systems Trust Conference 2016","field_subtitle":"4-6 May 2016, Gauteng, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.hstconference2016.org.za","body":"Health Systems Trust is hosting a conference from 4-6 May 2016 at the Birchwood Conference centre, Gauteng South Africa.  Under the banner of Health for all through strengthened health systems: sharing, supporting, synergising, the event is designed to advance the global public health agenda in improving health outcomes.  The three-day conference will convene approximately 300 healthcare workers from the public and private sectors as well as policy- and decision-makers, civil society groupings and academics. The conference will provide an opportunity to discuss challenges faced and solutions adopted at various levels in the health system. See website for details. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Making Medicines in Africa: The Political Economy of Industrializing for Local Health","field_subtitle":"Mackintosh M; Banda G; Tibandebage P;  Wamae W: Palgrave Connect Open Access International Political Economy Series, 2015","field_url":"http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/doifinder/10.1057/9781137546470","body":"The importance of the pharmaceutical industry in Sub-Saharan Africa, its claim to policy priority, is rooted in the vast unmet health needs of the sub-continent. Making Medicines in Africa, an open access book under a CC-BY license, is a collective endeavour by a group of contributors with a strong African and more broadly Southern presence, to find ways to link technological development, investment and industrial growth in pharmaceuticals to improve access to essential good quality medicines, as part of moving towards universal access to competent health care in Africa. The authors aim to shift the emphasis in the international debate and initiatives towards sustained Africa-based and African-led initiatives to tackle this huge challenge. The authors argue that without the technological, industrial, intellectual, organisational and research-related capabilities associated with competent pharmaceutical production, and without policies that pull the industrial sectors towards serving local health needs, the African sub-continent cannot generate the resources to tackle its populations' needs and demands.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring Regional Policy Change and pro-Poor Health Policy Success: A PRARI Toolkit of Indicators for the Southern African Development Community ","field_subtitle":"Amaya A; Choge I; De Lombaerde P; et al.,:  UNU CRIS,  Open University, December 2015","field_url":"http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/prari/files/indicator_tookit_1_eng_dec_2015.pdf","body":"Developed collaboratively with actors in the region, this toolkit is a guide to the implementation of an indicator system to measure regional policy change and pro-poor regional health policy successes targeted at the pilot areas of HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in the SADC context. The toolkit also aims to capture the limitations the health sectors in many countries may have in addressing structural issues that make the poor more vulnerable or at risk. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Migration Governance and Migrant Rights in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Attempts at Harmonization in a Disharmonious Region","field_subtitle":"Dodson B; Crush J: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) Research Paper 2015\u20133, October 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jq6gy8p","body":"This paper examines prospects for enhanced regional migration governance and protection of migrants\u2019 rights in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Migration in this region is substantial in scale and diverse in nature, incorporating economic, political and mixed migration flows. In addition to movements between countries within the region, migrants also come from across the African continent and even further afield. At its foundation in 1992, SADC as an institution initially embraced a vision of intra-regional free movement, but this has not become a reality. If anything, there has been a hardening of anti-migrant attitudes, not least in the principal destination country of South Africa. There have also been serious violations of migrants\u2019 rights. Attempts at regional coordination and harmonisation of migration governance have made limited progress and continue to face formidable challenges, although recent developments at national and regional levels show some promise. In conjunction with the 2003 SADC Charter of Fundamental Social Rights and 2008 Code on Social Security, incorporation of migrants into the SADC 2014 Employment and Labour Protocol could signal a shift towards more rights-based migration governance. The paper concludes by arguing that there can be no robust rights regime, either regionally or in individual countries, without extension of labour and certain other rights to non- citizens, nor a robust regional migration regime unless it is rights-based.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"More than cooking stoves: need for an ambitious plan on air pollution","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement; Medicus Mundi International: 27 January 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hnc2jzq","body":"In a statement People's Health Movement (PHM) and Medicus Mundi International (MMI) pointed out the weaknesses of the draft roadmap established by the WHO for an enhanced global response to the adverse health effects of air pollution.  In it, they argue that this draft misses an analysis of the current economic and trade-related rules that would prevent the establishment of a robust plan of action. PHM and MMI see serious barriers for the transfer to clean technologies due to the continuing pressure for higher levels of intellectual property protection and investor state dispute settlements in trade agreements. PHM and MMI urge member states to insist on a more strategic and focused approach to the social and economic determinants of air pollution and to address these fundamental issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"One Million Signatures to Have a Clear Law on Abortion","field_subtitle":"Centre for Health Human Rights and Development (CEHURD): Uganda, September 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jde63pl","body":"The Centre for Health Human Rights and Development(CEHURD) through the Coalition to Stop Maternal Mortality due to Unsafe Abortion, marked the Global Day of Action on Safe and Legal Abortion on the 28th of September 2015. The global trending hash tag on social media was #BustTheMyth that all messages on myths and facts on abortion were attached to while sending out to followers on social media. A petition was read in line with the theme; Because every woman and Girl Counts and a campaign to have 1 million signatures was launched. The campaign sought to have one million signatures to be presented to parliament and the Speaker of Uganda Parliament, the Rt. Hon. Rebecca Kadaga and entire legislative council, to consider having a proper and clear law on abortion.  Two social media campaigns in line with the theme were launched to boost the main campaign with the hash tags; #BustTheMyth and #LetHerSpeak: Because every woman and girl counts. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"People's Commission of Inquiry: Free State in Chains","field_subtitle":"Report back from the People's Commission of Inquiry into the Free State Healthcare System - 7-8 July 2015: Treatment Action Campaign, November 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/j5n2o9j","body":"A two-day long People\u2019s Commission of Inquiry into the Free State Health System was held in Bloemfontein, Free State on July 7th and 8th 2015. The inquiry was organised and hosted by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) but was set up as a public forum to enable people in the province to give testimony in front of an independent commission of inquiry through verbal and written testimony from more than 60 people representing 15 communities in the province. Civil society, activists and healthcare professionals also spoke or made submissions to the commissioners and the Free State Department of Health was also invited to testify and to make submissions. The key findings that emerged from the testimonies were that: The South African government, in particular the provincial Free State government, are failing to assume their responsibility to protect access to healthcare services, especially for the poor in the province. It reports shortages and stock outs of medication and medical supplies; broken or unavailable equipment; inadequate health workers; long waiting times for provincial emergency medical services and patient transport systems and unreliability and indignity experienced in these services. Many of the oral testimonies spoke of people having to pay out-of-pocket payments for transport to health facilities. Whistle-blowing and engagement is reported to be discouraged and at times met with intimidation. The report offers recommendations to improve access to quality services. The report indicates that the commission is committed to working together with communities, healthcare professionals, the provincial government and all other interested parties to improve conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Primary Health Care Performance Initiative Toolkits","field_subtitle":"Primary Health Care Performance Initiative Website","field_url":"http://phcperformanceinitiative.org/tools","body":"The Primary Health Care Performance Initiative (PHCPI) is a new partnership that brings together country policymakers, health system managers, practitioners, advocates and other development partners to catalyse improvements in primary health care (PHC) in low- and middle-income countries through better measurement and knowledge-sharing. PHCPI aims to help countries to track key performance indicators for their PHC systems, identifying which parts of the system are working well and which ones aren\u2019t. It aims to enhance accountability and provide decision-makers with essential information, to provide a platform for countries to share lessons and best practices an advocacy toolkit, and a compare tool which allows users to simultaneously compare multiple countries across multiple indicators. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Relationship between power, communication, and violence among couples: results of a cluster-randomised HIV prevention study in a South African township","field_subtitle":"Minnis A; Doherty I; Kline T; Zule W; Myers B; Carney T; Wechsberg W: International Journal of Women's Health, 7, 517\u2013525, 2015","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4435250/","body":"Inequitable gender-based power in relationships and intimate partner violence contribute to persistently high rates of HIV infection among South African women. The authors examined the effects of two group-based HIV prevention interventions that engaged men and their female partners together in a couples intervention (Couples Health CoOp [CHC]) and a gender-separate intervention (Men\u2019s Health CoOp/Women\u2019s Health CoOp [MHC/WHC]) on women\u2019s reports of power, communication, and conflict in relationships. Of the 290 couples enrolled, 255 women remained in the same partnership over 6 months. Following the intervention, women in the CHC arm compared with those in the WHC arm were more likely to report an increase in relationship control and gender norms supporting female autonomy in relationships. Women in the MHC/WHC arm were more likely to report increases in relationship equity, relative to those in the CHC arm, and had a higher odds of reporting no victimisation during the previous 3 months. Male partner engagement in either the gender-separate or couples-based interventions led to modest improvements in gender power, adoption of more egalitarian gender norms, and reductions in relationship conflict for females. The aspects of relationship power that improved, however, varied between the couples and gender-separate conditions, highlighting the need for further attention to development of both gender-separate and couples interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Right to sanitation, a distinct human right","field_subtitle":"Heller L; Sadi W: United Nations Human Rights Office of the Commissioner, New York, December 2015","field_url":"http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16903&LangID=E","body":"The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human right to water and sanitation, L\u00e9o Heller, and the Chair of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Waleed Sadi,  welcomed the explicit recognition of the \u2018human right to sanitation\u2019 as a distinct right, together with the \u2018human right to safe drinking water\u2019 by the UN General Assembly in December. Over 2.5 billion people still lack access to improved sanitation - the sanitation target under Goal 7 has been missed by one of the widest margins of all the 18 targets under the Millennium Development Goals. One billion people practise open defecation, nine out of ten in rural areas across the world. The experts explained that while sanitation does not necessarily have to be water-borne, governments tend to focus on this type, rather than on-site sanitation such as pit latrines and septic tanks, which are still widely used. As a result, individual households which rely on on-site sanitation often have to operate the entire system themselves, including collection and disposal, without government support. \u201cThe right to sanitation also requires privacy and dignity,\u201d the experts stressed. In the UN General Assembly resolution, adopted by consensus on 17 December 2015, Member States recognized that \u2018the human right to sanitation entitles everyone, without discrimination, to have physical and affordable access to sanitation, in all spheres of life, that is safe, hygienic, secure, socially and culturally acceptable and that provides privacy and ensures dignity.\u2019 \u201cWe urge all Member States, in both their national budgeting and international development cooperation, to target the allocation of resources to sanitation in particular to the most marginalised and disadvantaged groups and individuals, as those living in urban informal settlements and in rural areas,\u201d the experts said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategies for achieving global collective action on antimicrobial resistance","field_subtitle":"Hoffman S; Caleo G; Daulaire N; Elbe S; Matsoso P; Mossialos E; Rizvi Z; R\u00f8ttingen JA: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 93(12), 867-876, 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/12/15-153171/en/","body":"Global governance and market failures mean that it is not possible to ensure access to antimicrobial medicines of sustainable effectiveness. Many people work to overcome these failures, but their institutions and initiatives are insufficiently coordinated, led and financed. Options for promoting global collective action on antimicrobial access and effectiveness include building institutions, crafting incentives and mobilising interests. No single option is sufficient to tackle all the challenges associated with antimicrobial resistance. Promising institutional options include monitored milestones and an inter-agency task force. A global pooled fund could be used to craft incentives and a special representative nominated as an interest mobiliser. There are three policy components to the problem of antimicrobials \u2013 ensuring access, conservation and innovation. To address all three components, the right mix of options needs to be matched with an effective forum and may need to be supported by an international legal framework.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The environmental profile of a community\u2019s health: a cross-sectional study on tobacco marketing in 16 countries","field_subtitle":"Savell E; Gilmore AB; Sims M; Mony PK; Koon T; et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 93(12), 93:851-861G., December 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/12/15-155846/en/","body":"The objective of the study was to examine and compare tobacco marketing in 16 countries while the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control requires parties to implement a comprehensive ban on such marketing. Between 2009 and 2012, a kilometre-long walk was completed by trained investigators in 462 communities across 16 countries to collect data on tobacco marketing. The authors interviewed community members about their exposure to traditional and non-traditional marketing in the previous six months. To examine differences in marketing between urban and rural communities and between high-, middle- and low-income countries, the authors used multilevel regression models controlling for potential confounders. Compared with high-income countries, the number of tobacco advertisements observed was 81 times higher in low-income countries and the number of tobacco outlets was 2.5 times higher in both low- and lower-middle-income countries. Of the 11 842 interviewees, 1184 (10%) reported seeing at least five types of tobacco marketing. Self-reported exposure to at least one type of traditional marketing was 10 times higher in low-income countries than in high-income countries. For almost all measures, marketing exposure was significantly lower in the rural communities than in the urban communities. Despite global legislation to limit tobacco marketing, it appears ubiquitous. The frequency and type of tobacco marketing varies on the national level by income group and by community type, appearing to be greatest in low-income countries and urban communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The International Health Regulations 10 years on: the governing framework for global health security","field_subtitle":"Gostin L: DeBartolo M; Friedman E: The Lancet 386(10009), 2222\u20132226, 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hxl77a7","body":"Fundamental revisions to the International Health Regulations in 2005 were meant to herald a new era of global health security and cooperation. Yet, 10 years later, the International Health Regulations face criticism, particularly after the west African Ebola epidemic. Several high-level panels are reviewing the International Health Regulations' functions and urging reforms.  The Global Health Security Agenda, a multilateral partnership focused on preventing, detecting, and responding to natural, accidental, or intentional disease outbreaks, has similar capacity building aims, but operates largely outside the International Health Regulations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The Least Developed Countries Report 2015: Transforming Rural Economies","field_subtitle":"United Nations Conference on Trade and Development(UNCTAD): New York, November 2015","field_url":"http://unctad.org/en/pages/PublicationWebflyer.aspx?publicationid=1393","body":"The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Least Developed Countries (LDC\u2019s) Report 2015 focuses on the transformation of rural economies.  Assessing LDCs\u2019 progress in agricultural productivity, the extent and nature of their rural economic diversification, and gender issues in rural transformation, it shows that agricultural productivity began to increase in LDCs in 2000, following decades of stagnation or decline, but has risen strongly only in Asian LDCs. The report also shows that rural economic diversification varies widely between LDCs, but only a few have passed beyond the stage in which non-farm activities are centred on agriculture, and that urban linkages are limited. Further, the report highlights that women comprise half the rural workforce in LDCs, but face serious constraints on realising their productive potential, slowing rural transformation. The 2030 Agenda both highlights the need and provides the opportunity for a new approach to rural development centred on poverty-oriented structural transformation (POST), to generate higher incomes backed by higher productivity. In rural areas, this means upgrading agriculture, developing viable non-farm activities, and fully exploiting the synergies between the two, through appropriately designed and sequenced efforts to achieve the SDGs. The Report argues that differentiation is needed between peri-urban, intermediate, remote and isolated rural areas and a key priority is to overcome the contradiction between need and opportunity, by which more remote areas and poorer households have the greatest need but also the most limited opportunities for income diversification. Gender-specific measures are needed to overcome disadvantages arising directly from gender norms, and more inclusive gender-sensitive approaches to address their poverty-related consequences. Access to appropriate technologies, inputs, skills and affordable finance needs to be fostered. Effective policy coordination is required nationally, while producers\u2019 associations, cooperatives and women\u2019s networks can play a key role locally. Innovative approaches to trade and cross-border investment could make a substantial contribution. Finally, the report highlights the importance of adequate support from the international community to achieve structural transformation and fulfil the SDGs, based on the principle that \u201cto will the end is to will the means\u201d. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Training needs for research in health inequities among health and demographic researchers from eight African and Asian countries","field_subtitle":"Haafkens J; Blomstedt Y; Eriksson M; Becher H; Ramroth H; Kinsman J:  BMC Public Health 14(1254), 2014","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/14/1254","body":"To support equity focussed public health policy in low and middle income countries, more evidence and analysis of the social determinants of health inequalities is needed. This requires specific know how among researchers. The INDEPTH Training and Research Centres of Excellence (INTREC) collaboration identified learning needs among INDEPTH researchers from Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa, Kenya, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, and Bangladesh to conduct research on the causes of health inequalities in their country. Using an inductive method, online concept-mapping, participants were asked to generate statements in response to the question what background knowledge they would need to conduct research on the causes of health inequalities in their country. Of the 150 invited researchers, 82 participated in the study: 54 from Africa; 28 from Asia. African participants assigned the highest importance to further training on methods for assessing health inequalities. Asian participants assigned the highest importance to training on research and policy. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal health coverage: The strange romance of The Lancet, MEDICC, and Cuba","field_subtitle":"Waitzkin H: Social Medicine 9(2) 93 -97, 2015","field_url":"http://socialmedicine.info/index.php/socialmedicine/article/view/845/1607","body":"As a key supporter of universal health coverage (UHC), The Lancet recently partnered with Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC), a non-governmental organisation based in the United States, to produce a Spanish-language translation of The Lancet\u2019s series on UHC in Latin America. This translation was launched as part of Cuba Salud 2015, an international health conference held during April 2015 in Havana, Cuba. Despite its often ambiguous definition, UHC is often used to refer to a financial reform extending insurance coverage in varying degrees to a larger part of a country\u2019s population. This is different to \u201chealthcare for all\u201d (HCA) \u2013 a healthcare delivery system that provides equal services for the entire population regardless of an individual\u2019s or family\u2019s financial resources. UHC as a more limited insurance concept has received wide criticism because it does not necessarily create a unified, accessible system; because it usually encourages a role for private, for- profit insurance corporations; and because it involves tiered benefits packages with differing benefits for the poor and non-poor. Although the UHC orientation has become \u201chegemonic\u201d in global health policy circles, its ideological assumptions have not been confirmed empirically. The authors urge that the Lancet and MEDICC Review provide \u201cequal time\u201d for critiques of UHC and presentations of endeavours to achieve HCA. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Will the Sustainable Development Goals deliver on African solutions to African problems?","field_subtitle":"Garrett Brown, Rene Loewenson, Rangarirai Machemedze, Nancy Malema, EQUINET","field_url":"","body":"The theme for the November 2015 62nd East, Central and Southern African Health Community (ECSA-HC) Health Ministers Conference on transitioning from Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provided a timely opportunity for countries in the region to frame priorities for health for the next 15 years. In his opening remarks to the Health Ministers Conference, the Minister of Health for Mauritius, the Honorable Anil Kumarsingh Gayan pointed to the SDGs as an ambitious framework that looked at health holistically in terms of healthy lives, including and beyond health care.  As detailed also by the World Health Organisation representative Dr Rufaro Chatora at the conference, the transition is from a disease and poverty focused agenda to one that is more focused on the policy goals that apply to all countries. Hon Minister Gayan cautioned that the goals must not remain \u2018in a state of aspiration\u2019, and called for them to be addressed through \u2018African solutions to African problems\u2019. \r\n\r\nWhile many of the SDGs contribute to health, SDG 3 raises the need to \u2018ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages\u2019 and lists a daunting array of ambiguous targets (such as universal health coverage). Many of these are open to interpretation and strategic thinking in regards to their implementation, including in terms of how they are integrated into national, regional and continental development plans, such as the African Union\u2019s Agenda 2063: \u2018The Africa we want\u2019. With global discussion underway on indicators, funding and other ways of operationalizing the SDGs, the region has a window of opportunity to shape these agendas, rather than react to those set outside the region. \r\n\r\nMinister Gayan highlighted the importance of inspiring regional leadership and collective action across countries to steer the SDG agenda to advance health and address mutual concerns across countries in the region through an agenda set within the region. This, he indicated, called for regional organisations to be \u2018innovative, responsive, imaginative and effective\u2019. \r\n\r\nThe ECSA HC Best Practices Forum (BPF), Directors Joint Consultative Conference and Health Ministers Conference, this year involving about 150 delegates from ministries of health, health experts and researchers, heads of health research and training institutions from ECSA countries and diverse collaborating partners in and beyond the region, provided a unique opportunity to blend experience, evidence, exchange, policy review and networking to contribute to such features.  It included inputs from diverse actors in the region on universal health coverage (UHC), on health financing, on regional collaboration in the surveillance and control of communicable diseases, on the situation and responses to non- communicable diseases (NCDs), on global health diplomacy and on innovations in health professional training. \r\n\r\nThe BPF conference raised a number of key recommendations aimed at supporting the transition from the MDGs to the SDGs, including; strengthening mandatory pre\u2013payment for health, and monitoring, evaluation and shared learning across the ESCA-HC members on measures for this and on progress towards UHC; strengthening and sharing capacities and knowledge for tracking and reporting communicable diseases and for responding to outbreaks; increasing ECSA initiatives for health professional training and recognition of qualifications across countries in the region; strengthening regional capacity and evidence in global health negotiations; strengthening investment in research and the use of evidence in health policy, and facilitating \u2018south-south knowledge exchange\u2019 in various areas, including on multi-sectoral measures and capacities to detect and control NCDs and traumas; and in global health diplomacy. \r\n\r\nSuch regional exchange, co-ordination and voice was found in EQUINET\u2019s research as one factor - amongst others-  in effective engagement in global health negotiations.  In the ECSA HC conference, regional co-operation was raised in various discussions as an important platform for solving a number of problems, including for countries with excess to deploy skilled professionals to countries with scarcities, or for more rapid deployment of capacities for response to emergencies. At the same time, EQUINET\u2019s research also found that regional organisations are often bypassed or lack formal voice in global processes. It was thus interesting that the ECSA HC Director General Professor Yoswa Dambisya launched one of the few examples of a successfully secured regionally based Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GF) grant, which will align programs and provide increased capacity for tuberculosis monitoring and response in the region. This capacity will not only increase the ability of states in the region to detect new cases of tuberculosis, but also provides the possibility for new capacity scale-up to detect other neglected communicable diseases (NCDs) as laboratory resources and expertise increase. \r\n\r\nThere were, however, a number of signals on the challenges to further strengthen such regional roles. Minister Gayan in his opening speech pointed to how shortfalls in payment of membership fees to the regional body weakens the financial forecasting and planning needed to take forward a proactive agenda. The recent experience of weak implementation of the WHO Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel signaled deficits in technical follow through on policies. At the same time the conference also raised the role of domestic investment in country driven research and ministerial leadership to effectively support and coordinate such follow through.  \r\n\r\nWith the long-term nature of the issues being tackled, these annual regional conferences need a consistency of focus on issues that are key for the region and strategic use of time to share and review the learning from implementation of regional recommendations as \u2018African solution to African problems\u2019.  The involvement of many of the countries in several regional economic communities also necessitates co-ordination of efforts across these regional bodies. \r\n\r\nNotwithstanding the challenges, the conference highlighted the potential of ECSA-HC and other regional processes in facilitating the exchange and sharing of policy relevant evidence and \u2018south-south\u2019 learning. The contribution of such institutional resources and processes should not be overlooked in asserting African health priorities in the global health agenda. While this is more a \u2018marathon\u2019 than a \u2018sprint\u2019, for the window of opportunity of current discussions on the SDG indicators and financing, the time to voice African health priorities in this global SDG process is now. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this editorial to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For further information on the ECSA HC Regional Conferences please visit the ECSA HC website at http://www.ecsahc.org/","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Organisation Executive Board meeting 138 ","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: Geneva, January 2016","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/e/e_eb138.html","body":"The WHO Executive Board is composed of 34 members technically qualified in the field of health. Members are elected for three-year terms. The main Board meeting, at which the agenda for the forthcoming Health Assembly is agreed upon and resolutions for forwarding to the Health Assembly are adopted, is held in January, with a second shorter meeting in May, immediately after the Health Assembly, for more administrative matters. The main functions of the Board are to give effect to the decisions and policies of the Health Assembly, to advise it and generally to facilitate its work. The full set of documents under consideration at the 138th WHO Executive Board meeting are available online at the organisation's website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cYou are wasting our drugs\u201d: health service barriers to HIV treatment for sex workers in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Mtetwa S; Busza J; Chidiya S; Mungofa S; Cowan F: BMC Public Health 13(698), July 2013, ","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/13/698","body":"In Zimbabwe, despite the existence of well-attended services targeted to female sex workers (SWs), fewer than half of women diagnosed with HIV took up referrals for assessment and ART initiation; just 14% attended more than one appointment. The authors conducted a qualitative study to explore the reasons for non-attendance and the high rate of attrition, through three focus group discussions (FGD) in Harare with HIV-positive SWs. SWs emphasised supply-side barriers, such as being demeaned and humiliated by health workers, reflecting broader social stigma surrounding their work. Sex workers were particularly sensitive to being identified and belittled within the health care environment. Demand-side barriers also featured, including competing time commitments and costs of transport and some treatment, reflecting SWs\u2019 marginalised socio-economic position. Improving treatment access for SWs is critical for their own health, programme equity, and public health benefit. The authors suggest that programmes working to reduce SW attrition from HIV care need to proactively address the quality and environment of public services. Sensitising health workers through specialised training, refining referral systems from sex-worker friendly clinics into the national system, and providing opportunities for SW to collectively organise for improved treatment and rights might help alleviate the barriers to treatment initiation and attention currently faced by SW.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa-China FOCAC Summit makes good progress on South-South cooperation","field_subtitle":"SOUTHNEWS No. 99, 15 December 2015","field_url":"http://www.southcentre.int/category/publications/southnews/","body":"The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) under the theme: \"China-Africa Progressing Together: Win-Win Cooperation for Common Development\" was held on 4-5 December in Johannesburg, South Africa. This was the first time that a leaders\u2019 summit level of FOCAC is held in Africa. The Summit which also celebrated the 15th anniversary of the partnership was co-chaired by Chinese President Xi Jinping and South African President Jacob Zuma. The FOCAC was established fifteen years ago with its first Ministerial Forum held in Beijing in 2000. With six Ministerial Meetings and two at Summit level already organised, FOCAC has evolved over the years to become a prominent example of South-South cooperation. In the two-day event, Chinese President Xi Jinping and over 50 African leaders gathered in South Africa to discuss together the blueprints of cooperation and show to the world the power of solidarity among developing countries. To build China-Africa comprehensive strategic and cooperative partnership, the conference was informed that China will implement ten cooperation plans with Africa in the next three years. Guided by the principle of government guidance, businesses being the major actors, market operation and win-win cooperation, these plans aim at addressing three bottleneck issues holding back Africa\u2019s development, namely, inadequate infrastructure, lack of professional and skilled personnel, and funding shortage, accelerating Africa\u2019s industrialization and agricultural modernization, and achieving sustainable self-development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid and International Development Forum (AIDF) Africa Summit 2016","field_subtitle":"2-3 February 2016, United Nations Conference Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia","field_url":"http://africa.aidforum.org","body":"Gathering 250+ senior representatives and advisors from regional governments, UN agencies, international and regional NGOs, CBOs, investors and donors, research institutes and the private sector, this summit looks at how technological innovations and best practice can improve aid delivery and development strategy in East Africa. The summit demonstrates best practice approaches, current initiatives and latest innovations, offering trans-disciplinary discussions with participants from all relevant stakeholder groups. The agenda has been developed in consultation with UN organisations. The specific objectives of this summit are: to showcase expertise, approaches and innovations by different global stakeholders, to discuss best practice, guidelines and policy that support technological innovations and to provide an opportunity for knowledge exchange and networking amongst public, private and civil society stakeholders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Ambassador Zhong Jianhua \u2013 on trade, aid and jobs","field_subtitle":"Interview with Edward Paice: Africa Research Institute, August 2014","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nlm6m52","body":"In this online interview with Edward Paice, Director of Africa Research Institute, Zhong Jianhua, China\u2019s Special Representative on African Affairs, responds to common criticisms of China\u2019s policy and conduct in Africa. He rejects any analogy between China-Africa trade patterns and those of the colonial era but agrees that Africa must regard China as a competitor pursuing its own interests. Ambassador Zhong observes many similarities between the policy choices facing African governments in the 2000s and those confronted by China during the 1980s and 1990s. He emphasises that China itself is still a developing country \u2013 and one which has a great deal to learn about Africa. He insists that it is China\u2019s responsibility to help African nations compete in the global economy. While acknowledging the imperative shared by all developing economies to maximise agricultural potential, attract capital, create a more skilled workforce and industrialise, he concludes that \u201cfinally the chance has come\u201d to Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Bringing stakeholders together for urban health equity: hallmarks of a compromised process","field_subtitle":"Katz A; Cheff R; O\u2019Campo P: International Journal for Equity in Health 2015, 14(138), 2015","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/14/1/138","body":"There is a global trend towards the use of ad hoc participation processes that seek to engage grassroots stakeholders in decisions related to municipal infrastructure, land use and services. The authors present the results of a scholarly literature review examining 14 articles detailing specific cases of these processes to contribute to the discussion regarding their utility in advancing health equity. They explore hallmarks of compromised processes, potential harms to grassroots stakeholders, and potential mitigating factors. The authors conclude that participation processes in urban areas often cut off participation following the planning phase at the point of implementation, limiting convener accountability to grassroots stakeholders, and, further, that where participation processes yield gains, these are often due to independent grassroots action. Given the emphasis on participation in health equity discourse, this study seeks to provide a real world exploration of the pitfalls and potential harms of participation processes that is relevant to health equity theory and practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Conceptualising the impacts of dual practice on the retention of public sector specialists - evidence from South Africa","field_subtitle":"Ashmore J; Gilson L: Human Resources for Health 13(3), 2015, ","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/13/1/3","body":"\u2018Dual practice\u2019, or multiple job holding, generally involves public sector-based health workers taking additional work in the private sector. This form of the practice is purported to help retain public health care workers in low and middle-income countries\u2019 public sectors through additional wage incentives. There has been little conceptual or empirical development of the relationship between dual practice and retention. This article helps begin to fill this gap, drawing on empirical evidence from a qualitative study focusing on South African specialists. Fifty-one repeat, in-depth interviews were carried out with 28 doctors (predominantly specialists) with more than one job, in one public and one private urban hospital. Findings suggest dual practice can impact both positively and negatively on specialists\u2019 intention to stay in the public sector. This is through multiple conceptual channels including those previously identified in the literature such as dual practice acting as a \u2018stepping stone\u2019 to private practice by reducing migration costs. Dual practice can also lead specialists to re-evaluate how they compare public and private jobs, and to overworking which can expedite decisions on whether to stay in the public sector or leave. Numerous respondents undertook dual practice without official permission. The idea that dual practice helps retain public specialists in South Africa may be overstated. Yet banning the practice may be ineffective, given many undertake it without permission in any case. Regulation should be better enforced to ensure dual practice is not abused. The conceptual framework developed in this article could form a basis for further qualitative and quantitative inquiry.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"CSO conference on Global Health and Universal Health Coverage: Dakar, February 2014 Workshop Report ","field_subtitle":"Action for Global Health (AfGH); Network of West African NGO Platforms, (REPAOC): 8 December 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/z3dk5ph","body":"Action for Global Health (AfGH) in partnership with the Network of West African NGO Platforms, (REPAOC) convened a conference in Dakar, Senegal, 17-19th February 2014, which brought together civil society actors from 23 countries and five continents.  The main purpose of the workshop was to gain clarity and consensus on what Universal Health Coverage (UHC) incorporates, building upon Civil Society Organisation\u2019s (CSO) country experiences from a grassroots level; develop a common understanding of the strengths of the UHC concept and the pitfalls of its implementation; define a clear position on how UHC should be framed to achieve the highest attainable standard of health for all; and outline a course of action for CSO advocacy on the right to health.  The meeting concluded with a declaration \u2013 Ensuring UHC is fit for contributing to the right to health \u2013 which captured the main discussion points and reflections of the CSOs present. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ebola\u2019s lessons for Universal Health Coverage (UHC)","field_subtitle":"Kamal-Yanni M: Global Health Check, 11 December 2015","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/?p=1846","body":"The 2015 UHC day comes after a year of the international community being busy in producing numerous reports on learning from the Ebola crisis. Most of the learning from these documents has focused on mechanisms for effective global response to outbreaks. However, the author argues that more attention should be directed to learning from the role of local institutions in tackling the Ebola outbreak including how critically needed advances towards UHC can be achieved. Two key ingredients for effective epidemic prevention and response require particular focus:  community engagement and health systems strengthening. The WHO interim panel\u2019s report on Ebola  recognised that \u201cRisk assessment was complicated by factors such as weak health systems, poor surveillance, little early awareness of population mobility, spread of the virus in urban areas, poor public messaging, lack of community engagement, hiding of cases, and continuing unsafe (e.g. burial) practices\u201d.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 179: We're listening out for your voice and practice on health justice in 2016","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in utilisation of antiretroviral therapy for HIV-infected people in South Africa: a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Tromp N; Michels C; Mikkelsen,E; Hontelez J; Baltussen R: International Journal for Equity in Health 13(60) 2014","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4448289/","body":"About half a million people in South Africa are deprived of antiretroviral therapy (ART), and there is little systematic knowledge on who they are \u2013 e.g. by severity of disease, sex, or socio-economic status (SES). The authors performed a systematic review to determine the current quantitative evidence-base on equity in utilisation of ART among HIV-infected people in South Africa. The authors conducted a literature search based on the Cochrane guidelines. A study was included if it compared for different groups of HIV infected people (by sex, age, severity of disease, area of living, SES, marital status, ethnicity, religion and/or sexual orientation (i.e. equity criteria)) the number initiating/adhering to ART with the number who did not. The authors considered ART utilisation inequitable for a certain criterion (e.g. sex) if between groups (e.g. men versus women) significant differences were reported in ART initiation/adherence. Twelve studies met the inclusion criteria. For sex, 2 out of 10 studies that investigated this criterion found that men are less likely than women to utilise ART, while the other 8 found no differences. For age, 4 out of 8 studies found inequities and reported less utilisation for younger people. For area of living, 3 out of 4 studies showed that those living in rural areas or certain provinces have less access and 2 out of 6 studies looking at SES found that people with lower SES have less access. One study which looked at the marital status found that those who are married are less likely to utilise ART. For severity of disease, 5 out of 6 studies used more than one outcome measure for disease stage and reported within their study contradicting results. One of the studies reported inconclusive findings for ethnicity and no study had looked at religion and sexual orientation. It seems that men, young people, those living in certain provinces or rural areas, people who are unemployed or with a low educational level, and those being unmarried have less access to ART. As studies stem from different contexts and use different methods conclusions should be taken with caution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Evidence-informed policymaking in practice: country-level examples of use of evidence for iCCM policy","field_subtitle":"Rodr\u00edguez D; Shearer J; Mariano A; Juma P; Dalglish S; Bennet S: Health Policy and Planning 30 (suppl 2): ii36-ii45, December 2015","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/suppl_2/ii3.full","body":"Integrated Community Case Management of Childhood Illness (iCCM) is a policy for providing treatment for malaria, diarrhoea and pneumonia for children below 5 years at the community level, which is generating increasing evidence and support at the global level. This article explores whether, how and why evidence influenced policy formulation for iCCM in Niger, Kenya and Mozambique, and explains the use of evidence in these contexts. Findings indicate that all three countries used national monitoring data to identify the issue of children dying in the community prior to reaching health facilities, whereas international research evidence was used to identify policy options. Nevertheless, policymakers greatly valued local evidence and pilot projects proved critical in advancing iCCM. World Health Organisation and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) functioned as knowledge brokers, bringing research evidence and experiences from other countries to the attention of local policymakers as well as sponsoring site visits and meetings. Both Mozambique and Kenya exhibit Problem-Solving research utilisation with different outcomes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Systems Trust Conference 2016","field_subtitle":"Call for Abstracts and Pre Conference Workshops: Deadline 10 January 2016","field_url":"http://hstconference2016.org.za/news/30-11-2015/conference-update-2","body":"The abstract reviewers are looking forward to receiving outlines for oral and poster presentations demonstrating innovations and good practice in Primary Health Care projects and programmes.  Knowledge sharing and skills transfer are an important component of the Conference.  To this end, the organisers also invite abstract submissions for the pre-conference workshops which should include interactive participation and offer practical outcomes to the delegates. Through the media of storytelling, drama, film, music or art, the organisers aim to create a platform for thought-provoking discussions through a non-conventional Conference experience. The organisers would like to hear from all those who work in and around South Africa\u2019s health system, especially: district- and facility-based healthcare workers and community members of facility governance structures; development partners; universities; district, provincial and municipal structures; the National Department of Health; AIDS councils; private health sector; non-governmental and community-based organisations; health communicators; film producers; and artists.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health worker migration from South Africa: causes, consequences and policy responses","field_subtitle":"Labont\u00e9 R; Sanders D; Mathole T; Crush J; Chikanda A; Dambisya Y; Runnels V; Packer C; MacKenzie A; Murphy G; Bourgeault I: Human Resources for Health,13(92), December 2015","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/13/1/92","body":"This paper arises from a four-country study that sought to better understand the drivers of skilled health worker migration, its consequences, and the strategies countries have employed to mitigate negative impacts. This paper presents the findings from South Africa. The study began with a scoping review of the literature on health worker migration from South Africa, followed by empirical data collected from skilled health workers and stakeholders. The study found that there has been a decrease in out-migration of skilled health workers from South Africa since the early 2000s largely attributed to a reduced need for foreign-trained skilled health workers in destination countries, limitations on recruitment, and tighter migration rules. Low levels of worker satisfaction persist, although the Occupation Specific Dispensation (OSD) policy (2007), which increased wages for health workers, has been described as critical in retaining South African nurses. Return migration was reportedly a common occurrence. The consequences attributed to skilled health worker migration are mixed, but shortages appear to have declined. Most promising initiatives are those designed to reinforce the South African health system and undertaken within South Africa itself. In the near past, South Africa\u2019s health worker shortages as a result of emigration were viewed as significant and harmful. Currently, domestic policies to improve health care and the health workforce including innovations such as new skilled health worker cadres and OSD policies appear to have served to decrease shortages to some extent. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Informality as an urban challenge","field_subtitle":"Interview with Gustave Massiah: UrbanAfrica.net, 16 November 2015","field_url":"http://www.urbanafrica.net/urban-voices/informality-as-an-urban-challenge/","body":"Agenda 2063 - The Africa We Want is a flagship campaign of the African Union. This policy argues for using the opportunity offered by urbanisation and the demographic shift to fulfil the vision of an African renaissance. With urbanisation firmly on the agenda across Africa there is a need for a constructive policy dialogue on what exactly urbanisation in Africa might mean. To support such a process the Cities Alliance secretariat has awarded a grant to the African Centre for Cities (ACC) at the University of Cape Town to establish an independent think tank dedicated to this issue. In this video Gustave Massiah, an Urban Specialist with the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa, discusses the key challenges facing African urbanisation in a post-industrial period. Gustave sees the main challenges of African urbanisation to be those faced by the continent as a whole: inequality, unemployment and the resistance of external exploitation. He proposes a new conception of informality based on the dynamism and power of the individual. With no obvious answer to informality, society then has to review its definition of informal and to better understand people's own  experience of their conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrated community case management in Malawi: an analysis of innovation and institutional characteristics for policy adoption","field_subtitle":"Rodr\u00edguez D; Banda H; Namakhoma I: Health Policy and Planning 30 (suppl 2): ii74-ii83, December 2015","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/suppl_2/ii74.full","body":"In 2007, Malawi became an early adopter of integrated community case management for childhood illnesses (iCCM), a policy aimed at community-level treatment for malaria, diarrhoea and pneumonia for children below 5 years. Through a retrospective case study, this article explores critical issues in implementation that arose during policy formulation through the lens of the innovation and of the institutions involved in the policy process. iCCM was compatible with the Malawian health system due to the ability to build on an existing community health worker cadre of health surveillance assistants (HSAs) and previous experiences with treatment provision at the community level. In terms of institutions, the Ministry of Health (MoH) demonstrated leadership in the overall policy process despite early challenges of co-ordination within the MoH. WHO, United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF) and implementing organisations played a supportive role in their position as knowledge brokers. Greater challenges were faced in the organisational capacity of the MoH. Regulatory issues around HSA training as well as concerns around supervision and overburdening of HSAs were discussed, though not fully addressed during policy development. Similarly, the financial sustainability of iCCM, including the mechanisms for channeling funding flows, also remains an unresolved issue. This analysis highlights the role of implementation questions during policy development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Learning from Ebola: readiness for outbreaks and emergencies","field_subtitle":"Chan M: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 2015, 93(12), 818-818A, December 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/12/15-165720/en/","body":"For almost 70 years, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has coordinated the norms and technical standards required to improve global health. This is the role people most often associate with WHO. However, the organisation\u2019s constitution also calls on it to \u201cfurnish technical assistance and, in emergencies, necessary aid\u201d to governments, a role WHO has played on countless occasions. Despite initial delays in the western Africa Ebola outbreak response, the tide of this unprecedented health crisis has now been turned. While still requiring intense and focused action to bring new cases to zero, the outbreak is now limited to only a few cases per week. Deficiencies in capacity, expertise and approach revealed by WHO\u2019s response to Ebola suggest that organisation-wide change is needed:WHO must ensure it can prepare for and respond to outbreaks and emergencies in a way that genuinely supports national efforts and fully integrates with international partners. WHO has begun reviewing systems and capacities throughout the organisation to streamline the way it works in outbreaks and emergencies.These changes focus on six key areas: (i) a unified WHO platform for outbreaks and emergencies with health and humanitarian consequences; (ii) a global health emergency workforce, to be effectively deployed in support of countries; (iii) core capacities at country-level under the International Health Regulations; (iv) functioning, transparency, effectiveness and efficiency of the International Health Regulations; (v) a framework for research and development preparedness and capacity during outbreaks or emergencies; and (vi) adequate international financing for pandemics and other health emergencies, including a 100 million United States dollars contingency fund and a pandemic emergency financing facility. No single organisation can deliver the wide range of services and systems needed for a truly global mechanism that prepares for and responds to outbreaks and emergencies. This is why WHO will continue seeking advice from our partners inside and outside the UN system to make needed change. With their collaboration and support, WHO will be well positioned to deliver what the world needs when outbreaks and emergencies occur: a timely response that rapidly contains the consequences \u2013 for economies and societies as well as for human health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Prioritizing action on health inequities in cities: An evaluation of Urban Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool (Urban HEART) in 15 cities from Asia and Africa","field_subtitle":"Prasad A; Kano M; Dagg K; Mori H; Senkoro H; Ardakani M; Elfeky S; Good S; Engelhardt K; Ross A; Armada F: Social Science & Medicine145, 237\u2013242 November 2015","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953615301337","body":"Following the recommendations of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (2008), the World Health Organisation (WHO) developed the Urban Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool (HEART) to support local stakeholders in identifying and planning action on health inequities. This report analysed the experiences of cities in implementing Urban HEART to inform how the tool could support local stakeholders better in addressing health inequities. Independent evaluations were conducted in 2011\u201312 on Urban HEART piloting in 15 cities from seven countries in Asia and Africa: Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Mongolia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. Local or national health departments led Urban HEART piloting in 12 of the 15 cities. Improving access to safe water and sanitation was a priority equity-oriented intervention in 12 of the 15 cities, while unemployment was addressed in seven cities. Cities who piloted Urban HEART displayed confidence in its potential by sustaining or scaling up its use within their countries. Engagement of a wider group of stakeholders was more likely to lead to actions for improving health equity. Indicators that were collected were more likely to be acted upon. Quality of data for neighbourhoods within cities was one of the major issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional health governance: A suggested agenda for Southern African health diplomacy","field_subtitle":"Penfold E: Global Social Policy 15(3), 278-295, 2015","field_url":"http://gsp.sagepub.com/content/15/3/278.full.pdf+html","body":"Regional organisations can effectively promote regional health diplomacy and governance through engagement with regional social policy. Regional bodies make decisions about health challenges in the region, for example, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the World Health Organisation South East Asia Regional Office (WHO-SEARO). The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has a limited health presence as a regional organisation and diplomatic partner in health governance. This article identifies how SADC facilitates and coordinates health policy, arguing that SADC has the potential to promote regional health diplomacy and governance through engagement with regional social policy. The article identifies the role of global health diplomacy and niche diplomacy in health governance. The role of SADC as a regional organisation and the way it functions is then explained, focusing on how SADC engages with health issues in the region. Recommendations are made as to how SADC can play a more decisive role as a regional organisation to implement South\u2013South management of the regional social policy, health governance and health diplomacy agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Resolutions of the 62nd Health Ministers Conference","field_subtitle":"East, Central and Southern African Health Community, Mauritius, 4th December 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/pwbu2dk","body":"The 62nd ECSA Health Ministers\u2019 Conference (HMC) was held at InterContinental Resort Balaclava Fort, Republic of Mauritius under the theme: Transitioning from Millennium Development Goals to Sustainable Development Goals with the following sub-themes; Enhancing Universal Health Coverage Through Innovations in Health Financing for Risk Protection; Surveillance and Control of Emerging Conditions: (NCDs and Trauma); Regional Collaboration in the Surveillance and Control of Communicable Diseases; Innovations in Health Professional Training Using the ECSA College of Health Sciences Model.  The Conference passed Resolutions on: Transitioning From MDGs to SDGs in the ECSA Region; Enhancing UHC through innovation in Health Financing for Risk Protection; Surveillance and Control of Non- Communicable Diseases and Trauma; Regional Collaboration in the Surveillance and Control of Communicable Diseases; Innovations in Health Professional Training using the ECSA College of Health Sciences Model; Global Health Diplomacy and Strengthening Ministries of Health Leadership and Governance Capacity for Health in the ECSA-HC Region; and Strengthening the Use of Evidence in Health Policy. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The environmental and health impacts of tobacco agriculture, cigarette manufacture and consumption","field_subtitle":"Novotny T; Bialous S; Burt L; Curtis C; da Costa V; Iqtidar S; Liu Y; Pujari S; d\u2019Espaignet E: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 93(12), 877-880, December 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/12/15-152744/en/","body":"The health consequences of tobacco use are well known, but less recognised are the significant environmental impacts of tobacco production and use. The environmental impacts of tobacco include tobacco growing and curing; product manufacturing and distribution; product consumption; and post-consumption waste. The World Health Organisation\u2019s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control addresses environmental concerns in Articles 17 and 18, which primarily apply to tobacco agriculture. Article 5.3 calls for protection from policy interference by the tobacco industry regarding the environmental harms of tobacco production and use. The authors detail the environmental impacts of the tobacco life-cycle and suggest policy responses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Ideal Clinic Programme 2015/16","field_subtitle":"Steinhobel R; Massyn N; Peer N: Health Systems Trust, 2015","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/ideal-clinic-programme-201516","body":"The Ideal Clinic programme was initiated by the South African National Department of Health (NDoH) in July 2013 in order to systematically improve Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities and the quality of care they provide. Provinces have submitted their three-year scale-up plans that indicate in which year each facility will reach Ideal Clinic status. Typically, the purpose of a health facility is to promote health and prevent illness and further complications through early detection, treatment and appropriate referral. An Ideal Clinic is defined as a clinic with good infrastructure, adequate staff, adequate medicine and supplies, good administrative processes, and sufficient adequate bulk supplies. It uses applicable clinical policies, protocols and guidelines, and it harnesses partner and stakeholder support. It also collaborates with other government departments, the private sector and non-governmental organisations to address the social determinants of health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The Ninth Call for Applications for the African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowships (ADDRF)","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 15 January 15, 2016","field_url":"http://aphrc.org/african-doctoral-dissertation-research-fellowships-2016-call/","body":"The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), in partnership with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), is pleased to announce the ninth call for applications for the African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowships (ADDRF). The ADDRF Fellowship Program seeks to facilitate more rigorous engagement of doctoral students in research, strengthen their research skills, and provide them an opportunity for timely completion of their doctoral training. The Program targets doctoral students with strong commitment to a career in training and/or research. The overall goal of the ADDRF Program is to support the training and retention of highly-skilled, locally-trained scholars in research and academic positions across the region. The ADDRF will award about 20 fellowships in 2016 to doctoral students who are within two years of completing their thesis at an African university. In this phase of funding and in consideration of IDRC\u2019s health programming priorities, candidates whose dissertation topics address health policy or health systems issues will be given special consideration. The application form and supporting documents (attached) must be submitted on email (see website for details).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"We're listening out for your voice and practice on health justice in 2016","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET newsletter","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe EQUINET steering committee wishes you a healthy new year, and one that brings greater justice in our communities, countries and globally. \r\n\r\nThis is a short newsletter, given the time of year. However, the EQUINET newsletter is now 15 years old, and the monthly issues share a growing number of stories of both the challenges to health equity, and the many examples of innovative practice within the region. At a recent regional conference in 2015, delegates raised that in our east and southern African region, we still do not adequately document or publish what we are doing, so that our story is often told by others, or not at all. Until the lions write their story, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. We have used the EQUINET newsletter to give more profile to publication from and on our region, and have included journal papers and reports, but also new media such as videos, online interviews, maps, tools, graphics and exhibits. We will be listening even more for this in 2016. \r\n\r\nSo we are asking you to please speak out and share your ideas, work and stories on health! Please send us your reports, papers, news, conference announcements   or other forms of information [to admin@equinetafrica.org], or write a short piece that we can use as an editorial. \r\n\r\nWe also invite you to be involved in the work that EQUINET will be carrying out in 2016 to inform and strengthen learning and action on health equity. Our website (www.equinetafrica.org) provides more information on these activities. \r\n\r\nWe look forward to working with you in the coming year! ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"White paper: National Health Insurance for South Africa","field_subtitle":"Department of Health, Republic of South Africa, December 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hq8uanj","body":"This white paper outlines South Africa\u2019s path to universal health coverage over 14 years and proposes dramatic changes in the role of private medical aid among others. Released on the 10th of December 2015, the long awaited white paper begins by providing the background and justification of the country\u2019s moves to join other countries like the Brazil, the United Kingdom and Thailand in introducing universal healthcare coverage. The document notes that healthcare in South Africa is comprised of a two-tiered system divided along socio-economic lines. The private medical aid sector is comprised of 83 medical aid schemes that fund healthcare services for about 16 percent of the population. The paper noted that spending through medical schemes in South Africa is the highest in the world and is six times higher than in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The paper argues that this two-tiered system has led to fragmented funding and risk pools in healthcare and posits that the creation of a National Health Insurance (NHI) will improve healthcare equity by combining fragmented private and public health funding pools and eliminating out-of-pocket payments.The paper notes that the NHI will ultimately deliver a comprehensive package of health services that include services such as rehabilitation and palliative care, mental health care including that related to substance abuse and maternal and child health care. The paper is made available to call for stakeholder feedback.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"World AIDS Day 2015 : The fast track map","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: Geneva, 2015","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/wad2015/","body":"The world has committed to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. This ambitious yet wholly attainable objective represents an unparalleled opportunity to change the course of history for ever - something our generation must do for the generations to come. If the world is to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030, rapid progress must be made by 2020. Quickening the pace for essential HIV prevention and treatment approaches will limit the epidemic to more manageable levels and enable countries to move towards the elimination phase. This graphic shows visually in a map the content and geographical areas for scale up to achieve global targets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2016-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":" A Global Fund for Social Protection Floors: Eight Good Reasons Why It can Easily be Done","field_subtitle":"Chichon M: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Think Piece, 2015","field_url":"http://www.unrisd.org/road-to-addis-cichon","body":"The author argues that social protection is the most direct tool we have to combat poverty and inequality and that implementation can begin when countries are at a relatively early stage of development. However, there are today a few countries which need the solidarity of others to close the social protection gap. This think piece puts forward eight good reasons why a global fund for social protection is needed and can easily be initiated. Here are eight good reasons why a global fund for social protection floors is needed and can easily be initiated, which the author elaborates on more fully in his think piece:  there already is a global consensus on social protection floors for all, the global community has already accepted that global solidarity may be needed to achieve social protection for all, there is no need to create a new fund, there already is one that can be used, the mandate and the supervisory mechanism for the fund do not have to be invented and the fund can start modestly, the potential direct impact on poverty could be huge. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"20 Years Later \u2013 The Role of Art and Justice in South Africa\u2019s Democracy","field_subtitle":"Sachs A; Justice Cameron E: African Futures, Essays, 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qb963zg","body":"At the entrance to the Constitutional Court of South Africa stands a sculpture of a large man yoked to a cart. His burden is a human one: a man and woman who themselves are seated on the back of a fourth figure kneeling on the cart. At first glance, the sculpture resonates with the history of servitude that marked the dehumanising institution of apartheid. On closer reflection, the sculpture reveals a more complex message. The sculptor, South African artist Dumile Feni, did not create any racial differentiation between the four figures, and the man drawing the cart is the only figure large and strong enough to accomplish this task. The title of the work is History, and the four figures carry each other in a way that reflects the dependence, the interconnectedness and the tension that have always characterised human relationships. History is the first of many artworks that challenge a visitor to the Constitutional Court to reflect on South Africa\u2019s tortured past and the country\u2019s transition to a constitutional order. The Constitutional Court Art Collection (CCAC)[1] is both a living monument to the ideals on which South Africa\u2019s post-apartheid Constitution is based and a reminder of the work that remains.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"African responses to the 2014/5 Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R, Papamichail A, Ayagah I: EQUINET Brief, Harare, 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/op2awdf","body":"There has been significant documentation on the various international responses to the 2014/5 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. There is also evidence that the epidemic\r\ntriggered new developments in epidemic prevention and response from Africa. In April 2015 the AU called for the lessons learned to be identified for future responses. This brief summarises the publicly available documentation on the response of African countries to the epidemic. It is based on 63 documents accessed through key word search in July\u2013August 2015 of online databases, supplemented by documents obtained from snowballing in September 2015. The brief presents evidence on\r\na. The actions taken by African governments and institutions at national, regional and continental level to support the response to the epidemic.\r\nb. The identified positive features and challenges in the African response.\r\nc. The links between the African emergency response to the EVD epidemic and health system strengthening.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Beyond the 'Single Story': 3Bute Turns African Lit Into Crowdsourced Comics","field_subtitle":"Kennedy C: Colorlines, July 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/okp5mdc","body":"Artist Bunmi Oloruntoba and editor Emmanuel Iduma collaborate with reporters and creative writers to furnish \u201cthe contexts often missing when African stories are reported.\u201d Every two weeks, 3bute [pronounced \u201ctribute\u201d] publishes a three-page comic from a different African country in which readers tag the images like a wiki page with links to videos, articles, slide shows, twitter posts, music tracks, and other media. The resulting comic is dotted with icons that appear as you touch or move your mouse over its surface. The interactive features blink and pop as you shift from panel to panel in the site\u2019s effort to undermine \u201cthe single, one-dimensional story of poverty, sickness, conflict\u201d that far too often disparages the continent. 3bute uses new technology to explore the contours of African modernity through \u201cmultifaceted stories\u201d. This review includes excerpts of 3bute comics, worth reading while the 3bute website is temporarily being reconstructed. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Buen Vivir: Today's tomorrow","field_subtitle":"Gudynas E: Development 54(4), 441\u2013447, 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/kjztzqa","body":"Eduardo Gudynas looks at the main trends of the discourse around Buen Vivir in South America as a political platform for different visions of alternatives to development. He notes that any alternative to development must open paths to move beyond the modern Western culture. Buen Vivir, he argues gives that opportunity. Buen Vivir or Vivir Bien, are the Spanish words used in Latin America to describe alternatives to development focused on the good life in a broad sense. The term is actively used by social movements, and it has become a popular term in some government programs and has even reached its way into two new Constitutions in Ecuador and Bolivia. It is a plural concept with two main entry points. On the one hand, it includes critical reactions to classical Western development theory. On the other hand, it refers to alternatives to development emerging from indigenous traditions, and in this sense the concept explores possibilities beyond the modern Eurocentric tradition. The richness of the term is difficult to translate into English. It includes the classical ideas of quality of life, but with the specific idea that well-being is only possible within a community. Furthermore, in most approaches the community concept is understood in an expanded sense, to include nature. Buen Vivir therefore embraces the broad notion of well-being and cohabitation with others and with nature. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Expressions of Interests: Consultants","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 30 January 2016","field_url":"http://www.ngopulse.org/opportunity/2015/09/18/call-expressions-interest","body":"Formed in 2006, the One in Nine Campaign is a network of organisations and individuals driven by feminist principles and the desire to live in a society where women are the agents of their own lives, including their sexual lives. The Campaign supports and advocates for the rights of women who speak out against sexual violence as well as other survivors in five ways: Solidarity in Action and Building Feminist Activism, Feminist Knowledge Production and Research, Media Advocacy, Justice and Legal Transformation and Direct Action. The One in Nine Campaign is calling for application from all interested individuals/service providers in the following fields: Organisational Development, Strategic planning and reviews, Resource Mobilisation /Fundraising for NGOs, Research, Documentation (written and/or visual), Monitoring and Evaluation, Staff development/Team building, Creative Arts for social change (all art forms welcomed), Health and Wellness, Marketing (especially for small businesses, NGOs, Cooperatives) and Setting up and registering of Cooperatives.  The organisation seeks to update its Consultants database and preference will be given to individuals who identify as Women and feminists and registered service providers that are led by Women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Communities Deliver \u2013 The critical role of communities in reaching global targets to end the AIDS epidemic","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS; Stop AIDS Alliance: 2015","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/UNAIDS_CommunitiesDeliver_v24_original.pdf","body":"There is now wide recognition that community responses must play an increasing role in addressing the HIV epidemic in the years ahead. The UNAIDS Strategic Investment Framework, published in 2011, identifies community responses as a \u201ccritical enabler\u201d of service delivery. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has estimated that to achieve bold HIV treatment and prevention targets set in 2014, investments in community mobilisation and services must increase more than threefold between 2015 and 2020. Much of the critically important work in making progress in the response to HIV and implementing a Fast-Track approach that lies ahead\u2014including broadening the reach of services, supporting retention in care, increasing demand, monitoring quality, advancing human rights and combatting stigma and discrimination\u2014can only be achieved with a strong community voice and presence. This report draws on multiple sources to document the many ways in which communities are advancing the response to AIDS, and the evidence for the effectiveness of these responses. Core areas of community-based activities include advocacy, service provision, community- based research and financing; each of these areas is illustrated by examples of community- based actions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) 3rd South African Nurses' Conference","field_subtitle":"24 - 26 February 2016, Gauteng, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.sanursesconference.co.za","body":"DENOSA is hosting the Third South African Nurses\u2019 Conference from the 24th to the 26th February 2016.This is a biannual event born out of a need to build capacity and create an enabling environment for South African nurses to effectively and positively influence health policy. It further affords the cadre an opportunity to critically analyse the South African health system and propose solutions. The Third South African Nurses\u2019 Conference 2016 explores the theme: Together we can strengthen the theory and the clinical practice; inspire unity in seeking solutions to challenges facing the profession. The theme will be explored according to the following track of interest: Advancing a Holistic Nursing practice; Investing in Nursing: The Human Capital in health; Contemporary Nursing Issues; The Threshing floor: Teaching and learning; Students voice as the rising nurse leaders.  The 3rd Conference intends to showcase the critical role nurses play in delivering holistic quality care. The Conference promises thought provoking plenary sessions, workshops and networking opportunities; with focus on the following tracks of interest: Advancing a Holistic Nursing practice; Investing in Nursing: The Human Capital in health; Contemporary Nursing Issues; The Threshing floor: Teaching and learning; Students voice as the rising nurse leaders. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"District Health Barometer, South Africa 2014/15","field_subtitle":"Massyn N; Peer N; Padarath A; Barron P; Day C: Health Systems Trust, 2015","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/district-health-barometer-201415-1","body":"The annually published District Health Barometer (DHB) in South Africa is designed and compiled to assist South Africa\u2019s National Department of Health in making health and related information available for monitoring progress in health service delivery at district level.  The Barometer provides current information on functioning and associated fluctuations in all the country\u2019s health districts, describing performance over time in relation to previous years as well as between districts. Each edition highlights problem areas, data quality issues, sustained and notable progress, and aspects requiring deeper research into underlying factors contributing to the indicator values and trends. This 10th edition of the DHB presents data on 44 indicators, with trend illustrations and health profiles for South Africa as a whole, the nine provinces and the 52 districts, as well as a chapter on the country\u2019s burden of disease. As in previous years, a varied picture emerges in terms of the national profile. Significant gains are noted in the rates of stillbirth; early mother-to-child transmission of HIV; cure among new pulmonary smear-positive TB patients; couple year protection; women under age 18 delivering babies in hospital; case fatality among children under five years of age from diarrhoea with dehydration and from pneumonia; and antenatal clients initiated on ART. However, persistent challenges prevail with regard to the Caesarean section rate in district hospitals, the school Grade 1 screening coverage, the measles 2nd dose coverage, and the case fatality rate for severe acute malnutrition in children under five years of age.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 178: Imagining healthy urban futures: from the back of our minds to the front of our streets","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity and Noncommunicable Disease Reduction under the Sustainable Development Goals","field_subtitle":"Bangura Y: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Think Piece, 2015","field_url":"http://www.unrisd.org/road-to-addis-bangura","body":"Africa has enjoyed a growth momentum since 2000 after the wasted years of the 1980s and much of the 1990s. However, eradicating poverty will require huge resources, which existing funding strategies will be unable to generate. Global commodity prices have fallen sharply; capacity to mobilise domestic revenues is waning; and aid has been insufficient in plugging funding gaps. Revenue bargains in which states extract revenues from citizens in exchange for investments that impact positively on well-being may be key to financing Africa\u2019s development. They can substantially increase revenues, nurture effective state-citizen relations, force companies to pay correct taxes, push fragmented systems of service provision in the direction of universalism, improve policy space and make aid more effective.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploring the Future of Africa","field_subtitle":"AfroCyberPunk: 2015","field_url":"http://www.afrocyberpunk.com","body":"AfroCyberPunk is a blog dedicated to exploring the future of Africa through various expressions of Afrofuturism in science and speculative fiction across all forms of media, relevant news and current events about ongoing socioeconomic, political, and technological developments, as well as academic discourses on issues and trends concerning the future of this incredibly diverse continent. As Africa enters a new phase of accelerated development, this blog aims to create a unique conceptual space in which to explore the various scenarios the continent is likely to encounter in the near and distant future, and to imagine how people might begin to address the enormous challenges and incredible opportunities that may soon become reality. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, 14-18 November 2016","field_subtitle":"Call For Abstracts And Organised Sessions","field_url":"http://healthsystemsresearch.org/hsr2016/","body":"Health System Global announces the Call for Abstracts for the Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research on the Symposium website. The theme is Resilient and responsive health systems for a changing world. Submissions are invited for both organized sessions and individual abstracts. Please visit the site to find out about: key dates and deadlines, how to submit your abstract and other details on taking part in the Symposium. Please also make sure to visit the site regularly as HSG will keep updating it with announcements and relevant resources in the coming months. Please share the call with colleagues and anyone else who might be interested. The deadline to submit a proposal for an Organized Session at the Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research is 24 January 2016. If you haven\u2019t already, please have a look at the Call for Abstracts page on the Symposium website. Proposals can be submitted for Participatory Sessions and Panel Presentations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender Blind: Rebuilding Health Systems in Conflict-Affected States - Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Building Back Better: Rebuild consortium. UK, 2015","field_url":"http://www.buildingbackbetter.org/case-studies-2/mozambique","body":"Mozambique\u2019s health system reconstruction supports the team\u2019s conclusion that the reconstruction of health systems is mainly \u201cgender blind\u201d. In order to review whether the health system is gender equitable, the team assessed the country\u2019s progress against the framework of WHO\u2019s six aspirational building blocks of the health system. From the evidence the authors suggest that policy-makers in Mozambique have not adequately considered the role of gender in contributing to health or addressed women\u2019s and men\u2019s different health needs. Despite government commitment to gender mainstreaming, the health system is far from gender equitable. Donors have shied away from tackling the thorny issue of the social and cultural norms, including gender, which drive ill health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Systems Trust Conference 2016","field_subtitle":"4-6 May 2016, Gauteng, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.hstconference2016.org.za","body":"Health Systems Trust (HST) is hosting a conference from 4-6 May 2016 at the Birchwood Conference Centre, Boksburg, Gauteng.  Under the banner of Health for all through strengthened health systems: sharing, supporting, synergising, the event is designed to advance the global public health agenda in improving health outcomes.  The conference will provide a forum in which those who contribute in various ways to the South African health system can exchange ideas, develop support mechanisms for common challenges, and foster synergies between interested groups. The vision of the organisers is of a vibrantly non-conventional conference experience. The three-day conference will convene approximately 300 healthcare workers from the public and private sectors as well as policy- and decision-makers, civil society groupings and academics. The past decade has seen an unprecedented wave of change and reform in order to strengthen the effectiveness of health systems, primarily through the introduction of primary health care re-engineering, National Health Insurance, and quality improvement and assurance. In addition, a range of programmatic activities designed to move towards increasing life expectancy, decreasing maternal and child mortality and combating HIV and AIDS and decreasing the burden of disease from TB have been implemented on a wide scale. New initiatives such as the 90-90-90 targets and attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals bring a further dimension to health systems strengthening. Collaborations among healthcare workers and stakeholders have researched, devised and applied a range of strategies and models to translate these reforms into reality. The HST conference will provide an opportunity to discuss challenges faced and solutions adopted at various levels in the health system. To avoid losing the opportunity to share these lessons and curate related good practice as broadly as possible, the organisers encourage interested parties to be a part of this conference. Applications for pre-conference workshops, individual and poster abstracts, and for media submissions close Sunday 10 January 2016.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Honouring the value of people in public health: a different kind of p-value","field_subtitle":"Bishai D; Ghaffar A; Kelley E; Kieny M: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 93, 661-662, 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/9/14-149369/en/","body":"When faced with a complex public health problem there is a natural urge to find solutions. People hire consultants, gather data, test hypotheses and examine P-values to identify risk factors: data-driven technological fixes get implemented every day. In the right situation, there is nothing wrong with solutionism \u2013 the belief that all difficulties have technical solutions. Solutionism works well for circumscribed problems involving a small number of motivated individuals, where every element of the prescribed solution can be implemented as planned. However, complex problems in public health usually have elements that defy planning, because health involves people, and people are unpredictable. Recent research has shown that integrating community participation in the planning and implementation of health reforms is a key factor in supporting health improvements.  The approach has been applied in a variety of areas including: the control of infectious disease; reducing maternal deaths and improved birth outcomes; enabling better health seeking behaviours; improving quality of life by promoting healthy environments through improvements to housing, reducing crime and building social cohesion. Critical factors for achieving trust include allowing participants to see their common concerns and building strong relationships within health committees or participatory groups. There must be a commitment to sustain long-lasting relationships between the community, local health workers and managers. Technical solutions for health problems are still needed. The authors argues there is still need the familiar P-value because biological evidence is necessary, but public health practice also needs to recognize the value of people. Regardless of the political environment, the power of the state to alter health decisions inside the home has limits. Only an approach that values, honours and engages people can alter how they make decisions about their health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"iCCM policy analysis: strategic contributions to understanding its character, design and scale up in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"George A; Rodr\u00edguez D; Rasanathan K; Brandes N; Bennett S: Health Policy and Planning 30 (suppl 2): ii3-ii11, 2015","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/suppl_2/ii3.full","body":"Pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria remain leading causes of death for children under 5 years of age and access to effective and appropriate treatment for sick children is extremely low where it is needed most. Integrated community case management (iCCM) enables community health workers to provide basic lifesaving treatment for sick children living in remote communities for these diseases. While many governments in sub-Saharan Africa recently changed policies to support iCCM, large variations in implementation remain. As a result, the collaboration represented in this supplement examined the policy processes underpinning iCCM through qualitative case study research in six purposively identified countries (Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Kenya, Malawi and Mozambique) and the global context. The authors introduce the supplement, by reviewing how policy analysis can inform: (a) how to frame iCCM and negotiate its boundaries, (b) how to tailor iCCM for national health systems and (c) how to foster accountability and learning for iCCM. In terms of framing, iCCM boundaries reflect how an array of actors use evidence to prioritise particular aspects of child mortality (lack of access to treatment), and how this underpins the ability to reach consensus and legitimate specific policy enterprises. When promoted at national level, contextual health system factors, such as the profile of CHWs and the history of primary health care, cannot be ignored. Adaptation to these contextual realities may lead to unintended consequences not forseen by technical or managerial expertise alone. Further scaling up of iCCM requires understanding of the political accountabilities involved, how ownership can be fostered and learning for improved policies and programs sustained. Collectively these articles demonstrate that iCCM, although often compartmentalised as a technical intervention, also reflects the larger and messier real world of health politics, policy and practice, for which policy analysis is vital, as an integral component of public health programming.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Imagining healthy urban futures: from the back of our minds to the front of our streets","field_subtitle":"Thandiwe Loewenson, PhD student, Bartlett School of Architecture ","field_url":"","body":"\r\n\u2018Life is a series minor explosions whose echo, fading away, settles comfortably at the back of our minds\u2019 - Dambudzo Marechera\r\n\r\nBy 2050, over 1.2 billion people will live in sub-Saharan Africa's cities, with a potential for growing differences on what people gain from them and in their quality of life. Young people today will be living that future and wonder what kind of healthy, or unhealthy futures the cities hold for them. Health literature is full of talk of targets and data, but speaks little of these dreams and fears. \r\n\r\nWhen a fee hike of nearly 12% was proposed in South Africa this year, students took to the streets in protest. The protests against the exclusion the fees implied for poor families linked street action to social media using the hashtag \u2018#feesmustfall\u2019. They connected with student protests against racial inequalities in academia earlier in the year and ended with a statement from President Zuma that fee rises would be ruled out for the next year. Spread on twitter, facebook, blogs and news outlets, the images of protest by students, \u2019born frees\u2019 who never experienced apartheid rule, evoked images of 1976 student protests against apartheid language policies. These protests, nearly 40 years apart, have very different contexts, notwithstanding the generational rift that some say has grown in these four decades in South Africa between those who fought the \u2018struggle\u2019 who are now in government, and those \u2018born free\u2019 after 1994, resisting policies of exclusion, new and old. However, both previous and current struggles appear to have been driven by imagining a different future. In a 2013 interview, Achille Mbembe noted how the promise and vision of a different, just future was a key driver in the anti-colonial struggle. Youth today continue to envision a just future, and protest where the actions of the present governing institutions take them away from it. \r\n\r\nHow we imagine, visualize, communicate and share the imaginings of our futures appears to be important for how we organise to realise them. One force affecting future wellbeing in east and southern Africa is urbanisation. Masterplans for many African cities were shaped by colonial policies of segregation, at a time where today\u2019s growth and poverty levels were not anticipated. The way cities and people have grown in and around these initial urban plans can appear disorganised, violent and unhealthy, with infrastructural and social challenges, where formal institutions and services struggle to cope using current resources and tools. For example, Lusaka, Zambia was built to a colonial garden city plan that has been taken over by \u2018unplanned\u2019, and formerly illegal, settlements on its North, South and Western fringes. A new masterplan is being implemented in the city, drawn up in 2009 by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, commissioned by the Zambia Ministry of Local Government and Housing and Lusaka City Council. It seeks to address the challenges by restructuring the city and demolishing homes and businesses in the formerly \u2018unplanned\u2019 settlements, all of which are sites of Lusaka\u2019s significant informal activity. Aspects of such plans, which include \u2018multi-facility economic zones\u2019 to attract foreign investment and low density gated developments, portray a vision of an African urban future which excludes some and privileges others. \r\n\r\nIronically, those engaged in informal waste recycling in the city are currently drawing some income from these developments, as they have created a source of construction waste which can be collected and recycled into further building materials in the city. Women, facing significantly lower earnings than men, play a significant role in recycling construction waste, innocently contributing to the construction of spaces that will ultimately exclude them, economically and physically, pushing them into less healthy and more marginal spaces. Filip De Boeck in \u2018The Johannesburg Salon\u2019 in 2011, highlights this irony, pointing to a similar process in Kinshasa. He adds that this not only affects peoples\u2019 physical conditions, but also their imaginings of their cities and even their own self-image and perceived place within the cities. Farmers at risk of relocation due to a \u2018Cit\u00e9 du Fleuve\u2019 development commented to him, \"Yes, we'll be the victims, but still it will be beautiful.\" \r\n\r\nAlternative practices reflect and support different imaginings of urban futures and the power residents have to affect them. A recently formed Master\u2019s in Spatial Planning program at the University of Zambia (UNZA) has, for example, investigated informal sites in Lusaka, home to nearly three quarters of the city\u2019s inhabitants, according to C. Swope in 2014. The University is advancing a \u2018Community Led Slum Upgrading and Planning Studio\u2019 project in collaboration with the Lusaka City Council and the non- government organisation \u2018People\u2019s Process on Housing and Poverty in Zambia\u2019. This work brings together students, local government officers, civil society members and residents to decentralise how urban plans are made, sharing and learning from their different experiences, capacities and visions  of the city and its future. For example, in the Mahopo Enumeration Project in 2015, the university and the Peoples Process on Housing and Poverty in Zambia, Zambia Homeless and Poor Peoples Federation and Lusaka City Council collectively surveyed the Mahopo Informal Settlement in Lusaka. They engaged young people living in the area to survey their own environments and analyse the information gathered. Through this the community identified health and education facilities as priority areas of concern, followed by the quality of housing units and access to markets. The actions proposed by residents, students and council involve all stakeholders in their implementation. \r\n \r\nIn the battle for ideas, there is power in who draws, controls and shares visions, even more so with the expansion of information and social media. Beyond the statistics of mortality and disease, or the numbers of toilets and coverage rates, those who seek to build healthy cities should not forget to engage with our visions of the future, especially those we hold as young people. Edgar Pieterse of the African Centre for Cities described, at an International workshop on African cities in 2012, how imagined visions of the future in the speculative design of cities have been used in neoliberal discourse to assess risk and promote designs that contribute to social exclusion. But speculation of the future, in design, art, writing, science and politics, also provides a space that can be occupied by communities to imagine and share alternative futures. Speculation and visioning is by definition born from the inside, from one\u2019s imagination. As seen with South Africa\u2019s students or the alternative urban design in Lusaka, when residents, students and other social groups are given space to shape and communicate vision, it can be a potent motive force in bringing people together to resist harmful practice, and more importantly to realise fairer, more inclusive alternatives. \r\n\r\nThis issue of the newsletter highlights some of the spaces where this kind of imagining is taking place. For example, Justices Sachs and Cameron, of South Africa\u2019s Constitutional Court, describe how the Court\u2019s Art Collection provides a repository of visions of the ideals of human dignity, equality and freedom in the country. These pieces communicate the values of the court and engage the collective imagination in ways that words cannot. Jonathan Dotse, curator and writer on AfroCyberPunk, explores a future Accra in his short story \u2018Virus!\u2019 in which a young woman\u2019s control of her health is mediated by an internal \u2018biocore\u2019 computer connected to a city wide digital grid, which 3bute hyperlink to videos, drawings and other imagined narratives from the continent on people\u2019s scenarios of future urban epidemics. OpenParlyZW is an online non-partisan initiative created by a group of young people to demystify what is taking place in parliament for young people, using social media, opening new conversations around these \u2018houses of power\u2019 in their futures. These and other examples in the newsletter provide many ways in which sites of dreaming, counterfactual thinking and urban speculation are taking place, all aiming to reinvigorate the social and political imaginary and open opportunities for inclusion in the thinking about and struggle for healthy African urban futures. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Improved identification and enrolment into care of HIV-exposed and -infected infants and children following a community health worker intervention in Lilongwe, Malawi","field_subtitle":"Ahmed S; Kim MH; Dave AC; Sabelli R; Kanjelo K; Preidis GA; Giordano TP; Chiao E; Hosseinipour M; Kazembe PN; Chimbwandira F; Abrams EJ: Journal of the International AIDS Society 18(1),19305, 2015","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4287633/","body":"Early identification and entry into care is critical to reducing morbidity and mortality in children with HIV. The objective of this report is to describe the impact of the Tingathe programme, which utilises community health workers (CHWs) to improve identification and enrolment into care of HIV-exposed and -infected infants and children. Three programme phases are described. During the first phase, Mentorship Only (MO) (March 2007\u2013February 2008) on-site clinical mentorship on paediatric HIV care was provided. In the second phase, Tingathe-Basic (March 2008\u2013February 2009), CHWs provided HIV testing and counselling to improve case finding of HIV-exposed and -infected children. In the final phase, Tingathe-PMTCT (prevention of mother-to-child transmission) (March 2009\u2013February 2011), CHWs were also assigned to HIV-positive pregnant women to improve mother-infant retention in care. The authors reviewed routinely collected programme data from HIV testing registers, patient mastercards and clinic attendance registers from March 2005 to March 2011. During MO, 42 children (38 HIV-infected and 4 HIV-exposed) were active in care. During Tingathe-Basic, 238 HIV-infected children (HIC) were newly enrolled, a six-fold increase in rate of enrolment from 3.2 to 19.8 per month. The number of HIV-exposed infants (HEI) increased from 4 to 118. During Tingathe-PMTCT, 526 HIC were newly enrolled over 24 months, at a rate of 21.9 patients per month. There was also a seven-fold increase in the average number of exposed infants enrolled per month (9.5\u201370 patients per month), resulting in 1667 enrolled with a younger median age at enrolment (5.2 vs. 2.5 months). During the Tingathe-Basic and Tingathe-PMTCT periods, CHWs conducted 44,388 rapid HIV tests, 7658 (17.3%) in children aged 18 months to 15 years; 351 (4.6%) tested HIV-positive. Over this time, 1781 HEI were enrolled, with 102 (5.7%) found HIV-infected by positive PCR. Additional HIC entered care through various mechanisms (including positive linkage by CHWs and transfer-ins) such that by February 2011, a total of 866 HIC were receiving care, a 23-fold increase from 2008. A multipronged approach utilising CHWs to conduct HIV testing, link HIC into care and provide support to PMTCT mothers can dramatically improve the identification and enrolment into care of HIV-exposed and -infected children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving financial access to health care in the Kisantu district in the Democratic Republic of Congo: acting upon complexity","field_subtitle":"Stasse S; Vita D; Kimfuta J; da Silveira VC; Bossyns P; Criel B: Global Health Action 8(25480), 2015","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4307026/","body":"Commercialisation of health care has contributed to widening inequities between the rich and the poor, especially in settings with suboptimal regulatory frameworks of the health sector. Poorly regulated fee-for-service payment systems generate inequity and initiate a vicious circle in which access to quality health care gradually deteriorates. Although the abolition of user fees is high on the international health policy agenda, the sudden removal of user fees may have disrupting effects on the health system and may not be affordable or sustainable in resource-constrained countries, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. Between 2008 and 2011, the Belgian development aid agency (BTC) launched a set of reforms in the Kisantu district, in the province of Bas Congo, through an action-research process deemed appropriate for the implementation of change within open complex systems such as the Kisantu local health system. Moreover, the entire process contributed to strengthen the stewardship capacity of the Kisantu district management team. The reforms mainly comprised the rationalisation of resources and the regulation of health services financing. Flat fees per episode of disease were introduced as an alternative to fee-for-service payments by patients. A financial subsidy from BTC allowed to reduce the height of the flat fees. The provision of the subsidy was made conditional upon a range of measures to rationalise the use of resources. The results in terms of enhancing people access to quality health care were immediate and substantial. The Kisantu experience demonstrates that a systems approach is essential in addressing complex problems. It provides useful lessons for other districts in the country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"In Memory of Chimusoro Sam Moyo ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In deep sorrow we mourn the sudden and untimely death of Sam Moyo, profound scholar and progressive activist, beloved comrade, Member of the Executive Committee of IDEAs. Sam was in New Delhi, India to participate in a conference on \"Labour Questions in the Global South\" when a car he was travelling in was involved in a terrible accident. Sam was critically hurt and passed away on 22 November 2015. We send sympathies to his family. The words below are by Bella Matambanadzo.  \"An unimaginable loss has happened. Our phenomenal intellectual pan African giant on land issues, Professor Sam Moyo, has died following injuries sustained during a terrible car accident in New Delhi, India. We are in disbelief. We are waiting for him to come home. We feel ripped apart with pain....\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/56574","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Interview with Jean Pierre Bekolo","field_subtitle":"Simo D: Goethe-Institut e.V., 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nb2x6d2","body":"Memory and African identity are of primordial importance to Jean Pierre Bekolo, who through his films, highlights the desire to \u201cwrite from a particular place and not for an audience\u201d because one can be easily manipulated by the expectations of an audience. Bekolo spends time in Europe, US and Africa. Travelling becomes a substantial part of his creative process.\r\nEach of his movies stands out as a phase or the break with a phase of his artistic development: Quartier Mozart symbolises origins, family and identity, Aristotle\u2019s Plot represents the identity of an African cineaste, while Les Saignantes is speculation or science fiction. Despite his numerous sojourns, Bekolo\u2019s energy is always focused on Africa and Cameroon in particular, where he believes cinema has to go beyond representation and shed more light on questions which will lead to change, a concept noticeable in his latest movie Le President. Bloke, who describes himself as not just an artist but \u2018a radiologist of the society\u2019 emphasises the role that film and fiction has to play in affecting change, \u2018we must not forget the aesthetic dimension, because the beauty and the real have a link: aesthetic and ethics.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"New Media in Africa and the Global Public Sphere","field_subtitle":"Jacobs S: African Futures, Essays, 21 February 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/o3pmtwz","body":"In analysing the relationship between a \u201cglobal public sphere\u201d and social media on the African continent, the generalisations are argued to hide a far more interesting set of observations. Debates and discussions about what passes for a global public sphere often overlook and obscure dynamics of power. What is defined as the global public sphere by most observers and scholars is still very much limited to the industrial north and their public and private broadcasting systems, twitter handlers, and blogs. The term also refers, by default, it is argued, to debates and deliberation solely in English. This ignores the discussions in media in the Global South, especially social media. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Notes on Imagination ","field_subtitle":"Gamedze T: Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism, The Salon (8), 2015","field_url":"http://jwtc.org.za/the_salon/volume_9/thuli_gamedze.htm","body":"The author argues that psychological violence of colonialism today only exists as a re-enactment, or a reframing of the original physical warfare between colonialist and colonized bodies. He argues that contemporary images and representation still repeat the violence  within popular culture, within academic curricula, literature, mainstream music, art, architecture, theatre, that pervades the contemporary world in ways that continue to suppress imagination. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Obesity trends and risk factors in the South African adult population","field_subtitle":"Cois A; Day C: BMC Obesity 2(42), October 2015,","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/2052-9538/2/42","body":"Obesity prevalence is increasing globally and contributes substantially to the burgeoning burden of non-communicable diseases. South Africa is particularly affected by this increasing trend and cross-sectional evidence suggests socioeconomic and behavioural variables as possible drivers. However, no large scale longitudinal study has attempted the direct identification of risk factors for progression towards obesity. This study analysed data on 10,100 South African adults (18 years and over) randomly selected in 2008 and successfully recontacted in 2010 and 2012. Latent Growth Modelling was used to estimate the average rate of change in body mass index (BMI) during the study period, and to identify baseline characteristics associated with different trajectories. The overall rate of change in BMI during the study period was +1.57 kg/m 2 per decade, and it was higher among women than among men. Female gender, younger age, larger waist circumference, white population group and higher household income per capita were baseline characteristics associated with higher rates of change. The association between tobacco use and obesity was complex. Smoking was associated with greater waist circumference at baseline but lower rates of increase in BMI during the study period. Quitting smoking was an independent predictor of BMI increase among subjects with normal weight at baseline. Among subjects with baseline BMI lower than 25 kg/m 2 , rates of changes were higher in rural than urban areas, and inversely related to the frequency of physical exercise. A strong positive trend in BMI remains in South Africa and obesity prevalence is likely to increase. Trends are not homogeneous, and high risk groups (subjects with high socioeconomic status, rural dwellers, young women) and modifiable risk factors (physical inactivity) can be targeted. Subjects quitting smoking should receive additional weight-loss support in order that the numerous health benefits of cessation are not reduced by increasing BMI. Centrally obese subjects should be targeted in campaigns.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"On the Nairobi Ministerial of the WTO: A joint statement by African and Indian civil society","field_subtitle":"Pambuzuka News 748, 2015","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/95908","body":"In a joint statement released and endorsed by nearly 200 organisations across Africa and India on the occasion of the Third India-Africa Forum Summit taking place in New Delhi this week, African and Indian civil society reminds their governments of the key issues at stake at the forthcoming WTO Ministerial which will take place in Nairobi in December. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"PASS presents: Revolting Songs with Neo Muyanga ","field_subtitle":"Muyanga N: Pan African Space Station, Chimurenga Magazine, 2015","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggM9mG05REw","body":"This Pan African Space Station (PASS) broadcast recorded at the Chimurenga headquarters features Neo Muyanga, Soweto-born composer and musician living in Cape Town. Revolting Music is a survey of the songs of protest that liberated South Africa. Muyanga argues that it often comes as something of a surprise to many visitors to find that people in South Africa, sang and danced throughout the decade of the 1980\u2019s \u2013 a period many agree was one of the most violent phases in the struggle against the system of apartheid, and yet the people sang and made art fervently during this time. These acts were not merely stratagems for fun but the songs were a part of the arsenal in the fight to secure democratic rights for all and to overthrow the government. During his recording, Neo Muyanga presents a series of anecdotes and medleys of songs of protest from the era of the 80\u2019s \u2013 songs of his youth \u2013 juxtaposed against new songs he has composed in response to the challenges of new socio-political realities in South Africa today.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Relaunch of the official community health worker programme in Mozambique: is there a sustainable basis for iCCM policy?","field_subtitle":"Chilundo B; Cliff J; Mariano A; Rodr\u00edguez D; George A: Health Policy and Planning 30 (suppl 2): ii36-ii45, 2015","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/suppl_2/ii54.full","body":"In Mozambique, integrated community case management (iCCM) of diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia is embedded in the national community health worker (CHW) programme, mainstreaming it into government policy and service delivery. Since its inception in 1978, the CHW programme has functioned unevenly, was suspended in 1989, but relaunched in 2010. To assess the long-term success of iCCM in Mozambique, this article addresses whether the current CHW programme exhibits characteristics that facilitate or impede its sustainability. The authors undertook a qualitative case study based on document review (n = 54) and key informant interviews (n = 21) with respondents from the Ministry of Health (MOH), multilateral and bilateral agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Maputo in 2012. Interviews were mostly undertaken in Portuguese and all were coded using NVivo. A sustainability framework guided thematic analysis according to nine domains: strategic planning, organizational capacity, programme adaptation, programme monitoring and evaluation, communications, funding stability, political support, partnerships and public health impact. Government commitment was high, with the MOH leading a consultative process in Maputo and facilitating successful technical coordination. The MOH made strategic decisions to pay CHWs, authorize their prescribing abilities, foster guidance development, support operational planning and incorporate previously excluded \u2018old\u2019 CHWs. Nonetheless, policy negotiations excluded certain key actors and uncertainty remains about CHW integration into the civil service and their long-term retention. In addition, reliance on NGOs and donor funding has led to geographic distortions in scaling up, alongside challenges in harmonization. Finally, dependence on external funding, when both external and government funding are declining, may hamper sustainability. The authors\u2019 analysis represents a nuanced assessment of the various domains that influence CHW programme sustainability, highlighting strategic areas such as CHW payment and programme financing. These organizational and contextual determinants of sustainability are central to CHW programme strengthening and iCCM policy support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Results Report","field_subtitle":"The Global Fund: Geneva, 2015","field_url":"https://digital.theglobalfund.org/Share/g7v2p4o7rn15uy4r1318kedpoemivsla","body":"This report delivers a summary of the impact and results the Global Fund partnership was able to achieve by 2015, showing cumulative progress since the Global Fund was created in 2002. It is a collective effort, combining the strong contributions made by governments, civil society, the private sector and people affected by HIV, TB and malaria. Here are the cumulative highlights: 17 million lives saved; on track to reach 22 million lives saved by the end of 2016, a decline of one-third in the number of people dying from HIV, TB and malaria since 2002, in countries where the Global Fund invests, 8.1 million people on antiretroviral treatment for HIV, 13.2 million people have received TB treatment and 548 million mosquito nets distributed through programs for malaria. Building resilient and sustainable systems for health is critically important to end HIV, TB and malaria as epidemics. Overall, more than one-third of the Global Fund\u2019s investments go to building resilient and sustainable systems for health. The Global Fund estimates that approximately 55 to 60 percent of its investments benefit women and girls, with a positive impact on reproductive health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Spoken Word Performance on Female Gential Mutilation (FGM)","field_subtitle":"Ali A: afro\u2019disiatic Xpressions, 2015","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRVDGYqeVk4&feature=youtu.be","body":"This video production/story is about women and female gentital mutilation (FGM). The video narrative is an amalgamation of many women's stories. The story is created under the notion that \"it takes a village to tell a woman's story; it takes a village for a woman's voice to be heard.\" The work is part of a wider project entitled \"Dear Mother\" created by Daapo Reo. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Modern Titanic. Urban Planning and Everyday Life in Kinshasa.","field_subtitle":"De Boeck F: Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism, The Salon (4), 2011","field_url":"http://jwtc.org.za/volume_4/filip_de_boeck.htm","body":"The author raises that the covert violence, the risk, the uncertainty and the possibility of daily life in Kinshasa resides in the gap between official visions and unofficial reality. Using two cases in which water is being turned into land, Filip De Boeck reveals the need to envision a \u2018near future' that hyphenates dream and reality; a plan predicated on incremental transformation rather than destructive, radical, exclusionary change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Re-emerging African Debt Crisis","field_subtitle":"Azikiwe A: Pambuzuka News (750), November 2015","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/features/96007","body":"By the end of the 1990s, significant portions of the African debt had been written off or re-scheduled. Today this problem is re-emerging due to several factors including the decline in commodity prices, growing class divisions and reliance on foreign direct investment. In 2015, Africa\u2019s sovereign debt levels rose to 44 percent of GDP,  a 10 percent rise from 2010. The author argues this follows patterns of previous years which problems arising from several factors including the decline in commodity prices, growing class divisions and reliance on foreign direct investment.  This financial crisis emanates from Wall Street and other centres of borrowing throughout capitalist states. Within the leading industrialised countries of the West, there has still not been a full recovery from the economic crisis of 2007-2009. Unemployment remains high and consumer spending is low due to the loss of wages and household wealth. Consequently, the availability of credit to African states will be far more limited during the second decade of the 21st century than what prevailed in the 1980s, 1990s and the 2000s. The continuing dependency on the neo-colonial system will serve as an impediment to not only national but regional and continental integration and economic planning. The author argues that these issues require more of a political response rather than economic and that genuine political independence and sovereignty of African states must lead to the rejection of the conditions established by the IMF and World Bank. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The State of the World's Antibiotics, 2015","field_subtitle":"Gelband H; Miller-Petrie M; Pant S; Gandra S; Levinson J; Barter D; White A; Laxminarayan R: Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy, 2015  ","field_url":"http://www.cddep.org/publications/state_worlds_antibiotics_2015_executive_summary","body":"The State of the World\u2019s Antibiotics summarises the status of antibiotic use and resistance around the globe. The report challenges the prevailing argument that the biggest obstacle facing antibiotic resistance is a lack of new drugs in the \u201cantibiotic pipeline.\u201d New antibiotics are part of the solution, but only when coupled with conservation: strong antibiotic stewardship in its broadest sense, which involves limiting overuse of antibiotics in humans and livestock. CDDEP\u2019s Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership (GARP) of low- and middle-income countries provided both data and insight into the challenges in those countries and how they can be met successfully.  Chapters cover human antibiotic resistance and use, resistance and use in agriculture and the environmental consequences of all use, maintaining the supply of antibiotic effectiveness and what works at the country level to minimise the spread of antibiotic resistance and maximise the positive impact of antibiotics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Youth in Zimbabwe Have Just Opened the Doors to Parliament","field_subtitle":"Mutizamhepo T: Kalabash Media, November 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/pqpy7jz","body":"Since independence, Parliament and its processes have been treated by young people as something alien to them, their needs, views and aspirations. As a result, for years the youth has had certain conceptions, some true and some false over the business that is conducted within the walls of parliament in Harare. As such, the author argues that Zimbabwean youths\u2019 views were never put into consideration, decisions with a direct bearing on them were made without their input, simply put, the youth saw Parliament business in Zimbabwe as having nothing of interest to them and as a mere preserve for the older generation. However, all this is set to be a thing of the past. Parliament debates, bills, thrills, spills and lighter moments will soon be easily accessible in just a few clicks on a smartphone, anywhere, anytime, thanks to OpenParlyZW, an online non-partisan initiative created by a group of enthusiastic youths with the aim of bridging the gap and demystifying misconceptions existing between the youth and Parliamentarians. The group believes that to move forward the youth need to be a part of this conversation and should at least know what\u2019s going on in the houses of power and participate in the future of the nation. OpenParlyZW will run as a standalone platform but also on Twitter and Facebook among other social media platforms capturing events each time Parliament sits and providing young people with vital information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"'Sembene!'","field_subtitle":"Obenson TA: Shadow and Act, October 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/oqlmjwp","body":"\"Sembene!\" is a feature documentary on continental Africa's most celebrated filmmaker, the late Ousmane Sembene, from co-directors Samba Gadjigo (author of Sembene\u2019s official biography) and Jason Silverman. SEMBENE! tells the true story of the self-taught novelist and filmmaker who fought, against enormous odds, a 50-year battle to give Africans the power to tell their own stories. SEMBENE! is told through the never-before-seen archival footage and verite footage. It follows an ordinary man who transforms himself from a manual labourer into a fearless and often polarizing spokesman for the marginalized, becoming a hero to millions. The film is about, not only Sembene, but also about the importance of reclaiming African stories. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Achieving universal health coverage in East and Southern Africa: what role for for-profit providers?","field_subtitle":"Doherty J: Paper presented at the Panel session T03P13: Private sector and universal health coverage - examining evidence and deconstructing rhetoric International Conference on Public Policy, 1-4 July 2015, Milan, Italy","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRIVATE%20PRACT%20T03P13Jane%20Doherty.pdf","body":"This paper considers evidence on the effectiveness, equity and sustainability of for-profit private provision, and the effectiveness of government\u2019s stewardship of the sector, in East and Southern Africa. It draws conclusions about policy and regulatory requirements to encourage for-profit providers to make a more useful contribution towards achieving universal health coverage in the region. The author observes a recent increase in the size of a formerly relatively small for-profit private sector in some countries in the region, but also the emergence of 'boutique\u2019 hospitals (targeted at the high-income local market, expats and foreign NGO workers, as well as medical tourism) in otherwise underdeveloped settings. As warned by the international literature that critiques the commercialisation of health care, such developments could worsen inequity and destabilise national health systems if inadequately regulated.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"African leaders discuss future of Africa beyond 2015","field_subtitle":"Bridges Africa, September 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/o5xn948","body":"Africa\u2019s development agenda beyond 2015 was at the heart of discussions at the 15th International Economic Forum in Africa: \u201cAfrica beyond 2015\u201d, in Berlin in September 2015. According to the OECD, Africa\u2019s gross domestic product (GDP) growth is expected to strengthen to 2016 but poverty and hunger rates remain stubbornly high, progress in health and education is uneven, and huge inequalities persist between and within countries, and between women and men. Furthermore, low productivity and investment as well as weak or non-existent infrastructure are holding back economic and development progress. A panel of African leaders suggested that regional development strategies and local assets provide possible solutions to these challenges, and discussed special economic zones, economic corridors, strategies for lagging regions and slum upgrading for promoting regional development, overcoming spatial inequalities, mobilising local resources and creating productive employment opportunities. The importance of the Common African Position on the Post-2015 Development Agenda \u201cto speak with one voice and to act in unity to ensure that Africa\u2019s voice is heard and is fully integrated into the global development agenda,\u201d was highlighted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa\u2019s new institution to promote food security","field_subtitle":"Nakweya G: SciDevNet, September 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nz4zzf9","body":"Agricultural experts and policymakers have formed a new institution to promote sustainable food systems in Sub-Saharan Africa and to deal with the challenges posed by climate change. The African Ecosystem Based Adaptation for Food Security Assembly (EBAFOSA) which aims to advocate for sustainable ecosystem-friendly agricultural systems was formed during the 2nd Africa Ecosystem Based Adaptation for Food Security Conference held in Kenya on 30-31 July, 2015. Africa loses about six million of productive land a year through deforestation, with almost 65 per cent of the continent\u2019s land being under pressure from land degradation, the conference heard. The EBAFOSA will work towards achieving food security, ecological productivity, job creation, poverty reduction, value addition and sustainable industrial development in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for an interested consultant","field_subtitle":"Submissions by November 24 2015","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET is seeking a consultant with experience in writing media and promotional materials and knowledge of health and health systems for work in early 2016 to produce a document, drawing on existing materials and inputs provided by institutions in EQUINET, on EQUINETs nature, composition, work, and the impact it has had, that can be used to better explain and promote EQUINETs nature and role with partners and funders in and beyond the region. We ask consultants to submit a CV and a sample of similar work they have produced by November 24th 2015 to admin@equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Expressions of Interests: Consultants","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 30 January 2016","field_url":"http://www.ngopulse.org/opportunity/2015/09/18/call-expressions-interest","body":"Formed in 2006, the One in Nine Campaign is a network of organisations and individuals driven by feminist principles and the desire to live in a society where women are the agents of their own lives, including their sexual lives. The Campaign supports and advocates for the rights of women who speak out against sexual violence as well as other survivors in five ways: Solidarity in Action and Building Feminist Activism, Feminist Knowledge Production and Research, Media Advocacy, Justice and Legal Transformation and Direct Action. The One in Nine Campaign is calling for application from all interested individuals/service providers in the following fields: Organisational Development, Strategic planning and reviews, Resource Mobilisation /Fundraising for NGOs, Research, Documentation (written and/or visual), Monitoring and Evaluation, Staff development/Team building, Creative Arts for social change (all art forms welcomed), Health and Wellness, Marketing (especially for small businesses, NGOs, Cooperatives) and Setting up and registering of Cooperatives.  The organisation seeks to update its Consultants database and preference will be given to individuals who identify as Women and feminists and registered service providers that are led by Women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for participation to delphi study : NHWA - Compendium of HWF Indicators","field_subtitle":"WHO, 1-15 November 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hrh/documents/brief_nhwfa/en/","body":"The World Health Organization Health Workforce Department is inviting you to participate in a Delphi study to be conducted as part of a broader agenda to develop and implement National Health Workforce Accounts (NHWA) in support of the implementation of the Global strategy on human resources for health: health workforce 2030  (GSHRH) which will be submitted to the Sixty-ninth World Health Assembly in May 2016. The concept of NHWA calls for a harmonized, integrated approach for annual and timely collection of health workforce information. Fundamentally, the purpose of NHWA is to structure the information architecture and interoperability, to define core workforce indicators, to enable strategic workforce planning and to facilitate comparability of the health workforce landscape (within countries and across regions). The purpose of this study is to acquire the views of a global group of health systems experts on the relevance, availability and use of existing health workforce indicators working towards a core set of well-defined indicators. These  indicators will be mapped against the proposed NHWA modules. Should you be interested to participate, the study tool will be available on line from 1-15 November 2015 and would require about 30 minutes to complete. Please confirm your interest and availability by return email to workforce2030@who.int  with a subject line: NHWA \u2013 Delphi Study, with the following information: First name; Surname; professional title; \r\naffiliation; country; email address  and telephone.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for watchers: 138th Executive Executive Board (EB138) World Health Organisation meeting ","field_subtitle":"25-30 January 2016, Geneva, Switzerland","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/wwvolunteerinfo","body":"People's Health Movement (PHM) is preparing for another round of watching at the 138th Executive Executive Board (EB138) meeting taking place from 25 to 30 January 2016 in Geneva, Switzerland. PHM believes that the World Health Organisation (WHO) is the legitimate space for global health policy making. Through the WHO Watch initiative, PHM intervenes in the discussion of WHO's key decisions making bodies and brings the voice of the movements struggling for Health for All. PHM are in the early stages of putting together the Watch and hope to get more and new watchers from around the world involved, consulting with country circles on key issues, and developing a solid commentary on issues of interest discussed at the meetings. During the meeting, PHM will have a skype channel open where the key points of the discussions will be shared.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can world\u2019s worst case of inequality be fixed with Pikettian posturing?","field_subtitle":"Bond P: Pambuzuka News, Issue 745, October 2015","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/features/95689","body":"Among the hot ideological wars South Africans wage, the author suggests that none is as violent to the truth as the rejigging of the Gini Coefficient measuring income inequality. (This number is zero if everyone shares income perfectly equally, and one if only a sole person gets it all.) The author suggests that if you measure income prior to state redistribution, South Africa\u2019s Gini \u2013 as measured in November 2014 by the World Bank \u2013 is 0.77, the highest of any major country. The World Bank\u2019s Pretoria office is reported to claim that the Gini is reduced from 0.77 to 0.59 once all manner of state social spending (social grants, education and health) is included in the calculation. The author projects, however, that the National Development Plan (NDP) will reduce the Gini only from 0.69 (in 2012 measured slightly differently from the Bank) to 0.60, i.e., with the income share earned by the poorest 40 percent rising from 6 to just 10 percent. This, it is noted, will make South Africa's levels of inequality higher than any other major country in the world. Bond indicates that a policy of growth-through-redistribution is needed for the country but that advancing this depends on the balance of political forces more than ideological debates. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"CFH Grants 2016 Round 1for NGOs Working for the Development of Conservation, Food and Health in Developing Countries","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submission of concepts: 1 January 2016","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ncdulhl","body":"The Conservation, Food and Health Foundation is currently accepting concept notes for its first round of 2016 Grants. Non-profit organisations in developing countries that are focusing in one of the three fields \u2013 conservation, food and health are invited to apply. The foundation supports projects that demonstrate strong local leadership, promote professional development in the conservation, agricultural, and health sciences; develop the capacity of local organisations; and address a particular problem in the field. Average grant size is US$17,000. Grant request can be made for maximum US$25,000. Conservation Grants aims to improve ecological and environmental conditions in the developing world. Research activities, training, and technical assistance efforts are supported under Conservation Grants. Food Grants are allocated to efforts aimed at improving access to food for consumption in developing countries.  Health Grants are focused at programs that are preventive in nature. Research, technical assistance, and training projects are supported under Health Grants. It supports research, technical assistance, and training projects that improve public health through community-based efforts that address health promotion, disease prevention, family planning, and reproductive health; and increase the understanding and treatment of tropical diseases. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Community Participation in Health Systems Research: A Systematic Review Assessing the State of Research, the Nature of Interventions Involved and the Features of Engagement with Communities","field_subtitle":"George  AS; Mehra V; Scott K; Sriram V: PLOS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0141091, October 23, 2015 ","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0141091","body":"This paper explores the extent, nature and quality of community participation in health systems intervention research in low- and middle-income countries.\r\nIt used  peer-reviewed, English language literature published between January 2000 and May 2012 through four electronic databases. Search terms combined the concepts of community, capability/participation, health systems research and low- and middle-income countries. Most articles were led by authors in high income countries and many did not consistently list critical aspects of study quality. Articles were most likely to describe community participation in health promotion interventions (78%, 202/260), even though they were less participatory than other health systems areas. Community involvement in governance and supply chain management was less common (12%, 30/260 and 9%, 24/260 respectively), but more participatory. Articles cut across all health conditions and varied by scale and duration, with those that were implemented at national scale or over more than five years being mainstreamed by government. Most articles detailed improvements in service availability, accessibility and acceptability, with fewer efforts focused on quality, and few designs able to measure impact on health outcomes. With regards to participation, most articles supported community\u2019s in implementing interventions (95%, n = 247/260), in contrast to involving communities in identifying and defining problems (18%, n = 46/260). Many articles did not discuss who in communities participated, with just over a half of the articles disaggregating any information by sex. Articles were largely under theorized, and only five mentioned power or control. Majority of the articles (57/64) described community participation processes as being collaborative with fewer describing either community mobilization or community empowerment. Intrinsic individual motivations, community-level trust, strong external linkages, and supportive institutional processes facilitated community participation, while lack of training, interest and information, along with weak financial sustainability were challenges. Supportive contextual factors included decentralization reforms and engagement with social movements. Despite positive examples, community participation in health systems interventions was variable, with few being truly community directed. Future research should more thoroughly engage with community participation theory, recognize the power relations inherent in community participation, and be more realistic as to how communities participate and cognizant of who decides that.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Competition: African Voices Photography ","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 1 December 2015","field_url":"http://www.ucl.ac.uk/african-studies/african-voices","body":"University College London (UCL) invite staff members or students of any African university to submit photographs which capture personal stories and experiences of contemporary Africa. The winning selections will be exhibited in physical form and online as part of the AfricanVoices season at UCL and then displayed by the UCL African Studies Research Centre (Institute of Advanced Studies) on walls, online and at other events with the photographer\u2019s name displayed clearly in each case. The best overall entry will be awarded a tablet and there will be four runners-up prizes for the best photograph in each category. Photographs will be judged in four categories: Cities, Health, Human Wellbeing and Intercultural Interaction. The competition is not open to professional photographers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Declaration of the 3rd World Social Science Forum","field_subtitle":"Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA): September 2015","field_url":"http://codesria.org/spip.php?article2447","body":"The World Social Science Forum 2015 served as a platform for presenting new knowledge and insights, re-thinking received wisdom, charting new directions, promoting innovation in the research-policy-action nexus, and nurturing new international partnerships. Issues of justice and growing inequalities at global, regional, national and local levels and their impact on the quality of life of populations as well as on the sustainability of resources justified the theme: 'Transforming Global Relations for a Just World'. Participants declared their concern with the consequences of injustice and inequality for the quality of life for global populations as well as with the sustainability of global resources.  The participants declared to:  (a) Pursue theoretical and empirical research including development of reliable and multi-dimensional indicators on inequalities and injustices; (b) Produce evidence to highlight issues requiring urgent attention and action, support advocacy and inform policies to respond to them; (c) Support efforts to address asymmetries, disparities, divides, and lack of autonomy in knowledge production through the creation of transformative knowledge programs; (d) Participate in programs and efforts that aim to end injustice and inequality; (e) Make every effort to reduce income inequalities and promote equity, starting with scientific institutions where they have influence; (f) Support measurable progress to overcome inequalities, including through the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals; (g) Promote policies, programs, and values that act to end gender inequality; (h) Promote the integration of youth in work places through providing them with the necessary skills to enter the labour force; (i) Support efforts to achieve legally binding and universal agreement on avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system; and (j) Promote inclusive societies based on universal values and human rights. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Did Equity of Reproductive and Maternal Health Service Coverage Increase during the MDG Era? An Analysis of Trends and Determinants across 74 Low- and Middle-Income Countries","field_subtitle":"Alkenbrack S; Chaitkin M; Zeng W; Couture T; Sharma S: PLoS ONE 10(9), September 2015, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0134905","field_url":"http://media.wix.com/ugd/35c673_015bd4d0defc4b1fb9238be8c10b86ef.pdf","body":"Despite widespread gains toward the 5th Millennium Development Goal (MDG), pro-rich inequalities in reproductive health (RH) and maternal health (MH) are pervasive throughout the world. This study explores how equity of service coverage differs across countries, and explores what policy factors are associated with a country\u2019s progress, or lack thereof, toward more equitable RH and MH service coverage. The authors used RH and MH service coverage data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) for 74 countries to examine trends in equity between countries and over time from 1990 to 2014 in both relative and absolute equity. Relative equity for the coverage of RH and MH services has continually increased across all countries over the past quarter century; however, inequities in coverage persist, in some countries more than others. Multivariate analysis shows that higher education and greater political commitment (measured as the share of government spending allocated to health) were significantly associated with higher equity of service coverage. Neither country income, i.e., GDP per capita, nor better governance were significantly associated with equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Differences in essential newborn care at birth between private and public health facilities in eastern Uganda","field_subtitle":"Waiswa P; Akuze J; Peterson S; Kerber K; Tetui M; Forsberg BC; Hanson C: Global Health Action 8(10),  March 2015, doi: 10.3402/gha.v8.24251","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4385204/","body":"In Uganda and elsewhere, the private sector provides an increasing and significant proportion of maternal and child health services. However, little is known whether private care results in better quality services and improved outcomes compared to the public sector, especially regarding care at the time of birth. This study described the characteristics of care-seekers and assess newborn care practices and services received at public and private facilities in rural eastern Uganda. The authors collected data from mothers with infants at baseline and endline using a structured questionnaire among private and public health facilities. Private health facilities did not perform significantly better than public health facilities in terms of coverage of any essential newborn care interventions, and babies were more likely to receive thermal care practices in public facilities compared to private (68% compared to 60%). Babies born at public health facilities received an average of 7.0 essential newborn care interventions compared to 6.2 at private facilities. Women delivering in private facilities were more likely to have higher parity, lower socio-economic status, less education, to seek antenatal care later in pregnancy, and to have a normal delivery compared to women delivering in public facilities. In this setting, private health facilities serve a vulnerable population and provide access to service for those who might not otherwise have it. However, provision of essential newborn care practices was slightly lower in private compared to public facilities, calling for quality improvement in both private and public sector facilities, and a greater emphasis on tracking access to and quality of care in private sector facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 177: Poorest countries still begging for access to medicines, while rich countries reap super- profits","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluating Universal Health Coverage as a Sustainable Development Goal","field_subtitle":"Chapman A: Health and Human Rights Journal, Blog, September 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ornum2h","body":"The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) identify achieving universal health coverage (UHC) as one component of the omnibus health goal, \u201cto ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.\u201d The components of UHC specified in goal 3.8 of the SDGs reflect World Health Organisation\u2019s policy documents and include financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services, and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all. On the positive side, UHC can be considered to be an expression of the right to health. Indeed, several health and human rights advocates had earlier proposed replacing the various health-related goals in the MDGs with the single overarching health goal of UHC in the SDGs, provided that it specify that international assistance is essential, not optional, for countries otherwise unable to pursue UHC. Significant progress toward UHC, consistent with the requirements of the right to health, would have the potential of enabling the one billion people currently estimated to not have access to the health services they need each year to obtain them. The author argues, however, that not all potential paths to a universal health system are consistent with human rights requirements, even ones that result in some expansion of health coverage. For that reason it is important that health and human rights advocates and scholars identify the essential features of UHC and policies for advancing toward this goal from a human rights perspective. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing sustainable development and developing sustainable finance: A DESA Briefing Note on the Addis Ababa Action Agenda ","field_subtitle":"Third International Conference on Financing for Development, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 13-16 July 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qj7gdf9","body":"Achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development requires trillions of dollars annually. The authors indicate that global public and private investment would be sufficient \u2013 but only if financial resources were invested in and aligned with sustainable development. This requires a comprehensive approach, which mobilises public finance, sets appropriate public policies and regulatory frameworks, unlocks the transformative potential of people and the private sector, and incentivises changes in consumption, production and investment patterns in support of sustainable development. The Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) presents a policy framework that realigns financial flows with public goals. Official development assistance (ODA) remains crucial, particularly for countries most in need, but alone is not be sufficient. The AAAA addresses all sources of finance: public and private, domestic and international and stresses the importance of long-term investment, and the need for all financing to be aligned with sustainable development. It includes several new commitments by Governments: A new social compact to provide social protection and essential public services for all; A global infrastructure forum to bridge the infrastructure gap; An \u2018LDC package\u2019 to support the poorest countries; A Technology Facilitation Mechanism to advance to the SDGs; Enhanced international tax cooperation to assist in raising resources domestically; Mainstreaming women\u2019s empowerment into financing for development. Additional cross-cutting issues include scaling up efforts to end hunger and malnutrition, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialisation, full and productive employment and decent work for all, peaceful and inclusive societies, and protecting the ecosystem.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, 14-18 November  2016","field_subtitle":"Call for abstracts and organised sessions","field_url":"http://healthsystemsresearch.org/hsr2016/","body":"Health System Global announces the Call for Abstracts for the Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research on the Symposium website. The theme os Resilient and responsive health systems for a changing world. Submissions are invited for both organized sessions and individual abstracts. Please visit the site to find out about: key dates and deadlines, how to submit your abstract and other details on taking part in the Symposium. Please also make sure to visit the site regularly as HSG will keep updating it with announcements and relevant resources in the coming months. Please share the call with colleagues and anyone else who might be interested.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global, regional, and national levels and trends in under-5 mortality between 1990 and 2015, with scenario-based projections to 2030: a systematic analysis by the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation","field_subtitle":"You D; Hug L; MA; Ejdemyr S; Idele P; Hogan D; Mathers C; Gerland P; Rou New J; Alkema L; The Lancet, September 2015, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)00120-8","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)00120-8/fulltext","body":"In 2000, world leaders agreed on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). MDG 4 called for a two-thirds reduction in the under-5 mortality rate between 1990 and 2015. The authors aimed to estimate levels and trends in under-5 mortality for 195 countries from 1990 to 2015 to assess MDG 4 achievement and then intended to project how various post-2015 targets and observed rates of change will affect the burden of under-5 deaths from 2016 to 2030. To provide insights into the global and regional burden of under-5 deaths associated with post-2015 targets, the authors constructed five scenario-based projections for under-5 mortality from 2016 to 2030 and estimated national, regional, and global under-5 mortality rates up to 2030 for each scenario. The global under-5 mortality rate has fallen from 90\u00b76 deaths per 1000 livebirths (90% uncertainty interval 89\u00b73\u201392\u00b72) in 1990 to 42\u00b75 (40\u00b79\u201345\u00b76) in 2015. The global under-5 mortality rate reduced by 53% (50\u201355%) in the past 25 years and therefore missed the MDG 4 target. Based on point estimates, two regions\u2014east Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean\u2014achieved the MDG 4 target. 62 countries achieved the MDG 4 target, of which 24 were low-income and lower-middle income countries. Between 2016 and 2030, 94\u00b74 million children are projected to die before the age of 5 years if the 2015 mortality rate remains constant in each country, and 68\u00b78 million would die if each country continues to reduce its mortality rate at the pace estimated from 2000 to 2015. If all countries achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of an under-5 mortality rate of 25 or fewer deaths per 1000 livebirths by 2030, the authors project 56\u00b70 million deaths by 2030. About two-thirds of all sub-Saharan African countries need to accelerate progress to achieve this target. Despite substantial progress in reducing child mortality, concerted efforts remain necessary to avoid preventable under-5 deaths in the coming years and to accelerate progress in improving child survival further. Urgent actions are needed most in the regions and countries with high under-5 mortality rates, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Guidance on using needs-based formulae and gap analysis in the equitable allocation of health care resources in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D; Anselmi L: EQUINET Discussion Paper 93 updated. Health Economics Unit (UCT), EQUINET: Harare","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20RA%20manual%20Sep2015.pdf","body":"The equitable allocation of limited public sector health care resources across population groups is a critical mechanism for promoting health system equity and efficiency. The population groups are often defined by geographic areas that correspond to administrative authorities. The use of a needs-based resource allocation formula to calculate target allocations for each province or region and each district is becoming increasingly popular in countries where health care is publicly funded and provided. Target allocations are defined according to the relative need for health services in each geographic area, quantified using indicators such as population size, demographic composition, levels of ill health and socio-economic status. EQUINET has supported the development of needs-based resource allocation formulae in a number of east and southern African countries in the past. The methods for developing such a formula are summarised in this paper. Our work in the region has persuaded us that it is necessary to supplement the development of a formula with other initiatives to support the successful implementation of the resource allocation processes. To facilitate the gradual shifting of resources, the equity target allocations calculated through the formula must be linked explicitly to national and local planning and budgeting processes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequity in costs of seeking sexual and reproductive health services in India and Kenya","field_subtitle":"Haghparast-Bidgoli H et al:  International Journal for Equity in Health 14(84), 2015","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/14/1/84/","body":"Information on access to SRH services, the direct costs of seeking care and a range of socio-economic variables were obtained through structured exit interviews with female SRH service users in Mysore (India) and Mombasa (Kenya). The costs of seeking care were analysed by household income quintile (as a measure of socio-economic status). The Kakwani index and quintile ratios are used as measures of inequitable spending. Catastrophic spending on SRH services was calculated using the threshold of 10 % of total household income. The results showed that spending on SRH services was highly regressive in both sites, with lower income households spending a higher percentage of their income on seeking care, compared to households with a higher income. Spending on SRH as a percentage of household income ranged from 0.03\u20137.5 % in Kenya, with a statistically significant difference in the proportion of spending on SRH services across income quintiles. The poorest households in Kenya spent ten times more on seeking care than the least poor households. The most common coping mechanisms were receiving [money] from partner or household members and using own savings or regular income. Highly regressive spending on SRH services highlights the heavier burden borne by the poorest when seeking care in resource-constrained settings. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Insights for taking Results Based Financing to scale","field_subtitle":"Health Partners International, Montrose International: Policy Brief, Northern Uganda Health, UK, August 2015","field_url":"http://resources.healthpartners-int.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Insights-for-taking-RBF-to-scale_Policy-Brief_NU-Health-2015.pdf","body":"There is increasing interest in understanding how Results Based Financing (RBF) can improve efficiency, effectiveness and accountability in programming towards\r\nUniversal Health Coverage and improved health outcomes at scale. The Northern Uganda Health (NU Health) is a controlled implementation study to assess the costs and benefits of RBF relative to conventional Input Based Financing (IBF). The study design aimed to isolate the main effect of the financing modality in terms of quality and quantity of health service provision.  Programme data and the results of an independent evaluation confirm a range of key findings.  These include: A significant reduction in barriers to access and increase in health service utilisation; a three to eight fold improvement in adherence to standard treatment algorithms/quality of care for the major childhood killers:  diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia; and, particularly dramatic improvements in care and utilisation at the lowest level facilities, harbouring the promise of real progress toward Universal Health Coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Let\u2019s Walk Our Talk: Making Concrete Commitments on Financing the Sustainable Development Agenda","field_subtitle":"Schmidt H; Barnhill A: PLoS Med 12(9), 8 September 2015, doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001872","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001872","body":"Despite criticism, the MDGs are widely praised for having galvanised national and international development efforts in unprecedented ways. Currently proposed successor Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) seek to address newly emerged policy issues and include a call to significantly reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). NCDs directly impact health inequality and poverty. Their recognition is timely and to be welcomed categorically. However, ambiguity in the SDGs\u2019 current guidance risks that states\u2019 efforts to reduce NCDs exacerbate socioeconomic and health inequalities, rather than reduce them. The authors urge that more attention needs to be given to improving the situation of the worst off and make three concrete proposals towards this end. Existing policy guidance highlights cost-effective interventions for NCDs, but focusing just on cost-effectiveness risks exacerbating socioeconomic and health inequalities rather than reducing them. The authors suggest that in implementing the SDGs, targets and interventions that benefit the worst off should be prioritised. The United Nations should develop practical guidance to assist policy makers at the country level with incorporating equity considerations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"MSF seeks international probe into Kunduz hospital hit, possible war crime","field_subtitle":"Raja K: Third World Network (TWN) Info Service on Health Issues, 8 October 2015","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/health.info/2015/hi151005.htm","body":"Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has called for an investigation by an international humanitarian fact-finding commission into a US airstrike on its hospital in the Afghanistan city of Kunduz and for one of the States, party to the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, to invoke it. MSF said the attacks took place despite the fact that it had provided the GPS coordinates of the trauma hospital to Coalition and Afghan military and civilian officials as recently as Tuesday, 29 September. The attack continued for more than 30 minutes after MSF first informed US and Afghan military officials in Kabul and Washington that it was a hospital that was being hit. The International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission was established under the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions and was officially constituted in 1991 to investigate allegations of violations of international humanitarian law. According to the Commission's website, some 76 countries have recognised the Commission, which is based in Bern, but so far, it has not yet been called upon to conduct any investigation. In her remarks to the media, MSF President Liu said that international humanitarian law is not about \u2018mistakes'. \"It is about intention, facts and why....This was not just an attack on our hospital - it was an attack on the Geneva Conventions. This cannot be tolerated. These Conventions govern the rules of war and were established to protect civilians in conflicts - including patients, medical workers and facilities. They bring some humanity into what is otherwise an inhumane situation.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Nairobi, Kenya to host 10th WTO Ministerial Conference","field_subtitle":"World Trade Organisation (WTO), 10 December 2014","field_url":"https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news14_e/minis_10dec14_e.htm","body":"The General Council, on 10 December 2014, agreed that the 10th Ministerial Conference be held in Nairobi, Kenya from 15 to 18 December 2015. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"New Household Economy Approach software developed by Evidence for Development","field_subtitle":"Seaman J: Evidence for Development, July 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/p3qjw9n","body":"The household economy approach (HEA) is a method for assessing the vulnerability of rural populations to economic shocks and changes, based on their livelihood patterns and market information. It is now widely used as a method of famine early warning by many governments and humanitarian agencies, and also has important applications for managing the impacts of climate change on poverty and food security in developing countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Politics and Organizational Capacities of Selected Key Fiscal and Social Institutions in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Katusiimeh MW; Kangave J: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Working Paper, August 2015","field_url":"http://www.unrisd.org/katusiimeh-kangave","body":"This paper is part of a series of outputs from the research project on The Politics of Domestic Resource Mobilisation for Social Development. It examines the linkages between resource mobilisation and social outcomes by looking at institutions that play a key role with respect to resource mobilisation and social spending in Uganda. It looks at three institutions\u2014the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) and the Ministry of Health (MoH)\u2014which were selected because they are key organisations in either revenue collection or social service delivery or both, and all three were targets of reforms with varying degrees of success. The paper analyses how these institutions compare with respect to political prioritization, and in particular, to what extent they benefit from key institutional reforms and organizational capacity. The analysis reveals how varying political interests in, and priorities of, public institutions serve to explain differences in the delivery of public services and their organizational capacity. It illustrates the bigger picture that only politically important organizations\u2014those perceived to be key for the political survival of the ruling elite\u2014are well equipped with resources. The findings also stress the point that organizations that tend to perform better do so because they are politically prioritized and offered political protection. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Poorest countries still begging for access to medicines, while rich countries reap super- profits ","field_subtitle":"Riaz K Tayob, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe poorest countries in the world have been unable to reach agreement at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on relief from global rules that would allow access to much needed medicines for their citizens. The 16 October 2015 meeting to resolve the impasse has been suspended indefinitely according to reports by IP-Watch in Geneva.  \r\n\r\nAt the forefront of resistance to this application from least developed countries  (LDCs) were the United States, Canada and Australia, in positions raised in June and again on 16 October.  The LDCs have a two-fold demand that amounts to a request for a waiver from the application of WTO rules on intellectual property (IP) rights, such as patents (which protect owners of new medicines), data and marketing rights. Firstly, they have requested an extension of the 2013 waiver related to pharmaceutical products, currently expiring on 1 January 2016. Secondly, they have petitioned through Uganda, as LDC representative, for a general exemption from applying the WTO intellectual property rights agreement (TRIPS), granted until 2021. Their position is that it ought to be granted for as long as countries remain designated as least developed according to the United Nations.  Most LDCs are in Africa.\r\n\r\nOver 140 non-governmental organisations have come out in support of the LDC petition. M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res accused the US, Australia and Canada of seeking to worsen access to medicines in LDCs by weakening the exceptions granted to them. \r\nSome reports imply that  LDCs were \u2018collateral damage\u2019 for other IP interests for the US. The US Trade Representative failed to reach the high standards of protection sought in the mega-regional trade and regulatory agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Commercial US stakeholders were reported in an October 2015 paper by Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) to be upset with the concessions made in this flagship trade deal, with an informed but unnamed source stating, \"the TPP did not deliver as expected on IP [Intellectual Property] and so we are under a lot of pressure not to give in more on IP.\" \r\nIn contrast, the LDCs\u2019 proposals were supported by developing countries, including Cambodia, Cuba, Brazil, China, Uruguay and by the Africa Group. Norway and the European Commission also supported the LDCs request, as did the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Development Programme and UNAIDS. \r\n\r\nThe costly nature of pharmaceutical drug production and the complex rules on production for export to countries with public health needs requires the certainty of a permanent waiver. According to James Love of KEI, \"A permanent waiver of drug patent obligations is needed. No country will amend its patent laws if the waiver is limited in time, like the previous extensions...\u201d\r\n\r\nThe public health basis for the LDC application is also evident. In a statement in June 2015, Uganda\u2019s representative put the case to WTO members that 63% of people living with HIV in LDC countries still had no access to appropriate treatments. The United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States in its 2014 report indicated that most LDCs had not yet met the Millennium Development Goals on health, stating that LDCs \u201calso need financial and technological support to derive maximum development benefits from the waivers granted under the WTO TRIPS agreement.\u201d  \r\n\r\nLDCs, as the poorest countries in the world, serve as some measure of the level of civilisation of the global economic order. These countries are in effect asked to repeatedly expend scarce domestic resources and diplomatic capital supplicating rich countries at the WTO for exemptions from international rules that clearly do not take their interests into account. It is refreshing that the WHO is taking the side of the LDCs and access to medicines in this instance as the position has been less clear in the past. For example, Third World Network raised in 2010 that the WHO initiatives on \u201ccounterfeit\u201d drugs threatened medicines access by conflating legitimately produced generic drugs with drugs that were illegally produced or traded, given that the term \u2018counterfeit\u2019 is used to denote trademark infringements in intellectual property rules. \r\n\r\nThe LDCs request for a waiver signals that the access to medicines activism that secured the 2001 WTO Doha Declaration on Public Health was just the start of a battle against vested interests pursuing profits at the expense of human life. The 2001 Declaration was in fact a statement of legal rights that all countries enjoyed already, but over which poor countries had to ensure legal certainty at global level as they were under threat. For example, the US Special 301 list designated countries deemed to violate intellectual property rights, as unilaterally imposed sanctions with negative economic and reputational effects. Given that the WTO disciplines unilateral action by states that affects multilateral trade, the US undertook to not use Special 301 in violation of the WTO, according to Chakravarthi Raghavan in 2000. However the US repeatedly breached this undertaking, such as in its placement of Thailand on the 2007 watch list for issuing compulsory licenses for patented pharmaceutical products. \r\n\r\nThe industry has significant lobbying power and the preponderantly US-based branded products pharmaceutical industry is one of the most profitable in the world. According to a 2014 BBC report, the sector made a 42% margin of profit in 2013 in the US, compared to about 29% for the banks. Many US pharmaceutical companies held tens of billions of dollars offshore to avoid US taxes, according to Bloomberg\u2019s Richard Rubin on 4 March 2014.The cost of such concentrated corporate power is evident in the fact that US medicines prices are almost twice that compared to other developed countries.  US policies are rationalised with ideas of free trade, competition and the full functioning of markets. The super-profits being made by branded pharmaceutical companies should lead even free trade proponents to be concerned about the enormous rents they extract from the market. The suspension of discussions on the LDC waiver on Friday coincided with the US and developed countries stating they would also not make binding commitments for special treatment of LDCs on other issues at the next WTO Ministerial meeting scheduled for 15 to 18 December in Nairobi. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Providing guidance to empower LMIC health teams","field_subtitle":"British Medical Journal; University of Cape Town Lung Institute's Knowledge Translation Unit: BMJ, UK, 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ng3v45n","body":"BMJ has partnered with the University of Cape Town Lung Institute's Knowledge Translation Unit (UCTLI KTU), to develop and distribute the Practical Approach to Care Kit (PACK) programme to healthcare workers in low to middle income countries. The PACK programme is a comprehensive clinical practice aid that enables healthcare practitioners to diagnose and manage common conditions. It covers 40 common symptoms and 20 conditions including cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, women\u2019s health, and end-of-life care. PACK is updated annually to comply with local clinical policy, regulations and essential drug lists, and is translated where necessary. It incorporates regular evidence updates from BMJ and other credible sources including WHO, to ensure that it is relevant and provides the latest best practice guidance. The programme has been implemented in Botswana and in the Zomba district of Malawi. Extensive interest in PACK has been received from other middle to low income countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reflections on global economic governance at the \u201cstart of a new era\u201d","field_subtitle":"Mel\u00e9ndez-Ortiz R: Bridges Africa 4(8), October 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/od5ojso","body":"With the recent adoption of a new global development agenda for the next 15 years and negotiations on a new climate regime ongoing, what\u2019s changed for governance of the global economy in the last two decades, and what have we learned? This article maps the shifting context for trade, investment, and sustainable development. It puts global governance efforts into historical context of a globalised economy with lesser attention paid to questions of equity and social inclusion, and an underestimation of persistent and deep-rooted asymmetries in capabilities among countries at different levels of development and perilous levels of inequality among and within most countries around the world. The author suggests that global governance will continue to be a matter of striking the balance between global direction-setting, monitoring the ongoing leadership role of government policy, and supporting the subsidiary implementation of commitments at ground level. The paper points to aligning national policies and ensuring trade and investment systems work for sustainable development rather than funding discrete projects. The author argues that policies, their frameworks and the institutions needed to implement them constitute the most powerful lever for change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Revenue Bargains Key to Financing Africa\u2019s Development","field_subtitle":"Bangura Y: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Think Piece, UNRISD, Geneva, 2015","field_url":"http://www.unrisd.org/road-to-addis-bangura","body":"Africa has enjoyed a growth momentum since 2000 after the wasted years of the 1980s and much of the 1990s. However, eradicating poverty will require huge resources, which existing funding strategies will be unable to generate. Global commodity prices have fallen sharply; capacity to mobilise domestic revenues is waning; and aid has been insufficient in plugging funding gaps. Revenue bargains in which states extract revenues from citizens in exchange for investments that impact positively on well-being may be key to financing Africa\u2019s development. They can substantially increase revenues, nurture effective state-citizen relations, force companies to pay correct taxes, push fragmented systems of service provision in the direction of universalism, improve policy space and make aid more effective.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Shaking the Habitual: End Extreme Wealth ","field_subtitle":"The Knife: October 2015","field_url":"http://theknife.net/shaking-the-habitual/","body":"This satirical presentation by Swedish electronic music duo The Knife explores \u201cthe newest millennium goal\u201d  \u2013 end extreme wealth. More than 40 panels feature various experts expounding on the problems faced by the extremely wealthy using much of the same language that is used to describe the world\u2019s poorest. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Solidarity and responsibility: Struggle between two lines","field_subtitle":"Tandon Y: Pambuzuka News 747, 22 October 2015","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/features/95834","body":"The author writes that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is firmly located in an old ethical order which puts profit over people; where those in power make the rules to suppress the powerless; and where this iniquitous and unjust world \u201corder\u201d (disorder) is legitimised by the ideology of neoliberalism. He states that progressive people must defy this iniquitous system and overturn it as it is not reformable. He observes that it is one that could be neutralised if Africa was united to challenge the WTO and the \"Big and Powerful\". At the Seattle WTO Ministerial in November 1999 Africa and the global South neutralised the WTO with the help of world peoples' movements fighting for justice for the weak in the international trading system. The Tenth Ministerial Conference (MC10) of the WTO in Nairobi is not just Africa\u2019s war. Trade negotiations in Geneva are said to be carried out in a \"surreal\" atmosphere where the forest is missed for the trees. In this piece the author argues that the Nairobi negotiations will be behind closed doors where the 'Empire' will use all means at its command to secure a \"consensus\" that serves its interest and where those from the grassroots resist being drawn into that consensus if that does not do justice to grassroots people and communities. He notes that economics is girded firmly in the politics of power and that power, in turn, is legitimised by an ideology, in this case the ideology of neoliberalism. Those who are fighting for justice thus have to tackle all three levels \u2013 economic, political and ideological. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Health Review 2015/16 Call for Chapters","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submission of abstracts: 30 November 2015 Deadline for full manuscripts:  29 February 2016","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/south-african-health-review-201516-call-chapters","body":"The South African Health Review (SAHR), published annually by Health Systems Trust (HST) for 18 years, is an accredited peer-reviewed journal that is widely respected as an authoritative source of research, analysis and reflection on health systems. The SAHR advances knowledge agenda-setting, production and sharing. Being published in the Review affords authors the opportunity to participate in and contribute to a recognised and established community of expertise which offers a South African perspective on prevailing local and international public health issues. Concepts for chapter submissions should represent manuscripts that highlight critical commentary on current areas of significant interest or debate, and offer empirical understandings for improving South Africa\u2019s health systems reform and application of health policy, focusing on innovative and good practice models. Researchers, educators, students, policy-makers, planners, capacity-builders, managers and specialist practitioners in the field of health systems and related health development disciplines are invited to submit abstracts for the 2015/16 SAHR to editor@hst.org.za Guidelines for authors can be downloaded via the below link. Strict adherence to these guidelines is essential. Submission of an abstract for the SAHR does not guarantee acceptance. All manuscripts will undergo systematic peer review according to documented standards.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The Astronomy of Africa's Health Systems Literature During the MDG Era: Where Are the Systems Clusters?","field_subtitle":"Phillips JF; Sheff M; Boyer CB: Global Health: Science and Practice 3(3), 482-592, 2015","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4570019/","body":"Growing international concern about the need for improved health systems in Africa has catalysed an expansion of the health systems literature. This review applies a bibliometric procedure to analyse the acceleration of scientific writing on this theme. The authors focus on research published during the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) era between 1990 and 2014, reporting findings from a systematic review of a database comprised of 17,655 articles about health systems themes from sub-Saharan African countries or subregions. Using bibliometric tools for co-word textual analysis, the authors analysed the incidence and associations of keywords and phrases to generate and visualise topical foci on health systems as clusters of themes. Results show that African health systems research is dominated by literature on diseases and categorical systems research topics, rather than on systems science that cuts across diseases or specific systemic themes. Systems research is highly developed in South Africa but relatively uncommon elsewhere in the region. Results identify several themes that are unexpectedly uncommon in the country-specific health systems literature. This includes research on the processes of achieving systems change, the health impact of systems strengthening, processes that explain the systems determinants of health outcomes, or systematic study of organisational dysfunction and ways to improve system performance. Research quantifying the relationship of governance indicators to health systems strengthening is nearly absent from the literature. Long-term experimental studies and statistically rigorous research on cross-cutting themes of health systems strengthening are rare. Studies of organisational malaise or corruption are virtually absent. Trend analysis shows the emergence of organisational research on specific priority diseases, such as on HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, but portrays a lack of focus on integrated systems research on the general burden of disease. If health systems in Africa are to be strengthened, then organisational change research must be a more concerted focus in the future than has been the case in the past.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders","field_subtitle":"Application deadline: 9:00pm GMT Wednesday 11 November, 2015","field_url":"https://youngafricanleaders.state.gov/washington-fellowship/","body":"The Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, begun in 2014, is the flagship program of President Obama\u2019s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) that empowers young people through academic coursework, leadership training, and networking. In 2016, the Fellowship will provide 1,000 outstanding young leaders from Sub-Saharan Africa with the opportunity to hone their skills at a U.S. higher education institution with support for professional development after they return home. The Fellows should be between the ages of 25 and 35, have established records of accomplishment in promoting innovation and positive change in their organizations, institutions, communities, and countries. The 2016 fellowships include: A six-week Academic and Leadership Institute at U.S. colleges and universities; A Summit with President Obama in Washington, DC and an optional six-week professional development experience (PDE) at a U.S.company, civil society organization, or public sector agency. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of quality improvement in achieving effective large-scale prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Barker P; Barron P; Bhardwaj S; Pillay Y: AIDS 29 (Suppl), S137\u2013S143","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/q99wkqf","body":"After a late start and poor initial performance, the South African Prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT) programme achieved rapid progress in achieving effective national-scale implementation of a complex intervention across a large number of different geographic and socioeconomic contexts. This study shows how quality-improvement methods played a significant part in PMTCT improvements. The South African rollout of the PMTCT programme underwent significant evolution, from a largely ineffective, context-insensitive, top-down cascaded training approach to a sophisticated bottom-up health systems\u2019 intervention that used modern adaptive designs. Several demonstration projects used quality-improvement methods to improve the performance of the PMTCT programme. These results prompted a national redesign of key elements of the PMTCT programme which were rapidly scaled up across the country using a unified, simplified data-driven approach. The scale up of the quality-improvement approach contributed to a dramatic fall in the nationally reported transmission rate for mother to child transmission of HIV. By 2012, measured infection rate of HIV-exposed infants at around 6 weeks after birth was 2.6%, close to the reported transmission rates under clinical trial conditions. Quality-improvement methods can be used to improve reliability of complex treatment programmes delivered at primary-care level. Rapid scale up and effective population coverage can be accomplished through a sequence of demonstration, testing and rapid spread of locally tested implementation strategies supported by real-time feedback of a simplified indicator dataset and multilevel leadership support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The Slippery Target for Child Survival in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development","field_subtitle":"Gibbons E: Health and Human Rights Journal, Blog, September 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/o4t6rfw","body":"The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has been agreed, along with 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their 169 targets seek to build on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and \u201ccomplete what these did not achieve\u201d. MDG4: Reduce Child Mortality is one the goals which failed to achieve its single target to \u201cReduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015 the under-five mortality rate (U5MR).\u201d MDG4 mobilised global efforts to promote child survival and health, (and indeed between 1990 and 2013, the annual number of under-five deaths declined by half to 6.3 million) but was also critiqued from many diverse perspectives. Despite global progress towards MDG4, the poorest children and indeed the poorest countries, have been left behind. SDG Target 3.2, states: 'By 2030, end preventable deaths of newborns and children under 5 years of age, with all countries aiming to reduce neonatal mortality to at least as low as 12 per 1,000 live births and under five mortality to at least as low as 25 per 1,000 live births'. For SDGs to build on the lessons of the MDGs, the author indicates that the targets should be framed in the unambiguous terms of reducing inequalities. The author suggests that it is difficult to predict how target 3.2 will be measured, and how countries will be held globally accountable, but proposes that all countries should at least report on the gap in child survival between the richest and the poorest, and their progress towards equality of outcomes. To make sure this happens, civil society and human rights mechanisms need to be mobilized around the child\u2019s right to survival and to health, without discrimination.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards a New Global Business Model for Antibiotics: Delinking Revenues from Sales ","field_subtitle":"Clift C; Outterson K; R\u00f8ttingen JA et al: Chatham House, October 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/onukp69","body":"This report aims to inform the ongoing discussions and processes on developing a new business model for antibiotics. It is based on the premise that delinkage, seeking to separate the return on investment from antibiotic sales volume, should be the principle underpinning any new business model. It calls on governments to invest significantly in antibiotic R&D by financing a broad menu of incentives across the antibiotic life-cycle, with the highest incentives targeted at the development of antibiotics directed at the greatest health threats arising from antibiotic resistance. Contributions from countries should be coordinated within a globally agreed framework. Finally, global access should, together with conservation, be a priority for any new business model fostering innovation. The report makes several recommendations based on findings.  The authors suggest that a new business model needs to be developed in which the return on investment in R&D on antibiotics is delinked from the volume of sales.There should be increased public financing of a broad menu of incentives across the antibiotic life-cycle is required, targeted at encouraging the development of antibiotics to counter the greatest microbial threats. The assessment of current and future global threats arising from resistance should be updated periodically in order to identify which classes of product are a priority for incentives. The delinkage model should prioritize both access and conservation. Domestic expenditures on the model need to be globally coordinated, including through the establishment of a secretariat, and global participation in the model is the ultimate goal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"UN Special Rapporteur on right to culture recommends new IP regime for pharmaceuticals","field_subtitle":"Gopakumar KM: Third World Network (TWN) Info Service on Health Issues, October 2015","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/health.info/2015/hi151007.htm","body":"The United Nations Special Rapporteur in the field of right to culture recommended a new intellectual property regime for pharmaceutical products stressing that there is no human right to patent protection. This recommendation was made in the report to the 70th Session of the UN General Assembly. The Special Rapporteur recommended that \u201cthe United Nations should convene a neutral, high-level body to review and assess proposals and recommend a new intellectual property regime for pharmaceutical products that is consistent with international human rights law and public health requirements, and simultaneously safeguards the justifiable\u201d.  This is drawn from the recommendation of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law appointed by the UN Development Programme (UNDP). The report also recommends that states have a positive obligation to provide for a robust and flexible system of patent exclusions, exceptions and flexibilities based on domestic circumstances, including through the establishment of compulsory and government use licences when needed.  The report further argues that states have a human rights obligation not to support, adopt or accept intellectual property rules, such as TRIPS-Plus provisions, that would impede them from using exclusions, exceptions and flexibilities and thus from reconciling patent protection with human rights. International agreements that do not provide sufficient flexibility should be renounced or modified. The report highlights Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which ensure that measure be put in place to ensure affordability of and access to technologies essential to life and realisation of all human rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Where have all the mosquito nets gone? Spatial modelling reveals mosquito net distributions across Tanzania do not target optimal Anopheles mosquito habitats","field_subtitle":"Acheson E; Plowright A; Kerr J: Malaria Journal 14(322) 2015","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/s12936-015-0841-x.pdf","body":"The United Republic of Tanzania has implemented countrywide anti-malarial interventions over more than a decade, including national insecticide-treated net (ITN) rollouts and subsequent monitoring. While previous analyses have compared spatial variation in malaria endemicity with ITN distributions, no study has yet compared Anopheles habitat suitability to determine proper allocation of ITNs. This study assesses where mosquitoes were most likely to thrive before implementation of large-scale ITN interventions in Tanzania and determine if ITN distributions successfully targeted those areas. The spatial distribution of ITN ownership across Tanzania was near-random spatially. Mosquito habitat suitability was statistically unrelated to reported ITN ownership and very weakly to the proportion of households with &#8805;1 ITN. ITN ownership declined significantly toward areas with the highest vector habitat suitability among households with lowest ITN ownership. In areas with lowest habitat suitability, ITN ownership was consistently higher. Insecticide-treated net ownership is critical for malaria control. While Tanzania-wide efforts to distribute ITNs has reduced malaria impacts, gaps and variance in ITN ownership are unexpectedly large in areas where malaria risk is highest. Supplemental ITN distributions targeting prime Anopheles habitats are likely to have disproportionate human health benefits. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"WIPO African ministerial should embrace a pro-competitive and pro-development IP vision","field_subtitle":"Abdel-Latif A; Kawooya D; Oguamanam C: Bridges Africa 4(8), 4 October 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ncbp67l","body":"The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is holding with the Japan Patent Office (JPO) an African ministerial conference on intellectual property (IP), in Senegal, November 3-5, in cooperation with the African Union (AU) and the Government of Senegal. The ministerial conference on \u2018IP for an Emerging Africa\u201d aims to \u201cexplore the opportunities as well as the challenges facing Africa in building a vibrant innovation system and in effectively using the IP system,\u201d according to meeting\u2019s provisional programme. The authors argue that the ministers should embrace a balanced and development-oriented approach to intellectual property. Such an approach ought to take into account the needs, priorities and socio-economic circumstances of African countries as well as the most recent empirical evidence on the dynamics of intellectual property and innovation on the continent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cWhy should I have come here?\u201d - a qualitative investigation of migration reasons and experiences of health workers from sub-Saharan Africa in Austria","field_subtitle":"Jirovsky E; Hoffmann K; Maier M; Kutalek R: BMC Health Services Research 15(74),  2015","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/15/74","body":"This paper explored the reasons African health workers raised for migration to Austria, as well as their personal experiences concerning the living and working situation in Austria. The authors conducted semi-structured, qualitative interviews with African health workers approached via professional networks and a snowball system. For most of the participants, the decision to migrate was not professional but situation dependent. Austria was not their first choice as a destination country. Several study participants left their countries to improve their overall working situation. The main motivation for migrating to Austria was partnership with an Austrian citizen. Other immigrants were refugees. Most of the immigrants found the accreditation process to work as a health professional to be difficult, resulting in some not being able to work in their profession. There was also reported experience of discrimination, but also of positive support. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"2015 TrustAfrica / UKZN Post Doctoral Fellowships.","field_subtitle":"Deadline for bursary applications: 15 October 2015","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/jobs/95469","body":"TrustAfrica, under the administration of the School of Built Environment and Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa is pleased to announce 2 Post-Doctoral Fellowships for 2015. The fellowship awards are for R200,000 per annum and there is the possibility for a maximum of 2 years. The selected fellowships will be attached to the DST/NRF Research Chair (SARChI) in Applied Poverty Reduction Assessment. Funding for two fellowships has been made possible by TrustAfrica. The purpose is to promote and undertake research on government, private sector and civil society interventions that have been designed to reduce poverty. The two TrustAfrica fellowships will follow research topics around the political economy of illicit financial flows. Preference will be given to South African applicants.The deadline for bursary applications is 15 October 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Addressing bottlenecks to local production of medicines: Issues for international co-operation in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Mulumba M; Machemedze R: Journal of Health Diplomacy 1(3), 1-17, 2015","field_url":"http://media.wix.com/ugd/35c673_88aa7a9ef7ed42c2be90955c17eda2ff.pdf","body":"African countries are highly dependent on imported medicines and related products despite a stated policy intention in the African Union and regional bodies to develop local pharmaceutical production, which is expected to facilitate responsiveness to local health needs and has stated advantages for employment, skills retention, and foreign currency savings. Noting these policy intentions, this paper explores how the stated policy of local production in African Union (AU), Southern African Development Community (SADC) and East African Community (EAC) policies is being implemented and the bottlenecks to implementation. The paper examines the efforts made in selected countries to overcome these obstacles and the role of international and south-south co-operation. Drawing upon document reviews and key informant interviews, it presents case studies of Uganda, Kenya and Zimbabwe and their co-operation agreements with China and India. The study found limited evidence of operational co-operation, especially that which is based on south-south collaborations, despite the potential contribution of such collaborations to overcoming bottlenecks to local medicines production. Although the evidence from the case studies had limitations, the research suggests that a convergence of interests between countries in east and southern Africa and emerging economies on trade and investment cannot be assumed and that national and regional economic and social interests need to be actively negotiated to overcome identified bottlenecks. The authors thus recommend measures to strengthen the enabling policy, legal, trade and investment environments, to strengthen oversight and regulation of medicines, and to enhance technical and strategic capacities in the east and southern African region needed to support local production of medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Analysis: Welcoming African science home","field_subtitle":"Nordling L: SciDevNet, 18 September 2015","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/sub-saharan-africa/r-d/analysis-blog/africa-analysis-welcoming-african-science-home.html","body":"The new Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA) was launched on the 10th of September 2015 in Nairobi, Kenya. AESA, which is hosted at AAS headquarters in Nairobi, is intended to bring the centre of gravity for health research funding decision-making from places such as Seattle in the United States and London in the United Kingdom to Africa itself. Its African backers include the New Partnership for Africa\u2019s Development, a continental policy implementation agency.   Three big international research funders \u2014 the UK-based Wellcome Trust, the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the United States \u2014 have earmarked funding programmes that they plan to let AESA administer.   From next year, AESA is expected to take over the management of the Wellcome Trust's five-year US$70 million DELTAS programme, which involves seven new African centres of health research and training excellence in subjects ranging from biostatistics to mental health in six African countries: Ghana, Kenya, Mali, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Albinism in Africa: a medical and social emergency","field_subtitle":"Brilliant M: International Health 7(4): 223-225, 2015","field_url":"http://inthealth.oxfordjournals.org/content/7/4/223.full","body":"People with albinism (PWA) face a variety of medical and social problems, ranging from poor vision and skin cancer to murder for their body parts for witchcraft in East Africa. PWAs are reported to face enormous challenges in East Africa. They have very poor, uncorrectable vision and, as a result, they are disadvantaged in schools and in employment opportunities. At best, the authors report, they are discriminated against; at worst, they are hunted and often killed for their body parts for witchcraft use. If they survive these attacks, they are very likely to develop skin cancer that is most often untreated, leading to a preventable premature death. However, awareness and activism can help PWAs to lead more normal lives by addressing their medical and social needs. Above all, the authors urge people to make efforts to stop atrocities against PWA. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Black Rural Women: Carrying the Burden of the Gold Mining Industry\u2019s Neglect","field_subtitle":"Charles T: Sonke Gender Justice, August 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.genderjustice.org.za/article/black-rural-women-carrying-the-burden-of-the-gold-mining-industrys-neglect/","body":"The mining industry in South Africa is argued by the authors to contribute significantly to the hardship experienced by black women in rural areas of South Africa. For decades, mining houses have drawn in young black men for labour. Those who have contracted the preventable but incurable lung disease, silicosis, come home to die a slow and painful death. It is then the women in rural communities who are left to provide support and care under the most adverse conditions. As part of its efforts to support pending litigation against the mining industry to secure long overdue compensation to mineworkers who contracted silicosis and for the women who took care of them, Sonke Gender Justice (Sonke) has been conducting research in the rural Eastern Cape. The research is making visible how the gold mining industry\u2019s failure to prevent silicosis has forced rural black women further into the margins of society. There are several ongoing cases on this. The Legal Resources Centre, Richard Spoor Attorneys and Abrahams Kiewitz are representing 56 applicants in a class action lawsuit where current and former mineworkers and surviving dependants of mineworkers who died from the disease are demanding their right to compensation for silicosis and TB contracted in mines. The case will be heard in the South Gauteng High court in October 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Business as usual? The role of BRICS co- operation in addressing health system priorities in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Brown G; Loewenson R;  Modisenyani M; Papamichail A; Cinar B: Journal of Health Diplomacy 1(3), 1-23, 2015","field_url":"http://media.wix.com/ugd/35c673_b4cfdbae1f334eb0b07c1656d96d0380.pdf","body":"There has been increased interest in whether \u201cSouth-South\u201d co-operation by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) advances more equitable initiatives for global health. This article examines the extent to which resolutions, commitments, agreements and strategies from BRICS and Brazil, India and China (BIC) address regionally articulated policy concerns for health systems in East and Southern Africa (ESA) within areas of resource mobilisation, research and development and local production of medicines, and training and retention of health workers. The study reviewed published literature and implemented a content analysis on these areas in official BRICS and ESA regional policy documents between 2007 and 2014. The study found encouraging signals of shared policy values and mutuality of interest, especially on medicines access, although with less evidence of operational commitments and potential divergence of interest on how to achieve shared goals. The findings indicate that African interests on health systems are being integrated into south-south BRICS and BIC platforms. It also signals, however, that ESA countries need to proactively ensure that these partnerships are true to normative aims of mutual benefit, operationalise investments and programs to translate policy commitments into practice and strengthen accountability around their implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Cost\u2013effectiveness of community-based practitioner programmes in Ethiopia, Indonesia and Kenya","field_subtitle":" McPake B et al: Bulletin of the  World Health Organisation 93(9), 589-664, 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/9/14-144899-ab/en/","body":"The objective of this study was to assess the cost\u2013effectiveness of community-based practitioner programmes in Ethiopia, Indonesia and Kenya. Incremental cost\u2013effectiveness ratios for the three programmes were estimated from a government perspective. Cost data were collected for 2012. For Ethiopia and Kenya, estimates of coverage before and after the implementation of the programme were obtained from empirical studies. Based on the results of probabilistic sensitivity analysis, there was greater than 80% certainty that each programme was cost-effective. Community-based approaches are likely to be cost-effective for delivery of some essential health interventions where community-based practitioners operate within an integrated team supported by the health system. The authors suggest  that community-based practitioners may be most appropriate in rural poor communities that have limited access to more qualified health professionals. Further research is required to understand which programmatic design features are critical to effectiveness.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Delivery outcomes and patterns of morbidity and mortality for neonatal admissions in five Kenyan hospitals","field_subtitle":"Aluvaala J et al: Journal of Tropical Medicine 61(4), 255-259, 2015,","field_url":"http://tropej.oxfordjournals.org/content/61/4/255.full","body":"A cross-sectional survey was conducted in neonatal and maternity units of five Kenyan district public hospitals. Data for 1 year were obtained: A fifth of the admitted neonates died. Compared with normal birth weight, odds of death were significantly higher in all of the low birth weight (LBW, ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"ECSA HC  Regional Forum on Best Practices; 23 - 24 November 2015: Call for abstracts","field_subtitle":"Submission of Abstracts deadline: October 26, 2015","field_url":"http://www.ecsahc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/62-HMC-call-for-abstracts1.pdf","body":"The East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC), in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Quality of Life, Mauritius will host the 62nd ECSA Health Ministers Conference from 23 - 27 November 2015 in Mauritius. The Regional Forum on Best Practices is 23 - 24 November 2015 under the theme: Transitioning from Millennium Development Goals to Sustainable Development. The Conference will address its theme through the following specific sub-themes;a) Enhancing Universal Health Coverage Through innovations in Health Financing for Risk Protection b) Surveillance and Control of Emerging Health Conditions (NCDs and Trauma) c) Regional Collaboration in the Surveillance and Control of Communicable Diseases\r\nand d) Innovations in Health Professional Training using the College of Health Sciences Mode. The ECSA-HC is inviting abstracts and scientific papers that are relevant to the conference sub-themes. The scientific papers and best practices should consist of case studies and evidence based programme experiences that are innovative, unique or have added value and new thinking in health. The abstracts and scientific papers will form the basis for the resolutions that will be passed by the Health Ministers. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 176: Learning from research on health diplomacy in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Explaining the role of the social determinants of health on health inequality in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Ele-Ojo Ataguba J; Day C; McIntyre D: Global Health Action 8(28865) September 2015","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/28865","body":"+This paper assesses health inequalities in SA and explains the factors (i.e. SDH and other individual level factors) that account for large disparities in health. The relative contribution of different SDH to health inequality is also assessed. A cross-sectional design is used. Data come from the third wave of the nationally representative National Income Dynamics Study. A subsample of adults (18 years and older) is used. The main variable of interest is dichotomised good versus bad self-assessed health (SAH). Income-related health inequality is assessed using the standard concentration index (CI). A positive CI means that the rich report better health than the poor. A negative value signifies the opposite. Good SAH is significantly concentrated among the rich rather than the poor. Social protection and employment, knowledge and education, and housing and contribute significantly to the disparities in good SAH in SA. After accounting for these other variables, the contribution of income and poverty is negligible. Addressing health inequalities is noted to require an increased government commitment in terms of budgetary allocations to key sectors (i.e. employment, social protection, education, housing, and other appropriate infrastructure). The authors argue that attention should also be paid to equity in benefits from government expenditure. In addition, the health sector needs to play its role in providing a broad range of health services to reduce the burden of disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing universal health coverage\u2014effects of alternative tax structures on public health systems: cross-national modelling in 89 low-income and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Reeves A; Gourtsoyannis Y; Basu S; McCoy, D; McKee M; Stuckler D: The Lancet 386(9990), 274\u2013280, 2015","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673615605748","body":"How to finance progress towards universal health coverage in low-income and middle-income countries is a subject of intense debate. The authors investigated how alternative tax systems affect the breadth, depth, and height of health system coverage. The authors used cross-national longitudinal fixed effects models to assess the relationships between total and different types of tax revenue, health system coverage, and associated child and maternal health outcomes in 89 low-income and middle-income countries from 1995\u20132011. Tax revenue was a major statistical determinant of progress towards universal health coverage. Each US$100 per capita per year of additional tax revenues corresponded to a yearly increase in government health spending of $9\u00b786, adjusted for GDP per capita. This association was strong for taxes on capital gains, profits, and income, but not for consumption taxes on goods and services. In countries with low tax revenues (","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Food sovereignty, food security and health equity: a meta-narrative mapping exercise","field_subtitle":"Weiler A; Hergesheimer C; Brisbois B; Wittman H; Yassi A; Spiegel J: Health Policy and Planning 30(8), 1078-1092, 2014","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/8/1078.full","body":"There has been growing policy interest in social justice issues related to both health and food. The authors sought to understand the state of knowledge on relationships between health equity and food systems, where the concepts of \u2018food security\u2019 and \u2018food sovereignty\u2019 are prominent. Combinations of health equity and food security (1414 citations) greatly outnumbered pairings with food sovereignty (18 citations). Prominent crosscutting themes that were observed included climate change, biotechnology, gender, racialization, indigeneity, poverty, citizenship and HIV as well as institutional barriers to reducing health inequities in the food system. The literature indicates that food sovereignty-based approaches to health in specific contexts, such as advancing healthy school food systems, promoting soil fertility, gender equity and nutrition, and addressing structural racism, can complement the longer-term socio-political restructuring processes that health equity requires. The authors\u2019 conceptual model is argued to offer a useful starting point for identifying interventions with strong potential to promote health equity. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Guidelines for Maternity Care in South Africa","field_subtitle":"National Department of Health, South Africa:  July 2015","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/Maternal%20Care%20Guidelines%202015_FINAL-21.7.15.pdf","body":"The South African National Department of Health has identified maternal health care as a priority area requiring urgent action in South Africa. Progress towards this goal in South Africa demands national co-ordination and co-operation with the major role players in provision of health services, addressing causes of maternal and perinatal deaths and in making available clinical management protocols to ensure that high quality health services are rendered. Maternity care is an integral component of primary health care and a free health service for pregnant women. These guidelines are intended for use in clinics, community health centres and district hospitals where specialist services are not normally available. The emphasis is on the practical identification and correct management of problems, including referral to higher levels of care. The guidelines are based on the best available evidence from published research, modified where necessary to suit local conditions. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Systems Trust Conference, 4-6 May 2016, Gauteng","field_subtitle":"Deadline for abstracts: 31 October 2015","field_url":"http://www.hstconference2016.org.za/Abstract%20submission%20guidelines.pdf","body":"The theme of the Health Systems Trust (HST) Conference is \"Strengthened health systems for sustainable development: sharing, supporting, synergising\". The sub-themes are the general heading under which abstracts should be submitted: Track 1 Overcoming the Burden of Disease, Track 2 Strengthening Service Delivery and Access; Track 3 Better Policy Design, Implementation and Practice; Track 4 Sustainable Development Post 2015. All abstract submissions should be written in Arial type, font size 11 if completing the downloadable form on the conference website. As of 1 September 2015, all abstracts should be submitted online through the conference website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Human resources for primary health care in sub-Saharan Africa: progress or stagnation?","field_subtitle":"Willcox ML; Peersman W; Daou P; Diakit\u00e9 C; Bajunirwe F; Mubangizi V; Mahmoud EH; Moosa S; Phaladze N; Nkomazana O; Khogali M; Diallo D; De Maeseneer J; Mant D: Human Resources for Health 13(76), 2015","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/13/1/76","body":"The World Health Organization defines a \u201ccritical shortage\u201d of health workers as being fewer than 2.28 health workers per 1000 population and failing to attain 80% coverage for deliveries by skilled birth attendants. The authors aimed to quantify the number of health workers in five African countries and the proportion of these currently working in primary health care facilities, to compare this to estimates of numbers needed and to assess how the situation has changed in recent years. This study is a review of published and unpublished \u201cgrey\u201d literature on human resources for health in Mali, Sudan, Uganda, Botswana and South Africa. Health worker density has increased steadily since 2000 in South Africa and Botswana which already meet WHO targets but has not significantly increased since 2004 in Sudan, Mali and Uganda which have a critical shortage of health workers. In all five countries, a minority of doctors, nurses and midwives are working in primary health care, and shortages of qualified staff are greatest in rural areas. In Uganda, shortages are greater in primary health care settings than at higher levels. Even South Africa has a shortage of doctors in primary health care in poorer districts. Although most countries recognize village health workers, traditional healers and traditional birth attendants, there are insufficient data on their numbers. There is an \u201cinverse primary health care law\u201d in the countries studied: staffing is inversely related to poverty and level of need, and health worker density is not increasing in the lowest income countries. Unless there is money to recruit and retain staff in these areas, training programmes will not improve health worker density because the trained staff will simply leave to work elsewhere. The author argues that information systems need to be improved in a way that informs policy on the health workforce. It may be possible to use existing resources more cost-effectively by involving skilled staff to supervise and support lower level health care workers who currently provide the front line of primary health care in most of Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Is South-South cooperation just a catchphrase?","field_subtitle":"Owings L: SciDevNet, 15 September 2015","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/global/cooperation/scidev-net-at-large/south-south-cooperation-catchphrase.html","body":"The term global South is often used to lump together the nations of Africa, Central and South America and parts of Asia. It is much more diverse in capacity and economic activity than the label implies \u2014 its emerging markets offer numerous opportunities for economic growth, investment and cultural contribution.   At the World Social Science Forum 2015 in Durban, South Africa the debate focused on how countries in the global South can join forces to become the facilitators of their own, collective growth. According to Jurek Seifert, from the Institute of Development Research and Development Policy in Germany, South-South development cooperation is framed as help among equals and as being fundamentally different from the North-South approach. But there are problems with this view, argues the author. This article discusses the use of \u2018South South\u2019 as rhetoric and the implications of this. But there are problems with this view. It was argued that there is no recognised concept or framework for South-South cooperation. Essentially, all providers are doing what they want and calling it cooperation, without any strategic approach.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Learning from research on experiences of health diplomacy in Africa","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Molenaar-Neufeld B: Journal of Health Diplomacy 1(3), 1-18, 2015","field_url":"http://media.wix.com/ugd/35c673_015bd4d0defc4b1fb9238be8c10b86ef.pdf","body":"This paper presents the findings of research conducted under a wider two-year project (2012-14) that examined the role of African agency in global and south-south health diplomacy in addressing selected key challenges to health and health systems in east and southern Africa (ESA). This research synthesis draws from two desk reviews and a content analysis of three case studies on: (i) the involvement of African actors in global health governance on financing for health systems; (ii) overcoming bottlenecks to local medicine production, including through south-south co-operation; and (iii) health worker migration and the implementation of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel. Based on the content analysis, the paper reviews evidence on African intervention in four key areas of health diplomacy: agenda setting, policy development, policy selection and negotiation and implementation. The evidence highlights the political and complex nature of global health diplomacy. Effective engagement is enabled in ESA by political leadership and champions with clearly articulated policy positions, regional interaction and unified platforms across African countries and good communication between sectors within countries, between national actors and embassies and with allies in the international community. Negotiators\u2019 understanding of issues and access to credible evidence mattered in policy development and selection. Technical actors, the domestic private sector and civil society appeared to play a weak role relative to the influence of development aid. The case studies suggest there is an opportunity cost in framing health diplomacy in the region within a \u2018development aid\u2019 paradigm, if the compromises agreed to lead to a dominance of remedial, humanitarian engagement in African international relations on health, with less sustained attention to structural determinants.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Learning from research on health diplomacy in east and southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson, Training and Research Support Centre and Bente Molenaar-Neufeld, Centre for Trade Policy and Law, Carleton University","field_url":"","body":"\r\nAfrican governments have influenced global health negotiations on a range of issues, including on intellectual property rights, access to medicines, migration of health workers, control of breast milk substitutes and food security. While there have been debates about whether public health  is best served by being elevated to a foreign policy concern, the realities of globalization, the level of external financing of African health systems and rising international interest in African resources have intensified the demand for effective African engagement in global and international negotiations, including to protect or promote public health.  \r\n\r\nFrom 2012 to 2014 EQUINET implemented through various institutions a research programme in east and southern Africa (ESA) that examined the role of global and south-south health diplomacy. It did so by addressing selected priority challenges to health and strengthening health systems raised in the region.  The programme explored African actors\u2019 involvement in negotiations on design of global financing for health systems; in negotiating co-operation in overcoming bottlenecks to local medicine production; in advancing ESA priorities within the \u2018BRICS\u2019 and health worker migration and the implementation of the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel (termed the \u2018Code\u2019).  A set of papers presenting the findings and conclusions from the work are included in the current issue of the Journal of Health Diplomacy co-edited with EQUINET, at www.journalofhealthdiplomacy.org/#!v1i3/xzwum . \r\n\r\nHealth has been positioned by African actors within a demand for greater global justice, such as in challenging losses to health systems from health worker migration from low to high income countries, or in negotiating fairer global measures on innovation and intellectual property. These forms of structural diplomacy challenged current global norms. \r\n\r\nBringing such ESA policy concerns to global agendas implied engaging in often complex processes over long periods, in the face of competing interests and power imbalances. In this context, negotiating African positions appears to have been facilitated by efforts to build unified positions across African countries, alliances with other regions, and to draw support from other sectors, from technical inputs and from civil society. \r\n\r\nThe issue of health worker migration was, for example, successfully escalated from regional to global level backed by policy positions developed at regional level that were amplified by political, policy and technical \u2018champions\u2019 in  ministerial, multilateral and other forums. The experience highlighted the importance in policy negotiation of links between capitals and embassies, the positive role of prior bilateral or multilateral instruments, as with the Code, and of positive role models in ESA countries, such as in bilateral co-operation on local production.  \r\n\r\nHowever, as negotiations evolved, the research indicated that compromises were made and forms of co-operation agreed that appeared to be shaped more by application of development aid \u2013 such as to fund medicines or health worker incentives - than by efforts to address global inequality or structural determinants of health, such as from lost public investments in critical skills, or from trade, tariff and patent barriers.  The findings highlighted a consistent influence in agenda setting and policy selection of global and bilateral technical partners and funders, particularly for African health systems. Consultants from global and international agencies appeared to play a more visibly influential role in policy development and selection than local technical personnel.  In negotiations on performance based financing (PBF), for example, the research found that while external funders were open to concerns, Africans were also cautious in raising concerns over targets and design fragmenting their health systems, given a \u2018bottom line\u2019 of not threatening access to the additional external health system funding accompanying PBF for their often underfunded health systems.  \r\n\r\nThe efforts made in negotiating global agreements may be dwarfed by those needed to bring them into reality. After sometimes years of negotiating agreements, implementation can be weakened by a turnover and loss of leading national and regional voices. The research found that the implementation stage often brought a new set of actors to translate negotiated agreements/policy into health system change, with implementation affected by weaknesses in dissemination and awareness of the instruments negotiated, by poor communication with other sectors affected and weak follow-up support from global agencies. A perception that agreements represent the end, rather than the start, of the process limits the momentum for implementation. As one key informant in the study on the Code noted, \u201cFor the Code, it was mission accomplished, and we didn\u2019t have any more energy for it\u201d.  At the same time, the research questioned whether global agreements adequately include the support for capacities to facilitate implementation. \r\n\r\nThe different research studies raised a number of proposals for strengthening the promotion and protection of health in foreign policy dialogue. They also, however, raised a concern that the \u2018development aid\u2019 paradigm influencing health diplomacy not displace a demand by ESA countries for more transformative, developmental forms of international co-operation needed to address the more structural global determinants of health. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For the papers in the issue of the Journal of Health Diplomacy see www.journalofhealthdiplomacy.org/#!v1i3/xzwum  and discussion papers on the EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Limits to diplomacy: Learning from the Implementation of the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Dambisya Y; Malema N; Dulo C; Matinhure S: Journal of Health Diplomacy 1(3), 1-18, 2015","field_url":"http://media.wix.com/ugd/35c673_e2f919f53d224fcb9b43e177007dcc7e.pdf","body":"The WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel (the Code) provides a global architecture that includes ethical norms and institutional and legal arrangements to guide international co-operation on the management of health worker migration and serves as a platform for continuing dialogue. This paper explores how the policy interests of African countries informed the development of the Code and how east and southern African (ESA) countries have used, implemented and monitored the Code. Data were collected using four approaches: literature review, policy dialogue at the 66th World Health Assembly, a regional questionnaire survey and three country studies in Kenya, Malawi and South Africa. Three years after adoption of the Code, the main concerns relating to human resources for health (HRH) in the region were internal migration and absolute shortages of health professionals, rather than external, or out-, migration. The final version of the Code was not perceived to adequately cover African policy interests on compensation and mutuality of benefits. Concern was also expressed about the voluntary nature of the Code. Dissemination and implementation of the Code was lacking in all countries in the region, and only one country had a designated authority. Beyond the shift in policy concerns, barriers to implementation included lack of champions or designated authorities, poor preparedness, weak mobilisation of stakeholders and low involvement of civil society. The authors recommend that negotiations on international instruments should include provisions relating to their implementation, that deliberate efforts should be made to plan for the mechanisms and resources for their implementation after their adoption, and that the involvement of civil society be promoted at all stages.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Local data underpins Tanzania\u2019s next malaria plan","field_subtitle":"Ngereza C: SciDevNet, 08 September 2015","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/global/malaria/news/data-underpins-tanzania-malaria-plan.html","body":"Tanzania\u2019s health ministry is set to revisit the way it goes about collecting data to control malaria following new insights into the disease. The ministry will focus more on data collection at village and district level to intensify the national fight against malaria. This revision is needed because changing temperatures and growing travel habits among Tanzania\u2019s people are spreading malaria-bearing mosquitoes, say policymakers. In addition, recent research revealed that existing anti-malaria methods in Tanzania, such as mosquito net distribution, do not always reach the people most in need because of a lack of knowledge about local disease hotspots. In Tanzania, annual deaths from malaria are estimated at around 60,000, with 80 per cent of these children under five. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Locating Health Diplomacy through African Negotiations on Performance-based Funding in Global Health","field_subtitle":"Barnes A; Brown G; Harman S: Journal of Health Diplomacy 1(3), 1-18, 2015","field_url":"http://media.wix.com/ugd/35c673_c5741d5e3c8542c09d909132a0ed5a95.pdf","body":"This article examines how national health actors in South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia perceive the participatory quality of negotiation processes associated with the performance&#8208;based funding mechanisms of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the World Bank. Through analysis of qualitative fieldwork consisting of 101 interviews within the case countries as well as in Geneva and Washington DC, the research results show that African actors within national governments generally set and negotiate performance targets of performance&#8208;based funding schemes. Nevertheless, the results also show that the quality of those negotiations with external funders were inconsistent, suggesting the existence of asymmetrical power and influence in relation to the quality of those negotiations. This raises questions about the level of power and influence being exerted by external funders and how much leverage African political actors have available to them within global health diplomacy. It also provides evidence that certain key aspects of these negotiated processes are closed off from negotiation for African actors, therefore undermining African participation in significant ways.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Mortality risks in children aged 5\u201314 years in low-income and middle-income countries: a systematic empirical analysis","field_subtitle":"Hill K; Zimmerman L; Jamison D: The Lancet Global Health, 3: e609\u201316, 2015","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(15)00044-3/fulltext","body":"Health priorities since the UN Millennium Declaration have focused strongly on children younger than 5 years. The health of older children (age 5\u20139 years) and younger adolescents (age 10\u201314 years) has been neglected until recently, especially in low-income and middle-income countries, and mortality measures for these age groups have often been derived from overly flexible models. The authors report global and regional empirical mortality estimates for children aged 5\u201314 years in low-income and middle-income countries, and compare them with ones from existing models, using birth-history data from a 25-year period from 1986 of Demographic and Health Surveys programme for 84 World Bank low-income and middle-income countries, and data about household deaths in China from their 1990 and 2010 censuses. The mean risk of a child dying at age 5\u201314 years in low-income and middle-income countries is about 19% of the risk of dying between birth and age 5 years (12% at age 5\u20139 plus 7% at age 10\u201314). According to their estimates, the total number of deaths at ages 5\u201314 years in low-income and middle-income regions fell from about 2\u00b74 million in 1990 to about 1\u00b75 million in 2010. From estimates the authors concluded there to have been 200&#8200;000 (16%) more deaths at ages 5\u201314 than in the UN report;  however, the estimates exceeded GBD estimates by more than 700&#8200;000 (87%). The average annual rate of decline in mortality at age 5\u20139 years (about 3%) slightly exceeded that for ages 0\u20134 years (2\u00b78%), but progress has been slower for age 10\u201314 years (about 2%). Their analysis suggests that mortality risks nowadays in the age range 5\u201314 years in low-income and middle-income countries are rather higher (relative to mortality in children younger than 5 years) than would be expected on the basis of historical evidence. The authors argue that global policy emphasis on reduction of mortality in children younger than 5 years should be broadened to include older children and adolescents.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Relationship Between Family Economic Resources, Psychosocial Well-being, and Educational Preferences of AIDS-Orphaned Children in Southern Uganda: Baseline Findings","field_subtitle":"Ssewamala, F; Nabunya P; Vilma I; Mukasa M; Ddamulira C: Global Social Welfare 2(2) 75-86, 2015","field_url":"http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40609-015-0027-z","body":"This study examines the relationship between economic resources, psychosocial well-being, and educational preferences of AIDS-orphaned children in southern Uganda. The authors use baseline data from a sample of 1410 AIDS-orphaned children (defined as children who have lost one or both biological parents to AIDS) enrolled in the Bridges to the Future study, a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) funded study. Analyses from both bivariate and multiple regression analyses indicate the following: 1) despite the well-documented economic and psychosocial challenges AIDS-orphaned children face, many of these children have high educational plans and aspirations; 2) educational aspirations differ by orphanhood status (double orphan vs. single orphan); 3) regardless of orphanhood status, children report similar levels of psychosocial well-being; 4) high levels of family cohesion, positive perceptions of the future, school satisfaction, and lower levels of hopelessness (hopefulness) are associated with high educational aspirations; and 5) reported family economic resources at baseline, all seem to play a role in predicting children\u2019s educational preferences and psychosocial well-being. These findings suggest that the focus for care and support of orphaned children should not be limited to addressing their psychosocial needs. Addressing the economic needs of the households in which orphaned children live is equally important. Indeed, in the context of extreme poverty\u2014in which most of the children represented in this study lived\u2014addressing structural factors, including poverty  are argued to be a key driver in addressing their psychosocial functioning.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Rising School Enrollment and Declining HIV and Pregnancy Risk Among Adolescents in Rakai District, Uganda, 1994\u20132013","field_subtitle":"Santelli J; Mathur, S; Song X; Huang T; Wei Y; Lutalo T; Nalugoda F; Gray R; Serwadda D: Global Social Welfare 2(2), 87-103, 2015","field_url":"http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40609-015-0029-x","body":"Poverty, family stability, and social policies influence the ability of adolescents to attend school. Likewise, being enrolled in school may shape an adolescent\u2019s risk for HIV and pregnancy. In this paper the authors identified trends in school enrolment, factors predicting school enrolment (antecedents), and health risks associated with staying in or leaving school (consequences). Data from the Rakai Community Cohort Study (RCCS) were examined for adolescents 15\u201319 years. School enrolment and socioeconomic status (SES) rose steadily from 1994 to 2013 among adolescents; orphanhood declined after availability of antiretroviral therapy. Antecedent factors associated with school enrolment included age, SES, orphanhood, marriage, family size, and the percent of family members ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"SDGs and the Importance of Formal Independent Review: An Opportunity for Health to Lead the Way","field_subtitle":"Hunt P: Health and Human Rights Journal, Perspectives, September 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/oar2n7c","body":"It is widely recognised that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) need to be supported by more effective follow-up and review\u2014or accountability\u2014processes than were available to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). But what should these processes be? In the last three or four years, this question has generated a wealth of literature within the UN and beyond. Here the author highlights five key points: Monitoring is not accountability, but one step towards accountability;  although experts have a significant role to play, accountability should not be reduced to a technocratic exercise; it should be as transparent, accessible and participatory as possible. Accountability at the global level is important, but the primary locus for accountability must be at the national and sub-national levels; it is difficult for States at the national-level to hold accountable stakeholders, including non-state actors, for their transnational contributions and commitments to development, such as SDG17. One of the most important roles for global-level accountability is to strengthen accountability for these transnational contributions and commitments - because the SDGs are a colossal challenge of extraordinary complexity, they need to be supported by diverse accountability arrangements, including independent review of stakeholders\u2019 progress, promises and commitments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Surgical and anaesthetic capacity of hospitals in Malawi: key insights","field_subtitle":"Henry J; Frenkel E; Borgstein E; Mkandawire N; Goddia C: Health Policy and Planning 30(8), 985-994, 2014","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/8/985.full","body":"In partnership with the Malawi Ministry of Health, the authors quantified government hospitals\u2019 surgical capacity through workforce, infrastructure and health service delivery components. From November 2012 to January 2013, the authors surveyed district and mission hospital administrators and clinical staff. Twenty-seven government hospitals were surveyed (90% of the district hospitals, all central hospitals). Non-surgeons and anaesthesia clinical officers (ACOs) were the only providers of surgical services and anaesthetic services in 85% and 88.9% of hospitals, respectively. No specialists served the district hospitals. All of the hospitals experienced periods without external electricity. Most did not always have a functioning generator or running water. None of the district hospitals had an Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Every hospital provided general anaesthesia but some did not always have a functioning anaesthesia machine . Clinical officers form the backbone of Malawi\u2019s surgical and anaesthetic workforce and the authors argue that they should be supported with improvements in infrastructure as well as training and mentorship by specialist surgeons and anaesthetists.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The 62nd ECSA Health Ministers Conference","field_subtitle":"23rd to 27th November 2015, Port Louis, Mauritius","field_url":"http://www.ecsahc.org/the-62nd-ecsa-health-ministers-conference/","body":"The East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC), in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Quality of Life, in the Republic of Mauritius will host the 62nd ECSA Health Ministers Conference (HMC) from 23rd \u2013 27th  November 2015 in Mauritius. The Health Ministers Conference will be preceded by the 9th Best Practices Forum and the 25th Directors\u2019 Joint Consultative Committee. The Conference will bring together Ministers of Health, Senior Officials from Ministries of Health, Heads of Health Research and Training Institutions from Member States, Health Experts and diverse collaborating Partners in the region and beyond with the aim of identifying policy issues and making recommendations to facilitate the transitioning from MDGs to Sustainable Development Goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The Access to Medicine Index and Accountability of Pharmaceutical Companies","field_subtitle":"de Felice D; Edwards D: Health and Human Rights Journal, September 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/padu83g","body":"The UN post-2015 development agenda includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and a \u201crevitalized\u201d Global Partnership to ensure their implementation. Formal inclusion of the private sector (in addition to governments, civil society, the UN system and other actors) is one of the defining features of this Global Partnership. Plenty of studies have shown how corporate actions can have significant impacts, positive and negative, for vulnerable people and for marginalised communities. However the author argues that it also raises an important question. How will the private sector be held accountable for its contribution to the Global Partnership? The latest draft of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides that a High Level Political Forum (HLPF) under the auspices of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council will have the central role in overseeing follow-up and review at the global level. Interestingly, the HLPF will be tasked to carry out regular reviews that will include relevant stakeholders, including the private sector. The author argues that measuring businesses is as fundamental as measuring governments and that rigorous benchmarking of pharmaceutical companies will be crucial.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The individual household method","field_subtitle":"Evidence for Development: UK, 2015","field_url":"http://www.efd.org/our-work/methods/the-individual-household-method-ihm/","body":"The individual household method (IHM) provides estimates of household income, with detailed information on household assets, demography and specific income sources. This data can be used to support the design and evaluation of programmes, and seeks to collect information on actual households directly from their members. This enables IHM studies to identify more complex variation across populations and to model the impact of changes on a much wider range of population groups, with data disaggregated by demographics (gender and age), income levels and other chosen characteristics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The World\u2019s Poor are Being Denied the Right to Share in Scientific Advancement","field_subtitle":"Yamey G: Health and Human Rights Journal, September 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/p3jx7b8","body":"Transforming Our World, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which is likely to be adopted by UN Member States, contains astonishingly bold and ambitious aspirations for transforming global health. The Agenda includes a series of \u201czero targets\u201d to be achieved by 2030, including to \u201cend preventable deaths of newborns and children under 5 years of age\u201d and to \u201cend the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases.\u201d The author argues that such targets are simply unattainable unless there\u2019s a massive scale-up in research and development (R&D) for conditions that disproportionately affect poor communities in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Unfortunately, the SDGs as currently written say way too little on the essential role of scientific innovation in achieving SDG 3 (the health goal) and they say nothing at all about the crucial importance of monitoring progress in global health R&D. A compelling August 2015 report by Policy Cures, an independent research group, made the case that the SDG 3 targets \u201cwill not be achieved without R&D to develop new health technologies\u2014such as new and improved drugs, vaccines, diagnostics, and other critical innovations\u2014and to improve our understanding of how to best target the tools we already have.\u201d  The author argues that the SDG health targets are a fairytale without a renewed global commitment to meet the R&D needs\u2014and rights\u2014of the world\u2019s poor people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Training course: Health Impact Assessment for extractive industry projects in LMIC","field_subtitle":"12-16, October 2015, Solwezi, Zambia","field_url":"https://www.phasa.org.za/training-course-hia-for-extractive-industry-projects-in-lmic/","body":"SHAPE Consulting Limited, in collaboration with the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) and First Quantum Minerals, announce a training course in Health Impact Assessment (HIA) for the energy, mining and infrastructure sectors, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries. The course will be held at the First Quantum Kalumbila Mine in North-Western Zambia. This setting will allow the unique experience of gaining theoretical knowledge and practical experience in an actual operational mine in its human and natural environment. The objectives of the course are to introduce the concept of HIA and equip participants with knowledge, methods and tools to undertake an HIA in a low- and middle-income country context; to enable participants to apply the theoretical knowledge provided in the course into real life situations through use of case studies and field visits in the project area; and to equip attendees with the ability to commission and review HIA\u2019s, including development of adequate terms of reference and effective review of outputs.The content of the course will include theoretical and practical elements specific to the extractive industry sector: Introduction to the concept of HIA and current global practice; HIA standards, guidelines and links to relevant best practice documents; The phases of HIA and respective tools and methods; Application of the phases of HIA based on case studies.; Integration of HIA into social and biophysical studies and sustainable development planning.; Field visits to the First Quantum Kalumbila Mine project area, where specific contents of the course will be revisited in real life situations (ongoing activity throughout the course) A certificate of attendance will be presented on completion of the course.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Urbanisation: where, why, when?","field_subtitle":"SciDevNet: UK, 2015","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/global/cities/data-visualisation/urbanisation-where-why-when-interactive.html","body":"This series of infographics and a video show urbanization by region and separate countries. It identifies factors which are driving urbanization and shows through graphics how birth rates, fertility and migration are drivers of urban growth. It compares through bar charts the differences between urban and rural housing and explores whether the rural \u2013 urban gap may be shrinking. Finally, it shows some projections for the future of urbanization.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Vital need to engage the community in HIV control in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Hanson S; Zembe Y; Ekstr\u00f6m AM: Glob Health Action 8 (27450),  2015","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/27450","body":"According to the latest 2014 UNAIDS report, which was based on the 2012 South African National HIV Prevalence, Incidence & Behaviour Survey, there were between 6.3 and 6.4 million HIV infected people in South Africa. Although the number of new infections appears to have declined in the past 5 years, 370,000 new infections were still estimated to occur in 2013. Young, black women were most at risk with a very high incidence of 4.5%. Of the infected, only 2.2 million were on antiretroviral therapy (ART), meaning that the majority living with HIV was not virally suppressed and thus at risk of infecting somebody else. Eight out of 10 South Africans still believed they were at low risk of HIV infection. Condom use was declining and multiple sexual partnerships were increasing. These findings raise questions about whether current control efforts are properly addressing the drivers of the epidemic. Recent behaviour change campaigns target intergenerational sex and blame the high transmission rates among girls on \u2018sugar daddies\u2019 thus diverting attention away from common risk behaviours in the general population. Reduction of new infections is argued to be crucial. Much of the current global HIV debate focuses on treatment as prevention (TasP) \u2013 an approach hampered by resource problems and the fact that most people are infected by someone who is unaware of his/her HIV status. This raises doubts TasP alone is a sufficient and sustainable solution to prevention. It is not enough to mainly treat those already infected; there is also a need to allocate more resources to address the root causes \u2013 ART plus norm and behaviour change. The authors thus propose increased attention to common sexual and social norms and behaviours. New and harmful community norms are one of the major drivers of the ongoing spread of HIV among young women and men in black communities. Addressing sexual risk behaviours and the gender and sexual norms that influence them to scale requires ensuring communities are provided with skills to reflect on the individual and social mechanisms by which these risk behaviours are generated and normalised. To achieve this, partnerships must be formed between political leaders, researchers, technocrats and affected communities. Considering the severity of the epidemic and the continued high incidence of HIV, it is high time to review the current strategy to HIV control in South Africa and allocate more resources to approaches that emphasise community driven norm and behaviour change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":" Emergency care in 59 low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Obermeyer Z;  Abujaber S; Makar M; Stoll S; Kayden SR; Wallis LA; Reynolds TA; the Acute Care Development Consortium: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 93 (8), August 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/8/14-148338-ab/en/","body":"This systematic review of emergency care in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) analysed reports published from 1990 onwards. The authors identified 195 reports concerning 192 facilities in 59 countries. Most were academically-affiliated hospitals in urban areas. Most facilities were staffed either by physicians-in-training or by physicians whose level of training was unspecified. Very few of these providers had specialist training in emergency care. Available data on emergency care in LMICs indicate high patient loads and mortality, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where a substantial proportion of all deaths may occur in emergency departments. The combination of high volume and the urgency of treatment make emergency care an important area of focus for interventions aimed at reducing mortality in these settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"\"How AIDS changed everything\u201d Fact Sheet","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: August 2015","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/20150714_FS_MDG6_Report_en.pdf","body":"The UNAIDS 2014 Global HIV/AIDS Statistics contains key data from the recent publication \"How AIDS changed everything\u201d. Global statistics include: 15 million people accessing antiretroviral therapy  as of March 2015.  36.9 million [34.3 million\u2013 41.4 million] people globally were living with HIV and 2 million [1.9 million \u2013 2.2 million] people became newly infected with HIV. In 2014, 1.2million [980 000 \u2013 1.6 million] people died from AIDS-related illnesses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"18th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa","field_subtitle":"29 November to 4 December 2015, Harare, Zimbabwe","field_url":"http://icasa2015zimbabwe.org/overview/icasa-2015-background/","body":"As ICASA Zimbabwe coincides with the MDG target year, the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa is offering the strategic first forum for post-MGD to leaders, activists, scientists and community to take stock of the outcomes of the MDG high level meeting challenges and to pave the way for a new, innovative and efficient approach towards an Africa AIDS free generation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A qualitative study of the experiences of care and motivation for effective self-management among diabetic and hypertensive patients attending public sector primary health care services in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Murphy K; Chuma T; Mathews C; Steyn K; Levitt N: BioMed Central 15(303), 1 August 2015","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/15/303","body":"Diabetes and hypertension constitute a significant and growing burden of disease in South Africa. Presently, few patients are achieving adequate levels of control. In an effort to improve outcomes, the Department of Health is proposing a shift to a patient-centred model of chronic care, which empowers patients to play an active role in self-management by enhancing their knowledge, motivation and skills. This study explored patients\u2019 current experiences of chronic care, as well as their motivation and capacity for self-management and lifestyle change. The study involved 22 individual, qualitative interviews with a purposive sample of hypertensive and diabetic patients attending three public sector community health centres in Cape Town. Participants were a mix of Xhosa and Afrikaans speaking patients and were of low socio-economic status. The concepts of relatedness, competency and autonomy from Self Determination Theory proved valuable in exploring patients\u2019 perspectives on what a patient-centred model of care may mean and what they needed from their healthcare providers. Overall, the findings indicate that patients experience multiple impediments to effective self-management and behaviour change, including poor health literacy, a lack of self-efficacy and perceived social support. With some exceptions, the majority of patients reported not having received adequate information; counselling or autonomy support from their healthcare providers. Their experiences suggests that the current approach to chronic care largely fails to meet patients\u2019 motivation needs, leaving many of them feeling anxious about their state of health and frustrated with the quality of their care. In accordance with other similar studies, most of the hypertensive and diabetic patients interviewed were found to be ill equipped to play an active and empowered role in self-care. It was clear that patients desire greater assistance and support from their healthcare providers. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"ALARA 9th Action Learning Action Research and 13th Participatory Action Research World Congress, 4-7 November, Pretoria, South Africa","field_subtitle":"4-7 November 2015, Pretoria, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.alarassociation.org/pages/events/alara-world-congress-2015","body":"The theme of this World Congress is a challenge to Action Learning / Action Research practitioners the world over, whether working in resource rich or more socio-economically challenged contexts, to explain how they are contributing to the creation of a fairer world. The ALARA World Congress 2015 will create a space for dialogue as we ponder questions such as: How do we know we are asking the right questions to promote sustainable learning? How do we capacitate people to address the intricate interplay of social, economic, political and cultural factors that combine to preserve injustice? How do we ensure authentic collaboration between stakeholders across all levels? How do we use AL/AR to forge innovative, sustainable responses to contemporary complex challenges? How do we know we are successful in mediating sustainable change?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"An assessment of community health workers' ability to screen for cardiovascular disease risk with a simple, non-invasive risk assessment instrument in Bangladesh, Guatemala, Mexico, and South Africa: an observational study","field_subtitle":"Gaziano T; Abrahams-Gessel S; Denman C; Montano C; Khanam M; Puoane T; Levitt N: The Lancet Global Health 3 (9), e556\u2013e563, 2015, ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(15)00143-6/fulltext","body":"Cardiovascular disease contributes substantially to the non-communicable disease (NCD) burden in low-income and middle-income countries, which also often have substantial health personnel shortages. In this observational study the authors investigated whether community health workers could do community-based screenings to predict cardiovascular disease risk as effectively as could physicians or nurses, with a simple, non-invasive risk prediction indicator in low-income and middle-income countries. This observation study was done in Bangladesh, Guatemala, Mexico, and South Africa. Each site recruited at least ten to 15 community health workers based on usual site-specific norms for required levels of education and language competency. Community health workers had to reside in the community where the screenings were done and had to be fluent in that community's predominant language. These workers were trained to calculate an absolute cardiovascular disease risk score with a previously validated simple, non-invasive screening indicator. Community health workers who successfully finished the training screened community residents aged 35\u201374 years without a previous diagnosis of hypertension, diabetes, or heart disease. Health professionals independently generated a second risk score with the same instrument and the two sets of scores were compared for agreement. The study found that community health workers can be adequately trained to effectively screen for, and identify, people at high risk of cardiovascular disease. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Are We Prepared for the Next Global Epidemic? The Public Doesn't Think So","field_subtitle":"Kim JY: World Post, 5 August 2015","field_url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-yong-kim/are-we-prepared-for-the-n_b_7939812.html","body":"This article incudes evidence from a public opinion poll on pandemic preparedness.\r\nIt highlights three concrete actions on how we can be better prepared for the next global epidemic. The author states \"First, let's ensure that all countries invest in better preparedness. This starts with a strong health system that can deliver essential, quality care; disease surveillance; and diagnostic capabilities. We should expand successful efforts such as those by Ethiopia and Rwanda to train cadres of community health workers, who can expand access to care and serve as the frontline response to future disease outbreaks. The goal must be universal health coverage - both to ensure everyone can get the care they need, and also because those areas without adequate coverage put everyone at risk.\" He also calls for a smarter, better coordinated global epidemic preparedness and response system that draws upon the expertise of many more players - including a better-resourced WHO; and a pandemic emergency financing facility that can respond more quickly to epidemics. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for  ideas: A picture is worth a thousand words : what if we sketched Universal Health Coverage together ?","field_subtitle":"Submission deadline: 30th of September 2015, midnight GMT","field_url":"http://www.healthfinancingafrica.org/home/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words-what-if-we-sketched-universal-health-coverage-together","body":"What are the challenges the UHC system is facing in your country? Is it a learning system? Do the government actors who are leading the charge know how to dialogue with and involve other stakeholders (civil society, NGOs, the media\u2026)?  In your own organisation, do experts on UHC share their knowledge and experience with other team members? What analytical capacity is in place? Are there mechanisms for identifying good practices and promoting and verifying they are being applied well? These are some of the questions asked in this competition. To enter put the idea on paper - describe the situation you want to share. To make a good cartoon, your idea must be clear and precise. This contest is NOT limited to Africa. You can submit as many ideas as you have. A jury made up of experts familiar with UHC challenges and learning organisations will then select the best ideas to submit to the cartoonist. All those participants selected in this first round will get a prize. And it is from this pool that the cartoonist will choose what to draw. To participate in this competition, please send your ideas in English or in French, in a Word document (one scenario per file please) to Yamba Kafando, FAHS CoP facilitator (cdpafss@gmail.com). You will get a confirmation you\u2019re your scenario has been received, as well as a number for that scenario. Include your name and surname, the country in which you work, and your job title or role. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Papers: Fourth CODESRIA Conference on Electronic Publishing on The Open Access Movement and the Future of Africa\u2019s Knowledge Economy","field_subtitle":"Submission deadline: December 30, 2015","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2402&lang=en","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) announced the fourth in its electronic publishing conference series. This year\u2019s theme focuses on the open access publishing model with particular attention to its possible impact on the future knowledge economy in Africa.  This conference will explore core concepts and ideas, and help identify new technological and conceptual configurations. It will provide a rare opportunity for academics, librarians, publishers and policy-makers to come together for dialogues, discuss new research directions, methods and theories, and reflect upon the evolutionary issues about open access and their implications on research dissemination in Africa. With this scope in mind, the major topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Open access in the context of Africa; Value-added and marketing of African scientific information in the open access era; Africa  in the emerging global politics of open access;  Opening indigenous knowledges; Open access and Africa\u2019s knowledge economy; The politics of open access. CODESRIA will provide funding support to paper presenters who show evidence that they are unable to cater for their participation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Proposals: 2015 Postdoctoral Fellowship Competition African Diaspora Support to African Universities Program","field_subtitle":"CODESRIA: Application Deadline:15th September 2015","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2276&lang=en","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) has launched an African Diaspora support to African Universities program. This call for proposals targets academics based in African universities, and those in the Diaspora within Africa and outside Africa (Europe, North America, Canada, Australia), in the SSH, both of whom have attained their PhDs in the last five years, or are at the advanced stage of their PhDs, to submit proposals for post-doctoral research, preferably, but not exclusively on issues related to one of the following themes: The African academic Diaspora and the revitalisation of Higher education in Africa; Current trends in economic theorisation on African social and economic development; The Social Sciences and the Place of African Higher Education in the World; African Citizenship, migration and economic mobility within and outside Africa. Individual applicants selected under this call will be invited to attend a methodological workshop in the early stages of implementation of their research projects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CSOs voice concerns over corporate takeover of WHO","field_subtitle":"Raja K: Third World Resurgence, 298/299, 35-37, 2015","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/resurgence/2015/298-299/cover05.htm","body":"At the World Health Assembly in May, civil society organisations criticised the rich countries for refusing an increase in their assessed contributions to WHO and opposing actions by the agency which would be contrary to the interests of their corporations. THE Framework for Engagement with Non-State Actors (FENSA), initiated to safeguard the independence, integrity and credibility of the World Health Organisation (WHO), now seems to bear the threat of facilitating and legitimising corporate capture of the organisation, civil society groups have charged. 'Many proposals by rich countries in draft FENSA text [are] promoting corporate capture of WHO in the name of promotion of engagements without discussion on any comprehensive mechanism to avoid conflict of interest. These proposals, if accepted, would institutionalise the undue corporate influence on WHO,' said Lida Lhotska of the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) in a press release. Over the last 20 years, the proportion of WHO's budget which is met through mandatory assessed contributions has fallen from 75% to 20%. This is a consequence of continuing new functions being added to the organisation and a continuing freeze on assessed contributions. The remaining 80% is met by voluntary donations, including from the rich countries, the World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Debt is back!","field_subtitle":"Jubilee Debt Campaign: Third World Resurgence 298/299, 5-7, 2015","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/resurgence/2015/298-299/special1.htm","body":"Rising inequality, along with financial deregulation, has spurred the significant increase in global debt levels. Although much of the media spotlight has focused on Greece recently, the fact is that more than 90 countries are either in or at risk of a new debt crisis. This articles presents the executive summary of a new report by the Jubilee Debt Campaign which highlights this phenomenon. Debt crises have become dramatically more frequent across the world since the deregulation of lending and global financial flows in the 1970s. An underlying cause of the most recent global financial crisis, which began in 2008, was the rise in inequality and the concentration of wealth. This made more people and countries more dependent on debt, and increased the amount of money going into speculation on risky financial assets. International debt has been increasing since 2011, after falling from 2008-11. The total net debts owed by debtor countries, by both their public and private sectors, which are not covered by corresponding assets owned by those countries, have risen from $11.3 trillion in 2011 to $13.8 trillion in 2014. We at the Jubilee Debt Campaign predict that in 2015 they will increase further to $14.7 trillion. Overall, net debts owed by debtor countries will therefore have increased by 30% - $3.4 trillion - in four years. Alongside this increase in global debt levels, there is also a boom in lending to impoverished countries, particularly the most impoverished - those called 'low-income' by the World Bank. Foreign loans to low-income-country governments trebled between 2008 and 2013, driven by more 'aid' being provided as loans - including through international financial institutions, new lenders such as China, and private speculators searching overseas for higher returns because of low interest rates in Western countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 175: Examining evidence on the private for-profit healthcare sector","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Examining evidence on the private for-profit healthcare sector ","field_subtitle":"Jessica Hamer, Health Policy Adviser, Oxfam GB ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nChallenges of high costs, out of pocket spending, regulation and quality affect the contribution the for-profit private sector makes in healthcare, according to presenters in a session on \u2018Private sector and Universal Health Coverage: Examining evidence and deconstructing rhetoric\u2019 hosted by Oxfam and Dr. Anuj Kapilashrami, of the Global Public Health Unit, University of Edinburgh, in the July 2015 International Conference on Public Policy.  \r\n\r\nThe session aimed to look at new and existing evidence on the role of the private for-profit sector in health, and to critically evaluate this in the context of achieving UHC in low- and middle-income countries. The five papers on experiences in Asia and Africa presented at the session looked at a wide range of private sector actors in health care delivery but raised a number of common themes and challenges. \r\n\r\nOne common feature was high levels of out-of-pocket spending (OOPS), or cash payments by households for services, medicines and other charges.  This was found for example where state insurers pay for services from private providers. Asha Kilaru presented study findings that people covered by state insurance schemes in Karnataka, India still had out of pocket spending for services, even for schemes where all costs should be covered. The study found that 93% of those insured by at least one government scheme sought care from a private hospital, and that only 8% reported receiving completely free care. Even where healthcare was provided for free, additional costs, such as multiple hospital referrals for different tests and treatment, meant OOPS still occurred.  One of the respondents\u2019 interviewed in the study stated: \r\n\u2018Only the operation [C-section] was free. At the government hospital, a C-section would be only Rs3-4000, but we went to a private hospital since we had insurance and wound up spending so much. It seems like government are agents that send us to a private hospital. In this yojana [Yeshasvini insurance scheme] the government spends and we also spend\u2019.\r\n\r\nAs the respondent indicated, high costs of care can be a burden to both households and the state. While this particular scheme (Yeshasvini)  claimed to be self-funded, Kilaru  found that it received Rs. 40 crore (equivalent to more than US$6 million) as a government grant in 2012-13 and Rs. 45 (or almost US$7 million) crore in the 2013-14 budget. \r\n\r\nJane Doherty, from University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa presented evidence in the session on the for-profit private healthcare sector in east and southern Africa. She noted that out of sixteen countries, \u2018no country places a ceiling on the prices that its private hospitals may charge\u2019 (although there may be some limitations to reimbursement payments made by insurers in two of the countries). Her study found \u2018little control of the fees charged by health professionals or limits placed on their total incomes, except in Kenya\u2019.\r\n\r\nThese challenges in controlling out of pocket spending and the overall costs of private healthcare present significant obstacles to achieving universal health coverage, and especially to ensuring access to healthcare for the poorest. Another recurring barrier to equitable access that was highlighted is the location of private services. Indranil Mukhopadhyay of the Public Health Foundation of India reported from a mapping of India\u2019s private healthcare provision that urban, metropolitan areas have the majority of private hospitals. In rural areas, where more poor people live, the private sector is largely comprised of individual practitioners. Moreover, almost half of India\u2019s private hospitals were located in cities with a population of more than 5 million. Mumbai alone has 16% of all India\u2019s private hospitals. The same bias towards urban provision was reported by Jane Doherty in east and southern Africa.\r\n\r\nIornumbe Usar, of Queen Margeret University, Edinburgh, investigated perceptions of shops selling medicines in Nigeria. His paper for the session highlighted major concerns around \u2018pervasive regulatory infringements\u2019 by these shops, especially in selling medicines beyond the scope of their licenses, as well as the lack of training of their staff. The paper raised  the challenges of regulating medicine vendors in Nigeria in order to improve their quality, highlighting how this has been constrained by inadequate funding, weak institutional capacity, the often-remote location of the shops, and conflicts between the different agencies responsible for regulation.\r\n\r\nThe same problem of poor regulation was reported by Jane Doherty in relation to for-profit private providers in east and southern Africa. Both an absence of regulation, and poor enforcement of regulation where it exists, were found to contribute to distortions in the wider health system, such as in treatment decisions or in the brain drain of health personnel from the public sector.  She observed that \u2018there is little monitoring by governments of quality and health outcomes, or attention to how the private health sector supports national health objectives\u2019. She observed that there is also little regulation to guard against anti-competitive behaviour, such as when insurers, providers and pharmacies are all owned  by the same company. She flagged in her presentation the challenges to regulation in the region, including patchy regulatory frameworks, the high cost of introducing new regulation, limited available information on the private sector, and the resistance of key stakeholders to regulation, or their \u201ccapture\u201d of regulation to safeguard their own interests. In South Africa, for example, attempts to regulate dispensing fees for pharmacists have been resisted heavily.\r\n \r\nAs Doherty concluded, these \u2018legislative gaps and enforcement problems, together with the fact that prices are not contained in any meaningful way, either through price controls or active reimbursement mechanisms, mean that for-profit private care in the region is likely to become increasingly unaffordable for any but the wealthiest\u2019. Yet, Doherty also concluded that the for-profit private sector is growing, so that these impacts need to be addressed. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.  For more information see the full papers from the meeting at http://tinyurl.com/psma5ov; Oxfam\u2019s 2009 paper \u201cBlind Optimism: Challenging the Myths about Private Health Care in Poor Countries,\u201d www.oxfam.org/en/research/blind-optimism and the EQUINET discussion papers 87 http://tinyurl.com/3gky5k2 and 99 http://tinyurl.com/ou2dh4n on the growth and legislation of the private health sector in east and southern Africa.  Oxfam will be hosting additional discussion on its Global Health Check blog on the issues raised in the coming months.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Facilitators and Obstacles in Youth Saving: Perspectives from Ghana and Kenya","field_subtitle":"Zou L; Tlapek S; Njenga G; Appiah E; Opai-Tetteh D; Sherraden M: Global Social Welfare 2(2) 65-74, 2015","field_url":"http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40609-015-0028-y","body":"Youth are a rapidly growing percentage of the Sub-Saharan African population, and many are economically vulnerable. Financial inclusion for youth, particularly the promotion of savings behaviour, is associated with a number of positive social and economic outcomes and is an international priority. However, the majority of youth in Sub-Saharan Africa are not saving, and limited qualitative research exists to aid understanding of the possible explanations. This paper aims to increase the understanding of factors that facilitate and obstruct youth saving by exploring the savings behaviour of youth participating in the YouthSave Project in Ghana and Kenya. The authors conducted in-depth interviews with four triads comprised of youth, a parent or caregiver, and a school stakeholder in each country to develop case studies for the YouthSave Project. Findings indicate that support from parents, school staff, and financial institutions is conducive to youth participation in saving, even though youth participants struggle with limited financial resources and conflicting demands for money. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"First malaria vaccine given green light by European regulators ","field_subtitle":"Kollewe J: The Guardian, July 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/p4tw3dn","body":"The world\u2019s first malaria vaccine has been given the green light by European regulators and could protect millions of children in sub-Saharan Africa from the life-threatening disease. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommended that RTS,S, or Mosquirix, should be licensed for use in young children in Africa who are at risk of the mosquito-borne disease. The shot has been developed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and part-funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It has taken 30 years to develop vaccine, at a cost of more than $565m (\u00a3364m) to date. It will now be assessed by the World Health Organisation, which has promised to give its guidance on how and where it should be used before the end of the year. GSK will then apply to the WHO for a scientific review of the vaccine, which will be used by the UN and other agencies to help make purchasing decisions. The roll-out of the vaccine, which also has to be approved by national health authorities in sub-Saharan Africa, is likely to be funded by GAVI.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"How many people lack access to health care? (Hint: More than WHO and the World Bank report)","field_subtitle":"Freidman E: O Neil Institute, August 2015","field_url":"http://www.oneillinstituteblog.org/how-many-people-lack-access-to-health-care-hint-more-than-who-and-the-world-bank-report/","body":"A recent World Bank press release on a World Bank and WHO report announced that \"400 million people do not have access to essential health services.\u201d The author argues in this article that this would be a highly over-optimistic misread of what WHO and the World Bank found. By more reasonable understandings of how many people lack access to essential health services, untold hundreds of millions more than 400 million people lack access to essential health services. He notes that the road ahead to universal health coverage is considerably longer than the headline figure implies. The report itself \u2013 beneath the headlines \u2013 covers many concerns and raises issues of quality and other concerns in a more complex reality. The author of this article notes that official monitoring should capture this complexity as what is monitored may well affect what governments prioritize, and the health services people actually receive, and so that a singular focus on access does not hide other aspects of people\u2019s right to health \u2013 including the quality of health services and their acceptability.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"How to build a theory of change for an impact evaluation","field_subtitle":"3ie International Initiative for Impact Evaluation","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qbcqem2","body":"3ie\u2019s How-To videos use a simple step-by-step approach for explaining theoretical concepts. The How-To videos on impact evaluation draw from examples of impact evaluations to show viewers how to apply technical concepts. The videos in this series explore various topics related to designing, implementing and using impact evaluations. A short quiz at the end of each lecture will help assess your understanding of the subject covered in the video. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Influence of parental factors on adolescents\u2019 transition to first sexual intercourse in Nairobi, Kenya: a longitudinal study","field_subtitle":"Okigbo C; Kabiru C; Mumah J; Mojola S; Beguy D: Reproductive Health 12(73), 2015","field_url":"http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/12/1/73","body":"The objective of the study was to assess the influence of parental factors (monitoring, communication, and discipline) on the transition to first sexual intercourse among unmarried adolescents living in urban slums in Kenya. Longitudinal data collected from young people living in two slums in Nairobi, Kenya were used. The sample was restricted to unmarried adolescents aged 12\u201319 years. Parental factors were used to predict adolescents\u2019 transition to first sexual intercourse. Relevant covariates including the adolescents\u2019 age, sex, residence, school enrollment, religiosity, delinquency, and peer models for risk behaviour were controlled for. Approximately 6 % of the sample transitioned to first sexual intercourse within the one-year study period; there was no sex difference in the transition rate. In the multivariate analyses, male adolescents who reported communication with their mothers were less likely to transition to first sexual intercourse compared to those who did not. This association persisted even after controlling for relevant covariates. However, parental monitoring, discipline, and communication with their fathers did not predict transition to first sexual intercourse for male adolescents. For female adolescents, parental monitoring, discipline, and communication with fathers predicted transition to first sexual intercourse; however, only communication with fathers remained statistically significant after controlling for relevant covariates.  This study provides evidence that cross-gender communication with parents is associated with a delay in the onset of sexual intercourse among slum-dwelling adolescents. Targeted adolescent sexual and reproductive health programmatic interventions that include parents may have significant impacts on delaying sexual debut, and possibly reducing sexual risk behaviours, among young people in high-risk settings such as slums.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Lesser Known International Funders","field_subtitle":"fundsforNGOs: 6 August 2015","field_url":"http://www.fundsforngos.org/free-download-lesser-known-donors-you-should-apply-for-funding-this-year/","body":"fundsforNGOs are offering a free download to their resource on \u2018Lesser Known International Donors You should look for Funding in 2015\u2019. It contains a list of profiles of those funding agencies that are not very well known but do offer active grants to NGOs around the world. Their application process is not as complex as that of traditional donors and there is less competition for seeking grants from them. These agencies also fund ideas for social change. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Long-term outcomes of a pediatric HIV treatment program in Maputo, Mozambique: a cohort study","field_subtitle":"Walter J; Molfino L;  Moreno V; Edwards CG; Chissano M; Prieto A; Bocharnikova T; Antierens A; Lujan J: Glob Health Action 8 (26652),  2015","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/26652","body":"This paper describes long-term treatment outcomes of a paediatric HIV cohort in Mozambique, in the Chamanculo Health District of Maputo. The subjects involved a total of 1,335 antiretroviral treatment (ART) na\u00efve children ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"National health accounts data from 1996 to 2010: a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Bui AL; Lavado R; Johnson EK; Brooks B; Freeman MK; Graves, CM; Haakenstad A; Shoemaker B; Hanlon M; Dieleman JL: Bulletin of the WHO 93 (8), August 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/8/14-145235-ab/en/","body":"The paper reports on work to collect, compile and evaluate publicly available national health accounts (NHA) reports produced worldwide between 1996 and 2010. The authors compiled data in the four main types used in these reports: (i) financing source; (ii) financing agent; (iii) health function; and (iv) health provider. The authors identified 872 NHA reports from 117 countries containing a total of 2936 matrices for the four data types. Most countries did not provide complete health expenditure data: only 252 of the 872 reports contained data in all four types. Some countries reported substantial year-on-year changes in both the level and composition of health expenditure that were probably produced by data-generation processes. All study data are publicly available at http://vizhub.healthdata.org/nha/. Data from NHA reports on health expenditure are often incomplete and, in some cases, of questionable quality. Better data would help finance ministries allocate resources to health systems, assist health ministries in allocating capital within the health sector and enable researchers to make accurate comparisons between health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"New International Study Reveals South Africa has Saltiest Kiddies Chicken Burger Globally","field_subtitle":"Heart and Stroke Foundation South Africa, World Action on Salt and Health: Sangonet Pulse, August 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/o2s2ano","body":"World Action on Salt and Health (WASH), with the support of the Heart and Stroke Foundation South Africa, has conducted a survey which investigated the salt content of 387 popular kid\u2019s meal combinations. The study found that of all countries surveyed, South Africa\u2019s brand chicken burger and chips aimed at children, have the highest salt content of all kiddies chicken burgers globally (more than \u00bd a teaspoon) per meal. The study also warns that too much salt in childhood, habituates children to the taste of salt, which could increase their blood pressure, and lead to strokes and heart failure later in life. \u201cWith South Africa having one of the highest rates of high blood pressure worldwide and 1 in 10 children already suffering from high blood pressure, we simply cannot afford to allow such high levels of salt in popular children\u2019s meals,\u201d argues Christelle Crickmore, science and programme development manager at WASH.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Nurses who moonlight strain the health system","field_subtitle":"Rispel L: Business Day Live (BDLive), July 2015","field_url":"http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2015/07/02/nurses-who-moonlight-strain-the-health-system","body":"Between 2009 and 2010, the author reports that the South African government spent about R1.49bn hiring nurses for the public health sector from nursing agencies. In that period, the provincial spending on agency nurses ranged from a low of just under R36.4m in Mpumalanga to a high of R356.4m in the Eastern Cape. In that financial year, this article reports that more than 5,300 registered nurses could have been employed by provincial governments instead of agency nurses, according to the published research. The government\u2019s spending on agency nursing is argued to be a result of nursing vacancies, poorly managed staff absenteeism, sub-optimal planning for patient loads and not involving nurses in decisions on their shifts or how best to cover hospital wards. Nursing agencies provide a vehicle for nurses to moonlight, as they could be employed concurrently in a public or private sector hospital as well as the agency. These agencies are not obliged to ask nurses whether they have concurrent employment. The author argues that the nursing agency spending is, however, an indication of the bigger crisis in South African nursing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Private healthcare is \u2018wasteful\u2019","field_subtitle":"Culling K: Health-e News, 28 July 2014","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/2015/07/28/private-healthcare-is-wasteful/","body":"Private healthcare is wasteful and over-dependent on hospitals, which makes it too expensive for a large group of working people to join medical schemes, Health-e news reports.  As a result, scheme membership has stagnated at around 8,5 million people and is skewed towards older, sicker members. This was the assessment of healthcare consultant Dr Brian Ruff, speaking at the opening day of the Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF), the group that represents medical schemes and administrators in South Africa. Ruff said that families with an income of R7000 to R12000 a month may be able to afford membership of around R300 a month, yet no medical scheme could provide such a cheap service. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Profile of people with hypertension in Nairobi\u2019s slums: a descriptive study","field_subtitle":"Hulzebosch A; van de Vijver S; Oti S;, Egondi T;  Kyobutungi C: Globalization and Health 11(26), 27 June 2015","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/11/1/26","body":"Cardiovascular disease is a rising health burden among the world\u2019s poor with hypertension as the main risk factor. In sub-Saharan Africa, hypertension is increasingly affecting the urban population of which a substantial part lives in slums. This study aims to give insight into the profile of patients with hypertension living in slums of Nairobi, Kenya. Socio-demographic and anthropometric data as well as clinical measurements including BP from 440 adults with hypertension aged 35 years and above living in Korogocho, a slum on the eastern side of Nairobi, Kenya, was be collected at baseline and at the first clinic visit. The study population showed high prevalence of overweight and abdominal obesity as well as behavioural risk factors such as smoking, alcohol and a low vegetable and fruit intake. Furthermore, the majority of hypertensive patients do not take anti-hypertensive medication and the ones who do show little adherence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-private partnerships in Uganda cost the country dearly","field_subtitle":"Harper P: Jubilee Debt Campaign, August 2015","field_url":"http://jubileedebt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Uganda-case-study_08.15.pdf","body":"Privatisation of the Ugandan electricity sector, initiated in 1999 as a condition of the debt relief programme, was supposed to mean the end of state support. Yet, by 2013 a special committee of the Ugandan Parliament reported that subsidies were higher than ever before, preventing the government supporting critical development programmes. Between 2005 and 2012 the government had paid out subsidies totalling $600m to the privatised companies, alongside nearly $300m in rebates for \u2018losses\u2019 under their deal with the new electricity distribution company. An independent report is calling for the plant to be brought into public ownership because\r\n\u201cThe high cost of electricity in Uganda has reached unsustainable levels that are severely eroding local industries\u2019 competitiveness and domestic consumers\u2019 disposable income\u201d. The head of the government-owned Uganda Electricity Generation Company, has confirmed that discussions are ongoing to explore the viability of this proposal, which is designed to rein in costs and re-establish a degree of sovereign control over Uganda\u2019s national energy sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaim our future. Oppose the Corporate Development Agenda ","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement, 27 July 2015","field_url":"http://peoplesgoals.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Reclaim-our-future.-Oppose-the-Corporate-Development-Agenda15.pdf","body":"In September 2015 Heads of States and Governments will gather at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York City to agree on a new set Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and a 'global plan of action for people, planet and prosperity'.  The latest draft of this declaration which promises to 'transform our world' by 2030 and ensure that no one will be left behind in the process has just recently been released. However, the PHM notes that many of these same governments, particularly the more powerful ones among them, are also currently negotiating new 'free trade' deals that will have far-reaching implications for peoples in both the global North and South and for the future of the world economy and the planet. These agreements as they are currently framed and when adopted side-by-side, will not usher a new dawn for humanity.  Instead they are likely to further concentrate power and wealth in the hands of the 1% on the one hand, and deepen the dispossession, exploitation and oppression of peoples and environmental plunder on the other. A call, initiated by the Campaign for People's Goals for Sustainable Development, notes that people will not accept a development agenda that will serve as a vehicle for strengthening corporate power, re-legitimise the global capitalist growth model and perpetuate neoliberal globalisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Redefining shared sanitation","field_subtitle":"Rheinl\u00e4nder T; Konradsen F; Keraita B; Apoya P; Gyapong M: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 93 (7) 509-510, July 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/7/14-144980/en/","body":"According to the latest estimates from the World Health Organization/United Nations Children\u2019s Fund Joint Monitoring Programme for water and sanitation (JMP), 2.5 billion people worldwide do not have access to any type of improved sanitation. Current definitions do not account for the diversity of shared sanitation: all shared toilet facilities are by default classified as unimproved by JMP because of the tendency for shared toilets to be poorly managed and unhygienic. However, the authors argue that shared sanitation should not be automatically assumed to be unimproved. They also argue that it is necessary to have a new look at how we define shared sanitation and to use specific subcategories including household shared (sharing between a limited number of households who know each other), public toilets (intended for a transient population, but most often the main sanitation facility for poor neighbourhoods) and institutional toilets (workplaces, markets etc.). This sub-classification will, it is argued, identify those depending on household shared sanitation, which the authors consider to be only a small step away from achieving access to private and improved sanitation. This subcategory of shared sanitation is, therefore, worth discussing in greater detail. The authors argue that the focus for future sanitation programmes should be on improving the hygienic standards of shared facilities to a level that satisfies and protects sanitation users. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Research on health inequalities: A bibliometric analysis (1966\u20132014)","field_subtitle":"Bouchard L, Albertini M, Batista R, de Montigny J: Social Science & Medicine, 141,  100-108, 2015","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953615300381","body":"This study reported on research production and publications on health inequalities through a bibliometric analysis covering publications from 1966 to 2014 and a content analysis of the 25 most-cited papers. A database of 49,294 references was compiled from the search engine Web of Science. The first article appears in 1966 and deals with equality and civil rights in the United States and the elimination of racial discrimination in access to medical care. By 2003, the term disparity has gained in prominence relative to the term inequality which was initially elected by the researchers. The paper shows that research on health inequalities grown exponentially in the last 30 years; the terms inequity, inequality and disparity have been inconsistently used over time; the most-cited papers studied socioeconomic factors and impacts on health inequities with first reports studying relations of socioeconomic conditions and health outcomes and research growing toward theoretical models and proposals on methodological approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Researcher - Southern Africa (Lusaphone) for Amnesty International ","field_subtitle":"Closing Date: 13 September 2015, Location: Johannesburg","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/95346","body":"The mobile revolution, geopolitical power shifts and a radically altered global economy constitute some of the evidence to demonstrate that the world is changing, and so is the way that people fight for their rights. In order to be effective, Amnesty International\u2019s (AI) International Secretariat needs to change how it works. That\u2019s why the Southern Africa Regional Office needs  research expertise on the ground and is advertising for this position. This is a permanent position. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Rising School Enrollment and Declining HIV and Pregnancy Risk Among Adolescents in Rakai District, Uganda, 1994\u20132013","field_subtitle":"Santelli J; Mathur S; Song X; Huang T; Wei Y; Lutalo T; Nalugoda F; Gray R; Serwadda D: Global Social Welfare 2(2), 87-103, 2015","field_url":"http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40609-015-0029-x","body":"Poverty, family stability, and social policies influence the ability of adolescents to attend school. Likewise, being enrolled in school may shape an adolescent\u2019s risk for HIV and pregnancy. The authors identified trends in school enrollment, factors predicting school enrollment (antecedents), and health risks associated with staying in or leaving school (consequences). Data from the Rakai Community Cohort Study (RCCS) were examined for adolescents 15\u201319 years (n&#8201;=&#8201;21,735 person-rounds) from 1994 to 2013. Trends, antecedents, and consequences were assessed. Qualitative data were used to explore school leaving among HIV+ and HIV&#8722; youths (15\u201324 years). School enrollment and socioeconomic status (SES) rose steadily from 1994 to 2013 among adolescents and orphanhood declined after availability of antiretroviral therapy. Antecedent factors associated with school enrollment included age, SES, orphanhood, marriage, family size, and the percent of family members ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual health, human rights and the law","field_subtitle":"WHO: WHO, Geneva, 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/sexual_health/sexual-health-human-rights-law/en/","body":"This report demonstrates the relationship between sexual health, human rights and the law. Drawing from a review of public health evidence and extensive research into human rights law at international, regional and national levels, the report shows how states in different parts of the world can and do support sexual health through legal and other mechanisms that are consistent with human rights standards and their own human rights obligations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"South stress balanced approach to patents for public health and development","field_subtitle":"TWN Info Service on Intellectual Property Issues, Aug15/01, August 2014","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/intellectual_property/info.service/2015/ip150801.htm","body":"Developing countries stressed the need for a balanced approach to patents to ensure public health and development interests at the 22nd session of the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). Nigeria on behalf of the African Group stated that it recognises the instrumental role of the SCP in building knowledge, understanding the application of various patent related norms and effective use of the international patent system. However, Nigeria pointed out that SCP\u2019s activities \u201cinclude enabling factors encapsulated in the Development Agenda Recommendations, with the objective of enhancing patent related uses for social, technological and economic development and noted their disposition to actively engage within the SCP, on identified issues that support the objectives of the region, giving due regard to the different levels of development of WIPO Member States\u201d. It stressed that the \u201cpolicy space for Member States will therefore be of utmost relevance in SCP discussions and their outcomes\u201d. Pakistan on behalf of the Asia Pacific Group (Japan is not part of the Group) stressed the need for balanced discussions on all topics on the agenda. It stated that, \u201c The work of this committee is critical in balancing the rights of patent owners and public interest particularly in the area of public health, technology transfer and patent flexibilities.  It is essential to find the right balance between patent rights and the right to health in light of the differences in the levels of social, economic and technological development among members, TRIPS flexibilities and respect for intellectual property law and the needs of all Member States\u201d. It further stated that the balanced approach to patents \u201cnot only allow governments, especially in resource-constrained countries, with the necessary policy space to meet health needs but also promote further innovation\u201d. Brazil on behalf of GRULAC stated that it was \u201cimportant for Member States to learn from each other\u2019s experiences and practices under these two topics. While acknowledging similar practices in some countries, it is important to recognise that IP policies and legislation should address national economic and scientific issues as well as development concerns\u201d. Third World Network remarked that 22nd Session of the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents is taking place exactly after the 20th year of the TRIPS Agreement. During the last twenty years there is plenty of evidence to show that the TRIPS Agreement has failed to fulfil its promises especially in the context of addressing developmental challenges of developing countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania's Countdown to 2015: an analysis of two decades of progress and gaps for reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health, to inform priorities for post-2015","field_subtitle":"Afnan-Holmes H; Magoma M; John T; Levira F; Msemo G; Armstrong C; Mart\u00ednez-\u00c1lvarez M; Kerber K; Kihinga C; Makuwani A; Rusibamayila N; Hussein A; Lawn J; Tanzanian Countdown Country Case Study Group: The Lancet Global Health 3(7) e396\u2013e409, 2015","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(15)00059-5/abstract","body":"Tanzania is on track to meet Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 for child survival, but is making insufficient progress for newborn survival and maternal health (MDG 5) and family planning. To understand this mixed progress and to identify priorities for the post-2015 era, Tanzania was selected as a Countdown to 2015 case study. The authors analysed progress made in Tanzania between 1990 and 2014 in maternal, newborn, and child mortality, and unmet need for family planning, in which they used a health systems evaluation framework to assess coverage and equity of interventions along the continuum of care, health systems, policies and investments, while also considering contextual change (eg, economic and educational). In the past two decades, Tanzania's population has doubled in size, necessitating a doubling of health and social services to maintain coverage. Trends along the continuum of care varied, with preventive child health services reaching high coverage (&#8805;85%) and equity (socioeconomic status difference 13\u201314%), but lower coverage and wider inequities for child curative services (71% coverage, socioeconomic status difference 36%), facility delivery (52% coverage, socioeconomic status difference 56%), and family planning (46% coverage, socioeconomic status difference 22%). Mixed progress in reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health in Tanzania were found to indicate a complex interplay of political prioritisation, health financing, and consistent implementation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The invisibility of men in South African violence prevention policy: national prioritisation, male vulnerability, and framing prevention","field_subtitle":"van Niekerk A; Tonsing S; Seedat M; Jacobs R; Ratele K; McClure R: Glob Health Action 8( 27649),  2015","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/27649","body":"In the last two decades, there have been a plethora of South African policies to promote safety. However, indications suggest that the policy response to violence is not coherently formulated, comprehensive, or evenly implemented. This study examines selected South African national legislative instruments in terms of their framing and definition of violence and its typology, vulnerable populations, and prevention. This study comprises a directed content analysis of selected legislative documents from South African ministries mandated to prevent violence and its consequences or tasked with the prevention of key contributors to violence. The legislative documents recognised the high levels of violence, confirmed the prioritisation of selected vulnerable groups, especially women, children, disabled persons, and rural populations, and above all drew on criminological perspectives to emphasise tertiary prevention interventions. There is a policy focus on the protection and support of victims and the prosecution of perpetrators, but near absent recognition of men as victims. The authors argue for the policy framework to be broadened from primarily criminological and prosecutorial perspectives to include public health contributions, and to enlarge the conceptions of vulnerability to include men alongside other vulnerable groups.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO reform: opening the floodgates to the private sector?","field_subtitle":"Richter J: Third World Resurgence 298/299, 20-23, 2015","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/resurgence/2015/298-299/cover02.htm","body":"The author presents in this paper how in the name of 'reform', against a backdrop of a funding crisis, a greater collaboration between WHO and big business is being justified.  She provides a historical overview of the process which began in 1992 with the drive for UN 'reforms', naming it as a euphemism for the neoliberal restructuring of the world body. Both the idea of attracting more funding from private foundations and the commercial sector and the notion of dealing with global health and nutrition matters through multi-stakeholder approaches are argued to carry major risks to WHO's role as the highest authority in international public health. Even though the regular World Health Forum is abandoned at the moment, the notion of greater involvement of the private sector as legitimate 'stakeholders' in public health affairs is not. She calls for an urgent reflection on whether this path should be pursued, noting that the 'privatisation' of public agencies and spaces increases the reliance on private sector funding, as well as inviting profit-motivated actors into public decision-making forums, and sometimes removing specific public issues from the public sphere altogether. This is seen to be the opposite of ensuring financial independence of public institutions and safeguarding and enlarging of spaces for public debate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Xenophobia under spotlight during SADC Parliamentary Forum","field_subtitle":"Buthelezi Z: SABC News, 7 July 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ohpg9g6","body":"South Africa has continued to face questions about the recent xenophobic violence directed at African immigrants. The issue was raised during a discussion on migration on the side-lines of the 37th Session of the South African Development Community (SADC) Parliamentary Forum meeting at Zimbali north of Durban. Lawmakers, experts and government officials were among those who participated in the discussion on migration. At least seven people were killed and thousands others displaced from their homes during attacks on foreign nationals that started in KwaZulu-Natal in April. Speakers called for the movement of people around the continent - including of South Africans - to be encouraged. The Director of the United Nations African Institute for Economic Development and Planning, Professor Adebayo Olukoshi, argued that African countries need to take a developmental approach to migration policies - in the same way that countries like the US have done.  A South African provincial special reference group led by former UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay is looking into the causes of xenophobic violence and what should be done to prevent it from re-emerging. The group is expected to conclude its work in October.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"A comparative analysis of national HIV policies in six African countries with generalised epidemics","field_subtitle":"Church K; Kiweewa F; Dasgupta A; Mwangome M; Mpandaguta E; G\u00f3mez-Oliv\u00e9 F; Oti S; Todd J; Wringe A; Geubbels E; Crampin A; Nakiyingi-Miiro J; Hayashi C; Njage M; Wagner R; Ario A; Makombe S; Mugurungi O; Zaba B: Bulletin of the WHO 93(7) 437-512, July 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.14.147215.pdf","body":"This study compared national human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) policies influencing access to HIV testing and treatment services in six sub-Saharan African countries. A policy extraction tool was developed and used to review national HIV policy documents and guidelines published in Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zimbabwe between 2003 and 2013. Key informant interviews helped to fill gaps in findings. National policies were categorized according to whether they explicitly or implicitly adhered to 54 policy indicators, identified through literature and expert reviews. The authors also compared the national policies with WHO guidance. There was wide variation in policies between countries; each country was progressive in some areas and not in others. Malawi was particularly advanced in promoting rapid initiation of antiretroviral therapy. However, no country had a consistently enabling policy context expected to increase access to care and prevent attrition. Countries went beyond WHO guidance in certain areas and key informants reported that practice often surpassed policy. Evaluating the impact of policy differences on access to care and health outcomes among people living with HIV is challenging. Certain policies will exert more influence than others and official policies are not always implemented. It is proposed that future research assess the extent of policy implementation and link these findings with HIV outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Bretton Woods Institution Narratives about Inequality and Economic Vulnerability on the Eve of South African Austerity","field_subtitle":"Bond P: International Journal of Health Services . 45(3) 415-42, 2015 ","field_url":"http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/default.asp?2%2C68%2C3%2C3497","body":"In South Africa, at a time when National Health Insurance should be generously funded (7 years after its approval as public policy by the ruling party), the author argues in this paper that state fiscal austerity appears certain to nip the initiative in the bud. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund issued separate reports about South Africa in late 2014, following a new finance minister's mid-term budget speech. In justifying austerity, they revealed 2 important conceptual blockages regarding inequality and international financial relations, giving neoliberal policy advocates intellectual weaponry to impose deeper austerity. In contrast, it is suggested that a \"united front\" of labour, community-based and social movement activists, along with a vigorous left opposition party in Parliament, could ensure that the class struggle ratchets up in intensity in the years ahead.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"BRICS: The strategic road map","field_subtitle":"Klomegah K: Pambuzuka News 735, July 2015","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/features/95177","body":"After three days of high-level summit deliberations, the BRICS group of emerging nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), have laid out the strategic road map that will tackle development and infrastructure projects, and seek close economic cooperation under a 'Strategy of Economic Partnership' that will run till 2020. The Strategy identifies priority areas of BRICS cooperation - in power, manufacturing, mining, agribusiness, innovative technologies and other areas. It is aimed at expanding multilateral business cooperation with the goal of stepping up social and economic development, and increasing the competitiveness of BRICS countries in the global economy. The document refers to collaboration in developing technology and innovation in pharmaceuticals in 'mutually beneficial joint projects'.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Bridging Waters Film Series","field_subtitle":"SADC: Botswana 2015","field_url":"http://www.sadc.int/media-centre/image-video-audio-library/video-library/bridging-waters-videos/","body":"The Southern African Development Community (SADC) region is home to more than 260 million people, with transboundary rivers, lakes and groundwater bodies: 15 great rivers with their respective river basins in Southern Africa are shared between two or more countries. Water, however, does not recognise international boundaries. The joint management, protection and utilisation of water in Southern Africa is therefore not an option - it is a necessity. Bridging Waters is a docu-drama series illustrating how water in Southern Africa is sustainably managed according to SADC's Protocol on Shared Watercourses. Narrated through the lives of those living along Southern Africa's rivers and depicting their daily challenges, Bridging Waters connects local settings with transboundary management and exemplifies the local impacts of improved cooperation between countries in the region. Shot in 10 countries over a period of two years, the series delves into the waters of the Zambezi, the Limpopo, the Kunene, the Ruvuma and the Orange-Senqu. Rivers are the lifelines of Africa, and the film shows the shared responsibility to keep them flowing: clean and jointly managed for the benefit of all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Applications: Constitution of the College of Mentors for African Post-Graduate Students","field_subtitle":"CODESRIA: Deadline: August 31, 2015","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2249","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York has recently launched a program that seeks to encourage and facilitate African Diaspora support to African universities. As part of this initiative, CODESRIA intends to constitute a \u2018college of mentors\u2019, a grouping of senior academics from the African academic diaspora who are willing to devote some time to mentoring students enrolled in post-graduate (masters\u2019 and doctoral) programs in African universities. Mentors will be put in touch with one or several students who they would guide by reading draft chapters of their theses and dissertations, and journal article manuscripts; suggesting relevant reading material; and exposing them to scholarly debates they need to be aware of. Mentors might also be called upon to provide academic leadership in some of the initiatives that will be undertaken under the program. Interested mentors should send in a detailed current CV and a 5 page concept/ expression of interest note outlining their areas of interest and their vision in the program.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Choosing impertinence to provoke debate: global cartoonists express the SDGs","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET newsletter","field_url":"","body":"\r\nAt Rio+20 in 2012, country leaderships promised to strive for a world that is just, equitable and inclusive, and committed to work together to promote sustained and inclusive economic growth, social development and environmental protection for the benefit of all. They set a mandate to develop a set of sustainable development goals (SDGs) for consideration by the UN General Assembly at its 68th session in 2013. These SDGs should be coherent with and integrated into the UN development agenda beyond 2015.\r\n\r\nThe 17 Sustainable Development Goals are:\r\n\u2022\tGoal 1\tEnd poverty in all its forms everywhere\r\n\u2022\tGoal 2\tEnd hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture\r\n\u2022\tGoal 3\tEnsure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages\r\n\u2022\tGoal 4\tEnsure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all\r\n\u2022\tGoal 5\tAchieve gender equality and empower all women and girls\r\n\u2022\tGoal 6\tEnsure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all\r\n\u2022\tGoal 7\tEnsure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all\r\n\u2022\tGoal 8\tPromote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all\r\n\u2022\tGoal 9\tBuild resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation\r\n\u2022\tGoal 10 Reduce inequality within and among countries\r\n\u2022\tGoal 11 Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable\r\n\u2022\tGoal 12 Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns\r\n\u2022\tGoal 13 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts\r\n\u2022\tGoal 14  Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development\r\n\u2022\tGoal 15  Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss\r\n\u2022\tGoal 16 Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels\r\n\u2022\tGoal 17  Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development\r\n\r\nThey are simple statements with great intent. They respond to a harsh reality of spectacular progress and spectacular inequality.\r\n\r\nHow widely are these goals known by those most affected by the situations they seek to address?  The SDGs add to many other current global commitments: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries for the Decade 2011-2020 (the Istanbul Programme of Action), the political declaration on Africa\u2019s development needs, the Doha Declaration on Financing for Development, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Millennium Development Goals, amongst others.  Over the years these statements of international cooperation have built a growing vocabulary of aspiration. No doubt the 17 goal statements will also attract many words and terms, targets and data, discussions, interpretations and explanations. \r\n\r\nIf words and targets begin to mystify intent and to obscure reality, particularly for those most directly affected, we may need other tools. Cartoonists from sixteen countries globally in the Cartooning for Peace network have, for example, portrayed their lens on the 17 SDGs in a book published in June 2015, and found at http://fr.calameo.com/read/002524839b003362c3438 . They present images of the goals for sustainable development as \u201cwork that is still precarious\u201d. Visit the link and you will see some that are aspirational, and many that are picture codes, communicating without a word the contradictions that exist in the face of the SDGs. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For information on the SDGs see https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/focussdgs.html . Cartooning for Peace is an initiative born in 2006 that now brings together 125 cartoonists globally. For more information see http://www.cartooningforpeace.org/?lang=en.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"CODESRIA: Director of Publications","field_subtitle":"Closing date for applications: 10 September 2015. ","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2407&lang=en","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) invites applications from suitably qualified African professionals to fill the vacant position of Director of Publications in its pan-African Secretariat located in Dakar, Senegal. The position is a senior one and the successful candidate will work as a member of the Secretariat management team under the overall supervision of the Executive Secretary of the Council. The ideal candidate will be a scholar who also has a robust experience in academic publishing. African professionals who combine a robust experience in academic publishing with a solid training in the social sciences/humanities can also apply. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Contributions of global health diplomacy to equitable health systems in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET: Harare, July 2015","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20GHD%20Summary%20brief%20June2015.pdf","body":"Do global health platforms provide meaningful opportunities to advance equitable health systems and population health in east and southern Africa? What factors have supported effective negotiation of African policy goals on health systems within international and global health diplomacy? This brief outlines, with hyperlinks to the relevant reports, the findings and proposals for follow up policy review, action and research from a three year EQUINET led policy research programme with government officials, technical institutions, civil society and other stakeholders and in association with the East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA \u2013HC). The first two pages provide the broad findings, proposed actions and research agenda. Subsequent text presents the findings and proposals from the specific themes investigated in the programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Coping with the Challenges of Urbanization in Low Income Areas: An Analysis of the Livelihood Systems of Slum Dwellers of the Wa Municipality, Ghana","field_subtitle":"Abubakari Abu-Salia R; Kanton Osmannu I; Ahmed A: Current Urban Studies 3(2), 2015","field_url":"http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=57005#.VYQfpVxRfuI","body":" In Ghana, unplanned and spontaneous urbanization has trapped many in slum dwellings with its attendant poverty, insecurity, and poor housing and general environmental conditions. Slum dwellers\u2019 choices of livelihood activities are restricted under various socio-economic and planning constraints. Using mixed methods, this paper explored the conditions under which slum dwellers can maximize the prospects of their environment and minimize the challenges therein. The findings indicate that slum dwellers have a diversity of livelihood assets and potentials, yet limited access to planned adaptation remains a main challenge. Many dwellers result to autonomous supplementary occupations to cope with the challenges of urbanization. The authors argue for a redefinition of the mandate of urban planning, as a response to spontaneous urbanization, and for tools for sustainable livelihood at the local level. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Critical Maternal Health Knowledge Gaps in Low- and Middle-Income Countries for Post-2015: Researchers\u2019 Perspectives","field_subtitle":"Kendall, T: Paper No. 2. Women and Health Initiative, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health: Boston, 2015","field_url":"http://wordpress.sph.harvard.edu/mhtf-2/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2015/02/Knowledge_gaps_MH_post2015.pdf","body":"Between June and October 2014, the Maternal Health Task Force (MHTF) consulted 26 international maternal health researchers to gather perspectives on the most critical and neglected areas for knowledge generation to improve maternal health in low- and middle-income countries. The MHTF asked respondents to identify research and evaluation priorities in three broad areas: 1) persistent and critical knowledge gaps that need to be filled to accelerate reductions in maternal mortality and morbidity in low-and middle income countries; 2) crucial maternal health issues that have not been given adequate attention by research and donor communities; and 3) new situations and emerging challenges that require research to improve maternal health outcomes. The report presents the results of the interview responses on issues that will shape the landscape of maternal health over the next decade. This included strengthening health service delivery; improving distribution and retention of healthcare workers; the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases among pregnant women and women of reproductive age; the persistence of social and economic inequality and vulnerability; and urbanization. The need to attend to geopolitical determinants of maternal health, such as climate change and food insecurity, the proliferation of conflict and humanitarian crises, and the rise of religious fundamentalism, was also mentioned.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Determining the competences of community based workers for disability-inclusive development in rural areas of South Africa, Botswana and Malawi","field_subtitle":"Lorenzo T; van Pletzen E; Booyens M: The International Electronic Journal of Rural and Remote Health Research, Education, Practice and Policy 15(2), 2015","field_url":"http://www.rrh.org.au/articles/subviewnew.asp?ArticleID=2919","body":"This article analyses the work of community disability workers (CDWs) in three southern African countries to demonstrate the competencies that these workers acquired to make a contribution to social justice for persons with disabilities and their families. It points to some gaps and then argues that these competencies should be consolidated and strengthened in curricula, training and policy. Purposive sampling was used to select and interviews held with 16 CDWs who had at least 5 years experience of disability-related work in a rural area. Three main themes emerged, related to the integrated management of health conditions and impairments within a family focus; disability-inclusive community development and coordinated intersectoral management systems.  The CDWs were found to facilitate change and manage the multiple transitions experienced by the families at different stages of the disabled person\u2019s development. Disability-inclusive development is argued to require a workforce equipped with skills to work intersectorally and in a cross-disciplinary manner to operationalise the community-based rehabilitation guidelines that are designed to promote delivery of services in remote and rural areas. The author argues for their recognition as a CDWs as a cross-disciplinary profession.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"E-Huesped: An information platform on transmissible diseases","field_subtitle":"Fundaci\u00f3n Hu\u00e9sped: July 2015","field_url":"http://www.e-huesped.org/about","body":"e-huesped aims at communicating news about the progress made in the fields of HIV/aids, viral hepatitis and other transmissible diseases, in a swift and dynamic way using an online platform which allows the continuous collaboration and updating and information exchange with professionals throughout the world. The platform is accessible at any time and from any place.  It is implemented on the Edx platform developed by MIT and Harvard with online courses to update professionals in the health team. E-huesped was developed by Fundaci\u00f3n Hu\u00e9sped an Argentinean organization with projects that reach throughout Latin America responding to HIV/AIDS as both an infectious disease and a social challenge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Ebola Report Misses Mark on International Health Regulations","field_subtitle":"Fidler D: Chatham House, July 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/q56r74m","body":"The author argues that the report on the WHO\u2019s Ebola response fails to adequately address the problems in global health governance it exposed. The Ebola outbreak was a disaster for the International Health Regulations (IHR)\u2014the main international legal rules supporting global health security. The outbreak highlighted dismal compliance with IHR obligations on building national core public health capacities. During the outbreak, WHO failed to exercise authority it has under the IHR. Many WHO member states violated the IHR by implementing travel measures more restrictive than WHO recommended under the IHR and that lacked scientific and public health rationales as the IHR requires. The final report of the Ebola Interim Assessment Panel asserted that \u2018the global community does not take seriously\u2019 its IHR obligations. However the panel\u2019s IHR recommendations are argued by the author to be largely recycled old, ineffective ideas and to reflect weak analysis of the outbreak, difficulties the IHR experienced before Ebola, and challenges confronting IHR reform after this crisis. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ensuring universal health coverage for key populations","field_subtitle":" UNAIDS: Geneva 2015","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2015/may/20150520_universalhealthcoverage","body":"Without addressing HIV among marginalized populations and human rights, this report argues that it will not be possible to end the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030. A high-level panel, which included UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidib\u00e9, called on health ministers to remove structural barriers to accessing HIV services and health care for all. Ensuring that marginalized populations are not excluded from the universal health coverage target of the next sustainable development goals was noted to be vital, noting a risk that countries could seek to advance progress towards universal health coverage by focusing on easier to reach populations. In order to ensure that no one is left behind, the report argues that measures will be needed to reduce the discrimination facing all marginalized groups and to ensure their meaningful participation in the development and implementation of health strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 174: Choosing impertinence to provoke debate: global cartoonists express the SDGs ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Health impacts of household energy use:  indicators of exposure to air pollution and other risks","field_subtitle":"Williams K; Northcross A; Graham J: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 93 (7) 507-508, 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/7/14-144923/en/","body":"Recent evidence of the negative impact of household air pollution on health suggests that it is time to upgrade national surveys to inform decision-making on improved fuels and cookstoves. More than 40% of the world\u2019s population rely on solid fuels such as wood, crop residues or dung for their cooking and heating needs. Household air pollution, caused by cooking indoors with solid fuels, is the third leading risk factor for morbidity and mortality globally. In 2010, 3.5 million deaths and 4.3% of global disability adjusted life years were attributable to household air pollution. Pollutants from inefficient combustion of solid fuels, especially black carbon particles, also contribute to global climate change. This study discusses the implications of cooking apparatus, fuel collection practices, air pollution exposure and fuels for other purposes. The morbidity and mortality linked to cooking with solid fuels are significant, with particular implications for women and children. The impetus for assessing new indicators is motivated by a need to more fully understand how the household energy sector is changing in low- and middle-income countries. The information gained from improved indicators has the potential to better inform the targeting of resources and design of strategies for reducing household air pollution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthcare service providers\u2019 and facility administrators\u2019 perspectives of the free maternal healthcare services policy in Malindi District, Kenya: a qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Lang\u2019a E; Mwanri L: Reproductive Health 12(59), 27 June 2015","field_url":"http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/12/1/59","body":"In Kenya, more than half of the women deliver without the assistance of a skilled attendant and this has contributed to high maternal mortality rates. The free maternal healthcare services policy in all public facilities was initiated as a strategy to improve access to skilled care and reduce poor maternal health outcomes. This study aimed to explore the perspectives of the service providers and facility administrators of the free maternal health care service policy that was introduced in Kenya in 2013. A qualitative inquiry using semi-structured one-on-one interviews was conducted in Malindi District, Kenya. The participants included maternal health service providers and facility administrators recruited from five different healthcare facilities. Free maternal healthcare service provision was perceived to boost skilled care utilisation during pregnancy and delivery. However, challenges including; delays in the reimbursement of funds by the government to the facilities, stock outs of essential commodities in the facilities to facilitate service provision, increased workload amidst staff shortage and lack of consultation and sensitisation of key stakeholders were perceived as barriers to effective implementation of this policy. The authors note that implementation of the policy would be more effective if; the healthcare facilities were upgraded, equipped with adequate supplies, funds and staff; the community are continually sensitised on the importance of seeking skilled care during pregnancy and delivery; and inclusivity and collaboration with other key stakeholders be fostered in addressing poor maternal health outcomes in the country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Hidden in Plain Sight: A statistical analysis of violence against children","field_subtitle":"UNICEF: Geneva 2014","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/publications/index_74865.html","body":"Interpersonal violence has a grave effect on children: Violence undermines children\u2019s future potential; damages their physical, psychological and emotional well-being; and in many cases, ends their lives. This report sheds light on the prevalence of different forms of violence against children, with global figures and data from 190 countries. Where relevant, data are disaggregated by age and sex, to provide insights into risk and protective factors. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"In Search of Global Health Justice: A Need to Reinvigorate Institutions and Make International Law","field_subtitle":"Harmon S: Health Care Analysis, 26 June 2015","field_url":"http://paperity.org/p/73573996/in-search-of-global-health-justice-a-need-to-reinvigorate-institutions-and-make","body":"The author argues that responses to the recent outbreak of Ebola in West Africa were varied and many ineffective. More generally, the author suggests that it stems from a failure of international health justice as articulated by a range of legal institutions and instruments, and that it should prompt us to question the state and direction of approaches to the governance of global public health. This paper queries what might be done to lift global public health as a policy arena to the place of prominence that it deserves. It presents critical reasons for the failings of the global public health regime, including the marginalisation of health and equity in current economic individualist, monetised, market-focussed models and goals, and a fragmented, patchwork and ad hoc nature of the global public health architecture, with wide dispersion of the authority to act and a treatment-oriented and disease-specific focus. The paper articulates a new way forward, identifying three courses of action that might be adopted in realising better health outcomes and global health justice, namely value, institutional and legal reform.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequalities in health: definitions, concepts, and theories","field_subtitle":"Arcaya M;  Arcaya A; Subramanian S: Global Health Action 8 (27106), June 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/27106","body":"This article defines and distinguishes between unavoidable health inequalities and unjust and preventable health inequities. The authors describe the dimensions along which health inequalities are commonly examined, including across the global population, between countries or states, and within geographies, by socially relevant groupings such as race/ethnicity, gender, education, caste, income, occupation, and more. Different theories attempt to explain group-level differences in health, including psychosocial, material deprivation, health behaviour, environmental, and selection explanations. Concepts of relative versus absolute; dose\u2013response versus threshold; composition versus context; place versus space; the life course perspective on health; causal pathways to health; conditional health effects; and group-level versus individual differences are vital in understanding health inequalities. The authors close by reflecting on what conditions make health inequalities unjust, and consider the merits of policies that prioritise the elimination of health disparities versus those that focus on raising the overall standard of health in a population.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Investing in the future we want: What will it require?","field_subtitle":"ECOSOC High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development: Brief for Session 11b, New York, July 2015","field_url":"https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/1807BN%2011b_2%20July%20final.pdf","body":"The post-2015 development agenda will have at its core the sustainable development goals (SDGs). The SDGs are a set of universal goals covering a range of sustainable development issues. The challenge for the international community will be to match this agenda with adequate means to implement it. This translates into large financing needs. In its report issued in August 2014, the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing estimated the investment requirements in different sectors. More recently, a group of multilateral development banks and the IMF have coined the term 'from billions to trillions' to characterise the financing demand. Globally, they estimate that achieving the proposed SDGs will require US$ 135 billion in ODA, and nearly 1 trillion in philanthropy, remittances, South-South flows and other official assistance, and foreign direct investment that needs to be used effectively for the SDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Modern African Remedies: Herbal Medicine and Community Development in Nigeria","field_subtitle":"Africa Research Institute, April 2015","field_url":"http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/publications/modern-african-remedies/","body":"Pax is a private sector rural manufacturing enterprise in Edo State Nigeria that is a joint endeavour of the monastic and local communities. It has professionalised the production of traditional natural remedies to demonstrate that herbal medicines can be a force for innovation and progress in health care. An estimated two-thirds of Nigerians are reported in this paper to use these products, often in tandem with other medicines. The company holds that open dialogue, scrutiny and regulation are crucial if the economic potential of the sector is to be realised, and that traditional medicine must be modern, professional and based on science if it is to contribute to improving health systems and outcomes. More than 30 Pax products are reported to be government-certified. The paper argues that traditional medicine and pharmaceutical industries could be fostered in Nigeria; but that indigenous knowledge, resources and enterprise still remain under-exploited.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring pro-poor health-policy success in the SADC region","field_subtitle":"Amaya AB; Bagapi K; Choge I; De Lombaerde P; Kingah S; Kwape I; Luwabelwa M; Mathala O; Mhehe E; Moeti T; Mookodi L; Ngware Z; Phirinyane M: PRARI Policy Brief 1, April 2015","field_url":"http://www.cris.unu.edu/fileadmin/user_upload/Policy_brief_no_7-English-v2.pdf","body":"Monitoring pro-poor health policies at the regional level can support countries and regional bodies to identify gaps in addressing poverty and health, strengthen the link between regions and member states and hold actors accountable to their commitments. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has conducted work in understanding how poor health and poverty coincide, are mutually reinforcing, and socially-structured by gender, age, class, ethnicity and location, with health policy documents on the issues. Yet guidelines and policies have been unevenly implemented. The Poverty Reduction and Regional Integration (PRARI) project seeks to support the development of a monitoring system to measure the contribution of regional governance in the development of pro-poor health policies in collaboration with key stakeholders in the region. The paper describes the system. It builds on existing efforts in the region and focuses on policy areas such as the social determinants of health; HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria; non-communicable diseases; maternal and child health; human resources for health; pharmaceuticals; among others. Global developments such as those related to the incoming Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are also considered. In order for this indicator-based monitoring system to be effective and to have an impact, it is argued to require regional ownership, active participation of national and regional experts throughout the process of indicator development, implementation and evaluation and evidence that it will address health priorities for the region. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"MPhil in Inclusive Innovation","field_subtitle":"Call for Applications: Deadline 1 November 2015","field_url":"http://www.gsb.uct.ac.za/s.asp?p=443","body":"The University of Cape Town (UCT) Graduate School of Business is now inviting applications to its pioneering MPhil specialising in Inclusive Innovation in 2016 \u2013 a hands-on postgraduate degree that aims to generate practical and scalable sustainable solutions to African challenges.  Inclusive innovators who take this learning journey will travel through a rigorous academic curriculum right through to practical prototyping of new business models, processes, services or products that will help create a more inclusive economy and society at large. You will work together in a \u201cliving lab\u201d environment, where expertise, life experience, passion and innovation all converge to support new possibilities and ideas. In this rich, integrative space, commercial, technological and social innovations all combine to further Africa\u2019s future. You will also be exposed to some of the most exciting thinkers and practitioners working in the field of social innovation and entrepreneurship at this time. Applicants should be passionate and creative individuals who have a postgraduate degree, work experience, and a passion for a better, more inclusive future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Pan-African human rights defenders awards","field_subtitle":"Pan-African Human Rights Defenders Network: Nominations are presently open","field_url":"https://africandefenders.org/hrd-award/","body":"Pan-African Human Rights Defenders Network (PAHRD\u2013Net) has opened a call for nominations for the 2nd Edition of human rights defenders awards. The awards will honor exceptional individuals who peacefully promote and protect universally recognized rights as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples\u2019 Rights. Altogether six awards will be presented, one overall award and five sub-regional awards. Both individuals and organizations are eligible for the award.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Post-2015 Development Agenda: New draft out for final negotiations ","field_subtitle":"TWN:  Info Service 28 July 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ortqahs","body":"The Co-facilitators of the Post-2015 Development Agenda talks have released what could be the near-final version of the Post-2015 Development Agenda. This will set the stage for the final round of hectic negotiations at the United Nations headquarters in New York in end July.\r\nThe \u201cOutcome Document for the UN Summit to Adopt the Post 2015 Development Agenda: Draft for Adoption\u201d attempts to resolve some of the still remaining thorny issues. However, whether and how quickly the Member States agree to the final document remains to be seen. The document is likely to undergo some changes as negotiations continue, and the final document will be adopted when there is consensus among member states. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Price tag of HIV response to more than double by 2033","field_subtitle":"Schmidt H; Gostin L; Emanuel E: The Lancet, 29 June 2015","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/2015/06/12/price-tag-of-hiv-response-to-more-than-double-by-2033/","body":"With 3.1 million people on antiretrovirals (ARV), South Africa has the world\u2019s largest ARV programme. Sustaining it \u2013 and the HIV response \u2013 is argued to more than double in cost in the next two decades, according to new research. The research reported in this paper modelled the cost of county\u2019s HIV response and what it will take to meet ambitious international development targets adopted by the country in 2014. The research found that South Africa\u2019s HIV programme will cost about R40 billion each year by 2033 \u2013 more than double the R21 billion budgeted for the programme in the next financial year. The analysis also revealed the top 18 most cost-effective ways South Africa can tackle its epidemic. Top of the list was increasing condom distribution, medical male circumcision and mass communication campaigns promoting safer sex among teens. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health, universal health coverage, and Sustainable Development Goals: can they coexist?","field_subtitle":"Schmidt H; Gostin L; Emanuel E: The Lancet, June 2015","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)60244-6/fulltext","body":"The UN General Assembly is currently considering proposals for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG 3, focusing on health, specifically includes universal health coverage (UHC) among its targets. The authors argue that while UHC is timely and important, its promotion also entails substantial risks. A narrow focus on UHC could emphasise expansion of access to health-care services over equitable improvement of health outcomes through action across all relevant sectors\u2014especially public health interventions, needed to effectively address non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The challenge for policy makers is observed to be to not merely to improve clinical services, but to achieve equitable health outcome improvements through genuine integration of individual and population-level health promotion and preventative efforts with curative services. Future UHC evaluations should include assessments of the extent to which this integration is accomplished\u2014with particular attention to the distribution of benefits across groups\u2014and not, as major current work be limited to the clinical side.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Report of the Ebola Interim Assessment Panel","field_subtitle":"WHO: Geneva July 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/csr/resources/publications/ebola/report-by-panel.pdf?ua=1","body":"This report of the assessment panel which the WHO commissioned on its response to the Ebola outbreak was meant to review the roles and responsibilities at the three levels of the organization (headquarters, regions, countries) and the WHO\u2019s actions in the course of the outbreak. The report and recommendations fall under the following three headings: the International Health Regulations (2005); WHO\u2019s health emergency response capacity; and WHO\u2019s role and cooperation with the wider health and humanitarian systems. It found Member States have largely failed to implement the core capacities, particularly under surveillance and data collection, which are required under the International Health Regulations (2005); in violation of the Regulations, nearly a quarter of WHO\u2019s Member States instituted travel bans and other additional measures not called for by WHO, which significantly interfered with international travel, causing negative political, economic and social consequences for the affected countries; and significant and unjustifiable delays occurred in the declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) by WHO. The Panel concluded that WHO be the lead health emergency response agency but that this requires that a number of organizational and financial issues be addressed urgently. The Panel considered that during the Ebola crisis, the engagement of the wider humanitarian system came very\r\nlate in the response. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Rising through cities? A look at Ghana","field_subtitle":"Paller J: Africa Research Institute, 9 June 2015","field_url":"http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/blog/rising-through-cities-a-look-at-ghana/","body":"A new report by the World Bank- Rising through Cities in Ghana-analyses the rapid transformation of a country whose urban population has grown from 4 million in 1984 to more than 14 million today. 51% of Ghanaians now live in cities. Over the same period annual GDP growth has averaged 5.7%, the number of industrial and service jobs has increased by 21% and the capital city, Accra, has registered a 20% reduction in poverty. In August 2014, a fiscal debt crisis forced the government to request financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund. In May 2015, Accra residents peacefully protested the failure to resolve a three-year long electric power crisis that has sapped businesses and hindered economic growth. The World Bank has presented a report with data on urban development in Ghana and this paper provides a critical analysis of the report and a link to the original publication. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Gender Protocol 2015 Barometer: Botswana","field_subtitle":"Glenwright D; Botswana Council of NGOs: Botswana Council of NGOs, Gaberone, June 2015","field_url":"http://www.genderlinks.org.za/article/sadc-gender-protocol-2015-barometer-botswana-2015-06-25","body":"Botswana has made good progress against the targets of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development set for 2015, according to this report. However, President Ian Khama of the Republic of Botswana said that Botswana would not sign the SADC Gender Protocol because the government considers some its time frames unrealistic, and some of its measures to have serious resource implications that the state cannot guarantee. Progress is noted in the report on the health sector, with trained personnel delivering more than 90% of births and 84% of the population living within five kilometres of a quality health facility. However, the maternal mortality rate is noted to have increased and only 44% of the population access contraception. Although Botswana has one of the world's highest HIV prevalence more than 95% of HIV-positive pregnant women access the prevention of mother-to-child transmission programme. In spite of these achievements, this report also reveals obstacles for the country on the road to gender equality, including a failure to address contradictions between formal and customary laws, with the latter discriminating against women, especially widows and divorced women. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC holds Ministerial Meeting on Disaster Preparedness and Response","field_subtitle":"SADC: Botswana, July 2015","field_url":"http://www.sadc.int/news-events/news/sadc-holds-ministerial-meeting-disaster-preparedness-and-res/","body":"'Enhancing Regional Disaster Preparedness and Response' was the theme of the first extra-ordinary Meeting of Ministers Responsible for Disaster Risk Management and Ministers of Finance, held on June 26, 2015 in Harare, Zimbabwe. The SADC Region is exposed to a wide range of hazards and disasters that frequently result in heavy loss of lives and livelihoods, displacement of large populations, disruption of economic activities, destruction of assets and loss of investment. The Hazards that affect the Region include floods, drought, snow, volcanic eruption landslides, tsunamis, tropical cyclones, storms, wild fires and earthquakes. These hazards increase the risk of shortages of water, outbreaks of diseases such as Malaria, cholera and other diarrhoeal diseases, malnutrition and stunted growth, foot and mouth diseases in animals and other negative impacts. The meeting was organised by the SADC Secretariat specifically by the Disaster Risk Reduction Unit under the auspices of the Directorate of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Affairs in collaboration with the Government of Zimbabwe. The Ministers directed the SADC Secretariat to develop a comprehensive regional disaster risk reduction strategy which should include regional response mechanisms and a humanitarian assistance framework. They also agreed to the establishment of a regional disaster preparedness and response fund and development of an integrated early warning system to ensure effective information dissemination on hazards faced by the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Technology, innovation and health equity","field_subtitle":"Fong H; Harris E: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 93 (7), July 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/7/15-155952/en/","body":"Innovative technologies have enormous potential to improve human well-being. However, technological progress does not guarantee equitable health outcomes. As advances in technology redefine the ways people, systems and information interact, resource-poor communities are often excluded. Where technological fixes have been imposed on communities, the results have included abandoned equipment, incompatible computer programs and ineffective policies. A shift in values among leadership, communities and the creators of technology is argued to be critical to implementing technology sustainably and equitably. Numerous examples are outlined where technological applications undermine equity, fairness and human rights: for example, the use of high-tech medical interventions in preference to simpler preventive measures or terminator genes that prevent the re-use of seeds for food crops. To ensure equitable outcomes, the authors note that the design and implementation of technology needs to respect ethical principles and local values. Decisions on the use of new technology should be made by local users, and implementation needs long-term commitment and local ownership. In this article, the authors discuss features of technology implementation that can promote health equity, using a range of examples from the health, agriculture and economic sectors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Use of Evidence - Blended Learning Course","field_subtitle":"International NGO Training and Research Centre: Online course 6 October 2015 to 4 November 2015","field_url":"http://www.intrac.org/events.php?action=event&id=647","body":"This course seeks to help those who lack confidence using evidence in their work and facing external or internal pressure to justify the evidence that they produce. In this course delivered online participants will have the opportunity to develop their knowledge and understanding of evidence. With a practical focus, they will learn the skills to identify sources of evidence, assess the quality of evidence, and integrate the use of evidence into their own work and organisation so that it is of high quality and can be used with confidence. At the end of the course, participants will be familiar with definitions of, and approaches to, evidence in international development and the wider implications for practitioners; be able to identify and work with existing sources of evidence, addressing relevance and purposes for different activities and audiences; be able to understand different approaches to, and have built skills in, assessing the quality of evidence; be able to plan for the use of better evidence in their work; have applied their learning and have explored the challenges and how to overcome them. During the practical component of the course, participants will apply their learning to a particular area of work where they use evidence, such as advocacy, monitoring and evaluation, or programming. The course takes place over four weeks and includes self-directed learning and one-to-one coaching tailored to the needs of the participant. It is aimed at technical staff in NGOs who need to engage with evidence in their work, for example in programme, planning, monitoring and evaluation, or advocacy. Participants will have some exposure to using research evidence through academic training or work experience, but need to gain a better understanding of core concepts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Why the communicable/non-communicable disease dichotomy is problematic for public health control strategies: implications of multimorbidity for health systems in an era of health transition","field_subtitle":"Oni T; Unwin N: International Health 7(4), June 2015","field_url":"http://inthealth.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/06/22/inthealth.ihv040.full.pdf+html","body":"In today\u2019s globalised world, rapid urbanisation, mechanisation of the rural economy, and the activities of transnational food, drink and tobacco corporations are associated with an increased risk of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs). As a result, population health profiles are rapidly changing. Many low and middle income countries (LMICs) are undergoing rapid changes associated with developing high rates of NCD while concomitantly battling high levels of communicable diseases. This review synthesises evidence on the overlap and interactions between established communicable and emerging non-communicable disease epidemics in LMICs. The review focuses on HIV, TB and malaria and explores the disease-specific interactions with prevalent NCDs in LMICs. The authors highlight the complexity, bi-directionality and heterogeneity of these interactions and discuss the implications for health systems. It is argued to require breaking down barriers between departments within\r\nhealth ministries that have traditionally designed services and\r\nprograms for communicable and NCD separately and integrated multi-sectoral action addressing determinants across the life course.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"African performance on human rights","field_subtitle":"Anambo Ongoche E: Pambuzuka News 730, 10 June 2015","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/features/94929","body":"Almost two decades after adoption of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, the record of adherence to its provisions across the continent is mixed. Some countries have made notable progress, but others show persistent serious violations of human rights. African performance on human rights as spelled out in the Charter varies from one country to another. The author elaborates the situation in different countries on the continent against the rights set out in the Charter. The author concludes that Africa has a long way to go in the practice and upholding of human rights at out in the Charter. He urges that governments be made accountable to ensure that human rights are upheld.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Agenda 2063 Vision and Priorities","field_subtitle":"African Union, Addis Ababa, May 2015 ","field_url":"http://agenda2063.au.int/en/documents/agenda-2063-africa-we-want-popular-version-final-edition","body":"The African Union set out its vision of An Integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the global arena. Aiming to encourage discussion among all stakeholders, Agenda 2063 is an approach to how the continent should effectively learn from the lessons of the past, build on the progress now underway and strategically exploit all possible opportunities available in the immediate and medium term, so as to ensure positive socioeconomic transformation within the next 50 years. Agenda 2063 emphasizes the importance of Pan-Africanism, unity, self-reliance, integration and solidarity that was a highlight of the triumphs of the 20th century. It highlights the need to more effectively use African resources for the benefit of people in the continent. It raises regional political, institutional renewal and financing/resource mobilization issues, as well as the changing nature of Africa\u2019s relationships with the rest of the world. The AU is calling for input to the agenda. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"BRICS Bank could be game-changer","field_subtitle":"Klomegah K: Pambuzuka News 731, 19 June 2015","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/features/94938","body":"The July BRICS Summit ratified an agreement on the establishment of a $100 billion BRICS pool of currency reserves, according to a document published early May 2015. It is reported that the bank will invest primarily in infrastructure projects in both BRICS and non-BRICS countries. The establishment of its first regional office in Johannesburg will give access to the Africa, where infrastructure development needs are highest. The idea to set up BRICS bank was first proposed by India and that topped the agenda at the summit of the group in New Delhi in March 2012. India believes a joint bank would be in line with the growing economic power of the five-nation group. The bank could firm up the position of BRICS as a powerful player in global decision-making. India believes that a BRICS bank could, among others, issue convertible debt, which would arguably be top-rated and can be bought by central banks of all BRICS countries. BRICS countries would thus have a vessel for investment risk-sharing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Strengthening PhD programmes in African Universities ","field_subtitle":"Application deadline: 21 August 2015","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2377&lang=en","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) calls for applications from research laboratories and doctoral schools in African universities for the first phase of its initiative to support research in the social sciences and humanities. The objective of this initiative is to restore and/or enhance the seminar culture within research laboratories, doctoral schools in African universities, while encouraging the use of multi and interdisciplinary approaches. After a rigorous selection exercise by an international independent selection committee, selected research laboratories and doctoral schools will receive a grant of 10,000 dollars from CODESRIA, which is expected to be used for: the purchase of books and journals for the benefit of the entire academic community; a scientific seminar exposing PhD students to relevant literature, current debates, and theoretical approaches in relation to a given topic; a methodology seminar, and a scientific writing workshop. Further information can be found at the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Applications: PhD Applications at HEARD/UKZN, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Closing date for applications: 1 August 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qfv6kaz","body":"HEARD is calling for applications for up to four full-time PhD Research Scholarships in any of the following key areas of strategic focus Sexual and Reproductive Health; Health Systems Strengthening and Economics of Critical Enablers in HIV Programming. Award of the HEARD PhD Research Scholarship is conditional on candidates meeting the requirements for PhD registration at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and on participating in a compulsory training component during the first year of study. The training component will be conducted over four two-week blocks during the first year of study. Candidates will produce a thesis related to one of HEARDs priority research nodes, as detailed above. The Scholarship programme emphasises the mastery of quantitative and qualitative methods for understanding policy problems and for devising, evaluating and/or implementing policy solutions. The intention of providing PhD scholarships is to produce expertly qualified graduates to advise or to be part of influential policy making organisations in Africa. During their PhD, students will be strongly encouraged to present their work at international meetings. Successful candidates will be based in Durban, South Africa, for the duration of the scholarship, with the exception of the time during which they may undertake field research elsewhere.  Applications are invited from citizens of all African countries. Female candidates and, in the case of South Africa, those from previously disadvantaged backgrounds, are especially encouraged to apply. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Case Study Brief: Health centre committees ensuring services respond to the needs of people living with HIV in Malawi","field_subtitle":"REACH Trust, TARSC: EQUINET 2015","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/HCC%20Malawi%20Brief%20March2015.pdf","body":"Malawi's 1994 Constitution obliges the state to provide adequate health care within the resources available, and guarantees equality in access to these health services. Community participation is a central pillar for implementing PHC in Malawi\u2019s 2011-2016 Health Sector Strategic Plan, which commits to ensuring that local communities have a voice and an opportunity to participate in issues that affect their health. This brief describes the role ad functioning of health centre advisory committees in supporting services to be responsive to the needs of people living with HIV. The committee members worked with volunteers, visiting villages with messages about prevention of vertical transmission and the services available for it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Disability Grant: a precarious lifeline for HIV/AIDS patients in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Govender V; Fried J; Birch S; Chimbindi N; Cleary S: BMC Health Services Research 15(227), June 2015, doi:10.1186/s12913-015-0870-8","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/15/227","body":"In South Africa, HIV/AIDS remains a major public health problem. In a context of chronic unemployment and deepening poverty, social assistance through a Disability Grant (DG) is extended to adults with HIV/AIDS who are unable to work because of a mental or physical disability. Using a mixed methods approach, the authors consider inequalities in access to the DG for patients on ART and implications of DG access for on-going access to healthcare. Data were collected in exit interviews with 1200 ART patients in two rural and two urban health sub-districts in four different South African provinces. Additionally, 17 and 18 in-depth interviews were completed with patients on ART treatment and ART providers, respectively, in three of the four sites included in the quantitative phase. Grant recipients were comparatively worse off than non-recipients in terms of employment and wealth. The regression analyses showed that the employed were significantly less likely to receive the DG than the unemployed. Also, patients who were longer on treatment and receiving concomitant treatment (i.e., ART and tuberculosis care) were more likely to receive the DG. The qualitative analyses indicated that the DG alleviated the burden of healthcare related costs for ART patients. Both patients and healthcare providers spoke of the complexity of the grants process and eligibility criteria as a barrier to accessing the grant. This impacted adversely on patient-provider relationships. These findings highlight the appropriateness of the DG for people living with HIV/AIDS. However, improved collaboration between the Departments of Social Development and Health is essential for preparing healthcare providers who are at the interface between social security and potential recipients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Do antenatal care visits always contribute to facility-based delivery in Tanzania? A study of repeated cross-sectional data","field_subtitle":"Choe SA; Kim J; Kim S; Park Y; Kullaya SM; Kim CY: Health Policy and Planning,  June 2015, doi: 10.1093/heapol/czv054","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/06/05/heapol.czv054.long","body":"There is a high disparity in access to perinatal care services between urban and rural areas in Tanzania. This study analysed repeated cross-sectional data from Tanzania to explore the relationship between antenatal care (ANC) visits, facility-based delivery and the reasons for home births in women who had made ANC visits. The relationship between the number of ANC visits (up to four) and facility delivery in the latest pregnancy was explored. For rural women, there was no significant relationship between the number of ANC visits and facility delivery rate. The most frequent reason for home delivery was \u2018physical distance to facility\u2019, and a significant proportion of rural women reported that they were \u2018not allowed to deliver in facility\u2019. The disconnect between ANC visits and facility delivery in rural areas may be attributable to physical, cultural or familial barriers, and quality of care in health facilities. This suggests that improving access to ANC may not be enough to motivate facility-based delivery, especially in rural areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Doubt, defiance, and identity: Understanding resistance to male circumcision for HIV prevention in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Parkhurst J; Chilongozi D; Hutchinson E: Social Science and Medicine 135, 15-22, 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795361500249X","body":"Global policy recommendations to scale up of male circumcision (MC) for HIV prevention tend to frame the procedure as a simple and efficacious public health intervention. However, there has been variable uptake of MC in countries with significant HIV epidemics. In this paper the authors present an in-depth analysis of Malawi's political resistance to MC, finding that ethnic and religious divisions dominating recent political movements aligned well with differing circumcision practices. Political resistance was further found to manifest through two key narratives: a \u2018narrative of defiance\u2019 around the need to resist 'donor manipulation', and a \u2018narrative of doubt\u2019 which seized on a piece of epidemiological evidence to refute global claims of efficacy. Further, the authors found that discussions over MC served as an additional arena through which ethnic identities and claims to power could themselves be negotiated, and therefore used to support claims of political legitimacy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Ebola Fund Watch: Tracking For Ebola Crisis in West Africa","field_subtitle":"BudgIT; Open Society Initiative for West Africa: June 2015","field_url":"http://ebolafundwatch.org/index.html","body":"This resource gathers evidence on the use of funds for the containment of the Ebola outbreak as provided by external funders. It also plans to create a narrative of cumulative experiences of how emergency funds were applied to survivors, victims, healthcare workers, institutions and other beneficiaries. It focuses on curating, tracking and demanding accountability for funds meant for Ebola virus treatment and containment across the sub region. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 173: More than a voice: invest in community representatives capacities for them to be heard","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evidence for policy and practice","field_subtitle":"Murphy L: Eldis 2015","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/evidence-for-policy-and-practice#.VY8wQvlVhBd","body":"Quality assured research synthesis documents from a selected set of publishers who focus is on supporting evidence-informed decision-making on issues relevant to international development. This Guide provides access to a set of quality assured research synthesis documents specifically intended to assist evidence-informed decision-making in development policy and practice. They are selected by the Eldis team from a limited set of \"approved\" publishers who have been assessed to ensure a robust methodological approach to quality assurance. The Guide also provides a space for discussion on some of the debates on what constitutes \"evidence\", the use of different methods for quality assessment and the various approaches to impact evaluation","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global evidence on inequities in rural health protection: New data on rural deficits in health coverage for 174 countries","field_subtitle":"Scheil-Adlung X: International Labour Office, ESS Document No. 47, Geneva, 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/pza73zd","body":"While inequities in health protection are increasingly recognized as an important issue in current policy debates on universal health coverage (UHC) and in the post-2015 agenda, the rural/urban divide is largely ignored. This paper presents global estimates on rural/urban disparities in access to health-care services. The report uses proxy indicators to assess key dimensions of coverage and access involving the core principles of universality and equity. Based on the results of the estimates, policy options are discussed to close the gaps in a multi-sectoral approach addressing issues and their root causes both within and beyond the health sector. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health security: the wider lessons from the west African Ebola virus disease epidemic","field_subtitle":"Heymann D et al (23 co-authors): The Lancet 385 (9980),1884\u20131901, 2015","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)60858-3/fulltext","body":"The Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa was unprecedented in both its scale and impact. It drew renewed attention to global health security\u2014its definition, meaning, and the practical implications for programmes and policy. For example, how does a government begin to strengthen its core public health capacities, as demanded by the International Health Regulations? What counts as a global health security concern? This paper describes some of the major threats to individual and collective human health, as well as the values and recommendations that should be considered to counteract such threats in the future. Many different perspectives are proposed but their common goal is a more sustainable and resilient society for human health and wellbeing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global vaccination targets \u2018off-track\u2019 warns WHO","field_subtitle":"WHO: Geneva, April 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2015/global-vaccination-targets/en/","body":"Progress towards global vaccination targets for 2015 is far off-track with 1 in 5 children still missing out on routine life-saving immunizations that could avert 1.5 million deaths each year from preventable diseases. WHO issued this statement calling for renewed efforts to get progress back on course in the lead-up to World Immunization Week in April 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Identifying implementation bottlenecks for maternal and newborn health interventions in rural districts of the United Republic of Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Baker U; Peterson S; Marchant T; Mbaruku G; Temu S; Manzi F; Hanson C: Bulletin of World Health Organization 93, 22 April 2015, http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.14.141879","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/6/14-141879/en/","body":"The authors aimed to estimate the effective coverage of key maternal and newborn health interventions in rural parts of the United Republic of Tanzania and to identify bottlenecks in implementation. They used data from an observational, cross-sectional study that was performed in Tandahimba and Newala districts in south-eastern United Republic of Tanzania. They investigated five key maternal and newborn health interventions: (i) syphilis screening; (ii) pre-eclampsia screening; (iii) use of a partograph to monitor labour; (iv) active management of the third stage of labour; and (v) postpartum care in a health facility. The largest bottleneck in Tandahimba was health facility readiness, which was associated with a 52% reduction in coverage. Clinical practice was another large bottleneck, with an attrition of 35%. In Newala, clinical practice was the largest bottleneck, causing an attrition of 57%. The authors provide a framework that could help operationalize measurements and track progress towards universal health coverage in all areas of health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"International parental migration and the psychological well-being of children in Ghana, Nigeria, and Angola","field_subtitle":"Mazzucato V; Cebotari V; Veale A; White A; Grassi M; Vivet J: Social Science and Medicine 135, 215-224, 2015","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953614007114","body":"When parents migrate, leaving their children in the origin country, transnational families are formed. Transnational family studies on children who are \u201cleft behind\u201d indicate that children suffer psychologically from parental migration. Many of the factors identified as affecting children's responses to parental migration however are not considered in child psychology and family sociology studies. This study aimed to bridge these areas of knowledge by quantitatively investigating the association between transnational families and children's psychological well-being. It analyzed a survey conducted in three African countries in 2010\u201311 (Ghana N = 2760; Angola N = 2243; Nigeria N = 2168) amongst pupils of secondary schools. The study compared children in transnational families to those living with their parents in their country of origin. Children's psychological well-being was measured through the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Multiple regression analyses reveal that children in transnational families fare worse than their counterparts living with both parents but not in Ghana where living conditions mediate this relationship.  Specific characteristics of transnational families and country contexts mattered: (1) changing caregivers is associated with poorer well-being in all countries; (2) which parent migrates does not make a difference in Ghana, when mothers migrate and fathers are caregivers results in poorer well-being in Nigeria, and both mother's and father's migration result in worse outcomes in Angola; (3) the kin relationship of the caregiver is not associated with poorer well-being in Ghana and Nigeria but is in Angola; (4) children with parents who migrate internationally do not show different results than children whose parents migrate nationally in Ghana and Nigeria but in Angola international parental migration is associated with poorer psychological well-being. The study showed that broader characteristics in the population rather than parental migration per se are associated with decreased levels of well-being.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge, perception and practices about malaria, climate change, livelihoods and food security among rural communities of central Tanzania ","field_subtitle":"Mayala BK; Fahey CA; Wei D; Zinga MM; Bwana VM; Mlacha T; Rumisha SF; Stanley G; Shayo EH; Mboera L: Infectious Diseases of Poverty 4(21), April 2015, doi: 10.1186/s40249-015-0052-2 ","field_url":"http://www.idpjournal.com/content/pdf/s40249-015-0052-2.pdf","body":"This study determined knowledge, perceptions and practices as regards to malaria, climate change, livelihoods and food insecurity in a rural farming community in central Tanzania. Using a cross-sectional design, heads of households were interviewed on their knowledge and perceptions on malaria transmission, symptoms and prevention and knowledge and practices as regards to climate change and food security. A total of 399 individuals (mean age = 39.8 \u00b1 15.5 years) were interviewed. Nearly all (94.7%) knew that malaria is acquired through a mosquito bite. Three quarters (73%) reported that most people get sick from malaria during the rainy season. About 50% of the respondents felt that malaria had decreased during the last 10 years. The household coverage of insecticide treated mosquito nets was high (95.5%). Ninety-six percent reported to have slept under a mosquito net the previous night. Only one in four understood the official Kiswahili term (Mabadiliko ya Tabia Nchi) for climate change. However, there was a general understanding that the rain patterns have changed in the past 10 years. Sixty-two percent believed that the temperature has increased during the same period. Three quarters of the respondents reported that they had no sufficient production from their own farms to guarantee food security in their household for the year. Three quarters (73.0%) reported to having food shortages in the past five years. About half said they most often experienced severe food shortage during the rainy season. The authors concluded that farming communities in Kilosa District have little knowledge on climate change and its impact on malaria burden, but that food insecurity. They recommend integrating control of malaria and food insecurity interventions. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi govt backtracks on hospital user fees","field_subtitle":"Chauwa A: Nyasa Times April 5 2015","field_url":"http://www.nyasatimes.com/2015/04/06/malawi-govt-backtracks-on-hospital-user-fees/","body":"The Malawi government has said that medical services in all public health facilities will remain free. Minister of Health spokesperson Henry Chimbali told Nyasa Times that government has introduced by-pass fees [and not user fees] in referral hospitals in order to decongest the facilities. He also noted that the ministry will review the current arrangement between the Ministry and Christian Health Association of Malawi (CHAM) saying the current Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) dates back to 2002, is well overdue for review and needs to take into account some of the emerging issues that have taken place such as the passing into law of the new Act on Public Private Partnership Agreements (PPPs) which is the basis of the arrangement between the Ministry of Health and CHAM. The proposal is to work out a mechanism that will see greater access to quality health services by all Malawians especially those in rural and hard to reach areas. He also noted that the Ministry of Health seeks to establish a Health Fund to support health service delivery and widen coverage of medical insurance for those who can afford it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Mind the Gap: House Structure and the Risk of Malaria in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Wanzirah H; Tusting LS; Arinaitwe E; Katureebe A; Maxwell K; Rek J; Bottomley C; Staedke SG; Kamya M; Dorsey G; Lindsay SW: PLOS One, January 2015, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0117396","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0117396","body":"Good house construction may reduce the risk of malaria by limiting the entry of mosquito vectors. The authors assessed how house design may affect mosquito house entry and malaria risk in Uganda. 100 households were enrolled in each of three sub-counties: Walukuba, Jinja district; Kihihi, Kanungu district; and Nagongera, Tororo district. CDC light trap collections of mosquitoes were done monthly in all homes. All children aged six months to ten years (n = 878) were followed prospectively for a total of 24 months to measure parasite prevalence every three months and malaria incidence. Homes were classified as modern (cement, wood or metal walls; and tiled or metal roof; and closed eaves) or traditional (all other homes). The human biting rate was lower in modern homes than in traditional homes. The odds of malaria infection were lower in modern homes across all the sub-counties, while malaria incidence was lower in modern homes in Kihihi but not in Walukuba or Nagongera. The authors concluded that house design is likely to explain some of the heterogeneity of malaria transmission in Uganda and represents a promising target for future interventions, even in highly endemic areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring Pro-Poor Health-Policy Success in the SADC Region","field_subtitle":"Amaya A;, Bagapi K; Choge I; De Lombaerde P: Kingah S: Kwape I; Luwabelwa M;  Mathala O:  Mhehe E: Moeti T: Mookodi L; Ngware Z; Phirinyane P:  PRARI Policy brief April 2015","field_url":"http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/prari/files/policy_brief_7_en.pdf","body":"In the area of health, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has conducted important work in understanding how poor health and poverty coincide, are mutually reinforcing, and socially-structured by gender, age, class, ethnicity and location, demonstrated by the key health policy documents that have been facilitated by the secretariat. Yet the time lapse between the formulation of guidelines and policies and their implementation has at times been uneven. This brief describes the Poverty Reduction and Regional Integration indicator-based monitoring system addressing health priorities for the region, under the institutional leadership of the SADC secretariat and with the support from its Member States that are the main beneficiaries of the process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"More than a voice: invest in community representatives capacities for them to be heard","field_subtitle":"H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Rossert, USA, Robert Bourgoing, France","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn a 2015 report on the Representation and Participation of Key Populations on Country Coordinating Mechanisms (CCMs) in Swaziland, Lesotho, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia, (http://tinyurl.com/obuudjv) Aidspan noted that key population representatives (KPRs) \u201chave often in the past been seen as somewhat token CCM members\u201d and that \u201ctheir ability to contribute, and the quality of their participation in the processes of these bodies [is] unclear\u201d.\r\n\r\nWe believe indeed that building the capacity of KPRs to contribute their indispensable share to the governance of Global Fund-supported programs is a central condition for achieving the vision of ending HIV, tuberculosis and malaria as public health threats by 2030.\r\nWomen and girls, men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, transgender people, sex workers, prisoners, refugees and migrants, people living with HIV, adolescents and young people, orphans and vulnerable children\u2026 Giving those groups a voice by opening the doors of CCMs to their representatives is a major step in the right direction. But to unleash their potential to be heard and become a trusted force for change, they need support to build essential skills and competencies.\r\n\r\nThe Global Fund and its success against AIDS, TB and malaria owe a lot to the extraordinary contributions of civil society representatives worldwide. With the new rules of engagement in the Global Fund governance systems, activists with high levels of formal education are now making room for a new generation of civil society representatives, whose level of preparedness varies considerably, as highlighted in the Aidspan report. These new arrivals must absorb a tremendous volume of information and data that is made available, at an increasing speed, about the Fund, its partners and health-related issues.\r\n\r\nA variety of toolkits, manuals, guidelines, tutorials and training workshops has already been produced around Global Fund policies and processes. But these good initiatives are scattered, developed separately, written primarily in English, sometimes in French and Spanish, and generally not designed with a focus on the specific needs of less-educated or extremely marginalized groups. Let\u2019s face it: how many KPRs have been efficiently trained through sporadic two or three-day workshops? How many have excelled basing their knowledge and understanding of program implementation through Global Fund orientation sessions? Self-education and workshops cannot by themselves be substitutes for a better structured and adapted training curriculum for KPRs.\r\n\r\nIn a 2014 study on the engagement in the funding model of key populations from 11 countries (at http://tinyurl.com/qxwuzd7), the Global Fund Board\u2019s communities delegation observed: \u201cIn cases where community representatives had received capacity building over the longer term, KPs were empowered to engage, raise concerns, challenge existing power structures and decision making processes and influence final outcomes. In cases where capacity building was lacking, KP representatives were engaged only in a tokenistic way and faced stigma during the process, labelled as incompetent and seemingly reinforcing negative preconceptions about key affected communities\u201d.\r\n\r\nKPRs have access to extended networks and an intimate knowledge of the needs and priorities of some of the most hard-to-reach communities. They bring a unique expertise that other CCM members, be they doctors, academics, government representatives or other high-level officials don\u2019t have. But to make the most of it, to enter CCM discussions confidently and influence public health decision-making in a credible way, they must learn to speak the language spoken at CCM meetings and in public health circles. They need to master the technical complexities of Global Fund procedures and be fully at ease with using the language of decision makers to represent the interests of their groups. This needs long-term capacity building.\r\n\r\nWe see four main components for such a curriculum, which could be conceived as a training-of-trainers program to reach out to members of marginalized communities in their own languages. Program management, from design to evaluation, is an area where KPRs and communities can bring true innovation, especially in monitoring and qualitative program evaluation. Good governance of their own community organizations is another essential component of their credibility. Advocacy is a third area that requires special skills, especially in the context of a complex international multistakeholder partnership. To develop and implement effective strategies that attract attention to their cause or to play constructive watchdog functions, KPRs must be able to conduct needs assessments and evaluations of service delivery systems, notably public ones.\r\n\r\nUnderlying those three areas, the importance of information literacy cannot be overstated. To keep learning, KPRs must develop essential skills to navigate their way through a vast and expanding array of information resources (websites, social media channels, mailing lists, databases, etc.). This is critical to building their networks, understanding where their priorities fit in the bigger picture, and keeping a strategic watch over the most relevant developments in their field of interest while avoiding information overload.\r\n\r\nThis may seem like a formidable challenge. The good news is that today\u2019s internet offers cheap and reliable channels to deliver certified courses in multiple languages at no cost to participants, to connect to a global and diverse audience, reaching out to distant individuals at their own pace and offering a space for networking with their peers around the world. Although face to face training will remain indispensable to provide more targeted support, open online courses can offer an extraordinary channel to deliver training to very large groups, to monitor its results and to address concerns over fake, ineffective and costly training. The KPRs\u2019 skills and knowledge gaps, as well as the technology to deliver a program that addresses them, can quite easily be figured out. For the Global Fund and its partners, it is mostly a matter of making this a priority and investing in the design and development of a curriculum for maximum impact, in a coordinated way.\r\n\r\nCommunity leaders and KPRs represent the untapped \u2018human resources\u2019 of current and future public health efforts. By pooling together different capacity building initiatives and internet possibilities, public health training for KPRs is at our grasp. Let\u2019s support their capacity to be heard, if we really hope to win the fight against disease.\r\n\r\nA longer version of this post was published in Aidspan\u2019s Global Fund Observer newsletter Issue 266 28 May 2015 http://tinyurl.com/pd7bhz3  and in R. Bourgoing\u2019s Aid Transparency blog at  http://tinyurl.com/owr4qb2 and it has been used with the authors permission.  H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Rossert is a US-based Global Fund advocate and former Vice Chair of the Global Fund Board. Robert Bourgoing is an aid transparency advocate and trainer, and former Manager of Global Fund Online Communications.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Multi-level Pro-Poor Health Governance, Statistical Information Flows, and the Role of Regional Organisations in South America and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Amaya A;  Kingah S: De Lombaerde, P: PRARI Working Paper 15/1, The Open University-United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies, Milton Keynes, UK 2015","field_url":"http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/prari/files/working_paper_1_en.pdf","body":"In this paper, the authors analyse regional to national-level data flows with the use of two case studies focusing on UNASUR (Bolivia and Paraguay) and SADC (Swaziland and Zambia). Special attention is given to pro-poor health policies, those health policies that contribute to the reduction of poverty and inequities. The results demonstrate that health data is shared at various levels. This takes place to a greater extent at the global-country and regional-country levels, and to a lesser extent at the regional-global levels. There is potential for greater interaction between the global and regional levels, considering the expertise and involvement of UNASUR and SADC in health. Information flows between regional and national bodies are limited and the quality and reliability of this data is constrained by individual Member States\u2019 information systems. Having greater access to better data would greatly support Member States\u2019 focus on addressing the social determinants of health and reducing poverty in their countries. This has important implications not only for countries but to inform regional policy development in other areas. By serving as a foundation for building indicator-based monitoring tools, improving health information systems at both regional and national levels can generate better informed policies that address poverty and access to health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"NHI far from reality but progress made in improving public health","field_subtitle":"Health E-News, 1 June 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nkxn9xj","body":"South Africa's proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme, is many years away, but many of the country\u2019s 10 pilot sites are reported to be making progress. Of the 10 NHI pilot districts Health e-news investigated all \u2013 with the exception of OR Tambo in the Eastern Cape \u2013 are making reasonable progress in improving public health. The pilot districts, covering 20 percent of the population, were set up almost five years previously after Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced the NHI as government policy. Negative patient experiences in public health facilities led government to concentrate on cleaning its own house before attempting any engagement of the NHI with the private sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Online Rational Medicines Use Course Module ","field_subtitle":" Bradley H: Schools of Public Health & Pharmacy, 2015 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/pm22av2","body":"This module is specifically developed to equip healthcare professionals such as pharmacists, doctors and nurses with the necessary skills to improve rational medicines use. It will be of value to members of Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committees, Masters of Public Health students and staff working in pharmacy and health departments in South Africa and other African countries. Additional online modules focusing on Pharmaceutical Public Health will be available in 2016. The module covers rational medicines use and problems associated with irrational medicine use; medicines use problems using several quantitative methods; qualitative methods to investigate prescribing behaviour and medicine use; promotion of rational medicine use including educational, managerial, economic and regulatory interventions; medicines Use evaluation and its application to programmes; essential medicines concept and the development of Standard Treatment Guidelines and Essential Medicines Lists using evidence-based decision making principles; infection control and antimicrobial resistance and pharmacy and therapeutics committees. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"PHM WHO Watch notes of  World Health Assembly May 2015","field_subtitle":"Peoples Health Movement: Global Health Watch, June 2015","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/sites/www.ghwatch.org/files/WHA68Notes,May2014(WHO-Watch).pdf","body":"WHO Watch is an intervention in global health governance. It provides a current account of global policy dynamics in relation to a wide and growing range of health issues. The links enable local activists to keep in touch with the global policy movements which shape the context for such local struggles. They also help to ensure that policy analysis and policy advocacy at the regional and global levels is informed by the reality of grass roots activism, both in health systems and around the conditions which shape health.  This link provides the WHO Watch notes from the World Health Assembly May 19-26 2015. It covers the discussions on 23 major items at the Assembly. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Running ahead: Food security and agricultural development","field_subtitle":"Kamau MN: Pambuzuka News 730, 10 June 2015","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/features/94931","body":"Agriculture has the potential not only to feed all of Africa\u2019s people but also to earn the continent revenues for development. There are numerous practical ways in which this can be achieved. the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) is a programme of African Union, which was endorsed in Maputo in 2003 with the aim of improving and promoting agriculture across Africa calls for  countries to allocate 10% of their national income to agricultural development. Most countries have poor storage facilities and transportation systems which have led to post-harvest losses in both grains and vegetables. Maize has been affected by aflatoxin. There has been persistent price fluctuation of agricultural products which makes it almost impossible to plan for the earnings. The foreign income is minimal since most countries engage in primary exports, where the market is saturated. The author indicates that it is time Africa embraced the concept of value addition, exporting finished products will give an upper hand in the global market. Enhancing tariff barriers will make imports expensive boosting the demand for local products.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Sex and gender matter in health research: addressing health inequities in health research reporting ","field_subtitle":"Gahagan J; Gray K; Whynacht A:  International Journal for Equity in Health 2015, 14(12), 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/14/1/12","body":"Attention to the concepts of \u2018sex\u2019 and \u2018gender\u2019 is increasingly being recognised as contributing to better science through an augmented understanding of how these factors impact on health inequities and related health outcomes. However, the ongoing lack of conceptual clarity in how sex and gender constructs are used in both the design and reporting of health research studies remains problematic. Conceptual clarity among members of the health research community is central to ensuring the appropriate use of these concepts in a manner that can advance understanding of the sex- and gender-based health implications of the research findings. During the past twenty-five years much progress has been made in reducing both sex and gender disparities in clinical research and, to a significant albeit lesser extent, in basic science research. Why, then, does there remain a lack of uptake of sex- and gender-specific reporting of health research findings in many health research journals? This question, the authors argue, has significant health equity implications across all pillars of health research, from biomedical and clinical research, through to health systems and population health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"State of inequality: Reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: Global Health Observatory Data, WHO Geneva, 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/gho/health_equity/report_2015/en/","body":"The report delivers both promising and disappointing messages about the situation in low- and middle-income countries with respect to reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health indicators. Within-country inequalities have narrowed, with a tendency for national improvements driven by faster improvements in disadvantaged subgroups. &#8232;&#8232;However, inequalities still persist in most reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health indicators. The extent of within-country inequality differed by dimension of inequality and by country, country income group and geographical region. The patterns of change in inequality over time varied by health indicator, and according to country and dimension of inequality. The report observes that while national averages and improvements over time are important indications of progress on a global level, reporting inequalities within countries shows how any progress in national averages is realized by population subgroups. Establishing goals and targets that specify a reduction in inequality encourages the orientation of policies, programmes and practices to promote health in disadvantaged subgroups. Without a dedicated focus on equity, efforts to improve health can risk perpetuating or intensifying within-country inequality, even as increases in national coverage are achieved.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Students want HIV testing in schools: a formative evaluation of the acceptability of HIV testing and counselling at schools in Gauteng and North West provinces in South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Madiba S; Mokgatle M: BMC Public Health 15(388), April 2015, doi:10.1186/s12889-015-1746-x ","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/s12889-015-1746-x.pdf","body":"The proposal by the South African Health Ministry to implement HIV testing and counselling (HTC) at schools in 2011 generated debates about the appropriateness of such testing. However, the debate has been between the Ministries of Education and Health, with little considerations of the students. This study assessed the students\u2019 opinions and uptake of HIV testing and counselling in general, and the acceptability of the provision of HIV testing and counselling in schools. A survey was conducted among grade 10\u201312 high school students in North West and Gauteng provinces, South Africa. Seventeen high schools (nine rural and eight urban) were randomly selected for the administration of a researcher-assisted, self-administered, semi-structured questionnaire. A total of 2970 students aged 14\u201327 years participated in the study. Having multiple sexual partners, age, and gender were significantly associated with increased odds of having had a HIV test. Fear, being un-informed about HTC, and low HIV risk perceptions were the reasons for not getting tested. The acceptability of HTC at school was high (n = 2282, 76.9%) and 2129 (71.8%) were willing to be tested at school. Appropriateness, privacy, and secrecy were the main arguments for and against HTC at school. One-third had intentions to disclose their HIV status to students versus 42.5% for teachers. Stigma, discrimination and secrecy were the primary reasons students did not intend to disclose. A high acceptability of HTC and willingness to be tested at school suggest that HIV prevention programs tailored to youth have a high potential of success given the readiness of students to uptake HTC. The authors conclude that bringing HIV testing to the school setting will increase the uptake of HTC among youth and contribute towards efforts to scale up HTC in South Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Surveys of measles vaccination coverage in eastern and southern Africa: a review of quality and methods used","field_subtitle":"Kaiser R; Shibeshi M; Chakauya J; Dzeka E; Masresha B; Daniel F; Shivute N: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 93(5), 285-360, 2015","field_url":"http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/157999/tanzania-to-ban-clerics-ngos-for-political-views","body":"This study assessed the methods used in the evaluation of measles vaccination coverage in 2012/3 in eastern and southern Africa, identified quality concerns and made recommendations for improvement. Of the 13 reports the authors reviewed, there were weaknesses in 10 of them for ethical clearance, 9 for sample size calculation, 6 for sampling methods, 12 for training structures, 13 for supervision structures and 11 for data analysis. The authors recommend improvements in the documentation of routine and supplementary immunisation, via home-based vaccination cards or other records. They recommend that standards be developed for report templates and for the technical review of protocols and reports. This would ensure that the results of vaccination coverage surveys are accurate, comparable, reliable and valuable for programme improvement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The ethics of health systems research: Selected guidelines and studies ","field_subtitle":"Molyneux S; Pratt B; Wassenaar D; Rogers W: Research in Gender and Ethics (RinGs) Building stronger health systems,2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nu7d7jr","body":"There is a growing interest in the ethics of health systems research, and some debate about whether a specific ethical framework or set of guidance is needed. The authors provide a framework to begin to think about this, organised around eight considerations: (1) the nature of intervention; (2) types of research subjects; (3) units of intervention and observation; (4) informed consent; (5) controls and comparisons; (6) risk assessment; (7) inclusion of vulnerable groups within different contexts, and; (8) benefits of research. This is a starting place for researchers interested in health systems research ethics. The authors note several challenges to thinking about the ethics of health systems research, including the diverse range of studies and disciplines involved, the grey zone between research and non-research, and the many overlaps of issues with other types of health research. They call for more conceptual work and empirical research aimed at better understanding this topic. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The health-systems response to violence against women","field_subtitle":"Garc\u00eda-Moreno C; Hegarty K; d\u2019Oliveira A; Koziol-McLain J; Colombini M; Feder G: The Lancet 385(9977), 1567-1579, 2015","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2814%2961837-7/fulltext","body":"Health systems have a crucial role in a multisector response to violence against women. Some countries have guidelines or protocols articulating this role and health-care workers are trained in some settings, but generally system development and implementation have been slow to progress. Substantial system and behavioural barriers exist, especially in low-income and middle-income countries. Violence against women was identified as a health priority in 2013 guidelines published by WHO and the 67th World Health Assembly resolution on strengthening the role of the health system in addressing violence, particularly against women and girls. In this Series paper, we review the evidence for clinical interventions and discuss components of a comprehensive health-system approach that helps health-care providers to identify and support women subjected to intimate partner or sexual violence. Five country case studies show the diversity of contexts and pathways for development of a health system response to violence against women. Although additional research is needed, strengthening of health systems can enable providers to address violence against women, including protocols, capacity building, effective coordination between agencies, and referral networks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) Conference","field_subtitle":"7 \u2013 9 October 2015, Durban, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.phasaconference.org.za/index.html","body":"The 11th Annual Conference of the Public Health Association of South Africa takes place between 7-9 October 2015 in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.  The conference theme is Health and Sustainable Development:  The Future. The 2015 PHASA Conference will be more interactive than previous PHASA conferences. There will be a greater media and social media presence at the 2015 PHASA Conference ensuring that research findings and key issues reach a broader audience. The target audience is policy makers, public health academics and students, health professionals, health service managers and individuals from non-governmental and community-based health organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Tracing shadows: How gendered power relations shape the impacts of maternal death on living children in sub Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Yamin A; Bazile J; Knight L; Molla M; Maistrellis E; Leaning J: Social Science and Medicine 135, 143-150, 2015","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953615002713","body":"A mixed-methods study was conducted in four countries in sub-Saharan Africa to investigate the impacts of maternal death on families and children. The analysis identified gender as a fundamental driver not only of maternal, but also child health, through manifestations of gender inequity in household decision making, labour and caregiving, and social norms dictating the status of women. Focus group discussions were conducted with community members, and in depth qualitative interviews with key-informants and stakeholders, in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Malawi, and South Africa between April 2012 and October 2013. Findings highlighted that socially constructed gender roles, which define mothers as caregivers and fathers as wage earners, and which limit women's agency regarding childcare decisions, among other things, create considerable gaps when it comes to meeting child nutrition, education, and health care needs following a maternal death. Additionally, the findings show that maternal deaths have differential effects on boy and girl children, and exacerbate specific risks for girl children, including early marriage, early pregnancy, and school drop-out. The authors conclude that investment in health services interventions should be complemented by broader interventions regarding social protection, with a shifting of social norms and opportunity structures regarding gendered divisions of labour and power at household, community, and society levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Tracking universal health coverage: First global monitoring report","field_subtitle":"WHO; World Bank: Joint WHO/World Bank Group report, June 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/oq63rzm","body":"Universal health coverage (UHC) means that all people receive the quality, essential health services they need, without being exposed to financial hardship. Moving towards UHC is a dynamic, continuous process that requires changes in response to shifting demographic, epidemiological and technological trends, as well as people\u2019s expectations. But in all cases, countries need to integrate regular monitoring of progress towards targets into their plans. In May 2014, the World Health Organization and the World Bank jointly launched a monitoring framework for UHC, based on broad consultation of experts from around the world. The framework focuses on indicators and targets for service coverage \u2013 including promotion, prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and palliation \u2013 and financial protection for all. This report is the first of its kind to measure health service coverage and financial protection to assess countries\u2019 progress towards universal health coverage. It shows that at least 400 million people do not have access to one or more essential health services and 6% of people in low- and middle-income countries are tipped into or pushed further into extreme poverty because of health spending. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Travel Scholarships for Scientific Conferences","field_subtitle":"Canon Foundation","field_url":"http://www.cfsr.co.uk/what.htm","body":"The Canon Foundation for Scientific Research is seeking applications to provide support for scientists and academics from developing countries in the scientific and engineering fields who would like to attend local or international conferences, symposia and workshops or undertake other postgraduate study. The Foundation welcomes applications from researchers who would like to attend local or international conferences, symposia and workshops or undertake other postgraduate study. In most cases, they will meet all or part of travel, accommodation and registration costs. They also consider offering financial assistance to qualified researchers wishing to further their expertise at an internationally recognised overseas institution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Unpaid Care Work Programme: Uganda Country Progress Report (2012\u20132014)","field_subtitle":"Nesbitt-Ahmed Z; Malinga Apila H: Institute of Development Studies Evidence Report 126, IDS Sussex, 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/np76n28","body":"The Institute of Development Studies (IDS) partnered with ActionAid International (AAI) in Uganda to develop and implement an advocacy strategy to make unpaid care work more visible in public policy, as well as to integrate unpaid care issues into each country\u2019s programming. It used an action learning methodology to look at what works and does not work in making the care economy more visible. It aimed to track and capture changes in policy and practice in order to improve understanding around the uptake of evidence. This report covers the progress of the programme in Uganda over the first two and a half years of the four-year programme. The work identified that making unpaid care work more visible calls for a collective voice amongst those involved and engaging and working effectively with the media with clear messaging.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"What do community health workers have to say about their work, and how can this inform improved programme design? A case study with CHWs within Kenya","field_subtitle":"Oliver M; Geniets A; Winters N; Rega I; Mbae S: Global Health Action 8, May 2015, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/gha.v8.27168","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/27168","body":"Community health workers (CHWs) are often spoken about or for, but there is little evidence of CHWs\u2019 own characterisation of their practice. This paper addresses this issue. A case study approach was undertaken in a series of four steps. Firstly, groups of CHWs from two communities met and reported what their daily work consisted of. Secondly, individual CHWs were interviewed so that they could provide fuller, more detailed accounts of their work and experiences; in addition, community health extension workers and community health committee members were interviewed, to provide alternative perspectives. Thirdly, notes and observations were taken in community meetings and monthly meetings. The data were then analysed thematically, creating an account of how CHWs describe their own work, and the tensions and challenges that they face. CHWs\u2019 accounts of both successes and challenges involved material elements: leaky tins and dishracks evidenced successful health interventions, whilst bicycles, empty first aid kits and recruiting stretcher bearers evidenced the difficulties of resourcing and geography they are required to overcome.  CHWs described their work was as healthcare generalists, working to serve their community and to integrate it with the official health system. Their work involves referrals, monitoring, reporting and educational interactions. Whilst they face problems with resources and training, their accounts show that they respond to this in creative ways, working within established systems of community power and formal authority to achieve their goals, rather than falling into a \u2018deficit\u2019 position that requires remedial external intervention. Their work is widely appreciated, although some households do resist their interventions, and figures of authority sometimes question their manner and expertise. The material challenges that they face have both practical and community aspects, since coping with scarcity brings community members together. The authors suggest that programmes co-designed with CHWs will be easier to implement because of their relevance to their practices and experiences, whereas those that seek to use CHWs as an instrument to implement external priorities are likely to disrupt their work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"2015 Drivers of Change Awards Nominations Now Open","field_subtitle":"Closing date for nominations: 31 July 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/pz23r5u","body":"The 24th African Union Summit declared 2015 as \u201cThe Year of Women's Empowerment and Development towards Africa\u2019s Agenda 2063.\u201d To embrace this, the 2015 Drivers of Change Awards will recognise people driving change in women empowerment and development, gender equity, the promotion of equality and rights for women and girls. Nominations for the 2015 Drivers of Change Awards are now open!&#8232;&#8232; The website allows people to nominate individuals, businesses, civil society organisations and governments that are making a real impact in changing the lives of women and girls in southern Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"3rd International Association of Social Sciences and Humanities in HIV (ASSHH) Conference, Stellenbosch, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Closing date for pre-conference registration: 19 June 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.asshhconference.org","body":"The 3rd Conference of the Association for the Social Sciences and Humanities in HIV (ASSHH) will be held in South Africa. The goal is to ask the kinds of critical questions it is sometimes difficult to pose in other settings, and to contribute to new and creative ways of thinking about the HIV epidemic. The conference will critically examine the growing gap between rhetoric and reality in the national and international HIV response and will provide opportunities for wide-ranging discussion and debate on the following themes: (Re)-writing the history of AIDS: whose facts, whose visions, whose stories?, An \u2018epidemic of signification - cultural and media representations 30 years on, in the era of PrEP and \u2018universal\u2019 access, Sexual orientation and gender identity - a new or enduring battleground?, The politics of 'practice': research and practitioner perspectives on intervention and programme development, Power, politics and resistance: the demise of agency in the face of constraint, Positive nostalgia(s) and the international HIV response and Renewing social sciences and humanities research. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"9th Action Learning, Action Research (ALARA) and 13th Participatory Action Research World Congress ","field_subtitle":"4-7 November 2015, Pretoria, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.alarassociation.org/pages/events/alara-world-congress-2015","body":"This World Congress is a challenge to Action Learning / Action Research practitioners to explain how they are contributing to the creation of a fairer world. The ALARA World Congress 2015 will create a space for dialogue over questions such as: How do we know we are asking the right questions to promote sustainable learning? How do we capacitate people to address the intricate interplay of social, economic, political and cultural factors that combine to preserve injustice? How do we ensure authentic collaboration between stakeholders across all levels? How do we use AL/AR to forge innovative, sustainable responses to contemporary complex challenges? How do we know we are successful in mediating sustainable change? Delegates from developing countries should register before 28 July 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A luta continua","field_subtitle":"Film by Medicusmundi and Kanaki Films on Mozambiques efforts to build its public health system","field_url":"http://www.medicusmundi.cat/en/a-luta-continua","body":"Since achieving independence in 1975, Mozambique is a country in constant change. In this context, governments, foundations, NGOs and companies declare noble intentions in order to improve the precarious health situation of the population. \"A Luta Continua\" (\"The Struggle Continues\") is a film that reviews the achievements, challenges and difficulties in order to build a health system for all in an increasingly unequal country where, sometimes, aid strategies do not always walk in the same direction.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Assisted dying: Avron Moss \u2013 another casualty of legal uncertainty","field_subtitle":"Thamm M: Daily Maverick, 10 March 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/osjrywb","body":"In January 2015, a few days before he would feature as Applicant No 1 in a groundbreaking High Court application for the right to an assisted death, Avron Moss ended his life using medication he had smuggled into South Africa from Mexico. Diagnosed with melanoma, Moss knew when he offered to act as the applicant that it would be a race against time. This article discusses the history and legal and social implications of assisted dying for the terminally ill in South Africa.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Balancing the personal, local, institutional, and global: multiple case study and multidimensional scaling analysis of African experiences in addressing complexity and political economy in health research capacity strengthening","field_subtitle":"Ager A; Zarowsky C: Health Research Policy and Systems 13(5), 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/13/1/5","body":"Strengthening health research capacity in low- and middle-income countries remains a major policy goal. The Health Research Capacity Strengthening (HRCS) Global Learning (HGL) program of work documented experiences of HRCS across sub-Saharan Africa. The authors reviewed findings from HGL case studies and reflective papers regarding the dynamics of HRCS. Analysis was structured with respect to common challenges in such work, identified through a multi-dimensional scaling analysis of responses from 37 participants at the concluding symposium of the program of work. Symposium participants identified 10 distinct clusters of challenges: engaging researchers, policymakers, and donors; securing trust and cooperation; finding common interest; securing long-term funding; establishing sustainable models of capacity strengthening; ensuring Southern ownership; accommodating local health system priorities and constraints; addressing disincentives for academic engagement; establishing and retaining research teams; and sustaining mentorship and institutional support. Analysis links these challenges to three key and potentially competing drivers of the political economy of health research: an enduring model of independent researchers and research leaders, the globalisation of knowledge and the linked mobility of (elite) individuals, and institutionalisation of research within universities and research centres and, increasingly, national research and development agendas. The authors identify tensions between efforts to embrace the global \u2018Community of Science\u2019 and the promotion and protection of national and institutional agendas in an unequal global health research environment. A nuanced understanding of the dynamics and implications of the uneven global health research landscape is required, along with a willingness to explore pragmatic models that seek to balance these competing drivers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for submissions \u2013 Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 26 June 2015","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/call-submissions-emerging-public-health-practitioner-award","body":"The South African Health Review Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award is offered to South African candidates under the age of 35 to submit a chapter dealing with public health or policy in South Africa for publication in the South African Health Review. Click on link for further details.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Case Study Brief: Health centre committee involvement in local government planning for health in Zambia","field_subtitle":"LDHMT; TARSC: EQUINET brief, 2015","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/HCC%20Zambia%20Brief%20March2015.pdf","body":"Neighbourhood Health Committees (NHCs) have been set up in all ten provinces in Zambia and district community health offices. Their role is being strengthened across the country, and there are many examples of efforts that have been made to promote their participation in planning, budgeting and health actions. This brief outlines these initiatives and the lessons from the work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Citizen Participation and Accountability for Sustainable Development","field_subtitle":"Shahrokh T; Franco LE; Burns D: Institute of Development Studies Rapid Response Briefing 10, 2015","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/publication/citizen-participation-and-accountability-for-sustainable-development","body":"Meaningful accountability can shift power imbalances that prevent sustainable development for people living in poverty and marginalisation. Accountability consists of both the rights of citizens to make claims and demand a response, and the involvement of citizens in ensuring that related action is taken. However, for the poorest and most marginalised people accountability is often unattainable. They face multiple barriers in influencing social, political and economic decision-making processes and accessing the services they are entitled to. This briefing draws on research by the Participate initiative to highlight the key components necessary for processes of accountability to be meaningful for all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society defines the changes that must happen for delivery on UHC","field_subtitle":"Itai Rusike, Executive Director-Community Working Group on Health, Zimbabwe  ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe way a healthcare system is designed, financed and performs has consequences for inequality. User fees, for example, prevent people from accessing healthcare and push over 100 million people each year into poverty.  The 2001 Abuja Declaration committing at least 15% of their budgets to health was signed by African governments with a goal that every member of society have access to healthcare when they need it, without risk of financial ruin. Thirteen years later, less than ten countries in the Africa region have increased their national or provincial budget to at least 15%, as stipulated in the declaration. Less than 10% of African people are reported to be protected from financial risks associated with using health care, even though health care plays an important role in the still unfinished business of achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Unless health budgets are adequate to meet priority health needs, inequalities in access to health services will remain high and these goals will not be achieved for all. \r\n\r\nThe concept of universal health coverage (UHC) offers an opportunity to address these challenges.  UHC is seen as a means to deliver on the principle of Health for All that was set out more than 30 years ago in the Alma-Ata declaration. In 2005, there were calls to revitalize primary health care (PHC). The principle of universal coverage was reaffirmed in the 2008 world health report on PHC and various subsequent World Health Assembly resolutions.  In May 2012 in the World Health Assembly, WHO Director General Margaret Chan\u2019s asserted that UHC is \u201cthe single most powerful concept that public health has to offer\u201d to reduce the financial impoverishment caused by people spending on health care and to increase access to key health services. In December of that year, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on UHC, urging governments to move towards providing all people with access to affordable, quality health-care services, given the important role that health care plays in achieving international development goals.\r\n\r\nAchieving these goals is, however, first and foremost a political process. It involves a political negotiation between different interest groups in society over what services are provided, how services are allocated and who should fund them. \r\n\r\nOn this understanding civil society organisations have come together to form a network - the African Platform for Universal Health Coverage (AFP- UHC) - to remind African leaders of their duty to shape health policies so that everyone can enjoy their right to health. Civil society organisations have already contributed to increased community roles in decision-making in health; have acted as watchdogs of service delivery and demanded accountability on policy commitments. Civil society has represented and defended the rights of poor and vulnerable people. In doing so they are vital for building more equitable health systems. The organisations involved bring existing civil society organisations together in national coalitions, engaging the public and governments through a variety of tools, including stakeholder engagement, policy briefs, strategic meetings and press briefings. Member organisations have held radio talk shows in Ethiopia, workshops in Egypt, public marches in Ghana, meetings targeted at policy makers in Kenya, campaigns challenging inequalities and user fees in Malawi, television programmes and lobbying of the Prime Minister in Mali, a public march in Kampala and a UHC Day commemoration in Zimbabwe. \r\n\r\nThe AFP-UHC thus brings civil society organisations together to contribute to, support and implement policies promoting UHC, on the basis that health is a human right.  The organisations seek to bring UHC to the political agenda of African countries. The network thus seeks to support national non state organisations to advocate that UHC be achieved through people-centered, right based approaches, in a manner that guarantees people\u2019s right to health services. The network measures its value by the extent to which it is able advocate for and achieve an increase in public sector health budgets and in the political commitment towards health. These changes are seen as key to improving the lives and wellbeing of the most vulnerable people in the society, whose rights to health are usually infringed though their sustained neglect by governments.\r\n\r\nThe network expects to see governments abolish user fees, raise and spend budgets for health more equitably, increase public sector health financing, ensure that UHC is included in global and national goals post 2015 and that governments set targets and deliver on those goals. \r\n\r\nThe author is the Zimbabwe coordinator of the African Platform for Universal Health Coverage (AFP- UHC), a network of African non government organisations with a long experience working together to demand a set of measures from governments to move towards Universal Health Coverage.  Further information on the network can be found at http://www.africaforuhc.org/. Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Conflicts of interest and global health and nutrition governance - The illusion of robust principles","field_subtitle":"Richter J: BMJ, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g5457, 2015","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g5457/rr","body":"This is a response to a BMJ paper 'Do the solutions for global health lie in healthcare?' where in the run-up to the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), the author warned against downplaying the fundamental differences between the commercial interests of multinational food companies and those of public sector agencies. If public health officials do not acknowledge the divergent interests, he suggested, they risk harming their public health mission, institutional integrity and ultimately public trust. In the response, the author suggests that the current discourse ignores the problem of involving food transnational corporations in public decision-making processes, acceptance of funds and resources in the name of partnership or stakeholder engagement. The trend to increase such engagement reduces and almost eliminates public policy spaces without corporations. The author argues that that robust, comprehensive conflict of interest safeguards do not exist with respect to global food and nutrition governance. This obscures the fact that conflicts of interest are an important legal concept and that establishing conflict of interest policies are an integral part of UN agencies\u2019 duty to establish the Rule of Law.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Contributions of global health diplomacy to equitable health systems in east and southern Africa, Report of a Regional Research Workshop, 13-14 March 2015, Johannesburg South Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET; TARSC; CPTL: 2015","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Regional%20GHD%20meeting%20report%20March2015.pdf","body":"This report presents the proceedings of a meeting held on March 13 and 14 a regional meeting was convened with objectives to i. Present and discuss the findings from the EQUINET research programme and from related research in Africa, and the implications for policy, negotiations and programmes in east and southern Africa; ii. Review methods and challenges for implementing research and analysis on global health diplomacy for policy relevance, from review of research and experience of the work; iii. Discuss and propose areas for follow up policy, action and research, within ESA and through south-south collaboration. It included senior officials involved in health from national and regional organisations, health diplomats, researchers from the EQUINET work and others working on health diplomacy and on south-south co-operation in the region and internationally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Defend the World Health Organization from corporate takeover","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement, 18 May 2015","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/node/9980","body":"Ahead of the first meeting of the drafting group on Framework for Engagement with Non \u2013 State Actors (FENSA), Civil Society Organisations and Social Movements expressed their deep concern on perceived attempts to facilitate a corporate takeover of WHO. The joint statement signed by over 40 organisations called on WHO member states to take such time as is necessary to achieve a robust framework for engagement with non-state actors, to protect the WHO from undue influence. Further, the statement also called on member states to support the director general's proposals to increase the assessed contributions. The framework was initiated to safeguard the independence, integrity and credibility of WHO, but the organisations have a strong apprehension that the negotiations on FENSA may fundamentally alter the influence of the private sector and philanthropic foundations and NGOS sponsored by the private sector in a manner that compromises the credibility of WHO.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Determinants of access to healthcare by older persons in Uganda: a cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Wandera SO;  Kwagala B; Ntozi J: International Journal for Equity in Health, 14(26), 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/14/1/26","body":"Older persons report poor health status and greater need for healthcare. However, there is limited research on older persons\u2019 healthcare disparities in Uganda. This paper reports on factors associated with older persons\u2019 healthcare access in Uganda, using a nationally representative sample. The authors conducted secondary analysis of data from a sample of 1602 older persons who reported being sick in the last 30 days preceding the Uganda National Household Survey. They used frequency distributions for descriptive data analysis and chi-square tests to identify initial associations and fit generalised linear models (GLM) with the poisson family and the log link function, to obtain incidence risk ratios (RR) of accessing healthcare in the last 30 days, by older persons in Uganda. More than three quarters (76%) of the older persons accessed healthcare in the last 30 days. Access to healthcare in the last 30 days was reduced for older persons from poor households; and with some or with a lot of walking difficulty. Conversely, accessing healthcare in the last 30 days for older persons increased for those who earned wages and missed work due to illness for 1\u20137 and 8\u201314 days. In addition, those who reported non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as heart disease, hypertension or diabetes were more likely to access healthcare during the last 30 days. In the Ugandan context, health need factors (self-reported NCDs, severity of illness and mobility limitations) and enabling factors (household wealth status and earning wages in particular) were the most important determinants of accessing healthcare in the last 30 days among older persons.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 172: Civil society defines the changes that must happen for delivery on UHC","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evidence for Informing Health Policy Development in Low- Income Countries (LICS): Perspectives of Policy Actors in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Nabyonga-Orem J; Mijumbi R: International Journal of Health Policy and Management 4(5), 285-293, 2015","field_url":"http://www.ijhpm.com/article_2984_0.html","body":"Although there is a general agreement on the benefits of evidence informed health policy development given resource constraints especially in Low-Income Countries (LICs), the definition of what evidence is, and what evidence is suitable to guide decision-making is still unclear. The authors\u2019 explored health policy actors\u2019 views regarding what evidence they deemed appropriate to guide health policy development, with 51 key informants interviewed. Different stakeholders lay emphasis on different kinds of evidence. While external funders preferred international evidence and Ministry of  Health officials looked to local evidence, district health managers preferred local evidence, evidence from routine monitoring and evaluation and reports from service providers. Service providers on the other hand preferred local evidence and routine monitoring and evaluation reports whilst researchers preferred systematic reviews and clinical trials. Although policy actors look for factual information, they also require evidence on context and implementation feasibility of a policy decision.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Framework of engagement with non-State actors","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: Draft Resolution Sixty-eighth World Health Assembly A68/A/CONF./X Agenda item 11.2, May 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/pxr5wba","body":"This resolution presents a Framework of Engagement with non-State actors to replace the Principles governing relations between the World Health Organization and nongovernmental organizations and Guidelines on interaction with commercial enterprises to achieve health outcomes;(1) to implement the Framework of Engagement with non-State actors; (2) to establish the register of non-State actors in time for the Sixty-ninth World Health Assembly; (3) to report on the implementation of the Framework of Engagement with non-State actors to the Executive Board at each of its January sessions under a standing agenda item, through the\r\nProgramme Budget and Administration Committee; (4) to conduct in 2018 an evaluation of the implementation of the Framework of Engagement\r\nwith non-State actors and its impact on the work of WHO with a view to submitting the results, together with any proposals for revisions of the Framework, to the Executive Board in January 2019,through the Programme Budget and Administration Committee.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender-responsive HIV programming for women and girls","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: UNAIDS Geneva 2014","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/documents/2014/genderresponsiveHIVprogramming","body":"This document guides countries on how to include a gender perspective and promote equality and human rights for women and girls in their national HIV responses, drawing upon the latest technical developments, guidelines and investment approaches. This is relevant as women and girls continue to be profoundly affected by HIV. The brief seeks to support a gender-responsive HIV response, as a first step towards the application of key tools and resources that help integrate gender considerations into concept notes, proposals, and national strategic plans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Global evidence on inequities in rural health protection","field_subtitle":"Scheil-Adlung X; ILO: ILO ESS Paper Series, 2015","field_url":"http://www.social-protection.org/gimi/gess/RessourcePDF.action?ressource.ressourceId=51297","body":"This paper presents global estimates on rural/urban disparities in access to health-care services. The report uses proxy indicators to assess key dimensions of coverage and access involving the core principles of universality and equity. Based on the results of the estimates, policy options are discussed to close the gaps in a multi-sectoral approach addressing issues and their root causes both within and beyond the health sector.  The paper presents global evidence that suggests significant differences between rural and urban populations in health coverage\r\nand access at global, regional and national levels. Based on the evidence provided, place of residence largely determines coverage and access to health care in all regions and within all countries. . Efficient and effective multisectoral policies to address the root causes of rural inequities should consider the specific living and working characteristics of rural populations. The authors argue that if not addressed, the rural/urban disparities identified in access to health care carry the potential to considerably hamper overall socio-economic development in many developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health security: the wider lessons from the west African Ebola virus disease epidemic","field_subtitle":"Heymann D et al: The Lancet 385 (9980),1884\u20131901, 2015","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)60858-3/fulltext","body":"The Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa was unprecedented in both its scale and impact. Out of this human calamity has come renewed attention to global health security\u2014its definition, meaning, and the practical implications for programmes and policy. For example, how does a government begin to strengthen its core public health capacities, as demanded by the International Health Regulations? What counts as a global health security concern? In the context of the governance of global health, including World Health Organization reform, it will be important to distil lessons learned from the Ebola outbreak. Prof. Heymann led a group of respected global health practitioners to reflect on these lessons, to explore the idea of global health security, and to offer suggestions for the next steps. The paper describes some of the major threats to individual and collective human health, as well as the values and recommendations that should be considered to counteract such threats in the future. Many different perspectives are proposed but their common goal is a more sustainable and resilient society for human health and wellbeing. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health workers\u2019 experiences, barriers, preferences and motivating factors in using mHealth forms in Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Medhanyie AA, Little Am Yebyo H, Spigt M, Tadesse K, Blanco R, Dinant GJ: Human Resources for Health 13(2), 2015","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/13/1/2","body":"Mobile health (mHealth) applications, such as innovative electronic forms on smartphones, could potentially improve the performance of health care workers and health systems in developing countries. A pretested semistructured questionnaire was used to assess health workers\u2019 experiences, barriers, preferences, and motivating factors in using mobile health forms on smartphones in the context of maternal health care in Ethiopia. Twenty-five health extension workers (HEWs) and midwives, working in 13 primary health care facilities in Tigray region, Ethiopia, participated in this study. Sixteen (69.6%) workers believed the forms were good reminders on what to do and what questions needed to be asked. Twelve (52.2%) workers said electronic forms were comprehensive and 9 (39.1%) workers saw electronic forms as learning tools. All workers preferred unrestricted use of the smartphones and believed it helped them adapt to the smartphones and electronic forms for work purposes. Identified barriers for not using electronic forms consistently included challenges related to electronic forms and smartphones and health system issues such as frequent movement of health workers. Both HEWs and midwives found the electronic forms on smartphones useful for their day-to-day maternal health care services delivery. However, tyhe authors found that sustainable use and implementation of such work tools at scale would be daunting without providing technical support to health workers, securing mobile network airtime and improving key functions of the larger health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Innocent lives lost and saved: the importance of blood transfusion for children in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Dzik WH: BMC Medicine 13(22), 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/13/22","body":"Severe anemia in children is a leading indication for blood transfusion worldwide. Severe anemia, defined by the World Health Organization as a hemoglobin level&#8201;","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Innovations for health: Use of appropriate technologies in Primary Health Care in Zimbabwe - Report of an assessment","field_subtitle":"Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC); CBRT: TARSC, Harare, 2015","field_url":"http://www.tarsc.org/publications/documents/AppTech%20PHC%20Zim%20rep%20April2015.pdf","body":"Zimbabwe has had a notable record of innovation and use of appropriate technologies in primary health care (PHC), particularly in environmental health. These technologies are generally defined as small-scale, decentralized, people centred, labour-intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally sound, and locally controlled. This pilot assessment aimed to explore and map specific appropriate technology innovations being developed and used at community level for health in rural and urban districts of Zimbabwe. The assessment looked at the technologies, their materials, purpose and use and related issues around their development and use,  with the evidence gathered by community based researchers within three main themes (i) food safety and nutrition, (ii) water, sanitation, waste management and housing and (iii) prevention and control of diseases. The results are presented in tables, with pictures of the technologies. While noting the limited size of the sample, the results suggest the wealth of innovations and appropriate technologies that exist, and the possibilities that may be found from a more systematic and wider assessment. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"It is time to focus on the real drivers of malaria","field_subtitle":"Tarlton D: UNDP Blog, April 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/blog/2015/4/24/It-is-time-to-focus-on-the-real-drivers-of-malaria/","body":"The author argues that eliminating malaria seems like a straightforward issue. Decades of malaria control efforts show there is more to the story. Much of the vulnerability to malaria, it turns out, is determined by human actions. The conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age define to a great extent who is vulnerable to malaria and who is not. Malaria is both a result and a cause of a lack of development. The author asserts that we know that it is those countries with the lowest levels of human development that are most affected by malaria. And within populations, those living in the poorest circumstances also suffer disproportionately. This year 2015 is argued to mark a turning point in the world\u2019s response to malaria with adoption of the new global framework Action and Investment to defeat Malaria (2016-2030) that places the management of the disease as a development issue. Under this plan, countries will for the first time report their progress on incorporating non-health sector interventions into their malaria control efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Keep a Strong FENSA: Safeguard WHO's Independence From Private Interests","field_subtitle":"Gopa Kumar KM; Kishore S; Reed T; Kiddell-Monroe R: Huffington Post Blog, 21 May 2015","field_url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kavitha-kolappa-md-mph/fensa_b_7381712.html","body":"The authors write from the 68th World Health Assembly, where a drafting group of Member States are discussing the Framework of Engagement With Non-State Actors (FENSA). This process aims to determine the rules of engagement between WHO and non-State actors (NSAs), a moniker encompassing academia, nongovernmental organizations, philanthropic foundations, and the private sector. Many from civil society view this process as a way of safeguarding WHO's independence from private interests. The authors outline the fault lines in the proposals of contentious issues. During the open-ended process, India supported including language in paragraph 44 that named specific industries WHO should exercise caution in engaging with, such as the food, beverage, alcohol, and infant formula industries. India further proposed, \"WHO's engagement will be strictly limited to assisting such industries to comply with WHO's norms and standards or guideline or policy.\" On behalf of the African group, Zimbabwe asserted that the \"framework should explicitly list the types of industries that WHO will deal cautiously with and the reasons for the cautious engagement,\" also naming alcohol, food, and beverage. Greece argued, \"strict rules should govern its [WHO] engagement with the pharmaceutical industries.\" Finland recommended a \"high level of restriction\" for engagement with industries that have \"clear interests in health policies,\" referencing non-communicable disease control. Yet these calls were rejected by Canada, Denmark, Norway, and the United States. U.S. sought to eliminate the line concerning \"other industries affecting human health\" altogether. Other issues up for debate have been secondments from the private sector, as well as restrictions and/or ceilings on financial contributions from non state actors. The authors urged member states to ensure that FENSA creates a strong enough \"fence\" to safeguard public health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Management of severe paediatric malaria in resource-limited settings","field_subtitle":"Maitland K: BMC Medicine 13(42), 2015","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/13/42","body":"Over 90% of the world\u2019s severe and fatal Plasmodium falciparum malaria is estimated to affect young children in sub-Sahara Africa, where it remains a common cause of hospital admission and inpatient mortality. Few children will ever be managed on high dependency or intensive care units and, therefore, rely on simple supportive treatments and parenteral anti-malarials. There has been some progress on defining best practice for antimalarial treatment with the AQUAMAT trial in 2010 showing that in artesunate-treated children, the relative risk of death was 22.5% lower than in those receiving quinine. This review highlights the spectrum of complications in African children with severe malaria, the therapeutic challenges of managing these in resource-poor settings and examines in-depth the results from clinical trials with a view to identifying the treatment priorities and a future research agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Materials for Facilitators Series on Health Budgets and Monitoring Budget Implementation ","field_subtitle":"International Budget Partnership, USA","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nfo6vud","body":"These materials are aimed at trainers and facilitators conducting workshops for people interested in using budgets as a tool to enhance advocacy and research. The series\u2019 provide guidance on how to run workshops on budget-related topics as well as relevant materials and tasks for the workshop. IBP uses an adult education approach in participatory workshops and rely on good preparation by the facilitator and strong interaction and reflection by participants. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Medicines Utilisation Research in Africa: Botswana Workshop and Symposium","field_subtitle":"27 - 29 July 2015, University of Botswana","field_url":"http://muria.nmmu.ac.za/Botswana-Workshop-and-Symposium-27-29-July-2015","body":"The workshop and symposium are intended to develop and progress medicines utilization research in Africa. The workshop will cater for all personnel including those just starting research in this area and those already undertaking medicine utilization research. This will be achieved through two workshop streams (parallel sessions) and a one day symposium for researchers to present their projects and findings. Topics will depend on the content of the submitted abstracts. There will be both oral and poster presentations. Particular consideration will be given to abstracts describing current drug utilisation research and activities with ARVs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Multisectoral Action Framework for Malaria","field_subtitle":"Roll Back Malaria Partnership; UNDP: UNDP New York, 2015","field_url":"http://www.rollbackmalaria.org/files/files/about/MultisectoralApproach/Multisectoral-Action-Framework-for-Malaria.pdf","body":"This Multisectoral Action Framework for Malaria makes a clear case for re-structuring the way countries address malaria. It presents a menu of concrete, implementable processes and actions to transform malaria\r\nresponses\u2014from being a concern of the health sector only, towards a coordinated multi-pronged effort that harnesses expertise across a range of sectors and institutions. The Framework calls for action at several levels and in multiple sectors, globally and across inter- and\r\nintra-national boundaries, and by different organizations. It emphasizes complementarity, effectiveness and sustainability, and capitalizes on the potential synergies to accelerate both socio-economic development and malaria control. It involves new interventions as well as putting new life into those that already exist, and coordinates and manages these in new and innovative ways. It is a guide for policymakers and practitioners and a stimulus for innovation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"New evidence: tax financing for UHC","field_subtitle":"Mohga Kamal-Yanni: Oxfam Global Health Check, May 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/?utm_source=Global%20Health%20Check&utm_campaign=2ea32101e4-Global%20Health%20Check%20email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_89f8d74097-2ea32101e4-12084821","body":"The Ebola crisis exposed the weaknesses of healthcare systems in low- and middle-income countries created mainly by insufficient funding. Given the global community\u2019s commitment to universal health coverage (UHC), the Ebola outbreak has prompted serious reflection among health policy decision-makers. One of the central features of this debate is financing: how can relatively poor countries find the money to pay for universal health coverage? To date, low- and middle-income countries have been growing toward UHC through social health insurance systems funded through employment. Yet, progress has been slow and uneven leaving people in the informal sector, who are the majority of the population, out was insurance schemes. Rather than seeking innovative solutions to this old problem, this blog outlines how Aaron Reeves argues that what is needed is a renewed commitment to an old solution: tax-based financing. Using data from low- and middle-income countries my colleagues and I examined the association between tax revenues and health spending. We found that tax revenue was a major statistical determinant of progress towards UHC. Each $10 per-capita increase in tax revenue was associated with an additional $1 of public health spending per capita. Whereas each $10 increase in GDP per capita was associated with an increase of $0.10. Crucially, tax revenues sit on the pathway between economic growth and health spending. In short, tax financing is an efficient way of translating economic growth into health spending. Countries with more tax revenues have also made more progress on other indicators of UHC, even after adjusting for economic activity in the country. Among tax poor countries, greater tax revenues are associated with more women being attended by a skilled healthcare worker during pregnancy and greater access to healthcare for all people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Online directory about NGOs and other development organisations in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Prodder: SANGONeT NGO Pulse Portal ","field_url":"http://www.searo.who.int/entity/healthpromotion/documents/hl_tookit/en/","body":"Information and knowledge have become critical determinants of development and the driving forces behind economic progress in today's competitive world. Access to credible information is a strategic prerequisite for the success of development projects and processes. It empowers decision-making and enables action across a wide range of development issues.  This directory highlights the activities of organisations involved in development work in South Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Perinatal deaths in South Africa, 2011-2013","field_subtitle":"Statistics South Africa, April 2015","field_url":"http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P03094/P030942013.pdf","body":"Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) has published statistics on perinatal deaths based on administrative records captured on death notification forms collected from the South African civil registration system maintained by the Department of Home Affairs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in rural Uganda: Modelling effectiveness and impact of scaling-up PMTCT services","field_subtitle":"Woodward D: Glob Health Action 2015, 8 (26308), 2015","field_url":"http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/gha.v8.26308","body":"The reported coverage of any antiretroviral (ARV) prophylaxis for prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) has increased in sub-Saharan Africa in recent years, but was still only 60% in 2010, and this may be an overestimation as it does not measure completion. The PMTCT programme is complex as it builds on a cascade of sequential interventions that should take place to reduce mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV: starting with antenatal care, HIV testing, and ARVs for the woman and the baby. This study was based on a population-based cohort of pregnant women recruited in the Iganga-Mayuge Health and Demographic Surveillance Site in rural Uganda 2008\u20132010. Using modelling, it was estimated that HIV infections in children could be reduced by 28% by increasing HIV testing capacity at health facilities to ensure 100% testing among women seeking ANC. Providing ART to all women who received ARV prophylaxis would give an 18% MTCT reduction. The results highlight the urgency in scaling-up universal access to HIV testing at all ANC facilities, and the potential gains of early enrolment of all pregnant women on antiretroviral treatment for PMTCT. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) Conference","field_subtitle":"7-9 October 2015, Southern Sun Elangeni, Durban, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.phasaconference.org.za","body":"The 11th Annual Conference of the Public Health Association of South Africa takes place between 7-9 October 2015 in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. With 2015 being the target date for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, the conference will provide an opportunity to reflect on the challenges faced by South Africa and Africa in trying to achieve the MDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Radical changes in medical education needed globally","field_subtitle":"Ebrahim S, Squires N, di Fabio J, Reed G, Bourne P, Keck W, Neusy AJ, Chalkidou K: The Lancet 3(3), 2015","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(15)70013-6/abstract","body":"New medical schools in Africa have developed curricula that include community and rural health components, long-term family attachments, and admission processes that are more equitable for disadvantaged students. These worthwhile innovations have been incorporated in previous reforms of medical education, but the authors ask in this paper if they are sufficient to meet the challenges of achieving universal health care. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Rural Doctors Association of South Africa (RuDASA)","field_subtitle":"23-26 September 2015, Mpumalanga, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.rudasa.org.za/","body":"An annual RuDASA conference has been organised almost every year since 1996, and attracts a range of rural health professionals from all over the country. The conference is a much-anticipated, vibrant forum which combines a mixture of sessions ranging from clinical skills updates for and by a wide range of health professionals to emotive discussions and workshops on issues such as justice and equity. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Screening for tuberculosis and testing for human immunodeficiency virus in Zambian prisons","field_subtitle":"Maggard KR, Hatwiinda S, Harris JB, Phiri W, Kr\u00fc\u00fcner A, Kaunda K, Topp SM, Kapata N, Ayles H, Chileshe C, Henostroza G, Reid SE: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 93(2) 65-132, 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/2/14-135285/en/","body":"This study aimed to improve the Zambia Prisons Service\u2019s implementation of tuberculosis screening and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing. For both tuberculosis and HIV, the authors implemented mass screening of inmates and community-based screening of those residing in encampments adjacent to prisons. They also established routine systems \u2013 with inmates as peer educators \u2013 for the screening of newly entered or symptomatic inmates. We improved infection control measures, increased diagnostic capacity and promoted awareness of tuberculosis in Zambia\u2019s prisons. In a period of 9 months, the authors screened 7638 individuals and diagnosed 409 new patients with tuberculosis. They tested 4879 individuals for HIV and diagnosed 564 cases of infection. An additional 625 individuals had previously been found to be HIV-positive. Including those already on tuberculosis treatment at the time of screening, the prevalence of tuberculosis recorded in the prisons and adjacent encampments was 18 times the national prevalence estimate of 0.35%. Overall, 22.9% of the inmates and 13.8% of the encampment residents were HIV-positive. Both tuberculosis and HIV infection are common within Zambian prisons. The authors enhanced tuberculosis screening and improved the detection of tuberculosis and HIV in this setting. These observations should be useful in the development of prison-based programmes for tuberculosis and HIV elsewhere.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Social determinants of malaria and health care seeking patterns among rice farming and pastoral communities in Kilosa District in central Tanzania ","field_subtitle":"Shayoa EH: Rumishaa SF; Mlozib M; Bwanac VM; Mayalaa BK; Malimac RC; Mlachaa T; Mboera L: Acta Tropica 144: 41-9, 2015","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25596436","body":"This study was carried out to understand the role social determinants and health seeking behavior among rice farming and pastoral communities in Kilosa District in central Tanzania. The study involved four villages; two with rice farming communities while the other two with pastoral communities. In each village, heads of households or their spouses were interviewed to seek information on livelihoods activities, knowledge and practices on malaria and its preventions. A total of 471 individuals were interviewed. Only 23.5% of the respondents had adequate knowledge on malaria. Fifty-six percent of the respondents could not associate any livelihood activity with malaria transmission. Majority (79%) of the respondents believed that most of fevers were due to malaria; this was higher among the pastoral (81.7%) than rice farming communities (76.1%). Cases of fever were significantly higher in households with non-educated than educated respondents. Women experienced significantly more episodes of fever than men. Fever was reported more frequently among pastoral than rice farming communities.  Treatment seeking frequency differed by the size of the household and between rice farming and pastoral communities. In conclusion, education, sex, availability of health care facility and livelihood practices were the major social determinants that influence malaria acquisition and care seeking pattern in central Tanzania. The authors argue for an ecohealth approach to address the links of livelihoods and malaria transmission among rural farming communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Determinants of Migrant Health","field_subtitle":"Lefkowitz B; Cacari-Stone L: The Conference on Social Determinants of Migrant Health, October 2014","field_url":"http://cultureofhealthequity.org/our-work/social-determinants-of-migrant-health/","body":"This conference reports on work on the integration of social determinants of health \u2013 socioeconomic and structural factors \u2013 into immigrant health research and policy. A cross-national framework was used to consider issues of place, migration and health. In addition to public health, it drew upon the fields of economics, sociology of immigration, and social epidemiology, and incorporated three theoretical frameworks: the life-course framework from social epidemiology, the \u2018push-pull\u2019 factor theories from geography and economics, and transnational theory from sociology. It built upon recent academic literature, including a Social Sciences and Medicine (SSM) supplement on immigration and health, to formulate areas where more research is needed and to recommend potentially fruitful program interventions and policy changes. It integrated work with North American Latino immigrants, Asian and South Asian immigrants, African and Afro-Caribbean immigrants, and Arab immigrants, and research linking the migration to Europe of Arab, Turks and other populations, and to the Middle East of immigrants from Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tenofovir substitution in Namibia based on an analysis of the antiretroviral dispensing database","field_subtitle":"Kalemeera F; Mengistu A; Gaeseb J: Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice 8(14), 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.joppp.org/content/8/1/14","body":"In the management of HIV infection, tenofovir (TDF) is preferred to its predecessors based on its safety profile, despite some adverse reactions which warrant its substitution for some patients. This review measured the rate of TDF\u2019s substitution from January 1 2008 to November 30 2011, and compared the gender difference in these rates of substitution using dispensing records from the national antiretroviral dispensing database. No gender difference was observed and the authors indicate that further investigation is required to determine the clinical reasons for TDF\u2019s withdrawal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The reality of task shifting in medicines management- a case study from Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Wiedenmayer K; Kapologwe N; Charles J; Chilunda F; Mapunjo S: Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice 8(13), 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.joppp.org/content/8/1/13","body":"Tanzania suffers a severe shortage of pharmaceutical staff negatively affecting the provision of pharmaceutical services and access to medicines, particularly in rural areas. Task shifting has been proposed as a way to mitigate this. This study aimed to understand the context and extent of task shifting in pharmaceutical management in Dodoma Region, Tanzania. The authors explored 1) the number of trained pharmaceutical staff as compared to clinical cadres managing medicines, 2) the national establishment for staffing levels, 3) job descriptions, 4) supply management training conducted and 5) availability of medicines and adherence to Good Storage Practice in 270 public health facilities in 2011. In 95.5% of studied health facilities medicines management was done by non-pharmaceutically trained cadres, predominantly medical attendants. Task shifting was found to be a reality in the pharmaceutical sector in Tanzania occurring mainly as a coping mechanism rather than a formal response to the workforce crisis. Pharmacy-related tasks and supply management were informally shifted to clinical staff without policy guidance, explicit job descriptions, and without the necessary support through training. It was argued that implicit task shifting be recognised and formalised and job orientation, training and operational procedures be used to support non-pharmaceutical health workers to effectively manage medicine supply.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of civil society organisations in promoting community participation","field_subtitle":"Serunjogi F: CEHURD Newsletter, May 2015","field_url":"http://www.cehurd.org/2015/05/the-role-of-civil-society-organisations-in-promoting-community-participation/","body":"In an initiative to promote the decentralizing of the health system, the government of Uganda through Ministry of Health called for an establishment of Health Unit Management Committees (HUMCs) at each government health facility as a way of empowering community members to participate in influencing health system for better service delivery. As part of an action research process, the Center for Health Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) carried out a case study on two HUMCs in Kikoolimbo health center III in Kyankwanzi district and Nyamiringa health center II Kiboga district. The purpose of this case study was to provide an understanding of the experiences of HUMCs in performing their roles and what role Civil Society can play to support them perform their roles and responsibilities as well as advancing health rights and addressing health inequities using the human rights based approach. The findings revealed that these two health unit management committees had limited knowledge of the HUMCs guidelines. The committee members were trained by CEHURD and community dialogues held to inform community members about the existence of these committees as well as their roles and responsibilities. The author noted that when communities are empowered, they can differentiate between performing and non-performing committees.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tracking development assistance for health to fragile states, 2005\u20132011","field_subtitle":"Graves CM; Haakenstad A; Dieleman JL : Globalization and Health 2015, 11(12), 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/11/1/12","body":"Development assistance for health (DAH) has grown to more than $31.3 billion in 2013. This paper presents evidence on the degree to which countries with high concentrations of conflict, violence, inequality, debt and corruption have received health aid compared to other countries. The authors combined DAH estimates and a multidimensional fragile states index for 2005 to 2011 comparing 'fragile' versus 'stable' states. Comparing low-income countries, fragile countries received $7.22 per person while stable countries received $11.15 per person. Funders preferred funding to low-income fragile countries that have refugees or ongoing external intervention but tended to avoid funding countries perceived to have political gridlock, flawed elections, or economic decline. While external health funding to 'fragile' countries has increased since 2005, it is per person almost half as much as the DAH provided to more stable countries of comparable income levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Unexplained health inequality \u2013 is it unfair?","field_subtitle":"Asada Y, Hurley J, Norheim OF, Johri M: International Journal for Equity in Health 14(11), 2014","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/14/1/11","body":"Accurate measurement of health inequities is indispensable to track progress or to identify needs for health equity policy interventions. A key empirical task is to measure the extent to which observed inequality in health \u2013 a difference in health \u2013 is inequitable. Empirically operationalising definitions of health inequity has generated an important question not considered in the conceptual literature on health inequity. Empirical analysis can explain only a portion of observed health inequality. This paper demonstrates that the treatment of unexplained inequality is not only a methodological but ethical question and that the answer to the ethical question \u2013 whether unexplained health inequality is unfair \u2013 determines the appropriate standardization method for health inequity analysis and can lead to potentially divergent estimates of health inequity. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Validating estimates of prevalence of non-communicable diseases based on household surveys: the symptomatic diagnosis study","field_subtitle":"James SL; Romero M; Ram\u00edrez-Villalobos D; G\u00f3mez S; Pierce K; Flaxman A; Serina P; Stewart A;  Murray CJL; Gakidou E; Lozano R; Hernandez B: BMC Medicine 13(15), 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/13/15","body":"Easy-to-collect epidemiological information is critical for the more accurate estimation of the prevalence and burden of different non-communicable diseases around the world. Current measurement is restricted by limitations in existing measurement systems in the developing world and the lack of biometry tests for non-communicable diseases. Diagnosis based on self-reported signs and symptoms (\u201cSymptomatic Diagnosis,\u201d or SD) analysed with computer-based algorithms may be a promising method for collecting timely and reliable information on non-communicable disease prevalence. This study developed and assessed the performance of a symptom-based questionnaire to estimate prevalence of non-communicable diseases in low-resource areas. The authors collected 1,379 questionnaires in Mexico from individuals who suffered from a non-communicable disease that had been diagnosed with gold standard diagnostic criteria or individuals who did not suffer from any of the 10 target conditions. To make the diagnosis of non-communicable diseases, the authors selected the Tariff method, a technique developed for verbal autopsy cause of death calculation. They assessed the performance of this instrument and analytical techniques at the individual and population levels. The questionnaire revealed that SD is a viable method for producing estimates of the prevalence of non-communicable diseases in areas with low health information infrastructure. This technology can provide higher-resolution prevalence data, more flexible data collection, and potentially individual diagnoses for certain conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Why language matters: insights and challenges in applying a social determination of health approach in a North-South collaborative research program","field_subtitle":"Spiegel JM; Breilh J; Yassi A: Globalization and Health 2015, 11(9), 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/11/1/9","body":"A focus on social determinants of health provides a welcome alternative to the bio-medical illness paradigm. However, the tendency to concentrate on the influence of risk factors related to living and working conditions of individuals, rather than to more broadly examine dynamics of the social processes that affect population health, has triggered critical reaction not only from the Global North but especially from voices the Global South where there is a long history of addressing questions of health equity. In this article, the authors elaborate on how focusing instead on the language of \u201csocial determination of health\u201d has led to application of more equity-sensitive approaches to research and related policy and praxis. The authors briefly explore the epistemological and historical roots of epidemiological approaches to health and health equity that have emerged in Latin America to consider its relevance to global discourse. In this region marked by pronounced inequity, context-sensitive concepts such as \u201ccollective health\u201d and \u201ccritical epidemiology\u201d have been prominent, albeit with limited acknowledgement by the Global North. The authors illustrate attempts to apply a social determination approach (and the \u201c4 S\u201d elements of bio-Security, Sovereignty, Solidarity and Sustainability) in five projects within their research collaboration linking researchers and knowledge users in Ecuador and Canada, in diverse settings (health of healthcare workers; food systems; antibiotic resistance; vector borne disease [dengue]; and social circus with street youth). The authors argue that the language of social determinants lends itself to research that is more reductionist and beckons the development of different skills than would be applied when adopting the language of social determination. They conclude that this language leads to more direct analysis of the systemic factors that drive, promote and reinforce disparities, while at the same time directly considering the emancipatory forces capable of countering negative health impacts. It follows that \u201creverse innovation\u201d must not only recognise practical solutions being developed in low and middle income countries, but must also build on the strengths of the theoretical-methodological reasoning that has emerged in the South.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Working with marginalised communities on using data and technology in advocacy","field_subtitle":"Ganesh M; Slater D; Martini B: Beatrice Martini Blog on Tech and Tools for Justice and Rights, May 2015","field_url":"http://www.harm-reduction.org/blog/working-marginalised-communities-using-data-and-technology-advocacy","body":"Mutual trust and respect, real commitment to collaboration and flexibility are all essential elements to be responsibly equipped to work with a marginalised community. And they are not even enough. The authors write in this paper about the experience of working with marginalised communities on using data and technology in advocacy as they think it could greatly help other practitioners planning to collaborate with groups struggling to get their rights honoured and their voices heard. The authors summarise advice emerging from the case study as to: listen to and learn from the community, keeping assumptions at bay; give ownership of the work to the community itself; build capacity tailored to its needs and abilities, accessibly and sustainably; provide people with the tools and methodologies that equip them to work independently on more successful initiatives in the future. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Malaria Day 2015: Invest in the Future, Defeat Malaria","field_subtitle":"Mosca D; Motus N: International Labour Organisation for Migration, April 2015","field_url":"http://www.iom.int/news/world-malaria-day-2015-invest-future-defeat-malaria","body":"In 2013, there were about 198 million malaria cases in the world and an estimated 584,000 deaths from the disease. The countries endemic for malaria are also some of the poorest countries in the world. The burden of malaria on the poor, including migrants and displaced populations in these countries further fuels the cycle of poverty. IOM works with governments and partners, mostly in Africa and Asia, to ensure universal access to health care, including malaria prevention, early diagnosis, and treatment services among migrants and hard-to-reach populations. This year\u2019s theme for World Malaria Day on April 25th was 'Invest in the Future: Defeat Malaria'. It focused on reaching 2015 malaria targets in all malaria-endemic countries, as well as scaling up efforts in malaria elimination and control beyond 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"9th Action Learning, Action Research (ALARA) and 13th Participatory Action Research World Congress, Pretoria, South Africa, 4-7 November","field_subtitle":"Final date for submission of abstracts: 12 May 2015","field_url":"http://www.alarassociation.org/pages/events/alara-world-congress-2015-call-for-abstracts/alara-world-congress-2015-abstract-submission#gsuser_F","body":"The theme of this World Congress is a challenge to Action Learning / Action Research practitioners the world over, whether working in resource rich or more socio-economically challenged contexts, to explain how they are contributing to the creation of a fairer world. Abstracts should be emailed to conferencepl@gmail.com.  Abstracts should be 250 words max, typed in single space Arial 12 using the following headings as a guide:\r\nBackground: an overview of the issue under discussion, the problem the research addresses and the purpose and objective of the research\r\nMethods: the study period / setting / location, study design, study population, data collection and methods of analysis used. Results: the findings / outcome of the study. Please summarize any specific results.\r\nConclusions: the significance of findings / outcomes of the study and future implications of the results. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A narrative review of research impact assessment models and methods","field_subtitle":"Milat AJ; Bauman AE; Redman S: Health Research Policy and Systems 13(18), 18 March 2015","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/s12961-015-0003-1.pdf","body":"Research funding agencies continue to grapple with assessing research impact. This narrative literature review synthesized evidence on processes and conceptual models used for assessing policy and practice impacts of public health research. The review involved keyword searches of electronic databases, including MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, EBM Reviews, and Google Scholar in July/August 2013. The review included theoretical and opinion pieces, case studies, descriptive studies, frameworks and systematic reviews describing processes, and conceptual models for assessing research impact. A total of 16 different impact assessment models were identified, with the \u2018payback model\u2019 the most frequently used conceptual framework. Typically, impacts were assessed across multiple dimensions using mixed methodologies, including publication and citation analysis, interviews with principal investigators, peer assessment, case studies, and document analysis. The vast majority of studies relied on principal investigator interviews and/or peer review to assess impacts, instead of interviewing policymakers and end-users of research. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"A Wake-up Call - Lessons from Ebola for the world's health systems","field_subtitle":"Wright S; Hanna L; Mailfert M; Gushulvili D; Kite G: Save the Children 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nshw3tz","body":"Ebola has taken a dreadful toll in the three West African countries hit by the current outbreak \u2013 Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. In this report, Save the Children documents the existing weaknesses of the health services in the three main countries affected by Ebola. There is broad agreement that the Ebola crisis was not quickly contained, reversed or mitigated because national health systems in these countries were dangerously under-resourced, under-staffed and poorly equipped. The virus was able to spread, in part, due to the poor state of these health services, which were quickly overwhelmed and lacked the ability to cope with a major disease outbreak. This inability to cope with a major health emergency reflects a similar inability to cope with the daily health needs of their populations over the longer term. The authors argue that one of the most important lessons from the Ebola crisis is the need to build comprehensive health services with sufficient funding, staff and equipment, to deal with everyday problems as well as infectious\r\ndisease outbreaks. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"African ministers of finance call for increased investment to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS, 1 April 2015","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2015/april/20150331_africanfinance","body":"African ministers of finance and key partners in the AIDS response meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, have called for increased national investment to end the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030. The international community has committed to meeting the 90\u201390\u201390 treatment targets, under which 90% of all people living with HIV will know their HIV status, 90% of all people with diagnosed HIV infection will receive sustained antiretroviral therapy and 90% of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy will have viral suppression. If the 90\u201390\u201390 targets are met by 2020, ending the AIDS epidemic a decade later is achievable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Breaking the Rules 2014: Evidence of Violations of the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and subsequent resolutions compiled from January 2011 to December 2013","field_subtitle":"International Baby Food Action Network: May 2014","field_url":"http://www.babymilkaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/BTR14inbrief.pdf","body":"Breaking the Rules 2014 (BTR) is a 237-page monitoring report which describes evidence of 813 Code violations, from 81 countries, collected between Jan 2011 and Dec 2013. The Rules are the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and subsequent World Health Assembly resolutions (the Code), which are the yardstick to measure compliance by all companies in all countries. Following the request for clarification of \u2018inappropriate promotion\u2019 of foods for infants and young children, BTR: in Brief provides examples of marketing tactics that should not be allowed. The emphasis is on toddler milks or growing up milks (GUMs), a product which has been generating huge profits for the baby food industry over the past decade or more. The inappropriate promotions reported are Code violations. This abridged report is meant to show how the 16 largest baby food companies continue to ignore international recommendations adopted to protect infants and young children the world over so the public and investors can hold them to account.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications for CODESRIA Textbook Programme","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submission of applications: 26 August 2015","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2245&lang=en","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce its programme for the publication of textbooks for use in African universities. The programme is aimed at making available to teachers and students textbooks that are adapted to the African context and the research and learning environment on the continent. African researchers are invited to submit their textbook manuscripts to the Council. This programme is for senior scholars with a proven track record of academic achievement and a demonstrable knowledge of the domain in which they wish to produce a textbook. In selecting proposals, the Council will lay emphasis on the value which is likely to be added by the manuscript. Proposals can be submitted by single authors or by a team of contributors. Each textbook can be organised around a discipline,  a body of disciplines, or a specific theme. The textbooks will cover the African continent, a sub-region or a specific country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Climate for evidence informed health system policymaking in Cameroon and Uganda before and after the introduction of knowledge translation platforms: a structured review of governmental policy documents","field_subtitle":"Ongolo-Zogo P; Lavis JN; Tomson G;  Sewankambo NK: Health Research Policy and Systems 13(2), 1 January 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/13/1/2","body":"There is a scarcity of empirical data on African country climates for evidence-informed health system policymaking (EIHSP) to backup the longstanding reputation that research evidence is not valued enough by health policymakers as an information input. In this paper, the authors assess whether and how changes have occurred in the climate for EIHSP before and after the establishment of two Knowledge Translation Platforms housed in government institutions in Cameroon and Uganda since 2006. The authors merged content analysis techniques and policy sciences analytical frameworks to guide this structured review of governmental policy documents geared at achieving health Millennium Development Goals. They combined i) a quantitative exploration of the usage statistics of research-related words and constructs, citations of types of evidence, and budgets allocated to research-related activities; and (ii) an interpretive exploration using a deductive thematic analysis approach to uncover changes in the institutions, interests, ideas, and external factors displaying the country climate for EIHSP. Descriptive statistics compared quantitative data across countries during the periods 2001\u20132006 and 2007\u20132012. The use of evidence syntheses to frame poverty and health problems, select strategies, or forecast the expected outcomes has remained sparse over time and across countries. The budgets for research increased over time from 28.496 to 95.467 million Euros (335%) in Cameroon and 38.064 to 58.884 million US dollars (155%) in Uganda, with most resources allocated to health sector performance monitoring and evaluation. The consistent naming of elements pertaining to the climate for EIHSP features the greater influence of external donors through policy transfer. The authors indicate that the review illustrated a conducive climate for EIHSP in Cameroon and Uganda but a persistent undervalue of evidence syntheses and recommend that global and national health stakeholders raise the profile of evidence syntheses (e.g., systematic reviews) as an information input when shaping policies and programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Community case management of malaria: exploring support, capacity and motivation of community medicine distributors in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Banek K; Nankabirwa J; Maiteki-Sebuguzi C; DiLiberto D;  Taaka L; Chandler C; Staedke S: Health Policy and Planning, 30(4),  2014, doi: 10.1093/heapol/czu033","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/4/451.full","body":"In Uganda, community services for febrile children are expanding from presumptive treatment of fever with anti-malarials through the home-based management of fever (HBMF) programme, to include treatment for malaria, diarrhoea and pneumonia through Integrated Community Case Management (ICCM). To understand the level of support available, and the capacity and motivation of community health workers to deliver these expanded services, the authors interviewed community medicine distributors (CMDs), who had been involved in the HBMF programme in Tororo district, shortly before ICCM was adopted. Between October 2009 and April 2010, 100 CMDs were recruited to participate by convenience sampling. The survey included questionnaires to gather information about the CMDs\u2019 work experience and to assess knowledge of fever case management, and in-depth interviews to discuss experiences as CMDs including motivation, supervision and relationships with the community. CMDs faced multiple challenges including high patient load, limited knowledge and supervision, lack of compensation, limited drugs and supplies, and unrealistic expectations of community members. CMDs described being motivated to volunteer for altruistic reasons; however, the main benefits of their work appeared related to \u2018becoming someone important\u2019, with the potential for social mobility for self and family, including building relationships with health workers. At the time of the survey, over half of CMDs felt demotivated due to limited support from communities and the health system. Community health worker programmes rely on the support of communities and health systems to operate sustainably. When this support falls short, motivation of volunteers can wane. If community interventions, in increasingly complex forms, are to become the solution to improving access to primary health care, greater attention to what motivates individuals, and ways to strengthen health system support are required.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Contributions of global health diplomacy to equitable health systems in east and southern Africa, Report of a Regional Research Workshop, 13-14 March 2015, Johannesburg South Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, TARSC, CPTL; EQUINET, Harare, 2015","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Regional%20GHD%20meeting%20report%20March2015.pdf","body":"This report presents the proceedings of a meeting held on March 13 and 14 a regional meeting was convened with objectives to\r\ni. Present and discuss the findings from the EQUINET research programme and from related research in Africa, and the implications for policy, negotiations and programmes in east and southern Africa;\r\nii. Review methods and challenges for implementing research and analysis on global health diplomacy for policy relevance, from review of research and experience of the work;\r\niii. Discuss and propose areas for follow up policy, action and research, within ESA and through south-south collaboration. It included senior officials involved in health from national and regional organisations, health diplomats, researchers from the EQUINET work and others working on health diplomacy and on south-south co-operation in the region and internationally. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Corporate social responsibility in global health: an exploratory study of multinational pharmaceutical firms","field_subtitle":"Droppert H; Bennett S: Globalization and Health 2015, 11(15), April 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/11/1/15","body":"As pharmaceutical firms experience increasing civil society pressure to act responsibly, many are expanding and/or reforming their corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. The author\u2019s sought to understand how multinational pharmaceutical companies currently engage in CSR activities in developing countries and their motivations for doing so. They conducted a small-scale, exploratory study combining (i) in-depth review of publicly available data on pharmaceutical firms\u2019 CSR with (ii) interviews of representatives from 6 firms, purposively selected, from the highest earning pharmaceutical firms worldwide. Corporate social responsibility differed for each firm. Across the firms studied, the common CSR activities were: differential pharmaceutical pricing, strengthening developing country drug distribution infrastructure, mHealth initiatives, and targeted research and development. Primary factors that motivated CSR engagement were: reputational benefits, recruitment and employee satisfaction, better rankings in sustainability indices, entrance into new markets, long-term economic returns and improved population health. CSR strategies ranged from philanthropic donations to integrated business models. The authors indicate that the study points to the need to (i) develop clearer definitions of CSR in global health (2) strengthen indices to track CSR strategies and their public health effects in developing countries and (iii) undertake more country level studies that investigate how CSR engages with national health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Determinants of immunization inequality among urban poor children: evidence from Nairobi\u2019s informal settlements","field_subtitle":"Egondi T; Oyolola M; Mutua MK; Elung\u2019ata P: International Journal for Equity in Health, 14(24), February 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/14/1/24","body":"Despite the relentless efforts to reduce infant and child mortality with the introduction of the National Expanded Programmes on Immunization in 1974, major disparities still exist in immunization coverage across different population sub-groups. In Kenya, while the proportion of fully immunized children increased from 57% in 2003 to 77% in 2008\u20139 at national level and 73% in Nairobi, only 58% of children living in informal settlement areas are fully immunized. This study aimed to determine the degree and determinants of immunization inequality among the urban poor of Nairobi, using data from the Nairobi Cross-Sectional Slum Survey of 2012 on full immunization status among children aged 12\u201323 months. The wealth index was used as a measure of social economic position for inequality analysis. Immunization inequality was found to be mainly concentrated among children from poor families. Decomposition of the results suggests that 78% of this inequality is largely explained by the mother\u2019s level of education. The author suggests that efforts to reduce this inequality should aim at targeting mothers with low levels of education during immunization campaigns.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Distance decay and persistent health care disparities in South Africa","field_subtitle":"McLaren ZM; Ardington C; Leibbrandt M: BMC Health Services Research, 14(54), 2014","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/14/541","body":"Access to health care is a particular concern given the important role of poor access in perpetuating poverty and inequality. South Africa has large racial disparities in access despite post-apartheid health policy to increase the number of health facilities, even in remote rural areas. However, even when health services are provided free of charge, monetary and time costs of travel to a local clinic may pose a significant barrier for vulnerable segments of the population, leading to overall poorer health. Using newly available health care utilization data from the first nationally representative panel survey in South Africa, together with administrative geographic data from the Department of Health, the authors use graphical and multivariate regression analysis to investigate the role of distance to the nearest facility on the likelihood of having a health consultation or an attended birth. Ninety percent of South Africans live within 7 km of the nearest public clinic, and two-thirds live less than 2 km away. However, 14% of Black African adults live more than 5 km from the nearest facility, compared to only 4% of Whites, and they are 16 percentage points less likely to report a recent health consultation  and 47 percentage points less likely to use private facilities. Racial differentials in the likelihood of having a health consultation or an attended birth persist even after controlling for confounders. The results have two policy implications: minimizing the distance that poor South Africans must travel to obtain health care and improving the quality of care provided in poorer areas will reduce inequality. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Drivers of routine immunisation coverage improvement in Africa: findings from district-level case studies","field_subtitle":"LaFond A; Kanagat N; Steinglass R; Fields R; Sequeira J; Mookherji S: Health Policy and Planning 30(3) 298-308, 2014 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ndmmjnk","body":"There is limited understanding of why routine immunisation (RI) coverage improves in some settings in Africa and not in others. Using a grounded theory approach, the authors conducted in-depth case studies to understand pathways to coverage improvement by comparing immunisation programme experience in 12 districts in three countries (Ethiopia, Cameroon and Ghana). Drawing on positive deviance or assets model techniques the authors compared the experience of districts where diphtheria\u2013tetanus\u2013pertussis (DTP3)/pentavalent3 (Penta3) coverage improved with districts where DTP3/Penta3 coverage remained unchanged (or steady) over the same period, focusing on basic readiness to deliver immunisation services and drivers of coverage improvement. The results informed a model for immunisation coverage improvement that emphasises the dynamics of immunisation systems at district level. In all districts, whether improving or steady, the authors found that a set of basic RI system resources were in place from 2006 to 2010 and did not observe major differences in infrastructure. They found that the differences in coverage trends were due to factors other than basic RI system capacity or service readiness and identified six common drivers of RI coverage performance improvement\u2014four direct drivers and two enabling drivers\u2014that were present in well-performing districts and weaker or absent in steady coverage districts, and map the pathways from driver to improved supply, demand and coverage. Findings emphasise the critical role of implementation strategies and the need for locally skilled managers that are capable of tailoring strategies to specific settings and community needs. The case studies are unique in their focus on the positive drivers of change and the identification of pathways to coverage improvement, an approach that should be considered in future studies and routine assessments of district-level immunisation system performance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"E-procurement in support of universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"Humphreys G: Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 93(3) 138-139, 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/3/15-020315/en/","body":"Kenya is gearing up for digital bidding on essential medicines\u2019 contracts, part of a wave of African countries looking at procurement to improve transparency, bring down costs and support universal health coverage. John Kabuchi, procurement manager for the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority, notes: \u201cWe are currently gearing up for full e-procurement functionality, including electronic bidding, and I am hopeful that supporting legislation will be passed before next June.\u201d Kenya hopes to make the most of new technologies and approaches, such as e-procurement, to support efforts to make essential health care more widely available.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 171: Open Letter to his Excellency Jacob Zuma ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors influencing the use of maternal healthcare services and childhood immunization in Swaziland","field_subtitle":"Tsawe M; Moto A; Netshivhera T; Ralesego L; Nyathi C; Susuman AS: International Journal for Equity in Health, 14(32), 2015 doi:10.1186/s12939-015-0162-2","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/14/1/32","body":"This study examined the factors that influence the use of maternal healthcare services and childhood immunization in Swaziland. The study used secondary data from the Swaziland Demographic and Health Survey 2006\u201307 using univariate, bivariate and multivariate analysis. The study findings showed a high use rate of antenatal care and delivery care and a low rate of postnatal care use. The uptake of childhood immunization is high, averaging more than 80%. Factors found to be influencing the use of maternal healthcare and childhood immunization included: woman\u2019s age, parity, media exposure, maternal education, wealth quintile, and residence. Programs to educate families about the importance of maternal and child healthcare services should be implemented and should focus on: (a) age differentials in use of maternal and child health services, (b) women with higher parities, (c) women in rural areas, and (d) women from the poor quintiles. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Feasibility of establishing a biosafety level 3 tuberculosis culture laboratory of acceptable quality standards in a resource-limited setting: an experience from Uganda","field_subtitle":"Ssengooba W; Gelderbloem SJ; Mboowa G; Wajja A; Namaganda C; Musoke P; Mayanja-Kizza H; Joloba ML: Health Research Policy and Systems 13(4), 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/13/1/4","body":"Despite the recent innovations in tuberculosis (TB) and multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) diagnosis, culture remains vital for difficult-to-diagnose patients, baseline and end-point determination for novel vaccines and drug trials. The authors share their experience of establishing a BSL-3 culture facility in Uganda as well as 3-years performance indicators and post-TB vaccine trials (pioneer) and funding experience of sustaining such a facility. Between September 2008 and April 2009, the laboratory was set-up with financial support from external partners. After an initial procedure validation phase in parallel with the National TB Reference Laboratory and legal approvals, the laboratory registered for external quality assessment and instituted a functional quality management system. Pioneer funding ended in 2012 and the laboratory remained self-sustainable with internationally acceptable standards in both structural and biosafety requirements. With the demonstrated quality of work, the laboratory attracted more research groups and post-pioneer funding, which helped to ensure sustainability. The high skilled experts in this research laboratory provide an excellent resource for national discussion of laboratory and quality management systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Global malaria eradication and the importance of Plasmodium falciparum epidemiology in Africa","field_subtitle":"Snow RW: BMC Medicine 13(23), February 2015 doi:10.1186/s12916-014-0254-7","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/13/23","body":"The global agenda for malaria has, once again, embraced the possibility of eradication. The author argues that as history has shown, there will be no single magic bullet that can be applied to every epidemiological setting. Africa has a diverse malaria ecology, lending itself to some of the highest disease burden areas of the world and a wide range of clinical epidemiological patterns making control with our current tools challenging. This commentary highlights why the epidemiology of Plasmodium falciparum malaria in Africa should not be forgotten when planning an eradication strategy, and why forgetting Africa will, according to the author, once again, be the single largest threat to any hope for global eradication.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health in the sustainable development goals: ready for a paradigm shift?","field_subtitle":"Buse K; Hawkes S: Globalization and Health 2015, 11(13), 2015 doi:10.1186/s12992-015-0098-8","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/11/1/13","body":"The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) galvanised attention, resources and accountability on a small number of health concerns of low- and middle-income countries with unprecedented results. The international community is presently developing a set of Sustainable Development Goals as the successor framework to the MDGs. This review examines the evidence base for the current health-related proposals in relation to disease burden and the technical and political feasibility of interventions to achieve the targets. In contrast to the MDGs, the proposed health agenda aspires to be universally applicable to all countries and is broad in encompassing both communicable and non-communicable diseases as well as emerging burdens from, among other things, road traffic accidents and pollution. The authors argue that success in realising the agenda requires a paradigm shift in: 1) ensuring leadership for intersectoral coherence and coordination on the structural drivers of health; 2) shifting the focus from treatment to prevention through locally-led, politically-smart approaches to a far broader agenda; 3) identifying effective means to tackle the commercial determinants of ill-health; 4) further integrating rights-based approaches; and 5) enhancing civic engagement and ensuring accountability. The authors are concerned that neither the international nor the global health community truly appreciates the extent of the shift required to implement this health agenda which is a critical determinant of sustainable development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health literacy toolkit for low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Dodson S; Good S; Osborne R: WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia, 10 February 2015","field_url":"http://www.searo.who.int/entity/healthpromotion/documents/hl_tookit/en/","body":"This series of information sheets introduces health literacy, its relevance to public policy, and the ways it can be used to inform the promotion of good health, the prevention and management of communicable and noncommunicable diseases, and the reduction of health inequities. It provides information and links to further resources to assist organisations and governments to incorporate health literacy responses into practice, service delivery systems, and policy. It seeks to governments, politicians and policy makers; academic institutions; public, civil society, and non-governmental organisations; and practitioners; relevant private sectors promoting health and well-being; communities, community-based organisations and social networks; WHO and other UN partners and development organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Hopes dashed as HIV measure found to be useless","field_subtitle":"Kahn T: BDLive, 25 February 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/kwlgls4","body":"Hopes that a South African-developed vaginal gel containing tenofovir would protect women against HIV were dashed after a major new study found that it did not work. Scientists had been optimistic that the microbicide would protect millions of women from HIV, after a phase 2 study of 900 women in KwaZulu-Natal found it reduced the risk of getting the virus by 39%. The development was hailed as a breakthrough, though the scientists who led the work were careful to emphasise that further research was needed to replicate the findings. At that stage, 11 other trials testing six other products had failed. The findings had a wide margin of error, with the efficacy of HIV protection estimated to lie between 6% and 60%. A much larger Follow-on African Consortium for Tenofovir Studies (FACTS) 001 trial was launched in 2011 to confirm its findings. The consortium scientists announced at the annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Seattle, however, that the tenofovir-containing microbicide provided to 2,059 women aged between 18 years and 30 years did not protect them from HIV. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementation of patient charges at primary care facilities in Kenya: implications of low adherence to user fee policy for users and facility revenue","field_subtitle":"Opwora A; Waweru E;  Toda M; Noor A; Edwards T; Fegan G; Molyneux S; Goodman C: Health Policy and Planning, 30(4), 2014 doi: 10.1093/heapol/czu026","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/4/508.full","body":"With user fees now seen as a major hindrance to universal health coverage, many countries have introduced fee reduction or elimination policies, but there is growing evidence that adherence to reduced fees is often highly imperfect. In 2004, Kenya adopted a reduced and uniform user fee policy providing fee exemptions to many groups.  The authors present data on user fee implementation, revenue and expenditure from a nationally representative survey of 248 Kenyan public health centres and dispensaries in 2010. No facilities adhered fully to the user fee policy across eight tracer conditions, with adherence ranging from 62.2% for an adult with tuberculosis to 4.2% for an adult with malaria. Three quarters of exit interviewees had paid some fees and a quarter of interviewees were required to purchase additional medical supplies at a later stage from a private drug retailer. No consistent pattern of association was identified between facility characteristics and policy adherence. User fee revenues accounted for almost all facility cash income, with average revenue of USD 683 per facility per year. Fee revenue was mainly used to cover support staff, non-drug supplies and travel allowances. Adherence to user fee policy was very low, leading to concerns about the impact on access and the financial burden on households. However, the potential to ensure adherence was constrained by the facilities\u2019 need for revenue to cover basic operating costs, highlighting the need for alternative funding strategies for peripheral health facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving regulatory capacity to manage risks associated with trade agreements","field_subtitle":"Walls HL; Smith RD; Drahos P: Globalization and Health 2015, 11(14), 2015 doi:10.1186/s12992-015-0099-7","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/11/1/14","body":"Modern trade negotiations have delivered a plethora of bilateral and regional preferential trade agreements (PTAs), which involve considerable risk to public health, thus placing demands on governments to strengthen administrative regulatory capacities in regard to the negotiation, implementation and on-going management of PTAs. In terms of risk management, the administrative regulatory capacity requisite for appropriate negotiation of PTAs is different to that for the implementation or on-going management of PTAs, but at all stages the capacity needed is expensive, skill-intensive and requires considerable infrastructure, which smaller and poorer states especially struggle to find. It is also a task generally underestimated. If states do not find ways to increase their capacities then PTAs are likely to become much greater drivers of health inequities. Developing countries especially struggle to find this capacity. In this article the authors set out the importance of administrative regulatory capacity and coordination to manage the risks to public health associated with PTAs, and suggest ways countries can improve their capacity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Open Letter to his Excellency Jacob Zuma","field_subtitle":"Mia Couto,  Chairperson, Fernando Leite Couto Foundation, Mozambique","field_url":"","body":"\r\nWe remember you in Maputo, in the 1980s, from that time you spent as a political refugee in Mozambique. Often our paths crossed on Julius Nyerere Avenue and we would greet each other with the casual friendliness of neighbours. Often I imagined the fears that you must have felt, as a person persecuted by the apartheid regime. I imagined the nightmares you must have experienced at night when you thought of the ambushes plotted against you and against your comrades in the struggle. But I don\u2019t remember ever seeing you with a bodyguard. In fact it was we Mozambicans who acted as your bodyguards. For years we gave you more than a refuge. We offered you a house and we gave you security at the cost of our security. You cannot possibly have forgotten this generosity.\r\n\r\nWe haven\u2019t forgotten it. Perhaps more than any other neighboring country, Mozambique paid a high price for the support we gave to the liberation of South Africa. The fragile Mozambican economy was wrecked. Our territory was invaded and bombed. Mozambicans died in defence of their brothers on the other side of the border. For us, Mr President, there was no border, there was no nationality. We were all brothers in the same cause, and when apartheid fell, our festivities were the same, on either side of the border.\r\n\r\nFor centuries Mozambican migrants, miners and peasants, worked in neighbouring South Africa under conditions that were not far short of slavery. These workers helped build the South African economy. There is no wealth in your country that does not carry the contribution of those who today are coming under attack.\r\n\r\nFor all these reasons, it is not possible to imagine what is going on in your country. It is not possible to imagine that these same South African brothers have chosen us as a target for hatred and persecution. It is not possible that Mozambicans are persecuted in the streets of South Africa with the same cruelty that the apartheid police persecuted freedom fighters, inside and outside the country. The nightmare we are living is more serious than that visited upon you when you were politically persecuted. For you were the victim of a choice, of an ideal that you had embraced. But those who are persecuted in your country today are guilty merely of having a different nationality. Their only crime is that they are Mozambicans. Their only offence is that they are not South Africans.\r\n\r\nMr President, the xenophobia expressed today in South Africa is not merely a barbaric and cowardly attack against \u201cthe others\u201d. It is also aggression against South Africa itself. It is an attack against the \u201cRainbow Nation\u201d which South Africans proudly proclaimed a decade or more ago. Some South Africans are staining the name of their motherland. They are attacking the feelings of gratitude and solidarity between nations and peoples. It is sad that your country today is in the news across the world for such inhuman reasons.\r\n\r\nCertainly measures are being taken. But they are proving inadequate, and above all they have come late. The rulers of South Africa can argue everything except that they were taken by surprise. History was allowed to repeat itself. Voices were heard spreading hatred with impunity. That is why we are joining our indignation to that of our fellow Mozambicans and urging you: put an immediate end to this situation, which is a fire that can spread across the entire region, with feelings of revenge being created beyond South Africa\u2019s borders. Tough, immediate and total measures are needed which may include the mobilization of the armed forces. For, at the end of the day, it is South Africa itself which is under attack.\r\n\r\nMr President, you know, better than we do, that police actions can contain this crime but, in the current context, other preventive measures must be taken. So that these criminal events are never again repeated.\r\n\r\nFor this, it is necessary to take measures on another scale, measures that work over the long term. Measures of civic education, and of exalting the recent past in which we were so close, are urgently needed. It is necessary to recreate the feelings of solidarity between our peoples and to rescue the memory of a time of shared struggles. As artists, as makers of culture and of social values, we are available so that, together with South African artists, we can face this new challenge, in unity with the countless expressions of revulsion born within South African society. We can still transform this pain and this shame into something which expresses the nobility and dignity of our peoples and our nations. As artists and writers, we want to declare our willingness to support a spirit of neighbourliness which is born, not from geography, but from a kinship of our common soul and shared history.\r\n\r\nThis editorial is reproduced from Brittle Paper and is an open letter addressed to President Zuma, written by award-winning Mozambican novelist Mia Couto.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Our public water future: The global experience with remunicipalisation","field_subtitle":"Kishimoto S; Lobina E; Petitjean O: TNI, PSIRU, Multinationals Observatory, MSP and EPSU, 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qbf6u6g","body":"After three decades of often catastrophic results, many cities, regions and countries are closing the book on water privatisation. A quiet citizen revolution is reported to be unfolding as communities across the world reclaim control of their water services to manage this crucial resource in a democratic, equitable and ecological way. Over the last 15 years, 235 cases of water remunicipalisation have been recorded in 37 countries. More than 100 million people have been affected by this global trend, whose pace is accelerating dramatically. From Jakarta to Paris, from Germany to the United States, this book draws lessons from this vibrant movement to reclaim water services. The authors show how remunicipalisation offers opportunities for developing socially desirable, environmentally sustainable and quality water services benefiting present and future generations. The book aims to engage citizens, workers and policy-makers in the experiences, lessons and good practices for returning water to the public sector. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Our Toilets Are Dirty: Report of the Social Audit into the Janitorial Service for Communal Flush Toilets in Khayelitsha, Cape Town","field_subtitle":"Social Justice Coalition; Ndifuna Ukwazi (Dare to Know):  October 2014","field_url":"http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/link-between-functioning-toilets-and-justice","body":"Millions of South Africans still lack access to basic sanitation, including at least 500 000 in Cape Town. The report found that 26 percent of the toilets in Khayelitsha\u2019s informal settlements do not work, with 15 percent of them blocked, 12 percent without water, and 6 percent without a sewage pipe. The report\u2019s key findings also showed a lack of proper worker safeguards: janitors do not have proper training, protective gear, or the required cleaning equipment, and only one in eight cleaners is inoculated against disease. By attempting to verify public service delivery and facilitating transparency and accountability, the community-led social audit approach has been successful in exposing\u2014and, over time, reducing\u2014corruption and enhancing basic services in India and Ghana, and elsewhere in the global South. In South Africa, the community used a social audit to investigate how ZAR 60 million (about US$5 million) of public resources was utilized. The audit included the residents of Khayelitsha and various partners in inspecting 528 toilets and interviewing 193 Khayelitsha residents and 31 janitors. The report calls for specific and workable government actions to rectify gaps in services that are provided by the private sector via the local municipality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"People's March against Xenophobia: We are One","field_subtitle":"Coalition of trade unions, civil society and social movements in South Africa against Xenophobia","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe attacks against foreigners in KwaZulu Natal, Johannesburg and other parts of our country are shameful. If we close our eyes, or turn away, we bring shame on ourselves. The attacks present South Africans to the world as a barbaric, violent and murderous nation. We are not. Our march will show another South Africa to ourselves and the world. We are the country of Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and all people who gave their lives for freedom. In our freedom struggle we had vital help from our sisters, brothers and comrades throughout Africa and the World. In 1994 we voted for peace, not war. We have the fairest Constitution in the world - that protects ALL who live here.\r\n\r\nWe link arms with our sisters and brothers from other countries who live with us here in South Africa. We are proud our extended family transcends national borders, languages, cultures and religions - because we need each other, because we are one! We will march to celebrate our solidarity with everyone from other countries living amongst us - particularly the poor, people seeking refuge, and political and economic migrants who have come to our country to try and survive. We will march to show our deep concern and solidarity to all poor communities where chronic unemployment, inadequate housing, rising crime and bad schools have become the norm. We will march to appeal to people who live in poor communities not to resort to violence. Do not to be distracted by blaming people from other countries who are also poor. The poor of the world must unite!\r\n\r\nWe will march to expose employers who play one group of workers off against another in order to maximize their profit. They are part of the problem right across our Africa. Workers, do not to be fooled: recognize that it is only by uniting workers and communities within and across national borders that a real challenge to poverty, pay and conditions can be fought and won.\r\n\r\nInternational solidarity helped end apartheid. Likewise, we must build unity within and across our national boundaries. Our struggle against all forms of oppression continues. Authorities must listen to our pleas, and improve and protect our communities and respond positively.\r\nWe are all human beings. We must be treat one another with respect, and live our lives in dignity. It is time for all good people to come together. We are the majority. We reject division, and it is time for real change! Don't turn away. Don't make excuses. Join us! Come from your school, workplace, union, your church, your university, your business, your community. Take three hours to march for life, dignity and equality. Together, let us show the world and our countrymen and women that another South Africa exists - where solidarity defeats xenophobia!\r\n\r\nThis call was made by South Africans for a march on 23 April that involved about 30,000 people through Johannesburg, to demand an end to a recent wave of xenophobic attacks. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) Conference","field_subtitle":"7-9 October, 2015, Durban, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.phasaconference.org.za","body":"With 2015 being the target date for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, the conference will provide an opportunity to reflect on the challenges faced by South Africa and Africa in trying to achieve the MDGs. The focus of the conference though will be on moving forward and identifying potential solutions both within and outside the health system in order to improve the health status of our population.  This is reflected in the theme of conference \u201cHealth and Sustainable Development:  The Future\u201d. The 2015 PHASA Conference will be more interactive than previous PHASA conferences. A panel debate involving politicians, civil society and academics is set to be one of the highlights of the 2015 PHASA Conference. There will be a greater media and social media presence at the 2015 PHASA Conference ensuring that research findings and key issues reach a broader audience. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health governance in Africa, November 12-13, 2015, Windhoek, Namibia","field_subtitle":"Application deadline: May 31, 2015","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/grp%40codesria.sn","body":"The ongoing Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak has brought to the fore many themes that often rise to the surface in debates on public health in Africa. Many of these issues, which had come up at the height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic are being reharshed with new undertones and inflections. They include questions of global inequalities and their impact on public health in developing countries, the challenges of public healthcare provision and problems of social welfare and social security systems in developing countries and the intricacies of intra and inter-state relations in the face of healthcare challenges. Through its conference on the theme \u2018Public health governance in Africa\u2019 CODESRIA wishes to seize on opportunities for debate presented by the ongoing EVD epidemic to rekindle wider conversations about public health governance in Africa. While acknowledging the biological dimension of diseases and the systems that are (supposed to be) put in place to deal with them at a societal level, this conference will deliberately seek to insert conversations about these in broader discussions concerning economics, politics, culture and spirituality. CODESRIA invites abstracts from scholars and practitioners that are interested in participating in this conference. Authors of abstracts selected should be ready to submit full papers by 31st August 2015.\r\nAll documents should be sent by email to grp@codesria.sn. Please use the subject line \u2018Governance Research Program\u2019 when sending your email.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health nurse educators\u2019 conceptualisation of public health as a strategy to reduce health inequalities: a qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Mabhala MA: International Journal for Equity in Health14(14),  2015 doi:10.1186/s12939-015-0146-2","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/14/1/14","body":"Nurses have long been identified as key contributors to strategies to reduce health inequalities. This qualitative research project explored public health nurse educators\u2019 understanding of public health as a strategy to reduce health inequalities. 26 semi-structured interviews were conducted with higher education institution-based public health nurse educators. Public health nurse educators described health inequalities as the foundation on which a public health framework should be built. Two distinct views emerged of how health inequalities should be tackled: some proposed a population approach focusing on upstream preventive strategies, whilst others proposed behavioural approaches focusing on empowering vulnerable individuals to improve their own health. Despite upstream interventions to reduce inequalities in health being proved to have more leverage than individual behavioural interventions in tackling the fundamental causes of health inequalities, some nurses have a better understanding of individual interventions than population approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Safe male circumcision in Botswana: Tension between traditional practices and biomedical marketing","field_subtitle":"KKatisia M; Daniela M: Global Public Health, DOI: 10.1080/17441692.2015.1028424 April 2015","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17441692.2015.1028424","body":"Botswana has been running Safe Male Circumcision (SMC) since 2009 and has not yet met its target. The objective of this paper is to explore responses to SMC in relation to circumcision as part of traditional initiation practices. More specifically, the authors present the views of two communities in Botswana on SMC consultation processes, implementation procedures and campaign strategies. The methods used include participant observation, in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, community leaders and men in the community. The authors observe that consultation with traditional leaders was done in a seemingly superficial, non-participatory manner. While SMC implementers reported pressure to deliver numbers to the World Health Organisation, traditional leaders promoted circumcision through their routine traditional initiation ceremonies at breaks of two-year intervals. There were conflicting views on public SMC demand creation campaigns in relation to the traditional secrecy of circumcision. In conclusion, initial cooperation of local chiefs and elders was reported to have turned into resistance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Setting research priorities across science, technology, and health sectors: the Tanzania experience","field_subtitle":"de Haan S, Kingamkono R, Tindamanyire N, Mshinda H, Makandi H; Tibazarwa F; Kubata B; Montorzi G: Health Research Policy and Systems 13(14), 12 March 2015","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/13/1/14","body":"Identifying research priorities is key to innovation and economic growth, since it informs decision makers on effectively targeting issues that have the greatest potential public benefit. The authors report here on a major cross-sectoral nationwide research priority setting effort recently carried out in Tanzania by the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) in partnership with the Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED) and the NEPAD Agency. The first of its type in the country, the process brought together stakeholders from 42 sub-sectors in science, technology, and health. The cross-sectoral research priority setting process consisted of a \u2018training-of-trainers\u2019 workshop, a demonstration workshop, and seven priority setting workshops with representatives from public and private research and development institutions, universities, non-governmental organisations, and other agencies affiliated to COSTECH. The workshops resulted in ranked listings of research priorities for each sub-sector, totalling approximately 800 priorities. This large number was significantly reduced by an expert panel in order to build a manageable instrument aligned to national development plans that could be used to guide research investments. The Tanzania experience is an instructive example of the challenges and issues to be faced in when attempting to identify research priority areas and setting a science, technology, and health research agenda in low- and middle-income countries. As countries increase their investment in research, it is essential to increase investment in research management and governance as well, to make proper use of research investments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual violence research initiative 4th international conference 2015","field_subtitle":"Stellenbosch, South Africa, 14-17 September 2015","field_url":"http://www.svri.org/forum2015/","body":"The forum brings together researchers, gender activists, funders, policy makers, service providers, practitioners and survivors from around the world and will showcase innovation to end sexual violence, intimate partner violence and child abuse, and strengthen responses to survivors in low and middle income countries. The SVRI Forum is a key platform for sharing research, innovation and networking. SVRI Forum 2015 will focus debate on the following key questions: What are the intersections of different forms of gender-based and other forms of violence across the lifespan and why do they matter? What social norms are related to sexual violence and intimate partner violence, child abuse and neglect and how do we change them? How should we evaluate social norm change interventions and other forms of prevention? How can we integrate prevention and responses to violence into other sectors including health, education, social development, sports and justice sectors? If we know it works, what does it cost and how do we scale up effective programs? What works to prevent or respond to sexual violence in conflict, post conflict and humanitarian settings?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa's new food and nutrition policy fails to address constitutional right to food","field_subtitle":"Moyo B: Pambuzuka News 716, 4 March 2015","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category/comment/94125","body":"The author argues that the proposed food policy in South Africa shies away from confronting capital interests within the food value-chain. Apart from acknowledging that the emerging agricultural sector is in need of assistance, the policy is reported to be silent on the influence of big-business in the food system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening the capacities health centre committees as health advocates in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"CWGH; TARSC; EQUINET Case study Brief, Harare  2015","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/HCC%20Zimbabwe%20Brief%20March2015.pdf","body":"Health Centre Committees (HCCs) in Zimbabwe have made a vital contribution to health services and community health. HCCs have supported health activities and played a role in discussing how funds including those from fee collections are used in the clinics. In 2011 training materials were developed jointly by TARSC, CWGH and MoHCC for an approximately three to four day training for HCCs on these roles using participatory tools. This case study brief outlines the training of HCC members and of community members in health literacy. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening the protection of sexual and reproductive health and rights in the African Region through human rights","field_subtitle":"Ngwena C; Durojaye E: Pretoria University Law Press, 2014","field_url":"http://www.pulp.up.ac.za/pdf/2014_14/2014_14.pdf","body":"Strengthening the protection of sexual and reproductive health and rights in the African region through human rights uses rights-based frameworks seeks to address some of the serious sexual and reproductive health challenges that the African region is currently facing. The authors provide human rights approaches on how these challenges can be overcome.  Human rights issues addressed by the book include: emergency obstetric care; HIV/AIDS; adolescent sexual health and rights; early marriage; and gender-based sexual violence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Tax Experiments in Developing Countries: A Critical Review and Reflections on Feasibility","field_subtitle":"Mascagni G: CDI Practice Paper 11, March 2015","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/publication/tax-experiments-in-developing-countries-a-critical-review-and-reflections-on-feasibility","body":"This CDI Practice Paper provides a critical assessment of the literature on tax experiments to date. It examines the main conceptual, methodological and data-related challenges, and provides practical reflections on how to move forward in low- and middle-income countries where this type of research is still underdeveloped. It offers a guide for practitioners on the main challenges in quantitative research on tax compliance and on the methods used tackle them, which may be of interest for evaluation research more generally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Prospects and Politics of Social Protection Reform in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Kuss MK: Institute of Development Studies Working Paper 453, April 2015","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/publication/the-prospects-and-politics-of-social-protection-reform-in-zambia","body":"This paper analyses the prospects for social protection reform in Zambia under the \u2018pro-poor\u2019 government of the Patriotic Front (PF). The paper argues that the PF has been changing the development policy arena in ways that may modify domestic political structures providing more rights-based benefits especially for the extreme poor and vulnerable. It further argues that the persistence of the clientelistic dynamics of state-society relations and weak civil society organisations inhibit the expression of demands for formal social protection by poor people. It concludes that because the social protection reform is supply -, rather than demand-driven, its progress depends on the extent to which the government is motivated to sustain the provision of social protection in the long-run.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The SA SURE Project Stories of Change","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust: : SA SURE Stories of Change  1(1): January 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/sa-sure-project-stories-change-january-2015","body":"Health System Trust announces the first edition of the SA SURE Project\u2019s Stories of Change \u2013 a quarterly publication presenting case stories that describe how SA SURE Project teams partner with Health Department personnel to apply policy in contextual practice in facilities across the country, and thus achieve sustainable responses to HIV, AIDS and TB. They share these stories to convey the beginnings of good practice: interesting experiences of how key challenges are being addressed using various tools, enterprise and connection to support service quality improvement at clinic level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The \u201cchild size medicines\u201d concept: policy provisions in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Nsabagasani X; Ogwal-Okeng; Mbonye A; Ssengooba F; Nantanda R; Muyinda H; Holme Hansen E: Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice 8(2), 2015 doi:10.1186/s40545-015-0025-7","field_url":"http://www.joppp.org/content/8/1/2","body":"In 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the \u2018make medicines child size\u2019 (MMCS) campaign by urging countries to prioritize procurement of medicines with appropriate strengths for children\u2019s age and weight and, in child-friendly formulations of rectal and flexible oral solid formulations. This study examined policy provisions for MMCS recommendations in Uganda. This was an in-depth case study of the Ugandan health policy documents to assess provisions for MMCS recommendations in respect to oral and rectal medicine formulations for malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea, the major causes of morbidity and mortality among children in Uganda- diseases that were also emphasized in the MMCS campaign. Asthma and epilepsy were included as conditions that require long term care. Schistomiasis was included as a neglected tropical disease. Content analysis was used to assess evidence of policy provisions for the MMCS recommendations. For most medicines for the selected diseases, appropriate strength for children\u2019s age and weight was addressed. However, policy documents neither referred to \u2018child size medicines\u2019 concept nor provided for flexible oral solid dosage formulations like dispersible tablets, pellets and granules- indicating limited adherence to MMCS recommendations. Some of the medicines recommended in the clinical guidelines as first line treatment for malaria and pneumonia among children were not evidence-based. The Ugandan health policy documents reflected limited adherence to the MMCS recommendations. This and failure to use evidence based medicines may result into treatment failure and or death. A revision of the current policies and guidelines to better reflect \u2018child size\u2019, child appropriate and evidence based medicines for children is recommended.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding the dynamic interactions driving Zambian health centre performance: a case-based health systems analysis","field_subtitle":"Topp S; Chipukuma J; Hanefeld J: Health Policy and Planning, 30(4), 2014, doi: 10.1093/heapol/czu029","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/4/485.full","body":"Despite being central to achieving improved population health outcomes, primary health centres in low- and middle-income settings continue to underperform. Little research exists to adequately explain how and why this is the case. This study aimed to test the relevance and usefulness of an adapted conceptual framework for improving understanding of the mechanisms and causal pathways influencing primary health centre performance. A theory-driven, case-study approach was adopted. Four Zambian health centres were purposefully selected with case data including health-care worker, patient and key informant interviews; direct observation of facility operations. Structural constraints included limited resources creating challenging service environments in which work overload and stockouts were common. Health workers\u2019 frustration with such conditions interacted with dissatisfaction with salary levels eroding service values and acting as a catalyst for different forms of absenteeism. Such behaviours exacerbated patient\u2013provider ratios and increased the frequency of clinical and administrative shortcuts. Weak health information systems and lack of performance data undermined providers\u2019 answerability to their employer and clients, and a lack of effective sanctions undermined supervisors\u2019 ability to hold providers accountable for these transgressions. Weak answerability and enforceability contributed to a culture of impunity that masked and condoned weak service performance in all four sites. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding The Rising Powers' Contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals","field_subtitle":" Constantine J; Pontual M: Institute of Development Studies Rapid Response Briefing 9, March 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/mogrvmw","body":"Rising powers such as Brazil, India and China have been criticised for their inputs in the negotiations on the post-2015 development agenda. The start of the United Nations (UN) negotiations saw high expectations for the role of these countries in shaping the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that have not materialised. However, what appears to be a confrontational style of diplomacy is in fact an assertive affirmation of long-standing principles.  The G77 and China have consistently\r\ncalled for the reform of the UN Security Council, and of the Bretton Woods institutions, which resulted in International Monetary Fund reform being nominally approved in 2010 before being blocked by the United States (US) Congress. The issues defended by the Brazilian negotiators centred on poverty eradication, its relationship with inequality; sustainable production and consumption; financing and keeping climate change strictly within the UNFCCC process. Brazil is keen to avoid what it sees as the securitisation of development through the SDGs. It supports governance as a general principle guiding the SDGs, but is adamant in its refusal to consider security as a stand-alone goal. The Brazilians are prioritising the \u2018how\u2019 of the SDGs, concentrating on the means of implementation for sustainable development through data disaggregation and exploring how to reutilise the structure of the MDGs as well as Brazil\u2019s experience of participatory development in implementation. The authors argue that a more nuanced understanding of these countries\u2019 positions in the post-2015 process is required.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"UNESCO-Equatorial Guinea International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 30 June 2015","field_url":"http://www.ngopulse.org/opportunity/2015/04/13/unesco-equatorial-guinea-international-prize-research-life-sciences","body":"The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) \u2013 Equatorial Guinea International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences rewards the projects and activities of an individual, individuals, institutions, other entities or non-governmental organisations for scientific research in the life sciences, which have led to improving the quality of human life. The Prize encourages research as well as the establishment and development of networks of centres of excellence in the life sciences. Candidates shall have made significant research contribution to the life sciences to enhance the quality of human life. The prize winners, maximum three, shall be selected by the Director-General of UNESCO on the basis of the assessments and recommendations made to her by an international jury. The nomination form should be completed in English or French only, and should reach UNESCO no later than 30 June 2015. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"US PEPFAR abstinence and faithfulness funding had no impact on sexual behaviour in Africa","field_subtitle":"Alcorn K: aidsmap, 25 February 2015","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/page/2949285/","body":"Nearly US$1.3 billion spent on US-funded programmes to promote abstinence and faithfulness in sub-Saharan Africa is argued by the author of this paper to have had no significant impact on sexual behaviour in 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, as shown from an analysis of sexual behaviour data. The preliminary findings were presented by Nathan Lo of Stanford University School of Medicine at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2015) in Seattle, USA. The Pepfar programmes aimed to delay sexual debut in order to reduce the period of high risk during adolescence, especially for girls, and to reduce partner numbers. The study investigated trends in sexual behaviour derived from national Demographic and Health Surveys in 14 PEPFAR focus countries before and after the beginning of PEPFAR funding in 2004, and compared these to a counterfactual: trends in eight other African countries \u2013 largely in West Africa \u2013 where PEPFAR funding was not determining the content of prevention campaigns. They found no significant change in PEPFAR countries relative to non-PEPFAR countries over time for any of the measures assessed, for men or women, although there was a trend towards a lower number of reported sexual partners for men in both PEPFAR and non-PEPFAR countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Zero Stigma, Zero Discrimination toolkit","field_subtitle":"South African National AIDS Council","field_url":"http://sanac.org.za/world-aids-day-campaign-toolkit-and-guiding-messages","body":"World AIDS Day is commemorated each year on the 1st of December and is an opportunity for every community to unite in the fight against HIV, show support for people living with HIV and remember those who have died. The UNAIDS World AIDS Day theme for 2011 to 2015 is: \u201cGetting to Zero\u201d. This year, South Africa will focus on ZERO DISCRIMINATION, without losing sight of the other \u2018zeroes\u2019, Zero new HIV infections; and Zero AIDS related deaths. A group of HIV-positive people have told their stories and experiences of stigma and discrimination. These are not stories of despair and hopelessness, but stories of courage and hope, and tell of how key people in their lives helped them to overcome challenges. These stories have been captured on video, in photographs and in text. They are available free of charge on the SANAC website for civil society, the private sector, media and others to use in their World AIDS Day campaigns.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":" Health supply chain personnel: An integral part of the health workforce","field_subtitle":"Cometto G, Babar Z, Brown A, Hedman L, Campbell J: Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice 7 (Suppl 1), DOI:10.7196/samj.9301, 2014","field_url":"http://www.joppp.org/content/pdf/2052-3211-7-S1-I1.pdf","body":"Approximately a third of the world population \u2013 and about half in the most underdeveloped settings \u2013 have been estimated to lack access to essential medicines and diagnostics. Effective supply chains are vital to deliver essential health commodities. In high-income countries the availability of medicines in the public and private sector is taken as a given: quality assurance is managed by robust national regulatory agencies; supply and distribution are increasingly privatised, with performance measured against timeliness and cost. Conversely, in many low- and middle-income countries, stock-outs of essential commodities are commonplace, with a mean availability of core medicines in the public sector ranging from 38.2% in sub-Saharan Africa to 57.7 % in Latin America and the Caribbean. Vulnerability of supply chain functions also increases the potential for the entry of counterfeit and substandard products.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"African leaders reaffirm commitment to the AIDS response and women\u2019s empowerment","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: Geneva, February 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2015/february/20150211_africanleaders","body":"The 24th Summit of the African Union and related events reaffirmed that Africa is committed and will remain committed to women\u2019s empowerment and to ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030. The Summit took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 23 to 31 January 2015 under 2015 annual African Union theme of \u201cWomen empowerment and development towards Africa\u2019s Agenda 2063\u201d. This report outlines the importance of ending AIDS was particularly articulated during the gender pre-summit meeting, at which the participants noted that member states should ensure that ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 is part of Agenda 2063 and that it has an inclusive human rights approach that leaves no one behind, including children, adolescents, women of child-bearing age and women and girls in conflict and post-conflict settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Between the rack and a hot place: can we reconcile poverty eradication and tackling climate change?","field_subtitle":"Woodward D: Institute of Development Studies, February 2015","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFpHs0sDKug","body":"The author argues that the majority of humanity is on the rack of poverty; and a major obstacle to its eradication is the growing threat of extreme and irreversible climate change. The coexistence of a chronic crisis of serious under-consumption for most with an increasingly critical environmental crisis resulting from over-consumption in aggregate can only be explained by extreme inequality in the global distribution of income. Resolving both simultaneously, as envisaged in the Post-2015 Agenda, requires a fundamental reconsideration of the nature and objectives of economic policy, and of the global economic system. The lecture will discuss the extent and implications of global inequality, before building on a number of working hypotheses to outline an alternative model of economic development more conducive to the achievement of these two most fundamental global goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications for the Eighth South-South Institute on \u201cInequality and Social Justice: Perspectives from the Global South","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submission of applications: 15 April 2015","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org","body":"The Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and the International Development Economic Associates (IDEAS), are pleased to announce, within the framework of the third three-year phase of the Africa/Asia/Latin America Scholarly Collaborative Program, the call for applications for participation in the Eighth South-South Institute on \u201cInequality and Social Justice: Perspectives from the Global South\u201d. The Institute will be held in Durban, South Africa, from September 11 to 18, 2015, on the back of the third World Social Science Forum (WSSF III, jointly hosted by CODESRIA, the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa and the ISSC). The Theme of the WSSF III is: Transforming Global Relations for a Just World. Younger scholars resident in countries of the South and who are pursuing active academic careers are eligible to apply for a place in the Institute. The Tri-continental arrangement requires applicants resident in Africa to submit their applications to CODESRIA, those resident in Asia to IDEAS and those resident in Latin America to CLACSO. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications: 2015 small grants programme for thesis writing","field_subtitle":"Applications 15th April, 2015","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/The%20Council%20for%20the%20Development%20of%20Social%20Science%20Research%20in%20Africa%20%28CODESRIA%29%20is%20pleased%20to%20announce%20the%20twenty-sixth%20session%20of%20its%20Small%20Grants%20Programme%20for%20Thesis%20Writing.%20The%20grants%20serve%20as%20part%20of%20the%20Council%E2%80%99s%20contribution%20to%20the%20development%20of","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce the twenty-sixth session of its Small Grants Programme for Thesis Writing. The grants serve as part of the Council\u2019s contribution to the development of the social sciences in Africa, and the continuous renewal and strengthening of research capacities in African universities, through the funding of primary research conducted by graduate and postgraduate students. Hence, candidates whose applications are successful are encouraged to use the resources provided under the grants to cover the cost of their fieldwork, the acquisition of books and documents, the processing of data which they have collected and the printing of their theses/dissertations. As the Council is strongly committed to encouraging African researchers to engage one another on a sustained basis, recipients of the small grants will also be supported to order books and journals produced by African scholarly publishers, including CODESRIA itself. They will also be encouraged to apply for participation in CODESRIA research methodology workshops.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Papers for a Special Issue of New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy on The Informal Economy","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: 10 June 2015","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/lundf%40ukzn.ac.za","body":"New Solutions seeks submissions for a special issue that will focus on the informal economy. The broad definition suggested by Women in Informal Employment: Globalising and Organising (WIEGO) will be used as a basis for this issue: \u201cthe informal sector refers to the production and employment that takes place in unincorporated small or unregistered enterprises; informal employment refers to employment without legal and social protection\u2014both inside and outside the informal sector; and the informal economy refers to all units, activities, and workers so defined and the output from them. Together, they form the broad base of the workforce and economy, both nationally and globally.\u201d (WIEGO Working Paper No. 1). Because New Solutions is a policy journal, manuscripts, including scientific papers, should include a perspective that addresses relevant policy concerns. Manuscripts are welcome for any of its journal sections, including: Scientific Solutions, Feature Articles, Movement Solutions, Documents, Voices, and Comment and Controversy. Earlier submissions are encouraged to ensure consideration.  Pre-submission inquiries may be sent to the editors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Case studies of experiences of mechanisms for social participation in health services","field_subtitle":"Editor","field_url":"","body":"This month's editorial presents one of the many experiences of the mechanisms that exist at primary care level for community participation in health services and for communication between services and communities. A series of case study briefs have been produced on these experiences, highlighting their contribution to people centred health systems, but also their challenges. As noted by those working with health centre committees in the region, if the intention is to build PHC-oriented, people-centred health systems then these mechanisms need skills for activism and transformation to help build social participation and power and a range of capacities, tools and processes that support this.&#8195;The case study brief on experiences in South Africa is included in this newsletter and we will include further case study briefs in forthcoming newsletters. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Case study brief: Communities shaping health centre committee roles and policy in Eastern Cape Province, South Africa,","field_subtitle":"QUINET; Learning Network for Health and Human rights UCT; TARSC ","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/HCC%20South%20Africa%20Brief%20March2015.pdf","body":"Communities in the Eastern Cape have played a role in formulating and implementing the guidance on their roles and functioning. In the Nelson Mandela Bay Health District, for example, health in 2006, a team from the Eastern Cape Provincial Department of Health invited health committee members, health service, local government, community and other local stakeholders to a meeting to contribute and to provide substance to the policy on health committees. This workshop served to frame the draft policy, which was later sent to all districts for discussion before further review and feedback by HCC representatives. The amendments made in this process were integrated into the final policy that was adopted in 2009 by the legislature in the province and published in 2010. This brief discusses this case study on the role of health centre committees as part of a series of case study briefs on the topic. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Code4SA launch new medicines pricing app","field_subtitle":"Health-E News, February 2015","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/2015/02/12/health-e-news-code4sa-launch-new-medicines-pricing-app/","body":"Created by the non-profit Code4SA, this new app uses the latest single exit prices for medicines to let people see if they are paying too much for medication in South Africa. In 2004, the government introduced a single exit price mechanism for medicines to put a stop to discounts and additional levies on medicines. The mechanism now lists the maximum price for most medicines. However, dispensers may charge an additional dispensing fee depending on the price of the medicine. Using the latest single exit prices, the free app allows people to check what price they should be paying for prescriptions \u2013 and whether cheaper generics are available.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Communities shaping policy on health centre committee roles in Eastern Cape Province, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Therese Boulle, Leslie London, Zingisa Sofayiya Learning Network for Health and Human Rights, UCT","field_url":"","body":"\r\nSouth Africa is in a process of transforming its health system from a centralised and largely curative model to a district health system implementing primary health care and addressing the social determinants of health.  The strategies for this depend on an effective district health system, and this in turn depends in part on the role given to communities in health. But who shapes this role?\r\n\r\nPublic participation in health is covered in the country\u2019s law and policy. South Africa\u2019s 1996 Constitution provides for the right to health, health care, participation and association, and for public participation in policy-making. The 2003 National Health Act provides for participation at community level in clinic and community health centre committees. The 1988 Municipal Structures Act and the 2000 Municipal Systems Act create mechanisms within local government for communities to participate in decisions on local community developments through ward committees and local government councillors.  These frameworks for participatory democracy need follow up to realise them in practice.\r\n\r\nIn September 2014 a National Colloquium found that while many provinces have established committees, there is a lack of clarity on their roles, affecting their functioning.   The Department of Health at national level issued draft guidelines for HCCs in 2014 to address this gap. In the Eastern Cape, a policy was published in 2010 on the establishment and functioning of clinic and community health centre committees. It describes the roles, linkages, reporting and accountability of those in the committees. The policy seeks to involve communities in the planning and provision of health services, as a link between the community, health facility, and district health council and to foster co-operative governance. It sets out the community representation in the committees, drawn from women, the religious community, youth, non-government and community based organisations, traditional health practitioners and disabled people, with flexibility to include social groups relevant to the local context.  This structure, while set in policy, is only slowly being operationalized in the districts. While in some districts the HCCs may be less functional, in the Nelson Mandela Bay Health District, where additional support has been provided by the university to the fifty clinics, all the committees except one are functional.  Forums are held at sub-district and district level, as required by the policy, to monitor and support the committees and their members.\r\n\r\nCommunities in the Eastern Cape have played a role in formulating and implementing the guidance on their roles and functioning in the committees. In the Nelson Mandela Bay Health District, for example, health committees had been operating since 1996 but in a haphazard and variable manner, without guidelines for their functioning and erratic staff and management support. This frustrated members. In 2006 a team from the Eastern Cape Provincial Department of Health invited health committee members, health service, local government, community and other local stakeholders to a meeting to contribute and to provide substance to the policy on health committees.  This workshop served to frame the draft policy, which was later sent to all districts for discussion before further review and feedback by HCC representatives. The amendments made in this process were integrated into the final policy that was adopted in 2009by the legislature in the province and published in 2010. \r\n\r\nThe policy provides for three-yearly review. In 2014 a review was initiated with HCC members, in consultation with the province.  Workshops were held with the committees, facilitated by University of Cape Town.  These reviews helped to make the policy more accessible, to support understanding of roles amongst HCC members, to raise roles that had been overlooked, challenges in implementation of functions and suggestions on improvements. It demonstrated tangibly to HCC members that their voices can be heard in amending and adapting policy to improve it.  Reviewing the policy also made the HCC members clearer on how to monitor its implementation and the duties of service providers. \r\n\r\nSome issues were raised during the policy review: Greater support was urged from facility managers and local government councillors who were seen to be critical members for the functioning of committees, but inadequately involved. Communication between communities and services was observed to be weaker than set in the policy. Community members were found to distrust the complaint box process where HCCs monitor the opening of complaints boxes, recording and resolution of complaints.  The committees noted that very limited resources are made available to support their work, including for transport, communication or capacity development. The HCCs made various proposals in the review, to ensure include processes for establishing committees and re-election every three years; to formally recognise HCC members; to make the reporting obligations of facility managers clearer; to include ongoing capacity building and skills development in the policy and to proactively support opportunities to discuss and engage with local communities and give feedback on issues to communities to build confidence in the system.\r\n\r\nThe process taught lessons about how people can shape and use their policies for participation on health. HCC members feel empowered when they know policies, not only to understand their own roles and responsibilities, but to ensure that they are enforced and that service and local government personnel are accountable for their roles. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised please visit www.equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Ebola preparedness: emergency department training modules","field_subtitle":"Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, February 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/healthcare-us/emergency-services/emergency-department-training.html","body":"This course is directed at emergency department staff. It is aimed at training to help emergency department staff prepare to evaluate whether or not a patient might have ebola virus disease. Staff members should use this information to follow the 3 steps within the \u201cIdentify, Isolate, and Inform\u201d strategy. Centers for Disease Control recommends that staff members screen all patients with travel histories, exposure, or clinical symptoms that might suggest the person could have ebola virus disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Ending female genital mutilation within a generation","field_subtitle":"Wandia M, Pambuzuka News, 713, February 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category/comment/93941","body":"A multi-pronged approach is needed to end female genital mutilation (FGM) in one generation. This includes prevention, protection, provision of services, partnerships and prosecutions. States must live up to their international obligations to protect women and girls. Over the last 12 months, the campaign against FGM has received renewed support from different actors committed to ending the practice. According to UNICEF, Kenya has led the way with falls in prevalence from middle-aged women to adolescent girls from 49% to 15%, albeit with an increase in the percentage of FGM performed by health personnel. 2014 also saw a significant increase in the prosecution of FGM cases globally and verdicts in a few countries. This article discusses the global challenges and successes of addressing FGM and makes recommendations towards eliminating FGM in a generation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 170: Communities shaping policy on health centre committee roles in Eastern Cape Province, South Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Fertility among orphans in rural Malawi: challenging common assumptions about risk and mechanisms","field_subtitle":"Kidman R, Anglewicz P: International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 40(4), 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.1363/4016414.pdf","body":"Although a substantial literature suggests that orphans suffer disadvantage relative to non orphaned peers, the nature of this disadvantage and the mechanisms driving it are poorly understood. Some evidence suggests that orphans experience elevated fertility, perhaps because structural disadvantage leads them to engage in sexual risk-taking. An alternative explanation is that orphans intentionally become pregnant to achieve a sense of normality, acceptance and love. Data from the 2006 wave of the Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health on 1,033 young adults aged 15\u201325 were used to examine the relationship of maternal and paternal orphanhood with sexual risk indicators and desired and actual fertility. Regression analyses were used to adjust for covariates, including social and demographic characteristics and elapsed time since parental death. Twenty-six percent of respondents had lost their father and 15% their mother. Orphanhood was not associated with sexual risk-taking. However, respondents whose mother had died in the past five years desired more children than did those whose mother was still alive (risk differences, 0.52 among women and 0.97 among men). Actual fertility was elevated among women whose father had died more than five years earlier (0.31) and among men whose mother had died in the past five years (1.06) or more than five years earlier (0.47). The elevations in desired and actual fertility among orphans are consistent with the hypothesis that orphans intentionally become pregnant. Strategies that address personal desires for parenthood may need to be part of prevention programs aimed at orphaned youth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Free access to OUP resources for ebola world health emergency","field_subtitle":"Oxford University Press, 2015","field_url":"http://www.oxfordjournals.org/en/our-journals/medicine-and-health/ebola.html","body":"In response to the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa, Oxford University Press has made more than 50 articles from leading journals and online resources freely accessible to assist researchers, medical professionals, policy makers, and others working on the containment, treatment, and prevention of Ebola hemorrhagic fever. Articles are free to access worldwide until 4 January 2016.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health in all policies: training manual","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, February 2015","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/151788/1/9789241507981_eng.pdf","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) calls on enhanced global efforts to improve health in some of the world\u2019s poorest and most vulnerable communities by tackling the root causes of disease and health inequalities. In order to address this and to spur up action, raise awareness and facilitate implementation of a Health in All Policies (HiAP) approach WHO has launched a Health in All Policies training manual. This manual is a training resource to increase understanding of the importance of Health in All Policies among health and other professionals. The material will form the basis of 2- and 3-day workshops, which will: build capacity to promote, implement and evaluate HiAP; encourage engagement and collaboration across sectors; facilitate the exchange of experiences and lessons learned; promote regional and global collaboration on HiAP; and promote dissemination of skills to develop training courses for trainers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health workers\u2019 experiences, barriers, preferences and motivating factors in using mHealth forms in Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Medhanyie AA, Little Am Yebyo H, Spigt M, Tadesse K, Blanco R, Dinant GJ: Human Resources for Health 13(2), 2015","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/13/1/2","body":"Mobile health (mHealth) applications, such as innovative electronic forms on smartphones, could potentially improve the performance of health care workers and health systems in developing countries. However, contextual evidence on health workers\u2019 barriers and motivating factors that may influence large-scale implementation of such interfaces for health care delivery is scarce. A pretested semistructured questionnaire was used to assess health workers\u2019 experiences, barriers, preferences, and motivating factors in using mobile health forms on smartphones in the context of maternal health care in Ethiopia. Twenty-five health extension workers (HEWs) and midwives, working in 13 primary health care facilities in Tigray region, Ethiopia, participated in this study. Sixteen (69.6%) workers believed the forms were good reminders on what to do and what questions needed to be asked. Twelve (52.2%) workers said electronic forms were comprehensive and 9 (39.1%) workers saw electronic forms as learning tools. All workers preferred unrestricted use of the smartphones and believed it helped them adapt to the smartphones and electronic forms for work purposes. Identified barriers for not using electronic forms consistently include challenges related to electronic forms (for example, problem with username and password setting as reported by 5 (21.7%), smartphones (for example, smartphone froze or locked up as reported by 9 (39.1%) and health system (for example, frequent movement of health workers as reported by 19 (82.6%)). Both HEWs and midwives found the electronic forms on smartphones useful for their day-to-day maternal health care services delivery. However, sustainable use and implementation of such work tools at scale would be daunting without providing technical support to health workers, securing mobile network airtime and improving key functions of the larger health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving financial access to health care in the Kisantu district in the Democratic Republic of Congo: acting upon complexity","field_subtitle":"Stasse S; Vita D; Kimfuta J; da Silveira VC; Bossyns P; Criel B: Global Health Action 8(25480), 5 January 2015, doi: 10.3402/gha.v8.25480","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4307026/","body":"&nbsp;Commercialisation of health care has contributed to widen inequities between the rich and the poor, especially in settings with suboptimal regulatory frameworks of the health sector. Poorly regulated fee-for-service payment systems generate inequity and initiate a vicious circle in which access to quality health care gradually deteriorates. Although the abolition of user fees is high on the international health policy agenda, the sudden removal of user fees may have disrupting effects on the health system and may not be affordable or sustainable in resource-constrained countries, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. Between 2008 and 2011, the Belgian development aid agency (BTC) launched a set of reforms in the Kisantu district, in the province of Bas Congo, through an action-research process deemed appropriate for the implementation of change within open complex systems such as the Kisantu local health system. Moreover, the entire process contributed to strengthen the stewardship capacity of the Kisantu district management team. The reforms mainly comprised the rationalisation of resources and the regulation of health services financing. Flat fees per episode of disease were introduced as an alternative to fee-for-service payments by patients. A financial subsidy from BTC allowed to reduce the height of the flat fees. The provision of the subsidy was made conditional upon a range of measures to rationalise the use of resources. The results in terms of enhancing people access to quality health care were immediate and substantial. The Kisantu experience demonstrates that a systems approach is essential in addressing complex problems. It provides useful lessons for other districts in the country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Incrementum ad Absurdum: Global growth, inequality and poverty eradication in a carbon-constrained world","field_subtitle":"Woodward D: World Economic Review 4, February 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nqf8h7m","body":"The paper seeks to assess the timeframe for eradication of poverty, defined by poverty lines of $1.25 and $5 per person per day at 2005 purchasing power parity, if pre-crisis (1993-2008) patterns of income growth were maintained indefinitely, taking account of the differential performance of China. On the basis of optimistic assumptions, and implicitly assuming an indefinite continuation of potentially important pro-poor shifts in development policies during the baseline period, it finds that eradication will take at least 100 years at $1.25-a-day, and 200 years at $5-a-day. While this could in principle be brought forward by accelerating global growth, global carbon constraints raise serious doubts about the viability of this course, particularly as global GDP would need to exceed $100,000 per capita at $1.25-a-day, and $1m per capita at $5-a-day. The clear implication is that poverty eradication, even at $1.25-a-day, and especially at a poverty line which better reflects the satisfaction of basic needs, can be reconciled with global carbon constraints only by a major increase in the share of the poorest in global economic growth, far beyond what can realistically be achieved by existing instruments of development policy \u2013 that is, by effective measures to reduce global inequality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"INVESTIGACI\u00d3N-ACCI\u00d3N PARTICIPATIVA EN SISTEMAS DE SALUD: UNA GU\u00cdA DE M\u00c9TODOS","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R; Laurell AC; Hogstedt C; D\u2019Ambruoso L; Shroff Z:  TARSC, AHPSR, WHO, IDRC Canada, EQUINET, Harare, 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Spanish%20PAR%20Reader%20March%202015%20for%20web.pdf","body":"In the 21st century there is a growing demand to channel collective energy towards justice and equity in health, and to better understand the social processes that influence health and health systems. Communities, rontline health workers and other grass-roots actors play a key role in responding to this demand, in raising critical questions, building new knowledge and provoking and carrying out action to transform health systems and improve health. There is a widening array of methods, tools and capacities \u2013 old and new \u2013 to increase social participation and power in generating new knowledge through participatory research. At the same time, we need to be clear about exactly what participatory research is and what it can offer. This reader promotes understanding of the term \u2018participatory action research\u2019 (PAR) and provides information on its paradigms, methods, application and use, particularly in health policy and systems. This version of the reader is in Spanish. It was produced through the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET), with Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (AHPSR) and International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Canada. The result of team work, the reader draws on experience and published work from all regions globally and explains:\r\n\u2022 key features of participatory action research and the history and knowledge paradigms that inform it;\r\n\u2022 processes and methods used in participatory action research, including innovations and developments in the field and the ethical and methods issues in implementing it; and\r\n\u2022 communication, reporting, institutionalization and use of participatory action research in health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal mortality: a cross-sectional study in global health","field_subtitle":"Sajedinejad S, Majdzadeh R, Vedadhir A, Tabatabaei MG, Mohammad K: Globalization and Health, 4  doi:10.1186/s12992-015-0087-y,  2015","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/s12992-015-0087-y.pdf","body":"Although most of maternal deaths are preventable, maternal mortality reduction programs have not been completely successful. As targeting individuals alone does not seem to be an effective strategy to reduce maternal mortality (Millennium Development Goal 5), the present study sought to reveal the role of many distant macrostructural factors affecting maternal mortality at the global level. After preparing a global dataset, 439 indicators were selected from nearly 1800 indicators based on their relevance and the application of proper inclusion and exclusion criteria. Then Pearson correlation coefficients were computed to assess the relationship between these indicators and maternal mortality. Only indicators with statistically significant correlation more than 0.2, and missing values less than 20% were maintained. Due to the high multicollinearity among the remaining indicators, after missing values analysis and imputation, factor analysis was performed with principal component analysis as the method of extraction. Ten factors were finally extracted and entered into a multiple regression analysis. The findings of this study not only consolidated the results of earlier studies about maternal mortality, but also added new evidence. Education, private sector and trade  and governance were found to be the most important macrostructural factors associated with maternal mortality. Employment and labor structure, economic policy and debt, agriculture and food production, private sector infrastructure investment, and health finance were also some other critical factors. These distal factors explained about 65% of the variability in maternal mortality between different countries. Decreasing maternal mortality requires dealing with various factors other than individual determinants including political will, reallocation of national resources (especially health resources) in the governmental sector, education, attention to the expansion of the private sector trade and improving spectrums of governance. In other words, sustainable reduction in maternal mortality (as a development indicator) will depend on long-term planning for multi-faceted development. Moreover, trade, debt, political stability, and strength of legal rights can be affected by elements outside the borders of countries and global determinants. These findings are believed to be beneficial for sustainable development in Post-2015 Development Agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Morbidity and mortality of black HIV-positive patients with end-stage kidney disease receiving chronic haemodialysis in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Wearne N: South African Medical Journal 105 (2), DOI:10.7196/samj.9068 2015","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/9068","body":"South Africa (SA) has the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS of any country in the world, which adds complexity to a health system already overwhelmed by chronic kidney disease, particularly that due to hypertension, diabetes and chronic glomerulonephritis. Renal disease is common in HIV-infected individuals. Prior to availability of ART, HIV was a death sentence for individuals with chronic kidney disease (CKD). However, since ART roll-out there is growing evidence of little difference in survival between HIV-infected patients who are receiving efficacious ART compared with the general population on dialysis. In this issue of the SAMJ, Fabian et al. demonstrate that haemodialysis in black African HIV-positive patients in the private sector in SA imparts excellent overall survival. This study contributes to the growing data reflecting good outcomes for HIV-positive patients on dialysis. However, transplantation is regarded as the best treatment option for CKD in patients without HIV, and we ask whether we should not be striving for dialysis to be the bridge to transplantation in HIV-positive patients. Also, importantly, attention needs to be geared towards prevention of CKD and slowing progression towards end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Those who provide healthcare to HIV-positive patients need to be aware of the special renal issues relevant to HIV, and the potential for evolution to ESRD.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Older people's health in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Aboderin I, Beard J: The Lancet 385 (9968), 2014","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(14)61602-0.pdf","body":"Awareness is growing that the world's population is rapidly ageing. Although much of the related policy debate is about the implications for high-income countries, attention is broadening to less developed settings. Middle-income country populations, in particular, are generally ageing at a much faster rate than was the case for today's high-income countries, and the health of their older populations could be substantially worse. However, little consideration has been given to issues of old age in sub-Saharan Africa, which remains the world's poorest and youngest region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory health councils and good governance: healthy democracy in Brazil?","field_subtitle":"Saugues S, Madonko T: International Journal for Equity in Health 14:21 , 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/14/1/21","body":"The Brazilian Government created Participatory Health Councils (PHCs) to allow citizen participation in the public health policy process. PHCs are advisory bodies that operate at all levels of government and that bring together different societal groups to monitor Brazil\u2019s health system. Today they are present in 98% of Brazilian cities, demonstrating their popularity and thus their potential to help ensure that health policies are in line with citizen preferences. Despite their expansive reach, their real impact on health policies and health outcomes for citizens is uncertain. The authors thus ask the following question: Do PHCs offer meaningful opportunities for open participation and influence in the public health policy process? Thirty-eight semi-structured interviews with health council members were conducted. Data from these interviews were analyzed using a qualitative interpretive content analysis approach. A quantitative analysis of PHC data from the Sistema de Acompanhamento dos Conselhos de Saude (SIACS) database was also conducted to corroborate findings from the interviews. The authors learned that PHCs fall short in many of the categories of good governance. Government manipulation of the agenda and leadership of the PHCs, delays in the implementation of PHC decision making, a lack of training of council members on relevant technical issues, the largely narrow interests of council members, the lack of transparency and monitoring guidelines, a lack of government support, and a lack of inclusiveness are a few examples that highlight why PHCs are not as effective as they could be. Conclusions Although PHCs are intended to be inclusive and participatory, in practice they seem to have little impact on the health policymaking process in Brazil. PHCs will only be able to fulfil their mandate when combined with good governance. This will require a rethinking of their governance structures, processes, membership, and oversight. If change is resisted, the PHCs will remain largely limited to a good idea in theory that is disappointing in practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Promoting the use of climate information to achieve long-term development objectives in Sub-Saharan Africa: Results from the future climate for Africa scoping phase","field_subtitle":"Jones L, Carabine E, Roux JP, Tanner T: Climate and Development Knowledge Network, February 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/o7zx2t6","body":"The impacts of climate change are currently being felt by people and communities. However, many of the most severe impacts will be felt in the decades to come. Significant barriers emerge in an effort to achieve long-term development objectives, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, a region with low capacity to adapt to the future impacts of climate change. Factoring medium- to long-term climate information into investments and planning decisions is therefore an important component of climate-resilient development. We know little about how climate information is used in Africa to make decisions with long-term consequences, or how effective it is. We know even less about the barriers to \u2013 and opportunities for \u2013 using climate information in decision-making. How, then, should governments, businesses and donors strive for climate information to achieve Africa\u2019s long-term development objectives? The Future Climate For Africa (FCFA) programme explores these questions and seeks to challenge many of the assumptions that underlie them. To guide the programme, six case studies investigated how climate information was being used in decision-making in sub-Saharan Africa. These comprised four country case studies: Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia and a combined study of Accra, Ghana and Maputo, Mozambique; and two desk-based studies focused on long-lived infrastructure in the ports sector and the large hydropower sector. This report presents the results of the scoping phase.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health nurse educators\u2019 conceptualisation of public health as a strategy to reduce health inequalities: a qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Mabhala M, International Journal for Equity in Health 14(14), DOI:10.1186/s12939-015-0146-2, 2015","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/14/1/14","body":"Nurses have long been identified as key contributors to strategies to reduce health inequalities. This raises questions about: convergence between policy makers\u2019 and nurses\u2019 understanding of how inequalities in health are created and sustained and educational preparation for the role as contributors in reducing health inequalities. This qualitative research project determined public health nurse educators\u2019 understanding of public health as a strategy to reduce health inequalities, through semi-structured interviews. Public health nurse educators described health inequalities as the foundation on which a public health framework should be built. Two distinct views emerged of how health inequalities should be tackled: some proposed a population approach focusing on upstream preventive strategies, whilst others proposed behavioural approaches focusing on empowering vulnerable individuals to improve their own health. Despite upstream interventions to reduce inequalities in health being proved to have more leverage than individual behavioural interventions in tackling the fundamental causes of health inequalities, some nurses have a better understanding of individual interventions than population approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Refusal to enrol in Ghana\u2019s National Health Insurance Scheme: is affordability the problem?","field_subtitle":"Kusi A, Enemark U, Hansen KS, Asante FA; International Journal for Equity in Health 14(2), 2015","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/14/1/2","body":"Access to health insurance is expected to have positive effect in improving access to healthcare and offer financial risk protection to households. Ghana began the implementation of a National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in 2004 as a way to ensure equitable access to basic healthcare for all residents. After a decade of its implementation, national coverage is just about 34% of the national population. Affordability of the NHIS contribution is often cited by households as a major barrier to enrolment in the NHIS without any rigorous analysis of this claim. In light of the global interest in achieving universal health insurance coverage, this study seeks to examine the extent to which affordability of the NHIS contribution is a barrier to full insurance for households and a burden on their resources. The study uses data from a cross-sectional household survey involving 2,430 households from three districts in Ghana conducted between January-April, 2011. Affordability of the NHIS contribution is analysed using the household budget-based approach based on the normative definition of affordability. The burden of the NHIS contributions to households is assessed by relating the expected annual NHIS contribution to household non-food expenditure and total consumption expenditure. Households which cannot afford full insurance were identified. Results show that 66% of uninsured households and 70% of partially insured households could afford full insurance for their members. EnrolLing all household members in the NHIS would account for 5.9% of household non-food expenditure or 2.0% of total expenditure but higher for households in the first (11.4%) and second (7.0%) socio-economic quintiles. All the households (29%) identified as unable to afford full insurance were in the two lower socio-economic quintiles and had large household sizes. Non-financial factors relating to attributes of the insurer and health system problems also affect enrolment in the NHIS. Affordability of full insurance would be a burden on households with low socio-economic status and large household size. Innovative measures are needed to encourage abled households to enrol. Policy should aim at abolishing the registration fee for children, pricing insurance according to socio-economic status of households and addressing the inimical non-financial factors to increase NHIS coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"South African national cancer registry: effect of withheld data from private health systems on cancer incidence estimates","field_subtitle":"Singh E, Underwood JM, Nattey C, Babb C, Sengayi M, Kellett P: The South African Medical Journal 105 (2), DOI:10.7196/samj.8858, 2015","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/8858","body":"The National Cancer Registry (NCR) was established as a pathology-based cancer reporting system. From 2005 to 2007, private health laboratories withheld cancer reports owing to concerns regarding voluntary sharing of patient data.The study aimed to estimate the impact of under-reported cancer data from private health laboratories. A linear regression analysis was conducted to project expected cancer cases for 2005 - 2007. Differences between actual and projected figures were calculated to estimate percentage under-reporting. The projected NCR case total varied from 53 407 (3.8% net increase from actual cases reported) in 2005 to 54 823 (3.7% net increase) in 2007. The projected number of reported cases from private laboratories in 2005 was 26 359 (19.7% net increase from actual cases reported), 27 012 (18.8% net increase) in 2006 and 27 666 (28.4% net increase) in 2007. While private healthcare reporting decreased by 28% from 2005 to 2007, this represented a minimal impact on overall cancer reporting (net decrease of ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening health systems in low-income countries by enhancing organisational capacities and improving institutions","field_subtitle":"Swanson RC, Atun R, Best A, Betigeri A, de Campos F, Chunharas S, Collins T, Currie G, Jan S, McCoy D, Omaswa F, Sanders D, Sundararaman T, Van Damme W: Globalization and Health 11 (5), 2015","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/11/1/5","body":"This paper argues that the global health agenda tends to privilege short-term global interests at the expense of long-term capacity building within national and community health systems. The Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) movement needs to focus on developing the capacity of local organisations and the institutions that influence how such organisations interact with local and international stakeholders. While institutions can enable organisations, they too often apply requirements to follow paths that can stifle learning and development. Global health actors have recognised the importance of supporting local organisations in HSS activities. However, this recognition has yet to translate adequately into actual policies to influence funding and practice. While there is not a single approach to HSS that can be uniformly applied to all contexts, several messages emerge from the experience of successful health systems presented in this paper using case studies through a complex adaptive systems lens. Two key messages deserve special attention: the need for donors and recipient organisations to work as equal partners, and the need for strong and diffuse leadership in low-income countries. An increasingly dynamic and interdependent post-Millennium Development Goals (post-MDG) world requires new ways of working to improve global health, underpinned by a complex adaptive systems lens and approaches that build local organisational capacity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The 9th World Congress of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease","field_subtitle":"8-11 November 2015, Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.dohad2015.org","body":"The Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) concept describes how during early life (conception, pregnancy, infancy and childhood) the interplay between maternal and environmental factors program (induce physiological changes) fetal and child growth and development that have long-term consequences on later health and disease risk. Timely interventions may reduce such risk in individuals and also limit its transmission to the next generation. DOHaD research has substantial implications for many transitioning African societies and for global health policy. The 9th World Congress in Cape Town, South Africa, will bring together scientists, clinical researchers, obstetricians, paediatricians, public health professionals and policy leaders from around the world. These experts will address, head-on, the many challenges that currently impact the health of mothers, babies in the womb, infants, children and adolescents, as well as explore solutions, interventions and policies to optimise health across the life of people. The 9th World Congress, the first to be held in Africa, will explore new solutions in infant and child malnutrition, and new epidemics of obesity and non-communicable diseases.   ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The complexity of resource allocation for health","field_subtitle":"Dieleman J, Haakenstad A: The Lancet 3(1), 2015","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(14)70373-0/fulltext","body":"This research emphasises that many governments are not meeting spending goals, and in many countries the financing gaps are so great that, even if they met the spending goals, expenditure would still fall short of what is needed. Expenditure would cover only 64% of estimated future funding requirements, leaving a gap of around a third of the total US$7.9 billion needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The global financial crisis and access to health care in Africa","field_subtitle":"Mensah J: Africa Today 60(3), 2014","field_url":"http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.2979/africatoday.60.3.35.pdf?&acceptTC=true&jpdConfirm=true","body":"Just when health care financing in Africa is expected to pick up due to perceptible improvements in many economies, including those of Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Angola, the global financial crisis gathers momentum for contagion. This paper examines how the financial crisis is undermining access to health care in Africa, and offers some suggestions to help improve the situation. The paper sees access as a multifaceted concept, imbued with various social, economic, and geographic characteristics. The study found that the revenue constrictions wrought by the ongoing financial crises (e.g., through reductions in donor funding, tourist bookings, and remittance to Africa) have affected the supply of health care services, put pressure on personal finances, and compelled many households to reduce their demand for formal health care services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The governance and politics of urban space in the postcolonial African city","field_subtitle":"Guma PK: Research paper submitted to Third Swiss Researching Africa Days, 17-18 October 2014","field_url":"https://www.academia.edu/9550465/The_Governance_and_Politics_of_Urban_Space_in_Postcolonial_African_Cities","body":"With the fading of colonial memory in postcolonial Africa, dramatic changes are emerging and are shaping urban cities in quite significant ways. Urbanisation is exploding, and large numbers of Africans are becoming town dwellers, informal settlements alike are becoming the norm rather than the exception. Urban challenges have thus become complex, hence calling for an infrastructural rethink to urban governance and development in Africa. The interest for this paper, is to explore the governance and politics of urban space in the postcolonial African city. Guma\u2019s research question, put in its most general form, asks what constitutes the governance and politics of urban space in the post-colonial African city? By taking three East African cities of Kampala, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as his main analytical units, he focuses on: understanding urban structures and dynamics of urban governance and political frameworks and networks of survival, and exploring realities that shape urban governance within the global and neo-liberal context of post colonial Africa.  To achieve this end, he draws from comparative, qualitative and reflective exploratory fieldwork research within the realm of socio-anthropological, legal-political, and architectural-geographical investigation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The scramble for Africa: A continuing narrative","field_subtitle":"Oyateru T, Pambuzuka News, 713, February 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category/comment/93946","body":"Africa is fast becoming the go-to continent for countries wanting access to the vast and rich resources. But can the continent harness its potential, negotiate effectively and have the confidence to take charge of its own future, without allowing global financial giants to ride rough-shod over it? This article discusses the current state of investment into the region, the influence of China and America and the implications for Africans. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Video: Health For All Now! The 3rd People's Health Assembly","field_subtitle":"Saugues S, Madonko T, 19 February 2015","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmm5Hj0HNWA&feature=youtu.be","body":"This video is of the Third People\u2019s Health Assembly, organised by the People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM) at the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa, 6-11 July 2012. It brought health activists, civil society, academics, communities, health professionals, networks and individuals from across the world together to analyse global health and to strategise jointly towards Health for All.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Why is cancer not a priority in South Africa?","field_subtitle":"Stefan DC: The South African Medical Journal 105 (2), 2015","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/9301","body":"Cancer is in the second position on the list of causes of death in South Africa after adding all cancers together. It is expected that cancer will lead the list in the near future. A co-ordinated effort, including a fully functional National Cancer Registry, a National Cancer Control Plan and a new cancer research approach, is argued to be required in order to reduce the burden of cancer.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WTO least-developed countries request waiver of IP rights on pharma products","field_subtitle":"Saez C, Intellectual Property Watch, 25 February 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/oe8so4g","body":"In the World Trade Organization intellectual property committee meeting in February, least-developed countries (LDCs) submitted a request to extend a waiver allowing them not to enforce intellectual property rights on pharmaceutical products that goes to 2016. The countries have extended the waiver before, but this time they are seeking to make it indefinite, until they are no longer considered LDCs are disproportionately exposed to the health risks associated with poverty, and \u201cpatent protection contributes to high costs, placing many critical treatments outside the reach of LDCs, according to a communication by the group.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"2015 Postdoctoral Fellowship Competition","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: 15 March 2015","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2276","body":"CODESRIA\u2019s postdoctoral fellowship program is meant to give scholars at different levels of their careers the resources to undertake sustained work over multiple years on a project of their choice with the goal of producing empirically grounded and theoretically innovative work that will constitute original contributions to their field of work and to the understanding of Africa in the world. In addition to a financial grant of USD 15,000 over a 15-`month period, selected scholars will be provided access to CODESRIA\u2019s library. Priority thematic areas from which the Council seeks to draw participants for its 2015 postdoctoral fellowships  relate to a range of areas relating to African youth, economic transformation, human rights, social security and social welfare systems, African arts, education and  gender analysis. Further detail on the themes and requirements for applications can be found on the website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to Cancer Treatment: A study of medicine pricing issues with recommendations for improving access to cancer medication","field_subtitle":"t Hoen E: Oxfam International, 4 February 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/n353osx","body":"According to the World Health Organization, cancer is one of the leading causes of death around the world, with 8.2 million deaths in 2012. More than 60 percent of the world\u2019s new cases of cancer occur in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America and these regions account for 70 percent of the world\u2019s cancer deaths. In low- and middle-income countries, expensive treatments for cancer are not widely available. Unsustainable cancer medication pricing has increasingly become a global issue, creating access challenges in low-and middle-income but also high-income countries. This report describes recent developments within the pricing of medicines for the treatment of cancer, discusses what lessons can be drawn from HIV/AIDS treatment scale-up and makes recommendations to help increase access to treatment for people with cancer.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Advancing the application of systems thinking in health: why cure crowds out prevention","field_subtitle":"Bishai D, Paina L, Li Q, Peters DH, Hyder AA: Health Research Policy and Systems 12(28), 2014","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/12/1/28","body":"This paper illustrates unintended consequences of apparently rational allocations to curative and preventive services, using computer modelling.  The model exhibits a \u201cspend more get less\u201d equilibrium in which higher revenue by the curative sector is used to influence government allocations away from prevention towards cure. Spending more on curing disease leads paradoxically to a higher overall disease burden of unprevented cases of other diseases. The authors suggest that this paradoxical behaviour of the model can be stopped by eliminating lobbying, eliminating fees for curative services and ring-fencing public health funding. The authors have created an artificial system as a laboratory to gain insights about the trade-offs between curative and preventive health allocations, and the effect of indicative policy interventions. The underlying dynamics of this artificial system resemble features of modern health systems where a self-perpetuating industry has grown up around disease-specific curative programs like HIV/AIDS or malaria. The model shows how the growth of curative care services can crowd both fiscal and policy space for the practice of population level prevention work, requiring dramatic interventions to overcome these trends.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Forum on Inclusive Economies 2014","field_subtitle":"Rockefeller Foundation, African Development Bank, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa: December 2014","field_url":"http://inclusiveeconomies2014.org/en/","body":"The Rockefeller Foundation, the African Development Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa convened in December 2014 at the Africa Forum on Inclusive Economies, a Pan African convening aimed at bringing together key thought leaders and policy makers to closely interrogate and propel forward, thinking around the theme of advancing inclusive economies. The convening aimed to focus new ideas and narratives towards the advancement of an inclusive economies approach with key African institutions and influencers and to provide a platform to further enhance thinking and critical debate on the issue of inclusive economies. Reports, videos and a blog from the convening can be found on the website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"After Ebola: What next for West Africa\u2019s health systems?","field_subtitle":"Mcilhone M: African Brains, February 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/luerxqx","body":"As rates of Ebola infection fall in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, planning has begun on how to rebuild public health systems and learn lessons from the outbreak. Nobody is declaring victory yet. But in Sierra Leone, the worst-affected country, there were 117 new confirmed cases reported in the week to 18 January, the latest statistics available, compared with 184 the previous week and 248 the week before that. Guinea halved its cases in the week to 18 January \u2013 down to 20 \u2013 and Liberia held steady at eight. The epidemic is not over until there are zero cases over two incubation periods \u2013 the equivalent of 42 days. This article discusses the role of citizen and state, external funders and local community action in addressing the epidemic. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Bring the right to health into Uganda\u2019s Constitution this year!","field_subtitle":"Moses Mulumba,  Executive Director, Center for Health, Human Rights and Development, Uganda ","field_url":"","body":"Uganda\u2019s Constitution has much to make our country proud\u2014including chapter four which has strong commitments to fundamental rights and freedoms, such as freedom of expression and the promise of non-discrimination.\r\n\r\nThese sacred freedoms are not always upheld or enforced\u2014but that is a matter for another day! As a first principle, the fact that these guarantees are enshrined in our Constitution shows the potential to protect, promote and defend the human rights of all people in the country. They provide the entry point for citizens from all walks of life to hold our duty bearers to account. \r\n\r\nEvery ten years we must ask: what is missing from our Constitution? What should be amended to adapt to our changing environment? In 2015, Parliament will consider proposed revisions to our Constitution. \r\n\r\nIt is this vital opportunity that motivated the Center for Health Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) and a team of partners, on World Human Rights Day, to submit a bold proposal to the Uganda Law Reform Commission \u2014that included in the revisions being considered by parliament in 2015, there should be an explicit guarantee for all citizens of the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. \r\n\r\nThose who framed our Constitution, despite their wisdom, did not expressly cater for the right to the highest attainable standard of health in its substantive articles, but rather placed it under the non binding State policies and objectives. It is now urgent for the country to correct this. \r\n\r\nWhy? Simply put: because when it comes to health, our leaders and policy makers are failing the citizens. \r\n\r\nUganda\u2019s astonishingly poor health indicators speak volumes. Unlike its neighbours, which have shown important advances, Uganda has had a stagnant rate of maternal deaths for the past decade alongside rising HIV incidence and declining condom use. Uganda has a stubborn burden of drug resistant tuberculosis and, according to the World Health Organisation 2005 report on malaria, Uganda has the world's highest malaria incidence, with 478 cases for every 1 000 people every year. This disease burden is coupled with ailing public health facilities that lack essential services like water and electricity. \r\n\r\nUnfortunately, health services have been eclipsed by rural electrification and infrastructure as political priorities for investment. Health care is seen by government as an area for charitable donation or as spending on \u2018consumption\u2019. This is extremely shortsighted. There should be no trade-off between building roads or building health services. This is a false dichotomy. We cannot develop as a country economically if our population is sick, or if families are one attack of cerebral malaria short of impoverishment! \r\n\r\nCountries that have expanded access to free, essential services have found that those investments have yielded real benefit to their citizens, including in terms of less absenteeism from work and schooling due to ill health, and increases in economic productivity at the household level. \r\n\r\nIn reality, in receiving taxes from people, government is bound by a social contract to account back to the people on how their resources are being used. \r\nThe structural adjustment programmes that liberalized and reduced public funding to social services located health in the market place and weakened this state duty. Now is the time to redeem it.  We believe that a strong constitutional norm is needed to raise the role and accountability of the state in health care and raise pressure to address the social conditions that affect our health. \r\n\r\nIncluding the right to the highest attainable standard of health as a constitutional right provides a bench mark for government, private sector and society to respect, protect, fulfil and promote it. Without a clear obligation, incontrovertibly stated in the Constitution, our policymakers will continue to look on this right as \u2018optional\u2019, not fundamental to the duties of government. \r\n\r\nOther countries, such as South Africa, Kenya and recently Zimbabwe, have taken this step to ensure clear expression of the right to health care and to the social determinants of health in their Constitutions. Their people have raised social pressure for these rights and taken up their implementation through social action and strategic litigation, to ensure that government is accountable for these obligations and to build more equitable health systems. \r\n\r\nCEHURD and partners have thus submitted a proposal to the Uganda Law Reform Commission to include in the Constitution provisions for citizens to realize the right to the highest attainable standard of health; to access basic medical and emergency treatment, reproductive health services including family planning, medicines and health information, and for people who would otherwise not be able to afford health services and commodities to access social protection to enable them to do so. \r\n\r\nHaving health as a constitutional right does not mean that people should expect to immediately be healthy, nor does it mean that our government must put in place expensive health services for which they have no resources. It means that government and public authorities should take progressive measures such as investing resources and developing and implementing policies and action plans which will lead to available and accessible health care for all in the shortest possible time, and to fair distribution of public resources for this. It also means that the public and private sector have a duty to promote public health.  \r\n\r\nIsn\u2019t it time that our politicians and leaders take this step to commit to the right to the highest attainable standard of health? Citizens will be watching closely how far government gives priority to this critical right in the current constitutional reform process, at a time of common epidemics of preventable sickness and death. Surely we cannot wait another decade to make this commitment as a country!\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit the CEHURD website: www.cehurd.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Abstracts for the Prince Mahidol Award Conference 2016 \u201cPriority Setting for Universal Health Coverage\u201d","field_subtitle":"Abstract  submissions by 31 March 2015","field_url":"http://pmac2016.jupinnothai.com/Data/Sites/1/media/files/pmac2016_callforabstract.pdf","body":"The Prince Mahidol Award Conference (PMAC) is an annual international conference focusing on policy-related health issues. The Conference will be held in Bangkok, Thailand, from 26 \u2013 31 January 2016. The theme for PMAC 2016 is \u201cPriority Setting for Universal Health Coverage\u201d. The objectives are to advocate and build momentum on evidence- informed priority setting and policy decisions to achieve UHC goals; to advocate for the global movement and collaborations to strengthen the priority setting of health interventions and technology in the long-term; to share knowledge, experience, and viewpoints on health-related priority setting among organisations and countries; and to build capacity of policymakers and respective stakeholders for development and introduction of contextually-relevant priority setting mechanisms in support of UHC. The abstract should contain no more than 300 words that illustrate original research, or experience from the field on the subjects which have never been presented at any international conference. All submissions should fall under three main sub-themes as follows: firstly, organising priority setting: what evidence is needed? Secondly, using priority setting evidence in making UHC decisions. Thirdly, priority setting in action: learning and sharing country experiences.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: SADC Civil Society expert","field_subtitle":"Call closes 6 March 2015","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/Roshneen%40osisa.org.","body":"The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa and the Southern African Trust are seeking a SADC Civil Society Expert who has extensive experience working with civil society in the SADC region to undertake a mapping and analysis of civil society in the SADC region, and contribute to the development of a Sustainability Mechanism. Interested applicants are requested to submit their applications including a cover letter detailing their understanding of the scope of the assignment, a budget, the curriculum vitae and a sample report of at least one previous assignment undertaken by the 6 March 2015 to the email address below.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/39335","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: Informing the Establishment of the WHO Global Observatory on Health Research and Development","field_subtitle":"Submissions by 8 March 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/healthsystems/r-d_observatory/en/","body":"WHO has announced a new Call for Papers for a peer-reviewed Journal Series on \u201cInforming the Establishment of the WHO Global Observatory on Health Research and Development\u201d. This Call is launched in association with the WHO Global Observatory on Health Research and Development (R&D) called for by WHO\u2019s Member States in the 2013 WHA Resolution 66.22, as part of a strategic work plan to promote innovation, build capacity, improve access and mobilise resources to address diseases that disproportionately affect the world\u2019s poorest countries. With this collection of papers, WHO aims to provide global stakeholders with up-to-date knowledge on methods, strategies, tools, experiences and applications to draw from when developing future investment decisions and implementation plans for new R&D. More importantly, the aim is to push the frontier for knowledge and innovation in this field by inviting new thinking, approaches, analysis and information and welcome a wide range of perspectives and disciplines relevant to understanding the availability of and funding for health R&D. Papers will be published during the course of 2015/16 in Health Research Policy and Systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Papers: New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occuappational Health Policy Extractive Industries","field_subtitle":"Submissions by: 31 March 2015","field_url":"http://www.newsolutionsjournal.com/index.php/newsolutionsournal","body":"New Solutions seeks submissions for a special issue that will focus on the extractive industries. Extractive industries are defined as processes that involve the extraction of raw materials from the natural environment to be used for consumption and include the mining of precious and other metals (e.g. gold, silver, iron, manganese, tin, asbestos and rare-earth metals, amongst others), and the extraction of energy sources such as coal, uranium, natural gas, oil sources such as oil shale and tar sands, as well as dredging and quarrying for primary materials. Because New Solutions is a policy journal, manuscripts, including scientific papers, should include a perspective that addresses relevant policy concerns. Manuscripts are welcome for any of its journal sections, including: Scientific Solutions, Feature Articles, Movement Solutions, Documents, Voices, and Comment and Controversy. The editors encourage submissions that highlight possible alternatives or solutions and examples of positive community responses and activities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals: Scaling Up Food Security and Nutrition Innovations - Canadian International Food Security Research Fund","field_subtitle":"Submissions by: 27 March 2015","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Funding/Competitions/Pages/CompetitionDetails.aspx?CompetitionID=91","body":"International Development Research Centre and Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada have announced the 2015 open call for proposals under the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund. With a strong focus on taking effective, pilot-tested innovations to a wider scale of use and application, this call will fund outstanding research-for-development projects that promise consistent and meaningful development outcomes (i.e. reaching important numbers of end-users) by testing, demonstrating and effectively scaling up models, delivery mechanisms, and approaches. This is an open, competitive call for proposals, and will fund projects submitted by strong partnerships between research, development, private sector, and other  organisations from Canada and from eligible countries.Projects are anticipated to begin in October 2015. The size of the projects funded by this call will be in range from CA$0.5 to $1.5 million. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Cartooning for Peace","field_subtitle":"Foundation of cartooning for peace, Geneva","field_url":"http://www.cartooningforpeace.org/en/qui-sommes-nous/","body":"Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the UN, said in 2006 \u201cCartoons make us laugh. Without them, our lives would be much sadder. But they are no laughing matter : They have the power to inform, and also to offend.\u201d With Plantu, French editorial cartoonist at \u201cLe Monde\u201d newspaper, he gathered together twelve of the greatest international cartoonists at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on October 16, 2006, at a symposium entitled \u201cUnlearning Intolerance\u201d. The Cartooning for Peace initiative started with this meeting. It aims to promote a better understanding and mutual respect between people of different cultures and beliefs using editorial cartoons as a universal language. Cartooning for Peace facilitates meetings of professional cartoonists of all nationalities with a wide audience, to promote exchanges on freedom of expression and recognition of the journalistic work of cartoonists. Cartooning for Peace also provides protection and legal assistance to cartoonists working in difficult environments, as well as advice and support in the exercise of their profession.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"CDRA: Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Course","field_subtitle":"Cape Town, March and November; Johannesburg, July","field_url":"http://www.ngopulse.org/event/planning-monitoring-evaluation-and-learning-course","body":"The Community Development Resource Association (CDRA), a civil society organisation, established in 1987, based in Cape Town, South Africa, is conducting courses on Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning between 9 March - 27 November 2015 in Johannesburg and Cape Town. The pressure that organisations face for external accountability leave many tasked with ticking the boxes and filling in the blanks with a sense of unease. The same questions tend to plague researchers. Does the evaluation framework represent what the project is about? Are researchers bringing learning into practice adequately? Are partners learning and growing? This five-day course is for those keen to design monitoring and evaluation processes that foster learning. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Children Health Foundation: Innovative Small Grants Program 2015","field_subtitle":"Call closes: 30 April 2015","field_url":"http://www.fundsforngos.org/developing-countries-2/ghana/child-health-foundation-innovative-small-grants-program-2015/","body":"The Child Health Foundation is currently accepting letters of intent from interested health workers, investigators, or community organisations for innovative research or innovative service projects directed at improving the health of infants, children, and pregnant women. Selected individuals or groups will be notified to further send a full proposal. The Foundation has been supporting innovative approaches to adapting ORT to the health care and social situations around globe. Small innovative projects can make a major impact on child health in diverse settings, and find out the answers to some persistent health problems. The number of projects approved depends on the amount of funding available. The 2014 Innovative Small Grants have been awarded for the health and well-being of children to organisations in Tanzania, India, Kenya, Colombia, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Vietnam. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Conceptualizing the impacts of dual practice on the retention of public sector specialists - evidence from South Africa","field_subtitle":"Ashmore J, Gilson L: Human Resources for Health 13:3, 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/13/1/3","body":"Dual practice or multiple job holding, generally involves public sector-based health workers taking additional work in the private sector. This form of the practice is purported to help retain public health care workers in low and middle-income countries\u2019 public sectors through additional wage incentives. There has been little conceptual or empirical development of the relationship between dual practice and retention. This article helps begin to fill this gap, drawing on empirical evidence from a qualitative study focusing on South African specialists. Fifty-one repeat, in-depth interviews were carried out with 28 doctors (predominantly specialists) with more than one job, in one public and one private urban hospital. Findings suggest dual practice can impact both positively and negatively on specialists\u2019 intention to stay in the public sector. This is through multiple conceptual channels including those previously identified in the literature such as dual practice acting as a \u2018stepping stone\u2019 to private practice by reducing migration costs. Dual practice can also lead specialists to re-evaluate how they compare public and private jobs, and to overworking which can expedite decisions on whether to stay in the public sector or leave. Numerous respondents undertook dual practice without official permission. The idea that dual practice helps retain public specialists in South Africa may be overstated. Yet banning the practice may be ineffective, given many undertake it without permission in any case. Regulation should be better enforced to ensure dual practice is not abused. The conceptual framework developed in this article could form a basis for further qualitative and quantitative inquiry.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Contributions of Global Health Diplomacy to equitable health systems in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Regional research workshop, Johannesburg, South Africa March 13-14 2015","field_url":"","body":"This workshop is being held to discuss the evidence from research in EQUINET and related research with a particular focus on east and southern Africa (ESA) on global health diplomacy. It will present and discuss the findings from the EQUINET research programme and from related research in Africa, and the implications for policy, negotiations and programmes in east and southern Africa; review methods and challenges for implementing research and analysis on global health diplomacy for policy relevance, from review of research and experience of the work; and discuss and propose areas for follow up policy, action and research, within ESA and through south-south collaboration. The reports of the EQUINET research are on the website ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 169: Bring the right to health into Uganda\u2019s Constitution this year! ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Ethical considerations related to participation and partnership: an investigation of stakeholders\u2019 perceptions of an action-research project on user fee removal for the poorest in Burkina Faso","field_subtitle":"Hunt MR, Gogognon P, Ridde V: BMC Medical Ethics 15(13), February 2013","field_url":": http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6939/15/13","body":"Healthcare user fees present an important barrier for accessing services for the poorest in Burkina Faso and selective removal of fees has been incorporated in national healthcare planning. However, establishing fair, effective and sustainable mechanisms for the removal of user fees presents important challenges. A participatory action-research project was conducted in Ouargaye, Burkina Faso, to test mechanisms for identifying those who are poorest in implementing user fee removal. The authors explore stakeholder perceptions of ethical considerations relating to participation and partnership arising in the action-research in 39 in-depth interviews in the affected community, local healthcare professionals, management committees of local health clinics, researchers and regional or national policy-makers. Using constant comparative techniques, the authors carried out an inductive thematic analysis of the collected data.  Stakeholder perceptions and experiences relating to the participatory approach and reliance on multiple partnerships in the project were associated with a range of ethical considerations related to 1) seeking common ground through communication and collaboration, 2) community participation and risk of stigmatisation, 3) impacts of local funding of the user fee removal, 4) efforts to promote fairness in the selection of the indigents, and 5) power relations and the development of partnerships.The investigation illuminated the distinctive ethical terrain of a participatory public health action-research project. The authors indicate that careful attention and effort is needed to establish and maintain respectful relationships amongst those involved, acknowledge and address differences of power and position, and evaluate burdens and risks for individuals and groups.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing and access to health care in West Africa: empirical data, cartoons and received ideas","field_subtitle":"Queuille L, Ridde V, University of Montreal, School of Public Health: January 2015","field_url":"http://www.equitesante.org/healthcare-financing-access-west-africa-empirical-satirical/","body":"The project Access to healthcare for vulnerable groups in West Africa with the Help NGO produces publications in order to make research results and knowledge more accessible. The authors have worked for 10 years on producing and applying scientific knowledge about healthcare access and financing in Africa and aim to share their observations by experimenting with using satirical cartoons as a knowledge sharing tool.  Made by the designer Glez, this series of cartoon focuses on preconceived ideas that people can have about the implementation of free health care and health insurance coverage in Sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Forum on Research and Innovation for Health, Manila, Philippines, 24-27 August 2015","field_subtitle":"Deadline for abstract submissions: 5 May 2015","field_url":"http://www.forum2015.org","body":"Forum 2015 is a unique global platform to promote the role of research and innovation in creating better health, enhancing equity and stimulating development. The Forum 2015 organisers invite abstract submissions from policymakers, business and community leaders, researchers and scholars, non-profit and international organisations, and any others from various disciplines and sectors whose work addresses key concerns in research and innovation for health and development. The abstracts may be research-focused, clinical-focused, policy-focused or program-focused. The abstract should describe clearly developed-work that is evidence-based. Abstracts describing work that is in early stages of development will not be considered. At the time of the abstract submission, authors may request a poster presentation, an oral presentation, or both. The Forum 2015 will make the final decision on what type of presentation method will be awarded based on the overall program needs","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health in All Policies Training Manual  ","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/social_determinants/en/","body":"The WHO has launched its Health in All Policies Training Manual. The manual provides a resource for regional and country training workshops to increase understanding of HiAP by health professionals and others. WHO is developing a global plan to raise awareness among the end-users regarding this tool, and is seeking to consolidate a strong network of institutions to support responses to training requests at national and sub-national levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Information Systems Program - SA 2015 International Conference","field_subtitle":"23- 25 March 2015, Bloemfontein, South Africa ","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/events/health-information-systems-program-sa-2015-international-conference","body":"Over the last 20 years, the District Health Information System in South Africa and in many countries in Sub- Saharan Africa and Asia has evolved significantly from a paper based system to a web based system. The conference is expected to be a platform through which this evolution is explored and where best practices and lessons learned are being shared.  The conference will bring together a wide range of practitioners from health information users, systems developers, health leaders ranging from programme managers, district managers, provincial managers and health planners from South Africa and around the world. The audience will also include public health and health informatics students as well as researchers. The conference hopes to provide a platform to explore new developments, innovations and possibilities around health information systems development and information use. The conference will be preceded by 2 days of field visits to selected health facilities on 23rd and 24th March 2015 where candidates will be taken through practical aspects of the development process and where they can experience the use of the DHIS software first hand. Delegates may also wish to join the DHIS2 Academy which will be held from 13 \u2013 22 March 2015 at the same venue","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementing rapid testing for tuberculosis in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Cowan J, Michel C, Manhi\u00e7a I, Monivo C, Saize D, Creswell J, Gloyd S, Micek M: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 93(2) 65-132","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/2/14-138560/en/","body":"In Mozambique, pulmonary tuberculosis is primarily diagnosed with sputum smear microscopy. However this method has low sensitivity, especially in people infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Patients are seldom tested for drug-resistant tuberculosis. The national tuberculosis programme and Health Alliance International introduced rapid testing of smear-negative sputum samples. Four machines were deployed in four public hospitals along with a sputum transportation system to transfer samples from selected health centres. Laboratory technicians were trained to operate the machines and clinicians taught to interpret the results. The results indicated that using rapid tests to diagnose tuberculosis is promising but logistically challenging. More affordable and durable platforms are needed. All patients diagnosed with tuberculosis need to start and complete treatment, including those who have drug resistant strains.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"National Research Forum:  Evidence for advancing Universal Health Coverage in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Harare, 19th and 20th March 2015","field_url":"","body":"The Ministry of Health and Child Care, the National Institute of Health Research and the Training and Research Support Centre in collaboration with the Technical Working Group on Universal Health Coverage and the \u2018Rebuild programme\u2019 is holding a one and a half day National Research Forum with the THEME \u201cEvidence for advancing Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in Zimbabwe\u201d on 19th and 20th March 2015 at the Harare Holiday Inn, in Harare.  The forum will gather people from all constituencies and sectors doing or using research on any aspect of UHC in Zimbabwe, to present and share their research findings, discuss the policy implications and identify priorities for future work. The conference has four theme areas: i. Health Equity: Reducing the gap in access to and coverage of health care and of social determinants of improved health. ii. Health financing: Mobilising  financial, health worker, medicines and other  resources for health, pooling of funds,  reducing out of pocket spending  and fair allocation and effective use of health resources. iii. Widening services to meet new challenges, such as non communicable diseases, Ebola and multiple/co- morbidity. and iv. People centred approaches: partnerships in health between communities, health workers, institutions and private sector. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"ND-GAIN Global Climate Change Vulnerability and Readiness Mapping","field_subtitle":"ND-GAIN","field_url":"http://index.gain.org","body":"ND-GAIN ranks 175 countries both by vulnerability and readiness to adapt to climate change. The group measures vulnerability by considering the potential impact of climate change on six areas: food, water, health, ecosystem service, human habitat and infrastructure. The readiness rank weights portions of the economy, governance and society that affect the speed and efficiency of adaptation projects.The project presents this information through a series of interactive maps and rankings. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Overcoming challenges to sustainable immunisation financing: early experiences from GAVI graduating countries","field_subtitle":"Saxenian H, Hecht R, Kaddar M, Schmitt S, Ryckman T, Cornejo S: Health Policy and Planning 30(2) 197-205","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/2/197.full","body":"Over the 5-year period ending in 2018, 16 countries with a combined birth cohort of over 6 million infants requiring life-saving immunizations are scheduled to transition from outside financial and technical support for a number of their essential vaccines. This support has been provided over the past decade by the GAVI Alliance. Will these 16 countries be able to continue to sustain these vaccination efforts? To address this issue, GAVI and its partners are supporting transition planning, entailing country assessments of readiness to graduate and intensive dialogue with national officials to ensure a smooth transition process. The report presents learning form a pilot and observes that the experience of countries that have already transitioned should contribute to thinking about how such transition away from external funding can be achieved in low and middle income countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Post-2015 and FFD3: Debates Begin, Political Lines Emerge","field_subtitle":"Adams B, Luchsinger G: Social Watch Report 2014, February 2015","field_url":"http://www.socialwatch.org/node/16782","body":"2015 is a said to be pivotal year. The post\u20132015 sustainable development agenda currently being drafted is premised on the reality that the present model of development is not working, given worsening inequalities and straining planetary boundaries. All countries and peoples\u2014and the planet \u2013have the right to live with a better model, one that is inclusive and sustainable. The authors argue that an increasingly urgent imperative for change informs the two\u2013track negotiations unfolding at the United Nations from now until September. One track involves the post\u20132015 sustainable development agenda; the second focuses on financing for development, an independent process that began at the 2002 Monterrey Conference. While the two talks are separate, the issues in each are observed to be deeply interlinked, and the success of any new model to depend on the outcomes of both. The political stakes are high, but so too the authors argue are the opportunities\u2014perhaps once\u2013in\u2013a\u2013generation\u2014for genuine transformation. The article discusses the implications of these two tracks of negotiation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) Conference","field_subtitle":"7-9 October, 2015, Durban, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.phasaconference.org.za","body":"With 2015 being the target date for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the conference will provide an opportunity to reflect on the challenges faced by South Africa and Africa in trying to achieve the MDGs. The focus of the conference though will be on moving forward and identifying potential solutions both within and outside the health system in order to improve the health status of our population.  This is reflected in the theme of conference \u201cHealth and Sustainable Development:  The Future\u201d. The 2015 PHASA Conference will be more interactive than previous PHASA conferences. A panel debate involving politicians, civil society and academics is set to be one of the highlights of the 2015 PHASA Conference. There will be a greater media and social media presence at the 2015 PHASA Conference ensuring that research findings and key issues reach a broader audience. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"SA follows WHO guide on low-risk yellow fever arrivals","field_subtitle":"Maqutu A: BDlive, 4 February 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/mty92vo","body":"The World Health Organisation has included some African countries on its low-risk yellow fever list, which means their citizens no longer need clearance certificates when visiting SA. Visitors from Zambia, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Sao Tome and Principe would no longer be expected to produce a yellow fever certificate when entering SA. In accordance with international health regulations, SA requires a yellow fever certificate from all citizens and non-citizens over the age of one who have travelled from a yellow fever risk country or have been in transit for more than 12 hours at the airport of such a country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Sex and gender matter in health research: addressing health inequities in health research reporting","field_subtitle":"Gahagan J, Gray K, Whynacht A: International Journal for Equity in Health 14(12), 2015","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/14/1/12","body":"Attention to the concepts of \u2018sex\u2019 and \u2018gender\u2019 is increasingly being recognised as contributing to better science through an augmented understanding of how these factors impact on health inequities and related health outcomes. However, the ongoing lack of conceptual clarity in how sex and gender constructs are used in both the design and reporting of health research studies remains problematic. Conceptual clarity among members of the health research community is central to ensuring the appropriate use of these concepts in a manner that can advance our understanding of the sex- and gender-based health implications of our research findings. During the past twenty-five years much progress has been made in reducing both sex and gender disparities in clinical research and, to a significant albeit lesser extent, in basic science research. Why, then, does there remain a lack of uptake of sex- and gender-specific reporting of health research findings in many health research journals? This question, the authors argue, has significant health equity implications across all pillars of health research, from biomedical and clinical research, through to health systems and population health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The death of international development","field_subtitle":"Hickel J: Al Jazeera, 20 Nov 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/11/death-international-developmen-2014111991426652285.html","body":"International development is dying; people just don't buy it anymore. The West has been engaged in the project for more than six decades now, but the number of poor people in the world is growing, not shrinking, and inequality between rich and poor continues to widen instead of narrow. People know this, and they are abandoning the official story of development in droves. They no longer believe that foreign aid is some kind of silver bullet, that donating to charities will solve anything, or that Bono and Bill Gates can save the world. This crisis of confidence has become so acute that the development community is scrambling to respond. The Gates Foundation recently spearheaded a process called the Narrative Project with some of the world's biggest NGOs - Oxfam, Save the Children, One, and others. They commissioned research to figure out what people thought about development, and their findings revealed a sea change in public attitudes. People are no longer moved by depictions of the poor as pitiable, voiceless \"others\" who need to be rescued by heroic white people. The author observes that this is a racist narrative that has lost all its former currency; rather, people have come to see poverty as a matter of injustice, that poverty is created by rules that rig the economy in the interests of the rich.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The health system cost of post-abortion care in Rwanda","field_subtitle":"Vlassoff M, Musange SF, Kalisa IR, Ngabo F, Sayinzoga F, Singh S, Bankole A: Health Policy and Planning 30(2) 223-233","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/2/223.full","body":"Based on research conducted in 2012, the authors estimated the cost to the Rwandan health-care system of providing post-abortion care (PAC) due to unsafe abortions, a subject of policy importance not studied before at the national level. Thirty-nine public and private health facilities representing three levels of health care were randomly selected for data collection from key care providers and administrators for all five regions. Using an ingredients approach to costing, data were gathered on drugs, supplies, material, personnel time and hospitalisation. Additionally, direct non-medical costs such as overhead and capital costs were also measured. We found that the average annual PAC cost per client, across five types of abortion complications, was $93. The total cost of PAC nationally was estimated to be $1.7 million per year, 49% of which was expended on direct non-medical costs. Satisfying all demands for PAC would raise the national cost to $2.5 million per year. PAC comprises a significant share of total expenditure in reproductive health in Rwanda. Investing more resources in provision of contraceptive services to prevent unwanted or mistimed pregnancies would likely reduce health systems costs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Heretic's Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money","field_subtitle":"Scott B: Pluto Press, 10 May 2013","field_url":"http://suitpossum.blogspot.co.uk/p/the-heretics-guide.html","body":"The Heretic's Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money is a friendly guide to the complex maze of modern finance but also tells us how to utilise and subvert it for social purposes in innovative ways. It sets up a framework to illuminate the financial sector and helps the reader develop a diverse DIY toolbox to undertake their own adventures in guerilla finance and activist entrepreneurialism. Part 1 (Exploring) covers the major financial players, concepts and instruments. Part 2 (Jamming) explores innovative forms of financial activism. Part 3 (Building) showcases the growing alternative finance movement - including peer-to-peer systems, alternative currencies, and co-operative economies - and shows how people can get involved in building a democratic financial system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Time savings \u2013 realized and potential \u2013 and fair compensation for community health workers in Kenyan health facilities: a mixed-methods approach","field_subtitle":"Sander LD, Holtzman D, Pauly M, Cohn J: Human Resources for Health 2015, 13:6 ","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/13/1/6","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa faces a severe health worker shortage, which community health workers (CHWs) may fill. This study describes tasks shifted from clinicians to CHWs in Kenya, places monetary valuations on CHWs\u2019 efforts, and models effects of further task shifting on time demands of clinicians and CHWs. Interviews were conducted with 28 CHWs and 19 clinicians in 17 health facilities throughout Kenya. Twenty CHWs completed task diaries over a 14-day period to examine current CHW tasks and the amount of time spent performing them. A modelling exercise was conducted examining a current task-shifting example and another scenario in which additional task shifting to CHWs has occurred. CHWs worked an average of 5.3 hours per day and spent 36% of their time performing tasks shifted from clinicians. The authors estimated a monthly valuation of US$ 117 per CHW. The modelling exercise demonstrated that further task shifting would reduce the number of clinicians needed while maintaining clinic productivity by significantly increasing the number of CHWs. The authors\u2019 argue that this costing of CHW contributions raises evidence for discussion, research and planning regarding CHW compensation and programmes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Transforming health professions\u2019 education through in-country collaboration: examining the consortia among African medical schools catalyzed by the Medical Education Partnership Initiative","field_subtitle":"Talib ZM, Kiguli-Malwadde E, Wohltjen H, Derbew M, Mulla Y, Olaleye D, Sewankambo N: Human Resources for Health 2015, 13:1  doi:10.1186/1478-4491-13-1","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/13/1/1","body":"African medical schools have historically turned to northern partners for technical assistance and resources to strengthen their education and research programmes. In 2010, this paradigm shifted when the United States Government brought forward resources to support African medical schools. The Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) triggered a number of south-south collaborations between medical schools in Africa. This paper examines the goals of these partnerships and their impact on medical education and health workforce planning, through semi-structured interviews were conducted with the Principal Investigators of the first four MEPI programmes. All of the consortia have prioritised efforts to increase the quality of medical education, support new schools in-country and strengthen relations with government. These in-country partnerships have enabled schools to pool and mobilise limited resources creatively and generate locally-relevant curricula based on best-practices. The established schools are helping new schools by training faculty and using grant funds to purchase learning materials for their students. The consortia have strengthened the dialogue between academia and policy-makers enabling evidence-based health workforce planning. All of the partnerships are expected to last well beyond the MEPI grant as a result of local ownership and institutionalisation of collaborative activities. The consortia demonstrate a paradigm shift in the relationship between medical schools. While schools in Africa have historically worked in silos, competing for limited resources, MEPI funding has created a culture of collaboration, with positive impact reported on the quality and efficiency of health workforce training. It suggests that future funding for global health education should prioritise such south-south collaborations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Water and power: Are public services still public?","field_subtitle":"Municipal Services Project, February 2015","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNkno9Bw51E","body":"Public water and electricity are back in vogue! Yet many state-owned utilities are now undergoing \u201ccorporatization\u201d: they have legal autonomy and manage their own finances. Is this a positive development in the struggle for equitable public services? Or a slippery slope toward privatisation? This video draws from in-depth research on corporatization cases from around the world. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"When HIV is ordinary and diabetes new: Remaking suffering in a South African Township","field_subtitle":"Mendenhall E, Norris SA: Global Public Health, DOI: 10.1080/17441692.2014.998698 2015","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441692.2014.998698#.VOHvWUJfXFI","body":"Escalation of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) among urban South African populations disproportionately afflicted by HIV/AIDS presents not only medical challenges but also new ways in which people understand and experience sickness. In Soweto, the psychological imprints of political violence of the Apartheid era and structural violence of HIV/AIDS have shaped social and health discourses. Yet, as NCDs increasingly become part of social and biomedical discussions in South African townships, new frames for elucidating sickness are emerging. This article employs the concept of syndemic suffering to critically examine how 27 women living with Type 2 diabetes in Soweto, a township adjacent to Johannesburg known for socio-economic mobility as well as inequality, experience and understand syndemic social and health problems. For example, women described how reconstructing families and raising grandchildren after losing children to AIDS was not only socially challenging but also affected how they ate, and how they accepted and managed their diabetes. Although previously diagnosed with diabetes, women illustrated how a myriad of social and health concerns shaped sickness. Many related diabetes treatment to shared AIDS nosologies, referring to diabetes as \u2018the same\u2019 or \u2018worse\u2019. These narratives demonstrate how suffering weaves a social history where HIV becomes ordinary, and diabetes new.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Who pays for and who benefits from health care services in Uganda?","field_subtitle":"Kwesiga B, Ataguba JE, Abewe C, Kizza P, Zikusooka CM: BMC Health Services Research 15:44 February 2015","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4324659/","body":"Equity in health care entails payment for health services according to the capacity to pay and the receipt of benefits according to need. In Uganda, as in many African countries, although equity is extolled in government policy documents, not much is known about who pays for, and who benefits from, health services. This paper assesses both equity in the financing and distribution of health care benefits in Uganda. Data are drawn from the most recent nationally representative Uganda National Household Survey 2009/10. Equity in health financing is assessed considering the main domestic health financing sources (i.e., taxes and direct out-of-pocket payments). This is achieved using bar charts and standard concentration and Kakwani indices. Benefit incidence analysis is used to assess the distribution of health services for both public and non-public providers across socio-economic groups and the need for care. Need is assessed using limitations in functional ability while socioeconomic groups are created using per adult equivalent consumption expenditure. Overall, health financing in Uganda is marginally progressive; the rich pay more as a proportion of their income than the poor. The various taxes are more progressive than out-of-pocket payments. However, taxes are a much smaller proportion of total health sector financing compared with out-of-pocket payments. The distribution of total health sector services benefits is pro-rich. The richest quintile receives 19.2% of total benefits compared to the 17.9% received by the poorest quintile. The rich also receive a much higher share of benefits relative to their need. Benefits from public health units are pro-poor while hospital based care, in both public and non-public sectors are pro-rich. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO: Members States propose guidance for engagement with non-State actors","field_subtitle":"TWN Info Service on Health Issues (Jan15/06), 2015","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/health.info/2015/hi150106.htm","body":"A new time line with guidance from Member States has been proposed for improving a framework on engagement with non-State actors at the World Health Organization. Discussions on the framework document prepared by the WHO Secretariat were held at the meeting of the 136th session of the WHO Executive Board (EB). During the plenary session, many countries expressed their dissatisfaction with the current draft framework and Argentina proposed a draft decision to convene a working group for deciding on the way forward. This document provides the current draft of the framework. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights; Zimbabwe National Network or People living with HIV and AIDS; Training and Research Support Centre","field_subtitle":"PRA report: Community Strengthening for a People Centred Primary Health Care System: The Case of Cassa Banana Community in Zimbabwe","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRA%20Rep%20Cassa%20Banana%20Feb%202015.pdf","body":"This report documents work undertaken in Cassa Banana Community from February \u2013 July 2014. The programme aimed to use Participatory Reflection and Action (PRA) methodologies in working with members of Cassa Banana to work with a representation of community members and health providers/authorities to explore and document the health challenges faced by the Casa Banana community and to formulate actions to solve these health challenges. The project also sought to support community action in demanding accountability from the relevant duty bearers in the formulation and delivery of health services, and to strengthen community/stakeholder engagement for the provision of people-centered Primary Health Care services to the Casa Banana community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Rural-proofing\u2019 policy launched","field_subtitle":"Nkosi S: Health-e News, January 2015","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/2015/01/30/rural-proofing-policy/","body":"Rural health advocacy groups in South Africa have developed guidelines aimed at ensuring that policy makers and government address the rural context when developing and implementing policies. The guidelines are proposed to assist government departments in taking into account rural contexts when designing programmes. The guidelines and related presentations from the launch can be accessed through the link. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"2015 Elections in Africa: Africa Research Institute interactive resource page","field_subtitle":"Africa Research Institute, 15 January 2015","field_url":"http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/blog/2015-elections-africa/","body":"This page provides an election map where users can  click on highlighted countries on the map for pop-up fact boxes and links to recommended reading, a timeline where users can scroll through for a chronological view of the year\u2019s elections. There is also an area for further reading providing space to browse a variety of articles, from survey reports to ambassadorial blog posts on electoral systems and performance, by country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A Community Health Worker \u201clogic model\u201d: towards a theory of enhanced performance in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Naimoli JF, Frymus DE, Wuliji T, Franco LM and Newsome MH: Human Resources for Health12(56), 2014  ","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/12/1/56","body":"There has been a resurgence of interest in national Community Health Worker (CHW) programs in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). A lack of strong research evidence persists, however, about the most efficient and effective strategies to ensure optimal, sustained performance of CHWs at scale. To facilitate learning and research to address this knowledge gap, the authors developed from document review and consultations a generic CHW logic model that proposes a theoretical causal pathway to improved performance. The logic model draws upon available research and expert knowledge on CHWs in LMICs. The generic CHW logic model posits that optimal CHW performance is a function of high quality CHW programming, which is reinforced, sustained, and brought to scale by robust, high-performing health and community systems, both of which mobilize inputs and put in place processes needed to fully achieve performance objectives. Multiple contextual factors can influence CHW programming, system functioning, and CHW performance.The model is argued to offer new thinking about CHWs. It places CHW performance at the center of the discussion about CHW programming, recognizes the strengths and limitations of discrete, targeted programs, and is comprehensive, reflecting the current state of both scientific and tacit knowledge about support for improving CHW performance. It offers guidance for continuous learning about what works. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Annotated bibliography of e- platforms used in participatory and peer to peer exchange and learning","field_subtitle":"Loewenson T: TARSC, EQUINET Harare, 2014","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Ann%20bib%20of%20e-%20platforms%20%20Dec2014.pdf","body":"Visual and information technologies are now more diversified and widely accessible. Digital images and mapping enhance access and exchange on local realities; social media (blogs, tweets and others) provide new methods for communicating experience for collective analysis, mobile phones facilitate communication and pooling of evidence across wider social networks and mapping and crowd-sourcing technology provide systems for citizen reporting, including in poorest communities. internet based resources point to the possibilities for information technology to support peer to peer learning and participatory action research to overcome the \u2018local\u2019 nature of processes and link groups with shared interest. To support discussion on these areas this work aimed to provide an annotated description of existing internet resources that have features that may guide out thinking in developing an e platform for participatory reflection and action across similar groups in different areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Annotated bibliography on participatory consultations to help aid the inclusion of marginalized perspectives in setting policy agendas","field_subtitle":"Siddiqui FR: International Journal for Equity in Health 13(124), December 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/13/1/124","body":"This bibliography presents studies from peer-reviewed and grey literature that used consultations and other participatory strategies to capture a community\u2019s perspective of their health priorities, and of techniques used to elevate participation from the implementation phase to a more upstream phase of prioritisation, policymaking and agenda setting. It covers studies that worked with marginalised populations or sub-populations. It begins by first offering some philosophical and conceptual frameworks that link participatory interventions with inclusive policy making or agenda setting, and a rationale for prioritising marginalised populations in such an undertaking. It further looks at various participatory instruments for consultations, for reaching out to marginalised populations, and for communicating the results to policymakers. A final section presents a reflective and evaluative look at the recruitment, instruments and examples.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Attitudes of Gatekeepers Towards Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health in Ghana","field_subtitle":"Kumi-Kyereme A, Awusabo-Asare K, Darteh EKM: African Journal of Reproductive Health 18(3), September 2014","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajrh/article/view/109221","body":"Adults constitute gatekeepers on adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH). This qualitative paper discusses the views of adults on ASRH problems and challenges based on 60 in-depth interviews conducted among adults in Ghana in 2005. Adults were purposively selected based on their roles as parents, teachers, health care providers and community leaders. The major ASRH problems mentioned were teenage pregnancy and HIV/AIDS. The results indicated a number of challenges confronting ASRH promotion including resistance from parents, attitudes of adolescents, communication gap between adults and adolescents and attitudes of health care providers. Among health workers three broad categories were identified: those who were helpful, judgmental and dictators. Some adults supported services for young people while others did not. Some served as mediators and assisted to \u2018solve\u2019 ASRH problems, which occurred in their communities. It is argued that exploring the views of adults about their fears and concerns will contribute to the development of strategies and programmes which will help to improve ASRH,","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Budget Bites","field_subtitle":"Africa Health Budget Network, January 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ncfpszd","body":"The Africa Health Budget Network is a group of African and global organizations and individuals already using or wishing to use budget advocacy as a tool to improve health service delivery in Africa. The network has three strands of work and provides formal training opportunities, events and tools. The network promotes learning and sharing within the network and coordinated and focused pressure on African leaders with respect to their health financing commitments. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Applications: 2015 Small Grants Programme for Thesis Writing","field_subtitle":"deadline for the receipt of applications: Wednesday 15th April, 2015. ","field_url":"http://newebsite.codesria.org/spip.php?article2234&lang=en","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) announces the twenty-sixth session of its Small Grants Programme for Thesis Writing. The grants serve as part of the Council\u2019s contribution to the development of the social sciences in Africa, and the continuous renewal and strengthening of research capacities in African universities, through the funding of primary research conducted by graduate and postgraduate students. Candidates whose applications are successful are encouraged to use the resources provided under the grants to cover the cost of their fieldwork, the acquisition of books and documents, the processing of data which they have collected and the printing of their theses/dissertations. As the Council is strongly committed to encouraging African researchers to engage one another on a sustained basis, recipients of the small grants will also be supported to order books and journals produced by African scholarly publishers, including CODESRIA itself. They will also be encouraged to apply for participation in CODESRIA research methodology workshops.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Grant Applications or/and letters of interest: Selection of universities to manage TDR International Post Graduate Training Scheme (2015 to 2019)","field_subtitle":"Deadline 28 February 2015","field_url":"http://www.who.int/tdr/grants/Call-Training-Institutions-grants2015.pdf?ua=1","body":"This call is for applications from universities in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to host and manage the TDR international post graduate training scheme on implementation research (IR). The long term goal is to strengthen capacity of disease endemic countries for identifying public health needs, develop appropriate solutions and translate them into policy and practice for improved health and wellbeing of their populations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: Towards the 8th Pan African Congress","field_subtitle":"Congress date: March 2015","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category/announce/93608","body":"Veteran and young Pan Africanist leaders will meet to discuss Pan Africanism and a vision for Africa\u2019s future in March 2015 in Accra. Towards the 8th Congress in 2015, the Local Organising Committee is inviting papers from all Africans on the continent and the Diaspora. Some of the papers will be presented at the plenaries and working groups during the 8th Congress and the will be published as part of post Congress for knowledge building. Authors can choose to write one or two papers from a list provided or propose a topic of interests within the wider Pan African discourse. Papers can either be in French or English and will be subject to peer review. Submissions should be presented in soft copy, double spaced and not more than 3,000 words. For information on the themes please visit the link and email papers to zyeebo@gmail.com.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call of Expressions of Interest: Politics of Domestic Resource Mobilization for Social Development: Zimbabwe Case Study","field_subtitle":"Project from: 2011 to 2015","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/psw4kwp","body":"UNRISD invites expressions of interest from researchers for two further research papers for its ongoing project case study on Zimbabwe from researchers with extensive expertise on Zimbabwe, either on taxation or social policy. Two papers will be commissioned as a result of this call: The Political Economy of Taxation and Fiscal Governance in Zimbabwe and Social Policy and Social Spending in Zimbabwe.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Community health workers programme in Luanda, Angola: an evaluation of the implementation process","field_subtitle":"Giugliani C, Duncan BB, Harzheim E, Lavor AC, Lavor MC, Machado MM, Barbosa MI, Bornstein VJ, Pontes AL and Knauth DR: Human Resources for Health 12(68), 9 December 2014","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/12/1/68","body":"The Community Health Workers (CHWs) Programme was launched in Luanda, Angola, in 2007 as an initiative of the provincial government. The aim of this study was to assess its implementation process. This is a case study using document analysis, CHWs reports, individual interviews and focal groups. Until June 2009, the programme had placed in the community 2548 trained CHWs, providing potential coverage for 261 357 families. Analysis of qualitative data suggested an association of CHWs with improvements in maternal and child access to health care, as well as an increase in the demand for health services, generating further need to improve service capacity. Nevertheless, critical points for programme sustainability were identified. For continuity and scaling up, the programme needs medium- and long-term technical, political and financial support. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Costs of Eliminating Malaria and the Impact of the Global Fund in 34 Countries","field_subtitle":"Zelman B, Kiszewski A, Cotter C, Liu J: PLoS ONE 9(12), December 2014","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0114762","body":"This study aims to 1) assess past total and Global Fund funding to the 34 current malaria-eliminating countries, and 2) estimate their future funding needs to achieve malaria elimination and prevent reintroduction through 2030. Historical funding is assessed against trends in country-level malaria annual parasite incidences (APIs) and income per capita. Following Kizewski et al. (2007), program costs to eliminate malaria and prevent reintroduction through 2030 are estimated using a deterministic model. The cost parameters are tailored to a package of interventions aimed at malaria elimination and prevention of reintroduction.The majority of Global Fund-supported countries experiencing increases in total funding from 2005 to 2010 coincided with reductions in malaria APIs and also overall GNI per capita average annual growth. The total amount of projected funding needed for the current malaria-eliminating countries to achieve elimination and prevent reintroduction through 2030 is approximately US$8.5 billion, or about $1.84 per person at risk per year (PPY). Although external funding, particularly from the Global Fund, has been key for many malaria-eliminating countries, sustained and sufficient financing is argued to be critical for furthering global malaria elimination. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Development of Health Equity Indicators in Primary Health Care Organizations Using a Modified Delphi","field_subtitle":"Wong ST, Browne AJ, Varcoe C, Lavoie J, Fridkin A, Smye V, Godwin O, Tu D:  PLoS ONE 9(12): e114563. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0114563","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0114563","body":"The purpose of this study was to develop a core set of indicators that could be used for measuring and monitoring the performance of primary health care organizations' capacity and strategies for enhancing equity-oriented care. Indicators were constructed based on a review of the literature and a thematic analysis of interview data with patients and staff using procedures for qualitatively derived data. Indicators were considered part of a priority set of health equity indicators if they received an overall importance rating of>8.0, on a scale of 1\u20139, where a higher score meant more importance. Seventeen indicators make up the priority set. Items were eliminated because they were rated as low importance (","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Does Ownership Matter? An Overview of Systematic Reviews of the Performance of Private For-Profit, Private Not-For-Profit and Public Healthcare Providers","field_subtitle":"Herrera CA, Rada G, Kuhn-Barrientos L, Barrios X: PLoS ONE 9(12), 1 December 2014","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0093456","body":"Ownership of healthcare providers has been considered as one factor that might influence their health and healthcare related performance. The authors provide an overview of what is known about the effects on economic, administrative and health related outcomes of different types of ownership of healthcare providers -namely public, private non-for-profit (PNFP) and private for-profit (PFP)- based on the findings of systematic reviews (SR). Of the 5918 references reviewed, fifteen SR were included, but six of them were rated as having major limitations, so they weren't incorporated in the analyses. According to the nine analysed SR, ownership does seem to have an effect on health and healthcare related outcomes. In the comparison of PFP and PNFP providers, significant differences in terms of mortality of patients and payments to facilities have been found, both being higher in PFP facilities. In terms of quality and economic indicators such as efficiency, there are no conclusive results. When comparing PNFP and public providers, as well as for PFP and public providers, no clear differences were found. PFP providers seem to have worst results than their PNFP counterparts, but there are still important evidence gaps in the literature that needs to be covered, including the comparison between public and both PFP and PNFP providers. More research is needed in low and middle income countries to understand the impact on and development of healthcare delivery systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Effects of a performance and quality improvement intervention on the work environment in HIV-related care: a quasi-experimental evaluation in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Bazant E, Sarkar S, Banda J, Kanjipite W, Reinhardt S, Shasulwe H, Mulilo JMC, Kim YM: Human Resources for Health, 13 (1), 14 January 2015 ","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/12/1/73","body":"At health facilities of the Zambian Defence Forces, a performance and quality improvement approach was implemented to improve HIV-related care and was evaluated in 2010/2011. Changes in providers\u2019 work environment and perceived quality of HIV-related care were assessed to complement data on provider performance. The intervention involved on-site training, supportive supervision, and action planning focusing on detailed service delivery standards. The quasi-experimental evaluation collected pre- and post-intervention data from eight intervention and comparison facilities matched on defence force branch and baseline client volume. The intervention group providers reported improvements in the work environment on adequacy of equipment, feeling safe from harm, confidence in clinical skills, and reduced isolation, while the comparison group reported worsening of the work environment on supplies, training, safety, and departmental morale. The performance and quality improvement intervention implemented at Zambian Defence Forces\u2019 health facilities was associated with improvements in providers\u2019 perceptions of work environments consistent with the intervention\u2019s focus on commodities, skills acquisition, and receipt of constructive feedback.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 168: UN Special Rapporteurs Open Letter to the World Bank on the issue of human rights ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET newsletter invites submissions","field_subtitle":"EQUINET steering committee","field_url":"","body":"\r\nNew year greetings! The EQUINET newsletter is now in its 168th issue and has been disseminating information on health equity in east and southern Africa for seventeen years. Thanks to all who have contributed. We'd like to hear more from you! We invite readers to submit short think pieces, debate pieces and information for the newsletter relating to the diversity of health equity issues affecting east and southern Africa. Please submit oped pieces of 1000 words or less with author name and institution to admin@equinetafrica.org. We also welcome information on useful resources, published papers, conferences and research grants on health. The newsletter and EQUINET website have searchable databases of publications on health equity in east and southern Africa as a resource for those engaging in various areas of research, policy and activism in health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Expensive medicines: ensuring objective appraisal and equitable access","field_subtitle":"Kennedy SB, Nisbett RA: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 93 (1), January 2014","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/1/14-148924/en/","body":"In response to requests for the funding of new drugs, reimbursement agencies are re-evaluating some of the methods used in assessing these products. Many trials submitted for the regulatory review of new drugs do not provide adequate data for subsidy decisions. The authors argue that all involved in bringing medicines to market need to be explicit about the additional information required, decide how these data should be collected and assessed and the methods that should be used to set a fair price for a new drug.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Feasibility and acceptability of a bar-based sexual risk reduction intervention for bar patrons in Tshwane, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Morojele NK, Kitleli N, Ngako K, Kekwaletswe CT, Nkosi S, Fritz K, Parry CDH: SAHARA J (Journal of Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS Research Alliance) 11(1), 2014","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/saharaj/article/view/108570","body":"Alcohol consumption is a recognised risk factor for HIV infection. Alcohol serving establishments have been identified as appropriate venues in which to deliver HIV prevention interventions. This paper describes  experiences and lessons learnt from implementing a combined HIV prevention intervention in bar settings in one city- and one township-based bar in Tshwane, South Africa. The intervention consisted of peer-led and brief  intervention counselling sub-components. Thirty-nine bar patrons were recruited and trained, and delivered HIV  and alcohol risk reduction activities to their peers as peer interventionists. At the same time, nine counselors received training and visited the bars weekly to provide brief motivational interviewing counselling, advice, and  referrals to the patrons of the bars. The intervention was overall well received and suggests that bar patrons and servers can accept a myriad of intervention activities to reduce sexual risk behaviour within their drinking settings. However, HIV- and AIDS-related stigma hindered participation in certain intervention activities. The buy-in received from the relevant stakeholders (i.e. bar owners/managers and patrons, and the  community at large) was an important contributor to the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"For Town and Country: A New Approach to Urban Planning in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Ngau P: Africa Research Institute Policy Voice Series, 5 December 2014","field_url":"http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/publications/policy-voices/urban-planning-in-kenya/","body":"Urban and regional planning is under the spotlight in Kenya. The 2009 National Housing and Population Census forecast that the percentage of Kenyans living in urban settlements will increase from 32 percent to 54 percent by 2030. Residents of Nairobi await the details of a new city master plan. The devolution of power and allocation of central resources to the 47 county governments created by the 2010 constitution is under way \u2013 a process that requires integrated development plans to be in place. In the post-independence era, urban planning was deployed as a tool for \u201cmodernisation\u201d in Kenya. But in the 1980s and 1990s modernisation was supplanted by autocracy and straitened economic circumstances. In turn, planning became a means for securing control, exclusion and further enrichment of political and economic elites redolent of the colonial era. Legislation based on outdated and inappropriate models such as the UK\u2019s 1947 Town and Country Planning Act was routinely used to carry out mass evictions and demolitions in informal settlements in Kenya. By the end of the 20th century, the planning profession had become irrelevant or discredited to all but its few beneficiaries. In this paper the author describes in detail how the Department of Urban and Regional Planning (DURP) at the University of Nairobi \u2013 and other institutions \u2013 have sought to revitalise and encourage the adoption of more progressive approaches among planning professionals. Curricula reform, research and innovation, close links with other planning schools in Africa, and working partnerships with civil society organisations in informal settlements are the bedrock of the effort to ensure that Kenya\u2019s future urban planners are equipped to manage rapid urban transformation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Indicators for Universal Health Coverage: can Kenya comply with the proposed post-2015 monitoring recommendations?","field_subtitle":"Obare V, Brolan CE, Hill PS: International Journal for Equity in Health 13(123),  20 December 2014","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/13/1/123","body":"Monitoring progress towards achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is seen to be critical at both country and global level, and a monitoring framework for UHC was proposed by a joint WHO/World Bank discussion paper in December 2013. This study determined the feasibility of the proposed framework in Kenya. The study used the WHO/World Bank UHC monitoring framework and the Bellagio meeting report sponsored by WHO and the Rockefeller Foundation to informed the list of indicators used to determine the feasibility of the framework using published literature. Kenya has yet to establish an official policy on UHC that provides a clear mandate on the goals, targets and monitoring and evaluation of performance. The country has the capacity to reasonably report on five out of the seven proposed UHC indicators, but very limited capacity to report on the two service coverage indicators for the chronic condition and injury interventions and wider systemic challenges to meet the data requirements of the proposed UHC monitoring framework.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Leaving no one behind: an agenda for equity","field_subtitle":"Watkins K: Lancet, 384, 9961, 2248\u20132255, 2014","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(13)62421-6.pdf","body":"Shortly before his death, Mahatma Gandhi offered a useful reflection that helps to cut through some of the complexity surrounding debates about equity. \u201cRecall the face of the poorest and the weakest person you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be any use to them.\u201d It\u2019s a simple but compelling guide for policy makers concerned with combating extreme inequality. Something of the same spirit underpins the report of the High Level Panel established by the UN Secretary General to make recommendations for the post-2015 development agenda. Going beyond the identification of universal goals, the report calls for \u201ca focus on the poorest and most marginalised\u201d and a commitment to \u201cleave no one behind\". This approach is argued to be in-keeping with other work on the post-2015 agenda, including the Global Sustainable Development Report. Far more than the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)\u2014which were largely neutral on the issue of inequality\u2014the High Level Panel report includes a wide-ranging social justice agenda. If  adopted by governments and backed by national policy commitments and a new global partnership, the Panel\u2019s agenda could, the author argues,  put exclusion, inequality, and marginalisation at the centre of the post-2015 development framework.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Multinational Working Groups 2015 Competition","field_subtitle":"Deadline: February 28, 2015","field_url":"http://newebsite.codesria.org/spip.php?article2244&lang=en","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) invites proposals from African and Diaspora researchers for its 2015 Multinational Working Groups Competition. The Council\u2019s Multinational Working Groups Competition is for researchers to explore themes covering multiple countries. Researchers should apply as individuals with clearly-thought out projects. CODESRIA\u2019s evaluators will identify the best applications and the Council will constitute groups of 12 to 15 researchers around dominant themes. Each group constituted will be led by a CODESRIA-appointed coordinator who will oversee group activities, follow up on progress by members, facilitate the exchange of ideas among group members and help ensure quality. The Multinational Working Groups Competition provides grants of USD 5000 to each researcher over a 15-month period to facilitate the completion of already-started work. Researchers are supposed to produce an article or book chapter at the end of the grant period.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"National Research Forum:  Evidence for advancing Universal Health Coverage in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"19th and 20th March 2015; MoHCC, NIHR, TARSC, Harare, Zimbabwe","field_url":"","body":"The Ministry of Health and Child Care, the National Institute of Health Research and the Training and Research Support Centre in collaboration with the Technical Working Group on Universal Health Coverage and the \u2018Rebuild programme\u2019 is holding a one and a half day National Research Forum with the THEME \u201cEvidence for advancing Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in Zimbabwe\u201d on 19th and 20th March 2015 in Harare.  The forum aims to gather people from all constituencies and sectors doing research on any aspect of UHC in Zimbabwe, to present and share their research findings, discuss the policy implications and identify priorities for future work. Registration for the conference will open on  5th January 2015, and interested delegates are asked to email to their  name, institution, address and whether they can meet the registration fee or whether they need sponsorship for it.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Neglected tropical disease and emerging infectious disease: An analysis of the history, promise and constraints of two worldviews","field_subtitle":"Jackson Y, Stephenson N: Global Public Health 9(9), 2014","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441692.2014.941297#.VJLqecbZ6jQ","body":"Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are medical terms referring to a group of diseases, yet they are simultaneously socio-political constructs (EID and NTD). When viewed as such, public health interest in EID has been criticised as prioritising free market, Global North interests. This paper asks if the recent turn to NTD, which directs attention and resources to \u2018the bottom billion\u2019 of the world's population, addresses the limitations of focusing on EID. Our approach involves comparing the specific socio-political framing, or \u2018worldview\u2019 of NTD, with that of EID. We examine the distinct history, rationales, morals, political and economic tensions and loci of power entailed in each worldview. This analysis suggests that efforts to foreground NTD constitute a site where humanitarian and biomedical industry actors and actions are increasingly blurred. We examine whether the NTD worldview constitutes a break with or a new version of a free market approach to global health, and whether it reworks or solidifies paternalistic Global North\u2013South relations. We consider some of the limits of work on NTD to date, suggesting that although the NTD worldview does not escape the neo-colonial history of global health, it can actualise it under a different form.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Okayafrica\u2019s Top Films of 2014","field_subtitle":"Sefaboyake J: December 2014","field_url":"http://www.okayafrica.com/news/african-films-best-of-2014/","body":"On this website Okayafrica have picked some of the finest cinema originating from the continent from 2014. Some have courted controversy for their subject matter while others have been heralded as highly imaginative celebrations of Afrofuturist landscapes from the past to the present. The projects, from rising stars and celebrated auteurs alike, come from Mauritania, Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya include documentaries, anthology films, full-length features and shorts. They address topics as varied as excessive use of police force in a South African mining community to vignettes delving into the lives of Kenya\u2019s LGBTQI community. Each of these films (and filmmakers) are reported to push cinema boundaries in the stories they tell. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Pharmaceutical Availability across Levels of Care: Evidence from Facility Surveys in Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda","field_subtitle":"Masters SH, Burstein R, DeCenso B, Moore K, Haakenstad A, et al: PLoS ONE 9(12), 31 December 2014","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0114762","body":"In this study the authors use facility-level data from nationally representative surveys conducted in Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda in 2012 to understand pharmaceutical availability within the three countries. The authors both availability of essential medicines, as defined by the various essential medicine lists (EMLs) of each respective country, and availability of all surveyed pharmaceuticals deemed important for treatment of various high-burden diseases, including those on the EMLs. The authors find that there is heterogeneity with respect to availability across the three countries with Ghana generally having better availability than Uganda and Kenya. They found that the factors associated with stock-out vary by country, but across all countries both presence of a laboratory at the facility and of a vehicle at the facility are significantly associated with reduced stock-out. The study highlights poor availability of essential medicines across these three countries and suggest more needs to be done to strengthen the supply system so that stock remains uninterrupted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"PhD position at the Centre for Development and Environment / University of Bern in the R4D project \"Towards food sustainability: Reshaping the coexistence of different food systems in South America and Africa","field_subtitle":"Deadline 20 February 2015","field_url":"http://www.igs-north-south.ch/News%20Files/PhD%20CDE.pdf","body":"This PhD is part of a project that addresses the sustainability of food systems in Kenya and Bolivia. It is focusing on the five basic aspects of food sustainability: Food security, the right to food, poverty and inequality, environmental integrity, and social-ecological resilience. The aim of the project is to analyse different food systems according to these aspects, develop an framework for assessing \u2018food sustainability\u2019 in concrete contexts, formulate policies and discuss them in local to global policy dialogues and workshops to communicate the results. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Qualitative research synthesis for health policy analysis: what does it entail and what does it offer?","field_subtitle":"Gilson L: Health Policy Plan. 29 (Suppl 3), 11 November 2014","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/29/suppl_3/iii1.full","body":"This edition presents a set of five articles that, through synthesis of available research, seek to consolidate and develop the body of health policy analysis work in low- and middle-income countries. This work is found to be currently fragmented across geographic settings and policy issues, is more descriptive than analytic and is weakly theorized.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Spectre of Ebola Protectionism","field_subtitle":"Bangura Y: CODESRIA Newsletter, November 2014","field_url":"http://newebsite.codesria.org/spip.php?article2220","body":"A new kind of protectionism is argued by the author to be haunting the world: the spectre of ebola protectionism. As ebola ravages the societies of the Mano River Union (MRU) states of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the author notes that there are increasing calls from conservative politicians, right-wing groups, and sections of the media to prevent people from these states from interacting with the rest of the world. The protectionist measures range from exit and entry controls, such as temperature checks and mandatory monitoring and quarantining of travellers from MRU states, to flight bans and denial of visas to holders of MRU passports. The virus poses less of a threat to rich countries with sound public health systems than poor West African countries that have extensive links with the MRU states. The author argues that exit and non-intrusive entry controls, not flight bans and visa restrictions that Australia and Canada have imposed, may be enough to manage the few cases that are likely to pop up in rich countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The administrative costs of community-based health insurance: a case study of the community health fund in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Borghi J, Makawia S, Kuwawenaruwa A: Health Policy and Planning 30 (1)19-27, December 2014","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/1/19.full","body":"Community-based health insurance expansion has been proposed as a financing solution for the sizable informal sector in low-income settings. However, there is limited evidence of the administrative costs of such schemes. We assessed annual facility and district-level costs of running the Community Health Fund (CHF), a voluntary health insurance scheme for the informal sector in a rural and an urban district from the same region in Tanzania. Information on resource use, CHF membership and revenue was obtained from district managers and health workers from two facilities in each district. The administrative cost per CHF member household and the cost to revenue ratio were estimated. Revenue collection was the most costly activity at facility level (78% of total costs), followed by stewardship and management (13%) and pooling of funds (10%). Stewardship and management was the main activity at district level. The administration cost per CHF member household ranged from USD 3.33 to USD 12.12 per year. The cost to revenue ratio ranged from 50% to 364%. The cost of administering the CHF was high relative to revenue generated. Similar studies from other settings should be encouraged.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Ebola epidemic: a transformative moment for global health","field_subtitle":"Hill SR, Bero L, McColl G, Roughead E: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 93 (1), January 2014","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/1/14-151068/en/","body":"The devastating effects of the current epidemic of Ebola virus disease in western Africa have put the global health response in acute focus. The index case is believed to have been a 2-year-old child in Gu\u00e9ck\u00e9dou, Guinea, who died in December 2013. By late February 2014, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone were in the midst of a full-blown and complex global health emergency. The response by multilateral and humanitarian organizations has been laudable and \u2013 at times \u2013 heroic. Much of the worst affected region is recovering from civil conflicts. This region is characterized by weak systems of government and health-care delivery, high rates of illiteracy, poverty and distrust of the government and extreme population mobility across porous, artificial boundaries. A more coordinated, strategic and proactive response is urgently needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The International Monetary Fund and the Ebola outbreak","field_subtitle":"Kentikelenis A, King L, McKee M, Stuckler D: The Lancet, 21 December 2014","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(14)70377-8/fulltext","body":"In recent months, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced US$430 million of funding to fight Ebola in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia. By making these funds available, the IMF aims to become part of the solution to the crisis, even if this involves a departure from its usual approach. As IMF Director Christine Lagarde said at a meeting on the outbreak, \u201cIt is good to increase the fiscal deficit when it's a matter of curing the people, of taking the precautions to actually try to contain the disease. The IMF doesn't say that very often.\u201d Yet, could it be that the IMF had contributed to the circumstances that enabled the crisis to arise in the first place? A major reason why the outbreak spread so rapidly was the weakness of health systems in the region. There were many reasons for this, including the legacy of conflict and state failure. Since 1990, the IMF has provided support to Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, for 21, 7, and 19 years, respectively, and at the time that Ebola emerged, all three countries were under IMF programmes. However, IMF lending comes with strings attached\u2014so-called \u201cconditionalities\u201d\u2014that require recipient governments to adopt policies that have been criticised for prioritising short-term economic objectives over investment in health and education. Indeed, it is not even clear that they have strengthened economic performance. Here the authors review the policies advocated by the IMF before the outbreak, and examine their effect on the three health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The state of HIV sector local governance in Malawi and Zambia: Evidence from five districts","field_subtitle":"Steyn J: Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance 15, 128-140, 2014","field_url":"http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/cjlg/article/view/4066/4120","body":"This paper reports on a project that aimed to improve the levels of HIV governance at the district level in Malawi and Zambia by encouraging public participation in an effort to more effective use of local resources. The methodology for this project included a barometer which assessed perceptions among key stakeholders on effectiveness, efficiency, rule of law, accountability, participation and equity at district level. The stakeholders ranged from administrators, political representatives, community-based organisations and the private sector on the supply side and citizens on the demand or beneficiary side. Communication and transparency appear to be major issues underpinning the bottlenecks and shortcomings in the HIV sector governance at the district level. Information gaps have given rise to accountability deficits and coordination deficiencies. Addressing these matters would make more effective use of resources and lessen dependence on external funding sources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Vaccine and Cervical Cancer Screen (VACCS) project: Acceptance of human papillomavirus vaccination in a school-based programme in two provinces of South Africa","field_subtitle":"Botha MH, Haynes van der Merwe F, Snyman LC, Dreyer G: South African Medical Journal 105(1), 28 November 2014","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/8419","body":"The incidence of cervical cancer in South Africa remains high, and the current screening programme has had limited success. New approaches to prevention and screening tactics are needed to investigate acceptance of school-based human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, as well as the information provided, methods of obtaining consent and assent, and completion rates achieved. Information on cervical cancer and HPV vaccination was provided to 19 primary schools in Western Cape and Gauteng provinces participating in the study. Girls with parental consent and child assent were vaccinated during school hours at their schools.  A total of 3 465 girls were invited to receive HPV vaccine, of whom 2 046 provided written parental consent as well as child assent. Sufficient vaccination was achieved in 92% of the vaccinated cohort. The implementation project demonstrated that HPV vaccination is practical and safe in SA schools. Political and community acceptance was good, and positive attitudes towards vaccination were encountered. During the study, which mimicked a governmental vaccine roll-out programme, high completion rates were achieved in spite of several challenges encountered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards an integrative post-2015 sustainable development goal framework: Focusing on global justice \u2013 peace, security and basic human rights","field_subtitle":"Lueddeke GR: South Eastern European Journal of Public Health, DOI 10.12908/SEEJPH-2014-26, 2014","field_url":"http://www.lebrecht-landauer.de/test/towards-an-integrative-post-2015-sustainable-development-goal-framework/","body":"The United Nations (UN) Millennium Declaration and eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been hailed as a unique achievement in international development. Although the MDGs have raised the profile of global health, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, progress has been uneven both between and within countries. A key reason suggested for this lack of progress is that the MDGs fall far short in terms of addressing the broader concept of development encapsulated in the Millennium Declaration, which includes human rights, equity, democracy, and governance.  To strengthen the likelihood of realizing the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly with regard to \u201cplanet and population\u201d health and well-being , UN and other decision-makers are urged to consider the adoption of an integrated SDG framework that is based on (i) a vision of global justice \u2013 underpinned by peace, security and basic human rights; (ii) the development of interdependent and interconnected strategies for each of the eleven thematic indicators identified in the UN document The World We Want; and (iii) the application of guiding principles to measure the impact of SDG strategies in terms of holism, equity, sustainability, ownership, and global obligation. While current discussions on the SDGs are making progress in a number of areas, the need for integration of these around a common global vision and purpose seems especially crucial to avoid MDG shortcomings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"UN Special Rapporteurs Open Letter to the World Bank on the issue of human rights","field_subtitle":"Alston  P: UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, with 26 other Special Rapporteurs, 12 December 2014","field_url":"","body":"\r\nDear Mr. Jim Yong Kim, \r\nWe have the honor to address you in our capacities as special procedures mandate-holders of the United Nations Human Rights Council. We are writing to you with regard to the World Bank\u2019s draft Environmental and Social Framework (\u201cESF\u201d), which was released for consultation on July 30, 2014. We would like to share with you a number of concerns relating to the approach to \u2018Safeguards\u2019 reflected in the current draft ESF. \r\n\r\nAt the outset, we wish to underscore the significance of the Bank\u2019s first adoption of such standards some thirty years ago. And we commend the Bank for its continued recognition of the central importance of a carefully calibrated framework of standards to ensure that its programs to promote sustainable development, poverty elimination, environmental protection and social standards do not have a negative impact on a diverse range of important values. Most of those values represent important components of international human rights law, to which the Bank\u2019s Member States have subscribed within the framework of the United Nations. It is because the Safeguards implicate human rights so directly that we have chosen to write to you as independent human rights experts appointed by United Nations Member States to provide our inputs to the Bank\u2019s consultation process. \r\n\r\nAs the Bank seeks to revise and adapt its Safeguards approach to the challenges of the twenty-first century, we believe that it is imperative that the standards should be premised on a recognition of the central importance of respecting and promoting human rights. But there is no such provision in the current draft. Instead, by contemporary standards, the document seems to go out of its way to avoid any meaningful references to human rights and international human rights law, except for passing references in the Vision statement and Environmental and Social Standard (ESS). The Bank restricts itself to noting that its operations are, in ways that are not explained or elaborated, \u2018supportive\u2019 of human rights and that it will \u2018encourage respect for them in a manner consistent with the Bank\u2019s Articles of Agreement\u2019. As noted below, however, the convoluted and anachronistic interpretation of the Articles that has so far prevailed ensures that this is a largely empty undertaking. \r\n\r\nWhile the Bank is clearly committed to ending extreme poverty and improving the quality of life of people in developing countries, the pursuit of these worthy goals does not automatically ensure that the resulting programs and projects will promote and respect human rights. We acknowledge that it is not the Bank\u2019s role to act as an enforcer of human rights, but there are a great many other ways in which it can assist governments in meeting their own international obligations, provide support and advice on how programs and projects might be made more human rights compliant, and build knowledge and understanding of human rights into its own work. By opting not to take these steps, the Bank is setting itself apart from other international organizations and agencies which have long since recognized the importance of human rights in the context of carrying out their specialized mandates, and have also rejected the notion that human rights are somehow problematically \u2018political\u2019 in ways that the many other accepted goals of development policy are not. \r\n\r\nIn many contexts, the international community has accepted that development and human rights are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. This has been recognized, for example, in the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, the 2000 Millennium Summit and the 2005 and 2010 World Summits. Reference might also be made to a document that is cited on the Bank\u2019s own website which is the 2003 UN Common Understanding adopted by the United Nations Development Group. The Common Understanding requires that human rights guide all development cooperation and that development cooperation \u201ccontributes to the development of the capacities of \u2018duty-bearers\u2019 to meet their obligations and/or of \u2018rights-holders\u2019 to claim their rights\u201d. It is fair to say that the vast majority of development actors, from the European Investment Bank to the United Nations Development Programme, have expressed a clear commitment to human rights in their policies, thus making the Bank an increasingly isolated outlier in this regard.\r\n\r\nThe Bank\u2019s official reluctance to engage operationally with human rights also stands in marked contrast to the lessons that its formal statements suggest it has drawn from its own experience, including through the work of the Nordic Trust Fund (\u201cNTF\u201d). The Bank acknowledges on its website and in many of its non-operational policy analyses that a focus on human rights can improve development outcomes. This is consistent with the seminal insight provided in the work of Amartya Sen, undertaken in his capacity as a Presidential Fellow at the Bank, who argued that freedoms are essential means for achieving development. There are many examples of analyses and reports by the Bank that highlight the potential or actual importance of human rights in promoting the achievement of the Bank\u2019s proclaimed goals, such as those relating to gender equality and the role of women in society.\r\n\r\nRather than seeing human rights as a means by which to facilitate the participation and empowerment of the beneficiaries of development, the Bank\u2019s proposed new Safeguards seem to view human rights in largely negative terms, as considerations that, if taken seriously, will only drive up the cost of lending rather than contributing to ensuring a positive outcome. While a 2010 report by the Bank\u2019s Independent Evaluation Group (\u201cIEG\u201d) concluded that the benefits of Safeguards outweigh their costs, the approach in the draft Safeguards seems to be driven by the desire to privilege rapid approval of loans over all else, an orientation which has long been identified as a problem for the Bank. A sense of being increasingly in competition with other lenders to secure the \u2018business\u2019 of developing country borrowers seems to be at the root of this approach. The Bank has defended its increased reluctance to engage with human rights on the basis that alternative sources of development financing are emerging, which do not require meaningful Safeguards, thus providing the latter with a significant advantage over the Bank. In our view, the failure of other lenders to require that projects they fund should respect human rights standards is not a valid reason for the World Bank to follow suit. We believe that the problems that will flow from such a race to the bottom are already becoming apparent, and it will be for us, in different contexts, to make this clear to the relevant lenders.\r\n\r\nHuman rights are not merely a matter of sound policy, but of legal obligation. As an international organization with international legal personality, and as a UN specialized agency, the Bank is bound by obligations stemming not only from its Articles of Agreement, but also from human rights obligations arising under \u2018general rules of  international law\u2019 and the UN Charter. Moreover, each of the 188 Member States of the World Bank has ratified at least one (and, in almost all cases, several) of the core international human rights treaties.16 Those States are also bound by human rights obligations stemming from other sources of international law. It is widely recognized that Member States should take their international human rights obligations into account when acting through an international organization such as the World Bank. States that borrow from the Bank also continue to be bound by their own international human rights obligations in the context of Bank-financed development projects and the Bank has a due diligence responsibility not to facilitate the violations of their human rights obligations, or to otherwise become complicit in such violations.\r\n\r\nIn the past, the Bank has often pointed to its \u2018non-political mandate\u2019 to argue that it is prohibited from, or at least restricted in, its ability to deal with human rights more directly. But the Bank\u2019s Articles of Agreement should be interpreted in the context of today\u2019s international legal order, rather than that of the mid-1940s. The Bank and its Member States are bound by both the Articles of Agreement, and by international human rights law. The provisions of the Articles can clearly be interpreted in a way that underlines their consistency with international human rights law. Since all States have long ago accepted human rights as a \u201clegitimate concern of the international community\u201d the suggestion that these remain little more than political considerations is not sustainable.\r\n\r\nOur call for the Bank to include HR within its overall program objectives does not amount to suggesting that the Bank should \u2018sanction\u2019 countries with a poor human rights record. Consistent with international law, with its own obligations and with those of its Member States, the Bank should acknowledge the relevance of human rights in its overall program objectives, as well as incorporate human rights due diligence into its risk management policies. The Bank should also avoid funding projects that would contravene the international human rights obligations of its borrowers. \r\n\r\nIn the annex, we have highlighted our particular concerns with elements of the proposed ESF. Our aim is to indicate specific means by which a human rights dimension would strengthen the Bank\u2019s new Framework and ensure its compliance with international law. As Bank President, you have repeatedly undertaken that this revision process will not result in a dilution of the human rights components of the Safeguards. We believe that honoring this promise requires a significantly different approach from that which is now being pursued and there are strong legal, policy and instrumental reasons why human rights should be given a central role in the work of the Bank. The current Safeguard Review process provides a critical opportunity for the Bank to fully integrate human rights in its policies and standards. We will be submitting this letter together with its annex to the World Bank\u2019s public consultation process and plan to issue a press release in due course. We stand available to engage further with the Bank in this process and can be reached for any comments and views on our letter. Your response will be made available in a report to be presented to the Human Rights Council for its consideration. \r\n\r\nFor further information on this open letter see www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/EPoverty/WorldBank.pdf","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Where Do the Rural Poor Deliver When High Coverage of Health Facility Delivery Is Achieved? Findings from a Community and Hospital Survey in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Straneo M, Fogliati P, Azzimonti G, Mangi S, Kisika F: PLoS ONE 9(12), December 2014","field_url":"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0113995","body":"As part of maternal mortality reducing strategies, coverage of delivery care among sub-Saharan African rural poor will improve, with a range of facilities providing services. Whether high coverage will benefit all socio-economic groups is unknown. Iringa rural District, Southern Tanzania, with high facility delivery coverage, offers a place to address this question. Delivery services are available in first-line facilities (dispensaries, health centres) and one hospital. The authors assessed whether all socio-economic groups access the only comprehensive emergency obstetric care facility equally, and surveyed existing delivery services. Hospital population socio-demographic characteristics were compared to District population using multivariable logistic regression. Women from the hospital compared to the district population were more likely to be wealthier. Poorer women remain disadvantaged even where coverage is high, as they access lower level facilities and are under-represented where life-saving transfusions and caesarean sections are available. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":" Non-Communicable Disease on the rise in Uganda; Who is to blame?","field_subtitle":"Nsereko I: CEHURD newsletter December 2014","field_url":"http://www.cehurd.org/2014/12/non-communicable-disease-on-the-rise-in-uganda-who-is-to-blame/","body":"A recent survey carried out by the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) with support from United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Uganda country office on the prevalence of risk factors for non communicable diseases among university students in and around Kampala found that up to 67% of the respondents did not know what NCDs were, 12% of students have used drugs, particularly Marijuana, 15% were current tobacco smokers, 9% smoked Shisha. More than 40% of the respondents were staying with parents who smoke, 10% have friends who smoke, 60% have smoked for less and 57% exposed to pro-cigarette advertisements. In areas where NCD services are available, these are often hampered by access to essential medicines.\r\nA recent visit by the author to communities of Nyenga and Najja sub-counties of Buikwe district revealed that a huge percentage of the community members find no point in visiting health facilities for early screening for NCDs. The author suggests that government strengthen existing health facilities by providing essential NCD medicines and NCD screening services for at least all health center IVs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"A concept in flux: questioning accountability in the context of global health cooperation","field_subtitle":"Bruen C, Brigha R, Kageni A and Wafula F: Globalization and Health 10:73, 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/10/1/73","body":"Accountability in global health is a commonly invoked though less commonly questioned concept. Critically reflecting on the concept and how it is put into practice, this paper focuses on the who, what, how, and where of accountability, mapping its defining features and considering them with respect to real-world circumstances. Changing dynamics in global health cooperation - such as the emergence of new health public-private partnerships and the formal inclusion of non-state actors in policy making processes - provides the backdrop to this discussion. In mapping some defining features, accountability in global health cooperation is shown to be a complex problem not necessarily reducible to one set of actors holding another to account. Clear tensions are observed between multi-stakeholder participatory models and more traditional vertical models that prioritise accountability upwards to donors, both of which are embodied in initiatives like the Global Fund. For multi-constituency organisations, this poses challenges not only for future financing but also for future legitimacy. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"A cross-sectional ecological study of spatial scale and geographic inequality in access to drinking-water and sanitation","field_subtitle":"Yu W, Bain RES, Mansour S and Wright JA: International Journal for Equity in Health13(113): November 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/13/1/113","body":"Measuring inequality in access to safe drinking-water and sanitation is proposed as a component of international monitoring following the expiry of the Millennium Development Goals. This study aims to evaluate the utility of census data in measuring geographic inequality in access to drinking-water and sanitation. Spatially referenced census data were acquired for Colombia, South Africa, Egypt, and Uganda, whilst non-spatially referenced census data were acquired for Kenya. Four variants of the dissimilarity index were used to estimate geographic inequality in access to both services using large and small area units in each country through a cross-sectional, ecological study. Inequality was greatest for piped water in South Africa in 2001 and lowest for access to an improved water source in Uganda in 2008. For sanitation, inequality was greatest for those lacking any facility in Kenya in 2009 and lowest for access to an improved facility in Uganda in 2002. Although dissimilarity index values were greater for smaller area units, when study countries were ranked in terms of inequality, these ranks remained unaffected by the choice of large or small area units. International comparability was limited due to definitional and temporal differences between censuses. This five-country study suggests that patterns of inequality for broad regional units do often reflect inequality in service access at a more local scale. This implies household surveys designed to estimate province-level service coverage can provide valuable insights into geographic inequality at lower levels. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"A Primer to the Emerging Extractive Sector in Kenya: Resource Bliss, Dilemma or Curse","field_subtitle":"Oiro Omolo MW, Mwabu G: Institute of Economic Affairs, November 2014 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/lgs33uy","body":"In any economy, the extractive sector consists mainly of oil, gas and mining activities. Experience in countries such as Norway, Canada, Botswana and Ghana suggests that extractives can be effectively managed to contribute to sustainable economic growth. Experience, however, in other parts of the world including Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic suggest that extractives if not well managed can lead to conflict. Extractives in Kenya contribute approximately one per cent to gross domestic product. The sector is however emerging. In the recent past, there have been oil and more mining discoveries in Kenya. For instance, oil has been discovered in Turkana County, and there are new discoveries in the mining sectors for minerals such as titanium in Kilifi County and coal in Kitui County. In addition, Kenya is actively undertaking off shore explorations with the aim of making gas discoveries. The growing extractive sector in Kenya means that there is need to give more attention to the social and economic dynamics of the sector. For instance, when Kenya discovered oil in Turkana County in March 2012, the Government was faced with emergent issues such as environmental implications, community obligations and rights, a suitable governance framework, and effective utilisation of resources generated from the sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A scoping review of training and deployment policies for human resources for health for maternal, newborn, and child health in rural Africa","field_subtitle":"Tomblin Murphy G, Goma F, MacKenzie A, Bradish S, Price S, Nzala S, Elliott Rose A, Rigby J, Muzongwe C, Chizuni N, Carey A and Hamavhwa D: Human Resources for Health 12(72), December 2014","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/12/1/72/abstract","body":"Most African countries lack the required workforce to deliver basic health care, including care for mothers and children. This is especially acute in rural areas and has limited countries' abilities to meet maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) targets outlined by Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5. To address the challenges, evidence-based deployment and training policies are required. However, the resources available to country-level policy makers to create such policies are limited. A scoping review was conducted to identify the type, extent, and quality of evidence that exists on workforce policies for rural MNCH in Africa. Fourteen electronic health and health education databases were searched for peer-reviewed papers specific to training and deployment policies for doctors, nurses, and midwives for rural MNCH in African countries with English, Portuguese, or French as official languages. Non-peer reviewed literature and policy documents were also identified through systematic searches of selected international organizations and government websites. There was an overall paucity of information on workforce training and deployment policies for MNCH in rural Africa. Policies focusing exclusively on training or deployment were limited; most documents focused on both training and deployment or were broader with embedded implications for workforce management or MNCH. Relevant government websites varied in functionality and in the availability of policy documents. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"AFSA open letter opposing human feeding trials involving GM banana","field_subtitle":"Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa: Pambazuka News issue 706 December 9 2014","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category/advocacy/93561","body":"The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), a Pan African platform comprising civil society networks and farmer organisations working towards food sovereignty, has submitted this Open Letter to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Dr. Wendy White from Iowa State University and the Human Institutional Review Board of Iowa State University expressing fierce opposition to the human feeding trials taking place at Iowa State University involving genetically modified (GM) bananas. The Letter is supported by more than 120 organizations from around the world. The letter states:\"This so-called \u2018Super-banana\u2019, has been genetically modified to contain extra beta-carotene, a nutrient the human body uses to produce vitamin A. Unlike current GM crops in commercial production where agronomic traits have been altered, scientists have spliced genes into the GM banana to produce substances for humans to digest (extra beta carotene). The GM banana is a whole different ballgame, raising serious concerns about the risks to African communities who would be expected to consume it. Production of vitamin A in the body is complex and not fully understood. This raises important questions including inter alia, whether high levels of beta- carotene or vitamin A may carry risks and what the nature of those risks might be. While a risk assessment is a pre-requisite for GM foods under many national jurisdictions, the need for specific and additional food safety assessment for nutritionally enhanced GM crops such as the GM banana is acknowledged by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, as genetic modifications result in a composition that may be significantly different from their conventional counterparts\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Board of Healthcare Funders and Government: \u2018I\u2019ll change if you\u2019ll change\u2019","field_subtitle":"Bateman C:  South African Medical Journal104(10), October 2014","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/samj/article/view/108470/98282","body":"While the South African government and private healthcare funders urged one another to make internal changes to enable faster progress towards a more equitable healthcare system, some concrete evidence of vitally needed partnership did emerge from the Board of Healthcare funders' conference held in August 2014. Government\u2019s new Essential Drugs Committee will include representatives of the private healthcare funding industry to obtain consensus on just which essential medicines should be available to patients.\r\nA blueprint on how the National Department of Health (NDoH) can partner\r\nwith the private healthcare funding sector in conducting economic evaluations of products to save both sectors time and money (and avoid\r\nlongstanding unnecessary duplication) has been drawn by NDoH. National Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi also pleaded with delegates to \u2018embrace change\u2019, warning that they would be hardest hit by the\u2018exploding\u2019 epidemic of non-communicable diseases if they failed to introduce health promotion and disease prevention measures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers European Conference on African Studies (ECAS) 2015: Living in State Housing: Expectations, contradictions and consequences \u2013 call for panel papers","field_subtitle":"Closing Date: 9 January 2015","field_url":"http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/blog/call-for-papers-ecas/","body":"State-supported low-cost housing is a significant tool and electoral strategy across African cities, which often draws on notions of urban formality, social decency, rights, material integrity, welfare, and citizenship to underpin its aims. This session examines he contradictions of\r\nhousing urban poor people in cities where affordable and well-located\r\nspace is highly restricted, where social inequalities and tensions are\r\nrife, and where unemployment persists in shaping residents daily\r\nlives. The panel hopes to attract papers from across the continent to\r\nbuild understanding of the lived experiences of state-housing in an\r\neffort to contribute to further scholarship in this relatively\r\nneglected area. Delegates can submit paper titles and abstracts via the link on the website and will be notified by email of the acceptance or rejection of their proposal. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can frameworks inform knowledge about health policy processes? Reviewing health policy papers on agenda setting and testing them against a specific priority-setting framework","field_subtitle":"Walt G and Gilson L: Health Policy and Planning 29 (suppl 3), June 2014","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/29/suppl_3/iii6.full","body":"This article systematically reviews a set of health policy papers on agenda setting and tests them against a specific priority-setting framework. The article applies the Shiffman and Smith framework in extracting and synthesizing data from an existing set of papers, purposively identified for their relevance and systematically reviewed. Its primary aim is to assess how far the component parts of the framework help to identify the factors that influence the agenda setting stage of the policy process at global and national levels. It seeks to advance the field and inform the development of theory in health policy by examining the extent to which the framework offers a useful approach for organizing and analysing data. Applying the framework retrospectively to the selected set of papers, it aims to explore influences on priority setting and to assess how far the framework might gain from further refinement or adaptation, if used prospectively. The article also demonstrates how framework synthesis can be used in health policy analysis research. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Can the private sector help overcome nursing shortages? ","field_subtitle":"Resyst project: LSHTM,  2013","field_url":"http://resyst.lshtm.ac.uk/sites/resyst.lshtm.ac.uk/files/Private_sector_infographic.pdf","body":"The demand for nurses is growing and has not yet been met in most low and middle-income countries. In India, Kenya, South Africa and Thailand, there has been a rapid proliferation of private training institutions to increase the supply of nurses. This infogram summarises evidence from RESYST research examining the role of these private institutions, their contribution to the wider health systems, and how governments in these countries have managed the opening of markets to the private sector. Private nurse training institutions are reported to be playing an increasingly important role in producing nurses in many low and middle income countries. Governments need to ensure that graduates from both private and public institutions are of sufficient quality to meet the health needs of their populations, and that training institutions have the capacity to train more nurses. In some countries including India and Kenya, the benefits of expanding nurse production through the private sector have been hindered by high levels of international migration. A balance needs to be struck between producing nurses for export, and ensuring sufficient supply and skill-mix for domestic markets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Data Visualisation: Africa\u2019s Hydropower Future","field_subtitle":"SciDevNet, 2014","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/global/energy/data-visualisation/africa-hydropower-future-interactive.html","body":"From Cote d\u2019Ivoire in the west to Ethiopia in the east, Africa is home to some of the world\u2019s fastest growing economies. Debates often proclaim a new era of economic boom, innovation and social opportunity for the continent. But beyond the hype, millions of people remain affected by severe poverty, and at the root of this lies a perennial problem: energy poverty. This data visualisation explores a creative way of interrogating the notion of whether hydropower could hold the key to energy access in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Deaths Ascribed to Non-Communicable Diseases among Rural Kenyan Adults Are Proportionately Increasing: Evidence from a Health and Demographic Surveillance System, 2003\u20132010","field_subtitle":"Phillips-Howard PA, Laserson KF, Amek N, Beynon CM, Angell SY, Khagayi S, Byass P, Hamel MJ, van Eijk AM, Zielinski-Gutierrez E, Slutsker L, De Cock KM, Vulule J, Odhiambo FO: PLoS ONE 9(11), November 2014","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0114010","body":"Monitoring systems require strengthening to attribute the Non communicable disease (NCD) burden and deaths in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Data from health and demographic surveillance systems (HDSS) can contribute towards this goal. Between 2003 and 2010, 15,228 deaths in adults aged 15 years (y) and older were identified retrospectively using the HDSS census and verbal autopsy in rural western Kenya. 37% were ascribed to NCDs, 60% to communicable diseases (CDs), 3% to injuries, and ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Defining Motivational Intensity of Need for Family Planning in Africa","field_subtitle":"Kuang B, Ross J, Madsen EL: African Journal of Reproductive Health 18(3), September 2014","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajrh/article/view/109200","body":"This study presents a new approach to defining high and low motivation groups of contraceptive users by stated intention to use, past use, and unmet need, to determine how these groups differ in characteristics and in region of residence. Data came from 23 DHS surveys in sub-Saharan countries. The low motivation non-users, with less past use and less intention to use in the future, are more rural, less educated, and closer to poverty. When used to guide planning, unmet need should be augmented with motivation, since the two classifications do not entirely overlap. Between 10 and 17 percent of current non-users of family planning are likely highly motivated to use, but are not captured in the unmet need classification. Programme implications for these non-using groups are discussed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Emerging Powers in Africa Project call for grant proposals","field_subtitle":"Call closing December 2014 (negotiable)","field_url":"http://www.fahamu.org/resources/ResearchGrantsCall28Nov2014.pdf","body":"Fahamu\u2019s Emerging Powers Project is issuing a call for grant proposals to examine the political, economic, social and cultural impact of the emerging powers footprint in Africa. The grant is specifically related to empowering civil society actors in gaining the appropriate knowledge and developing the necessary tools to articulate an informed perspective on the emerging powers in Africa and the corresponding impact. In particular, attention should be given to the forthcoming China-Africa Forum (FOCAC), the India-Africa Forum Summit, and the South Korea-Africa development cooperation meeting that is going to take place in 2015, as well as the recent Africa-Turkey Summit that took place in November 2014. Applicants are encouraged to explore how these platforms inform Africa\u2019s relationship with emerging actors; what impact have these engagements had on Africa\u2019s relationship with these and other actors; and how African civil society actors should advance African voice. The grants are for 5000 Euro, with further details on the application procedure on the website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 167: We are not done yet. Lets close the gap!","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Fertility Desires and Intentions among HIV-Positive Women during the Post-natal period in Uganda","field_subtitle":" Gutin SA, Namusoke F, Shade SB, Mirembe F: African Journal of Reproductive Health 18(3), September 2014","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajrh/article/view/109199","body":"This study describes the fertility intentions and discusses the potential  reproductive health needs of post-natal HIV-infected Ugandan women. HIV-infected mothers attending post-natal services in Kampala, Uganda participated in this cross-sectional study using structured interviewer  administered questionnaires. Among 403 participants, 35% desired more children. Of these, 25% wanted another child within 2 years and 75% within 3 years or more. In  multivariable analyses, believing that one\u2019s partners wanted more children was associated with the desire for future children while having more living children was negatively associated with the desire for future children. A minority of women desired future pregnancies, and most wanted to delay pregnancy for 3 years. These women are in need of family planning methods to meet stated desires to delay or end future pregnancies. Perceived partner desire for children also impacts on women\u2019s fertility intentions, highlighting the importance of engaging men during the post-natal period.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Food label reading and understanding in parts of rural and urban Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Chopera P, Chagwena DT, Mushonga NGT: African Health Sciences 14(3), September 2014","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ahs/article/view/107240/97129","body":"Overweight and obesity prevalence is rapidly rising in developing countries. The reading and understanding of nutrition information on food packages has been shown to improve food choices and instill healthy eating habits in individuals. The aim of this study was to describe the prevalence of food label usage and understanding among urban and rural adults in Zimbabwe and its association with demographic and socio economic factors. A cross sectional study was conducted on 320 adults (147 urban and 173 rural) using a validated questionnaire. A high proportion (77%) of the respondents read food labels. Food label reading differed significantly by educational, employment status and locality. Only 41% of food label readers mostly understood the information on the food labels. More urban shoppers (86%) read food labels than their rural counterparts (67%). A significant number of participants (81%) indicated they would like to be educated on the meaning of food labels and 80% preferred the nutrition information on food labels to be simplified. The study found above average reported reading of nutrition information on food labels with partial understanding. The authors recommend that efforts be made to determine how all consumers could be made to understand the nutrition information on food labels and use it effectively in decision making.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Grain Revolution: Finger Millet and Livelihood Transformation in Rural Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Muchineripi C: Africa Research Institute Policy Voice Series, October 2013","field_url":"http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/publications/chidara-muchineripi/","body":"Food shortages are the root cause of poverty in Zimbabwe\u2019s Gutu district. Rainfall is generally low and erratic. In most places the soil is sandy and over-cultivated. High population density means that the vast majority of the district\u2019s 40,000 households are restricted to farming on small plots. By the mid-2000s the effect of an economic crisis on the government\u2019s agricultural budget and an over-reliance on growing maize, a crop that requires high rainfall, had drastically undermined food security in Gutu. Following a severe drought in 2005, the Chinyika Communities Development Project was conceived to overcome the persistent threat of food shortages \u2013 and even famine \u2013 in Gutu. The objective was to persuade farmers dependent on maize production to plant finger millet, a neglected crop that is indigenous to Zimbabwe. Finger millet is drought-resistant and better suited to semi-arid and arid areas than maize. Although its cultivation is more labour-intensive, it requires fewer expensive inputs than maize. It is also highly nutritious and can be stored for up to 25 years. By 2014 almost every household in Gutu had participated in the project. Farmers with a nucleus of finger millet production each have 3-5 years of strategic food reserves and the collective capacity to produce a surplus of up to 2,000 tons a year. Accumulated reserves of finger millet exceed 20,000 tons. Families in Gutu now have a stable, dependable supply of food. This has been achieved without any external intervention or funding. The success of the Chinyika Communities Development Project was grounded in participatory research, community engagement and local ownership. The narrative is about much more than switching from one crop to another. A stable supply of food \u2013 and behavioural change \u2013 has imbued farmers with the confidence to pursue various income-generating activities. In Gutu, finger millet has been the key to the emergence of a diversified and innovative family farming system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV in (and out of) the clinic: Biomedicine, traditional medicine and spiritual healing in Harare","field_subtitle":"O\u2019Brien S, Broom A: SAHARA J (Journal of Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS Research Alliance) 11(1), 14 July 2014","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/saharaj/article/view/108597","body":"Contemporary lived experiences of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are shaped by clinical and cultural encounters with illness. In sub-Saharan countries such as Zimbabwe, HIV is treated in very different ways in  various therapeutic contexts including by biomedical experts, traditional medicine and faith healers. The  co-existence of such expertise raises important questions around the potencies and limits of medicalisation and alternative healing practices in promoting HIV recovery. First, in this study, drawing on in-depth qualitative  interviews with 60 people from poor urban areas in Harare, the authors explore the experiences of people living with and affected by HIV. They sought to document, interrogate and reflect on their perceptions and experiences of biomedicine in relation to traditional medicine and spiritual healing. Their accounts indicate that traditional medicine and spiritual beliefs continue to significantly influence the way in which HIV is understood, and the forms of help and care people seek. The authors observe the dramatic and overwhelmingly beneficial impact of  Antiretroviral Therapy and conclude through Zimbabwean\u2019s own stories that limitations around delivery and wider structural inequalities impede its potential. The authors explore some practical implications of the biomedical clinic (and alternative healing practices) being understood as sites of ideological and expert  contestation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How to make planning law work for Africa","field_subtitle":"Berrisford S: Africa Research Institute Counterpoints Series, November 2013","field_url":"http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/publications/counterpoints/planning-law-in-africa","body":"As competition for land intensifies in Africa\u2019s rapidly growing towns and cities, planning laws assume a fundamental importance. They determine how urban growth is managed and directed. In most countries outdated, inappropriate and unintegrated laws are exacerbating urban dysfunction. The reform of planning law is frequently advocated as a necessary step for better management of urbanisation in Africa. But reform initiatives consistently founder. This is inevitable, given the approaches adopted. The promotion of \u201cone-size-fits-all\u201d and \u201cmodel\u201d planning laws from outside the continent has not served Africa well. Invariably it has created further legal uncertainty and a series of unanticipated, often pernicious consequences. This paper argues that more progressive, realistic urban planning in Africa will require a radically different approach to planning law reform, essential for sustainable and equitable urban development in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"How to use Instagram for research communication","field_subtitle":"Patton B: Research to Action: 22 October 2014","field_url":"http://www.researchtoaction.org/2013/10/using-instagram-for-research-communication/","body":"Instagram, the social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, apply digital filters to them, and share them across Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr, is becoming increasingly popular. A free application that can be downloaded onto mobile phones and tablets. Instagram currently has a predominantly young adult audience and is used as a tool to generate interest in campaigns.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Meeting report: The Role of Health Committees in Equitable, People-centred Health Systems in the Southern and East African Region","field_subtitle":"Mdaka K, Haricharan H, London L: Learning Network for Health and Human Rights, CEHURD, UCT and EQUINET, November 2014","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/HCC%20Regional%20Mtg%20Rep%20Sep2014l.pdf","body":"A two-day consultation on health committees as vehicles for community participation was held in Cape Town on September 27th and 28th 2014 prior to the 3rd Global Health Systems Research Conference. The meeting, funded by the International Development Research Council (IDRC Canada), had 38 participants from 12 countries of which nine were African countries. The meeting build on previous regional networking to share experiences of health committees as vehicles for community participation from countries across the globe. The discussion focused particularly on health committees in the African region, but benefited from considerations of experiences from other countries of the South (Guatemala and India). The discussions also reaffirmed the importance of health committees for Health System responsiveness and highlighted the importance of health committees as autonomous structures able to enhance democratic governance of health systems through monitoring and evaluation of health service performance and holding the state accountable. This applies irrespective of how services are delivered. To achieve this, it is critically important for health committees to be capacitated to fulfil this role through appropriate training, health systems design and sustainable support. Government should recognize the importance of health committees for their health systems, and invest appropriate human and financial resources to ensure functional health committees. Such investments are part of state obligations with respect to realising the Right to Health. Further, strategies must be developed to obtain buy-in of health workers, managers and policy-makers in supporting meaningful participation by health committees.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring of non-communicable diseases such as hypertension in South Africa: Challenges for the post-2015 global development agenda","field_subtitle":"Day C, Groenewald P, Laubscher R, van Schaik N, Bradshaw D: South African Medical Journal 10(104), October 2014","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/samj/article/view/108475","body":"Examining the non-communicable disease (NCD) profile for South Africa (SA) is crucial when developing health interventions that aim to reduce the burden of NCDs. The objective was to review NCD indicators in national data sources in order to describe the burden of NCDs in SA, using hypertension as an example. Age, gender, district of death and underlying cause of death data were obtained for 2008 and 2009 mortality unit records from Statistics SA and adjusted using STATA 11. Data for raised blood pressure were obtained from four national household surveys: the South African Demographic and Health Survey 1998, the Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health 2007, and the National Income Dynamics Study 2008 and 2010. The proportion of years of life lost due to NCDs was highest in the metros and least-deprived districts, with all metros (especially Mangaung) showing high age-standardised mortality rates for ischaemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease and hypertensive disease. The prevalence of hypertension has increased since 1998. National household surveys showed a measured hypertension prevalence of over 40% in adults aged \u00ac25 years in 2010. Treatment coverage was 35.7%. Only 36.4% of hypertensive cases (on treatment) were controlled. Further work is needed if NCD monitoring is to be enhanced. Priority targets for NCDs must be integrated into national health planning processes. Surveillance requires integration into national health information systems. Within primary healthcare, a larger focus on integrated chronic care is essential.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Overcoming the Health Workforce Gap","field_subtitle":"Peoples Health Movement: Global Health Watch, November 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/node/45470","body":"In this new piece, Remco van de Pas and Linda Mans, researchers in public health, draw attention to a key chapter, titled \u2018The Global Health Workforce Crisis\u2019, of the latest edition of the Alternative World Health Report, Global Health Watch 4. They argue that overcoming the health work force gap is one of the key lessons we should learn from the current Ebola outbreak.\r\nThe chapter of GHW4 discusses how 'ceilings\u2019 in the public wage bill imposed by the International Monetary Fund in Africa have contributed to migration of health workforce from the continent towards northern countries. It provides shocking numbers on the cost of health workforce training to governments in the south, and corresponding subsidy to governments in the north. The chapter also highlights that concerns of \u2018economic efficiency\u2019 threaten reducing health workers' role to undertaking selective diagnosis and treatment. It concludes that a strong health workforce, supported by public funds, is a requirement for strong, universal health systems.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Rwanda's evolving community health worker system: a qualitative assessment of client and provider perspectives","field_subtitle":"Condo J, Mugeni C, Naughton B, Hall K, Antonia Tuazon M, Omwega A, Nwaigwe F, Drobac P, Hyder Z, Ngabo F and Binagwaho A: Human Resources for Health 12(72), December 2014","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/12/1/71/abstract","body":"In Rwanda, which faces a significant gap in health workers, the Ministry of Health expanded its community health programme in 2007, eventually placing 4 trained CHWs in every village in the country by 2009. The aim of this study was to assess the capacity of CHWs and the factors affecting the efficiency and effectiveness of the CHW programme, as perceived by the CHWs and their beneficiaries. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted using focus group discussions to collect qualitative information regarding educational background, knowledge and practices of CHWs, and the benefits of community-based care as perceived by CHWs and household beneficiaries. A random sample of 108 CHWs and 36 beneficiaries was selected in 3 districts according to their food security level (low, middle and high). CHWs were found to be closely involved in the community, and widely respected by the beneficiaries. Rwanda's community performance-based financing was an incentive, but CHWs were also strongly motivated by community respect. The key challenges identified were an overwhelming workload, irregular trainings, and lack of sufficient supervision. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Save the Children South Africa: Action/2015 Campaign Coalition Coordinator","field_subtitle":"Call for applicants closes January 10 2015","field_url":"http://www.ngopulse.org/opportunity/save-children-south-africa-action2015-campaign-coalition-coordinator","body":"The action/2015 Campaign Coalition Coordinator will help drive the strategic direction and delivery of the South African action/2015 coalition. This is a high-level position which will play a key role in building a broad based national action/2015 coalition and in supporting the design and delivery of the coalition\u2019s action/2015 campaign. This is a 3 month consultancy opportunity. Further information on the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Science and technology for development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Key topics, challenges and opportunities","field_subtitle":"Romo Ramos YJ: SciDev.Net 2014","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/filemanager/root/site_assets/docs/SubSaharan-Africa-Electronic.pdf","body":"SciDev.Net\u2019s focus groups in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are part of a global programme that aims to understand regional needs and contexts for science and technology in development. The programme started in 2012 in South East Asia and the Pacific, and reports are available online at www.scidev.net/global/content/learning-series.html This report highlights the key areas of interest in for development, and barriers and gaps in the use of science and technology evidence. It also provides suggestions for how communications about science and technology can be improved.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Shooting our hard drive into space and other ways to practise responsible development data","field_subtitle":"Antin K, Byrne R, Geber T, van Geffen S, Hoffmann J, Jayaram M, Khan M, Lee T,  Weinberg F, Wilson C,  R\u00fchling B, Rahman Z, Simeoni C: 9 October 2014","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ne3ak9n","body":"This book is offered as a first attempt to understand what responsible data means in the context of international development programming. It takes a broad view of development and also anticipates that some of the methods and lessons may have resonance for related fields and practitioners. It is intended to support thoughtful and responsible thinking as the development community grapples with relatively new social and ethical challenges stemming from data use. This book builds on a number of resources and strategies developed in academia, human rights and advocacy, but aims to focus on international development practitioners so touches primarily upon issues specifically relevant to development practitioners and intermediaries working to improve the lives and livelihoods of people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategic Purchasing Factsheet","field_subtitle":"Asia Pacific Observatory on health policy and systems: October 2014","field_url":"http://resyst.lshtm.ac.uk/sites/resyst.lshtm.ac.uk/files/docs/reseources/FactsheetWEB.pdf","body":"A core function of health care financing is purchasing \u2013 the process by which funds are allocated to providers to obtain health services on behalf of the population. If designed and undertaken strategically, purchasing can improve health systems performance by promoting quality, efficiency, equity and responsiveness in health service provision.  This brief discusses dimensions of purchasing in ten countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Surviving scarcities in Bulengo","field_subtitle":"Boneza RN: Pambazuka News 11 December 2014","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category/features/93571","body":"In 2006, statistics showed that there were about three million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the five Eastern provinces of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): The oriental Province, North Kivu, South Kivu, Maniema and Katanga. Lately, due to relative peace in the region, the number of IDPs dropped to around two million by 2013. While the number has decreased, however, this article highlights how the people still need assistance for their precarious vulnerability. The majority are elderly, children, women who were victims of sexual violence and teenage mothers affected with all sort of predicaments such famine, AIDS and other disabilities. MSF built a clinic in Bulengo to provide free health care to more than 40,000 people. MSF has conducted more than 25,000 consultations in this camp, mainly for diarrhea and respiratory infections. People are mainly sick due to poor living conditions accentuated by poor nourishment. The author argues that the UN and aid agencies should start planning longer-term assistance, and other governments should respond with the necessary funding. They should join their effort to support Doctors without Borders in providing the necessary services attached to their mandate such food, water supply, shelter distribution and hygienic installations. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The Link between Inequality and Population Health in Low and Middle Income Countries: Policy Myth or Social Reality?","field_subtitle":"Van Deurzen I, van Oorschot W, van Ingen E: PLoS ONE 9(12), 11 December 2014","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0115109","body":"An influential policy idea states that reducing inequality is beneficial for improving health in the low and middle income countries (LMICs). The study provides an empirical test of this idea: the authors utilized data collected by the Demographic and Health Surveys between 2000 and 2011 52 LMICs, and examined the relationship between household wealth inequality and two health outcomes: anemia status (of the children and their mothers) and the women' experience of child mortality. Based on multi-level analyses, the authors found that higher levels of household wealth inequality related to worse health, but this effect was strongly reduced when they took into account the level of individuals' wealth. However, even after accounting for the differences between individuals in terms of household wealth and other characteristics, in those LMICs with higher household wealth inequality more women experienced child mortality and more children were tested with anemia. This effect was partially mediated by the country's level and coverage of the health services and infrastructure. Furthermore, we found higher inequality to be related to a larger health gap between the poor and the rich in only one of the three examined samples. The paper concludes that an effective way to improve the health in the LMICs is to increase the wealth among the poor, which in turn also would lead to lower overall inequality and potential investments in public health infrastructure and services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The State of African Cities 2014","field_subtitle":"UN Habitat, 13 March 2014 ","field_url":"http://unhabitat.org/the-state-of-african-cities-2014/","body":"The African continent is currently in the midst of simultaneously unfolding and highly significant demographic, economic, technological, environmental, urban and socio-political transitions. Africa\u2019s economic performance is promising, with booming cities supporting growing middle classes and creating sizable consumer markets. But despite significant overall growth, not all of Africa performs well. The continent continues to suffer under very rapid urban growth accompanied by massive urban poverty and many other social problems. These seem to indicate that the development trajectories followed by African nations since post-independence may not be able to deliver on the aspirations of broad based human development and prosperity for all. This report, therefore, argues for a bold re-imagining of prevailing models in order to steer the ongoing transitions towards greater sustainability based on a thorough review of all available options. That is especially the case since the already daunting urban challenges in Africa are now being exacerbated by the new vulnerabilities and threats associated with climate and environmental change. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"To a peaceful, just and healthy new year","field_subtitle":"EQUINET steering committee","field_url":"","body":"The steering committee of the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa wish all a healthy new year and renewed energy in our efforts to advance equity and social justice in health. The editorial this month shows how wide is the deficit, but also how vigorous the struggle!","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal health coverage and non-communicable diseases: a mutually reinforcing agenda","field_subtitle":"The NCD Alliance, October 2014","field_url":"","body":"This policy brief analyses the relationships between Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). It covers the unique challenges the NCD epidemic poses to achieving UHC, and the role of UHC in strengthening the NCD response. It also explores the implications and possible position of health, NCDs and UHC in the post-2015 development agenda. The key messages from the report include: UHC is a goal that all governments should commit to. It can help focus greater attention on coverage of quality services, health equity, and guar-anteeing financial-risk protection. The NCD epidemic poses unique challenges to the three dimensions of UHC. Access and availability to essential NCD services remains unacceptably low in many LMICs; major inequalities exist in terms of NCD risk, access to services, and health outcomes; and the epidemic imposes a huge economic burden on national budgets and can push households into poverty. Attainment of UHC will be dependent on prioritising NCD prevention and control in UHC design and implementation. When achieved, UHC can provide a powerful vehicle to accelerate progress on NCD outcomes, inequalities, and socio-economic impact. Lessons learnt from the NCD response can help support pathways to UHC. These include a focus on health promotion and prevention, multi-sectoral approach-es, addressing the social determinants of health, and domestic innovative financing mechanisms (including taxation on unhealthy products). For the post-2015 development agenda to be truly transformative for health, NCDs must be recognised as a priority and UHC must be articulated as a means to achieve improved health outcomes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal Health Coverage network to be launched in Africa on UHC Day","field_subtitle":"Africa Civil Society Network for Universal Health Coverage, Accra, December 2014","field_url":"","body":"The African Platform for Universal Health Coverage (AP-UHC) will be launched with events in 9 African countries and online during the first Global Day for Universal Health Coverage (12th December 2014). The same date, two years ago, all countries unanimously supported a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly which encouraged member states to \u201cplan or pursue the transition of their health systems towards Universal Health Coverage\u201d. AP-UHC will contribute to civil society efforts for the implementation of Universal Health Coverage policies at national, and Africa level as the practical expression of the Right to Health in Africa. The network is a result of the global effort to improve and expand healthcare delivery to every locality where everybody receives the health services they need. The network will provide adequate support to national NGOs in their advocacy, using people-centred, right-based approach, to influence governments and policy makers at regional, national and community levels to implement Universal Health Coverage policies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal Health Coverage: Because nobody should have to choose between health, food and education ","field_subtitle":"Hannah Yous, Health Advocacy Officer, Oxfam France 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/?utm_source=Global%20Health%20Check&utm_campaign=cfe472c579-Global%20Health%20Check%20email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_89f8d74097-cfe472c579-12084821","body":"Getting sick represents a risk of falling into poverty for millions of people around the world. The cost of health care put millions of people in the position to choose between buying food, sending children to school or paying to get healthcare. Yet the author argues that this is not inevitable because solutions exist: Universal Health Coverage (UHC) makes it possible for people to access health care without sacrificing other basic needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Using the unmet obstetric needs indicator to map inequities in life-saving obstetric interventions at the local health care system in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Echoka E, Dubourg D, Makokha A, Kombe Y, Olsen \u00d8E, Mwangi M, Evjen-Olsen B and Byskov J: International Journal for Equity in Health 13(112), December 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/13/1/112","body":"Developing countries with high maternal mortality need to invest in indicators that not only provide information about how many women are dying, but also where, and what can be done to prevent these deaths. The unmet Obstetric Needs (UONs) concept provides this information. This concept was applied at district level in Kenya to assess how many women had UONs and where the women with unmet needs were located. A facility based retrospective study was conducted in 2010 in Malindi District, Kenya. Data on pregnant women who underwent a major obstetric intervention (MOI) or died in facilities that provide comprehensive Emergency Obstetric Care (EmOC) services in 2008 and 2009 were collected. The difference between the number of women who experienced life threatening obstetric complications and those who received care was quantified. The most common MOI was caesarean section, commonly indicated by Cephalopelvic Disproportion (CPD)\u2013narrow pelvis. In absolute terms, 22 (11%) women in 2008 and 12 (6%) in 2009, who required a life saving intervention failed to get it. Deficits in terms of unmet needs were identified in rural areas. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"We are not done yet. Lets close the gap!","field_subtitle":"Constance Georgina Khaendi Walyaro, Kenya","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThis year, as we look back upon 26 years of World Aids Days, we honour the millions of heroes and heroines who fought the good fight against AIDS but are no longer with us. We need to make sure that this day and the year that follows is about what we do to ensure that people continue living positive, productive lives, with great decency and dignity.\r\n\r\nAs a young person, I grew up hearing statistics like more than 4 young people are infected with HIV every minute and over 6 000 are newly infected every day. Over half of all new HIV infections were amongst young people in my age group. We had even been called the doomed generation, because many of us had never known a world without HIV and AIDS. AIDS had become our disease and it was feared that within a decade, we would be reduced to mere statistics.  \r\n \r\nStigma and exclusion had hindered the efforts of many young people seeking the counselling, testing, treatment and support they required to ensure that those who were not infected remained uninfected, and the infected and affected were well cared for. Many carried the virus for years without knowing.\r\n\r\nHIV changed our communities and civilizations, hacking away more than twenty years of hard gains in education, food security and socio- economic development; making our families poorer, and driving us into poverty. \r\n\r\nWhile the scale of devastation caused by the epidemic was unmatched, we also knew that we could beat it - with quality treatment and effective prevention. So we began to fight back, to reclaim our spaces through advocacy, education and awareness. We changed and reclaimed our lives, forcing the epidemic into retreat in many places.\r\n \r\nWe were not always supported. To save lives we had to successfully confront the monopolies that endorsed skewed TRIPS+ trade agreements, greatly limiting the flexibilities that were won within TRIPs in the Doha Declaration to protect public health and increase access to essential medicines. We had to confront transnational corporations  that had tried to challenge Indian law in an attempt to shut down  'the pharmacy of the developing world' - one of the largest producers of affordable generic medication. We had to claim our right to affordable and accessible quality medication.\r\n\r\nBut we are not done yet.\r\n\r\nAccording to the UNAIDS GAP Report 2014, less than 50% of the 35 million people living with HIV globally know they are HIV positive. Adolescent girls and young women in Sub-Saharan Africa account for a quarter of the new infections. Gender based discrimination, poverty, and the denial of their economic, social and cultural rights continues to drive the epidemic. We are also facing high rates of antibiotic resistance and a reduction in the effectiveness of other medicines we have struggled to access. As a result people with drug resistant diseases like MDR TB need more expensive drugs. This has put a great burden on health services that are already underfunded.\r\n \r\nWorld AIDS Day 2014 and every day after presents the opportunity for us to harness the power of social change to put people first and to close the gap. Ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 is possible, but only if we leave no-one behind. \r\n \r\nClosing the gap means enabling all people, everywhere, to access the services they need,\r\n\u2022\tBy closing the HIV testing gap, so that the 19 million people who are unaware of their HIV-positive status can begin to get support.\r\n\u2022\tBy closing the treatment gap, so that all 35 million people living with HIV have access to life-saving medicine.\r\n\u2022\tBy closing the gap in access to medicines and care for all children living with HIV, and not just the 24% who have access today.\r\n\u2022\tBy closing the gap in power so that young women, children, people of all ages, income and cultures can be included as part of the solution.\r\n \r\nWe are not done yet. Let\u2019s close the Gap!\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"World AIDS Day: What does HIV teach us about access to medicines for Ebola? ","field_subtitle":"Kamal-Yanni M: Oxfam UK, November 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/?p=1715","body":"In 2001, the new antiretroviral medicines had started to work miracles, bringing people from their deathbeds back to life. Yet as a Ugandan doctor truly said: \u2018the medicine is in the North but the disease is in the South\u2019. The author argues that the pharmaceutical industry was happy to sell the medicines at very high prices in rich countries while turning a blind eye to the rest of the world. It was largely thanks to a huge global mobilisation of civil society led by people living with HIV that leaders and pharmaceutical companies started to feel embarrassed about denying access to life-saving medicines to millions of people. But it was only after generic competition kicked in that access to medicines became something policymakers talked about. An offer by an Indian company to sell a cocktail of the three basic medicines for one dollar a day slashed the prices of antiretrovirals, meaning that today over 9 million people are on treatment,, including over 7 million in Africa. The profit from treatment of HIV infected people in rich country provided the necessary market that has stimulated R&D for antiretroviral medicines. This is not the case for the Ebola market, which consists of small numbers of people in poor countries. Pharmaceutical companies had no commercial incentive to enter into R&D for vaccines or medicines for Ebola \u2013 or any other haemorrhagic fever. For this reason Ebola is the other side of the coin to HIV as the intellectual property rights system allows the market to shape R&D priorities, rather than public health needs. The author argues that it is not ethical, sustainable nor safe to leave commercial interests decisions and financing for R&D for products, capable of modifying global health threats, to be dictated by the commercial interests of pharmaceutical companies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2015-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A comparative study of an NGO-sponsored CHW programme versus a ministry of health sponsored CHW programme in rural Kenya: a process evaluation","field_subtitle":"Aridi J, Chapman S, Wagah M, Negin J: Human Resources for Health 12:64, November 2014","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/12/1/64","body":"This paper presents the results of process evaluations conducted on two different models of Community Health Worker (CHW) programme delivery in adjacent rural communities in in Gem District of Western Kenya. One model was implemented by the Millennium Villages Project (MVP), and the other model was implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Health (MoH) as part of Kenya\u2019s National CHW programme. Both the MVP and national CHW programmes faced challenges in implementation. Due to better flexibility, resources and scope for rapid innovation on the ground, the MVP model was able to introduce a number of innovations that aimed to strengthen CHW management, supervision and improve CHW responsiveness. Many of these innovations proved very effective in smoothing programme operations, but programme adherence still faced a number of challenges with respects to ensuring that CHW coverage was adequate, visitation frequency was sufficient and services were delivered with the same consistency over time by all CHWs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Acceptability of conditions in a community-led cash transfer programme for orphaned and vulnerable children in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Skovdal M, Robertson L, Mushati P, Dumba L, Sherr L, Nyamukapa C, Gregson S: Health Policy and Planning 29(7): 809-817, September 2013","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/29/7/809.full?sid=d5222603-d239-4350-a366-7ed6329eac62","body":"Evidence suggests that a regular and reliable transfer of cash to households with orphaned and vulnerable children has a strong and positive effect on child outcomes. However, conditional cash transfers are considered by some as particularly intrusive and the question on whether or not to apply conditions to cash transfers is an issue of controversy. This article sets out to investigate the overall buy-in of conditions by different stakeholders and to identify pathways that contribute to an acceptability of conditions. The article draws on data from a cluster-randomized trial of a community-led cash transfer programme in Manicaland, eastern Zimbabwe. The study found a significant and widespread acceptance of conditions primarily because they were seen as fair and a proxy for good parenting or guardianship. In a socio-economic context where child grants are not considered a citizen entitlement, community members and cash transfer recipients valued the conditions associated with these grants. The community members interpreted the fulfilment of the conditions as a proxy for achievement and merit, enabling them to participate rather than sit back as passive recipients of aid. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Achieving equity within universal health coverage: a narrative review of progress and resources for measuring success","field_subtitle":"Rodney AM, Hill PS: International Journal for Equity in Health (13) 72, 10 October 2014","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/13/1/72","body":"Equity should be implicit within universal health coverage (UHC) however, emerging evidence is showing that without adequate focus on measurement of equity, vulnerable populations may continue to receive inadequate or inferior health care. This narrative review aims to: (i) elucidate how equity is contextualised and measured within UHC, and (ii) describe tools, resources and lessons which will assist decision makers to plan and implement UHC programmes which ensure equity for all. Eighteen journal articles consisting mostly of secondary analysis of country data and qualitative case studies in the form of commentaries/reviews, and 13 items of grey literature, consisting largely of reports from working groups and expert meetings focusing on defining, understanding and measuring inequity in UHC (including recent drafts of global/country monitoring frameworks) were included. The literature advocates for progressive universalism addressing monetary and non-monetary barriers to access and strengthening existing health systems. This however relies on countries being effectively able to identify and reach disadvantaged populations and estimate unmet need. Recently published resources contextualise equity as a measurable component of UHC and propose several useful indicators and frameworks. Country case-studies also provide useful lessons and recommendations for planning and implementing equitable UHC which will assist other countries to consider their own requirements for UHC monitoring and evaluation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Agricultural Export Restrictions and the WTO: What Options do Policy-Makers Have for Promoting Food Security?","field_subtitle":"Anania G: Bridges news, November 2014","field_url":"http://www.ictsd.org/sites/default/files/research/2013/11/agricultural-export-restrictions-and-the-wto-what-options-do-policy-makers.pdf","body":"Agricultural export restrictions have been seen by many as worsening food price volatility, and pushing up world prices, to the detriment of poor consumers in developing countries. At the same time, others have argued that these measures can help safeguard domestic food security, support government revenues and help countries add value to farm exports. This paper examines the likely trade, food security and development implications of various options for disciplining agricultural export restrictions. The paper seeks to provide policy-makers, negotiators and other policy actors with an impartial, evidence-based analysis of the likely trade, food security and development implications of various options for disciplining agricultural export restrictions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Applications: Teen and Young Adult Reading Groups","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 12 December 2014","field_url":"http://www.ngopulse.org/opportunity/call-applications-teen-and-young-adult-reading-groups","body":"FunDza aims to get youth reading and writing for pleasure. The organisation creates, collects and shares stories that ignite the imagination of youth from under-resourced communities. FunDza is calling for applications from reading groups to apply to join its 'Popularising reading' programme. The programme is designed to support reading groups for teens and young adults, especially in South Africa.  Small organisations and reading groups are also welcome to apply.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for conference session papers: Private sector and Universal Health Coverage: Examining evidence and de-constructing rhetoric","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 15th January 2015","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/mkamalyanni%40oxfam.org.uk","body":"The international Conference on Public Policy is being held 1st to 4th July 2015 in Milan Italy and will include a session on \"Private sector and Universal Health Coverage: Examining evidence and de-constructing rhetoric\". The conference aims to support exchanges between researchers on public policy from all over the world and registration opens 1st January 2015. The specific session aim seeks to discuss evidence on the scope and effectiveness of the commercial sector (and the paradigm of public private partnerships) in  achieving Universal Health Coverage in low and middle income countries. The organisers invite abstracts for papers reporting findings of empirical research to critically examine role of private sector, scope of public-private interactions, and their implications for the UHC agenda. Abstracts should outline original research/ reviews and methodologies suitable for examining private sector engagement in health care systems. Commentaries/ Opinion pieces will NOT be accepted. Abstracts should include title, authors and affiliations (please * presenting author), abstract text (500 words); keywords (up to 5); a statement listing any research funders or other sources of financial support which have contributed to the work presented and declaration of potential conflict of interest. For further details please contact Oxfam UK.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Cervical Cancer Screening among University Students in South Africa: A Theory Based Study","field_subtitle":"Hoque ME, Ghuman S, Coopoosmay R, Van Hal G: PLoS ONE 9(11), 11 November 2014","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0111557","body":"Cervical cancer is a serious public health problem in South Africa. Even though the screening is free in health facilities in South Africa, the Pap smear uptake is very low. The objective of the study is to investigate the knowledge and beliefs of female university students in South Africa. A cross sectional study was conducted among university women in South Africa to elicit information about knowledge and beliefs, and screening history.  A total of 440 students completed the questionnaire. Regarding cervical cancer, 55.2%  had ever heard about it. Results indicated that only 15% of the students who had ever had sex and had heard about cervical cancer had taken a Pap test. Pearson correlation analysis showed that cervical cancer knowledge had a significantly negative relationship with barriers to cervical cancer screening. Susceptibility and seriousness score were significantly moderately correlated with benefit and motivation score as well as barrier score. Self-efficacy score also had a moderate correlation with benefit and motivation score. Students who had had a Pap test showed a significantly lower score in barriers to being screened compared to students who had not had a Pap test. This study showed that educated women in South Africa lack complete information on cervical cancer. Students who had had a Pap test had significantly lower barriers to cervical cancer screening than those students who had not had a Pap test.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenging the negative discourse on human rights in Africa","field_subtitle":"Kasambala T: SAIIA Policy Briefing No 104, September 2014","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/gender&id=69533&type=Document#.VEzSekvZ5FI","body":"The recent proliferation of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and independent media across Africa is argued by the author to be an important positive development. They are said to play an essential role by investigating government policy, exposing corruption and human rights violations, advocating for the rights of minorities and vulner-able communities, and providing social services. However the continent\u2019s leaders reject what they see as an imposition of \u2018Western\u2019 ideas of human rights. This policy briefing highlights the shift in human rights discourse among African leaders towards more anti-imperialist rhetoric and the placing of African traditions above human rights. It provides examples of how local civil society organisations (CSOs) are challenging this view in the face of increasing government attacks. CSOs are argued to be crucial to positive transformation and the universal protection and promotion of human rights, and the author proposes that more needs to be done to protect human rights and create an enabling environment for CSOs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Changing the talk and the walk: Challenges for a different practice in health systems research","field_subtitle":"Amit Sengupta, Associate Global Co-ordinator, Peoples Health Movement","field_url":"","body":"The Health Systems Research Symposium in Cape Town was an experience to savour. It was particularly refreshing in shifting away from the rather restricted vision of the earlier symposia in Montreux and Beijing. Opening it to debates on \u2018people centered health systems\u2019 raised the opportunity to move from the confines of the restricting, dominant neoliberal concept of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) that has circumscribed the discourse in the earlier symposia, with its focus on a narrow and preconceived template of issues, largely informed by the language of health financing and insurance. In contrast, this year\u2019s symposium promoted a public health language of care (not just coverage) and of solidarity, equity, gender justice and rights.\r\n\r\nSeveral speakers, especially in the plenaries, articulated the profound impact different dimensions of power and power relations are having on health systems. In the Peoples Health Movement, we see this as an important and extremely positive sign of our collective intent to confront and challenge these power relations. Several presentations talked about the role of social movements in building, safeguarding, nurturing and expanding health systems that are truly people centered. \r\n\r\nThere is, however, a gap between our rhetoric and our praxis. We need to integrate concerns about power and an articulation of the role of popular mobilization and of social movements in challenging power relations that undermine health into the priorities and practice of the research community. Here we have a gap, with too little practical translation of these concerns into research priorities and practice. Existing power structures play a hegemonic role in influencing research \u2013using their financial clout and exercising dominance in the domain of ideas. Unless we are able to change this, our work will continue to be informed by a hegemonic discourse that legitimates injustice and inequity. This is a challenge for young researchers, to be bold and innovative in questioning the dominant paradigm of the current research system.\r\n\r\nWe need to build on the deliberations of the symposium to change our current practice, in all stages of the research cycle. Health research should name and interrogate the practices of those who perpetuate inequity at a grand scale by their cynical use of power. There is robust evidence on this that is waiting to be mined.  It was heartening to see evidence in the symposium that there is now a growing interest in participatory research that places people at the center of research systems and not just as passive \u2018beneficiaries\u2019 of the outcomes of research. A research community that views research as a tool for change must give attention to the role of civil society and of social movements in catalyzing and driving sustainable change. Civil society is often seen as an afterthought in the research cycle. It is brought in late to legitimize often deceptive or limited evidence that maintains the status quo. Civil society in general and social movements in particular should, in contrast, have a meaningful and decisive counter-hegemonic role to drive an alternative research practice that can propel change, including research that is conceived of and driven by civil society. We need, for example, to develop work that examines the role social movements play in shaping, nurturing and advancing health systems that are solidarity based and sustained by the public. \r\n\r\nIn the symposium, there was talk of bringing to the foreground the \u2018shadow reports\u2019 that are produced by civil society at key forums. Surely we should walk the extra mile and view such shadow reports as the real reports? They present the popular concerns and aspirations and mainstream the voices of the unheard majority. Civil society thus has a task to produce evidence in such reports that is people driven, robust and that challenges the conventional wisdom replicated in the often glossier versions produced by multilateral organisations and well-heeled private foundations. The Peoples Health Movements\u2019 Global Health Watch is one effort at taking up this challenge.\r\n\r\nThe long shadow of the current Ebola epidemic reminded all of us at the symposium about all that we have failed to do. It has directed our attention to the collective failure of public health and health research to harness evidence and action to promote public services - publicly owned, nurtured and conceived by the people.  Health systems that are in the public domain are failing in many regions of the world, in spite of evidence that they are the main life-line for poor, marginalized and voiceless people. They are failing because of deliberate acts of commission that are bringing down, brick by brick, the edifice of public systems. They are failing because evidence that favours nurturing solidarity based public systems has been disregarded. Instead evidence has been used in a selective fashion to promote the notion that market based systems in healthcare delivery are superior. The Ebola epidemic was preventable, in part if overwhelming evidence on building public health systems had not been brushed aside. As a health research community we need to accept part responsibility for the current failure, in our not being vocal enough in the pursuit and use of good evidence.\r\n\r\nAs we look towards the next symposium due to take place in 2016, can we at least make partial amends for what we have failed to do?  Can we collectively raise our evidence and voice to call for public health systems, built around solidarity and justice, rather than the current dominant model of spliced and diced healthcare delivery, designed for trade in the market? \r\n\r\nThese reflections are drawn from remarks made by the author at the closing session of the 2014 Global Symposium in Health Systems Research 30 September \u2013 3 October 2014. For further information on the issues raised see the PHM website at http://www.phmovement.org/","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Citizens call to action on a petition on Ebola","field_subtitle":"Mahta Ba A: August 2014","field_url":"http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/ebola-stop-quarantine-of-entire-countries.html","body":"A petition has been launched by Africans calling for concerted in the struggle to contain the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. It suggests three affirmative actions and rejects isolationist measures. Sign on to the petition is invited. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Disrespectful and abusive treatment during facility delivery in Tanzania: a facility and community survey","field_subtitle":"Kruk M, Kujawski S, Mbaruku G, Ramsey K, Moyo W, Freedman L: Health Policy and Planning, 1 October 2014","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/09/21/heapol.czu079.abstract?sid=7891f724-3983-4ce9-8638-1aa1e4337a34","body":"Although qualitative studies have raised attention to humiliating treatment of women during labour and delivery, there are no reliable estimates of the prevalence of disrespectful and abusive treatment in health facilities. The authors measured the frequency of reported abusive experiences during facility childbirth in eight health facilities in Tanzania and examined associated factors. The study was conducted in rural northeastern Tanzania, using a structured questionnaire. A total of 1779 women participated in the exit survey and 593 were re-interviewed at home. Between 19% and 28% of women in eight facilities in northeastern Tanzania experienced disrespectful and/or abusive treatment from health providers during childbirth. This is argued by the author to be a health system crisis that requires urgent solutions both to ensure women\u2019s right to dignity in health care and to improve effective utilization of facilities for childbirth in order to reduce maternal mortality. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 166: Changing the talk and the walk: Challenges for a different practice in health systems research","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Even It Up Campaign","field_subtitle":"Oxfam International","field_url":"https://act.oxfam.org/international/even","body":"Oxfam has launched a global campaign to end extreme inequality, with campaigns in 37 countries uniting behind the call for a more equal world. Extreme inequality is argued to be threatening to undo much of the progress made over the past 20 years in tackling poverty. It is not inevitable. It is the consequence of economic and political choices. The campaign invites people to play a critical role and provides a pack of content, including \u2018sharegraphics\u2019 to share on social media platforms. From targeting big corporations whose tax dodging activities help deny developing countries billions in revenue, to demanding policies that can close the gender gap, the campaign invites people to play a key role in amplifying the call to even it up and raise extreme inequality to the top of government\u2019s agendas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploring the Ethics of Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Global Thematic Working Group on Health Systems Research Ethics, November 2014","field_url":"http://www.healthsystemsglobal.org/GetInvolved/Webinar.aspx","body":"Health systems research is increasingly being funded by international donors and conducted in low and middle-income countries but little conceptual work has been done to clarify the field\u2019s ethical dimensions. This is problematic because health systems research has distinctive features relative to clinical research that may restrict the applicability of existing ethical guidance. This webinar asks: What makes health systems research different from clinical research? What are the key ethical issues in externally-funded health systems research in low and middle-income countries? And do they deserve special consideration in, for example, project design and ethics review? The moderated discussion covers the features of health systems research and examples of what it entails in practice, distinctive ethical issues that arise during the conduct of such research and challenges faced by ethics review committees when considering health systems research projects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Gendering peasant movements, gendering food sovereignty","field_subtitle":"Bell B: Pambazuka News, 207, 12 November 2014","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category/comment/93352","body":"A problem peasant women face is invisibility in the feminist and women\u2019s movements. A second problem is the weakness with which the food sovereignty concept has dealt with the challenges of feminism. Latin America has assumed the struggle for food sovereignty as an alternative to the neoliberal economic model. Food sovereignty is based on the conviction that each people has the right to make decisions about its own food systems: about its own eating habits; about its production, marketing, distribution, exchange, and sharing; and about keeping food and seeds in the public sphere. This interview report presents the views from a feminist point of view on how people make decisions, who decides how power is organised and how to turn food sovereignty into a tool to strengthen and empower peasant women. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Watch 4","field_subtitle":"Peoples Health Movement: Zed books, November 2014","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/ghw4","body":"With the world still battling the Ebola outbreak, the evidence of a clear link between the inability of affected countries to deal with the crisis and the collapse of public health systems is becoming stronger. Extreme poverty in the affected region, engendered by neo-liberal policies, further created the conditions for the rapid spread of the epidemic.  This is the context that informs the contents of the 2014 Global Health Watch (GHW) report that was released in November. With contributions from more than 80 experts from across the globe, GHW4 addresses key issues in the health sector. Through its five sections, it covers diverse issues related to health systems and the range of social, economic, political and environmental determinants of health. GHW4 locates decisions and choices that impact on health in the structure of global power relations and economic governance and is complemented by the ' Watching' section that scrutinises global processes and institutions. The final section on 'Alternatives, Action and Change', documents inspiring stories of struggles and actions for change.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Inequalities and Social Determinants  of Aboriginal Peoples\u2019 Health","field_subtitle":"Reading CL, Wien F: National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health, 2009","field_url":"http://www.nccah-ccnsa.ca/docs/social%20determinates/nccah-loppie-wien_report.pdf","body":"This paper uses available data to describe health inequalities experienced by diverse  Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Its method is useful for those working on indigenous people's health in other regions. The data are organized around social determinants of health across the life course and provide evidence that not only demonstrates important health  disparities within Aboriginal groups and compared to non-Aboriginal people, but also links social determinants, at proximal, intermediate and distal levels, to health inequalities. The Integrated Life Course and Social Determinants Model of Aboriginal Health is introduced as a promising conceptual framework for understanding the relationships between social determinants and various health dimensions, as well as examining potential trajectories of health across the life course. Data from diverse and often limited literature is provided to support claims made by the authors of this paper and others about health disparities among Aboriginal peoples and the degree to which inequalities in the social determinants of health act as barriers to addressing health disparities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health labour market policies in support of universal health coverage: a comprehensive analysis in four African countries","field_subtitle":"Sousa A, Scheffler R, Koyi G, Ngah Ngah S, Abu-Agla A, M\u2019kiambati H, Nyoni J: Human Resources for Health 12(55), 26 September 2014","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/12/1/55","body":"Progress toward universal health coverage in many low- and middle-income countries is hindered by the lack of an adequate health workforce that can deliver quality services accessible to the entire population. The authors used a health labour market framework to investigate the key indicators of the dynamics of the health labour market in Cameroon, Kenya, Sudan, and Zambia, and identified the main policies implemented in these countries in the past ten years to address shortages and maldistribution of health workers. Despite increased availability of health workers in the four countries, major shortages and maldistribution persist. Several factors aggravate these problems, including migration, an aging workforce, and imbalances in skill mix composition. In this paper, the authors provide new evidence to inform decision-making for health workforce planning and analysis in low- and middle-income countries. Partial health workforce policies are not sufficient to address these issues. It is argued top be crucial to perform a comprehensive analysis in order to understand the dynamics of the health labour market and develop effective polices to address health workforce shortages and maldistribution as part of efforts to attain universal health coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"How people-centred health systems can reach the grassroots: experiences implementing community-level quality improvement in rural Tanzania and Uganda","field_subtitle":"Tancred T, Mandu R, Hanson C, Okuga M, Manzi F, Peterson S, Schellenberg J, Waiswa P, Marchant T, The EQUIP Study Team: Health Policy and Planning, 1 October 2014","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/09/21/heapol.czu070.abstract?sid=7891f724-3983-4ce9-8638-1aa1e4337a34","body":"Quality improvement (QI) methods engage stakeholders in identifying problems, creating strategies called change ideas to address those problems, testing those change ideas and scaling them up where successful. These methods have rarely been used at the community level in low-income country settings. Here the authors share experiences from rural Tanzania and Uganda, where QI was applied as part of the Expanded Quality Management Using Information Power (EQUIP) intervention with the aim of improving maternal and newborn health. Village volunteers were taught how to generate change ideas to improve health-seeking behaviours and home-based maternal and newborn care practices. Interaction was encouraged between communities and health staff. The study aims to describe experiences implementing EQUIP\u2019s QI approach at the community level. A mixed methods process evaluation of community-level QI was conducted in Tanzania and a feasibility study in Uganda. The authors outlined how village volunteers were trained in and applied QI techniques and examined the interaction between village volunteers and health facilities, and in Tanzania, the interaction with the wider community also. There was some evidence of changing social norms around maternal and newborn health, which EQUIP helped to reinforce. Community-level QI is a participatory research approach that engaged volunteers in Tanzania and Uganda, putting them in a central position within local health systems to increase health-seeking behaviours and improve preventative maternal and newborn health practices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Hunger Map 2014","field_subtitle":"World Food Programme: November 2014","field_url":"http://www.wfp.org/content/hunger-map-2014","body":"From Africa and Asia to Latin America and the Near East, there are 805 million people in the world who do not get enough food to lead a normal, active life. The World Food Programmae downloadable Hunger Map provides information that maps the distribution of food insecurity globally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequality in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Keeton G: Sangnet Pulse, 3 November 2014","field_url":"http://www.ngopulse.org/article/inequality-south-africa","body":"South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. In its third South Africa Economic Update in 2012, the World Bank pointed out that the potential for economic growth has been held back by industrial concentration, skills shortages, labour market rigidities and chronically low savings and investment rates. The bank further stated that the economic growth has also been highly uneven in distribution and this continues to perpetuate inequality and economic exclusion. Despite this, the country is making some strides in tackling the socioeconomic ills faced by its poor majority. In this paper the author week\u2019s writes that economic growth usually leads to increasing levels of inequality in developing countries. He notes, however, that as economies develop, larger portions of their populations move from agriculture into other sectors of the economy and their skills base expand to a point where inequality falls. He warns that there are no quick and easy solutions to South Africa\u2019s inequality problem, adding that without substantive improvements in the human capital of the poor, income inequality will remain unacceptably wide.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequities in accessibility to and utilisation of maternal health services in Ghana after user-fee exemption: a descriptive study","field_subtitle":"Ganle JK, Parker M, Fitzpatrick R, Otupiri E: International Journal for Equity in Health13(89), 1 November 2014","field_url":"http://equityhealthj.com/content/13/1/89/abstract","body":"Inequities in accessibility to, and utilisation of maternal healthcare services impede progress towards attainment of the maternal health-related Millennium Development Goals. This study examined the extent to which maternal health services are used in Ghana, and whether inequities in accessibility to and utilization of services have been eliminated following the implementation of a user-fee exemption policy, that aims to reduce financial barriers to access, reduce inequities in access, and improve access to and use of birthing services.. The authors analyzed data from the 2007 Ghana Maternal Health Survey for inequities in access to and utilization of maternal health services. In measuring the inequities, frequency tables and cross-tabulations were used to compare rates of service utilization by region, residence and selected socio-demographic variables. Findings show marginal increases in accessibility to and utilisation of skilled antenatal, delivery and postnatal care services following the policy implementation (2003-2007). However, large gradients of inequities exist between geographic regions, urban and rural areas, and different socio-demographic, religious and ethnic groupings. The findings raise questions about the potential equity and distributional benefits of Ghana\u2019s user-fee exemption policy, and the role of non-financial barriers or considerations. Exempting user-fees for maternal health services is a promising policy option for improving access to maternal health care, but might be insufficient on its own to secure equitable access to maternal health services in Ghana. Ensuring equity in access will require moving beyond user-fee exemption to addressing wider issues of supply and demand factors and the social determinants of health, including redistributing healthcare resources and services, and redressing the positional vulnerability of women in their communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Intimate Partner Violence after Disclosure of HIV Test Results among Pregnant Women in Harare, Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Shamu S, Zarowsky C, Shefer T, Temmerman M, Abrahams N: PLoS ONE 9(10), October 2014","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0109447","body":"HIV status disclosure is a central strategy in HIV prevention and treatment but in high prevalence settings women test disproportionately and most often during pregnancy. This study reports intimate partner violence (IPV) following disclosure of HIV test results by pregnant women. The study demonstrated the interconnectedness of IPV, HIV status and its disclosure with IPV which was a common experience post disclosure of both an HIV positive and HIV negative result. The authors argue that health services must give attention to the gendered nature and consequences of HIV disclosure such as enskilling women on how to determine and respond to the risks associated with disclosure. Efforts to involve men in antenatal care must also be strengthened.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Investing for the Few: The IFC\u2019s Health in Africa initiative","field_subtitle":"Marriott A, Hamer J, Oxfam International, September 2014","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.ca/our-work/publications/investing-for-the-few","body":"The authors argue that the World Bank Group should focus on supporting African governments to expand publicly provided healthcare \u2013 a proven way to save millions of lives worldwide and to drive down inequality. The International Finance Corporation (IFC)\u2019s Health in Africa initiative is argued to be at odds with the World Bank Group\u2019s welcome commitment to universal and equitable health coverage and to shared prosperity. The $1bn initiative, which promotes private sector healthcare delivery, is reported to be extremely unlikely to deliver better health outcomes for poor people, and the IFC is noted to fail to measure the extent to which Health in Africa impacts on people living in poverty. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"MRC/DFID African Research Leader scheme ","field_subtitle":"Applications Close 27 November 2014, 16:00 GMT","field_url":"http://www.mrc.ac.uk/funding/browse/mrc-dfid-african-research-leader-scheme-2014-15/","body":"The UK Medical Research Council and the UK Department for International Development announce a further call for proposals for the prestigious African Research Leader awards. The MRC/ DFID jointly funded scheme aims to strengthen research leadership across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by attracting and retaining exceptionally talented individuals who will lead high quality programmes of research on key global health issues pertinent to SSA.  The African Research Leader (ARL) should be supported by an enthusiastic local research environment and by a strong linkage with a UK partner.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"NGOs Call for Ban of Liquor Sachets in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Sangonet Pulse, 4 November 2014","field_url":"http://www.ngopulse.org/newsflash/ngos-call-ban-liquor-sachets-malawi","body":"Several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Malawi and consumer watchdogs have demanded a total ban on the sale of liquor spirit sachets, which they blame for fueling alcohol abuse among the youth. Consumers Association of Malawi executive director, John Kapito, states that, \u201cMalawians are poor, so the most attractive recreational drug they can afford is liquor in sachets. Sadly, these sell at less the cost of a lottery ticket.\u201d Liquor sold in small sachets was first outlawed in the Southern African country in May of 2013, but the move was appealed by manufacturers and since then, liquor sachet sales have risen, resulting in more youth becoming dependent on alcohol \u2013 and some dying after taking too many on an empty stomach","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory action research in people centred health systems International Workshop Report","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, TARSC, ALAMES: Cape Town, South Africa, 4 October 2014","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQUINET%20ALAMES%20PAR%20workshop%20rep%204%20October2014%20lfs.pdf","body":"Immediately following the 2014 Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, a one day workshop was held, convened by Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (www.tarsc.org) and the pra4equity network in the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with Asociaci\u00f3n Latinoamericana de Medicina Social (ALAMES). The workshop was held to deepen the discussion on the use of participatory action research (PAR) in health policy and people centred health systems, including in acting on the social determinants of health. While there are many forms of participatory research, the workshop specifically focused on PAR, that is on research that transforms the role of those usually participating as the subjects of research, to involve them instead as active researchers and agents of change, where those affected by the problem are the primary source of information and the primary actors in generating, validating and using the knowledge for action, and that involves the development, implementation of, and reflection on actions as part of the research and knowledge generation process. PAR seeks to understand and improve the world by changing it, but does so in a manner that those affected by problems collectively act and produce change as a means to new knowledge. The one day workshop was open to delegates from all regions globally to foster cross regional exchange and to include people from the pra4equity network in east and southern Africa. This report presents the proceedings of the workshop. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Primary care priorities in addressing health equity: summary of the WONCA 2013 health equity workshop","field_subtitle":"Shadmi E, Wong W,  Kinder K,  Heath I, Kidd M: Int Jo for Equity in Health 13;104, November 2014  ","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/13/1/104","body":"Research consistently shows that gaps in health and health care persist, and are even widening. While the strength of a country\u2019s primary health care system and its primary care attributes significantly improves populations\u2019 health and reduces inequity (differences in health and health care that are unfair and unjust), many areas, such as inequity reduction through the provision of health promotion and preventive services, are not explicitly addressed by general practice. Substantiating the role of primary care in reducing inequity as well as establishing educational training pro-grams geared towards health inequity reduction and improvement of the health and health care of underserved populations are needed. This paper summarizes the work performed at the World World Organization of National Colleges and Academies of Family Medicine 2013 Meetings\u2019 Health Equity Workshop which aimed to explore how a better understanding of health inequities could enable primary care providers /general practitioners (GPs) to adopt strategies that could improve health outcomes through the delivery of primary health care. It explored the development of a health equity curriculum and opened a discussion on the future and potential impact of health equity training among GPs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Reflections on the 3rd Global Symposium on Health Systems Research ","field_subtitle":"Sharmila Mhatre, IDRC Canada","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe final session of what was without a doubt one of the best symposiums in health lent itself to reflection on four days of sessions that sparked debate and hopefully action on people centred health systems. As a funder of health systems research in low and middle income countries for over a decade, International Development Research Centre has supported the Health Systems Research Symposium from its birth, with an aspiration that be one of the processes that contribute to  access to health and health care for all. \r\n\r\nSo what were the key messages that I heard and have taken home.\r\nProfessor Thandika Mkandawire began by articulating that we need health systems to be democratic, social, inclusive and to contribute to development.  At the same time Prof Irene Agyepong reminded us of a Nigerian proverb that a \u201cgoat that belongs to the whole village belongs to nobody - this is how health systems can be described, but we must not let it go that way.\u201d \r\nSo as a funder I ask myself whether I will stick to, as one panelist said \u201cthe politics of the achievable\u201d? My answer is no, as it would not do justice to the energy, excellence and commitment that I witnessed from participants over the course of the last three days and more importantly it would not do justice to the people who have no access to health or do not have a voice. \r\n\r\nI\u2019ve organised what I have heard into: the \u201cnot to dos\u201d, the \u201cmust dos\u201d, and the \u201chow to do\u201d.\r\n\r\nAs a \u2018not to do\u2019 Rene Loewenson reminded us that by simply putting people in the middle does not make it a people centred health system. \r\n\r\nSo what must we do? In terms of how we do people centred health system research, the knowledge that matters is the knowledge that facilitates change, as we were reminded by Kumanan Rasanathan. As Nancy Edwards suggested we must move from gold standards to platinum standards of methods. In  practice this means, quoting several people from the conference:\r\n\u2022\tFirstly, that people\u2019s knowledge and role in the production, analysis and interpretation is a critical driver of people centred health systems. It means that  people are in control and researchers are the facilitators of the process.\r\n\u2022\tSecondly, making data work for people rather than have people work for data. In one session someone spoke about \u201cchasing data to fit with multiple donors\u2019 agendas\u201d. We need to incorporate multiple types of evidence and to bring in other practices and methods.\r\n\u2022\tThirdly, while strengthening capacities are key, we cannot assume that none exist. We should recognise that capacity strengthening goes beyond training to actually shifting power, as noted by Aku Kwamie.\r\n\r\nAs a further \u2018not to do\u2019 Gita Sen reminded us that we cannot confuse the PC of People Centred with the PC of Political Correctness. We must break divides of race, gender, class, caste, culture or language and come together. This was illustrated eloquently despite the English language barrier by Lina Roso Polomo, a researcher from Mexico, as she explained how international guidelines do not always recognise the cultural diversity of our countries.\r\n\r\nSo if accountability is brought in by people, then as Kausar Khan eloquently relayed, the \u2018must do\u2019s\u2019 include duties for us to reduce ethnic and racial divides as we facilitate, mobilise, fund, engage and catalyse people-centred health systems. It cannot be \u2018us\u2019 and \u2018them\u2019 as Martin McKee reminded us.  At the conference I saw reflected in the program the silos being reduced as \u2018systems\u2019 sessions starting to integrate with \u2018disease\u2019 sessions, and discussions moved to bridge social movements with think tanks.  Inclusion and integration are key. After all, as Lucy Gilson said on the first day of the symposium, the challenge that we must squarely address is governance. \r\n\r\nThroughout the conference there was concern about the double-edged sword of Ebola, that has served this community with deep and significant challenges. The West African Health Organisation is demonstrating commitment to work with all of us to address Ebola and the system failures that it has starkly uncovered. WHO, UNICEF and European funders are advancing initiatives that address both basic science and health systems but as a global community we must do more and USAID and the World Bank called a number of meetings throughout the symposium to discuss this.   \r\n\r\nMoving from the \u2018not to dos\u2019 and the \u2018must dos\u2019 to the \u2018how to do\u2019, the wisdom of the Emerging Leaders (young researchers) is the take home lesson for all of us here. They said that to change mindsets we need to see, talk about and deal with the gorilla in the room.  To make an impact we need to take the time to stop and reflect, with others that are like minded and also with those who are not. Lastly they told us that in each of us we have the capacity to lead as we bridge divides to build collective ownership of health systems that - quoting Sheik, Ranson and Gilson from the Health Policy and Planning Supplement on the Science and Practice of People-Centred Health Systems - truly \u201cserve people and society\u201d.\r\n\r\nThese reflections are drawn from remarks made by the author at the closing session of the 2014 Global Symposium in Health Systems Research 30 September \u2013 3 October 2014. For further information on the global symposium visit http://hsr2014.healthsystemsresearch.org/ ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Ten best resources for conducting financing and benefit incidence analysis in resource-poor settings","field_subtitle":"Wiseman V,  Asante A,  Price J, Hayen A, Irava W,  Martins J, Guinness L,  Jan S: Health Policy and Planning: 24 September 2014","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/09/24/heapol.czu108.full?sid=b6c6a9dd-6217-47c6-b38f-5ea6790ef17a","body":"Many low- and middle-income countries are seeking to reform their health financing systems to move towards universal coverage. This typically means that financing is based on people\u2019s ability to pay while, for service use, benefits are based on the need for health care. Financing incidence analysis (FIA) and benefit incidence analysis (BIA) are two popular tools used to assess equity in health systems financing and service use. FIA studies examine who pays for the health sector and how these contributions are distributed according to socioeconomic status (SES). BIA determines who benefits from health care spending, with recipients ranked by their relative SES. In this article, the authors identify 10 resources to assist researchers and policy makers seeking to undertake or interpret findings from financing and benefit incidence analyses in the health sector. The article pays particular attention to the data requirements, computations, methodological challenges and country level experiences with these types of analyses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global One Health Paradigm: Challenges and Opportunities for Tackling Infectious Diseases at the Human, Animal, and Environment Interface in Low-Resource Settings","field_subtitle":"Gebreyes WA, Dupouy-Camet J, Newport MJ, Oliveira CJB, Schlesinger LS, et al: PLoS Negl Trop Dis 8(11), 13 November 2014","field_url":"http://www.plosntds.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pntd.0003257","body":"Zoonotic infectious diseases have been an important concern to humankind for more than 10,000 years. Today, approximately 75% of newly emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are zoonoses that result from various anthropogenic, genetic, ecologic, socioeconomic, and climatic factors. These interrelated driving forces make it difficult to predict and to prevent zoonotic EIDs. Although significant improvements in environmental and medical surveillance, clinical diagnostic methods, and medical practices have been achieved in the recent years, zoonotic EIDs remain a major global concern, and such threats are expanding, especially in less developed regions. The current Ebola epidemic in West Africa is an extreme stark reminder of the role animal reservoirs play in public health and reinforces the urgent need for globally operationalizing a One Health approach. The complex nature of zoonotic diseases and the limited resources in developing countries areargued by the authors to be a reminder of the need for implementation of Global One Health in low- resource settings is crucial. This review highlights advances in key zoonotic disease areas and the One Health capacity needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Impact of Text Message Reminders on Adherence to Antimalarial Treatment in Northern Ghana: A Randomized Trial","field_subtitle":"Raifman JRG, Lanthorn HE, Rokicki S, Fink G: PLoS ONE 9;10, October 2014","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0109032","body":"Low rates of adherence to artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) regimens increase the risk of treatment failure and may lead to drug resistance, threatening the sustainability of current anti-malarial efforts. The authors assessed the impact of text message reminders on adherence to ACT regimens. Health workers at hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and other stationary ACT distributors in Tamale, Ghana provided flyers advertising free mobile health information to individuals receiving malaria treatment. The messaging system automatically randomized self-enrolled individuals to the control group or the treatment group with equal probability; those in the treatment group were further randomly assigned to receive a simple text message reminder or the simple reminder plus an additional statement about adherence in 12-hour intervals. The main outcome was self-reported adherence based on follow-up interviews occurring three days after treatment initiation. The authors estimated the impact of the messages on treatment completion using logistic regression. The results of this study suggest that a simple text message reminder can increase adherence to antimalarial treatment and that additional information included in messages does not have a significant impact on completion of ACT treatment. Further research is needed to develop the most effective text message content and frequency.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The prevalence and determinants of catastrophic health expenditures attributable to non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries: a methodological commentary","field_subtitle":"Goryakin Y,  Suhrcke M: International Journal for Equity in Health 13(107), November 2014","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/13/1/107","body":"Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have been spreading fast in low and middle income countries and may also impose a substantial economic cost. One way in which NCDs might impact people\u2019s economic well-being may be via the out-of-pocket expenditures required to cover treatment and other costs associated with suffering from an NCD. In this commentary, the authors identify and discuss the methodological challenges related to cross-country comparison of-out-of-pocket and catastrophic out-of-pocket health care expenditures, attributable to NCDs, focussing on low and middle income countries. There is evidence of substantial cost burden placed by NCDs on patients living in low and middle income countries, with most of it being heavily concentrated among low socioeconomic status groups. However, a large variation in definition of COOPE between studies prevents cross-country comparison. In addition, as most studies tend to be observational, causal inferences are often not possible. This is further complicated by the cross-sectional nature of studies, small sample sizes, and/or limited duration of follow-up of patients. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Think Tank Initiative\u2019s Policy Engagement and Communications Program \u2014 Anglophone Africa: A toolkit for researchers and communications officers","field_subtitle":"Results for Development Institute, CommsConsult, Anglophone Africa PEC program team: September 2014","field_url":"http://www.researchtoaction.org/live/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/TTIPEC-E-Manual.pdf","body":"In July 2013, 13 think tanks in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda embarked on a mission to strengthen their Policy Engagement and Communications (PEC) capacity. Over the course of 15 months, the think tanks worked with a mentor to diagnose their capacity needs and develop a PEC workplan to strengthen their knowledge and capacity. Work included designing and refining communciation strategies, engaging peers and external stakeholders, and leveraging tools to sharpen their strategic messaging and outreach. The work resulted in the creation of new tools, skillsets, and shared lessons and strategies. This toolkit is a collection of the knowledge generated over the course of the work. It is intended to help the 13 think tanks - and many others - continue excelling and improving in their PEC abilities. It contains guiding principles, tips and suggested approaches to help better plan, package, disseminate and evaluate PEC strategies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Training resources on sexual and reproductive health","field_subtitle":"Rights-Oriented Research & Education Network in and Reproductive Health, November 2014","field_url":"http://rorenetwork.net","body":"The Rights-Oriented Research & Education Network in Sexual & Reproductive Health (SRH) aims to generate transformative and robust evidence for policies and programmes on SRH. RORE is involved in determining new indicators and domains of data to identify rights-realization/gender equality related influences on SRH issues (e.g. on reasons for not using services) and exploratory cross-regional research to evolve concepts from the perspective of those affected. Education and training activities of the Network aim to build capacity in research from a gender and human rights perspective on sexual and reproductive health. RORE provides educational materials, training and mentoring focused on gender and human rights based SRH research and online courses with lectures focused on promoting research with a gender and rights perspective for SRH.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Transitioning from the Informal to the Formal Economy - In the Interests of Workers in the Informal Economy","field_subtitle":"WIEGO Network Platform: November 2014","field_url":"http://wiego.org/sites/wiego.org/files/resources/files/WIEGO-Platform-ILO-2014.pdf","body":"This report was developed from a platform was developed in a series of regional workshops held in Argentina, Peru, South Africa, and Thailand. Hosted by WIEGO and local partners, the workshops used a participatory approach to gather feedback and insight from representatives of domestic workers, home-based workers, street vendors, waste pickers, and others. \r\nThe platform sets out common core needs and demands for informal workers around economic, social and labour rights, voice and bargaining power, legal identity and standing, and social protection. For all informal workers, it is argued that formalization must offer benefits and protections \u2013 not simply impose the costs of becoming formal. It must restore the universal rights from which workers in the informal economy have been marginalized by the neo-liberal model of governance over the past 40 years. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Video: Learning more about ethics in health systems research, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Kemri Wellcome Trust, Kenya, November 2014","field_url":"http://resyst.lshtm.ac.uk/resources/video-learning-more-about-ethics-health-systems-research-kenya","body":"In this video researchers from Kemri Wellcome Trust in Kenya outline some of the ethical dilemmas that they encounter in their day to day lives. RinGs is a project and learning platform that aims to support researchers on understanding and integrating gender and ethics into their work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Workshop report: Politicizing African urban ecologies: Enabling radical geographical research practices for African scholars","field_subtitle":"Duminy J: University of Pretoria, South Africa, November 2014","field_url":"http://antipodefoundation.org/international-workshop-awards/201314-recipients/iwa-1314-lawhon/","body":"The term \u201curban political describes a critical approach to studying cities across a number of areas, from environmental issues (such as climate change, air pollution, and nature conservation) to urban flows (such as sanitation and electricity provision). Many scholars believe that there is a need for a more explicitly political approach to these topics that draws attention to who wins and who loses as cities change, as well as to how urbanization as a process is shaped by power relations. These ideas informed the Urban Political Ecology in African Cities Workshop, Pretoria South Africa held in September 2014, organized by the Situated Ecologies collective (SUPE). The report presents discussions on options for scholars and residents in cities of Africa and the global South to integrate power relations in their work on urban change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zinduka is a call to East Africans to wake up","field_subtitle":"Odhiambo T: Pambazuka News, 702, 11 November 2014","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category/comment/93363","body":"The word \u2018Zinduka\u2019 means re-awaken or stir up in Kiswahili \u2013 more or less like \u2018pambazuka\u2019. In Kirundi it simply means wake up. It is a call to prepare to work; to do something for the day. The Zinduka Festival that was held in Arusha, Tanzania, between 6 and 8 November was a call on ordinary East Africans to wake up, to be alert about the slow pace by politicians in integrating the region. Zinduka \u2013 sponsored by the akibaUhaki and other regional partners and hosted at the Sheikh Amri Abeid Stadium \u2013 was meant to celebrate the common people\u2019s efforts and intensify those efforts to bring the different communities together. The theme was: People\u2019s Voices, Sustainable Development, through Arts, Culture and Conversations. The author argues that Kiswahili can be a key driver of regional integration but that it will need massive efforts to systemize or standardize this lingua franca; integrate it in businesses, schools, offices and in their spiritual and personal life. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"#WorldvsBank protests the World Bank Doing Business Rankings","field_subtitle":"Our land, our business; October 2014","field_url":"http://ourlandourbusiness.org/#home","body":"On October 10, the World Bank met for its Annual General Meeting in Washington DC. Around the world, in 12 cities, people came out to protest against the Bank\u2019s Doing Business rankings. 'WorldvsBank', a global campaign asked the Bank to dump the Doing Business Rankings that only serve big business. The World Bank\u2019s Doing Business ranking gives points to countries when they act in favor of the \u201cease of doing business.\u201d This is argued by the campaign to smooth the way for corporations\u2019 activity by, for instance, cutting administrative procedures, lowering corporate taxes, removing environmental and social regulations, or lowering trade barriers. The ranking system is also argued to encourage land reforms that tend to make land just a marketable commodity, easily accessible to wealthy corporations, in process neglecting human rights, the protection of workers, and the sustainable use of natural resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"2015 African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowships","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://aphrc.org/blog/african-doctoral-dissertation-research-fellowships-2015-call/","body":"The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), in partnership with the International development Research Centre (IDRC), is pleased to announce the eighth call for applications for the African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowships (ADDRF). The ADDRF Fellowship Program seeks to facilitate more rigorous engagement of doctoral students in research, strengthen their research skills, and provide them an opportunity for timely completion of their doctoral training. The Program targets doctoral students with strong commitment to a career in training and/or research. The overall goal of the ADDRF Program is to support the training and retention of highly-skilled, locally-trained scholars in research and academic positions across the region. The ADDRF will award about 20 fellowships in 2015. These fellowships will be awarded to doctoral students who are within two years of completing their thesis at an African university and whose dissertation topics focus on health systems. The fellowship will primarily support research (including data collection and/or analysis). Funds will not be used to support coursework. Applicants must be citizens or permanent residents of a sub-Saharan African country. For further details and application procedures see the website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A World That Counts","field_subtitle":"UN Data Revolution Group, 24 October 2014","field_url":"http://www.undatarevolution.org/report/","body":"This is the draft report of the UN Secretary General\u2019s Expert Advisory group on the data revolution for sustainable development. This report is not about how to create a data revolution \u2013 it is argued to be already happening \u2013 but how to mobilise it for sustainable development. In the first section the authors describe what the data revolution is, and the opportunities and pitfalls it presents. The second section highlights the current state of data, and the kind of world the authors  foresee if the promise of the revolution is realised. Finally, the third section provides a \u201cvision\u201d of a possible world of data in 2030, and some recommendations for how to achieve it. The authors believe that governments, and governments acting together through the UN, have a crucial role to play. This report offers options for using the data revolution not only to monitor progress towards sustainable development goals, but also to accelerate their achievement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Amref Health Africa International Conference ","field_subtitle":"November 24th - 26th 2014, Nairobi, Kenya","field_url":"http://www.ahaic.org/","body":"From November 24th - 26th 2014, Amref Health Africa in partnership with the World Health Organization will be holding its first international conference themed \u2018From Evidence to Action: Lasting Health Change for Africa\u2019 in Nairobi, Kenya . The three day conference will focus on exchange of scientific results and debates on strategic ideas and application of knowledge to inform health care financing, human resources for health, community systems strengthening and the post 2015 health agenda. It brings together leaders, players and partners in African health development and advocacy. It provides a forum for discussions on how Africa can influence the global health agenda to improve health and health rights on the continent. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Antiretroviral Therapy for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons: A Call for Equity","field_subtitle":"Mendelsohn JB, Spiegel P, Schilperoord M, Cornier N, Ross DA: PLoS Med 11(6), 10 June 2014","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001643","body":"Available evidence suggests that refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in stable settings can sustain high levels of adherence and viral suppression. Moral, legal, and public health principles and recent evidence strongly suggest that refugees and IDPs should have equitable access to HIV treatment and support. Exclusion of refugees and IDPs from HIV National Strategic Plans suggests that they may not be included in future national funding proposals to major funders. Levels of viral suppression among refugees and nationals documented in a stable refugee camp suggest that some settings require more intensive support for all population groups. Detailed recommendations are provided for refugees and IDPs accessing antiretroviral therapy in stable settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"British Chevening Scholarships For International Students","field_subtitle":"Applications Close 15 November 2014, 23:59 GMT.","field_url":"http://www.chevening.org/news/view?id=195&x%5B0%5D=news%20/list","body":"Chevening Scholarships are the UK government\u2019s global scholarship\r\nprogramme, funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and partner organisations. The programme makes awards to outstanding scholars with leadership potential from around the world to study postgraduate courses at universities in the UK. The programme provides full or part funding for full-time courses at postgraduate level, normally a one-year Master\u2019s degree, in any subject and at any UK university.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Citizens making things happen","field_subtitle":"Risha Chande, Twaweza, Tanzania","field_url":"","body":"\r\nSeven out of ten Tanzanians think that have no say in what Government does. Yet seven out of ten Tanzanians also think that voting is their only means of influence over Government. This may sound contradictory, but at core, they both reflect the same sentiment. Aside from the choices they make during elections, citizens do not feel that they influence government decision-making or activity. They appear to have little trust that formal institutions or local government officials will address their issues, and formal political institutions seem to play minimal roles in people\u2019s lives. Nine out of ten people report that they have not interacted with their member of parliament in the last year, half have not interacted with their street or village chairman to raise issues and only one in seven citizens are members of any political party. \r\n\r\nThese findings were released by Twaweza in a research brief titled Citizens making things happen: are citizens active and can they hold government to account? The brief is based on data from Twaweza\u2019s Sauti za Wananchi, Africa\u2019s first nationally representative mobile phone survey that interviews households across Mainland Tanzania. \r\n\r\nSauti za Wananchi, (http://www.twaweza.org/uploads/files/Sauti-za-Wananchi-English.pdf)  was initiated by Twaweza as a response to the concern that policy makers make decisions for the whole country, but with poor information on the experiences and realities of a large majority of citizens and on whether their policies are working on the ground across different places. It provides timely, low cost and reliable data and is a nationally representative barometer of the reality reported by Tanzanians. In 2014, together with our partners, we expect to conduct 20 survey rounds, and use widespread dissemination and intensive media outreach to share the findings, especially with policy actors, to shine a light on citizens\u2019 experiences and views.\r\n\r\nSo how are people taking up their concerns? Despite the apparently low levels of interaction with formal channels uncovered by Sauti za Wananchi, 6 out of 10 citizens report that they made joint or collective complaints to officials in their community in the last 12 months, sometimes repeating the same complaint. Common complaints ranged from seeking improvements in local public services, to teacher absenteeism and access to clean and safe water. Just over a quarter of people reported raising complaints about the absence of drugs at local facilities, generally complaining several times in the past year.\r\n\r\nWhen it comes to raising issues within the community, Sauti za Wananchi found that people are fairly vocal about problems they face. Eight out of ten citizens raise their issues in the groups they belong to, and three out of ten have called in to a radio station or complained to a friend.  In contrast, people are much less likely to walk out of a discussion, attend a demonstration or protest or to refuse to pay tax, and far less report that they would or use force to achieve a political cause.  \r\n\r\nCommunity groups thus play a more significant role in people\u2019s lives. Seven  out of ten Tanzanians belong to one, often religious groups, but also savings and loans groups. Community solidarity appears to be high: almost all citizens believe that if an unforeseen incident, such as house fire, occurred, their community would get together to help. The same confidence doesn\u2019t extend beyond immediate communities, and when asked whether they trust people generally, nine out of ten people felt that you had to be very careful with others.  Citizens also strongly feel that they can rely on themselves to get things done. Seven out of ten citizens respond positively to statements about their own ability to overcome challenges, find solutions to their problems and accomplish their own goals.  \r\n\r\nPeople also contribute collectively to their services: Seven out of ten citizens directly contribute to constructing or maintaining public facilities, most giving money and the rest contributing time. While the level of tax collection is low, people are in one way or another contributing to the running of government. However these collections are not well regulated. The lack of transparency and checks and balances mean that contributions may not be collected fairly or used productively. In fact, four out of ten of those who contributed to local facilities say they were forced to do so, eroding public trust. \r\n\r\nSauti za Wananchi  paints an interesting picture of the experience of Tanzanians. Rakesh Rajani, Head of Twaweza at the time, summed it up:  \u201cTanzanians are active members of community groups and undertake collective action to complain to officials in their community. They also feel that they are able to tackle obstacles and make things happen in their own lives but express feelings of powerlessness when it comes to their influence over government. Thus far citizens have shied away from the more emphatic and vocal forms of citizen agency such as tax refusal, protests or walk outs. However significant service delivery challenges remain in all major sectors. If the Government does not become more responsive to this softer engagement, we may see citizens become more aggressive in the future.\u201d\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the evidence, issues and processes raised in this op-ed please visit Twaweza at www.twaweza.org   and read the full report at http://www.twaweza.org/uploads/files/CitizenAgency-EN-FINAL.pdf ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Community participation in formulating the post-2015 health and development goal agenda: reflections of a multi-country research collaboration","field_subtitle":"Brolan CE, Hussain S, Friedman E, Ruano AL, Mulumba M, Rusike I, Beiersmann C, Hill PS: International Journal for Equity in Health, 13:66, 2014","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/13/1/66","body":"Global discussion on the post-2015 development goals, to replace the Millennium Development Goals when they expire on 31 December 2015, is well underway. While the Millennium Development Goals focused on redressing extreme poverty and its antecedents for people living in developing countries, the post-2015 agenda seeks to redress inequity worldwide, regardless of a country\u2019s development status. Furthermore, to rectify the UN\u2019s top-down approach toward the Millennium Development Goals\u2019 formulation, widespread negotiations are underway that seek to include the voices of people and communities from around the globe to ground each post-2015 development goal. This reflexive commentary, therefore, reports on the early methodological challenges the Go4Health research project experienced in its engagement with communities in nine countries in 2013. Led by four research hubs in Uganda, Bangladesh, Australia and Guatemala, the purpose of this engagement has been to ascertain a \u2018snapshot\u2019 of the health needs and priorities of socially excluded populations particularly from the Global South. This is to inform Go4Health\u2019s advice to the European Commission on the post-2015 global goals for health and new governance frameworks. Five methodological challenges were subsequently identified from reflecting on the multidisciplinary, multiregional team\u2019s research practices so far: meanings and parameters around qualitative participatory research; representation of marginalization; generalizability of research findings; ethical research in project time frames; and issues related to informed consent. Strategies to overcome these methodological hurdles are also examined. The findings from the consultations represent the extraordinary diversity of marginal human experience requiring contextual analysis for universal framing of the post-2015 agenda. Unsurprisingly, methodological challenges will, and did, arise. We conclude by advocating for a discourse to emerge not only critically examining how and whose voices are being obtained at the community-level to inform the post-2015 health and development goal agenda, but also how these voices are being translated and integrated into post-2015 decision-making at national and global levels. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Deadly economic violence of the big banks","field_subtitle":"Burger V: Pambazuka News, Issue 699, October 2014","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category/comment/93210","body":"The author highlights through a case study the pattern of reckless lending, high interest rates that, over time, significantly inflate the sum of the original loan, strong-arm debt recovery tactics such as threats of legal action and telephone harassment, that is argued in this article to be cases of 'economic violence'. She describes how the extreme distress induced by these practices was manifested in 2012, when thousands of desperate, poorly paid, over-indebted Marikana mineworkers, while striking for a R12 500 per month living wage, refused to back down and chose to face bullets to escape the suffocating squeeze of the omashonisa (money lenders). The article proposes that debt for an increasing number of South Africans has literally become life threatening, and that there is as yet no meaningful challenge to it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Did Ebola emerge in West Africa by a policy-driven phase change in agroecology? Ebola\u2019s social context","field_subtitle":"Wallace R G, Gilbert M, Wallace R, Pittiglio C, Mattioli R, Kock R: Environment and Planning A:46, 2014","field_url":"http://www.envplan.com/openaccess/a4712com.pdf","body":"The ongoing outbreak of human Ebola virus in West Africa, the largest and most extensive recorded, began in forest villages across four districts in southeastern Guinea as early as December 2013. The authors argue that the shifts in land use in Guin\u00e9e foresti\u00e8re where the virus originated are also connected to government policies promoting neoliberal structural adjustment that, alongside divesting public health infrastructure, opened domestic food production to global capital with Ebola\u2019s latest spillover arising due to massive expansion in the land allocated to corporate production of oil palm, taking over farmland, and bringing a a variety of disturbance-associated fruit bats attracted to oil palm plantations into more direct contact with informal pickers and contract farmers. Deforestation, including from oil palm planting, changes foraging behavior of the bat and expands interfaces among bats, humans and livestock. The authors suggest that deforestation, de-development, population mobility, peri-urbanization, cycle migration, and an inadequate health system that failed to recognize and isolate cases may have contributed, and that the the present outbreak signals the need to characterise the ecosystems on which humanity must routinely be reminded it depends. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Does the distribution of healthcare utilization match needs in Africa?","field_subtitle":"Bonfrer I, van de Poel E, Grimm M, Van Doorslaer E: Health Policy and Planning 29(7): 921-937, 10 October 2013","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24115777","body":"An equitable distribution of healthcare use, distributed according to people\u2019s needs instead of ability to pay, is an important goal featuring on many health policy agendas worldwide. However, relatively little is known about the extent to which this principle is violated across socio-economic groups in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).  The authors ex-amine cross-country comparative micro-data from 18 SSA countries and find that considerable inequalities in healthcare use exist and vary across countries. For almost all countries studied, healthcare utilization is considerably higher among the rich. When decomposing these inequalities wealth is found to be the single most important driver. In 12 of the 18 countries wealth is responsible for more than half of total inequality in the use of care, and in 8 countries wealth even explains more of the inequality than need, education, employment, marital status and urbanicity together. For the richer countries, notably Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland, the contribution of wealth is typical-ly less important. As the bulk of inequality is not related to need for care and poor people use less care because they do not have the ability to pay, healthcare utilization in these countries is to a large extent unfairly distributed. The weak average relationship between need for and use of health care and the potential reporting heterogeneity in self-reported health across socio-economic groups imply that the findings are likely to even underestimate actual inequities in health care. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 165: Citizens making things happen ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Policy Brief 39: Enhancing local medicine production in east and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"SEATINI, CEHURD, TARSC, CPTL: EQUINET Harare September 2014","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20GHD%20Meds%20polbrief39%202014.pdf","body":"This brief outlines the factors that affect medicines production in East and Southern Africa, drawing on the African Union, Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and East African Community (EAC) pharmaceutical plans. It identifies the barriers to local production as: lack of supportive policies, capital and skills constraints, gaps in regulatory framework, small market size and weak research and development capacities. It highlights, from case study work in selected countries in East and Southern Africa the potential opportunities for strengthening local medicine production. In the brief we propose that African countries strengthen domestic capacities, co-operation between domestic private and public sectors within ESA countries, and regional co-operation across ESA countries to address bottlenecks. Some areas such as infrastructure development and training may be important groundwork for others, such as technology transfer and research and development. South-south cooperation in medicines production can play a role in this but it cannot be assumed. Negotiations on south-south arrangements should look not only at the immediate production investment, but at strengthening capacities for research and development, for regulation, medicines price and quality monitoring, prequalification, infrastructure and human resource development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity-Oriented Monitoring in the Context of Universal Health Coverage","field_subtitle":"Hosseinpoor AR, Bergen N, Koller T, Prasad A, Schlotheuber A, et al.: PLoS Med 11(9), 22 September 2014","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001727","body":"Monitoring inequalities in health is fundamental to the equitable and progressive realization of universal health coverage (UHC). A successful approach to global inequality monitoring must be intuitive enough for widespread adoption, yet maintain technical credibility. This article discusses methodological considerations for equity-oriented monitoring of UHC, and proposes recommendations for monitoring and target setting. Inequality is multidimensional, such that the extent of inequality may vary considerably across different dimensions such as economic status, education, sex, and urban/rural residence. Hence, global monitoring should include complementary dimensions of inequality (such as economic status and urban/rural residence) as well as sex. For a given dimension of inequality, subgroups for monitoring must be formulated taking into consideration applicability of the criteria across countries and subgroup heterogeneity. For economic-related inequality, the authors recommend forming subgroups as quintiles, and for urban/rural inequality the authors recommend a binary categorization. Inequality spans populations, thus appropriate approaches to monitoring should be based on comparisons between two subgroups (gap approach) or across multiple subgroups (whole spectrum approach). When measuring inequality absolute and relative measures should be reported together, along with disaggregated data; inequality should be reported alongside the national average. The authors recommend targets based on proportional reductions in absolute inequality across populations. Building capacity for health inequality monitoring is timely, relevant, and important. The development of high-quality health information systems, including data collection, analysis, interpretation, and reporting practices that are linked to review and evaluation cycles across health systems, will enable effective global and national health inequality monitoring. These actions will support equity-oriented progressive realization of UHC.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Examining the links between community participation and health outcomes: a review of the literature","field_subtitle":"Rifkin S: Health Policy and Planning 29, suppl 2 ii98-ii106, 2014","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/29/suppl_2/ii98.full.pdf+html","body":"As a key principle of Primary Health Care (PHC) and Health Systems Reform, community participation has a prominent place in the current global dialogue. Participation is not only promoted in the context of provision and utilization of health services. Advocates also highlight participation as a key factor in the wider context of the importance of social determinants of health and health as a human right. However, the evidence that directly links community participation to improved health status is not strong. Its absence continues to be a barrier for governments, funding agencies and health professionals to promote community participation. The purpose of this article is to review research seeking to link community participation with improved health status outcomes programmes. It updates a review undertaken by the author in 2009. The search includes published articles in the English language and examines the evidence of in the context of health care delivery including services and promotion where health professionals have defined the community\u2019s role. The results show that in most studies community participation is defined as the intervention seeking to identify a direct causal link between participation and improved health status modeled on Randomized Control studies (RCT). The majority of studies show it is not possible to examine the link because there is no standard definition of \u2018community\u2019 and \u2018participation\u2019. Where links are found, they are situation-specific and are unpredictable and not generalizable. In the discussion, an alternative research framework is proposed arguing that community participation is better understood as a process. Once concrete interventions are identified (i.e. improved birth outcomes) then the processes producing improved health status outcomes can be examined. These processes may include and can lead to community uptake, ownership and sustainability for health improvements. However, more research is needed to ensure their validity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Forum 2015: People at the center of research and innovation for health","field_subtitle":"25-27 August 2015, Manila, Philippines","field_url":"http://blog.cohred.org/67/forum-2015-people-at-the-center-of-research-and-innovation-for-health?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_campaign=post3","body":"The Global Forum for Research and Innovation for Health is the successor of the Global Forum for Health Research that merged with the Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED) in 2011. Forum 2015, as it will be abbreviated, will provide an opportunity for everyone interested in pursuing global health, equity and development to meet, exchange information, find partners, design solutions and set research and innovation agendas - nationally, regionally and globally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Free State\u2019s Community Health Workers\u2019 Case Postponed to 29 January 2015","field_subtitle":"Sangonet pulse: October 14 2014","field_url":"http://www.ngopulse.org/press-release/free-state-s-community-health-workers-case-postponed-29-january-2015","body":"Over a hundred community health workers (CHW)\u2019s  and the members of the Treatment Action Campaign  appeared at the Bloemfontein Magistrate\u2019s Court today, regarding their criminal charges following their arrest at a peaceful vigil on 10 July 2014. The 129 community health care worker\u2019s case was postponed to the 29th of January 2015. The South African Police Services (SAPS) arrested the CHW\u2019s in the early hours of the 10th of July, during a peaceful vigil through which they were protesting the crumbling state of the public health system in Free State, their poor conditions of employment, and the 15 June\u2019s autocratic decision of the MEC for Health in the Free State department of Health, Benny Malakoane to effectively terminate their employment without warning. The postponement is meant for the prosecution to provide the CHW\u2019s the evidence against them and for the CHW\u2019s to make representations to the National Director of Public Prosecutions, Mxolisi Nxasana, that the charges should be unconditionally withdrawn.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Glimmers of hope on the Ebola front","field_subtitle":"Fleck F: Bull World Health Organ;92:704\u2013705, 2014","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/92/10/14-031014.pdf","body":"Daniel Bausch - interviewed in this paper- has been assisting with patient care during the current Ebola virus disease outbreak in western Africa and \u2013 as part of a WHO-led international collaboration \u2013 is exploring the possible use of experimental therapies and vaccines. He explains in this paper why this outbreak is different. He notes that the outbreak response had outstripped the available resources. Although personnel were deployed he says \"we are all late and it has gotten out of control. It\u2019s too simplistic to lay the blame on one group. There has been a lot of finger pointing at WHO, no one is immune to criticism, but WHO has suffered a loss of personnel and resources. So it\u2019s not only about what we should have done at any particular time, but the whole foundation for an international public health response that has been eroded by the global economic downturn\". He further observes that the scale and public profile of this outbreak means that potential vaccines and therapies that were stalled are now being pushed through clinical trials. He argues that if vaccines and drugs are provided in the not too distant future, the problem will change and people will start knocking on the door demanding prevention and treatment, so this is a public health strategy as well, but stemming the outbreak will still depend primarily on the classic strategy of case identification, with isolation and treatment, and contact tracing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Watch 4: An Alternative World Health Report","field_subtitle":"Coming November 13 2014","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org","body":"The Global Health Watch is widely perceived as the definitive voice for an alternative discourse on health. It integrates rigorous analysis, alternative proposals and stories of struggles and change to present a compelling case for the imperative to work for a radical transformation of the way we approach actions and policies on health. It is designed to question present policies on health and to propose alternatives. GHW4 is a collaborative effort by activists and academics from across the world, and has been coordinated the People\u2019s Health Movement, Asociacion Latinoamericana de Medicina Social, Health Action International, Third World Network and Medact. This edition of the GHW will be available in November 2014 and PHM invite people to consider launching the GHW4 from December 2014. For this purpose \u2018launch kits\u2019 will be available by early November 2014.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Committees as vehicles for community participation","field_subtitle":"Statement from the Regional Consultation 27 & 28 September 2014","field_url":"","body":"Participants at the Regional Meeting on Health Committees co-hosted by the Learning Network for Health and Human Rights, the Centre for Health, Human Right and Development (CEHURD) and the Network on Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET), 27-28 September 2014, Cape Town developed the statement from the meeting committing themselves to strengthen regional learning networks between countries of the south for advancing health committees as vehicles for community participation and calling on governments to recognise and incorporate health committees into their health systems in ways that maintain their roles as autonomous agents for democratic governance; WHO to provide guidance on inclusion of Health Committees in Health Systems Governance; and for discussions on updating the WHO Building Blocks approach to recognise the role of collective community action through Health Committees when inserting notions of public and patient engagement.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/39173","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Heroes dressed in white","field_subtitle":"Hern\u00e1ndez LM: Pambazuka October 2914","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category/features/93128","body":"Cuba recently sent a medical team of 165 internationalist collaborators, consisting of 63 doctors and 102 nurses from across the country, with more than 15 years practical experience and of which 81 % had served on previous international missions. They went to Sierra Leone to support efforts to contain the Ebola outbreak. It is a mission they made clear were happy to undertake that goes to the heart of Cuba\u2019s people-to-people solidarity. The author argues that is affirms that Cuba doesn\u2019t give what it has left over, but its most precious commodity: its sons, its heroes in white coats.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"IDRC Fellowship at the Center for Global Development","field_subtitle":"Application deadline: 30 November 2014","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/page/idrc-fellowships","body":"The Center for Global Development (CGD), an independent Washington-based think tank, invites applications from scholars from developing countries for a one-year visiting fellows program sponsored by Canada\u2019s International Development Research Centre (IDRC).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"In the shadowlands of global health: Observations from health workers in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Prince RL, Otieno  P: Global Public Health, 9(8):927-945, September 2014","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441692.2014.941897","body":"This paper draws on ethnographic research conducted in HIV clinics and in a public hospital to examine how health workers experience and reflect upon the juxtaposition of 'global' medicine with 'local' medicine. We show that health workers face an uneven playing field. High-prestige jobs are available in HIV research and treatment, funded by donors, while other diseases and health issues receive less attention. Outside HIV clinics, patient's access to medicines and laboratory tests is expensive, and diagnostic equipment is unreliable. Clinicians must tailor their decisions about treatment to the available medical technologies, medicines and resources. How do health workers reflect on working in these environments and how do their experiences influence professional ambitions and commitments? The need to improvise in the face of inadequate diagnostic tools and unreliable facilities was stressful for all health workers. Added to this stress was the degree to which health workers had to attend to patient poverty. While staff within HIV/AIDS clinics also faced these issues, hospital staff often found them overwhelming as they were confronted daily and relentlessly with the moral dilemma of how to deal with patients who could not afford treatment. In this situation, the strain of being forced to practice medicine that was only \u2018good enough\u2019 was a source of stress and frustration. Among interns, the moral complexity of their situation added to their uneasy positioning as young professionals struggling to gain a sense of professional identity and competence. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Innovative Financing Mechanisms: Potential Sources of Financing the WHO Tobacco Convention","field_subtitle":"Ko Sy D, Syam N, Vel\u00e1squez  G: South Centre Research Paper No. 54, September 2014","field_url":"http://www.southcentre.int/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/RP54_Innovative-Financing-Mechanisms-rev_EN.pdf","body":"This research paper is produced as part of the South Centre\u2019s research on expanding fiscal policies for global and national tobacco control. The objective of this research is to identify innovative solutions to fill the funding gaps in the implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Ideas and mechanisms for generating additional funding may be spawned from a review of the popular forms of non-traditional financing mechanisms that have been aimed at mobilizing resources for developmental programmes. The General Assessment section for each innovative financing idea in the paper reflects lessons learned and best practices that provide the reader with some framework when evaluating an innovative financing mechanism. Some are more  administratively feasible than others but in all cases, political feasibility is a critical element. A deeper understanding of the political concerns would surface and can possibly be addressed only if the ideas are allowed to be debated on, and sufficient space to explore is provided in the appropriate forum. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"International Civil society Week: Citizen action, People power","field_subtitle":"Civicus: 19-25 November, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://civicus.org/ICSW/","body":"To celebrate South Africa's 20th anniversary of freedom and democracy, CIVICUS and its partners will gather change makers from around the world at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg for International Civil Society Week from 19-25 November 2014. International Civil Society Week 2014 will involve a diverse, multi-stakeholder partnership that seeks to tackle the world\u2019s most pressing challenges. Under the banner of Citizen Action, People Power, the week long series of events will gather global thinkers, innovation leaders and influential organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Journal Of Health Diplomacy: Call For Papers on Africa, Health And Diplomacy","field_subtitle":"Call Closes: 30 November 2014","field_url":"https://journals.carleton.ca/jhd/index.php/journal","body":"The Journal of Health Diplomacy (JHD) is now receiving manuscripts for its third issue, titled: Africa, health and diplomacy. This issue is broadly concerned with the theory and practice of health diplomacy of African states, as a co-operation with the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET). The issue will include invited and submitted manuscripts. To be considered for the latter, please submit your proposed manuscript to irwin@sipri.org by 30 November 2014. Manuscripts submitted to JHD will undergo a peer-review process, with referees selected for their particular knowledge/experience on the topic of the manuscript. In light of this, we ask authors to ensure that their identity is not revealed directly or indirectly on any page. Manuscripts that are being considered for publication elsewhere, or that have been previously published must not be submitted to the journal. A complete set of author guidelines is available on the journal website. JHD welcomes contributions from all academic disciplines, including international relations, political science, anthropology, sociology, history and geography. We are also interested in interdisciplinary perspectives that cross the boundaries between different theoretical fields and represent novel understandings of health diplomacy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"LDCs and TRIPS: Overcoming challenges, seeking solutions","field_subtitle":"Bridges Africa editorial team: Bridges, 3; 8 October 2014","field_url":"http://www.ictsd.org/bridges-news/bridges-africa/news/ldcs-and-trips-overcoming-challenges-seeking-solutions","body":"The Bridges Africa editorial team features various analyses that take a closer and fresh look at the unique challenges facing least developed countries in the context of the trade-innovation nexus. The dynamics underpinning the IPR and public policy debate are often epitomised by the topic of the protection of patented drugs by LDCs. In 2001, the latter obtained a separate waiver to implement TRIPS provisions on pharmaceutical products until January 2016. Should LDCs seek the renewal of this waiver before it expires, or does the general extension for the TRIPS Agreement until July 2021 already allow for exemptions from patent protection motivated by public health concerns? These and related questions are addressed in this edition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Medical Humanities: Call for applications for 3 year doctoral fellowships","field_subtitle":"Closing date for applications: 15 December 2014","field_url":"http://wiser.wits.ac.za/event/medical-humanities-doctoral-fellowships","body":"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/39143","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring and Evaluating Progress towards Universal Health Coverage in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Ataguba JE, Day C, McIntyre D: PLoS Med 11(9), 22 September 2014","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001686","body":"The South African health system is tiered with the minority of the population using private health services and the majority relying mainly on tax-funded health services.  South Africa (SA) bears a quadruple burden of disease com-prising tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS, high levels of maternal and child mortality, injuries, and non-communicable dis-eases. The burden of these diseases falls most heavily on the poor.  In 2007 the SA government committed itself to implementing National Health Insurance (NHI) in order to move the country toward universal health coverage (UHC).  This paper, as part of a series of case studies commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) to develop ap-propriate measures of UHC, provides a case study of SA\u2019s current situation in relation to UHC using the WHO-proposed indicator framework.  Drawing on different national data sources, the paper shows that disparities exist in the proposed indicators in the SA context.  The paper notes that the framework may be more appropriate for monitoring progress towards UHC over time, rather than as a tool for evaluating a country\u2019s status relative to UHC goals at a single point in time. This paper also points to the need to have UHC-related \u2018benchmarks\u2019 against which to compare country data. Further, the proposed indicators by themselves do not provide clear insights into health system reforms required to promote UHC; there is need for a more detailed system-level analysis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring Progress towards Universal Health Coverage at Country and Global Levels","field_subtitle":"Boerma T, Eozenou P, Evans D, Evans T, Kieny MP, Wagstaff A: PLoS Med 11(9), 22 September 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001731","body":"This paper summarizes the findings from 13 country case studies and five technical reviews, which were conducted as part of the development of a global framework for monitoring progress towards Universal health coverage (UHC). The case studies show the relevance and feasibility of focusing UHC monitoring on two discrete components of health system performance: levels of coverage with health services and financial protection, with a focus on equity. These components link directly to the definition of UHC and measure the direct results of strategies and policies for UHC. The studies also show how UHC monitoring can be fully embedded in often existing, regular overall monitoring of health sector progress and performance. Several methodological and practical issues related to the monitoring of coverage of essential health services, financial protection, and equity, are highlighted. Addressing the gaps in the availability and quality of data required for monitoring progress towards UHC is critical in most countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Negotiating markets for health: an exploration of physicians\u2019 engagement in dual practice in three African capital cities","field_subtitle":"Russo G, McPake B, Fronteira I, Ferrinho P: Health Policy and Planning 29 (6): 774 - 783, 26 September 2013","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/29/6/774.full?sid=b6c6a9dd-6217-47c6-b38f-5ea6790ef17a","body":"Scarce evidence exists on the features, determinants and implications of physicians\u2019 dual practice, especially in resource-poor settings. This study considered dual practice patterns in three African cities, Cape Verde, Maputo and Guinea Bissau, and the respective markets for physician services, with the objective of understanding the influence of local determinants on the practice. Forty-eight semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted in the three cities to understand features of the practice and the respective markets. A survey was carried out in a sample of 331 physi-cians to explore their characteristics and decisions to work in public and private sectors. Descriptive analysis and infer-ential statistics were employed to explore differences in physicians\u2019 engagement in dual practice across the three loca-tions. Different forms of dual practice were found to exist in the three cities, with public physicians engaging in private practice outside but also inside public facilities, in regulated as well as unregulated ways. Thirty-four per cent of the respondents indicated that they worked in public practice only, and 11% that they engaged exclusively in private prac-tice. The remaining 55% indicated that they engaged in some form of dual practice, 31% \u2018outside\u2019 public facilities, 8% \u2018inside\u2019 and 16% both \u2018outside\u2019 and \u2018inside\u2019. Local health system governance and the structure of the markets for phy-sician services were linked to the forms of dual practice found in each location, and to their prevalence. The authors analysis suggests that physicians\u2019 decisions to engage in dual practice are influenced by supply and demand factors, but also by how clearly separated public and private markets are. Where it is possible to provide little-regulated services within public infrastructure, less incentive seems to exist to engage in the formal private sector, with equity and effi-ciency implications for service provision. The study shows the value of analysing health markets to understand physi-cians\u2019 engagement in professional activities, and contributes to an evidence base for its regulation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"One week course on Tax Justice ","field_subtitle":"MS Training Centre for Development Cooperation: 24-28 November 2014, Arusha, Tanzania","field_url":"http://www.mstcdc.or.tz/application/tax-justice-campaign.","body":"MS-TCDC is conducting a one-week course on Tax Justice Campaign from 24-28 November 2014 in Arusha, Tanzania. The overall objective of the course is to enable participants to appreciate the importance of taxation and revenue collection in relation to social change. They will also understand taxation form a development view point, and acquire skill to mobilise and support efforts to demand utilisation of funds from tax for poverty elimination. The course is aimed at practitioners working in CSOs, government and other development agencies engaged in governance and accountability work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Perceptions and experiences of access to public healthcare by people with disabilities and older people in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Mulumba M, Nantaba J, Brolan CE, Ruano AL, Brooker K,  Hammonds R: International Journal for Equity in Health, 13:76, 2014","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/13/1/76","body":"A global discussion regarding how to renew the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is underway and it is in this context that the Goals and Governance for Global Health (Go4Health) research consortium conducted consultations with marginalized communities in Asia, Latin America, the Pacific and Africa as a way to include their voices in world\u2019s new development agenda. The goal of this paper is to present the findings of the consultations carried out in Uganda with two groups within low-resource settings: older people and people living with disabilities. This qualitative study used focus group discussions and key informant interviews with older people in Uganda\u2019s Kamwenge district, and with persons with disabilities from the Gulu region. Thematic analysis was performed and emerging categories and themes identified and presented in the findings. Our findings show that a sense of community marginalization is present within both older persons and persons living with disabilities. These groups report experiencing political sidelining, discrimination and inequitable access to health services. This is seen as the key reason for their poor health. Clinical services were found to be of low quality with little or no access to facilities, trained personnel, and drugs and there are no rehabilitative or mental health services available. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty Reduction and Regional Integration: A comparative analysis of SADC and UNASUR health policies (PRARI) ","field_subtitle":"Open University, FLASCO, SAIIA, UNU-CRIS: ","field_url":"http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/prari/index.php","body":"The Open University and Southampton University, South African SAIIA FLACSO-Argentina and UNU-CRIS are currently involved in the Poverty Reduction and Regional Integration (PRARI) project, a two year project studying what regional institutional practices and methods of regional policy formation are conducive to the emergence of embedded pro-poor health strategies, and what can national, regional and international actors do to promote these, particularly in South America and Southern Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-Private Partnerships, Financial Extraction and the Growing Wealth Gap","field_subtitle":"Hildyard N: Manchester Business School, Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC), July 2014","field_url":"http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/sites/thecornerhouse.org.uk/files/PPPs%20-%20Financial%20Extraction%20-%20Wealth%20Gap%20minus%20photos.pdf","body":"This presentation looks at Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in infrastructure through the lens of inequality, as wealth becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands and as the gap between rich and poor widens globally, regionally and within countries. PPPs are now used in more than 134 developing countries, are on the rise in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, and have moved from physical infrastructure into the provision of \u201csocial infrastructure,\u201d such as schools, hospitals and health services. For the private sector, a PPP project needs to provide a stable, guaranteed income stream. Projects are devised to create multiple avenues for a flow of money that is transformed into private profit through loans, derivatives, shares, securitised income streams, and contract sales that anyone can buy and sell. The author argues that a PPP project enables millions of dollars worth of ancillary trading, mainly for the purpose of hedging risks. The choice of what infrastructure to build is thus argued to be heavily influenced by what serves the long-term profit-making interests of the private sector \u2013 and the state or public sector becomes more and more aligned with the interests of infrastructure investors and private companies. PPPs are thus reported to be not about building and providing public services but about constructing the subsidies, fiscal incentives, capital markets, regulatory regimes and other support systems necessary to transform \u201cinfrastructure\u201d into an asset class that yields above average returns of 13-25%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Ten best resources for conducting financing and benefit incidence analysis in resource-poor settings","field_subtitle":"Wiseman V,  Asante A,  Price J, Hayen A, Irava W,  Martins J, Guinness L,  Jan S: Health Policy and Planning: 24 September 2014","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/09/24/heapol.czu108.full?sid=b6c6a9dd-6217-47c6-b38f-5ea6790ef17a","body":"Many low- and middle-income countries are seeking to reform their health financing systems to move towards universal coverage. This typically means that financing is based on people\u2019s ability to pay while, for service use, bene-fits are based on the need for health care. Financing incidence analysis (FIA) and benefit incidence analysis (BIA) are two popular tools used to assess equity in health systems financing and service use. FIA studies examine who pays for the health sector and how these contributions are distributed according to socioeconomic status (SES). BIA determines who benefits from health care spending, with recipients ranked by their relative SES. In this article, the authors identify 10 resources to assist researchers and policy makers seeking to undertake or interpret findings from financing and benefit incidence analyses in the health sector. The article pays particular attention to the data requirements, computations, methodological challenges and country level experiences with these types of analyses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa: Convergence with tuberculosis, socioecological vulnerability, and climate change patterns","field_subtitle":"Abayomi A, Cowan MN: South African Medical Journal104(8):583, 9 July 2014","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/8645","body":"Recent assessment reports suggest that climate change patterns are threatening social and ecological vulnerability and resilience, with the strong potential of negatively affecting human health. Persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) have weakened physiological responses and are immunologically vulnerable to pathogens and stressors in their environment, putting them at a health disadvantage in climate-based rising temperatures, water scarcity, air pollution, potential water- and vector-borne disease outbreaks, and habitat redistributions. These climatic aberrations may lead to increased surface drying and decreased availability of arable land, threatening food/nutrition security and sanitary water practices. Coupled with HIV/AIDS, climate change threatens ecological biodiversity via a larger-scale socio-economic recourse to natural resources. Corresponding human and environmental activity shape conditions conducive to exacerbating high rates of HIV/AIDS. In South Africa, this epidemic is forming a \u2018syndemic\u2019 with tuberculosis (TB), which has come to include multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extremely drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) strains. Be-cause of high convergence rates, one epidemic cannot be addressed without understanding the other. Concurrent climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies are becoming increasingly important to curb changes that negatively affect the biospheres on which civilisation is ultimately dependent \u2013 from an agricultural, a developmental, and especially a health standpoint. Mitigation strategies such as reducing carbon emissions are essential, but may be only partially effective in slowing the rate of surface warming. However, global climate assessments assert that these are not sufficient to halt climate change patterns. Regionally specific climate research, socioecologically sustainable industrialisation paths for developing countries, and adoption of health system strengthening strategies are therefore vital.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The naked class politics of Ebola","field_subtitle":"Robb J: Pambazuka, Issue 699, September 2014","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category/comment/93212","body":"Ebola is also an epidemic, and the causes and conditions of the epidemic are social, economic, and political rather than natural. Outside of these social and economic conditions, the disease would have been contained or even eliminated long before now. The three countries at the centre of the Ebola epidemic are among the most impoverished in the world. The author argues that the permanent legacy of centuries of uninterrupted plunder is chronic and widespread malnutrition, dirt roads, poor or non-existent sanitation, unreliable or non-existent electric power, and one doctor per 100,000 inhabitants. These are the conditions in which an Ebola outbreak becomes an epidemic. For several months after the existence of Ebola was confirmed in the three countries of West Africa, it did not, the author argues, threaten the extraction of wealth from the region, and the first actions were to withdraw many volunteers including those working in health and to suspend flights. As cases were diagnosed in the USA and Europe, the response is reported to have been isolationist, with media spreading fear and speculation. Aid increased, but with limited personnel, except from Cuba. The author argues that West African health workers and volunteers are the ones who have carried out the socially necessary tasks of caring for patients, collecting and burying bodies, and educating the population in prevention and containment measures, despite inadequate safety equipment, serious threats to their own health, inadequate pay, and despite sometimes being ostracised in their own communities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Right to Dream","field_subtitle":"Eduardo Galeano: March 2011","field_url":"http://thinkloud65.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/the-right-to-dream-%E2%80%93-a-utopia-according-to-eduardo-galeano/","body":"In 1948 and again in 1976, the United Nations proclaimed long lists of human rights, but the immense majority of humanity enjoys only the rights to see, hear and remain silent. Eduardo Galeano in this poem posits that suppose we start by exercising the never-proclaimed right to dream? Suppose we rave a bit? He asks us to set our sights beyond the abominations of today to divine another possible world. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The right to health: what model for Latin America?","field_subtitle":"Heredia N, Laurell AC, Feo O, Noronha J, Gonz\u00e1lez-Guzm\u00e1n R, Torres-Tovar M: The Lancet, Early Online Publication, 16 October 2014","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)61493-8/fulltext#article_upsell","body":"The drive for Universal Health Coverage is currently very intense. Everybody seems to agree on this objective. However, the term is argued to be ambiguous term and in Latin America two different notions\r\nare used. One refers to forms of health insurance, be they voluntary or compulsory and public or private, and in variable combinations. The other refers to a single public health system\u2014ie, a unified tax-funded health system as an obligation of the state. The authors argue that it is critical to distinguish between these two notions and to set uniform criteria of analysis to compare their achievements. In this context, these are: population and medical coverage in their categories of universal or segmented access and use of service and possible barriers; origin and management of health funds; type of providers; health expenditure, public and private; distribution of costs and amount of out-of-pocket expenditure; impact on public health actions and health conditions; and equity, popular participation, and transparency. Taken together, these reveal the extent to which the right to health, a widely held social value, is attained. The authors analyse the largely pluralist health insurance in Latin America and argue that it does not grant the right to health, understood as equal access to the necessary services for equal need. By contrast with the intrinsic restrictions of universal health insurance, the problems of the single public health system are identified as operational. Where implemented in Latin America, while they have problems to resolve, these unified publicly funded systems are argued to be 'on their way to grant the right to health'.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The Sub-Saharan Media Landscape - Then, Now and in the Future","field_subtitle":"Balancing Act: August 2014","field_url":"http://www.balancingact-africa.com/sites/balancingact-africa.com/files/products/1.%20SSA%20Media%20Landscape.pdf","body":"Focus groups, one-to-one interviewees and surveys in Ghana, Senegal and\r\nTanzania, Nigeria. Ethiopia and South Africa provided the evidence cited in this research report. They were asked what had changed most about media and communications in the last five years. Two responses were common to all those who took part: the greater amount of media available and the presence of the Internet. These key changes have created haves and the have-nots. On almost every media measure, those living in rural Africa are at a disadvantage to their urban counterparts. The research found that over five years Facebook has grown from practically no users in Sub-Saharan Africa to become the most widely used social media platform, and the number of Africans who own or have access to mobile phones, computers, laptops, smartphones and tablets has grown considerably. Based on trends the authors predict that smartphone use will grow to between 10-20% of the population depending on the country, as will phones with internet access. While the current pattern of mobile phone use in the countries in focus has largely been voice and SMS, the numbers accessing the internet and social media is projected to grow over the next five years to between 10-25% of the population depending on the country. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"To legislate or not to legislate? A comparison of the UK and South African approaches to the development and implementation of salt reduction programs ","field_subtitle":"Charlton K, Webster J, Kowal P: Nutrients 6(9), 3672-3695, 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/6/9/3672","body":"The World Health Organization promotes salt reduction as a best-buy strategy to reduce chronic diseases, and Member States have agreed to a 30% reduction target in mean population salt intake by 2025. Whilst the UK has made the most progress on salt reduction, South Africa was the first country to pass legislation for salt levels in a range of processed foods. This paper compares the process of developing salt reduction strategies in both countries and highlights lessons for other countries. Like the UK, the benefits of salt reduction were being debated in South Africa long before it became a policy priority. Whilst salt reduction was gaining a higher profile internationally, undoubtedly, local research to produce context-specific, domestic costs and outcome indicators for South Africa was crucial in influencing the decision to legislate. In the UK, strong government leadership and extensive advocacy activities initiated in the early 2000s have helped drive the voluntary uptake of salt targets by the food industry. It is too early to say which strategy will be most effective regarding reductions in population-level blood pressure. Robust monitoring and transparent mechanisms for holding the industry accountable will be key to continued progress in each of the countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Treatment of Infections in Young Infants in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Frontline Health Worker Diagnosis and Antibiotic Access","field_subtitle":"Lee AC, Chandran A, Herbert HK, Kozuki N, Markell P, et al.: PLoS Med 11(10), 14 October 2014","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001741","body":"Inadequate illness recognition and access to antibiotics contribute to high case fatality from infections in young infants (","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"UN Rapporteur on right to health calls for review of investment treaties","field_subtitle":"Gopakumar K: TWN Info Service on Health Issues, October 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/health.info/2014/hi141002.htm","body":"Investment treaties should be reviewed to ensure that States have the right to make changes in their laws and policies to further human rights regardless of the impact of such changes on investors\u2019 rights. This recommendation came from the Special Rapporteur on Right to Health, Mr. Anand Grover in his last report to the UN General Assembly (UNGA).  The report notes that nearly 40 countries have already began renegotiation of international investment treaties. The Grover report calls for an international treaty to hold transnational corporations (TNCs) accountable for their violations on human rights. The report presents the current state of play with regard to the accountability of TNCs with regard to human rights violations. Two other sub-sections discuss the shortcomings of international investment treaties and the investor -state dispute settlement mechanism.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO\u2019s antibiotic resistance draft action plan soft on critical issues ","field_subtitle":"Gopakumar KM: TWN Info Service on Intellectual Property Issues 16 October 2014","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/intellectual_property/info.service/2014/ip141008.htm","body":"The 67th World Health Assembly (WHA) in May 2014 mandated the WHO Secretariat \u201cto develop a draft global action plan to combat antimicrobial resistance, including antibiotic resistance, which addresses the need to ensure that all countries, especially low and middle income countries. The Global Action Plan (GAP) is to be submitted to the 68th WHA through the 136th Session of the Executive Board meeting which will take place on 26 January to 3 February 2015 in Geneva. The author argues that the draft GAP fails to provide bold solutions especially where the pharmaceutical transnational corporations (TNCs) and their home countries have vested interests. The areas where the plan is argued to raise concern are:  on the mechanism to ensure access to antimicrobial medicines at affordable prices, including local production capabilities of antimicrobial medicines and diagnostics, technology transfer and public procurement. Another major area of strategic silence is the research and development (R&D) of new AMR medicines including antibiotics and diagnostics. Other important omissions are the explicit mention of promotion of rational use of antimicrobial medicines and the management of conflict of interests.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Why passion has a place at a health systems symposium: reflections on Cape Town 2014","field_subtitle":"Balabanova D, Lazarus J: Health System Global, October 2014","field_url":"http://www.healthsystemsglobal.org/GetInvolved/Blog/TabId/155/PostId/33/why-passion-has-a-place-at-a-health-systems-symposium-reflections-on-cape-town-2014.aspx","body":"Passion. It is not a word that is used often in the health systems discourse, and it may be the last word that people outside of health systems circles would associate with our work. But, the authors argue in this blog, passion is what emerged throughout the recent Third Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Cape Town, South Africa. Across two jam-packed days of satellite events and another three days of conference sessions, the 1,700 participants from 92 countries collectively made the symposium into a unique teaching, learning and networking opportunity. Whether people approach health systems from the realms of academia, policy-making, civil society or elsewhere, they are excited about the potential for the levers of various forms of health systems to be triggered in ways that will make the world a healthier and more equitable place. Being able to share that excitement with other people is an invaluable and invigorating experience. In early 2015, the leadership of Health Systems Global is likely to develop concrete strategies and initiatives to foster a more diverse membership base and encourage representation of more regions and countries in the global health systems discourse. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":" Transforming the development agenda requires more, not less, attention to human rights","field_subtitle":"Saiz I, Balakrishnan R: Center for Economic and Social Rights, Open Global Rights 15 September 2014","field_url":"http://cesr.org/article.php?id=1646","body":"The UN General Assembly later this month will begin negotiations over the content of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to succeed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015. The draft SDGs contain very few explicit references to human rights, and are conspicuously silent on their role as a universal normative framework for sustainable development. This article explores how human rights advocates should navigate these contentious issues over the coming year. Three key shifts in strategy are presented as necessary to turn the tables on the stale geo-political dynamics that threaten to undermine the SDGs as an endeavour that is truly transformative and human rights-centred. Firstly, human rights advocates need to underscore the extraterritorial obligations of wealthier states to respect and protect human rights beyond their borders, and to cooperate internationally in their fulfilment. Secondly, advocates must counter the corporate influence on the post-2015 process with a much stronger push for  corporate accountability. Thirdly, the human rights community must build more effective platforms and alliances with development, social justice and environmental movements to amplify the human rights voice in these debates, avoiding the fragmentation and issue-specific silos that have characterized advocacy to date.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A local vision of climate adaptation: Participatory urban planning in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Cast\u00e1n Broto V, Boyd E and Ensor J:  Climate and Development Knowledge Network, May 2014","field_url":"http://dspace.africaportal.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/34376/1/CDKN_InsideStory-Mozambique_Final20-05-14_WEB.pdf?1","body":"With an estimated population of 1.1 million, Maputo is the most densely populated city in Mozambique. The city is sharply divided into two areas: \u2019the cement city\u2019, or the old colonial centre with paved roads and high-rise buildings, and the bairros \u2013 largely underserved, congested areas that house the majority of the city\u2019s population. Situated on the Indian Ocean, the city is highly vulnerable to climate change impacts such as cyclones, flooding and sea level rise. Poverty and inequality, which are concentrated in the bairros, further exacerbate climate change vulnerabilities in the city. Chamanculo C is one such bairro where vulnerabilities have become evident during recent flood events. Responding to the urgent need to address urban deprivation, the municipality is currently implementing a neighbourhood upgrading programme in a participatory manner in Chamanculo C. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to institutional delivery care and reasons for home delivery in three districts of Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Exavery A, Kant\u00e9 AM, Njozi M, Tani K, Doctor HV, Hingora A and Phillips JF: International Journal for Equity in Health (13) 48, 2014","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/13/1/48","body":"This study assesses facilitators and barriers to institutional delivery in three districts of Tanzania. Data was drawn from a cross-sectional survey of random households on health behaviours and service utilization patterns among women and children aged less than 5 years. The survey was conducted in 2011 in Rufiji, Kilombero, and Ulanga districts of Tanzania, using a closed-ended questionnaire. This analysis focuses on 915 women of reproductive age who had given birth in the two years prior to the survey. Chi-square test was used to test for associations in the bivariate analysis and multivariate logistic regression was used to examine factors that influence institutional delivery. Overall, 74.5% of the 915 women delivered at health facilities in the two years prior to the survey. Multivariate analysis showed that the better the quality of antenatal care (ANC) the higher the odds of institutional delivery. Similarly, better socioeconomic status was associated with an increase in the odds of institutional delivery. Women of Sukuma ethnic background were less likely to deliver at health facilities than others. Presence of couple discussion on family planning matters was associated with higher odds of institutional delivery. Institutional delivery in Rufiji, Kilombero, and Ulanga district of Tanzania is relatively high and significantly dependent on the quality of ANC, better socioeconomic status as well as between-partner communication about family planning. Therefore, improving the quality of ANC, socioeconomic empowerment as well as promoting and supporting inter-spousal discussion on family planning matters is likely to enhance institutional delivery. Programs should also target women from the Sukuma ethnic group towards universal access to institutional delivery care in the study area.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"African activists meet in Johannesburg to demand more transparent health budgets","field_subtitle":"Africa Health Budget Network: Johannesburg, South Africa, July 2014","field_url":"http://www.mamaye.org/en/blog/african-activists-meet-johannesburg-demand-more-transparent-health-budgets","body":"African civil society organizations have called for greater accountability and transparency from African leaders regarding the use of public funds for the survival of mothers and babies. This call to action marks the launch of an African-led network demanding better use of existing funds for African women and children\u2019s health as well as a greater share of African national budgets allocated to mothers and babies\u2019 survival. While most African government have already made commitments about improving the health of their population, including through greater spending, it is difficult to check whether they are keeping their promises if the budget is not publicly available or if the information in the budget is not clearly presented. The members of the Africa Health Budget Network have compiled a scorecard[1] showing how open African Governments are about their health spending. Out of the 26 African countries profiled, only one, South Africa, is reported to be sufficiently transparent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"British Chevening Scholarships for International Students","field_subtitle":"Applications Close 15 November 2014, 23:59 GMT.","field_url":"http://www.chevening.org/news/view?id=195&x%5B0%5D=news%20/list","body":"Chevening Scholarships are the UK government\u2019s global scholarship programme, funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and partner organisations. The programme makes awards to outstanding scholars with leadership potential from around the world to study postgraduate courses at universities in the UK. The programme provides full or part funding for full-time courses at postgraduate level, normally a one-year Master\u2019s degree, in any subject and at any UK university","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Colloquium on lone mothers, social security and dignity in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Neves D, Noble M, Ntshongwana P and Wright G: Conference and seminar papers, June 2014","field_url":"http://children.pan.org.za/node/9547","body":"In South Africa lone mothers of working age are only entitled to social assistance for themselves if they are disabled. A means-tested Child Support Grant is payable on behalf of their children but, though important, it is small in amount and is not intended to contribute to the caregiver's living expenses. In the context of South Africa\u2019s Constitution which declares that \u2018everyone has the right to have their dignity respected and protected\u2019 and that access to social security is to be progressively realised, this project explored the meaning of dignity in lone mothers' lives and the extent to which social security protects or erodes their dignity.  The themed reports of the project cover the definition of lone motherhood in South Africa, the impact of poverty and inequality on lone mothers in South Africa and social security and the dignity of lone mothers in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ebola and Global Health Governance: Time for the Reckoning ","field_subtitle":"Fidler D: Chatham House Expert briefing, 22 September 2014","field_url":"http://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/15811?dm_i=1TYE%2C2TSAW%2CBM8UKZ%2CA9I1N%2C1","body":"The author writes that the suffering inflicted by the Ebola outbreak - and the ineffective reactions to it - reveals a massive failure of global health governance. States and international organizations are scrambling, from the Security Council to the streets of Monrovia, to triage the damage to social order and human dignity from the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa. It remains to be seen whether scaled-up responses can control the epidemic. But, he argues, there awaits another reckoning\u2014the challenge of identifying what went wrong, where mistakes were made, why we ended up in crisis and how to ensure a similar failure does not happen again. He proposes that the UN Security Council should establish an independent investigation into the outbreak and the international community\u2019s responses. The investigation should probe what happened from the local level to the office of the director-general of the World Health Organization. It should gather information on when and how other actors in global health\u2014countries, regional organizations, NGOs and airlines and other corporations\u2014responded. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ebola: Recovery of Americans sharpens divisions in global health","field_subtitle":"Ndika AC: Pambazuka News, Issue 693, 11 September 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category/features/92866","body":"In August ZMAPP, an untested serum-based therapy in humans, was successfully administered to two American health workers infected with the Ebola virus, who were later declared free from the virus. The public announcement raised hopes for a new front in the fight against the ravaging epidemic. Besides the ethical and equity challenges present in distributing the limited quantity of the experimental therapies, the remarkable survival and first-rate quality of treatments provided to the American patients, as well as the water-tight public health containment measures employed, paint in a very stark manner the contours of divisions in global health, which were already widening before Ebola and have been worsen by the outbreak. The authors argue that an emergency-only response by African countries and the international community would fail to bridge those divisions that will continue in future to manufacture new and remerging epidemics like Ebola at an alarming rate as well as with frightening impact on a global scale. Africa\u2019s endemic diseases like Ebola affect mostly its bottom millions. As such, the patients do not form a viable consumer base enough to motivate pharmaceutical industry to invest in innovative drugs and treatments for them. The WHO has put together a list of 17 neglected poverty-related diseases (NTDs). According to one study, of the about 1,393 new chemical entities introduced between 1975 and 1999, only 16 targeted NTDs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 164: When will we get better control over access to medicines?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Satellite Session: New resources and opportunities for participatory research in health systems: areas of focus for Health systems Global","field_subtitle":"GSHSR Cape Town 30 September 1200-1400","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET, COPASAH and Rotterdam Global Health Initiative Erasmus University, for the participatory cluster in the SHaPeS TWG for Health Systems Global is hosting a satellite workshop at the GSHSR on \u201dNew resources and opportunities for participatory research in health systems: areas of focus for Health systems Global\u201d on Tuesday, 30 September from 12.00 \u2013 14.00. We welcome all interested in this work! The satellite session will be convened by the three organisations in the participatory cluster of the SHaPeS Technical working Group in HSR global. It will present and discuss with delegates interested in the cluster the issues, resources and capacities for the field and how these could be developed through the TWG, and will make available work we have done to date, particularly through EQUINET and COPASAH. It will review the experience of using participatory action research, (PAR), community monitoring and innovations in social media in transforming local health systems, the challenges faced and the areas for future participatory work in HSR. It will launch the EQUINET, AHPSR and IDRC methods reader on participatory action research and web tools from COPASAH. The session will identify field building inputs in terms of the resources, capacity building, methods and opportunities that need to be taken forward by the participatory cluster of the SHaPeS Technical Working Group and the people who are interested in playing a role in the different areas of work. Contact admin@equinetafrica.org with GSHSR SATELLITE in the subject line for further detail or to let us know of your participation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Three day skills workshop on participatory action research","field_subtitle":"4-6 October 2014, Cape Town","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=62_0_1_0_M6","body":"A three day skills workshop on PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH IN PEOPLE CENTRED HEALTH SYSTEMS is being hosted by EQUINET. It will include a one day workshop on 4 October hosted hosted by TARSC and the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) and Asociaci\u00f3n Latinoamericana de Medicina Social (ALAMES), following the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (30th Sept\u20133rd October). The workshop will be held to deepen the discussion on the use of participatory action research in health policy and people centred health systems, including in acting on the social determinants of health. The workshops aim to deepen capacities in the use of participatory action research (PAR) particularly on\r\n\u2022 Experiences and learning of the pra4equity network in using PAR and future work of the pra4equity network\r\n\u2022 Knowledge and research paradigms and how they are reflected in the features and process of PAR \r\n\u2022 Applying the theory and process of PAR in practice: Methods and tools for PAR; issues in and experiences of implementation \r\n\u2022 Meta-analysis across sites and use of new technologies in PAR\r\n\u2022 Ethical issues in PAR, and \r\n\u2022 Documenting and reporting PAR\r\nIt will draw on and distribute the Reader on Participatory Action Research in Health system developed by EQUINET with the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research and IDRC Canada.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in utilisation of antiretroviral therapy for HIV-infected people in South Africa: a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Tromp N, Michels C, Mikkelsen E, Hontelez J, Baltussen R: International Journal for Equity in Health (13) 60, August 2014","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/s12939-014-0060-z.pdf","body":"About half a million people in South Africa are deprived of antiretroviral therapy (ART), and there is little systematic knowledge on who they are ? e.g. by severity of disease, sex, or socio-economic status (SES). The authors performed a systematic review to determine the current quantitative evidence on equity in utilisation of ART among HIV-infected people in South Africa. The authors conducted a literature search based on the Cochrane guidelines. The authors considered ART utilisation inequitable for a certain criterion (e.g. sex) if between groups (e.g. men versus women) significant differences were reported in ART initiation/adherence on that criterion. Twelve studies met the inclusion criteria. For sex, 2 out of 10 studies that investigated this criterion found that men are less likely than women to utilise ART, while the other 8 found no differences. For age, 4 out of 8 studies found inequities and reported less utilisation for younger people. For area of living, 3 out of 4 studies showed that those living in rural areas or certain provinces have less access and 2 out of 6 studies looking at SES found that people with lower SES have less access. One study which looked at the marital status found that those who are married are less likely to utilise ART. For severity of disease, 5 out of 6 studies used more than one outcome measure for disease stage and reported within their study contradicting results. One of the studies reported inconclusive findings for ethnicity and no study had looked at religion and sexual orientation. The authors suggest that men, young people, those living in certain provinces or rural areas, people who are unemployed or with a low educational level, and those being unmarried have less access to ART. As studies stem from different contexts and use different methods conclusions should be taken with caution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Watch 4","field_subtitle":"Peoples Health Movement, Publishing on 13 November 2014","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/","body":"The Global Health Watch integrates rigorous analysis, alternative proposals and stories of struggles and change to present a compelling case for the imperative to work for a radical transformation of the way we approach actions and policies on health. It is designed to question present policies on health and to propose alternatives. Find out more by visiting: www.ghwatch.org. GHW4 is a collaborative effort by activists and academics from across the world, and has been coordinated the People\u2019s Health Movement, Asociaci\u00f3n Latinoamericana de Medicina Social, Health Action International, Third World Network and Medact. This edition of the GHW, published by ZED Books, will be available from 13 November 2014. PHM request you to disseminate the evidence and analysis in GHW4 and invite you to consider launching the GHW4 in your region, starting from December 2014. For this purpose \u2018launch kits\u2019 will be available by early November 2014 and PHM will send 10 to 20 books for each event. For more information contact asengupta@phmovement.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Joint Global Research Programme: Women\u2019s and children's health","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 21 October 2014 16:00pm","field_url":"http://www.mrc.ac.uk/documents/pdf/handbook-for-applicants-and-grant-holders/","body":"The Medical Research Council (MRC) in the UK and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT)opens in new window in India in collaboration with Department of International Development (DFID)opens in new window are pleased to announce a joint call to fund Global Health Research which will bring together researchers from the UK, India and Low Income Countries. This call for collaborative proposals will require applicants based in India, Low Income Countries and the UK to work together in partnership within cross national teams on research projects. Bids must include at least one institution from each of India, UK and a LIC. For more information please visit the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Last month we lost a champion for health justice: A luta continua Thomas Deve","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Steering Committee","field_url":"","body":"Thomas Deve, a member of the EQUINET steering committee, passed away on Sunday 7th September. The diversity of people who have written tributes show how widely he connected from local to global level. He brought a personal connect to people and struggles across the continent and critical analysis and debate to our network. He was a researcher, a policy analyst, a band manager, a teacher, a thinker, an activist and much more. We bid him a reluctant farewell and Thomas, our struggle to reclaim the resources for health will continue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Mobile health for non-communicable diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review of the literature and strategic framework for research","field_subtitle":"Bloomfield GS,  Vedanthan R,  Vasudevan L, Kithei A,  Were M and Velazquez EJ: Globalization and Health (10)49, 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/10/1/49","body":"Mobile health (mHealth) approaches for non-communicable disease (NCD) care seem particularly applicable to sub-Saharan Africa given the penetration of mobile phones in the region. The evidence to support its implementation has not been critically reviewed. The authors systematically searched databases and grey literature for studies reported between 1992 and 2012 published in English or with an English abstract available.  mHealth for NCDs in sub-Saharan Africa appears feasible for follow-up and retention of patients, can support peer support networks, and uses a variety of mHealth modalities. Whether mHealth is associated with any adverse effect has not been systematically studied. Only a small number of mHealth strategies for NCDs have been studied in sub-Saharan Africa. There is insufficient evidence to support the effectiveness of mHealth for NCD care in sub-Saharan Africa. The authors present a framework for cataloging evidence on mHealth strategies that incorporates health system challenges and stages of NCD care. This framework can guide approaches to fill evidence gaps in this area.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Open access: academic publishing and its implications for knowledge equity in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Matheka D, Nderitu J, Mutonga D, Otiti M, Siegel K and Demaio A: Globalization and Health (10)26, 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/10/1/26","body":"Traditional, subscription-based scientific publishing has its limitations: often, articles are inaccessible to the majority of researchers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where journal subscriptions or one-time access fees are cost-prohibitive. Open access (OA) publishing, in which journals provide online access to articles free of charge, breaks this barrier and allows unrestricted access to scientific and scholarly information to researchers all over the globe. At the same time, one major limitation to OA is a high publishing cost that is placed on authors. Following recent developments to OA publishing policies in the UK and even LMICs, this article highlights the current status and future challenges of OA in Africa. The authors place particular emphasis on Kenya, where multidisciplinary efforts to improve access have been established. They note that these efforts in Kenya can be further strengthened and potentially replicated in other African countries, with the goal of elevating the visibility of African research and improving access for African researchers to global research, and, ultimately, bring social and economic benefits to the region. The authors (1) offer recommendations for overcoming the challenges of implementing OA in Africa and (2) call for urgent action by African governments to follow the suit of high-income countries like the UK and Australia, mandating OA for publicly-funded research in their region and supporting future research into how OA might bring social and economic benefits to Africa","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory action research in health systems: a methods reader","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R, Laurell AC, Hogstedt C, D\u2019Ambruoso L, Shroff Z: TARSC, AHPSR, WHO, IDRC Canada, EQUINET, Harare, 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PAR%20leaflet%20HR.pdf","body":"In the 21st century there is a growing demand to channel collective energy towards justice and equity in health, and to better understand the social processes that influence health and health systems. Communities,frontline health workers and other grass-roots actors play a key role in responding to this demand, in raising critical questions, building new knowledge and provoking and carrying out action to transform health systems and improve health. There is a widening array of methods, tools and capacities \u2013 old and new \u2013 to increase social participation and power in generating new knowledge through participatory research. At the same time, we need to be clear about exactly what participatory research is and what it can offer. This reader promotes understanding of the term \u2018participatory action research\u2019 (PAR) and provides information on its paradigms, methods, application and use, particularly in health policy and systems. This reader was produced through the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET), with Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (AHPSR) and International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Canada and is being launched at the Third Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in South Africa September 30 2014 after which the full reader will replace this leaflet. The result of team work, the reader draws on experience and published work from all regions globally and explains:\r\n\u2022 key features of participatory action research and the history and knowledge paradigms that inform it;\r\n\u2022 processes and methods used in participatory action research, including innovations and developments in the field and the ethical and methods issues in implementing it; and\r\n\u2022 communication, reporting, institutionalization and use of participatory action research in health systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Raising her Voice","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: September 2014","field_url":"http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/our-work/citizen-states/raising-her-voice","body":"All around the world women's voices are absent from the many places and spaces in which the decisions that affect their everyday lives are made. Oxfam aims to change this by strengthening the way in which women's individual and collective voices influence decisions about services, investments, policies and legal frameworks so that worldwide, those in power, from village leaders to politicians and law-makers, become more accountable to them.From 2008-2013, the global Raising Her Voice programme, supported projects in 17 countries to enable over 1 million women to take part in, shape and monitor the decisions that most affect their lives. Although formal funding for RHV ended in March 2013, Oxfam is continuing to work on women's political rights and empowerment worldwide. This website provides case studies and videos on the work from African countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaiming public health through community-based monitoring: The case of Maharashtra, India","field_subtitle":"Shukla A, Saha Sinha S and SATHI: Municipal Services Project, September 2014","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/p623yg5","body":"Community-based monitoring and planning (CBMP) of health services in Maharashtra state, India represents an innovative participatory approach to improving accountability and healthcare delivery. Supported by diverse stories of change, the paper shows how this process created various forums and spaces for dialogue and led to systematic data collection on health indicators that point to greater accessibility and quality of services at village as well as primary health centre levels. The authors ask whether this experience could inform \u2018communitization\u2019 of health services in diverse contexts, as an alternative to privatization and as a means to enhancing the \u2018publicness\u2019 of health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional Consultation on Health Committees \u2013 Vehicles for realising the right to health and strengthening health systems","field_subtitle":"Cape Town 27-28 September 2014","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/","body":"The Learning Network for Health and Human Rights, in conjunction with the Network on Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) will be holding a 2-day regional consultation on the role of Health Committees in Equitable, People-centred Health Systems in the Southern and East African region as a satellite meeting linked to the 3rd Global Symposium on Health Systems Research.  The regional consultation will take place in Cape Town on Sat 27th and Sun 28th of September 2014 at the University of Cape Town and is funded by a grant from the International Development Research Council. The meeting has been called to share experiences from the southern and east Africa region of community participation in health systems governance through health committees. The focus of the consultation is on health committees as a strategy for realising the right to health and strengthening health systems. The consultation will build on previous meetings by the different partners in Kampala, Kiboga and Harare over the past 4 years. The target participants are those who have experience of working with health committees and community participation structures. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Secure Grants from the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 31 December 2014","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/pfs8mxo","body":"The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation accepts grant applications from all the HIV/AIDS communities worldwide. Organizations working in the sector of HIV/AIDS are required to send a statement of need along with the proposed program description and the organizations\u2019 capacity to implement the proposed program.The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation supports two kinds of organizations, Those: 1.Delivering direct care and services to people living with HIV/AIDS and 2.Providing education to the public regarding the AIDS virus and the prevention of AIDS. For further information visit the website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The BRICS: Yash Tandon asks tough questions \u2013 which we all need to ponder","field_subtitle":"Bond P: Pambuzuka News 682, 11 June 2014","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/92085","body":"Patrick Bond addresses questions raised by Yash Tandon in regards to the role of the BRICS in Africa and in the current configuration of the neoliberal international capitalist order. The challenge is for critics of BRICS to strategise with the world\u2019s progressive forces to build a genuine anti-imperialist movement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The effects of health worker motivation and job satisfaction on turnover intention in Ghana: a cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/12/1/43","body":"Motivation and job satisfaction have been identified as key factors for health worker retention and turnover in low- and middle-income countries. District health managers in decentralised health systems usually have a broadened 'decision space' that enables them to positively influence health worker motivation and job satisfaction, which in turn impacts on retention and performance at district-level. The study explored the effects of motivation and job satisfaction on turnover intention and how motivation and satisfaction can be improved by district health managers in order to increase retention of health workers. The authors conducted a cross-sectional survey in three districts of the Eastern Region in Ghana and interviewed 256 health workers from several staff categories (doctors, nursing professionals, allied health workers and pharmacists) on their intentions to leave their current health facilities as well as their perceptions on various aspects of motivation and job satisfaction. The effects of motivation and job satisfaction on turnover intention were explored through logistic regression analysis. Overall, 69% of the respondents reported to have turnover intentions. Motivation and job satisfaction were significantly associated with turnover intention and higher levels of both reduced the risk of health workers having this intention. The dimensions of motivation and job satisfaction significantly associated with turnover intention included career development, workload,  management, organisational commitment and burnout. The authors\u2019 findings indicate that effective human resource management practices at district level influence health worker motivation and job satisfaction, thereby reducing the likelihood for turnover.  Therefore, they argue that it is worth strengthening human resource management skills at district level and supporting district health managers to implement retention strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The end of AIDS: Possibility or pipe dream? A tale of transitions ","field_subtitle":"Whiteside A and Strauss M: African Journal of AIDS Research (2) 13, 101\u2013108, 2014","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajar/article/view/105499","body":"Globally, in the last 20 years health has improved. In this generally optimistic setting HIV and AIDS accounts for the fastest growing burden of disease. The data show the bulk of this is experienced in Southern Africa. In this region, HIV and AIDS (and tuberculosis [TB]) peaks among young adults. Women carry the greater proportion of infections and provided most of the care. South Africa has the dubious distinction of having the largest number of people living with HIV in the world, 6.4 million. HIV began spreading from about 1990 and today the prevalence among antenatal clinic attendees is 29.5%. A similar situation exists in other nations of the region. It is an expensive disease, requiring more resources than are available, and it is slipping off the global agenda, both in terms of attention and international funding. Those halcyon days of the decade from 2000 to 2010 are over. This paper explores the concept of three transition points: economic, epidemiological and programmatic. The first two have been developed and written about by others. The authors add a third transition point, namely programmatic, argue this is an important concept, and show how it can become a powerful tool in the response to the epidemic. The economic transition point assesses HIV incidence and mortality of people infected with HIV. Until the number of newly infected people falls below the number of deaths of people living with HIV, the demand for treatment and costs will increase. This is a concern for the health sector, finance ministry and all working in the field of HIV. Once an economic transition occurs the treatment future is predictable and the number of people living with HIV and AIDS decreases. This paper plots two more lines. These are the number of new people from the HIV infected pool initiated on treatment and the number of people from the HIV infected pool requiring treatment. This introduces new transition points on the graph. The first when the number of people initiated on treatment exceeds the number of people needing treatment. The second when the number initiated on treatment exceeds the new infections. That is the theory. When applying South African data from the ASSA2008 model, the authors were able to plot transition points marking progress in the national response. They argue these concepts can and should be applied to any country or HIV epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The IFC\u2019s Health in Africa initiative is failing to reach the poor","field_subtitle":"Mohga Kamal-Yanni: Global Health Check, Sep 10th, 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/?utm_source=Global%20Health%20Check&utm_campaign=34b2836be9-Global%20Health%20Check%20email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_89f8d74097-34b2836be9-12084821","body":"Health In Africa is a $1 billion investment project launched by the IFC in 2008, which aimed to \u2018catalyze sustained improvements in access to quality health-related goods and services in Africa [and] financial protection against the impoverishing effects of illness\u2019, through harnessing the potential of the private health sector. Specifically, it sought to improve access to capital for private health companies, and to help governments incorporate the private sector into their overall health care system. Health In Africa would do this through three mechanisms: an equity vehicle, a debt facility, and technical assistance.  Perhaps of most importance, the initiative would make extra efforts to \u2018improve the availability of health care to Africa\u2019s poor and rural population\u2019. The author reports that Oxfam\u2019s assessment of the sporadic investment information available finds that far from delivering health care for the poorest, Health In Africa has favoured high-end urban hospitals, many of which explicitly target a country\u2019s wealthy and expatriate populations.  The initiative\u2019s biggest investment to date has been in South Africa\u2019s second largest private hospital group Life Healthcare. This $93 million endowment no doubt supported the company in its subsequent expansion, but there is no evidence it has used this investment to expand access to health care for the 85% of South Africans without health insurance. Oxfam has called on the IFC to cease all Health In Africa investments until a robust, transparent and accountable framework is put in place to ensure that the initiative is pro-poor, and geared towards meeting unmet need. In addition, it calls on the World Bank Group to conduct a full review of the IFC\u2019s operations and impact to date in the health sector in low- and middle-income countries, to investigate how they are aligned with, and are accountable to, the overarching goals of the World Bank Group: to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report What's in it for Africa?","field_subtitle":"Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate and Development Knowledge Network, 2014","field_url":"http://dspace.africaportal.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/34489/1/J1731_CDKN_FifthAssesmentReport_WEB.pdf?1","body":"The Fifth Assessment Report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) finds, beyond reasonable doubt, that the Earth\u2019s climate is warming. Climate change will have widespread impacts on African society and Africans\u2019 interaction with the natural environment. Since the 1950s, the rate of global warming has been unprecedented compared to previous decades and millennia. The Fifth Assessment Report presents a long list of changes that scientists have observed around the world. Since the mid-19th century, the average increase in the temperature of the Earth\u2019s surface has been 0.85 degrees Centigrade(\u00b0C). Sea levels have risen faster than at any time during the previous two millennia. In many regions, including Africa, changing rainfall or melting snow and ice are altering freshwater systems, affecting the quantity and quality of water available. The IPCC finds that there is 95% scientific certainty that human activity, by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. The impacts of climate change will affect food security, water availability and human health in Africa significantly. Given the interdependence between countries in today\u2019s world, the impacts of climate change on resources or commodities in one place will have far-reaching effects on prices, supply chains, trade, investment and political relations in other places. Thus, climate change will progressively threaten economic growth and human security.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Open Budget Survey ","field_subtitle":"International Budget Partnership: September 2014","field_url":"http://survey.internationalbudget.org/#home","body":"The Open Budget Survey is a comprehensive analysis and survey that evaluates whether governments give the public access to budget information and opportunities to participate in the budget process at the national level. The Survey also assesses the capacity and independence of formal oversight institutions. The IBP works with civil society partners in 100 countries to collect evidence. To easily measure the commitment to transparency, IBP created the Open Budget Index from the Survey. The Open Budget Index allows for comparisons among countries and across years. the website provides a 2014 calculator to predict the outcome of the next survey and see where transparency can improve.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2014","field_subtitle":"Food and Agriculture Organisation: New York, September 2014","field_url":"http://www.fao.org/publications/sofi","body":"The 2014 edition of  The State of Food Insecurity in the World was released this month. SOFI 2014 presents updated estimates of undernourishment and progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and World Food Summit (WFS) hunger targets. The 2014 report also presents further insights into the suite of food security indicators introduced in 2013 and analyses in greater depth the dimensions of food security \u2013 availability, access, stability and utilization.  In addition, the 2014 report examines the diverse experiences of seven countries, with a specific focus on the enabling environment for food security and nutrition that reflects commitment and capacities across four dimensions: policies, programmes and legal frameworks; mobilization of human and financial resources; coordination mechanisms and partnerships; and evidence-based decision-making. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal Health Protection: Progress to date and the way forward","field_subtitle":"Social protection Department, International Labour Office: ILO Geneva September 2014","field_url":"http://www.ilo.org/gimi/gess/ShowRessource.action?ressource.ressourceId=46598","body":"This paper proposes policy options based on ILO research and experiences that aim at universal coverage and equitable access to health care. The policy options discussed focus on ensuring the human rights to social security and health and on the rights-based approaches underpinning the need for equity and poverty alleviation. This paper also provides insights into aspects of implementation and related challenges. It includes an overview of ILO concepts, definitions and strategic approaches to achieving socially inclusive and sustainable progress and highlights recent global trends.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"What elements of the work environment are most responsible for health worker dissatisfaction in rural primary care clinics in Tanzania?","field_subtitle":"Mbaruku GM, Larson E, Kimweri A and Kruk ME: Human Resources for Health (12)38: August 2014","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/12/1/38","body":"In countries with high maternal and newborn morbidity and mortality, reliable access to quality healthcare in rural areas is essential to save lives. Health workers who are satisfied with their jobs are more likely to remain in rural posts. Understanding what factors influence health workers' satisfaction can help determine where resources should be focused. Although there is a growing body of research assessing health worker satisfaction in hospitals, less is known about health worker satisfaction in rural, primary health clinics. This study explores the workplace satisfaction of health workers in primary health clinics in rural Tanzania. Overall, 70 health workers in rural Tanzania participated in a self-administered job satisfaction survey. Results showed that 73.9% of health workers strongly agreed that they were satisfied with their job; however, only 11.6% strongly agreed that they were satisfied with their level of pay and 2.9% with the availability of equipment and supplies. Two categories of factors emerged from the PCA: the tools and infrastructure to provide care, and supportive interpersonal environment. Nurses and medical attendants (compared to clinical officers) and older health workers had higher satisfaction scale ratings. Two dimensions of health workers' work environment, namely infrastructure and supportive interpersonal work environment, explained much of the variation in satisfaction among rural Tanzanian health workers in primary health clinics. Health workers were generally more satisfied with supportive interpersonal relationships than with the infrastructure. Human resource policies should, it is argued, consider how to improve these two aspects of work as a means for improving health worker morale and potentially rural attrition","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"When will we get better control over access to medicines?","field_subtitle":"Rangarirai Machemedze, SEATINI","field_url":"","body":"\r\nAt the recent 2014 International AIDS Conference we heard that 35 million people are living with HIV, but 55% haven\u2019t been tested. Under the 2013 WHO guidelines, UNAIDS reported in 2013 that the HIV treatment coverage in low and middle-income countries represented only 34% of the 28.6 million people eligible in 2013. Medicines for malaria, pneumonia and other common conditions don\u2019t reach many low income communities and there are new challenges in ensuring the long term treatment for chronic conditions. \r\n\r\n\tAccess to medicines continues to be a major preoccupation in African health systems.  Beyond the unequal distribution of access to essential medicines globally and within countries, resistance to anti-malarials, antibiotics, and treatments for TB and other conditions can worsen the problem. The new medicines developed are frequently more expensive and may also require more stringent supervision to ensure they are properly used. For example in the 2014 AIDS Conference it was noted that there is a 10 fold price increase from first to second line treatment, and the World Health Organization (WHO) reported in 2012 that the 450 000 new cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) longer and more expensive treatment.  These medicines are often imported, at a cost that consume a large share of health budgets. Countries in east and southern Africa (ESA) often draw on support from external funders to meet these costs.  \r\n\t\r\nThis rising challenge, coupled with high levels of dependency on external producers and funders makes ESA countries very externally dependent when it comes to medicines. This, and the potential contribution that pharmaceutical manufacture could make to economies and trade within the continent, especially given the rich natural resources for medicines, prompted the African Union and its sub regions in east and southern Africa to come up with plans to enhance local pharmaceutical production. African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development in Nigeria in March 2014 noted: \u201cThere is growing consensus that strengthening the local production of essential medicines is a priority, along with advancing industrial development and moving the continent towards sustainability of treatment programmes for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, and improving access to safe and effective medicines to treat a broad range of communicable and non-communicable diseases.\u201d   \r\n\r\nThe Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan for Africa (PMPA), the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Pharmaceutical Business Plan 2007-2013 and the East African Community (EAC) Regional Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan of Action 2012-2016 all propose policy measures to create the conditions for and support local production, as one, albeit not the only way to strengthen access to medicines. \r\n\r\nThe same plans are also rather clear about the obstacles that have to be overcome to achieve this, including in terms of ensuring adequate legal provisions, improved and reliable energy, transport and other infrastructure, technology, skills and research and development capacities to enable and sustain production and finance capital. The same 2014 conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development cited above noted in its statement: \u201cThe challenges the pharmaceutical industry faces in upgrading facilities and production practices in Africa include the requirement for large capital investments and the need for experts, specially trained workers, increased regulatory oversight and regulatory harmonisation at the regional and continental levels in order to create bigger markets.\u201d  \r\n\r\nIn research that we carried out in 2013 and 2014, we found signs of progress in overcoming these obstacles, but also many challenges. Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe, for example, produce medicines that are not only consumed in their own countries, but are exported to other countries in the region. Some of the factors that appear to support this include the presence of a sound regulatory framework for the pharmaceutical sector, partnerships with other countries bringing investments in manufacturing and in capacities for it (such as in Uganda), local skills and research and development institutions that can support the technology for local production. Further, existing practice points to the critical importance of regional trade as a way of ensuring adequately sized markets to provide a return on investments. These are examples in practice of measures that are articulated in the regional plans. \r\n\r\nHowever, we also found that while many countries have national pharmaceutical policies that articulate such goals, they also depend on policy in other areas, such as energy and infrastructure, and that there is a gap between policies and their implementation.\r\n\r\nThe implementation gap is evident in a number of areas. One is in the extent to which governments are supporting local production with tax and other incentives to create a conducive investment, business and trade environment. For example there could be stronger measures to exempt duty and value added tax (VAT) on imported pharmaceutical raw materials and packaging materials to stimulate local production and reduced corporate tax rates, investment tax credits and other incentives for companies to set up production.  Yet sometimes we find that the opposite is in place.  For example in Zimbabwe imported drugs were in 2000 exempted from duty and VAT, while the raw materials and packaging needed for local manufacturing attracted duties of up to 40% and VAT of 15%. This increases the cost of locally produced drugs, especially when other countries are not placing these high charges on their producers, making imports cheaper than locally produced medicines. This doesn\u2019t make sense given the policy intentions and we should at least level the playing field and avoid tariff structures that promote de-industrialisation!\r\n\r\nThere is also a gap in the dialogue that should be going on between governments, pharmaceutical companies and training institutions on what capacities, skills and personnel are needed for the pharmaceutical industry and how these can be attracted and developed, including through schemes to attract and retain appropriate personnel in the public service and in countries. \r\n\r\nWhile there is an emerging interest in south-south partnership agreements on some of these areas, it is equally important that attention be given to implementing the regional plans, to use memberships of Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the Southern African Development and the East African Community to negotiate for a tripartite Free Trade Area between the three blocs to widen markets for medicines and to strengthen regional interactions on the technology, infrastructure, capacities, research and development and capital needed for pharmaceutical production.\r\n\r\nIn a continent with such high health need and demand for treatment, surely we need to not only be asking when we will get better access to medicines, but when we will get better control over access to medicines?\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit www.equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"10th Public Health Association of South Africa","field_subtitle":"Polokwane, South Africa, 3-6 September 2014","field_url":"http://www.phasaconference.org.za","body":"The 10th anniversary of the Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) conference will be celebrated with the hosting of the conference in Polokwane (Limpopo) from 3 to 6 September 2014.The theme for the 2014 conference is \u2018Dignity, rights and quality: towards a health care revolution\u2019. An invitation is extended to all our members, stake holders,  policy makers, public health academics and students, health professionals, health service managers and individuals from non-governmental and community-based health organisations. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"14th Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa Congress","field_subtitle":"Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 20-24 October 2014","field_url":"http://www.ahila-tz.org/","body":"The Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa (AHILA) will hold its 14th Biennial Congress in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. AHILA was founded in 1984 with the aim of improving provision of up-to-date and relevant health information; encourage professional development of health librarians; promote information resource sharing in Africa and exchange of experiences as well as promoting the development and standardization and exchange of health databases in Africa. The main theme of the 14th AHILA Congress is: ICTs, access to health information and knowledge: building strong knowledge societies for sustainable development in Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"2014 Durban International Film Festival Winners","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.okayafrica.com/news/cinemafrique-african-film-tv-news-august-7/5/","body":"The 35th Edition of the Durban International Film Festival came to a close last week with an awards ceremony that saw the unveiling of the fest\u2019s new statuette, the Golden Giraffe. Of particular note, Rehad Desai\u2018s Marikana documentary Miners Shot Down was awarded \u201cSouth Africa\u2019s Best Documentary Film.\u201d The film uses the point of view of the Marikana miners as it follows the strike from day one. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa: Time to reclaim class opportunities","field_subtitle":"Nicolson G: Daily Maverick, 20 August 2014","field_url":"http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-08-20-africa-time-to-reclaim-class-opportunities/#.U_n9tl9waUk","body":"Narratives of \u201cthe hopeless continent\u201d and \u201cAfrica rising\u201d, pumped by the West, woven into its knowledge with nostalgic pop culture, rubber-stamped by media and financial institutions, are observed by the author to be false propaganda. A study by Standard Bank titled \u201cUnderstanding Africa\u2019s Middle Class\u201d, notes African Development Bank\u2019s (AfDB) claims that by 2010, 350 million people or 34% were middle-class in Africa, up from 27% in 1990. Examining 11 countries, chosen for, among other things, scale of population, growth and economy- Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia- the Standard Bank report noted that since 2000 the collective GDP of the 11 measured economies has grown tenfold from US$120 billion to today\u2019s level of over US$1 trillion, with a growth in the middle class of 230% in the period. While East Africa is lagging behind in pushing low-income earners to the middle, the region is argued to offer the most interesting findings in the report, with a broad upward shift within the low-income band as households shift from deeply marginalised into less poor categories. Africa\u2019s growing middle class may be driving the rising narratives, but the upward movement of low-income groups is argued to be where the most economic potential will be realised. It\u2019s also these groups that will have the largest impact on political and social development. They\u2019re the groups in the majority, the ones with the largest votes and the largest claim to the need for improved living conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing equity in the geographical distribution of community pharmacies in South Africa in preparation for a national health insurance scheme","field_subtitle":"Ward K, Sanders D, Leng H, Pollock A: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 92:482-489; 2014","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/92/7/13-130005/en/","body":"The green paper for the national health insurance scheme in South Africa has identified private community pharmacies as potential access points for medicines, in combination with public clinics. This study examined changes in the ownership and geographical distribution of community pharmacies between 1994 and 2012 using routine national data. The authors summed community pharmacies and public clinics to assess their combined provincial distribution patterns against a South African benchmark of one clinic per 10000 residents. The study shows that monitoring trends in the distribution of community pharmacies is feasible. It shows that the increase in the number of community pharmacies has not kept pace with population growth and there are differences between urban and rural provinces and between the most and least deprived districts. Although corporations have seen substantial growth, this has not resulted in improved density ratios or equity in distribution. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing the ability of health information systems in hospitals to support evidence-informed decisions in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Kihuba E, Gathara D, Mwinga S, Mulaku M, Kosgei R, Mogoa W, Nyamai R, English M: Global Health Action, 7, July 2014. ","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/24859","body":"Hospital management information systems (HMIS) is a key component of national health information systems (HIS), and actions required of hospital management to support information generation in Kenya are articulated in specific policy documents. The authors evaluated core functions of data generation and reporting within hospitals in Kenya to facilitate interpretation of national reports and to provide guidance on key areas requiring improvement to support data use in decision making. Study findings indicated that the HMIS does not deliver quality data. Significant constraints exist in data quality assurance, supervisory support, data infrastructure in respect to information and communications technology application, human resources, financial resources, and integration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Back to the future: what would the post-2015 global development goals look like if we replicated methods used to construct the Millennium Development Goals?","field_subtitle":"Brolan CE, Lee S, Kim D and Hill PS: Globalization and Health (10)19, 3 April 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/10/1/19","body":"The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were \u2018top-down\u2019 goals formulated by policy elites drawing from targets within United Nations (UN) summits and conferences in the 1990s. Contemporary processes shaping the new post-2015 development agenda are more collaborative and participatory, markedly different to the pre-MDG era. This study examines what would the outcome be if a methodology similar to that used for the MDGs were applied to the formulation of the post-2015 development goals (Post-2015DGs), identifying those targets arising from UN summits and conferences since the declaration of the MDGs, and aggregating them into goals. The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) list of major UN summits and conferences from 2001 to 2012 was utilised to examine targets. The DESA list was chosen due to the agency\u2019s core mission to promote development for all. Targets meeting MDG criteria of clarity, conciseness and measurability were selected and clustered into broad goals based on processes outlined by Hulme and Vandemoortele. The Post-2015DGs that were identified were formatted into language congruent with the MDGs to assist in the comparative analysis, and then further compared to the 12 illustrative goals offered by the UN High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development (High-Level Panel) Agenda\u2019s May 2013 report. Ten Post-2015DGs were identified. Six goals expressly overlapped with the current MDGs and four new goals were identified. Health featured prominently in the MDG agenda, and continues to feature strongly in four of the 10 Post-2015DGs. However the Post-2015DGs reposition health within umbrella agendas relating to women, children and the ageing. Six of the 10 Post-2015DGs incorporate the right to health agenda, emphasising both the standing and interconnection of the health agenda in DESA\u2019s summits and conferences under review. Two Post-2015DGs have been extended into six separate goals by the High-Level Panel, and it is these goals that are clearly linked to sustainable development diaspora. This study exposes the evolving political agendas underplaying the current post-2015 process, as targets from DESA\u2019s 22 major UN summits and conferences from 2001 to 2012 are not wholly mirrored in the HLP\u2019s 12 goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"British Chevening Scholarships for International Students","field_subtitle":"Applications close 15 November 2014, 23:59 GMT.","field_url":"http://www.chevening.org/news/view?id=195&x%5B0%5D=news/list","body":"Chevening Scholarships are the UK government\u2019s global scholarship programme, funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and partner organisations. The programme makes awards to outstanding scholars with leadership potential from around the world to study postgraduate courses at universities in the UK. The programme provides full or part funding for full-time courses at postgraduate level, normally a one-year Master\u2019s degree, in any subject and at any UK university.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Community-Based Interventions for the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases of Poverty","field_subtitle":"Sommerfeld J, Zhou X (eds):  Infectious diseases of Poverty, 31 July 2014","field_url":"http://www.idpjournal.com/SERIES/CBI","body":"Effective and simple interventions and tools exist that can be used to either prevent, treat or rehabilitate patients suffering from infectious diseases of poverty (IDoP). The delivery of these interventions and tools to the affected populations, however, has proven difficult due to weak public health systems in many disease-endemic countries. Disease control and public health programmes are increasingly advocating community-based delivery strategies and interventions. These depend, to a large degree, on trained community health workers whose performance in various areas of health care such as maternal and child health has been the subject of rigorous recent systematic reviews. Community-based delivery platforms are increasingly being proposed not only to ensure sustainability and combat co-infections, but also to build capacity for integration of NTDs with existing malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS programs for which more sophisticated healthcare delivery systems already exist. This thematic series of eight papers provides an overview on infectious diseases of poverty and integrated community-based interventions, describes the analytical framework and the methodology used to guide the systematic reviews, reports findings for the effectiveness of community-based interventions for the prevention and control of helminthic NTDs, non-helminthic NTDs, malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis and proposes a way forward. While previous reviews focus on process and effectiveness of integrated community-based interventions under real life field conditions, this series of papers evaluates the efficacy of such interventions with respect to disease or prevention outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Controversial policy to regulate doctors on hold","field_subtitle":"Gonzalez L: Health-e News, 31 July 2014. ","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/2014/07/31/controversial-policy-regulate-doctors-hold/","body":"In late May, President Jacob Zuma South Africa signed into law long-dormant sections of the National Health Act that would give the Director General of Health the power to deny doctors operating licenses depending on where in the country the medical professional wished to operate, or open or expand a practice. Following this, doctors would have had to apply to the Department of Health for a \u201ccertificate of need,\u201d or permission to work in an area, by 1 April 2016. SAMA, the South African Dental Association, and the specialist body, the South African Private Practitioners Forum have all vocally opposed Certificates of Need and were considering Constitutional Court litigation against the department over the matter. The Department of Health has, however, decided to shelve plans to regulate where doctors could practice \u2013 at least temporarily. Department of Health spokesperson Joe Maila stated that the intention is not to redraft the Act but to allow parties sufficient time to draft and engage with regulations before the act takes effect. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Cultivating unemployment: Can agriculture create jobs in South Africa?","field_subtitle":"Neves D: Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies: 20 March 2014 ","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qM9xcJrs7-c","body":"Cultivating Unemployment takes a hard look at the realities of rural economies in South Africa and begins to grapple with the policy implications of these realities. The video shows the challenges and difficulties involved in creating rural economies that can multiply benefits for rural dwellers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 163: When it comes to transforming health systems, who counts?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Getting Treatment and Care to the Last Mile: Analyzing the Health Surveillance Assistant Cadre in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Martiniuk A, Smith S, Deveridge A, Berman J, Negin J, Mwambene N, Chingaipe E: Africa Initiative Discussion Paper 10, 23 2014","field_url":"http://www.africaportal.org/articles/2014/01/23/getting-treatment-and-care-last-mile-analyzing-health-surveillance-assistant","body":"As low- and middle-income countries face continued shortages of human resources for health and the double burden of infectious and chronic diseases, there is renewed international interest in the potential for community health workers to take on a growing role in strengthening health systems. Health surveillance assistants (HSAs) \u2014 as the community health cadre in Zomba District, Malawi is known \u2014 play a vital role by connecting the community with the formal health care sector. The latest research from the Africa Initiative provides a situational analysis of the HSA cadre and its contribution to the delivery of health services in Malawi. The authors\u2019 findings show that HSAs face numerous challenges related to training, as well as challenges in defining their roles and those of their supervisors. They conclude with recommendations to improve HSA training and policy, with the ultimate goal of improving the effectiveness of this cadre of worker, and improving the health of the population.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"International Drug Price Indicator Guide","field_subtitle":"Management Sciences for Health: Boston, 2014","field_url":"http://erc.msh.org/mainpage.cfm?file=1.0.htm&module=DMP&language=english","body":"The International Drug Price Indicator Guide contains a spectrum of prices from pharmaceutical suppliers, international development organizations, and government agencies. The Guide aims to make price information more widely available in order to improve procurement of medicines of assured quality for the lowest possible price. Comparative price information is important for getting the best price, and this is an essential reference for anyone involved in the procurement of pharmaceuticals. Management Sciences for Health (MSH) has published the International Drug Price Indicator Guide since 1986 and updates it annually.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Introducing the Open and Collaborative Science in Development Network ","field_subtitle":"Open and Collaborative Science in Development Network, July 2014","field_url":"http://ocsdnet.org/","body":"The Open and Collaborative Science in Development Network (OCSDNet) announces the launch of the network and a public Call for Concept Notes on case studies that explore the linkages between Open Science and development initiatives. Open and Collaborative Science (OCS) is a set of ideas and practices that aims to change the traditional culture of research by making the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge inclusive and publicly accessible. Open approaches to science include increased sharing of research plans and data, participatory citizen science, distributed \u201ccrowdsourced\u201d forms of data collection, and innovative models of large or small scale scientific collaborations, enabled by networked technologies. While principles of openness and collaboration are recognized as critical for development, they remain to be realized. Moreover, there is limited awareness about the benefits and practices of OCS in the Global South.  If the global scientific community understands how scientific knowledge can be effectively made more open and inclusive, then researchers and research-users in the Global South and North can work to ensure that scientific knowledge informs development efforts. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Journal of Health Diplomacy (call for papers on Africa, health and diplomacy","field_subtitle":"Call closes: 3 November 2014","field_url":"https://journals.carleton.ca/jhd/index.php/journal","body":"The Journal of Health Diplomacy (JHD) is now receiving manuscripts for its third issue, titled: Africa, health and diplomacy. This issue is broadly concerned with the theory and practice of health diplomacy of African states, as a co-operation with the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET). The issue will include invited and submitted manuscripts.  To be considered for the latter, please submit your proposed manuscript to mark.pearcey@carleton.ca by 3 November 2014.  Manuscripts submitted to JHD will undergo a peer-review process, with referees selected for their particular knowledge/experience on the topic of the manuscript. In light of this, we ask authors to ensure that their identity is not revealed directly or indirectly on any page. Manuscripts that are being considered for publication elsewhere, or that have been previously published must not be submitted to the journal. A complete set of author guidelines is available on the journal website. JHD welcomes contributions from all academic disciplines, including international relations, political science, anthropology, sociology, history and geography. We are also interested in interdisciplinary perspectives that cross the boundaries between different theoretical fields and represent novel understandings of health diplomacy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"New and old global health actors: effectiveness vs. legitimacy?","field_subtitle":"van Shaik L, van de Pas R: Clingendael, 1-66, July 2014","field_url":"http://www.clingendael.nl/publication/new-and-old-global-health-actors-effectiveness-vs-legitimacy","body":"The democratic legitimacy of transnational arrangements for global health is contested. The traditional United Nations\u2019 body for health, the World Health Organization (WHO), is subject to severe criticism regarding its focus, effectiveness, and independence from country specific, and private sector interests. It is confronted by budget cuts and a fundamental reorganization. Other major actors, such as the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), Global Fund and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (hereafter The Gates), make significant contributions to international health projects, but they can be criticized for not being representative and accountable. The global health landscape in general has become an intransparent patchwork of organizations and interests, where objectives of public health, development, economy, security, and foreign policy dominate to various degrees, and sometimes clash. This paper discusses the principal arrangements for transnational governance in the area of global health, and analyses their democratic legitimacy using five different prisms: (1) representation; (2)accountability; (3) transparency; (4) effectiveness; and (5) deliberation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Opportunities and Challenges in Tanzania\u2019s Sugar Industry: Lessons for SAGCOT and the New Alliance","field_subtitle":"Sulle E, Smalley R and Malale L: Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, Future Agricultures, Policy Brief 76, 1 August 2014","field_url":"http://www.plaas.org.za/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/Policy_Brief_076.pdf","body":"Sugarcane outgrower schemes are central to several policy and donor strategies for driving agricultural growth and reducing poverty, including the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor project in Tanzania (SAGCOT). But field research into the outgrower component of Kilombero Sugar Company, Tanzania\u2019s largest and best regarded sugar producer, demonstrates a pressing need for change. Sugarcane production in Kilombero has had benefits for farming households as well as the local and national economy. However, unsustainable expansion and governance issues in the outgrower scheme have created new risks. There are pressures on food security as a result of a decline in land for food crops, and on incomes, particularly when outgrowers\u2019 cane remains unharvested and farmers\u2019 payments are delayed. These problems have been aggravated by the importation of foreign sugar into the country. For this industry to provide its maximum benefits to the economy and to the household, a policy, legal and institutional framework is needed that provides greater efficiency, accountability and transparency, as well as greater security for all participating stakeholders. There are lessons for the sugar industry, as well as donors and investors of ongoing and future agribusiness developments in Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Pilot-testing service-based planning for health care in rural Zambia","field_subtitle":"Goma F, Murphy G, Libetwa M et al: BMC Health Services Research 14(Suppl 1):S7, 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/14/S1/S7","body":"The objective of the study was to demonstrate the effectiveness of service-based human resources for health (HRH) planning through its adaptation in two rural Zambian districts, Gwembe and Chibombo. The health conditions causing the greatest mortality and morbidity in each district were identified using administrative data and consultations with community health committees and health workers. The number and type of health care services required to address these conditions were estimated based on their population sizes, incidence and prevalence of each condition, and desired levels of service. The capacity of each district\u2019s health workers to provide these services was estimated using a survey of health workers (n=44) that assessed the availability of their specific competencies. The primary health conditions identified in the two districts were HIV/AIDS in Gwembe and malaria in Chibombo. Although the competencies of the existing health workforces in these two mostly aligned with these conditions, some substantial gaps were found between the services the workforce can provide and the services their populations need. The largest gaps identified in both districts were: performing laboratory testing and interpreting results, performing diagnostic imaging and interpreting results, taking and interpreting a patient\u2019s medical history, performing a physical examination, identifying and diagnosing the illness in question, and assessing eligibility for antiretroviral treatment. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy brief 36: Increasing African agency in the design of Performance Based Financing ","field_subtitle":"U Sheffield, et al: EQUINET, Harare, July 2014","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20Polbrief%2036%20Gov.pdf","body":"Billions of dollars are channelled each year to African governments by external funders, from global institutions such as the World Bank and Global Fund to support health systems. Much of the money is provided in the form of \u201cPerformance Based financing\u201d (PBF) schemes. In 2013/4 we reviewed the decision making on and design of these PBF schemes, including through interviews with officials in Africa and at Africa regional and global levels. This brief explains what PBF schemes are and the reasons for their popularity. It presents the positive and negative features of and views expressed on PBF. It presents a set of questions national authorities should take into account when negotiating any PBF type scheme within health systems and makes recommendations for African officials who wish to improve the design and implementation of PBF schemes to support national health system goals. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy Brief 37: Health Centre Committees as a vehicle for social participation in health systems in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"TARSC with CWGH, Medico: EQUINET  Harare June 2014","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20Polbrief%2037%20HCC%202014.pdf","body":"The adoption of primary health care (PHC) in all east and Southern African(ESA) countries means that public participation is central to the design and implementation of health systems. One mechanism for this is through Health Centre Committees (HCCs) that involve representatives of communities and primary-care level health workers in planning, implementing and monitoring health services and activities. Known by different names in different countries, they are a common mechanism for communities to ensure that health systems access and use resources to address their needs and are responsive and accountable to them. They have been found to have a positive impact on health outcomes. This brief presents information and experiences from document review and from the exchanges of people working with HCCs in ESA countries at a 2014 EQUINET regional meeting on how HCCs are functioning in the region. It presents proposals for improving their functioning and impact.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy Brief 38: Taking the WHO Global code of Practice on the International Recruitment of health Personnel in Africa from bottom drawer to negotiating table","field_subtitle":"U Limpopo, ECSA, ACHEST, TARSC: EQUINET, Harare, July 2014","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20Polbrief%2038%20Code%202014.pdf","body":"ESA countries face many challenges in the absolute shortages, maldistribution, low production and poor utilisation of their health workforces. The World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel (the \u201cCode\u201d) was unanimously adopted by the World Health Assembly in May 2010 to address recruitment and migration of health workers. However, its implementation has shown limited progress in east and southern Africa, according to a study in the EQUINET Research programme on global health diplomacy. Health worker migration is not seen to be the scale of problem it was a decade ago in the region. While concerns from the region were mostly included in the Code,the demand for \u201cmutuality of benefit\u201d and \u201ccompensation\u201d were not. This was interpreted by some stakeholders to mean that the Code did not fully accommodate African interests. Implementation of the Code is reported to be impeded by lack of champions; of resources for implementation; by weak functional data (systems) on mobility of health personnel, and by limited domestication and dissemination of the Code in ESA countries. This brief presents opportunities to use the Code in negotiating bilateral agreements and suggests ways of strengthening its implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Rape of bodies, rape of resources, rape of a nation","field_subtitle":"Mayanja N: Pambazuka News, 691; 14 August 2014","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/92824","body":"The author argues that the situation in DRC illustrates the deficiency of global ethics, selfishness and the longstanding failure to value the lives of the African people. Tackling the DRC\u2019s impasse requires a comprehensive approach and involvement of national, regional, continental and international communities. The author argues that the DRC is embroiled in a geo-political and economic strategic battle in the search for scarce resources that are abundant in Congo. It is the paradox of the resource curse. It is hardly remembered that sustainable extraction of the minerals would benefit global interests longer and the rain forests in the DRC are vital to curbing climate change. Tackling the DRC\u2019s impasse is argued to require a comprehensive approach and involvement of national, regional, continental and international actors, coupled with continued research to inform policies and praxis. Equally, varied strategies designed from local cultures, African philosophy and interdisciplinary academic views are vital. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Reflections on AIDS 2014 \u2013 Stepping up the Pace and Leaving No one Behind ","field_subtitle":"Burford G: CAFOD August 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/?p=1637","body":"This commentary was written on the International AIDS Conference in Melbourne 20-25 July 2012, the 20th gathering of the largest regular conference of any health or development issue, bringing together politicians, scientists, epidemiologists, practitioners, policy makers, the private sector and communities of people living with and affected by HIV. There is uniqueness in this fight against HIV in that it is a social movement, pulling people together and putting people at the forefront of the response to sustain efforts on addressing HIV. The theme of the 2014 conference was \u2018Stepping up the Pace,\u2019 and the author comments that we must redouble our efforts on areas like stigma and discrimination, which after 30 years is still increasing in some regions. 'We have the tools; we need to step up the pace.\u2019 Today, there are 15 million people on treatment, yet there are still alarming challenges that must be tackled in order to even contemplate an AIDS free generation. Statistics from 2013 show there were 1.5 million HIV deaths, 2.1 million new infections and 35 million people living with HIV. Of the 35 million people living with HIV, 55% (19 million) don\u2019t know they have the virus. They haven\u2019t been tested and if they don\u2019t find this out, they will die. The conference highlighted many reasons as to why people do not access or drop out of treatment. The author argues that people must not become those tired advocates beating the same drum, but come back from the conference championing the successes of work over the last 30 years and enter a phase of renewed energy to step up the pace and most importantly leave no one behind.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Roundtable discussion: what is the future role of the private sector in health?","field_subtitle":"Stallworthy G, Boahene K, Ohiri K, Pamba A and Knezovich J: Globalization and Health (10) 55, 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/10/1/55","body":"The role for the private sector in health remains subject to much debate, especially within the context of achieving universal health coverage. This roundtable discussion offered perspectives from a range of stakeholders \u2013 a health funder, a representative from an implementing organisation, a national-level policy-maker, and an expert working in a large multi-national company \u2013 on what the future may hold for the private sector in health. The health funder argued that the discussion about the future role of the private sector has been bogged down in language. He argued for a \u2018both/and\u2019 approach rather than an \u2018either/or\u2019 when it comes to talking about health service provision in low- and middle-income countries. An implementer of health insurance in sub-Saharan Africa examined the comparative roles of public sector actors, private sector actors and funding agencies, suggesting that they must work together to mobilize domestic resources to fund and deliver health services in the longer term. Thirdly, a special advisor working in the federal government of Nigeria noted that the private sector plays a significant role in funding and delivering health services there, and that the government must engage the private sector or be left behind. Finally, a representative from a multi-national pharmaceutical corporation gave an overview of global shifts that are creating opportunities for the private sector in health markets. No community member views were provided. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC-EU EPA negotiations to be concluded","field_subtitle":"Bridges Africa: 22 July 2014","field_url":"http://www.ictsd.org/bridges-news/bridges-africa/news/sadc-eu-epa-negotiations-to-be-concluded","body":"Chief negotiators of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have \"initialled\" the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union during a joint negotiation session in Pretoria, South Africa on 15 July.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Determinants of Health Equity ","field_subtitle":"Marmot M, Allen J:    American Journal of Public Health: 104, S4, S517-S519, September 2014","field_url":"http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302200","body":"This supplement explores social determinants of equity in health and highlights differences by socioeconomic status and geographic location, among others. The paper highlights that to reduce health inequalities requires action to reduce socioeconomic and other inequalities. There are other factors that influence health, but these are outweighed by the overwhelming impact of social and economic factors\u2014the material, social, political, and cultural conditions that shape our lives and our behaviours. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern African states to collaborate on Ebola","field_subtitle":"Makholwa A: BusinessDay live, 7 August 2014","field_url":"http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/health/2014/08/07/southern-african-states-to-collaborate-on-ebola","body":"HEALTH ministers in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have agreed to collaborate in the event of an outbreak of Ebola in the region. The ministers held an extra ordinary meeting in Johannesburg in August to plan a coherent response should the Ebola outbreak in West Africa spread to other regions of the continent as feared. There has not been a reported case of Ebola in the SADC region but there is a risk. People travel frequently between Southern and West African countries. Among other things, the SADC ministers agreed to organise cross-border consultations to facilitate the exchange of information, and to strengthen surveillance of the virus. They agreed to commit additional financial resources, but proposed a regional fund for emergency situations as a long-term solution. South Africa was chosen as the centre of excellence in Ebola laboratory diagnosis in the region. It is expected to help with the training of health professionals treating infected individuals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Supporting middle-cadre health care workers in Malawi: Lessons learned during implementation of the PALM PLUS package","field_subtitle":"Sodhi S, Banda H, Kathyola D, et al: BMC Health Services Research 14(Suppl 1):S8, 2014  ","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/14/S1/S8","body":"The government of Malawi is committed to the rollout of antiretroviral treatment in Malawi in the public health sector; however one of the primary challenges has been the shortage of trained health care workers. The Practical Approach to Lung Health Plus HIV/AIDS in Malawi (PALM PLUS) package is an innovative guideline and training intervention that supports primary care middle-cadre health care workers to provide front-line integrated primary care. The purpose of this paper is to describe the lessons learned in implementing the PALM PLUS package. A clinical tool, based on algorithm- and symptom-based guidelines was adapted to the Malawian context. An accompanying training program based on educational outreach principles was developed and a cascade training approach was used for implementation of the PALM PLUS package in 30 health centres, targeting clinical officers, medical assistants, and nurses. Lessons learned were identified during program implementation through engagement with collaborating partners and program participants and review of program evaluation findings. Key lessons learned for successful program implementation of the PALM PLUS package include the importance of building networks for peer-based support, ensuring adequate training capacity, making linkages with continuing professional development accreditation and providing modest in-service training budgets. The main limiting factors to implementation were turnover of staff and desire for financial training allowances. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Systematic review of facility-based sexual and reproductive health services for female sex workers in Africa","field_subtitle":"Dhana A, Luchters S, Moore L, Lafort Y, Roy A, Scorgie F and Chersich M: Globalization and Health (10)46, 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/10/1/46","body":"Several biological, behavioural, and structural risk factors place female sex workers (FSWs) at heightened risk of HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and other adverse sexual and reproductive health (SRH) outcomes. FSW projects in many settings have demonstrated effective ways of altering this risk, improving the health and wellbeing of these women. Yet the optimum delivery model of FSW projects in Africa is unclear. This systematic review describes intervention packages, service-delivery models, and extent of government involvement in these services in Africa. The authors located 149 articles, which described 54 projects. Most were localised and small-scale; focused on research activities (rather than on large-scale service delivery); operated with little coordination, either nationally or regionally; and had scanty government support (instead a range of international donors generally funded services). Almost all sites only addressed HIV prevention and STIs. Most services distributed male condoms, but only 10% provided female condoms. HIV services mainly encompassed HIV counselling and testing; few offered HIV care and treatment such as CD4 testing or antiretroviral therapy (ART). While STI services were more comprehensive, periodic presumptive treatment was only provided in 11 instances. Services often ignored broader SRH needs such as family planning, cervical cancer screening, and gender-based violence services. Sex work programmes in Africa have limited coverage and a narrow scope of services and are poorly coordinated with broader HIV and SRH services. To improve FSWs\u2019 health and reduce onward HIV transmission, access to ART needs to be addressed urgently. Nevertheless, HIV prevention should remain the mainstay of services. Service delivery models that integrate broader SRH services and address structural risk factors are much needed. Government-led FSW services of high quality and scale would markedly reduce SRH vulnerabilities of FSWs in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The accountability for reasonableness approach to guide priority setting in health systems within limited resources - findings from action research at district level in Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia","field_subtitle":"Byskov J, Marchal B, Maluka S, Zulu J, Bukachi S, Hurtig A, Blystad A, Kamuzora P, Michelo C, Nyandieka L, Ndawi B, Bloch P, Olsen \u00d8: Health Research Policy and Systems 12:49, 2014","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/12/1/49","body":"Priority-setting decisions are based on an important, but not sufficient set of values and thus lead to disagreement on priorities. Accountability for Reasonableness (AFR) is an ethics-based approach to a legitimate and fair priority-setting process that builds upon four conditions: relevance, publicity, appeals, and enforcement, which facilitate agreement on priority-setting decisions and gain support for their implementation. This intervention study applied an action research methodology to assess implementation of AFR in one district in Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia, respectively. The assessments focused on selected disease, program, and managerial areas. The values underlying the AFR approach were in all three districts well-aligned with general values expressed by both service providers and community representatives. There was some variation in the interpretations and actual use of the AFR in the decision-making processes in the three districts, and its effect ranged from an increase in awareness of the importance of fairness to a broadened engagement of health team members and other stakeholders in priority setting and other decision-making processes. District stakeholders were able to take greater charge of closing the gap between nationally set planning on one hand and the local realities and demands of the served communities on the other within the limited resources at hand. This study provided arguments for the continued application and further assessment of the potential of AFR in supporting priority-setting and other decision-making processes in health systems to achieve better agreed and more sustainable health improvements linked to a mutual democratic learning with potential wider implications.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The men\u2019s health gap: men must be included in the global health equity agenda","field_subtitle":"Baker P, Dworkin S, Tong S, Banks I, Shand T, Yamey G: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2014;92:618-620","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/92/8/13-132795/en/","body":"In most parts of the world, health outcomes among boys and men continue to be substantially worse than among girls and women, yet this gender-based disparity in health has received little national, regional or global acknowledgement or attention from health policy-makers or health-care providers. Including both women and men in efforts to reduce gender inequalities in health as part of the post-2015 sustainable development agenda would improve everyone\u2019s health and well-being. This paper notes that three types of intervention targeting men have emerged in recent years \u2013 outreach, partnership and gender transformation \u2013 and there is now evidence to support all three approaches. The authors argue that global, regional and national health and development agencies could certainly learn from the success of civil society groups in promoting policies that target men. For example, the South African non-profit organization Sonke Gender Justice successfully pushed the government to add interventions targeting men within South Africa\u2019s national HIV strategic plan. Closing the men\u2019s health gap, it is argued, can benefit men, women and their children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The promise and limitations of cash transfer programs for HIV prevention","field_subtitle":"Fieno J and Leclerc-Madlala S: African Journal of AIDS Research (2) 13, 153\u2013160, 2014","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajar/article/view/105525","body":"This article examines elements of a successful cash transfer program from Latin America and discusses challenges inherent in scaling-up such programs. The authors attempt a cost simulation of a cash transfer program for HIV prevention in South Africa comparing its cost and relative effectiveness \u2013 in number of HIV infections averted \u2013 against other prevention interventions. If a cash transfer program were to be taken to scale, the intervention would not have a substantial effect on decreasing the force of the epidemic in middle- and low-income countries. The integration of cash transfer programs into other sectors and linking them to a broader objective such as girls\u2019 educational attainment is argued by the authors as one way of addressing doubts raised by the authors regarding their value for HIV prevention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Social, Economic and Environmental Implications of Diamond Mining in Chiadzwa","field_subtitle":"Chimonyo G, Mungure S, Scott P: Centre for Research and Development, 2014","field_url":"http://www.crdzim.com/Implications%20of%20diamond%20mining%20in%20Chiadzwa%20pdf.pdf","body":"This report documents the progression of events in Chiadzwa Zimbabwe in terms of diamond mining and trading, the socio-economic and environmental impacts and the conflict between authorities, (government agencies) and the local communities. The project had as its objective to inform the degree of adherence to the doctrine of 'Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources'. The intrusion of mining in Chiadzwa is argued to have displaced the cultural and social mosaic while privatising the commons and subjecting the villagers to several risks and harms with minimal benefits. The existence of clandestine networks is reported to have made an underhand diamond economy \r\ninjurious to the prospective diamond-anchored economic resurgence, limiting the benefit sharing arrangements. The authors argue that the extractive nature of the diamond industry should be accompanied with appropriate observance of environmental laws, appropriate corporate social responsibility and transparent accountability by all stakeholders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Third Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"Cape Town International Convention Centre, South Africa, 30 September to 3 October 2014","field_url":"http://hsr2014.healthsystemsresearch.org/","body":"The Third Global Symposium on Health Systems Research which will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 30 September to 3 October 2014 with pre-Symposium satellite sessions on 29 and 30 September. The theme of the symposium is the science and practice of people-centred health systems, chosen to enable participants to address current and critical concerns of relevance across countries in all parts of the world. Researchers, policy-makers, funders, implementers and other stakeholders, from all regions and all socio-economic levels, will work together on the challenge of how to make health systems more responsive to the needs of individuals, families and communities. Participation is encouraged from experts and newcomers to the broad field of health systems research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"UN working group agrees to proposed sustainable development goals","field_subtitle":"Bridges Africa: 24 July 2014","field_url":"http://www.ictsd.org/bridges-news/bridges-africa/news/un-working-group-agrees-to-proposed-sustainable-development-goals?utm_content=rloewenson%40healthnet.zw&utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=UN%20working%20group%20agrees%20to%20propos","body":"The UN working group charged with outlining a proposed set of sustainable development goals (SDGs) adopted an outcome document on Saturday. The recommended goals will now be sent to the UN General Assembly for consideration as part of the discussions around the post-2015 development agenda. The final 23-page document maintains the 17 goals outlined in a revised \u201czero draft\u201d \u2013 released by the working group\u2019s co-chairs in early July to serve as a basis for this final meeting \u2013 with 169 targets. Sixty-two of these can be classed as \u201cmeans of implementation,\u201d (MoI) or the methods to achieve each goal. During the closing plenary on Saturday morning, the working group co-chairs said that while they were happy with their efforts in steering participants towards an outcome document, they recognised the final product was not flawless. Another year of discussion is likely as the UN General Assembly reflects upon the proposed goals. The document does not yet contain indicators for measuring progress towards each goal and target, which was part of the working group\u2019s original mandate. The eventual addition of indicators at a later stage may prove a useful opportunity to clarify some of the proposed targets and further work will likely be undertaken in this area.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Utilization of health care services in rural and urban areas: A determinant factor in planning and managing health care delivery systems","field_subtitle":"Oladipo JA: African Health Sciences (2)14: 322-333","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ahs/article/view/104225/94316","body":"Disparities in use of healthcare services between rural and urban areas have been empirically attributed to several factors. This study explores the existence of this disparity and its implication for planning and managing healthcare delivery systems. The objectives determine the relative importance of the various predisposing, enabling, need and health services factors on utilisation of health services; similarity between rural and urban areas; and major explanatory variables for utilisation. A four-stage model of service utilisation was constructed with 31 variables under appropriate model components. Data is collected using cross-sectional sample survey of 1086 potential health services consumers in selected health facilities and resident milieu via questionnaire. Data is analysed using factor analysis and cross tabulation. The 4-stage model is validated for the aggregate data and data for the rural areas with 3-stage model for urban areas. The order of importance of the factors is need, enabling, predisposing and health services. 11 variables are found to be powerful predictors of utilisation. Planning of different categories of health care facilities in different locations should be based on utilisation rates while proper management of established facilities should aim to improve health seeking behaviour of people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"When it comes to transforming health systems, who counts?","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson, Training and Research Support Centre","field_url":"","body":"\r\nOur health systems are sites of constant change and struggle. In east and southern Africa national health services centred on comprehensive primary health care (PHC) have been \u2018reorganised\u2019 through waves of liberalisation, privatisation, disease focused verticalisation, performance based financing and many other reforms. People have come to services to find new rules for what is free and what is charged, for what medicines and supplies are present and what is not, and community health activities and workers have appeared, disappeared and appeared again. \r\n\r\nThe drive for a universal national health service was embedded in national liberation struggles. The PHC approach was a global concept that resonated strongly with popular expectations of what post independent health systems should look like. Many of the subsequent changes have emerged as waves of international reform, increasingly influenced by global level actors. When we ask people in participatory sessions to form a human sculpture of how their health systems are organised around a patient visiting for care, the sculpture most commonly has health workers, managers and others looking upwards to the next level to get the resources and attention they need to solve problems, (most looking away from the patient), usually with the person representing a powerful but distant global funder elevated in both power and stature on a chair in a far corner of the room. \r\n\r\nWhile these may be caricatures, they raise the question- when it comes to changes in health systems, who counts? Whose views, expectations, ideas, evidence, numbers, analysis and knowledge is used to generate change? \r\n\r\nThis matters because health is \u2018a state of mental, physical and social wellbeing and not just the absence of disease\u2019, because health outcomes reflect conditions that are socially created, and health systems are thus social institutions, built out of and influencing society. The explosion of knowledge on the biomedical basis of disease and on risk factors in public health has informed massive advances in survival. It has, however, weakly addressed and often ignored the social context and determinants of health and the social nature of health systems. As a consequence we face persistent and sometimes widening inequality in health and in access to services, rising levels of multiple morbidity and chronic conditions, epidemic resurgence and antibiotic resistance, amongst other challenges. \r\n\r\nThe problem does not lie in the extraordinary scientific innovation and creativity that lay behind these medical advances. The problem lies in one form of knowledge subjugating others, excluding and disempowering others from the creative processes that transform society, a mistake akin to suggesting that the trunk of the elephant is the whole elephant.  \r\n\r\nThat knowledge as socially constructed is not a new concept. This understanding has been central to social sciences and to cultural, anticolonial, gender and indigenous struggles. With the failure to implement what is known, in health sciences it has led to increased attention to fields such as health systems and policy research, where rather than absolute prescriptions, there is a quest to better understand \u2018what works where and for whom\u2019.  \r\n\r\nThis wider lens will generate a better understanding of context in health sciences. Will it also overcome a tendency for ordinary people to be the last to know the waves of reforms transforming their health systems?  Freire argued decades ago that meaningful social transformation, including of health systems, can only occur with the deep involvement of the people affected. The incubation of the PHC approach, the efforts to build national health services across diverse countries, the refusal to allow health care to be commodified, the gains in access to improved living and working conditions have all been a product of social and political action. \r\n\r\nThis type of action does not grow out of knowledge and perspective built in distant corridors.  In the last century activist scientists such as Orlando Fals Borda in Latin America pointed to a different understanding of science, one that seeks to not only understand the world but to transform it, and, as importantly, one in which knowledge is built from lived experience and from the learning and self-awareness that grows from action. Participatory action research (PAR) has developed in different forms as a method for such science. It overcomes the separation between subject and object. Those affected by the problem are the primary source of information and the primary actors in generating, validating and using the knowledge for action, and using action and change as a means to new knowledge. A new methods reader on \u2018Participatory action research in health systems\u2019 produced by EQUINET  and TARSC with Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research and IDRC Canada that can be obtained on the EQUINET website in end September details the principles and methods of PAR, its challenges and the many ways and levels at which it is being used. \r\n\r\nIn different parts of the world, PAR has built a more direct link between theory building and practice in health systems.  Workers and unions have used PAR to expose and organise for change in working conditions that are harmful to their health. Young people in high and low income countries have used it to raise visibility of and engage with authorities on harmful community environments.  Indigenous communities have used it to negotiate the organisation of their health care. It has been used in continuous processes in local authorities in shaping PHC, learning from cycles of transformation. \r\n\r\nThe practice of PAR flags that change is not itself a problem in health systems in east and southern Africa. It is rather a problem when the knowledge used to guide this change does not draw on the experience, knowledge and wisdom of those directly involved, through methods that build their power to inform, learn from and shape that change. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please read Participatory action research in health systems: a methods reader, available on the EQUINET website www.equinetafrica.org from end September 2014","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"WTO\u2019s least developed countries submit collective request on services waiver","field_subtitle":"Bridges Africa, 25 July 2014","field_url":"http://www.ictsd.org/bridges-news/bridges-africa/news/wto%E2%80%99s-least-developed-countries-submit-collective-request-on?utm_content=rloewenson%40healthnet.zw&utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=WTO%26rsquo%3Bs%20least%20developed%20co","body":"In July the WTO\u2019s poorest members, known as the Least Developed Country (LDC) Group, submitted a collective request regarding the preferential treatment they would like to see for their services and service suppliers. The move comes seven months after the global trade body\u2019s ministerial conference in Bali, Indonesia, where members agreed to take steps for bringing this \u201cservices waiver\u201d into operation. The LDC services waiver, as it is referred to in trade circles, was initially an outcome of the 2011 WTO Ministerial Conference, held in Geneva, Switzerland. However, in the two years that followed, no preferences had been requested by LDCs or granted to them, prompting WTO members to reconsider ways to use the services waiver. As a result, at the WTO\u2019s subsequent ministerial conference in Bali, Indonesia last December, members agreed to initiate a process aimed at promoting the \u201cexpeditious and effective operationalisation\u201d of the LDC services waiver. Over the next six months, WTO members will engage in consultations with the LDC Group in order to respond to the collective request at the high-level meeting. The LDCs have reserved the right to modify the request\u2019s terms ahead of the event.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"10th Public Health Association of South Africa, ","field_subtitle":"Protea Ranch Resort, Polokwane, South Africa, 3-6 September 2014","field_url":"http://www.phasaconference.org.za","body":"The 10th anniversary of the Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) conference will be celebrated with the hosting of the conference in Polokwane (Limpopo) from 3 to 6 September 2014. The workshops will take place on the 3rd, the actual conference on the 4th and 5th, and the student symposium on the 6th of September. The theme for the 2014 conference is \u2018Dignity, rights and quality: towards a health care revolution\u2019. An invitation is extended to all our members, stake holders,  policy makers, public health academics and students, health professionals, health service managers and individuals from non-governmental and community-based health organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid and its implications for governance","field_subtitle":"Soko KB: Pambazuka News, 3 July 2014","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/92349","body":"Malawi is one of the most aid dependent countries in the world. When one considers the work that is done by international NGOs, however, or by them through local surrogates, it is argued that there is no aspect of life in Malawi that has escaped external funding. With July 6, 2014 a day 50 years to the day when Malawi became an independent state the author argues that it\u2019s important to accentuate the discussion on aid in Malawi and its implications for Malawi. the author argues that a heavy reliance on external funding means that foreigners, not the citizens, are in charge of the country\u2019s governance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals: The role of non-state providers in strengthening health systems towards Universal Health Coverage","field_subtitle":"Call Closes August 5 2014","field_url":"http://www.ahpsrproposalsubmission.org","body":"The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research in collaboration with the WHO Department of Service Delivery and Safety, Canada\u2019s International Development Research Centre and the Rockefeller Foundation, is launching a new research program focused on the role of non-state providers in strengthening health systems towards the achievement of Universal Health Coverage. Research funded under this call must contribute to answering the research question: What are the factors that have enabled or hindered interventions by governments to engage non-state providers in strengthening health systems towards the achievement of Universal Health Coverage and what are the reasons for it? Between 8-12 proposals will be awarded amounts of up to US$ 120,000 depending on the context in which the study is taking place. The Principal Investigator must be a researcher in an institution based in a low or middle income country. further detail and application procedures can be found on the website for the call. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Cape Town Conference 2014: Putting Public in Public Services.","field_subtitle":"Municipal Services Project, July 2014","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkv7HYFP012KbOTC4n1jBxNFcqTPqaHse","body":"Presenters' insights and experiences with progressive public services inspired and energized the 150+ people who came from across South Africa and around the world for this three-day event last April. All panel presentations and plenary talks recorded by students from the University of the Western Cape are available online. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Contribution of Noncommunicable Diseases to Medical Admissions of Elderly Adults in Africa: A Prospective, Cross-Sectional Study in Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania.","field_subtitle":" Akinyemi RO1, Izzeldin IM, Dotchin C, Gray WK, Adeniji O, Seidi OA, Mwakisambwe JJ, Mhina CJ, Mutesi F, Msechu HZ, Mteta KA, Ahmed MA, Hamid SH, Abuelgasim NA, Mohamed SA, Mohamed AY, et al: J Am Geriatr Soc. July 2014","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25041242","body":"The authors describe the nature of geriatric medical admissions to teaching hospitals in three countries in Africa (Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania) and compare them with data from the United Kingdom. They included all people aged 60 and older urgently medically admitted from March 1 to August 31, 2012. Data were collected regarding age, sex, date of admission, length of stay, diagnoses, medication, date of discharge or death, and discharge. In Africa, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) accounted for 81.0% (n = 708) of admissions (n = 874), and tuberculosis, malaria, and the human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome accounted for 4.6% (n = 40). Cerebrovascular accident (n = 224, 25.6%) was the most common reason for admission, followed by cardiac or circulatory dysfunction (n = 150, 17.2%). Rates of hypertension were remarkably similar in the United Kingdom (45.8%) and Africa (40.2%).In the elderly population, the predicted increased burden of NCDs on health services in Africa appears to have occurred. Greater awareness and some reallocation of resources toward NCDs may be required if the burden of such diseases is to be reduced.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion paper 102: African participation and partnership in performance-based financing: A case study in global health policy","field_subtitle":" Barnes A; Brown G; Harman S; Papamichail A; Banda P; Hayes R; Muliamba C : EQUINET, Harare, June 2014","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20GHD%20PBF%20Diss102.pdf","body":"Participation is a key policy concept in global health, and relates to the ability of stakeholders to engage with and shape health policy at four intersecting levels: local, national, regional and global. Such engagement remains the key normative aim behind debates about furthering more equitable health diplomacy and has, as a result, been increasingly integrated into the agenda of global agencies, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and the World Bank. This report forms part of a research programme led by EQUINET focusing on the participation of African actors in global health diplomacy. The report focuses on the participation of African actors in global health governance. In an attempt to better understand the spaces and places within which participation can occur, and particularly the ways in which global actors such as the Global Fund and the World Bank provide such opportunities, the research explored the following questions: \u2022 How do the Global Fund and World Bank provide spaces for participation in global health governance processes? \u2022 To what extent can African actors nationally and regionally extend their agency within these participatory spaces? \u2022 What role does the World Health Organisation (WHO) and its own governance play in the interface between African actors and the Global Fund and World Bank?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 162: How far does performance based financing tick the box of national ownership?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors affecting motivation and retention of primary health care workers in three disparate regions in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Ojakaa D, Olango S, Jarvis J: Human Resources for Health, 12:33, 6 June 2014. ","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/12/1/33/abstract","body":"This study investigated factors influencing motivation and retention of HCWs at primary health care facilities in three different settings in Kenya - the remote area of Turkana, the relatively accessible region of Machakos, and the disadvantaged informal urban settlement of Kibera in Nairobi.  A cross-sectional cluster sample design was used to select 59 health facilities that yielded interviews with 404 health care workers, grouped into 10 different types of service providers. Data were collected in November 2011 using structured questionnaires and a Focus Group Discussion guide. Findings were analyzed using bivariate and multivariate methods of the associations and determinants of health worker motivation and retention. The levels of education and gender factors were lowest in Turkana with female HCWs representing only 30% of the workers against a national average of 53%. A smaller proportion of HCWs in Turkana feel that they have adequate training for their jobs. Overall, 13% of the HCWs indicated that they had changed their job in the last 12 months and 20% indicated that they could leave their current job within the next two years. In terms of work environment, inadequate access to electricity, equipment, transport, housing, and the physical state of the health facility were cited as most critical, particularly in Turkana. The working environment is rated as better in private facilities. Adequate training, job security, salary, supervisor support, and manageable workload were identified as critical satisfaction factors. Family health care, salary, and terminal benefits were rated as important There are distinct motivational and retention factors that affect HCWs in the three regions. Findings and policy implications from this study point to a set of recommendations to be implemented at national and county levels. These include gender mainstreaming, development of appropriate retention schemes, competitive compensation packages, strategies for career growth, establishment of a model HRH community, and the conduct of a discrete choice experiment. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Faith-based health services as an alternative to privatization?  A Ugandan case study","field_subtitle":"Dambisya YM, Manenzhe M, Kibwika-Muyinda A: Municipal Services Project Occasional Paper July 2014","field_url":"http://www.municipalservicesproject.org/publication/faith-based-health-services-alternative-privatization-ugandan-case-study","body":"This study examines the delivery of health services by faith-based organizations (FBOs) as a possible alternative to privatization in Uganda, where they have been servicing communities since the mid-19th century. Their facilities focus on primary care and operate in rural, under-serviced areas where they provide access to care without discrimination on the basis of religion or ethnic group, charging affordable user fees while also treating those who cannot pay. The sector presently contributes to more than a quarter of all health services in the country, including the training of health professionals. Based on literature reviews and more than 30 key informant interviews, this research finds that FBOs promote solidarity through multi-stakeholder engagement and through cross-subsidization using mechanisms such as community health financing schemes that protect patients from catastrophic health expenditure. It analyzes how this \u2018private not-for-profit\u2019 sector fosters the development of a strong quasi-public ethos in service delivery, especially at the primary level of the Ugandan health system, posing a challenge to western liberal ideas about how the state and religion interface. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Fine print of the food wars","field_subtitle":"Shiva V: Pambazuka News, 688, 24 July 2014","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/92591","body":"Creating \u201cownership\u201d of seed through patents and intellectual property rights and imposing it globally through the World Trade Organisation, the author argues that the biotech industry has established a monopoly empire over seed and food. The author argues that the biotech industry is denying citizens the right to safe food and attempting to dismantle national laws on biosafety across Africa. The author argues that the public relations machinery of the biotech industry undermines counterarguments to GMOs by unfounded attacks on scientists. However she also points to growing citizens\u2019 outrage, and to sovereign countries rejecting the industrial monopoly over food systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Fulfilling the Health Agenda for Women and Children: The 2014 Report","field_subtitle":"Countdown to 2015: Geneva June 2014","field_url":"http://www.countdown2015mnch.org/reports-and-articles/2014-report","body":"The 2014 Report, Fulfilling the Health Agenda for Women and Children, was released exactly 18 months to the day from the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals at the end of 2015. Like previous Countdown reports, it includes an updated, detailed profile for each of the 75 Countdown countries, which together account for more than 95% of the global burden of maternal, newborn and child death. The report shows that progress has been impressive in some areas, but it also highlights the vast areas of unfinished business that must be prioritized in the post-2015 framework. The 2014 Report also provides an assessment of the state of the data to support evidence-based decisions in women's and children's health, and describes elements of the Countdown process that might inform ongoing efforts to hold the world to account for progress. It concludes by laying out concrete action steps that can be taken now to ensure continued progress for women and children in the years ahead.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"GMOs and food sovereignty: Which way Africa?","field_subtitle":"Makori H: Pambazuka news, 688, 24 July 2014","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/92594","body":"African governments are under intense pressure from within but also from big agribusiness and Western governments to embrace genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Throughout Africa, GMOs - organisms that have been biologically modified to incorporate genes with desired traits - are now being touted as a major solution to hunger and mass poverty. Supporters of biotechnology, like Kenyan-born Harvard scholar Prof Calestous Juma, believe that with GMOs Africa, which has 60 per cent of all the arable land, will be able to feed not just its people but the world. The author argues that governments must resist all forms of arm-twisting and food colonialism and make their biotechnology choices based on the facts. There are three basic concerns about GMOs. First, the science is at best inconclusive regarding the safety of genetically engineered organisms on human health and the environment. The second concern is about food sovereignty. Opponents are convinced that the campaign for GMOs is part of the neoliberal agenda to place agricultural production in the hands of a few corporate giants through seed patents and deny small farmers control of production. Finally, the author argues that the GMOs crusade distorts the debate about food security and poverty alleviation. The problems afflicting small farmers are argued to have very little to do with technology, and almost everything to do with unequal access to land, water, affordable inputs, markets and other resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Honest Accounts? The true story of Africa\u2019s billion dollar losses","field_subtitle":"Health Poverty Action et al: July 2014","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nkq5m46","body":"The rest of the world takes from Africa much more than the continent receives. Almost $60 billion more. $192 billion flows out of Africa each year. This report outlines the range of different flows draining out of Africa, as well as the costs imposed on the continent as a result of climate change and explores the reasons for this. Curbing illicit financial flows is argued to demand greater transparency and accountability in the global financial system. This would involve clamping down on shell corporations; improved disclosure of beneficial owners of companies; stricter company\r\nreporting regulations on sales, profits and taxes; and exchanging tax information across borders. Instead of talking about \u2018good governance in Africa\u2019 the authors argue that Northern countries must take the lead to reduce the mass extraction of African capital that embeds poverty and inequality, including revenue leakages from extractive industries and fairer trade practices between African countries and MNCs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"How far does performance based financing tick the box of national ownership?","field_subtitle":"Amy Barnes, Garrett Wallace Brown, University of Sheffield and Sophie Harman, Queen Mary University","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe roll out of Performance-based financing (PBF) in east and southern Africa is now widespread. Yet a recent study found cause for concern with this often \u2018taken-for granted\u2019 financing mechanism. As a result, there is a need to better understand and debate how PBF reinforces or contradicts other measures being used to build and strengthen universal health systems. \r\n\r\nPerformance-based financing has become increasingly popular in global health financing. It involves the transfer of money or goods based on implementation of a measurable action or achievement of a predetermined performance target. It is seen to increase accountability to both external funders and national stakeholders, by tracking of how money is spent. Having clear targets is argued to strengthen health systems by providing a way of assessing what programs are efficiently delivering \u2018value for money\u2019 and by rewarding good practice. Its proponents argue that external funders, generally large contributors to African heath systems, should transfer funds based on performance to achieve these gains.\r\n\r\nIn the past year we carried out research examining PBF in South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia, and with regional and global institutions (more fully reported in EQUINET discussion paper 102 at http://tinyurl.com/nudgky3). This work raised questions about how PBF affects the strength and equity of health systems, and what latitude African actors have to \u2018reframe\u2019 PBF mechanisms to address their concerns. \r\n\r\nCertainly a majority of the African actors had a positive perception of PBF and its ability to strengthen health systems, a perception also evident in the general literature pertaining to PBF. In particular, evidence suggests that Africa actors believe that PBF is useful in curbing corruption, in incentivizing targeted health outputs, and in increasing accountability mechanisms. These benefits, where they have occurred, have generated support for and ownership of the approach.  \r\n\r\nNevertheless, at the same time there were many concerns regarding the practice of PBF. Questions were raised about how performance criteria are selected and how far national input was factored into the design of PBF, a key principle in the Paris Declaration. We found that the space for genuine participation in the design of PBF was narrow, usually limited to high level personnel in national systems, and that it was affected by factors such as how much of the public budget is externally funded. Lower dependency on external funding appeared to give countries greater possibilities of setting their own targets and resisting funding conditions that potentially conflict with national strategic plans. We found, for example, that South Africa, with less than 10% of its health budget externally funded, had greater latitude to negotiate and resist unfavourable conditions. We also found that this ability to \u2018push-back\u2019 was less available in Tanzania and Zambia, where external funding contributes up to half of the health budget. Some African actors in health ministries and in service provision expressed weariness about the external conditions demanded by funders, and called for a more decisive national voice. As one senior African health official suggested, \u2018when PBF is the result of national ownership then it has excellent potential to be a mechanism for change\u2026 however, if it is not, then it will certainly be doomed to\u2026not deliver on its promises.\u2019\r\n\r\nWe found that while there is great enthusiasm for monitoring and rewarding outcomes, in practice this needs substantive investment in health information systems.  We found, as others have, that information systems lack the reliability, capacities and support to analyse and use evidence to evaluate performance. Unless this is recognized and addressed, use of performance indicators can cause weaker services (with poorer capacities to manage information) to do worse, reducing their PBF \u2018score\u2019 rating and thus restricting their funding. This causes considerable concern, since these services are usually the ones that are in more marginalized areas of highest need. In addition, many of the African actors we interviewed complained that the reporting systems required by funders are cumbersome, time-consuming and add considerable overhead costs. External funders, particularly the Global Fund, were reported to change reporting requirements and \u2018goal posts\u2019 mid-stream, without sufficient notification or technical assistance, leading to confusion and delays in programme reporting and roll out. \r\n\r\nFurthermore, external auditing mechanisms were often found to be \u2018not fit-for-purpose\u2019, implemented by auditors with little health knowledge or understanding of the recipient country, with inadequate communication between auditors and recipients.. Audit processes were found to be inflexible on target satisfaction. For example, Local Fund Agents (LFA) of the Global Fund were reported to often refuse to answer recipient\u2019s questions during report writing, to refuse to discuss reporting problems during the audit, or to allow the final LFA evaluations to be seen by recipients. This was argued to damage partnership and national input to PBF conditionalities.\r\n\r\nMoreover, many African actors that we interviewed assumed the merits of PBF, without being able to refer to strong evidence to support this view.  There is also a growing weariness about PBFs ability to \u2018be all things to all people\u2019 and an urge to have a more realistic national assessment of PBF as being one of many financing measures available.\r\n\r\nWhere PBF is seemingly most successful is in cases where there is a strong sense of national ownership and multi-sectoral partnership. PBF has had positive impacts where robust information systems exist, so that future targets can be based on valid data, where performance monitoring is possible, and where evaluations can be made reliably.  It is seemingly most successful when targeted on tightly focused health interventions, like payment per patient seen, and not on broad whole-of-system targets, where it is difficult to isolate and track individual variables. A better understanding of the positive features can contribute to health system strengthening. \r\n\r\nHowever our study also found evidence of negative consequences that can weaken national health systems. Reaching PBF targets can sometimes compromise quality of care, vertical PBF schemes can create \u2018health silos\u2019 that are not always fully integrated into comprehensive primary health care, and PBF schemes are often not well embedded into a sustainable long-term health strategy.  \r\n\r\nThese are issues that partners can identify, negotiate on and attempt to resolve. So our findings on the weaknesses of partnerships and genuine national leadership of the PBF agenda \u2013 as raised in this editorial and detailed in the full report- are crucial issues to be discussed and debated; to build better partnerships between global and African institutions and to design better systems for strengthening African health systems.  As one senior health official commented, \u2018we should be accountable for the money we receive and we should try to get as much value for money as possible... this is the non-debated part of PBF and a reason why it is so popular\u2026 but exactly how to best generate value for money is still open for discussion and for PBF to work effectively it will be important to get its processes right and to then generate agreement by all those who have to deliver these processes.\u2019\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please read the full report on the EQUINET website and visit www.equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Human Development Report 2014: Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience","field_subtitle":"United Nations Development Programme: New York, July 2014","field_url":"http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-report-2014","body":"The 2014 Human Development Report\u2014 Sustaining Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience\u2014looks at two concepts which are both interconnected and immensely important to securing human development progress. As successive Human Development Reports (HDRs) have shown, most people in most countries have been doing steadily better in human development. Advances in technology, education and incomes hold ever-greater promise for longer, healthier, more secure lives. But there is also a widespread sense of precariousness in the world today\u2014in livelihoods, in personal security, in the environment and in global politics. High achievements on critical aspects of human development, such as health and nutrition, can quickly be undermined by a natural disaster or economic slump. Theft and assault can leave people physically and psychologically impoverished. Corruption and unresponsive state institutions can leave those in need of assistance without recourse. Based on analysis of the available evidence, the Report makes a number of important recommendations for achieving a world which addresses vulnerabilities and builds resilience to future shocks. It calls for universal access to basic social services, especially health and education; stronger social protection, including unemployment insurance and pensions; and a commitment to full employment, recognizing that the value of employment extends far beyond the income it generates. It examines the importance of responsive and fair institutions and increased social cohesion for building community-level resilience and for reducing the potential for conflict to break out.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"ICYMI: Ten Things You Should Know From AIDS 2014","field_subtitle":"Lewis S: AIDS Free World 25 July 2014","field_url":"http://aidsfreeworld.org/Publications-Multimedia/Articles/AIDS-2014.aspx?utm_source=Newsletter%20Peer%20List&utm_campaign=19378ebab0-Week%20in%20Review%2041%20-%20July%2025%202014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_349f52eb1e-19378ebab0-65516937&goal=0_349f52eb1e-19378ebab0-65516","body":"The author lists ten things raised at the 2014 Global AIDS conference in Melbourne Australia, listing backwards from 10 to 1: 10. There may be fewer people living with HIV than we thought. 9. Decriminalizing commercial sex work could significantly decrease new HIV infections among sex workers. 8. Ninety is the new zero. For years now, we\u2019ve been hearing a chorus of \u2018zero new HIV infections, zero HIV-related discrimination, and zero AIDS-related deaths.\u2019 But this week, UNAIDS changed course, promising to have 90% of all people with HIV aware of their status, 90% of people on treatment, and 90% of those on treatment with lasting viral suppression by the year 2020. 7. Women using injectable hormonal contraceptives are at greater risk of contracting HIV, but WHO isn\u2019t planning to inform women before they choose birth control methods. 6. UNAIDS is still leaving out one of the most at-risk groups of all: women. 5. Children and adolescents are dying at an alarming rate. 4. There is a huge shortfall in funding for harm reduction. 3. HIV-positive women are being pressured to undergo sterilization by health workers. 2. Undetectable viral loads.Calling it \u201cthe closest thing we have to a cure for HIV,\u201d activists issued a challenge this week to bring viral loads to undetectable levels by 2020. and 1. Funding for activists is drying up, and with it, the voices to spur governments and agencies to action. Section27's Mark Heywood issued a cri de coeur to delegates of AIDS 2014, lamenting that \"AIDS is fast becoming just another disease of the poor, criminalised and marginalised...just another manifestation of global complacency about poverty and inequality.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementing Global Fund programs: a survey of opinions and experiences of the Principal Recipients across 69 countries","field_subtitle":"Wafula F, Marwa C, McCoy D: Globalization and Health 10(15): 24 March 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/10/1/15","body":"Principal Recipients (PRs) receive money from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) to manage and implement programs. However, little research has gone into understanding their opinions and experiences. This survey set out to describe these, thereby providing a baseline against which changes in PR opinions and experiences can be assessed as the recently introduced new funding model is rolled out. An internet based questionnaire was administered to 315 PRs. A total of 115 responded from 69 countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. The study was conducted between September and December 2012. Three quarters of PRs thought the progress update and disbursement request (PU/DR) system was a useful method of reporting grant progress. However, most felt that the grant negotiation processes were complicated, and that the grant rating system did not reflect performance. While nearly all PRs were happy with the work being done by sub-Recipients (92%) and Fund Portfolio Managers (86%), fewer were happy with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). Non-government PRs were generally less happy with the OIG\u2019s work compared to government PRs. Most PRs thought the Global Fund\u2019s Voluntary Pooled Procurement system made procurement easier. However, only 29% said the system should be made compulsory. When asked which aspects of the Global Fund\u2019s operations needed improvement, most PRs said that the Fund should re-define and clarify the roles of different actors, minimize staff turnover at its Secretariat, and shorten the grant application and approval processes. All these are currently being addressed, either directly or indirectly, under a new funding model. Vigorous assessments should nonetheless follow the roll-out of the new model to ensure the areas that are most likely to affect PR performance realize sustained improvement. Opinions and experiences with the Global Fund were varied, with PRs having good communication with Fund Portfolio Managers and sub-Recipients, but being unhappy with the grant negotiation and grant rating systems. Recommendations included simplifying grant processes, finding performance assessment methods that look beyond numbers, and employing Local Fund Agents who understand public health aspects of programs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Momentum builds to achieve more Millennium Development Goals by end of 2015: UN report","field_subtitle":"United Nations: New York, 7 July 2014","field_url":"http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/MDGReport2014_PR_Global_English.pdf","body":"With many MDG targets already met on reducing poverty, increasing access to improved drinking water sources, improving the lives of slum dwellers and achieving gender parity in primary school, The Millennium Development Goals Report 2014, says many more targets are within reach by their 2015 target date. If trends continue, the world will surpass MDG targets on malaria, tuberculosis and access to HIV treatment, and the hunger target looks within reach. Other targets, such as access to technologies, reduction of average tariffs, debt relief, and growing political participation by women, show great progress. The MDG report is based on comprehensive official statistics and provides the most up-to-date summary of all Goals and their targets at global and regional levels, with additional national statistics available online. Results show that concentrated efforts to achieve MDG targets by national governments, the international community, civil society and the private sector are working to lift people out of extreme poverty and improve their futures. It notes that much greater effort and investment will be needed to alter inadequate sanitation facilities. High dropout rates remain a barrier to universal primary education. Despite considerable advancements in recent years, the report says reliable statistics for monitoring development remain inadequate in many countries, but better statistical reporting on the MDGs has led to real results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Nonprofit Sustainability is the Responsibility of Leadership","field_subtitle":"Brown A: Sangonet pulse July 14 2014","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ou9bdpq","body":"In this article, the author shares few tips on sustainability, leadership and everything that could help NPOs to sustain their development interventions  Money in the bank does not necessarily mean that an organisation will be sustainable. The author argues that a strong sense of being mission-driven, measuring impact and sharing results is what leaders of charities and nonprofit organisations (NPOs) should strive to embed into the consciousness of everyone involved in the organisation, this is how an organisation can shift the status quo from fretting over money to creating future plans.  Using the seven dimensions for nonprofit sustainability as a guideline, leaders can embrace these characteristics for determining board competencies and delegation of duties for oversight, good governance and quality performance that will ensure continuity. The seven dimensions encompass the following; legal good standing and compliance; organisational capacity and expertise to do the work; financial viability of the organisation; advocacy for the work undertaken that will make a difference; quality and professionalism of service provision; stable infrastructure and building of a brand that portrays a positive public image.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Nurses association creates ethics commission ","field_subtitle":"ANGOP, Lubango, Angola 13 May 2014","field_url":"http://www.portalangop.co.ao/angola/en_us/noticias/saude/2014/4/20/Nurses-association-creates-ethics-commission,6f0b5bc5-3c0a-4fc0-bf16-d8b8ff29ff16.html","body":"The Angola National Nurses Association in Lubango, southern Huila Province, created an Ethics Commission with a view to making the services rendered in this sector more humanised. The spokesman of ANEA, Rufino Kulamba, who was speaking at the International Nurses Day commemorations, said that the commission will be tasked with supervising the nursing activity. He stressed that the idea is to make professionals in this area have a better and better relationship with patients, as well as bring about professional improvements in this sector. He also explained that the commission will facilitate the filing of complaints against nurses who violate the principles of professional ethics. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Online course: Gender and Health Systems Strengthening","field_subtitle":"Constance Newman: CapacityPlus, IntraHealth International, July 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthlearning.org/course/gender-and-health-systems-strengthening","body":"The Global Health Learning Centre offers an online course By the end of the course, the learner will understand how health systems components interact with each other, how gender plays a role in each health systems component, and how to address these gender issues in health systems strengthening activities in order to improve health and social outcomes. This course examines gender considerations for each of six health systems components described in the World Health Organization's health systems components and ways to promote gender equality and women\u2019s empowerment in health systems strengthening interventions so that health systems better meet the health needs of women, men, girls, and boys. Each section of the course first discusses and illustrates gender issues that affect a particular health system component and then proposes solutions to address these issues and strengthen health systems. The course considers some of the gender norms that drive health behavior, health decision making, and the provision and utilization of health care. It highlights programmatic examples that illustrate aspects of gender equality and women's empowerment in health systems strengthening.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Performance-based Incentives in Mozambique: A Situational Analysis","field_subtitle":"Connor, C, Cumbi A, Borem P, Beith A, Eichler R, Charles J: Abt Associates Bethesda, MD: Health, 2011","field_url":"http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=26&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CD4QFjAFOBQ&url=http%3A//www.healthsystems2020.org/files/2799_file_Performance_based_Incentives_in_MozambiqueA_Situational_Analysis.pdf&ei=jObSU7L6L8nhOqaV","body":"This report presents the findings of USAID\u2019s Health Systems 20/20 Project assessment of local interest in and capacity to implement PBIs. PBIs are reported to be legally and culturally feasible. Given the low level of health spending, limited population coverage, and estimates of unmet need in\r\nMozambique, the authors argue that PBIs should be designed to improve system efficiency but not be expected to reduce spending in absolute terms. Local stakeholders are repirted to be open to the PBI concept, citing CDC, USAID, and World Bank being ready to support introducing PBIs in Mozambique; however, some authorities and health worker staff express concerns about sustainability and equity of paying for performance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Performance-based Incentives to Improve Health Status of Mothers and Newborns: What Does the Evidence Show?","field_subtitle":"Rena Eichler, Koki Agarwal, Askew I, Iriarte E, Morgan L, Watson J: Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition; 31:4: December 2013","field_url":"http://www.jhpn.net/index.php/jhpn/article/view/2358","body":"Performance-based incentives (PBIs) aim to counteract weak providers\u2019 performance in health systems of many developing countries by providing rewards that are directly linked to better health outcomes for mothers and their newborns. Translating funding into better health requires many actions by a large number of people. The actions span from community to the national level. While different forms of PBIs are being implemented in a number of countries to improve health outcomes, there has not been a systematic review of the evidence of their impact on the health of mothers and newborns. This paper analyzes and synthesizes the available evidence from published studies on the impact of supply-side PBIs on the quantity and quality of health services for mothers and newborns. This paper reviews evidence from published and grey literature that spans PBI for public-sector facilities, PBI in social insurance reforms, and PBI in NGO contracting. Some initiatives focus on safe deliveries, and others reward a broader package of results that include deliveries. The Evidence Review Team that focused on supply-side incentives for the US Government Evidence Summit on Enhancing Provision and Use of Maternal Health Services through Financial Incentives, reviewed published research reports and papers and added studies from additional grey literature that were deemed relevant. After collecting and reviewing 17 documents, nine studies were included in this review, three of which used before-after designs; four included comparison or control groups; one applied econometric methods to a five-year time series; and one reported results from a large-scale impact evaluation with randomly-assigned intervention and control facilities. The available evidence suggests that incentives that reward providers for institutional deliveries result in an increase in the number of institutional deliveries. There is some evidence that the content of antenatal care can improve with PBI. We found no direct evidence on the impact of PBI on neonatal health services or on mortality of mothers and newborns, although intention of the study was not to document impact on mortality. A number of studies describe approaches to rewarding quality as well as increases in the quantities of services provided, although how quality is defined and monitored is not always clear. Because incentives exist in all health systems, considering how to align the incentives of the many health workers and their supervisors so that they focus efforts on achieving health goals for mothers and newborns is critical if the health system is to perform more effectively and efficiently. A wide range of PBI models is being developed and tested, and there is still much to learn about what works best. Future studies should include a larger focus on rewarding quality and measuring its impact. Finally, more qualitative research to better understand PBI implementation and how various incentive models function in different settings is needed to help practitioners refine and improve their programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Pre-GSHSR meeting organised by the Emerging Voices for Global Health 2014: Cape Town, September 29, 2014 ","field_subtitle":"University of the Western Cape , Call closes 15 September 2014","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/ev2014_general%40uwc.ac.za","body":"This Pre-conference is organised by the Emerging Voices for Global Health 2014. The programme showcases oral and poster presentations from 'Emerging Voices' (EV) who are young promising researchers from across the globe. \r\nThe EV's aim to bring a fresh perspective on People-Centred Health Systems and other Health Systems Research themes at the Pre-conference.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Somalia Briefing: Threats to food security & remittances","field_subtitle":"Africa Research Institute: Sound cloud July 2014","field_url":"https://soundcloud.com/africaresearchinstitute/somalia-briefing","body":"This is a recording of ARI's 'Somalia Briefing' panel discussion, which took place on July 14 2014. The event focused on food security, remittances and the links between the two. Speakers were: Degan Ali, Executive Director of Adeso; Abdirashid Duale, CEO of Dahabshiil and Sara Pantuliano, Director, Humanitarian Policy Group, ODI. The event was organised by Africa Research Institute in partnership with ODI and Adeso.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Statelessness = invisibility in West Africa","field_subtitle":"IRIN: 15 July 2014","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report/100348/statelessness-invisibility-in-west-africa","body":"At least 750,000 people are stateless in West Africa, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which is calling for governments to do more to give or restore the nationality of stateless individuals, and improve national laws to prevent statelessness.  Many in the region are both stateless and refugees, said Emmanuelle Mitte, senior protection officer on statelessness with UNHCR in Dakar, but the overwhelming majority of stateless persons in West Africa are stateless within their own country, lacking proof of the criteria required to guarantee their nationality.  Statelessness can block people\u2019s ability to access health care, education or any form of social security. In the case of children who are separated from their families during emergencies, the lack of official documentation makes it much harder to reunite them, says the UN Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF). Lack of official identification documents can mean a child enters into marriage, the labour market, or is conscripted into the armed forces, before the legal age. Statelessness can also render people void of protection from abuse. Denied the right to work or move, they risk moving into the invisible underclass, said UNHCR\u2019s West Africa protection officer, Kavita Brahmbhatt, who gave the example of a group of stranded non-documented Sierra Leonean migrants living in the slums of Liberia\u2019s capital, Monrovia, selling charcoal as they were too poor to do anything else, and too scared to return home for fear of being punished. \u201cThey became a member of Monrovia\u2019s underclass,\u201d she said.  \u201cBirth registration is more than just a right. It\u2019s how societies first recognize and acknowledge a child\u2019s identity and existence,\u201d said Geeta Rao Gupta, UNICEF deputy executive director in a late 2013 communique launching the report Every Child\u2019s Birth Right: Inequities and trends in birth registration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Successful sodium regulation in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Hofman K: WHO  Afro, 2013","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/en/clusters-a-programmes/hpr/social-a-economic-determinants-of-health/case-studies/country-experiences-rio/4085-successful-sodium-regulation-in-south-africa-.html","body":"Hypertension is neither unique nor novel to South Africa (SA), but the legislative actions undertaken by the South African government reflect a new approach to addressing this growing burden. Research has shown that a significant portion of hypertension is linked to sodium consumption, and a major proportion of sodium consumption in SA comes from bread--part of the staple diet. Aware of the burden of hypertension and the high levels of sodium in processed foods, Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi and the National Department of Health (NDOH) spearheaded legislative action to regulate sodium in food products at the manufacturing level. Based on the mixed results of voluntary regulation in other countries, the NDOH decided to initiate mandatory regulation to effectively curb sodium consumption. Answers to a questionnaire distributed to food industry members showed that about half of the groups who answered preferred to have regulated rather than voluntary sodium, because they believed this could even the playing field. The government devoted a significant amount of time and effort to understanding the industry's concerns, many of which were considered in negotiations. Years of South African research and inter-sectoral interactions between government,  academia, and industry culminated in successfully signed regulations. Even with this first successful step, the hypertension problem is far from solved. This report concludes with a discussion on plausible recommendations that calls for international collaboration across the African continent, in order to further address the growing prevalence of hypertension.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Task-shifting and prioritization: A situational analysis examining the role and experiences of community health workers in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Smith S, Deveridge A, Berman J, Negin J, Mwambene N, Chingaipe E, Puchalski-Ritchie L, Martiniuk A: Human Resources for Health 12:24, 2014","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/12/1/24","body":"The objective of this study was to understand the performed versus documented roles of the HSAs, to examine how tasks were prioritized, and to understand HSAs\u2019 perspectives on their roles and responsibilities. A situational analysis of the HSA cadre and its contribution to the delivery of health services in Zomba district, Malawi was conducted. Focus groups and interviews were conducted with 70 HSAs. Observations of three HSAs performing duties and work diaries from five HSAs were collected. Lastly, six policy-maker and seven HSA supervisor interviews and a document review were used to further understand the cadre\u2019s role and to triangulate collected data.  HSAs performed a variety of tasks in addition to those outlined in the job description resulting in issues of overloading, specialization and competing demands existing in the context of task-shifting and prioritization. Not all HSAs were resistant to the expansion of their role despite role confusion and HSAs feeling they lacked adequate training, remuneration and supervision. HSAs also said that increasing workload was making completing their primary duties challenging. Considerations for policy-makers include the division of roles of HSAs in prevention versus curative care; community versus centre-based activities; and the potential specialization of HSAs. This study provides insights into HSAs\u2019 perceptions of their work, their expanding role and their willingness to change the scope of their practice. There are clear decision points for policy-makers regarding future direction in policy and planning in order to maximize the cadre\u2019s effectiveness in addressing the country\u2019s health priorities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Promise of Community-Based Participatory Research for Health Equity: A Conceptual Model for Bridging Evidence With Policy","field_subtitle":"Cacari-Stone L, Wallerstein N, Garcia AP, and Minkler M: Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print e1\u2013e9, July 17 2014","field_url":"http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2014.301961","body":"Insufficient attention has been paid to how research can be leveraged to promote health policy or how locality-based research strategies, in particular community-based participatory research (CBPR), influences health policy to eliminate racial and ethnic health inequities. To address this gap, the authors highlighted the efforts of two CBPR partnerships to explore how these initiatives made substantial contributions to policymaking for health equity. They present a new conceptual model and two case studies to illustrate the connections among CBPR contexts and processes, policymaking processes and strategies, and outcomes. They extended the critical role of civic engagement by those communities that were most burdened by health inequities by focusing on their political participation as research brokers in bridging evidence and policymaking.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Progress Report 2014- Grain, Fish Money, Financing Africa\u2019s Green and Blue Revolutions","field_subtitle":"Africa Progress Panel, May 2014","field_url":"http://africaprogresspanel.org/publications/policy-papers/2014-africa-progress-report/","body":"Africa is a rich continent. Some of those riches \u2013 especially oil, gas and minerals \u2013 have driven rapid economic growth over the past decade. The ultimate measure of progress, however, is the wellbeing of people \u2013 and Africa\u2019s recent growth has not done nearly as much as it should to reduce poverty and hunger, or improve health and education. To sustain growth that improves the lives of all Africans, the continent needs an economic transformation that taps into Africa\u2019s other riches: its fertile land, its extensive fisheries and forests, and the energy and ingenuity of its people. The Africa Progress Report 2014 describes what such a transformation would look like, and how Africa can get there. Agriculture must be at the heart that transformation. Most Africans, including the vast majority of Africa\u2019s poor, continue to live and work in rural areas, principally as smallholder farmers. In the absence of a flourishing agricultural sector, the majority of Africans will be cut adrift from the rising tide of prosperity. To achieve such a transformation, Africa will need to overcome three major obstacles: a lack of access to formal financial services, the weakness of the continent\u2019s infrastructure and the lack of funds for public investment.&#8232;The Africa Progress Report 2014 describes how African governments and their international partners can cooperate to remove those obstacles \u2013 and enable all Africans to benefit from their continent\u2019s extraordinary wealth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers on participatory visual methodologies ","field_subtitle":"Deadline For Manuscript Submission: 15 October 2015","field_url":"","body":"Global Public Health invites the submission of full-length articles for a special journal issue on the theme Participatory Visual Methodologies and Global Public Health, co-edited by Claudia Mitchell and Marni Sommer, Send note of intention to submit & working title to evasquezgph@gmail.com","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: Journal of Health Diplomacy co-operation with EQUINET: Third issue on Africa, health and diplomacy","field_subtitle":"Call closes: 3 November 2014","field_url":"http://www.ghd-net.org/sites/default/files/AUTHOR%20GUIDELINES_0.pdf","body":"The Journal of Health Diplomacy (JHD) is now receiving manuscripts for its third issue, titled: Africa, health and diplomacy. This issue is broadly concerned with the theory and practice of health diplomacy of African states, as a co-operation with the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET). The issue will include invited and submitted manuscripts.  To be considered for the latter, please submit your proposed manuscript to the Managing Editor at the email below by 3 November 2014.  Manuscripts submitted to JHD will undergo a peer-review process, with referees selected for their particular knowledge/experience on the topic of the manuscript. Authors are asked to ensure that their identity is not revealed directly or indirectly on any page. Manuscripts that are being considered for publication elsewhere, or that have been previously published must not be submitted to the journal. A complete set of author guidelines is available at the website shown. JHD welcomes contributions from all academic disciplines, including international relations, political science, anthropology, sociology, history and geography. We are also interested in interdisciplinary perspectives that cross the boundaries between different theoretical fields and represent novel understandings of health diplomacy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Papers: The Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Special Issue: Health and Disability ","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: November 30, 2014","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=cjhd20&page=instructions","body":"The Journal of Human Development and Capabilities (JHDC) is pleased to announce a call for papers for a special issue on Health and Disability. This call for papers aims to advance the state of knowledge and expertise regarding health, disability and human development, as well as the linkages among them and a range of policies, institutions, and social structures that influence such links and their dynamics. Submissions related to this topic are welcome. In particular, though not exclusively, we welcome submissions in the following themes: i) Social justice and resource allocation; ii) Health system financing and access; iii) Public health and health policy; iv) Disability, poverty and human development; v) Social determinants of health and disability; vi) Disability definition and measurement; vii) HIV/AIDS and antiretroviral therapies; viii) Health care services and provision, and; ix) Maternal, child and reproductive health. Full papers in English, in .doc or .docx formats should be submitted by November 30th, 2014. Strict compliance with this deadline is required. Papers submitted will be evaluated through a standard peer review process. Authors of the selected papers will be notified by e-mail. Submission of a paper implies that the author has the intention of publishing the paper in the JHDC, and it is not currently under evaluation at another journal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion paper 103: The engagement of east and southern African countries on the WHO Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel and its implementation","field_subtitle":"Dambisya YM; N Malema; Dulo C; Matinhure S; Kadama P: June 2014","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/GHD%20Code%20Final%20rep%20Diss103%20June2014.pdf","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) \u2018Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel\u2019 (hereinafter called the \u201cCode\u201d) adopted by the World Health Assembly (WHA) in May 2010 was the culmination of efforts by many different actors to address the maldistribution and shortages of health workers globally. African stakeholders influenced the development of the Code, but two years after its adoption only four African countries had designated national authorities, and only one had submitted a report to the WHO secretariat. This synthesis report is part of the Regional Network for Equity in Health (EQUINET) programme of work on Contributions of global health diplomacy to health systems in sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence and information to support capabilities for health diplomacy in east and southern Africa. The programme aims to identify factors that support the effectiveness of global health diplomacy (GHD) in addressing selected key challenges to health strengthening systems in eastern and southern Africa (ESA).  The report compiles evidence from various research strategies undertaken to examine the above issues surrounding the WHO Code that involved an extensive review of literature; a \u2018fast-talk\u2019 session at the 66th World Health Assembly in May 2013 involving stakeholders from African countries to gauge views and concerns relating to the Code; a region-wide questionnaire survey implemented in 2013 to obtain views of  government informants on issues affecting and measures for managing health workers, including migration of health workers in ESA countries; and three country case studies undertaken in Kenya, Malawi and South Africa concluded in 2014 to provide an in-depth exposition of perspectives on the Code and its implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 161: From talk to implementation - nurses role in the post 2015 agenda ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"FCGH platform statement now open for endorsements","field_subtitle":"Joint Action and Learning Initiative on National and Global Responsibilities for Health","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthtreaty.org/endorse-the-fcgh-platform/","body":"In the next step towards a Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH), the proposed global health treaty grounded in the right to health and aimed at health equity, the proposers seek to secure a place in the UN Sustainable Development Goals resolution in 2015 for the FCGH, in particular, calling for the launch of a UN/WHO process towards the treaty. Towards this goal and beyond, the FCGH platform statement is now open for endorsements. All are welcome to endorse, and endorsements is encouraged on behalf of organizations where that is possible. The statement provides key principles and core content of the FCGH, as well as explanations of the need for the treaty. The FCGH platform statement and information on endorsement is found at the website shown, together with other briefing materials.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"From talk to implementation - nurses role in the post 2015 agenda ","field_subtitle":"Philemon  Ngomu,  Southern African Network of Nurses and Midwives (SANNAM)","field_url":"","body":"\r\nNurses play an essential role in the post 2015 global agenda of ensuring universal health care. They make up majority of the health workforce. Health systems cannot successfully function without nurses. They influence how systems function, change or are delivered, through the values, knowledge and experience they bring. Their lives and work are affected by the policy decisions and health system roles that are expected to achieve the post 2015 global agenda. So the Southern African Network of Nurses and Midwives (SANNAM) have argued that nurses must be included in the political and policy discussions and health system transformation efforts currently underway. \r\n\r\nThe Southern African Network of Nurses and Midwives (SANNAM), a network of National Nurses Associations (NNAs) in the 15th Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries met in Pretoria, South Africa in February 2014 to examine the post 2015 proposals for Universal Health Coverage (UHC).   The meeting reviewed the proposals from the ongoing global consultations on the focus post- 2015 for ensuring UHC and sustainable development globally. \r\n\r\nThe report of High Level Panel of eminent persons on the post- 2015 global development agenda and an evaluation of progress on MDGs 2000\u20132013 have identified a need to secure the planet for all in a sustainable way and to ensure that the global agenda puts people first and at the centre of future development efforts.  These reports identify a universal agenda with transformative shifts in five thematic areas: \r\ni. leaving no one behind as a principle of universality in access, sharing resources and assets in all sectors; \r\nii. putting sustainable development at the centre, including as a means for improving people\u2019s health;  \r\niii. transforming economies and jobs for inclusive growth, with what is drawn from earth\u2019s resources distributed equitably; \r\niv. building peace and effective, open and accountable institutions that protect human rights; and \r\nv. forging new global partnerships, given that action in one sector, country, and community influences the others. \r\n\r\nThese proposals obtained broad support from nurses in the SANNAM meeting. \r\n\r\nThe performance of health systems is necessary to achieve this post 2015 vision. As the 2011 World Health Organisation (WHO) global conference in Brazil on social determinants of health reported, good health requires a universal, comprehensive, equitable, effective, responsive and accessible quality health system. It also depends on the involvement of and dialogue with other sectors and actors, and on effective collaboration in coordinated and inter-sectoral policy actions.  The health sector contributes to sustainable development and human rights, and plays a role in ensuring that economic activities do not harm and do benefit social wellbeing. For example South Africa\u2019s extensive ARV programme has contributed widening the benefit from medical technology and raising life expectancy, and the implementation of the National Health Insurance scheme is mobilizing  economic resources for universal access to services.\r\n\r\nHowever, SANNAM delegates noted that health systems in many countries fall short of their potential, resulting in a large numbers of preventable deaths and disability, especially for poor people. While UHC means that all people should be able to use the quality health services that they need and do not suffer financial hardship in paying for them, many countries are not achieving this. \r\n\r\nSo while the goals are noble, a lot more attention needs to be given to how they will be achieved. In the SANNAM meeting, nurse leaders from all countries in the region discussed this further.  There are a number of challenges to implementation in our region. There are resource constraints, health professional shortages, migration and distribution of health professionals, household poverty and poor performance of services. Services face challenges in the adequacy of nursing education, with shortages and inadequate skills mix in health workers, loss of a caring ethos and inadequate social participation in services. Shortfalls in leadership, professional competencies and service resources and weak application of governance styles that involve people have led to falling morale. Negative conditions encourage individual practices that further worsen the system, such as moonlighting practices. Unless these and other constraints are addressed, UHC goals may remain aspirations rather than reality. \r\n\r\nAt the heart of the changes needed, SANNAM members identified the need for a paradigm shift from hospital-centered to community-centered health care. This calls for a rights-based approach to healthcare, where the individual and community are central to the processes for promoting health, preventing and treating disease and care for chronic illness or disability. \r\n\r\nNurses identified that they play a key role in implementing these transformations in health systems. Their competencies, communication and approaches to care can facilitate (or if absent block) peoples uptake of services. They can support (or impede) patient and family-centred care, cultural congruence and team based approaches with other health workers and sectors. They can deliver services in a way that supports people\u2019s role and rights, and that reviews and improves service performance. \r\n\r\nTaking goals and policies to implementation thus demands more attention to the people and practice environments of key personnel responsible for delivering on these goals, such as nurses. For example, there is need to promote a positive working environment for nurses and professional associations, to develop creative ways to involve frontline nurses individually and through their associations and networks in policy and practice changes and in evaluation and review, to integrate their proposals and improve responsiveness and feedback.  The systems to support this need to be put in place, from Chief Nursing Officers within national ministries of health, and cascading down to provinces and districts to primary care level. The models identified should be backed by adequate resources, management practices and information, and by academic preparation of nurses for their role. Incentives should be oriented to rewarding and supporting implementation of key roles and outcomes, including the communication with and involvement of communities, patients and other sectors. \r\n\r\nSANNAM delegates observed that it is therefore critical that nurses, amongst others, understand the health policy issues and the policy-making processes underway and are actively involved in them. The experience nurses bring will help to align the policies and strategies to real conditions and expectations in the system, and contribute to building the post 2015 agenda from the bottom up. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit www.equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender equity and sexual and reproductive health in Eastern and Southern Africa: a critical overview of the literature","field_subtitle":"Eleanor MacPherson E, Richards E, Namakhoma I, Theobald S: Glob Health Action, 7: 23717, June 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/23717","body":"Gender inequalities are important social determinants of health. We set out to critically review the literature relating to gender equity and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) in Eastern and Southern Africa with the aim of identifying priorities for action. During November 2011, the authors identified studies relating to SRH and gender equity through a comprehensive literature search. Gender inequalities were found to be common across a range of health issues relating to SRH with women being particularly disadvantaged. Social and biological determinants combined to increase women\u2019s vulnerability to maternal mortality, HIV, and gender-based violence. Health systems significantly disadvantaged women in terms of access to care. Men fared worse in relation to HIV testing and care with social norms leading to men presenting later for treatment. Gender inequity in SRH requires multiple complementary approaches to address the structural drivers of unequal health outcomes. These could include interventions that alter the structural environment in which ill-health is created. Interventions are required both within and beyond the health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Litigation as a tool for the realization of Economic, Social and Cultural rights","field_subtitle":"Mugisha M: CEHURD News, June 2014","field_url":"http://www.cehurd.org/","body":"This paper explores litigation as a mechanism for the realization of the economic, social and cultural. Though it is often the last resort after all advocacy methods have been rendered futile, it is argued to draw government to the drawing board remembering the obligations in the international human rights instrument that it bonds itself for proper economic and social development. By its self, litigation may not yield the desired result but if backed up by strong advocacy the results are far more reaching.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/39019","field_issue_date":"2014-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Mobile health for non-communicable diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review of the literature and strategic framework for research","field_subtitle":"Bloomfield GS, Vedanthan R, Vasudevan L, Kithei A, Were M, Velazquez EJ: Globalization and Health 10 :49 June 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-10-49.pdf","body":"Mobile health (mHealth) approaches for non-communicable disease (NCD) care seem particularly applicable to sub-Saharan Africa given the penetration of mobile phones in the region. The evidence to support its implementation has not been critically reviewed. The authors systematically searched PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Central Register of Clinical Trials, a number of other databases, and grey literature for studies reported between 1992 and 2012 published in English or with an English abstract available. The search yielded 475 citations of which eleven were reviewed in full after applying exclusion criteria. Five of those studies met the inclusion criteria of using a mobile phone for non-communicable disease care in sub-Saharan Africa. Most studies lacked comparator arms, clinical endpoints, or were of short duration. mHealth for NCDs in sub-Saharan Africa appears feasible for follow-up and retention of patients, can support peer support networks, and uses a variety of mHealth modalities. Whether mHealth is associated with any adverse effect has not been systematically studied. Only a small number of mHealth strategies for NCDs have been studied in sub-Saharan Africa. They report that there is insufficient evidence to support the effectiveness of mHealth for NCD care in sub-Saharan Africa and present a framework for cataloging evidence on mHealth strategies that incorporates health system challenges and stages of NCD care to guide approaches to fill evidence gaps in this area.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Oil drillers promise to withdraw from Africa's Eden","field_subtitle":"Coghlan A: New Scientist, Issue 2973, 11 July 2014","field_url":"http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25707-oil-drillers-promise-to-withdraw-from-africas-eden.html?utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=SOC&utm_campaign=twitter&cmpid=SOC%7CNSNS%7C2012-GLOBAL-twitter#.U7BQsV9waUl","body":"The author asserts \"there will be no drilling in paradise\". Soco International, a British oil company, has abandoned plans to drill for oil in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The park is a World Heritage Site, and UNESCO says it is Africa's richest trove of natural beauty and biodiversity. Soco will leave in about a month, after completing a seismic survey of the park's Lake Edward, where drilling was to have commenced. Tens of thousands of local people depend on the lake for fish, and it is also home to thousands of hippopotamuses. Soco has vowed not to drill in the park without permission from UNESCO, and to keep out of all the world's 981 World Heritage Sites. The firm was under pressure after an expert report last month on the status of the park. French company Total pulled out last year. The DRC government has yet to remove overall permission for oil companies to search and drill for oil in the park. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The State vol i: voicings/articulations/utterances","field_subtitle":"The State publishing practice, 2014","field_url":"http://www.thestate.ae/vol-1-voicings-articulations-utterances/","body":"Amidst austerity measures today, we find ourselves increasingly precarious and pixelated; atomized, alienated, and irreparably glitched. For the inaugural issue of The State, the theme was kept intentionally vague; fifteen writers from around the world responded in myriad voices and ways. Topics range from sociohistorical looks at sewers and single parenting throughout the ages, to reimagining a weedy field as a portmanteau of globalisation. Others take a more personal approach, interrogating experiences of Afropolitanism, of being a person of colour in post-9/11 America, and of returning to the Gulf with your tail between your legs. They are joined by two \u2018website-specific installations\u2019\u2014exploring joblessness and speaking in tongues\u2014which are scannable within these pages. THE STATE is a publishing practice that investigates South-South reorientations, alternative futurisms, transgressive cultural criticism, the transition from analogue to digital, and the sensuous architecture of this \u201cprinternet.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards achieving universal health coverage in Nigeria","field_subtitle":"Business day, June 20 2014","field_url":"http://businessdayonline.com/2014/06/towards-achieving-universal-health-coverage-in-nigeria/#.U6gtWfldWSo","body":"As high out-of-pocket payment dominates Nigeria\u2019s healthcare spending and with low priority accorded to health by state and local governments, Nigeria\u2019s quest to attain universal health coverage by 2015 is argued in this article to be bleak. The absence of financial protection has led most Nigerians to depend on out-of-pocket payment for healthcare financing with insurance penetration, which is a measure of the relationship between premiums earned and the nation\u2019s Gross Domestic Product, put at less than 6 percent, according to industry experts. Experts explain that achieving universal health coverage would be hard to attain without expanding the fiscal space (through increasing domestic tax revenues, expanding tax base, developing social health insurance, and getting debt relief. Analysts believe that there is need to expand contributions from large profitable companies and tax mobile phone operators to fund healthcare.   \r\nOther innovations include tobacco and alcohol exercise tax, excise tax on foods that contribute to an unhealthy diet, and additional levy on top of existing VAT rate as is in the case with countries like Chile.  \r\nSome issues to consider in evaluating each innovative method include administrative costs, magnitude of the potential revenue, political acceptability and whether such funds should go into Consolidated Government Revenues or be earmarked. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"'Irrelevant' WHO outpaced by younger rivals","field_subtitle":"Richter J: BMJ: 12 May 2014","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d5012/rr/697686","body":"The author reports her concern that WHO\u2019s so-called reform will side-line those who work in the spirit of \u2018Health for All\u2019 and expand the influence of business corporations and venture philanthropies over global public health matters as well as reinforce the trend towards fragmented, plutocratic, global governance. In October 2013, after a change of terminology, WHO presented a Discussion paper on WHO engagement with non-State actors and draft outline of WHO\u2019s plan to ensure Due diligence, management of risks & transparency at an informal consultation with Member States, NGOs and commercial actors. WHO leadership quashed considered criticisms by NGOs. Member States and public interest NGOs found both papers wanting and requested changes. The successor of the October papers, the Background document, was discussed in March 2014 in a second consultation, open to Member States only. Ten days before the 2014 World Health Assembly, the WHO Secretariat issued the latest version of the policy Framework on engagement of non-State actors (A67/6). The author observes that the previous shortcomings were not addressed and expresses concern that the reform will open the floodgates to corporate influence on global and national decision-making processes in public health matters. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"14th CODESRIA General Assembly: Creating African Futures in an Era of Global Transformations: Challenges and Prospects ","field_subtitle":"Dakar, Senegal, 15-19 December 2014","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2010&lang=en","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa will hold its 14th General Assembly from 15th to 19th December 2014 in Dakar, Senegal under the theme \u2018Creating African Futures in an Era of Global Transformations: Challenges and Prospects.\u2019 CODESRIA\u2019s general assemblies are the largest gatherings of African social scientists. This one will be no exception, with intellectuals from all social science disciplines, the humanities and law, gathering to explore and propose ideas that can lead to a continent that is more peaceful, democratic, prosperous and inclusive in the context of on-going global transformations, The celebration of fifty years of independence a few years ago was taken in many countries as an opportunity to re-examine the dreams of independence against the hard realities of life in Africa today. The number of Africans who live amidst violence (physical, structural and symbolic) and poverty is huge. Twenty years after the Rwandan genocide and the end of apartheid, the question of how to reverse the trends that, if unchecked, may lead to the further devaluation of life and greater threats to human freedom, dignity, and well-being on the continent must be posed. Given this, there is a critical need to reinvent a future for ourselves and re-define the social, cultural, moral, ethical and institutional foundations of citizenship and belonging at the local, national and continental levels, in a free, united, democratic and prosperous Africa that is at peace with itself and with the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to justice and extractive industries","field_subtitle":"Speakers: Aidan Davy, Richard Meeran, Juan Pablo S\u00e1enz, Jake White, Thursday 13 March 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05q64jDDwrg","body":"On March 13, a panel of international legal and industry experts discuss the fraught world of environmental justice, human rights, minerals and mining and explain why it should be of concern to us all and launch a global map of environmental (in)justice. The full video of the event is available to watch","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa speaks: Request for a video clip","field_subtitle":"Final call: closing date 30 June 2014","field_url":"","body":"The Third Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR) is to be held from 30 September \u2013 3 October 2014 in Cape Town, South Africa (http://hsr2014.healthsystemsresearch.org/). This is the first time this Symposium has been held in Africa. The theme of the 2014 symposium is: the science and practice of people\u2013centred health systems. The involvement of people both in their own health decisions and in those concerning the development of a health system is a vital platform for effective service delivery and for ensuring the health system offers wider value in society.\r\n The opening plenary (on 30th September 2014) will have a specific African focus \u2013 and its theme is governance and health in Africa. As part of this opening ceremony the organisers would like to feature different voices from the African continent and provide African stakeholders with an opportunity to share their perspective on the theme of the symposium. They would like you to identify a stakeholder whose voice you feel would be important to feature in the opening plenary and to record a short interview with them. It could be someone you work closely with \u2013 such as a health worker, a researcher, a community member or a client or user of the health service. Someone that you feel represents a critical constituency from the African continent. Depending on the volume and quality of material received we will seek to project the clips at other moments during the conference, and also post them on the conference website.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/39013","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Age-disparate relationships and HIV incidence amongst rural South Africa women","field_subtitle":"Harling G: Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health: Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections 2014","field_url":"http://www.croiwebcasts.org/console/player/22285?mediaType=slideVideo&","body":"Sex with older men is not placing women under 30 at higher risk of HIV infection in rural South Africa, and relationships with older men may even be protecting women over 30 from infection, according to results from a eight-year study presented at the 21st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Boston.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Antibiotic Resistance \u2013 are we driving our own extinction?","field_subtitle":"Constance Georgina Khaendi Walyaro, Citron Wood Foundation","field_url":"","body":"\r\nAntibiotics have been used for over 3,000 years.  \r\n\r\nWithout fully understanding how they worked, many early civilizations used mould and other microbes to treat infected wounds and diseases, attributing their healing power to a magic that drove away the evil spirits that caused disease.  In the 20th century advances in science brought new understanding of the role that certain organisms could play in controlling other disease causing organisms. This brought over a century of advances in the use of antibiotics such as penicillin, with significant gains in human survival. Yet today we face a new threat of microbes that are resistant to the array of antibiotics that we have developed in the past century, and our use of antibiotics appears to have made us vulnerable to the onslaught of even more virulent forms of organisms. \r\n\r\nFor most of the last century, antibiotics were regarded as \u2018miracle drugs\u2019. They were used to suppress many life-threatening infections and allowed for advances in other areas, such as surgery, by controlling the risk of infection. Some estimate that they contributed with public health gains to an average of 20 years greater life expectancy in the past century. \r\n \r\nHowever, in this century we appear to be losing the battle against infectious diseases through strategies that rely on antibiotics. It has been more than 20 years since a qualitatively new class of antibacterial medicines have been discovered. More importantly, however, bacteria are fighting back. They have become more virulent in every region of the world and more resistant to the medicines used. The emergence of drug-resistant \u201csuper-bugs\u201d has led to diseases that are more difficult and costly to treat, such as in the case of multi drug resistant TB. \r\n\r\nHow did we get into this position? Many reasons have been given, including poor infection-control practices and the misuse of antimicrobial medicines. Antibiotics were overprescribed without checking whether they were really needed. It was recently estimated that almost half of all current antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary. Some people stopped taking them when their symptoms disappeared - even if still infected. Antibiotics have been mixed with animal feeds to boost livestock growth, contributing to a build-up of antibiotics and in response leading to more virulent bacteria in the food chain. As we used antibiotics more widely, so bacteria themselves evolved into forms that resisted their effect. Without adequate surveillance to track the impacts of this wide use of antibiotics, resistance silently grew. \r\n\r\nAccording to the World Health Organization (WHO), antibiotic resistance (ABR) has now reached significant levels in all regions of the world. We still lack adequate accurate data on the current global situation. However, a 2014 WHO global report provides a picture from current evidence that is extremely worrying (http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/112642/1/9789241564748_eng.pdf?ua=1). The report indicates that in all regions there are high rates of resistance in the bacteria that cause common health problems such as urinary tract infections, pneumonia, diarrhoea and so on. Multi drug-resistant TB is spreading and there are also reports in some countries of resistance to the artemisinin used to treat malaria. In some parts of Africa, as many as 80 percent of the Staphylococcus aureus infections that cause common skin and wound infections are reported to be resistant to methicillin (MRSA). \r\n\r\nThese trends challenge disease control programmes that rely on treatment. They also challenge health systems. With growing resistance, when treatment with standard first-line antibiotics is no longer effective, more costly stronger second line drugs are used. However, these may not be available in resource-constrained settings. They also have severe side-effects which require monitoring during treatment - further increasing costs to services and communities. ABR adds new pressures on already strained health and development resources. Patients who cannot afford treatment may drop out of healthcare services and the bacteria spread further, especially for poor households, in a vicious cycle of virulent disease, costly care and falling survival. \r\n\r\nWhat then can we do? \r\n\r\nThe key intervention is to reduce the environments in which infectious organisms breed, through improved living conditions and public health measures. Investing in safe water, improved sanitation, better housing, food preparation and waste management provides a sustainable, pro-poor approach with wider benefits, as do prevention measures such as vaccination. \r\n\r\nAt the same time WHO also advocates for a comprehensive master plan to combat ABR and to guarantee all - regardless of their economic status - uninterrupted access to antibiotics and other essential medicines of assured quality when needed. On the one hand new affordable medicines, diagnostic and surveillance tools are needed from platforms that foster innovation. However technology is not on its own a solution. We need guidelines and regulations that promote rational use of antibiotics in both human and animal medicine, including when not to use them. Antibiotics should be used only for treatment of diseases and completely banned as growth or food supplements. We need to educate the public to use antibiotics only when prescribed by a doctor, to complete the full prescription - even if people feel better, and to never share antibiotics with others or use leftover prescriptions. \r\n\r\nWe also need to better understand the scale and spread of the problem to raise awareness and plan for it in our region. In 1998, WHO Member States endorsed the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) strategy. Yet, surveillance of ABR is still currently inadequate and poorly co-ordinated, and public health laboratories lack full capacities to test for antimicrobial susceptibility.  The WHO Regional Office for Africa (AFRO) reports that only a few African countries carry out surveillance of drug resistance for many common and serious conditions.  WHO AFRO has in response published a guide to facilitate the establishment of laboratory-based surveillance for priority bacterial diseases and some countries have set up collaborations for national and regional ABR surveillance. There is however no formal regional framework for collaborative surveillance and information sharing, and limited public reporting. This not only hinders efforts to track and control the emergence of drug resistant micro-organisms, but also to assess the effectiveness of policies and activities to manage the problem. We need better standards, capacities, tools and social literacy to determine, monitor and control ABR in humans, animals and in the food chain.\r\n \r\nIn the face of rising food prices, unemployment, inaccessible services and other problems, ABR can seem a distant problem. But it is not distant, and we can no longer assume the effectiveness of the medicines we have used for treating common microbial diseases. We need to act now to remedy the practices that have led to the emergence of this new threat to human survival.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Brainstorming for the Sustainable Development Goals and beyond","field_subtitle":"Iqbal S: CODESRIA Newsletter, May 2014","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article1996","body":"With the development community, governments, policymakers, researchers and international organisations hard at work on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this report analyses the background of identifying development goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Call For Applicants  One Day Post GSHSR International Workshop On Participatory Action Research In People Centred Health Systems, Fountains Hotel, Cape Town, 4 October 2014 ","field_subtitle":"Open to applicants from all regions globally. Call Closes on 30 June 2014","field_url":"","body":"This call invites applicants from all regions globally to participate and share experiences in an International Workshop on \u2018Participatory action research in people centred health systems\u2019 being held on 4th October in Cape Town South Africa, following the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (30th Sept\u20133rd October). It is hosted by TARSC  and pra4equity network in the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) and Asociaci\u00f3n Latinoamericana de Medicina Social  (ALAMES). ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/39006","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call For Applicants  Three Day EQUINET Workshop On Participatory Action Research for the pra4equity network, October 4-6 Fountains Hotel Cape Town","field_subtitle":"Ooen to applicants from east and southern Africa. Call Closes on 30 June 2014","field_url":"","body":"This call invites applicants from east and southern African countries to participate and share experiences in a three day skills workshop of the EQUINET pra4equity learning network on an \u2018Participatory action research in people centred health systems\u2019 being held on 4-6 October in Cape Town South Africa, following the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (30th Sept\u20133rd October).  It includes at the same venue on the first day (4 October) the one day post GSHSR workshop on PAR hosted by EQUINET and ALAMES (for which there is a separate call open to all regions), and the following two days (5-6 October) the skills training for the east and southern African delegates, hosted by EQUINET. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/39007","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Amnesty International South Africa  Executive Director","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 5th June 2014","field_url":"https://careers.amnesty.org/vacancy/670/description/","body":"Amnesty International South Africa is seeking a high-profile, inspirational and experienced Director who is able to lead and grow our operations in South Africa and represent the organization externally to deliver positive change in the human rights situation nationally, regionally and globally. See further information at the website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers on participatory visual methodologies","field_subtitle":"Deadline for manuscript submission: 15 October 2015.","field_url":"","body":"Global Public Health invites the submission of full-length articles for a special journal issue on the theme Participatory Visual Methodologies and Global Public Health, co-edited by Claudia Mitchell and Marni Sommer, Send note of intention to submit & working title to evasquezgph@gmail.com","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers:  World Health & Population (WHP)","field_subtitle":"Deadline:  9 June 2014","field_url":"http://www.longwoods.com/articles/images/Call%20for%20Papers_ThemeIssue_AHW.pdf","body":"Attacks on Healthcare Workers in Conflict Zones \u2013 Fall 2014. World Health & Population (WHP) is publishing a theme issue on the nature and impacts of attacks on health workers, facilities, transports and patients in times of armed conflict or civil unrest \u2013 and strategies for protection. WHP welcomes submissions for the theme issue in the form of empirical studies, evaluations and policy analysis including the broad range of issues as listed below:\r\n\u2022 Studies exploring the vulnerabilities of healthcare in situations of armed conflict or civil unrest\r\n\u2022 Studies on the short, intermediate and long term impacts of violence on health systems\r\n\u2022 Strategies for supporting the safety and well-being of civilian health and human resources in\r\nsituations of armed conflict or civil unrest\r\n\u2022 Policies and actions at the national, regional and global level that can promote the respect and protection of healthcare.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Proposals: Health Policy and Research Organizations","field_subtitle":"Deadline: Wednesday, June 11, 2014 at 17:00 GMT","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Documents/Call-for-Proposals-HPRO.pdf","body":"The Innovating for Maternal and Child Health in Africa program is launching a call for proposals for the selection of Health Policy and Research Organizations. This program is funded by Canada\u2019s Global Health Research Initiative, a collaboration ofForeign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and IDRC. Organizations (or the lead organization of a consortium) must:\r\n\u2022\tbe a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization legally founded and registered as an independent entity in the country of operation. Only non-partisan and not-for-profit organizations can be included in a consortium.  \r\n\u2022\tbe an African organization. United Nations agencies and international organizations based in Africa or overseas are ineligible to be the lead organization or to be part of a consortium.  \r\n\u2022\tsupport a health policy development and implementation mandate through knowledge brokering, analysis, and research. \r\n\u2022\twork in at least one of the targeted countries and demonstrate willingness and capacity to expand their work in all the other targeted countries in the selected HPRO region (East or West).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Chile and Costa Rica: Different Roads to Universal Health in Latin America","field_subtitle":"Hern\u00e1ndez LO, Salgado DP: MSP Occasional Paper May 2014","field_url":"http://www.municipalservicesproject.org/publication/chile-and-costa-rica-different-roads-universal-health-latin-america","body":"There are many roads to \u2018universal health\u2019, and many different outcomes. This paper compares the experiences of Chile and Costa Rica, countries that have come to epitomize opposite approaches to health policy in Latin America. Chile represents the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) model promoted by global health agencies, which focus on public-private insurance schemes covering a limited package of services. Costa Rica represents a Universal Health System (UHS) approach that provides and funds all medical and preventive services to citizens through a single public entity. The authors demonstrate how the insurance-based health system in Chile has underperformed on most accounts when compared to the publicly financed and operated model in Costa Rica. Although both countries have seen major advances in primary care, Chile\u2019s health \u2018market\u2019 has led to inefficient use of resources, with higher administrative costs and more irrational medical procedures resulting from oligopolies and collusion among private providers. In terms of affordability, Chileans incur significant out-of-pocket health payments and are more likely to face catastrophic health expenditures. Both countries have good scores on access to basic care, but people in Chile generally face more access barriers, including distance to facilities, wait times and cost. Finally, Costa Ricans continue to be largely satisfied with the quality of their healthcare services, more so than Chileans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Effects of hazardous and harmful alcohol use on HIV incidence and sexual behaviour: a cohort study of Kenyan female sex workers","field_subtitle":"Chersich MF, Bosire W, King\u2019ola N, Temmerman M, Luchters S: Globalization and Health 10(22): 3 April 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/10/1/22","body":"The authors investigate links between alcohol use, and unsafe sex and incident HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa. A cohort of 400 HIV-negative female sex workers was established in Mombasa, Kenya. Associations between categories of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and the incidence at one year of unsafe sex, HIV and pregnancy were assessed using Cox proportional hazards models. Violence or STIs other than HIV measured at one year was compared across AUDIT categories using multivariate logistic regression. Participants had high levels of hazardous and harmful drinking, while 36% abstained from alcohol. Hazardous and harmful drinkers had more unprotected sex and higher partner numbers than abstainers. Sex while feeling drunk was frequent and associated with lower condom use. Occurrence of condom accidents rose step-wise with each increase in AUDIT category. Compared with non-drinkers, women with harmful drinking had 4-fold higher sexual violence and 8 times higher odds of physical violence. Unsafe sex, partner violence and HIV incidence were higher in women with alcohol use disorders. This prospective study, using validated alcohol measures, indicates that harmful or hazardous alcohol can influence sexual behaviour. Possible mechanisms include increased unprotected sex, condom accidents and exposure to sexual violence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 160: Antibiotic Resistance \u2013 are we driving our own extinction? ","field_subtitle":"Antibiotic Resistance \u2013 are we driving our own extinction?","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Extractive Industries, Revenue Allocation","field_subtitle":"Yanguas JA, Acosta AM: UNRISD working paper number 4, 2014","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ng3nlgc","body":"The authors have done a comparative study of revenue allocation in mineral-rich contexts, looking at existing criteria and reform modalities adopted to allocate and use EI revenues and examining the political bargains that enabled such distribution. The authors contend that two factors are crucially important - and explanatory of - devolution of revenues to subnational jurisdictions: the bargaining power of subnational actors as well as their connectedness to the central politics. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Fiscal Capacity and Aid Allocation: Domestic Resource Mobilization and Foreign Aid in Developing Countries","field_subtitle":"Bhushan A, Samy Y: UNRISD working paper number 7, 2014","field_url":"http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BCCF9/(httpPublications)/6FD41B9BB6628328C1257CD300556010?OpenDocument","body":"In their paper on Fiscal Capacity and Aid Allocation: Domestic Resource Mobilization and Foreign Aid in Developing Countries the authors look into the interaction between fiscal performance and donor aid allocation. The analysis reveals that there is hardly any correlation between overall aid and fiscal performance and capacity. Furthermore, the authors point to gaps in terms of external funders delivering on their commitments to align with recipient country priorities and providing aid through country Public Finance Management systems - despite promises to pay greater attention to DRM efforts of recipient countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Handbook on Health Inequality Monitoring: with a special focus on low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, Geneva, 2013. ","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/85345/1/9789241548632_eng.pdf","body":"The Handbook on health inequality monitoring: with a special focus on low- and middle-income countries is a user-friendly resource, developed to help countries establish and strengthen health inequality monitoring practices. The handbook elaborates on the steps of health inequality monitoring, including selecting relevant health indicators and equity stratifiers, obtaining data, analysing data, reporting results and implementing changes. Throughout the handbook, examples from low- and middle-income countries are presented to illustrate how concepts are relevant and applied in real-world situations; informative text boxes provide the context to better understand the complexities of the subject. The final section of the handbook presents an expanded example of national-level health inequality monitoring of reproductive, maternal and child health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"How can health remain central post-2015 in a sustainable development paradigm?","field_subtitle":"Hill P, Buse K, Brolan CE, Ooms G: Globalization and Health 10(18): 3 April 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/10/1/18","body":"In two years, the uncompleted tasks of the Millennium Development Goals will be merged with the agenda articulated in the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. This process will seek to integrate economic development (including the elimination of extreme poverty), social inclusion, environmental sustainability, and good governance into a combined sustainable development agenda. The first phase of consultation for the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals reached completion in the May 2013 report to the Secretary-General of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Health did well out of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) process, but the global context and framing of the new agenda is substantially different, and health advocates cannot automatically assume the same prominence. This paper argues that to remain central to continuing negotiations and the future implementation, four strategic shifts are urgently required. Advocates need to reframe health from the poverty reduction focus of the MDGs to embrace the social sustainability paradigm that underpins the new goals. Second, health advocates need to speak\u2014and listen\u2014to the whole sustainable development agenda, and assert health in every theme and every relevant policy, something that is not yet happening in current thematic debates. Third, the authors assert that we need to construct goals that will be truly \u201cuniversal\u201d, that will engage every nation\u2014a significant re-orientation from the focus on low-income countries of the MDGs. And finally, health advocates need to overtly explore what global governance structures will be needed to finance and implement these universal Sustainable Development Goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"In Dakar, a graffiti festival connects artists, cultures and ideas","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://africanurbanism.net/2014/04/24/dakar-festigraff-2014/","body":"For 10 days in April, graffiti artists from around the world gathered in Dakar, Senegal for the fifth annual Festigraff, the Festival international de Graffiti en Afrique/Senegal. While the term \u201cgraffiti\u201d can carry a negative connotation, spray can art is Dakar\u2019s most ubiquitous urban art expression, ranging from vandalism to approved and encouraged art. As in many West African urban areas, in Dakar, walls are everywhere, but what\u2019s different here is how people use them: Each wall is an opportunity, a potential canvas. One can hardly walk, stroll or drive through nearly any district or community without catching some form of graffiti or wall art, on buildings, along highways, even commissioned on personal homes. Graffiti is an essential aspect of Dakar\u2019s colourful landscape. The festival taps into this established art culture of using spray paint to create vertical wall art and drills down deep in this mode: Through the creation of new art murals and graffiti works, street parades, training young artists, conferences, roundtables and community concerts, the festival networks artists and builds off of community acceptance and appreciation. This year at the Biscuiterie de M\u00e9dina, the festival created a graffiti village, where artists painted walls, vendors set up shops and music blared, creating a creative community of artists, art lovers and art in a tightly knit space. \u201cWe must be precise in differentiating between graffiti as its done abroad and its role here in Senegal,\u201d Ati explains. \u201cHere, it\u2019s a message to speak with the people: Speaking against violence, speaking for good education, speaking for good citizenry, speaking so that we know our history, speaking to listen less to politicians and seeking more to address the real problems in Senegalese life\u2026We use our spray to speak for those who can\u2019t.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Invitation for letters of interest: Improving the careers of women research scientists in infectious diseases of poverty","field_subtitle":"Submission deadline: 30 September 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/tdr/grants/en/","body":"TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases celebrates 40 years in 2014 and has a longstanding commitment to improve gender equity in health. TDR is inviting letters of interest from women scientists and research managers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs ) to develop their ideas on how to improve career development for women research scientists working in the area of infectious diseases of poverty. Letters of interest that are selected will receive funding of US$ 10 000 to develop and elaborate a full concept. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Local production of pharmaceuticals in Africa and access to essential medicines: 'urban bias' in access to imported medicines in Tanzania and its policy implications","field_subtitle":"Mujinja PGM, Mackintosh M, Justin-Temu M, Wuyts M: Globalization and Health 10(12): 10 March 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/10/1/12/abstract","body":"International policy towards access to essential medicines in Africa has focused until recently on international procurement of large volumes of medicines, mainly from Indian manufacturers, and their import and distribution. This emphasis is now being challenged by renewed policy interest in the potential benefits of local pharmaceutical production and supply. However, there is a shortage of evidence on the role of locally produced medicines in African markets, and on potential benefits of local production for access to medicines. This article contributes to filling that gap. This article uses WHO/HAI data from Tanzania for 2006 and 2009 on prices and sources of a set of tracer essential medicines. It employs innovative graphical methods of analysis alongside conventional statistical testing. Medicines produced in Tanzania were equally likely to be found in rural and in urban areas. Imported medicines, especially those imported from countries other than Kenya (mainly from India) displayed 'urban bias?: that is, they were significantly more likely to be available in urban than in rural areas. This finding holds across the range of sample medicines studied, and cannot be explained by price differences alone. While different private distribution networks for essential medicines may provide part of the explanation, this cannot explain why the urban bias in availability of imported medicines is also found in the public sector. The findings suggest that enhanced local production may improve rural access to medicines. The potential benefits of local production and scope for their improvement are an important field for further research, and indicate a key policy area in which economic development and health care objectives may reinforce each other.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Making fair choices on the path to universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"WHO Consultative Group on Equity and Universal Health Coverage, May 2014","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/112671/1/9789241507158_eng.pdf?ua=1","body":"This report addresses the critical choices of fairness and equity that arise on the path to UHC. Accordingly, the report is not primarily about why UHC ought to be a goal, but about the path to that goal. The report may differ from others in the direct way it addresses fundamental issues and difficult trade-offs. This approach was facilitated by the involvement of philosophers and ethicists in addition to economists, policy experts, and clinical doctors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"MPs pass Bill that will make men test for HIV alongside their wives","field_subtitle":"Nalugo M, Ayebazibwe A: Daily Monitor May 14 2014","field_url":"http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/MPs-pass-Bill-that-will-make-men-test/-/688334/2313542/-/siygx4z/-/index.html","body":"If President Museveni assents to the new HIV/Aids Prevention and Control Bill, 2010, passed by Parliament in May, it will be criminal for a person to \u2018willfully\u2019 or \u2018intentionally\u2019 infect another with the HIV/Aids virus.\r\nUnder Clause 41(1), a person who knowingly transmits HIV/Aids to another shall, on conviction, be liable to a fine of not more that Shs4.8 million or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or both. Additionally, Clause 14 of the BIll makes it mandatory for men to test alongside their pregnant partners with a view of placing an obligation on both parents to be responsible and protect the unborn child from acquiring the disease. The Bill also establishes a fund, the HIV Trust Fund, which will help boost the fight against the pandemic. The proposed fund imposes an obligation on the government to make quarterly contributions to ministry of Health. Government will contribute 2 per cent to the fund off levies from beer, bottled water and soft drinks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Mutual learning and reverse innovation - where next?","field_subtitle":"Crisp N: Globalization and Health 10(14): 28 March 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/10/1/14","body":"The papers argues for mutual learning in global health systems. The author argues that it is increasingly recognized that innovation needs to be sourced globally and that we need to think in terms of co-development as ideas are developed and spread from richer to poorer countries and vice versa. The Globalization and Health journal\u2019s ongoing thematic series, \u201cReverse innovation in global health systems: learning from low-income countries\u201d illustrates how mutual learning and ideas about so-called \"reverse innovation\" or \"frugal innovation\" are being developed and utilized by researchers and practitioners around the world. The path to truly \u201cglobal innovation flow\u201d, although not fully established, is argued to be under way. Global health learning laboratories, where partners can support each other in generating and sharing lessons, have the potential to construct solutions for the world. At the heart of this dialogue is a focus on creating practical local solutions and, simultaneously, drawing out the lessons for the whole world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"New momentum to act against antibiotic resistance ","field_subtitle":"Alas M, Ling CK: TWN Info Service on Health Issues, May14/06","field_url":"","body":"Governments at the recent World Health Assembly have committed to a higher level of action to combat antibiotic resistance that is an increasing public health threat across the world. On 24 May, a resolution was approved by health ministers on \u201cCombating antimicrobial resistance, including antibiotic resistance\u201d after an important exchange of country positions and one amendment put forward by Mexico with regard to conflict of interests. India supported the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) resolution subject to the understanding that its concerns would be included in the proposed global plan of action. These included financial access of developing countries patients to new antibiotics, news ways of funding research and development based on the delinkage principle in the context of developing countries, and the special needs of developing countries and their capacity building to take on relevant activities. India\u2019s proposal was in lieu of making changes in the resolution text itself which was its first preference. The United Kingdom in its statement also acknowledged the legitimate concern of developing countries on access to antibiotics, and the importance of support for technical capacities and affordable drugs. All Member States agreed on the importance and magnitude of antimicrobial resistance and broad support was heard in the statements made by all delegations on the paramount need to take action. Both developing and developed countries agreed that this is of global magnitude and urged the WHO to develop the action plan and for Member States to build up their own national plans.  Developing countries stressed on the urgency of the problem but also on the importance of ensuring access to new antibiotics for developing countries and the mobilization of resources so that they can implement action plans and surveillance.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/38992","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Noncommunicable diseases among urban refugees and asylum-seekers in developing countries: a neglected health care need","field_subtitle":"Amara AH, Aljunid SM: Globalization and Health 10(24): 3 April 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/10/1/24","body":"With the increasing trend in refugee urbanisation, growing numbers of refugees are diagnosed with chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs). This study reviewed the literature to determine the prevalence and distribution of chronic NCDs among urban refugees living in developing countries, to report refugee access to health care for NCDs and to compare the prevalence of NCDs among urban refugees with the prevalence in their home countries. Major search engines and refugee agency websites were systematically searched between June and July 2012 for articles and reports on NCD prevalence among urban refugees. Most studies were conducted in the Middle East and indicated a high prevalence of NCDs among urban refugees in this region, but in general, the prevalence varied by refugees\u2019 region or country of origin. Hypertension, musculoskeletal disease, diabetes and chronic respiratory disease were the major diseases observed. In general, most urban refugees in developing countries have adequate access to primary health care services. Further investigations are needed to document the burden of NCDs among urban refugees and to identify their need for health care in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Our Land, our Business campaign","field_subtitle":"CODESRIA Newsletter May 2014","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article1995","body":"The authors assert that the World Bank is a structural driver of the land grabs that is dispossessing and impoverishing rural communities across the globe and a central player that is using its financial and political might to force developing countries to follow a pre-prescribed model of development, based on the neoliberal principles of privatization, deregulation, low corporate taxation and \u2018free market\u2019 fundamentalism. At the demand of the G8 in 2012, and with funding from the Gates Foundation, the UK, US, Dutch, and Danish governments, the World Bank is now reported to be developing a new instrument to benchmark the business of agriculture (BBA). Started in late 2013, pilot studies are now underway in 10 countries, to be scaled up to 40 countries in 2014.The BBA builds on the Doing Business model and adapts it to agriculture. Despite a language that claims concerns for small- farmers, the goal of this new agriculture-focused ranking system is argued to aim at further opening countries\u2019 agricultural sectors to foreign corporations. CODESRIA report the launch of a campaign to stop the Doing Business ranking. This is the ask of the OUR LAND, OUR BUSINESS campaign. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Placement, support, and retention of health professionals: national, cross-sectional findings from medical and dental community service officers in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Hatcher AM, Onah M, Kornick S, Peacocke J, Reid S: Human Resources for Health 12(14): 2014","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/12/1/14","body":"In South Africa, community service following medical training serves as a mechanism for equitable distribution of health professionals and their professional development. Community service officers are required to contribute a year towards serving in a public health facility while receiving supervision and remuneration. Although the South African community service programme has been in effect since 1998, little is known about how placement and practical support occur, or how community service may impact future retention of health professionals. National, cross-sectional data were collected from community service officers who served during 2009 using a structured self-report questionnaire. A Supervision Satisfaction Scale (SSS) was created by summing scores of five questions rated on a three-point Likert scale (orientation, clinical advising, ongoing mentorship, accessibility of clinic leadership, and handling of community service officers\u2019 concerns). Research endpoints were guided by community service programmatic goals and analysed as dichotomous outcomes. Bivariate and multivariate logistical regressions were conducted using Stata 12. The sample population comprised 685 doctors and dentists (response rate 44%). Although few participants planned to continue work in rural, underserved communities (n&#8201;=&#8201;171 out of 657 responses, 25%), those serving in a rural facility during the community service year had higher intentions of continuing rural work. Those reporting professional development during the community service year were twice as likely to report intentions to remain in rural, underserved communities. Despite challenges in equitable distribution of practitioners, participant satisfaction with the compulsory community service programme appears to be high among those who responded to a 2009 questionnaire. An emphasis on professional development and supervision is crucial if South Africa is to build practitioner skills, equitably distribute health professionals, and retain the medical workforce in rural, underserved areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Private hospital market flat - research","field_subtitle":"Visser A: BDlive: 10 March 2014","field_url":"http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/healthcare/2014/03/10/private-hospital-market-flat--research","body":"New research on market concentration of private hospitals, medical schemes and administrators is reported to show that contrary to concerns over growing concentration, the market for private hospitals in South Africa has in fact remained flat since 2003.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health a Major Priority in African Nations","field_subtitle":"The Kaiser/Pew Global Health Survey, May 2014","field_url":"http://www.pewglobal.org/2007/12/13/a-global-look-at-public-perceptions-of-health-problems-priorities-and-donors/","body":"Concerns about public health are widespread in sub-Saharan Africa, and there is considerable support in the region for making public health challenges a top national priority. In particular, people want their governments to improve the quality of hospitals and other health care facilities and deal with the problem of HIV/AIDS. A Pew Research Center survey, conducted March 6, 2013 to April 12, 2013 in six African nations, also finds broad support for government efforts to address access to drinking water, access to prenatal care, hunger, infectious diseases, and child immunization. A median of 76% across six countries surveyed say building and improving hospitals and other health care facilities should be one of the most important priorities for their national government. The percentage of the public who holds this view ranges from 85% in Ghana to 64% in Nigeria. Similarly, a median of 76% believe preventing and treating HIV/AIDS should be one of government\u2019s most important priorities, ranging from 81% in Ghana to 59% in Nigeria. A median of at least 65% also say the other issues included on the poll \u2014 ranging from access to drinking water to increased child immunization \u2014 should be among the most important priorities. In fact, majorities hold this view about all seven issues in all six nations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening the enabling environment for women and girls: what is the evidence in social and structural approaches in the HIV response?","field_subtitle":"Hardee K, Gay J, Croce-Galis M, Peltz A: Journal of International Aids Society 17(1): 7 January 2014","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3887370/","body":"There is growing interest in expanding public health approaches that address social and structural drivers that affect the environment in which behaviour occurs. Half of those living with HIV infection are women. The sociocultural and political environment in which women live can enable or inhibit their ability to protect themselves from acquiring HIV. This paper examines the evidence related to six key social and structural drivers of HIV for women: transforming gender norms; addressing violence against women; transforming legal norms to empower women; promoting women\u2019s employment, income and livelihood opportunities; advancing education for girls and reducing stigma and discrimination. The paper reviews the evidence for successful and promising social and structural interventions related to each driver. This analysis contains peer-reviewed published research and study reports with clear and transparent data on the effectiveness of interventions. Structural interventions to address these key social and structural drivers have led to increasing HIV-protective behaviours, creating more gender-equitable relationships and decreasing violence, improving services for women, increasing widows\u2019 ability to cope with HIV and reducing behaviour that increases HIV risk, particularly among young people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Undernutrition in Tanzania \u2013 is private sector growth the answer? ","field_subtitle":"Steve Lewis, Eldis, May 2014","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/latest-news/news/undernutrition-in-tanzania--is-private-sector-growth-the-answer#.U4jT7V9waUk","body":"A recent RESULTS report on nutrition and education in Tanzania, \u201cYou can\u2019t study if you\u2019re hungry\u2026\u201d found that levels of undernutrition are worryingly high, at 42% of all children under five, and, surprisingly, that buoyant economic growth levels are having little impact on nutrition figures. In Tanzania, a lack of essential nutrients in the average child\u2019s diet is one of the key determinants of undernutrition. So it is not necessarily a lack of food, but a lack of nutritious and varied food. Micronutrient deficiency is widespread in Tanzania and contributes to the high level of stunting. Yet, Tanzania\u2019s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Annual Growth Rate averaged 7% from 2002 until 2013, reaching an all-time high of 11% in 2007. But the sectors which have driven Tanzania\u2019s economic growth are mainly those which are capital intensive and urban. So while the urban middle class are expanding there is little benefit in rural areas. The fastest growing economic sectors are communications, financial services, construction, and a new natural gas sector. In a meeting with Tanzanian MPs on the Parliamentary Group for nutrition the MPs who were especially concerned were from the area of the country described as the \u2018agricultural growth corridor\u2019. Precisely the rural areas of the country that have been targeted for private sector growth are those constituencies with highest rates of stunting. One MP said that the emphasis on export-led growth means that parents are now so busy that they do not have the time to focus on the adequate nutrition of their children. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Urban lecture series: How can we transcend slum urbanism in Africa?","field_subtitle":"Edgar Pieterse, 14 May 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.urbanafrica.net/resources/urban-lecture-series-can-transcend-slum-urbanism-africa/","body":"Edgar Pieterse in this lecture argues that data about economic incorporation into the labour market and living conditions demonstrate that the majority of African urban dwellers live in conditions of vulnerability, and that economic insecurity reinforces slum living and makes it difficult for states to access sufficient tax revenues to address a variety of urban pressures. Pieterse poses the question: \u201cif we acknowledge this tough reality, how can we formulate policy agendas that can break this cycle of exclusion and injustice?\u201d The lecture provides a macro framework to develop alternative modalities of urban management and governance rooted in ethical values and practical experiences.Pieterse puts forward the concept of the underlying logics of slum urbanism, which in turn manifests in an overall urban form that can be characterized as \u2018extreme splintered urbanism\u2019\u2014a pattern of urban development that manifests in sharp urban divides, the privatization of key urban services and infrastructure linked to large-scale slum neglect over long periods of time. In response the concept of Urban Operating Systems is introduced to identify the macro entry points for transforming urban systems over 2-3 decades. The operating systems are: infrastructure, economy, land markets and the governance. Alternative approaches to each are identified as a provocation for further research and praxis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Drafting Group established on \u201cnon-state actors\u201d engagement ","field_subtitle":"Gopakumar KM, Shashikant S: TWN Info Service, May14/05","field_url":"","body":"A drafting group has been set up to finalize the draft framework for the World Health Organization\u2019s engagement with non-state actors (NSA framework). This decision made by WHO Member States at the 67th session of the World Health Assembly (WHA) was due to the divergent opinions with regard to the way forward on the NSA framework. The session is meeting from 19 to 24 May at the WHO headquarters in Geneva. Many developing countries such as Brazil, Bolivia, India, Pakistan, and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) expressed the view that the draft policy does not contain details to address concerns related to conflict of interest issues, modalities in accepting resources from NSAs, or staff secondment from NSAs. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/38996","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Statistics 2014: Large gains in life expectancy","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, Geneva May 2014","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/world-health-statistics-2014/en/","body":"WHO\u2019s annual statistics report shows that low-income countries have made the greatest progress, with an average increase in life expectancy by 9 years from 1990 to 2012. The top six countries where life expectancy increased the most were Liberia which saw a 20-year increase (from 42 years in 1990 to 62 years in 2012) followed by Ethiopia (from 45 to 64 years), Maldives (58 to 77 years), Cambodia (54 to 72 years), Timor-Leste (50 to 66 years) and Rwanda (48 to 65 years). A boy born in 2012 in a high-income country can expect to live to the age of around 76 \u2013 16 years longer than a boy born in a low-income country (age 60). For girls, the difference is even wider; a gap of 19 years separates life expectancy in high-income (82 years) and low-income countries (63 years). Wherever they live in the world, women live longer than men. The gap between male and female life expectancy is greater in high-income countries where women live around six years longer than men. In low-income countries, the difference is around three years. World Health Statistics is the definitive source of information on the health of the world\u2019s people. It contains data from 194 countries on a range of mortality, disease and health system indicators including life expectancy, illnesses and deaths from key diseases, health services and treatments, financial investment in health, as well as risk factors and behaviours that affect health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"10th Public Health Association of South Africa","field_subtitle":"Polokwane, South Africa, 3-6 September 2014","field_url":"http://www.phasa.org.za/10th-phasa-conference-2014/","body":"The 10th anniversary of the Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) conference will be celebrated with the hosting of the conference in Polokwane (Limpopo) from 3 to 6 September 2014. The workshops will take place on the 3rd, the actual conference on the 4th and 5th, and the student symposium on the 6th of September.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A Dangerous Diversion: Will the IFC\u2019s flagship health PPP bankrupt Lesotho\u2019s Ministry of Health?","field_subtitle":"Marriot A, Oxfam and the Consumer Protection Association (Lesotho): April 2014 ","field_url":"http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/a-dangerous-diversion-will-the-ifcs-flagship-health-ppp-bankrupt-lesothos-minis-315183","body":"Lesotho has a new hospital \u2013 built and operated under the first public-private partnership (PPP) of its kind in any low-income country. The IFC advice and promise was that it would cost the same as the public hospital it replaced. Instead the PPP hospital is costing the government 51% of their total health budget while providing 25% returns to the private partner and a success fee of $723,000 for the IFC. This report explains how the Lesotho health PPP was developed under the advice of the International Finance Corporation (IFC \u2013 the private sector investment arm of the World Bank) and now costs the government $67 million per year, or at least three times the cost of the old public hospital. The hospital is reported by the IFC to be delivering better outcomes in some areas. But the biggest concern is that as costs escalate for the PPP hospital in the capital, fewer and fewer resources will be available to tackle serious and increasing health problems in rural areas where three quarters of the population live.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"A practical and systematic approach to organisational capacity strengthening for research in the health sector in Africa","field_subtitle":"Bates I, Boyd A, Smith H and Cole D: Health Research Policy and Systems, 12:11; doi:10.1186/1478-4505-12-11, 2014","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/12/1/11","body":"Despite increasing investment in health research capacity strengthening efforts in low and middle income countries, published evidence to guide the systematic design and monitoring of such interventions is very limited. Systematic processes are important to underpin capacity strengthening interventions because they provide stepwise guidance and allow for continual improvement. The authors aimed to use evidence to inform the design of a replicable but flexible process to guide health research capacity strengthening that could be customized for different contexts, and to provide a framework for planning, collecting information, making decisions, and improving performance. They used peer-reviewed and grey literature to develop a five-step pathway for designing and evaluating health research capacity strengthening programmes, tested in a variety of contexts in Africa. The five steps are: i) defining the goal of the capacity strengthening effort, ii) describing the optimal capacity needed to achieve the goal, iii) determining the existing capacity gaps compared to the optimum, iv) devising an action plan to fill the gaps and associated indicators of change, and v) adapting the plan and indicators as the programme matures. The five-step pathway starts with a clear goal and objectives, making explicit the capacity required to achieve the goal. Strategies for promoting sustainability are agreed with partners and incorporated from the outset. The pathway for designing capacity strengthening programmes focuses not only on technical, managerial, and financial processes within organisations, but also on the individuals within organisations and the wider system within which organisations are coordinated, financed, and managed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa rising? Inequalities and the essential role of fair taxation","field_subtitle":"Kumar C: Christian Aid and Tax Justice Network, February 2014","field_url":"http://www.africainequalities.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Africa-Rising.-Inequalities-and-the-essential-role-of-fair-taxation-2014-Report.pdf","body":"After a decade of high growth, a new narrative  of optimism has taken hold about Africa and its  economic prospects. Despite this, there is a broad \r\nconsensus that progress in human development has been limited given the volume of wealth created. There is growing concern that the high levels of \r\nincome inequality in sub-Saharan Africa are holding back progress. This report investigates the issue of income inequality in eight sub-Saharan African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe). While there is growing public recognition that inequality is the issue for our time - both globally and in sub-Saharan Africa \u2013 there is little definitive analysis of income inequality trends on the continent. This report seeks to contribute in this area, looking at whether income inequality is, in fact, rising and in what context this is occurring. In particular, this report seeks to locate an analysis of tax systems in sub-Saharan Africa in the context of these economic inequalities, given the primary importance of national tax systems in redistributing wealth. A central contention of this report is that rising income inequality is going hand in hand with \u2013 and is ultimately caused by \u2013 the current growth model, illicit financial flows and the the inability of governments to tax the proceeds of growth, because a large part of sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s income and wealth has escaped offshore. This report also finds many shortcomings in direct taxation in the countries studied. The personal income tax (PIT) systems lack equity as the bulk of the burden is on employees. The self-employed rarely pay tax. The visible lack of equity erodes citizens\u2019 trust in the system. While the report notes some signs of progress, such as some mineral taxation reforms, there is also a clear gap between rhetoric and reality. There is national and international consensus that it is urgent to address issues such as tax incentives, extractives taxation, the taxation of HNWI, tax evasion and illicit financial flows. However, countries are struggling to introduce new direct taxes and to enforce tax compliance against companies and elites. Support to make such transformational changes is reported to be inadequate. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Speaks: Request for a video clip","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 30 June 2014","field_url":"","body":"The Third Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR) is to be held from 30 September \u2013 3 October 2014 in Cape Town, South Africa (http://hsr2014.healthsystemsresearch.org/). This is the first time this Symposium has been held in Africa. The theme of the 2014 symposium is: the science and practice of people\u2013centred health systems. The involvement of people both in their own health decisions and in those concerning the development of a health system is a vital platform for effective service delivery and for ensuring the health system offers wider value in society.\r\nThe opening plenary (on 30th September 2014) will have a specific African focus \u2013 and its theme is governance and health in Africa. As part of this opening ceremony the organisers would like to feature different voices from the African continent and provide African stakeholders with an opportunity to share their perspective on the theme of the symposium. They would like you to identify a stakeholder whose voice you feel would be important to feature in the opening plenary and to record a short interview with them. It could be someone you work closely with \u2013 such as a health worker, a researcher, a community member or a client or user of the health service. Someone that you feel represents a critical constituency from the African continent. Depending on the volume and quality of material received we will seek to project the clips at other moments during the conference, and also post them on the conference website.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/38956","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Arguing for Universal Health Coverage","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/health_financing/UHC_ENvs_BD.PDF?ua=1","body":"WHO has released a handbook \u2018Arguing for UHC', made to support CSOs' advocacy work on health financing for universal health coverage.  WHO is happy to share with you the handbook \u2018Arguing for UHC', made to support CSOs' advocacy work on health financing for universal health coverage. 'Arguing for Universal Health Coverage' includes basic principles on health financing, country examples and evidence-based arguments to support Civil Society Organizations advocating for health funding policies that promote equity, efficiency and effectiveness, and ensure that the rights of the most vulnerable are not forgotten.\r\nincludes basic principles on health financing, country examples and evidence-based arguments to support Civil Society Organizations advocating for health funding policies that promote equity, efficiency and effectiveness, and ensure that the rights of the most vulnerable are not forgotten.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"BRICS corporate snapshots in Africa","field_subtitle":"Amisi B: Pambazuka news, 673, 9 April 2014","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/91298","body":"Many African countries, if not all, are located at the extreme end of what Immanuel Wallerstein thirty years ago termed the core-periphery relationship, a position which impoverishes them to the advantage of rich and industrialised countries in the core. In this paper the author argues that BRICS countries represent sub-imperialists trying to improve their relative location in the world system, perhaps moving toward imperialist power and thereafter even to imperialist superpower status. These countries have different levels of economic development and political influence, vested interests in the African continent and the DRC in particular, and geopolitical positions in world politics. But they all share four characteristics. First, BRICS countries present important opportunities for foreign direct investment that also impoverish people through dispossession of natural resources with little or no compensation, unequal shares of the costs and benefits of mega development projects, repayments of debts incurred to build these projects, and structural exclusion from accessing the outcomes of these initiatives. Second, BRICS countries are argued to share the same modus operandi: accumulation by dispossession. Third, BRICS countries are argued to share the same interests in natural resources including but not limited to mining, gas, oil and mega-dam projects for water and for electricity to meet their increasing demands for cheap and abundant electricity. Fourth, BRICS countries are argued to have poor records of environmental regulation, with virtually no commitment to mitigate climate change and invest in truly renewable energy, to take environmental impact assessments seriously, and to consult with and compensate adversely affected communities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: 2014 Association of African Planning Schools Conference, Cape Town","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 31 May 2014","field_url":"http://www.aaps2014conference.org.za","body":"AAPS 2014 will focus on the central themes and problems of African urbanization. While the conference is focused on sub-Saharan Africa, the discussion will be extended to other contexts in the global South. The AAPS 2014 Conference will feature keynote presentations from a number of international experts on cities and urbanization in Africa and the global South, including Edgar Pieterse (African Centre for Cities) and Colin MacFarlane (Durham University). The conference is aimed at urban planning educators, researchers and practitioners seeking to enhance their knowledge of the contemporary issues and debates surrounding African and Southern cities and urbanization. It will also appeal to other built environment professionals, as well as academics in related disciplines with an interest in urban issues. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Codesria 2014 Democratic Governance Institute, 04 - 15 August 2014, Dakar Senegal","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 13th June, 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article1991","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce the 2014 session of its annual Democratic Governance Institute. The theme is: Building more resilient societies: human security and risk management in Africa.  CODESRIA researchers to submit their applications for participation in this institute.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CODESRIA Methodology Workshop Series: Training the Trainers in Quantitative and Qualitative Methods in Social Science Research, Dakar, Senegal, 1st \u2013 5th September, 2014 ","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 30 May 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article1990","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce the 2014 session of an initiative targeted at those members of the African social research community who, in their universities, are responsible for teaching social science research methods at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In cognisance of the multi-faceted crises confronting the African higher education system in general and the universities in particular, CODESRIA has invested itself in offering platforms for postgraduate students and mid-career professionals to be offered opportunities for training in quantitative and qualitative research methods. The first tranche of such training opportunities centred on quantitative research methods. Over the last few years, the accent was shifted to qualitative research methods. Organised as advanced research seminars at which participants were exposed to various methodological techniques and their roots in the history and philosophy of science. CODESRIA organises five research methodology workshops every year on the basis of one per sub-region, one specially dedicated to Nigeria and English-speaking countries of West and Central Africa, and one for trainers. This last one brings together researchers who have responsibility for imbuing others with the basic skills they require in order to be successful researchers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Compulsory patent licensing and local drug manufacturing capacity in Africa","field_subtitle":"Owoeye OA: Bulletin of the World Health Organization: 10 January 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/92/3/13-128413/en/","body":"Africa has the highest disease burden in the world and continues to depend on pharmaceutical imports to meet public health needs. As Asian manufacturers of generic medicines begin to operate under a more protectionist intellectual property regime, their ability to manufacture medicines at prices that are affordable to poorer countries is becoming more circumscribed. The Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health gives member states of the World Trade Organization (WTO) the right to adopt legislation permitting the use of patented material without authorization by the patent holder, a provision known as \"compulsory licensing\". For African countries to take full advantage of compulsory licensing they must develop substantial local manufacturing capacity. Because building manufacturing capacity in each African country is daunting and almost illusory, the author argues that an African free trade area should be developed to serve as a platform not only for the free movement of goods made pursuant to compulsory licences, but also for an economic or financial collaboration towards the development of strong pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity in the continent. Most countries in Africa are in the United Nations list of least developed countries, and this allows them, under WTO law, to refuse to grant patents for pharmaceuticals until 2021. Thus, the author argues that there is a compelling need for African countries to collaborate to build strong pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity in the continent now, while the current flexibilities in international intellectual property law offer considerable benefits.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 101: Health centre committees as a vehicle for social participation in health systems in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R, Machingura F, Kaim B, Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) Rusike I (CWGH) EQUINET discussion paper 101, TARSC with CWGH and Medico, EQUINET: Harare, May 2014","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQUINET%20HCC%20Diss%20paper%20101%20FINAL.pdf","body":"Health Centre Committees (HCCs) have provided one vehicle for social participation and accountability in health systems in east and southern Africa (ESA). Recognising this contribution and building on prior work on HCCs, EQUINET held a regional meeting involving those working with HCCs in ESA countries to exchange experiences and information on the laws, roles, capacities, training and monitoring systems that are being applied to HCCs in the ESA region. The meeting gathered 20 delegates representing seven countries from the region, all involved in training and strengthening HCCs. An interim desk review of existing published literature on HCCs was prepared for the meeting. The desk review covered all 16 ESA countries covered by EQUINET, that is Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Delegates validated and added to the evidence presented. This discussion paper combines the evidence from the desk review and the further evidence that was presented at the regional meeting. It covers the legal frameworks, roles, composition, capacities and monitoring of HCCs in ESA countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Empirical impact evaluation of the WHO global code of practice on the international recruitment of health personnel in Australia, Canada, UK and USA","field_subtitle":"Edge JS; Hoffman SJ: Globalization and Health 9; 60: November 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-9-60.pdf","body":"The active recruitment of health workers from developing countries to developed countries has become a major threat to global health. In an effort to manage this migration, the 63rd World Health Assembly adopted the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel in May 2010. While the Code has been lauded as the first globally-applicable regulatory framework for health worker recruitment, its impact has yet to be evaluated. The authors offer the first empirical evaluation of the Code\u2019s impact on national and sub-national actors in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and United States of America, which are the English-speaking high income  countries with the greatest number of migrant health workers. Forty two  key informants from across government, civil society and private sectors were surveyed.  Sixty percent of respondents believed their colleagues were not aware of the Code, and 93% reported that no specific changes had been observed in their work as a result of the Code. 86% reported that the Code has not had any meaningful impact on policies, practices or regulations in their countries. This suggests a gap between awareness of the Code among stakeholders at global forums and the awareness and behaviour of national and sub-national actors. Advocacy and technical guidance for implementing the Code are needed to improve its impact on national decision- makers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 159:Salary scandals in Zimbabwe\u2019s medical insurance - crisis or opportunity for accountability?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET to hold a skills workshop on Participatory action research in people centred health systems\u2019 after the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, Cape Town, October 2014","field_subtitle":"Call to hold the dates and for expressions of interest","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET will hold a Workshop on \u2018Participatory action research in people centred health systems\u2019 immediately after the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research ending 3rd October as a one day post symposium workshop (4th October) and a two day skills training (5-6 October) in Cape Town South Africa. We invite you to send us expressions of interest in participating in the workshop and will post more information on the workshops on the EQUINET website in May. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Faith and HIV prevention: the conceptual framing of HIV prevention among Pentecostal Batswana teenagers","field_subtitle":"Mpofu E, Nkomazana F, Muchado JA, Togarasei L, Bingenheimer JB: BMC Public Health 14(225): 5 March 2014","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/14/225","body":"There is a huge interest by faith-based organizations (FBOs) in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere in HIV prevention interventions that build on the religious aspects of being. Successful partnerships between the public health services and FBOs will require a better understanding of the conceptual framing of HIV prevention by FBOS to access for prevention intervention, those concepts the churches of various denominations and their members would support or endorse. This paper reports the findings of a study on the conceptual framing of HIV prevention among church youths in Botswana. The findings suggest the church youth to conceptually frame their HIV prevention from both faith-oriented and secular-oriented perspectives, while prioritizing the faith-oriented concepts based on biblical teachings and future focus. In their secular-oriented framing of HIV prevention, the church youths endorsed the importance to learn the facts about HIV and AIDS, understanding of community norms that increased risk for HIV and prevention education. However, components of secular-oriented framing of HIV prevention concepts were comparatively less was well differentiated among the youths than with faith-oriented framing, suggesting latent influences of the church knowledge environment to undervalue secular oriented concepts. Older and sexually experienced church youths in their framing of HIV prevention valued future focus and prevention education less than contrasting peer cohorts, suggesting their greater relative risk for HIV infection. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"FHS Webinar Social Media for Research and Research Uptake","field_subtitle":"Future Health Systems: November 2013","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIQx7GnLQGw","body":"This internal webinar co-hosted by IDS and FHS as part of the FHS webinar series looks at a number of social media tools to support both research and research uptake.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global governance and diplomacy solutions for counterfeit medicines","field_subtitle":"Mackey T: Journal of Health Diplomacy, 1; 1 2013","field_url":"http://www.ghdnet.org/sites/default/files/Global%20Health%20Diplomacy%20and%20the%20Governance%20of%20Counterfeit%20Medicines_0.pdf","body":"This paper presents a comprehensive mapping of governance efforts by international organizations to address counterfeit medicines, including analysis of related international treaties and conventions that may be applicable to anticounterfeit efforts. The paper reviews governance and global health diplomacy proposals from the literature that addresses counterfeit medicines. A number of international organizations have become active in addressing the global trade of counterfeit medicines. However, governance approaches by international organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Interpol and the World Customs Organization (WCO), have varied in scope and effectiveness. The authors argue that treaty instruments with applicability to counterfeit medicines have not been fully leveraged to combat this issue and argue that a formalized and multi-stakeholder governance mechanism is needed to address the issue, and that the UNODC should convene it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health policy and systems research in access to medicines: a prioritized agenda for low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Bigdeli M, Javadi D, Hoebert J, Laing R, Ranson K and The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research: Health Research Policy and Systems 11(37): 2013","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/11/1/37","body":"To identify priority policy issues in access to medicines (ATM) relevant for low- and middle-income countries, to identify research questions that would help address these policy issues, and to prioritize these research questions in a health policy and systems research (HPSR) agenda. The study involved i) country- and regional-level priority-setting exercises performed in 17 countries across five regions, with a desk review of relevant grey and published literature combined with mapping and interviews of national and regional stakeholders; ii) interviews with global-level stakeholders; iii) a scoping of published literature; and iv) a consensus building exercise with global stakeholders which resulted in the formulation and ranking of HPSR questions in the field of ATM. A list of 18 priority policy issues was established following analysis of country-, regional-, and global-level exercises. Eighteen research questions were formulated during the global stakeholders\u2019 meeting and ranked according to four ranking criteria (innovation, impact on health and health systems, equity, and lack of research). The top three research questions were: i) In risk protection schemes, which innovations and policies improve equitable access to and appropriate use of medicines, sustainability of the insurance system, and financial impact on the insured? ii) How can stakeholders use the information available in the system, e.g., price, availability, quality, utilization, registration, procurement, in a transparent way towards improving access and use of medicines? and iii) How do policies and other interventions into private markets, such as information, subsidies, price controls, donation, regulatory mechanisms, promotion practices, etc., impact on access to and appropriate use of medicines?The authors' HPSR agenda adopts a health systems perspective and will guide relevant, innovative research, likely to bear an impact on health, health systems and equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrating the Environment in Urban Planning and Management, Key Principles and Approaches for Cities in the 21st Century","field_subtitle":"Dodman D, McGranahan G, Dalal-Clayton B: International Institute for Environment and Development: United Nations Environment Program (UNEP): 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.citiesalliance.org/sites/citiesalliance.org/files/publications/integrating_the_environment.pdf","body":"Increasing urbanization will be one of the defining features of the 21st century. This produces particular environmental challenges, but also creates opportunities for urban development that can contribute to broader goals of improving the quality of life for urban residents while achieving greater levels of global sustainability. Focusing on the City Development Strategy (CDS), the report draws on two main sets to determine the effectiveness of using the CDS to integrate environmental issues into city planning processes. Firstly, it draws on an analysis of documentation from 15 cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America that have engaged in the process of developing a City Development Strategy under the auspices of Cities Alliance. Secondly, it incorporates insights from in-depth Learning and Leadership Groups conducted with three additional cities (Metro Manila [Philippines] [specifically Makati City and Quezon City], Kampala [Uganda] and Accra [Ghana]) that have engaged in this process. The report does not present the results of these workshops directly, but rather uses the insights from these to contribute to a broader understanding of the potential for the incorporation of environmental concerns in urban planning and management, the barriers to this, and the opportunities to overcome these. This report is intended primarily to encourage and support urban decision-makers to integrate environmental concerns more centrally in their planning and management activities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Intersectoral action for health equity: a rapid systematic review","field_subtitle":"Ndumbe-Eyoh S, Moffatt H: BMC Public Health, 13:1056  doi:10.1186/1471-2458-13-1056, 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/13/1056","body":"Action on the social determinants of health is considered a necessary approach to improving health equity. Most of the social determinants of health lie outside the sphere of the health sector and thus collaboration with governmental and non-governmental sectors outside of health are required to develop policies and programs to improve health equity. Case studies of intersectoral action are available, however there is limited information about the impact of intersectoral action on the social determinants of health and health equity. Search and retrieval of literature published between 2001 and 2011 was conducted in 6 databases. A staged screening of titles and abstracts, and later full-text, was conducted by two independent reviewers. Reviewers independently assessed the quality of the articles deemed relevant for inclusion. Data were extracted and synthesized in narrative format for all included studies, conducted by one reviewer and checked by another. 17 articles of varied methodological quality met the inclusion criteria. One systematic review investigating partnership interventions found mixed and limited impacts on health outcomes. Primary studies evaluating the impact of upstream and midstream interventions showed mixed effects. Downstream interventions were generally moderately effective in increasing the availability and use of services by marginalized communities. The literature evaluating the impact of intersectoral action on health equity is limited. The included studies identified reveal a moderate to no effect on the social determinants of health. The evidence on the impact of intersectoral action on health equity is even more limited. The lack of evidence should not be interpreted as a lack of effect. Rigorous evaluations of intersectoral action are needed to strengthen the evidence base of this public health practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal deaths due to HIV not declining despite PMTCT successes in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Alcorn K: Aidsmap, 6 March 2014","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/Maternal-deaths-due-to-HIV-not-declining-despite-PMTCT-successes-in-South-Africa/page/2833384/","body":"Improvements in prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) in South Africa are not translating into a reduction in maternal deaths due to HIV infection, according to a 15-year review of a large district referral hospital in Johannesburg, the 21st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) heard on Wednesday in Boston. In particular, the audit found that there has been no change in the proportion of maternal deaths caused by HIV since 2007, and over three-quarters of women with HIV who died had never started antiretroviral therapy.The South African review, presented by Coceka Mnyani of University of Witwatersrand, looked at the records of Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital, which serves an urban and periurban population of approximately 2 million people in Johannesburg. The hospital delivered between 17,000 and 23,500 babies a year between 1997 and 2012. HIV prevalence in the maternal population served by the hospital is extremely high: approximately 23% of women who give birth at the hospital were found to be HIV positive in 2012, compared with 30.7% in 2004, the peak year for HIV prevalence among pregnant women giving birth at the hospital.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New IRIN film: The Zebu and the Zama","field_subtitle":"IRIN: April 2014","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report/99941/new-irin-film-the-zebu-and-the-zama","body":"In the Zones Rouges of southern Madagascar, economic opportunities are scarce, as is any presence of the state: the police are particularly absent from most villages. But there are lots of zebu - the country\u2019s distinctive breed of humpbacked cattle. Millions of them. Each worth several hundred US dollars. This walking wealth makes for easy prey for rustlers known as dahalo, who rob and kill with virtual impunity. With no one to turn to for protection, civilians are forming their own vigilante units, called zama. Armed only with crude weapons and denied training or support from the government, they are no match for the dahalo, but this does little to dent their zeal.  IRIN\u2019s latest film, The Zebu and the Zama - Bounty and Bloodshed in Southern Madagascar, explores a vicious cycle of violence in which the dahalo murder those who get in the way and the zama mete out deadly \u201cjustice\u201d on those they suspect of banditry.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Opening the door to Business lobbying-what\u2019s wrong with the new WHO policy proposals","field_subtitle":"IBFAN: 26th March 2014","field_url":"http://info.babymilkaction.org/pressrelease/pressrelease26mar14","body":"WHO has published a draft proposal for a set Framework and set of policies to address its engagement with Non Sate Actors (NSAs). Member States are being invited to discuss these proposals at WHO\u2019s HQ in Geneva on 27th and 28th March. Public Interest NGOs are not invited.   IBFAN has been following the process closely and reports finding serious flaws, inconsistencies and contradictions in the proposals. Despite the many statements of WHO\u2019s Director General, Margaret Chan, that WHO\u2019s policies, norms and standards setting processes should be protected from commercial influence, if the new proposals were to be adopted, the corporate influence would increase. IBFAN fears that this would compromise WHO\u2019s integrity, independence and its ability to fulfil its mandate. In particular, the proposals introduce a new risky element, allowing Official Relations status, with all its related privileges, for International Business Associations.  Up to now, if businesses wanted to attend governing body meetings in order to lobby Member States delegations, they could wear a public badge, or, if they wanted to speak, inveigle their way onto government delegations. Some, over the years have slipped through WHO\u2019s admission procedures, pretending to be NGOs. The new proposals open the door wide to participation by any business member of these Associations, except tobacco or arms companies. This would, in effect, legitimize businesses lobbying role at WHO\u2019s global policy-setting meetings  - the very thing that WHO alleges that it is trying to avoid. In addition to turning WHO governing bodies meetings into multi-stakeholder public-private gatherings, the proposals would also allow businesses greater engagement at programme level, through agreed 3-year plans with WHO. Lida Lhotska, IBFAN NGO Liaison to WHO says: \u201cIf these new policy proposals are adopted, IBFAN fears that WHO will be unable to lead and support Member States in taking the bold decisions necessary to tackle global health challenges.  For example, irresponsible marketing is a major underlying cause of Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs). In tackling NCDs, acknowledged to be a major threat to public health, will WHO prefer to engage in partnerships with corporations, who would prefer  campaigns for promoting \u2018slightly better for you products\u2019\u2013 or will WHO help Member States bring in legally-binding controls that truly protect right to health of their citizens?\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Removing financial barriers to access reproductive, maternal and newborn health services: the challenges and policy implications for human resources for health","field_subtitle":"McPake B, Witter S, Ensor T, Fustukian S, Newlands D, Martineau T, Chirwa Y: Human Resources for Health 11(46): 2013","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/11/1/46","body":"The last decade has seen widespread retreat from user fees with the intention to reduce financial constraints to users in accessing health care and in particular improving access to reproductive, maternal and newborn health services. This has had important benefits in reducing financial barriers to access in a number of settings. If the policies work as intended, service utilization rates increase. However this increases workloads for health staff and at the same time, the loss of user fee revenues can imply that health workers lose bonuses or allowances, or that it becomes more difficult to ensure uninterrupted supplies of health care inputs. This research aimed to assess how policies reducing demand-side barriers to access to health care have affected service delivery with a particular focus on human resources for health. The authors undertook case studies in five countries (Ghana, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Zambia and Zimbabwe). In each the authors reviewed financing and HRH policies, considered the impact financing policy change had made on health service utilization rates, analysed the distribution of health staff and their actual and potential workloads, and compared remuneration terms in the public sectors. The authors question a number of common assumptions about the financing and human resource inter-relationships. The impact of fee removal on utilization levels is mostly not sustained or supported by all the evidence. Shortages of human resources for health at the national level are not universal; maldistribution within countries is the greater problem. Low salaries are not universal; most of the countries pay health workers well by national benchmarks. The interconnectedness between user fee policy and HRH situations proves difficult to assess. Many policies have been changing over the relevant period, some clearly and others possibly in response to problems identified associated with financing policy change. Other relevant variables have also changed. However, as is now well-recognised in the user fee literature, co-ordination of health financing and human resource policies is essential. This appears less well recognised in the human resources literature. This coordination involves considering user charges, resource availability at health facility level, health worker pay, terms and conditions, and recruitment in tandem. All these policies need to be effectively monitored in their processes as well as outcomes, but sufficient data are not collected for this purpose.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Report fuels probe into medical schemes registrar","field_subtitle":"Khan T: Business Day Live, 5 March 2014","field_url":"http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/healthcare/2014/03/05/report-fuels-probe-into-medical-schemes-registrar","body":"Days after the Council for Medical Schemes in South Africa announced it had ordered a forensic investigation into its registrar, Monwabisi Gantsho, for allegedly soliciting a R3m kickback, an earlier report has come to light raising further questions about his conduct.Dr Gantso heads the agency charged with overseeing the R110bn medical schemes industry. In November 2012, the council\u2019s acting chairman Trevor Bailey instructed law firm Bell Dewar to investigate a series of allegations made by senior staff against the registrar. The law firm\u2019s report, according to Business Day, concluded that the registrar:\r\n\u2022 Ignored recommendations made by a council task team for the appointment of independent curators to three different medical schemes \u2014 Bonitas, Sizwe and Medshield \u2014 and had instead appointed curators \"with whom he appear(ed) to have a relationship\";\r\n\u2022 Delayed an investigation into troubled medical scheme Medshield \"without justification\";\r\n\u2022 Refused to approve the merger of Nampak Medical Scheme and Discovery Health Medical Scheme for \"no justifiable reason\";\r\n\u2022 Appointed staff without following due process; and\r\n\u2022 Put pressure on a junior staff member to reveal confidential minutes of meetings of the medicine pricing committee.\r\nThe article provides further report on the follow up actions according to Business Day.   ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Restructuring brain drain: strengthening governance and financing for health worker migration","field_subtitle":"Mackey TK; Liang BA: Global Health Action, 6: 19923  2013 ","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/19923/html","body":"Health worker migration from resource-poor countries to developed countries, also known as \u2018brain drain\u2019, represents a serious global health crisis and a significant barrier to achieving global health equity. Resource-poor countries are unable to recruit and retain health workers for domestic health systems, resulting in inadequate health infrastructure and millions of dollars in healthcare investment losses. Using acceptable methods of policy analysis, the authors first assess current strategies aimed at alleviating brain drain and then propose our own global health policy based solution to address current policy limitations. Although governments and private organizations have tried to address this policy challenge, brain drain continues to destabilise public health systems and their populations globally. Most importantly, lack of adequate financing and binding governance solutions continue to fail to prevent health worker brain drain. In response to these challenges, the establishment of a Global Health Resource Fund in conjunction with an international framework for health worker migration could create global governance for stable funding mechanisms encourage equitable migration pathways, and provide data collection that is desperately needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Salary scandals in Zimbabwe\u2019s medical insurance - crisis or opportunity for accountability?","field_subtitle":"Solomon Huruva, Zimbabwe","field_url":"","body":"\r\nZimbabwe\u2019s media has been awash in 2014 with stories of monthly salaries above $50 000 being taken by the executives across a number of public institutions, in a country where the 2011/12 Poverty Income and Expenditure survey found 77% of those in formal employment to be earning less than US$351 and 63% of all households living below the poverty line. A term has been coined for the scandal - \"salary-gate\".\r\n\r\nOne of the worst stories of \"salary - gate\" was in the voluntary health insurance sector. Zimbabwe has about 30 health insurance companies, termed \u2018medical aid\u2019, funding health care for about 10% of the population and providing about 80% of the income to private for profit health services. These medical aid societies are private, voluntary organisations and are deemed to be non-profit. \r\n\r\nThe events of 2014 have shaken these assumptions. The state media, the Herald, on 31st January, 2014 reported that the top fourteen executives of the biggest medial aid society, the Premier Service Medical Aid Society (PSMAS), were getting US$1.1 million monthly in their combined fees and benefits. The chief executive alone was reported in the same media to be paid about a quarter of a million US dollars monthly in direct earnings from PSMAS and from its subsidiary Premier Service Medical Investments (PSMI) and in other benefits and allowances. While the figure remains to be officially verified, other media have made similar report of this figure without it being contested. This is in the context where the majority of PSMAS members- 75% of whom are employed and retired civil servants according to the Civil Service Commission  - earn less than US$400 monthly if employed, and significantly less than this if they are pensioners and widows/widowers. While PSMAS paid its managers these huge salaries, they also built up a debt to service providers of US$38 million in unpaid fees. Their failure to pay providers meant that many demanded that PSMAS members pay cash up-front, undermining the financial protection health insurance is supposed to provide. \r\n\r\nThis was not the first time that PSMAS and some other medical aid societies had come to public attention. PSMAS became the second biggest provider of health services in Zimbabwe after the government in 2003, setting up a subsidiary, PSMI, and using it to acquire and develop private health services. It expanded to accommodate private sector members and became a significant employer of doctors in Zimbabwe.  This integration of funder and provider had already raised questions. In 2000 the Competition and Tariff Commission (CTC) raised that such monopolies across all spheres of a sector limited patient choice, and the Medical Aid Societies Statutory Instrument 330 of 2000 regulated such vertical integration. Nevertheless PSMAS and others were given latitude to continue the practice throughout the 2000s, despite beneficiary complaints about restrictions in the providers covered.  \r\n\r\nThe case raises a number of questions, particularly in terms of the effectiveness with which insurers are monitored by their members and regulated by authorities. PSMAS largely covers government as contributors and civil servants members, although it is not a public enterprise.  Government as employer nominates four people to the board while six are elected by the members at an annual general meeting, another member is appointed by an affiliated employer organisation and two are nominated by elected members of the board. The chief executive is an ex-officio member. Ironically, civil service members did not elect themselves to the Board. The Board in 2014 included private professionals and heads of several ministries. It was alleged to have been paid US$1million in allowances in 2013 and dissolved itself in February 2014. As na sign of the lack of oversight of the organization the state media citing the Acting Health Minister Dr Mombeshora reported in February that the society\u2019s operating license was not renewed at the end of 2013 for failing to submit audited financial statements. This raises the issue that members of all such insurance schemes should more actively engage with what is happening in their schemes, include through representation on their Boards. \r\n\r\nThere also seem to be questions about how effectively such schemes are regulated. PSMAS, like other medical aid societies, was regulated as a finance institution by the Ministry of Finance, and as a health institution by the Ministry of Health. Its nature as a society for civil servants additionally brought in the Ministry of Labour and the Public Service Commission. Despite this multitude of regulators, the evidence suggests that there was no effective regulatory control. A number of weaknesses emerge, some of which were pointed out in a 2010 EQUINET Discussion Paper 82 (www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS82zimcapflow.pdf) and at a meeting held on the findings by  Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC), SEATINI, in collaboration with Ministry of Health in 2010. The Ministry should play a stewardship and regulatory role given the health insurance and health service role. However regulations were weakly enforced in the 2000s during economic difficulties; and the Ministry oversight role is post hoc, obtaining report of changes  to constitutions and practices after they have already been made, without meaningful blocking power to prevent 'bad' behavior. Ironically the Ministry of Health had no representative on the PSMAS board. Regulatory oversight by the Ministry faces challenges in shortages of personnel, ambiguities in the law, lack of reporting from societies and lack of awareness and advocacy by members.\r\n\r\nIn response to \u2018salary-gate\u2019 at PSMAS and a range of public entities Zimbabwe\u2019s Finance minister in March announced that cabinet had set the salary ceiling for chief executive officers of parastatal and public institutions at US$6000. They included PSMAS in this, but there is question over their authority to do so for a private limited company where government has no shareholding. \r\n\r\nDo we expect anything to change? The crisis is an opportunity to raise some critical questions about the private health insurance sector. Is this case the tip of the iceberg? Beyond PSMAS, are members of medical aid societies exercising proper oversight of their insurers? Are the resources being effectively used for their purpose? With the majority of people in two medical aid societies in Zimbabwe, CIMAS and PSMAS, how viable are the other 28 insurers? Are their funding pools large enough to protect the membership against risk? With the benefit packages clearly specified but segmented across schemes, what measures are there for the pooling and cross-subsidy among members needed to ensure viability and equity?  Are the monopolies of insurers and private providers not blurring the boundaries of what is for profit and what is not, given that medical aid societies are tax exempt as health funders but earning profits in investments in private health services? Why is the law preventing such integration not being enforced? How are societies earning 'surplus funds' in their service investments, even while service providers are not being paid and beneficiaries not covered for their benefits?  \r\n\r\nThe Zimbabwe story may not be unique within the region, and cost escalation and inappropriate spending may be more common than is being publicly reported. The Zimbabwe experience and the questions raised could provoke those in other countries to do a \u2018health check\u2019 of their insurance sector, in a manner that leads to action to address weaknesses identified. The biggest weakness appears to be in the absence of accountability and the checks and balances for this. The state should not be allowed to fall short on its obligation to protect members from predatory behavior, and members expect the state to have adequate competencies to regulate the market. The system needs to be more responsive to the community and the community to be more vigilant and demanding of accountability.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised please visit www.equinetafrica.org and see EQUINET discussion paper 82 at www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS82zimcapflow.pdf and EQUINET discussion paper 82, 87 and 99  on private insurance and their regulation.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Science for health diplomacy: complex problems need complex solutions","field_subtitle":"Rinaldi A: COHRED, February 28 2014","field_url":"http://blog.cohred.org/38/science-for-health-diplomacy-complex-problems-need-complex-situations?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_campaign=post2","body":"Almost any major problem in global health \u2013 from discovering new drugs to developing vaccines, to finding solutions to environmental changes that can affect health in vulnerable countries \u2013 requires research and innovation solutions that are beyond the scope of individual countries, organisation, or companies. In the case of research and innovation for health, there are few, if any, functional platforms where multiple players can negotiate towards creating constructive solutions, or share global resources better. COHRED outlines opportunities to play a role in the complex array of partners, with attention to Africa, enabling sustainable and usually complex solutions for complex global health problems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Social cohesion, social participation, and HIV related risk among female sex workers in Swaziland","field_subtitle":"Fonner VA, Kerrigan D, Mnisi Z, Ketende S, Kennedy CE, Baral S: PLoS Med 9(1):31 January 2014","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3909117/","body":"Social capital is important to disadvantaged groups, such as sex workers, as a means of facilitating internal group-related mutual aid and support as well as access to broader social and material resources. Studies among sex workers have linked higher social capital with protective HIV-related behaviors; however, few studies have examined social capital among sex workers in sub-Saharan Africa. This cross-sectional study examined relationships between two key social capital constructs, social cohesion among sex workers and social participation of sex workers in the larger community, and HIV-related risk in Swaziland using respondent-driven sampling. Relationships between social cohesion, social participation, and HIV-related risk factors were assessed using logistic regression. HIV prevalence among the sample was 70.4%. Social cohesion was associated with consistent condom use in the past week and with fewer reports of social discrimination, including denial of police protection. Social participation was associated with HIV testing and using condoms with non-paying partners and was inversely associated with reported verbal or physical harassment as a result of selling sex. Both social capital constructs were significantly associated with collective action, which involved participating in meetings to promote sex worker rights or attending HIV-related meetings/ talks with other sex workers. Social- and structural-level interventions focused on building social cohesion and social participation among sex workers could provide significant protection from HIV infection for female sex workers in Swaziland.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Infrastructure: Communicating Identity and Health in Africa","field_subtitle":"Airhihebuwa C, Makoni S, Iwelunmor J, Munodawafa D: Journal of Health Communication 19(1): 1 January 2014","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10810730.2013.868767","body":"Although infrastructure typically refers to physical characteristics, in this article it refers to social-cultural properties within which health decisions and communication may occur. An understanding of agency and identities is incomplete without situating them in social-cultural networks of relationships that give meaning to health behaviors and sociocultural practices. Airhihenbuwa (2007) describes social-cultural infrastructure as systems and mechanisms of culture that nurture social strengths by rendering them assets in containing epidemics. The focus on physical infrastructure in addressing the development levels offers a useful perspective on the nature and relationship people have with themselves, their people, and their environment (Beune, Haafkens, Schuster, & Bindels, 2006), but does not adequately explain how choices are made and have social impact. Understanding how choices are made offers insight into how individuals are able to maintain optimum health and function in spite of limitations on their social and cognitive capabilities. In this commentary, the authors offer a perspective on the continually changing and conflicting global agenda to reduce the disease burden by improving health and health care practices in Africa (Sambo et al., 2011). They argue for a discourse that can accommodate complexity, plurality, and contradictions and is anchored in sociocultural rather than physically referenced impulses in a framework for future strategies for African health and development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Statement of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women on sexual and reproductive health and rights: Beyond 2014 ICPD review","field_subtitle":"Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women: Fifty-seventh session, 10 - 28 February 2014  ","field_url":"http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/CEDAW/Statements/SRHR26Feb2014.pdf","body":"CEDAW, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, at its recently concluded session, issued a statement (attached) on sexual and reproductive health and rights, which is its contribution to the ICPD@20 review process.  The Committee reminds us that it \"has observed that failure of a State party to provide services and the criminalisation of some services that only women require is a violation of women's reproductive rights and constitutes discrimination against them.\"  It States that: \"the provision of, inter alia, safe abortion and post abortion care; maternity care; timely diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases (including HIV), breast and reproductive cancers, and infertility; as well as access to accurate and comprehensive information about sexuality and reproduction, are all part of the right to sexual and reproductive health\" and that \"every State can and should do more to ensure the full respect, protection and fulfilment of sexual and reproductive rights, in line with human rights obligations.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening the enabling environment for women and girls: what is the evidence in social and structural approaches in the HIV response?","field_subtitle":"Hardee K, Gay J, Croce-Galis M, Peltz A: Journal of International Aids Society 17(1): 7 January 2014","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3887370/pdf/JIAS-17-18619.pdf","body":"There is growing interest in expanding public health approaches that address social and structural drivers that affect the environment in which behaviour occurs. Half of those living with HIV infection are women. The sociocultural and political environment in which women live can enable or inhibit their ability to protect themselves from acquiring HIV. This paper examines the evidence related to six key social and structural drivers of HIV for women: transforming gender norms; addressing violence against women; transforming legal norms to empower women; promoting women\u2019s employment, income and livelihood opportunities; advancing education for girls and reducing stigma and discrimination. The paper reviews the evidence for successful and promising social and structural interventions related to each driver. This analysis contains peer-reviewed published research and study reports with clear and transparent data on the effectiveness of interventions. Structural interventions to address these key social and structural drivers have led to increasing HIV-protective behaviours, creating more gender-equitable relationships and decreasing violence, improving services for women, increasing widows\u2019 ability to cope with HIV and reducing behaviour that increases HIV risk, particularly among young people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The African Health Initiative on Understanding Implementation ","field_subtitle":"Doris Duke Charitable Foundation: February 2014","field_url":"http://www.ddcf.org/What-Were-Learning/?item=2106","body":"The African Health Initiative (AHI) has yielded many lessons about how to support health systems within complex and changing geographic, social and political contexts. This has been organised into a series of essays from the field on \u201cWhat We\u2019re Learning\". The first in this series is reported here, with information to support an understanding of the nuances of how health services that result in improvements in population health are delivered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The Competition Commission\u2019s Market Inquiry into the Private Health Care Sector","field_subtitle":"Section27: April 2014","field_url":"http://www.section27.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Market-Inquiry-into-the-Private-Health-Care-Sector-Factsheet.pdf","body":"On 6 January 2014, South Africa\u2019s Competition Commission began a market inquiry (an investigation)into the private health sector. The Commission was concerned about high prices in private health care and will use its wide powers to investigate the general state of competition in this sector to determine what can be done to achieve accessible, affordable, high quality and advanced private health care in South Africa. According to the Commission, there are indications that the private health care market is not working well for consumers. The market inquiry will examine the causes of why the market may not be working effectively, and will make recommendations as to how they might be made to work better in order to promote and protect consumer interests, while ensuring that markets\r\nare fair and competitive. As such the Commission will specifically look into the increases in prices in private health care and determine the factors that are driving prices. This fact sheet outlines the terms of the Commission inquiry. It points to the opportunity to address inequality in the health system in South Africa. SECTION27, together with its partners, report that they will closely monitor the inquiry and ensure that the voice of ordinary users of private health services. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The State of African Cities 2014: Re-Imagining sustainable urban transitions","field_subtitle":"UN-Habitat, ICLEI-Africa, United Cities and Local Governments of Africa: 2014","field_url":"http://unhabitat.org/the-state-of-african-cities-2014/","body":"The African continent is currently in the midst of simultaneously unfolding and highly significant demographic, economic, technological, environmental, urban and socio-political transitions. Africa\u2019s economic performance is promising, with booming cities supporting growing middle classes and creating sizable consumer markets. But despite significant overall growth, not all of Africa performs well. The continent continues to suffer under very rapid urban growth accompanied by massive urban poverty and many other social problems. These seem to indicate that the development trajectories followed by African nations since post-independence may not be able to deliver on the aspirations of broad based human development and prosperity for all. This report, therefore, argues for a bold re-imagining of prevailing models in order to steer the ongoing transitions towards greater sustainability based on a thorough review of all available options. That is especially the case since the already daunting urban challenges in Africa are now being exacerbated by the new vulnerabilities and threats associated with climate and environmental change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Urban settings do not ensure access to services: findings from the immunisation programme in Kampala Uganda","field_subtitle":"Babirye J, Engebretsen I, Rutebemberwa E, Kiguli J, Nuwaha F: BMC Health Services Research 14(111): 6 March 2014","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/14/111","body":"Previous studies on vaccination coverage in developing countries focus on individual- and community-level barriers to routine vaccination mostly in rural settings. This paper examines health system barriers to childhood immunisation in urban Kampala Uganda. Mixed methods were employed with a survey among child caretakers, 9 focus group discussions (FGDs), and 9 key informant interviews (KIIs). Poor geographical access to immunisation facilities was reported in this urban setting by FGDs, KIIs and survey respondents. This coupled with reports of few health workers providing immunisation services led to long queues and long waiting times at facilities. Consumers reported waiting for 3\u20136 hours before receipt of services although this was more common at public facilities. Only 33% of survey respondents were willing to wait for three or more hours before receipt of services. Although private-for-profit facilities were engaged in immunisation service provision their participation was low as only 30% of the survey respondents used these facilities. The low participation could be due to lack of financial support for immunisation activities at these facilities. This in turn could explain the rampant informal charges for services in this setting. There were intermittent availability of vaccines and transport for immunisation services at both private and public facilities. Complex health system barriers to childhood immunisation still exist in this urban setting; emphasizing that even in urban areas with great physical access, there are hard to reach people. As the rate of urbanization increases especially in sub-Saharan Africa, the authors find that governments should strengthen health systems to cater for increasing urban populations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO opens public consultation on draft sugars guideline","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 5 March 2014","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2014/consultation-sugar-guideline/en/","body":"WHO is launching a public consultation on its draft guideline on sugars intake. When finalized, the guideline will provide countries with recommendations on limiting the consumption of sugars to reduce public health problems like obesity and dental caries (commonly referred to as tooth decay). Comments on the draft guideline will be accepted via the WHO web site from 5 through 31 March 2014. Anyone who wishes to comment must submit a declaration of interests. An expert peer-review process will happen over the same period. Once the peer-review and public consultation are completed, all comments will be reviewed, the draft guidelines will be revised if necessary and cleared by WHO\u2019s Guidelines Review Committee before being finalized.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"\"If you could do one thing...\" Nine local actions to reduce health inequalities","field_subtitle":"British Academy of Science, UK January 2014","field_url":"http://www.britac.ac.uk/policy/Health_Inequalities.cfm","body":"The report seeks to help local policymakers improve the health of their communities by presenting evidence from the social sciences that can help reduce inequalities in health. Each of the authors has written an article, drawing on the evidence base for their particular area of expertise, identifying  one policy intervention  that they think local authorities could introduce to improve the health of the local population and reduce health inequalities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa in 50 years time \u2013 inventing a new Africa","field_subtitle":"Call for submission of papers: Deadline Friday 16th May 2014","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/90936","body":"On 25 May 2014 the African Union (AU) will be 12 years old, having been set up in Addis Ababa on 9 July 2002. In May 2014 Pambazuka News seeks to have a special issue on projecting into the future what Africa will look like in 50 years time. What kind of Africa do women, youth, trade union activists, environmentalists, human rights, LBGTI and sex worker activists envision? What are the dreams of African writers, poets, scientists, engineers, agronomists, musicians for the continent in 50 years time? The revolutionary Thomas Sankara heeded that: \u201cwe must dare to invent the future.\u201d What future will Africans create in 50 years time? Will we continue to ape the intellectual paradigms of the West, in terms of economic models, fashion and style? Is this imitation an inevitable aspect of \u201cglobalisation\u201d? What institutional challenges face the AU in the next 50 years?  These are the issues and questions they hope the special issue will grapple with and address in articles. Poems, short stories and personal opinion pieces are welcome.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessment of psychological barriers to cervical cancer screening among women in Kumasi, Ghana using a mixed methods approach","field_subtitle":"Williams M, Kuffour G, Ekuadzi E, Yeboah M, ElDuah M, Tuffour P: African Health Sciences 13; 4; 1054-1061, December 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ahs/article/viewFile/100426/89664","body":"Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among women in Ghana, West Africa. The cervical cancer mortality rate in Ghana is more than three times the global cervical cancer mortality rate. Pap tests and visual inspection with acetic acid wash are widely available throughout Ghana, yet less that 3% of Ghanaian women get a cervical cancer screening at regular intervals. This exploratory study identified psychological barriers to cervical cancer screening among Ghanaian women with and without cancer using a mixed methods approach.Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 49 Ghanaian women with cancer and 171 Ghanaian women who did not have cancer. The results of the quantitative analysis indicated that cancer patients were not more likely to have greater knowledge of cancer signs and symptoms than women without cancer. Analysis of the qualitative data revealed several psychological barriers to cervical cancer screening including, common myths about cervical cancer, misconceptions about cervical cancer screening, the lack of spousal support for screening, cultural taboos regarding the gender of healthcare providers, and the stigmatization of women with cervical cancer. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Between the Rack and a Hot Place: Can we Reconcile Poverty Eradication and Tackling Climate Change?","field_subtitle":"Woodward D: Sussex Development Lecture, IDS, Sussex University, 20 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFpHs0sDKug","body":"By any reasonable definition, the majority of humanity is on the rack of poverty; and a major obstacle to its eradication is the growing threat of extreme and irreversible climate change.  The coexistence of a chronic crisis of serious under-consumption for most with an increasingly critical environmental crisis resulting from over-consumption in aggregate can only be explained by extreme inequality in the global distribution of income.  Resolving both simultaneously, as envisaged in the Post-2015 Agenda, requires a fundamental reconsideration of the nature and objectives of economic policy, and of the global economic system. The lecture discusses the extent and implications of global inequality, before building on a number of working hypotheses to outline an alternative model of economic development more conducive to the achievement of these two most fundamental global goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Biomedical research, a tool to address the health issues that affect African populations","field_subtitle":"Peprah E and Wonkam A: Globalization and Health 9(50): 21 October 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/9/1/50","body":"In this paper, the authors discuss how research using biomedical technology, especially genomics, has produced data that enhances the understanding and treatment of both communicable and non-communicable diseases in sub-Saharan Africa. The authors further discuss how scientific development can provide opportunities to pursue research areas responsive to the African populations. The authors limit our discussion to biomedical research in the areas of genomics due to its substantial impact on the scientific community in recent years  but they also recognize that targeted investments in other scientific disciplines could also foster further development in African countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Building research capacity in Africa: equity and global health collaborations","field_subtitle":"Chu KM, Jayaraman S, Kyamanywa P, Ntakiyiruta G: PLoS Med. 11;11(3)March 2014","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3949667/","body":"The authors discuss the impact of high-income country investigators conducting research in low- and middle-income countries and explore lessons from the effective and equitable relationships that exist. Global health has increased the number of high-income country (HIC) investigators conducting research in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). They note that partnerships with local collaborators rather than extractive research are needed. They conclude that LMICs have to take an active role in leading or directing these research collaborations in order to maximize the benefits and minimize the harm of inherently inequitable relationships.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Letters of Intent: Implementation Research Teams ","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 20 May 2014","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Funding/Competitions/Pages/CompetitionDetails.aspx?CompetitionID=78&utm_source=alliance&utm_medium=email&utm_term=IRT&utm_content=eng&utm_campaign=GHRI_Call","body":"The Innovating for Maternal and Child Health in Africa program is launching a call for letters of intent for the selection of Implementation Research Teams. This program is funded by Canada\u2019s Global Health Research Initiative, a collaboration of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and IDRC.Sub-Saharan Africa is the program\u2019s region of focus. The proposed research project must take place in at least one of the targeted countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Sudan, and Tanzania. (Research can also take place concurrently in other countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Proposals: Health Policy and Research Organizations","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 11 June 2014","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Funding/Competitions/Pages/CompetitionDetails.aspx?CompetitionID=77&utm_source=alliance&utm_medium=email&utm_term=HPRO&utm_content=eng&utm_campaign=GHRI_Call","body":"The Innovating for Maternal and Child Health in Africa program is launching a call for proposals for the selection of Health Policy and Research Organizations. This program is funded by Canada\u2019s Global Health Research Initiative, a collaboration of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and IDRC. Sub-Saharan Africa is the program\u2019s region of focus, targeting these nine countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Sudan, and Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CODESRIA National Working Groups: Call for 2014 Proposals","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 31 May, 2014","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article1972","body":"One of the most important vehicles that CODESRIA uses to mobilise national-level research capacities and channel them into organised reflections has been the National Working Groups (NWGs). Through this mechanism, it encourages African researchers to autonomously organise and pursue research on priority themes of their choice. In line with the retention of NWGs as important instruments for promoting research, publication and the exchange of knowledge on important national issues in Africa by CODESRIA\u2019s 2012-2016 strategic plan, the Council invites proposals for the constitution of NWGs under its 2014 grants competition. The Council particularly desires proposals that seek to weld structured empirical research into innovative theoretical reflections on important national issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Comprehensive health workforce planning: re-consideration of the primary health care approach as a tool for addressing the human resource for health crisis in low and middle income countries","field_subtitle":"Munga MA, Mughwira A. Mwangu: Tanzania Journal of Health Research, 15:2 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/thrb/article/view/82498","body":"Although the Human Resources for Health (HRH) crisis is apparently not new in the public health agenda of many countries, not many low and middle income countries are using Primary Health Care (PHC) as a tool for planning and  addressing  the crisis  in a comprehensive manner. The aim of this paper is to appraise the inadequacies of the existing planning approaches in addressing the growing HRH crisis in resource limited settings. A descriptive literature review of selected case studies in middle and low income countries reinforced with the evidence from Tanzania was used. Consultations with experts in the field were also made. In this review, we propose a conceptual framework that describes planning may only be effective if it is structured to embrace the fundamental principles of PHC. We place the core principles of PHC at the centre of HRH planning as we acknowledge its major perspective that the effectiveness of any public health policy depends on the degree to which it envisages to address public health problems multi-dimensionally and comprehensively. The proponents of PHC approach in planning have identified inter-sectoral action and collaboration and comprehensive approach as the two basic principles that policies and plans should accentuate in order to make them effective in realizing their pre-determined goals. Two conclusions are made: Firstly, comprehensive health workforce planning is not widely known and thus not frequently used in HRH planning or analysis of health workforce issues; Secondly, comprehensiveness in HRH planning is important but not sufficient in ensuring that all the ingredients of HRH crisis are eliminated. In order to be effective and sustainable, the approach need to evoke three basic values namely effectiveness, efficiency and equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Demographic and health surveys indicate limited impact of condoms and HIV testing in four African countries","field_subtitle":"Hearst N, Ruark A, Hudes ES, Goldsmith J, Green EC: African Journal of AIDS Research 12(1): 9\u201315, 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajar/article/view/93142","body":"Condom promotion and HIV testing for the general population have been major components of HIV prevention efforts in sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s high prevalence HIV epidemics, although little evidence documents their public health impact. The authors analysed the latest demographic and health surveys (DHS) and AIDS information surveys (AIS) from four sub-Saharan African countries with high prevalence, heterosexually transmitted HIV epidemics (C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zambia; N = 48 298) to answer two questions: 1) Are men and women who use condoms less likely to be HIV-infected than those who do not?; and 2) Are men and women who report knowing their HIV status more likely to use condoms than those who do not? Consistent condom use was associated with lower HIV infection rates for Swazi men but with higher HIV infection rates for women in Tanzania and Zambia; it made no significant difference in the other five sex/country subgroups analysed. Inconsistent condom use was not significantly associated with HIV status in any subgroup. Knowing one\u2019s HIV status was consistently associated with higher rates of condom use only among married people who were HIV-positive, even though condom use in this group remained relatively low. Effects of knowing one\u2019s HIV status among other subgroups varied. These results suggest that condoms have had little population-wide impact for HIV/AIDS prevention in these four countries. HIV testing appears to be associated with increased condom use mainly among people in stable partnerships who test positive. HIV testing and condom promotion may be more effective when targeted to specific groups where there is evidence of benefit rather than to general populations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Effective health centre committees can bring life into our health systems ","field_subtitle":"Delegates to the EQUINET Regional Meeting on Health Centre Committees February 2014","field_url":"","body":"Post-independent governments in east and Southern African (ESA) countries have all recognised that social participation is central to the success of primary health care (PHC) oriented health systems. There are, however, wide differences in how far they are implementing this policy view. The 2012 EQUINET Equity Watch report found many shortfalls in meaningful levels of social participation in health systems. Health Centre Committees (HCCs) are known by a range of names in different countries but are joint community- health worker structures at primary care level. They offer one way for systems to facilitate social participation and shared decision making between communities and health personnel. There is evidence that they can contribute to quality of and equity in access to health care and improved health outcomes. At a recent EQUINET regional meeting delegates identified ways to better tap into and support this valuable resource for health. \r\n\r\nBuilding on prior work in EQUINET, twenty delegates from seven ESA countries and three international organisations, all working with HCCs, gathered at a regional meeting in February 2014 hosted by Training and Research Support Centre in association with Community Working Group on Health and Medico International in February 2014 to exchange experience on and learning from work to train and strengthen the role of HCCs (The report of the meeting and background paper are available at www.equinetafrica.org).   \r\n\r\nDr Portia Manangazira from Zimbabwe\u2019s Ministry of Health and Child Care opening the meeting concurred that HCCs provide a key mechanism for communities to participate in revitalising PHC and for strengthening and monitoring service delivery. \r\n\r\nDespite this, while HCCs exist in some form in most countries, they often have no formal legal status or are not trained, resourced or active. In Zambia, the 1995 National Health Services Act provided in law for the District Health Boards and Neighbourhood Health Committees (NHCs). When this was repealed in 2006, it removed the legal mandate for HCCs. Yet in Zimbabwe it has been raised that expecting HCCs to manage public funds from government or external funders without a clear legal mandate is a problem.  Even where government guidelines provide for HCCs, they vary in detail. For Zambia, an NHC working group has prepared explicit operational guidelines on establishment, composition, functions and monitoring mechanisms for NHCs. In South Africa, on the other hand, the provisions are more vague and left for the provincial authorities to decide.  Generally while guidelines often set HCC composition and duties, they are less clear on how they are funded or on their role in towards social accountability.  Despite their role in bringing community voice to service planning and the requirement that they represent communities, HCC members are not always elected by communities, have variable levels of community involvement and influence and may be liable to political control. \r\n\r\nTo some extent this reflects ambivalence towards whether HCCs are more a voice for the community to influence health services, or an outreach for services to reach and influence communities. Both roles are important, but where do HCCs focus their time and energies? In the Western Cape, South Africa for example, a baseline assessment in two districts found that HCC members spent limited time engaging the community and were spending more time as service volunteers  - in security or as queue monitors for example.  Similar concerns existed in Uganda.  There was concern that in some countries HCC roles have become \u2018commodified,\u2019 with the resources available to them based less on community interests or needs than on what is paid for, often by international organisations. \r\n\r\nHence rather than the common practice of a long list of apparently delinked and equally weighted roles, the meeting identified roles of an HCC in a more systemic way, linking these to processes in health systems. The process starts with building an informed health literate community, obtaining community views and drawing on this to bring community voice and experience into the interaction with health service personnel, to jointly design and implement plans and budgets for the health system at primary care and community level. This joint role in governance gives the HCC the information, authority and motivation to go back to communities to facilitate dialogue and social action on health plans; to make sure that the agreed plans have been implemented, and that the duty bearers are capacitated, supported and resourced to deliver on plans and that they do so in a manner that is responsive to the community. HCC members should thus bring the direct experience and views of communities into the system, supporting understanding and reflection within communities on how to improve health, and advocating for improvements, with other sectors or at higher levels of the health system. This means that HCCs are more likely to thrive where health systems are themselves PHC oriented, facilitate action on the social determinants of health and support participatory planning and practice, than where they are organised largely around individual medical care with top down power.  \r\n\r\nHCC members need to have resources and skills across all these areas of functioning to complement their inherent social capacities and to enable them to overcome power imbalances in the relationships between themselves and health authorities. While there is a lot of training activity taking place, this may be limited to specific disease problems or interventions, may not address the general community health literacy or spectrum of HCC abilities needed and may lack follow up to evaluate its effectiveness or to sustain it. Training may not include some key areas such as budget tracking or assessment of community benefit. Further those providing training for HCCs may themselves lack competencies to build skills in areas such as budget planning or tracking.  \r\n\r\nDelegates also recognised that for HCCs to be effective in PHC oriented roles, communities themselves need to be health literate and empowered. Social rights to health care, to information and meaningful participation can provide a foundation for this and should be included in all constitutions of the region and in updated national or public health law. Regulations should more clearly define the duties, powers, roles and constitution of HCCs, and guidelines set these in a more systematic manner. However all this is likely to remain on paper unless it is accompanied by processes for capacitating systems and for supporting social activism and information. \r\n\r\nThe meeting thus proposed a number of areas for follow up attention and action by national authorities and organisations working in health, in relation to legal provisions, guidance, election, composition, functioning and capacity building of HCCs. While the specific cultural contexts differ, it was proposed that the ESA region set minimum guidance for these areas, such as on the core content of and processes for comprehensive HCC training, and that countries budget for the capacity building and functioning of HCCs. As for all other areas of health system performance, it was proposed that the health information system and communities monitor and collect information on the functioning, performance and impact of HCCs. Selected indicators were proposed for this, for further dialogue and development. \r\n\r\nThe organisations attending the meeting made a commitment as a network of practitioners working with HCCs to continue to link regionally, including to document, to share and make their work more visible. At a time of increasing attention to domestic resources for health, delegates drew attention to the most critical resources in the region- the people. The challenge was raised for policy actors in the region to turn commitments into action and to give systematic attention to the effective functioning of HCCs, as key social assets for health.  \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised please visit www.equinetafrica.org. The report of the Regional meeting referred to can be found at \r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20HCC%20Mtg%20Rep%20FEB2014.pdf  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Elearning Africa \"Through Your Lens\" Photo Competition 2014","field_subtitle":"Closing Date: Monday, April 14th 2014","field_url":"http://elearning-africa.com/press_releases_html /pr_2014_02.html","body":"The eLearning Africa \u201cThrough your Lens\u201d Photo Competition is back this year in its fifth edition. Under the theme of \u201cSocial Africa: building bridges through ICT\u201d, budding photographers are invited to submit snapshots depicting how ICT is enhancing the way individuals and communities in Africa live, learn, cooperate and connect. Contributions from all sectors and walks of life are welcome. The photo should show how communication tools and information technologies can build bridges and foster relationships between people and be accompanied by a brief description outlining the inspiration behind their idea.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Enablers and barriers to large-scale uptake of improved solid fuel stoves: a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Rehfuess EA, Puzzolo E, Stanistreet D, Pope D, Bruce NG:  Environ Health Perspect. 122(2):120-30, February 2014","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3914867/","body":"Globally, 2.8 billion people rely on household solid fuels. Reducing the resulting adverse health, environmental, and development consequences will involve transitioning through a mix of clean fuels and improved solid fuel stoves (IS) of demonstrable effectiveness. To date, achieving uptake of IS has presented significant challenges. the authors performed a systematic review of factors that enable or limit large-scale uptake of IS in low- and middle-income countries. The authors conducted systematic searches through multidisciplinary databases, specialist websites, and consulting experts. The review drew on qualitative, quantitative, and case studies and used standardized methods for screening, data extraction, critical appraisal, and synthesis. They identified 31 factors influencing uptake from 57 studies conducted in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. All domains matter. Although factors such as offering technologies that meet household needs and save fuel, user training and support, effective financing, and facilitative government action appear to be critical, none guarantee success: All factors can be influential, depending on context. The nature of available evidence did not permit further prioritization. Achieving adoption and sustained use of IS at a large scale requires that all factors, spanning household/community and program/societal levels, be assessed and supported by policy. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 158: Effective health centre committees can bring life into our health systems","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Fiscal Space for Domestic Funding of Health and Other Social Services","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D and Meheus F: Chatham House working paper 5, March 2014","field_url":"http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/home/chatham/public_html/sites/default/files/20140300DomesticFundingHealthMcIntyreMeheus.pdf","body":"There is a need to increase government expenditure on health and other social services in many countries in order to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) and promote inclusive social and economic development. Individual governments have an obligation to allocate the maximum available resources from domestic sources, and not simply rely on international assistance, in order to achieve the progressive realization of fundamental human rights. Ultimately, this requires adequate levels of government expenditure on a range of social services. While government expenditure as a percentage of GDP is on average higher in \u2018advanced economies\u2019 than in other countries, there is no strong correlation between levels of government spending and economic development across individual countries (i.e., the size of a country\u2019s GDP does not \u2018predetermine\u2019 or dictate government spending levels).Government revenue generation is the strongest determinant of government expenditure levels within individual countries; hence, emphasis should be on increasing government revenue. The report outlines progressive options for achieving this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth Ethics, Human Rights And Medical Law Conference","field_subtitle":"Gallagher Convention Centre, Midrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 6-8 May 2014","field_url":"http://www.africahealthexhibition.com/en/Site-Root /Conference-Centre/Conferences2014/ETConference /","body":"The 4th Ethics, Human Rights and Medical Law Conference is a must attend event for healthcare professionals in South Africa and the surrounding region. A one-day conference that is fully dedicated to the above topics, it was created to demonstrate how important all three subjects are, as well as how they connect to one another.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Governing AIDS through aid to civil society: Global solutions meet local problems in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Foller M: African Journal of AIDS Research 12(1): 51\u201361, 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajar/article/view/93148","body":"This article explores how international funders influence civil society organisations (CSOs) in Mozambique through funding mechanisms, the creation of partnerships, or inclusion in targeted programmes. The main focus is the relationship between external funders and AIDS non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The main questions the paper aims to answer are: Who is setting the agenda? What power mechanisms are in place to fulfil planned projects and programmes? Are there any forms of resistance from civil society AIDS-organisations in the face of the donor interventions? The actions are analysed through the lens of governmentality theory. The study concluded that external funders have the power to set the agenda through predetermined programmes and using various technologies. Their strongest weapons are audit mechanisms such as the result based management model used as a control mechanism, and there is still a long way to go to achieve a situation with multiple forms of local resistance to the conditions set by economically powerful funders. The standardisation imposed through clustering external funders into like-minded groups and other constellations gives them power to govern the politics of AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of Training traditional birth attendants on maternal mortality and morbidity in Sub-Saharan African countries","field_subtitle":"Kayombo EJ: Tanzanian Journal of Health Research,15:2:2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/thrb/article/view/85350","body":"This paper presents discussion on impact of training traditional birth attendants (TBAs) on overall improvement of reproductive health care with focus on reducing the high rate of maternal and new-born mortality in rural settings in sub-Saharan Africa. The author argues that trained TBAs in sub-Sahara Africa can have positive impact on reducing maternal and new-born mortality if the programme is well implemented with systematic follow-up after training. This could be done through joint meeting between health workers and TBAs as feed and learning experience from problem encountered in process of providing child delivery services. TBAs can help to break socio-cultural barriers on intervention on reproductive health programmes. However projects targeting TBAs should not be of hit and run; but gradually familiarize with the target group, build trust, transparency, and tolerance, willing to learn and creating a better relationship with them. In this paper, some case studies are described on how trained TBAs can be fully utilized in reducing maternal and new-born mortality rate in rural areas. The author suggests that what is needed is to identify TBAs, map their distribution and train them on basic primary healthcare related to child deliveries and complications which need to be referred to conventional health facilities immediately.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving Access to Innovative Medicines in Emerging Markets: Evidence and Diplomacy as Alternatives to the Unsustainable Status Quo","field_subtitle":"Gorokhovich LE; Chalkidou K; Shankar R: Journal of Health Diplomacy 1(1)1-19, 2013 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/moy8qxb","body":"This work is a review of public sources including white papers, news and peer-reviewed literature with a focus on mainstream approaches used by the pharmaceutical industry (such as unaffordable price premiums for innovative medicines) and governments (such as denial of intellectual property rights) to support their interests.  The authors also explore the implications of possible approaches on pharmaceutical policy in the context of global health diplomacy. The latter is a requirement for universal health coverage given the increasing power of state and non-state actors in emerging markets. The authors conclude that evidence and due processes, through inclusive and transparent priority-setting mechanisms, offer a reconciliatory way forward for both parties. Value-based pricing, underpinned by Health Technology Assessment (HTA), could leverage global health diplomacy to set priorities and resolve the perhaps unsustainable status quo. HTA is itself a diplomatic, consensus building and evidence-based approach that can help diffuse the current tension, enhance mutual understanding and perhaps help strengthen (or even mend) the current model of product development. Value-based pricing and HTA offer a potential priority setting mechanism that can serve as a transparent, non-adversarial platform for governments and the pharmaceutical industry to engage with each other and work towards enhancing access to medicines. Further quantitative research, exploring the impact of different policy-setting approaches by governments on medicine access using HTA, would strengthen this discourse.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Investing in health","field_subtitle":"Yates R, Dhillon R: The Lancet,  Volume 383, Issue 9921, 949 - 950, 15 March 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)60474-8/fulltext","body":"Public financing is the path to universal health coverage (UHC). UHC is rapidly becoming the overarching goal for national health systems and two recent events mark a new consensus that public financing is the way to get there. The Lancet Commission on Investing in Health2 focused on public financing mechanisms (including aid) in reaching UHC and explicitly rejected the 1993 World Development Report's emphasis on private health financing, including user fees. Similarly all 11 countries that presented at the Global Conference on UHC (Dec 6, 2013, Tokyo, Japan) hosted by the World Bank and Government of Japan, highlighted their use of public financing to increase service coverage and improve financial protection. None had used private voluntary financing to any significant extent. What is the basis for this consensus? UHC is fundamentally about rights and equity. It requires that the healthy and wealthy subsidise health services for the sick and poor. This cannot happen through private market-based systems of user fees and private insurance, including voluntary community-based schemes.Across the world, countries are instead realising that the only way to secure the cross-subsidies needed for UHC is through compulsory contributions into redistributive risk pools. In particular, tax financing is proving essential to close coverage gaps for households in the informal sector. Since only the state can mandate progressive payments and ensure that benefits are allocated according to need, only public financing systems can achieve the combination of universality, equity, and financial protection needed for UHC. Many of the governments that have learnt these lessons are now the ones leading the charge for UHC to be included in the post-2015 agenda. As noted by the World Bank President, one of these countries, Thailand, achieved UHC by rejecting the advice of the World Bank in the 1993 World Development Report to not rely on public financing. These countries represent the new consensus on health financing: universal coverage can only be accomplished through public financing systems in which the state plays a leading part in raising revenues, pooling funds, and purchasing services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Investing in health","field_subtitle":"Chiriboga D et al on behalf of 42 signatories: The Lancet,  Volume 383, Issue 9921, Page 949, 15 March 2014","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)60473-6/fulltext","body":"As public health professionals devoted to global health equity, the authors express our deep concern with the The Lancet Commission Global health 2035: a world converging within a generation (Dec 7, p 1898),1 a re-run of the 1993 World Development Report, whose policies contributed to the shrinkage of government institutions and massive privatisation and fragmentation of health-care systems, effectively decreasing coverage and accessibility. The authors observe that its recommendations are based on the principle of return on investment, not on health equity, while creating a double standard: one for the rich and another for the rest of us. Any policy for the poor is by definition a poor policy. The Lancet Commission's recommendations are argued to not represent the global health community and are fundamentally flawed by neglecting the principle of the right to health. The report analyses Millennium Development Goals progress without reference to stagnant levels of health inequity: 20 million deaths each year, more than a third of all deaths, are avoidable and caused by socio-economic injustice\u2014a number and a proportion that have not changed for the past 40 years. Every individual, organisation, or government working to promote heath equity and WHO's objective of enjoyment by all peoples of the best attainable level of health should be on their guard.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Legality of Anti Homosexuality Act challenged in Constitutional Court by an unprecedented coalition of petitioners; Injunction against enforcement sought","field_subtitle":"Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law: Uganda, 11 March 2014","field_url":"http://www.ugandans4rights.org/index.php/press-releases/429-legality-of-anti-homosexuality-act-challenged-in-constitutional-court-by-an-unprecedented-coalition-of-petitioners-injunction-against-enforcement-sought.html","body":"On 11th March 2014, the legality of the Anti Homosexuality Act was challenged in Constitutional Court by an unprecedented coalition of petitioners and an Injunction against enforcement sought. The petition was filed under the auspices of the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law, a coalition of 50 indigenous civil society organisations that advocates for non-discrimination in Uganda. The petition argues that the Anti Homosexuality Act violates Ugandans\u2019 Constitutionally guaranteed right to: privacy, to be free from discrimination, dignity, to be free from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, to the freedoms of expression, thought, assembly and association; to the presumption of innocence, and to the right to civic participation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Linking poverty and violence: The South African scenario","field_subtitle":"Muller A: AJOL March 2014","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajcr/article/viewFile/101871/91910","body":"In present-day South Africa people are daily confronted with individual or group scenes of violence in places people live in poverty. Despite political promises, the common experience is of a housing shortage, poor education, few jobs and very little prospect of alleviating profound poverty. This article explores the possible and potential links between poverty and violence, in order to gain deeper insight into their intrinsic meaning and the circularity of linkage between the two. In order to do so, it revisits the definitions of poverty and violence, emphasises the extremely important role \u2018human needs\u2019 play in both poverty and violence,\r\nexamines the phenomenon of the \u2018behavioural sink\u2019 which refers to the\r\nnegative effect of overcrowding on humans as biological beings and establishes whether theories on male violence offer insight into the problem. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mainstreaming Health Equity in the Development Agenda of African Countries","field_subtitle":"Economic Commission for Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2008","field_url":"http://www.uneca.org/sites/default/files/publications/health-equity_2008_0.pdf","body":"Equity is emerging as an urgent policy priority in health sector reforms in many African countries. This report presents the findings of a study on \u201cMainstreaming health equity into the development agenda in Africa\u201d. The widely reported fact that health outcomes in Africa are generally poor obscures the existence of a steep gradient in health outcomes between rural and urban areas, between better-off households and the less better-off. These differences in outcome are due in part to inequities in health. There is strong evidence that the poor health outcomes reported for most African countries are attributable to inequities in health. Reducing inequities in health is therefore argued to be integral to success in reaching the targets of the three health-related MDGs and the other MDGs where health is an important component. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Pambazuka News: Call for volunteer translators","field_subtitle":"No closing date","field_url":"","body":"Pambazuka News needs volunteers to translate articles. Published weekly in English and French, and every 15 days in Portuguese, our electronic newsletter sometimes translates articles from one language to another. Through this, they aim to break down language barriers, give more audience to relevant analysis for our contributors and encourage exchanges between linguistic communities in Africa and around the world. In this Pambazuka is unique.To deal with increasing translation needs, they are looking for volunteers to strengthen our team of volunteer translators who assist us in this task and contribute to what Pambazuka is.They engage to sign all translated articles with the name of their authors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Patient Satisfaction and Factor of Importance in Primary Health Care Services in Botswana","field_subtitle":"Bamidele AR, Hoque ME, and van der Heever H: Afr. J. Biomed. Res. 14;1 -7","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajbr/article/view/95223/84570","body":"This study aims to assess patient satisfaction and factor of importance on the service they receive at the primary health care facility in Botswana. The study was a cross sectional study in which 360 systematically selected participants completed 5 point likert scale self-administered questionnaire to rate their satisfaction level as well as factors of importance where best service was provided. Results showed that pharmacy received the highest satisfaction level while the nurse got the least level of satisfaction in terms of services rendered. 14.4% of participants still think time is not important to them as factor as long as they got what they wanted. Participants mentioned that an increase in personnel and staff training stood out as areas that need to be significantly considered \r\nfor improvement. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Perceived Impact of Health Sector Reform on Motivation of Health Workers and Quality of Health Care in Tanzania: the Perspectives of Healthcare Workers and District Council Health Managers in Four Districts","field_subtitle":"Mubyazi GM, Njunwa KJ: Rwanda Journal of Health Sciences, 2:1: 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/rjhs/article/view/85426","body":"Literature on the impact of health sector reform (HSR) on motivation of healthcare workers (HWs) and performance in health service provision in developing countries is still limited. This paper describes the impact of HSR on HW motivation and performance in providing quality health care in Tanzania. Methods: Four districts selected from three regions were covered, involving in-depth interviews with HWs in public health facilities (HFs), focus group discussions with district managers and researchers\u2019 observations. The cost-sharing system in public HFs and national health \u2018basket\u2019 funding system introduced in 1990s were the key HSR elements identified by the study participants as impacting on HWs motivation and performance. User-fees for public healthcare services was acknowledged as having supplemented government funds allocated to public HFs, although such facilities still experienced \u2018stock-outs\u2019 of essential medicines and other supplies, HF understaffing, low/lack of essential remuneration, shortage of and unrepaired staff houses, meagre office space, lack of transport facilities for emergency cases, minimal recognition of HWs at local primary healthcare committees and the district health service budgeting system being controlled by district and central level authorities, leaving little room for lower level stakeholders to participate. For the national healthcare system to succeed, the authors argue that HSRs will need to involve and motivate HWs who are frontline implementers of the reform strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Possible Health Hazards from Genetically Engineered Crops","field_subtitle":"Onwubiko HA:  Bio-Research, 9(2), 2012","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/br/article/view/98441","body":"Genetic Engineering of crops means that  recombination DNA technology is used to insert, delete, transpose and substitute new genes in plants.  The author notes that new gene products may serve as allergens capable of inducing illness in consumers. Antibiotic resistance genes are reported to be used to enable the selection of bacteria harbouring the desired gene, a technique which is thought to contribute to increasing resistance of bacteria to well established antibiotics such as penicillin, ampicillin, tetracycline and numerous others. The effect of the viral vector used in gene transfers on the   environment, crops and individual consumers is not known. The author calls for an active regulatory guide by the United Nation Organization to safeguard the human  population, the environment and life in general.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Practicum On Monitoring And Evaluation Of Health Communication Programs, June 2-4, 2014, Accra, Ghana","field_subtitle":"Deadline For Registration April 30, 2014.","field_url":"http://www.africomnet.org/practicum","body":"The African Network for Strategic Communication in Health and Development (AfriComNet), a network of health communication practitioners across 50 countries, proposes an interactive three-day practicum focused on health communication monitoring and evaluation. The practicum will address topics such as how health communication strategy design influences monitoring and evaluation plans; the use of behaviour change theories/models to guide evaluation planning; using evaluation and monitoring data to inform program strategies; using health communication research to test theories; and effectively disseminating and using evidence and findings to improve the science of health communication. Early registration is encouraged as the practicum is limited to a maximum of 150 participants. To register, please complete the registration form on the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Recruitment and Retention of Mental Health Workers in Ghana","field_subtitle":"Jack H; Canavan M; Ofori-Atta A; Taylor L; Bradley E: PLOS One; 8, 2,  February 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0057940","body":"Despite the great need to recruit and retain mental health workers in low-income countries, little is known about how these workers perceive their jobs and what drives them to work in mental health care. Using qualitative interviews, the authors aimed to explore factors motivating mental health workers in order to inform interventions to increase recruitment and retention. The authors conducted 28 in-depth, open-ended interviews with staff in Ghana\u2019s three public psychiatric hospitals and used the snowballing method to recruit participants and the constant comparative method for qualitative data analysis, with multiple members of the research team participating in data coding to enhance the validity and reliability of the analysis. The use of qualitative methods allowed the authors to understand the range and depth of motivating and demotivating factors. Respondents described many factors that influenced their choice to enter and remain in mental health care. Motivating factors included 1) desire to help patients who are vulnerable and in need, 2) positive day-to-day interactions with patients, 3) intellectual or academic interest in psychiatry or behavior, and 4) good relationships with colleagues. Demotivating factors included 1) lack of resources at the hospital, 2) a rigid supervisory hierarchy, 3) lack of positive or negative feedback on work performance, and 4) few opportunities for career advancement within mental health. Because many of the factors are related to relationships, these findings suggest that strengthening the interpersonal and team dynamics may be a critical and relatively low cost way to increase worker motivation. The data also allowed the authors to highlight key areas for resource allocation to improve both recruitment and retention, including risk pay, adequate tools for patient care, improved hospital work environment, and stigma reduction efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reproductive Health and the Question of Abortion in Botswana: A Review","field_subtitle":"Smith S: Afr J Reprod Health 17[4]: 26-34, 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajrh/article/view/98371","body":"The complications of unsafe, illegal abortions are a significant cause of maternal mortality in Botswana. The stigma attached to abortion leads some women to seek clandestine procedures, or alternatively, to carry the fetus to term and abandon the infant at birth. The author conducted research into perceptions of abortion in urban Botswana in order to understand the social and cultural obstacles to women\u2019s reproductive autonomy, focusing particularly on attitudes to terminating a pregnancy. She carried out 21 interviews with female and male urban adult Batswana. The findings however, suggest that socio-cultural factors, not punitive laws, present the greatest barriers to women seeking to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. It is argued that these factors must be addressed so that effective local solutions to unsafe abortion can be generated. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Socioeconomic inequalities in smoking in low and mid income countries: positive gradients among women?","field_subtitle":"Bosdriesz JR, Mehmedovic S, Witvliet MI, Kunst AE: Int J Equity Health. 6;13(1):14, February 2014","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3922442/","body":"The aim of this study was to assess if a positive gradient in smoking can also be observed in low and middle income countries in other regions of the world. The authors used data of the World Health Survey from 49 countries and a total of 233,917 respondents. Multilevel logistic regression was used to model associations between individual level smoking and both individual level and country level determinants. the results were stratified by education, occupation, sex and generation (younger vs. older than 45). Countries were grouped based on GDP and region. In Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America no clear gradient was observed: inequalities were relatively small. Among men, no positive gradients were observed, and the strongest negative gradients were seen in South-East Asia and East Asia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South encouraged to use TRIPS flexibilities for public health","field_subtitle":"Third World Network SUNS #7758  7 March 2014","field_url":"http://www.twn.my/title2/wto.info/2014/ti140302.htm","body":"The Geneva-based South Centre has encouraged India and other developing countries \"to continue to make full use of the TRIPS flexibilities for public health and other public policy objectives,\" consistent with their rights and obligations under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. \r\nIn a statement released here, the intergovernmental organisation of developing countries called on WTO Members to respect the legitimacy of the use of TRIPS flexibilities for public health in light of new threats of unilateral trade measures by the United States against India over its intellectual property (IP) laws and regulations. The South Centre statement cautioned that continued pressures by the United States on India and other developing countries \"to adopt an IPRs [Intellectual Property Rights] regime that would go beyond the minimum standards in the TRIPS [Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights] Agreement and that does not make use of the flexibilities that are part of TRIPS would have adverse social and developmental effects, including on the public's access to medicines.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Still Standing and War on Women","field_subtitle":"IRIN: March 2014","field_url":"http://www.aidsfreeworld.org/Publications-Multimedia/Videos/IRIN-films.aspx?utm_source=Newsletter%20Peer%20List&utm_campaign=c33d0919e2-Week_in_Review_27_21_March_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_349f52eb1e-c33d0919e2-65516937","body":"IRIN, the UN's service for humanitarian news and analysis, has produced two powerful new films dealing with sexual violence. \"Still Standing\" is the story of a young rape survivor in Kenya, Ziborah Iala, and her seemingly endless quest for justice and healing. \"War on Women\" addresses \"sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with gripping testimonies from both survivors and perpetrators and insight from analysts and civil society activists. Impunity helps drive the horrific levels of sexual violence in DRC: it is more than a \"weapon of war\", and is not confined to the battlefield.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening health centre committees as a vehicle for social participation in health in east and southern Africa: Regional Meeting Report, Harare, Zimbabwe 30 January - 1 February 2014","field_subtitle":"EQUINET: TARSC, CWGH, Medico Int: March 2014","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20HCC%20Mtg%20Rep%20FEB2014.pdf","body":"EQUINET convened this Regional meeting on Health Centre Committees in East and Southern Africa to: i. Provide a forum for exchange of experience and learning between partners doing work on training and strengthening HCCs in countries in the ESA region; ii. Exchange and review information on the legal frameworks, capacities, training materials, and monitoring systems used in capacity building of HCCs, identify and discuss ways of advancing and documenting good practice in these aspects of HCCs; and iii. Develop a shared monitoring framework for assessment of the capacity, functioning and impact of HCCs, to apply to settings where HCCs are operating, and to discuss options for on-going exchange and documentation on the learning across settings. The meeting gathered 20 delegates representing seven countries from east and southern Africa, all of whom are involved in training and strengthening HCCs. The report provides the proceedings of the workshop.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening health systems by health sector reforms","field_subtitle":"Senkubuge F, Modisenyane M, Bishaw T:  Glob Health Action. 137:23568 February 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/23568","body":"here is a growing recognition that the global health agenda needs to shift from an emphasis on disease-specific approaches to strengthening of health systems, including dealing with social, environmental, and economic determinants through multisectoral responses.  A review and analysis of data on strengthening health sector reform and health systems was conducted. Attention was paid to the goal of health and interactions between health sector reforms and the functions of health systems. The authors explored how these interactions contribute toward delivery of health services, equity, financial protection, and improved health. they found that health sector reforms cannot be developed from a single global or regional policy formula. Any reform will depend on the country's history, values and culture, and the population's expectations. Some of the emerging ingredients that need to be explored are infusion of a health systems agenda; development of a comprehensive policy package for health sector reforms; improving alignment of planning and coordination; use of reliable data; engaging 'street level' policy implementers; strengthening governance and leadership; and allowing a holistic and developmental approach to reforms. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The Environment in Social Science and Humanities in Africa","field_subtitle":"Murombedzi J: Codesria Newsletter March 2014","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article1970","body":"The environment is taking center stage in local, national and global discourse and policies. This increasing focus is occurring in a neo-liberal context defined by unprecedented land grabs, increasing militarization of natural resource use and governance, and privatization/commercialization of the environment facilitated by the neo-liberal market hegemony. Climate change has come to dominate contemporary environmental debates and to shape development policy. African Social Scientists in, usually in collaboration with scholars from other continents, have begun to respond to the climate crisis, focusing particularly on its implications on various facets of development and livelihoods. Given the urgency of environmental challenges facing the continent, the author argues that an African social science perspective to inform appropriate policy responses is urgent. What is needed is an approach that gives new impetus to environmental research in the social sciences and humanities, ensuring better integration into all the disciplines and recognition of the extreme urgency of the need to develop appropriate paradigms on the environment-development linkages.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Labour Market for Health Workers in Africa : New Look at the Crisis","field_subtitle":"Soucat A, Scheffler R: Journal of the World Bank, April 2013","field_url":"https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/13824","body":"Health systems in Sub-Saharan Africa have changed profoundly over the last 20 years. The economic crisis of the 1980s and 1990s rattled public health care systems, which were largely holdovers from the colonial and postcolonial eras. The later wave of structural adjustments and public sector reforms wrought further change. As African economies opened to market based approaches, the private sector became a sizable source of health care service. This paper presents data from the World Bank's Africa Region Human Resources for Health Program.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The social and gender context of HIV disclosure in sub-Saharan Africa: A review of policies and practices","field_subtitle":"Bott S, Obermeyer CM: Journal of Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS  10 (S1): S5-16, July 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/saharaj/article/view/95113/84460","body":"This paper reviews the legal and policy context of HIV disclosure in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as what is known about rates, consequences and social context of disclosure, with special attention to gender issues and the role of health services. Persistent rates of nondisclosure by those diagnosed with HIV raise difficult ethical, public health and human rights questions about how to protect the medical confidentiality, health and well-being of people living with HIV on the one hand, and how to protect partners and children from HIV transmission on the other. Both globally and within the sub-Saharan African region, a spate of recent laws, policies and programmes have tried to encourage or \u2013 in some cases \u2013 mandate HIV disclosure. These policies have generated ethical and policy debates. While there is consensus that the criminalization of transmission and nondisclosure undermines rights while serving little public health benefit, there is less clarity about the ethics of third party notification, especially in resource-constrained settings. Despite initiatives to encourage voluntary HIV disclosure and to increase partner testing in sub-Saharan Africa, health workers continue to grapple with difficult challenges in the face of nondisclosure, and often express a need for more guidance and support in this area. A large body of research indicates that gender issues are key to HIV disclosure in the region, and must be considered within policies and programmes. Taken as a whole, this evidence suggests a need for more attention to the challenges and dilemmas faced by both clients and providers in relation to HIV disclosure in this region and for continued efforts to consider the perspectives and rights of all those affected.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"What can a teacher do with a cellphone? Using participatory visual research to speak back in addressing HIV&AIDS","field_subtitle":"Mitchell C, de Lange N: South African Journal of Education; 33,4: 1-13, 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/saje/article/viewFile/97294/86608","body":"Their ubiquity in South Africa makes cellphones an easily accessible tool to use in participatory approaches to addressing HIV and AIDS issues, particularly in school contexts. In this article the authors explore a participatory visual approach undertaken with a group of rural teachers, using cellphones to produce 'cellphilms' about youth and risk in the context of HIV and AIDS. Noting that the teachers brought highly didactic and moralistic tones into the cellphilms, the authors devised a \u201cspeaking back\u201d approach to encourage reflection and an adjustment to their approaches when addressing HIV and AIDS issues with learners. They draw on the example of condom use in one cellphilm to demonstrate how a \u201cspeaking back\u201d pedagogy can encourage reflection and participatory analysis, and contribute to deepening an understanding of how teachers might work with youth and risk in the context of HIV and AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Adaptation and implementation of local maternity dashboards in a Zimbabwean hospital to drive clinical improvement","field_subtitle":"Crofts J, Moyo J, Ndebele W, Mhlanga S, Draycotta T, Sibanda T: Bull World Health Organ 2014;92:146\u2013152","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/92/2/13-124347.pdf","body":"The Commission on Information and Accountability for Women\u2019s and Children\u2019s Health of the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that national health outcome data were often of questionable quality and \u201cnot timely enough for practical use by health planners and administrators\u201d. Delayed reporting of poor-quality data limits the ability of front-line staff to identify problems rapidly and make improvements. Clinical \u201cdashboards\u201d based on locally available data offer a way of providing accurate and timely information. A dashboard is a simple computerized tool that presents a health facility\u2019s clinical data graphically using a traffic-light coding system to alert front-line staff about changes in the frequency of clinical outcomes. It provides rapid feedback on local outcomes in an accessible form and enables problems to be detected early. Until now, dashboards have been used only in high-resource settings. An overview maternity dashboard and a maternal mortality dashboard were designed for, and introduced at, a public hospital in Zimbabwe. A midwife at the hospital was trained to collect and input data monthly. Implementation of the maternity dashboards was feasible and 28 months of clinical outcome data were summarized using common computer software. Presentation of these data to staff led to the rapid identification of adverse trends in outcomes and to suggestions for actions to improve health-care quality. Implementation of maternity dashboards was feasible in a low-resource setting and resulted in actions that improved health-care quality locally. Active participation of hospital management and midwifery staff was crucial to their success.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"African civil society condemns the signing of the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law","field_subtitle":"AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA): Windhoek, 26 February 2014","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qa3e98m","body":"The Aids and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) has strongly condemned Uganda\u2019s Anti-Homosexuality Act, signed into law by Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni in February. According to ARASA the new law is contrary to the provisions of Uganda\u2019s own constitution and goes against its purported aim of protecting the country\u2019s people. The alliance claims that provisions in the law place unacceptable limitations on the rights to freedom of expression and association and will undermine proven prevention, treatment and care efforts targeted at vulnerable populations, such as men who have sex with men, placing them at greater risk both of contracting HIV and of persecution, harassment, violence and even death. According to ARASA the law contradicts the recent recommendations of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, whose members included prominent African leaders such as Festus Gontebanye Mogae, former president of Botswana. The Global Commission report recommended that in order \u201cto ensure an effective, sustainable response to HIV that is consistent with human rights obligations, countries must prohibit police violence against key populations. Countries must also support programmes that reduce stigma and discrimination against key populations and protect their rights\u201d.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"African Oral History Archive","field_subtitle":"Ichikowitz Family Foundation, March 2014","field_url":"http://www.africanoralhistory.com/","body":"The African Oral History Archive (AOHA) charts Africa\u2019s history, heritage and collective memory as a multi-media content to preserve African heritage.  AOHA is a non-profit initiative dedicated to African story-telling, to the safeguarding of the continent\u2019s heritage for future generations. Over 130 interviews have been recorded, including former heads of state and government, foreign ministers and other key figures who have spoken freely of the decisions they were called upon to make, the criteria by which their decisions were taken, and their personal fears and hopes for the liberation of South(ern) Africa. AOHA promotes public access to these multi-media resources as entry points for young and old to understand Africa\u2019s past. AOHA adopts no single point of view but, rather, provides the raw material for open, pluralistic storytelling. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"An assessment of opportunities and challenges for public sector involvement in the maternal health voucher program in Uganda  ","field_subtitle":"Okal J, Kanya L, Obare F, Njuki R, Abuya T, Bange T, Warren C, Askew I and Bellows B: Health Research Policy and Systems 11(38): 18 October 2013","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/11/1/38","body":"This paper describes a reproductive health voucher program that contracts private facilities in Uganda and explores the policy and implementation issues associated with expansion of the program to include public sector facilities. Data presented here describes the results of interviews of six district health officers and four health facility managers purposefully selected from seven districts with the voucher program in southwestern Uganda. Interviews were transcribed and organized thematically, barriers to seeking RH care were identified, and how to address the barriers in a context where voucher coverage is incomplete as well as opportunities and challenges for expanding the program by involving public sector facilities were investigated. The findings show that access to sexual and reproductive health services in southwestern Uganda is constrained by both facility and individual level factors which can be addressed by inclusion of the public facilities in the program. This will widen the geographical reach of facilities for potential clients, effectively addressing distance related barriers to access of health care services. Further, intensifying ongoing health education, continuous monitoring and evaluation, and integrating the voucher program with other services is likely to address some of the barriers. The public sector facilities were also seen as being well positioned to provide voucher services because of their countrywide reach, enhanced infrastructure, and referral networks. The voucher program also has the potential to address public sector constraints such as understaffing and supply shortages. Accrediting public facilities has the potential to increase voucher program coverage by reaching a wider pool of poor mothers, shortening distance to service, strengthening linkages between public and private sectors through public-private partnerships and referral systems as well as ensuring the awareness and buy-in of policy makers, which is crucial for mobilization of resources to support the sustainability of the programs. Specifically, identifying policy champions and consulting with key policy sectors is key to the successful inclusion of the public sector into the voucher program.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Abstracts: Prince Mahidol Award Conference 2015 \u201cGlobal Health Post 2015: Accelerating Equity\u201d. ","field_subtitle":"Deadline for abstract submissions: March 28th  2014 ","field_url":"http://www.pmaconference.mahidol.ac.th/","body":"In celebration of the 15th anniversary of the Award in 2007, the Royal Thai Government and the Prince Mahidol Award Foundation decided to convene an annual international conference focusing on policy-related public health issues of global significance. The call for abstracts for the 2015 conference is open and abstracts must be submitted electronically through the conference website.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Advisor Africare","field_subtitle":"Closing Date: 24 March 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/jobs/monitoring-and-evaluation-technical-advisor","body":"Africare\u2019s Injongo Yethu Project provides technical support and assistance as a contribution to the South African Government\u2019s response to HIV and AIDS in the Chris Hani, Cacadu and Amathole Districts of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Funded by the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the project aims to strengthen and scale up prevention, treatment, care and support for people living with HIV and AIDS, their caregivers, family members, and community including orphans and children made vulnerable due to HIV and AIDS.Africare seeks to appoint a Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Advisor, based in the Eastern Cape.\r\nFor further information visit the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications for the African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowships ","field_subtitle":"Deadline: March 20, 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article1943","body":"The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), in partnership with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), is pleased to announce the seventh call for applications for the African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowships (ADDRF). The ADDRF Fellowship Program seeks to facilitate more rigorous engagement of doctoral students in research, strengthen their research skills, and provide them an opportunity for timely completion of their doctoral training. The Program targets doctoral students with strong commitment to a career in training and/or research. The ADDRF will award about 20 fellowships in 2014 to doctoral students who are within two years of completing their thesis at an African university. In this phase of funding and in consideration of IDRC\u2019s health programming priorities, candidates whose dissertation topics address health policy or health systems issues will be given special consideration. The Program has also reserved a small number of fellowships specifically for doctoral students conducting research on health inequities in urban areas or the reproductive health of marginalized urban communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: How public health can meet the challenges of the twenty-first century","field_subtitle":"Call Closes March 7 2014","field_url":"http://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/si/645081 /cfp/","body":"An upcoming Special Issue on \"How Public Health Can Meet the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century,\" will be published in the Public Health subject area of BioMed Research International in July 2014. A call for papers has been made for the Special Issue, which is open to both original research articles as well as review articles. BioMed Research International is an open access journal, which means that all published articles are made freely available online without a subscription, and authors retain the copyright of their work. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Career and practice intentions of health science students at three South African health science faculties","field_subtitle":"Naidu C, Irlam J, Diab PN: African Journal of Health Professions Education, 5(2):68-71, November 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajhpe/article/view/96573/85900","body":"The distribution and accessibility of healthcare professionals as well as the quality of healthcare services are significantly affected by the career choices of medical and other health science graduates. While much has been reported on the career intentions of medical students, little is known about those of their counterparts in the health sciences. This study describes the career plans of non-medical health science students at three South African health science faculties, and identifies some key motivating factors. A self-administered survey of first- and final-year health science students was conducted at the health science faculties of the universities of Cape Town, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo. The findings demonstrated that health science students, similar to medical students, are influenced by a multitude of factors in making career choices. This emphasises the relevance to all health science disciplines of national strategies to address the maldistribution of healthcare professionals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship (ADF) Programme","field_subtitle":"Call closes: March 17, 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.iie.org/Programs/Carnegie-African-Diaspora-Fellows-Program","body":"Applications are now being accepted for the first round of fellowships for the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship (ADF) Programme. Public and private higher education institutions in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and Uganda are eligible to apply to host a Fellow, an African-born scholar who lives and works in a college or university in the United States or Canada.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"eLearning Africa \"Through your Lens\" Photo Competition 2014 ","field_subtitle":"Closing date: Monday, April 14th 2014","field_url":"http://elearning-africa.com/press_releases_html/pr_2014_02.html","body":"The eLearning Africa \u201cThrough your Lens\u201d Photo Competition is back this year in its fifth edition. Under the theme of \u201cSocial Africa: building bridges through ICT\u201d, budding photographers are invited to submit snapshots depicting how ICT is enhancing the way individuals and communities in Africa live, learn, cooperate and connect. Contributions from all sectors and walks of life are welcome. The photo should show how communication tools and information technologies can build bridges and foster relationships between people and be accompanied by a brief description outlining the inspiration behind their idea.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Engaging in global health: who sets the agenda?","field_subtitle":"Bente Molenaar Neufeld, The Centre for Trade Policy and Law, Canada","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe World Health Organization (WHO) states in its constitution that it aims to achieve \"the attainment by all people of the highest possible level of health.\u201d  The World Health Assemblies (WHAs) provide a key opportunity to engage on the achievement of this aim. Yet in an interesting study by Kitamura et al. in May 2013 in Health Policy reviewing the agendas of the WHAs between 1970 and 2012, the authors concluded that \u201cagenda items of the WHA do not always reflect international health issues in terms of burdens of mortality and illness.\u201d  \r\n\r\nSo how are countries and stakeholders shaping the WHA agenda? \r\n\r\nOne way is through the WHO Executive Board (EB), particularly as it plays a role in setting the provisional agenda for the WHA. EB members are individuals nominated by countries with technical expertise in health. Of the 34 members of the Executive Board, seven are from the African region. Currently these are from Cameroon (2011-2014), Chad (2012-2015), Namibia (2013-2016), Nigeria (2011-2014), Senegal (2011-2014), Sierra Leone (2011-2014) and South Africa (2013-2016).  As EB members, they are well-positioned to be heard and to bring concerns from their regions to the table. They can also block issues being discussed. The WHO secretariat also plays a role in agenda setting. Procedurally, the provisional EB agenda is proposed by the WHO Director-General. Getting issues on the agenda for the WHA is, however, not difficult. According to the rules of procedure, every proposal brought by a member state and any proposals submitted by the DG should be included in the provisional WHA agenda.  So how are these policy levers being used? \r\n\r\nTake the 2014 EB agenda for example. Many agenda items were not controversial as they are carried over from previous years, after broad agreement around their importance. This included non-communicable diseases (NCDs), neglected tropical diseases and reform of the WHO. Other agenda items may be more controversial. For example, when in 2012 the United States of America and Thailand successfully petitioned to include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) access to health in the WHO EB agenda for consideration it provoked debate, with Egypt and Nigeria, on behalf of their regions, asking for the item to be deleted. \r\n\r\nThis issue exemplified how health concerns can reflect and raise political division.  Bringing health into diplomacy platforms, including that of the WHO, poses a challenge for how to avoid foreign policy concerns overshadowing health issues. The US delegate, Nils Daulaire, speaking about the demands for deletion of the LGBT item in 2012 said that it was \u201cunprecedented for WHO member states to come together to attempt to remove an item legitimately placed on the Executive Board agenda by another member state.  We believe it is important to afford each other the courtesy to discuss these important health items, even those with which not everyone agrees. Changing this deeply-established precedent risks politicizing all EB agenda items moving forward.\u201d  At the same time, countries are sensitive about health platforms being used to advance wider foreign policy agendas. \r\n\r\nOn the specific agenda item, a compromise position was reached to delete it and to ask the DG to consult with members on how to address the public health issues for future discussion. African diplomats in Geneva noted that the issue could continue to cause a stalemate unless the DG brings compromise solutions from her consultations within the regions. In the 2014 EB the item thus appeared as \u2018[deleted]\u2019 on the final agenda, and there was no discussion of it, as Member States had not agreed on a title or content of accompanying documentation for it. Until they do, the item will not be discussed.\r\n\r\nAgenda setting can and does thus fall victim to politics and requires diplomacy to reach solutions that are acceptable to the membership. However African countries have successfully brought items to the WHA agenda, such as that of ethical recruitment of health workers. What may restrict both the inclusion and action on agenda item may be the limits set by the General Program of Work (GPW). The GPW is set for the organization every 5 years. Unless a suggested item falls within the GPW and has funding allocated to it, it is unlikely to make it onto the formal agenda. The Organization is currently working on its 2014-2019 GPW and bases its\u2019 plans on a set of distinct categories  in the GPW that have been agreed to by Member States - that is communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases, promoting health through the life course, health systems, and preparedness, surveillance and response. One reform of the WHO underway, according to the WHO website, is to \u201callow greater flexibility in allocating resources to priorities within these categories\u201d, which may then give flexibility for new agenda items not yet covered in the GPW. \r\n \r\nEven when issues make it to the WHA agenda, will they receive adequate attention? \r\n\r\nThe agenda of both the EB and the WHA have become longer and longer over the years. In May 2013, for example, the WHA agenda included numerous weighty issues, including health post 2015, NCDs, communicable diseases (including malaria and neglected tropical diseases), WHO reform, substandard/spurious/falsely-labelled/falsified/counterfeit medical products and a range of other issues. With such packed agendas, smaller delegations to the WHA face challenges in participating when equally important issues are being discussed at the same time. Dr. Emmanuel Makasa, health attache at the Zambia high commission in Geneva noted in one 2013 meeting in the region that African delegations have responded to this by working as a group: \u201cWe work together as the African Group of Health Experts in Geneva to tackle issues and engage as a group, which helps with our individual member state staff shortages and different professionals present at the meetings.\u201d \r\n\r\nA lengthening agenda may also reflect the widening reach of global factors and policies in health, or the widening range of concerns claiming for attention. Either way, countries need proactive strategies to get their health concerns onto the global agenda, to ensure that they obtain attention and are addressed.  It implies long term thinking, preparing and collaborating with partners in advance to develop positions and organizing the evidence, expertise and alliances to raise and advance agenda items. As Chigas et al. highlighted in 2007 those who can early on \u201cframe the definition of the problem and the terms of the collective debate, can have enormous influence on the subsequent negotiations and their outcomes.\u201d   \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. The Centre for Trade Policy and Law is working with EQUINET on a research programme on GHD in association with the ECSA HC Strategic Initiative on Global Health Diplomacy. For more information on the issues raised please visit www.equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 157: Engaging in global health: who sets the agenda?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluating traditional healers knowledge and practices related to HIV testing and treatment in South Africa.","field_subtitle":"George G, Chitindingu E and Gow J: BMC International Health and Human Rights 13(45): 23 October 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/13/45","body":"In a context of inadequate human resources for health, this study investigated whether traditional healers have the knowledge and skill base which could be utilised to assist in the scaling up of HIV prevention and treatment services in South Africa. Using a cross-sectional research design a total of 186 traditional healers from the Northern Cape province were interviewed. Responses on the following topics were obtained: socio-demographic characteristics; HIV training, experience and practices; and knowledge of HIV transmission, prevention and symptoms. Descriptive statistics and chi square tests were used to analyse the responses. Traditional healers\u2019 knowledge of HIV and AIDS was not as high as expected. Less than 50% of both trained and untrained traditional healers would treat a person they suspected of being HIV positive. However, a total of 167 (89%) respondents agreed using a condom can prevent HIV and a majority of respondents also agreed that having one sexual partner (127, 68.8%) and abstaining from sex can prevent HIV (145, 78.8%). Knowledge of treatment practices was better with statistically significant results being obtained. The results indicate that traditional healers could be used for prevention as well as referring HIV positive individuals for treatment. Traditional healers were enthusiastic about the possibility of collaborating with bio-medical practitioners in the prevention and care of HIV and AIDS patients. This is significant considering they already service the health needs of a large percentage of the South African population. However, further development of training programmes and materials for them on HIV and AIDS related issues would seem necessary.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Fighting disparity: The dream of Davos elites","field_subtitle":"Chowdhury F: Pambazuka News, Issue 666, 19 February 2014","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/90637","body":"The world\u2019s richest nations have admitted that global inequality is appalling. But, the author asks, are they prepared to radically tackle the capitalist system that harbours 'rich tax thieves and appropriators of labour', who increase their wealth with political favours? A system that safeguards the interests of the minority at the expense of the majority poor? The World Economic Forum (January 2014) said that the growing rich-poor income gap is the biggest risk the world is facing for the next decade. The author raises that inequality, the world system\u2019s \u2018gift\u2019 to humanity, is not only a process active in poor countries. It is also a regular and integral part of advanced, matured capitalist economies. He cites the message of Pope Francis on the World Day of Peace pointing to the  \u2018new tyranny\u2019 of \u2018unfettered capitalism\u2019 and calling for action \u2018beyond a simple welfare mentality\u2019saying: \u2018I beg the Lord to grant us more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people, the lives of the poor'. The author however calls for the pressure for change to come from the people, cautioning that the class interests of elites make a vow to fight inequality a day dream.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"First-ever International Day of Zero Discrimination, 1st March 2014","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/campaigns/20131126zerodiscrimination/","body":"UNAIDS is calling for all to join Zero Discrimination Day as an opportunity to celebrate everyone\u2019s right to live a full and productive life with dignity\u2014no matter what they look like, where they come from or whom they love. \"By joining hearts and voices, individuals, communities and societies can transform the world every day and everywhere. Zero Discrimination Day is a moment to highlight how everyone can become informed and promote tolerance, compassion and peace\". The day is part of a global campaign. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth Ethics, Human Rights And Medical Law Conference","field_subtitle":"Gallagher Convention Centre, Midrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 6-8 May 2014","field_url":"http://www.africahealthexhibition.com/en/Site-Root /Conference-Centre/Conferences2014/ETConference /","body":"The 4th Ethics, Human Rights and Medical Law Conference is a must attend event for healthcare professionals in South Africa and the surrounding region. A one-day conference that is fully dedicated to the above topics, it was created to demonstrate how important all three subjects are, as well as how they connect to one another.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Governance: Call for Submissions","field_subtitle":"Closing date for Abstracts: March 30, 2014","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/lancegable%40wayne.edu","body":"Global Health Governance will be publishing a special issue on a proposed Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH) in December 2014. The proposal for an FCGH would create a new international framework, grounded in the international human right to health, that would support health at the national and global levels. For this FCGH special issue, Global Health Governance invites submission of theoretical and empirical policy research articles that examine and analyse how the FCGH could improve health through improved governance and realization of the right to health, in particular articles on 1) defining and articulating the underlying normative aspects of the FCGH and the prospects of implementing these norms across global, national, and local levels; 2) global health diplomacy and the process of drafting a Framework Convention; 3) institutional and political implementation concerns; 4) the roles of and relationship between state and non-state actors in the formulation and implementation of the FCGH; 5) the connection between existing norms and institutions and the FCGH; 6) strategies and challenges for integrating the norms of the FCGH into existing global, national, and local institutions; 7) accountability under the FCGH; and 8) strategies and challenges for using the FCGH to reshape or build on existing global, national, and local institutions to advance health equity and realization of the right to health. Abstracts (up to 400 words) for proposed articles are due March 30, 2014. Submissions should be made by email, in Microsoft Word format, to Lance Gable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Harnessing Africa\u2019s untapped solar energy potential for health","field_subtitle":"Humphreys G: Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 92:82-83, February 2014","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/92/2/14-020214/en/","body":"According to a WHO study published in Global health: science and practice in August last year, about one in four health facilities in 11 countries in sub-Saharan Africa has no access to electricity and most facilities that do have access have an unreliable supply. This paper describes the use of portable solar power kits containing a small photovoltaic (PV) solar panel, battery charger and outlets for energy-efficient LED (light-emitting diode) lights at clinics in African countries, installed 26 units in clinics in Malawi, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania, as well as a mini-grid in the Malawian village of Ndaula, where a PV solar system powers the health clinic, school, a water pumping station and a drip irrigation system. It also raises the work to systematically evaluate needs and interventions for \u201cgreen\u201d health facilities and energy access in health clinics. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Care Systems in Low- and Middle-Income Countries","field_subtitle":"Mills A: N Engl J Med 2014; 370:552-557February 6, 2014","field_url":"http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1110897","body":"Recent analyses have drawn attention to the weaknesses of health care systems in low- and middle-income countries. In response to such deficiencies in the health care system, a number of countries have been introducing new approaches to financing, organizing, and delivering health care. This article briefly reviews the main weaknesses of health care systems in low- and middle-income countries, lists the most common responses to those weaknesses, and then presents three of the most popular responses for further review. These responses, which have attracted considerable controversy, involve the questions of whether to pay for health care through general taxation or contributory insurance funds to improve financial protection for specific sections of the population, whether to use financial incentives to increase health care utilization and improve health care quality, and whether to make use of private entities to extend the reach of the health care system. This review raises that the specific circumstances of individual countries strongly influence both decisions about which approaches might be relevant and their success, so the author cautions that any generalizations made from health systems research in particular countries must be carefully considered. It is unlikely that there is one single blueprint for an ideal health care system design or a magic bullet that will automatically remedy deficiencies. The strengthening of health care systems in low- and middle-income countries must be seen as a long-term developmental process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Homosexuality: A pragmatic bridge to address public health, human rights and morality questions","field_subtitle":"Kuria D: Pambazuka News, Issue 667, 26 February 2014","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/90724","body":"The issue of homosexuality arouses different but deeply felt emotions in many parts of the world. In Africa, 38 countries criminalize homosexuality with sentences ranging from a small fine to life imprisonment. The author notes that criminalization goes well beyond the human rights discourse; it is also a public health issue. He notes the many well researched papers that provide evidence on the negative public health impact of criminalization, not just on the homosexual persons, but also on the public health system of a country, leading global health organizations such as World Health Organization and UNAIDS to issue guidelines on the issue of criminalization. The author presents the arguments, given the demonstrable negative impact of stigma and criminalisation on public health and human rights, whether the Kenyan society can broker a middle ground between morality aspirations on the one hand and public health & human rights on the other.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Invasive Aesthetics:  A call for a regenerative Architecture in Africa","field_subtitle":"Allam Z, Allam Z: Another Africa,  January 24 2014 ","field_url":"http://www.anotherafrica.net/architecture/invasive-aesthetics-a-call-for-a-regenerative-architecture-in-africa","body":"Architects and urban designers have a responsibility towards the evolution of the infrastructural landscape and identity. By changing the community skyline, they impact on the community\u2019s sense of belonging.  The authors propose that globalisation is the creative hand behind an undesirable uniformity in cities around the world and questions whether it is deconstructing the unique identity of African cities and a denial of Africa roots.  This is argued to be important for the social context, including equitable access to services and resources by the residents and the impact on their health and well-being since social welfare is strongly entwined with physical well-being.  The authors argue for a more thoughtful urban planning as the continuation of the present, haphazard construction puts future generations at risk of inheriting a place that is not only lacking in design but also an embodied cultural identity necessary for social wellbeing. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi's paradox:Filled with both corn and hunger","field_subtitle":"Wise T: Global Post, February 25, 2014","field_url":"http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/global-pulse/malawi-corn-maize-hunger-food-rights?utm_source=GDAE%20Subscribers&utm_campaign=a93bce4d15-TWMalawi_2_25_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_72d4918ff9-a93bce4d15-49831693","body":"This report explores the paradox of food insecurity in Malawi, with inpredictable rainfalls and a focus on a maize staple that is vulnerable to uncertain weather patterns. Further between 1998 and 2001, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund recommended that the Malawi government cut spending. The government eliminated a small but effective program of seed and fertilizer distribution, and maize production fell 40 percent by 2002. The World Bank and IMF then persuaded the government to sell off its food reserves. These measures are reported by the author to underlie a famine that prompted the government to resume its food reserves and to re-establish a broad input subsidy program intended to put good seeds and fertilizer into the hands of poor farmers, a programme that international funders refused to support as it was seen as inimical to free market principles. The programme was reported to be a success, and within a few years Malawi had grown enough maize to export some to neighboring countries. The 2002 famine motivated activists to campaign for a Right to Food Bill that enshrines in law every Malawian\u2019s right to \u201cthe progressive realization of the right to food,\u201d committing the government to advance such rights. The Right to Food Bill awaits legislative approval. Further government is distributing seeds for beans, pigeon peas, groundnuts, soybeans to diversify diets, offer crops that ripen at different times of the year, and replenish the soil with nitrogen and organic matter. Farmers have rejecting the high-tech agriculture heavily promoted by international funders and are rebuilding the fertility of depleted soils by intercropping nutritious legumes while growing a vitamin-rich, resilient variety of maize. The author suggests that maybe this is what the progressive realization of the right to food will look like in Malawi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Male partner involvements in PMTCT: a cross sectional study, Mekelle, Northern Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Haile F, Brhan Y: BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth14:65, 2014  ","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/14/65","body":"Male partner participation is a crucial component to optimize antenatal care/prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV(ANC/PMTCT) service. Involving male partners during HIV screening of pregnant mothers at ANC is key in the fight against mother to child transmission of HIV(MTCT). This study aimed to determine the level of male partner involvement in PMTCT and factors that affecting it.  A Cross-sectional study was conducted among 473 pregnant mothers attending ANC/PMTCT in Mekelle town health facilities in January 2011 to identify factors that affect male involvement in ANC/PMTCT. Twenty percent of pregnant mothers have been accompanied by their male partner to the ANC/PMTCT service. Knowledge of HIV sero status, maternal willingness to inform their husband about the availability of voluntary counselling and testing services in ANC/PMTCT and previous history of couple counselling were found to be the independent predictors of male involvement in ANC/PMTCT service. Male partner involvement in ANC/PMTCT was found to be low and the authors argue that comprehensive strategies should be put in place to sensitize and advocate the importance of male partner involvement in ANC/PMTCT and reach out male partners. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Masters in Occupational safety and health (3rd edition), English; Distance course Turin, 8 September 2014 -30 September 2015","field_subtitle":"Call For Applicants: Closing Date 31 May 2014 ","field_url":"http://osh.itcilo.org/","body":"The University of Turin, Italy, in partnership with the International Training Centre (ITC) of the International Labour Organization (ILO), is offering a Master course in Occupational Safety and Health. This one-year programme, to be held in English, includes an Internet-based distance learning phase, a face-to-face residential period on the ITC/ILO's campus in Turin followed by another distance phase for the preparation of the dissertation. The proposed programme combines the advantages of the academic experience in OSH of Turin University with the ITC/ILO's international training experience. An international approach has been applied to the contents, the methodology development as well as to the composition of the training team. This programme involves participants from both developing and developed countries, who will thus have an opportunity to share their different experiences. Applicants to visit the website for information on applications. A number of partial fellowships are available only for participants from developing countries on a competitive basis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"No universal health coverage without strong local health systems","field_subtitle":"Meessen B, Malanda B: Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 92:78-78A., February 2014","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/92/2/14-135228/en/","body":"The district strategy is the backbone of nearly every national health system in Africa; countries are covered by health facilities \u2013 organized in a tier system \u2013 whose activity packages focus on priority services. The Community of Practice \u201cHealth Service Delivery\u201d convened a regional conference in Dakar, Senegal, from 21 to 23 October 2013 gathering 20 country delegations and 170 experts who shared their experiences in organizing primary-health-care services at the local level. The meeting identified that market liberalization means that African health authorities need to use new policy instruments enhanced by information and communication technology; implement the district strategy pragmatically; and ensure inclusiveness, openness to dialogue and support of innovation and learning at the organizational level. The meeting also noted that Primary health care remains as relevant today as it was in 1978.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Practicum on monitoring and evaluation of health communication programs, June 2-4, 2014, Accra, Ghana","field_subtitle":"Deadline For Registration Is April 30, 2014.","field_url":"http://www.africomnet.org/practicum","body":"The African Network for Strategic Communication in Health and Development (AfriComNet), a network of health communication practitioners across 50 countries, proposes an interactive three-day practicum focused on health communication monitoring and evaluation. The practicum will address topics such as how health communication strategy design influences monitoring and evaluation plans; the use of behaviour change theories/models to guide evaluation planning; using evaluation and monitoring data to inform program strategies; using health communication research to test theories; and effectively disseminating and using evidence and findings to improve the science of health communication. Early registration is encouraged as the practicum is limited to a maximum of 150 participants. To register, please complete the registration form on the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Putting Public in Public Services: Research, Action and Equity in the Global South, Cape Tpwn, South Africa April 13-16, 2014","field_subtitle":"Register by:  March 14 2014","field_url":"http://municipalservicesproject.org/content/conference-registration","body":"The Municipal Services Project (MSP) explores alternatives to the privatization and commercialization of essential services, focusing on health, water and electricity in Africa, Asia and Latin America. We are convening an international conference to bring together researchers, activists, labour representatives, development practitioners and policy makers working to promote progressive public services in Cape Town from April 13-16, 2014. The event will showcase promising service provision alternatives, pushing forward our conceptual and methodological understandings of how public attitudes and practices arise, how they are constituted, and how they might be sustained. It will also offer practical alternatives and help advance debates about public services in South Africa. Registration is open to South Africans and participants from the region who would like to take part as observers for the full length of the conference. Registration is free but you will be responsible for your own expenses. Space is limited and MSP will review applications on a first come, first served basis and give priority to people with a demonstrated interest in conference themes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Redistribution, Inequality, and Growth","field_subtitle":"Ostry JD, Berg A, Tsangarides CG: International Monetary Fund, Research Department, February 2014","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2014/sdn1402.pdf","body":"This paper by researchers at the International Monetary Fund appears to debunk a tenet of conservative economic ideology \u2014 that taxing the rich to give to the poor is bad for the economy. It incorporates recently compiled figures comparing pre- and post-tax data from a large number of countries. The authors say there is convincing evidence that lower net inequality is good economics, boosting growth and leading to longer-lasting periods of expansion. The study concludes that redistributing wealth, largely through taxation, does not significantly impact growth unless the intervention is extreme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Stemming the impact of health professional brain drain from Africa: a systemic review of policy options","field_subtitle":"Zimbudzi E: Journal of Public Health in Africa 4:1 June 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nmtfphp","body":"Africa has been losing professionally trained health workers who are the core of the health system of this continent for many years. Faced with an increased burden of disease and coupled by a massive exodus of the health workforce, the health systems of many African nations are risking complete paralysis. Several studies have suggested policy options to reduce brain drain from Africa. This paper reviewed policies which can stem the impact of health professional brain drain from Africa through a systemic literature review. 23 articles met the inclusion criteria. The review identified nine policy options, which were being implemented in Africa, but the most common was task shifting which had success in several African countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Synergizing Roles: Experiences of Civil Society Working Towards Promoting Local Generic Pharmaceutical Manufacturing in the EAC Region","field_subtitle":"Mulumba M: Equilibri, January 29 2014","field_url":"http://www.equilibri.net/nuovo/articolo/synergizing-roles-experiences-civil-society-working-towards-promoting-local-generic-pharmac","body":"Due to a number of bottlenecks, the generic pharmaceutical manufacturers in the East African Community region produce at a cost disadvantage compared to their large-scale Asian counterparts. This article highlights some of the key areas where civil society has engaged and can still engage with local pharmaceutical industries to address these challenges. While the local manufacturing sector can play an important role in increasing access to and promoting the affordability of medicines in the region, a lot of support is needed for them to not only increase their production capacity but also to make a greater contribution to health care in the EAC region. the author argues that health civil society now needs to get into wider campaigns for the development of regulatory guidelines stating requirements for manufacturers of generic medicines to develop local capacity and undertake increased technology transfer into the region while at the same time lobbying EAC partner states to create subsidies and concessions that can boost the local pharmaceutical manufacturers\u2019 capacity to adequately provide the much needed legitimate, affordable and quality medicines. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The changing legal status of Zambia\u2019s neighbourhood health committees","field_subtitle":"Lungu M: Lusaka District Health Management Committee (LDHMT), Presentation to the EQUINET Regional Meeting on Health Centre Committees, Harare, January 30-February 2 2014","field_url":"","body":"This update reports on one of the presentations at the EQUINET Regional meeting on Health Centre Committees (HCCs) in East and Southern Africa held in January-February that exchanged experience and learning between partners doing work on training and strengthening HCCs in the region. HCCs are mechanisms for public participation and joint planning at primary care level of health systems. The next newsletter will include the full report, more experiences on HCCs and the resolutions of the meeting. For example, we found that HCCs are often not provided for in law: Does that weaken their recognition, power or effectiveness? From Zambia, we heard experience around neighbourhood health committees (NHCs) that dated back to 1991, when the new government committed  to building a health system that guaranteed \u201cequity of access to cost effective quality health care as close to the family as possible.\u201d The 1995 National Health Services Act set in law District Health Boards and NHCs, as well as the Central Board of Health at national level. NHCs became the vital link between the community and the health institutions. Over the next 10 years the number of NHCs in the country grew. While formally recognised, they also faced a series of challenges related to the voluntary nature of the work of NHC members, their lack of planning skills, and political interference. In 2006 the National Health Services Act was repealed, and the structures under it were dissolved, except for the NHCs. Despite the change in their legal status, the MoH continued to recognise their role in PHC and maintained it through policy guidelines. In Lusaka, an NHC Working Group was set up to provide support, operational guidelines and a constitution was developed for NHCs to clarify their role, they worked actively in budgeting, planning and community health, and annual meetings were held to review NHC experiences and activities. The case study led to interesting discussion on the legal status of to HCCs.  On the one hand fornalising their status was seen to be important for their recognition and for HCCs to receive and account for public funds. On the other, even if there is a legal framework, there is no guarantee that communities will know about or understand it and the Lusaka experience showed the many ways HCCs can be formally supported, even in the absence of laws. Also it was noted that laws may be important, but they need to arise from and be upheld by the actions of communities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"The parameters of the current legal framework for health research: Forms of health research which are regulated and obligations imposed on researchers","field_subtitle":"Strode AE: South African Journal of Bioethics and Law, 6(2):69-71, November, 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajbl/article/view/96478/85804","body":"On 1 March 2012, the South African Minister of Health operationalised section 71 of the National Health Act (NHA), ushering in a new phase of research regulation. When read with sections 1, 11 and 16 of the NHA, section 71 describes the legal norms for undertaking various forms of health research in South Africa. Three key terms used in the NHA now set the parameters of the legal framework for regulating health research: \u2018health research\u2019 (section 1), \u2018research or experimentation on a living person\u2019 (section 71), and the provision of a \u2018health service for research or experimental purposes\u2019 (section 11). Importantly, these three concepts delineate (i) what forms of health research are regulated by the legal framework, and (ii) the nature of the obligations placed on health researchers and others. The author argues that researchers and members of research ethics committees need to be aware that the NHA assigns different legal obligations to different forms of health research. This article describes the parameters of the new legal framework and the obligations that flow from each of the three categories of health research. It shows how the restrictions the framework imposes are not evenly spread across all forms of research, and concludes by identifying some of its strengths, weaknesses and anomalies. It further suggests that more conceptual elaboration is required to ascertain whether the differences are coherent and justified.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The political origins of health inequity: prospects for change","field_subtitle":"The Lancet\u2014University of Oslo Commission on Global Governance for Health: Lancet, Volume 383, Issue 9917, Pages 630 - 667, 15 February 2014","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)62407-1/fulltext","body":"Despite large gains in health over the past few decades, the distribution of health risks worldwide remains extremely and unacceptably uneven. The Lancet\u2014University of Oslo Commission on Global Governance for Health reports that with globalisation, health inequity increasingly results from transnational activities that involve actors with different interests and degrees of power: states, transnational corporations, civil society, and others. The norms, policies, and practices that arise from global political interaction across all sectors that affect health are termed global political determinants of health. The Commission argues that global political determinants that unfavourably affect the health of some groups of people relative to others are unfair, and that at least some harms could be avoided by improving how global governance works. This report examines power disparities and dynamics across a range of policy areas that affect health and that require improved global governance: economic crises and austerity measures, knowledge and intellectual property, foreign investment treaties, food security, transnational corporate activity, irregular migration, and violent conflict. The Commission calls for stronger cross-sectoral global action for health, for strengthened use of human rights instruments for health, and new frameworks for international financing that go beyond traditional development assistance such as for research and social protection. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Third Global Symposium On Health Systems Research, Cape Town, South Africa, 30 September -3 October 2014 ","field_subtitle":"Call For Individual Abstracts: Call Closes 3 March 2014","field_url":"http://hsr2014.healthsystemsresearch.org","body":"The Third Global Symposium on Health Systems Research will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 30 September to 3 October 2014.The theme of the symposium is the science and practice of people-centred health systems. Researchers, policy-makers, funders, implementers and other stakeholders, from all regions and all socio-economic levels, will work together on the challenge of how to make health systems more responsive to the needs of individuals, families and communities. The symposium invites abstract submissions. Individual abstract submission closes 3 March 2014. More information is available on the symposium website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Third International Conference Of The African Health Economics And Policy Association","field_subtitle":"Nairobi, Kenya 11 March 2014 - 13 March 2014","field_url":"https://afhea.confex.com/afhea/intl14/cfp.cgi","body":"The Second Conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA), will be held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 11 to 13 March 2014. The overall theme of this conference is \"The Post-2015 African Health Agenda and UHC: Opportunities and Challenges\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in national and provincial health and HIV/ AIDS budgeting and spending in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Ndlovu N, Vilakazi M, Majozi M, Sithole F, Mbatha K, Guthrie T: Centre for Economic Governance and AIDS in Africa, CEGAA Occasional Paper 2013-1, 2013","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/Occasional_Paper_2013-1_SA-Trends_in_National_and_Provincial_Health_HIV_Spending_6Dec13.pdf","body":"This paper provides an analysis of trends in health and HIV/AIDS budgeting and spending, as well as trends in some related spending areas that are important for effective HIV and AIDS management in South Africa. The 2013/14 national and provincial budget statements indicated that there is still strong public commitment to fund HIV and AIDS within the health sector demonstrated by increasing health HIV and AIDS allocations within a shrinking health budget in real terms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda: Scientific statement from the Ministry of Health on homosexuality","field_subtitle":"Ministry of Health, Republic of Uganda: Pambazuka News, Issue 667, 28 February 2014","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/90774","body":"This report provides the summary findings of a team of expert scientists constituted by the Director General Health Services Uganda at the request of the Minister of Health to review research data, deliberate and advise him on key questions about homosexuality. The conclusions of the report as presented by Pambazuka were that there is no definitive gene responsible for homosexuality; that homosexuality is not a disease or an abnormality; that in every society, there is a small number of people with homosexual tendencies; that homosexuality can be influenced by environmental factors (e.g. culture, religion, information, peer pressure); that the practise needs regulation like any other human behaviour, especially to protect the vulnerable and that there is need for studies to address sexualities in the African context.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Using the Right to Health to Enforce the Corporate Responsibilities of Pharmaceutical Companies with Regard to Access to Medicines","field_subtitle":"Oke E: Journal of Health Diplomacy (1) 1: July 2013","field_url":"http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2332604","body":"This paper seeks to determine how the corporate responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies in relation to access to medicines can be clarified and enforced. Two cases, one each from India and South Africa, are examined to determine how the domestic courts in both countries indirectly utilized the right to health to ensure that pharmaceutical companies did not impede access to affordable medicines through exercising their patent rights. There is a need to clarify and enforce the responsibilities pharmaceutical companies have to promote the right to health. The two cases from India and South Africa demonstrate the potentials of domestic courts as forums where these responsibilities can be effectively enforced. In the absence of a global enforcement mechanism for enforcing the right-to-health responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies, domestic courts can effectively fill this gap. In addition, this paper demonstrates that domestic courts can equally serve as forums for health diplomacy.\t","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO criticised for not following policy on recognising NGOs","field_subtitle":"Rema Nagarajan: Times of India, Jan 31 2014","field_url":"","body":"Civil society groups have expressed disappointment with the number of \"industry groupings\" that have \"incorrectly gained NGO status\" with the World Health Organization (WHO). There are 187 organizations or networks recognized as NGOs in official relations with the WHO. According to the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN), a new entrant into this WHO list of NGOs, industry groups which have been recognized as NGOs by WHO include Croplife International (representing Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, CropScience, Dow Agrosciences, DuPont and other companies promoting GMO technologies ) the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufactures and Associations, International Life Sciences Institute (representing Nestle, Coca Cola, Kellogg, Pepsi, Monsanto, Ajinomoto, Danone, General Mills and others) and the Industry Council for Development (representing Nestle, Mars, Unilever and Ajinomoto). \"All are guided by market profit-making logic (whose primary interest clashes with that of WHO). Their inclusion goes against WHO's current NGO policy,\" said a statement issued by IBFAN. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/38870","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Working for the few. Political capture and economic inequality","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: Oxford, 20 January 2014","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/notrglg","body":"This Oxfam report timed for the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos raised that unless bold political solutions are instituted to curb the influence of wealth on politics, governments will work for the interests of the rich, while economic and political inequalities continue to rise. In the report Oxfam called for those in the WEF to not dodge taxes in their own countries or in countries where they invest and operate, by using tax havens; not use their economic wealth to seek political favours that undermine the democratic will of their fellow citizens; to make public all the investments in companies and trusts for which they are the ultimate beneficial owners; to support progressive taxation on wealth and income; to challenge governments to use their tax revenue to provide universal healthcare, education and social protection for citizens; and to apply a living wage in all the companies they own or control. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"\"I just answer 'yes' to everything they say\": Access to health care for deaf people in Worcester, South Africa and the politics of exclusion","field_subtitle":"Kritzinger J, Schneider M, Swartz L and Braathen SH: Patient Educ Couns. 14. pii: S0738-3991(13)00520-X. December 2013","field_url":"http://www.pec-journal.com/article/S0738-3991(13)00520-X/abstract","body":"This paper explored whether there are other factors besides communication difficulties that hamper access to health care services for deaf patients. Qualitative methodology applied semi-structured interviews with 16 deaf participants from the National Institute for the Deaf in Worcester and 3 Key informants from the Worcester area, South Africa. Communication difficulties were found to be a prominent barrier in accessing health care services. In addition to this interpersonal factors including lack of independent thought, over-protectedness, non-questioning attitude, and lack of familial communication interact with communication difficulties in a way that further hampers access to health care services. These interpersonal factors play a unique role in how open and accepting health services feel to deaf patients. Health care services need to take cognizance of the fact that providing sign language interpreters in the health care setting will not necessarily make access more equitable for deaf patients, as they have additional barriers besides communication to overcome before successfully accessing health care services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"A decade of tobacco control: The South African case of politics, health policy, health promotion and behaviour change","field_subtitle":"Reddy PD, James S, Sewpaul R, Yach D, Resnicow K, Sifunda S, Mthembu Z, Mbewu A: South African Medical Journal, 103 (11):835-840, November 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/samj/article/view/95786/85124","body":"The South African (SA) government has implemented comprehensive tobacco control measures in line with the requirements of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The effect of these measures on smoking prevalence and smoking-related attitudes, particularly among young people, is largely unknown. This paper describes the impact of a comprehensive health promotion approach to tobacco control amongst SA school learners with evidence from four successive cross-sectional Global Youth Tobacco Surveys (GYTSs) in 1999, 2002, 2008 and 2011 among nationally representative samples of SA grades 8 - 10 school learners.  Smoking-related attitudes and behaviours showed favourable changes over the survey period. The surveys demonstrated that the comprehensive and inter-sectorial tobacco control health promotion strategies implemented in SA have led to a gradual reduction in cigarette use amongst school learners. Of concern, however, are the smaller reductions in smoking prevalence amongst girls and black learners and an increase in smoking prevalence from 2008 to 2011. Additional efforts, especially for girls, are needed to ensure continued reduction in smoking prevalence amongst SA youth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A Namibian version of the 28 item General Health Questionnaire","field_subtitle":"Haidula L, Shino E, Plattner I, Feinstein A: S Afr Psychiatry Rev, 6:23-25, 2003","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajpsy/article/view/96376/85706","body":"Namibia faces a daunting array of mental health problems. However, there is no Namibian screening instrument for psychological distress. The papers reports on work to develop a Namibian version of the 28 item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) with a consecutive sample of 159 Oshiwambo speaking patients attending rural health clinics in the north of Namibia. The Oshiwambo version of the 28 item GHQ is presented as a valid screening instrument for psychological distress in clinic attendees.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Alcohol marketing in Africa: not an ordinary business","field_subtitle":"Obot IS: African Journal of Drug and Alcohol Studies, 12(1), 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajdas/article/view/96893","body":"Alcohol was the cause of nearly five million deaths globally in 2010, an increase of over one million deaths recorded ten years earlier. It was the leading risk factor for disease in southern sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Several factors account for the increasing harm associated with alcohol in Africa among which are the availability of a wide variety of alcoholic beverages, rising urban populations, more disposable income to purchase alcohol, and unrestrained marketing and promotion of alcohol. Using a variety of strategies, producers of alcohol target young people and women with aspirational messages and other exhortations in an onslaught of marketing and promotion.  The author argues that missing in the discussion on alcohol in most African countries is the understanding that alcohol marketing is not an ordinary economic activity and that the business of alcohol (an addictive substance with high potential for harm) can subvert individual rights and democratic principles. This paper discusses these issues with particular attention to the harms caused by alcohol (to drinkers and non-drinkers alike), the potential for far-reaching harms to individuals and the society at large if the present scenario continues, and how these harms can be averted or minimized with the implementation of evidence-based policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Brain Drain: Advocating to Alleviate the Global Health Worker Migration Crisis.","field_subtitle":"Chen J,  Hampson S,  Robertson A:  Student Voices 5; McMaster Health Forum, March 2013","field_url":"http://www.mcmasterhealthforum.org/images/docs/student-voices-5.pdf#page=36","body":"In this paper, the authors evaluate various policy options to address the global health worker migration crisis, which include: financial and technical support from destination countries; bilateral and multilateral agreements between states; creation of self-sufficient healthcare systems; and collection of reliable migration data. Implementation requires the support of key stakeholders such as the World Health Organisation, member states, and other international organisations. However, there are many obstacles to policy change, including the power disparities between source and destination countries, ethical sensitivity of policies, financial incentives, lack of data collection, and limited international cooperation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Bringing Justice to Health: The Impact of Legal Empowerment Projects on Public Health","field_subtitle":"Open Society Foundations:  October 2013","field_url":"http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/bringing-justice-health-20130923_0.pdf","body":"Bringing Justice to Health profiles 11 legal empowerment projects based in Indonesia, Kenya, Macedonia, Russia, South Africa, and Uganda. These projects were selected because they show the range of approaches to legal empowerment that they support in their broader effort to promote health-related human rights interventions. The report tells the personal stories of people around the world - such as sex workers, people who use drugs, palliative care patients, people affected by HIV, and Roma - for whom human rights violations are part of everyday life. Sexual violence, discrimination in housing, unwarranted dismissal from employment, unfair evictions, denial of child support, and police harassment are only a few such violations. The report shows how the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that founded projects to address these issues set about resolving problems in a way that is designed to empower those who are often least able to exercise their rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call For Papers: How Public Health Can Meet The Challenges Of The Twenty-First Century","field_subtitle":"Call Closes March 7 2014","field_url":"http://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/si/645081 /cfp/","body":"An upcoming Special Issue on \"How Public Health Can Meet the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century,\" will be published in the Public Health subject area of BioMed Research International in July 2014. A call for papers has been made for the Special Issue, which is open to both original research articles as well as review articles. BioMed Research International is an open access journal, which means that all published articles are made freely available online without a subscription, and authors retain the copyright of their work. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Community Level Risk Factors for Maternal Mortality in Madagascar","field_subtitle":"Hernandez JC, Moser CM: Afr J Reprod Health 17[4]: 118-129, December 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajrh/article/view/98385/87665","body":"This paper explores the effect of risk and socioeconomic factors on maternal mortality at the community level in Madagascar using a unique, nationwide panel of communes (i.e., counties). Previous work in this area uses individual or cross-country data to study maternal mortality, however, studying maternal mortality at the community level is imperative because this is the level at which most policy is implemented. The results show that longer travel time from the community to the hospital leads to a high level of maternal mortality. The findings suggest that improvement to transportation systems and access to hospitals with surgery rooms are needed to deal with obstetric complications and reduce maternal mortality. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Construct Africa","field_subtitle":"Uncube, Uncube Magazine (17):2013","field_url":"http://www.uncubemagazine.com/magazine-17-11665397.html#!/page1","body":"This special issue of Uncube magazine explores the changing trends in the built environment on the African continent. The issue presents case studies at various scales, from the construction of a sustainable orphanage in Guabuliga, Ghana to the results of a course in supporting residents of a suburb in Johannesburg to be experts of their own living situations. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 156: Universal Health Coverage: Uncovering the neoliberal agenda","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET work on Global Engagement in Health","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Cluster on Engaging globally on regional priorities for health equity","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org","body":"In 2014 EQUINET and partners are finalising and reporting work in case study areas of global engagement in health that were defined as priorities in global health diplomacy (GHD) by senior officials and Ministers in 2011 for the region. The three case study areas are:\r\n1.\tImplementation of the WHO Code on international Recruitment of health personnel: \r\n2.\tCollaborating on access to essential drugs through south- south relationships with China, Brazil and India:  \r\n3.\tThe involvement of African actors in global health governance on universal access to prevention and treatment for HIV and AIDS \r\nThe research work is being finalised and the evidence will be shared through policy dialogue forums, drawing strategic advice on and peer review of the work, and through regional review meetings and peer reviewed publication. If you are working on or interested in these areas please visit the website for publications produced to date or contact the EQUINET secretariat. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Feasibility of introducing compulsory community health fund in low resource countries: views from the communities in Liwale district of Tanzania ","field_subtitle":"Marwa B, Njau B, Kessy J and Mushi D: BMC Health Services Research 13(298): 8 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/298","body":"In 1995, Tanzania introduced the voluntary Community Health Fund (CHF) with the aim of ensuring universal health coverage by increasing financial investment in the health sector. The uptake of the CHF is low, with an enrolment of only 6% compared to the national target of 75%. Mandatory models of community health financing have been suggested to increase enrolment and financial capacity. This study explores communities\u2019 views on the introduction of a mandatory model, the Compulsory Community Health Fund (CCHF) in the Liwale district of Tanzania. A cross-sectional study which involved 387 participants in a structured face to face survey and 33 in qualitative interviews (26 in focus group discussions (FGD) and 7 in in-depth interviews (IDI). Structured survey data were analyzed using SPSS version 16 to produce descriptive statistics. Qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis. 387 people completed a survey (58% males), mean age 38 years. Most participants (347, 89.7%) were poor subsistence farmers and 229 (59.2%) had never subscribed to any form of health insurance scheme. The idea of a CCHF was accepted by 221 (57%) survey participants. Reasons for accepting the CCHF included: reduced out of pocket expenditure, improved quality of health care and the removal of stigma for those who receive waivers at health care delivery points. The major reason for not accepting the CCHF was the poor quality of health care services currently offered. Participants suggested that enrolment to the CCHF be done after harvesting when the population were more likely to have disposable income, and that the quality care of care and benefits package be improved.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth Ethics, Human Rights and Medical Law Conference","field_subtitle":"Gallagher Convention Centre, Midrand, Johannesburg, South Africa,  6-8 May 2014","field_url":"http://www.africahealthexhibition.com/en/Site-Root/Conference-Centre/Conferences2014/ETConference/","body":"The 4th Ethics, Human Rights and Medical Law Conference is a must attend event for healthcare professionals in South Africa and the surrounding region. A one-day conference that is fully dedicated to the above topics, it was created to demonstrate how important all three subjects are, as well as how they connect to one another.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Systems Trust Researcher/ Programme Evaluator","field_subtitle":"Closing Date: 9 February 2014","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/jobs/researcher-programme-evaluator","body":"Health Systems Trust (HST) wishes to appoint three Researcher/Programme Evaluators to work from the Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban offices (i.e. three positions are available). The incumbent\u2019s primary responsibility will be to participate in research projects in line with the organisation\u2019s goal of building an equitable, effective and efficient national health system in South Africa and the region, through strengthening the functioning of health districts.  This is a one-year, fixed-term contract position, renewable based on funding and performance.  See website for more details.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Innovative healthcare initiative launched in Cape Town","field_subtitle":"Mulligan G: Humanipo. January 2014. ","field_url":"http://www.humanipo.com/news/38627/innovative-healthcare-initiative-launched-in-cape-town/","body":"The Inclusive Healthcare Innovation Initiative (IHII) has been launched in South Africa by two University of Cape Town (UCT) faculties, with the aim of creating a collaborative, cross-disciplinary approach to achieving healthcare innovation. The Graduate School of Business and the Faculty of Health Sciences unveiled the collaborative project, which is intended to encourage African citizens to reimagine healthcare across the continent. \u201cThe complexity of challenges faced in healthcare is calling for different paradigms of thinking and for the co-creation of new innovative solutions,\u201d said Professor de Villiers, dean of UCT Faculty of Health Sciences. \u201cNow more than ever innovation is required to develop solutions that can improve the delivery of healthcare in Africa in an inclusive, effective and affordable manner. These solutions must transcend current challenges in the system to improve health outcomes for patients but also to change the routines, responsibility and values of our healthworkers responsible for delivering the care.\u201dNew iPad app to record data at Groote Schuur.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"International codes of medical recruitment: evolution and efficiency","field_subtitle":"Cehan I and Manea T: Romanian Journal of Bioethics, 10(1): 100-109, March 2012","field_url":"http://www.bioetica.ro/index.php/arhiva-bioetica/article/view/220","body":"The international migration of healthcare professionals has increased in the last decade,  increasing the  medical  staff crisis  in  low income countries.  The World Health Organisation adopted  in 2010 The Global Code of Practice on  the  International Recruitment  of Health  Personnel  to  use  it  as  a landmark  for  establishing  and  improving  the necessary  legal framework  of  medical  staff  international  recruitment.  This paper  highlights analyses the  effectiveness  of codes on health worker recruitment,  and the consequences  that  might  result  from disobeying them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge, attitudes and practices of Ugandan men regarding prostate cancer","field_subtitle":"Nakandi H, Kirabo M, Semugabo C, Kittengo A, Kitayimbwa P, Kalungi S, Maena J: African Journal of Urology, 19, 165\u2013170: August 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/aju/article/view/98483/87756","body":"The incidence of prostate cancer in Uganda is one of the highest recorded in Africa. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in Uganda. This study assessed the current knowledge, attitudes and practices of adult Ugandan men regarding prostate cancer through a descriptive cross-sectional study using interviewer administered questionnaires and focus group discussions among 545 adult men aged 18\u201371 years, residing in Kampala, the capital of Uganda.  The majority of the respondents had heard about prostate cancer but 46% had not. The commonest source of information about prostate cancer was the mass media. Only 13% of the respondents obtained information about prostate cancer from a health worker.  Respondents confused prostate cancer with gonorrhea and had various misconceptions about its causes. Only 10% of the respondents had good knowledge of the symptoms of prostate cancer.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Masters In Occupational Safety And Health (3rd Edition), English; Distance + Turin, 8 September 2014 \u2013 30 September 2015","field_subtitle":"Call For Applicants: Closing Date 31 May 2014 ","field_url":"http://osh.itcilo.org/","body":"The University of Turin, Italy, in partnership with the International Training Centre (ITC) of the International Labour Organization (ILO), is offering a Master course in Occupational Safety and Health. This one-year programme, to be held in English, includes an Internet-based distance learning phase, a face-to-face residential period on the ITC/ILO's campus in Turin followed by another distance phase for the preparation of the dissertation. The proposed programme combines the advantages of the academic experience in OSH of Turin University with the ITC/ILO's international training experience. An international approach has been applied to the contents, the methodology development as well as to the composition of the training team. This programme involves participants from both developing and developed countries, who will thus have an opportunity to share their different experiences. Applicants to visit the website for information on applications. A number of partial fellowships are available only for participants from developing countries on a competitive basis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Mobile phones improve antenatal care attendance in Zanzibar: a cluster randomized controlled trial","field_subtitle":"Lund S, Nielsen BB, Hemed M, Boas IM, Said A, Said K, Makungu MH and Rasch V: BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 17;14(1):29 January 2014","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/14/29","body":"Applying mobile phones in healthcare is increasingly prioritized to strengthen healthcare systems. Antenatal care has the potential to reduce maternal morbidity and improve newborns' survival but this benefit may not be realized in sub-Saharan Africa where the attendance and quality of care is declining. This study evaluated the association between a mobile phone intervention and antenatal care in a resource-limited setting. It aimed to assess antenatal care in a comprehensive way taking into consideration utilisation of antenatal care as well as content and timing of interventions during pregnancy. The wired mothers' mobile phone intervention significantly increased the proportion of women receiving the recommended four antenatal care visits during pregnancy and there was a trend towards improved quality of care with more women receiving preventive health services, more women attending antenatal care late in pregnancy and more women with antepartum complications identified and referred. Mobile phone applications may contribute towards improved maternal and newborn health and should be considered by policy makers in resource-limited settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Mobilizing communities to improve maternal health: results of an intervention in rural Zambia","field_subtitle":"Ensor T, Green C, Quigley P, Badru AR, Kaluba D and Kureya T: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 92:51-59, 2014","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/92/1/13-122721/en/index.html","body":"In Zambia, as in other low-income countries, maternal health indicators have remained stubbornly resistant to improvement. This intervention involved revitalizing Safe Motherhood Action Groups to raise awareness of the need to prepare for pregnancy complications and delivery. The main aim was to improve both understanding of maternal health and access to maternal health-care services. The approach was predicated on the assumption that women require not only knowledge about when they should seek skilled help but also their husbands\u2019 approval for care seeking, which can be encouraged by community leaders. The authors adopted a quasi-experimental approach to evaluating the effect of a complex community-based intervention that was devised to reduce barriers to the use of maternal health-care services and to increase deliveries involving a skilled birth attendant. The intervention was novel because it involved the whole community and emphasized social approval and its ability to bring about changes in behaviour. The intervention was associated with significant improvements in women\u2019s knowledge of when they should receive antenatal care and of obstetric dangers signs, in the use of emergency transport, in deliveries involving a skilled birth attendant and in the use of modern contraception. However, the increase in the proportion of women who received four or more antenatal care visits and in those who received postnatal care within 6 days was not significant. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Neglected older women and men: Exploring age and gender as structural drivers of HIV among people aged over 60 in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Richards E, Zalwango F, Seeley F, Scholten F, Theobald S: African Journal of AIDS Research , 12(2): 71\u201378, 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajar/article/view/97518","body":"This study explored how women\u2019s and men\u2019s gendered experiences from childhood to old age have shaped their vulnerability in relation to HIV both in terms of their individual risk of HIV and their access to and experiences of HIV services. It was a small scale-scale study conducted in urban and rural sites in Uganda between October 2011 and March 2012. The study used qualitative methods: in-depth interviews (with 31 participants) and focus group discussions (FGDs) with older women (2) and men (2) in urban and rural sites and 7 key informant interviews (KIIs) with stakeholders from government and non-government agencies working on HIV issues. Women\u2019s position, the cultural management of sex and gender and contextual stigma related to HIV and to old age inter-relate to produce particular areas of vulnerability to the HIV epidemic among older women and men. Women report the compounding factor of gender-based violence marking many of their sexual relationships throughout their lives, including in older age. Both women and men report extremely fragile livelihoods in their old age. Older people are exposed to HIV through multiple and intersecting drivers of risk and represent an often neglected population within health systems. The author argues that research and interventions need to go beyond only conceptualising older people as \u2018carers\u2019 to better address their gendered vulnerabilities to HIV in relation to all aspects of policy and programming.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Parents' perceptions of HIV counselling and testing in schools: Ethical, legal and social implications ","field_subtitle":"Gwandure R, Ross E, Dhai A and Gardner J: South African Medical Journal;104(1) 40-42 January 2014","field_url":"http://samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/6645","body":"In view of the high prevalence of HIV and AIDS in South Africa, particularly among adolescents, the South African Departments of Health and Education proposed a school-based HIV counselling and testing (HCT) campaign to reduce HIV infections and sexual risk behaviour. Through the use of semi-structured interviews, this qualitative study explored perceptions of parents regarding the ethico-legal and social implications of the proposed campaign. Despite some concerns, parents were generally in favour of the HCT campaign. However, they were not aware of their parental limitations in terms of the Children\u2019s Act. Their views suggest that the HCT campaign has the potential to make a positive contribution to the fight against HIV and AIDS, but needs to be well planned. To ensure the campaign\u2019s success, there is a need to enhance awareness of the programme. All stakeholders, including parents, need to engage in the programme as equal partners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"PHM watches the 134th WHO's EB session","field_subtitle":"Peoples Health Movement: January 2014","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/who-watch/eb134","body":"134th session of the WHO's Executive Board 20-25 January 2014. The watching team in association with a number of PHM affiliate networks have published an 'Open Letter' to the delegates of the members of the Executive Board. The commentary includes analysis and comments on each of the items on the meeting's agenda. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Practicum on Monitoring and Evaluation of Health Communication programs, June 2-4, 2014, Accra, Ghana","field_subtitle":"Deadline for registration is April 30, 2014.","field_url":"http://www.africomnet.org/practicum","body":"The African Network for Strategic Communication in Health and Development (AfriComNet), a network of health communication practitioners across 50 countries, proposes an interactive three-day practicum focused on health communication monitoring and evaluation. The practicum will address topics such as how health communication strategy design influences monitoring and evaluation plans; the use of behavior change theories/models to guide evaluation planning; using evaluation and monitoring data to inform program strategies; using health communication research to test theories; and effectively disseminating and using evidence and findings to improve the science of health communication. Early registration is encouraged as the practicum is limited to a maximum of 150 participants. To register, please complete the registration form on the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Reproductive Health and the Question of Abortion in Botswana: A Review","field_subtitle":"Smith SS: Afr J Reprod Health 17[4]: 26-34, December 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajrh/article/view/98371/87657","body":"The complications of unsafe, illegal abortions are a significant cause of maternal mortality in Botswana. The stigma attached to abortion leads some women to seek clandestine procedures, or alternatively, to carry the fetus to term and abandon the infant at birth. The author reports in this paper on research into perceptions of abortion in urban Botswana in order to understand the social and cultural obstacles to women\u2019s reproductive autonomy, focusing particularly on attitudes to terminating a pregnancy. She carried out 21 interviews with female and male urban adult Batswana. The article presents a review of the abortion issue in Botswana based on the research. She notes that restrictive laws must eventually be abolished to allow women access to safe, timely abortions. The findings however, suggest that socio-cultural factors, not punitive laws, present the greatest barriers to women seeking to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. These factors must be addressed so that effective local solutions to unsafe abortion can be generated. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Sant\u00e9 universelle : couverture priv\u00e9e ou soins publics ?","field_subtitle":"Municipal Services project and People's Health Movement: January 2014 ","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka9-eViIhJo","body":"Video in French: L'agenda politique entourant la 'couverture sanitaire universelle' ouvre la voie \u00e0 la privatisation des syst\u00e8mes de sant\u00e9 publics dans le Sud global. En Inde, cette approche bas\u00e9e sur l'assurance priv\u00e9e a n\u00e9glig\u00e9 les priorit\u00e9s de sant\u00e9 publique et affaibli les soins de premi\u00e8re ligne. Cette vid\u00e9o d'animation encourage les gens du monde entier \u00e0 se mobiliser pour d\u00e9fendre les alternatives publiques pour r\u00e9aliser la sant\u00e9 pour tous. Produit par: Municipal Services Project (MSP) et People's Health Movement (PHM).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Shared learning in an interconnected world: innovations to advance global health equity","field_subtitle":"Binagwaho A, et al: Globalization and Health 9(37): 30 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/9/1/37","body":"The notion of \u201creverse innovation\u201d--that some insights from low-income countries might offer transferable lessons for wealthier contexts--is increasingly common in the global health and business strategy literature. Yet the perspectives of researchers and policymakers in settings where these innovations are developed have been largely absent from the discussion to date. In this Commentary, we present examples of programmatic, technological, and research-based innovations from Rwanda, and offer reflections on how the global health community might leverage innovative partnerships for shared learning and improved health outcomes in all countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania: The budget made easy with new online tool","field_subtitle":"Twaweza: Tanzania December 2013  ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/oy9zkaq","body":"The Tanzanian Budget Explorer is an initiative to make information about the way the Treasury allocates taxpayers money more accessible: transparent, easy to understand and exciting to follow. Public access to information about how the government spends money in Tanzania is beginning to improve. When available in reports or budget books, however, this information often is too bulky and complex to grasp. It can be a time consuming job to understand, and many people simply don\u2019t have time to invest in doing it. This is an initiative to make information about the way the Treasury allocates taxpayers money more accessible: transparent, easy to understand and exciting to follow. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The economic costs of malaria in children in three sub-Saharan countries: Ghana, Tanzania and Kenya","field_subtitle":" Sicuri E, Vieta A, Lindner L, Constenla D and Sauboin C: Malaria Journal 12(307): 3 September 2013","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/12/1/307","body":"Malaria causes significant mortality and morbidity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), especially among children less than five years of age (U5 children). Although the economic burden of malaria in this region has been assessed previously, the extent and variation of this burden remains unclear. This study aimed to estimate the economic costs of malaria in U5 children in three countries (Ghana, Tanzania and Kenya). Health system and household costs previously estimated were integrated with costs associated with co-morbidities, complications and productivity losses due to death. Several models were developed to estimate the expected treatment cost per episode per child, across different age groups, by level of severity and with or without controlling for treatment-seeking behaviour. Total annual costs (2009) were calculated by multiplying the treatment cost per episode according to severity by the number of episodes. Annual health system prevention costs were added to this estimate. Household and health system costs per malaria episode ranged from approximately US$ 5 for non-complicated malaria in Tanzania to US$ 288 for cerebral malaria with neurological sequelae in Kenya. On average, up to 55% of these costs in Ghana and Tanzania and 70% in Kenya were assumed by the household, and of these costs 46% in Ghana and 85% in Tanzania and Kenya were indirect costs. Expected values of potential future earnings (in thousands) lost due to premature death of children aged 0\u20131 and 1\u20134 years were US$ 11.8 and US$ 13.8 in Ghana, US$ 6.9 and US$ 8.1 in Tanzania, and US$ 7.6 and US$ 8.9 in Kenya, respectively. The expected treatment costs per episode per child ranged from a minimum of US$ 1.29 for children aged 2\u201311 months in Tanzania to a maximum of US$ 22.9 for children aged 0\u201324 months in Kenya. The total annual costs (in millions) were estimated at US$ 37.8, US$ 131.9 and US$ 109.0 nationwide in Ghana, Tanzania and Kenya and included average treatment costs per case of US$ 11.99, US$ 6.79 and US$ 20.54, respectively. This study provides important insight into the economic burden of malaria in SSA that may assist policy makers when designing future malaria control interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The ethics of conditional cash transfers","field_subtitle":"Ichou C: Pambazuka News Issue 661, 15 January 2014","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/90191","body":"Around one billion people receive conditional cash transfers today, which have been praised as the magic bullet for poverty eradication. Such programmes are being implemented in Latin America and Africa. But they raise numerous ethical questions Bodies of evidence have shown that Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs), as a form of social protection, can reduce inequality and poverty. Conditional Cash Transfers are payments made to poor households on the condition that they comply with a set of requirements and invest in their children\u2019s human capital. CCT programmes have led to an uptake in health services, health outcomes and nutritional status of children as well as school enrolment and attendance. This reflexive note discusses development ethics by using Conditional Cash Transfers as a case study. It questions whether CCT prioritise human dignity by giving an overview of the methodology and underlying principles of CCT programmes in alleviating poverty and then analysing them in the light of ethics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Justiciability and Enforcement of the Right to Health under the African Human Rights System","field_subtitle":"Bahar J: Haramaya Law Review, 1(2):  29-50,  2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/hlr/article/view/98578/87847","body":"The right to health is a fundamental human right which is recognized in international and regional human rights systems. The African Human Rights System is also duly recognized the right to health. Although recognizing the right in the human rights instrument is important, the meaningful protection of the right needs appropriate and consistent interpretation and adequate implementation mechanisms. This article scrutinizes the Justiciability and Enforcement of the right to health in the African Human Rights System. Based on analysis of relevant African Human Rights Instruments, literatures and cases of African Commission, the author argues that the justiciability of the right to health in African Human Rights System is upheld. Regarding its enforcement, the article argued that there are relevant institutional frameworks in African human rights systems and African political architecture. Hence, the enforcement of the right to health falls squarely in most of these institutions\u2019 mandate. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The need for an ethical and political de-colonization of human rights","field_subtitle":"Baraka A: Pambazuka News 659, 18 December 2013","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/90071","body":"There is growing dissatisfaction and even mistrust of human rights as an instrument for radical social change. The author argues that what is needed is a revolutionary approach to human rights informed by an analysis of the oppressive, anti-human social/historical context of national and global social relationships. For many social justice activists, moral contradictions in thye use of rights frameworks by both Western and non-Western states has created dissatisfaction and even mistrust of human rights as an instrument for radical social change. A \u201cpeople-centered human rights\u201d concept and approach has been developing, based on the communitarian principles of social solidarity, cooperation, non-discrimination in all social relationships, collective public ownership of the earth\u2019s resources, respect for difference, self-determination of all peoples\u2019 and the recognition and respect for the inherent dignity of all individuals and people\u2019s. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Third Global Symposium On Health Systems Research, Cape Town, South Africa, 30 September -3 October 2014 ","field_subtitle":"Call For Individual Abstracts: Call Closes 3 March 2014","field_url":"http://hsr2014.healthsystemsresearch.org","body":"The Third Global Symposium on Health Systems Research will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 30 September to 3 October 2014.The theme of the symposium is the science and practice of people-centred health systems. Researchers, policy-makers, funders, implementers and other stakeholders, from all regions and all socio-economic levels, will work together on the challenge of how to make health systems more responsive to the needs of individuals, families and communities. The symposium invites abstract submissions. Individual abstract submission closes 3 March 2014. More information is available on the symposium website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Third International Conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association","field_subtitle":"Nairobi, Kenya  11 March 2014 - 13 March 2014","field_url":"https://afhea.confex.com/afhea/intl14/cfp.cgi","body":"The Second Conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA), will be held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 11 to 13 March 2014. The overall theme of this conference is \"The Post-2015 African Health Agenda and UHC: Opportunities and Challenges\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in national and provincial health and HIV/ AIDS budgeting and spending in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Centre for Economic Governance and AIDS in Africa (CEGAA): CEGAA Occasional Paper December 2013","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/trends-national-and-provincial-health-and-hiv-aids-budgeting-and-spending-south","body":"This paper provides an analysis of trends in health and HIV/AIDS budgeting and spending, as well as trends in some related spending areas that are important for effective HIV and AIDS management in South Africa. The endless fight against HIV and AIDS would not have been possible without financial investment and rigorous research in the HIV and AIDS field. The recent procurement and distribution of the triple combination therapy for AIDS in South Africa depicts the commitment by government to intensify the fight against the pandemic and to enhance good adherence among those taking AIDS treatment. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal Health Coverage: Uncovering the neoliberal agenda ","field_subtitle":"Amit Sengupta, National Co-convenor, Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, India","field_url":"","body":"It is time to raise critical questions around the wide and growing enthusiasm for Universal Health Coverage (UHC), which is increasingly seen as a silver-bullet solution to health care needs in low- and middle-income countries. Although confusion still exists as to what UHC actually means, international development agencies typically define it as a health financing system based on pooling of funds to provide health coverage for a country\u2019s entire population, often in the form of a \u2018basic package\u2019 of services made available through health insurance and provided by a growing private sector. \r\n\r\nGlobal health agencies such as the World Health Organization, and international financial institutions such as the World Bank, are promoting this approach in response to the rise in catastrophic out-of-pocket expenditure for health services, and in the face of crumbling public health systems in the global South (both of which were precipitated by the fiscal austerity imposed by organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in the 1980s and early 1990s). In this new model, UHC prescribes a clear split between health financing and health provision, allowing for the entry of private insurance companies, private health providers and private health management organizations. The logic is that health care challenges require an immediate remedy, and since the public system is too weak to respond, it is strategic to turn to the private sector. \r\n\r\nIn short, the UHC model is built on, and lends itself to, standard neoliberal policies, steering policy makers away from universal health options based on public systems. Building and improving the public healthcare system is not part of this mainstream narrative, with the state generally confined to managing the system.\r\n\r\nAlthough these programs are now zealously promoted by global health agencies, the evidence to support their implementation remains extremely thin. Giedion, Alfonso and D\u00edaz in a review of existing evidence for the World Bank published in 2013 observed that reliable data upon which to evaluate their performance are hard to come by and methodologies designed to collect good evidence are singularly lacking, illustrated by the highly contested data of some early health reforms based on universal insurance in the South (e.g. Chile, Colombia and Mexico), which have nonetheless been used to legitimize the current UHC agenda. \r\n\r\nIn a paper recently published by the Municipal Services Project, we argue that secure finances for health care are a necessary but insufficient condition for systems that are equitable and provide good quality care. We analyze the reasons why finances need to be channeled through well-designed public systems if they are to be spent efficiently. We further argue that, in glossing over the importance of public provisioning of services, many proponents of UHC are actually interested in the creation of health markets that can be exploited by capital.\r\n\r\nIn Europe, 20th-century reforms have intensified health being delivered as a market commodity. The more recent experiences of Brazil\u2019s SUS, India\u2019s Arogyasri and Thailand\u2019s Universal Health Care Coverage scheme all show features of this neoliberal model, within very diverse settings and reforms.  They all show a persistence or expansion of private sector participation in provision of care, despite the fact that all are tax-funded health systems. In all cases, public funding does not match needs and this opens space for the progressive creep of the private sector into the larger health system. In Brazil, while the SUS has expanded public primary care services, hospital care remained largely publicly paid and privately provided. Despite a strong policy commitment to universal public sector health systems in Brazil and Thailand, the neoliberal ethos and its promotion of private provisioning appears too strong to shake off. Consequently all three countries have a powerful private for profit sector in health. This influences the functioning of the system as a whole, ratcheting up costs, jeopardizing the integrity of the public sector and drawing away resources, both financial and human, from resource-starved public facilities. \r\n\r\nThe three countries typify the challenges that LMICs face while attempting to construct universal systems that borrow from the internal logic of a UHC that is not based on public systems, where ideological pressures prevent the adoption of an entirely public system of care provision.   The challenges of providing high quality and equitable health care are most acute in low and middle-income countries because of faster growing populations, higher prevalence of infectious diseases, and growing burdens of non-communicable illnesses. We would argue that re-imagining public health care \u2013 rather than the private sellout of health systems via a neoliberal agenda in UHC \u2013 is the only way forward in building truly universal health outcomes.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please see the Municipal Services Project website at www.municipalservicesproject.org and the MSP Occasional Paper, \u2018Universal Health Coverage: Beyond Rhetoric\u2019 at: http://www.municipalservicesproject.org/publication/universal-health-coverage-beyond-rhetoric.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Using the Right to Health to Enforce the Corporate Responsibilities of Pharmaceutical Companies with Regard to Access to Medicines","field_subtitle":"Oke E: Journal of Health Diplomacy (1) 1: July 2013","field_url":"http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2332604","body":"This paper seeks to determine how the corporate responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies in relation to access to medicines can be clarified and enforced. Two cases, one each from India and South Africa, are examined to determine how the domestic courts in both countries indirectly utilized the right to health to ensure that pharmaceutical companies did not impede access to affordable medicines through exercising their patent rights. There is a need to clarify and enforce the responsibilities pharmaceutical companies have to promote the right to health. The two cases from India and South Africa demonstrate the potentials of domestic courts as forums where these responsibilities can be effectively enforced. In the absence of a global enforcement mechanism for enforcing the right-to-health responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies, domestic courts can effectively fill this gap. In addition, this paper demonstrates that domestic courts can equally serve as forums for health diplomacy.\t","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Vision, Values, and Voice: A Communications Toolkit","field_subtitle":"The Opportunity Agenda: December 2013","field_url":"http://toolkit.opportunityagenda.org/","body":"\u2018Helvetika Bold\u2019  a social justice superhero, takes you through a toolkit that offers social justice advocates tips and ideas to \"unleash their communications superpowers\", including guidance on forming a communications strategy, framing and messaging, and media outreach. In addition to big-picture thinking about communication strategies, readers will also find examples of a range of tactics, as well as concrete messaging guidance in the form of detachable \"Opportunity Flashcards\", the first set of an ongoing series of cards that provide what are intended to be short and easy-to-find advice and sample language on a range of social justice issues. \"You can download and print each of these flashcards and use them the next time you have a media interview, need to write an opinion piece, or just need some ideas as you think through your messaging strategy.\" Each card provides a link to more in-depth information on the toolkit website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Wrangle may delay healthcare inquiry","field_subtitle":"Visser A: Business Day Live. 6 January 2014","field_url":"http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/healthcare/2014/01/06/wrangle-may-delay-healthcare-inquiry","body":"On the eve of the landmark inquiry into the private healthcare industry in South Africa, the Netcare group is challenging the Competition Commission's use of professional services firm KPMG as its technical service provider for the investigation. The commission originally suggested the market inquiry into the private healthcare industry after concerns were expressed that certain factors in the sector prevent, distort or restrict competition. Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has been particularly vocal in expressing his disquiet about the matter. The market inquiry provision in the Competition Act became effective last year and paved the way for the introduction of an inquiry into private healthcare. The provision will allow the commission to initiate an inquiry if it has reason to believe that any feature of a market distorts or restricts competition. Unlike the 2006 inquiry into banking costs, which required the banks\u2019 voluntary co-operation, the commission now has wide-ranging powers to summon people to testify or to provide documents. It will be able to call for any information it may deem relevant and may initiate a complaint against a firm based on what it gathers during the inquiry. The final terms of reference for the competition authorities\u2019 private healthcare inquiry were published at the end of last year. They included looking at possible cost drivers such as pharmaceutical manufacturers, medical equipment and the inter-relationship between the public and private healthcare systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"12th BEMF meeting: How Do We Know If There is Enough Money to Provide For Delivery of Services?","field_subtitle":"Section 27: November 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qgj8546","body":"The Budget and Expenditure Monitoring Forum (BEMF) in South Africa hosted a two-day workshop before the Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan tabled the 2013 Medium Term Budget Policy Statement in Parliament. Under the theme \u201cReflections on the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement : How Do We Know If There is Enough Money to Provide For Delivery of Services?\u201d numerous civil society organisations and representatives from organised labour, Parliament, the Auditor General\u2019s office and academia came together to develop a deeper understanding of Government\u2019s future medium term spending plans for 2014 \u2013 2016. The workshop was opened by a presentation on what the National Development Plan (NDP) envisions for public service delivery and the implications of the NDP goals for the allocation of resources. An overview of South Africa\u2019s macro-economic policy was provided illustrating the political choices made by Government to raise money for the delivery of services while promoting economic growth and curbing public debt. The workshop then turned to an assessment of the adequacy of the Education and Health budgets and analysis of the Social Development budgets for funding of Children\u2019s Act services. The workshop also provided participants with an opportunity to be updated on the role of the Parliamentary Budget Office and the critical role that Parliament can and should be playing in exercising oversight of the Executive\u2019s budget policy proposals. On the last day of the workshop participants were given an opportunity to hear about various budget and expenditure monitoring methodologies ranging from social audits to citizen journalism. A 2014 steering committee was established to guide the activities of the forum into 2014.The presentations given at the meeting are provided in the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to Antiretroviral therapy in Africa","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: 2013","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/20131219_AccessARTAfricaStatusReportProgresstowards2015Targets_en.pdf","body":"Africa is leading the world in expanding access to antiretroviral therapy, with 7.6 million people across the continent receiving antiretroviral therapy as of December 2012, including 7.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa. Eastern and Southern Africa is scaling up faster, by more than doubling the number of people on treatment between 2006 and 2012. At least 10 countries (Botswana, Cape Verde, Eritrea, Kenya, Namibia, Rwanda,\r\nSouth Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe) reported reaching 80% or more\r\nof adults eligible for antiretroviral therapy, under the 2010 WHO guidelines. However, new WHO guidelines on HIV treatment in 2013 have since made many more people eligible for treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa is not rising, survey shows","field_subtitle":"Smith D: The Guardian, Africa network, 2 October 2013 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qzec8mk","body":"The idea that Africans have never had it so good is rapidly becoming economic orthodoxy. This article comments that foreign investors, media and politicians from William Hague to Jacob Zuma have championed a narrative usually summed up in two words: \"Africa rising\". However the author asserts that the majority of Africans themselves feel that the picture is far less rosy, complaining that the continent's much vaunted economic growth is failing to trickle down to their daily lives, according to the biggest survey of its kind. \"After a decade of growth in Africa, little change in poverty at the grassroots,\" is the title of a report by the Afrobarometer research project, covered in the article which questioned 51,605 respondents in 34 countries from October 2011 to June this year. He reports critics who have warned that the boom is benefiting only a narrow elite while leaving the poor and jobless behind, exacerbating inequality and potentially sowing seeds of unrest. The wave of \"Afro-optimism\" should be qualified, they argue. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Ambient pollution and respiratory outcomes among schoolchildren in Durban, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Naidoo RN, Robins TG, Batterman S, Mentz G and Jack C: South African Journal of Child Health 7(4), 127-134, November 2013","field_url":"http://www.sajch.org.za/index.php/SAJCH/article/view/598","body":"The author examines associations between ambient air pollutants and respiratory outcomes among schoolchildren in Durban, South Africa, in a cross sectional survey of primary schools from within each of seven communities in two regions of Durban (the highly industrialised south compared with the non-industrial north) and measurement of particulate matter (PM), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and carbon monoxide at each school, and nitrogen oxides (NOx) at other sites. Children had a prevalence of asthma symptoms of any severity of 32%, higher in schools with higher SO2 levels. Schoolchildren from industrially exposed communities experienced higher covariate-adjusted prevalences of persistent asthma than children from communities distant from industrial sources. The authors indicate that the findings are strongly suggestive of industrial pollution-related adverse respiratory health effects among these children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Animation of the The Hungry Season","field_subtitle":"Leonie Joubert, with University of Cape Town and Embassy of Finland: November 2013","field_url":"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX77NZttLKo","body":"In a book 'The Hungry Season: Feeding Southern Africa\u2019s Cities' Leonie Joubert. tells the story of food security, or its lack, through the voices of people. Through the lives of eight people in eight southern African places she looks at the complexity of food security in urban areas. Joubert shows that food has been a major driver of our technological development over the past 12 000 years. Food availability has allowed our cities to grow big, and ironically, has produced a lack of food security for many living in those cities.  This is an animation of The Hungry Season, and tackles the question \u2013 why, when southern Africa produces enough calories and nutrients to feed the region, are so many people living with hunger or the fear of hunger? It is a journey through eight people\u2019s lives in eight different regions. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Brazil-Africa technical cooperation in health: what\u2019s its relevance to the post-Busan debate on \u2018aid effectiveness\u2019?","field_subtitle":"Russo G, Cabral L, and Ferrinho P: Globalization and Health 9 (2), 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-9-2.pdf","body":"Brazil is becoming an influential player in development cooperation, also thanks to its high-visibility health projects in Africa and Latin America. The 4th High-level Forum on Aid Effectiveness held in Busan in late 2011 marked a change in the way development cooperation is conceptualised. The present paper explores the issue of emerging donors\u2019 contribution to the post-Busan debate on aid effectiveness by looking at Brazil\u2019s health cooperation projects in Portuguese-speaking Africa. The authors first consider Brazil\u2019s health technical cooperation within the country\u2019s wider cooperation programme, aiming to identify its key characteristics, claimed principles and values, and analysing how these translate into concrete projects in Portuguese-speaking African countries. Then study discuss the extent to which the Busan conference has changed the way development cooperation is conceptualised, and how Brazil\u2019s technical cooperation health projects fit within the new framework. The authors conclude that, by adopting new concepts on health cooperation and challenging established paradigms - in particular on health systems and HIV/AIDS fight - the Brazilian health experience has already contributed to shape the emerging consensus on development effectiveness. However, its impact on the field is still largely unscrutinised, and its projects seem to only selectively comply with some of the shared principles agreed upon in Busan. Although Brazilian cooperation is still a model in the making, not immune from contradictions and shortcomings, it should be seen as enriching the debate on development principles, thus offering alternative solutions to advance the discourse on cooperation effectiveness in health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Assistant Country Director Programmes, Nairobi","field_subtitle":"Closing Date: Friday, 10 January 2014 ","field_url":"http://unjobs.org/vacancies/1387427264888","body":"COncern is seeking applicants to manage the implementation of Concern Kenya's programme in line with its Country Strategic Plan (2012-1016) and its programme strategies maintaining and strengthening focus on community empowerment, system strengthening and emergency preparedness. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: Critical perspectives on BRICS","field_subtitle":"Call closes 4 January 2014","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article1883","body":"This call is fo articles about BRICS from a critical perspective. There are many avenues for publishing about the BRICS from an optimistic, uncritical standpoint, not least the BRICS governments\u2019 own academic \u2018think tank\u2019 network and the mainstream media. But the authors of this call argue that social movements, labour organizations and other active citizens need analyses that advance the cause of justice, that do not suffer a failure of investigative nerve, and that fearlessly pose problems and alternatives. They seek contributions from all five countries as well as those that are in the immediate hinterland of BRICS. The articles will be published in mid-March 2014, in time for the Fortaleza BRICS Summit.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: How Public Health Can Meet the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century","field_subtitle":"Call closes March 7 2014","field_url":"http://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/si/645081/cfp/","body":"An upcoming Special Issue on \"How Public Health Can Meet the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century,\" will be published in the Public Health subject area of BioMed Research International in July 2014. A call for papers has been made for the Special Issue, which is open to both original research articles as well as review articles. BioMed Research International is an open access journal, which means that all published articles are made freely available online without a subscription, and authors retain the copyright of their work. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Proposals 2014: Opening Frontiers to the Future","field_subtitle":"Call closes January 15th, 2014","field_url":"http://www.elearning-africa.com/programme_themes.php","body":"Lend your voice to a continuing discussion that is helping to shape Africa's future. The inspiring contributions of our speakers are the key component behind eLearning Africa\u2019s position as the most relevant networking event for practitioners and professionals working in ICT, education and training on the Continent. Whether you\u2019re using a mobile app to engage young people with citizenship programmes, implementing state of the art technology to bring rural communities onto the grid and online, researching the impact of tablets in vocational learning, coordinating a local iHub to encourage home-grown innovation or lobbying government to prioritise ICT in national education policy, the eLearning Africa Conference audience wants to hear about it. they are are looking for the stories, experiences, research, thinking and expertise that make up the picture of ICT for development, education and training in Africa today, under the overall theme of Opening Frontiers to the Future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for submissions on the theme of Browning the future","field_subtitle":"Call closes January 15 2014","field_url":"http://www.thestate.ae/call-for-submissions-vol-v-browning-the-future/","body":"What does post-westernness look like? What does it mean to be a cultural practitioner working outside the current imperial centres? What happens when water becomes more expensive than oil? How will south-south co-operation change things? What colour is the future? This call is for written submissions to \u201cThe State\u201d, a media space for written and audiovisual communications, critical texts, interrogative narratives, images, manifestos and conversations.  Send pitches or submissions of new work or pieces in English that have not yet been published in English, along with a brief bio, to submit@thestate.ae, by January 15th, 2014. Commissioned pieces will receive an honorarium. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"COEDSRIA Newsletter launched","field_subtitle":"First issue December 2013","field_url":"http://codesria.org/IMG/lettre/lettre_20131209_db274_en.html","body":"CODESRIA, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, launched the first issue of its Newsletter in December 2013. CODESRIA, headquartered in Dakar, Senegal, was established in 1973 as an independent pan-African research organisation primarily focusing on social sciences research in Africathat aims to be a source of regular information about the work of CODESRIA and its partners. The newsletter aims to stimulate discussion around the most important issues facing Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Community perceptions of health insurance and their preferred design features: implications for the design of universal health coverage reforms in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Mulupi S, Kirigia D and Chuma J: BMC Health Services Research 13:474, 12 November 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nyunhg6","body":"Kenya has been considering introducing a national health insurance scheme (NHIS) since 2004. This study contributes to this process by exploring through a cross sectional survey communities\u2019 understanding and perceptions of health insurance and their preferred designs features. Kenyans should understand the implications of health financing reforms and their preferred design features considered to ensure acceptability and sustainability.  About half of the household survey respondents had at least one member in a health insurance scheme. There was high awareness of health insurance schemes but limited knowledge of how health insurance functions as well as understanding of key concepts related to income and risk cross-subsidization. Wide dissatisfaction with the public health system was reported. However, the government was the most preferred and trusted agency for collecting revenue as part of a NHIS. People preferred a comprehensive benefit package that included inpatient and outpatient care with no co-payments. Affordability of premiums, timing of contributions and the extent to which population needs would be met under a contributory scheme were major issues of concern for a NHIS design. Possibilities of funding health care through tax instead of NHIS were raised and preferred by the majority. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Contributing to social and economic development","field_subtitle":"WHO EB and Government of Finland: WHO Executive Board EB134/1 January 2014 Add.1 134th session 13 December 2013","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/EB134/B134_1Add1-en.pdf","body":"The WHO Executive Board meeting in Geneva in Jan 2014 will consider a proposal from Finland (see EB134/1 Add.1) entitled: \u201cContributing to social and economic development: sustainable action across sectors to improve health and health equity\u201d which is a follow up from the 8th Global Health Promotion Conference in Helsinki in June 2013.  Finland has requested the inclusion of a new agenda item for the 134th session\r\nof the Executive Board. It will provide an opportunity for the Board to have a debate, adopt a recommendation for an Assembly resolution calling for concrete steps forward, carried out within existing resources, and expressing the importance of actions across sectors for health and health equity in the final efforts to achieve the MDGs and in the debate on the post-2015 development agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Designing the Constitutional Court of South Africa","field_subtitle":"Sachs A: Design Indaba, 13 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.designindaba.com/video/albie-sachs-designing-constitutional-court-south-africa","body":"Albie Sachs talks in this video about the design of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, a building that is \u201ca place for everybody\u201d. He spoke about how dreams, methods and madness formed a relationship that led to a building that came to symbolise the new constitutional democracy in South Africa. Situated where an old fort prison once stood, the Constitutional Court removes the negativity of the area and replaces it with a positive symbol of South Africa\u2019s future. Sachs also spoke about the design of the Constitutional Court logo, which expresses, captures, projects and adds to what South African\u2019s democracy stands for. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"East African Community monetary union: a formidable rival to the Eurozone?","field_subtitle":"Mubangizi O: Pambazuka News 659, 18 December 2013","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/90009","body":"The East African Community (EAC) modeled on the EU has enormous potential and resources. Resolving political differences and harmonizing with other regional blocks remains the foremost challenges. The East African Community (EAC) heads of state are due to sign a monetary union paving a way for a single currency for Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and those other countries that will join the community later on. The benefits of monetary union include a single currency; low transaction costs for business people; tuition and visa fees of the same value in all the countries; amongst others. The author explores the geopolitical, demographic and resource potentials for the east African community. The paper also argues that there is no single formula for regional integration. Rather than being competitors, the various regional blocks provide avenues for more complex and beneficial collaboration in the continent. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET bids \u2018Hamba Kahle Madiba\u2019","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET Newsletter","field_url":"","body":"When the news came of Nelson Mandela\u2019s death messages came spontaneously on our list from colleagues from across the 16 countries in EQUINET. We can\u2019t include them all but some are below. They signal the pride that Mandela gave to all in being African, the many facets of justice and wisdom he symbolized for people in the continent, his respect for power being located within the people and the inspiration that people drew and will continue to draw from his life. Hamba Kahle Madiba. \r\n\r\nFrom Amuda Baba in Democratic Republic of Congo: It is a big loss for Africa. We have lost a symbol of peace, unity and humility. May his soul rest in peace.\r\nFrom Severina Lemachokoti in Kenya: His wisdom was unique and his wise words will forever remain to build people of all races in the years to come.\r\nFrom Moses Lungu in Zambia:  We will draw lessons from him on equity, equal and social justice for all. Bless his family and nation\r\nFrom Sam Wamani in Uganda: Mandela was and will remain a true love for all people of all colours. Africa and the world will always remember Madiba.\r\nFrom Isabella Matambanadzo in Zimbabwe: He gave us an unmatchable sense of the dignity in being black Africans and of our humanness. ..May we always carry the best of you with us.\r\nFrom Elisha Sibale in Tanzania: His lifelong commitment to social justice for all was a beacon to the world. \r\nFrom Dennis Chibuye in Zambia: The world has lost of a true patriot and visionary leader. \u2026Long Live Mandela Spirit.\r\nFrom: Kingsley Chikaphupha in Malawi: An icon, statesman and a true son of Africa!! \r\nFrom Wilson Asibu in Malawi: May his life inspire us all, especially the youth who have a great opportunity to sculpture their lives into greatness.\r\nFrom Jacob Ongala Owiti in Kenya: Mandela had the unique ability to take power to the people - So, who will take up the Mandela's spear and move it forward?\r\nFrom Fortunate Machingura  in Zimbabwe: He said:  \u201cTo be free is not merely to cast off one\u2019s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others\u201d he said\u2026enhancing the freedom of others implies our joint action as a collective.\u2026it\u2019s now up to us Comrades\u2026 the struggle continues!\r\n\r\nWe wish all a 2014 in which our struggles for health and justice flourish.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 155: Hamba Kahle Madiba","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equitable health systems listen to people ","field_subtitle":"Barbara Kaim Training and Research Support Centre, Clara Mbwili Muleya, Adah Zulu Lishandu Lusaka District Health Management Team, Robinah Kaitiritimba, Uganda National Health Consumers Users Organisation","field_url":"","body":"If our health systems \u2018listen\u2019 better to people\u2019s input, will this make them more responsive to people\u2019s needs? Will strengthening people\u2019s voice and role in decisions in health systems help overcome the significant inequalities that exist in east and southern Africa - and more widely - in access to and use of health services? What do we need to do to ensure that the substantial resources that flow to and in health systems reach the primary care and community level?\r\n\r\nThese were questions that we tackled at a recent regional joint workshop of the Community of Practitioners in Accountability and Social Action in Health (COPASAH) and the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) hosted by TARSC in Zimbabwe. Thirty people attended this workshop, including community health activists, civil society organisations, health workers, academics and researchers from Kenya, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. As a group, they came from a wide range of contexts and experiences, working with or representing people living with HIV and AIDS, elderly people, women and children, health workers and people whose health rights had been violated. Participants came from organisations whose goals included supporting and strengthening community roles in monitoring health service delivery, and advocating for equity and quality of health services and increased resources for health.\r\n\r\nGiven the wide social inequalities in our societies, all who attended the meeting are working in some way to invest in and support community capacities to articulate their needs, present their conditions, negotiate for resources that improve their lives, and monitor the delivery on state commitments towards improving health. We agreed that, in order for this to happen and for it to have an impact  upstream, beyond the more common ways that people support health services - such as caring for people who are ill or contributing their own resources or time to improve services - people also need to have a greater role in the planning, delivery and monitoring of their health services. \r\n\r\nWe brought our own stories of how greater citizen engagement with service providers, especially around social action on health and social accountability in services, makes for more effective and acceptable health services. For example, participants from South Africa, Kenya and Zambia noted that setting up community-health worker committees had helped to improve dialogue and collective action. Uganda CSOs reported on a randomized field experiment of community-based monitoring of public primary health care providers in Uganda by Bj\u00f6rkman and Svensson in 2007 that showed how social accountability mechanisms led to large increases in utilization of services and improved health outcomes.\r\n\r\nFor this to happen, however, we see that the health system needs to change. When the health system itself does not give any authority to frontline workers, it is difficult for the same workers to respond to communities. Decentralisation of power and resources within the system to local levels, together with the capacities for it, is thus necessary if people at community level are to be effective in providing input to the organisation of services. The health system needs to make clear what entitlements people have, and what obligations service providers have, and to communicate this widely to health workers and the public as a prerequisite for delivering health rights and building social accountability. If our health systems are to become more people-centred, they need to not only develop skills, knowledge and procedures around technical issues, but they also need the skills, knowledge and procedures for health workers and managers to facilitate meaningful community engagement and involvement, including in decision making. And these are most needed where the communities enter the system, that is, at the primary care level. To build \u2018people centred\u2019 health systems it is essential that resources, including medicines and skilled health workers, reach the primary care level.\r\n\r\nThis touches on the power dynamics within health systems.  The inequalities in health systems are not just inequalities in relation to resources, or to access to services. There are also inequalities in power: between service providers and communities, between different kinds of health personnel and between different levels of the health system. This is an issue that is largely invisible but that has impact on the participation in and use of health systems by more marginalised groups. So a great part of our meeting tackled the sort of mechanisms and processes that can address this power imbalance. For example, mechanisms such as community prioritising of health needs, monitoring service delivery using community score cards, community- health centre meetings and community action planning, can help to make service providers more accountable to communities, and can potentially support and improve interactions between communities and frontline service providers. This strengthened interaction can then, if based on a mutual listening and understanding, lead to alliances between local health workers, managers and communities in negotiating with higher level authorities for improvements in services. \r\n\r\nOne of the ways of embedding a shift in power relations and to strengthen that alliance and interaction between communities and primary health care actors, is through using participatory reflection and action (PRA) approaches. PRA uses a variety of visual and verbal methods to provoke discussion, analysis and planning for action in such a way that it can strengthen the power that people have to change their own lives, their communities and the institutions that affect them. For the last 10 years, the pra4equity network in EQUINET has been exploring how this approach can support the strengthening of a people-centred health system. At our meeting we built on this to examine how PRA can be used to shift attention and resources towards the primary care level of the health system, to make those at higher level more accountable to the needs of communities, and to ensure the capacities of frontline services to deliver on those needs.   In reviewing some of the blocks and deficits raised in our current health systems, we concluded that PRA does have a role to play in improving transparency, improving dialogue between rights holders and duty bearers, and establishing platforms for feedback and consultation.\r\n\r\n This was a unique opportunity to bring together and build synergies between two bodies of work, on PRA approaches and on social accountability. It also raised the potential for PRA approaches to position our engagement on accountability within a dialogue between communities and their frontline health workers, for both to listen to and engage with the realities and experience of the other. We already have evidence, in the work of the pra4equity network published on the EQUINET site, that this improves local service quality for both health workers and communities. The question we are yet to test, and will be exploring in our follow up work, is whether this shared power is able to address imbalances in institutional resources and power within the health system, so that the resources, skills, commodities and authorities reach the primary and community level services, where they are most needed.  \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. Further information on the issues raised in the oped can be found in the report of the meeting and other publications on the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org and in the COPASAH website at www.copasah.net ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Executive Director, Malawi project","field_subtitle":"Call for applicants","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/Jfitzpatrick%40pih.org","body":"Partners In Health is seeking an Executive Director. They are looking for a strong leader who can develop the PIH platform of care in the district where we provide direct service, create innovative approaches that address burdens of disease and gaps in service delivery, partner with national and local Ministry officials, and build the programs into models of system-level global health delivery. For more information, please contact Jennifer Fitzpatrick.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Filling the white spaces: broadcast broadband in Africa","field_subtitle":"MacKinnon A: E-Learning Africa, October 2013","field_url":"http://www.elearning-africa.com/eLA_Newsportal/filling-the-white-spaces-broadcast-broadband-in-africa/","body":"According to 2012 estimates, internet penetration in Africa has reached 15.6%. Though the actual number of people on whom the internet has an impact is undoubtedly much higher, this statistic does demonstrate a significant infrastructural disparity between Africa and other continents. Currently, this connectivity gap is being filled by other media, such as in the astonishing growth rate in the African mobile market. Radio remains one of the cheapest, most versatile and most widespread forms of mass communication there is and a powerful tool for African educators, despite its lack of interactivity. In this paper the author explores the opportunities of combining the pervasiveness of radio with the enhanced connective power of the internet. The paper describes trials to test the viability of white space broadband technologies to extend information access in several African countries in schools, healthcare centres and libraries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"For my generation, the death of Mandela marks the end of Africa\u2019s liberation struggle","field_subtitle":"Mkandawire T: CODESRIA News 1, December 2013","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article1893","body":"In this blog Thandika Mkandawire writes about the role Nelson Mandela played in inspiring his generation of political activists.He writes that if the life imprisonment of Mandela seemed like a major reversal for African nationalism and a victory for the remaining racist and fascist regimes, Mandela's statement at the dock of the court on 20 April 1964 was one the most inspiring statements for his generation: \u201cThis is the struggle of the African people, inspired by their own suffering and experience. It is a struggle for the right to live. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society, in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunity. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and achieve. But, if needs be, my Lord, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.\u201d Mkandawire writes that four things strike him as to why the man is the most admired among Africans. One was Mandela's deep commitment to the liberation of the African people. A second was Mandela\u2019s deep sense of duty and a warm sense of respect for the people he led and the movement to which he had been of selfless service. The third feature was Mandela\u2019s eminently sane relationship to power and his contribution by example in his own exercise of power. The fourth was his commitment to democracy and rule of law.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Ghana\u2019s National Health Insurance Scheme: a national level investigation of members\u2019 perceptions of service provision","field_subtitle":"Dixon J, Tenkorang EY and Luginaah I: BMC International Health and Human Rights 13(35): 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/13/35","body":"Ghana\u2019s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was established into law in 2003 and implemented in 2005 as a \u2018pro-poor\u2019 method of health financing. This study analyses NHIS members\u2019 perceptions of service provision at the national level using data from the 2008 Ghana Demographic Health Survey. Results demonstrate that wealth, gender and ethnicity all play a role in influencing members\u2019 perceptions of NHIS service provision, distinctive from its influence on enrolment. Notably, although wealth predicted enrolment in other studies, the study found that compared to the poorest men and uneducated women, wealthy men and educated women were less likely to perceive their service provision as better/same (more likely to report it was worse). Wealth was not an important factor for women, suggesting that household gender dynamics supersede household wealth status in influencing perceptions. Findings of this study suggest there is an important difference between originally enrolling in the NHIS because one believes it is potentially beneficial, and using the NHIS and perceiving it to be of benefit. The authors conclude that understanding the nature of this relationship is essential for Ghana\u2019s NHIS to ensure its longevity and meet its pro-poor mandate. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Global AgeWatch Index 2013: Insight report, summary and methodology","field_subtitle":"Global AgeWatch: October 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/p2ob5xl","body":"The Global AgeWatch Index is the first-ever overview of the wellbeing of older people around the world.As the number and proportion of older people increases at an unprecedented rate, this ground-breaking report illustrates how the world is adapting to this new reality by ranking more than 90 countries in terms of how their older populations are faring.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Global spending on drugs to exceed $1tn","field_subtitle":"Jack A: Financial Times November 19, 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/7b94b628-5068-11e3-befe-00144feabdc0.html","body":"Global spending on prescription medicines will accelerate next year to exceed $1tn for the first time, fuelled by the launch of more innovative drugs and rising health expenditure in emerging markets led by China. The rise was projected by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. The rise is attributed in part to emerging markets, where rising demand for healthcare paid out of pocket by the growing middle class is being matched by an expansion in universal health coverage programmes to extend provision, with targeted public health policies such as rising vaccination rates. The jump comes at a time of growing use of cheaper off-patent generic medicines, predicted to grow from 27 per cent to 36 per cent of the global market by 2017 and as high as 63 per cent in the fast-growing emerging economies. The report projects that two-thirds of the total medicines market in 2017 will be accounted for by the eight markets of the US, France, Germany, the UK, Italy and Spain, as well as China and Japan, which will also be responsible for nearly 60 per cent of the total growth in spending.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Growth and poverty eradication: Why addressing inequality matters","field_subtitle":"United Nations Conference On Trade And Development: UNCTAD Post 2015 Policy Brief 2, November 2013","field_url":"http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/presspb2013d4_en.pdf","body":"The Millennium Development Goals have centred on social outcomes, primarily in the fields of poverty, health and education. The goal of halving extreme poverty globally has already been met, albeit in large part thanks to the remarkable performance over three decades of the Chinese economy. Greater ambition is expected for a post-2015 agenda, with the eradication of extreme poverty a possible new goal. However, this goal is very unlikely to be reached by 2030 if business as usual is the order of the day. Paradoxically, this partly reflects the lack of ambition in the conventional poverty line of $1.25 per day, which is by any standard extremely low. However UNCTAD also argue that it is also because poverty eradication, even at this level of ambition, will not happen without addressing the more challenging issue of global inequality.UNCTAD argue that there is an emerging consensus that existing levels of inequality are not only morally unacceptable, but also economically and politically damaging. Moving beyond the Millennium Development Goals, inequality should therefore become a prominent part of the post-2015 development narrative.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Hamba Kahle, Madiba: the contestation between symbolism and mythology","field_subtitle":"Manji F: Codesria News 1, December 2013","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article1892","body":"The process of mythologizing represents a contestation between symbolism and mythology, writes Firoze Manji. The greatest disservice that we could pay to Mandela is to allow the complexity, courage and humanity of his long life to be reduced to a fairy tale. Mandela represents for so many the finest values of courage, liberation and freedom.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Handbook on health inequality monitoring: with a special focus on low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"WHO: 2013","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/9789241548632_eng_0.pdf","body":"The World Health Organization developed the Handbook on health inequality monitoring: with a special focus on low- and middle-income countries to provide an overview for health inequality monitoring within low- and middle-income countries, and act as a resource for those involved in spearheading, improving or sustaining monitoring systems. The aim of this handbook is to serve as a comprehensive resource to clarify the concepts associated with health inequality monitoring, illustrate the process\r\nthrough examples and promote the integration of health inequality monitoring within health information systems of low- and middle-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health system challenges to integration of mental health delivery in primary care in Kenya- perspectives of primary care health workers.","field_subtitle":"Jenkins R, Othieno C, Okeyo S, Aruwa J, Kingora J and Jenkins B: BMC Health Services Research 13(368): September 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/368","body":"Health system weaknesses in Africa are well known, constraining progress in reducing the burden of both communicable and non-communicable disease.  This paper used a focus group methodology to explore health worker perspectives on the challenges posed to integration of mental health into primary care in Kenya. The discussions found weaknesses in the medicine supply, health management information system, district level supervision to primary care clinics, the lack of attention to mental health in the national health sector targets, especially in district level targets, resulting in the exclusion of mental health from such district level supervision and a lack of awareness in the district management team about mental health. Generic health system weaknesses in Kenya are reported to impact on efforts for horizontal integration of mental health into routine primary care practice, and to frustrate health worker efforts. The authors report that a major lever for horizontal integration of mental health into the health system would be the inclusion of mental health in the national health sector reform strategy at community, primary care and district levels rather than just at the higher provincial and national levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Workforce Brain Drain: From Denouncing the Challenge to Solving the Problem","field_subtitle":"Cometto G, Tulenko K, Muula AS and Krech R: PLoS Med 10(9): 1-3, September 2013","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001514","body":"Migration of health workers from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to high-income countries is one of the most controversial aspects of globalization, having attracted considerable attention in the health policy discourse at both the technical and political level. Some countries train health workers to export them overseas and reap the financial benefits of remittances; such investments should therefore be considered as driven primarily by economic\u2014rather than population health\u2014motives. In most cases, however, migration of health professionals is unplanned for and represents a \u201cbrain drain\u201d for source countries, a result of enormous wage differences and poor working conditions, including lack of support, adequate infrastructure, and career development opportunities, in LMICs. The paper presents the policy options for both low income and OECD countries for addressing health worker migration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"International launch of the KidsRights Index ","field_subtitle":"KidsRights Foundation, Erasmus University Rotterdam: November 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.kidsrightsindex.org","body":"The KidsRights Index is an initiative by the KidsRights Foundation and the Erasmus University Rotterdam to monitor the status of children\u2019s rights across the world in order to promote and foster the realisation of these rights. The KidsRights Index is the first global ranking on how countries are adhering to children\u2019s rights. The country-ranking will be published yearly and will be made available to the public through a comprehensive website. New dimensions may be added over time to enrich the index. The Index draws on two key available sources of information: The Concluding Observations adopted by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and UNICEF\u2019s annual State of the World\u2019s Children reports. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya: Statute Law Bill poses grave threat to civil society and must be rejected \u2013 UN rights experts","field_subtitle":"Editor, Pambazuka News 657: 5 December 2013","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/89862","body":"A group of United Nations Special Rapporteurs today urged the Government of Kenya to reject legislation that would impose severe restrictions on civil society. \u201cThe Bill is an evidence of a growing trend in Africa and elsewhere, whereby governments are trying to exert more control over independent groups using so-called \u2018NGO laws,\u2019\u201d the human rights experts warned.  The Bill, which was presented to Parliament on 30 October, would amend Kenya\u2019s Public Benefit Organization Act of 2012 and grant the Government sweeping powers to deny registration for such organizations, including non government organisations. It would also cap foreign funding at 15% of their total budgets and channel all their funding through a government body, rather than going directly to beneficiary organizations. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Kofi Annan: African justice is weak","field_subtitle":"Smith D: The Guardian Africa network, 10 October 2013 \t","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/p6tuncn","body":"Kofi Annan speaks with the unhurried, temperate tone of someone confident of being listened to. Last week the former UN secretary-general met his match, however, in the form of hundreds of Sowetan schoolchildren blowing vuvuzelas in a football stadium. \"Silence please,\" Annan was forced to plea as his speech was interrupted, something that can rarely have happened to him at the UN general assembly or even mediating in Syria. \r\nAnnan warned the audience drawn from 190 countries that the benefits of globalisation have not been shared fairly and the gap between rich and poor is unsustainable. It is a theme that he shares further on in this interview with the Guardian. There must be greater accountability and transparency, he says, to ensure Africa's vast natural resources benefit all its people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Lack of access to health care for African indigents: a social exclusion perspective","field_subtitle":"Soors W, Dkhimi F and Criel B: International Journal for Equity in Health 12(91): 15 November 2013","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/12/1/91","body":"Lack of access to health care is a persistent condition for most African indigents, to which the common technical approach of targeting initiatives is an insufficient antidote. To overcome the standstill, an integrated technical and political approach is needed. Such policy shift is dependent on political support, and on alignment of international and national actors. The authors explore if the analytical framework of social exclusion can contribute to the latter. The authors produce a critical and evaluative account of the literature on three themes: social exclusion, development policy, and indigence in Africa\u2013and their interface. First, the authors trace the concept of social exclusion as it evolved over time and space in policy circles. They then discuss the relevance of a social exclusion perspective in developing countries. Finally, this perspective is applied to Africa, its indigents, and their lack of access to health care. The concept of social exclusion as an underlying process of structural inequalities has needed two decades to find acceptance in international policy circles. Initial scepticism about the relevance of the concept in developing countries is now giving way to recognition of its universality. For a variety of reasons however, the uptake of a social exclusion perspective in Africa has been limited. Nevertheless, social exclusion as a driver of poverty and inequity in Africa is evident, and manifestly so in the case of the African indigents. The concept of social exclusion provides a useful framework for improved understanding of origins and persistence of the access problem that African indigents face, and for generating political space for an integrated approach. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of ANZA magazine, East Africa's first ever architecture magazine","field_subtitle":"ANZA team, Dar es Salaam, December 2013","field_url":"http://www.anzastart.com/Read-ANZA-Issue-1","body":"Architecture plays a role in our culture, health and wellbeing.  The 21st century has brought social and economic transformation to Africa, and has been coined as the century of the cities, with high levels of urbanisation in Africa. This magazine, edited in Dar es Salaam and produced by architects,  writers and students from several countries in Africa provides a vibrant resource for discussion of urban architectural and social issues connected with growing cities, as a vehicle for open criticism and a constructive exchange of opinions; a platform to launch innovation solutions; a place for the discussion of typical local phenomena, and as a source of information for decision makers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mapping HIV epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa with use of GPS data","field_subtitle":"Coburn BJ and Blower S: The Lancet Global Health 1(5): e251-e253, November 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/po9oe7d","body":"WHO and many other organisations are very interested in implementing treatment-as-prevention as a global policy to control the HIV pandemic.1 Widespread treatment of HIV-infected individuals with antiretroviral therapy will reduce HIV transmission, because it decreases viral load and hence infectiousness. To implement the rollout of treatment-as-prevention in an efficient manner, estimation of the number of HIV-infected individuals and where they live is needed. This assessment will be difficult to accomplish, particularly in areas of sub-Saharan Africa with severe HIV epidemics. The authors propose a solution to this problem by using geospatial statistical techniques and global positioning system (GPS) data.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring the implementation of the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel","field_subtitle":"Siyam A,  Zurn P,  R\u00f8 OC, Gedik G,  Ronquillo K and Co CJ: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 91: 816-823 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/91/11/13-118778.pdf","body":"To present the findings of the first round of monitoring of the global implementation of the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel (\u201cthe Code\u201d), WHO requested that its Member States designate a national authority for facilitating information exchange on health personnel migration and the implementation of the Code. Each designated authority was then sent a cross-sectional survey with 15 questions on a range of topics pertaining to the 10 articles included in the Code. A national authority was designated by 85 countries. Only 56 countries reported on the status of Code implementation. Of these, 37 had taken steps towards implementing the Code, primarily by engaging relevant stakeholders. In 90% of countries, migrant health professionals reportedly enjoy the same legal rights and responsibilities as domestically trained health personnel. In the context of the Code, cooperation in the area of health workforce development goes beyond migration-related issues. An international comparative information base on health workforce mobility is needed but can only be developed through a collaborative, multi-partnered approach. Reporting on the implementation of the Code has been suboptimal in all but one WHO region. Greater collaboration among state and non-state actors is needed to raise awareness of the Code and reinforce its relevance as a potent framework for policy dialogue on ways to address the health workforce crisis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Obstacles to Increasing Tax Revenues in Low Income Countries ","field_subtitle":"Moore M: ICTD Working Paper 15, UNRISD, December 2013","field_url":"http://www.ictd.ac/sites/default/files/ICTD%20WP15.pdf","body":"This paper is focused on the question: why do the governments of low income countries not raise more tax revenues? Two different but complementary approaches are used to answer it. The first approach is comparisons: among countries today, and within countries over time. This approach tends to generate relatively conservative answers to the central question. It leads to an emphasis on the \u2018sticky\u2019 nature of the taxation. For any individual country in \u2018normal times\u2019 \u2013 i.e. excluding situations of war, major internal conflict, the collapse or rapid reconstruction of state power - revenue collections, measured as a proportion of GDP, do not change much from year to year. This is partly because effective taxation systems require a great deal of coordination and cooperation between revenue agencies and other organisations, both inside and outside the public sector. It is hard quickly to improve the effectiveness of a complex organisational network. The \u2018stickiness\u2019 of tax collections also reflects the fact that the overall tax take \u2013 i.e. the proportion of GDP raised as public revenue \u2013 is to a significant degree determined by the structure of national economies. For logistical reasons, it is much easier to raise revenue from economies (a) that are high income, urban and non-agricultural and (b) where the ratio of international trade to GDP is high. The government of the average low income country raises less than 20 per cent of GDP in revenue. The author argues that this weakens the ability of such governments to aim to match OECD tax takes of 30-45 per cent of GDP.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Our Health, our money","field_subtitle":"Centre for Health and Social Justice  and The Humanity, November 2013","field_url":"http://www.copasah.net/film-gallery.html","body":"This documentary captures such an effort done in 12 villages of Bolangir district, Orissa State, India where the community is taught as to the money that is allocated to various schemes at the community level to  deliver health entitlements. Such demand for accountability is done while the community is actively engaging with the public health system within the larger processes of community mobilisation and monitoring to demand accountability from the health system.  Our Health Our Money, a film produced by CHSJ showcases the work done in Odisha around decentralised monitoring of health expenditure. The film is 25 minutes, with English subtitles.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Outcomes of antiretroviral treatment programmes in rural Lesotho: Health centres and hospitals compared","field_subtitle":"Labhardt N, Sello M, Lejone I and Pfeiffer K: Journal of the International AIDS Society 16:18616. November 2013. ","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3838571/pdf/JIAS-16-18616.pdf","body":"Lesotho was among the first countries to adopt decentralization of care from hospitals to nurse-led health centres HCs) to scale up the provision of antiretroviral therapy (ART). This paper compares outcomes between patients who started ART at HCs and hospitals in two rural catchment areas in Lesotho. In rural Lesotho, overall retention in care did not differ significantly between nurse-led HCs and hospitals. However, men seemed to benefit most from starting ART at HCs, as they were more likely to remain in care in these facilities compared to hospitals. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor-quality Anti-tuberculosis Drugs Threaten the Global Disease Control Strategy ","field_subtitle":"Sulis G and Matteelli A: Equilibri, 5 December 2013","field_url":"http://www.equilibri.net/nuovo/articolo/poor-quality-anti-tuberculosis-drugs-threaten-global-disease-control-strategy","body":"The importance of poor-quality anti-tuberculosis drugs cannot be underestimated, as they may disrupt all major complex interventions to ensure treatment efficacy. Not only treatment failure may ensue, but, more importantly, rapid emergence of acquired drug resistances can also be favoured. The authors raise that a relevant proportion of underqualified medicines could be detected through relatively inexpensive and simple assays at destination countries, based on chromatographic techniques. Such tests are able to identify the type and concentrations of the various components. They note that their execution is not compulsory and only rarely pursued. They describe a vicious cycle where local regulatory authorities fail to implement controls of fraudulent manufacturers being encouraged to enter the market.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevention of non-communicable diseases at the workplace in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Malacela M and Mayige M: African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety 23 (2):41-43, August 2013","field_url":"http://www.ttl.fi/en/publications/electronic_journals/african_newsletter/Documents/African%20Newsletter%202-2013.pdf","body":"The focus in Tanzania has mainly been on communicable diseases, in particular HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria. Childhood illnesses, including diarrhoea and upper respiratory tract infections, have also received a great deal of attention. More recently, efforts have been directed towards neglected tropical diseases. However, the burden of communicable diseases is still high, so the increase in non-communicable diseases (NCD) creates a double burden to both individuals and the health system in general.The prevention of NCDs at the workplace is argued by the authors to require a multisectoral approach. The occupational health law (Occupational Health and Safety Act of 2003) in Tanzania stipulates that each employee undergo\r\na medical examination at enrolment. This could be expanded to include periodic examinations. Employers should push insurance companies to cover such examinations. Other options that could be useful are noted as the HIV committees already in place at workplaces. These structures could be used to also co-ordinate NCD prevention activities at workplaces.Another option could be to promote physical activity at the workplace through sports competitions, designated sports days or sports bonanzas. More advocacy is needed to raise the profile of the burden of NCDs and to bring them to the attention of policy-makers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Quality of Life for Elders: Lessons from South Africa and Bolivia","field_subtitle":"Global Health Africa: 10 November 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/oylglop","body":"In October, the Global AgeWatch Index issued a report on the quality of life of older people in 91 nations. The report included several factors such as income security, health and well-being, employment and education. African nations did not fare well. South Africa was the highest ranked African nation at number 65 while Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria, Malawi, Rwanda and Tanzania came in at numbers 69, 81, 85, 86, 87 and 90 respectively. Other African nations were not included in the report because there was not sufficient data. With South Africa leading the pack in elderly well-being, it helps to decipher the various ways it deals with its senior citizens.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional Meeting On Health Centre Committees, 30 January - 1 February 2014, Harare, Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Training and Research Support Centre, with Community Working Group on Health and Medico","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/meetings.php","body":"Health Centre committees (HCCs) (known by a range of names) are mechanisms that exist at community and primary care level for co-determination by communities and health workers on their health systems and on PHC. In January 2014 EQUINET through TARSC and with CWGH is holding a regional meeting on the role of health centre committees in primary health care. The regional workshop includes organisations doing work on training and strengthening HCCs in east and southern African countries. It aims to exchange and document information on the laws, capacities, training materials used, and monitoring systems used in HCCs, and to develop a shared monitoring framework for assessing how HCCs are functioning. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Reproductive decisions of couples living with HIV in Malawi: What can we learn for future policy and research studies?","field_subtitle":"Gombachika BC, Chirwa E, Malata A, Sundby J and Field H: Malawi Medical Journal, 25(3): 65-71, September 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/mmj/article/view/97428/86731","body":"The rapid scale-up of free antiretroviral therapy has lead to a decline in adult mortality at the population level and reduction of vertical transmission. Consequently, some couples living with HIV are maintaining their reproductive decisions; marrying and having children. This paper analyses policies and guidelines on HIV, AIDS and sexual and reproductive health in Malawi for content on marriage and childbearing for couples living with HIV.  The authors report that analysis of guidelines and policies showed nonprescriptiveness on issues of HIV, AIDS and reproduction: they do not reflect the social cultural experiences of couples living with HIV. In addition, they found; lack of clinical guidelines, external influence on adoption of the policies and guidelines and weak linkages between HIV and AIDS and sexual and reproductive health services. The findings are argued to provide a strong basis for updating the policies and development of easy-to-follow guidelines in order to effectively provide services to couples living with HIV in Malawi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Scholarships for KIT Masters programs and short courses ","field_subtitle":"Deadline 4 February 2014","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/courses%40kit.nl","body":"Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) Masters program inform that for a number of KIT courses there are scholarships available from the Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP). The courses are: Master in Public Health, Master in Public Health, track in Sexual and Reproductive Health; Master in Public Health, track in HIV and AIDS and E-learning short course: Health Systems Strengthening and HIV. Applicants must apply at KIT for admission to the course. Apply for the NFP Scholarship separately at Nuffic: Go for details on the scholarship and list of NFP countries to: www.nuffic.nl/nfp Application deadline: 4th of February 2014.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Socio-economic inequality and HIV in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Wabiri N and Taffa N: BMC Public Health 13(1): 1037, 4 November 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24180366","body":"The linkage between the socio-economic inequality and HIV outcomes was analysed using data from a population-based household survey that employed multistage-stratified sampling, to help refocus attention on how HIV is linked to inequalities. A socio-economic index (SEI) score, derived using multiple correspondence analysis of measures of ownership of durable assets, was used to generate three SEI groups: Low (poorest), Middle, and Upper (no so poor). Distribution of HIV outcomes (i.e. HIV prevalence, access to HIV/AIDS information, level of stigma towards HIV/AIDS, perceived HIV risk and sexual behaviour) across the SEI groups, and other background characteristics was assessed using weighted data. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression was used to assess the covariates of the HIV outcomes across the socio-economic groups. More women than men were found in the poor SEI. HIV prevalence was highest among the poor and declined as SEI increased. Individuals in the upper SEI reported higher frequency of HIV testing compared to the low SEI. Only 21% of those in poor SEI had good access to HIV/AIDS information compared to 80% in the upper SEI. A higher percentage of the poor had a stigmatizing attitude towards HIV/AIDS and personal HIV risk perception compared to those in the upper SEI. Our findings underline the disproportionate burden of HIV disease and HIV fear among the poor and vulnerable in South Africa, who are further disadvantaged by lack of access to HIV information and HIV and AIDS services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South-South land grabbing: what the case of Egypt and southern neighbours reveals","field_subtitle":"Dixon M: Pambazuka News 657, 4 December 2013","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/89848","body":"Emerging regional powers in the South have produced powerful finance capitalists. In this paper an example is given of an Egyptian firm buying land, rights to water and precious metals in other African countries. Consolidation of the formal economies of Southern countries has meant not only expansion into existing markets but \u2018diversification\u2019 into new markets, domestically and regionally. Allied with global governance institutions, the author argues that such finance capitalists represent greater control over vital resources and distribution routes for private wealth accumulation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"State makes a no show at a maternal health rights Supreme Court appeal","field_subtitle":" Serunjogi F: CEHURD Newsletter, 3 December 2013","field_url":"http://www.cehurd.org/2013/12/state-makes-a-no-show-at-a-maternal-health-rights-supreme-court-appeal/","body":"As a means of enforcing the justiciability of the right to health, on 3 March 2011, Petition Number 16 of 2011 on cases of maternal mortality was filed in Uganda\u2019s Constitutional Court by the Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) and others. This case argued, among others, that by not providing essential health services and commodities for pregnant women and their new-borns, Government was violating fundamental human rights guaranteed in the Constitution, including the right to health, the right to life, and the rights of women. However, court dismissed the case on grounds that the the constitutional court had no power to determine the matter. CEHURD appealed to the Supreme Court asserting that the petition was fully with in the mandate of the constitutional court. The hearing could not however be started because the government was not represented in court at the first hearing of the Appeal leading to its postponement.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Sugar and health: A food-based dietary guideline for South Africa","field_subtitle":"Temple NJ and Steyn NP:  S Afr J Clin Nutrition 26(3) S100-S104, 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajcn/article/view/97821/87122","body":"The intake of added sugar appears to be increasing steadily across the South African population. Children typically consume approximately 40-60 g/day, possibly rising to as much as 100 g/day in adolescents. This represents roughly 5-10% of dietary energy, but could be as much as 20% in many individuals. This paper briefly reviews current knowledge on the relationship between sugar intake and health. There is strong evidence that sugar makes a major contribution to the development of dental caries. The intake of sugar displaces foods that are rich in micronutrients. Therefore, diets that are rich in sugar may be poorer in micronutrients. Over the past decade, a considerable body of solid evidence has appeared, particularly from large prospective studies, that strongly  indicates that dietary sugar increases the risk of the development of obesity and type 2 diabetes, and probably cardiovascular disease too. These findings point to an especially strong causal relationship for the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs). The authors propose that an intake of added sugar of 10% of dietary energy is an acceptable upper limit. However, an intake of < 6% energy is preferable, especially in those at risk of the harmful effects of sugar, e.g. people who are overweight, have prediabetes, or who do not habitually consume fluoride (from drinking fluoridated water or using fluoridated toothpaste). This translates to a maximum intake of one serving (approximately 355 ml) of SSBs per day, if no other foods with added sugar are eaten. Beverages with added sugar should not be given to infants or to young children, especially in a feeding bottle. The current food-based dietary guideline is: \u201cUse foods and drinks containing sugar sparingly, and not between meals\u201d. This should remain unchanged. An excessive intake of sugar should be seen as a public health challenge that requires many approaches to be managed, including new policies and appropriate dietary advice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania Private Health Sector Assessment","field_subtitle":"SHOPS Project: Bethesda, MD: Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector Project, Abt Associates. 2013","field_url":"https://www.wbginvestmentclimate.org/advisory-services/health/health-in-africa/upload/TPHSA-Brief-2013.pdf","body":"The United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/Tanzania\r\ncommissioned the SHOPS project and the IFC-World Bank Health in Africa\r\nInitiative to conduct a private sector assessment of mainland Tanzania,\r\nin response to a request from the Public-Private Partnership Technical\r\nWorking Group (PPP-TWG) in Tanzania. The assessment is intended\r\nto assist the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to develop a\r\nprioritized agenda for more effectively engaging the private health sector\r\nand building public-private partnerships focused on the country\u2019s\r\nkey health challenges: HIV/AIDS, reproductive and child health, malaria,\r\nand tuberculosis. It notes that although the private health sector in Tanzania is smaller than in some east African countries, it is sizable, diverse, and actively engaged throughout the health system","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The demographics of human and malaria movement and migration patterns in East Africa","field_subtitle":"Pindolia DK, Garcia AJ, Huang Z, Smith DL, Alegana VA, Noor AM, Snow RW and Tatem AJ: Malaria Journal 12(397), 5 November 2013","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/12/1/397","body":"This paper explores parasite movements as a source of valuable information for planning control strategies for malaria. Mobile parasite carrying individuals can instigate transmission in receptive areas, spread drug resistant strains and reduce the effectiveness of control strategies. The identification of mobile groups, their routes of travel and how these movements connect differing transmission zones, potentially enables limited resources for interventions to be efficiently targeted over space, time and populations. National data on population and migration were linked to migration, travel, and other data to understand malaria movement patterns. Together with existing spatially referenced malaria data and mathematical models, network analysis techniques were used to quantify the demographics of human and malaria movement patterns in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Patterns of human and malaria movements varied between demographic groups, within country regions and between countries. Migration rates were highest in 20\u201330 year olds in all three countries, but when accounting for malaria prevalence, movements in the 10\u201320 year age group became more important. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The treatment action campaign and the three dimensions of lawyering: Reflections from the rainbow nation","field_subtitle":"Ahmad H: Journal of Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS 10(1) 16-24: March 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/saharaj/article/view/95107/84454","body":"The spread and perpetuation of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa has hindered the country\u2019s social and economic growth after apartheid. This paper documents experiences of interactions with the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), an organization which has taken a multidimensional approach in order to educate people about HIV/AIDS and to provide access to medicines. It  reports how TAC has used both traditional and non-traditional methods of advocacy to combat the epidemic and equate access to health care to a social justice issue by empowering marginalized communities. The author uses three dimensions of lawyering and equates TAC to a single cause lawyer, signifying that multi-dimensional activism is not limited to individuals, but can also be applied at the firm level. The three dimensions include: (a) advocacy through litigation, (b) advocacy in stimulating progressive change, and (c) advocacy as a pedagogic process. He suggests that TAC\u2019s multi-dimensional approach and its inherent practice of the three dimensions has contributed to its success and may be useful for other processes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Training Workshop on Participatory methods for a people centred health system, 7-10 October 2013","field_subtitle":"Training and Research Support Centre, COPASAH, EQUINET: December 2013","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRA%20Reg%20Mtg%20Rep%20Oct2013.pdf","body":"In 2013 TARSC through COPASAH and EQUINET held a regional workshop on Participatory Approaches to Strengthening People-Centred Health Systems in the east and southern Africa (ESA) region. The training brought together 28 delegates from 7 countries in east and southern Africa to discuss and deepen understanding on ways to strengthen primary health care through improved public involvement and health service accountability. The training came about because of a joint interest within all three lead organisations to explore how Participatory Reflection and Action (PRA) approaches could be used to raise community voice in strengthening the functioning and resourcing of primary health care (PHC) systems in the region ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding the factors influencing health-worker employment decisions in South Africa\t","field_subtitle":"George G,  Gow J and Bachoo S: Human Resources for Health 11 (15): 1-7, 2013","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/11/1/15","body":"The provision of health care in South Africa has been compromised by the loss of trained health workers (HWs) over the past 20 years. The public-sector workforce is overburdened. There is a large disparity in service levels and workloads between the private and public sectors. There is little knowledge about the nonfinancial factors that influence HWs choice of employer (public, private or nongovernmental organization) or their choice of work location (urban, rural or overseas). This paper aims to fill these gaps in the literature. The study utilized cross-sectional survey data gathered in 2009 in the province of KwaZulu-Natal from three public hospitals, two private hospitals and one nongovernmental organization hospital in urban areas, from professional nurses, staff nurses and nursing assistants. HWs in the public sector reported the poorest working conditions, as indicated by participants\u2019 self-reports on stress, workloads, levels of remuneration, standard of work premises, level of human resources and frequency of in-service training. Health workers in the non state sector expressed a greater desire than those in the public and private sectors to leave their current employer. Innovative efforts are required to address the causes of HWs dissatisfaction and to further identify the nonfinancial factors that influence work choices of HWs. The results highlight the importance of considering a broad range of nonfinancial incentives that encourage HWs to remain in the already overburdened public sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Watchdogs or Critical Friends?","field_subtitle":"Bourgoing R: AID Transparency, 3 December 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.bourgoing.com/en/2013/12/watchdogs-or-critical-friends/","body":"The field of transparency is packed with vocabulary that suggests opposition or conflict, with labels that imply, somehow, that the watchers are above the watched, like white knights fighting the dark forces of development aid, the corrupt and incompetent. However collaboration between watched and watchers may also offers a better chance of generating positive change, by understanding the political context of the activities being monitored, targeting the right people, in a non-threatening way, offering solutions as much as identifying problems. In other words, being a successful \u2018watchdog\u2019 is argued to be all about knowing how to approach different people in different circumstances to achieve mutually beneficial goals. This article explores how to build the demand side of aid transparency. It raises that beyond accessing relevant, timely and accurate data, is to learn to make use of it in a strategic way, with a constructive mind, taking into consideration local political dynamics, and the reality and psychology of the people whose performance one aims to monitor and improve.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"What is postcolonial thinking? An interview with Achille Mbembe","field_subtitle":"Mbembe A: African Health Sciences 11(1):2011","field_url":"http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2008-01-09-mbembe-en.html","body":"Talking to French magazine Esprit, theorist Achille Mbembe discusses a postcolonial thinking that has developed in a transnational, eclectic vein, enabling a specific take on globalization. He outlines three cardinal moments in the development of postcolonial thought. The first, of anti-colonial struggles, included the self-reflection by people of their colonization and debates on the relationship between class and race as factors. The discourse centred on the politics of autonomy,  to acquire citizen status and, thereby, to participate in the universal. The  second moment, around the 1980s, he outlines as the moment of \"high theory\",  with new thinking on knowledge about modernity. This understood the colonial project beyond its military-economic system, to one that was underpinned by a discursive infrastructure and a whole apparatus of knowledge the violence of which was as much epistemic as it was physical. The second post colopnial discourse sought to recover the voices and capabilities of decolonization's rejects (peasants, women, underprivileged people) and to better understand why the anti-colonial struggle led not to a radical transformation of society. Mbembe argues also argues that it sought to expose the procedures by which individuals are subjugated to categories of race and class that block access to the status of subject in history.   In the third moment,  Mbembe argues that globalisation has, as for  colonial capitalism, subjugated living spheres to economic appropriation, and that the \"colony\" was in fact a laboratory for the wider authoritarian destiny of  today\u2019s globalisation. He proposes that in this context the reinvention of politics in postcolonial conditions first requires people to reinvent their place in history, not in a logic of repeating the same violence as vengeance, but in a demand for a justice that supports an \"ascent in humanity\u201c.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2014-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"2013 Edition of the Zimbabwe Social Forum","field_subtitle":"Raylton Sports Club, Harare, 12-13th December 2013","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/zsfthemes%40gmail.com","body":"The Zimbabwe Social Forum is a space dedicated to those struggling against, and directly challenging corporate fascism, neo-liberalism and market-led globalization. The Event will be held at the Raylton Sports Club in Harare under the theme \u201cOur Resources, our Future!!!\u201d Reclaiming the Social Movements Agenda for Social and Economic Justice. Participating Thematic Clusters are as follows: Gender and Women\u2019s Rights; Debt and Trade; Students and Youths; Social Service Delivery; Labour; Media; Democracy and Rights; Natural Resources Governance; Health; Disability; Land, Environment and Climate Justice; Art s and Culture. Send enquiries to the email below.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A complete set of online resources for information activism and investigative journalism","field_subtitle":"Exposing the Invisible, November 2013","field_url":"https://exposingtheinvisible.org/resources/obtaining-evidence/","body":"This website should come under a section called many useful resources! It provides resources for people to use for research work. It provides links to various databases and tools, links to tools available to keep data safe; and an array of tools to learn how to efficiently communicate the conclusions of investigations, from data visualisation to animations, showing what others have done and how to find the most appropriate medium to display evidence. It provides resources for keeping the internet and communications tools secure. The site also provides links to sites that they hope will inspire. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A Universal Truth: No Health Without a Workforce - Third Global Forum on Human Resources for Health Report","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, Geneva, 2013. ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/knowledge/resources/hrhreport_summary_En_web.pdf","body":"This report is intended to inform proceedings at the Third Global Forum on Human Resources for Health and to inform a global audience and trigger momentum for action. It aims to consolidate what is known on human resources for health and how to attain, sustain and accelerate progress on universal health coverage. The report uses mixed methods in selecting, collating and analysing country data. This includes analysing the workforce data in the WHO Global Health Observatory, searches of human resources for health progress in 36 countries and horizon-scanning of \u201cbig picture\u201d challenges in the immediate future. The report presents a case that the health workforce is central to attaining, sustaining and accelerating progress on universal health coverage and suggests three guiding questions for decision-makers. What health workforce is required to ensure effective coverage of an agreed package of health care benefits? What health workforce is required to progressively expand coverage over time? How does a country produce, deploy and sustain a health workforce that is both fit for purpose and fit to practice in support of universal health coverage?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Analysis of human resources for health strategies and policies in 5 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, in response to GFATM and PEPFAR-funded HIV-activities","field_subtitle":"Cailhol J, Craveiro I, Madede T, Makoa E, Mathole T, Parsons AN, Van Leemput L, Biesma R, Brugha R, Chilundo B, Lehmann U, Dussault G, Van Damme W and Sanders D: Globalization and Health 9:52, 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/9/1/52","body":"Global Health Initiatives (GHIs), aiming at reducing the impact of specific diseases such as Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), have flourished since 2000. Since the need for additional human resources for health (HRH) was not initially considered by GHIs, countries, to allow ARV scale-up, implemented short-term HRH strategies, adapted to GHI-funding conditionality. Such strategies differed from one country to another and slowly evolved to long-term HRH policies. The processes and content of HRH policy shifts in 5 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa were examined. A multi-country study was conducted from 2007 to 2011 in 5 countries (Angola, Burundi, Lesotho, Mozambique and South Africa), to assess the impact of GHIs on the health system, using a mixed methods design. This paper focuses on the impact of GFATM and PEPFAR on HRH policies. In all countries successful ARV roll-out was observed, despite HRH shortages. This was a result of mostly short-term emergency response by GHI-funded Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and to a lesser extent by governments, consisting of using and increasing available HRH for HIV tasks. As challenges and limits of short-term HRH strategies were revealed and HIV became a chronic disease, the 5 countries slowly implemented mid to long-term HRH strategies, such as formalisation of pilot initiatives, increase in HRH production and mitigation of internal migration of HRH, sometimes in collaboration with GHIs. The authors conclude that sustainable HRH strengthening is a complex process, depending mostly on HRH production and retention factors, these factors being country-specific. GHIs could assist in these strategies, provided that they are flexible enough to incorporate country-specific needs in terms of funding, that they coordinate at global-level and minimise conditionality for countries. \r\n\t","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Annual Helen Kanzira Lecture: The Power of Advocacy","field_subtitle":"Mr Stephen Lewis: Hatfield Campus, University of Pretoria, 9 December 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/events/annual-helen-kanzira-lecture-power-advocacy-presented-mr-stephen-lewis","body":"This public lecture on \u2018The Power of Advocacy\u2019 will be presented by Mr Stephen Lewis, who will draw on his extensive international experience to illustrate the power of advocacy in the fight for social justice, reproductive rights, global health and gender equality. He is the co-founder and co-director of AIDS-Free World (www.aidsfreeworld.org), which is an international advocacy organisation that works to promote more urgent and more effective global responses to HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing communities of practice in health policy: a conceptual framework as a first step towards empirical research","field_subtitle":"Bertone MP, Meessen B, Clarysse G, Hercot D, Kelley A, Kafando Y, Lange I, Pfaffmann J, Ridde V, Sieleunou I and Witter S: Health Research Policy and Systems 11(39): 20 October 2013","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/11/1/39","body":"Communities of Practice (CoPs) are groups of people that interact regularly to deepen their knowledge on a specific topic. Thanks to information and communication technologies, CoPs can involve experts distributed across countries and adopt a \u2018transnational\u2019 membership. This has allowed the strategy to be applied to domains of knowledge such as health policy with a global perspective. CoPs represent a potentially valuable tool for producing and sharing explicit knowledge, as well as tacit knowledge and implementation practices. They may also be effective in creating links among the different \u2018knowledge holders\u2019 contributing to health policy (e.g., researchers, policymakers, technical assistants, practitioners, etc.). CoPs in global health are growing in number and activities. As a result, there is an increasing need to document their progress and evaluate their effectiveness. This paper represents a first step towards such empirical research as it aims to provide a conceptual framework for the analysis and assessment of transnational CoPs in health policy. The framework is developed based on the findings of a literature review as well as on the authors' experience, and reflects the specific features and challenges of transnational CoPs in health policy. It organizes the key elements of CoPs into a logical flow that links available resources and the capacity to mobilize them, with knowledge management activities and the expansion of knowledge, with changes in policy and practice and, ultimately, with an improvement in health outcomes. Additionally, the paper addresses the challenges in the operationalization and empirical application of the framework","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Balancing efficiency, equity and feasibility of HIV treatment in South Africa - development of programmatic guidance","field_subtitle":"Baltussen R, Mikkelsen E, Tromp N, Hurtig A, Byskov J, Olsen O, B\u00e6r\u00f8e K, Hontelez JA, Singh J and Norheim OF: Cost Effective Resource Allocation 11 (1): 26, 9 October 2013","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24107435","body":"South Africa, the country with the largest HIV epidemic worldwide, has been scaling up treatment since 2003 and is rapidly expanding its eligibility criteria. The HIV treatment programme has achieved significant results, and had 1.8 million people on treatment per 2011. Despite these achievements, it is now facing major concerns regarding (i) efficiency: alternative treatment policies may save more lives for the same budget; (ii) equity: there are large inequalities in who receives treatment; (iii) feasibility: still only 52% of the eligible population receives treatment. the authors argue there are two reasons for this. First, priority setting decisions on HIV treatment are argued to fail to capture the broad range of values that stakeholders have. Second, priority setting on HIV treatment is a highly political process without adequate participatory processes in place to incorporate stakeholders' views and evidence. They propose an alternative approach that integrates procedural fairness and a multi-criteria decision analysis that assesses feasibility, efficiency, and equity of programme options, including trade-offs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Chronic non-communicable disease and healthcare access in middle-aged and older women living in Soweto, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Lopes Ibanez-Gonzalez D and Norris SA: PLoS One 8(10), 29 October 2013","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3812146/","body":"This study described the healthcare access, beliefs, and practices of middle-aged and older women residing in Soweto, South Africa. The study instrument was administered to 1102 caregivers. Over half the respondents reported having at least one chronic non-communicable disease (NCD), only a third of whom reported accessing a healthcare service in the last six months. Reported availability of private medical practice and government clinics was high (75% and 62% respectively). The low utilisation of healthcare services by women with NCDs is a concern for health care management. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Community perceptions of health insurance and their preferred design features: implications for the design of universal health coverage reforms in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Mulupi S, Kirigia D and Chuma J: BMC Health Services Research 13: 474, 12 November 2013","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24219335","body":"Kenya has been considering introducing a national health insurance scheme (NHIS) since 2004. This study contributes to this process by exploring communities' understanding and perceptions of health insurance and their preferred designs features. Data collection methods included a cross-sectional household survey and focus group discussions. About half of the household survey respondents had at least one member in a health insurance scheme. There was high awareness of health insurance but limited knowledge of how it functions or of key concepts related to income and risk cross-subsidization. Wide dissatisfaction with the public health system was reported. However, the government was the most preferred and trusted agency for collecting revenue as part of a NHIS. People preferred a comprehensive benefit package that included inpatient and outpatient care with no co-payments. Affordability of premiums, timing of contributions and the extent to which population needs would be met under a contributory scheme were major issues of concern for a NHIS design. Possibilities of funding health care through tax instead of NHIS were raised and preferred by the majority. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Conference on Rights of Women in Africa","field_subtitle":"Pretoria, South Africa, 9 - 10 December 2013","field_url":"http://www1.chr.up.ac.za/index.php/rights-of-women-in-africa.html","body":"The Centre for Human Rights at the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, is hosting an international conference to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples\u2019 Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa on 8 - 9 December 2013. Commemorating the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples\u2019 Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa: Exploring possibilities for promoting women\u2019s sexual and reproductive rights. The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples\u2019 Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (also called the \u2018Maputo Protocol\u2019) was adopted in 2003 and entered into force in 2005. It has now been ratified by two-thirds of AU member states. One of the most important provisions of the Protocol is article 14, dealing with the health and reproductive rights of women. The conference will reflect on these and other innovative aspects of the Protocol.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Contribution of community-based newborn health promotion to reducing inequities in healthy newborn care practices and knowledge: evidence of improvement from a three-district pilot program in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Callaghan-Koru JA, Nonyane BAS, Guenther T, Sitrin D, Ligowe R, Chimbalanga E, Zimba E, Kachale F, Shah R and Baqui AH: BMC Public Health 13:1052. November 2013. ","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/13/1052/abstract","body":"Inequities in both health status and coverage of health services are considered important barriers to achieving Millennium Development Goal 4. Community-based health promotion is a strategy that is believed to reduce inequities in rural low-income settings. This paper examines the contributions of community-based programming to improving the equity of newborn health in three districts in Malawi. This study is a before-and-after evaluation of Malawi's Community-Based Maternal and Newborn Care (CBMNC) program, a package of facility and community-based interventions to improve newborn health. Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs) within the catchment area of 14 health facilities were trained to make pregnancy and postnatal home visits to promote healthy behaviours and assess women and newborns for danger signs requiring referral to a facility. Core groups of community volunteers were also trained to raise awareness about recommended newborn care practices. Baseline and endline household surveys measured the coverage of the intervention and targeted health behaviours for this before-and-after evaluation. Wealth indices were constructed using household asset data and concentration indices were compared between baseline and endline for each indicator. Despite modest coverage levels for the intervention, health equity improved significantly over the study period for several indicators. Greater improvements in inequities were observed for knowledge indicators than for coverage of routine health services. Although these results indicate promising improvements for newborn health in Malawi, the extent to which the programme contributed to these improvements in coverage and equity are not known. The strategies through which community-based programs are implemented likely play an important role in their ability to improve equity, and further research and monitoring are needed to ensure that the poorest households are reached by community-based health programs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Costs of providing food assistance to HIV/AIDS patients in Sofala province, Mozambique: a retrospective analysis","field_subtitle":"Posse M and Baltussen R: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 11(20): 28 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/11/1/20","body":"As care and antiretroviral treatment (ART) for people living with HIV become widely available, the number of people accessing these resources also increases. Despite this exceptional progress, the estimated coverage in low- and middle-income countries is still less than half of all people who need treatment. In addition, treatment discontinuation and non-adherence are still concerns for ART programs. This study assessed the costs of a program providing food assistance to patients with HIV in Sofala province, Mozambique, in 2009. The authors performed a retrospective analysis of the costs of providing food assistance, based on financial and economic costs. The food distribution program was found to carry significant costs at $288 per patient over 3 months. To assess whether it provides value for money, the study results should be interpreted in conjunction with the program\u2019s impact, and in comparison with other programs that aim to improve adherence to ART. The authors' costing analysis also revealed important management information, indicating that the program incurred relatively large overhead costs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Dakar Financing Summit for Africa\u2019s Infrastructure Development ","field_subtitle":"NEPAD Agency and African Union Commission: 13-14 December 2013, Dakar Senegal","field_url":"http://www.dakar-nepadsummit.org","body":"On 13 and 14 December 2013, the Government of Senegal will host the \u201cDakar Financing Summit\u201d on Africa\u2019s infrastructure. African Heads of State and Government, influential business leaders and financiers will meet to provide concrete outcomes to accelerate financial investments for priority regional infrastructure projects on the continent. The Summit is a rallying call for the public and private sectors to partner towards infrastructure development in Africa. The Dakar Financing Summit is organized by the NEPAD Agency and African Union Commission, in collaboration with the African Development Bank (ADB) and UNECA. To register go to the website given. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Decisions and Declarations of Extraordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union","field_subtitle":"African Union: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 12 October 2013 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nn4xukg","body":"This document presents the decisions and declarations of Extraordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union 12 October 2013 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Delivering UHC: what role for the for-profit private sector? LSHTM, Oxfam, London, 4 April 2014","field_subtitle":"Call for papers: Call closes 13 December 2013","field_url":"http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/events/2014/04/delivering-universal-health-coverage-conference","body":"LSHTM and Oxfam are inviting proposals for conference papers on the role of the for-profit private sector in delivering Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in low and middle income countries. The conference will take place at the LSHTM in London, UK on 4 April 2014. The conference will bring together academics, policy makers and civil society to explore evidence on the role and contribution of the for-profit private sector in scaling up access to achieve UHC. The organisers are seeking papers that demonstrate promising and innovative examples of for-profit private sector health care delivery in low- and middle-income countries that have made a significant and positive contribution to closing the health care gap and advancing UHC. Papers exploring examples from high-income countries will also be considered. Papers can have a country or regional (e.g. Africa/ Asia/ Europe/ Caucasus/ Latin America) focus and should pay particular attention to how for-profit providers expand access to quality and effective services for under-served  populations as well as the challenges they face in doing so.  Papers will also be considered that explore the specific role of for-profit providers within country wide successful advances towards UHC. Abstracts should be submitted as email attachments to deliveringuhc@oxfam.org.uk in English. All conference proceedings will be conducted in English. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Despite the state's violence, our fight to escape the mud and fire of South Africa's slums will continue","field_subtitle":"S'bu Zikode, Abahlali baseMjondolo, The Guardian, 11 November 2013 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/n7mqn6p","body":"Abahlali baseMjondolo formed in 2005 has more than 12,000 members in more than 60 shack settlements. The organisation campaigns against evictions, and for public housing: struggling for a world in which human dignity comes before private profit, and land, cities, wealth and power are shared fairly. The article by the founder of Abahlali baseMjondolo expresses people's frustration with lack of delivery on rights to free housing, free education and free healthcare in urban South Africa, and the consequent resolve to take direct action to move rights from paper to reality, from abstract to concrete.  While they acknowledge that this brings risk to their members, the author raises frustration with political and civil society processes, they also argue that they no choice but to take their own place in the cities and in the political life of the country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Dietary diversity of formal and informal residents in Johannesburg, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Drimie S, Faber M, Vearey J and Nunez L: BMC Public Health 13(911): 2 October 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/13/911","body":"This paper considers the question of dietary diversity as a proxy for nutrition insecurity in communities living in the inner city and the urban informal periphery in Johannesburg. It argues that the issue of nutrition insecurity demands urgent and immediate attention by policy makers. A cross-sectional survey was undertaken for households from urban informal and urban formal areas in Johannesburg, South Africa. Foods consumed by the respondents the previous day were used to calculate a Dietary Diversity Score. Respondents from informal settlements consumed mostly cereals and meat/poultry/fish, while respondents in formal settlements consumed a more varied diet. Significantly more respondents living in informal settlements consumed a diet of low diversity versus those in formal settlements. When grouped in quintiles, two-thirds of respondents from informal settlements fell in the lowest two, versus 15% living in formal settlements. Respondents in the informal settlements were more nutritionally vulnerable. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 100: Laws on management of public and private funds for health in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Bhala B: EQUINET,  Harare, November 2013","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss%20100%20Zim%20laws%20on%20funds%20Sep2013.pdf","body":"This report provides a legal analysis of the provisions for institutional management of earmarked funds in health, drawing on the laws in Zimbabwe in terms of: 1. The legal definition and current law covering public funds; 2. Obligations in relation to the establishment of funds; 3. The oversight and governance of funds, including the powers, duties and responsibilities of the different parties involved in the control, management, protection and recovery of public funds, in relation to governance of funds and the measures and sanctions related to financial misconduct; 4. The collection, pooling, allocation and expenditure of funds, including duties and responsibilities in relation to collection, receipt, custody, control, issue or expenditure of public money, and in relation to management, audit and obligations of officers managing public funds; and 5. The reporting on funds and measures for transparency and accountability ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Distance learning course on occupational safety and health, 9 February 2014 \u2013 31 July 2014","field_subtitle":"Applications close: 20 January 2014","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/kxv6aej","body":"The International Training Centre of the International Labour\r\nOrganization (ILO) is offering a distance learning course on OSH delivered through an internet based platform. The proposed programme will incorporate the international ILO experience on OSH and the ITC-ILO\u2019s international training experience applied to the methodology. This programme is addressed to participants of both developing and developed countries, who will thus have an opportunity to share their different experiences. People interested in participating should complete and submit the application form available on the website http://socialprotection.itcilo.org/forms/A977128/ not later than 20 January 2014. Applications should be accompanied by a nomination letter from the sponsoring institution indicating how the participant will be financed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Eliminating Women and Girls Sexual and Reproductive Health Vulnerabilities in Africa","field_subtitle":"February 3 \u2013 7, 2014 | Yaound\u00e9, Cameroon","field_url":"http://www.africasexuality.org/?page_id=1167","body":"The Sixth Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights will be held in Yaound\u00e9, Cameroon from February 3 \u2013 7, 2014, and hosted by the Women in Alternative Action (WAA), Cameroon. The theme of the conference is \u201cEliminating Women and Girls Sexual and Reproductive Health Vulnerabilities in Africa\u201d. The conference is part of a long-term process of building and fostering regional dialogue on sexual health and rights that leads to concrete action that will enhance stakeholders\u2019 ability to influence policy and programming in favour of a sexuality healthy continent including that of the African Union and its bodies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 154: No Progress towards Universal Health without Health Workers: A Civil Society Commitment ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in maternal health in South Africa: analysis of health service access and health status in a national household survey","field_subtitle":"Wabiri N, Chersich M, Zuma K, Blaauw D, Goudge J and Dwane N: PLoS One 8(9), 6 September 2013","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3765324/","body":"South Africa is increasingly focused on reducing maternal mortality and documenting variation in access to maternal health services across one of is argued to assist in re-direction of resources. Analysis draws on a population-based household survey that used multistage-stratified sampling. Women, who in the past two years were pregnant (1113) or had a child (1304), completed questionnaires and HIV testing. Distribution of access to maternal health services and health status across socio-economic, education and other population groups was assessed using weighted data. Poorest women had near universal antenatal care coverage (ANC), but only 40% attended before 20 weeks gestation; higher in the wealthiest quartile. Women in rural-formal areas had lowest ANC coverage, completion of four ANC visits and share offered HIV testing. Testing levels were highest among the poorest quartile, but 10% of women above 40 or with low education had never tested. Skilled birth attendant coverage was lowest in the poorest quartile and rural formal areas. Around two thirds of the wealthiest quartile, of white and of formally-employed women had a doctor at childbirth, 11-fold higher than the poorest quartile. Self-reported health status declined considerably with each drop in quartile, education level or age group. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Fuelling Poverty","field_subtitle":"Buni TV, November 2013","field_url":"http://buni.tv/video/fuelling-poverty","body":"This short documentary by Ishaya Bako and Oliver Aleogena, and featuring  Nobel Prize laureate Wole Soyinka, provides an insight into the Nigerian fuel subsidy. The film presents the social government spending from the subsidy and presents the reasons for its removal and how this has plunged many Nigerians into poverty. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health and Human Rights Database","field_subtitle":"Lawyers Collective and the O'Neill Institute","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthrights.org/","body":"The Global Health and Human Rights Database is a free and fully searchable online database of more than 1000 judgments, constitutions and international instruments on the intersection between health and human rights. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health in Africa over the next 50 Years","field_subtitle":"Ncube M, Abou-Sabaa A, Lufumpa CL and Soucat  A:  African Development Bank, March 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/l9ds4d8","body":"This report reviews the progress made in the health sector in Africa over the last 50 years, in terms of health outcomes, and particularly in the\r\nutilization of, and access to, healthcare services. The current challenges faced by the health sector are assessed, and the discussion lays the groundwork for projections regarding the future of healthcare in Africa over the next 50 years.  The authors outline that the private sector has been playing an increasingly important role in health financing in Africa, and that in some countries, such as Angola and Mali, all private expenditure is direct payments from households. Lack of continuity in policy, lack of resources, poor management of available resources, and poor policy implementation are identified as major impediments to improving the health systems. The private sector is playing a major role in the delivery of health services to citizens, yet dialogue and the sharing of information between the private and public sector is rare. They indicate that in addition to scaling up public spending, there needs to be a drive to ensure better value for money throughout the health system. They also suggest that The health sector will become a labor-intensive industry that can provide an estimated 2\u20133 million skilled jobs for young Africans and contribute to economic growth on the continent. As the pharmaceutical, medical technologies, and ICT segments develop, there will be more opportunities in research and development, manufacturing, sales and distribution. Within this industry, other opportunities will be driven by the hospital, health insurance, and medical education segments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"How AIDS Invented Global Health","field_subtitle":"Brandt AM: The New England Journal of Medicine 368(23): 2149-2152, 6 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1305297","body":"This paper presents how the changes wrought by HIV have affected research, clinical practice, and policy. The AIDS epidemic provided the foundation for a revolution that upended traditional approaches to international health, replacing them with innovative global approaches to disease. Over the past half-century, historians have used episodes of epidemic disease to investigate scientific, social, and cultural change. Underlying this approach is the recognition that disease, and especially responses to epidemics, offers fundamental insights into scientific and medical practices, as well as social and cultural values.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How to Keep the Ambition and Complexity, Be Less Fuzzy and Get More Traction","field_subtitle":"Lipovsek V, Rajani R: Oxfam Blog October 11 2013","field_url":"http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=16237","body":"This article poses reflections from two leads of Twaweza, an east African non government organisation, on their approaches and work, particularly in response to a series of blogs on this by D Green (Oxfam GB advisor. They reflect on learning on citizen action; and on the need to better articulate what is meant by citizen action, including private v public and individual v collective. \"In essence, this is a move away from an unexplained \u201cmagic sauce\u201d model where we feed some inputs (i.e. information) into a complex system, hope twaweza-logothat the (self-selecting, undifferentiated) citizens will stir it themselves, and voila \u2013 a big outcome (such as increased citizen monitoring of services, and improved service delivery) will somehow pop out on the other end\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"HRH Global Resource Center eLearning Platform","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hrhresourcecenter.org/elearning","body":"Capacity plus provides free online courses to build the capacity of country-based users in critical skills. The courses include \r\n\u2022 Designing Evidence-Based Incentives to Attract and Retain Health Workers\r\n\u2022 An Introduction to Monitoring and Evaluation of HRH\r\n\u2022 Foundations of Gender Equality in the Health Workforce, and \r\n\u2022 iHRIS Administrator: Level 1","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"ICASA Conference 2013","field_subtitle":"CTICC, Cape Town, South Africa 7-11 December 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.icasa2013southafrica.org/","body":"The conference theme \u201cNow More Than Ever: Targeting Zero\u201d is derived from the UNAIDS\u2019 vision of striving for \u201cZero new HIV infections. Zero discrimination. Zero AIDS-related deaths\u201d, but it also highlights the need to \u201cnow more than ever\u201d maintain the commitment to ensure access to treatment for everyone in Africa irrespective of their ability to pay for such treatment. The hosting of this Conference in South Africa is highly symbolic as it was in South Africa during the XIIIth International AIDS in 2000 that a turning point was reached in breaking the silence around AIDS in Africa, which resulted in an unprecedented commitment by donors, government and civil society to increase access to treatment in an attempt to turn the tide of this epidemic. The 17th ICASA is an opportunity to renew this global commitment by drawing the world\u2019s attention to the fact that the legacy is now under threat as a result of the global economic downturn. This year\u2019s ICASA is an opportunity for the international community, and all Africans, to join efforts in committing to achieving an AIDS-free Africa. Given the urgency of the issue we are anticipating 7 000 -10 000 of the world\u2019s leading scientists,policy makers, activists, PLHIV, government leaders \u2013 as well as a number of heads of state and civil society representatives \u2013 will be joining the debate on how to achieve this vision.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"ICPD Beyond 2014 Declaration Affirms Africa\u2019s Commitments to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights","field_subtitle":"High Level Task Force for ICPD, Addis Ababa, October 10, 2013","field_url":"http://www.icpdtaskforce.org/pdf/2013-10-04-Declaration-on-Population-and-Development-in-Africa-beyond-2014.pdf","body":"Following a week of intense negotiations, the Addis Ababa Declaration on Population and Development in Africa beyond 2014 was adopted on Friday, October 4, at the conclusion of the Ministerial Segment of the African Regional Conference on Population and Development. The declaration contains strong commitments by African States on sexual and reproductive health and rights. It calls for universal access to sexual and reproductive health information and services, with particular attention to the needs of adolescents, as well as emergency contraception, comprehensive sexuality education and critical services for survivors of violence against women and girls. It does not, however, call explicitly for the elimination of discrimination and violence in Africa based on sexual orientation and gender identity. At the press conference, the Task Force condemned the violence and discrimination endured by women and men in Africa based on their sexual orientation and gender identity. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Intersectoral action for health equity: a rapid systematic review","field_subtitle":"Ndumbe-Eyoh S and Moffatt H: BMC Public Health 13:1056. November 2013. ","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/13/1056/abstract","body":"Action on the social determinants of health is considered a necessary approach to improving health equity. Case studies of intersectoral action are available, however there is limited information about the impact of intersectoral action on the social determinants of health and health equity. Search and retrieval of literature published between 2001 and 2011 was conducted in 6 databases.  17 articles of varied methodological quality met the inclusion criteria. One systematic review investigating partnership interventions found mixed and limited impacts on health outcomes. Primary studies evaluating the impact of upstream and midstream interventions showed mixed effects. Downstream interventions were generally moderately effective in increasing the availability and use of services by marginalized communities.  The literature evaluating the impact of intersectoral action on health equity is limited. The included studies identified reveal a moderate to no effect on the social determinants of health. The evidence on the impact of intersectoral action on health equity is even more limited. The lack of evidence should not be interpreted as a lack of effect. Rigorous evaluations of intersectoral action are needed to strengthen the evidence base of this public health practice. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Linkages across the continuum of HIV services for key populations affected by HIV","field_subtitle":"Call for applicants: Call closes 16 December 2013","field_url":"http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/search-grants.html","body":"USAID invites applications to carry out a five year, $72 million, global program to strengthen the capacity of governments and civil society in partner countries to implement high quality, sustainable, evidence-based and comprehensive HIV and AIDS prevention, care and treatment services with key populations at scale. Grant number SOL-OAA-14-000013","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Localization of health systems in low- and middle-income countries in response to long-term increases in energy prices","field_subtitle":"Dalglish SL, Poulsen MN and Winch PJ: Globalization and Health 9:56. November 2013. ","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/9/1/56/abstract","body":"External challenges to health systems, such as those caused by global economic, social and environmental changes, have received little attention in recent debates on health systems\u2019 performance in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). One such challenge in coming years will be increasing prices for petroleum-based products as production from conventional petroleum reserves peaks and demand steadily increases in rapidly-growing LMICs. Health systems are significant consumers of fossil fuels in the form of petroleum-based medical supplies; transportation of goods, personnel and patients; and fuel for lighting, heating, cooling and medical equipment. Long-term increases in petroleum prices in the global market will have potentially devastating effects on health sectors in LMICs who already struggle to deliver services to remote parts of their catchment areas. The authors propose the concept of \u201clocalization,\u201d originating in the environmental sustainability literature, as one element of response to these challenges. Localization assigns people at the local level a greater role in the production of goods and services, thereby decreasing reliance on fossil fuels and other external inputs. Effective localization will require changes to governance structures within the health sector in LMICs, empowering local communities to participate in their own health in ways that have remained elusive since this goal was first put forth in the Alma-Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care in 1978. Experiences with decentralization policies in the decades following Alma-Ata offer lessons on defining roles and responsibilities, building capacity at the local level, and designing appropriate policies to target inequities, all of which can guide health systems to adapt to a changing environmental and energy landscape.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Masculine attitudes of superiority deter men from accessing antiretroviral therapy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Nyamhanga TM, Muhondwa EP and Shayo R: Global Health Action (6), 22 October 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3807014/","body":"This article presents part of the findings from a larger study that sought to assess the role that gender relations play in influencing equity regarding access and adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART). Review of the literature has indicated that, in Southern and Eastern Africa, fewer men than women have been accessing ART, and the former start using ART late, after HIV has already been allowed to advance. The main causes for this gender gap have not yet been fully explained. To explore how masculinity norms limit men's access to ART in Dar es Salaam, the authors implemented a qualitative study, with a stratified purposive sampling and a thematic analysis. The findings revealed that men's hesitation to visit the care and treatment clinics can be related to norms of masculinity that require men to avoid displaying weakness. Since men are the heads of families and have higher social status, they reported feeling embarrassed at having to visit the care and treatment clinics. Specifically, male respondents indicated that going to a care and treatment clinic may raise suspicion about their status of living with HIV, which in turn may compromise their leadership position and cause family instability. Because of this tendency towards 'hiding', the few men who register at the public care and treatment clinics do so late, when HIV-related signs and symptoms are already far advanced. They argue that HIV control programmes need to factor in the deconstruction of such norms of masculinity. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Masters in occupational safety and health (3rd edition), English; Distance + Turin, 8 September 2014 \u2013 30 September 2015","field_subtitle":"Call for applicants: Closing date 31 May 2014  ","field_url":"http://osh.itcilo.org/","body":"The University of Turin, Italy, in partnership with the International Training Centre (ITC) of the International Labour Organization (ILO), is offering a Master course in Occupational Safety and Health. This one-year programme, to be held in English, includes an Internet-based distance learning phase, a face-to-face residential period on the ITC/ILO's campus in Turin followed by another  distance phase for the preparation of the dissertation. The proposed programme combines the advantages of the academic experience in OSH of Turin University with the ITC/ILO's international training experience. An international approach has been applied to the contents, the methodology development as well as to the composition of the training team.  This programme involves participants from both developing and developed countries, who will thus have an opportunity to share their different experiences. Applicants to visit the website for information on applications. A number of partial fellowships are available only for participants from developing countries on a competitive basis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Migration of South African health workers: the extent to which financial considerations influence internal flows and external movements","field_subtitle":"George G, Atujuna M, Gow J: BMC Health Services Research 2013, 13:297  ","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/297","body":"The loss of human resource capacity has had a severe impact on the health system in South Africa. This study investigates the causes of migration focussing on the role of salaries and benefits. Health professionals from public, private and non-governmental (NGO) health facilities located in selected peri\u2013urban and urban areas in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa were surveyed about their current positions and attitudes toward migration.  The study uses cross-sectional data collected in 2009. A total of 694 health professionals (430 in the public sector, 133 in the NGO sector and 131 in the private sector) were surveyed. An additional 11 health professionals were purposively selected for in-depth interviews. Odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals were calculated to determine whether salaries influenced HWs decisions to migrate.  HWs decision to move was not positively associated with lower salaries. It was found, instead, that the consideration to move was determined by other factors including age, levels of stress experienced and the extent to which they were satisfied at their current place of work.  The OSD appears to have lowered the risk of HWs migrating due to low salaries. However, the results also indicate that the South African Department of Health needs to improve working conditions for HWs within the public health sector to assist in retention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Miracles Do Happen in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Lee R: Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa: 6 November 2013","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/201311060732.html","body":"This article reports Zambia's First Lady, Dr Christine Kaseba-Sata, calling for an end to discrimination against sexual minorities. Speaking at a UNAIDS hosted reception, she said that the \"silence around issues of Men who have Sex with Men should be stopped and no one should be discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation. Rather, we should address reproductive health issues around this issue.\" She went further to assure people working in the sexual and reproductive health sector of her and the president's support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"No Progress towards Universal Health without Health Workers: A Civil Society Commitment ","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, EPHA, HPA, Health Workers for All and All for Health Workers, ALAMES , MMI, PHM, PSI, CHESTRAD and WEMOS: 3rd Global Forum on Human Resources for Health, Recife, November 12 2013 ","field_url":"","body":"At the 3rd Global Forum on Human Resources for Health, Recife, Brazil, November 2013 a group of civil society organisations and regional networks produced a statement of commitment on the key role of health workers in universal systems. The statement from EQUINET, European Public Health Alliance, Health Poverty Action, Health Workers for All and All for Health Workers, Latin-America Association of Social Medicine ALAMES , Medicus Mundi International Network MMI, People\u2019s Health Movement PHM, Public Services International PSI, The Centre for Health Sciences Training, Research and Development CHESTRAD and WEMOS is shown below. \r\n\r\nThe health workforce crisis remains a core barrier to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for health with only 31% and 12% respectively of 75 Countdown countries likely to attain MDGs 4 and 5. Despite donor and country commitments at the 1st and 2nd Global Forums on Human Resources for Health, the global health workers\u2019 shortage persists. Of the 57 countries identified as falling below the WHO target only 19 have seen an improvement in their aggregate health worker density. Earlier commitments to increase domestic resources or external aid, as well as implementation of the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel, remain largely unfulfilled. \r\n\r\nNational and international funds have been channelled to strengthen health workforce programs, like task shifting and the scaling-up of community health worker\u2019s programmes. However, too little investment has been targeted at the recurrent costs of health workforce development, for instance on salaries, education and social protection measures for health workers. The inequitable distribution of health workers through increased mobility and migration within and between countries adversely affects access to health. \r\n\r\nHealth workers and a robust health system are essential for universal health coverage (UHC), and realizing the right to health through universal health systems. \r\n\r\nTherefore at the 3rd Global Forum on Human Resources for Health in Recife, Brazil, we, the undersigned representatives of civil society organizations hereby commit that we will: \r\n\u2022\tHelp amplify the voices of health workers, especially those at the lower levels of care and support their work to influence national and global health policies and plans. \r\n\u2022\tAssist local civil society organizations to ensure their voices are heard in global and national health workforce policy discussions. \r\n\u2022\tAssist in strengthening the capacity of patient groups to advocate for equitable and quality services staffed by sufficient, competent and equipped health workers at all levels of care. \r\n\u2022\tRecognise the gender dimensions of the health workforce and champion the rights of women health workers, and \r\n\r\nTo catalyse a strong movement for health workers, we will: \r\n\u2022\tAdvocate for governments at all levels to institute plans and allocate adequate resources for human resources for health (HRH) to ensure that every person has access to a trained, supported and equipped health worker. \r\n\u2022\tPress bilateral and multilateral organizations and civil society actors to increase health workforce development efforts and financing, including of national training institutions, in alignment with government plans. \r\n\u2022\tWork with training institutions, professional and regulatory bodies to achieve quality in health worker education, including on the social determinants, so that every health worker is competent to provide quality care and accountable to the populations they serve. \r\nStrengthen the advocacy of health workers and civil society for improved infrastructure, support and working conditions \r\n\u2022\tSupport the development of a strong, motivated, public workforce to counter some of the ill- effects of an increasingly globalised, inequitable and unstable economy and rapidly changing health and demographic patterns. \r\n\u2022\tCommit our own resources and expertise to assist in converting HRH policy and plans into action. \r\n\r\nTo ensure accountable HRH systems at national and global levels, we will: \r\n\u2022\tWork with governments, the Global Health Workforce Alliance, the World Health Organization, and other stakeholders to develop mechanisms to measure progress towards improved and equitable access to competent health workers \r\n\u2022\tMonitor and report on progress of public HRH commitments made by global actors and governments. \r\n\u2022\tAssist citizens and health workers in developing strategies to enhance accountability of national and global actors and challenge inequitable policies that impact on HRH development. \r\n\u2022\tIncrease transparency of our programmatic and technical contributions to national HRH strategies and attempt to reduce onerous reporting requirements placed on countries. We will commit ourselves to supporting a strong public sector for health workforce development and be accountable in our own funding and technical programs to mitigate the \u2018internal brain drain\u2019 from the public to the private sector. \r\n\r\nWe will hold donors, government and multilateral actors accountable to: \r\n\u2022\tEnsure that economic governance arrangements and fiscal space enables the development of a strong national health workforce as a long-term investment in the wellbeing of the people and the economy of a country. The return on investment to employ a health worker is many times higher than to bail out a bank. \r\n\u2022\tProvide the leadership, resources and stewardship needed to fulfil commitments made to urgently and effectively address the health workforce crisis and ensure improved and equitable access for every person to competent health services. \r\n\u2022\tBy 2015, develop, finance, and implement HRH action plans, including strengthening national training institutions, with concrete targets and integrate them into national health plans. \r\n\u2022\tEnsure that health workers and civil society organizations are active partners in the health workforce policies, planning and development. \r\n\u2022\tPromote equitable access to health care by investing especially in health workers at primary and community levels and in community structures to facilitate citizens\u2019 voices. \r\n\u2022\tImprove investment in health workforce development, including salaries and social protection, and in national training institutions in order to rapidly increase numbers of HRH. \r\n\u2022\tAssist in development of robust HRH information systems to facilitate improved planning and management and \r\n\u2022\tRespect and implement the Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel including additional enforceable legislation and redistribution mechanisms to compensate for the international \u2018brain drain\u2019 that exacerbates global health inequalities. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit www.equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Promoting social security and prevention of occupational diseases in Africa ","field_subtitle":"Konkolewsky HH: African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety 23 (2):28-30, August 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/q4nrb9x","body":"Occupational diseases are posing an ever increasing challenge to workers\u2019 compensation systems. Out of the 2.34 million annual work-related deaths reported by the International Labour Organization (ILO) , the vast majority \u2013 approximately 2.02 million \u2013 are due to work-related diseases. As a consequence, occupational safety and health policy is shifting from an injury and accident centered approach to one that increasingly is occupational disease focused. To effectively address occupational diseases (ODs), many social security organizations responsible for insuring and compensating these risks are adopting a more proactive and preventive approach. Their leitmotif can best be described as \u2018prevention is better than compensation\u2019. Adopting such an approach also forms part of a broader understanding of the role that social security can play in promoting and shaping a national prevention culture. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Re-examining \u2018Zero Tolerance\u2019 Child Labour Policies in Africa","field_subtitle":"Lisa Nho: Africa Portal, July 17, 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/p9qzgrr","body":"Globally, many human rights NGOs seek to expose the dire situations where children work at a young age, often under exploitative conditions and without adequate compensation. According to the International Labour Organization, child labour occurs most frequently in Sub-Saharan Africa \u2014 28 percent of all 5-14 year-olds are engaged in paid and unpaid work across the continent, compared to 14 percent in Asia and 9 percent for Latin America. The author argues that what\u2019s often missing from these official statistics, however, are routine household work activities that are less visible than those in the industrial sector. These less conspicuous types of labour are varied and, despite the potential for violations to go unseen, can sometimes be part of a healthy childhood. The distinction between \u2018child work\u2019 (less harmful work that may have beneficial impacts on a child\u2019s development) and \u2018child labour\u2019 (blatantly hazardous forms of work that disrupt the healthy development of a child), can therefore be a helpful one to make.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional Meeting On Health Centre Committees, 30 January - 1 February 2014, Harare, Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Training and Research Support Centre, with Community Working Group on Heath and Medico Germany","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/meetings.php","body":"Health Centre committees (HCCs) (known by a range of names) are mechanisms that exist at community and primary care level for co-determination by communities and health workers on their health systems and on PHC. In January 2014 EQUINET through TARSC and with CWGH is holding a regional meeting on the role of health centre committees in primary health care. The regional workshop includes organisations doing work on training and strengthening HCCs in east and southern African countries. It aims to exchange and document information on the laws, capacities, training materials used, and monitoring systems used in HCCs, and to develop a shared monitoring framework for assessing how HCCs are functioning. Sponsorship for the workshop is now closed but EQUINET invites self funded delegates who may wish to attend to contact admin@equinetafrica.org.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Right to Food seminar presentations","field_subtitle":"Section 27: November 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nqrjor2","body":"SECTION27 hosted a Right to Food seminar on the 4th of November. This afforded the organisation and other stakeholders the opportunity to form a strategy to ensure the realisation of this critical but legislatively and judicially undefined right. The presentations given during the seminar can be accessed on the site. Attendees came from numerous organisations such as Action Aid, New Women\u2019s Movement, COPAC, the Treatment Action Campaign, Foundation for Human Rights, Lawyers for Human Rights and Wits university.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"So what should Twaweza do differently? How accountability work is evolving","field_subtitle":"Green D: Oxfam GB, Blog post October 31 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=16205","body":"This blog discusses issues and seven lessions raised by evaluations of the theory of change and first four years of work by an East African NGO, Twaweza. The author comments that research by groups like the Africa Power and Politics Programme and Matt Andrews argues that both demand side (build the citizens) and supply side (build the state) have failed in generating change. What works, they think, is collective problem solving, bringing together citizens, states and anyone else with skin in the game, to build trust and find solutions. People on the ground, like Goreti Nakabugo, Twaweza\u2019s Uganda coordinator, get this: \u2018we know we need buy-in from the government, officials, local politicians. We are brokering relationships with them on a daily basis\u2019. Not only that, but in practice, even differentiating between citizen and state can be problematic \u2013 neither category is a monolith, and in some cases, the most active citizens are themselves state employees, members of public trade unions etc.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal health coverage: Beyond rhetoric","field_subtitle":"Sengupta A: Municipal Services Project Occasional Paper, November 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/lthynwp","body":"This paper raises critical questions around the wide and growing enthusiasm for Universal Health Coverage (UHC). Typically defined as a health financing system based on pooling of funds to provide health coverage for a country\u2019s entire population, it often takes the form of a \u2018basic package\u2019 of services made available through health insurance and provided by a growing private sector. Such programs are now zealously promoted by global health agencies, yet the evidence to support their implementation remains extremely thin. The paper argues that re-imagining public health care \u2013 rather than the private sellout of health systems via UHC \u2013 is the only way forward in building truly universal health outcomes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal health: From private coverage to public care","field_subtitle":"Municipal Services Project video, November 2013","field_url":"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzNS5jd-LTY","body":"The universal health coverage agenda is opening the door for privatization of public health systems in the global South. In India, insurance-based coverage has skewed public health priorities and starved primary care. This animation video calls on people everywhere to mobilize around public alternatives to achieve health for all. Spanish subtitles are available.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WIPO: US seeks to limit work on patent flexibilities","field_subtitle":"Bhattacharya A: Third World Network  October 2013; 1","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/2013/health131001.htm","body":"This report from the consultations at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)suggests that the United States does not support a focus by the WIPO on patent flexibilities, an issue that developing countries consider to be central to their development concerns. WIPO\u2019s work on patent flexibilities, including on exceptions and limitations to patent rights, has long been encouraged by developing countries participating in WIPO\u2019s Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP). In recent years proposals have been submitted by the Development Agenda Group of several developing countries, the Africa Group and Brazil to deepen analysis on patent flexibilities, which they consider to be central to development concerns.  A work program had been agreed on at the last session of the SCP in February 2013 after intense consultations on the following topics: (i) Exceptions and Limitations to Patent Rights; (ii) Quality of Patents, including Opposition Systems; (iii) Patents and Health; (iv) Confidentiality of Communications between Clients and their Patent Advisors; and (v) Transfer of Technology. However, not all WIPO delegations were agreeable to enhancing of WIPO\u2019s work on patent flexibilities. In a lengthy intervention at the Assemblies on 26 September on the agenda item on the SCP, the US expressed its intention to limit WIPO\u2019s work on patent flexibilities. Its sentiment was not shared by developing countries that intervened on the agenda item. Instead they called for more work to be undertaken on the topics of exceptions and limitations to patent rights, the relationship between patents and health, and the improvement of patent quality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018No access to sanitation\u2019 \u2013 the big euphemism","field_subtitle":"de Albuquerque C: United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, 15 November 2013","field_url":"http://preview.tinyurl.com/q789j8n","body":"The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, Catarina de Albuquerque, has warned that the sanitation target set by the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is today the most off-track of all, leaving around one billion people still practicing open defecation on a daily basis, and one-third of the world\u2019s population \u2018without access to improved sanitation.\u2019 The human rights expert hailed the UN General Assembly\u2019s decision declaring 19th of November as UN World Toilet Day. \u201cI hope this declaration galvanises national and international action to reach the billions of people who still do not benefit from this basic human right,\u201d the Special Rapporteur said. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"A step beyond the rhetoric: Key choices to be made on pathways to universal systems","field_subtitle":"Editor","field_url":"","body":"Google the words \u201cuniversal health\u201d and in under 3 seconds you\u2019ll get 165 million results. There is a crescendo of talk on universal health coverage. But has it been translated into terms that can engage social debate?  The two editorials in this month\u2019s newsletter and several of the papers suggest that such debate across all of society is critical, given how deep the consequences for society of the choices made. In the first editorial, Latin American social medicine and health scientists warn of the negative impacts of segmented insurance options. The second editorial, drawn more from African experience, argues a similar case. Both urge for exploration of tax funding, particularly given that universal systems are a right of all citizens not a benefit of particular employees or contributors. There are clearly debates and choices- are they reaching the people who will be most affected by them?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Addressing the Social Determinants of Noncommunicable Diseases","field_subtitle":"United Nations Development Programme, New York, October 2013","field_url":"http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/hivaids/English/Discussion_Paper_Addressing_the_Social_Determinants_of_NCDs_UNDP_2013.pdf","body":"This paper offers two unique contributions to existing global and regional frameworks on multisectoral action on NCDs and their social determinants. The first is a typology of multisectoral action that highlights three general categories of possible action outside the health sector: expanding delivery platforms; NCD-specific actions on social determinants; and NCD-sensitive actions on social determinants. This paper\u2019s second contribution is a framework that outlines more specific areas and opportunities for actors outside the health sector to take action on the social determinants of NCDs. The framework has two parts. The first describes opportunities for NCD-specific and NCD-sensitive actions across the policy and programme lifecycle. The second part describes opportunities to create an enabling environment that promotes multisectoral action. Actors outside the health sector are uniquely positioned to help build political will, enabling legal frameworks, enforcement mechanisms and effective governance structures that are multisectoral and participatory \u2013 all anchored in a human rights-based approach. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"An assessment of opportunities and challenges for public sector involvement in the maternal health voucher programme in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Okal J, Kanya L, Obare F, Njuki R, Abuya T et al: Health Research Policy and Systems 11(38), 18 October 2013","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-11-38.pdf","body":"This paper describes a reproductive health voucher programme that contracts private facilities in Uganda and explores the policy and implementation issues associated with expansion of the programme to include public sector facilities. Researchers conducted interviews of six district health officers and four health facility managers purposefully selected from seven districts with the voucher programme in south-western Uganda. Barriers to seeking RH care were identified, and how to address the barriers in a context where voucher coverage is incomplete as well as opportunities and challenges for expanding the programme by involving public sector facilities were investigated. The findings show that access to sexual and reproductive health services in south-western Uganda is constrained by both facility and individual level factors that can be addressed by inclusion of the public facilities in the programme. This will widen the geographical reach of facilities for potential clients, effectively addressing distance related barriers to access of health care services. Further, intensifying ongoing health education, continuous monitoring and evaluation, and integrating the voucher programme with other services is likely to address some of the barriers. Accrediting public facilities has the potential to increase voucher programme coverage by reaching a wider pool of poor mothers, shortening distance to service, strengthening links between public and private sectors through public-private partnerships and referral systems as well as ensuring the awareness and buy-in of policy makers, which is crucial for mobilisation of resources to support the sustainability of the programmes. Specifically, identifying policy champions and consulting with key policy sectors is key to the successful inclusion of the public sector into the voucher programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Analysis: The future of food aid ","field_subtitle":"IRIN, Johannesburg, 26 July 2013","field_url":"http://m.irinnews.org/Report/98469/Analysis-The-future-#.UnGTWF9FCUk","body":"By 2023 the number of food-insecure people is likely to increase by nearly 23 percent to 868 million (at a slightly faster rate than projected population growth of 16 percent). Despite improvements over the years, sub-Saharan Africa is projected to remain the most food-insecure region in the world. In the past decade global food aid, including the amount making its way to sub-Saharan Africa, has been on a downward trend. Only 2.5 million tons reached sub-Saharan Africa in 2011, whereas during the decade as a whole it ranged from just under three million tons to just over 5 million tons, according to World Food Programme (WFP) data. In this article IRIN presents views of some of the world\u2019s leading experts on the future of food aid. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Brazil\u2019s patent reform innovation towards national competitiveness","field_subtitle":"Chamber of Deputies, Centre for Strategic Studies and Debates: 2013","field_url":"http://infojustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Brazilian_Patent_Reform.pdf","body":"In this paper the author argues that Brazil follow the same route as India and continue to adopt and apply the regime of absolute novelty to prevent non-innovative patents from being unduly granted. They argue that the patent system should respect Constitutional duties to promote technological, economic and social development, especially as Brazil\u2019s path has implications for other developing countries that are affected by intellectual property rights related to medicines and other pharmaceutical products.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Build Universal public health systems as a path to the right to health","field_subtitle":"Latin American Social Medicine Association (ALAMES) and CEBES (Centro Brasileiro de Estudos de Sa\u00fade/Brasilian Centre for Health Studies/), Brazil ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nALAMES and CEBES, in the framework of the Second Brazilian Congress of Policy , Planning and Management in Health of the Associacao Brasileira de Sa\u00fade Coletiva (ABRASCO) affirm that the path to full exercise of the right to health for the peoples of Latin America involves building, strengthening and developing universal public health systems (the \u2018SUS\u2019), as opposed to the campaign launched by international financial institutions and neoliberal governments around \u2018universal health coverage\u2019 based on the expansion of different forms of insurance, with a limited package of services for the poor and through promoting private investment in health.\r\n\r\nThis position is based on the following considerations:\r\n\r\n\u2022\tUniversal health care systems are expressions of public and social commitment in each country to implement the principles of universality, equality, integrity and non-discrimination in relation to peoples\u2019 health needs. They are part of state policies aimed at ensuring social rights. \r\n\u2022\tA single universal and public health system (a national health service) contributes to the implementation of universal policies, in the context of social and human development, that break with the social inequalities and inequities that are inherent in the logic of the market. Their  management  and financing can be sustained through fair tax policies that promote a fairer distribution of wealth. \r\n\u2022\tThe neoliberal reforms in various countries in the region to date demonstrate that systems of health insurance based on targeting and limited service packages have deepened social differences in care by placing at the core of their design alleged financial constraints and greater private sector roles in health services. \r\n\u2022\tThe momentum that agencies, foundations and corporations are giving to the debate and implementation of so-called \u2018universal health coverage\u2019 is an expression of an interest in locating health as a key field of capital accumulation. This can rob countries of resources that are vital for health and reproduces injustices and inequities in health care.  \r\n\r\nWe should be alert to the efforts being made to deepen exclusionary insurance systems and loss of health rights in Peru, Colombia and Mexico. \r\n\r\nWe call on the Latin American and global movement for the right to health to express their rejection of deepening processes of market insurance and privatization that are advancing right now in Peru, Colombia and Mexico. \r\n\r\n\u2022\tIn Peru, using a questionable granting of legislative powers to the Executive Branch to drive the process that bypasses the Congress, the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Finance intend to introduce new laws that seek to deepen market participation in the health sector through the promotion of public-private partnerships, contracting of services and deregulated insurance. This lowers the possibility of equalizing the access to comprehensive health care and social security that only  a third of Peruvians currently enjoy. The first laws passed under these legislative powers have violated the labour rights of health workers, undermining their security of pay, with further uncertain implications. This is despite a constant demand from social movements and professional associations in health in most parts of the country to build a reform based on universal principles.\r\n\r\n\u2022\tIn Colombia, universal coverage based on insurance has had disastrous consequences, with the collapse of national insurance funding declared by government itself to be a national health emergency. Despite this, the reform initiated today merely changes names on the same entities and processes that have for twenty years undermined access to health, blocked avenues for claiming the right to health and subordinated claims on the right to health to macro-economic considerations. The reforms do not address any of these underlying factors and despite the flow of funds, the health system is literally dismembered. The fact that health is only a business for insurance companies has been associated with a rise in corruption and paramilitarism in the sector. \r\n\r\n\u2022\tMexico is currently presented as a promising example of neoliberal reform. However,  claims in the reform of having achieved universal coverage hide the fact that a significant share of the insured population has no real access to care, that there has been a reduction in benefits covered by insurance, and that the introduction of private insurers seeking to make profits in the sector is raising the risk for millions of people of losses in social security health benefits. \r\n\r\nAll countries need universal health systems. \r\n\r\n\u2022\tRecognizing the complexities and particularities of each country, it is urgent that social movements drive and ensure the formation of Universal Health Systems, understood as an inalienable responsibility of the state and society, to build institutions that guarantee the right to health universally and equally outside the logic of the market and profit. This requires progressively overcoming the fragmentation of sub-systems through innovative management and through a commitment to sustainable financing. \r\n\u2022\tWe recognize the national health system (the \u2018SUS\u2019) in Brazil as an example of social momentum based on universalist principles, and call for its defense and for deepening it in all necessary areas. We especially support popular demands to allocate 10% of the gross federal revenue to support the expansion of the SUS and to limit the growth of private services. We defend Brazil's SUS as a source of inspiration and an example of the real possibility of reversing the expansion of an individualist model of health insurance that breaks the concept of and responsibility for public health. \r\n\u2022\tIn this regard we urge the Brazilian government to publicize and defend the SUS internationally, presenting it as an alternative to guarantee the right to health of the people. \r\n\r\nFor the right to health, universal public health systems for all countries of Latin America!\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For the original declaration in Spanish see http://www.alames.org , entry two for October.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Building empowered communities for health_A film on health literacy and participatory approaches to health in Zambia","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Video: TARSC, Lusaka District Health Management team, Ministry of Health Zambia September 2013","field_url":"http://vimeo.com/72914294","body":"Health literacy is one process that empowers people to understand and act on health information to advance their health and improve their health systems. Based on participatory reflection and action approaches, it goes beyond just knowing about health and health care, to acting individually and collectively to advance health. It includes processes that support people driven action and engagement in health systems.  Lusaka District Health Team in Zambia has implemented participatory reflection and action work since 2005 to strengthen detection of and action on health problems and their causes, and improve communication between health services and communities, working with TARSC in the pra4equity network in EQUINET. In 2012 the Ministry of Health adopted a proposal to scale up the work in Lusaka to national level. This video describes the origins and development of the work from the lens of the many different actors from communities, health workers and policy level that played a role in it. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for participation: PHM Health for All Campaign","field_subtitle":"Global Secretariat, People's Health Movement ","field_url":"","body":"The PHM Health for All (HFA) campaign is a platform for expressing solidarity, mutual learning and sharing experiences with struggles across the world. We are bringing together existing campaigns and new campaigns under the umbrella of Health for All. The PHM call for individuals and organisations to share what they are already engaged with and what local initiatives already exist that fit the Health for All Campaign and offer showcase your actions on the PHM website. Send your ideas, action, struggles, interests to globalsecretariat@phmovement.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CIVICUS Enabling Environment Index, 2013","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ouapydt","body":"The CIVICUS `Enabling Environment Index\u2019 (EEI) is the first rigorous attempt to measure and compare the conditions that affect the potential of citizens to participate in civil society and ranks the governance, socio-cultural and socio-economic environments for civil society in 109 countries. While recent years have seen popular uprisings from the Arab Spring to the Occupy Wall Street movement, there have also been many crackdowns on the ability of citizens to mobilise. This tool is intended to help understand the conditions facing civil society in different parts of the world. It also helps identify countries where special attention needs to be paid to strengthening civil society by the international community. Angola, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo rank among the 10 lowest countries on the Index.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Crowd-Sourced Film on Samsung Debuts","field_subtitle":"The Wall Street Journal-Asia, October 9, 2013 ","field_url":"http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2013/10/09/crowd-sourced-film-on-samsung-debuts/","body":"When South Korean director Kim Tae-yun said he wanted to make a film about workers who came down with leukemia and other rare diseases during the time they worked at Samsung Electronics Co. factories, just about everyone told him he would struggle to secure financial backing. Two years later, the film has premiered at the ongoing Busan International Film Festival&#8210;in part thanks to crowd-sourced funds from nearly 7,000 individuals who paid for more than a quarter of the billion-won ($932,700) budget. Close to half was self-funded and the rest has been made as IOUs. It marks a rare coup for Korean cinema, where independent producers struggle to secure funding without support from major film studios. Critics say close family and business ties between major movie companies and the nation\u2019s biggest corporations prevent films with negative portrayals of those conglomerates from being made.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing global health technology standards: what can other industries teach us?","field_subtitle":"Masum H, Lackman R, Bartleson K: Globalization and Health 9(49), 17 October 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/9/1/49","body":"There is a lack of effective and affordable technologies to address health needs in the developing world. In this paper, the authors argue that we can better develop standards for global health technologies if we learn lessons from other industries, such as by speeding the pace of innovation, unlocking health systems from single providers and approaches, and lowering barriers to entry. The authors consider relevant cases of standards development from other industries and propose that standardised platforms can lower barriers to entry, improve affordability, and create a vibrant ecosystem of innovative new global health technologies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Does investment in the health sector promote or inhibit economic growth?","field_subtitle":"Reeves A, Basu S, McKee M, Meissner C, Stuckler D: Globalization and Health 2013, 9:43","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/9/1/43","body":"In this study, the authors evaluate the economic effects of alternative types of government spending by estimating \u201cfiscal multipliers\u201d (the return on investment for each $1 dollar of government spending). While the study is implemented using data from Europe the findings may have wider relevance: they indicate that government spending on health may have short-term effects that make recovery more likely. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Draft Framework Convention on Global Health","field_subtitle":"The Joint Action and Learning Initiative on National and Global Responsibilities for Health, October 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.jalihealth.org/fcgh.html","body":"Following consultation by the Joint Action and Learning Initiative on National and Global Responsibilities for Health on the FCGH in Geneva in May 2013, JALI and several partners who participated in the consultation developed a draft Framework for an FCGH. This is aimed at providing greater clarity on the principles and core content of the FCGH, building on the FCGH Manifesto. In the hopes of forging a broad consensus around this document, JALI is circulating the draft and calling for feedback on the Framework to improve it and ensure that it represents a shared vision. The Framework will then serve as a platform for a Campaign for an FCGH.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Drivers and deterrents of facility delivery in sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review ","field_subtitle":"Moyer CA and Mustafa A: Reproductive Health 10(40), 20 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/pdf/1742-4755-10-40.pdf","body":"The authors conducted this review to identify articles published in English from 1995-2011 that reported on original research into facility-based delivery (FBD) conducted entirely or in part in sub-Saharan Africa. Sixty-five studies met inclusion criteria, 62 of which were cross-sectional, and 58 of 65 relied upon household survey data. Fewer than two-thirds (43) included multivariate analyses. The factors associated with facility delivery were categorised as maternal, social, antenatal-related, facility-related, and macro-level factors. Maternal factors were the most commonly studied, probably due to overwhelming reliance on household survey data. Multivariate analysis suggests that maternal education, parity / birth order, rural / urban residence, household wealth / socioeconomic status, distance to the nearest facility, and number of antenatal care visits were the factors most consistently associated with FBD. In conclusion, FBD is a complex issue that is influenced by characteristics of the pregnant woman herself, her immediate social circle, the community in which she lives, the facility that is closest to her, and context of the country in which she lives. More research is needed that explores regional variability, examines longitudinal trends, and studies the impact of interventions to boost rates of facility delivery in sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 153: Key choices to be made on pathways to universal systems","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Regional Workshop on Health Centre Committees","field_subtitle":"Harare, January 30-Feb 1 2014","field_url":"","body":"Health Centre committees (HCCs) (known by a range of names) are mechanisms that exist at community and primary care level for co-determination by communities and health workers on their health systems and on PHC.  In January 2014 EQUINET through TARSC and with CWGH is holding a regional meeting on the role of health centre committees in primary health care. The regional workshop includes organisations doing work on training and strengthening HCCs in east and southern African countries. It aims to  exchange and document information on the laws, capacities, training materials used, and monitoring systems used in HCCs, and to develop a shared monitoring framework for assessing how HCCs are functioning.  Sponsorship for the workshop is now closed but EQUINET invites self funded delegates who may wish to attend to contact admin@equinetafrica.org for further information. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Geographical variation and factors influencing modern contraceptive use among married women in Ethiopia: Evidence from a national population based survey","field_subtitle":"Lakew Y, Reda AA, Tamene H, Benedict S and Deribe K: Reproductive Health 10(520, 26 September 2013","field_url":"http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/pdf/1742-4755-10-52.pdf","body":"Though there is an evidence of increased overall contraceptive prevalence, a substantial effort remains behind in Ethiopia. This study aimed to identify factors associated with modern contraceptive use and to examine its geographical variations among 15\u201349 married women in Ethiopia. Researchers conducted secondary analysis of 10,204 reproductive age women included in the 2011 Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey (DHS). Results indicated that being wealthy, more educated, being employed, higher number of living children, being in a monogamous relationship, attending community conversation, being visited by health worker at home strongly predicted use of modern contraception. While living in rural areas, older age, being in polygamous relationship, and witnessing one\u2019s own child\u2019s death were found negatively influence modern contraceptive use. The central and south-western parts of the country had higher prevalence of modern contraceptive use than that of the eastern and western parts. The findings indicate significant socio-economic, urban\u2013rural and regional variation in modern contraceptive use among reproductive age women in Ethiopia. Strengthening community conversation programmes and female education should be given top priority.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Georgetown University Law Center Global Health Law Scholars","field_subtitle":"O'Neill Institute Global Health Law, USA, ","field_url":"","body":"The Global Health Law Program offers up to five prestigious Global Health Law scholarships per academic year. Global Health Law Scholars, in addition to the title, will receive full or partial tuition awards. These awards may be sponsored by Georgetown Law and/or major outside organizations in law and health, and may be coupled with internship opportunities. Applicants will be selected by a committee on the basis of their (1) academic qualifications in the fields of law/ethics and public health, health policy, health economics, bioethics, or other relevant disciplines; (2) public or private sector work experience on global or domestic health law issues; and (3) demonstrated potential for excellence within the field of global health law. Students' financial needs may also be considered. For more information visit the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Versus Private Profit","field_subtitle":"John Lister","field_url":"http://www.libripublishing.co.uk/health-policy-and-management/health-policy-reform?cPath=&zenid=6fd0d2217c68e12448cfdd6ee2aca91f","body":"The book Global Health Versus Private Profit focuses on the changes taking place in global health care systems. It presents evidence on how market-style reforms result in health care systems that are more unequal, more costly, more fragmented and less accountable \u2013 but which offer more profits to the private sector. The book offers an analysis of the \u201cmenu\u201d of market-style reforms to health care systems that have been rolled out in country after country, despite the absence of evidence for their effectiveness, and ignoring the evidence of harm that is being done. These include the emphasis on competition rather than planning and cooperation, the splitting of health care systems into purchasers and providers, privatisation in various guises \u2013 including buying in services from the private sector that were previously delivered by public sector providers \u2013 the imposition of user fees, and the focus on health insurance and managed care in place of social provision and universal coverage. Many of these policies are being implemented in rich countries and poor alike, but they are having the most devastating impact on the poorest. They are argued to sap vital resources, dislocate and fragment systems, prevent them from responding to health needs, and obstruct the development of planning. My book argues that these so called \u201creforms\u201d are driven not by evidence, but by ideology \u2013 but that behind the ideology is a massive material factor: the insatiable pressure from the private sector which is desperate to recapture a much larger share of the massive $5 trillion-plus global health care industry, much of which only exists because of public funding. The concluding chapter  argues \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be this way\u201d and brings together a lot of different ideas, emphasising that the policies we are opposing are not inevitable products or even a rational response to the current situation, but choices that have been deliberately made by politicians working to a neoliberal agenda. They can be rejected and defeated by mass political action. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health policy and system research in access to medicines: A prioritised agenda for low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Bigdeli M, Javadi D, Hoebert J, Laing R and Ranson K: Health Research Policy and Systems 11(37), 14 October 2013","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-11-37.pdf","body":"In this study researchers aimed to identify priority policy issues in access to medicines (ATM) relevant for low- and middle-income countries, to identify research questions that would help address these policy issues, and to prioritise these research questions in a health policy and systems research (HPSR) agenda. The study involved i) country- and regional-level priority-setting exercises performed in 17 countries across five regions, with a desk review of relevant grey and published literature combined with mapping and interviews of stakeholders. A list of 18 research questions was formulated according to four ranking criteria (innovation, impact on health and health systems, equity, and lack of research). The top three research questions were: i) In risk protection schemes, which innovations and policies improve equitable access to and appropriate use of medicines, sustainability of the insurance system, and financial impact on the insured? ii) How can stakeholders use the information available in the system, e.g., price, availability, quality, utilisation, registration, procurement, in a transparent way towards improving access and use of medicines? and iii) How do policies and other interventions into private markets, such as information, subsidies, price controls, donation, regulatory mechanisms, promotion practices, etc., impact on access to and appropriate use of medicines? The HPSR agenda discussed here adopts a health systems perspective and will guide relevant, innovative research, likely to bear an impact on health, health systems and equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health rights in the post-2015 development agenda: Including non-nationals","field_subtitle":"Brolan CE, Dagron S, Forman L, Hammonds R, Latife  LA and Waris A: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 91(10): 719-719A, October 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/91/10/13-128173.pdf","body":"Much debate around the September 2013 meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on the post-2015 Development Agenda, has focused on the health and intersectoral development goals. Little of this debate has to do, however with how the \u201cright to the highest attainable level of health\u201d applies to non-nationals, who normally have no access to health care services, according to this editorial. The right to health obligates governments to facilitate access to health care to nationals and non-nationals alike, the authors argue. Ensuring that governments apply new development goals that include non-nationals is an issue of pressing concern in the post-2015 agenda. The denial of preventive and curative care to non-nationals is often linked to policies regulating cross-border movement. The global health community cannot afford to ignore the in-country inequalities that exist within the public health care systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health system challenges to integration of mental health delivery in primary care in Kenya- perspectives of primary care health workers","field_subtitle":"Jenkins R, Othieno C, Okeyo S, Aruwa J, Kingora J, Jenkins B: BMC Health Services Research 2013, 13:368 ","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/368","body":"This paper uses focus group methodology to explore health worker perspectives on the challenges posed to integration of mental health into primary care by generic health system weakness.  Two ninety minute focus groups were conducted in Nyanza province, a poor agricultural region of Kenya, with 20 health workers drawn from a randomised controlled trial to evaluate the impact of a mental health training programme for primary care, 10 from the intervention group clinics where staff had received the training programme, and 10 health workers from the control group where staff had not received the training).  These focus group discussions suggested that there are a number of generic health system weaknesses in Kenya which impact on the ability of health workers to care for clients with mental health problems and to implement new skills acquired during a mental health continuing professional development training programmes. These weaknesses include the medicine supply, health management information system, district level supervision to primary care clinics, the lack of attention to mental health in the national health sector targets, and especially its absence in district level targets, which results in the exclusion of mental health from such district level supervision as exists, and the lack of awareness in the district management team about mental health. The lack of mental health coverage included in HIV training courses experienced by the health workers was also striking, as was the intensive focus during district supervision on HIV to the detriment of other health issues. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health technology assessments as a mechanism for increased value for money: Recommendations to the Global Fund ","field_subtitle":"Teerawattananon Y, McQueston K, Glassman A, Yothasamut J and Myint CY: Globalization and Health 9(35), 21 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-9-35.pdf","body":"The Global Fund is experiencing increased pressure to optimise results and improve its impact per dollar spent, according to this study. It is also in transition from a provider of emergency funding, to a long-term, sustainable financing mechanism. The authors assess the efficacy of current Global Fund investment and examine how health technology assessments (HTAs) can be used to provide guidance on the relative priority of health interventions currently subsidised by the Global Fund. In addition, they identify areas where the application of HTAs can exert the greatest impact and propose ways in which this tool could be incorporated, as a routine component, into application, decision, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation processes. Finally, they address the challenges facing the Global Fund in realising the full potential of HTAs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"High level Symposium on Global Health diplomacy","field_subtitle":"12 November 2013 : Geneva ","field_url":"http://graduateinstitute.ch/fr/home/research/centresandprogrammes/globalhealth/symposium-on-ghd/symposium-2013.html","body":"The 6th Annual High-level Symposium on Health Diplomacy, jointly organised by the Global Health Programme and the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences, will convene experts on the subject of \"Health Diplomacy Meets Science Diplomacy\" in order to discuss the dimensions of diplomacy for science, science in diplomacy, and science for diplomacy. The all-day event will be moderated by Professor Michel Kazatchkine, Senior Fellow at the GHP and UN Secretary-General Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and will feature keynote presentations from Dr. Vaughan C. Turekian, Editor-in-Chief of Science & Diplomacy and Sir George Alleyne, Director Emeritus, Pan American Health Organization. The event will also include panel discussions and presentations from high-level professionals, ambassadors, ministers, esteemed academics and representatives of international organisations. Registration (free) on the website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementation Research in Health: A Practical Guide","field_subtitle":"Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research ","field_url":"http://who.int/alliance-hpsr/alliancehpsr_irpguide.pdf","body":"Billions are spent on health innovations, but very little on how best to apply them in real-world settings. Despite the importance of implementation research, it continues to be a neglected field of study, partly because of a lack of understanding regarding what it is and what it offers.  Intended for newcomers to the field, those already conducting implementation research, and those with responsibility for implementing programmes, this guide provides an introduction to basic implementation research concepts and briefly outlines what it involves, and describes the many exciting opportunities that it presents.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Influence of mhealth interventions on gender relations in developing countries: a systematic literature review","field_subtitle":"Jennings L, Gagliardi L: International Journal for Equity in Health 2013, 12:85","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/12/1/85/abstract","body":"Research has shown that mHealth initiatives, or health programs enhanced by mobile phone technologies, can foster womens empowerment. Yet, there is growing concern that mobile-based programs geared towards women may exacerbate gender inequalities.  A systematic literature review was conducted to examine the empirical evidence of changes in men and women?s interactions as a result of mHealth interventions.  Out of the 173 articles retrieved for review, seven articles met the inclusion criteria and were retained in the final analysis. Most mHealth interventions were SMS-based and conducted in sub-Saharan Africa on topics relating to HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive health, health-based microenterprise, and non-communicable diseases. Several methodological limitations were identified among eligible quantitative and qualitative studies. The current literature suggests that mobile phone programs can influence gender relations in meaningfully positive ways by providing new modes for couples health communication and cooperation and by enabling greater male participation in health areas typically targeted towards women. MHealth initiatives also increased womens decision-making, social status, and access to health resources. However, programmatic experiences by design may inadvertently reinforce the digital divide, and perpetuate existing gender-based power imbalances. Domestic disputes and lack of spousal approval additionally hampered women?s participation.  Efforts to scale-up health interventions enhanced by mobile technologies should consider the implementation and evaluation imperative of ensuring that mHealth programs transform rather than reinforce gender inequalities. The evidence base on the effect of mHealth interventions on gender relations is weak, and rigorous research is urgently needed. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA), Cape Town South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Durban, South Africa, 7-11 December 2013","field_url":"http://www.icasa2013southafrica.org/","body":"ICASA 2013 - 17th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA 2013) will take place in South Africa on 7-11 December 2013. The 17th ICASA is an opportunity to renew this global commitment by drawing the world\u2019s attention to the fact that the legacy is now under threat as a result of the global economic downturn. This year\u2019s ICASA is an opportunity for the international community, and all Africans, to join efforts in committing to achieving an AIDS-free Africa. Given the urgency of the issue we are anticipating 7 000 -10 000 of the world\u2019s leading scientists, policy makers, activists, PLHIV, government leaders \u2013 as well as a number of heads of state and civil society representatives \u2013 will be joining the debate on how to achieve this vision.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"MAHSC Global Health update:  new funding call for health systems research","field_subtitle":"Deadline for application: 14th January 2014","field_url":"http://www.mrc.ac.uk/Newspublications/News/MRC009456","body":"This call for proposals is the first of three annual Health Systems Research Initiative calls, jointly supported by DFID, ESRC, MRC and the Wellcome Trust targeting research in Low and Middle-Income Countries. The aim is to fund rigorous, high quality research that will:\r\n1. Generate evidence on how to strengthen health systems and improve health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries.\r\n2. Inform the delivery of evidence-based interventions or structural changes.\r\n3. Provide evidence that is of direct relevance to decision makers and users in the field.\r\nResearch should generate practical solutions to implementing health system improvements, including technical, economic, and cultural or governance/managerial components of implementation and sustainability. No particular diseases or health-related problems are prioritised for this call. All projects should focus on impacts on the most vulnerable populations and/or those in poorly resourced settings. A total of up to \u00a315 million is available over a three year period to support several awards. There will be one call each year with a budget of \u00a35million \u2019per call\u2019 to cover a number of awards. Applications may be for:\r\n     *   Development grants with a duration of 1-2 years and a total budget of around \u00a3100k each. These grants are tailored to assist interdisciplinary teams to develop robust and competitive proposals.\r\n     *   Full-scale research projects of up to 5 years duration. Typically the funders would expect a project of 3-4 years with costs of \u00a3100-\u00a3200k per annum.\r\nFor more information see the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Making All Voices Count: Grand Challenge  ","field_subtitle":"First Call for Proposals open NOW. Applications close November 8, 2013","field_url":"http://www.makingallvoicescount.org/","body":"Making All Voices Count is a global initiative that supports innovation, scaling-up, and research to deepen existing innovations and help harness new technologies to enable citizen engagement and government responsiveness. This Grand Challenge focuses global attention on creative and cutting-edge solutions, including those that use mobile and web technology, to ensure the voices of all citizens are heard and that governments have the capacity, as well as the incentive, to listen and respond. Invited to apply are: individuals ( Innovation grants only) universities, academic institutions, research institutes, organisations ( all registered non-government associations; charities or societies; faith-based organisations; community-based organisations; not-for-profit and for-profit companies and corporations; social enterprises; and government), as well as private sector companies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"New EU Custom Regulation Might Allow Wrongful Seizures Of Generic Drugs In Transit, NGOs Say","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 17 October 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qx5ltxj","body":"A recent European Union (EU) regulation on customs enforcement of intellectual property rights (N\u00b0 608/2013) has raised concerns among civil society actors who find that the regulation might not be an improvement over its previous version under which seizure of legal generic medicines in transit occurred a few years ago, leading to a World Trade Organisation dispute. Civil society organisation, Act-Up Paris has said the new regulation does not solve the problem as it continues to allow the seizing of goods over a simple suspicion of \u2018intellectual property\u2019 infringement without checking beforehand whether these goods are headed to the European territory or just in transit. The group argue that the EU did not take into account the December 2011 Court of Justice of the European Communities\u2019 decision which stated that goods coming from a third-party State could not be described as \u2018counterfeit goods\u2019 or \u2018pirated goods\u2019 just by entering the customs territory of the EU. The in-transit medicines are not intended for commercialisation in EU territory and thus intellectual property status according to the national law of EU countries should be irrelevant. The EU is standing by its new regulation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Overcoming the blind spot: health insurance schemes are leaving the poor behind","field_subtitle":"Ceri Averill, Oxfam GB","field_url":"","body":"\r\nSocial health insurance schemes, introduced in the name of universal health coverage (UHC), are excluding the majority of people and leaving the poor behind. So argues a new report from Oxfam \u2018Universal health coverage: why health insurance schemes are leaving the poor behind\u2019. \r\n\r\nThe growing momentum for universal health coverage (UHC) is certainly cause for celebration. But in some cases health financing reforms are widening inequality by prioritising already advantaged groups in the formal sector and leaving the most poor and marginalised people \u2013 especially women \u2013 as last in line to benefit. \r\n\r\nThis raises the question of why there is an almost exclusive focus on contributory-based health insurance schemes as the way to achieve UHC. Although no country in the world has achieved anything close to UHC using voluntary insurance, private and community-based voluntary schemes are still being promoted by governments and external funders. India\u2019s voluntary India\u2019s voluntary Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana insurance scheme for people below the poverty line is widely praised as a success. However evidence cited in the Oxfam report indicates that the scheme offers limited financial protection against impoverishing out of pocket spending on health and has skewed public resources to curative rather than preventative care.\r\n\r\nFor those who recognise the pitfalls of voluntary schemes, social health insurance (SHI) has emerged as the model of choice. SHI has worked to achieve UHC in a number of high-income countries. However attempts to replicate the same kind of employment-based models in low- and middle-income countries have proved unsuccessful. Even high-income countries struggled to achieve rapid scale up via SHI. In Germany UHC took 127 years to achieve using a SHI model. Surely people in low and middle income countries (LMICs) should not have to wait that long!\r\n\r\nIn low and middle income countries SHI schemes are typically characterised by large-scale exclusion. Ten years after the introduction of SHI schemes in Tanzania, according to a National Health Insurance Fund 2011 report, coverage had reached only 17 per cent.  Kenya\u2019s National Hospital Insurance Fund \u2013 established nearly 50 years ago \u2013 today insures just 18 per cent of Kenyans. Ghana\u2019s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), widely promoted as an SHI success story, covers only 36 per cent of the population. \r\n\r\nHopes that insurance contributions from those outside of formal employment would raise significant revenue have not been realised. In Ghana, cash premiums paid directly by those in the informal sector contribute just five per cent towards the cost of the NHIS, that also draws funds from earmarked tax and other sources. Governments also face huge bills to cover the SHI contributions of their workers. According to 2010 National Health Insurance Fund Tanzania and WHO evidence cited in the report, the Government of Tanzania spent $33m on employer contributions in 2009/10; this equated to $83 per employee \u2013 six times more than it spent per person, per year on health for the general population. \r\n\r\nInstead of importing inappropriate health financing models from high-income countries, governments in LMICs should surely learn from the increasing number of home-grown UHC success stories in other, more comparable countries.\r\n\r\nThe countries making most progress towards UHC agree that entitlement to health care should be based on citizenship and/or residency and not on employment status or financial contributions. While their specific journeys differ, these countries fall into two broad camps. First there are examples of countries at all income levels, including Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Brazil, which use tax revenues to fund UHC. Crucially, the 2009 report of a Task Force on Global Action for Health System Strengthening found that the only low-income countries to achieve universal and equitable health coverage did so by relying mainly on tax financing.  A second option increasingly being adopted by another set of successful UHC countries, including Thailand, Mexico, and Kyrgyzstan, is to collect insurance premiums only from those in formal salaried employment, and to pool these where possible with tax revenues to finance health coverage for the entire population. \r\n\r\nThe growing momentum for UHC is welcome, exciting, and challenging. UHC has the potential to transform the lives of millions of people by bringing life-saving health care to those who need it most. But rather than focus efforts on collecting contributions from people who are too poor to pay, governments and external funders should focus on financing options that will work to deliver universal and equitable health care for all. The preoccupation with health insurance as the \u2018default\u2019 UHC model has left the crucial question of how to generate more tax revenues for health largely unexplored. This blind spot should be urgently addressed.\r\n\r\nAt its core, UHC is about the right to health. This means moving away from the idea of an employment or contributory basis for entitlement. People must be entitled to receive benefits by virtue of their citizenship and/or residency and not because they are formally employed or have paid to join a scheme. Women and men living in poverty must benefit at least as much as the better off every step of the way. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please see the Oxfam report \u2018Universal health coverage: why health insurance schemes are leaving the poor behind\u2019 at www.oxfam.org/uhc","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy Brief 35: Legislation on the for-profit private health sector in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Doherty J (2013) with UCT HEU, TARSC. Wemos Foundation,  EQUINET, Harare","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Pol%2035%20finregs.pdf","body":"While the private sector contributes new resources to the health system, international evidence shows that if left unregulated it may distort the quantity, distribution and quality of health services, and lead to anti-competitive behaviour. As the for-profit private sector is expanding in east and southern African (ESA) countries, governments need to strengthen their regulation of the sector to align it to national health system objectives. This policy brief examines how existing laws in the region address the quantity, quality, distribution and price of private health care services, based on evidence made available from desk review and in-country experts. It proposes areas for strengthening the regulation of individual health care practitioners, private facilities and health insurers.  A more detailed discussion paper (#87) on the laws and information covered in the brief including country specific information is available at www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20Diss%2087%20Private%20HS.pdf.   ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Resources, attitudes and culture: an understanding of the factors that influence the functioning of accountability mechanisms in primary health care settings","field_subtitle":"BMC Health Services Research 2013, 13:320 ","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/320","body":"Using a descriptive literature review, this paper examines the factors that influence the functioning of accountability mechanisms and relationships within the district health system, and draws out the implications for responsiveness to patients and communities. We also seek to understand the practices that might strengthen accountability in ways that improve responsiveness \u2013 of the health system to citizens\u2019 needs and rights, and of providers to patients. The review highlights the ways in which bureaucratic accountability mechanisms often constrain the functioning of external accountability mechanisms. For example, meeting the expectations of relatively powerful managers further up the system may crowd out efforts to respond to citizens and patients. Organisational cultures characterized by supervision and management systems focused on compliance to centrally defined outputs and targets can constrain front line managers and providers from responding to patient and population priorities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Role and outcomes of community health workers in HIV care in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Mwai G, Mburu G, Torpey K, Frost P, Ford N, Seeley J: Journal of the International AIDS Society 2013, 16:18586","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/index.php/jias/article/view/18586","body":"The provision of HIV treatment and care in sub-Saharan Africa faces multiple challenges, including weak health systems and attrition of trained health workers. One potential response to overcome these challenges has been to engage community health workers (CHWs). A systematic literature search for quantitative and qualitative studies describing the role and outcomes of CHWs in HIV care between inception and December 2012 in sub-Saharan Africa was performed. A narrative synthesis approach was used to analyze common emerging themes on the role and outcomes of CHWs in HIV care in sub-Saharan Africa. In total, 21 studies met the inclusion criteria, documenting a range of tasks performed by CHWs. These included patient support (counselling, home-based care, education, adherence support and livelihood support) and health service support (screening, referral and health service organization and surveillance). CHWs were reported to enhance the reach, uptake and quality of HIV services, as well as the dignity, quality of life and retention in care of people living with HIV. The presence of CHWs in clinics was reported to reduce waiting times, streamline patient flow and reduce the workload of health workers. Clinical outcomes appeared not to be compromised, with no differences in virologic failure and mortality comparing patients under community-based and those under facility-based care. Despite these benefits, CHWs faced challenges related to lack of recognition, remuneration and involvement in decision making. CHWs can clearly contribute to HIV services delivery and strengthen human resource capacity in sub-Saharan Africa. For their contribution to be sustained, CHWs need to be recognized, remunerated and integrated in wider health systems. Further research focusing on comparative costs of CHW interventions and successful models for mainstreaming CHWs into wider health systems is needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening the evidence-policy interface for patient safety: enhancing global health through hospital partnerships","field_subtitle":"Syed SB, Dadwal V, Storr J, Riley P, Paul R et al: Globalization and Health 9(47), 16 October 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-9-47.pdf","body":"Strengthening the evidence-policy interface is a well-recognized health system challenge in both the developed and developing world. According to this paper, brokerage inherent in hospital-to-hospital partnerships can boost relationships between \u2018evidence\u2019 and \u2018policy\u2019 communities and move developing countries towards evidence-based patient safety policy. In particular, the authors use the experience of a global hospital partnership programme focused on patient safety in the African Region to explore how hospital partnerships can be instrumental in advancing responsive decision-making, and the translation of patient safety evidence into health policy and planning. A co-developed approach to evidence-policy strengthening with seven components is described, with reflections from early implementation. The rapidly expanding field of towards evidence-based patient safety policy calls shared learning across continents, the authors conclude, in keeping with the principles and spirit of health systems development in a globalised world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Tackling Antibiotic Resistance for Greater Global Health Security","field_subtitle":"Gemma L. Buckland Merrett,  Centre on Global Health Security ","field_url":"http://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/papers/view/194381","body":"In this paper the author argues that antibiotic resistance is now recognized as a major global health security issue that threatens a return to the pre-antibiotic era, with potentially catastrophic economic, social and political ramifications. An extra burden is likely to hit resource-poor countries. Although bacteria naturally adapt to outsmart antibiotics, human actions accelerate the development and spread of resistance. Antibiotics need to be used judiciously, with effective stewardship and infection prevention and control, and a harmonized approach to their use in animal and human health should be fostered. There is also a need for practical economic models to develop new products that avoid rewarding researchers for what they do already. Choosing the right paradigms for sustainably stimulating R&D requires new measures to align the financial incentives for drug and diagnostic test development with public health needs. Incentives for infection control and appropriate stewardship are equally important. Integrated efforts involving academia, policy-makers, industry and interest groups will be required to produce a global political response with strong leadership, based on a coherent set of priorities and actions. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania urges EAC countries to re-focus on MDGs","field_subtitle":"Sekanjako H: New Vision, 20 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/646283-eac-states-told-to-monitor-mdgs-progress.html","body":"The East African community (EAC) partner states have been urged to re-focus monitoring and achieving of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) as the set deadline 2015 draws near. According to Tanzanian vice-president Dr. Mohammed Gharib Bilal, there is need for constant monitoring of MDGs by EAC partner states especially THE \u2018shelter for all\u2019 goal as an important agenda in social - economic development. Gharib addressed a two-day East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) conference on MDGs in Arusha Tanzania. He told the conference that Tanzania had taken measures aimed at addressing the challenges of unplanned settlement and slums in the urban population and was undertaking a study with the United Nations-Habitat. Legislators must re-focus their oversight activities in the development agenda, he argued: they should not only be critical of their governments but must stress what has been achieved, where the failures are and the reasons whether they resulted from inadequate resources or misplaced priorities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The 2013 DATA Report: Financing the Fight for Africa\u2019s Transformation","field_subtitle":"One.org: Berlin, 2013","field_url":"http://one-org.s3.amazonaws.com/us/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ONE_2013DataReport.pdf","body":"The world has officially entered the final leg of its 15-year journey to halve extreme poverty and reduce child mortality by two-thirds, reverse the tide against HIV/AIDS and malaria, and ensure that more people have access to basic services, such as primary education and safe drinking water. Despite a challenging global economic environment, many low and middle-income countries are making dramatic progress towards the highly ambitious MDG targets. ONE\u2019s 2013 DATA Report examines the recent progress of individual countries against eight MDG targets, focusing particular attention on sub-Saharan Africa, and compares that progress against African government and donor spending in three key poverty-reducing sectors: health, education, and agriculture.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Impact of Transparency and Accountability Initiatives ","field_subtitle":"Gaventa J and McGee R: Development Policy Review 31(S1): s3-s28","field_url":"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dpr.12017/pdf","body":"In this review, the authors highlight the silos that currently characterise transparency and accountability initiatives (TAIs). The authors argue that a decade on from their inception, and notwithstanding a growth in litigation-based social accountability that invokes popular mobilisation and democratic rights, there is much to suggest that TAIs in aid and development are increasingly being used within an efficiency paradigm, with scant attention to underlying issues of power and politics. Many TAIs focus on the delivery of development outcomes, neglecting or articulating only superficially the potential for deepening democracy or empowering citizens, overemphasising tools to the detriment of analysis of context, of forms of mobilisation and action, and of the dynamics behind potential impact. Many TAIs focus on achieving\u2018downstream\u2019 accountability \u2013the efficient delivery of policies and priorities \u2013 bypassing the question of how incorporating citizen voice and participation at earlier stages of these processes could have shaped the policies, priorities and budgets \u2018upstream\u2019. The authors contrast new public management approaches with rights based approaches. The paper examines ways of assessing effectiveness of TAIs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The truth about extreme global inequality ","field_subtitle":"Jason Hickel, Aljazeera, 14 Apr 2013","field_url":"http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/04/201349124135226392.html","body":"The crisis of capital, the rise of the Occupy movement and the crash of Southern Europe have brought the problem of income inequality into mainstream consciousness in the West for the first time in many decades.  The video featured in this article points out that the richest 300 people on earth have more wealth than the poorest 3bn - almost half the world's population. In truth the situation is even worse: the richest 200 people have about $2.7 trillion, which is more than the poorest 3.5bn people, who have only $2.2 trillion combined. The video shows how this widening disparity operates between countries. It argues that the gap is growing in part because of neoliberal economic policies that liberalise markets, opening them to multinational corporations with a serious cost to poor countries of around $500bn per year in GDP. The video aims to help people to visualise this flow, and to show how it pumps up the Global North at devastating expense to the Global South. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Third Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, Cape Town, South Africa, 30 September -3 October 2014 ","field_subtitle":"Call for Abstracts: Call closes 15 January 2014","field_url":"http://hsr2014.healthsystemsresearch.org","body":"The Third Global Symposium on Health Systems Research will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 30 September to 3 October 2014.The theme of the symposium is the science and practice of people-centred health systems. Researchers, policy-makers, funders, implementers and other stakeholders, from all regions and all socio-economic levels, will work together on the challenge of how to make health systems more responsive to the needs of individuals, families and communities. The symposium invites abstract submissions. The Organized session abstract submission closes 15 January 2014 and the Individual abstract submission closes 3 March 2014. More information is available on the symposium website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"UN Special Event 25 September: Outcome Document","field_subtitle":"UN General Assembly, September 2013","field_url":"http://www.cesr.org/downloads/OutcomedocumentMDG.pdf","body":"Governments meeting at the UN General Assembly (GA) in September have heeded civil society demands for human rights to be at the core of the global commitments succeeding the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015.  The outcome document of the GA Special Event on the MDGs, held on 25 September, calls for a universal framework of goals applicable to all countries which promotes \u201chuman rights for all\u201d. Once a lightning rod at UN development forums, human rights appear to have garnered consensus as a central foundation of development - at least on paper. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"UNAIDS Special report: How Africa turned AIDS around","field_subtitle":"Michel Sidibe: African Union Summit | May 2013, UNAIDS Geneva","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/media/unaids/contentassets/documents/unaidspublication/2013/20130521_Update_Africa.pdf","body":"An African proverb teaches us that \u201cif you want to go fast, go alone\u2014but\r\nif you want to go far, go together\u201d. The AIDS epidemic threatened to overcome Africa\u2014but instead, Africa and the world have united to overcome AIDS, going farther than most ever thought possible.  This special report presents in a graphical, compelling and accessible manner the many dimensions of progress on AIDS in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal health coverage, real or selective? Time for global health advocates to unite ","field_subtitle":"Gorik Ooms","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/?p=1489","body":"Universal health coverage \u201cdeveloped within the particular epidemiological, economic, socio-cultural, political and structural context of each country in accordance with the principle of national ownership\u201d, as it is formulated in the 2012 UN General Assembly resolution, can, it is argued by the author, to possibly mean anything and everything. In low-income countries, it could mean something that looks a lot like selective primary health care, excluding antiretroviral treatment. For AIDS activists, universal health coverage could mean a giant step backwards. However the International HIV/AIDS Alliance came out with a statement in support of \u201cuniversal health coverage. The words that matter are \u201crights-based approach\u201d, as the author proposes that universal health coverage anchored in the right to health requires at least comprehensive primary health care, with duty-based international assistance to countries that are unable to provide comprehensive primary health care without assistance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Using law to accelerate treatment access in South Africa: An analysis of patent, competition and medicines law","field_subtitle":"Park C, Prabhala A and Berger J: United Nations Development Programme, October 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/pb7sqnc","body":"This study aims to contribute to the implementation of South Africa\u2019s National Strategic Plan (NSP) on HIV, STIs and TB 2012\u20132016 by making speci&#64257;c recommendations on law and policy reforms to achieve an enabling and accessible legal framework in three key areas: patent, competition, and medicines law. The South African Patents Act, as it currently stands, does not take full advantage of the &#64258;exibilities available in respect of limitations to patent rights. The study recommends that the Patents Act make use of the full range of express exclusions from patentability available under TRIPS, and proposes that the process for issuing compulsory licenses be signi&#64257;cantly streamlined, with clear legislative guidelines for determining the grounds upon which compulsory licenses can be granted, as well as their terms and conditions to prevent unnecessary delays. The study concludes by emphasising that its recommendations are aimed at achieving mutually reinforcing goals: promoting access to essential medicines and developing and supporting policies conducive to the growth and development of the domestic generic pharmaceutical industry. The process of reforming South Africa\u2019s laws could bene&#64257;t from a policymaking approach that is consultative, coherent and developed with the input of all relevant actors, governmental and non-governmental alike.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"World AIDS Day, 1 December 2013","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation Geneva","field_url":"http://www.who.int/campaigns/aids-day/2013/en/","body":"World AIDS Day on 1 December brings together people from around the world to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and demonstrate international solidarity in the face of the pandemic. The day is an opportunity for public and private partners to spread awareness about the status of the pandemic and encourage progress in HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care in high prevalence countries and around the world. Between 2011-2015, World AIDS Days will have the theme of \"Getting to zero: zero new HIV infections. Zero discrimination. Zero AIDS related deaths\". The World AIDS Campaign focus on \"Zero AIDS related deaths\" signifies a push towards greater access to treatment for all; a call for governments to act now. It is a call to honour promises like the Abuja declaration and for African governments to at least hit targets for domestic spending on health and HIV. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A review of the role of civil society in advocacy and lobbying for enforcement of health policy in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Omungu PA: African Population Studies, 25, s1, 78-91, 2011","field_url":"http://www.bioline.org.br/abstract?ep11013","body":"Advocacy and lobbying are more taking an ever more central place in health agendas of African countries. It is impossible to have a conversation about public policy these days without someone mentioning 'civil society'. The author argues that clarity and rigor are conspicuously absent within civil society. A States' first duty towards citizens is to respect the right to health by refraining from adopting laws or measures that directly impinge on people's health. The paper presents evidence from the literature of civil society organization (CSO) intervention in support of primary health care, equity in health and state health services covering 38 online documents and from interviews with key informants from government and civil society. They suggest from the findings that countries ensure that public health principles and priorities are clear and legally binding; that countries have a clear coordinating mechanism on issues of trade and health that involve government, particularly health ministries and civil society and that civil society disseminate health and trade information in accessible ways. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Accounting for geographical inequalities in the assessment of equity in health care: a benefit incidence analysis","field_subtitle":"Anselmi  L, Fernandes Q, Hanson K, Lagarde M: The Lancet,  381, S9, 17 June 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)61263-5/abstract","body":"Equity in health expenditure in low-income and middle-income countries is commonly analysed using benefit incidence analysis (BIA). In BIA, the monetary value of the subsidy associated with public sector health-care utilisation (approximated by the cost of the service) is attributed to each individual according to their frequency and type of health-care utilisation. The benefit distribution is measured according to socioeconomic status. Despite widespread within-country geographical inequalities in health status and public expenditure, BIA has rarely accounted for such differences. The authors investigate how results would differ if geographical inequalities were taken into account for outpatient public health-care expenditure in Manica Province, Mozambique using data from the Household Budget Survey 2008/09, Census 2007, Ministry of Health, and Ministry of Finance records.  The analysis showed that the gap in benefit from public expenditure between highest and lowest quintiles widened substantially if differences in health status and expenditure across districts are taken into account, increasing from a ratio of 1.2 to 2.0. Results suggest that the methods currently used may underestimate inequities in public health expenditure in contexts where geographical inequalities exist. Refinement of BIA using disaggregated data available from local institutions may improve estimates, stimulate local information systems' strengthening, and ultimately provide insights for a more equitable and efficient allocation of resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Addressing health inequities through Universal Health Coverage","field_subtitle":"Lara Brearley, Save the Children","field_url":"","body":"\r\nAddressing inequities in access to quality needed care and financial risk protection must be a first priority in efforts to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC). We have the opportunity to implement equitable pathways towards UHC by including appropriate targets and measures in the post-2015 development framework. These are the main messages of a joint report titled \u2018Universal Health Coverage: A commitment to close the gap\u2019 launched this month by Save the Children, the Rockefeller Foundation, UNICEF and WHO and available at http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/resources/online-library/universal-health-coverage. \r\n\r\nPrioritising equity in pathways towards UHC is not just the right thing to do from a moral perspective, but it also brings value for money. Research implemented for the report reveals that the deaths of 1,8 million children under-five and 100 000 mothers could be averted each year by eliminating wealth related inequities that occur within countries in the coverage of essential maternal and child health interventions in 47 of the 75 countries where more than 95% of all maternal and child deaths occur (http://www.countdown2015mnch.org/).  If in 2013 to 2015 all groups were able to reach the coverage levels of the highest fifth of people by wealth, this would reduce maternal and child mortality by almost one-third and one-fifth respectively. \r\n\r\nWe present evidence in the report that more equitable health financing saves lives. Pooled funding comes from prepayments and pooling makes it available to distribute to those with higher need.   If the share of health financing that is pooled were to increase by ten percentage points, while keeping total health expenditure constant, we estimate in the report that there would be fifteen fewer deaths in children under five years of age for every 1000 live births in the same 75 countries on average. This could enable thirteen countries that are currently off-track to achieve their Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 target of a two-thirds reduction in the rate of child mortality.  In countries where health services are more equitably distributed, the reduction in child deaths may be even greater.  \r\n\r\nIt is thus possible to make huge improvements in health outcomes and access to health care. It is possible, for instance, to reduce by almost half the number of children who die each year when compared to the rates in 1990. Despite this, too many people are denied their right to health.  In 2012 for instance, 6,6 million children died before the age of five and most of these deaths could have been prevented. High levels of out-of-pocket payments (cash at point of care) for health care act as a barrier for poor people to access the care they need or can lead to an increase in poverty due to health spending. About 150 million people are estimated to incur catastrophic (impoverishing) expenditures for health care each year. This is a scandal that must be addressed. \r\n\r\nThe health system\u2019s response to this challenge must be Universal Health Coverage \u2013 which we define as ensuring \u201cthat all people obtain the health services they need, of good quality, without suffering financial hardship when paying for them\u201d.  Momentum for UHC is soaring at country and global levels, and this must be seized to ensure the needs of the poor and vulnerable are prioritised as countries design and implement the policy reforms for UHC. \r\n\r\nIn the report we identify a number of policy lessons for equitable pathways towards UHC in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in relation to health financing.  One policy lesson is that countries increase equitable funding for health through mandatory, progressive prepayment mechanisms, including revenues from taxation, and eliminate out-of-pocket spending. Risk and resource pools must be consolidated to facilitate effective redistribution.  A universal benefit package should be designed for all, and delivered in a manner that meets the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable in society, through strategic purchasing of services and through providing incentives that ensure health providers promote quality of care.  The policy lessons point to the importance of taking a \u2018whole-system\u2019 approach to UHC, and for coordinating reforms across health system building blocks such as financing, health workers, commodities, social participation and others. To overcome pervasive inequities in the coverage of quality health services and to ensure that people are not impoverished from health spending we need to also act on the wider social determinants of health.   Political will and strong mechanisms for effective accountability are critical for implementing the measures needed for equitable pathways towards UHC. \r\n\r\nAs the MDGs have shown, what gets measured is more likely to get done. Negotiations on the sustainable development agenda must guide equitable progress towards UHC, with clear indicators of and targets for such measures that strengthen health systems and close the equity gap. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed visit www.savethechildren.org.uk/resources/online-library/universal-health-coverage and www.equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Beijing Declaration of the Ministerial Forum of China-Africa Health Development","field_subtitle":"Ministers of health of the People\u2019s Republic of China and African countries, August 2013","field_url":"http://aidswatchafricablog.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/beijing-declaration-of-the-ministerial-forum-of-china-africa-health-development-2/","body":"The ministers of health of the People\u2019s Republic of China and African countries as well as representatives of the African Union, the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNICEF, the World Bank, the Global Fund to fight against HIV / AIDS Fund, Tuberculosis and Malaria and GAVI, met in Beijing in August 2013 to implement the Beijing Action Plan 2013-2015, adopted by the 5th China-Africa Cooperation Forum Ministerial in 2012. Under the theme of \u201cPriorities of China-Africa Cooperation Health in the New Era\u201d, the meeting reviewed previous health cooperation between China and Africa and reached consensus on the priorities for and ways of health cooperation. The meeting agreed on various areas of future links including on health worker training; cooperation between research institutions in China and Africa, strengthening of health information systems; prevention and control of communicable and non-communicable diseases; support for health infrastructure development donating modulated clinics to Africa, adapted to local conditions; cooperation in standard setting and inspection of medical products through capacity building and use of appropriate technology and promotion of health technology transfer to reduce the price of health commodities including pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, vaccines and equipment, and to increase their affordability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Bringing African Perspectives to Global Health Diplomacy discourse","field_subtitle":"Dept of Health South Africa, University of Pretoria, EQUINET: Public Health Association of South Africa Conference workshop, Cape Town, 25 September 2013","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET co-operated with Department of Health South Africa and University of Pretoria to co-host a workshop at the September 2013 PHASA conference on African Perspectives in Global Health diplomacy. The workshop explored, through an interactive  panel discussion, how African countries could and are positioning themselves to advance African health interests in global health discourse. It involved speakers from Ministry of Health, Kenya, from EQUINET, from Department of International Relations and Cooperation, South Africa and ambassadors and programmes from countries that have health co-operation with Africa. The panellists and delegates explored African experiences of foreign policy and global diplomacy for health and the opportunities, risks, key issues and lessons for African countries in raising health as a foreign policy issue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Consultancy for e-mHealth Strategy Development for ECSA HC","field_subtitle":"Call closes 27 October 2013","field_url":"http://ecsahc.org/vacancies.php?id=82","body":"This call is for a consultant to design an E/M health strategy and its implementation plan for the ECSA Health Community region in consultation with relevant stakeholders and regional players, ie to undertake an in-depth assessment of the status of implementation of e/mhealth in the ECSA region; present the findings of the assessment to ECSA secretariat; develop the draft regional e/mhealth strategy based on the findings of the situational assessment and an implementation plan for the strategy and present it at a draft regional validation workshop and submit the final regional e/mhealth strategy to ECSA secretariat. Further details at the ECSA HC website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Consultant Documentation and Sharing of Best Practice in Retention of Health Workers: Assessment of Kenya and Malawi Retention Packages","field_subtitle":"Call closes 30 November 2013","field_url":"http://ecsahc.org/vacancies.php?id=91","body":"The main purpose of the assignment is to document and share best practices on retention of HRH as a strategy for motivation and improved productivity with specific objectives of: determining the various retention strategies in Kenya and Malawi; identifying best practices in retention of health workers, including those for reproductive health and family planning; and\r\nbenchmarking with best practices regionally and internationally with a view to create a conducive environment for public health workers. Further information can be found on the ECSA HC website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Applicants: Human Rights Scholarship ","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 31 October 2013","field_url":"http://services.unimelb.edu.au/scholarships/research /local/available/humanrights","body":"The Human Rights Scholarship (HRS) is awarded to local or international applicants wishing to undertake graduate research studies at the University of Melbourne in the human rights field and who are able to demonstrate their commitment to the peaceful advancement of respect for human rights. Each year the University offers two HRSs. Applicants must be able to demonstrate that their commitment to the peaceful advancement of respect for human rights extends beyond their academic studies (such as voluntary work and/or work experience). Applicants must have applied for, or be currently enrolled in a graduate research degree in the human rights field at the University of Melbourne. Applicants who have commenced their graduate research degree must have at least 12 months full-time or equivalent candidature remaining. International students must have an unconditional course offer at the University of Melbourne for the course for which they seek the support of a HRS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Papers: Science & Practice of People-Centred Health Systems","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 13 November 2013","field_url":"http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/heapol /resource/cfp_hhp_supplement.pdf","body":"The journal Health Policy and Planning and the organisers of the Third Global Symposium on Health Systems Research are pleased to issue a call for papers for a special supplement on the theme of \"The science and practice of people-centred health systems\". People-centred health systems are founded on pro-people philosophies of social justice and equity, recognise the role of social exclusion and inequities as determinants of poor health, and can also actively work to address them. They consider the health needs and preferences of individuals, families and communities, and create the channels through which these can be articulated and realised. They also recognise and actively progress people\u2019s rights to participate in and determine how health systems are organised, resources are allocated, and services are delivered. Original research articles as well as review papers are invited. The theme may reflect either in the topic or focus of the paper (e.g. research on people-led governance, health worker rights or patient-led health care), in the analytical approach adopted (e.g. ethical analysis, approaches that help understand people\u2019s behaviour and motivation), or in the manner of conduct of research (e.g. participatory approaches, focus on researcher reflexivity).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: Science & practice of people-centred health systems","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 13 November 2013","field_url":"http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/heapol/resource/cfp_hhp_supplement.pdf","body":"The journal Health Policy and Planning and the organisers of the Third Global Symposium on Health Systems Research are pleased to issue a call for papers for a special supplement on the theme of \"The science and practice of people-centred health systems\".  People-centred health systems are founded on pro-people philosophies of social justice and equity, recognise the role of social exclusion and inequities as determinants of poor health, and can also actively work to address them. They consider the health needs and preferences of individuals, families and communities, and create the channels through which these can be articulated and realised. They also recognise and actively progress people\u2019s rights to participate in and determine how health systems are organised, resources are allocated, and services are delivered. Original research articles as well as review papers are invited. The theme may reflect either in the topic or focus of the paper (e.g. research on people-led governance, health worker rights or patient-led health care), in the analytical approach adopted (e.g. ethical analysis, approaches that help understand people\u2019s behaviour and motivation), or in the manner of conduct of research (e.g. participatory approaches, focus on researcher reflexivity).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"China-Africa Health Cooperation: A New Era?","field_subtitle":"Victoria Fan, Center for Global Development","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/blog/china-africa-health-cooperation-new-era","body":"Since 2000, China has hosted six ministerial Fora on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), held every three years, in which health is but one of many areas of attention. In the last FOCAC, the accompanying Beijing Action Plan for 2013-15 listed cooperation in many areas \u2013 6 in political, 9 in economic, 6 in cultural, and 6 in development \u2013 of which \u2018medical aid and public health\u2019 is one. This opinion piece discusses the strengths and challenges of the inaugural forum on health held in August 2013 and the Beijing declaration after the Forum, seen by the author to mark a turning point in the history of Chinese development and health cooperation to Africa. The author notes that China\u2019s top-level leadership clearly sees the political, economic, and perhaps health importance of global engagement especially in Africa.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/38657","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil Society Week: Bringing Citizen Voice into the Post-2015 Development Vision","field_subtitle":"Johannesburg, South Africa: 10-15 November 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/o63wxd2","body":"CIVICUS is calling for participants to a series of civil society events taking place between 10 and 15 November 2013 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Coming just two months after the UN General Assembly meetings in New York in September 2013, the week of strategising, dialogue and mobilisation will provide a space for global civil society to chart a route forwards on how to bring real citizen voice, accountability and mobilisation into the newly emerging development vision. Two major global civil society conferences, at the heart of the week, are being hosted for the first time outside of Europe. 1. The conference on Building a Global Citizens Movement, convened by CONCORD/DEEEP, will take place on 11-12 November, and bring grassroots activists and social movements together with organised civil society. A session hosted by CIVICUS and partners, with a special South African focus, will connect the experiences of yesterday\u2019s struggle activists with more recent social justice movements. 2. The International Civil Society Centre's Global Perspectives 2013 conference engages global and national CEOs of leading international civil society organisations in a dialogue around navigating disruptive change. The conference is co-hosted by ActionAid International and CIVICUS and will take place on 13-15 November.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Closing the poor-rich gap in contraceptive use in urban Kenya: are family planning programs","field_subtitle":"Fotso JC, Speizer IS, Mukiira C, Kizito P, LumumbaV: International Journal for Equity in Health  12:71, 2013","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-12-71.pdf","body":"Kenya is characterized by high unmet need for family planning (FP) and high unplanned pregnancy, in a context of urban population explosion and increased urban poverty. It witnessed an improvement of its FP and reproductive health (RH) indicators in the recent past, after a period of stalled progress. The paper describes inequities in modern contraceptive use, types of methods used, and the main sources of contraceptives in urban Kenya; examines the extent to which differences in contraceptive use between the poor and the rich widened or shrank over time; and attempts to relate these findings to the FP programming context, with a focus on whether the services are increasingly reaching the urban poor.  It uses data from the 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008/09 Kenya demographic and health survey.  The authors found a dramatic change in contraceptive use between 2003 and 2008/09 that resulted in virtually no gap between the poor and the rich in 2008/09, by contrast to the period 1993\u20131998 during which the improvement in contraceptive use did not significantly benefit the urban poor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Conference in Global Health Diplomacy: The new realm in international relations- event video","field_subtitle":"ECSA Health Community, Arusha, August 2013","field_url":"http://ecsahc.org/events.php?id=30","body":"This video covers the one day meeting held by the ECSA Health Community on global health diplomacy prior to the ECSA HC best practices forum. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Distance as a barrier to health care access in South Africa","field_subtitle":"aren Z,  Ardington C, Leibbrandt M:  SALDRU Working paper 97, June 2013","field_url":"http://datafirst.cssr.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11090/613/2013_97.pdf?sequence=1","body":"Access to health care is a particular concern given the centrality of poor access in perpetuating poverty and inequality. Even when health services are provided free of charge, monetary and time costs of travel to a local clinic may pose a significant barrier for vulnerable segments of the population, leading to overall poorer health. Using new data from the first nationally representative panel survey in South Africa together with administrative geographic data from the Department of Health, the authors investigate the role of distance to the nearest facility on patterns of health care utilization. Ninety percent of South Africans live within 7km of the nearest public clinic, and two-thirds live less than 2km away. However, 15% of Black African adults live more than 5km from the nearest facility, in contrast to only 7% of coloureds and 4% of whites. There is a clear income gradient in proximity to public clinics. The poorest people tend to reside furthest from the nearest clinic and an inability to bear travel costs constrains them to lower quality health care facilities. Within this general picture, men and women have different patterns of health care utilization, with the reduction in utilization of health care associated with distance being larger for men than it is for women. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Does the \u2018inverse equity hypothesis\u2019 explain how both poverty and wealth can be associated","field_subtitle":"Hargreaves JR, Davey C, White RG:  J  Epidemiol Community Health  67: 526\u2013529, 2013","field_url":"http://jech.bmj.com/content/67/6/526.full","body":"Whether it is relative wealth or relative poverty that drives the HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa, is a controversial aspect of HIV/AIDS epidemiology. The authors suggest that the social epidemiology of HIV in Africa is changing. Previously, new infections were more rapidly acquired by those of relatively higher socioeconomic position (SEP). More recently, those of relatively low SEP are at greater risk. The authors explored in this paper whether the pattern would be compatible with the \u2018inverse equity hypothesis\u2019, that suggests that those of higher SEP benefit first from new health interventions.  Using available evidence from the region, the authors suggest that in the early phase of the epidemic, HIV infections were concentrated among those of higher SEP in many countries. The inverse equity hypothesis suggests that new infections will increasingly concentrate among those of lower SEP. If further analysis confirms this hypothesis, the authors suggest that policy responses must be considered to ensure that interventions reach poorer groups and that structural approaches tackle the social determinants of HIV infection.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"East African Agriculture and Climate Change: A Comprehensive Analysis","field_subtitle":"Waithaka M, Nelson G, Thomas T, Kyotalimye M: IFPRI issue brief 76 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ib76.pdf","body":"How to foster agricultural development and food security in East Africa as the effects of climate change become more serious is the subject of the study East African Agriculture and Climate Change: A Comprehensive Analysis. The authors develop several weather-based scenarios for how climate change might affect countries in the region between now and 2050. National contributors from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda review the scenario results for their countries and propose a variety of policies to counter the effects of climate change on agriculture and food security. These policies include greater investment in agricultural research and extension, equitable access to land and inputs such as seeds and fertilizer, expanded irrigation, and improved infrastructure.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Efficiency and effectiveness of strategies for promoting access for the poor and vulnerable groups within user fee system: Mwanza and Misungwi districts, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Kumallja GJ: MPH Thesis University of Dar es Salaam, September 2013","field_url":"http://ir.muhas.ac.tz:8080/jspui/handle/123456789/1322","body":"The implementation of user fees while fostering equity in access of quality health services for the poor is still a problem in health facilities in Tanzania. A cross sectional exploratory descriptive study was conducted in Mwanza at Sekou- Toure (public) and Bukumbi (Voluntary) hospitals in June 2002 to investigate the strategies for promoting access for the poor and vulnerable groups within their user fee systems, through exit interviews, documentary reviews and observations. Of 150 respondents from each hospital, only 36% of the public and 26% of the voluntary hospitals respondents were aware of the existence of the exemption mechanism in those hospitals. The findings from the study showed that the strategies implemented by the public and voluntary hospitals are not enough to effectively and efficiently identify the poor in their user fee system. The implementation of user fees while fostering equity in access of quality health services for the poor is still a problem in health facilities in Tanzania. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to admin@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact admin@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 152: Addressing health inequities through Universal Health Coverage ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in Maternal Health in South Africa: Analysis of Health Service Access and Health Status in a National Household Survey","field_subtitle":"Wabiri N, Chersich M, Zuma K, Blaauw D, Goudge J, Dwane N: PLoS ONE 8(9): e73864. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0073864 September 2013","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0073864","body":"South Africa is increasingly focused on reducing maternal mortality. Documenting variation in access to maternal health services across one of the most inequitable nations could assist in re-direction of resources.\r\nThis analysis drew on a population-based household survey that used multistage-stratified sampling. Women, who in the past two years were pregnant (1113) or had a child (1304), completed questionnaires and HIV testing. Distribution of access to maternal health services and health status across socio-economic, education and other population groups was assessed using weighted data. The survey found that the poorest women had near universal antenatal care coverage (ANC), but only 39.6% attended before 20 weeks gestation; this figure was 2.7-fold higher in the wealthiest quartile (95%CI adjusted odds ratio = 1.2\u20136.1). Women in rural-formal areas had lowest ANC coverage (89.7%), percentage completing four ANC visits (79.7%) and only 84.0% were offered HIV testing. Testing levels were highest among the poorest quartile (90.1% in past two years), but 10% of women above 40 or with low education had never tested. Skilled birth attendant coverage (overall 95.3%) was lowest in the poorest quartile (91.4%) and rural formal areas (85.6%). Around two thirds of the wealthiest quartile, of white and of formally-employed women had a doctor at childbirth, 11-fold higher than the poorest quartile. Overall, only 44.4% of pregnancies were planned, 31.7% of HIV-infected women and 68.1% of the wealthiest quartile. Self-reported health status also declined considerably with each drop in quartile, education level or age group. Aside from early ANC attendance and deficiencies in care in rural-formal areas, inequalities in utilisation of services were mostly small, with some measures even highest among the poorest. Considerably larger differences were noted in maternal health status across population groups. This may reflect differences between these groups in quality of care received, HIV infection and in social determinants of health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Frustrated Freedom: The Effects of Agency and Wealth on Wellbeing in Rural Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Victor B, Fischer E, Cooil B, Vergara A, Mukolo A, Blevins M: World Development, 47,  30-41, July 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X1300051X","body":"In the capability approach to poverty, wellbeing is threatened by both deficits of wealth and deficits of agency. Sen describes that \u201cunfreedom,\u201d or low levels of agency, will suppress the wellbeing effects of higher levels of wealth.  In this paper the authors introduce another condition, \u201cfrustrated freedom,\u201d in which higher levels of agency belief can heighten the poverty effects of low levels of wealth. Presenting data from a study of female heads of household in rural Mozambique, they find that agency belief moderates the relationship between wealth and wellbeing, uncovering evidence of frustrated freedom.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"GMOs - who will feed us and what will they feed us?","field_subtitle":"Amamu NA: Pambazuka news 647 September 2013","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/89001","body":"The International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, known as UPOV 91 is argued by the author to be dangerous to African farmers. It will force farmers to buy patented corporate seeds and agrochemicals from the same corporations. The ETC Group, the Action Group on Erosion, Technology, and Concentration has released the report: \u2018Putting the Cartel Before the Horse \u2026and Farm, Seeds, Soil, Peasants, etc. Who Will Control Agricultural Inputs, 2013?\u2019 The report details how the agribusiness giants have gobbled up most of the seed and agrochemical companies and control most of the agriculture in the US and Europe and are now aiming to take over the agriculture of the global south, particularly Africa. Peasant farmers, who feed at least 70 percent of the world\u2019s population \u2013 are not tied to the corporate seed chain. The agribusiness giants want to tie them in. They are focusing on \u2018education\u2019 which seeks primarily to stop farmers from saving seeds.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Human Rights, Social Inclusion and Health Equity in International Donors' Policies","field_subtitle":"Eide AH, Amin M, MacLachlan M, Mannan H, Schneider M: Disability, CBR and Inclusive Development Journal, 23, 4, 144, 2012","field_url":"http://dcidj.org/article/view/144","body":"Health policies have the potential to be important instruments in achieving equity in health. A framework \u2013 EquiFrame - for assessing the extent to which health policies promote equity was used to perform an equity audit of the health policies of three international aid organizations, to assess the extent to which social inclusion and human rights feature in the health policies of DFID (UK), Irish Aid, and NORAD (Norway). EquiFrame was used as a tool for analysing equity and quality of health policies with regards to social inclusion and human rights. Each health policy was analyzed with regards to the frequency and content of a predefined set of Vulnerable Groups and Core Concepts. The three policies varied but were all relatively weak with regards to social inclusion and human rights issues as defined in EquiFrame. The needs and rights of vulnerable groups for adequate health services were largely not addressed. In order to enhance a social inclusion and human rights perspective that will promote equity in health through more equitable health policies, it is suggested that EquiFrame can be used to guide the revision and development of the health policies of international organizations, aid agencies and bilateral donors in the future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequalities in multimorbidity in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Ataguba J: International Journal for Equity in Health, 12:64, 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-12-64.pdf","body":"Very little is known about socioeconomic related inequalities in multi-morbidity, especially in developing countries. Traditionally, studies on health inequalities have mainly focused on a single disease condition or different conditions in isolation. This paper examines socioeconomic inequality in multi-morbidity in illness and disability in South\r\nAfrica between 2005 and 2008. Data were drawn from the 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 rounds of the nationally representative annual South African General Household Surveys. Indirectly standardised concentration indices were used to assess socioeconomic inequality. A proxy index of socioeconomic status was constructed, for each year, using a selected set\r\nof variables that are available in all the GHS rounds. Multi-morbidity in illness and disability were constructed using data on nine illnesses and six disabilities contained in the GHS. Multi-morbidity was found to affect a substantial number of South Africans. Most often, based on the nine illness conditions and six disability conditions considered, multi-morbidity in illness and multi-morbidity in disability were each found to\r\ninvolve only two conditions. In 2008 in South Africa, the multi-morbidity that affected the greatest number of individuals combined high blood pressure with at least one other illness. Between 2005 and 2008, multi-morbidity in illness and disability was more prevalent among poor people; in disabilities this is yet more consistent. While there is a dearth of information on the socioeconomic distribution of multi-morbidity in many\r\ndeveloping countries, the paper shows that its distribution in South Africa indicates that the poor bear a greater burden of multi-morbidity. The author argues that, given the high burden and skewed socioeconomic distribution of multi-morbidity, there is a need to design policies to address this situation, and surveys that specifically assess multi-morbidity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Litigating health rights: Can courts bring more justice to health?","field_subtitle":"Alicia Ely Yamin: Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University, Boston, MA, for the 141st APHA Annual Meeting, November 2013 ","field_url":"https://apha.confex.com/apha/141am/webprogramadapt/Paper281154.html","body":"Beginning with HIV and AIDS cases, the last fifteen years have seen a tremendous growth in the number of health rights cases. Yet questions still persist as to when and how litigation can lead to greater social justice in health and enhance the functioning of health systems, rather than distorting practices. In a number of countries, courts are in effect setting health policy and shaping funding priorities. Yet, little systematic attention has been paid to the equity implications of this litigation. Based on a comprehensive study of litigation in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, India and South Africa, this presentation traces the beginnings of health rights litigation; reviews factors leading to judicial activism in health around the world; stresses the importance of differentiating contexts and kinds of interventions; and will discuss different methodologies for measuring impacts of litigation. Health rights litigation is extremely varied around the world. Factors that must be considered in assessing equity implications relate to the legal opportunity structure as well as other dimensions of the legal system, the organization of the health system, and the way in which the executive branch responds to judicial decisions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Making Health a Right for all: Universal health coverage and Nutrition","field_subtitle":"ACF Int, Global Health Advocates, Terre des Hommes: France, 2013","field_url":"http://uhcforward.org/sites/uhcforward.org/files/Making%20Health%20a%20Right%20for%20All.pdf","body":"This briefing paper explores how UHC can deliver on nutrition, and addresses in particular maternal and child undernutrition. The authors point to the need to ensure that Universal Health Coverage (UHC) can deliver on the fight against undernutrition. They recommend that national, European and global development policies consider a shift from emergency-focused interventions to ones that prevent and treat undernutrition. Budgetary and extra-budgetary resources need to be mobilised within health programs to reach UHC for scaling up the implementation of nutrition interventions. They present evidence that the implementation of community approaches will be mostly effective if designed in an integrated manner combining the most effective child and maternal interventions. Governments, through pooled risk funding,should ensure access for the most vulnerable and marginalised groups as defined by the specific country context and scale up the implementation of effective nutrition specific interventions within the health policies to reach UHC, such as by integrating the prevention and treatment against chronic and sever acute malnutrition into the management of childhood illnesses of WHO guidelines; and integrating at the national level the prevention and treatment of chronic acute malnutrition or severe acute malnutrition into primary health\r\ncare packages.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Population Trends and Policy Options in Selected Developing Countries","field_subtitle":"Thomas J: Partners in Population and Development, Bangladesh, 2012","field_url":"http://movinglines.net/docs/final-Population-Trends-and-policy-Option-Final-Book.pdf#page=262","body":"This compendium of Population Stabilisation Reports was an outcome of the research work done by different authors from the nine countries namely Bangladesh, India (Bihar), Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda and Zimbabwe.  The reports focus on the demographic realities that take into consideration the age structure, sex ratios, migrations, population projections as well as adolescent pregnancy, fertility and mortality. The historical, religious, cultural, political, resource and environmental considerations are reviewed in the reports. The underlying principals of poverty eradication, sustainable growth, universal education, with a focus on girls, gender equality and empowerment, food security, access to primary health services and a rights-based approach to sexual and reproductive health, are fundamental to the principals and practices that are prescribed within the framework of the reports. The edited book provides an integrated approach to changing\r\npopulation stabilisation strategies, including attention to sustainable development and gender equity, with case studies from African countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Promoting universal financial protection: contracting faith-based health facilities to expand access \u2013 lessons learned from Malawi","field_subtitle":"Chirwa ML, Kazanga I, Faedo G, Thomas S: Health Research Policy and Systems 11:27, 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-11-27.pdf","body":"Public-private collaborations are increasingly being utilized to universalize health care. In Malawi, the Ministry of Health contracts selected health facilities owned by the main faith-based provider, the Christian Health Association of Malawi (CHAM), to deliver care at no fee to the most vulnerable and underserved populations in the country through Service Level Agreements (SLAs). This study examined the features of SLAs and their effectiveness in expanding universal coverage. The study involved a policy analysis focusing on key stakeholders around SLAs as well as a case study approach to analyse how design and implementation of SLAs affect efficiency, equity and sustainability of services delivered by SLAs.  It used qualitative and quantitative research methods in five CHAM health facilities, with national and district level decision makers and providers and clients associated with the health facilities. In general, the findings demonstrated that SLAs had the potential to improve health and universal health care coverage, particularly for the vulnerable and underserved populations. However, the performance of SLAs in Malawi were affected by various factors including lack of clear guidelines, non-revised prices, late payment of bills, lack of transparency, poor communication, inadequate human and material resources, and lack of systems to monitor performance of SLAs, amongst others.  There was strong consensus and shared interest between the government and CHAM regarding SLAs. The free services provided by SLAs had an impact on the impoverished locals that used the facilities. However, lack of supporting systems, inadequate infrastructure and shortage of health care providers affected SLA performance. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Seventh SAHARA Conference 2013","field_subtitle":"7-10 October 2013: Dakar, Senegal","field_url":"http://sahara.org.za/conferences/2013","body":"The Social Aspects of HIV and AIDS Research Alliance (SAHARA), established in 2001 by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), is an alliance of partners established to conduct, support and use social sciences research to prevent the further spread of HIV and mitigate the impact of its devastation in sub-Saharan Africa. The SAHARA 7 conference theme is \"Translating evidence into action: Engaging with communities, policies, human rights, gender, service delivery\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening local-level cause of death surveillance: a case study of Western Cape Province, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Groenewald P, Naledi T, Daniels J, Shand L, Neethling I, Berteler M, Misra M, Jacobs C, Thompson V, Msemburi W, Matzopoulos R, Bradshaw R: The Lancet,  381, S54, 17 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)61308-2/abstract","body":"The Western Cape Province has a local-level mortality surveillance system that has been upgraded to do automated cause of death coding using IRIS software, in concordance with the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10th Revision (ICD-10) codes. This paper reviews the achievements in providing district-level and subdistrict-level mortality data, and describes the lessons learnt and the challenges for sustaining such a system. Cause of death coding was upgraded from a shortlist to full ICD-10 coding for natural causes of death in a customised data capture system. A total of 33 564 deaths from natural causes were coded for 2009, with 9.4% due to ill-defined causes. Completeness was estimated at 83.7% and mortality profiles were provided for all health districts for the first time, highlighting district variations in age-standardised mortality rates, although HIV and tuberculosis were the leading causes of premature mortality across all districts. It is necessary to train data capturers in medical terminology and doctors in death certification, as well as building quality assurance measures into the system. Local cause of death coding enables quality issues to be identified and addressed directly at source. IRIS makes it possible to standardise coding across districts for routine cases. Dissemination of local mortality information creates a demand for updated results, which are sometimes difficult to meet. Challenges include securing the appropriate resource allocation, integrating into a fragmented health system, and ensuring co-operation between government departments. Utilisation of information technology opportunities (eg, electronic registration of death) remains a challenge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The women sing at both sides of the Zambezi","field_subtitle":"Audio-library established by African women ","field_url":"http://both-sides-of-the-zambezi.tumblr.com/#me","body":"This is an audio-library established by African women to share their stories and knowledge with their sisters across the continent, and with all listeners wherever they are. The collection celebrates the art and power of storytelling, and the creativity of African women, their achievements in arts, culture and media. The current weekly on-line release of new interviews forms a foundation for audio-visual training and creative media projects with women in the Zambezi region in 2014. The doors of this internet-archive are always open for listeners and for storytellers, who wish to contribute their stories and responses to the collection. In October, \u201cIbhayisikopo Film Project\u201d and \u201cradio continental drift\u201d will join forces for a women-driven film- and media project. We want to train young women in Bulawayo as trainers in film-production and creative media. The facilitators are inviting listeners, artists and storytellers to build the sound-library of storytelling by contribute local recordings to the All Africa Sound Map and place African arts and culture on the global map.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding the factors influencing health-worker employment decisions in South Africa","field_subtitle":"George G, Gow J and Bachoo S: Human Resources for Health 11(15), 23 April 2013","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-11-15.pdf","body":"Little is known about the nonfinancial factors that influence South African health workers\u2019 (HWs) choice of employer (public, private or nongovernmental organisation) or their choice of work location (urban, rural or overseas). To fill these gaps in the literature, researchers used a cross-sectional survey to gather data in 2009 in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. HWs in the public sector reported the poorest working conditions, as indicated by participants\u2019 self-reports on stress, workloads, levels of remuneration, standard of work premises, level of human resources and frequency of in-service training. However, HWs in the NGO sector expressed a greater desire than those in the public and private sectors to leave their current employer. The authors call for innovative efforts to address the causes of HWs dissatisfaction and to further identify the nonfinancial factors that influence work choices of HWs. Policymakers must consider a broad range of nonfinancial incentives that encourage HWs to remain in the already overburdened public sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cby seeing with our own eyes, it can remain in our mind.\u201d: Evidence of participatory video's ability to reduce gender-based violence in conflict-affected settings","field_subtitle":"Gurman T,  Trappler R, Acosta A, Cooper C, Goodsmith L: 141st APHA Annual Meeting, November 2013","field_url":"https://apha.confex.com/apha/141am/webprogramadapt/Paper289363.html","body":"Although gender-based violence (GBV) exists worldwide, it is especially pervasive and challenging in conflict-affected settings. The breakdown of the family unit, high population density, and lack of community safeguards pose obstacles to implementation of GBV prevention programs. Unfortunately, little evidence exists regarding effective GBV prevention interventions in these settings. Through Our Eyes (TOE), a multi-year participatory video project, addressed GBV by stimulating community dialogue and action in humanitarian settings in South Sudan, Uganda, Thailand, Liberia and Rwanda.  The authors used evidence from transcripts from focus group discussions and key informant interviews with individuals who created the videos to those who attended video screenings. Data was analysed using a Grounded Theory approach. The assessment found that TOE contributed to a growing awareness of women's rights and gender equity. Furthermore, both men and women reported attitudinal and behavioural changes related to topics such as intimate partner violence. The fostered community dialogue helped de-stigmatize GBV and encourage survivors to access services. Participatory video is argued to have the ability to tailor messages to specific community needs, engage men as key players, foster community dialogue, and initiate social change related to GBV in a variety of conflict-affected settings. The authors argue that public health professionals should employ participatory video as an innovative technique to address GBV and promote positive gender norms within conflict-affected and other humanitarian settings. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"A transformative stand-alone goal on achieving gender equality, women\u2019s rights and women\u2019s empowerment: Imperatives and key components","field_subtitle":"UN Women: June 2013","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/post-2015-case-for-standalone-gender-goal%20pdf.pdf","body":"In this report, UN Women calls for a specific commitment to achieving gender equality, women\u2019s rights and women\u2019s empowerment in the post-2015 development framework and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as robust mainstreaming of gender considerations across all parts of the framework. To make a difference, the new framework must be transformative, by addressing the structural impediments to gender equality and the achievement of women\u2019s rights. In order to address the structural causes of gender-based discrimination and to support true transformation in gender relations, the report proposes an integrated approach that addresses three critical target areas of gender equality, women\u2019s rights and women\u2019s empowerment. 1. Freedom from violence against women and girls, which includes concrete actions to eliminate the debilitating fear and/or experience of violence as the centre-piece of any future framework. 2. Gender equality in the distribution of capabilities \u2013 knowledge, good health, sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights of women and adolescent girls; and access to resources and opportunities, including land, decent work and equal pay to build women\u2019s economic and social security. 3. Gender equality in decision-making power in public and private institutions, in national parliaments and local councils, the media and civil society, in the management and governance of firms, and in families and communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Addressing research capacity for health equity and the social determinants of health in three African countries: the INTREC programme","field_subtitle":"Hofman K, Blomstedt Y, Addei S, Kalage R, Maredza M et al: Global Health Action 2013(6), April 2013","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3617877/","body":"INTREC (INDEPTH Training and Research Centres of Excellence) was established to provide training for researchers from the INDEPTH network on associations between health inequities, the social determinants of health (SDH), and health outcomes, and on presenting their findings in a usable form to policy makers. The authors of this paper assessed the current status of SDH training in three of the African INTREC countries \u2013 Ghana, Tanzania, and South Africa \u2013 as well as the gaps, barriers, and opportunities for training. Results indicated that SDH-relevant training is available, but the number of places available for students is limited, the training tends to be public-health-oriented rather than inclusive of the broader, multi-sectoral issues associated with SDH, and insufficient funding places limitations on both students and on the training institutions themselves, thereby affecting participation and quality. The authors argue that there is a clear role for INTREC to contribute to the training of a critical mass of African researchers on the topic. This work will be accomplished most effectively by building on pre-existing networks, institutions, and methods.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Advertisement and knowledge of tobacco products among Ellisras rural children aged 11 to 18 years: Ellisras Longitudinal study","field_subtitle":"Monyeki KD, Kemper HCG, Amusa LO and Motshwane M: BMC Pediatrics 13(111), May 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2431-13-111.pdf","body":"Tobacco products use is the leading cause of chronic diseases morbidity and mortality. This study explores an exposure to tobacco advertisements factors and knowledge, an association with snuff/pipe usage and cigarette smoking among rural children aged between 11 to 18 years in Ellisras, South Africa. A total of 1,654 subjects (854 boys and 800 girls) completed the questionnaire. Results showed that a significant number of boys (11.7%) compared to girls (8.8%) received free cigarettes from the members of the community. Bill boards were successful in advertising tobacco products among the Ellisras rural boys (17% boys and 12.8% for girls). The authors found significant association between cigarette smoking and advertisements of tobacco products on the TV screens, videos or movies. Though tobacco products legislation exists in South Africa, the authors argue that efforts should be taken by the health professionals to emphasise the danger of using tobacco products even among the illiterate. Teachers and parents should refrain from advertising tobacco products at schools and at homes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"An Open Letter to the Executive Director of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria","field_subtitle":"Wilkerson M: AIDS-Free World, July 2013","field_url":"","body":"According to this letter, the Global Fund indicators that have been used in the past do not reflect a commitment to strengthening the response for women and girls. Many key indicators of progress do not address the differing realities for women and girls versus men and boys. For example, the indicator for new HIV infections is not disaggregated by sex. Similarly, the Global Fund has administered many grants with a focus on orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), but few of the programmes use indicators that reflect that the experiences of orphans and vulnerable children who are girls will differ from those of boys, both in the opportunities and obstacles they will encounter. The author argues that failure to measure progress in preventing new infections among women, or to measure the effects of OVC programmes on girls, means there is no incentive for countries that receive Global Fund grants to ensure that their efforts are addressing the specific challenges faced by women and girls. Other necessary indicators must be developed about the specific effects of HIV and AIDS on women, such as access to testing, counseling, and treatment among women who are not pregnant. Integration of HIV services and contraception provision, as well as violence experienced by all women - not just those who are married or cohabiting \u2013 need to be addressed, especially as research has repeatedly shown that sexual violence puts women and girls at elevated risk of contracting HIV.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/38577","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Association between health worker motivation and healthcare quality efforts in Ghana","field_subtitle":"Alhassan RK, Spieker N, van Ostenberg P, Ogink A, Nketiah-Amponsah E and de Wit TF: Human Resources for Health 11(37), 14 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-11-37.pdf","body":"A baseline survey of 324 health workers in 64 primary healthcare facilities in two regions in Ghana found that the quality of care in health facilities was generally low. Most facilities did not have processes for continuous quality improvement and patient safety. Staff motivation appeared low, particularly in public facilities. Significant positive associations were found between staff satisfaction levels and working conditions and the clinic\u2019s effort towards quality improvement and patient safety. The authors called for more comprehensive staff motivation interventions to be integrated into quality improvement strategies, especially in public health services where working conditions are perceived to be poor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Barriers to the participation of people with psychosocial disability in mental health policy development in South Africa: a qualitative study of perspectives of policy makers, professionals, religious leaders and academics","field_subtitle":"Kleintjes S, Lund C and Swartz L: BMC International Health and Human Rights 13(17), 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-13-17.pdf","body":"This paper outlines stakeholder views on environmental barriers that prevent people who live with psychosocial disability from participating in mental health policy development in South Africa. The authors conducted 56 semi-structured interviews with national, provincial and local South African mental health stakeholders between August 2006 and August 2009. Respondents included public sector policy makers, professional regulatory council representatives, and representatives from non-profit organisations (NPOs), disabled people\u2019s organisations (DPOs), mental health interest groups, religious organisations, professional associations, universities and research institutions. Respondents identified three main environmental barriers to participation in policy development: stigmatisation and low priority of mental health, poverty, and ineffective recovery and community supports. The authors conclude that a number of attitudes, practices and structures undermine the equal participation of South Africans with psychosocial disability in society. They call for a human rights paradigm and multi-system approach to enable full social engagement by people with psychosocial disability, including their involvement in policy development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for participants: East and Southern Africa regional training workshop on participatory methods for a people-centred health system: Strengthening community focused, primary health care oriented approaches to social accountability and action: 7\u201311 Octo","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 3 September 2013","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/info%40tarsc.org","body":"TARSC, through COPASAH, a network for accountability in health, and EQUINET, are planning to hold a regional workshop on Participatory Approaches to Strengthening People Centred Health Systems in the east and southern African region, focusing on ways of improving public involvement, social action and accountability in health for local action and advocacy. The workshop will explore how to raise community voice in strengthening the resourcing and functioning of primary health care (PHC) systems through the use of participatory approaches to build community roles in accountability and action. It seeks to support work at national, district and local level with health systems and communities in health, with a major focus on the interactions at primary health care level. Interested applicants should submit a one or two page \u2018expression of interest\u2019, a personal CV including community based research and training and any prior experience of, training in or use of PRA or social accountability methods, and some brief information on the institution that they work in. Note that applicants who are not already members of COPASAH are requested to complete their membership form on line as part of the application process. See http://www.copasah.net/copasah-membership.html","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/38580","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Debating the scope of a health research and development convention","field_subtitle":"Moran M: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 91(8): 618-620, August 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/91/8/12-110486/en/index.html","body":"In 2012, the World Health Organisation\u2019s Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination (CEWG) proposed a binding convention that would mandate every signatory country to invest a minimum of 0.01% of its gross domestic product (GDP) in research and development (R&D) falling within the established scope. In this article, the author explores the proposed convention\u2019s possible ramifications. In its narrowest interpretation, the convention would only address R&D gaps in areas where no suitable products exist. This would involve funding a publicly-driven pharmaceutical effort since, by definition, no commercial incentive exists in these areas. But even this approach leaves room for interpretation, the author argues. If narrowly interpreted, coverage would be limited to R&D gaps for Type II and III diseases; if more broadly interpreted, coverage would also extend to R&D gaps in Type I products suitable for developing countries. The author argues that, despite advances in global health, developing countries continue to have a shortage of appropriate tools to prevent, diagnose and treat many diseases. The proposed convention is intended to address this problem, but lack of clarity in the convention\u2019s remit has left its scope open to interpretation. He calls for this uncertainty to be resolved in order for discussions to move forward.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Does Abolishing User Fees Lead to Improved Health Status? Evidence from Post-Apartheid South Africa","field_subtitle":"Tanaka S: Social Science and Research Network, July 2013","field_url":"http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2215144","body":"In this paper, the author examines the impact of removing user fees from healthcare on the health status of poor children in South Africa. By comparing health development across similar children, the author found that free healthcare improved the health status of all children, but to a greater extent for boys than for girls. These results present several important policy implications for other developing countries contemplating the abolition of user fees. First, removing user fees is effective in improving child health status through increased access to and utilisation of health services in an environment where poor households face significant budget constraints. Second, increased access to health services is an important determinant of better health outcomes. Third, free health services are often challenged by a potential trade off between quantity and quality of services. The study supports the assertion that the quality of health services appears to have deteriorated, due to poor financial management, leading to lower health status among older children in the high treatment region. However, the net benefits were still positive and significant for children who received free healthcare.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Effectiveness of African regional professional associations ","field_subtitle":"Browne E: GSDRC, 8 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.gsdrc.org/docs/open/HDQ983.pdf","body":"This report provides examples of professional and academic associations which work across three or more African countries, and which have some evidence of success. The author aims to identify the characteristics of these organisations which enable their success. Types of impact are varied, but are usually identified as strong membership, attendance at national or international meetings, awareness of the organisation in the wider sphere, dissemination and uptake of publications, and connection or influence on policy and policy-makers. The report particularly tries to draw out any impacts on governance in the wider public sphere, however, most of the indicators of success are input or output rather than outcome-focused, and do not identify broader social or policy change. The author emphasises the need for strongly committed individuals at the centre of the organisation, personal leadership, involvement of policy-makers and the quality of outputs. Independence and neutrality are seen as important values, allowing professional development free from politics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Efficiency of Health System Units in Africa: A Data Envelopment Analysis","field_subtitle":"Kirigia JM: University of Nairobi Press, 2013","field_url":"http://press.uonbi.ac.ke/catalogue/index.php?c=7&p=118","body":"Despite spending huge sums of money on health every year the African regions burden of disease is persistently high. Weaknesses are identified in factors as health leadership and governance, service delivery, health workforce, medicines, vaccines, and health technologies; health information; and health system financing that have undermined the capacity of health systems of countries in the region to improve population health without wastage of resources. In this book, the author applies a data envelopment analysis technique, interlacing lecture notes with research articles and case studies to equip students and practitioners of economics, operations research, management science, and public health with knowledge and skills for undertaking technical efficiency, allocative efficiency, cost efficiency, and total factor productivity analyses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Embedding health policy and systems research into decision-making processes in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Koon AD, Rao KD, Tran NT and Ghaffar A: Health Research Policy and Systems 11(30), 8 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-11-30.pdf","body":"This literature review was conducted to identify examples of embedded health policy and systems research (HPSR) used to inform decision-making in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The authors found that multiple forces converge to create context-specific pathways through which evidence enters into decision-making. Depending on the decision under consideration, the literature indicates that decision-makers may call upon an intricate combination of actors for sourcing HPSR. While proximity to decision-making does have advantages, it is not the position of the organisation within the network, but rather the qualities the organisation possesses, that enable it to be embedded. These findings suggest that four qualities influence embeddedness: reputation, capacity, quality of connections to decision-makers, and quantity of connections to decision-makers and others. In addition to this, the policy environment (e.g. the presence of legislation governing the use of HPSR, presence of strong civil society, etc.) strongly influences uptake. The authors\u2019 conceptual model highlights several important considerations for decision-makers and researchers about the arrangement and interaction of evidence-generating organisations in health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion Paper 99: Legislation on the for-profit private health sector in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Doherty J: EQUINET, August 2013","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss%2099%20privsector%20laws%20Aug2013.pdf","body":"International evidence shows that, if left unregulated, the for-profit health sector may lead to distortions in the quantity, distribution and quality of health services, as well as anti-competitive behaviour. As the for-profit private sector appears to be expanding in east and southern African (ESA) countries, governments need to strengthen regulations to ensure that the for-profit sector does not undermine national health system objectives. This report examines how existing regulation provides for objectives such as the quantity, quality, distribution and price of health care services and suggests priorities for strengthening legal frameworks in 16 countries in east and southern Africa. It draws on a desk-based review of legislation accessed through the internet or from in-country researchers and interviews with in-country experts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 151: Health literate populations are the core of effective health systems","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploring the paradox: double burden of malnutrition in rural South Africa","field_subtitle":"Kimani-Murage EW: Global Health Action 6(100), 24 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3556706/","body":"This paper explores the double burden of malnutrition in rural South Africa, to understand the profiles of malnutrition among children and adolescents in a poor, high HIV prevalent context. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2007 of 4,000 children and adolescents aged 1\u201320 years. The study found stunting at an early age and adolescent obesity, particularly among girls, co-existing in the same socio-geographic population. HIV is a risk factor for poor nutritional outcomes. Significant predictors of undernutrition at an early age include child's HIV status, age and birth weight, maternal age, age of household head, and area of residence. Significant predictors of overweight/obesity and risk for metabolic disease during adolescence include child's age, sex, and pubertal development, household-level food security, socio-economic status, and household head's highest education level. The combination of early stunting and adolescent obesity raises concerns as paediatric obesity and adult short stature are risk factors for metabolic syndrome and metabolic diseases in adulthood. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors affecting job satisfaction and retention of medical laboratory professionals in seven countries of sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Marinucci F, Majigo M, Wattleworth M, Paterniti AD, Hossain MB and Redfield R: Human Resources for Health 11(38), 17 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-11-38.pdf","body":"Effective implementation and sustainability of quality laboratory programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa relies on the development of appropriate staff retention strategies, argue the authors of this paper. Assessing the factors responsible for job satisfaction and retention is key for tailoring specific interventions aiming at improving the overall impact of health programmes. They developed a  survey to assess these factors among 224 laboratorians working in the laboratory programme the University of Maryland implemented in seven Sub-Saharan African countries. Lack of professional development was the major reason for leaving the previous job for 28% of interviewees who changed jobs in the past five years. Professional development/training opportunities was indicated by almost 90% of total interviewees as the most important or a very important factor for satisfaction at their current job. Similarly, regular professional development/opportunities for training was the highest rated incentive to remain at their current job by 80%. Laboratory professionals employed in the private sector were more likely to change jobs than those working in the public sector. The findings were used for developing specific strategies for human resources management, in particular targeting professional development, aiming at improving laboratory professionals within the University of Maryland laboratory programme and hence its long-term sustainability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Getting Started: A Medical Research and Development Primer","field_subtitle":"FasterCures: 2012","field_url":"http://fastercures.org/documents/file/FINAL%20GettingStarted.pdf","body":"This Primer contains tools and resources to help navigate the medical research and development (R&D) paradigm. The Primer provides information on discovery research; translational research; clinical research; regulatory application and approval; and non-profit actors and their roles in the R&D process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health actors no longer in favour of user fees: a documentary study ","field_subtitle":"Robert E and Ridde V: Globalization and Health 9(29), 26 July 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-9-31.pdf","body":"This study identified and analysed the stance of global health actors (GHAs) in the debate on user fees. The authors reviewed public documents published by and officially attributed to GHAs from 2005 to 2011. They identified 56 GHAs, and analysed 140 documents. Among them, 55% were in favour of the abolition of user fees or in favour of free care at the point of delivery. None of the GHAs stated that they were in favour of user fees, although 30% did not take a stand. The World Bank declared support for both user fees and free care at point of service. GHAs generally circumscribe their stance to specific populations (pregnant women, children under 5 years, etc.) or to specific health services (primary, basic, essential). Three types of arguments are used by GHAs to justify their stance: economic, ethical and pragmatic. While the principle of \u201cuser pays\u201d certainly seems to have fallen out of favour, the authors suggest that the next step is yet to be taken, ie for GHAs to provide technical and financial support to those countries that have chosen to implement user fee exemption policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Primer","field_subtitle":"Bio Ventures For Global Health (BVGH): 2013","field_url":"http://www.bvgh.org/Biopharmaceutical-Solutions /Global-Health-Primer.aspx","body":"The Global Health Primer connects the innovators that drive research and development for new drugs, vaccines and diagnostics to the neglected diseases where innovation is desperately needed. It provides a source of compiled and synthesised information for 25 neglected diseases of the developing world and the drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics in use or in development for the management of these diseases. The Primer tracks and analyses progress in global health research and development, provides an evidence base to support decision making, policy change and action, and brings new innovators to the table to address the main medical needs of poor people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health financing for universal coverage and health system performance: concepts and implications for policy","field_subtitle":"Kutzin J: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 91(8): 602-611, August 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/91/8/12-113985/en/index.html","body":"All countries that are seeking to improve equity in the use of health services, service quality and financial protection for their populations must pursue universal health care (UHC), according to the author of this paper. He argues that health financing policy is an integral part of efforts to move towards UHC. To be aligned with the pursuit of UHC, health system reforms need to be aimed explicitly at improving coverage and the unit of analysis for goals and objectives must be the population and health system as a whole. What matters is not how a particular financing scheme affects its individual members, but rather, how it influences progress towards UHC at the population level. Adding schemes for specific social groups is incompatible with a universal coverage approach and may even undermine UHC, as scheme members protect their own benefits to the cost of wider equity. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health in All Policies: Seizing opportunities, implementing policies ","field_subtitle":"Leppo K, Ollila E, Pe\u00f1a S, Wismar M and Cook S: Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Finland, 2013","field_url":"http://www.julkari.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/104481/URN_ISBN_978-952-00-3407-8.pdf?sequence=1#page=333","body":"Health in All Policies (HiAP) is an approach to public policies across sectors that systematically takes into account the health and health systems implications of decisions, seeks synergies and avoids harmful health impacts, in order to improve population health and health equity. An HiAP approach is founded on health-related rights and obligations. It emphasises the consequences of public policies on health determinants, and aims to improve the accountability of policy-makers for health impacts at all levels of policy-making. Core features of HiAP include a strong foundation on human rights and social justice, and a focus on policy-making. It is often necessary to prioritise efforts; seek synergies to enhance health and other important societal goals; and seek to avoid harmful impacts on health. Application of HiAP involves identifying policy developments across sectors with potential implications for health and health equity; assessing impacts; and advocating and negotiating for changes. Long term vision and sustained efforts are often needed. This book looks at examples of HiAP from countries across the world, and has specific chapters on low-income countries, including those from Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health literate populations are the core of effective health systems","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson, Barbara Kaim TARSC,  Clara Mbwili Muleya, Adah Zulu Lishandu Lusaka District Health Management Team, Rosette Mutambi, Pelagia Tusiime HEPS Uganda","field_url":"","body":"\r\nAs she walks away from the clinic Sarah\u2019s back is straight and she has a smile on her face. She has heard confirmation from the nurse that there have been no cases of cholera in her area this year, unlike in previous years, when many died of the disease.  She can\u2019t wait to get back to tell the others - \u201cwe did it!\u201d  \r\n\r\nThis is not a fiction.  It was achieved, for example, in parts of Lusaka district, Zambia, after the joint activities of health literacy facilitators, communities and health workers. At a time of scarce resources and mounting disease we may overlook that our health systems have one of the most critical resources in abundance - people. \r\n\r\nThe power and ability that people and social groups have to know, act on and direct resources towards promoting health and addressing their health needs are key contributors to health.  Health systems that are organised around social participation and empowerment create powerful constituencies to protect and advance public interests in health. Aware and organised communities support early detection of and response to problems and uptake of services, reducing the need for costly treatment of advanced disease. Despite high levels of poverty, East and Southern Africans have high literacy levels and strong social capabilities and social networks that are all assets for health. \r\n\r\nBut do we effectively tap these assets? We praise the benefits of social participation in health, but do we really practice it?  Are there national scale programmes for ensuring that the population is not only literate but \u2018health literate\u2019? Do we recognize in law and invest in the capacities and functioning of mechanisms for dialogue and joint planning by health workers and communities as a core part of health systems? Do we \u2018lecture\u2019 to and \u2018mobilise\u2019 communities, or work in a way that builds on their experience and facilitates their own learning, reflection and collective action?\r\n\r\nStudies carried out in the pra4equity network in EQUINET over the last decade suggest that our health systems don\u2019t have strong or sustained investment in these social roles and mechanisms, give limited incentives for health workers to put time into them, have top down planning and weakly address barriers and facilitators to health service uptake and adherence, leading to resource inefficiencies. \r\n\r\nInvesting in health literacy should, however, be as central to our health systems in the region as supplying medicines or training health workers.  Health literacy is a process that empowers people to understand and act on health information to advance their health and improve their health systems. It isn\u2019t only about sharing information, however. Literacy implies functional capacity. Health literacy draws on local experience, encourages reflection on that experience, identifies shared problems, and draws in new information on those problems for community level diagnosis and action on health.  \r\n\r\nWork on health literacy (HL), co-ordinated through TARSC, has been implemented in the pra4equity network in EQUINET over the past five years. HL addresses the major health issues faced at all stages of life, and includes information on how the health and other sectors are (or should be) organized to address these issues and on social rights and organization. Health literacy was initiated in Zimbabwe, where the Community Working Group on Health now covers nearly half of all districts with the programme. It then spread to Malawi, Botswana, Zambia and Uganda. After pilot work in Uganda in 2011, with Cordaid support, five civil society organisations formed a network co-ordinated by HEPS Uganda to extend health literacy into new areas and communities.  Organisations such as the National Forum for People Living with HIV and AIDS (NAFOPHANU) are building health literacy onto work on treatment literacy, with actions taking place on prevention of malaria, typhoid and brucellosis. In Zambia, the Lusaka District Health Office first implemented health literacy in selected communities in the city, building on participatory work strengthening communication between health workers and communities. After realizing the impact the programme had achieved in reducing diseases such as cholera, the Ministry of Health officially adopted the programme for national scale up in 2012. \r\n\r\nThe work in the past year has highlighted the potentials of scaling up HL and the challenges to be addressed. \r\n\r\nHL brings together a wide range of stakeholders, including health workers, community leaders and members, youth and vulnerable groups. This demands facilitation that is sensitive to inequalities in voice and power in these groups. However the discussion and analysis of health problems and their causes across these groups can lead to a deepening understanding of the different experiences and views in communities, and build shared decision making that leads to more inclusive action. CEHURD HL sessions with youth and health workers in Uganda revealed for example a perception amongst students that health workers only interact with students when the school administration wants to identify those who are pregnant for expulsion. Dialogue between health workers and youth in the HL sessions helped to strengthen their mutual relations and opened discussion of ideas from each on how to strengthen youth friendly health services. In Zambia, the HL programme has overcome past suspicions and built communication between communities and health workers, with both working together and with local authorities to clear waste dumps that had grown over years, to improve safe water and sanitation, food hygiene and other public health issues. Healthy environments are often identified as high priority by communities. \r\n\r\nFrom the work in Zambia and Uganda we have seen features of HL programmes that would seem to be essential for any efforts to scale HL to national level. They include national political and technical support; a core of experience and capacities in participatory reflection and action; HL materials that integrate regional good practice with national content; and a co-ordinating group that is able to plan, review and support the horizontal roll out of HL activities, mentor and evaluate the work and share learning. Perhaps the most central feature are young, old, male, female, urban and rural HL facilitators that recognize local knowledge and creativity, are able to use participatory methods to support people to explore, discuss and plan their health actions, and that are evidently passionate about health! The work in Zambia has shown that the best way of scaling up is through a bottom up and horizontal roll out, where communities can take leadership and facilitators in existing areas can mentor in new areas. This can take time, but it also yields more sustainable results. \r\n\r\nLike any element of a functioning health system, building a health literate population calls for policy support, planning, resources, organization and capacities to be applied. Surely an informed, active and organized population is too valuable an element of the health system to leave to ad hoc inputs and external funding? Its time all countries in the region followed Zambia\u2019s example and adopt health literacy as a core activity of national health systems!\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit www.equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights abuses and collective resilience among sex workers in four African countries: a qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Scorgie F, Vasey K, Harper E, Richter M, Nare P, Maseko S AND Chersich MF: Globalization and Health 9(33), 26 July 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-9-33.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers explored the impact of violence and related human rights abuses on the lives of sex workers, and how they have responded to these conditions, as individuals and within small collectives. They conducted 55 in-depth interviews and 12 focus group discussions with female, male and transgender sex workers in Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. In describing their experiences of unlawful arrests and detention, violence, extortion, vilification and exclusions, participants present a picture of profound exploitation and repeated human rights violations. This situation has had an extreme impact on the physical, mental and social well-being of this population. Underlying their stories, however, are narratives of resilience and resistance. Sex workers in this study draw on their own individual survival strategies and informal forms of support and very occasionally opt to seek recourse through formal channels. While criminal laws urgently need reform, the authors argue that supporting sex work self-organisation and community-building are key interim strategies for safeguarding sex workers\u2019 human rights and improving health outcomes in these communities. If developed at sufficient scale and intensity, sex work organisations could play a critical role in reducing the present harms caused by criminalisation and stigma.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"IDRC Doctoral Research Awards","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 2 October 2013","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Funding/Competitions/Pages/CompetitionDetails.aspx?CompetitionID=60","body":"IDRC offers these awards twice a year in April and October to Canadians, permanent residents of Canada, and citizens of developing countries pursuing doctoral studies at a Canadian university. They are intended for field research in one or more developing countries, and are aimed at promoting the growth of Canadian and developing-country capacity in research on sustainable and equitable development from an international perspective.  Candidates must conduct their research in areas corresponding to IDRC programme priorities and must ensure that their research project aligns with these priorities.  IDRC is looking for field research proposed in specific developing countries, including only two countries in east, central and southern Africa: Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe. These awards support field research of three to 12 months and cover justifiable field research expenses up to US$19,000 a year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of inter-facility transport on maternal mortality in the Free State Province","field_subtitle":"Schoon MG: South African Medical Journal 103(8): 534-537, August 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/samj/article/view/91473/80953","body":"In December 2011, having identified inter-facility transport as a problem in the maternity service, the Free State Department of Health procured and issued 48 vehicles including 18 dedicated to maternity care. Subsequently, a sustained reduction in mortality was observed. The author of this paper probed the role of inter-facility transport in effecting this reduction in mortality. The author conducted a before-after analysis of data from two separate databases, including the district health information system and the emergency medical and rescue services call-centre database. Results showed that the maternal mortality decreased from 279/100 000 live births during 2011 to 152/100 000 live births during 2012. The mean dispatch interval decreased from 32.01 to 22.47 minutes. The number of vehicles dispatched within 1 hour increased from 84.2% to 90.7%. Monthly mean dispatch interval curves closely mirrored the maternal mortality curve. The author concludes that effective and prompt inter-facility transport of patients with pregnancy complications to an appropriate facility resulted in a reduction of maternal mortality. Health authorities should prioritise funding for inter-facility vehicles for maternity services to ensure prompt access of pregnant women to centres with skills available to manage obstetric emergencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementation of a breast cancer genetic service in South Africa \u2013 lessons learned","field_subtitle":"Schoeman M, Apffelstaedt JP, Baatjes K and Urban M: South African Medical Journal 103(8): 529-553, August 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/samj/article/view/91472/80952","body":"Genetic testing for BRCA mutations has been available in the Western Cape of South Africa since 2005, but practical implementation of genetic counselling and testing has been challenging. The authors of this paper describe an approach to breast cancer genetic counselling and testing developed in a resource-constrained environment at Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, Western Cape. Genetic counselling was offered in a stepwise manner to our diverse patient population, with a focus on affected probands, and subsequent cascade testing. A record review of BRCA testing between 2005 and 2011 was performed. During this period 302 probands received genetic testing, with increasing numbers tested over time. Of 1,520 women treated for breast cancer since 2008, 226 (14.9%) accepted BRCA testing, and 39 tested positive (17.3% of those tested, and 2.6% of all women). Common founder mutations were detected in 11.9% of women, and comprised 73% of mutations detected. Cascade testing increased after 2010: 16 female and 4 male family members of 19 probands accepted testing, with 6 positives being detected. In conclusion, this protocol-driven approach focusing on probands, with initial pre-test counselling by primary care staff was proven effective in establishing the service.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Inclusion of vulnerable groups in health policies: Regional policies on health priorities in Africa","field_subtitle":"Schneider M, Eide AH, Amin M, MacLachlan M and Mannan H: African Journal of Disability 2(1), 22 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajod.org/index.php/ajod/article/viewFile/40/59","body":"In this paper, the authors analysed 11 African Union (AU) policy documents to ascertain the frequency and the extent of mention of 13 core concepts in relation to 12 vulnerable groups, with a specific focus on people with disabilities. The analysis highlighted the broad nature of the reference made to vulnerable groups, with a lack of detailed specifications of different needs of different groups. This is confirmed in the highest vulnerable group mention being for \u2018universal\u2019. The reading of the documents suggests that vulnerable groups are homogeneous in their needs, which is not the case. There is a lack of recognition of different needs of different vulnerable groups in accessing health care. The authors conclude that the need for more information and knowledge on the needs of all vulnerable groups is evident. The current lack of mention and of any detail on how to address needs of vulnerable groups will significantly impair the access to equitable health care for all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Intervening Upstream: A Good Investment for HIV Prevention","field_subtitle":"Heise L and Watts C: AIDStarone, 2013","field_url":"http://www.aidstarone.com/sites/default/files/Final_SPP_InterveningUpstream_web.pdf","body":"This paper examines some of the evidence linking structural factors to HIV risk; research gaps, including the pathways through which factors affect HIV vulnerability and interaction among factors; and explores the advantages of taking a \u201cstructurally informed\u201d approach to HIV planning and implementation, namely the value of influencing clustered risk factors, the potential to influence multiple outcomes, and opportunities for co-financing. The authors argue that attention to structural forces that either heighten HIV vulnerability or create AIDS resiliency is an important but under-researched and under-programmed area of HIV prevention. There is long-standing evidence that demonstrates that a variety of social forces have both direct and indirect effects on HIV transmission, and undermine the effectiveness of proven biomedical prevention programmes. Intervening \u201cupstream\u201d yields multiple benefits: it allows programmes to potentially affect multiple risk factors at once (especially when they cluster), and it offers promise to influence a range of health and development outcomes through a single intervention. The authors argue that structural approaches to HIV prevention are an efficient and effective strategy in our current era of global fiscal austerity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Irreconcilable Conflict: The Tobacco Industry and the Public Health Challenge of Tobacco Use","field_subtitle":"Novotny TE: PLoS Medicine 10(5), 28 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001457","body":"The public health approach to regulatory intervention is normally very inclusive, bringing all stakeholders to the table to present their perspectives, to argue about the impacts of the interventions on their organisations, and to find compromises that work for the greater good of all those involved. However, the author of this paper argues against including the tobacco industry as a stakeholder in public health decisions, based on the reputation of the industry in obfuscating the truth about the harm of tobacco use, dividing the public health community over harm reduction approaches, and befuddling critically important regulatory processes. The profits from selling cigarettes and alternative tobacco products are simply too great for the tobacco industry to be a genuine stakeholder in public health, the author notes. Thus, the public health community needs to do what it does best: to rally popular support for strong, science-based approaches to prevention of tobacco use, to expose the truths about the harms of tobacco use to current users, and to support government agencies in carrying out their legislatively mandated duties to protect public health. The author highlights the irreconcilable conflict between the public health community and the global tobacco industry.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya needs surrogacy policy and legislation ","field_subtitle":"Jiwaji A: Pambazuka News 641, 1 August 2013 ","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/88485","body":"In the absence of clear regulation, the practice of surrogacy in Kenya grows as an unchecked and unsupervised industry with no policy or law to fall back on if anything goes wrong during the treatment, says the author of this article. South Africa is the only country on the African continent to have surrogacy laws and policies. The growing use of commercial surrogacy, where a woman is paid to carry a child for a couple wanting to adopt, points to an urgent need to develop appropriate legislation, the author argues. She refers to the practice in India, which disproportionately affects the poor girls and women, who use surrogacy as a means of income. But these women are not protected by the law. She makes a number of recommendations for proposed legislation, covering various areas such as the interests of the surrogate mother and commissioning parents, ethical and moral aspects, financial support, dispute mechanisms and regulatory bodies, termination of a surrogate pregnancy, more lenient adoption laws and rights of both parties.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Leveraging HIV-related human rights achievements through a Framework  Convention on Global Health","field_subtitle":"Buse K, Eba P, Sigurdson J, Thomson K and Timberlake S: Health and Human Rights 15(1), June 2013","field_url":"http://wordpress.sph.harvard.edu/hhrjournal/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2013/06/Buse-FINAL.pdf","body":"The global AIDS response has shown that at the core of health lie considerations of social justice, human rights, and accountability. As momentum builds for a Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH), the authors of this paper argue that there is an opportunity to take stock of lessons learned from the response to HIV and AIDS and ensure that they are replicated and institutionalised in an eventual Convention. They further argue that the most critical aspect to the success of the HIV response has been the leadership and activism of civil society. Success requires active monitoring of progress and shortcomings, combined with political and social mobilisation to expand investment and access to the services and underlying conditions that protect and advance health. While the FCGH must make civil society support and engagement an indispensable principle, the AIDS movement can contribute substantive content and mobilisation for its adoption. A broad international legal framework for health can help address some of the key legal, policy, regulatory, and programmatic challenges that continue to hinder effective responses to HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Medicines Patent Pool and Roche Sign HIV Medicines Agreement: Focus on  Preventing Blindness in People Living with HIV","field_subtitle":"Medicines Patent Pool: 5 August 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nxjekee","body":"The Medicines Patent Pool and Roche have announced an agreement to increase access in developing countries to valganciclovir, a key easy-to-take oral medicine to treat cytomegalovirus (CMV), a viral infection that can cause blindness in people living with HIV. The agreement will significantly improve access to Roche's valganciclovir for people living with HIV in 138 developing countries by making it up to 90% cheaper than current prices. As a second step, the Medicines Patent Pool and Roche will also enter into licensing and technology transfer negotiations to encourage the development of internationally approved quality generic versions of valganciclovir. The most widely used treatment for CMV in developing countries requires injections directly to the eye, which can be painful and also difficult to administer on a large scale. The Medicines Patent Pool will also work with other key stakeholders to develop long-term treatment strategies for scaling up the use of valganciclovir for treatment of HIV-related CMV in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Neonatal mortality in South Africa: How are we doing and can we do better?","field_subtitle":"Editorial: South African Medical Journal 103(8): 518-519, August 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/samj/article/view/91452/80939","body":"This editorial considers the neonatal deaths occurring in South Africa that are due to limited availability of intensive care beds or inadequate referral systems and problematic transport systems. The editor proposes simple, cost-effective preventative measures to decrease the mortality rate outside of tertiary care centres, including resuscitation training of primary health care providers, breastfeeding and kangaroo mother care (KMC) programmes, using polyethylene wrappings for neonates less than 1200g and increasing the number of neonatal beds available and the number of staff to care for these patients. Community education programmes on healthy pregnancies are proposed to improve help-seeking behaviour, improve clinic attendance and increase awareness of the benefits of free interventions, such as breastfeeding and KMC. While many other countries in the region have reduced their maternal mortality, South Africa has made limited progress. The authors call on government to prioritise the implementation of sustainable measures to improve neonatal mortality, and ultimately reducing under-5 mortality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New Law Undermines Rights of Ugandans","field_subtitle":"Burnett M: Human Rights Watch, August 6, 2013","field_url":"http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/08/06/dispatches-new-law-undermines-rights-ugandans","body":"Uganda\u2019s parliament passed the Public Order Management bill, which gives Ugandan police broad powers to permit or disallow any \u201cpublic meeting\u201d. The law defines a public meeting as any gathering of more than three people in any public place where the \u201cfailure of any government, political party, or political organisation\u201d is discussed. This definition includes peaceful demonstrations of more than three people, and organisers would be required to inform police in advance or face criminal sanction. The law allows police to use force \u2013 including, in several instances, firearms \u2013 no matter what the alleged offense. The Bill has been passed to the President to gazette into law.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Operationalising Structural Interventions for HIV Prevention: Lessons from Zambia","field_subtitle":"Bowa C and Mah TL: AIDStarone, 2013","field_url":"http://www.aidstarone.com/sites/default/files/Final_SPP_Operationalising_web.pdf","body":"While global guidance for HIV prevention recognises the importance of structural HIV prevention, evidence for the effectiveness of these interventions, and their implementation, are lagging behind other areas of prevention. The challenges to implementation at the community and national levels are less well understood. This paper examines the United States (US) President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)/US Agency for International Development (USAID) experience with implementing structural interventions in Zambia. Despite challenges to implementing, monitoring, and evaluating structural interventions, they can and have been implemented successfully and are necessary for a long-term and sustained response to both HIV and social and economic development needs, the authors argue. Better identification of causal pathways, involvement of key stakeholders and collaborators, and enhanced monitoring will strengthen implementation of structural interventions and provide the necessary data to understand their outcomes and impacts. Such efforts and stronger links between structural interventions and other biomedical and behavioural interventions will result in a true combination approach to HIV prevention, yielding better results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Outcome Document of the Regional Consultations on the Post-2015 Development Agenda","field_subtitle":"United Nations Economic Commission for Africa: 2013","field_url":"http://www.uneca.org/sites/default/files/uploaded-documents/Macroeconomy/hammamet-outcome-document-english.pdf","body":"This outcome statement summarises views from stakeholders from a total of 53 African countries, represented by governments, Regional Economic Communities, civil society organisations including youth and women\u2019s organisations, parliamentarians, academic institutions and the private sector. Noting the relatively slow progress made by African countries towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and recognising the capacity deficits and disabling initial conditions prevailing in a number of countries, participants unanimously agreed that the post-2015 development agenda should: 1. Emphasise inclusive economic growth and structural transformation. 2. Re-orient the development paradigm away from externally-driven initiatives toward domestically- inspired and funded initiatives that are grounded in national ownership. 3. Prioritise equity and social inclusion and measure progress in terms of both the availability and quality of service delivery. 4. Pay greater attention to vulnerable groups such as women, children, youth, the elderly, people with disabilities, displaced persons 5. Take into account the initial conditions of nation states and recognise the efforts countries have made towards achieving the goals as opposed to exclusively measuring how far they fall short of global targets. 6. Incorporate the Rio+20 outcomes and the outcomes of Africa-wide initiatives, national and regional consultations as well as UN forums such as ICPD +20. 7. Focus on development enablers as well as development outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy and programme responses for addressing the structural determinants of HIV","field_subtitle":"Pronyk Paul and Lutz Brian: Aidstarone, June 2013","field_url":"http://aidstarone.com/sites/default/files/Final_SPP_PolicyPgm_web_0.pdf","body":"According to this report, one reason that HIV prevention efforts have not kept pace has been insufficient attention to HIV\u2019s \u201cstructural factors\u201d, namely those areas beyond individual knowledge or awareness that shape risk and vulnerability to infection. Examples are often context-specific but can include economic inequality and livelihood insecurity, as well as hunger, gender inequality, and lack of education. These factors, many of which are rooted in various formal and informal types of marginalisation, underpin the diversity of HIV epidemics, helping to explain why some countries have a higher HIV burden than others. Structural factors have been demonstrated to influence treatment access and retention. The authors argue that action on structural factors can have multiple beneficial impacts not only on HIV-related goals but also on other health, development and human rights objectives. Implementing structural approaches requires a range of disciplinary perspectives that extend beyond the health sector, as well as cross-sector governance and financing. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Post-abortion care quality status in health facilities of Guraghe zone, Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Tesfaye G and Oljira L: Reproductive Health 10(35), 23 July 2013","field_url":"http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/pdf/1742-4755-10-35.pdf","body":"Ethiopia has one of the highest maternal mortality ratios (673 per 100,000 live births) in the world, and unsafe abortion was estimated to account for 32% of all maternal deaths in Ethiopia. The objective of this study was to assess post-abortion care quality status in health facilities of Guraghe zone, in Ethiopia. A facility based cross-sectional study design with both quantitative and qualitative methods was conducted, which included six health centres, two hospitals and 422 post-abortion patients. Patient-provider interaction was generally satisfactory from the patient\u2019s perspective as, overall, 83.5% of the patients were satisfied with the services. Those who said waiting time was long were less satisfied and unemployed women were more satisfied than others. However, from a clinical service delivery stand point, important medical information on danger signs, follow-up needs of post abortion clients and care associated pain management were neglected by most of the health professionals. Almost all of the health facilities had basic and appropriate medical equipment and supplies required for providing post-abortion services. This study has also shown that significant proportions of providers were trained on important aspects of pregnancy and ante-natal care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Promoting universal financial protection: contracting faith-based health facilities to expand access \u2013 lessons learned from Malawi","field_subtitle":"Chirwa ML, Kazanga I, Faedo G and Thomas S: Health Research Policy and Systems 11(27), 16 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-11-27.pdf","body":"This study examined the features of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and their effectiveness in expanding universal coverage in Malawi. Research was conducted in five Christian Health Association of Malawi (CHAM) health facilities: Mulanje Mission, Holy Family, and Mtengowanthenga Hospitals, and Mabiri and Nkope Health Centres. A total of 155 clients from an expected 175 were recruited in the study. The study findings revealed key aspects of how SLAs were operating, the extent to which their objectives were being attained and why. In general, the findings demonstrated that SLAs had the potential to improve health and universal health care coverage, particularly for the vulnerable and underserved populations. However, the findings show that the performance of SLAs in Malawi were affected by various factors including lack of clear guidelines, non-revised prices, late payment of bills, lack of transparency, poor communication, inadequate human and material resources, and lack of systems to monitor performance of SLAs, amongst others. The authors provide recommendations to policy makers for the replication and strengthening of SLA implementation in the roll-out of universalisation policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Questions and answers on Universal Health Coverage \u2026and some more comments and open questions","field_subtitle":"Medicus Mundi International Network: Discussion paper, August 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.medicusmundi.org/en/contributions/news/2013/mmi-uhc-discussion-paper/uhc-mmi-discussion-paper-august-2013.pdf","body":"This discussion paper presents key elements of the concept of UHC as promoted by the World Health Organisation and reflects them based on Medicu Mundi International\u2019s (MMI) own ambition of Health for All such as stated in the MMI Network Policy. The paper consists of three sections (1) \u201cWhat is in Universal Health Coverage?\u201d (2) \u201cFinancing UHC\u201d, and (3) \u201cUHC and health equity\u201d. MMI argues that if its Network is to promote Universal Health Coverage in view of improving health equity, then it should be willing to be truly involved in the political and ideological battle that will enfold over the coming period. Unless the international community pushes the right to health up in its scale of values and stops considering health as a dependent variable of the global economy, and unless it makes the respect of human rights mandatory and those who violate them legally accountable, UHC is unlikely to yield the expected results. Issues needing further investigation include: Universal Health Coverage and gender equity (almost entirely missing in the current debate); Universal Health Coverage and sustainability; the political economy of Universal Health Coverage; and the transformative power of the UHC concept for social mobilisation and political change towards Health for All.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Rapid Retention Survey Toolkit: Designing Evidence-Based Incentives for Health Workers","field_subtitle":"CapacityPlus: 2012","field_url":"http://www.capacityplus.org/files/resources/rapid_retention_survey%20_toolkit.pdf","body":"In the context of severe health worker shortages in rural areas, this toolkit is intended to help health leaders find out what motivates health workers to accept posts in rural areas and to stay there. The toolkit builds on the World Health Organisation\u2019s global policy recommendations for rural retention and is based on the discrete choice experiment, a powerful research method that identifies the trade-offs health professionals are willing to make between specific job characteristics and determines their preferences for various incentive packages, including the probability of accepting a post in a rural health facility. The toolkit guides human resources managers through a survey process to rapidly assess health professional students\u2019 and health workers\u2019 motivational preferences to accept a position and continue working in underserved facilities. It allows for rapid data-gathering and analysis, and the results can be used to create evidence-based incentive packages. It includes step-by-step instructions, sample formats, and examples that can easily be adapted to a specific country context, including survey planning, survey design, survey instrument development using a specialised software programme, survey administration, data analysis and interpretation, and how to present results to stakeholders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional training workshop on participatory methods for a people-centred health system: 7\u201311 October 2013:  Call for applicants","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 3 September 2013","field_url":"","body":"TARSC, through COPASAH and EQUINET, are holding a regional workshop on Participatory Approaches to Strengthening People Centred Health Systems in the east and southern African region. The workshop will explore how to raise community voice in strengthening the resourcing and functioning of primary health care systems through the use of participatory approaches to build community roles in accountability and action. The workshop is targeted at civil society organisations, NGOs, community leaders, health workers, academics, researchers and others involved in work with communities and health workers in the east and southern African region. Applications to be mailed to info@tarsc.org by 3 September. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/38579","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Review of causes of maternal deaths in Botswana in 2010","field_subtitle":"Ray S, Madzimbamuto FD, Ramagola-Masire D, Phillips R, Mogobe KD et al: South African Medical Journal 103(8): 537-542, August 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/samj/article/view/91474/80954","body":"The objective of this study was to investigate the underlying circumstances of maternal deaths in Botswana. Fifty-six case notes from the 80 reported maternal deaths in 2010 were reviewed. Five clinicians reviewed each case independently and then together to achieve a consensus on diagnosis and underlying cause(s) of death. Results indicated that 60% of deaths occurred in Botswana\u2019s two referral hospitals. Cases in which death had direct obstetric causes were fewer than cases in which cause of death was indirect. The main direct causes were haemorrhage (39%), hypertension (22%), and pregnancy-related sepsis (13%). Thirty-six (64%) deaths were in HIV-positive women, of whom 21 (58%) were receiving antiretroviral (ARV) therapy. Nineteen (34%) deaths were attributable to HIV, including 4 from complications of ARVs. Twenty-nine (52%) deaths were in the postnatal period, 19 (66%) of these in the first week. Case-note review revealed several opportunities for improved quality of care, such as: better teamwork, communication and supportive supervision of health professionals; better supply management; and joint management between HIV and obstetric clinicians. The authors argue that integrating HIV management into maternal healthcare is essential to reduce maternal deaths in the region, alongside greater efforts to improve quality of care to avoid direct and indirect causes of death.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Study While You Work: Applications For 2014 Master in Public Health (MPH)","field_subtitle":"Applications Close: 3 September 2013","field_url":"http://www.uwc.ac.za/faculties/chs/soph","body":"The MPH at the University of the Western Cape aims to equip health professionals to: quantify and prioritise health needs; design, implement and evaluate Comprehensive Primary Health Care Programmes; and manage District Health Systems. The Programme is designed for a range of health and welfare professionals and managers from middle to senior level, at district, provincial or national levels, staff of NGO\u2019s and academic research contexts. The Programme may be taken over two to three years. Admission requirements: A four year degree (Honours Degree) or its equivalent in any discipline, or in exceptional cases, five years of relevant experience assessed by the university through a Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) process. Contact Mrs Janine Kader at the email address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The Cost of Hunger in Africa: The Social and Economic Impact of Child Undernutrition in Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"World Food Programme: 2012","field_url":"http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/communications/wfp258076.pdf","body":"The Cost of Hunger in Africa (COHA) study links the role of child nutrition and human development to Ethiopia\u2019s Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP). This plan, that projects a sustained GDP growth of 11% to 15% from 2010 to 2015, represents the national strategy of Ethiopia towards poverty eradication. The results of the study strongly suggest that in order for the country to achieve sustainable human and economic growth, special attention must be given to the early stages of life as the foundation of human capital. The results of the study are supported by a strong evidenced base, and a model of analysis specially adapted for Africa, which demonstrates the depth of the consequences of child undernutrition in health education and labour productivity. This paper further quantifies the potential gains of addressing child undernutrition as a priority. Now, stakeholders have not only the ethical imperative to address child nutrition as a main concern, but a strong economic rationale to position stunting in the centre of the development agenda, the paper concludes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Economic Benefits of Investing in Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health: A Systematic Literature Review","field_subtitle":"Saha S and Gerdtham U: Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, November 2012","field_url":"http://web.sph.harvard.edu/ministerial-leadership-in-health/files/Econ-benefits_systematic-literature-review_Lund-University.pdf","body":"This study reviewed evidence on the impact of reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH) on economic growth and development. The authors performed a systematic search of the published literature in electronic databases and consulted grey literature such as working papers and reference lists of selected articles. They found that GDP loss attributable to maternal mortality varies from US$0 per year in Botswana to US$504 per year in Ethiopia. If maternal mortality increases by one death, GDP per capita decreases by US$0.36 per year on average in 45 sub-Saharan countries. AIDS was found to have a negative effect on economic growth, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, although the magnitude varies among studies from 0.05% to 1% decline in GDP per capita. The intergenerational effect of HIV and AIDS is much higher, at 30-50% reduction of GDP per capita over four generations at a 15-20% HIV prevalence rate. The review revealed inadequate evidence on the impact of RMNCH on economic growth and development, which may, in part, be due to difficulties in measuring economic impact over extended time periods, and may also be due to the breadth of health states that fall within the RMNCH continuum. The authors argue that future research should focus on identifying the most cost-effective policy, programmes and interventions to prevent, reduce, delay or eliminate the complications of RMNCH.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The epidemiology of child homicides in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Mathews S, Abrahams N, Jewkes R, Martin LJ and Lombard C: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 91(8): 562-568, August 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/91/8/12-117036/en/index.html","body":"In this paper the author described age- and sex-specific rates of child homicide in South Africa. A cross-sectional mortuary-based study was conducted in a sample of 38 medico-legal laboratories operating in 2009. Child homicide data were collected from mortuary files, autopsy reports and police interviews. Findings showed an estimated 1,018 child homicides occurred in 2009, or 5.5 homicides per 100,000 children under 18 years. The homicide rate was much higher in boys than in girls. Child abuse and neglect had preceded nearly half of all homicides, but three times more often among girls than among boys. In children aged 15 to 17 years, the homicide rate among boys was nearly five times higher than among girls. South Africa\u2019s child homicide rate is more than twice the global estimate. Since a background of child abuse and neglect is common, the authors recommend that parenting skills should be a key part of primary prevention efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The equity implications of fiscal consolidation","field_subtitle":"Rawdanowicz L, Wurzel E and Christensen AK: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, January 2013","field_url":"http://www.oecd.org/eco/public-finance/equityimplicationsoffiscalconsolidation.pdf","body":"The authors of this paper argue that there is scope to balance current fiscal consolidation efforts in favour of more equity with only limited adverse impact on potential growth. In particular, relatively little weight has been given to reducing tax expenditures and raising taxes on immovable property. A number of consolidation instruments are consistent with equity goals while doing little or no harm to potential growth: increases in the effective retirement age, raising efficiency in the education and health care systems, cutting certain tax expenditures, hiking taxes on immovable property and broadly-based consumption taxes. Increases in capital income taxes would also be equitable but need to be well designed to avoid being distortive. Calculations based on simplifying assumptions indicate that increasing household direct taxes would reduce income inequality, while cutting transfers by the same amount would have a larger and opposite effect on inequality. However, raising progressive labour income taxes could have adverse effects on long-run growth. Cuts in government wages and employment can yield fast consolidation gains but the authors warn that this needs to be accompanied by increases in efficiency of service delivery to avoid that reductions in public services mainly hit poor people. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The financial burden from non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries: a literature review","field_subtitle":"Kankeu HT, Saksena P, Xu K, Evans DB: Health Research Policy and Systems 2013, 11:31, 16 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-11-31.pdf","body":"In this paper, the authors present a literature review on the costs imposed by non-communicable diseases (NCDs) on households in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). They examine both the costs of obtaining medical care and the costs associated with being unable to work, while discussing the methodological issues of particular studies. The results suggest that NCDs pose a heavy financial burden on many affected households; poor households are the most financially affected when they seek care. Medicines are usually the largest component of costs and the use of originator brand medicines leads to higher than necessary expenses. These financial costs deter many people suffering from NCDs from seeking the care they need. The financial costs of obtaining care also impose insurmountable barriers to access for some people, which illustrates the urgency of improving financial risk protection in health in LMIC settings and ensuring that NCDs are taken into account in these systems. The authors identify areas where further research is needed to have a better view of the costs incurred by households because of NCDs; namely, the extension of the geographical scope, the inclusion of certain diseases hitherto little studied, the introduction of a time dimension, and more comparisons with acute illnesses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The human resource implications of improving financial risk protection for mothers and newborns in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Chirwa Y, Witter S, Munjoma M, Mashange W, Ensor T et al: BMC Health Services Research 13(197), 28 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/197/","body":"This study aimed to examine the links between human resources for health (HRH) and changes in health policy on user fees in Zimbabwe, with particular respect to reproductive, maternal and newborn health (RMNH). The authors used secondary data and small-scale qualitative fieldwork (key informant interview and focus group discussions) at national level and in one district in 2011. They found that past decades have seen a shift in the burden of payments onto households. Implementation of the complex rules on exemptions is patchy and confused. RMNH services are seen as hard for families to afford, even in the absence of complications. Health workers face challenges in managing demand, including from migration, and low pay. In four provinces they found that there are not enough doctors to provide more complex care, and only three provinces could provide skilled personnel for deliveries taking place in facilities. The authors argue that that there is a need to jointly address user fees that place financial burden on clients of RMNH services and to improve the terms and conditions of health staff. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The hunger grains: Biofuels and malnutrition","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: September 2013","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp161-the-hunger-grains-170912-en.pdf","body":"In 2009, European Union (EU) governments committed to sourcing 10% of transport energy from renewable sources by 2020: they are set to meet this target almost exclusively using biofuels made from food crops. This decision has several important implications for developing countries, according to this report. Land grabs are occurring in developing countries with poor protection of land rights \u2013 most of which are to grow crops that can be used for biofuels \u2013 which means that many land deals for biofuel production are concluded without the consent of affected communities. Affected countries in Africa include Mozambique, Kenya and Ethiopia. In terms of production, if the land used to produce biofuels for the EU in 2008 had been used to produce wheat and maize instead, it could have fed 127 million people for the entire year. On top of this, biofuel mandates are an incredible inelastic source of demand for food crops; by 2020, EU biofuel mandates alone could push up the price of some foods by as much as 36%. Biofuel mandates are not even a solution to climate change; modeling shows that plowing up carbon sinks to meet EU biofuel mandates could be as bad for the environment as putting an extra 26 million cars on Europe\u2019s roads. Oxfam concludes by calling on EU governments to scrap EU biofuel mandates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Question of Patent Eligible Subject Matter and Evergreening Practices","field_subtitle":"Kilic B and Palombi L: Infojustice.org, 27 July 2013","field_url":"http://infojustice.org/archives/30314","body":"In this article, the authors discuss the issue of how medicines may be eligible for patents and how this affects evergreening practices, whereby pharmaceutical companies extend the patent on their medicines by making slight modifications. However, evergreening of pharmaceutical patent protection, also includes patent monopolies over manufacturing processes, formulations, dosages, uses and methods of treatment.  The authors present data that shows that evergreening patents have extended patent protection to nearly 50 years in some cases, well beyond the 20 year period provided in TRIPS. They argue that the net cost for society of evergreening patents is substantial and they have been proven to interfere and hinder fair competition in the pharmaceutical market, with the result that pharmaceutical companies can charge high monopoly prices for far longer than is justified. Because of its critical implications for competition and public health, India\u2019s s.3(d) is becoming a model criteria for patent eligible subject matter in other countries.  For instance, Brazil\u2019s patent reform proposes to adopt such a provision. The invention threshold plays a critical role in the patent system. Setting the bar too low makes it easier for the patent system to be improperly exploited by those that use extended patent monopolies to extract economic rents. This behaviour should not be facilitated, the authors argue, as it unreasonably restricts society\u2019s ability to benefit from the technology transfer trade-off.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of community-based health planning and services strategy in involving males in the provision of family planning services: a qualitative study in Southern Ghana","field_subtitle":"Adongo P, Tapsoba P, Phillips JF, Tabong P, Stone A, Kuffour E, Esantsi SF and Akweongo P: Reproductive Health 10(36), 26 July 2013","field_url":"http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/pdf/1742-4755-10-36.pdf","body":"This study took place in Northern Ghana to assess the impact of male involvement in reproductive health and Family Planning (FP) services. Twelve focus group discussions were held with both male and female community members, six in communities with functional community health-based planning and services strategy (CHPS) and six for communities with less/no-functional CHPS. Fifty-nine in-depth interviews were held with other stakeholders at both district and regional levels. The results revealed a general high perception of an improved health status of children in the last ten years in the communities; however, participants reported that malnutrition was still rife in the community. The results also revealed that women still needed to get spousal approval to use contraceptives; however, the matrilineal system appears to give more autonomy to women in decision-making. The CHPS strategy was perceived as very helpful with full community participation at all levels of the implementation process. Males were more involved in FP services in communities with functioning CHPS than those without functioning CHPS. The authors argue that involving males in reproductive health issues including FP is important to attain reproductive health targets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The science of agribusiness profits, versus science for healthy, chemical-free, patent-free food","field_subtitle":"Jehu-Appiah A: Pambazuka News 641, 31 July 2013","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/88478","body":"The Sixth Africa Agriculture Science Week was held in Accra from 15-20 July 2013. However, the authors of this article express their concern that the current scientific approach to improve agricultural productivity, and food nutrition of small-scale farmers in particular, is being heavily distorted and influenced by well-funded information campaigns of the big agro-chemical companies. These agribusinesses, and their allies aim to increase their profits by selling chemicals and inputs and one of their key objectives is to introduce patented genetically engineered seed into Ghana and other African countries. The authors argue that genetic engineering (GE) is not about science, it is about money. They point out there is very little record of success in developing countries in helping small scale farmers to improve productivity and adapt to climate change. GE seed is also more expensive for farmers than saving seed for the next planting. The authors argue that small scale Ghanaian farmers need research and extension in support of agro-ecological farming, and this includes access to markets, infrastructure, good roads and transportation, and protection from landgrabs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Toward Interventions in Human Resources for Health in Ghana","field_subtitle":"Appiah-Denkyira E, Herbst CH, Soucat A, Lemiere C and Saleh K (Eds): World Bank, 2013","field_url":"http://elibrary.worldbank.org/content/book/9780821396674","body":"This book was produced to support the policy dialogue on Human Resources for Health (HRH) in Ghana. Despite some recent successes, further improvements in health outcomes are in part hampered by the lack of skilled service providers, or human resources for health (HRH), particularly in rural areas, that prevent critical health services from being accessed and adequately delivered to those that need them most. To address the lack of information to guide the development of policies and programmes on HRH, the book aims to paint a comprehensive picture on HRH, consolidating new and existing evidence on some of the underlying determinants impacting stock, distribution and performance of health workers in Ghana, including health worker production and attrition, management and accountability structures, the capacity of health training institutions, and health worker compensation. As is made clear, any potential policies to improve the situation on HRH need to be well targeted, and take into account some of the fiscal and political challenges that are specific to the health labour market in Ghana. The book is intended to provide a basis for Ghanaian decision makers and external partners to dialogue on HRH and related policies, resulting in concrete HRH actions. More broadly, it will be of interest to all those working to improve HRH in Africa and beyond.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Translating health research evidence into policy and practice in Uganda ","field_subtitle":"Mbonye AK and Magnussen P: Malaria Journal 12(274), 5 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-12-274.pdf","body":"In Uganda, a team of researchers, policy makers, civil society and the media has been formed to build a collaboration that would help in discussing appropriate strategies to mitigate the high disease burden in Uganda. A preparatory secretariat identified researchers and key resource persons to guide four workshops, which were held between 2006 and 2009. A total of 322 participants attended of whom mid-level policy makers, researchers and the media were consistently high. The workshops generated a lot of interest that lead to presentation and discussion of nationally relevant health research results. The workshops had an impact on the participants\u2019 skills in writing policy briefs, participating in the policy review process and entering into dialogue with policy makers. A number of lessons were learned: getting health research into policy is feasible but requires few self-motivated individuals to act as catalysts; and adequate funding and a stable internet are necessary to support the process. Mid-level policy makers and programme managers had interest in this initiative and are likely sustain it as they move to senior positions in policy making, the authors report.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"UCT Rehabilitation Conference 2013","field_subtitle":"2-4 September 2013: Cape Town","field_url":"http://rehabconf2013.uct.ac.za/","body":"The Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, is holding its first Rehabilitation Conference in September 2013. The conference will host speakers from diverse disciplinary fields on a range of themes such as: policy: influencing development and implementation; evidence for action: a research agenda; responsive rehabilitation service delivery; and optimising human resourcing for rehabilitation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"UN must prioritise equality, urge world's developing countries ","field_subtitle":"Tran M: The Guardian, 6 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/aug/06/world-poorest-people-un-equality","body":"Equality before the law, corruption-free government, inclusiveness, gender equality, and respect for the environment are among the priorities for any future set of development goals, as identified during four civil society and government meetings on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the targets that should replace them when they expire in 2015. Four \"ground-level panels\" were held in four developing countries, including Uganda. Respondents on the panel in Uganda agreed that no one should be left behind, urging a grassroots approach to policy. They proposed that bottom-up processes, where the people decide what is to be done by their government, must be a priority. The panel also felt foreign investment should create opportunities for Ugandans, and external investors should respect local customs and culture.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding the Biofuel Trade-offs between indirect land use change, hunger and poverty","field_subtitle":"Searchinger T: Friends of the Earth Europe, 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nyxtk8n","body":"The author of this paper identifies two main concerns with regard to biofuel policies: one involves the likely consequences of biofuels for greenhouse gas emissions because of the ploughing up of forests and grasslands and their release of carbon, while the other involves the consequences for hunger and poverty. What is not broadly understood is that the two consequences closely and inversely relate: the less farmers plough up forest and grassland, the greater the impacts on hunger; but the lower the impacts on hunger, the more farmers emit greenhouse gases from land use change. Much of the uncertainty about the consequences of biofuels relate to how much of which undesirable response the world will get. When biofuels divert crops from food there are three basic alternative responses: (1) the crops are not replaced; (2) crops are replaced by land use change; and (3) crops are replaced by boosting production on existing agricultural land. The author argues that the evidence indicates that biofuels are fuelling hunger, land grabs and climate change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal health coverage and universal access","field_subtitle":"Evans DB, Hsu J and Boerma T: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 91(8): 546-547, August 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/91/8/13-125450/en/index.html","body":"Universal health coverage has been set as a possible umbrella goal for health in the post-2015 development agenda. In this editorial, the authors discuss the relationship between universal coverage and universal access. They argue that addressing the broader social determinants of health will also improve access to health services; differences in access in particular will be ameliorated by reducing poverty and income inequalities. These actions alone, however, will not guarantee that all people obtain the health services they need. Even if the services exist and people have access to them, they might not use them. Universal health coverage cannot be attained unless both health services and financial risk protection systems are accessible, affordable and acceptable. In turn, universal access, although necessary, is not sufficient. Coverage builds on access by ensuring actual receipt of services. Thus, universal health coverage and universal access to health services are complementary ideas. Without universal access, universal health coverage becomes an unreachable goal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Wedging Equity and Environmental Justice into the Discourse on Sustainability","field_subtitle":"Gandy OH: tripleC 11(1): 221-236, 2013","field_url":"http://www.triplec.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/472/465","body":"In this paper, the author examines the problems and prospects for including meaningful indicators of equity into the city based regional planning efforts unfolding around the globe. The central focus of the paper is on the challenges that environmental justice (EJ) activists face as they attempt to frame the problem of equity in ways that the general public would see as not only informative, but compelling. After reviewing examples of successful efforts to reframe debates about equity, the author concludes with a discussion of a set of EJ concerns and indicators that have the greatest potential for capturing public attention and commitment despite mounting resistance to the use of redistributive policies in support of sustainability goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"What Matters Most? Evidence from 84 Participatory Studies with Those Living with Extreme Poverty and Marginalisation","field_subtitle":"Leavy J and Howard J: Institute for Development Studies, July 2013","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/ParticipateSynthesis-WhatMattersMost.pdf","body":"This report draws on the experiences and views of people living in extreme poverty and marginalisation in 107 countries. The authors distil messages from 84 participatory research studies published in the last seven years. Forty-seven of these studies are based on creative material coming from visual participatory methods. Their findings show that a development framework post-2015 will have legitimacy if it responds to the needs of all citizens, in particular those who are most marginalised and face ongoing exclusion from development processes. The framework has to incorporate shared global challenges and have national level ownership if it is to support meaningful change in the lives of people living in poverty. The authors first focus on understanding the lessons learnt from people's experiences of predominantly international development assistance, before they merge these findings with learning from the second phase of the synthesis, adding a substantive focus on national and local level policy and development planning and how relationships, and accountability between citizens and governance institutions at these levels can be strengthened through the active engagement of those most marginalised in decision-making.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Where there is no lawyer: Guidance for fairer contract negotiation in collaborative research partnerships","field_subtitle":"Marais D, Toohey J, Edwards D and Jsselmuiden CI: COHRED, 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.cohred.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Fair-Research-Contracting-Guidance-Booklet-e-version.pdf","body":"Recent snapshot surveys of research institutions in the African and Asian regions have revealed some significant gaps in the contracting and contract management capacity of low- and middle-income country (LMIC) institutions in these regions. Many institutions had not previously considered research contracting to be a legal issue and reported having no specialist legal expertise, with the result that contractual terms and conditions were often poorly understood. Without adequate legal capacity, contract negotiations can lead to agreements which disadvantage the LMIC partner. This guidance booklet is aimed at optimising research institution building through better contracts and contracting in research partnerships. It highlights the key issues for consideration when entering into formalised research partnerships, and provides tools and resources for negotiating fairer research contracts. Better contract negotiation expertise in LMIC institutions will help improve the distribution of benefits of collaborative research, such as overhead costs, data ownership, institutional capacity in research management, technology transfer, and intellectual property rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A Health Systems Research mapping exercise in 26 low- and middle-income countries: Narratives from health systems researchers, policy brokers and policy-makers","field_subtitle":"Decoster K, Appelmans A and Hill P: World Health Organisation: 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/alliancehpsr_backgroundpapermappingexercise.pdf","body":"For this report, the authors conducted interviews with senior health systems researchers, high-level policy makers and policy brokers in 26 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in order to map health systems research capacity, health systems research undertaken and policy uptake of this research. They found that health systems research was dependent on a cluster of enabling factors: charismatic and strategically thinking individuals with a talent for networking, technical competence and scientific credibility, appropriate international alliances and trends, emergent local knowledge translation structures and increasing national ownership of research agendas, more and better training courses for researchers as well as workshops for decision makers to make them more attuned to each others\u2019 world and constraints, increasing trust between decision makers and researchers, a critical mass of health systems researchers and competing institutions \u2018able to deliver\u2019, an entry point for health systems research in decision making circles, sufficient domestic and international funding, and even political transitions, shock events or other windows of opportunity. However, country contexts diverge widely. In most LMIC countries studied, health systems research appears to be gaining momentum, and its potential for informing policy is increasing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"A pilot study on quality of artesunate and amodiaquine tablets used in the fishing community of Tema, Ghana","field_subtitle":"Affum AO, Lowor S, Osae SD, Dickson A, Gyan BA and Tulasi D: Malaria Journal 12(220), 28 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-12-220.pdf","body":"This pilot study on the quality of anti-malarial tablets for sale in retail outlets during the major fishing season was conducted in a malarious fishing village located along the coast of Tema in southern Ghana. Researchers randomly sampled blisterpacks of anti-malarial tablets and assessed them according to the International Pharmacopoeia and Global Pharma Health Fund Minilab protocols. When testing for genuine artesunate per tablet, 10% of one manufacturer\u2019s tablets and 50% of the other\u2019s passed the titrimetric test. While 100% of the first manufacturer\u2019s tablets passed for genuine amodiaquine, 17% of a similar package by the second manufacturer failed spectrophotometric testing. The inadequate amounts of artesunate and amodiaquine detected in the tablets suggest that both pharmaceutical companies may not be following recommended drug formulation procedures, or the active pharmaceutical ingredients might have been degraded by improper storage conditions. The authors conclude that the drugs being sold at Kpone-on-Sea, Ghana may likely be classified as substandard drugs and are not suitable for malaria treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"A Review of Conceptual Barriers and Opportunities Facing Health Systems Research to Inform a Strategy from the World Health Organisation","field_subtitle":"Hoffman SJ, R\u00f8ttingen J, Bennett S, Lavis JN, Edge JS and Frenk J: World Health Organisation: June 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/alliancehpsr_backgroundpaperconceptualbarriersopportunities.pdf","body":"Health systems research is widely recognised as essential for strengthening health systems, getting cost-effective treatments to those who need them, and achieving better health status around the world. However, there is significant ambiguity and confusion in this field\u2019s characteristics, boundaries, definition and methods. Adding to this ambiguity are major conceptual barriers to the production, reproduction, translation and implementation of health systems research relating to both the complexity of health systems and research involving them. These include challenges with epistemology, applicability, diversity, comparativity and priority-setting. According to this report, three promising opportunities exist to mitigate these barriers and strengthen the important contributions of health systems research. First, health systems research can be supported as a field of scientific endeavour, with a shared language, rigorous interdisciplinary approaches, cross-jurisdictional learning and an international society. Second, national capacity for health systems research can be strengthened at the individual, organisational and system levels. Third, health systems research can be embedded as a core function of every health system. Addressing these conceptual barriers and supporting the field of health systems research promises to both strengthen health systems around the world and improve global health outcomes, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"A Wolf in Sheep\u2019s Clothing? An analysis of the \u2018sustainable intensification\u2019 of agriculture","field_subtitle":"Friends of the Earth International: October 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/odvgmoe","body":"While the challenges facing agriculture are clearly urgent, this paper questions the thrust of \u2018sustainable intensification\u2019. Sustainable intensification is reported by the author to include technology-based approaches through strategies developed without participation of small farmers. The author argues that most of the world\u2019s food is grown by small farmers, without the use of industrial inputs, and using traditional seed varieties. Small farmers have raised their own priorities as a sustainable agriculture that builds on farmers\u2019 own expertise and knowledge, with clear land rights, and rights for women, including agrarian reforms; agricultural research that starts by asking farmers what they need; knowledge and technologies that are based on agro-ecological principles, including compost, integrated pest management and mixed cropping; seed development based on traditional varieties; and mechanisms to protect local farmers from unfair competition from imported products.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Access for the poor and powerless: How changes to health funding have influenced church health service provision in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Ascroft J, Semos I and Macintyre A: University of Melbourne, June 2013","field_url":"http://ni.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/804704/WP_31.pdf","body":"The authors of this study conducted a review of the international literature on funding issues faced by church- and faith-based service providers in Africa and in Papua New Guinea. They found that funding constraints have been overcome in some cases through greater collaboration between government and church health providers, through the restructuring of user fees to minimise the impact on the poor and through more streamlined and transparent financial reporting. However, failure to fully implement agreed government funding to church health services can cause facility closures and reduced treatments, driving up costs for government and increasing the burden on public provision. The authors also report mixed findings as to whether greater engagement by church health services with government has translated into broader participation in policy formulation, as well as of implementation of community-based health insurance schemes and micro-insurance. Funding constraints influenced the retention of skilled staff by church health services, as workers move from church-managed, rural and remote facilities to public facilities in urban centres.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to medicines in the context of the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health","field_subtitle":"United Nations Human Rights Council : 24 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.refworld.org/topic,50ffbce51b1,50ffbce51d5,51cd52304,0,,,.html","body":"This United Nations resolution recognises that access to medicines is one of the fundamental elements in achieving progressively the full realisation of the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. It stresses the responsibility of States to ensure the highest attainable level of health for all, including through access, without discrimination, to medicines, in particular essential medicines, that are affordable, safe, efficacious and of quality. At the same time, the resolution emphasises the crucial role of prevention, the promotion of healthy lifestyles and the strengthening of health systems. The central element of the resolution urges States, as appropriate, to take 16 measures to fulfil their obligations on access to medicines within the right to health framework. The resolution also recognises the innovative funding mechanisms that contribute to the availability of vaccines and medicines in developing countries, such as the Global Fund and the GAVI Alliance. It calls upon all States, United Nations programmes and agencies, relevant intergovernmental organisations and pharmaceutical companies to help safeguard public health from conflict of interest, as well as to further collaborate to enable equitable access to quality, safe and efficacious medicines that are affordable to all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Advancing the right to health through global organisations: The potential role of a Framework Convention on Global Health","field_subtitle":"Friedman EA, Gostin LO, Buse K: Health and Human Rights 15(1): 71-86, June 2013","field_url":"http://www.hhrjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2013/06/Friedman-FINAL.pdf","body":"In this article, the authors examine how major global health organisations, such as WHO, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, UNAIDS, and GAVI approach human rights concerns, including equality, accountability and inclusive participation. The authors use examples of best practice to indicate how such agencies can advance the right to health, covering nine areas: 1) participation and representation in governance processes; 2) leadership and organizational ethos; 3) internal policies; 4) norm-setting and promotion; 5) organisational leadership through advocacy and communication; 6) monitoring and accountability; 7) capacity building; 8) funding policies; and 9) partnerships and engagement. The proposed UN Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH) would commit state parties to support these standards through their board membership and other interactions with these agencies. The authors also explain how the FCGH could incorporate these organisations into its overall financing framework, initiate a new forum where they collaborate with each other, as well as organisations in other regimes, to advance the right to health, and ensure sufficient funding for right to health capacity building.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"African leadership for sustainable health policy and systems research","field_subtitle":"Mbacke CSM: BMC Health Services Research 13(Suppl 2):S15, 31 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/S2/S15","body":"The author of this article argues that one decade into the 21st century it is clear that the current situation in African leadership is not conducive to building strong national health research systems in the continent. Consequently, the promise of health systems strengthening may remain elusive, despite positive efforts. He says African countries are not acting according to international declarations, and are reneging on their commitment to take the lead by increasing their investments in health and research for health. More than two-thirds of external funding for health is bypassing government, in contradiction to the guidance of the Paris Declaration and the Accra Plan of Action. The author calls for broader dialogue on how international assistance for health is conceived will be needed to achieve results that can be scaleable and sustainable. Both African governments and external funders will need to examine how they engage to improve health systems, a critical step in improving population health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Austerity: The history of a dangerous idea","field_subtitle":"Blyth M: Oxford University Press, 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/pmjn4h2","body":"According to this book, governments across the globe are being persuaded by economists that government spending on services like education and health is unnecessary and can only worsen the global economic crisis. To this effect they have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts \u2013 austerity - to solve the financial crisis. However, the author of this book argues that the source of the financial crisis is not in government spending but the direct result of bailing out, recapitalising and adding liquidity to the broken banking system. Through these actions private debt was reclassified as government debt, which now is the responsibility of taxpayers to pay off, hence the proposed cuts in government spending. Blyth argues that historical evidence shows that austerity doesn't work when all states try it simultaneously: all they do is shrink the economy. He shows how austerity policies aggravated the Great Depression of the 1930s and created the conditions for seizures of power by the forces responsible for the Second World War: the Nazis and the Japanese military establishment. He concludes that the arguments for austerity are tenuous and the evidence thin. Rather than expanding growth and opportunity, the repeated revival of this dead economic idea has almost always led to low growth along with increases in wealth and income inequality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Bringing about a paradigm shift towards a just and sustainable world: Report of a CIDSE workshop","field_subtitle":"CIDSE: Brussels, 14-15 May 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/oy4hr8v","body":"CIDSE, an international alliance of Catholic development agencies, held a workshop in Brussels from 14-15 May 2013 to discuss ways of creating a new development agenda. This report contains the main findings from the workshop. Participants agreed that the new agenda should have a number of values and principles at its heart: human dignity, rights, freedom and responsibility; justice, equity, solidarity, and fair distribution; care for the earth; and participation and subsidiarity. To enable a paradigm shift towards a just and sustainable world, participants called for a prophetic new narrative of human well-being within creation, gender equity, and solidarity, with an economy at the service of society within planetary boundaries. They also called for transformation of the dominant GDP growth and development paradigm, towards just and sustainable societies and livelihoods. They argued for confrontation of unjust power structures, making common cause with those most affected by inequalities and unsustainability in both North and South. Bold actors for change are needed, those who challenge ourselves to deepen our partnerships, and to engage in alliances with those who share our goals of transformation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Third International Conference Of The African Health Economics And Policy Association (AFHEA)","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 31 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/events/call-abstracts-third-international-conference-african-health-economics-and-policy-association","body":"This call goes out to all African health economists and health policy analysts or those working in Africa or on research of relevance to Africa to submit abstracts for the Second Conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA), which will be held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 11 to 13 March 2014. The overall theme of this conference is \"The Post-2015 African Health Agenda and UHC: Opportunities and Challenges\". Researchers and other actors are encouraged to submit abstracts on this broad theme or indeed on any other interesting, innovative or topical African health sector or systems research that may be presented orally or in poster format at the conference. Proposals for organised sessions are also invited from interested individuals or institutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call For Applicants: Human Rights Scholarship ","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 31 October 2013","field_url":"http://services.unimelb.edu.au/scholarships/research /local/available/humanrights","body":"The Human Rights Scholarship (HRS) is awarded to local or international applicants wishing to undertake graduate research studies at the University of Melbourne in the human rights field and who are able to demonstrate their commitment to the peaceful advancement of respect for human rights. Each year the University offers two HRSs. Applicants must be able to demonstrate that their commitment to the peaceful advancement of respect for human rights extends beyond their academic studies (such as voluntary work and/or work experience). Applicants must have applied for, or be currently enrolled in a graduate research degree in the human rights field at the University of Melbourne. Applicants who have commenced their graduate research degree must have at least 12 months full-time or equivalent candidature remaining. International students must have an unconditional course offer at the University of Melbourne for the course for which they seek the support of a HRS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Celebrating a decade of the African Women\u2019s Rights Protocol","field_subtitle":"Makau K: Pambazuka News 638, 11 July 2013","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/88199","body":"On 11 July 2013, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples\u2019 Rights on the Rights of Women (the Protocol) turns 10. The author of this article argues that there is much to celebrate, as the Protocol remains one of the worlds\u2019 most progressive women\u2019s human rights instruments. While ratifications are a welcome measure, the provisions enshrined in the Protocol only have real meaning if governments go further and show their commitment to the protection and advancement of African women\u2019s human rights by domesticating and fully implementing the instrument, she argues. Challenges that require mitigation exist and include limited technical and financial support in many states particularly with regard to the efforts to sensitise and build the capacity of government officials as well as the general public on the provisions of the Protocol; lack of political goodwill and weak institutional mechanisms to support the domestication and implementation of the Protocol; and lastly religious and cultural conservativism.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Chance for BRICs to play greater role in fighting diseases","field_subtitle":"Whiteside A and Cohen J: China Daily, 12 July 2013","field_url":"","body":"For too long Africans have been dependent on aid and medicines from the West, argues the author of this article, but Brazil, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) are emerging as dominant players in Africa\u2019s health markets. In the late-1990s, Brazil played an instrumental role in shifting the paradigm of healthcare and human rights when it challenged the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and its intellectual property regime. Brazil violated a WTO clause to provide antiretroviral drugs and to lower their price. This reaffirmed medicine as a fundamental human right. While many drugs continue to be developed in the West, India has stepped in to manufacture generic medicines for the world's poorest countries. Through low-cost support and commodities, India has filled a gap in the global market. China has an increasing role to play in the global health arena. It invested $36.1 billion in 2011 in research and development, placing the country in a position to become a major player in healthcare innovation. Additionally, given the sheer scale of industry and financial resources available, China has the capacity to develop and supply HIV drugs and technologies to meet the needs of the African epidemic. The departure of traditional international funders like the United Kingdom and the United States presents an opportunity for new sources of engagement with the growing BRICS economies. Investing in the health of Africa will fuel development, enhance diplomacy and build South-South solidarity, the author argues.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/38520","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Changes in the burden of malaria following scale-up of malaria control interventions in Mutasa District, Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Mharakurwa S, Mutambu SL, Mberikunashe J, Thuma PE, Moss WJ and Mason PR: Malaria Journal 12(223), 1 July 2013","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-12-223.pdf","body":"To better understand trends in the burden of malaria and their temporal relationship to control activities, a survey was conducted to assess reported cases of malaria and malaria control activities in Mutasa District, Zimbabwe. Data on reported malaria cases were abstracted from available records at all three district hospitals, three rural hospitals and 25 rural health clinics in Mutasa District from 2003 to 2011. Results showed that malaria control interventions were scaled up through the support of several global initiatives, the newer artemisinin-based combination therapy was adopted by all health clinics by 2010, diagnostic capacity improved and vector control was implemented. The number of reported malaria cases initially increased from levels in 2003 to a peak in 2008 but then declined 39% from 2008 to 2010. The proportion of suspected cases of malaria in older children and adults remained high, ranging from 75% to 80%. From 2008 to 2010, the number of RDT positive cases of malaria decreased 35% but the decrease was greater for children younger than five years of age (60%) compared to older children and adults (26%). In conclusions, the burden of malaria in Mutasa District decreased following the scale up of malaria control interventions. However, the persistent high number of cases in older children and adults highlights the need for strategies to identify locally effective control measures that target all age groups.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil Society Week: Bringing citizen voice into the post-2015 development vision","field_subtitle":"Johannesburg, South Africa: 10-15 November 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/o63wxd2","body":"CIVICUS is calling for participants to a series of civil society events taking place between 10 and 15 November 2013 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Coming just two months after the UN General Assembly meetings in New York in September 2013, the week of strategising, dialogue and mobilisation will provide a space for global civil society to chart a route forwards on how to bring real citizen voice, accountability and mobilisation into the newly emerging development vision. Two major global civil society conferences, at the heart of the week, are being hosted for the first time outside of Europe. 1. The conference on Building a Global Citizens Movement, convened by CONCORD/DEEEP, will take place on 11-12 November, and bring grassroots activists and social movements together with organised civil society. A session hosted by CIVICUS and partners, with a special South African focus, will connect the experiences of yesterday\u2019s struggle activists with more recent social justice movements. 2. The International Civil Society Centre's Global Perspectives 2013 conference engages global and national CEOs of leading international civil society organisations in a dialogue around navigating disruptive change. The conference is co-hosted by ActionAid International and CIVICUS and will take place on 13-15 November.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Combatting Substandard and Falsified Medicines: A View from Rwanda","field_subtitle":"Binagwaho A, Bate R, Gasana M, Karema C, Mucyo Y, Mwesigye JP et al: PLOS Medicine 10(1371), 2 July 2013","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001476","body":"Substandard and falsified medicines are major global health challenges that cause unnecessary morbidity and mortality around the world and threaten to undermine recent progress against infectious diseases by facilitating the emergence of drug resistance. According to this study, Rwanda has the lowest prevalence of poor quality tuberculosis drugs among African countries. This positive finding may be associated with Rwanda's efforts to ban the sale of monotherapies, ensure that private sellers of important medicines are qualified, and prioritise the prevention of falsified medicines entering the country, the authors argue. As policymakers in, and researchers of, Rwanda's health sector, they argue that the improvement of the country's supply chain and drug surveillance systems, combined with equity-oriented strategies for increasing geographic and financial access to high quality drugs through the public sector, has played an important role in the country's steep declines in mortality due to tuberculosis and malaria. In scaling up pharmacovigilance for malaria and tuberculosis, they call for a global treaty and leadership by the World Health Organisation to address manufacturing and trade in substandard and falsified medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Community-based conservation reduces sexual risk factors for HIV among men ","field_subtitle":"Naidoo R and Johnson K: Globalization and Health 9(27): 9 July 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-9-27.pdf","body":"The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a community-based natural resource management programme that \u201cmainstreamed\u201d HIV awareness and prevention activities within rural communities in Namibia. The authors used data from two rounds of the Namibia Demographic and Health Surveys (2000 and 2006/2007), including a total of 117 men and 318 women in 2000, and 170 men and 357 women in 2006/2007. They found that community-based conservation in Namibia has significantly reduced multiple sexual partnerships, the main behavioural determinant of HIV and AIDS infection in Africa. They argue that their results demonstrate the effectiveness of holistic community-based approaches centred on the preservation of lives and livelihoods, and highlight the potential benefits of integrating conservation and HIV prevention programming in other areas of communal land tenure in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Consolidated guidelines on the use of antiretroviral drugs for treating and preventing HIV infection","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hiv/pub/guidelines/arv2013/download/en/","body":"These consolidated guidelines provide guidance on the diagnosis of HIV infection, the care of people living with HIV and the use of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for treating and preventing HIV infection. They are structured along the continuum of HIV testing, care and treatment. Behavioural, structural and biomedical interventions that do not involve the use of ARV drugs are not covered in these guidelines. The 2013 guidelines combine and harmonise recommendations from a range of World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines and other documents. Comprehensive guidance is now provided on using ARV drugs across age groups and populations of adults, pregnant and breastfeeding women, adolescents, children and key populations. The guidelines also aim to consolidate and update clinical, service delivery and programmatic guidance. Consistent with previous WHO guidelines, the new guidelines are based on a public health approach to the further scaling up of ARV drugs for treatment and prevention that considers feasibility and effectiveness across a variety of resource-limited settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Critical Perspectives on Sustainability of the South African Civil Society Sector","field_subtitle":"Coalition on Civil Society Resource Mobilisation: 2012","field_url":"http://www.ngopulse.org/sites/default/files/coalition_report.pdf","body":"This report presents the findings of a research and advocacy process that included consultative workshops with civil society organisations (CSOs) in all nine of South Africa\u2019s provinces. The research found that the legislated \u2018enabling environment\u2019 for civil society was dysfunctional. The serious lack of current and reliable national data about the size, scope and activities of the sector negatively affects the ability of the sector and of government to support it. The sustainability and effectiveness of civil society to address poverty and equity is compromised by these problems. South African civil society sector is facing a funding crisis, which needs to be addressed on many fronts: the authors call for legislative reform and renewed work on an enabling policy environment for civil society, and for grant-making and other forms of investment in social development. International sources are now much less available, which means that local funding sources must be developed and leveraged, including private philanthropy, corporate social investment and the contributions from state-related agencies such as the National Lottery Board (NLB) and the national Development Agency (NDA). The authors urge these funding agencies to work with government leadership to commit to a cooperative process towards over-arching and systemic reform of the enabling environment for civil society. They further recommend that a cross-sectoral working group, which includes strong civil society representation, is established to plan the necessary changes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 98: Annotated literature review: African actors, global health governance and performance-based funding","field_subtitle":"Brown GW, Barnes A, Harman S, Gruia M and Papamichail A: EQUINET, June 2013","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss%2098%20PBF%20Lit%20Rev%20June%202013.pdf","body":"Performance-based funding (PBF) has become increasingly popular in global health financing. It is defined essentially as the transfer of resources (money, material goods) for health on condition that measurable action will be taken to achieve predefined health system performance targets such as particular health outcomes, the delivery of effective interventions (such as HIV prophylaxis), utilisation of services (like HIV counselling and testing), or quality care. This annotated literature review has been prepared for work on global health diplomacy and the role of African actors in global health governance in relation to PBF. The review highlights the theoretical thinking behind and strengths and weaknesses associated with PBF schemes in their use in Africa. It reviews documented evidence of the role of African actors in diplomacy and decision-making surrounding PBF. The review highlights that while national governments are generally involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of PBF schemes, some national actors and regional actors appear to be marginalised when it comes to the design and global decision-making process for performance-based funding schemes, even if they are heavily involved in their implementation.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Domestic Revenue Mobilisation in Countries Emerging from Conflict","field_subtitle":"Holmes K: International Peace Institute, 10 July 2013","field_url":"http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/35623645","body":"On 10 July 2013, the International Peace Institute hosted Kieran Holmes, General Commissioner of the Burundi Revenue Authority, to present lessons and recommendations from countries emerging from conflict, while positing ways the wider international community can support the development of domestic revenue generation and revenue authority. In this video, he argues from the position that imposed decisions and models of the global agencies are often not the in the best interests of recipient countries. A relevant system should be determined by local conditions. International and national partners must radically change the way they engage with states emerging from conflict. African leaders need to find how to move away from the model of partnership according to which priorities, policies, and funding needs are determined in foreign capitals and development partners\u2019 headquarters. Conflict-affected states need to be able to determine their own destinies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"ECOSOC Panel: Science, Technology, Innovation Essential For Universal Health Coverage","field_subtitle":"Ngo B: Intellectual Property Watch, 4 July 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nu8yxwz","body":"A United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) panel discussion on universal health coverage (UHC) on 3 July 2013 highlighted the importance of science, technology and innovation for achieving UHC, especially in the context of the post-2015 development agenda. Speakers discussed the meaning and scope of UHC as well as the financing and promotion of UHC in various country contexts. World Health Organisation Director General Margaret Chan pointed to political commitment, investment, clear policy goals and tracking mechanisms as necessary conditions for UHC, but also emphasised state ownership in developing and implementing UHC. She argued that each state should develop its own healthcare system according to the needs of its population. She said that no major breakthrough, such as the introduction of vaccines, is possible without innovation; however, innovation has become expensive, at the cost of access for most people. On the matter of social innovation Chan remarked that often innovation is thought of as sophisticated science, but looking forward, the future of healthcare should be people-centred, integrated and based on primary healthcare and prevention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Embedding of research into decision-making processes ","field_subtitle":"Koon AD, Nambiar D and Rao KD: World Health Organisation: 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/alliancehpsr_backgroundpaperembeddingresearch.pdf","body":"This study describes the issue of research use in decision making from the perspective of embeddedness of research institutions in policy making. Its &#64257;ndings suggest that multiple forces converge to create context-speci&#64257;c pathways through which research enters the policymaking environment. The authors argue that while proximity to a decision making core does have advantages, it is not the position of the institution within the network, but rather, the qualities that institution possesses that enable it to be embedded: reputation, capacity, quality, and quantity of connections to decision makers. They also expected the policy environment to in&#64258;uence the uptake of research. Decision makers sourced evidence from research institutions in a variety of ways - leveraging personal networks, accessing peer-reviewed publications, developing formal links with national statistics agencies, academic, or independent research institutions, or by assembling expert committees for a well-de&#64257;ned task. However, findings from key informants suggested that the quality \u2013 and not the quantity \u2013 of connections was important for embedding research institutions in policy making, particularly where researchers were involved in policy making, where research institutions were part of the decision making body or where collaborative planning occurred to identify and prioritise research needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 150: We cannot afford to leave the for-profit private health sector unregulated in Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Participatory Methods toolkit: Organising People\u2019s Power for Health","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R, Kaim B, Chikomo F (TARSC), Mbuyita S and Makemba A (IFAKARA): 2006","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQUINET%20PRA%20toolkit%20for%20web.pdf","body":"For some time now, people working in the field of health at community level have expressed the need for a toolkit specifically focusing on participatory approaches to working on health. This toolkit was produced in response to this need, drawing on the experiences and knowledge of individuals and institutions working in this field. The toolkit shows how participatory methods can be used to raise community voice, both through health research and by training communities to take effective action and become involved in the health sector. Generally, this toolkit aims to strengthen capacities in researchers, health workers and civil society personnel working at community level to use participatory methods for research, training and programme support. At the end of the course, we hope that the users of the toolkit will have learned and be able to use various methods for participatory approaches to research and training within various areas of work aimed at building people-centred health systems. The toolkit uses experiences from different countries in the east and southern African region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluation of how integrated HIV and TB programmes are implemented in South Africa and the implications for rural-urban equity","field_subtitle":"Scott VE and Sanders D:  Rural and Remote Health 2165 (Online), 2013","field_url":"http://www.rrh.org.au/Articles/printviewnew.asp?ArticleID=2165","body":"The authors of this study undertook a programme evaluation of HIV and TB prevention and therapeutic services at facility level in South Africa to describe integration and how it is implemented. They evaluated 26 rural and 146 urban public primary-care facilities using secondary data generated from December 2008 and May 2009. Evidence of integration was found across two dimensions: disease programmes and the prevention\u2013therapeutic axis. Smaller rural facilities did not always have staff trained in all the required services, nurses worked without the support of a doctor and supervision was weaker, threatening quality of care. However, in the rural district there were instances of clients receiving more integrated services. The quality of care in the TB programme was high in both districts. In both the districts evaluated, integration across programmes and the prevention-care-rehabilitation axis of services was achieved through co-location at primary-care level. Coupled with health system strengthening, this has the potential to improve access across the HIV/TB/STI cluster of services. The benefit is likely to be greater in rural areas. Quality of care was maintained in the long-established TB programmes in both settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Evidence-based medicine \u2013 are we boiling the frog? ","field_subtitle":"Muckart DJJ: South African Medical Journal 103(7):447-488, July 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/samj/article/view/90046/79500","body":"In this article, the author considers the disadvantages of over-reliance on evidence-based medicine. He argues that a publishing bias exists against studies with negative or inconclusive findings, which skews overall results. Sometimes, there is a significant finding in favour of a trial drug if the study was funded by for-profit organisations, which could not be explained by methodology, statistical analysis or type of study. He also points to a growing trend in industry-sponsored studies: the initial draft is compiled by company employees, before academically affiliated authors, often regarded as key opinion leaders, are sourced as principal or second authors without having substantially contributed to the study. And with increasing levels of data fabrication, the author warns against abandoning clinical experience and judgement in favour of evidence-based approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Fair shares: Is CAADP working?","field_subtitle":"Howell J, Curtis M and Ross S: ActionAid, May 2013","field_url":"http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/fair_shares_caadp_report.pdf","body":"The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), launched by African heads of state in 2003, offered the prospect of a new, intensified focus on agriculture throughout the continent. Ten years on, how successful has CAADP been? This paper offers a brief assessment, with its authors examining if agricultural budgets have increased, if the focus of spending has improved, and if CAADP is providing \u2018fair shares\u2019 to the millions of smallholder farmers who do most of Africa\u2019s farming and produce most of its food. The key CAADP commitment made by African states was to allocate 10% of public expenditure to agriculture. Yet, as of 2010, only eight countries have exceeded the 10% target. Although the adoption of CAADP-aligned national strategies has played a role in increasing agricultural investment in some (though not all) countries, there are serious problems with the focus of spending, especially in the lack of adequate support to the needs of smallholder farmers, notably women farmers. The authors note that CAADP is promoting a farming model associated with the Green Revolution, which promotes the use of expensive external inputs such as chemical fertilisers, pesticides and genetically modified or hybrid seeds bought from agribusiness companies; they argue this comes at the expense of promoting sustainable agriculture approaches that are likely to benefit poor farmers much more. One of the biggest failures for CAADP-aligned national investments is that they have not recognised the potential of smallholders\u2019 own investments or their potential to build on their \u2018fair share\u2019, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender-based distributional skewness of the United Republic of Tanzania\u2019s health workforce cadres: a cross-sectional health facility survey","field_subtitle":"Exavery A, Lutambi AM, Wilson N, Mubyazi GM, Pemba S and Mbaruku G: Human Resources for Health 11(28), 24 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-11-28.pdf","body":"In this paper, the authors assess the gender-based distribution of Tanzania\u2019s health workforce cadres. They conducted a secondary analysis of data collected in a cross-sectional health facility survey on health system strengthening, consisting of 815 health workers (HWs) from 88 randomly selected health facilities. Results showed that the mean age of the HWs was 39.7, with 75% women. The proportion of women among maternal and child health aides or medical attendants (MCHA/MA), nurses and midwives was 86%, 86% and 91%, respectively, while their proportion among clinical officers (COs) and medical doctors (MDs) was 28% and 21%, respectively. The authors conclude that the distribution of the Tanzania\u2019s health cadres is dramatically gender skewed, a reflection of gender inequality in health career choices. MCHA/MA, nursing and midwifery cadres are large and female-dominant, whereas COs and MDs are fewer in absolute numbers and male-dominant. While a need for more staff is necessary for an effective delivery of quality health services, the authors call for adequate representation of women in highly trained cadres to enhance responses to some gender-specific roles and needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global and regional estimates of violence against women: Prevalence and health effects of intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: June 2013","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/85239/1/9789241564625_eng.pdf","body":"This study found that globally, 38% of all women who were murdered were murdered by their intimate partners, and 42% of women who have experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of a partner had experienced injuries as a result. Partner violence was found to be a major contributor to women\u2019s mental health problems, women experiencing intimate partner violence are almost twice as likely as other women to have alcohol-use problems and 1.5 times more likely to acquire certain sexually transmitted infections In some regions like sub-Saharan Africa, they are 1.5 times more likely to acquire HIV. Both partner violence and non-partner sexual violence were associated with unwanted pregnancy, as the report found that women experiencing physical and/or sexual partner violence are twice as likely to have an abortion than women who do not experience this violence. Women who experience partner violence also have a 16% greater chance of having a low birth-weight baby. The study highlights the need for all sectors to engage in eliminating tolerance for violence against women and better support for women who experience it, and was launched with new World Health Organisation\u2019s clinical and policy guidelines (also included in this newsletter).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Research Nurses Website","field_subtitle":"Global Health Network","field_url":"http://globalresearchnurses.tghn.org/","body":"Global Research Nurses is a free network for all nurses with an interest in research. The aim is to give nurses the support, guidance, information and peer support they need to conduct their roles and enhance their careers as nurses working in research.  Global Health Research Nurses offers four facilities: 1. A professional network where you can find colleagues nearby or across continents, via the Blogs, Bookmarks and Groups. 2. A Professional Membership Scheme. 3. Certificated e-learning short courses for skills in medical research. 4. Links to online learning.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"GNHE Scholarships In Health Equity","field_subtitle":"No Deadline Given","field_url":"http://gnhe.funsalud.org.mx/Documentos/GNHE%20Scholarships%20260213.pdf","body":"The Global Network for Health Equity (GNHE) has launched its Scholarships Programme for 2013\u20132014. The programme aims to build capacity in low and middle-income countries for health systems research into issues of health systems equity and universal health coverage, by supporting junior researchers from those countries undertaking research on any of the following topics: equity in health systems financing and financial protection; equity in health systems delivery, including access and utilisation; equity in health outcomes at the population level; and universal health coverage. Applications from health economics and all other relevant research fields will be considered as well as inter-disciplinary proposals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Handbook on health inequality monitoring: with a special focus on low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2013","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/9789241548632_eng.pdf","body":"The World Health Organisation developed this handbook to provide an overview for health inequality monitoring within low- and middle-income countries, and act as a resource for those involved in spearheading, improving or sustaining monitoring systems. The handbook was principally designed to be used by technical staff of ministries of health to build capacity for health inequality monitoring in World Health Organization Member States; however, it may also be of interest to public health professionals, researchers, students and others. Users of this handbook will be expected to have basic statistical knowledge and some familiarity with monitoring related issues. The handbook serves as a comprehensive resource to clarify the concepts associated with health inequality monitoring, illustrate the process through examples and promote the integration of health inequality monitoring within health information systems of low- and middle-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health conditions and support needs of persons living in residential facilities for adults with intellectual disability in Western Cape Province","field_subtitle":"Mckenzie J, McConkey R and Adnams C: South African Medical Journal 103(7): 481-484, July 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/samj/article/view/90062/79516","body":"Little is known about the health conditions and support needs of people living with intellectual disability (ID) in the African context. To address this gap, the authors conducted this study in residential facilities in the Western Cape Province, South Africa, for people over the age of 18 years with ID. They conducted in face-to-face interviews with the managers of 37 out of 41 identified facilities, as well as a survey of 2,098 residents (54% of them female), representing less than 2% of the estimated population of persons with ID in the province. The survey suggests that such persons experience a wide range of health conditions (notably mental health and behavioural issues) but have limited access to general healthcare and rehabilitation services. Furthermore, the daily living supports required for an acceptable quality of life are limited. The findings highlight the need for better health and support provision to persons with ID.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health insurance in Ghana: evaluation of policy holders' perceptions and factors influencing policy renewal in the Volta region","field_subtitle":"Boateng D and Awunyor-Vitor D: International Journal for Equity in Health 12(50), 3 July 2013","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-12-50.pdf","body":"The purpose of this study was to assess individual attitudes towards health insurance policy and the factors that influence respondents\u2019 decision to renew their health insurance policy when it expires. It was conducted in the Volta region of Ghana. A total of 300 respondents were randomly sampled and interviewed for the study. The researchers also assessed factors that influence respondents\u2019 decision to take up a health insurance policy and renew it. The study results indicate that 61.1% of respondents are currently being enrolled in the national health insurance system (NHIS): 23.9% had not renewed their insurance after enrollment and 15% had never enrolled. Reasons cited for non-renewal of insurance included poor service quality (58%), lack of money (49%) and experience of other sources of care (23%). The gender, marital status, religion and perception of health status of respondents significantly influenced their decision to enroll and remain in NHIS. The authors conclude that NHIS is experiencing good levels of uptake, with clients testifying to its benefits in keeping them strong and healthy. Efforts therefore must be put in by all stakeholders including the community to educate the individuals on the benefits of health insurance to ensure all have optimal access.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Household Air Pollution in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Health Risks and Research Priorities","field_subtitle":"Martin WJ II, Glass RI, Araj H, Balbus J, Collins FS et al: PLoS Medicine 10(6): e1001455, 4 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001455","body":"Household air pollution (HAP) from solid fuel (biomass or coal) combustion is the leading environmental cause of death and disability in the world. The health effects of HAP and unsafe stoves are documented in this paper to be in seven areas (cancer; infections; cardiovascular disease; maternal, neonatal, and child health; respiratory disease; burns; and ocular disorders). Gaps in four cross-cutting areas were found that are relevant to research on HAP (exposure and biomarker assessment, women's empowerment, behavioural approaches, and programme evaluation). The authors argue that it is vital that researchers partner with implementing organisations and governments to evaluate the impacts of improved stove and fuel programmes to identify and share evidence regarding the outcomes of the many implementation programmes underway, including the socio-behavioural aspects of household energy use.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"How Intellectual Property Reinforces Inequality","field_subtitle":"Stiglitz JE: New York Times blogs, 14 July 2013","field_url":"http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/how-intellectual-property-reinforces-inequality/?smid=tw-share","body":"In this article, the author discusses the ramifications of a 2013 legal battle in the United States that ended with the court ruling unanimously that human genes cannot be patented. He argues that the implications of this ruling are far-reaching in terms of public health and equity. He views the case as an example of how societal inequality is a result not just of the laws of economics, but also of how we shape the economy through politics, including through almost every aspect of our legal system, in this instance intellectual property regimes. The right to life and right to health should not be contingent on the ability to pay. He also argues that some of the most iniquitous aspects of inequality creation within our economic system are a result of \u2018rent-seeking\u2019, namely profits, and inequality, generated by manipulating social or political conditions to get a larger share of the economic pie, rather than increasing the size of that pie. The world\u2019s poorly designed intellectual property system encourages pharmaceuticals to pursue such rent seeking. And while advocates of intellectual property rights emphasise their role in promoting innovation, the author counters that most key innovations in history were motivated by the quest for knowledge, not financial gain. He provides evidence that the patent actually prevented the development of better tests, and so interfered with innovation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"ILO Turin Centre - Open Courses On Occupational Safety And Health For 2013: National Governance Of Occupational Safety And Health (14 - 25 October 2013)","field_subtitle":"Deadlines For Applications: 6 September 2013","field_url":"http://socialprotection.itcilo.org/pdf-and-pics /pdf-flyers/a906124","body":"The general objective of this course is to strengthen the capacity of planning, developing and governing the national efforts to improve Occupational Safety and Health (OSH). Content includes: the International Labour Organisation (ILO) experience: ILO Global Strategy on Occupational Safety and Health; the Conventions no. 155 and 187; OSH national policy, systems, programmes and pro&#64257;les; OSH governance: principles, policies and decision making framework; the national policy on OSH; components of the OSH national system; elaboration of a National OSH Pro&#64257;le; planning of policies and strategies on OSH; procedures to formulate a National Programme on OSH; launching, implementation and coordination, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms; OSH national models and experiences of selected countries; and the experiences of participating countries. The cost of participation, excluding international air travel, is EUR 3,250 (course fees EURO 1,920 and participant subsistence EURO 1,330) payable in advance by the participant or his or her sponsoring organisation. Please note that jointly with the application form, you must send a nomination letter in which the institution/sponsor should indicate how the candidate will be financed. \r\nApplications: http://socialprotection.itcilo.org/forms/A906124/","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Inclusion of vulnerable groups in health policies: Regional policies on health priorities in Africa","field_subtitle":"Schneider M, Eide AH, Amin M, MacLachlan M and Mannan H: African Journal of Disability 2(1), Article 40, 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajod.org/index.php/ajod/article/view/40/60","body":"If access to equitable health care is to be achieved for all, policy documents must address different needs of groups that do not access health care. This paper reports on an analysis of 11 African Union (AU) policy documents to ascertain the frequency of mention of 13 core concepts in relation to 12 vulnerable groups, with a specific focus on people with disabilities. While reference is broadly made to vulnerable groups, there is lack of detailed specification of the different needs of different groups. The documents suggest that vulnerable groups are homogeneous in their needs, which is not the case. The authors argue for more information and knowledge on the needs of all vulnerable groups and more specific cover of these issues in policy documents. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Influence of the US President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPfAR) on career choices and emigration of health-profession graduates from a Ugandan medical school: a cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Bajunirwe F, Twesigye L, Zhang M, Vanessa BK and Bangsberg DR: British Medical Journal Open 2013(3):e002875, 29 May 2013","field_url":"http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/5/e002875.full.pdf+html","body":"In this study, the authors explored the hypothesis that programmes initiated under unprecedented health investments from the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief have possibly facilitated the drain of healthcare workers from the public-health system in Uganda. They conducted a cross-sectional study between January and December 2010 to survey graduates, using in-person, phone or online surveys using email and social networks. The setting was rural: Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) is one of three government supported medical schools in Uganda. The authors interviewed 85.4% (796) of all MUST alumni since the university opened in 1989, and they found 78% were physicians and 12% of graduates worked outside Uganda. Over 50% worked for an HIV-related non-governmental organisation (NGO) whether in Uganda or abroad. Graduates receiving their degree after 2005, when large HIV programmes started, were less likely to leave the country, but were more likely to work for an HIV-related NGO. The increase in resources and investment in HIV-treatment capacity is temporally associated with retention of medical providers in Uganda, the authors argue. External funds should be channelled to develop and retain healthcare workers in disciplines other than HIV and broaden the healthcare workforce to other areas, they recommend.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrated maternal and child health services in Mozambique: structural health system limitations overshadow its effect on follow-up of HIV-exposed infants","field_subtitle":"Geelhoed D, Lafort Y, Chissale \u00c9, Candrinho B and Degomme O: BMC Health Services Research 13(207), 7 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/207/","body":"The authors of this paper hypothesised that just as integrated antenatal and maternity services have contributed to improved care for HIV-positive pregnant women, so too could integrated care for mother and infant after birth improve follow-up of HIV-exposed infants. They present results of a study testing the viability of such integrated care, and its effects on follow-up of HIV-exposed infants, in Tete Province, Mozambique. Between April 2009 and September 2010, we conducted their study in six rural public primary healthcare facilities and found that one-stop, integrated care for mother and child was feasible in all participating healthcare facilities, and staff evaluated this service organisation positively. They observed in both study groups an improvement in follow-up of HIV-exposed infants (registration, follow-up visits, serological testing) but despite these improvements, no progress attributable to one-stop, integrated MCH services was observed. Structural healthcare system limitations, such as staff absences and an irregular supply of essential commodities, appear to have a larger effect. Regular technical support and adequate basic working conditions form valuable motivators and are of critical importance for improved staff performance in the follow-up of HIV-exposed infants in peripheral public healthcare facilities in Mozambique.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya launches National Strategy on HIV and AIDS and STI Programming along the Transport Corridors","field_subtitle":"International Organisation for Migration, Kenya: 4 June 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nnzbr64","body":"Kenya\u2019s National AIDS Control Council (NACC) and the National AIDS and STI Control Programme (NASCOP) have launched an HIV and AIDS strategy for transport corridors that aims to reach out to high-risk mobile populations along transport corridors. It will help ensure provision of e&#64256;ective HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention, treatment, care and support programmes for truckers, female sex workers, and men who have sex with men along with the communities they interact with such as border officials, police officers and the general population. The strategy will further provide a national framework within which HIV programming can be realised by various stakeholders providing HIV services along the transport corridors in Kenya.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenyans mobilise against taxing the poor","field_subtitle":"Moloo Z: Pambazuka News 637, 4 July 2013","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/88104","body":"A new campaign has been launched, Kenyans for Tax Justice, speaking out against a new Value Added Tax (VAT) Bill, known popularly as the \u201cUnga tax bill\u201d. Activists are trying to raise awareness and compile a petition against the bill, which seeks to apply a 16% value added tax rate on basic commodities that have remained untaxed until now. When the bill was introduced to parliament in 2012, citizen welfare groups strongly opposed its adoption but it is now up for debate in parliament. The activists mobilising against the VAT bill say they want to use the campaign to highlight the government\u2019s hypocrisy in increasing taxes for ordinary citizens, while at the same time giving multi-national companies major tax breaks. Government estimates place Kenya\u2019s lost revenue from tax incentives to foreign investors at 100 billion Kenya shillings (1.1 billion dollars). Tax Justice Network Africa estimates that in 2010 and 2011, the government spent more than twice the country\u2019s health budget on providing tax incentives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Literature review on codes of practice on international recruitment of health professionals in global health diplomacy","field_subtitle":"Dambisya YM, Kadama P, Matinhure S, Malema N and Dulo C: May 2013","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss%2097%20GHD%20Lit%20review%20Codes%20May%202013.pdf","body":"This review is part of EQUINETs work on contributions of global health diplomacy to health systems in east and southern Africa. It reviews documented literature to examine the extent to which the policy interests of African countries were carried (or not carried) into the Code in the negotiations around the code and the perceived factors affecting this; the extent to which countries in east and southern Africa view and use the Code as an instrument for negotiating foreign policy interests concerning health workers; and the motivations, capabilities and preparations for monitoring the code to engage in the diplomatic environment on African policy interests concerning health workers. The information was analysed using the policy analysis triangle to capture the changing context, processes, content and major actors in the development of the WHO Code, and documentation on its progress and implementation since its adoption. The review discusses the factors behind the relative lull in efforts on the issue of health worker migration following adoption of the Code. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Motivation and job satisfaction of health surveillance assistants in Mwanza, Malawi: An explorative study","field_subtitle":"Kok MC And Muula S: Malawi Medical Journal 25(1): 5-11, 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/mmj/article/view /87365/77080","body":"This qualitative assessment was undertaken to identify factors that influence motivation and job satisfaction of health surveillance assistants (HSAs) in Mwanza district, Malawi, in order to inform development of strategies to influence staff motivation for better performance. Seven key informant interviews, six focus group discussions with HSAs and one group discussion with HSAs supervisors were conducted in 2009. Data were supplemented by a district wide survey involving 410 households, which included views of the community on HSAs performance. The main satisfiers identified were team spirit and coordination, the type of work to be performed by an HSA and the fact that an HSA works in the local environment. Dissatisfiers were low salary and position, poor access to training, heavy workload and extensive job description, low recognition, lack of supervision, communication and transport. Managers and had a negative opinion of HSA perfomance, while the community was much more positive: 72.9% of all respondents had a positive view on the performance of their HSA. Activities associated with worker appreciation, such as performance management were not optimally implemented. The district level can launch different measures to improve HSAs motivation, including human resource management and other measures relating to coordination of and support to the work of HSAs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Neoliberalism and public unrest: Time to make the connection","field_subtitle":"Tiwana M: Al Jazeera, 11 July 2013","field_url":"http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/07/201374123247912933.html","body":"In Turkey, Brazil and Egypt, thousands have taken to the streets to voice their anger and frustration at the lack of social and economic justice in their countries. The author of this article argues this public unrest is directly linked to the wholesale adoption of neoliberal economic policies by these countries\u2019 governments, which has led to social inequality. He argues that, despite mainstream perceptions, free markets don't automatically regulate themselves nor do they naturally respect individual or community rights. And while the power of transnational corporations has expanded exponentially to eclipse governments of small countries, income and wealth disparities have widened. But despite the grave warnings from civil society, governments and financial institutions continue to privatise services when they should be focusing on how to make the public sector fit for purpose. Political leaders and captains of industry have subjected ordinary people to double burdens of paying taxes to the state and paying profit-adjusted higher costs for privatised services like health, education and public transport, despite these services being part of the social contract between citizens and the state.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Nursing and midwifery regulatory reform in east, central, and southern Africa: a survey of key stakeholders","field_subtitle":"McCarthy CF, Voss J, Salmon ME, Gross JM, Kelley MA and Riley PL: Human Resources for Health 11(29), 25 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-11-29.pdf","body":"This study describes the perspectives and engagement of key stakeholders in advancing critical regulatory and educational reform in east, central, and southern Africa (ECSA). Researchers surveyed 32 leading stakeholders from 13 ECSA countries with regard to task shifting and the challenges related to practice and education regulation reform. Most (72%) reported task shifting is practiced in their countries; however only 57% reported their national regulations had been revised to incorporate additional professional roles and responsibilities. They also reported different roles and levels of involvement with regard to nursing and midwifery regulation. The most frequently cited challenge impacting nursing and midwifery regulatory reform was the absence of capacity and resources needed to implement change. While guidelines on task shifting and recommendations on transforming health professional education exist, the authors argue that their study provides new evidence that countries in the ECSA region face obstacles to adapting their practice and education regulations accordingly. Stakeholders such as community nursing organisations, nursing associations, and academicians have varied and complementary roles with regard to reforming professional practice and education regulation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Postdoctoral Research Fellowships In Health Policy And Systems Research No Closing Date","field_subtitle":"http://www.hpsa-africa.org/index.php/rsm-fellowships-program-for-phd-candidates","field_url":"http://chesai.mail@gmail.com","body":"A total of four postdoctoral fellowships are available in the area of Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) for the Collaboration for Health Systems and Policy Analysis and Innovation (CHESAI) project, which is based at the School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town (UCT) and the School of Public Health, University of Western Cape (UWC), both in Cape Town, South Africa. The fellowships are for the period 2012-2016. Applicants must have citizenship of a sub-Saharan African country, be an expatriate African, or demonstrate commitment to future work in African health systems. They must have achieved a PhD in the last five years in any suitable field, such as health sciences or social sciences and not have previously held any permanent academic positions. Their work must show clear evidence of robust scholarly performance including a relevant publications record and have some relevant experience, specifically a track record of interest in health policy and systems issues, preferably including research. Applicants will be asked to propose an area of work relevant to one or more of the CHESAI themes, and to show how their past research provides a basis for this proposed work and/or what additional activities are proposed to contribute to the CHESAI community of practice. Please contact Jill Oliver and Thubelihle Mathole at the email address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevalence of Consensual Male\u2013Male Sex and Sexual Violence, and Associations with HIV in South Africa: A Population-Based Cross-Sectional Study","field_subtitle":"Dunkle KL, Jewkes RK, Murdock DW, Sikweyiya Y and Morrell R: PLoS Medicine 10(6): e1001472, 18 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001472","body":"In this paper, the authors describe lifetime prevalence of consensual male\u2013male sexual behaviour and male-on-male sexual violence (victimisation and perpetration) in two South African provinces, socio-demographic factors associated with these experiences, and associations with HIV serostatus. The study was conducted in 2008 and included men aged 18\u201349 from randomly selected households in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, who provided anonymous survey data and dried blood spots for HIV serostatus assessment. Interviews were completed in 1,737 of 2,298 (75.6%) of enumerated and eligible households. In this sample, one in 20 men (5.4%) reported lifetime consensual sexual contact with a man, while about one in ten (9.6%) reported experience of male-on-male sexual violence victimisation. Men who reported having had sex with men were more likely to be HIV+, as were men who reported perpetrating sexual violence towards other men. Whilst there was no direct measure of male\u2013female concurrency (having overlapping sexual relationships with men and women), the data suggest that this may have been common. These findings suggest that HIV prevention messages regarding male\u2013male sex in South Africa should be mainstreamed with prevention messages for the general population, and sexual health interventions and HIV prevention interventions for South African men should explicitly address male-on-male sexual violence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Reconceptualising HIV prevention needs in a generalised epidemic: the case of female sex workers in Swaziland","field_subtitle":"Baral S, Ketende S, Chen PA, Kennedy C, Mnisi Z, Adams D, Yam E, Sithole B et al: Poster Discussion Session, Seventh International AIDS Society Conference, July 2013","field_url":"http://pag.ias2013.org/abstracts.aspx?aid=2787","body":"There is emerging data from Southern Africa that key populations such as female sex workers (FSW) carry disproportionate burden of HIV; however, their burden of HIV and prevention needs remains unknown in Swaziland. To address this gap, a respondent-driven-sampling survey was completed between August and October, 2011 of 328 FSW in Swaziland. Unadjusted HIV prevalence was found to be 70.3% among a sample of women predominantly from Swaziland with a mean age of 21, which was significantly higher than the general population of women. Just 23.5% reported always wearing condoms with sexual partners in the past month, while rape was common at 40% reporting at least one rape, with torture reported at 53.2%. While Swaziland has a highly generalised HIV epidemic, FSW represent a distinct population with a high burden of HIV compared to other women, according to the authors. These women are understudied and underserved resulting in a limited characterisation of their HIV prevention, treatment, and care needs and only sparse targeted programming. The authors argue that FSW are an important population for further investigation and rapid scale-up of combination HIV prevention including biomedical, behavioural and structural interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Responding to intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women: WHO clinical and policy guidelines","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: June 2013","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/85240/1/9789241548595_eng.pdf","body":"These guidelines offer to equip healthcare providers with evidence-based guidance as to how to respond to intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women. They also provide advice for policy makers, encouraging better coordination and funding of services, and greater attention to responding to sexual violence and partner violence within training programmes for health care providers. The guidelines are based on systematic reviews of the evidence, and cover a range of topics: identification and clinical care for intimate partner violence; clinical care for sexual assault; training relating to intimate partner violence and sexual assault against women; policy and programmatic approaches to delivering services; and mandatory reporting of intimate partner violence. They aim to raise awareness of violence against women among health-care providers and policy-makers, so that they better understand the need for an appropriate health-sector response. The standards provided here can form the basis for national guidelines, and for integrating these issues into health-care provider education.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"RESYST Working Paper 2: Providing financial protection and funding health service benefits for the informal sector: evidence from sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Chuma J, Mulupi S and McIntyre D: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/oc2xkqs","body":"In this paper, the authors consider how best to promote financial protection and access to needed health care for those outside the formal employment sector through prepayment funding, with a particular focus on the African context. The authors reviewed literature on alternative domestic prepayment funding mechanisms in relation to the three dimensions of universal coverage: population coverage, service coverage and cost coverage. Key messages from their review are the challenges of contribution arrangements for this population, even where legal provisions make membership mandatory. The authors recommend that additional health financing arrangements to cover poor and vulnerable groups (e.g. tax funding and innovative financing approaches) are adequately explored in terms of the principles of fair financing. This should be done before countries move towards implementing contributory schemes for those outside the formal sector which, as indicated in this review, have limited capacity to offer adequate financial risk protection to their members.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"SA to reform private health care but no agreement on what must change","field_subtitle":"Makholwa A: Financial Mail, 4 July 2013","field_url":"http://www.fm.co.za/fm/CoverStory/2013/07/04/motsoaledi-to-reform-private-health-care","body":"South Africa\u2019s health minister Aaron Motsoaledi has argued that consolidation of the private health care market has created a situation where the three largest private health care providers now dictate, not negotiate, prices to medical schemes. As listed companies, these providers aim to maximise profits, which, he argues, means they have little concern for affordable care. Cost escalation and overprovision in South Africa\u2019s private sector is also seen as a consequence of the fact that regulation of the private sector has focused more on medical schemes and less on providers. Lawyers say that the imbalance in legislation puts medical schemes in a weaker position when negotiating with hospitals. One economist points to utilisation increases by 3% every year, which he argues are being driven by specialists and private hospitals that have profit sharing arrangements, with a high probability of collusion between the hospital groups because of the way in which they share profits and incentives. Specialists, on the other hand, blame the high costs of new drugs as responsible for price increases in private care. They say the pharmaceutical industry is hiking its prices significantly, presenting a barrier to care in both the private and public sectors, where even drugs coming off patent remain costly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Setting the stage for Cancer Advocacy in Africa: How?","field_subtitle":"Odedina FT, Rodrigues B and Raja P: Infectious Agents and Cancer 8(Suppl 1):S6, 15 July 2013","field_url":"http://www.infectagentscancer.com/content/pdf/1750-9378-8-S1-S6.pdf","body":"This paper describes the results of an environmental scan of organisations in Africa carrying out advocacy on cancer using a cross-sectional study.  A total of 39 African advocates representing 17 countries participated in the project. Most participants have been advocates for more than five years; and mostly advocate for both males and females and individuals between the ages of 30 and 39. The most common cancers focused on by the advocacy organisations include breast, prostate, liver, cervix, stomach, bladder, pediatric, colorectal and neck. The information provided by participants offers clear guidelines on establishing and maintaining an advocacy programme in Africa despite the various challenges faced by these organisations. The authors call for more inclusive dialogue for advocates to share ideas with each other, connect with other advocates, learn about other innovative advocacy programmes and join forces.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Seventh SAHARA Conference 2013","field_subtitle":"7-10 October 2013: Dakar, Senegal","field_url":"http://sahara.org.za/conferences/2013","body":"The Social Aspects of HIV and AIDS Research Alliance (SAHARA), established in 2001 by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), is an alliance of partners established to conduct, support and use social sciences research to prevent the further spread of HIV and mitigate the impact of its devastation in sub-Saharan Africa. The SAHARA 7 conference theme is \"Translating evidence into action: Engaging with communities, policies, human rights, gender, service delivery\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Shaping legal abortion provision in Ghana: using policy theory to understand provider-related obstacles to policy implementation","field_subtitle":"Aniteye P and Mayhew SH: Health Research Policy and Systems 11(23), 6 July 2013","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-11-23.pdf","body":"In this study researchers investigated the reasons for poor implementation of Ghana\u2019s legal abortion policy to better understand how providers shape and implement policy and how provider-level barriers might be overcome. They conducted in-depth interviews with 43 health professionals of different levels at three hospitals in Accra, as well as staff from smaller and private sector facilities, and analysed relevant policy and related documents. The findings show that health providers\u2019 views shape provision of safe-abortion services. Providers experience conflicts between their religious and moral beliefs about the sanctity of (foetal) life and their duty to provide safe-abortion care. Obstetricians were more moderate while midwives were more driven by fundamental religious values condemning abortion as sinful. In addition to personal views and dilemmas, \u2018social pressures\u2019 (perceived views of others concerning abortion) and the actions of facility managers affected providers\u2019 decision to (openly) provide abortion services. Providers tend to use personal discretion in deciding if and when to provide abortion services, and develop \u2018coping mechanisms\u2019 which impede implementation of abortion policy. The authors recommend that these findings be included in future evidence-based practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Smallholder integration in changing food markets","field_subtitle":"Arias P, Hallam D, Krivonos E and Morrison J: Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2013","field_url":"http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3292e/i3292e.pdf","body":"The key message of this report is that without better understanding the determinants of smallholders\u2019 participation in agricultural markets, and formulating appropriate measures to facilitate improved participation, initiatives seeking to promote the adoption of productivity enhancing technology by smallholder producers are likely to have limited success. Smallholders\u2019 participation in markets is crucially important for improved food security and poverty reduction. Attempts to improve smallholder productivity will have limited success if smallholder linkages to markets are not strengthened simultaneously. Limited smallholder participation in markets is not necessarily a result of a lack of commercial orientation per se, but the result of constrained choice in a risky environment. Smallholders are very heterogeneous, facing different types of constraints and opportunities, and will react differently to new market opportunities. Public policy interventions are generally needed to foster smallholder market integration, the authors argue. These interventions need to be prioritised and sequenced according to evidence-based diagnosis of the constraints faced by different categories of smallholders. Evidence-based policy-making could help minimise the risks of policy failure.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Statement by civil society in Africa: Modernising African agriculture: Who benefits?","field_subtitle":"African Centre for Biosafety, Biowatch South Africa, Surplus People Project, South Africa et al: June 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/meq6jpx","body":"In this open letter, civil society groups across Africa argue that the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is failing in Africa, as it benefits relatively few farmers, often at the expense of the majority. AGRA-promoted technologies, like genetically modified crops, produce concentration of land ownership, increasing economies of scale and a declining number of food-producing households in a context of limited other livelihood options. Opening markets and creating space for multinationals to secure profits lie at the heart of the G8 and AGRA interventions, they argue. They also fear that the intellectual property of many plant types may be transferred to large multinational corporations as part of AGRA practices. As a solution, they call for differentiated agricultural strategies that recognise and vigorously support local and informal markets, proven low-input and ecologically sustainable agricultural techniques including intercropping, on-farm compost production, mixed farming systems (livestock, crops and trees), on-farm biofuel production and use, and intermediate processing and storage technologies. The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) provides detailed and scientifically sound proposals in this regard.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Statistics and indicators for the post-2015 development agenda ","field_subtitle":"UN Working Group on Monitoring and Indicators: July 2013","field_url":"http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/untaskteam_undf/UNTT_MonitoringReport_WEB.pdf","body":"According to this report, the monitoring process for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has taught important lessons on how to maintain focus on internationally agreed development goals and targets, while keeping stakeholders informed of achievements, problem areas and emerging issues. The Working Group argues that global statistics organisations should continue to occupy a strategic, oversight position on statistics and indicators for monitoring. One key lesson learned is that there is clear need for a broad-based technical but inclusive monitoring group, and for a succinct annual report for the public on progress and challenges. The Working Group argues that the UN System Task Team on the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda has played a critical role for the coordination, credibility and sustainability of global monitoring and reporting and should be maintained in some form post-2015. Another finding has been the importance of investment in country capacities for data collection and reporting, leading to progress in disaggregation as well as towards the development of new indicators. Finally, the monitoring process has brought to the fore the necessity of having well-defined, objectively measurable indicators that can be used to track progress across countries and be aggregated to represent regional and global trends.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Stress-testing Africa's recent growth and poverty performance ","field_subtitle":"Devarajan S, Go DS, Maliszewska M, Osorio-Rodarte I and Timmer Hans: World Bank, June 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/mc3v3qf","body":"After an impressive acceleration in growth and poverty reduction since the mid-1990s, many African countries continue to register robust growth in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Will this growth persist, given the tepid recovery in developed countries, numerous weather shocks, and civil conflicts in Africa? This paper \"stress tests\" African economies. The findings indicate that Africa's long-term growth is fairly impervious to a prolonged recession in high-income countries. Growth is, however, much more sensitive to a disruption of capital flows to the region, and to internal shocks, such as civil conflict and drought, even if the latter follow historical patterns. The broad policy implication is that with proper domestic production conditions African countries can sustain robust long-term growth. Because of the economic dominance of the agriculture sector and the share of food in household budgets, countries will need to increase the resilience of agriculture and protect it from unfavorable climate change impacts, to prevent food insecurity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Study While You Work: Applications For 2014 Master In Public Health (MPH)","field_subtitle":"Applications Close: 3 September 2013","field_url":"http://www.uwc.ac.za/faculties/chs/soph","body":"The MPH at the University of the Western Cape aims to equip health professionals to: quantify and prioritise health needs; design, implement and evaluate Comprehensive Primary Health Care Programmes; and manage District Health Systems. The Programme is designed for a range of health and welfare professionals and managers from middle to senior level, at district, provincial or national levels, staff of NGO\u2019s and academic research contexts. The Programme may be taken over two to three years. Admission requirements: A four year degree (Honours Degree) or its equivalent in any discipline, or in exceptional cases, five years of relevant experience assessed by the university through a Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) process. Contact Mrs Janine Kader at the email address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Targeting imported malaria through social networks: a potential strategy for malaria elimination in Swaziland","field_subtitle":"Koita K, Novotny J, Kunene S, Zulu Z, Ntshalintshali N et al: Malaria Journal 12(219), 27 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-12-219.pdf","body":"Malaria importation from neighbouring high-endemic Mozambique through Swaziland\u2019s eastern border remains a major factor that could prevent elimination from being achieved. A nationwide formative assessment was conducted over eight weeks to determine if the imported cases of malaria identified by the Swaziland National Malaria Control Programme could be linked to broader social networks and to explore methods to access these networks. Interviews were carried out with malaria surveillance agents (6), health providers (10), previously identified imported malaria cases (19) and people belonging to the networks identified through these interviews (25). Network members and key informants revealed common congregation points, such as the urban market places in Manzini and Malkerns, as well as certain bus stations, where people with similar travel patterns and malaria risk behaviours could be located and tested for malaria. The authors of this study conclude that imported cases of malaria belong to networks of people with similar travel patterns. This study may provide novel methods for screening high-risk groups of travellers using both snowball sampling and time-location sampling of networks to identify and treat additional malaria cases. The authors argue that implementation of a proactive screening programme of importation networks may help Swaziland halt transmission and achieve malaria elimination by 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The BRICS development bank and health","field_subtitle":"Littlejohns P: The Lancet 382(9887): 126, 13 July 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/q3oh6hj","body":"At the 2011 summit in Beijing, China, leaders of the BRICS countries (Brazil, India, China and South Africa) confirmed that public health is an essential element for social and economic development and should be reflected accordingly in national and international policies. Furthermore, they agreed to establish and encourage a global health agenda for universal access to affordable medicines and health commodities. However, achieving universal coverage will only be achieved if formal assessment becomes an acceptable key component, the author of this article argues. The BRICS development bank will require evidence of value for money to invest in health. The current approach asserts that health technology assessments have a major role in health services development. One criticism of this approach has been that an emphasis on efficiency means that equity and fairness are sacrificed. However, there are now initiatives in place that address these concerns, the author argues, and new approaches to value-based prioritisation are being developed to respond to concerns expressed about a health economic perspective, particularly by those advocating a rights-based approach.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The CAADP and emerging economies: The case of Ghana and Brazil","field_subtitle":"De Roquefeuil Q: ECDPM Discussion Paper 146, June 2013 ","field_url":"http://preview.tinyurl.com/prusmcx","body":"What do newer emerging external funders do in the field of agricultural cooperation in Africa? And how does this relate to the African Union\u2019s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP)? This paper from ECDPM looks at Brazilian agricultural cooperation in Ghana side by side with the CAADP process in the country. It finds that while Brazil largely supports the country\u2019s CAADP investment plan, it does not engage with the process around it. This is not necessarily the result of a conscious policy choice or bad will, but due to the fact that CAADP might not be very attractive for newer external funders as currently designed, the author argues. Yet, there are clear trends towards cooperation and joint learning between Brazil and Western external funders, which might provide some space for CAADP to play a role in facilitating these exchanges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Framework Convention on Global Health: A tool for empowering the HIV/AIDS movements in Senegal and South Africa","field_subtitle":"Scheepers E: Health and Human Rights (15)1: 87-95, June 2013","field_url":"http://www.hhrjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2013/06/Scheepers-FINAL.pdf","body":"This paper aims to contribute to the existing knowledge around a Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH) from the perspective that any international legal framework conceptualisation on the right to health must involve those whose health is at stake, namely civil society. The two case studies, Senegal and South Africa, were used to look at the international right to health framework within in the context of civil society\u2019s role in combating the HIV and AIDS epidemic. The findings illustrate that these two African states face different challenges regarding the realisation of the right to health in the context of HIV and AIDS, yet civil society has played an important role in both countries in realising the right to health. The authors show the diverse roles that an FCGH could play in empowering civil society, through the formulation of a global standard and framework on the right to health, in the form of an FCGH, particularly if it is as a result of a movement of rights education and advocacy from below.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Transforming rural health systems through clinical academic leadership: lessons from South Africa","field_subtitle":"Doherty JE, Couper ID, Campbell D, Walker J: Rural and Remote Health 13(2618), 8 July 2013","field_url":"http://healthpolicysa.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/rrh-article_clinical-academic-leadership.pdf","body":"Under-resourced and poorly managed rural health systems challenge the achievement of universal health coverage, and require innovative strategies worldwide to attract healthcare staff to rural areas. One such strategy is rural health training programmes for health professionals. In addition, clinical leadership (for all categories of health professional) is a recognised prerequisite for substantial improvements in the quality of care in rural settings, argue the authors of this report. Rural health training programmes have been slow to develop in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs); and the impact of clinical leadership is under-researched in such settings. A 2012 conference in South Africa, with expert input from South Africa, Canada and Australia, discussed these issues and produced recommendations for change that will also be relevant in other LMICs. The two underpinning principles were that: rural clinical leadership (both academic and non-academic) is essential to developing and expanding rural training programs and improving care in LMICs; and leadership can be learned and should be taught. Lessons learned: The three main sets of recommendations focused on supporting local rural clinical academic leaders; training health professionals for leadership roles in rural settings; and advancing the clinical academic leadership agenda through advocacy and research. By adopting the detailed recommendations, South Africa and other LMICs could energise management strategies, improve quality of care in rural settings and impact positively on rural health outcomes, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"UCT Rehabilitation Conference 2013","field_subtitle":"2-4 September 2013: Cape Town","field_url":"http://rehabconf2013.uct.ac.za/","body":"The Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, is holding its first Rehabilitation Conference in September 2013. The conference will host speakers from diverse disciplinary fields on a range of themes such as: policy: influencing development and implementation; evidence for action: a research agenda; responsive rehabilitation service delivery; and optimising human resourcing for rehabilitation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Ugandan Government wants NGOs to align with government plans ","field_subtitle":"Odyek J: New Vision, 8 July 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/644814-govt-ngos-to-share-development-plans.html","body":"The Ugandan Government wants non-government organisations (NGOs) to align their projects to government\u2019s development priorities. At the national civil society fair held in Kampala early in July 2013, James Baba, the state minister for internal affairs, said NGOs should strive to understand government priorities and work on them both in the local and central governments. The Cabinet has charged the Ministry of Internal Affairs in consultation with the Minister of Finance to closely work with NGOs to ensure that all projects are aligned with government priorities. The National Development Plan outlines various strategies for the socio-economic transformation of Uganda from a peasant economy to a modern and prosperous country within 30 years. Baba promised to enhance the co-ordination of NGO stakeholders to ensure improved communication flow aimed at promoting smooth relations between the Government and the NGOs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"UN's access to medicines a step in the right direction","field_subtitle":"Gopakumar KM: SUNS #7627, 16 July 2013","field_url":"http://www.lawyerscollective.org/updates/rights-access-medicines-resolution-adopted.html","body":"At the 23rd session of the Council held in Geneva on 27 May to 14 June 2013, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on access to medicines despite opposition from the United States and the European Union (included in this newsletter). According to this article, the resolution is a step forward in addressing the issue of access to medicines within the right to health framework. The new Resolution recognises access to medicines as one of the fundamental elements in the realisation of the right to health. Unlike some earlier resolutions, the scope of the new resolution is not limited to essential medicines and covers all medicines. It clearly calls for the regulation of prices of medicines to make them affordable for people, especially those in developing countries. It also clearly establishes the link between local production and the right to health framework and addresses the research and development (R&D) question within the right to health framework, especially referring to a new R&D model based on de-linking of cost of R&D from the price of health products. It also clearly states that the engagement with stakeholders is based on the principle of safeguarding public health from undue influence by any form of real, perceived or potential conflict of interest.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Untangling the web of Antiretroviral Price Reductions","field_subtitle":"M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF): July 2013","field_url":"http://msfaccess.org/sites/default/files/AIDS_Report_UTW16_ENG_2013.pdf","body":"According to the latest edition of MSF\u2019s report on HIV treatment price and access issues, the price of first- and second-line anti-retrovirals have declined due to increased generic competition, while third-line regimens remain \u201cexorbitantly priced\u201d. For newer HIV medicines, including integrase inhibitors, generic competition is mostly blocked because of patents, and these drugs are more expensive as a result. MSF finds that patents remain a barrier on newer drugs and in middle-income countries, but some countries are using World Trade Organisation-sanctioned flexibilities to issue compulsory licences to increase access to the medicines. Flexibilities are built in to the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). MSF has proposed patent opposition (when applications do not meet a country\u2019s patentability requirements) and the issue of compulsory licences in the interest of public health, as ways to bring prices down further. Additionally, MSF claims that free trade agreements continue to pose a threat to access, pointing to the European Union-India Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement as examples of agreements with \u201charmful provisions\u201d.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Vertical funding, non-governmental organisations, and health system strengthening: Perspectives of public sector health workers in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Mussa AH, Pfeiffer J, Gloyd SS, Sherr K: Human Resources For Health 11(26), 14 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content /pdf/1478-4491-11-26.pdf","body":"The authors of this paper consider the perspectives and experiences of key Mozambican public sector health managers who coordinate, implement, and manage a wide variety of donor-driven projects and agencies. Over a four-month period, they conducted 41 individual qualitative interviews with key Ministry workers at three levels in the Mozambique national health system, using open-ended semi-structured interview guides, as well as reviewed planning documents. All respondents emphasized the value and importance of international aid and vertical funding to the health sector and each highlighted program successes that were made possible by recent increased aid flows. However, three serious concerns emerged: difficulties coordinating external resources and challenges to local control over the use of resources channeled to international private organisations; inequalities created within the health system produced by vertical funds channeled to specific services while other sectors remain under-resourced; and the exodus of health workers from the public sector health system provoked by large disparities in salaries and work. The vertical approach starved the Ministry of support for its administrative functions. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"We cannot afford to leave the for-profit private health sector unregulated in Africa","field_subtitle":"Jane Doherty, Wits School of Public Health","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe private for-profit sector in east and southern African (ESA) countries cannot be ignored. With private health insurance growing, considerable out-of-pocket payments at point of service, rising investment in private for-profit hospitals including for medical tourism and a widening spread of informal providers, ESA countries need to pay attention to this sector as part of measures towards achieving universal health coverage (UHC). \r\n\r\nThe for-profit sector can add new resources and services to the health sector. But if left unregulated it can also lead to distortions in the quantity, distribution, price and quality of health services that affect the ability of countries to provide adequate and accessible services. For example, for-profit providers may concentrate in areas where wealthy populations live, ignoring areas of high health care need. The cost of both private health care and insurance tends to be high and unaffordable for low income communities. The presence of a for-profit private sector in countries that have a shortage of health workers may lead to an internal brain drain of skilled health workers from the public sector, due to better pay, leaving poor people with poorly staffed public sector  services.  \r\n\r\nA review of laws on the private sector in east and southern Africa for a forthcoming EQUINET discussion paper shows that while many ESA countries have laws to register or license new private providers, few, except Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, have adequate laws to regulate private health insurance. Few countries monitor the type and quality of services provided by private practitioners, clinics and hospitals once they are registered. Charges for health care services or insurance do not seem to be controlled, directly or indirectly, to any meaningful extent in any ESA country, while there is evidence from some countries of unfair business practices. This means that the law does not adequately address the affordability, access or quality issues that are central to achieving UHC. \r\n\r\nThe current situation suggests that it is time to move from an over-reliance on voluntary self-regulation by private health professionals and associations to developing policies, laws and instruments that clarify and organise the operations of private for-profit health care providers and insurers in line with national health goals. Several countries have recognised this and are beginning to update and improve their laws, although in most cases without clear policy guidance. \r\n\r\nSo one starting point may be for Ministries of Health to develop with stakeholders, including Ministries of Finance, an over-arching policy on the private for-profit health sector to guide and set the objectives for the law, separating the roles and duties of funders, purchasers and providers.  This requires proactive consultation, building communication and trust between stakeholders and the introduction of laws governing the sector. It would seem timely to initiate this in all ESA countries, given the growth of the sector, even if the private for-profit health sector is not yet large.  \r\n\r\nThe policy and subsequent laws should facilitate and create incentives for private health professionals and organisations to address the health needs of disadvantaged populations. They should also control against any health market distortions that jeopardise national health goals. \r\n\r\nThe laws should set standards on service quality, on emergency services and on the benefit packages, enrolment practices and sustainability of health insurance plans. The law should set obligations for the private sector to report to regulators and inform patients, health insurance beneficiaries and the public at large of their entitlements. Penalties should be set at appropriate levels to discourage breaches of these obligations, but at the same time there should be positive incentives, such as alternative reimbursement mechanisms, that help to shift the behaviour of the private health sector.  \r\n\r\nHaving the laws on paper is only one step of the process. Enforcement of the law is still a challenge in many ESA countries. Maintenance of appropriate databases and monitoring of the law is still not well developed. In some countries private stakeholders greatly influence the content and degree of enforcement of regulations. Governments thus need to invest in the resources and capacities to develop, use and enforce the law, whether at central level or in a decentralised system. For this, legal, financial and public health skills are required, as well as the ability to collect, analyse, use and communicate information. Governments need to ensure that the legal requirements of multiple pieces of legislation are well-understood by regulators, health sector institutions and personnel, and the public. \r\n\r\nLicensing and facility inspection should be strengthened and extended to examining the quality of care.  Anti-competitive behaviour should be investigated and acted against. Regulators need to negotiate and apply mechanisms to reduce rising costs within both the hospital and insurance sector and ensure that laws are regularly updated in line with public health and other objectives. From the lens of service providers, government should harmonise the functions of different regulatory authorities, to avoid multiple, burdensome and costly requirements.\r\n\r\nIn conclusion, in a globalising world, with liberalised economies and growing private markets, including in health, leaving such an influential and growing sector poorly regulated would be a major obstacle on the path to universal health coverage. Governments need to act soon to address this gap in their stewardship of the health system.  \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit www.equinetafrica.org and read the forthcoming EQUINET Discussion paper 99: Doherty J (2013) Legislation on the for-profit private health sector in east and southern Africa","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2013: Enforcing bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2013","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/report.pdf","body":"The continued success in global tobacco control is detailed in 2013\u2019s WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic. It presents the status of the MPOWER measures, with country-specific data updated and aggregated through 2012. In addition, the report provides a special focus on legislation to ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship (TAPS) in WHO Member States, as well as in-depth analyses of TAPS bans were performed, allowing for a more detailed understanding of progress and future challenges in this area. The progress in reaching the highest level of achievement in tobacco control is a sign of the growing success of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) and provides strong evidence that there is political will for tobacco control on both national and global levels. About 2.3 billion people are now covered by at least one tobacco control measure at the highest level of achievement. This is due to the actions taken by many WHO Member States to fight the tobacco epidemic. These countries can be held up as models of action for the many countries that need to do more to protect their people from the harms of tobacco use, the report concludes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Will the struggle for health equity and social justice be best served by a Framework Convention on Global Health?","field_subtitle":"Haynes L, Legge D, London L, McCoy D, Sanders D and Schuftan C: Health and Human Rights 15(1): 111-116, June 2013","field_url":"http://wordpress.sph.harvard.edu/hhrjournal/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2013/06/Haynes-FINAL.pdf","body":"The idea of a Framework Convention for Global Health (FCGH), using the treaty-making powers of the World Health Organisation (WHO), has been promoted as an opportunity to advance global health equity and the right to health. The idea has promise, but the authors argue that it needs more thought regarding risks, obstacles, and strategies. The reform of global health governance must be based on a robust analysis of the political economy, drivers of inequality and the denial of the right to health arise. The authors warn against limiting analysis to questions of inter-governmental financial transfers because of the risk of neglecting the underlying structural determinants of health injustice, which would help to legitimise an unjust and unsustainable global economic regime. While a FCGH can alert to areas for global regulation, the authors call for popular mobilisation around the right to health in ways that link to the local priorities of different communities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A common evaluation framework for the African Health Initiative","field_subtitle":"Bryce J, Requejo J, Moulton LH, Ram M, Black RE and Population Health Implementation and Training \u2013 Africa Health Initiative Data Collaborative: BMC Health Services Research 13(Suppl 2):S10, 31 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/S2/S10","body":"In this paper, the authors describe the components of the African Health Initiative framework; this includes the conceptual model, core metrics to be measured in all sites, and standard guidelines for reporting on the implementation of partnership activities and contextual factors that may affect implementation, or the results it produces. They also describe the systems that have been put in place for data management, data quality assessments, and cross-site analysis of results. The conceptual model for the Initiative highlights points in the causal chain between health system strengthening activities and health impact where evidence produced by the partnerships can contribute to learning. This model represents an important advance over its predecessors by including contextual factors and implementation strength as potential determinants, and explicitly including equity as a component of both outcomes and impact. Specific measurement challenges include the prospective documentation of programme implementation and contextual factors. Methodological issues addressed in the development of the framework include the aggregation of data collected using different methods and the challenge of evaluating a complex set of interventions being improved over time based on continuous monitoring and intermediate results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"A Conceptual Framework for Action on the Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"Solar O and Irwin A: World Health Organisation Social Determinants of Health, Discussion paper 2, 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/social_determinants/corner/SDHDP2.pdf","body":"The Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) was tasked by the World Health Organisation (WHO) with summarising the evidence on how the structure of societies, through myriad social interactions, norms and institutions, are affecting population health, and what governments and public health can do about it. To guide the Commission, the WHO Secretariat conducted this review and summary of different frameworks for understanding the social determinants of health (SDH). Developing a conceptual framework on social determinants of health (SDH) for the CSDH needs to take note of the specific theories of the social production of health. Three main theoretical non-mutually exclusive explanations were reviewed: (1) psychosocial approaches; (2) social production of disease/political economy of health; and (3) eco-social frameworks. In turning to policy action on SDH inequities, three broad approaches to reducing health inequities can be identified, based on: (1) targeted programmes for disadvantaged populations; (2) closing health gaps between worse-off and better-off groups; and (3) addressing the social health gradient across the whole population. A consistent equity-based approach to SDH must ultimately lead to a gradients focus. However, strategies based on tackling health disadvantage, health gaps and gradients are not mutually exclusive. They can complement and build on each other.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"A new global partnership: Eradicate poverty and transform economies through sustainable development","field_subtitle":"High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda: May 2013","field_url":"http://www.un.org/sg/management/pdf/HLP_P2015_Report.pdf","body":"This report outlines five main goals for the post 2015 agenda: ending poverty by 2030; promote gender quality; improve access to quality education, water and sanitation; promote good governance; and build strong effective institutions. It posits five transformative shifts as crucial for achieving all five goals: leave no one behind; put sustainable development at the core; transform economies for jobs and inclusive growth; build peace and effective, open and accountable institutions for all, and forge a new global partnership. Like the Millennium Development Goals, the report suggests that targets would not be binding, but should be monitored closely. The indicators that track them should be disaggregated to ensure no one is left behind and targets should only be considered \u2018achieved\u2019 if they are met for all relevant income and social groups. The Panel recommends that any new goals should be accompanied by an independent and rigorous monitoring system, with regular opportunities to report on progress and shortcomings at a high political level. It also calls for a data revolution for sustainable development, with a new international initiative to improve the quality of statistics and information available to citizens.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Environment Outlook 3: Our environment, our health: Summary for policy makers","field_subtitle":"United Nations Environment Programme: 2013","field_url":"http://www.unep.org/pdf/aeo3.pdf","body":"This issue of the Africa Environment Outlook conveys the following key messages to policy makers and other stakeholders: 1. Environmental and health issues deserve priority consideration in national development. 2. Although indoor air pollution is a profound health problem in Africa, it has been inadequately addressed. 3. Biodiversity provides goods and services such as food and medicinal plants that promote human health in Africa. 4. Climate change and variability severely impact human health owing to individuals\u2019 and communities\u2019 limited coping capacities. 5. Coastal and marine resources are integral to the health of coastal populations and need to be conserved and used sustainably. 6. Access to safe water and adequate sanitation is vital to human health and needs to be scaled up by eliminating impediments such as inadequate infrastructure, pollution of water sources, poor hygiene, retrogressive cultural taboos and gender disparities. 7. Sustainable land management is central to human health because land provides the resource base for the provision of ecosystem services such as food, fibre and medicines. 8. The magnitude of domestic and global uncertainties that decision makers have to grapple with imply that espousing the business as usual model when dealing with environmental problems does not only result in failure to meet internationally set goals and targets, it also undermines human health. 9. Although a number of good policies for addressing environmental challenges that affect human health exist, their implementation has been weak. Making policies more effective requires elimination of barriers to implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa needs a green revolution","field_subtitle":"Africa Progress Panel: September 2012","field_url":"http://africaprogresspanel.org/en/publications/policy-papers/africa-needs-a-green-revolution1/","body":"The global food system is under acute and rising pressure - and Africa's farmers are feeling its full force. There is still more than enough food in the world to feed everyone, says the Panel in this report, but population and economic growth as well as the search for low-carbon energy sources are driving up demand for arable land, while climate change, ecological constraints and lower levels of productivity growth in agriculture are limiting food supply. While these emerging strains in the global food system offer Africa some opportunities, they also carry very large risks. Higher food prices could create incentives for African governments to invest in agriculture and raise productivity, or they could lead to a dramatic worsening of poverty and malnutrition among vulnerable populations. Africa's vast untapped potential in agriculture could become a source of rural prosperity and more balanced economic growth, or it could act as a magnet for more speculative investments, land grabs and the displacement of local communities. Carbon markets might open up opportunities for small farmers to benefit from climate change mitigation efforts in rich countries, though the benefits have so far proven limited and the future of these markets remains uncertain. What is certain is that Africa's farmers will bear the brunt of dangerous climate change, with drought and unpredictable rainfall patterns reinforcing rural poverty and undermining food systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa\u2019s Mineral Wealth: Eternally Cursed?","field_subtitle":"Kende-Robb C, The Global Journal, 26 March 2013","field_url":"http://theglobaljournal.net/article/view/1041/","body":"Much has been written about Africa\u2019s so-called \u2018resource curse\u2019, whereby natural resources disrupt an economy and create incentives for wide-scale corruption and even conflict. The effects of the resource curse need not, however, be viewed as inevitable, the author of this article argues. Political choice is key. Botswana has used its mineral wealth to develop into a stable, middle-income country. More recent producers such as Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone appear to be making good governance decisions so far. Emerging markets, especially China, continue to ramp up demand for the continent\u2019s commodities, offering a once in a millennium opportunity for African governments to lift millions of people out of poverty. African leaders and the international community, big business and civil society must assume responsibility, the author argues. The most practical and credible form of becoming \u2018transparent\u2019, she says, is the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which requires governments to explain clearly and openly the revenues flowing from its extractive sector so that any party can see how much the country in question receives from oil, gas and mining companies. So far, ten African governments have been judged compliant.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Almost universal coverage: HIV testing among TB patients in a rural public programme","field_subtitle":"Chimbindi N, B\u00e4rnighausen T and Newell M: International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease 16(4), May 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/m9uyuhj","body":"In this study, the authors collected data as part of a multi-site cross sectional study, Researching Equity in Access to Healthcare (REACH), to examine HIV testing coverage in tuberculosis (TB) patients. They administered a structured questionnaire to 300 patients accessing TB treatment in five rural primary health care clinics in Hlabisa subdistrict, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, a high TB and HIV burden area. Results showed high HIV testing rates among TB patients, suggesting that TB-HIV co-infected patients can be managed appropriately for treatment of both infections. The decentralised programme appears largely successful in attaining universal HIV testing in TB patients in this resource-limited setting. However, there is scope for further improvement such as in DOTS delivery, which is a sustainable and effective way of ensuring good adherence to TB treatment, the authors argue. Patients mostly use the closest clinic for both TB treatment and HIV testing, suggesting a receding fear of stigma of HIV. But the small number of patients not using the closest clinic are far less likely to undergo HIV testing, possibly indicating vulnerability expressed both in the location of seeking TB treatment and HIV testing uptake. Policy makers should encourage integration of services and cross-testing in HIV-TB facilities, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Annotated bibliography: Social power, participation and accountability in health","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R and Tibazarwa K: TARSC, May 2013","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Annotated%20Bib%20social%20emp%20May2013.pdf","body":"This annotated bibliography was prepared as a resource for people working on different dimensions of social power, social participation and social accountability in health. Social power, participation and accountability are central concepts in building people centred health systems. This  annotated bibliography was commissioned by the Community of Practitioners on Accountability and Social Action in Health (COPASAH) and prepared by Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) within the Regional Network for Equity on Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET). The annotated bibliography captures English language literature, and includes materials that are open access in full online. It focuses with a few exceptions on materials published post 2000 and is based on materials accessed through the use of social power / accountability/ participation in health as key words in online searches and literature forwarded from COPASAH members. The limitations of the compilation are discussed. The bibliography is presented in four parts: Section 1 presents papers on social power in health, Section 2 presents papers on social participation in health, Section 3 presents papers on social accountability in health, and Section 4 presents papers on the use of these three concepts in knowledge generation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Approaches to ensuring and improving quality in the context of health system strengthening: a cross-site analysis of the five African Health Initiative Partnership programmes","field_subtitle":"Hirschhorn LR, Baynes C, Sherr K, Chintu N, Awoonor-Williams J, Finnegan K et al: BMC Health Services Research 13(Suppl 2):S8, 31 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/S2/S8","body":"In this study, researchers describe the approaches to defining and improving quality of health services across the five country programmes funded through the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation African Health Initiative. They describe the differences and similarities across the programmes in defining and improving quality as an embedded process essential for HSS to achieve the goal of improved population health. The programmes measured quality across most or all of the six WHO building blocks, with specific areas of overlap in improving quality falling into four main categories: 1) defining and measuring quality; 2) ensuring data quality, and building capacity for data use for decision making and response to quality measurements; 3) strengthened supportive supervision and/or mentoring; and 4) operational research to understand the factors associated with observed variation in quality. Learning the value and challenges of these approaches to measuring and improving quality across the key components of health system strengthening as the projects continue their work, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Call For Abstracts And Proposals: Putting Public In Public Services: Research, Action And Equity In The Global South: International Conference: Cape Town, South Africa, 13-16 April 2014","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 1 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.municipalservicesproject.org/call-papers-and-panels","body":"This conference will bring together researchers, activists, labour representatives, development practitioners and policy makers from around the world working to promote progressive public services, with an emphasis on health, water and electricity. It will showcase promising alternatives to private provision, as well as those which push forward our conceptual and methodological understandings of how public attitudes and practices arise, how they are constituted, and how they might be sustained. Papers can have a regional (Africa, Asia, Latin America) and/or sectoral focus (water, electricity, health) and should represent original work. All topics will be considered, as long as they meet the central conference theme of researching and promoting progressive public services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call For Abstracts: Third International Conference Of The African Health Economics And Policy Association (AFHEA)","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 31 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/events/call-abstracts-third-international-conference-african-health-economics-and-policy-association","body":"This call goes out to all African health economists and health policy analysts or those working in Africa or on research of relevance to Africa to submit abstracts for the Second Conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA), which will be held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 11 to 13 March 2014. The overall theme of this conference is \"The Post-2015 African Health Agenda and UHC: Opportunities and Challenges\". Researchers and other actors are encouraged to submit abstracts on this broad theme or indeed on any other interesting, innovative or topical African health sector or systems research that may be presented orally or in poster format at the conference. Proposals for organised sessions are also invited from interested individuals or institutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call For Applicants: Human Rights Scholarship ","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 31 October 2013","field_url":"http://services.unimelb.edu.au/scholarships/research /local/available/humanrights","body":"The Human Rights Scholarship (HRS) is awarded to local or international applicants wishing to undertake graduate research studies at the University of Melbourne in the human rights field and who are able to demonstrate their commitment to the peaceful advancement of respect for human rights. Each year the University offers two HRSs. Applicants must be able to demonstrate that their commitment to the peaceful advancement of respect for human rights extends beyond their academic studies (such as voluntary work and/or work experience). Applicants must have applied for, or be currently enrolled in a graduate research degree in the human rights field at the University of Melbourne. Applicants who have commenced their graduate research degree must have at least 12 months full-time or equivalent candidature remaining. International students must have an unconditional course offer at the University of Melbourne for the course for which they seek the support of a HRS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Case Studies for Global Health Watch 4","field_subtitle":"No deadline given","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/node/22204","body":"The Global Health Watch (GHW) is an alternative World Health Report that incorporates the voices of marginalised people and civil society into discussions around social justice and global health. The GHW coordinating group has identified broad areas to be covered in the 4th issue of the Watch, which is officially scheduled for release in October, 2014. They are now seeking your assistance in sourcing case studies that can add value to each of these important topics. These case studies and testimonies will form part of the electronic accompaniment to the development of the Watch and in some cases may also appear in the electronic or print edition of the Watch. The case studies will amplify and give a more personal voice to the contents of the Watch. They will also make the issues more accessible and meaningful to readers who may be able to see their own experiences reflected in the experiences of others. Submissions should be 500-2000 words. These can either be stories (personal story or reflections written in your own words) or case studies (synthesis of experiences which may include direct quotes illustrating an issue or a number of issues). They should be relevant for people's health, and reflect a personal or group experience.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Changing Mindsets - Strategy on Health Policy and Systems Research","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/alliancehpsr_changingmindsets_strategyhpsr.pdf","body":"As the first-ever global-level strategy on Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR), this document represents a unique milestone in the evolution of health policy and systems research. It has three broad aims. First, it seeks to unify the worlds of research and decision-making and connect the various disciplines of research that generate knowledge to inform and strengthen health systems. It is targeted at decision-makers at all levels of the health system - from national policy-makers to front line providers of health services - and seeks support to make HPSR increasingly demand-driven and responsive to the needs of 21st century health systems. Second, this strategy contributes to a broader understanding of the field of HPSR by clarifying the scope and role of HPSR. It provides insight into the dynamic processes through which HPSR evidence is generated and used in decision-making. Finally, it is hoped that this strategy will serve as an agent for change. It advocates for a paradigm that emphasises the need for close collaboration between researchers and decision-makers rather than work along parallel pathways. The strategy speaks to decision-makers and researchers as part of one community and proposes actions that both can take in order to strengthen the performance of health systems. It calls for a more prominent role for HPSR at a time when the health systems mandate is evolving towards broader goals of universal health coverage and equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"China-Africa relations: looking beyond the critics","field_subtitle":"Zoumara B and Ibrahim A: Pambazuka News 633, 6 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87735","body":"Africa is lacking a clear and unified policy in terms of how it relates to China, argue the authors of this opinion piece. He points to China\u2019s lack of respect for human rights and the problem of China issuing loans without conditions. The cooperation between Africa and its economic development partners (EU, China and US) are strategically different, and each is driven by economic self-interests. It is of vital importance therefore, that Africa approves on an equal footing, strategic and most consistent partner (business or otherwise) who recognises, shares and respects its difficult but critical needs be it political, economic or social as well as sovereignty. Africa must necessarily develop a coherent and structured plan in successfully asserting its political, economic and social ties with China, the authors argue. It must avoid repeating some of the mistakes committed in its past relations with its traditional development partners. In the meantime, African leaders must be able to define and formulate strategic and comprehensive policies, individually, for the influx of Chinese investments. For instance, they must exert pressure on China and together, differentiate and separate investments and loans clearly from interest free loans, grants and aid projects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Claiming Entitlements: The Story of Women Leaders' Struggle for the Right to Health in Uttar Pradesh, India","field_subtitle":"Das A and Dasgupta J: Centre for Health and Social Justice, and Community of Practitioners on Accountability and Social Action in Health, May 2013","field_url":"http://www.copasah.net/uploads/1/2/6/4/12642634/claiming_entitlements.pdf","body":"This is the story of the leaders of a women's organisation, Mahila Swasthya Adhikar Manch (Women\u2019s Health Rights Forum) in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. It recounts how a group of women from the extremely marginalised sections of society have become empowered and are monitoring their entitlements around health services and other services which are related to the social determinants of health. It describes the evolution of the group, its activities and some of the results of their advocacy action with a focus on their empowerment process. This story of women\u2019s empowerment is closely inter-twined with that of a group of facilitating organisations, who have not only contributed to this process, but also gained in confidence and credibility to strengthen the overall call for greater state accountability at different levels. The case study also discusses how this process which has led to a series of gains for these marginalised women both at a personal level and in improving accountability processes at the local level; still remains incomplete in the context of their overall political empowerment and autonomy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community Health Care Workers: Stop the Exploitation! Decent work and recognition for our front line health workers","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement: 6 June 2013","field_url":"","body":"On 25 May 2013, 98 community care workers representing over 50 organisations with the Community Care Workers (CCW) Forum, the Wellness Foundation and the People\u2019s Health Movement of South Africa met to reaffirm the importance of community care workers in South Africa\u2019s health system and to expose the terrible working conditions that many community care workers are experiencing. CCWs work in the homes of the poorest of the poor often without protective face masks, gloves and other basic materials. The People\u2019s Health Movement calls for these CCWs to enjoy decent work conditions and receive adequate recognition. It proposes a \u2018two-tier\u2019 system like that of Thailand, where high coverage is achieved by instituting where there is one full-time CCW for every 300-500 households, who then supervises 10 part-time CCWs who have more limited training. Such high coverage of households has been shown to have a dramatic impact on health outcomes, especially of young children. The ratio currently proposed in South Africa of one CHW to 270 households is extremely unlikely to have such an effect given South Africa\u2019s very high burden of disease, and the large percentage of people requiring time-consuming home care. In addition to rendering health care more accessible and equitable, the two-tier system would create jobs, and indirectly improve health by reducing the prevalence and depth of poverty.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/38444","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Comprehensive and integrated district health systems strengthening: the Rwanda Population Health Implementation and Training (PHIT) Partnership","field_subtitle":"Drobac PC, Basinga P, Condo J, Farmer PE, Finnegan KE et al: BMC Health Services Research 13(Suppl 2):S5, 31 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/S2/S5","body":"The PHIT Partnership\u2019s health systems support aligns with the World Health Organisation\u2019s six health systems building blocks. Health system strengthening (HSS) activities focus across all levels of the health system to improve health care access, quality, delivery, and health outcomes. Interventions are concentrated on three main areas: targeted support for health facilities, quality improvement initiatives, and a strengthened network of community health workers. The impact of health system strengthening activities will be assessed using population-level outcomes data collected through oversampling of the demographic and health survey (DHS) in the intervention districts. The overall impact evaluation is complemented by an analysis of trends in facility health care utilisation. A comprehensive costing project captures the total expenditures and financial inputs of the health care system to determine the cost of systems improvement. Building on early successes, the work of the Rwanda PHIT Partnership approach to HSS has already seen noticeable increases in facility capacity and quality of care. The rigorous planned evaluation of the Partnership\u2019s HSS activities will contribute to global knowledge about intervention methodology, cost, and population health impact.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Corrupt business practices costing Africa billions","field_subtitle":"Donnelly L: Mail and Guardian, 10 May 2013","field_url":"http://mg.co.za/article/2013-05-10-report-corruption-weak-governance-costing-africa-billions","body":"Combating international tax avoidance and evasion, corruption and weak governance are crucial if Africa's people are to benefit from the continent's vast natural resource wealth, according to former United Nations secretary general and chair of the African Progress Panel Kofi Annan. He pointed out that trade mispricing, or losses associated with the misrepresentation of export and import values, alongside other illicit outflows cost the continent $38.4-billion and $25-billion respectively between 2008 and 2010. Annan called for a rule-based global system on tax transparency to be developed with the G20. All foreign-owned companies should be required to disclose the ultimate beneficiaries of their profits, he said. Switzerland, the UK and the US \u2013 all major conduits \u2013 should also signal their intent to clamp down on illicit financial flows. He extended this call to players from other developing nations who have become increasingly active in Africa in the oil, gas and minerals realm. Annan called on major investors in African extractive sectors such as China and emerging investors such as Brazil to also engage. He raised concerns over the structure of investment activity by foreign companies operating in Africa, which is characterised by the extensive use of offshore-registered companies and low tax jurisdictions, and in some cases the complex use of shell corporations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"CSO-NDP Monitoring Report 2012 - Citizens Voices on Public Service Delivery","field_subtitle":"Uganda National NGO Forum: 24 May 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/mlkdev7","body":"The Uganda National NGO Forum has launched the first CSO-NDP monitoring report that captures citizen voices on Government\u2019s National Development Plan (NDP) and public service delivery. The monitoring strategy for the NDP addressed the demand side challenge of limited Monitoring and Evaluation activities. The report ensured well documentation of citizens\u2019 views which were later shared with stakeholders at different levels of Government. The monitoring survey was conducted in 51 districts and reached 20,000 households in the districts covered. Data was collected from seven sectors through review of government documents and questionnaires administered at four different levels; households, community, sub county and district levels. The report covers findings from seven selected NDP sectors; agriculture; markets and cooperatives; transport; labour and employment; health; water and sanitation; and justice, law and order. With regard to health, most households meet their healthcare costs despite the free primary healthcare policy. Nearly seven out of ten households do not receive their full drug prescription. Sanitary conditions are far from the minimum norms and standards in most households. No more than three in 10 homesteads have a given sanitary facility.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Diet and Physical Activity for the Prevention of Non-communicable Diseases in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Policy Review","field_subtitle":"Lachat C, Otchere S, Roberfroid D, Abdulai A, Seret FMA, et al: PLoS Medicine 10(6), 11 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001465&representation=PDF","body":"In this paper, researchers reviewed how government policies in low and middle income countries (LMICs) outline actions that address salt consumption, fat consumption, fruit and vegetable intake, or physical activity. They carried out a structured content analysis of national nutrition, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and health policies published between 1 January 2004 and 1 January 2013 by 140 LMIC members of the World Health Organisation (WHO). They found policies to be available in 83% of the countries. NCD strategies were found in 47% of LMICs reviewed, but only a minority proposed actions to promote healthier diets and physical activity. The coverage of policies that specifically targeted at least one of the risk factors reviewed was lower in Africa, Europe, the Americas, and the Eastern Mediterranean compared to the other two WHO regions, South-East Asia and Western Pacific. Of the countries reviewed, only 12% proposed a policy that addressed all four risk factors, and 25% addressed only one of the risk factors reviewed. Strategies targeting the private sector were less frequently encountered than strategies targeting the general public or policy makers. This review indicates the disconnect between the burden of NCDs and national policy responses in LMICs. Policy makers urgently need to develop comprehensive and multi-stakeholder policies to improve dietary quality and physical activity, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 96: Literature review on co-operation in essential medicines production and procurement between Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) and Brazil, India and China","field_subtitle":"SEATINI and CEHURD: EQUINET, May 2013","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss%2096%20GHD%20Litreview%20meds%20May2013.pdf","body":"This review is part of EQUINET's programme of work on Contributions of global health diplomacy in east and southern Africa. Access to essential medicines is one of the key requirements for achieving equitable health systems and better public health in east and southern Africa (ESA). One constraint to this is that the region\u2019s medicine production capacity remains weak. In May 2007, the African Heads of State and Government adopted the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan for Africa (PMPA) to maintain a sustainable supply of quality essential medicines to improve public health and promote industrial and economic development in Africa. The PMPA includes six priority areas: mapping productive capacity; situation analysis; developing a manufacturing agenda; addressing intellectual property issues; political, geographical, economic considerations; and financing. This review compiles from existing literature bottlenecks to local medicine production in the region. It seeks to inform follow-up case study work on the extent to which relationships and agreements with Brazil, India and China are addressing the bottlenecks identified in the African Union (AU), SADC and EAC plans for pharmaceutical manufacturing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 97: Literature review on codes of practice on international recruitment of health professionals in global health diplomacy","field_subtitle":"Dambisya YM, Kadama P, Matinhure S, Malema N and Dulo C: EQUINET, May 2013","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss%2097%20GHD%20Lit%20review%20Codes%20May%202013.pdf","body":"This review is part of EQUINET's programme of work on Contributions of global health diplomacy in east and southern Africa. This includes work on the WHO Global Code on Ethical Recruitment of Health workers. The research seeks to explore the extent to which the policy interests of African countries were carried (or not carried) into the Code in the negotiations around the code and the perceived factors affecting this; the extent to which countries in east and southern Africa view and implement the Code as an instrument for negotiating foreign policy interests concerning health workers; and the motivations, capabilities and preparations for monitoring the Code to engage on African policy interests concerning health workers. The paper presents a review of published and grey literature on relevant codes of practice on health workers and on bilateral and multilateral agreements on the health workforce. The information was analysed using the policy analysis triangle to capture the changing context, processes, content and major actors in the development of the WHO Code, and documentation on its progress and implementation since its adoption. It raises issues that are being followed up through field research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":" \r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 149: New opportunities for local medicine production through South\u2013South and regional co-operation  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in Extractives: Stewarding Africa\u2019s natural resources for all: Africa Progress Report 2013","field_subtitle":"Africa Progress Panel: 2013","field_url":"http://africaprogresspanel.org/en/publications/africa-progress-report-2013/apr-documents/","body":"This year\u2019s Africa Progress Report rejects the view that Africa is blighted by a \u201cresource curse\u201d \u2013 an affliction that automatically consigns the citizens of resource-rich nations to a future of economic stagnation, poverty and poor governance. Instead, the Panel argues that the malaise that has afflicted natural resource management in Africa is caused by the wrong domestic policies, weak investment partnerships and failures in international cooperation. This will require decisive leadership by African governments, backed by multilateral action and a commitment by foreign investors to adopt best international practices. There is cause for optimism. Global market conditions point to another decade of high prices for natural resources, creating an environment conducive to economic growth. The report argues that improvements in policies, in public finance management and moves towards greater accountability enables Africa to escape the boom-bust cycle associated with past upswings in commodity markets. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluating intersectoral process for action on the social determinants of health: Learning from key informants","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R: World Health Organisation Social Determinants of Health Discussion Paper 5, 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/social_determinants/publications/SDH5.pdf","body":"In this report, the author explores how the evaluation of intersectoral action for health (IAH) and health in all policies (HiAP) is being implemented from the experience of expertise directly involved in such work. The World Health Organisation (WHO) selected 11 respondents for their involvement in work on IAH and systems scale analysis. They were interviewed and the documents they provided were reviewed. The respondents were drawn from local government, national- and global-level institutions, mainly from high-income countries with only two from middle- or low-income countries. The findings suggest that having an explicit and shared conceptual framework for IAH work at inception is necessary to clarify the pathways for change, the outcomes and measures for assessing performance and impact, to prioritise action and to test the thinking informing IAH work. While the learning from this may be context-specific, learning networks provide a means for a meta-analysis of case studies, to build more generic knowledge around conceptual frameworks. For most respondents, a model of reflexive or negotiated evaluations was seen as most useful for concept, performance and impact evaluation, embedded within the planning and implementation of IAH, with knowledge jointly constructed by different actors, including local communities, and linked to the review of practice. All those interviewed encouraged further work to develop approaches and methods for the evaluation of IAH. While noting the limitations on generalisations due to the small sample, the findings suggest some recommendations for supporting promising practice on the evaluation of IAH.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Expert consultations on embedding research into decision-making processes","field_subtitle":"Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research: May 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/whostrategyhpsr/en/index.html","body":"Expert consultations were held at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, from 8 to 9 May 2013, in order to develop operational strategies that can be used by governments and other stakeholders to embed research into decision-making processes, a key recommendation of the WHO Strategy on Health Policy and Systems Research (included in this newsletter). It was agreed that a framework needs to be developed, to guide the embeddedness of research into decision-making. This framework should be based on the needs, the capacities and the available funding situation of each country. There was also agreement on the need to interact with existing initiatives, such as EVIPNet and make use of existing tools and platforms as starting blocks for new and innovative frameworks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploring inequalities in access to and use of maternal health services in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Silal S, Penn-Kekana L, Harris B, Birch S and McIntyre D: BMC Health Services Research 12(120), May 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/12/120","body":"In this paper, the authors explore affordability, availability and acceptability barriers to obstetric care in South Africa from the perspectives of women who had recently used, or attempted to use, these services. Between June 2008 and September 2009, they conducted a mixed-method study combining 1,231 quantitative exit interviews with 16 qualitative in-depth interviews with women in two urban and two rural health sub-districts in South Africa. Barriers were found to be unequally distributed, with differences between socioeconomic groups and geographic areas being most important. Rural women faced the greatest barriers, including longest travel times, highest costs associated with delivery, and lowest levels of service acceptability. Negative provider-patient interactions also inhibited access and compromised quality of care, including staff inattentiveness, turning away women in early labour, shouting at patients and insensitivity towards those who had experienced stillbirths. To move towards achieving its Millennium Development Goals, the authors argue that South Africa cannot just focus on increasing levels of obstetric coverage, but must systematically address the access constraints facing women during pregnancy and delivery.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors associated with patterns of plural healthcare utilisation among patients taking antiretroviral therapy in rural and urban South Africa: a cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Moshabela M, Schneider H, Silal SP and Cleary S: BMC Health Services Research 12(182), January 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/12/182","body":"The authors of this study investigated factors associated with patterns of plural healthcare usage among patients taking antiretroviral therapy (ART) in diverse South African settings. They conducted a cross-sectional study of ART patients in two rural and two urban sub-districts, involving 13 accredited facilities and 1,266 participants selected through systematic random sampling. They used structured questionnaires in interviews and reviewed participant\u2019s clinic records. Results showed that 19% of respondents reported use of additional healthcare providers over and above their regular ART visits in the prior month. Increased plural healthcare utilisation, inequitably distributed between rural and urban areas, was found to be largely a function of higher socioeconomic status, better ability to finance healthcare and factors related to poor quality of care in ART clinics. Healthcare expenditure of a catastrophic nature remained a persistent complication. Although plural healthcare utilisation did not appear to influence clinical outcomes, there were potential negative impacts on the livelihoods of patients and their households.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"From the ground up: strengthening health systems at district level","field_subtitle":"Bassett MT, Gallin EK, Adedokun L and Toner C: BMC Health Services Research 13(Suppl 2):S2, 31 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/S2/S2","body":"In 2007, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation approved $60 million for the African Health Initiative to support a small portfolio of diverse approaches to health systems strengthening over a period of five to seven years (until 2015). Five projects in sub-Saharan countries were selected. While the Partnerships have all drawn on the World Health Organisation\u2019s six building blocks approach to health systems strengthening, implementation has shown that dynamic, interactive elements of the system are not reflected in the six building blocks, specifically the important role of communities in promoting their own health, nor the growing role of community health workers in primary health care delivery. While not designed to address this question, the interventions offer a range of strategies. Some community health workers undergo several months of training, others just a few weeks. The cadres are drawn varyingly from the communities they serve and have different levels of educational attainment. Their connection to the formal health sectors varies \u2014some are volunteers, others are employees, others received compensation but are not salaried. In addition, whether households are approached singly or through a community mobilisation process also varies. These variations offer a chance to reflect on how different approaches may have a bearing on implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"GNHE Scholarships In Health Equity","field_subtitle":"No Deadline Given","field_url":"http://gnhe.funsalud.org.mx/Documentos/GNHE%20Scholarships%20260213.pdf","body":"The Global Network for Health Equity (GNHE) has launched its Scholarships Programme for 2013\u20132014. The programme aims to build capacity in low and middle-income countries for health systems research into issues of health systems equity and universal health coverage, by supporting junior researchers from those countries undertaking research on any of the following topics: equity in health systems financing and financial protection; equity in health systems delivery, including access and utilisation; equity in health outcomes at the population level; and universal health coverage. Applications from health economics and all other relevant research fields will be considered as well as inter-disciplinary proposals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Equity Impact Assessment (HEIA) tool ","field_subtitle":"Canadian Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care: 2012","field_url":"http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/pro/programs/heia /tool.aspx","body":" Health Equity Impact Assessment (HEIA) tool has four key objectives: 1. Help identify unintended potential health equity impacts of decision-making (positive and negative) on specific population groups. 2. Support equity-based improvements in policy, planning, programme or service design. 3. Embed equity in an organisation\u2019s decision-making processes. 4. Build capacity and raise awareness about health equity throughout the organisation. The HEIA tool includes a template and a workbook that provides users with step by step instructions on how to conduct an HEIA. The workbook walks users through five steps: scoping, potential impacts, mitigation, monitoring and dissemination. The results are recorded in the HEIA template. The tool may be used by organisations both inside and outside the health care system whose work can have an impact on health outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health financing for universal coverage and health system performance: concepts and implications for policy","field_subtitle":"Kutzin J: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation (early online edition), 17 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/12-113985.pdf","body":"Unless the concept is clearly understood, universal health coverage (UHC) can be used to justify practically any health financing reform or scheme, says the author of this paper. He unpacks the definition of health financing for universal coverage as used in the World Health Organisation\u2019s World Health Report 2010 to show how UHC embodies specific health system goals and intermediate objectives and, broadly, how health financing reforms can influence these. For health financing policy to be aligned with the pursuit of UHC, health system reforms need to be aimed at improving coverage, financial protection, efficiency, equity in health resource distribution, transparency and accountability. The unit of analysis for goals and objectives must be the population and health system as a whole. What matters is not how a particular financing scheme affects its individual members, but rather, how it influences progress towards UHC at the population level. Concern only with specific schemes is incompatible with a universal coverage approach and may even undermine UHC, particularly in terms of equity. Conversely, if a scheme is fully oriented towards system-level goals and objectives, it can further progress towards UHC. Policy and policy analysis need to shift from the scheme to the system level, the author concludes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Policy Reform: Global Health versus Private Profit ","field_subtitle":"Lister J: Libri Publishing, 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.libripublishing.co.uk/health-policy-and-management/health-policy-reform?cPath=&","body":"A new, pernicious epidemic is stalking the health care systems of the world, according to this book: the rampant spread of neoliberal, pro-market \u201creforms,\u201d devised and promoted by a narrow policy-making academic and political elite in the wealthiest countries. The author argues that it can only be eradicated by the spread of information, political campaigning and critical thinking, with regular injections of evidence and social solidarity. The so called \u201creforms\u201d are driven not by evidence, but by ideology \u2013 and behind the ideology is a massive material factor: the insatiable pressure from the private sector to recapture a much larger share of the massive $5 trillion-plus global health care industry, much of which only exists because of public funding. Since 1980 global agencies like the World Bank, new powerful players like the Gates Foundation, and even at times the World Health Organisation, have played a role in promoting these changes, along with academics whose loyalty appears to be to the giver of the research grant rather than to the evidence. Market-style reforms result in systems more unequal, more costly, more fragmented and less accountable \u2013 but which offer more profits to the private sector. The policies can be rejected and defeated by mass political action, argues the author. The question is to develop a political leadership with the courage to embrace them and fight for them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV mortality in urban slums of Nairobi, Kenya 2003--2010: a period effect analysis","field_subtitle":"Oti SO, Mutua M, Mgomella GS, Egondi T, Ezeh A and Kyobutungi C: BMC Public Health 13(588), 17 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-588.pdf","body":"This study aims to demonstrate changes in population level HIV mortality in two high HIV prevalence slums in Nairobi with respect to the initiation and subsequent scale up of the national antiretroviral therapy (ART) programme. The authors used data from 2070 deaths of people aged 15\u201354 years that occurred between 2003 and 2010 in a population of about 72,000 individuals living in two slums covered by the Nairobi Urban Health and Demographic Surveillance System. Results indicated that, overall, HIV mortality declined significantly from 2.5 per 1,000 person years in the early period to 1.7 per 1,000 person years in the late period. The risk of dying from HIV was 53% less in the late period compared to the period before, controlling for age and gender. Women experienced a decline in HIV mortality between the two periods that was more than double that of men. At the same time, the risk of non-HIV mortality did not change significantly between the two time periods. In conclusions, population-level HIV mortality in Nairobi\u2019s slums was significantly lower in the approximate period coinciding with the scale-up of ART provision in Kenya. However, further studies that incorporate ART coverage data in mortality estimates are needed. Such information will enhance our understanding of the full impact of ART scale-up in reducing adult mortality among marginalised slum populations in Kenya.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"ILO Turin Centre - Open courses on Occupational Safety and Health for 2013: Master in occupational safety and health (1 October 2013\u201330 September 2014)","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 30 June 2013 ","field_url":"http://osh.itcilo.org/","body":"The new Masters in Occupational Safety and Health is designed to contribute to the expansion of competent Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) professionals who can compensate for current personnel shortages in this domain. This one-year programme, to be held in English, includes an Internet-based distance learning phase, a face-to-face residential period on the ITC/ILO's campus in Turin followed by another  distance phase for the preparation of the dissertation. The proposed programme combines the advantages of the academic experience in OSH of Turin University with the ITC/ILO's international training experience. An international approach has been applied to the contents, the methodology development as well as to the composition of the training team. This programme involves participants from both developing and developed countries, who will thus have an opportunity to share their different experiences. Furthermore, it also offers a range of learning situations in which participants can enhance their analytical and problem solving skills. Please note that jointly with the application form, you must send a nomination letter in which the institution/sponsor should indicate how the candidate will be financed. \r\nApplications: http://osh.itcilo.org/how-to-participate/how-to-apply","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"ILO Turin Centre - Open courses on Occupational Safety and Health for 2013: National Governance of occupational safety and health (14 - 25 October 2013)","field_subtitle":"Deadlines for applications: 6 September 2013","field_url":"http://socialprotection.itcilo.org/pdf-and-pics/pdf-flyers/a906124","body":"The general objective of this course is to strengthen the capacity of planning, developing and governing the national efforts to improve Occupational Safety and Health (OSH). Content includes: the International Labour Organisation (ILO) experience: ILO Global Strategy on Occupational Safety and Health; the Conventions no. 155 and 187; OSH national policy, systems, programmes and pro&#64257;les; OSH governance: principles, policies and decision making framework; the national policy on OSH; components of the OSH national system; elaboration of a National OSH Pro&#64257;le; planning of policies and strategies on OSH; procedures to formulate a National Programme on OSH; launching, implementation and coordination, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms; OSH national models and experiences of selected countries; and the experiences of participating countries. The cost of participation, excluding international air travel, is EUR 3,250 (course fees EURO 1,920 and participant subsistence EURO 1,330) payable in advance by the participant or his or her sponsoring organisation. Please note that jointly with the application form, you must send a nomination letter in which the institution/sponsor should indicate how the candidate will be financed. \r\nApplications: http://socialprotection.itcilo.org/forms/A906124/","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"ILO Turin Centre - Open courses on Occupational Safety and Health for 2013: The employment injury schemes and the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases (16-27 September 2013)","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 26 July 2013 ","field_url":"http://socialprotection.itcilo.org/pdf-and-pics/pdf-flyers/a906121","body":"The general objective of this course is to strengthen the capacity of employment injury institutions for the management of the occupational accidents and diseases and the promotion of the prevention approach on occupational safety and health. Contents of the course include: introduction to the occupational safety and health: International Labour Organisation (ILO) principles and fundamentals; the ILO experiences and the international labour standards; the employment injury institutions: structure and &#64257;nancing; compensation, medical assistance and rehabilitation; national Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) governance; the employment injury institutions and the function of prevention; the recording and noti&#64257;cation of occupational accidents and diseases; the list of occupational accidents and diseases; the costs of accidents: impact at the national level and at the enterprise level; the economic incentives for prevention; the awareness-raising campaigns; information and technical assistance strategies; and the experiences of different national institutions: organisational models and selected best practices. The cost of participation, excluding international air travel, is EURO 3,250 (course fees EURO 1,570 and participant subsistence EURO 1,680) payable in advance by the participant or his or her sponsoring organisation. Please note that jointly with the application form, you must send a nomination letter in which the institution/sponsor should indicate how the candidate will be financed. \r\nApplications:  http://socialprotection.itcilo.org/forms/A906121","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementation of the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel","field_subtitle":"Perfilieva G: World Health Organisation, 2010","field_url":"http://ec.europa.eu/health/workforce/docs/ev_20130412_co08_en.pdf","body":"In this presentation, the author assesses implementation of the World Health Organisation\u2019s (WHO) Code for Ethical Recruitment. She reports that 32 countries achieved valuable steps towards implementing the Code. In some of these countries, actions have taken to communicate and share information across sectors, measures have been taken to involve all stakeholders in decision making processes, including actions considered to introduce to laws or policies, records are maintained of all recruiters authorised by competent authorities to operate within their jurisdiction and good practices are encouraged and promoted among recruitment agencies. In some of these countries, migrant health workers enjoy the same legal rights and responsibilities as those domestically trained, as well as the same opportunities as domestically trained to strengthen their professional education, qualifications, career development , and health personnel are recruited internationally, using mechanisms that allow to assess the benefits and risks associated with employment positions. Furthermore, 22 countries have mechanisms to regulate the authorisation to practice by internationally recruited health personnel and maintain statistical records and 11 have a database of laws and regulations related to health workforce migration and recruitment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementation research to catalyse advances in health systems strengthening in sub-Saharan Africa: the African Health Initiative","field_subtitle":"Sherr K, Requejo J and Basinga P: BMC Health Services Research 13(Suppl 2):S1, 31 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/S2/S1","body":"Despite the growing focus on health systems, the largest global health initiatives continue to have a disease specific focus. In response, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation launched the African Health Initiative (AHI) to catalyse significant advances in strengthening health systems by supporting Population Health and Implementation Training (PHIT) Partnerships in five diverse sub-Saharan African contexts. Each Partnership is addressing key health systems constraints to improve service delivery and health outcomes. The authors of this article identify a number of overarching lessons from the first three and a half years of implementation, which include the need for a multipronged approach to systems, with the result that most of the teams ultimately included activities in each of six areas identified as health system building blocks by the World Health Organisation. Despite relatively modest funds for the scope of planned activities, teams garnered substantial interest and support at high levels of the Ministries of Health, reflective of the need to plan comprehensively for health systems without the constraint of a single disease focus.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving health information systems for decision making across five sub-Saharan African countries: Implementation strategies from the African Health Initiative","field_subtitle":"Mutale W, Chintu N, Amoroso C, Awoonor-Williams K, Phillips J, Baynes C et al: BMC Health Services Research 13(Suppl 2):S9, 31 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/S2/S9","body":"In this study, researchers report on linking data with improved decision-making. Mozambique, Ghana, and Tanzania focus on improving the quality and use of the existing Ministry of Health health information, while Zambia and Rwanda have introduced new information and communication technology systems or tools. All have a flexible, iterative approach in designing and refining the development of new tools and approaches for HIS enhancement, as well as improving decision making through timely feedback on health system performance. The differences are found in the level of emphasis of data collection (patient versus health facility), and consequently the level of decision making enhancement (community, facility, district, or provincial leadership). ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal and Child Nutrition: Executive Summary of The Lancet Maternal and Child Nutrition Series","field_subtitle":"The Lancet: 6 June 2013","field_url":"http://download.thelancet.com/flatcontentassets/pdfs/nutrition-eng.pdf","body":"Maternal and child undernutrition, consisting of stunting, wasting, and deficiencies of essential vitamins and minerals, was the subject of a Series of papers in The Lancet in 2008. In the series, researchers quantified the prevalence of these issues, calculated their short-term and long-term consequences, and estimated their potential for reduction through high and equitable coverage of proven nutrition interventions. Authors of the 2008 series identified the need to focus on the crucial period from conception to a child\u2019s second birthday - the 1,000 days in which good nutrition and healthy growth have lasting benefits throughout life. They also called for greater priority for national nutrition programmes, stronger integration with health programmes, enhanced intersectoral approaches, and more focus and coordination in the global nutrition system of international agencies, external funders, academia, civil society, and the private sector. Five years after the initial series, the the Lancet has re-evaluated the problems of maternal and child undernutrition in this document and also examines the growing problems of overweight and obesity for women and children and their consequences in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Many of these countries are said to have the double burden of malnutrition - continued stunting of growth and deficiencies of essential nutrients along with the emerging issue of obesity. The Lancet also assesses national progress in nutrition programmes and international efforts toward previous recommendations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"More Than a Numbers Game: Ghana\u2019s Progress on MDG 1","field_subtitle":"Nyantakyi-Frimpong H: Africa Portal, 27 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.africaportal.org/blogs/community-practice/more-numbers-game-ghana%E2%80%99s-progress-mdg-1","body":"In Ghana, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) estimates that the country is largely on track in achieving the MDG 1. Poverty has reduced from over 50 percent in 1992 to 28.5% in 2006, indicating that the poverty target could be achieved well ahead of time. Similarly, the proportion of people living below the extreme poverty line declined from 36% to 18% over the same period. But the author of this blog argues that these figures do not take into account regional disparities: hunger is still rife in Ghana's three northern regions. A key theme emerging from his own research suggests that policy makers tend to tout the aggregate \"success story\" and become preoccupied with hitting statistical targets rather than improving the overall welfare of all constituents. This highlights the risks when policy-makers focus too much on targets, implying that complex processes can be over-simplified and priorities skewed when policies aim solely at targets. The author argues that the use of targets can encourage a reductionist approach to complex problems, privilege quantitative indicators at the expense of qualitative ones, distort resource allocation, and undermine professional motivation and responsibility. He concludes that, while Ghana\u2019s progress has been remarkable, much work still needs to be done in the northern regions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New Constitution, New Hope for Health Professionals in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Dogbey B: 8 April 2013, Africa Portal","field_url":"http://www.africaportal.org/blogs/community-practice/new-constitution-new-hope-health-professionals-kenya","body":"In this blog, the author argues that a palpable effect of Kenya\u2019s new constitution is that it has allowed the formation of new trade unions such as the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU). Since its formation, the group has become a key stakeholder in promoting the needs of Kenyan health professionals. Another change the constitution brought about is the permission of dual citizenship, which has the potential to increase circular migration among health professionals who have previously departed the country. Finally, the new constitution prioritises the right to health in Section 43 (1) (a), noting that every Kenyan has the \u201cright to the highest attainable standard of health which includes the right to health care services including reproductive health care.\u201d This places a high level of expectation on the government and health care workers, creating a basis for the public to demand such a right. To convert these potential gains into practice, however, much work remains to be done, particularly in researching how the health system has responded. One of the greatest challenges the author has faced in conducting her own research on migration is in encountering stakeholders who are unwilling to cooperate either directly or indirectly, which she views as a part of a resistance to an evidence-based culture, even among some in the health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New opportunities for local medicine production through South\u2013South and regional co-operation ","field_subtitle":"Rangarirai Machemedze, SEATINI ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nAccess to essential medicines is a necessary requirement for equitable health systems and improved population health. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and development (UNCTAD) the number of people with regular access to essential medicines in developing countries increased from two to four billion in the five years between 1997 and 2002. However, UNCTAD also report that nearly 2 billion people do not access essential medicines, most living in least developed countries (LDCs). High medicine costs relative to incomes, inadequate public or international funding for medicines relative to need, limited local production and the limiting effects of intellectual property have contributed to this gap, together with weaknesses in health services. \r\n\r\nThe African Union (AU) seeks to strengthen local manufacturing of medicines on the continent as one remedy to this situation. AU leaders identified an over reliance on imports of medicines from outside the region as a key challenge. For example, Chaudhuri in 2008 observed that of Tanzania\u2019s US$110 million pharmaceutical market in 2004/2005, $78 million or 71 percent came from imports and only 29 percent from local production. Out of the 3388 drugs registered for sale in Tanzania, only 269 products (or about 8%) were from Tanzanian local manufacturers. In contrast in Zimbabwe in the early 2000s the local pharmaceutical industry supplied nearly half of  the country\u2019s essential medicine requirements, according to the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO). Further as only South Africa has limited primary production of active pharmaceutical ingredient and intermediates, the local production underway in Africa is reliant on imported active ingredients. UNIDO indicates for Zimbabwe, for example, that while imports of finished pharmaceutical products do not face tariffs, inputs for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals do, with import duties ranging from 5 to 15 per cent, raising production costs. \r\n\r\nTo address the constraints and widen capacity for local production in the continent the AU set a Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan for Africa that was adopted by the AU Summit in 2007.  \r\n\r\nThe AU Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan was complemented by a Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Business Plan (PMPA) that identified priority areas for actions, such as mapping of productive capacities, addressing intellectual property issues and capital requirements. The plan also raises the bottlenecks to medicine production in Africa. According to the text of the plan: \u201cThis Business Plan is based on the belief that industrial development and the development of the pharmaceutical sector is not in conflict with public health imperatives and that the industry should in fact be developed with the long term aim of promoting access to quality essential medicines.\u201d Complementing the AU plan, the Southern African Development Community and the East African Community have also developed similar plans and proposed policy measures to overcome barriers to medicines access, such as pooling procurement to make medicines more affordable. \r\n\r\nDespite the presence of these plans, there is still limited local medicine production on the continent. Setting up a pharmaceutical plant requires massive investments in infrastructure, technology, skilled professionals and strategic leadership. Many of these critical inputs were also identified as bottlenecks in the AU plan. Many African countries do not have adequate capital, and investors may be discouraged by high tariffs for and erratic supplies of electricity and water, ageing transport infrastructure, old plant and equipment and shortages of skilled industrial pharmacists and scientists. African countries also have lower capacities and resources for pharmaceutical research and development. One of the reasons therefore for the plans not being operationalized was the absence of strategic allies, resources and leadership to translate them into practice. \r\n\r\nIn recent years that scenario is beginning to change. New actors and partnerships are emerging in production of pharmaceuticals on the continent, providing new opportunities to deal with bottlenecks. These include the  US$23 million Brazil-Mozambique plant for manufacture of anteretrovirals (ARVs), and the US$38 pharmaceutical plant set up in Uganda as a co-operation between Cipla (of India) and Quality Chemicals (Uganda) for the manufacture of ARVs and anti-malarials. These partnerships provide capital and strategic expertise that can be crucial for ESA countries in their efforts to set up local production. However to take advantage of this, ESA countries need an industrial policy that taps into the knowledge that exists in these countries, and that ensures the same technology transfer into Africa as these countries secured from high income countries.\r\n\r\nThese new opportunities for south-south co-operation provide a window of possibility for overcoming bottlenecks identified in the AU plan, but only if this is negotiated for as a key element of these emergent partnerships. South-south co-operation also needs to be complemented by, and not to displace regional processes. Regional level production and distribution agreements provide wider markets for medicines produced, generating economies of scale, better use of installed capacities, and greater possibilities of local supply of active ingredients and other raw materials. For example Varichem Pharmaceuticals, Zimbabwe, one of the first companies in Sub-Saharan Africa to manufacture generic antiretrovirals (ARVs),  was issued with a compulsory licence to manufacture generic ARVs in April 2003 and produced its first generic ARVs in October 2003. Namibia and Botswana gave manufacturing licences to Varichem to supply medicines in their countries. Regional co-operation has been important to tap larger markets, to make full use of capacities that do exist, to harmonise medicine regulation and support skills development. It will continue to play a role in strengthening the negotiating position of countries in the region in ensuring that new partnerships in medicine production play a role in overcoming the bottlenecks identified in the AU plan to localise medicine production on the continent. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit www.equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Options for Action - Strategy on Health Policy and Systems Research","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/alliancehpsr_optionsforaction_strategyhpsr.pdf","body":"Public health today enjoys commitment, resources, and powerful interventions but the power of these interventions is not matched by the power of health systems to deliver them to those in greatest need, on an adequate scale and in time. According to this document, this arises, in part, from the fact that research on health systems has been so badly neglected and underfunded. In the absence of sound evidence, we will have no good way to compel efficient investments in health systems. Outlined in this document are a number of options for action by stakeholders to facilitate evidence-informed decision-making and the strengthening of health systems. These complementary options are intended to support the embedding of research within decision-making processes and promote a steady programme of national and global investment in HPSR. Member States of WHO may opt to pursue some or all of these actions, based on their individual context . 1. Embed research within decision-making processes. 2. Support demand-driven research. 3. Strengthen capacity for research and use of evidence. 4. Establish repositories of knowledge. 5. Improve the efficiency of investments in research. 6. Increase accountability for actions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Postdoctoral Research Fellowships In Health Policy And Systems Research","field_subtitle":"No Closing Date","field_url":"http://www.hpsa-africa.org/index.php/rsm-fellowships-program-for-phd-candidates","body":"A total of four postdoctoral fellowships are available in the area of Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) for the Collaboration for Health Systems and Policy Analysis and Innovation (CHESAI) project, which is based at the School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town (UCT) and the School of Public Health, University of Western Cape (UWC), both in Cape Town, South Africa. The fellowships are for the period 2012-2016. Applicants must have citizenship of a sub-Saharan African country, be an expatriate African, or demonstrate commitment to future work in African health systems. They must have achieved a PhD in the last five years in any suitable field, such as health sciences or social sciences and not have previously held any permanent academic positions. Their work must show clear evidence of robust scholarly performance including a relevant publications record and have some relevant experience, specifically a track record of interest in health policy and systems issues, preferably including research. Applicants will be asked to propose an area of work relevant to one or more of the CHESAI themes, and to show how their past research provides a basis for this proposed work and/or what additional activities are proposed to contribute to the CHESAI community of practice. Please contact Jill Oliver and Thubelihle Mathole at the email address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Promoting Health for All and Social Justice in the Era of Global Capitalism: A call to action at the 8th Global Conference on Health Promotion, Helsinki, Finland \u2013 14 June 2013","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement: June 2013","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/sites/www.phmovement.org/files/PHMStatementat8GCHP-PromotingHealthforAllandSocialJusticev4.pdf","body":"Activists from the People\u2019s Health Movement met during the World Health Organisation\u2019s 8th Global Conference on Health Promotion to critique the official Conference Statement (included in this newsletter) and develop a progressive call for action based on strong social justice principles. This draft reflects their deliberation and is being circulated for further comment and debate. They support the leadership of WHO Director-General Margaret Chan in condemning the economic power of large industries, including food, tobacco, soda and alcohol, and their destructive impact on the health of people around the globe. They note further that speakers and discussants in this Conference have highlighted the link between the \u201cHealth for All\u201d Declaration of Alma Ata in 1978 and the unfinished agenda of health promotion, stemming from the Ottawa Declaration of 1986. They support the calls in this conference for a \u2018whole&#8208;of&#8208;government\u2019 approach that includes Health in All Policies, a social justice framework in monitoring and evaluation of health policies, and the health&#8208;related human rights that promote health for all. They believe, however, that the Helsinki Statement does not sufficiently translate the analysis of the determinants of health inequities and poor health into specific actions which address the unfair economic system that underpins health inequities. They therefore issue this call to action, recognising that this entails both short and long term political struggle for social justice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Protocol-driven primary care and community linkages to improve population health in rural Zambia: the Better Health Outcomes through Mentoring and Assessment (BHOMA) project","field_subtitle":"Stringer JSA, Chisembele-Taylor A, Chibwesha CJ, Chi HF, Ayles H, Manda H et al: BMC Health Services Research 13(Suppl 2):S7, 31 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/S2/S7","body":"The BHOMA project is being carried out 42 primary health care facilities that serve a largely rural population of more than 450,000 in Zambia\u2019s Lusaka Province. It has deployed six QI teams to implement consensus clinical protocols, forms, and systems at each site. The QI teams define new clinical quality expectations and provide tools needed to deliver on those expectations. They also monitor the care that is provided and mentor facility staff to improve care quality. The programme engages community health workers to actively refer and follow up patients. Project implementation occurs over a period of four years in a stepped expansion to six randomly selected new facilities every three months. The patient-provider interaction is an important interface where the community and the health system meet. This project aims to reduce population mortality by substantially improving this interaction. Success hinges upon the ability of mentoring and continuous QI to improve clinical service delivery. It will also be critical that once the quality of services improves, increasing proportions of the population will recognise their value and begin to utilise them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Putting Progress at Risk? MDG spending in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: May 2013","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/putting-progress-at-risk-mdgs-160513-en.pdf","body":"This report is the first ever to track what developing countries are spending on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), finding that recent spending increases explain the rapid progress on the MDGs. But the vast majority of countries are spending much less than they have promised, or than is needed. Aid cuts, low implementation rates and low recurrent spending all threaten to reverse existing progress. This Government Spending Watch report suggests that developing countries need to make data on MDG spending more accessible to their citizens; to strengthen policies for revenue mobilisation (notably combating tax avoidance and tax havens), debt and aid management; and to spend more on agriculture, water, sanitation and hygiene, and social protection. External funders need to report and repatriate illicit outflows; end laws and investment treaties which reduce poor countries\u2019 revenues; increase innovative financing such as financial transaction and carbon taxes; put more aid through developing country budgets; maximise budget and sector support to make spending more accountable; and report planned disbursements to developing countries. The International Monetary Fund also needs to sharply increase space for sustainable spending in its programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Regionalism and the Reinvigoration of Global Health Diplomacy: Lessons from Africa","field_subtitle":"Onzivu W: Asian Journal of WTO & International Health Law and Policy 7(1): 49-76, March 2012","field_url":"http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117858","body":"In the era of the persisting global north-south health divide, regional integration organisations have emerged as significant legal and diplomatic spaces to advance health goals. In this context, African regionalism is evolving as important frameworks for promoting health diplomacy. This evolving regional health diplomacy is contributing to the reinforcement of social goals of new regionalism in Africa and shaping the drivers of health policy at the global, regional and domestic levels. With reference to case studies of African regional and sub-regional integration organisations, the author of this paper examines the drivers, nature and limits of their practice of health diplomacy. He also analyses the nature of engagement of African regional groupings with select international health regimes. The author identifies the strengths and limits of regionalism for health diplomacy that also advances the protection of public health. The paper concludes with options to foster health diplomacy and its implications for the advancement of health at the domestic, regional and global levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Resource for civil society organisations (CSOs): CSO Wiki","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://wiki.cso-effectiveness.org/","body":"This is an interactive online platform and one-stop resource centre for civil society practitioners who want to work on improving the impact and quality of their development work. Whether you are starting to plan your work, or already have some tools and best practices to share, on this site you can access, share and rate tools, case studies and best practices from CSOs around the world, on implementing each of the eight Istanbul Principles and advocating for an enabling environment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reviewing participatory mapping - what works and what doesn't","field_subtitle":"Corbett J: International Fund for Agricultural Development, 2009","field_url":"http://www.ifad.org/pub/map/PM_web.pdf","body":"Participatory mapping, commonly used in participatory development, plays an important role in helping marginalised groups by making visible the association between land and local communities, highlighting important social, historical and cultural knowledge as well as presenting geographical feature information. This review is intended to provide a broad background in the use of participatory mapping processes and the range of tools available to practitioners. It is not exhaustive but aims to give readers a greater appreciaion of how participatory mapping has involved from a relatively simplistic participatory rural appraisal (PRA) tool into a community of practice spanning a range of sophisticated technologies and processes. It draws on a number of examples from around the world, with special attention given to projects supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), as this organisation commissioned the review. However, it contains useful insights, lessons and pitfalls in both the processes and tools available for participatory mapping.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Seventh SAHARA Conference 2013","field_subtitle":"7-10 October 2013: Dakar, Senegal","field_url":"http://sahara.org.za/conferences/2013","body":"The Social Aspects of HIV and AIDS Research Alliance (SAHARA), established in 2001 by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), is an alliance of partners established to conduct, support and use social sciences research to prevent the further spread of HIV and mitigate the impact of its devastation in sub-Saharan Africa. The SAHARA 7 conference theme is \"Translating evidence into action: Engaging with communities, policies, human rights, gender, service delivery\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Sovereignty and patents at the fore in debate over MERS virus","field_subtitle":"Hammond E: Third World Network, 31 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/2013/health130510.htm","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) is involved in a debate related to intellectual property rights over a dangerous new pathogen, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus. This report records that the virus was sent to Erasmus without authorisation of the Saudi government, which has sovereign rights, and which has criticised Erasmus' intellectual property stance. When Erasmus eventually began sharing the virus, they did so under a material transfer agreement (MTA) with very strong provisions to protect the university\u2019s own intellectual property, prompting objections from some scientists. Erasmus is reported to have submitted a patent application the content of which is unknown, due to normal procedures at patent offices where publication of applications is delayed for six months or more from the time of their submission. The raising of patent and sovereignty issues over emerging viruses at the World Health Assembly suggests that controversies caused by intellectual property claims over newly identified pathogens will continue to occur unless broader solutions are found to allow viruses to be distributed to researchers while protecting sovereign rights, the author concludes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Stand up against tobacco industry, says Australia","field_subtitle":"Health-e News: 6 June 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/l8rzn9m","body":"The Australian government has urged other countries to also stand up to the tobacco industry, saying it was confident of victory in a new legal battle over its landmark plain packaging rules. Big tobacco will stop at nothing to intimidate countries to not take appropriate public health measures, said Australia\u2019s health minister, Jane Halton, said at a recent meeting marking World No Tobacco Day. Australia\u2019s new legislation, in force since December, aims to cut smoking rates by requiring tobacco products to be sold in drab green boxes with the same typeface and graphic health warnings. Halton addressed a session of the World Health Organisation (WHO), as the UN agency seeks tougher global measures to reign in tobacco use, which claims six million lives a year. Tobacco continues to cause enormous suffering and death which is totally avoidable, she told participants. New Zealand and Ireland are planning plain packaging rules, despite a tobacco industry-backed challenge to Australia\u2019s law at the World Trade Organisation by cigar-producers Cuba, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, plus Ukraine. The plaintiff countries maintain that Australia\u2019s law breaches international trade rules and intellectual property rights to brands \u2013 arguments that failed to convince Australia\u2019s High Court in a case brought by tobacco firms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Standardising and scaling up quality adolescent friendly health services in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Chandra-Mouli V, Mapella E, John T, Gibbs S, Hanna C, Kampatibe N and Bloem P: BMC Public Health 13:579, 14 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-579.pdf","body":"The authors of this study set out to identify the progress made by the Tanzanian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW) in achieving the objective it had set in its National Adolescent Health and Development Strategy: 2002\u20132006, namely to systematise and extend the reach of Adolescent Friendly Health Services (AFHS) in the country. They reviewed plans and reports from the MOHSW and journal articles on AFHS. Results showed that the MOHSW identified four key problems with what was being done to make health services adolescent friendly in the country \u2013 firstly, it was not fully aware of the various efforts under way; secondly, there was no standardised definition of AFHS; thirdly, it had received reports that the quality of the AFHS being provided by some organisations was poor; and fourthly, only small numbers of adolescents were being reached by the efforts that were under way. The MOHSW responded to these problems by mapping existing services, developing a standardised definition of AFHS, charting out what needed to be done to improve their quality and expand their coverage, and integrating AFHS within wider policy and strategy documents and programmatic measurement instruments. It has also taken important preparatory steps to stimulate and support implementation. The authors argue that the focus of the effort must now shift from the national to the regional, council and local levels, with substantial and ongoing support from the Ministry.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Statement: High Level Panel recommendations fall short of the human rights litmus test","field_subtitle":"Holland L: Centre for Economic and Social Rights (CESR): June 2013","field_url":"http://www.cesr.org/downloads/cesr_hlp_statement.pdf","body":"The Secretary-General\u2019s High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda delivered its report on 30 May 2013 (included in this newsletter). In this statement, CESR welcomes the Panel\u2019s clear affirmation that the framework to replace the Millennium Development Goals in 2015 should be grounded in respect for universal human rights. However, the fragmented and inconsistent incorporation of human rights in its proposals, coupled with the prominence given to an outdated vision of market/business-led development, prevents the report from meeting its own stated aim of proposing a truly \u201ctransformative shift\u201d. For the new framework of goals, targets and indicators to meet the human rights litmus test, it must fully reflect the fundamental human rights principles of universality, indivisibility, equality, participation, transparency and accountability. It must also reinforce the duty of states to guarantee at least minimum essential floors of rights enjoyment, to use the maximum of their available resources to realise rights progressively for all, and to engage in international cooperation for this purpose. Human rights advocates have been particularly insistent that, alongside the environmental, economic, and social dimensions, a fourth pillar of sustainable development - accountable governance - is fundamental to putting in place the right institutions and effective incentives to translate international political commitments into lived realities. The report is also particularly weak in addressing corporate accountability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening integrated primary health care in Sofala, Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Sherr K, Cuembelo F, Michel C, Gimbel S et al: BMC Health Services Research 13(Suppl 2):S4, 31 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/S2/S4","body":"The Mozambique Population Health Implementation and Training (PHIT) Partnership focuses on improving the quality of routine data and its use through appropriate tools to facilitate decision making by health system managers; strengthening management and planning capacity and funding district health plans; and building capacity for operations research to guide system-strengthening efforts. This seven-year effort covers all 13 districts and 146 health facilities in Sofala Province. The Mozambique PHIT Partnership expects to provide evidence on the effect of efforts to improve data quality coupled with the introduction of tools, training, and supervision to improve evidence-based decision making. This contribution to the knowledge base on what works to enhance health systems is highly replicable for rapid scale-up to other provinces in Mozambique, as well as other sub-Saharan African countries with limited resources and a commitment to comprehensive primary health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Study while you work: Applications for 2014 Master in Public Health (MPH)","field_subtitle":"Applications close: 3 September 2013","field_url":"http://www.uwc.ac.za/faculties/chs/soph","body":"The MPH at the University of the Western Cape aims to equip health professionals to: quantify and prioritise health needs; design, implement and evaluate Comprehensive Primary Health Care Programmes; and manage District Health Systems. The Programme is designed for a range of health and welfare professionals and managers from middle to senior level, at district, provincial or national levels, staff of NGO\u2019s and academic research contexts. The Programme may be taken over two to three years. Admission requirements: A four year degree (Honours Degree) or its equivalent in any discipline, or in exceptional cases, five years of relevant experience assessed by the university through a Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) process. Contact Mrs Janine Kader at the email address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Suspension of external funding Restricts Ugandan Policy Options","field_subtitle":"Balemesa T: Africa Portal, 17 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.africaportal.org/blogs/community-practice/suspension-donor-aid-restricts-ugandan-policy-options","body":"As Uganda\u2019s government programming is so dependent on external funding (aid), recent funding cuts will be felt across nearly every sector, says the author of this article. The withdrawal of external funding is affecting policy goals and work in agriculture and health and government salaries for teachers, health personnel and local administrators. The rehabilitation and integration of Northern Uganda, still struggling to recover following protracted conflict, and programmes in Karamoja region are likely to be affected. Shifting the burden to taxpayers for initiatives formerly funded by external funders is unlikely to be accepted unless issues of corruption and effective spending are addressed, argues the author. Regardless of whether government programmes are funded externally or from taxpayers, citizens seek greater transparency through consistent and open procedures in financial management.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The case for Option B and Optional B+: Ensuring that South Africa\u2019s commitment to eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV becomes a reality","field_subtitle":"Besada D, Van Cutsem G, Goemaere E, Ford N, Bygrave H and Lynch S: South African Journal of HIV Medicine 13(4), 2012","field_url":"http://sajhivmed.org.za/index.php/sajhivmed/article/view/864/737","body":"In a previous issue of the Southern African Journal of HIV Medicine, Pillay and Black summarised the trade-offs of the safety of efavirenz use in pregnancy. Highlighting the benefits of the World Health Organisation\u2019s proposed options for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV, the authors argued that the South African government should adopt Option B as national PMTCT policy and pilot projects implementing Option B+ as a means of assessing the individual- and population-level effect of the intervention. The authors of this article echo this call and further propose that the option to remain on lifelong antiretroviral therapy, effectively adopting PMTCT Option B+, be offered to pregnant women following the cessation of breastfeeding, for their own health, following the provision of counselling on associated benefits and risks. Here they highlight the benefits of Options B and B+.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food","field_subtitle":"Moss M: New York Times, 20 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0","body":"Why are soft drinks and junk foods so popular? The author of this article  discusses processes of product optimisation, and the balance of salt, sugar and fat content of a product aimed at in products to ensure that consumers crave and continue to buy a product. Complex formulas are reported that pique the taste buds enough to be alluring but that do not have a distinct, overriding single flavour that tells the brain to stop eating. With the current global epidemic of obesity and rising levels of non-communicable diseases, the author advocates legislation rather than self-regulation on these issues. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The Ghana essential health interventions programme: a plausibility trial of the impact of health systems strengthening on maternal & child survival","field_subtitle":"Awoonor-Williams J, Bawah AA, Nyonator FK, Asuru R, Oduro A et al: BMC Health Services Research 13(Suppl 2):S3, 31 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/S2/S3","body":"This paper describes the Ghana Essential Health Intervention Project (GEHIP), a plausibility trial of strategies for strengthening Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS). The researchers found that GEHIP improves the CHPS model by: extending the range and quality of services for newborns; training community volunteers to conduct the World Health Organisation service regimen known as integrated management of childhood illness (IMCI); simplifying the collection of health management information and ensuring its use for decision making; enabling community health nurses to manage emergencies, particularly obstetric complications and refer cases without delay; adding $0.85 per capita annually to district budgets and marshalling grassroots political commitment to financing CHPS implementation; and strengthening CHPS leadership at all levels of the system. By demonstrating practical means of strengthening a real-world health system while monitoring costs and assessing maternal and child survival impact, GEHIP is expected to contribute to national health policy, planning, and resource allocation that will be needed to accelerate progress with the Millennium Development Goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The ghosts of user fees past: Exploring accountability for victims of a 30-year economic policy mistake","field_subtitle":"Rowden R: Health and Human Rights 15(1): 175-85, June 2013","field_url":"http://www.hhrjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2013/06/Rowden-FINAL.pdf","body":"The new consensus towards universal health care (UHC) suggests that an evidence-based approach to policy may finally be prevailing over an ideologically driven approach. While the new consensus shifting in favour of UHC is to be welcomed, the author argues that the international health community cannot dismiss the unnecessary suffering and harm caused by the reckless adoption of ideologically driven user fees policies over the last 30 years. It is incumbent on the international health community to reflect and take stock of what went so badly wrong that led to the widespread application of user fees in the world\u2019s poorest countries and take steps to determine accountability for those responsible. The past victims of user fees must have their voices heard and all potential avenues for compensation must be fully pursued, as their right to health was violated for so long. More broadly, the current lack of accountability and liability in the economics profession should be of concern to the international health community as it increasingly relies on the advice and direction of health economists.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Survival of \u201cGlobal Health\u201d: The Future of Global Health Funding","field_subtitle":"Garrett L: Lauriegarret.com, 22 May 2013  ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/kn7hgve","body":"Since 2008 there has been much debate about where agencies, NGOs, programmes and countries might turn to for sustainable funding. One thing is very clear, says the author of this blog: Global Health, including HIV, no longer enjoys the same enthusiasm it once did. The relative ease of garnering financing for malaria bed nets or innovations in drug distribution that NGOs and agencies experienced in 2005 has yielded to tough slogging for basic financing in 2013. For ministries of health and country-based health programmes this shift ushers need to look to domestic sources for support. South Africa is the first significant aid recipient to set a goal for complete health self-reliance, and actually meet most of its targets en route. Combined with a package of new taxes on everything from cell phone use to plane flights, alcohol and tobacco levies could garner African countries an additional $15.5 billion. Two obstacles obviously stand in the way, according to the author: The political will for governments to implement what undoubtedly would be unpopular use taxes, and the monumental fights within government over allocation of those revenues. Just because a country gleans a fresh $1 billion from such taxes by no means assures the government will allocate most, or even any of it, to health programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Tanzania Connect Project: a cluster-randomised trial of the child survival impact of adding paid community health workers to an existing facility-focused health system","field_subtitle":"Ramsey K, Hingora A, Kante M, Jackson E, Exavery A, Pemba S et al: BMC Health Services Research 13(Suppl 2):S6, 31 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/13/S2/S6","body":"The Tanzania Connect Project is a randomised cluster trial located in three rural districts with a population of roughly 360,000 ( Kilombero, Rufiji, and Ulanga). Connect aims to test whether introducing a community health worker into a general programme of health systems strengthening and referral improvement will reduce child mortality, improve access to services, expand utilisation, and alter reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health seeking behaviour; thereby accelerating progress towards Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5. Connect has introduced a new cadre \u2014 Community Health Agents (CHA) \u2014 who were recruited from and work in their communities. To support the CHAs, Connect developed supervisory systems, launched information and monitoring operations, and implemented logistics support for integration with existing district and village operations. Connect will not only address Tanzania\u2019s need for policy and operational research, it will bridge a critical international knowledge gap concerning the added value of salaried professional community health workers in the context of a high density of fixed facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Third Health Systems Research symposium Cape Town: calling for ideas and participation","field_subtitle":"No Closing Date","field_url":"http://www.reddit.com/r/healthpolicy/comments/1dx546/third_global_symposium_on_health_systems_research/","body":"The next Global HSR Symposium will be held in Cape Town, 30 September-3 October 2014. The South African Local Organising Consortium (SA-LOC) consists of the Universities of Cape Town, Stellenbosch and Western Cape as well as the Health Systems Trust and the SA Medical Research Council.  The organisers are seeking to gather your views on African ideas and experiences to share in the Symposium. The Symposium theme is Health Systems Research: the science and practice of people-centred health systems. Kindly submit ideas on the Symposium and its theme via the open, global survey now available \u2013 go to the webpage address provided. In addition, if you have any specific thoughts about excellent African speakers and experiences of relevance to the theme, who/which might be considered for inclusion in the Symposium, or specific proposals for activities in and around the Symposium, please send an email to Funke Alaba at the email address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"UCT Rehabilitation Conference 2013","field_subtitle":"2-4 September 2013: Cape Town","field_url":"http://rehabconf2013.uct.ac.za/","body":"The Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, is holding its first Rehabilitation Conference in September 2013. The conference will host speakers from diverse disciplinary fields on a range of themes such as: policy: influencing development and implementation; evidence for action: a research agenda; responsive rehabilitation service delivery; and optimising human resourcing for rehabilitation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal Access to Healthcare Campaign: Thoughts from African Civil Society on UHC","field_subtitle":"UHC Forward: June 2013","field_url":"http://uhcforward.org/sites/uhcforward.org/files/Briefing_Paper_UHC.pdf","body":"This briefing paper elicits the perspective of the African non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on the concept of universal health coverage (UHC). It defines the basic concepts and also explores the role NGOs can play to improve the definition and implementation of UHC to improve health outcomes for all. It describes some of the common misunderstandings and misgivings expressed by NGOs, such as the belief that UHC is limited in scope and does not address the social determinants of health. Examples from African countries that have successfully implemented UHC are provided. UHC does not only mean protection from catastrophic expenditure \u2013 it means that all people are able to access health services when they need them. In this regard it specifically targets the poorest and most vulnerable. In most instances, civil society organisations have played a significant role in ensuring that national policies reflect in the reality on the ground.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Vertical funding, non-governmental organisations, and health system strengthening: perspectives of public sector health workers in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Mussa AH, Pfeiffer J, Gloyd SS, Sherr K: Human Resources for Health 11(26),  14 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-11-26.pdf","body":"In this paper, the authors explored the perspectives and experiences of key Mozambican public sector health managers who coordinate, implement, and manage the myriad donor-driven projects and agencies. Over a four-month period, they conducted 41 individual qualitative interviews with key Ministry workers at three levels in the Mozambique national health system, using open-ended semi-structured interview guides, as well as reviewed planning documents. All respondents emphasized the value and importance of international aid and vertical funding to the health sector and each highlighted program successes that were made possible by recent increased aid flows. However, three serious concerns emerged: 1) difficulties coordinating external resources and challenges to local control over the use of resources channeled to international private organizations; 2) inequalities created within the health system produced by vertical funds channeled to specific services while other sectors remain under-resourced; and 3) the exodus of health workers from the public sector health system provoked by large disparities in salaries and work. The vertical approach starved the Ministry of support for its administrative functions. Few studies have addressed the growing phenomenon of \u201cinternal brain drain\u201d in Africa which proved to be of greater concern to Mozambique\u2019s health managers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"What communities want: Putting community resilience priorities on the agenda for 2015","field_subtitle":"Community Practitioners Platform for Resilience: May 2013","field_url":"http://www.huairou.org/what-communities-want-putting-community-resilience-priorities-agenda-2015","body":"This action research is an effort to capture the voices of community leaders and bring the resilience priorities of poor, disaster-prone communities into debates that will shape the new policy frameworks on disaster risk reduction to be launched in 2015. For the most part members of poor, disaster-prone neighbourhoods worst affected by natural hazards and climate change are absent from current consultations. Yet, it is these communities whose survival and wellbeing will be most affected by the policies and programmes that emerge from these debates. Five recommendations emerged from this study. 1. Invest in community-led transfers to scale up effective resilience practices. 2. Incentivise community-led, multi-stakeholder partnerships; create mechanisms that formalise community roles in government programmes to make them more responsive and accountable to community resilience priorities. 3. Foster community organising and constituency building in addition to technical know-how for building resilience. 4. Set aside decentralised, flexible funds to foster multi-dimensional community resilience building efforts. 5. Recognise grassroots women\u2019s organisations and networks as key stakeholders in planning, implementing and monitoring resilience programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Director-General statement at the 8th Global Conference on Health Promotion","field_subtitle":"Chan M: World Health Organisation, 10 June 2013","field_url":"http://wphna.org/who-director-general-statement-at-the-8th-global-conference-on-health-promotion","body":"During her opening address at the 8th Global Conference on Health Promotion in Helsinki, Finland on 10 June, WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan stated that inequalities, between and within countries, in income levels, opportunities, and health outcomes, are now greater than at any time in recent decades. The rise of non-communicable diseases threatens to widen these gaps even further. she noted that public health must contend with Big Tobacco, Big Food, Big Soda, and Big Alcohol. All of these industries fear regulation, and protect themselves by using the same tactics. For WHO, formulation of health policies must be protected from distortion by commercial or vested interests. She referred to the Finnish government as an example to follow, as it has been a leading proponent of the need for all sectors of government to consider the health impact of their policies. Finland put the health-in-all-policies approach under the spotlight during its presidency of the European Union in 2006. Such an approach makes perfect sense, she argued. The determinants of health are exceptionally broad. Policies made in other sectors can have a profound, and often adverse, effect on health. The globalisation of unhealthy lifestyles is by no means just a technical issue for public health. It is a political, trade and foreign affairs issue. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Why is UHC out of the post 2015 goals?","field_subtitle":"Awosusi A: UHC Forward blogs, 3 June 2013","field_url":"http://uhcforward.org/blog/2013/jun/3/why-uhc-out-post-2015-goals","body":"In this blog, the author comments on the May 2013 report by the United Nations High Level Panel (HLP), which is included in this newsletter. He expresses disappointment that universal health coverage (UHC) is not one of the twelve goals outlined in the report, despite overwhelming global consensus for UHC. Whilst the panel acknowledged that universal access to basic healthcare services is required to achieve desired outcomes, the author argues that without setting a target to ensure this is realised different actors will continue operating in silos and vertical interventions that can undermine the national health system. Instead the panel proposes \u2018ensuring healthy lives\u2019 as goal four. The author considers this as vague and it appears as a call to business as usual. It lacks the enthusiasm inherent in UHC. And, in many parts of the world that are in dire need of health, especially in Africa, the fourth goal resonates as maintaining status quo. Although UHC is not an end in itself, it is a means to ensure equitable access to quality health services and can guarantee the protection of the right to health and better health outcomes. The author argues that this oversight is a challenge to UHC advocates, who should represent UHC in a more ambitious way drawing lessons from proponents of gender equality. He calls on advocates to promote UHC as the appropriate overarching post 2015 health goal, using the forum of the UN Sustainable Development Goals Open Working Group.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim\u2019s Speech at World Health Assembly: Poverty, Health and the Human Future","field_subtitle":"Kim JY: 21 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/speech/2013/05/21/world-bank-group-president-jim-yong-kim-speech-at-world-health-assembly","body":"In this speech to the World Health Assembly, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim outlines five specific ways the World Bank Group will support countries in their drive towards universal health coverage. First, he pledges the bank will continue to ramp up its analytic work and support for health systems. Second, he highlights the World Bank\u2019s commitment to support countries in an all-out effort to reach Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5, on maternal mortality and child mortality. The third commitment is that, with the World Health Organisation and other partners, the World Bank Group will strengthen its measurement work in areas relevant to universal health coverage. Fourth, the Bank will deepen its work on what is called \u2018the science of delivery\u2019, a new field that the World Bank Group is helping to shape, in response to country demand. Fifth and finally, the World Bank Group will continue to step up its work on improving health through action in other sectors, such as agriculture, clean energy, education, sanitation, and women\u2019s empowerment. Kim argues that the fragmentation of global health action has led to inefficiencies: parallel delivery structures; multiplication of monitoring systems and reporting demands; and ministry officials who spend a quarter of their time managing requests from misguided international partners. He calls for integrated management of health issues facing the world today.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WTO finally reaches decision on LDCs and TRIPs","field_subtitle":"South Centre: 15 June 2013","field_url":"","body":"The TRIPS Council of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) decided on 11 June 2013 to allow Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to delay implementation of the TRIPS Agreement until 1 July 2021. At the end of this period, LDCs can request further extension. The terms of the June 2013 decision this time are better than the terms in the previous extension, granted in 2005, says South Centre. This is attributed to the determination and skill of the LDC Group, led by Nepal, during month long negotiations between the LDC Group and developed country members of the WTO. The new extension period is for eight years, starting on 1 July 2013. This is longer than the seven and a half years transition period provided in the 2005 decision. It is also significantly below what the LDC Group had asked for in its formal proposal IP/C/W/583, in which the Group had requested that the transition period should last so long as the country remains an LDC. The 11 June 2013 decision has also removed the condition introduced in the earlier 2005 decision that LDCs cannot roll-back the level of implementation of the TRIPS agreement that they have already undertaken in their national legislation. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/38459","field_issue_date":"2013-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A Sustainable Forum?","field_subtitle":"Higgins K: Open Canada, 23 April 2013","field_url":"http://opencanada.org/features/the-think-tank/comments/a-sustainable-forum/","body":"A major outcome of the United Conference for Sustainable Development, better known as Rio+20, held in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012, was the decision to establish a universal, intergovernmental high-level political forum (HLPF) on sustainable development. In this article, the author argues that argued that the proposed HLPF needs to truly be a forum on sustainable development, both in their work on the next set of global development goals and in their broader mandate, rather than a forum on environmental sustainability. The forum will need to make particular effort to engage on economic and social issues so that each of the three pillars of sustainable development is comprehensively addressed. The HLPF must also connect with human rights and peace and security communities to ensure support and legitimacy. The author advocates that the post-2015 development goals be structured as global goals, with national targets. This would make the goals actionable and relevant in different country contexts, and ideally, allow for the goals to be linked more directly to domestic policy priorities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to artemisinin-based anti-malarial treatment and its related factors in rural Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Khatib RA, Selemani M, Mrisho GA, Masanja IM, Amuri M, Njozi MH et al: Malaria Journal 12(155), 7 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/12/1/155","body":"Timely access within 24 hours to an authorised artemisinin-based combination treatment (ACT) outlet is one of the determinants of effective malaria treatment coverage. In this study, timely access was assessed in two district health systems in rural Tanzania: Kilombero-Ulanga and Rufiji. Members of randomly pre-selected households that had experienced a fever episode in the previous two weeks were eligible for a structured interview. Data was collected on timely access from a total of 2,112 interviews in relation to demographics, seasonality, and socio economic status. In Kilombero-Ulanga 41.8% and in Rufiji 36.8% of fever cases had access to an authorised ACT provider within 24 hours of fever onset. In neither site was age, sex, socio-economic status or seasonality of malaria found to be significantly correlated with timely access. The poor results fly in the face of government interventions intended to improve access such as social marketing and accreditation of private dispensing outlets. The authors call for more innovative interventions to raise effective coverage of malaria treatment in Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa's liberators should embrace civil society as an ally","field_subtitle":"Sriskanarajah D: Mail and Guardian, 3 May 2013","field_url":"http://mg.co.za/article/2013-05-03-00-africas-liberators-should-embrace-civil-society-as-an-ally","body":"Governments across Africa are clamping down on dissent, hiding their secrets and attacking the funding base of their critics. In this article the author points out that political movements that once fought for freedom and prosperity, having assumed power, are now undermining both by trying to restrict civil society. He argues that what these governments ignore at their peril is that debate and dissent are vital to both vibrant democracy and economic prosperity. Rather than seeing civil society as a threat, they should see it as a building block of a stable democracy; one that needs to be nurtured, not over-regulated. Community-based organisations can deliver grounded and cost-effective services, helping to educate and skill-up people to take advantage of economic opportunities. They are also big employers in their own right, and a new generation of social entrepreneurs across the continent is emerging with innovative and profitable ways of tackling intractable social problems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Alcohol use and HIV serostatus of partner predict high-risk sexual behaviour among patients receiving antiretroviral therapy in South Western Uganda","field_subtitle":"Bajunirwe F, Bangsberg DR and Sethi AK: BMC Public Health 13(430), 3 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-430.pdf","body":"To investigate the claim that widespread availability of antiretroviral therapy (ART) may result in sexual disinhibition, including practice of high-risk sexual behaviour, the authors of this study determined the correlates of sexual activity and high-risk sexual behaviour in an ART-treated population in rural and urban Uganda. They studied 329 ART-treated adult patients at two hospitals in western Uganda, collecting data on sexual activity, frequency of condom use, pregnancy, viral load and CD4 counts. Younger age, higher monthly income and being married were associated with being sexually active. Among the sexually active, alcohol consumption and unknown serostatus of partner were significant predictors of high-risk sexual behaviour. The frequency of unprotected sex at the last intercourse was 25.9% and 22.1% among the men and women respectively and was not significantly different. The authors recommend that counselling on alcohol use and disclosure of sero-status may be useful in reducing high-risk sexual behaviour.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"AMREF calls on global health community to recognise and support the work of midwives","field_subtitle":"AMREF: 5 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.amrefusa.org/news-from-the-field/news/international-day-of-the-midwife--may-5th-2013/","body":"To mark International Day of the Midwife (5 May), AMREF is calling on African governments to accelerate implementation of Human Resources for Health (HRH) strategies to increase the number of midwives trained and upgraded in the country, to fast track the attainment of MDG 5 (maternal mortality) in all countries where targets have not been achieved and to adopt innovative mechanisms to support the training, recruitment, deployment and retention of midwives across rural and remote areas. Governments should ensure that midwives access to the UN Commission\u2019s 13 lifesaving commodities for women and children, including long-term family planning methods and other commodities for reproductive health, for them to be able to provide appropriate quality health services. At the same time, AMREF recommends that development partners should adopt and support innovative mechanisms for training, recruitment, deployment and retention of midwives in Africa within the post MDG priority setting processes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"An integrated approach to improving the availability and utilisation of tuberculosis healthcare in rural South Africa","field_subtitle":"Chimbindi NZ, B\u00e4rnighausen T and Newell ML: South African Medical Journal 103(4): 237-240, April 2013","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/6423/4965","body":"The objective of this study was to investigate factors, including uptake of the offer of HIV testing, associated with availability and utilisation of healthcare by TB patients in a rural programme devolved to primary care in Hlabisa sub-district, KwaZulu-Natal. Three hundred TB patients at primary healthcare clinics (PHC) were randomly selected for the study. Most patients (75.2%) received care for a first episode of TB, mainly pulmonary. Nearly all (94.3%) were offered an HIV test during their current TB treatment episode, patients using their closest clinic being substantially more likely to have been offered HIV testing than those not using their closest clinic. About one-fifth (20.3%) of patients did not take medication under observation, and 3.4% reported missing taking their tablets at some stage. Average travelling time to the clinic and back was 2 hours, most patients (56.8%) using minibus taxis. The study demonstrates high HIV testing rates among TB patients and the authors suggest appropriate management of HIV-TB co-infected patients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"ARVs alone won't save HIV infected mothers","field_subtitle":"Skosana I and Malan M: Mail and Guardian, 19 April 2013","field_url":"http://mg.co.za/article/2013-04-19-00-arvs-alone-wont-save-hiv-infected-mothers","body":"In April 2013, the South African government announced that it will offer all HIV-infected pregnant and breastfeeding women antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, regardless of the state of their health. Previously, only pregnant women with significantly weakened immune systems qualified for the drugs. The government is also now supplying HIV-infected pregnant women with a convenient once-a-day tablet. A department of health spokesperson said an increase in access to ARVs will lead to a decline in maternal mortality. Almost half of all maternal deaths in South Africa are caused by HIV-related complications. However, the former director of maternal health at the department of health, Eddie Mhlanga, disagreed, arguing that there is no evidence yet that the government's antiretroviral drug programme has led to a lower chance of pregnant women infected with the virus dying during pregnancy, childbirth or within 42 days thereafter. He said negligence, substandard care and mismanagement in maternal wards would first need to be addressed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Building or bypassing recipient country systems : are donors defying the Paris declaration?","field_subtitle":"Knack S: World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 6423, 1 April 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/a8bb8kr","body":"The 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness sets targets for increased use by external funders (donors) of recipient country systems for managing aid. This study investigates the degree to which external funders ' use of country systems is in fact positively related to their quality, using indicators explicitly endorsed for this purpose by the Paris Declaration and covering the 2005-2010 period. The author shows that external funders\r\nappear to have modified their aid practices in ways that build rather than undermine administrative capacity and accountability in recipient country governments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts and proposals: Putting Public in Public Services: Research, Action and Equity in the Global South: International Conference: Cape Town, South Africa, 13-16 April 2014","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 1 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.municipalservicesproject.org/call-papers-and-panels","body":"This conference will bring together researchers, activists, labour representatives, development practitioners and policy makers from around the world working to promote progressive public services, with an emphasis on health, water and electricity. It will showcase promising alternatives to private provision, as well as those which push forward our conceptual and methodological understandings of how public attitudes and practices arise, how they are constituted, and how they might be sustained. Papers can have a regional (Africa, Asia, Latin America) and/or sectoral focus (water, electricity, health) and should represent original work. All topics will be considered, as long as they meet the central conference theme of researching and promoting progressive public services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: ICASA Conference 2013: 7-11 December 2013: Cape Town, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 20 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.icasa2013southafrica.org/","body":"The ICASA conference is held every year in sub-Saharan Africa and aims to contribute towards overcoming the HIV and TB epidemics that grip the region. The theme for 2013 is \u2018Now more than Ever: Targeting Zero\u2019. Abstracts may be according to one of several tracks: basic science; clinical science, treatment and care; epidemiology and prevention science; social science, human rights and political science; and health systems, implementation science and economics. ICASA 2013 will present a Young Investigator Award in each track. To be eligible, the presenting author of an abstract must be no older than 35 years of age on 7 December 2013. The Young Investigator Prize: Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS will be awarded to a young woman investigator from a resource-limited setting whose abstract most demonstrates excellence in research and/or practice that address women, girls and gender issues related to HIV and AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Abstracts: Third International Conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA)","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 31 August 2013","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/events/call-abstracts-third-international-conference-african-health-economics-and-policy-association","body":"This call goes out to all African health economists and health policy analysts or those working in Africa or on research of relevance to Africa to submit abstracts for the Second Conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA), which will be held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 11 to 13 March 2014. The overall theme of this conference is \"The Post-2015 African Health Agenda and UHC: Opportunities and Challenges\".  Researchers and other actors are encouraged to submit abstracts on this broad theme or indeed on any other interesting, innovative or topical African health sector or systems research that may be presented orally or in poster format at the conference. Proposals for organised sessions are also invited from interested individuals or institutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CALL FOR APPLICANTS: Emerging Tobacco Control Researcher Programme 2013","field_subtitle":"Apply by 7 June 2013","field_url":"http://heu-uct.org.za/emerging-tobacco-control-researcher-programme-2013-first-call-for-expressions-of-interest/","body":"The Economics of Tobacco Control Project at the University of Cape Town is soliciting expressions of interest from potential participants in an Emerging Tobacco Control Researcher Programme to be held in Cape Town, South Africa in 2013. The programme is to be held in partnership with the International Tobacco Control Research Program at the American Cancer Society and funded through a grant by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of the African Tobacco Control Consortium. The programme is expected to take place in October 2013 and participants will spend a week in residence in Cape Town participating in workshops on tobacco control research. This year the programme will focus on the economics of tobacco control, with a  particular interest in poverty and tobacco use, and will explore the use of existing survey instruments including expenditure surveys and demographic and health surveys.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Emerging Voices 2013","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 20 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.ev4gh.net/","body":"The next Emerging Voices venture will take place on 7-11 December 2013 at the ICASA Conference in Cape Town, South Africa. Emerging Voices for Global Health (EV4GH) is a blended training programme for young researchers on health research and scientific communication. EV4GH trains \u201cEmerging Voices\u201d to participate actively in international conferences and to raise their voice in the scientific debate. There are three thematic tracks: Track 1 (clinical track). Theme: HIV co-infection: clinical challenges anno 2013. Track 2 (prevention track). Theme: Combination prevention for HIV. Track 3 (health systems track). Theme: HIV & Health Systems Strengthening. Applicants must be under 40 years of age (born after 1 January 1973), a researcher, a decision maker, or a practitioner involved in HIV and AIDS in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Human Rights Scholarship ","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 31 October 2013","field_url":"http://services.unimelb.edu.au/scholarships/research/local/available/humanrights","body":"The Human Rights Scholarship (HRS) is awarded to local or international applicants wishing to undertake graduate research studies at the University of Melbourne in the human rights field and who are able to demonstrate their commitment to the peaceful advancement of respect for human rights. Each year the University offers two HRSs. Applicants must be able to demonstrate that their commitment to the peaceful advancement of respect for human rights extends beyond their academic studies (such as voluntary work and/or work experience). Applicants must have applied for, or be currently enrolled in a graduate research degree in the human rights field at the University of Melbourne. Applicants who have commenced their graduate research degree must have at least 12 months full-time or equivalent candidature remaining. International students must have an unconditional course offer at the University of Melbourne for the course for which they seek the support of a HRS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil Society and Key Populations: Considerations for the Global Fund's New Funding Model","field_subtitle":"ICASO: April 2013","field_url":"http://www.icaso.org/media/files/23901-NFMDiscussionPaperEN.pdf","body":"In late 2012, the board of the Global Fund to Fight Malaria, Tuberculosis and AIDS approved a new funding model (NFM), which significantly changes the manner in which funds are allocated, applied for, awarded, disbursed, and monitored. The NFM was formally launched on 28 February 2013, though it will remain in a transitional phase until 2014. While there is much promise in the NFM, there are many questions, some of which are raised in this report. The Fund has established a framework for the core aspects of grant funding under the NFM, but there remain countless details to be uncovered through real-world experience and regulated by Fund policy and protocol. This report reviews the key components of the NFM from a civil society and key population perspective, with a focus on its impact on AIDS programmes. Incorporating the views of leaders from key populations and civil society around the world, the report provides a summary of some current top-level concerns related to the roll-out of the NFM and offers recommendations on how to implement the NFM in a manner which is responsive to and inclusive of civil society and key populations, and ultimately which has the greatest impact on ending the AIDS epidemic globally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society calls on SA Dept of Health to release National AIDS Vaccine Plan","field_subtitle":"Tuwani T: Health-e NEWS, 18 April 2013","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20034175","body":"Civil rights groups and communities have expressed concern about the failure of South Africa's  Department of Health to release the National Aids Vaccine Strategic Plan (NAVSP) for 2013-2017. In 2012, the Department of Health requested the South African Aids Vaccine Initiative (SAAVI) to develop the NAVSP in collaboration with researchers all over the world and communities and Community Advisory Groups in South Africa. However, since its development the document has been embargoed for public scrutiny without any reason given. At a recent community roundtable on Aids Vaccine Research and Development indicated their dissatisfaction with the embargo on the document as they believe it contains clear objectives on community involvement in AIDS vaccine research that is happening in the country. Researchers from various organisation, including the Perinatal HIV Research Unit, the Aurum Institute for Health Research and the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation agreed that the embargo creates suspicion about the department\u2019s activities to reduce HIV infections through vaccines and ARVs prevention research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Emergence of multilateral proto-institutions in global health and new approaches to governance: analysis using path dependency and institutional theory","field_subtitle":"G\u00f3mez EJ and Atun R: Globalization and Health 9(18): 10 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-9-18.pdf","body":"The role of multilateral external funding agencies in global health is a new area of research, with limited research on how these agencies differ in terms of their governance arrangements, especially in relation to transparency, inclusiveness, accountability, and responsiveness to civil society. In this paper, the authors argue that historical analysis of the origins of these agencies and their coalition formation processes can help to explain these differences. They propose an analytical approach that links the theoretical literature discussing institutional origins to path dependency and institutional theory relating to proto institutions in order to illustrate the differences in coalition formation processes that shape governance within four multilateral agencies involved in global health. Two new multilateral donor agencies that were created by a diverse coalition of state and non-state actors, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and GAVI (\u2018proto-institutions\u2019), were more adaptive in strengthening their governance processes. This contrasts with two well-established multilateral external funding agencies, such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, what we call Bretton Woods (BW) institutions, which were created by nation states alone; and hence, have different origins and consequently different path dependent processes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ending preventable child deaths from pneumonia and diarrhoea by 2025","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2013","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/79200/1/9789241505239_eng.pdf","body":"The Integrated Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia and Diarrhoea (GAPPD) proposes a cohesive approach to ending preventable pneumonia and diarrhoea deaths. It brings together critical services and interventions to create healthy environments, promotes practices known to protect children from disease and ensures that every child has access to proven and appropriate preventive and treatment measures. The solutions to tackling pneumonia and diarrhoea do not require major advances in technology. Proven interventions exist. Children are dying because services are provided piece- meal and those most at risk are not being reached. Use of effective interventions remains too low; for instance, only 39% of infants less than 6 months are exclusively breastfed while only 60% of children with suspected pneumonia access appropriate care. Moreover, children are not receiving life-saving treatment; only 31% of children with suspected pneumonia receive antibiotics and only 35% of children with diarrhoea receive oral rehydration therapy WHO recommends: exclusive breastfeeding for six months and continued breastfeeding with appropriate complementary feeding; use of vaccines; use of simple, standardised guidelines; use of oral rehydration salts; and proper water, sanitation and hygiene interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 148: No universal health coverage without health workers","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity and core concepts of human rights in Namibian health policies","field_subtitle":"Amadhila E, Van Roy G, McVeigh J, Mannan H, MacLachlan M and Amin M: Africa Policy Journal, 28 February 2013","field_url":"http://africa.harvard.edu/apj/equity-and-core-concepts-of-human-rights-in-namibian-health-policies/","body":"This paper reports on an analysis of 11 African Union (AU) policy documents to ascertain the frequency and the extent of mention of 13 core concepts in relation to 12 vulnerable groups, with a specific focus on people with disabilities. The researchers applied the EquiFrame analytical framework to the 11 AU policy documents. The 11 documents were analysed in terms of how many times a core concept was mentioned and the extent of information on how the core concept should be addressed at the implementation level. The analysis of regional AU policies highlighted the broad nature of the reference made to vulnerable groups, with a lack of detailed specifications of different needs of different groups. This is confirmed in the highest vulnerable group mention being for \u2018universal\u2019. The reading of the documents suggests that vulnerable groups are homogeneous in their needs, which is not the case. There is a lack of recognition of different needs of different vulnerable groups in accessing health care. The authors conclude that the need for more information and knowledge on the needs of all vulnerable groups is evident. The current lack of mention and of any detail on how to address needs of vulnerable groups will significantly impair the access to equitable health care for all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity, Inequality and Human Development in a Post-2015 Framework","field_subtitle":"Melamed C and Samman E: United Nations Development Programme, February 2013","field_url":"http://issuu.com/undp/docs/equity_inequality_human_development_in_post-2015_f","body":"In this paper, the authors argue that addressing inequality should be central to the post-2015 development framework. They say inequality must be approached on multiple levels: within countries, among nations, and between generations. Tracking inequalities \u2013 for example, the progress of the poorest quintile of the population \u2013 is important, but to actually reduce inequality, we must reduce the structural inequalities that cause poverty, they add. Their paper highlights some of the many examples of severe inequalities that can be found both among and within countries today. Inequalities are caused by structural barriers, and new as well as old deprivations. A post-2015 development framework must find ways to build on the progress that has already been made and identify policies that can break down some of the barriers faced by the disadvantaged. While the world might be ready to set ambitious targets in areas such as sustainable energy, water, sanitation, and access to knowledge and technology, the authors point out that other areas like migration and trade should also be taken into account. They demand an agenda that pays more attention to social cohesion and social justice, and emphasise that getting the metrics right is critical to improving the reach and effectiveness as of public services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Fifty years of Organisation of African Unity /African Union Policy-making: Opportunities to improve women\u2019s and children\u2019s health","field_subtitle":"Africa Coalition on Maternity, Newborn and Child Health: 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/omcbl42","body":"Attention to women\u2019s and children\u2019s health is increasing in AU policy making, according to this report. The AU has provided a platform for leaders to debate issues of women\u2019s and children\u2019s health and to make commitments to their improvement. In an environment where different priorities compete for funding, women and children's health could be given greater profile by providing evidence of their contribution to overall development. Improving the health of women and children requires a cross sectoral approach and evidence on collective impact. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing Incidence Analysis of Health Financing in Zimbabwe: Report of a skills workshop, Harare, 18-22 February 2013","field_subtitle":"TARSC, MoHCW and HEU: 2013","field_url":"http://www.tarsc.org/publications/documents/FIA%20training%20report%20Feb2013.pdf","body":"This report documents the proceedings of a skills workshop on financing incidence analysis (FIA) that was held to review international experience on the social distribution of burdens of various financing sources and the methods used for assessing financing incidence, drawing on work that has been carried out in Africa. Specifically the workshop sought to: explore ways to realise additional funding from different progressive financing sources; draw input from the Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town, on methodologies for analysing the progressivity and regressivity of different financing sources; draw lessons from international and local experiences on FIA of different financing sources; and answer questions on how to address challenges with data collection and analysis, review of tools, preliminary results and reporting. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Fixing broken links: Linking extractive sectors to productive value chains","field_subtitle":"Ramdoo I: ECDPM Discussion Paper 143, March 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/b2oshzr","body":"This paper highlights the importance of bridging the gap between the extractive sector and productive value chains in Africa in order to foster sustainable transformation and development. In particular, the author stresses the importance of and industrial policy that promotes links between the extractive sector and agriculture and that identifies areas where extractive industries can contribute to value added production. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Focusing the Spotlight on Lack of Access to Health Information","field_subtitle":"Editorial: PLoS Medicine 10(4), 30 April  2013","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001438","body":"The challenge of improving healthcare information in countries with meagre resources will require more than just highlighting insufficiencies, according to this editorial. The right to access health information is a key component of a strong health system, but to be effective it requires evaluation and synthesis of evidence, translation of evidence into educational materials, and implementation and dissemination. Health information is key to improving weak health systems. If governments are legally obliged to support the right to access reliable health information, what can be done to ensure that they do so? It is suggested that a legal approach may not work, but that locating access to reliable health information within the broader human rights framework may generate benefit from the momentum of human rights advocacy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"From trickle-down to bubble-up ","field_subtitle":"David Woodward, The Broker 23 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.thebrokeronline.eu/Blogs/Spurring-economic-transition/From-trickle-down-to-bubble-up","body":"The inequality debate, the idea of \u2019trickle-down\u2019 \u2013 that the poor can be made less poor if the rich become richer, as this will increase demand for goods produced by the poor \u2013 is argued by the author to have failed at the global level, just as it failed at the country level. The current model of globalization is creating a global economy which systematically excludes most of the global poor. The author raises that to accelerate progress in reducing poverty after 2015 \u2013 and especially to have some hope of eradicating poverty in a meaningful sense in a period of decades rather than centuries \u2013 this needs to change. We need to shift from a model premised on the unrealistic assumption that the economic benefits of growth will automatically trickle down to the poor to one where the considerable economic benefits of poverty reduction and eradication will bubble up to the rest of the economy. This means focusing economic policy on poverty reduction, not growth, particularly in rural areas, where poverty is greatest. The author suggests options for doing this, in public works, cash transfers, income generation, rural electrification and public health and educational services. In most countries, this would require substantial improvements in tax systems, and an increase in tax collection capacity, which would itself be costly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund targets US$15 Billion to effectively fight AIDS, TB and Malaria","field_subtitle":"Global Fund: 8 April 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bq5qyhy","body":"The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced a goal of raising US$15 billion so that it can effectively support countries in fighting these three infectious diseases in the 2014-2016 period. The Fund aims to help turn these three high-transmission epidemics into low-level endemics, essentially making them manageable health problems instead of global emergencies. It said that together with other funding, including an estimated US$37 billion from domestic sources in implementing countries and US$24 billion from other international sources, a US$15 billion contribution would allow the Fund to address close to 90% of the global resource needs to fight these three diseases, estimated at a total of US$87 billion. This aggregate level of funding would mean that 17 million patients with tuberculosis and with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis could receive treatment, saving almost 6 million lives over this three-year period.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Monitoring and Evaluation Framework","field_subtitle":"Mobile Alliance for Maternal Health (MAMA): 2013","field_url":"http://mobilemamaalliance.org/sites/default/files/MAMA%20Global%20MEPlan_FINAL_all.pdf","body":"This monitoring and evaluation framework is a guide for project implementers to help them develop national monitoring and evaluation plans to monitor and report on progress when implementing mobile messaging programmes for mothers. The key objective of this framework is to ensure that MAMA programme outputs meet the needs of the target population. The indicators presented in this framework can be used to monitor and report on progress in the implementation of the various MAMA initiative components in countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"GNHE Scholarships in Health Equity","field_subtitle":"No deadline given","field_url":"http://gnhe.funsalud.org.mx/Documentos/GNHE%20Scholarships%20260213.pdf","body":"The Global Network for Health Equity (GNHE) has launched its Scholarships Programme for 2013\u20132014. The programme aims to build capacity in low and middle-income countries for health systems research into issues of health systems equity and universal health coverage, by supporting junior researchers from those countries undertaking research on any of the following topics: equity in health systems financing and financial protection; equity in health systems delivery, including access and utilisation; equity in health outcomes at the population level; and universal health coverage. Applications from health economics and all other relevant research fields will be considered as well as inter-disciplinary proposals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health equity and financial protection report: Malawi","field_subtitle":"World Bank: 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/afg2497","body":"This report analyses equity and financial protection in the health sector of Malawi. In particular, it examines inequalities in health outcomes, health behaviour and health care utilisation; benefit incidence analysis; and financial protection. It found that ill health is more concentrated among the poor, who use health services significantly less often than the rich. The distribution of government spending on health is mildly pro-rich, while the effect of out-of-pocket payments on household financial well-being is not too severe. In 2003, only about 11.5% of households spent more than 10% of total household consumption on out-of-pocket health payments and only 3% spent more than 40%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health equity and financial protection report: Zambia","field_subtitle":"World Bank: 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/a8m3zke","body":"This report analyses equity and financial protection in the health sector of Zambia. In particular, it examines inequalities in health outcomes, health behaviour and health care utilisation; benefit incidence analysis; financial protection; and the progressivity of health care financing. It found that ill health is more concentrated among the poor, who use health services slightly less often than the rich but who do not experience major financial shocks form out of pocket payments. Overall, health care financing in Zambia in 2006 was fairly progressive, i.e. the better off spent a larger fraction of their consumption on health care than the poor. The financing sources that contribute to the overall progressivity of health care finance are general taxation, which finances 42% of domestic spending on health, and contributions made by private employers, which finance 9% of spending. An additional contribution to overall progressivity is made through pre-payment mechanisms, but this remains fairly limited given that they only represent 1% of total health finance. Out-of-pocket health payments, which account for 47% total health financing, appear to be proportional to income, with only slight and not statistically significant evidence of progressivity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health in the post-2015 development agenda: need for a social determinants of health approach","field_subtitle":"UN Platform on Social Determinants of Health: undated","field_url":"http://www.who.int/social_determinants/advocacy/UN_Platform_FINAL.pdf","body":"This informal document aims at informing policymakers how best to consider the social determinants of health in the post-2015 global thematic consultations organised under the United Nations Development Group. It illustrates the concept of the social determinants of health as applied to the thematic groups, gives examples of why health is important to each theme and shows how each theme could contribute to health. In order to reduce health inequities, the UN Platform argues that there is a need to address the wider socioeconomic and structural factors that influence how people become sick, what risk factors they are exposed to, how they access services, and how they use those services. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at global, national and local levels. Integrated policy approaches are necessary in order to address the complexity of health inequities, including through national social protection floors, which address income security and the goal to establish universal access to health care simultaneously.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Hope for financing Africa's Development through private equity","field_subtitle":"UNECA: 9 May 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.uneca.org/media-centre/stories/hope-financing-africas-development-through-private-equity#.UZj-rV9waUk","body":"A high-level roundtable on Building Private Equity and Private Capital Markets in Africa met on 8 May 2013 to explore the promise and obstacles facing private capital investments in Africa. The report of this meeting highlights a discussion on the growth of private equity markets in Africa given rapid urbanisation and a growing middle-class, but questions whether the growth of Africa\u2019s private equity will be based on a model that benefits local people. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Human Resources for Health: Challenges and Solutions","field_subtitle":"Public Health Association of South Africa: 28 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.phasa.org.za/human-resources-for-health-challenges-and-solutions/","body":"According to this article, health worker density/100,000 population is substantially lower in South Africa compared to the vast majority of countries against which South Africa is benchmarked, including the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries.  The existing higher education sector is unable to meet the graduate output required by the health sector while foreign recruitment is constrained by current legislation on the registration and practice of foreign healthcare professionals by the Professional Councils and the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel. Existing and future health workforce production is not commensurate with the healthcare needs of the country. A number of challenges are identified: health challenges have outpaced curriculum reform; fragmented, outdated, static curricula produce ill-equipped health graduates; there are episodic encounters as opposed to a continuum of care; healthcare is hospi-centric as opposed to primary healthcare based; there is narrow technical focus without contextual understanding; there exists a mismatch of competencies and patient/population needs; and there is poor teamwork. Solutions to barriers related to the quantitative aspect of health workforce production in South Africa are presented in the article.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Inclusion of vulnerable groups in health policies: Regional policies on health priorities in Africa","field_subtitle":"Schneider M, Eide AH, Amin M, MacLachlan M and Mannan H: African Journal of Disability 2(1), 22 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajod.org/index.php/ajod/article/viewFile/40/59","body":"Delivering health services to vulnerable populations is a significant challenge in many countries. Groups vulnerable to social, economic, and environmental challenges may not be considered or may be impacted adversely by the health policies that guide such services. In this study, the authors report on the application of EquiFrame, a policy analysis framework, to ten Namibian health policies, representing the top ten health conditions in Namibia identified by the World Health Organisation. Health policies were assessed with respect to their commitment to 21 Core Concepts of human rights and their inclusion of 12 Vulnerable Groups. Substantial variation was identified in the extent to which Core Concepts of human rights and Vulnerable Groups are explicitly mentioned and addressed in these health policies. Four health policies received an Overall Summary Ranking of High quality; three policies were scored as having Moderate quality; while three were assessed to be of Low quality. Health service provision that is equitable, universal, and accessible is instigated by policy content of the same. EquiFrame may provide a tool for health policy appraisal, revision, and development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Indian Supreme Court Decision on Novartis Case a Victory for Access to Medicines in Developing Countries","field_subtitle":"Menghaney l: M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, 1 April 2013","field_url":"http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=6707","body":"The landmark decision by the Indian Supreme Court in Delhi to uphold India's Patents Act in the face of a seven-year challenge by Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis is a major victory for patients' access to affordable medicines in developing countries, according to M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF). The court ruling was made on 1 April 2013 in the face of a seven-year legal battle with the pharmaceutical manufacturer. Novartis first took the Indian government to court in 2006 over its 2005 Patents Act because it wanted a more extensive granting of patent protection for its products than what was offered by Indian law. In a first case before the High Court in Chennai, Novartis claimed that the act did not meet rules set down by the World Trade Organisation and was in violation of the Indian constitution. Novartis lost this case in 2007, but launched a subsequent appeal before the Supreme Court in a bid to weaken the interpretation of the law and empty it of substance. Instead of seeking to abuse the patent system by bending the rules and claiming ever-longer patent protection on older medicines, MSF calls on the pharmaceutical industry to focus on real innovation, and governments should develop a framework that allows for medicines to be developed in a way that also allows for affordable access.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequality matters: BRICS inequalities fact sheet","field_subtitle":"Ivins C: Oxfam, 28 March ","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/brics-inequality-fact-sheet-oxfam-03-14-2013_0.pdf","body":"This fact sheet outlines trends in key dimensions of socio-economic inequality in the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), looking especially at education, gender, health, social expenditure and environmental sustainability. The BRICS countries have growing influence in the global economy, but face challenges in reducing inequality. For instance, growth in the informal jobs sector is associated with deepening inequality, and working women are particularly affected. In South Africa, India and China, rural dwellers are increasingly poorer than their urban counterparts; 50.3% of China\u2019s rural population is excluded from public benefits such as health insurance and higher levels of education. In all the BRICS, girls are disadvantaged in levels of access to education, especially in rural areas. Gaps in women\u2019s and men\u2019s economic participation are high, although the number of women in political leadership in Brazil and South Africa has increased. Regressive taxation systems, dependent on consumption rather than income, and subscription-based social security schemes, mean that the poorest are disproportionately taxed and lack security nets such as health insurance. And with climate change disproportionately impacting poor and vulnerable populations, strategies for \u2018green growth\u2019 must also address inequalities in people\u2019s exposure to environmental risks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Inside Views: The Novartis Decision: A Tale Of Developing Countries, IP, And The Role Of The Judiciary","field_subtitle":"Latif AA: Intellectual Property Watch, 15 April 2013 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cysdep2","body":"Much has been said in the media about the health innovation and access to medicines impact of the recent decision of the Indian Supreme Court (SC) in the Novartis case. But there are broader implications, argues the author of this article. The ruling is also a revealing tale about the changing role of developing countries in the global intellectual property landscape and the growing influence of the judiciary in these countries in the implementation of international intellectual property rules. The worldwide attention received by the Indian SC ruling and its global implications could represent a turning point, as the Novartis judgment marks the first time that a decision by a judicial authority from a developing country in the area of intellectual property has been so closely scrutinised and so extensively commented upon internationally. The Novartis decision might be spearheading a world where judicial decisions from countries such as China, India and Brazil have an increasing global reach and contribute to shaping global approaches to intellectual property. It is also more generally reflective of the growing assertiveness of developing countries, particularly emerging economies, in the current global intellectual property landscape. However, the author cautions that only the future will tell us is if such a choice is \u2018exceptional\u2019 as it touches the highly sensitive issue of drugs affordability \u2013 which is of great political and social concern in India \u2013 or if it is signalling a broader trend.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"LDC Request For Waiver Of IP Obligations Meets Conditions From Developed Countries","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 9 May 2013 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cf25cnq","body":"The request by least developed countries (LDCs) to push back the date on which they would have to enforce intellectual property rules under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is the subject of ongoing informal consultations between delegations, as the deadline is fast approaching. Particularly at stake is the time period of the extension, which developed countries would prefer to be limited. Although a large consensus has emerged to grant an extension to LDCs for complying with TRIPS, developed countries voiced their preference for a time-limited extension at the WTO\u2019s March 2013 meeting. Another problem for developing countries is the so-called \u201cno roll-back clause,\u201d which seeks to ensure that if LDCs have granted intellectual property protection to some products, they cannot go back on this decision. LDCs consider this clause as a hindrance to their ability to use policy space. A delegate from an LDC country said that it is important that the extension be awarded as long as a country remains an LDC because many LDCs do not have a technological base. Without that technological base, LDCs would not be able to benefit from intellectual property protection, which might actually hinder their development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Long distance travelling and financial burdens discourage tuberculosis DOTs treatment initiation and compliance in Ethiopia: a qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Tadesse T, Demissie M, Berhane Y, Kebede Y and Abebe M: BMC Public Health 13(424), 1 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-424.pdf","body":"Timely tuberculosis treatment initiation and compliance are the two key factors for a successful tuberculosis control programme. However, studies to understand patents\u2019 perspective on tuberculosis treatment initiation and compliance have been limited in Ethiopia. In this qualitative, phenomenological study, researchers conducted 26 in-depth interviews with tuberculosis patients. Results indicated that a lack of geographic access to health facilities, financial burdens, use of traditional healing systems and delay in diagnosis by health care providers were the main reasons for not initiating tuberculosis treatment timely. Lack of geographic access to health facilities, financial burdens, quality of health services provided and social support were also identified as the main reasons for failing to fully comply with tuberculosis treatments. The authors argue that decentralisation of tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment services to peripheral health facilities, including health posts, is of vital importance to make progress toward achieving tuberculosis control targets in Ethiopia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Madness or sadness? Local concepts of mental illness in four conflict-affected African communities","field_subtitle":"Ventevogel P, Jordans M, Reis R and de Jong J: Conflict and Health 7(3), 18 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.conflictandhealth.com/content/7/1/3","body":"Concepts of \u2018what constitutes mental illness\u2019, the presumed aetiology and preferred treatment options, vary considerably from one cultural context to another. In this study, participants from four locations in Burundi, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, were invited to describe \u2018problems they knew of that related to thinking, feeling and behaviour?\u2019 Data were collected over 31 focus groups discussions (251 participants) and key informant interviews with traditional healers and health workers. While remarkable similarities occurred across all settings, there were also striking differences. In all areas, participants were able to describe localised syndromes characterised by severe behavioural and cognitive disturbances with considerable resemblance to psychotic disorders. Additionally, respondents throughout all settings described local syndromes that included sadness and social withdrawal as core features. However, attributed causes varied from supernatural to psychosocial and natural. The authors conclude that local conceptualisations have significant implications for the planning of mental-health interventions in resource-poor settings recovering from conflict.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mapping of available health research and development data:  what's there, what's missing, and what role is there for a global observatory?","field_subtitle":"R\u00f8ttingen J, Regmi S, Eide M, Young AJ, Viergever RF et al: The Lancet, Early Online Publication, 20 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)61046-6/abstract","body":"In this study, the authors aim to provide a comprehensive description of available data sources, propose a set of indicators for monitoring the global landscape of health research and development (R&D), and present a sample of country indicators on research inputs (investments), processes (clinical trials), and outputs (publications), based on data from international databases. Total global investments in health R&D (both public and private sector) in 2009 reached US$240 billion. Only about 1% of all health R&D investments were allocated to neglected diseases in 2010. Diseases of relevance to high-income countries were investigated in clinical trials seven-to-eight-times more often than were diseases whose burden lies mainly in low-income and middle-income countries. This report confirms that substantial gaps in the global landscape of health R&D remain, especially for and in low-income and middle-income countries. Too few investments are targeted towards the health needs of these countries. Better data are needed to improve priority setting and coordination for health R&D, the authors argue, ultimately to ensure that resources are allocated to diseases and regions where they are needed the most. The establishment of a global observatory on health R&D, which is being discussed at WHO, could address the absence of a comprehensive and sustainable mechanism for regular global monitoring of health R&D.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Mortality and causes of death in South Africa, 2010: Findings from death notification","field_subtitle":"Statistics South Africa: 2013","field_url":"http://www.statssa.gov.za/Publications/P03093/P030932010.pdf","body":"This statistical release presents information on mortality and causes of death in South Africa for deaths that occurred in 2010. It also provides information on death occurrences from 1997 to 2009 to show trends in mortality and causes of death. It is based on data collected through the South African civil registration system that is maintained by the Department of Home Affairs. The information on causes of death provided is as recorded on death notification forms completed by medical practitioners and other certifying officials. The results generally showed that mortality continues to decline in the count ry. A total of 543,856 deaths occurred in 2010, which was a 6,2% decline from 579,711 deaths that occurred in 2009. Decreases in the overall number of deaths from the civil registration system have been observed since 2007. The National Population Register, which is maintained by the Department of Home Affairs, also showed annual declines in the number of deaths since 2007. Furthermore, median ages at deaths showed that mortality occurs later in life, which is also an indication of declining mortality. In 2010, the median age at death was estimated at around 48 years, which has increased by about five years since 2004. Tuberculosis maintained its rank as the number one leading cause of death in South Africa (12% of all mortalities).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"NIMART rollout to primary healthcare facilities increases access to antiretrovirals in Johannesburg: An interrupted time series analysis","field_subtitle":"Nyasulu JCY, Muchiri E, Mazwi S and Ratshefola M: South African Medical Journal 103(4): 232-237, April 2013","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/6380/4964","body":"This study reports on a ten-step Nurse Initiation Management of Antiretroviral Treatment (NIMART) rollout intervention in which 45 nurses from 17 primary healthcare centres (PHCs) in Johannesburg, South Africa, were trained and mentored in NIMART to commence patients on antiretroviral treatment (ART). A total of 20 535 patients initiated ART during the 30-month study period. Monthly initiations at both PHCs and referral clinics were monitored. By the end of September 2011, all 17 PHCs were initiating patients on ART. Total initiations significantly increased by 99 patients immediately after NIMART rollout and continued to increase by an average of 9 every month, while referral facility initiations decreased by 12 immediately after NIMART and then decreased by an average of 18 every month. In conclusion, decentralisation of ART initiation by professional nurses was shown to increase ART uptake and reduce workload at referral facilities, enabling them to concentrate on complicated cases. However, the authors argue that it is important to ensure capacity building, training and mentoring of nurses to integrate HIV services in order to reduce workload and provide a comprehensive package of care to patients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Ninth Public Health Association Of South Africa (PHASA) Conference And The Inaugural Conference Of The African Federation Of Public Health Associations (AFPHA): Cape Town, South Africa: 24 -27 September 2013","field_subtitle":"Early Registration Ends 30 July; Late Registration Ends 13 September 2013","field_url":"http://www.phasaconference.org.za/","body":"These two events will be held jointly in South Africa. The target audience is policy makers, public health academics and students, health professionals, health service managers and individuals from non-governmental and community-based health organisations. The joint conference will have as its focus, a scientific debate and discussion on strategies and action needed to move beyond the MDGs and on the public health legacy that we should leave, or want to, leave behind for the future generation. Speakers will include policy-makers, leading local and international academics and representatives of international organisations, such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Federation of Public Health Associations. Parallel workshops will precede the main conference, with wide-ranging topics to suit diverse interests.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Ninth Public Health Association Of South Africa (Phasa) Conference And The Inaugural Conference Of The African Federation Of Public Health Associations (AFPHA): Cape Town, South Africa: 24 -27 September 2013","field_subtitle":"Early Registration Ends 30 July; Late Registration Ends 13 September 2013","field_url":"http://www.phasaconference.org.za/","body":"These two events will be held jointly in South Africa. The target audience is policy makers, public health academics and students, health professionals, health service managers and individuals from non-governmental and community-based health organisations. The joint conference will have as its focus, a scientific debate and discussion on strategies and action needed to move beyond the MDGs and on the public health legacy that we should leave, or want to, leave behind for the future generation. Speakers will include policy-makers, leading local and international academics and representatives of international organisations, such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Federation of Public Health Associations. Parallel workshops will precede the main conference, with wide-ranging topics to suit diverse interests.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"No universal health coverage without health workers: putting the global code on health workers back into the spotlight","field_subtitle":"Yoswa M Dambisya, University of Limpopo","field_url":"","body":"\r\nAt the just ended World Health Assembly (WHA 66) member states reviewed progress in implementing the WHO Global Code of Practice on International Recruitment of Health Personnel. This was the first review report since the adoption of the Code three years ago. The Secretariat report tabled at the WHA showed that few African countries had designated authorities for monitoring and reporting on the Code, and that only one African country had submitted a report on implementation. This low response has been commented on in April 2013 EQUINET newsletter (http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter/index.php?issue=146)\r\n\r\nWhen the report on the health workforce, which included progress on the Code, was discussed at the WHA, the discussion was somewhat muted. Only fourteen member states commented on the report, and only eleven made reference to the Code.   African countries speak as a group on issues through a nominated delegate. Burkina Faso spoke for the 46 WHO-AFRO member states, and Ethiopia spoke in support of Burkina Faso. Those that attended the WHA in 2010 when the Code was adopted observed the contrast to the exciting atmosphere of intense debates and the large number of voices that were heard at that stage. \r\n\r\nSo what has happened over the last few years? At a side event at the WHA, participants took stock of the progress, or lack thereof, in the implementation of the Code. The side event was organised by Medicus Mundi Internationales together with the Governments of Malawi and Belgium, EQUINET and AMREF. Participants raised various challenges that member states faced in getting the implementation of the code off the ground, including their lack of preparedness, the poor mobilisation of national level stakeholders and limited engagement of civil society since the Code was adopted. Ministries of Health were also reported to be overwhelmed with other issues. WHO and some countries reassured that despite low reporting, work was underway. The fact that many countries had reported was seen as a positive sign, given the voluntary nature of the code, as was the commitment of Northern countries, (USA, EU) and WHO Secretariat  to support its implementation. \r\n\r\nThe muted African member state reaction to the report at the WHA by the Secretariat may, as raised above, be explained by the diplomacy process of the Africa Group, where African ministers reach agreed positions, as they did on this issue, giving little added value in countries making further individual statements. While shared position and voice is an important feature and strength of African diplomacy, it is also common practice for countries to state/restate their position as they \u201calign themselves with the statement made by the delegate for...... region\u201d. This allows countries to give force behind specific areas and for country experiences to add weight to positions raised.  African countries may also have been reluctant to raise their voice in the WHA process given lack of input to the Secretariat report, as raised earlier.\r\n\r\nWhatever the reason, and this needs to be further explored, the low profile adopted by African member states on this occasion may have sent a message that the Code is not perceived to be a key policy instrument for the region to address its continuing challenges over the production, retention and migration of health workers. If so, then given the energy that went into its adoption, where are the shortfalls? \r\n\r\nThere are lessons from other processes at the WHA. Voluntary codes may fall out of attention as other issues demand more urgent government attention. If this is the case then the implementation of the only other WHO Code - on breast milk substitutes \u2013 provides a lesson on the role of civil society to galvanise countries into action, particularly with technical support of WHO. Civil society has kept the code on breast milk substitutes alive and current and generated pressure within countries to ensure that it is implemented. Is this possible for the Code of Practice on International Recruitment of Health Personnel? In theory it is achievable. The loss of health workers in countries of highest health need is still a concern, and communities and health workers have an interest in the issue, as it affects their rights and services.  \r\n\r\nCivil society organisation on health worker issues has partly been through the Global Health Worker Alliance (GHWA). The fact that the GHWA currently has no executive director weakens its support for civil society input, and creates uncertainty about its future. The third global forum on health workers organised by WHO and the GHWA will be held in Recife, Brazil in November 2013. It should provide an opportunity to review and give profile to the role of the Code in addressing health worker issues, and give new momentum to the role of civil society in its implementation. This however does need civil society, health worker organisations and academics within countries to ask questions on the implementation of the Code, to ask delegations for feedback from the discussions held  at the WHA, and to know, share information on and support implementation of the Code. \r\n\r\nIt is also a matter of concern that reforms at the WHO Secretariat have diminished the capacity of the unit dealing with health worker issues. Fewer people are now contending with an increasing workload, weakening the capacity of that unit to play a leading role in support of member states and the wider community. \r\n\r\nA number of civil society organisations, including MMI/Peoples Health Movement, and the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA) spoke as observers at the WHA deliberations on the Code. Most of the presentations raised the weakening of these institutional capacities for supporting its implementation and called for a stronger Health Systems Policies and Workforce unit at WHO Secretariat and a stronger GHWA.  \r\n\r\nIn a world of rapidly shifting policy attention, it seems to be important to organise and secure the resources, institutional roles and capacities for implementation when negotiating new instruments, particularly if they are voluntary as the Code is. The next few years will be a test of whether the slow implementation is a feature of countries preparing for a marathon rather than a sprint, or whether it is a feature of diminishing interest in the race. Issues are also sustained when they have a place in the current focus of policy attention. The focus of this year\u2019s WHA and of much current global engagement in heath was on universal health coverage (UHC). It was thus important that health workers were identified as a central element of that policy. \r\n\r\nThis then may be the important message that we need to send. Delivering on UHC is not possible without health workers, and one sign of that delivery at global level is the extent to which countries are operationalizing the Code and implementing its intentions. The international agreements negotiated by member states at the WHO are instruments for achieving UHC, whether voluntary or not, as are the global and national capacities in governmental and non-state institutions for leading and being accountable on their implementation. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit www.equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Nutritional status and food intake data on children and adolescents in residential care facilities in Durban","field_subtitle":"Grobbelaar HH, Napier CE and Oldewage-Theron W: South African Journal of Clinical Nutrition 26(1): 29-36, April 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajcn/article/view/88382/77994","body":"The aim of this study was to examine growth indicators and dietary intake patterns of orphans and vulnerable children aged 4-18 years residing in state-run residential care facilities in Durban, South Africa. Thirty-three girls and 110 boys, aged 5-18 years, in three different children\u2019s homes participated in the study. The results showed that stunting and overweight were prevalent in this group: 4.7% of the boys aged 4-8 years and 3.3% of the boys aged 14-18 years were severely stunted, while 13.3% of the girls aged 9-13 years and 20% of the girls aged 14-18 years were stunted. A small number were wasted. At the same time, 33.3% of the girls aged 4-8 years and 33.4% of the girls aged 9-13 years were at risk of being overweight, while 26.7% of the girls aged 14-18 years were overweight. One hundred per cent or more of the dietary reference intakes for energy, protein, carbohydrate and most of the micronutrients were met, except for calcium and iodine. A low intake of vitamin C among older boys and girls was reported. None of the groups met the recommended fibre intake. The authors call for the development and implementation of a comprehensive nutrition education programme for both child care workers and children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ownership and use of mobile phones among health workers, caregivers of sick children and adult patients in Kenya: cross-sectional national survey","field_subtitle":"Zurovac D, Otieno G, Kigen S, Mbithi AM, Muturi A, Snow RW and Nyandigisi A: Globalization and Health 9(20), 14 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-9-20.pdf","body":"To inform policy makers about the feasibility of facility-based SMS interventions, this national, cross-sectional, cluster sample survey was undertaken in 2012 at 172 public health facilities in Kenya. Outpatient health workers and caregivers of sick children and adult patients were interviewed about personal ownership of mobile phones and use of SMS. The analysis included 219 health workers and 1,177 patients\u2019 respondents (767 caregivers and 410 adult patients). All health workers possessed personal mobile phones and 98.6% used SMS. Among patients\u2019 respondents, 61.2% owned phones and 71.4% of phone owners used SMS. The phone ownership and SMS use was similar between caregivers of sick children and adult patients. Wealthier respondents who were male, more educated, literate and living in urban area were significantly more likely to own a phone and use SMS. Mobile phone ownership and SMS use is ubiquitous among Kenyan health workers in the public sector, the researchers conclude. Some of the disparities on SMS use can be addressed through the modalities of m-Health interventions and enhanced implementation processes while further growth in mobile phone penetration is needed to reduce the ownership gap.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"PHM statements read during the WHA66","field_subtitle":"Peoples Health Movement","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/node/7592","body":"PHM WHO watchers developed statements on many of the 2013 World Health Assembly WHA66 agenda items. This website provides statements read out by PHM during the WHA66 and links to daily reports prepared by the PHM WHO watchers. The statements are on WHO Reform; WHO General Program of Work; Social Determinants of Health; MDG's and Post 2015 Agenda; Universal Health Coverage and the Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy Brief 32: Financing universal coverage in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Health Economics Unit In EQUINET With ECSA Health Community: April 2013","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Pol%20brief%2032%20UHC.pdf","body":"Financing universal health coverage (UHC) is not only about how to generate funds for health services. It is also about how these funds are pooled and used to purchase services. This policy brief explores options for financing UHC in East and Southern Africa (ESA). It presents learning from countries that have made progress towards UHC, including the need to increase domestic funding and to use mandatory pre-payment (tax and other government revenue, possibly supplemented by mandatory health insurance contributions) as the main mechanism for funding health services. The brief indicates the problems associated with introducing or expanding health insurance to fund UHC. With tax funding often the most equitable and efficient option, there is scope for increasing government revenue and health expenditure in many ESA countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy Brief 33: Equity in health in the post 2015 development goals","field_subtitle":"Training and Research Support Centre with EQUINET and ECSA HC: May 2013","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Pol%20brief%2033%20post%202015.pdf","body":"This policy brief reviews how far the promises of fair globalisation, rights to sustainable development, equity and global solidarity in the 2000 UN Millennium Declaration were delivered for East and Southern Africa. It raises key issues for the post 2015 agenda: There is an unfinished agenda in the MDGS, with wide inequalities in some areas, and monitoring of progress must be socially disaggregated. An agenda for universal health coverage should explicitly address equity in access and investment in strong primary health care services. Thirdly, economic growth is not enough, and public policies should also close wide gaps in access to resources for health, Finally, beyond development aid, global solidarity needs to more explicitly accelerate measures for wider benefit from markets, innovation and wealth in globalisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy brief 34: Overcoming barriers to medicines production through south-south cooperation in Africa","field_subtitle":"SEATINI, CEHURD and TARSC: May 2013","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20Polbrief%2034%20SS%20medicines.pdf","body":"Access to essential medicines is one of the key requirements for achieving equitable health systems and better population health. The number of people with regular access to essential medicines increased from 2.1 billion to about 4 billion between 1997 and 2002. However, access to medicines in sub-Saharan Africa remains low. One reason for this is the low level of domestic production on the continent. This brief outlines the factors that affect medicines production in East and Southern Africa, drawing on the African Union, Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and East African Community (EAC) pharmaceutical plans. It identifies the barriers to local production as: lack of supportive policies, capital and skills constraints, gaps in regulatory framework, small market size and weak research and development capacities. There are potential opportunities available through south-south cooperation in medicines production. Negotiations on such south-south arrangements would need to look not only at the immediate production investment, but at strengthening capacities for research and development, for regulation, medicines price and quality monitoring, prequalification, infrastructure and human resource development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Postdoctoral research fellowships in health policy and systems research","field_subtitle":"No Closing Date","field_url":"http://www.hpsa-africa.org/index.php/rsm-fellowships-program-for-phd-candidates","body":"A total of four postdoctoral fellowships are available in the area of Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) for the Collaboration for Health Systems and Policy Analysis and Innovation (CHESAI) project, which is based at the School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town (UCT) and the School of Public Health, University of Western Cape (UWC), both in Cape Town, South Africa. The fellowships are for the period 2012-2016. Applicants must have citizenship of a sub-Saharan African country, be an expatriate African, or demonstrate commitment to future work in African health systems. They must have achieved a PhD in the last five years in any suitable field, such as health sciences or social sciences and not have previously held any permanent academic positions. Their work must show clear evidence of robust scholarly performance including a relevant publications record and have some relevant experience, specifically a track record of interest in health policy and systems issues, preferably including research. Applicants will be asked to propose an area of work relevant to one or more of the CHESAI themes, and to show how their past research provides a basis for this proposed work and/or what additional activities are proposed to contribute to the CHESAI community of practice. Please contact Jill Oliver and Thubelihle Mathole at the email address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Putting progress at risk? MDG spending in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Martin M: Oxfam, 16 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/putting-progress-at-risk-mdgs-160513-en.pdf","body":"This report is the first ever to track what developing countries are spending on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It finds that recent spending increases explain the rapid progress on the MDGs, but the vast majority of countries are spending much less than they have promised, or than is needed to achieve the MDGs or their potential successor post-2015 goals. Aid cuts, low implementation rates and low recurrent spending all threaten to reverse existing progress. The report suggests that developing countries need to make data on MDG spending more accessible to their citizens; to strengthen policies for revenue mobilisation (notably combating tax avoidance and tax havens), debt and aid management; and to spend more on agriculture, water, sanitation and hygiene, and social protection. External funders need to report and repatriate illicit outflows; end laws and investment treaties which reduce poor countries\u2019 revenues; increase innovative financing such as financial transaction and carbon taxes; put more aid through developing country budgets; maximise budget and sector support to make spending more accountable; and report planned disbursements to developing countries. Finally, the International Monetary Fund needs to sharply increase space for sustainable spending in its programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Reasons for poor adherence to antiretroviral therapy postnatally in HIV-1 infected women treated for their own health: experiences from the Mitra Plus study in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Ngarina M, Popenoe R, Kilewo C, Biberfeld G and Ekstrom AM: BMC Public Health 13(450), 7 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-450.pdf","body":"In a study of prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) by triple antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (the Mitra Plus study), retrospective viral load testing revealed a high and increasing frequency of detectable viral load during follow-up for two years postnatally in women given continuous ART for their own health suggesting poor adherence. This study explored women\u2019s own perceived barriers to adherence to ART post-delivery so as to identify ways to facilitate better drug adherence. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 of the 48 women who had detectable viral load at 24 months postnatally. Most women in the study did not acknowledge poor adherence until confronted with the viral load figures. Then they revealed multiple reasons for failing to adhere to ART, which included lack of motivation to continue ART after weaning the child, poverty and stigma. PMTCT and ART projects need to address these issues, as well as women\u2019s lack of empowerment. The authors argue that the new World Health Organisation\u2019s proposal to start all HIV-infected pregnant women on lifelong ART regardless of CD4 cell count needs to address the challenging realities of women in resource-poor contexts if it is to be successful.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Report of the regional review meeting of the health literacy programme, Harare, Zimbabwe, 12\u201313 April 2013","field_subtitle":"TARSC, HEPS Uganda and LDHMT Zambia, in EQUINET: April 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.tarsc.org/publications/documents/HL%20Reg%20Mtg%20RepApril%202013.pdf","body":"This report documents discussions at a regional review meeting held in April 2013, eight months after the start of the 2012 Health Literacy (HL) Programme in Uganda and Zambia. The meeting reported on and reviewed the programme to date and identified progress markers for the outcomes, and identify issues to address, as well as develop future actions for HL in the year ahead. Participatory sessions covered a range of themes, such as to review a protocol for the participatory work for health literacy on sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and to review and plan the next phase of work. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Revitalised content on social determinants of health in the WHO website","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/social_determinants/en/","body":"Since the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health in Rio de Janeiro last 2011, there has been a surge of interest and commitment among different stakeholders, especially WHO Member States, to addressing the social determinants of health to achieve health equity. In order to support this growing global movement, the Secretariat now launches a newly-revitalised website that captures the considerable body of work done since the launch of the report of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health in 2008. The website\u2019s contents are more accessible and better organised, and include useful information in three areas. 1. Evidence established by WHO and its partners on the various themes covered by the Commission\u2019s work. 2. Action in terms of WHO programmes and activities that implement the five action areas of the Rio Political Declaration on Social Determinants of Health. 3. Global commitments, including key documents, resolutions, and declarations that express the political commitment of WHO, its Member States, and the global community to the social determinants of health approach.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SA's medical student intake to be upped","field_subtitle":"Mkhwanazi S: The New Age, 17 April 2013","field_url":"http://www.thenewage.co.za/92387-1007-53-Medical_student_intake_to_be_upped","body":"The South African government plans to increase the number of new medical students by 10% over the three to four years, raising the total from 1,800 to 2,395 by 2016. According to the Department of Health\u2019s chief operating officer, the department\u2019s plan to ensure more medical students at South African universities is part of its health systems strengthening strategy and aims to address the critical shortage of public health workers in the country, particularly in rural areas. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Second African Local Summit ","field_subtitle":"Dallas, United States: August 6-8, 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.africanlocalsummit.org/main.html","body":"The Second African Local Summit 2013, which is being organised by a Ghanaian based non-governmental organisation, will take a look at the Africa\u2019s Sustainable Development Goals by 2015. The theme is: \u201cSustainable Development Goals and Africa beyond 2015: The Role of African Diaspora\u201d. The summit aims to develop policies and programmes necessary for understanding the complexities and practical implications of the Africa Diaspora in socio-economic development and to foster appropriate relations between international development actors. The proposed outcome is to develop policies and programmes necessary of understanding the complexities and practical implications of the Africa Diaspora in socio-economic development of Africa and also foster appropriate relations between International Development Actors and the Africa Diaspora in the Post 2015 process. Moreover, the summit shall seek to advocate, promote and strengthen the Africa Diasporas role in development by creating a window of opportunity for engagement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Seventh SAHARA Conference 2013","field_subtitle":"7-10 October 2013: Dakar, Senegal","field_url":"http://sahara.org.za/conferences/2013","body":"The Social Aspects of HIV and AIDS Research Alliance (SAHARA), established in 2001 by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), is an alliance of partners established to conduct, support and use social sciences research to prevent the further spread of HIV and mitigate the impact of its devastation in sub-Saharan Africa. The SAHARA 7 conference theme is \"Translating evidence into action: Engaging with communities, policies, human rights, gender, service delivery\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Sixth South African AIDS Conference","field_subtitle":"18-21 June 2013: Durban, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.saaids.co.za/","body":"The Sixth South African AIDS Conference will be held in Durban from 18-21 June 2013. The conference theme is \"Building on our successes: Integrating responses\". As South Africa enters the fourth decade of HIV and AIDS, the conference aims to look back at lessons learnt and reflect, celebrate the gains made, and find ways to build on past successes by integrating HIV with other health responses. The conference will bring together various members of the HIV research community, including clinicians, academics, civil society and government.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa seeks to close drug patent loophole","field_subtitle":"Roelf W: Reuters, 22 April 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/22/us-safrica-medicines-idUSBRE93L0M420130422","body":"South Africa plans to overhaul its intellectual property laws to improve access to cheaper medicines by making it harder for pharmaceutical firms to register and roll-over patents for drugs, according to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). Central to the reforms is closing a loophole known as \"ever-greening\", whereby drug companies slightly modify an existing drug whose patent is about to expire and then claim it is a new drug, thereby extending its patent protection and their profits. If approved by parliament, the changes should mean cheaper medication for cancer and HIV and AIDS in South Africa. DTI said its policy position was to ensure a strong system that will not grant easy patents, arguing that granting easy patents would open the door for extensions on the original patent. South Africa's position was supported this month by a ruling from India's top court that dismissed an application by Swiss drugmaker Novartis to win patent protection for its Glivec cancer drug. Lobby groups such as Doctors Without Borders (MSF) want South Africa to follow India's example and add a specific clause preventing companies from gaining patents on existing drugs, in a move that would help generic drug manufacturers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa to investigate private health market","field_subtitle":"Roelf W: Reuters, 7 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/07/us-safrica-health-idUSBRE9460HZ20130507","body":"South African competition authorities will launch an investigation into the private healthcare industry, where early evidence showed high prices and market distortions, according to Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel. Various stakeholders have raised concerns about pricing, costs and the state of competition and innovation in private healthcare. Patel said competition authorities had ruled previously that the practice of setting up common tariffs for medical procedures was uncompetitive. Instead he pointed to a growing trend of increasing healthcare costs and a massive asymmetry of power health markets. Patel said preliminary evidence showed that some that in some cases competition was \"prevented, distorted or restricted.\" Private health providers in Africa's largest economy include Life Healthcare, Mediclinic International and Netcare Ltd, all of whom have benefitted from the growth of the middle classes. The Competition Commission, which can impose administrative fines, is expected to launch the \"market inquiry\" before September 2013.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa To Launch National Traditional Knowledge Recording System","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 10 May 2013 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/clx7l9p","body":"The South African government plans to launch a National Recordal System (NRS) to catalogue its indigenous knowledge. According to the South African Department of Science and Technology (CSIR) benefits could include community recognition, sustainable livelihood, economic value and improved quality of life. Most of the traditional knowledge in South Africa is oral, passed down from one generation to the next, and with older generations passing away, the need to record that knowledge is urgent. Much of this knowledge is medical and is based on traditional remedies and treatments for illnesses. The NRS includes the establishment of indigenous knowledge networks, provincial Indigenous Knowledge Systems Documentation Centers (IKSDCs) and an Information Communication Technology (ICT) knowledge platform. The NRS aims to enable and maintain a secure, accessible national repository for the management, dissemination and promotion of indigenous traditional knowledge, and achieve national intellectual property objectives for the protection of indigenous traditional knowledge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzanian MPs Call for Universal Health Insurance","field_subtitle":"Tanzania Daily News: 10 May 2013","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/201305101024.html","body":"Members of Parliament have called for health insurance coverage for all Tanzanians, noting that the government should find ways of making the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) accessible to every Tanzanian, regardless of whether they are in the formal sector or not. Debating budget estimates for the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, the legislators decried weaknesses in the current distribution system of drugs and medical equipment and the scarcity of health workers, and claimed that enrolling all people in the NHIF would support wider access to quality health services, particularly for mothers and children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The African Union endorses new community health worker campaign and 2013 roll-out","field_subtitle":"Onemillionhealthworkers.org: 28 January 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/pol8js3","body":"The African Union has announced its strong support for the new One Million Community Health Workers Campaign that was launched by Rwanda\u2019s President Paul Kagame, Professor Jeffrey Sachs and Novartis CEO Joseph Jimenez at the World Economic Forum early in January 2013. The new campaign will work closely with governments and aid agencies to finance and train the health workers, each of whom would serve an average of around 500 rural inhabitants.  The incremental costs for full coverage might sum to around US$2.5 billion per year, or $5 per person per year covered by the expanded CHW programme.  The campaign will work to mobilise these additional funds from existing and new external funders, as well as from the host countries consistent with their budgetary means. The campaign aims to boost the ongoing community health worker programmes and policies of many leading institutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Fund Should Take Transparency to Another Level","field_subtitle":"Robert Bourgoing ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nWhen I joined the Global Fund in 2003, my main responsibility, as the Manager of Online Communications, was to help the organisation deliver on its commitment to transparency. One of the conditions set forth by donors was the ability to trace every granted dollar to make aid recipients accountable for how it would be spent. This meant, among other things, developing and maintaining a website that quickly became a central repository of all Global Fund data and information. We were praised for the unprecedented level of openness that this made possible. But over time, I realised that something was (and still is) missing.\r\n\r\nIf you Google \u201cGlobal Fund\u201d + AIDSfor news stories, the overwhelming majority of results are articles that are reactive (i.e. based on official announcements, press releases and conferences) or that make reference to the Fund only indirectly or anecdotally.\r\n\r\nApart from experts in donor governments and a handful of technical partners, Aidspan and the likes, very few local organisations or people take advantage of Global Fund transparency to trigger open and well-informed discussions on aid effectiveness. How can this be when all the data and documents are \u201cjust a mouse click away\u201d? Close to $20 billion were disbursed in a few years. Where did it all go? Who got it? To do what? With what success?\r\n\r\nThe Fund\u2019s website should be an extraordinary tool to get the facts right on those questions. It should be a gold mine of stories for local journalists, civil society organisations (CSOs), activists and parliamentarians in recipient countries. But, for the most part, they aren\u2019t panning for this gold. What is transparency all about if it doesn\u2019t translate into increased accountability at country level, and if people and communities for whom the Global Fund was created don\u2019t use it to keep pressure on grantees, to voice their concerns and claim their rights?\r\n\r\nThe reality is that using Global Fund data to make recipients accountable is out of reach to most concerned people because they lack access to the Internet, because they don\u2019t have enough time or the technical skills \u2013 and because there are obstacles to freedom of information and speech.\r\nGlobal Fund transparency, as it is practised today, is more of a barrier to journalists and in-country activists than anything else: intimidating piles of reports filled with obscure language, countless files and downloadable materials that reassure technocrats in donor capitals but that don\u2019t say much about the reality of what happens to the funds when they hit the ground. Understanding, processing and making use of this information requires learning about technical jargon, Global Fund internal processes, and the roles and responsibilities of different local partners. One needs to be familiar with web searching techniques and data processing methods, and to have some basic communication skills to translate often indigestible data into a plain, common language that non-technical audiences can understand.\r\n\r\nLast, but not least, trying to make the powerful accountable in countries with no such tradition is a risky game for the few activists and concerned citizens who dare to do so. With the rise of the \u201cOpen Government\u201d and \u201cOpen Data\u201d movements in Africa and elsewhere, people may fear less for their lives than they used to, but threats and intimidation are still very much a daily reality for local watchdogs.\r\n\r\nThis leads to a strange paradox. As I heard recently: \u201cThat is almost the flip side of transparency. It\u2019s very easy to use transparency if actually you want to drown people in information. I know it\u2019s a tactic for lawyers: just give too much information to people, and it will be difficult for them to really figure out what is important.\u201d Certainly, the Global Fund did not create this complexity consciously and voluntarily, but the result is the same: mountains of data and files that have the effect of shielding grantees and the Fund\u2019s bureaucracy from too much scrutiny.\r\n\r\nToday, in the wake of the Global Fund, a growing number of international organizations have committed to making their information on aid spending easier to find, use and compare. More than 120 UN agencies, multilateral banks, bilateral donors and NGOs have already endorsed the IATI (the International Aid Transparency Initiative) and have agreed to convert their data into a common standard. While this is a major step in the right direction, a simple lesson should be drawn from the Global Fund\u2019s experience: Opening up databases is not enough for change to occur in the way local accountability happens. Rather, change requires a real commitment to accompany those for whom this data is made available as they make their first steps in the maze of aid transparency.\r\n\r\nHere is what I think needs to happen.\r\n\r\nBuild capacity to use Global Fund data. Local watchdogs need help to stay afloat in the aid data deluge, to learn how to use the tools of transparency to have impact. While their work may not require the same level of technical sophistication as global watchdogs, they need training. They need to be able to understand who does what and where to find the information. They need to acquire watchdogging skills, using real-life case studies and guidance based on local needs. Watchdogs usually don\u2019t focus on one single aid provider; no organisation would be justified in developing such a programme in isolation. Therefore, the capacity building should be a shared responsibility, and a combined and coordinated effort, by all concerned parties, such as the IATI signatories and some global or regional players in the field of transparency. The Global Fund has the credibility to take the lead on this. It should sit down with IATI partners to explore how a step-by-step, scalable, replicable and carefully targeted capacity-building programme could be implemented. As a critical side effect, such an initiative could provide some recognition to participating local aid monitors, thus breaking their isolation and protecting them in the exercise of their democratic rights.\r\n\r\nDeclare war on gobbledygook. Besides data, transparency is first and foremost about communicating in plain language. How much sense does it make for thousands of people, including the Secretariat\u2019s own staff, to have to turn to a newsletter like the GFO to understand the rules of the game of a multi-billion dollar transparent organisation? The Global Fund should elevate proper communications with implementers (and others) to a top priority. The Fund should stop relying on technical staff to draft documents that are meant for wide distribution. It should reinforce the capacity of its Communication Department by adding writers who can translate complex policies and procedures into plain language.\r\nIf the Global Fund were to support and encourage local watchdogs, this would constitute a valuable early warning system for the Fund \u2013 one that complements the work of the local fund agents and the Office of the Inspector General. Building the capacity of local watchdogs to use transparency could greatly reinforce the Fund\u2019s own risk management and fraud prevention efforts, at little cost. The Global Fund should also tackle its poor communications with implementing countries by addressing the Secretariat\u2019s capacity issues in this field. With the 2015 MDG deadline on the horizon and the development community bracing for what comes next, with pressure on the Fund to improve its oversight mechanisms, and with the need for the Fund to position itself for a possible redefinition of its mandate, these measures could reassure donors about its capacity to be a truly different business model in international development.\r\n\r\nThe Global Fund should renew its commitment to transparency and take bold steps to promote wide use of its transparency in recipient countries. Information is power. It\u2019s time to give power to those for whom the Global Fund was created so that transparency can fully achieve what it is meant for.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.  Robert Bourgoing joined the Global Fund in its early days, in 2003, and was a senior member of its communications team until last year. He is a trained lawyer and an experienced journalist, and currently works as an independent consultant. This commentary was originally published in Global Fund Observer (GFO) Issue No. 215 on 23 April 2013, produced by Aidspan.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The plight of LGBTI asylum seekers and refugees","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 7 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=97989","body":"Refugees and asylum seekers face a host of challenges when crossing borders, but the obstacles are particularly pronounced for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex (LGBTI) persons, according to this article. LGBTI asylum seekers and refugees face a range of threats, risks and vulnerabilities throughout the displacement cycle, said the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). In situations of upheaval or conflict, sexual and gender minorities have become targets for scapegoating or \u201cmoral cleansing\u201d campaigns, compounding the inherent vulnerability created by unrest. Activists say that security in refugee camps is complicated and contingent on numerous, unpredictable factors, which are exacerbated for LGBTI persons. Sexual abuse is common, but often goes unreported because the right questions are not being asked, and because survivors of sexual violence are reluctant to report events that will \u201cout\u201d them to legal authorities. This discrimination impacts negatively on LGBTI\u2019s ability to access basic health services for fear of exposure and discrimination.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The Public Health Observatory Handbook of Health Inequalities Measurement","field_subtitle":"Carr-Hill R and Chalmers-Dixon P: South East Public Health Observatory, 2005","field_url":"http://www.sepho.org.uk/Download/Public/9707/1/Carr-Hill-final.pdf","body":"Tackling health inequalities must be a central plank of public policy for any Government, and this report is intended to help to shape the policy direction, and in&#64258;uence the targeting and delivery of services, in tackling inequalities. The evidence base about \u201cwhat works\u201d is still fairly weak, but there is now a commitment to address this. Resources are going into research and development to advance our knowledge and understanding of what works. This report works in parallel to that research, in terms of measuring inequalities in order to plan, set targets, monitor and evaluate. The authors recommend establishing mechanisms to monitor inequalities in health and to evaluate the effectiveness of measures taken to reduce them. This report is relevant to anyone involved in addressing health inequalities, as it presents the complicated science of the measurement of inequalities in a rigorous but accessible way.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The State of Civil Society 2013 Report","field_subtitle":"CIVICUS: April 2013","field_url":"http://socs.civicus.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/2013StateofCivilSocietyReport_full.pdf","body":"The State of Civil Society 2013 Report presents insights from over 50 civil society experts from around the world. Alongside the report, CIVICUS is publishing a draft methodology for an Enabling Environment Index (EEI) that seeks to measure how well countries around the world are doing on creating positive conditions for civil society. Amidst the challenges facing civil society, the 2013 report highlights good practices around the world and challenges on the horizon for citizens and civil society around the world, such as: rising fundamentalism threatening women's and sexual minorities rights movements; challenges to democracy in Africa, with case studies from Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda; the state of the internet and access to information; threats to writers, journalists and trade unionists; and civil society successes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"This land is my land: The detrimental effects of land grabs across Africa","field_subtitle":"Alter J: Consultancy Africa Intelligence, 2 May 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/alx79hv","body":"Wealthy states are currently purchasing millions of hectares of land in poor states throughout Africa. This is a problem for many reasons, including increasing rural poverty and driving millions of people off land that they have been farming for generations. These land purchases also have environmental effects and are resulting in food shortages and food insecurity across Africa. In this paper, the author discusses this controversial practice and concludes that these land purchases should be considered land grabs. He focuses on the environmental effects that such land grabs have and also discusses the social effects of these land grabs on the communities in which they are taking place. The author concludes that African states must immediately recognise that these deals have environmental repercussions that harm not only the natural resources, but their citizens as well; and should thus put measures in place to curb the incidences and conclusion of these deals. African governments should instead sell such land to African entities, or at the very least, entities that will be required to keep a portion of all grown food in the host state to feed the populace. They must also reform land tenure and land registration laws to ensure that their citizens are not forced off land that they have farmed for generations. Only when African states control their land can they ensure that their citizens do not go hungry.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Toolkit for fundraising for HIV-Related Community-Based Projects Serving Gay, Bisexual, Men who have Sex with Men and Transgender Individuals in Low- and Middle-Income Countries","field_subtitle":"amfAR: 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.amfar.org/uploadedFiles/In_the_Community/Publications/MSM%20Fundraising%20Toolkit%20Manual.pdf","body":"This guide was developed by amfAR\u2019s MSM Initiative to provide fundraising assistance to community-based organisations that provide HIV-related programs and services for gay men, transgender individuals, and other men who sex with men (MSM) in low- and middle-income countries. In this guide, a number of key questions are answered about external funders, grants, programmes and projects The guide offers information about who is funding MSM/LGBT groups, snapshots of what those grant programmes look like, how to approach funders, and what projects those grant makers have supported in the past. This toolkit goes beyond traditional funders, such as private foundations, and offers information and ideas about other organisations that provide funding to, or partner with, MSM/LGBT groups. Finally, the guide offers general tips on fundraising, from networking to proposal writing, and includes templates to help organisations and activists get started.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Top Foreign Embassies that provide Funding for NGOs","field_subtitle":"Fundsforngos: 6 May 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.fundsforngos.org/free-resources-for-ngos/top-foreign-embassies-provide-funding-ngos/","body":"Embassies play a vital role in the co-ordination of bilateral and multilateral development efforts. Certain embassies organise and directly implement a funding country bilateral aid (such as the Dutch Embassies). Other external funder countries, such as Germany, manage grant schemes through their diplomatic offices abroad. Embassies could also provide crucial training schemes to support the managerial and administrative capacity of NGO workers (such as the British Embassy) and serve as platforms to get in contact with other local and international NGOs working in the same field of action. This guide takes in account programmes and strategies of five embassies working in developing countries. It illustrates what strategies have been so far implemented, offers ideas on how to engage local embassies on collaborative projects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Trouble Brewing: Africa and Alcohol Problems","field_subtitle":"Lythgoe L: ThinkAfricaPress, 14 January 2013","field_url":"http://thinkafricapress.com/society/trouble-brewing-africa-and-its-alcohol-problems","body":"With over-consumption of alcohol on the rise, governments are struggling to find suitable legislation to control the marketing of alcohol. The increase in the market for branded alcohol in Africa has been attributed to demographic shifts, including the growth of the middle-class and an increase in self-dependent women. Both law and education are needed to avert the risk of alcohol related disease, injury and death, for both illegally produced local liquor and the big brands of beverage giants. Among the major concerns are the impact of prolific advertising campaigns on young people, particularly in new markets where attitudes. Unethical advertising is also a major concern, with companies suggesting alcohol consumption is a timeless part of African culture, or could lead to a better life and or even sporting achievements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"UCT Rehabilitation Conference 2013","field_subtitle":"2-4 September 2013: Cape Town","field_url":"http://rehabconf2013.uct.ac.za/","body":"The Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, is holding its first Rehabilitation Conference in September 2013. The conference will host speakers from diverse disciplinary fields on a range of themes such as: policy: influencing development and implementation; evidence for action: a research agenda; responsive rehabilitation service delivery; and optimising human resourcing for rehabilitation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Who Are We To Care? Exploring the Relationship between Participation, Knowledge and Power in Health Systems","field_subtitle":"Kaim B: TARSC and COPASAH, April 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.tarsc.org/publications/documents/Issue%20paper%20participation%20Kaim%20April2013.pdf","body":"This paper is aimed at those who work as health facilitators and activists at community level, civil society organisations, government personnel and anyone else interested in the rights of ordinary citizens to participate in decisions and have access to the resources that determine the way their country\u2019s health system functions. The paper is divided into three sections: The first focuses on how the interaction between people\u2019s participation, knowledge and power effects the functioning of health systems. The following section pays particular attention to approaches we can use to build a more just and equitable health system. The final section concludes by asking a series of questions to provoke and deepen our thinking on ways we can overcome obstacles to achieving this goal, at both community level and as we move from the local to the global as a strategy for change. Each section blends discussion on concepts and issues with descriptions of experiences and case studies from around the globe, especially from countries in Latin America, Asia and east and southern Africa, where a wealth of material describes the impact of neoliberalism and globalisation on health systems, and attempts to build alternatives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Global Plan of Action on Workers\u2019 Health (2008-2017): Baseline for Implementation","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: April 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/occupational_health/who_workers_health_web.pdf","body":"In 2007, the 60th World Health Assembly endorsed a Global Plan of Action on Workers\u2019 Health for 2008-2017 and urged WHO member states to devise national policies and plans for its implementation. To establish a baseline for measuring progress, information was collected in 2008-2009 from Member States \u2013 this report presents the findings of that survey. While most countries have introduced ways of addressing risks at the workplace such as integrated management of chemicals and tobacco smoking bans, enforcement of regulations for workplace health protection remains insufficient. Less than half of countries surveyed have endorsed or drafted a national plan of action on workers\u2019 health. Only one third of countries cover more than 30% of their workers with occupational health services. Although half the countries have national workers\u2019 health profiles with data on occupational diseases, injuries, and legislation, information about communicable and non-communicable diseases among workers and about lifestyle risks are the least-covered topics. Workers\u2019 health issues feature in policies concerning management of chemicals, emergency preparedness and response, employment strategies, and vocational training. However, workers\u2019 health is seldom considered in policies regarding climate change, trade, economic development, poverty reduction, and general education.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO reform: High-level implementation plan and report ","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 10 May 2013","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA66/A66_4-en.pdf","body":"The Sixty-fifth World Health Assembly requested the Director-General to report, through the Executive Board at its 132nd session, to the Sixty-sixth World Health Assembly, on progress in the implementation of WHO reform, on the basis of a monitoring and implementation framework. This report provides a comprehensive overview of progress up to the end of the first quarter of 2013 in the three broad areas of WHO reform: programmes and priority-setting; governance; and management, as well as a high-level implementation plan for reform. A comprehensive, detailed and budgeted implementation plan is the basis for managing change, monitoring progress, and mobilising resources to finance the proposed reform activities. The plan and report are structured around the 12 elements of reform that were identified in the monitoring and implementation framework considered by the Sixty-fifth World Health Assembly, and include an additional element on change management. The report provides a narrative describing action taken in each area, and a status update on the outputs and key deliverables.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Women\u2019s Empowerment Principles","field_subtitle":"GROW: Oxfam, 17 May 2013","field_url":"http://blogs.oxfam.org/en/blogs/13-05-17-we%E2%80%99ve-come-long-way-baby%E2%80%A6-or-have-we","body":"While gender equality is enshrined in the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights, in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and in legislation in most countries, women\u2019s conditions of participation in markets and their rewards from that participation, still remain woefully unequal to men\u2019s.  Many women work in temporary or informal positions and are therefore \u201cinvisible\u201d to laws and regulations.  Women also currently bear a disproportionate share of household and domestic labour performing 80% of unpaid care work. Business can\u2019t solve all these problems alone, but corporate practice can either, aggravate and perpetuate gender inequality, or it can help lead the way to for equality among men and women. This article discusses the Women\u2019s Empowerment Principles, which are a set of Principles for business offering guidance on how to empower women in the workplace, marketplace and community.  The seven principles are: 1. Establish high-level corporate leadership for gender equality. 2. Treat all women and men fairly at work \u2013 respect and support human rights and non-discrimination. 3. Ensure the health, safety and well-being of all women and men workers. 4. Promote education, training and professional development for women. 5. Implement enterprise development, supply chain and marketing practices that empower women. 6. Promote equality through community initiatives and advocacy. 7. Measure and publicly report on progress to achieve gender equality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"World Economic Forum on Africa Closes with Call for Action","field_subtitle":"Cann O: World Economic Forum, 10 May 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.weforum.org/news/world-economic-forum-africa-closes-call-action","body":"With the support of the Government of South Africa, the World Economic Forum on Africa was held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 8 to 10 May. Over 1,000 participants from more than 80 countries took part. Under the theme \u2018Delivering on Africa\u2019s Promise\u2019, the meeting\u2019s agenda integrated three pillars: accelerating economic diversification; boosting strategic infrastructure; and unlocking Africa\u2019s talent. The main message to emerge from the event was the need for investment to consolidate and make more inclusive recent African growth. Participants called for greater regional integration, as well as investments in social entrepreneurship and industry to promote inclusive growth and fight poverty, while others argued that Africa needs to offer better enabling environments for industrialisation to capitalise on opportunities, like the fact that China\u2019s workforce will shed 85 million jobs in the near term. Another participant said that leaders needed to realise that Africa\u2019s true wealth lay in its people, not in its mineral deposits.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"'BRICS without straw'? A systematic literature review of newly emerging economies' influence in global health ","field_subtitle":"Harmer A, Xiao Y, Missoni E and Tediosi F: Globalization and Health 9(15), 15 April 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-9-15.pdf","body":"What influence, if any, do the BRICS (Brazil, India, Russia, China and South Africa) wield in global health, and, if they do wield influence, how has that influence been conceptualised and recorded in the literature? To answer these questions, researchers conducted a systematic international literature review, finding 887 documents, of which only seven met inclusion criteria and only one provided sustained analysis of the BRICS\u2019 collective influence; the overwhelming tendency was to describe individual BRICS countries\u2019 influence. Although influence was predominantly framed by BRICS countries\u2019 material capability, there were examples of institutional and ideological influence, particularly from Brazil. Individual BRICS countries were primarily \u2018opportunity seekers\u2019 and regional mobilisers but with potential to become \u2018issue leaders\u2019 and regional organisers. Whilst it may still be too early for newly emerging economies in global health to have matured, the authors argue that there is scope to further develop the concept of influence in global health and to better understand the working of groups of countries such as BRICS. The BRICS have made a number of important commitments towards reforming global health, but they need to start putting those collective commitments into action, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A call for more equitable economies and some ideas on how to get them","field_subtitle":"Chang C: CAFOD, April 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cbtyljz","body":"What can we do collectively to tackle inequality? The author of this article argues that first we need to ensure that governments are providing proper support to the livelihoods of poor men and women. At present, governments are a very long way from knowing if the money that they are spending on economic development is having an impact on poor entrepreneurs. Second, we need to ensure that the rules of the game governing our economies are not stacked against the poorest, resulting in distorted and unfair markets. These issues need to be addressed collectively by governments and included in an international setting. For example, taxing companies that operate across borders requires governments in different tax jurisdictions to cooperate. However, on these difficult, structural issues, promising first steps have been made. George Osborne led the call for a crack-down on tax-dodging multinationals at a G20 meeting last month, while in 2012 governments agreed to rethink investment rules at a United Nations conference in Doha.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A literature review: the role of the private sector in the production of nurses in India, Kenya, South Africa and Thailand","field_subtitle":"Reynolds J, Wisaijohn T, Pudpong N, Watthayu N, Dalliston A, Suphanchaimat R et al: Human Resources for Health 11(14), 12 April 2013","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-11-14.pdf","body":"This scoping systematic review was undertaken to assess the evidence for the role of private sector involvement in the production of nurses in India, Kenya, South Africa, and Thailand. The authors performed an electronic database search and also captured grey literature from the websites of relevant human resources organisations and networks. The review revealed that despite very different ratios of nurses to population ratios and differing degrees of international migration, there was a nursing shortage in all four countries, which were struggling to meet growing demand. All four countries saw the private sector play an increasing role in nurse production. Policy responses varied from modifying regulation and accreditation schemes in Thailand, to easing regulation to speed up nurse production and recruitment in India. There were concerns about the quality of nurses being produced in private institutions. The authors recommend that strategies must be devised to ensure that private nursing graduates serve public health needs of their populations. They call for policy coherence between producing nurses for export and ensuring sufficient supply to meet domestic needs, in particular in under-served areas. Further research is needed to assess the contributions made by the private sector to nurse production and to examine the variance in quality of nurses produced.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"A systematic review of qualitative findings on factors enabling and deterring uptake of HIV testing in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Musheke M, Ntalasha H, Gari S, Mckenzie O, Bond V, Martin-Hilber A and Merten S: BMC Public Health 13:220, 11 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-220.pdf","body":"While qualitative studies have been undertaken to investigate factors influencing uptake of HIV testing in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), systematic reviews to provide a more comprehensive understanding are lacking. In this study, researchers synthesised 42 papers from 13 countries to investigate these factors. They found that predominant factors enabling uptake of HIV testing are deterioration of physical health and/or death of sexual partner or child. The roll-out of various HIV testing initiatives such as \u2018opt-out\u2019 provider-initiated HIV testing and mobile HIV testing has improved uptake of HIV testing by being conveniently available and attenuating fear of HIV-related stigma and financial costs. Other enabling factors are availability of treatment and social network influence and support. Major barriers to uptake of HIV testing comprise perceived low risk of HIV infection, perceived health workers\u2019 inability to maintain confidentiality and fear of HIV-related stigma. While the increasingly wider availability of life-saving treatment in SSA is an incentive to test, the perceived psychological burden of living with HIV inhibits uptake of HIV testing. Other barriers are direct and indirect financial costs of accessing HIV testing, and gender inequality which undermines women\u2019s decision making autonomy about HIV testing. Despite differences across SSA, the findings suggest comparable factors influencing HIV testing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to Land is Critical for the Poor","field_subtitle":"World Bank Group: 8 April 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/dyxffy2","body":"At the Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty convened in early April 2013 in Washington, DC, the World Bank Group issued this statement. In the light of land grabs by multinationals that displace smallholder farmers, the Group argues that modern, efficient and transparent policies on land rights are vital to reducing poverty and promoting growth, agriculture production, better nutrition and sustainable development. It supports and endorses the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (the VGs). These guidelines are a major international instrument to inform specific policy reforms, and inform Bank procedures and guidance to clients. The World Bank Group is already working with countries to implement the VGs, with a special focus on Africa. With its partners, it has also developed the Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF) as a diagnostic tool to assess the status of land governance at the country level. LGAF assessments have been carried out - or are underway - in 18 countries, 10 of them in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Urban Infrastructure Summit","field_subtitle":"Cape, South Africa: 22- 23 April 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.ic-events.net/africa_urbaninfrastructure/","body":"The Africa Urban Infrastructure Summit will seek to bridge the information gap in African urban infrastructure and create a platform to develop the market for African urban infrastructure and real estate investment. The aim of the summit is to bring together national and local government officials, urban planners, designers, developers, facility managers and potential investors to share ideas, develop business opportunities and discuss current projects, case-studies, lessons learned, future challenges and new opportunities. Participants will be able to network with other participants and presenters; and discover the opportunities behind key industries: \"smart and green\" solutions; renewable energy; construction; ICT; water management; sanitation; and healthcare.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Are we bringing African perspective to global health diplomacy? ","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson, Moeketsi Modisenyane, Mark Pearcey ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nDiplomats, officials, civil society and private actors converging in May at the World Health Assembly bring to the spotlight the increasing extent to which decisions on policies and resources for health systems are taking place at global level. Beyond the health sector, global level negotiations on trade, investment, migration and climate have significant impacts on health. Foreign policy has traditionally concerned itself with economic and security issues.  Health has been brought to foreign policy when epidemics have threatened trade or economic expansion, or as a way to generate positive relations between countries. Health diplomacy in colonial Africa did both, preventing disease from affecting colonial economic interests and providing medical services to legitimize colonial expansion. \r\n\r\nHealth has in recent decades assumed a higher profile as a goal of foreign policy at the global level, such as in the negotiation of global responses to treatment rights for people living with HIV, or the negotiation of competing interests around recruitment and migration of health workers. Political attention to health in global policy became more intense and sustained after 2000, with many new global conventions, funds and institutions. This raises twin challenges for African actors in global health diplomacy (GHD), to ensure that the norms and goals of public health are not lost in the differing norms and goals of foreign policy, and to ensure that African interests are advanced and protected within global processes. \r\n\r\nWith its high share of global mortality and illness, the stakes are high for Africa. Hence, for example, in the context of an HIV pandemic that was ravaging the continent, African countries played a lead role in negotiating the 2001 Doha declaration on the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and Public Health, which provided for WTO Members\u2019 right to protect public health and access to medicines for all. Africans also provoked the global negotiation on the recruitment of health workers, given that African health systems were losing millions of dollars invested in training of health workers and losing key people for service delivery. Raising such issues at the global level takes diplomacy beyond negotiating economic self-interest, and raises shared risk, and shared responsibility as a basis for collaboration across borders. While this presents new opportunities for addressing Africa\u2019s health challenges, global solidarity is not a dominant feature of diplomacy, and health demands may be diluted or overshadowed in foreign policy processes as states secure their interests in  response to financial, climate, resource, food and other threats to security. The transborder nature of GHD also raises caution in the public health community as it may disguise a more direct and influential hand of private interests, including in global health institutions.\r\n\r\nNew actors are also becoming increasingly influential in global diplomacy. Brazil, China and India, each facing their own health challenges, have become more engaged and influential in GHD, and south-south cooperation has opened up new avenues of influence, including for African countries. Countries in the \u2018global south\u2019 bring new perspective to global health: For example China\u2019s principles of peaceful coexistence avoids interference or conditionality in the relations between states, with foreign policy used to widen its access to resources and markets and to speed up its own modernisation. Brazil\u2019s pursuit of \u2018structural cooperation in health\u2019 in contrast brings a rights based approach to health, raising the precedence of health in global economic and trade platforms, such as in its negotiations on patents, counterfeits and technology transfer. We discuss other examples of approaches to diplomacy in EQUINET discussion paper 96 \u2018Concepts in and perspectives on global health diplomacy\u2019. \r\n\r\nThis raises the question: Are there uniquely African perspectives or approaches in GHD? This is not easy to answer by reading published materials- much diplomacy on health in Africa appears to be unrecorded in the public domain, or documented by northern or global actors.  Across African countries, there is evidence of some principles more commonly informing foreign policy. Reciprocity and interdependence is rooted in traditional norms that give more weight to the interests of the community than those of the individual (\u2018I am because we are\u2019). These principles informed the unity around struggles for national independence and Africans have continued to build unity in global engagement through alliances across sovereign states, such as in the Africa Group at the World Health Assembly.  Liberation and nation building have also been central to recent African history. This \u2018liberation ethic\u2019 has continued to inform diplomacy post-independence, from the shared stance against apartheid South Africa to a foreign policy engagement on economic decolonization. As a form of public diplomacy, this foreign policy image has also been used to bolster domestic legitimacy. Many African countries are also explicitly pursuing developmental foreign policies, raising economic justice and seeking to protect the authorities needed for developmental states within international policy, albeit with some diversity of view on what a developmental foreign policy means. \r\n\r\nHow far have these approaches influenced global diplomacy on health, a sphere that has been more commonly associated with emergency relief and development aid?  Africans are increasingly involved in GHD, and initiatives such as the ECSA Health Community Strategic Initiative on GHD seek to strengthen African engagement and influence in global health platforms.  There is evidence from examples such as the 2001 Doha declaration, the claims on health worker migration or recent negotiations on technology transfer or on research and development that the liberation ethic, unity and developmental foreign policy are informing diplomacy on health. It is however difficult to read how far these principles are being actively crafted for the 21st century and used for health.  For example, how do principles of sovereignty, non-interference and self determination that have been central to nation building accommodate the human rights approaches or concepts of shared risk and shared responsibility that are being used to raise health as a goal of global diplomacy? How effectively are newly emergent south-south alliances, such as BRICS, strengthening the unity (and regional integration) within African countries that is seen to be key to global engagement? What co-ordination across sectors and institutional changes need to take place within African countries to strengthen their hand in advancing a liberation ethic and developmental foreign policy in health negotiations at global level? \r\n\r\nFurther information on the issues raised in this editorial can be found in EQUINET Discussion paper 96 at http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/GHD%20concept%20paper%20Jan2013.pdf. The discussion paper is an interim working paper to draw feedback and EQUINET invites you to send your comments on African approaches to health diplomacy to include in the next edition. Please email your comments and inputs on the questions raised to admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing hunger: what do the FAO\u2019s revised undernourishment figures tell us?","field_subtitle":"Svedberg P: Bridges Africa Review 2(1): 18 March 2013","field_url":"http://ictsd.org/i/news/bridges-africa-review/158105/","body":"For the first time since 1996, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has significantly revised how estimates the number of hungry people in the world. When the new methodology is used to generate estimates for the past 20 years, the figures show a steady decline, running counter to previous estimates, which showed a continual increase in the number of undernourished people from the mid-1990s up to the late 2000s. What lies behind the FAO\u2019s revised prevalence of undernourishment estimates are changes in the methodology used to arrive at the estimate and newer, more complete data used for the building blocks of the FAO model. The methodological innovations may be found in the assumed distribution of dietary energy consumption, and the way in which variations in habitual food consumption are estimated. The most important data change is that estimates of food losses at the retail distribution level, not only at the production and storage levels, are taken into account. The FAO is in the process of developing a range of additional food security indicators, intended to reflect changes in \u2018determinants of (or inputs to) food security\u2019 and to capture how food prices evolve in relation to consumer prices in general in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessment of voluntary counseling and testing service utilisation and associated factors among Debre Markos University Students, North West Ethiopia: a cross-sectional survey in 2011","field_subtitle":"Tsegay G, Edris M and Meseret S: BMC Public Health 13(243), 19 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-243.pdf","body":"This cross-sectional study design was conducted among 753 students drawn from selected departments in Debre Markos University, Ethiopia, using multi-stage sampling technique. A self-administered questionnaire was used to estimate the prevalence of voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) service utilisation and to assess associated factors. A total of 711 students participated in the study, of whom 81.4% had heard about the government\u2019s confidential VCT service, identifying their major sources of information as mass media (73.3%) and health workers (71.1%). Just over half (58.5%) of the study participants had undergone VCT. The researchers identified the major factors for increased VCT service utilisation as knowledge about the availability of antiretrovirals in the VCT site, information about confidentiality, absence of perceived stigma, higher risk perception and knowledge about HIV. Therefore, they argue, actions targeting on these predictors are necessary to effectively enhance the use of the VCT services utilisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"BRICS and the SA government sell out to international capital","field_subtitle":"Bond P: Pambazuka News 622, 20 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86655","body":"According to this article, the BRICS Durban summit in March 2013 marks the point at which the five BRICS powers have carved up the African continent with one common objective: efficient resource extraction through export-oriented infrastructure. The new \u2018BRICS Bank\u2019 has cost US$50 billion in start-up capital and comes nine months after $75 billion was wasted by the BRICS powers by bailing out the International Monetary Fund in a manner that shrunk both Africa\u2019s voting share and prospects for world economic recovery. BRICS countries aimed to set up a \u2018Bank of the South\u2019. This was dreamt of by the late Hugo Chavez although repeatedly sabotaged by more conservative Brasilia bureaucrats and opposed by Pretoria. the author asks, however, whether this will be any different than Washington\u2019s twin banks? He argues that it will not, if one considers South Africa\u2019s precedent, the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), which lost R370 million ($41 million) in 2012, promoted privatisation of water and toll roads, and turned a blind eye to construction industry collusion. The author warns that Africa could become an even more violent battleground for conflicts between BRICS firms intent on oil, gas and minerals extraction.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Building from the ground up: How the foundations of a post-2015 framework should translate into change for people in poverty","field_subtitle":"Frecheville N and Fischler B: CAFOD, 2013","field_url":"http://cafodpolicy.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/cafod-building-from-the-ground-up.pdf","body":"In this paper, the authors call for a post-2015 framework to support a vision of the world where poor women and men have dignity and are able to &#64258;ourish through participating in enabling societies and equitable economies that operate within safe ecological boundaries nationally and globally. The framework will: prioritise global issues that support and facilitate transformational change; keep issues that matter most to people in poverty on the international agenda; secure national action that drives progress on the ground; and enable better accountability, data collection, and monitoring and evaluation. CAFOD has identi&#64257;ed three areas for action: empowering governance, which enables people to participate in the decision-making which affects their lives; the need for poor women and men to be able to participate in equitable economies and get a fair return for their contribution; and, resilient livelihoods, so that people\u2019s dignity and &#64258;ourishing are not undermined by environmental shocks and stresses, and development pathways are within ecological limits. These have the potential to transform the lives of people in poverty through addressing the underlying causes of poverty that prevent people from achieving their own aspirations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Building resilient and inclusive food markets: Analysis of trends and actors in food and nutrition security","field_subtitle":"Quak E: The Broker Online 17 April 2013","field_url":"http://www.thebrokeronline.eu/Articles/Building-resilient-and-inclusive-food-markets","body":"To achieve maximum impact on food and nutrition security, knowledge and research policy should focus on local agriculture and food sectors - this means including small-scale farmers in regional food chains as well as making investments in the food system work for the rural poor by taking into account local environmental and cultural values. This article focuses on what a knowledge agenda on food and nutrition security should look like and what actors should be involved. The author argues that one of the main causes of current economic growth without food security is that small-scale farmers are not included in the formal food system and do not benefit from investments in agriculture and food, especially in sub-Saharan African. They also lack access to knowledge to improve their situation. To help create resilient and inclusive food markets, the author recommends strengthening cooperatives and producer organisations, developing comprehensive business models, designing a framework for public-private partnerships that include small-scale farmers and takes into account local cultural and environmental values, taking away the constraints to access knowledge by farmers, and pursuing coherent policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: ECSA Health Community: Seventh Best Practices Forum (BPF)","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 20 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.ecsahc.org/events.php?id=23","body":"The East, Central and Southern Africa (ECSA) Health Community in collaboration with the International Best Practices (IBP) Consortium will host the Seventh Best Practices Forum (BPF), which will precede the 23rd Director\u2019s Joint Consultative Committee (DJCC) Meeting. The two events will be held from 12 to 14 August 2013. The BPF and the DJCC will bring together Senior Officials (who include health experts, health researchers and heads of health training institutions) from Ministries of Health of the ECSA Health Community member states and diverse collaborating partners from the region and beyond. Their aim will be to identify best practices and key policy issues, approaches and making recommendations to strengthen the response to emerging and re-emerging health concerns in the ECSA Region. Individuals and institutions are invited to submit abstracts for presentation of papers under the BPF. The sub-themes are: integration of non-communicable and communicable disease programmes; addressing adolescent health issues; and strengthening global health diplomacy for equity in public health delivery.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Ninth Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) conference and the inaugural conference of the African Federation of Public Health Associations (AFPHA)","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 21 May 2013","field_url":"http://www.phasaconference.org.za/abstracts.htm","body":"PHASA and AFPHA are calling for abstracts for their two conferences, which will run jointly in South Africa. Contributors may write on any of the following six themes:  leadership for a lasting legacy; social determinants of health; burden of disease, disability and population health; improving the performance of the health system; policy advocacy and community action for health; and public health education, teaching and training.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications: CODESRIA Institute on Health, Politics and Society in Africa: Dakar, Senegal: 7-25 October 2013","field_subtitle":"15 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org","body":"The theme of the 2013 session of the Institute on Health, Politics and Society in Africa is \u201cHealth, Environment and Development in Africa\u201d. The interface between health and the environment is an overriding challenge for development in Africa today. In many African countries, health is often the source of the slow pace of development processes. On the other hand, with their integration in the global market, African economies have become highly dependent on the environment and the exploitation of natural resources, both renewable and non-renewable. But the environment is not only physical; it also takes into account the socio-cultural aspects of the populations living there, in terms of norms, values and social practices which also pose health problems. African Social Science researchers are therefore invited to reflect, taking into account the gender dimension, on the interface between health and the environment, an important issue for the development of the continent. For every session, CODESRIA will appoint a director from the academic and research community to provide intellectual leadership for the Institute, as well as resource persons and laureates. Applications are now open for all three types of positions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for participants in open session on UHC indicators","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 23 May 2013","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/marcosl%40who.int","body":"To move forward the debate around universal health care (UHC) there is an urgent need to define a way to measure progress towards UHC, both at global and country level. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has been working with the World Bank to define a set of possible indicators that member states can use to monitor their own progress. A subset of these indicators could be used if UHC is accepted as part of the post-2015 development framework. All non-governmental organisations working in the health sector are invited to join the open discussion on how to measure UHC on 23 May at 13.30. Its aim is to open spaces for civil society organisations to feed into the process. Please confirm your participation as soon as possible. If you have any inquiries or need any further information, contact WHO at jeanteta@who.int or the email given below.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society in Ghana to contribute to new local governance policy","field_subtitle":"Ghana Business News: 7 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2013/03/07/civil-society-sensitized-on-social-accountability-project/","body":"Non-governmental organisations and civil society organisations in Ghana are being called upon to contribute to the drafting of the country\u2019s new local governance policy, which is intended at deepening local governance through appropriate social accountability. The new policy will consider the views of ordinary Ghanaians to clarify the status, roles and relationships between levels of government and the different actors and strengthen their participation and contribution to local governance. The Institute of Local Government Studies has received funding from the European Union to implement an action on \u201cA Social Accountability Platform for Local Governance Performance in Ghana\u201d with the objective to provide a harmonised approach to promoting comprehensive and coherent social accountability at the sub-national level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community concepts of poverty: an application to premium exemptions in Ghana\u2019s National Health Insurance Scheme","field_subtitle":"Aryeetey GC, Jehu-Appiah C, Kotoh AM, Spaan E, Arhinful DK, Baltussen R, van der Geest S and Agyepong IA: Globalization and Health 9(12), 14 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-9-12.pdf","body":"In 2009, researchers in Ghana commenced a study to explored the social and relativist dimension of poverty in five communities in the South of Ghana with differing socio-economic characteristics. This research was meant  to inform the development and implementation of policies and programmes to identify and target the poor for premium exemptions under Ghana\u2019s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). They employed participatory wealth ranking (PWR) as a qualitative tool for the exploration of community concepts, identification and ranking of households into socio-economic groups. Key informants within the community ranked households into wealth categories after discussing in detail concepts and indicators of poverty. Results showed that community-defined indicators of poverty covered themes related to type of employment, educational attainment of children, food availability, physical appearance, housing conditions, asset ownership, health seeking behaviour, social exclusion and marginalisation. In conclusion, the in-depth nature of the PWR process precludes it from being used in a large national-scale programme such as the NHIS. However, the authors argue that it can provide valuable qualitative input to inform policy and programmes exempting health payments for poor people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community knowledge, attitude and practice about malaria in a low endemic setting of Shewa Robit Town, northeastern Ethiopia ","field_subtitle":"Abate A, Degarege A and Erko B: BMC Public Health 13(312), 8 April 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/13/312","body":"The aim of this study was to assess malaria prevalence and knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) about malaria in the ShewaRobit Town community in northeastern Ethiopia. In October and November 2011, 425 individuals were examined for malaria using thin and thick Giemsa stained blood film, and 284 of the participants were interviewed to assess their KAP about malaria. All respondents had heard of malaria. Most of the respondents (85.2%) attributed the cause of malaria to mosquito bite. However, some of the respondents (>20%) identified the causes of malaria as a lack of personal hygiene, exposure to cold weather, hunger, chewing maize stalks, body contact with a malaria patient and flies. Sleeping under mosquito nets, draining stagnant water and indoor residual spraying were the most frequently mentioned malaria preventive measures perceived and practiced by the respondents. Of the individuals examined for malaria, only 2.8% were positive for Plasmodium parasites. Although a respondents had a high level of knowledge about the cause, transmission and preventive methods of malaria, a considerable proportion of them had misconceptions about the cause and transmission of malaria, suggesting the necessity of health education to raise the community\u2019s awareness about the disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Comparative analysis of the Busan common standard implementation schedules","field_subtitle":"Publish What You Fund: 2013","field_url":"http://www.publishwhatyoufund.org/updates/news/common-standard-implementation-aid-transparency-tracker/","body":"Since committing to a common standard for publishing aid information at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness at Busan in 2011, 42 governments and external funders have released implementation schedules outlining their plans to meet this commitment. In this short paper, Publish What You Fund analyses the schedules. It notes that some external funders are planning a substantial increase in the quality of their data, but most have failed to commit to publishing timely, comparable and forward-looking information. It appears that some of the most important data are only going to be delivered by a small number of funders, particularly data on results and conditions. This needs to be addressed. A small group of external funders are planning no IATI-compatible publication at all: this paper recommends they should reflect on their Busan commitment to \u2018implement a common, open standard for electronic publication of timely, comprehensive and forward-looking information\u2019. Finally, Publish What You Fund says implementation needs to start soon, so that external funders can learn lessons (both from their own experience and that of their peers), and achieve their aim of fully implementing the schedules by the end of 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Consuming sex: the association between modern goods, lifestyles and sexual behaviour among youth in Madagascar","field_subtitle":"Stoebenau K, Nair RC, Rambeloson V, Rakotoarison PG, Razafintsalama V and Labont\u00e9 R: Globalization and Health 9(3), 19 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-9-13.pdf","body":"The authors of this study examined the association between young people's interests in the consumption of modern goods and their sexual behaviour in Antananarivo and Antsiranana, Madagascar. Their survey included 2, 255 youth ages 15-24. Overall, 7.3% of women and 30.7% of men reported having had multiple partners in the last year; and 5.9% of women reported ever practising transactional sex. This was associated with perceptions concerning the importance of fashion and a series of activities associated with modern lifestyles. For transactional sex, results suggested perceptions around fashion, nightclub attendance and getting to know a foreigner were key determinants. The authors found that peri-urban residence was more associated with transactional sex than urban residence; and ethnic origin was the strongest predictor of both outcomes for women. While they found some evidence of an association between sexual behaviour and interest in modern goods, or modern lifestyles, they caution that such processes did not single-handedly explain risky sexual behaviour among youth: these behaviours were also shaped by culture and conditions of economic uncertainty. These determinants must all be accounted for when developing interventions to reduce risky transactional sex and vulnerability to HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Current integration of tuberculosis (TB) and HIV services in South Africa, 2011","field_subtitle":"Chehab JC, Vilakazi-Nhlapo AK, Vranken P, Peters A and Klausner JD: PLoS One 8(3), 4 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0057791","body":"The objective of this study was to assess the current integration of TB and HIV services in South Africa, using data from 2011. Forty-nine randomly selected health facilities were included, at which interviewers administered a standardised questionnaire to one staff member responsible for TB and HIV in each facility on aspects of TB/HIV policy, integration and recording and reporting. Of the 49 health facilities 35 (71%) provided isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) and 35 (71%) offered antiretroviral therapy (ART). Among assessed sites in February 2011, 2,512 patients were newly diagnosed with HIV infection, of whom 1,913 (76%) were screened for TB symptoms, and 616 of 1,332 (46%) of those screened negative for TB were initiated on IPT. Of 1,072 patients newly registered with TB in February 2011, 144 (13%) were already on ART prior to TB clinical diagnosis, and 451 (42%) were newly diagnosed with HIV infection. Of those, 84 (19%) were initiated on ART. Primary health clinics were less likely to offer ART compared to district hospitals or community health centres.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EDCTP regional networks of excellence: Initial merits for planned clinical trials in Africa","field_subtitle":"Miiro GM, Oukem-Boyer OOM, Sarr O, Rahmani M, Ntoumi F, Dheda K et al: BMC Public Health 13(258), 22 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-258.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers conducted a quasi-formative evaluation between October and December 2011 on four regional-led African research networks: Central Africa Network on Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and Malaria (CANTAM); East African Consortium for Clinical Research (EACCR); West African Network of Excellence for TB, AIDS and Malaria (WANETAM), and the Trials of Excellence for Southern Africa (TESA) launched between 2009 and 2010. They shared a participatory appraisal of field reports, progress reports and presentations from each network to jointly outline the initial experiences of the merits, outputs and lessons learnt. Results showed that the self-regulating democratic networks, with 64 institutions in 21 African countries, have trained over 1, 000 African scientists, upgraded 36 sites for clinical trials, leveraged additional \u20ac 24 million and generated 38 peer-reviewed publications through networking and partnerships. The shared initial merits and lessons learnt portray in part the strengthened capacity of these networks for improved research coordination and conduct of planned multi-centre clinical trials in Africa. Increased funding by African agencies, governments and international health partners will ensure sustainability of these networks for research capacity development and demonstrate their commitment to achieving the Millennium Development Goals in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Effect of brief training on reliability and applicability of Global Assessment of functioning scale by Psychiatric clinical officers in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Abbo C, Okello ES and Nakku J: African Health Sciences 13(1): 78-81, March 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ahs/article/view/87277/77005","body":"The Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) is the standard method and an essential tool for representing a clinician\u2019s judgment of a patient\u2019s overall level of psychological, social and occupational functioning. It is probably the single most widely used method for assessing impairment among the patients with psychiatric illnesses. The authors of this study set out to assess the effects of one-hour training on application of the GAF by Psychiatric Clinical Officers\u2019 in a Ugandan setting. They randomly selected five psychiatrists and five psychiatric clinical officers (PCOs) or assistant medical officers who hold a two-year diploma in clinical psychiatry to take part. Before receiving an hour of training on how to rate the GAF scale, they were asked to rate a video-recorded psychiatric interview, and they assessed the video again after training. The PCOs were then offered and asked to rate the video case interview again. Results showed that the interclass correlations (ICCs) between the psychiatrists and the PCOs before training in the past one year, at admission and current functioning were +0.48, +0.51 and +0.59 respectively. After training, the ICC coefficients were +0.60, +0.82 and +0.83. The findings of this study indicate that brief training given to PCOs improved the applications of their ratings of GAF scale to acceptable levels. There is need for formal training to this cadre of psychiatric practitioners in the use of the GAF.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Ensuring access to essential medicines through the inclusion of the right to health in the Mauritian Constitution","field_subtitle":"Budoo A: AfricLaw, 5 March 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cau4qch","body":"Mauritius is signatory to the 2001 Doha Declaration, which ensures that government can access generic medicines for use in the public sector and without the patent holder\u2019s approval and is an important tool to ensure universal access to medicines. Although the state has been compliant with the Doha Declaration, the Constitution of Mauritius has no provisions for the protection of the right to health. Furthermore, the National Human Rights Commission has no specific mandate to deal with economic, social and cultural rights and there is no National Medicines Policy document. The author calls on government to give effect to the recommendation of the CESCR and bring about a constitutional amendment that will include economic, social and cultural rights in the Constitution thus making the right to health justiciable. After including the right to health in the Constitution, the government should adopt a new legislation to protect the right to health of all the citizens and enshrine access to medicines as a component of the right to health. To avoid any foreseeable problem, the use of generic medicines should be included in the act and there should be a clear demarcation between generic drugs and counterfeiting so that it does not limit the access to medicines of Mauritians.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion Paper 96: Concepts in and perspectives on global health diplomacy","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R, Modisenyane M And Pearcey M: EQUINET, January 2013","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/GHD%20concept%20paper%20Jan2013.pdf","body":"The Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) is implementing a three year policy research programme to address selected challenges to health and strengthening health systems within processes of global health diplomacy (GHD). In the June 2012 inception workshop for the programme, delegates called for a paper that explains the concepts and emergence of global health diplomacy, the different approaches being taken in GHD, including African approaches. Given the de facto rise in health diplomacy, this paper explores questions on GHD, to inform debate and dialogue in Africa on raising health within global diplomacy. The authors briefly present the roots and emergence of GHD, and the debates on raising public health within global diplomacy. They outline how the concepts of and approaches to GHD differ across countries and regions. They explore the perspectives that have informed diplomacy in Africa, and ask what this means for African engagement in GHD, and for public health in Africa. At various points in this paper they raise questions on what implications the developments described have for health diplomacy in Africa. Given the limitations of documented evidence on African approaches or analysis of health diplomacy from an African lens, it is difficult to draw conclusions. The authors thus raise questions that they hope will provoke dialogue, debate and response.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 147: Are we bringing African perspective to global health diplomacy? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Forget GDP: The Social Progress Index Measures National Well-Being","field_subtitle":"Schwartz A: Fast Co-exist, 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cpz7jn7","body":"For many years, economic indicators were considered the ultimate measure of a country\u2019s well-being. But the general happiness of a country doesn\u2019t always correlate with its wealth. In fact, economic indicators don\u2019t match up with a number of important indicators about well-being. Hence the Social Progress Index, an initiative from the Social Progress Imperative and Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter that examines how 50 countries perform on 52 indicators related to basic human needs, the foundations of well-being, and opportunity. The index looks at social and environmental outcomes directly rather than proxies of economic indicators. These social and environmental components include personal safety, ecosystem sustainability, health and wellness, shelter, sanitation, equity and inclusion, and personal freedom and choice. Each component is calculated based on specific outcomes: health and wellness, for example, is determined by life expectancy, obesity, cancer death rate, and other factors. The author argues that the index will allow businesses to better articulate the purpose they serve, and how business can collectively shape, influence and be a co-collaborator in some of the bigger social progress issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"From Better \u201cStuff\u201d To More \u201cPower\u201d: Why transparency matters","field_subtitle":"O\u2019Brien P: Oxfam blogs, 21 March 2013","field_url":"http://politicsofpoverty.oxfamamerica.org/2013/03/27/why-transparency-matters/","body":"In 2011, Publish What You Fund, the world\u2019s biggest funding transparency monitoring body, ranked USAID in the bottom 36% of most transparent external funders, but by 2012 it had climbed into the top 37% . In the light of this improvement, the author of this article calls on USAID Administrator Raj Shah to commit USAID to joining the top 10% by the time he leaves his post in four years. He predicts, though, that it is more likely that \u201ctechnological innovation\u201d will continue to win out over \u201cgovernance\u201d issues like transparency in Shah\u2019s priorities. Poverty, he argues, is a function of power imbalances as much as innovation deficits, which requires USAID\u2019s leadership to start talking about governance, incentives and democratising \u201cpower\u201d as much as helping people to get more and better \u201cstuff\u201d. Shah should explain why transparency is so important, and explicitly link transparency to making local institutions more politically accountable to their own citizens. Functioning, inclusive domestic institutions in developing countries are the indispensable foundation for innovations to take hold, the author concludes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"From local to global: prioritising food security ","field_subtitle":"Quak E: The Broker Online 17 April 2013","field_url":"http://www.thebrokeronline.eu/Articles/From-local-to-global-prioritizing-food-security","body":"To feed the world\u2019s growing population in a sustainable and inclusive way with good quality food is one of the main challenges facing the world in the 21st Century. The author of this article argues that the solution lies partly at the local level: the livelihoods, and the cultural, socioeconomic and environmental circumstances in which food is produced, processed and distributed. This means that the debate around food security should move to the local level and how small-scale farmers can be part of (formal) food markets, mainly regionally, in a sustainable way. Building resilient and inclusive local food markets also requires policies that take the macro-level players into account, that link the local to the global. More comprehensive knowledge and research into food security is needed, and the role of civil society and local governments should also be studied. This implies participation and a bottom-up approach. Currently, investments in food security are mainly channelled through national policies and centralised negotiations; however, these decisions should be made within a participatory local democracy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Haki Zetu: ESC Rights in Practice (Part 1)","field_subtitle":"Amnesty International: 2010","field_url":"https://www.amnesty.nl/sites/default/files/public/main_book_part_1.pdf","body":"The Haki Zetu handbook  is a practical toolkit for local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and community-based organisations (CBOs) working with local communities to realise their economic, social and cultural rights. The main target group is rural or local activists and development workers who would like to use a rights-based approach to tackle economic and social problems. The handbook can be used immediately on the ground, to help NGO/CBO workers in their jobs to assist communities secure access to economic, social and cultural rights. It will assist them to better study laws and policies and promote citizens to use them and monitor where they are not being used effectively. This is part 1 of the book.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Haki Zetu: ESC Rights in Practice (Part 2)","field_subtitle":"Amnesty International: 2010","field_url":"https://www.amnesty.nl/sites/default/files/public/main_book_part_2.pdf","body":"The Haki Zetu handbook is a practical toolkit for local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and community-based organisations (CBOs) working with local communities to realise their economic, social and cultural rights. The main target group is rural or local activists and development workers who would like to use a rights-based approach to tackle economic and social problems. The handbook can be used immediately on the ground, to help NGO/CBO workers in their jobs to assist communities secure access to economic, social and cultural rights. It will assist them to better study laws and policies and promote citizens to use them and monitor where they are not being used effectively. This is Part 2 of the handbook.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Haki Zetu: The Right to Health","field_subtitle":"Amnesty International: 2012","field_url":"http://www.amnesty.nl/haki-zetu-esc-rights-in-practice-1","body":"The right to the highest attainable standard of health is a fundamental human right. However, millions of people in Africa do not receive adequate health care. Putting the right to health into practice would allow everyone, regardless of who they are or what health problems they have, to be able to receive help and treatment. Better health would also benefit the economy and society as a whole, argues Amnesty International. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations (CSOs) can make a significant difference by promoting the right to the highest attainable standard of health. NGOs and CSOs have already encouraged governments to realise the right to health and they should continue to do so by monitoring government policies, calling attention to violations of the right to health and empowering communities to participate in realising their right to health. In conjunction with the main handbook (included in this newsletter), this booklet explains how this can be done. The booklet is divided into three sections: Section 1 gives a brief introduction to the right to health and the main issues facing CSOs working on the right to health; Section 2 gives advice on preparing to work on the right to health; and Section 3 is about realising rights in practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health in the post-2015 agenda: Report of the Global Thematic Consultation on Health","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, UNICEF, Government of Sweden, Government of Botswana and United Nations: April 2013","field_url":"http://www.worldwewant2015.org/node/332068","body":"This report is a synthesis of inputs received during the Global Thematic Consultation on Health, which concluded on 6th March 2013 in Gaborone, Botswana. It highlights lessons learned from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), health in the post-2015 agenda, health priorities for 2015-2030, and how to frame the future health agenda in terms of principles, goals, targets and indicators. Participants suggested an overall health development goal: \u201cMaximising health at all stages of life,\u201d and proposed two health sector goals: accelerating progress on the health MDGs and reducing the burden of major non-communicable diseases (NCDs). They also suggested that the post-2015 framework should include more ambitious health targets; emphasise equity; address reproductive health and sexual rights; include differentiated targets and indicators for various life stages; and appreciate the interconnections between health and other goals, while addressing macroeconomic issues that impact on health, inequality and poverty. Further, participants argued that universal health access might be a preferable formulation \u2013 and vision \u2013 to universal health coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Research Colloquium Calls On Countries To Invest More In R&D","field_subtitle":"Hermann RM: Intellectual Property Watch, 9 April 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bvsd3px","body":"During the March 2013 Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED) Colloquium, participants highlighted the value of research and development in supporting public health in developing countries and the importance of building self-reliance for countries through government investment. Although the meeting was not aiming at consensus, a few key themes emerged. Participants widely agreed that countries should increase their own investments in research for health to attract external funding and ensure fairer collaboration. And in the context of the global economic crisis, participants also took note of an emerging trend among external funders toward implementation research, which looks at how to effectively translate findings into practice, and suggested that governments should do the same. With less funding available, governments increasingly have to justify additional spending on health research, show the value of investment and increase efficiency. Participants called on countries to look at the knowledge and technology interventions they already have, invest in research to examine why they are or not working, and focus on optimising them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"How to overcome the EPA stalemate?","field_subtitle":"Dieye CT: Bridges Africa Review 2(1): 18 March 2013","field_url":"http://ictsd.org/i/news/bridges-africa-review/158095/","body":"In this article, the author considers why the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries have reached a \u2018technical\u2019 stalemate. He proposes three reasons: the configuration of the regions and the great difficulty of states to agree on common interests; the sometimes aggressive nature of European demands; and the evolution of the Europe-Africa partnership in the context of global geopolitical changes. Least-developed countries in Africa already enjoy a number of trade-related flexibilities and advantages and stand nothing to gain from the EPAs, which may explain their reluctance to sign the agreements, the author argues. At the same time, major trading powers are engaged in a low-level trade war aimed at implanting themselves in Africa or consolidating positions they have already acquired. Africa may have understood that such a development could be beneficial provided that it puts into place good policies and strategies, and develops appropriate partnerships. In addition, the emergence of Southern trading powers has widened Africa\u2019s policy space. This could explain the continent\u2019s cautious approach to the trade liberalisation required by the EPAs. The author concludes that the solutions that could unblock the stalemate are no longer technical but political in nature.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving governance in healthcare systems in Africa","field_subtitle":"Mugo J: Consultancy Africa Intelligence, 17 February 2013 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c6fgaos","body":"In this paper, the author analyses governance gaps in healthcare systems in sub-Saharan Africa and how they could be overcome, with a particular focus on the areas of budget and resource management, individual provider performance, health facility performance and corruption. She attributes poor governance to the effects of a range of factors. Budget leaks, which refer to the discrepancy between the authorised health budget and the amount of funds received by intended recipients such as frontline providers, undermine service provision, as do high levels of health worker absenteeism. Job purchasing, which refers to payments made by job-seekers in exchange for employment in the public sector, a practice that often bypasses appointing on merit, is another common practice, which results in poor quality staff. On the financial side, chronic underfunding of health facilities and corruption at management levels are the other dimensions of poor governance in the health sector. The author urges governments and external funders to not only focus on the input and outputs, but also to ensure that these resources are used effectively to ensure maximum impact on health outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Increasing transfers-out from an antiretroviral treatment service in South Africa: patient characteristics and rates of virological non-suppression","field_subtitle":"Nglazi MD, Kaplan R, Orrell C, Myer L, Wood R et al:. PLoS One 8(3), 5 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0057907","body":"The aim of this study was to determine the proportion, characteristics and outcomes of patients who transfer-out from an antiretroviral therapy (ART) service in a South African township. Researchers included all patients aged &#8805;15 years who enrolled between September 2002 and December 2009. Follow-up data were censored in December 2010. A total of 4,511 patients received ART during the study period. Overall, 597 (13.2%) transferred out. The probability of transferring out by one year of ART steadily increased from 1.4% in 2002/2004 cohort to 8.9% for the 2009 cohort. Independent risk factors for transfer-out were more recent calendar year of enrolment, younger age (&#8804;25 years) and being ART non-na\u00efve at baseline (i.e., having previously transferred into this clinic from another facility). The proportions of patients transferred out who had a CD4 cell count 1000 copies/mL around the time of transfer, suggesting the need for careful adherence counselling and assessment of medication supplies among those planning transfer.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Letter to the Uganda Minister of Justice on the revision of the IP bill","field_subtitle":"CEHURD, HEPS Uganda, SEATINI, People\u2019s Health Movement et al: 22 March 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/boaen4p","body":"In this open letter to the Minister of Justice, Ugandan civil society organisations (CSOs) working in areas of intellectual property (IP) and access to medicines argue that the country\u2019s intellectual property (IP) Bill does not make full and maximum use of the TRIPS flexibilities and therefore poses a threat to public health. Almost 90% of drugs in Uganda are imports, most of which are generic versions that need protection from patent owners who may want to stop their sale in a bid to sell their expensive brand name drugs instead; this would be a disadvantage to Ugandans as they will not be able to access cheap drugs. The CSOs call on government to reaffirm its 2001 Doha commitment to ensure that the TRIPS Agreement does not and should not prevent World Trade Organisation members like Uganda from taking measures to protect public health. The Industrial Properties Bill should take maximum advantage of the flexibilities detailed under the TRIPS Agreement and as provided by the Doha Declaration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Malaria control aimed at the entire population in KwaZulu-Natal negates the need for policies to prevent malaria in pregnancy","field_subtitle":"Tsoka-Gwegweni JM and Kleinschmidt I: South African Medical Journal 103(3), March 2013","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/6330/4930","body":"South Africa has no policy to prevent malaria in pregnancy, despite the adverse effects of the disease in pregnancy. However, malaria control measures consisting of indoor residual spraying and specific antimalarial treatment have been in place since the 1970s. This study was conducted to determine if the country needs a specific policy for malaria prevention in pregnancy, by determining the burden of malaria in pregnancy in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province, South Africa. Pregnant women were enrolled at their first antenatal care visit to three health facilities in Umkhanyakude health district in northern KZN during May 2004-September 2005 and followed up until delivery. Of the 1,406 study participants, 33.2% of the women were anaemic, but this was not related to malaria. The prevalence and incidence of malaria were very low, and low birth weight was only weakly associated with malaria (1:10). In conclusion, the low burden of malaria in these pregnant women suggests that they have benefited from malaria control strategies in the study area. The implication is that additional measures specific for malaria prevention in pregnancy are not required. However, ongoing monitoring is needed to ensure that malaria prevalence remains low.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Measles vaccination coverage in high-incidence areas of the Western Cape, following the mass vaccination campaign","field_subtitle":"Bernhardt GL, Cameron NA, Willems B, Boulle A and Coetzee D: South African Medical Journal 103(3), March 2013","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/6196/4932","body":"This community survey was conducted in measles high-incidence areas in the Western Cape, South Africa, to assess measles vaccination coverage attained by routine and campaign services among children aged 6 months to 59 months at the time of a mass campaign in the areas. Of 8,332 households visited, there was no response at 3,435 (41.2%); 95.1% of eligible households participated; and 91.2% of children received a campaign vaccination. Before the campaign, 33% of 9&#61485;17-month-olds had not received a measles vaccination, and this was reduced to 4.5% after the campaign. Of a total of 1,587 children, 61.5% were estimated to have measles immunity before the campaign, and this increased to 94% after the campaign. It appears that routine services had failed to achieve adequate herd immunity in areas with suspected highly mobile populations. This study shows that mass campaigns in such areas in the Western Cape significantly increased coverage. The authors conclude that extra vigilance is required to monitor and sustain adequate coverage in these areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Motivation and job satisfaction of Health Surveillance Assistants in Mwanza, Malawi: an explorative study","field_subtitle":"Kok MC and Muula S: Malawi Medical Journal 25(1): 5-11, 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/mmj/article/view/87365/77080","body":"This qualitative assessment was undertaken to identify factors that influence motivation and job satisfaction of health surveillance assistants (HSAs) in Mwanza district, Malawi, in order to inform development of strategies to influence staff motivation for better performance. Seven key informant interviews, six focus group discussions with HSAs and one group discussion with HSAs supervisors were conducted in 2009. Data were supplemented by a district wide survey involving 410 households, which included views of the community on HSAs performance. The main satisfiers identified were team spirit and coordination, the type of work to be performed by an HSA and the fact that an HSA works in the local environment. Dissatisfiers were low salary and position, poor access to training, heavy workload and extensive job description, low recognition, lack of supervision, communication and transport. Managers and had a negative opinion of HSA perfomance, while the community was much more positive: 72.9% of all respondents had a positive view on the performance of their HSA. Activities associated with worker appreciation, such as performance management were not optimally implemented. The district level can launch different measures to improve HSAs motivation, including human resource management and other measures relating to coordination of and support to the work of HSAs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Moving towards universal coverage in South Africa? Lessons from a voluntary government insurance scheme","field_subtitle":"Govender V, Chersich MF, Harris B, Alaba O, Ataguba JE, Nxumalo N and Goudge J: Global Health Action 6, 24 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/19253/html","body":"The authors of this study analysed coverage of the South African government health insurance scheme for civil servants, the population groups with low uptake, and the individual-level factors, as well as characteristics of the scheme, that influenced enrolment. They selected and interviewed 1,329 civil servants from the health and education sectors. Notwithstanding the availability of a non-contributory option within the insurance scheme and access to privately-provided primary care, a considerable portion of socio-economically vulnerable groups remained uninsured (57.7% of the lowest salary category). Non-insurance was highest among men, black African or coloured ethnic groups, less educated and lower-income employees, and those living in informal-housing. Barriers to enrolment include insufficient information, unaffordability of payments and perceived administrative complexity. The authors argue that achieving universal coverage requires good physical access to service providers and appropriate benefit options within pre-payment health financing mechanisms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Netting barriers to prevent mosquito entry into houses in southern Mozambique: a pilot study","field_subtitle":"Kampango A, Bragan\u00e7a M, Sousa B and Charlwood JD: Malaria Journal 12(99), 16 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-12-99.pdf","body":"This pilot study was conducted to investigate the protective effect of three types of Mosquito netting material against the entry of malarial mosquitoes into village houses in Mozambique. A two-step intervention was implemented in which the gable ends of houses (the largest opening) were covered with one of three materials (four year old mosquito bed nets; locally purchased untreated shade cloth or deltamethrin-impregnated shade cloth) followed by covering both gable ends and eaves with material. Mosquito entry rates were assessed by light-trap collection and the efficacy of the different materials was determined. Results showed that houses treated with mosquito netting or the untreated shade cloth had 61.3% and 70% fewer Anostopheles. funestus in relation to untreated houses, but there was no difference in An. funestus in houses treated with the deltamethrin-impregnated shade cloth compared to untreated houses. Houses treated with mosquito netting reduced entry rates of An. gambiae by 84%, whilst untreated shade cloth reduced entry rates by 69% and entry rates were reduced by 76% in houses fitted with deltamethrin-impregnated shade cloth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Ninth Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) conference and the inaugural conference of the African Federation of Public Health Associations (AFPHA): Cape Town, South Africa: 24 -27 September 2013","field_subtitle":"Early registration ends 30 July; Late registration ends 13 September 2013","field_url":"http://www.phasaconference.org.za/","body":"These two events will be held jointly in South Africa. The target audience is policy makers, public health academics and students, health professionals, health service managers and individuals from non-governmental and community-based health organisations. The joint conference will have as its focus, a scientific debate and discussion on strategies and action needed to move beyond the MDGs and on the public health legacy that we should leave, or want to, leave behind for the future generation. Speakers will include policy-makers, leading local and international academics and representatives of international organisations, such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Federation of Public Health Associations. Parallel workshops will precede the main conference, with wide-ranging topics to suit diverse interests.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Nutrition status and associated factors among children in public primary schools in Dagoretti, Nairobi, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Mwaniki EW and Makokha AN: African Health Sciences 13(1): 39-46, March 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ahs/article/view/87272/77000","body":"Interventions for school age children can supplement efforts to reduce levels of stunting in the preschool years. In this study, researchers aimed to assess the nutrition status and associated risk factors of children in selected public primary schools in Dagoretti Division, Nairobi. They randomly selected 208 students aged 4-11years of both gender from four public primary schools in Dagoretti Division. Data was collected from school registers and directly questioning the students, parents /guardians. Among the children surveyed, 24.5% were stunted, 14.9% underweight and 9.7% were wasted. There were more boys than girls who were stunted. Breakfast contributed 10.2% of the daily energy intake. Few children consumed foods from more than four food groups. Incidence of diarrhoea, colds/coughs increased the risk of stunting and underweight. Overall, the most important predictors of malnutrition were consumption of food that is inadequate in required calories and from less than four varieties of food groups.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Physical activity and health promotion strategies among physiotherapists in Rwanda","field_subtitle":"Frantz JM and Ngambare R: African Health Sciences 13 (1): 17-23, March 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ahs/article/view/87269/76997","body":"In this study from Rwanda, researchers aimed to establish the relationship between physical activity levels of physiotherapists and their physical activity promotion strategies. They drew data from 92 self-administered questionnaires and a focus group discussion of 10 purposively selected physiotherapists. The findings revealed that 64% of the participants were physically active both within the work and recreation domains and 65% of the participants had good physical activity promoting practices. Discussing physical activity and giving out information regarding physical activity were most common methods used in promotion of physical activity. Policies on physical activity, cultural influence, and nature of work, time management as well as the environment were the barriers highlighted. In conclusion, although physiotherapists experience barriers to promoting physical activity, they have good physical activity promoting practices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy Brief 32: Financing universal coverage in east and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Health Economics Unit in  EQUINET with ECSA Health Community: April 2013","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Pol%20brief%2032%20UHC.pdf","body":"Financing universal health coverage (UHC) is not only about how to generate funds for health services. It is also about how these funds are pooled and used to purchase services. This policy brief explores options for financing UHC in East and Southern Africa (ESA). It presents learning from countries that have made progress towards UHC, including the need to increase domestic funding and to use mandatory pre-payment (tax and other government revenue, possibly supplemented by mandatory health insurance contributions) as the main mechanism for funding health services. The brief indicates the problems associated with introducing or expanding health insurance to fund UHC. With tax funding often the most equitable and efficient option, there is scope for increasing government revenue and health expenditure in many ESA countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Post-2015: framing a new approach to sustainable development","field_subtitle":"Independent Research Forum on a Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda: March 2013","field_url":"http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/G03533.pdf?","body":"This briefing note offers principles and approaches for integrating economic, social and environmental sustainability and equity in a new post-2015 development agenda. It offers guidance on how development processes can help create a foundation for human wellbeing based on economic progress, equitable prosperity and opportunity, a healthy and productive environment and participatory governance. The Independent Research Forum argues that sustainable development can only be achieved when these dimensions of development are all present and mutually reinforcing. But first, eight shifts will be essential: from \u2018development assistance\u2019 to a universal global compact; from top-down to multi-stakeholder decision-making processes; from economic models that increase inequalities and risks to ones that reduce them; from business models based on shareholder value to those based on stakeholder value; from meeting \u2018easy\u2019 development targets to tackling systemic barriers to progress; from damage control to investing in resilience; from concepts and testing to scaled up interventions; and from multiple discrete actions to cross-scale coordination.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Health Policy and Systems Research","field_subtitle":"No closing date","field_url":"http://www.hpsa-africa.org/index.php/rsm-fellowships-program-for-phd-candidates","body":"A total of four postdoctoral fellowships are available in the area of Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) for the Collaboration for Health Systems and Policy Analysis and Innovation (CHESAI) project, which is based at the School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town (UCT) and the School of Public Health, University of Western Cape (UWC), both in Cape Town, South Africa. The fellowships are for the period 2012-2016. Applicants must have citizenship of a sub-Saharan African country, be an expatriate African, or demonstrate commitment to future work in African health systems. They must have achieved a PhD in the last five years in any suitable field, such as health sciences or social sciences and not have previously held any permanent academic positions. Their work must show clear evidence of robust scholarly performance including a relevant publications record and have some relevant experience, specifically a track record of interest in health policy and systems issues, preferably including research. Applicants will be asked to propose an area of work relevant to one or more of the CHESAI themes, and to show how their past research provides a basis for this proposed work and/or what additional activities are proposed to contribute to the CHESAI community of practice. Please contact Jill Oliver and Thubelihle Mathole at the email address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevalence and correlates of being bullied among in-school adolescents in Malawi: results from the 2009 Global School-Based Health Survey","field_subtitle":"Kubwalo HW, Muula AS, Siziya S, Pasupulati S and Rudatsikira E: Malawi Medical Journal 25(1): 12-14, 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/mmj/article/view/87366/77081","body":"This study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of self-reported bullying and its personal and social correlates through a secondary analysis of the 2009 Malawi School-Based Student Health Survey. A total of 2,264 in-school adolescents participated. Just under half (44.5%) reported having been bullied in the previous month to the survey (44.1% among boys versus 44.9% among girls). Compared to adolescents of age 16 years or older, those who were 12 years old or younger and those who were 14 years of age were more likely to be bullied. The other risk factors that were identified in the analysis were loneliness and being worried. Adolescents who had no close friends were 14% more likely to be reporting bullied compared to adolescents who reported having close friends. Adolescents who smoked cigarettes were more than three times more likely to reporting be bullied compared to non-smokers, while those who drank alcohol were more than twice as likely to be bullied as adolescents who did not take alcohol. Health workers caring for adolescents should be sensitised to the frequent occurrence of bullying and to its correlates and consequences.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Private medical aid membership: What is the impact on health care use and out-of-pocket payments in South Africa?","field_subtitle":"Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town: Policy brief, January 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cmd6qez","body":"This policy brief examines the extent to which private medical scheme membership shields South African members from out-of-pocket payments. This is important for the design of the National Health Insurance system in the country. The Health Economics Unit (HEU) found that medical scheme members have significantly more private health care visits and pay substantial out-of-pocket payments to use health services, in addition to their contributions to the medical schemes. Consequently, there is a need to move away from fee-for-service payments, which often leads to over-servicing, cost escalation, and assessment and regulation of less effective medications and interventions. There is also a need to limit, as much as possible, out-of-pocket payments that adversely affect scheme members and also address the rising contribution rates. A form of insurance that ensures adequate use of health services is needed. Ideally, this should be a form that ensures universal access to health care, for example, the proposed National Health Insurance, the policy brief concludes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Psychological distress among adults admitted to medical and surgical wards of a Regional Referral Hospital, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Rukundo ZG, Nakasujja N and Musisi S: African Health Sciences 13(1): 82-86, March 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ahs/article/view/87278/77006","body":"Little is known about psychological distress of patients on general wards in developing countries. This study aimed to determine the extent and associations of psychological distress among adult in-patients on medical and surgical wards of Mbarara hospital in Uganda. Researchers conducted a cross-sectional descriptive study among 258 adult in-patients. They used the WHO endorsed self report questionnaire (SRQ-25) to assess psychological distress with a cut off of 5/6, as well as the MINI International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) to identify specific psychiatric disorders. Results indicated that 158 individuals (61%) had psychological distress. One hundred and nine (42%) met criteria for at least one major psychiatric diagnosis. Only 6% of these were recognised by the attending health workers. Psychological distress was significantly associated with previous hospitalisations, ward of admission and marital status. The authors conclude that despite high levels of psychological distress among the physically ill, it is often unrecognised and untreated.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Publication and invitation to comment on the Draft Protection of Traditional Knowledge Bill","field_subtitle":"James WG: March 2013","field_url":"http://blogs.sun.ac.za/iplaw/files/2013/03/Protection-of-Traditional-Knowledge-Bill.pdf","body":"An alternative South African bill on the protection of traditional knowledge (TK) has been published in the official Government Gazette that would create a new system of intellectual property right specific to TK. The Wilmot Bill aims to provide adequate, financially viable, legally enforceable protection for traditional knowledge (TK) that will provide sui generis protection for TK, comply with South Africa\u2019s international obligations, give effect to the principles for the protection of indigenous knowledge advocated by the World Intellectual Property Organisation, safeguard South Africa\u2019s existing IP statutes from irreparable harm, and establish a more sophisticated system for the protection of traditional knowledge in South Africa. The Stellenbosch Chair of Intellectual Property (CIP) is asking for support in their call on the government to reject the old TK Bill, open the matter for public comment from all traditional communities and support the Wilmot Bill. If the current TK bill is to become law, CIP argues that South Africa will face numerous financial, legal and practical difficulties and it further condemns the dismissive attitude of the Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry toward legitimate concerns of the public.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Risks and Challenges in Medical Tourism: Understanding the Global Market for Health Services","field_subtitle":"Hodges JR, Kimball AM and Turner L: Praeger, July 2012","field_url":"http://www.amazon.com/Risks-Challenges-Medical-Tourism-Understanding/dp/0313399352/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0","body":"This book provides an in-depth, comprehensive assessment of the benefits and risks when health care becomes a global commodity. The collection includes contributions from leading scholars in law and public policy, medicine and public health, bioethics, anthropology, health geography, and economics. Contributors examine how government agencies, medical tourism companies, international hospital chains, and other organisations promote medical tourism and the globalisation of health care. The topics explored include the legal remedies available to medical tourists when procedures go awry; potential consequences when patients cross borders for medical procedures that are illegal in their home countries; the relationship of medical tourism to international spread of infectious disease; and the lack of adequate transnational policies and regulations governing the global market for health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Rwanda\u2019s revolutionary prescription for health","field_subtitle":"Paulson T: Humanosphere, 26 March 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.humanosphere.org/2013/03/rwandas-revolutionary-prescription-for-health/","body":"Rwanda is widely celebrated for having demonstrated that major improvements in health can be achieved in a poor country, at relatively low cost per capita, by good strategy, innovation and focusing on the best value for money. Rwandan health officials have installed well-trained, compensated health workers into every community to make sure that community members get to access the primary health care services they need, including routine prenatal care, immunisation and malaria diagnosis \u2013 early treatment significantly reduces health costs. The authors argue that the lesson learned from Rwanda\u2019s success in health is that the country\u2019s 45,000 community health workers (CHWs) are not viewed as complementary components to the public health system, but central to it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"South African AIDS Activism and Global Health Politics","field_subtitle":"Mbali M: Palgrave Macmillan, March 2013","field_url":"http://us.macmillan.com/southafricanaidsactivismandglo","body":"What did South African AIDS activists contribute, politically, to early international advocacy for free HIV medicines for the world's poor? Mandisa Mbali demonstrates that South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) gave moral legitimacy to the international movement, which enabled it to effectively push for new models of global health diplomacy and governance. The TAC rapidly acquired moral credibility, she argues, because of its leaders' anti-apartheid political backgrounds, its successful human rights-based litigation and its effective popularisation of AIDS-related science. The country's arresting democratic transition in 1994 enabled South African activists to form transnational alliances. Its new Constitution provided novel opportunities for legal activism, such as the TAC's advocacy against multinational pharmaceutical companies for blocking access to affordable generics and the South African government when it failed to provided antiretrovirals. Mbali's history of the TAC sheds light on its evolution into an influential force for global health justice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa\u2019s NHI seeks GPs","field_subtitle":"Health-e News: 18 March 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ceahoyy","body":"South Africa\u2019s National Department of Health (DoH) has embarked on an initiative to improve and expand access to healthcare services through the contracting of private General Medical Practitioners (GPs) to render sessional service in Primary Healthcare facilities. This initiative is in support of the National Health Insurance (NHl) pilot that aims to improve access to high quality public sector health care services. The initial phase of GP contracting for sessional services will take place in the 10 NHI pilot districts across the country. The DoH embarked on a consultation process started by the Minister of Health in his visits and road shows to the various districts; this was then followed by a letter from the Director-General of Health to GPs to test their levels of interest to participate in this project. Government has advertised for candidates and will soon begin the selection process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategic Plan for Nursing Education, Training and Practice 2012/13 \u2013 2016/17","field_subtitle":"Ministry of Health, South Africa: March 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cz9lnk8","body":"South Africa launched its National Strategic Plan for Nurse Education, Training and Practice for 2012/13 - 2016/17 in March 2013. The plan aims to revitalise the ailing public health sector. According to the plan, nursing colleges will be declared higher education institutions in compliance with the provisions of the Higher Education Act (as amended in 2008). This will help to address provincial inequalities, norms and standards, quality, decrease fragmentation, eliminate fly-by-night nursing education institutions (NEIs), improve clinical training and enhance social accountability. Nursing students will also have the status of full students (rather than employees) while undergoing training. They should receive funding support paid monthly for tuition books and study materials, as well as living costs, medical aid and indemnity insurance, while tuition fees should be paid directly to the NEIs. The plan also addresses the need to emphasise modules that focus on caring, and these should be compulsory at all levels of nursing and midwifery. This should help address the issue of compassion in the profession. The plan also significantly proposes that an office for the chief nursing officer be established, which will then take responsibility for the implementation of the strategy over the next five years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Street children\u2019s vulnerability to HIV and sexually transmitted infections in Malawian cities ","field_subtitle":"Mandalazi P, Banda C and Umar E: Malawi Medical Journal 25(1): 1-4, 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/mmj/article/view/87364/77079","body":"The objective for this study was to explore street children\u2019s vulnerability to HIV and STIs infection. Researchers employed In-depth interviews with street children in the two main cities of Malawi, Blantyre and Lilongwe. A total of 23 street children were interviewed. Results of the study strongly suggest that street children could be vulnerable to HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). This is due to various factors which include low knowledge levels of STIs and HIV, high risk sexual practices, lack of safer place to spend their nights for both boys and girls rendering them vulnerable to sexual abuses and the use of sex as a tool to secure protection and to be accepted especially for the newcomers on the street. This study highlights street children\u2019s vulnerability to sexual exploitation which predisposes them to risk of HIV and AIDS as well as STIs. Furthermore, the street environment offers no protection against such vulnerability. There is need to explore potential and context sensitive strategies that could be used to protect street children from sexual exploitation and HIV and STIs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of official development aid on maternal and reproductive health outcomes: A systematic review","field_subtitle":"Taylor EM, Hayman R, Crawford F, Jeffery P and Smith J: PLoS One 8(2), 22 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0056271","body":"The 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness represented a global commitment to reform aid practices. In this study, researchers conducted a systematic review of the evidence of the impact on maternal-health-related Millennium Development Goal 5 (MDG 5) of official development aid delivered in line with Paris aid effectiveness principles. They compared with this aid delivered in the usual manner. While aid interventions appeared to be associated with small improvements in the MDG indicators, it was not clear whether changes are happening because of the manner in which aid is delivered. The researchers note that existing data do not allow for a meaningful comparison between Paris style and general aid. They identified discernible gaps in the evidence base on aid interventions targeting MDG 5, notably on indicators MDG 5.4 (adolescent birth rate) and 5.6 (unmet need for family planning). The findings of this review point to major gaps in the evidence base and should be used to inform new approaches and methodologies aimed at measuring the impact of official development aid.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The National Health Care Facilities Baseline Audit: National Summary Report","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust: 2013","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/NHFA_webready_0.pdf","body":"From May 2011 to May 2012, with funding from the South Africa\u2019s national Department of Health, an audit of every health facility in the public health sector was conducted by a consortium of partners. The audit assessed infrastructure, classification of facilities, compliance to priority areas of quality and function, human resources, access and range of services offered, and geographic positioning (GPS) for location of facilities and photographs. The overall objective of the audit was to collect baseline data from all public health facilities in the country using standardised and existing measurement tools provided by the national Department of Health. The data collected were captured into the National Core Standards database established by the national Department of Health. Data collected from each of the facilities were aggregated to sub-district, district and national averages that are presented by theme in a variety of dashboards and can be accessed centrally from the web-based reporting database. This national summary report provides a succinct and high level interpretation of the results and summary of the findings of the audit. This information is essential to identify health system strengths and gaps, to assess current and future needs and for planning investments and future services such as the National Health Insurance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The politics of delivery: Our findings so far","field_subtitle":"Foresti M, O\u2019Neil T and Wild L: Overseas Development Institute, April 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/8346.pdf","body":"Based on research in education, health, water and sanitation, the authors of this paper sought to identify how politics and governance can constrain or enable equitable and efficient service delivery in developing countries, including Malawi, Rwanda and Uganda. Some of these constraints reflect the nature of the wider governance system, and may have similar effects across sectors, for example in how financial resources are used or how human resources are allocated. The authors\u2019 focus was on the interactions at regional, district and community level between local government officials, service providers and users \u2013 the \u2018missing middle\u2019 of the service delivery chain. Their analysis of four aid programmes suggests that aid-funded activities can facilitate government efforts to address governance constraints in public service delivery. However, it also indicates that the way in which programmes are designed and implemented matters to whether they are able to gain domestic traction and support institutional change. The authors advocate for \u2018arm\u2019s length\u2019 aid models, which work through organisations that offer advisory services directly to governments and other public bodies in developing countries and have had some success as brokers of collective action and facilitators of change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Ushahidi Platform: A free, web-based mapping platform","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ushahidi.com/products/ushahidi-platform","body":"One of the most powerful ways to visualise information is to display it on a map. You can use the Ushahidi Platform for information collection, visualisation and interactive mapping. It is free for you to download and use and is aimed at activists, news organisations and every-day citizens. It provides information mapping tools that allow you to track your reports on the map and over time. You can filter your data by time and then see when things happened and where, as it's also tied to the map. With multiple data streams, the Ushahidi Platform allows you to easily collect information via text messages, email, twitter and web-forms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Wits launches Institute for Malaria","field_subtitle":"Health-e News: 18 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20034090","body":"The University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa has announced the formation of the Wits Research Institute for Malaria, (WRIM), strengthening research into one of Africa\u2019s deadliest diseases. The Institute combines three existing research groups from the School of Public Health who are working on malaria vectors, parasites and pharmacology. Africa has very few research institutes that have the capacity to address a host of issues and make an impact on the disease. The WRIM aims to produce leading research and researchers to benefit malaria control in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"A population based survey in Ethiopia using questionnaire as proxy to estimate obstetric fistula prevalence: results from demographic and health survey","field_subtitle":"Biadgilign S, Lakew Y, Reda AA and Deribe K: Reproductive Health 10(14), 25 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/pdf/1742-4755-10-14.pdf","body":"The aim of this study was to describe the prevalence and factors associated with obstetric fistula in Ethiopia. A total of 14,070 women of reproductive age group were included in the survey, of whom only 23.2% had ever heard of OF. Among 9,713 women who had given birth, 103 (1.06%) had experienced OF in their lifetime. Those women who are circumcised or lived in urban areas had higher odds of reporting the condition. Women who gave birth 10 or more also had higher odds of developing OF than women with one to four children. It is estimated that in Ethiopia nearly 142,387 obstetric fistula patients exist. The authors conclude that OF is a major public and reproductive health concern in Ethiopia and they call for increased access to emergency obstetric care, expansion of fistula repair service and active recruitment of women through a campaign of ending obstetric fistula.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"A systematic review of qualitative findings on factors enabling and deterring uptake of HIV testing in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Musheke M, Ntalasha H, Gari S, Mckenzie O, Bond V, Martin-Hilber A and Merten S: BMC Public Health 13(220), 11 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-220.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers synthesised published qualitative research to identify the factors enabling and deterring uptake of HIV testing in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). A total of 42 papers from 13 countries were synthesised in the final analysis. Results indicated that the predominant factors enabling uptake of HIV testing were deterioration of physical health and/or death of sexual partner or child. Other enabling factors were the roll-out of various new HIV testing initiatives, such as \u2018opt-out\u2019 provider-initiated HIV testing and mobile HIV testing, availability of treatment and social network influence and support. Major barriers to uptake of HIV testing were perceived low risk of HIV infection, perceived health workers\u2019 inability to maintain confidentiality and fear of HIV-related stigma. Other barriers were direct and indirect financial costs of accessing HIV testing, and gender inequality, which undermines women\u2019s decision making autonomy about HIV testing. The authors conclude that improving uptake of HIV testing requires addressing perception of low risk of HIV infection and perceived inability to live with HIV. There is also a need to continue addressing HIV-related stigma, which is intricately linked to individual economic support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Activists voice concerns at African IP Forum, SA trade minister responds","field_subtitle":"Treatment Action Campaign: 27 February 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ag9us46","body":"TAC activists picketed at the opening of the Africa Intellectual Property (IP) Forum on 26 February 2013 and handed over a memorandum to Rob Davies, South Africa\u2019s Minister of Trade and Industry. They were demanding that the draft IP policy, which will lead to patent law reform, be made public. TAC also said that those living with HIV and TB and civil society need to be included in the process that will shape laws that will have an impact on access to medicines and healthcare. Minister Davies responded that the draft policy was now in its final stages and would be released for public comment soon. Davies spoke of the need for South Africa\u2019s IP policy to balance the rights of innovators and the rights of humanity by ensuring incentives for innovation as well as ensuring public health and access to medicine. He highlighted the role of generic medicines in fighting disease in South Africa and was clear that generics are not the same as counterfeits. TAC and M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) are calling for a local patent examination system to replace the existing automatic system. Fewer patents will mean more competition and lower prices, critical in light of the fact that South African patients are paying much more for life-saving drugs than counterparts in other developing nations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Addressing staff shortages in public hospitals: a role for clinical associates?","field_subtitle":"Doherty J: Public Health Association of South Africa, 28 February 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/baaatna","body":"Developing mid-level health professionals who can complement existing staff is an additional strategy that has been debated since 1994 and incorporated into the government\u2019s recent human resources policy. Yet progress in the production of mid-level health workers has been slow. Reasons for this are likely to include competing priorities, the practical difficulties associated with setting up and implementing new training programmes, constraints on absorbing new cadres into the existing health system, tensions between different cadres over role definition and working conditions, and the brain drain into the private sector. More fundamentally, concerns remain about whether mid-level workers are the correct choice for South Africa\u2019s health system. The author discusses how the design and early implementation of a new programme to develop South Africa\u2019s first mid-level medical health professionals took account of these concerns and realities. Also highlighted are the issues that need to be addressed by government in order to ensure that this new programme has a substantial impact on the quality of care delivered in public hospitals. The author concludes that clinical associates have the potential to bring good quality hospital care closer to communities in a way that is affordable for the country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa IP Forum: Speakers Propose Flexible IP Policies","field_subtitle":"Daniels L: Intellectual Property Watch, 1 March 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/arvrxlj","body":"Africa is still held captive by colonial borders and has failed to collectively leverage benefit-sharing agreements that result from multinationals\u2019 commercial pursuit of indigenous knowledge, said speakers at the Africa Intellectual Property (IP) Forum, held in South Africa in February 2013. The issue of applying intellectual property rights to indigenous knowledge, in order to protect holders of this knowledge from exploitation while at the same time leveraging it for development was a vibrant thread of debate throughout the conference, which was themed \u2018Intellectual property and economic growth in Africa\u2019. Opening speaker Carlos Correa from the South Centre recommended flexibility in drawing up national IP policies. He told delegates that historical evidence has shown little or no support for the view that intellectual monopoly is an effective method of increasing innovation. Other speakers warned of the threat of biopiracy in Africa, and highlighted the role of academic researchers in contemporary biopiracy, who function as intermediaries between the commons (public cultural knowledge) and pharmaceutical companies looking for patents. A number of African countries have already adopted IP policies and plans, namely Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles and Zambia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"African voice in global health diplomacy","field_subtitle":"Editor","field_url":"","body":"The two editorials in this months newsletter address issues that have significance to African health systems - medicines access and health worker migration. In the first, Germ\u00e1n Vel\u00e1squez raises concern that the latest joint WHO, WTO and WIPO in its silence about health and access to medicines in the publication effectively subordinates the right to health to international trade rules. A more direct challenge to patent systems is argued for, and a further article in the newsletter from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis goes further to argue that the patent system suppresses innovation and should be abolished. In the second editorial, Yoswa Dambisya and colleagues raise concern about a different silence: They ask why African countries have become so silent on implementing the Code on International Recruitment of Health Workers, given their prolonged struggle to obtain it.  Both raise questions about the effectiveness of global level diplomacy as a platform for addressing key issues affecting public health in Africa. A new working paper on the EQUINET website (\"Concepts in and perspectives on global health diplomacy\") explores this further, and invites views and perspectives on the questions raised. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"After 2015, then what? Africa\u2019s development agenda in post-MDGs","field_subtitle":"Ezeanya C: Pambazuka News 621, 14 March 2013","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/86585","body":"For Africa, there is the urgent and desperate need for a radically different approach to understanding and tackling regional challenges post-2015, argues the author of this article. Africa\u2019s greatest challenge is creativity, and innovation founded on indigenous knowledge and indigenous resources. The continent needs homegrown, creative solutions and breakthroughs in governance, science and technology, economic policies, curriculum, health and wellness, and just about any area of human existence covered and not covered by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). What is absent in Africa are ideas rooted in Africa\u2019s indigenous material and non-material resources, ranging from mineral, environmental, herbal and ecological resources to agricultural practices, social organisation, political processes, medical knowledge, and numerous others. Africa\u2019s own knowledge systems and ideas are the most valid, inexpensive and rely on easily accessible resources that will bring about advancement for the continent, the author argues. The formulators of the numerous development plans superimposed on Africa have had little or no regard for the continent\u2019s indigenous knowledge, and because of that Africans themselves hold their knowledge and abilities in contempt.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid for Trade: Reviewing EC and DFID Monitoring and Evaluation Practices","field_subtitle":"Turner L and Rovamaa L: Saana Consulting and TraidCraft UK, 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bfxosl4","body":"This paper explores how Aid for Trade (AfT) projects and programmes are currently evaluated, focusing particularly on the assessment of the impact on poverty and/or poor and excluded groups. The authors found that little publicly available information on whether AfT projects programmes are impacting on poverty. There is typically a gap between strategic ambitions and statements on poverty reduction and the actual project and programme design, implementation and monitoring and evaluation. Generally, poverty reduction is measured only at the goal level (macro&#8208;level) and AfT projects and programmes often focus on institutional strengthening and improving policy making (or negotiation) processes, with only long&#8208;term indirect impacts on poverty. In these cases, the effects on poverty reduction and/or poor and excluded groups are typically not assessed. By and large, causal links between what a project delivers and the impact on poverty is based on a series of assumptions (and, in some cases, a leap of logic) unless poor people are direct beneficiaries of the project/programme. The authors call for more rigorous and realistic impact assessments on poverty impacts, and greater funder accountability and transparency, with regular, independent evaluations that go beyond reporting monitoring information only. Funders must commit to provide much-needed data for decision making.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Brain Drain: Advocating to Alleviate the Global Health Worker Migration Crisis","field_subtitle":"Chen J, Hampson S and Robertson A: Student Voices 5, February 2013","field_url":"http://www.mcmasterhealthforum.org/images/docs/student-voices-5.pdf#page=36","body":"In this paper, the authors evaluate various policy options to address the global health worker migration crisis, which include: financial and technical support from destination countries; bilateral and multilateral agreements between states; creation of self-sufficient healthcare systems; and collection of reliable migration data. Implementation requires the support of key stakeholders such as the World Health Organisation, member states, and other international organisations. However, there are many obstacles to policy change, including the power disparities between source and destination countries, ethical sensitivity of policies, financial incentives, lack of data collection, and limited international cooperation. The authors argue that media campaigns can be used in destination countries to mobilise citizens and influence national policy. Research initiatives can galvanise action at grassroots, national and international levels. Regional conferences can bring together key stakeholders and promote collaboration between source and destination countries. All efforts should be overseen by an international advocacy group.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Bringing Marginalised Livelihoods into Focus, 2008-2011","field_subtitle":"Pointer R: PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2012","field_url":"http://www.plaas.org.za/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/FINAL%20REPORT%20dec%202012.pdf","body":"This report covers a period in which PLAAS sought to clarify and consolidate its vision, and elaborate an agenda for research, policymaking, teaching and training that emphasises the centrality of the dynamics of chronic poverty and structural inequality in South Africa. The particular emphasis is on understanding how the workings of agro-food systems can either perpetuate structural poverty and marginalisation \u2014 or alleviate it. Within this broad field of investigation, PLAAS\u2019s work focuses on the dynamics of marginalised livelihoods in agro-food systems; particularly livelihoods that are vulnerable, structurally excluded or adversely incorporated, such as those of farm workers, small and subsistence farmers, artisanal fishers and fishing communities, and the informally self-employed, in urban and in rural contexts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Building consensus on key priorities for rural health care in South Africa using the Delphi technique","field_subtitle":"Versteeg M, du Toit L, Couper I and Mnqapu M: Global Health Action 6(19522), 24 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/19522/pdf_1","body":"Experience shows that rural health care can be disadvantaged in policy formulation despite good intentions. Therefore, the objective of this study was to identify the major challenges and priority interventions for rural health care provision in South Africa thereby contributing to pro-rural health policy dialogue. The Delphi technique was used to develop consensus on a list of statements that was generated through interviews and literature review. A panel of rural health practitioners and other stakeholders was asked to indicate their level of agreement with these statements and to rank the top challenges in and interventions required for rural health care. The top five priorities identified by participants were aligned to three of the World Health Organisation\u2019s health system building blocks: human resources for health (HRH), governance, and finance. Specifically, the panel made the following policy recommendations: a focus on recruitment and support of rural health professionals, the employment of managers with sufficient and appropriate skills, a rural-friendly national HRH plan, and equitable funding formulae.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Applications: CODESRIA Institute On Health, Politics and Society in Africa: Dakar, Senegal, 7-25 October 2013","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 15 June 2013","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org","body":"The theme of the 2013 session of the Institute on Health, Politics and Society in Africa is \u201cHealth, Environment and Development in Africa\u201d. The interface between health and the environment is an overriding challenge for development in Africa today. In many African countries, health is often the source of the slow pace of development processes. On the other hand, with their integration in the global market, African economies have become highly dependent on the environment and the exploitation of natural resources, both renewable and non-renewable.  But the environment is not only physical; it also takes into account the socio-cultural aspects of the populations living there, in terms of norms, values and social practices which also pose health problems. African Social Science researchers are therefore invited to reflect, taking into account the gender dimension, on the interface between health and the environment, an important issue for the development of the continent. For every session, CODESRIA will appoint a director from the academic and research community to provide intellectual leadership for the Institute, as well as resource persons and laureates. Applications are now open for all three types of positions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for contributions to the draft report of the High-level Global Thematic Consultation on Health","field_subtitle":"Centre for Health Sciences Training, Research and Development (CHESTRAD): March 2013","field_url":"","body":"Co-led by WHO and UNICEF, and with the support of the governments of Sweden and Botswana, the High-level Global Thematic Consultation on Health in the post-2015 agenda took place on 5-6 March 2013, in Botswana. This was one of 11 United Nations thematic consultations to help define the priorities of the future development agenda. As part of the ongoing consultation towards a final report that will be presented in May 2013, interested parties are invited to make contributions. Some commentators have noted a lack of inputs from low- and middle-income countries. CHESTRAD specifically calls on all contributors from these countries. The draft report is included in this newsletter.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CARTA PhD Fellowships","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 15 April 2013","field_url":"http://cartafrica.blogspot.com/2013/01/call-for-carta-phd-fellowships-2013-2014.html","body":"The Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) is an initiative of nine African universities, four African research institutes, and selected northern partners. CARTA offers an innovative model for doctoral training in sub-Saharan Africa to strengthen the capacity of participating institutions to conduct and lead internationally competitive research. Applications are now open for fellowships.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Closing the Health Equity Gap: Policy Options and Opportunities for Action","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2013","field_url":"http://new.paho.org/equity/index2.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=103&Itemid=","body":"This report brings together a series of policy briefs and is aimed at policy-makers and others interested to improve health equity by acting within the health system and on broader governmental policy. The report provides an update and overview of the vast amount of evidence produced during the Commission on Social Determinants of Health and identifies policy options to implement the main recommendations of the Commission. It draws from the extensive work of the nine global knowledge networks set up by WHO to generate evidence for the Commission. It first considers the essential role of the health sector in reducing inequities in five areas: working towards universal coverage; public health programmes; measuring inequities in health; facilitating mobilisation of people and groups; and intersectoral action.  Second, it discusses how the health sector can work with other sectors that are also vital to this task in seven additional areas: early child development; urban settings; globalisation; employment and working conditions; policy and attitudes towards women; inclusive policies; and engaging civil society. The report ends by outlining a methodology to put together a national action plan addressing these issues, in light of the different starting points and priorities found in each country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Country case studies and reform comparison tool","field_subtitle":"UHC Forward","field_url":"http://uhcforward.org/reforms/compare/funding","body":"The Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage systematically documents the reforms of its member countries and other countries that have expanded health coverage through demand-side financing. The network has compiled all available data on this website, which contains case studies describing the key highlights and technical features of each programme for each country. This tool allows users to compare health funding mechanisms for various countries, including African countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Design, implementation and evaluation of a national campaign to deliver 18 million free long-lasting insecticidal nets to uncovered sleeping spaces in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Renggli S, Mandike R, Kramer K, Patrick F, Brown NJ, McElroy PD et al: Malaria Journal 12(85), 4 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-12-85.pdf","body":"In 2010 and 2011, Tanzania ran a universal coverage campaign to distribute long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) nationally and free-of-charge. Household surveys were conducted in seven districts immediately after the campaign to assess net ownership and use. A total of 18.2 million LLINs were delivered at an average cost of US$ 5.30 per LLIN. Overall, 83% of the expenses were used for LLIN procurement and delivery and 17% for campaign associated activities. Preliminary results of the latest Tanzania HIV Malaria Indicator Survey (2011\u201312) show that household ownership of at least one insecticide-treated net (ITN) increased to 91.5%. ITN use, among children under-five years of age, improved to 72.7% after the campaign. ITN ownership and use data post-campaign indicated high equity across wealth quintiles. Close collaboration among the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, external funders, contracted partners, local government authorities and volunteers made it possible to carry out one of the largest LLIN distribution campaigns conducted in Africa to date. The authors predict that, through the strong increase of ITN use, the recent activities of the national ITN programme will likely result in further decline in child mortality rates in Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Determining quantitative targets for public funding of tuberculosis research and development","field_subtitle":"Walwyn DR: Health Research Policy and Systems 11(10), 8 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-11-10.pdf","body":"South Africa\u2019s expenditure on tuberculosis (TB) research and development (R&D) is argued in this paper to be insignificant relative to both its disease burden and the expenditure of some comparator countries with lower TB incidence. In 2010, the country had the second highest TB incidence rate in the world (796 per 100,000 population), and the third highest number of new TB cases (490,000 or 6% of the global total). Although it has a large TB treatment programme (about US$588 million per year), TB R&D funding is small both in absolute terms and relative to its total R&D expenditure. Using two separate estimation methods (global justice and return on investment), the author suggests that most countries, including South Africa, are under-investing in TB R&D. To address this, he develops specific investment targets for a range of countries, particularly in areas of applied research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Development must be about freedom from fear and freedom from want","field_subtitle":"Tiwana M: Poverty Matters, 6 March 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/mar/06/development-freedom-fear-want","body":"The Millennium Declaration of 2000 contains a comprehensive vision of development underpinned by human rights, and is the source document of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, in 2001, when the MDGs were formulated, influential voices were able to convince the international community that democratic freedoms could be relegated in favour of progress on economic indicators. But the neglect of these freedoms has come at a cost, the author argues, as evidenced by the Arab Spring, which showed that development must be about both freedom from fear and freedom from want. People need good standards of living where their basic needs are met but they also need civil and political freedoms to have a say in the decisions that affect their lives and to ensure that the benefits of development are evenly spread. The author calls on global and national decision-makers to reread the promises made by world leaders in the Millennium Declaration on freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, respect for nature and shared responsibility. He argues that it is time to put people at the centre of development and ditch the business as usual approach if we are to address impending and interlinked economic, social, political, environmental and humanitarian crises.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Dissemination of Research Findings to Research Participants Living with HIV in Rural Uganda: Challenges and Rewards","field_subtitle":"Baylor A, Muzoora C, Bwana M, Kembabazi A, Haberer JE et al: PLoS Med 10(3), 5 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001397","body":"Sharing research findings with participants living with HIV enrolled in observational research in rural sub-Saharan Africa presents significant challenges with respect to literacy, language, logistics, and confidentiality. In this study, researchers communicated research findings to 540 participants enrolled in an ongoing seven-year prospective cohort study of HIV treatment in Mbarara, Uganda. The researchers followed a six-step process, beginning with an exploration of acceptability, format and content to participants and culminating in a conference of all participants. The dissemination conference provided a formal mechanism for the research assistants to share participants' concerns and questions with the entire investigator team.  Disseminating the scientific findings was reported to be highly rewarding for participants, research staff, and investigators. It improved communication between participants and research staff, strengthened the relationship between research staff and investigators, and created a sense of community among participants. Finally, the event generated a research agenda directly from those most affected by HIV in a rural, resource-constrained setting. The authors recommend this format as a guide to dissemination of study findings to study participants in similar settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Dying to live: Kenya\u2019s search for universal healthcare ","field_subtitle":"Mwangi T: Global Health Check, 14 March 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/?p=1407","body":"Like many countries in east Africa, Kenya has a complicated patchwork of different health insurance schemes offering different levels of coverage to different population groups. The author of this article argues that merging these into a single national risk pool that uses public financing to provide for all citizens will improve access to healthcare and reduce administrative costs. She puts forward two proposals for financing universal health care: introducing an earmarked tax on diaspora remittances and merging existing funds to create a single National Social Health Insurance Fund that pools all the resources that are currently available for health into one pot to stop the current duplication of financing mechanisms. Although a proposal to start a National Social Health Insurance Fund in Kenya was recently passed by Parliament the president did not sign it. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Enhancing Maternal and Child Nutrition in External Assistance: an EU Policy Framework","field_subtitle":"European Commission: 12 March 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/a6b8g9b","body":"In the framework of the 2012 London Global Hunger Event, the European Commission undertook a political commitment to support partner countries in reducing the number of children under five who are stunted by at least seven million by 2025. In this Communication, the Commission sets out the details of its response to achieving this target and more broadly, to reducing overall maternal and child undernutrition. The Commission argues that addressing this problem requires a multi-sector approach, combining sustainable agriculture, rural development, food and nutrition security, public health, water and sanitation, social protection and education. It requires recognition by partner countries of the problem and a commitment to tackle it. The Communication sets out the primary responsibility of national governments for nutrition, as well as the important role of women and men in developing countries as drivers of change. It calls for better coordination between humanitarian and development aid in order to increase the resilience of affected populations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET discussion paper 96: Concepts in and perspectives on global health diplomacy","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R, Modisenyane M and Pearcey M: EQUINET, January 2013","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/GHD%20concept%20paper%20Jan2013.pdf","body":"The Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) is implementing a three year policy research programme to address selected challenges to health and strengthening health systems within processes of global health diplomacy (GHD). In the June 2012 inception workshop for the programme, delegates called for a paper that explains the concepts and emergence of global health diplomacy, the different approaches being taken in GHD, including African approaches. Given the de facto rise in health diplomacy, this paper explores questions on GHD, to inform debate and dialogue in Africa on raising health within global diplomacy. The authors briefly present the roots and emergence of GHD, and the debates on raising public health within global diplomacy. They outline how the concepts of and approaches to GHD differ across countries and regions. They explore the perspectives that have informed diplomacy in Africa, and ask what this means for African engagement in GHD, and for public health in Africa. At various points in this paper they raise questions on what implications the developments described have for health diplomacy in Africa. Given the limitations of documented evidence on African approaches or analysis of health diplomacy from an African lens, it is difficult to draw conclusions. The authors thus raise questions that they hope will provoke dialogue, debate and response.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 146: Putting business before health at the WHO?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Ethnic differences in alcohol and drug use and related sexual risks for HIV among vulnerable women in Cape Town, South Africa: implications for interventions","field_subtitle":"Myers B, Kline TL, Browne FA, Carney T, Parry C, Johnson K and Wechsberg WM: BMC Public Health 13(174), 26 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-174.pdf","body":"This paper aims to describe ethnic differences in alcohol and other drug (AOD) use and AOD-related sexual risks for HIV among vulnerable women from Cape Town, South Africa. Researchers collected data on 720 AOD-using women (324 Black African; 396 Coloured [mixed race]) recruited from poor communities in Cape Town and compared them for differences in AOD use and AOD-related sexual risk behaviour. They found differences in patterns of AOD use, with self-reported drug problems, heavy episodic drinking and methamphetamine use being most prevalent among Coloured women and cannabis use being most likely among Black African women. However, more than half of Black African women reported drug-related problems and more than a third tested positive for recent methamphetamine use. More than a third of the Black African women reported being AOD-impaired and having unprotected sex during their last sexual encounter. Coloured women had four-fold greater odds of reporting that their last sexual episode was AOD-impaired and unprotected. These findings support the need to develop and test tailor-made AOD risk reduction interventions for women from both ethnic groups.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Experience and challenges from clinical trials with malaria vaccines in Africa","field_subtitle":"Mwangoka G, Ogutu B, Msambichaka B, Mzee T, Salim N, Kafuruki S et al: Malaria Journal 12(86), 4 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-12-86.pdf","body":"According to this paper, African research institutions have developed and demonstrated a great capacity to undertake clinical trials in accordance to the International Conference on Harmonisation-Good Clinical Practice (ICH-GCP) standards in the last decade, particularly in the field of malaria vaccines and anti-malarial drugs. This capacity is a result of networking among African scientists in collaboration with other partners, traversing both clinical trials and malaria control programmes as part of the Global Malaria Action Plan (GMAP). GMAP outlined and support global strategies toward the elimination and eradication of malaria in many areas, translating in reduction in public health burden, especially for African children. In the sub-Saharan region the capacity to undertake more clinical trials remains small in comparison to the actual need, the authors point out, but they argue that sustainability of Africa\u2019s already developed capacity is crucial for the evaluation of different interventions and diagnostic tools/strategies for other diseases like TB, HIV, neglected tropical diseases and non-communicable diseases. They call for innovative mechanisms to promote the sustainability and expansion of clinical trial capacity in sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing Global Health 2012: The End of the Golden Age?","field_subtitle":"Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME): 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cadv87m","body":"In this year\u2019s report, IHME has built on its past data collection and analysis efforts to monitor the resources made available through development assistance for health (DAH) and government health expenditure (GHE). It confirms what many in the global health community expected: After reaching a historic high in 2010, overall DAH declined slightly in 2011 and reached a plateau, with some organisations and governments spending more and others spending less. The research suggests that, despite global macroeconomic stress, the international community continues to respond to the need for health and health system support across the developing world. Over the past two years in particular, DAH has been sustained at levels of spending that would have been inconceivable a decade ago. The recent plateau in DAH, however, raises a number of considerations for decision-makers and other global health stakeholders. Major changes in the global health landscape have transpired during the past few years. The shifts in growth and spending emphasise the continued importance of tracking these funding flows, which ensures that decision makers can make choices about resource allocation with full information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Gene Giants Seek 'Philanthrogopoly'","field_subtitle":"ETC Group: March 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.etcgroup.org/sites/www.etcgroup.org/files/ETCCommCharityCartel_March2013_final.pdf","body":"In this report, ETC Group provides evidence that six companies are exercising an anticompetitive oligopoly in seeds and agrochemicals. To stave off criticism, they\u2019re launching a series of initiatives \u2013 including the promise of cheap, post-patent genetically modified (GM) seeds \u2013 to mollify antitrust regulators and soften opposition to GM while advancing their collective market control. The \u201cBig Six\u201d, which own most of the market, are argued by ETC group to be constructing agreements that aim to scare off competitors, confound regulators and pass off oligopolistic practices as acts of charity. The author argues that antitrust regulators cannot allow an oligopoly to control global agricultural inputs. The world needs agricultural biodiversity to achieve the Right to Food and to respond to the uncertainties of climate change. National governments and UN agencies need to respond, including the UN Committee on World Food Security, which meets in Rome in October 2013.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and the post-2015 development agenda","field_subtitle":"Editorial: The Lancet, February 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ctconmd","body":"What can we take forward, post-2015, from the successes of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and what have we learnt from their shortcomings? In this editorial, the Lancet\u2019s editors argue that the MDGs have led to inequities by narrowing down the goals to a limited number, notably excluding non-communicable diseases. Future directions call for building on the conceptual simplicity of the MDGs, taking a people-centred approach that captures the determinants of health and returning to the notion of health as a human right, with equity at its heart. The editors briefly analyse the United Nations Report of the Global Thematic Consultation on Health. They agree with the decision to measure health status through a hierarchy of goals, with maximisation of healthy life expectancy at the top, instead of using universal health coverage, which they argue does not address the determinants of health, is di&#64259;cult to measure and compare across countries, and is only an indirect indicator of health status. Three indicators are proposed to measure progress: improved survival (including maternal and child survival), reduced burden of disease (including diseases covered by the MDGs plus non-communicable diseases), and lower levels of risk factors (eg, smoking and lack of access to sanitation).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Equity Impact Assessment (HEIA) tool ","field_subtitle":"Canadian Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care: 2012","field_url":"http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/pro/programs/heia/tool.aspx","body":"The Health Equity Impact Assessment (HEIA) tool has four key objectives: 1. Help identify unintended potential health equity impacts of decision-making (positive and negative) on specific population groups. 2. Support equity-based improvements in policy, planning, programme or service design. 3. Embed equity in an organisation\u2019s decision-making processes. 4. Build capacity and raise awareness about health equity throughout the organisation. The HEIA tool includes a template and a workbook that provides users with step by step instructions on how to conduct an HEIA. The workbook walks users through five steps: scoping, potential impacts, mitigation, monitoring and dissemination. The results are recorded in the HEIA template. The tool may be used by organisations both inside and outside the health care system whose work can have an impact on health outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Equity Monitor ","field_subtitle":"WHO Global Health Observatory ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/gho/health_equity/en/index.html","body":"The World Health Organisation\u2019s Health Equity Monitor currently includes data for about 30 reproductive, maternal, neonatal and child health indicators for 91 countries, disaggregated by child\u2019s sex, place of residence (rural vs. urban), wealth quintile and education level. Data are based on demographic and health surveys and multiple indicator cluster surveys conducted in the represented countries - 90 of which are low- or middle-income countries - totalling nearly 200 surveys in the period 1993-2011. For around half of the countries, data are available for at least two time points. Country profiles are also provided. These highlight disaggregated data for each of the 91 study countries, using the most recent available data. Finally, interactive visualisations show inequalities in select health outcomes and services (situation and trends).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health in the Post\u20102015 Development Agenda","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM): 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bte7bvk","body":"As the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals approaches, the People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM) has produced this statement in which they set out an agenda for the political leaders who will formulate the next set of post-2015 \u2018development goals\u2019. First, development must not be construed solely as economic growth and industrialisation; it must include cultural and institutional development and include the rich world as well as low- and middle-income countries. Second, addressing the global health crisis requires that we confront the social, economic, political and environmental determination of health, recognising the negative consequences of neoliberalism. Third, reform of the global economic and political architecture must be an inclusive process. Nation states must achieve sustainable development and universal social protection before the interests of multinationals are even considered. Fourth, the post 2015 development agenda must work towards new approaches to national and global decision making, based on popular participation, direct democracy, solidarity, equity and security. Finally, sustainable and equitable development will be achieved only if people\u2019s movements unite across sectors, cultures and national boundaries and articulate a coherent set of goals and strategies for change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health in the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Report of the Global Thematic Consultation on Health: Draft for public comment","field_subtitle":"United Nations: 1 February 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c7lqrux","body":"The purpose of this report is to present a summary of the main themes and messages that have emerged from the Global Consultation on Health and to make recommendations to inform the deliberations of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons and the UN Secretary-General\u2019s report to the General Assembly in May 2013. The report describes the consultation process, detailing the processes that were used to reach out to different constituencies, explains why health should be at the centre of the post-2015 development agenda and summarises the inputs about the successes and shortcomings of the MDGs, many of which were unintended and only became apparent with the benefit of hindsight. It then presents guiding principles for the post-2015 development agenda and the various options for health goals and indicators that were put forward during the consultation and gives recommendations on how to frame the future agenda for health. The contributors to this consultation are looking in the same general direction: all agree that the new development agenda needs strong and visible health goals supported by measurable indicators. The report concludes by suggesting concrete actions that could be taken between now and 2015 by those advocating for health to feature prominently in the next development agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"High-Level Dialogue on Health in the Post-2015 Development Agenda concludes in Botswana","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: 6 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2013/march/20130306abotswana/","body":"The High-level Global Thematic Consultation on Health brought together representatives from governments, non-governmental organisations, academic and research institutions and the private sector to debate how to advance health priorities in the post-2015 development agenda. The consultation took place in Gaborone, Botswana from 5-6 March 2013. UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidib\u00e9 encouraged participants to seize the opportunity to adopt a bold, transformative vision and goals to guide global health in the post-2015 agenda. He argued that the global community needs to completely rethink how global health will engage on issues from intellectual property to the production of essential medicines and the central role of countries and communities. He also called for stronger attention to critical social enablers such as gender equality, human rights and equity. Health goals and indicators can be used to help track progress in these cross-cutting issues, he added.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Human Development Report 2013: The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World","field_subtitle":"United Nations Development Programme (UNDP): March 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cjrgqu5","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa can achieve higher levels of human development if it deepens its engagement with other regions of the South, according to the 2013 Human Development Report. The report shows the Africa region as having the second highest growth in the UNDP\u2019s Human Development Index (HDI) after South Asia over the past ten years. Africa has achieved sustained rates of economic growth at a time of great involvement with emerging economies. Progress has been broad-based, with strong improvements in other dimensions of human development such as health and education. Compared to other regions, sub-Saharan Africa still has the lowest average national HDI, yet of the 14 countries in the world that recorded HDI gains of more than 2% annually since 2000, eleven are in the region. These top performers include Angola, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Rwanda and Uganda. Progress may be linked to an upsurge in trade, investment and development cooperation with emerging economies like Brazil, China and India. For example, between 1992 and 2011, for instance, China\u2019s trade with sub-Saharan Africa rose from US$1 billion to more than $140 billion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Identifying high-risk areas for sporadic measles outbreaks: lessons from South Africa","field_subtitle":"Benn Sartorius A, Cohen C, Chirwa T, Ntshoe G, Puren A and Hofman K: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 91(4):174-183, April 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/91/3/12-110726/en/index.html","body":"The aim of this study was to develop a model for identifying areas at high risk for sporadic measles outbreaks based on an analysis of factors associated with a national outbreak in South Africa between 2009 and 2011. Data on cases occurring before and during the national outbreak were obtained from the South African measles surveillance programme, and data on measles immunisation and population size, from the District Health Information System. Model projections were used to identify emerging high-risk areas in 2012. A clear spatial pattern of high-risk areas was noted, with many interconnected (i.e. neighbouring) areas. An increased risk of measles outbreak was significantly associated with both the preceding build-up of a susceptible population and population density. The risk was also elevated when more than 20% of infants in a populous area had missed a first vaccine dose. The model was able to identify areas at high risk of experiencing a measles outbreak in 2012 and where additional preventive measures could be undertaken. In conclusion, the South African measles outbreak was associated with the build-up of a susceptible population (owing to poor vaccine coverage), high prevalence of HIV infection and high population density. The predictive model developed could be applied to other settings susceptible to sporadic outbreaks of measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Imagine\u2026","field_subtitle":"Global Health Workforce Alliance and blinktv: 2013","field_url":"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCSmIYmPOi4&feature=youtu.be","body":"A billion people around the world never see a health worker in their lives. This short, animated video asks \u2018Where are the health workers?\u2019 It looks at the problem of health worker migration from developing countries to developed countries, resulting in severe staff shortages in the donor countries. It proposes retention strategies in the form of living wages, decent working conditions, supportive management and adequate training for health workers. These health workers are also seen as important drivers of change through educating the public about health issues. They can serve as role models in their communities and save many lives. The video promotes the vision of \u2018A health worker for everyone, everywhere\u2019. With powerful visual representations and simple English, it can be used for health worker advocacy work in African settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving Universal Primary Health Care by Kenya: A Case Study of the Health Sector Services Fund","field_subtitle":"Gandham NVR, Chepkoech R and Workie NM: World Bank, January 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bhfuq9r","body":"This case study describes the Government of Kenya\u2019s initiative to expand the supply of health care and strengthen primary health care through implementation of the Health Sector Services Fund (HSSF), which provides direct cash transfers to primary health facilities. This initiative has so far been expanded to nearly 3,000 primary health facilities in the public sector. The administrative data of ministries of health suggest increased utilisation of the primary health facilities (from 25.8 million in 2010/11 to 27 million in 2011/12). The health facilities were able to improve their overall upkeep with the local contractual staff and were able to buy consumables to improve quality of care. A pilot undertaken in applying the principles of performance-based financing suggests that such an approach can help further strengthen the monitoring and evaluation systems and contribute to improvements in quality. There are, however, some operational challenges that were faced during the first two years of implementation, like issuing timely authorisations for incurring expenditures, the need for more hands-on support for accounting, and further simplification of accounting at the facility level. These issues are being addressed by the government, which intends to implement ongoing improvements by gathering data through the Public Expenditure Tracking Survey Plus.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"India\u2019s First Compulsory Licence Upheld, But Legal Fights Likely To Continue","field_subtitle":"Chatterjee P: Intellectual Property Watch, 4 March 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cckuflp","body":"India\u2019s Intellectual Property Appellate Board has upheld the country\u2019s first compulsory licence on a pharmaceutical product. The much-awaited verdict upholds the compulsory licence issued to Hyderabad-based Natco Pharma Ltd, an Indian generic drug manufacturer, which sells a much cheaper version of German pharmaceutical company Bayer AG\u2019s kidney and liver cancer drug Nexavar in the market. The judge cited affordability and product access as the reasons for the decision to dismiss Bayer\u2019s appeal against the compulsory licence (CL). The decision means that the way has been paved for compulsory licences to be issued on other drugs, now patented in India and priced out of affordable reach, to be produced by generic companies and sold at a fraction of the price. In response to the decision, M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res expressed hope that, in the near future, compulsory licences will be issued for the newest drugs to treat HIV and affordable generic versions will be available not only in India, but in the rest of the developing world. Bayer has announced it will appeal the decision.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Just Governance for the World We Need: A critical cornerstone for an equitable and human rights-centred sustainable development agenda post-2015","field_subtitle":"Beyond 2015: February 2013","field_url":"http://cesr.org/downloads/Beyond%202015_Governance_position_paper.pdf?preview=1","body":"As debate intensifies on the future of the post-2015 sustainable development agenda, participating organisations in Beyond 2015 came together to develop this joint position paper to advance the concept of just governance. Just governance in the post-2015 era would first require a reconception of sustainable development goals not as needs and services but as rights accessible to all. Just governance likewise implies that the framework that replaces the Millennium Development Goals must include an explicit focus on equality and equity across all development goals, geared towards ensuring that those who are most marginalised participate in the benefits of development. Finally, just governance implies accountable governance for all relevant actors at all levels, based on a clear mandate regarding who is responsible for what post-2015 commitments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Land Grabs and Fragile Food Systems: The Role of Globalisation","field_subtitle":"Murphy S: Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, February 2013","field_url":"http://www.iatp.org/files/2013_02_14_LandGrabsFoodSystem_SM_0.pdf","body":"In this paper, the author argues that trade agreements need to respect and promote human rights, not drive a process of globalisation that privileges commercial interests and tramples on public interests. She looks at the problem of land grabs, namely large-scale purchases or leases of agricultural or forested land on terms that violate the rights of the people who live on or near that land. She proposes four linked policy shifts to create a more stable and transparent international food system. 1. Reformed trade rules should ensure export restrictions in times of crisis are subject to transparency and predictability requirements and that allow all countries policy space for food security policies. 2. Publicly-managed grain reserves should be established to dampen the effects of supply shocks. 3. Governments should provide readily accessible funding for the poorest food importers, which would be triggered automatically when prices increase sharply in international markets. 4. Governments should develop strong national and international laws to govern investment in land, respecting the principles and guidelines set out in the Voluntary Guidelines on Land Tenure. Tanzania\u2019s recently announced limits on how much land foreign and domestic investors can lease sets a good example for the rest of the developing world, the author argues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Markets: A Malawi Case Study","field_subtitle":"Charman A: PLAAS, University of the Western Cape, 2013","field_url":"http://www.plaas.org.za/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/Malawi%20social%20protection.pdf","body":"Malawi has seen an agricultural revolution in the past decade with the introduction of farmer subsidies. From an importer of maize, Malawi has become an exporter of maize to the rest of the southern, central and eastern African region. In this presentation, the author argues that social protection programmes that focus on enhancing agricultural productivity within small farms can provide a short-term pathway out of poverty. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal HIV disclosure to HIV-uninfected children in rural South Africa: a pilot study of a family-based intervention","field_subtitle":"Rochat TJ, Mkwanazi N and Bland R: BMC Public Health 13(147), 18 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-147.pdf","body":"This paper describes the development of a family-centred, structured intervention to support mothers to disclose their HIV status to their HIV-negative school-aged children in rural South Africa, an area with high HIV prevalence. The intervention was piloted with 24 Zulu families, all mothers were HIV-positive and had an HIV-negative child aged 6\u20139 years. Lay counsellors delivered the six session intervention over a six to eight week period. Qualitative data were collected on the acceptability, feasibility and the effectiveness of the intervention in increasing disclosure, health promotion and custody planning. All mothers disclosed something to their children: 11/24 disclosed fully using the words \"HIV\" while 13/24 disclosed partially using the word \"virus\". This pilot study found the intervention was feasible and acceptable to mothers and counsellors, and provides preliminary evidence that participation in the intervention encouraged disclosure and health promotion. The pilot methodology and small sample size has limitations and further research is required to test the potential of this intervention. A larger demonstration project with 300 families is currently underway.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring health workers' motivation in rural health facilities: baseline results from three study districts in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Mutale W, Ayles H, Bond V, Mwanamwenge MT and Balabanova D: Human Resources for Health 11(8), 21 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-11-8.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers assessed health worker motivation as part of a health system strengthening intervention in three rural districts in Zambia. The intervention (Better Health Outcomes Through Mentoring and Assessment (BHOMA) aims to increase health worker motivation through training, mentoring and support. The researchers examined underlying issues grouped around relevant outcome constructs such as job satisfaction, general motivation, burnout, organisation commitment, conscientiousness and timeliness that collectively measure overall levels of motivation. Results showed variation in motivation score by sex, type of health worker, training and time in post. Female participants had the highest motivation scores. Nurses had the highest scores while environmental health technicians had the lowest score. Health workers who had been in their posts longer also had higher scores. Health workers who had received some form of training in the preceding 12 months were more likely to have a higher score; this was also true for those older than 40 years when compared to those less than 40 years of age. Further research is needed to establish why these health worker attributes were associated with motivation and whether health system interventions targeting health workers, such as the current intervention, could influence health worker motivation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mozambique's first HIV vaccine trial heralds new era in local research","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 15 March 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report/97657/Mozambique-s-first-HIV-vaccine-trial-heralds-new-era-in-local-research","body":"Mozambique has completed its first HIV vaccine trial and is set to embark on a second, a demonstration of the country's increased HIV research capacity. According to Ilesh Jani, director general of Mozambique's National Institute of Health, the studies, while small, mark important first steps towards bolstering clinical trial and research capacity for diseases such as HIV and malaria. He argued that Mozambique needs to get involved in HIV research and take leadership to find the solutions. Even though the country didn\u2019t yet have the capacity to develop the vaccines in the laboratory, he said it was important to recognise Mozambique had the capacity to test them and accelerate discovery.  The trials were conducted at Polana Cancio, a health centre that is located on the outskirts of the capital city, Maputo, which could become a clinical research site for larger, more advanced HIV vaccine trials.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"New research consortium focuses on close-to-community healthcare","field_subtitle":"http://www.reachoutconsortium.org","field_url":"","body":"A new 5-year, EU-funded programme comprising partners from Bangladesh (BRAC University), Ethiopia (Sidama Health Zone/TB Reach), Indonesia (Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology), Kenya (LVCT), Malawi (REACH Trust), Mozambique (University Eduardo Mondlane) will investigate the role of close-to-community health workers in improving health outcomes in Africa and Asia. Although interventions to promote community health workers are increasingly popular, it is not clear if this model of healthcare provision can work in all settings, and what support is needed to ensure quality services reach those most in need of them in poor and remote communities. Coordinated by Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and supported by KIT, REACHOUT research will uncover the contribution of different close-to-community healthcare interventions to any improvements in practice and to find out what works, in which context and why.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Open For Development: Achieving Greater Post-2015 Results through an Open Design Process, Monitoring System and Data Portals","field_subtitle":"ONE, the Centre for Transparency and Accountability in Liberia (CENTAL), Development Initiatives, Fundar (Mexico), Global Witness, Global Movement for Budget Transparency, Accountability and Participation, Integrity Action et al: 2013","field_url":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/one.org/images/ONE_HLP_Report_-_FINAL.pdf","body":"To further accelerate progress in the run-up to the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) deadline in 2015, and to ensure sustained progress beyond this date, civil society argues in this report that openness \u2013 especially transparency, accountability and public participation \u2013 must be at the heart of the post-2015 development framework. They call on the High-level Panel of Eminent Persons (HLP) to pioneer a high-impact agenda through a series of concrete recommendations to the UN Secretary-General. The recommendations should be guided by the promotion of: (1) an open process for soliciting and responding to the priorities and concerns of the world\u2019s poorest people; (2) open, comprehensive and timely reporting on investments and outcomes in pursuit of the agreed development goals and targets, along with enhanced opportunities for citizen participation; and (3) the establishment of open data platforms to ensure that progress can be transparently tracked, lessons can be learned on a real-time basis and all stakeholders can be held accountable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Patent Pool announces Collaboration On Paediatric HIV generics","field_subtitle":"New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 4 March 2013 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d2v7a62","body":"The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) has announced a ground-breaking collaboration with a private sector joint venture that will facilitate greater availability of critical generic medicines for children with HIV. The deal allows the royalty-free licensing of a key HIV medicine, abacavir, in 118 countries where 98.7% of children with HIV live, as well as future commitments for licensing of pipeline drugs. The Memorandum of Understanding goes further than previous deals struck by the Pool, which came under some criticism for possibly not being ambitious enough in getting commitments from partner companies. The agreement is expected to include future drugs developed by the industry venture. The MPP has a priority list of antiretrovirals (ARVs) to fight HIV and AIDS, based on the most needed and those that are patented (and therefore not readily available at affordable prices). The company with which the MPP struck the deal, ViiV, has a number of desirable ARVs in the pipeline, and has committed to allow the MPP to licence them for paediatric use for the same geographic territory, once the drugs receive approval.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Persistent household food insecurity, HIV, and maternal stress in Peri-Urban Ghana","field_subtitle":"Garcia J, Hromi-Fiedler A, Mazur RE, Marquis G, Sellen D, Lartey A and P\u00e9rez-Escamilla R: BMC Public Health 13(215), 11 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-215.pdf","body":"Both maternal HIV diagnosis and household food insecurity may increase maternal stress levels, and lead to unhealthy coping behaviours. In this study, researchers examined the independent associations of HIV, persistent household food insecurity and the synergistic effect of both on maternal stress. For 12 months after childbirth, they followed 232 Ghanaian women recruited prenatally from hospitals offering voluntary counselling and testing (VCT). They found that the proportion of HIV-positive women who lived in severe food insecure households increased over time. By contrast, the HIV-negative group living in severely food insecure households experienced a steady decline across time. HIV-infection and persistent household food insecurity were independently associated with high stress. Being both HIV-positive and persistently food insecure strongly and synergistically increased the risk for high maternal perceived stress. Comprehensive multidimensional intervention studies are needed to better understand how to reduce stress among HIV-positive women living in persistently food insecure households and how to reduce the likelihood of food insecurity in HIV-affected households in sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Promoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation: Intersections between public health, intellectual property and trade","field_subtitle":"World Trade Organisation, World Intellectual Property Organisation and World Health Organisation: December 2012","field_url":"http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/pamtiwhowipowtoweb13_e.pdf","body":"The focus of this book is on advancing innovation in medical and health technologies and ensuring that the people who need these technologies can access them, arguing that policies on these issues have to be viewed together in order to make real progress. The book describes the options available for policies involving health, intellectual property and trade, and reviews the latest developments in the three organisations that co-produced the book, seeking new ways for the three organisations to reinforce each other, ultimately to meet objectives such as the right to health and the Millennium Development Goals. It looks at ways to tailor systems so that innovation is encouraged, yielding new treatments for the diseases of the poor, and how to ensure sustainable and equitable access to these innovations. The book argues that private sector-led competition policy is the way forward on the basis that it can promote innovation, and improve access to medicines, provided that transparent and non-discriminatory procurement procedures are followed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health and management competency requirements for Primary Health Care facility managers at sub-district level in the District Health System in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Moyo S, Madale R, Ogunmefun C and English R: Health Systems Trust, 2013","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/ResearcheSnapshot_V1Is1publichealthmanagement.pdf","body":"A key component of the proposed primary health care (PHC) re-engineering model in South Africa is creating ward-based outreach teams linked to primary health care clinics. Each team consists of a professional nurse team leader, three staff nurses and six community health workers (CHWs), with each team serving a population of approximately 6,000 people in a demarcated area. The model envisages the professional nurse team leader and two of the three staff nurses being based at the clinic, while the rest of the team is based in the community. Team leaders will spend 20-30% of their time in the community supporting the work of the team and visiting high risk households. The managers of the clinics to which these teams are linked are expected to lead, manage and oversee the outreach teams\u2019 work in the community and their interactions with other stakeholders working in the same communities. The model requires clinic managers to promote an understanding of the facility catchment area\u2019s epidemiology and burden of disease using health information and data collected during community activities, and to identify strategies to address the local health issues. The addition of these responsibilities will expand the clinic managers\u2019 scope of work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Public seminar: Health R&D as a Global Public Good: Cross-sectoral Learning","field_subtitle":"24 April 2013: Geneva","field_url":"http://graduateinstitute.ch/globalhealth/Events_Global_Health_Programme/seminar24April.html","body":"The purpose of the proposed seminar and workshop is to examine how to secure collective action to provide global public goods through research and development (R&D) and innovation for the specific health needs of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Specifically, the event will explore how to learn from other sectors (such as agriculture, the environment and energy) in order to secure fair and sustainable contributions that ensure the provision of global public goods. Following the introductory keynote address by Professor Kaul, a high-level panel, with policy-makers from high-income countries (HICs) and LMICs, will discuss key issues relating to current efforts to organise the production of global public goods for health where the market has been failing. The public seminar is free and open to anyone and aims to attract, in particular, representatives of intergovernmental organisations, country missions, civil society and the private sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Putting business before health at WHO?","field_subtitle":"German Velasquez, South Centre","field_url":"","body":"\r\nOn 5 February 2013, in a ceremony at the WTO, the three Director Generals of WTO, WIPO and the WHO launched the trilateral publication titled:\r\n\u201cPromoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation\u201d, the fact that a publication regarding public health was launched at the headquarters of the WTO is a reflection of the increasing importance of public health issues in the context of WTO and WIPO, an issue on which the WHO has been the leader.\r\n\r\nThe study shows progress on the part of the WTO and WIPO since they talk about these issues without \u201ctaboo\u201d, however it does not give a complete picture of the extent to which WHO has lead this issue over the past decade. 17 resolutions by the World Health Assembly adopted between 1996 and 2012 are cited in the report in a table on page 44 concerning intellectual property and health. These resolutions are of highly prescriptive character, for the secretariat and for countries on how to protect public health from the possible negative impact of new international trade rules. Despite numerous resolutions and publications in the last 15 years by the WHO on this issue, many of which are not mentioned in the report, the disclaimer of the document says that \u201c(\u2026) the published material is being distributed without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied. The responsibility for the interpretation and use of the material lies with the reader. In no event shall the WHO, WIPO and the WTO be liable for any consequences whatsoever arising from its use.\u201d\r\n\r\nThis could give the wrong impression to the reader of this report that the WHO has no opinion on whether a compulsory license may, in special circumstances, facilitate access to drugs, or if an international exhaustion regime, that allows parallel imports from any country can reduce the cost of drugs and therefore contribute to access. The 17 WHA resolutions give a mandate to the WHO to engage, promote and defend mechanisms and policies in favour of access. Thus, it is important to ensure that the Trilateral Cooperation with WTO and WIPO do not lead the WHO to share a \u201cneutral\u201d vision, totally disengaged from its mandate of protection of health. This would be contrary to the exemplary leadership from the WHO on \u201cThe Revised Drug Strategy\u201d, WHA 52.19 in 1999 or the \u201cWHO Policy Perspectives on Medicines\u201d published in 2001 that says: \u201cNational patent and related legislation should:\r\n\r\n\u2022   Promote standards of patentability that take health into account. (\u2026)\r\n\u2022   Incorporate exceptions, trademark provisions, data exclusivity and other measures to support generic competition.\r\n\u2022   Permit compulsory licensing, parallel importation and other measures to promote availability and ensure fair competition.\r\n\u2022   Permit requests for extension of transitional period for TRIPS implementation, if needed and if eligible.\r\n\u2022   Carefully consider national public health interests before instituting TRIPS-plus provisions\r\n\r\nAs expressed by the three NGOs that addressed the Executive Board in January this year, on the issue of IP and public health, the Trilateral Report is a weak and unambitious document in which the WHO does not fully reflect the work it has done on these issues in accordance with its mandate.\r\n\r\nThe question that we as member states of the WHO, international organisations with a clear vision regarding the priority of health such as UNDP or UNAIDS, or UNICEF, non-profit NGO\u2019s working on public health, the academia and all the sectors concerned with the promotion of health and access to medicines should ask is what is the relevance and status of this report in the face of the 17 resolutions by the WHA giving a clear mandate that is not reflected in this document.\r\n\r\nIt would seem that we have overcome the debate that began in the early 2000\u2019s about which one was first, the right to health or international trade rules, but in this trilateral publication, the mandate of the WHO to promote public health seems to have been subordinated to accommodate IP and trade interests that WIPO and WTO promote.\r\n\r\nTherefore, the Trilateral Report is in the nature of a \u201cWikipedic\u201d report that describes what others have said on the issue, without any of the three organisations saying what they think. The 251 page document contains no recommendations, not even a conclusion, or any guidance. In comparison, the 2006 WHO report on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property rights (CIPIH report), led by the former president of Switzerland, Ruth Dreifuss, contained 60 recommendations.\r\n\r\nA Japanese saying goes: \u201cwhat a man does not say is the salt of a conversation\u201d. We can say that this report\u2026is an insipid report\u2026\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. This oped was first featured in a 2013 mailing of the South Centre, Geneva","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Remunicipalisation: Putting Water Back into Public Hands","field_subtitle":"Municipal Services Project (MSP) Alternatives: March 2013","field_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlSM1TPm_k8","body":"This motion design documentary puzzle looks at cities that are reversing water privatisation to regain public control. Unequal access, broken promises, environmental hazards and scandalous profit margins are prompting these municipalities to reverse privatisation.  The video explores water 'remunicipalisation' in Buenos Aires and Paris, looking at the challenges and benefits of reclaiming public water. It calls on citizens worldwide to mobilise around this option.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SA health minister blames older men for high schoolgirl HIV rates ","field_subtitle":"Mail and Guardian: 14 March 2013","field_url":"http://mg.co.za/article/2013-03-14-a-third-of-sa-school-girls-have-hiv-sugar-daddies-blamed","body":"At least 28% of schoolgirls across South Africa are HIV positive, with only 4% of boys at schools HIV positive in comparison, according to figures released by Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi at a National Council of Provinces \u2018taking Parliament to the people\u2019 event. He added that 94,000 schoolgirls got pregnant in 2011 and about 77,000 girls had abortions at public facilities.  The minister attributed the high figures to the sugar daddy phenomenon, a transactional sexual relationship between older men with money and schoolgirls, where sex is traded for physical goods, such as cell phones and accessories. Young women put themselves at risk because they don\u2019t have the agency to be able to negotiate safe sex, he argued. There is the risk for considerable physical, psychological and emotional harm. In recognition of the growing problem, in January 2012 the KwaZulu-Natal department of health launched a campaign against sugar daddies with a call to action to \u2018protect your loved ones from sugar daddies\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Service delivery in Kenyan district hospitals: what can we learn from literature on mid-level managers?","field_subtitle":"Nzinga J, Mbaabu L and English M: Human Resources for Health 11(10), 26 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-11-10.pdf","body":"The authors of this study examined literature on the roles of mid-level managers to understand how they might influence service delivery quality in Kenyan hospitals. A total of 23 articles were finally included in the review from over 7,000 titles and abstracts initially identified. The most widely documented roles of mid-level managers were decision-making or problem-solving, strategist or negotiator and communicator. Others included being a therapist or motivator, goal setting or articulation and mentoring or coaching. In addition to these roles, the authors identified important personal attributes of a good manager, which included interpersonal skills, delegation and accountability, and honesty. Most studies included in the review concerned the roles that mid-level managers are expected to play in times of organisational change. The review highlights the possible significance of mid-level managers in achieving delivery of high-quality services in Kenyan public hospitals and strongly suggests that approaches to strengthen this level of management will be valuable. The findings from this review should also help inform empirical studies of the roles of mid-level managers in these settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Seventh SAHARA Conference 2013","field_subtitle":"7-10 October 2013: Dakar, Senegal","field_url":"http://sahara.org.za/conferences/2013","body":"The Social Aspects of HIV and AIDS Research Alliance (SAHARA), established in 2001 by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), is an alliance of partners established to conduct, support and use social sciences research to prevent the further spread of HIV and mitigate the impact of its devastation in sub-Saharan Africa. The SAHARA 7 conference theme is \"Translating evidence into action: Engaging with communities, policies, human rights, gender, service delivery\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Short Report: Mobile Phone Microscopy for the Diagnosis of Soil-Transmitted Helminth Infections: A Proof-of-Concept Study","field_subtitle":"Bogoch II, Andrews JR, Speich B, Utzinger J, Ame SM, Ali SM and Keiser J: American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (early online edition), 11 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajtmh.org/content/early/2013/03/07/ajtmh.12-0742.full.pdf+html","body":"A smartphone, a strip of double-sided tape and a simple glass lens could have a significant impact on the diagnosis of helminths, intestinal parasites that affect millions in remote, rural parts of the world. In this proof-of-concept study in rural Tanzania, researchers compared the effectiveness of a lens attached to an iPhone with the effectiveness of a standard light microscope in searching for roundworm and hookworm eggs in 199 children's stool samples. Although not as sensitive as the light microscope, the mobile phone microscope revealed a sensitivity of 69.4% and a specificity of 61.5% for detecting any soil-transmitted helminth infection. The advantages of the mobile phone microscope are that it can be used with any smart phone, a lay health worker can operate it and it\u2019s portable. The standard diagnostic process requires a microscope, a person trained to use one, electricity and a decent light source, which are often not widely available in rural areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Should Industry Support LDCs\u2019 Request For Unlimited Time To Implement The TRIPS Agreement? Absolutely","field_subtitle":"Ashton-Hart N: intellectual Property Watch, 4 March 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d9o8arc","body":"In this article, the author argues that the global intellectual property (IP) system cannot be seen as blind to basic concepts of social justice, proportionality and common humanity or it will lose legitimacy. This is why it is wrong to force less-developed countries (LDCs) to implement TRIPS fully based upon a timetable that disregards their public health needs. If they are forced to do this, the world\u2019s poorest will end up paying the richest for medicine and other essential technologies, which will cast an unethical shadow over IP rights. IP is already abused by that kind of rent-seeking in some sectors \u2013 and has been for some time \u2013 and the actions of a relative few have damaged the interests of the rest. But the author believes this is an opportunity for this unspoken majority to make clear that the actions of a relative few aren\u2019t the norm, but the exception. The LDCs\u2019 proposal is an opportunity for all concerned with IP to recapture legitimacy. For companies that take their corporate social responsibility (CSR) seriously and have active CSR programmes, the author urges them to support the LDC extension as not only the ethical thing to do but also as a way for them to gain good publicity at no cost.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Sixth South African AIDS Conference","field_subtitle":"18-21 June 2013: Durban, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.saaids.co.za/","body":"The Sixth South African AIDS Conference will be held in Durban from 18-21 June 2013. The conference theme is \"Building on our successes: Integrating responses\". As South Africa enters the fourth decade of HIV and AIDS, the conference aims to look back at lessons learnt and reflect, celebrate the gains made, and find ways to build on past successes by integrating HIV with other health responses. The conference will bring together various members of the HIV research community, including clinicians, academics, civil society and government.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Stoking the fire of African voice on the Code on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel ","field_subtitle":"Yoswa Dambisya, Nancy Malema University of Limpopo, Patrick Kadama ACHEST, Sheillah Matinhure ECSA Health Community, and Charles Dulo, Mustang consultants","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn May the World Health Assembly (WHA) will review progress on the implementation of its 2010 Resolution WHA 63.16 passing the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health. This was only the second non-binding code passed by WHO, after the 1981 Code on Breast Milk Substitutes, and its adoption was greeted with relief and optimism given the effort that went into it. Much of that pressure and momentum came from African regional bodies like the African Union, Southern African Development Community and ECSA Health Community and from their member states.  \r\n\r\nThe Code contains some robust provisions for improvements of the health workforce within African countries and for responsibilities across countries, such as through bilateral agreements and leverage of international and national resources for the health workforce. The Code calls for health worker training and management systems within stronger health systems. It calls for coordination mechanisms that involve all players at national level. It sets provisions for information systems and data to monitor this. Article 7.2 of the Code provides for setting up and maintaining a database of laws and regulations on health personnel recruitment and migration. Although non-binding, it promotes accountability between countries as a means to track implementation, with a requirement for information on implementation on provisions of the Code to be reported to the WHO Secretariat every three years, and to the WHA.\r\n\r\nSo the stage was set for implementation, and the most enthusiastic implementation could have been expected from African countries.  However in 2013 the activity, discourse on issues of health worker migration and sense of achievement and optimism that greeted the adoption of the Code are conspicuously absent. \r\n\r\nIn the report drafted by the Secretariat for presentation at the 2013 WHA only 13 African countries had established designated national authority, and by the end of 2012 only one African country had reported to the Secretariat on Code implementation. In total 81 countries had designated authorities and 48 had reported, but most of these were European countries. It seems thus that the situation has little changes since EQUINET last reported on this in an editorial in March 2012. \r\n\r\nSo if Africa continues to bear the brunt of the health worker crisis, if African stakeholders and countries have been so vocal and active in pushing for and negotiating for the Code up to its adoption, what is the reason for this lull in activity?  Whither Africa?\r\n\r\nThe same questions asked in March 2012 are still pertinent. Why have African countries been slow to take advantage of the provisions of the Code to leverage benefit from them? Why have so few African countries established designated authorities to drive implementation of the Code or established bilateral agreements drawing on the Code to improve and retain their health workforces? Why has only one African country so far reported on the Code? \r\n\r\nIt will be important to understand these issues to inform future global health processes. The development process for the Code took nearly a decade since first mooted at WHO level, and longer taking other forums into account. In such a protracted process, the realisation of the Code may be interpreted as an end in itself.  The champions for the Code may have changed, with loss of institutional memory, and those active in its negotiations may have moved on to other tasks at hand. Some have argued that the content of the Code does not reflect the original wishes of African countries for compensation or reparations, or for mutual benefits to be spelled out clearly. This may contribute to apathy for its implementation. As a voluntary, non-binding instrument it may be seen to have little effect. It may also be possible that without an active civil society lobby and with limited dissemination of information on the Code to local stakeholders there is weak pressure for its implementation. \r\n\r\nThe lull in activity since the adoption of the Code could be a lost opportunity to ride the tide of momentum and goodwill that characterised its adoption, a loss that may be difficult to reclaim. However there is still time for the concerted effort of the government and non-government players that played a role in the development of Code to apply their collective effort to ensure its implementation and to realise its benefits. At minimum the Code should be widely disseminated, discussed and follow up areas identified for national policy and diplomacy to support the training, management systems, health systems strengthening, coordination mechanisms, information systems and databases needed to ensure more equitable management across countries of health personnel recruitment and migration. There is need to set up mechanisms for institutional memory and processes that would run regardless of changes in personalities or of individual decision makers. \r\n\r\nAs a bottom line we are asking for the momentum and vigour that African health ministers, senior officials, professionals and civil society brought to the negotiation of the Code. It is not acceptable for African countries, having worked so hard and done so much to have the Code in place to let it fall at the implementation stage. As we approach the 2013 World Health Assembly we hope that the roaring fire of African voice that led to the Code has not become so hoarse during the negotiation that it is no longer audible!  \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. The authors of this editorial are working on a research programme in EQUINET associated with the ECSA HC Strategic Initiative on Global Health Diplomacy to explore diplomacy on the Code. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit www.equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Superfood for babies: How overcoming barriers to breastfeeding will save children\u2019s lives","field_subtitle":"Save the Children: 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/a9ab8pz","body":"This report is a call to action for the world to rediscover the importance of breastfeeding and for a commitment to support mothers to breastfeed their babies, especially in the poorest communities in the poorest countries. It calls for world leaders, international institutions and multinational companies to take action to ensure that every infant is given the life-saving protection that breastfeeding can offer. All countries should put breastfeeding at the centre of efforts to improve infant and child nutrition, and should develop specific breastfeeding strategies as well as including breastfeeding in their nutrition strategies. Developing countries should ensure that they address all of the obstacles identified in this report that deter optimal breastfeeding practices. The four major barriers are community and cultural pressures, the health worker shortage, a lack of maternity legislation and the promotion of formula by big business.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Systematic reviews need to consider applicability to disadvantaged populations: inter-rater agreement for a health equity plausibility algorithm","field_subtitle":"Welch V, Brand K, Kristjansson E, Janet Smylie J, Wells G, and Tugwell P: BMC Medical Research Methodology 12(187), 19 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/12/187","body":"In this study, researchers aimed to develop and assess inter-rater agreement for an algorithm for systematic review authors to predict whether differences in effect measures are likely for disadvantaged populations relative to advantaged populations. They developed a health equity plausibility algorithm with three items that dealt with the plausibility of differences in relative effects across sex or socioeconomic status (SES) due to: patient characteristics; intervention delivery (i.e. implementation); and comparators. Thirty-five respondents (consisting of clinicians, methodologists and research users) assessed the likelihood of differences across sex and SES for ten systematic reviews with these questions. The proportion agreement was 66% for patient characteristics, 67% for intervention delivery and 55% for the comparator. Users of systematic reviews rated that important differences in relative effects across sex and socioeconomic status were plausible for a range of individual and population-level interventions. However, there was very low inter-rater agreement for these assessments. There is an unmet need for discussion of plausibility of differential effects in systematic reviews. Increased consideration of external validity and applicability to different populations and settings is warranted in systematic reviews to meet this need, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania: Social determinants of health mapping report","field_subtitle":"Tanzania Social Determinants of Health Network (SDH-Net): February 2013","field_url":"http://www.ihi.or.tz/new-announcements/tanzaniaproducesasocialdeterminantsofhealthmappingreport","body":"This Mapping Report presents an overview of the social determinants of health (SDH) landscape in Tanzania. It specifically looks at SDH's conceptualisation and role in addressing health inequalities, SHD-related policies, research trends, priorities and capacity needs. The report is based on a desk review of available SDH-related research from 2005 onwards, complemented with in-depth interviews with 34 individuals from a cross-section of institutions. Results showed that conceptualisation of SDH varied, but most interviewees linked it to inequities or inequalities. A number of organisations in the country are working towards achieving health equity, some involved in research and others in disseminating information. Nationally there is no SDH-specific research and/or policy portfolio. While there are no policies, programmes or legislation related to SDH, reducing inequities is central to Tanzania\u2019s Vision 2025 and the National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty. Interviewees suggested strengthening Tanzania\u2019s health system by establishing an SDH consortium to manage and consolidate various aspects of SDH research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Achievements of Hugo Chavez","field_subtitle":"Muntaner C, Benach J and Victor MP: Counterpunch, 14-16 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/12/14/the-achievements-of-hugo-chavez/","body":"Written during the final illness of Hugo Chavez, who died of cancer on 5 March 2013, this article considers the achievements of this visionary leader of Venezuela. Chavez used Venezuela\u2019s abundant oil revenues to build needed infrastructure and invest in the social services: during the last ten years, the government increased social spending by 60.6%, a total of $772 billion. During Chavez\u2019s term of office impressive health gains were made, such as a drop in infant mortality from 25 per 1000 (1990) to only 13/1000 (2010), while 96% of the population now has access to clean water, one of the goals of the revolution. In 1998, there were 18 doctors per 10,000 inhabitants, currently there are  58, and the public health system has about 95,000 physicians. It took four decades for previous governments to build 5,081 clinics, but in just 13 years the Bolivarian government built 13,721 (a 169.6% increase). Barrio Adentro (a primary health care partnership with 8,300 Cuban doctors) has saved approximately 1,4 million lives in 7,000 clinics and has given 500 million consultations. In 2011 alone, 67,000 Venezuelans received free high cost medicines for 139 pathologies conditions including cancer, hepatitis, osteoporosis, schizophrenia, and others. Venezuela now has the largest intensive care unit in the region. A network of public drugstores sell subsidised medicines in 127 stores with savings of 34-40%. Over the past few years, 51,000 people have been treated in Cuba for specialized eye treatment and the eye care programme \u2018Mision Milagro\u2019 has restored sight to 1.5 million Venezuelans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The Barcelona Course in Health Financing: Universal Coverage","field_subtitle":"13\u201317 May 2013: Barcelona, Spain","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/aqskt6g","body":"The 2013 World Health Organisation (WHO) Barcelona Course in Health Financing will review effective policy instruments to improve health system performance through better health financing policy. The special theme of the course is moving towards and sustaining universal coverage with a highlight on how to counter the impact of economic downturns. The course is built around the following modules: designing a benefit package (equity, affordability and transparency); raising revenues (thinking outside the box); pooling health revenues (the cost of fragmentation); purchasing (getting more health for the money); and coordinating reform (aligning policy instruments with policy objectives). The course is free.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The Case Against Patents","field_subtitle":"Boldrin M and Levine DK: Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, September 2012","field_url":"http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2012/2012-035.pdf","body":"In recent years, several innovators in high-tech sectors have complained that the large volume of vague patents has become a major barrier to innovation. When start-ups attempt to unveil a new product, they risk violating a broad, obscure patent. In this paper, the authors argue to abolish the American patent system on the basis that there is no evidence patents improve productivity and that they have a negative effect on innovation. The paper's authors point out that problems with patents in fact run much deeper than many critics of the recent system have emphasised. The historical and international evidence suggests that the initial eruption of innovations leading to the creation of a new industry is seldom, if ever, born out of patent protection and is instead the fruit of a competitive environment. They also argue that the patent system is endangering public health by raising the cost of prescription drugs, while failing to generate enough innovative new treatments for life-saving diseases. The aim of policy, in general, should be that of slowly but surely decreasing the strength of intellectual property interventions with the final goal of abolition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The effect of an anti-malarial subsidy programme on the quality of service provision of artemisinin-based combination therapy in Kenya: a cluster-randomised, controlled trial","field_subtitle":"Kangwana BP, Kedenge SV, Noor AM, Alegana VA, Nyandigisi AJ, Pandit J et al: Malaria Journal 12(81), 1 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-12-81.pdf","body":"To improve the quality of care received for presumptive malaria from the highly accessed private retail sector in western Kenya, subsidised pre-packaged artemether-lumefantrine (AL) was provided to private retailers, together with a one-day training course for retail staff on malaria diagnosis and treatment, job aids and community engagement activities. This study assessed the intervention through provider and mystery-shopper cross-sectional surveys, which were conducted at baseline and eight months post-intervention to assess provider practices. On average, 564 retail outlets were interviewed per year. At follow-up, 43% of respondents reported that at least one staff member had attended the training in the intervention arm. The intervention significantly increased the percentage of providers knowing the first line treatment for uncomplicated malaria by 24.2%; the percentage of outlets stocking AL by 31.7%; and the percentage of providers prescribing AL for presumptive malaria by 23.6%. Generally, outlets that received training and job aids performed better than those receiving one or none of these intervention components.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The health systems funding platform and World Bank legacy: the gap between rhetoric and reality","field_subtitle":"Brown SS, Sen K and Decoster K: Globalization and Health 9(9), 6 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-9-9.pdf","body":"In this paper, the authors argue that global health partnerships created to encourage funding efficiencies need to be approached with some caution, especially when claims for innovation and responsiveness to development needs are based on untested assumptions around the potential of some partners to adapt their application, funding and evaluation procedures within these new structures. The authors examine this in the case of the Health Systems Funding Platform, which despite being set up some three years earlier, has stalled at the point of implementation of its key elements of collaboration. While much of the attention has been centred on the suspension of the Global Fund\u2019s Round 11, and what this might mean for health systems strengthening and the Platform more broadly, they argue that inadequate scrutiny has been made of the World Bank\u2019s contribution to this partnership, which might have been reasonably anticipated based on an historical analysis of development perspectives. Given the tensions being created by the apparent vulnerability of the health systems strengthening agenda, and the increasing rhetoric around the need for greater harmonisation in development assistance, an examination of the positioning of the World Bank in this context is vital, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The Impact of Universal Coverage Schemes in the Developing World","field_subtitle":"Giedion U, Alfonso EA and Diaz Y: World Bank, January 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/a3dshyv","body":"This review indicates that universal health coverage (UHC) interventions in low- and middle-income countries improve access to health care. It also shows, though less convincingly, that UHC often has a positive effect on financial protection, and that, in some cases it seems to have a positive impact on health status. The effect of UHC schemes on access, financial protection, and health status varies across contexts, UHC scheme design, and UHC scheme implementation processes. Regarding UHC design features, there are several common features across countries and regions, such as the coexistence of UHC schemes, heterogeneity in design and organisation, a widespread effort to include the poor in the schemes, and the prevalence of mixed financing sources (contributions plus taxes). Yet, in most cases, evidence is scarce and inconclusive on the impact of specific UHC design features on their intended outcomes. Four lessons are highlighted: affordability is important but may not be enough; target the poor, but keep an eye on the non-poor; benefits should be closely linked to target populations' needs; and highly focused interventions can be a useful initial step toward UHC.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Third Global Forum On Human Resources For Health","field_subtitle":"Recife, Brazil: 10\u201313 November 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/forum/en /index.html","body":"The World Health Organisation\u2019s Workforce Alliance convened the First and the Second Global Forums on Human Resources for Health, in 2008 in Uganda, and 2011 in Thailand respectively. The Global Forums brought together key experts, fellow champions as well as frontline health workers around the common goal of improving the human resources for health to achieve the health-related Millennium Development Goals. Both Forums concluded with the adoption from committed participants of ambitious agendas suitable to translate political will, leadership and partnership into sustainable and effective actions. The Third Global Forum will be held in Recife, Brazil, from 10\u201313 November 2013.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Turning dread into capital: South Africa's AIDS diplomacy ","field_subtitle":"Fourie P: Globalization and Health 9(8), 5 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-9-8.pdf","body":"In this article, the author reflects on the emergence and contemporary practice of health diplomacy, exploring in particular the potential of niche areas within health diplomacy to become constructive focal points of emerging middle powers\u2019 foreign policies. Middle powers like South Africa often apply niche diplomacy to maximise their foreign policy impact, particularly by pursuing a multilateral agenda. The literature on middle powers indicates that such foreign policy ambitions and concomitant diplomacy mostly act to affirm the global status quo. Instead, the author argues here that there may well be niches within health diplomacy in particular that can be used to actually challenge the existing global order. Emerging middle powers in particular can use niche areas within health diplomacy in a critical theoretical manner, so that foreign policy and diplomacy become a project of emancipation and transformation, rather than an affirmation of the world as it is. The author reviews South African foreign policy and diplomacy, before situating these policies within the context of emerging mechanisms of South-South multilateralism. He advocates for a South African AIDS diplomacy, emphasising its potential to galvanise a global project of emancipation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda government under pressure to boost ARV funding","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 14 March 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=97651","body":"The Ugandan government's draft 2013/2014 budget allocates US$38.5 million to enrol a further 100,000 people living with HIV on life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. But activists say the money, while welcome in a country still largely dependent on external funds for its HIV programmes, is not sufficient to meet treatment needs. According to Alex Ario, programme manager at the health ministry's AIDS control programme, the financial gap in the public sector for 2013/2014 is about $29 million. The country enrolled an estimated 65,493 new HIV patients on ARVs in 2012, bringing to 356,056 the number of those on ARV therapy (ART), according to Uganda AIDS Commission statistics. However, this figure represents less than 70% of those in need of treatment. The government has set a target of reaching 80% of HIV-positive people with ARVs by 2015. Ugandan civil society is calling on the government to substantially increase its investment in ART for financial year 2013/14 in order to save lives, slash rates of new infections, and begin to end the AIDS epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Ugandan generic ARV factory overprices its drugs","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 14 March 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=97651","body":"AIDS activists in Uganda have drawn attention to overpricing of medicines at a local pharmaceutical plant, Quality Chemicals Industries Limited (QCIL). The plant was started in 2007 to improve treatment access by providing cheaper ARVs locally. The authors argue that between December 2009 and October 2010, the government's National Medical Stores (NMS) paid $17.8 million more than it should have to QCIL, with a 15% mark-up on imported drugs that had been intended only for locally produced drugs. QCIL is reported in the article to be selling imported drugs manufactured by Cipla at high prices even after it started producing its own drugs. The government inspector general and civil society activists have demanded the government investigate and recover the funds.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"UN conference hears resounding call for human rights-based governance post-2015","field_subtitle":"Holland L: Centre for Economic and Social Rights, 4 March 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.cesr.org/article.php?id=1452","body":"At the final meeting of the United Nations Thematic Consultation on Governance and the Post-2015 Framework, held in Johannesburg at the end of February 2013, participants argued that human rights and accountability must be placed at the heart of governance at the national and global levels. A high point of the meeting was the address by High Level Panel member Gra\u00e7a Machel, who spoke of the panel\u00b4s commitment to ensuring that issues of governance, human rights and inequality were central to the new post-2015 framework. There was wide consensus at the meeting that weak and unaccountable governance, including at the global level, is one of the key issues that must be addressed in a future framework, and that democratic governance must be predicated on respect for the full range of human rights.  Ultimately, it will be up to the international community to decide the parameters of the successor framework when it gathers for the Millennium Development Goal Review Summit in New York in September 2013. In this article, the author calls on global civil society to promote rights-based governance in the run up to this important event, which is likely to prove pivotal for the future of international development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Unlocking the potential of migration for inclusive development ","field_subtitle":"B\u00f6rje EA: Migration Policy Practice III(1), February\u2013March 2013  ","field_url":"http://publications.iom.int/bookstore/free/MigrationPolicyPracticeJournal9_22Feb2013.pdf","body":"In this article, the author argues that migration has a role to play in inclusive development and addressing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for poverty, gender equity and health. Remittances sent to family back home usually help to cover the daily consumption needs, which helps to reduce poverty and hunger. Remittances are, in addition, often invested in health, education and accommodation. Such investments often come with important impacts on the MDGs linked to education and health, particularly where women decide on the use of remittances. Sectors with critical skills shortages can benefit from the transfer of skills through circular migration and return (so-called \u2018brain gain\u2019 and \u2018brain circulation\u2019). The migration experience can empower women, both as individuals and as a group, by helping them to enter the labour market and earn higher incomes. The transfer of values and ideas brought about by migration (so-called \u2018social remittances\u2019) may also facilitate the gender equity goals of the MDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO/WTO/WIPO IP report fails to address developing countries\u2019 needs ","field_subtitle":"Hermann RM: Intellectual Property Watch, 27 February 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/b8r9hjc","body":"On 26 February 2013, the World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) presented their trilateral publication \u2018Promoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation\u2019 to the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (included in last month\u2019s newsletter). Promoted by the three organisations as \u2018neutral\u2019 and \u2018informative\u2019, the report came in for criticism from delegates from developing countries. On behalf of the Africa Group, Algeria said that while the study recognises that there are some limitations to the use of patent flexibilities, it does not look at the constraints developing countries encounter when using the flexibilities. Furthermore, many African countries lacked resources to meet all the formal requirements needed to implement flexibilities. Algeria highlighted the African and Developing Agenda Group (DAG) joint proposal on a patents and health work programme, which calls for further research, information exchange and technical assistance for least-developed countries (LDCs). Delegates from India and Brazil also called for further research into TRIPS flexibilities, arguing that the report had not done enough in this regard.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Yellow fever vaccination coverage following massive emergency immunisation campaigns in rural Uganda, May 2011: a community cluster survey","field_subtitle":"Bagonza J, Rutebemberwa E, Mugaga M, Tumuhamye N and Makumbi I: BMC Public Health 13(202), 7 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-202.pdf","body":"This paper reports on yellow fever vaccination coverage following massive emergency immunisation campaigns in the Pader district, northern Uganda, in 2010. A total of 680 respondents were included in the sample and vaccination status was assessed in a survey using self reports and vaccination card evidence. Of the 680 respondents, 654 (96.3%) reported being vaccinated during the last campaign but only 353 (51.6%) had valid yellow fever vaccination cards. Of the 280 children below five years of age, 96.1% were vaccinated. The main reasons for not being vaccinated were: having travelled out of Pader district during the campaign period (40%), lack of transport to immunisation posts (28%) and sickness at the time of vaccination (16%). These results show that actual yellow fever vaccination coverage was high and met the desired minimum threshold coverage of 80% designated by the World Health Organisation. Active surveillance is necessary for early detection of yellow fever cases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"A cross sectional study: latrine coverage and associated factors among rural communities in the District of Bahir Dar Zuria, Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Awoke W and Muche S: BMC Public Health 13(99), 4 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-99.pdf","body":"The aim of this study was to assess latrine coverage and the associated factors among the rural communities in district of Bahir Dar Zuria, Ethiopia. A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted on 608 households in district of Bahir Dar Zuria. Data were collected by means of a pretested, standardised questionnaire and observation checklist. Of the 608 households, 355 (58.4%) had pit latrines and only 220 (62%) were functional (providing services during data collection). One hundred and eighty-seven (52.7%) had been constructed two or more years prior to the time of the study and 202 (56.9%) latrines required maintenance. Latrine coverage in District of Bahir Dar Zuria was far from the national target of 100%. The availability of latrines was found to be affected by income level, frequency of visits by health workers, walking time from local health institutions, and distance from the urban area of Bahir Dar. Therefore, it is recommended that the frequency of supportive visits be increased and that special attention be given to households in inaccessible areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"A cross-sectional survey on knowledge and perceptions of health risks associated with arsenic and mercury contamination from artisanal gold mining in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Charles E, Thomas DS, Dewey D, Davey M, Ngallaba SE and Konje E: BMC Public Health 13(74), 25 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-74.pdf","body":"An estimated 0.5 to 1.5 million informal miners, of whom 30-50% are women, rely on artisanal mining for their livelihood in Tanzania, and are exposed daily to mercury and arsenic. The primary objective of this study was to assess community risk knowledge and perception of potential mercury and arsenic toxicity in Rwamagasa in northwestern Tanzania, an area with a long history of artisanal gold mining. A total of 160 individuals over 18 years of age completed a structured interview. These interviews revealed wide variations in knowledge and risk perceptions concerning mercury and arsenic exposure, with 40.6% and 89.4% not aware of the health effects of mercury and arsenic exposure respectively. Males were significantly more knowledgeable (36.9%) than females (22.5%) with regard to mercury poisoning. An individual\u2019s occupation category was associated with level of knowledge, and individuals involved in mining (73.2%) were more knowledgeable about the negative health effects of mercury than individuals in other occupations. Of the few individuals (10.6%) who knew about arsenic toxicity, most (58.8%) were miners. Overall lack of knowledge, combined with minimal environmental monitoring and controlled waste management practices, highlights the need for health education, surveillance, and policy changes, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A literature review of role of obesity in adult health with reference to Africa","field_subtitle":"Lokuruka MNI: African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development 13(1), January 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajfand/article/view/85308/75244","body":"This literature review highlights the causes, effects and potential mitigation measures of adult obesity in Africa. The major factors that contribute to obesity include over-nutrition, physical inactivity, change of dietary habits, modernisation, consumption of high-fat, high-carbohydrate foods and increased urbanisation. Despite African women tending to be more obese than men, they are less prone to hypertension, heart disease and type 2 diabetes than men before they reach menopause due to their fat deposition being predominantly sub-cutaneous rather than abdominal. The defining metabolic changes in obesity are decreased glucose tolerance, decreased sensitivity to insulin, hyperinsulinemia and reduced life expectancy. The author highlights that obesity is a controllable behavioural disorder, with regular exercise and sensible eating being the best ways to regulate body fat percentage and maintain a healthy body weight. As it is difficult to treat obesity, efforts in Africa should be directed towards prevention in order to keep it in check.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A reminder of the local","field_subtitle":"Editor","field_url":"","body":"This month's editorial comes from the lens of a health worker at a rural hospital, with an appeal for policy to test itself against whether it supports and has involved those working at the frontline and reflects ground realities. In a few days time a global meeting will be held in Botswana to review the health dimension of global development goals. In the newsletter is a resolution from a meeting of local governments and communities in Guatemala that urges, as we would, for a reminder of the faces, voices, wisdom and importance of the local in that discussion. As evident from the many reports EQUINET has produced, national averages hide significant subnational and within area inequalities, many of which are growing, and social agency, community systems and frontline health services need to be given significantly greater profile in policies and goals seeking to deliver on rights to health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to health care in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Ravenscroft J: Global Health Check, 4 February 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d75pze9","body":"This film examines the barriers that people face in accessing healthcare in rural Mozambique, specifically the rural area of Tsangano in the province of Tete, a huge region in the centre of the country. In the film, you can see how the examples of Tsangano and Tete clearly show that all parts of a health system need to come together in order for the system as a whole to function. The film advocates for an end to out-of-pocket payments by health service users. To ensure this, the \u2018key ingredients\u2019 that will make user fee removal a success must also be addressed \u2013 the financing for the system as a whole and ensuring increased investment in transport and infrastructure \u2013 particularly in rural areas \u2013 a bigger, stronger health workforce, universal access to medicines and better information for the population to demand their right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"African Partnerships for Patient Safety","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/patientsafety/implementation/apps/en/index.html","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) has released a resource package of practical tools specifically aimed at improving patient safety in hospitals in developing countries. African Partnerships for Patient Safety (APPS) is a WHO Patient Safety Programme building sustainable patient safety partnerships between hospitals in countries of the WHO African Region and hospitals in other regions. African Partnerships for Patient Safety (APPS) is a WHO Patient Safety Programme building sustainable patient safety partnerships between hospitals in countries of the WHO African Region and hospitals in other regions. APPS is concerned with advocating for patient safety as a precondition of health care in the African Region and catalysing a range of actions that will strengthen health systems, assist in building local capacity and help reduce medical error and patient harm. The programme acts as a channel for patient safety improvements that can spread across countries, uniting patient safety efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"African Union to Proceed With controversial Pan-African IP Office","field_subtitle":"New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 6 February 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c2xfjrg","body":"The African Union (AU) has announced it will proceed with the establishment of a Pan-African Intellectual Property Office (PAIPO), despite misgivings from civil society and development economists about the potential impact on local economies. There is currently no intellectual property (IP) office for Africa. The AU has requested a meeting of all stakeholders dealing with intellectual property before the May 2013 AU Summit. According to the author of this article, public information is difficult to obtain from the African Union, and nothing further is known at this time. He argues that signing up to the global IP system, in which nearly all of the IP rights are owned by non-African entities, clashes with the development objectives of the African Union, which are to promote African sovereignty and equitable development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid for trade: An opportunity to increase fruit and vegetable supply ","field_subtitle":"Thow AM: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation (early online version), 16 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/12-106955.pdf","body":"Low fruit and vegetable consumption is an important contributor to the global burden of disease. In the wake of the United Nations High-level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), held in September 2011, a rise in the consumption of fruits and vegetables is foreseeable and this increased demand will have to be met through improved supply. The World Health Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Bank have highlighted the potential for developing countries to benefit nutritionally and economically from the increased production and export of fruit and vegetables. Aid for Trade, launched in 2005 as an initiative designed to link development aid and trade holistically, offers an opportunity for the health and trade sectors to work jointly to enhance health and development. It is one of the few sources of aid for development that is stable and experiencing growth, according to this paper. At present the health sector has very little input into how Aid for Trade funds are allocated. This is an opportune moment to investigate opportunities for collaboration, since more than half of the reporting external funders are planning to revise their Aid for Trade strategies in 2013. Health departments should make central planning and finance departments aware of the potential health and economic benefits, for both developed and developing countries, of directing Aid for Trade to fresh produce markets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"An online debate about the UN General Assembly vote in favour of Universal Health Coverage","field_subtitle":"Ngabire E: Harmonisation for Health in Africa blogs, 4 February 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/azm2spz","body":"On 12 December 2012, a resolution called \u201cGlobal health and foreign policy\u201d was voted at the United Nations. This declaration, whose main focus is universal health coverage (UHC), triggered a debate on the online discussion forum of the Performance-Based Financing Community of Practice.  This blog post summarises the main points of the discussion.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Brazil-Africa technical cooperation in health: what's its relevance to the post-Busan debate on aid effectiveness?","field_subtitle":"Russo G, Cabral LV and Ferrinho P: Globalisation and Health 9(2), 22 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-9-2.pdf","body":"This paper explores the issue of emerging external funders' contribution to the post-Busan debate on aid effectiveness by looking at Brazil's health cooperation projects in Portuguese-speaking Africa. The authors consider Brazil's health technical cooperation within the country's wider cooperation programme, aiming to identify its key characteristics, claimed principles and values, and analysing how these translate into concrete projects in Portuguese-speaking African countries. They found that, by adopting new concepts on health cooperation and challenging established paradigms - in particular on health systems and HIV and AIDS - the Brazilian health experience has already contributed to shape the emerging consensus on development effectiveness. However, its impact on the field is still largely unscrutinised, and its projects seem to only selectively comply with some of the shared principles agreed upon in Busan. Although Brazilian cooperation is still a model in the making, not immune from contradictions and shortcomings, it should be seen as enriching the debate on development principles, thus offering alternative solutions to advance the discourse on cooperation effectiveness in health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications: 2013 MILEAD Fellowship","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 15 March 2013","field_url":"http://www.wunrn.com/news/2013/01_13/01_21/012113_call.htm","body":"The Moremi Initiative for Women's Leadership in Africa (Moremi Initiative) is calling for applications for the 2013 Moremi Leadership Empowerment and Development (MILEAD) Fellows Programme. The Programme is a long-term leadership development programme designed to identify, develop and promote emerging young African women leaders to attain and thrive in leadership roles in their community and Africa as a whole. The programme targets young women interested in developing transformational leadership skills that help them address issues facing women and girls across communities in Africa. It aims to equip Fellows with the requisite knowledge, skills, values and networks they need to succeed as 21st century women leaders. Applications are welcome from young African women ages 19-25, living in Africa and the Diaspora. Specific requirements of the programme and related dates are outlined in the application package.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CAO audit of a sample of IFC investments in third-party financial intermediaries","field_subtitle":"Office of the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO): 10 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.cao-ombudsman.org/documents/Audit_Report_C-I-R9-Y10-135.pdf","body":"In this audit of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank\u2019s private lending arm, the CAO found that the IFC has processed most of its investments in compliance with the organisation\u2019s own environmental and social policy requirements, but it was difficult to make an accurate assessment of the actual impact of the projects it invested in. Despite outward appearances, the CAO argues that many Social and Environmental Management Systems (SEMSs) for development projects have become mere window dressing, rather than a genuine means to improved environmental and social (E&S) outcomes on the ground. At the same time, the IFC\u2019s E&S procedures and impact assessment measurements are not optimally designed to support broader environmental and social outcomes. To achieve those broader objectives, the IFC would need to focus on facilitating a self-sustaining cultural change within client organisations, raising their level of understanding and management of environmental and social risk. This implies a more sophisticated approach to the analysis of client commitment, and interventions that align E&S issues with relevant business and socioeconomic drivers of change, rather than focusing on systems compliance. It would also require a systematic methodology for measuring impact at the subclient level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"CIVICUS World Assembly Report 2012: Montreal Civil Society Commitments for a New Social Contract","field_subtitle":"Delegates of the Eleventh CIVICUS World Assembly: November 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cptb4xa","body":"At the end of the Eleventh CIVICUS World Assembly, held in September 2012, the various recommendations made by delegates were analysed and distilled into 15 key commitments for civil society to implement as it seeks to work more effectively to promote equity and to challenge and change the rules of engagement between citizens, the state and other holders of power. Some of these commitments call for greater networking and smarter partnerships between formal civil society organisations and new social movements and social media technologies. The significance of encouraging local and voluntary participation, maintaining community connections and addressing marginalisation was highlighted. Other commitments argued for work within an equity and human rights based framework that includes sustainability and demands accountability to citizens, not external funders. Civil society also needs to be less dependent on governments and seek alternative financing models, like social and crowd-sourced funding. The commitments further call for civil society organisations (CSOs) to be innovative, strategic and have an assets-based approach, develop a better understanding of private sector involvement as well as develop CSO capacities for negotiation and analysis of power.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society has the potential of finding new solutions to global challenges which are based on the principles of equity, participation and sustainability: An Interview with CIVICUS Secretary General, Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah","field_subtitle":"CIVICUS: 11 February 2013","field_url":"http://civicus.org/news-and-resources-127/1334","body":"In this interview, CIVICUS Secretary General, Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah argues that civil society has the potential to find solutions to our greatest global challenges based on equity, participation and sustainability. Civil society participation is now of greater significance as the development paradigm is changing faster than the key players realise. Official aid flows are becoming less important, new actors such as China and India are blurring the boundaries between development and business, and Big Business has moved in to take advantage of potential profits to be made from the 'aid industry'. He identifies two key mechanisms for responding to these changes and to ensuring progress on the development agenda: global commitments that involve all key actors and set real targets, and local action that finds new ways of involving citizens in shaping the development process. He also criticises current multilateral processes where the negotiating positions taken by diplomats do not reflect the wishes of their citizens. At these meetings, principles of human rights, democracy and environmental sustainability disappear from the agenda and narrow interests emerge that do not arise out of any popular mandate. He calls for new ways of holding governments to account for the positions they take on the international stage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Climate change and health: What's the problem? ","field_subtitle":"Anstey MH: Globalisation and Health 9(4), 9 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-9-4.pdf","body":"The corroboration of scientific evidence across disciplines has confirmed that global warming is occurring and that this will have potentially negative consequences for health, such as respiratory diseases from polluted air, the spread of tropical diseases and increased malnutrition due to drought and floods. The author of this paper argues that it is time for public health advocates to draw on their past successes in tackling the health consequences of pollution, and to draw the link between the causes of global warming and pollution. In addition, strategies that link stakeholders and current development goals and provide feedback data from climate change adaptation and mitigation approaches are needed as we move forward to face the health consequences of global warming.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Colonising African Values: How the US Christian Right is Transforming Sexual Politics in Africa","field_subtitle":"Kaoma KJ: Political Research Associates, 2012","field_url":"http://www.sxpolitics.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/colonizingafricanvaluespra.pdf","body":"This report reports on the impact of Christian conservatism from United States on human rights policies in Africa.  A number of churches are reported in this paper to be working in Africa to promote US \u2018family values\u2019, campaigning against condom use to prevent HIV transmission, claiming that family planning is a Western conspiracy to reduce African development, and supporting campaigns to pursue the death penalty for gays and lesbians. The author argues that government and civil society should confront the myths of human rights advocacy being western neocolonialism, noting indigenous African human rights agendas and support African advocacy to respect human rights for all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Communique: Meeting of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda in Monrovia, Liberia","field_subtitle":"High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda: 1 February 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/a9paxne","body":"The High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda has been tasked by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to develop a framework for a post-2015 development agenda. This Communiqu\u00e9 reports on the Panel\u2019s third meeting in Monrovia, Liberia from 30 January to 1 February 2013, where members took stock of the progress achieved so far towards the fulfilment of the Panel\u2019s mandate. Members agreed to make every effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, while also framing a single and cohesive post-2015 development agenda that integrates economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection. Economic growth alone is not sufficient to ensure social justice, equity and sustained prosperity for all people. The global community must pursue economic and social transformation leading to sustained and inclusive economic growth at the local, national and global levels. The protection and empowerment of people is crucial. Achieving structural transformations through a global development agenda will involve: sustainable growth with equity, creating wealth through sustainable and transparent management of natural resources; and partnerships with many actors, unified behind a common agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Conflicts of interest within philanthrocapitalism","field_subtitle":"Global Health Watch: 2012","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/sites/www.ghwatch.org/files/D3_0.pdf","body":"This chapter from Global Health Watch 3 explores the origins of philanthrocapitalism and addresses its increasing influence on global health governance and decision-making. It examines the functioning and priorities of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in order to explore how the alignment of corporate interests and philanthropic investment may be having adverse effects on health policy. It looks at the efforts of the proponents of philanthrocapitalism to challenge progressive tax measures that could generate government revenues earmarked for global health. Finally, the chapter suggests that a focus on conflicts of interest could be a useful starting point for the mobilisation of health specialists who are concerned about the influence of the Gates Foundation on health policy, but who have thus far had difficulty, as a result of the immense scale of the Foundation\u2019s influence, in highlighting some of its controversial policies. Global Health Watch cautions against the new philanthropy\u2019s core idea that private-sector investment fills the void left by cash-strapped governments. A key objective for health activists could be highlighting the ways in which government revenues are strapped through private-sector support and through a reluctance to embrace tax measures that are disparaged by philanthropists who purport to be operating outside the realm of politics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Constitution empowers Kenyans to take part in budgeting","field_subtitle":"Jaramba G and Changani S: Pambazuka News 615, 7 February 2013","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/86145","body":"Despite being some of the most taxed citizens of the world, Kenyans have so far had little say in how their economy is managed. The Constitution of Kenya (2010) has, however, given much impetus to ordinary citizens participate in the management and decision-making process in governance socially, economically and politically. Participatory budgeting is a mechanism that civil society can use to decide how to allocate part of a municipal or public budget. In collaboration with Fahamu, in September 2012, the Kwale community engaged in a needs assessment process after which the priority areas were identified before electing budget delegates at the ward level. Kwale County currently has 20 wards following the recent boundary demarcations by the Andrew Ligale-led Interim Independent Boundaries Commission. The 20 wards are in Matuga, Msambweni, Kinango and the newly created Lunga-Lunga constituencies. The ward delegates are charged with developing specific spending proposals which will later be presented to the community for validation. If the community approves of the proposals, the same are to be forwarded to the county government for consideration of implementation. If implemented, participatory budgeting is expected to raise the social and economic well-being of the two counties. Areas that are expected to benefit significantly include education, health, agriculture, roads and energy sectors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Cost\u2013effectiveness analysis of pandemic influenza preparedness: what\u2019s missing?","field_subtitle":"Drake TL, Chalabi Z and Coker R: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(10): 940-941, 10 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/12/12-109025/en/index.html","body":"Pandemic influenza presents the greatest risk in low- and middle-income countries. The objective of this paper is to suggest improvements to the methods and scope of economic evaluations surrounding pandemic influenza and other epidemic or pandemic events in these countries. The evidence base for the cost-effectiveness of pandemic influenza preparedness policy options is small but growing rapidly. Modelling methods vary considerably between studies and the literature is limited in scope. To contribute to improving quality and consistency in this emerging study area, the authors recommend: greater focus on low-resource settings; inclusion of non-pharmaceutical interventions; incorporation of health system capacity; and more robust analysis and presentation of pandemic event uncertainty. So, what\u2019s missing from pandemic influenza preparedness cost-effectiveness analysis and research? In the final analysis, the authors identify some crucial research gaps: poor countries, non-pharmaceutical interventions, health system capacity and pandemic uncertainty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"E-learning in medical education in resource constrained low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Frehywot S, Vovides Y, Talib Z, Mikhail N, Ross H, Wohltjen H et al: Human Resources for Health 11(4), 4 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-11-4.pdf","body":"This paper summarises the literature on e-learning in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), and presents the spectrum of tools and strategies used. Using standard decision criteria, reviewers narrowed the article suggestions to a final 124 relevant articles. Of the relevant articles found, most referred to e-learning in Brazil (14 articles), India (14), Egypt (10) and South Africa (10). While e-learning has been used by a variety of health workers in LMICs, most (58%) reported on physician training, while 24% focused on nursing, pharmacy and dentistry training. Blended learning approaches were the most common methodology presented (49 articles) of which computer-assisted learning (CAL) comprised the majority (45 articles). Other approaches included simulations and the use of multimedia software (20 articles), web-based learning (14 articles), and eTutor/eMentor programmes (3 articles). The authors conclude that e-learning in medical education is a means to an end, rather than the end in itself. Utilising e-learning can result in greater educational opportunities for students while simultaneously enhancing faculty effectiveness and efficiency. However, this potential of e-learning assumes a certain level of institutional readiness in human and infrastructural resources that is not always present in LMICs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter  145: How golden policies lead to mud delivery \u2013 and how silver should become the new gold ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity Watch: Assessing progress towards equity in health in Tanzania, December 2012","field_subtitle":"Ifakara Health Institute, Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Training and Research Support Centre: December 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Tanzania%20EW%20January2013.pdf","body":"An Equity Watch is a means of monitoring progress on health equity by gathering, organising, analysing, reporting and reviewing evidence on equity in health. Equity Watch work is being implemented in countries in eastern and southern Africa in line with national and regional policy commitments. In February 2010 the Regional Health Ministers' Conference of the ECSA Health Community resolved that countries should 'report on evidence on health equity and progress in addressing inequalities in health'. This report provides an array of evidence on the responsiveness of Tanzania\u2019s health system in promoting and attaining equity in health and health care, using the Equity Watch framework. The report introduces the context and the evidence within four major areas: equity in health, household access to the resources for health, equitable health systems and global justice. It shows past levels (1980\u20132005), current levels (most current data publicly available) and comments on the level of progress towards health equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Fertility desire and intention of people living with HIV/AIDS in Tanzania: a call for restructuring care and treatment services","field_subtitle":"Mmbaga EJ, Leyna GH, Ezekiel MJ and Kakoko DC: BMC Public Health 13(86), 30 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-86.pdf","body":"Health programmes that serve people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) pay little attention to PLWHA\u2019s reproductive health needs. In this study, researchers collected data on fertility desire and intention to assist in the integration of sexual and reproductive health in routine care and treatment clinics. They conducted a cross-sectional study of 410 PLWHAs aged 15-49 residing in Kahe ward in rural Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. Fifty-one per cent reported they were married or cohabiting, 73.9% lived with their partners and 60.5% were sexually active. The rate of unprotected sex was 69%, with 12.5% of women reporting to be pregnant at the time of the survey. Further biological children were desired by 37.1% of the participants and lifetime fertility intention was 2.4 children. Increased fertility desire was associated with living and having sex with a partner, HIV disclosure, good perceived health status and CD4 count &#8805;200 cells for both sexes. These results showed that fertility desire and intention of PLWHA was relatively high, although lower than that of the general population in Tanzania. With increasing antiretroviral coverage and subsequent improved quality of life of PLWHA, these findings underscore the importance of integrating reproductive health services in the routine care and treatment of HIV and AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Fifth Annual HIV-In-Context Research Symposium: Urbanisation, Inequality And HIV","field_subtitle":"13 March 2013 - 15 March 2013: Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.hivaids-uwc.org.za/index.php?option=com_content%20&view=article&id=120&Itemid=64","body":"From its base in the University of the Western Cape\u2019s School of Public Health, this year\u2019s HIV in Context Research Symposium looks beyond biomedicine at some of the social determinants of HIV, and of responses to HIV, within and outside the health sector. The Symposium will examine the links between HIV, inequality and the dynamics and impacts of urbanisation \u2013 dynamics that play out between settings as people move permanently or temporarily to urban centres, and within the highly unequal spaces constituting South African cities. The particular experience of Cape Town as a destination and transit point on migration trajectories will be examined in relation to other cities in South Africa and beyond. Through diverse disciplinary and sectoral lenses, practitioners, researchers, policy makers and civil society activists will examine the many ways in which urbanisation, inequality and HIV interact and affect people\u2019s lives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Philanthropy and Institutional Relationships: How Should Conflicts of Interest Be Addressed?","field_subtitle":"Stuckler D, Basu S and McKee M: PLoS Medicine 8(4), 12 April 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3vhatz6","body":"In recent years, tax-exempt private foundations and for-profit corporations have increasingly engaged in relationships that can influence global health. Using a case study of five of the largest private global health foundations, the authors of this study identified the scope of relationships between tax-exempt foundations and for-profit corporations. They found that many public health foundations have associations with private food and pharmaceutical corporations. In some instances, these corporations directly benefit from foundation grants, and foundations in turn are invested in the corporations to which they award these grants. Personnel move between food and drug industries and public health foundations. Foundation board members and decision-makers also sit on the boards of some for-profit corporations benefitting from their grants. While private foundations adopt standard disclosure protocols for employees to mitigate potential conflicts of interests, these do not always apply to the overall endowment investments of the foundations or to board membership appointments. Transparency or grant-making recusal of employees alone may not be preventing potential conflicts of interests between global health programmes and their financing, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Wage Report 2012/13: Wages and Equitable Growth","field_subtitle":"International Labour Organisation: 7 December 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c3ecqqu","body":"The 2012/13 edition of the Global Wage Report looks at the macroeconomic effects of wages, and in particular at how current trends are linked to equitable growth. Among the major findings of the report are that the gap between wage growth and labour productivity growth is widening, the difference between the top and bottom earners is increasing, and the labour income share is declining. Workers are receiving a smaller slice of the economic pie than before. These worrying changes affect the key components of aggregate demand \u2013 particularly consumption, investment and net exports \u2013 that are necessary for recovery and growth. The report looks at the reasons for these trends, which range from the increasing financial and trade globalization to advances in technology and the decline in the power of trade unions and reduced union density. Raising average labour productivity remains a key challenge which must involve efforts to raise the level of education and the capabilities that are required for productive transformation and economic development. The development of well-designed social protection systems would allow workers and their families to reduce the amounts of precautionary savings, to invest in the education of their children, and to contribute towards stronger domestic consumption demand and raise living standards. The report calls for internal and external \u201crebalancing\u201d to achieve more socially and economically sustainable outcomes within and across countries, proposing policy actions beyond labour markets and national borders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Harnessing the power of the grassroots to conduct public health research in sub-Saharan Africa: a case study from western Kenya in the adaptation of community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches","field_subtitle":"Kamanda A, Embleton L, Ayuku D, Atwoli L, Gisore P, Ayaya S et al: BMC Public Health 13(91), 31 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-91.pdf","body":"The Orphaned and Separated Children's Assessments Related to their Health and Well-Being (OSCAR) project is a longitudinal cohort of orphaned and non-orphaned children in Kenya. To date the study has enrolled 3,130 orphaned and separated children. In this paper, the authors use this project to describe how community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches and principles can be incorporated and adapted into study design and methods. Preliminary results suggest that community engagement and participation was integral in refining the study design and identifying research questions that were impacting the community. Through the participation of village chiefs and elders, researchers were able to successfully identify eligible households and randomise the selection of participants. The on-going contribution of the community in the research process was also vital to participant retention and data validation while ensuring cultural and community relevance and equity in the research agenda. In conclusion, the authors argue that CBPR methods can strengthen epidemiological and public health research in sub-Saharan Africa within the social, political, economic and cultural contexts of the diverse communities on the continent, provided that the methods are adapted to the local context.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health in the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Report of the Global Thematic Consultation on Health: Draft for public comment","field_subtitle":"Task Team of the Global Thematic Consultation on Health: 1 February 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c7lqrux","body":"Placing health at the heart of the post-2015 development agenda will not only save lives and advance economic development, it will also protect environmental sustainability, and advance wellbeing, equity and social justice, according to this report. It makes a number of recommendations. Health goals should be equitable, holistic and people-centred. The post-2015 development agenda should be direct explicit attention to reducing health inequities between and within all countries, especially when considering the needs of the poor, marginalised, and those whom the efforts of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have not reached. The right to health means that governments must generate conditions in which everyone can be as healthy as possible. A hierarchy of goals is needed to capture the increasing complexity of priority health challenges and the reality that efforts to prevent disease and disability and improve health and well-being require policies and actions both within the health sector and across many other sectors. Indicators need to measure impact, coverage of health services and health systems. Some qualitative indicators may be needed to measure quality of life and well-being, while assessing quality of health services may require qualitative as well as quantitative indicators. The MDG targets and indicators as well as those in other internationally agreed agendas should be revised for the post-2015 era and included under the relevant goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health in the post-2015 development agenda: The need for a social determinants of health approach","field_subtitle":"Joint statement of the UN Platform on Social Determinants of Health  International Labour Organisation, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Population Fund, United Nations Children\u2019s Fund, World Health Organisation and UNAIDS: 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bsnfczg","body":"In order to reduce health inequities, there is a need to address the wider socioeconomic and structural factors that influence how people become sick, what risk factors they are exposed to, how they access services, and how they use those services. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at global, national and local levels. This joint statement argues that integrated policy approaches are necessary in order to address the complexity of health inequities, including through national social protection floors, which address income security and the goal to establish universal access to health care simultaneously. Health policy generally, and health equity in particular, to a large extent depend on decisions made in sectors other than health, and are fundamentally linked to several interrelated issues such as governance, environment, education, employment, social security, food, housing, water, transport and energy. It means that health outcomes cannot be achieved by taking action in the health sector alone, and that actions in other sectors are critical. Failing to address the social determinants of health has held back progress on existing global health and development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals. The joint statement outlines the actions to be taken to address the social determinants of health, sector by sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV Capacity Building Partners Summit","field_subtitle":"19 -21 March 2013: Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://hivcapacityforum.org/","body":"The Capacity Summit 2013 will bring together leading organisations, capacity building experts, policy-makers and the HIV-affected community to translate the emerging consensus on defining and developing capacity building interventions that are institutionalised, country-owned, evidence based and sustainable to attain the HIV and health targets towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The Capacity Summit 2013 is designed to contribute to the good practice within the HIV and health service delivery in the east and southern African region. The Summit\u2019s objectives are: to catalyse and advance knowledge about how to make capacity building work for HIV response and achieve health targets at community, country and regional levels; to address skills and capacity gaps and overcome barriers that limit capacity building interventions to achieve results that are community driven; to promote and enhance collaboration in order to effectively translate and expand on the successes achieved so far in capacity building for HIV and better health services delivery; to influence leaders, including key policy makers and external funders, to increase their commitment to gender-sensitive, country-owned and evidence-based capacity building interventions, including targeted interventions for the most at-risk communities and individuals; and to promote accountability among all stakeholders engaged at various levels of capacity building.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"How do national strategic plans for HIV and AIDS in Southern and Eastern Africa address gender-based violence? A women\u2019s rights perspective","field_subtitle":"Gibbs A, Mushinga M, Crone ET, Willan S and Mannell J: Health and Human Rights 14(2), 2012","field_url":"http://www.hhrjournal.org/index.php/hhr/article/view/532/787","body":"Gender-based violence (GBV) is a significant human rights violation and a key driver of the HIV epidemic in southern and eastern Africa. In this study, the authors frame GBV from a broad human rights approach that includes intimate partner violence and structural violence. They use this broader definition to review how National Strategic Plans for HIV and AIDS (NSPs) in southern and eastern Africa address GBV. NSPs for HIV and AIDS provide the national-level framework that shapes government, business, external funder, and non-governmental responses to HIV within a country. They authors\u2019 review suggests that attention to GBV is poorly integrated, and few recognise GBV and programme around GBV. The programming, policies and interventions that do exist privilege responses that support survivors of violence, rather than seeking to prevent it. Furthermore, the subject who is targeted is narrowly constructed as a heterosexual woman in a monogamous relationship. There is little consideration of GBV targeting women who have non-conforming sexual or gender identities, or of the need to tackle structural violence in the response to HIV and AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"How golden policies lead to mud delivery \u2013 and how silver should become the new gold","field_subtitle":"Dr. Karl le Roux, Zithulele Hospital, Eastern Cape, South Africa ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThere is a general perception amongst academics, government officials, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the South African public at large that as a country we have good policies, but that we implement these policies poorly  (as reported by the South African Institute of International Affairs in 2011).  In fact, one of the fundamental issues that we need to address as a country is to try to understand why, despite good policies, adequate amounts of money and more skilled workers than in most parts of Africa, South Africa performs so badly (especially in health and education) when compared to other African countries.  The tendency of policy makers is to blame downstream factors, such as general lack of capacity , \u201clazy managers\u201d or \u201cobstructive clinicians\u201d,  which to some extent is reflected in the research. \r\n\r\nBut my job today is to describe to you what it is like being at the rural coalface. Though I have loved working in a rural hospital for the past six years, it has also been one of the toughest periods in my life.  Working in rural medicine is a bit like sitting on a rollercoaster: a combination of enormous challenge and reward, feeling exhausted and exasperated and then inspired and invigorated, seeing dignity and strength in patients, but also sadness and unnecessary suffering and death.  One always feels stretched and one often feels as if one is hanging on by one\u2019s fingertips.  The rural idyll is something that might be experienced on weekends off, but the reality of the working week is that on the whole one is extremely busy and constantly rationing care and doing the best one can with the resources available. \r\n\r\nIt therefore might come as no surprise to the reader that at the coalface \u201cpolicies\u201d are more often seen as a hindrance than a help to the delivery of health care.  Policies or programmes are often imposed from above, with no consultation and with little understanding of realities on the ground.  There is usually poor data collection and feedback, lots of time-consuming and unnecessary paperwork and a focus on irrelevant aspects of care with the neglect of critical aspects. I need to make clear that good, realistic and helpful policies are greatly appreciated by most clinicians working at primary care level, as they improve care and the health of our patients (for example the new antiretroviral treatment guidelines). \r\n\r\nBut there are also many examples of policies and programmes that aim for an unrealistic gold standard (with its unnecessary and unhelpful complexity) and which, as a result, undermine the provision of good healthcare to as large a population as possible.  \r\n\r\nThe first example of this is the new Road to Health Booklet.  Although an extremely well-intentioned document, it is completely unrealistic to expect a busy primary care nurse to use this tool properly.  It appears as if the designers of the document have never set foot in a packed rural (or township) immunization clinic, or tried to fill in the booklet with 60 screaming babies requiring injections in the waiting room outside.  A year after it was introduced in our area, we still find that critical data such as mother\u2019s HIV status and type of prevention-of-mother to child transmission (PMTCT) treatment provided is left out, whilst on the old, much simpler Road to Health Card, this was filled out really well.\r\n\r\nAnother example of where aiming for gold results in mud delivery is the District Health Information System (DHIS), a tool with so many parameters and different indicators that it is not actually possible to fill it out correctly unless each clinic has several dedicated data capturers with computers and technical support.  As a result, much of the data is literally made up (I have seen it happen with my own eyes) and results in very poor quality data. At a recent meeting in my district, for example, several clinics had a higher than 120% coverage for measles vaccination.  Yet managers and health planners scratch their heads and wonder why we get such poor quality data and complain that overloaded nurses at the coalface must just fill the data sheets out correctly.  The DHIS needs to be simplified drastically, and nurses on the ground must get regular feedback on certain critical indicators that truly reflect improved care.\r\n\r\nMany people balk at the idea of not aiming for a \u201cgold standard\u201d at a policy level \u2013 surely we must at least aim for the stars even if this isn\u2019t really achievable?\r\n\r\nFirstly, I would like to argue that we have ample evidence of how aiming for gold actually undermines the provision of care at grassroots level, and that we instead need to focus on simplicity and doing the basics really well.  This would result in the biggest health impact on the greatest number of people.\r\nSecondly, I think that we need to be cognisant of our limitations in terms of both human and financial resources in South Africa and recognise that we do not have the capacity to achieve gold right now, although it may be possible to aim for gold 20-30 years from now. \r\n\r\nIn the health sector we should be working within a framework of clear, straightforward priorities, aiming for what is achievable (silver?) and doing the basics extremely well, with simple monitoring and clear feedback to all healthcare workers. \r\n\r\n I would like to argue that a policy cannot be labelled as \u201cgood\u201d unless it is implementable.  We need to recognise that putting policy together is the beginning of a long process. Policymakers need to be involved in drawing up implementation strategies, and government must support policy implementation through adequate finances and capacitating and empowering managers to manage the changes that will be required when policy is implemented.\r\n\r\nLet me end with a final plea from the coalface that those of you who write policy use the following as your guiding principle: good health policies make things better and easier on the ground and result in improved patient care.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. This oped was featured in a paper for the Public Health Association of Southern Africa newsletter at le Roux K. How golden policies lead to mud delivery \u2013 and how silver should become the new gold. Newsletter of the Public Health Association of South Africa. November 15, 2012. ). The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of PHASA.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Human resource governance: what does governance mean for the health workforce in low- and middle-income countries?","field_subtitle":"Kaplan AD, Dominis S, Palen JGH and Quain EE: Human Resources for Health 11(6), 15 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-11-6.pdf","body":"This study was conducted to determine how 20 low- and middle-income countries are operationalising health governance to improve health workforce performance. The 20 countries assessed showed mixed progress in implementing the eight governance principles. Strengths highlighted include increasing the transparency of financial flows from sources to providers by implementing and institutionalising the National Health Accounts methodology; increasing responsiveness to population health needs by training new cadres of health workers to address shortages and deliver care to remote and rural populations; having structures in place to register and provide licensure to medical professionals upon entry into the public sector; and implementing pilot programs that apply financial and non-financial incentives as a means to increase efficiency. Common weaknesses included difficulties with developing, implementing and evaluating health workforce policies that outline a strategic vision for the health workforce; implementing continuous licensure and regulation systems to hold health workers accountable after they enter the workforce; and making use of health information systems to acquire data from providers and deliver it to policymakers. Further research is warranted into the effectiveness of specific interventions that enhance the links between the health workforce and governance to determine approaches to strengthening the health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Human resources for universal health coverage: a call for papers","field_subtitle":"Sheikh M, Boerma T, Cometto G and Duvivier R: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 91(2): 84, February 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/91/2/13-117200.pdf","body":"The Third Global Forum\u2019s programme will position health workforce development as a critical requirement for effective universal health care (UHC) and will be designed around one overarching theme \u2013 \u201chuman resources for health: foundation for universal health coverage and the post- 2015 development agenda\u201d \u2013 as well as five sub-themes and their corresponding tracks: (i) leadership, partnerships and accountability for health for human resources (HRH) development; (ii) impact-driven HRH investments towards UHC; (iii) a supportive HRH legal and regulatory landscape for UHC; (iv) empowerment of health workers by overcoming policy, social and cultural barriers; and (v) the harnessing of HRH innovation and research through new management models and technologies. To provide a solid evidence base and background to the Third Global Forum\u2019s proceedings, the theme issue will feature commissioned as well as independently submitted articles that will set the scene for and generate innovative thinking on HRH for UHC. The World Health Organisation is looking for contributions on the Forum\u2019s general theme, five sub-themes and tracks, especially those emphasising aspects of HRH directly related to achieving UHC. Submission of relevant country experiences is particularly encouraged. The deadline for submissions is 10 March 2013.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Human Rights Indicators: A Guide to Measurement and Implementation","field_subtitle":"United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/akq6ffv","body":"Qualitative and quantitative indicators are useful tools for promoting and monitoring the implementation of human rights. International human rights treaties and jurisprudence of the human rights treaty bodies call for the development of statistical indicators in compliance with international human rights norms and principles. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has published this guide to assist in developing quantitative and qualitative indicators to measure progress in the implementation of international human rights norms and principles. The Guide describes the conceptual and methodological framework for human rights indicators recommended by international and national human rights mechanisms and used by a growing number of governmental and non-governmental actors. It provides concrete examples of indicators identified for a number of human rights - all originating from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - and other practical tools and illustrations, to support the realization of human rights at all levels. It will be of interest to human rights advocates as well as policymakers, development practitioners, statisticians and others who are working to make human rights a reality for all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Hypertension in Northern Angola: prevalence, associated factors, awareness, treatment and control","field_subtitle":"Pires JE, Sebasti\u00e3o YV, Langa AJ and Nery SV: BMC Public Health 13(90), 31 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-90.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers aimed to estimate the prevalence, awareness, management and control of hypertension and associated factors in an adult population in Dande, Northern Angola. They conducted a community-based survey of 1,464 adults, following the World Health Organisation's Stepwise Approach to Chronic Disease Risk Factor Surveillance, and selected a representative sample of subjects, stratified by sex and age (18\u201340 and 41\u201364 years old). Prevalence of hypertension was 23% in the sample. A follow-up consultation confirmed the hypertensive status in 82% of the subjects who had a second measurement on average 23 days after the first. Amongst hypertensive individuals, 21.6% were aware of their status. Only 13.9% of those who were aware of their condition were under pharmacological treatment, of which approximately one-third were controlled. Greater age, lower level of education, higher body mass index and abdominal obesity were found to be significantly associated with hypertension. The authors conclude that there is an urgent need for strategies to improve prevention, diagnosis and access to adequate treatment in Angola, where massive economic growth and its consequent impact on lifestyle risk factors could lead to an increase in the prevalence of hypertension and cardiovascular disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrating interventions on maternal mortality and morbidity and HIV: A human rights-based framework and approach","field_subtitle":"Fried S, Harrison B, Starcevich K, Whitaker C and O\u2019Konek T: Health and Human Rights 14(2), 2012","field_url":"http://www.hhrjournal.org/index.php/hhr/article/view/512/790","body":"In sub-Saharan Africa, HIV and maternal mortality and morbidity (MMM) are connected in both outcomes and solutions: HIV is the leading cause of maternal death, while prevention of unintended pregnancy and access to contraception are considered two of the most important HIV-related prevention efforts. Both are central to reducing unsafe abortion, another leading cause of maternal death in Africa. A human rights-based framework helps to identify shared structural drivers include gender inequality; gender-based violence (including sexual violence); economic disempowerment; and stigma and discrimination in access to services or opportunities based on gender and HIV. Therefore the authors call for a human rights-based and integrated response to the two health issues. Governments should establish the health-related human rights standards to which all women are entitled and provide remedy for human rights violations related to HIV and maternal mortality and morbidity. No single goal, such as those addressing HIV and MMM, can be achieved without progress on all development goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Is the timing right for an International Code of Marketing of Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages to Children?","field_subtitle":"Irwin R: Global Health Governance VI(1), 31 December 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cddduxa","body":"This article addresses recent calls for the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF) to develop a Code of Practice on the Marketing of Unhealthy Food and Beverages to Children. The author argues that such suggestions ignore the development of WHO\u2019s Set of Recommendations on the Marketing of Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages to Children and misrepresent its scope. The recommendations, adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2010, aim \u2018to reduce the impact on children of marketing of foods high in saturated fats, trans-fatty acids, free sugars, or salt.\u2019 In light of the current WHO reform process and financial constraints, the fact that WHO member states explicitly chose to develop a Set of Recommendations instead of a Code, the author questions the feasibility and value of re-opening the issue. Instead he recommends that the Secretariat be supported in their mandate to provide assistance to member states in implementing the existing WHO Set of Recommendations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge of tuberculosis (TB) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and perception about provider initiated HIV testing and counseling among TB patients attending health facilities in Harar town, Eastern Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Seyoum A and Legesse M: BMC Public Health 13(124), 8 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-124.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers assessed knowledge of tuberculosis (TB) and HIV, and perceptions about provider-initiated testing and counselling (PITC) among TB patients attending health facilities in Harar town, Eastern Ethiopia. Using a semi-structured questionnaire, a total of 415 study participants were interviewed about their knowledge of TB and HIV as well as the impact of HIV testing on their treatment-seeking behaviour. Results showed that living more than 10 km from a health facility was associated with low knowledge of TB and low knowledge of HIV testing. Delay in treatment was more likely among female participants, single participants and those living more than 10 km from a health facility. Most of the study participants (70%) believed that there was no association between TB and HIV and AIDS, while most (81.6%) of the study participants who were 21 years old or younger believed that fear of PITC could cause delay in treatment seeking. The authors recommend that emphasis should be given to improving knowledge of TB and HIV among residents living far from a health facility, as well as to improving the negative perceptions of PITC among young adults.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"LDCs seek indefinite extension of transition period under TRIPS","field_subtitle":"Raja K: Third World Network, 9 November 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cxnr24p","body":"The Least Developed Countries (LDCs) have submitted a \"duly motivated\" request to the WTO TRIPS Council for an extension of the transition period for them to comply with the TRIPS Agreement \"for as long as the WTO Member remains a least developed country\". The request was submitted by Haiti, on behalf of the LDCs, at a meeting of the TRIPS Council on 6-7 November 2012. The exemption will continue to allow LDCs to access affordable medicines without the risk of violating patents on the medicines. Haiti argued that because of their extreme poverty, LDCs need the policy space to access various technologies, educational resources, and other tools necessary for development. Furthermore, LDCs have such small economies that they do not represent a significant loss of profits for pharmaceutical patent owners. Most intellectual property-protected commodities are simply priced beyond the purchasing power of these countries\u2019 governments and their nationals, the spokesperson for Haiti added. Haiti has asked for this issue to be put on the agenda of the next TRIPS Council meeting, scheduled to take place in March 2013.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Legal, ethical and counselling issues related to HIV counselling and testing of children: Implementation guidelines","field_subtitle":"Human Sciences Research Council: 2013","field_url":"http://www.hsrc.ac.za/Document-4681.phtml","body":"These guidelines dealing with the legal, ethical and counselling issues related to HIV testing of children are intended for HIV and AIDS practitioners working with children. They were developed through an extensive consultative process with key staff from the South African Department of Health, the United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), civil society, non-governmental organisations, academics, policy makers and practitioners working with children. The guidelines cover a range of topics: counselling of children of different ages and developmental levels and assessing a child\u2019s capacity to give informed consent; pre- and post-test counselling for children and for parents and caregivers of children unable to consent independently; follow-up and referral of children and/or parents or caregivers; client-initiated or voluntary counselling and testing and provider-initiated counselling and testing as applied to children; counselling guidelines relative to disclosure of HIV status by and to children; key qualities and competencies required for HIV counselling of children; and the physical environment and use of appropriate materials in work with children and young people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mental health in Ghana: A rights violation in action","field_subtitle":"Asokan I: Consultancy Africa Intelligence, 24 January 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.polity.org.za/article/mental-health-in-ghana-a-rights-violation-in-action-2013-01-16","body":"This report argues that Ghana is reported to be violating the African Charter on Human and Peoples\u2019 Rights when people with mental disorders are subjected to prayer camps that advocate complete isolation, being chained to trees, and forced exorcism for demonic possession, and fails to provide services for mentally illness. The author suggests that mental health problems often stem from poor nutrition, depressed socioeconomic status, and elevated, persistent violence. Despite the widespread presence of these factors mental heath problems like depression or undiagnosed schizophrenia are often ignored in health policy agendas in Africa. The author proposes that mental health be recognised as a human right, coupled with de-stigmatisation of mental health disorders, and resource allocation for treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Neoliberal plague: AIDS, Africa and global capitalism","field_subtitle":"Hickel J: Pambazuka News 616, 13 February 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/86206","body":"Aids in Africa is a symptom of an unjust global order, argues the author of this article. Mass poverty leaves people with no option other than labour migration and transactional sex, which he identifies as the key drivers of HIV transmission in southern Africa. Old approaches to rolling back AIDS don\u2019t work any longer \u2013 what is needed is a new, more systematic approach in which poor African countries are released from structural adjustment programmes so they can rebuild their economies using tariffs, subsidies, state spending and low interest rates \u2013 the very policies that rich countries use. The author also calls for the cancellation of odious debts so African countries can spend money on health services instead of interest payments. Furthermore, governments need to amend TRIPS to decommoditise life-saving drugs and amend the World Trade Organisation\u2019s (WTO) Agreement on Agriculture to ban the dumping of subsidised farm products in Africa and elsewhere. This means reforming the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the WTO, where voting power is monopolised by rich nations and special interests. The World Bank and the Gates Foundation \u2013 the biggest funders of AIDS prevention \u2013 cannot be entrusted with these tasks, as they have clear interests in the very policies (debt service, structural adjustment and patent laws) that have created the problem in the first place.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New academy to address hospital CEO shortages","field_subtitle":"Magubane K: Business Day, 4 February 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ar9666b","body":"The South African government wants to use the newly launched Academy for Leadership and Management in Healthcare to set benchmarks, norms and standards for the leadership and management of hospitals in South Africa. The academy was launched in November 2012 to provide leadership and management skills to hospital CEOs. Just over a hundred CEOs started orientation week on 4 February 2013. At the start of orientation week, Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi argued that hospital CEOs were key to addressing problems such as staff constraints and fraud. In the future, he expected that no person would become a hospital CEO or manager without first having attended the academy. He added that problems in South African hospitals often related to leadership and management, rather than staffing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New avenue for Litigating the Right to Health: Optional Protocol to the ICESCR comes into force","field_subtitle":"Cabrera OA Friedman E and HonermannB: O\u2019Neill Institute, February 2013 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bdch5wy","body":"On 5 February, 2013, Uruguay became the tenth country to ratify the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which means the Optional Protocol will come into force on 5 May, 2013. Until now, the CESCR has been limited to issuing concluding observations and recommendations to member countries as part of semi-regular country reporting requirements in the ICESCR and to issuing broad general comments on rights under the Convention. The opportunity will now exist at the global level to litigate and begin to develop more concrete standards around the rights in the ICESCR \u2013 including the right to of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health (Article 12 of the ICESCR). The authors of this paper highlight emerging opportunities within the framework of the ICESCR and the Optional Protocol to begin serious investigations into the social determinants of health, such as access to sufficient food, water, sanitation, and education. They call for an approach that goes beyond the typical and narrower construction of the right to health based in access to health care services to include the determinants discussed in Article 12.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"ONE launches campaign for transparency in post-2015 framework","field_subtitle":"ONE: February 2013","field_url":"http://www.one.org/us/transparency/","body":"The aim of the \u201cOpen for Development\u201d campaign \u2013 and the global petition \u2013 is to persuade the High-Level Panel on the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals to ensure that openness forms the basis of the next global development framework. In this petition, ONE is calling for three things: 1. Openness in the design of the post-2015 framework to ensure that the post-2015 goals reflect people\u2019s needs and priorities. 2. Openness in the monitoring of investments and outcomes so both funding and recipient governments collect information about what they spend and what they achieve in pursuit of the goals. 3. Openness in terms of making that information widely available and accessible so citizens, parliaments and the media can use it hold governments to account. The global petition urges world leaders to make sure the plan to end extreme poverty is specific, measurable and accountable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Pharmaceutical industry targets Africa's growing middle class","field_subtitle":"Berton E: Mail and Guardian, 12 February 2013","field_url":"http://mg.co.za/article/2013-02-12-pharmaceutical-industry-targets-africas-middle-class","body":"Pharmaceutical spending in Africa is expected to reach US$30 billion by 2016, driven by increases in incomes and the shifting nature of its disease burden, according to this article. Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are expected to account for 46% of all deaths in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030, up from 28% in 2008. As a result, big pharmaceutical companies are now expressing interest in new opportunities opening up for treating chronic, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), particularly in African middle classes. The author projects that the pharmaceutical market in Africa will grow in the next decade.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy implementation and financial incentives for nurses in South Africa: a case study on the occupation specific dispensation","field_subtitle":"Ditlopo P, Blaauw D, Rispel LC, Thomas S and Bidwell P: Global Health Action 6: 19289, 24 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/19289/pdf_1","body":"In 2007, the South African government introduced the occupation-specific dispensation (OSD), a financial incentive strategy to attract, motivate, and retain health professionals in the public sector. Implementation commenced with the nursing sector. In this paper, researchers examine implementation of the OSD for nurses and highlight the conditions for the successful implementation of financial incentives. They conducted a qualitative case study design using a combination of a document review and in-depth interviews with 42 key informants, finding several implementation weaknesses. Only a few of the pre-conditions were met for OSD policy implementation. The information systems required for successful policy implementation, such as the public sector human resource data base and the South African Nursing Council register of specialised nurses, were incomplete and inaccurate, thus undermining the process. Insufficient attention was paid to time and resources, dependency relationships and task specification. In conclusion, the implementation of financial incentives requires careful planning and management in order to avoid loss of morale and staff grievances.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor Governance, Good Business: How land investors target countries with weak governance","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: 7 February 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cs9jkw3","body":"In this media briefing, Oxfam reveals that investors are targeting the world\u2019s weakest-governed countries to buy land, and it calls on the World Bank to lead the fight against land grabs. It argues that the Bank is in a unique position to act because it sets international standards for land investments, provides finance for land deals and advises developing countries on land investments. Oxfam\u2019s analysis reveals that over three quarters of the 56 countries where land deals were agreed between 2000 and 2011 scored below average on four key governance indicators. The 23 least developed countries account for more than half of the recorded land deals over this period. Researchers assessed a range of factors including voice and accountability (e.g. whether citizens participate in selecting their government), rule of law, the quality of private sector regulation, and control of corruption. They found poor governance is good business for investors looking to secure land quickly and cheaply. Investors seem to be cherry-picking countries with weak rules and regulations. This can spell disaster for communities if these deals result in their homes and livelihoods being snatched away without consent or compensation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Protection of populations from exposure to second-hand smoke in Africa: Policy Implementation challenges","field_subtitle":"Piotie PN: Consultancy Africa Intelligence, 22 January 2013 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/asw8cfz","body":"Economists have predicted that tobacco consumption will double in the next 12 to 13 years in Sub-Saharan Africa unless anti-smoking policies are adopted. Besides impoverishing families, an increase in the consumption rate will result in an increase in disease burden that will generate unaffordable health costs. Implementing smoke-free policies in Africa remains a problem, however, largely due to tobacco industry interference, insufficient financial and human resources, lack of support from government officials and legislators and poor involvement of civil society. However, the author argues that poor compliance, as well as poor, often non-existent enforcement and monitoring and surveillance systems are the real threats to smoke-free laws in Africa. Therefore, there is a crucial need for efficient implementation strategies, along with proper monitoring and surveillance systems on the one hand; and on the other, a need for scientific research in order to evaluate the effectiveness of smoke-free policies in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Quality of antenatal care in Zambia: a national assessment","field_subtitle":"Kyei NAN, Chansa C and Gabrysch S: BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 12(151), 13 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/12/151","body":"Little conceptual or empirical work exists on the measurement of antenatal care (ANC) quality at health facilities in low-income countries. To address this gap, researchers in this study developed a classification tool and assessed the level of ANC service provision at health facilities in Zambia on a national scale and compared this to the quality of ANC received by expectant mothers. They included 1,299 antenatal facilities in the study and compared the quality of ANC received by 4,148 mothers between 2002 and 2007. Results showed that only 45 antenatal facilities (3%) fulfilled the study\u2019s developed criteria for optimum ANC service, while 47% of facilities provided adequate service, and the remaining 50% offered inadequate service. Although 94% of mothers reported at least one ANC visit with a skilled health worker and 60% attended at least four visits, only 29% of mothers received good quality ANC, and only 8% of mothers received good quality ANC and attended in the first trimester. The authors argue that these results indicate missed opportunities at ANC for delivering effective interventions. Evaluating the level of ANC provision at health facilities is an efficient way to detect the \u201cquality gap\u201d where deficiencies are located in the system and could serve as a monitoring tool to evaluate country progress.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Rapid case-based mapping of seasonal malaria transmission risk for strategic elimination planning in Swaziland","field_subtitle":"Cohen JM, Dlamini S, Novotny JM, Kandula D, Kunene S and Tatem AJ: Malaria Journal 12(61), 11 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-12-61.pdf","body":"Commonly available malaria maps are based on parasite rate, a poor metric for measuring malaria at extremely low prevalence. New approaches are required to provide case-based risk maps to countries seeking to identify remaining hotspots of transmission while managing the risk of transmission from imported cases. In this study, household locations and travel histories of confirmed malaria patients during 2011 were recorded for the higher transmission months of January to April and the lower transmission months of May to December. Data was gathered and used to generate maps predicting the probability of a locally acquired case at 100 m resolution across Swaziland for each season. Results indicated that case households during the high transmission season tended to be located in areas of lower elevation, closer to bodies of water, in more sparsely populated areas, with lower rainfall and warmer temperatures, and closer to imported cases. The high-resolution mapping approaches described here can help elimination programmes understand the epidemiology of a disappearing disease. The authors argue that generating case-based risk maps at high spatial and temporal resolution will allow control programmes to direct interventions proactively according to evidence-based measures of risk and ensure that the impact of limited resources is maximised to achieve and maintain malaria elimination.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Resource offers monthly updates on communicable diseases in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nicd.ac.za/?page=Communique&id=56","body":"The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) monitors communicable diseases in South Africa. It is a resource of knowledge and expertise in regionally relevant communicable diseases to the South African Government, to SADC countries and the African continent. The NICD assists in the planning of policies and programmes and supports appropriate responses to communicable disease problems and issues. Every month, NICD publishes its Communiqu\u00e9 for the purpose of providing up-to-date information on communicable diseases in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Restructuring the brain drain: strengthening governance and financing for health worker migration","field_subtitle":"Mackey TK and Liang BA: Global Health Action 6: 19923, 15 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/view/19923/pdf_1","body":"For this study, researchers analysed health worker policies in developing countries to assess current strategies aimed at alleviating the \u2018brain drain\u2019 of medical professionals from these countries. Although governments and private organisations have tried to address this policy challenge, the researchers found that brain drain continues to destabilise public health systems and their populations globally. Most importantly, lack of adequate financing and binding governance solutions continue to fail to prevent health worker brain drain. In response to these challenges, the establishment of a Global Health Resource Fund in conjunction with an international framework for health worker migration could create global governance for stable funding mechanisms encourage equitable migration pathways, and provide data collection that is desperately needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Results of the Consultation with Representatives of Local Governments, Indigenous Communities, Afro-Communities, and Civil Society Organizations about the Post 2015 Development Agenda on the topic of Health ","field_subtitle":"PAHO, Antigua Guatemala, 12 to 14 February 2013","field_url":"","body":"The commitment toward achieving universal coverage understood as access to quality, individualized healthcare for all, in a human rights framework, has been profiled as the Goal of the Post 2015 Development Agenda on the topic of Health.   For this reason, the Pan American Health Organization proposed a consultation of the key social actors in this process and to hear their voices.  The present document summarizes the debate and the agreements assumed by the representatives of civil society organizations, municipal authorities or mayors, indigenous authorities, afro descendants, and other civil society representatives.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/37689","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Reviewing the evidence: how well does the European Development Fund perform?","field_subtitle":"Gavas M: Overseas Development Institute, 31 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/8218.pdf","body":"The European Union (EU) is currently negotiating the budget for the European Development Fund (EDF) for 2014-2020. The EDF is the EU\u2019s main instrument for delivering development aid to the 78 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries under the ACP\u2013EU Cotonou Partnership Agreement. This paper reviews the EDF\u2019s performance against three critiques made by some Member States: the EDF targets middle-income countries (MICs) at the expense of a focus on poor countries; the EDF is inflexible in its procedures and unable to adapt quickly to changing circumstances; and the EDF suffers from weak forecasting and slow disbursement of funds. The author argues that the EDF has a strong focus on poor countries and takes into account other criteria beyond income, like vulnerability and fragility. This focus will become stronger with further differentiation in aid allocation. In terms of flexibility, the EDF continues to face the challenge of being flexible enough to re-programme funds and to respond to crises, whilst at the same time ensuring long-term funding to strengthen security, development and humanitarian links. In terms of slow disbursement, the EU has started to address some of the weaknesses regarding disbursement by boosting staff levels and expertise.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Rural areas in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa: The right to access safe drinking water and sanitation denied?","field_subtitle":"Fobosi S: Consultancy Africa Intelligence, 24 January 2013 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/acgn35m","body":"This paper critically analyses the denial of the right of access to safe drinking water and sanitation. In so doing, it engages with the debate about whether access to water is a human right, using the situation in the rural areas of the Eastern Cape Province as a case study. Water in rural areas of the Eastern Cape continues to be regarded as a scarce resource, while at the same time the Constitution asserts that everyone has a right to access sufficient water and sanitation. The author argues that it is the duty of SA\u2019s Government to work effectively for the progressive realisation of the right to access sufficient water and sanitation in rural areas. It should prioritise improvement of access to water in those areas where there is greatest need. Water sources must be as close as possible to households and water should be available on a daily basis. It should be as accessible and affordable as possible, particularly for the most marginalised and vulnerable members of SA society. An adequate policy should also be developed and monitored to prevent pollution of water resources and encourage water conservation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Salt, sugar, and malaria pills: How the Affordable Medicine Facility\u2013malaria endangers public health","field_subtitle":"Kamal-Yanni M: Oxfam Briefing Paper 163, 24 October 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/8qvkut5","body":"This paper argues that the Affordable Medicine Facility\u2013malaria, a global subsidy for malaria could skew investment away from more effective solutions to the disease. The AMFm advocates selling artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) medicines through the private sector, such as small shops. But selling ACT drugs, even at a small cost, is argued to exclude poor people who cannot afford to pay for a full course of treatment. Furthermore, the informal private sector does not have the ability or incentive to provide correct diagnosis and treatment, which may contribute to worsening drug resistance. The authors raise that getting malaria medicines from informal private providers is not a sound public health approach and not a substitute for investment in public service provision.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Sixth South African AIDS Conference","field_subtitle":"18-21 June 2013: Durban, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.saaids.co.za/","body":"The Sixth South African AIDS Conference will be held in Durban from 18-21 June 2013. The conference theme is \"Building on our successes: Integrating responses\". As South Africa enters the fourth decade of HIV and AIDS, the conference aims to look back at lessons learnt and reflect, celebrate the gains made, and find ways to build on past successes by integrating HIV with other health responses. The conference will bring together various members of the HIV research community, including clinicians, academics, civil society and government.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"South African government drops willing buyer-willing seller option to accelerate land reform","field_subtitle":"Magudulela M: SABC News, 14 February 2013 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/alddnpz","body":"The South African government has announced it will no longer pursue the willing buyer-willing seller option for land redistribution, citing the process as slowing down the speed of land reform. President Jacob Zuma listed land reform as a priority area for 2013 in his State of the Nation address on 14 February 2013. June 2013 will mark the centenary of the 1913 Land Act, whereby the British dispossessed African people of their land. He argued that the legacy of the Native Land Act still lives, and as a result many native families are still working for white farmers only for their food. Zuma said the land question needs to be resolved amicably within the framework of the Constitution and the law. But he called for the time it takes to finalise a claim to be shortened. In this regard, Government will now pursue the \u2018just and equitable\u2019 principle for compensation as set out in the Constitution instead of the willing buyer- willing seller principle, which forces the State to pay more for land than the actual value. Government\u2019s mid-term review in 2012 revealed a number of shortcomings in the land reform implementation programme, which Zuma says will be used to improve implementation. He also pointed out that better incentives need to be provided for commercial farmers that are willing and capable of mentoring smallholder farmers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"TB Vaccines Third Global Forum","field_subtitle":"25-27 March 2013: Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.tbvaccines2013.org/","body":"Third Global Forum on TB Vaccines will bring together researchers, policymakers, donors, civil society and other stakeholders interested in the development of new TB vaccines that will contribute to global efforts to eliminate TB. The main goals of the Forum are to: review progress in the field, with a particular focus on the key issues and challenges outlined in the Blueprint for TB Vaccine Development, and discuss strategies to continue to advance and sustain the field; share the latest data and findings on key issues in TB vaccine research; and promote partnerships and collaboration amongst multiple stakeholders across sectors to accelerate and streamline TB vaccine research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The flip side to Bill Gates\u2019 charity billions","field_subtitle":"Bowman A: New Internationalist Magazine 451, 1 April 2012","field_url":"http://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-giving-ethics/","body":"The author raises questions in this paper about the operations of the Gates Foundation in public health and the impact of its work. These relate to the mechanisms for accountability and the considerable power in shaping health policy priorities and intellectual norms, in a context of a significant focus on technocratic solutions for the world\u2019s health challenges and a demand for greater private sector influence in global health policy. Many health rights campaigners argue in contrast for a loosening of private interests, such as in intellectual property laws to increase access to technologies such as medicines - both in lowering prices through generic competition and in enabling innovation outside patent-hoarding companies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Gates Foundation and Coca-Cola: At odds or legitimate bedfellows?","field_subtitle":"Shumate M: Non-Profit Quarterly, 31 January 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bqea7pu","body":"In this article, the author argues that there is a conflict of interest regarding public and nonprofit leaders who sit on the corporate boards of major commercial softdrink companies and their role on non profit foundations. The author reports in the paper that 7% of the Gates Foundation\u2019s corporate stock endowment (more than 15 million shares) is in the form of shares of Coca-Cola, and questions whether Gates should be invested so heavily in sweetened soft-drinks given its health focus.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The Impact of Universal Coverage UHC Schemes in the Developing World:  A Review of the Existing Evidence","field_subtitle":"Giedion U, Alfonso EA and D\u00edaz Y: The World Bank, Washington DC, January 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bwxh5yp","body":"In this review, overall evidence indicates that universal health coverage (UHC) interventions in low- and middle-income countries have improved access to health care. However, the effect of UHC schemes on access, financial protection, and health status varies across contexts, UHC scheme design, and UHC scheme implementation processes. The authors highlight four lessons from the research, which have implications for both policy and future UHC research. First, affordability is important but will not reach those who cannot afford to pay at all. Second, interventions should target the poor but also keep an eye on the non-poor, as the most common UHC scheme designs are generally less effective for the non-poor. Third, benefits should be closely linked to target populations\u2019 needs. Fourth, highly focused interventions can be a useful initial step toward UHC, as they have clearly defined targets and generate positive effects on access, financial protection, and even on health status outcomes. Finally, in terms of future UHC research, the review shows that most of the studies fail to involve evaluators from the start, which has led to weak evaluation designs to assess the impact of UHC schemes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Slate is Clean: What\u2019s Next? An evaluation of debt relief in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 2003-2010","field_subtitle":"De Crombrugghe D, de Looringhe D and Ruben R: GREAT Insights 2(1), January 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cl7ljfs","body":"In this report, the authors provide an in-depth evaluation of debt cancellation measures the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that took place at the beginning of the 21st century. As a proxy for the effect of debt relief, the authors of this report looked into the education sector for evidence of improvements following the debt cancellation. Some positive changes, notably in the payment of wages, were found that correlated with the debt relief, but these changes did not reach further than the headquarters of the ministry of education in Kinshasa. They identified two new issues: the growing need to question the legitimacy of \u2018odious debt\u2019 incurred during a dictatorship without the population ever having received any benefits from it; and the ongoing fight against vulture funds and other rogue creditors, which buy up the debt of poor developing countries at very low prices and then sue them to enforce payment of the nominal value, including arrears of interest. Legislation outlawing the seizure of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) funds and state-to-state loans would be an important step in that direction, the authors argue. Belgium has already passed a law to protect its ODA grants against seizure and also intends to audit the ethical basis of all sovereign credits on developing countries. (Please note that this report has only been issued in French \u2013 the English version is forthcoming.)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Bank\u2019s private sector financing arm doesn\u2019t know the environmental and social impacts of nearly half its portfolio","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: 8 February 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c6bj8v4","body":"Oxfam is calling for a fundamental overhaul of World Bank lending to financial markets actors, following the publication of an Ombudsman audit that revealed  the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Bank\u2019s private lending arm,  \u201cknows very little\u201d about the environmental or social impacts of its financial market lending. Oxfam is calling on the IFC to improve transparency and ensure its loans do not put poor people at risk of land grabs. The fact that many projects technically meet IFC policies ignores the finding that the policies themselves are fundamentally and fatally flawed, the article says, calling for a commitment by the IFC to review its approach to lending to the financial market.  The audit shows that the World Bank must not adopt the IFC model, which fosters a culture of client self-monitoring, self-assessment and zero oversight. This would leave communities and the environment vulnerable to harm. The CAO audit also reveals that IFC policies are not industry best practice and that IFC is not above using legal loopholes in financial intermediary policies that other financiers would consider ethically dubious.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Third Global Forum On Human Resources For Health","field_subtitle":"Recife, Brazil: 10\u201313 November 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/forum/en /index.html","body":"The World Health Organisation\u2019s Workforce Alliance convened the First and the Second Global Forums on Human Resources for Health, in 2008 in Uganda, and 2011 in Thailand respectively. The Global Forums brought together key experts, fellow champions as well as frontline health workers around the common goal of improving the human resources for health to achieve the health-related Millennium Development Goals. Both Forums concluded with the adoption from committed participants of ambitious agendas suitable to translate political will, leadership and partnership into sustainable and effective actions. The Third Global Forum will be held in Recife, Brazil, from 10\u201313 November 2013.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Toward an understanding of disengagement from HIV treatment and care in sub-Saharan Africa: A qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Ware NC, Wyatt MA, Geng EH, Kaaya SF, Agbaji OO, Muyindike WR et al: PLoS Medicine 10(1), 8 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001369","body":"Despite the successes in rolling out antiretroviral therapy in sub-Saharan Africa, treatment remains lifelong and systematic investigations of retention have repeatedly documented high rates of loss to follow-up from HIV treatment programmes. This paper introduces an explanation for missed clinic visits and subsequent disengagement among patients enrolled in HIV treatment and care programmes in Africa. They interviewed 890 patients enrolled in HIV treatment programmes in Jos in Nigeria, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Mbarara in Uganda who had extended absences from care. Two-hundred-eighty-seven were located, and 91 took part in the study. Findings revealed unintentional and intentional reasons for missing, along with reluctance to return to care following an absence. Through the process of disengagement, patients who missed visits and felt reluctant to return over time lost their subjective sense of connectedness to care. The authors conclude that efforts to prevent missed clinic visits combined with moves to minimise barriers to re-entry into care are more likely than either approach alone to keep missed visits from turning into long-term disengagement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal health coverage should be anchored in the right to health","field_subtitle":"Ooms G, Brolan C, Eggermont N, Eide A, Flores W, Forman L et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 91(1): 2-2A, January 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/91/1/12-115808/en/index.html","body":"In this article, the authors propose that the right to health and its imperative of narrowing health inequities should be central to the post-2015 international health agenda. However, they argue that universal health coverage - as defined by the World health Organisation and typically conceived - is not enough to ensure the right to health. Policy-makers will need to address the social determinants of health such as safe drinking water and good sanitation, adequate nutrition and housing, safe and healthy occupational and environmental conditions and gender equality. The post-2015 health agenda should also explicitly describe the accountability mechanisms that will make it possible for people to claim \u2013 not beg for \u2013 additional national public resources and international assistance, if needed. Furthermore, it must specify how citizens will participate in the decision-making processes surrounding their health services and their physical and social environment. Participation must be genuine and built on a continuing relationship among researchers, governments and those communities, otherwise goals may end up being formulated by policy elites after token and superficial consultations, undermining the rights of the very communities they serve.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO\u2019s engagement with non-state actors: the challenge of maintaining integrity and independence","field_subtitle":"Sangiorgio M: Health Diplomacy Monitor 4(1): 6-8","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ct8ec5b","body":" of the major challenges with regard to the World Health Organisation\u2019s (WHO) engagement with non-state actors is maintaining the independence and intergovernmental nature of the WHO by protecting it from the influence of vested interests. This proved to be one of the major issues raised at the 132nd WHO Executive Board (EB) session held from 21-29 January in Geneva, Switzerland. Participants called for a more flexible accreditation mechanism to authorise non-state actor participation in WHO meetings and argued that WHO\u2019s policy of engagement should be driven by its own interests and needs, and limited to those entities with which mutually beneficial cooperation is possible. Some countries called for a single policy of engagement, while others preferred two separate policies for NGOs and private commercial entities respectively. WHO\u2019s Secretary General supported the single policy option. Participants called for further analysis, particularly concerning the implications of differentiation, a procedure that is perceived to risk exclusion. The Executive Board requested that the director-general conduct public web-based consultations, and convene two separate consultations - one with member states and NGOs, and the other one with member states and the private commercial sector - to support the development of the respective draft policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Why do women not use antenatal services in low- and middle-income countries? A metasynthesis of qualitative studies","field_subtitle":"Finlayson K and Downe S: PLoS Medicine 10(1), 22 January","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ckot3md","body":"The authors of this study synthesised the findings of all relevant qualitative studies reporting on the views and experiences of women in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) who received inadequate antenatal care. The synthesis revealed that centralised, risk-focused antenatal care programmes may be at odds with the resources, beliefs, and experiences of pregnant women who underuse antenatal services. These findings suggest that there may be a misalignment between current antenatal care provision and the social and cultural context of some women in LMICs. Antenatal care provision that is theoretically and contextually at odds with local contextual beliefs and experiences is likely to be underused, especially when attendance generates increased personal risks of lost family resources or physical danger during travel, when the promised care is not delivered because of resource constraints, and when women experience covert or overt abuse in care settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Why some women fail to give birth at health facilities: a qualitative study of women's perceptions of perinatal care from rural Southern Malawi","field_subtitle":"Kumbani L, Bjune G, Chirwa E, Malata A and Odland J\u00d8: Reproductive Health 10(9), 8 February 2013","field_url":"http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/pdf/1742-4755-10-9.pdf","body":"Despite Malawi government\u2019s policy to support women to deliver in health facilities with the assistance of skilled attendants, some women do not access this care. This study explored the reasons why women delivered at home without skilled attendance despite receiving antenatal care at a health centre and their perceptions of perinatal care. A total of 12 in- depth interviews were conducted with women that had delivered at home in the period December 2010 to March 2011. Results indicated that onset of labour at night, rainy season, rapid labour, socio-cultural factors and health workers\u2019 attitudes were related to the women delivering at home. The participants were assisted in the delivery by traditional birth attendants, relatives or neighbours. Most women went to the health facility the same day after delivery. This study reveals beliefs about labour and delivery that need to be addressed through provision of appropriate perinatal information to raise community awareness. There is a need for further exploration of barriers that prevent women from accessing health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"World Bank must decide if it stands for development or business as usual","field_subtitle":"Kwakkenbos J: Eurodad, 31 January 2013 ","field_url":"http://eurodad.org/1544449/","body":"The first round of consultations for the World Bank\u2019s review of its procurement policy has been completed. Clear areas of contention between external funders, developing countries, and their private sector have arisen in the process on issues of domestic preferences and the use of developing countries\u2019 procurement systems. The Bank has to decide whether it stands on the side of development and developing countries, or whether it stands for market orthodoxy and \u201cbusiness as usual,\u201d argues the author of this article. For the most part developing countries and their domestic private sector argued that managing multiple external funding procurement systems with already limited capacity could be overwhelming. If the Bank wishes to demonstrate its commitment to development, it should support the use of domestic preferences, and live up to its international commitments by using country procurement systems as the default option. Furthermore, it should support developing countries in building transparent end effective country procurement systems and not undermine the policy space that these countries need to implement their development strategies and industrial policies. Eurodad supports calls from civil society organisations to initiate an independent review assessing barriers and how to effectively support small and medium-sized businesses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"'Going private': a qualitative comparison of medical specialists' job satisfaction in the public and private sectors of South Africa","field_subtitle":"Ashmore J: Human Resources for Health 11(1), 3 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-11-1.pdf","body":"In this paper, the author elaborates what South African medical specialists find satisfying about working in the public and private sectors, at present, and how to better incentivise retention in the public sector. He conducted 74 qualitative interviews among specialists and key informants in one public and one private urban hospital in South Africa. All qualitative specialist respondents were engaged in dual practice, generally working in both public and private sectors. Results demonstrate that although there are strong financial incentives for specialists to migrate from the public to the private sector, public work provides more of a team environment, more academic opportunities, and greater opportunities to feel 'needed' and 'relevant'. However, public specialists suffer under poor resource availability, lack of trust for the Department of Health, and poor perceived career opportunities. These non-financial issues of public sector dissatisfaction appeared just as important, if not more important, than wage disparities. Policy recommendations centre around boosting public sector resources and building trust of the public sector through including health workers more in decision-making, inter alia. These interventions may be more cost-effective for retention than wage increases, and imply that it is not necessarily just a matter of putting more money into the public sector to increase retention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990-2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010","field_subtitle":"Lim SS, Vos T, Flaxman AD, Danaei G, Shibuya K, Adair-Rohani H et al: The Lancet 380 (9859): 2224-2260, 15 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)61766-8/abstract","body":"The authors of this study estimated deaths and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), years lived with disability (YLD) and years of life lost (YLL) attributable to the independent effects of 67 risk factors and clusters of risk factors for 21 regions in 1990 and 2010. They included estimates from published and unpublished literature, and data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. Worldwide, the contribution of different risk factors to disease burden appears to have changed substantially, with a shift away from risks for communicable diseases in children towards those for non-communicable diseases in adults. These changes are related to the ageing population, decreased mortality among children younger than five years, changes in cause-of-death composition, and changes in risk factor exposures. New evidence has led to changes in the magnitude of key risks including unimproved water and sanitation, vitamin A and zinc deficiencies, and ambient particulate matter pollution. The extent to which the epidemiological shift has occurred and what the leading risks currently are varies greatly across regions. In much of sub-Saharan Africa, the leading risks are still those associated with poverty and those that affect children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A descriptive study on health workforce performance after decentralisation of health services in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Lutwama G, Roos J and Dolamo B: Human Resources For Health 10(41), 7 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content /pdf/1478-4491-10-41.pdf","body":"In this cross-sectional descriptive survey the authors investigated the performance of health workers after decentralisation of the health services in Uganda to identify and suggest areas for improvement. A structured self-administered questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from 276 health workers in the districts of Kumi, Mbale, Sironko and Tororo in Eastern Uganda. Results revealed that even though the health workers are generally responsive to the needs of their clients, the services they provide are often not timely. The health workers take initiative to ensure that they are available for work, but low staffing levels undermine these efforts. While the study shows that the health workers are productive, over half (50.4%) of them reported that their organisations do not have indicators to measure their individual performance. The findings indicated that health workers are competent, adaptive, proactive and client oriented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A simple, generalisable method for measuring individual research productivity and its use in the long-term analysis of departmental performance, including between-country comparisons","field_subtitle":"Wootton R: Health Research Policy and Systems 11(2), 14 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-11-2.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers developed a simple, generalisable method for measuring research output to support attempts to build research capacity, and in other contexts. They developed an indicator of individual research output, based on grant income, publications and numbers of PhD students supervised. They then used the indicator to measure research output from two similarly-sized research groups in different countries. Research output scores of 41 staff in Research Department A had a wide range, from zero to 8; the distribution of these scores was highly skewed. Only about 20% of the researchers had well-balanced research outputs, with approximately equal contributions from grants, papers and supervision. Over a five-year period, Department A's total research output rose, while the number of research staff decreased slightly, in other words research productivity (output per head) rose. Total research output from Research Department B, of approximately the same size as A, was similar, but slightly higher than Department A. The authors conclude that their proposed indicator can be used for comparisons within and between countries. Modelling can be used to explore the effect on research output of changing the size and composition of a research department.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Youth Declaration on Post-2015 Agenda","field_subtitle":"Delegates at the African Youth Conference: 4 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.scribd.com/doc/117635642/African-Youth-Declaration-on-Post-2015-Agenda","body":"The African Youth Conference on Post-2015 Development Agenda, held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 12-16 December 2012, has adopted a Youth Declaration on the Post-2015 Agenda. This Agenda identifies 13 actions for accelerating progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and makes recommendations for the post-2015 development agenda. On accelerating MDG progress, the Declaration recommends that governments: increase commitments to achieve the MDGs and honour pledges; strengthen institutions to fight corruption and empower youth; and provide sufficient resources to children, women and youth ministries. It also recommends, inter alia: increasing equitable access to sustainable water and sanitation services and promoting hygienic behaviour; planning and implementing poverty eradication programmes to reach youth; strengthening communication, data collection and monitoring; and empowering and mobilising youth to participate in the MDGs and hold governments accountable. The Declaration asks the UN and its development partners to support projects that mitigate climate change and encourage sustainable consumption. It calls for civil society to engage communities to understand the causes of poverty and to address these challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"African countries support the establishment of the African Public Health Emergency Fund but the coffers remain empty","field_subtitle":"Machemedze R: Health Diplomacy Monitor 3 (7): 14-16, December 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/aebsms2","body":"The 46 African member states of the World Health Organisation (WHO) have reiterated the importance of the African Public Health Emergency Fund (APHEF) at the 62nd session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa. At the same time, the meeting urged all members to remit their outstanding 2012 contributions to the APHEF and requested the regional director in the interim period to mobilise, manage and disburse the contributions to the APHEF whilst waiting for a decision from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to take up the proposed role of trustee for the APHEF. The ministers of health were urged to work with their finance ministers to gain support for the creation of the trust fund account by the AfDB and ensure the inclusion of a budget line in their national budget for 2012 outstanding contributions to the APHEF. Some countries noted that there was a need to consider an interim mechanism to ensure that payments are made since there were still logistical issues to be dealt with by the AfDB, while Malawi criticised the AfDB for being too bureaucratic and a delegate from West Africa argued progress in creating the fund was moving too slowly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Age-specific and sex-specific mortality in 187 countries, 1970\u20142010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010","field_subtitle":"Wang H, Dwyer-Lindgren L, Lofgren KT, Rajaratnam JK, Marcus JR et al: The Lancet 380 (9859): 2071-2094, 15 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)61719-X/abstract","body":"In this study, researchers estimated life expectancy and mortality rates for children under five and adults  for 187 countries from 1970 to 2010. Findings showed that from 1970 to 2010, global male life expectancy increased from 56.4 years to 67.5 years and global female life expectancy increased from 61.2 years to 73.3 years. Substantial reductions in mortality occurred in eastern and southern sub-Saharan Africa since 2004, coinciding with increased coverage of antiretroviral therapy and preventive measures against malaria. Globally, 52.8 million deaths occurred in 2010, which is about 14% more than occurred in 1990, and 22% more than occurred in 1970. Deaths in children younger than 5 years declined by almost 60% since 1970. Yet substantial heterogeneity exists across age groups, among countries, and over different decades. Greater efforts should be directed to reduce mortality in low-income and middle-income countries, the authors argue. Improvement of civil registration system worldwide is crucial for better tracking of global mortality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Alternatives To Privatisation: Public Options For Essential Services In The Global South","field_subtitle":"McDonald DA and Ruiters G: Routledge, 27 February 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?productid=2287&freedownload=1","body":"Those who are against privatisation of public services are often confronted with the objection that there is no alternative. This book takes up that challenge by establishing theoretical models for what does (and does not) constitute an alternative to privatisation, and what might make them \u2018successful\u2019, backed up by a comprehensive set of empirical data on public services initiatives in over 40 countries. This is the first such global survey of its kind, providing a rigorous and robust platform for evaluating different alternatives and allowing for comparisons across regions and sectors. The book helps to conceptualise and evaluate what has become an important and widespread movement for better public services in the global South. The contributors explore historical, existing and proposed non-commercialised alternatives for primary health, water/sanitation and electricity. The objectives of the research have been to develop conceptual and methodological frameworks for identifying and analysing alternatives to privatisation, and testing these models against actually existing alternatives on the ground in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Information of this type is urgently required for practitioners and analysts, both of whom are seeking reliable knowledge on what kind of public models work, how transferable they are from one place to another and what their main strengths and weaknesses are.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"An emerging voice for health equity? Communique of the Second BRICS Health Ministers\u2019 Meeting ","field_subtitle":"Editor","field_url":"","body":"In this issue we provide in full the communique of the Second BRICS Health Ministers\u2019 Meeting held in January 2013. How far does this emerging concerted voice provide new impetus for the social justice needed for equity in health? While the familiar commitments are included to reducing major disease burdens, there are also welcome signs in the communique of attention to dealing upstream with the \"risk\" environments for health, of assessing the impact on health \"of all public policies at national and international levels\" and of commitment to \"community empowerment\". Equally the communique refers to a commitment to implementing measures for technology transfer and co-operation across low and middle income countries, such as for ensuring production and access to generic medicines as part of realising the right to health. The communique was less clear on two aspects: the active role of the 43% of the world\u2019s population living in BRICS countries in realising these commitments, and the regional solidarity and integration needed in each of their regions to ensure to benefit to the weaker economies of their regions. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessment of the health care waste generation rates and its management system in hospitals of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2011","field_subtitle":"Debere MK, Gelaye KA, Alamdo AG and Trifa ZM: BMC Public Health 13(28), 12 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-28.pdf","body":"This study aimed to assess the health care waste generation rate and its management system in some selected hospitals located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Researchers randomly selected six hospitals in Addis Ababa, three private and three public. Data was recorded by using an appropriately designed questionnaire. Results revealed that the management of health care waste at hospitals in Addis Ababa city was poor. The median waste generation rate was found to be varied from 0.361- 0.669 kg/patient/day, consisting of 58.69% non-hazardous and 41.31% hazardous wastes. The amount of waste generated was increased as the number of patients flow increased, and it was positively correlated with the number of patients. Public hospitals generated high proportion of total health care wastes (59.22%) in comparison with private hospitals (40.48%). The waste separation and treatment practices were very poor. The authors recommend that other alternatives for waste treatment rather than incineration such as a locally made autoclave should be evaluated and implemented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Building blocks for equitable growth: lessons from the BRICS","field_subtitle":"Vandemoortele M, Bird K, Du Toit A, Liu M, Sen K and Veras Soares F: Overseas Development Institute Working Paper 365, January 2013","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/8196.pdf","body":"Five key emerging market economies, commonly termed the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), have been lauded for their stellar economic growth and resilience through the 2008/09 financial crisis. According to this paper, they are becoming models of development for development practitioners, researchers and other emerging economies. However, not all people in these countries have benefited equally from growth. Some countries have seen enormous increases in income inequality \u2013 specifically China, India and South Africa \u2013 while Brazil has enjoyed a reduction. What can be learnt, in terms of the challenges and successes of reconciling growth and equity, from the BRICS\u2019 recent growth? The authors examine the experiences of four of the BRICS \u2013 Brazil, China, India and South Africa \u2013 and identify four key factors shaping the countries\u2019 pattern of growth: access to assets, above all skills, to enable people to participate in activities that generate income, and ensuring access to land; investment in productive activities that generate jobs and opportunities for the majority; social transfers to guarantee minimum incomes to those who cannot work or cannot find work; and a political-economic context that has inclusion as a priority.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Transnational Health Care: A Cross-Border Symposium: Regions & Development (20-21 June 2013, Wageningen, Netherlands) And Itineraries & Transformations (24-25 June 2013, Leeds, United Kingdom) ","field_subtitle":"Closing Date: 3 February 2013","field_url":"https://www.wageningenur.nl/en/show/Transnational-health-care.htm","body":"At a time in which the provision and regulation of health care within national boundaries is profoundly shifting, the growing numbers of people going abroad in pursuit of health care mean that the social, political and economic significance and impacts of these flows at a range of levels cannot be ignored. This symposium provides those involved in cutting-edge empirical and conceptual studies on this issue to share their work, explore emerging research agendas and foster research collaborations. Abstracts of no more than 250 words are welcomed on topics that include but are not limited to: empirical and conceptual studies of specific medical tourisms or locations; innovative methodologies and methods for researching medical travel; national and transnational medical cultures and their impacts on medical mobilities and \u2018translations\u2019; and new and emerging agendas for transnational healthcare research. Please submit abstracts to the symposium organisers as on the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Collaborative Capacity Building In Intellectual Property: Leveraging On African Diaspora Exchange","field_subtitle":"Oguamanam C: Intellectual Property Watch, 2 January 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/anml3s8","body":"Africa\u2019s ability to leverage its increasing visibility and preference for South-South economic partnerships will significantly depend on how well it is equipped to manage the intellectual property complements and components of the contemporary economic transformations, according to this article. The continent suffers from a lack of IP manpower in the judiciary and academia, as the development of capacity and expertise has not kept pace with the expansion and sophistication of intellectual property. That state of affairs depicts a structural fault line in Africa\u2019s ability to optimise on-going economic and social transformations. The author argues that Africa needs need expertise in IP such as patent rights, especially in biotechnology at large, including health, food, agriculture, chemistry, pharmaceuticals. He recommends stronger collaboration between members of the Africa diaspora and those back home in Africa as a way forward. Strong local institutional commitment is needed to buy into this vision. To achieve this, countries will require a culture of transparency, accountability and efficiency in the management of collaborative research funds and other forms of assistance and partnership.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Common values in assessing health outcomes from disease and injury: disability weights measurement study for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010","field_subtitle":"Salomon JA, Vos T, Hogan DR, Gagnon M, Naghavi M, Mokdad A et al: The Lancet 380 (9859): 2129\u20132143, 15 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)61680-8/abstract","body":"The primary objective of this study was a comprehensive re-estimation of disability weights that quantify health losses for all non-fatal consequences of disease and injury for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. A total of 13,902 respondents were interviewed in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Peru and Tanzania, and 16,328 in a web survey. Analysis of paired comparison responses indicated a high degree of consistency across surveys: correlations between individual survey results and results from analysis of the pooled dataset were 0.9 or higher in all surveys except in Bangladesh (0.75). Most of the 220 disability weights were located on the mild end of the severity scale, with 58 (26%) having weights below 0.05. Five (11%) health states had weights below 0.01, such as mild anaemia, mild hearing or vision loss, and secondary infertility. The health states with the highest disability weights were acute schizophrenia (0.76) and severe multiple sclerosis (0.71). The researchers identified a broad pattern of agreement between the old and new weights (0.70), particularly in the moderate-to-severe range. However, in the mild range below 0.2, many states had significantly lower weights in this study than previously. In contrast with the popular hypothesis that disability assessments vary widely across samples with different cultural environments, the results of this study suggest highly consistent results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Concerns over HIV/AIDS funding cuts in Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 9 January 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=97204","body":"Major projected cuts in United States (US) government funding for Ethiopia's health sector could greatly undermine the progress the country has made in the fight against HIV, authorities and experts say. Next year, Ethiopia will experience a 79% reduction in US HIV financing from the US President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Most of the cuts are going to be around softer programmatic activities that can be taken care of by mobilising internal resources as well as using some innovative approaches like the health development army. A major cut would be felt in HIV and AIDS programmes, which would receive only US$54.1 million, a dramatic cut from the $254.1 million allocated in 2012. Between 2006 and 2011, Ethiopia received an estimated $1.4 billion from PEPFAR. Since 2004, Ethiopia has also received $1.23 billion from the Global Fund, making it one of the Fund's biggest recipients globally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Decomposing Kenyan socio-economic inequalities in skilled birth attendance and measles immunisation","field_subtitle":"Van Malderen C, Ogali I, Khasakhala A, Muchiri SN, Sparks C, Van Oyen H and Speybroeck N: International Journal for Equity in Health 12(3), 7 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-12-3.pdf","body":"The main objective of this study was to decompose wealth-related inequalities in skilled birth attendance (SBA) and measles immunisation into their contributing factors. Researchers used data from the Kenyan Demographic and Health Survey 2008/09 to investigate the effects of socio-economic determinants on coverage and wealth-related inequalities of the two health services. Results indicated that SBA utilisation and measles immunisation coverage differed according to household wealth, parent\u2019s education, skilled antenatal care visits, birth order and father\u2019s occupation. SBA utilisation further differed across provinces and ethnic groups. The overall C for SBA was 0.14 and was mostly explained by wealth (40%), parent\u2019s education (28%), antenatal care (9%), and province (6%). The overall C for measles immunisation was 0.08 and was mostly explained by wealth (60%), birth order (33%), and parent\u2019s education (28%). Rural residence (&#8722;19%) reduced this inequality. The authors conclude that both health care indicators require a broad strengthening of health systems with a special focus on disadvantaged sub-groups.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Delhi Communique of the Second BRICS Health Ministers\u2019 Meeting","field_subtitle":"Ministers of Health of the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, People\u2019s Republic of China and Republic of South Africa, New Delhi, 11 January 2013 ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe BRICS countries, represented by the Ministers of Health of the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, People\u2019s Republic of China and Republic of South Africa, met in New Delhi on 11 January 2013 at the Second BRICS Health Ministers\u2019 Meeting. \r\n\r\nThe meeting recalled the Delhi Declaration of 29 March 2012 during the BRICS leaders summit and the Joint Communiqu\u00e9 of the BRICS Health Ministers at Geneva of 22 May 2012 including specific areas of work under the BRICS Health Platform for each Member State, focussed on the theme \u201cBRICS Partnership for Global Stability, Security and Prosperity\u201d to address emerging health threats. \r\n\r\nThe Ministers recalled that BRICS is a platform for dialogue and cooperation amongst countries representing 43% of the world\u2019s population. The Ministers reiterated their commitment to the Beijing Declaration of July 2011 for strengthened collaboration in the area of access to public health and services in BRICS States including implementation of affordable, equitable and sustainable solutions for common health challenges. The Ministers committed to strengthen intra-BRICS cooperation for promoting health of the BRICS population. The BRICS Health Ministers resolved to continue cooperation in the sphere of health through the Technical Working Group. \r\n\r\nThe Ministers drew attention to the current global threat of non-communicable diseases and noted that in 2008, around 80% of all NCD deaths occurred in low and middle income countries. The Ministers recognized the significant role of BRICS countries in the global process of prevention and control of NCDs including the Moscow Declaration of April 2011, the WHA Resolution 64.11 of May 2011 and the Political Declaration of the UN General Assembly of September 2011.The Ministers recognized the need for more research into the social and economic determinants leading to occurrence of non-communicable diseases, amongst the BRICS countries. They resolved to collaborate and cooperate to promote access to comprehensive and cost-effective prevention, treatment and care for the integrated management of non-communicable diseases, including access to medicines and diagnostics and other technologies. \r\n\r\nThe Ministers also recognized the need to combat mental disorders through a multi-pronged approach including the World Health Assembly Resolution 65.4, consideration of a Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan through sharing of innovations in the field of Mental Health Promotion, diagnosis and management, exchange of best practices and experiences amongst BRICS countries. \r\n\r\nThe Ministers renewed their commitment to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and stressed the importance of research and study by WHO and other stakeholders into the social and economic determinants of tobacco use and its control. \r\n\r\nThe Ministers recognized that multi-drug resistant tuberculosis is a major public health problem for the BRICS countries due to its high prevalence and incidence mostly on the marginalized and vulnerable sections of society. They resolved to collaborate and cooperate for development of capacity and infrastructure to reduce the prevalence and incidence of tuberculosis through innovation for new drugs/vaccines, diagnostics and promotion of consortia of tuberculosis researchers to collaborate on clinical trials of drugs and vaccines, strengthening access to affordable medicines and delivery of quality care. The Ministers also recognized the need to cooperate for adopting and improving systems for notification of tuberculosis patients, availability of anti-tuberculosis drugs at facilities by improving supplier performance, procurement systems and logistics and management of HIV-associated tuberculosis in the primary health care system. \r\n\r\nThe Ministers called for renewed efforts to face the continued challenge posed by HIV. They committed to focus on cooperation in combating HIV/AIDS through approaches such as innovative ways to reach out with prevention services, efficacious drugs and diagnostics, exchange of information on newer treatment regimens, determination of recent infections and HIV-TB co-infections. The Ministers agreed to share experience and expertise in the areas of surveillance, existing and new strategies to prevent the spread of HIV, and in rapid scale up of affordable treatment. They reiterated their commitment to ensure that bilateral and regional trade agreements do not undermine TRIPS flexibilities so as to assure availability of affordable generic ARV drugs to developing countries. \r\n\r\nThe Ministers committed to strengthen cooperation to combat malaria through enhanced diagnostics, research and development and committed to facilitate common access to the technologies developed or under development in the BRICS countries. \r\n\r\nThe Ministers renewed their commitment for effective control of both communicable and non-communicable diseases through cooperation in sharing of existing resource information, development of risk assessment tools, risk mitigation methods, referral systems, life course approaches, community empowerment, monitoring health impact assessments of all public policies at national and international levels. \r\n\r\nRecognizing that an effective health surveillance, including injury surveillance, is the key strategy for controlling both communicable and non-communicable diseases, that surveillance is also the cornerstone around which the implementation of the International Health Regulations (2005) is based and further recognizing that the countries may be using different models for surveillance based on different realities and best practices, the Ministers committed to strengthen cooperation in the mechanisms for planning, monitoring and evaluating disease prevention and control activities and capacity-building for effective health surveillance systems. \r\n\r\nThe Ministers urged focus on the unique strength of BRICS countries such as capacity for R & D and manufacturing of affordable health products, and capability to conduct clinical trials. The Ministers called for strengthened cooperation in application of bio-technology for health benefits for the population of BRICS countries. \r\n\r\nThe Ministers emphasized the importance of child survival through progressive reduction in the maternal mortality, infant mortality, neo-natal mortality and under-5 mortality, with the aim of achieving the Millennium Development Goals. They confirmed their commitment to a renewed effort in this area and to enhance collaboration through exchange of best practices. \r\n\r\nThe Ministers discussed the recommendations of the Consultative Expert Working Group on Health on coordination and financing of R & D for medical products and welcomed the proposal to establish a Global Health R&D observatory as well as the move on holding regional consultations to set up R&D demonstration projects. The Ministers urged that the entire process, including priority setting, should be driven by WHO Member States and should be based on public health needs, in particular those of developing countries, with the cost of R & D delinked from the final products. \r\n\r\nThe Ministers reiterated their support to the continued discussions on the process of reform of WHO, to better respond to global challenges in programmatic, organizational and operational terms, including the future financing of WHO, and welcomed the proposal to establish a financing dialogue based on priorities collectively set by WHO Member States in a structured and transparent process. \r\n\r\nThe Ministers acknowledged the value and importance of traditional medicine and need of experience and knowledge-sharing for securing public health needs. They urged for cooperation amongst the BRICS countries through visits of experts, organization of symposia to encourage the use of traditional medicine, in all spheres of health. \r\n\r\nThe Ministers confirmed their support for the United Nations General Assembly Resolution on universal health coverage and committed to work nationally, regionally and globally to ensure that universal health coverage is achieved. \r\n\r\nThe Ministers recalled the Beijing Declaration of the 1st BRICS Health Ministers\u2019 Meeting in 2011, emphasizing the importance and need of technology transfer as a means to empower developing countries. In this context, they underlined the important role of generic medicines in the realization of the right to health. The Ministers renewed their commitment to strengthening international cooperation in health, in particular South-South cooperation, with a view to supporting efforts in developing countries to promote health for all and resolve to establish the BRICS network of technological cooperation. The Ministers acknowledged the need of use of ICT in Health services to promote cost-effective treatment in remote areas. They encouraged strengthened cooperation amongst the BRICS countries to share their experiences in e-Health including tele-medicine. The Ministers agreed to cooperate in all international fora regarding matters relating to TRIPS flexibilities with a public health perspective. \r\n\r\nThe Ministers agreed to establish platforms for collaboration within BRICS framework and with other countries with a view to realizing the goals and objectives outlined in this Declaration. \r\n\r\nThis statement is drawn from the Government of India communique on the BRICS Health Ministers meeting at http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=91533. Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 95: Health service financing for universal coverage in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D: EQUINET, December 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss%20paper%2095%20UHC%20Dec2012.pdf","body":"In this paper, the author considers elements of the design of health systems and how these relate to moving towards UC in the context of Africa. She focuses particularly on health financing issues (revenue collection, pooling and purchasing), but also raises health service delivery and management issues. In relation to revenue collection, the global consensus is that in order to pursue universal coverage, it is critical to reduce reliance on out-of-pocket payments as a means of funding health services. The author notes that the key focus in moving towards universal coverage should be on mandatory prepayment mechanisms and discusses the options for these. The common assumption of limited fiscal space for increased government spending on the health sector should be challenged and the fiscal space envelop pushed, she argues. While mandatory health insurance schemes can also contribute to generating additional revenue for health services, these funds should be pooled with funds from government revenue. Although there is limited evidence in relation to purchasing in ESA countries, introducing active purchasing of services, as well as addressing service delivery and management challenges, will be essential if universal access to services of appropriate quality is to be achieved.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Distinguishing between civil society groups is divisive and will weaken cohesion among different sectors: An interview with Lewis Mwape of the Zambia Council for Social Development","field_subtitle":"CIVICUS: 20 December 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bcbr787","body":"If implemented, new provisions governing the registration of civil society organisations (CSOs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) under Zambia\u2019s NGO Act will be extremely problematic, according to Lewis Mwape of the Zambia Council for Social Development. Under the law CSOs and NGOs must re-register every five years, creating a major administrative workload. Prior to registering, they must explicitly state their sources of funding and proposed activities, which Mwape regards as impractical. The NGO Act also greatly narrows the definitions of CSOs and NGOs, no longer recognising labour unions, faith-based organisations and professional groups. Distinguishing between civil society groups is divisive and will weaken cohesion among different sectors, says Mwape. Advocacy and human rights organisations can also be subjected to arbitrary and/or discriminatory application of the law, and the law gives the Minister too much discretionary power. Zambian civil society has initiated a campaign calling for the amendment of the law but they are facing major difficulties in accessing and mobilising the hundreds of NGOs and CSOs based in less accessible areas to engage in the campaign to re-evaluate the law.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ending poverty in our generation: Save the Children\u2019s vision for a post-2015 framework","field_subtitle":"Save the Children: December 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/b5trujq","body":"Save the Children\u2019s suggested post-2015 development framework champions universal and equitable development, with human rights as its guiding principle and evidence as a foundation for its approaches. And, unlike with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), these principles must be visible in the targets established. Save the Children argues that it is possible to set zero targets for absolute poverty, hunger, and preventable child and maternal deaths, as well as 100% access to safe drinking water and sanitation. Five lessons can be learnt from the MDGs, according to the report. 1. The MDGs do not consistently confront inequality, whether it is because of age, gender, caste, disability, geography or income. 2. A robust, effective accountability mechanism is missing from the MDG framework. 3. The MDGs do not pay attention to synergies and interaction of systems, like poverty, health and education. 4. The MDGs focus inputs and not outcomes, which might result in greater access but this does not automatically mean that the aims of that service are being realised. 5. Since 2000 little has been achieved in improving the long-term sustainability of the natural resource base.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 144: An emerging voice for health equity? Communique of the Second BRICS Health Ministers\u2019 Meeting","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity of the premium of the Ghanaian national health insurance scheme and the implications for achieving universal coverage","field_subtitle":"Amporfu E: International Journal for Equity in Health 12(4), 7 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-12-4.pdf","body":"The purpose of this study is to examine the vertical and horizontal equity of the premium collection of the Ghanaian National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which was introduced to help ensure universal coverage. Horizontal inequity was measured through the effect of the premium on redistribution of ability to pay of members. The extent to which the premium could cause catastrophic expenditure was also examined. The results showed that revenue collection was both vertically and horizontally inequitable. The horizontal inequity had a greater effect on redistribution of ability to pay than vertical inequity. The computation of catastrophic expenditure showed that a small minority of the poor were likely to incur catastrophic expenditure from paying the premium a situation that could impede the achievement of universal coverage. The author provides recommendations to improve the inequitable system of premium payment to help achieve universal coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Farmers in Swaziland struggle to afford inputs","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 9 January 2013 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=97190","body":"Faced with increasingly unpredictable rains and rising agricultural input costs, many of Swaziland's smallholder farmers are no longer able to make a living relying on traditional methods to grow maize, the staple crop, according to IRIN News. Externally funded schemes to subsidise the cost of seed and fertiliser have dried up and a Ministry of Agriculture service to provide affordable tractor hire has been a casualty of the government's cash flow problems. Distribution schemes to the needy are failing because of a lack of technical assistance to ensure that recipients use the inputs correctly for maximum benefit. Their reach was also small, with experts estimating that only about a tenth of Swaziland's 260,000 farming households benefited. As the cost of both inputs and food has risen significantly over the past year, many subsistence farmers have had to prioritise food over fertiliser in the context of declining maize production during the 2011-12 season.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Fifth Annual HIV-in-Context Research Symposium: Urbanisation, Inequality and HIV","field_subtitle":"13 March 2013 - 15 March 2013: Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.hivaids-uwc.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=120&Itemid=64","body":"From its base in the University of the Western Cape\u2019s School of Public Health, this year\u2019s HIV in Context Research Symposium looks beyond biomedicine at some of the social determinants of HIV, and of responses to HIV, within and outside the health sector. The Symposium will examine the links between HIV, inequality and the dynamics and impacts of urbanisation \u2013 dynamics that play out between settings as people move permanently or temporarily to urban centres, and within the highly unequal spaces constituting South African cities. The particular experience of Cape Town as a destination and transit point on migration trajectories will be examined in relation to other cities in South Africa and beyond. Through diverse disciplinary and sectoral lenses,practitioners, researchers, policy makers and civil society activists will examine the many ways in which urbanisation, inequality and HIV interact and affect people\u2019s lives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Free online course on primary health care","field_subtitle":"23 January-26 February 2013","field_url":"https://www.coursera.org/course/healthforall","body":"The short course \"Health for All through Primary Health Care\" by Henry Perry of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health begins on 23 January 2013 and runs for five weeks. It will involve four hours of student work per week \u2013 one hour of lecture, one hour of course readings, and two additional hours of work. A statement of completion will be provided for those who successfully complete the assignments. This course is time-limited in the sense that the work must be completed weekly according to the time schedule for the course, and it will not be available to take except for the period between January 23rd and February 26th. However, it is free and open to anyone with internet access. Almost 14,000 people are currently enrolled.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender differences in HIV disease progression and treatment outcomes among HIV patients one year after starting antiretroviral treatment (ART) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mosha F, Muchunguzi V, Matee M, Sangeda RZ, Vercauteren J, Nsubuga P et al: BMC Public Health 13(38), 15 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-13-38.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers investigated gender differences in treatment outcome during first line antiretroviral treatment (ART) in a hospital setting in Tanzania, assessing clinical, social demographic, virological and immunological factors. They used structured questionnaires and reviewed patients\u2019 files, including a total of 234 patients about to start ART, and followed up one year later. Seventy percent of participants were females. After one year of standard ART, a higher proportion of females survived although this was not significant. They showed a worse CD4 cell increase than men, even though they had a higher BMI. Although women were starting treatment at a less advanced disease stage, they had a lower socio-economical status. After one year, both men and women had similar clinical and immunological conditions. It is not clear why women lose their immunological advantage over men despite a better virological treatment response.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Global and regional mortality from 235 causes of death for 20 age groups in 1990 and 2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010","field_subtitle":"Lozano R, Naghavi M, Foreman K, Lim S, Shibuya K, Aboyans V et al: The Lancet 380 (9859): 2095\u20132128, 15 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)61728-0/abstract","body":"In the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2010, researchers aimed to estimate annual deaths for the world and 21 regions between 1980 and 2010 for 235 causes, separately by age and sex. They collected data on causes of death for 187 countries from 1980 to 2010 from vital registration, verbal autopsy, mortality surveillance, censuses, surveys, hospitals, police records, and mortuaries. Findings revealed a broad shift from communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional causes towards non-communicable diseases, which appears to be driven by population growth, increased average age of the world's population, and largely decreasing age-specific, sex-specific, and cause-specific death rates. Nevertheless, communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional causes remain the dominant causes of years of life lost due to premature mortality (YLLs) in sub-Saharan Africa. Overlaid on this general pattern of the epidemiological transition, marked regional variation exists in many causes, such as interpersonal violence, suicide, liver cancer, diabetes, cirrhosis, Chagas disease, African trypanosomiasis, melanoma, and others. Regional heterogeneity highlights the importance of sound epidemiological assessments of the causes of death on a regular basis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and Health Care in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Van Rensburg HCJ (Ed): Van Schaik Publishers, 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/as2c9bb","body":"The changes that have taken place, and continue to take place, in South Africa\u2019s post-1994 health sphere are often difficult to comprehend for both those inside and outside the country\u2019s health care system. This book presents a coherent \u201cbig picture\u201d of health and health care in South Africa. The contributing authors chart the evolving health system, along with the ensuing changes and challenges, and contextualise these developments historically and globally, as well as critically assess them. Contents include the following: national health care systems: trends, changes and reforms; the changing biophysical environment: impact on health and health conditions; HIV, AIDS and tuberculosis: trends, challenges and responses; health care expenditure: using resources efficiently and equitably; revitalisation and re-engineering of primary health care; hospitals and hospital reform; complementary and alternative medicine and traditional health care; and medical ethics and human rights. The book is aimed at researchers and lecturers, as well as senior and postgraduate students in the health and health-related professions, the social sciences, and health planning, policy and management-related disciplines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health seeking behaviour for cervical cancer in Ethiopia: a qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Birhanu Z, Abdissa A, Belachew T, Deribew A, Segni H, Tsu V, Mulholland K and Russell FM: International Journal for Equity in Health 11(83), 29 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-11-83.pdf","body":"Although cervical cancer is a leading cause of cancer related morbidity and mortality among women in Ethiopia, there is lack of information regarding the perception of the community about the disease. In this study, researchers conducted focus group discussions with men, women and community leaders in the rural settings of Jimma Zone southwest Ethiopia and in the capital city, Addis Ababa. Participants had very low awareness of cervical cancer. The perceived benefits of modern treatment were also very low, and various barriers to seeking any type of treatment were identified, including limited awareness and access to appropriate health services. Women with cervical cancer were excluded from society and received poor emotional support. Moreover, the aforementioned factors all caused delays in seeking any health care. Traditional remedies were the most preferred treatment option for early stage of the disease. However, as most cases presented late, treatment options were ineffective, resulting in an iterative pattern of health seeking behaviour and alternated between traditional remedies and modern treatment methods. Prior to the introduction or scale up of cervical cancer prevention programmes, socio-cultural barriers and health service related factors that influence health seeking behaviour must be addressed through appropriate community level behaviour change communications.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthy life expectancy for 187 countries, 1990-2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden Disease Study 2010","field_subtitle":"Salomon JA, Wang H, Freeman MK, Vos T, Flaxman AD, Lopez AD, Murray Christopher JL et al: The Lancet 380 (9859): 2144-2162, 15 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)61690-0/abstract","body":"In this study, researchers examined current rates for healthy life expectancy (HALE) and changes over the past two decades in 187 countries, using data from the Global Burden Disease Study 2010. They calculated HALE estimates for each population defined by sex, country and year, and estimated the contributions of changes in child mortality, adult mortality, and disability to overall change in population health between 1990 and 2010. Findings showed that, in 2010, global male HALE at birth was 58.3 years and global female HALE at birth was 61.8 years. HALE increased more slowly than did life expectancy over the past 20 years, with each one-year increase in life expectancy at birth associated with a 0.8-year increase in HALE. Between countries and over time, life expectancy was strongly and positively related to number of years lost to disability. HALE also differs substantially between countries. As life expectancy has increased, the number of healthy years lost to disability has also increased in most countries, consistent with the expansion of morbidity hypothesis, which has implications for health planning and health-care expenditure, the authors argue. Compared with substantial progress in reduction of mortality over the past two decades, relatively little progress has been made in reduction of the overall effect of non-fatal disease and injury on population health. The authors propose that HALE may be a useful indicator for monitoring health post-2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"How countries cope with competing demands and expectations: perspectives of different stakeholders on priority setting and resource allocation for health in the era of HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"Jenniskens F, Tiendrebeogo G, Coolen A, Blok L, Kouanda S, Sataru F et al: BMC Public Health 12(1071), 11 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-1071.pdf","body":"Drawing on a study conducted in five African countries, the authors of this paper explore different stakeholder perceptions of health priorities, how priorities are defined in practice, the process of resource allocation for HIV and health and how different stakeholders perceive this. The countries were Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Madagascar and Malawi. Key background documents were analysed and 258 semi-structured interviews and 45 focus group discussions were held. Although the researchers found consensus on health priorities across all levels in the study countries, current funding falls short of addressing these identified areas. The nature of external funding, as well as programme-specific investment, was found to distort priority setting. There are signs that existing interventions have had limited effects beyond meeting the needs of disease-specific programmes. A need for more comprehensive health system strengthening (HSS) was identified, which requires a strong vision as to what the term means, coupled with a clear strategy and commitment from national and international decision makers in order to achieve stated goals. Prospective studies and action research, accompanied by pilot programmes, are recommended as deliberate strategies for HSS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"How long will it take to lift one billion people out of poverty? ","field_subtitle":"Ravallion M: Policy Research Working Paper WPS 6325, World Bank, 2013 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/av9j3et","body":"In this paper, the author considers alternative scenarios for reducing by one billion the number of people living below $1.25 a day. The low-case, \"pessimistic,\" path to that goal would see low income countries outside China returning to the slower pace of growth and poverty reduction of the 1980s and 1990s, though with China maintaining its progress. This path is projected to would take 50 years or more to lift one billion people out of poverty. The author asserts that a more optimistic path would maintain the rate of progress in reducing poverty since 2000, reaching the target by around 2025-30, although this assumes inequality-neutral growth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Innovative financing for agriculture, food security and nutrition","field_subtitle":"High-Level Expert Committee to the Leading Group for innovative financing for agriculture, food security and nutrition: December 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bzbo6dx","body":"In this report, the High-Level Expert Committee argues in favour of innovative financing for agriculture, food security and nutrition to achieve food security and nutrition objectives. Although they are progressing, budgets for food security, including agriculture and nutrition components, in low income countries are severely constrained. Proposed mechanisms for funding include: national taxes, such as a tax on financial transactions; voluntary contributions from consumers, firms and employees and food- and nutrition-correlated industries; allocation of funds generated by the carbon emissions allowances auctions in the European Union Emissions Trading System; and migrants\u2019 remittances, which already represent considerable financial flows from industrialised to developing countries. To maximise their contribution to food security objectives, these innovative financing mechanisms should, as much as possible, be targeted at food production and supply, as well as family farming with the specific intention to make agriculture work for nutrition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Interim report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health","field_subtitle":"United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health: 3 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/66/254","body":"In this report, the Special Rapporteur considers criminal laws and other legal restrictions relating to sexual and reproductive health and the right to health. These include criminal and other legal restrictions on: abortion; conduct during pregnancy; contraception and family planning; and the provision of sexual and reproductive education and information. These restrictions violate the right to health by restricting peoples\u2019 access to quality goods, services and information, as well as violating their right to make their own decisions about their bodies. Moreover, the application of such laws as a means to achieving certain public health outcomes is often ineffective and disproportionate, according to the report. In cases where a barrier is created by a criminal law or other legal restriction, it is the obligation of the State to remove it. In response to countries that are calling for the progressive realisation of the right to health, the Rapporteur argues that the removal of such laws and legal restrictions is not subject to resource constraints; therefore he calls for the immediate scrapping of laws and policies undermining sexual and reproductive health to ensure everyone can enjoy full realisation of their right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Medical inpatient mortality at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, 2002-2009","field_subtitle":"Myer L, Smith E and Mayosi B M: South African Medical Journal 103(1): 28-35, January 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/samj/article/view/84314/74318","body":"In this study, researchers analysed first admissions of adult medical inpatients to Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, from January 2002 to July 2009, disaggregating data according to age, sex, medical specialty, date of admission and discharge, and socio-economic status (SES). There were 42,582 first admissions. Patient demographics shifted towards a lower SES. Median age decreased from 52 years in 2002 to 49 years in 2009, while patients aged 20-39 years increased in proportion from 26% to 31%. The unadjusted proportion of admissions which resulted in in-hospital deaths increased from 12% in 2002 to 17% in 2009. Corresponding mortality rates per 1,000 patient days were 17 and 23.4, respectively. Annual increases in mortality rates were highest during the first two days following admission (increasing from 30.1 to 50.3 deaths per 1,000), and were associated with increasing age, non-paying patient status, black population group and male sex, and were greatest in the emergency ward.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Online Civil Society Consultation on the Global health Theme of the Post-2015 UN Agenda","field_subtitle":"Global Health South (The Alliance of Southern CS in Global Health)/CHESTRAD in partnership with Campaign 2015+ and the Call for Action on Universal Health Coverage With Support from the Health Thematic Group, Post 2015 UN Agenda: January 2013","field_url":"","body":"From the 9th of December 2012 to 11th January 2013, an online consultation on global health Theme in the Post-2015 UN Agenda was conducted. Researchers targeted a total of 785 institutions across partner organisations and networks and attracted participation from over 180 organisations active across 48 countries, notably community based and regional organisations in Africa, which constituted 69.5% of all participants. A number of key messages emerged. 1. There is no strong support for one health goal framed around Universal Health Care. 2. There is a very clear emphasis given to prioritising the needs of women and children. 3. There are strong calls to broaden the focus of the goals towards health systems strengthening and away from disease- and issue-specific interventions. 4. Strong support is given to the importance of a multisectoral action for health, alongside recognition of the need to address the socio-economic determinants and the rapidly evolving economic realities between countries. 5. The health-related post-2015 development goals should take into account the context in which action will be taken, and must be founded on guiding principles that are adaptable at the national level, and flexible for local implementation. They should also be based on shared, coherent understanding that enables global level solidarity and differentiated accountable action where necessary and appropriate.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/37581","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Operational scale entomological intervention for malaria control: strategies, achievements and challenges in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Chanda E, Mukonka VM, Kamuliwo M, Macdonald MB and Haque U: Malaria Journal 12(10), 8 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-12-10.pdf","body":"This paper reports on the strategies, achievements and challenges of the past and contemporary malaria vector control efforts in Zambia. Researchers reviewed all available information and accessible archived documentary records on malaria vector control in Zambia. They also conducted a retrospective analysis of routine surveillance data from the Health Management Information System (HMIS), data from population-based household surveys and various operations research reports on implementing policies and strategies. Results suggested that Zambia has made great progress in implementing the World Health Organisation\u2019s integrated vector management (IVM) strategy within the context of the IVM Global Strategic framework with strong adherence to its five key attributes. In conclusion, the country has solid, consistent and coordinated policies, strategies and guidelines for malaria vector control. The authors highlight the Zambian experience as a successful example of a coordinated multi-pronged IVM approach effectively operationalised within the context of a national health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Private Chinese investment in Africa: myths and realities ","field_subtitle":"Shen X: Policy Research Working Paper WPS 6311, World Bank, 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/a6vmyev","body":"Private Chinese outbound investment, not as well-known as government-led investment, offers both opportunities and challenges for Africa, according to this paper. The significance of Chinese private-sector investment is already visible in the burgeoning manufacturing sector in some parts of Africa, and the trend will continue to grow in the near future. The underlying force behind this trend is the increased pressure of industrial restructuring in coastal China, a force that drives some labour-intensive firms to relocate to other parts of the developing world, including Africa. The author argues that African host country governments can respond to this phenomenon with proactive development policies and strategies to maximise private Chinese investment for the benefit of their own economies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Professionalism in the intimate examination: How healthcare practitioners feel about having chaperones present during an intimate consultation and examination","field_subtitle":"Guidozzi Y, Gardner J and Dhai A: South African Medical Journal 103(1):25-27, January 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/samj/article/view/84313/74316","body":"Despite the clear prohibition against sexual relations with one\u2019s patients, complaints of a sexual nature against practitioners registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) have been increasing. The authors of this paper set out to ascertain how a group of medical practitioners felt about the presence of chaperones during the consultation and intimate examination of patients. They distributed a self-administered, questionnaire-based survey to gynaecologists and medical practitioners. There was a 43% response rate with 72% of practitioners in favour of using a chaperone during an intimate examination, although only 27% always do so. Most practitioners felt that consensual sexual relationships with patients are unacceptable; 83% felt that ethical guidelines on this topic were needed. The authors recommend that the HPCSA should develop guidelines on the use of chaperones to assist practitioners. With medical litigation increasing, using chaperones will benefit patients and practitioners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Project Matchstick","field_subtitle":"HDI Youth Marketers: January 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/amkqfmo","body":"In this 2012 survey, the opinions on their social conditions of 1,360 young South Africans from various backgrounds of the country were gathered. Individuals across age groups (kids, teens and young adults) from Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal and the Western Cape responded to the survey and expressed their opinions on numerous issues and attributes relevant to South African society. Generally, respondents expressed high levels of nostalgia towards the country\u2019s previous leaders, specifically Nelson Mandela, and were critical of the current leadership. Across all the regions, crime was ranked as the country\u2019s biggest problem, and education was cited repeatedly as being crucial to ensure the future success of young South Africans. Freedom of expression was highlighted as a key issue throughout the interviews, yet many young people felt they were not given the opportunity to be heard. Many respondents argued that relying on the government to bring about change is not good enough, and expressed a desire for youth to play a greater role.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Rapid Retention Survey Toolkit: Designing Evidence-Based Incentives for Health Workers","field_subtitle":"CapacityPlus: 2012","field_url":"http://www.capacityplus.org/files/resources/rapid_retention_survey%20_toolkit.pdf","body":"In the context of severe health worker shortages in rural areas, this toolkit is intended to help health leaders find out what motivates health workers to accept posts in rural areas and to stay there. The toolkit builds on the World Health Organisation\u2019s global policy recommendations for rural retention and is based on the discrete choice experiment, a powerful research method that identifies the trade-offs health professionals are willing to make between specific job characteristics and determines their preferences for various incentive packages, including the probability of accepting a post in a rural health facility. The toolkit guides human resources managers through a survey process to rapidly assess health professional students\u2019 and health workers\u2019 motivational preferences to accept a position and continue working in underserved facilities. It allows for rapid data-gathering and analysis, and the results can be used to create evidence-based incentive packages. It includes step-by-step instructions, sample formats, and examples that can easily be adapted to a specific country context, including survey planning, survey design, survey instrument development using a specialised software programme, survey administration, data analysis and interpretation, and how to present results to stakeholders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Religiosity for HIV prevention in Uganda: a case study among Muslim youth in Wakiso district","field_subtitle":"Kagimu M, Guwatudde D, Rwabukwali C, Kaye S, Walakira Y and Ainomugisha D: African Health Sciences 12(3): 282-290, January 2013","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ahs/article/view/84439","body":"Evidence for the association between religiosity and HIV infections is limited. Sujda, the hyper-pigmented spot on the forehead due to repeated prostration during prayers and fasting to worship, involving abstaining from food, drink and sex during daytime in Ramadhan and other specified days, are measures of religiosity among Muslims In this study, researchers assessed the association between religiosity and HIV infections. They included 29 HIV positive cases and 116 HIV negative controls, from a total of 1,224 Muslims, 15-24 years. Respondents without Sujda had more HIV infections. Those with Sujda were more likely to abstain from sex and be faithful in marriage. Respondents without Sujda were more likely to have ever taken alcohol before sex and to have ever used narcotics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Research methods course in sexual and reproductive health, HIV and gender-based violence: 12\u201328 August 2013: Johannesburg, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Closing Date : 1 March 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c4vm67b","body":"Are you a clinician, researcher or other professional in the field of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) or HIV looking to improve your research skills? Are you currently conducting or planning to conduct SRH or HIV research in the near future and wanting to learn more about research methodology? The Research Methods Course in Sexual and Reproductive Health, HIV and Gender-Based Violence offers an opportunity to strengthen your research skills and your contribution to increased capacity for SRH and HIV research on the African continent. At the end of this intensive three-week course will you should be able to: initiate and participate in qualitative and quantitative research; critically appraise research findings; understand the major SRH/HIV issues affecting the African region; and access a network of other professionals in your field for information exchange and research collaboration. For more information on eligibility and course fees or to request an application form please contact Janine White-Jacobs at the email address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Resilience: A Trojan horse for a new way of thinking? ","field_subtitle":"De Weijer F: ECDPM Discussion Paper 139, January 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/arw3a8p","body":"According to this paper, the current widespread use of the term \u2018resilience\u2019 in development circles is at risk of being diluted by current ways of thinking about change because the term has not brought about genuine change in thinking about social systems. The author argues that if the term ends up being used in a very linear manner, where change is controllable from the outside and follows a linear path, it will have failed to achieve its mission. The author calls for a break from expert-led technocratic solutions and renewed focus on human agency as the main vehicle for change. Resilience-based thinking underlines the importance of leadership and reinvents the task of the international community as supporting constructive leadership rather than designing expert solutions. For leaders, it opens up space for creative thinking and hybrid, localised solutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Rising fees at public hospitals hit patients hard","field_subtitle":"Kahn T: Business Day, 10 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/health/2012/12/10/rising-fees-at-public-hospitals-hit-patients-hard","body":"For the past ten years, the South African government has not adjusted the means test for patients using public hospitals, leaving more and more poor people without medical aid to foot their own bills, according to this article. In addition, treatment and hospital fees have risen by up to 75% since the means test was first set in 2002. As a result, many families that have had to contend with serious illness face debts that can take years to pay off. Between four and six million South Africans have no medical aid insurance and do not qualify for discounted fees at public hospitals, putting them at risk of huge medical bills. The Uniform Patient Fee Schedule policy says patients who cannot afford the fees levied according to their classification \"may be reclassified\" as exempt from fees \"by the person in charge of the health facility\", enabling hospitals to write off part or all of a patient\u2019s debt. But many patients have neither the energy or skills to navigate the bureaucracy, and staff do not always verify patient claims, leaving the process open to corruption. In the long run, the state\u2019s plans to introduce National Health Insurance (NHI), which would be free at the point of service, should do away with the financial burden facing public sector patients, the author argues. But in the short term, the NHI plan could inadvertently make things worse. This is because the NHI pilot project includes funding to improve hospitals\u2019 revenue collection. If that aspect of the project is not carefully managed, more patients could find themselves in severe financial straits.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Secret structures, hidden crimes: Urgent steps to address hidden ownership, money laundering and tax evasion from developing countries","field_subtitle":"Eurodad: January 2013","field_url":"http://eurodad.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Secret-structures-hidden-crimes_online2.pdf","body":"In this new report, Eurodad reports that hidden ownership of companies and other legal structures facilitate tax evasion, and argues that better information about who owns and controls companies and other set-ups is key to bringing trillions of dollars of offshore wealth back into the tax net and to help prevent future capital flight. The authors call for governments to create publicly available registers of the owners and controllers of companies, trusts and other legal structures and to improve compliance with, enforcement of and sanctions for anti-money laundering rules.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Seychelles to launch new corporate social responsibility fund ","field_subtitle":"The People: December 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cx6bkko","body":"Pierre Laporte, Minister of Finance for the Seychelles, revealed government\u2019s new plans for a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Fund in his budget speech in December 2012. Businesses now have four options to contribute to social development, namely sponsorship, donations, direct funding of community projects, or contribute to the new Fund. All businesses that make a turnover of SR 1 million and above will be expected to contribute to the Fund a rate of 0.5% of their turnover. The Minister clarified that Government will continue to fund infrastructure projects in districts, and CSR funds would be expected to go to areas such as environment, beach and coastal management projects, health and wellness including sports, renewable energy and others to be decided upon. Supporters of the Fund are hoping it will become a sustainable funding mechanism for civil society groups.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Sipopo Declaration from the Seventh Summit for ACP Heads of State and Government and the 96th ACP Council of Ministers","field_subtitle":"Participants at the ACP Summit: December 2012","field_url":"http://www.acp.int/sites/acpsec.waw.be/files/Final%20ACP2806512%20Rev%208%20Draft_Sipopo_Declaration.pdf","body":"Senior delegates from 63 of the 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, including some 15 Heads of State, attended the ACP Summit in December 2012. This summit declaration highlights members\u2019 determination to \u201cstay united as a Group\u201d and retain relevance by \u201cenhancing the ACP-European Union (EU) relationship as a unique North-South development cooperation model, while developing South-South and other partnerships. A new working group will reflect on the response of the ACP Group to global challenges. Officials also decided to set up a high-level panel to advance trade negotiations with the EU.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Sixth South African AIDS Conference","field_subtitle":"18-21 June 2013: Durban, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.saaids.co.za/","body":"The Sixth South African AIDS Conference will be held in Durban from 18-21 June 2013. The conference theme is \"Building on our successes: Integrating responses\". As South Africa enters the fourth decade of HIV and AIDS, the conference aims to look back at lessons learnt and reflect, celebrate the gains made, and find ways to build on past successes by integrating HIV with other health responses. The conference will bring together various members of the HIV research community, including clinicians, academics, civil society and government.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening medical product regulation in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Preston C, Valdez ML and Bond K: PLoS Medicine 9(10), 23 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001327","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) includes regulatory system functions as one of the six core building blocks of health systems: access to medical products, vaccines, and technologies of assured quality, safety, and efficacy.  However, little attention has been focused on regulatory systems in low- and middle-income countries. They have not featured prominently in global health and development assistance programmes, according to this paper, and few strategic documents of major global health initiatives, including the United States Global Health Initiative, reference regulatory systems. The global activities that do involve regulatory systems typically involve high-income countries, such as the International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH), which harmonises regulatory standards and processes for the pharmaceutical industry. ICH includes regulatory authorities from the European Union, Japan and the United States. The authors argue that lack of attention to medical product regulatory systems in low- and middle-income countries is a significant gap that needs to be bridged. They thus propose that strengthening regulatory systems in low- and middle-income countries must become a global health priority.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Talking about the impact of private sector for development, are we using the same language?","field_subtitle":"Rosengren A: ECDPM talking Points blog, 18 January 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/aa57l8m","body":"ECDPM organised an informal multi-stakeholder meeting in Brussels in December 2012 to highlight and share the different views of the opportunities and challenges, as well as potential ways forward, in measuring the impact of the private sector on development. Participants included European Union (EU) officials, research institutes, development agencies, African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) and EU ambassadors, civil society organisations and private sector actors and confederations. Despite the private sector\u2019s often-cited move beyond corporate social responsibility, delegates agreed that the focus for some still seems to be predominantly placed within the (often marginal) add-on projects on the side of the core business. By choosing to not address this, private sector actors are avoiding the fact that their main business activities most likely are their main development impact. The author recommends that partnerships between public-private and/or civil society actors should be balanced and in the interest of all partners, and that assessment of these partnerships should not only capture corporate social responsibility-type activities, but also core business impacts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The African Health Observatory should deliver in addressing priority health issues","field_subtitle":"Machemedze R: Health Diplomacy Monitor 3 (7): 11-13, December 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/aebsms2","body":"The 46 African member states of the World Health Organisation (WHO) have commended WHO for operating the African Health Observatory (AHO) and requested that individual countries be assisted to establish their own national health observatories (NHOs). The need for NHOs was highlighted by the concerns raised by a number of countries at a regional committee meeting on the unavailability of timely information as hampering progress in providing quality health services in their countries. Zambia called for the inclusion of \u2018community information systems\u2019 to complement conventional data gathering. A number of countries raised the issue of integrating the NHOs into national health information systems (NHIS) as crucial to avoid burdening the NHIS. They noted that the NHOs should be simple and work towards harmonising data collection and coordination. Most countries saw the establishment of NHOs through technical support from the WHO as an opportunity to deal with the challenges of data fragmentation and the attendant problems of policy incoherencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The evolution of global health teaching in undergraduate medical curricula ","field_subtitle":"Rowson M, Smith A, Hughes R, Johnson O, Maini A, Martin S et al: Globalization And Health 8(35), 13 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content /pdf/1744-8603-8-35.pdf","body":"Undergraduate teaching on global health has seen a marked growth over the past ten years, partly as a response to student demand and partly due to increasing globalisation, cross-border movement of pathogens and international migration of health care workers. In this study, researchers carried out a survey of medical schools across the world in an effort to analyse their teaching of global health. Results indicate that global health teaching is moving away from its previous focus on tropical medicine towards issues of more global relevance. The authors suggest that there are three types of doctor who may wish to work in global health - the 'globalised doctor', 'humanitarian doctor' and 'policy doctor' - and that each of these three types will require different teaching in order to meet the required competencies. This teaching needs to be inserted into medical curricula in different ways, notably into core curricula, a special developing countries track, optional student selected components, elective programmes, optional intercalated degrees and postgraduate study. The authors argue that teaching of global health in undergraduate medical curricula must reflect the social, political and economic causes of ill health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Future of Foreign Aid: Development Cooperation and the New Geography of Global Poverty ","field_subtitle":"Sumner A and Mallett R: Palgrave Pivot, December 2012","field_url":"http://us.macmillan.com/thefutureofforeignaid/AndySumner","body":"The landscape of foreign aid is changing, according to this book. New development actors are on the rise, from the 'emerging' economies to numerous private foundations and philanthropists. At the same time the nature of the global poverty 'problem' has also changed: most of the world's poor people no longer live in the poorest countries. Sumner and Mallet review of research on foreign aid to outline a series of policy proposals for global development cooperation in the twenty-first century.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The implementation of Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response in Uganda: a review of progress and challenges between 2001 and 2007","field_subtitle":"Lukwago L, Nanyunja M, Ndayimirije N, Wamala J, Malimbo M, Mbabazi W et al: Health Policy and Planning 28: 30-40, January 2013","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/28/1/30.full.pdf?etoc","body":"In 2000 Uganda adopted the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) strategy, which aims to create a co-ordinated approach to the collection, analysis, interpretation, use and dissemination of surveillance data for guiding decision making on public health actions. In this study, researchers used a monitoring framework recommended by World Health Organisation and the United States\u2019 Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to evaluate performance of the IDSR core indicators at the national level from 2001 to 2007. Findings showed improvements in the performance of IDSR, including: improved reporting at the district level (49% in 2001; 85% in 2007); an increase and then decrease in timeliness of reporting from districts to central level; and an increase in analysed data at the local level. The case fatality rate for two target priority diseases (cholera and meningococcal meningitis) decreased during IDSR implementation (cholera: from 7% to 2%; meningitis: from 16% to 4%), most likely due to improved outbreak response. However, decreased budgetary support from the government may be eroding these gains. Renewed efforts from government and other stakeholders are necessary to sustain and expand progress achieved through implementation of IDSR.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Third Global Forum on Human Resources for Health","field_subtitle":"Recife, Brazil: 10\u201313 November 2013","field_url":"http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/forum/en/index.html","body":"The World Health Organisation\u2019s Workforce Alliance convened the First and the Second Global Forums on Human Resources for Health, in 2008 in Uganda, and 2011 in Thailand respectively. The Global Forums brought together key experts, fellow champions as well as frontline health workers around the common goal of improving the human resources for health to achieve the health-related Millennium Development Goals. Both Forums concluded with the adoption from committed participants of ambitious agendas suitable to translate political will, leadership and partnership into sustainable and effective actions. The Third Global Forum will be held in Recife, Brazil, from 10\u201313 November 2013.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Today\u2019s HIV response: flagging global leadership but countries forge ahead","field_subtitle":"Vlassoff C and Del Riego A: Health Diplomacy Monitor 3 (7): 7-11, December 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/aebsms2","body":"In this article, the authors summarise the main points of the UNAIDS World AIDS Day Report 2012 (included in this newsletter), which evaluated global progress in reaching the goals of Zero New HIV Infections, Zero Discrimination and Zero AIDS-Related Deaths. While the report includes quantitative information on two of the \u201cGetting to Zero\u201d goals \u2013 zero new infections and AIDS-related deaths \u2013 there is very little information on the third - zero discrimination - the authors note. Challenges persist in treatment and prevention, and progress is further impacted on by politics, poor governance, prohibitive costs and failure to build on evidence in the multisector response.  Despite the flagging global response, countries have managed to move ahead, albeit slowly, to treat HIV-affected people, prevent transmission from mother to child and promote safe sexual behaviour. With treatment now available for only US$100 annually in some countries, the authors argue it is time for another bold move such as 3 by 5, focused on direct support to countries and a more strategic and efficient allocation of global resources toward evidence-based strategies that have been shown to work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Tuberculosis and poverty: the contribution of patient costs in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Barter DM, Agboola SO, Murray MB and B\u00e4rnighausen T: BMC Public Health 12 (980), 14 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-980.pdf","body":"To comprehensively assess the existing evidence on the costs that tuberculosis (TB) patients incur in Sub-Saharan Africa, researchers undertook a systematic review of the existing literature for articles containing a quantitative measure of direct or indirect patient costs, finally including 30 articles that met all of the inclusion criteria. Depending on type of costs, costs varied from less than US$1 to almost $600 or from a small fraction of mean monthly income for average annual income earners to over 10 times the annual income that the average person in the income-poorest 20% of the population earns. Out of the eleven types of TB patient costs identified in this review, the costs for hospitalisation, medication, transportation, and care in the private sector were largest. The authors argue that it is likely that for many households, TB treatment and care-related costs were catastrophic because costs commonly amounted to 10% or more of per-capita income. These results suggest that policies to decrease direct and indirect TB patient costs are urgently needed to prevent poverty due to TB treatment and care for those affected by the disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda Health Literacy Training Report, Entebbe, September 24-26 2012","field_subtitle":"Training and Research Support Centre and HEPS Uganda: EQUINET, December 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Uganda%20HL%20Training%20Report%20Sep2012.pdf","body":"Participatory Reflection and Action work in EQUINET has shown that health workers suffer problems of poor work environments, poor remuneration, lack of growth opportunities and motivational incentives. This may pose a barrier to their interaction with communities, despite the role that communication plays in patient-centred care. Communities on their side may not possess the skills and capacities to negotiate or communicate with service providers, leading to misunderstanding, lack of knowledge and even anger. In 2011, building on work done on health literacy in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Botswana, and in the EQUINET PRA equity network to strengthen communication between health workers and communities, TARSC implemented a one year programme with HEPS Uganda and, with Cordaid support, to extend health literacy in Uganda and use the skills built to promote dialogue and accountability between health workers and communities. In 2012-2014 TARSC and HEPS-Uganda are building on this work to widen and deepen the capacity of civil society organisations (CSOs) for Health Literacy (HL) in Uganda. This report outlines a meeting that was a first step in this two-year programme. It brought together five CSOs working within districts on health. The workshop trained facilitators, education and lead personnel from five CSOs in Uganda to plan, implement and monitor HL programmes at district level, including a specific focus on women\u2019s health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"What went wrong? Lessons from Malawi\u2019s food crisis","field_subtitle":"Tafirenyika M: Pambazuka News, 613, 17 January 2013","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/85977","body":"Malawi has gone from bountiful maize crops to food insecurity in the past seven years. Thanks to increased farm subsidies for small-holder farmers in 2004, Malawi harvested a bumper crop the following year. But the author reports that subsidies fell thereafter and Malawi became a net importer of maize, with domonishing agricultural outputs. What can be learned from Malawi\u2019s story? With a population of more than a billion, will Africa produce enough food for its people? The author argues it is possible, but under several conditions. First, an essential ingredient for success in agriculture is strong political will at the highest level.  Second, while foreign funds help to feed the hungry and revive agriculture in Africa, food security is argued to be too important to be left to the generosity of external partners. It also requires the same importance and resources as national security. Africa needs a strong food policy backed by resources from African Union (AU) members, to be invested in institutions that promote agriculture. One tangible AU response has been the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), which requires countries that sign up to it to spend at least 10% of their national budgets on agriculture.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"When \u2018solutions of yesterday become problems of today\u2019: crisis-ridden decision making in a complex adaptive system (CAS): the additional duty hours allowance in Ghana","field_subtitle":"Agyepong IA, Kodua A, Adjei S and Adam T: Health Policy and Planning 27 (suppl): Iv20\u2013iv31, 27 September 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_4 /iv20.full.pdf+html","body":"Implementation of policies (decisions) in the health sector is sometimes defeated by the system\u2019s response to the policy itself. This can lead to counter-intuitive, unanticipated, or more modest effects than expected by those who designed the policy. The health sector fits the characteristics of complex adaptive systems (CAS) and complexity is at the heart of this phenomenon. Anticipating both positive and negative effects of policy decisions, understanding the interests, power and interaction between multiple actors and planning for the delayed and distal impact of policy decisions are essential for effective decision making in CAS. Failure to appreciate these elements often leads to a series of reductionist approach interventions or \u2018fixes\u2019. This in turn can initiate a series of negative feedback loops that further complicates the situation over time. In this paper, researchers use a case study of the Additional Duty Hours Allowance (ADHA) policy in Ghana to illustrate these points. Using causal loop diagrams, they unpack the intended and unintended effects of the policy and how these effects evolved over time. The overall goal is to advance our understanding of decision making in complex adaptive systems; and through this process identify some essential elements in formulating, updating and implementing health policy that can help to improve attainment of desired outcomes and minimise negative unintended effects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Where next? US-Africa foreign relations under a second term","field_subtitle":"This is Africa: 16 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.thisisafricaonline.com/content/view/full/8328?ct=true","body":"While Barack Obama\u2019s re-election has been met with enthusiasm across Africa, the article reports that many are frustrated about a lack of delivery on past promises. Where does Africa fit into the new administration\u2019s foreign policy? The author argues that Obama\u2019s current rhetoric about Africa makes generalisations about common aspirations, opportunity and African potential. He asserts that future engagement with African countries may be focused on the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, part of the G8 plan to boost food production in Africa by introducing large-scale, mechanised agriculture with genetically modified crops. The author poses that this is expected to impact negatively on small-scale farmers and possibly increase food insecurity. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"World AIDS Day Report 2012: Results","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bq4qevd","body":"In this new report, UNAIDS reports that there are 700,000 fewer new HIV infections globally in 2011 than in 2001, eight million people on life-saving antiretroviral (ARV) therapy (a 60% increase in the last two years), and a drop of more than half a million deaths from AIDS-related illnesses between 2005 and 2011 in people living with HIV. However, new HIV infections continue to outpace ARV treatment coverage. Sub-Saharan Africa has realised a 25% reduction in new infections, although the region still accounted for 72% of new HIV infections globally in 2011. Progress in treatment has been impressive, saving lives and transforming HIV into a chronic illness rather than a death sentence. In addition to their therapeutic effects, ARVs have been found to play a preventive role by significantly reducing the amount of virus in the blood and therefore reducing the risk of transmission to sexual partners. A major weakness in both prevention and treatment programmes in many countries is reported by UNAIDS to be their failure to decrease mother-to-child transmission of HIV, which is the most easily preventable form of transmission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Years lived with disability (YLDs) for 1160 sequelae of 289 diseases and injuries 1990-2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010","field_subtitle":"Vos T, Flaxman AD, Naghavi M, Lozano R, Michaud C, Ezzati M et al: The Lancet 380 (9859): 2163-2196, 15 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)61729-2/abstract","body":"In the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) studies done in 1990 and 2000, 289 diseases and injuries were identified as causing disability. The authors of this study undertook a systematic global analysis of these diseases and injuries to calculate and interpret years lived with disability (YLDs). They found that, in 2010, there were 777 million years lived with disability (YLDs) from all causes, up from 583 million in 1990. The main contributors to global YLDs were mental and behavioural disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, and diabetes or endocrine diseases. Neglected tropical diseases, HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and anaemia were important causes of YLDs in sub-Saharan Africa. Overall, rates of YLDs per 100,000 people have remained largely constant over time but rise steadily with age. Population growth and ageing have increased YLD numbers and crude rates over the past two decades. Health systems urgently need to address the needs of the rising numbers of individuals with a range of disorders that largely cause disability but not mortality, the authors argue. Quantification of the burden of non-fatal health outcomes will be crucial to understand how well health systems are responding to these challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cThe hidden hunger\u201d: Understanding the burden of anaemia and its determinants among pregnant and non-pregnant women in Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Wondu T and Bijlsma M: Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development, 12(7), December 2012","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajfand/article/view/84203/74214","body":"The objective of this study was to assess the burden of anaemia and its determinants among pregnant and non-pregnant women in Ethiopia. Researchers used data from the 2005 Demographic and Health Survey of Ethiopia. A total of 5,960 women of child-bearing age were included in the analysis. The general prevalence of anaemia among women was 27.7%, while the prevalence of anaemia was 33% and 27.3% among pregnant and non-pregnant women respectively. Analysis revealed a significant negative association between prevalence of anaemia and women\u2019s educational status, grouped altitude of residential places and household wealth index categories. The authors found that anaemia is a moderate public health problem among women in Ethiopia but there exist significant differences in magnitude by socio-economic status of women and their families and where they live. They call for interventions designed to address maternal anaemia that pay attention to both nutritional and non-nutritional intervention strategies, including environmental sanitation, de-worming, and provision and promotion of family planning methods.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":" UN General Assembly encourages member states to plan and pursue transition of national health care systems towards universal coverage","field_subtitle":"United Nations General Assembly: 12 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2012/ga11326.doc.htm","body":"Recognising the intrinsic role of health in achieving international development goals, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly has adopted a resolution on global health and foreign policy which encourages Member States to plan or pursue the transition towards universal access to affordable and quality health-care services. It urges Member States, civil society and international organisations to incorporate universal health coverage in the international development agenda and in the implementation of the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals. The Assembly also recognised the importance of universal coverage as part of a transition to a more sustainable, inclusive and equitable economy. The resolution encourages Member States to continue investing in health-delivery systems to increase and safeguard the range and quality of services and meet the health needs of their populations. It calls on Member States to recognise the links between the promotion of universal health coverage and other foreign policy issues, such as the social dimension of globalisation, inclusive and equitable growth and sustainable development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"2013 Human Development Report: The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World","field_subtitle":"United Nations Development Programme: December 2012","field_url":"http://hdr.undp.org/en/","body":"The next Human Development Report \u2013 \u201cThe Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World\u201d \u2013 will be published in March 2013. It will examine the profound shift in global dynamics that is being driven by the fast-rising powers of the developing world - and the implications of this phenomenon for human development. China has already overtaken Japan as the world\u2019s second biggest economy, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty in the process. India is actively reshaping its future with entrepreneurial creativity and social policy innovation. Brazil has become another major engine of growth for the South, while reducing inequality at home through antipoverty programs that are emulated worldwide. Turkey, Thailand, South Africa, Mexico, Indonesia and other dynamic developing nations are also leading actors on the world stage today, offering important policy lessons and valuable new partnerships for the South as a whole, including today\u2019s least developed countries. The Report will feature a new Human Development Index (HDI) as well as the Report\u2019s three complementary indices: the Inequality-adjusted HDI, the Gender Inequality Index (GII) and the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A descriptive study on health workforce performance after decentralisation of health services in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Lutwama GW, Roos JH and Dolamo BL: Human Resources for Health 10(41), 7 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/10/1/41","body":"The purpose of this study was to investigate the performance of health workers since decentralisation of health services in Uganda in the 1990s in order to identify and suggest possible areas for improvement. Researchers conducted a cross-sectional descriptive survey, using quantitative research methods to collect quantitative data from 276 health workers in the districts of Kumi, Mbale, Sironko and Tororo in Eastern Uganda. The study revealed that even though the health workers are generally responsive to the needs of their clients, the services they provide are often not timely. Health workers take initiative to ensure that they are available for work, although low staffing levels undermine these efforts. While the data shows that the health workers are productive, over half (50.4%) of them reported that their organisations do not have indicators to measure their individual performance. In general, the results show that health workers are proficient, adaptive, proactive and client-oriented. Although Uganda is faced with a number of challenges as regards human resources for health, these findings show that the health workers that are currently working in the health facilities are enthusiastic to perform. This may serve as a motivator for the health workers to improve their performance and that of the health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"African Civil Society Statement: Call for a ban on GM crops and food","field_subtitle":"African Centre for Biosafety: 15 November 2012","field_url":"http://acbio.org.za/activist/index.php?m=u&f=dsp&petitionID=1","body":"In the wake of the recent ban by Kenya on the importation of genetically modified (GM) products until proper health evaluation has been completed, African civil society in this paper is requesting the African Union (AU) discuss banning all GM products throughout the continent at the next AU summit in January 2013. Civil society represented by 400 African organisations consisting of small-scale farmers, social movements, non-governmental organisations, faith-based groups, organic producers and consumers, business people and ordinary citizens issued a statement pointing out the lack of safety data on GM foods, as well as condemning the patenting of life and privatisation of agriculture, which threatens to displace African food producer control over their production systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"African trade and agriculture ministers seeking closer cooperation","field_subtitle":"Rampa F and Lui D: ECDPM Talking Points, 7 December 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/crzplvn","body":"African Union ministers of trade and agriculture gathered in early December 2012 at a joint conference in Addis Ababa to discuss their growing and increasingly overlapping work agendas. Agriculture remains the key source of income and employment for most Africans, while efforts intensify across the continent to liberalise intra-regional trade. In this blog, the authors summarise the main resolutions from the summit, while the final outcomes document is being drafted. Ministers agreed to accelerate implementation of the Plan of Action for Boosting Intra-Africa Trade in both agricultural commodities and processed food products. This is hoped to lead to an early deal to liberalise key regional food staples markets, as part of the continental free trade area. They also identified the national and regional compacts and investment plans of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) as the main instruments to define and operationalise trade-agriculture collaboration, while strengthening the capacity of relevant institutions and producers to effectively participate in these innovative practices and monitor their impact at country level. While they acknowledged the need to work at national, regional and continental levels to remove trade barriers in agricultural commodities, they emphasised that without immediate follow-up, food security will remain uncertain.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Alternatives to Privatisation: Public Options for Essential Services in the Global South","field_subtitle":"McDonald DA and Ruiters G: Routledge, 27 February 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415886680/","body":"Those who are against privatisation of public services are often confronted with the objection that there is no alternative. This book takes up that challenge by establishing theoretical models for what does (and does not) constitute an alternative to privatisation, and what might make them \u2018successful\u2019, backed up by a comprehensive set of empirical data on public services initiatives in over 40 countries. This is the first such global survey of its kind, providing a rigorous and robust platform for evaluating different alternatives and allowing for comparisons across regions and sectors. The book helps to conceptualise and evaluate what has become an important and widespread movement for better public services in the global South. The contributors explore historical, existing and proposed non-commercialised alternatives for primary health, water/sanitation and electricity. The objectives of the research have been to develop conceptual and methodological frameworks for identifying and analysing alternatives to privatisation, and testing these models against actually existing alternatives on the ground in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Information of this type is urgently required for practitioners and analysts, both of whom are seeking reliable knowledge on what kind of public models work, how transferable they are from one place to another and what their main strengths and weaknesses are.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"ART adherence clubs to help overburdened health workers","field_subtitle":"Health-e News: 30 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/clubbing-together-treatment","body":"Antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence clubs, already operating in several high burden areas in Cape Town, have the potential to revolutionise the treatment of millions of HIV-positive South Africans and lighten the load on overburdened health workers, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). In a nutshell, the ART adherence clubs are a long-term retention model of care for stable patients on ARVs. Between 20 and 30 patients meet and are facilitated by a non-clinical staff member who provides a quick clinical assessment, a referral where necessary and peer support in the form of a short group meeting. Pre-packed ARVs are distributed, enough to last for two months until the next meeting. Once a year, the patient is referred for blood tests and is seen by a doctor. This means that for one year the patient does not need to be seen by a professional health worker, essentially freeing the workers up to treat more complex cases and creating space in waiting rooms. By August 2012, 149 new clubs had been established in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, totalling 5,195 patients, which represents 20% of those enrolled for ART in the township. A spokesperson from the provincial health department said the province was also looking at integrating the clubs into a chronic care model, which means that patients with for example diabetes or high blood pressure could benefit.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessment of water, sanitation, and hygiene practice and associated factors among people living with HIV/AIDS home based care services in Gondar city, Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Yallew WW, Terefe MW, Herchline TE, Sharma HR, Bitew BD, Kifle MW, Tetemke DM et al: BMC Public Health 12(1057), 7 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-1057.pdf","body":"This cross-sectional study was carried during 2009 to assess water, sanitation status and hygiene practices and associated factors among People Living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHAs) in home-based care services in Gondar City, Ethiopia. Researchers collected data from 294 PLWHAs in the form of in-depth interviews (72.8% females and 27.2% males). They found that 42.9% of the households had \u201cunimproved\u201d water status, 67% had \u201cunimproved\u201d sanitation status, and 51.7% had poor hygienic practice. Diarrhoea with associated with water status, while educational status and latrine availability were associated with sanitation status. Lack of hand washing devices and the unaffordable cost of soap reduced hygienic practices. In conclusion, the authors found a high burden of water, sanitation and hygiene problems in home-based care services for PLWHAs. They recommend hygiene education and additional support for the provision of water, sanitation and hygiene services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Biotechnology: Growing Partnerships amongst Developing Countries","field_subtitle":"Thorsteinsdottir H (ed): International Development Research Centre (IDRC), 2012","field_url":"http://idl-bnc.idrc.ca/dspace/bitstream/10625/50243/1/IDL-50243.pdf","body":"This book presents a detailed account of South-South collaboration in the health biotechnology sector. In particular, it casts light on the factors that guide effective scientific partnerships and exchanges. The authors explore these issues by combining a wide range of quantitative and qualitative methodologies, including co-publications analyses, in-depth surveys of biotechnology firms and interviews with around 350 researchers, entrepreneurs and policy-makers in developing countries. The key findings indicate that the level of South-South collaboration among researchers in health biotechnology remains low but is slowly increasing and that entrepreneurial collaboration seems to be more prevalent. Collaboration has helped to extend capacity in health biotechnology research, manufacturing and innovation to an increasing number of developing countries and thereby lessened the divide between them. Such collaboration has strongly focused on shared health needs and has helped to increase the availability of more affordable health products and services. Governments and non-governmental organisations have also been able to foster closer ties between researchers by establishing programmes and extending funding for collaboration. Nevertheless there is still a lack of dedicated resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Call For Abstracts: Ninth World Congress On Health Economics: \"Celebrating Health Economics\": Sydney, Australia: 7-10 July 2013","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 15 January 2013 ","field_url":"https://www.healtheconomics.org/congress/2013 /","body":"All interested parties are invited to submit abstracts for the Ninth World Congress on Health Economics: \"Celebrating Health Economics\". Individual abstracts should not exceed 500 words. All accepted presenters are expected to register and pay by the deadlines listed on the Congress website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Transnational Health Care: A Cross-Border Symposium: Regions & Development (20-21 June 2013, Wageningen, Netherlands) and Itineraries & Transformations (24-25 June 2013, Leeds, United Kingdom) ","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 3 February 2013","field_url":"https://www.wageningenur.nl/en/show/Transnational-health-care.htm","body":"At a time in which the provision and regulation of health care within national boundaries is profoundly shifting, the growing numbers of people going abroad in pursuit of health care mean that the social, political and economic significance and impacts of these flows at a range of levels cannot be ignored. This symposium provides those involved in cutting-edge empirical and conceptual studies on this issue to share their work, explore emerging research agendas and foster research collaborations. Abstracts of no more than 250 words are welcomed on topics that include but are not limited to: empirical and conceptual studies of specific medical tourisms or locations; innovative methodologies and methods for researching medical travel; national and transnational medical cultures and their impacts on medical mobilities and \u2018translations\u2019; and new and emerging agendas for transnational healthcare research. Please submit abstracts to the symposium organisers as on the website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications: Research Methods Course in Sexual and Reproductive Health, HIV and Gender-Based Violence: 12\u201328 August 2013: Johannesburg, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Closing date : 1 March 2013","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c4vm67b","body":"Are you a clinician, researcher or other professional in the field of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) or HIV looking to improve your research skills? Are you currently conducting or planning to conduct SRH or HIV research in the near future and wanting to learn more about research methodology? The Research Methods Course in Sexual and Reproductive Health, HIV and Gender-Based Violence offers an opportunity to strengthen your research skills and your contribution to increased capacity for SRH and HIV research on the African continent. At the end of this intensive three-week course will you should be able to: initiate and participate in qualitative and quantitative research; critically appraise research findings; understand the major SRH/HIV issues affecting the African region; and access a network of other professionals in your field for information exchange and research collaboration. For more information on eligibility and course fees or to request an application form please contact Janine White-Jacobs at the email address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Capacity for Health Policy and Systems Research and Analysis in seven African universities","field_subtitle":"Mirzoev T, Le G, Kalliecharan R, Agyepong I, Erasmus E, Goudge J, Kamuzora P et al: November 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cjugxe2","body":"The Consortium for Health Policy and Systems Analysis in Africa (CHEPSAA) project (2011-2014) is a four-year collaboration between seven African and four European universities aimed at strengthening the capacity of universities in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and South Africa to: produce high quality health policy and systems research (HPSR); provide HPSR training; engage with networks; and communicate research into policy and practice. In this presentation given at the Second Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in November 2012, the authors present the results of their study to evaluate the performance of CHEPSAA and to evaluate HPSR capacity in the seven universities. The university-based institutes were found to share a vision for HPSR that relates to wider institutional purpose. While structures and processes to support HPSR exist, and HPSR \u2018champions\u2019 were identified in the study, the authors found these were undermined by succession challenges. Staff shortages were problematic, especially among especially senior staff. The institutes also exhibited different income patterns including unpredictable external funding. The authors conclude that local universities are central to strengthening HPSR capacity in Africa and CHEPSAA African partners already have sufficient capacity to build upon; however, HSPR in Africa is still an emerging field that needs support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges and Opportunities for HIV, AIDS and TB Budget Monitoring at Local Level in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Centre for Economic Governance and AIDS in Africa: 10 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.cegaa.org/projects/budget_monitoring_and_expenditure_tracking.htm","body":"This evaluation of the South African Budget Monitoring and Expenditure Tracking (BMET) project, which was launched in 2009, demonstrates that citizen involvement in economic governance is both possible and progressing. The project is aimed at improving the delivery, accessibility and affordability of treatment for people living with HIV and AIDS and TB. Project interventions have reached a range of targeted beneficiaries and achieved a positive impact in four key aspects. First, community engagement has stimulated community members\u2019 interest in budget issues relating to health care provision and mobilising for improvements. Second, health workers have a better understanding of their own and their client-community needs towards enhancing facility systems. Third, citizens are empowered with skills to research and track the quality of HIV and AIDS and TB services in their community and demand answers. Finally, collaboration on resolving longstanding and complex health service delivery problems has been enhanced because citizens, organisations and health authorities have a shared, relational understanding of both the barriers to and the opportunities for change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Choosing pathways that lead to  universal coverage: what are the options?","field_subtitle":"Di McIntyre, University of Cape Town Health Economics Unit, University of  Cape Town","field_url":"","body":" \r\nThere is consensus that states have an obligation to ensure Universal coverage (UC), through creating and realising an entitlement for everyone to be protected against the costs of health services and to have access to the effective, quality services they need.  From an equity perspective, social solidarity is essential to achieve UC, through income cross-subsidies (from the rich to the poor) so that payments are based on the ability to pay, and risk cross-subsidies (from the healthy to the ill) so that people access health services based on need and not ability to pay. \r\n\r\nSo what options do east and southern African (ESA) countries have to reach this goal? While there may be some distance before reaching UC, the choices made at this stage are critical for ensuring steady progress towards it. \r\n\r\nThe 2010 World Health Organisation\u2019s World Health Report unequivocally states that it is not feasible to achieve UC through voluntary enrolment in health insurance schemes.  A number of ESA countries are introducing community-based health insurance (CBHI) as one means of pre-payment. These schemes will not move a country towards UC, although they may temporarily assist vulnerable households until mandatory pre-payment funding increases considerably and user fees are removed. However there is a potential danger that their existence may allow governments to abrogate their responsibility to promote mandatory pre-payment funding mechanisms. \r\n\r\nVoluntary schemes can only be complementary or supplementary to mandatory pre-payment financing mechanisms, including tax and mandatory insurance.  From international experience,  mandatory pre-payment funding is well over 60% (and often over 70%) of all health service expenditure in countries that have health systems that are regarded as universal.   \r\n\r\nMany African countries are now discussing or introducing mandatory health insurance (MHI) schemes.  However, caution should be exercised.  If MHI contributions are placed in a separate pool to benefit the contributors only (which often is the case) this creates a tiered and inequitable system that does not ensure that all have the same service benefit entitlements. If the goal is to achieve universal coverage, then it is critical to minimise fragmentation in funding pools to achieve cross-subsidies. This means that if MHI is introduced, the funds collected from it should be pooled with those from government revenue to fund benefits for the whole population.  \r\n\r\nThere has also been some investigation into introducing MHI contributions by those outside the formal employment sector. This should receive more critical assessment than there has been to date, especially as such contributions are strongly regressive and generate little revenue.  If there is political insistence on generating funding from those outside the formal employment sector, indirect taxes, such as VAT,  are a more equitable and efficient mechanism for achieving this goal, particularly in low-income countries.  However, in the context of the large income inequalities present in many east and southern African countries, efforts to improve the collection of taxes from high net-worth individuals and multinational corporations may be more appropriate.  Further, some countries are generating  revenue for health from royalties on natural resources such as gold, copper and oil, and not only from taxes. \r\n\r\nThere is often an almost automatic assumption that there is no \u2018fiscal space\u2019 to increase funding of health services from government revenue.  It is important to critically examine this assumption. \r\n\r\nGovernment revenues in ESA countries range widely from about 12% of GDP in Madagascar to 33% in the DRC, while government expenditure ranges from less than 13% of GDP in Madagascar to 33% in Mozambique. These ranges are considerably lower than the levels in advanced economies for both government revenue (36%) and expenditure (44%).  Government debt levels are considerably lower in ESA countries, ranging from less than 26% of GDP in Zambia to 64% in Madagascar, than the average for advanced economies of over 100%. Given that all of these measures are expressed relative to GDP and that some lower-income countries are able to attain higher levels of revenue and expenditure, there does appear to be scope to explore increasing the fiscal space within the so-called emerging markets and low-income countries.\r\n\r\nHealth financing policy choices not only relate to how revenue is mobilised for UC. Purchasing involves determining service benefit entitlements (what services are purchased with the pooled funds and how people will be able to access these services) and how service providers will be paid.  Attention should be given to more active purchasing. This requires identifying the health service needs of the population, aligning services to these needs, paying providers in a way that creates incentives for the efficient provision of quality services, monitoring the performance of providers and taking action against poor performance.  Active purchasing is critical for ensuring that available funds translate into effective health services accessible to all.\r\n\r\nMoving towards universal coverage also requires improvements in service delivery and management.  In particular, emphasis should be placed on improving services at the primary health service level, which are effective in reaching the poor and which are able to address most of the health service needs of the population in ESA countries.  Improving primary health services offers the greatest potential for increasing population coverage affordably.  In addition, it is important to broaden the decision-space of managers at facility and district level, so that they can be more responsive to patients\u2019 and staff needs and to the incentives created through active purchasing.  Equally decentralisation of management responsibility should be accompanied by development of governance structures that allow for accountability to the local community.\r\n\r\nEast and southern African countries have some way to go in moving toward UC.  The choices made at various points in the journey will be important for achieving that goal. While the detail of those choices will depend on the context in each country, international experience and regional evidence suggest that far more emphasis should be placed on government revenue funding for health services and that funds from mandatory health insurance schemes should be pooled with funds from government revenue. We also need a richer body of evidence, including from research, to support active purchasing of services and measures for addressing service delivery and management challenges, as these are essential if universal access to services of appropriate quality is to be achieved.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit www.equinetafrica.org and read EQUINET Discussion paper 95: McIntyre D (2012) \u2018Health service financing for universal coverage in east and southern Africa\u2019 ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil Society Call to Action at the GAVI Partner\u2019s Forum 2012","field_subtitle":"ACTION and the GAVI civil society constituency: 7 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.action.org/newsroom/press-releases/action-asks-gavi-alliance-to-support-greater-civil-society-engagement","body":"ACTION and the GAVI civil society constituency have issued this statement urging the GAVI Alliance to support increased participation from civil society in its funding, strategy and governance. The GAVI Alliance is a public-private partnership that works to increase access to immunisation in developing nations. This Call to Action was presented at the GAVI Alliance Partners\u2019 Forum in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where more than 600 global health leaders gathered in early December to discuss accelerating progress in global immunisation. The statement calls on GAVI to recognise the vibrant role played by civil society representatives in the Forum and their vital contributions to delivering vaccinations and care, reaching unimmunised children, as well as mobilising resources for health and immunisations. The signatories are hoping that GAVI will articulate in its next business plan how civil society contributes to each of GAVI\u2019s strategic objectives, and will create a second seat on the GAVI Alliance Board for a civil society representative.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil Society Statement on the occasion of the Second Southern Africa Regional Child Rights Conference","field_subtitle":"Save the Children et al: 5 November 2012","field_url":"http://childrensrightsconference2012.blogspot.com/","body":"At a meeting on 1-2 November 2012 in Johannesburg, child rights organisations from across Southern Africa brought together a number of stakeholders \u2013 including parliamentarians, government officials and various civil society organisations \u2013 to meet under the auspices of the Child Rights Network for Southern Africa (CRNSA) and to reflect on building a strong child rights movement in Southern Africa. In this statement, they call on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to adopt a specific children\u2019s protocol, ensuring meaningful participation of children at various levels of decision making, in particular helping each country to establish a state-funded children\u2019s Parliament. At the same time, SADC should make state parties implement its basic minimum package of services for children, domesticate regional and international instruments that state parties have ratified and allocate and increase budgets for children at all levels while guaranteeing meticulous budget monitoring. The signatories further call on SADC governments to ensure timeous reporting to treaty bodies, especially the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child \u2013 to whom only Tanzania has reported \u2013 as well as prioritise child abuse prevention and early intervention programmes, expeditiously pass comprehensive child-related laws and policies, act as role models in championing children rights and address the contradictions arising from the existence of dual legal systems (customary law and civil law), notably in the case of harmful cultural practices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Closing the access barrier for effective antimalarials in the private sector in rural Uganda: consortium for ACT private sector subsidy (CAPSS) pilot study","field_subtitle":"Talisuna AO, Daumerie P, Balyeku A, Egan T, Piot B, Coghlan R et al:Malaria Journal 11(356), 29 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-356.pdf","body":"Between August 2007 and May 2010, the Uganda Ministry of Health and the Medicines for Malaria Venture conducted the Consortium for ACT Private Sector Subsidy (CAPSS) pilot study to test whether access to artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) for malaria in the private sector could be improved through the provision of a high level supply chain subsidy. Four intervention districts were purposefully selected to receive branded subsidised medicines, while the fifth district acted as the control. Researchers analysed the intervention's impact on: ACT uptake and price; purchase of ACT within 24 hours of symptom onset; ACT availability and displacement of sub-optimal anti-malarial. At baseline, ACT accounted for less than 1% of anti-malarials purchased from licensed drug shops for children less than five years old. However, at evaluation, it accounted for 69 % of anti-malarial purchased in the interventions districts. Purchase of ACT within 24 hours of symptom onset for children under five years rose from 0.8 % at baseline to 26.2 % at evaluation in the intervention districts. These data demonstrate that a supply-side subsidy and an intensive communications campaign significantly increased the uptake and use of ACT in the private sector in Uganda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Commonwealth Foundation's Grants for Civil Society Organisations","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 31 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.fundsforngos.org/latest-funds-for-ngos/commonwealth-foundations-grants-civil-society-organizations/","body":"The Commonwealth Foundation has announced a new grant opportunity for civil society organisations (CSOs) for projects to be implemented in Commonwealth developing countries. The Foundation\u2019s grants programme contributes to sustainable development in the context of effective, responsive and accountable governance with civil society participation. There are two types of grants: Commonwealth Theme Grants and Participatory Governance Grants. Commonwealth Themes grants will open for applications in 2013 while the Participatory Governance Grants can now be applied for. Grants will be given to selected organisations for a period of three years amounting up to \u00a330,000 per year. The objectives of the grant programme are to: deliver an efficient and effective programme which is responsive to the development needs of CSOs across the Commonwealth; complement the effectiveness of the Foundation\u2019s projects by providing grants to CSOs beyond those supported through the projects; and generate knowledge and understanding of participatory governance and its benefits in promoting effective, responsive and accountable governance within the Commonwealth by supporting models of good practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Comprehensive family hygiene promotion in peri-urban Cape Town: Gastrointestinal and respiratory illness and skin infection reduction in children aged under 5","field_subtitle":"Cole EC, Hawkley M, Rubino JR and Crookst BT: South African Journal of Child Health 6(4):109-117, November 2012","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajchh/article/view/83553/73582","body":"In this study, researchers hypothesised that a participatory learning and action (PLA) family hygiene education approach plus the regular use of hygiene products could result in marked reduction of morbidity in children aged under five years. They sampled 685 households in two separate areas in Cape Town. Two groups received hygiene education only (control) and the other two groups hygiene education plus hygiene products (intervention). Results indicated that children aged under five years in all communities had significant reductions in gastrointestinal and respiratory illnesses and skin infections over time. The first control group with hygiene education only was 2.46 times more likely to experience gastrointestinal illnesses and 4.56 times more likely to experience respiratory illnesses at study follow-up than the corresponding intervention group. The second control group with hygiene education only was 1.64 times more likely to experience gastrointestinal illnesses, 4.62 times more likely to experience respiratory illnesses and 1.29 times more likely to experience skin infections than the intervention group. In conclusion, while hygiene education alone resulted in meaningful reductions in the three conditions, families with hygiene education plus consistent use of provided hygiene products had greater reductions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Constitutional Court victory over prison TB infection","field_subtitle":"South African Broadcasting Corporation: Wednesday 12 December 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/721084004dc76ec98eefbff251b4e4e2/Man-sues-over-prison-TB-infection-20121212","body":"In a landmark case, South Africa\u2019s Constitutional Court ruled on 10 December 2012 in favour of a claimant who contracted tuberculosis (TB) during a stint in Pollsmoor Prison, Cape Town. The Constitutional Court decided that prison authorities had failed to implement adequate TB prevention measures among inmates, arguing that there was a causal link between this and the spread of TB. Section 27, a health rights group, has meanwhile warned prison authorities against neglecting TB prevention in prisons. Crowded cells in the prison leading to the spread of TB are argued to be a violation of prisoners\u2019 right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Course on resource mobilisation: Malawi Country training on Resource Mobilisation, Project Planning and Proposal Writing","field_subtitle":"28 January-1 February 2012: Lilongwe, Malawi ","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/ifdm%40wananchi.com/","body":"The Malawi Country Training on Resource Mobilisation, Project Planning and Proposal Writing is part of a series of workshops designed to help strengthen the resource base of non-profit organisations in the region. The training is intended to equip participants with skills in resource mobilisation, business planning and proposal writing in order to promote their activities, services and benefits. The training seeks to build and enhance the capacity of participants to actively mobilise resources in order to meet the increasing challenges facing them and their institutions. It will help participants to gain an understanding of resource mobilisation principles and practices. Participants will learn the time-tested principles that govern the resource mobilisation process and fundamentals that lead to resource mobilisation success. For more information, contact Dr John Chikati at the email address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Crossing the quality chasm in resource-limited settings ","field_subtitle":"Maru DS, Andrews J, Schwarz D, Schwarz R, Acharya B, Ramaiya A, Karelas G et al: Globalization and Health 8(41), 30 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-8-41.pdf","body":"Despite extensive scientific and policy innovations in quality of care, the authors raise a gap in quality in resource-limited areas that undermine effective access to healthcare for poor people. In this perspective piece, the authors propose six actions to address this: revise global health investment mechanisms to value quality; enhance investment in the role of health persinnel for improving quality; scale up data capacity; deepen community accountability and engagement initiatives; implement evidence-based quality improvement programmes; and develop an implementation science research agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"CSOs, policy-makers and the private sector meet to discuss the future of aid","field_subtitle":"Villota C: European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad), 29 November 2012","field_url":"http://eurodad.org/1544109/?utm_source=CiviCRM&utm_campaign=2fa9f64496-e_CIVICUS609&utm_medium=email","body":"On 15 November 2012 Eurodad and Oxfam International organised the public seminar \u2018The future of aid and development effectiveness\u2019 to debate the role of aid in the post-Busan agenda. At the seminar, presenters highlighted how the ineffective practices of external funders and recipient countries continue to constrain the full potential of aid to deliver development outcomes. Participants agreed that it is essential to monitor progress towards commitments on a rolling basis, but called for caution when using results-based approaches to aid, arguing that increasing pressure on aid budgets and calls for greater accountability should not be translated into modalities that undermine aid effectiveness principles. In order to prevent this from happening, the aid effectiveness agenda should serve as a reference framework to ensure that new aid modalities are an improvement over existing ones. While some considered a results-based approach as a way to ensure that aid is effective, others regarded it as quick win and a funder-driven agenda for times of crisis that could reverse the progress made so far in developing more equitable aid programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Defending civil society","field_subtitle":"International Centre for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL), World Movement for Democracy Secretariat the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law 14(3): 5-61, September 2012","field_url":"http://www.icnl.org/research/journal/vol14iss3/v14n3%20final.pdf","body":"While many civil society activists continue to face traditional forms of repression, like imprisonment, some governments have become more subtle in their efforts to curb civil society organisation (CSO) space. This report provides illustrative examples of the legal barriers used to constrain this space. It also considers major challenges, such as restrictions on the use of new technologies, measures against public movements and peaceful assemblies, and the unintended consequences of efforts to enhance the effectiveness of foreign aid. After a discussion of the international principles protecting civil society, which are embedded in international law, ICNL calls on democratic governments and international organisations to recognise, protect, and promote fundamental rights to freedom of assembly and of association, and to raise the level of their engagement with CSOs in platforms such as the Community of Democracies\u2019 Working Group on Enabling and Protecting Civil Society and the UN Special Rapporteur\u2019s mandate. At the same time, CSOs are urged to deepen their understanding of legal frameworks governing them and build capacity to engage in reform of regressive frameworks. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 94: Resource Mobilisation for Health under the Zimbabwe Investment Case 2010-2012","field_subtitle":"Shamu S: EQUINET, 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQDiss94%20Ziminvcase2012.pdf","body":"This review assesses the resource mobilisation and allocation performance and challenges faced by the MoHCW in meeting the target set out in its Investment Case. As the Investment Case was meant to complement the annual government budget and resource mobilisation efforts by other players, the review took these resources into account in assessing the level and direction of funding. The review specifically looked at the response from funders of the health sector to the Investment Case, in terms of what resources were raised and the successes and challenges associated with raising the intended resources. It assesses the resources raised and some of the health outputs from these resources. The study included interviews with key informants in the Ministry, review of policy documents and analysis of financial data from government and external funders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 95: Health service financing for universal coverage in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D: EQUINET, 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss%20paper%2095%20UHC%20Dec2012.pdf","body":"In this paper, the author considers elements of the design of health systems and how these relate to moving towards universal care in the context of Africa. She focuses particularly on health financing issues (revenue collection, pooling and purchasing), but also raises health service delivery and management issues. In relation to revenue collection, the global consensus is that in order to pursue universal coverage, it is critical to reduce reliance on out-of-pocket payments as a means of funding health services. The author notes that the key focus in moving towards universal coverage should be on mandatory prepayment mechanisms and discusses the options for these. The common assumption of limited fiscal space for increased government spending on the health sector should be challenged and the fiscal space envelop pushed. While mandatory health insurance schemes can also contribute to generating additional revenue for health services, these funds should be pooled with funds from government revenue. Although there is limited evidence in relation to purchasing in east and southern African countries, introducing active purchasing of services, as well as addressing service delivery and management challenges, will be essential if universal access to services of appropriate quality is to be achieved.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Does the equity fund in Madagascar target bene\ufb01ts to the poorest members of society and those most in need?","field_subtitle":"Honda A, University of Cape Town: November 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bssujtc","body":"Targeting to identify the poorest or those most in need of exemptions has proven a major challenge under exemption schemes in terms of protecting the poor from &#64257;nancial risk. In this presentation given at the Second Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in November 2012, the author discusses her research into Madagascar\u2019s Equity Fund, which is intended to exempt the poorest in Madagascar from costs such as user fees at health facilities. She assessed the accuracy of the Fund\u2019s targeting process to determine who receives benefits by examining whether the socio-economic status of equity fund bene&#64257;ciaries was lower than that of non-bene&#64257;ciaries, as well as identify factors in&#64258;uencing the targeting outcomes. Results suggested that bene&#64257;ciaries were reasonably well targeted; however, both leakage and under-coverage occurred. Coverage remains very low, with con&#64258;icts of interest between health administrators and village level agents. The local health administration could not monitor or in&#64258;uence village level agents\u2019 behaviour during bene&#64257;ciary identi&#64257;cation. Monitoring, decision-making and managerial mechanisms were re-shaped to allow health administrators to in&#64258;uence the number of indigents registered on the list. In addition, a re-orientation of the policy objectives changed the emphasis of equity fund operations to favour &#64257;nancial performance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Does treatment collection and observation each day keep the patient away? Analysing the determinants of adherence among patients with TB in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Birch S, Govender V, Fried J, Eyles J, Daries V, Moshabela M and Cleary S: Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town, November 2012","field_url":"http://uct-heu.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/HSR-Beijing-2012.pdf","body":"In this presentation given at the Second Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in November 2012, researchers presented the results of a study in which they evaluated the effectiveness of daily observation of drug consumption at tuberculosis (TB) clinics in South Africa. They conducted 1,200 patient exit interviews with patients in 30 different TB facilities, as well as 17 in-depth interviews to understand patient access barriers. Findings indicated that the requirement for daily observation of drug consumption at clinics imposes substantial costs on patients, and this may impact adversely on adherence. In multivariate regressions, patients that visited the facility on a daily basis (versus other) were more than twice as likely to report missing their TB medication (after controlling for other factors). Qualitative findings suggest that long travel distances to facilities, the cost of transport, and the opportunity cost of clinic attendance were some of the factors influencing adherence. Less frequent clinic visits may be a win-win for TB treatment because of: improved efficiency through reduced provider costs; higher adherence; and lower patient access barriers to care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Early life opportunities for prevention of diabetes in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Hanson MA, Gluckman PD, Ma RCW, Matzen P and Biesma RG: BMC Public Health 12(1025), 23 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-1025.pdf","body":"Research has shown that if prospective parents lose weight and reduce weight gain during pregnancy, this may lower the risk of their unborn children from developing non-communicable diseases in later life. Interventions have been launched in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to get these adults to lose weight, yet they have limited impact. As an alternative, the authors of this paper argue that the most promising strategy to improve prospective parents' body composition and lifestyle is the promotion of health literacy in adolescents. Multiple but integrated forms of community-based interventions that focus on nutrition, physical activity, family planning, breastfeeding and infant feeding practices are needed. They need to address the wider social economic context in which adolescents live and to be linked with existing public health programmes in sexual and reproductive health and maternal and child health initiatives. Addressing the promotion of such health literacy in parents-to-be in LMICs requires a wider social perspective. A range of multisectoral agencies will have to work together and could be linked to issues of women's empowerment, reproductive health, communicable disease prevention and Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 (maternal and child health).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter #143: Choosing pathways that lead to universal coverage: what are the options? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in financing and use of health care in Ghana, South Africa, and Tanzania: implications for paths to universal coverage","field_subtitle":"Mills , Ataguba JE, Akazili J, Borghi J, Garshong B, Makawia S, Mtei G, McIntyre D et al: The Lancet 380(9837): 126\u2013133, 14 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2812%2960357-2/abstract","body":"In this study, researchers conducted a whole-system analysis - integrating both public and private sectors - of the equity of health-system financing and service use in Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania. They used primary and secondary data to calculate the progressivity of each health-care financing mechanism, catastrophic spending on health care, and the distribution of health-care benefits. Overall, health-care financing was found to be progressive in all three countries, as were direct taxes. Indirect taxes were regressive in South Africa but progressive in Ghana and Tanzania. Out-of-pocket payments were regressive in all three countries. Health-insurance contributions by those outside the formal sector were regressive in both Ghana and Tanzania. The overall distribution of service benefits in all three countries favoured richer people, although the burden of illness was greater for lower-income groups. Access to needed, appropriate services was the biggest challenge to universal coverage in all three countries. These findings raise questions over the appropriate financing mechanism for the health care of people outside the formal sector. Physical and financial barriers to service access must be addressed if universal coverage is to become a reality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Feminism and intellectual property: Will women judges make a difference?","field_subtitle":"Hamalengwa M: Pambazuka News 609, 6 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/85689","body":"In this article, the author asks whether the increasing number of women in the judiciary and politics will affect intellectual property regimes in both law and in politics. The author briefly describes articles written by feminists analyse the gendered nature of intellectual property law. Some papers argue that an increase in the past 40 years in the encroachment of private ownership rights at the expense of the public domain has raised gender inequalities. The public domain recognises the communal roots of creation, rather than the individual \u201cinventor\u201d, and has a primary concern of looking after people, not individual success based on money, which is a concern of business. These different features of public and private interests and social and collective spaces are analysed for the gender norms they reflect and their gender related consequences. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Filling the gap: A learning network for health and human rights in the Western Cape, South Africa","field_subtitle":"London L, Fick N, Tram KH and Stuttaford M: Health and Human Rights 14(1): 1-18, June 2012","field_url":"http://www.hhrjournal.org/index.php/hhr/article/view/452/764","body":"The authors of this paper draw on the experiences of a Learning Network for Health and Human Rights (LN) involving collaboration between academic institutions and civil society organisations in the Western Cape, South Africa. The LN\u2019s work in materials development, participatory research, training and capacity-building for action, and advocacy for intervention illustrates important lessons for human rights practice, they argue. These include: actively translating knowledge and awareness into action to make rights real; civil society\u2019s role in holding services accountable in terms of the right to health; the need for civil society to promote rights in general; and the critical importance of networking and solidarity for building civil society capacity to act for health rights. Civil society can play a key role in bridging a gap between formal state commitment to creating a human rights culture and realising services and policies that enable the most vulnerable members of society to advance their health. Rights violations can be redressed through access to information and the creation of safe, participatory spaces. Civil society agency is critical to such action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Financial Regulation, Human Rights and Sustainability","field_subtitle":"CIVICUS: December 2012","field_url":"http://civicus.org/images/Fin_Reg_HR_and_sustainability.pdf","body":"How can an integrated and inclusive approach of human rights and sustainable development be applied to financial regulation? CIVICUS argues that it will have to begin by giving the financial sector a role that is subservient to the \u2018real\u2019 economy, a real economy that in turn should support ecological sustainability and human rights and not a \u2018paper\u2019 economy based on futures trading. It points out that the recent financial crisis shows that market self-regulation does not work, calling for government intervention and regulation. CIVICUS makes three major proposals. First, given that markets in natural resources offer a field to expand paper profits while worsening equity in access to resources and conservation, CIVICUS call for new economic benchmarks and note that the Gross Domestic Product-based (GDP) is not an accurate benchmark of progress. Second, financing should be provided for sustainable modes of production, often small scale endeavours. Third, financial regulation should incentivise investment in production activities vs the paper economy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Five Reasons Why Urban Farming is the Most Important Movement of our Time","field_subtitle":"Kumar R: GOOD, 19 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.good.is/posts/five-reasons-why-urban-farming-is-the-most-important-movement-of-our-time","body":"In this article, the author, an environmental blogger, puts forward five reasons why urban farming is one of the major social movements in the world today. First, the urban farming movement has the potential to reinvigorate local commerce by encouraging local farmers to trade with one another. Second, urban farmers are usually better stewards of their land because they directly bear the ecological costs of their actions, whereas industrial agriculture usually manoeuvers to avoid paying for environmental costs. Rather than using chemicals that destroy soil biology, urban farming culture stresses sustainable organic techniques that enrich the topsoil. Third, urban farming makes it clearer and easier for people to be involved in local politics by bringing issues that directly affect communities to the fore. Fourth, urban agriculture can also bring about a revolution of health and nutrition because it supplies fresh, organic produce. And finally, urban farming is inherently an activity that helps build a sense of community. Growing food is, after all, a cooperative effort, as knowledge of how and what to grow is exchanged, seeds are swapped, labour is shared, and the harvest is traded. As urban farming grows, the author predicts a stronger interdependence within urban communities is likely to result as local food systems bring more community interaction into people\u2019s daily lives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender differences in public perceptions on National Health Insurance","field_subtitle":"Evans M and Shisana O: South African Medical Journal 102(12): 918-924, December 2012","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/6397/4634","body":"South Africa is in the process of implementing a National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme to address drastic inequalities in the health sector and transform the health system. In particular, NHI is expected to have a significant positive impact on females, who are disadvantaged under the current system, with higher rates of poor health and lower rates of medical scheme membership. Despite NHI\u2019s transformative potential, however, the public discourse on NHI as portrayed in the media suggests that it is an unpopular policy. The authors of this paper assessed the general public\u2019s opinion on NHI and explored gender differences in perceptions, using data from a 2010 survey of the South African population that looked at social attitudes. They found that there is broad public acceptance of NHI, with an overwhelming majority of South Africans preferring an NHI system to the current two-tiered system. More females than males said they supported NHI, reflecting the potential of the NHI system to have a positive impact on gender equality and the health of women and girls. It appears that support for NHI has increased since similar studies in 2005 and 2008, with the simultaneous growth of public discourse on the policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Geographical access to care at birth in Ghana: a barrier to safe motherhood  ","field_subtitle":"Gething PW, Johnson FA, Frempong-Ainguah F, Nyarko P, Baschieri A, Aboagye P et al: BMC Public Health 12(991), 16 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-991.pdf","body":"Appropriate facility-based care at birth is a key determinant of safe motherhood but geographical access remains poor in many regions with high maternal mortality. In this study, the authors combined a detailed set of spatially-linked data and a calibrated geospatial model to undertake a national-scale audit of geographical access to maternity care at birth in Ghana. They estimated journey-time for all women of childbearing age (WoCBA) to their nearest health facility. Findings indicated that a third of women (34%) in Ghana live beyond the clinically significant two-hour threshold from facilities likely to offer emergency obstetric and neonatal care (EmONC) classed at the \u2018partial\u2019 standard or better. Nearly half (45%) live that distance or further from \u2018comprehensive\u2019 EmONC facilities, offering life-saving blood transfusion and surgery. In the most remote regions these figures rose to 63% and 81%, respectively. The authors conclude that their approach, using detailed data assembly combined with geospatial modeling, can provide accurate nation-wide audits of geographical access to care at birth to support systemic maternal health planning, human resource deployment, and strategic targeting. Current international benchmarks of maternal health care provision are inadequate for these purposes, they argue, because they fail to take account of the location and accessibility of services relative to the women they serve.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Getting Started: A medical research and development primer","field_subtitle":"FasterCures: 2012","field_url":"http://fastercures.org/documents/file/FINAL%20GettingStarted.pdf","body":"This Primer contains  tools and resources to help navigate the medical research and development (R&D) paradigm. The Primer provides information on discovery research; translational research; clinical research; regulatory application and approval; and nonprofit actors and their roles in the R&D process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Primer","field_subtitle":"Bio Ventures for Global Health (BVGH): Last updated 15 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.bvgh.org/Biopharmaceutical-Solutions/Global-Health-Primer.aspx","body":"The Global Health Primer connects the innovators that drive research and development for new drugs, vaccines and diagnostics to the neglected diseases where innovation is desperately needed. It provides a source of compiled and synthesised information for 25 neglected diseases of the developing world and the drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics in use or in development for the management of these diseases. The Primer tracks and analyses progress in global health research and development, provides an evidence base to support decision making, policy change and action, and brings new innovators to the table to address the main medical needs of poor people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Income Inequality by the Numbers: In History and Now","field_subtitle":"Milanovic B: World Bank Research Working Paper 6259, November 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bd989gb","body":"This paper offers an overview of calculations of global inequality, recently and over the long-run as well as main controversies and political and philosophical implications of the findings. The author focuses in particular on the winners and losers of the most recent episode of globalisation, from 1988 to 2008. He suggests that the period might have witnessed the first decline in global inequality between world citizens since the Industrial Revolution. The decline however can be sustained only if countries\u2019 mean incomes continue to converge (as they have been doing during the past ten years) and if internal (within-country) inequalities, which are already high, are kept in check. Mean-income convergence would also reduce the huge \u201ccitizenship premium\u201d that is enjoyed today by the citizens of rich countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Maternal Health Conference 2013","field_subtitle":"15-17 January 2013: Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania","field_url":"http://maternalhealthtaskforce.org/conference /conference-website","body":"The Global Maternal Health Conference is a technical conference for scientists, researchers, and policy-makers to network, share knowledge, and build on progress toward eradicating preventable maternal mortality and morbidity by improving quality of care. The conference is co-sponsored by Management and Development for Health, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and the Maternal Health Task Force at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, US.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Green Economy or Green Society? Contestation and Policies for a Fair Transition","field_subtitle":"Smith K, Utting P and Cook S: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), November 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cvstjrb","body":"In this paper, the authors outline a conceptual and policy approach to bring social concerns more centrally into green economy and sustainable development debates. They first examine a wide range of social problems and other issues associated with the green economy, reasserting that any development transformation must be both green and fair, leading to a green society, not just a green economy. The authors argue in favour of comprehensive or transformative social policy, which goes beyond social protection, human capital formation or green jobs by also focusing on redistribution and social reproduction. Achieving a shift towards such policies will depend crucially on addressing the politics of governance itself, specifically, the ways different actors - particularly social movements and those most disadvantaged - contest ideas and policies, participate in governance, and organise and mobilise to resist and influence change. Such arenas of policy and action are crucial both from the perspective of distributional and procedural justice, as well as for driving deeper structural transformations. The authors conclude by highlighting issues of fragmentation associated with knowledge, institutional arrangements and social agency, and point to the need for \"joined-up analysis, policy and action\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Harmonisation of Africa\u2019s seeds laws: a recipe for disaster","field_subtitle":"African Centre for Biosafety: December 2012","field_url":"http://www.acbio.org.za/images/stories/dmdocuments/Harmonisation-of-seed-laws-in-Africa.pdf","body":"This report raises that World Bank, USAID, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) are pressuring African governments into harmonising seed laws relating to border control measures, phytosanitary control, variety release systems, certification standards and intellectual property rights, and indicate that this is to the detriment of African small-holder farmers and their seed systems. Harmonised intellectual property rights over seeds are based on the 1991 Act of the International Union of the Protection of Plant Varieties (UPOV) as developed by industrialised countries, and the authors argue that this Act is inappropriate for Africa where 80% of all seeds are still produced and disseminated by smallholder farmers. The authors report that seed harmonisation efforts have excluded farmer and civil society participation and that the current practices of small-scale African farmers and their contribution to seed breeding, genetic diversity and food security are not recognised. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Hazards in Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs): Investors\u2019 rights vs public health","field_subtitle":"Correa C: South Views, 6 December 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bm7v769","body":"Many developing countries have entered into bilateral investment treaties (BITs) to protect foreign direct investment (FDI), which entail substantial restrictions on the sovereignty of recipient countries. At the end of 2011, 2,833 BITs had been signed worldwide. The granting of legal protection to foreign investors under BITs and other agreements (such as chapters in free trade agreements negotiated with developed countries) has often been seen as necessary to attract FDI. However, the author of this article argues that it is doubtful whether they have actually been effective in generating investment flows and promoting development gains. Moreover, many low or middle income countries that have signed BITs have been sentenced by international arbitral tribunals to pay millions of dollars as a result of alleged violations to these treaties. The authors caution that awards by tribunals have been based on overbroad definitions in the agreements and ambiguous legal standards such as \u201cfair and equitable treatment\u201d that have led to negative court outcomes for policies adopted in the public interest. The author presents a case study of Uruguay, where the government is being sued by a major tobacco manufacturer for issuing stricter packaging and labelling requirements for cigarettes to reduce tobacco consumption.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health in South Africa: changes and challenges since 2009","field_subtitle":"Mayosi BM, Lawn JE, van Niekerk A, Bradshaw D, Karim SSA,  Coovadia HM: The Lancet 380(9858): 2029-2043, 8 December 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c4lc2ll","body":"According to this evaluation, South Africa has improved most of its health indicators since 2009, significantly expanded its programme of antiretroviral therapy and launched an ambitious government policy to address lifestyle risks, as well as an integrated strategic framework for prevention of injury and violence, which remains to be implemented. A radical system of national health insurance and re-engineering of primary health care will be phased in over 14 years to enable universal, equitable and affordable health-care coverage. National consensus has been reached about seven priorities for health research with a commitment to increase the health research budget to 2% of national health spending. However, large racial differentials still exist in the social determinants of health, Integration of services for HIV, tuberculosis and non-communicable diseases needs to improve, as do surveillance and information systems. Additionally, successful interventions need to be delivered more widely. The authors conclude that transformation of the health system into a national institution that is based on equity and merit and is built on an effective human-resources system could still place South Africa on track to achieve the health-related Millennium Development Goals 4, 5 and 6.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Hitting the Target? Evaluating the Effectiveness of Results-based Approaches to Aid","field_subtitle":"Pereira J and Villota C: European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad), September 2012","field_url":"http://eurodad.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Hitting_the_target.pdf","body":"In this report, the authors assess the potential of results-based approaches to deliver long-term and sustainable results by measuring the performance of different initiatives against widely agreed aid effectiveness principles. They found that, in general, results-based approaches are not particularly good at supporting aid effectiveness principles but broader approaches do appear to be better aligned with the principles. Ownership tends to be higher when the responsibility for designing programmes falls on recipient governments. This does not mean that funder-led approaches cannot achieve significant degrees of ownership, but results are likely to be less consistent, have higher costs and impose a significant burden on host governments and civil society. Results-based approaches tend to reinforce accountability to external funders and in doing so, undermine mutual accountability. In general, the problem is less acute with country-wide initiatives and it is most pressing when working through third party service providers. In addition, the level of harmonisation of results-based approaches is low because of their widespread use of parallel structures. Eligibility and public financial management criteria demanded by funders can further influence and limit the type of country systems that recipient countries can implement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"How to keep ART patients in longer-term care: ART adherence club report and toolkit","field_subtitle":"M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res: 1 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.msf.org.za/publication/art-club-toolkit","body":"Piloted by M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, the antiretroviral therapy (ART) Adherence Club model focuses on patient participation and peer support for improved treatment adherence. This simple model allows patient groups to collect pre-packed, two-month supplies of treatment from lay health workers either at the clinic or outside of the clinic, such as a local library or a fellow patient\u2019s home. ART Adherence Clubs give stable, adherent HIV patients easier access to their treatment, while unclogging clinics and freeing up scarce nurses and doctors to manage new or at-risk HIV patients. This practical toolkit includes a step-by-step \u2018How-to\u2019 guide, two short films and additional information on tailoring the model to various contexts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Incentivising private specialists to work in the public health sector: Expanding \u2018session work\u2019 in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Ashmore J: Health Economics Unit (HEU), University of Cape Town: Policy Brief, November 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c93jw3f","body":"This policy brief aims to understand whether or how session work in hospitals could be expanded to help achieve universal health coverage. About 14% of private sector specialists work part-time in public hospitals, through what is known as \u2018session work\u2019. Private specialists undertake session work for a number of mainly non-financial reasons, such as to \u2018give back\u2019 to the public sector and to teach in academic hospitals. There are a number of private specialists who seem interested in working in the public sector in future, but the pay is very low for session work. The author argues that higher session wages may induce specialists to leave full-time public work to undertake private and session work. Thus it may be important to only give new session worker posts to those who have already left the public sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequalities and the Post-2015 Development Agenda ","field_subtitle":"Al-Adhami R and Razavi S: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), November 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/8z9q94b","body":"In this policy brief, the authors highlight worsening income inequalities between and within countries in recent decades, while noting that gender inequalities are narrowing at a snail\u2019s pace. They argue that increases in inequality are partly due to the neglect of policy instruments to promote equality of outcome in favour of approaches that claim to create equality of opportunity. Current social discontent and distrust of government highlight the urgency of addressing inequality head-on: reducing inequality should be should be high on the post-2015 development agenda and should be seen as a goal in itself. It should also be re&#64258;ected in other goals. The authors recommend that development targets should be set for within-country inequalities, including inequalities across regions, gender, ethnicity and income status. Proposed targets and indicators could include: inequality expressed in terms of the top and bottom deciles/ventiles; wages vs. pro&#64257;ts (functional distribution of income); gender-based wage gaps; other labour market indicators, such as median wage, existence of minimum wage, percentage of labour force with social protection (female, male); and female/male ratio of unpaid work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge and performance of the Ethiopian health extension workers on antenatal and delivery care: a cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Medhanyie A, Spigt M, Dinant GJ and Blanco R: Human Resources for Health 10(44), 21 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-10-44.pdf","body":"In recognition of the critical shortage of human resources within health services, community health workers in Ethiopia have been trained and deployed to provide primary health care in developing countries. In this study, researchers investigated the knowledge and performance of these health extension workers (HEWs) on antenatal and delivery care, as well as the barriers to and facilitators for the provision of maternal health care. A total of 50 HEWs working in 39 health posts, covering a population of approximately 195,000 people, were interviewed. Almost half of the respondents had at least five years of work experience as a HEW. More than half (54%) of the HEWs had poor knowledge on contents of antenatal care counseling, and most (88%) had poor knowledge on danger symptoms, danger signs, and complications in pregnancy. Health posts, which are the operational units for HEWs, did not have basic infrastructure like water supply, electricity, and waiting rooms for women in labour. On average, within six months, a HEW assisted in only 5.8 births. Only a few births (10%) were assisted at the health posts, most (82%) were assisted at home and only 20% of HEWs received professional assistance from midwives. Based on these findings, there is an urgent need to design appropriate strategies to improve the performance of HEWs by enhancing their knowledge and competencies, while creating appropriate working conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"LDCs seek exemption from TRIPS agreement","field_subtitle":"Raja K: South Views, 12 December 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cxnr24p","body":"Least developed countries (LDCs) that are members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have submitted a request to the TRIPS Council for an extension of the transition period for them to comply with the TRIPS Agreement for as long as they are classified as LDCs. The request was submitted by Haiti, on behalf of the LDCs, at a meeting of the TRIPS Council on 6-7 November 2012. The exemption will continue to allow LDCs to access affordable medicines without the risk of violating patents on the medicines. Haiti argued that because of their extreme poverty, LDCs need the policy space to access various technologies, educational resources, and other tools necessary for development. Furthermore, LDCs have such small economies that they do not represent a significant loss of profits for pharmaceutical patent owners. Most intellectual property-protected commodities are simply priced beyond the purchasing power of these countries\u2019 governments and their nationals, the spokesperson for Haiti added. Haiti has asked for this issue to be put on the agenda of the next TRIPS Council meeting, scheduled to take place in March 2013.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Low nutrient intake among adult women and patients with severe tuberculosis disease in Uganda: a cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Mupere E, Parraga IM, Tisch DJ, Mayanja HK and Whalen CC: BMC Public Health 12(1050), 5 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-1050.pdf","body":"In this cross-sectional study, researchers screened 131 adults with or without pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) for HIV, wasting and disease severity using the 13-item validated clinical TB score and 24-hour dietary intake recall. Of the 131 participants, 61 were males and 70 females. Overall men and women had similar age. In average 24-hour nutrient intake, the following were low among patients with severe TB: energy, protein, total fat, carbohydrate, calcium, vitamin A and folate. Patients with moderate-to-severe clinical TB score had lower average energy intake than patients with mild TB scores (6.11 vs. 9.27 megajoules [MJ], respectively). The average 24-hour nutrient intakes of wasted and non-wasted TB patients were comparable. Nutrient intake among men was higher when compared to women regardless of wasting and severity of TB. Among those with wasting, men had higher average energy intake than women (8.87 vs. 5.81 MJ, respectively). Among patients with mild disease, men had higher average energy intake than women with mild disease (12.83 vs. 7.49 kcal, respectively). These findings suggest that severity of pulmonary TB and female gender were associated with reduced nutrient intake. Early diagnosis and nutritional support may be important in management of patients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Medical Internationalism in Cuba","field_subtitle":"Kirk JM: Weekend Edition 14-16 December 2012","field_url":"","body":"This article, based upon seven years of research and some 70 interviews with Cuban medical personnel, both in Cuba and abroad, seeks to provide a broad overview of the importance of Cuban medical internationalism. The article reviews several, different, programmes of medical cooperation in terms of basic data on their evolution and impact, and analysis of the rationale for their development. As of April 2012 there were 38,868 Cuban medical professionals working in 66 countries\u2013of whom 15,407 were doctors (approximately 20% of Cuba\u2019s 75,000 physicians). In Africa some 3,000 Cuban medical personnel are currently working in 35 of the continent\u2019s 54 countries, while in Venezuela alone there are approximately 30,000. But that is only part of the story, since there are many other significant facets to Cuban medical internationalism. In all cases the author suggests that 'human  capital' is the most important common denominator.  For over fifty years Cuban medical personnel have served the poorest and most neglected areas of the world, going where other doctors refused to go. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/37529","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mineral Rents and the Financing of Social Policy: Options and Constraints ","field_subtitle":"McCorley C, Hujo K and Al-Adhami R: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), December 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cknkte7","body":"In this policy brief, the authors argue that mineral wealth can be harnessed for equitable and sustainable development if countries: design and implement comprehensive, inclusive and rights-based social policies; build strong democratic institutions; and develop the policy space to foster productive diversification while safeguarding macroeconomic stability. Public revenues generated through mineral production can provide a starting point for building state capacity that delivers on economic and social development objectives. States should enhance their capacity to strategically mobilise and allocate resources, the authors argue, as well as enforce standards and regulations, and establish social pacts through funding, delivering and regulating social services and social programmes. For countries that are dependent on mineral revenues, social policy is a crucial instrument to harness the development potential of mineral wealth while helping to avoid the pitfalls associated with the resource curse.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevalence and predictors of giving birth in health facilities in Bugesera district, Rwanda","field_subtitle":"Joharifard S, Rulisa S, Niyonkuru F, Weinhold A, Sayinzoga F, Wilkinson J et al: BMC Public Health 12(1049), 5 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-1049.pdf","body":"The objectives of this study were to quantify secular trends in health facility delivery and to identify factors that affect the uptake of intrapartum healthcare services amongst women living in rural villages in Bugesera District, Eastern Province, Rwanda. Using census data, researchers selected 30 villages for community-based, cross-sectional surveys of women aged 18-50 who had given birth in the previous three years. Their analysis of 3,106 lifetime deliveries from 859 respondents showed a sharp increase in the percentage of health facility deliveries in recent years. The strongest correlates of facility-based delivery in Bugesera District include previous delivery at a health facility, possession of health insurance, greater financial autonomy, more recent interactions with the health system, and proximity to a health centre. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Right to Food website","field_subtitle":"Food and Agricultural Organisation: December 2012","field_url":"http://www.fao.org/righttofood","body":"This new Right to Food website was launched on Human Rights Day, 10 December 2012. In addition to a new design, improved functionalities and user friendly navigation, it also displays the diverse work of the Right to Food in the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). The Team\u2019s work at global, national, sub-national and regional level is divided into \u2018Projects\u2019 and according to activities in the \u2018Our Work\u2019 section making it easier for users to find the information needed. There is also a \u2018Publications\u2019 section, where you will find information on all aspects related to the human right to food \u2013 from principle to practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Risk factors for VIA positivity and determinants of screening attendances in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Kahesa C, Kjaer SK, Ngoma T, Mwaiselage J, Dartell M, Iftner T, Rasch V: BMC Public Health 12(1055), 7 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-1055.pdf","body":"In response to a high incidence of cervical cancer, Tanzania implemented \u201cvisual inspection of the cervix after acetic acid application\u201d (VIA) as a regional cervical cancer screening strategy in 2002. With the aim of describing risk factors for VIA positivity and determinants of screening attendances in Tanzania, this research paper presents the results from a comparative analysis performed among women who are reached and not reached by the screening programme. Researchers studied 14,107 women aged 25\u201359 enrolled in a cervical cancer screening programme in Dar es Salaam in the period 2002\u20132008. The women underwent VIA examination and took part in a structured questionnaire interview. Results indicated that women who are widowed/separated, of high parity, of low education and married at a young age are more likely to be VIA positive and thus at risk of developing cervical cancer. Although women who participated in the screening were more likely to be HIV positive in comparison with women who had never attended screening, the authors point out that this may be due to a referral link that exists between the HIV programme and the cervical cancer screening programme, which means that HIV positive were more likely to participate in the cervical cancer screening programme than HIV negative women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Minimum Standards for Child and Adolescent HIV, TB and Malaria Continuum of Care: 2011-2012","field_subtitle":"Southern African Development Community: 2012","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/SADC_Minimum_Standards_2013-2017.pdf","body":"When Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states signed the SADC Protocol on Health in 2008, they committed themselves to dealing with communicable diseases - particularly HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria - in a harmonised manner. However, until now, the key regional strategic frameworks and minimum standards developed to guide action in the control of these three diseases did not adequately cover children and adolescents. To address this shortcoming, SADC commissioned a regional assessment in the 14 active SADC Member States between October 2011 and July 2012. On the basis of this data, the SADC Secretariat developed the SADC Minimum Standards for Child and Adolescent HIV, TB and Malaria Continuum of Care. It establishes the minimum package of services that member states should have in place to achieve a common response in the region. Because of the bi-directional links between the HIV, TB and malaria and child vulnerability, it is crucial that access to services such as health, education, social and child protection, food security and nutrition and psychosocial services are adequately integrated into this response, as established in the SADC Strategic Framework and Programme of Action for Orphans and Vulnerable Children and Youth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC regional assessment report of policies and programmes on child and adolescent HIV, TB and malaria: October 2011-July 2012","field_subtitle":"Southern African Development Community: October 2012","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/SADC_Regional_Assessment_2011-2012.pdf","body":"This regional assessment showed that the foundations for integration and harmonisation of child and adolescent HIV, TB, malaria policies and programming frameworks are already in place in the SADC region. However, in all countries\u2019 national strategic frameworks/plans and guidelines, there is a need to reinforce child specific issues in prevention, diagnostics, and treatment and care. Major gaps remain in strategic frameworks/plans in articulating the integration of HIV-malaria and TB-malaria programmes, and on linking TB and malaria programmes to basic child services. In addition, policies and programming frameworks on HIV are not harmonised across the region, and monitoring and evaluation of all child- and adolescent-focused health programmes is urgently required. Despite these shortcomings, SADC argues that member states can build on the strong foundations and seize invaluable opportunities to scale up a harmonised continuum of care for the three diseases and integrate them with basic child services. This could have a real impact on child health, survival and development in the region and help SADC member states to achieve Millennium Development Goals 4 (reduce child mortality) and 6 (combat HIV, malaria and other diseases), as well as other regional and international commitments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"SEYCOHAIDS 2012: Consensus Statement and Conference Road Map","field_subtitle":"Delegates at the SEYCOHAIDS 2012: November 2012","field_url":"http://www.nayd.org/PDF/Consensus_Statement_and_Conference_Road_Map.pdf","body":"The Southern and Eastern Africa Youth Conference on HIV and AIDS and Reproductive Health Rights for Sustainable Development (SEYCOHAIDS 2012) was held in Malawi, 6-8 November 2012, and delegates produced this statement at the end of the conference. During the conference, delegates were able to share best practices and lessons in HIV and adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) interventions in the region. Although regional governments have ratified the African Youth Charter; the signatories to this statement recommend that it is domesticated and used to inform the Youth policies and development programmes in the respective countries. Funding alone cannot deal with the issues of child marriages, as well as HIV and SRH support. The community systems require strengthening in order to support effective HIV and SRH programmes and interventions for adolescents at the community level to achieve universal access to health and the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The statement points to best practices and models of HIV and  SRH capacity building in the region that can be replicated and scaled up, including improved family planning programmes targeted at the youth, to prevent unplanned pregnancies and unsafe abortions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Shaping Our Shared Future: Beyond 2015: Perspectives from the Global South","field_subtitle":"Gupta D (ed): Wada Na Todo Abhiyan, 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bwrfpuh","body":"This collection of essays looks at the post-2015 development agenda. In it, researchers and activists argue that the process undertaken to shape the new development agenda must be organised around seven priorities. 1. Integrating community experiences, expectations and insights at the heart of the process. 2. Widespread dialogue to capture and consolidate expectations of civil society organisations (CSOs) with regard to the second round of development goals. 3. Supporting and including evidence from research and analysis by institutions and experts located in the global south 4. consultations held with community groups, CSOs and academicians and engagement with the relevant policy makers. 5. Meaningful engagement by regional blocs like the African Union and trade forums such as BRICS and the G20. 6. Reaching out to young people and urban populations, and 7. Monitoring and enforcing corporate accountability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa finally announces single pill for HIV","field_subtitle":"Health-e News: 29 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/finally-sa-announces-single-pill-hiv","body":"The South African Government has taken a major step towards improving HIV treatment compliance and cost with the announcement that the new antiretroviral (ARV) tender will include a triple fixed dose combination (FDC) tablet, which combines three pills into one. FDCs have shown to have major benefits for ART patients in terms of easier compliance and fewer side effects, with the added benefit for hospitals of reduced logistics and less storage space needed. The cost of the FDC is only R89.37, making it arguably the world\u2019s lowest priced FDC. From April 2013 all pregnant women will be given the fixed dose combination during pregnancy and breast feeding and thereafter if their CD4 count is less than 350. According to Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, the fixed dose combination is more effective than dual therapy and has fewer side effects for the pregnant mother, in addition to its convenient dosage regimen. He confirmed that the most of the patients currently on the three ARV drugs would switch to the FDC from April 2013. Government will continue to stock the current ARVs for those unable to switch. Activists, who have been campaigning for FDCs for a number of years, welcomed the decision.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"South African government to allocate more funds for health research","field_subtitle":"Bateman C: South African Medical Journal 102(6): 345-346, June 2012","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/5967/4098","body":"The South African Government is to allocate more funds to health research  over the next decade and add clinical research centres to hospitals earmarked for revitalisation so that it can build relevant evidence-based knowledge into the public health system. Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Gwen Ramokgopa, said that her department was currently spending 0.6% of its budget on health research, less than the 2% minimum it committed to in its 2001 health research policy. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa\u2019s sanitation cesspools","field_subtitle":"Bond P: Pambazuka News 609, 6 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/85694","body":"Neoliberal sanitation experts visiting Durban, South Africa for the Toilet Summit in early December 2012 may argue that South Africa should embrace low-water toilets, yet community critics regularly report that Durban\u2019s water-less \u2018Ventilated Improved Pitlatrine\u2019 (VIP) and \u2018Urinary Diversion\u2019 (UD) strategies are failing. The author argues that middle- and upper-class South Africans could easily cross-subsidise their low-income fellow residents by paying more for the privileges of filling swimming pools and bathtubs, watering gardens and running washing machines, and that government can at the same time adjust tariffs downwards for poor people. If such reforms were made to water and sanitation prices, then better health and gender equity would result, and more funds could be raised for installing decent toilets in South African cities, as well as to repair sewage pipes whose cracks infect rivers and harbours. The construction capability and subsidised funding for projects is available in South Africa so that 'toilet apartheid' is argued to relate more to political choices in how these resources are used.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The beginning of the end? Tracking global commitments on AIDS","field_subtitle":"ONE: 2012","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/ONE_beginning_of_the_end-report_en.pdf","body":"Despite progress in the fight against AIDS over the past few years, this report warns that the gains that the world has made are in danger of being lost. There is not yet shared global responsibility for achieving the goal of ending AIDS, nor have stakeholders mapped out a collective plan for how to achieve the goal with specific responsibilities or time-bound milestones. ONE argues that there must be a renewed effort to examine, improve and scale up the financial, political and programmatic efforts needed to turn vision into action. In this report, ONE monitors progress on improving access to treatment and reducing new HIV infections; provides an assessment of the G7 countries\u2019 and the European Commission\u2019s past and current efforts in the fight against HIV and AIDS globally; and sets a baseline for monitoring future progress towards the beginning of the end of AIDS. The organisation calls on external funders from the West to work in closer partnership with each other and with African governments, emerging economy governments, the private sector and civil society groups to leverage unique skill-sets and resources, all aimed towards the achievement of common targets. While funding remains one of the largest hurdles in making progress towards this vision, additional efforts to address the AIDS pandemic cannot come at the expense of financing for other global health and development initiatives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The promise of competency-based education in the health professions for improving global health","field_subtitle":"Gruppen LD, Mangrulkar RS and Kolars JC: Human Resources for Health 10(43), 16 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-10-43.pdf","body":"Competency-based education (CBE) is argued to provide a useful alternative to time-based models for preparing health professionals and constructing educational programmes. In this paper, the authors describe the concept of 'competence' and 'competencies' as well as the critical curricular implications that derive from a focus on 'competence' rather than 'time'. These implications include: defining educational outcomes, developing individualised learning pathways, setting standards, and the centrality of valid assessment so as to reflect stakeholder priorities. They also highlight four challenges to implementing CBE: identifying the health needs of the community, defining competencies, developing self-regulated and flexible learning options, and assessing learners for competence. While CBE has been a prominent focus of educational reform in resource-rich countries, the authors argue that it has even more potential to align educational programmes with health system priorities in more resource-limited settings. Because CBE begins with a careful consideration of the competencies desired in the health professional workforce to address health care priorities, it provides a vehicle for integrating the health needs of the country with the values of the profession.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Time to listen: Hearing People on the Receiving End of International Aid ","field_subtitle":"Anderson MB, Brown D and Jean I: CDA Collaborative Learning Projects, November 2012","field_url":"http://www.cdainc.com/cdawww/pdf/book/time_to_listen_pdf_Pdf1.pdf","body":"This book captures the experiences and voices of over 6,000 people who have received international assistance, observed the effects of aid efforts or been involved in providing aid. More than 125 international and local aid organisations in 20 aid-recipient countries were interviewed about their experiences with, and judgments of, international assistance. The researchers also spoke with people who represented broad cross-sections of their societies, ranging from fishermen on the beach to government ministers with experience in bilateral aid negotiations. The voices reported here convey four basic messages: first, international aid is a good thing that is appreciated; second, assistance as it is now provided is not achieving its intent; third, fundamental changes must be made in how aid is provided if it is to become an effective tool in support of positive economic, social, and political change; and fourth, these fundamental changes are both possible and doable. What people want is an international assistance system that integrates the resources and experiences of outsiders with the assets and capacities of insiders to develop contextually appropriate strategies for pursuing positive change. The idea of international assistance needs to be redefined away from a system for delivering things and reinvented to support collaborative planning.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tipping The Balance: Policies to shape agricultural investments and markets in favour of small-scale farmers","field_subtitle":"Vorley B, Cotula L and Chan M: Oxfam, December 2012","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/rr-tipping-balance-agricultural-investments-markets-061212-en.pdf","body":"Four country case studies undertaken for this report provide examples of innovations in policy design and implementation that have improved the investment climate for smallholders, such as decentralisation of land management responsibilities in Tanzania. Implementation of progressive policies in the face of major power imbalances between beneficiaries and vested interests seeking to maintain the status quo remains a major challenge. There are six inter-related sets of conclusions from the study. 1. Policy is currently biased against smallholders. 2. The investment climates that support smallholder investment and corporate investments in agriculture, while having elements in common, are not the same. 3. Policies must respond to the diversity of rural societies. 4. Policy innovations in inclusive investment do exist and should be copied. 5. Effective implementation is vital. 6. Politics matter: Vested interests undermine socially optimal outcomes, yet without a political analysis there is a risk of assuming that politicians choose policy in a socially optimal way and of constructing a normative analysis that focuses on technical solutions to the challenges of economic liberalisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Trade, investments and aid in China-Africa relations","field_subtitle":"Centre for Chinese Studies (CCS): May 2012","field_url":"http://www.ccs.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/FOCAC_Policy-Briefing_tradeinvest_final.pdf","body":"From a mere US$2 billion in 1999, annual Sino-African trade has now reached $160 billion, making China a leading trade partner for Africa. China\u2019s economic cooperation with Africa is also fuelled by investments and aid. In this report, CCS argues that Africa needs to include transparency, governance and public service delivery are included in the agenda for the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which was set up in 2000 to formalise bilateral engagement between China and Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"United Nations Trust Fund Call for Proposals 2012: Ending Violence against Women","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 21 January 2013","field_url":"http://www.fundsforngos.org/latest-funds-for-ngos/united-nations-trust-fund-call-proposals-2012-violence-women-vaw/","body":"UN Women (United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women) has issued a call for proposals to provide grants of US$100,000-$300,000 to both small grassroots-based non-governmental organisations, as well as large organisations, for implementing projects that address violence against women. The United Nations (UN) Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women, established in 1996 by the UN General Assembly, is a global, multilateral mechanism supporting national efforts to end one of the most widespread human rights violations in the world. The Fund invites proposals in the following areas of action: closing the gap on the implementation of national and local laws, policies and action plans that address violence against women; and addressing violence against adolescent and young girls.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"What healthcare financing changes are needed to reach universal coverage in South Africa? ","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D: South African Medical Journal 102(6), June 2012","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/5611/4233","body":"Moving towards a predominantly publicly funded health system with a specified role for private voluntary health insurance will take time, according to this article. What is required in the short term is for Treasury to be responsive to submissions to gradually increase the allocations to the health sector from general tax revenue, to enable the Department of Health to implement its plans to strengthen substantially both primary healthcare and hospital services, as outlined in the National Health Insurance (NHI) Green Paper and other recent policy documents. It is likely that it will be necessary to supplement this with additional taxes dedicated to the health sector, such as an income tax surcharge, payroll tax on employers and/or \u2018sin taxes\u2019 on tobacco and alcohol, which can be phased in after initial improvements to the public health system have been achieved. The author argues that when universal entitlements to specified services are formalised in legislation, it will be important to specify the complementary role of private voluntary insurance. Through this overall process, the relative distribution of healthcare funding across different financing mechanisms will, it is argued, shift gradually to the pattern seen in countries that have already achieved universal coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"World AIDS Day 2012: Closing in on global HIV targets","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 1 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2012/aids_20121129/en/index.html","body":"Much of the progress in recent years in the fight against HIV may be attributed to increased use of antiretrovirals (ARVs), argues the World Health Organisation (WHO) in this short article to commemorate World AIDS Day on 1 December 2012. The latest global statistics suggest that, provided countries are able to sustain current efforts, the goal of getting 15 million HIV-infected people worldwide on ARVs will be reached by 2015. Currently eight million people in low- and middle-income countries are accessing the treatment they need, up from only 0.4 million in 2003. However, vulnerable and marginalised groups are still not able to access HIV prevention and treatment services, including adolescent girls, sex workers, men who have sex with men, drug users and migrants. And children are lagging badly behind: only 28% of children who need ARVs can obtain them. Some countries are considering initiating treatment at an even earlier stage in the course of HIV, as well as offering all HIV-positive pregnant women ARV  therapy for life. WHO is currently reviewing new scientific research and country experiences in order to publish updated and consolidated guidance on the use of ARVs in mid-2013.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Zeroing in on AIDS and global health Post-2015 ","field_subtitle":"Buse K, Blackshaw R, Harakeye and Ndayisaba M: Globalization and Health 8(42), 30 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-8-42.pdf","body":"In light of the emerging debate on what a post-2015 development agenda and accountability framework should look like, the authors of this paper call on policy makers and other stakeholders to look at the AIDS response for lessons in global health responses, where the most marginalised are at the centre of the debate, human rights are protected under the rule of law, strong accountability is in place for results for people, and community and participatory processes are the norm. These hard-won principles of the AIDS response should be incorporated into the post-2015 global health agenda, while at the same time acknowledging that a rapidly changing world, including a shifting geopolitical and economic landscape, requires policy responses that are context sensitive. Three years ago, UNAIDS articulated what was then considered to be an ambitious vision: zero new HIV infections and zero-AIDS related deaths by 2015, underpinned by zero discrimination. The authors argue that the post-2015 development agenda calls for the reconceptualision of this vision as a set of concrete goals. They discuss the Shared Responsibility-Global Solidarity agenda, as pioneered by the African Union in its recent Roadmap on AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, to illustrate ways in which global health can be re-thought to tackle twenty-first century challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2013-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A descriptive study on health workforce performance after decentralisation of health services in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Lutwama G, Roos J and Dolamo B: Human Resources for Health 10(41), 7 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-10-41.pdf","body":"In this cross-sectional descriptive survey the authors investigated the performance of health workers after decentralisation of the health services in Uganda to identify and suggest areas for improvement. A structured self-administered questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from 276 health workers in the districts of Kumi, Mbale, Sironko and Tororo in Eastern Uganda. Results revealed that even though the health workers are generally responsive to the needs of their clients, the services they provide are often not timely. The health workers take initiative to ensure that they are available for work, but low staffing levels undermine these efforts. While the study shows that the health workers are productive, over half (50.4%) of them reported that their organisations do not have indicators to measure their individual performance. The findings indicated that health workers are competent, adaptive, proactive and client oriented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A resolution by the World Health Assembly:  Will there finally be a cure for diseases that affect the poor? ","field_subtitle":"Correa C: South Views 42, South Centre, 12 November 2012 ","field_url":"","body":"In this article, the author argues that, in order to promote development of new products and their access to populations, especially in developing countries, it is necessary to change the current pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) model. The cost of research should be delinked from the prices of the products generated. The challenge is not only about increasing investment in research or improving the rate of innovation. This will not suffice if the new products are not effectively accessible for those who need them. It is a responsibility of States to provide effective solutions to the health problems of the majority of the planet\u2019s population, he argues, calling for the establishment of a binding convention on R&D for new medicines, vaccines and other pharmaceutical products and technologies. A global binding agreement, negotiated in the World Health Organisation, could be an important part of the solution. Naturally, reaching consensus for its adoption will not be a simple task, neither can it be expected to be instantaneous. It would probably require some years of intense negotiation. However, it will be worth the effort if it can avoid the early death or improve the quality of life of millions of people by creating, on a solid foundation, a new paradigm for research and access to health products, the author concludes.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/37406","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"A summary of South Africa\u2019s National Strategic Plan on HIV, STIs and TB: 2012\u20132016","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust: November 2012","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/NSP_Vol2_Iss3_0.pdf","body":"Health Systems Trust has summarised South Africa\u2019s National Strategic Plan (NSP) for easy reading. The NSP is a strategic guide for South Africa\u2019s national response to HIV, STIs and TB from 2012 to 2016. It is coordinated by the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC). It aims to inform national, provincial, district and community-level stakeholders with strategic directions when developing implementation plans. The Plan contains baseline data on the various diseases and identifies key populations for HIV and TB response. Its goals are to reduce the number of HIV infections by 50%; ensure at least 80% of patients eligible for antiretroviral treatment are receiving it, with 70% alive and being treated after five years; reduce the number of new infections of TB and deaths by 50%; ensure the rights of individuals living with HIV, TB and STIs are protected; and reduce self-reported stigma associated with HIV and TB by 50%. The Plan also outlines how the goals will be reached, who will oversee implementation of goals and how progress of the NSP will be assessed. Implementing the NSP is estimated to cost R130.7 billion over five years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa\u2019s Agricultural Cooperatives Crucial for Food Security","field_subtitle":"Nigeria Daily News: 31 October 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bos64kg","body":"As the International Year of Cooperatives is being observed in 2012, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has said that one of the only chances small-scale food producers have to gain competitive access to local and global markets is by banding together in cooperatives. According to FAO chief, Graziano da Silva, cooperatives follow core values and principles that are critical to doing business in an equitable manner, that empower and benefit members and the local community. This is especially relevant in poor rural communities and in promoting sustainable local development. He said that the cooperative business model helps small- and medium-scale farmers add value to their production and access markets. Small scale food producers are also able to take part in policy discussions through co-operatives. Co-operatives help to generate employment, boost national economies, reduce poverty and improve food security. The FAO has pledged to foster the growth of agricultural cooperatives, including through their promotion by special ambassadors for cooperatives and by developing approaches, guidelines, methodologies and training tools for supporting policy on and organisational development of co-operatives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Agriculture, trade, food sovereignty and agroecology: Proposals on alternatives to current EU trade policies","field_subtitle":"Saragih H and Malig ML: Comhl\u00e1mh 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/a6hqxoq","body":"The European Union (EU), as part of the G-20, has backed the Global Partnership for Agriculture and Food Security (GAFSP) and has given the World Bank a lead role in operationalising the programme. However, the authors of this article argue that this programme will make small farmers dependant on genetically modified seed technology, and criticises the programme as being a way of legitimising land acquisition by agribusiness in the name of increased land investment and higher agricultural productivity. The GAFSP is supposed to promote agricultural productivity but analysts agree that the kind of productivity this describes is one of intensification of agribusiness. The authors call on the EU and the rest of the G-20 to scrap solutions that increase neoliberal free trade. The authors propose options for trade in the region based on solidarity and complementarity with food sovereignty as a core principle.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Approaches to developing the capacity of health policy analysis institutes: A comparative case study","field_subtitle":"Bennett S, Corluka A, Doherty J and Tangcharoensathien V: Health Research Policy and Systems 10(7): 1-9, 5 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/10/1/7","body":"The aim of this study was to review and assess the factors that facilitate the development of sustainable health policy analysis institutes in low and middle income countries and the nature of external support for capacity development provided to such institutes. Comparative case studies of six health policy analysis institutes (three from Asia and three from Africa) were conducted. The findings are organised around four key themes. (i) Financial resources: Three of the institutes had received substantial external grants at start-up, however two of these institutes subsequently collapsed. At all but one institute, reliance upon short term, donor funding, created high administrative costs and unpredictability. (ii) Human resources: The retention of skilled human resources was perceived to be key to institute success but was problematic at all but one institute. (iii) Governance and management: Boards made important contributions to organisational capacity through promoting continuity, independence and fund raising. (iv) Networks: Links to policy makers helped promote policy influences, while external networks with other research organisations helped promote capacity. Overall, health policy analysis institutes remain very fragile. A combination of more strategic planning, active recruitment and retention strategies, and longer term, flexible funding, for example through endowments, needs to be promoted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Asian countries set the trend for affordable generics","field_subtitle":"Khor M: Third World Network, 22 October 2012","field_url":"http://twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/2012/health20121001.htm","body":"Recent government actions by Indonesia and India to issue compulsory licenses will enable access to cheaper medicines in Asia to treat serious ailments, especially HIV and AIDS, cancer and hepatitis B. The supply of generic medicines, either through import or local production, has been the major method of reducing prices and making medicines affordable. In 2003, Malaysia became the first developing country to issue a compulsory license to a local firm to import medicines from India to treat HIV and AIDS, with Indonesia, Thailand and India following suit. In September 2012, Indonesia issued compulsory licenses to enable local manufacturers to make, import and sell generic versions of seven patented drugs used for treating HIV, AIDS and hepatitis B. The author suggests that countries in Africa follow this precedent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Atlas of African Health Statistics: Health Situation Analysis in the African Region, 2012","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2012","field_url":"http://www.aho.afro.who.int/sites/default/files/publications/63/AFRO-Statistical_Factsheet_0.pdf","body":"In this latest edition of the Atlas of African Health Statistics, the World Health Organisation (WHO) provides the latest available data on Health status and trends for various countries, including Life expectancy, Adult mortality, Child mortality, Maternal mortality, and Age standardised death rates. It also contains data on Africa\u2019s burden of disease and various aspects of the health system, such as health financing, the health workforce, medical products and equipment, health information and health technology. Specific programmes and services run on the continent are also included, such as HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, immunisation and vaccines development, child and adolescent health, maternal and newborn health, gender and women's health, neglected tropical diseases, and non-communicable diseases and conditions. The Atlas also considers the key determinants of health, including risk factors for health, food safety and nutrition, demography, resources and infrastructure, poverty and income inequality, environment, science and technology and emergencies and disasters. Progress so far on the Millennium Development Goals is included. All data is presented in visual format, such as graphs and maps, for easier reading.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Beyond Aid: Research and Innovation as key drivers for Health, Equity and Development","field_subtitle":"Council on Health Research for Development Group (COHRED): 2012","field_url":"http://www.cohred.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/COHRED_forum2012_web_NEW.pdf.pdf-low-res.pdf","body":"This report summarises the outcomes of the conference Forum 2012, which was held in April 2012 in Cape Town, South Africa. It identifies that countries need to collect evidence and use it to identify priorities for their people and that external funders should not set agendas. Assessment should be made of where research is needed before embarking on projects, as is constant monitoring and evaluation. Research ethics frameworks need to be improved and integrated into health research systems. Partnerships are seen to be crucial, particularly local partnerships and scientists need mentoring, stable jobs and good salaries, and to know they are valued. People need to be engaged at a young age about research and innovation for development. Investing in research for health requires a long-term view. Promoting equity in health means addressing the social and economic conditions that cause inequality. Research and innovation can help identify and develop solutions to expand the availability of good quality healthcare and people's access to it, thereby reducing disparities in health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Ninth World Congress on Health Economics: \"Celebrating Health Economics\": Sydney, Australia: 7-10 July 2013","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 15 January 2013 ","field_url":"https://www.healtheconomics.org/congress/2013/","body":"All interested parties are invited to submit abstracts for the Ninth World Congress on Health Economics: \"Celebrating Health Economics\". Individual abstracts should not exceed 500 words. All accepted presenters are expected to register and pay by the deadlines listed on the Congress website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call For Applicants: Postdoctoral Fellowship In Community-Based Research  ","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 5 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.camh.ca/en/research/students_and_fellows /Pages/fellowship_community_research.aspx","body":"The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is calling for applicants for its new Postdoctoral Fellowship in Community-Based Research. CAMH trains students and fellows in the field of mental health and addictions and the purpose of the fellowship is to provide a postdoctoral fellow with training in the techniques and principles of community-based research on mental health and addictions. Fellows can propose research in any area related to mental health and addictions, and can be supervised by any CAMH scientist. In addition to the usual academic requirements of CAMH fellows, successful candidates for this fellowship will be required to show that: their proposed research question is seen as a priority for the community under study; community members and/or organisations will be actively and meaningfully engaged in the research; and the research is likely to have a tangible impact for the community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call For Papers: Health In The Post-2015 Development Agenda","field_subtitle":"Closing Date: 15 December 2012","field_url":"http://post2015.org/2012/10/09/health-in-the-post-2015-development-agenda-call-for-papers","body":"In preparation for the 2013 United Nations (UN) General Assembly, the UN is inviting interested individuals and groups to submit \u201cthink pieces\u201d on the positioning and role of health in the post-2015 agenda. The UN aims to garner experiences and lessons learnt from the health-related Millennium Development Goals and consider how these can be harnessed to ensure that health remains intrinsic to the new development agenda. Papers may also address disease-specific policy and programming challenges, health systems issues, measurement, monitoring and evaluation, or cross-sectoral action for health. Lessons learnt from the past should be used to highlight how new global goals, targets and indicators could be used to strengthen country action and tackle emerging challenges, such as enhancing health equity; building intersectoral links; using health action to achieve human rights, justice, peace and security; and involving communities, business and industry in successful, sustainable health action. Papers can be summaries of existing research and development activities or secondary analyses and discussion around key topics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Community Discussion Guide for Maternal and Newborn Health Care: A Training Manual for Safe Motherhood Action Groups","field_subtitle":"Mobilising Access to Maternal Health Services in Zambia Programme (MAMaZ), Ministry of Community Development, and Mother and Child Health and District Health Management Teams: 2012","field_url":"http://www.healthpartners-int.co.uk/our_projects/documents/MAMaZ_CDGuide_AW_single_lowres.pdf","body":"This Guide is being used in six rural districts of Zambia to train Community Health Volunteers, including members of community Safe Motherhood Action Groups (SMAGs), to promote safe pregnancy planning; help reduce maternal delays; and promote appropriate newborn care. The Guide was developed by the Mobilising Access to Maternal Health Services in Zambia (MAMaZ) programme and district health management team partners in six districts It sets out a process for engaging with rural communities to increase awareness of and social approval to act on maternal and newborn health. It contains detailed guidance on how to train SMAG volunteers in two key areas of their portfolio \u2013 maternal and newborn health care \u2013 and is intended to complement other maternal health and newborn care training resources. The training approach used here aims to build the knowledge and training capacity of the Mama SMAGs in such a way that they do not have to rely on having a paper version of the Community Discussion Guide, mainly because they may have poor literacy. The approach forces trainers to internalise the Guide\u2019s content and techniques and avoids reliance on the production of training manuals in a context where paper and printing capacity may be in short supply and where the dissemination of manuals can be challenging logistically.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Creating a Knowledge Translation Platform: Nine Lessons from the Zambia Forum for Health Research","field_subtitle":"Kasonde JM and Campbell S: Health Research Policy and Systems 10(31), 3 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-10-31.pdf","body":"In this review, the authors discuss nine key lessons documenting the experience of the Zambia Forum for Health Research, primarily to inform and exchange experience with the growing community of African KTPs. This Knowledge Translation Platform (KTP) provided cohesion and leadership for national-level knowledge translation efforts. They found that ZAMFOHR\u2019s success was linked to selecting a multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral Board of Directors, performing comprehensive situation analyses to understand not only the prevailing research-and-policy dynamics but a precise operational niche, and selecting a leader who bridges the worlds of research and policy. ZAMFOHR also helped build the capacity of both policy-makers and researchers, as well as a database of local evidence and national-level actors, while catalysing work in particular issue areas by identifying leaders from the research community, creating policy-maker demand for research evidence and fostering the next generation by mentoring up-and-coming researchers and policy-makers. Ultimately, ZAMFOHR\u2019s experience shows that an African KTP must pay significant attention to its organisational details and invest in the skill base of the wider community and, more importantly, of its own staff. At the same time, the role of networking cannot be underestimated.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing countries firm up common Doha climate talks position ","field_subtitle":"Africa Review: 30 October 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bg6c9ov","body":"Negotiators from 46 Least Developed Countries met in Nairobi on 29 October 2012 to develop a common position to be presented at the November climate talks in Doha. The technical experts said that developing nations will agree on shared goals, which include establishment of a new climate treaty, financing and technologies required to accelerate green transition. Kenya's Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources, Ali Mohammed, said that the global South has borne the brunt of negative impacts of climate change despite minimal contribution to green house gases responsible for warming the planet. He endorsed the multilateral process of the climate talks, which provides vulnerable developing countries with a forum for participating in global discussions and agreements. At the same time, developing countries should strengthen their negotiation capacity to influence a positive outcome of the Doha climate talks and overcome roadblocks in their efforts to table their concerns. Developing countries are in agreement that financing for climate adaptation, operationalisation of a green climate fund and the future of Kyoto protocol are key issues that should be prioritised at the Doha meeting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Do health workers' preferences influence their practices? Assessment of providers' attitude and personal use of new treatment recommendations for management of uncomplicated malaria, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Masanja IM, Lutambi AM and Khatib RA: BMC Public Health 12(956), 8 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-956.pdf","body":"Due to growing antimalarial drug resistance, Tanzania changed malaria treatment policies twice within a decade \u2013 in 2001 and again in 2006. The authors of this study assessed health workers&#8223; attitudes and personal practices following the first treatment policy change, at six months post-change and two years later. Two cross-sectional surveys were conducted in 2002 and 2004 among healthcare workers in three districts in South-East Tanzania using semi-structured questionnaires. Attitudes were assessed by enquiring which antimalarial was considered most suitable for the management of uncomplicated malaria for the three patient categories: children below 5; older children and adults; and pregnant women. A total of 400 health workers were interviewed; 254 and 146 in the first and second surveys, respectively. Results showed that following changes in malaria treatment recommendations, most health workers did not prefer the new antimalarial drug, and their preferences worsened over time. However, many of them still used the newly recommended drug for management of their own or family members\u2019 malaria episode. This indicates that factors other than providers\u2019 attitude may have more influence in their personal treatment practices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Domestic violence rises as incomes fall in Madagascar","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 6 November 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report/96710/MADAGASCAR-Domestic-violence-rises-as-incomes-fall","body":"Incomes have slipped to their lowest level in a decade since Madagascar\u2019s 2009 coup d\u2019etat, and, in parallel, domestic violence has sharply risen, according to IRIN News. The World Bank\u2019s October 2012 economic update estimates that, since 2008, another four million people have fallen below the poverty level. The rising poverty has exacerbated women\u2019s vulnerability in this deeply traditional society. Locals report more domestic conflict over family resources, as well as increased alcohol and drug abuse. Impoverished women also have fewer options to escape violence and are less able to advocate for the safety of themselves and their children. A spokesperson for a legal aid clinic near Antananarivo said that women often feel they have neither the ability nor the right to end abuse. A community spokesperson also reported that most domestic fights were about money and abusive men were often drunk when assaulting their partners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"E-Learning can solve human resource gap in Africa","field_subtitle":"Diallo B: Pambazuka News 606, 14 November 2012","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/85432","body":"While there is optimism surrounding Africa\u2019s growth potential, the continent appears to be lagging behind in training the necessary people to match its economic growth, according to this article. Although the number of students enrolling for tertiary education has been growing, the numbers are still low. Only 6% of students in sub-Saharan Africa are enrolled in tertiary institutions. Educationists and economists have observed that if Africa is going to compete in the global economy, this needs to increase to 15%. Africa can overcome barriers to student enrollment by using e-Learning and correspondence to extend education to students who face time and space constraints. There are significant challenges to this, such as limited and high cost internet connectivity on the continent, intermittent power disruption, a lack of national and institutional policies, a scarcity of experienced human resources and a perception that distance education may not offer the same quality as face-to-face education.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Earth Grab: Geopiracy, the New Biomassters and Capturing Climate Genes  ","field_subtitle":"Bronson D: Fahamu Books and Pambazuka Press, October 2012","field_url":"http://fahamubooks.org/book/?GCOI=90638100969040","body":"Earth Grab analyses how Northern governments and corporations are cynically using growing concerns about the ecological and climate crisis to propose geoengineering 'quick fixes'. These threaten to wreak havoc on ecosystems, with disastrous impacts on the people of the global South. As calls for a 'greener' economy mount and oil prices escalate, corporations are seeking to switch from oil-based to plant-based energy. The book exposes how a biomass economy based on using gene technologies to reprogramme living organisms to behave as microbial factories will facilitate the liquidation of ecosystems. This constitutes a devastating assault of the peoples and cultures of the South, accelerating the wave of land grabs that are becoming common in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It also shows how the world\u2019s largest agribusiness companies including Monsanto, BASF, Dupont and Syngenta are pouring billions of dollars into, and claiming patents on, what are claimed to be 'climate-ready crops'. Far from helping farmers adjust to a warming world \u2013 something peasant farmers already know how to manage \u2013 these crops will allow industrial agriculture to expand plantation monocultures into lands currently cultivated by poor peasant farmers. These crops are not a solution to growing hunger, they will feed only the gluttony of corporate shareholders for profits.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic evaluation of task-shifting approaches to the dispensing of anti-retroviral therapy","field_subtitle":"Foster N and McIntyre D: Human Resources for Health 10(32), 13 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/10/1/32","body":"In this study, researchers compared two task-shifting approaches to the dispensing of antiretroviral therapy (ART): Indirectly Supervised Pharmacist\u2019s Assistants (ISPA) and Nurse-based pharmaceutical care models against the standard of care which involves a pharmacist dispensing ART. A cross-sectional mixed methods study design was used. Patient exit interviews, time and motion studies, expert interviews and staff costs were used to conduct a costing from the societal perspective. Six facilities were sampled in the Western Cape province of South Africa, and 230 patient interviews conducted. The ISPA model was found to be the least costly task-shifting pharmaceutical model. However, patients preferred receiving medication from the nurse. This related to a fear of stigma and being identified by virtue of receiving ART at the pharmacy. While these models are not mutually exclusive, and a variety of pharmaceutical care models will be necessary for scale up, it is useful to consider the impact of implementing these models on the provider, patient access to treatment and difficulties in implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Emerging Voices 2012: Moses\u2019 experiences ","field_subtitle":"Tetui M: Makerere University School of Public Health, Uganda, 30 October 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d2lyudt","body":"In this blog from the Second Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, held in Beijing in October 2012, the author discusses the Emerging Voices programme for the Conference. The first part involved an introduction to new methods of presenting scientific research findings to a diverse audience in an effective way: Pecha Kucha and the Prezi. The author considered these picture-based alternatives better the traditional text-based PowerPoint presentation. Secondly, participants went on cultural and field visits to local Chinese traditional sites and were introduced to the Chinese health system. The author visited a district health office and two health centres in a rural area and was particularly impressed by the integration of Chinese traditional medicine with the Western medicine within the mainstream health system. This means that the Chinese give both disciplines and approaches adequate resources and attention in terms of developing them further. The conference offered a great opportunity to meet senior health systems researchers who could share their participatory action research methodologies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 142: Performance based funding for African health systems: Who is setting the agenda? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Foreign Farmers Undermine Food Security in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Mulenga N: Inter Press Service, 1 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/11/foreign-farmers-undermine-food-security-in-zambia","body":"Increased agricultural development in Zambia will compromise the country\u2019s food security if peasant farmers continue to be driven off customary land to pave the way for large-scale local and foreign agribusiness, according to the University of Zambia\u2019s Dean of the School of agriculture, Mickey Mwala. He argued that smallholder farmers are responsible for food security in Zambia. Land grabs and forced evictions of local farmers by both foreign and local investors are common, according to the Zambia Land Alliance, a land rights advocacy organisation. The Alliance blames the eviction of farmers on the cumbersome procedures involved in obtaining title deeds and \u201carchaic\u201d laws, which do not recognise customary rights as a form of land ownership. Under Zambian law, title deeds are the only legal proof of ownership of land. To get a title deed takes between two months and 10 years and is discouragingly complicated for illiterate applicants who cannot afford legal assistance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"From privatisation to corporatisation and the need for a counter-strategy","field_subtitle":"Magdahl JE: Association for International Water and Forest Studies, Norway, 2012","field_url":"http://www.fivas.org/fivas/media/Report%20-%20From%20privatisation%20to%20corporatisation.pdf","body":"This report explores the shift from privatisation to corporatisation of urban water services in developing countries. The author calls for the water justice movement to adjust its strategy to take this into account. Corporatisation reform implies the implementation of commercial neoliberal management approaches within public sector water utilities. The author argues that the strategy of the water justice movement has largely focused on privatisation and that it needs to direct more attention towards resisting corporatisation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender relations, sexual violence and the effects of conflict on men and women in North Kivu, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo: preliminary results from the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES) ","field_subtitle":"Sonke Gender Justice Network and Promundo: October 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bc9r2e2","body":"More than one in three men surveyed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's war-torn east admits committing sexual assault, and three in four believe that a woman who \"does not dress decently is asking to be raped\", according to this study. Some 61.4% of men interviewed said women sometimes deserve to be beaten; 42.7% think that if a woman doesn't show physical resistance when forced to have sex, it's not rape; and 27.9% believe that sometimes women want to be raped. Well over 40% of the men polled asserted that a man should reject his wife when she has been raped. The study was carried out in Congo's North Kivu province. A total of 708 men and 754 women aged between 18 and 59 took part in individual interviews and focus group discussions. The self-reporting of men revealed that 34% admit having carried out some form of sexual violence in conflict, homes or other settings. The study, part of the International Men and Gender Equality Survey, also suggests that many men are themselves victims of violence, including sexual violence, and shows a clear association between exposure to violence and increased likelihood of subsequent perpetration. The authors make recommendations including far greater promotion of gender equality in schools and public policy and a massive campaign of psycho-social care for boys and girls exposed to multiple forms of violence at a young age.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Maternal Health Conference 2013","field_subtitle":"15-17 January 2013: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania","field_url":"http://maternalhealthtaskforce.org/conference/conference-website","body":"The Global Maternal Health Conference is a technical conference for scientists, researchers, and policy-makers to network, share knowledge, and build on progress toward eradicating preventable maternal mortality and morbidity by improving quality of care. The conference is co-sponsored by Management and Development for Health, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and the Maternal Health Task Force at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, US.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"High-Level Taskforce for women, girls and HIV calls for accelerated efforts to protect the rights and wellbeing of young women and girls in South Africa","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: 31 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2012/october/20121031sataskforce/","body":"The High-Level Taskforce for Women, Girls, Gender Equality and HIV for Eastern and Southern Africa concluded a week-long political advocacy mission to South Africa by calling for renewed commitment and leadership to protect the health and rights of young women and girls in the country. South Africa\u2019s Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities invited the Taskforce to advocate with the country\u2019s leadership around the critical issues facing women and girls today including teenage pregnancy, gender based-violence, transmission of HIV from mother-to-child, and sex work. In order to address the high rates of maternal mortality in South Africa - 310/100,000 live births - earlier this year, the National Department of Health, spearheaded by the Minister of Health, launched the Campaign for Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA) in South Africa. Some of the key elements of CARMMA is to strengthen women\u2019s access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services, especially family planning to prevent new HIV infections and unintended pregnancies, strengthen the health system to provide human resources for maternal and child health and to intensify the management of HIV-positive mothers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Home-based HIV counseling and testing: Client experiences and perceptions in Eastern Uganda","field_subtitle":"Kyaddondo D, Wanyenze RK, Kinsman J and Hardon A: BMC Public Health 12(966), 12 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-966.pdf","body":"Doubts have been cast about the ability of Home-Based HIV Counseling and Testing (HBHCT) to adhere to ethical practices including consent, confidentiality, and access to HIV care post-test. This study explored client experiences in relation these ethical issues. Researchers conducted 395 individual interviews in Kumi district, Uganda, where teams providing HBHCT had visited 6\u201312 months prior to the interviews. They found that 95% of respondents had ever tested (average for Uganda was 38%). Among those who were approached by HBHCT providers, 98% were informed of their right to decline HIV testing. Most respondents were counseled individually, but 69% of the married/cohabiting were counseled as couples. Most respondents (94%) were satisfied with the information given to them and the interaction with the HBHCT providers. These findings show a very high uptake of HIV testing and satisfaction with HBHCT, a large proportion of married respondents tested as couples, and high disclosure rates. HBHCT can play a major role in expanding access to testing and overcoming disclosure challenges. However, access to HIV services post-test may require attention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How to rob Africa: Why does the Western world feed Africa with one hand while taking from it with the other?","field_subtitle":"Kwenda S: Al Jazeera, November 2012","field_url":"http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2012/11/201211714649852604.html","body":"The world's wealthy countries often criticise African nations for corruption but shares culpability in not tackling money laundering or the  anonymous off-shore companies and investment entities that enable it. In this investigative piece shown on Al Jazeera, Zimbabwean journalist Stanley Kwenda takes a journey through the world of offshore banking.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Human resources needs for universal access to antiretroviral therapy in South Africa: a time and motion study","field_subtitle":"Hontelez JAC, Newell M, Bland RM, Munnelly K, Lessells RJ and B\u00e4rnighausen T: Human Resources for Health 10(39), 30 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-10-39.pdf","body":"In this study, the authors quantify the number of HIV health workers (HHWs) required to be added to the current HIV workforce to achieve universal access to HIV treatment in South Africa, under different eligibility criteria. They performed a time and motion study in three HIV clinics in a rural, primary care-based HIV treatment program in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, to estimate the average time per patient visit for doctors, nurses, and counselors. They estimated that, for universal access to HIV treatment for all patients with a CD4 cell count of less than or equal to 350 cells/muL, an additional 2,200 nurses, 3,800 counselors, and 300 doctors would be required, at additional annual salary cost of R929 million, equivalent to US$ 141 million. For universal treatment ('treatment as prevention'), an additional 6,000 nurses, 11,000 counselors, and 800 doctors would be required, at an additional annual salary cost of R2.6 billion (US$ 400 million). Universal access to HIV treatment for patients with a CD4 cell count of less than or equal to 350 cells/mul in South Africa may be affordable, but the number of HHWs available for HIV will need to be substantially increased. Unfortunately, treatment as prevention strategies will require considerable additional financial and human resource commitments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"IMF calls for land reform, wage reductions in Swaziland","field_subtitle":"International Monetary Fund: 7 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2012/pr12418.htm","body":"Following a visit to Swaziland, a delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a press release noting that a budget surplus of 1% of GDP targeted for the 2012 fiscal year is unlikely to be met without additional expenditure cuts. The mission recommended a reduction in the wage bill of 300 million emalangeni (US$3.4 million), cuts in 'non-priority' recurrent expenditures and implementation of an Enhanced Voluntary Early Retirement Scheme. The IMF acknowledged that these cuts will imply sacrifices from Swazi society, and proposed that the basic needs of the most vulnerable be protected. The delegation further recommended that subsistence farmers have access to title deeds to give them collateral to raise funds for basic improvements such as irrigation systems to increase their yields.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Innovative financing for health: what is truly innovative?","field_subtitle":"Atun R, Knaul FM, Akachi Y and Frenk J: The Lancet (Early Online Publication) 24 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2812%2961460-3/fulltext","body":"The authors of this paper identify three integrated innovative financing mechanisms - GAVI, Global Fund, and UNITAID - that have reached a global scale. However, resources mobilised from international innovative financing sources are relatively modest compared with external assistance from traditional sources. Instead, the real innovation, they argue, has been establishment of new integrated financing mechanisms that link elements of the financing value chain to more effectively and efficiently mobilise, pool, allocate, and disburse funds to low-and middle-income countries and that create incentives for improved implementation and performance of national programmes. These mechanisms provide platforms for future health funding, especially as efforts to grow innovative financing have faltered. The lessons learned from these mechanisms can be used to develop and expand innovative financing from international sources to address health needs in low- and middle-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrating interventions on maternal mortality and morbidity and HIV: A human rights-based framework and approach","field_subtitle":"Fried S, Harrison B, Starcevich K, Whitaker C and O'Konek T: Health and Human Rights (pre-print online version), 2012","field_url":"http://www.hhrjournal.org/index.php/hhr/article/view/512/776","body":"Maternal mortality and morbidity (MMM) and HIV represent interlinked challenges arising from common causes, magnifying their respective impacts and producing related consequences. Accordingly, an integrated response will lead to the most effective approach for both, argue the authors of this paper. HIV and MMM are connected in both outcomes and solutions in sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV is the leading cause of maternal death and prevention of unintended pregnancy and access to contraception have been identified as two of the most important HIV-related prevention efforts. In turn, both are central to reducing unsafe abortion, a major cause of maternal death in Africa. The authors propose that a human rights-based framework will help to identify the shared determinants of MMM and HIV. It should also help to establish the health-related human rights standards to which all women are entitled, as well to outline the indivisible and intersecting human rights principles that inform and guide efforts related to HIV and MMM. The authors point to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as a good example of an agreement with quantifiable goals for achieving human rights while emphasising that no single goal can be achieved without progress on all development goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Land justice, land reform and access: Proposals for land justice for poor families with particular emphasis on Zambia","field_subtitle":"Mbinji J: Comhl\u00e1mh 2012","field_url":"http://comhlamh.org/assets/files/other_docs/Land.pdf","body":"In this paper the author proposes policy options to ensure that poor Zambian families do not lose their land rights in the face of trade policies. The proposals focus on addressing the obstacles that poor families face in accessing and obtaining legal title to land.  Strengthening national land policy, the legal framework and investment guidelines would help to protect the land rights of poor families. A comprehensive pro-poor land policy needs to be developed to guide the review of legislation for land administration. For these proposals to work, local communities need to register as legal entities or trusts to legally own land. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Low long-lasting insecticide nets (LLINs) use among household members for protection against mosquito bite in Eastern Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Gobena T, Berhane Y and Worku A: BMC Public Health 12(914), 29 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-914.pdf","body":"The authors of this study assessed barriers related with long-lasting insecticide treated net (LLIN) use at the household level in Ethiopia from October to November 2010. A total of 2,867 households were selected and data were collected by interviewing women, direct observation of LLINs conditions and use, and in-depth interviewing of key informants. Results indicated that only about one third of LLIN owned households are actually using at least one LLIN for protection against mosquito bite. Thus, most of the residents are at higher risk of mosquito bite and acquiring of malaria infection. Households living in fringe zone are not benefiting from the LLIN protection. Further progress in malaria prevention can be achieved by specifically targeting populations in fringe zones and conducting focused public education to increase LLIN use, the authors recommend.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Making it work: Lessons learnt from three regional workshops to integrate human rights into national HIV strategic plans","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: 2012","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/making-it-work.pdf","body":"To strengthen the rights-based national response to HIV, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), with the technical support of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance (the Alliance), initiated a project in 2011 to help national stakeholders integrate human rights programmes into National Strategic Plans (NSPs). This brief report outlines some short-term outcomes and lessons learnt from this initiative. The three regional workshops, held in South Africa, Thailand and Saudi Arabia, have led to concrete outcomes, namely the integration of HIV-related human rights into NSPs in a number of countries. Participants have also initiated (or are planning) innovative human rights projects as a direct result of the workshops. The workshops have given governments, civil society representatives, affected communities and UNAIDS an opportunity to share good practice, exchange views and learn from each other. The challenge remains to continue to apply this learning to the protection and promotion of a rights-based approach in the national response to HIV, and to make the commitments of the 2011 Political Declaration a reality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Microeconomics of Firms Compliant with Occupational Safety and Health ","field_subtitle":"Habitu H and Semboja H: African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety 22(1): 6-9, May 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c4678sc","body":"In this paper, the authors discuss the economics of occupational safety and health (OSH) from a microeconomic point of view. While investments in occupational safety and health factors are perhaps most commonly promoted through ethical arguments, they argue instead that a cost-benefit analysis of OHS should rather be the rationale for implementing OHS. Good OHS may be part of profit maximisation and cost minimisation solutions for businesses, as the costs of ensuring safety are outweighed by savings in reducing the number of accidents and damage. Improvements in worker health can lead to an effective reduction in costs and greater productivity as well. This, in turn, can improve efficiency and thereby heighten the sustainable profitability of businesses compliant with OSH. Labour productivity is also improved by reducing the number of people who retire early or who are unable to work due to injury and illness, thereby cutting the healthcare and social costs of injury and illness, increasing the ability of people to work by improving their health, and improving total productivity by stimulating more efficient capital, equipment, machineries, working methods and production technologies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"New database on United Nations procurement","field_subtitle":"UNOPS: 2012","field_url":"http://data.unops.org/index.htm","body":"The data.unops.org hub has now been officially launched, making publicly available information about procurement from United Nations organisations. Data includes the value of goods and services procured by each organisation, details on amounts procured from developing countries and countries with economies in transition, and profiles of all countries of supply. There are graphs indicating how much UNOPS is delivering on behalf of its partners including the United Nations, governments, multilateral institutions, foundations and the private sector. The data is inter-connected where possible, enabling users to explore information about UNOPS operations from multiple perspectives such as by country, by partner or by sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"NHI and staff shortages: How can clinical associates help?","field_subtitle":"Doherty J: Health Policy South Africa, 9 November 2012 ","field_url":"http://healthpolicysa.com/2012/11/09/nhi-and-staff-shortages-how-can-clinical-associates-help/","body":"South Africa has begun producing a new type of health professional - a clinical associate. Clinical associates are people ideally suited to working in hospitals, helping doctors carry out some of their tasks \u2013 like dealing with emergencies and doing procedures. They don\u2019t replace doctors or nurses  \u2013 they work with them, sharing some of their workload, and allowing them to concentrate on the tasks for which only they are qualified. There is no doubt that more doctors and nurses need to be trained and recruited into the South African health system. But will this alone solve the country\u2019s staff shortages? It takes less time to train a clinical associate. They can become very skilled at what they do because they focus on a special set of skills and are supervised by doctors. They are recruited from rural and disadvantaged communities. So, the author argues, clinical associates could do a lot to address staff shortages in the public sector, especially in district hospitals. Clinical associates are noted as a priority in the latest government human resource strategy but the future of clinical associates and the strategy of National Health Insurance need to become much more closely intertwined.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Oil and Water do Mix: Citizen Struggles in Energy and Water","field_subtitle":"Spronk S: Municipal Services Project, Briefing Note 3, October 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bxsd2rs","body":"Social movements have been successful in beating back the tide of water privatisation that swept the world in the 1990s, forcing the retreat of water multinational companies in the poorest countries of the global South. With global temperatures rising, unions in the energy sector can learn from these struggles \u2013 many of which were worker-led \u2013 to give rise to a strong counter-movement for energy democracy. While the political economy of the energy and water sectors are different, the author argues that we can build on water justice victories and draw lessons on how to frame demands for local control over the commons. Further lessons learned include the importance of building broad coalitions with unlikely allies; and practising internal democracy in social movements. While there have been significant victories in the water sector, the author argues that community-based struggles on energy have a long way to go. The struggle for energy democracy is argued to require movements to \u201cresist, reclaim and restructure\u201d communities to draw on locally sourced, decentralised, alternative energy resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Out of the Dark: Meeting the needs of children with TB ","field_subtitle":"M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res: 2012      ","field_url":"http://www.msfaccess.org/sites/default/files/MSF_assets/TB/Docs/TB_report_OutoftheDark_ENG_2011_Final.pdf","body":"This guide outlines the current state of paediatric tuberculosis (TB) care, looking at current practices, new developments and research needs in paediatric TB diagnosis, treatment and prevention. It is intended to act as a guide to treatment programmes for implementation of the best standard of care currently available to children with TB, and to raise awareness of the need to continue to push for improvements in the management of childhood TB.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Performance based funding for African health systems: Who is setting the agenda? ","field_subtitle":"Garrett Wallace Brown, Department of Politics, University of Sheffield","field_url":"","body":"Over the last eight years there has been an increased interest in the use of performance based funding to \u2018strengthen\u2019 African health systems. Performance based funding has been used in different ways in the past within countries. With its growing popularity at global level, we need to be clearer about how these funding models work in practice and how far the performance based agenda being advanced at global level integrates meaningful participation and partnership in building health systems in Africa. How much are African actors setting and shaping this emerging global agenda?\r\n\r\nPerformance based funding refers to the idea of transferring resources (money, material goods) for health on condition that measurable action will be taken to achieve predefined health system performance targets. These performance targets may relate to particular health outcomes, to indicators of delivery of effective interventions (such as immunization coverage), to the utilization of certain services (like HIV counseling and testing), or to meeting targets in relation to quality of care. Because performance based financing offers incentives for positive action, many global institutions promote it as a way to efficiently and effectively reform the way that health systems are planned, financed, coordinated and steered. This is particularly true of external funding in many low and middle-income African countries, where there is growing evidence to suggest that performance based funding is being championed by global and bilateral funders as a key innovation in health financing. Funding agencies such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the World Bank claim that performance based funding promotes reform in a way that can also be locally owned and accountable. This argument is based on a claim that performance targets and indicators will be developed through the active participation of local actors from within various African states, rather than being set by global agencies from the top-down. \r\n\r\nDespite increasing use of these arguments for performance based funding within global health policy, there is still a lack of consensus about what performance based funding actually means, and little evidence to support the assumed causal pathways through which diverse African health systems theoretically achieve the governance outcomes claimed. There is also limited evidence about the extent of local participation in the design of performance based initiatives, and particularly in how far African actors \u2013 governments, civil society, health services, individuals and the private sector \u2013 have participated in the design, implementation and delivery of performance based funding initiatives. It is thus not clear who is participating in shaping, deciding and adopting performance based funding agendas and goals and how these decision-making processes work. There are questions about how targets are set, who sets these targets, as well as about how \u2018performance\u2019 is measured, and what exactly constitutes \u2018good\u2019 performance. \r\n\r\nThese ambiguities raise concern about how performance based funding complements other key processes that aim to broaden participation within \u2018global health partnerships.\u2019 Partnership has, for example, become a key concept within the Global Fund, World Bank and WHO processes.  Millennium Development Goal 8 refers to developing a partnership for development, and the Paris Declaration aims to increase the ability of national and local governments and  stakeholders to engage with and shape health policy at national, regional and global levels.  However, if we don\u2019t know how far African actors do actually participate in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of initiatives such as performance base funding, it is unclear how far they meet these commitments towards more cooperative processes, where all stakeholders engage with and shape health policy. Given that participation is a key normative aim in debates about furthering more equitable health diplomacy, it is important to know whether and how far performance based funding, as it is currently being practiced, fulfills these normative aims and is (or is not) an effective strategy for reforming health system governance in a participatory and equitable manner. \r\n\r\nThese questions are being explored in collaborative research currently underway in EQUINET, through the University of Sheffield, Queen Mary University, the University of Zambia, the University of Dar es Salaam, the Ministry of Health Zambia and the University of Kwazulu-Natal, as one input to regional dialogue on global health partnership and equitable health system strengthening.\r\n\r\nPerformance based financing initiatives have potentially powerful effects on health systems. Their agendas and preferred performance targets become embedded in, and potentially shape, local and national forms of state governance, participation and authority. The current context of global actors devising and advancing such models makes it is critical for African actors to proactively and effectively access and engage in the processes that shape these emerging global health policies: from design (agenda setting) through to implementation and delivery. It is equally critical to know the possibilities and limits of the spaces and places for such participation, especially those provided for by global actors such as the WHO, World Bank and Global Fund .  \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit www.equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy brief 31: Implementing the International Health Regulations in Africa","field_subtitle":"SEATINI and TARSC: November 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/POLbrief31%20IHR.pdf","body":"The notification and prevention of the spread of diseases and other public health risks across borders is a longstanding area of health diplomacy. The International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005) were adopted by the 58th World Health Assembly in May 2005 to control the spread of diseases and public health risks across borders. The IHR (2005) are global standards that become legally binding in countries once they have been incorporated into domestic public health law (unless country constitutions specifically state that such international standards automatically apply). Member states of WHO, who are \u201cStates Parties\u201d to the IHR, were given up to 2007 to assess their capacity and develop national action plans on the regulations. Countries were given up to 2012 to meet the requirements of the IHR regarding their national surveillance, reporting and response systems to public health risks and emergencies and to provide the measures set for disease control at designated airports, ports and ground crossings. Progress toward attainment of these goals depends on eight core capacities, to be in place by the year 2012. This policy brief outlines the context and content of the IHR and how far the provisions have been implemented in east and southern Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Public, private healthcare sectors sign 'historic' pact","field_subtitle":"Business Day: 8 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/health/2012/11/08/public-private-healthcare-sectors-sign-historic-pact","body":"South Africa\u2019s Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has signed a \"social compact\" with the private sector, describing it as a \"historic\" step towards closer collaboration between the government and private enterprise. Such collaboration was vital for the success of the government\u2019s ambitions for introducing National Health Insurance (NHI), the minister said. The minister and the CEOs of 23 companies have agreed to meet at least twice a year to discuss issues that affect them, and have established the Public Health Enhancement Fund to address the skills shortages facing the healthcare sector. The fund pools donations from 23 companies from the pharmaceutical, private hospital and medical scheme administration industries, who have committed to providing financial support for the next three years. The money will be used to train more doctors, improve the skills of healthcare managers, and ensure more doctors get specialised training in HIV and AIDS. Forty million rand (US$4.5 million) has been committed for the first year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Referral and access to care of HIV prevalent cases: experience from the early capture HIV cohort study in Kampala","field_subtitle":"Mutengu LN, Kibuuka H, Millard M, Sekiziyivu A, Wakabi S, Nanyondo J et al: Retrovirology 9(Suppl 2), 13 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.retrovirology.com/content/pdf/1742-4690-9-S2-O28.pdf","body":"Trial sponsors and implementers are ethically obligated to refer HIV infected Individuals identified in a research study at screening for HIV care and treatment. Makerere University Walter Reed Project is conducting HIV surveillance among high risk uninfected female sex workers. This study describes patterns in participants\u2019 receipt of HIV results and response to referral for HIV care and treatment. Results indicated HIV prevalence was 35% at screening. Out of the 221 prevalent cases, only 96 participants (43%) received HIV confirmatory results and were referred for care, while 9 (4%) declined referral. The majority did not return for either their initial or confirmatory HIV result; while a few declined a blood re-draw. Of the 96 participants referred, 58% are currently in care, 14% did not report for care predominately citing indecisiveness while 28% could not be tracked. Most of the acutely infected participants (6/8) are in care. The authors argue that, although trial implementers may fulfil their obligation in referring study participants for HIV care, participants have a key role to play in facilitating this process. The large number of HIV prevalent female sex workers who did not return for their HIV results and may not be aware of their status could be a potential driver of the epidemic in Uganda, the paper concludes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Reflections on the Third People\u2019s Health Assembly, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Matheson D: Asia Pacific HealthGAEN Newsletter (5), November 2012","field_url":"","body":"This blog reports on the Third People\u2019s Health Assembly (PHA) held in Cape Town, South Africa, in July 2012. Participants reported on the extraordinary gains in human development occurring in Thailand and Brazil, where millions of people are moving out of poverty and for the first time accessing health care and social support, as well as the impotence of global leadership to effectively deal with climate change, and massive land grabs. Key strategies agreed on at the PHA were supporting countries to act on the PHM\u2019s Right to Health Campaign; a global campaign on the adverse health and environmental effects of extractive industries; a food security campaign focusing on the health consequences of the growth of transnational food corporations, and a campaign against the privatisation of health services, which will document the ways in which public ownership and control of health services is being undermined by various forms of public private partnerships and by the outsourcing of previously publicly provided services.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/37391","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Smallholders\u2019 use of pesticides in Ugandan agriculture","field_subtitle":"Duus J, Streibig JC, Sekimpi D, Maziina J and J\u00f8rs Erik: African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety 22(1): 16-18, May 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c4678sc","body":"This article reports the results from a research project on farmers\u2019 and pesticide dealers\u2019 knowledge and practice when handling pesticides in two districts of Uganda. In Uganda the number of farmers using pesticides is growing because of the evolution of the farming from mainly organic subsistence farming to a mix of cash crop and subsistence farming involving the use of increasing amounts of pesticide. This research project took place in the districts of Wakiso and Pallisa, Uganda, in January and February 2011. In all, 24 small-scale farmers and 20 pesticide dealers were observed and interviewed. Researchers observed many health and environmental problems in the use of pesticides in Wakiso and Pallisa, with faulty equipment, exposure of children to drift spray and environmental pollution. However, no pesticides classified as WHO class Ia or Ib were found apart from dichlorvos. The main problems were found to be a lack of use of personal protective equipment and the farmers\u2019 failure to follow the instructions for the correct handling of pesticides. Training for both farmers and pesticide dealers could be a way to solve the problems. Moreover, the instruction for use should be adapted to the reality of the small-scale farmers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Socioeconomic inequalities in risk factors for noncommunicable diseases in low-income and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Hosseinpoor AR, Bergen N, Kunst A, Harper S, Guthold R, Rekve D et al: BMC Public Health 12(912), 28 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-912.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers quantified prevalence of current daily smoking, low fruit and vegetable consumption, physical inactivity, and heavy episodic alcohol drinking and compared them across wealth and education levels in low- and middle-income countries. The study included self-reported data from 232,056 adult participants in 48 countries, derived from the 2002-2004 World Health Survey. Smoking and low fruit and vegetable consumption were found to be significantly higher among lower socioeconomic groups. The highest wealth-related inequality was seen in smoking among men in low- income countries. Physical inactivity was less prevalent in populations of low socioeconomic status, especially in low-income countries. Mixed patterns were found for heavy drinking. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa\u2019s \u201ceasy patents\u201d cost patients","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 5 November 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report/96712/SOUTH-AFRICA-Easy-patents-cost-patients","body":"South Africa grants almost every patent application it receives, making its patent regime one of the world\u2019s most lenient, according to this article. While pharmaceutical companies cash in, patients face staggering healthcare costs, and medicines like cancer treatments, third-line antiretrovirals (ARVs) and treatments for drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) are often priced out of reach. According to activists from M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res\u2019s (MSF) Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines and the South Africa AIDS lobby group the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), easy patents mean companies can extend their exclusive right to manufacture and sell certain drugs through a process known as evergreening, where minor changes are made to a drug and it is re-issued with a new patent, the process being repeated indefinitely.. The most recent review of South African patents, conducted in 2008, found that about half of all South African patents that year were granted to US companies, followed by companies from the UK, Germany and France. The Department of Trade and Industry\u2019s draft of the new intellectual property policy is set to be submitted to the cabinet on 5 December 2012. A three-month period of public comment on the policy will then be opened before the policy becomes a bill. MSF and TAC are calling on interested parties to get involved and ensure the policy protects public health by including provisions to prevent evergreening and to allow for compulsory licences, which allow generics to be manufactured for use in developing countries without the patent owner\u2019s permission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Technology And Innovation Report 2012: Innovation, Technology and South-South Collaboration","field_subtitle":"United Nations Conference On Trade And Development (UNCTAD): 31 October 2012","field_url":"http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/tir2012_en.pdf","body":"UNCTAD\u2019s 2012 technology and innovation report looks at how South-South cooperation could help developing countries breach the technological divide and promote inclusive growth through industrialisation. The report focuses on how technological learning and innovation capacity can be promoted across developing countries. The South is argued to be an important partner to promote technology and innovation capacity in the developing world. Policy experiences of other developing countries in fostering innovation capacities may be more relevant to other developing countries. Further, the technology employed in countries in the South may be more suitable for developing countries\u2019 local needs and conditions. The report proposes a set of five principles around which a framework of South-South collaboration for technology and innovation can be structured: integrate the technological needs of developing countries into South-South exchanges; share and better integrate lessons learned from ongoing catch-up experiences of other developing countries in building innovation capabilities through proactive policies; promote technological learning in particular through alliances and technology transfer initiatives; make South-South foreign direct investment more technology oriented; and pool resources of developing countries to address common technological challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The evolution of global health teaching in undergraduate medical curricula  ","field_subtitle":"Rowson M, Smith A, Hughes R, Johnson O, Maini A, Martin S et al: Globalization and Health 8(35), 13 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-8-35.pdf","body":"Undergraduate global health teaching has seen a marked growth over the past ten years, partly as a response to student demand and partly due to increasing globalisation, cross-border movement of pathogens and international migration of health care workers. In this study, researchers carried out a survey of medical schools across the world in an effort to analyse their teaching of global health. Results indicate that global health teaching is moving away from its previous focus on tropical medicine towards issues of more global relevance. The authors suggest that there are three types of doctor who may wish to work in global health - the 'globalised doctor', 'humanitarian doctor' and 'policy doctor' - and that each of these three types will require different teaching in order to meet the required competencies. This teaching needs to be inserted into medical curricula in different ways, notably into core curricula, a special developing countries track, optional student selected components, elective programmes, optional intercalated degrees and postgraduate study. The authors argue that teaching of global health in undergraduate medical curricula must reflect the social, political and economic causes of ill health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The growth of the private for profit health sector in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET And The University Of Cape Town Health Economics Unit: September 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20privfinancing%20poster%20for%20web.pdf","body":"There has been recent growth in the private for-profit health sector in East and Southern African countries. African governments are being encouraged to facilitate private sector growth through changing their policies and laws and providing funding for the private sector. This poster / leaflet explores what parts of the private sector are growing, the consequences of a growing private health sector and what civil society organisations and Ministries of Health should be doing to protect the integrity of their health systems. Civil society should contribute to monitoring funded of the private sector. Governments should not use tax funds to support the development of the private for-profit sector and should assess the impact of any proposed for-profit activities on the overall health sector before allowing it to proceed, make this impact assessment report publicly available and put in place adequate regulations and collect accurate information on private sector health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"The Impossible Dream? Codes of Practice and the International Migration of Skilled Health Workers","field_subtitle":"Connell J and Buchan J: World Medical and Health Policy 3(3): Article 3, 17 August 2012","field_url":"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2202/1948-4682.1175/pdf","body":"To stem the loss of skilled health workers from developing countries, there has recently been an increase in the number of regional Codes of Practice and bilateral Memoranda of Understanding to achieve more effective, equitable and ethical international migration of workers, culminating in the finalisation of the World Health Organisation\u2019s Global Code for Health Worker Recruitment in 2010. Despite this, the authors of this paper point out that there is no agreed definition of ethical international recruitment, and no consensus on the significance and location of harmful recruitment practices. Most codes they analysed covered relatively few regions and exhibited a high degree of generality. Migration, they found, occurs in contexts that do not necessarily involve health issues. Limitations were identified: there are no incentives for recipient countries and agencies to be involved in ethical international recruitment and all codes are voluntary, which has restricted their impact. At the same time, the private sector is effectively excluded from codes. Bilateral agreements and memoranda have a greater chance of success, the authors note, enabling managed migration and return migration, but are more geographically limiting. The most effective constraints to the unregulated flow of skilled health workers are the production of adequate numbers in present recipient countries and provision of improved employment conditions in source countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The State of World Population 2012: By choice, not by chance: Family planning, human rights and development","field_subtitle":"United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA): 14 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.unfpa.org/webdav/site/global/shared/swp/2012/EN-SWP2012_Report.pdf","body":"Making voluntary family planning available to everyone in developing countries would reduce costs for maternal and newborn health care by $11.3 billion annually, according to this report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). UNFPA argues that increased access to family planning has proven to be more than just a sound economic investment, with knock-on gains in reducing poverty, exclusion, poor health and gender inequality. Nevertheless, the report finds that financial resources for family planning have declined and contraceptive use has remained mostly steady. The report also calls on governments and leaders to: take or reinforce a rights-based approach to family planning; secure an emphasis on family planning in the global sustainable development agenda that will follow the Millennium Development Goals in 2015; ensure equality by focusing on specific excluded groups; and raise the funds to invest fully in family planning.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Twenty-fifth  Anniversary of the Bamako Initative Series: Community Participation in Health in Context","field_subtitle":"Falisse J:  Health Financing in Africa blog, 28 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.healthfinancingafrica.org/index.html","body":"In this article, the author evaluates developments in the field of community participation in health, arguing that in many national experiences, the distinction between the different forms of participation remains blurry. In particular, there is little distinction between community participation as a way to devolve services to community members and community participation as the community (co-)management of health centres. This confusion in part reflects two decades of debate on participation as either an end in itself or as a means for other purposes. Although free care and performance-based financing are two of the most popular health policies currently being developed in Africa, they have implications for participation. Performance-based financing strategies raise a need to ensure that the voice of the people continues to be heard when financial incentives drive the system. Free health care on a large scale also poses new challenges because, with the removal of user fees, the financial interest community members have in the health centre management disappears. Research about community participation has evolved in the last 25 years, with new methods for quantitative approaches mixed with qualitative insights, contrasting with the ethnographic and sociological approaches used in the past.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Twenty-fifth Bamako Initiative Anniversary series: Susan Rifkin on community participation","field_subtitle":"Falisse J:  Health Financing in Africa blog, 11 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.healthfinancingafrica.org/index.html","body":"In this interview with Susan Rifkin of the London School of Economics and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, she talks about the past and future of community participation and community participation research. Community participation, she argues, cannot be limited to an intervention; the next big challenge of research will be to understand the processes that tie community participation and health outcomes. She points to a growing recognition by policy makers that community participation is critical and necessary but not sufficient for improvement of the health of the populations. As communities become aware of their rights and their obligations, they become in a much better position to negotiate policy and the provision of services with policy-makers, she argues. At this moment most research views community participation as an intervention and therefore uses a natural scientific paradigm to look at it linearly as a causal effect. This approach is inductive and very narrow; direct causes have effects. Instead, Rifkin calls for a closer investigation of processes and how community monitoring leads to better health outcomes. The other question about the research in this area is how we address issues around power and control, key to community ownership of health programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Twenty-First IUHPE World Conference On Health Promotion, 25-29 August 2013, Thailand","field_subtitle":"Abstract Submission Deadline: 20 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.iuhpeconference.net/en/index.php","body":"The International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) and Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth) are hosting the 21st IUHPE World Conference on Health Promotion, 25\u201329 August 2013, Pattaya, Thailand. The conference aims to contribute to the development of equity and social justice across the globe by offering a unique platform for dialogue on the best investments for health between participants from various sectors from all over the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda\u2019s anti-gay bill could be passed before Christmas","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 13 November 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=96765","body":"Uganda's parliament will, before Christmas, pass a highly controversial bill which seeks more stringent punishments for people engaging in homosexual acts and those perceived to be \"promoting\" homosexuality, says the speaker of the house. Rebecca Kadaga told hundreds of petitioners in Kampala on 9 November that she would ensure the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which has been before parliament since 2009, would be passed before the end of 2012. The punishment for \u201caggravated homosexuality\u201d is life imprisonment. Activists have decried the bill, saying it is a violation of human rights that would make men who have sex with men (MSM) even less willing to access health services. Gay people in Uganda say they face discrimination and are stigmatised by health workers when they seek care in the public and private health system.   MSM are considered by the Uganda AIDS Commission to be a \"most at-risk population\", but because homosexual acts are illegal, there are no policies or services targeting HIV interventions towards them. Legal experts in Uganda have challenged the constitutionality of the bill, arguing it infringes on the right to privacy and freedom of expression and choice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding the modes of transmission model of new HIV infection and its use in prevention planning","field_subtitle":"Case KK, Ghys PD, Gouws E, Eaton JW, Borquez A et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 90(11): 831\u2013838A, November 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/11/12-102574.pdf","body":"This paper looks at the modes of transmission model, which has been widely used to help decision-makers target measures for preventing HIV infection. The model estimates the number of new HIV infections that will be acquired over the ensuing year by individuals in identified risk groups in a given population using data on the size of the groups, the aggregate risk behaviour in each group, the current prevalence of HIV infection among the sexual or injecting drug partners of individuals in each group, and the probability of HIV transmission associated with different risk behaviours. The strength of the model is its simplicity, which enables data from a variety of sources to be synthesised, resulting in better characterization of HIV epidemics in some settings. However, concerns have been raised about the assumptions underlying the model structure, about limitations in the data available for deriving input parameters and about interpretation and communication of the model results. The aim of this review was to improve the use of the model by reassessing its paradigm, structure and data requirements. The authors identified key questions to be asked when conducting an analysis and when interpreting the model results and make recommendations for strengthening the model\u2019s application in the future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change","field_subtitle":"Doha: 26 November \u2013 7 December 2012","field_url":"http://unfccc.int/2860.php","body":"The 18th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 8th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol will take place from Monday, 26 November to Friday, 7 December 2012 at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha, Qatar. Government, business and civil society from around the world will gather to discuss climate change and seek to move forward with the agenda set by the Kyoto Protocol to halt and reverse global warming.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Use of evidence to support healthy public policy: a policy effectiveness\u2013feasibility loop","field_subtitle":"Bowman S, Unwin N, Critchley J, Capewell S, Husseini A, Maziak W et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 90(11): 847-853, November 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/11/12-104968/en/index.html","body":"This paper presents a pragmatic framework for developing and prioritising policy interventions tailored to local epidemiological, political and social conditions. The \u201cpolicy effectiveness\u2013feasibility loop\u201d (PEFL) framework was developed as part of a multinational project aiming to inform policy for the prevention and control of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes in four middle-income territories. Central to the proposed approach is the involvement of policy-makers in the collection of evidence and its appraisal. The PEFL framework resembles a \u201cequity effectiveness loop\u201d, which is intended to estimate the impact of interventions to reduce socioeconomic inequalities. The major difference is that the PEFL approach includes assessing the local context and the feasibility of potential interventions. Furthermore, its focus is on policy-level interventions, and hence the situation analysis involves local policy-makers. The situation analysis and option appraisal stages of the framework are analogous to policy dialogue, as they facilitate discussion between stakeholders and researchers on policies and how to implement them. The outputs resulting from application of the framework can be used to prepare policy briefs for informing stakeholder discussions on policy options.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Vacancy for health economist at PRICELESS SA ","field_subtitle":"Closing date: Until filled","field_url":"","body":"An opening exists at PRICELESS SA (Priority Cost Effective lessons for Systems Strengthening) for a health economist or general applied micro economist with interest and experience in health economics in South Africa or Sub Saharan Africa. The focus of the work is on the role and use of cost effectiveness and related evidence- based approaches in setting priorities for health interventions and maximising their impact. The work will build on the already established base of exciting and innovative economic evaluation that is immediately relevant to health priorities in South Africa. This grant funded position is equivalent to senior lecturer/assistant professor level, dependant on education and experience, and is located in Johannesburg at the MRC /Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt) at the University of the Witwatersrand School of Public Health. Responsibilities will include substantial technical involvement in studies of the costs and cost effectiveness of different priority interventions and how they articulate with health sector in South Africa. Requirements include a Doctoral degree in economics or a related field (e.g. public health, public policy). Masters degree candidates with a medical degree and at least three years\u2019 experience will also be considered. Interested applicants may obtain more detailed information from Karen Hofman on Karen.Hofman@wits.ac.za and +27 11 717 2083/2606.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Who Sets the Global Health Research Agenda? The Challenge of Multi-Bi Financing","field_subtitle":"Sridhar D: PLoS Medicine 9(9), 25 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001312","body":"According to this study, a major challenge in the governance of research funding is agenda-setting, given that the priorities of funding bodies largely dictate what health issues and diseases are studied. The challenge of agenda-setting is a consequence of a larger phenomenon in global health, namely \u201cmulti-bi financing.\u201d Multi-bi financing refers to the practice of external funders choosing to route non-core funding - earmarked for specific sectors, themes, countries, or regions - through multilateral agencies such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Bank and to the emergence of new multistakeholder initiatives such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the GAVI Alliance. These new multistakeholder initiatives have five distinct characteristics: a wider set of stakeholders that include non-state institutions, narrower problem-based mandates, financing based on voluntary contributions, no country presence, and legitimacy based on effectiveness, not process. The author concludes that this shift to multi-bi financing likely reflects a desire by participating governments, and others, to control international agencies more tightly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Will our public healthcare sector fail the NHI?","field_subtitle":"Bateman C: South African Medical Journal November 102(11): 817-818, November 2012","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/6358-31956-1-PB.pdf","body":"Feasible universal health coverage in South Africa seems ever more remote, according to this article, as a dysfunctional Department of Public Works continues to stymie vital public hospital revitalisation projects, and five provinces have proved grossly incapable of spending their health budgets. Meanwhile, hospitals fall into disrepair and programmes are not expanded. Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi told parliament that the national \u2018failure to spend\u2019 was due to delays in the awarding of tenders, rolling over of budgets, poor performance of contractors (and the consequent termination of contracts and ensuing court challenges). Against this background, Dr Olive Shisana, Chairperson of the NHI ministerial advisory task team, argued that quality-based health facility accreditation is pivotal to the South African national health insurance (NHI) model. Dr Ravindra Rannan-Eliya, Director for Health Policy in Colombo, Sri Lanka, added that for an NHI to succeed in South Africa, public sector service quality and availability would need to \u2018at least\u2019 reach current medical scheme levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"2012 Global Hunger Index: The challenge of hunger: Ensuring sustainable food security under land, water, and energy stresses","field_subtitle":"International Food Policy Research Institute: 2012","field_url":"http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ghi12.pdf","body":"In this report, IFPRI describes the evidence on land, water, and energy scarcity in developing countries and offers two visions of a future global food system: an unsustainable scenario in which current trends in resource use continue, and a sustainable scenario in which access to food, modern energy, and clean water improves significantly and ecosystem degradation is halted or reversed. The report provides on-the-ground perspectives on the issues of land tenure and title as well as the impacts of scarce land, water, and energy on poor people in Sierra Leone and Tanzania and describes the work of their organisations in helping to alleviate these impacts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"A Recovery for All: Rethinking Socio-conomic Policies for Children and Poor Households","field_subtitle":"Ortiz I and Cummins M: United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), 29 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/index_62107.html","body":"This new book by UNICEF details how the economic crisis continues to inflict devastating social consequences worldwide. In it, the authors note how access to public goods and services is also increasingly being challenged in the worldwide drive toward austerity measure in terms of reduced social spending. While the average gross domestic product of developing countries is contracting at nearly double the rate as their developed counterparts, combined price, income and service delivery shocks in these nations have potentially severe and irreversible consequences, especially for children, the authors argue. Among these include increased hunger and malnutrition, worsening health outcomes, lower school attendance, higher rates of child labour and domestic violence, rising vulnerability to future shocks and widespread social unrest. Even when faced with shrinking budgets, governments can expand their fiscal space without incurring immense cost, the authors argue. This can be achieved by: re-allocating public expenditures; increasing tax revenues; lobbying for increased aid and transfers; tapping into fiscal and foreign exchange reserves; borrowing and restructuring existing debt; and/or adopting a more accommodating macroeconomic framework.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"A Recovery for All: Rethinking Socio-Economic Policies for Children and Poor Households","field_subtitle":"Ortiz I and Cummins M (Editors): UNRISD, October 2012","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/files/A_Recovery_for_All_FINAL_Web.pdf","body":"The world\u2019s financial and economic crisis has taken a toll on children and poor households. High food and commodity prices, unemployment and austerity measures have aggravated persistent inequalities and contributed to a substantial rise in hunger and social tensions. Now, more than ever, investments for the world\u2019s poor are needed to recover lost ground in pursuit of development objectives. People everywhere are demanding change. This book describes the social impacts of the crisis, policy responses to date and United Nations alternative proposals for \u2018A Recovery for All.'  The book guides us through the effects of the multiple crises on the poor, but it also demonstrates convincingly that the fiscal space for a basic floor of social protection that would provide effective protection from the worst social fall-out of such crises can be found. The book reminds that fiscal space is not a question of economic performance or state of development, it is first and foremost a question of political will. It is the lack of political will, i.e., cruel indifference vis-\u00e0-vis avoidable ill health, hunger, destitution and deaths, that prevents us from reducing vulnerability of those who have no means to fend for themselves. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A stitch in time: A cross-sectional survey looking at long-lasting insecticide-treated bed net ownership, utilisation and attrition in SNNPR, Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Batisso E, Habte T, Tesfaye G, Getachew D, Tekalegne A, Kilian A et al: Malaria Journal 11(183), 7 June 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-183.pdf","body":"Since 2002, an estimated 4.7 million long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLINs) have been distributed in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) of Ethiopia among a population of approximately 10 million people at risk for contracting malaria. This study sought to determine the status of current net ownership, utilisation and rate of long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLIN) loss in the previous three years. A total of 750 household respondents were interviewed in SNNPR. Approximately 67.5% of households currently owned at least one net. An estimated 31% of all nets owned in the previous three years had been discarded by owners, most of whom considered the nets too torn, old or dirty. Households reported that one-third of nets (33.7%) were less than one year old when they were discarded. These results suggest that the life span of nets may be shorter than previously thought, with little maintenance by their owners. With the global move towards malaria elimination it makes sense to aim for sustained high coverage of LLINs, the authors argue. However, in the current economic climate, it also makes sense to use simple tools and messages on the importance of careful net maintenance, which could increase their lifespans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa\u2019s Pulse 6","field_subtitle":"World Bank: October 2012","field_url":"http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRICA/Resources/Africas-Pulse-brochure_Vol6.pdf","body":"Africa\u2019s Pulse provides an analysis of issues shaping Africa\u2019s economic future. According to the report, global economic activity has slowed significantly in recent months, weighed down by policy uncertainty. Despite difficult global conditions, growth in Sub-Saharan Africa has remained largely on track. However, the region\u2019s economic prospects are vulnerable to heightened downside risks. Because Africa\u2019s growth recovery since 2000 - the longest expansion since independence - was based on improved macroeconomic policies and political stability, the prospects of sustained growth are strong. Discoveries of minerals are bringing the prospect of large revenues for newly resource-rich countries. The challenges for these countries will be to strengthen mineral governance and also to ensure that the new revenues are invested in better health, education and jobs for their people, according to the report.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid Transparency Index 2012","field_subtitle":"Publish What You Fund: 2012","field_url":"http://www.publishwhatyoufund.org/files/2012-Aid-Transparency-Index_web-singles.pdf","body":"After grappling for years with difficult issues \u2013 including coordination of aid activities, recipient country ownership and predictability \u2013 it appears that external funders, recipients and civil society alike have realised that very little of the aid effectiveness agenda can be achieved without greater and systematic transparency. And while aid has become more transparent, progress is slow and uneven, according to the new edition of the Aid Transparency Index. The report finds that transparency can be improved, without great difficulty, when political commitment is translated into effective implementation. Aid information must be shared openly in a timely, comprehensive, comparable and accessible way. The report discusses the role of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), which offers a common standard for publishing aid information that satisfies all of these elements. So far 33 external funders have signed IATI and thereby committed to publishing to its common standard. These funders account for over 75% of official development finance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Awards and grants for researchers in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Available from 1 November 2012","field_url":"http://royalsociety.org/grants/schemes/africa-capacity-building /","body":"The Royal Society-DFID Africa Capacity Building Initiative is a programme for scientists in sub-Saharan Africa who want to collaborate on research between themselves and a research institution in the United Kingdom (UK). The overall aim of the scheme is to strengthen the research capacity of universities and research institutions in sub-Saharan Africa by supporting the development of sustainable research networks. The programme consists of two awards and will be delivered in two stages: Scientific Network Awards and Programme Grants. Applicants must be based in one of the eligible sub-Saharan African countries or the UK. Applications will be accepted in these research priority areas: water and sanitation, renewable energy, soil-related research, and value and tenure. The next round of funding opens on 1 November 2012.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Bilateral trade agreements may undermine South African Constitution, says government","field_subtitle":"Davies R: South African Department of Trade and Industry, 24 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.info.gov.za/speech/DynamicAction?pageid=461&sid=30914&tid=84671","body":"While bilateral investment treaties (BITs) can make a positive contribution to sustainable development, the benefits to host countries are not automatic, according to this speech by South African Minister of Trade and Industry, Rob Davies. He says BITs pose risks and limitations on the ability of the Government to pursue its Constitutional-based transformation agenda. As a result, Cabinet has concluded that South Africa should refrain from entering into BITs in future, except in cases of compelling economic and political circumstances. Cabinet also seeks to incorporate legitimate exceptions to investor protection where warranted by public policy considerations such as, for example for national security, health, environmental reasons or for measures to address historical injustice and or promote development. South Africa\u2019s updated approach would aim to achieve an appropriate balance between the rights and obligations of investors, the need to provide adequate protection to foreign investors, while ensuring that constitutional obligations are upheld, and that government retains the policy space to regulate in the public interest.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Botswana court rules against gender discrimination in customary law ","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 12 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=96527","body":"A landmark ruling on 12 October 2012 by Gaborone's High Court found that gender discrimination based on Botswana's customary law is unconstitutional. The court ruled on a case brought by three sisters, all over 65 years old, challenging a Ngwaketse customary law that holds the right of inheritance to the family home belongs to the youngest son. Critically, the judge made it clear that discrimination cannot be justified on cultural grounds before rejecting out of hand the argument put forward by the Attorney General that Botswana society was not ready for gender equality, said the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC), which supported the sisters' case.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Call For Applicants: Postdoctoral Fellowship In Community-Based Research ","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 5 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.camh.ca/en/research/students_and_fellows /Pages/fellowship_community_research.aspx","body":"The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is calling for applicants for its new Postdoctoral Fellowship in Community-Based Research. CAMH trains students and fellows in the field of mental health and addictions and the purpose of the fellowship is to provide a postdoctoral fellow with training in the techniques and principles of community-based research on mental health and addictions. Fellows can propose research in any area related to mental health and addictions, and can be supervised by any CAMH scientist. In addition to the usual academic requirements of CAMH fellows, successful candidates for this fellowship will be required to show that: their proposed research question is seen as a priority for the community under study; community members and/or organisations will be actively and meaningfully engaged in the research; and the research is likely to have a tangible impact for the community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Expressions of Interest: Politics of Domestic Resource Mobilization for Social Development","field_subtitle":"UNRISD: Call closes Sunday 25 November 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.unrisd.org/pdrm.","body":"UNRISD invites scholars with a proven track record in research and publication on issues related to domestic resource mobilization, taxation, public finance and governance, aid and political economy, to submit an expression of interest. Countries under consideration include (but are not limited to) Liberia, Uganda and Zimbabwe, and Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Expressions of interest are invited from potential country team coordinators who could lead, and put together, a team of researchers; and individual researchers who would be willing to join country research teams. Participating researchers will collaborate in developing a comparative methodology, undertake field work, draft reports and academic outputs, and engage in workshops, conferences, policy dialogues and other communication activities between January 2013 and December 2014.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Papers: Health in the Post-2015 Development Agenda","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 15 December 2012","field_url":"http://post2015.org/2012/10/09/health-in-the-post-2015-development-agenda-call-for-papers/","body":"In preparation for the 2013 United Nations (UN) General Assembly, the UN is inviting interested individuals and groups to submit \u201cthink pieces\u201d on the positioning and role of health in the post-2015 agenda. The UN aims to garner experiences and lessons learnt from the health-related Millennium Development Goals and consider how these can be harnessed to ensure that health remains intrinsic to the new development agenda. Papers may also address disease-specific policy and programming challenges, health systems issues, measurement, monitoring and evaluation, or cross-sectoral action for health. Lessons learnt from the past should be used to highlight how new global goals, targets and indicators could be used to strengthen country action and tackle emerging challenges, such as enhancing health equity; building intersectoral links; using health action to achieve human rights, justice, peace and security; and involving communities, business and industry in successful, sustainable health action. Papers can be summaries of existing research and development activities or secondary analyses and discussion around key topics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call to Rebuild BRICS Bottom Up","field_subtitle":"Centre for Civil Society,  Durban,  23-27 March 2013","field_url":"http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/default.asp?2%2C68%2C3%2C2769","body":"Durban\u2019s hosting of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-SA summit in March 2013 requires critical civil society to share views ranging from local to global. the Durban 'counter-summit' supports bottom-up unity of peoples in these countries and their hinterlands, collaborating on analysis, advocacy and activism, including a community/labour/environmental teach-in on 23 March, reality tours on 24 March, a university-based conference on 25-26 March, and a rally outside the International Convention Centre on 27 March. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can integration of legume trees increase yield stability in rainfed maize cropping systems in southern Africa?","field_subtitle":"Sileshi GW, Debusho LK and Akinnifesi FK: Agronomy Journal 104(5): 1392-1398, September 2012","field_url":"https://www.agronomy.org/publications/aj/abstracts/104/5/1392","body":"To keep its mostly maize-growing small farms productive through cycles of drought, Malawi spends 60% of its agricultural budget subsidizing fertilisers. But the findings of this 12-year study suggest farmers in Malawi and elsewhere could increase yields consistently without applying fertilisers, using instead 'fertiliser trees'. To thrive, maize requires phosphorus and nitrogen, large quantities of which have been depleted from African soils. The 'fertiliser tree' or gliricidia, a leguminous tree, has the ability to draw nitrogen from the air and fix it into soil, changing it into a form that plants can use. The trees also restore some amount of phosphorus to the soil, according to the study. In addition, the leaves shed by gliricidia return organic matter to the soil, increasing its structural stability, erosion resistance and capacity to store water. Three consecutive experiments, begun in 1991 in Malawi and Zambia, showed that when gliricidia was planted in rows between maize plants, maize yields were good year after year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Cape Town Call to Action","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement: September 2012","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/sites/www.phmovement.org/files/Call%20to%20Action%20FINAL_0.pdf","body":"In this Call to Action, the People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM) argues that the underlying cause of health inequities are the neoliberal economic policies that are the hallmark of present day capitalism. PHM says the global health crisis is a consequence of the failure to address the social, political and environmental determinants of health. Ironically, the response of national and international institutions to the current financial crisis has been merely to restore the confidence\u2019 of the same institutions and financial markets that caused the crisis in the first place. Governments have meanwhile enacted an austerity agenda by cutting health and social spending, effectively deepening and reinforcing inequities between rich and poor. PHM puts forward an alternative vision in which a reformed economic system values individuals over capital, with just, fair and democratic political and economic processes and institutions, and better and transformed global heath governance that is free from corporate influence and the influence of unaccountable private actors. It calls for equitable public health systems that are universal, integrated and comprehensive, and also provide a platform for appropriate action on social determination of health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Case Report: Evidence of Rise in Rabies Cases in Southern Malawi: Better Preventative Measures Are Urgently Required","field_subtitle":"Depani SJ, Kennedy N, Mallewa M and Molyneux EM: Malawi Medical Journal 24(3): 61-64, September 2012","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/mmj/article/viewFile/81572/71729","body":"In this article, the authors describe five children who died of clinical rabies in a three month period (September to November 2011) in the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital. From previous experience and hospital records, this number of cases is higher than expected. The authors express concerned that difficulty in accessing post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) rabies vaccine may be partly responsible for this rise. They make three recommendations: prompt course of active immunisation for all patients with significant exposure to proven or suspected rabid animals; the use of an intradermal immunisation regime that requires a smaller quantity of the vaccine than the intramuscular regime and gives a better antibody response; and improved dog rabies control measures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges with using estimates when calculating ART need among adults in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Gerritsen AAM, Mitchell JS, Johnson SM, Delva W: South African Medical Journal 102(10): 798-799, October 2012","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/5946/4484","body":"The Foundation for Professional Development (FPD) collects information annually on HIV and AIDS service provision and estimates service needs in the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality (CTMM). In this study, researchers used antiretroviral therapy (ART) data from the Department of Health and Statistics South Africa (SSA) mid-year population estimates to approximate the ART need among adults in the CTMM. According to SSA data, ART need decreased dramatically from 2010 to 2011 and was lower than the number of adults receiving ART. Although the noted difference was probably due to changes in the calculations by SSA, no detailed or confirmed explanation could be offered. The authors hope that their paper may provide a constructive contribution to the discussion about the use of model-derived estimates of ART need. They argue that it is critical that those providing estimates (in this case, SSA) clearly indicate whether any significant changes exist compared with earlier reports and, if so, the cause and implications of these changes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society calls on Global Fund for greater consultation","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 25 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=96385","body":"Since the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced its new model for allocating funds in September 2012, African civil society organisations have stated that they were not included in the process, arguing that consultations were held behind closed doors and that most non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on the continent are unaware that a new model exists. The Rights Alliance of Southern Africa (ARASA), the South Africa-based World AIDS Campaign and almost 40 African non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have called for the Fund to develop a more robust and inclusive communication and consultation process around the model's development, which is ongoing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society organisations call on World Bank to promote universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"Save the Children, HEPS-Uganda, Women & Law Southern Africa et al: 11 October 2012","field_url":"","body":"In this open letter to the World Bank, a group of 110 international civil society organisations (CSOs) call on the Bank to play a truly progressive and transformative role in health by supporting countries to achieve universal health coverage (UHC). The World Bank is well-placed to be a vocal champion of UHC by deploying its knowledge and experience in health system reform, as well as its financial support. However, the Bank must reform the approach of its programmes and policy advice in order to deliver on this potential, and ensure it positively impacts poor and vulnerable populations.  The CSOs call on the Bank to actively support countries to offer care that is free at the point-of-use for all people, as well as scale up investment in public health systems in developing countries, by supporting them to expand public financing, and by offering balanced policy advice that does not privilege private sector solutions over publicly financed and delivered health systems. The Bank can take further steps to promote UHC by ensuring all Bank programs benefit the poorest two quintiles in the countries where it works, actively supporting involvement of civil society in national health policy development, in order to improve democratic oversight and accountability for improved health outcomes, and collaborating with the World Health Organization and other global health institutions in the push for UHC.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/37322","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Department of Labour to review South Africa\u2019s occupational health act ","field_subtitle":"Ramutloa L: South African Department of Labour, 7 March 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ch9sdsa","body":"In the 2010/2011 period, South Africa\u2019s Compensation Fund in the Department of Labour paid over US$307 million in compensation for injuries and diseases sustained in the workplace, according to this press release. A department spokesperson said South Africa continued to be plagued by lack of adherence to occupational health and safety, arguing that loss of work-time because of occupational hazards means a loss of income for workers and a decline in gross domestic product (GDP). According to the Department, high-risk sectors accounted for huge compensation fund claims, including iron and steel for $49.5-million, air road transport for $41 million, building and construction for $33 million, agriculture $21 and the chemical sector for $12 million. In the light of these high costs, the Department has announced plans to start working on amendments in the country\u2019s Occupational Health and Safety Act to be completed by the end of the 2012/13. This would include a review of amendment to regulations. The International Labour Organisation welcomed the move, calling for greater emphasis on the importance of prevention in the workplace.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 93: Guidance on using needs based formulae and gap analysis in the equitable allocation of health care resources in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D and Anselmi L: EQUINET, October 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss93%20RAguidance%20Sep2012.pdf","body":"EQUINET has supported the development of needs-based resource allocation formulae in a number of east and southern African countries in the past, and the methods for developing such a formula are summarised in this paper. EQUINET's work in the region has persuaded us that it is necessary to supplement the development of a formula with other initiatives to support the successful implementation of equity in resource allocation. We believe that for real progress to be made the equity target allocations calculated through a formula must be linked explicitly to planning and budgeting processes to facilitate the gradual shifting of resources. EQUINET through UCT HEU has been developing such an approach in collaboration with the Ministry of Health in Mozambique. A broad overview of this approach, which may be of value to other countries, is outlined in this paper. A needs-based formula is used to identify the provinces and districts that are furthest from their equity targets and that should receive priority for the allocation of additional budgetary resources. A detailed \u2018gap analysis\u2019 focuses on comparing the current physical and human resources in each of these provinces and districts to national norms (developed by the Mozambique Ministry of Health based on what is regarded as the ideal or good practice).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Epilepsy treatment in sub-Saharan Africa: Closing the gap","field_subtitle":"Chin JH: African Health Sciences 12(2): 186-192, June 2012","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ahs/article/viewFile /79462/69752","body":"In sub-Saharan Africa, shortages of trained health workers, limited diagnostic equipment, inadequate anti-epileptic drug supplies, cultural beliefs, and social stigma contribute to the large treatment gap for epilepsy. This paper examines the state of epilepsy care and treatment in sub-Saharan Africa and discusses priorities and approaches to scale up access to medications and services for people with epilepsy. In the last decade, the disproportionate majority of global health funding has been allocated to vertical programmes targeting HIV and AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. The renewed calls for action to raise the priority of chronic non-communicable diseases in global health planning and research are encouraging, however, the authors note. Funding commitments from domestic governments, international funders, nongovernmental organisations, industry, and private philanthropists will be critical, the authors argue, to scaling up access to anti-epileptic medications and building capacity in human resources for epilepsy care in sub-Saharan Africa. A Global Fund for Epilepsy should be established to accelerate support from external funders and coordinate programme development and implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 141: We also count! Protecting the health and safety of informal sector workers","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluating health systems strengthening interventions in low-income and middle-income countries: are we asking the right questions? ","field_subtitle":"Adam T, Hsu J, de Savigny D, Lavis JN, R\u00f8ttingen J and Bennett S: Health Policy and Planning 27 (suppl): iv9\u2013iv19, 27 September 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_4/iv9.full.pdf+html","body":"The authors of this paper assessed recent evaluations of health systems (HS) strengthening interventions in low- and middle-income countries from 2009\u201310. Out of 106 evaluations, less than half (43%) asked broad research questions to allow for a comprehensive assessment of the intervention\u2019s effects across multiple HS building blocks. Only half of the evaluations referred to a conceptual framework to guide their impact assessment. Overall, 24% and 9% conducted process and context evaluations, respectively, to answer the question of whether the intervention worked as intended, and if so, for whom, and under what circumstances. None incorporated evaluation designs that took into account the characteristics of complex adaptive systems such as non-linearity of effects or interactions between the HS building blocks. The authors call for more comprehensive evaluations of the range of effects of an intervention, when appropriate. They identify some barriers to more comprehensive evaluations as limited capacity, lack of funding, inadequate time frames, lack of demand from both researchers and research funders, or difficulties in undertaking this type of evaluation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Finding parasites and finding challenges: Improved diagnostic access and trends in reported malaria and anti-malarial drug use in Livingstone district, Zambia","field_subtitle":"Masaninga F, Sekeseke-Chinyama M, Malambo T, Moonga H, Babaniyi O, Counihan H and Bell D: Malaria Journal (341), 8 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-341.pdf","body":"This retrospective study of the introduction of district-wide community-level malaria rapid diagnostic test (RDT) was conducted in Livingstone District, Zambia, to assess its impact on malaria reporting, incidence of mortality and on district anti-malarial consumption. Reported malaria declined from 12,186 cases in the quarter prior to RDT introduction in 2007 to an average of 12.25 confirmed and 294 unconfirmed malaria cases per quarter over the year to September 2009. Consumption of artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) dropped dramatically at all levels, but remained above reported malaria, declining from 12,550 courses dispensed by the district office in the quarter prior to RDT implementation to an average of 822 per quarter over the last year. From these results, it\u2019s clear that RDT introduction led to a large decline in reported malaria cases and in ACT consumption in Livingstone district. Reported malaria mortality declined to zero, indicating safety of the new diagnostic regime, although adherence and/or use of RDTs was still incomplete. However, a deficiency is apparent in management of non-malarial fever, with inappropriate use of a lowc-ost single dose drug, SP, replacing ACT. While large gains have been achieved, the authors conclude that the full potential of RDTs will only be realised when strategies can be put in place to better manage RDT-negative cases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund adopts new model for funding grants","field_subtitle":"Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria: 14 September 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/97yte5o","body":"The Board of the Global Fund has voted to adopt a new model for funding grants that it believes will help the Fund target countries with the highest disease burden and least ability to pay. From now on, applicants will submit a concept note and then get early feedback from the Fund, other external funders and technical experts on how the proposal may need adjusting before moving forward. This is reported to be an improvement on the old grant process, which was considered too cumbersome and technical. Another important change will be more flexible timing for grant applications, allowing countries to better align the submission of grant proposals with their own national budgeting schedules. In addition, countries will be grouped in bands and funds will be allocated to each band, and then divided in a way that identifies a range of funding for each country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV and AIDS workplace interventions: Gaps between policy and practice at the College of Medicine","field_subtitle":"Soko D, Umar E, Noniwa T and Lakudzala A: Malawi Medical Journal; 24(3): 52-55, September 2012","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/mmj/article/viewFile/81553/71725","body":"This qualitative study set out to identify gaps between policy and practice of HIV and AIDS workplace interventions in the University of Malawi, in particular the College of Medicine, in line with University HIV and AIDS policy. The researchers randomly sampled 25 students and 15 members of staff for interviews. Results indicated that there are a number of activities relating to HIV and AIDS in place while others are still in the pipeline, however the majority of respondents did not know about the University HIV and AIDS policy or any HIV and AIDS activities that are guided by the policy. This is due to lack of interest on their part or lack of knowledge on the existence of the workplace programme. The authors recommend that the University\u2019s HIV and AIDS committee should strive to fast track key programme areas such as the voluntary counseling and testing centre, and clinic and coordination of different activities to increase programme visibility and patronage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS Technical Assistance Guidelines","field_subtitle":"South African Department of Labour: August 2012","field_url":"http://www.info.gov.za/view/DownloadFileAction?id=70178","body":"These new guidelines from South Africa\u2019s Department of Labour cover various aspects related to HIV and AIDS in the workplace, especially concerning the elimination of unfair discrimination and promotion of equal opportunity and fair treatment. The Department argues for a multilateral approach to deal with HIV, AIDS and tuberculosis (TB), and the guidelines show how to promote a safe working environment and manage the diseases in the workplace, as well monitoring and evaluation of intervention programmmes.  They were developed in partnership with the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The guidelines call for prevention programmes to be sensitive to culture, gender and language with relevant information that is accessible. Employees with HIV or AIDS may not be dismissed on the basis of their status.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"IMF-World Bank meetings end with heightened anxiety on global situation","field_subtitle":"Khor M: SouthNews 14, 15 October 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/csbnadk","body":"There were sobering messages on global economic prospects emerging from the meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Tokyo in early October 2012. Developing countries\u2019 Finance Ministers and Central Bank officials voiced their concerns on the failure of developed countries to deal with their economic situation and on the policy and political paralysis preventing solutions. They argued that developing nations were also suffering from the spillover effects of policies adopted by some developed countries, particularly their provision of huge volumes of credit credit, the continuing European debt crisis, and the looming threat of the United States\u2019 \u201cfiscal cliff\u201d. A major setback was the missing of the deadline to resolve the issue of altering the quotas of the International Monetary Fund with the aim of providing developing countries with a higher overall share, to improve their say over the policies of the institution. The Tokyo meeting was supposed to settle the question but was unable to come to a decision. The G24 group of developing countries argued that failure to meet the deadline undermined the IMF\u2019s credibility.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Inclusive and sustainable development: Challenges, opportunities, policies and partnerships","field_subtitle":"Norton A and Rogerson A: DANIDA, September 2012","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/docs/7809.pdf","body":"These two challenge papers were commissioned by DANIDA to address two key questions. First, how has the development challenge changed, and how could it be understood for the future? Second, what are the implications for development agencies and development partnerships? Paper 1 by Andrew Norton, aims to support high-level discussion on the challenges facing global development. He reviews four key challenges: persistent poverty; globalisation and socio-economic transitions; sustainable development in the context of climate change; and human security, violence and conflict. He identifies major potential risks as shocks in the world economy, civil conflict and fragility, long-term resource scarcities and climate change. As a result, policy needs to engage with change, he argues, focusing on the supra-national level to deliver global public goods. Paper 2 by Andrew Rogerson picks up the themes emerging from Paper 1 to address the policy and institutional responses that are needed for inclusive and sustainable development. Like Norton, he calls for collective action within the complex institutional space occupied by many actors, policies and instruments. He further outlines three main options available to development agencies: concentrate on being an efficient disburser of official development assistance (ODA); become brokers and managers of ODA and ODA-like funds; or become deal-makers and brokers across government and internationally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Increases in pediatric antiretroviral treatment, South Africa 2005\u20132010 ","field_subtitle":"Patel SD, Larson E, Mbengashe T, O'Bra H et al: PLoS One 7(9), 13 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3441457/","body":"In this paper, researchers describe the increase in the treatment of South African pediatric HIV-infected patients assisted by the United States President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) from 2004 to 2010. They reviewed routine programme data from PEPFAR-funded implementing partners among persons receiving antiretroviral treatment (ART) aged 15 years old and less. From October 2004 through September 2010, the number of children newly initiated on ART in PEPFAR-assisted programmes increased from 154 to 2,641 per month resulting in an increase from 2,412 children on ART in September 2005 to 79,416 children in September 2010. Of those children who initiated ART before September 2009, 0\u20134 year olds were 1.4 times as likely to transfer out of the programme or die as 5\u201314 year olds; males were 1.3 times as likely to stop treatment as females. Approximately 27,548 years of life were added to children under-five years old from PEPFAR-assisted antiretroviral treatment. While pediatric antiretroviral treatment in South Africa has increased substantially, the authors call for additional case-finding and a further acceleration in the implementation of pediatric care and treatment services to meet the current treatment need.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Increasing community health worker productivity and effectiveness: A review of the influence of the work environment","field_subtitle":"Jaskiewicz W and Tulenko K: Human Resources for Health 10(38), 27 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/10/1/38","body":"This paper presents policy-makers and programme managers with key considerations for a model to improve the work environment as an important approach to increase community health worker (CHW) productivity and, ultimately, the effectiveness of community-based strategies. Researchers conducted a desk review of selective published and unpublished articles and reports on CHW programmes in developing countries to identify the elements that influence CHW productivity. They found that CHW productivity is determined in large part by the conditions under which they work. Attention to the provision of an enabling work environment for CHWs is essential for achieving high levels of productivity. They present a model in which the work environment encompasses four essential elements: workload, supportive supervision, supplies and equipment, and respect from the community and the health system. Establishing a balance among the four elements that constitute a CHW\u2019s work environment will help make great strides in improving the effectiveness and quality of the services provided by CHWs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Indigenous peoples and the right to food in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Bailey J: Africa Initiative, Backgrounder 41, 25 September 2012","field_url":"http://africaportal.org/articles/2012/09/25/indigenous-peoples-and-right-food-kenya","body":"In this background paper, the author argues that the concept of the right to food is an invaluable in development policy as it recognises the links between food security, culture and resource rights, and as a legal principle, it requires a state to ensure that its people are free from hunger. In recent years, the right to food among Kenya\u2019s indigenous peoples has been challenged by climate change and state interventions that have resulted in land loss and resettlement. Past policies aimed at pastoral development - such as the Maasai Group Ranches - have failed in light of their lack of economic, social and cultural viability. Ultimately, the effectiveness of right to food is not only predicated on claimants\u2019 ability to make demands on the state, but also on the state\u2019s compliance with international law, the author argues. In terms of policy, she points out that Kenya is bound by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of 1976, which stipulates the right to food, as well as its new constitution, signed in August 2010, which includes a provision related to the right to food. This provision is a significant step at the national level in regards to addressing food security. The next step ultimately involves the development of legislation, policies and programs to ensure the principles of the right to food are realised at the local level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Introducing vouchers for malaria prevention in Ghana and Tanzania: Context and adoption of innovation in health systems","field_subtitle":"De Savigny D, Webster J, Agyepong IA, Mwita A, Bart-Plange C, Baffoe-Wilmot A et al: Health Policy and Planning 27 (suppl): iv32\u2013iv43, 27 September 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_4/iv32.full.pdf+html","body":"In this study, the authors compare the health system and other contexts between Tanzania and Ghana that are relevant to the scaling up of continuous delivery of insecticide treated nets (ITNs) for malaria prevention. While both countries have made major efforts and investments to address this intervention through integrating consumer discount vouchers into the health system, the schemes have been more successful in Tanzania. The authors found that contextual factors that provided an enabling environment for the voucher scheme in Tanzania did not do so in Ghana. The voucher scheme was never seen as an appropriate national strategy, other delivery systems were not complementary and the private sector was under-developed. The extensive time devoted to engagement and consensus building among all stakeholders in Tanzania was an important and clearly enabling difference, as was public sector support of the private sector. This contributed to the alignment of partner action behind a single co-ordinated strategy at service delivery level which in turn gave confidence to the business sector and avoided the \u2018interference\u2019 of competing delivery systems that occurred in Ghana.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"IOM elects Di McIntyre as new foreign associate","field_subtitle":"Institute of Medicine: 15 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.iom.edu/Global/News%20Announcements/2012-New-Members.aspx","body":"The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has announced the names of 70 new members and ten foreign associates during its 42nd annual meeting.  Election to the IOM is considered one of the highest honours in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service. New members are elected by current active members through a selective process that recognises individuals who have made major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health.  Among the foreign recipients of the honour was Dr Diane McIntyre, South African Research Chair in Health and Wealth in the Health Economics Unit, School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa. Dr McIntyre sits on the EQUINET Steering Committee.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Kayayei win commitments at Health Policy Dialogue in Ghana","field_subtitle":"Occupational Health and Safety for Informal Workers Issue 6: October 2012","field_url":"http://wiego.org/sites/wiego.org/files/resources/files/OHS_Newsletter_october_2012_English.pdf","body":"A Health Policy Dialogue was held in Accra, Ghana, on 26 July 2012 to identify ways in which to help Kayayei (headload porters) better access health services, and to help integrate these workers into the Ghanaian National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). At the Dialogue, a case study of the Ghana NHIS was presented, which showed that the Kayayei were unable to easily use the health services in Accra. A large number of Kayayei were not registered with the NHIS. Most could not afford the premium, even though the minimum annual premium is set at US$5. In practice, $15-$20 is charged as a minimum in urban areas and many Kayayei earn $2-3 or less a day, making this unaffordable for them. Those few who could afford to join complained that they were mistreated or ignored when they went to use the health services. The Ministry of Health has indicated a willingness to enter into discussions with the Kayayei associations and WIEGO on the poor quality of care received by these workers when accessing health services. Ministry of Health officials proposed that clinics and hospitals in areas where Kayayei live and work should have doctors and nurses specially mandated to look after their needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenyan girls ask court to force police to prosecute rape cases","field_subtitle":"Migiro K: TrustLaw, 11 October 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.trust.org/trustlaw/news/kenyan-girls-ask-court-to-force-police-to-prosecute-rape-cases/","body":"Hundreds of Kenyan girls, including some as young as three years old, filed a petition in the High Court on 11 October 2012 to try to force the police to investigate and prosecute rape cases they say have been ignored. The group of more than 240 girls accuse police of demanding bribes to investigate rape, refusing to record rapes unless the victims produced witnesses, and claiming victims had consented. One in five women and girls are victims of sexual violence in Kenya, according to a 2008/9 government survey. Rape is rarely reported due to stigma and a lack of faith in the police and the criminal justice system, although Kenya has strong legislation to protect children from sexual assault. Activists point out it is the first time in Kenya that action has been taken to hold police accountable for failing to protect girls from rape.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of Patent Opposition Database","field_subtitle":"M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res: 2 October 2012","field_url":"http://patentoppositions.org/","body":"M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) has announced the launch of the \u201cPatent Opposition Database,\u201d an online resource to help patient groups or others to oppose wrongful patent applications as a way to ensure access remains open for affordable generic drugs. A patent opposition is a legal challenge aimed at blocking the granting of an unwarranted patent, MSF said. The database was launched on the tenth anniversary of a landmark decision by the central intellectual property court in Thailand to overturn a patent on a key HIV drug based on opposition filed by patients. India and Brazil also have used this process. It provides interested parties with all the information they need to know about patents, medicines and how to build an opposition to cases where pharmaceutical companies are trying to push through patents that will negatively impact on public health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New African Community of Practice blog","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.africaportal.org/blogs/community-practice","body":"The Africa Portal\u2019s Community of Practice blog signals important policy research topics and trends in Africa. Contributors include top researchers and practitioners conducting on-the-ground, field-based research in Africa. The blog aims to share their work and document the challenges and learning that emerge from efforts to inform African policymaking.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New African research fund calls for applicants","field_subtitle":"No closing date given yet","field_url":"http://royalsociety.org/grants/schemes/africa-capacity-building/","body":"A new African research fund has been launched by the Royal Society and the United Kingdom\u2019s Department for International Development (DFID), called the Royal Society-DFID Africa Capacity Building Initiative. The fund is specifically designed to help form research consortia in Africa, arranging research exchange programmes between the United Kingdom and Sub-Saharan Africa. The scheme provides funding towards research expenses, travel and subsistence costs and PhD training, with limited funds for equipment and training in laboratories. The fund comes as part of a new collaborative initiative to strengthen research capacity in Africa by addressing the current skills gaps within higher education in Africa. Applications will be accepted in three research priority areas: water and sanitation, renewable energy and soil-related research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"New amendments to Medical Schemes Act proposed for private South African health insurers","field_subtitle":"Khan T: Business Day, 8 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/healthcare/2012/10/08/council-to-get-tough-on-medical-schemes","body":"The Council for Medical Schemes and the Department of Health are planning new amendments to the Medical Schemes Act to beef up governance on medical scheme boards and stop unscrupulous trustees enriching themselves at members\u2019 expense. In the past decade, 10 medical schemes have been placed under curatorship after trustees milked their reserves to line their own pockets and dish out contracts to friends and family. The most recent examples include Medshield and Sizwe. To date, not a single trustee from a scheme placed under curatorship had been convicted, and many of those identified by the council as behaving inappropriately were at liberty to circulate in the industry and join other schemes, said its head of compliance and investigations, Stephen Mmatli. Mmatli said member apathy, combined with weaknesses in the Medical Schemes Act, meant there was insufficient control over the skills and qualifications of the people elected as trustees and too few checks and balances. While many schemes have highly qualified trustees, some of whom take home modest remuneration (or none at all), the converse is also true: the Council\u2019s latest annual report (in last month\u2019s newsletter) shows trustees awarding themselves massive fees of up to R700,000 (US$81,000) a year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"New blog on Africa launched","field_subtitle":"The Guardian: 1 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/africa-blog/2012/oct/01/africa-complex-continent-blog","body":"The Guardian, a leading newspaper in the United Kingdom, has launched a new blog on Africa, where participants will debate and discuss contentious issues such as quality of leadership, the legacy of colonialism, identity politics that pitch women's and homosexuals' rights against a form of cultural fundamentalism. What is \"Africa\" anyway and should it look east, or west, or within? This is one of the main questions posed by this blog. The Guardian intends to showcase strong, sometimes conflicting opinions from inside and outside the continent in collaboration with a dozen independent sites. Partners include solo bloggers from Uganda and Nigeria, collectives from South Africa and Zimbabwe, and pan-African commentators. Some are from established institutions such as the Royal Africa Society's African Arguments or media groups such as the Mail & Guardian's ThoughtLeader and the online magazine Think Africa Press. There's also the development blog A View from the Cave, voices from the diaspora in Africa on the Blog, and the resource site Africa Portal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New platform: Health in the Post-2015 Development Agenda","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.worldwewant2015.org/health","body":"This platform, launched and run by the United Nations\u2019 programme, The World We Want 2015, is an open and inclusive consultation space to discuss the role of health in the post 2015 development agenda. The platform is hoping to draw a representative cross section of views and start to build consensus in five key areas: What are the lessons learnt from the health related MDGs? What is the priority health agenda for the 15 years after 2015? How does health fit in the post 2015 development agenda? What are the best indicators and targets for health? And how can country ownership, commitment, capacity and accountability for the goals, targets and indicators be enhanced? The platform is co-convened by the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund, in collaboration with the Government of Sweden, and will run from October to March 2012.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"NGOs call for immediate ban on GM maize in South Africa","field_subtitle":"African Centre for Biosafety, Earthlife Africa Johannesburg, Global Call to Action Against Poverty SA et al: 25 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.acbio.org.za/images/stories/dmdocuments/Open-letter-RR-maize-study-20092012-signatures.pdf","body":"In response to the early online release of a French study in September 2012, which suggested that genetically modified (GM) maize may promote cancer and early death in rats, a number of environmental and development organisations working in South Africa have written this open letter to government demanding an immediate ban on human consumption of GM maize. In contrast to the 90-day studies conducted by Monsanto, which developed the particular variety of maize in question, th French study ran for two years and revealed long-term health hazards. Monsanto has repeatedly asserted Roundup Ready maize is safe. Over 70% of maize consumed in South African is GM, according to this letter, and over 40% of the national crop is of the Roundup Ready variety. The letter notes that in many high income countries Roundup Ready maize is considered fit for consumption by livestock only.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Occupational risk factors in the Jua Kali industry, Eldoret, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Menya D, Walekhwa C, Koskei P, Too R and Carel RS: African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety 22(2): 46-50, September 2012","field_url":"http://www.ttl.fi/en/publications/electronic_journals/african_newsletter/Documents/AfricanNewsletter2_2012.pdf","body":"In Kenya, the Jua Kali (\u201chot sun,\u201d in Swahili) industry is a major economical component of the urban informal sector, consisting primarily of outdoor manufacturing and repair shops. In August 2005, a cross-sectional survey was conducted in a large Jua Kalii area in Eldoret, Kenya. Most of the interviewees described their working conditions as poor, with about 30% of the subjects without easy access to toilets. They identified the three occupational risks as: breathing difficulties due to exposure to smoke, fumes or gases; work accidents; and eye injuries. In many of the work facilities, tools and practices require major improvements in order to provide appropriate working conditions in compliance with modern scientific knowledge and current legislation in Kenya. Changes in these areas require major financial investments and administrative commitments that are probably not easily achievable, the authors warn. But in such areas as institutional training, safety practices, and prevention, much can be accomplished with limited, affordable resources, including the provision of safe drinking water, accessible clean toilets, changes in working conditions (chairs, tables, lighting), training in safe work practices, the provision of basic protective devices such as goggles, gloves and aprons, improved methods of handling hazardous materials, and assistance in training to update work skills in light of changing technologies in their areas of employment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Open access posters for your workplace","field_subtitle":"Biomed Central: October 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/advocacy5","body":"Help promote open access research in your work environment by downloading one or the posters on this webpage by Biomed Central, a United Kingdom-based publisher specialising in publishing open access online research. You can print the posters out and display them prominently around your lab, your department and your library to raise awareness of the need for open access research, as well as encourage your colleagues to submit their papers to BioMed Central's journals, which are all open access, so their research will be available to everyone free of charge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Outcome mapping and social frameworks: Tools for designing, delivering and monitoring policy via distributed partnerships","field_subtitle":"Shaxson L and Clench B: Delta Partnership, Working Paper 1, February 2011","field_url":"http://deltapartnership.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Working-paper-outcome-mapping-social-frameworks.pdf","body":"The current trend towards the devolution of government responsibility is usually accompanied by severe cuts in public sector budgets, forcing government departments to develop different ways of working via partnerships of various types (government and non-government) and at various levels (national, regional and local). The challenge, the authors of this paper argue, will be finding ways for these partnerships to engage all partners fully in delivering public policy whilst recognising that each partner has a different mandate and different objectives that will align to different degrees with the policy\u2019s stated goals. They argue that devolution of government responsibility has negatively affected policymaking as Ministers tend to focus on a small number of core activities, or outputs, rather than being accountable for delivering the final outcomes that solve or ameliorate societal problems. And any further devolution of responsibility is likely to give rise to \u2018messy\u2019 partnerships as well. The authors propose that current policy-making tools based on logic and prediction will fail to deal with the complexity of partnership working, and instead they recommend techniques like outcome mapping and social frameworks, which are covered in detail in the paper.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Pan-African Maker Faire","field_subtitle":"November 5-6 Lagos","field_url":"http://makerfaireafrica.com/about/","body":"Maker Faire Africa is a yearly pan-African maker faire and a community of makers. It gathers creative inventors, designers & fabricators that hail from Africa\u2019s tiniest villages to expansive urban areas, with a shared commitment to origin, ingenuity & innovation. At the annual pan-African Maker Faire, local creators and manufacturers connect and redefine the future through authentic, African ingenuity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"PHC Leadership: Are Health Centres in Good Hands? Perspectives from three districts in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Hana J, Maleta K, Kirkhaug R and Hasvold T: Malawi Medical Journal; 24(3): 46-51, September 2012","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/mmj/article/view/81552/71718","body":"This study aimed to document the kinds of leadership styles are practiced at primary health care (PHC) centres and how these styles can be explained by the contexts, characteristics of the health centre in charge (IC) and subordinate trained health staff (STHS). Self-administered questionnaires were distributed at 47 centres in three districts. A total of 347 STHSs (95%) and 46 ICs (98%) responded. Two leadership styles were revealed: \u2018trans\u2019 style contained all relation and the majority of task and change items, while \u2018control\u2019 style focused on health statistics, reporting and evaluation. The researchers found that frontline PHC leadership may be forced by situation and context to use a comprehensive style, which could lack the diversity and flexibility needed for effective leadership. The missing associations between staff characteristics and leadership styles might indicate that this group is not sufficiently considered and included in leadership processes in the PHC organisation. Leadership competency for the ICs seems not to be based on formal training, but substituted by young age and work experience. In conclusion, the authors call for a reassessment of PHC leadership and formal leadership training.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Positioning Health in the Post-2015 Development Agenda","field_subtitle":"WHO discussion paper, October 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/topics/millennium_development_goals/post2015/WHOdiscussionpaper_October2012.pdf","body":"In a new discussion paper prepared for the UN consultation on health in the post-2015 development agenda, WHO makes the case for using Universal Health Coverage as single overarching health goal. The current MDGs were conceived as a compact between what developing countries aspired to achieve and what the developed world needed to do to ensure progress. Future goals are argued to be more likely to be framed in terms of global challenges that require shared solutions.WHO argues that health is central to development: it is a precondition for, as well as an indicator and an outcome of progress in sustainable development. Nevertheless, while there is no doubt that health must have a place in the next generation of development, a convincing case needs to be made for how a health goal should be framed. In contrast to the current set of health-related MDGs, there is now a greater recognition of the need to focus on means as well as ends: health as a human right; health equity; equality of opportunity; global agreements (International Health Regulations, Pandemic Influenza Preparedness framework) that enhance health security; stronger and more resilient health systems; innovation and efficiency as a response to financial constraints; addressing the economic, social and environmental determinants of health; and multi-sectoral responses that see health as an outcome of all policies. In the current context promoting a long list of competing health goals will be counterproductive. The alternative is to build the case that health is a concern to all people, and is influenced by and as well contributing to policies across a wide range of sectors. The challenge then becomes one of deciding how \u201chealth\u201d in this broad sense can be characterized in a way that is measurable and generates political traction and public understanding. The goal of achieving UHC is argued to have two inter-related components \u2013 coverage with needed health services (prevention, promotion, treatment and rehabilitation) and coverage with financial risk protection, for everyone. Universal Health Coverage is argued to be a dynamic process. It is not about a fixed minimum package, it is about making progress on several fronts: the range of services that are available to people; the proportion of the costs of those services that are covered; and the proportion of the population that are covered. Few countries reach the ideal, but all \u2013 rich and poor \u2013 can make progress. It is thus argued to have the potential to be a universal goal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Preventing and punishing sexual violence: The work of the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region","field_subtitle":"Ndinga-Muvumba A: African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes, Policy and Practice, Brief 17, August 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bl99u5w","body":"The International Conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) seeks to coordinate the efforts of a regional security community while simultaneously addressing the difficult and deep-rooted problems of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in its eleven member states. However, according to the author of this brief, the ICGLR\u2019s 2011 Kampala Declaration on SGBV puts forward the right decisions, but with too many unrealistic timeframes. If the ICGLR tries to implement all 19 decisions from the summit simultaneously, it runs the risk of trying to implement too much, in too short a timeframe. The author argues that the ICGLR and its member states should rather focus on strengthening justice mechanisms at the national and local levels, as well as increase and enhance national and local competencies to investigate, police, prosecute and punish perpetrators of SGBV. Such efforts must be aligned with a second overall ambition of reducing stigma and assisting survivors. Justice and ending stigma are vital to future prevention and punishment efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Reasons why patients with primary health care problems access a secondary hospital emergency centre","field_subtitle":"Becker Juanita, Dell Angela, Jenkins Louis, Sayed Rauf: South African Medical Journal 102(10): 800-801, October 2012","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/6059/4485","body":"Many patients present to an emergency centre (EC) with problems that could be managed at primary healthcare (PHC) level. This has been noted at George Provincial Hospital in the Western Cape province of South Africa. In order to improve service delivery, researchers in this study aimed to determine the patient-specific reasons for accessing the hospital EC with PHC problems.  A descriptive study using a validated questionnaire to determine reasons for accessing the EC was conducted among 277 patients who were triaged as green (routine care), using the South African Triage Score. The duration of the complaint, referral source and appropriateness of referral were recorded.  Of the cases 88.2% were self-referred and 30.2% had complaints persisting for more than a month. Only 4.7% of self-referred green cases were appropriate for the EC. The three most common reasons for attending the EC were that the clinic medicine was not helping (27.5%), a perception that the treatment at the hospital is superior (23.7%), and that there was no PHC service after-hours (22%). Increased acceptability of the PHC services is needed, the authors conclude. The current triage system must be adapted to allow channelling of PHC patients to the appropriate level of care. Strict referral guidelines are needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Resilience in EU international cooperation: A new fad?","field_subtitle":"Hauck V: ECDPM Talking Points, 12 October 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/csc972f","body":"'Resilience\u2019 is topping the list of new buzzwords in international cooperation rhetoric lately and the European Commission (EU) has now issued a policy proposal addressing resilience. In this article, the author criticises the EU\u2019s proposed new policy approach to foreign aid, arguing it has several fundamental weaknesses. First, it airs a highly \u201ctop-down\u201d and \u201cstate-centric\u201d approach to resilience that risks overlooking the existence of a multitude of local communities and groups that have their own sources of resilience. In situations where government structures are absent or not genuine in the partner country, the EU should try to discover, research and link up with these groups. Second, the EU proposal fails to incorporate and to refer to lessons learnt from its own work on capacity development. While it recognises the leading role of partner countries \u2013 fully in accordance with aid effectiveness principles \u2013 there is a risk that this will remain rhetoric as long as the EU does not lay out its approach on how it, as an outsider, can support, facilitate or stimulate change. Third, it is questionable whether the proposal is based on a solid understanding of policy coherence, as it aims to undertake a wide range of resilience-enhancing actions that link up diverse sectors, including agriculture, health, natural resource management, regional trade and national reconciliation. The fact that such actions are risky and can be at odds with each other is not sufficiently addressed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Responding to the HIV-related needs of MSM in Africa: A guide to facilitating a consultation workshop with stakeholders","field_subtitle":"International HIV/AIDS Alliance: December 2009","field_url":"http://www.aidsalliance.org/includes/Publication/HIV-Related_needs_of_MSM_in_Africa.pdf","body":"This guide has been produced for health activists who want to improve the response to the HIV-related needs of men who have sex with men (MSM) in Africa. It provides a set of activities that may be used when facilitating a meeting with key stakeholders who are responsible for improving local and national responses to HIV among MSM. It includes step-by-step advice about how to run sessions, together with a variety of useful resource material and presentations. It also provides basic information to increase one\u2019s understanding about MSM and, in particular, MSM and the HIV epidemic. The guide is designed to help participants: explore their own attitudes and feelings about working with MSM; identify what is being done already, or has been done elsewhere, that could be usefully adapted to their local setting; and identify and plan a course of action in response to local situations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Rethinking health systems strengthening: Key systems thinking tools and strategies for transformational change","field_subtitle":"Swanson RC, Cattaneo A, Bradley E, Chunharas S, Atun R, Abbas KM et al: Health Policy and Planning 27 (suppl): iv54\u2013iv61, 27 September 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_4/iv54.full.pdf+html","body":"While reaching consensus on future plans to address current global health challenges is far from easy, there is broad agreement that reductionist approaches that suggest a limited set of targeted interventions to improve health around the world are inadequate. The authors of this paper argue that a comprehensive systems perspective should guide health practice, education, research and policy. They propose key \u2018systems thinking\u2019 tools and strategies that have the potential for transformational change in health systems. Three overarching themes span these tools and strategies: collaboration across disciplines, sectors and organisations; ongoing, iterative learning; and transformational leadership. The proposed tools and strategies in this paper can be applied, in varying degrees, to every organisation within health systems, from families and communities to national Ministries of Health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Sabbatical Opportunity For Policy Makers Or Public Health Managers In South Africa","field_subtitle":"Application Deadline: 5 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.hpsa-africa.org/images/Call%20for%20practitioners%20sabbatical_UL31Aug_1.pdf","body":"CHESAI is calling for expressions of interest from African policy-makers and mid- to senior-level managers in the public health system in a short-term sabbatical of one to three months in Cape Town, South Africa. CHESAI is a four-year collaborative endeavour between the Schools of Public Health of the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the University of the Western Cape (UWC), funded by the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC). UCT and UWC are engaged in research and policy development with health system decision-makers on a range of health policy and systems\u2019 issues, and also offer teaching programmes in these fields. Applicants must be working as a policy maker or manager in the public health system in an African country and have substantial experience in public health sector management and leadership to share and draw on. The sabbatical is an opportunity for you to contribute to and participate in health policy and systems research activities, such as a seminar series, and the wider academic life of the hosting organisations, an opportunity to read and engage with other practitioners and with researchers working in this field, and you will be given space to write up and present some of your experiences, with the aim to publish a paper or article.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Scale up of services for mental health in low-income and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Cay LM, Semrau M and Chatterjee S: The Lancet 378(9802): 1592-1603, 29 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)60891-X/fulltext#article_upsell","body":"Mental disorders constitute a huge global burden of disease, and there is a large treatment gap, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries. This paper assesses the progress in scaling up mental health services worldwide, using a survey of key national stakeholders in mental health. The authors note that major barriers to scaling up of mental health services in countries with low and middle incomes include absence of financial resources and government commitment and over-centralisation. In addition, challenges of integration of mental health care into primary care settings, scarcity of trained mental health personnel and shortage of public health expertise among mental health leaders are tangible barriers as well. As a result, the authors argue that a systemic and strategic approach to scaling up is needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Sex work and HIV in Namibia: Review of the literature and current programmes","field_subtitle":"Greenall M: Global Network of Sex Work Projects, 2011","field_url":"http://www.nswp.org/sites/nswp.org/files/Literature_Review.pdf","body":"This report consolidates all known information about sex work and HIV in Namibia, and aims to provide an objective knowledge base that can inform programming and advocacy efforts. In Namibia, sex work is formally illegal and criminalised. The author found that sex workers are severely affected by HIV (reportedly, around 70-75% HIV prevalence), and they are vulnerable to different health problems. This is compounded by problems in accessing services (i.e. stigma and discrimination), the excessive costs of obtaining services, and the frequent non-availability of drugs and staff. While overall knowledge of HIV seems to be acceptable, problems arise in negotiating condom use with clients, whereas alcohol and violence play an important role in facilitating sexual risk taking.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Sex work and HIV: Reality on the ground: Rapid assessments in five towns in Namibia","field_subtitle":"Greenall M, Zapata T and Sehgal S: United Nations Population Fund, 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cbo2lno","body":"In 2011, three international organisations and a number of Namibian sex worker organisations conducted a series of rapid assessments on sex work and HIV in five towns in Namibia. In the assessments, a number of issues were raised in case of most or all the towns. These include stigma from health care providers and the community, a preference for traditional medicine, violence from a number of sources, and extortion and abuse from police officers. Yet, the way these affect sex workers are different in each location. The authors note that much more support is required to help sex workers organise and collaborate more effectively and to tackle the problems they face. Active participation of sex workers, as well as addressing HIV through a framework of human rights, are essential to making HIV programmes aiming to reach sex workers more effective. Violence, stigma in access to services, and discrimination should be identified and addressed as a matter of course in any HIV programmes aiming to reach sex workers. At the same time, relevant ministries, NGOs, UN agencies and external funders should use the findings drawn in this paper to raise awareness and advocate for national level action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Small-scale enterprises and the informal sector in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Theuri CK: African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety 22(2): 32-34, September 2012","field_url":"http://www.ttl.fi/en/publications/electronic_journals/african_newsletter/Documents/AfricanNewsletter2_2012.pdf","body":"According to this article, most urban informal sector workers in Kenya live in slums, and they lack basic health and welfare services and social protection, and work in an unhealthy and unsafe work environment. Many small-scale workers operate in ramshackle structures, lack sanitary facilities or potable water, and have poor waste disposals. As their home and workplace are often the same place, this increases their vulnerability to diseases and poor health by combining undesirable living and working conditions. The blurring of the distinction between working and living conditions is related to broader problems of poverty and underdevelopment, the author argues. The major challenge is sustaining continuous improvement and making improvements that are long-lasting. He calls for greater collaboration among the different government agencies concerned with small-scale enterprises and the informal sector, such as the Department of Small and Micro-enterprises, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, and the Directorate of Occupational Safety and Health Services (DOSHS). The DOSHS should continue to collect, analyse and disseminate consistent, disaggregated statistics on safety, health and welfare in the informal economy. These statistics will enable and promote the identification of specific policies and programmes aimed at ensuring that the informal economy provides more decent jobs, as well as bringing the informal economy into the mainstream formal economy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Small-scale industrial welders in Jinja Municipality, Uganda: Awareness of occupational hazards and use of safety measures","field_subtitle":"Okuga M, Mayega RW and Bazeyo W: African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety 22(2): 35-36, September 2012","field_url":"http://www.ttl.fi/en/publications/electronic_journals/african_newsletter/Documents/AfricanNewsletter2_2012.pdf","body":"This cross-sectional study was carried out in Jinja Town in Uganda in order to assess the level of awareness of occupational hazards and the use of safety measures among small-scale industrial welders in a low-income setting. A total of 218 roadside welders with a mean age of 31 years participated in the study. The researchers found that these roadside welders had a high level of awareness of occupational hazards (83%), but their use of safety measures was less than optimal. Awareness was positively influenced by age, educational status, marital status, work experience, type of training and supervision. The researchers speculate that the great discrepancy between the level of awareness and the use of personal protective equipment could be attributed to factors such as discomfort of wear, not being aware that even \u2018simple tasks\u2019 require protection and the unavailability of personal protective equipment because of the high costs associated with their acquisition, leading to sharing of the equipment available among colleagues. Strategies are therefore needed not only to enforce policy but also to cover the informal work sector, in order to ensure the safety of welders. Generally, their high level of awareness may be used as a window of opportunity for involving welders in decision-making as regards their working conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa to ratify International Socio-Economic Rights Covenant ","field_subtitle":"ICESCR Ratification Campaign Driver Group: 12 October 2012","field_url":"","body":"Almost eighteen years after the South African government signed the ICESCR, Cabinet has approved that South Africa will ratify the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The ICESCR, together with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, constitutes the International Bill of Rights. The ICESCR has been ratifed by over 160 states since it was adopted in 1966, 48 of which are African states and 11 of which are member states of the Southern African Development Community. South Africa\u2019s ratification of the ICESCR will unambiguously signal its commitment to be legally bound by the full range of human rights recognised under international law. The ICESCR Ratification Campaign Driver Group also encourages South Africa to also ratify the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR (OP-CESCR). The Optional Protocol is an extra treaty that promotes a culture of accountability around the ICESCR, empowering vulnerable and marginalised groups to lodge individual complaints at the international level regarding violations of their socio-economic rights. The Optional Protocol is yet to come into force, as it requires 10 states to ratify it and, at present, only eight states have done so.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/37356","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"South African HIV Clinicians Society Conference 2012","field_subtitle":"25-28 November 2012: Cape Town, South Africa ","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/events/sa-hiv-clinicians-society-conference-2012","body":"The theme of this year\u2019s South African HIV Clinicians Society Conference is 'Striving for Clinical Excellence'. The Conference will focus on clinical content, setting it apart from other conferences held to date in South Africa. Doctors, nurses, and pharmacists are welcome to attend presentations by senior faculty members from the region and abroad delivering talks relevant to clinical care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening health systems through networks: The need for measurement and feedback","field_subtitle":"Willis CD, Riley BL, Best A and Ongolo-Zogo P: Health Policy and Planning 27 (suppl): iv62\u2013iv66, 27 September 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_4/iv62.full.pdf+html","body":"Strengthening health systems for improved policy making in low- and middle-income (LMIC) countries requires sustained efforts from many people, working collaboratively across multiple levels. Accordingly, the authors of this paper argue that the complexity of health systems necessitates approaches that are grounded in systems thinking at the global, national and subnational levels, and that recognise the need for ways of working that promote integration rather than fragmentation. Network structures represent a broad set of collaborative approaches that are useful for bringing stakeholders together. The authors propose that health systems in LMIC countries will be strengthened if policy researchers, policy makers and other stakeholders are able to explicitly and purposefully apply systems thinking concepts to the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of networks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Submission: Call for Abstracts and Session Proposals","field_subtitle":"Session Deadline: 15 November. Individual Abstract Deadline: 15 January 2013","field_url":"https://www.healtheconomics.org/congress/2013/submission/","body":"The International Health Economics Association (iHEA), which is hosting the July 2013 World Congress on Health Economics, is looking for abstracts and session proposals for the Congress. While all submissions in the field of health economics are welcome, the programme committee is particularly interested in the following topics: health care reform; universal coverage; health workforce; health technology assessment; econometrics; history of health economics; health status measurement; paying for health care; and reporting system performance. Session description and individual abstracts should not exceed 500 words.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Take part in the global thematic consultation on health in the post-2015 development agenda","field_subtitle":"WHO and UNICEF: 2012","field_url":"http://www.worldwewant2015.org/health","body":"As part of the United Nations (UN) led effort to catalyse a \u201cglobal conversation\u201d on the post-2015 agenda through a series of global thematic and national consultations, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the UN Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF), together with the Government of Sweden, have launched a global consultation around health. The purposes of the consultation are to: stimulate wide ranging discussion at global, regional and country levels, on progress made and lessons learnt from the present Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) relating to health; and discuss and develop a shared understanding on the positioning of health in the post-2015 development framework. WHO and UNICEF will also propose health goals and related targets and indicators for the post-2015 development agenda, as well as approaches for implementation, measurement and monitoring. The online global health consultation  has now been launched online, at the address given above. You are urged to visit the website to review key documents, submit background papers, join moderated e-discussions and contribute to the discussion on twitter using the hashtag #health2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The comparative cost-effectiveness of an equity-focused approach to child survival, health, and nutrition: a modelling approach","field_subtitle":"Carrera C, Azrack A, Begkoyian G, Pfaffmann J, Ribaira E, O'Connell T et al: The Lancet 380(9850): 1341-1351, 13 October 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bnwnor9","body":"Is prioritising services for the poorest and most marginalised more effective and cost effective than mainstream approaches? In this study, researchers addressed this question by comparing the cost-effectiveness in terms of child deaths and stunting events averted between two approaches: an equity-focused approach that prioritises the most deprived communities, and a mainstream approach that is representative of current strategies. Results showed that, with the same level of investment, disproportionately higher effects are possible by prioritising the poorest and most marginalised populations, for averting both child mortality and stunting. This suggests that an equity-focused approach offers higher cost-effectiveness than mainstream approaches, while reducing inequities in effective intervention coverage, health outcomes, and out-of-pocket spending between the most and least deprived groups and geographic areas within countries. Further research is needed to address gaps in the researchers\u2019 evidence base. They call for increasing prioritisation of the most deprived communities and the increased use of community-based interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The growth of the private for profit health sector in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET and the University of Cape Town Health Economics Unit: September 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20privfinancing%20poster%20for%20web.pdf","body":"There has been recent growth in the private for-profit health sector in East and Southern African countries. African governments are being encouraged to facilitate private sector growth through changing their policies and laws and providing funding for the private sector. This poster / leaflet explores what parts of the private sector are growing, the consequences of a growing private health sector and what civil society organisations and Ministries of Health should be doing to protect the integrity of their health systems.Civil society should contribute to monitoring funded of the private sector. Governments should not use tax funds to support the development of the private for-profit sector and should assess the impact of any proposed for-profit activities on the overall health sector before allowing it to proceed, make this impact\r\nassessment report publicly available and put in place adequate regulations\r\nand collect accurate information on private sector health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"The politics of social protection: Why are public works programmes so popular with governments and donors?","field_subtitle":"McCord A: Overseas Development Institute, September 2012","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/docs/7795.pdf","body":"This Background Note is an initial exploration of the political economy of adopting public works programmes (PWPs) to promote social protection and employment in low-income countries and fragile states. The author found that one main reason why some external funders (donors) and governments favour public works programmes over other forms of social protection is their anticipated economic and political benefits, such as household, local and national economic development, increased productivity and graduation out of poverty, and the promotion of political stability. This preference for PWPs is not entirely evidence-based, however, as current data on the impacts of PWP implementation are inadequate. The popularity of PWPs may be linked in part to political and organisational interests as well as concerns about programme outcomes, and political dynamics can lead to inflated expectations about impact if programme design and institutional capacity are not given adequate attention. The author recommends political economy analysis as a useful tool for better understanding these issues. It can contribute to the development and design of interventions that are more likely to deliver significant welfare and employment benefits, while also being politically acceptable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012","field_subtitle":"Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO): 2012","field_url":"http://www.fao.org/docrep/016/i3027e/i3027e00.htm","body":"Economic growth is necessary but not sufficient to accelerate the reduction of hunger globally according to this report by the FAO, which presents new estimates of undernourishment based on a revised and improved methodology. The new estimates show that progress in reducing hunger during the past 20 years has been better than previously believed, and that, given renewed efforts, it may be possible to reach the Millennium Development Goal hunger target at the global level by 2015, namely eradicate extreme hunger. Policies and programmes that will ensure \u201cnutrition-sensitive\u201d growth include supporting increased dietary diversity, improving access to safe drinking water, sanitation and health services and educating consumers regarding adequate nutrition and child care practices. Economic growth takes time to reach the poor, and may not reach the poorest of the poor. Therefore, social protection is crucial for eliminating hunger as rapidly as possible. Finally, rapid progress in reducing hunger requires government action to provide key public goods and services within a governance system based on transparency, participation, accountability, rule of law and human rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Traditional women weavers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Occupational safety, health and working conditions","field_subtitle":"Muchiri F and Seblework D: African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety 22(2): 37-39, September 2012","field_url":"http://www.ttl.fi/en/publications/electronic_journals/african_newsletter/Documents/AfricanNewsletter2_2012.pdf","body":"The main aim of this assessment was to identify the existing occupational safety and health, working conditions, and environmental challenges in the weaving sector in Addis Ababa and their impact on productivity, quality and access to external markets. Researchers targeted women weavers in the three categories namely the micro-level weavers who weave in their homes, weavers in cooperatives and those weaving in small-scale enterprises. Respondents from all three categories reported poor working conditions and environment, and had low productivity and product quality. Weavers and owners of the small-scale enterprises were not aware of the benefits of improving working conditions, occupational safety and occupational health. Comfort in terms of the design of their workstations and ease-of-use of machinery was often not even considered by respondents to be of any importance. Most work rooms had poor light and little ventilation and were often overcrowded, as micro-level weavers shared their work space with children and other family members, all of whom are exposed to occupational hazards as well. Participants called for continuous support and especially the development of policy tools and bilingual guides for continuous improvement that would not only support their survival, but also their growth and ability to compete on local and export markets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Twenty-first IUHPE World Conference On Health Promotion, 25-29 August 2012, Thailand","field_subtitle":"Abstract submission deadline: 20 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.iuhpeconference.net/en/index.php","body":"The International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) and Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth) are hosting the 21st IUHPE World Conference on Health Promotion, 25\u201329 August, Pattaya, Thailand. The conference aims to contribute to the development of equity and social justice across the globe by offering a unique platform for dialogue on the best investments for health between participants from various sectors from all over the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"UNAIDS guidance note on HIV and sex work (updated)","field_subtitle":"Global Network of Sex Work Projects: 2012","field_url":"http://www.nswp.org/sites/nswp.org/files/JC2306_UNAIDS-guidance-note-HIV-sex-work_en[1]_0.pdf","body":"This Guidance Note has been developed to provide a coordinated human-rights-based approach to promoting universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support in the context of adult sex work. It provides clarification and direction regarding approaches to reduce HIV risk and vulnerability in the context of sex work. Its policy and programmatic emphasis rests on three interdependent pillars: access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support for all sex workers and their clients; supportive environments and partnerships that facilitate universal access to needed services, including life choices and occupational alternatives to sex work for those who want to leave it; and action to address structural issues related to HIV and sex work. Comprehensive rights-based programmes on HIV and sex work are argued to be critical to the success of the HIV response, and policies and programmes to address the links between HIV and sex work must recognise the social and geographic diversity of sex work, as well as the rapid changes that may occur in patterns of sex work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Using primary health care (PHC) workers and key informants for community based detection of blindness in children in Southern Malawi","field_subtitle":"Kalua K, Ng\u2019ongola RT, Mbewe F and Gilbert C: Human Resources for Health: 10(37), 27 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/10/1/37","body":"This study compared the effectiveness of trained Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs) versus trained volunteer Key Informants (KIs) in identifying blind children in southern Malawi. A cluster community based study was conducted in Mulanje district, population 435 753. Six clusters each with a population of approximately 70,000 to 80,000, 42% of whom were children were identified and randomly allocated to either HSA or KI training. A total of 59 HSAs and 64 KIs were trained. HSAs identified five children of whom two were confirmed as blind (one blind child per 29.5 HSAs trained). On the other hand, the KIs identified a total of 158 children of whom 20 were confirmed blind (one blind child per 3.2 KIs trained). More blind boys than girls were identified (77.3% versus 22.7%) respectively. Key Informants were found to be much better at identifying blind children than HSAs, even though both groups identified far fewer blind children compared with WHO estimates. HSAs reported lack of time as a major constraint in identifying blind children. Based on these findings using HSAs for identifying blind children would not be successful in Malawi, the authors argue. Gender differences need to be addressed in all childhood blindness programs to counteract the imbalance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"View Point: Ethical dilemmas in malaria vector research in Africa: Making the difficult choice between mosquito, science and humans","field_subtitle":"Ndebele P and Musesengwa R: Malawi Medical Journal; 24(3): 65-68, September 2012","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/mmj/article/viewFile/81573/71730","body":"Malaria vector studies are a very important aspect of malaria research as they assist researchers to learn more about the malaria vector. Research programmes in various African countries include studies that assess various methods of preventing malaria transmission including controlling the malaria vector. Various institutions have also established mosquito colonies that are maintained by staff from the institutions. Malaria vector research presents several dilemmas relating to the various ways in which humans are used in the malaria vector research enterprise. A review of the past and present practices reveals much about the prevailing attitudes and assumptions with regard to the ethical conduct of research involving humans. The focus on the science of malaria vector research has led some researchers in African institutions to engage in questionable practices which reveal the ethical tensions inherent in the choice between science and the principles of justice, nonmaleficence and respect for individuals. The analysis of past and present choices in malaria vector research has relevance to broader questions of human dignity and are in line with the current emphasis on ethical research worldwide.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"We also count! Protecting the health and safety of informal sector workers","field_subtitle":"Francie Lund, Director, WIEGO Social Protection Programme","field_url":"","body":"A growing number of the world\u2019s workers are invisible to mainstream occupational health and safety (OHS): The vendor in Maputo or Nairobi trading on a city pavement, the person  sorting waste on Durban\u2019s municipal garbage dump, or the garment worker using her own home to make clothes for the local or international market. \r\n\r\nThese \u2018atypical\u2019 places of work have existed for many years, especially in developing countries. But OHS generally deals with formal workers in formal workplaces such as shops, factories, offices and mines. It does not accommodate much understanding of the social determinants of health, that is the relationship between risk, poverty and informal work, or how community health is affected by the conditions people work in.\r\n\r\nSome risks are general to all forms of informal work, such as the low and unreliable incomes earmed, and the lack of cover by work-related health insurance. In addition, the different places of work present different types of specific risk: for example, street vendors are exposed to the sun and to vehicle fumes;  stall holders in built markets face fire hazards; and those sorting waste are exposed to broken glass, putrid meat and discarded batteries on waste dumps.  The different  employment relationships, including self-employment,  disguised waged work and informal waged work, also influence the risks that workers and their families face. \r\n\r\nThese employment patterns present challenges to the discipline and the practice of OHS.   Profound institutional disconnects are becoming more apparent  because of the numbers of workers involved, in the global north and south, and because of the growing public awareness of the informal economy. \r\n\r\nOHS policies, norms and standards are usually set nationally, but it is local government that has most control over day-to-day working conditions. For example, street vendors\u2019 conditions of work are vitally affected by the presence or absence of local government provision of public toilets, shelters for trading, lighting and refuse removal. Industrial out-workers who use their homes as places of production are affected by zoning and planning regulations, housing density and roads (including for access to health services and to markets).  While calls are being made nationally for job creation through support to informal enterprises, local governments have in contrast smashed people\u2019s livelihoods through evictions and confiscation of assets, undermining workers incomes and health. Better vertical  institutional coherence between local and national levels could enhance opportunities for informal workers to earn better and more reliable incomes.\r\n\r\nThere are also horizontal institutional tensions and gaps. At national level, macro-economic policies lead to increased poverty and inequality that cannot easily be redressed by social policies.  At local government level, informal workers engage with local government officials from departments such as sanitation, public health and environmental health that may have different policies and practices for regulating informal work, and that have limited understanding of the positive economic role played by the informal workers. \r\n\r\nIs a reformed and more inclusive occupational health and safety possible, not only conceptually, but also in terms of enabling realistic compliance, with shared responsibilities between the state, informal workers, and employers (where these exist)?\r\n\r\n Innovative work done by the ILO and others have tended to allocate most of the responsibility for ensuring health and safety to the informal workers themselves. But it is known that poorer informal workers do not easily prioritise their own health above their need to earn better incomes and thus may not invest in improving the safety of their working conditions. For example, industrial outworkers earning piece rates for stitching garments may not take regular breaks; waste pickers may not use personal protective equipment if it slows their work down; or headload porters may not carry lighter loads when they earn according to loadweight. \r\n\r\nNew evidence of opportunities for informal workers to engage constructively with local government over improved OHS is emerging from a five-country research and advocacy study  in Brazil, Ghana, India, Peru and Tanzania, being done by Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing  (WIEGO).  WIEGO is a network that seeks to improve the status of the working poor in the informal economy, especially women, through support for increased organization and representation; improved statistics and research; more inclusive policy processes; and more equitable trade, labour, urban planning, and social protection policies. The network implemented participatory research with worker groups, many of whom are affiliates of WIEGO, followed by institutional mapping of OHS in each country and in selected major cities. The studies highlighted that new worker movements \u2013 organizations and associations, often structured along sectoral lines \u2013 are critical for effective engagement over recognition and improved conditions. These movements emphasise the right to work, advocate for recognition of informal work and many are collecting rigorous data about the contribution of informal work to the local and national economy, in order to strengthen their position. Their highest expressed priority, after higher and more reliable returns to their labour, is for access to health services.  \r\n\r\nWe are now exploring pathways of policy influence,  engaging in international and national OHS platforms and dialogues, and encouraging a change in the curriculum for OHS training. Powerful vested interests are obviously stacked against such reforms, including from within mainstream OHS disciplines, and from global owners  of capital who are presently \u2018off the hook\u2019  in terms of their responsibility for the health and safety of the millions of workers who produce for them.   However the research in each of the countries has identified encouraging points of entry and increasingly organized advocacy for a more inclusive OHS. \r\n\r\nFor more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit www.wiego.org and the OHS newsletter at http://wiego.org/ohs/newsletter , or write to Francie Lund lundf@ukzn.ac.za or Laura Alfers Laura.Alfers@wiego.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"When \u2018solutions of yesterday become problems of today\u2019: Crisis-ridden decision making in a complex adaptive system (CAS): The Additional Duty Hours Allowance in Ghana","field_subtitle":"Agyepong IA, Kodua A, Adjei S and Adam T: Health Policy and Planning 27 (suppl): iv20\u2013iv31, 27 September 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_4/iv20.full.pdf+html","body":"Implementation of policies (decisions) in the health sector is sometimes defeated by the system\u2019s response to the policy itself. This can lead to counter-intuitive, unanticipated, or more modest effects than expected by those who designed the policy. The health sector fits the characteristics of complex adaptive systems (CAS) and complexity is at the heart of this phenomenon. Anticipating both positive and negative effects of policy decisions, understanding the interests, power and interaction between multiple actors and planning for the delayed and distal impact of policy decisions are essential for effective decision making in CAS. Failure to appreciate these elements often leads to a series of reductionist approach interventions or \u2018fixes\u2019. This in turn can initiate a series of negative feedback loops that further complicates the situation over time. In this paper, researchers use a case study of the Additional Duty Hours Allowance (ADHA) policy in Ghana to illustrate these points. Using causal loop diagrams, they unpack the intended and unintended effects of the policy and how these effects evolved over time. The overall goal is to advance our understanding of decision making in complex adaptive systems; and through this process identify some essential elements in formulating, updating and implementing health policy that can help to improve attainment of desired outcomes and minimise negative unintended effects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Who really benefits from Tanzania\u2019s big new agri-business project?","field_subtitle":"Lazaro F: The Citizen, 23 August 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ceysdc5","body":"Civil society is calling on the Tanzanian government and agri-business for a frank discussion on the objectives and benefits of the ongoing Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (Sagcot) project, which forms part of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra). Agra is considered by activists fighting poverty as a means to destroy small-scale farming in Africa and introduce large-scale, mechanised agriculture producing genetically modified crops, with disastrous results for food security on the continent. Critics argue that the government\u2019s version of green revolution is fundamentally flawed, as it seeks the participation of large-scale, mostly foreign, investors, while conveniently ignoring the fact that agriculture in the country is overwhelmingly small-scale, sustaining about 80% of the population. The fate of these farmers is uncertain. As the implementation of most of these projects also seems complex, lacks transparency and raises accusations of land grabbing, civil society organisations are also calling on coordinators of the project to explain the nature of partnership with key international partners, some of whom have controversial commercial and agricultural undertakings. The ensuing discussions should address issues such as how local societies will be key players in farming, technological advancement and value addition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Why enhance domestic resource mobilisation in Africa?","field_subtitle":"Culpeper R and Bhushan A: Trade Negotiations Insights 9(6), July 2010","field_url":"http://ictsd.org/i/news/tni/80575/","body":"In this article, the authors compare domestic resource mobilisation (DRM) with foreign direct investment (FDI), arguing that developing countries, like those in Asia, that have achieved and sustained high rates of growth have typically done so largely through the DRM, and not through FDI. DRM at a significant level is essential to solidify ownership over development strategy and to strengthen the bonds of accountability between governments and their citizens. In effect, it provides \u2018policy space\u2019 to developing countries, which is often constrained under the terms and conditions of external funders. In contrast, FDI tends to be pro-cyclical and volatile, particularly affecting African countries with smaller economies, and typically flows into sectors and projects dictated by the commercial interests of the foreign investors, like natural resource extraction. While external funding or trade and investment opportunities can make significant contributions to development, they alone will not be sufficient for Sub-Saharan Africa to achieve sustainable, equitable growth and poverty reduction, the authors conclude. As happened in the 90s with Malaysia, South Korea and the other \u2018Asian Tigers\u2019, development success depends primarily on the efforts of developing countries themselves, which ultimately means enhancing their ability to mobilise their own human and financial resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"World Bank Procurement Review Submission ","field_subtitle":"Eurodad, Afrodad, Oxfam et al: September 2012","field_url":"http://eurodad.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/WB_procurement_review_final1.pdf","body":"A group of international civil society organisations (CSOs) have called on the World Bank to implement smart procurement guidelines that support the development of the domestic private sector of developing countries. This submission calls on the World Bank to review its procurement guidelines so that they become an economic policy tool which is pro-poor, promotes domestic industry development and empowerment, reduces asymmetries between local and foreign companies in order to create a truly level playing field, focusing in particular on SMEs and works towards poverty eradication, sustainable development and mitigating climate change. The Bank should become a development tool, considers social and environmental criteria, and creates incentives for all private actors to behave in a socially and environmentally responsible fashion. It should also respect transparency and accountability, emphasising that accountability to citizens in developing countries matters most. The Bank can play a catalytic role in strengthening domestic accountability through its procurement practices, the CSOs argue. Finally the Bank should increase the effectiveness and developmental impact of aid and ensures that the larger share of aid inflows remain in the recipient countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"World Development Report 2013: Jobs","field_subtitle":"World Bank: 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/8nhyrpw","body":"In developing countries, jobs are a cornerstone of development, with a pay off far beyond income alone. They are critical for reducing poverty, making cities work, and providing youth with alternatives to violence, according to the World Development Report 2013. The report focuses on employment, stressing the role of strong private sector-led growth in creating jobs, and outlines how jobs that do the most for development can spur a virtuous cycle. These jobs include those that raise incomes, make cities function better, connect the economy to global markets, protect the environment, and give people a stake in their societies.  The report finds that poverty falls as people work their way out of hardship and as jobs empower women to invest more in their children. Efficiency increases as workers get better at what they do, as more productive jobs appear, and as less productive ones disappear. And ultimately, the report concludes, societies flourish as jobs foster diversity and provide alternatives to conflict.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Our land, our lives\u2019: Time out on the global land rush ","field_subtitle":"Oxfam Briefing Note: October 2012","field_url":"http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/our-land-our-lives-time-out-on-the-global-land-rush-246731","body":"In the last decade, enough agricultural land has been sold off to grow food for a billion people, which is equivalent to the number of people who go hungry in the world each night, according to Oxfam. Over 60% of investments in agricultural land by foreign investors between 2000 and 2010 were in developing countries with serious hunger problems. However, two-thirds of those investors plan to export everything they produce on that land. While Oxfam supports greater investment in agriculture and to small-scale producers, it argues that the unprecedented rush for land has not been adequately regulated or policed to prevent land grabs. This means that poor people continue to be evicted, often violently, without consultation or compensation. Many lose their homes and are left destitute, without access to the land they rely on. Oxfam calls on the World Bank to temporarily freeze investments involving large-scale land deals so it can review its advice to developing countries, help set standards for investors, and introduce more robust policies to stop land grabs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"A quasi-experimental evaluation of an interpersonal communication intervention to increase insecticide-treated net use among children in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Keating J, Hutchinson P, Miller JM, Bennett A, Larsen DA, Hamainza B et al: Malaria Journal 11(313), 7 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-313.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers evaluated the effect of a community health worker-based, interpersonal communication campaign for increasing insecticide-treated mosquito net (ITN) use among children in Luangwa District, Zambia, an area with near universal coverage of ITNs and moderate to low malaria parasite prevalence. Results indicated that ITN use among children younger than five years old in households with one ITN increased overall from 54 % in 2008 to 81 % in 2010. However, there was no difference in increase between the treatment and control arms in 2010. ITN use also increased among children five to 14 years old from 37 % in 2008 to 68 % in 2010. There was no indication that the community health worker-based intervention activities had a significant effect on increasing ITN use in this context, over and above what is already being done to disseminate information on the importance of using an ITN to prevent malaria infection. Contamination across control communities, coupled with linear settlement patterns and subsequent behavioural norms related to communication in the area, likely contributed to the observed increase in net use and null effect in this study, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"A WHO/UNICEF global code of practice on the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children","field_subtitle":"Taylor AL, Dhillon IS and Hwenda L: Global Health Governance V(2): Spring, June 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/9b4nmvy","body":"The lack of a global legal framework to guide national action and international cooperation to reduce risk factors related to alcohol abuse and unhealthy diet significantly hinders the capacity of nations worldwide to unilaterally and collectively curb the expanding epidemics of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), according to this paper. A number of commentators have suggested the adoption of comprehensive treaties or framework conventions on obesity, or alcohol or both. Given the legal, political, budgetary, and time-related limitations to the development and adoption of all-encompassing treaty regimes to address obesity and alcohol abuse, the authors recommend an alternative legal strategy to counter these rising NCD epidemics. In particular, they call for the prompt adoption of a WHO/UNICEF global code of practice on the marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to children. Such a non-binding international legal instrument has significant advantages over a treaty approach at the present time. It would provide a much-needed step towards advancing meaningful engagement with and holding to account all relevant actors, including national governments, private industry, and UN agencies, in protecting children everywhere from harm. The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (\u201cFCTC\u201d) addresses one of the major risk factors contributing to NCDs by establishing a global legal framework to counter the tobacco pandemic: in response, the authors call on the global community to act collectively to establish a legal architecture to regulate a central component of these two other major risk factors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"ACTA: Will it ever become a valid international treaty?","field_subtitle":"Ermert M: Intellectual Property Watch, 13 September 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/8bq6ve5","body":"On 6 September 2012, Japan\u2019s ruling party, the House of Representatives, ratified the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in the absence of opposition parties, counting only the votes of the ruling party. Critics have denounced the move as undemocratic, also claiming that the Japanese mass media has marginalised the issue in the arena of public debate. Meanwhile, processes in several ACTA signatory states seem to be stalled. The author of this article notes that it is unlikely that ACTA will become an international treaty, with an apparent stalemate between the United States administration and legislators about ratification procedures, and the European Union\u2019s recent vote against ratifying the agreement. Besides Japan, seven governments are reported to have signed ACTA, namely Australia, Canada, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the United States. Switzerland has not signed nor ratified. ACTA will have significant repercussions for public health, as the treaty aims to strengthen patent protection for pharmaceutical companies, wuth negative consequences for the production of affordable generic medicines in the developing world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"African countries must still ratify and implement AU agreements","field_subtitle":"State of the Union (SOTU): Pambazuka News (597), 12 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/84062","body":"State of the Union (SOTU), a coalition of 10 civil society organisations, has urged national, regional and continental Parliaments to take a leading role in promoting the ratification and implementation of key African Union (AU) instruments and policy standards. SOTU says that the slow rate of ratification and domestication of key instruments is alarming and undermines the credibility of the AU and all its key organs, while denying millions of African citizens their fundamental freedoms and basic human rights as intended by the protocols. Although there has been some progress in the rate of ratification with a total of 118 new ratifications have been entered against the 43 instruments, more needs to be done to ensure the ratifications go hand in hand with domestication and implementation. In east, central and southern Africa, Zambia, Congo and Rwanda have performed best, having ratified five instruments each. By August 2012, only two countries, Kenya and Mauritius, had ratified the African Charter on the Values and Principles of Public Service & Administration (2011) and only 14 countries had ratified the Charter for Democracy, Elections and Governance. At this current rate, universal ratification of AU treaties would not be complete before 2053, says SOTU.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"After the Millennium Development Goals","field_subtitle":"Rodrik D: Project Syndicate, 10 September","field_url":"http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/after-the-millennium-development-goals-by-dani-rodrik","body":"As the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) approaches, development experts are debating a new question: What comes next? In this article, the writer suggests any new global agreement that follows the MDGs should focus more on rich countries\u2019 responsibilities, an issue that was absent from the original MDGs. It should emphasise policies beyond aid and trade that have an equal, if not greater, impact on poor countries\u2019 development prospects. A short list of such policies would include: carbon taxes and other measures to ameliorate climate change; more work visas to allow larger temporary migration flows from poor countries; strict controls on arms sales to developing nations; reduced support for repressive regimes; and improved sharing of financial information to reduce money laundering and tax avoidance. Most of these measures are actually aimed at reducing damage that results from rich countries\u2019 conduct. While rich countries are certain to resist any new commitments, the author notes that most of these measures do not cost money, and, as the MDGs have shown, setting targets can be used to mobilise action from rich-country governments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing performance enhancing tools: Experiences with the open performance review and appraisal system (OPRAS) and expectations towards payment for performance (P4P) in the public health sector in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Songstad N, Lindkvist I, Moland K, Chimhutu V and Blystad A: Globalization and Health 8(33), 10 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-8-33.pdf","body":"To increase the quality of service delivery in the public health sector, Tanzania has implemented the Open Performance Review and Appraisal System (OPRAS) and a new results-based payment system, Payment for Performance (P4P). This paper addresses health workers' experiences with OPRAS, expectations towards P4P and how lessons learned from OPRAS can assist in the implementation of P4P. The broader aim is to generate knowledge on health worker motivation in low-income contexts. The authors conducted focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with public health nursing staff, clinicians and administrators. Results showed a general reluctance towards OPRAS as health workers did not see the system as leading to financial gains nor did it provide feedback on performance. In contrast, great expectations were expressed towards P4P due to its prospects of topping up salaries, but the links between the two performance enhancing tools were unclear. The authors conclude that health workers respond to performance enhancing tools based on whether the tools are found appropriate or yield any tangible benefits.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Awards and grants for researchers in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Available from 1 November 2012","field_url":"http://royalsociety.org/grants/schemes/africa-capacity-building /","body":"The Royal Society-DFID Africa Capacity Building Initiative is a programme for scientists in sub-Saharan Africa who want to collaborate on research between themselves and a research institution in the United Kingdom (UK). The overall aim of the scheme is to strengthen the research capacity of universities and research institutions in sub-Saharan Africa by supporting the development of sustainable research networks. The programme consists of two awards and will be delivered in two stages: Scientific Network Awards and Programme Grants. Applicants must be based in one of the eligible sub-Saharan African countries or the UK. Applications will be accepted in these research priority areas: water and sanitation, renewable energy, soil-related research, and value and tenure. The next round of funding opens on 1 November 2012.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 20 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/emerging-public-health-practitioner-award-2012","body":"To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Health Systems Trust has initiated an annual Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award and is calling on all young and emerging public health professionals to submit articles for inclusion in the South African Health Review (SAHR). The winning entry will be published in the SAHR and the winner will receive a cash prize of R5,000 (US$600), as well as meet with senior HST staff members to discuss areas for future interaction and collaboration. The competition is open to South Africans under the age of 35. Judges will be assessing submissions according to the following criteria: relevance of the topic to the local and international public health community and current policy environment in South Africa; scientific rigour and intellectual clarity; degree of innovation and originality; identification of good practices and hindrances to policy implementation; and possible policy implications.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Postdoctoral fellowship in community-based research","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 5 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.camh.ca/en/research/students_and_fellows/Pages/fellowship_community_research.aspx","body":"The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is calling for applicants for its new Postdoctoral Fellowship in Community-Based Research. CAMH trains students and fellows in the field of mental health and addictions and the purpose of the fellowship is to provide a postdoctoral fellow with training in the techniques and principles of community-based research on mental health and addictions. Fellows can propose research in any area related to mental health and addictions, and can be supervised by any CAMH scientist. In addition to the usual academic requirements of CAMH fellows, successful candidates for this fellowship will be required to show that: their proposed research question is seen as a priority for the community under study; community members and/or organisations will be actively and meaningfully engaged in the research; and the research is likely to have a tangible impact for the community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications for postdoctoral fellowships in health policy and systems research","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 15 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.uct.ac.za/usr/pgfo/postdocs/notices /CHESAI_finalcall_Aug_2.pdf","body":"The University of Cape Town (UCT) and University of the Western Cape (UWC) Schools of Public Health are calling for interested candidates to apply for two Postdoctoral Research Fellowships to start in January 2013. The successful candidates will be required to register at UCT or UWC and will join the CHESAI team, where they will be expected to contribute to its work and to facilitate communication and joint learning between UCT and UWC. This collaboration is based on the understanding that Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) is an emerging field within the broader terrain of health research, with conceptual and methodological foundations that require substantial development. The overall aim for CHESAI is, therefore, to contribute to expanding and strengthening the health policy and systems knowledge base in Africa through building an intellectual hub for HPSR in Cape Town, South Africa, creating spaces for engagements between researchers and practitioners, supporting African HSPR capacity development and sharing/disseminating HPSR conceptual and methodological innovation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Applications:  PhD Candidate specialising in AIDS advocacy","field_subtitle":"Applications should be submitted no later than 12 October 2012","field_url":"","body":"The Centre for Civil Society within the School of Built Environment and Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal is calling for expressions of interest in a funded PhD position supporting AIDS advocacy research. Specifically, drawing upon experiences in South Africa and other African countries in which civil society advocacy has promoted stronger HIV/AIDS policies, the project considers how systems of governance help or hinder effective policies and implementation. The candidate will be based at the Centre for Civil Society for a period of 3 years commencing in 2013, and receive a generous bursary and tuition support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for endorsement of the People\u2019s Charter","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement: 2012","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/resources/charters/peopleshealth?destination=home","body":"The People's Charter for Health is a statement issued by the People\u2019s Health Movement coalition calling for universal health care. It is the most widely endorsed consensus document on health since the Alma Ata Declaration of 1978, which was the first international declaration underlining the importance of primary health care and health as a human right. The Charter was formulated by the participants of the First People's Health Assembly held at Dhaka, Bangladesh in December 2000. Nearly one-and-a-half thousand participants from 92 countries attended the Assembly, which was the culmination of 18 months of preparatory action around the globe. At the Assembly, they reviewed their problems and difficulties, shared their experiences and plans, and created the Charter, which is now the common tool of a worldwide citizen's movement committed to making universal health care a reality. All organisations and individuals who agree that health is a social, economic and political issue and, above all, a fundamental human right are invited to endorse the Charter if they have not already done so.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Central African farmers gear up to influence future agricultural policy in their region","field_subtitle":"Van Seters J: ECDPM Talking Points, 9 August 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.ecdpm-talkingpoints.org/central-african-farmers-influence-future-agricultural-policy/","body":"Food security in Central Africa has been worsening over the last two decades. To address this challenge, Central African states have embarked on a process to develop a common agricultural policy and to put the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) into practice. Farmers\u2019 organisations from all member states are now shaping up to influence these policy-making processes at national and regional level in the coming months. The main challenge for them is to identify proposals that respond to the needs and priorities of all the farmers they represent, and to ensure that policy makers will take them into account during negotiations. In doing so, they could learn from their counterparts in West Africa, argues the writer of this blog, the Deputy Programme Manager for Food Security at ECDPM. West African farmers managed to play an important role in the formulation of the region\u2019s common agricultural policy through their regional farmers\u2019 network ROPPA. Key to ROPPA\u2019s success was its participation in decision-making organs and meetings, but more so, its preparations for these events, which included consultations of ROPPA\u2019s members at regional, national and local levels, analytical work to check and back their arguments, and a continuous search for allies among national and regional authorities and non-state actors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Colonialism, corruption and the future","field_subtitle":"Ezeanya C: Pambazuka News (597), 12 September 2012","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/84048","body":"When specifically viewed with Africa\u2019s history in mind, administrative corruption, though rampant across Africa today, is an alien culture, argues the author of this article. Pre-colonial Africa, for the most part, was founded on strong ethical values sometimes packaged in spiritual terms, but with the end result of ensuring social justice and compliance. The author argues that colonialism introduced systemic corruption across much of sub-Saharan Africa, repudiating indigenous values, standards, checks and balances. The author makes several recommendations: restoration of indigenous values and institutions; improving access to formal, informal and non-formal education; promotion of the \u2018African\u2019 nation state; and strengthening of anti-corruption institutions. The author argues that African countries should not just seek the deceptive increment in Gross Domestic Product, but real development in terms of standard of living, with health, education, food security and infrastructural growth given prominence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Committing to child survival: A promise renewed","field_subtitle":"UNICEF: 2012","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/APR_Progress_Report_2012_final.pdf","body":"This 2012 progress report examines trends in child mortality estimates since 1990, and shows that major reductions have been made in under-five mortality rates in all regions and diverse countries. Data shows that the number of children under the age of five dying globally fell from nearly 12 million in 1990 to an estimated 6.9 million in 2011. Recommendations from the report include increasing efforts among high-burden populations, focusing on high-impact solutions and creating a supportive environment for child survival by addressing poverty, geographic isolation, educational disadvantage, child protection violations and gender exclusion. Governments should take bold steps that prioritise both efficiency and mutual accountability, and harness the growing consensus that economic and social progress should be equitable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Council for Medical Schemes Annual Report 2012","field_subtitle":"South African Council for Medical Schemes: 2012","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/council-medical-schemes-annual-report-2012","body":"In this annual report, the South African Council for Medical Schemes details its support for the Department of Health in its efforts to strategically review the entire health system of South Africa. Council provided input to the technical sub-committees of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on the proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) system, and submitted a formal document on the NHI policy paper. Ever-escalating costs in the industry, which are driven by private hospitals and medical specialists, have always been one of Council\u2019s concerns, and this financial year proved no different. This worrying trend of inflation-exceeding price increases in the private health sector has serious and negative implications for the well-being and sustainability of the entire health system. Council therefore continued to motivate for the establishment of a regulator to oversee the price determination of private healthcare provision. Council believes that a real need exists for a platform where medical schemes and healthcare providers can meet and negotiate prices for the benefit of all South African consumers. Private healthcare providers should also be regulated, specifically the hospitals and specialists. The practice where beneficiaries are exposed to unfair billing practices must be addressed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Defending civil society: Report 2012","field_subtitle":"World Movement for Democracy: June 2012","field_url":"http://www.defendingcivilsociety.org/dl/reports/DCS_Report_Second_Edition_English.pdf","body":"Today, civil society is facing serious threats across the globe, according to this report. Civil society activists continue to face traditional forms of repression, such as imprisonment, harassment, disappearances and execution. In addition, many governments have increasingly become more subtle in their efforts to limit the space in which civil society organisations (CSOs), especially democracy and human rights groups, operate. In the report, the World Movement for Democracy (WMD) highlights the well-defined international principles protecting civil society and underscoring proper government-civil society relations, which are already embedded in international law. These principles include: the right of CSOs to entry (that is, the right of individuals to form and join CSOs); the right to operate to fulfill their legal purposes without state interference; the right to free expression; the right to communication with domestic and international partners; the right to freedom of peaceful assembly; the right to seek and secure resources, including the cross-border transfer of funds; and the state\u2019s positive obligation to protect CSO rights. WMD calls for greater collaboration between civil society and government.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Does progress towards universal health coverage improve population health?","field_subtitle":"Moreno-Serra R and Smith PC: The Lancet 380(9845): 917-923, 8 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)61039-3/abstract","body":"Many commentators, including the World Health Organisation (WHO), have advocated progress towards universal health coverage on the grounds that it leads to improvements in population health. In this report, the authors reviewed the most robust cross-country empirical evidence on the links between expansions in coverage and population health outcomes, with a focus on the health effects of extended risk pooling and prepayment as key indicators of progress towards universal coverage across health systems. The evidence suggests that broader health coverage generally leads to better access to necessary care and improved population health, particularly for poor people. However, the available evidence base is limited by data and methodological constraints, and further research is needed to understand better the ways in which the effectiveness of extended health coverage can be maximised, including the effects of factors such as the quality of institutions and governance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic evaluation of task-shifting approaches to the dispensing of anti-retroviral therapy","field_subtitle":"Foster N and McIntyre D: Human Resources for Health 10(32), 13 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-10-32.pdf","body":"South Africa suffers a particularly severe lack of pharmacists, a problem that could possibly be addressed by task shifting. In this study, researchers compared the costs of two task-shifting approaches to the dispensing of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) - indirectly supervised pharmacist's assistants (ISPA) and nurse-based pharmaceutical care models - against the standard of care, where only a pharmacist may dispense ART. They sampled six facilities in the Western Cape province of South Africa, and interviewed 230 patients. Data from patient exit interviews, time and motion studies, expert interviews and staff cost calculations were collated to estimate cost from the societal perspective. The ISPA model was found to be the least costly task-shifting pharmaceutical model. However, patients preferred receiving medication from the nurse. This related to a fear of stigma and being identified by virtue of receiving ART at the pharmacy. While these models are not mutually exclusive, and a variety of pharmaceutical care models will be necessary for scale up, the authors argue that it is useful to consider the impact of implementing these models on the provider, patient access to treatment and difficulties in implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Effect of a national social cash transfer programme on HIV risk behaviour in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Handa S, Pettifor A, Thirumurthy H and Halpern C: University of North Carolina, 2012","field_url":"http://pag.aids2012.org/Abstracts.aspx?SID=15&AID=21323","body":"The Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children programme (CT-OVC) is Kenya's flagship social protection programme, reaching 150,000 poor families with OVC aged 17 or below. Households are provided a flat unconditional cash transfer of US$25 per month. The objective of this study is to assess whether the CT-OVC has reduced HIV-related behavioral risk among adolescents. Researchers included 1,912 households in seven districts across Kenya and gathered data on sexual behaviour and other risk-related behaviours for residents aged 15-25. Main study findings indicated that the CT-OVC programme has reduced the probability of sexual debut by 6.73%. This result appears to be driven by males. The programme also reduced the proportion of adolescents with two or more partners in the last 12 months by 7.2%, and reduced the probability of two or more unprotected sex acts in the last three months for females. The authors urge government to consider establishing a large-scale, national cash transfer programme aimed at preventing HIV among adolescents by postponing sexual debut, reducing the number of partners and reducing the number of unprotected sex acts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Effectiveness of a peer-led HIV prevention intervention in secondary schools in Rwanda: Results from a non-randomised controlled trial","field_subtitle":"Michielsen K, Beauclair R, Delva W, Roelens K, Van Rossem R and Temmerman M: BMC Public Health 12(729), 1 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-729.pdf","body":"This study assessed the effectiveness of a peer-led HIV prevention intervention in secondary schools in Rwanda on young people's sexual behaviour, HIV knowledge and attitudes. Fourteen schools were selected in two neighbouring districts, Bugesera (intervention group) and Rwamagana (control group), and 1,950 students participated. Researchers found that time trends in sexual risk behaviour (being sexually active, sex in last six months, condom use at last sex) were not significantly different in students from intervention and control schools, nor was the intervention associated with increased knowledge, perceived severity or perceived susceptibility. However, stigma was reported as significantly reduced. To explain the failure of the intervention, the authors argue that young people may prefer receiving HIV information from sources other than peers. In addition, outcome indicators were not adequate. They call for integration of peer-led prevention in holistic interventions, as well as redefining peer educators' role as focal points for sensitisation and referral to experts and services. Interventions with a narrow focus on sexual risks should be avoided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 140: The 2012 Regional Equity Watch: political and policy choices for a healthy society in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Establishing and sustaining research partnerships in Africa: a case study of the UK-Africa Academic Partnership on Chronic Disease","field_subtitle":"De-Graft Aikins A, Arhinful DK, Pitchforth E, Ogedegbe G, Allotey P AND Agyemang C: Globalization and Health 8(29), 16 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-8-29.pdf","body":"This paper examines the challenges and opportunities in establishing and sustaining north\u2013 south research partnerships in Africa through a case study of the UK-Africa Academic Partnership on Chronic Disease, which brought together multidisciplinary chronic disease researchers based in the UK and Africa to collaborate on research, inform policymaking, train and support postgraduates and create a platform for research dissemination. During the funded period researchers created a platform for research dissemination through international meetings and publications, but other goals, such as engaging in collaborative research and training postgraduates, were not as successfully realised. Enabling factors included trust and respect between core working group members, a shared commitment to achieving partnership goals, and the collective ability to develop creative strategies to overcome funding challenges. Barriers included limited funding, administrative support, and framework for monitoring and evaluating some goals. As chronic disease research partnerships in low-income regions operate within health systems that prioritise infectious diseases, their long-term sustainability will therefore depend on integrated funding systems that help build capacity, the authors argue. They identify social capital, measurable goals, administrative support, creativity and innovation and funding as five key ingredients that are essential for sustaining research partnerships.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"EU extends EPA deadline to 2016","field_subtitle":"Pacific Islands Forum News: 17 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.pina.com.fj/?p=pacnews&m=read&o=717064238505679a6dae572e51fef7","body":"African, Caribbean and Pacific countries have two more years to negotiate economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with the European Union (EU), before the decision is taken to withdraw their free access to the EU market, according to amendments to the market access regulation adopted on 13 September 2012. Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) voted to extend the 2014 deadline proposed by the Commission and give ACP countries until 2016 to ratify their EPAs before losing the right to duty-and-quota-free access to the EU that they have been enjoying since 2007. The content of the EPAs have been contested in some countries in Africa. MEPs consider that unlimited and unconditional preferences are not a sustainable option but also agree that the EU should allow them a \u2018realistic timeframe\u2019 to work towards \u2018fair and development-focused\u2019 EPAs with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) partners. Eight countries have not ratified EPAs: Botswana, Namibia, Cameroon, Fiji, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya and Swaziland. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Experiences of leadership in health care in sub- Saharan Africa ","field_subtitle":"Curry L, Taylor L, Chen P and Bradley E: Human Resources for Health 10(33), 13 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-10-33.pdf","body":"To address the research gap on health care leadership in low-income settings, researchers in this qualitative study documented the experiences of individuals in key health-care leadership roles in sub-Saharan Africa. They conducted in-person interviews with health care leaders in four countries in sub-Saharan Africa: Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia and Rwanda. Individuals were identified by their country's minister of health as key leaders in the health sector and were nominated to serve as delegates to a global health leadership conference in June 2010, at Yale University in the United States. Five key themes emerged as important to participants in their leadership roles: having an aspirational, value-based vision for improving the future health of their countries, being self-aware and having the ability to identify and use complementary skills of others, tending to relationships, using data in decision making, and sustaining a commitment to learning. While current models of leadership capacity building only address the need for core technical and management competencies, skills relevant to managing relationships are also critical in the sub-Saharan African context, the authors argue. Developing such skills may require more time and a deeper level of engagement and collaboration than is typically invested in efforts to strengthen health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors associated with HIV testing and condom use in Mozambique: implications for programmes","field_subtitle":"Agha S: Reproductive Health 9(20), 5 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/pdf/1742-4755-9-20.pdf","body":"The main aim of this study was to identify predictors of HIV testing and condom use in Mozambique. Researchers analysed nationally representative survey data collected in 2009 for two outcomes: HIV testing and condom use. Results indicated that women at a higher risk of HIV were less likely to be tested for HIV than women at a lower risk. Large wealth differentials were observed: compared to the poorest women, HIV testing was higher among the wealthiest women. Perceived quality of health services was an important predictor of HIV testing, as HIV testing was higher among women who rated health services as being of very good quality. In terms of condom use, condom use was higher among men with girlfriends or those who had casual sex. Interestingly, being tested for HIV more than two years ago was not associated with condom use, and frequent mass media exposure was neither associated with HIV testing nor with condom use. The authors argue that the focus of HIV testing should shift from married women (routinely tested during antenatal care visits) to unmarried women and women with multiple sexual partners. Although services are free, transport costs to health facilities prove a major financial barrier to HIV testing. Mechanisms should be developed to cover the cost of transport, and the cost can also be reduced by substantially increasing community-based counselling. Men should be encouraged to test for HIV periodically.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Foundations of gender equality in the health workforce","field_subtitle":"Newman C and Murphy C: HRH Global Resource Centre, 2012","field_url":"http://www.hrhresourcecenter.org/node/4254","body":"This free online course is available in English and French and is intended to expose the participant to basic concepts, issues, and standards related to gender equality in the health workforce. Participants will need to complete a free registration to take the course.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Future career plans of Malawian medical students: a cross-sectional survey ","field_subtitle":"Mandeville KL, Bartley T and Mipando M: Human Resources for Health 10(29), 13 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-10-29.pdf","body":"As significant numbers of medical school students continue to emigrate from Malawi upon graduation, the authors of this study explored the postgraduate plans of current medical students to find out why, and to determine the extent to which their decision is influenced by their background. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to all medical and premedical students on campus over one week and collected by an independent researcher. One hundred and forty-nine students completed the questionnaire out of a student body of 312, a response rate of 48%. When questioned on their plans for after graduation, 49% of students said they planned to stay in Malawi. However, 38.9% were planning to leave Malawi immediately upon graduation. Medical students who completed a 'premedical' foundation year at the medical school were significantly more likely to have immediate plans to stay in Malawi compared to those who completed A-levels, an advanced school-leaving qualification. The authors caution that the government\u2019s plans to substantially upscale medical education may be undermined unless more medical students plan to work in Malawi after graduation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Governance of urban land markets in Zimbabwe: Scoping\u2029 study  ","field_subtitle":"Marongwe N,&#8233;Mukoto S and&#8233;Chatiza K: Urban LandMark, August 2011","field_url":"http://www.urbanlandmark.org/downloads/scoping_study_gov_ulm_zimbabwe.pdf","body":"During the recent years of economic decline in Zimbabwe, many of the formal processes for land transfer have been weakened or even abandoned, local government has faced a rolling crisis of sustainability and the collapse of the national currency has ascribed a greater value to urban land as a commodity, according to this report. At the same time, there are signs now emerging of community-driven innovation and participation in urban management. The need to revive and renew human resources within local government has been widely supported, while UN-Habitat has recommended that the Town and Country Planning Acts should be reviewed, and various external funders are considering future assistance to the reform of legal and policy frameworks for urban development. There is thus a strong probability that fundamental changes to the systems and structures of urban land governance in Zimbabwe will be implemented in the foreseeable future, the authors argue. In this scoping study on urban land markets in Zimbabwe, they investigate and identify opportunities for practical partnerships in the field of urban management and land studies, and propose a potential programme of work that could contribute to the more effective functioning of Zimbabwe\u2019s urban land markets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and demographic surveillance systems: A step towards full civil registration and vital statistics systems in sub-Sahara Africa?  ","field_subtitle":"Ye Y, Wamukoya M, Ezeh A, Emina J and Sankoh O: BMC Public Health 12(741), 5 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-741.pdf","body":"Although most countries in sub-Saharan Africa lack an effective and comprehensive national civil registration and vital statistics system (CRVS), in the past decades the number of Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSSs) has increased throughout the region. The authors of this paper argue that, in the absence of an adequate national CRVS, HDSSs should be more effectively utilised to generate relevant public health data, and also to create local capacity for longitudinal data collection and management systems. If HDSSs get strategically located to cover different geographical regions in a country, data from these sites could be used to provide a more complete national picture of the health of the population. Strategic planning is needed at national levels to geographically locate HDSS sites and to support these through national funding mechanisms. The authors emphasise that HDSSs should not be seen as a replacement for civil registration systems. Rather, they should serve as a short- to medium-term measure to provide data for health and population planning at regional levels with possible extrapolation to national levels. HDSSs can also provide useful lessons for countries that intend to set up nationally representative sample vital registration systems in the long term.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health workers' attitudes toward sexual and reproductive health services for unmarried adolescents in Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Tilahun M, Mengistie B, Egata G and Reda AA: Reproductive Health 9(19), 3 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/pdf/1742-4755-9-19.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers examined health care workers' attitudes toward sexual and reproductive health services to unmarried adolescents in Ethiopia. The study took the form of a descriptive cross-sectional survey, which was conducted among 423 health care service providers working in eastern Ethiopia in 2010. A pre-tested structured questionnaire was used to collect data. The results showed that most health workers had a positive attitude towards providing reproductive health services to unmarried adolescents, with 30% having a negative attitude. Close to half (46.5%) of the respondents were opposed to providing family planning to unmarried adolescents, while about 13% of health workers felt penal rules and regulations should be implemented against adolescents who practice pre-marital sexual intercourse. Negative attitudes were associated with being married, lower education level, being a health extension worker and lack of training on reproductive health services. The authors call for a targeted effort toward alleviating negative attitudes toward adolescent-friendly reproductive health service and re-enforcing the positive ones.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health: impasse broken, but MPs remain sceptical ","field_subtitle":"Kakaire s: The Observer, 30 September 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/92lt9la","body":"Members of Parliament in Uganda threatened in September to block the passage of Uganda\u2019s 2013 budget unless there was a substantial increase in funding to address the health crisis in the country. After the three-week deadlock, Parliament last week agreed to pass this financial year\u2019s budget after the executive promised to boost health sector funding in a supplementary budget. The government also announced that salaries for doctors working in health centres threes and fours would be doubled to Shs 2.5m per month. The impasse emanated from the report of Parliament\u2019s health committee, which indicated that the health sector had a funding gap of Shs 260bn. The report further noted that Shs 121bn was required to retain health workers currently on the payroll. Besides, the sector also desires Shs 61bn to recruit an additional 6,905 health workers countrywide, and Shs 78bn to motivate health workers on duty. This prompted the Budget committee to propose a cut of Shs 39.2bn from consumptive allocations in other government departments to fill the funding gap, something that the executive objected to. It took the charm offensive of President Museveni to persuade NRM MPs \u2013the dominant majority in the House \u2013 that the funding gap be addressed through a supplementary.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV and infant feeding in Malawi: Public health simplicity in complex social and cultural contexts","field_subtitle":"Chinkonde JR, Hem MH and Sundby J: BMC Public Health 12(700), 28 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-700.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers aimed to identify the infant-feeding challenges that Malawian women with HIV faced when they were advised to wean their children at an early age of six months, and explore how the women adhered to their infant-feeding options while facing and managing these challenges. The study was conducted between February 2008 and April 2009 at two public health facilities in Malawi where services to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV were implemented. Repeated in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 HIV-positive women. Several interdependent factors including the conflicting pressures of sexual morality and the demands of nurturing and motherhood in conditions of abject poverty, impeded the participating women from following medical advice on infant feeding. If they adhered to the medical advice, the women would encounter difficulty maintaining their ascribed roles as respected wives, mothers and members of the society at large. Given that the infant-feeding dilemmas for women with HIV are complex, the integration of public health efforts with context-specific socio-cultural understanding is essential, the authors argue, pointing to the recent 2010 WHO guidelines on breastfeeding, which recommend breastfeeding for two years for HIV-positive Malawian mothers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving access to the city through value capture: An overview of capturing and allocating value created through the development of transport infrastructure in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Urban LandMark: January 2012","field_url":"http://www.urbanlandmark.org/downloads/improving_access_city.pdf","body":"From 2005 and leading up to the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup, South Africa massively stepped up its investment in rail, road and air transport infrastructure. Typically, the resultant increase in demand for nearby land for business and so on tended to increase property values, providing local government with the opportunity to accumulate some of the value created by using various 'value capture' mechanisms. Value capture is a public financing technique that 'captures' a part or all of the increases in private land values that result from public investment by imposing a tax on the property or requiring an in-kind contribution, such as land or improvements. The additional revenue can be used to finance infrastructure for economic growth and urban development, or for poverty alleviation. The infrastructure financed in turn leverages private investment in the area as it improves. Despite these advantages, local authorities in South Africa have adopted few value capture mechanisms to date. Urban LandMark has therefore developed this booklet, which provides the user with an opportunity to learn about how value is created at transport interchange sites, which value capture instruments would most effectively capture that value for public good, and what legislative, policy and fiscal changes are required to allow for greater use of such mechanisms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving data use in decision making: An intervention to strengthen health systems","field_subtitle":"Nutley T: MEASURE Evaluation, August 2012","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/SR1273[2].pdf","body":"Health decision-makers need to rely more on data to inform their decision making, according to this paper. The failure to consider empirical evidence regularly before making programme and policy decisions is due primarily to the complex causal pathway between data collection, its use, and improvement in health outcomes, she argues. Further, specific and comprehensive guidance to improve data demand and use is lacking. This paper fills this gap by providing specific recommendations for how to improve data-informed decision making by suggesting domains of interventions, activities, actors, tools, and resources to involve in the process in each step. The eight activity areas listed in the conceptual framework and the further detail provided in the logic model provide a comprehensive roadmap for how to design, monitor, and evaluate interventions to improve the demand for and use of data in decision making. More experience is needed applying the comprehensive framework in different contexts, the authors warn. The factors influencing demand for and use of data are dependent on the local context and specific needs. It is probable that all of the activity areas discussed in this paper may not need to be implemented as part of an intervention to improve the demand for and use of data; and that other activity areas not listed here, will be relevant instead. Moreover, the relative importance of each activity area is unknown, as is the level of intensity of each activity area. Nonetheless, this conceptual framework and logic model should contribute to the literature on comprehensive approaches to improving the use of data in decision making.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Incorrectly diagnosing children as HIV-infected: Experiences from a large paediatric antiretroviral therapy site in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Feucht UD, Thomas WN, Forsyth BWC and Kruger M: South African Journal of Child Health 6(3): 72-75, 2012","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajchh/article/viewFile/80920/71147","body":"The objective of this study was to assess the extent to which children may be falsely diagnosed as HIV-infected, using data from an antiretroviral therapy (ART) site in Pretoria, South Africa, between April 2004 and March 2010. Researchers analysed 1,526 patient files, with a male-to-female ratio of 1.01:1 and median age at first visit of 20 months. Nearly half (47%) of the children were aged less than 18 months. Fifty-one children (3.3%) were found to be HIV-uninfected after repeated diagnostic tests. Incorrect laboratory results for children aged less than 18 months included 40 false-positive HIV DNA PCR tests (6.3%) and one false-positive HIV p24Ag test. An additional four children were inappropriately referred after being incorrectly labelled as HIV-infected and one child aged younger than 18 months was referred after an inappropriate diagnostic test for age was used. The authors acknowledge that urgency in ART initiation in HIV-infected children is life-saving, especially in infants, but HIV tests may produce false-positive results so health care workers should meticulously check a child\u2019s HIV-positive status before committing them to lifelong ART.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Introduction to monitoring and evaluation of human resources for health","field_subtitle":"Pacque-Margolis S and Ng C: HRH Global Resource Centre, 2012","field_url":"http://www.hrhresourcecenter.org/node/4252","body":"This free online course provides a basic introduction to monitoring and evaluation concepts and how they apply to the field of human resources for health to inform evidence-based planning and decision-making. Participants will need to complete a free registration to take this course.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Is Direct FDI in Healthcare Desirable in a Developing Economy?","field_subtitle":"Chaudhuri S, Mukhopadhyay U: MPRA Paper No. 41007, September 2012","field_url":"http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/41007/1/MPRA_paper_41007.pdf","body":"The authors identify two types of capital for foreign investment: capital of type K and capital of type N. While capital of type K is used in production of all the sectors of the economy, capital of type N is specific to the healthcare sector. Their analysis finds that an FDI of capital of type N although it raises the human capital formation may lower social welfare. On the contrary, an inflow of foreign capital of type K is likely to be welfare-improving. Although these effects crucially hinge on different structural factors e.g. the degree of\r\nlabour market imperfection, trade-related and technological factors these can at least question the desirability of allowing the entry of foreign capital in the healthcare sector directly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Is the 0.7% aid target still relevant?","field_subtitle":"Keijzer N: Poverty Matters, 2 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/aug/02/is-aid-target-still-relevant","body":"The commitment made by economically advanced Northern countries to spend 0.7% of their gross national income on aid may no longer be a major factor in the progress of developing countries, according to this blog. Instead, the biggest sources of financing for development now available to Southern governments are domestic revenue and remittance flows from migrants to their home countries. So if the 0.7% target is irrelevant, how can development efforts be measured in a \u2018post-0.7 world\u2019? The writer argues that future assessments of overseas development assistance will need a much stronger focus on actions in policy areas beyond aid. For instance, a reporting system could be put in place to check how far external funders promoted development other than by giving development assistance. This requires monitoring national policies and international policy positions on issues such as visa facilitation, banking secrecy, arms export, agricultural subsidies, fisheries and renewable energy. Information on these and other areas could be compiled and quantified to compare countries' performance over time or with peers. This would provide good indications of how development friendly a external funder\u2019s policies and international positions actually are. For this purpose, the writer recommends the 2003 Commitment to Development Index.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya\u2019s gay community and its direct revolution","field_subtitle":"Nzioka D: Pambazuka News (597), 13 September 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/84088","body":"The writer of this article discusses conflicting conditions for homosexual people in Kenya with impact on health. On the one hand there has been increased visibility of Kenya\u2019s gay community in recent years, despite the fact that homosexuality is illegal in the country, with greater social networking and collaborative efforts between the gay community and sex workers, civil society, parastatals and professional bodies. On the other hand the author also observes harmful practices of \u2018corrective rape\u2019 (where lesbians are raped), homophobia in schools,  high suicide rates among gays and lesbians, and discrimination such as in the stoning of a suspected gay man in a Nairobi slum.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Latest global child mortality estimates","field_subtitle":"UNICEF: 2012","field_url":"http://www.childmortality.org/","body":"This website contains up-to-date data on global child mortality estimates. On the website, you can download the latest estimates on child mortality by the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation. Also available for download: under-five mortality rate: country info summary, estimates and 90% uncertainty intervals; infant mortality rate: country info summary, estimates and 90% uncertainty intervals; sex-specific under-five mortality rate: estimates; neonatal mortality rate: estimates; and annual rate of reduction of under-five mortality: estimates and 90% uncertainty intervals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Levels and trends in child mortality: Report 2012","field_subtitle":"United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation: 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/8gst6pl","body":"According to this report, substantial progress has been made towards achieving Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4, namely to reduce global child mortality by two-thirds by 2015. The number of under-five deaths worldwide has declined from nearly 12 million in 1990 to 6.9 million in 2011. Since 1990 the global under-five mortality rate has dropped 41% and the annual rate of reduction in under-five mortality has accelerated from 1.8% a year over 1990\u20132000 to 3.2% over 2000\u20132011, but it remains insufficient to reach MDG 4. Globally, more than a third of under-five deaths are attributable to undernutrition. The highest rates of child mortality are still in sub-Saharan Africa, where 1 in 9 children dies before age five and Southern Asia (1 in 16). As under-five mortality rates have fallen more sharply elsewhere, the disparity between these two regions and the rest of the world has grown. By 2050, 1 in 3 children will be born in sub-Saharan Africa, and almost 1 in 3 will live there, so the global number of under-five deaths may stagnate or even increase without more progress in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Make your own short movie for free","field_subtitle":"The Home Movie Factory: September 2012","field_url":"http://www.thebioscope.com/thehomemoviefactory","body":"Making or acting in your own film is possible with an innovative project in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa. The Home Movie Factory is a space in which anyone can go to make a movie. The project is free and is open to interested individuals or school groups, or orgabisations. The process takes about three hours from your entry into the Factory to the watching of your short movie, which will probably be between 10 and 20 minutes long. Arriving at the Factory, you start in the meeting rooms where your group\u2019s ideas will be workshopped into a script. Each person will take a different role as the process unfolds - you may want to act, you may want to operate the camera, or you may want to be a timekeeper. You will then make use of the sets available to construct your movie and an hour or two later you will be able to watch it.  The project runs for two months, starting on 1 September 2012. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Making sense of 'evidence': Notes on the discursive politics of research and pro-poor policy making","field_subtitle":"Du Toit A: Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) Working Paper 21, 2012","field_url":"http://www.plaas.org.za/plaas-publication/wp21dutoit","body":"Exploring some of the assumptions underlying \u2018evidence based\u2019 approaches to poverty reduction, this paper argues that the discourse of Evidence-Based Policy (EBP) offers poor guidance to those who seek to ensure that social policy making is informed by the findings of social science. EBP discourse relies on a technocratic, linear understanding of the policy making process and on a na\u00efve empiricist understanding of the role of evidence. This renders it unable to engage with the role of the underlying discursive frameworks and paradigms that render evidence meaningful and invest it with consequence: EBP discourse does not help us understand either how policy changes, or what is at stake in dialogue across the \u2018research-policy divide\u2019. Rather than simply focusing on evidence, approaches to policy change need to focus on how evidence is used in the politically loaded and ideologically compelling \u2018policy narratives\u2019 that contest rival policy frameworks. The paper considers an example from the South African context \u2013 the shift to the \u2018two economies\u2019 framework and the policy interventions associated with the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (ASGISA)\u2013 and explores the implications for approaches to research more attuned to the realities of the policymaking process. It concludes with a discussion of the implications for social researchers and policy makers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Moving towards universal health coverage: health insurance reforms in nine developing countries in Africa and Asia","field_subtitle":"Lagomarsino G, Garabrant A, Adyas A, Muga R and Otoo N: The Lancet 380(9845): 933-943, 8 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)61147-7/abstract","body":"Researchers in this study analysed nine low-income and lower-middle-income countries in Africa and Asia that have implemented national health insurance reforms designed to move towards universal health coverage. Using the functions-of-health-systems framework, they first describe these countries' approaches to raising prepaid revenues, pooling risk, and purchasing services. Then, using the coverage-box framework, they assess their progress across three dimensions of coverage: who, what services, and what proportion of health costs are covered. Their findings revealed some patterns in the structure of these countries' reforms, such as use of tax revenues to subsidise target populations, steps towards broader risk pools, and emphasis on purchasing services through demand-side financing mechanisms. However, none of the reforms purely conformed to common health-system archetypes, nor were they identical to each other. Trends in these countries' progress towards universal coverage include increasing enrolment in government health insurance, a movement towards expanded benefits packages, and decreasing out-of-pocket spending accompanied by increasing government share of spending on health. Common, comparable indicators of progress towards universal coverage are needed to enable countries undergoing reforms to assess outcomes and make midcourse corrections in policy and implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"National launch meeting of the Zambia Health Literacy Programme, Workshop report, Lusaka, 26 July 2012","field_subtitle":"Ministry of Health Zambia, Lusaka District Health Management Team and Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC): August 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Zambia%20HL%20Rep%20Aug%202012.pdf","body":"In 2006-2009, as part of the regional learning network, the Lusaka District Health Management Team (LDHMT) used participatory action research (PAR) to strengthen joint planning and communication, co-operation and trust between communities and health workers. In 2010, building on positive changes found, LDHMT, with TARSC and with Cordaid support, piloted a programme to train health literacy facilitators and hold community health literacy sessions in three areas of Lusaka. The positive feedback from that programme led to dialogue with the Ministry of Health and the proposal for national level implementation of the health literacy programme. This national workshop hosted by Ministry of Health Zambia was thus held with lead stakeholders to review the work done to date and discuss the content, approach and steps towards implementing the programme at national level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Novartis appeals against Indian patent law ","field_subtitle":"Health-e News: 11 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20033762","body":"Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis has begun its court case to appeal in the Indian Supreme Court in a final bid to overturn a ruling earlier this year to prevent the company from renewing its patents on life-saving drugs. If Novartis wins the appeal, it will undermine a key public health safeguard in Indian patent law specifically designed to prevent drug companies from abusive patenting practices that keep medicine prices high, says international humanitarian medical organisation M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF), which relies on affordable generic drugs produced in India to carry out its work in 68 countries. MSF alleges that, for the past six years, Novartis has been trying to browbeat India into changing Section 3d of India\u2019s patent law, which says that a new form of a known medicine can only be patented if it shows significantly improved therapeutic efficacy over existing compounds. This is a provision to stop the common industry practice of extending, or \u2018evergreening,\u2019 their patent monopolies for routine modifications of known compounds. Section 3d, which is in line with international trade rules, formed the basis for Novartis not being granted a patent for its cancer drug imatinib mesylate (marketed as Gleevec) in 2006, as Novartis\u2019 patent application was on a new form of the imatinib molecule already described several years previously in patents in the United States and other developed countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Nutritional status and dietary intake of urban residents in Gondar, Northwest Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Kassu A, Amare B, Admassu M and Mulu A: BMC Public Health 12(752), 7 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-752.pdf","body":"This cross-sectional community-based nutrition survey was conducted in Northwest Ethiopia with 356 urban residents (71.3% female and 28.7% male). Subjects were selected by random sampling. Socio-demographic data was collected by questionnaire and body measurements taken. Results indicated that, of the sample, 12.9% were undernourished, 21.3% were overweight and 5.9% were obese. Men were taller, heavier and had a higher waist-to-hip ratio compared to women. Fish, fruits and vegetables were consumed \u2018less frequently\u2019 or \u2018never at all\u2019 by a large proportion of the subjects. Mean energy intake fell below the estimated energy requirements in women, but was significantly higher in men. Protein intake was inadequate in 11.2% of the participants whereas only 2.8% reported carbohydrate intake below the recommended dietary allowance. Significant micronutrient deficiencies were also noted. The overall risk of nutritional inadequacy among the study participants was high, along with their poor dietary intake. The authors call for nutritional programmes in urban settings to address the micronutrient and macronutrient deficiencies identified here, to help prevent nutrition-related diseases later in life.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Operation of the market study: Land access in urban areas: The case of Maputo","field_subtitle":"Raimundo JA and Raimundo IM: Urban LandMark, February 2012","field_url":"http://www.urbanlandmark.org/downloads/report_maputo.pdf","body":"In 2010, Urban LandMark undertook a survey of 568 households in two peri-urban sites in Maputo, Hulene B and Luis Cabral, to understand how ordinary urban dwellers access, hold and transact land. Although they are both located in the suburbs of Maputo city, Luis Cabral was established as a settlement for workers from the Maputo harbour, and has a longer history of urban settlement than Hulene B. Hulene B houses mainly internally displaced people from the civil war and floods. While most the plots in Luis Cabral have been surveyed, have wider roads and are generally better planned, Hulene B is largely unplanned. Despite the differences between the two neighbourhoods, the study found no variations in the nature of land ownership and tenure. In both settlements, the vast majority of households do not have formal title. Most land is acquired through mechanisms that are outside the formal land registration system. These findings challenge conventional understandings of the formal and informal sector in African cities. First, informal systems are not always the chaotic mess they are perceived to be. Secondly, although much of the land is accessed and secured verbally or through agreements with social networks, state agents are often critical to lending credibility to informal practices. Thirdly, despite the fact that few households in the study areas have formal title to land or documentation, 68% of households reported that their sense of rights to place were strong because the local land practices had social legitimacy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Overcoming the barriers: How to ensure future food production under climate change in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Vincent K, Joubert A, Cull T, Magrath J, Johnston P: Oxfam, 9 November 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/20111109-overcoming-barriers-southern-africa-en_1.pdf","body":"For this report, researchers interviewed 200 farmers in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi and South Africa about their experiences of changes in climate. They found considerable agreement between farmers across countries that they are observing changes in climate. Climate change is likely to reduce yields and increase food prices, with serious effects on both farmers and consumers. But farmers are already actively experimenting and changing agricultural practices and pursuing ways to diversify livelihoods in light of both the new changes to their climate and other multiple stresses. In some cases, these changes can be considered actual or potential successes in adapting to climate change; in other cases they may be simply coping or using maladaptive strategies, particularly where they create environmental degradation. Furthermore, whereas large-scale farmers, in the main, have access to the resources needed to adapt, small-scale farmers face major obstacles. These obstacles may not only prevent adaptation but also lead farmers into maladaptation, for want of other choices. Major new resources must be raised from domestic, regional and international levels to focus on and build the adaptive capacity of small-scale farmers and sustain levels of food production into the future, the report concludes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Political and economic aspects of the transition to universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"Savedoff WD, de Ferranti D, Smith AL and Fan V: The Lancet 380(9845): 924-932, 8 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)61083-6/abstract","body":"Countries have reached universal health coverage by different paths and with varying health systems. Nonetheless, the trajectory toward universal health coverage regularly has three common features, identified in this paper. The first is a political process driven by a variety of social forces to create public programmes or regulations that expand access to care, improve equity, and pool financial risks. The second is a growth in incomes and a concomitant rise in health spending, which buys more health services for more people. The third is an increase in the share of health spending that is pooled rather than paid out-of-pocket by households. This pooled share is sometimes mobilised as taxes and channelled through governments that provide or subsidise care \u2013 in other cases it is mobilised in the form of contributions to mandatory insurance schemes. The predominance of pooled spending is a necessary condition (but not sufficient) for achieving universal health coverage. The authors describe common patterns in countries that have successfully provided universal access to health care and consider how economic growth, demographics, technology, politics, and health spending have intersected to bring about this major development in public health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevalence of and risk factors for resistance to second-line drugs in people with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in eight countries: A prospective cohort study","field_subtitle":"Dalton T, Cegielski P, Akksilp S, Asencios L,  Caoili JC, Cho S et al: The Lancet, Early Online Publication, 30 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2812%2960734-X/fulltext","body":"The authors of this study prospectively assessed resistance to second-line anti-tuberculosis drugs in eight countries, including South Africa. From 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2008, they enrolled consecutive adults with locally confirmed pulmonary multi-drug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis at the start of second-line treatment. Among 1,278 patients, 43.7% showed resistance to at least one second-line drug, 20% to at least one second-line injectable drug and 12.9% to at least one fluoroquinolone. A total of 6.7% of patients had extremely drug-resistant (XDR) tuberculosis. Previous treatment with second-line drugs was consistently the strongest risk factor for resistance to these drugs, which increased the risk of XDR tuberculosis by more than four times. Fluoroquinolone resistance and XDR tuberculosis were more frequent in women than in men. Unemployment, alcohol abuse and smoking were associated with resistance to second-line injectable drugs across countries. Other risk factors differed between drugs and countries. The authors recommend that representative drug-susceptibility results should guide in-country policies for laboratory capacity and diagnostic strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Recall of lost-to-follow-up pre-antiretroviral therapy patients in the Eastern Cape: Effect of mentoring on patient care","field_subtitle":"Jones M, Stander M, van Zyl M and Cameron D: South African Medical Journal 102(9):768-769, September 2012","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/5957/4453","body":"In 2011 an experienced HIV nurse from the UK was deployed for three months to act as a mentor to nurses learning to initiate antiretroviral therapy (ART) in primary care clinics in a small town in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. In this study, researchers assessed effectiveness of the mentoring process. A review of 286 existing pre-ART patient files was carried out and lost-to-follow-up HIV patients were recalled. Results showed that only 24% of patients had attended the clinics within the preceding six months and 20% had not attended for longer than two years. Two lay counsellors visited 222 patients to encourage them to return to care: of these 23% were untraceable, 4% had relocated, 10% declined and 3% had died. In the six weeks following recall, 18% of patients returned to the clinics. CD4 count testing was repeated and screening for tuberculosis (TB) and other opportunistic infections was performed for all patients. ART was initiated in 25% of patients, while isionazid prophylaxis was initiated in 45%. The cost of recall was R130 (US$16) per patient. Within six months, all clinics began providing full ART services, 17 professional nurses were mentored and they initiated ART in 55 patients. The authors conclude that mentoring played an important role in professional nurse training and support. Recall of lost-to-follow-up patients was shown to be feasible and effective in improving ART services in rural settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reducing neonatal deaths in South Africa: Are we there yet, and what can be done?","field_subtitle":"Velaphi S and Rhoda N: South African Journal of Child Health 6(3): 67-71, 2012","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajchh/article/viewFile/80918/71145","body":"South Africa is one of the countries in which neonatal mortality has remained the same or increased over the last 20 years. The major causes of neonatal deaths are related to prematurity and intrapartum hypoxia. In this paper, the authors discuss a number of interventions that have been shown to reduce neonatal deaths and, if implemented on a wider scale, could reduce neonatal deaths significantly. These interventions include providing basic and comprehensive emergency obstetric care, use of antenatal steroids for women in preterm labour, training in immediate care of the newborn and neonatal resuscitation, and post-resuscitation management and ongoing neonatal care (e.g. CPAP), especially to babies who are born preterm.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional Equity Watch 2012: Assessing progress towards equity in health in East and Southern Africa PART 1","field_subtitle":"Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa: 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Regional%20EW%202012%20Part%201w.pdf","body":"PART ONE OF A BOOK IN TWO PARTS. An Equity Watch is a means of monitoring progress on health equity by gathering, organizing, analysing, reporting and reviewing evidence on equity in health. This 2012 Regional Equity Analysis updates the 2007 EQUINET Regional analysis of equity in health, drawing on the Equity Watch framework developed by EQUINET in cooperation with the East, Central and Southern African Health Community and in consultation with WHO and UNICEF, with some modifications given its regional nature. The report provides evidence from 16 countries in East and Southern Africa, including more detailed evidence from the country Equity Watch reports on: policy, political and legal commitments to equity in health; the current situation with respect to equity in health outcomes; economic opportunities and challenges for health equity; household access to the resources for health and the social determinants of health; challenging inequities through redistributive health systems and global (in)justice and the issues for global engagement. The analysis shows past levels and current levels (most current data publicly available) and comments on the level of progress towards health equity. It raises the factors affecting progress and the challenges to be addressed. The analysis intends to be a comprehensive resource. As the report watches and supports progress, and not simply problems, it includes brief outlines of approaches being taken within the region to advance equity that appear to be yielding progress, with references where further information can be found. Finally, the report presents reflection on the experience of implementing equity analysis at country and regional level and on the experience of the Country Equity Watch work in institutionalising planning and monitoring for health equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional Equity Watch 2012: Assessing progress towards equity in health in East and Southern Africa PART 2","field_subtitle":"Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa: 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Regional%20EW%202012%20Part%202w.pdf","body":"PART TWO OF A BOOK IN TWO PARTS. This is part 2 of the 2012 Regional Equity Analysis. The report provides evidence from 16 countries in East and Southern Africa, including more detailed evidence from the country Equity Watch reports on: policy, political and legal commitments to equity in health; the current situation with respect to equity in health outcomes; economic opportunities and challenges for health equity; household access to the resources for health and the social determinants of health; challenging inequities through redistributive health systems and global (in)justice and the issues for global engagement. The analysis shows past levels and current levels (most current data publicly available) and comments on the level of progress towards health equity. It raises the factors affecting progress and the challenges to be addressed. The analysis intends to be a comprehensive resource. As the report watches and supports progress, and not simply problems, it includes brief outlines of approaches being taken within the region to advance equity that appear to be yielding progress, with references where further information can be found. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Report of a consultation on improving access to health worker at the frontline for better maternal and child survival: Intercontinental Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya: 25-27 June 2012","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, NORAD, UKAid, ECSA HC, AMREF, ACHEST, APHRH, GHWA and Intrahealth: August 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Consultation%20FrontlineHW%20Rep%20June%202012.pdf","body":"The objective of this consultation was \u2018to speed up and scale up country responses to the human resource needs of both the UN Global Strategy for Women\u2019s and Children\u2019s Health (Every Woman Every Child), and the Global Plan towards the Elimination of New HIV Infections Among Children by 2015 and Keeping their Mothers Alive (Global Plan) as a key aspect of both plans\u2019. The intended outcomes of this consultation were broadly stated as: identification of concrete opportunities for progress as well as obstacles to such progress; and documentation of experiences on successes and failures. Through a combination of interactive sessions, the Consultation reviewed progress at country level, what technical support exists, and good practices within the countries. Participants at the Consultation underscored the need for ministries of health, continental mechanisms such as the AUC, regional organisations such as ECSA HC, SADC, WAHO and OCEAC, development partners, faith-based organisations, funding agencies, academic and research institutions, and civil society organisations to give priority to efforts towards increasing access to health workers at the frontline for better maternal and child survival and provided a communique of recommendations on actions to achieve this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Research-policy partnerships: Experiences of the Mental Health and Poverty Project in Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia","field_subtitle":"Mirzoev TN, Omar MA, Green AT, Bird PK, Lund C, Ofori-Atta A and Doku V: Health Research Policy and Systems 10(30), 14 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-10-30.pdf","body":"As there is little published evidence about processes in research-policy partnerships in different contexts, this paper aims to help fill this research gap by analysing experiences of research-policy partnerships between Ministries of Health and research organisations for the implementation of the Mental Health and Poverty Project in Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia. The authors developed a conceptual framework for understanding and assessing research-policy partnerships to guide the study and collected data via semi-structured interviews with Ministry of Health Partners (MOHPs) and Research Partners (RPs) in each country. The principles of trust, openness, equality and mutual respect were identified by respondents as constituting the core of partnerships. The MOHPs and RPs had clearly defined roles, with the MOHPs largely providing political support and RPs leading the research agenda. The authors also found that taking account of influences on the partnership at individual, organisation and contextual/system levels can increase its effectiveness. A common understanding of mutually-agreed goals and objectives of the partnership is essential. Although partnerships are often established for a specific purpose, such as carrying out a particular project, the effects of partnership go beyond a particular initiative.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Sabbatical opportunity for policy makers or public health managers in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Application deadline: 5 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.hpsa-africa.org/images/Call%20for%20practitioners%20sabbatical_UL31Aug_1.pdf","body":"CHESAI is calling for expressions of interest from African policy-makers and mid- to senior-level managers in the public health system in a short-term sabbatical of one to three months in Cape Town, South Africa. CHESAI is a four-year collaborative endeavour between the Schools of Public Health of the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the University of the Western Cape (UWC), funded by the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC). UCT and UWC are engaged in research and policy development with health system decision-makers on a range of health policy and systems\u2019 issues, and also offer teaching programmes in these fields. Applicants must be working as a policy maker or manager in the public health system in an African country and have substantial experience in public health sector management and leadership to share and draw on. The sabbatical is an opportunity for you to contribute to and participate in health policy and systems research activities, such as a seminar series, and the wider academic life of the hosting organisations, an opportunity to read and engage with other practitioners and with researchers working in this field, and you will be given space to write up and present some of your experiences, with the aim to publish a paper or article.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Safe abortion: Technical and policy guidance for health systems","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2012","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/70914/1/9789241548434_eng.pdf","body":"Since first publication of this guidance in 2003, a considerable amount of new data have been produced and published, relating to epidemiological, clinical, service delivery, legal and human rights aspects of providing safe abortion care. Therefore, preparation for this revision of the guidance included extensive literature review and updating of recommendations related to service delivery, legal and policy issues, and the conduct of new systematic reviews and updates of outdated systematic reviews to provide the evidence for recommendations related to clinical questions prioritised by an international panel of experts. The substantial revisions in this update reflect changes in methods of abortion and related care, service delivery as it applies to the availability and use of new methods, and application of human rights for policy-making and legislation related to abortion, among other topics. Recommendations in the 2003 guidance for which there was no new evidence remain unchanged and are also included in the new edition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Screening of selected ethnomedicinal plants from South Africa for larvicidal activity against the mosquito Anopheles arabiensis","field_subtitle":"Maharaj R, Maharaj V, Crouch NR, Bhagwandin N, Folb PI, Pillay P and Gayaram R: Malaria Journal 11(320), 10 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-320.pdf","body":"This study was initiated to establish if any South African ethnomedicinal plants (indigenous or exotic) that have been reported to be used traditionally to repel or kill mosquitoes may exhibit effective mosquito larvicidal properties. Researchers tested extracts of a selection of plant taxa sourced in South Africa for larvicidal properties. Preliminary screening of crude extracts revealed substantial variation in toxicity with 24 of the 381 samples displaying 100% larval mortality within the seven-day exposure period. The researchers then selected four of the high-activity plants and subjected them to bioassay guided fractionation. The results of the testing of the fractions generated identified one fraction of the plant Toddalia asiatica as being very potent against the An. arabiensis larvae. These results have initiated further research into isolating the active compound and developing a malaria vector control tool.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Social determinants of sex differences in disability among older adults: A multi-country decomposition analysis using the World Health Survey","field_subtitle":"Hosseinpoor AR, Stewart Williams JA, Jan B, Kowal P, Officer A, Posarac A and Chatterji S: International Journal for Equity in Health 11(52), 8 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-11-52.pdf","body":"The objective of this paper was to determine how social and economic factors contribute to disability differences between older men and women. Researchers analysed World Health Survey data from 57 countries drawn from all income groups, including in their final sample a total of 63,638 respondents aged 50 and older, of whom 28,568 were males and 35,070 females. The researchers computed disability prevalence for males and females by socio-demographic factors, and estimated the adjusted effects of each social determinant on disability for males and females. Results indicated that prevalence of disability among women compared with men aged 50+ years was 40.1% vs. 23.8%. Lower levels of education and economic status were associated with disability in women and men. Approximately 45% of the sex inequality in disability could be be attributed to differences in the distribution of socio-demographic factors, while approximately 55% of the inequality resulted from differences in the effects of the determinants. The authors call for data and methodologies that can identify how social, biological and other factors separately contribute to the health decrements facing men and women as they age. This study highlights the need for action to address social structures and institutional practices that impact unfairly on the health of older men and women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South African HIV Clinicians Society Conference 2012","field_subtitle":"25-28 November 2012: Cape Town, South Africa  ","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/events/sa-hiv-clinicians-society-conference-2012","body":"The theme of this year\u2019s South African HIV Clinicians Society Conference is 'Striving for Clinical Excellence'. The Conference will focus on clinical content, setting it apart from other conferences held to date in South Africa. Doctors, nurses, and pharmacists are welcome to attend presentations by senior faculty members from the region and abroad delivering talks relevant to clinical care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Space for civil society shrinking in Uganda say national and global CSOs","field_subtitle":"CIVICUS: 25 June 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/9d7pjyr","body":"Civil society space in Uganda is rapidly shrinking, says international civil society network, CIVICUS, and Uganda-based East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP). Independent civil society organisations are being openly threatened and placed under excessive scrutiny by senior government officials. The Ugandan Parliament is currently considering the Public Order Management Bill, which would place a number of restrictions on the freedom of assembly, and violations of the proposed law carry a high penalty of two years\u2019 imprisonment. Both CIVICUS and EHAHRDP urge the Ugandan government to respect the right of civil society actors to freely express, associate and assemble, in line with the country\u2019s obligations under the Constitution and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Uganda is a party.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"State of torture and related human rights violations in Kenya: Alternative report to the UN Human Rights Committee","field_subtitle":"Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ Kenya), Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU), Kenya Alliance for Advancement of Children (KAACR), Kenya Coalition on Violence against Women (COVAW) et al: July 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/burtzuk","body":"This report was submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Committee to inform its review of Kenya\u2019s implementation of the Provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in relation to torture. It adopts a thematic approach and specifically focuses on legal issues that relate to protection from torture and cruel and degrading treatment under the Covenant, including extra-judicial killings, the death penalty, the principle of non-refoulement, treatment of prisoners, access to adequate medical care for prisoners and the right to a fair trial. It integrates a gender and child-rights perspective and examines the problems related to domestic violence, female genital mutilation and reproductive health rights. The overall conclusion is that, while Kenya has endeavoured to include the principles of the ICCPR in its newly promulgated Constitution of 2010 and legislative framework, there continue to be important gaps, with inadequate legislation for criminalising torture and lenient sentences for those found guilty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategic Plan for Maternal, Newborn, Child and Women\u2019s Health (MNCWH) and Nutrition in South Africa: 2012 \u2013 2016","field_subtitle":"Department of Health, South Africa: May 2012","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/stratdocs/2012/MNCWHstratplan.pdf","body":"The main goal of South Africa\u2019s new strategic healthcare and nutrition plan for women and children is to reduce by 10% by 2016: the maternal mortality ratio (MMR); the neonatal mortality rate (NMR); the infant mortality rate (IMR); and the child mortality rate. What are the key strategies for the implementation of the priority interventions? These include addressing inequity and social determinants of health; developing a framework for MNCWH and nutrition services; strengthening community-based MNCWH and nutrition interventions; increasing provision of key MNCWH and nutrition interventions at primary health care and district levels; strengthening the capacity of the health system, as well as human resource capacity, to support the provision of these services; and strengthening systems for monitoring and evaluation of outcomes. The plan indentifies a number of factors that can be considered critical for success. Government will have to address the social determinants of health, specifically targeting most under resourced districts, as well as commit to strengthening the country\u2019s health system, with a specific focus on primary health care services. Support from key stakeholders will be crucial, including the National Department of Health, Provincial Departments of Health, developmental partners and civil society. Resource mobilisation should be undertaken, in terms of financial support and human resources and MNCWH and Nutrition capacity should be strengthened at national, provincial, district and sub-district levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Task shifting of antiretroviral treatment from doctors to primary-care nurses in South Africa (STRETCH): A pragmatic, parallel, cluster-randomised trial","field_subtitle":"Fairall L, Bachmann MO, Lombard C, Timmerman V, Uebel K, Zwarenstein M et al: The Lancet 380(9845): 889-898, 8 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2812%2960730-2/abstract","body":"The authors of this study aimed to assess the effects on mortality, viral suppression, and other health outcomes and quality indicators of the Streamlining Tasks and Roles to Expand Treatment and Care for HIV (STRETCH) programme, which provides educational outreach training of nurses to initiate and represcribe ART, and to decentralise care. They undertook a pragmatic, parallel, cluster-randomised trial in South Africa between 28 January 2008 and 30 June 2010, randomly assigning 31 primary-care ART clinics to implement the STRETCH programme (intervention group) or to continue with standard care (control group). A total of 5,390 patients in cohort 1 and 3,029 in cohort 2 were in the intervention group, and 3,862 in cohort 1 and 3,202 in cohort 2 were in the control group. Median follow-up was 16.3 months in cohort 1 and 18 months in cohort 2. In cohort 1, 20% of patients analysed in the intervention group and 19% of patients in the control group with known vital status had died at the end of the trial. Time to death did not differ. In a preplanned subgroup analysis of patients with baseline CD4 counts of 201-350 cells per &#956;L, mortality was slightly lower in the intervention group than in the control group, but it did not differ between groups in patients with baseline CD4 of 200 cells per &#956;L or less. In cohort 2, viral load suppression 12 months after enrolment was equivalent in intervention (71%) and control groups (70%). Interpretation suggests that expansion of primary-care nurses' roles to include ART initiation and represcription can be done safely, and improve health outcomes and quality of care, but might not reduce time to ART or mortality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Ten years of EPA negotiations: From misconception and mismanagement to failure","field_subtitle":"Maes M: GREAT Insights 1(6), August 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/8bld6nj","body":"Much has changed in the world since economic partnership agreements (EPAs) negotiations between the European Union (EU) and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries started 10 years ago. Emerging developing countries have increased their share of the world market and China has become one of the largest trading nations, while ACP countries have diversified trading partners and external funders. Today both the EU and the ACP countries struggle with the mess that the extended and deadlocked EPA negotiations have created. The interim EPAs have complicated the negotiations even further, causing rifts in the regions, and the refusal of the EU to swiftly amend them left the negotiations stuck with protracted discussions on contentious issues. The author of this article calls on the EU not to force ACP countries to accept agreements simply to avoid losing trade preferences. And he argues further that it is a problem when trade negotiations are held behind closed doors and policies are based on secret (unless leaked) mandates, with hardly any parliamentary involvement. Economic reform is too important to all layers of society to be left to behind closed door negotiations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The 2012 Regional Equity Watch: political and policy choices for a healthy society in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson, TARSC, Cluster lead Equity Watch, EQUINET","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThere is longstanding stated policy support for health equity in East and Southern Africa. Social protest over inequality and pressure around delivery on these policies is equally longstanding, from struggles for political and economic rights to recent struggles over constitutional rights to food, water, shelter, healthy environments and health care, to hold the state and corporates accountable in relation to these entitlements, or to negotiate fairer benefit for Africa from use of its resources in the global economy. \r\n\r\nSo it confronts widely held social values when inequalities in health persist or widen, notwithstanding aggregate progress and economic growth.  Why should women in Africa have 39 times the risk of dying in pregnancy and childbirth than those in high-income countries?  Why, across the countries of East and Southern Africa should there be seven-fold differences in under five year mortality and 22-fold differences in the rate of women dying due to pregnancy and childbirth? Within some countries of the region nearly one in five children under five years die in the poorest households. Children of mothers with lowest education are five times more likely to be under-nourished than those with highest education. \r\n\r\nPeople ask: Why shouldn\u2019t all children, adolescents, mothers or households expect the nutrition, health and mortality outcomes of the most educated, wealthiest households or best performing geographical region of their country? \r\n\r\nWe live in an integrated regional community and global economy. Money, trade, raw materials and goods cross porous national borders. How then can such enormous differences between communities and countries be acceptable, particularly for conditions that can be prevented through technologies that have been known for over a century, including safe water, toilets, adequate food, decent shelter, access to midwives and so on? Why should huge numbers of people continue to suffer diseases of injustice?\r\n\r\nIn a 2007 Regional Equity analysis (http://tinyurl.com/9lrpl4e) , the EQUINET steering committee analysed the inequalities in health in East and Southern Africa and identified the policies and measures that could close them. The steering committee resolved to track what progress was being made in these areas, in a process called the Equity Watch.  In 2012, EQUINET has produced a Regional Equity Watch that updates the 2007 analysis, drawing on a framework developed with review input from the East, Central and Southern African Health Community, WHO and UNICEF. The book is now available on the EQUINET website (www.equinetafrica.org) and acknowledges the many people and institutional contributors and processes that made input to it.\r\n\r\nThe 2012 Regional Equity Watch is essentially a watch on progress of what we know works to close gaps in health. It provides evidence on numerous policies and interventions that are being applied in health systems, agriculture, safe water and sanitation, in relation to employment and urbanisation and other areas that have closed gaps in inequality within the region.  For example, investments in smallholder food production, especially for women farmers, have reduced inequalities in nutrition. Many countries have successfully implemented measures to encourage female children to enrol and stay in primary education. There are examples of activities that reduce urban poverty by enhancing employment, improving living conditions and investing in participatory planning, particularly in unplanned urban settlements. There are initiatives that have aligned national and international resources to support community management of safe water or to fund and support primary health care services and community health. There is promising practice in overcoming geographical differentials in access to health care through investments at primary care and community level, including through community health workers, community outreach, social organisation and participation, moving away from fee payments at point of care and integrating specific programmes within comprehensive primary care services. These practices underway repeatedly point to the possible. \r\n\r\nHowever the 2012 Regional Equity Watch also asks why we are not making more progress in implementing the possible. It highlights that while there has been positive economic growth across most countries of the region in the whole of the 2000s, in many countries growth is occurring with increasing poverty and inequality, generating social disadvantage. Rapid, unserviced urbanisation, inadequate investment of profits and surpluses in new jobs, and significant disparities in access to agricultural resources, are common pathways found for growth with inequity. The Regional Equity Watch reports unacceptably slow progress in improving coverage of safe water and sanitation, low and unequal coverage of early childhood education and care and secondary education; inadequate public investment in improving access to land and other inputs for female smallholder food producers and inadequate resources - people, medicines and money- reaching and being absorbed by the community and primary care level of health systems. It raises concern about inadequate progress in formalising and resourcing mechanisms and capacities for participatory democracy and social power in health systems, particularly when observing the growing power that transnational corporates have in areas fundamental to health, such as in social determinants like food security or health service inputs like medicines. \r\n\r\nInequality within the region is overshadowed and underpinned by the scale of inequality globally. It points to a scale of inequality that needs to be more centrally and explicitly addressed in global dialogue, including on global development goals.  At current rates of progress in narrowing the global gap in incomes, it would take more than 800 years for the bottom billion people \u2013 many of whom live in east and southern Africa \u2013 to achieve even 10 per cent of global income. The Watch points to the continuing net outflow of resources for health from the region, including through debt servicing, skilled worker out-migration, unfavourable terms of trade and extraction of unprocessed minerals and biodiversity. It questions the pro-cyclical, deflationary macroeconomic model that has dominated economic policy globally, given its failure to yield the sustained, inclusive or equitable growth needed to achieve social goals, and the unacceptable depths of deprivation and unacceptably wide and avoidable gaps in health and survival, and in coverage of services in our region. It raises frustration that slow progress in the strength, power and effectiveness of African voice in global decision making is being outstripped by a rapid pace of global extraction of African resources. \r\n\r\nMany of the policy choices for a cohesive healthy society in East and Southern Africa raised in the 2012 Watch appear to be a matter of common sense. Beyond technical knowledge, therefore, their implementation depends on leadership and social action.  In analysing progress and highlighting both the gaps and the possible, the 2012 Equity Watch aims to nurture and inform both the social intolerance for injustice and the affirmative leadership and demand for just alternatives. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing or requests and comments in relation to the Regional Equity Watch 2012 to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit www.equinetafrica.org or download the 2012 Regional Equity Watch at http://tinyurl.com/8t2fqqf and http://tinyurl.com/8g6obf9.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The global state of harm reduction 2012: Towards an integrated response","field_subtitle":"Stoicescu C, Pinkham S and Myers B: International Harm Reduction Association, 2012","field_url":"http://www.ihra.net/files/2012/07/24/GlobalState2012_Web.pdf","body":"The authors of this study argue that the promotion of harm reduction as part of a more united and comprehensive global effort will be essential to halving HIV infections among people who inject drugs by 2015. They call for legal reform aligned with HIV prevention and treatment, complemented by the meaningful involvement of people who use drugs in policy formulation, arguing that drugs users who inject are often the most marginalised in the global HIV response. However, establishing the prevalence of drug use among men who have sex with men (MSM) in different parts of the world remains a challenge, as homosexuality is criminalised and stigmatised in many countries. Recommendations to government include ensuring sufficient programme funding and staff training to generate new interventions aimed at injecting drug users and MSM, as well as disseminating information to users regarding the risks of drug abuse. The authors also call for decriminalisation of users, provided that drug rehabilitation interventions are adequately devised and implemented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of health insurance in Africa and Asia: A systematic review","field_subtitle":"Spaan E, Mathijssen J, Tromp N, McBain F, ten Have A and Baltussen R: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(9):685\u2013692A, September 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/9/12-102301.pdf","body":"The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of health insurance on resource mobilisation, financial protection, service utilisation, quality of care, social inclusion and community empowerment in low- and lower-middle-income countries in Africa and Asia. A literature review was undertaken and 159 studies were included \u2013 68 in Africa and 91 in Asia. Most African studies reported on community-based health insurance (CBHI) and were of relatively high quality, whereas social health insurance (SHI) studies were mostly Asian and of medium quality. Only one Asian study dealt with private health insurance (PHI). Most studies were observational, while four had randomised controls and 20 had a quasi-experimental design. In these studies, financial protection, utilisation and social inclusion were far more common subjects than resource mobilisation, quality of care or community empowerment. Strong evidence shows that CBHI and SHI improve service utilisation and protect members financially by reducing their out-of-pocket expenditure, and that CBHI improves resource mobilisation too. Weak evidence pointed to a positive effect of both SHI and CBHI on quality of care and social inclusion. The effect of SHI and CBHI on community empowerment was inconclusive and findings for PHI were also inconclusive because of a lack of studies. The authors conclude that health insurance offers some protection against the detrimental effects of user fees and a promising avenue towards universal health-care coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The politics of aid revisited: A review of evidence on state capacity and elite commitment","field_subtitle":"De Haan A and Warmerdam W: Effective States and Inclusive Development Research Centre (ESID) Working Paper 7, University of Manchester, 2012","field_url":"http://www.dfid.gov.uk/r4d/PDF/Outputs/ESID/esid_wp_07_deHaan-warmerdam.pdf","body":"In this study, the authors argue that a better understanding of the impact of aid on both state capacity for, and elite commitment to, sustainable development has the potential to improve practices in the field of international development. This requires better empirical insight into how external funders interact with formal and informal institutions in the countries where they work, particularly in aid-dependent countries. Furthermore, it is critical to see aid as part of a spectrum of international exchange, rather than in isolation. This implies a significant research agenda, combining quantitative and in-depth qualitative analysis, as there are barriers for more informed political analysis to inform practice. Little analysis exists of how external funders, even where they do start adopting a political perspective, do influence local institutions and the people they work with. The authors review large research programmes on politics of international development, consider the role and impact of external funders\u2019 political economy approaches, scan the literature on aid modalities, and discuss the practices of emerging external funders, particularly China.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of HIV-related stigma in utilisation of skilled childbirth services in rural Kenya: A prospective mixed-methods study","field_subtitle":"Turan JM, Hatcher AH, Medema-Wijnveen J, Onono M, Miller S et al: PLoS Medicine 9(8), 21 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001295","body":"The Maternity in Migori and AIDS Stigma Study (MAMAS Study) is a prospective mixed-methods investigation conducted in a high HIV prevalence area in rural Kenya, in which researchers examined the role of women's perceptions of HIV-related stigma during pregnancy in their subsequent utilisation of maternity services. From 2007\u20132009, 1,777 pregnant women with unknown HIV status completed an interviewer-administered questionnaire assessing their perceptions of HIV-related stigma before being offered HIV testing during their first antenatal care visit. After the visit, a sub-sample of women was selected for follow-up of whom 411 (69%) were located and completed another questionnaire postpartum. Additional qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with community health workers, childbearing women and family members. Qualitative data revealed that health facility birth is commonly viewed as most appropriate for women with pregnancy complications, such as HIV. Thus, women delivering at health facilities face the risk of being labeled as HIV-positive in the community. Quantitative data revealed that women with higher perceptions of HIV-related stigma (specifically those who held negative attitudes about persons living with HIV) at baseline were subsequently less likely to deliver in a health facility with a skilled attendant, even after adjusting for other known predictors of health facility delivery. These findings point to the urgent need for interventions to reduce HIV-related stigma, not only for improving quality of life among persons living with HIV, but also for better health outcomes among all childbearing women and their families.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Twenty-first IUHPE World Conference on Health Promotion, 25029 August 2012, Thailand","field_subtitle":"Abstract submission deadline: 20 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.iuhpeconference.net/en/index.php","body":"The International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) and Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth) are hosting the 21st IUHPE World Conference on Health Promotion, 25\u201329 August, Pattaya, Thailand. The conference aims to contribute to the development of equity and social justice across the globe by offering a unique platform for dialogue on the best investments for health between participants from various sectors from all over the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"UHC Forward: Call for bloggers at Second Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"31 October - 3 November 2012: Beijing, China","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/atuhc%40resultsfordevelopment.org","body":"Are you planning to attend the Second Global Health Symposium? If so, UHC Forward is looking for bloggers to write about universal health care at the symposium for the UHC Forward website. Please email Nkem Wellington for more information at the email address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Unmet need for induction of labour in Africa: secondary analysis from the 2004-2005 WHO Global Maternal and Perinatal Health Survey (A cross-sectional survey)","field_subtitle":"Fawole B, Nafiou I, Machoki M, Wolomby-Molondo J, Mugerwa K, Neves I et al: BMC Public Health 12(722), 31 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-722.pdf","body":"Induction of labour is being increasingly used to prevent adverse outcomes in the mother and the newborn. In this study, researchers assessed the prevalence of induction of labour and determinants of its use in Africa. They performed secondary analysis of the WHO Global Survey of Maternal and Newborn Health of 2004 and 2005 and assessed unmet needs for specific obstetric indications at country level. A total of 83,437 deliveries were recorded in the seven participating countries, including Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Uganda. The average rate of induction was 4.4% and the researchers found that induction was associated with reduction of stillbirths and perinatal deaths. Unmet need for induction ranged between 66% and 80.2% across countries. Determinants of having an induction were place of residence, duration of schooling, type of health facility and level of antenatal care. As utilisation of induction of labour in health facilities in Africa is very low and unmet need very high, the authors call for improvements in social and health infrastructure.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Urbanisation imperatives for Africa: Transcending policy intertia","field_subtitle":"African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town: 2010","field_url":"http://africancentreforcities.net/papers/22/","body":"Urbanisation is one of Africa\u2019s most pressing issues, according to this publication by African Centre for Cities. However, most political and policy leaders remain in denial about its centrality and urgency. The phenomenon represents the most complex and intractable policy questions and as long as Africans do not take responsibility to shift the contemporary situation of policy failure, we are in for a crisis, says the African centre for Cities. This publication is intended to be a resource to policy activists in African governments, development agencies, social movements, universities and business sectors who are committed to addressing the current inertia surrounding urbanisation policy development and should be of help activists to develop a clear agenda on urbanisation on the continent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Women, abortion and the new technical and policy guidance from WHO","field_subtitle":"Fathalla MF and Cook RJ: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(9): 712, September 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/9/12-107144.pdf","body":"This editorial welcomes the World Health Organisation\u2019s (WHO) update of its 2003 publication \u2018Safe abortion: Technical and policy guidance for health systems\u2019. In updating its guidance on safe abortion, WHO has responded to a major neglected public health need of women, Fathalla and Cook argue here. Unsafe induced abortion is not only a public health problem, it is also a human rights issue. As governments are obligated by their national constitutions or by legally binding international human rights conventions to protect the right to the highest attainable standard of health, they should be increasingly applying human rights principles to facilitate women\u2019s transparent access to safe abortion services in their countries. The WHO update highlights the growing trend for national courts and regional and international human rights bodies, including the United Nations treaty monitoring bodies, to take a rights-based approach to this issue. The authors call for abortion to be decriminalised, as well as for further research aimed at developing simpler, improved methods for performing induced abortion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"2012 Regional Equity Watch","field_subtitle":"EQUINET","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org","body":"The EQUINET 2012 Regional Equity Watch has been produced and is being posted to the website in early September. The report updates the 2007 EQUINET Regional analysis of equity in health, drawing on the Equity Watch framework developed by EQUINET in cooperation with the East, Central and Southern African Health Community and in consultation with WHO and UNICEF, with some modifications given its regional nature. The report provides evidence from 16 countries in East and Southern Africa, including more detailed evidence from the country Equity Watch reports, on: Policy, political and legal commitments to equity in health; The current situation with respect to equity in health outcomes; Economic opportunities and challenges for health equity; Household access to the resources for health and the social determinants of health; Challenging inequities through redistributive health systems and Global (in)justice and the issues for global engagement. Visit the EQUINET website in early September to download the report! ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"21st IUHPE World Conference on Health Promotion, 25029 August 2012, Thailand","field_subtitle":"Abstract submission deadline: 20 December 2012","field_url":"http://www.iuhpeconference.net/en/index.php","body":"The International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) and Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth) are hosting the 21st IUHPE World Conference on Health Promotion, 25 \u2013 29 August, Pattaya, Thailand. \r\nThe conference aims to contribute to the development of equity and social justice across the globe by offering a unique platform for dialogue on the best investments for health between participants from various sectors from all over the world. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A City in Healing After Two Decades of War","field_subtitle":"Mitchell Sutika Sipus: Polis blog: August 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/8rt7zgw","body":"Mitchell Sutika Sipus is an urban planning advisor to the Mayor of Mogadishu. He also lives and works in Kabul, Afghanistan. Here he writes about the rebuilding of Mogadishu\u2019s physical infrastructure and the need for \u2018psychological healing\u2019 amongst the residents of the city. He writes of the initiation of trauma workshops for residents. Rebuilding the physical landscape is only part of the struggle. How can the city heal psychologically? Mogadishu's deputy mayor, Iman Icar, believes that to transform the city it is essential to transform the minds of residents. The mayor set up a new initiative to provide training in trauma healing and reconciliation for 50 people in each district. On July 19, 2012, the program concluded with a grand ceremony attended by President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. The first 800 graduates will train another group of 800. In a city of three million, 1600 people may not be much, but it is argued to be a ripple in the pond that, with continued effort and support, will grow ever wider.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"A qualitative study on caretakers' perceived need of bed-nets after reduced malaria transmission in Zanzibar, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Beer N, Ali AS, Eskilsson H, Jansson A, Abdul-Kadir FM, Rotllant-Estelrich G et al: BMC Public Health 12:606, 3 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-606.pdf","body":"To explore perceptions of malaria and utilisation of insecticide-treated bed-nets after a noticeable reduction in malaria incidence in Zanzibar, the authors of this study conducted 19 in-depth interviews with caretakers of children under five in North A district on the island. They found that awareness of malaria among caretakers was high but the illness was now seen as easily curable and uncommon. The discomfort of sleeping under a net during the hot season was identified as the main barrier to consistent bed-net usage. The main cue to using a bed-net was high mosquito density, and children were prioritised when it came to bed-net usage. Caretakers had high perceived self-efficacy and did not find it difficult to use bed-nets. Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS), which was recognised as an additional means of mosquito prevention, was not identified as an alternative for bed-nets. A barrier to net ownership was the increasingly high cost of bed-nets. The authors call on the government to continue providing bed nets through sustainable and affordable delivery mechanisms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"A research agenda for malaria eradication: health systems and operational research","field_subtitle":"MalERA Consultative Group on Health Systems and Operational Research: PLoS Medicine 8(1), 25 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000397","body":"Greater health systems research and development is needed to support the global malaria eradication agenda, argues the malERA Consultative Group on Health Systems and Operational Research. In this paper, the Group focuses on the health systems needs of the elimination phase of malaria eradication and analyses groupings of countries at different stages along the pathway to elimination. It examines the difference between the last attempt at eradication of malaria and more recent initiatives, and considers the changing health system challenges as countries make progress towards elimination. The paper contains a review of recent technological and theoretical developments related to health systems and the renewed commitment to strengthening health systems for universal access and greater equity. The Group identifies a number of needs for research and development, including tools for analysing and improving effective coverage and strengthening decision making and discuss the relevance of these needs at all levels of the health system from the community to the international level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"A scoping review about conference objectives and evaluative practices: How do we get more out of them? ","field_subtitle":"Neves J, Lavis JN and Ranson M Health Research Policy and Systems: 10:26, 2 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-10-26.pdf","body":"The aim of this scoping review is to investigate and report stakeholders' objectives for planning or participating in large multi-day conferences and how these objectives are being evaluated. The authors conducted a scoping review supplemented by a small number of key informant interviews. Eight bibliographic databases were systematically searched to identify papers describing conference objectives and/or evaluations, 44 of which were included in this study. The evaluation framework connects five key elements in planning a conference and its evaluation: conference objectives, purpose of evaluation, evaluation methods, indicators of success and theories/models. The authors found that conference objectives and evaluations were largely correlated with the type of conference (i.e. academic, political/governmental or business) but diverse overall. While much can be done to improve the quality and usefulness of conference evaluations, there are innovative assessments that are currently being utilised by some conferences and warrant further investigation. This review provides conference evaluators and organisers a simple resource to improve their own assessments by highlighting and categorising current objectives and evaluation strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Advances in childhood immunisation in South Africa: where to now? Programme managers' views and evidence from systematic reviews","field_subtitle":"Wiysonge CS, Ngcobo NJ, Jeena PM, Madhi SA, Schoub BD, Hawkridge A et al: BMC Public Health 12:578, 31 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-578.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers assessed challenges and enablers for the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) in South Africa, in light of the approaching 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals. Between September 2009 and September 2010 they requested national and provincial EPI managers in South Africa to identify key challenges facing EPI, and to propose appropriate solutions. Systematic reviews on the effectiveness of the proposed solutions were added. Challenges identified by EPI managers were linked to healthcare workers (insufficient knowledge of vaccines and immunisation), the public (anti-immunisation rumours and reluctance from parents), and health system (insufficient financial and human resources). Strategies proposed by managers to overcome the challenges include training, supervision, and audit and feedback; strengthening advocacy and social mobilisation; and sustainable EPI funding schemes. The findings from reliable systematic reviews indicate that interactive educational meetings, audits and feedback, and supportive supervision improve healthcare worker performance. The authors conclude that numerous promising strategies for improving EPI performance in South Africa were found but their implementation would need to be tailored to local circumstances and accompanied by high-quality monitoring and evaluation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"African Cochrane Indaba: 6-8 May 2013: Cape Town, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Early registration deadline:  31 January 2013; Late registration deadline:  15 April 2013","field_url":"http://www.mrc.ac.za/conference/aci/index.htm","body":"The South African Cochrane Centre (SACC) is celebrating its 15th Anniversary. To mark this achievement SACC is inviting all African Cochrane contributors to participate the African Cochrane Indaba entitled \u2018Global Evidence, Local Application\u2019. This event will create opportunities for sharing, learning and development. Participants will have a chance to: share experiences in working in evidence-based healthcare; participate in relevant workshops and capacity development events to promote on-going learning related to Cochrane Review production and dissemination; and engage in rigorous discussion about how to ensure the evidence that Cochrane generates is promoted and communicated optimally to healthcare decision-makers. The objectives of the African Cochrane Indaba are: capacity development on methods issues for Cochrane reviews; sharing best practices regarding dissemination of evidence; deciphering and using the evidence; and sharing experiences and networking.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"After Rio: Let's start moving towards the future we want","field_subtitle":"UHC Forward: 13 July 2012","field_url":"http://uhcforward.org/headline/after-rio-lets-start-moving-towards-future-we-want","body":"The outcome of Rio+20, held in June 2012, with negotiating countries unable to reach consensus on most issues, left most commentators disappointed as the summit failed to live up to its ambitious title \u201cThe Future We Want\u201d. However, UHC Forward argues that health activists have a minor victory to celebrate, as issues regarding health, absent in the initial drafts circulated in advance of the Summit, are now mentioned in the texts. Health has had its relationship with sustainable development firmly recognised in terms of Universal Health Coverage by: strengthening health systems; complying with Beijing, Cairo and TRIPs flexibilities to ensure access to essential medicines; reducing infant and maternal mortality; and providing universal access to family planning and sexual and reproductive health. However, UHC Forward acknowledges that the Rio+20 outcome text contains too many divergent viewpoints and no tangible political commitments. It does, though, mark the beginning of the next phase of negotiations, and UHC Forward calls on all activists to demand that new agreements must reflect the challenges of the new global landscape, accounting for new health challenges, widening inequality and the increased proportion of the world\u2019s poor in middle-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Alcohol consumption in relation to maternal deaths from induced-abortions in Ghana ","field_subtitle":"Asamoah BO and Agardh A: Reproductive Health 9:10, 6 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/pdf/1742-4755-9-10.pdf","body":"According to this paper, in Ghana, alcohol consumption and unwanted pregnancies are on the ascendancy. The authors examined the association between alcohol consumption and maternal mortality from induced-abortion, as well as the factors that lie behind the alcohol consumption patterns in the study population. They extracted data from the Ghana Maternal Health Survey 2007, identifying 4,203 female deaths through verbal autopsy, among which 605 were maternal deaths in the 12 to 49 year-old age group. Alcohol consumption was significantly associated with abortion-related maternal deaths. Women who had ever consumed alcohol, frequent consumers and occasional consumers were about three times as likely to die from abortion-related causes compared to those who abstained from alcohol. Maternal age, marital status and educational level were found to have a confounding effect on the observed association. The authors recommend that policy actions directed toward reducing abortion-related deaths should consider alcohol consumption, especially among younger women. Policy makers in Ghana should also consider increasing the legal age for alcohol consumption. In addition, information on the health risks posed by alcohol and abortion be disseminated to communities in the informal sector where vulnerable groups can best be reached.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Analysis of pan-African Centres of Excellence in health innovation highlights opportunities and challenges for local innovation and financing in the continent","field_subtitle":"Nwaka S, Ochem A, Besson D, Ramirez B, Fakorede F, Botros S et al: BMC International Health and Human Rights 12:11, 27 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-12-11.pdf","body":"A pool of 38 pan-African Centers of Excellence (CoEs) in health innovation has been selected and recognised by the African Network for Drugs and Diagnostics Innovation (ANDI), through a competitive criteria based process. The process identified a number of opportunities and challenges for health research and development (R&D) and innovation in the continent. The CoEs are envisioned as an innovative network of public and private institutions with a critical mass of expertise and resources to support projects and a variety of activities for capacity building and scientific exchange, including hosting fellows, trainees, scientists on sabbaticals and exchange with other African and non-African institutions. The authors argue that a credible and sustainable solution to the health challenges in Africa must leverage existing R&D, manufacturing and commercialisation capacity across the continent to support integrated capacity utilisation and economic development. They call for greater and better integrated funding for health R&D. As a pan-African initiative focusing on health R&D, promoting local manufacturing and access to medicines, the ANDI initiative is in a good position to contribute in the actualisation of an integrated and coordinated product R&D platform in the African continent, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Awards and grants for researchers in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Available from 1 November 2012","field_url":"http://royalsociety.org/grants/schemes/africa-capacity-building/","body":"The Royal Society-DFID Africa Capacity Building Initiative is a programme for scientists in sub-Saharan Africa who want to collaborate on research between themselves and a research institution in the United Kingdom (UK). The overall aim of the scheme is to strengthen the research capacity of universities and research institutions in sub-Saharan Africa by supporting the development of sustainable research networks. The programme consists of two awards and will be delivered in two stages: Scientific Network Awards and Programme Grants. Applicants must be based in one of the eligible sub-Saharan African countries or the UK. Applications will be accepted in these  research priority areas: water and sanitation, renewable energy, soil-related research, and value and tenure. The next round of funding opens on 1 November 2012.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Brain drain and health workforce distortions in Mozambique ","field_subtitle":"Sherr K, Mussa A, Chilundo B, Gimbel S, Pfeiffer J et al: PLoS ONE 7(4), 27 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0035840","body":"This observational study was conducted to estimate the degree of internal and external brain drain among Mozambican nationals qualifying from domestic and foreign medical schools between 1980 and 2006. Data were collected 26 months apart in 2008 and 2010, and included current employment status, employer, geographic location of employment and main work duties. Results showed that of 723 qualifying physicians between 1980 and 2006, a quarter had left the public sector, of which 62.4% continued working in-country and 37.6% emigrated. Of those cases of internal migration, 66.4% worked for non-governmental organisations (NGOs), 21.2% for external funders and 12.4% in the private sector. Annual incidence of physician migration was estimated to be 3.7%, predominately to work in the growing NGO sector. An estimated 36.3% of internal migration cases had previously held senior-level management positions in the public sector. The authors conclude that internal migration is an important contributor to capital flight from the public sector, accounting for more cases of physician loss than external migration. They call on external funders and NGOs to assess how their hiring practices may undermine the very systems they seek to strengthen.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications for postdoctoral fellowships in health policy and systems research","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 15 October 2012","field_url":"http://www.uct.ac.za/usr/pgfo/postdocs/notices/CHESAI_finalcall_Aug_2.pdf","body":"The University of Cape Town (UCT) and University of the Western Cape (UWC) Schools of Public Health are calling for interested candidates to apply for two Postdoctoral Research Fellowships to start in January 2013. The successful candidates will be required to register at UCT or UWC and will join the CHESAI team, where they will be expected to contribute to its work and to facilitate communication and joint learning between UCT and UWC. This collaboration is based on the understanding that Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) is an emerging field within the broader terrain of health research, with conceptual and methodological foundations that require substantial development. The overall aim for CHESAI is, therefore, to contribute to expanding and strengthening the health policy and systems knowledge base in Africa through building an intellectual hub for HPSR in Cape Town, South Africa, creating spaces for engagements between researchers and practitioners, supporting African HSPR capacity development and sharing/disseminating HPSR conceptual and methodological innovation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications for the 2013 AFFIRM Fellowship in Public Mental Health ","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 28 September 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ckscx3u","body":"The Africa Focus on Intervention Research for Mental Health (AFFIRM) is a research and capacity development Hub established in six countries: South Africa, Ghana, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Ethiopia. It aims to investigate strategies for narrowing the treatment gap for mental disorders in sub-Saharan Africa, to build individual and institutional capacity for intervention research in sub-Saharan Africa, to establish a network of collaboration between researchers, NGOs and government agencies, and to collaborate with other regional hubs. In order to meet its aim of building capacity for intervention research, AFFIRM is offering five fellowships to candidates from Hub countries (excluding South Africa) to complete the MPhil in Public Mental Health in the Centre for Public Mental Health in 2013. Only one fellowship will be awarded per country. To be eligible, candidates must come from one of the Hub countries, successfully gain entry to the MPhil in Public Mental Health and undertake a research project that is aligned with the goal of AFFIRM, which is to use task shifting interventions to narrow the treatment gap in sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for nominations for the Cordaid HIV and AIDS Award","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 16 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.cordaid.nl/2012-cordaid-hiv-and-aids-award","body":"The Catholic Organisation for Relief and Development Aid (Cordaid) is seeking nominations from organisations that show outstanding vision, commitment and leadership in making use of local resources to implement sustainable care and support initiatives for children living with or affected by HIV. Cordaid will award the most outstanding organisation nominated with an award of \u20ac10,000 to further strengthen its activities in this field. Organisations that  are eligible to be nominated for this year\u2019s award should be active in the above-mentioned field in one of the following countries: Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Malawi and Uganda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Cereal secrets: The world's largest grain traders and global agriculture","field_subtitle":"Murphy S, Burch D and Clapp J: Oxfam, August 2012","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/rr-cereal-secrets-grain-traders-agriculture-03082012-en.pdf","body":"In this report, the authors consider the four biggest global agricultural commodity traders: Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus, often collectively referred to as \u2018the ABCD companies\u2019. The ABCD companies are often invisible in policy debates about farmers and consumers, and they are careful about where and when they get involved in such debates, rarely seeking the limelight. The report looks at critical issues in agriculture and food security, such as the \u2018financialisation\u2019 of agricultural products, the emergence of Asian competitors to the ABCDs and the impact of the large-scale biofuel industry on food security. The authors argue that food price volatility is a problem and commodity speculation and biofuels, alongside other factors such as export bans, are helping to drive volatility. The role played by the ABCD trading firms is important, but that how to address them and limit their power is not obvious, and regulations and changes will probably need to target broader reforms. But understanding the economic and political power of the ABCDs is essential to developing policies that will protect the interests of smallholder farmers and poor consumers in developing countries, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society mobilises for proposed new Zambian Constitution","field_subtitle":"Mooya B: Zambia Daily Mail, 30 June 2012","field_url":"http://www.daily-mail.co.zm/?p=6914","body":"Zambian civil society organisations, especially those devoted to women\u2019s rights, have welcomed Zambia\u2019s new Constitution, which contains progressive provisions on gender equality and the promotion of women\u2019s rights. The public is expected to vote on the Constitution in a national Referendum in 2013. Women\u2019s rights organisations are reported to be preparing for educational campaigns amongst women to vote in favour of the new Constitution in the proposed Referendum in 2013. The parties to the Women\u2019s Declaration on Engendering the Republican Constitution include the labour movement, the private sector, traditional leaders and groups under the umbrella of the Non-Governmental Organisations Coordinating Council (NGOCC). The draft version will enshrine gender equity in the Constitution in terms of economic empowerment. Activists have further demanded for the recognition of education as an important tool for the empowerment of women and women\u2019s political empowerment through proportional representation in all decision making structures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society welcomes UN High-level Panel on Post-2015 but where are the voices of people living in poverty?","field_subtitle":"The Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), CIVICUS, the Feminist Task Force, Oxfam International, Beyond 2015, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) et al: CIVICUS, 7 August 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bvulo2z","body":"In this statement, a group of international civil society organisations welcomes the appointment by the UN Secretary-General of a diverse High-level Panel to advise on a post-2015 development agenda. However, the statement also expresses concern the  Panel does not include the voices of people living in poverty, and their representative associations. The current composition of the Panel is largely state-centric with insufficient civil society representation, the organisations argue, and the Panel should include people from women's associations, farmers cooperatives, indigenous groups, workers or organisations of the impoverished. They highlight the fact that such voices must be represented as part of any effort to tackle poverty and in building a just, equitable and sustainable world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Developed-developing country partnerships: Benefits to developed countries?","field_subtitle":"Syed SB, Dadwal V, Rutter P, Storr J, Hightower JD et al: Globalization and Health 8(17), 18 June 2012","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-8-17.pdf","body":"This review investigated international cooperation in health, particularly between developed and developing nations. Standard database and web-based searches were conducted for publications in English between 1990 and 2010, from which 65 articles were included in the final analysis. While some articles identified intangible benefits accrued by developed country partners, most pointed to developing country innovations that can potentially inform health systems in developed countries. Ten key health areas in which developing countries led the way were identified, such as rural health service delivery, skills substitution, decentralisation of management, creative problem-solving and innovation in mobile phone use, and health financing. The authors argue that combined developed-developing country learning processes can potentially generate effective solutions for global health systems. However, the global pool of knowledge in this area is still basic and further work needs to be undertaken to advance understanding of health innovation diffusion. Even more urgently, a standardised method for reporting partnership benefits is needed for realising the full potential of international cooperation between developed and developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing and costing local strategies to improve maternal and child health: The Investment Case Framework","field_subtitle":"Jimenez SE, La Vincente S, Clark A, Firth S, Morgan A et al: PLoS Medicine 9(8), 7 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001282","body":"The authors of this paper argue that at the sub-national level - where most health services are delivered - critical knowledge and capacity gaps exist, which prevent evidence from making a direct contribution to health plans and budgets. To remedy this problem, they propose an Investment Case Framework, which pairs locally led problem-solving analysis with quantitative techniques to inform local planning and decision-making. The framework allows for the development of locally appropriate strategies to overcome identified health system constraints and it estimates cost and impact should such strategies be implemented. The varied success of this initiative in terms of influencing annual plans and budgets reflects the political nature of resource allocation and the need to embed such approaches in the local policy process. To sustain evidence-based planning, the authors recommend a collaborative arrangement that allows researchers to address specific evidence gaps and health managers to focus on their core business of delivering universal health coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 91: What progress has been made towards the equitable allocation of health care resources in South Africa?","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D: EQUINET, August 2011","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20Diss91%20SAResAll%202012.pdf","body":"This report provides an overview of resource-allocation decision making in South Africa as it impacts on the distribution of health budgets. It also looks at changes in the allocation of public health care resources since the early 1990s across provinces. Finally, it considers whether resources are allocated equitably between health districts. The report finds that while considerable progress has been made towards the equitable allocation of public sector health care resources among provinces, substantial disparities in spending on primary health care (PHC) services remain among health districts. It is critical that provincial health departments pay more attention to the equitable allocation of resources for PHC services among the districts within their province, the author argues. In the absence of such efforts, many South Africans will continue to be disadvantaged in their access to PHC services simply because of their place of residence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 92: Annotated literature review: Conceptual frameworks and strategies for research on global health diplomacy","field_subtitle":"Blouin C, Molenaar-Neufeld B and Pearcey M: EQUINET, 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss92%20GHD%20Litrev%20July2012.pdf","body":"This annotated literature review was prepared as a resource for the policy research programme led by EQUINET that is examining the role of global health diplomacy (GHD), including south\u2013south diplomacy, in addressing selected key challenges to health and strengthening health systems. This review provides an annotated bibliography and a summary of key features of peer-reviewed articles, books, book chapters and academic reports published between 1998 and 2004 on three case study areas: research on GHD, particularly in the areas of the World Health Organisation's Code on International Recruitment of Health Workers; access to essential drugs through south-south partnerships; and involvement of African actors in global health governance. It focuses on the theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in peer-reviewed literature on global health diplomacy and on the authors\u2019 methodological choices to reach their conclusions. The report highlights theories that guided the research, the types of conceptual frameworks used and the research strategy and research tools employed in the publications reviewed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Does anti-malarial drug knowledge predict anti-malarial dispensing practice in drug outlets? A survey of medicine retailers in western Kenya","field_subtitle":"Rusk A, Smith N, Menya D, Obala A, Simiyu C, Khwa-Otsyula B and O'Meara W: Malaria Journal 11:263, 6 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-263.pdf","body":"To investigate medicine retailer knowledge about anti-malarials and their dispensing practices, a survey was conducted of all retail drug outlets that sell anti-malarial medications and serve residents of the Webuye Health and Demographic Surveillance Site in the Bungoma East District of western Kenya. Results indicated that most (65%) of the medicine retailers surveyed were able to identify artemether-lumefantrine (AL) as first-line anti-malarial therapy for uncomplicated malaria recommended by the Kenyan Ministry of Health. Retailers who correctly identified this treatment were also more likely to recommend AL to adult and paediatric customers. Retailer training and education were found to be correlated with anti-malarial drug knowledge, which in turn was correlated with dispensing practices. While the Kenya Ministry of Health (MoH) guidelines were found to influence retailer drug stocking and dispensing behaviours, the authors argue that knowing the MoH recommended anti-malarial medication does not always ensure it is recommended or dispensed to customers. Retailer training and education are both areas that could be improved. Considering the influence that patient demand has on retailer behaviour, future interventions focusing on community education may positively influence appropriate dispensing of anti-malarials.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Does your organisation want to join the Universal Health Care movement?","field_subtitle":"Action for Global Health: 2012","field_url":"http://www.actionforglobalhealth.eu/fileadmin/AfGH_Intranet/AFGH/Publications/UHC/UHC_Call_to_Action_eng2.pdf","body":"Healthcare around the world is unaffordable for millions of people. At the same time, states are responsible for delivering universal access to health systems according to their legal commitments to the Right to Health. However, Action for Global Health argues that this is only possible if they develop sustainable health financing mechanisms to support strong and equitable national health systems. To make Universal Health Coverage (UHC) a reality, there is still the need for greater political will both, at national level, to put into practice the reforms needed and, at international level, to promote and revitalise a general consensus towards \u2018health for all\u2019, facilitating technical support and additional resources. Making progress towards UHC will accelerate social and economic growth, is fundamental to sustainable development and is fair, argues Action for Global Health. The organisation, which consists of a network of non-governmental organisations, has been working on a common statement for UHC, asking for greater political support and promoting a joint movement for UHC. If your organisation wants to sign on, please contact Action for Global Health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Early cessation of breastfeeding amongst women in South Africa: An area needing urgent attention to improve child health","field_subtitle":"Doherty T, Sanders D, Jackson D, Swanevelder S, Lombard C, Zembe Wanga et al: BMC Pediatrics 12:105, 24 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2431-12-105.pdf","body":"Despite being a critical component of interventions to reduce child mortality, exclusive breastfeeding practice is extremely low in South Africa. This paper investigates why. The authors conducted a sub-group analysis of a community-based cluster-randomised trial (PROMISE EBF) promoting exclusive breastfeeding in three South African sites between 2006 and 2008. By 12 weeks postpartum, results showed that 20% of HIV-negative women and 40% of HIV-positive women had stopped breastfeeding. About a third of women introduced other fluids, most commonly formula milk, within the first three days after birth. Antenatal intention not to breastfeed and being undecided about how to feed were most strongly associated with stopping breastfeeding by 12 weeks. Self-reported breast health problems were also associated with a three-fold risk of stopping breastfeeding. The authors conclude that early cessation of breastfeeding is common amongst both HIV-negative and positive women in South Africa. There is an urgent need to improve antenatal breastfeeding counselling taking into account the challenges faced by working women as well as early postnatal lactation support to prevent breast health problems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Educating enough competent health professionals: Advancing educational innovation at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Kaaya EE, Macfarlane SB, Mkony CA, Lyamuya EF, Loeser H et al: PLoS Medicine 9(8), 14 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001284","body":"In Tanzania, the authors of this study found that increasing numbers of universities are training many more health professionals to address the country\u2019s extreme shortage of health care workers. In 2009 six universities admitted 756 medical students, but this is still many fewer than are needed based on population growth. Tanzania\u2019s universities have the ability to support health professionals to build and maintain critical competencies by strengthening curricula and pre-service and internship training, and providing opportunities for continuing professional development, according to the study. For example, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS), the oldest health sciences academic institution in Tanzania, is partnering with the University of California San Francisco to transform MUHAS's educational environment through curricula revision and faculty development. However, enhancing the educational process involves a great deal of commitment from faculty across MUHAS and will only succeed if supported by long-term institutional reform. Sharing of early lessons learned by institutions undergoing educational reform will start to build a body of knowledge and experience to inform transformation of health professions education in Tanzania and elsewhere in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Effect of maternal obesity on neonatal death in sub-Saharan Africa: Multivariable analysis of 27 national datasets","field_subtitle":"Cresswell JA, Campbell OMR,  De Silva MJ, Filippi V: The Lancet (Early Online Publication) 9 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)60869-1/abstract?version=printerFriendly","body":"In this study, researchers investigated whether maternal obesity is a risk factor for neonatal death in sub-Saharan Africa and the effect on the detailed timing of death within the neonatal period. Cross-sectional Demographic and Health Surveys from 27 sub-Saharan countries (2003-09) were pooled, comprising a total of 81,126 women. Of these women, 15,518 were overweight, 4,266 were obese, 52,006 had an optimum body mass index (BMI) and 13,602 were underweight. Maternal obesity was associated with an increased odds of neonatal death after adjustment for confounding factors, and it was a significant risk factor for neonatal deaths occurring during the first two days of life. Strategies to prevent and reduce obesity need to be considered, the authors argue, and obese women should be advised to deliver in a health-care facility that can provide emergency obstetric and neonatal care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Epilepsy treatment in sub-Saharan Africa: Closing the gap","field_subtitle":"Chin JH: African Health Sciences 12(2): 186-192, June 2012","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ahs/article/viewFile/79462/69752","body":"In sub-Saharan Africa, shortages of trained health workers, limited diagnostic equipment, inadequate anti-epileptic drug supplies, cultural beliefs, and social stigma contribute to the large treatment gap for epilepsy. This paper examines the state of epilepsy care and treatment in sub-Saharan Africa and discusses priorities and approaches to scale up access to medications and services for people with epilepsy. In the last decade, the disproportionate majority of global health funding has been allocated to vertical programmes targeting HIV and AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. The renewed calls for action to raise the priority of chronic non-communicable diseases in global health planning and research are encouraging, however, the authors note. Funding commitments from domestic governments, international funders, nongovernmental organisations, industry, and private philanthropists will be critical, the authors argue, to scaling up access to anti-epileptic medications and building capacity in human resources for epilepsy care in sub-Saharan Africa. A Global Fund for Epilepsy should be established to accelerate support from external funders and coordinate programme development and implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 139: Will the WHO reform bring money, voice and power behind public health?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluating the cost-effectiveness of combination antiretroviral therapy for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Kuznik A, Lamorde M, Hermans S, Castelnuovo B, Auerbach B, Semeere A et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(8): 595\u2013603, August 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/8/11-095430.pdf","body":"The aim of this study was to model the cost-effectiveness in Uganda of combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. The cost-effectiveness of ART was evaluated on the assumption that it reduces the risk of an HIV-positive pregnant woman transmitting HIV to her baby from 40% (when the woman is left untreated) to between 3.8% and 25.8%. Compared with single-dose nevirapine, dual therapy and no therapy, 18 months of ART averted between 3.22 and 8.58 disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), at a cost of between US$34 and $99 per DALY averted. The corresponding figures for lifetime ART range from 11.87 to 31.6 DALYs averted, at a cost of between $172 and $354 per DALY averted. According to these findings, it appears ART is highly cost-effective for the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission, even if continued over the patients\u2019 lifetimes. Given the additional public health benefits of ART, efforts to ensure that all HIV-positive pregnant women have access to lifelong ART should be intensified, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluation of a national universal coverage campaign of long-lasting insecticidal nets in a rural district in north-west Tanzania","field_subtitle":"West PA, Protopopoff N, Rowland MW, Kirby MJ, Oxborough RM, Mosha FW et al: Malaria Journal 11(273), 10 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-273.pdf","body":"This study had two purposes: to evaluate the impact of a universal coverage campaign (UCC) of long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) on LLIN ownership and usage, and to identify factors that may be associated with inadequate coverage. In 2011 two cross-sectional household surveys were conducted in 50 clusters in Muleba district, north-west Tanzania. Prior to the UCC 3,246 households were surveyed and 2,499 afterwards. The proportion of households with at least one ITN increased from 62.6% before the UCC to 90.8% afterwards. Eighty percent of households surveyed received LLINs from the campaign. ITN usage in all residents rose from 40.8% to 55.7%, and after the UCC, 58.4% of households had sufficient ITNs to cover all their sleeping places. Households with children under five years and small households were most likely to reach universal coverage, while poverty was not associated with net coverage. The authors conclude that UCC in Muleba district of Tanzania was equitable, greatly improving LLIN ownership and, more moderately, usage. However, the goal of universal coverage in terms of the adequate provision of nets was not achieved. Multiple, continuous delivery systems and education activities are required to maintain and improve bed net ownership and usage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluation of the effectiveness of the national prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programme measured at six weeks postpartum in South Africa, 2010","field_subtitle":"Goga AE, Dinh TH and Jackson DJ for the SAPMTCTE study group: South African Medical Research Council et al, 2012","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/reports/2012/pmtcteffectiveness.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers evaluated the effectiveness of South Africa\u2019s national prevention programme for mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV. They included a total of 10,820 eligible infants from 572 facilities in their survey, conducted 10,735 interviews and drew 10,178 dried blot spot specimens. Findings indicated a 3.5% national MTCT rate in pregnancy and intrapartum with varying distribution across the nine provinces (1.4% to 5.9%). Maternal HIV acquisition since the last HIV test was potentially high at 4.1% and therefore repeat HIV testing at 32 weeks pregnancy and couple testing is critical, the authors argue. While uptake of PMTCT services is over 90%, CD4 testing and early infant diagnosis (EID) uptake are considerably lower and represent on-going missed opportunities in the PMTCT programme. The authors call for a review of EID strategies that routinely offer infant HIV testing only to known HIV-exposed infants, as virtual elimination of paediatric HIV infection is possible with intensified effort. Only 20% of HIV-positive women were exclusively breastfeeding, 62% were formula feeding and 18% were practicing high-risk mixed feeding, suggesting a need for increased attention to infant feeding.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors associated with utilisation of community health workers in improving access to malaria treatment among children in Kenya ","field_subtitle":"Kisia J, Nelima F, Otieno D, Kiilu K, Emmanuel W, Sohani S et al: Malaria Journal 11:248, 30 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-248.pdf","body":"Little is known in Kenya on the extent to which community health workers (CHWs) are utilised, the characteristics of families who report utilising CHWs and whether utilisation is associated with improved access to prompt and effective malaria treatment. This paper addresses this research gap by examining factors associated with utilisation of CHWs in improving access to malaria treatment among children under five years of age by women caregivers in 113 hard-to-reach and poor rural villages in Malindi and Lamu districts Results indicate an increase in reported utilisation of CHWs as source of advice/treatment for child fevers from 2% to 35%, accompanied by a decline in care-seeking from government facilities (from 67% to 48%) and other sources (26% to 2%) including shops. The most poor households and poor households reported higher utilisation of CHWs at 39.4% and 37.9% respectively, compared to the least poor households (17%). Prompt access to timely and effective treatment was 5.7 times higher when CHWs were the source of care sought. The authors conclude that the utilisation of CHWs in improving access to malaria treatment at the community level will not only enhance access to treatment by the poorest households but also provide early and appropriate treatment to vulnerable individuals, especially those living in hard to reach areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"FAO calls for partnerships in policy research and social inclusion","field_subtitle":"Food and Agricultural Organisation: 30 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/153887/icode/","body":"Speaking at the World Congress of Rural Sociology, the Director-General of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) Jos\u00e9 Graziano da Silva challenged academics to get involved in essential and politically important research into rural poverty and the food and agriculture business as it pertains to small-scale producers. He identified the most pressing issues in the fight against hunger and rural underdevelopment as food insecurity, nutrient deficiencies and unsafe food, as well as unequal competition between small-scale and large food producers. He singled out large-scale investments in agriculture or \u2018land-grabbing\u2019 as a politically important area where universities could conduct research into principles for responsible agricultural investments. Such research could feed into the work of the Committee on World Food Security, the leading global forum for discussions on food security issues, he said. How to integrate small-scale farmers into the agricultural and food chains should be another area of academic concern. Academics should look into the issue of governance of the food and agriculture sector, both at global and local levels, and how to achieve a fair distribution of benefits.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Feasibility, yield, and cost of active tuberculosis case finding linked to a mobile HIV service in Cape Town, South Africa: A cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Kranzer K, Lawn SD, Meyer-Rath G, Vassall A, Raditlhalo E et al: PLoS Medicine 9(8), 7 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001281","body":"This study aimed to assess feasibility, uptake, yield, treatment outcomes and costs of adding an active tuberculosis case-finding programme to an existing mobile HIV testing service in South Africa. All HIV-negative individuals with symptoms suggestive of tuberculosis and all HIV-positive individuals, regardless of symptoms, were eligible for participation. Of the 6,309 adults who accessed the mobile clinic, 1,385 were eligible and 1,130 (81.6%) were enrolled. The prevalence of smear-positive tuberculosis was 2.2%, 3.3% and 0.4% in HIV-negative individuals, individuals newly diagnosed with HIV, and known HIV+ individuals, respectively. Of the 56 new tuberculosis cases detected, 42 started tuberculosis treatment and 34 (81%) completed treatment. The cost of the intervention was US$1,117 per tuberculosis case detected and US$2,458 per tuberculosis case cured. In conclusion, mobile active tuberculosis case finding in deprived populations with a high burden of HIV and tuberculosis was found to be feasible, and had high uptake, yield and treatment success. Further work is now required to examine cost-effectiveness and affordability, and to establish if the same results may be achieved after scaling up services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Film on activism for health","field_subtitle":"Kumar V: Jagruti, 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/9lgy7ul","body":"This film reconstructs the narrative of how a dalit women\u2019s collective in Karnataka, a small village in Belgaum district, defied class, caste and gender barriers and rose up against the failing public health system. The film draws from the rich and first hand experiences of the village women who, with the support of various village level peoples\u2019 organisations and activists, stake claim to their health entitlements. The film concludes by asserting the importance of people\u2019s struggles in creating a functional, responsive, people-centric health care systems and in the larger context of holding the State accountable for its duties and responsibilities towards its citizens. This film was one of the outcomes of the efforts to address the issue of health as a human right and taking forward the issue of revitalizing the public health system by various state and national level networks and activists. Karnataka state unit of the People\u2019s Health Movement(JAA-K) screened this film extensively to intensify their Health as a Human Right campaign. Other health activists drew ideas from it to carry out similar actions to get their local government health centres functioning.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"From efficacy to equity: Literature review of decision criteria for resource allocation and healthcare decision-making","field_subtitle":"Guindo LA, Wagner M, Baltussen R, Rindress D, van Til J, Kind P and Goetghebeur MM: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 10(1), 18 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/pdf/1478-7547-10-9.pdf","body":"The primary objective of this study was to identify decision criteria reported in the literature on healthcare decision-making. An extensive literature search was performed and, out of 356 articles assessed for eligibility, 39 were included in the study. Large variations in terminology used to define decision criteria were observed and 338 different terms were identified. The most frequently mentioned decision criteria were: equity/fairness (33 times), efficacy/effectiveness (28), healthcare stakeholder interests and pressures (28), cost-effectiveness (24), strength of evidence (20), safety (19), mission and mandate of health system (18), need (16), organisational requirements and capacity (18) and patient-reported outcomes (16). This study highlights the importance of considering both normative and feasibility criteria for fair allocation of resources and optimised decision-making. It may be used to develop a questionnaire for an international survey of health decision-makers on criteria, with the ultimate objective of developing sound multicriteria approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Funding opportunity: Stars in Global Health, Round 4","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 5 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.grandchallenges.ca/grand-challenges/gc1-stars/stars-program-information/","body":"Grand Challenges Canada has announced Round 4 of its Stars in Global Health programme. The current round is open to anyone with a Masters degree or above and whose qualification is less than 10 years old. PhD students can use this funding to finance their projects. Applicants should submit bold ideas in global health to apply for US$100,000 seed grants to test their concepts. The focus could be on science and technology and/or social and business interventions. The definition of global health may be considered as very broad here, hence potential applicants could come from Universities (departments of engineering, law, agriculture and veterinary sciences, food science and nutrition, medicine, pharmacy, nursing, public health, business schools, computer science, arts and science, education, anthropology, sociology) research institutes, for-profit and non-profit organisations etc. A new round will be launched every six months.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Maternal Health Conference 2013, January 15-17, 2013, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Abstract should be submitted online by 31st September 2012","field_url":"http://maternalhealthtaskforce.org/conference/conference-website","body":"Global Maternal Health Conference 2013 (GMHC2013) is a technical conference for scientists, researchers, and policy-makers to network, share knowledge, and build on progress toward eradicating preventable maternal mortality and morbidity by improving the quality of maternal health care. The conference is co-sponsored by Management and Development for Health, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and the Maternal Health Task Force at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, USA.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health indicators of sustainable cities in the context of the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: May 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hia/green_economy/indicators_cities.pdf","body":"Increased urbanisation means there are an estimated 800 million slum-dwellers globally, according to World Health Organisation (WHO), who face increased health hazards and risks. Health is an important benchmark of sustainability of urban policies, WHO argues. It proposes health indicators that reflect progress on the social equity, environment and development dimensions of sustainable cities. WHO calls for slum housing improvements that benefit health, as assessed by well-defined measures for safe, resilient, and climate-adapted structures that also have access to clean energy and basic utilities. Urban air quality must be monitored in terms of particulate pollution with respect to WHO air quality guidelines. Healthy, efficient transport in urban areas must be promoted and violence reduced in terms of intentional homicides. Governance indicators can assess how cities account for health in urban planning and building codes, and in monitoring air/water quality and sanitation risks. WHO argues that indicators should include access to urban services, which is essential to public health and sustainable cities, and suggests indicators for health care services, green spaces, fresh food markets and waste management.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health indicators of sustainable jobs in the context of the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: May 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hia/green_economy/indicators_jobs.pdf","body":"In this brief prepared for Rio+20 in June 2012, the world Health Organisation (WHO) argues that a healthy workforce is a prerequisite for social and economic development, and fair terms of employment and decent working conditions are critical to the health of the working-age population. Yet global occupational health statistics from 2011 reveal that an estimated 2.3 million people died from work related injuries, illnesses, and accidents. WHO calls for more systematic measurement and reporting of workers' health to help reduce work-related injuries, illnesses and deaths. Compliance with basic national occupational safety and health standards, at country level and by sector, can support improved workers' health, including in the transition to a green economy. Monitoring progress on the ratification and implementation of core international labour conventions covering occupational safety and health policies and occupational health services is a third measure supporting improved workers' health and safety.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health indicators of sustainable water in the context of the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: May 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hia/green_economy/indicators_water.pdf","body":"Measurement of access to safe and climate resilient drinking-water resources, as well as sanitation, is increasingly critical in an era of continued population growth and climate change. Therefore ensuring access to safe, resilient and sustainable water and sanitation will accelerate attainment of multiple environment and health-related goals for sustainable development, according to this brief by the world Health Organisation. Indicators of access to safe drinking water require greater refinement to reflect the large, continuing gaps in access to safe drinking water among the world's poorest populations, and measure progress towards attainment of the universal right to water. Monitoring access to adequate climate-resilient water and sanitation systems is particularly critical in light of the increasing impacts of temperature change and extreme weather on water sources, sanitation systems and human health. WHO calls on public health agencies to embrace Integrated Water Resource Management, an approach that provides a comprehensive and multisectoral approach for the identification and management of water-related health risks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"High-level Ministerial dialogue on \u2018Value for Money, Sustainability and Accountability in the Health Sector\u2019","field_subtitle":"African Development Bank: July 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ckgsou7","body":"On 4-5 July 2012, the African Development Bank (AfDB), as a key partner of the Harmonisation for Health in Africa (HHA) mechanism, organised a high-level dialogue on \u2018Value for Money, Sustainability and Accountability in the Health Sector\u2019 in Tunis. The conference gathered over African 50 Ministers of Finance and Health and their representatives from 33 African countries, Parliamentarians as well as over 400 participants from the public and private sectors, academia, civil society and media globally. The conference emphasised the urgent need for greater domestic accountability, reduced dependence on foreign aid and the role of Parliamentarians as well as using e-health in achieving greater value money in the delivery of health services in Africa. Participants also stressed the need to tackle critical shortages, maldistribution and inadequate performance of health workers in Africa. Ethiopia\u2019s Health Extension Worker (HEW) Programme was put forward as a good example of innovative policy interventions to health worker shortages.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV treatment as prevention: Issues in economic evaluation ","field_subtitle":"B\u00e4rnighausen T, Salomon JA and Sangrujee N: PLoS Medicine 9(7), 10 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001263","body":"The authors of this paper oppose the view put forward by some analysts that economic evaluations of antiretroviral therapy (ART) may be used to evaluate HIV treatment as prevention (TasP) programmes. ART outcomes and costs assessed in currently existing programmes are unlikely to be generalisable to TasP programmes programmes for several fundamental reasons, the authors argue. First, to achieve frequent, widespread HIV testing and high uptake of ART immediately following an HIV diagnosis, TasP programmes will require components that are not present in current ART programmes and whose costs are not included in current estimates. Second, the early initiation of ART under TasP will change not only patients' disease courses and treatment experiences - which can affect behaviours that determine clinical treatment success, such as ART adherence and retention - but also quality of life and economic outcomes for HIV-infected individuals. Third, the preventive effects of TasP are likely to alter the composition of the HIV-infected population over time, changing its biological and behavioural characteristics and leading to different costs and outcomes for ART.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV treatment as prevention: Modelling the cost of antiretroviral treatment: State of the art and future directions","field_subtitle":"Meyer-Rath G and Over M: PLoS Medicine 9(7), 10 July 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cvu6frg","body":"In this study, the authors reviewed the available literature on modelled estimates of the cost of providing antiretroviral therapy (ART) to different populations around the world, and they suggest alternative methods of characterising cost when modelling several decades into the future. In past economic analyses of ART provision, costs were often assumed to vary by disease stage and treatment regimen, but for treatment as prevention, in particular, most analyses assume a uniform cost per patient. This approach disregards variables that can affect unit cost, the authors note, such as differences in factor prices (i.e., the prices of supplies and services) and the scale and scope of operations (i.e., the sizes and types of facilities providing ART). They go on to discuss several of these variables, and then present a worked example of a flexible cost function used to determine the effect of scale on the cost of a proposed scale-up of treatment as prevention in South Africa. Adjusting previously estimated costs of universal testing and treatment in South Africa for diseconomies of small scale, i.e., more patients being treated in smaller facilities, adds 42% to the expected future cost of the intervention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Human papillomavirus vaccination in Tanzanian schoolgirls: Cluster-randomised trial comparing two vaccine-delivery strategies","field_subtitle":"Watson-Jones D, Baisley K, Ponsiano R, Lemme F, Remes P, Ross D et al: Journal of Infectious Diseases 206(5): 678-686, September 2012","field_url":"http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/206/5/678.full.pdf+html","body":"In this study, researchers compared vaccine coverage achieved by two different delivery strategies for the quadrivalent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in Tanzanian schoolgirls. In a cluster-randomised trial, 134 primary schools were randomly assigned to class-based or age-based vaccine delivery. Of the 3,352 and 2,180 eligible girls included in the study, HPV vaccine coverage was 84.7% for dose 1, 81.4% for dose 2, and 76.1% for dose 3. For each dose, coverage was slightly higher in class-based schools than in age-based schools. Vaccine-related adverse events were rare. Reasons for not vaccinating included absenteeism (6.3%) and parent refusal (6.7%). In conclusions, the authors argue that HPV vaccine can be delivered with high coverage in schools in sub-Saharan Africa. Compared with age-based vaccination, class-based vaccination located more eligible pupils and achieved higher coverage. HPV vaccination did not increase absenteeism rates in selected schools. Innovative strategies will also be needed to reach out-of-school girls.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"IDRC Research Awards","field_subtitle":"Deadline: September 12, 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Funding/Competitions/Pages/CompetitionDetails.aspx?CompetitionID=36#positions","body":"DRC offers these research awards (formerly known as the IDRC Internship Awards) annually to Canadians, permanent residents of Canada, and citizens of developing countries pursuing masters or doctoral studies at a recognized university or having completed a master\u2019s or doctoral program at a recognized university. As a research award recipient, you will undertake a one-year paid program of research on the topic you submitted when competing for the award. During part of the time (often around 50%), you will be trained in research management through hands-on experience with your chosen program. You will be mentored by an IDRC staff member. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of community tracer teams on treatment outcomes among tuberculosis patients in South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Bronner LE, Podewils LJ, Peters A, Somnath P, Nshuti L, Walt M and Mametja LD: BMC Public Health 12:621, 7 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-621.pdf","body":"In 2008, South Africa\u2019s National Tuberculosis Programme (NTP) implemented a community mobilisation programme in all nine provinces to trace TB patients that had missed a treatment or clinic visit. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of the NTP\u2019s TB Tracer Project on treatment outcomes among TB patients. The study population included all smear positive TB patients registered in the Electronic TB Registry from Quarter 1 2007-Quarter 1 2009 in South Africa. Results for all provinces combined suggested that, in tracer districts, fewer patients defaulted on their treatment and there was an increase in successful treatment outcomes. However, the results were not consistent across all provinces, and significant differences in treatment default were observed between tracer and non-tracer sub-districts over time in five of nine provinces. The authors conclude that community mobilisation of teams to trace TB patients that missed a clinic appointment or treatment dose may be an effective strategy to mitigate default rates and improve treatment outcomes. Additional research is called for to identify best practices and elucidate discrepancies across provinces.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementation research evidence uptake and use for policy-making","field_subtitle":"Panisset U, P\u00e9rez KT, Alkhatib AH, Pantoja T, Singh P, Kengeya-Kayondo J and McCutcheon B: Health Research Policy and Systems 10(20), 2 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-10-20.pdf","body":"A major obstacle to the progress of the Millennium Development Goals has been the inability of health systems in many low- and middle-income countries to effectively implement evidence-informed interventions. This paper looks at the relationships between implementation research and knowledge translation and identifies the role of implementation research in the design and execution of evidence-informed policy. After a discussion of the benefits and synergies needed to translate implementation research into action, the authors consider how implementation research can be used along the entire continuum of the use of evidence to inform policy. The paper provides specific examples of the use of implementation research in national level programmes by looking at the scale up of zinc for the treatment of childhood diarrhoea in Bangladesh and the scaling up of malaria treatment in Burkina Faso. A number of tested strategies to support the transfer of implementation research results into policy-making are provided to help meet the standards that are increasingly expected from evidence-informed policy-making practices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Influx of doctors predicted for Ethiopia\u2019s health system","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 14 August 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=96101","body":"Ethiopia is preparing for a major influx of medical doctors within three to four years, as government intends to save a public health system that has been losing doctors and specialists to internal and external migration. Medical schools report enrollment of more than 3,100 students, representing a tenfold increase from 2005, when less than 300 students enrolled. A draft of the country's Human Resource for Health Strategic Plan shows an intended increase in the number of physicians to 1 per 5,000 people by 2020. The plan seems on course, with a report presented to parliament in May 2012 revealing that 2,628 students had been enrolled in 22 universities over the previous nine months. Currently fewer than 200 doctors graduate annually. With the strong emphasis on health personnel numbers, experts have expressed concerns about the quality of medical education, a allegation that the Health Minister acknowledges, adding that government is taking steps to strengthen training of doctors through the Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI), networking with known universities in the United States and offering students incentives to study further.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Intellectual property rights and green technologies from Rio to Rio: An impossible dialogue? ","field_subtitle":"Latif AA: International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, Policy Brief 14, July 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cjanl5f","body":"Although technology transfer and innovation feature in the final outcome of the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), held 20-22 June 2012, intellectual property rights (IPRs) - which are closely related to them - are barely mentioned, according to this brief. While the mention of IPRs in the Rio+20 outcome document signals their relevance for efforts to achieve sustainable development, no consensus was reached on how to ensure they are equitable and relevant to green technology. However, the stalemate may be addressed in several ways, the author proposes. Clear parameters are needed to foster a more constructive and pragmatic dialogue. Intellectual property should be seen in a broader context of appropriate policies, adequate institutions and human resources to both encourage green innovation and to ensure that its benefits are widely diffused. Other recommendations include improving access to technological information on green technologies, facilitating licensing of green technologies, fast-tracking green patents and ensuring open innovation for sustainability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"International shortfall inequality in life expectancy in women and in men, 1950\u20132010","field_subtitle":"Hosseinpoor AR, Harper S, Lee JH, Lynch J, Mathers C and Abou-Zahr C: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(8): 588-594, August 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/8/11-097378/en/index.html","body":"The aims of this study were to assess international shortfall inequalities in life expectancy among women and men and to quantify how much specific geographic regions and country income groups contribute to them. Researchers used estimates of life expectancy at birth by sex for the 12 five-year periods between 1950\u20131955 and 2005\u20132010. Data for life expectancy at birth by sex were available for 179 of the 193 Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) (as of 2010). Results indicated large shortfall inequalities in life expectancy among women in low-income countries. Additionally, there were large differences between shortfall inequalities of women and men in low-income countries. The authors call for urgent action is necessary to reduce these inequities. Although they acknowledge that behaviour change policies and programmes focusing on the individual are important in improving the health of women, action at economic, social, cultural and environmental levels is equally vital. Broader strategies such as poverty reduction, increased labour force participation, increased literacy, training and education, improvements in the provision of and access to health services (including reproductive health care), and increased opportunities for participation in economic, social and political activities will contribute to progress in women\u2019s health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Is there really a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Has the Occupational Specific Dispensation, as a mechanism to attract and retain health workers in South Africa, levelled the playing field?","field_subtitle":"George GL and Rhodes B: BMC Public Health 12:613, 6 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-613.pdf","body":"Salaries and other benefits are an obvious pull factor towards foreign countries, given the often-extreme differences in wages internationally. The introduction of the Occupation Specific Dispensation (OSD) in 2007 sought to address the challenge of high levels of South African health workers migrating overseas. In this study, researchers evaluate the effectiveness of the OSD by comparing salaries of health workers in South Africa with their counterparts in developed countries. Using a representative basket of commonly bought goods (including food, entertainment, fuel and utilities), they used a purchasing power parity (PPP) ratio to adjust earnings in order measure real differences in salaries. Their results showed that salaries of most South African health workers, particularly registered nurses, are dwarfed by their international counterparts, notably in the United States, Canada and Saudi Arabia, although the OSD has gone some way to reduce that disparity. These countries generally offer higher salaries on a PPP-adjusted basis, while other foreign countries also show large salary advantages if health workers emigrated. Given that their findings suggest that the OSD has narrowed the gap between South African and overseas salaries, the authors call for further research into the push factors underlying high levels of worker out-migration in the country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Lessons from agriculture for the sustainable management of malaria vectors","field_subtitle":"Thomas MB, Godfray HCJ, Read AF, van den Berg H, Tabashnik BE et al: PLoS Medicine 9(7), 10 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001262","body":"Current malaria control strategies rely heavily on repeated application of single neurotoxic insecticides that quickly kill adult mosquitoes, yet the effectiveness of insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) and indoor insecticide sprays to control adult mosquito vectors is being threatened by the spread of insecticide resistance. This narrow insecticide-based paradigm is beginning to fail, the authors of this paper argue, as it did in agriculture, as well as in previous malaria eradication campaigns of the '50s and '60s. They note that ITNs, indoor spraying programmes and other malaria control measures should be integrated in the same way as pest management is integrated in agriculture. Integrated approaches have the potential to provide more effective and durable pest management. To achieve the equivalent for malaria control requires additional tools to manage malaria vectors, as well as a better understanding of the impact of individual tools and their interactions, appropriate training for end users and strategies that maximise impact and fit the local ecological and socioeconomic context. Given the current lack of any clear alternative to the current insecticide paradigm, the authors urge researchers, policy makers, and funding agencies to act now to support this more diverse and adaptive approach.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Major price cut in malaria rapid diagnostic test kits","field_subtitle":"UNITAID: 6 August 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.unitaid.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&layout=edit&id=986","body":"The cost of a highly accurate, rapid diagnostic test for tuberculosis (TB) has been reduced by 40% under a new agreement between the US government, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the health financing mechanism, UNITAID. GeneXpert is recommended by the World Health Organisation and it provides a two-hour diagnosis of TB, the TB/HIV co-infection, and drug-resistant TB. To date, the high unit cost of Xpert MTB/RIF cartridges has proven a barrier to their introduction and widespread use in low- and middle-income countries. According to the WHO Stop TB Partnership, 45 developing countries and those with a high TB burden will benefit from the price cut. Research suggests that increased use of the test in countries with high TB burdens could allow the rapid diagnosis of 700,000 cases of TB, and save health systems in low- and middle-income countries more than $18 million in direct costs. The test can be used outside of conventional laboratories because it is self-contained and does not require specialised training.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Malaria in East African highlands during the past 30 years: Impact of environmental changes","field_subtitle":"Himeidan YE and Kweka EJ: Frontiers in Physiology 3:315, 2 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.frontiersin.org/Systems_Biology/10.3389/fphys.2012.00315/full","body":"With the world's highest population growth rate, the East African highlands have historically undergone extensive transformation to feed a poor population largely dependent on subsistence farming. Most available land has been adapted for agricultural use as dairy pastures or croplands. The lost of forest areas, mainly due to subsistence agriculture, between 1990 and 2010 ranged between 8,000 ha in Rwanda and 2,838,000 ha in Ethiopia. These unmitigated environmental changes in the highlands have led to a rise in temperature and a correlated increase in numbers of malarial mosquitoes, with several epidemics observed in the late 1980s and early 2000s. Although malaria has decreased through intensified interventions from the mid-2000s onwards, the authors of this study argue that environmental changes might further increase the risk of malaria in the region, particularly if the current interventions are not sustained.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Manifesting a future beyond Rio+20: Seeding a global citizens movement","field_subtitle":"Vasishth A and Kothari A: Outreach, Stakeholder Forum, July 2012","field_url":"http://www.stakeholderforum.org/sf/outreach/index.php/post-rio/117-wrap-up/1088-postrio1item10","body":"While the official Rio+20 outcome from June 2012 was a disappointment, a smaller side event saw the initiation of a host of Peoples\u2019 Sustainability Treaties, dealing with a range of issues and actions, starting from the very local, going all the way up to the global level. Peoples\u2019 Sustainability Treaties are aimed at coalescing the thinking of civil society organisations in the direction of a strong social movement towards an alternative and desirable future. A network of Treaties is being created, with each Treaty being driven by a collaboration of partners, and with all the Treaty circles being linked together through a loose coalition structure. By the time Rio+20 commenced, 14 Treaties were already established and from these a common Manifesto emerged, which contained an action plan identifying the issues of equity and sustainability for all as the foundation of any collective global response. Localising our economic systems, decentralising governance, and advancing sustainable lifestyles and livelihoods are promoted in the Manifesto. Localism was a major theme emerging from stakeholders, linked to the principles of devolution and decentralisation, and they argued in favour of turning localism into a world-wide movement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Manufacturing epidemics: The role of global producers in increased consumption of unhealthy commodities including processed foods, alcohol, and tobacco","field_subtitle":"Stuckler D, McKee M, Ebrahim S and Basu S: PLoS Medicine 9(6), 26 June 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001235","body":"According to this study, the rate of increase in consumption of \u2018unhealthy commodities\u2019 - namely soft drinks, processed foods, tobacco and alcohol - is fastest in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), with little or no further growth expected in high-income countries (HICs). The pace at which consumption is rising in LMICs is even faster than has occurred historically in HICs thanks to multinational companies, which have now achieved a level of penetration of food markets in middle-income countries similar to what they have achieved in HICs. Higher intake of unhealthy foods correlates strongly with higher tobacco and alcohol sales, suggesting a set of common tactics by industries producing unhealthy commodities, the authors argue. Contrary to findings from studies undertaken several decades ago, urbanisation no longer seems to be a strong risk factor for greater consumption of risky commodities at the population level, with the exception of soft drinks. Rising income has been strongly associated with higher consumption of unhealthy commodities within countries and over time, but mainly when there are high foreign direct investment and free-trade agreements. Economic growth does not inevitably lead to higher unhealthy-commodity consumption.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Meta-analysis of gender differences in efficacy outcomes for HIV-positive subjects in randomised controlled clinical trials of antiretroviral therapy (2000\u20132008)","field_subtitle":"Soon G, Min M, Struble KA, Chan-Tack KM, Hammerstrom T, Qi K et al: AIDS Patient Care and STDs 26(8): 444-453, 1 August 2012","field_url":"http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/apc.2011.0278","body":"Women comprise nearly half of the HIV-infected population worldwide, but these 15.5 million women tend to be under-represented in clinical trials of anti-HIV drug therapies, according to this study. The authors used the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) database created from 40 clinical studies to assess gender differences in the efficacy of antiretroviral treatments. They found that women represented only about 20% of the subjects in randomised clinical trials submitted to the FDA between 2000 and 2008. When they compared the effectiveness of anti-HIV drug regimens reported for women versus men overall and among various subgroups, they found no statistically or clinical significant differences between women and men in outcomes with regard to viral load after 48 weeks. However, they did report significant gender differences favouring males based on subgroup analyses. They argue that this is a critical area of research in terms of developing new HIV therapies, as mounting evidence indicates that metabolism of certain drugs varies in men vs. women, and side effects that interfere with adherence to these medications may also be manifested differently.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"More relatively poor people in a less absolutely poor world","field_subtitle":"Chen S and Ravallion M: World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 6114, 1 July 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/crq35z6","body":"The authors of this paper argue that the effects of relative deprivation, shame and social exclusion call for a reconsideration of how we assess global poverty. However, the authors do not support use of standard measures of relative poverty. Instead they call for using a weakly relative measure as the upper-bound complement to the lower-bound provided by a standard absolute measure. New estimates of global poverty are presented, drawing on 850 household surveys spanning 125 countries over 1981\u20132008. The absolute line is US$1.25 a day at 2005 prices, while the relative line rises with the mean, at a gradient of 1:2 above $1.25 a day. The authors show that these parameter choices are consistent with cross-country data on national poverty lines. The results indicate that the incidence of both absolute and weakly relative poverty in the developing world has been falling since the 1990s, but more slowly for the relative measure. While the number of absolutely poor has fallen, the number of relatively poor has changed little since the 1990s, and is higher in 2008 than 1981.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mozambican Drama 'Virgin Margarida'","field_subtitle":"Obenson T: Indiewire Shadow and Act, On Cinema of the African Diaspora: August 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cfl37d2","body":"Virgem Margarida (Virgin Margarida) is a new feature film, set in 1975. The revolutionary government wants to eradicate all the traces of colonialism, including commercial sex work. All the sex workers are taken to the most isolated forest in the country where they are to be reeducated and transformed into new women, under the watch of guerrilla women fighters. Amongst the 500 women is 14-year-old Margarida, who was in town to buy her bridal trousseau. Because she doesn't have her ID documents, she is taken by mistake. In the reeducation center, the revelation that Margarida is a virgin changes everything. The commercial sex workers start to worship her like a saint. Shot in Azevedo\u2019s signature style, the film is a combination of a documentary/scripted fiction style, intended to reflect the varied real-life stories in Mozambique, his home country. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New women\u2019s health resource for health practitioners ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://academyofwomenshealth.org/","body":"The Academy of Women\u2019s Health has launched a new regular column on its website that provides timely updates on diseases and conditions that are prevalent among women to help physicians and other healthcare providers optimise patient outcomes. The column provides opinions from eminent researchers and clinicians and presents the most up-to-date management strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Open access innovating in clinical trial reporting","field_subtitle":"Wipperman A, Faure H and Hrynaszkiewicz I: Biomed Central, 31 July 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.pharmaphorum.com/2012/07/31/open-access-innovating-clinical-trial-reporting/","body":"Online, open access (OA) medical publishing has provided new opportunities for increased transparency and innovation in clinical trial reporting, which if widely adopted can ultimately help enhance the quality and reliability of evidence, argue the authors of this article. They discuss the OA movement\u2019s role in medical research and provide an up-to-date analysis of recent initiatives and trends. Access to original research remains the driving force behind OA, recently exemplified in the United States by a Whitehouse petition for open access publication of tax-funded research as well as the negative reaction to the controversial Research Works Act, which would restrict sharing data between researchers. Meanwhile the British government has also announced its support for OA. Improving availability of data, increasing access to research in developing countries and creating new services for easier location and reuse of clinical information are all priorities for the future and can contribute to the advancement of clinical medicine, according to the article.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Open access versus subscription journals: A comparison of scientific impact","field_subtitle":"Bj\u00f6rk B and Solomon D: BMC Medicine 10(73), 17 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/10/73","body":"In the past few years there has been an ongoing debate as to whether the proliferation of open access (OA) publishing would damage the peer review system and put the quality of scientific journal publishing at risk. The aim of this study was to inform this debate by comparing the scientific impact of OA journals with subscription journals, controlling for journal age, the country of the publisher, discipline and (for OA publishers) their business model. A total of 610 OA journals were compared with 7,609 subscription journals using Web of Science citation data, while an overlapping set of 1,327 OA journals were compared with 11,124 subscription journals using Scopus data. Results showed that average citation rates were about 30% higher for subscription journals. However, after controlling for discipline (medicine and health versus other), age of the journal and the location of the publisher (four largest publishing countries versus other countries) the differences largely disappeared in most subcategories except for journals that had been launched prior to 1996. In medicine and health, OA journals founded in the last 10 years are receiving about as many citations as subscription journals launched during the same period.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Overcoming gaps to advance global health equity: A symposium on new directions for research","field_subtitle":"Frenk J and Chen L: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(1), 25 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/9/1/11/","body":"The 20th anniversary of the report of the Commission on Health Research for Development inspired a Symposium to assess progress made in strengthening essential national health research capacity in developing countries and in global research partnerships. Significant aspects of the health gains achieved in the 20th century are attributed to the advancement and translation of knowledge, and knowledge continues to occupy center stage amidst growing complexity that characterizes the global health field. The way forward is argued to entail a reinvigoration of research-generated knowledge as a crucial ingredient for global cooperation and global health advances. The authors argue that this needs to overcome in the divides between domestic and global health, among the disciplines of research (biomedical, clinical, epidemiological, health systems), between clinical and public health approaches, public and private investments, and between knowledge gained and action implemented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Oxfam calls on new UN Panel to deliver on MDGS before 2015","field_subtitle":"Hale S: Oxfam, 1 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/reactions/oxfam-reaction-un-high-level-panel-post-2015-development-agenda","body":"After the United Nations announced the members of its new High-level Panel to advise on the global development agenda beyond 2015, Oxfam responded by calling on the Panel to accelerate delivery on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) first. There are still three years left before the MDGs expire, and with declining contributions from external funders, Oxfam argues that one way to finance the MDGs is to introduce a financial transaction tax in Europe, with at least 50% of the revenues committed to development and climate change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy brief 30: Progress in fair financing for health in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, HNC and UCT HEU: EQUINET, 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Policy%20Brief30%20financing.pdf","body":"Fair financing of health services requires that countries reduce their reliance on out-of-pocket (OOP) funding for health services and improve their pre-payment financing through general tax revenue and health insurance (particularly mandatory health insurance). While many countries in east and southern Africa (ESA) receive high levels of external funding, it is critical to increase domestic government funding for the health system to support this move away from out-of-pocket funding to provide effective financial protection from the costs of health care. This policy brief reviews progress in reducing out-of-pocket payments in ESA countries and in increasing government funding for health, particularly in terms of meeting the Abuja target of 15% of the government budget being devoted to the health sector and a target of government spending of US$60 per capita. While there has been some progress in some countries, most ESA countries are still far from achieving these fair financing targets. The brief highlights areas that merit action to meet policy commitments on fair financing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Population health vulnerabilities to vector-borne diseases: Increasing resilience under climate change conditions in Africa","field_subtitle":"Call for letters of interest: Call closes September 10 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/tdr/grants/en/","body":"Research groups or consortia from African national institutions are invited to express interest in undertaking multidisciplinary research to elucidate population health vulnerabilities due to vector-borne diseases (VBDs) in dryland socio-ecological systems. The research will also need to explore how state-of-the-art, VBD control tools and strategies can be used more effectively to reach remote or otherwise marginalized populations (especially women and children), and conceive, strengthen and improve their adaptation and resilience strategies to climate, environmental and socio-economic and demographic change. For this purpose, resilience is defined as the capacity to prevent, withstand, recover, or adapt to VBD risks associated with climate change. TDR will implement the research programme with funding support from IDRC and in technical collaboration with WHO\u2019s Department of Public Health and Environment, WHO\u2019s Regional Office for Africa (AFRO)Programme for the Protection of the Human Environment and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), Columbia University, New York.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Post Peoples Health Assembly 3 Summary","field_subtitle":"Global Secretariat, Peoples Health Movement","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org","body":"This brief provides a summary of the events from mid June until mid July at the Peoples Health Assembly in Cape Town. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/37185","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Post-2015 health MDGs","field_subtitle":"Schweitzer J, Makinen M, Wilson L and Heymann M: Overseas Development Institute, July 2012","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/docs/7736.pdf","body":"This report measures progress on the health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to 2015 and beyond. The authors gathered data from a combination of literature reviews, interviews with key stakeholders in the health field, and a roundtable discussion. They found that the past decades have seen a gradual shift from a focus on a single disease to a more systemic approach by including a variety of health (and non-health) inputs which have to be integrated at the national, district and local levels. Although the authors predict that achievement of the health MDGs will almost surely be uneven, the available evidence suggests that the health MDGs have been effective in accelerating progress on target indicators, in stimulating global political support in the creation of significant global institutions dedicated to helping countries achieve the MDGs and in stimulating research and debate on systemic approaches to improving health outcomes. The authors argue that the current health MDGs will need continued focus beyond 2015 and must be included in some form in the post-2015 goals. The new goals should be simple enough to be politically intelligible and acceptable, and meaningful to politicians and laypeople. The report recommends that a mechanism be set up to ensure decision-makers and external funders are held accountable and to help countries get back on track.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Predictors of chronic food insecurity among adolescents in Southwest Ethiopia: A longitudinal study","field_subtitle":"Belachew T, Lindstrom D, Gebremariam A, Jira C, Hattori M, Lachat C et al: BMC Public Health 12:604, 3 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-604.pdf","body":"In the context of increased food prices in Ethiopia, the authors of this study hypothesised that adolescents in low income urban households are more likely to suffer from chronic food insecurity than those in the rural areas who may have direct access to agricultural products. They gathered data from the first two rounds of the Jimma Longitudinal Family Survey of Youth (JLFSY) and interviewed a total of 1,911 adolescents aged 13-17 years on their personal experiences of food insecurity both at baseline and at year two. Overall, 20.5% of adolescents were food insecure in the first round survey, while the proportion of adolescents with food insecurity increased to 48.4% one year later. Female sex of adolescents, high dependency ratio and household food insecurity were independent predictors of chronic adolescent food insecurity. The fact that the prevalence of chronic food insecurity increased among adolescents who are members of chronically food insecure urban households as income tertiles decreased suggests that the resilience of buffering is eroded when purchasing power diminishes and food resources are dwindling. Food security interventions should target urban low income households to reduce the level of chronic food insecurity and its consequences, the authors argue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV within HIV proposals funded by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria","field_subtitle":"Lusti-Narasimhan M, Bright R and Ndowa F: Journal of Women's Health Care 1(1), 2012","field_url":"http://www.omicsgroup.org/journals/JWHC/JWHC-1-101.pdf","body":"The primary aim of this research paper was to analyse interventions for the prevention of mother-to-child-transmission of HIV (PMTCT) included in HIV proposals approved for funding by the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. A total of 345 original HIV proposals approved for funding from Rounds 1 to 9 were reviewed according to the four components of the global PMTCT strategy. The researchers found that performance across the components varied. On one hand, prevention of unintended pregnancies in HIV-infected women (component 2) was the least represented, appearing in 34% of the proposals, while on the other, PMTCT (component 3) was present in approximately 90%. Component 2 was the only component that consistently increased throughout the Rounds, with signs of the greatest increase between Rounds 3 and 7. The authors call on countries to support comprehensive PMTCT interventions that are balanced across the four components. Their study highlights interventions that countries could capitalise on to scale-up PMTCT efforts as well as synergise efforts in linking with other global and national initiatives in maternal, reproductive and child health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Protesters: Free trade deals, drug patents derail AIDS fight","field_subtitle":"Wilson A: Inter Press Services, 26 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/07/protesters-free-trade-deals-drug-patents-derail-aids-fight/","body":"As the nineteenth International AIDS Conference took place in Washington DC, thousands of protesters marched on the White House with a set of demands to end the epidemic. The march consisted of a coalition of AIDS advocacy and activist groups organised under the mantra \u2018We Can End AIDS\u2019. At the forefront were calls for an end to free trade deals that protesters argue make vital AIDS medicines unaffordable. They pointed out that free trade deals with the Barack Obama administration contain excessively stringent protections for pharmaceutical patents on AIDS drugs. A spokesperson for the demonstration urged governments to accept recommendations related to intellectual property rights in a July 2012 report issued by the Global Commission on HIV and The Law (included in last month's newsletter), an independent high-level legal commission made up of former heads of state and leading legal, human rights and HIV experts. The Commission recommended a moratorium on TRIPS patent enforcement on pharmaceutical products, which they argue will allow developing countries to manufacture low-cost generic medicines urgently needed for their populations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Public perception of drinking water safety in South Africa 2002-2009: A repeated cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Wright JA, Yang H, Rivett U and Gundry SW: BMC Public Health 12:556, 27 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-556.pdf","body":"The objective of this study was to explore trends in perceived drinking water safety in South Africa and its association with disease outbreaks, water supply and household characteristics. The authors drew on General Household Surveys from 2002-2009, which included a question about perceived drinking water safety. Trends in responses to this question were examined from 2002-2009 in relation to reported cholera cases. The results suggest that perceptions of drinking water safety have remained relatively stable over time in South Africa, once the expansion of improved supplies is controlled for. A large cholera outbreak in 2000-2002 had no apparent effect on public perception of drinking water safety in 2002. Perceived drinking water safety is primarily related to water taste, odour, and clarity rather than socio-economic or demographic characteristics. This suggest that household perceptions of drinking water safety in South Africa follow similar patterns to those observed in studies in developed countries. The stability over time in public perception of drinking water safety is particularly surprising, given the large cholera outbreak that took place at the start of this period.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Role of fiscal policy in tackling the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Anyanwu JC, Siliadin YG and Okonkwo E: Working Paper Series No 148, African Development Bank, 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c4czrww","body":"Three countries in Southern Africa have the highest adult HIV prevalence in the world: Swaziland (25.9%), Botswana (24.8%), and Lesotho (23.6%). Fiscal policy is crucial for addressing this HIV and AIDS crisis, the authors of this paper argue. Utilising a calibrated model, they investigated the impact of fiscal policy on reducing the HIV and AIDS incidence rates in these countries. In particular, they studied the welfare impact of different taxation and debt paths in reducing the HIV and AIDS prevalence rates. This is particularly important given the current concerns about dwindling foreign aid (especially the Global Fund), and fiscal deterioration and sustainability in these countries. The results show that acting optimally has not only positive societal welfare effect but also positive fiscal effects. For example, it will alleviate the debt burden by 5%, 1% and 13% of the GDP respectively for Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland by the year 2020. Thus, at a time of fiscal crisis in developed countries and dwindling international HIV and AIDS resources, the future of effective and efficient HIV and AIDS intervention in Africa is clearly domestic, they conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Shifting Mountains of Electronic Waste","field_subtitle":"Lubick N: Environ Health Perspect: 01 April 2012","field_url":"http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info%3Adoi/10.1289/ehp.120-a148","body":"Local users are now the main source of electronic waste in Africa, but illegal imports of old computers, televisions, and other electronics devices from Europe, Asia, and North America still make their way there. That\u2019s the finding of Where Are WEEE in Africa?, a new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report about waste electronic and electrical equipment\u2014also known as WEEE, or e-waste\u2014in Benin, C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, and Nigeria.1 A large portion of these imports are of good quality, have a decent life expectancy, and bring many socioeconomic benefits, according to the report, but the rest is hazardous junk that is often resold and recycled under unsafe conditions. This article discusses the findings from the Where Are WEEE in Africa? report and the problems of its safe recycling and disposal.   ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Entrepreneurship for Sexual Health (SESH): A new approach for enabling delivery of sexual health services among most-at-risk populations","field_subtitle":"Tucker JD, Fenton KA, Peckham R and Peeling RW: PLoS Medicine 9(7), 17 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001266","body":"The dominant approach used to promote sexual health relies on centralised public clinic service delivery, unisectoral implementation, and vertically organised support (national/state/local public health structures). But the authors of this study argue that these systems have failed to test, link and retain a large portion of most-at-risk populations. Instead, the authors favour a social entrepreneurship for sexual health (SESH) approach, which focuses on decentralised community delivery, multisectoral networks, and horizontal collaboration (business, technology, and academia). Although SESH approaches have yet to be widely implemented, they show great promise, according to this study. Social marketing and sales of point-of-care, community-based tests for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, conditional cash transfers to incentivise safe sex, and microenterprise among most-at-risk-populations are all SESH tools that can optimise the delivery of comprehensive sexual health interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Socioeconomic inequality in the prevalence of noncommunicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries: Results from the World Health Survey","field_subtitle":"Hosseinpoor AR, Bergen N, Mendis S, Harper S, Verdes E, Kunst A and Chatterji S: BMC Public Health 12(474), 22 June 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-474.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers quantified and compared education- and wealth-based inequalities in the prevalence of five non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income country groups: angina, arthritis, asthma, depression and diabetes. Using 2002-04 World Health Survey data from 41 low- and middle-income countries, the prevalence estimates of angina, arthritis, asthma, depression, diabetes and comorbidity in adults aged 18 years or above was analysed by wealth quintile, education level, sex and country income group. Results indicated that wealth and education inequalities were more pronounced in the low-income country group than the middle-income country group. Both wealth and education were inversely associated with angina, arthritis, asthma, depression and comorbidity prevalence, with strongest inequalities reported for angina, asthma and comorbidity. Diabetes prevalence was positively associated with wealth and, to a lesser extent, education. Adjustments for confounding variables tended to decrease the magnitude of the inequality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa lags behind other Brics countries in health","field_subtitle":"News 24: 30 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Health-SA-ranks-lowest-of-Brics-members-20120730","body":"South Africa fares worse on health than the residents of any other BRICS country, according to the country\u2019s Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi. In a speech delivered on 29 July 2012, the Minister presented standard health indicators for life expectancy, with the average South African expected to live until 54, far behind the Chinese at 74, Brazilians at 73, Russians at 68 and Indians at 65. He quoted South Africa\u2019s maternal mortality rates at 410 per 100,000 births, almost double India\u2019s rate of 230, which lags behind Brazil (58), Russia (39) and China (38).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of transnational \u2018Big Food\u2019 companies on the South: A view from Brazil","field_subtitle":"Monteiro CA and Cannon G: PLoS Medicine 9(7), 3 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001252","body":"Traditional long-established food systems and dietary patterns are being displaced in Brazil and in other countries in the South (Africa, Asia, and Latin America) by ultra-processed products made by transnational food corporations (\u2018Big Food\u2019). This displacement, the authors of this paper argue, is increasing the incidence of obesity and of major chronic diseases and affects public health and public goods by undermining culture, meals, the family, community life, local economies, and national identity. In Brazil, the penetration of transnational companies has been rapid, but the tradition of shared and family meals remains strong and is likely to provide protection to national and regional food systems. The Brazilian government, under pressure from civil society organisations, has introduced legislation to protect and improve its traditional food system - by contrast, the governments of many industrialised countries have partly ceded their prime duty to protect public health to transnational companies. The authors recommend that the experiences of countries like Brazil in the South that still retain traditional food systems should be used as a basis for policies that protect public health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The state of breastfeeding in 33 countries","field_subtitle":"Gupta A, Holla R and Dadhich JP: World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative, 2010","field_url":"http://worldbreastfeedingtrends.org/report/The-state-of-breastfeeding-in-33-countries-2010.pdf","body":"This WBTI (World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative) report assesses infant and young child feeding (IYCF) policies and programmes in 33 countries located in Asia, Africa and South and Central America. The authors highlight the fact that universalising the coverage of infant and young child feeding practices is one of the most effective interventions to reduce infant and young child mortality, morbidity and malnutrition. Yet their research points to major gaps in both policies and programmes in all 33 countries, with limited support for breastfeeding women. They argue that the United Nations and external funders should commit substantial financial resources in order to universalise key interventions related to breastfeeding and complementary feeding. This calls for a coordination mechanism for planning and supervising the implementation of relevant policy in an integrated manner at all levels, from policy making to service delivery at the grassroots level. Key breastfeeding and complementary feeding indicators will need to be regularly monitored and the results may be used to make policy and programmes more effective. The authors also call for integration of infant feeding in related comprehensive national policies, as well as building human resources and social welfare for exclusively breastfeeding women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Thinking forward: The quicksand of appeasing the food industry","field_subtitle":"Brownell KD: PLoS Medicine 9(7): 3 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001254","body":"In addressing the problem of global obesity, our greatest failure may be collaboration with and appeasement of the food industry, argues the author of this article. She warns against current initial steps in this direction in the form of so-called \u2018public\u2013private partnerships' with health organisations, \u2018healthy eating\u2019 campaigns and corporate social responsibility initiatives. These occur at the same time as the private sector food and beverage sectors fight against meaningful change such as limits on marketing food to children, taxes on products such as sugared beverages, and regulation of nutritional labelling. The food industry distorts science, creates front groups to do its bidding, compromises scientists, professional organisations and community groups with contributions, and blocks needed public health policies in the service of shareholder, the author notes. This is normal \u2018business as usual\u2019. While respectful dialogue with industry is desirable, she argues that there must be recognition that this will bring small victories only and that to take the obesity problem seriously will require courage, leaders who will not back down in the face of harsh industry tactics, and regulation with purpose.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"UHC Forward: Call for bloggers at Second Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"31 October - 3 November 2012: Beijing, China","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/atuhc%40resultsfordevelopment.org","body":"Are you planning to attend the Second Global Health Symposium? If so, UHC Forward is looking for bloggers to write about universal health care at the symposium for the UHC Forward website. Please email Nkem Wellington for more information at the email address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"UN Secretary-General appoints High-level Panel on post-2015 development agenda","field_subtitle":"United Nations: 31 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/Press%20release_post-2015panel.pdf","body":"The United Nations (UN) has named the 26 members of its new High-level Panel to advise on the global development agenda beyond 2015, the target date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Three co-chairs have been appointed, including President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia. The Panel is expected to prepare its development vision to present to UN Member States in 2013, with sustainable development and eradicating poverty at its core. The Panel is part of the Secretary-General\u2019s post-2015 initiative mandated by the 2010 MDG Summit. It intends to take an open, inclusive approach, with consultations involving civil society, the private sector, academia and research institutions from all regions, in addition to the UN system, to advance the development agenda beyond 2015. The work of the Panel will reflect new development challenges while also drawing on experience gained in implementing the MDGs, both in terms of results achieved and areas for improvement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Using a clinic based creativity initiative to reduce HIV related stigma at the Infectious Diseases Institute, Mulago National Referral Hospital, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Neema S, Atuyambe LM, Otolok-Tanga B, Twijukye C, Kambugu A, Thayer L and McAdam K: African Health Sciences 12(2): 231-239, June 2012","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ahs/article/viewFile/79470/69761","body":"Stigma is increasingly regarded as a key driver of the HIV and AIDS epidemic and has a major impact on public health interventions. The objective of this \u2018creativity initiative\u2019 was to provide activities in an HIV clinic while patients waited to be seen by healthcare professionals. It was envisaged this would contribute to reduction of clinic-based stigma felt by clients. The study took the form of a cross-sectional survey carried out in October-November 2005 and March-April 2007 at the Infectious Diseases Institute clinic (IDC) at Mulago, the national referral hospital in Uganda. Comparisons were made between patients who took part in activities and those who did not. Results suggest that clients who attended the IDC before the creativity intervention were about twice as likely to fear catching an infection as those who came after the intervention. The proportion that had fears to be seen by a friend or relative at the clinic decreased. Thus during the implementation of the creativity intervention, HIV-related stigma was reduced in this clinic setting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Vacancy: PLHIV Stigma Index International Coordinator","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applicants: 26 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.stigmaindex.org","body":"The People Living with HIV Stigma Index (PLHIV Stigma Index) collects information on stigma, discrimination and the rights of people living with HIV that will help in advocacy efforts. The main aim of collecting this information and presenting it in the form of an index is to broaden understanding of the extent and forms of stigma and discrimination faced by people living with  HIV in different countries. The intention of the participating organizations is to make the PLHIV Stigma Index widely available so that it can be used as a local, national and global tool to gather evidence and support subsequent evidence-based advocacy. \r\nThe PLHIV Stigma Index is coordinated by an International Partnership. The International Partnership comprises of GNP+, ICW and UNAIDS. The position of PLHIV Stigma Index Coordinator will be supported by the International Partnership. The position will be hosted by GNP+.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"What will it take to eliminate paediatric HIV? Reaching WHO target rates of mother-to-child HIV transmission in Zimbabwe: A model- based analysis","field_subtitle":"Ciaranello AL: PLoS Medicine 9(1), 10 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001156","body":"In this paper, the author investigates uptake of prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) services, infant feeding recommendations and specific drug regimens necessary to achieve the virtual elimination of paediatric HIV in Zimbabwe. She used a computer model to simulate a cohort of HIV-infected pregnant or breastfeeding women, and evaluated three PMTCT regiments: single-dose nevirapine; \u2018Option A\u2019 from the 2010 World Health Organisation guidelines (zidovudine in pregnancy, infant nevirapine throughout breastfeeding for women without advanced disease, lifelong combination antiretroviral (ARV) therapy for women with advanced disease); and WHO \u2018Option B\u2019 (limited combination ARV drug regimens without advanced disease during pregnancy and breastfeeding; lifelong ARV therapy with advanced disease). Results indicated that the latest WHO PMTCT guidelines (Options A and B) plus better access to PMTCT programmes, better retention of women in care, and better adherence to drugs are needed to eliminate paediatric HIV in Zimbabwe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Where are WEEE in Africa? Findings from the Basel Convention E-waste Africa Programme","field_subtitle":"United Nations Environment Program (UNEP): February 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bsobloz","body":"Information Communication Technology (ICT) has revolutionized modern living, international business, global governance, communication, entertainment, transport, education, and health care. This has been driven by unprecedented high volumes of production and usage of consumer electronic products, in particular, personal computers, mobile phones, and television sets. Access to ICT has been identified as an indicator of a country\u2019s economic and social development. The difference in access to ICT between developed and developing countries is commonly referred to as the \u201cdigital divide\u201d. Africa has been undergoing rapid ICT transformation in recent years, attempting to bridge this divide by importing second-hand or used computers, mobile phones, and TV sets from developed countries. The countries of the region, however, lack the infrastructure and resources for the environmentally sound management (ESM) of electrical and electronic waste (e-waste) arising when such imports  reach their end-of-life. The report analyses the flows of electrical and electronic equipment and e-waste and makes recommendations for African countries to prevent the import of e-waste and near-end-of-life equipment without hampering the socio-economically valuable trade of EEE of good quality.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Why we need urban health equity indicators: Integrating science, policy, and community","field_subtitle":"Corburn J and Cohen AK: PLoS Medicine 9(8), 14 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001285","body":"As the urban population of the planet increases, putting new stress on infrastructure and institutions and exacerbating economic and social inequalities, public health and other disciplines are being forced to find new ways to address urban health equity. The authors propose that urban indicator processes focused on health equity can promote new modes of healthy urban governance, where the formal functions of government combine with science and social movements to define a healthy community and direct policy action. An inter-related set of urban health equity indicators that capture the social determinants of health, including community assets, and to track policy decisions, can help inform efforts to promote greater urban health equity. Adaptive management, a strategy used globally by scientists, policy makers, and civil society groups to manage complex ecological resources, is a potential model for developing and implementing urban health equity indicators. While urban health equity indicators are lacking and needed within cities of both the global north and south, the authors warn that universal sets of indicators may be less useful than context-specific measures accountable to local needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Will the WHO reform bring money, voice and power behind public health?","field_subtitle":"By Rangarirai Machemedze, Deputy Director, SEATINI","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn a changing global environment, African countries have made clear their intention for the World Health Assembly (WHA) to hold its global leadership in health. At the WHA in 2012, reforms of the World Health Organisation (WHO) were under discussion, with the aims of improving outcomes in agreed global health priorities, ensuring greater coherence in global health, and effective, efficient, responsive, objective, transparent and accountable performance. In a context of a multitude of new global institutions, foundations and alliances involved in health, African countries at the WHA collectively, through Senegal, raised that the WHO provides an organisational means for global processes to value multilateralism, inclusivity and respect for the authority of member states through the WHA. The Africa Group of countries called for the reform process to contribute \u201cto the shaping of a stronger, more effective, more responsive and more responsible WHO.\u201d  In the discussion on the reforms, African countries unanimously urged for countries to ensure that whatever the reforms achieve, they must strengthen WHO\u2019s position as the leading global agency for health.  \r\n\r\nAchieving this calls for more than rhetoric and statements of intent. In the past decades, the World Health Assembly provided a forum for states to review policies and strategies in health and make resolutions that they would implement. In recent years, a host of new players from non health sector agencies, non-governmental organizations, non-state providers of health, industry, faith-based organizations, civil society, foundations and corporates have become involved in decision making on and implementation of health strategies. Over the past decade more than 100 private global foundations have emerged working on different issues related to health. This multiplicity of actors bring multiple visions, mandates and modes of functioning to global policy processes. Alliances such as the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) and the Global Health Workforce Alliance are now working on issues that the WHO has been working on over the years.\r\n\r\nA Ugandan delegate to the 2012 WHA questioned the number of partnerships that WHO was now involved in, arguing that this detracted from its major mandate and role.  African countries at the WHA observed that navigating this complex environment calls for WHO to rather strengthen its own intergovernmental nature and particularly the role of countries in its decision making processes.  Permanent secretary of the Ministry of Health in Swaziland, Mr. Stephen Shongwe, said for example \u201cAs Swaziland we want to reiterate that the WHA is the supreme organ of the WHO and should have the final say in all the decisions. There should be flexibility for the WHA to make decisions. Resolutions should not just be crafted based on the recommendations of the Executive Board. Member states should be able to raise issues that may arise and not just be confined to the defined issues in the agenda.\u201d \r\n\r\nAfrican countries\u2019 concerns were addressed in part when the 65th WHA in 2012 resolved that any reform of the organisation be guided by the principle that the intergovernmental nature of WHO\u2019s decision-making be paramount. The Director General was requested to present draft papers on WHO\u2019s engagement with non governmental organisations and with private commercial entities. \r\n\r\nHowever, while this may be a necessary condition for the organisation to claim global leadership in heath, will it be enough? Without the funds coming from the same member states, how will it deliver on its decisions? And will member states use their strengthened and collective decision making to safe guard public health, even in the face of corporates and foundations whose earnings exceed the GDP of many member states? \r\n\r\nGlobal leadership in health demands an organisation that fearlessly and strategically protects public health. At a Special Session of the WHO Executive Board convened in November 2011 to consider the Reform Agenda, the WHO director General Margaret Chan then said that WHO, in \"the interest of safeguarding public health\", was \"not afraid to speak out against entities that are far richer, more powerful, and better connected politically than health will ever be\", adding that \"we need to maintain vigilance against any real or perceived conflicts of interest.\" \r\n\r\nCivil society actors at the WHA supported this role of public health protector, but questioned whether it is being delivered. They argued that the prospect of money has led the organisation to engage in partnerships that have weakened this leadership role. They held member states liable for this situation, observing that WHO can only become a stronger intergovernmental institution when member states increase their funding support.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit www.equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Big Food\u2019: The consumer food environment, health, and the policy response in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Igumbor EU, Sanders D, Puoane TR, Tsolekile L, Schwarz C et al: PLoS Medicine 9(7), 3 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001253","body":"In South Africa, as elsewhere in the world, large commercial entities that dominate the food and beverage environment (\u2018Big Food\u2019) are becoming more widespread and are implicated in unhealthy eating. Interestingly, the authors of this study found that small independent producers (\u2018Small Food\u2019) remain significant in the food environment in South Africa, and are both linked with, and threatened by, Big Food. Big Food in South Africa involves South African companies, some of which have invested in other (mainly, but not only, African) nations, as well as companies headquartered in North America and Europe. These companies have developed strategies to increase the availability, affordability, and acceptability of their foods in South Africa, as well as having developed a range of \u2018health and wellness\u2019 initiatives. Whether these initiatives have had a net positive or net negative impact is not clear. The authors recommend that the South African government act urgently to mitigate the adverse health effects in the food environment in South Africa through education about the health risks of unhealthy diets and regulation of Big Food, including support for healthy foods.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":".Amandla! Amandla! To People\u2019s Health Assembly 3","field_subtitle":"Flores W: International Health Policy News 177, 13 July 2012","field_url":"http://e.itg.be/ihp/archives/amandla-amandla-peoples-health-assembly-3/","body":"More than one thousand activists, academics and students from over 60 different countries  gathered at the historic  University of Western Cape for the third global assembly (PHA3).  Walter Flores Gutaemala provided his insights on the Assembly in this opnion piece. He noted that the best plenary took place on the last day. Prof. Jaime Breilh from Ecuador  gave a devastating account of how current public health programs and goals, such as the ones addressing nutrition and food security, are lagging so far behind of the ongoing acceleration of accumulation of capital that is destroying and contaminating water and food sources around the world. Large-scale land grabbing in the southern continents by large corporations is making the goal of  food sovereignty implausible. The assembly concluded with a call for action that did not satisfy all participants. Clearly, some people  wanted more concrete actions and less rhetoric.  He comments that although  a \u201ccall for action\u201d is important, it does not mobilize people on its own, and notes that a clear goal and a path for action, combined with collective indignity and solidarity makes us move.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"2012 African Nutrition Society /ANEC Travel Fellowship","field_subtitle":"Applications close noon 30 August 2012","field_url":"http://www.answeb.org/blog/2012-ans-anec-travel-fellowship","body":"As part of the Nutrition Society\u2019s efforts to support learned societies in the developing countries, the Nutrition Society ANEC Travel Fellowship 2012 Award supports deserving students worldwide to enable them participate in the 5th Africa Nutritional Epidemiology Conference (ANEC V) in Bloemfontein, South Africa 30 September to 4 October 2012. ANEC V this year comes under the Umbrella of the Nutrition Congress Africa 2012 (NCA2012) which is a joint scientific meeting between the South African Nutrition Congress, South African Dietetics Association and the African Nutrition Society. The Fellowship is open to university students or young scientists with an interest in nutrition who wish to participate in the Nutrition Congress Africa (NCA2012), the largest continental scientific gathering on nutrition in Africa taking place between the 30 September to 4 October 2012 in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The award is given towards travel costs including return air travel, accommodation and conference participation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"2012 CIVICUS World Assembly","field_subtitle":"Montreal, Canada, 3 to 7 September 2012","field_url":"http://civicusassembly.org/About.php","body":"The 2012 CIVICUS World Assembly intends to be more than the primary annual gathering of civil society and other stakeholders of society. It will also see the start of a process of defining a new charter of citizen demands. This comes in response to recent changes in civil society organisation, marked by crisis, volatility and rising dissent, in which the relationships between the state, business, citizens and other parts of the social sphere are being redefined and renegotiated. The World Assembly has three themes: 1. Changing nations through citizens: how can the power of citizen action be maximised to achieve social and political change at the national level? 2. Building partnerships for social innovation: what new partnerships are needed for change, how can they be brokered and what principles should underpin them? 3. Redefining global governance: what needs to change in multilateral processes and institutions to enable effective citizen\u2019s participation?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"8th session of the African Development Forum","field_subtitle":"October 23-25, 2012, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia","field_url":"http://www.iag-agi.org/spip/8th-session-of-the-African.html","body":"The theme of ADFVIII will be on \u201cGoverning and Harnessing Natural Resources for Africa\u2019s Development\u201d, with a focus on mineral, land, fishery and forest resources. The forum will discuss the following key aspects of integrated natural resources management and development:\r\n* Knowledge base, human and institutional capacities;\r\n* Policy, legal and regulatory issues;\r\n* Economic issues (taxation, investment, benefits, linkages and value creation);\r\n* Governance, human rights and social issues;\r\n* Participation and ownership;and\r\n* Environmental, material stewardship and climate change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Advocacy and Human Rights Defence Manager: Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT)","field_subtitle":"Call for applicants ","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/83591","body":"A vibrant and cutting edge Cape Town-based NGO seeks an Advocacy and Human Rights Defence Manager to manage its Advocacy Programme. The position is available from the 1st August 2012. The organisation promotes the health and human rights of sex workers within the existing legal system in which sex work is criminalised, by providing and facilitating access to health care services for sex workers in several provinces in South Africa; facilitating the defence of sex workers\u2019 human rights in and outside of court; providing safe spaces for sex worker empowerment and organising, and conducting action-oriented research and monitoring of sex worker human rights issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Human Development Report 2012: Towards a Food Secure Future","field_subtitle":"UNDP, New York: 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c39xaxv","body":"The 2012 Africa Human Development Report argues that sustainable increases in agricultural productivity protect food entitlements\u2014\r\nthe ability of people to access food. Furthering human development\r\nrequires nutrition policies that unleash the potential of today\u2019s and future generations. Also, communities must be resilient enough to absorb\r\nshocks and have the power to make decisions about their own lives. The Report shows that the basic right to food and the right to life itself is\r\nbeing violated in sub-Saharan Africa to an intolerable degree. Building\r\na food secure continent requires transformative change\u2014 change that will be most effective if accompanied by a shift of resources, capacities and\r\ndecisions to smallholder farmers, poor communities and women. When women and other vulnerable groups gain a voice in the decisions affecting their lives and livelihoods, their capacity to produce,trade and use food is materially enhanced.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Progress Report 2012 - Jobs, Justice and Equity","field_subtitle":"Africa Progress Panel, May 2012","field_url":"http://www.africaprogresspanel.org/en/pressroom/press-kits/annual-report-2012/africa-progress-report-2012-documents/","body":"he Africa Progress Report 2012 is the Africa Progress Panel\u2019s flagship publication. Its purpose is to provide an overview of the progress Africa has made over the previous year. The report draws on the best research and analysis available on Africa and compiles it in a refreshing and provocative manner. Through the report, the Panel recommends a series of policy choices and actions for African policy makers who have primary responsibility for Africa\u2019s progress, as well as vested international partners and civil society organisations. The report warns that Africa\u2019s strong economic growth trajectory \u2013 which will see the region increase the pace of growth well beyond 5 per cent over the next two years \u2013 is at risk because of rising inequality and the marginalisation of whole sections of society. The report calls for a \u201crelentless focus\u201d by policymakers on jobs, justice and equity to ensure sustainable, shared growth that benefits all Africans. Failure to generate equitable growth could result in \u201ca demographic disaster marked by rising levels of youth unemployment, social dislocation and hunger.\u201d Africa\u2019s governments and development partners must urgently draw up plans for a big push towards the 2015 Millennium Development Goals, the report says.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa ready for post-2015 development agenda - MDG report","field_subtitle":"United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, African Union, African Development Bank and the United Nations Development Programme: Addis Ababa, July 2012","field_url":"http://new.uneca.org/mdgreports/mdgreport2012.aspx","body":"According to this report, steady economic growth and improvements in poverty reduction on the continent are reported to have had a positive impact on MDG progress, with sustained progress toward several MDGs. Africa is on track to achieve the targets of: universal primary education; gender parity at all levels of education; lower HIV/AIDS prevalence among 15-24 year olds; increased proportion of the population with access to antiretroviral drugs; and increased proportion of seats held by women in national parliament by 2015. However, the report acknowledges that more needs to be done to address inequalities, including between women and men. It highlights the need to address the sub-standard quality and unequal distribution of social services between rural and urban areas. It suggests active steps to ensure that economic growth translates into new and adequate employment opportunities for Africa\u2019s youthful and rapidly growing population, and supports social protection systems. The report urges policymakers to put greater emphasis on improving the quality of social services and ensuring that investments yield improved outcomes for the poor for MDG progress. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Abstracts: ASPHA 3rd AGM and 4th Global Health Summit  9th-10th December, 2012, Accra -Ghana","field_subtitle":"Due August 14, 2012","field_url":"","body":"The 3rd AGM of Schools of Public Health and the 4th Global Health summit to be hosted by Association of Schools of Public Health in Africa (ASPHA) will provide Schools of Public Health across the Globe a forum for sharing innovative ideas and adapting scientific knowledge specific to our particular environs to promote health, reduce disease burden and alleviate poverty to help accelerate health development in Africa. The theme is \u201cPolicy and Health Systems Research-The Contribution of Schools of Public Health\u201d. Deadline of submission of Abstract: 14th August, 2012","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/37026","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Papers: International Health calls for papers on global mental health","field_subtitle":"Deadline 15 August 2012","field_url":"http://preview.tinyurl.com/chf89r9","body":"International Health, an official journal of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, is looking for papers on the mental health issues faced by patients and professionals in both developed and lower income countries. They are welcoming original papers, short communications, reviews and commentaries on all aspects of mental health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Communique of the Consultation on Improving Access to Health Workers at the Frontline for Better Maternal and Child Survival","field_subtitle":"NORAD; EQUINET; DFID; GHWA; ECSA HC; PMNCH; APHRH; AMREF; ACHEST, June 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Communique%20Nbo%20HRH%20Mtg%20June2012.pdf","body":"The Consultation on Improving Access to Health Workers at the Frontline for Better Maternal and Child Survival was held at the InterContinental Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya from 25 to 27 June 2012. The objective of the consultation was \u2018to speed up and scale up country responses to the human resource needs of both the UN Global Strategy for Women\u2019s and Children\u2019s Health (Every Woman Every Child), and the Global Plan towards the Elimination of New HIV Infections Among Children by 2015 and Keeping their Mothers Alive (Global Plan) as a key aspect of both plans\u2019. The communique presents the key proceedings and opportunities, experiences and challenges to guide further action. The Consultation underscored the need for ministries of health, continental mechanisms such as the AUC, regional organisations such as ECSA HC, SADC, WAHO and OCEAC, development partners, FBOs, funding agencies, academic and research institutions, and civic society organisations to give priority to efforts towards increasing access to health workers at the frontline for better maternal and child survival. Recommendations were made to achieve this. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Differences in health care seeking behaviour between rural and urban communities in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Van der Hoeven M, Kruger A and Greeff M: International Journal for Equity in Health (11) 31: June 2012","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-11-31.pdf","body":"This study explored possible differences in health care seeking behaviour among a rural and urban African population. Four rural and urban SetTswana communities which represented different strata of urbanisation in the North West Province, South Africa, were selected. Structured interviews were held with 206 participants. Data on general demographic and socio-economic characteristics, health status, beliefs about health and (access to) health care was collected. The results illustrated differences in socio-economic characteristics, health status, beliefs about health, and health care utilisation. Inhabitants of urban communities rated their health significantly better than rural participants. Although most urban and rural participants consider their access to health care as sufficient, they still experienced difficulties in receiving the requested care. Rural participants had significantly lower employment and available weekly budget for health care and transport costs. Urban participants were more than 5 times more likely to prefer a medical doctor in private practice. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Director-General Precious Matsoso: Health budgets first to go when crises hit","field_subtitle":"Thom A: Health e news: 10 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20033620","body":"Health and education budgets are cut in times of financial crises despite the fact that the opposite should be happening, according to South African health department Director-General Precious Matsoso. Addressing the plenary at the 3rd People\u2019s Health Assembly Matsoso said that while the country was supposed to be rolling out National Health Insurance (NHI), it had to do so with only R11-million per pilot district from Treasury. She argued that social services should not suffer when there is a crisis, the opposite should happen. Instead, she said, we see that when there is a financial crisis, there is a cut in social spending and health. Prior to this, Professor Di McIntyre, who is also a key NHI advisor to the health minister, reiterated that NHI was about the comprehensive reform of the health system. She said one of her key concerns while establishing NHI was the underfunding of the NHI pilot sites by Treasury and the \u201cenormous pressure to protect the positions of the high income groups and private sector profits\u201d.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Directory of Human Rights Funders","field_subtitle":"International Human Rights Funders Group","field_url":"http://ihrfg.org/funder-directory-search","body":"International Human Rights Funders Group and the Foundation Center have launched the first-ever visualization tool of the contemporary scope and landscape of global human rights grantmaking. The tool is designed to enable both grantmakers and grantseekers to search for human rights funders by several key criteria: areas of rights funding, activities supported and geographic focus. The map will be the first tool to be released as part of the centre\u2019s Advancing Human Rights: Knowledge Tools for Funders initiative and will enable funders to search for grants by rights issue, population served, and location of grantee. To access the map, a user account must be created. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 138: Health Centre Committees: Vital for people centered health systems in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Gaps and Shortages in South Africa\u2019s Health Workforce","field_subtitle":"Rawat A: Africa Portal: June 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d52rq7h","body":"In 2006, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that 57 countries, most of them in Africa and Asia, face a severe health workforce crisis. They estimate that over 2 million health service providers and 1.8 million management support workers are needed to fill the gap (WHO, 2009). Health workers play a critical role in the effective delivery of health services, especially in high disease-burdened countries like South Africa. Constraints in the health workforce have emerged as a key obstacle to scaling-up access to prevention and treatment for the 5.7 million people currently living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa. A recent strategic plan, released in 2012 by the South African government, aims to address the gaps in human resources for health and is expected to mitigate the resource shortage within the next 15 to 25 years. This report analyses the plan and proposes that actors in other health systems, especially those in high HIV-burden, low-resource countries, may be able to learn from the forthcoming experience of implementing the strategy in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund Releases Governance Handbook","field_subtitle":"Global Fund for AIDS TB and Malaria","field_url":"http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/board/","body":"A new Governance Handbook issued by the Global Fund describes the Fund's various structures and governance processes. The handbook was conceived primarily as an operations guide for members of the Global Fund Board and their delegations, but it has also been made public. Separate sections of the handbook are devoted to topics such as the history of the Global Fund, the roles of the Board and its committees, and the current funding model and how it may evolve.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Centre Committees: Vital for people centered health systems in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Itai Rusike, Community Working Group on Health ","field_url":"","body":"Health systems in sub-Saharan Africa have been in a state of decline since the debt crisis of the 1980s and the subsequent effects of structural adjustment, chronic public under-investment and health sector reform. Zimbabweans experience a heavy burden of disease dominated by preventable diseases such as HIV infection and AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, diarrheal diseases, nutritional deficiencies, vaccine preventable diseases and health issues affecting pregnant women and neonates. According to the latest Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey, the number of women dying due to maternal causes for the past 7 year period has increased in Zimbabwe from 725 deaths for every 100 000 live births in 2009 (2002-2009) to 960 deaths for every 100 000 live births in 2010/11 (2003-2010). \r\n\r\nWith this high burden of ill health, efforts to make sustained and equitable improvements in health are being made by various state and non state actors.  One of the clearest objectives is to revive the Primary Health Care (PHC) concept. Primary health care, as contained in the Declaration of Alma-Ata 1978, is: \" Essential health care based on practical, scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technology made universally accessible to individuals and families in the community through their full participation and at a cost that the community and the country can afford to maintain at every stage of their development in the spirit of self-reliance and self-determination. It forms an integral part, both of the country's health system, of which it is the central function and main focus, and of the overall social and economic development of the community. It is the first level of contact of individuals, the family and community with the national health system bringing health care as close as possible to where people live and work, and constitutes the first element of a continuing health care process.\"\r\n\r\nZimbabwe\u2019s national health policy commits the Government \u201cto ensure that communities are empowered to take responsibility for their own health and well being, and to participate actively in the management of their local health services.\u201d \r\n\r\nHealth Centre Committees (HCCs) are a mechanism through which community participation can be effectively integrated to achieve a sustainable people centered health system at the primary care level of the health system.  They complement vital community level initiatives like community health workers, and mechanisms for public participation at all levels of the health system. In Zimbabwe, Health Centre Committees (HCCs) were originally proposed by the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare in the early 1980s to assist communities to identify their priority health problems, plan how to raise their own resources, organize and manage community contributions, and tap available resources for community development. In 2010 Health Centre Committees in two districts in Mashonaland East province collaborated with Village Health Workers to mobilize expectant mothers to deliver at health facilities nearest to them, contributing to improving maternal and neonatal survival.  In Chikwaka community in Goromonzi district, the HCC has in 2011-2012 taken the lead in mobilizing financial and material resources- bricks, quarry, river, pit sand and labour-  to construct a Maternity Waiting Home at a primary care facility in their ward.  These are examples of how HCCs are able to organize, identified local health problems, tap into their own available resources and take action for community development.\r\n\r\nDespite setting their roles and functions as early as the 1980\u2019s, HCCs still do not yet have a statutory instrument that specifically governs their roles and functions. This is a gap in the formal provisions for how communities should organize on health and PHC at primary care (health centre) level. While PHC is not only an issue for the health sector, and is thus taken up by more general local government structures, it is necessary that mechanisms exist within the health sector to align the health system to PHC and community issues, as well as to link and give leadership input to these more general structures. \r\n\r\nThe absence of formal recognition may mean that other sectors do not act on health as it is not adequately profiled in their wider deliberations. The 2009-2013 National Health Strategy recognized this gap and made specific note of the importance of establishing health centre committees within the health system. The strategy identifies that \u201c\u2026during the next three years, communities, through health centre committees or community health councils will be actively involved in the identification of health needs, setting priorities and managing and mobilizing local resources for health\u201d. \r\n\r\nA 2009 Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) and CWGH assessment on PHC (http://tinyurl.com/5rdnh7v) found Health Centre Committees (HCCs) functioning (ie having met) in only 40% of the 20 districts surveyed. The HCCs present these were found to lack coherent integration with planning systems, and to be functional in only a third of sites. Nevertheless HCCs were found in this survey to be associated with higher levels of satisfaction with services, attributed to the communication, improved understanding and support for morale that they build between communities and health workers. \r\n\r\nHCCs offer an opportunity to take forward the shared local priorities across health workers and communities and to discuss how to accommodate differing priorities between them. In a 2004 study by Loewenson et al (http://tinyurl.com/c8bd86k) , HCCs were associated with improved PHC outcomes compared to areas where they did not exist.\r\n\r\nHCCs ensure the proper planning and implementation of primary health care in coordinated efforts with other relevant sectors. In doing this, they promote health as an indispensable contribution to the improvement of the quality of life of every individual, family and community as part of overall socio-economic development. Primary Health Care (PHC) approaches seek to build and depend on a high level of ownership and participation from involved and affected communities. The HCC is the mechanism by which people get involved in health service planning at local level. In Zimbabwe Health Centre Committees (HCCs) identify priority health problems with communities, plan how to raise their own resources, organize and manage community contributions, and advocate for available resources for community health activities. They discuss their issues with health workers at the HCC, report on community grievances about quality of health services, and discuss community health issues with health workers. \r\n\r\nCWGH and TARSC in partnership with the Primary Health Care taskforce have developed HCC guidelines that have been proposed as the basis for a Statutory Instrument to formally recognize the role of these structures. An HCC Training Manual developed by TARSC and CWGH has been peer reviewed by the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare to strengthen the capacities to deliver on their roles, backed by health literacy activities that strengthen the wider community literacy on health to encourage wider input to and hold these mechanisms accountable. While community participation demands much more than HCCs, institutionalizing and giving a formal mandate to HCCs is critical and key to achieving a sustainable people centered health system in Zimbabwe.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit www.equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Equity from the African Perspective: 2012 Hugh R. Leavell Lecture","field_subtitle":"Haimanot RT: 13th World Congress of Public Health, Addis Ababa, April 24, 2012","field_url":"http://www.wfpha.org/tl_files/doc/about/Leavell%20Lecture-2012.pdf","body":"The World Federation of Public Health Associations honooured the author with the Leavell Lectureship Award and this paper is the speech given by the awardee on \u201cHealth Equity, from the African Perspective\u201d at the Congress. He raises that addressing equity calls for African countries to break the vicious cycle of poverty and ill-health; to urgently address the water, sanitation and hygiene crisis; to mobilize adequate budget allocation to the health sector and provide social protection for poor people; to strengthen the capacity of health systems to provide effective and equitable quality health care services; to stabilise health personnel; to generate evidence and build transparency and accountability in the use of domestic and externally generated resources allocated for health. All these issues he noted need to be backed by political commitment to make health equity a priority.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Policy and Systems Research and Analysis: Capacity Needs Assessment of the School of Public Health, University of Ghana, Ghana","field_subtitle":"Agyepong IA, Aikins M, Esena R, Akweongo P and Aniah K: CHEPSAA report. Accra","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/buzlzal","body":"This document presents the context, including mapping of key actors and their capacity in relation to health policy and systems analysis (HPSA) research and teaching and their potential implications on capacity of the University of Ghana School of Public Health (UG-SPH) in HPSA research and teaching, networking and getting research into policy and practice (GRIPP). It assesses the capacity needs at the organizational and individual levels within the UG-SPH in relation to HPSA research and teaching and getting research into policy and practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Systems Research Society consultation - HPSR","field_subtitle":"Call for feedback ","field_url":"http://e.itg.be/ihp/archives/hsr-consultation/","body":"A new Society for health systems research will be established at the Second Global Health Systems Research Symposium in Beijing (31 October to 3 November 2012). Draft documents and other information materials are available at: http://www.hsr-symposium.org/index.php/health-systems-society. A group of health systems researchers from various settings are seeking to encourage interest in and ideas for the Society, to support the Working Group tasked to develop it for its launch in Beijing. They would particularly like to encourage discussion and feedback on specific questions, available through the link below. Please post your ideas through the link below. All ideas posted will be available to all those interested in the Society, and will be of particular value to the Working Group currently planning for the launch of the Society at the Symposium in Beijing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV and the Law: Risks, Rights & Health","field_subtitle":"Global Commission on HIV and the Law: July 2012","field_url":"http://www.hivlawcommission.org/resources/report/FinalReport-Risks,Rights&Health-EN.pdf","body":"Punitive laws and human rights abuses are costing lives, wasting money and stifling the global AIDS response, according to a report by the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, an independent body of global leaders and experts. The Commission report, \"HIV and the Law: Risks, Rights and Health,\" finds evidence that governments in every region of the world have wasted the potential of legal systems in the fight against HIV. The report also concludes that laws based on evidence and human rights strengthen the global AIDS response - these laws exist and must be brought to scale urgently.\"Bad laws should not be allowed to stand in the way of effective HIV responses,\" said Helen Clark, United Nations Development Programme Administrator. \"In the 2011 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS, Member States committed to reviewing laws and policies which impede effective HIV responses.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementing Community Participation Through Legislative Reform: A Study of the Policy Framework for Community Participation in the Western Cape Province of South Africa","field_subtitle":"Meier BM,  Pardue C and London L:  BMC International Health and Human Rights, forthcoming, July 9, 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bmna3tv","body":"With evolving South African legislation supporting community involvement in the health system, early policy developments focused on Community Health Committees (HCs) as the principal institutions of community participation. Formally recognized in the National Health Act, the Act deferred to provincial governments in establishing the specific roles and functions of HCs. As a result, stakeholders developed a Draft Policy Framework for Community Participation in Health (Draft Policy) to formalize participatory institutions in the Western Cape province.  With the Draft Policy as a frame of analysis, the researchers conducted documentary policy analysis and semi-structured interviews on the evolution of community participation policy. Moving beyond the specific and unique circumstances of the Western Cape, this study analyzes generalizable themes for community participation in the health system. Framing institutions for the establishment, appointment, and functioning of community participation, the Draft Policy proposed a formal network of communication \u2013 from local HCs to the health system. However, this participation structure has struggled to establish itself and function effectively as a result of limitations in community representation, administrative support, capacity building, and policy commitment. Without legislative support for community participation, the enactment of superseding legislation is likely to bring an end to HC structures in the Western Cape. The authors conclude that attempts to realize community participation have not adequately addressed the underlying factors crucial to promoting effective participation, with policy reforms necessary: to codify clearly defined roles and functions of community representation, to outline how communities engage with government through effective and accountable channels for participation, and to ensure extensive training and capacity building of community representatives. Given the public health importance of structured and effective policies for community participation, and the normative importance of participation in realizing a rights-based approach to health, this analysis informs researchers on the challenges to institutionalizing participation in health systems policy and provides practitioners with a research base to frame future policy reforms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch Of Online Collection On Health Ethics","field_subtitle":"Global Digital Library on Ethics (GlobeEthicsLib)","field_url":"http://www.globethics.net","body":"A new online collection of research, documentation and articles on Health Ethics has been launched by Globethics.net in its Global Digital Library on Ethics (GlobeEthicsLib).  Initially including more than 500 documents, the collection is a unique online resource covering topics related to health ethics such as pharmaceuticals, health economics, health politics, access to medical care, environmental issues and bioethics. The collection is available to participants who register with Globethics.net. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"People's Health Assembly Cape Town Call to Action","field_subtitle":"Peoples Health Movement: July 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ct82ouo","body":"After two years of participatory engagement and planning, the People\u2019s Health Movement gathered 800 people from 90 countries for the 3rd People\u2019s Health Assembly. The Assembly strengthened and deepened solidarity; expressed outrage at the continuing global health crises that are embedded in myriad structural and socio-political inequities; developed principles for alternative economic, political and social orders; and re-committed delegates to work towards the world envisioned by the movement. The Assembly reaffirmed commitment to the People\u2019s Charter for Health and the Cuenca Declaration which are the foundational documents to the Call to Action drafted at the Assembly reported here. The Call to Action guides the movements work  until the fourth People\u2019s Health Assembly is held.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy brief 30: Progress in fair financing for health in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"HNC, UCT HEU: EQUINET July 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Policy%20Brief30%20financing.pdf","body":"Fair financing of health services requires that countries reduce their reliance on out-of-pocket (OOP) funding for health services and improve their pre-payment financing through general tax revenue and health insurance (particularly mandatory health insurance). While many countries in east and southern Africa (ESA) receive high levels of external funding, it is critical to increase domestic government funding for the health system to support this move away from out-of-pocket funding to provide effective financial protection from the costs of health care. This policy brief reviews progress in reducing out-of-pocket payments in ESA countries and in increasing government funding for health, particularly in terms of meeting the Abuja target of 15% of the government budget being devoted to the health sector and a target of government spending of US$60 per capita. While there has been some progress in some countries, most ESA countries are still far from achieving these fair financing targets. The brief highlights areas that merit action to meet policy commitments on fair financing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy initiation and political levers in health policy: lessons from Ghana\u2019s health insurance","field_subtitle":"Seddoh A and Akor SA: BMC Public Health (Suppl 1) 12: S10, June 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/12/S1/S10","body":"Understanding the health policy formulation process over the years has focused on the content of policy to the neglect of context. This had led to several policy initiatives having a still birth or ineffective policy choices with sub-optimal outcomes when implemented. Sometimes, the difficulty has been finding congruence between different values and interests of the various stakeholders. This paper attempts to conceptualise the levers of policy formulation using a qualitative participant observation case study based on retrospective recollection of the policy process and political levers involved in developing the Ghana National Health Insurance Scheme. The study finds that technical experts, civil society, academics and politicians all had significant influence on setting the health insurance agenda. Each of these various stakeholders carefully engaged in ways that preserved their constituency interests through explicit manoeuvres and subtle engagements. Where proposals lend themselves to various interpretations, stakeholders were quick to latch on the contentious issues to preserve their constituency. The paper provides lessons which suggest that in understanding the policy process, it is important that actors engage with the content as well as the context to understand viewpoints that may be expressed by interest groups. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Promising Mechanisms to Strengthen Domestic Financing for Women\u2019s and Children\u2019s Health","field_subtitle":"Frost L and Pratt BA, Global Health Insights: July 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ck8x56e","body":"This paper discusses the range of mechanisms to improve domestic financing that have been utilized worldwide, from which Ministries of Health and Finance can draw a context-specific toolkit for strengthening domestic financing for women\u2019s and children\u2019s health. While evidence exists about how mechanisms have been used in different settings, there remains limited cost-effectiveness data to help guide decision-makers in low and middle income countries on when and where such mechanisms are most effectively and efficiently deployed. Financing mechanisms must be carefully coordinated and integrated to promote universal coverage and avoid fragmentation of health systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Putting HIV Prevention in Women\u2019s Hands: Clinical Trial for Microbicide Ring Begins","field_subtitle":"Futrell E: K4Health: July 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bqjum4h","body":"In recent years, innovative contraceptive methods that are discreet and female-initiated have expanded contraceptive access to millions of women who wish to prevent, space, or limit pregnancies but must do so without their partners\u2019 cooperation. The International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM), developers of a new microbicide ring currently undergoing clinical trial in South Africa, hope to apply this same principle to HIV prevention. If proven safe for long-term use, the monthly vaginal ring, which steadily releases the antiretroviral (ARV) drug dapivirine, will serve as a valuable HIV prevention option for women, particularly those who wish to become pregnant or who are unable to safely negotiate condom use or monogamy with their partners. Offering new HIV prevention options to women is particularly important in high-prevalence regions like sub-Saharan Africa, where 60 percent of HIV infections are among women and girls.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Report of the Dialogue on Health Financing in Africa at the 15th Ordinary Assembly of the African Union, Kampala, 24 July 2010","field_subtitle":"Africa Union: Kampala : July 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cb7jbhk","body":"The dialogue found that countries challenges of high turnover of Health Ministers, shortage of human and financial resources for scaling up action, and weak health information systems. The dialogue recommended flooding health systems with low and middle level staff. The meeting called for resourcing of the Global Fund, which should also \u201copen a window\u201d for maternal, newborn and child health. Mobilization of more domestic resources, accountability, ownership and good coordination were reported as essential for \u201cmore money for more health\u201d. The Assembly recommended the development and adoption of national policies, to ensure health is integrated in national development strategies and also costing of national development plans with appropriate economic and other expertise. It was concluded that national and district health accounts should be institutionalized, to track expenditures and ensure decentralization to reach to the communities. Harmonization of health initiatives by development partners was recommended to support and strengthen national plans and programmes, under national ownership and leadership.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Research Award: Governance for Equity in Health Systems","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 12 September 2012","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Documents/GEHS-blurb-English.pdf","body":"IDRC\u2019s Research Awards provide a unique opportunity to enhance research skills and gain a fresh perspective on crucial development issues. This one-year, paid, in-house program of training and mentorship in research, research management, and grant administration allows awardees to pursue their research goals in a dynamic team environment in one of the world\u2019s leaders in generating new knowledge to meet global challenges. The successful candidate is required to have strong research, analytical, and writing skills, as well as familiarity with key institutions (including Canadian) active in global health research and policy. Proficiency in English and French is essential. An understanding of the health implications of urbanization, social and gender analysis would be considered an asset.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Rhetoric and Reality of Community Participation in Health Planning, Resource Allocation and Service Delivery: a Review of the Reviews, Primary Publications and Grey Literature","field_subtitle":"Mubyazi GM and Hutton G: Rwanda Journal of Health Sciences, Vol.1, Issue 1, 2012","field_url":"http://www.khi.ac.rw/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=18&Itemid=129","body":"This paper synthesises reports on community participation (CP) concept and its practicability in countries\u2019 health service systems, much focus being on developing countries. The authors were supported through EQUINET to narratively review the published and grey literature traced from electronic sources and hard copies as much as they could be accessed.\r\nCP is a concept widely promoted, but few projects/programmes have demonstrated its practicability in different countries. In many countries, communities are partially involved in one or several stages of project cycles - priority setting, resource allocation, service management, project implementation and evaluation. There is tendency of informing communities to implement the decisions that have already been passed by elites or politicians. In most of the project/programmes, professionals dominate the decision making processes by downgrading the non-professionals or non-technical people\u2019s knowledge and skills. CP concept is greatly misinterpreted and sometimes confused with community involvement. In some cases, the community participates in passive manner. There is no common approach to translate CP into practice and this perpetuates debates on how and to what extent to which the community members should participate. The authors argue that persistent misconceptions about CP perpetuate inequalities in many countries\u2019 health systems, suggesting that more concerted measures are needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Rio+20 declares health key to sustainable development: \"The Future We Want\" conference outcome document ","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: June 2012 ","field_url":"http://templatelab.com/rio-20-summit-the-future-we-want/","body":"From the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) \"The Future We Want\", the conference outcome document, agreed upon by member states attending the 20-22 June conference, highlights the fact that better health is a \u201cprecondition for, an outcome of, and an indicator of all three dimensions of sustainable development\u201d. The outcome document emphasizes the importance of universal health coverage to enhancing health, social cohesion and sustainable human and economic development. It acknowledges that the global burden and threat of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) constitutes one of the major sustainable development challenges of the 21st century.  The document states: \u201cWe are convinced that action on the social and environmental determinants of health, both for the poor and the vulnerable and the entire population, is important to create inclusive, equitable, economically productive and healthy societies. We call for the full realization of the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health\u201d.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Second Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"Beijing, China: 31 October-3 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/","body":"The Symposium will focus on the science to accelerate universal health coverage around the world. It will cover three main themes: knowledge translation; state-of-the-art health systems research; and health systems research methodologies. There will also be three cross-cutting themes: innovations in health systems research; neglected priorities or populations in health systems research; financing and capacity building for health systems research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Situational analysis of teaching and learning of medicine and nursing students at Makerere University College of Health Sciences","field_subtitle":"Kiguli S, Baingana R, Paina L, Mafigiri D, Groves S, Katende G et al: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(Suppl 1): S3, 9 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-11-S1-S3.pdf","body":"In this assessment, researchers aimed to identify critical gaps in the core competencies of the Makerere University College of Health Sciences medicine and nursing, as well as ways to overcome them to achieve the government\u2019s Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP) goals. Documents from the Uganda Ministry of Health as well as medicine and nursing curricula were analysed, and 19 key informant interviews) and seven focus group discussions with stakeholders were conducted. The researchers found that the core competencies that medicine and nursing students are expected to achieve by the end of their education were outlined for both programmes. The curricula are in the process of reform towards competency-based education and, on the surface, are well aligned with the strategic needs of the country. But implementation is inadequate, and the researchers argue that learning objectives need to be more applicable to achieving competencies, learning experiences need to be more relevant for competencies and setting in which students will work after graduation (i.e. not just clinical care in a tertiary care facility), and student evaluation needs to be better designed for assessing these competencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Determinants of Health for Uganda\u2019s Batwa","field_subtitle":"Harper S: Africa Portal: June 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/7ztrcpb","body":"Uganda\u2019s Indigenous Batwa people are among the most vulnerable populations in the world and have limited access to key social determinants of health, including health care, education, clean water, employment and adequate clothing, food, and security. The Batwa people were evicted from their native forests following an environmental policy enacted in 1991 and are now considered conservation refugees undergoing a drastic transition from forest dwellers to agriculturalists. The shift has negatively affected people\u2019s health. The report argues that coordinated action among public and private sectors is required to improve Batwa health through the enforcement of their rights and increased participation in policies and programs affecting their well-being.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Socioeconomic inequality in the prevalence of noncommunicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries: Results from the World Health Survey","field_subtitle":"Hosseinpoor AR, Bergen N, Mendis S, Harper  S, Verdes E, Kunst A and Chatterji S: BMC Public Health,  June 2012, 12:474 ","field_url":"http://bit.ly/LGmhwJ","body":"Noncommunicable diseases are an increasing health concern worldwide, but particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This study quantified and compared education- and wealth-based inequalities in the prevalence of five noncommunicable diseases (angina, arthritis, asthma, depression and diabetes) and comorbidity in low- and middle-income country groups, using 2002-04 World Health Survey data from 41 low- and middle-income countries. Wealth and education inequalities were more pronounced in the low-income country group than the middle-income country group. Both wealth and education were inversely associated with angina, arthritis, asthma, depression and comorbidity prevalence, with strongest inequalities reported for angina, asthma and comorbidity. Diabetes prevalence was positively associated with wealth and, to a lesser extent, education. Adjustments for confounding variables tended to decrease the magnitude of the inequality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa Hopes New Bill Brings Traditional Knowledge Protection ","field_subtitle":"Daniels L: Intellectual Property Watch: May 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/dyr5zcl","body":"An Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill passed by Parliament is awaiting signature by South African President Jacob Zuma in order for it become the law. It is an ambitious piece of legislation that aims to provide protective mechanisms for indigenous knowledge in South Africa. The bill is far-reaching and aims to: improve the livelihoods of indigenous knowledge holders and communities, benefit the national economy, prevent bio-piracy, provide a legal framework for protection and empower local communities and prevent exploitation of indigenous knowledge. Despite this legal advance, there is another view on the issue of indigenous intellectual property rights which states that the issue will always remain on the margins, given the dominant system of knowledge production which in the main takes place in universities. The article concludes that the prevailing view is that given the history of persecution of indigenous peoples under colonialism, the fight to include their voices in the protection of indigenous knowledge systems is important and necessary to inform the way forward.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Activists protest as Novartis ruling approaches","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: Cape Town: 12 July 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c74c8g6","body":"PlusNews reports that at least a hundred protesters arrived at South Africa's parliament on 11 July 2012 to demonstrate their disapproval of the ongoing court case by Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis against the Indian government over its patent laws. As the case draws to a close, health organizations say a win for the pharmaceutical company will be a loss to the developing world, which sources the bulk of its generic medicines from India. Novartis approached the Indian government six years ago, seeking to register a cancer drug already commonly marketed under the name Gleevec. The patent was denied and a long-running court battle ensued, but at each step Indian courts have ruled against Novartis and the company has appealed. India has laws against \u201cevergreening\u201d, a term used to describe instances where drug companies maintain artificially high prices on medicines for longer by continually extending patent protection for minor modifications to existing drugs. India's Supreme Court is expected to hand down the judgment that will draw the legal saga to a close on 22 August. This could not only limit the country's ability to produce generics, but also set a precedent in other countries - like South Africa - looking to revamp patent laws.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Stepped Care for Maternal Mental Health: A Case Study of the Perinatal Mental Health Project in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Honikman S, Van Heyningen T, Field F, Baron E and Tomlinson M: PLoS Med 9(5): May 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cjuxwu6","body":"Maternal mental health is largely neglected in low- and middle-income countries. There is no routine screening or treatment of maternal mental disorders in primary care settings in South Africa. The Perinatal Mental Health Project (PMHP) developed an intervention to deliver mental health care to pregnant women in a collaborative, step-wise manner making use of existing resources in primary care. Over a 3-year period, 90% of all women attending antenatal care in the maternity clinic were offered mental health screening with 95% uptake. Of those screened, 32% qualified for referral to counselling. Through routine screening and referral, the PMHP model demonstrates the feasibility and acceptability of a stepped care approach to provision of mental health care at the primary care level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The challenge of community participation in rural health development in Nigeria","field_subtitle":"Metiboba S: Prime Journal of Business Administration and Management, 2(5), 551-555, May 2012","field_url":"http://www.primejournal.org/BAM/pdf/2012/may/Steve.pdf","body":"Studies in rural and urban development since the 1970s have found high correlations between project performance and levels of community participation in many Third world countries. Relevant examples of such\r\ncorrelation include the agricultural extension services in Kenya, the control of infectious diseases in Israel and the rural water supply and irrigation projects in Asia Region. This paper examines the major\r\nlimitations in participatory health development in Nigeria. The author finds that even though most of the assertions in literature about the health behaviour of the rural dwellers in community-based health programmes are upheld, there are exceptions. For example the\r\nhealth behaviour of people in traditional societies is found to always be an economic rational one. This is in contradistinction to the view in most literature that posits that the health behaviour of the traditional people is almost always determined by socio-cultural and magico-religious considerations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The make or buy debate: Considering the limitations of domestic production in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Wilson KR, Kohler JC and Ovtcharenko N: Globalization and Health (8) 20: June 2012","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-8-20.pdf","body":"In order to ensure their population's regular access to essential medicines, many countries are faced with the policy question of whether to import or manufacture drugs locally. For domestic manufacturing to be viable and cost-effective, the local industry must be able to compete with international suppliers of medicines. This paper considers the 'make-or-buy' dilemma by using Tanzania as a case study. Key informant interviews, event-driven observation, and purposive sampling of documents were used to evaluate the case study. The case study focused on Tanzania's imitation technology transfer agreement to locally manufacture a first-line ARV (3TC + d4T + NVP), reverse engineering the ARV. The study finds that Tanzania is limited by weak political support for the use of Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) flexibilities, limited production capacity for ARVs and limited competitiveness in both domestic and regional markets. The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare encourages the use of flexibilities while others push for increased IP protection. Insufficient production capacity and lack of access to externally -financed tenders make it difficult to obtain economies of scale and provide competitive prices. Within the \"make-or-buy\" context, it was determined that there are significant limitations in domestic manufacturing for developing countries. The case study highlights the difficulty governments face to make use of economies of scale and produce low-cost medicines, attract technology transfer, and utilize the flexibilities of the WTO Agreement on TRIPS. The results demonstrate the importance of evaluating barriers to the use of TRIPS flexibilities and long-term planning across sectors in future technology transfer and manufacturing initiatives. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of insurance in the achievement of universal coverage within a developing country context: South Africa as a case study","field_subtitle":"Van den Heever AM: BMC Public Health (Suppl 1) 12: S5, June 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/12/S1/S5","body":"Using South Africa as a case study, this review examines whether private health systems are susceptible to regulation and therefore able to support an extension and deepening of coverage when complementing a pre-existing publicly funded and delivered health system.  The study finds that the private health system in South Africa has played an important supplementary role in achieving universal coverage throughout its history, but more especially in the post-Apartheid period. However, the quality of this role has been erratic, influenced predominantly by policy vacillation. The objective of universal coverage can be seen in two dimensions, horizontal extension and vertical deepening. Private systems play an important role in deepening coverage by mobilising revenue from income earners for health services over-and-above the horizontal extension role of public systems and related subsidies. South Africa provides an example of how this natural deepening occurs whether regulated or unregulated. It also demonstrates how poor regulation of mature private systems can severely undermine this role and diminish achievements below attainable levels of social protection.  When measures to enhance risk pooling are introduced, coverage is expanded and becomes increasingly fair and sustainable. When removed, however, the system becomes less stable and fair as costs rise and people with poor health status are systematically excluded from cover. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The State of Health Financing in the African Region Discussion Paper for the Interministerial Conference: Achieving Results and Value for Money in Health ","field_subtitle":"WHO Regional Office for Africa: July 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/csp9f9v","body":"African States are on average far from meeting key health financing goals such as the Abuja Declaration target of allocating 15% of the government budget to health. Out-of-pocket expenditure is still higher than 40% of the total health expenditure in 20 of 45 African countries, and in 22 countries the total health expenditure does not reach even the minimal level of US$ 44 per capita defined by the High Level Task Force on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems (HLTF). Only three countries have attained the Abuja Declaration and HLTF targets. Many countries have limited capacity of raising public revenue mainly because the informal nature of their economies makes collection of tax and contributions difficult. This limits their opportunities for investing in health. The paper presents trends in health financing in African countries and calls for close collaboration between the ministries of finance and health and inter-ministerial dialogue to develop a health financing strategy that supports efforts to strengthen all the other health system dimensions to move towards universal health coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Tunis Declaration on Value for Money, Sustainability and Accountability in the Health Sector","field_subtitle":"Declaration by the Ministers of Finance and Ministers of Health of Africa:  High-level Ministerial conference, Tunis, July 4-5, 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.hha-online.org/hso/system/files/tunis_declaration_english_july6.pdf","body":"The conference gathered Ministers of Finance and Health and/or their representatives from 54 African countries, African parliamentarians as well as over 400 participants from the public and private sectors, academia, civil society and media globally. The conference recommended: \r\n1. Intensified dialogue and collaboration between ministries of finance and health and with technical and financial partners; 2. Concrete measures to enhance value for money, sustainability and accountability in the health sector to reach universal health coverage; 3. Integrating socio-economic, demographic and health factors into broader development strategies and policies in an effective manner especially in the formulation of medium term strategic plans; 4. Designing effective investments in the health sector, based on evidence-based strategies leading to the prioritization of high impact interventions, which lead to results; 5. Promoting equitable investment in the health sector; ensure that health financing is pro-poor benefiting disadvantaged areas; strengthening regulatory capacity and developing of a strong African pharmaceutical sector as a growth and job creating sector in Africa; 6. Laying out the path to universal health coverage for each country; 7. Improving efficiency in health systems, including equitable access to skilled health workers; 8. Solidifying sustainable health financing systems; 9. Strengthening accountability mechanisms that align all relevant partners, build on the growing citizens\u2019 voice and 10. Increasing domestic resources for health.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda: Brief nine of National Reconciliation and Transitional Justice Audit 2012","field_subtitle":"Pambuzuka News 593: 15 July 2012 ","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/83590","body":"Brief nine of the National Reconciliation and Transitional Justice Audit reveals perspectives on issues of conflict, peace and justice by the community in Nakapiripirit in Karamoja, in the north-east of Uganda. The major concern of the participants in Nakapiripirit was the strained relationship between themselves as citizens in Karamoja and the state.  According to them, the relationship has been characterized by mutual distrust right from colonial times up to now, coupled with deliberate marginalization and an attempt to take away the Karimojong's way of life. They lamented that the rest of Uganda looks at Karamoja as a region apart and says that 'we shall not wait for Karamoja to develop'. In their view, conflicts in Uganda are a reflection of bad governance practices, such as corruption, unfree and unfair elections, lack of term limits, and an absence of border security. This inspires anger towards the Government and provokes rebellion. Impacts of conflicts include more strained relationships between citizens and the state, and delayed development. In that sense, causes and impacts of conflict constitute a vicious cycle.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal access: making health systems work for women","field_subtitle":"Ravindran TKS: BMC Public Health (Suppl 1) 12: S4, June 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/12/S1/S4","body":"Universal coverage by health services is one of the core obligations that any legitimate government should fulfil vis-\u00e0-vis its citizens. However, universal coverage may not in itself ensure universal access to health care. Among the many challenges to ensuring universal coverage as well as access to health care are structural inequalities by caste, race, ethnicity and gender. Based on a review of published literature and applying a gender-analysis framework, this paper highlights ways in which the policies aimed at promoting universal coverage may not benefit women to the same extent as men because of gender-based differentials and inequalities in societies. It also explores how \u2018gender-blind\u2019 organisation and delivery of health care services may deny universal access to women even when universal coverage has been nominally achieved. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Untangling the web of anti-retroviral price reductions","field_subtitle":"Campaign for Essential Medicines: M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, 17 July 2011 ","field_url":"http://utw.msfaccess.org/","body":"In this report, M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) notes that middle-income countries with large numbers of people living with HIV, such as South Africa, will no longer benefit from preferential pricing when buying antiretroviral drugs from large pharmaceutical companies. According to the report, pharmaceutical firm ViiV Healthcare - owned by Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline - no longer offers reduced prices to middle-income countries, even when their programmes are fully funded by the Global Fund to fight HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Merck has also ceased to offer discounted prices to all lower middle- and upper middle-income countries, proposing instead to negotiate discounts on a case-by-case basis. Previously, Merck offered middle-income countries discounts that were still up to ten times the price of generic versions. MSF warns that drug company discount programmes are not a long-term solution, and urges governments to start using Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) measures to override patents.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Resources for the Prevention and Treatment of Substance Use Disorders: Global Health Observatory Database","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: June 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/gho/substance_abuse/en/index.html","body":"Coinciding with the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, the WHO launched its Global Health Observatory Database \u2013 Resources for the Prevention and Treatment of Substance Use Disorders. This global information system maps and monitors health system resources at the country level to respond to the health problems due to substance use. The system provides data for each of the assessed countries, such as funding, staff and services, and thereby complements already available information on the scope and associated harms of substance use disorders. The country profiles included in the new system cover 147 countries, which is 88 per cent of the world\u2019s population. Current estimates indicate that worldwide, about 230 million adults aged 15-64 \u2013 or five per cent of the world\u2019s adult population \u2013 used an illicit drug at least once in 2010, including about 27 million people with severe drug problems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Why Human Health and Health Ethics Must Be Central to Climate Change Deliberations","field_subtitle":"Singh JA: Plos Med (9) 6: June 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bpswcr7","body":"The 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (COP 17) that concluded in December 2011, in Durban, South Africa produced the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action that commits governments to developing a protocol, legal instrument, or an agreed outcome to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with legal force applicable to all countries by no later than 2015. Foreign ministers and environmental ministers set and drove the conference agenda, and economic considerations underpinned all discussions. Despite climate change posing grave risks to human health, the human health perspective on climate change was relegated to side-event, although it led to a parallel inaugural Global Climate and Health Summit, and the Durban Declaration on Climate and Health and Health Sector Call to Action. The report argues that the marginalisation of human health considerations at UN Fframework Convention on Climate Change conferences is untenable and that human health must be a core, not peripheral, focus at future meetings. The report states that the health community, led by health ministers, must play a central role in climate change deliberations and that health ethics principles must be afforded equal status to economics principles in climate change deliberations. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cBig Food,\u201d the Consumer Food Environment, Health, and the Policy Response in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Igumbor EU, Sanders D, Puoane TR, Tsolekile L, Schwarz C, Purdy C, Swart R, Dur\u00e3o S and Hawkes C: Plos Med (9) 7: July 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d5k37e3","body":"The report asserts that in South Africa, as in other jurisdictions, \u201cBig Food\u201d (large commercial entities that dominate the food and beverage environment) is becoming more widespread and is implicated in unhealthy eating. \u201cSmall food\u201d remains significant in the food environment in South Africa, and it is both linked with, and threatened by, Big Food. Big Food in South Africa involves South African companies, some of which have invested in other (mainly, but not only, African) nations, as well as companies headquartered in North America and Europe. These companies have developed strategies to increase the availability, affordability, and acceptability of their foods in South Africa; they have also developed a range of \u201chealth and wellness\u201d initiatives. Whether these initiatives have had a net positive or net negative impact is not clear. The authors argue that the South African government should act urgently to mitigate the adverse health effects in the food environment in South Africa through education about the health risks of unhealthy diets, regulation of Big Food, and support for healthy foods.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A Framework Convention on Global Health: Health for all, justice for all","field_subtitle":"Gostin LO:  Journal of the American Medical Association 307(19): 2087-2092, 16 May 2012","field_url":"http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2072457","body":"Health inequalities represent perhaps the most consequential global health challenge and yet they persist despite increased funding and innovative programmes. The United Nations is revising the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that will shape the world for many years to come. What would a transformative post-MDG framework for global health justice look like? A global coalition of civil society and academics - the Joint Action and Learning Initiative on National and Global Responsibilities for Health (JALI) - has formed an international campaign to advocate for a Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH). Recently endorsed by the UN Secretary-General, the FCGH would reimagine global governance for health, offering a new post-MDG vision. This Special Communication describes the key modalities of an FCGH to illustrate how it would improve health and reduce inequalities. The modalities would include defining national responsibilities for the population\u2019s health; defining international responsibilities for reliable, sustainable funding; setting global health priorities; coordinating fragmented activities; reshaping global governance for health; and providing strong global health leadership through the World Health Organisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A stitch in time: A cross-sectional survey looking at long-lasting insecticide-treated bed net ownership, utilisation and attrition in SNNPR, Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Batisso E, Habte T, Tesfaye G, Getachew D, Tekalegne A, Kilian A et al: Malaria Journal 11(183), 7 June 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-183.pdf","body":"Since 2002, an estimated 4.7 million long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLINs) have been distributed in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) of Ethiopia among a population of approximately 10 million people at risk for contracting malaria. This study sought to determine the status of current net ownership, utilisation and rate of long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLIN) loss in the previous three years. A total of 750 household respondents were interviewed in SNNPR. Approximately 67.5% of households currently owned at least one net. An estimated 31% of all nets owned in the previous three years had been discarded by owners, most of whom considered the nets too torn, old or dirty. Households reported that one-third of nets (33.7%) were less than one year old when they were discarded. These results suggest that the life span of nets may be shorter than previously thought, with little maintenance by their owners. With the global move towards malaria elimination it makes sense to aim for sustained high coverage of LLINs, the authors argue. However, in the current economic climate, it also makes sense to use simple tools and messages on the importance of careful net maintenance, which could increase their lifespans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Abortion: What should the Zimbabwean Constitution say?","field_subtitle":"The Zimbabwean: 16 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/news/analysis/58260/abortion-what-should-the-constitution.html","body":"An survey reported by the Zimbabwean on the Constitution found that 40% of those interviewed were in favour of the Constitution preserving full rights for women to have an abortion, while fewer(39%) believed it should be preserved only in certain instances which must be clearly stated by law. Only 19% were completely opposed to the Constitution preserving any rights for a woman to have an abortion. More men than women were in favour of full rights for women to seek an abortion. The government, which says it is aware of the practice of illegal abortions, promotes safe sex as a solution, but a spokesman for the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare admitted this was a huge challenge due to the unavailability of \u2013 and cultural resistance to \u2013 contraceptives. A largely Christian society, abortion in Zimbabwe is condemned by both the church and the state. Women who do choose the abortion route say that although a safe, legal abortion is exorbitant \u2013 around US$350 \u2013 it\u2019s still a lot cheaper than the cost of giving birth to a child in a city hospital. Pregnant women who cannot afford the legal option are reported to resort to taking herbal remedies from traditional healers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Adding it up: The costs and benefits of investing in family planning and maternal and newborn health","field_subtitle":"Singh S, Darroch JE and Ashford LS: Alan Guttmacher Institute, 2010","field_url":"http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/AddingItUp2009.pdf","body":"This report indicates that family planning and maternal and newborn services fall well short of needs in developing countries, particularly in the world\u2019s two poorest regions, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The authors argue that helping women and couples have healthy, wanted pregnancies in these regions will help achieve social and economic gains beyond the health sector. Several barriers to services were identified, such as weaknesses in health systems that need to be addressed, including insufficient capacity, weak contraceptive supply systems and poor financial management systems, as well as prejudice among providers toward unmarried, sexually active young people, or toward women who have had unsafe abortions. The authors suggest that the additional funds needed for improving services could come from a combination of domestic and international resources. Furthermore, decision makers need to recognise that changes outside the service environment (e.g. social changes) may improve demand for sexual and reproductive health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"African responses to HIV/AIDS: Between speech and action","field_subtitle":"Ige S and Quinlan T: (eds), University of KwaZulu-Natal, 22 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.ukznpress.co.za/?class=bb_ukzn_books&method=view_books&global%5Bfields%5D%5B_id%5D=403","body":"This book is a collection of essays that critique leadership on HIV and AIDS in Africa from the 1980s to the present. They examine the rhetoric on HIV and AIDS, which has influenced culture and behaviour, service delivery, policy, the design of national interventions and the varied success of different countries in containing the pandemic. African scholars contextualise a host of public and scholarly disputes, ranging from AIDS exceptionalism, racialised data manipulation and \u2018denialism\u2019 to the racist debates on \u2018African promiscuity\u2019 and the recent revival of assertions that homosexuality is not \u2018African\u2019 behaviour. The book refers to the record of governments in a wide range of African countries with case studies drawing on the rhetoric of governments and the nature of leadership in Ethiopia, the Gambia, Morocco, South Africa and Zambia. What emerges is that the rhetoric is diverse, occasionally logical and effective in terms of informing systemic HIV and AIDS interventions that improve the welfare of people, and sometimes it is contradictory to the point of absurdity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid and infrastructure financing: Emerging challenges with a focus on Africa","field_subtitle":"Addison T and Anand PB: UNU-WIDER, June 2012","field_url":"http://portal.unu.edu/calendar/?go=event.page&id=4918","body":"The central argument of this working paper is that, given the magnitude of the investment in infrastructure that is required, especially in Africa, the role of external funding (foreign aid) in the future should be distinctly different to what it is now. While external funding will be required to continue to fill the \u2018savings gap\u2019 in some small countries and land-locked countries, in most other countries it can play a very different role in facilitating the creation of institutional mechanisms that help mobilise more funding from other sources. These include domestic revenues (which already fund a large proportion of infrastructure), investments by China and the other BRIC countries, sovereign wealth funds and infrastructure funds. There are already examples of external funding playing such a leveraging role. What is needed is to take this to a new and higher level, the authors argue. The study provides an overview of evidence on infrastructure needs and also possible magnitudes of flows from different sources for investment in infrastructure.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Angola: Assessing risks to stability","field_subtitle":"Vines A and Weimar M: Centre for Strategic and International Studies, June 2011","field_url":"http://csis.org/files/publication/110623_Vines_Angola_Web.pdf","body":"Angola has made vast progress since the end of the civil war in 2002 according to this report. Despite being one of Africa\u2019s wealthiest nations in terms of natural resources, particularly oil, and recording impressive gross domestic product growth rates of 7% per year, poverty among the country\u2019s citizens is rampant. Angola has ranked near the bottom of the bottom of the United Nations\u2019 Human Development Index and  Angola has high inequality and urban poverty. Government is reported to have made various commitments to address these issues, including investment in jobs and houses, decentralisation of government services and development of the agricultural sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessment of eight HPV vaccination programmes implemented in lowest-income countries","field_subtitle":"Ladner J, Besson M, Hampshire R, Tapert L, Chirenje M and Saba J: BMC Public Health 12(370), 23 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-370.pdf","body":"The purpose of this study was to describe the results of eight human papillovirus (HPV) vaccination programmes conducted in seven lowest-income countries, including Lesotho, through the Gardasil Access Programme (GAP), which provides free HPV vaccines to organisations and institutions working in those countries. The eight programmes initially targeted a total of 87,580 girls, of which 76,983 received the full three-dose vaccine course, with mean programme vaccination coverage of 87.8%, while the mean adherence between the first and third doses of vaccine was 90.9%. Mixed models consisting of school-based and health facility-based vaccinations were found to record better overall performance compared with models using just one of the methods. Increased rates of programme coverage and adherence were positively correlated with the number of vaccination sites. Qualitative key insights from the school models showed a high level of coordination and logistics to facilitate vaccination administration, a lower risk of girls being lost to follow-up and vaccinations conducted within the academic year to limit the number of girls lost to follow-up. This study is intended to provide lessons for development of public health programmes and policies as countries go forward in national decision-making for HPV vaccination.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Beyond Rio +20 ","field_subtitle":"Sunita Narain, CSE","field_url":"","body":"This article poses questions about what will be achieved at Rio+20. The author argues that all global environmental problems\u2014from climate change to hazardous waste\u2014have separate agreements. International rules of engagement and cooperation are being discussed in parallel processes and institutions. Rio+20 has raised the green economy rather than 1992\u2019s concept of sustainable development, but without clarifying what this is. Does it mean the world will invest in technologies to green the current economy? Or will it seriously reinvent growth so that it is not driven by cheap consumption that is costing us the earth?","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/37067","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"BRIC approaches to development financing and their implications for LICs ","field_subtitle":"Mwase N and Yang Y: GREAT Insights 1(4): 6, June 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bp2rpe6","body":"This article considers the new players in development financing, namely Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). Unlike external funding (aid) from traditional Western funders, BRIC financing (excluding Russia) focuses on mutual benefits without attachment of policy conditionality. Despite the clear advantage for low-income countries (LICs) that are receiving this funding, the authors caution that governments of these LICs will still need to ensure they get high returns for BRIC-financed projects through sound public investment management. While the scaling up of public investment associated with most BRIC financing is likely to have large positive growth effects, it is critical that LICs align BRIC-financed projects with national development priorities. To help ensure transparency and governance, improvements in data are needed regarding the size and terms of financing flows, the structure and conditions of packaged deals, as well as the rights of concessions for natural resources. Safeguarding debt sustainability will also be key, the authors argue. The final challenge will be to deepen project links to the local economy. LICs and BRICs could work together to build incentives, as part of a total package for development financing, to encourage local employment, foster skills development and improve technology transfer.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts for the ECSA Health Community Beat Practices Forum and DJCC","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 30 June 2012","field_url":"http://ecsahc.org/events.php?id=15","body":"All are invited to submit abstracts to the ECSA Health Community for the East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC) Director\u2019s Joint Consultative Committee (DJCC) and Best Practices Forum for 2012, which will be held from 14-17 August 2012. The DJCC is the highest technical organ of the ECSA Health Community and consists of directors of health/medical services in member states, directors of health research institutions and deans of medicals schools. The meeting will bring together senior officials from Ministries of Health, health experts, health researchers, heads of health training institutions from member states of the ECSA Health Community, as well as diverse collaborating partners in the region and beyond. These role players will identify policy issues and make recommendations to accelerate and scale up best practices in the ECSA region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Challenges in Malaria Research","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 27 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.challenges-in-malaria-research.com/","body":"BioMed Central, in conjunction with its two journals, Malaria Journal and Parasites and Vectors, is hosting the second malaria conference under the theme \u201cChallenges in Malaria Research: Progress Towards Elimination\u201d in Basel, Switzerland from 10\u201312 October 2012. This conference will bring together leading malaria researchers to review current progress and to chart future challenges. International speakers will present their insights into malaria elimination, including social science and policies, artemisinin resistance, new drugs, vaccines, diagnostic challenges and vector controls. Abstract submission is now open for the conference. Abstracts should be no more than 500 words and posters should be A0 size. Please note that the corresponding author of an oral or poster presentation has to register and pay for the conference before being permitted to submit an abstract.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for concept notes: Strengthening equity through applied research capacity building in eHealth (SEARCH)","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 20 July 2012","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Funding/Competitions/Pages/CompetitionDetails.aspx?CompetitionID=34","body":"The International Development Research Centre is calling for concept notes with a focus on how and when technology can contribute toward strengthened and more equitable health systems in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). The overarching objective of the SEARCH project is to support LMIC-based researchers in carrying out rigorous and useful research on how and when eHealth can influence the functioning of health systems to improve health outcomes, and ultimately, contribute to reducing health inequities. Key research areas include: theory, methodology, or framework development; participation, accountability and transparency; enterprise architecture and interoperability; modelling and operations research to generate evidence for decision-making; and sub-national, national and global policy processes. The principal applicant must be a citizen or permanent resident of a LMIC with a primary work affiliation at a LMIC-based institution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for submissions: African Writing Competition: Kwani Trust","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 12 August 2012","field_url":"http://manuscript.kwani.org/","body":"To celebrate the African novel and its adaptability and resilience, Kwani Trust announces a one-off new literary prize for African writing. The Kwani Manuscript Project calls for the submission of unpublished fiction manuscripts from African writers across the continent and in the Diaspora. The top three manuscripts will be awarded cash prizes. In addition Kwani will publish manuscripts from across the shortlist and longlist, including the three winning manuscripts, as well as partnering with regional and global agents and publishing houses to create high-profile international publication opportunities. The word count for submissions is 60,000-120,000 words, and submissions should be adult literary or genre fiction and written in English or variants of the language. The manuscript must be unpublished, although Kwani will accept previously published submissions if circulation has been under 500 copies and limited to one national territory. Eligible participants should have at least one parent born in an African country who holds citizenship of that country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges to fair decision-making processes in the context of health care services: A qualitative assessment from Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Shayo EH, Norheim OF, Mboera LE, Byskov J, Maluka S, Kamuzora P and Blystad A: International Journal for Equity in Health 11(30), 7 June 2012","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-11-30.pdf","body":"In Tanzania, the policy of decentralisation and the health sector reform have placed an emphasis on community participation in making decisions in health care. The objective of this study was to explore challenges to fair decision-making processes in health care services with a special focus on the potential influence of gender, wealth, ethnicity and education. study was carried out in the Mbarali District of Tanzania. A qualitative study design was used, with in-depth interviews and focus group discussions conducted among members of the district health team, local government officials, health care providers and community members. Informal discussion on the topics was also of substantial value. The study findings indicate differences in influence on health care decision-making processes in terms of gender, wealth, ethnicity and education, as men, wealthy individuals, members of strong ethnic groups and highly educated individuals had greater influence. Opinions varied among the study informants as to whether such differences should be considered fair. The differences in levels of influence emerged most clearly at the community level, and were largely perceived as legitimate. The authors conclude that these inequalities in decision making in health care need to be addressed if greater participation is desired. There must be an emphasis on the right of all individuals to participate in decision-making processes, and role players should ensure that information, training and education is fairly distributed so individuals can participate fully in informed decision making.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society groups reject foreign investment in African farming","field_subtitle":"Network of Farmers and Agricultural Producers Organizations (ROPPA), West African Platform of Civil society organisations on the Cotonou Agreement (POSCAO-AC), Coalition of African Organisations on Food Security and Sustainable Development (COASAD) et al:","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/82382","body":"In this open letter from 13 African civil society organisations, they argue that sub-Saharan Africa is caught between the desire to regain control of its own development and excessive reliance on external sources of funding. In the past decade, African states have committed to dedicate more public resources to agriculture and to promote regional agricultural policy and trade through regional trade blocs like ECOWAS and NEPAD. These commitments testified to a real commitment to agriculture on the part of the African authorities, as well as to a new desire to assume control of African development in dialogue with local populations, and they were a sign to social movements and networks of peasants and producers that agriculture had regained its position at the heart of the political agenda. Unfortunately the methodology adopted for the formulation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, NEPAD\u2019s initiative to boost agricultural productivity in Africa, rapidly degenerated, and the National Agricultural Development Programmes, promoted from above with insufficient dialogue with the concerned actors, appeared to be merely occasions for negotiating new aid. The letter argues that success in agricultural policies in Europe, the United States and in emerging countries like Brazil and India, have always been the product of sovereign will and of a partnership between the states and the economic actors, that is the producers, the processors, the traders. Therefore external funders and foreign investors are not the appropriate role players to drive agricultural policy in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Climate change adaptation: Where does global health fit in the agenda? ","field_subtitle":"Bowen KJ and Friel S: Globalization and Health 8(10), 27 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-8-10.pdf","body":"Human-induced climate change will have the greatest, and generally earliest, impact on the poorest and most disadvantaged populations, according to this paper. Climate change adaptation is receiving much attention given the inevitability of climate change and its effects, particularly in developing contexts, where the effects of climate change will be experienced most strongly and the response mechanisms are weakest. Financial support towards adaptation activities from various actors including the World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations is increasing substantially. With this new global impetus and funding for adaptation action come challenges such as the importance of developing adaptation activities on a sound understanding of baseline community needs and vulnerabilities, and how these may alter with changes in climate. The global health community is paying heed to the strengthening focus on adaptation, albeit in a slow and unstructured manner. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of adaptation and its relevance to global health, and highlight the opportunities to improve health and reduce health inequities via the new and additional funding that is available for climate-change adaptation activities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Contraception at a crossroads","field_subtitle":"De Fillipo V and Hall P: International Planned Parenthood Federation, 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ca642nl","body":"This report highlights the systemic problems that prevent women, men and young people from accessing reproductive health supplies, and provide recommendations on moving forward. The authors call for increased funding for reproductive health and argue that reproductive health must be incorporated into national health plans and budgeted for accordingly. Additionally, governments should create an enabling environment for sexual and reproductive health and rights. The authors make several recommendations for health service provision. Governments should ensure that a wide range of reproductive health supplies are included in the national essential drug list, while health system-strengthening initiatives and national health plans must include provisions for monitoring the distribution of reproductive health supplies. Capacity for quality of care should be built among all health professionals that deliver supplies, including health care providers, pharmacists and nurses, and there should be more investment in adequate storage facilities at national and municipal levels, and implementation of logistics management systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Contributions of global health diplomacy to equitable health systems in east and southern Africa, Report of a Regional Research Workshop","field_subtitle":"TARSC, CPTL: EQUINET, 4-5 June 2012","field_url":"","body":"The meeting held June 4-5 in South Africa was organised by Training and Research Support Centre and Centre for Trade Policy and Law for EQUINET in dialogue with the Strategic Initiative of Global Health Diplomacy co-ordinated by the East Central and Southern Africa (ECSA) Health Community. It was supported by IDRC (Canada). The workshop was held to gather the lead institutions of the research teams for the three case study areas, together with resource people from policy, technical, international agency and research communities to discuss and further develop the three case studies and their links to policy processes on global health diplomacy. The case studies are on implementation of the WHO Code on international Recruitment of health personnel: access to essential drugs through south- south relationships with China, Brazil and India; and involvement of African actors in global health governance on universal access to prevention and treatment for HIV and AIDS.  Publications in these areas have been included in the searchable annotated bibliography database on the EQUINET website and materials arising from the work will be posted to this website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing a national health research system: Participatory approaches to legislative, institutional and networking dimensions in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Chanda-Kapata P, Campbell S and Zarowsky C: Health Research Policy and Systems 10(17), 6 June 2012","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-10-17.pdf","body":"For many sub-Saharan African countries, a National Health Research System (NHRS) exists more in theory than in reality, with the health system itself receiving the majority of investments. However, this lack of attention to NHRS development can, in fact, frustrate health systems in achieving their desired goals. In this case study, the authors discuss the ongoing development of Zambia's NHRS. They reflect on their experience in the ongoing consultative development of Zambia's NHRS and offer this reflection and process documentation to those engaged in similar initiatives in other settings. Their critical argument is that three streams of concurrent activity are central to developing an NHRS in a resource-constrained setting: developing a legislative framework to determine and define the system's boundaries and the roles all actors will play within it; creating or strengthening an institution capable of providing coordination, management and guidance to the system; and focusing on networking among institutions and individuals to harmonise, unify and strengthen the overall capacities of the research community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Development cooperation and emerging powers: New partners or old patterns?","field_subtitle":"Sidiropoulos E: Zed Books, May 2012","field_url":"http://www.saiia.org.za/feature/development-cooperation-and-emerging-powers-new-partners-or-old-patterns.html","body":"This new book explores the development policies of Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. Using a case study approach, the author charts the evolution of South-South cooperation and elaborates on the lessons learnt from traditional forms of external funding. Against the background of the changes in the international system of development cooperation, she also discusses the possibility for convergence or conflict in this transitional phase of the architecture of development cooperation. The emergence of new development partners should be seen as the starting point for the gradual emergence of more comprehensive and balanced international development cooperation, bringing greater gains to aid-dependent economies, including key international development issues such as international tax cooperation, sovereign debt workouts and international economic governance. Emerging economies want to be rule makers, not just rule takers, and increasingly are making their voices heard in international forums. In so doing they are eroding the West's 'monopoly' on developmental issues. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Development of an AFASS assessment and screening tool towards prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission in sub-Saharan Africa: A Delphi survey","field_subtitle":"Adegbehingbe SM, Paul-Ebhohimhen VA and Marais D: BMC Public Health 12(402), 6 June 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-402.pdf","body":"The World Health Organisation recommends HIV-infected mothers exclusively breastfeed their infants, unless replacement feeding is Acceptable, Feasible, Affordable, Sustainable and Safe (AFASS). The aim of this study was to develop and content validate an AFASS assessment tool that could be used for infant feeding counselling in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). An AFASS assessment tool consisting of 15 questions was developed based on the evidence and tools available regarding why replacement feeding is not AFASS in the region. Fifty-seven experts involved in prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) programmes in five SSA countries were approached to participate as members of the Delphi expert panel, reduced to a final panel of 15 experts. Thirteen of the 15 questions in the tool achieved consensus agreement among panel members and they also reached consensus regarding the applicability and appropriateness of the tool within the regional context. Suggestions made by the expert panel were incorporated into the revised tool. Ideally the revised tool should be tested by providers of infant feeding advice with the aim of adoption into routine PMTCT programmes in SSA, but within the context of the 2010 WHO guidelines which advocate a public health rather than an individualised approach, it may inform the WHO process of improving counselling tools for health care workers involved in PMTCT programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Drug safety needs global cooperation of drug regulators, officials say","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 19 May 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bwd5bv7","body":"On 18 May 2012, a few days before the 2012 World Health Assembly, the permanent mission of Brazil organised an informal meeting on sanitary regulation and how to improve global cooperation among drug regulatory agencies. Margaret Chan, Secretary-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), discussed the WHO drug prequalification programme, which she said was intended to give the opportunity for manufacturers from low- and middle-income countries to enter the market with straight quality and safety standards, and to enter into fair competition with other manufacturers. Many countries lacked capacity to pre-qualify their medical products, such as vaccines, as they did not have a functional national drug regulatory authority. These authorities often lacked resources and support from government and other stakeholders. Medicins sans Frontiers voiced its support for regional cooperation between regulatory agencies, adding that WHO should continue the development of norms and standards for phamacovigilence and support their implementation at country level. The Indian delegation identified lack of harmonisation of regulatory systems as a challenge and argued for the exchange and sharing of information among drug regulatory agencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic Development in Africa Report 2012: Structural transformation and sustainable development in Africa","field_subtitle":"United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD): April 2012","field_url":"http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/aldcafrica2012_embargo_en.pdf","body":"This report contends that Africa should not follow the same \u2018grow now, clean up later\u2019 approach that was adopted by currently industrialised countries. The continent should instead pursue a different path that reconciles economic growth with environmental sustainability. The report urges African governments to shift from traditional to modern, less-polluting energy sources, wherever these energy sources are economically and environmentally viable, and to promote a shift to organic agriculture to ensure environmentally sustainable increases in harvests, to bring higher prices to farmers and to keep rural populations engaged in farming rather than migrating to the cities. The report calls for developed countries to increase financial assistance to Africa, but emphasises that equally important will be greater technology transfer from developed and emerging countries to Africa, increased South-South cooperation in green technology use and adaptation, and more flexibilities in the design of the global intellectual property rights regime. More \"policy space\" will be needed for African governments so that they have the ability to use incoming funds and technology in the most efficient way for their specific circumstances. Each African country will have to design strategies and policies based on its own sectoral and resource priorities, environmental challenges, initial conditions and domestic capabilities. Countries that are already embarked on that path in Africa include Kenya, Mauritius and South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Emergence of biopharmaceutical innovators in China, India, Brazil, and South Africa as global competitors and collaborators","field_subtitle":"Rezaie R, McGahan AM, Frew SE, Daar AS and Singer PA: Health Research Policy and Systems 10(18), 6 June 2012","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-10-18.pdf","body":"Developed countries have traditionally been the source of most biopharmaceutical innovations as well as the destination for the resulting economic and health benefits. As a result, most prior research on this sector has focused on developed countries. This paper seeks to fill the gap in research on emerging markets by analysing factors that influence innovative activity in the indigenous biopharmaceutical sectors of China, India, Brazil and South Africa. Using qualitative research methodologies, the authors show how biopharmaceutical innovation is taking place within the entrepreneurial sectors of these emerging markets, identify common challenges that indigenous entrepreneurs face and highlight the key role played by the state. Their findings reveal that the transition to innovation by companies in the emerging markets is characterised by increased global integration. Further findings suggest that biopharmaceutical innovators in emerging markets are capitalising on opportunities to participate in the drug development value chain. In this way, they are developing capabilities and relationships for competing globally both with and against established companies headquartered in developed countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 137: Time to be counted: Pharmacists as a key untapped resource for public health  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploring the effectiveness of the output-based aid voucher programme to increase uptake of gender-based violence recovery services in Kenya: A qualitative evaluation","field_subtitle":"Njuki R, Okal J, Warren CE, Obare F, Abuya T, Kanya L et al: BMC Public Health 12(426), 12 June 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-426.pdf","body":"This qualitative study explored in detail the ability of output-based aid (OBA) voucher programmes to increase access to gender-based violence recovery (GBVR) services. It was conducted in 2010 and data was gathered through in-depth interviews (IDIs) with health managers, service providers, voucher management agency (VMA) managers and focus group discussions (FGDs) with voucher users, voucher non-users, voucher distributors and opinion leaders drawn from five programme sites in Kenya. The findings showed promising prospects for the uptake of OBA GBVR services among target population. However, a number of factors affect the uptake of the services, such as lack of general awareness of the GBVR services vouchers, lack of understanding of the benefit package, immediate financial needs of survivors, as well as stigma and cultural beliefs that undermine reporting of cases or seeking essential medical services. The researchers also found that accreditation of only hospitals to offer GBVR services undermined access to the services in rural areas, and low provider knowledge on GBVR services and lack of supplies undermined effective provision and management of GBVR services. They argue that there is a need to build the capacity of health care providers and police officers, strengthen the community strategy component of the OBA programme to promote the GBVR services voucher, and conduct widespread community education programmes aimed at prevention, ensuring survivors know how and where to access services and addressing stigma and cultural barriers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Family planning: A global handbook for providers: 2011 update","field_subtitle":"Zlidar V, Upadhyay U and Lande R: World Health Organisation, 2011","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2011/9780978856373_eng.pdf","body":"More than 120 million women worldwide want to prevent pregnancy, but they and their partners are not using contraception. The aim of this World Health Organisation (WHO) handbook is to help these people by enabling health care providers to give better care in this regard. According to WHO, reasons for the unmet need for family planning are many: services and supplies are unavailable; fear of social disapproval or partner\u2019s opposition; worries of side effects and health concerns; and lack of knowledge. The handbook highlights that family planning methods can be effective when properly provided, and when providers allow clients to choose their own contraceptive method and provide them with support and quality information. Many continuing clients need little support, and for them convenient access is key. The handbook contains specific guidance on twenty family planning methods and addresses many of providers\u2019 different needs, from correcting misunderstandings to managing side effects. It also covers related health issues that may arise in the context of family planning.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Forum proposed to tackle HIV and AIDS in Madagascar, Indian Ocean islands","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 21 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=95487","body":"Although Madagascar and its neighbouring islands states of Comoros, Mauritius and Seychelles have extremely low HIV prevalence rates at around 0.37% (or 24,000 confirmed cases), they are reporting problems with supplying health services to HIV-positive people. Recent stock-outs have sometimes left patients without treatment for months, exposing them to the risk of developing drug-resistance. The Malagasy Ministry of Health and its private sector distributor, Salama, have reported experiencing problems placing orders because suppliers are not interested in providing small quantities, making it difficult to keep adequate supplies of antiretrovirals in stock. One possibility being explored is putting in place a central purchasing mechanism for the four Indian Ocean countries. This facility would fall under the oversight of the High Level Partnership Forum, which is expected to be set up after discussions with the Indian Ocean Commission, an inter-governmental cooperation group. The forum would include Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Ministers of Health, networks of people living with HIV, support groups and various financial partners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"From deprivation to distribution: Is global poverty becoming a matter of national inequality?","field_subtitle":"Sumner A: Institute of Development Studies Working Paper 2012(324), June 2012","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/Wp394.pdf","body":"This paper argues that many of the world\u2019s extreme poor live in countries where the total cost of ending extreme poverty is not prohibitively high as a percentage of gross domestic product. In the not-too-distant future, the author argues that most of the world\u2019s poor people will live in countries that have the domestic financial scope to end extreme poverty and, in time, moderate poverty. This calls in the authors opinion for a (re)framing of poverty as a matter of national distribution and national social and political contracts between elites, middle classes and poor people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Price Reporting Mechanism now online","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/hiv/amds/price/hdd/","body":"The new interface for the World Health Organisation\u2019s Global Price Reporting Mechanism (GPRM) is now available online. This improved interface enables users to search for the price and volumes sold of HIV medicines (all, or selected formulations), in countries, regions, by income category, by Human Development Index category, by manufacturer and by type of manufacturer (generic or innovator). New data has been included for trends of price and volumes sold. All data is quality controlled, as duplicates have been removed, suspicious data are quarantined and queried before they are uploaded. Data for 2011 and 2012 are now available from GPRM in the public domain as they are uploaded for the first time.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Going public to improve investment in African agriculture","field_subtitle":"Smaller C: International Institute for Sustainable Development, October 2011","field_url":"http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2012/going_public_improve_investment_ag.pdf","body":"The culture of secrecy that surrounds agricultural land deals raises concerns about government misconduct in relation to issues of public interest, according to this article. There is a growing global consensus in favour of contract transparency and a few governments have started publishing contracts or improving legislation on transparency, with Liberia leading the way. After a review and renegotiation of all extractive industry concessions and contracts, President Sirleaf introduced the Liberia Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative Act (the LEITI Act), which requires all payments by individual companies and operating contracts and licenses to be published and reviewed on the LEITI website. This bold step has not deterred investors, as initially feared. Other countries are following suit. Ghana has also started publishing contracts in the oil sector, and Ethiopia has started making certain contracts public, the article notes. Some countries, including Sierra Leone, Ghana and Liberia, require large investment projects to be ratified in parliament, ensuring a layer of public scrutiny.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Government must enforce Kenyan Constitution to protect gays, sex workers ","field_subtitle":"Release Political Prisoners Trust: Pambazuka News, 16 May 2012","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/82201","body":"In this press statement, human rights organisation Release Political Prisoners (RPP) Trust registers its support for the position taken by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights to promote the rights of lesbians, gays, bi-sexual and transgender people as well as commercial sex workers. RPP notes that the constitution protects all Kenyans against any form of discrimination and that the bill of rights guarantees all persons, non-heterosexuals included, all rights and entitlements under that Chapter, including the right to health and education. Statistics indicate that up to 15% of new HIV infections in Kenya are attributable to gay men and 6 out every 10 gay men are in heterosexual relationships. Yet discrimination hampers access to health services for these marginalised groups. Even when they get infected, they rarely have access to treatment and are reportedly often discriminated against by health workers. RPP notes several incidences in the recent past where gay men and women have been threatened and attacked at health facilities while seeking treatment for HIV. It argues that these attacks can be directly attributed to the preaching of hatred against gays and lesbians by religious leaders, and calls on the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) to consider investigating these religious groups for hate speech and for promoting discrimination against non-heterosexuals and commercial sex workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health indicators of disaster risk management in the context of the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: May 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hia/green_economy/indicators_disasters1.pdf","body":"Health system resilience and capacity for emergency risk management are critical to effective disaster management supporting sustainability goals. That is one of the key messages emerging from this paper by the World Health Organisation (WHO). WHO also found that monitoring and reporting on the human health aspects of disasters are important for strengthening disaster risk management, and should be included in government measures to improve risk assessment, prevention, preparedness response and recovery from disasters. This will help reduce health impacts, particularly the loss of human lives, WHO argues. Building health system resilience and capacity for emergency risk management, particularly at a community level, is also critical to effective disaster management, which also supports wider sustainability objectives. Indicators of health system resilience to natural disasters include the proportion of health facilities, new and improved, to withstand hazards, including access to reliable clean energy and water supplies, daily and in emergencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health indicators of sustainable agriculture, food and nutrition security in the context of the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: May 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hia/green_economy/indicators_food.pdf","body":"Many food-related diseases and conditions \u2013 including undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency, and obesity as well as food safety risks and farmworker health \u2013 are interlinked, according to this report. Sustainable food policies that place the promotion and protection of health at the core of strategies from the farm field to the dinner plate can help advance the provision of sustainable, quality foods for all, across the supply chain and the human life-cycle, the World Health Organisation (WHO) argues. WHO offers three health indicators that can be used to monitor progress. 1. Health outcomes: prevalence of anaemia in women of reproductive age; prevalence of stunting in children under 5 years; and prevalence of obesity in children under five and in adults. 2. Food access and dietary quality in association with sustainable foods production: adequate access to protein supply; excessive adult saturated fat consumption; household dietary diversity; and prevalence/incidence of foodborne disease outbreaks. 3. Food market/trade policies supporting health and sustainability: foods that comply with international food safety standards, including hormone, pesticides and antibiotic residues; number of countries that have phased out use of antibiotics as growth promoters; and assessment of health and sustainability impacts in agricultural trade negotiations, policies and plans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health indicators of sustainable energy in the context of the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: May 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hia/green_economy/indicators_energy1.pdf","body":"Health offers a universal indicator of progress in attaining the United Nations Secretary General's goals for sustainable energy for all, argues the World Health Organisation (WHO) in this report. Citing estimates of close to 1.3 million deaths annually due to urban air pollution and 2 million death to household air pollution, WHO notes that this health burden could be avoided with more efficient, better used and better distributed energy technologies. WHO puts forward some key health-relevant indicators of progress on sustainable energy, including: household access to modern, low-emission heating/cooking technologies; energy access at community health facilities, particularly for reliable electricity; health burden from air pollution-related diseases and injuries; health equity impacts of energy policies including access by poor and vulnerable populations; clean electricity generation across the energy supply chain in terms of reduced pollution; and greater efficiencies and reliance on renewable energy sources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health worker satisfaction and motivation: An empirical study of incomes, allowances and working conditions in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Gow J, George G, Mwamba S, Ingombe L and Mutinta G: International Journal of Business and Management 7(10): 37-48, May 2012","field_url":"http://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijbm/article/view/14490/11395","body":"In this study, researchers in Zambia examined the relationship between health worker incomes and their satisfaction and motivation. Cross-sectional data collection was undertaken using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Data was collected in three regions that represent extremes in overall remuneration and benefits. Lusaka represented the favourable area while Monze and Nyimba represented less favourable areas for study in Zambia. The researchers found that there are hefty disparities between different health workers. There are also enormous salary differentials for the same workers between the public and private sectors. These salary differentials explain the experience of public-to-private migration of health workers as well as casual private sector work by public sector health workers, they argue. In addition, there are negligible efforts by government to reduce the benefits gaps among key public health cadres. The low incomes received by public health workers in Zambia have many negative implications: it begets absenteeism, results in low output, poor quality health care, and the departure of health workers to the private sector and overseas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV and AIDS workplace policy launched in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Kigali Konnect: 25 May 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.kigalikonnect.com/article/hiv-workplace-policy-launched-in-uganda.html","body":"The Ugandan government has launched an HIV and AIDS workplace policy in a bid to promote freedom from stigma and non-discrimination for all employees, according to this article. The policy, spearheaded by the Ministry of East African Affairs, will address discrimination against employees living with HIV or AIDS, ensure that they are provided with antiretrovirals, promote gender equity and equality, help with management of HIV-positive employees to enable them achieve their potential, as well as guaranteeing them total confidentiality. The policy acknowledges that HIV and AIDS have continued to impact negatively on the country\u2019s economy, through the loss of skilled labour, absenteeism from work due to stigma and increased healthcare expenditure. The policy covers all employees except the police and army, which do not recruit people living with HIV, even if they meet all other requirements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"How Africa can raise money through diaspora bonds","field_subtitle":"Gumede W, Monyae D and Motshidi K: Pambazuka News 589, 13 June 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/82906","body":"According to this article, Africa needs to innovatively diversify the way in which it raises finances for development, arguing that diaspora bonds are one way of doing this. World Bank and International Monetary Fund figures have put remittances from Africans abroad to the continent at between US$25 billion and US$34 billion a year. Unrecorded informal flows of remittances were most probably at least a third of this amount. The authors recommend that Africa should leverage this African diaspora money more aggressively and innovatively for development. The idea of issuing diaspora bonds should be considered as a viable alternative to raise finance for Africa\u2019s development. Some of these remittances from Africans abroad could be channeled into buying such diaspora bonds, which can be specifically used to finance Africa\u2019s development in terms of infrastructure or health. Diaspora bonds are long-term sources of finance and therefore less volatile and they may also allow Africa to circumvent the conditionalities that accompany development and investment finance from both old industrial and new emerging powers. However, poor governance and lack of democracy in some African governments could mean potential African diaspora investors may be wary. The article considers India and Israel, two countries where diaspora bonds have been used successfully as model examples of how Africa could proceed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Information systems on human resources for health: A global review","field_subtitle":"Riley PL, Zuber A, Vindigni SM, Gupta N, Verani A, Sunderland NL, Friedman M, Zurn P et al: Human Resources for Health 10(7), 30 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-10-7.pdf","body":"Globally, there is a lack of data tracking the movements of health workers within health systems. In this study, researchers aimed to collate what research exists in the form of a review of the available literature on implementation processes for human resources information systems (HRIS). They retrieved 11,923 articles in four languages published in peer-reviewed and grey literature, of which 95 articles with relevant HRIS information were reviewed, mostly from the grey literature, which comprised 84 % of all documents. Whereas a high percentage of countries reported the capability to generate workforce supply and deployment data, few systems were documented as being used for HRH planning and decision-making. Of the systems examined, only 23% explicitly stated they collect data on workforce attrition. Most countries experiencing crisis levels of HRH shortages (56%) did not report data on health worker qualifications or professional credentialing as part of their HRIS. This study is intended to serve as a baseline for scaling up HRIS at national, regional and global levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrated biological and behavioral surveillance survey (IBBS): Nairobi","field_subtitle":"International Organisation for Migration: April 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cah2ayq","body":"This integrated biological and behavioural surveillance survey of migrant sex workers in Nairobi, Kenya's capital, reveals that HIV prevalence among migrant and Kenyan female sex workers stands at 23.1%, more than three times the national average of 6.3%. However, Kenyan sex workers were found to have better knowledge of HIV and health-seeking behaviour than their migrant counterparts, and nearly all Kenyan female sex workers (98%) had heard of sexual transmitted infections, compared to 70% of migrant female sex workers. The study was conducted in 2010, when just over half of the 628 participants said they had ever tested before for HIV, and 25.8% did not know that condoms protected against HIV. Only 72% of migrant female sex workers knew where to go for an HIV test, compared to 92% of women in the general population. Services for migrant sex workers need to be integrated into programmes for general sex workers, the authors argue. However, special care must be given to the language and cultural needs of the migrants. The authors also propose that role players lobby the Kenyan government to provide a legal framework for the regulation of sex work, which would increase access to services and provide protection for sex workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"IPEN Conference: Global Toxics-Free Future Forum","field_subtitle":"Huffines J: CIVICUS, 11 June 2012","field_url":"https://civicus.org/images/stories/IPEN_Conference_CIVICUS_remarks.pdf","body":"In this statement, issued before the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), held in Brazil from 20-22 June 2012, CIVICUS affirms that the Zero Draft outcome document for Rio+20 must advance a rights-based approach to sustainable development that reaffirms past political commitments, and in particular, the need to protect civil society space, ensure maximum public participation and advance democratic freedoms, by establishing legally binding commitments which support the three dimensions of sustainable development: social justice, environmental sustainability and economic development. CIVICUS argues that the reason why global governance is failing so badly is partly because we have multinationals whose operations are now global beyond the national jurisdiction of any one government to regulate, police or manage. States have reneged on the democratic values they committed themselves to uphold, and governments have become less accountable to the people. Universal norms and standards are being ignored or sidestepped by new rules that favour markets. To achieve and maintain sustainable development, CIVICUS urges UN member states to commit to improve continuously the implementation and enforcement of environmental policies and legislation, with no regression on environmental protection. Commitments to the principle of non-regression at all levels should be a major objective of Rio+20.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Local perceptions of intermittent screening and treatment for malaria in school children on the south coast of Kenya","field_subtitle":"Okello G, Ndegwa SN, Halliday KE, Hanson K, Brooker SJ and Jones C: Malaria Journal 11(185), 8 June 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-185.pdf","body":"Intermittent screening and treatment (IST) of school children for malaria is one possible intervention strategy that could help reduce the burden of malaria among school children. This study was conducted alongside a cluster-randomised trial to investigate local perceptions of school-based IST among parents and other stakeholders on the Kenyan south coast. Six out of the 51 schools receiving the IST intervention were purposively sampled, and 22 focus group discussions and 17 in-depth interviews were conducted with parents and other key stakeholders involved in the implementation of school health programmes in the district. Results showed that the use of alternative anti-malarial drugs with simpler regimens was generally preferred. General consensus was that health workers were best placed to undertake the screening and provide treatment, and although teachers' involvement in the programme is critical, most participants were opposed to teachers taking finger-prick blood samples from children. There was also a strong demand for the distribution of mosquito nets to augment IST. Future research should carefully consider the various roles of teachers, community health workers, and health workers, and the use of anti-malarial drugs with simpler regimens.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Malaria resurgence: A systematic review and assessment of its causes","field_subtitle":"Cohen JM, Smith DL, Cotter C, Ward A, Yamey G, Sabot OJ and Moonen B: Malaria Journal 11(122), 24 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-122.pdf","body":"Considerable declines in malaria have accompanied increased funding for control since the year 2000, but historical failures to maintain gains against the disease underscore the fragility of these successes. In this study, researchers conducted a systematic review of the literature to identify historical malaria resurgence events. They identified 75 resurgence events in 61 countries, occurring from the 1930s through the 2000s. Almost all resurgence events (91%) were attributed at least in part to the weakening of malaria control programmes for a variety of reasons, of which resource constraints were the most common (57%). Over half of the events (59%) were attributed in part to increases in the intrinsic potential for malaria transmission, while only 32% were attributed to vector or drug resistance. Given that most malaria resurgences have been linked to weakening of control programmes, this study highlights the need to develop practical solutions to the financial and operational threats to effectively sustaining today's successful malaria control programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawian president vows to repeal gay ban","field_subtitle":"IsiVuba U: IRwanda News, 21 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.irwanda.rw/news/africa/item/11884-malawis-president-vows-to-repeal-gay-ban.html","body":"President Joyce Banda has announced her intention to repeal Malawi's laws gainst homosexual acts, going against a trend in Africa in which gays, lesbians and transgendered people are being increasingly singled out for prosecution. President Banda, who assumed the presidency in April 2012 when her predecessor died, made the announcement in her first state of the nation address, vowing to repeal indecency and unnatural acts laws. Repealing the law requires a parliamentary vote. The authors caution that it is unclear how much political support Banda would have for these changes. In South Africa, the only African country with laws protecting gay rights, HIV and AIDS activist Mark Heywood said Banda would have international support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring health gains from sustainable development","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: May 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hia/green_economy/sustainable_development_summary1.pdf","body":"According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), measuring health can tell us how well development is advancing the three pillars of sustainability, namely social, environmental and economic sustainability. It therefore stands to reason that indicators of healthy development can help identify success stories, barriers and the extent to which benefits of greener economies are equitably distributed. Examples of health-relevant indicators for six Rio+20 themes are presented here: sustainable cities, food, jobs, water, energy and disaster management. WHO has identified three key ways in which health can both contribute to, and benefit from, greener and cleaner development. First, achieving universal health coverage will result in healthier people who can contribute economically and socially. Reducing gender, employment and housing inequities will also improve health. Second, strategies need to be designed specifically to enhance health gains from sustainable development investments and decisions \u2013 health gains from development are not automatic. Third, governments and other role players should adopt health indicators to measure progress/achievements in sustainable development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring workload for tuberculosis service provision at primary care level: A methodology","field_subtitle":"Blok L, van den Hof S, Mfinanga SG, Kahwa A, Ngadaya E, Oey L and Dieleman M: Human Resources for Health 10(11), 28 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-10-11.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers developed and piloted a methodology to establish tuberculosis-related work load at primary care level for clinical and laboratory staff. They found that workload was determined by the nature of the activities that staff had to implement, the amount of time they had to perform them and their frequency, as well as patient load. Of particular importance, the researchers note, is the patient pathway for diagnosis and treatment and the frequency of clinic visits. They recommend using observation with checklists, clocking, interviews and review of registers to assess the contribution of different factors on the workload.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New bill to protect traditional knowledge passed in South Africa ","field_subtitle":"New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 17 May 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d9uhaxv","body":"South Africa\u2019s Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill, which is hoped to pave the way for the protection of the country\u2019s traditional medicinal knowledge, has finally been passed by Parliament and is awaiting the approval of President Jacob Zuma. The bill aims to: improve the livelihoods of indigenous knowledge holders and communities, benefit the national economy, prevent bio-piracy, provide a legal framework for protection and empower local communities and prevent exploitation of indigenous knowledge. Indigenous peoples in South Africa and the rest of the world have put forward the argument that knowledge of the use of certain plants, for example, has been developed over several generations, and ask why only the present generation should benefit. They also question why some governments or corporates are reaping the rewards of indigenous knowledge through patented products when the knowledge was born from the communities of indigenous peoples. The difficulty in answering these questions, according to law experts, is that indigenous knowledge systems do not have a clearly devised timeline to the origin or source of the knowledge. It still proves very difficult for proponents of indigenous intellectual property to trump corporates wanting to capitalise on indigenous knowledge systems, more especially within a western legal framework. Meanwhile, the main critique of the new Bill is that it incorporates traditional knowledge into existing law, rather than being governed by its own separate act, which was the main objection raised during public hearings on the bill. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Newborn survival in Malawi: A decade of change and future implications","field_subtitle":"Zimba E, Kinney MV, Kachale F, Waltensperger KZ, Blencowe H, Colbourn T et al: Health Policy and Planning 27: iii88-iii103, March 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_3/iii88.full?etoc","body":"Malawi is one of two low-income sub-Saharan African countries on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG 4) for child survival despite high fertility and HIV rates and low health worker density. In this study, researchers examined changes in newborn survival in the decade 2000-2010, and assessed national and external funding, as well as policy and programme changes. Compared with the 1990s, they found that progress towards MDGs 4 and 5 accelerated considerably from 2000 to 2010. They argue that a significant increase in facility births and other health system changes, including increased human resources, likely contributed to the 3.5% annual decline in neonatal mortality rate. The initial entry point for newborn care in Malawi was mainly through facility initiatives, such as Kangaroo Mother Care. This transitioned to an integrated and comprehensive approach at community and facility level through the Community-Based Maternal and Newborn Care package, now being implemented in 17 of 28 districts. Addressing quality gaps, especially for care at birth in facilities, and including newborn interventions in child health programmes, will be critical to the future agenda of newborn survival in Malawi, the paper concludes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Newborn survival in Uganda: A decade of change and future implications","field_subtitle":"Mbonye AK, Sentongo M, Mukasa GK, Byaruhanga R, Sentumbwe-Mugisa O, Waiswa P et al: Health Policy and Planning 27: iii104-iii117, March 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_3/iii104.full?etoc","body":"As part of a multi-country analysis, the authors of this paper examined changes for newborn survival in Uganda over the past decade through mortality and health system coverage indicators as well as national and external funding for health, and changes in policies and programmes. Between 2000 and 2010 Uganda\u2019s neonatal mortality rate reduced by 2.2% per year, which is greater than the regional average rate of decline but lower than national reductions in maternal mortality and under-five mortality. Attention and policy change for newborn health is comparatively recent, the authors note. In 2006, a national Newborn Steering Committee was launched, which was given a mandate from the Ministry of Health to advise on newborn survival issues. This multi-disciplinary and inter-agency network of stakeholders has been able to preside over a number of important policy changes at various levels of facility care, education and training, in addition to community-based service delivery through village health teams and changes to essential drugs and commodities. The committee\u2019s comprehensive reach has enabled rapid policy change and increased attention to newborn survival in a relatively short space of time. Translating this favourable policy environment into district-level implementation and high quality services is now the priority.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Nineteenth International Aids Conference: 22-27 July 2012, Washington DC","field_subtitle":"Registration open ","field_url":"http://www.aids2012.org","body":"The theme of this year\u2019s conference is \u2018Turning the tide together\u2019. Policy makers, persons living with HIV and other individuals committed to ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic will meet to assess global progress, evaluate recent scientific developments and lessons learnt, and collectively chart a course forward. The programme will present new scientific knowledge and offer many opportunities for structured dialogue on the major issues facing the global response to HIV. Sessions will focus on the latest issues in HIV science, policy and practice and will also seek to share key research findings, lessons learned, best practices, as well as identify gaps in knowledge. The conference will feature abstract-driven sessions, a daily plenary session, a variety of symposia sessions, professional development workshops, and independently organised satellite meetings. In addition, the conference programme will include a number of programme activities, such as the Global Village and the Youth Programme, which are an integral aspect of the International AIDS Conference.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Open letter to President Obama regarding land grabs and food security in Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Oakland Institute and the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia: 17 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/Obama_open_letter_ethiopia.pdf","body":"In this open letter to the United States President, the Oakland Institute and the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia announce their submission of a petition signed by over 8,000 supporters of the indigenous and local communities of Gambella, Ethiopia - 70,000 people in all - who are being forcibly relocated to make land available for large-scale agriculture. There are plans to relocate an additional 150,000 people, most of whom are subsistence farmers who have been able, until now, to feed their families without receiving government or foreign aid over the last twenty years. The Oakland Institute's field research in Ethiopia has reported allegations of violence, coercion in and unrealised benefits for relocated communities, confirmed by a Human Rights Watch study earlier in 2012. The Ethiopian government's plans for economic growth are reported to include this large scale land acquisition in Gambella and the Lower Omo Valley, where half a million people are projected to lose their lands. Ethiopia is one of the largest recipients of US development aid (more than $1 billion a year since 2007), and the letter points to the food insecurity that will result from these trends. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"People\u2019s Health Assembly","field_subtitle":"6-11 July 2012, Cape Town","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/pha3/registration","body":"The People\u2019s Health Assembly (PHA), organised by the People's Health Movement (PHM), is a global event bringing together health activists from across the world to share experiences, analyse global health situation, develop civil society positions and to develop strategies which promote health for all. It will look at forms of action to address identified challenges and build capacity among health activists to act. It is an opportunity for PHM as a whole to reflect on the global struggle, to review and reassess, to redirect and re-inspire. PHA3 aims to impact directly in the struggle for social change: for health for all, decent living conditions for all, work in dignity for all, equity and environmental justice. The programme is now available at http://www.phmovement.org/en/pha3/programme","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy brief 29: Global actors in health policy","field_subtitle":"SEATINI , TARSC in EQUINET, ECSA HC: June 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Polbrief29%20global%20actors.pdf","body":"In 1948, the World Health Organisation (WHO) was established as the agency for directing and coordinating authority on international health work, particularly in setting norms and standards and policies in public health , establishing and maintaining effective collaboration with the United Nations, specialised agencies, governmental health administrations, professional groups and such organisations as may be deemed appropriate, furnishing appropriate technical assistance in emergencies, necessary upon request or acceptance of governments (WHO Constitution Chapter II Art 2) By 2011 many new institutions exist in global health, with different governance mechanisms and funding, powers and mandates. This brief explores the range and influence of global health actors and the implications for health diplomacy within east and southern Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor-quality antimalarial drugs in southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Nayyar GML, Breman JG, Newton PN and Herrington J: The Lancet Infectious Diseases 12(6): 488-496, June 2012","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(12)70064-6/abstract","body":"Poor-quality antimalarial drugs lead to drug resistance and inadequate treatment, posing a threat to vulnerable populations and jeopardising progress in combating malaria. In this study, the authors reviewed published and unpublished studies reporting chemical analyses and assessments of packaging of antimalarial drugs. Of 1,437 samples of drugs in five classes from seven countries in southeast Asia, 497 (35%) failed chemical analysis, 423 (46%) of 919 failed packaging analysis, and 450 (36%) of 1,260 were classified as falsified. In 21 surveys of drugs from six classes from 21 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, 796 (35%) of 2,297 failed chemical analysis, 28 (36%) of 77 failed packaging analysis, and 79 (20%) of 389 were classified as falsified. Data were insufficient to identify the frequency of substandard (products resulting from poor manufacturing) antimalarial drugs, and packaging analysis data were scarce. Concurrent interventions and a multifaceted approach are needed to define and eliminate criminal production, distribution, and poor manufacturing of antimalarial drugs. Empowering national medicine regulatory authorities to protect the global drug supply is more important than ever, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Pre-marital sexual debut and its associated factors among in-school adolescents in Eastern Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Oljira L, Berhane Y and Worku A: BMC Public Health 12(375), 24 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-375.pdf","body":"With increased levels of school enrolment, more adolescents in Ethiopia are in school today than ever before, but few studies have assessed the sexual behaviour of these learners. This study addresses the research gap by assessing pre-marital sex and factors associated with it among school-going adolescents in Eastern Ethiopia. A cross-sectional school-based study was conducted using a facilitator-guided, self-administered questionnaire. Respondents were students attending regular school classes in fourteen high schools. Results showed that about one in four respondents who were unmarried (24.8%) reported pre-marital sex \u2013 of these 28.8% were males and 14.7% were females. Pre-marital sexual debut was more common among adolescents who had their parents in urban areas, who received higher pocket money per month, who perceived low self-educational rank and who lived in rented houses. The girls and those who were less influenced by external pressure were more protected against pre-marital sexual debut than their counterparts. The authors argue that public health interventions should consider the broader determinants of premarital sex, including the ecological factors in which the behaviour occurs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Predictors of condom use and refusal among the population of Free State province in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Chandran T, Berkvens D, Chikobvu P, N\u00f6stlinger C, Colebunders R, Williams B and Speybroeck N: BMC Public Health 12(381), 28 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-381.pdf","body":"This study investigated the extent and predictors of condom use and condom refusal in the Free State province in South Africa. Through a household survey, 5,837 adults were interviewed. Eighty-three per cent of the respondents had used condoms before, of which 38% always used them, 61% used them during the last sexual intercourse and 9% had refused in the past to use them. The analysis indicated that the strongest predictor of condom use was its perceived need, followed by 'knowledge of correct use of condom' and condom availability, as well as being young in age, single and having a higher education. The strongest predictor of condom refusal was shame associated with condoms, as well as lacking knowledge about the use of condoms. The authors conclude that further improvement in correct and consistent use of condoms will require targeted interventions. In addition to existing social marketing campaigns, tailored approaches should focus on establishing the perceived need for condom-use and improving skills for correct use. They should also incorporate interventions to reduce the shame associated with condoms and individual counselling of those likely to refuse condoms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Priorities for developing countries in the global response to non-communicable diseases","field_subtitle":"Maher D, Ford N and Unwin N: Globalization and Health 8(14), 11 June 2012","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-8-14.pdf","body":"The growing global burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is now killing 36 million people each year and needs urgent and comprehensive action, according to this article. The authors provide an overview of key critical issues that need to be resolved to ensure that recent political commitments are translated into practical action. These include categorising and prioritising NCDs in order to inform external funding commitments and priorities for intervention, and finding the right balance between the relative importance of treatment and prevention to ensure that responses cover those at risk in addition to those who are already sick. Governments should also define the appropriate health systems response to address the needs of patients with diseases characterised by long duration and often slow progression, and address research needs, in particular translational research in the delivery of care, as well as ensure sustained funding to support the global NCD response.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Problem drinking and physical intimate partner violence against women: Evidence from a national survey in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Tumwesigye N, Kyomuhendo G, Greenfield T and Wanyenze RK: BMC Public Health 12(399), 6 June 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-399.pdf","body":"This paper assesses the patterns and levels of physical intimate partner violence (PIPV) against women and its association with problem drinking of their sexual partners in a nationwide survey in Uganda. The data came from the women's dataset in the Uganda Demographic and Health Survey of 2006. Results show that 48% of the women had experienced PIPV while 49.5% reported that their partners got drunk at least sometimes. The prevalence of both PIPV and problem drinking significantly varied by age group, education level, wealth status, and region and to a less extent by occupation, type of residence, education level and occupation of the partner. Women with a higher wealth status or education level were less likely to experience violence. Women whose partners got drunk often were six times more likely to report violence compared to those whose partners never drank alcohol. The authors conclude that problem drinking among male partners is a strong determinant of PIPV among women in Uganda. PIPV prevention measures should address reduction of problem drinking among men. Long-term prevention measures should address empowerment of women including ensuring higher education, employment and increased income.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Protecting breastfeeding ","field_subtitle":"Baby Milk Action: 19 May 2012","field_url":"http://info.babymilkaction.org/pressrelease/pressrelease19may12","body":"Despite the positive health effects of breast feeding, and adverse health effects of breastmilk substitutes, particularly in conditions of poverty, Nestl\u00e9 is reported by Baby Milk Action to be continuing promotion of the use of formula. The authors report that Nestl\u00e9 has backtracked on a past commitment not to advertise formula brands in \u2018high risk\u2019 developing countries. The authors report that the World Health Organisation's Guidelines for the safe preparation, storage and handling of powdered infant formula are not adequately included on labels of its products, that health workers in India are being included in sponsored events, and that it is pushing in Philippines, as part of an industry alliance, for a weakening of current law in this area. The World Health Assembly (WHA) has called for companies to bring their activities at every level into line with the International Code on Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and subsequent WHA Resolutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional economic outlook: Sub-Saharan Africa: Sustaining growth amid global uncertainty","field_subtitle":"International Monetary Fund: April 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/reo/2012/afr/eng/sreo0412.pdf","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa continues to record strong economic growth, despite the weaker global economic environment. Regional output rose by 5% in 2011, with growth set to increase slightly in 2012, helped by still-strong commodity prices, new resource exploitation, and the improved domestic conditions that have underpinned several years of solid trend growth in the region\u2019s low-income countries. But there is variation in performance across the region, with output in middle-income countries tracking more closely the global slowdown and with some sub-regions adversely affected, at least temporarily, by drought. Threats to the outlook include the risk of intensified financial stresses in the euro area spilling over into a further slowing of the global economy and the possibility of an oil price surge triggered by rising geopolitical tensions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional integration for food security in East Africa: The role of CAADP","field_subtitle":"Afun-Ogidan D: GREAT Insights 1(4): 8-9, 6 June 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bp2rpe6","body":"The East African Community (EAC) has made substantial progress on its regional integration agenda. Within a short period of time, it has been able to attain a common market status and is currently working towards establishing a monetary union by 2012, according to this article. Given that the region is prone to food shortages and drought, promoting regional integration and cooperation around agriculture has the potential to help the EAC address its and food security challenges. The author argues that NEPAD\u2019s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Plan (CAADP) should be used as a regional integration and food security tool. The EAC Secretariat is working towards developing a regional CAADP compact in 2012, adopting a bottom-up approach, building on the existing national compacts and addressing challenges shared among partner states. Most stakeholders within the region agree that a regional CAADP process is the appropriate framework to stimulate improved coordination of regional agricultural initiatives addressing food security. Stakeholders have called for stronger commitment and action from the regional level that allows farmers, especially smallholders, to move beyond subsistence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration open for 2012 CIVICUS World Assembly","field_subtitle":"Montreal, Canada, 3 to 7 September 2012","field_url":"http://civicusassembly.org/About.php","body":"The 2012 CIVICUS World Assembly intends to be more than the primary annual gathering of civil society and other stakeholders of society. It will also see the start of a process of defining a new charter of citizen demands. This comes in response to recent changes in civil society organisation, marked by crisis, volatility and rising dissent, in which the relationships between the state, business, citizens and other parts of the social sphere are being redefined and renegotiated. The World Assembly has three themes: 1. Changing nations through citizens: how can the power of citizen action be maximised to achieve social and political change at the national level? 2. Building partnerships for social innovation: what new partnerships are needed for change, how can they be brokered and what principles should underpin them? 3. Redefining global governance: what needs to change in multilateral processes and institutions to enable effective citizen\u2019s participation?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of  everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health","field_subtitle":"Anand Grover, UN Human Rights Council 20th Session Agenda item ","field_url":"http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session20/A-HRC-20-15_en.pdf","body":"The Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health considers in this report occupational health as an integral component of the right to health. The report outlines international human rights and other instruments related to occupational health, and it addresses occupational health in the informal economy, focusing on the needs of vulnerable and marginalized groups. It also addresses the obligation of States to  formulate, implement, monitor and evaluate occupational health laws and policies, as well as the requirement for the participation of workers at all stages of those activities. The discussion of State obligations is followed by the analysis of such occupational health issues as environmental and industrial hygiene; prevention and reduction of the working population's exposure to harmful substances; challenges posed by emerging technologies; minimization of hazards in the workplace; and availability and accessibility of occupational health services. The Special Rapporteur then elaborates on the prospective and retrospective components of accountability, as well as remedies for violations related to occupational health. The Special Rapporteur concludes his report with a number of recommendations aimed at strengthening occupational health, as a component of the right to health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"SA\u2019s foreign policy gets more foreign as time goes by","field_subtitle":"Naidoo J: Daily Maverick, 6 June 2012","field_url":"http://dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2012-06-06-our-foreign-policy-gets-more-foreign-as-time-goes-by","body":"The author argues that the stalemate that emerged following the contest between Jean Ping of Gabon and Nkosasana Dlamini-Zuma for the position of African Union Commission Chairperson in Addis Ababa had repercussions for South Africa's foreign policy in Africa, paralysed the institution and divuded it at a time of need. He argued that South Africa should rather have sought consensus among African leaders than choosing a public and political way of challenge, which he observes created camps along lines of language and politics. Naidoo warned that South Africa\u2019s desire to be the dominant economic force on the continent should not raise barriers to effective African unity and urged African leaders to resolve the stalemate before the next AU head of state conference in July 2012.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Second Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"Beijing, China: 31 October-3 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/","body":"The Symposium will focus on the science to accelerate universal health coverage around the world. It will cover three main themes: knowledge translation; state-of-the-art health systems research; and health systems research methodologies. There will also be three cross-cutting themes: innovations in health systems research; neglected priorities or populations in health systems research; financing and capacity building for health systems research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Seeds of Freedom: How agri-business threatens Africa\u2019s food security","field_subtitle":"African Biodiversity Network (ABN) and the Gaia Foundation: May 2012","field_url":"http://seedsoffreedom.info/","body":"A new film from the African Biodiversity Network (ABN) and the Gaia Foundation, narrated by actor Jeremy Irons, addresses pervasive myths about agriculture, development and Africa\u2019s ability to feed herself. Africa is under growing pressure to turn to hybrid seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and genetically modified organisms in an effort to scale up agricultural production. In April 2012, President Obama of the United States launched the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, which will see the combined forces of agribusiness giants Monsanto, Syngenta, Cargill, DuPont and Yara investing US$3 billion into creating new markets in Africa, amidst claims that this will solve hunger and malnutrition. In the process, the enormous wealth and diversity of locally adapted seeds and farmer knowledge is ignored, undermined and eroded by policy makers. \u2018Seeds of Freedom\u2019 shows how powerful corporate interests are destroying the biological diversity of the world\u2019s crops. As the global food supply becomes dependent on just a few seed varieties, owned by a handful of corporations, global food insecurity is set to deepen.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Squeezing Africa dry: Behind every land grab is a water grab","field_subtitle":"GRAIN: 11 June 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d9zse5n","body":"The tensions over huge land purchases and leases by foreign companies and governments in south western Ethiopia illustrate the central importance of access to water in the global land rush, according to this article. Hidden behind the current scramble for land is a world-wide struggle for control over water. Those who have been buying up vast stretches of farmland in recent years understand that the access to water they gain, often included for free and without restriction, may well be worth more over the long-term, than the land deals themselves.  In recent years, Saudi Arabian companies have been acquiring millions of hectares of lands in developing countries to produce food to ship back home, as their country lacks water needed for agricultural production. Indian companies are doing the same, as their country\u2019s aquifers have become depleted by decades of unsustainable irrigation. All of the land deals in Africa involve large-scale, industrial agriculture operations that will consume massive amounts of water. These water resources are lifelines for local farmers, pastoralists and other rural communities. These mega-irrigation schemes will not only put the livelihoods of millions of rural communities at risk, they will threaten the freshwater sources of entire regions, says GRAIN.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Addis Ababa Declaration on Global Health Equity: A call to action","field_subtitle":"World Federation Of Public Health Associations (WFPHA): May 2012","field_url":"http://www.wfpha.org/tl_files/doc/about/Addis_Declaration.pdf","body":"More than 3,000 delegates from approximately 120 countries assembled at the 13th World Congress on Public Health in Addis Ababa from the 23rd to 27th of April 2012. In this statement, delegates re-affirm their commitment to international agreements enshrining health as a human right. They also pledge to promote innovative research to generate evidence on the social determinants of health and health equity, as well as advocate for: evidence-based policy; making health equity an integral part of policy and development; equitable access to high quality health services; and fair trade in all commodities that affect human health. The Federation further intends to strengthen partnerships and networks to take common action on global public health priorities, share experiences and help build capacity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The global governance of capital flows: New opportunities, enduring challenges","field_subtitle":"Gallagher KP: Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) Working Paper 283, May 2012","field_url":"http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/PERIGovernanceCapitalFlows.pdf","body":"International capital mobility has long been associated with financial and banking crises. The Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) contain multi&#8208;lateral rules to govern global capital flows. For some countries, especially those in the developing world, the IMF Articles of Agreement remain the core framework under which they have autonomy to regulate cross&#8208;border capital flows. For others, these rules have been partly superseded by more recent trade and other economic integration agreements. Thus what used to be a regime of \u2018cooperative decentralisation\u2019 has become a patchwork of overlapping and inconsistent governance structures that pose significant challenges to nations attempting to regulate global capital flows for stability and growth, according to the author of this paper. He traces the history of governing global capital flows and presents a framework for understanding three distinct eras in the modern governance of global capital. The framework emphasises how power, interests, ideas, and institutions interact to shape each era in different combinations to yield different outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The state of debt: Putting an end to 30 years of crisis","field_subtitle":"Jubilee Debt Campaign: May 2012","field_url":"http://eurodad.org/?p=1542996","body":"This report investigates the external debts of both governments and the private sector in the global South. Analysing recently compiled data from international financial institutions, it finds that private sector debt payments out of impoverished countries are now double those of the public sector, a complete turnaround since the year 2000. What is of concern is the fact that similar high levels of private sector debt have been the main cause of the financial crisis in Europe. Across the 32 low- and lower middle-income countries where data is available, private sector external debt payments were found to have increased from 4% of export earnings in 2000 to 10% in 2010. In contrast, government external debt payments for these countries have fallen from 20% of export revenues in 1998 to 5% in 2010. The negative impacts of the financial crisis \u2013 including falling trade revenues, loss of money sent home from migrants and multinational companies sending more money back to the rich world \u2013 have seen lending to the 35 most impoverished country governments almost double from $5 billion in 2007 to $9 billion in 2009. As a result, government debt payments by impoverished countries are predicted to rise by a third by 2014. Although debt cancellation has released some countries from one debt trap, the Jubilee Debt Campaign argues that the developed country debt crisis has led to an increase in unregulated and opaque private lending, which could increase social inequality and the risk of further economic crisis. A new system for monitoring and regulating the way money moves across the world is needed, so that finance works for the benefit of everyone.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Time to be counted: Pharmacists as a key untapped resource for public health ","field_subtitle":"Lloyd Matowe, Pharmaceutical Systems Africa  and Amani Thomas Mori, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Tanzania","field_url":"","body":"\r\nPopulation health deals with health beyond the individual. It addresses the combined impact of social determinants such as  environment and social structure and includes health care.  With the role of pharmacists traditionally centering on the supply and distribution of medicines, pharmacists, particularly in low and middle income countries, have been viewed as having little to do with population health.  Yet ironically, the community pharmacy is often the first port of call for most people with minor ailments. Pharmacists are thus strategically positioned to provide essential services that promote, maintain and improve the health of the population in the broadest sense. \r\n\r\nPharmacy is an age old profession that deals with the science of making and administering medicines. Over the years, the profession has evolved to encompass a wide range of service areas. In high income countries these areas and roles are well defined and structured. In low and middle income countries, this is not the case. Often pharmacists in these counties have to carve their own individual career pathways that may not bear any relationship to their professional training. In most cases however, pharmacists in low and middle income countries work in dispensing roles, mainly in community pharmacies. \r\n\r\nIn high income countries, pharmacists routinely engage in public health programs such as disease screening, pregnancy testing and counseling, immunization and counseling for at-risk populations among others roles. In lower income countries, where ironically the need is greater, pharmacists\u2019 involvement in population health is at best minimal. \r\n\r\nEconomic growth in low and middle income country economies is taking place at a rate faster than ever, but key health and demographic indicators remain stunted.  The time is ripe for the profession of pharmacy to stand up and be counted, and for pharmacists to play a more central role in population health. \r\n\r\nThe community pharmacy holds a number of benefits as a setting for public health interventions. With extended opening hours and no appointment needed for advice, community pharmacies are more accessible than other settings. In some high income countries it has been reported that on average at least nine in every ten residents visit a community pharmacist at least once a year. In lower income countries, even though this frequency may be smaller, the services that local pharmacies provide to the community could have much greater impact. For instance, community pharmacies could be a source of information related to health and well-being that could have far-reaching impact in communities that lack access to such information. Clients who visit a pharmacy to seek information may also obtain other products they need, giving a return to both the pharmacist and the client. \r\n\r\nFor pharmacists to assume population based roles both they as a profession and the community they work in need to believe that they are capable and suitably trained for it. This calls for a change in the way pharmacists are viewed and ere behave. Pharmacists must be comfortable with roles in population health and view them as opportunities. Studies have reported that while pharmacists valued population health functions, they were more comfortable with achieving health improvements through medicines. There is thus need for interventions to improve the confidence of pharmacists in using their skills for population health.  From the community side, the public need to shift their view of pharmacists to see them as professionals that are also involved in population health services. \r\n\r\nThere are many ways that pharmacists could be involved in health promotion. They could carry out or be involved in education programmes on safe and effective medication as well as on other community health-related topics, such as exercise, health and nutrition. In major cities in Africa where pharmacies are readily accessible, this is a ready-made opportunity to provide valuable information on HIV and AIDS, on teen pregnancy and on other health risks. The increased use of the emergency contraceptive pill in some Africa countries may make people less concerned about pregnancy, but raise the risk of HIV transmission, undermining prevention programmes. On issues such as these, pharmacists should be in the frontline of providing information and protecting the public from such unintended consequences. Pharmacists can be involved in educational programmes that start at an early age, such as through school health programmes, to help children develop good health practices that can continue into adulthood. Their education programmes could also reach out to community leaders, legislators, regulators, public officeholders, school officials, religious leaders among others. \r\n\r\nWe also suggest that pharmacists participate in population health policy development. By linking social factors, lifestyles and the environment, in a holistic manner, to utilization of medicines, pharmacists can broaden the scope of prevention and population health. They can ensure that policies are formulated with a better understanding of the relationship between drug therapy and the many other factors that affect health outcomes. \r\n\r\nThese are some examples, and we propose that there be wider dialogue on how pharmacists can play a vital role in maintaining and promoting population health, especially in low and middle income countries. This should include participating in global, national, state, and institutional efforts to promote population health and integrating these efforts into their practices. There should be a role for pharmacists in improving community health through population-based care; in developing disease prevention and control programs; in providing health education; and in collaborating with local authorities to address local need. \r\n\r\nTo achieve this, the onus is on the profession to view such roles as opportunities and not as unnecessary burdens, and to take the next steps. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit  www.equinetafrica.org,  http://www.muchs.ac.tz/ and www.pharmasystafrica.com ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Tobacco law needs to be enforced to protect public health, CANSA says","field_subtitle":"Cancer Association of South Africa: 8 May 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c3hsnrx","body":"To commemorate World No Tobacco Day on 31 May 2012, the Cancer Association of South Africa (CANSA) announced plans to increase public awareness of the tobacco industry\u2019s aggressive marketing tactics in South Africa. Over 44,000 people are estimated to die each year from tobacco-related diseases in the country, despite advertising restriction requirements in legislation. CANSA notes that tobacco companies are targeting women and young people to become smokers, as they represent a relatively untapped market for these companies. In the past, cigarettes were made freely available and promoted at exclusive parties and evidence has come to light of specific brands promoting cigarettes in a supermarket, as well as at a restaurant, as recently as November 2011, with beautiful women used to promote and distribute free cigarettes. CANSA notes that the Tobacco Control Act restricts tobacco advertising, including \u2018viral\u2019 marketing via social media like Facebook and Twitter, which is a favoured approach to target young people. The organisation highlights the need for this law to be leveraged to stop tobacco companies from marketing their harmful products to the public.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Ugandan activists to pursue maternal health case against government","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 15 June 2012","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=95659","body":"A petition backed by over 50 non-governmental organisations and charging Uganda's government with failing to prevent the deaths of two expectant mothers, Sylvia Nalubowa and Jennifer Anguko, was thrown out by the constitutional court on 5 June, but the petition's supporters plan to appeal. The Constitutional Court argued that upholding the petition, which urges the government to boost health services, would have forced judges to wade into a political issue that was outside their jurisdiction, saying that it was the work of the parliament to review the efficiency of the health sector. However, the petitioners said the court relied on outdated international law in making its decision and overlooked its constitutional obligation to protect Uganda's mothers. In throwing out the case, the justices suggested the petitioners seek an order from the High Court compelling a public officer, such as a government health worker, to carry out his or her duties, or to request compensation for individual deaths from the government.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ugandan government accused of negligence over nodding disease","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 11 June 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=95615","body":"Two lawsuits have been filed against the Ugandan government for alleged negligence in the handling of nodding disease. The disease has killed at least 200 children since 2009 and currently affects 3,500 others, according to the Ministry of Health. A local charity, Health Watch Uganda, has filed one lawsuit, and two members of parliament have filed a separate case. Health Watch Uganda has accused the government of violating the rights of affected children by not providing them with adequate health care. In February, the government rolled out a plan to fight the disease, opening three specialised clinics and training 99 health workers, but critics say it is overdue and inadequate. The Health Ministry says lack of funding has made it difficult to implement the plan. The government has vowed to fight the lawsuits, arguing that it has been conducting research into the disease in cooperation with the World Health Organisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Use of service data to inform paediatric HIV-free survival following prevention of mother-to-child transmission programmes in rural Malawi  ","field_subtitle":"Mandala J, Moyo T, Torpey K, Weaver M, Suzuki C, Dirks RG and Hayashi C: BMC Public Health 12(405), 6 June 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-405.pdf","body":"The objective of this study was to use service data to inform HIV-free survival among HIV exposed children that received antiretroviral drugs to prevent mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV. The study was conducted in two rural districts in Malawi between June 2005 and June 2009. Out of 438 children whose home addresses were available, 33 (8%) were lost to follow-up, 35 (8%) were alive but not tested for HIV by the time home visit was conducted, and 52 (12%) were confirmed deceased. A total of 318 children were alive at the time of the home visit and had an HIV antibody test done at median age 15 months. The resulting estimated 24-month probability of HIV-free survival over all children was 78%. Among children who did not receive nevirapine, the estimated 24-month probability of HIV-free survival was 61%, and among those who did receive it, the estimate was 82%. When mothers and newborns received nevirapine, the estimated 24-month probability of HIV-free survival among children was high at 82%. However, the authors warn that these promising findings should be interpreted cautiously due to the wide confidence interval and because the confidence interval range includes 55%, which is the natural HIV-free survival rate in the absence of a PMTCT intervention. This analysis highlighted the need of quality data and well-structured home visits to assess PMTCT effectiveness.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Using GRADE methodology for the development of public health guidelines for the prevention and treatment of HIV and other STIs among men who have sex with men and transgender people","field_subtitle":"Akl EA, Kennedy C, Konda K, Caceres CF, Horvath T, Ayala G et al: BMC Public Health 12(386), 28 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-386.pdf","body":"The World Health Organisation\u2019s (WHO) Department of HIV/AIDS has developed public health guidelines, called GRADE, for delivering an evidence-based, essential package of interventions for the prevention and treatment of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender people in the health sector in low- and middle-income countries. The objective of this paper is to review the methodological challenges faced and solutions applied during the development of the guidelines. The development of the guidelines followed the WHO guideline development process, which utilises the GRADE approach. The authors identified, categorised and labelled the challenges identified in the guidelines development process and described the solutions through an interactive process of in-person and electronic communication. The paper describes how the researchers dealt with the following challenges: heterogeneous and complex interventions; paucity of trial data; selecting outcomes of interest; using indirect evidence; integrating values and preferences; considering resource use; addressing social and legal barriers; wording of recommendations; and developing global guidelines. In conclusion, the researchers were able to successfully apply the GRADE approach for developing recommendations for public health interventions. Applying the general principles of the approach while carefully considering specific challenges can enhance both the process and the outcome of guideline development, they recommend.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"A new deal for global health R&D? The recommendations of the Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development (CEWG) ","field_subtitle":"R\u00f8ttingen JA and Chamas C: PLoS Medicine 9(5), 15 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001219","body":"CEWG, the expert working group advising the World Health Organisation (WHO) on research and development, has recommended that the May 2012 World Health Assembly adopt an international convention on research and development (R&D) that will bind member states to action and catalyse new knowledge for diseases that primarily affect the global poor but for which patents provide insufficient market incentives. In this editorial, the chairpersons of the expert group summarise the recommendations and report of CEWG, which they say constitute a transformative change for achieving access to medicines. They argue that financial contributions should be determined based on the concept that both the costs and benefits of R&D should be shared. They recommend a role for WHO in the stronger coordination of R&D and suggest pooling of financial investments to secure efficient allocations to where demands and opportunities are identified through active participation of developing countries. An international convention, the authors argue, is a way to secure a systemic and sustainable solution since it creates a formalised platform for the future where countries can be held accountable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"A strategy to increase adoption of locally-produced, ceramic cookstoves in rural Kenyan households  ","field_subtitle":"Silk BJ, Sadumah I, Patel MK, Were V, Person B, Harris J et al: BMC Public Health 12(359), 16 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-359.pdf","body":"Exposure to household air pollutants released during cooking has been linked to numerous adverse health outcomes among residents of rural areas in low-income countries. This study describes the roles of local vendors, behaviour change, promotional incentives, and integration of cookstoves with household water treatment interventions to motivate adoption of locally-produced, ceramic cookstoves (upesi jiko) in an impoverished, rural African population. The project was conducted in 60 rural Kenyan villages in 2008 and 2009. During an initial, eight-month assessment period in 10 villages, 159 (75%) of 213 upesi jiko sales occurred in five villages where vendors received behaviour change training. The combined strategy was found to effectively motivate the adoption of cookstoves into a large number of households. The mobilisation and training of local vendors as well as appropriate promotion and pricing incentives created opportunities to reinforce health messages and promote the sale and installation of cookstoves. The authors conclude that additional applications of similar strategies will be needed to determine whether the strategy can be exported equitably and whether reductions in fuel use, household air pollution, and the incidence of respiratory diseases will follow.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Activists call on NCD Alliance to protect public health from private interests","field_subtitle":"Rundall P: Baby Milk Action, 19 May 2012","field_url":"http://info.babymilkaction.org/NCDAlliance","body":"In the run up to the 65th World Health Assembly (21-26 May 2012) the NCD Alliance, a major international alliance of organisations working in the field of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) revised its statement calling on its Member States to support the creation of a Global Platform on NCDs. After the Conflict of Interest Coalition expressed its concerns to the Alliance over private sector involvement in health policy and planning in such a platform, the Alliance added the clause \u2018with appropriate safeguards for public interest over private profit\u2019 and issued a new statement in May 2012. Rundall argues that this amendment does not adequately address the need for a clear differentiation between policy, norms and standards development and involvement in implementation. She warns that lack of clarity will play into the hands of those who favour slow, industry-friendly, voluntary approaches rather than legally binding measures that hold the private sector accountable for their practices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Affordability of emergency obstetric and neonatal care at public hospitals in Madagascar","field_subtitle":"Honda A, Randaoharison P and Matsui M: Reproductive Health Matters 19(37):10-20, May 2011","field_url":"http://www.rhm-elsevier.com/article/S0968-8080(11)37559-3/fulltext","body":"This study measured out-of-pocket costs for caesarean section and neonatal care at an urban tertiary public hospital in Madagascar, assessed affordability in relation to household expenditure and investigated where families found the money to cover these costs. Data were collected for 103 women and 73 newborns at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Mahajanga in the Boeny region of Madagascar between September 2007 and January 2008. Out-of-pocket costs for caesarean section were catastrophic for middle and lower socio-economic households, and treatment for neonatal complications also created a big financial burden, with geographical and other financial barriers further limiting access to hospital care. This study identified 12 possible cases where the mother required an emergency caesarean section and her newborn required emergency care, placing a double burden on the household. In an effort to make emergency obstetric and neonatal care affordable and available to all, well-designed financial risk protection mechanisms and a strong commitment by the government to mobilise resources to finance the country's health system are necessary, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Progress Report 2012","field_subtitle":"Africa Progress Panel: 17 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.africaprogresspanel.org/files/2913/3725/5551/APP_AR_2012_May17low-res_4web.pdf","body":"According to this report, Africa\u2019s economic outlook is positive in some respects, as the continent is home to seven of the world\u2019s fastest-growing economies, with 70% of Africa\u2019s population living in countries that have averaged economic growth rates in excess of 4% over the past decade. However, the report also records that most countries are not on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, flagging slow progress in areas such as child nutrition, child survival, maternal health, and education. The need for equitable growth is all the more critical, the report states, because of Africa\u2019s profound demographic shift towards youth, as well as high levels of population growth. It calls for a greater focus by policymakers on jobs, justice and equity to ensure sustainable, shared growth that benefits all Africans. Failure to generate equitable growth could result in rising levels of youth unemployment, social dislocation and hunger. Africa\u2019s governments and development partners must urgently draw up plans for a big push towards the 2015 Millennium Development Goals, the report says.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa\u2019s political instability hinders maternal health progress","field_subtitle":"Palitza K: IPS News: 21 March 2012","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=107147","body":"Health experts have pointed out that African countries with good maternal health statistics are generally those that have long-term political stability, like Botswana, arguing that this shows that stability is a fundamental basis for development. Generally, maternal health is neglected in public health, as most African countries focus on the eradication of poverty and hunger, according to a spokesperson from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ivory Coast. The UNDP spokesperson added that few governments seem to be aware of the close link between maternal health and poverty. It takes strong leadership at the country level to shift priorities and spend more on maternal and child health, as well as more effectively implement existing policies and international agreements, he added. One example is the right to family planning, which has not yet been included in public health care provision in many African countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid or innovation to build equity in health and development in Africa? Views from Forum 2012","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson, Training and Research Support Centre ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nWalk into many international meetings on health in Africa and you will hear discussion on development aid, and international support for programmes to respond to major diseases.  The Global Forum for Health Research (Forum 2012) held in Cape Town had a different focus: it provided a platform for how countries across all income groups could invest in research and development (R&D) as a source of innovation to meet their health needs and as an investment in development and job creation.\r\n\r\nHeld under the title \u201cBeyond Aid: Research and Innovation as key drivers for Health, Equity and Development\u201d, Forum 2012 was organised by the Coalition on Health Research for Development (COHRED), which merged in 2011 with the Global Forum on Health Research (GFHR). \r\n\r\nDr. Francisco Songane, Chair of the Steering Committee for Forum 2012, reflected \u201cThere is a misconception that developing countries rely on international aid. National Governments may find it hard to meet targets for R&D spending, but they remain the major funders of research\u201d.  \r\n\r\nNaledi Pandor, South African Minister of Science and Technology and co-host of the Forum confirmed this and the power of investment in R&D. She observed that \u201cthe ability to cycle between the laboratory, clinic and field site provides a very powerful platform for translational research\u201d.  Investing in this link in South Africa gave the country an advantage over countries that focused on the basic sciences or clinical research, but not both.  According to Minister Pandor,  this positions South Africa to respond to health need and to emerging markets in Africa, to advance African-led innovation in drugs, diagnostics, vaccine development and other  product-oriented innovation, including in  relation to gene therapy, cell therapies and tissue engineering. \r\n\r\nDr Songane, Dr Carel Ijsselmuiden, executive director of COHRED, and other speakers at the Forum raised that achieving these synergies between innovation and economic and social benefit means that \u201cwe, in the health sector, need to open the doors of our community, and actively work with the other sectors\u201d. They proposed that we need to shift from an aid paradigm to negotiating investment in and benefit from R&D in health.  \r\n\r\nThe Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan for Africa, adopted by the Summit of the African Union in 2007, was raised as a promising example, with its emphasis on a coordinated approach to local medicines production based on countries needs.  The research agenda to support the plan seeks to produce evidence on the productive capacities, intellectual property, political, geographical, economic and financing issues that affect the manufacture of medicines, to inform the necessary interactions across multiple government ministries, regulatory authorities, financial investors and private and public research, development, teaching and healthcare delivery institutions. \r\n\r\nThe Forum also raised issues of equity, at both global and regional levels. \r\n\r\nFirstly there are inequities in the current distribution of both capacities to invest and in the sharing of benefits from investments in R&D. For example,  Carel Ijsselmuiden pointed to a recent report on the impact of sequencing of the human genome. This report demonstrated that the potential economic return on the initial investment had gone to the global north, rather than the south, where there was no capacity to build on knowledge produced by the project. \"The south has to develop the capacity to compete in this type of domain,\" he said. \"The continuing emphasis on aid may stop us seeing this new picture of the world that is emerging.\"\r\n\r\n\u2018Beyond aid\u2019 should be taken to not mean \u2018beyond solidarity and fairness\u2019. In the past the GFHR has drawn attention to the highly uneven distribution of resources for health research between high and low income countries. At regional level, Forum delegates in various sessions pointed, therefore, to the need for collaboration and pooling of resources and knowledge within and across regions, to avoid a widening gap.  The technological possibilities for such collaboration are growing. As stated by Dr Songane, \u201cnew communication technologies are making up for a lack of infrastructure and resources. The possibilities are exciting \u2013 virtual collaboration, sharing of data, and the use of mobile health technology to reach even remote rural areas\u201d.  \r\n\r\nAt global level, a Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination (CEWG) established by the World Health Assembly (WHA) has in 2010 been examining the current financing and coordination of R&D globally, particularly in relation to neglected diseases and the needs of developing countries. In its report (www.who.int/phi/CEWG_Report_Exec_Summary.pdf)  the CEWG proposed minimum shares of gross domestic product to be set for government funded health research and a global convention to address issues of equity and sustainability in financing for R&D. Minister Pandor welcomed new models, like UNITAID\u2019s patent pool for AIDS medicines, which allows generics producers to make cheaper versions of patented medicines by enabling patent holders to license their technology in exchange for royalties. \r\nRaising a second dimension of equity, young researchers at the Forum raised in a communiqu\u00e9 that work on R&D must be framed as a public responsibility, given that health is a human right, and must thus reach and benefit all communities.  Youth and other delegates raised that communities\u2019 local or indigenous knowledge should be respected, protected and integrated within research and knowledge systems, and innovations developed in ways that ensure fair partnerships, sharing of evidence and benefit, and collective, social entrepreneurship.  \r\n\r\nFurther, in a session on the Equity Watch work in EQUINET, presenters from research institutions, Ministries of Health, regional and international agencies in east and southern Africa pointed to the need to overcome inequities in access to already known technologies for health, including the housing, food, water, primary health care and other key social determinants of survival. Their country and regional analysis highlighted economic growth paths that raise inequity in access to these resources, such as through unplanned urbanisation, insecure employment, or poor investment in small holder farming.  They also presented evidence of public policies and measures within the health system and in other sectors such as education that close the gap.  \r\n\r\nForum 2012 called for a different mindset, for innovation and research to be given more attention, given their role as drivers of health, equity and development. Discussions in the Forum raised that equity in health, while desired, cannot be assumed to be an outcome of research and innovation. It is also not adequately addressed by aid. The policies and measures for ensure equity as an outcome- whether through fair sharing of benefits, solidarity and collaboration on capacities and resources, inclusion of communities and their knowledge, or equitable access to existing technologies for health -  need to be explicitly negotiated, implemented and monitored. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit http://www.forum2012.org/presentations/  and www.equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"An innovative partnership for research and innovation system strengthening","field_subtitle":"Kubata B: NEPAD, 23 April 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d2zxgkh","body":"This presentation, delivered at Forum 2012 in April 2012, describes a partnership between the Dutch Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED), the African Union (AU) and the NEPAD Agency (a technical arm of the AU) to help African countries develop their national health research agendas. The partnership aims to support Africans\u2019 ownership and optimal utilisation of research for health to achieve health and health equity, reduce poverty, and contribute to the socio-economic development of countries, regions and the continent. It is also intended to strengthen the existing capacity of African institutions and networks to support the process of capacity building at the governance and policy levels of national research systems. At the initial phase, three countries have been identified and selected to participate in the programme: Mozambique, Senegal and Tanzania. In Mozambique, a national priority setting process is being carried out, while in Tanzania, national research priorities and agenda have been set and the partnership has developed a \u2018research ethics \u2018management\u2019 platform, as well as a national research for health management information system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Business-as-usual\" won't do at Rio+20 summit: Leading civil society groups unite in warning following latest negotiations","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: 4 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2012/05/business-as-usual-wont-do-at-rio20-summit","body":"A group of leading international humanitarian, development, social justice, environmental, and workers' organisations have warned that June 2012\u2019s UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) looks set to add almost nothing to global efforts to deliver sustainable development. The warning from Development Alternatives, Greenpeace, the Forum of Brazilian NGOs and Social Movements for Environment and Development (FBOMS), International Trades Union Confederation (ITUC), Oxfam, and Vitae Civilis comes at the end of two weeks of negotiations between governments on the conference outcomes, with less than 50 days before the summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 20 - 22 June. The group warns that the current negotiating text does not adequately capture human rights and principles of equity, precaution, and 'polluter pays', despite the urgency provided by the current financial crises, growing inequalities, broken food  As a benchmark against which to assess the outcome of Rio+20, the organisations have set out a 10-point agenda that includes global goals for sustainable development, designed to eradicate poverty, reduce inequality and realise justice and human rights, while respecting the finite limits of Earth's natural resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for expressions of interest: Health policy and systems research in the field of access to medicines in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 18 June 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/en/","body":"The World Health Organisation\u2019s Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research is calling for expressions of interest in the topic of access to medicines in low- and middle-income countries. Proposed research should explore the connections between medicines and three other functions of health systems: health financing, governance and health information. Three core questions have been identified for this call: 1. In risk protection schemes, which innovations and policies improve equitable access to and appropriate use of quality medicines, sustainability of the scheme, and financial impact on beneficiaries? 2. How do policies and other interventions into private markets impact on access to and appropriate use of quality medicines? 3. How can stakeholders use information and data routinely collected and available in the system in a transparent way towards improving access to and use of quality medicines?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for organisations to join the Universal Health Care movement","field_subtitle":"Action for Global Health: May 2012","field_url":"http://www.actionforglobalhealth.eu/fileadmin/AfGH_Intranet/AFGH/Publications/UHC/UHC_Call_to_Action_eng2.pdf","body":"Healthcare around the world is unaffordable for millions of people. However, states are responsible for delivering universal access to health systems according to their legal commitments to the Right to Health. This is only possible if they develop sustainable health financing mechanisms to support strong and equitable national health systems. To make Universal Health Coverage (UHC) a reality, there is still the need for greater political will both at national level - to put in  practice the reforms needed - and at international level to promote and revitalise a general consensus towards \u2018health for all\u2019, facilitating technical support and additional resources. Making progress towards UHC will accelerate social and economic growth, is fundamental to sustainable development and is fair. For these reasons, a group of NGOs has been working on a common statement for UHC, asking for greater political support and promoting a joint movement for UHC. If your organisation wants to strengthen this global movement for UHC and endorse this document, please contact Action for Global Health at the email address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for submissions: African writing competition: Kwani Trust","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 12 August 2012","field_url":"http://manuscript.kwani.org/","body":"To celebrate the African novel and its adaptability and resilience, Kwani Trust announces a one-off new literary prize for African writing. The Kwani Manuscript Project calls for the submission of unpublished fiction manuscripts from African writers across the continent and in the Diaspora. The top three manuscripts will be awarded cash prizes. In addition Kwani will publish manuscripts from across the shortlist and longlist, including the three winning manuscripts, as well as partnering with regional and global agents and publishing houses to create high-profile international publication opportunities. The word count for submissions is 60,000-120,000 words, and submissions should be adult literary or genre fiction and written in English or variants of the language. The manuscript must be unpublished, although Kwani will accept previously published submissions if circulation has been under 500 copies and limited to one national territory. Eligible participants should have at least one parent born in an African country who holds citizenship of that country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Campaign launched to reduce maternal mortality in South Africa ","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: 8 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2012/may/20120508carmma/","body":"The campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA) was launched at Osindisweni Hospital in Ethekwini District, KwaZulu-Natal Province on 4 May 2012. CARMMA aims to accelerate the implementation of activities to stem maternal and child mortality and meet Africa\u2019s targets for Millennium Development Goals four and five - to reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality rate and to reduce by two thirds the child mortality rate between 1990 and 2015. South Africa has a rising maternal mortality rate, yet it is one of the last countries in southern Africa to implement the campaign since it was started in 2009. In many of the countries, the national champions of CARMMA or the national authorities have committed to follow-up activities to intensify the reduction of maternal mortality in their countries, including Malawi, Zambia, Rwanda and Swaziland.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Commentary on WHO proposal at World Health Assembly 2012: Draft implementation plan on maternal infant and young child nutrition","field_subtitle":"Global Health Watch: 2 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/who-watch/wha65/nutrition","body":"In this article, Global Health Watch provides an analysis of WHO\u2019s \u2018Draft implementation plan on maternal infant and young child nutrition\u2019 (shown also in this section of the newsletter) . While it welcomes the evidence-based approach adopted in the draft, it argues that the plan fails to deal with the intersection of trade relations and nutrition, and steers clear of the challenges to be faced in building a regulatory framework to regulate transnational agribusiness and food corporations at global and country level. This is especially problematic at the moment, as new provisions are being inserted into preferential trade agreements to provide transnational corporations with powerful new defences against regulation at both the national and international levels. Global Health Watch argues that that nutrition needs to be understood in the context of food security (and insecurity). Food security in Africa is jeopardised by speculation in food commodities, which was the main contributor to a 50% rise in food prices in 2008, as well as the diversion of land growing food to growing biofuels. Global Health Watch argue that WHO cannot address the issues of trade and the regulation of transnational industry alone but it can take a pro-active stance in working with other competent intergovernmental bodies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community preferences for improving public sector health services in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town: Policy Brief, March 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6v4es6t","body":"This research explored communities\u2019 views on the elements of public health services that they find particularly problematic. It aimed to quantify the priority placed on each of these aspects of public service delivery that requires attention. Communities view the routine availability of effective medicines as the greatest priority for improved public sector health services; the least important priority is treatment by doctors. Routine availability of medicines is ten times more important than treatment by doctors. A thorough examination and clear explanation of a patient\u2019s diagnosis and treatment by health professionals are also highly valued community priorities. Communities tolerate poor quality public sector service characteristics such as long waiting times, poor staff attitudes and the lack of direct access to doctors if they receive the medicine they need and a thorough examination and if a clear explanation of their diagnosis and treatment is provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Concern over role of private sector in policy development","field_subtitle":"Conflict of Interest Coalition: February 2012 ","field_url":"http://info.babymilkaction.org/sites/info.babymilkaction.org/files/COIC%20161.16.4.12.pdf","body":"In this Statement of Concern, the Conflict of Interest Coalition calls for the development of a Code of Conduct and Ethical Framework to guide private sector involvement in public health policy development. The Coalition seeks clarity on the nature of recent government \u2018partnerships\u2019 with the private sector, and argues that public-private partnerships run the risk of counteracting efforts to protect and improve public health. The proposed framework should help protect the integrity of the United Nations\u2019 public policy decision-making, to ensure it is transparent and to identify, safeguard against and manage potential conflicts of interest. The Statement argues that a clear distinction must be made between business-interest not-for-profit organisations (BINGOs) and public interest non-governmental organisations (PINGOs) and a clear differentiation between policy and norms and standards development and appropriate involvement in implementation. The Coalition calls on the World Health Organisation (WHO) to develop guidance for Member States to identify conflicts and eliminate those that are not permissible. WHO should perform thorough risk/benefit analyses on partnerships and provide surveillance on those considered acceptable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Currency devaluation in Malawi deepens poverty but woos back funders","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 18 May 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=95482","body":"Before his death in April 2012, Malawi's former president Bingu wa Mutharika resisted calls by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to devalue the Malawian kwacha as a way to boost exports, arguing that poor people would be negatively impacted. His decision alienated external funders, who withdrew support. Malawi's new president, Joyce Banda, has moved quickly to restore relations with funders, in part by meeting the IMF's conditions for a support package. On 7 May 2012, she devalued the kwacha by nearly 50% and untied the currency from the dollar. External funders have started responding, with the World Bank reportedly working on a package to help poor Malawians cope with the effects of devaluation and the United Kingdom (UK) agreeing to unlock aid frozen in 2011. The UK's International Department for International Development (DFID) are reported to have pledged to release an initial \u00a330 million (US$47.3 million) tranche of urgent funding, of which \u00a310 million ($15.8 million) will be used to support Malawi's healthcare system, and \u00a320 million will go to towards stabilising the economy. The implications for household poverty of the measures funded are as yet not reported.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing health economics capacity in Africa: Evaluation of HEU\u2019s teaching programmes","field_subtitle":"Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town: HEU Policy Brief, May 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/7bg3hck","body":"The objective of this study was to assess the extent to which the Health Economics Unit (HEU) has contributed to the development of health economics capacity in sub-Saharan Africa through the provision of Master\u2019s and PhD programmes since the 1990s. The evaluation was based on a document review and 25 key informant interviews \u2013 with Master\u2019s and PhD graduates, HEU staff members with management roles, beneficiaries of HEU\u2019s internal capacity-building initiatives and international experts. The programmes have so far graduated 115 Master\u2019s and 15 PhD graduates in health economics. Feedback from graduates indicated they are largely satisfied with the programmes. Most graduates are retained in the region if not in their home countries and find employment in a post that uses at least some of the skills gained during the programme, although not necessarily strictly in health economics. In terms of overall financial sustainability of HEU\u2019s post-graduate programmes, SIDA funding has come to an end, which means there is a need to pursue financial support from the University in line with the usual funding of post-graduate training. The policy brief also makes some recommendations for improving future programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 90: Dimensions of gender equity in health in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"MacPherson E, Richards E, Namakhoma I and Theobald S: EQUINET, 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss90%20Gender%20Equity%20May2012.pdf","body":"This report was commissioned by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET). It highlights areas of concern for gender equity in health in East and Southern Africa (ESA), based on a review of published literature. The report provides examples of key areas of gender equity in health drawn from the literature. It raises dimensions of gender equity in health in relation to the contexts for and social determinants of health; in health outcomes; in health systems and options for acting on gender equity in health. The report does not provide a systematic analysis using household data and is not a comprehensive assessment of all dimensions of gender equity. Rather by presenting key dimensions of gender inequity in health in the region, it raises the argument for more systematic audit and mainstreaming of gender within health systems in ESA countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Does the distribution of health care benefits in Kenya meet the principles of universal coverage?","field_subtitle":"Chuma J, Maina T and Ataguba JE: BMC Public Health 12(20), 12 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-20.pdf","body":"The aim of this study was to assess the distribution of health care benefits in the Kenyan health system, compare changes over two time periods and demonstrate the extent to which the distribution meets the principles of universal coverage. Two nationally representative cross-sectional households surveys conducted in 2003 and 2007 were the main sources of data. A comprehensive analysis of the entire health system was conducted including the public sector, private-not-for-profit and private-for-profit sectors. The three sectors recorded similar levels of pro-rich distribution in 2003, but in 2007, the private-not-for-profit sector was pro-poor, public sector benefits showed an equal distribution, while the private-for-profit sector remained pro-rich. Larger pro-rich disparities were recorded for inpatient compared to outpatient benefits at the hospital level, but primary health care services were pro-poor. Benefits were distributed on the basis of ability to pay and not on need for care. In conclusion, the Kenyan health sector is clearly inequitable and benefits are not distributed on the basis of need.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"DRC: HIV effort needs government funding to succeed","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 4 May 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=95412","body":"Many national hospitals in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are no longer accepting new HIV-positive patients for antiretroviral treatment (ART), largely due to lack of capacity and funding shortfalls. According to Medicins Sans Frontiers, urban areas are poorly covered by ART (30% for Kinshasa), but rural areas are much more severely underserved. Funding remains uncertain. A major World Bank project recently closed after six years, while UNITAID, which provides funding for paediatric and second-line antiretrovirals, will end its funding to the DRC in December 2012. The cancellation of Round 11 funding by the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is likely to worsen the situation. R\u00e9seau National d'Organisations Assises Communautaire (RNOAC), a national network of community-based organisations, has called on government to supply funding for HIV programmes instead of relying exclusively on external funding.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Early infant diagnosis of HIV infection in Zambia through mobile phone texting of blood test results","field_subtitle":"Seidenberg P, Nicholson S, Schaefer M, Semrau K, Bweupe M, Masese N et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(5): 348-356, May 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/5/11-100032/en/index.html","body":"This study describes the design, implementation and evaluation of Project Mwana, a pilot project in Zambia\u2019s rural Southern Province. The main aim of this project was to reduce the time between blood sampling for the detection of infant HIV infection and notification of the test results to the relevant point-of-care health facility by using an SMS-based system. Ten public health facilities within two districts in Zambia\u2019s Southern Province were purposively selected for inclusion in the pilot SMS project. Results from this study suggest that in Zambia, particularly in rural areas, mobile phone texting can overcome the logistical and distance barriers that can impede the early diagnosis of HIV infection in infants. An automated SMS allowed the results of PCR testing of infant dried blood samples to be reported to the relevant point-of-care health facility or infant caregivers much faster than would have been possible by using a courier to deliver the results on paper to the relevant health facility. In addition, the results delivered through SMS texting were highly accurate by comparison with the results recorded on paper.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Empowering communities in combating river blindness and the role of NGOs: case studies from Cameroon, Mali, Nigeria and Uganda","field_subtitle":"Meredith SE, Cross C and Amazigo UV: Health Research Policy and Systems 10(16), 10 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-10-16.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers consider the contribution by non government organisations (NGOs) towards the control of onchocerciasis (river blindness) in Cameroon, Mali, Nigeria and Uganda. The four case studies presented here illustrate some key contributions the NGOs made to the development of \"community directed treatment with ivermectin\" -CDTI, in Africa, which became the approved methodology within the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC). The partnership between the international, multilateral, government institutions and the NGDO Coordination Group was the backbone of the APOC programme's structure and facilitated progress and scale-up of treatment programmes. Contributions included piloting community-based methodology in Mali and Nigeria; research, collaboration and coordination on treatment strategies and policies, coalition building, capacity building of national health workforce and advocacy at the national and international level. The NGOs used a community-based methodology which was also aimed at strengthening community health systems. The researchers argue that similar partnerships may be useful in other countries affected by onchocerciasis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Enhancing the role of pharmacists in public health in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Matowe L, Mori AT and Mawa S: PJ Online, 15 May 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.pjonline.com/news/enhancing_the_role_of_pharmacists_in_public_health_in_developing_countries","body":"With much smaller numbers relative to their counterparts in developed countries, pharmacists in developing countries tend to keep to the confines of dispensing roles mainly in community pharmacies. In this article the authors challenge these pharmacists to move away from the dispensing window and to demonstrate the value of the years invested in pharmacy schools to improve the well-being of communities. In Africa, another reason why pharmacy must be proactive in assuming service- and systems-based roles is the fact that physicians are often overloaded with clinical duties. By demonstrating that they can competently assume these roles and complement physicians in providing quality healthcare services, pharmacists have ready-made opportunities to enhance their role in the community. To arrest the waning image of the profession in Africa, there is need to identify service opportunities that would perpetuate the continued relevance of the profession to health systems and communities. Even though new opportunities in the areas of public health, pharmaceutical supply chain management, pharmacovigilance, regulation, management, rational drug use and others are emerging in different forms and designs, pharmacists appear slow to seize these opportunities. Changes in mind sets, perceptions, curricula and teaching methodologies are required, the article concludes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 136: Aid or innovation to build equity in health and development in Africa? Views from Forum 2012 ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Forum 2012: Developing countries are major funders of their own research ","field_subtitle":"Smith-Asante E: Ghana Business News, 12 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2012/05/12/developing-countries-are-major-funders-of-own-researches-forum-2012/","body":"Participants at Forum 2012, held in Cape Town in April 2012, have argued that it is a misconception that developing countries rely purely on international aid, as they remain the major funders of research in their countries, despite finding it difficult to meet recommended targets for research and development spending. They called for greater collaboration with neighbouring countries, such as pooling resources and knowledge, as well as better cooperation between different sectors within countries to drive improved health outcomes. Innovation was also identified as a key factor in compensating for the lack of infrastructure and resources, especially in the form of new information and communication technologies (ICTs), with virtual collaboration, sharing of data and mobile health technology to reach rural areas, being some of the exciting possibilities. At the Forum, participants had the opportunity to share experiences on how to set their own priorities for research, build capacities and provide incentives for innovation, with the need to always ensure the involvement of communities in setting the priorities for health research being a strong and recurring theme. Also high on the Forum 2012 agenda was the issue of women\u2019s health, although it was stressed that the focus should be on sexual and reproductive health and not simply on maternal health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund announces US$1.6 billion increase in funding ","field_subtitle":"Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria: 9 May 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/chqna2c","body":"The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria has announced an increase in US$1.6 billion in funding to invest between 2012 and 2014. The new funds are a result of strategic decisions made by the Board, freeing up funds that can be invested in countries where there is the most pressing demand, according to this statement. Organisational changes have brought improved financial supervision and overall efficiency\u2019: for instance, the Fund has cut its staff by 7.4%. In addition, it has received new donations recently, including $750 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and $340 million from Japan. Poor funding in 2011 forced the Fund to make an unprecedented decision to cancel its 11th round of funding, raising fears that gains made in the fight HIV would be lost. Some $616 million in grant requests is now being considered by the Technical Review Panel. UNAIDS said the money would allow countries and communities to take the lead in determining their priorities to meet the targets of the 2011 UN Political Declaration on AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health policy and systems research: A methodology reader","field_subtitle":"Gilson L (ed): World Health Organisation and the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/resources/alliancehpsr_reader.pdf","body":"This Reader aims to support the development of the field of health policy and systems research (HPSR), particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). It provides a particular focus on methodological issues for primary empirical health policy and systems research. More specifically, it aims to support the practice of, and training in, HPSR by: encouraging researchers to value a multidisciplinary approach, recognising its importance in addressing the complexity of health policy and systems challenges; stimulating wider discussion about the field and relevant research questions; demonstrating the breadth of the field in terms of study approaches, disciplinary perspectives, analytical approaches and methods; and highlighting newer or relatively little-used methods and approaches that could be further developed. The Reader is mainly for use by researchers and health system managers, teachers and facilitators involved in HPSR training, and students, from any discipline or background, who are new to the field of HPSR.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health systems performance in sub-Saharan Africa: governance, outcome and equity","field_subtitle":"Olafsdottir AE, Reidpath DD, Pokhrel S and Allotey P: BMC Public Health; 2011;11:237","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/11/237","body":"The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between health systems outcomes and equity, and governance as a part of a process to extend the range of indicators used to assess health systems performance. Using cross sectional data from 46 countries in the African region of the World Health Organisation, an ecological analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between governance and health systems performance. Governance was found to be strongly associated with under-five mortality rate (U5MR) and moderately associated with the U5MR quintile ratio. After controlling for possible confounding by healthcare, finance, education, and water and sanitation, governance remained significantly associated with U5MR. Governance was not, however, significantly associated with equity in U5MR outcomes. This study suggests that the quality of governance may be an important structural determinant of health systems performance, and could be an indicator to be monitored. The association suggests there might be a causal relationship. However, the cross-sectional design, the level of missing data, and the small sample size, forces tentative conclusions. Further research will be needed to assess the causal relationship, and its generalisability beyond U5MR as a health outcome measure, as well as the geographical generalisability of the results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health workers at the frontline: Acting on what we know ","field_subtitle":"Consultation on improving front line health worker access to evidence-based interventions: 25-27 June 2012, Nairobi","field_url":"","body":"Two recent global initiatives \u2013 the United Nations Secretary General\u2019s Global Strategy on Women\u2019s and Children\u2019s Health (Every Woman Every Child, EWEC) and the Global Plan for Elimination of new HIV Infections among Children by 2015 and Keeping Mothers Alive (Global Plan) \u2013 recognise the importance of strong health workforces and call for additional commitments on human resources to be made. This consultation cohosted by EQUINET seeks to gather stakeholders from within and beyond the region to  action-oriented movements to strengthen health workforces and improve access to good practice in addressing barriers to improving the numbers, distribution and quality of the health workers needed for maternal and child health. The meeting will share experiences and best practices in how the health worker needs of the EWEC and the Global Plan fits with the overall human resource planning, the promising practices underway and unresolved issues that need to be addressed. Please email the address below for further information. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"High incidence of unplanned pregnancy after antiretroviral therapy initiation: Findings from a prospective cohort study in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Schwartz SR, Rees H, Mehta S, Venter WDF, Taha TE et al: PLoS ONE 7(4), 27 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0036039","body":"Increased fertility rates in HIV-infected women receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) have been attributed to improved immunological function; it is unknown to what extent the rise in pregnancy rates is due to unintended pregnancies. In this study, non-pregnant women ages 18\u201335 from four public-sector ART clinics in Johannesburg, South Africa, were enrolled into a prospective cohort and followed from August 2009 to March 2011. Fertility intentions, contraception and pregnancy status were measured at participants' routine ART clinic visits. Of the 850 women enrolled, 170 pregnancies were detected, of which 105 (62%) were unplanned. Unmet need for contraception was 50% higher in women initiating ART in the past year as compared to women on ART for longer than one year. Eight hormonal contraceptive failures were detected. Overall 47% (80/170) of pregnancies were not carried to term. The researchers conclude that integration of contraceptive services and counselling into ART care is necessary to reduce maternal and child health risks related to mistimed and unwanted pregnancies. Further research into injectable contraceptive failures on ART is warranted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of drought and HIV on child nutrition in Eastern and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Mason JB, Chotard S, Bailes A, Mebrahtu S and Hailey P: Food Nutrition Bulletin 31(3 Suppl):S209-18, September 2010","field_url":"http://www.foodandnutritionbulletin.org/downloads/FNB_v31n3_supplement_web.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers aimed to determine short- and long-term trends in child malnutrition in Eastern and Southern Africa and how these are affected by drought and HIV. An analysis was conducted of data from national surveys, generally from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s. Results indicated that overall trends in child nutrition are improving as national averages; the improvement is slowed but not stopped by the effects of intermittent droughts. In Southern Africa, the prevalence rates of underweight showed signs of recovery from the 2001\u201303 crisis. As expected, food production and price indicators were related (although weakly) to changes in malnutrition prevalence; the association was strongest between changes in food production and price indicators and changes in malnutrition prevalence in the following year. Despite severe intermittent droughts and the HIV and AIDS epidemic (now declining but still with very high prevalence rates), underlying trends in child underweight are improving when drought is absent. Preventing effects of drought and HIV could release potential for improvement and, when supported by national nutrition programmes, help to accelerate the rates of improvement, now generally averaging around 0.3% per year, to those needed to meet Millennium Development Goals (0.4 to 0.9% per year).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving quality and use of data through data-use workshops: Zanzibar, United Republic of Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Braa J, Heywood A and Sahay S: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(5): 379-384, May 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/5/11-099580.pdf","body":"In Tanzania, as in many developing countries, the national Health Management Information System (HMIS) is stuck in a vicious cycle: national health data are used little because they are of poor quality, and their relative lack of use, in turn, makes their quality remain poor. In this study, an action research approach was applied to strengthen the use of information and improve data quality in Zanzibar. The underlying premise was that encouraging use in small incremental steps could help to break the vicious cycle and improve the HMIS. To test the hypothesis at the national and district levels a project to strengthen the HMIS was established in Zanzibar. The project included quarterly data-use workshops during which district staff assessed their own routine data and critiqued their colleagues\u2019 data. The data-use workshops generated inputs that were used by District Health Information Software developers to improve the tool. The HMIS, which initially covered only primary care outpatients and antenatal care, eventually grew to encompass all major health programmes and district and referral hospitals. The workshops directly contributed to improvements in data coverage, data set quality and rationalisation, and local use of target indicators. The authors conclude that data-use workshops with active engagement of data users themselves can improve health information systems overall and enhance staff capacity for information use, presentation and analysis for decision-making.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Influencing policy change: the experience of health think tanks in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Bennett S, Corluka A, Doherty J, Tangcharoensathien V, Patcharanarumol W, Jesani A, Kyabaggu J, Namaganda G, Hussain AMZ and de-Graft Aikins A: Health Policy and Planning 27 (3):194-203, 10 May 2011","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/3/194.full","body":"This study aimed to investigate the contribution made by health policy analysis institutes in low- and middle-income countries to health policy agenda setting, formulation, implementation and monitoring and evaluation; and assess which factors, including organisational form and structure, support the role of health policy analysis institutes in low- and middle-income countries in terms of positively contributing to health policy. Six case studies of health policy analysis institutes in Bangladesh, Ghana, India, South Africa, Uganda and Vietnam were conducted including two NGOs, two university and two government-owned policy analysis institutes. Some key messages merged. Under the right conditions, health policy analysis institutes can play a positive role in promoting evidence-informed decision making in government. Factors critical in supporting effective policy engagement include: a supportive policy environment, some degree of independence in governance and financing, and strong links to policy makers that facilitate trust and influence. Motivation and capacity within government to process and apply policy advice developed by a health policy analysis institute was found to be key to the institute\u2019s ultimate success.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Innovation and access to medicines for neglected populations: Could a treaty address a broken pharmaceutical R&D system?","field_subtitle":"Moon S, Bermudez J and 't Hoen E: PLoS Medicine 9(5): 15 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001218","body":"The current system for the research and development (R&D) of new medicines does not adequately meet the needs of the majority of the world's population, argue the authors of this paper. There is a lack of new medicines for the \u201cneglected diseases\u201d, namely those that primarily affect populations with little purchasing power, and therefore offer an insufficient incentive for industry to invest in R&D. Despite the emergence of many new approaches to generating R&D that meets the needs of poorer populations, efforts remain ad hoc, fragmented, and insufficient. The authors discuss how an R&D treaty could complement and build on existing initiatives by addressing four areas where the system remains particularly weak: affordability, sustainable financing, efficiency in innovation, and equitable health-centered governance. They argue that effective tools for global governance are required to generate medical R&D as a global public good, based on the understanding that a politically and financially sustainable system will require both fair contributions from all, and fair benefit-sharing for all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Intellectual property and human rights: A pocketbook for journalists","field_subtitle":"Centre for Health Human Rights and Development: 2012","field_url":"http://www.cehurd.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2012/05/IP-HR-media-pocketbook.pdf","body":"According to this booklet, media has a crucial role to play in shaping the intellectual property (IP) rights reform agenda in East Africa. As far as IP issues are concerned, CEHURD makes a number of recommendations. Media should aim to build their own capacity to understand IP issues, which tend to be technical and dynamic. It is important to understand the World Trade Organisation system and how it functions, as well as the ongoing negotiations, and to assess which position is in the best interest of Uganda and the region. The media should also follow ongoing policy and legislative processes and report and evaluate them at every stage. They should show support for progressive decisions by government actors in the negotiations, generate community support to promote social and economic change, and persuade the public and Parliament to demand that the president and Cabinet act in public and national interest. Media can further play a role in empowering ordinary citizens through civic education, information and mobilisation to participate more directly in the discussion and debate of ongoing IP reforms and their impact the different aspects of social life.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Is malaria illness among young children a cause or a consequence of low socioeconomic status? Evidence from the United Republic of Tanzania","field_subtitle":"De Castro M and Fisher MG: Malaria Journal 11(161), 9 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-161.pdf","body":"Malaria is commonly considered a disease of the poor, but there is very little evidence of a possible two-way causality in the association between malaria and poverty. This study aimed to address this gap. In the study, results show that households with a child who tested positive for malaria at the time of the survey had a wealth index that was, on average, 1.9 units lower. If malaria is indeed a cause of poverty, as the findings of this study suggest, then malaria control activities, and particularly the current efforts to eliminate/eradicate malaria, are much more than just a public health policy, but also a poverty alleviation strategy, the authors argue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Joint statement on the Kenya Anti-Counterfeit Act 2008 decision","field_subtitle":"Medicins Sans Frontiers, Health Action International Africa and KELIN: 20 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.msfaccess.org/content/joint-statement-msf-hai-africa-kelin-kenya-anti-counterfeit-act-2008-decision","body":"Health activists working in Kenya have welcomed the April 2012 decision by the Kenyan High Court, which ruled that that the country\u2019s Anti-Counterfeit Act 2008 was \u2018vague\u2019 and could undermine access to affordable generic medicines. The ruling means that Parliament will now have to review the Act and amend sections that confuse generic medicines with counterfeits and remove ambiguities that may result in arbitrary seizures of generic medicines under the guise of fighting counterfeits. The organisations signing this joint statement have vowed to press for those changes to protect access to generic medicines. They hope this ruling will set a positive precedent for the East Africa region as other countries in the region are considering anti-counterfeiting laws that may threaten generics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenyan High Court overturns Anti-Counterfeit Act","field_subtitle":"Ngugi M: Republic of Kenya, 20 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Kenya-Judgment-Petition-No-409-of-2009.pdf","body":"The High Court of Kenya has ruled that the country\u2019s 2008 Anti-Counterfeit Act was too \u2018broad\u2019 and could interfere with the flow of legal generic medicines to patients. The landmark ruling stated that \u2018the Act is vague and could undermine access to affordable generic medicines since the Act had failed to clearly distinguish between counterfeit and generic medicines.\u2019 High Court Judge Mumbi Ngugi called on Kenya\u2019s Parliament to review the Act and remove ambiguities that could result in arbitrary seizures of generic medicines under the pretext of fighting counterfeit drugs. She also said that intellectual property rights should not override the right to life and health. She specifically found that Section 2 (definition of counterfeiting), section 32 (offenses) and Section 34 (Powers of the Commissioner to seize suspected counterfeit Goods) could severely limit or threaten access to affordable and essential drugs including generic medicines for HIV and AIDS and therefore infringed the right to life, dignity and health of the three Petitioners (all people living with HIV/AIDS) under the Constitution of Kenya, 2010.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of the East African Community (EAC) Medicines Registration Harmonisation (MRH) Project","field_subtitle":"African Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation Newsletter 7:1-2, March 2012","field_url":"http://www.amrh.org/download/eng_amrh_newsletter_07.pdf","body":"NEPAD and the East African Community (EAC) launched the EAC Medicines Registration Harmonisation (MRH) Project on 30 March 2012 in Arusha, Tanzania. The EAC MRH Project will promote the harmonisation of medicines registration in the region, which is expected to allow the public health sector to rapidly access good quality, safe and effective medicines for priority diseases. The EAC Secretariat, working in close collaboration with representatives from the National Medicines Regulatory Authorities (NMRAs) of all five partner states, will implement the project. Partner states agreed to co-operate in the initial stages of the project, including drawing up the draft implementation work plan and budgets, and the draft operational manual. Stakeholders hope that successful implementation of the EAC project will serve as a model for other countries and regions considering harmonised regulations for their populations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of the East African Community Regional Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan of Action (2012-2016)","field_subtitle":"African Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation Newsletter 7:4, March 2012","field_url":"http://www.amrh.org/download/eng_amrh_newsletter_07.pdf","body":"On 6 December 2011, the East African Community Regional Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan of Action was launched in Arusha, Tanzania. The Plan of Action will guide the region towards evolving an efficient and effective pharmaceutical manufacturing industry that can supply national, regional and international markets with quality efficacious medicines. A number of recommendations were made at the end of the meeting. Participants agreed that, following discussion on the baseline survey, the draft report and the relevant questionnaire will be sent to national associations and regulatory authorities for corrections and further input, and then to national pharmaceutical manufacturers associations for input. They called on EAC Partner States to mobilise the necessary resources to ensure successful implementation of the Plan of Action. It was resolved that the EAC Secretariat will be responsible for putting in place clear coordination and management structures for the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the plan.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Listening to health workers: lessons from Eastern Uganda for strengthening the programme for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV","field_subtitle":"Rujumba J, Tumwine JK, Tyllesk\u00e4r T, Neema S and Heggenhougen HK: BMC Health Services Research; 12(3), January 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/12/3","body":"In this study, researchers explored the lessons learnt by health workers involved in the provision of prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) services in eastern Uganda to better understand what more needs to be done to strengthen the PMTCT programme. A qualitative study was conducted at Mbale Regional Referral Hospital, The AIDS Support Organisation (TASO) Mbale and at eight neighbouring health centres in eastern Uganda, between January and May 2010. Data were collected through 24 individual interviews with the health workers involved in the PMTCT programme and four key informants (two district officials and two officials from TASO). Study themes and sub-themes were identified following multiple reading of interview transcripts. The key lessons for programme improvement were: ensuring constant availability of critical PMTCT supplies, such as HIV testing kits, antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) for mothers and their babies, regular in-service training of health workers to keep them abreast with the rapidly changing knowledge and guidelines for PMTCT, ensuring that lower level health centres provide maternity services and ARVs for women in the PMTCT programme and provision of adequate facilities for effective follow-up and support for mothers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Making Health Policy","field_subtitle":"Buse K, Mays N and Walt G: Open University Press, 2012","field_url":"http://www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk/html/0335246346.html","body":"This book focuses on how health policy is developed nationally and globally, clearly explaining the key concepts from political science with examples. This edition is fully updated to reflect new research and ways of thinking about the health policy process. The book covers a range of topics: health policy analysis; power and policy making; public and private sector; agenda setting; government roles in policy; interest groups and policy; policy implementation; globalisation and policy process; policy research and evaluation; and doing policy analysis. It is intended as a resource for students of public health and health policy, public health practitioners and policy makers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal, infant and young child nutrition: Draft comprehensive implementation plan","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 26 April 2012","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA65/A65_11-en.pdf","body":"According to this draft comprehensive implementation plan, the World Health Organisation acknowledges that nutrition challenges are multi-faceted, effective nutrition actions exist but are not expanded sufficiently and new initiatives have been launched to address nutrition, such as the Scaling Up nutrition movement. The plan sets five global targets and a time frame. The plan aims to alleviate the double burden of malnutrition in children, starting from the earliest stages in development. It contains five key actions. 1. To create a supportive environment for the implementation of comprehensive food and nutrition policies. 2. To include all required effective health interventions with an impact on nutrition in national nutrition pans. 3. To stimulate development policies and programmes outside the health sector that recognise and include nutrition. 4. To provide sufficient financial resources and staff for the implementation of nutrition interventions, 5. To monitor and evaluate the implementation of policies and programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"New African health policy and systems resource website","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hpsa-africa.org/","body":"The official website for the European Union-funded Consortium for Health Policy and Systems Analysis in Africa (CHEPSAA) has just been launched. CHEPSAA is working with universities in Africa and Europe to strengthen teaching, research and policy networking activities for the rapidly emerging field of health policy and systems research and analysis (HPSR+A). CHEPSAA\u2019s aim is to build the field of HPSA through: assessing the capacity development needs of the African members and national policy networks; supporting the development of African researchers and educators; strengthening the development of HPSA courses; strengthening networking among the health policy and systems education, research and policy communities; and strengthening the process of getting research into policy and practice. The new website gathers HPSR+A resources, pooling information from sources far wider than CHEPSAA for teachers, researchers, students, policy-makers and decision-makers. The website contains a number of resources: classic texts, recommended reading, teaching materials, links to core HPSA journals and material by CHEPSAA.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Nineteenth International AIDS Conference: 22-27 July 2012, Washington DC","field_subtitle":"Registration open ","field_url":"http://www.aids2012.org","body":"The theme of this year\u2019s conference is \u2018Turning the tide together\u2019. Policy makers, persons living with HIV and other individuals committed to ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic will meet to assess global progress, evaluate recent scientific developments and lessons learnt, and collectively chart a course forward. The programme will present new scientific knowledge and offer many opportunities for structured dialogue on the major issues facing the global response to HIV. Sessions will focus on the latest issues in HIV science, policy and practice and will also seek to share key research findings, lessons learned, best practices, as well as identify gaps in knowledge. The conference will feature abstract-driven sessions, a daily plenary session, a variety of symposia sessions, professional development workshops, and independently organised satellite meetings. In addition, the conference programme will include a number of programme activities, such as the Global Village and the Youth Programme, which are an integral aspect of the International AIDS Conference.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Partnerships for health research in Africa","field_subtitle":"Stevens G, IJsselmuiden C and Kilunga KB: Forum 2012 blogs, 14 May 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ccddgkw","body":"At Forum 2012, held in Cape Town in April 2012, a session was convened to explore the current roles and future potential of international partnerships in advancing African development through health research. Attendees sought to identify the elements of partnerships that would bring the greatest benefits to research and capacity development in Africa and, at the same time strengthen health and development systems on the continent. COHRED said that funders and research programmes must consciously build systems and capacity in their areas that can extend beyond silos and support other campaigns. Participants developed a number of specific and general recommendations. Most crucially, perhaps, research for health programmes must design capacity building for development and health systems into their programmes from the earliest stages, i.e., this must be a goal and not merely an incidental, even unexpected collateral benefit. Partnering organisations should be selected with attention to their commitment to ensuring that the infrastructure and human expertise which will be developed for the programme is sustainable and transferable. Country ownership will benefit from locally anchored partners, such as national universities, who will still be there when a particular research programme is concluded.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"People\u2019s Health Assembly programme information","field_subtitle":"6-11 July 2012, Cape Town","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/pha3/registration","body":"The People\u2019s Health Assembly (PHA), organised by the People's Health Movement (PHM), is a global event bringing together health activists from across the world to share experiences, analyse global health situation, develop civil society positions and to develop strategies which promote health for all. It will look at forms of action to address identified challenges and build capacity among health activists to act. It is an opportunity for PHM as a whole to reflect on the global struggle, to review and reassess, to redirect and re-inspire. PHA3 aims to impact directly in the struggle for social change: for health for all, decent living conditions for all, work in dignity for all, equity and environmental justice. The programme is now available at http://www.phmovement.org/en/pha3/programme ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy making with health equity at its heart","field_subtitle":"Marmot MG: Journal of the American medical Association 307(19):2033-2034, 16 May 2012","field_url":"http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1157498","body":"The World Health Organisation's Commission on Social Determinants of Health has stated that health inequities result from inequities in power, money, and resources, which in turn are based on a combination of unfair economic arrangements, poor policies and programmes and bad governance. In other words, a focus on health equity should shift to the causes of the causes. According to this article, putting health equity at the heart of policy making is a perfectly feasible goal. While there is fierce debate over economic policy in the face of huge debts faced by rich countries, with some economists calling for economic growth and others calling for reduced deficit spending, the criterion of success seeming to be a return to growth of gross domestic product (GDP). The author argues here that what is actually required are broader measures of social and economic progress than simply GDP. He calls for examination of the effects of economic policy choices on the lives people are able to lead, and hence the likely effect on health equity. When governments cut social expenditures, the effect is greatest on those at the lower end of the social hierarchy, namely those who are most dependent on cash and in-kind government expenditures. It should be of the highest priority to ensure that government policies do not unfairly increase avoidable health inequalities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Recommendations to the UN Secretary-General for Effective Partnerships","field_subtitle":"NCD Alliance: 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/7egdwco","body":"The NCD Alliance is calling for a global coordinating platform for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), housed within a United Nations agency, driven by Member State champions, with an independent Board and Secretariat, to be a catalyst for coordinated action on NCDs. The Alliance argues that key gaps in the current global and national response to NCDs are a result of a lack of multisectoral action, a problem which could be addressed by the proposed platform. In this paper, the Alliance lays out various partnership options for a global coordinating platform (GCP) on NCDs: simple affiliations, lead partners, secretariats and joint ventures. The Alliance recommends a secretariat structure, similar to platforms like the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and the Global Health Workforce Alliance. It argues that an effective GCP on NCDs should be based on a set of best practice principles in order to effectively catalyse action on NCDs and coordinate the multisectoral response needed to reduce preventable NCD deaths by 25% by 2025.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional governance of migration and social policy in Africa","field_subtitle":"Hujo K: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 8 May 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/7qxh6p5","body":"A conference on Migration and Social Policy: Comparing European and African Regional Integration Policies and Practices was held on 19-20 April 2012 in Pretoria, South Africa. It brought together participants from the South African government, UN organisations, national research centres and NGOs to underscore the potentials to develop more effective regional social policy, improve policies for social protection and meet the social protection needs of cross-border migrants. Three main themes emerged. First, lessons can be drawn from cross-regional research experiences, in particular new directions of regionalism and its implications for migration and socioeconomic and political rights. Second, stakeholders should consider going beyond \"migration management\", toward more coherent governance systems that advance the social dimensions of migration. This approach could lead to more positive development outcomes of migratory processes. Third, looking at regional integration through the lens of the free movement concept was considered a useful approach to map out the advantages of advancing free movement in a regional context, for example with regard to already existing institutions and common regulations. Other issues raised during the conference included challenges presented by informal labour markets, irregular migration and insufficient formal social protection mechanisms; the lack of political will to promote free movement; and the need to construct a regional identity, in particular among civil society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Report of the session at Forum 2012 on \u201cBringing evidence on equity to health policy in Africa: Experiences of the Equity Watch\u201d ","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, ECSA HC and IDRC: 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REPORT%20Equity%20Watch%20session%20GFHR%20April2012.pdf","body":"Convened by EQUINET, in association with the ECSA Health Community and IDRC Canada, this session presented evidence and experience from work carried out in 2010-2012 in five countries and at regional level in East and Southern Africa to assess progress in key areas of equity in health outcomes,  in social determinants of health and in redistributive health systems. The session reviewed the learning from the work, particularly in relation to monitoring policy commitments to equity in health, and discuss the opportunities and the challenges for institutionalising and using equity analysis within health policy and planning. This report summarises the presentations and issues raised at the session.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Report: Workshop on enhancing the global workforce for vaccine manufacturing","field_subtitle":"African Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation Newsletter 7:7, March 2012","field_url":"http://www.amrh.org/download/eng_amrh_newsletter_07.pdf","body":"A workshop on enhancing the global workforce for vaccine manufacturing was organised by the World Health Organisation from the 30 November to 2 December 2011, in Cape Town, South Africa. This workshop was attended by representatives from academia, pharmaceutical industries, research institutions, non-governmental organisations and regulatory agencies. A recurring theme during the discussions was the notion that international support for establishing or strengthening vaccine production capacity in developing and emerging economy countries must also include appropriate efforts to train and retain a skilled local workforce. A highly skilled workforce will support long term sustainability and viability of the operations of developing country vaccine manufacturers. Due to the synergies/similarities between the vaccine production workforce and the workforce producing other biological drugs, participants at the workshop argued that the two labour forces could complement each other during times of critical need. The management model of the biological drug manufacturing workforce could also serve as a benchmark for training, recruitment and retention policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Research on global health diplomacy in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/","body":"In 2012 EQUINET is initiating a three-year policy research programme to implement case study research on global health diplomacy in east and southern Africa (ESA). Working with government officials in health and diplomacy, with technical institutions, civil society and other stakeholders in ESA countries, we will examine the role of health diplomacy in addressing selected challenges to health and equitable health systems and use the learning and evidence to inform African policy actors and stakeholders. We will feed into regional processes, including the Strategic Initiative of Global Health Diplomacy co-ordinated by the East Central and Southern Africa Health Community. A review meeting on the case study design is being held in Johannesburg, South Africa on June 4-5 2012.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Rethinking the role of intellectual property policy in the HIV response in the East Africa Community","field_subtitle":"Centre for Health Human Rights and Development: January 2012","field_url":"http://www.cehurd.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2012/04/EAC-counterfeit-and-ARVs-brief.pdf","body":"In this brief, the Centre for Health Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) argues that anti-counterfeit measures are not an appropriate policy measure for curtailing the spread of substandard and falsified products, including medicines. The likely impact of the draft EAC Anti-Counterfeit Bill (2010) will be huge implementation costs through monitoring and settling international trade disputes. In addition, intellectual property rights (IPR) border controls and criminalising possession and trade in IPR infringing goods deters overall trade, in both IPR infringing goods and non-infringing goods. CEHURD notes that IPR-related \u201canticounterfeiting\u201d action in the form of confiscated shipments of generic medicines reveals a pro-IPR bias and is being used to disrupt the flow of generics to developing countries instead of addressing more important issues of quality, safety and efficacy of generic medicines. The brief highlights the importance of distinguishing between generics, substandard medicines and counterfeit medicines. The TRIPS Agreement uses the term \u201ccounterfeit\u201d only in the context of criminal trademark infringements that are wilful and on a commercial scale. CEHURD argues that there is a critical need to find legislative and policy approaches that would reduce the spread of such illicit, unregistered, and unsafe products without hindering access to good quality, safe and efficacious medicines - particularly legitimate and affordable generics of assured quality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Review of the Equity Watch work in east and southern Africa: Regional review and skills workshop","field_subtitle":"EQUINET: May 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EWMtg%20Rep%20April2012.pdf","body":"From 26-28 April 2012, EQUINET held a regional methods workshop in Cape Town, South Africa. It gathered the lead institutions of country teams in the Equity Watch work, the EQUINET steering committee, regional and international agencies and networks involved in work on health equity. The workshop aimed to: provide training on equity analysis and discuss future approaches to capacity building on equity analysis; review Equity Watch work at country level and the learning and implications from the work for future monitoring of health equity within countries; and review and discuss the draft regional Equity Watch and the follow up and dissemination. Equity Watch presentations were delivered at the meeting for five of the countries in east, central and southern Africa included in the EQUINET network, namely Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Results were mixed from the various countries, indicating success in improved aggregate health in most countries, some closing of rural-urban disparities in health, but widening social and economic inequalities in health and the social determinants of health.  Delegates argued that aggregated data obscured inequities in health in the region. They identified decreases in public health spending as a major problem in giving ministries the leverage over other sources of spending on health. They also called for \u2018mainstreaming\u2019 health equity into the national and regional health agendas, as well as for the dissemination of the Equity Watch results at country and regional level to all stakeholders, identifying champions who will take Equity Watch forward, putting effective monitoring and evaluation in place to measure progress in health equity in the region, and conducting district-level analysis (so far Equity Watch analysis has been on regional and national levels only). Presentations were also given on various aspects of equity analysis, such as disaggregating health expenditure, analysing the social determinants of health equity and universal health coverage and linking equity analysis to the Millennium Development Goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Second Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"Beijing, China: 31 October-3 November 2012","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/","body":"The Symposium will focus on the science to accelerate universal health coverage around the world. It will cover three main themes: knowledge translation; state-of-the-art health systems research; and health systems research methodologies. There will also be three cross-cutting themes: innovations in health systems research; neglected priorities or populations in health systems research; financing and capacity building for health systems research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Sections of the Kenya Anti Counterfeiting Act struck down as a threat to fundamental human rights","field_subtitle":"Musungu SF: Ideas in Development blog, 23 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.iqsensato.org/blog/2012/04/23/kenya-anti-counterfeiting-act-struck-down/","body":"This article provides a local legal analysis of the ruling from the Kenyan High Court case in April 2012, where the judge found the Kenya Anti-Counterfeit Act was unconstitutional in hindering access to generic medicines, thereby undermining public health needs and the right to health of all Kenyans. The judge recommended the State reconsider and appropriately amend section 2 of the Anti-Counterfeit Act in a manner that ensures that the State fulfils its obligations to ensure that Kenyans have access to the highest attainable standard of health. The author of this article questions the usefulness of the Anti-Counterfeit law, arguing that the existing legal framework in Kenya was sufficient for enforcing intellectual property rights. He asks why Kenyan taxpayers should be paying for the implementation of this law as well as for the costs of running the Anti-Counterfeit Agency.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Seen, Heard and Counted: Rethinking Care in a Development Context","field_subtitle":"Razavi S: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, April 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/7p2q8ms","body":"With two decades of research behind it, the \"invisible economy\" of care is a critical area of scientific enquiry and policy action. However, far from being global, much of the public debate has been limited to advanced industrialised countries. Meanwhile, governments in developing countries - where economic restructuring raises perennial concerns about social reproduction, and women's increasing burdens of unpaid care work - are experimenting with new ways of responding to care needs in their societies. In this book, contributors from a wide range of backgrounds discuss and debate the care economy in the developing world at a moment when existing systems are under strain and new ideas are coming into focus. Empirically grounded case studies of countries as diverse as China, Nicaragua, India and South Africa shed new light both on existing care arrangements and changing policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"SEYCOHAIDS 2012","field_subtitle":"8-10 June 2012: Lilongwe, Malawi","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5ty3mor","body":"SEYCOHAIDS 2012 is the largest international gathering for young people on HIV and AIDS in the Eastern and Southern Africa region, where young researchers, policy makers, activists, educators and people living with HIV will be able to link with people in other countries and meet to share and learn about HIV prevention methods, treatments, care policies and programmes relating to HIV and AIDS in Africa. The broad objectives for the Conference are to: ensure effective and meaningful youth participation in international AIDS response; identify gaps and challenges in government policies in providing youth-friendly HIV and AIDS services; develop regional and country-level strategic programmes for youth and HIV and AIDS; identify and build the capacity of new and emerging youth leaders for the AIDS response to ensure sustainability of youth initiatives at the national, regional and international levels; sustain adult-youth partnerships and dialogue; develop the Southern and Eastern Africa youth network on HIV and AIDS; develop country specific youth networks on HIV and AIDS; establish funding mechanisms for regional and country youth networks; and monitor government and donor commitments to youth and HIV and AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Short message service (SMS) sentinel surveillance of influenza-like illness in Madagascar, 2008\u20132012","field_subtitle":"Rajatonirina S, Heraud J, Randrianasolo L, Orelle A, Razanajatovo NH, Raoelina YN et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(5): 385-389, May 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/5/11-097816.pdf","body":"In 2007 Madagascar implemented a sentinel surveillance system for influenza-like illness (ILI) based on data collected from sentinel general practitioners, launching an innovative case reporting system based on the use of cell phones. Encrypted short message service (SMS), which costs less than US$2 per month per health centre, is now being used by sentinel general practitioners for the daily reporting of cases of fever and ILI seen in their practices. To validate the daily data, practitioners also report epidemiological and clinical data (e.g. new febrile patient\u2019s sex, age, visit date, symptoms) weekly to the epidemiologists on the research team using special patient forms. Madagascar\u2019s sentinel ILI surveillance system represents the country\u2019s first nationwide \u2018real-time\u2019 surveillance system. The authors of this paper argue that it has proved the feasibility of improving disease surveillance capacity through innovative systems despite resource constraints. They recommend this type of syndromic surveillance for detecting unexpected increases in the incidence of ILI and other syndromic illnesses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Socioeconomic inequalities in mortality from conditions amenable to medical interventions: do they reflect inequalities in access or quality of health care?","field_subtitle":"Plug I, Hoffmann R, Artnik B, Bopp M, Borrell C, Costa G et al: BMC Public Health 12(346), 11 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-346.pdf","body":"Previous studies have reported large socioeconomic inequalities in mortality from conditions amenable to medical intervention, but it is unclear whether these can be attributed to inequalities in access or quality of health care, or to confounding influences such as inequalities in background risk of diseases. In this study, researchers hypothesised that, as compared to non-amenable causes, inequalities in mortality from amenable causes are more strongly associated with inequalities in health care use and less strongly with inequalities in common risk factors for disease such as smoking. Cause-specific mortality data for people aged 30-74 years were obtained for 14 countries, and were analysed by calculating age-standardised mortality rates and relative risks comparing a lower with a higher educational group. In most countries and for most amenable causes of death substantial inequalities in mortality were observed, but inequalities in mortality from amenable causes did not vary between countries in patterns that are different from those seen for inequalities in non-amenable mortality. As compared to non-amenable causes, inequalities in mortality from amenable causes are not more strongly associated with inequalities in health care use. Inequalities in mortality from amenable causes are also not less strongly associated with common risk factors such as smoking. The authors call for further research to find the causes of socio-economic inequalities in mortality from amenable conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"State of the Health Equity Movement, 2011 Update","field_subtitle":"Bezold C, Birnbaum N, Masterson E and Schoomaker H: Institute for Alternative Futures, 2012","field_url":"http://www.altfutures.org/draproject/pdfs/Report_11_01_HealthEquityMovement_PartAOverview.pdf","body":"The 2011 Update identifies and discusses 159 different health equity activities and 79 sets of recommendations from local, state, national, and international reports. It notes that many of the recommendations focus on a wide range of areas, including early childhood investment, education, lifestyle, housing, transportation, the environment, employment and community and interagency collaboration. This breadth of topics reflects the growth in \u201cHealth in All Policies\u201d thinking and analysis among community groups and governments at all levels, calling for each sector to contribute to the quality of the nation's health. The Update recommends actions to increase awareness of health inequities and the social determinants of health, as well as advocacy and leadership for health equity and social justice. A health equity-oriented approach should emphasise community empowerment, increasing collaborative partnerships with all sectors and the need to coordinate and utilise research and outcome evaluations more effectively.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Sustainable development goals and the relationship to a post-2015 global development framework","field_subtitle":"Beyond 2015: May 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bwypqe9","body":"The current over-arching development framework of the MDGs expires in 2015. Any plans for SDGs coming out of Rio+20 must be fully integrated into the global overarching post-2015 development framework, argues Beyond 2015. To develop SDGs and the post-MDG development framework in parallel would be both inefficient and short-sighted, and could lead to a number of negative scenarios. Principles of participation, accountability, equality and non-discrimination must cut across any post-2015 framework to ensure outcomes which are effective, just and sustainable. Principles of Agenda 21 should similarly be embedded throughout. To illustrate this, Beyond 2015 have identified four principles which must be the foundation for any guidance coming out of Rio+20 on a future development framework: holistic, inclusive, equitable and universally applicable. Fundamentally, any global development framework must be based on, and fully ensure, equal enjoyment of all human rights for all people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Addis Ababa Declaration on Global Health Equity: A Call to Action","field_subtitle":"World Federation of Public Health Associations (WFPHA): May 2012","field_url":"http://www.wfpha.org/tl_files/doc/about/Addis_Declaration.pdf","body":"More than 3,000 delegates from approximately 120 countries assembled at the 13th World Congress on Public Health in Addis Ababa from the 23rd to 27th of April 2012. In this statement, delegates re-affirm their commitment to international agreements enshrining health as a human right. They also pledge to promote innovative research to generate evidence on the social determinants of health and health equity, as well as advocate for: evidence-based policy; making health equity an integral part of policy and development; equitable access to high quality health services; and fair trade in all commodities that affect human health. The Federation further intends to strengthen partnerships and networks to take common action on global public health priorities, share experiences and help build capacity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The cupboard is full: Public finance for public services in the global South","field_subtitle":"Lipschutz RD and Romano ST: Municipal Services Project, Briefing Note No 2, 2012","field_url":"http://www.municipalservicesproject.org/sites/municipalservicesproject.org/files/publications/Lipschutz-Romano_The_Cupboard_is_Full_May2012_FINAL.pdf","body":"Governments around the world argue that there is no money for badly needed public services. But the author of this briefing note disagrees, pointing to evidence that large pools of public monies exist for investment in public infrastructure, with public pension funds and sovereign wealth funds being two examples. Currently, these funds are being directed toward large-scale, capital-intensive, high-return projects aimed primarily at well-off urban residents and the private sector. Lessons from the financial crisis show that such funds could actually realise greater long-term returns from investment in public service provision, the authors argue, while avoiding the politically controversial and contradictory practice of using public sector funds to support privatisation. They make the case for using public pension funds and sovereign wealth funds for socially responsible investments in the global South, in support of essential public services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The dilemmas of co-payment and moral hazard in the context of an NHI","field_subtitle":"Shung-King M: Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town, December 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/7gqoycx","body":"This review examines the role and impact of co-payments in the context of a National Health Insurance system. The application of co-payments, which is a demand-side mechanism, attempts to play a dual role in health care: they primarily serve as a mechanism to avert moral hazard and secondly they add a small amount to the pool of health care funding. Available evidence shows that co-payments are applied in a large variety of health care settings. Across all settings and in different health care and country contexts, co-payments reduce utilisation, disproportionately so for those who are more vulnerable and more disadvantaged. They thereby increase the likelihood of higher health care costs in the long term, as necessary health care is deferred and increasing hospitalisation and more complications arise accordingly. There is, however, no clear evidence to suggest that co-payments address moral hazard and neither is there evidence of any substantial cost savings. A co-payment does, however, shift the burden of cost from health care funders onto users. The review also examines alternate supply-side mechanisms that can contribute to decreased health care costs and address potential over-utilisation, one being gate-keeping. The author concludes that, before co-payments are introduced, other mechanisms should be explored as alternative cost- and utilisation-control interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Crisis and Transformative Social Change","field_subtitle":"Utting P, Buchholz RV and Razavi S: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, May 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bszxxef","body":"Global crises not only impact the economy and people's livelihoods, they also unsettle basic ideas and assumptions about the meaning and drivers of development. This collection of theoretical and empirical studies contributes to the global debate about the substance and politics of policy change three years into the 2007-2008 crisis. The authors examine the challenges and dynamics involved from the perspective of development and developing countries, engaging with some of the most pressing and contested issues. To what extent does the crisis provide an opportunity for moving away from the doctrines and policies that reinforced inequality and vulnerability? What new directions in policy, especially social policy, are required, and are developing countries moving in such directions? Are social forces and political coalitions supportive of transformative change able to mobilise? While the political underpinnings of policy change conducive to social reform - contestation, social mobilisation and coalition politics - are energised in the context of crises, the book shows that the nature of demands and the responsiveness of elites can vary considerably.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The Political economy of development in Africa: A joint statement from five research programmes","field_subtitle":"The Africa Power and Politics Programme, the Developmental Leadership Programme et al: May 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cd5n74m","body":"The single most important message of this paper is that development outcomes in poor countries depend fundamentally on the political incentives facing political elites and leaders. Political will has usually been treated as an inexplicable \u2018black box\u2019. The authors seek in this paper open up the black box, to say some definite things about the specific contexts in which political ambitions are shaped and policy choices are made in different parts of the world and at different stages of countries\u2019 development processes. They argue that economic growth without economic transformation is limited.  The authors raise the case that democracy depends on the formation of social classes, including productive capitalists, and organised professional groups and wage-earning workers. This only happens as a result of economic diversification and the accumulation of technological capacities. If the formal sector cannot generate adequate incomes and taxes for state revenues, the ruling elites draw resources to meet the demands of crucial coalition groups from various kinds of off-budget transfers and informal sharing of rents. The paper explores country contexts in Africa where there is evidence of diversity in the relationship between ruling elites and state bureaucracies, to better understand the reasons for this diversity and its implications for development aid.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of fiscal policy in tackling the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"African Development Bank: 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/btlvges","body":"Three countries in Southern Africa have the highest adult HIV prevalence in the world: Swaziland (25.9%), Botswana (24.8%), and Lesotho (23.6%). Fiscal policy is crucial for addressing this HIV and AIDS crisis, according to the African Development Bank (ADB). Utilising a calibrated model, this paper investigates the impact of fiscal policy on reducing the HIV and AIDS incidence rates in these countries. In particular, ADB studied the welfare impact of different taxation and debt paths in these countries in reducing the HIV and AIDS prevalence rates. Results showed that tax policies that were associated with reduced HIV rates not only had positive societal effect but also positive fiscal effects. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Top Ugandan government officials seek health treatment abroad","field_subtitle":"Ladu IM: Sunday Monitor, 24 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1392598/-/avjd17z/-/index.html","body":"Every year the Ugandan government spends at least Shs377 billion (about US$150 million) on medical procedures for mostly top government officials abroad, according to the Ugandan newspaper, Sunday Monitor. This amount is similar to the total amount of foreign funding flowing into the country\u2019s health sector. Ministry of Health permanent secretary Asuman Lukwago agreed that the amount should be reduced and that the money would be better spent on ongoing efforts to rejuvenate health facilities, including upgrading all referral hospitals. The secretary added that Uganda had the capacity to perform most procedures, arguing that there was minimal need for government officials to travel abroad to get treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda\u2019s Industrial Property Bill needs to safeguard public health ","field_subtitle":"Centre for Health Human Rights and Development: December 2011","field_url":"http://www.cehurd.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2012/04/industrial-property-bill-brief.pdf","body":"Uganda\u2019s 2009 Industrial Property Bill needs to be reviewed before it is enacted into law, according to this brief by the Centre for Health Human Rights and Development (CEHURD). The review is needed to make full and maximum use of the flexibilities available in the TRIPS Agreement in order to guarantee public health, particularly access to essential medicines, for all Ugandans. CEHURD argues that, since Uganda is classified as a less-developed country, it is free to exploit all the flexibilities the TRIPS Agreement offers, and is required to adopt only the minimum levels of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection. The current bill contains unnecessary IPR protection over and above the minimum required by the TRIPS Agreement, and does not fully utilise flexibilities, CEHURD argues. A revised Industrial Property Act should promote Uganda\u2019s public health interests by aiming to: develop the capacity at national level for production of generic medicines; allow the widest possible scope for parallel importation; adopt a simple and expeditious procedure for compulsory licensing and government use order; and allow extensive flexibility for scientific research and regulatory approval exceptions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding the implications of Uganda\u2019s IP reforms","field_subtitle":"Centre for Health Human Rights and Development: 11 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.cehurd.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2011/08/media-brief-draft.pdf","body":"In this brief, the Centre for Health Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) outlines the current legislative environment affecting intellectual property (IP) rights in Uganda. The brief also considers the implications of the Industrial Properties Bill on the right to access essential medicines, a proposed piece of legislation that CEHURD argues will undermine efforts to manufacture generics in Uganda. It unnecessarily requires Government to consult the patent owner before producing generics for the public sector. It further requires applicants for a \u201ccompulsory license\u201d to go through the lengthy court processes, yet procedures for granting such a licence should be simple and expeditious. Due to a lack of sufficient knowledge at the population level as well as Uganda\u2019s weak negotiating position vis-\u00e0-vis other countries and negotiating blocs, CEHURD argues that the current laws and draft laws are not taking advantage of the TRIPS flexibilities, which would allow Uganda to fast track the supply essential medicines to the public sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"United Nations Conference On Sustainable Development 2012 (Rio+20)","field_subtitle":"20-22 June 2012: Rio De Janeiro, Brazil","field_url":"http://www.earthsummit2012.org/","body":"Also referred to as the Earth Summit or Rio+20 due to the initial conference held in Rio in 1992, the objectives of the Summit are: to secure renewed political commitment to sustainable development; to assess progress towards internationally agreed goals on sustainable development and to address new and emerging challenges. The Summit will also focus on two specific themes: a green economy in the context of poverty eradication and sustainable development, and an institutional framework for sustainable development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal coverage promoted at World Health Assembly","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 21 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/2012/wha65/journal/en/index1.html","body":"Member states at the World Health Assembly (WHA) was held from 21-26 May 2012 in Switzerland supported the concept of universal health coverage as an indispensable precondition for sustainable human development and a fair society. Some of them presented their experiences in implementing universal access to healthcare. Among the tools suggested were mainstreaming health in all national policies, sharing costs between public and private sectors, and offering subsidies and health insurance. Member States expressed their support for a stronger WHO as the organisation has a critical role to play in prevention, equitable access and efficiency in public health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Using community-owned resource persons to provide early diagnosis and treatment and estimate malaria burden at community level in north-eastern Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Rutta AS, Francis F, Mmbando BP, Ishengoma DS, Sembuche SH, Malecela EK et al: Malaria Journal 11(152), 3 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-152.pdf","body":"This study was conducted working with community-owned resource persons to provide early diagnosis and treatment of malaria, and collect data for estimation of malaria burden in four villages of Korogwe district, north-eastern Tanzania. Reduction in anti-malarial consumption was determined by comparing the number of cases that would have been presumptively treated and those that were actually treated. the study found that with basic training and supervision, community-owned resource persons successfully provided early diagnosis and treatment and reduced unnecessary consumption of anti-malarials. Progressively declining malaria incidence and slide positivity rates suggest that all fever cases should be tested before treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Where there is no health research: What can be done to fill the global gaps in health research?  ","field_subtitle":"McKee M, Stuckler D and Basu S: PLoS Medicine 9(4), 24 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001209","body":"In this global review, researchers aimed to determine which countries are experiencing gaps in health research, identifying Chad, Angola, DRC, Sudan, Lesotho, Rwanda, Madagascar, Algeria, and the Central African Republic as African countries with the lowest levels of health research. Efforts to strengthen capacity in health research have, so far, concentrated on countries where there is existing capacity rather than those where it is almost completely lacking. Judged by absolute numbers of scientific papers, those with the fewest are mainly small islands and a few countries that are politically isolated. Judged by papers per capita, the lowest include countries in the former Soviet Union and Africa, both regions experiencing declines in life expectancy in recent years, and states experiencing conflict. Although there is a positive association between economic development and research output, some relatively wealthy countries seriously underperform. There are many examples of good practice, including regional networks and international partnerships. The authors present a strong argument for external funders to look to the long term and consider how best to build health research capacity where it is virtually absent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO reform undermines democratic participation and transparency","field_subtitle":"International Baby Food Action Network and the Third World Network: May 2012","field_url":"http://www.medicusmundi.org/en/topics/pnfp-sector-and-global-health-initiatives/who-reform/draft-ibfan_twn_comments-on-reform_-65-wha_-2012.pdf","body":"The International Baby Food Action Network and the Third World Network review the World Health Organisation\u2019s (WHO) reform process from a civil society perspective. (The WHO DG report on the reform is also included in this newsletter). The organisations argue that the reform process has not been transparent, as the Secretariat has withheld vital documents, such as the reports by consultants used to develop the reform agenda. With regard to stakeholders, they argue that it is important that WHO identifies the different types of social, political and economic actors with which it interacts and clearly distinguishes those that are related to commercial interests. The organisations refer to the WHO 12th General Programme of Work (GPW) as a sign of its direction, noting the unclear includion of work on the right to health, social determinants of health, primary health care and gender equality. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO reform: Consolidated report by the Director-General","field_subtitle":"Chan M: 25 April 2012","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA65/A65_5-en.pdf","body":"This report covering all aspects of World Health Organisation (WHO) reform was commissioned by the WHO for submission to the 65th World Health Assembly in May 2012. It addresses the three substantive areas of WHO reform: programmes and priority setting, governance and management. First,with regard to programmes and priority setting, the draft general programme of work, as it is developed over coming months, will demonstrate: how agreed criteria have been used to identify priorities; how high-level goals have been set; and how WHO\u2019s core functions, comparative advantage and organisational position have been used to focus its the work. Guidance from Member States will influence the development of a first full draft for discussion by the regional committees later in 2012. Next, the section on governance consolidates proposals under four main headings: more rational scheduling, alignment and harmonisation of governance processes; strengthening oversight; more strategic decision- making by governing bodies; and more effective engagement with other stakeholders. The focus of recent work has been the internal governance of WHO by Member States. More detailed work and consultation is called for in relation to the streamlining of national reporting to WHO as well as engagement with other stakeholders. Finally, the management chapter has been reorganised to reflect the fact that stronger technical, normative and policy support for all Member States should be a key outcome of reform.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO reform: Independent evaluation report: Stage 1","field_subtitle":"External Auditor of the World Health Organisation: 18 May 2012","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA65/A65_5Add2-en.pdf","body":"This independent evaluation of the World Health Organisation\u2019s (WHO) proposed reform package found that WHO had responded adequately to challenges pointed out by stakeholders in the area of internal governance by using a Member State-driven consultative process to re-set its priorities and programme areas. Issues regarding resource allocation and the strengthening of governing bodies, however, need further amplification.  A number of recommendations were made. As the proposed reform has highly interdependent components, the report calls on WHO to establish and maintain links among governing bodies at headquarters and regional offices to promote coherence and strategic focus, and adopt an approach that recognises this interdependence. Accountability and responsibility structures for three layers of governance would need to be redesigned, with results-based management and effective performance management and development. To generate acceptance at various levels, an advocacy plan should be developed, and regular communication should be maintained with all stakeholders. The report also calls for desired outputs, outcomes and impact to be identified, the designing of indicators to measure these, and a monitoring and feedback mechanism. As the reform programme is comprehensive and involves action on a large number of fronts, the report recommends that WHO develop a prioritisation plan to allow a smooth and gradual shift.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Why Africa must make its own drugs","field_subtitle":"Shetty P: SciDev.net: 22 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/en/science-and-innovation-policy/opinions/biomed-analysis-why-africa-must-make-its-own-drugs-1.html","body":"There is a pressing need for Africa to bolster its pharmaceuticals industry, but it also requires the right policy framework, argues the author of this article. With limited initial capacity, countries need to be prudent about which drugs are developed. Different countries have different needs, and selection must be made through dialogue between government ministries, pharmaceutical companies, and local drug regulatory authorities. Good regulation is crucial, yet could prove most challenging. Many African states have patchy regulatory systems for quality assurance and little means to ensure drugs testing follows ethical guidelines. They will need to create and enforce watertight regulations to ensure that substandard or ineffective medicines don\u2019t flood the market. But the development of a robust pharmaceutical industry in Africa can\u2019t, and shouldn\u2019t be, uniform, the author argues. States are extremely varied in their scientific ability, level of manufacturing regulation, and financial capacity to invest. She proposes that some countries could first set up a system to simply manufacture drugs based on existing formulations, before progressing to research and development. Others with more advanced biotech industries, such as South Africa, will have the know-how to innovate in drug development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Statistics 2012","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: May 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/EN_WHS2012_Full.pdf","body":"World Health Statistics 2012 is the World Health Organisation\u2019s annual compilation of health-related data for its 194 Member States, and includes a summary of the progress made towards achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and associated targets. In this edition it also includes highlight summaries on the topics of non-communicable diseases, universal health coverage and civil registration coverage. The report notes a decrease in child mortality, increased vaccination coverage, while worldwide obesity prevalence almost doubled between 1980 and 2008. In the last 20 years, maternal deaths have been reduced by almost half, but the mortality burden is extremely uneven, and remains high in sub-Saharan Africa, where 500 women out of every 10,000 die in childbirth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A guide to using the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa ","field_subtitle":"Equality Now and the Movement for Solidarity for African Women's Rights (SOAWR): 2012","field_url":"http://www.soawr.org/resources/Manual_on_Protocol_on_Women_Rights_in_Africa.pdf","body":"The Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa is renowned for its strong and comprehensive provisions on women\u2019s rights. For the first time in international law, it explicitly sets forth the reproductive right of women to medical abortion when pregnancy results from rape or incest or when the continuation of pregnancy endangers the health or life of the mother. This Guide provides step-by-step guidance for using the Protocol at local, national, and regional levels. It explains how to bring women\u2019s rights abuses that violate the Protocol before domestic courts and regional justice mechanisms like the African Court on Human and Peoples\u2019 Rights and analyses key cases related to women\u2019s rights decided by the African Commission. The Guide also provides activists with more general strategies for the popularisation and domestication of the Protocol to protect the rights of African women and girls and ensure they have complete access to justice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A survey of Sub-Saharan African medical schools ","field_subtitle":"Chen C, Buch E, Wassermann T, Frehywot S, Mullan F, Omaswa F et al: Human Resources for Health 10(4), 24 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-10-4.pdf","body":"The Sub-Saharan African Medical Schools Study (SAMSS) survey is a descriptive survey study of sub-Saharan African medical schools. Surveys were distributed to 146 medical schools in 40 of 48 sub-Saharan African countries. One hundred and five responses were received (72% response rate). Enrolments for medical schools ranged from 2 to 1,800 and graduates ranged from 4 to 384. Seventy-three percent of respondents increased first-year enrolments in the past five years. On average, 26% of respondents\u2019 graduates were reported to migrate out of the country within five years of graduation. The most significant reported barriers to increasing the number of graduates and improving quality were related to infrastructure and faculty limitations, respectively. Significant correlations were seen between schools implementing increased faculty salaries and bonuses, and lower levels of loss of faculty staff. Strengthened institutional research tools and funded faculty research time were also linked to greater faculty involvement in research. The results of the SAMSS survey are intended to serve as a baseline for future research, policies and investment in the health care workforce in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Accounting for Nature's benefits: The dollar value of ecosystem services ","field_subtitle":"Holzman DC: Environmental Health Perspectives 120, 1 April 2012","field_url":"http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info%3Adoi/10.1289/ehp.120-a152","body":"The value of ecosystem services typically goes unaccounted for in business and policy decisions and in market prices, according to this article. For commercial purposes, if ecosystem services are recognised at all, they are perceived as free goods, like clean air and water. The author considers the work of organisations like the United States President\u2019s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), which are working to build recognition of ecosystem services and, importantly, methods to evaluate them. By calculating specific values for these services, policy makers and resource managers may be able to make better-informed decisions that factor important environmental and human health outcomes into the bottom line.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Achieving food security in the face of climate change: Final report from the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change","field_subtitle":"Beddington J, Asaduzzaman M, Clark M, Fern\u00e1ndez A, Guillou M, Jahn M et al: CGIAR Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), 2012","field_url":"http://ccafs.cgiar.org/sites/default/files/assets/docs/climate_food_commission-final-mar2012.pdf","body":"This report by the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change contains its recommendations to policy makers on how to achieve food security in the face of climate change. The Commission\u2019s recommendations are designed to be implemented concurrently by a constellation of governments, international institutions, investors, agricultural producers, consumers, food companies and researchers. They call for changes in policy, finance, agriculture, development aid, diet choices and food waste as well as revitalised investment in the knowledge systems to support these changes. The Commission recommends significantly raising the level of global investment in sustainable agriculture and food systems in the next decade; sustainably intensifying agricultural production on the existing land base while reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and reducing losses and waste in the food system. The Commission urges governments attending the Rio+20 Earth Summit in June 2012 to make financial commitments for regionally-based research, implementation, capacity building and monitoring to improve agriculture and food systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa's neglected area of human resources for health research: The way forward","field_subtitle":"IJsselmuiden C, Marais DL, Becerra-Posada F, Ghannem H: South African Medical Journal 102(4): 228-233, April 2012","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/5377/4010","body":"Africa lacks a system for defining, co-ordinating and growing the human resources for health research (HRHR) needed to support its health systems development, according to this review. The authors found that research consists of unco-ordinated, small-scale activities, primarily driven from outside Africa. They present examples of ongoing HRHR capacity building initiatives in Africa. There is no overarching framework, strategy or body for African countries to optimise research support and capacity in HRHR. A simple model is presented to help countries plan and strategise for a comprehensive approach to research capacity strengthening. Everyone engaged with global, regional and national research for health enterprises must proactively address human resource planning for health research in Africa, the authors argue. Unless this is made explicit in global and national agendas, Africa will remain only an interested spectator in the decisions, prioritisation, funding allocations, conduct and interpretation, and in the institutional, economic and social benefits of health research, rather than owning and driving its own health research agendas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"African countries set to reform their mining sector","field_subtitle":"Social Watch: Pambazuka News 579: 29 March 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/81166","body":"African ministers of mineral resources resolved, in a conference in Addis Ababa in December 2011, to move into action to reform Africa\u2019s mining sector to benefit the African people. They set a brand new vision apparent in its action plan that includes these six points: Member States should reform the fiscal framework in order to optimise benefits from the mineral sector; Member States should explore the possibility of renegotiating existing contracts to secure a fair share of the rent; Member States should align their development strategies to their long term national development goals; Member States should ensure transparency in the collection and use of mining revenues; Governments could explore the use of equity participation in mineral ventures to capture a greater share of benefits; and Governments in collaboration with partners should build capacity of oversight bodies. Along with the action plan, the ministers reasserted the African Mining Vision (AMV) approved by the February 2009 African Union Summit. The AMV puts development outcomes at the heart of mineral regimes to stimulate the local economy and help prevent mines operating as enclave enterprises.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid transparency important as EU aid budgets slashed","field_subtitle":"Publish What You Fund: 5 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.publishwhatyoufund.org/news/2012/04/aid-transparency-important-eu-aid-budgets-slashed/","body":"European civil society organisations have expressed dismay at new Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data revealing the cuts made to almost all European countries\u2019 aid programmes in 2011. Twelve European countries slashed their aid budgets in 2011 \u2013 with the biggest cuts seen in Greece (-39.3%), Spain (-32.7%), and Austria (-14.3%) \u2013 and only three European countries increased their aid spending: Italy (33%), Sweden (10.5%) and Germany (5.9%). Publish What You Fund urges the development community to focus on maximising the impact of aid by ensuring external funders provide more accessible, timely, and comparable information about the aid they give. All European funders should implement the commitments they made in the EU Transparency Guarantee by publishing their aid information to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), so that other European countries and funders around the world can co-ordinate their aid spending more effectively. It is also crucial that information on European Union (EU) aid is made available through the common standard so that recipient countries can see what is coming to them and plan their own spending in relation to this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid, resistance and queer power","field_subtitle":"Abbas H: Pambazuka News 580, 5 April 2012","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/81318","body":"Increased persecution of homosexuals in Africa has drawn the attention of international funders recently. Western external funders are reported by the author to be considering making aid to African countries conditional on decriminalising homosexuality and upholding the rights of homosexual communities. While intended to show support for an otherwise vulnerable minority, the author suggests that withholding aid would have adverse effects on all Africans, including homosexual Africans. Threatening to withdraw foreign aid, it is argued, only reinforces the argument that homosexuality is a Western construct and would result in a local backlash. Further aid itself cannot be a tool for social justice given its roots in imequitable power relations. In contrast the author calls for an emerging movement that seeks to locate gender and sexuality, including that of homosexual people, within the broad spectrum of social and economic issues that affect all Africans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS dependency crisis: Sourcing African solutions","field_subtitle":"Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS): 2012","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/media/unaids/contentassets/documents/unaidspublication/2012/JC2286_Sourcing-African-Solutions_en.pdf","body":"In this paper, UNAIDS argues that enhancing African ownership of the AIDS response will further the health gains made so far and will also further enhance economic growth. UNAIDS points out that only half of Africans living with HIV who are eligible for treatment are able to access it currently. African governments invest less on AIDS than would be expected, while external assistance dominates HIV investment in most countries in Africa, which destabilises the AIDS response. Africa should pursue a more balanced partnership with international partners in the AIDS response, according to the paper, using health insurance as a mechanism to channel health spending more efficiently and equitably. UNAIDS urges African governments to set up new industrial policies that can support local pharmaceutical industries. It argues that Africa can bridge the resource gap with strong political leadership, leveraging the strong economic growth, and by adopting innovative funding opportunities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Antiretroviral outcomes in South African prisoners: A retrospective cohort analysis","field_subtitle":"Davies NECG and Karstaedt AS: PloS One 7(3), 7 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3310000/?tool=pubmed","body":"Little is known about antiretroviral therapy (ART) outcomes in prisoners in Africa. To address this gap, researchers conducted a retrospective review of outcomes of a large cohort of prisoners referred to a public sector, urban HIV clinic. A total of 148 inmates (133 male) initiated on ART were included in the study. By week 96 on ART, 73% of all inmates enrolled in the study and 92% of those still accessing care had an undetectable viral load. By study end, 96 (65%) inmates had ever received tuberculosis (TB) therapy with 63 (43%) receiving therapy during the study: 28% had a history of TB prior to ART initiation, 33% were on TB therapy at ART initiation and 22% developed TB whilst on ART. Nine (6%) inmates died, seven in the second year on ART. While inmates responded well to ART, there was a high frequency of TB/HIV co-infection. The authors recommend that attention should be directed towards ensuring eligible prisoners access ART programmes promptly and that inter-facility transfers and release procedures facilitate continuity of care. Institutional TB control measures should remain a priority.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Brazil to work with South Africa against hunger","field_subtitle":"Southern African Press Association: 10 April 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2012/04/10/brazil-to-work-with-south-africa-against-hunger","body":"Brazil has agreed to assist South Africa on social development issues, particularly in fighting against poverty and hunger. Brazil is aiming to help 16.2 million Brazilians out of extreme poverty with its comprehensive national poverty alleviation plan, \u2018Brasil Sem Misera\u2019. The plan includes cash transfer initiatives, and increased access to education, health, welfare and sanitation. South Africa has expressed a desire to learn about Brazil\u2019s national alleviation plan and its successful Zero Hunger programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"BRICS increasingly pivotal role in the continent","field_subtitle":"South African Foreign Policy Initiative: Open Society Foundation for South Africa, 12 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.safpi.org/news/article/2012/brics-increasingly-pivotal-role-continent","body":"The fourth annual BRICS summit, held in March 2012 under the theme of \"BRICS Partnership for Global Stability, Security and Prosperity\", sought to strengthen ties between the five countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in order to heighten bargaining power. And while the global media is focused on China in Africa, the author of this article argues that they are missing out on the story of trade between Africa and remaining partners Russia, India and Brazil. Outside of China, these countries remain some of the largest players in South-South relations and on the African continent. Trade between Brazil and Africa tripled from 2004-2010, totaling over $20 billion, while Indian trade with Africa reached $60 billion in 2011, with both countries expecting increased trade with the continent. And while Russian activity on the African continent remains low - at $7.3 billion in 2008 - it is also expected to grow.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Bringing evidence on equity to health policy in Africa: Experiences of the Equity Watch","field_subtitle":"Session at the Global Forum for Health Research, Cape Town, April 2012","field_url":"","body":"Convened by EQUINET, in association with the ECSA Health Community and IDRC Canada, a session was held at Forum 2012 in Cape Town on April 25th to present evidence and experience from work carried out in 2010-2012 in five countries - Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Kenya - and at regional level in East and Southern Africa to assess progress in key areas of equity in health outcomes,  in social determinants of health and in redistributive health systems. The session reviewed the learning from the work, particularly in relation to monitoring policy commitments to equity in health, and discuss the opportunities and the challenges for institutionalising and using equity analysis within health policy and planning. The session explored why equity analysis is important for strategic planning and what has been learned from the Equity Watch; what challenges countries face in implementing equity analysis and what opportunities exist for linking equity analysis to processes within the health system; and recommendations from the work for institutionalizing equity analysis across different sectors of government and with other actors.  A concluding PechaKucha (20 images in 20 seconds each) flagged the key messages and continuing debates in taking equity monitoring and analysis from research to institutional practice in health and health systems.  A regional meeting to have deeper dialogue on the national and regional Equity Watch work was held after the forum and the report will be made available through the June newsletter and EQUINET website. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for submissions: African writing competition: Kwani Trust","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 12 August 2012","field_url":"http://manuscript.kwani.org/","body":"To celebrate the African novel and its adaptability and resilience, Kwani Trust announces a one-off new literary prize for African writing. The Kwani Manuscript Project calls for the submission of unpublished fiction manuscripts from African writers across the continent and in the Diaspora. The top three manuscripts will be awarded cash prizes. In addition Kwani will publish manuscripts from across the shortlist and longlist, including the three winning manuscripts, as well as partnering with regional and global agents and publishing houses to create high-profile international publication opportunities. The word count for submissions is 60,000-120,000 words, and submissions should be adult literary or genre fiction and written in English or variants of the language. The manuscript must be unpublished, although Kwani will accept previously published submissions if circulation has been under 500 copies and limited to one national territory. Eligible participants should have at least one parent born in an African country who holds citizenship of that country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"China and Africa: Taking stock after a decade of advances","field_subtitle":"Freemantle S and Stevens J: Standard Bank, 19 March 2012 ","field_url":"https://m.research.standardbank.com/Research?view=1671-78A246643C064265AB4685E90562BF06-1","body":"Roughly a decade on from the launch of a new era of commercial and strategic alignment, China-Africa ties continue to mature, substantially altering the make-up of Africa\u2019s political and economic milieu, according to this paper. The authors evaluate the current and potential scale of China\u2019s position in Africa, and, in so doing, pose questions as to the role of Africa\u2019s traditional Western partners in the continent\u2019s ongoing economic progression. Bilateral trade in 2011 reached US$160 bn, up by 28% from the previous year, when China accounted for 18% of Africa\u2019s trade (up from 10% in 2008). African exports to China increased by one-third in 2011, while Africa\u2019s imports from China (23.7%) increased by 4%. Fluctuations in currency and domestic prices have little explanatory role in why China has undermined the position of developed nations in Africa, the authors argue. What counts is China\u2019s foresighted engagement with Africa back at the start of the past decade, allowing Beijing to steal a march on Africa\u2019s other partnerships. Importantly, China is well-positioned to be a significant player in Africa\u2019s next phase of development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Community photography: Picha Mtaani national peace building initiative and exhibition tour","field_subtitle":"Kenya: 2008-2012","field_url":"http://pichamtaani.org/about/the-project/","body":"The Picha Mtaani national peace building initiative and exhibition tour contains photographs of Kenya\u2019s 2007/8 post election violence, which have been displayed throughout Kenya since 2008. The exhibition has enjoyed tremendous support from the Kenyan public, as evidenced by the participation of over 700,000 young people, the submission of 30,000 completed questionnaires and the subsequent signing of more than 61,000 peace pledges during the exhibition series. This project involving community photography may be of interest to community photographers looking for ideas. Visit the address given above, as well as the following flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pichamtaani/6440573085/in/photostream/lightbox/","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Debating the World Bank Report on Fiscal Constraints: A return of the 90s? ","field_subtitle":"Baker B: Global Health Check, 28 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/?p=749","body":"In March 2012, the World Bank issued a report: \u2018The fiscal dimension of HIV/AIDS in Botswana, South Africa, Swaziland, and Uganda\u2019. The report, the author of this article argues, is not new because it represents a recurrent theme in the World Bank approach from the earliest days of the global AIDS pandemic \u2013 it\u2019s not fiscally sustainable to treat people living with HIV in high-impact, low-resource countries \u2013 instead the world must focus on prevention measures. The author disagrees, and points out a number of significant flaws in the report. First, the report is already out of date since it relies almost exclusively on pre-2009 data and fails to take into account increased efficiencies in AIDS programming, which have been significant in the past several years. The World Bank has also ignored the exciting new research that shows that suppressive anti-retroviral therapy reduces the risk of onward transmission of HIV by at least 96%. Second, there is growing evidence, again ignored by the Bank, that even a moderate expansion of investments now in treatment scale-up and in diffusion of scaleable prevention methods like condoms and needle-exchange can have significant impacts on new infections and thus future treatment costs. Third, the Bank fails to use evidence to rally support for (unspecified) \u201cprevention\u201d activities and does not call for innovative global financing, like a financial transaction tax. Fourth, the report appears to neglect the economic and social benefits of a healthier population and to ignore some of the costs of premature deaths by focusing on fiscal costs of treatment, while ignoring the huge social and economic benefits of the survival of the vital age 25-45 cohort.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Don\u2019t stop now: How underfunding the Global Fund to fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria impacts on the HIV response","field_subtitle":"Podmore M, Mburu G and Nieuwenhuys BJ: International HIV/AIDS Alliance, 2012","field_url":"http://www.aidsalliance.org/includes/Publication/Alliance_global_fund_report_V5.pdf","body":"In November 2011, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (the Global Fund) announced that its next scheduled funding round was cancelled. This report draws on recently collected field data from numerous countries where the International HIV/AIDS Alliance operates to explain why AIDS funding crisis requires urgent action. The authors note that countries like Zambia and Zimbabwe have so far been making strong progress towards reducing HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths but this progress is now under threat. The cancellation of funds will seriously affect the scale-up of the worldwide HIV response and important existing services will be reduced or eliminated in the absence of urgent measures. They argue that the Global Fund is the best mechanism the world has for realising the possibility of a world without AIDS but can only do so with sufficient investment. They recommend that external funders and other stakeholders must act very quickly to maintain and scale up critical HIV services so that lives are not put at risk, particularly ensuring that interventions with the highest impact on the epidemic are supported. In addition, national governments must increase investment in their own HIV responses and in the implementation of national AIDS strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Effects of household heads training on long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets utilisation: A cluster randomised controlled trial in Ethiopia  ","field_subtitle":"Deribew A, Birhanu Z, Sena L, Dejene T, Reda AA, Sudhakar M et al: Malaria Journal 11(99), 30 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-99.pdf","body":"Utilisation of long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets (LLITNs) by under-five children has been reported as unsatisfactory in many sub-Saharan African countries due to behavioural barriers. Previous studies have focused exclusively on coverage and ownership of LLITNs, so to address this research gap, researchers examined the effect of skill-based training for household heads on net utilisation. The study included 22 villages in southwest Ethiopia, with totals of 21,673, 14,735 and 13,758 individuals at baseline, sixth and twelfth months of the project period. At the baseline survey, 47.9% of individuals in the intervention villages (which received training) and 68.4% in the control villages (which did not) reported that they had utilised a LLITN the night before the survey. At six months, 81% of individuals in the intervention villages and 79.3% in the control villages had utilised LLITNs. Among under-five children, net utilisation increased by 31.6% at six months and 38.4% at twelve months. The researchers conclude that household level skill-based training demonstrated a marked positive effect in the utilisation of LLITNs. The effect of the intervention steadily increased overtime. Therefore, distribution of LLITNs should be accompanied by a skill-based training of household heads to improve its utilisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 135: Flying without Pilots: Education Ministers challenged to fill the skills gap to achieve development goals  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Estimates of child deaths prevented from malaria prevention scale-up in Africa 2001-2010","field_subtitle":"Eisele TP, Larsen DA, Walker N, Cibulskis RE, Yukich JO, Zikusooka CM: Malaria Journal 11(93), 28 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-93.pdf","body":"In this study, the Lives Saved Tool (LiST) model was used to quantify the likely impact that malaria prevention intervention scale-up has had on malaria mortality over the past decade (2001-2010) across 43 malaria endemic countries in sub-Saharan African. The likely impact of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) and malaria prevention interventions in pregnancy (intermittent preventive treatment [IPTp] and ITNs used during pregnancy) over this period was assessed. Results indicated that malaria prevention intervention scale-up over the past decade has prevented 842,800 child deaths due to malaria in the 43 countries, compared to a baseline of the year 2000. Over the entire decade, this represents an 8.2% decrease in the number of malaria-caused child deaths that would have occurred over this period had malaria prevention coverage remained unchanged since 2000. The biggest impact occurred in 2010 with a 24.4% decrease in malaria-caused child deaths compared to what would have happened had malaria prevention interventions not been scaled-up beyond 2000 coverage levels. ITNs accounted for 99% of the lives saved. The results suggest that funding for malaria prevention in Africa over the past decade has had a substantial impact on decreasing child deaths due to malaria. Rapidly achieving and then maintaining universal coverage of these interventions should be an urgent priority for malaria control programmes in the future, the authors argue. Successful scale-up in many African countries will likely contribute substantially to meeting Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 to reduce child mortality, as well as succeed in meeting MDG 6 (Target 1) to halt and reverse malaria incidence by 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"EU-India free trade agreement: Implications for global health","field_subtitle":"Kamradt-Scott A: Health Diplomacy Monitor 3(2): 6-8, April 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d9tw6je","body":"The European Union (EU) has committed to concluding a new free trade agreement (FTA) with India, known formally as the Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BITA), by the end of 2012, but the BITA may have significant adverse implications for India\u2019s generic pharmaceutical industry that supplies much of the developing world\u2019s antiretroviral (ARV) medications and other drugs. Critics argue that free trade agreements that may create new intellectual property obligations for India can increase ARV prices, impede the development of acceptable dosage forms, and delay access to new and better ARVs. They also state that by pressuring India and other developing countries to accept new intellectual property rules for pharmaceuticals, the EU threatens to undermine the Doha Declaration, a TRIPS-related agreement that is intended to ensure that low- and middle-income countries gain access to affordable medicines. The schedule for the next round of BITA negotiations in September 2012 has yet to be released and preparations are shrouded in secrecy. Neither party has sufficiently acknowledged the impact the FTA may have on millions of the world\u2019s poorest people, who rely on India\u2019s generic pharmaceutical industry to provide them with access to life-saving treatments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Expanding coverage to the formal and informal sectors in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Sealy S: UHC Forward, 4 April 2012","field_url":"http://uhcforward.org/blog/2012/mar/28/expanding-coverage-formal-and-informal-sectors-kenya","body":"The National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF)\u2019s  new partnership with the Kenya National Union of Teachers \u2013 one of the largest unions in Kenya \u2013 has meant that NHIF will be able to provide an affordable and comprehensive package of in and out-patient benefits to more than 1,300,000 teachers and their family members. In addition, NHIF is offering unlimited out and in-patient benefits for approximately 1,100,000 civil servants and their family members beginning on 1 January 2012. The NHIF is also seeking to extend the unlimited in and out-patient care benefits to the informal sector in a phased-out manner. In this interview with Richard Kerich, CEO of Kenya's NHIF, he identifies a number of obstacles to expanding coverage in Kenya, such as weak and outdated policies, a low ratio of health workers to the population, a lack of modern equipment and political interference. Kerich has advice for other countries wishing to achieve universal health care (UHC): their governments must draw up strong governing documents and the population must be compelled in some way to contribute, and all systems must be made to support the introduction of UHC, including facilities, human resources, roads and information technology. He calls on Kenya\u2019s policymakers to develop new policies that will serve the best interests of Kenya\u2019s citizens.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors impacting knowledge and use of long acting and permanent contraceptive methods by postpartum HIV positive and negative women in Cape Town, South Africa: A cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Crede S, Hoke T, Constant D, Green MS, Moodley J and Harries J: BMC Public Health 12(197), 16 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-197.pdf","body":"This study aimed to compare factors that influence women's choice in contraception and women's knowledge and attitudes towards the intra-uterine device (IUD) and female sterilisation in a high HIV-prevalence setting in Cape Town, South Africa. A quantitative cross-sectional survey was conducted using an interviewer-administered questionnaire amongst 265 HIV-positive and 273 HIV-negative postpartum women. Women's knowledge and attitudes towards long-acting and permanent methods (LAPMs), as well as factors that influence their choice in contraception, were examined. Current use of contraception was found to be high, with no difference by HIV status (89.8% HIV-positive and 89% HIV-negative). Most women were using short-acting methods, primarily the three-monthly injectable. Method convenience and health care provider recommendations were found to most commonly influence method choice. A small percentage of women (6.44%) were using LAPMs (all chose sterilisation). The researchers conclude that poor knowledge regarding LAPMs is likely to be contributing to their poor uptake . They recommend improving contraceptive counselling to include LAPMs and strengthening services for these methods. Given that HIV positive women were found to be more favourable to future use of the IUD, it is possible that there may be more uptake of the IUD amongst these women, they argue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Flying without Pilots: Education Ministers challenged to fill the skills gap to achieve development goals ","field_subtitle":"Africa Public Health Alliance 15% + Campaign ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nFollowing meetings of senior African education sector officials, experts and stakeholders on the eve of the Conference of Ministers of Education of the African Union (COMEDAF) in April in Abuja, Nigeria, the Africa Public Health Alliance and 15% plus Campaign called on African Education Ministers to prioritise the development of an African Multi-sectoral Human Resources Development Plan as a pre requisite to meeting Africa's development goals. \r\n\r\nIn a statement by the organisation, its coordinator Mr Rotimi Sankore stated that \"While universal free, or affordable education is a development goal in its own right, the education sector also has a special role in developing the human resources that are a pre-requisite for meeting all of Africa's overall development goals\" \r\n\r\nElaborating further he observed that in virtually every key sector of the economy and society, most African countries are operating at between 25 percent to 75 percent of the required human resources capacity, with the health sector particularly affected.  Citing the conference host country Nigeria as an example, he noted that Nigeria has only about 25 percent of the doctors it needs, about 45 percent of nurses and midwives, and about 12 percent of pharmacists, a feature linked to poor performance in key areas such as maternal and child health. \r\n\r\nWith similar or worse gaps in various areas such as the engineering fields, it's no surprise that many African countries are lagging behind in overall human and social development. \r\n\r\nAlong side this is the crucial matter of overall poor investment in health, human and social development issues, with 33 African countries investing well below $40 per capita in health, compared to Cuba at $642 per capita, or Costa Rica at $413 per capita, both countries closer to African country development levels but with better health outcomes.  \r\n\r\nAs the Africa Public Health Alliance 15% + Campaign we note that even if we suddenly had all the financial resources required for health services tomorrow morning, we would well find that most African countries do not have the human resources capacity to effectively absorb and utilise the financial investment. \r\n\r\nNo entrepreneur will ever purchase a hundred airplanes for an airline, and then employ only twenty five pilots and expect the other seventy five planes to fly. Yet this is the scenario in most African countries, where there is a strange expectation that we can meet the Millennium Development Goals and other development targets without the pre requisite human resources and infrastructure. \r\n\r\nConsidering that Africa's population is set to double from current one billion to two billion by 2050, it is imperative that Africa's education ministers work with other sectors of economy and society to prioritise in each country and at reqional level, the development of a Human Resources Development Plan that identifies what level of human resources are required for each sector, what is currently available, and what policy and investment is required to fill the gaps in the shortest possible time. \r\n\r\nPublic statement of the  Africa Public Health Alliance 15% + Campaign 25 April 2012 at the Conference of African Ministers of Education Abuja 26/27 April 2012.  Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please contact media@africapublichealth.net. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth BRICS Summit: Delhi Declaration","field_subtitle":"Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS): 29 March 2012","field_url":"http://mea.gov.in/mystart.php?id=190019162","body":"In this declaration from the fourth annual BRICS summit, held in March 2012, participants call for a more representative international financial architecture, with an increase in the voice and representation of developing countries and the establishment and improvement of a just international monetary system that can serve the interests of all countries and support the development of emerging economies. The declaration expresses BRICS\u2019s concern at the slow pace of quota and governance reforms in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), calling for greater representation of developing countries by January 2013. The declaration reiterates BRICS\u2019 position that that the heads of the IMF and the World Bank be selected through an open and merit-based process, and that Bank leadership must commit to transform the Bank into a multilateral institution that truly reflects the vision of all its members. The declaration also announces BRICS\u2019s intention to set up a new Development Bank for mobilising resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in BRICS and other developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"From high to low aid: A proposal to classify countries by aid receipt","field_subtitle":"Glennie J and Prizzon A: Overseas Development Institute, March 2012","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/docs/7621.pdf","body":"The authors of this paper argue that a classification of countries according to their aid receipts could contribute to a more effective aid agenda and help external funders (donors) and aid recipients monitor changes. High aid levels do not equal aid dependence, which is more complex, they argue, but can be a critical factor in aid dependence. They offer the ratio of recipient aid to Gross National Income (GNI) as a relevant measure complementing the traditional focus on aid as a proportion of donor GNI, symbolised by the 0.7% target. Recipient economies may be classified in four categories: high aid countries (HACs), middle aid countries (MACs), low aid countries (LACs) and very low aid countries (VLACs), on the basis of their net aid to GNI ratio above 10%, between 2% and 10%, between 1% and 2%, and below 1%, respectively. While much effort is made to follow trends in aid levels as a proportion of donor GNI, the analysis presented here underlines the importance of looking at aid from the recipient point of view. While external funders aim to reach the 0.7% target, recipients could also aim to reduce their aid to GNI ratio to become LACs or VLACs. This raises the debate on what is sustainable and fair in relation to aid levels. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health funding and economic development ","field_subtitle":"Martin G, Grant A and D'Agostino M: Globalization and Health 8(8), 10 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-8-8.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers investigate the relationship between improvements in health and the growth of an economy. The negative effects of ill health on the economy are clear, as high levels of sickness decrease the size and capabilities of the workforce through impeding access to education and suppressing foreign direct investment (FDI). The researchers present evidence that investing in health improvements can result in a significant increase in GDP per capita in four ways: Firstly, healthier populations are more economically productive; secondly, proactive healthcare leads to decrease in many of the additive healthcare costs associated with lack of care (treating opportunistic infections in the case of HIV for example); thirdly, improved health represents a real economic and developmental outcome in-and-of itself and finally, healthcare spending capitalises on the Keynesian 'economic multiplier' effect. The paper ends with a call for the recognition of health as a major engine of economic growth and for commensurate investment in public health, particularly in poor countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Green economy, health equity and sustainable development: Converging in Rio?","field_subtitle":"Neufeld BM: Health Diplomacy Monitor 3(2): 17-19, April 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d9tw6je","body":"Over the past year, at a range of international conferences, including the Conference on Social Determinants in Rio and COP-17 in Durban, there have been side events introducing work on the link that exists between health and climate change. In the run-up to Rio+20 climate conference in June 2012, the need for a sustainable approach to global health will become even more important, the author of this article argues. It will require a shift in focus away from disease-specific thinking to an approach that more fully considers climate change and environmental degradation as important determinants of health. The author argues that the Istanbul Declaration, which calls on the world community to take bold action jointly against global social inequities and environmental deterioration, is a useful tool to achieve this end. It points to the need to integrate equity within the links made across health, economy and environment, reinforcing similar issues raised at the World Conference on the Social Determinants of Health, held in October 2011.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Policy & Systems Resources","field_subtitle":"Consortium for Health Policy & Systems Analysis in Africa (CHEPSAA)","field_url":"http://www.hpsa-africa.org","body":"The official website for the EU-funded Consortium for Health Policy & Systems Analysis in Africa (CHEPSAA) has just been launched. CHEPSAA is working with universities in Africa and Europe to strengthen teaching, research & policy networking activities for the rapidly emerging field of health policy and systems research and analysis. The new website collates resources and information on health policy and systems research for teachers, researchers, students, policy-makers & decision-makers, including recommended readings selected by experts; open access teaching materials; course & event news and more. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving influenza surveillance in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"C Steffen, F Debellut, BD Gessner, FC Kasolo, AA Yahaya, N Ayebazibwe et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(4): 301-305, April 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/4/11-098244.pdf","body":"Little is known about the burden of influenza in sub-Saharan Africa. Routine influenza surveillance is key to getting a better understanding of the impact of acute respiratory infections on sub-Saharan African populations. To address this gap, a project called Strengthening Influenza Sentinel Surveillance in Africa (SISA) was launched in Angola, Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Zambia. It aimed to help improve influenza sentinel surveillance, including both epidemiological and virological data collection, and to develop routine national, regional and international reporting mechanisms. These countries received technical support through remote supervision and onsite visits. Consultants worked closely with health ministries, the World Health Organization, national influenza laboratories and other stakeholders involved in influenza surveillance. Working documents such as national surveillance protocols and procedures were developed or updated and training for sentinel site staff and data managers was organised. The main lesson emerging from SISA is that targeted support to countries can help them strengthen national influenza surveillance, but long-term sustainability can only be achieved with external funding and strong national government leadership.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"India grants first compulsory licence for patented drug","field_subtitle":"Estavillo M: Intellectual Property Watch, 12 March 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bv9c2be","body":"In a move welcomed by many in the international community, India has granted its first compulsory licence to a local generic drug maker to manufacture and sell a cancer drug, Sorafenib tosylate, which is patented by German pharmaceutical giant, Bayer, under the brand name Nexavar. Compulsory licensing is one of the flexibilities on patent protection under the World Trade Organisation\u2019s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, and it allows developing countries to manufacture affordable generic versions of patented medicines needed for public health in developing countries. Natco, the Indian generic producer, has already developed a process to manufacture the drug, expected to be ready for marketing in April 2011. It is anticipated that Bayer will make an appeal against the decision, which requires Natco to pay a quarterly royalty at 6% of the net sales of the drug, far below Bayer\u2019s asking royalty of 15%. M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res said the ruling has ended Bayer\u2019s monopoly in India on the drug and could set a precedent for making more expensive patented drugs available for compulsory licensing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Inside the black box: Modelling health care financing reform in data-poor contexts","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D and Borghi J: Health Policy and Planning 27(Suppl 1), March 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_1/i77.full","body":"In this paper, the authors outline the process of developing country-specific spreadsheet-based models to explore the financial resource requirements of health system reform options in South Africa and Tanzania. Their intention is to provide guidance for analysts who wish to develop their own models, and to illustrate, with reference to the South African and Tanzanian modelling experience, how one has to adapt to data constraints and context-specific modelling requirements. They found that using modelling to assess the financial feasibility and implications of alternative health system reform paths can be of great value in supporting evidence-informed policy-making. Developing one's own spreadsheet model has a number of advantages, including allowing greater flexibility to reflect specific country circumstances and requiring the analyst to carefully evaluate the assumptions built into the model. A pragmatic approach should be adopted in data scarce contexts, but all assumptions should be made explicit and justified. A major advantage of the modelling process is that it can highlight priority areas for improved data collection.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrating pneumonia prevention and treatment interventions with immunisation services in resource-poor countries","field_subtitle":"Cohen AL, Hyde TB, Verani J and Watkins M: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(4): 289-294, April 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/4/11-094029.pdf","body":"Pneumonia is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Effective vaccine and non-vaccine interventions to prevent and control pneumonia are urgently needed to reduce the global burden of the disease. In this paper, researchers explore practical strategies and policies for integrating interventions to prevent and treat pneumonia with routine immunisation services, and investigate the challenges involved in such integration. They identify three primary pneumonia prevention and treatment strategies that should be implemented during routine childhood immunisation visits: vaccination of children against the disease, caretaker education and referral of children to medical services when necessary.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya increases national health insurance contributions","field_subtitle":"Juma V: Business Daily, 29 March 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cv9ayvs","body":"Kenya\u2019s Central Organisation of Trade Unions (Cotu) has launched an appeal after it lost a High Court case seeking to block public health insurer, the national Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), from raising member contributions. NHIF plans to raise monthly contributions for high-income earners by more than 600% to help the government offer universal access to health services, as stipulated in the Constitution. It plans to raise monthly contributions for those earning a gross salary of Sh100,000 and above from Sh320 to Sh2,000, which represents 2% or less of total income. Lowest-paid formal sector workers earning a salary of less than Sh5,999 will contribute Sh150. Cotu\u2019s main argument against the new charges is that the NHIF has in the past not managed the funds to the best interest of members and should not be entrusted with more money until it demonstrates that it has the capacity to improve the quality of services offered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of new Asia Pacific health equity website: HealthGAEN","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aphealthgaen.org/","body":"The Asia Pacific network of HealthGAEN has just launched its new website. It is intended to function as a tool for information sharing and helping to keep people connected around issues affecting health inequities, particularly in the Asia Pacific region, rather like EQUINET in east, central and southern Africa. AP-HealthGAEN is a partnership of researchers, policymakers and non-government organisations across Asia Pacific - a region that stretches from Mongolia in the north to New Zealand in the south and from Kiribati in the east to India in the west. The network analyses the various ways in which health equity is impacted through the intersection of the social, environmental, health-care and development agendas, drawing on a range of disciplinary expertise and aims to build action on four fronts: collaborative learning and action; cross border action; cross sectoral action; collaborative learning and action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Linking global HIV/AIDS treatments with national programmes for the control and elimination of the neglected tropical diseases","field_subtitle":"Noblick J, Skolnik R and Hotez PJ: PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 5(7), 26 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.plosntds.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pntd.0001022","body":"The authors of this article argue that a high prevalence of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in sub-Saharan Africa promotes susceptibility to the HIV virus and can worsen the clinical course and progression of AIDS. They highlight emerging evidence to provide a scientific rationale for combining treatment programmes for NTDs with programmes for the treatment of HIV andAIDS. They argue that improved NTD control could both decrease susceptibility to HIV infection and improve morbidity levels in seropositive individuals. Improved efficiency and cost- effectiveness of integrating NTD programmes into a wider framework to provide HIV care would require careful co-ordination and collaboration among concerned NGOs, private entities and Ministries of Health. Major stakeholders should be encouraged to establish operational links between HIV and AIDS and NTD activities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Linking migration, food security and development","field_subtitle":"Crush J (ed): Southern African Migration Project, Migration Policy Series No. 60, 2012","field_url":"http://www.queensu.ca/samp/sampresources/samppublications/","body":"In this report, the authors argue that food security in Southern Africa needs to be \"mainstreamed\" into the migration and development agenda and migration needs to be \"mainstreamed\" into the food security agenda. They set out to promote a conversation between the food security and migration agendas in the African context, focusing on the connections in an urban context. Four main issues are singled out for attention: the relationship between internal migration and urban food security; the relationship between international migration and urban food security; the difference in food security between migrant and non-migrant urban households; and the role of rural-urban food transfers in urban food security. Findings indicate that most poor households in Southern African cities either consist entirely of migrants or a mix of migrants and non-migrants. Rapid urbanisation, increased circulation and growing cross-border migration have all meant that the number of migrants and migrant households in the city has grown exponentially. This is likely to continue for several more decades as urbanisation continues. Policymakers cannot simply assume that all poor urban households are alike. While levels of food insecurity are unacceptably high amongst all of them, migrant households do have a greater chance of being food insecure with all of its attendant health and nutritional problems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Lives saved from malaria prevention in Africa: Evidence to sustain cost-effective gains","field_subtitle":"Korenromp EL: Malaria Journal 11(94), 28 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-94.pdf","body":"Recent estimates of malaria-attributable under-five deaths prevented using the Lives Saved Tool (LiST) confirm the substantial impact and good cost-effectiveness that insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) and indoor residual spraying have achieved in high-endemic sub-Saharan Africa. ITNs, the author argues, have an additional indirect mortality impact by preventing deaths from other common child illnesses, to which malaria contributes as a risk factor. As conventional ITNs are being replaced by long-lasting insecticidal nets and scale-up is expanded, additional lives may be saved, and these figures may be calculated using LiST. LiSt combines key indicators for time trend analysis with dynamic transmission models, fitted to long-term trend data on vector, parasite and human populations over successive phases of malaria control and elimination. The author argues that policy makers and programme planners should use LiST as a planning tool, but notes that this will require enhanced monitoring and evaluation of the national programme and its impact.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi\u2019s fight to achieve universal coverage","field_subtitle":"Rachel Lander: UHC Forward, 19 March 2012","field_url":"http://uhcforward.org/headline/special-feature-universal-struggle","body":"This article charts Malawi's progress in achieving universal health coverage (UHC) and the problems it has experienced since external funding was cut in 2011. Between 2004 and 2008, offering specific healthcare services without charge (in maternal and child health) resulted in a 75% increase in live births in facilities and a 13% reduction in mother and baby deaths, with knock-on effects on society. In 2009, the government announced new commitments to extend this to an additional 860,000 Malawians over the next four years, including 80,000 more women delivering safely. Malawi \u2013 like Sierra Leone, Gabon and Rwanda \u2013 offered proof that UHC in this area was feasible in low-income settings. However, in July 2011, in response to evidence of the government's mismanagement of aid and violation of human rights, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States announced they would be cutting aid. The impact on health has been devastating, with regular drug stock-outs and a lack of essential medical supplies and a shortage of anti-retrovirals. The UK International Development Committee is currently conducting an enquiry into the development situation in Malawi, but in the meantime external funders are turning to civil society organisations to deliver for their communities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal and child health: Implementing the recommendations of the Commission on Information and Accountability","field_subtitle":"Munoz F and Seiter E: Health Diplomacy Monitor 3(2): 9-11, April 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d9tw6je","body":"This article evaluates progress in implementing the United Nation\u2019s Global Strategy on Women and Children\u2019s Health since it was released in September 2010. The Commission on Information and Accountability for Women\u2019s and Children\u2019s Health was created in December 2010 to oversee the implementation of the Global Strategy. Since then it has met with stakeholders twice and developed a strategic plan of action. Feedback from those meetings indicate that developing countries \u2013 in particular, African countries \u2013 face major obstacles in gathering birth and maternal mortality data. The future of the Commission remains uncertain, however, with stakeholders expressing skepticism about whether or not external funders will meet their commitments. In order to succeed in reducing maternal mortality, a combination of interventions is needed, including education on reproductive health issues; access to effective birth control and safe abortion; universal prenatal care; diagnosis and referral of high-risk pregnancies; a high percentage of births overseen by skilled attendants; and safe motherhood protocols for managing normal and high-risk births. However, reaching a consensus on which interventions should be funded is complicated, the article concludes, given the sensitive nature of maternal health issues, specifically family planning and safe abortion, which are opposed by conservatives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Minerals and Africa's development","field_subtitle":"International Study Group on Africa\u2019s Mineral Regimes, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA): December 2011","field_url":"http://au.int/en/dp/ti/sites/default/files/Overview%20of%20the%20ISG%20Report.pdf","body":"This study focuses on the African Mining Vision (AMV), which was adopted by the African Union in 2008, an agreement that seeks to shift mineral policy beyond a focus on extracting minerals and sharing revenue. Instead, it relates mineral policy to the transformation of Africa\u2019s economies and views an industrialisation strategy anchored on minerals and other natural resources as critical for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, eradicating poverty and securing sustainable growth. The study looks at regulation of artisanal and small\u00adscale mining in Africa, the increasing importance of corporate social responsibility initiatives in the mining sector, and perspectives on capturing, managing and sharing mineral revenue for the befit of all. It highlights the fact that policy design works best when instruments are available to carry it out, and for much of Africa, that plan remains part of the rhetoric of official declarations, dissociated from real policy. So far, the policy position of stakeholders, especially government, is limited to short\u00ad-term responses to immediate concerns or focused on extracting and exporting unprocessed natural resources. The AMV and this report affirm the need for Africa to transform its mining sector from an enclave of raw material supplies to an integrated industry that will help drive the continent's socio-economic development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Modelling the affordability and distributional implications of future health care financing options in South Africa","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D and Ataguba JE: Health Policy and Planning 27(Suppl 1), March 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_1/i101.full","body":"South Africa is considering introducing a universal health care system. A key concern for policy-makers and the general public is whether or not this reform is affordable. In this paper, the authors consider three reform scenarios: universal coverage funded by increased allocations to health from general tax and additional dedicated taxes; an alternative reform option of extending private health insurance coverage to all formal sector workers and their dependants with the remainder using tax-funded services; and maintaining the status quo. Findings suggest that universal coverage is affordable and sustainable in the South African context, but would require substantial increases in public funding for health care. Universal coverage, if funded through general tax allocations and a dedicated surcharge on taxable income, would result in the most progressive financing incidence when compared with the status quo and an alternative financing reform of extending private insurance to all formal sector workers and their dependants. Such an approach to financing universal coverage would also achieve the most equal distribution of benefits from using health services across socio-economic groups when compared with other reform options.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Modelling the implications of moving towards universal coverage in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Borghi J, Mtei G and Ally M: Health Policy and Planning 27(Suppl 1), March 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_1/i88.full","body":"In this study, researchers developed a model to assess the impact of possible moves towards universal coverage in Tanzania over a 15-year time frame. The model estimated the costs of delivering public health services and all health services to the population as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and forecast revenue from user fees and insurance premiums. Findings indicated that expanded financial protection in Tanzania will have a significant effect on utilisation levels, especially for public outpatient care. Universal coverage, offering a minimum benefit package to the population through the two largest health insurance schemes, would require the share of government allocation to health to increase to 18% initially (driven largely by the health system strengthening costs required to support additional demand, combined with costs of expanding cover among the informal sector). Reserve funds from the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) could be used to finance universal coverage or additional resources could be generated through increases in the rate of value-added tax (VAT) or expanding the income tax base. The authors emphasise the fact that regulation of health care to control costs is paramount to the feasibility of universal coverage, as this affects the overall cost of expanding coverage as well as the extent of the revenue surplus available from the NHIF.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"National Strategic Plan on HIV, STIs and TB: 2012\u20142016","field_subtitle":"South African Department of Health: 2012","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/stratdocs/2011/hiv_nsp.pdf","body":"April 2012 marked the start of South Africa's new five-year strategy on HIV, STIs and TB. The plan has several broad goals: to reduce new HIV infections by at least 50%; to start at least 80% of eligible patients on antiretroviral treatment; to reduce the number of new tuberculosis infections and deaths by 50%; to ensure a legal framework that protects and promotes human rights to support implementation of the plan; and to reduce self-reported stigma related to HIV and tuberculosis by at least 50%. Additionally, a major strategic objective of the plan will be to address the social and cultural barriers to HIV, sexually transmitted infection, and tuberculosis prevention and care. The plan states that key vulnerable populations (eg, women between the ages of 15 years and 24 years, people from low socioeconomic groups, and men who have sex with men) will be targeted with different but specific interventions under each goal to achieve maximum impact. The strategy endorses a new focus on tuberculosis (TB), which is much needed, as South Africa has 482,000 TB sufferers, 70% of whom are co-infected with HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Neglected tropical disease (NTD) control in health systems: the interface between programmes and general health services","field_subtitle":"Marchal B, Dormael MV and Pirard M: Acta Tropica 120(Suppl 1): S177\u2013S185, September 2011","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001706X11000428","body":"The aim of this paper is to examine the interactions of neglected tropical disease (NTD) control programmes and general health services, focusing particularly on sub-Saharan African countries and reviewing related studies. The authors found that NTDs affect the poorest communities, which are served by the weakest health systems. Further findings suggest that the strategy of integrated control at the community level offers opportunities for enhanced cost-effectiveness and feasibility in low-resource settings, with managers of disease control programmes playing a crucial role in assessing progress. Co-ordinated efforts based on a coherent overall policy, managerial and administrative vision, and a long-term view are required. The article concludes that NTD campaigns have the potential to enhance some elements of the general health services. These may include the health information system, the drug procurement system, the health workforce and the community volunteers. On the other hand, NTD campaigns are at risk of inducing negative effects on health systems. These can be categorised as duplications, distortions and interruptions. As a result, detailed follow-up and documentation of how NTD campaigns and general health services interact is essential, the paper concludes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Patients without borders: Medical tourism and medical migration in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Crush J, Chikanda A and Maswikwa B: Southern African Migration Project, Migration Policy Series No. 57, 2012","field_url":"http://www.queensu.ca/samp/sampresources/samppublications/","body":"In the industrialised North, South Africa is seen as an archetypal medical tourism destination, combining a medical (elective) procedure with related travel and tourism activity. Yet this paper shows that the industry is premised on a highly romanticised and stylised image of South Africa, and most medical tourism to South Africa is not from the North: the Global North generated a total of 281,000 medical travellers between 2009 and 2010, while the Global South was the source of over two million. Most patients were middle-class people from East and West Africa, as well as a growing number of patients from South Africa\u2019s neighbouring countries. In some cases, patients go to South Africa for procedures that are not offered in their own countries. In others, patients are referred by doctors and hospitals to South African facilities. But most of the movement is motivated by lack of access to basic healthcare at home. The total annual spend by medical travellers in South Africa amounts to over R1.5 billion (US$191 million). Of this, over 90% is generated by South-South medical travellers from the rest of Africa, powerfully illustrating the overall economic importance of this form of medical travel. In addition, South Africa has entered into bilateral health agreements with eighteen African countries. The authors call for further research on and policy attention for intra-African medical tourism and migration, which is identified as a growing trend.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"People\u2019s Health Assembly programme information","field_subtitle":"6-11 July 2012, Cape Town","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/pha3/registration","body":"The People\u2019s Health Assembly (PHA), organised by the People's Health Movement (PHM), is a global event bringing together health activists from across the world to share experiences, analyse global health situation, develop civil society positions and to develop strategies which promote health for all. It will look at forms of action to address identified challenges and build capacity among health activists to act. It is an opportunity for PHM as a whole to reflect on the global struggle, to review and reassess, to redirect and re-inspire. PHA3 aims to impact directly in the struggle for social change: for health for all, decent living conditions for all, work in dignity for all, equity and environmental justice. The programme is now available at http://www.phmovement.org/en/pha3/programme ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Private funding: An emerging trend in humanitarian donorship","field_subtitle":"Stoianova V: Global Humanitarian Assistance, April 2012","field_url":"http://www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Private-funding-an-emerging-trend.pdf","body":"Private external funders (donors) are growing steadily more important to global aid, contributing one-quarter of the estimated US$73.9 billion spent on emergency assistance from 2006 to 2010, according to this report. Trusts, foundations, businesses and individuals are the main sources of private funding, with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) depend on these sources for 57% of their financial support, while UN agencies depend on it for only 8%. There are also wide variations: for example, M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) gets roughly 90% of its funding from private sources but the Norwegian Refugee Council receives only 2%. While many agencies are courting private funders, the lack of tracking creates a significant information gap in both co-ordinating and evaluating this source of funds. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration open for SEYCOHAIDS 2012","field_subtitle":"8-10 June 2012: Lilongwe, Malawi","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5ty3mor","body":"SEYCOHAIDS 2012 is the largest international gathering for young people on HIV and AIDS in the Eastern and Southern Africa region, where young researchers, policy makers, activists, educators and people living with HIV will be able to link with people in other countries and meet to share and learn about HIV prevention methods, treatments, care policies and programmes relating to HIV and AIDS in Africa. The broad objectives for the Conference are to: ensure effective and meaningful youth participation in international AIDS response; identify gaps and challenges in government policies in providing youth-friendly HIV and AIDS services; develop regional and country-level strategic programmes for youth and HIV and AIDS; identify and build the capacity of new and emerging youth leaders for the AIDS response to ensure sustainability of youth initiatives at the national, regional and international levels; sustain adult-youth partnerships and dialogue; develop the Southern and Eastern Africa youth network on HIV and AIDS; develop country specific youth networks on HIV and AIDS; establish funding mechanisms for regional and country youth networks; and monitor government and donor commitments to youth and HIV and AIDS. Applicants must be no older than 35 years old at the time of the application.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Second Global Symposium on Health Systems Research: Beijing, China: 31 October-3 November 2012","field_subtitle":"Registration opens: 1 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/","body":"The Symposium will focus on the science to accelerate universal health coverage around the world. It will cover three main themes: knowledge translation; state-of-the-art health systems research; and health systems research methodologies. There will also be three cross-cutting themes: innovations in health systems research; neglected priorities or populations in health systems research; financing and capacity building for health systems research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual behaviour of HIV-positive adults not accessing HIV treatment in Mombasa, Kenya: Defining their prevention needs","field_subtitle":"Sarna A, Luchters S, Pickett M, Chersich M, Okal J, Geibel S, Kingola N and Temmerman M: AIDS Research and Therapy 9(9), 19 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.aidsrestherapy.com/content/pdf/1742-6405-9-9.pdf","body":"This study in Mombasa Kenya explored sexual behaviours of people living with HIV (PLHIV) who are not receiving any HIV treatment. Using modified targeted snowball sampling, 698 PLHIV were recruited through community health workers and HIV-positive peer counsellors. Of the 59.2% sexually-active PLHIV, 24.5% reported multiple sexual partners. Of all sexual partners, 10.2% were HIV negative, while 74.5% were of unknown HIV status. Overall, unprotected sex occurred in 52% of sexual partnerships. Main risk factors associated with unsafe sex were found to be non-disclosure of HIV status, stigma and the belief that condoms reduce sexual pleasure. In conclusion, high-risk sexual behaviours were found to be common among PLHIV not accessing treatment services, raising the risk of HIV transmission to discordant partners. The authors urge government to identify and reach this population to provide health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Shifting paradigm: How the BRICS are reshaping global health and development","field_subtitle":"Global Health Strategies Initiatives: March 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bp7smgd","body":"This report presents findings from a qualitative and quantitative survey of present and future efforts by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa to improve global health. It examines these roles within the broader context of international development and foreign assistance. BRICS foreign assistance spending is still relatively small when compared to overall spending by the US and Western European countries, but in recent years it has been increasing rapidly. Today, among the BRICS, China is by far the largest contributor to foreign assistance, and South Africa is estimated to be the smallest by a significant margin. Brazil and Russia prioritise health within their broader assistance agendas, while China, India and South Africa tend to focus on other issue areas. Though their health commitments vary significantly in both size and scope, each of the BRICS has contributed to global health through financing, capacity building, dramatically improved access to affordable medicines, and development of new tools and strategies. In this context, BRICS policymakers themselves have recognised their potential to have even greater global health impact when they committed in 2011 to \u2018support and undertake inclusive global public health cooperation projects, including through South-South and triangular co-operation\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Slippery slope in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Tiwana M: CIVICUS, 12 April 2012","field_url":"http://blogs.civicus.org/civicus/2012/04/12/a-slippery-slope-in-southern-africa/","body":"Civicus argue that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region is experiencing a major backslide in democratic freedoms. Recent restrictions on civil society in the region, whether through regressive laws, policies or vigorous persecution of activists, are argued to fly in face of the SADC treaty which calls upon its 14 members to uphold human rights and the rule of law and promote common political values through democratic, legitimate and effective institutions. The article cites examples from countries in the region, including from Zimbabwe, Malawi,  Swaziland, Angola, DRC and South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Social solidarity and willingness to tolerate risk- and income-related cross-subsidies within health insurance: Experiences from Ghana, Tanzania and South Africa","field_subtitle":"Goudge J, Akazili J, Ataguba J, Kuwawenaruwa A, Borghi J, Harris Band Mills A: Health Policy and Planning 27(Suppl 1), March 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_1/i55.full","body":"In this paper, the authors examined individual preferences for willingness to pre-pay for health care and willingness to cross-subsidise the sick and the poor in Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania. Household surveys in the three countries elicited views on cross-subsidisation within health care financing. In South Africa and Ghana, 62% and 55% of total respondents, respectively, were in favour of a progressive financing system in which richer groups would pay a higher proportion of income than poorer groups, rather than a system where individuals pay the same proportion of income irrespective of their wealth (proportional). In Tanzania, 45% of the total sample were willing to pay for the health care of the poor. However, in all three countries, a progressive system was favoured by a smaller proportion of the most well off than of less well off groups. The three countries had different experiences of health insurance and this may have contributed to the above differences in expressed willingness to pay between countries. Building and \u2018living with\u2019 institutions that provide affordable universal coverage is likely to be an essential part of the learning process which supports the development of social solidarity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Sorting out the what, how, and who for regional action on agriculture in Africa","field_subtitle":"Afun-Ogidan D: European Centre for Development Policy Management blog, 30 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.ecdpm-talkingpoints.org/caadp-partnership-platform/","body":"Many African countries and regions have programmes to boost their agricultural productivity to ensure food security, with the pan-African Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) being the most comprehensive. On 5 March 2012 members of the CAADP Development Partners Task Team met in Brussels to discuss and explore how to facilitate and support greater involvement of regional stakeholders that are important for CAADP implementation at the regional level. Participants discussed how to achieve faster progress on implementing the programme and stressed the need to identify concrete regional actions for faster progress. They also emphasised the importance of deciding on roles and responsibilities of different regional actors, and of improving coordination among development partners, and between development partners and Regional Economic Communities. Although these ideas do not represent formal positions, they could be used to guide discussion between development partners, Regional Economic Communities and other actors during the Eighth CAADP Partnership Platform meeting, due to be held 3-4 May 2012.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Health Department seeks private sector engagement in NHI ","field_subtitle":"Mkhwanazi A: Heath-e News, 19 March 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20033477","body":"South Africa\u2019s National Health Department is courting the private sector to build public-private partnerships in the development of the country\u2019s new National Health Insurance (NHI) system. The Department has announced that it considers the issue of improving working relations and trust between the private and public health sectors an important step towards the establishment of the NHI, calling for greater transparency and accountability. Olive Shisana of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) echoed government\u2019s position, arguing that the reluctance of the private sector to work with government on the NHI \u2018fails to recognise the long-term benefits for health care\u2019 in the country. The private sector has so far been reluctant to work with government, fearing profit losses if NHI is implemented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Stakeholders meeting on the Zimbabwe Equity Watch Harare, 23 February 2012","field_subtitle":"Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, Training and Research Support Centre, and EQUINET: 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Zimbabwe%20EW%20mtg%20rep%202012.pdf","body":"The Ministry of Health and Child Welfare and Training and Research Support Centre with EQUINET hosted a one day meeting in February in Harare to report on and review the findings of the 2011 Zimbabwe Equity Watch; to involve health and non health sector actors in identifying priorities and actions to strengthen equity in universal health coverage and action on the social determinants of health; and to propose how to institutionalise health equity monitoring. The meeting involved 52 delegates from different sectors of government, parliament, civil society, private sector, technical institutions and international organisations. The meeting identified a number of recommendations and areas of follow up action flowing from the discussions on the Equity Watch report and the presentations in the plenary and parallel sessions that are presented in the report. Stakeholders endorsed equity as a guiding principle for universal health coverage, as well as health in all policies and made proposals for short and medium term steps to work towards equity in universal health coverage. They called for strengthened consistent co-ordination of the institutions and agencies that influence the determinants of health and delivery on universal health coverage. It was proposed that the Equity Watch be institutionalised and repeated in future with the involvement of other sectors, with indicators also identified for annual monitoring in the routine information system. Specific additional areas for equity analysis were identified.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"State of civil society report 2011","field_subtitle":"CIVICUS: April 2012","field_url":"http://socs.civicus.org/","body":"According to CIVICUS, in 2011, the existing institutions of global governance failed to provide people-centred responses to the current global economic, social, political and environmental crises. Too often in key multilateral meetings and processes, the narrow national interests of states prevailed. The Durban climate change summit of 2011 (COP17) fell short of the decisive action required, as did the 2011 G20 meeting of the world\u2019s most powerful economies. On the positive side was the launch of the new United Nations body, UN Women, as well as the Busan High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, and many of the stances adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, particularly during the Universal Periodic Review, its peer-reviewed assessment of human rights in UN member states. In Busan and in Geneva, the space guaranteed to civil society enhanced the credibility and quality of the process, and these procedures should be regarded as minimal standards that should be extended to other arenas. A predicament for both states and civil society alike is the fact that disconnected summits purport to address intertwined issues such as economic growth, development effectiveness, climate change and human rights in silos. Civil society organisations must combine to advocate for a multilateral system that has the reach and ambition to tackle connected challenges and the imagination to put global interests first.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Stress-reducing effects of real and artificial nature in a hospital waiting room","field_subtitle":"Beukeboom CJ, Langeveld D and Tanja-Dijkstra K: Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (Online Ahead of Print), 10 April 2012","field_url":"http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2011.0488","body":"This field study investigated the potential stress-reducing effects of exposure to real or artificial nature on patients in a hospital waiting room. Additionally, it was investigated whether perceived attractiveness of the room could explain these effects. In this between-patients experimental design, patients were exposed to one of the following: real plants, posters of plants, or no nature (control). These conditions were alternately applied to two waiting rooms. The subjects consisted of 457 patients (60% female and 40% male) who were scheduled for various health services, such as echocardiogram and x-ray. Patients exposed to real plants, as well as patients exposed to posters of plants, report lower levels of experienced stress compared to the control condition. Further analyses show that these small but significant effects of exposure to nature are partially mediated by the perceived attractiveness of the waiting room. In conclusion, natural elements in hospital environments have the potential to reduce patients' feelings of stress. By increasing the attractiveness of the waiting room by adding either real plants or posters of plants, hospitals can create a pleasant atmosphere that positively influences patients' well-being.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Systematic review of diarrhoea duration and severity in children and adults in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Lamberti LM, Fischer-Walker CL and Black RE: BMC Public Health 12(276), 6 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-276.pdf","body":"Diarrhoea is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality globally; yet the overall burden of diarrhoea in terms of duration and severity has not been quantified. This study aims to fill that research gap. The authors estimated that, globally, among children under-five, 64.8% of diarrhoeal episodes are mild, 34.7% are moderate, and 0.5% are severe. On average, mild episodes last 4.3 days, and severe episodes last 8.4 days and cause dehydration in 84.6% of cases. Among older children and adults, 95% of episodes are mild; 4.95% are moderate; and 0.05% are severe. Among individuals &#8805;16 yrs, severe episodes typically last 2.6 days and cause dehydration in 92.8% of cases. Moderate and severe episodes constitute a substantial portion of the total envelope of diarrhoea among children under-five (35.2%; about 588 million episodes). Among older children and adults, moderate and severe episodes account for a much smaller proportion of the total envelope of diarrhoea (5%), but the absolute number of such episodes is noteworthy (about 21.5 million episodes among individuals &#8805;16 yrs). Hence, the global burden of diarrhoea consists of significant morbidity, extending beyond episodes progressing to death.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"TB vaccine receives Gates boost","field_subtitle":"Thom A: Health-e News, 15 March 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20033475","body":"The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged US$220 million over the next five years for the search for a tuberculosis (TB) vaccine. The money will be channeled via Aeras, a non-profit organisation developing vaccines to combat TB against the backdrop of a significant increase in drug-resistant strains. A large portion of their proposed TB vaccine work will take place in South Africa, where research partners have been promised they will benefit from the grant. The grant will allow Aeras to advance several vaccine candidates into pivotal large-scale efficacy trials in South Africa and elsewhere. Aeras estimates a total of $400-500 million will be needed over the next five years to fund activities. The Gates grant will provide approximately half of the estimated cost of meeting 2012 to 2016 milestone targets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The association between malnutrition and the incidence of malaria among young HIV-infected and -uninfected Ugandan children: A prospective study","field_subtitle":"Arinaitwe E, Gasasira A, Verret W, Homsy J, Wanzira H, Kakuru A et al: Malaria Journal 11(90), 27 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-90.pdf","body":"In this study, a cohort of 100 HIV-unexposed, 203 HIV-exposed (HIV negative children born to HIV-infected mothers) and 48 HIV-infected children aged six weeks to one year were recruited from an area of high malaria transmission intensity in rural Uganda and followed until the age of 2.5 years. All children were provided with insecticide-treated bed nets at enrolment and daily trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole prophylaxis (TS) was prescribed for HIV-exposed breastfeeding and HIV-infected children. Monthly routine assessments, including measurement of height and weight, were conducted at the study clinic. The researchers found overall incidence of malaria was 3.64 cases per person year. Mild stunting and moderate-severe stunting were associated with a similarly increased incidence of malaria compared to non-stunted children. Being mildly underweight and moderate-severe underweight were not associated with a significant difference in the incidence of malaria compared to children who were not underweight. There were no significant interactions between HIV-infected, HIV-exposed children taking TS and the associations between malnutrition and the incidence of malaria. The researchers point out, in conclusion, that they were unable to disentangle the relationship between malnutrition and the incidence of malaria, and their findings do not necessarily indicate any causal connections between malaria and malnutrition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The difficult relationship between faith-based healthcare organisations and the public sector in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Boulenger D and Criel B: Studies in Health Services Organisation and Policy 29, ITG Press, 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cvcm2zp","body":"In this book, the authors present the principal findings of a study conducted between September 2007 and March 2009 on contractual arrangements between faith-based hospitals and public health authorities in four sub-Saharan African countries: Cameroon, Tanzania, Chad and Uganda. In Tanzania, Christian faith-based organisations were found to be well represented, particularly the Catholic Church. The study focused on the Nyakahanga District Designated Hospital (NDDH), a rural Lutheran hospital located in the north-west of the country. Researchers found that monitoring of the contractual relationship between church and state is not properly done and supervision remains erratic, with frequent stock-outs and lack of capital investment, leading to a negative perception of the relationship by both parties. In Uganda, the faith-based health sector owns about 30% of the country\u2019s health facilities. Field research for the study focused on two faith-based hospitals in Uganda that were involved in contracting agreements with PEPFAR recipients. Restrictive and demanding agreements between PEPFAR recipients and hospitals were identified as problematic, but this was mitigated by the reliability of PEPFAR funding. The authors observe that where the relationship between public and faith-based sectors is not satisfactory, faith-based organisations may opt for more predictable agreements that they can rely on with external organisations like PEPFAR.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The disengagement of the South African medical diaspora","field_subtitle":"Crush J and Chikanda A: Southern African Migration Project, Migration Policy Series No. 58, 2012","field_url":"http://www.queensu.ca/samp/sampresources/samppublications/","body":"This paper reports on a survey of 415 South African doctors in Canada conducted in 2009-2010, representing almost 20% of the total number working in Canada. The researchers found that, while this group of South African professionals are proud to think of themselves as South African and take a relatively keen interest in events in that country, they are largely disengaged from any serious diasporic interest in and commitment (beyond contact with and some limited support for family members who remain). Amounts remitted by South African physicians are small in comparison to their incomes and remitting is infrequent, differing markedly in their remitting behaviour from physicians from other African countries and from African diasporas in general, where remittances are significant. More than half expressed no interest in returning to South Africa to help with nation building. Only 7% said they are likely to return within the next two years and another 10% within the next five years. Almost without exception, the respondents painted a very negative picture of life in South Africa and they do not see any role for themselves in helping address the country\u2019s deep social and economic inequalities and needs. The findings of this study challenge assertions by neo-liberal economists that the negative impacts of the \u2018medical brain drain\u2019 in Africa are highly exaggerated and there is adequate compensation in the form of remittances, direct investment, knowledge and skills transfer, return migration and involvement in diaspora associations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The fiscal dimension of HIV/AIDS in Botswana, South Africa, Swaziland and Uganda","field_subtitle":"Lule E and Haacker M: World Bank, March 2012","field_url":"http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRICA/Resources/The_Fiscal_Dimension_of_HIVAIDS_in_Africa.pdf","body":"In this report, the authors calculate and analyse the fiscal costs of HIV and AIDS for Botswana, South Africa, Swaziland and Uganda, interpreting the HIV and AIDS response as a long-term fiscal commitment, and including certain costs such as specific social grants that are not normally included in HIV and AIDS costing studies. From a microeconomic perspective, the authors calculate, for each country, the fiscal commitment that, under the parameters of the national HIV and AIDS programme, is incurred by a single HIV infection. Similarly, they calculate costs and savings associated with HIV and AIDS-related interventions, concluding that these costs can be substantial, nearly equal to GDP per capita (South Africa) up to 12 times GDP per capita (Uganda). On the macroeconomic level, they aggregate the costs incurred by new infections to track the evolving fiscal burden of HIV and AIDS over time. They found that newly incurred costs are generally lower than current spending, and that the fiscal burden of HIV and AIDS is declining over the projection period, perhaps reflecting a projected decline in HIV incidence. At the same time, the fiscal costs remain large, and increasingly reflect the success or failure of the HIV and AIDS programme in preventing new infections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Health Security Initiative: Opportunities and challenges","field_subtitle":"Martinez MEC: Health Diplomacy Monitor 3(2): 11-13, April 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d9tw6je","body":"In December 2011, the Global Health Security Initiative (GHSI) celebrated its 10th anniversary with a ministerial meeting in Paris, France. This article chronicles the achievements of the Initiative in global health security, namely the development of globally common methods for the assessment of global health threats and risks, such as the H1N1 flu virus, and the mainstreaming of a multidisciplinary approach on health security. The Initiative has been involved in: setting up information-sharing networks, such as a contact emergency network for communication among health officials; the establishment of general guidelines for risk communications; the design of a \u2018risk incident scale\u2019 for global health emergencies; and the development of evidence-based research for policy making related to human decontamination. Although the Initiative is limited to only the eight countries, the network is working with the World Health Organisation to share the best practices with the broader global health community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The time is right for a global genomic database for micro-organisms","field_subtitle":"Schlundt J: Health Diplomacy Monitor 3(2): 2-3, April 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d9tw6je","body":"Because of increased global trade and travel, micro-organisms now travel globally faster than before. To track these microorganisms, whole genome sequence analysis is the ideal instrument, but to make effective use of the results a global genomic database for microorganisms is needed. In this editorial, the author argues that the introduction of genomic testing represents a giant step forward for developing countries in the fight against infectious diseases. He compares the introduction of this new technology to the spread of cellphones, which made expensive and exclusive landlines unnecessary and made communication possible for everybody. Similarly, identification and typing of microorganisms will suddenly become technically and economically feasible, enabling control and prevention efforts previously missing in many regions. At the same time, developing countries moving to use this technology will not need to develop expensive, specialised lab systems, since microbiological lab work will basically be the same for TB, enterobacteria, viruses, etc. The author calls on developing countries to participate in this process from the start.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Third South African Tuberculosis Conference: 12-15 June 2012, Durban, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Registration deadline: 18 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.tbconference.co.za/","body":"The Third South African Tuberculosis Conference will build on the momentum of the previous TB conferences and give communities an opportunity to assess progress towards reaching TB/HIV targets.  The theme for the Conference is \u201cReaching the target\u201d.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda\u2019s HIV rate increases from 6.4% to 6.7%","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 21 March 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=95116","body":"Uganda's HIV and AIDS prevalence rate has risen slightly from 6.4% to 6.7% among adults aged between 15 and 49, according to the government\u2019s recently released national AIDS Indicator Survey. HIV prevalence for women stands at 7.7%, with men at 5.6%. The Ministry of Health argues that the increase is small and is due to HIV-positive children growing up and entering the age bracket of 15 to 19 years old. However, activists are concerned that the lack of progress indicated by the new statistics is the result of gaps in the government's HIV prevention programmes, such as lack of supplies like condoms. They are also becoming increasingly concerned about risk compensation as a result of failing HIV prevention messages, especially since the survey found that just 28.1% of women and 31.4% of men aged between 15 and 19 used a condom during their last sexual encounter, dropping to 6.7% and 12.2% respectively among 30- to 39-year-olds. The full report is due for release in June 2012.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"UN Commission on the Status of Women fails to uphold women\u2019s rights","field_subtitle":"Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development: April 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ck7j22s","body":"At the 56th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, held in April 2012, the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development report that the Commission failed to adopt agreed conclusions protecting women\u2019s rights for reasons of \u2018safeguarding traditional values\u2019. This failure comes at the expense of human rights and fundamental freedoms of women, according to this statement of a number of feminist and women's rights organisations in the Forum. These organisations reject any proposed re-opening of negotiations on the already established international agreements on women's human rights and call on all governments to demonstrate their commitment to promote, protect and fulfil human rights and fundamental freedoms of women. Customs, tradition or religious considerations must not be tolerated to justify discrimination and violence against women and girls, whether committed by State authorities or by non-state actors. In particular, the statement urges governments to ensure that the health and human rights of girls and women are secured and reaffirmed at the upcoming 2012 Commission on Population and Development and the International Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20).  Any future international negotiations must move forward implementation of policies and programmes that secure the human rights of girls and women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"UN World Water Development Report","field_subtitle":"United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO): 2012","field_url":"http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/environment/water/wwap/wwdr/wwdr4-2012/","body":"The fourth edition of the World Water Development Report, \u2018Managing Water under Uncertainty and Risk\u2019 is a comprehensive review of the world's freshwater resources and seeks to demonstrate, among other messages, that water underpins all aspects of development, and that a coordinated approach to managing and allocating water is critical. The report underlines that in order to meet multiple goals water needs to be an intrinsic element in decision-making across the whole development spectrum. It aims to encourage all stakeholders both in and out of the \u2018water box\u2019 - water managers, leaders in government, civil society and businesses \u2013 to engage early in decision making processes to improve the quality and acceptance of decisions and the probability of successful implementation. It highlights that more responsible action by all water users has enormous potential to lead to better outcomes - but requires political, social, economic and technical responses at all levels of government, businesses and communities, from local to international.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development 2012 (Rio+20)","field_subtitle":"20-22 June 2012: Rio De Janeiro, Brazil","field_url":"http://www.earthsummit2012.org/","body":"Also referred to as the Earth Summit or Rio+20 due to the initial conference held in Rio in 1992, the objectives of the Summit are: to secure renewed political commitment to sustainable development; to assess progress towards internationally agreed goals on sustainable development and to address new and emerging challenges. The Summit will also focus on two specific themes: a green economy in the context of poverty eradication and sustainable development, and an institutional framework for sustainable development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Using stakeholder analysis to support moves towards universal coverage: Lessons from the SHIELD project","field_subtitle":"Gilson L, Erasmus E, Borghi J, Macha J, Kamuzora P and Mtei G: Health Policy and Planning 27(Suppl 1), March 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_1/i64.full","body":"The aim of this paper is to support all stakeholders who are developing or researching universal health care (UHC) reforms and who wish to conduct stakeholder analysis to support evidence-informed pro-poor health policy development. It presents practical lessons and ideas drawn from experience conducting stakeholder analysis around UHC reforms in South Africa and Tanzania, revealing that differences in context and in reform proposals generate differences in the particular interests of stakeholders and their likely positioning on reform proposals, as well as in their relative balance of power. It is, therefore, difficult to draw cross-national policy comparisons around these specific issues, the authors caution. Nonetheless, they argue that cross-national policy learning is possible with regard to choosing approaches to policy analysis and management of policy processes, but stakeholders should avoid generalisations when comparing UHC reform packages and should rather focus on how to manage the reform process within a particular context. The authors emphasise that stakeholder analyses can be used both to think through the political viability of new policy proposals and to develop broader political management strategies to support policy change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Will increased funding for neglected tropical diseases really make poverty history?","field_subtitle":"Allen T and Parker M: The Lancet 379(9821): 1097-1098, 24 March 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2812%2960159-7/fulltext","body":"In January 2012, The UK\u2019s Department for International Development announced a fivefold increase in its support for programmes to control neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). However, the authors of this paper point to a growing body of research that highlights hazards associated with current modes of implementing NTD control strategies, including undermining already-fragile health care systems, facing serious logistical problems and medical risks, and contributing in administrative failure. They draw on fieldwork in Uganda and Tanzania to shows that the specific political, economic, and social contexts in which mass drug administration (MDA) programmes are rolled out profoundly affects the uptake of drugs for the treatment of some NTDs. Average drug uptake in 2010 was well below 50%, an issue which remains unaddressed. The authors call for governments to deal with NTDs in a sustainable way that will involve a range of factors, including behavioural change, and promote an integrated bio-social approach, with more adequate monitoring and surveillance. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Water belongs to everyone\u2019: The role of the private sector in tackling global issues surrounding water","field_subtitle":"Pambazuka News 579: 29 March ","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/81165","body":"While the sixth World Water Forum took place in Marseille in March 2012, an Alternative World Water Forum (FAME) also took place in parallel in the French city. Promoting a motto of \u2018Water belongs to everyone\u2019, the trade unions, corporate watchdog groups and environmentalists behind FAME accused the World Water Forum of failing to adequately address issues of universal water access and sustainability, and of rather promoting expensive private sector technologies for safe water. The World Water Forum declaration did include commitments to speed up access to safe drinking water and sanitation for all, focusing on the most vulnerable. The Alternative Forum argued, however, that the Forum declaration failed to reflect a full commitment to the rights to water and sanitation, according to the United Nations special rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A blank cheque for abuse: the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and its impact on access to medicines","field_subtitle":"Medicins Sans Frontieres: Access Campaign, February 2012","field_url":"http://www.msfaccess.org/sites/default/files/MSF_assets/Access/Docs/Access_Briefing_ACTABlankCheque_ENG_2012.pdf","body":"In this update to Medicins Sans Frontieres\u2019 (MSF) November 2010 report on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) - which has so far been signed by most developed nations - the impact of ACTA on access to medicines is investigated. Although a number of provisions that were harmful to access to medicines in developing countries were removed during the negotiations, the final text remains problematic, according to MSF. The agreement, for example, will undermine the ability of developing country governments to apply the Doha Declaration to protect public health.  It puts medical distributors, non-governmental organisations and public health authorities at risk of severe penalties, while allowing for continued border detention of in-transit medicines destined for developing countries.  ACTA undermines the role of the judiciary in protecting the right to health and balance private intellectual property rights with the larger public interest, and acts as a deterrent to the production and trade in generic medicines, as it provides for excessive punishment, shifts the risks entirely on to the generic manufacturer, and grants few protections against abuse.  MSF states that it does not recognise the legitimacy of ACTA because it has been negotiated in secret with little room for public engagement. The authors conclud that ACTA is a cynical exploitation of concerns around unsafe medicines and is not a legitimate response to the problem of counterfeiting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Accounting for water quality in monitoring access to safe drinking-water as part of the Millennium Development Goals: Lessons from five countries","field_subtitle":"Bain RES, Gundry SW, Wright JA, Yang H, Pedley S and Bartramd JK: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(3): 228-235A, March 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/3/11-094284.pdf","body":"The main aim of this study was to determine how data on water source quality affect assessments of progress towards the 2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target on access to safe drinking-water. Data was collected from five countries on whether drinking-water sources complied with World Health Organisation water quality guidelines on contamination with thermotolerant coliform bacteria, arsenic, fluoride and nitrates in 2004 and 2005. Taking account of data on water source quality resulted in substantially lower estimates of the percentage of the population with access to safe drinking-water in 2008 in four of the five study countries: the absolute reduction was 11% in Ethiopia, 16% in Nicaragua, 15% in Nigeria and 7% in Tajikistan. There was only a slight reduction in Jordan. Microbial contamination was more common than chemical contamination. The authors warn that the WHO criteria used to determine whether a water source is safe can lead to substantial overestimates of the population with access to safe drinking-water and, consequently, also overestimates the progress made towards the 2015 MDG target. Monitoring drinking-water supplies by recording both access to water sources and their safety would be a substantial improvement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS at 30: A history","field_subtitle":"Harden V: Potomac Books, 2012","field_url":"http://www.amazon.com/AIDS-at-30-Victoria-Harden/dp/1597972940","body":"This book tracks the progress and pitfalls of the global fight against HIV and AIDS over the past 30 years. The book's strength lies in its methodical documenting of the medical community's response to the virus. Harden also seeks to explain how political and cultural ideas influenced the science of AIDS. In specific instances, such as explaining how stigma about a sexually transmitted disease initially associated with the gay community hampered early research in the United States, she succeeds. But she does not make the same effort to explain later shifts in political perceptions. There is very little discussion of former President George W Bush's decision to launch the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, for instance, or what impact it had. At a time when the US is projecting a vision of an AIDS-free generation, Harden's history shows that constant monitoring and new perspectives remain critical. She reminds us that the world only arrived at the idea of an AIDS-free generation through constant trial-and-error: first, in determining the causes and later in producing effective therapies to prolong the lives of infected people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"America is stealing the world\u2019s doctors","field_subtitle":"McAllester M: New York Times, 7 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/magazine/america-is-stealing-foreign-doctors.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all","body":"The United States (US), with its high salaries and technological innovation, is the world\u2019s most powerful magnet for doctors, according to this article, attracting more every year than Britain, Canada and Australia combined. Some of the responsibility for the migration of health care workers lies with the immigration laws in the host countries. For example, in the US, some states may grant waivers to foreign doctors if they agree to practice in communities where doctors are in short supply. The author compares Zambia and the US, acknowledging that salaries and working conditions in a country like Zambia are never going to match those in the US, and considers some of the factors that influence a person\u2019s decision to emigrate, such as family ties, the cost of living and home language. There are signs of change, as doctors from Ghana, who used to mass emigrate to the US, now prefer to stay home as salaries rose enough to weigh the scales in favour of staying. Although there are foreign-funded initiatives to train and recruit doctors, such as a project funded by the Global Fund to help Zambia recruit and retain doctors, these solutions can create further problems. For example, many of the doctors hired by aid agencies are doing research and don\u2019t see patients so they don\u2019t contribute to improving health services. Frustrated public health officials in Zambia and other developing countries call this the \u201cinternal brain drain\u201d.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"An ecological approach to non-communicable disease prevention in the workplace","field_subtitle":"De Villiers A, Senekal M and Fourie J: Occupational Health Southern Africa 17(4) July-August 2011","field_url":"http://www.occhealth.co.za/?%2FviewArticle%2F1245","body":"Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of death globally, killing more people each year than all other causes combined. Furthermore, behavioural risk factors for NCDs fall increasingly on poorer people within all countries, mirroring the underlying socio-economic determinants. The need for prevention efforts through well-planned, cost-effective and feasible interventions across all levels of society is therefore obvious, the authors of this paper argue. The workplace is argued to provide an important setting for ecological models that ensure the both the policies and the environments that enable health.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Appointment of the World Bank president: Open letter to all governors of the World Bank","field_subtitle":"Oxfam, Eurodad, the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (Afrodad) et al: 15 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art-569496","body":"In response to the announcement that World Bank President Robert Zoellick will step down at the end of his term on 30 June 2012, a global coalition of campaigners has called for an open and merit-based process to elect the next World Bank leader, and for developing countries to determine the selection. The campaigners, including many major development organisations, have also asked the United States to announce that it will no longer seek to monopolise the Presidential position. A \u201cgentlemen\u2019s agreement\u201d between Europe and the US dating back to World War II has so far ensured that the President of the World Bank is always an American, and the International Monetary Fund\u2019s Managing Director is European. In this open letter, the campaigners demand that the new President is selected by a majority of World Bank member countries, not just a majority of voting shares, as most members are low- and middle-income countries. They also demand that the selection process be opened to anyone to apply, with interviews held in public and with open voting procedures. A clear job description and necessary qualifications should be set out, requiring candidates to have a strong understanding and experience of the particular problems facing developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Birth attendants as perinatal verbal autopsy respondents in low- and middle-income countries: A viable alternative? ","field_subtitle":"Engmann C, Garces A, Jehan I, Ditekemena J, Phiri M, Thorsten V et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(3): 200-208, March 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/3/11-092452.pdf","body":"The authors of this study assessed the feasibility of using birth attendants instead of bereaved mothers as perinatal verbal autopsy respondents in low- and middle-income countries. Verbal autopsy interviews for early neonatal deaths and stillbirths were conducted separately among mothers (reference standard) and birth attendants in 38 communities in four developing countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia. For early neonatal deaths, concordance between maternal and attendant responses across all questions was 94%. Concordance was at least 95% for more than half the questions on maternal medical history, birth attendance and neonate characteristics. Concordance on any given question was never less than 80%. For stillbirths, concordance across all questions was 93%. Concordance was 95% or greater more than half the time for questions on birth attendance, site of delivery and stillborn characteristics. Overall, the causes of death established through verbal autopsy were similar, regardless of respondent. In conclusion, birth attendants can substitute for bereaved mothers as verbal autopsy respondents.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"BRICs\u2019 philosophies for development financing and their implications for LICs","field_subtitle":"Mwase N and Yang Y: International Monetary Fund Working Paper, March 2012","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2012/wp1274.pdf","body":"Flows of development financing from the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) to low-income countries (LICs) have surged in recent years. The authors of this paper found that, though there are some differences across BRICs, the philosophies of most BRICs for development financing differ from traditional external funders (donors) in three main ways: BRICs, with the exception of Russia, provide financial assistance based on the principle of \u2018mutual benefits\u2019 in the spirit of South-South cooperation, while Russia and traditional funders emphasise the role of aid in poverty reduction. Second, BRICs, particularly China, view policy conditionality as interfering with recipients\u2019 sovereignty and tend to provide noncash financing as a means to circumvent corruption, whilst traditional funders view policy conditionality as a means to ensure efficient use of aid. Third, different emphasis is placed on how to ensure debt sustainability, with some BRICs giving a greater weight to microsustainability and growth while traditional funders paying more attention to long-run macrosustainability. This difference is, however, narrowing with BRICs increasingly appreciating the importance of overall debt sustainability and traditional funders the need for investing in physical capital and seeing results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Building national health insurance: Lessons from Ghana","field_subtitle":"UHC Forward: 10 February 2012","field_url":"http://uhcforward.org/blog/2012/feb/10/building-national-health-insurance-lessons-ghana","body":"In this interview with Irene Agyepong, Regional Director of Health for Greater Accra, she attributes Ghana\u2019s success in rolling out universal coverage to genuine political commitment as well as demand from society for change. She identifies three major challenges facing Ghana: poor capacity, loss of health workers who migrate overseas and lack of financing. She gives advice to other countries wishing to implement universal coverage. First, they should build a strong health system as well as technical and administrative capacity and make sure that they retain that capacity to support universal coverage. Second, governments and external funders must realise that leadership has to come from within the country \u2013 externally motivated change is unlikely to work. Third, context and history matter. Countries need to tailor their systems to fit their context and history. Overall, stakeholders should bear in mind that universal coverage is a long-term goal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Business regulation and non-state actors: Whose standards? Whose development? ","field_subtitle":"Utting P, Reed D and Mukherjee-Reed A: United Nations Research Institute for Development, 24 January 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/7xo9o6c","body":"This book assesses the achievements and limitations of a new set of non-state or multi-stakeholder institutions that are concerned with improving the social and environmental record of business, and holding corporations to account. It does so from a perspective that aims to address two limitations that often characterise this field of inquiry. First, fragmentation: articles or books typically focus on one or a handful of cases. Second, the development dimension: what does such regulation imply for developing countries in terms of well-being, empowerment and sustainability? This volume examines more than 20 initiatives or institutions associated with different regulatory and development approaches, including the business-friendly corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda, 'corporate accountability' and 'fair trade' or social economy. Several chapters deal specifically with the mining sector in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Call closing soon: Applicants for Regional Research grants on Global Health Diplomacy  for equitable health systems in east and southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"Call closes April 3rd 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=62_0_1_0_M3","body":"This call is for applicants for grants for policy research into global health diplomacy , and particularly in relation to the manner in which African interests around equitable health systems are being advanced through health diplomacy. Applicants are invited to indicate their capacities and proposals for implementing the work in ONE of the three areas below \r\n1.\tOn the reflection of African interests and issues around equitable health systems in the stages of motivating, negotiating,  implementing, monitoring and reporting of the WHO Code on international Recruitment of health personnel; \r\n2.\tOn collaborations on access to essential drugs through south- south relationships with China, Brazil and India, particularly in relation to medicines production, distribution and regulation across countries within the ESA region, the alignment with and outcomes for national health systems, regional and global health diplomacy processes and the lessons learned for health diplomacy. \r\n3.\tOn the involvement of African actors in global health governance, particularly in relation to  the participation, issues raised, outcomes and thus influence of African state and non-state actors on the decision making processes in the WHO and Global Fund, particularly on universal access to prevention, treatment and care for HIV and AIDS, and the lessons for health diplomacy. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Second Global Symposium: 31 October-3 November 2012: Beijing, China","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 1 May 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/","body":"Organisers of the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR) are calling on all interested parties to submit abstracts for the Second Global Symposium. Abstracts may be in one of three main themes: Knowledge translation; state-of-the-art health systems research; and health systems research methodologies. There are also three cross-cutting themes: Innovations in health systems research; neglected priorities or populations in health systems research; and financing and capacity building for health systems research. The overall goal of this call is to enhance health policy and management decision-making processes in low- and middle-income countries (particularly for the implementation and scale-up of effective interventions for MDGs 4, 5, and 6) through the identification and testing models of leadership development to strengthen the capacity of decision-makers to demand, access and use research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: The East, Central and Southern Africa College of Nursing 10th Scientific Conference: Port Louis, Mauritius, 5-7 September 2012","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 30 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.wavuti.com/16/post/2012/02/call-for-abstracts-upcoming-ecsacon-10th-scientific-conference-mauritius-5-7-sept-2012.html#axzz1ng8wYaoS","body":"The East, Central and Southern Africa College of Nursing (ECSACON) is calling for abstracts for the 10th ECSACON Scientific Conference. The theme is \u201cAcceleration towards attainment of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through revitalising primary health care: nurses and midwives sharing high impact interventions\u201d. Sub-themes: Improving maternal and child health: Moving towards achieving the MDGs; Health systems strengthening; Innovations and excellence in nursing and midwifery; Evidence-based primary health care practices/approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"China and conflict-affected states: Risks and opportunities for building peace","field_subtitle":"SAFERWORLD: February 2012","field_url":"http://www.saferworld.org.uk/downloads/pubdocs/China%20&%20conflict-affected%20states%20briefing%20double.pdf","body":"China\u2019s growing involvement in countries where peace is fragile brings new responsibilities and policy choices for Beijing, as well as a new reality for Western funders and policy makers, according to this brief. This increased involvement brings risks and opportunities for peace and stability in conflict-affected states, SAFERWORLD argues. The brief summarises the impacts of China\u2019s growing economic, diplomatic and military engagement in conflict-affected states and analyses the implications for peacebuilding. The briefing also offers recommendations for policy makers in China and the West focused on fostering a culture of dialogue, bridging the current policy gap regarding conflict-affected states, and creating an enabling international architecture. A key conclusion is that as Beijing\u2019s approach towards conflict-affected countries evolves, there is an unprecedented opportunity for China and the West to develop more complementary approaches in support of peace and equitable development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"China's relationship with  Africa: West  has no right to criticise","field_subtitle":"Glennie J: The Guardian, 8 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/feb/08/west-no-right-to-criticise-china","body":"China has asserted that its aid to Africa has no strings attached. The author of this article argues that in contrast China's activities in Africa, like those of other major external funders have conditionalities attached. There is an oft-repeated Western view that China's only interest in Africa is to extract its natural resources. However in Mozambique China's investments are more targetted at the industrial sector, and there are numerous infrastructure and development projects across the continent attesting to the effectiveness of Chinese investment. The author notes that African governments would be foolish to believe that their relationship with China will avoid all the political wrangling inherent in aid and trade relationships. He warns that rather than casting aspersions on China's role in Africa. Western governments  should acknowledge their own mixed record in African relations, and build a more balanced analysis of the costs and benefits of China's growing engagement in international development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"China's tightening grip on Africa","field_subtitle":"Cameron J: Moneyweb, 7 February 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page503823?oid=561446&sn=2009%20Detail","body":"In this article, the author analyses China\u2019s trade and diplomatic relations with Africa in terms of Joseph Nye\u2019s concept of soft power. He argues that examining China's Africa Policy, there is a motivation to change cultural perceptions about China and to influence agenda's through co-option rather than economic or military coercion. Although Chinese leaders often refer to the importance of its soft power in the world, China's policy for engagement with African countries does not mention soft power directly. Instead, it speaks in very general terms of mutual cooperation and win-win strategies. The author argues that China\u2019s well-disguised soft power approach is not very different from the soft power component of US foreign policy. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"China\u2019s growing role in Africa: Myths and facts","field_subtitle":"Ali S and Jafrani N: International Economic Bulletin, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 9 February 2012","field_url":"http://carnegieendowment.org/ieb/2012/02/09/china-s-growing-role-in-africa-myths-and-facts/9j55","body":"According to this article, Africa has much to gain from China\u2019s growing presence on the continent, though it is not without some negative impacts. Increased trade and investment links are particularly promising, as they have the potential to support poverty alleviation and sustain recent economic gains. However, African countries must exercise their bargaining power more effectively to ensure that they benefit from the growing relationship, including in areas such as modern technology transfer. It is also the continent\u2019s responsibility to make sure that, as it takes advantage of Chinese investments, competition is preserved and encouraged and regulatory frameworks are improved, including mining codes, by increasing transparency and accountability of contracts. In addition, large flows of Chinese investment and aid should not be allowed to delay much-needed domestic reforms, such as strengthening economic management and improving the business environment. These are needed to attract foreign direct investment from Western countries, which in turn would help to counterbalance potential overdependence on China\u2019s investment. Africa does not have to choose between the West and China \u2013 it can have both.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Cholera spreading in Congo Basin","field_subtitle":"Gold S: News 24, 21 February 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Cholera-spreading-in-DRC-20120221","body":"A cholera epidemic has spread to nine out of 11 provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to the United Nations. The UN said the spread was \"worrisome\" as the epidemic had so far killed 644 people and infected 26,000 since January 2011. Lack of access to potable water remains the single most important cause of the recurrent cholera outbreaks, according to the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA). UN OCHA cited the example of the north-eastern city of Bunia, where over a third of the residents - more than 100,000 people - have been cut off from drinking water since the start of 2012. In neighbouring Republic of Congo, an official announced that there have been more than 340 cholera cases reported in recent months, and several people have died from the water-borne disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Delivering on aspirations for equity","field_subtitle":"Editor","field_url":"","body":"This newsletter includes the Istanbul Declaration, adopted by delegates to the first Global Human Development Forum in Istanbul in March 2012. The Declaration calls on the world community, gathering soon at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June 2012, to set and implement global and national development strategies that emphasise social inclusion, social protection, and equity. This is in recognition of the fact that economic development has too often gone hand in hand with environmental degradation and increased inequality. Who sets those development strategies matters. One paper in this newsletter points, for example, to the disproportionate power over the global economy of just over 100 transnational corporations. Another questions the influence of private wealth in the underfunded global 'protector' of public health, the World Health Organisation. Within such asymmetries of power and influence the work at Rio+20 cannot end with aspirations. It also needs to tackle how institutions and processes need to change to deliver on these aspirations. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing lay health worker policy in South Africa: A qualitative study ","field_subtitle":"Daniels K, Clarke M and Ringsberg KC: Health Research Policy and Systems 10(8), 12 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-10-8.pdf","body":"Over the past half decade South Africa has been developing, implementing and redeveloping its lay health worker (LHW) policies. The aim of this study was to explore contemporary LHW policy development processes and the extent to which issues of gender are taken up within this process. Eleven policy actors (policy makers and policy commentators) were interviewed individually. From the interviews it seems that gender as an issue never reached the policy making agenda. Although there was strong recognition that the working conditions of LHWs needed to be improved, poor working conditions were not necessarily seen as a gender concern. On the positive side, the authors note that LHW policy redevelopment was focused on resolving issues of LHW working conditions through an active process involving many actors and strong debates. But, within this process the issue of gender had no champion and never reached the LHW policy agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Development cooperation for health: reviewing a dynamic concept in a complex global aid environment","field_subtitle":"Hill PS, Dodd R, Brown S and Haffeld J: Globalization and Health 8(5), 15 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-8-5.pdf","body":"The Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, held in Busan, South Korea in November 2011 again promised an opportunity for a new consensus on development cooperation to emerge. This paper reviews the recent evolution of the concept of coordination for development assistance in health as the basis from which to understand current discourses. Four distinct transitions in the understanding, orientation and application of coordination were identified: coordination within the sector, involving geographical zoning, sub-sector specialisation, external funder (donor) consortia, project co-financing, sector aid, harmonisation of procedures, ear-marked budgetary support, external funding agency reform and inter-agency intelligence gathering; sector-wide coordination, expressed particularly through the Sector-Wide Approach; coordination across sectors at national level, expressed in the evolution of Poverty Strategy Reduction Papers and the national monitoring of the Millennium Development Goals; and, most recently, global-level coordination, embodied in the Paris Principles, and the emergence of agencies such as the International Health Partnerships Plus. The transitions are largely but not strictly chronological, and each draws on earlier elements, in ways that are redefined in the new context. With the increasing complexity of both the territory of global health and its governance, and increasing stakeholders and networks, current imaginings of coordination are again being challenged. The High Level Forum in Busan may have been successful in recognising a much more complex landscape for development than previously conceived, but the challenges to coordination remain.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 89: Private sector involvement in health services in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Foster N: EQUINET, March 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss89%20PrivsecESA.pdf","body":"This report was commissioned by EQUINET to look at the characteristics and extent of private sector involvement in health financing and provision in East and Southern African countries. It synthesises available information on the private health sector in the following ESA countries: Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, the United Republic of Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. For each country the core health financing issues, including available NHA data, are briefly discussed. As external financial resources play a key role in the funding of private sector initiatives (both for-profit and not-for-profit), the extent of external funding is also considered. Thereafter, an overview is provided of the presence (or not) of private health insurance, and different types of private providers. A trend observed in this review is the expansion of South African private health care organisations into other African countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Do we know enough to prevent occupationally acquired tuberculosis in healthcare workers?","field_subtitle":"Zungu M and Malotle M: Occupational Health Southern Africa 17(5), September-October 2011","field_url":"http://www.occhealth.co.za/?%2FviewArticle%2F1263","body":"Healthcare workers in South African healthcare facilities work in environments with a high density of tuberculosis patients due to the dual burden of tuberculosis and human immunodeficiency virus in the population, thus predisposing them to contracting tuberculosis. Despite the knowledge of the high tuberculosis incidence and the likelihood of tuberculosis transmission to both health care workers and patients, and the availability of basic infection control measures in our healthcare facilities, there is still inadequate implementation of infection control measures in healthcare facilities, according to this paper. The authors review the knowledge base, instruments for tuberculosis control, the implementation of these tools and the knowledge gaps within the healthcare system in South Africa. A comprehensive review of scholarly literature was conducted based on Internet search engines. The review revealed the availability of adequate knowledge and tools for the control of tuberculosis in healthcare facilities, but inadequate implementation of infection control measures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Doubts over Zimbabwe\u2019s door-to-door testing campaign","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 15 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=95084","body":"Zimbabwe's ambitious plan to offer an HIV test to every household in the country is not yet under way but is already being met with scepticism by activists who feel this is not a priority for the country, especially with global HIV and AIDS funding on the decline. Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights has warned of the possibility of compromising on informed consent and confidentiality when testing is done on a large scale. If not properly executed, ostracism, violence, stigma and abuse in the home can result from status disclosure. Door-to-door testing was successfully conducted in Uganda between 2005 and 2007, but Lesotho\u2019s proposed door-to-door testing campaign has been criticised by researchers as substandard. Activists ask where additional funding will be found for the campaign, arguing that resources should instead be used for those who have already been identified as HIV positive and who need treatment now. They have also raised concerns about whether the testing campaign will go beyond merely testing people, and whether it will motivate them to change their sexual behaviours and also refer those testing positive to treatment facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Draining development? Controlling flows of illicit funds from developing countries","field_subtitle":"World Bank: February 2012","field_url":"http://publications.worldbank.org/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=24215","body":"A growing concern among those interested in economic development is the realisation that hundreds of billions of dollars are illicitly flowing out of developing countries to tax havens and other financial centres in the developed world. This new book by the World Bank assesses the dynamics of these flows, much of which is from corruption and tax evasion. What causes them, what are their consequences and how might they be controlled? The chapters by authors from a variety of backgrounds, including criminologists and practicing lawyers as well as economists, examine many dimensions of the phenomenon. Some chapters examine major illegal markets (drug trafficking and human smuggling) to assess how they contribute to these flows, while others are concerned with the corporate role in the phenomenon, particularly the possibility that transfer pricing (in which firms set prices for international trade among wholly owned affiliates) might play a major role in moving money illicitly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic returns to investment in AIDS treatment in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Resch S, Korenromp E, Stover J, Blakley M, Krubiner C et al: PLoS ONE 6(10), 5 October 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6vl63fw","body":"As the need for anti-retroviral therapy (ART) grows without commensurate increase in the amount of available resources, it is critical to assess the health and economic gains being realised from increasingly large investments in ART. This study estimates total programme costs and compares them with selected economic benefits of ART for an estimated 3.5 million ART patients in low-and middle-income countries whose treatment is co-financed by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Using 2009 anti-retroviral prices and ART programme costs, the authors estimate that the cost of maintaining these patients is US$14.2 billion for the period 2011\u20132020. This investment is expected to save 18.5 million life-years and return $12 to $34 billion to the economy through increased labour productivity, averted orphan care and deferred medical treatment for opportunistic infections and end-of-life care. These results suggest that, in addition to the large health gains generated, the economic benefits of treatment will substantially offset, and likely exceed, programme costs within 10 years of investment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Effect of caregivers' depression and alcohol use on child antiretroviral adherence in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Jaspan HB, Mueller AD, Myer L, Bekker L and Orrell C: AIDS Patient Care and STDs 25(10): 595-600, October 2011","field_url":"http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/apc.2010.0323","body":"Paediatric antiretroviral adherence is difficult to assess, the authors of this paper argue, and subjective measures are affected by reporting bias, which in turn may depend on psychosocial factors such as alcohol use and depression. In this study, they enrolled 56 child caregiver dyads from Cape Town, South Africa, and followed their adherence over one month via various methods. The Alcohol Use Disorder Inventory Tool and Beck Depression Inventory 1 were used to assess participants\u2019 alcohol use and levels of depression and their effect on drug adherence. The median age of the children was four years, and median time on antiretroviral therapy (ART) was 20 months. Increased time on ART was associated with poorer adherence via three-day recall. Alcohol use was inversely associated with adherence. Having a mother as a caregiver and shorter time on highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) were significantly associated with better adherence. The authors conclude that paediatric adherence is affected by caregiver alcohol use, but the caregiver\u2019s relationship to the child is most important. This small study suggests that interventions should aim to keep mothers healthy and alive, as well as alcohol-free.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Elimination of paediatric HIV in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: Large-scale assessment of interventions for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission","field_subtitle":"Horwood C, Vermaak K, Butler L, Haskins L, Phakathi S and Rollins N: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(3): 168-175, March 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/3/11-092056.pdf","body":"The objective of this study was to report the rates of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and the coverage of interventions designed to prevent such transmission, in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Mothers with infants aged &#8804;16 weeks and fathers or legal guardians with infants aged 4\u20138 weeks who, between May 2008 and April 2009, attended immunisation clinics in six districts of KwaZulu-Natal were included. Findings indicated that, of the 19,494 mothers investigated, 89\u20229% reported having had an HIV test in their recent pregnancy. Of the 19,138 mothers who reported ever having had an HIV test, 34.4% reported that they had been found HIV-positive and, of these, 13.7% had started lifelong antiretroviral treatment and 67.2% had received zidovudine and nevirapine. Overall, 40.4% of the 7,981 infants tested were found positive for anti-HIV antibodies, indicating HIV exposure. The low levels of MTCT observed among the infants indicate the rapid, successful implementation of interventions for the prevention of such transmission and suggest that the elimination of paediatric HIV infections is feasible, although this goal has not yet been fully achieved in KwaZulu-Natal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 134: Delivering on aspirations for equity ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Estimation of HIV incidence in Malawi from cross-sectional population-based sero-prevalence data","field_subtitle":"Misiri HE, Edriss A, Aalen OO and Dahl FA: Journal of the International AIDS Society 15(14), 14 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-15-14.pdf","body":"Incidence is a better measure than prevalence for monitoring AIDS, but it is not often used because longitudinal HIV data from which incidence can be computed is scarce. The objective of this study was to estimate the force of infection and incidence of HIV in Malawi using crosssectional HIV sero-prevalence data from the Malawi Demographic and Health Survey conducted in 2004. The researchers estimated population incidence from the force of infection by accounting for the prevalence, as the force of infection applies only to the HIV-negative part of the population. The estimated HIV population incidence per 100,000 person-years among men is 610 for the 15\u201324 year age range, 2,700 for the 25\u201334 group and 1,320 for 35\u201349 year olds. For females, the estimates are 2,030 for 15\u201324 year olds, 1,710 for 25\u201334 year olds and 1,730 for 35\u201349 year olds. In conclusion, the researchers assert that their method provides a simple way of simultaneously estimating the incidence rate of HIV and the age-specific population prevalence for single ages using population-based crosssectional sero-prevalence data. The estimated incidence rates depend on the HIV and natural mortalities used in the estimation process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"External quality assessment of national public health laboratories in Africa, 2002\u20132009","field_subtitle":"Frean J, Perovic O, Fensham V, McCarthy K, von Gottberg A, de Gouveia L et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(3): 191-199A, March 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/3/11-091876.pdf","body":"The authors of this study conducted an external quality assessment of laboratories in Africa that routinely investigate epidemic-prone diseases. Since 2002, three surveys comprising specimens and questionnaires associated with bacterial enteric diseases, bacterial meningitis, plague, tuberculosis and malaria have been sent annually to test participants\u2019 diagnostic proficiency. Identical surveys were sent to referee laboratories for quality control. The authors found that between 2002 and 2009, participation increased from 30 to 48 Member States of the World Health Organisation and from 39 to 78 laboratories. Results of performance evaluations were mixed. Laboratories correctly identified bacterial enteric diseases and meningitis components 65% and 69% of the time, respectively, but their serotyping and antibiotic susceptibility testing and reporting were frequently unacceptable. Microscopy was acceptable for 73%, with tuberculosis microscopy excelling, as 87% of responses received acceptable scores. In the malaria component, 82% of responses received acceptable scores for species identification but only 51% of parasite quantitation scores were acceptable. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors associated with non-adherence to highly active antiretroviral therapy in Nairobi, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Wakibi SN, Ng'ang'a ZW And Mbugua GG: AIDS Research and Therapy 8(43), 5 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.aidsrestherapy.com/content/pdf/1742-6405-8-43.pdf","body":"Published data on adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Kenya is limited. This study assessed adherence to ART and identified factors responsible for non-adherence in Nairobi. This is a multiple facility-based cross-sectional study, where 416 patients aged over 18 years were systematically selected and interviewed using a structured questionnaire about their experience taking ART. Additional data was extracted from hospital records. Overall, 403 patients responded: 35% males and 65% females, of whom 18% were non-adherent, and the main (38%) reasons for missing therapy were being busy and forgetting. Accessing ART in a clinic within walking distance from home and difficulty with dosing schedule predicted non-adherence. The study found better adherence to HAART in Nairobi compared to previous studies in Kenya. However, the authors argue that adherence can be improved further by employing fitting strategies to improve patients' ability to fit therapy into their lifestyles and implementing cue-dose training to impact forgetfulness. Further work to determine why patients accessing therapy from ART clinics within walking distance from their residence did not adhere is recommended.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors influencing the burden of health care financing and the distribution of health care benefits in Ghana, Tanzania and South Africa","field_subtitle":"Macha J, Harris B, Garshong B, Ataguba JE, Akazili J, Kuwawenaruwa A and Borghi J: Health Policy and Planning 27(suppl 1), March 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_1/i46.full","body":"In this study, the authors argue that, in Ghana, Tanzania and South Africa, the regressivity of voluntary health insurance and out-of-pocket payments results from charging flat insurance premiums, ineffective systems to exempt poor groups and insufficient prepayment funding to cover the health care costs of the poor. The cost of health care is not the only barrier to health care access, as the authors found a wide range of affordability, availability and acceptability barriers, which affect poorer groups most severely. Changing the way in which health services are funded, particularly moving away from out-of-pocket payments and towards a greater reliance on prepayment funding mechanisms, will be necessary to address these inequities, they argue. However, explicit measures to address the full range of access barriers are also required.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"From Theory to Practice - Informing Practitioners about Economics and the HIV and AIDS Epidemic, Durban South Africa  14-18 May 2012","field_subtitle":"Registration closes 30 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.heard.org.za/downloads/standard-workshop-registration-form.pdf","body":"HEARD's first workshop for 2012 offers particpants the opportunity to learn the skills and the contributions that health economics can bring to resource planning, allocation and evaluation in the health care sector. The application of concepts will be directed toward understanding and interpreting the HIV and AIDS epidemic in southern and eastern Africa.\r\nObjectives of the course are to: Give participants an understanding of the conceptual basis of economics; Enable participants to converse in the language of economics; Examine practical examples of the application of key concepts of economics; Give participants an awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of economics; Understand the key organisational impacts of ill health and its amelioration; Equity in health care and economics; Understand the theoretical underpinnings of economic evaluation; Appreciate the value of the techniques of economic evaluation and Examine applications of the various techniques. This workshop is aimed at health service staff who seek to understand how and why economics is applied to health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender World Development Report: Limits, gaps and fudges","field_subtitle":"Bedford K: Bretton Woods Project, 8 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art-569646","body":"The author of this article hails the 2012 World Development Report (WDR) as a watershed moment: it is the first time that the World Bank has devoted its flagship publication to gender. But she argues that the report leaves the Bank failing to face up to its role in perpetuating policies that harm women, and is seriously limited in its approach to women\u2019s movements, markets and households. Although the report cites self-identified feminist work liberally, its own understanding of feminism as a transnational social movement is poor. The report also fails to mention the historical background of the Bank in gender and development, a convenient oversight given its inconsistent role in the struggle for gender equality in the past. Another key omission in the WDR argued by the author is any sustained analysis of gender and the current financial crisis, and the author casts doubt on the Bank\u2019s assumption that free market capitalism brings about gender transformation. While the report advocates for women\u2019s social networks and for women\u2019s independent control of income, it defines gender equality as ideally achieved within sharing partnerships in nuclear male-headed families. This leads to serious tension over the meaning of gender empowerment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Harvesting controversy: World Bank's agriculture projects under scrutiny","field_subtitle":"Bretton Woods Project: 7 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art-569561","body":"The World Bank is preparing a new agriculture action plan to cover 2013-2015. This paper argues that its market liberalisation focus has been criticised, pointing to strongly critical reports on World Bank agriculture projects such as in Peru and Papua New Guinea, and crtique of its lack of gender focus. Critics argue that the Bank is too narrowly focused on private equity investment in agriculture, instead of taking an approach that includes local communities and smallholder farmers. At the same time, the Bank has failed to acknowledge the impact of financial speculation on volatility in food prices, despite many analysts suggesting this is a major contributor to food insecurity. By promoting investor access to land, the authors argue that Bank threaten rather than improve food security and local livelihoods in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Systems Trust at 20 years","field_subtitle":"Seminar, Durban 3 May 2012","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/","body":"In April 1992 a group of visionaries \u2013 most now leading figures in the country \u2013 saw the need for an organisation to support the transformation of South Africa\u2019s health system in the new democracy ushered in by the non race-based elections in 1994. The resultant organisation, Health Systems Trust, has grown from strength to strength over the intervening two decades, with work to strengthen health systems in South Africa and in southern Africa.  Extensive health systems research (see the HST website), many innovative implementation programmes (including the early Initiative for Sub-district Support; District Strengthening and Community Development; SA SURE), relevant reporting and analysis (South African Health Review, District Health Barometer) and global collaborations advocating for equity (Global Equity Gauge - GEGA, early editions of Global Health Watch) have been implemented towards a vision of \u201cHealth systems supporting Health for All in southern Africa\u201d. In May a 20-year celebration is planned.  Developments in the South African health system over the past two decades will be explored in a one-day seminar. Then, acknowledging the involvement of the South African communities in sustaining the organisation,  HST staff, some partners and dignitaries, will don overalls and participate in a social responsibility exercise in two clinics. HST steps into the next 20 years with confidence and excitement. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving public health information: A data quality intervention in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Mphatswe W, Mate KS, Bennett B, Ngidi H, Reddy J, Barker PM and Rollins N: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(3): 176-182, March 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/3/11-092759.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers evaluated the effect of an intervention to improve the quality of data used to monitor the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV in South Africa. The study involved 58 antenatal clinics and 20 delivery wards (37 urban, 21 rural and 20 semi-urban) in KwaZulu-Natal province that provided PMTCT services and reported data to the District Health Information System. The data improvement intervention, which was implemented between May 2008 and March 2009, involved training on data collection and feedback for health information personnel and programme managers, monthly data reviews and data audits at health-care facilities. Data on six data elements used to monitor PMTCT services and recorded in the information system were compared with source data from health facility registers before, during and after the intervention. Findings suggested that the level of data completeness increased from 26% before to 64% after the intervention. Similarly, the proportion of data in the information system considered accurate increased from 37% to 65%. Moreover, the correlation between data in the information system and those from facility registers rose from 0.54 to 0.92.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Istanbul Declaration: Towards an equitable and sustainable future for all","field_subtitle":"Declaration of the Global Human Development Forum, Istanbul, March 23 2012","field_url":"http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/Istanbul%20Declaration%2023%20March%202012.pdf","body":"The Istanbul Declaration was adopted by consensus at the conclusion of the two-day Global Human Development Forum, a gathering of more than 200 leading development experts, civil society activists, government ministers, private sector representatives and UN officials from all regions of the world. The Declaration stresses the need for global and national development strategies to put \u201cstrong emphasis on social inclusion, social protection, and equity, in recognition of the fact that economic development has too often gone hand in hand with environmental degradation and increased inequality.\u201d Achieving those goals will require better-coordinated \u201cmobilization of global capital and local resources,\u201d good governance on the local and global level, and full empowerment of women \u201cthrough access to education, health care, basic services and their participation in the labour force.\u201d The declaration  calls for a post 2015 MDG framework that addresses all three dimensions of sustainable development (social, economic and environmental), and their interconnections. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of international research consortium","field_subtitle":"Resilient and Responsive Health Systems (RESYST) ","field_url":"http://resyst.lshtm.ac.uk/","body":"RESYST is a new international research consortium funded by the United Kingdom\u2019s Department for International Development. It aims to enhance the resilience and responsiveness of health systems globally to promote health and health equity and reduce poverty. RESYST conducts research in a variety of countries in Africa and Asia, including low- and middle-income countries, seeking to identify lessons that are transferable across contexts. Research is conducted in three areas: financing (focusing on how best to finance universal health coverage in low and middle-income countries); health workforce (identifying effective, practical interventions to address human resource constraints); and governance (studying the relationships among frontline actors and mid-level management, and leadership in health policy implementation processes).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of Movement for Universal Coverage for Health in Africa","field_subtitle":"MUCH Africa: November 2011 ","field_url":"http://uhcforward.org/sites/uhcforward.org/files/much_in_africa.pdf","body":"Encouraged by the growing number of social protection mechanisms in the Africa region delegates from the 1st Pan-African Congress on Universal Health Coverage (15-17 November 2011) have drafted and adopted a declaration to create a \u201cMovement for Universal Coverage for Health in Africa\u201d or MUCH in Africa. The MUCH in Africa delegation consists of representatives from ministries of health, directors general, chief executives of health insurance schemes, chief directors, principal secretaries, academics, policy experts and researchers from twenty-seven (27) African countries and multilateral, bilateral, regional, development partner and civil society organisations. In consultation with countries and development partners, the new organisation will advocate for and catalyse action through constructive engagement and advocacy and push for universal health coverage as a reform agenda in African countries. They made a number of resolutions to improve health financing, health systems and collaborative research in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Making vaccines for pneumonia accessible should be a global good ","field_subtitle":"Maziko Hisbon Matemba, Health and Rights Education Programme (HREP-Malawi)","field_url":"","body":"\r\nPneumonia is one of the top five deadly diseases for children in Malawi. It causes more deaths than measles, malaria and AIDS combined. Infection with Streptococcus pneumonia and can cause a range of illness, from relatively mild ear infections to fatal pneumonia, meningitis and sepsis. It was estimated by Ministry of Health in 2011 that childhood pneumonia accounted for 18 percent of deaths of children under five years.  \r\n\r\nThis death is avoidable and unnecessary. Childhood pneumonia is preventable through living in a well ventilated housing, avoiding indoor pollution through using improved stoves, pot lids and clean fuels among other factors. It can also be prevented with a simple vaccine. \r\n\r\nIn November 2011, World Pneumonia Day, Malawi launched and added the new pneumonia vaccine (Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV 13) to its routine immunization chart.  Bright Masangwi Chisale (male) was the first child to receive the new oral vaccine in Lilongwe-Malawi. His immunization was presided by Malawi\u2019s Minister of health Hon Dr Jean Kalirani. In 2012, 1.2 million Malawian children under the age of one will be vaccinated against pneumonia. This is being co-financed by the Government of Malawi, with government putting in $0.20c per dose and the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization(GAVI Alliance) putting in $11.17 over three years for each of the 1.2 million children immunized to cover the systems, vaccine and outreach costs.  These are huge investments and their effectiveness will need to be tracked in the expected improvements in child mortality. \r\n\r\nVaccines are one of the best technical options for disease prevention.  Many vaccines, not all, protect a child for a lifetime. As they are one of the most cost effective interventions to prevent illness, they should be given priority in the allocation of resources, particularly in a low income country like ours with many competing health priorities. \r\n\r\nHowever without GAVI support the introduction of the vaccine would not have been possible as the cost would have been too high. It is encouraging that in 2011 vaccine manufactures gradually reduced vaccine prices. However the costs remain high.  Malawi pays 15 cents to 20 cents per dose for its vaccines. But it is estimated that the vaccine for pneumonia cost $2.50 to $3.50 per dose. With Malawi\u2019s total government expenditure on health at $22.00, this cost would be unaffordable. Unless there are further reductions in vaccine price it will be difficult for countries like Malawi to afford these effective technologies to prevent childhood and adult mortality, without depending on external funders. \r\n\r\nEven the most effective vaccines will only have an impact if they are actually made available to the children who need them.  The need is clearly higher in low income countries like Malawi. So should the funding of vaccines be a matter of ad hoc external funding? Or should vaccines rather be considered a global public good, to be funded more predictably at global level, and equitably allocated to countries based on their populations and need. \r\n\r\nIt will then be up to the country to ensure vaccine outreach. Low income countries like Malawi are able to achieve high vaccination coverage rates through primary care services and outreach campaigns.  Malawi has achieved such high coverage as immunization services are administered by the cadre closest to communities, the Health Surveillance Assistants (HSA), who are trained to administer the vaccine. These cadres are found in the most hard to reach areas, and are given support from Ministry of Health. While the programme has support from World Health Organisation, UNICEF, the GAVI Alliance and civil society, the delivery system through primary care cadres is a primary responsibility of the government. \r\n\r\nIt is possible to ensure that no child dies from a vaccine preventable disease. However this needs the vaccine industry to continue to make vaccines cheaper and more accessible. It needs global level funding for vaccines with a mechanism for predictable and equitable collection and allocation of global funding of vaccines as a public good.  It needs governments to resource a health system that ensures a chain of delivery of the vaccines to the community level cadres and facilities, and to all the adults and children who need them.  It needs communities to take up the vaccines. \r\n\r\nWhile the discussion today is on the vaccine for childhood pneumonia, tomorrow it may be other vaccines, such as those for malaria, typhoid or dengue fevers. It is a welcome development to hear that malaria vaccine trials are showing positive results in the sites where they have been tested. A vaccine for malaria will be a major contribution to public health in Africa. \r\n\r\nVaccines alone are not enough to solve all of our persistent health problems. We still need to focus on the deeper causes such as improving indoor air quality, improved nutrition, improved case management/ treatment and strengthening health systems, as this will produce much wider and long term health gain than vaccinations. However, ensuring access to pneumococcal vaccines should be something we do today to protect children\u2019s right to life. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this editorial to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Management of eye injuries in the workplace ","field_subtitle":"Carmichael TR, Mbambisa BN and Welsh ND: Occupational Health Southern Africa 17(3) May-June 2011","field_url":"http://www.occhealth.co.za/?%2FviewArticle%2F1229","body":"Eye injuries that occur in the workplace are more common in developing countries like South Africa where appropriate eye protection might be lacking. The purpose of this paper is to assist the occupational health care provider to correctly assess damage to the eye and interpret the findings to make a diagnosis and appropriate decisions for primary care. The authors argue that examination of the eyes by health-care doctors and nurses should be systematic, assessing all the structures in order to determine appropriate treatment and referral. The most urgent condition is a chemical burn in which minutes matter and immediate irrigation can prevent long-term vision loss. Lid lacerations are usually easy to identify but penetrating globe injuries or intraocular foreign bodies may be missed and result in permanent loss of vision and disability. Many injuries can be adequately managed by primary care health workers, either medical doctors or nurses, and do not require referral, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Neoliberal development macroeconomics: A consideration of its gendered employment effects","field_subtitle":"Braunstein E: United Nations Research Institute for Development, Paper 14, 23 February 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/73bgjvr","body":"In this UNRISD paper, the author reviews research on the employment impacts of neoliberalism, specifically on women\u2019s employment. She considers a number of aspects that are central to employment issues: the slowdown in economic growth and the decline in the responsiveness of employment to growth; the impact of trade and investment liberalisation, informalisation and inflation targeting on employment; the consequences of increasingly frequent economic crises; and the public sector. The author contends that the Washington consensus\u2019 macroeconomic policy conventions \u2013 liberalisation, privatisation and macro stability \u2013 have become so globally entrenched that they are rarely questioned by the academic and policy establishment. To this effect, she points to numerous, wide gaps in research into the employment impacts of neoliberal macroeconomic development policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"New pharmaceutical plant to produce ARVs in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"African Diplomacy: 7 March 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/775yet3","body":"Commercial production of Tanzania's first locally manufactured antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) will start later in 2012 and it is hoped the country will eventually provide medicines for half of all HIV-positive Tanzanians. A pharmaceutical plant has been built near the northern city of Arusha using a grant from the European Union of about US$6.6 million, as well as about $1.5 million in funding from the private sector. Co-operation with a generic licence-holder on a fixed-dose combination ARV is also being considered as this would shorten the registration period significantly. Under the World Trade Organisation's Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, low income countries like Tanzania are permitted to produce essential drugs without requiring the permission of patent holders until 2016. The plant's current capacity is designed to serve a minimum of 100,000 patients with a reserve to triple the output if required - its minimum output is 100 million tablets a year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Occupational allergy and asthma in the seafood industry: Emerging issues","field_subtitle":"Jeebhay MF: Occupational Health Southern Africa 17(6), November-December 2011","field_url":"http://www.occhealth.co.za/?%2FviewArticle%2F1273","body":"Increased demand for seafood and its functional by-products has been associated with a concomitant rise in fishing and aquaculture activities. This increased consumption and processing of seafood is associated with more frequent allergic health problems among seafood processors, according to this overview of occupational allergies and asthma in seafood-exposed workers. It illustrates the changing nature of the fishing and seafood processing industry in the midst of ecological degradation and globalisation. It provides detailed insights into the major and minor allergens that have been identified and other pathophysiological mechanisms that have been \u00acimplicated in airway inflammation. More refined exposure assessment studies in recent times have enabled detailed characterisation of allergen exposure response relationships, which confirm the increased risk associated with elevated allergen exposures. Directions for future research and preventive strategies are outlined.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Paying for and receiving benefits from health services in South Africa: is the health system equitable?","field_subtitle":"Ataguba JE and McIntyre D: Health Policy and Planning 27(suppl 1), March 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_1/i35.full","body":"Total health care financing in South Africa is progressive, as richer socio-economic groups spend more of their consumption expenditure on health care than poorer groups. In contrast, the overall distribution of both public and private sector health care benefits in South Africa is pro-rich, as poorer socio-economic groups are benefiting less from the use of health services than richer groups. The overall distribution of health care benefits is also not in line with the need for care: poorer groups that indicate poorer self-assessed health status receive fewer health care benefits compared with richer groups with higher self-assessed health status. In their final analysis the authors argue that the South African health system, considering both the delivery and financing of health care, is inequitable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Policing freedom of assembly: Gone too far?","field_subtitle":"Mount S and Awori S: Pambazuka News, 22 February 2012","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/80198","body":"On 9 February 2012, 16 prominent human rights activists were arrested in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on the grounds of unlawful assembly. The human rights defenders, who included the executive directors of the Legal and Human Rights Centre and the Tanzania Media Women's Association, were arrested at the Muhimbili National Hospital following a doctor\u2019s strike that had paralysed the provision of health services. The police authorities allege the small group had gathered illegally and were intending to hold an illegal demonstration, although the group maintains that they were not there to protest but to observe the dialogue between the government and health officials. The activists were detained and then later released on bail, pending confirmation of charges. The question is, did the 16 activists cause a breach of the peace, or prejudice public safety and the maintenance of public order? Crucially, were the police, by prohibiting the alleged assembly and subsequently arresting the activists, using their discretion appropriately? The authors\u2019 answer is \u201cNo\u201d. A public assembly held to observe (or allegedly protest) negotiations about health sector issues is unlikely to breach public order or public safety. The authors call on the Tanzanian government and police to use their discretion to limit public assemblies wisely and ensure that public assemblies called for a political purpose, which are a common and indeed vital aspect of a healthy democracy, are not arbitrarily restricted or prohibited.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy and programmatic implications of task shifting in Uganda: A case study","field_subtitle":"Dambisya YM and Matinhure S: BMC Health Services Research 12(61), 12 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6963-12-61.pdf","body":"This study aimed to assess the policy and programmatic implications of task shifting in Uganda. This was a qualitative, descriptive study through 34 key informant interviews and eight focus group discussions, with participants from various levels of the health system. Policy makers understood task shifting, but front-line health workers had misconceptions on the meaning and intention(s) of task shifting. There was apparently high acceptance of task shifting in HIV and AIDS service delivery, with involvement of community health workers (CHW) and people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHAs) in care and support of AIDS patients. There was no written policy or guidelines on task shifting, but the policy environment was reportedly conducive with plans to develop a policy and guidelines on task shifting. The study identifies a number of factors favouring task shifting and barriers. There were widespread examples of task in Uganda, and task shifting was mainly attributed to HRH shortages coupled with the high demand for healthcare services. The authors emphasise a need for clear policy and guidelines to regulate task shifting and protect those who undertake delegated tasks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Practical measurement of affordability: an application to medicines","field_subtitle":"Ni\u00ebns LM, van de Poel E, Cameron A, Ewen M, Laing R and Brouwer WBF: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(3): 219-227, March 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/3/10-084087.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers developed two practical methods for measuring the affordability of medicines in developing countries. The proposed methods \u2013 catastrophic and impoverishment methods \u2013 rely on easily accessible aggregated expenditure data and take into account a country\u2019s income distribution and absolute level of income. The catastrophic method quantifies the proportion of the population whose resources would be catastrophically reduced by spending on a given medicine; the impoverishment method estimates the proportion of the population that would be pushed below the poverty line by procuring a given medicine. The authors found that, when accurate aggregate data are available, the proposed methods offer a practical way to obtain informative and accurate estimates of affordability. Their results are very similar to those obtained with household micro-data analysis and are easily compared across countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Progress towards universal coverage: the health systems of Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mills A, Ally M, Goudge J, Gyapong J and Mtei G: Health Policy and Planning 27(suppl 1), March 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_1/i4.full","body":"This paper is the first in a special issue which presents a body of research whose overall aim was to critically evaluate existing inequities in health care financing and provision in Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania, and the extent to which health insurance mechanisms (broadly defined) could address financial protection and equity of access challenges. The authors found that insufficient emphasis has been given to analysis of equity of health care financing at the systems level. They argue that studies are needed which explore how financial protection can best be expanded by building on the mix of financing mechanisms currently found in many low- and middle-income countries. Key issues are how to reduce the share of out-of-pocket payments, provide financial protection to the informal sector, reduce the fragmentation of financing arrangements and allocate public resources more equitably.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Progressivity of health care financing and incidence of service benefits in Ghana","field_subtitle":"Akazili J, Garshong B, Aikins M, Gyapong J and McIntyre D: Health Policy and Planning 27(suppl 1), March 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_1/i13.full","body":"According to the findings of this study, the current Ghanaian health care financing system is progressive, but the benefits from health services are pro-rich. Out-of-pocket payments are the most regressive component of the health financing system, yet still account for the single largest share of health care financing. National health insurance scheme contributions from those outside the formal employment sector are very regressive. The authors conclude that, if Ghana is to achieve universal coverage, it is essential to reduce out-of-pocket payments, to identify ways of providing financial protection for those outside the formal sector within the national health insurance framework, and to address actively the many access barriers to health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional approaches to food security in Africa: The CAADP and other relevant policies and programmes in COMESA","field_subtitle":"Rampa F, Afun-Ogidan D and van Seters J: ECDPM Discussion Paper 128a, February 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/7br33vx","body":"In 2003 the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) was established by the assembly of the African Union (AU) aiming to raise agricultural productivity by at least 6% per year and increasing public investment in agriculture to 10% of national budgets per year. This paper evaluates progress in CAADP negotiations in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) region. There is in general full support in the region for an effectively multidimensional regional CAADP, anchored in ongoing programmes implemented by COMESA. But so far, there has not been enough consultation with relevant non-state stakeholders, like farmers\u2019 organisations, and the authors urge government to include them in the process, as well as to address past failures to communicate effectively and timeously with regional stakeholders about CAADP. They also call for greater integration between regional and national stakeholders and development partners to help mainstream CAADP into ongoing regional programmes and other sectors relevant to food security. More regular dialogue is needed between COMESA, AUC-NPCA and DPs around the implementation of regional CAADP plans. The authors argue that it is very important to ensure coherence between regional policies and investments in food security and in other sectors of regional cooperation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional approaches to food security in Africa: The CAADP and other relevant policies and programmes in EAC","field_subtitle":"Rampa F, Afun-Ogidan D and van Seters J: ECDPM Discussion Paper 128c, February 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/72ffc54","body":"While all stakeholders acknowledge the importance of regional food security, most agree that introducing the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) at the regional level has not been a priority for East African Community (EAC) countries in the past. Institutional capacity and financial resources are argued to have placed limits on the role of the EAC Secretariat in driving the CAADP process. Most external funders have concentrated on national efforts at food security, overlooking the role of regional support and integration. The EAC Secretariat\u2019s relations with development partners is perceived as good, but this has not yet translated into visible improvement in regional agriculture, largely, the authors argue, because implementation remains a challenge. Slow progress in regional trade, infrastructure and other related regional initiatives have impacted negatively on regional food security and agricultural development, and national interests tend to take precedence over regional ones. The authors also call for greater consultation with all stakeholders if CAADP is to succeed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional approaches to food security in Africa: The CAADP and other relevant policies and programmes in SADC","field_subtitle":"Rampa F, Afun-Ogidan D and van Seters J: ECDPM Discussion Paper 128b, February 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/89y7qhe","body":"Countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have never formally launched a regional Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) process as they are currently developing their own Regional Agricultural Policy (RAP). The authors argue that SADC governments should mainstream CAADP principles into the RAP by, for example, enlarging the range of stakeholders regularly involved in the regional preparations (especially non-state actors like farmers), as well as including accountability mechanisms governing regional food security, and ensuring policy coherence at national and regional levels. So far the major criticism of the RAP process is lack of multi-stakeholder consultation. In addition, SADC development partners are reported as not having adequately supported regional food security measures. The authors argue for more institutional support for the SADC Secretariat, given its key role in the CAADP process. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional economic performance in 2011 and medium-term prospects","field_subtitle":"Southern Africa Development Community: February 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.sadc.int/files/1613/3044/5755/Economic_Performance_2011_and_Medium_Term_Prospects.pdf","body":"According to the Southern Africa Development Community\u2019s (SADC) latest financial report, the region recorded an average real GDP growth of 4.7% in 2011, which is 0.8% below the 2010 growth rate of 5.5%. Inflation pressures gathered in most SADC Member States; however, regional inflation averaged 8.3%, almost the same level as in 2010. The average fiscal deficit deteriorated to 4.8% of GDP in 2011 compared to 3.2% of GDP in 2010. However, general government debt remained at 2010 level of 39% of GDP. The current account deficit of the balance of payments improved marginally from 8.8% of GDP in 2010 to 8.3% of GDP in 2011. Medium-term prospects are good but downward risks are high partly as a result of the sovereign debt crisis in the European Union.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Register for Forum 2012: 24-26 April 2012, Cape Town, South Africa","field_subtitle":"COHRED and the Global Forum","field_url":"http://www.forum2012.org/","body":"Forum 2012 will bring together key actors to make research and innovation work for health, equity and development: governments, industry, social enterprise, non-governmental organisations, researchers, media, funders , international organisations and others. Partipcipants will explore who will explore ways to go \u2018beyond aid\u2019 by building on the rapidly expanding research and innovation capacity of low- and middle-income countries as basis for development. The Forum has three main themes: improving and increasing investments in research and innovation; networking and partnerships in research, technological innovations, social innovations and delivery of better health care; and improvement of health, equity and development of low-income countries by creating a supportive environment, including priority setting in research for health, fair research contracting, research cooperation and ethics, nanotechnologies, technological and social innovations, and using the web as a tool for planning research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Register for the Thirteenth World Congress on Public Health: 23-27 April 2011, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Registration deadline: 14 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.etpha.org/2012/index.php","body":"The Ethiopian Public Health Association and the World Federation of Public Health Associations invite public health professionals from around the world to participate in the Thirteen World Congress on Public Health 2012. The theme of the conference is \u2018Towards global health equity: Opportunities and threats\u2019. The conference has four main objectives. It is intended to serve as an international forum for the exchange of knowledge and experiences on key public health issues, as well as contribute towards protecting and promoting public health at global, continental and national levels. It is also intended to help create a better understanding of Africa\u2019s major public health challenges within the global public health community and to facilitate and support the formation of the African Federation of Public Health Associations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration open for SEYCOHAIDS 2012","field_subtitle":"8-10 June 2012: Lilongwe, Malawi","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5ty3mor","body":"SEYCOHAIDS 2012 is the largest international gathering for young people on HIV and AIDS in the Eastern and Southern Africa region, where young researchers, policy makers, activists, educators and people living with HIV will be able to link with people in other countries and meet to share and learn about HIV prevention methods, treatments, care policies and programmes relating to HIV and AIDS in Africa. The broad objectives for the Conference are to: ensure effective and meaningful youth participation in international AIDS response; identify gaps and challenges in government policies in providing youth-friendly HIV and AIDS services; develop regional and country-level strategic programmes for youth and HIV and AIDS; identify and build the capacity of new and emerging youth leaders for the AIDS response to ensure sustainability of youth initiatives at the national, regional and international levels; sustain adult-youth partnerships and dialogue; develop the Southern and Eastern Africa youth network on HIV and AIDS; develop country specific youth networks on HIV and AIDS; establish funding mechanisms for regional and country youth networks; and monitor government and donor commitments to youth and HIV and AIDS. Applicants must be no older than 35 years old at the time of the application.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration open for the People\u2019s Health Assembly: 6-11 July 2012, Cape Town","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 14 April 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/pha3/registration","body":"Registration is open for participation in the People\u2019s Health Assembly (PHA), organised by the People's Health Movement (PHM). The PHA is a global event bringing together health activists from across the world to share experiences, analyse global health situation, develop civil society positions and to develop strategies which promote health for all. It will look at forms of action to address identified challenges and build capacity among health activists to act. It is an opportunity for PHM as a whole to reflect on the global struggle, to review and reassess, to redirect and re-inspire. PHA3 aims to impact directly in the struggle for social change: for health for all, decent living conditions for all, work in dignity for all, equity and environmental justice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Revealed: The capitalist network that runs the world","field_subtitle":"Crossed Crocodiles Blog: Pambazuka News: 22 February 2012 ","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/80152","body":"This article refers to a forthcoming analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations. The analysis identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy. The work, to be published later in 2012 in PLoS One, revealed a core of 1,318 companies with interlocking ownerships, each of which had ties to two or more other companies, and on average connections to 20 companies. Although they represented only 20% of global operating revenues, the 1,318 appeared to collectively own through their shares most of the world\u2019s large blue chip and manufacturing firms \u2013 referred to by the authors as the \u201creal\u201d economy \u2013 representing a further 60% of global revenues. Further analysis of the web of ownership revealed that much of it tracked back to a \u201csuper-entity\u201d of 147 even more tightly knit companies that control 40% of the total wealth in the network \u2013 these companies include financial giants like Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Goldman Sachs. Crucially, by identifying the architecture of global economic power, the analysis could help make the global economy more stable, the author argues, adding that we may need global anti-trust rules, which now exist only at national level. The author argues that firms should be taxed for excess interconnectivity to prevent power being concentrated in the hands of a few.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Setting Up Community Health Programmes: A Practical Manual for Use in Developing Countries","field_subtitle":"Lankester T: Hesperian Books, 2012","field_url":"http://store.hesperian.org/HB/prod/B825.html","body":"Originally published in 2009, this updated version of Setting Up Community Health Programmes covers all the basic principles of community-based health care, setting up specific programmes, and managing them, while reflecting post-millennium realities. Topics covered include: health awareness and motivation; learning about the community; setting up a community health clinic; setting up community programmes for TB, maternal health and family planning; a community development approach to HIV/AIDS; setting up environmental health improvements; and managing personnel and finance. Designed for both urban and rural locations, this manual addresses the needs of health workers, programme managers, doctors, nurses, health planners and all those who seek an evidence-based and practical approach to health care in the developing world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Silence is the ally of violence ","field_subtitle":"KaManzi F: Pambazuka News, 8 February 2012","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/79777","body":"According to this article, recent studies suggest that women stuck in financially dependent relationships are at greatest risk for HIV infection in African countries. Women afraid of violence and abuse, stigmatisation, being labelled adulterous or being abandoned may be too frightened or intimidated to pursue testing and treatment. Also, the extra costs - US$2 or more - to travel to clinics are prohibitive. In effect, poor and unemployed women have been forced by men to forfeit their reproductive rights in issues pertaining to sex and protection from HIV. Women who are dependent on men for their livelihood are forced to have unprotected sex with their husbands or partners, even if they know they have cheated on them. Sex workers allege that married men especially from the middle class and the upper classes are willing to pay more for sex without a condom. The author concludes that silence on this topic in the media and the research community is a powerful ally in male domination of women economically and socially, and a driver in the spread of HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Stakeholders meeting on the Zimbabwe Equity Watch Harare, February 23rd 2012","field_subtitle":"Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, Training and Research Support Centre, EQUINET","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Zimbabwe%20EW%20mtg%20rep%202012.pdf","body":"The Ministry of Health and Child Welfare and Training and Research Support Centre/ EQUINET hosted a one day meeting on Thursday 23rd February in Harare  to report on and review the findings of the 2011 Zimbabwe Equity Watch; involve health and non health sector actors in identifying priorities and actions to strengthen equity in universal health coverage and action on the social determinants of health; and propose how  to institutionalise health equity monitoring. The meeting involved 52 delegates from different sectors of government, parliament, civil society, private sector, technical institutions and international organisations. The meeting identified a number of recommendations and areas of follow up action flowing from the discussions on the Equity Watch report and the presentations in the plenary and parallel sessions that are presented in the report. Stakeholders endorsed equity as a guiding principle for UHC, as well as health in all policies.  They called for strengthened consistent co-ordination of the institutions and agencies that influence the determinants of health and delivery on UHC. It was proposed that the Equity Watch be institutionalized and repeated in future with the involvement of other sectors, with indicators also identified for annual monitoring in the routine information system. Specific additional areas for equity analysis were identified. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"The Bangkok Statement on Universal Health Coverage ","field_subtitle":"The Lancet, 379(9815): 494, 11 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)60212- 8/fulltext?rss%3Dyes","body":"The theme of the Prince Mahidol Award Conference \u2013 held in Bangkok, Thailand on on 24-28 January 2012 \u2013 was \u201cMoving towards universal health coverage: health financing matters\u201d. At the close of the meeting, a 10-point declaration recognised universal health coverage (UHC) as fundamental to the right to health, and marked the commitment by more than 800 delegates to translate the rhetoric of UHC into better, more equitable health outcomes. Similar endorsements of UHC have been made before, including at the World Health Assembly in 2011. What makes the Bangkok Statement any more likely to hasten and widen the implementation of UHC? One answer may be the power of the Prince Mahidol Award Conference and its sponsors to draw global health enthusiasts from a wide variety of disciplines and health systems. Delegates from 68 countries included external funders and recipients of aid, managers and front-line health workers, ministers, economists, and consumers. From these many perspectives came the realisation that whether one seeks to provide access to health care for the one billion people who lack it, or to protect the 100 million people who end up in poverty every year as a result of medical costs, or to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals: UHC provides a common mechanism \u2013 and common cause.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The determinants of health expenditure: A country-level panel data analysis","field_subtitle":"Kea X, Saksenaa P and Holly A: Results for Development Institute, December 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/753zt7d","body":"The aim of this study was to understand the trajectory of health expenditure in developing countries. The authors used panel data from 143 countries over 14 years, from 1995 to 2008 to explore the factors associated with the growth of total health expenditure as well as its main components namely, government health expenditure and out-of-pocket payments. The data show great variation across countries in health expenditure as a share of GDP, which ranges from less than 5% to 15%. Apart from income, many factors contribute to this variation, ranging from demographic factors to health system characteristics. The results suggest that health expenditure in general does not grow faster than GDP after taking other factors into consideration. The authors also found no difference in health expenditure between tax-based and insurance-based health financing mechanisms, and noted that external aid for health reduces government health spending from domestic sources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The effects of health coverage on population outcomes: A country-level panel data analysis","field_subtitle":"Moreno-Serra R and Smith P: Results for Development Institute, December 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/7jt4r6m","body":"The main goal of this study was to provide robust empirical evidence on the causal link from national levels of health system coverage to population outcomes. The authors assembled annual data for the period 1995-2008 encompassing 153 developing and developed countries. Taken together, the results strongly indicate that expansions in health system coverage lead, on average, to improved general population health. Higher government health spending per capita is consistently found to reduce both child and adult mortality rates, the authors argue. The estimated gains are the largest when under-five mortality is examined and are larger for low- and middle-income countries than in the full sample. Based on the results for under-five mortality and public health spending, the implied marginal cost of saving a year of life is just around US$1,000 in the full sample of countries. For the average country, pre-paid public spending seems more effective in reducing mortality than prepaid private insurance funds. Higher immunisation coverage was also found to decrease mortality rates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The financial cost of doctors emigrating from sub-Saharan Africa: Human capital analysis","field_subtitle":"Mills EJ, Kanters S, Hagopian A, Bansback N, Nachega J, Alberton M, Au-Yeung CG et al: British Medical Journal, 24 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d7031","body":"The aim of this study was to estimate the lost investment of domestically educated doctors migrating from sub-Saharan African countries to Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Researchers included nine sub-Saharan African countries with an HIV prevalence of 5% or greater or with more than one million people with HIV/AIDS and with at least one medical school (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe), and data available on the number of doctors practising in destination countries. In the nine source countries the estimated government subsidised cost of a doctor\u2019s education ranged from US$21&#8201;000 in Uganda to $58&#8201;700 in South Africa. The overall estimated loss of returns from investment for all doctors currently working in the destination countries was $2.17bn, with costs for each country ranging from $2.16m for Malawi to $1.41bn for South Africa. The benefit to destination countries of recruiting trained doctors was largest for the United Kingdom ($2.7bn) and United States ($846m). Destination countries should consider investing in measurable training for source countries and strengthening of their health systems, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The political economy of green growth: Illustrations from Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Resnick D, Tarp F and Thurlow J: UNU-WIDER, February 2012","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/working-papers/2012/en_GB/wp2012-011/?textsize=2","body":"The concept of \u2018green growth\u2019 implies that a wide range of developmental objectives, such as job creation, economic prosperity and poverty alleviation, can be easily reconciled with environmental sustainability. The authors of this study, however, argue that rather than being win-win, green growth is similar to most types of policy reforms that advocate the acceptance of short-term adjustment costs in the expectation of long-term gains. In particular, green growth policies often encourage developing countries to redesign their national strategies in ways that might be inconsistent with natural comparative advantages and past investments. In turn, there are often sizeable anti-reform coalitions whose interests may conflict with a green growth agenda. The authors illustrate this argument using case studies of Malawi, Mozambique, and South Africa, which are engaged in development strategies that involve inorganic fertilisers, biofuels production, and coal-based energy, respectively. Each of these countries is pursuing an environmentally suboptimal strategy but nonetheless addressing critical development needs, including food security, fuel and electricity. The study\u2019s results show that adopting a green growth approach would not only be economically costly but also generate substantial domestic resistance, especially amongst the poor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The social gradient in doctor-patient communication ","field_subtitle":"Verlinde E, De Laener N, De Maesschalck S, Deveugele M and Willems S: International Journal for Equity in Health 11(12), 12 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-11-12.pdf","body":"In recent years, the importance of social differences in the physician-patient relationship has frequently been the subject of research. In this literature review, researchers conducted a systematic search of literature published between 1965 and 2011 on the social gradient in doctor-patient communication. Social class was determined by patient's income, education or occupation. Twenty original research papers and meta-analyses were included. Social differences in doctor-patient communication were described according to the following classification: verbal behaviour including instrumental and affective behaviour, non-verbal behaviour and patient-centred behaviour. The researchers found that the literature on the social gradient in doctor-patient communication that was published in the last decade addresses new issues and themes. Firstly, most of the found studies emphasise the importance of the reciprocity of communication. Secondly, there seems to be a growing interest in patient's perception of doctor-patient communication. By increasing the doctors' awareness of differences in communication and by empowering patients to express concerns and preferences, a more effective communication could be established, the researchers conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Bank and extractives: A rich seam of controversy","field_subtitle":"Bretton Woods Project: 7 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art-569560","body":"As World Bank projects fail to reduce corruption in the mining sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), International Finance Corporation (IFC) investments in extractive industries are provoking complaints and protests around the world, according to this article. In 2012 the Bank will launch its new extractives for development (E4D) initiative, a \u201cknowledge sharing platform\u201d aimed at transforming extractives into a force for development, but critics argue that the Bank needs to first take action against corruption and unethical behaviour in the mining projects it funds. In late 2010, the Bank suspended all new programmes in the DRC after allegations of corruption but resumed lending in June 2011 when it judged the government to be in compliance with the economic governance matrix (EGM), a new transparency framework agreed by the government and the Bank. However, only a month later it came to light that state-owned mining companies had again been secretly selling stakes in mining operations, in one case at a sixteenth of their market price. The author notes that the ombudsman set up by the IFC has been inundated with complaints of irregularities, lack of local consultation, mistreatment of miners, environmental degradation and illusory promises of job creation. Critics argue that the Bank and the IFC should take greater ownership of projects they fund and demand more accountability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Toilet capitalism: A Zimbabwean basket case","field_subtitle":"Sharife K: Pambazuka News, 22 February 2012","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/80142","body":"This author argues that Zimbabwe is ripe for private waste sanitation companies (\u201ctoilet capitalists\u201d). In 2008, cholera swept through the country due to aging and absent water and waste sanitation systems. The author argues that private systems cannot replace public investment and that what happens in the political terrain will be critical for determining whether revenue will flow in the direction of the public good.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Tools for organisational risk evaluation for occupational health stressors (OREOHS) for the small-scale mining industry","field_subtitle":"Edwards AL, Franz RM, Schutte PC and Steenkamp T: Occupational Health Southern Africa 15(4) July-August 2009","field_url":"http://researchspace.csir.co.za/dspace/bitstream/10204/3745/1/Edwards_d3_2009.pdf","body":"Some of the main reasons for occupational health and safety deficiencies in small-scale mining are unawareness of risks of chronic occupational diseases and inadequately implemented education and training. The key needs of the sector is to provide access to knowledge and tools that will raise awareness and disseminate affordable, best practice methods for use by small-scale mines. With this in mind, the CSIR Occupational Health and Ergonomics research group have developed the OREOHS tool, which is a comprehensive model for hazard identification and risk assessment of occupational health stressors that can be applied to mining operations of various types and sizes but in particular by small-scale enterprises. A scoring system was included in the checklists to facilitate a quantifying of the risk which would further enable a risk rating and ranking of health hazards in the workplace. Guidelines for the use of the organisational evaluation of risks associated with exposure to health stressors and guidelines for the use of each checklist are included. The OREOHS can be transposed onto a spreadsheet that will facilitate the automatic calculation of the risk rating and ranking of health hazards in a small mine.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Transnet launches new health train in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Styan JB: Fin24.com, 12 March 2012","field_url":"http://www.fin24.com/Companies/Industrial/Transnet-launches-new-health-train-20120312","body":"Transnet has launched its second health train in South Africa, the Phelophepa II, costing R82m (US$10.8). The first Phelophepa train has served more than six million in rural communities over the past 18 years. The trains, crewed by medical specialists including a number of final year students, provide primary healthcare, dental, psychological and optical services. Transnet\u2019s rail engineering division, TRE, was responsible for the development of the new train with the Swiss-based pharmaceutical group F Hoffman La Roche a major sponsor of both trains. The trains operate from January to September every year and cover vast areas of South Africa where primary healthcare facilities are under pressure.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda Faces Health Services Crisis - Action Group","field_subtitle":"Mark Gerald: AGHA, Uganda, architectafrica.com, February 20, 2012","field_url":"http://architectafrica.com/content/uganda-faces-health-services-crisis-action-group","body":"This article reports on health centres in Arua district, at Entebbe hospital and Jinja referral hospital in Uganda that were paralyzed after the facility ran short of water, displacing patients to other services.  The author argues that frequent load shedding and water shortages have had  devastating effects on health service ability to deliver adequate care. The author argues that government should reconstruct wrecked health facilities, and construct more new bore holes and water storage tanks, and provide standard by power sources like solar energy and generators for emergencies cases. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda\u2019s 2009 'Anti-homosexuality' Bill re-tabled in Parliament","field_subtitle":"Front Line Defenders: Pambazuka News, 9 February 2012 ","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/79788","body":"Uganda\u2019s notorious 'Anti-Homosexuality' Bill - proposed first in 2009 \u2013 has been re-tabled at a parliamentary session in Kampala. The Bill contains harsh provisions arguing for the death penalty for homosexuals and stiff prison sentences for their supporters which, if introduced, would threaten the safety of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people and human rights activists in the country. It is reported that both government and opposition members of parliament clapped in support of reintroduction of the Bill, which comes a few days after the first anniversary of the murder of prominent LGBTI rights defender David Kato, killed on 26 January 2011. Front Line Defenders reiterates its grave concern in this article that the passing of the Bill would further hamper the work of public health workers and human rights defenders who work with LGBTI people. the article also raises concern that rhetoric and media coverage around the Bill could incite further violence against human rights defenders working on LGBTI issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development 2012 (Rio+20)","field_subtitle":"20-22 June 2012: Rio De Janeiro, Brazil","field_url":"http://www.earthsummit2012.org/","body":"Also referred to as the Earth Summit or Rio+20 due to the initial conference held in Rio in 1992, the objectives of the Summit are: to secure renewed political commitment to sustainable development; to assess progress towards internationally agreed goals on sustainable development and to address new and emerging challenges. The Summit will also focus on two specific themes: a green economy in the context of poverty eradication and sustainable development, and an institutional framework for sustainable development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Using mobile clinics to deliver HIV testing and other basic health services in rural Malawi","field_subtitle":"Lindgren TG, Deutsch K, Schell E, Bvumbwe A, Hart KB, Laviwa J and Rankin SH: Rural and Remote Health 11(1682), 2011","field_url":"http://www.rrh.org.au/publishedarticles/article_print_1682.pdf","body":"This report describes the work of two four-wheel drive mobile clinics launched in 2008 to fill an identified service gap in the remote areas of Mulanje District, Malawi. The clinics provide basic HIV, TB STI and pre-natal services. The researchers found that in the project, the implementation process and schedule can be affected by medication, supply chain and infrastructural issues, as well as governmental and non-governmental requirements. Timelines should be sufficiently flexible to accommodate unexpected delays. Once established, service scheduling should be flexible and responsive; for instance, malaria treatment rather than HIV testing was most urgently needed in the season when these services were launched. The mobile clinics provide services for people who otherwise may not have attended a health centre. Strong relationships have been forged with local community leaders and with Malawi Ministry of Health officers as the foundation for long-term sustainable engagement and eventual integration of services into Health Ministry programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Vacancy: Dean and Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town","field_subtitle":"Closing date for receipt of nominations: 20 April 2012. Closing date for receipt of applications: 30 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.uct.ac.za/about/intro/vacancies/external/","body":"Applications are invited for the post of Dean and Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town (UCT). This post will become vacant at the end of 2012, when the current Dean retires. UCT is looking for a candidate of high academic standing with proven leadership and managerial ability in the health and higher education sectors, who is registered, or eligible for registration, as a health professional in South Africa. A sound understanding of the South African health system is crucial. The Dean is responsible for health care and academic partnerships, including managing the agreements with the Western Cape Government and the National Health Laboratory Services. At a university-wide level, the Dean will be a member of the Senior Leadership Group of the University and will be expected to contribute to furthering the strategic goals of UCT, including transformation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Who pays and who benefits from health care? An assessment of equity in health care financing and benefit distribution in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mtei G, Makawia S, Ally M, Kuwawenaruwa A, Meheus F and Borghi J: Health Policy and Planning 27(suppl 1), March 2012","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_1/i23.full","body":"The Tanzanian health care financing system is marginally progressive while benefits are fairly evenly distributed across socio-economic groups, the authors of this study found. However, out-of-pocket payments and voluntary contributions to community health insurance are regressive. The poorest segment of the population receives a lower share of health care benefits relative to their share of need, whereas other population segments receive a greater share of benefits relative to their share of need. The authors conclude that health financing reforms can improve equity, so long as integration of health insurance schemes is promoted along with cross-subsidisation and greater reliance on general taxation to finance health care for the poorest.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO under siege by private sector","field_subtitle":"Tom Fawthrop, Third World Resurgence, March 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/resurgence/2012/257-258/health1.htm","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) is under siege by private sector forces using their financial leverage to gain undue influence in the financially beleaguered United Nations agency, according to the author. He makes this assertion from observing developments such as the presence of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates sharing the stage with WHO Director General Margaret Chan at the World Health Assembly in 2011, in the presence of industry interests at a civil society meeting before the 2011 UN summit on non-communicable diseases or from the private-sector influence in the increasingly powerful global foundations in health. Many corporate giants are noted to have been adopted by WHO since 2010, as private sector partners working together for \u2018better global health\u2019.\r\nThe origins of this public-private sector partnership process can be traced to WHO\u2019s chronic funding problems and in the search for extra resources, the private sector funding of foundations has become more influential. The author points to concerns of industry influence in the reform proposals of WHO and asks the question whether the Director General's actions in promoting public-private partnerships have been at odds with her speeches on defending the basic mandate of WHO to promote the public health interest on the global stage?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO, FCTC disputes burley claims as Malawi gets case study status ","field_subtitle":"Malawi Today: 2 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.malawitoday.com/news/123645-who-fctc-disputes-burley-claims-malawi-gets-case-study-status","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) has denied claims that partial guidelines for the implementation of Articles 9 and 10 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) on Regulation of the contents of tobacco products and tobacco product disclosures will have a negative effect on burley tobacco producers. The International Tobacco Growers Association (ITGA), has fought against the adoption of the guidelines, arguing that reducing the demand for burley tobacco could shrink economies, employment and incomes, such as in Malawi where tobacco contributes about 13% to the Malawi economy and accounts for 60% of foreign currency earnings. [Contrary to tobacco industry claims, the guidelines do not recommend a ban on burley tobacco or any other type of tobacco but do regulate flavourings that would attract target grioups such as young people to smoke. Cigarettes containing burley continue to be sold in jurisdictions where strong restrictions on flavourings are in place]. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Why does mental health not get the attention it deserves? An application of the Shiffman and Smith Framework","field_subtitle":"Tomlinson M and Lund C: PLoS Medicine 9(2), 28 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001178","body":"Despite a high disease burden, mental illness has thus far not achieved commensurate visibility, policy attention, or funding, the authors of this study note. They found that, while significant progress has been made in terms of prioritising mental health globally, debates around the definition of mental illness, and the continued impact of stigma, remain. The authors make five recommendations to increase the visibility and policy priority of mental health as a global issue. 1. Greater community cohesion and international governance structures need to be developed to contribute to a more unified voice regarding global mental health. 2. A common framework of integrated innovation is needed to ensure that global mental health speaks in the language of national and international policy makers. 3. For global mental health to gain significant attention, a coherent evidence base for scalable interventions that can be shown to have an impact at the structural level - on economic development and human well-being - is central. 4. A social justice and human rights approach is important. 5. Current innovative strategies for addressing stigma need to be evaluated and expanded.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Why the Global Fund matters","field_subtitle":"Farmer P: The New York Times, 1 February 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/opinion/why-the-global-fund-matters.html?_r=1","body":"Ten years since its founding, the Global Fund is facing a serious financial shortfall, and the Fund\u2019s board voted recently not to accept new grant requests until at least 2014. The author states that the question is not whether the Global Fund works, but how to ensure it keeps working for years to come, according to this article. There are four reasons this is imperative. First, the world needs to expand, not contract, access to health care because of the sheer burden of disease. Second, the Fund doesn\u2019t simply give handouts: it takes the longer road of investing in and working with health ministries to build (or rebuild) local health systems. Third, the Global Fund proves how much multilateral organisations can accomplish, when one looks at the many lives it has helped save. While the usual players like the G-8 bear the greatest financial burden, the author urges some of the recipient countries to consider themselves partners of and contributors to the fund \u2013 India, Russia and China can play meaningful roles as both external funders and as recipients of grants. Fourth, a global recession is not an acceptable excuse for external funders to avoid the responsibility of meeting their financial commitments to the Fund.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Organisation: Call for papers: Advancing knowledge and practice for using systems thinking for equitable health systems strengthening in LMICs","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submission: 22 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/callsforproposals/alliancehpsr_callpaperstsupplement.pdf","body":"The overall goal of this call is the publication of a selection of papers to contribute to a new peer-reviewed journal on \u201csystems thinking\u201d. Please note that this call is not for proposals that simply seek to argue for the importance of systems thinking or make the case for why it matters - the call is strongly focused on enriching the knowledge base with practical guidance on relevant methods, tools and approaches to apply systems thinking for health systems in research and practice. The supplement will focus entirely on experiences in, or relevant to, low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Proposals can address: health systems as a whole (as opposed to programmatic or intervention-specific focus) and/or applying the principles of systems thinking (such as complex adaptive systems,soft systems methodology, reflective practice etc.) to health systems. Discussions of interventions or policies with system-wide effects are welcome.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Civil society needs to be vigilant\u2019: interview with Elizabeth Thompson, Assistant Secretary-General and Executive Coordinator, Rio+20","field_subtitle":"CIVICUS: February 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/7urc6u2","body":"In this interview the Assistant Secretary-General and Executive Coordinator for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development discusses issues related to the upcoming conference to be held in Rio de Jainero, Brazil on 20-22 June 2012 (Rio+). She identifies major sustainability challenges facing the world including economic sustainability, indicating that the global financial and economic system should not be characterised by boom and bust cycles, global, regional and local inequities, poor accountability and decreased civil society engagement, and the continuation of poverty, particularly among women and girls. She reported feeling positive about the potential for Rio+ to provide a platform for countries to evaluate environmental problems and craft solutions tailor-made for different countries. She argued that civil society\u2019s role is invaluable in working at every level of society and educating companies and communities on the importance of sustainable development. Civil society needs to play a role in helping to develop new initiatives which will deliver on sustainability and most of all, civil society needs to be vigilant in ensuring that countries commit to sustainability and continue along the pathway they have defined to achieve it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":" United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development 2012 (Rio+20)","field_subtitle":"20-22 June 2012: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil","field_url":"http://www.earthsummit2012.org/","body":"Also referred to as the Earth Summit or Rio+20 due to the initial conference held in Rio in 1992, the objectives of the Summit are: to secure renewed political commitment to sustainable development; to assess progress towards internationally agreed goals on sustainable development and to address new and emerging challenges. The Summit will also focus on two specific themes: a green economy in the context of poverty eradication and sustainable development, and an institutional framework for sustainable development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"2011 Human Development Report: Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All","field_subtitle":"United Nations Development Programme: 2012","field_url":"http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2011_EN_Complete.pdf","body":"Development progress in the world's poorest countries could be halted or even reversed by mid-century unless bold steps are taken now to slow climate change, prevent further environmental damage, and reduce deep inequalities within and among nations, according to projections in the 2011 Human Development Report. In the report the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) argues that environmental sustainability can be most fairly and effectively achieved by addressing health, education, income and gender disparities together with global action on energy production and ecosystem protection. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A clinician-nurse model to reduce early mortality and increase clinic retention among high-risk HIV-infected patients initiating combination antiretroviral treatment","field_subtitle":"Braitstein P, Siika AM, Hogan J, Kosgei R, Sang E, Sidle JE et al: Journal of the International AIDS Society 15(7), 17 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-15-7.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers evaluated the effect on survival and clinic retention of a nurse-based rapid assessment clinic for high-risk individuals initiating cART in a resource-constrained setting in western Kenya. The USAID-AMPATH Partnership has enrolled more than 140,000 patients at 25 clinics throughout western Kenya. High risk express care (HREC) provides weekly or bi-weekly rapid contacts with nurses for individuals initiating cART with CD4 counts of [less than or equal to]100 cells/mm3. All HIV-infected individuals aged 14 years or older initiating cART with CD4 counts of [less than or equal to]100 cells/mm3 were eligible for enrolment into HREC and for analysis. Between March 2007 and March 2009, 4,958 patients initiated cART. After adjusting for age, sex, CD4 count, use of cotrimoxazole, treatment for tuberculosis, travel time to clinic and type of clinic, individuals in HREC had reduced mortality, and reduced loss to follow up compared with individuals in routine care. Overall, patients in HREC were much more likely to be alive and in care after a median of nearly 11 months of follow up. The researchers conclude that frequent monitoring by dedicated nurses in the early months of cART can significantly reduce mortality and loss to follow up among high-risk patients initiating treatment in resource-constrained settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A community guide to environmental health","field_subtitle":"Conant J and Fadem P: Hesperian Publishers, 2011","field_url":"http://store.hesperian.org/HB/prod/B160.html","body":"This highly illustrated guide helps health promoters, development workers, environmental activists, and community leaders take charge of their environmental health. The book contains activities to stimulate critical thinking and discussion, inspirational stories, and instructions for simple health technologies such as water purification methods, safe toilets, and non-toxic cleaning products. 23 chapters cover topics including: preventing and reducing harm from toxic pollution; forestry, restoring land, and planting trees; protecting community water and watersheds; food security and sustainable farming; environmental health at home; solid waste and health care waste; and how to reduce harm from mining, oil, and energy production. With dozens of activities to stimulate critical thinking and discussion, instructions for simple health technologies such as safe toilets, safe cleaning methods, and water purification methods, and hundreds of drawings to make the messages clear, the guide should be useful for people just beginning to address environmental health threats, as well as people with many years\u2019 experience in the field.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Advocating for the right to reproductive healthcare in Uganda : The import of Constitutional Petition no.16 of 2011","field_subtitle":"Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development: October 2011","field_url":"http://www.cehurd.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2012/01/Petition-16-Study.pdf","body":"This brief aims to explain the context of the landmark petition the Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) on the right to health and maternal mortality.  CEHURD and other partners have filed the petition in the Ugandan Constitutional Court to secure a declaration that non-provision of essential maternal health commodities in government health facilities, leading to the death of some expectant mothers, is an infringement on the right to health of the victims. CEHURD argues that these maternal deaths were preventable if the state had taken its human rights obligations seriously and the state should be held accountable. Reproductive health is argued to be a human right protected by both international and domestic law. The petition has generated public debate on maternal health and rallied civil society advocates behind the cause of reproductive health. However, litigation of human rights standards has two significant challenges. First, in situations where the judicial system has a huge case backlog it may take a long time before the case is disposed of. Second, litigation per se may not lead to change, unless followed by deliberate advocacy and lobbying. The authors argue that the case will be useful in identifying other areas of human rights warranting litigation, and lever efforts to build the capacity of various actors to take on litigation as an advocacy strategy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Agriculture and trade opportunities for Tanzania: Past volatility and future climate change","field_subtitle":"Ahmed SA, Diffenbaugh NS, Hertel TW and Martin WJ: WIDER Working Paper 2011/91, December 2011","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/working-papers/2011/en_GB/wp2011-091/","body":"The authors of this paper argue that Tanzania has the potential to substantially increase its maize exports to other countries, if global maize production falls due to supply shocks in major exporting regions. Tanzania may be able to export more maize at higher prices, even if it also experiences below-trend productivity. Future climate predictions suggest that some of Tanzania\u2019s trading partners will experience severe dry conditions that may reduce agricultural production in years when Tanzania is only mildly affected. Tanzania could thus export grain to countries as climate change increases the likelihood of severe precipitation deficits in other countries while simultaneously decreasing the likelihood of severe precipitation deficits in Tanzania. Trade restrictions, like export bans, prevent Tanzania from taking advantage of these opportunities, foregoing significant economic benefits.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid and government fiscal behaviour: What does the evidence say?","field_subtitle":"Morrissey O: WIDER Working Paper 2012/01, January 2012","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/working-papers/2012/en_GB/wp2012-001/","body":"External funders are concerned about how their aid is used, especially how it affects fiscal behaviour by recipient governments. This study reviews the recent evidence on the effects of aid on government spending and tax effort in recipient countries, concluding with a discussion of when (general) budget support is a fiscally efficient aid modality. Severe data limitations restrict inferences on the relationship between aid and spending, especially as the government is not aware of all the aid available to finance the provision of public goods. Three generalisations are permitted by the evidence: aid finances government spending; the extent to which aid is fungible (can be substituted with other resources) is over-stated and even where it is fungible this does not appear to make the aid less effective; and there is no systematic effect of aid on tax effort. Beyond these conclusions the fiscal effects of aid are country specific.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Aligning vertical interventions to health systems: a case study of the HIV monitoring and evaluation system in South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Kawonga M, Blaauw D and Fonn S: Health Research Policy and Systems 10(2), 26 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-10-2.pdf","body":"This study describes implementation of South Africa\u2019s HIV monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system, determines the extent to which it is integrated with the district health information system (DHIS), and evaluates factors influencing the extent of HIV M&E integration. The study was conducted in one health district in South Africa. Data were collected through key informant interviews with programme and health facility managers and review of M&E records at health facilities providing HIV services. Results indicated that the HIV M&E system is top-down, over-sized, and captures a significant amount of energy and resources to primarily generate antiretroviral treatment (ART) indicators. Processes for producing HIV prevention indicators are integrated with the district health information system. However, processes for the production of HIV treatment indicators by-pass the DHIS and ART indicators are not disseminated to district health managers. Specific reporting requirements linked to ear-marked funding, politically-driven imperatives, and mistrust of DHIS capacity are key drivers of this silo approach. In conclusion, parallel systems that bypass the DHIS represent a missed opportunity to strengthen system-wide M&E capacity. Integrating HIV M&E (staff, systems and process) into the health system M&E function would mobilise ear-marked HIV funding towards improving DHIS capacity to produce quality and timely HIV indicators that would benefit both programme and health system M&E functions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Applications open for research career development grants (RCDGs), 2012","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 30 March 2012","field_url":"http://cnhrkenya.org/","body":"As part of its national research capacity-strengthening mandate, the Consortium for National Health Research (CNHR) invites applications for research career development grants (RCDGs) from qualified Kenyan researchers (currently based in Kenya or working within the Diaspora) who wish to further develop their careers while undertaking research and training programmes in Kenya. The grants aim at enabling successful applicants to obtain high-quality research training that will lay the foundation for a successful independent research career. CNHR is planning to award 12 RCDGs commencing in October 2012. The grants will be competitively offered to support the development of research ideas, or acquisition of specialised research/training skills as a step towards a productive independent research career in areas of national health priority currently focused on the attainment of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 (child health); 5 (maternal health); 6 (infectious diseases); emerging and non-communicable diseases, with improvement of health systems as an overarching theme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Boosting intra-African trade: What role for the external trade regime? ","field_subtitle":"Njinken D: GREAT Insights 1(1), ECDPM, January-February 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cvfd2ym","body":"African Heads of States and Governments convened in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 23-30 January 2012 to launch a continent-wide free trade agreement (CFTA). The Summit focused on solutions to the numerous impediments that hinder intra-African trade including: trade facilitation, productive capacity, trade related infrastructure and trade policy. In this article, the author calls for greater regional integration given African countries smaller markets. Africa\u2019s regional economic communities are adopting uniform policies among their members but they are expected to trade with the rest of the world under various international trade regimes, which is argued to undermine regional integration and trade diversification. The author observes that trade preferences should be viewed only as a temporary arrangement \u2013 what is needed is to extend the period of the current trade regimes (say until 2020) and consolidate their conditions in a manner that supports manufacturing and consolidates regional markets. International partners and African countries should adopt a policy that revolves around access to high-income and emerging market countries linked to progress in integration with neighbouring countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Second Global Symposium: 31 October-3 November 2012: Beijing, China","field_subtitle":"Deadlines for submission: Organised sessions: 15 March 2012; Individual abstracts: 1 May 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/","body":"Organisers of the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR) are calling on all interested parties to submit abstracts for the Second Global Symposium. Abstracts may be in one of three main themes: Knowledge translation; state-of-the-art health systems research; and health systems research methodologies. There are also three cross-cutting themes: Innovations in health systems research; neglected priorities or populations in health systems research; and financing and capacity building for health systems research. The overall goal of this call is to enhance health policy and management decision-making processes in low- and middle-income countries (particularly for the implementation and scale-up of effective interventions for MDGs 4, 5, and 6) through the identification and testing models of leadership development to strengthen the capacity of decision-makers to demand, access and use research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: The East, Central and Southern Africa College of Nursing 10TH Scientific Conference: Port Louis, Mauritius, 5-7 September 2012","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 30 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.wavuti.com/16/post/2012/02/call-for-abstracts-upcoming-ecsacon-10th-scientific-conference-mauritius-5-7-sept-2012.html#axzz1ng8wYaoS","body":"The East, Central and Southern Africa College of Nursing (ECSACON) is calling for abstracts for the 10th ECSACON Scientific Conference. The theme is \u201cAcceleration towards attainment of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through revitalising primary health care: nurses and midwives sharing high impact interventions\u201d. Sub-themes: Improving maternal and child health: Moving towards achieving the MDGs; Health systems strengthening; Innovations and excellence in nursing and midwifery; Evidence-based primary health care practices/approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants for regional research grants on global health diplomacy for equitable health systems in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Call closes 4 pm 3 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=62_0_1_0_M3","body":"This call is for applicants for grants for policy research into global health diplomacy, and particularly in relation to the manner in which African interests around equitable health systems are being advanced through health diplomacy. Applicants are invited to indicate their capacities and proposals for implementing the work in ONE of the three areas:\r\n1. On the reflection of African interests and issues around equitable health systems in the stages of motivating, negotiating, implementing, monitoring and reporting of the WHO Code on international Recruitment of health personnel. \r\n2. On collaborations on access to essential drugs through south- south relationships with China, Brazil and India, particularly in relation to medicines production, distribution and regulation across countries within the ESA region, the alignment with and outcomes for national health systems, regional and global health diplomacy processes and the lessons learned for health diplomacy. \r\n3. On the involvement of African actors in global health governance, particularly in relation to the participation, issues raised, outcomes and thus influence of African state and non-state actors on the decision making processes in the WHO and Global Fund, particularly on universal access to prevention, treatment and care for HIV and AIDS, and the lessons for health diplomacy.\r\nVisit the website for information on the work, the grant call and the necessary information to include in the applications. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Research Career Development Grants (RCDGs) for Kenya\u2019s Consortium for National Health Research","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 30 March 2012","field_url":"http://cnhrkenya.org/intern2012/call.htm","body":"As part of its national research capacity-strengthening mandate, the Consortium for National Health Research (CNHR) invites applications for Research Career Development Grants (RCDGs) from qualified Kenyan researchers (currently based in Kenya or working within the Diaspora) who wish to further develop their careers while undertaking research and training programmes in Kenya. The grants aim at enabling successful applicants to obtain high-quality research training that will lay the foundation for a successful independent research career. In the long term, the aim is to build a critical mass of researchers undertaking relevant research-for-health for the betterment of Kenyans. CNHR is planning to award 12 RCDGs commencing in October 2012. The RCDGs will offer research career development opportunities for periods of not more than 18 months (from 1st October 2012), and will be offered to successful applicants who apply for consideration either as: postdoctoral research fellow; mid-career research fellow; or mid-career clinical research fellow.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Closing the cancer divide: a blueprint to expand access in low and middle income countries","field_subtitle":"Knaul FM, Farmer P and Arreola-Ornelas H: Global Task Force on Expanded Access to Cancer Care and Control in Developing Countries, Harvard University, 2011","field_url":"http://ghsm.hms.harvard.edu/uploads/pdf/ccd_report_111027.pdf","body":"This report aims to present the evidence that supports the case for expanded access to cancer care and control (CCC) in low and middle income countries (LMICs), and describe innovative models for achieving this goal. The document summarises information from 56 countries. The report emphasises that innovation in delivery systems, increased access to affordable vaccines and medications, innovative financing mechanisms to make care accessible and affordable are of great importance in terms of CCC. The authors call for promoting prevention policies that reduce cancer risk, mobilising all public and private stakeholders in the cancer arena, and expanding training opportunities for researchers in LMICs. They recommend that national cancer control programmes in LMICs must work systematically to adapt global guidelines for national cancer prevention, treatment, and palliation programmes. Also, they must strengthen procurement and distribution systems and ensure regulation of quality and safety. Cancer detection and treatment should be made more accessible and affordable through diagnostic tests and medications that are more easily delivered in remote settings. Governments must expand access across the cancer care control continuum through universal financial protection for health, and efficient use of all levels of care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Commonwealth Good Governance 2011/12: Democracy, development and public administration","field_subtitle":"Commonwealth Secretariat: January 2012","field_url":"http://newsletter.commonwealth.int/t/r/i/iulyiky/l/t/","body":"Commonwealth Good Governance 2011/12 is a comprehensive guide to public sector reform in the Commonwealth. Articles in this edition examine: the link between democracy and development; political-administrative relations; leadership in the public sector; strengthening local government; aid and governance; and building capacity in national assemblies. The report also contains governance profiles of the 54 Commonwealth member countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Crises in a new world order: Challenging the humanitarian project","field_subtitle":"Cairns E: Oxfam Briefing Paper, 7 February 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6n9jlth","body":"In 2010, vast humanitarian crises from Haiti to Pakistan almost overwhelmed the international system\u2019s ability to respond. Despite years of reform, United Nations (UN) agencies, external funders, and international NGOs (INGOs) struggled to cope. In 2011, Somalia yet again saw a response too little and too late, driven by media attention, not a timely, impartial assessment of human needs. At the same time, humanitarian action is needed now more than ever, Oxfam argues. The growing number of vulnerable people, the rise in disasters, and the failure to put most fragile states on the path to development, will significantly increase needs. Western-based external funders, INGOs and the UN provide only part of the answer. Already, new external funders and NGOs from around the world provide a significant share of humanitarian aid. Future humanitarian action will rely on them, and on the governments and civil society of crisis-affected countries even more. The UN and INGOs will be vital, but the author argues that their contribution will increasingly be measured by how well they complement and support the efforts of others and uphold humanitarian principles.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Current climate variability and future climate change: Estimated growth and poverty impacts for Zambia","field_subtitle":"Thurlow J, Zhu T and Diao X: WIDER Working Paper 2011/85, December 2011","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/working-papers/2011/en_GB/wp2011-085/","body":"In this study, economy-wide and hydrological-crop models are combined to estimate and compare the impacts of current and future climate trends in Zambia. Accounting for uncertainty, simulation results indicate that, on average, the trends may reduce gross domestic product by 4% over a ten-year period and pulls over 2% of the population below the poverty line. Socio-economic impacts are larger during drought years, and climate variability is projected to be a binding constraint on development in Zambia, at least over the next few decades.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Do we need a new post-2015 framework to promote health-related goals?","field_subtitle":"Molenaar B: Health Diplomacy Monitor 3(1): 4-6, February 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/7k9q3m5","body":"The deadline for meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is quickly approaching. While progress has been made on a number of the goals, it is already clear that many targets will not be reached. Policy makers have been reluctant to start discussions of what comes after the 2015 deadline, fearing that negotiating a new framework would detract from efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). While there seems to be broad support for a post- 2015 framework, there is not yet agreement on what this could look like. The United Nations and the World Health Organisation have started discussions on the issue, and it appears that sustainable development goals may be the way forward. In a survey of developing countries by the Institute of Development Studies, respondents overwhelmingly agreed that although the MDG framework has shortcomings, it is desirable to have an internationally agreed framework in place. Eighty percent of the respondents agreed that the post- 2015 arrangement should be target based, in part because it allows monitoring of progress.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"East Africa food crisis deepens","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: 2012","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/en/eastafrica","body":"As the drought in the Horn of Africa, deepens, Oxfam has extended its famine relief programmes in Somaliland, Ethiopia and Kenya with a mixture of emergency aid, long-term development and prevention, and advocacy to address the root causes of chronic drought. Nearly five million Ethiopians are affected by the crisis. Oxfam is scaling up its response in Ethiopia to reach 700,000 people by helping communities look for more sustainable sources of water, drilling boreholes, developing motorised water schemes and improving traditional water harvesting systems. In the driest and worst affected areas Oxfam has been trucking in emergency water supplies to over 69,000 people, which is treated and used for drinking, cooking, washing and keeping animals alive. Community health workers are also conducting public campaigns to help stop the spread of water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea. In Kenya, 4.3 million people are affected by the crisis \u2013 mainly in the southern agricultural areas and the northern pastoralist regions, such as Turkana and Wajir. People in these areas rely on their livestock as their main source of income and nutrition, but the drought has left the animals weak, dying and hard to sell. Oxfam\u2019s \u201cde-stocking\u201d programme buys up some of the weakest goats and, sheep and slaughters the animals to provide meat to the community. About 900,000 vulnerable animals \u2013 belonging to 18,000 families \u2013 are also benefiting from Oxfam\u2019s veterinarian and de-worming programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 133: Stopping before the finishing line? (In)action on the Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of health workers  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity Watch: Assessing progress towards equity in health, Kenya, 2011 ","field_subtitle":"KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Mustang Management Consultants, Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, and Training and Research Support Centre,  February 2012","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Kenya%20EW%20Dec2011%20lfs.pdf","body":"The Equity Watch monitors progress in areas of equity in health, household access to the resources for health, equitable health systems and global justice. This report provides evidence on the performance of Kenya's public policies and systems in promoting and attaining equity in health using the Equity Watch framework. The evidence presented in this report indicates progress towards closing geographical, rural\u2013urban, wealth and other social disparities in some health outcomes, such as in immunisation coverage, access to primary education, contraceptive use, access to antiretrovirals and access to safe sanitation. Nevertheless, other areas are reported on that have made less progress or now have wider differentials. The report suggests that the health care system cannot make progress on its own. It will be difficult to achieve health equity unless we also address the social and economic determinants of health. However the health sector does also play a role. For example, the report shows the progress made in areas where health workers have been capacitated suggesting that the role health workers play in health equity needs more attention and support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"European Commissioner Georgieva endorses new Charter to End Extreme Hunger","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: 16 December 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/89khkjv","body":"European Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs, Kristalina Georgieva, has endorsed the Charter to End Extreme Hunger, launched by leading agencies to make deadly food crises like the one gripping East Africa a thing of the past, saying \u201cWe need to pre-empt crises, rather than reacting when the disaster hits.\u201d The first leader to sign this charter was Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, and later other leaders including UK Development Minister Andrew Mitchell endorsed it. Georgieva\u2019s public engagement came as part of a debate, held by aid groups Caritas Europa, Oxfam, Polish Humanitarian Action (PAH) and ONE, which took place in December 2011 in Warsaw, Poland. The event organisers are calling on the European Union (EU) as a whole, including the European Commission and EU member states, to take action on three fronts. 1. Launch a pan-European initiative for the Horn Africa, involving all EU member states, that mobilises substantial funds for recovery and longer-term assistance to ensure families can feed themselves now and rebuild their futures. 2. Invest more in building people\u2019s resilience by supporting local food production. Supporting local, small-scale farmers and pastoralists is argued to be one of the best ways to mitigate the effects of climate change and soaring food prices. To do so, the authors observe that the EU must boost these investments within the next seven-year EU budget. 3. Launch a new flexible tool that ensures there is no money gap between emergency aid and long-term assistance when a humanitarian crisis strikes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Filling the gap: A Learning Network for Health and Human Rights in the Western Cape, South Africa","field_subtitle":"London L, Fick N, Tram KH, Stuttaford M: Health and Human Rights (pre-print version), 2012","field_url":"http://hhrjournal.org/index.php/hhr/article/view/452/716","body":"The authors of this study draw on the experience of a Learning Network for Health and Human Rights (LN) involving collaboration between academic institutions and civil society organisations in the Western Cape, South Africa. The network aimed at identifying and disseminating best practice related to the right to health. The LN's work in materials development, participatory research, training and capacity-building for action, and advocacy for intervention illustrates lessons for human rights practice. Evidence from evaluation of the LN is presented to support the argument that civil society can play a key role in bridging a gap between formal state commitment to creating a human rights culture and realising services and policies that enable the most vulnerable members of society to advance their health. Through access to information, the creation of space for participation and a safe environment for learning to be turned into practice, the agency of those most affected by rights violations can be redressed, supported by civil society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"From population control to human rights","field_subtitle":"Cumberland S: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90( 2): 86-87, February 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/2/12-040212.pdf","body":"In this interview with Adrienne Germain, President Emerita of the International Women\u2019s Health Coalition, she talks about her experiences promoting women\u2019s health in developing countries. She argues that there are many reasons why there is widespread resistance to integrating HIV and reproductive health services, including disease control models that emphasise risk, not vulnerability; competition for scarce resources; narrow disciplinary training that encourage health professionals to work separately rather than collaborate across subjects and services; and gender bias. She pointed out that research shows that women\u2019s health has definitely suffered from the separation of HIV information and services from other components of sexual and reproductive health care. For example, in sub-Saharan Africa, most HIV services fail to provide contraceptives, safe abortion, treatment and referral following sexual coercion or violence, or human papillomavirus (HPV) screening to women living with HIV. She also noted that political commitment has improved, but most politicians act only in their own interests or when they are pressed to do so. In most countries, women and children don\u2019t have a strong political voice, although in some they have gained considerable ground over the last decade or so. We must invest in both local and international advocates whose main task today is to persuade those with power and resources to transform their rhetoric into action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health governance as shared health governance","field_subtitle":"Ruger JP: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (2011), 14 December 2011","field_url":"http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1973693","body":"The author of this paper develops select components of an alternative model of shared health governance (SHG), which aims to provide a \u2018road map,\u2019 \u2018focal points\u2019 and \u2018the glue\u2019 among various global health actors to better effectuate cooperation on universal ethical principles for an alternative global health equilibrium. Key features of SHG include public moral norms as shared authoritative standards; ethical commitments, shared goals and role allocation; shared sovereignty and constitutional commitments; legitimacy and accountability; country-level attention to international health relations. A framework of social agreement based on \u2018overlapping consensus\u2019 is contrasted against one based on self-interested political bargaining. A global health constitution delineating duties and obligations of global health actors and a global institute of health and medicine for holding actors responsible are proposed. Indicators for empirical assessment of select SHG principles are described. The author concludes that global health actors, including states, must work together to correct and avert global health injustices through a framework of SHG based on shared ethical commitments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global malaria mortality between 1980 and 2010: A systematic analysis ","field_subtitle":"Murray CJL, Rosenfeld LC, Lim SS, Andrews KG, Foreman KJ, Haring D et al: The Lancet 379(9814), 4\u201310 February 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)60034-8/fulltext","body":"Researchers in this study systematically collected all available data for malaria mortality for the period 1980\u20132010, correcting for misclassification bias. They found that global malaria deaths increased from 995,000 in 1980 to a peak of 1,817,000 in 2004, decreasing to 1,238,000 in 2010. In Africa, malaria deaths increased from 493,000 in 1980 to 1,613,000 in 2004, decreasing by about 30% to 1,133,000 in 2010. The researchers estimated more deaths in individuals aged 5 years or older than has been estimated in previous studies: 435,000 deaths in Africa and 89,000 deaths outside of Africa in 2010. In conclusion, the researchers assert that the malaria mortality burden is larger than previously estimated, especially in adults. There has been a rapid decrease in malaria mortality in Africa because of the scaling up of control activities supported by international funders. They argue that external funder support needs to be increased if malaria elimination and eradication and broader health and development goals are to be met.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Green economy and sustainable development: Bringing back the social dimension","field_subtitle":"UNRISD: 5 January 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6tckweb","body":"This is the first of six films in the series \"Bringing the Social to Rio+20\". The film uses footage from recordings and interviews from the 2011 UNRISD conference, \"Green Economy and Sustainable Development: Bringing Back the Social Dimension\". It explores the green economy's potential as a path to inclusive, sustainable development and poverty eradication.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Economics Unit on Facebook","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.facebook.com/uct.heu","body":"The Health Economics Unit (University of Cape Town, South Africa) has a new Facebook page. The Unit conducts research in health economics, health policy & health systems, offers Master's and PhD training and facilitates regional and international academic and policy networking. The Unit is particularly interested in using their research to influence health policy and practice. You can follow the Unit on Facebook to see their regular updates, post on their wall and communicate with them about health care issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Health information pamphlets","field_subtitle":"Learning Network: 2011","field_url":"http://salearningnetwork.weebly.com/resources.html","body":"These six right-to-health pamphlets contain basic, easy to read information and can be placed in any South African public health service facility or distributed to patients and organisations working in public health. Topics include: community involvement; the Patients\u2019 Rights Charter; individual and collective rights; access to information; and rights and resource allocation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health policy and systems research: A methodology reader","field_subtitle":"Gilson L (ed): World Health Organisation, 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/entity/alliance-hpsr/resources/alliancehpsr_reader.pdf","body":"According to this reader, health policy and systems research (HPSR) is often criticised for lacking rigour, providing a weak basis for generalisation of its findings and, therefore, offering limited value for policy-makers. This reader aims to address these concerns through supporting action to strengthen the quality of HPSR. It is primarily intended for researchers and research users, teachers and students, particularly those working in low- and middle-income countries. It provides guidance on the defining features of HPSR and the critical steps in conducting research in this field. It showcases the diverse range of research strategies and methods encompassed by HPSR, and it provides examples of good quality and innovative HPSR papers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health worker shortages and global justice","field_subtitle":"O\u2019Brien P and Gostin LO: Milbank Memorial Fund, 2011","field_url":"http://www.milbank.org/reports/HealthWorkerShortagesfinal.pdf","body":"The human resource crisis affects developed and developing countries, but the global poor suffer disproportionately, not only because they have a much smaller workforce but also because their needs are so much greater, according to this paper. Of the 57 countries with critical shortages, 36 are in Africa. Africa has 25% of the world\u2019s disease burden, but only 3% of the world\u2019s health workers and 1% of the economic resources. The causes of the human resource shortages are multifaceted and complex, but not so complex that they cannot be understood and acted upon, the authors argue. They make several recommendations. The United States (US) administration, using an \u201call-of-government\u201d approach, should develop a strategic plan to address the global health worker shortage. The US government should also reform US global health assistance programmes to increase health workforce capacity in partner countries, as well as increase financial assistance for global health workforce capacity development. Finally, Congress should empower the Department of Health and Human Services or another appropriate agency to regulate the recruiters of foreign-trained health workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthcare in Africa conference: 6-7 March 2012, Cape Town, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Registration Dates Not Announced","field_url":"http://cemea.economistconferences.com/event/healthcare-africa","body":"The Healthcare in Africa conference will take place from 6-7 March 2012 in Cape Town, South Africa. It aims to bring together influential healthcare stakeholders from government, providers, suppliers and patient groups to confront and explore key issues around healthcare systems in Africa. Activities include interactive online brainstorming sessions, presentations of case studies and lectures form specialists and other stakeholders in healthcare in Africa. The following topics will be addressed: What is the right balance of private and public healthcare for Africa? How can healthcare systems best meet the demands of both infectious and chronic diseases? What are the best practices for affordable medicine in Africa, and what can be learnt from other emerging markets?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV-free survival among nine- to 24-month-old children born to HIV-positive mothers in the Rwandan national PMTCT programme: a community-based household survey","field_subtitle":"Ruton H, Mugwaneza P, Shema N, Lyambabaje A, Bizimana JD, Tsague L et al: Journal of the International AIDS Society 15(4), 30 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-15-4.pdf","body":"This study reports on HIV-free survival among nine- to 24-month-old children born to HIV-positive mothers in the national prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programme in Rwanda. Researchers conducted a national representative household survey between February and May 2009. Participants were mothers who had attended antenatal care at least once during their most recent pregnancy, and whose children were aged nine to 24 months. They found that out of 1,448 HIV-exposed children surveyed, 44 (3%) were reported dead by nine months of age. Of the 1340 children alive, 53 (4%) tested HIV positive. HIV-free survival was estimated at 91.9 % at nine to 24 months. Adjusting for maternal, child and health system factors, being a member of an association of people living with HIV improved by 30% HIV-free survival among children, whereas the maternal use of a highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) regimen for PMTCT had a borderline effect. HIV-free survival among HIV-exposed children aged nine to 24 months is estimated at 91.9% in Rwanda. The national PMTCT programme could achieve greater impact on child survival by ensuring access to HAART for all HIV-positive pregnant women in need, improving the quality of the programme in rural areas, and strengthening links with community-based support systems, including associations of people living with HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How do we best diagnose malaria in Africa? ","field_subtitle":"Rosenthal PJ: American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 86:192-193, February 2012","field_url":"http://www.ajtmh.org/content/86/2/192.full.pdf+html","body":"For many decades, the cornerstone of malaria management in Africa was to treat all febrile children with chloroquine. With high-level resistance to chloroquine and improved means of malaria diagnosis, recommendations for the management of malaria in Africa have changed in two important ways in the last few years. First, recommended therapy for uncomplicated falciparum malaria has moved to highly effective artemisinin-based combination therapies. Second, it is now recommended that the treatment of malaria be confined to parasitologically confirmed cases. This recommendation requires the availability of reliable diagnostic tests. The gold standard test for the diagnosis of malaria is microscopy. Evaluation of Giemsa-stained thick smears, when performed by expert microscopists, provides accurate diagnosis of malaria, although assuring expert slide preparation and reading can be difficult. Indeed, microscopy is often unavailable, especially in rural settings. In this regard, the advent of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for malaria is an important advance. Multiple immunochromatographic tests, incorporating a number of different parasite antigens and produced by many different manufacturers, are now available. At best, these tests offer a simple, fairly inexpensive, and reliable means of diagnosis that can be performed by healthcare workers with limited training. However, concerns with RDTs include potential unreliability because of inconsistent manufacture or poor storage, uncertain supply, and potential misreading of results by unskilled health workers. An additional, generally unappreciated concern when considering RDTs is differences between available tests.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"How to spend it: The organisation of public spending and aid effectiveness","field_subtitle":"Collier P: WIDER Working Paper 2012/05, January 2012","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/working-papers/2012/en_GB/wp2012-005/","body":"As aid diminishes in importance, the authors argue that governments need to improve the quality of their public spending. This paper suggests three organisational tools - independent ratings of spending systems, independent public service agencies, and sovereign development funds- as a means of assessing public spending. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Improved AIDS levy collections fill part of Zimbabwe\u2019s funding gap","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 3 February 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94786","body":"With global funding for HIV/AIDS on the decline, Zimbabwe's innovative AIDS levy - a 3% tax on income  - has become a promising source of funding for the country, with a dramatic increase in revenue collected in the past two years. For the year ending 31 December 2010, a total of US$20.5 million was collected in 2010 against $5.7 million the previous year. The National AIDS Council Board attributed the increase to improved revenue flows owing to improved political and economic stability in the country, which has created more jobs in the formal sector and improved tax remittances. Zimbabwe's economy has witnessed steady growth following the formation of the coalition government of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe in 2009. Although the revenue figures for 2011 have not yet been audited, the National AIDS Council estimates it collected about $25 million.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Lay health workers and HIV care in rural Lesotho: A report from the field","field_subtitle":"Joseph JK, Rigodon J, Cancedda C, Haidar M, Lesia N, Ramanagoela L and Furin J: AIDS Patient Care and STDs (online ahead of print), 3 February 2012","field_url":"http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/apc.2011.0209","body":"Lesotho faces a severe human resource shortage as it attempts to manage its HIV pandemic, with more than 25% of the population infected with HIV. This paper reports on a programme that provided HIV services in seven rural clinics in Lesotho. LHWs played an important role in the provision of HIV services that ranged from translation, adherence counseling, voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) for HIV and patient triage, to medication distribution and laboratory specimen processing. Training the LHWs was part of the clinic physicians' responsibilities and thus required no additional funding beyond regular clinic operations. This lent sustainability to the training of the LHWs. This paper describes the recruitment, training, activities, and perceptions of the LHW work between June 2006 and December 2008. LHWs participated successfully in the care of thousands of people with HIV in Lesotho and their experience can serve as a model for other countries facing the disease, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Low use of contraception among poor women in Africa: An equity issue","field_subtitle":"Creanga AA, Gillespie D, Karklins S and Tsui AO: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(4):258-266, April 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/entity/bulletin/volumes/89/4/10-083329.pdf","body":"The aim of ths paper was to examine the use of contraception in 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa; to assess changes in met need for contraception associated with wealth-related inequity; and to describe the relationship between the use of long-term versus short-term contraceptive methods and a woman\u2019s fertility intentions and household wealth. The analysis was conducted with Demographic and Health Survey data from 13 sub-Saharan African countries. Researchers found that the use of contraception has increased substantially between surveys in Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia but has declined slightly in Kenya, Senegal and Uganda. Wealth-related inequalities in the met need for contraception have decreased in most countries and especially so in Mozambique, but they have increased in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia with regard to spacing births, and in Malawi, Senegal, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia with regard to limiting childbearing. After adjustment for fertility intention, women in the richest wealth quintile were more likely than those in the poorest quintile to practice long-term contraception. In conclusion, family planning programmes in sub-Saharan Africa show varying success in reaching all social segments, but inequities persist in all countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi faces rising prices and looming maize shortages","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 9 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94825","body":"Malawi's maize-growing central and southern regions have not had good rains, prompting concerns about possible shortages of the staple in the coming months. With maize plants still in the early stages of growth, there is concern the crop might not be ready for harvest at the usual time in April-May. Maize meal prices climbed by more than 60% in the last four months of 2011 due to fuel and foreign currency shortages. An input subsidy programme in recent years had helped Malawi become self-sufficient in maize, with 40% funded externally. The government has tried to control the maize price increase by increasing the price of maize sold through the state grain marketer, ADMARC, and to set a controlled price to discourage traders from buying through ADMARC and reselling. United Nations agencies are reported as saying however that ADMARC itself has played a role in price increases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Management guidelines for acute infective diarrhoea/gastroenteritis in infants","field_subtitle":"Wittenberg DF: South African Medical Journal 102(2): 104-107, February 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/5243/3826","body":"Existing guidelines for management of diarrhoea are often ignored in public and private practice, possibly because of a perception that the guidelines are too simple, or because of expectations of the need to give \u2018real\u2019 drug therapy to stop diarrhoea. This guideline provides a problem-based approach to the basics of present-day management of acute gastroenteritis, and discusses the evidence for the recommendations. The guidelines recommend that each episode of diarrhoea must be seen as an opportunity for caregiver education in the prevention of the illness, in the \u2018what\u2019 and \u2018how\u2019 of oral rehydration and re-feeding, and in the recognition of when to seek help. The vast majority of patients recover rapidly, but serious complications do occur, and must be recognised and managed correctly. The guidelines are endorsed by the Paediatric Management Group (PMG) in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Namibia: Coming of age","field_subtitle":"Lister G: Global, First quarter 2012","field_url":"http://www.global-briefing.org/2012/01/coming-of-age/","body":"This article evaluates progress in governance of Namibia since independence in 1990. Unemployment is high \u2013 estimated at 50% - and pass rates at schools are dropping, while the promised fruits of independence have not yet reached the broad spectrum of the population, and the government\u2019s success in attracting investment has not paid much in terms of long-term dividends. However, there have been plenty of immediate and valuable gains, such as regular elections, much wider access to schooling, and government benefits that are available for ex-combatants and war orphans, and other vulnerable groups. While the courts are at times outspoken, they remain visibly understaffed. Despite the fact that democratic commitment remains fragile in the country, the so-called \u2018born-frees\u2019 (those people born after independence) are becoming increasingly vocal and more active in the debate over the country\u2019s future, free speech is now more deeply entrenched and there are a number of vibrant public discussion platforms, including social media.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Nationalism, urban poverty and identity in Maputo, Mozambique ","field_subtitle":"Sumich J: London School of Economics and Political Science, Crisis States Working Papers Series No. 2, 2010","field_url":"http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/28473/","body":"This paper examines the changing perceptions of Frelimo's nationalist project amongst members of the middle class in Maputo, Mozambique's capital. The author argues that nationalism in Mozambique has created a system of meaning and new forms of identity that are especially relevant for more privileged urbanites. However, growing urban poverty and inequality has had an effect throughout the social spectrum in Mozambique. and everyday life conflicts with the government's message of unity and progress for all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Negotiation of a treaty on research and development under consideration at the WHO Executive Board","field_subtitle":"De Tarso P and Arantes L: Health Diplomacy Monitor 3(1): 10-12, February 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/7k9q3m5","body":"The World Health Organisation\u2019s (WHO) Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development (CEWG) has proposed the adoption of a convention which would incorporate a mechanism for resource distribution, pooling of funds and global coordination to help developing countries with the research and development for their public health systems. In its draft report to WHO, it argued that intellectual property rights and other incentives, such as financial mechanisms and coordination among stakeholders, are needed to ensure research and development lead to relevant and affordable medical innovations for poor patients. Responses to the report have been typically polarised among WHO Member States, with developing countries expressing strong support and industrial nations taking a more cautious approach. Before the formal negotiations of a convention can start, though, a number of variables are still to be considered, such as the need to table a procedural resolution to take note of the report and to request time before engaging in further negotiations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Novartis, Big Pharma, and their US and EU surrogates throw a triple punch at Indian generics","field_subtitle":"Baker BK: Third World Network, 10 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/wto.info/2012/twninfo120202.htm","body":"According to this article, February 2012 is a key month for the future of the life-saving Indian generic industry, because fights on all three fronts (EU-India FTA, TPPA, and Novartis v. India) are occurring simultaneously - all with the same objective of using intellectual property rules that will significantly reduce the ability of Indian suppliers to produce and export low cost generic medicines. The European Union (EU) has put great pressure on India to conclude a trade agreement that includes TRIPS-plus IP protections, particularly in terms of investor-versus-state claims, general IP enforcement measures, and data exclusivity. In sum, the EU wants to enshrine IP-right holders and other investors rights to bring private arbitration claims directly against India when their investment-return expectations are upset by government regulations or other actions. February is also a key month in the ongoing TPPA negotiations, with side meeting on IPRs scheduled in Hollywood as a precursor to major negotiation in early May in Melbourne. The United States (US) attack on India-style protections against patent monopoly evergreening is quite explicit in its leaked TPPA demands. Contrary to the direct rule of Sec. 3(d) of the India Amended Patents Act (2005), the US is trying to mandate that patent be granted on minor changes in the form, new uses, and dosages, formulations, and combinations of known chemical entities. It also seeks mandatory patent term extensions, disallows the kind of pre-grant oppositions used so effectively by activists in India, and insists on data exclusivity and patent-registration linkage. Moreover, the US seeks to limit price control mechanisms like those currently used in India and seeks enforcement rights even more onerous than those pursued by the EU.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Nurse-initiation and maintenance of patients on antiretroviral therapy: Are nurses in primary care clinics initiating ART after attending NIMART training?","field_subtitle":"Cameron D: South African Medical Journal 102(2): 98-100, February 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/5195/3823","body":"The objective of this study was to determine the percentage of South African nurses initiating new HIV-positive patients on therapy within two months of attending the Nurse Initiation and Maintenance of Antiretroviral Therapy (NIMART) course, and to identify possible barriers to nurse initiation. A brief telephonic interview using a structured questionnaire of a randomly selected sample (126/1736) of primary care nurses who had attended the NIMART course between October 2010 and 31 March 2011 at primary care clinics in seven provinces. Outcome measures were the number of nurses initiating ART within two months of attending the FPD-facilitated NIMART course. Results showed that, of the nurses surveyed, 62% (79/126) had started initiating new adult patients on ART, but only 7% (9/126) were initiating ART in children. The main barrier to initiation was allocation to other tasks in the clinic as a result of staff shortages. In conclusion, despite numerous challenges, many primary care nurses working in the seven provinces surveyed have taken on the responsibility of sharing the task of initiating HIV-positive patients on ART. The barriers preventing more nurses initiating ART include the shortage of primary care nurses and the lack of sufficient consulting rooms. Expanding clinical mentoring and further training in clinical skills and pharmacology would assist in reaching the target of initiating a further 1.2 million HIV-positive patients on ART by 2012.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Occupational cancer burden in developing countries and the problem of informal workers","field_subtitle":"Santana VS and Ribeiro FSN: Environmental Health 10(Suppl 1):S10, 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1476-069X-10-S1-S10.pdf","body":"In this paper, the authors discuss the various aspects of occupational cancer in developing countries, focusing on the conditions of informal workers and firms. They found that estimating the burden of cancers attributable to occupational exposures is difficult as occupational cancers are usually clinically indistinguishable from those unrelated to occupation. Lack of reliable data is an obstacle to establishing the place for cancer prevention in public policies, particularly in poor regions. Workplaces are argued to be a substantial source of carcinogen exposures, together with psychosocial stressors that mediate exposure to cancer risk factors such as smoking and alcohol consumption. Enforcement of hazard control in workplaces is weak and workers\u2019 organisations are not strong enough to ensure compliance with standards required for healthy and safe work environments. This situation is even more intense in the informal economy, where firms are beyond state control. There are reports of increased risks of cencer among informal workers compared to formal workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"One of the many faces of urban poverty: Explaining the prevalence of slums in African countries","field_subtitle":"Arimah BC: UN WIDER Working Paper No. 2010/30, March 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/stc/repec/pdfs/wp2010/wp2010-30.pdf","body":"While attention has focused on the rapid pace of urbanisation as the sole or major factor explaining the proliferation of informal settlements in developing countries, this paper argues that there are other factors that may have an effect. The paper accounts for differences in the prevalence of informal settlements among developing countries using data drawn from the recent global assessment undertaken by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme. The empirical analysis identifies substantial inter-country variations in the incidence of these settlements both within and across the regions of Africa, Asia as well as, Latin America and the Caribbean. Further analysis indicates that higher GDP per capita, greater financial depth and increased investment in infrastructure reduces the incidence of slums. Conversely, external debt burden, inequality in the distribution of income, rapid urban growth and the exclusionary nature of the regulatory framework governing the provision planned residential land directly contribute to the prevalence of informal settlements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Only civil society can save Rio+20, say activists ","field_subtitle":"Osava M: Inter Press Services 24 January 2012","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=106530","body":"Large-scale social mobilisation, including street protests and parallel activities, is the only thing can save the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) from ending in nothing but frustration, according to activists and analysts. A repeat of the failure of recent conferences to negotiate an international climate change pact seems inevitable, said C\u00e2ndido Grzybowski, the director general of the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE) and one of the founders of the World Social Forum, the largest global civil society gathering. Grzybowski based his pessimistic outlook on a number of factors, such as the economic/financial crisis in the wealthy nations, combined with the fact that this a year of elections in many of them, including France and the United States, moving international commitments to the bottom of their leaders\u2019 agendas. He also blamed what he calls the limited convening power of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, particularly when it comes to environmental issues. Civil society actions must not be limited to Rio de Janeiro, say activists. The Brazilian Forum of NGOs and Social Movements for the Environment and Development (FBOMS) is planning to promote demonstrations in many other cities around the world, with the aid of the internet and social networks. The Thematic Social Forum in Porto Alegre will help to coordinate these initiatives, with the participation of representatives of civil society movements like the Indignados (Indignant) movement in Spain and the Occupy movement in the United States.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Persistent failure of the COIDA system to compensate occupational disease in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Ehrlich R: South African Medical Journal 102(2): 95-97, February 2012","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/5099/3822","body":"Cases of occupational disease, solvent encephalopathy and occupational asthma are used to exemplify failings of the workers\u2019 compensation system in South Africa, that include delays in processing claims, non-response to requests for information, and inadequate assessment of disability. These and other systemic deficiencies in administration of the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act of 1993 (COIDA) reduce access by workers with occupational disease to private medical care, and shift costs to workers and to public sector medical care. Another unintended effect is to promote underreporting of occupational disease by employers and medical practitioners. Reforms have been tried or proposed over the years, including decentralisation of medical assessment to specialised units, which showed promise but were closed. Improved annual performance reporting by the Compensation Commissioner on the processing of occupational disease claims would promote greater public accountability. Given the perennial failings of the system, a debate on outsourcing or partial privatisation of COIDA\u2019s functions is due, the author concludes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Political and social determinants of life expectancy in less developed countries: A longitudinal study ","field_subtitle":"Lin R, Chen Y, Chien L and Chan C: BMC Public Health 12(85), 27 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-85.pdf","body":"This study aimed to examine the longitudinal contributions of four political and socioeconomic factors to the increase in life expectancy in less developed countries (LDCs) between 1970 and 2004. Researchers collected 35 years of annual data for 119 LDCs on life expectancy at birth and on four key socioeconomic indicators: economy, educational environment, nutritional status and political regime. Results showed that the LDCs' increases in life expectancy over time were associated with all four factors. Political regime had the least influence on increased life expectancy in initial years but increased over time, while the impact of the other socioeconomic factors was initially stronger and decreased over time. Though authors argue that socioeconomic factors have strong impact on life expectancy, but the long-term impact of democracy should not be underestimated.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Register for the Thirteenth World Congress on Public Health: 23-27 April 2011, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Registration Deadline: 14 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.etpha.org/2012/index.php","body":"The Ethiopian Public Health Association and the World Federation of Public Health Associations invite public health professionals from around the world to participate in the Thirteen World Congress on Public Health 2012. The theme of the conference is \u2018Towards global health equity: Opportunities and threats\u2019. The conference has four main objectives. It is intended to serve as an international forum for the exchange of knowledge and experiences on key public health issues, as well as contribute towards protecting and promoting public health at global, continental and national levels. It is also intended to help create a better understanding of Africa\u2019s major public health challenges within the global public health community and to facilitate and support the formation of the African Federation of Public Health Associations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration now open for Forum 2012: 24-26 April 2012, Cape Town, South Africa","field_subtitle":"COHRED And The Global Forum","field_url":"http://www.forum2012.org/","body":"Forum 2012 will bring together key actors to make research and innovation work for health, equity and development: governments, industry, social enterprise, non-governmental organisations, researchers, media, funders , international organisations and others. Partipcipants will explore who will explore ways to go \u2018beyond aid\u2019 by building on the rapidly expanding research and innovation capacity of low- and middle-income countries as basis for development. The Forum has three main themes: improving and increasing investments in research and innovation; networking and partnerships in research, technological innovations, social innovations and delivery of better health care; and improvement of health, equity and development of low-income countries by creating a supportive environment, including priority setting in research for health, fair research contracting, research cooperation and ethics, nanotechnologies, technological and social innovations, and using the web as a tool for planning research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration open for SEYCOHAIDS 2012","field_subtitle":"8-10 June 2012: Lilongwe, Malawi","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5ty3mor","body":"SEYCOHAIDS 2012 is the largest international gathering for young people on HIV and AIDS in the Eastern and Southern Africa region, where young researchers, policy makers, activists, educators and people living with HIV will be able to link with people in other countries and meet to share and learn about HIV prevention methods, treatments, care policies and programmes relating to HIV and AIDS in Africa. The broad objectives for the Conference are to: ensure effective and meaningful youth participation in international AIDS response; identify gaps and challenges in government policies in providing youth-friendly HIV and AIDS services; develop regional and country-level strategic programmes for youth and HIV and AIDS; identify and build the capacity of new and emerging youth leaders for the AIDS response to ensure sustainability of youth initiatives at the national, regional and international levels; sustain adult-youth partnerships and dialogue; develop the Southern and Eastern Africa youth network on HIV and AIDS; develop country specific youth networks on HIV and AIDS; establish funding mechanisms for regional and country youth networks; and monitor government and donor commitments to youth and HIV and AIDS. Applicants must be no older than 35 years old at the time of the application.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration open for the People\u2019s Health Assembly, 6-11 July 2012 Cape Town","field_subtitle":"Deadline April 14 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/pha3/registration","body":"Registration is open for participation in the People\u2019s Health Assembly (PHA), organised by the People's Health Movement (PHM). The PHA is a global event bringing together health activists from across the world to share experiences, analyse global health situation, develop civil society positions and to develop strategies which promote health for all. It will look at forms of action to address identified challenges and build capacity among health activists to act. It is an opportunity for PHM as a whole to reflect on the global struggle, to review and reassess, to redirect and re-inspire. PHA3 aims to impact directly in the struggle for social change: for health for all, decent living conditions for all, work in dignity for all, equity and environmental justice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Reproductive health at a glance: Namibia ","field_subtitle":"World Bank: May 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/7eroefn","body":"A number of key challenges to reproductive health in Namibia are identified: high fertility, especially among the poorest people and adolescents; an unmet need for contraception at 21%; women not using modern contraceptives because of health concerns or fear of side effects; and an increase in HIV among adults aged 15\u201349 years from 4% in 1992 to 20% in 2006. Knowledge of HIV prevention methods was found to be high. Key actions to improve reproductive health outcomes in Namibia were identified in this report as strengthening gender equality; reducing high fertility; highlighting the effectiveness of modern contraceptive methods and properly educating women on the health risks and benefits of such methods; and reducing maternal mortality and the prevalence of STIs/HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Research, evidence and policymaking: the perspectives of policy actors on improving uptake of evidence in health policy development and implementation in Uganda ","field_subtitle":"Nabyonga Orem J, Kaawa Mafigiri D, Marchal B, Ssengooba F, Macq J and Criel B: BMC Public Health 12(109), 9 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-109.pdf","body":"This research aimed to elaborate a theory of knowledge translation (KT) in Uganda that could also serve as a reference for other low- and middle income countries. The researchers employed qualitative approaches to examine the principal barriers and facilitating factors to KT. A review of the literature revealed that the most common factors facilitating knowledge uptake included institutional strengthening, research characteristics, dissemination processes, partnerships and political context. The analysis of interviews conducted by the researchers, however, showed that policymakers and researchers ranked institutional strengthening for KT, research characteristics and partnerships as the most important. Respondents rasied the importance of mainstreamed structures within the Ministry of Health to coordinate and disseminate research, the separation of roles between researchers and policymakers, and the role of communities and civil society in KT. The study tests a framework that can be more widely used in empirical research on the process of KT on specific policy issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Resource-rich yet malnourished: Analysis of the demand for food nutrients in the Democratic Republic of Congo","field_subtitle":"Ulimwengu J, Roberts C and Randriamamonjy J: International Food Policy Research Institute Discussion Paper 01154, January 2012","field_url":"http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ifpridp01154.pdf","body":"Endowed with 80 million hectares of arable land (of which only 10% is used), diverse climatic conditions, and abundant water resources, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has the potential to become the breadbasket of the entire African continent, according to this paper. Instead, the country is one of the most affected by malnutrition. The DRC has the highest number of undernourished persons in Africa and the highest prevalence of malnutrition in the world. As a result, child stunting and infant mortality rates in the DRC are also among the highest in the world. Overall, at least 50% of the population is deficient in vitamin B12, calories, riboflavin, iron, vitamin E, folate, and zinc. In rural areas, strategies to improve nutrition will need to use instruments that attack malnutrition directly rather than relying simply on rising incomes. Overall, the results highlight the paradox of the DRC - a country with huge potential for agricultural development but incapable of feeding itself in terms of both quantity and quality of nutrients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Scientific research vs health security: The case of the H5N1 papers","field_subtitle":"Kamradt-Scott A: Health Diplomacy Monitor 3(1): 4-6, February 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/7k9q3m5","body":"In September 2011, it was announced that Dutch, Japanese and American scientists had independently genetically altered the H5N1 avian influenza virus, transforming it into a highly lethal, airborne strain that could conceivably spread easily between humans. The studies were funded by the United States (US) and the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) then prevented the researchers from releasing their findings on the grounds that the experiment could be replicated by terrorists. The scientists involved in the H5N1 research have questioned the need for redacting the studies\u2019 findings, arguing that \u201cthere is already enough information publicly available\u201d to reproduce their experiments and that withholding the information only serves to disadvantage legitimate scientific research. The incident has sparked intense international public debate, clearly dividing much of the scientific and policy-making community. Some commentators have argued that an international consensus on appropriate approaches is needed, as national governments can only control matters in their own jurisdiction and this is an international question. The World Health Organisation, which has maintained a relatively low profile regarding the controversial H5N1 studies so far, agreed to host a technical meeting on 16-17 February 2012 to discuss the issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"South African triage system to go global ","field_subtitle":"Den Hartigh W: Medicins Sans Frontieres: 31 January 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6pvbuwl","body":"Medicins Sans Frontieres will be the first global medical humanitarian organisation to adopt South Africa's Triage Score (Sats) emergency response system in several countries where their teams provide emergency medical care. Triage systems were introduced worldwide to reduce the waiting time for patients who need critical care when they arrive at emergency rooms. Without the system, patients who seek medical attention in understaffed and overcrowded emergency rooms often can't get the help they need in time. With Sats, patients are categorised according to need, decreasing the waiting time for critically ill patients. The triage scoring system has been found to improve patient flow in accident and emergency units, as well as lower mortality rates and improved the delivery of time-critical treatment for patients with life-threatening conditions. The South African system is designed to deal with the unique challenges of emergency rooms in developing countries, where more patients suffer trauma than in developed countries. MSF has already piloted Sats in some district hospitals in Botswana, Malawi and Ghana.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Stopping before the finishing line? (In)action on the Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of health workers ","field_subtitle":"Rangarirai Machemedze, SEATINI,  Patrick  Kadama, ACHEST, Rene Loewenson TARSC","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn the 1990s and early 2000s leaders of African countries persistently called for compensation for the loss of publicly trained health workers from low income African communities to the high income communities of Europe, North America and Australia.  A November 2011 British Medical Journal paper by Edward Mills et al reported on the magnitude of the loss to health worker training investments in African countries to be US$2.17bn, ranging from $2.16m for Malawi to $1.41bn for South Africa.  At the same time the benefit to destination countries of recruiting trained doctors was estimated at $2.7bn for the United Kingdom and $846 mn for the United States. \r\n\r\nDespite acknowledgement that migration is driven by social, political and economic causes, it was deemed justifiable to take  actions to more fairly manage these flows and their consequences.  African countries made submissions in various international forums for governments of destination countries to notify governments of source countries on the number of health workers employed, their professional status and their contractual rights and obligations, and to provide equal treatment to migrant and local health workers. In addition, the African countries urged for restrictions on unethical recruitment and employment practices and proposed that compensation for losses from permanent migration could be organised through investment and tax remittance arrangements, and through technical and other resource inflows to support health professional training in Africa. \r\n\r\nResponding to these pressures in the context of a crisis of health worker shortages in many African countries, in 2004 the World Health Assembly resolved to develop a multilateral response through a non-binding code of practice on the international recruitment of health workers. After consultation and negotiation, the Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of health workers was adopted at the 2010 World Health Assembly, almost 20 years since the World Health Organisation members agreed on  such a code, the 1981 International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes. Strong compliance by African countries with provisions of this code would advance us towards the diplomatic \u201cfinishing line\u201d in the effort to more fairly manage health worker migration. \r\n\r\nRegrettably however, by June 2011 (the latest reporting available) only 48 countries had reported even their National Authority for the code to WHO, with only 13 of these from Sub-Saharan Africa  and only seven from the 16 in east and southern Africa (Kenya, Mauritius, Swaziland, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and Namibia). More may have reported since then.  The low reporting of even this administrative information raises concern about how far the code is known and implemented, and whether the reporting at the 2012 WHA will be an active tool to raise both its positive impacts and its shortfalls, or a passive bureaucratic ritual. \r\n\r\nThe 2010 code sets out the responsibilities, rights and ethical responsibilities of stakeholders to ensure fair recruitment and equitable treatment practices for the health workers who would have migrated, including to avoid recruiting health workers within existing domestic contractual obligations. Health workers are also obliged to be transparent about their contractual obligations.\r\nIn relation to health workforce development and health systems sustainability, the code discourages active recruitment from countries with critical health workforce shortages; encourages utilization of code norms as a guide when entering into bilateral, regional, and multilateral arrangements to further international cooperation and coordination; identifies the need to develop and support circular migration policies between source and destination countries; encourages countries to develop sustainable health systems that would allow for domestic health services demand to be met by domestic human resources; and places particular focus on the need to develop health workforce policies and incentives in all countries that support the retention of health workers in underserved areas.\r\n\r\nThe code appears to be a milder instrument than what African countries pushed for given that it is not legally binding. Its voluntary nature makes it a weak instrument  as there are no specific commitments to return investments in stabilising the socioeconomic conditions of health workers or supporting training in low income countries. The code has become \u2018the response\u2019 to policy discussions on the relative costs and benefits of health worker migration. It does not fully address the African concerns that motivated to its negotiation and final adoption, but its presence has curtailed further discussion of these concerns. \r\n\r\nOne of the measures to assess the impact of the code is through monitoring its implementation and tracking the action taken by WHO member states.  Member states are obliged to report to the WHO Secretariat on their actions on the code every three years, beginning in 2012.  Given that the code is not fixed, and that its contents are considered as dynamic and subject to review, monitoring becomes one of the tools for keeping alive issues and concerns that were not fully addressed.\r\n\r\nWith the WHA only three months away, states, civil society and health worker associations should  look for signs of progress, or otherwise, in the areas covered by the code,  and ensuring that these are raised at the Assembly. Some of the questions this raises are:\r\n\r\nAre there national coordination mechanisms for all relevant stakeholders and partners to facilitate policy dialogue and implementation on health workers?\r\n\r\nHas there been any development of policies and practices since 2010 encouraging circular migration (such as migration within countries in east and southern Africa) and return migration from destination countries? \r\n\r\nIs there policy or law requiring recruiters to follow ethical recruitment practices that covers state and private and non state actors? \r\n\r\nAre there positive developments in collaboration of source countries and destination agencies or countries to sustain health worker development and training? Are there any new bilateral, regional, multilateral arrangements \u2013 soft law instruments \u2013 on health workers between source and destination countries?\r\n\r\nAre there any new development assistance efforts (including mechanisms for compensation) to support coordination and collaboration on health worker migration between destination and source countries?\r\n\r\nAre the regional bodies keeping and publicly reporting an annual scorecard of performance in the region against the agreed key indicators?\r\n\r\nIf the feedback on these questions indicate that the global code, as has been the case for many of its international precursors, is a useful signal of policy intent but not effective for managing costs and benefits, then the initial demand of the African countries for a more fair deal on the migration of health workers fairness still needs to be raised and addressed. African countries should use the forthcoming WHA in May of 2012, to strongly scrutinize developments around the implementation of the code. The results of this first assessment should help point towards concrete action to be taken on the implementation of the code.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this editorial to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For further information on the code visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Polbrief28%20Code.pdf  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Surveillance of anti-tuberculosis drug resistance in the world: An updated analysis 2007\u20132010","field_subtitle":"Zignol M, van Gemert W, Falzon D, Sismanidis C, Glaziou P, Floyd K and Raviglione M: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90( 2): 111\u2013119D, February 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/2/11-092585.pdf","body":"The purpose of this paper is to present a global update of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) and explore trends in 1994\u20132010. Data on drug resistance among new and previously treated TB patients, as reported by countries to the World Health Organization, were analysed. In 2007\u20132010, 80 countries and eight territories reported surveillance data. In South Africa, more than 10% of the cases of multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB were extensively drug-resistant. Globally, in 1994 to 2010 multidrug resistance was observed in 3.4% of all new TB cases and in 19.8% of previously treated TB cases. No overall associations between MDR-TB and HIV infection or sex were found. Between 1994 and 2010, MDR-TB rates in the general population increased in various countries, including Botswana. In conclusion, the highest global rates of MDR-TB ever reported were documented in 2009 and 2010. Trends in MDR-TB are still unclear in most settings. Better surveillance or survey data are required, especially from Africa and India.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Sustainable urbanisation\u2019s challenge in Democratic Republic of Congo","field_subtitle":"Nsokimieno E: Journal of Sustainable Development 3(2), 2010","field_url":"http://www.ccsenet.org/jsd.","body":"In the context of rapid urbanisation in Democratic Republic of Congo, increasing population density in Kinshasa is associated with inequalities, poverty, environmental degradation, socio-economic tension, spontaneous settlements and sprawl. Rapid urban growth without planning in some areas and with limited employment underlies negative health outcomes. The author points to sustainable urbanisation as a priority, with a need to reconsider urbanisation processes to stimulate economic growth and mobilise resources at local, national and global levels. In this paper, the author reviews approaches to urban planning that balance development and the transformation of the city. He presents urban renewal as remedial action holding opportunities to improve environmental and social quality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Task-shifting to community health workers: Evaluation of the performance of a peer-led model in an antiretroviral programme in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Alamo S, Wabwire-Mangen F, Kenneth E, Sunday P, Laga M and  Colebunders RL: AIDS Patient Care and STDs 26(2) : 101-107, February 2012","field_url":"http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/apc.2011.0279","body":"In this study, researchers examined the performance of community antiretroviral therapy and tuberculosis treatment supporters (CATTS) in scaling up antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Reach Out, a community-based ART program in Uganda. Retrospective data on home visits made by CATTS were analysed to examine the CATTS ability to perform home visits to patients based on the model's standard procedures. Qualitative interviews conducted with 347 randomly selected patients and 47 CATTS explored their satisfaction with the model. The CATTS ability to follow-up with patients worsened from patients requiring daily, weekly, monthly, to three-monthly home visits. Only 26% and 15% of them correctly home visited patients with drug side effects and a missed clinic appointment, respectively. Additionally, 83% visited stable pre-ART and ART patients (96%) more frequently than required. Six hundred eighty of the 3,650 (18%) patients were lost to follow-up (LTFU) during the study period. Ninety-two percent of the CATTS felt the model could be improved by reducing the workload. In conclusion, the Reach-Out CHW model may be too labour-intensive. Triaged home visits could improve performance and allow CATTS time to focus on patients requiring more intensive follow-up.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The ARV roll-out and the disability grant: A South African dilemma?","field_subtitle":"De Paoli MM, Mills EA and Groenningsaeter AB: Journal of the International AIDS Society 15(6), 16 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-15-6.pdf","body":"Following the ARV roll out in South Africa, people living with HIV (PLHIV) experienced improved health that, in turn, affected their grant eligibility. The aim of this paper was to explore whether PLHIV reduced or stopped treatment to remain eligible for the disability grant from the perspectives of both PLHIV and their doctors. Researchers conducted interviews with 29 PLHIV and eight medical doctors working in the public sector, as well as three focus group discussions with programme managers, stakeholders and community workers, and a panel survey of 216 PLHIV receiving anti-retrovirals (ARVs). They found that unemployment and poverty were the primary concerns for PLHIV and the disability grant was viewed as a temporary way out of this vicious cycle. Although loss of the disability grant significantly affected the well-being of PLHIV, they did not discontinue ARVs. However, in a number of subtle ways, PLHIV \"tipped the scales\" to lower the CD4 count without stopping ARVs completely. Grant criteria were deemed ad hoc, and doctors struggled to balance economic and physical welfare when assessing eligibility. The researchers call on government to ensure that it provides sustainable economic support in conjunction with ARVs in order to make \"positive living\" a reality for PLHIV. A chronic illness grant, a basic income grant or an unemployment grant could provide viable alternatives when the PLHIV are no longer eligible for a disability grant.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The cancer burden and cancer control in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Pisani P: Environmental Health 10(Suppl 1):S2, 5 April 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.ehjournal.net/content/10/S1/S2/ref","body":"There are limited means to monitor the occurrence of cancer in developing countries and planning for prevention relies largely on estimates. This paper summarises priorities in cancer prevention in developing countries and the underlying evidence base, and addresses some of the challenges. The author concludes that cancer control calls for interventions that are kept logistically simple, integrated within systems and gradually building the infrastructure to bring care to the population at large. Given serious budgetary constraints, cancer control programmes need to maximise the efficacy of their investments. Of all possible interventions to reduce the cancer burden, the author argues that comprehensive programmes to prevent tobacco smoking are the most cost-effective, so that tobacco prevention should be a priority. Immunisation of infants against hepatitis B virus (HBV) is probably the second most cost-effective option in regions where the infection is still endemic. The author further argues that the uncontrolled use of carcinogens in industrial processes need to be addressed any cancer control programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The future of participatory civil society assessments: A conceptual analysis","field_subtitle":"Anheier H, Fowler A, Holloway R and Kandil A: United Nations Development Programme, 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/88lode4","body":"In this analysis of participatory civil society assessments, the authors make a number of important points. A new generation of country-led civil society assessments is now required, which will address important fundamental issues of philosophy, principle and methods and should be tailored to national and historical contexts. New approaches to civil society assessment need to shift from mapping and reporting to forecasting and foresight to be more relevant to civil society and policymakers. Diminishing returns of international comparative civil society assessments means that the time has come to expand and disaggregate assessment tools to make them progressively more meaningful and valid locally. The range of tools should be versatile to satisfy different stakeholders and stakeholders should question the applicability of \u201cWestern&#8223; theories and approaches to non-western societies. When conducting assessments in restrictive and culturally sensitive environments, certain factors, such as collective work, mutual trust and self-criticism, are needed to achieve positive results. A multi-stakeholder approach should be taken that represents government, business and the organised citizenry. It is also time to go beyond NGOs and public formal organisations to include informal organisations, which often have greater importance for the health of society. Final recommendations include going beyond a sectoral approach, using a domain approach to civil society assessments, adopting a clearer multi-centred theory of governance and recognising norm-free assessment as a fallacy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The magnitude and trend of artemether-lumefantrine stock-outs at public health facilities in Kenya ","field_subtitle":"Sudoi RK, Githinji S, Nyandigisi A, Muturi A, Snow RW and Zurovac D: Malaria Journal 2012, 11(37), 8 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-37.pdf","body":"In this study, 2010-2011 data are reported from public facilities in Kenya where alarming stock-outs were revealed in 2008. Data were collected between January 2010 and June 2011 as part of 18 monthly cross-sectional surveys undertaken at nationally representative samples of public health facilities. The primary monitoring indicator was total stock-out of all four weight-specific artemether-lumefantrine (AL) packs. The secondary indicators were stock-outs of at least one AL pack and individual stock-outs for each AL pack. The number of surveyed facilities across 18 time points ranged between 162 and 176 facilities. The stock-out means of the proportion of health facilities were 11.6% for total AL stock-out, 40.6% for stock-out of at least one AL pack, and between 20.5% and 27.4% for stock-outs of individual AL packs. Despite lower levels of AL stock-outs compared to the reports in 2008, the stock-outs at Kenyan facilities during 2010-2011 are still substantial and of particular concern. Only a minor decrease was observed in the stock-outs of individual AL packs. Recently launched interventions to eliminate AL stock-outs in Kenya are fully justified, the authors argue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The Novartis Drop the Case Campaign","field_subtitle":"Medicins Sans Frontieres: 1 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.msf.org.za/publication/about-novartis-drop-case-campaign","body":"In 2006 the drug company Novartis took the Indian government to court over its patent law, in a move that threatened access to affordable medicines produced in India for millions of people across the developing world. The company wanted to get the law changed so that they could more easily extend the patents on their products, and stop generic companies producing the same medicines at a fraction of the price. MSF\u2019s Drop the Case campaign, launched in response to this move, gathered nearly half a million signatures calling on the company to drop its case. But six years later, the legal battle continues. India\u2019s Supreme Court is now due to give the final judgement on the case this year. In August 2007, the Madras High Court in August 2007 ruled against Novartis. Undeterred, the company has continued to appeal against each legal reversal, with the result that India\u2019s final court \u2013 the Supreme Court - is now due to hear the case. To add your voice to the discussion, visit: http://www.msfaccess.org/STOPnovartis/","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The state of urban food insecurity in southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Frayne B, Pendleton W, Crush J, Acquah B, Batersby-Lennard J et al: Queen\u2019s University and AFSUN Urban Food Security Series No. 2, 2010","field_url":"http://queensu.ca/samp/afsun/files/Afsun%202%20web.pdf","body":"The number of people living in urban areas is rising rapidly in Southern Africa. By mid-century, the region is expected to be 60% urban. Rapid urbanisation is leading to growing food insecurity in the region\u2019s towns and cities. This paper presents the results of the first ever regional study of the prevalence of food insecurity in Southern Africa. The AFSUN food security household survey was conducted simultaneously in 2008-9 in 11 cities in eight Southern African Development Community countries. The results confirm high levels of food insecurity amongst the urban poor in terms of food availability, accessibility, reliability and dietary diversity. The survey provides important insights into the causes of food insecurity and the kinds of households that are most vulnerable to food insecurity. It also shows the heavy reliance of urban poor people on informal food sources and the growing importance of supermarket chains.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Toolkit on the right to health ","field_subtitle":"Fick N, London L and Coomans F: Learning Network, 2011 ","field_url":"http://salearningnetwork.weebly.com/uploads/6/5/0/1/6501954/_right_to_health_toolkit.pdf","body":"This toolkit was designed in response to the need for a practical tool to empower communities on what the right to health means, how to identify violations of health rights and how to respond to these violations. The toolkit can be used as a stand-alone source of information or as training tool for workshops on the right to health. Each section uses practical examples to illustrate ideas, and has a number of exercises and case studies that could be used for training purposes. At the end of each chapter is a set of workshop handouts that can be photocopied for participants. Many of these examples are actual cases that emerged from the work of the Learning Network for Health and Human Rights over the past few years. The toolkit is designed for use by civil society organisations (CSOs) such as health committees, NGOs working with health issues, educational institutions, community members or anyone with an interest in health rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Trade and agriculture development for food security: Tapping the potential of regional agricultural trade ","field_subtitle":"Rampa F: GREAT Insights 1(1), ECDPM, January-February 2012 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cvfd2ym","body":"In this article, the author argues that regional integration and regional agricultural markets are particularly important for African agriculture, since national markets and institutions are too small to bring about the needed transformation of African agriculture. Great opportunities exist, with Africa having 60% of the world's total amount of uncultivated arable land and therefore an immense potential for agricultural productivity growth. However, the author believes more attention should be dedicated to increase the productivity of small-scale farmers, who contribute around 90% of Africa's agricultural production but remain largely locked out of trade dynamics. Regional integration and agriculture development, and in particular intra-African agricultural trade, offer a great potential for food security and pro-poor growth in Africa, if they can work in synergy, especially at the regional level. Various independent processes are under way to promote agricultural development and encourage regional trade in Africa, such as the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and the development of trade corridors. However, weak communication across the agriculture and trade sectors/communities and the parallel - and at times competing - policy frameworks hamper the creation of much needed synergies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Treatment outcomes of adult patients with recurrent tuberculosis in relation to HIV status in Zimbabwe: a retrospective record review ","field_subtitle":"Takarinda KC, Harries AD, Srinath S, Mutasa-Apollo T, Sandy C and Mugurungi O: BMC Public Health 12(124), 13 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-124.pdf","body":"This study was conducted in Chitungwiza, a high density dormitory town outside Harare, to determine in adults registered with recurrent TB how treatment outcomes were affected by type of recurrence and HIV status. Data were abstracted from the Chitungwiza district TB register for all 225 adult TB patients who had previously been on anti-TB treatment and who were registered as recurrent TB from January to December 2009. Results indicated that of 225 registered TB patients with recurrent TB, 159 (71%) were HIV tested, 135 (85%) were HIV-positive and 20 (15%) were known to be on antiretroviral treatment (ART). More females were HIV-tested (75/90, 83%) compared with males (84/135, 62%). Overall, treatment success was 73% with transfer-outs at 14% being the most common adverse outcome. TB treatment outcomes did not differ by HIV status. However those with relapse TB had better treatment success compared to \u201cretreatment other\u201d TB patients. In conclusion, no differences in treatment outcomes by HIV status were established in patients with recurrent TB. Important lessons from this study include increasing HIV testing uptake, a better understanding of what constitutes \u201cretreatment other\u201d TB, improved follow-up of true outcomes in patients who transfer-out and better recording practices related to HIV care and treatment especially for ART.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"UNITAID warns against measures to restrict access to medicines in EU-India FTA ","field_subtitle":"UNITAID: 9 February 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.unitaid.eu/en/resources/news/385-eu-india-fta","body":"In the lead-up to Free Trade Agreement (FTA) discussions during the European Union-India Summit in New Delhi on 10 February 2012, UNITAID has urged both parties to ensure that access to medicines, and particularly AIDS medicines, is not hampered by trade interests via provisions that could undermine the production, registration and availability of generic medicines. The agreement coincides with a delicate time for access to treatment efforts - the suspension of grants by the Global Fund and diminishing resources for health and development, said UNITAID, calling on the European Union to safeguard the right of millions of people in developing countries to continue accessing affordable life-saving medicines produced by the Indian generic industry. AIDS treatment has experienced startling progress over recent years, with almost seven million people starting treatment between 2003 and 2011, largely due to India's ability to produce low-cost, quality-assured generic medicines and to healthy competition among India's producers. However, such provisions as data exclusivity, patent term extensions and border measures could severely legally restrict manufacturers' ability to produce recently developed medicines and patient adapted formulations at low cost and to export those medicines to other developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Universities and global access to essential medicines","field_subtitle":"Kiddell-Monroe R, Collinsworth B and Musselwhite L: Health Diplomacy Monitor 3(1): 2-3, February 2012","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/7k9q3m5","body":"The non-profit Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) is a student-driven movement to promote equitable global access and innovation in publicly funded medical research. Through UAEM\u2019s advocacy, universities that license medical research to industry have now begun to include requirements for generic production or \u201cat cost\u201d provisions for low- and middle-income countries. These \u201cglobal access\u201d provisions lower the price of the final products for poor patients, and have been adopted by leading institutions including Harvard, Yale, the University of British Columbia, and the US National Institutes for Health (NIH). While over 30 research institutions worldwide have endorsed a \u201cStatement of Principles and Strategies\u201d supporting global access to their medical discoveries, the students of UAEM want to ensure that this translates into real-world impact. They argue that the statement itself should be strengthened, and individual universities can adopt more robust policies. Most importantly, however, universities must demonstrate that they are regularly including global access provisions in their licensing negotiations with pharmaceutical companies. Improving the transparency of universities and their licensing practices is critical. Not only do universities need to ensure affordable access to their medical breakthroughs, but they also need to show that they are committing resources, both human and financial, to research on neglected diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Urban food production and household food security in southern African cities","field_subtitle":"Crush J, Hovorka A and Tevera D, Queen\u2019s University and AFSUN Urban Food Security Series No. 4, 2010","field_url":"http://queensu.ca/samp/afsun/files/AFSUN_4.pdf","body":"The new international food security agenda focuses almost exclusively on raising food production by small rural farmers (something that has preoccupied rural development \u2018experts\u2019 for decades without success). The authors of this paper argue that there is a very real danger that this approach will be transferred uncritically to urban areas in the form of technical inputs for poor urban households to grow more food for themselves and for market. There is already an emerging focus on the \u201ctechnical\u201d aspects of urban farming and how these can be supported and enhanced through strategic interventions such as the promotion and adoption of innovative and appropriate urban farming technologies. However, as elsewhere, such technocratic \u2018solutions\u2019 are likely to fail if they do not first examine why so few poor households in southern Africa currently grow any of their own food. Agriculture is rarely recognised as a legitimate land use activity in urban plans or municipal designs. For urban farmers, this means that land is scarce and they often ruffle the feathers of officials and police by establishing their farming activities wherever they can, and urban farmers are often harassed by municipal authorities. The authors conclude that comprehensive, systematic research into the links between urban agriculture, food security and health/nutrition could go a long way to easing such institutional and political obstacles so that city farming can meet its full potential in Southern Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"US, WIPO training programme on IP rights in Africa comes under fire ","field_subtitle":"New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 12 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/2012/02/12/us-wipo-training-programme-on-ip-rights-in-africa-comes-under-fire/","body":"An intellectual property (IP) conference for government ministers, to be held in April 2012 in South Africa, has stirred controversy among civil society advocates. Entitled \u201cAfrica Intellectual Property Forum: Intellectual Property, Regional Integration and Economic Growth in Africa\u201d, the event is being organised by the United States government, and is being touted as the first Africa-wide ministerial-level event of its kind. The authors observe that the focus of the conference appears however to be stricter enforcement of IP rights, as most panels are concerned with enforcement and protection, and most speakers originate in developed country governments and industry. Non-governmental organisations who have worked on intellectual property rights have expressed disappointment, as they expected the conference would consider the 2007 World Intellectual Property Organisation Development Agenda, which consisted of 45 agreed recommendations intended to more fully incorporate the development dimension into WIPO activities, including technical assistance. They critique the agenda and an apparent underlying motive of encouraging strong IP legislation in those countries, at the expense of development and universal access to affordable medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Using mobile clinics to deliver HIV testing and other basic health services in rural Malawi","field_subtitle":"Lindgren TG, Deutsch K, Schell E, Bvumbwe A, Hart KB, Laviwa J and Rankin SH: Rural and Remote Health 11(1682), 2011","field_url":"http://www.rrh.org.au/publishedarticles/article_print_1682.pdf","body":"This report describes the work of two four-wheel drive mobile clinics launched in 2008 to fill an identified service gap in the remote areas of Mulanje District, Malawi. The clinics provide basic HIV, TB STI and pre-natal services. The researchers found that in the project, the implementation process and schedule can be affected by medication, supply chain and infrastructural issues, as well as governmental and non-governmental requirements. Timelines should be sufficiently flexible to accommodate unexpected delays. Once established, service scheduling should be flexible and responsive; for instance, malaria treatment rather than HIV testing was most urgently needed in the season when these services were launched. The mobile clinics provide services for people who otherwise may not have attended a health centre. Strong relationships have been forged with local community leaders and with Malawi Ministry of Health officers as the foundation for long-term sustainable engagement and eventual integration of services into Health Ministry programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Using staffing ratios for workforce planning: Evidence on nine allied health professions ","field_subtitle":"Cartmill L, Comans TA, Clark MJ, Ash S and Sheppard L: Human Resources for Health 10(2), 1 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-10-2.pdf","body":"The aim of this study was to identify workforce ratios in nine allied health professions and to identify whether these measures are useful for planning allied health workforce requirements. A systematic literature search using relevant MeSH headings of business, medical and allied health databases and relevant grey literature for the period 2000-2008 was undertaken. Twelve articles were identified which described the use of workforce ratios in allied health services. Only one of these was a staffing ratio linked to clinical outcomes. The most comprehensive measures were identified in rehabilitation medicine. The authors conclude that evidence for use of staffing ratios for allied health practitioners is scarce and lags behind the fields of nursing and medicine.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Board Plan For Fake Medicines Mechanism Excludes Trade And IP ","field_subtitle":"New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 28 January 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/2012/01/28/who-board-plan-for-fake-medicines-mechanism-excludes-trade-and-ip/","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) Executive Board has agreed to propose to the May 2012 World Health Assembly the establishment of a mechanism for international collaboration on counterfeit and substandard medical products, but with the exclusion of trade and intellectual property issues. The Executive Board resolution would \u201cestablish a new Member State mechanism for international collaboration among Member States, from a public health perspective, excluding trade and intellectual property considerations, regarding substandard/spurious/falsely-labelled/falsified/counterfeit medical products\u201d. The next Assembly in May will decide on this resolution. The mechanism would be reviewed by the World Health Assembly after three years, and countries will submit a progress report after one year. A contentious issue around counterfeits has been the suspicion on the part of some developing countries that concerns about counterfeit and substandard medicines are being purposely confused with trade in legitimate generic medicines from those countries. Removing intellectual property and trade from WHO discussions is intended to minimise the possibility of confusion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cWe cannot leave lives of nationals to development partners\u201d","field_subtitle":"Gonzalez LL: Inter Press Services: 16 March 2011","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54874","body":"As external funders retreat from funding HIV prevention and treatment, national programmes reliant on external funding have become exceedingly vulnerable. Activists from East and Southern Africa are calling on governments to take increased ownership of these programmes to ensure treatment continues after donor funds have gone. According to Dr Mbulawa Mugabe, UNAIDS deputy regional director for East and Southern Africa, the region has made considerable progress towards reaching the universal HIV treatment access target of 80% coverage among those in need of antiretrovirals (ARVs). He added that the region is performing above average for low and middle-income countries. However, he indicated that hardly any of the region\u2019s governments are contributing financially to the treatment response. \u201cWe cannot leave the lives of nationals to development partners,\" he emphasised. According to researchers, governments need to bridge the gap between domestic and external spending for ARVs but, without accurate country-level data, this gap is difficult to estimate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":" Health Policy Action Fund (HPAF) - Call for Proposals ","field_subtitle":"Closing date 28 February 2012.","field_url":"http://www.healthpolicyactionfund.org","body":"The Health Policy Action Fund (HPAF) invites Civil Society Organisations from 30 IHP+ countries to submit proposals for funding of health policy work at national level. The grants will fund work over an 18-month period starting in April 2012, and have a maximum of US$ 30,000 per grantee. Interested applicants are requested to visit the HPAF website at www.healthpolicyactionfund.org for the detailed Criteria for Selection and the proposal application forms. The HPAF aims to support southern civil society organizations, networks and coalitions to become more effectively engaged in national health policy processes. Supported by the grants, recipients engage in health policy and implementation monitoring and analysis, policy dialogue with key national health stakeholders, and hold governments and aid donors accountable to work towards achieving universal and equitable access to health care and the health-related Millennium Development Goals. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"2011 in review: Key health issues","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 30 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/features/2011/year_review/en/","body":"In 2011, there was important progress in a number of areas, according to the World Helath Organisation, with reports on AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria all indicating fewer deaths \u2013 and fewer new infections. The UN General Assembly met to agree a global agenda for noncommunicable diseases \u2013 only the second time (after HIV/AIDS) that a health-related theme was selected as the topic for a UN high-level meeting. Natural disasters and conflict took their toll. The year was marked by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant damage in Japan. Conflicts disrupted health services and added to health demands in a number of countries, notably in Libya, where WHO contributed to the health response, providing expertise and supplies. 2011 also continued to be marked by the world's financial crisis. This photo feature presents a selection of some of the major health issues in 2011. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A national audit of home and community-based care (HCBC) organisations in South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Ogunmefun C, Friedman I, Mothibe N and Mbatha T: AIDS Care, October 2011","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/HCBC%20Article%20-%20AIDS%20Care%20Journal.pdf","body":"The main objective of the study was to conduct an audit of home and community-based care (HCBC) organisations in South Africa in order to provide the Government with empirical information on their existence, distribution, services and challenges. Of the 2,001 HCBC organisations that participated in the audit, most were situated in Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal Provinces. More than half of all the organisations were located in the rural areas. Most of the organisations were faced with challenges such as lack of access to water, electricity and computer equipment and a formal office space. In addition, some organisations were in need of funds for stipends for their community caregivers. Non-availability of funds for stipends and necessary assets might affect the quality of HCBC services rendered. The findings of the study therefore suggest the need for more financial assistance from the Government and other stakeholders for organisations rendering HCBC services, in order for them to afford necessary assets and provide sustainable, high-quality services that can help in reducing HIV impacts in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"African Awakenings: The Emerging Revolutions","field_subtitle":"Manji F, Ekine S (Editors), Fahamu publishers","field_url":"http://fahamubooks.org/book/?GCOI=90638100375050","body":"The tumultuous uprisings of citizens in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have seized the attention of media analysts who have characterised these \r\nas 'Arab revolutions', a perspective given weight by popular demonstrations in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and elsewhere. However, what have been given less attention are the concurrent uprisings in other parts of the African continent. The uprisings across Africa and in the Middle East, the book argues, are the result of common experiences of decades of declining living standards, mass unemployment, land dispossessions and impoverishment of the majority, while a few have engorged themselves with riches. Through incisive contributions from analysts and activists across the continent, the essays in \u2018African Awakening\u2019 provide an overview of the struggle for democratisation which goes beyond calls merely for transparent electoral processes and constitutes a reawakening of the spirit of freedom and justice for the majority.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"African Union to focus on trade, peace and governance in 2012","field_subtitle":"Africa Review: 17 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.africareview.com/Special+Reports/AU+seeks+bigger+global+role+/-/979182/1308636/-/view/printVersion/-/6bmr18/-/index.html","body":"Inter-African trade, which is high on the agenda at the upcoming African Union (AU) summit, will not remain the AU\u2019s only priority in 2012. According to this report in Africa Review, the ambitious list of priorities consists of efforts to boost the continent\u2019s global role, and plans to review the AU\u2019s international partnerships in order to ensure they bring greater benefits to Africa. Peace and security continue to be a major concern, and AU intends to push its member states to strengthen democracy and good governance, an area closely linked to security concerns. The AU will take steps to establish food reserves and to secure access to markets and competitive prices for farmers. A free trade zone across the continent is envisaged to boost commerce between countries. At present, less than 15% of African trade stays on the continent - the rest is sold abroad.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Alternatives to privatization of services from Africa and beyond","field_subtitle":"David McDonald, Municipal Services Project","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe number of people in the global South without access to adequate basic services is staggering, not least in Africa. For more than two decades, international financial institutions have prescribed private sector participation as the remedy, often with disastrous consequences. Recently, critics of this approach have given new visibility to \u2018alternatives to privatization\u2019 to counter this trend. \r\n\r\nAlthough the debate about alternatives to privatization in the water sector has been particularly dynamic, the health sector has been slower to recognize and promote new models. Similarly, Africa has developed fewer alternatives than Asia and Latin America \u2013 although the African health sector has seen some innovative community health insurance schemes and reliable non-state provision on a not-for-profit basis.\r\n\r\nThe Municipal Services Project  (www.municipalservicesproject.org) is at the forefront of such research and action, and is releasing a new book this February \u2013 Alternatives to Privatization: Public Options for Essential Services in the Global South \u2013 in an effort to stimulate further debate and research in this field. The authors who contributed to this book address questions of what constitutes alternatives to privatization, what makes them successful (or not), and what lessons are to be learned for future service delivery debates. The analysis is backed up by a comprehensive examination of initiatives in over 50 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, looking at three sectors: electricity, health care and water/sanitation. As the first global survey of its kind, it provides the most rigorous platform to evaluate alternatives to date, and compares them across regions and sectors.\r\n\r\nWe conceive of alternatives to privatization as those involving public entities that are state-owned and operated, or non-state organizations functioning on a non-profit basis. We propose a normative set of \u2018criteria for success\u2019 to make sense of case studies because we believe that some universal claims are necessary if we are going to have a coherent global dialogue about the kinds of service delivery alternatives we want to promote. We have focused on current efforts to make public services more democratic, participatory, equitable, transparent and environmentally sound.\r\n\r\nEquity emerges as an important criterion for alternatives because inequity is arguably the single largest concern with privatization, leaving scores of marginalized groups with little or no access to health care and other services. We are particularly interested in equity along class, gender and ethnic lines, and how public services have attempted to overcome these disparities. \r\n\r\nOur aim has been to construct a bridge between universal criteria (such as equity) and the particularity of different locations. We recognize the unique realities of each region and the fact that there are no ideal models (in opposition to the neoliberal approach that sweeps away differences and pushes a one-size-fits-all solution). Uganda is not Uruguay is not Ulan Bator, but there are core values and objectives that underscore our definitions of what it means to provide a successful public service and consistent ways to evaluate this success. \r\n\r\nAfrica may be the weakest region in terms of such successful initiatives, as identified by our researchers, but there is robust popular resistance to privatization and it may play to the continent\u2019s advantage that lessons can be drawn from experiments in other parts of the world. \r\n\r\nIn the chapter on alternatives to privatization in the African health care sector \u2013 African Triage \u2013 Yoswa Dambisya and Hyacinth Eme Ichoku identify and evaluate promising models for more equitable health systems. First, they explore community-based health insurance schemes (or mutuelles de sant\u00e9), which aim to extend benefits to populations excluded from traditional social protection programs and operate on voluntary and non-profit bases, promoting principles of mutual aid, solidarity, and pooling of risk. These systems offer protection from catastrophic health costs and facilitate cross-subsidization. In Rwanda and Tanzania, it appears that such schemes would increase the chances of seeking assistance from formal health care providers rather than opting for self-medication or traditional healers. Ghana also developed an interesting alternative at the community level, sending nurses to live in villages to reduce barriers to geographical access, and setting up local health oversight committees. However, these schemes can also suffer from limited revenue due to low population coverage and can result in a situation where the poorest cross-subsidize the less poor. In short, these types of insurance models can complement, but not substitute, strong government involvement in health system financing.\r\n\r\nSecond, Dambisya and Ichoku review national health insurance schemes. These are more formal than community-based models but also allow pooling of risk and cross-subsidization of health services, equalizing financial access. Important shortcomings are that they do not erase geographical barriers, leaving rural populations at a disadvantage, and that they cover those in the informal sector last \u2013 even though these groups are probably the neediest. Further, such initiatives may not be viable where there is rampant corruption and high mistrust of authorities, as the failure to implement plans for national health insurance in Uganda and Zimbabwe may indicate.\r\n\r\nFinally, faith-based organizations emerge as the largest single health care provider outside of government in most of Sub-Saharan Africa. Mission hospitals appear to offer the best quality care, generally operate in an efficient manner, and have stood the test of time. What may be more problematic is the issue of accountability and community participation. Policy makers should look into ways of better integrating these large players into national health systems.\r\n\r\nFindings from Latin America and Asia present a very different picture of alternatives to privatization in the health sector, however, and offer some intriguing lessons for Africa, as do lessons from the water and electricity sectors in all regions studied. But despite the differences it is the commonalities that are most encouraging, highlighting a commitment from policy makers, frontline workers, activists and academics to a world that is not dictated by the demands of the market, celebrating public systems that work and pushing for innovative reforms where they don\u2019t.  \r\n\r\nIn the end, the book is just a start and the final chapter concludes with a series of future research and activist priorities, pointing to a long-term and exciting challenge for those committed to a world of social and economic equity.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please read the book Alternatives to Privatization: Public Options for Essential Services in the Global South published in Africa by HSRC Press and available at http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"An approach to addressing governance from a health system framework perspective","field_subtitle":"Mikkelsen-Lopez I, Wyss K and de Savigny D: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(13), 2 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/11/13","body":"In this paper, researchers reviewed contemporary health sector frameworks which have focused on defining and developing indicators to assess governance in the health sector. Based on these, they propose a simplified approach to look at governance within a common health system framework which encourages stewards to take a systematic perspective when assessing governance. Although systems thinking is not unique to health, examples of its application within health systems has been limited. This approach is built largely on prior literature, but is original in that it is problem-driven and promotes an outward application taking into consideration the major health system building blocks at various levels in order to ensure a more complete assessment of a governance issue rather than a simple input-output approach. Based on an assessment of contemporary literature the authors propose a practical approach which we believe will facilitate a more comprehensive assessment of governance in health systems leading to the development of governance interventions to strengthen system performance and improve health as a basic human right.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Antiretrovirals and the use of traditional, complementary and alternative medicine by HIV patients in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: a longitudinal study","field_subtitle":"Peltzer K, Friend-du Preez N, Ramlagan S, Fomundam H, Anderson J and Chanetsa L: African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines. 8(4):337-345, 2011","field_url":"http://www.hsrc.ac.za/research/output/outputDocuments/5841_Peltzer_Traditionalcomplementaryalternative.pdf","body":"The aim of this prospective study (20 months) was to assess HIV patients' use of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (TCAM) and its effect on anti-retroviral (ARV) adherence at three public hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Seven hundred and thirty-five (29.8% male and 70.2% female) patients who consecutively attended three HIV clinics completed assessments prior to ARV initiation, 519 after 6 months, 557 after 12 and 499 after 20 months on antiretroviral therapy (ART). Results indicate that following initiation of ARV therapy the use of herbal therapies for HIV declined significantly from 36.6% prior to ARV therapy to 8% after 6 months, 4.1% after 12 months and 0.6% after 20 months on ARVs. Faith healing methods (including spiritual practices and prayer) declined from 35.8% to 22.1%, 20.8% and 15.5%, respectively. In contrast, the use of micronutrients, such as vitamin supplements, significantly increased from 42.6% to 78.2%. Herbal remedies were mainly used for pain relief, as immune booster and for stopping diarrhea. As herbal treatment for HIV was associated with reduced ARV adherence, patient's use of TCAM should be considered in ARV adherence management, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Biofuels and food security: Green economy in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Chinweze C, Abiola-Oloke G, Kennedy-Echetebu C And Jideani C: United Nations Research Institute For Social Development, 22 November 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cdb6fvo","body":"In Africa, agricultural land covers less than 15% of the land area, yet demand from transnational companies is increasing for arable terrain. This demand is driven by the assumption that biofuels are a viable long-term solution to current energy and ecological challenges, combined with a decline in land allocated to agriculture in developed countries. The inclusion of biofuels as part of the green economy agenda jeopardises the immediate and long-term food security of many regions in the developing world, according to this paper. In sub-Saharan Africa, rising food prices, land grabs, and precarious and informal labour conditions are key social threats linked to the emphasis on biofuel production. In Africa, a region already under pressure from population growth, famine, drought and conflict, increases in biofuel production and concomitant land grabs can only contribute to weakening food security and keeping achievement of the Millennium Development Goals far beyond reach.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for nominations for the 2012 Red Ribbon Award","field_subtitle":"Closing Date: 29 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.redribbonaward.org/index.php?option=com_content%20&view=article&id=394&Itemid=274%20&lang=en","body":"The Red Ribbon Award honours and recognises exceptional grassroots leadership in responding to the AIDS epidemic. Ten community-based organisations will be selected through a community-led process and invited to attend the 19th International AIDS Conference in Washington DC, United States, from 22 to 27 July 2012 where they will have the opportunity to showcase their work. All 10 organisations will receive US$10,000 each. Eligible organisations include grassroots initiatives, community-based organisations, faith-based organisations, small non-governmental organisations and organisations of people living with HIV. Themes include: prevention of sexual transmission; prevention among people who use drugs; treatment, care and support; advocacy and human rights; and stopping new HIV infections in children and keeping mothers alive (women\u2019s health).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for post-doctoral fellowship applications: The Achieve Research Partnership \u2018Action For Health Equity Interventions\u2019","field_subtitle":"Application Deadline: 13 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.crich.ca/education.php","body":"ACHIEVE is aimed to equip new researchers with the competencies necessary for closing the gap between measuring inner city health inequities and reducing them. The program has two main foci: Population Health and Health Services Interventions Research; and Community Engagement, Partnerships, and Knowledge Translation. Three to five Fellows may be accepted for the 2012-2014 term. To be eligible, you must have a PhD completed within the past three years or a health professional degree plus Master\u2019s level degree (Master\u2019s degree completed within the past three years). If you are currently completing your PhD/ Master\u2019s degree, you must expect to complete all requirements of this degree by 1 September 2012. Acceptance to the programme cannot be deferred.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Changes in malaria morbidity and mortality in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa (2001-2009): a retrospective study","field_subtitle":"Ngomane L and de Jager C: Malaria Journal 11(19), 13 January 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-11-19.pdf","body":"This study aimed to assess the changes in the burden of malaria in Mpumalanga Province during the past eight malaria seasons (2001/02 to 2008/09) and whether indoor residual spraying (IRS) and climate variability had an effect on these changes. This is a descriptive retrospective study based on the analysis of secondary malaria surveillance data (cases and deaths) in Mpumalanga Province. Within the study period, a total of 35,191 cases and 164 deaths due to malaria were notified in Mpumalanga Province. There was a significant decrease in the incidence of malaria from 385 in 2001/02 to 50 cases per 100,000 population in 2008/09. The incidence and case fatality (CFR) rates for the study period were 134 cases per 100,000 and 0.54%, respectively. Mortality due to malaria was lower in infants and children and higher in those >65 years, with the mean CFR of 2.1% as compared to the national target of 0.5%. Mpumalanga Province has achieved the goal of reducing malaria morbidity and mortality by over 70%, partly as a result of scale-up of IRS intervention in combination with other control strategies. These results highlight the need to continue with IRS together with other control strategies until interruption in local malaria transmission is completely achieved. However, the goal to eliminate malaria as a public health problem requires efforts to be directed towards the control of imported malaria cases; development of strategies to interrupt local transmission; and maintaining high quality surveillance and reporting system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Clinical practice guidelines within the Southern African Development Community: a descriptive study of the quality of guideline development and concordance with best evidence for five priority diseases","field_subtitle":"Kredo T, Gerritsen A, van Heerden J, Conway S and Siegfried N: Health Research Policy and Systems 10(1), 5 January 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-10-1.pdf","body":"There is limited data on availability, quality and content of guidelines within the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This evaluation aimed to address this gap in knowledge and provide recommendations for regional guideline development. The authors prioritised five diseases: HIV in adults, malaria in children and adults, pre-eclampsia, diarrhoea in children and hypertension in primary care. A comprehensive electronic search to locate guidelines was conducted between June and October 2010 and augmented with email contact with SADC Ministries of Health. The authors identified 30 guidelines from 13 countries, publication dates ranging from 2003-2010. Overall the 'scope and purpose' and 'clarity and presentation' domains of the AGREE II instrument scored highest, with a median of 58% and 83% respectively. 'Stakeholder involvement' followed with median 39%. The authors recommend that future guideline development processes within SADC should better adhere to global reporting norms requiring broader consultation of stakeholders and transparency of process. A regional guideline support committee could harness local capacity to support context appropriate guideline development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Collaboration between infection control and occupational health in three continents: a success story with international impact","field_subtitle":"Yassi A, Bryce EA, Breilh J, Lavoie M, Ndelu L, Lockhart K and Spiegel J: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(Suppl 2):S8, 8 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-11-S2-S8.pdf","body":"Canadian occupational health and infection control researchers have found that training is key to a positive safety culture, leading them to develop information and communication technology (ICT) tools to promote occupational health and infection control. The South African government invited the Canadian team to work with local colleagues, resulting in an improved web-based health information system to track incidents, exposures, and occupational injury and diseases, just in time for the H1N1 pandemic. Research from these experiences led to strengthened focus on building capacity of health and safety committees, and new modules are thus being created, informed by that work. The international collaboration between occupational health and infection control researchers in Canada, Ecuador and South Africa led to the improvement of the research framework and development of tools, guidelines and information systems. Furthermore, the research and knowledge-transfer experience highlighted the value of partnership amongst Northern and Southern researchers in terms of sharing resources, experiences and knowledge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Comparing antiretroviral treatment outcomes between a prospective community-based and hospital-based cohort of HIV patients in rural Uganda","field_subtitle":"Kipp W, Konde-Lule J, Rubaale T, Okech-Ojony J, Alibhai A, Saunders DL: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(Suppl 2):S12, 8 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-11-S2-S12.pdf","body":"This intervention study aimed to assess the effectiveness of a rural community-based anti-retroviral therapy (ART) programme in a subcounty (Rwimi) of Uganda and compare treatment outcomes and mortality in a rural community-based ART programme with a well-established hospital-based programme. Successful treatment outcomes after two years in both the community and hospital cohorts were high. All-cause mortality was similar in both cohorts. However, community-based patients were more likely to achieve viral suppression and had good adherence to treatment. The community-based programme was slightly more cost-effective. The unpaid community volunteers showed high participation and low attrition rates for the two years that this programme was evaluated. Key successes of this study include the demonstration that ART can be provided in a rural setting, the creation of a research infrastructure and culture within Kabarole\u2019s health system, and the establishment of a research collaboration capable of enriching the global health graduate programme at the University of Alberta.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Competition Commission may probe healthcare","field_subtitle":"Visser A: Business Day, 30 December 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=161831","body":"South Africa\u2019s Competition Commission is considering initiating a market inquiry into the private healthcare industry reminiscent of its probe into the banking sector a few years ago, which recommended lower banking costs. Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has condemned high healthcare costs and accused the private health sector of engaging in \"uncontrolled commercialism\" and \"destructive, unsustainable practices\".  Tembinkosi Bonakele, deputy commissioner of the Competition Commission, said that the commission was \"likely\" to commence with an inquiry because of growing concern about the high cost of private healthcare and the effect this had on the public healthcare system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Confronting uneven and combined development theory","field_subtitle":"Bond P, Desai A, Ngwane T: 17 January 2012","field_url":"http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/default.asp?2%2C68%2C3%2C2523","body":"This paper describes the contemporary contours of protest in South Africa, and the dominance of the Tripartite Alliance and its embrace of neoliberal policies. It discusses the development of a strategic impasse among South African social movements. The authors present and critique several theoretically informed alternative routes out of or around the apparent cul-de-sac. They pose the strategic questions for an agency-centred South African left.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Database of medical journals: African Index Medicus ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://indexmedicus.afro.who.int/iah/fulltext/Dec2010-jan2012GeoMapReport.pdf","body":"The African Region of the World Health Organisation (WHO/AFRO) manages this database of medical journals, which has recently increased its share of African medical journals to 156, some with open access. For the full list of these journals, visit the website. Other documents such as medical dissertations/theses and grey literature are also available.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Descriptive Review and Evaluation of the Functioning of the International Health Regulations (IHR) Annex 2 ","field_subtitle":"Anema A, Druyts E, Hollmeyer HG, Hardiman MC and Wilson K: Globalization and Health 8(1), 10 January 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-8-1.pdf","body":"Annex 2 of the International Health Regulations (IHRs) outlines decision-making criteria for State-appointed National Focal Points (NFP) to report a potential  public health emergency of international concern to the World Health Organisation (WHO), and is a critical component to the effective functioning of the IHRs. The aim of this study was to review and evaluate the functioning of Annex 2 across WHO-reporting States Parties. The evaluation found that the IHR's Annex 2 is perceived as useful for guiding decisions about notifiability of potential public health emergency of international concern. There is scope for the WHO to expand training and guidance on application of the IHR's Annex 2 to specific contexts. Continued monitoring and evaluation of the functioning of the IHR is reported to be imperative to promoting global health security.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Diabetes, HIV and other health determinants associated with absenteeism among formal sector workers in Namibia","field_subtitle":"Guariguata L, de Beer I, Hough R, Bindels E, Weimers-Maasdorp D, Feeley FG and Rinke de Wit TF: BMC Public Health 12(44), 18 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-44.pdf","body":"While previous studies have assessed the impact of single conditions on absenteeism, the current study evaluates multiple health factors associated with absenteeism in a large worker population across several sectors in Namibia. From March 2009 to June 2010, a series of cross-sectional surveys of 7,666 employees in seven sectors of industry were conducted in Namibia. Results indicated that, controlling for demographic and job-related factors, high blood glucose and diabetes had the largest effect on absenteeism, followed by anemia and being HIV positive. In addition, working in the fishing or services sectors was associated with an increased incidence of sick days. The highest prevalence of diabetes was in the services sector, with the highest prevalence of HIV in the fishing sector. The authors conclude that both non-communicable disease risk factors and infectious diseases are associated with increased rates of short-term absenteeism of formal sector employees in Namibia. Programmes to manage these conditions could help employers avoid costs associated with absenteeism, they recommend, which could include basic health care insurance including regular wellness screenings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Effect of nutritional supplementation of breastfeeding HIV positive mothers on maternal and child health: findings from a randomised controlled clinical trial","field_subtitle":"Kindra G, Coutsoudis A and Esposito F: BMC Public Health 11(946), 22 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-946.pdf","body":"This study aimed to assess the effect of nutritional supplementation to HIV infected lactating mothers on nutritional and health status of mothers and their infants. It took the form of a randomised controlled clinical trial to study the impact of nutritional supplementation on breastfeeding mothers. Measurements included anthropometry; body composition indicators; CD4 count, haemoglobin and albumin; as well as incidence rates of opportunistic infections; depression and quality of life scores. Infant measurements included anthropometry, development and rates of infections.c The researchers found that the supplement made no significant impact on any maternal or infant outcomes. However in the small group of mothers with low BMI, the intake of supplement was significantly associated with preventing loss of lean body mass. There was no significant impact of supplementation on the infants.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"EPA not a priority for Africa says AU","field_subtitle":"Ghana Business News: 5 December 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2011/12/05/economic-partnership-agreement-not-a-priority-for-africa-%E2%80%93-au","body":"The Deputy Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, Erastus Jarnalese Onkundi Mwencha, says the structure of the economic partnership agreement between the continent and the European Union is not to Africa\u2019s advantage, arguing instead for regional integration. He explained that regional integration will help develop larger markets, foster greater competition and improve the policy stance in many areas of the development agenda. Progress towards increased intra-African trade as a major objective of an economic integration agenda has been less than impressive, he added. The structures of African economies have been intended to produce raw materials for export. Mwencha argues that African countries need to add value to their raw materials and use the rest of the continent as a base for industrialisation and trade.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org Website: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 132: Alternatives to privatization of services","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Policy brief 28: Implementing the WHO Global code of Practice on the International Recruitment of health Personnel in Africa","field_subtitle":"SEATINI, ACHEST AND TARSC: 2011","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Polbrief28%20Code.pdf","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Code of practice on the international recruitment of health personnel was adopted by the 63rd World Health Assembly in May 2010 in response to the intensifying movement of health workers, especially from low to high income countries. This movement of health workers aggravates inequity, particularly with regard to the number of health workers relative to health need. The WHO Code is a voluntary ethical framework. This policy brief looks at the developments in Sub-Saharan Africa since the adoption of this code with regards to its implementation. It presents the activities required to monitor its implementation and what actions have so far been implemented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluating a streamlined clinical tool and educational outreach intervention for health care workers in Malawi: the PALM PLUS case study","field_subtitle":"Sodhi S, Banda H, Kathyola D, Burciul B, Thompson S, Joshua M et al: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(Suppl 2):S11, 8 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-11-S2-S11.pdf","body":"PALM PLUS (Practical Approach to Lung Health and HIV/AIDS in Malawi) is an intervention designed to simplify and integrate existing Malawian national guidelines into a single, simple, user-friendly guideline for mid-level health care workers. Training utilises a peer-to-peer educational outreach approach. Research is being undertaken to evaluate this intervention to generate evidence that will guide future decision-making for consideration of roll out in Malawi. In the first phase of qualitative inquiry respondents from intervention sites demonstrated in-depth knowledge of PALM PLUS compared to those from control sites. Participants in intervention sites felt that the PALM PLUS tool empowered them to provide better health services to patients. Interim staff retention data shows that there were, on average, three to four staff departing from the control and intervention sites per month. Additional qualitative, quantitative and economic analyses are planned. This initiative is an example of South-South knowledge translation between South Africa and Malawi, mediated by a Canadian academic-NGO hybrid. Success in developing and rolling out PALM PLUS in Malawi suggests that it is possible to adapt and implement this intervention for use in other resource-limited settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Fighting syphilis and HIV in women and children: Lessons from Uganda and Zambia","field_subtitle":"Bitarakwate E, Strasser S, Sripipatana T and Pollakusky J: Global Health (Winter 2012), January 2012","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthmagazine.com/cover_stories/fighting_syphilis_and_hiv","body":"According to this article, in sub-Saharan Africa, co-infection of syphilis and HIV is a serious public health challenge, with women and young children among the most vulnerable groups. Unfortunately, although HIV testing has become more accessible for pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa as part of routine antenatal care, in many countries, including Uganda and Zambia, syphilis testing must still be accessed at separate sites. The researchers in this study identified high rates of syphilis and HIV co-infection in pregnant women in both countries: in Uganda 14.3% of syphilis-positive pregnant women also tested positive for HIV, and the rate was 24.2% in Zambia. But newly devised rapid syphilis testing has made it easier to integrate syphilis screening into services provided at antenatal clinics to prevent mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV. As a result, there has been swift and direct policy change in Uganda and Zambia to further the goal of eliminating congenital syphilis and pediatric HIV and AIDS, as the Ministries of Health in Uganda and Zambia, are incorporating rapid syphilis testing into their standard package of PMTCT services and antenatal care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Future of India\u2019s generic medicines industry uncertain","field_subtitle":"Khor M: Third World Network, 14 January 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/2012/health20120101.htm","body":"India has one of the best patent laws in the world that still gives some space to its producers to make generic drugs. But international health organisations such as UNAIDS, UNITAID and Medicins Sans Frontieres have raised serious concerns that recent trends may threaten India\u2019s role as the chief supplier of affordable medicines to Africa and other developing countries. The old policy space has been eroded because many new drugs since 2005 have been patented by multinational companies which are selling them at exorbitant prices. Indian companies can no longer make their own generic versions of these new medicines unless they successfully apply to the government for compulsory licences, and that is quite cumbersome; or unless they obtain a licence from the patent-owning multinational, and that usually comes with stringent conditions, especially for export. Another worry is that India is negotiating a free trade agreement with the European Union. Such agreements usually contain provisions such as data exclusivity and extension of the patent term, which prevents or hinders generic production. Finally, six Indian companies have recently been bought up by large foreign firms. If this trend continues, the Indian drug market may be dominated by multinationals again. It is uncertain whether they will continue to supply the developing world with cheap generic medicines when this may be in conflict with their own branded products.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"GAVI money welcome but could it be more wisely spent?","field_subtitle":"Medicins Sans Frontiers: 14 June 2011","field_url":"http://msf.org/msf/articles/2011/06/gavi-money-welcome-but-could-it-be-more-wisely-spent.cfm","body":"Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) argues in this article that big pharmaceutical companies are charging too much for their vaccines used in the developing world. Price disclosures by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Johnson & Johnson show that these companies have been selling some vaccines at premiums of up to 180%. According to MSF, GSK and Pfizer are selling 30 million doses of pneumococcal vaccines annually to GAVI at a reduced price of US$3.20 through a scheme called Advance Market Commitment, but are also each getting a subsidy of US$215 million. Emerging country suppliers like India\u2019s Serum Institute have said they could sell similar pneumococcal vaccine products for US$2 a dose \u2013 a 40% reduction on the GSK and Pfizer price. Serum Institute said recently that if they had not faced patent restrictions, the vaccine could have been available by 2012 \u2013 now it is not expected until 2015. Technology transfer and product development grants to low-cost suppliers are being supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but these sums are dwarfed by the Advance Market Commitment subsidy to Big Pharma. MSF calls on GAVI to start thinking about more affordable vaccines and calls on government donors to pressurise GAVI to foster competition and to push for products especially adapted for developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Geographical distribution of financial flows to developing countries 2011: Disbursements, commitments, country indicators","field_subtitle":"Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development: February 2011","field_url":"http://www.researchandmarkets.com/product/128e0d/geographical_distribution_of_financial_flows","body":"This book provides comprehensive data on the volume, origin and types of aid and other resource flows to around 150 developing countries. The data show each country's intake of official development assistance and well as other official and private funds from members of the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD, multilateral agencies and other key external funders. Key development indicators are given for reference. The data cover net and gross disbursements, commitments, terms and the sector/purpose allocation of bilateral Official Development Assistance commitments. The aim of the book is to present a comprehensive record of the external financing of each country shown. The data show the transactions of each recipient country with: DAC member countries (individually or as a group); multilateral agencies (individually or as a group); and other major external funders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund collusion with liquor giant is a clear conflict of interest","field_subtitle":"Matzopoulos R, Parry CDH, Corrigall J, Myers J, Goldstein S and London L: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(1): 67-69, January 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/1/11-091413.pdf","body":"Alcohol is the third leading contributor to death and disability in South Africa, where SABMiller is the major supplier of malt beer, the most popular beverage consumed. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) has recently included SABMiller as a recipient of funding for an education intervention aimed at minimizing alcohol-related harm, including HIV prevention, among men in drinking establishments. Global Fund support for this initiative is cause for concern, according to the authors of this article. They argue that it is debatable whether these men are the best target group for the intervention, whether a drinking establishment is the best location, and whether the educational intervention itself is effective. The authors argue that the industry supports interventions that will not affect drinking rates at a population level. These interventions allow the industry to fulfil social and legal obligations to address the harmful use of alcohol while ensuring that sales and profits are maintained. Providing funding for an industry that could afford to fund its own interventions also reduces the funds available for less well-resourced organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health governance as shared health governance","field_subtitle":"Ruger JP: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (2011), 14 December 2011","field_url":"http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1973693","body":"The author of this article develops select components of an alternative model of shared health governance (SHG), which aims to provide a \u2018road map,\u2019 \u2018focal points\u2019 and \u2018the glue\u2019 among various global health actors to better effectuate cooperation on universal ethical principles for an alternative global health equilibrium. Key features of SHG include public moral norms as shared authoritative standards; ethical commitments, shared goals and role allocation; shared sovereignty and constitutional commitments; legitimacy and accountability; country-level attention to international health relations. A framework of social agreement based on \u2018overlapping consensus\u2019 is contrasted against one based on self-interested political bargaining. A global health constitution delineating duties and obligations of global health actors and a global institute of health and medicine for holding actors responsible are proposed. Indicators for empirical assessment of select SHG principles are described. The author concludes that global health actors, including states, must work together to correct and avert global health injustices through a framework of SHG based on shared ethical commitments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health research, partnership, and equity: no more business-as-usual","field_subtitle":"Zarowsky C: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(Suppl 2):S1, November 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/11/S2/S1","body":"This supplement of BMC International Health and Human Rights consists of a collection of 10 case studies showcasing effective global health research. The collection provides practical, transferable lessons for research partnerships working to address health inequities. In the context of increasing competition for individual or institutional \"leadership\" of the field (and business) of global health, these papers instead speak of active and sustained collaboration - listening, responsiveness, flexibility, willingness and capacity to follow as well as to lead - in learning what to transform or sustain, and how, in order to move towards greater equity in both health and health research. In addition, they challenge conventional models of research focused on narrowly defined research questions and a narrow range of pre-specified research methods, documenting instead how both the research questions and the methods most appropriate to address them change over time. Finally, they challenge both the idea of \"pure\" science undertaken by independent researchers on behalf of science and specific communities, and the conventional wisdom that North-South and research-research user-community partnerships are necessarily either North and researcher-driven, or scientifically dubious.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Grand strategy and global health: The case of Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Bradley EH, Taylor L, Skonieczny M and Curry LA: Global Health Governance V(1) (Fall 2011), 21 November 2011","field_url":"http://blogs.shu.edu/ghg/2011/11/21/grand-strategy-and-global-health-the-case-of-ethiopia/","body":"Despite successes in global health to combat specific diseases, progress remains slow particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, researchers discuss two challenges in the global health landscape currently: the changes in global health governance and the recurrent pendulum swing between horizontal (health systems focused) to vertical (single-disease focused) programming by external funders and agencies. Using Ethiopia as a case study, their analysis highlights leadership actions that promoted both vertical and horizontal objectives. These included: clarity and country ownership of purpose, authentic engagement with diverse partners, appropriately focused objectives, and the leveraging of management to mediate policy decisions and front-line action. The authors conclude that effective leadership in global health can reconcile vertical and horizontal objectives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health workers at the core of the health system: Framework and research issues ","field_subtitle":"Anand S, B\u00e4rnighausen T Health Policy (2011), 25 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/knowledge/resources/frameworkandresearch_dec2011.pdf","body":"This paper presents a framework for the health system with health workers at the core. The authors reviewed existing health-system frameworks and the role they assign to health workers, finding that earlier frameworks either do not include health workers as a central feature of system functioning or treat them as one among several components of equal importance. As every function of the health system is either undertaken by or mediated through the health worker, the authors argue that the health worker should be placed at the centr of the health system. They describe six research issues on the health workforce: metrics to measure the capacity of a health system to deliver healthcare; the contribution of public- vs private-sector health workers in meeting healthcare needs and demands; the appropriate size, composition and distribution of the health workforce; approaches to achieving health-worker requirements; the adoption and adaption of treatments by health workers; and the training of health workers for horizontally vs vertically structured health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthcare In Africa Conference: 6-7 March 2012, Cape Town, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Registration Dates Not Announced","field_url":"http://cemea.economistconferences.com/event/healthcare-africa","body":"The Healthcare in Africa conference will take place from 6-7 March 2012 in Cape Town, South Africa. It aims to bring together influential healthcare stakeholders from government, providers, suppliers and patient groups to confront and explore key issues around healthcare systems in Africa. Activities include interactive online brainstorming sessions, presentations of case studies and lectures form specialists and other stakeholders in healthcare in Africa. The following topics will be addressed: What is the right balance of private and public healthcare for Africa? How can healthcare systems best meet the demands of both infectious and chronic diseases? What are the best practices for affordable medicine in Africa, and what can be learnt from other emerging markets?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementation of TRIPS and Access to Medicines for HIV after January 2016: Strategies and Options for Least Developed Countries ","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: November 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/JC2258_techbrief_TRIPS-access-medicines-LDC_en.pdf","body":"Least developed countries (LDCs) have used the 2016 transition period for TRIPS and have demonstrated the value of the flexibility provided by the extension. There remains opportunity to further enhance the benefits of this transition period through the end of the period in 2016. LDCs and other stakeholders, like civil society, can all play a role in maximising opportunities to improve access to HIV-related medicines in least developed countries during this period. By January 2016, the patenting situation of HIV-related medicines, particularly second and third-line treatments, as well as diagnostics, will be even more complex than it was in 2001 when the Doha Declaration was adopted. Therefore LDCs will continue to need maximum flexibility beyond January 2016 with respect to their TRIPS obligations in order to address their public health needs. There are clear parameters and rationale for granting LDCs further extension before full pharmaceutical patenting is required. The case for extension should be made clearly and in timely manner by LDCs with the support of other WTO Members and international organisations, such as UNAIDS. It is key that a coherent legal, political and practical case is presented, complying with TRIPS procedures, in order to ensure success.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequality overshadows tenth anniversary of Doha Round of trade talks","field_subtitle":"International Trade Union Confederation: 14 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.ituc-csi.org/inequality-overshadows-tenth.html?lang=en","body":"The international trade union movement has warned of growing social unrest and increased social hardship if trade liberalisation continues against the backdrop of harsh unemployment and austerity measures. Sharan Burrow, General Secretary International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), said that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has done nothing to prevent trade imbalances growing to unsustainable levels accompanied by dangerously widening income inequality. The ITUC is calling for an evaluation of the Doha round outcomes to assess its impact on providing decent work, improved living standards and diversifying the economies of developing countries. It argues that, without measuring the impact on developing countries and workers, it makes little sense to move forward with trade liberalisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Health Related Problems (The) ICD-10. 2010 Edition","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/en/","body":"The ICD is the international standard diagnostic classification for all general epidemiological, many health management purposes and clinical use. These include the analysis of the general health situation of population groups and monitoring of the incidence and prevalence of diseases and other health problems in relation to other variables such as the characteristics and circumstances of the individuals affected, reimbursement, resource allocation, quality and guidelines. It is used to classify diseases and other health problems recorded on many types of health and vital records including death certificates and health records. In addition to enabling the storage and retrieval of diagnostic information for clinical, epidemiological and quality purposes, these records also provide the basis for the compilation of national mortality and morbidity statistics by WHO Member States.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Interpreting TRIPS: Globalisation of Intellectual Property Rights and Access to Medicines","field_subtitle":"Yamane H: Hart Publishing, March 2011","field_url":"http://www.hartpub.co.uk/books/details.asp?isbn=9781841139531","body":"This book examines various views of the role of intellectual property rights (IPRs) as incentives for innovation against the backdrop of development and the transfer of technology between globalised, knowledge-based, high technology economies. The book retraces the origins, content and interpretations of the TRIPS Agreement, including its interpretations by WTO dispute settlement organs. It also analyses sources of controversy over IPRs, examining pharmaceutical industry strategies of emerging countries with different IPR policies. The continuing international debate over IPRs is examined in depth, as are TRIPS rules and the controversy about implementing the 'flexibilities' of the Agreement in the light of national policy objectives. The author concludes that for governments in developing countries, as well as for their business and scientific communities, a great deal depends on domestic policy objectives and their implementation. IPR protection should be supporting domestic policies for innovation and investment. This, in turn requires a re-casting of the debate about TRIPS, to place cooperation in global and efficient research and development at the heart of concerns over IPR protection.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Keeping health workers and facilities safe in war","field_subtitle":"Serle J and Fleck F: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(1): 8-9, January 2012","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/90/1/12-030112/en/index.html","body":"The nature of armed conflict is changing, putting health workers increasingly in harm\u2019s way. A new campaign by the Red Cross, the Health Care in Danger strategy, aims to raise awareness and improve conditions on the ground for health workers and facilities in conflict zones. The harm done when health workers are attacked is not limited to the assault itself, but has a knock on effect that can deprive patients of treatment. The intensity of attacks on health care workers has increased, according to Physicians for Human Rights, but they acknowledge there is a lack of reliable data.  Because of the blurred nature of contemporary war, health facilities find themselves providing services to both sides of a conflict and exposing themselves in doing so. According to this article, it has become more common for soldiers to enter a hospital to settle scores, for example, or indeed for government forces to come looking for insurgents and prevent doctors from treating opponents. M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF), recommends negotiating what may be called the \u201cparameters of intervention\u201d before starting operations, which requires communicating and negotiating with all the relevant military and paramilitary actors to create the neutral space in which medical services can be offered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya climate hearings 2011: Communities speak out","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: 11 November, 2011 ","field_url":"http://blogs.oxfam.org/en/blog/11-11-11-kenya-climate-hearings-2011-communities-speak-out","body":"In the run up to the 2011 United Nations climate conference \u2013 hosted in Durban, South Africa, from 28 November to 1 December \u2013 Oxfam supported communities to speak out about the impact that climate change is having on their lives. In drought-prone areas of Kenya, Oxfam worked with communities to organise climate hearings. This document reports that at time of writing four million Kenyans faced hunger as a result of failed rains. The northern regions of Turkana and Wajir experienced chronic drought, leaving over half the population dependant on food aid. The hearings were seen as a vital opportunity for communities to speak out about the dramatic impact that climate change is having on their lives. Testimony from the hearings painted a devastating picture of lives and livelihoods that have been severely disrupted by what communities see as a changing climate. Feedback from the hearings indicate that cattle are crucially important to pastoralists, but with changing weather patterns, cattle-rearing is more and more difficult, and livestock are reduced to feeding on polythene paper and human waste. Women in particular were found to suffer from the consequences of a changing climate, with livestock death leading to food insecurity, falling household incomes and child school drop out. The findings of the hearings were taken to the United Nations Climate Change Summit in Durban in end November 2011.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mainstreaming Health Equity in the development agenda of Africa countries","field_subtitle":"UN Economic Commission for Africa","field_url":"http://www.uneca.org/acgd/docs/Health%20Equity_2009_Final.pdf","body":"This report presents the findings of a study on \u201cMainstreaming health equity into the development agenda in Africa\u201d. A steep gradient in health outcomes between rural and urban areas, between better-off households and the less better-off are due in part to inequities in health. Reducing inequities in health is integral to success in reaching the targets of the three health-related MDGs and the other MDGs where health is an important component. The Report shows that policy makes a difference and that success requires that health equity is clearly mainstreamed in the national development plan because it provides the overall strategic direction to ensuring that development is more inclusive; it can infuse the multi-sectoral linkages required in addressing health inequities; and can strengthen the case for increased resources to health. In only a few countries are there identified health equity-focused strategies to\r\nbe implemented. Most of the plans outline strategies that are aimed at universal coverage of health services and take the goal of equity as given. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Missing the Target 9: The Long Walk: Ensuring comprehensive care for women and families to end vertical transmission of HIV","field_subtitle":"International Treatment Preparedness Coalition: December 2011","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/MTT9%20Final.pdf","body":"Most prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programmes in Africa are still not following a comprehensive approach around the four pillars as recommended by the UN strategy, according to this paper,  despite the evidence on how critical interventions such as improving access to family planning and HIV prevention knowledge and tools support the goal of ending vertical transmission of HIV. Many women in the developing world continue to receive sub-optimal drugs and confusing messages about infant feeding, undermining even the slow \u2018progress\u2019 made on pillar three. And far too many women and infants in need of treatment are leaving prevention of vertical transmission programmes without any follow-up treatment, care and support. Research conducted in a number of African countries has revealed several barriers to care, such as lack of involvement of men in PMTCT services, lack of implementation of WHO guidelines on prevention of vertical transmission and infant feeding, prohibitive costs of ANC, delivery, diagnostic tests, OI and STI treatment, and transportation to distant clinics, and stigma, combined with a shortage of trained health care workers, long waiting times and lack of integrated services under one roof.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New blog on South Africa\u2019s health system","field_subtitle":"Health Policy SA","field_url":"http://healthpolicysa.com/","body":"In this new blog, Jane Doherty, a researcher and lecturer at the Wits University School of Public Health in South Africa, takes the view that South Africa must move towards a health system that is fair and functional. She discusses the proposed national health insurance (NHI) scheme for South Africa, introducing readers to a range of issues relevant to the new NHI. For example, relevant legislation, in the form of the government\u2019s Green Paper on the NHI is presented, and Doherty discusses the motivations behind the NHI, such as the urgent need to reduce South Africa\u2019s high levels of maternal mortality, and she also considers the employment impact of the NHI, contending that claims that the NHI will cause job losses are unfounded. There are links to Doherty\u2019s research, as well as to other interesting and relevant research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Overcoming the barriers: How to ensure future food production under climate change in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Vincent K, Joubert A, Cull T, Magrath J and Johnston P: Oxfam, 9 November 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/20111109-overcoming-barriers-southern-africa-en_1.pdf","body":"Farmers in Southern Africa are experiencing changes to their climate that are different in magnitude to what they have experienced in the past. Farmers interviewed for this report say that these changes are increasing the risk of poor yields or crop failure. The observations of farmers are largely borne out by meteorological data, particularly on rising temperatures \u2013 ongoing climate change, bringing increasing temperatures and changes to precipitation patterns, is projected to make food production more difficult. Southern African farmers are already actively experimenting with changing agricultural practices, and looking for ways to diversify their livelihoods in response climate and other stresses, within their resource constraints. But where large-scale farmers, in the main, can access the resources needed to adapt, small-scale farmers face major obstacles. The authors argue that policy makers need to identify the barriers for farmers, particularly smallholder farmers, as they attempt to adapt to the new climate and other environmental, economic and political pressures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Patient- and provider-level risk factors associated with default from tuberculosis treatment, South Africa, 2002: A case-control study","field_subtitle":"Finlay A, Lancaster J, Holtz TH, Weyer K, Miranda A and van der Walt M: BMC Public Health 12(56), 20 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-56.pdf","body":"The authors of this study conducted a national retrospective case control study to identify factors associated with tuberculosis treatment default in South Africa using programme data from 2002 and a standardised patient questionnaire. The sample included 3,165 TB patients from eight provinces; 1,164 were traceable and interviewed. Significant risk factors associated with default among both groups included poor health care worker attitude and changing residence during TB treatment. New TB patients that defaulted were more likely to report having no formal education, feeling ashamed to have TB, not receiving adequate counseling about their treatment, drinking any alcohol during TB treatment, and seeing a traditional healer during TB treatment. Among retreatment patients, risk factors included stopping TB treatment because they felt better, having a previous history of TB treatment default, and feeling that food provisions might have helped them finish treatment. In conclusion, risk factors for default differ between new and re-treatment TB patients in South Africa. Addressing default in both populations with targeted interventions is critical to overall programme success.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of women: Implications for  access to Abortion at the Regional level","field_subtitle":"Ngwena C: International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Vol. 110, pp. 163-166, 2010","field_url":"http://ssrn.com/abstract=1983526","body":"Article 14(2)(c) of the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women enjoins States Parties to take appropriate measures \"to protect the reproductive rights of women by authorising medical abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest, and where continued pregnancy endangers the mental and physical health of the mother or the life of the mother or the foetus.\" This paper considers the implications of Article 14 for access to safe, legal abortion. It is submitted that Article 14 has the potential to impact positively on regional abortion law, policy and practice in three main areas. First, it takes forward the global consensus on combating abortion as a major public health danger. Second, it provides African countries with not just an incentive, but also an imperative for reforming abortion laws in a transparent manner. Third, if implemented in the context of a treaty that centers on the equality and non-discrimination of women,Article 14 has the potential to contribute towards transforming access to abortion from a crime and punishment model to a reproductive health model. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Reflections on health-care reforms in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Ruff B, Mzimba M, Hendrie S and Broomberg J: Journal of Public Health Policy 32: S184\u2013S192, July 2011","field_url":"http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jphp/journal/v32/n1s/full/jphp201131a.html","body":"In this paper, the authors describe an economic framework, including demand- and supply-side factors, for approaching the analysis and planning of health system reform in South Africa, in order to avoid piecemeal debates. They argue that there is an urgent need to re-engineer the way health facilities are internally organised to achieve better productivity and responsiveness. They further argue that funding is not the central problem of the South African public health system but rather the enormous inefficiencies in management and low productivity; and that separating the purchase from the supply side is a critical component of making significant efficiency gains. Finally, they suggest that income inequalities and a divided health system in South Africa are departure points for reform initiatives. The government must build on the strengths of the South African health system in preparation for the eventual achievement of a more homogeneous health-care system across the public and private sectors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Register for the Thirteenth World Congress On Public Health: 23-27 April 2011, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Registration deadline: 14 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.etpha.org/2012/index.php","body":"The Ethiopian Public Health Association and the World Federation of Public Health Associations invite public health professionals from around the world to participate in the Thirteen World Congress on Public Health 2012. The theme of the conference is \u2018Towards global health equity: Opportunities and threats\u2019. The conference has four main objectives. It is intended to serve as an international forum for the exchange of knowledge and experiences on key public health issues, as well as contribute towards protecting and promoting public health at global, continental and national levels. It is also intended to help create a better understanding of Africa\u2019s major public health challenges within the global public health community and to facilitate and support the formation of the African Federation of Public Health Associations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration now open for Forum 2012: 24-26 April 2012, Cape Town, South Africa","field_subtitle":"COHRED And The Global Forum","field_url":"http://www.forum2012.org/","body":"Forum 2012 will bring together key actors to make research and innovation work for health, equity and development: governments, industry, social enterprise, non-governmental organisations, researchers, media, funders , international organisations and others. Partipcipants will explore who will explore ways to go \u2018beyond aid\u2019 by building on the rapidly expanding research and innovation capacity of low- and middle-income countries as basis for development. The Forum has three main themes: improving and increasing investments in research and innovation; networking and partnerships in research, technological innovations, social innovations and delivery of better health care; and improvement of health, equity and development of low-income countries by creating a supportive environment, including priority setting in research for health, fair research contracting, research cooperation and ethics, nanotechnologies, technological and social innovations, and using the web as a tool for planning research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration open for SEYCOHAIDS 2012","field_subtitle":"8-10 June 2012: Lilongwe, Malawi","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5ty3mor","body":"SEYCOHAIDS 2012 is the largest international gathering for young people on HIV and AIDS in the Eastern and Southern Africa region, where young researchers, policy makers, activists, educators and people living with HIV will be able to link with people in other countries and meet to share and learn about HIV prevention methods, treatments, care policies and programmes relating to HIV and AIDS in Africa. The broad objectives for the Conference are to: ensure effective and meaningful youth participation in international AIDS response; identify gaps and challenges in government policies in providing youth-friendly HIV and AIDS services; develop regional and country-level strategic programmes for youth and HIV and AIDS; identify and build the capacity of new and emerging youth leaders for the AIDS response to ensure sustainability of youth initiatives at the national, regional and international levels; sustain adult-youth partnerships and dialogue; develop the Southern and Eastern Africa youth network on HIV and AIDS; develop country specific youth networks on HIV and AIDS; establish funding mechanisms for regional and country youth networks; and monitor government and donor commitments to youth and HIV and AIDS. Applicants must be no older than 35 years old at the time of the application.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Service availability and utilisation and treatment gap for schizophrenic disorders: a survey in 50 low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Lora A, Kohn R, Levav I, McBain R, Morris J and Saxena S: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 90(1): 47-54B, January 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/entity/bulletin/volumes/90/1/11-089284.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers set out to outline mental health service accessibility, estimate the treatment gap and describe service utilisation for people with schizophrenic disorders in 50 low- and middle-income countries. They found that the median annual rate of treatment for schizophrenic disorders in mental health services was 128 cases per 100,000 population. The median treatment gap was 69% and was higher in participating low-income countries (89%) than in lower-middle-income and upper-middle-income countries (69% and 63%, respectively). Of the people with schizophrenic disorders, 80% were treated in outpatient facilities. The availability of psychiatrists and nurses in mental health facilities was found to be a significant predictor of service accessibility and treatment gap. In conclusion, the treatment gap for schizophrenic disorders in the 50 low- and middle-income countries in this study is disconcertingly large and outpatient facilities bear the major burden of care. The significant predictors found suggest an avenue for improving care in these countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Socioeconomic-related health inequality in South Africa: evidence from General Household Surveys","field_subtitle":"Ataguba J, Akazili J, McIntyre D: International Journal for Equity in Health 2011, 10:48","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/10/1/48","body":"Studies on the burden of ill-health in South Africa have shown consistently that, relative to the wealthy, the poor suffer more from more disease and violence. However, these studies are based on selected disease conditions and only consider a single point in time. Trend analyses have yet to be produced. This paper specifically investigates socio-economic related health inequality in South Africa and seeks to understand how the burden of self-reported illness and disability is distributed and whether this has changed since the early 2000s. This study demonstrates the existence of socio-economic gradients in self-reported ill-health in South Africa. The burden of the major categories of ill-health and disability is greater among lower than higher socio-economic groups. Even non-communicable diseases, which are frequently seen as diseases of affluence, are increasingly being reported by lower socio-economic groups. The current burden and distribution of ill-health indicates how critical it is for the South African health system to strive for access to and use of health services that is in line with need for such care. Concerted government efforts, within both the health sector and other social and economic sectors are therefore needed to address the significant health inequalities in South Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Swaziland: No money, no CD4 tests","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 23 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94707","body":"Swaziland is still short of lab reagents needed for CD4 count testing, used to initiate and monitor patients on antiretroviral treatment. Shortages of HIV programme supplies in Swaziland were first reported in mid-2011. Although the stock-outs have been largely blamed on reduced revenues from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), the country also opted not to apply for funding in Round 10 from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. Instead, it chose to assume financial responsibility for HIV treatment itself, at a time when SACU revenues were already expected to decline. Health Minister Themba Xaba said in a statement that the government needed US$875,000 to purchase the CD4 machine reagents.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The Commission on Macroeconomics and Health: 10 years on","field_subtitle":"Das P And Samarasekera U: The Lancet,378(9807): 1907-1908, 3 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article /PIIS0140-6736(11)61828-X/fulltext","body":"In 2001, the World Health Organisation\u2019s Commission for Macroeconomics and Health (CMH) released its report, \u2018Macroeconomics and Health: Investing in health for economic development\u2019, urging the international community to invest substantially in health as a means of promoting development. According to this article, many observers credit the report as one of the key drivers for successfully raising the profile of global health in the international arena and promoting the long-neglected link between health and wealth. But reports on the success of the Commission are mixed. Howard Stein of the University of Michigan criticises the Commission for failing to mention the causes of poverty and poor health, including the gross inequities of the global economy caused by neoliberalism, suggesting that this is a consequence of the fact that most Commission members supported neoliberal economic policies at the time. Although at least 60 countries now offer a basic health care package, the concept failed to be supported by external funders, who continue to fund specific vertical interventions rather than an integral set of services. The Commission expected the pharmaceutical industry to voluntarily lower prices, which the authors argue has not happened.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Debate: Why is equity in health care crucial for the well being of children?","field_subtitle":"Victora C, Vega J, Chopra M: Research Watch - the web TV/magazine of the UNICEF Office of Research - 2012","field_url":"http://bit.ly/wsUmlg","body":"All too often what has been counted falls back into a traditional paradigm of economic inequity \u2013 measuring poorest and richest quintiles \u2013 not for lack of interest but for lack of agreement on an appropriate measure, let alone what priority measures should be. While we all recognize the need to go further, tested and validated measures bringing attention to geographic, ethnic, age and gender disparities are few, let alone those which truly measure inequities and inequalities in health and the related availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of services as mandated under the right to health. But this panel argues that this must be the goal, with important implications for the health and well-being of children. Christopher Garimoi Orach from Makerere University School of Public Health, Kampala, gives an insight into research on the unmet needs of new and expectant mothers in displaced populations in Uganda, and Gavin Mooney from the University of Cape Town discusses research on the impact of health care payments on families, and in particular on the well-being of children. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The global governance of bioethics: Negotiating UNESCO\u2019s Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (2005)","field_subtitle":"Langlois A: Global Health Governance V(1) (Fall 2011), 21 November 2011","field_url":"http://blogs.shu.edu/ghg/files/2011/11/Langlois-Adele_The-Global-Governance-of-Bioethics_Fall-2011.pdf","body":"UNESCO\u2019s Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (2005) was drawn up by an independent panel of experts (the International Bioethics Committee) and negotiated by member states. UNESCO aimed for a participatory and transparent drafting process, holding national and regional consultations and seeking the views of various interest groups, including religious and spiritual ones. Furthermore, reflecting UNESCO\u2019s broad interpretation of bioethics, the IBC included medics, scientists, lawyers and philosophers among its membership. Nevertheless, several potential stakeholders - academic scientists and ethicists, government policy-makers and NGO representatives - felt they had not been sufficiently consulted or even represented during the Declaration\u2019s development. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The human cost of cutting global health funding ","field_subtitle":"Spitzer M: Huffington Post, 17 November 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-spitzer/the-human-cost-of-cutting_b_1099870.html","body":"With recent threats by the United states (US) Congress for extensive cuts to the federal government's budget for global health programmes, the author of ths paper argues that there could not be a worse time to pull back from long-standing American commitments to the health of people around the world. The cuts are argued to be particularly brutal at a time when medical science and field research shows the potential to achieve huge advances in the quality and scope of actions in global health. Major progress has been made in terms of providing care to malaria- and HIV-infected individuals. Rather than slashing global health funding, which represents less than 1% of the federal budget, the author argues that the US should be ensuring funding of successful international health initiatives and exploring new ways of generating predictable revenue for vital lifesaving programmes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The human resource for health situation in Zambia: Deficit and maldistribution","field_subtitle":"Ferrinho P, Siziya S, Goma F and Dussault G: Human Resources for Health 9(30), 19 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-9-30.pdf","body":"In this paper, the authors describe the way the human resources for health (HRH) establishment is distributed in the different provinces of Zambia, with a view to assess the dimension of shortages and of imbalances in the distribution of health workers by province and by level of care. They used secondary data from the \"March 2008 payroll data base\", which lists all the public servants on the payroll of the Ministry of Health and of the National Health Service facilities. Results indicate that workers are maldistributed across Zambia. This case study documents how a peaceful, politically stable African country with a longstanding tradition of strategic management of the health sector and with a track record of innovative approaches dealt with its health worker issues, but still remains with absolute and relative shortages of health workers. The Zambia case reinforces the idea that training more staff is necessary to address the health worker crisis, but it is not sufficient and has to be completed with measures to mitigate attrition and to increase productivity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The importance of research in a University","field_subtitle":"Mamdani M: CODESRIA Bulletin 3:4, 2011","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org/IMG/pdf/CODESRIA_Bulletin_3_4_2011.pdf","body":"This paper explores the current situation in universities with respect to research practice. The author observes that the market-driven model is dominant in African universities. The consultancy culture it has nurtured has had negative consequences for postgraduate education and research. Consultants presume that research is all about finding answers to problems defined by a client. They think of research as finding answers, not as formulating a problem. The consultancy culture is institutionalized\r\nthrough short courses in research methodology, courses that teach students\r\na set of tools to gather and process quantitative information, from which\r\nto cull answers. The author calls in contrast for an intellectual environment strong enough to sustain a meaningful intellectual culture.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The report of the UNAIDS Advisory Group on HIV and Sex Work","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS Advisory Group: December 2011","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/20111215_Report-UNAIDS-Advisory-group-HIV-Sex-Work_en.pdf","body":"In this report, the UNAIDS Advisory Group strongly affirms that sex workers and their organisations play a crucial role in confronting HIV and in many places have an outstanding record in helping to achieve universal access. However, sex workers usually face human rights violations and struggle to access HIV and other health and social services. Stigma and discrimination within society results in repressive laws, policies and practices against sex work, as well as their economic disempowerment. Violence against sex workers is too often committed with impunity by state and civilian actors, exacerbating sex workers\u2019 HIV vulnerability. They are often excluded from access to benefits and financial services available to the general population and prevented from forming organisations that enable economic empowerment and social inclusion. In this report, the Advisory Group argues it it necessary for sex workers to enjoy universal access to HIV services, highlighting good practices that enhance human rights protections for sex workers in the hope that the information presented here will help shape programmes and policies on HIV and sex work that are truly human rights-based.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel: The Evolution of Global Health Diplomacy","field_subtitle":"Taylor AL and Dhillon IS: Global Health Governance V(1) (Fall 2011), 21 November 2011","field_url":"http://blogs.shu.edu/ghg/files/2011/11/Taylor-and-Dhillon_The-WHO-Global-Code-of-Practice-on-the-International-Recruitment-of-Health-Personnel_Fall-2011.pdf","body":"The May 2010 adoption of the World Health Organisation Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel created a global architecture, including ethical norms and institutional and legal arrangements, to guide international cooperation and serve as a platform for continuing dialogue on the critical problem of health worker migration. Highlighting the contribution of non-binding instruments to global health governance, this article describes the Code negotiation process from its early stages to the formal adoption of the final text of the Code. Detailed are the vigorous negotiations amongst key stakeholders, including the active role of non-governmental organisations. The article emphasises the importance of political leadership, appropriate sequencing, and support for capacity building of developing countries\u2019 negotiating skills to successful global health negotiations. It also reflects on how the dynamics of the Code negotiation process evidence an evolution in global health negotiations amongst the WHO Secretariat, civil society, and WHO Member States.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development","field_subtitle":"World Bank: December 2011","field_url":"http://wdronline.worldbank.org/includes/imp_images/book_pdf/WDR_2012.pdf","body":"In this report, the World Bank argues that closing persistent gender gaps is important for development, as gender equality is a core development objective in its own right. But it is also smart economics, as greater gender equality can enhance productivity, improve development outcomes for the next generation, and make institutions more representative. Building on a growing body of knowledge on the economics of gender equality and development, the Bank identifies the areas where gender gaps are most significant-both intrinsically and in terms of their potential development payoff-and where growth alone cannot solve the issues. It then sets forth four priorities for public action: Reducing excess female mortality and closing education gaps where they remain; improving access to economic opportunities for women; increasing women's voice and agency in the household and in society; and limiting the reproduction of gender inequality across generations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Trade Organisation and the post-global food crisis agenda: Putting food security first in the international trade system","field_subtitle":"De Schutter O: November 2011","field_url":"http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news11_e/deschutter_2011_e.pdf","body":"In this briefing note, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Food Security argues that existing World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules do include certain flexibilities for States to pursue food security-related measures but many of these modifications to the original Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) are relatively modest and even these are by no means assured with the outcome of the Doha Round highly uncertain. Many elements of the AoA and the draft modalities continue to fall short of offering a favourable policy framework for the realisation of the right to food, such as the narrow range of policy measures that could be used to potentially establish national and regional food reserves and domestic institutions to manage price and income volatility for poor rural households. The report sets out a number of recommendations, such as: ensuring that future criteria of the AoA do not impede the development of policies and programmes to support food security and that they are tailored to the specific national circumstances of developing countries; avoiding defining the establishment and management of food reserves as trade-distorting support; adapting the provisions of the AoA and other WTO agreements (in particular, in the area of public procurement) to ensure compatibility with the establishment of food reserves at national, regional and international level; and allowing marketing boards and supply management schemes to be established.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Third People\u2019s Health Assembly ","field_subtitle":"6-11 July 2012 in Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/node/6148","body":"The People\u2019s Health Assembly (PHA), organised by the People's Health Movement (PHM), is a global event bringing together health activists from across the world to share experiences, analyse global health situation, develop civil society positions and to develop strategies which promote health for all. It will look at forms of action to address identified challenges and build capacity among health activists to act. It is an opportunity for PHM as a whole to reflect on the global struggle, to review and reassess, to redirect and re-inspire. This through analysing PHM\u2019s situation, reflecting on pathways, barriers and strategies, sharing of experiences and crystallising out new directions, slogans, commitments for the movement. PHA3 is not just about developing our movement. It is also about impacting directly in the struggle for social change: for health for all, decent living conditions for all, work in dignity for all, equity and environmental justice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Uptake of prevention of mother to child transmission interventions in Kenya: health systems are more influential than stigma","field_subtitle":"Kinuthia J, Kiariie JN, Farquhar C, Richardson BA, Nduati R, Mbori-Ngacha D and John-Stewart G: Journal of the International AIDS Society 14(61), 28 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-14-61.pdf","body":"The authors of this study set out to determine the relative roles of stigma versus health systems in non-uptake of prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV-1 interventions by conducting a cross-sectional assessment of all consenting mothers accompanying infants for six-week immunisations. Between September 2008 and March 2009, mothers at six maternal and child health clinics in Kenya's Nairobi and Nyanza provinces were interviewed regarding PMTCT intervention uptake during recent pregnancy. Among 2,663 mothers, 2,453 (92.1%) reported antenatal HIV-1 testing. Although internal or external stigma indicators were reported by between 12% and 59% of women, stigma was not associated with lower HIV-1 testing or infant HIV-1 infection rates; internal stigma was associated with modestly decreased antiretroviral uptake. Health system factors contributed to about 60% of non-testing among mothers who attended antenatal clinics and to missed opportunities in offering antiretrovirals and utilisation of facility delivery.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"US-sponsored risky research may affect global flu virus framework","field_subtitle":"Hammond E: Third World Network, 17 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/intellectual_property/info.service/2012/ipr.info.120102.htm","body":"The fallout from United States-sponsored experiments with pandemic influenza strains has raised strong biosafety concerns and raised dilemmas for implementing the World Health Organization's Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (PIP) Framework. Scientists in the United States (US) have created a new, potent virus, and as a result of outbreak fears, US officials have imposed a de facto moratorium on publication of the studies and are debating proposals to censor public versions of the papers, while restricting access to the scientific details to laboratories that have a \"legitimate\" need to know. The situation raises significant issues for the PIP Framework, which emphasises that significant research results with pandemic implications should be reported to the international laboratory system, and that novel potentially pandemic strains should be provided to the WHO System for characterisation by its laboratory network. In this case, however, it appears that the US will not be willing to share its viruses and research results with WHO Member States, contradicting its pro-sharing position taken in the negotiation of the PIP Framework.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"What is \u2018global health diplomacy\u2019? A conceptual review","field_subtitle":"Lee K and Smith R: Global Health Governance V(1) (Fall 2011), 21 November 2011","field_url":"http://blogs.shu.edu/ghg/files/2011/11/Lee-and-Smith_What-is-Global-Health-Diplomacy_Fall-2011.pdf","body":"While global health diplomacy (GHD) has attracted growing attention, accompanied by hopes of its potential to progress global health and/or foreign policy goals, the concept remains imprecise.  This paper finds the term has largely been used normatively to describe its expected purpose rather than distinct features.  This paper distinguishes between traditional and \u201cnew diplomacy\u201d, with the latter defined by its global context, diverse actors and innovative processes.  The authors point to need to strengthen the evidence base in this rapidly evolving area.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Big Think\u2019, disjointed incrementalism: Chinese economic success and policy lessons for Africa, or the case for pan-Africanism","field_subtitle":"Gros J: African Journal Of International Affairs 11(2): 55\u201387, 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajia/article/viewFile /57265/45648","body":"Chinese economic success is not the product of free market accidental coincidence, according to this article \u2013 rather, it is orchestrated by the State through a mixture of nationalism (\u2018big think\u2019) and pragmatic decisions (disjointed incrementalism) in agriculture, finance and industry. By following the Chinese example, the author argues for Pan-Africanism, a form of \u2018big think\u2019. The main obstacle to development in Africa, he argues, may well be how to align the vested, narrow interests of territorially bound rulers with their citizens, whose languages and cultures tend to transcend the colonially determined national boundaries and who are more likely to support development efforts if they are consonant with existing practices and values. The author argues that Pan-Africanism would allow Africa to take advantage of the economies of scale that accrue with larger markets, give Africa better leverage on its natural resources, allow for easier sharing of resources between rich and poor communities and give the continent greater international clout.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"\"Land grabbing\u201d by foreign investors in developing countries: Risks and opportunities","field_subtitle":"Von Braun J. and Meinzen-Dick R: IFPRI Policy Brief April 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/bp013all.pdf","body":"One of the lingering effects of the food price crisis of 2007\u201308 on the world food system is the proliferating acquisition of farmland in developing countries by other countries seeking to ensure their food supplies. Increased pressures on natural resources, water scarcity, export restrictions imposed by major producers when food prices were high, and growing distrust in the functioning of regional and global markets have pushed countries short in land and water to find alternative means of producing food. These land acquisitions have the potential to inject much-needed investment into agriculture and rural areas in poor developing countries, but they also raise concerns about the impacts on poor local people, who risk losing access to and control over land on which they depend. the authors argue that it is crucial to ensure that these land deals, and the environment within which they take place, are designed in ways that will reduce the threats and facilitate the opportunities for all parties involved.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"A systematic review of the literature for evidence on health facility committees in low- and middle-income countries ","field_subtitle":"McCoy D, Hall J and Ridge M: Health Policy and Planning December 8, 2011 ","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/12/08/heapol.czr077.full?ijkey=SVuzQ0Y8N1kNLcw&keytype=ref","body":"This paper presents the findings of a systematic literature review of: (a) the evidence of HFCs' effectiveness, and (b) the factors that influence the performance and effectiveness of HFCs. Four electronic databases and the websites of eight key organizations were searched. Out of 341 potentially relevant publications, only four provided reasonable evidence of the effectiveness of HFCs. A further 37 papers were selected and used to draw out data on the factors that influence the functioning of HFCs. The review found some evidence that HFCs can be effective in terms of improving the quality and coverage of health care, as well as impacting on health outcomes. However, the external validity of these studies is inevitably limited. Given the different potential roles and functions of HFCs and the complex and multiple set of factors influencing their functioning, the authors argue that there is no \u2018one size fits all\u2019 approach to CPH via HFCs, nor to the evaluation of HFCs. However, there are plenty of experiences and lessons in the literature which decision makers and managers can use to optimize HFCs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"A \u2018New Deal\u2019 for engagement in fragile states","field_subtitle":"International Dialogue on Peace-building and State-building: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, December 2011","field_url":"http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/35/50/49151944.pdf","body":"On 1 December 2012, the final day of the Fourth High-level Forum for Aid Effectiveness held in Korea, the International Dialogue on Peace-building and State-building \u2013 consisting of the G7+ group of 19 fragile and conflict-affected countries, development partners and international organisations \u2013 signed a \u2018New Deal\u2019 of development architecture for fragile states. It builds on vision and principles from a range of international agreements, including the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, the Accra Agenda for Action and the Millennium Development Goals, and will be implemented in a trial period from 2012 to 2015. Signatories have agreed to use five peace-building and state-building goals (PSGs): foster inclusive political settlements and conflict resolution, establish and strengthen people\u2019s security, address injustices and increase people\u2019s access to justice, generate employment and improve livelihoods, and manage revenue and build capacity for accountable and fair service delivery. They further commit to support inclusive country-led and country-owned transitions out of fragility, using the PSGs to monitor progress, and to support inclusive and participatory political dialogue. Mutual trust will be fostered by providing reliable external funding, managing resources more effectively and transparently, and aligning resources for results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"ACTION:SDH: New tool on social determinants of health now available","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.actionsdh.org/","body":"This tool is a portal that is intended to provide public health practitioners with all the necessary information they need on the social determinants of health (SDH). ACTION:SDH houses knowledge on the SDH and provides a platform for discussion of action on the SDH. The World Health Organisation (WHO) invites everyone in the SDH community to register on ACTION:SDH. WHO is also actively seeking partners interested in collaborating in building up the tool, together with its users. There are three main features: embedded web-pages pages on SDH knowledge relevant to the five action areas for SDH that were identified in the Rio Declaration of October 2011; discussion forums that can be used to share tacit knowledge from practice - either by invitation only, or open to all members; and a document repository that initially is housing selected WHO materials on SDH. Other standard website features also exist, such as an area for advertising upcoming training (Campus) and upcoming meetings (Events).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Advance market commitment for pneumococcal vaccines: Putting theory into practice","field_subtitle":"Cernuschi T, Furrer E, Schwalbe N, Jones A, Berndt ER and McAdams S: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(12): 913-918, December 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/12/11-087700.pdf","body":"Markets for life-saving vaccines do not often generate the most desired outcomes from a public health perspective in terms of product quantity, quality, affordability, programmatic suitability and/or sustainability for use in the lowest income countries, according to this paper. The perceived risks and uncertainties about sustainably funded demand from developing countries often leads to underinvestment in development and manufacturing of appropriate products. The pilot initiative Advance Market Commitment (AMC) for pneumococcal vaccines, launched in 2009, aims to remove some of these market risks by providing a legally binding forward commitment to purchase vaccines according to predetermined terms. To date, 14 countries have already introduced pneumococcal vaccines through the AMC with a further 39 countries expected to introduce before the end of 2013. The authors of this paper describe early lessons learnt on the selection of a target disease and the core design choices for the pilot AMC. They highlight the challenges faced with tailoring the AMC design to the specific supply situation of pneumococcal vaccines and points to the difficulty \u2013 and the AMC\u2019s apparent early success \u2013 in establishing a long-term, credible commitment in a constantly changing unpredictable environment. One of the inherent challenges of the AMC is its dependence on continuous external funding to ensure long-term purchases of products. The authors examine alternative design choices and aim to provide a starting point to inform discussions and encourage debate about the potential application of the AMC concept to other fields.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa must use revenues from mineral resources to finance development  ","field_subtitle":"Dogbevi EK: Ghana Business News, 12 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2011/12/12/africas-mineral-resources-fuel-development-elsewhere-but-continent-poor-dependent-francois/","body":"Even though Africa\u2019s mineral resources are fuelling growth and development in many industrialised and emerging economies of the world, Africa still remains poor, under-developed and dependent on external funding, according to Jean Noel Francois of the African Union\u2019s Department of Trade and Industry. He was speaking at the opening of the second conference of African Ministers responsible for mineral resources and development held from 12-16 December 2011 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Mr Francois said the 21st century\u2019s commodity boom has alerted emerging global players to link mineral resource exploitation to infrastructure development, but Africa has yet to seize the opportunity to extract better benefits from its mineral resources to promote broad-based and integrated growth and economic development. Another presenter, Stephen Karinga, expressed frustration that Africa has not benefitted from the dramatic increase in prices for minerals since 2003 due to a number of structural weaknesses in its mineral sector. According to Karingi, in 2010, net profits for the top 40 global mining companies grew by 156% to US$110 billion, prompting countries like Australia and India to increase taxes on windfall earnings, yet Africa has been hesitant to do the same for fear of driving away mining companies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS: Five neglected questions for global health strategies","field_subtitle":"Rushton S: Chatham House, 2011","field_url":"http://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/papers/view/179943","body":"The recent rise of health systems strengthening as a policy priority suggests that a move away from single-disease approaches to global health may be occurring. As the largest attempt by far to tackle one disease, the global AIDS effort has acted as a lightning rod for criticisms of global health initiatives focused on single diseases, according to the author of this paper. Global AIDS institutions have sought to respond by broadening their mandates to incorporate some wider systemic interventions into their activities. However, as the debate over addressing particular diseases or investing in health systems continues, five important underlying political and ethical questions are being neglected, including whether there is an ideal health system, the timescales involved, the definition of sustainability, governance/structural capacity and political will. If a more sustained and coordinated effort to improve health outcomes is to become a reality, these difficult questions will need to be tackled, the author concludes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing care for patients with TB/HIV/STI infections in a rural district in KwaZulu-Natal","field_subtitle":"Loveday M, Scott V, McLoughlin J, Amien F, Zweigenthal V: South African Medical Journal, 101(12): 887-890, December 2011","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/5077/3704","body":"This study reported on a participatory quality improvement intervention designed to evaluate TB, HIV and STI priority programmes in primary health care (PHC) clinics in a rural district in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. A participatory quality improvement intervention with district health managers, PHC supervisors and researchers was used to modify a TB/HIV/STI audit tool for use in a rural area, conduct a district-wide clinic audit, assess performance, set targets and develop plans to address the problems identified. The researchers highlighted weaknesses in training and support of staff at PHC clinics, pharmaceutical and laboratory failures, and inadequate monitoring of patients as contributing to poor TB, HIV and STI service implementation. Eighty percent of the facilities experienced non-availability of essential drugs and supplies; polymerase chain reaction (PCR) results were not documented for 54% of specimens assessed, and the mean length of time between eligibility for anti-retroviral therapy and starting treatment was 47 days. Through a participatory approach, a TB/HIV/STI audit tool was successfully adapted and implemented in a rural district. It yielded information enabling managers to identify obstacles to TB, HIV and STI service implementation and develop plans to address these. The audit can be used by the district to monitor priority services at a primary level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing healthcare providers' knowledge and practices relating to insecticide-treated nets and the prevention of malaria in Ghana, Laos, Senegal and Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Hoffman SJ, Guindon G, Lavis JN, Ndossi GD, Osei EJ, Sidibe M and Boupha B: Malaria Journal 10(363), 13 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-363.pdf","body":"This study compares what is known about insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) to the related knowledge and practices of healthcare providers in four low- and middle-income countries. A new questionnaire was administered to 497 healthcare providers in Ghana (140), Laos (136), Senegal (100) and Tanzania (121). In the survey, few participating healthcare providers correctly answered all five knowledge questions about ITNs (13%) or self-reported performing all five clinical practices according to established evidence (2%). Statistically significant factors associated with higher knowledge within each country included: training in acquiring systematic reviews through the Cochrane Library and ability to read and write English well or very well. Statistically significant factors associated with better clinical practices within each country included: reading scientific journals from their own country; working with researchers to improve their clinical practice or quality of working life; training on malaria prevention since their last degree; and easy access to the internet. The researchers conclude that improving healthcare providers' knowledge and practices is an untapped opportunity for expanding ITN utilisation and preventing malaria. Training on acquiring systematic reviews and facilitating internet access may be particularly helpful.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Biofuels and food security: Green economy in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Chinweze C, Abiola-Oloke G, Kennedy-Echetebu C and Jideani C: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 22 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.unrisd.org/unrisd/website/newsview.nsf/%28httpNews%29/D3DDEAB7AC94EDABC125794B00486826?OpenDocument","body":"In Africa, agricultural land covers less than 15% of the land area, yet demand from transnational companies is increasing for arable terrain, driven by the assumption that biofuels are a viable long-term solution to current energy and ecological challenges, combined with a decline in land allocated to agriculture in developed countries. The inclusion of biofuels as part of the green economy agenda jeopardises the immediate and long-term food security of many regions in the developing world, according to this paper. In sub-Saharan Africa, rising food prices, land grabs, and precarious and informal labour conditions are key social threats linked to the emphasis on biofuel production. In Africa, a region already under pressure from population growth, famine, drought and conflict, increases in biofuel production and concomitant land grabs can only contribute to weakening food security and keeping achievement of the Millennium Development Goals far beyond reach.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Bleak outlook for food security in Swaziland","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 15 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94481","body":"Archaic agricultural practices and erratic rainfall in the recent planting period is expected to lead to an increase in food insecurity for most of Swaziland's 1.1 million people in 2012, according to Thembumenzi Dube, a Swazi government agriculture official. He predicted that the country will soon need food assistance for most of its population. Rains failed during the October planting season in the usually productive central middleveld, as well as the generally drought-prone eastern and southern regions. The virtual absence of irrigation systems makes the country dependent on rainfall. Small-scale farmers, who depend on rain-fed agriculture, do not have title deeds, and so cannot use their land as collateral to secure loans for irrigation equipment or other improvements. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Third South African Tuberculosis Conference: 12-15 June 2012, Durban, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Closing Date For Abstracts: 20 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.tbconference.co.za/","body":"The Third South African Tuberculosis (TB) Conference will assess progress towards reaching TB/HIV targets. Abstracts must be in line with one of three tracks. Track 1: Basic Science: This track will focus on improving and expanding the understanding of basic science issues required for the development of new tools and advancing the knowledge base on TB infection. Track 2: Clinical, Epidemiological and Operational Research: This track will focus on the latest findings from controlled clinical trials and research studies aimed at improving the epidemiological, programmatic, health systems and policy components of TB control. Track 3: Patient and Civil Society Mobilisation and Advocacy: This track will focus on achieving broad-based partnerships built on the principles of greater involvement of persons with TB, targeted advocacy, partnerships and the role of civil society in TB control and increasing access to TB diagnosis, treatment and adherence support service.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants for 2012 Oppenheimer Fund Scholarships","field_subtitle":"Closing Date: 6 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.ox.ac.uk/feesandfunding/prospectivegrad /scholarships/university/oppenheimer/","body":"The University of Oxford is seeking applications from students ordinarily resident in South Africa for the 2012 Oppenheimer Fund Scholarships to pursue graduate studies in a variety of fields at Oxford. The Oppenheimer Fund Scholarships are available for ordinarily resident South African students wishing to start any new degree bearing course, with the exception of Post Graduate Certificate and Post Graduate Diploma courses, at the University of Oxford.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: 2012 African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship","field_subtitle":"Submission Deadline: 15 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.aphrc.org/insidepage/?articleid=947","body":"Applications are now open for African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowships (ADDRF). The overall goal of the ADDRF programme is to support the training and retention of highly-skilled, locally-trained scholars in research and academic positions across the region. The ADDRF will award about 20 fellowships in 2012 to doctoral students who are within two years of completing their thesis at an African university. The fellowships targets doctoral students with strong commitment to a career in training and/or research. Candidates whose dissertation topics address health policy or health systems issues will be given special consideration. There are also three fellowships for doctoral students conducting research on health inequities in urban areas or the reproductive health of marginalised urban communities, and two additional fellowships for students whose research focuses on unintended pregnancy and unmet need for family planning in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for concept notes: United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 19 January 2012 ","field_url":"http://www.unwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/UNTFEVAW_2011_Call4Proposals_en.pdf","body":"The United Nations (UN) Trust Fund for 2011 invites proposals in the following areas of action: closing the gap on the implementation of national and local laws, policies and action plans that address violence against women; and addressing violence against women in conflict, post&#8208;conflict and transitional settings. For large civil society organisations, governments and UN Country Teams, budget requests should be US$300,000-1 million for the duration of two to three years. For small civil society organisations, especially grassroots women\u2019s organisations and networks, budget requests will be considered for a minimum of US$100,000. Applicants must be from, or working in, countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development\u2019s list of eligible countries (see www.oecd.org/dac/stats/daclist). The proposal must indicate how the proposed interventions will contribute to national capacity development and ownership of national and local organisations in the implementation. Only one application per country is permitted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for nominations for the 2012 Red Ribbon Award ","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 29 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.redribbonaward.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=394&Itemid=274&lang=en","body":"The Red Ribbon Award honours and recognises exceptional grassroots leadership in responding to the AIDS epidemic. Ten community-based organisations will be selected through a community-led process and invited to attend the 19th International AIDS Conference in Washington DC, United States, from 22 to 27 July 2012 where they will have the opportunity to showcase their work. All 10 organisations will receive US$10,000 each. Eligible organisations include grassroots initiatives, community-based organisations, faith-based organisations, small non-governmental organisations and organisations of people living with HIV. Themes include: prevention of sexual transmission; prevention among people who use drugs; treatment, care and support; advocacy and human rights; and stopping new HIV infections in children and keeping mothers alive (women\u2019s health).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for post-doctoral fellowship applications: The ACHIEVE Research Partnership \u2018Action for Health Equity Interventions\u2019","field_subtitle":"Application deadline: 13 February 2012","field_url":"http://www.crich.ca/education.php","body":"ACHIEVE is aimed to equip new researchers with the competencies necessary for closing the gap between measuring inner city health inequities and reducing them. The program has two main foci: Population Health and Health Services Interventions Research; and Community Engagement, Partnerships, and Knowledge Translation. Three to five Fellows may be accepted for the 2012-2014 term. To be eligible, you must have a PhD completed within the past three years or a health professional degree plus Master\u2019s level degree (Master\u2019s degree completed within the past three years). If you are currently completing your PhD/ Master\u2019s degree, you must expect to complete all requirements of this degree by 1 September 2012. Acceptance to the programme cannot be deferred.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"China\u2019s Foreign Trade White Paper","field_subtitle":"Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China: 7 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.china.org.cn/government/whitepaper/2011-12/07/content_24093509.htm","body":"In its Foreign Trade White Paper, China positions its foreign trade policy as based on constructing all-round economic and trade partnerships with mutually beneficial co-operation. China' s trade with Brazil, India and South Africa has been enjoying rapid growth in recent years, which the Chinese government argues promotes the development of the member countries' respective advantageous industries and shows the broad development prospects of emerging markets. In recent years China has seen relatively fast growth in its trade with other developing countries, including bilateral trade with African countries. Currently over 150 countries and regions have signed agreements on bilateral trade or economic co-operation with China, which has established and maintains high-level economic dialogue mechanisms. Although China's foreign trade is still hampered by many uncertainties and is bound to meet new difficulties and challenges, during the 12th Five-year Plan (2011-2015) the government intends to open itself wider to the outside world as a driver for further reform, development and innovation, and integrate itself into the world economy on a wider scale and at a higher level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Daily lives and corruption: Public opinion in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Transparency International: November 2011","field_url":"http://www.open.ac.uk/technology/mozambique/pics/d133449.pdf","body":"Between 26 April and 5 May 2011, 1,000 people were surveyed in Mozambique by Transparency International. The data were weighted by age, gender and region to represent  the population of 5,852,280 Mozambicans. The study found that 68% of people reported having paid a bribe in the past year. Fifty-six percent of respondents believed that corruption had got worse, with the remainder evenly divided in their perceptions of corruption having improved or remained the same. More than a third of those using health services or education reported that they had to pay a bribe in the 12 months before the survey was conducted. Of these about 60% had to pay a bribe to \u2018speed things up\u2019, 20% had to pay a bribe to avoid problems with authorities, and the remainder had to pay to receive a service to which they were already entitled. Thirty-seven percent paid a bribie less than US$30, while 42% paid a bribe between $30-99. The minimum annual wage ranges from $54 for farm workers to $173 for financial sector employees.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Depression overlooked in treating HIV patients","field_subtitle":"Times of Swaziland, 9 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.times.co.sz/News/35512.html","body":"Speakers at a session on stigma at the 16th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa, held in December 2011 in Ethiopia, noted that HIV patients in Africa frequently suffer shame and depression but the continent\u2019s health systems were ill-equipped to handle the issue, which not only affected their quality of life, but could lead to poor adherence to HIV treatment regimens. They said while HIV programmes focus heavily on reducing externalised stigma and ill-treatment of HIV patients by society, little is done to deal with a patients\u2019 self-perception and how that might deteriorate following an HIV diagnosis. Studies from Zambia and Uganda have shown that depression is the most common psychiatric disorder among people living with HIV, and is more prevalent among HIV-positive people than in the general population. The Mbabane Mental Health Support Group, an advocacy group from Swaziland, calls for the integration of mental health services into primary healthcare as well as that of HIV positive people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Do we have the DRC rape crisis wrong?","field_subtitle":"Seay L: The Atlantic, 24 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/05/do-we-have-the-congo-rape-crisis-all-wrong/239328/","body":"The author of this article points to research suggesting that rape by non-military actors in the Democratic Republic of Congo may account for up to 40% of cases in the DRC, that not all rapists are men and not all victims women.  She also points to the need to maintain a focus on comprehensive health care needs, noting that  a humanitarian focus on rape alone creates perverse incentives, undermines more comprehensive service delivery and feeds into negative stereotypes, undermining recognition and measures to address the political crisis or areas of failure of service delivery. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Doha Declaration celebrates its tenth anniversary","field_subtitle":"World Trade Organisation: 23 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news11_e/trip_23nov11_e.htm","body":"The tenth anniversary of the November 2001 Doha Ministerial Declaration on TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) and Public Health was celebrated at the Symposium on Global Health Diplomacy, held in November 2011 at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) headquarters in Switzerland. According to Pascal Lamy, head of the WTO, before the declaration was issued, intellectual property (IP) protection and the WTO\u2019s TRIPS Agreement were often considered simply to be an obstacle to public health, but stakeholders have realised the two issues are not contradictory. Lamy added that the main responsibility for ensuring coherence on the public health/IP agenda is within national governments, including how IP is handled in bilateral or regional free trade agreements. Lamy highlighted two benefits of the Declaration. First, it allowed ministers to alter the TRIPS agreement so that developing countries could use compulsory licences to manufacture generic medicines exclusively for export to countries unable to make them themselves (the Paragraph 6 system). Second, the Declaration led the WTO to scale up technical assistance to developing countries on understanding and implementing various flexibilities (such as compulsory licensing and parallel importing) in the TRIPS Agreement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Donor transparency and aid allocation","field_subtitle":"Faust J: German Development Institute, December 2011  ","field_url":"http://www.die-gdi.de/CMS-Homepage/openwebcms3_e.nsf/%28ynDK_contentByKey%29/ANES-8NUE5M/$FILE/DP%2012.2011.pdf","body":"In recent years, the transparency of foreign aid has received substantial attention among aid practitioners. This analysis shows the impact of political transparency in donor countries on those countries\u2019 formal promotion of aid transparency and on their concrete aid allocation patterns. Political transparency as measured by standard corruption indices not only impacts on the engagement of bilateral external funders (donors) in the International Aid Transparency Initiative. Differences in political transparency in donor countries also explain a large part of their varying aid selectivity patterns. External funders with higher levels of political transparency allocate aid more according to recipients\u2019 neediness and institutional performance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Durban climate talks ending: Polluters won, people lost","field_subtitle":"Green Peace: 11 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/en/mediacentre/media-releases/climate/Durban-climate-talks-ending-Polluters-won-people-lost/","body":"As COP 17, the latest round of UN climate talks in South Africa, drew to a close Greenpeace declared that it was clear governments across the world listened to the carbon-intensive polluting corporations instead of listening to the people - people who want an end to global dependence on fossil fuels and real and immediate action on climate change. Negotiators blocking the imperative to set concrete goals, led by the United States, have succeeded in inserting a vital get-out clause that could easily prevent the next big climate deal being legally binding, according to Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International Executive Director. And the deal is due to be implemented 'from 2020' leaving almost no room for increasing the depth of carbon cuts in this decade when scientists say we need emissions to peak. Naidoo said that the global climate regime amounts to nothing more than a voluntary deal that\u2019s being put off for a decade. Greenpeace campaigners decried the failure of political leadership to prosecute polluters and provide a fair, ambitious and legally binding agreement, thereby ignoring the poor in Africa and other parts of the world that stand to be most severely affected by climate change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Ecohealth research in practice: Innovative applications of an ecosystem approach to health","field_subtitle":"Charron DF (ed): International Development Research Centre, 2011","field_url":"http://idl-bnc.idrc.ca/dspace/bitstream/10625/47809/1/IDL-47809.pdf","body":"Nearly two decades after the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Rio Summit), the world still needs to alleviate poverty and improve human lives through more equitable access and use of resources and healthier environments. Understanding that human health depends on ecosystems, researchers are cutting a new path toward a more sustainable future. An ecosystem approach to health, integrating research and practice from such fields as environmental management, public health, biodiversity, and economic development, is based on an understanding that people are part of complex socio-ecological systems. Featuring case studies from around the world, Ecohealth Research in Practice demonstrates innovative practices in agriculture, natural resource management, community building, and disease prevention, reflecting the state of the art in research, application, and policymaking in the field. The book demonstrates how ecohealth research works and how it has led to lasting changes for the betterment of peoples\u2019 lives and the ecosystems that support them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"EPA not a priority for Africa says AU","field_subtitle":"Ghana Business News: 5 December 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2011/12/05/economic-partnership-agreement-not-a-priority-for-africa-%E2%80%93-au/","body":"The Deputy Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, Erastus Jarnalese Onkundi Mwencha, says the structure of the economic partnership agreement between the continent and the European Union is not to Africa\u2019s advantage, arguing instead for regional integration. He explained that regional integration will help develop larger markets, foster greater competition and improve the policy stance in many areas of the development agenda. Progress towards increased intra-African trade as a major objective of an economic integration agenda has been less than impressive, he added. The structures of African economies have been intended to produce raw materials for export. Mwencha argues that African countries need to add value to their raw materials and use the rest of the continent as a base for industrialisation and trade.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion Paper 88: Research to support strategic leadership in global health diplomacy in east, central and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R, Machemedze R and Manyau E: November 2011","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss%2088%20GHD%20Research.pdf","body":"This publication reports from stakeholders the information and knowledge gaps and research priorities on global health diplomacy (GHD) in Africa to inform regional discussion on a research agenda for GHD. The findings indicate that research on GHD should identify factors that support the effectiveness of GHD in addressing selected key challenges to health strengthening systems in Eastern and Southern Africa, in a way that strengthens the capacity of key African policy actors and stakeholders within processes of health diplomacy. . The findings indicate a preference from officials and policy makers to do this in three broad areas: i. Firstly, to explore the implementation of existing global commitments in the region, to learn lessons from the current experience, generate evidence for input to monitoring and review of the commitments, and to inform future health negotiations. ii. Secondly, to explore the extent to which African interests are advanced in areas under global health negotiation, to assess the implications, costs and benefits of specific issues for the diverse countries in the region, and the different negotiating positions of countries in and beyond the region. iii. Thirdly to explore how effectively interests in the region are being represented in the current global architecture and governance, including of the global initiatives that fund health, to inform African engagement on global governance reforms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. SUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 131: Lessons learned from removing user fees for health services in low-income countries ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity Watch: Assessing progress towards equity in health, Uganda, 2010","field_subtitle":"Zikusooka CM, Loewenson R, Tumwine M and Mulumba M: November 2011","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Uganda%20EW%20Nov2011%20lfs.pdf","body":"The Equity Watch monitors progress in areas of equity in health, household access to the resources for health, equitable health systems and global justice. This report provides evidence on the performance of Uganda\u2019s public policies and systems in promoting and attaining equity in health using the Equity Watch framework. The evidence presented in this report indicates progress in some key areas, such as in closing social and geographical gaps in access to education, safe water, immunisation and other areas of primary health care. It also highlights challenges, including in coverage of maternal health services and in the distribution of health workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Estimating the costs of induced abortion in Uganda: A model-based analysis ","field_subtitle":"Babigumira JB, Stergachis A, Veenstra DL, Gardner JS, Ngonzi J, Mukasa-Kivunike P and Garrison LP: BMC Public Health 11(904), 6 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-904.pdf","body":"The demand for induced abortions in Uganda is high despite legal and moral proscriptions. Abortion seekers usually go to illegal, hidden clinics where procedures are performed in unhygienic environments by under-trained practitioners. This study was performed to estimate the costs associated with induced abortions in Uganda. Data were obtained from a primary chart abstraction study, an on-going prospective study, and the published literature. Results showed that the average societal cost per induced abortion was US$177, equivalent to $64 million in annual national costs. Of this, the average direct medical cost was $65 and the average direct non-medical cost was $19. The average indirect cost was $92, while patients incurred $62 costs on average while government incurred $14 on average. In conclusion, induced abortions are associated with substantial costs in Uganda and patients incur the bulk of the healthcare costs. This reinforces the case made by other researchers - that efforts by the government to reduce unsafe abortions by increasing contraceptive coverage or providing safe, legal abortions are critical.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors associated with mosquito net use by individuals in households owning nets in Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Graves PM, Ngondi JM, Hwang J, Getachew A, Gebre T, Mosher AW et al: Malaria Journal 10(354), 13 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-354.pdf","body":"Ownership of insecticidal mosquito nets has dramatically increased in Ethiopia since 2006, but the proportion of persons with access to such nets who use them has declined. The authors of this study argue that it is important to understand individual level net use factors in the context of the home to modify programmes so as to maximise net use. They investigated net use using individual level data from people living in net owning households from two surveys in Ethiopia: baseline 2006 included 12,678 individuals from 2,468 households and a sub-sample of the Malaria Indicator Survey (MIS) in 2007 included 14,663 individuals from 3,353 households. In both surveys, they found that net use was more likely by women, if nets had fewer holes and were at higher net per person density within households. School-age children and young adults were much less likely to use a net. Increasing availability of nets within households (i.e. increasing net density), and improving net condition while focusing on education and promotion of net use, especially in school-age children and young adults in rural areas, are crucial areas for intervention to ensure maximum net use and consequent reduction of malaria transmission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors associated with non-adherence to highly active antiretroviral therapy in Nairobi, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Wakibi SN, Ng'ang'a ZW and Mbugua GG: AIDS Research and Therapy 8(43), 5 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.aidsrestherapy.com/content/pdf/1742-6405-8-43.pdf","body":"Published data on adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Kenya is limited. This study assessed adherence to ART and identified factors responsible for non-adherence in Nairobi. This is a multiple facility-based cross-sectional study, where 416 patients aged over 18 years were systematically selected and interviewed using a structured questionnaire about their experience taking ART. Additional data was extracted from hospital records. Overall, 403 patients responded: 35% males and 65% females, of whom 18% were non-adherent, and the main (38%) reasons for missing therapy were being busy and forgetting. Accessing ART in a clinic within walking distance from home and difficulty with dosing schedule predicted non-adherence. The study found better adherence to HAART in Nairobi compared to previous studies in Kenya. However, the authors argue that adherence can be improved further by employing fitting strategies to improve patients' ability to fit therapy into their lifestyles and implementing cue-dose training to impact forgetfulness. Further work to determine why patients accessing therapy from ART clinics within walking distance from their residence did not adhere is recommended.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"First results of Phase 3 Trial of RTS,S/AS01 malaria vaccine in African children","field_subtitle":"The RTS,S Clinical Trials Partnership: New England Journal Of Medicine, 18 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1102287#t=articleTop","body":"An ongoing Phase 3 study of the efficacy, safety and immunogenicity of candidate malaria vaccine RTS,S/AS01 is being conducted in seven African countries, including Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. From March 2009 through January 2011, 15,460 children were enrolled in two age categories - 6 to 12 weeks and 5 to 17 months old - for vaccination with either RTS,S/AS01 or a non-malaria comparator vaccine. After 250 children had an episode of severe malaria, researchers evaluated vaccine efficacy in both age categories. Vaccine efficacy in the combined age categories was 34.8% during an average follow-up of 11 months. Serious adverse events occurred with a similar frequency in the two study groups. Among children in the older age category, the rate of generalised convulsive seizures after vaccination was 1.04 per 1,000 doses. The researchers conclude that the RTS,S/AS01 vaccine provided protection against both clinical and severe malaria in African children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Food security in South Africa: A review of national surveys","field_subtitle":"Labadarios D, Mchiza ZJ, Steyn NP, Gericke G, Maunder EMW, Davids YD and Parker W: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(12): 891-899, December 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/12/11-089243.pdf","body":"The objective of this study was to assess the status of food security in South Africa. The authors conducted a systematic search of national surveys that used the Community Childhood Hunger Identification Project (CCHIP) index to measure food security in South Africa over a period of 10 years (1999\u20132008). Anthropometric data for children aged 1\u20139 years were used to assess food utilisation, and household food inventory data were used to assess food availability. The authors found that only three national surveys had used the CCHIP index, namely, the 1999 and 2005 National Food Consumption Surveys (NFCS) and the 2008 South African Social Attitudes Survey. These surveys showed a relatively large decrease in food insecurity between 1999 and 2008. However, the consistent emerging trend indicated that in poorer households women were either feeding their children a poor diet or skipping meals so their children could eat. In terms of food access and availability, the 1999 NFCS showed that households that enjoyed food security consumed an average of 16 different food items over 24 hours, whereas poorer households spent less money on food and consumed fewer than 8 different food items. Moreover, children had low mean scores for dietary diversity and dietary variety scores. In terms of food utilisation, the NFCS showed that stunting in children decreased from 21.6% in 1999 to 18% in 2005. Despite these improvements, the authors conclude that the South African government still needs to implement measures to improve the undesirably high level of food insecurity in poorer households.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Food sovereignty systems: Feeding the world, regenerating ecosystems, rebuilding local economies, and cooling the planet","field_subtitle":"Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa: 2011","field_url":"http://www.africanbiodiversity.org/system/files/images/AFSA%20Document.pdf","body":"The vast majority (70%) of the world\u2019s population is fed and nourished by local, ecological systems of food production, according to this paper.  But these systems are severely threatened and undermined by industrial systems of agriculture that are controlled by corporations and promoted by governments.  These industrial systems have exacerbated or even created the multiple crises of rising food prices, poverty, climate change and biodiversity loss.  The Food Sovereignty movement prioritises the protection of domestic and local agricultural production.  This will require a fundamental shift in global trade rules, resulting in less international trade.  Long-distance trade in foods should focus on those things which cannot be produced in every region, such as traditional \u2018cash crops\u2019 of coffee and tea. And if international trade in goods such as coffee, tea and bananas is to continue, and to still contribute to food sovereignty through the rediversification of local economies and environmental protection, it must follow the principle of \u2018Fair Trade Miles\u2019. This involves a mixture of \u2018fair trade\u2019 and the limiting of \u2018miles\u2019 between producer and consumer in order to minimise fossil fuel contributions to climate change.  The creation of national and regional common markets is crucial, as well as a changing the aim of international trade to favour localism, rather than global competitiveness.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Funding available for African and Canadian students as part of 2012 graduate research grants","field_subtitle":"Closing Date For Applications: 15 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.africaportal.org/exchange","body":"The Africa Initiative announces a call for applications for the 2012 graduate research grant programme. Grants of up to $10,000 (CAD) will be awarded to 15 African students applying to study in Canada and 15 Canadian students to conduct field-based research in Africa. Applications must be submitted by January 15, 2012. As part of the Africa Initiative, a joint undertaking by The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in cooperation with Makerere University and the South African Institute for International Affairs, the Africa Initiative Graduate Research Grant will give special consideration to proposals that present new and policy relevant research, and that cover one or more of the areas of conflict resolution, energy, food security, health, migration and climate change. Successful applicants who are currently enrolled in an African university will spend up to three months at a Canadian university undertaking research funded by the program. The research will lead to a major paper to be considered for publishing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Funding opportunity for registered NGOs to develop and curate thematic pages on a new global youth website","field_subtitle":"No Deadline: Proposals Considered On A Rolling Basis","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6bpzrco","body":"The Youth Initiative of the Open Society Foundations (OSF) is currently seeking proposals from eligible registered NGO\u2019s for up to US$10,000 in funding to develop and curate thematic pages on a new global youth portal and community being developed at www.youthpolicy.org. Youthpolicy.org aims to consolidate knowledge and information on youth policies across the international sector, ranging from analysis and formulation to implementation and evaluation. Themes include, but are not limited to: participation and citizenship; activism and volunteering; children and youth rights; youth with disabilities; global drug policy; community work; research and knowledge; informal learning; youth, environment and sustainability; multiculturalism and minorities; and youth justice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund moves to assure Africans at ICASA","field_subtitle":"Neondo H: Africa Science News, 9 December 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.africasciencenews.org/en/index.php/health/63-health/250-global-fund-moves-to-assure-africans","body":"At the 16th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA), held in December 2011 in Ethiopia, the Global Fund announced that it has put transitional funding mechanisms in place to ensure continued treatment for people living with HIV and AIDS. The mechanisms will bridge funding gaps that may arise following delayed payments by those who had pledged contributions to the Fund. In November 2011 the Fund adopted exceptional measures to suspend Round 11 but denied that the Fund is in financial trouble, arguing that only one of its funders has announced a decrease in funding. It identified the  main problem as delayed payments. According to United States president, Barack Obama, the Fund remains on track to support more than US$8 billion in grant renewals and new grant commitments between 2011 and the end of 2013. The Fund is undergoing reforms to allow it to transition to a more flexible, sustainable and predictable funding model that will ensure that resources go to high-impact interventions and to people who need the help most. The Board has also taken steps to better target Global Fund resources on countries with the greatest need and least ability to pay. The article indicates that this means that at least 55% of Fund resources will be directed to low-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Greater local ownership of HIV research needed in Africa","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 9 December 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=94433","body":"Unless African governments increase their funding for and engagement in HIV research, the continent cannot hope to attain equal status in determining its research agenda and priorities, speakers said at the 16th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) in Africa, held in December 2011 in Ethiopia. Most African health research is driven by external funders, which often means that research starts and ends on the say-so of the funders, rather than being based on a country's needs. Prof Nelson Sewankambo, principal of the College of Health Sciences at Uganda's Makerere University, said heavy external funder involvement in local research can actually harm existing national institutions, which may lose strategic direction and become retarded by the loss of key staff to research projects and distortion of institutional structures and governance. He argued that inequities in collaboration can lead to lack of transparency in the decision-making process, as well as disputes over publication rights, ownership of data, specimens and equipment. Other speakers also noted that inadequate community engagement was common when partnerships were skewed in favour of funders\u2019 priorities and ethical violations occurred in research projects, such as the use of placebos in studies on mother-to-child HIV transmission. They called for new, more equitable partnership models and expansion of local capacity to sustain research activities once externally funded projects ended.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health co-benefits of climate change mitigation: Health care facilities ","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: Policy Brief, December 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hia/hgebrief_health.pdf","body":"While hospitals and health clinics are not a specific focus of mitigation assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, this policy brief notes that adoption of safe and sustainable building measures by health facilities will offer more health co-benefits than the same measures applied to other commercial buildings. This is partly due to health facilities\u2019 large demands for reliable energy, clean water and temperature/air flow control in treatment and infection prevention. Significant health gains also can be expected from specific interventions, such as the use of natural ventilation as an effective energy-saving and infection-control measure. Resilience of health care services may be enhanced through use of (clean) onsite energy co-generation that ensures more reliable energy supply in cities where frequent energy outages occur, and particularly in remote, resource-poor settings, where a basic electricity supply will allow life-saving procedures to be performed. Health risks to health workers, patients and communities will be reduced by improved management of health care and waste \u2013 and so will the carbon footprint. The health care sector is well-positioned to \u2018lead by example\u2019, the World Health Organisation argues, in terms of reducing climate change pollutants and by demonstrating how climate change mitigation can yield tangible, immediate health benefits.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health co-benefits of climate change mitigation: Household energy sector","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: Policy Brief, December 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/entity/hia/hgebrief_henergy.pdf","body":"According to this policy brief, significant gains for both health and climate can be attained by providing access to clean cookstoves and fuels for the 2.7 billion people still dependent on the use of rudimentary, traditional biomass and coal stoves. These stoves are estimated to directly cause about two million deaths annually, including over one million deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and almost another million deaths from pneumonia in children under the age of five. The World Health Organisation estimates that 11% of all chronic lung disease burden in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa among adults over 30 could be averted in less than a decade by the introduction of more advanced biomass or biogas stoves, in pace with United Nations targets for universal energy access, which would also help avoid 17% of all pneumonia deaths among children under five in the same regions. Recent evidence suggests that exposure to indoor air pollution is also associated with non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, stroke, cataract and cancers, notably lung cancer.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health co-benefits of climate change mitigation: Housing sector","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: December 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/entity/hia/hge_housing.pdf","body":"According to the World Health Organisation, the right mix of climate change mitigation policies for the housing sector could lead to very large health co-benefits, including reductions in noncommunicable and infectious diseases. Non-communicable diseases can be reduced through mitigation measures that: reduce exposure to extreme heat and cold; reduce mould and dampness; improve natural ventilation and provide for safer, more energy-efficient home heating and appliances. There is also evidence that housing improvements increase well-being and mental health. Infectious diseasescan be prevented through low-energy and climate-friendly designs to: improve natural ventilation; limit vector and pest infestations (e.g. sealing of cracks, window screening); and improve access to safe drinking water and sanitation as part of planning and siting. Good ventilation is critical to ensure health gains from energy-efficient and weather-tight housing, as insufficient natural ventilation is associated with higher risk of airborne disease transmission, dampness and accumulation of indoor pollutants that are risk factors for allergies and asthma. Energy-efficient biomass and gas cookstoves can help avert a large proportion of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in poor countries by reducing exposure to indoor cookstove smoke.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health co-benefits of climate change mitigation: Transport sector","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: December 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/entity/hia/examples/trspt_comms/hge_transport_lowresdurban_30_11_2011.pdf","body":"Low-carbon transport measures can provide \u2018win-win\u2019 options for developed and developing countries that benefit health as well as reducing climate change, suggests this new report by the World Health Organisation, launched at COP17 in Durban, South Africa on 6 December 2011. Among the measures are better systems for rapid transit, walking and cycling, as well as urban land use that emphasises greater \u2018access\u2019 to key destinations by these modes. These strategies all can help to: promote physical activity, which can prevent heart disease some cancers and type 2 diabetes; reduce health-harming air pollution exposures; and reduce injury risks when cycle/pedestrian networks are made safer. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthcare in Africa Conference: 6-7 March 2012, Cape Town, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Registration Dates Not Yet Announced","field_url":"http://cemea.economistconferences.com/event/healthcare-africa","body":"The Healthcare in Africa conference will take place from 6-7 March 2012 in Cape Town, South Africa. It aims to bring together influential healthcare stakeholders from government, providers, suppliers and patient groups to confront and explore key issues around healthcare systems in Africa. Activities include interactive online brainstorming sessions, presentations of case studies and lectures form specialists and other stakeholders in healthcare in Africa. The following topics will be addressed: What is the right balance of private and public healthcare for Africa? How can healthcare systems best meet the demands of both infectious and chronic diseases? What are the best practices for affordable medicine in Africa, and what can be learnt from other emerging markets?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"High-Level Taskforce to tackle gender inequality","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: 8 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2011/december/20111208uawomen/","body":"A new High-Level Taskforce on Women, Girls, Gender Equality and HIV for Eastern and Southern Africa was launched at the 16th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA). The Taskforce will engage in high-level political advocacy in support of accelerated country actions and monitoring the implementation of the draft Windhoek Declaration for Women, Girls, Gender Equality and HIV, which calls for action in seven key thematic areas including sexual and reproductive health, adopting a multi-stakeholder approach to address violence against women and HIV and the law, gender and HIV. Young women are particularly vulnerable to HIV, accounting for about 70% of young people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. The Taskforce members outlined the directions the group will follow to empower women as well as to hold governments accountable to ensure positive policy development and implementation of legal environments to protect women and girls. Participants outlined the need to engage political leadership to challenge harmful cultural norms and laws such as early marriage and wife inheritance. They argued that the involvement of men and boys in the gender equality equation was equally important.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS: MSM meeting stirs controversy at HIV conference","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 5 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94397","body":"A meeting to address issues around HIV and men who have sex with men went ahead as scheduled in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 3 December 2011, despite protests and calls for its cancellation by local religious leaders. The meeting - held a day before the opening of the 16th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually transmitted infections in Africa (ICASA) - was organized by the South African-based NGO, African Men for Sexual Health and Rights (AMSHeR). Originally due to be held at a local hotel, the venue quietly shifted to the UN compound in Addis Ababa. According to participants, it attracted more than 150 participants from 25 African countries, and focused on addressing the problems MSM faced in accessing HIV services. Speakers included UNAIDS executive director, Michel Sidibe. Before the meeting, four religious leaders had called a press conference to denounce it. Ethiopia's Minister of Health, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, persuaded them to cancel the press conference. Even at the new venue, there were hundreds of protesters outside for half the day, said one participant, Homosexuality is illegal in Ethiopia and punishable by between three and 10 years in prison. While the government allowed the meeting to go ahead, gay rights activists doubt it will lead to a positive change for MSM in Ethiopia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Ill-gotten money and the economy: Experiences from Malawi and Namibia","field_subtitle":"Yikona S, Slot B, Geller M, Hansen B and el Kadiri F: World Bank, December 2011","field_url":"http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTFINANCIALSECTOR/Resources/Ill_gotten_money_and_economy.pdf","body":"According to this study, Malawi\u2019s anti-money laundering (AML) framework has revealed that the main sources of ill-gotten money in the country are corruption and tax evasion, including trade mispricing. Other prevalent forms of crime for profit in Malawi are smuggling of (counterfeit) goods, the production and export of cannabis, organised motor vehicle theft, violent housebreakings, human trafficking and labour exploitation. According to World Bank estimates, income derived from corruption amounts to about 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) in Malawi, while tax evasion constitutes about 8-12% percent of GDP. However, the authors of the study note that these estimates should be treated with caution, as they are not conclusive. The Malawi Revenue Authority is reported to have recovered millions of Kwacha by using the AML tools available to it. Namibia is also reported to be implementing its AML system since May 2009. Further in that country tax evasion stands at an estimated 9% of GDP.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of insecticide-treated bed nets on malaria transmission indices on the south coast of Kenya","field_subtitle":"Mutuku FM, King CH, Mungai P, Mbogo C, Mwangangi J, Muchiri EM et al: Malaria Journal 10(356), 13 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-356.pdf","body":"In southern coastal Kenya, insecticide-treated bed net use was negligible in 1997-1998 but since 2001, bed net use has increased progressively and reached high levels by 2009-2010 with corresponding decline in malaria transmission. In this study, researchers evaluated the impact of the substantial increase in household bed net use in this area. Compared to 1997-1998, and following more than five years of 60-86% coverage with bed nets, the density, human biting rate and entomological inoculation rate of indoor-resting mosquitoes were reduced by more than 92% for Anopheles funestus and by 75% for An. gambiae. In addition, the host feeding choice of both vectors shifted more toward non-human vertebrates. Besides bed net use, malaria vector abundance was also influenced by type of house construction and according to whether one sleeps on a bed or a mat (both of these are associated with household wealth). Mosquito density was positively associated with presence of domestic animals. The researcher conclude that, while increasing bed net coverage beyond the current levels may not significantly reduce the transmission potential of An. arabiensis, they anticipate that increasing or at least sustaining high bed net coverage will result in a diminished role for An. funestus in malaria transmission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequality overshadows tenth anniversary of Doha Round of trade talks","field_subtitle":"International Trade Union Confederation: 14 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.ituc-csi.org/inequality-overshadows-tenth.html?lang=en","body":"The international trade union movement has warned of growing social unrest and increased social hardship if trade liberalisation continues against the backdrop of harsh unemployment and austerity measures. Sharan Burrow, General Secretary International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), said that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has done nothing to prevent trade imbalances growing to unsustainable levels accompanied by dangerously widening income inequality. Burrow expects that the deal emerging from the eighth meeting of Trade Ministers in Geneva 15 -17 December 2011 will not help trade to drive economic recovery, employment creation and genuine economic development, and ultimately puts the multilateral trading system at risk. The ITUC is calling for an evaluation of the Doha round outcomes to assess its impact on providing decent work, improved living standards and diversifying the economies of developing countries. It argues that, without measuring the impact on developing countries and workers, it makes little sense to move forward with trade liberalisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Intimate partner violence against women in western Ethiopia: prevalence, patterns, and associated factors","field_subtitle":"Abeya SG, Afework MF and Yalew AW: BMC Public Health 11(913), 9 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-913.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers investigated the prevalence, patterns and associated factors of intimate partner violence against women in Western Ethiopia. A cross-sectional, population based household survey was conducted from January to April 2011, using the World Health Organisation\u2019s standard multi-country study questionnaire. A sample of 1,540 ever married/cohabited women aged 15-49 years was randomly selected from urban and rural settings of East Wollega Zone, Western Ethiopia. Results indicated that lifetime and past 12 months prevalence of intimate partner violence against women stood at 76.5% and 72.5%, respectively. The overlap of psychological, physical and sexual violence was 56.9%. Abduction, polygamy, spousal alcoholic consumption, spousal hostility and previous witnesses of parental violence were factors associated with an increased likelihood of lifetime intimate partner violence against women. The authors of the study call for immediate action at all levels of societal hierarchy, including policymakers, stakeholders and professionals, to alleviate these extremely high levels of domestic violence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Lay health worker attrition: Important but often ignored ","field_subtitle":"Nkonki L, Cliff J and Sanders D: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(12): 919-923, December 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/12/11-087825.pdf","body":"Lay health workers are key to achieving universal health-care coverage, therefore measuring worker attrition and identifying its determinants should be an integral part of any lay health worker programme. Both published and unpublished research on lay health workers has largely focused on the types of interventions they can deliver effectively. This is an imperative since the main objective of these programmes is to improve health outcomes. However, high attrition rates can undermine the effectiveness of these programmes. There is a lack of research on lay health worker attrition, the authors of this paper note. Research that aims to answer the following three key questions would help address this knowledge gap. What is the magnitude of attrition in programmes? What are the determinants of attrition? What are the most successful ways of reducing attrition? With community-based interventions and task shifting high on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals\u2019 policy agenda, research on lay health worker attrition and its determinants requires urgent attention, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"LDCs table proposal on TRIPS for MC8","field_subtitle":"Raja K: Third World Network, 16 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/intellectual_property/info.service/2011/ipr.info.111107.htm","body":"On 15 November 2011, least-developed countries (LDCs) tabled a proposal on extending the current deadline of 1 July 2013 for them to implement the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) TRIPS Agreement, which affects patents on medicines and access to medicines in their countries. The proposal has been submitted for the upcoming eighth WTO Ministerial Conference (MC8) taking place in Geneva from 15-17 December 2011. The proposal recognises that LDCs continue to face serious economic, financial and administrative constraints in their efforts to bring their domestic legal system into conformity with the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement. It also takes note of the challenges faced by most LDCs to submit their priority needs for technical and financial co-operation under the Decision of 29 November 2005 and the lack of resource mobilisation to support their individual priority needs. The proposal recalls the commitment by Developed Country Members to provide enhanced technical and financial co-operation in favour of LDCs to assist them in implementing the TRIPS Agreement and develop a viable technological base in line with their special needs and requirements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Lesotho hospital public private partnership: new model or false start?","field_subtitle":"Lister J: Global Health Check, 16 December 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/?p=481","body":"This paper examines the experuence of the the new Queen Mamohato Memorial Hospital, a US$120 million privately financed hospital in Lesotho's capital Maseru, the first in Africa to be built through a \u201cPublic Private Investment Partnership\u201d (PPIP). According to the World Bank, the new hospital is supposed to operate as the national referral hospital as well as the district hospital for the greater Maseru area. It was built and is run by a consortium headed up by South African private medical giant Netcare, and replaced the Queen Elizabeth II Public Hospital. In return, the Lesotho government will pay a US$32.6m index-linked annual \u2018unitary charge\u2019 to Netcare for the hospital and services, representing a 100% increase in costs from the 2007/08 budget and despite the fact that the government had already invested $62 million in the project. The new hospital is expected to treat all patients who present, up to a maximum of 20,000 in-patient admissions and 310,000 outpatient attendances annually, against an estimated need of 64,000 patients annually. The annual charge for the hospital is a third of Lesotho\u2019s recurrent health budget. The author suggests that this can distort national health spending, especially for the expansion of primary health care for Lesotho\u2019s majority rural population. The unfavourable terms of the contract are traced back to an imbalance in expertise among those negotiating the contract terms. The authors questioned why the International Finance Corporation, who acted as consultants on the project, failed to support the Lesotho negotiators to prevent these unfavourable terms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Lessons learned from removing user fees for health services in low-income countries","field_subtitle":"Bruno Meessen, Institute of Tropical Medicine ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn recent years, many low and middle-income countries have removed user fees in their health care sector. However providing free health care is more complex than it is usually thought. \r\n\r\nResearchers have studied these policies in Afghanistan, Burundi, Burkina Faso, Mali, Nepal  to see what lessons can be learned from them. These country experiences highlight that decisions to remove user fees are often taken by authorities at the highest level in countries, sometimes during electoral campaigns.  Many countries are opting for selective free health care, such as for children under  five years, free delivery for mothers. This aligns access to areas of the Millennium Development Goals. It is probably reasonable, given the costs to governments of free health care policies.   Leadership developed by African leaders in favour of vulnerable populations such as young children and pregnant women has to be praised. Good outcomes for these groups however require a long term commitment in terms of public resources and policies which are sound from a technical perspective. \r\n\r\nThe country assessments found, for example, that when these decisions are taken in a hasty manner,  without sufficient consultation of stakeholders, including of the technicians working for the concerned ministries, health systems may experience a shock. They are found to have  difficulties with coping with the increase in patients and drug shortages.  Lucy Gilson, Professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and at the University of Cape Town said \u201cAs leaders take important decisions to strengthen health systems for the benefit of the poorest, their engagement with communities, health workers and technicians is vital in bringing those decisions alive in the day to day practice of health care delivery\u201d.\r\n\r\nIn contrast, when the policies are well-designed, implemented with the appropriate accompanying measures and sufficiently funded,  they can improve access to health services. Funding levels are important. Insufficient funding may lead to a situation where the increased utilisation of services by the population after fees are lifted paradoxically leads households to spend more for their treatment. This happens, for instance, when there are drug shortages in free public health facilities, so that households have to buy their drugs in private pharmacies.\r\n\r\nThere are different ways to reduce financial barriers to health care. Free health care is one option. Another option is to introduce health insurance, so that any changes are paid in advance and people are charged according to their ability to pay and not their health need.  Any good solution, that works for both vulnerable people and for the public budget requires a certain level of complexity. It is therefore important that leaders consult their technicians who plan and deliver services. They can help leaders to build fair, efficient and sustainable health care systems.\r\n\r\nExternal funders, aid agencies and Northern Non-Governmental Organizations were also found in the country studies to play a role, such as in assisting countries to monitor and evaluate their policies, a step overlooked in too many countries. It is however important to note that any involvement of international agencies should be in full respect of sovereign choices made by low-income countries. Abdelmajid Tibouti of UNICEF New York  observed for example that equity is a major challenge in many countries. \u201cTechnical and financial partners have probably a stronger support role to play, in full respect of course of options chosen by countries themselves. A first track is to network countries implementing similar policies\u201d.\r\n \r\nIn this respect, there are some positive trends. African experts working on these issues have organised themselves in a community of practice and are using information and communication technology to share their experience and knowledge. An African regional meeting was held in Bamako in November 2011 where those involved from 10 Anglophone and Francophone countries gathered to review free care policies in maternal health.  This direct exchange between countries in such communities of practice provides a critical means for learning by doing, as countries face the complex challenges of providing free health care. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/suppl_2.toc to access the Health Policy & Planning supplement with the findings of the studies. You can contact the Financial Access Community of Practice at  cdp.afss@gmail.com.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"More money or more development: What have the MDGs achieved?","field_subtitle":"Kenny C and Sumner A: Centre for Global Development Working Paper 278, 12 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/files/1425806_file_Kenny_Sumner_MDGs_FINAL.pdf","body":"What have the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) achieved? And what might their achievements mean for any second generation of MDGs or MDGs 2.0? The authors of this paper argue that the MDGs may have played a role in increasing aid and that beyond aid, development policies have seen some limited improvement in high income countries, but with more limited evidence of policy change in low income countries. There is some evidence of faster-than-expected progress improving quality of life in low income countries since the Millennium Declaration, but the contribution of the MDGs themselves in speeding that progress is difficult to demonstrate,  even assuming the MDGs induced policy changes after 2002. The authors reflect on what the global goal setting experience of the MDGs has taught us and how things might be done differently if there is a new round of MDGs after 2015. They conclude that any MDGs 2.0 need targets that are set realistically and directly link external funding flows to social policy change and to results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Multi-country analysis of palm oil consumption and cardiovascular disease mortality for countries at different stages of economic development: 1980-1997","field_subtitle":"Chen BK, Seligman B, Farquhar JW and Goldhaber-Fiebert JD: Globalisation and Health 7(45), 16 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-7-45.pdf","body":"There is concern that increased consumption of palm oil could exacerbate mortality from ischemic heart disease (IHD) and stroke, particularly in developing countries where it represents a major nutritional source of saturated fat. The authors of this study analysed country-level data from 1980-1997 derived from the World Health Organisation's Mortality Database, United States Department of Agriculture international estimates, and the World Bank (234 annual observations; 23 countries). They found that, in developing countries, for every additional kilogram of palm oil consumed per-capita annually, IHD mortality rates increased by 68 deaths per 100,000, whereas, in similar settings, stroke mortality rates increased by 19 deaths per 100,000 but were not significant. Inclusion of other major saturated fat sources including beef, pork, chicken, coconut oil, milk cheese, and butter did not substantially change the differentially higher relationship between palm oil and IHD mortality in developing countries. The authors urge policy makers to consider palm oil consumption as a saturated fat source relevant for policies aimed at reducing cardiovascular disease burdens.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"National Strategic Plan on HIV, STIs and TB: 2012-2016","field_subtitle":"South African National AIDS Council: 2011","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/hiv_nsp.pdf","body":"This National Strategic Plan (NSP) has four strategic objectives, which will form the basis of the HIV, STI and TB response: address social and structural barriers to HIV, sexually transmitted infection (STI) and TB prevention, care and impact; prevent new HIV, STI and TB infections; sustain health and wellness; and increase protection of human rights and improve access to justice. The NSP is driven by a long-term 20-year vision for the country with respect to the HIV and TB epidemics, adapting the Three Zeros advocated by UNAIDS, and additional one for discrimination: zero new HIV and TB infections; zero new infections due to vertical transmission (mother-to-child); zero preventable deaths associated with HIV and TB; and zero discrimination associated with HIV and TB. In line with this 20-year vision, the NSP has the following broad goals: reduce new HIV infections by at least 50% using combination prevention approaches; initiate at least 80% of eligible patients on antiretroviral treatment (ART), with 70% alive and on treatment five years after initiation; reduce the number of new TB infections as well as deaths from TB by 50%; ensure an enabling and accessible legal framework that protects and promotes human rights to support implementation of the NSP; and reduce self-reported stigma related to HIV and TB by at least 50%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New working group to investigate transparency in CSOs and NGOs","field_subtitle":"International Aid Transparency Initiative: 29 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.aidtransparency.net/news/working-group-formed-for-csos-to-engage-with-iati","body":"The International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) Steering Committee has approved the creation of a CSO-led working group to discuss application of the IATI standard to the work of civil society organisations (CSOs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or not-for-profit organisations. Building on the Accra Agenda for Action and IATI outcomes to date, the working group will examine the IATI standard in the light of existing CSO and NGO accountability frameworks and self-regulatory mechanisms.  It will take into account the particular characteristics of CSOs and NGOs as development and humanitarian assistance actors, as well as the different operating environments that shape CSO responses to demands for greater accountability and transparency. The working group\u2019s primary objective is to encourage the participation of civil society and not-for-profit actors in IATI by developing practical proposals on guidelines and tools to assist CSOs who wish to publish IATI-compatible data.  Early priorities include the identification of information that is already being shared or could be reported by CSOs in the short- and medium-term and the development of protocols for exclusions of data where appropriate on privacy or security grounds.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"NHI Conference calls for strong primary health care system","field_subtitle":"Skade T: Independent Online News, 8 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/gauteng/health-is-not-about-deep-pockets-1.1194846","body":"Speaking at the opening of the national consultative health forum\u2019s National Health Insurance (NHI) conference on 7 December 2011, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development economist Ankit Kumar said South Africa should look to South Korea, which achieved universal health care for its entire population in just 12 years by investing in a strong primary healthcare system, eliminating fragmentation and containing hospital prices. South Koreans achieved universal coverage by starting the rollout of health insurance with the informal labour market before gradually expanding coverage to the formal labour market. In preparation for the roll out of South Africa\u2019s NHI, the country\u2019s Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, reiterated his call for the establishment of a pricing commission to tackle uncontrolled commercialism and the exorbitant cost of private healthcare. Fragmentation in the form of private health care for the wealthy and public health care for the poor was also contributing to low levels of access to health care, he added.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Obama announces new HIV treatment pledge","field_subtitle":"Plus News 2 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94371","body":"On 1 December 2011, World AIDS Day, United States (US) President, Barack Obama, pledged to provide antiretroviral treatment to some six million people globally by 2013, an increase of two million on the previous target. However, there will still be no increase in funding from the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which pledged US$48 billion in 2008 for five years. Consequently, although costs of HIV and AIDS programmes have come down, PEPFAR is having to look at smarter programming and greater efficiencies to increase roll out. PEPFAR noted that the US was also working to persuade other wealthy countries, such as China, Germany and Sweden, to take greater responsibility in the fight against HIV and AIDS. Obama's announcement has been welcomed with cautious optimism in developing countries, who are concerned that the rich countries of the North may not keep their pledges to the Global Fund \u2013 the main HIV and AIDS funder for many poor countries \u2013 in the current global recession.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Promoting access and medical innovation: Intersections between public health, intellectual property and trade","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, World Intellectual Property Organisation and World Trade Organisation: 2011","field_url":"http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news11_e/trilat_outline_nov11_e.pdf","body":"This document guides policy makers through complex policy options. It looks at access to medicines, trade and innovation together and the effect they have on each other over time and the challenges in the light of a number of developments over the past decade. In terms of manufacturing and product development, public-private partnerships are increasingly emphasised and partnerships for developing health products are \u2018coming of age\u2019. More attention is being paid to strengthening national health systems, with more funding for vaccine development and for immunisation. The relationship between public health, the intellectual property system, innovation and access to medical technologies are now better understood. Discussions on international public policy are better informed, and more soundly evidence based, allowing for more coherence across policies in health, trade and intellectual property.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Questioning old certainties: Challenges for Africa-EU relations in 2012 ","field_subtitle":"Mackie J, Goertz S and de Roquefeuil Q:  ECDPM Policy and Management Insights Series 3, 2011","field_url":"http://www.ecdpm.org/Web_ECDPM/Web/Content/Download.nsf/0/453BBE89B6BF6CF0C125796800398DD9/$FILE/Insights3.pdf","body":"With a range of new development actors at hand, such as China and Brazil, Africa\u2019s position has been strengthened, according to this paper. Africans must decide which partner can best serve their various interests. The authors argue that the European Union (EU) is a good candidate to support capacity in financial administration, regional integration, good governance, and peace and security. To be recognised as such, the EU should stand by its partnership approach and avoid unilateral initiatives towards the continent.  However, Africans may perceive EU support as coming at too high a price in terms of values conditionality. In that case, it may choose other partners to rely on. Some applaud an EU move to increase conditionality in its overseas development assistance (ODA). The depth of the euro crisis suggests that after a decade of rising European ODA, the world is now entering a period in which EU ODA will stagnate, though some member states may still manage increases. Further details regarding the Green Climate Fund to cover the costs of climate change also need to be clarified. At some stage Europe, along with other developed parts of the world, will need to meet that obligation. Funding requirements for environmental and other global public goods remains high, but the EU is unlikely to be able to contribute as much as in the past. Old certainties therefore are changing and those who have relied on European support will have little choice but to look elsewhere.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Register for the Thirteenth World Congress on Public Health: 23-27 April 2011, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Early bird registration: 31 January 2012. Regular registration: 14 April 2012","field_url":"http://www.etpha.org/2012/index.php","body":"The Ethiopian Public Health Association and the World Federation of Public Health Associations invite public health professionals from around the world to participate in the Thirteen World Congress on Public Health 2012. The theme of the conference is \u2018Towards global health equity: Opportunities and threats\u2019. The conference has four main objectives. It is intended to serve as an international forum for the exchange of knowledge and experiences on key public health issues, as well as contribute towards protecting and promoting public health at global, continental and national levels. It is also intended to help create a better understanding of Africa\u2019s major public health challenges within the global public health community and to facilitate and support the formation of the African Federation of Public Health Associations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration now open for Forum 2012: 24-26 April 2012, Cape Town, South Africa","field_subtitle":"COHRED And The Global Forum","field_url":"http://www.forum2012.org/","body":"Forum 2012 will bring together key actors to make research and innovation work for health, equity and development: governments, industry, social enterprise, non-governmental organisations, researchers, media, funders , international organisations and others. Partipcipants will explore who will explore ways to go \u2018beyond aid\u2019 by building on the rapidly expanding research and innovation capacity of low- and middle-income countries as basis for development. The Forum has three main themes: improving and increasing investments in research and innovation; networking and partnerships in research, technological innovations, social innovations and delivery of better health care; and improvement of health, equity and development of low-income countries by creating a supportive environment, including priority setting in research for health, fair research contracting, research cooperation and ethics, nanotechnologies, technological and social innovations, and using the web as a tool for planning research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration open for SEYCOHAIDS 2012","field_subtitle":"8-10 June 2012: Lilongwe, Malawi","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5ty3mor","body":"SEYCOHAIDS 2012 is the largest international gathering for young people on HIV and AIDS in the Eastern and Southern Africa region, where young researchers, policy makers, activists, educators and people living with HIV will be able to link with people in other countries and meet to share and learn about HIV prevention methods, treatments, care policies and programmes relating to HIV and AIDS in Africa. The broad objectives for the Conference are to: ensure effective and meaningful youth participation in international AIDS response; identify gaps and challenges in government policies in providing youth-friendly HIV and AIDS services; develop regional and country-level strategic programmes for youth and HIV and AIDS; identify and build the capacity of new and emerging youth leaders for the AIDS response to ensure sustainability of youth initiatives at the national, regional and international levels; sustain adult-youth partnerships and dialogue; develop the Southern and Eastern Africa youth network on HIV and AIDS; develop country specific youth networks on HIV and AIDS; establish funding mechanisms for regional and country youth networks; and monitor government and donor commitments to youth and HIV and AIDS. Applicants must be no older than 35 years old at the time of the application.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration open for Third Annual Healthcare Summit: Addressing the issues surrounding healthcare reform in South Africa, 24-26 January 2012, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_subtitle":"No Closing Date Given For Registration","field_url":"http://www.iir.co.za/detail.php?e=2394","body":"The Third Annual Healthcare Summit will be held from 24 to 26 January 2012 in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is a three-day event that deals with all the current issues facing the stakeholders in the healthcare industry. This year\u2019s Summit will focus on the latest developments surrounding healthcare reform in South Africa in both private and public sectors and in particular the impact the NHI is likely to have on the industry. Key topics being addressed include: the impact the NHI will have on the healthcare industry; how the Consumer Protection Act affects the industry; the escalating cost of private healthcare; the pricing structure of doctors vs. those of medical schemes; international benchmarking of pharmaceuticals; the funding of hospitals and how it will improve healthcare facilities; quality assurance in the healthcare industry; the latest fraud trends and their effect on the healthcare industry; and balancing technology advancements against costs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Remarks by Stephen Lewis, co-director of AIDS-Free World, delivered at a plenary session at the 2011 International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA)","field_subtitle":"6 December 2011","field_url":"","body":"In a speech to a plenary session of the 2011 International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) in Ethiopia in December 2011, Stephen Lewis, Co-Director of AIDS-Free World, pointed to  the failure globally to apply knowledge to prevent vertical transmission, and expressed concern that the same not happen in relation to the elimination of pediatric AIDS. He pointed to the profound influence of gender inequality on the spread of HIV and in the burden placed on women  to manage the epidemic. He noted the cancellation of the Global Fund's Round Eleven as a \"punch below the belt\" that will cost Africa lives, and not acceptable at a time when funds are available to finance wars or bail out banks. He called for a high-level crisis meeting on the funding situation for HIV and AIDS, to challenge any 'right to withdraw' in those funding the Global Fund. He argued that \"If the MDGs are as important as everyone says, then AIDS must be subdued\". ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/36581","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Report from MSM meeting at All-Africa AIDS Conference ","field_subtitle":"McGee B: 2011 VSO International, 9 December 2011","field_url":"http://blogs.vsointernational.org/index.php/2011/12/09/more-focus-needed-on-african-men-who-have-sex-with-men/","body":"On 3 December 2011, a meeting was held at the All-Africa AIDS Conference (ICASA) addressing the health and human rights of African men who have sex with men (MSM) and the lesbian, gay, bi and intersex (LGBTI) community in general. The meeting was attended by global agencies, including UNAIDS and the African Commission on Human Rights, but by few international non government organisations. Speakers from the United States (US) President\u2019s Fund for Emergency AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the African Commission outlined the health needs of MSM in Africa regarding their vulnerability to HIV and AIDS. They made commitments to scale up efforts in this area. Participants called for public health and human rights approaches to be more inclusive, to take into account the full spectrum of LGBTI health issues, including violence, victimisation, psychiatric disorders and substance abuse.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Social policies in Seychelles","field_subtitle":"Campling L, Confiance H and Purvis M: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development Social Policies in Small States Series 5, 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cgdxu54","body":"Seychelles has one of the most extensive social policy programmes in the developing world, and has been identified as a model for the rest of Africa. This book provides comprehensive analysis of social policy development in the country from the colonial era onward, focusing on the political and economic developments that have led to the current situation. The challenge now is to maintain current levels of social policy interventions in the face of severe indebtedness and stagnant economic growth. Since the Primary Health Care convention at Alma Ata in 1978, the provision of primary healthcare for all has been achieved in the Seychelles. Private healthcare has been abolished. Public health services are comprehensive with specialised in-patient and out-patient services provided by the main hospital in Victoria. Among the most significant improvements in healthcare was the drop in maternal and child deaths, from 50 per 1000 live births in the 1960s to an average of 10 in the 2000s. Maternal deaths have become a rare occurrence. There has been continued and increasing investment in the health system throughout the past two decades, largely in response to soaring healthcare costs and changing patterns of disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Watch Report 2012: The right to a future","field_subtitle":"Social Watch: 2011","field_url":"http://www.socialwatch.org/report2012","body":"Economic indicators suggest that there are adequate global resources to guarantee the essential needs of all of the world's seven billion inhabitants. Nevertheless more than 850 million people in the world are undernourished, according to this new report by Social Watch. To monitor trends in global deprivation, Social Watch developed a basic capabilities index (BCI), which combines infant mortality rates, the number of births attended by trained personnel and enrolment rates in primary school. These indicators are considered as a \u2018minimum social floor\u2019. Nevertheless the report notes that the world is far from achieving these basic targets. The BCI rose only seven points between 1990 and 2010, and progress was faster in the first decade than the second. This trend is the opposite for trade and income, both of which grew faster after the year 2000 than in the decade before. The authors warn that the global financial crisis is likely to worsen this inverse trend. The reason for the divergence between the trends in economic and social indicators is posited to be the growing inequality within and between countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The aid effectiveness agenda: The benefits of going ahead: Final report","field_subtitle":"European Commission: September 2011","field_url":"http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/how/ensure-aid-effectiveness/documents/benefits_of_going_ahead-aid_effectiveness_agenda_en.pdf","body":"This study focuses on two main areas, namely aid agency effectiveness (cost effectiveness of agencies) and aid policy effectiveness (the cost of parallel development policy making). Whereas other areas of the Paris agenda are equally important (like ownership, mutual accountability, and a focus on results), this study explored the costs, and put a price-tag on not implementing the Paris agenda. The study reviewed the aid effectiveness literature to date, most of which point to benefits of coordination. The European Commission found direct savings for the European Union (EU) through lower administrative costs from harmonising, from reducing the number of partner countries, changing the aid modality towards Budget Support (general or sectoral), untying aid and eliminating aid volatility. The total efficiency gains were estimated at \u20ac 5 billion per year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Commission on Macroeconomics and Health: 10 years on","field_subtitle":"Das P and Samarasekera U: The Lancet,378(9807): 1907-1908, 3 December 2011","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)61828-X/fulltext","body":"In 2001, the World Health Organisation\u2019s Commission for Macroeconomics and Health (CMH) released its report, \u2018Macroeconomics and Health: Investing in health for economic development\u2019, urging the international community to invest substantially in health as a means of promoting development. According to this article, many observers credit the report as one of the key drivers for successfully raising the profile of global health in the international arena and promoting the long-neglected link between health and wealth. But reports on the success of the Commission are mixed. Howard Stein of the University of Michigan criticises the Commission for failing to mention the causes of poverty and poor health, including the gross inequities of the global economy caused by neoliberalism, suggesting that this is a consequence of the fact that most Commission members supported neoliberal economic policies at the time. Although at least 60 countries now offer a basic health care package, the concept failed to be supported by external funders, who continue to fund specific vertical interventions rather than an integral set of services. The Commission expected the pharmaceutical industry to voluntarily lower prices, which the authors argue has not happened.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The financial cost of doctors emigrating from sub-Saharan Africa: Human capital analysis","field_subtitle":"Mills EJ, Kanters S, Hagopian A, Bansback N, Nachega J, Alberton M et al: British Medical Journal, 24 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/highwire/filestream/544995/field_highwire_article_pdf/0.pdf","body":"The objective of this study was to estimate the lost investment of domestically educated doctors migrating from sub-Saharan African countries to Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Researchers calculated the financial cost of educating a doctor in nine source countries with a high HIV and AIDS burden (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe), which ranged from US $21,000 in Uganda to $58,700 in South Africa. The overall estimated loss of returns from investment for all doctors currently working in the destination countries was $2.17bn, with costs for each country ranging from $2.16m (1.55m to 2.78m) for Malawi to $1.41bn (1.38bn to 1.44bn) for South Africa. The ratio of the estimated compounded lost investment over gross domestic product showed that Zimbabwe and South Africa had the largest losses. The benefit to destination countries of recruiting trained doctors was largest for the United Kingdom ($2.7bn) and United States ($846m). They conclude that destination countries should consider investing in measurable training for source countries and strengthening of their health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel: The evolution of of Global Health Diplomacy","field_subtitle":"Taylor  A and Dhillon I: Global Health Governance, Vol. V, Issue 1, 2011 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bvbll7a","body":"The May 2010 adoption of the World Health Organization Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel created a global architecture, including ethical norms and institutional and legal arrangements, to guide international cooperation and serve as a platform for continuing dialogue on the critical problem of health worker migration. Highlighting the contribution of non-binding instruments to global health governance, this article describes the Code negotiation process from its early stages to the formal adoption of the final text of the Code. Detailed are the vigorous negotiations amongst key stakeholders, including the active role of non-governmental organizations. The article emphasizes the importance of political leadership, appropriate sequencing, and support for capacity building of developing countries\u00b9 negotiating skills to successful global health negotiations. It also reflects on how the dynamics of the Code negotiation process is evidence of an evolution in global health negotiations amongst the WHO Secretariat, civil society, and WHO Member States. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa  ","field_subtitle":"Bassey N: Fahamu Books and Pambazuka Press, 2011","field_url":"http://fahamubooks.org/book/?GCOI=90638100628980&fa=description","body":"The author of this book argues that natural resources in Africa are a blessing, but the way they are plundered and used has turned them into a curse. Rich in natural resources, Africa has for a long time been a net supplier of energy and raw materials to the North. The current global climate crisis is rooted mainly in the wealthy economies' abuse of fossil fuels, indigenous forests and global commercial agriculture. But, without agreement about how to tackle this reality, the question often simply becomes \u2018What can be done about Africa?\u2019 rather than \u2018What can we do together?\u2019 Bassey examines the oil industry in Africa, probes the roots of global warming, warns of its insidious impacts and explores false 'solutions'. He demonstrates that the issues around natural resource exploitation, corporate profiteering and climate change must be considered together if Africa and the rest of the world are to save ourselves.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards universal health coverage: The role of within-country wealth-related inequality in 28 countries in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Hosseinpoor AR, Victora CG, Bergen N, Barros AJD and Boerma T: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(12): 881-890, December 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/12/11-087536.pdf","body":"The primary objectives of this study were to measure within-country wealth-related inequality in the health service coverage gap of maternal and child health indicators in sub-Saharan Africa and quantify its contribution to the national health service coverage gap. Coverage data for child and maternal health services in 28 sub-Saharan African countries were obtained from the 2000\u20132008 Demographic Health Survey. The researchers found that, in 26 countries, within-country wealth-related inequality accounted for more than one quarter of the national overall coverage gap. Reducing such inequality could lower this gap by 16% to 56%, depending on the country, they argue. Wealth-related inequality was more common in services such as skilled birth attendance and antenatal care, and less so in family planning, measles immunisation, receipt of a third dose of vaccine against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus and treatment of acute respiratory infections in children under five years of age. In conclusion, the contribution of wealth-related inequality to the child and maternal health service coverage gap differs by country and type of health service, warranting case-specific interventions. Targeted policies are most appropriate where high within-country wealth-related inequality exists, and whole-population approaches, where the health-service coverage gap is high in all quintiles.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in health policy and systems research over the past decade: Still too little capacity in low-income countries","field_subtitle":"Adam T, Ahmad S, Bigdeli M, Ghaffar A and R\u00f8ttingen J: PLoS ONE 6(11), 22 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0027263","body":"In the context of recent global calls for strengthening the field of health policy and systems research (HPSR) as a critical input to strengthening health systems, the authors of this paper assessed the extent to which progress has been achieved in this regard. Two sources of data were used: a bibliometric analysis to assess growth in production of HPSR between 2003 and 2009, and a 2010 survey of 96 research institutions to assess capacity and funding availability to undertake HPSR. Both analyses focused on HPSR relevant to low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Overall, the authors found an increasing trend of publications on HPSR in LMICs, although only 4% were led by authors from low-income countries (LICs). Improvements were noted in infrastructure of research institutions in LICs, but more limited gains in the level of experience of researchers within institutions. There has been only a modest increase in availability of funding for LICs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"United States aid policy and induced abortion in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Bendavid E, Avila P and Miller G: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(12): 873-880C, December 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/entity/bulletin/volumes/89/12/11-091660.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers aimed to determine whether the Mexico City Policy, a United States government policy that prohibits funding to non-governmental organisations performing or promoting abortion, was associated with the induced abortion rate in sub-Saharan Africa. Women in 20 African countries who had induced abortions between 1994 and 2008 were identified in Demographic and Health Surveys. A country\u2019s exposure to the Mexico City Policy was considered high (or low) if its per capita assistance from the United States for family planning and reproductive health was above (or below) the median among study countries before the policy\u2019s reinstatement in 2001. The study included 261,116 women aged 15 to 44 years. A comparison of 1994\u20132000 with 2001\u20132008 revealed an adjusted odds ratio for induced abortion of 2.55 for high-exposure countries versus low-exposure countries under the policy. There was a relative decline in the use of modern contraceptives in the high-exposure countries over the same time period. In conclusion, the induced abortion rate in sub-Saharan Africa rose in high-exposure countries relative to low-exposure countries when the Mexico City Policy was reintroduced. Reduced financial support for family planning may have led women to substitute abortion for contraception, the authors argue. Regardless of one\u2019s views about abortion, the findings may have important implications for public policies governing abortion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"World Malaria Report 2011","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: December 2011  ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/malaria/world_malaria_report_2011/9789241564403_eng.pdf","body":"Malaria mortality rates have fallen by more than 25% globally since 2000, and by 33% in the World Health Organisation (WHO) African Region, according to latest World Malaria Report. This is the result of a significant scaling-up of malaria prevention and control measures in the last decade, including the widespread use of bed nets, better diagnostics and a wider availability of effective medicines to treat malaria. However, WHO warns that a projected shortfall in funding threatens the fragile gains and that the double challenge of emerging drug and insecticide resistance needs to be proactively addressed. Long-lasting insecticidal nets have been one of the least expensive and most effective weapons in the fight against malaria. According to the new report, the number of bed nets delivered to malaria-endemic countries in sub-Saharan Africa increased from 88.5 million in 2009 to 145 million in 2010. An estimated 50% of households in sub-Saharan Africa now have at least one bed net, and 96% of persons with access to a net use it. There has also been further progress in rolling out diagnostic testing, which is crucially important to separate malaria from other febrile illnesses. The number of rapid diagnostic tests delivered by manufacturers climbed from 45 million in 2008 to 88 million in 2010, and the testing rate in the public sector in the WHO African Region rose from 20% in 2005 to 45% in 2010.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Social Forum on Health and Social Security","field_subtitle":"26-27 January 2012: Porto Alegre, Brazil","field_url":"http://www.fsms.org.br","body":"At the World Social Forum on Health and Welfare, participants will debate social protection as a fundamental human right, as well as the importance of economic democracy and the role of state and society in social and environmental justice. The debate will be organised around six themes. 1. Using civil, political, social, economic, cultural and environmental issues to structure a multidimensional concept of development. 2. Human rights and the principles of equality, fraternity and solidarity. 3. The construction of a social state along the lines of sovereignty and socialism, and building a system of social protection to counter the doctrine of neo-liberalism. 4. Overcoming poverty through the redistribution of wealth as a central element of the development agenda. 5. The production of knowledge through education policy to promote political transformation and democracy. 6. Positioning universal social protection within the paradigm of individual well being and the common good of humanity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"WTO General Council extends deadline for TRIPS health amendment ","field_subtitle":"New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 1 December 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cc3jag8","body":"Paragraph 6 \u2013 the first and only amendment to the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) \u2013 allows Ministers to alter the TRIPS agreement so that developing countries can use compulsory licences to manufacture generic medicines exclusively for export to countries unable to make them themselves. Countries have not all ratified the amendment. On 30 November 2011, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) General Council agreed to extend the deadline for countries to adopt the amendment at national level from December 2011 to 31 December 2013. Two-thirds of the WTO membership (i.e. 102) must ratify the change for it to go into effect. By November 2011 only 39 countries had done so. There has been much discussion about whether the \u2018Paragraph 6 solution\u2019 has been effective, as after eight years it has only been used by Canada and Rwanda. Countries have raised that the process is too cumbersome.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Land occupations are the new way of doing land reform\u2019","field_subtitle":"Food Sovereignty Campaign: December 2011","field_url":"http://permanentrebel.blogspot.com/2011/12/land-occupations.html?spref=tw","body":"The Food Sovereignty Campaign is a movement of emerging farmers and farm dwellers is based in the Western and Northern Cape provinces. They point out that while property rights are enshrined in the constitution of the country, in a land reform programme based on a \u2018willing buyer, willing seller\u2019 model, land is being priced out of reach of the poor and of the state. The authors argue that there is no provision in law, as in Brazil, to allow hungry people to grow food on unused land of absent owners. Land occupations are happening in South Africa, fuelled by growing frustration among the rural poor due to persistent and unaddressed inequality. The Food Sovereignty Campaign argues that land occupations are an expression amongst small farmers and farm dwellers of their frustration over their landlessness, powerlessness and exploitation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018We\u2019ll show you you\u2019re a woman\u2019: Violence and discrimination against black lesbians and transgender men in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Human Rights Watch: December 2011","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/southafrica1211.pdf","body":"This report focuses on violence documented in economically marginalised black communities against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people. The economic and social position of LGBT people in South Africa has a significant impact on their experience, as middle-class members of the group tend to experience less discrimination. The report documents 121 cases of discrimination, harassment, and violence both from private individuals and sometimes state agents, including in terms of police inaction or service provider unwillingness to provide services to this social group. The author highlights that this situation deviates from the equality and non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation guaranteed in the Bill of Rights section of the South African Constitution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2012-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"2011 Pilot Aid Transparency Index","field_subtitle":"Publish What You Fund: 15 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.publishwhatyoufund.org/resources/index/2011-index/","body":"Most international external funders (external funders) are not publishing enough information about the money they give, undermining the effectiveness of development spending and damaging public trust, according to Publish What You Fund\u2019s 2011 Aid Transparency Index. Major external funders - including the United States, Japan, France, Germany, Spain, Norway, Canada, Italy and Australia - perform poorly in the Index, despite repeated pledges to improve. The five best-ranked donors (external funders) are the World Bank, the Global Fund, the African Development Bank, the Netherlands\u2019 Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Kingdom\u2019s Department for International Development. Publish What You Fund has expressed disappointment with the results, noting that most external funders are simply not providing enough good information about their aid. It argues that this lack of transparency leads to waste, overlap and inefficiency, impedes efforts to improve governance and reduce corruption and makes it hard to measure results. Publish What You Fund calls on all external funders to sign up to and implement the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), which provides a common standard for publishing data and has the potential to transform the way external funding is managed. It urges external funders to use the upcoming High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Korea (29 November \u2013 1 December 2011) to commit to publish timely, comprehensive and comparable information on external funding by 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to safe abortion: Building choices for women living with HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"Orner PJ, de Bruyn M, Barbosa RM, Boonstra H, Gatsi-Mallet J and Cooper DD: Journal of the International AIDS Society 14(54), 14 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-14-54.pdf","body":"In many areas of the world where HIV prevalence is high, rates of unintended pregnancy and unsafe abortion have also been shown to be high. Of the estimated 21.6 million unsafe abortions occurring worldwide in 2008 (around one in 10 pregnancies), approximately 21.2 million occurred in developing countries, often due to restrictive abortion laws and leading to an estimated 47,000 maternal deaths and untold numbers of women who will suffer long-term health consequences. Despite this context, little research has focused on decisions about and experiences of women living with HIV with regard to terminating a pregnancy, although this should form part of comprehensive promotion of sexual and reproductive health rights. In this paper, the authors explore the existing evidence related to global and country-specific barriers to safe abortion for all women, with an emphasis on research gaps around the right of women living with HIV to choose safe abortion services as an option for dealing with unwanted pregnancies. The main focus is on the situation for women living with HIV in Brazil, Namibia and South Africa, as examples of three countries with different conditions regarding women's access to safe legal abortions: a very restrictive setting, a setting with several indications for legal abortion but non-implementation of the law, and a rather liberal setting. Similarities and differences are discussed, and the authors outline global and country-specific barriers to safe abortion for all women, ending with recommendations for policy makers and researchers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Alcohol: Ongoing efforts to reduce harmful consumption","field_subtitle":"Molenaar B: Health Diplomacy Monitor 2(5): 6-8, November 2011","field_url":"http://www.ghd-net.org/sites/default/files/Health%20Diplomacy%20Monitor%20Volume%202%20Issue%205.pdf","body":"The Global Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol has much to learn from learn from the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, according to this article. Over the years, many have called for the creation of a Framework Convention on Alcohol Control. Despite this push and despite the fact that alcohol and tobacco are relatively equal in terms of global disease burden, the international community has been less willing to be tough on the alcohol industry. The debate around alcohol is less clear in some ways than work on tobacco. In the case of tobacco, the efforts have focused on eliminating use. In terms of alcohol, the debate is about reducing the harmful level of consumption. In many countries, consumption of alcohol is acceptable and forms part of many cultural events. But the author notes that we need to pay increased attention to the harm alcohol consumption can inflict on others. Often the debate is framed in terms of the individual right to have a drink, neglecting the true extent of the level of harm others can be exposed to by the drinker.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing community perspectives of the community based education and service model at Makerere University, Uganda: a qualitative evaluation","field_subtitle":"Mbalinda SN, Plover CM, Burnham G, Kaye D, Mwanika A, Oria H et al: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(Suppl 1): S6, 9 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-11-S1-S6.pdf","body":"The authors of this study evaluated community-based education and service (COBES) programmes at Makerere University College, Uganda, from a community perspective. A stratified random sample of eleven COBES sites was selected to examine the community\u2019s perception of the programmes. Key informant interviews were held with 11 site tutors and 33 community members. Communities reported that the university students consistently engaged with them with culturally appropriate behavior and rated the student\u2019s communication as very good even though translators were frequently needed. They also reported positive changes in health and health-seeking behaviours but remarked that some programmes were not financially sustainable. The major challenges from the community included community fatigue, and poor motivation of community leaders to continue to take in students without any form of compensation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"At G20 Summit, civil society demands 'People First, Not Finance'","field_subtitle":"Fatoorehchi C: Inter Press Services, 4 November 2011","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105731","body":"Led by the slogan \u2018People First, Not Finance\u2019, the People\u2019s Forum held in November raised that the G20\u2019s \u2018cosmetic\u2019 economic solutions to the global recession in 2008 would do little to ease the cyclical problems of the financial system, adding that much deeper, structural changes were required to address global inequity. It argued that the G20 will only increase the \u2018financialisation\u2019 of this world, instead of fundamentally changing it. The forum raised that social movements ranging from the \u2018Occupy\u2019 protests in Wall Street in the United States to the ongoing demonstrations in Tahrir Square need to \u2018coordinate, exchange views'  towards this deeper structural change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"BioMed launches new features on its website","field_subtitle":"BioMed: November 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com","body":"BioMed, a major open-access medical research provider, has relaunched its website with a number of new features. These include: a redesigned homepage showcasing the most recent and popular published research; new-style journal homepages for the BMC series (e.g. BMC Biology, BMC Cancer); a revamped \u2018My BioMed Central\u2019 page, in which you can see the latest articles in your subject areas and easily manage email preferences and stored searches; an updated \u2018My manuscripts\u2019 page, with improved display of the status of all your submitted/published manuscripts, and any that you are currently reviewing or have reviewed; and revised \u2018Institutional Member\u2019 pages, which now show all articles from a Member institution, not just those from the last 12 months. Other improved features include an \u2018Advanced search\u2019 option with additional options for selecting and downloading search results, and subject gateways that offer a quick way to see the latest research from across BioMed Central\u2019s open access journals on a particular topic, while regional gateways showcase research from particular countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Botswana winning battle against malaria","field_subtitle":"Keakabetse B: The Monitor, 14 November 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=1&aid=1425&dir=2011/November/Monday14","body":"Botaswana\u2019s Minister of Health, John Seakgosing, has announced that Botswana has significantly reduced its burden of malaria from 77,555 unconfirmed cases in 2000 to 12,196 cases in 2010. Malaria deaths have decreased from 35 to seven over the same period. He said this success is due to the country's distribution programme of long lasting mosquito nets and indoor spraying in malaria-prevalent areas. The rolling out of artemisin-based combination treatment (ACT) in 2007 also contributed to the reduction of malaria cases and deaths. Moving towards the total elimination of the disease, Botswana has drafted malaria case based surveillance guidelines. According to the Minister, all malaria cases from disease-free areas will be notified, investigated and all contacts of the case will be screened. The country is committed to ensure an increase in diagnostics and ACT coverage to reach 100% of all malaria cases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Building the field of health policy and systems research: An agenda for action","field_subtitle":"Bennett S, Agyepong IA, Sheikh K, Hanson K, Ssengooba F et al. PLoS Medicine 8(8), 30 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001081","body":"This is the third of a series of three papers addressing the current challenges and opportunities for the development of Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR). The authors of this paper assert that there is an urgent need to build the Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) field and in particular to develop understanding across different disciplinary boundaries. The development of HPSR is impeded by a cluster of related issues: a heavy reliance on international funding for HPSR; an excessive focus on the direct utility of HPSR findings from specific studies; and a tendency to under-value contributions to HPSR from social sciences. Innovations in funding HPSR are needed so that local actors, including policy-makers, civil society, and researchers, have a greater say in determining the nature of HPSR conducted. Strategic investment should be made in promoting a greater shared understanding of theoretical frames and methodological approaches for HPSR including, for example, the development of HPSR journals, methodological workshops, and shared HPSR teaching curricula. Dedicated and supportive homes for HPSR need to be found within universities, and also be developed as independent research institutes, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Building the field of health policy and systems research: Framing the questions","field_subtitle":"Sheikh K, Gilson L, Agyepong IA, Hanson K, Ssengooba F et al: PLoS Medicine 8(8), 16 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001073","body":"This is the first of a series of three papers addressing the current challenges and opportunities for the development of Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR). HPSR is a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary field identified by the topics and scope of questions asked rather than by methodology. The focus of discussion is HPSR in low- and middle-income countries. Topics of research in HPSR include international, national, and local health systems and their interconnectivities, and policies made and implemented at all levels of the health system. Research questions in HPSR vary by the level of analysis (macro, meso, and micro) and intent of the question (normative/evaluative or exploratory/explanatory). Current heightened attention on HPSR contains significant opportunities, but also threats in the form of certain focus areas and questions being privileged over others; \u201cdisciplinary capture\u201d of the field by the dominant health research traditions; and premature and inappropriately narrow definitions. The authors call for greater attention to fundamental, exploratory, and explanatory types of HPSR; to the significance of the field for societal and national development, necessitating HPSR capacity building in low- and middle-income countries; and for greater literacy and application of a wide spectrum of methodologies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Building the field of health policy and systems research: Social science matters","field_subtitle":"Gilson L, Hanson K, Sheikh K, Agyepong IA, Ssengooba F et al: PLoS Medicine 8(8), 23 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001079","body":"This is the second of a series of three papers addressing the current challenges and opportunities for the development of Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR). According to this paper, all researchers hold a knowledge paradigm that frames their understanding of reality and of the functions and nature of research. Some disciplines are dominated by a particular paradigm and some are spread across paradigms. The criticisms that Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) is too context specific, does not offer clear lessons for policy makers, and is not rigorous are partly a reflection of differences in knowledge paradigms between those with predominantly clinical, biomedical, and epidemiological backgrounds, underpinned by a positivist paradigm, and those with social science backgrounds underpinned by a relativist paradigm. Health policies and systems are complex social and political phenomena, constructed by human action rather than naturally occurring. Therefore, the authors argue, relativist social science perspectives are of particular relevance to HPSR as they recognise that all phenomena are in essence constructed through human behaviour and interpretation. Social science insights that can advance the science of HPSR include: approaches to generalising from rich understanding of context; supporting policy learning; and enhancing research rigour and quality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Third South African Tuberculosis Conference: 12-15 June 2012, Durban, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Closing date for abstracts: 20 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.tbconference.co.za/","body":"The Third South African Tuberculosis (TB) Conference will assess progress towards reaching TB/HIV targets. Abstracts must be in line with one of three tracks. Track 1: Basic Science: This track will focus on improving and expanding the understanding of basic science issues required for the development of new tools and advancing the knowledge base on TB infection. Track 2: Clinical, Epidemiological and Operational Research: This track will focus on the latest findings from controlled clinical trials and research studies aimed at improving the epidemiological, programmatic, health systems and policy components of TB control. Track 3: Patient and Civil Society Mobilisation and Advocacy: This track will focus on achieving broad-based partnerships built on the principles of greater involvement of persons with TB, targeted advocacy, partnerships and the role of civil society in TB control and increasing access to TB diagnosis, treatment and adherence support service.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants for 2012 Oppenheimer Fund Scholarships","field_subtitle":"Closing Date: 6 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.ox.ac.uk/feesandfunding/prospectivegrad /scholarships/university/oppenheimer/","body":"The University of Oxford is seeking applications from students ordinarily resident in South Africa for the 2012 Oppenheimer Fund Scholarships to pursue graduate studies in a variety of fields at Oxford. The Oppenheimer Fund Scholarships are available for ordinarily resident South African students wishing to start any new degree bearing course, with the exception of Post Graduate Certificate and Post Graduate Diploma courses, at the University of Oxford.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: 2012 African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship","field_subtitle":"Submission deadline: 15 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.aphrc.org/insidepage/?articleid=947","body":"Applications are now open for African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowships (ADDRF). The overall goal of the ADDRF programme is to support the training and retention of highly-skilled, locally-trained scholars in research and academic positions across the region. The ADDRF will award about 20 fellowships in 2012 to doctoral students who are within two years of completing their thesis at an African university. The fellowships targets doctoral students with strong commitment to a career in training and/or research. Candidates whose dissertation topics address health policy or health systems issues will be given special consideration. There are also three fellowships for doctoral students conducting research on health inequities in urban areas or the reproductive health of marginalised urban communities, and two additional fellowships for students whose research focuses on unintended pregnancy and unmet need for family planning in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Cannes Summit final declaration: Building our common future: Renewed collective action for the benefit of all","field_subtitle":"Participating members of the G20 Summit: 4 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.g20.org/Documents2011/11/Cannes%20Declaration%204%20November%202011.pdf","body":"In this final output document from the G20 Summit, held from 3-4 November in Cannes, France, the G20 outlines its decisions to \u2018re-invigorate economic growth, create jobs, ensure financial stability, promote social inclusion and make globalisation serve the needs of the people\u2019. Members at the Summit agreed on an Action plan for Growth and Jobs to address short-term vulnerabilities and strengthen medium-term foundations for growth, and promised to reform the international monetary system to make it more representative, stable and resilient. They agreed on actions and principles that are intended to help reap the benefits from financial integration and increase the resilience against volatile capital flows. This includes coherent conclusions to guide the G20 in the management of capital flows, common principles for co-operation between the International Monetary Fund and regional financial arrangements, and an action plan for local currency bond markets. Other areas in which members agreed to co-operate include: reforming the financial sector and enhancing market integrity; addressing commodity price volatility and promoting agriculture; improving energy markets and pursuing the fight against climate change; avoiding protectionism and strengthening the multilateral trading system; addressing the challenges of development by committing to ensure a more inclusive and resilient growth; fighting against corruption and reforming global governance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Childbirth information feeds for first-time Malawian mothers who attended antenatal clinics","field_subtitle":"Malata A and Chirwa E: Malawi Medical Journal 23(2): 42-46, June 2011","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/mmj/article/viewFile/70747/59378","body":"This study identified childbirth information needs of Malawian women as perceived by Malawian mothers and midwives in order to design a childbirth education programme. A total of 150 first-time mothers who attended antenatal clinics at selected central, district and mission hospitals were interviewed. Four focus group discussions were conducted with four different types of midwives, followed by individual interviews with midwives in key positions in government and non-governmental organisations. Results indicated the view that the content of the childbirth education programme for pregnant mothers should include: self-care during pregnancy, nutrition during pregnancy, common discomforts of pregnancy, danger signs of pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and preparation for delivery. It was also proposed that programmes address possible complications during labour and birth, caesarean birth and non-pharmaceutical pain relief measures in labour, as well as self-care during postnatal period, exclusive breast feeding, care of the newborn baby, danger signs of puerperium, care of the newborn baby and family planning. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Clarity and contradiction at the World Conference on the Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R: Health Diplomacy Monitor 2(5): 8-11, November 2011","field_url":"http://www.ghd-net.org/sites/default/files/Health%20Diplomacy%20Monitor%20Volume%202%20Issue%205.pdf","body":"At the World Conference on the Social Determinants of Health, held in Rio de Janiero Brazil from 19-21 October 2011, reports from countries indicated a promising range of actions being taken to assess or monitor equity and the social determinants of health (SDH), measures to plan and review action on SDH, as well as actions to strengthen constitutional protection of the right to health and to strengthen intersectoral action and comprehensive primary health care. However, few countries reported on actions on economic determinants, and countries that have regulated commercial interests for public health reasons, such as introducing taxes on foods high in fat or sugars, or in implementing legal controls over tobacco, allege they have faced counter litigation from companies. Despite persuasive evidence, health equity has been a marginal consideration in trade, economic or climate forums. Public health advocates argue that equity should be included at the centre of wider economic, trade and development agendas, including the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in June 2012 (Rio+20) and the UN Millennium Development Goals. While a task force of UN agencies was set at the WCSDH, key economic and trade agencies were not present.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Cost-effectiveness of improving the quality of care of children admitted in district hospitals in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town, Policy Brief: October 2011  ","field_url":"http://uct-heu.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/HEU-Policy-Brief-EBarasa-2011.pdf","body":"The district hospital has been considered a critical avenue for the delivery of child-saving interventions. It has been suggested that improving the performance of district hospitals would reduce child mortality by 3-30% in the areas they serve. It has however been\r\nshown that the quality of care delivered in these hospitals in Kenya is inadequate. To improve the quality of care of children admitted in district hospitals in Kenya, the study developed clinical guidelines\r\nin selected district hospitals. The guidelines were linked with health\r\nworker training, job aids, follow-up and supervision and performance feedback termed the 'Emergency Triage and Treatment Plus (ETAT+) strategy. The strategy improved the quality of care of children admitted in hospitals by 25%. The total cost of scaling up the intervention was calculated at about US$ 3.6 million, estimated to be only 0.6% of the annual child health budget in Kenya. The ETAT+ strategy is argued to be cost-effective in improving the quality of care of children admitted in hospitals in Kenya. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing human rights-based strategies to improve health among female sex workers in Rwanda","field_subtitle":"Binagwaho A, Agbonyitor M, Mwananawe A, Mugwaneza P, Irwin A and Karema C: Health and Human Rights 12(2), 2010","field_url":"http://www.hhrjournal.org/index.php/hhr/article/viewArticle/371/574","body":"How governments should address sex work is a major topic of debate in Rwanda and other countries. Some constituencies propose harsher punishment of sex workers as the cornerstone of an improved policy. The authors of this paper argue that an adequate policy response to sex work in the Rwandan context must prioritise public health and reflect current knowledge of the social determinants of health. This does not imply intensified repression, but a comprehensive agenda of medical and social support to improve sex workers\u2019 access to health care, reduce their social isolation, and expand their economic options. Evidence from social epidemiology converges with rights-based arguments in this approach. Recent field interviews with current and former sex workers strengthen the case, while highlighting the need for further social scientific and epidemiological analysis of sex work in Rwanda. Rwanda has implemented some measures that reflect a rights-based perspective in addressing sex work. For example, recent policies seek to expand access to education for girls and support sex workers in the transition to alternative livelihoods. These policies reinforce the model of solidarity-based public health action for which Rwanda has been recognised. Whether such measures can maintain traction in the face of economic austerity and ideological resistance remains to be seen.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Different models of pharmaceutical care in South Africa: What is the cost and impact on patients\u2019 access to anti-retroviral therapy?","field_subtitle":"Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town, Policy Brief: August 2011  ","field_url":"http://uct-heu.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/HEU-Policy-Brief-NFoster-150811-v2.pdf","body":"Although South Africa is committed to providing anti-retroviral treatment (ART) to all South Africans who need it, there are insufficient pharmacists working in public sector facilities to dispense ART to all these patients, according to this policy brief, which means that dispensing tasks must be shifted to pharmacists assistants and/or nurses. The Health Economics Unit (HEU) argues that the pharmacists assistant pharmaceutical care model has the lowest cost to the health system and would support a more integrated primary health care service. Patients getting their ART by attending facilities staffed by pharmacists assistants and nurses experienced relatively better geographic access to facilities and lower transport costs, compared to those attending more central facilities that employ pharmacists. Patients prefer a nurse to dispense their ARTs as this reduces the risk of being identi&#64257;ed by other patients as being HIV-positive. The pharmacists assistant model can be made more acceptable to patients by ensuring that there are no differences between patient folders (e.g. those on ART should not have differently coloured folders) and dispensing all medication (not only anti-retrovirals) in brown paper bags.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Durban COP17: Conference of polluters","field_subtitle":"Bond P: Swazi Observer, 12 November, 2011","field_url":"http://www.observer.org.sz/index.php?news=32182","body":"In the run-up to the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference, hosted in South Africa from 28 November-9 December 2011, the author of this article points to the \u2018David and Goliath\u2019 nature of the Conference as civil society faces the industrial giants of the first world, with the poor of the developing world on the sidelines. The failure of Durban\u2019s COP17 is certain, the author agues. Binding emissions-cutting commitments under the Kyoto Protocol are impossible, given Washington\u2019s push for an alternative global architecture that is inequitable to developing countries. The author expressed concern about plans for climate finance and technology, which include an extension of private-sector profit-making opportunities at public expense. Politically, the author argues that global climate policy makers, especially from the United States State Department and the World Bank, will aim to distract global attention from any potential overall UN solution to the climate crisis, from the severe global power imbalance between nations and from the progressive demands and solutions by civil society, which include demands for a better environment in townships, including increased housing, electricity, water and sanitation, and improved waste removal, healthcare and education. \u2018Connecting the dots\u2019 to climate will be the primary challenge for all attendees at the Conference, the author notes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Effects on quality of care and health care worker satisfaction of language training for health care workers in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Levin ME: African Journal of Health Professions Education, 3(1): 11-14, June 2011","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajhpe/article/viewFile/69939/58013","body":"Communication between non-language-concordant health care workers (HCWs) and patients has been shown by international studies to adversely affect patient and staff satisfaction, yet the authors of this study note that, to the best of their knowledge, no such intervention studies have been conducted in Africa. They conducted research in South Africa to determine whether teaching Xhosa language skills and cultural understanding to HCWs affects patient satisfaction, HCWs\u2019 ability to communicate effectively with Xhosa-speaking patients and HCWs\u2019 job satisfaction levels. A before-and-after interventional study was performed at two community health centres and a district hospital in the Western Cape Province. Fifty-four randomly selected patients (27 pre- and 27 post-intervention) assessed communication with HCWs and rated their satisfaction. Six non-Xhosa-speaking HCW participants completed pre- and post-intervention questionnaires. HCWs completed a ten-week basic language course consisting of ten 120-minute interactive contact sessions developing basic Xhosa speaking and listening skills and cultural competence. Results showed that patient satisfaction showed significant improvements after the intervention. Patients perceived HCWs to be more understanding, respectful and concerned, and to show better listening skills, after the intervention. They were also better able to understand HCWs and their instructions. HCWs\u2019 ability to communicate improved and HCWs experienced decreased frustration levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Enabling open government","field_subtitle":"Dokeniya A: Open Development, World Bank Institute, September 2011","field_url":"http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/devoutreach/article/1278/enabling-open-government","body":"Globally, increasingly vigilant and vocal civil society groups - important actors in the new multilateralism - are demanding openness, transparency and citizen participation in the discourse and practice of governance, which includes the right to information. This movement is facilitated by new technologies in the form of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook and sources like Wikileaks. A new generation of technology-enabled applications and innovations for open government is also being developed in the South. Numerous examples are emerging including the use of mobile phones, SMS (short message service) technologies and web-based platforms for providing feedback on services, reporting on corruption, and accessing services. For example, Global Voices, a virtual organization of bloggers, tracks and shares many of the more innovative applications, emerging in both middle-income and poorer countries. Although the impetus for openness comes from civil society, open government is, at its core, an enterprise of government transformation, the author of this article argues. The author believes that, eventually, citizens will be able to participate actively in the governance ecosystem, but only if governments create the right enabling environment for transparency through appropriate policies and disclosure rules for making information available, and if it creates the kinds of processes that enable citizens to participate in policy making.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. SUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 130: Holding the Ugandan government to account for maternal mortality ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity Watch: assessing progress towards equity in health in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Training and Research Support Centre; Ministry of Health and Child Welfare Zimbabwe; EQUINET: November 2011","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Zimbabwe%20EW%20Nov2011%20lfs.pdf","body":"This report updates the 2008 Zimbabwe Equity Watch report using a framework developed by EQUINET in cooperation with the eastern, central and southern African health community and in consultation with WHO and UNICEF. The report introduces the context and the evidence within four major areas: equity in health, household access to the resources for health, equitable health systems and global justice. It shows past levels (1980\u20132005), current levels (most current data publicly available) and comments on the level of progress towards health equity. The 2011 Equity Watch indicates that improvements have been made in priority areas identified in the 2008 Equity Watch report, such as in primary education, in supplies of medicines and staff to primary care and district levels, in immunisation coverage, in access to antiretrovirals, and in recognition and support of community capacities for health. Nevertheless, the report shows that poverty and inequality in wealth remain high. Economic inequality affects access to key inputs to health, like improved incomes or safe water and the uptake of health services. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing Health in Africa: Le Blog ","field_subtitle":"Discussion forum of the community of practice on health financing in Africa","field_url":"http://healthfinance.weebly.com/","body":"Improving knowledge management in health systems is a priority of the platform Harmonization for Health in Africa (HHA). Building commonly shared knowledge is at the core of the philosophy of communities of practice.  Those within the financing pillar - namely, \"Performance-based financing\", \"Financial Access\", \"Public-Private Partnerships\" and \"Evidence-based Budgeting and Planning\" are particularly active.\r\nIn recent months, their facilitators have found that some lively CoP debates are of broader interest and should be made accessible more widely. This blog was created as a platform to meet this need, to give greater visibility to our CoPs and contribute to consolidating their role and voice in health financing in Africa, to become the reference point for discussions on health financing in Africa. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Funding available for African and Canadian students as part of 2012 graduate research grants","field_subtitle":"Closing date for applications: January 15, 2012.","field_url":"http://www.africaportal.org/exchange","body":"The Africa Initiative announces a call for applications for the 2012 graduate research grant program. Grants of up to $10,000 (CAD) will be awarded to 15 African students applying to study in Canada and 15 Canadian students to conduct field-based research in Africa. Applications must be submitted by January 15, 2012. As part of the Africa Initiative, a joint undertaking by The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in cooperation with Makerere University and the South African Institute for International Affairs, the Africa Initiative Graduate Research Grant will give special consideration to proposals that present new and policy relevant research, and that cover one or more of the areas of conflict resolution, energy, food security, health, migration and climate change. Successful applicants who are currently enrolled in an African university will spend up to three months at a Canadian university undertaking research funded by the program. The research will lead to a major paper to be considered for publishing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Funding opportunity for registered NGOs to develop and curate thematic pages on a new global youth website","field_subtitle":"No Deadline: Proposals Considered On A Rolling Basis","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6bpzrco","body":"The Youth Initiative of the Open Society Foundations (OSF) is currently seeking proposals from eligible registered NGO\u2019s for up to US$10,000 in funding to develop and curate thematic pages on a new global youth portal and community being developed at www.youthpolicy.org. Youthpolicy.org aims to consolidate knowledge and information on youth policies across the international sector, ranging from analysis and formulation to implementation and evaluation. Themes include, but are not limited to: participation and citizenship; activism and volunteering; children and youth rights; youth with disabilities; global drug policy; community work; research and knowledge; informal learning; youth, environment and sustainability; multiculturalism and minorities; and youth justice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"G20 outcomes: the end of the promise of a new world order?","field_subtitle":"CIDSE: November 2011","field_url":"http://www.cidse.org/Area_of_work/?id=1161","body":"According to the CIDSE, a coalition of Catholic welfare organisations in the North, the much-anticipated G20 London Summit has ended in an anti-climax. CIDSE\u2019s presents four main criticisms of the G20 outcomes. First, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will continue to regulate global finance and has been given a US$500 billion boost to continue to be the guardian of the global financial system, a role it has failed at so far. Although the G20 outcome acknowledges the need to reform global financial institutions, to take steps (unspecified though they be) to make these institutions more accountable and credible and to appoint the heads and senior management on merit through open and transparent process, CIDSE argues this is unlikely to have much impact on low-income countries. Second, tax havens will continue to flourish so long as they sign bilateral agreements that have proven not to be effective. The black-listing measures that the G20 has announced will do little to return the millions of euros that have been illegally taken out of developing countries and deposited in secret European bank accounts. Third, the announced US$50 billion in aid for low-income countries is little more than a repackaging of existing resources, as many countries in the European Union \u2013 the largest external funder in the world \u2013 are set to default on their aid commitments, having not yet made concrete allocations to their development budgets. The G20 communiqu\u00e9 is also vague regarding the modalities and the timeline for the disbursement of these funds. Fourth, a balanced and development-friendly system for international monetary stability remains elusive. The call by China to review the current monetary system based on a single reserve currency is not reflected in the communiqu\u00e9. The adverse impacts of currency exchange rate instability on developing countries\u2019 terms of trade also remain unaddressed, while the recommendation of the Expert Commission of the United Nations General Assembly President to adopt a new Global Reserve System does not appear on the agenda of the G20.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health situation analysis in the African Region: Atlas of Health Statistics, 2011","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2011","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/","body":"This publication presents in numerical and graphical formats the best data available for key health indicators in the 46 countries of the World Health Organisation\u2019s African Region. It describes the health status and trends in the countries of the African Region, the various components of their health systems, coverage and access levels for specific programmes and services, and the key determinants of health in the region, and the progress made on reaching the United Nations\u2019 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). A major finding is improvement in progress towards reaching the MDGs \u2013 however, most improvements have been small and it does not appear that the continent will meet all the health-related MDGs set for 2015, notably those for child and maternal mortality, which remain very high. Communicable diseases make up the largest part of the disease burden (42.4% of disability-adjusted life years) versus only 15.9% for non-communicable diseases in second place (data from 2004). Utilisation of health services is low for antenatal care (44%) and contraceptive prevalence is a mere 24%, but immunisation coverage for children improved to 72%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthcare in Africa conference, 6-7 March 2012, Cape Town, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Registration dates not yet announced","field_url":"http://cemea.economistconferences.com/event/healthcare-africa","body":"The Healthcare in Africa conference will take place from 6-7 March 2012 in Cape Town, South Africa. It aims to bring together influential healthcare stakeholders from government, providers, suppliers and patient groups to confront and explore key issues around healthcare systems in Africa. Activities include interactive online brainstorming sessions, presentations of case studies and lectures form specialists and other stakeholders in healthcare in Africa. The following topics will be addressed: What is the right balance of private and public healthcare for Africa? How can healthcare systems best meet the demands of both infectious and chronic diseases? What are the best practices for affordable medicine in Africa, and what can be learnt from other emerging markets?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV prevention awareness and practices among married couples in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Chirwa E, Malata A and Norr K: Malawi Medical Journal 23(2): 32-37, June 2011","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/mmj/article/viewFile/70745/59375","body":"In this study researchers explored the level of awareness and practice on HIV prevention among married couples from selected communities in Malawi. They carried out the study from October to December 2008 in four communities, two each from Chiradzulu and Chikhwawa districts of Malawi. They conducted face-to-face in-depth interviews with 30 couples in each district using a semi-structured interview guide. The couples\u2019 ages ranged from 20 to 53 years, most (52%) being in the 20-31 year-old age group. All couples were aware of HIV prevention methods and talked about them in their marriages. For most couples (54) there was mutual trust between husbands and wives, and members of only a few couples (six) doubted their partners\u2019 ability to maintain mutual fidelity, but researchers detected infidelity among 25 couples. A few couples (5) had been tested for HIV. No couples favoured the use of condoms with a marriage partner as an HIV prevention method. The researchers conclude that the level of HIV prevention awareness among couples in Malawi is high and almost universal. However, there is low adoption of the HIV prevention methods among the couples because they are perceived to be couple unfriendly due to their incompatibility with the socio-cultural beliefs of the people. There is a need to target couples as units of intervention in the adoption of HIV prevention methods by rural communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Holding the Ugandan government to account for maternal mortality","field_subtitle":"Moses Mulumba, David Kabanda and Nabayunga Hafsa, Center For Health Human Rights and Development (CEHURD), Uganda","field_url":"","body":"\r\nWe always hear that maternal deaths are avoidable, yet they remain a main cause of mortality. Whenever a woman dies while giving birth, we absorb the fact as though it was normal, despite the pain caused to her family, her children and her partner. Silence engulfs the mourners and after burial, the deceased woman is registered into the records and included in public health statistics. \r\n\r\nThese are the facts: According to Cook, Dickens and Fathalla in 2003, every year more than 500 000 women die from pregnancy complications or childbirth globally, and 99 percent of these deaths occur in developing countries. According to the Road Map for Accelerating the Reduction of Maternal and Neonatal mortality and morbidity in Uganda 2007-2015, sixteen women die every day in Uganda due to maternal mortality. This means that 6000 women die every year and leads to an estimated maternal mortality rate of 345 per 100 000 live births. \r\n\r\nThis tide of death due to pregnancy and childbirth occurs for various reasons. The health sector is chronically underfunded compared to health need, leading to lack of available, well supervised trained midwives in services close to communities. Referrals for complicated cases face problems of lack of ambulances and of emergency obstetric care in referral hospitals. Health workers may be demoralized in such conditions and show poor attitudes to clients. Within communities, partners may give women inadequate support and resources to make timely use of services, especially when poorly equipped local services mean that they have to travel some distance to facilities. Participatory research carried out by HEPS (Uganda) in 2008/9 found that women get weak support in maternal health issues from their male partners. \r\n\r\nThese problems have contributed to the deaths of many women, especially the poorest women, who constitute a large share of the population. These women are also the bread winners of and carers for many rural families. The Ugandan government acknowledges in its Road Map for Accelerating the Reduction of Maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity that maternal mortality occurs because of the three delays. The first of these is a delay in making the decision to seek care. The second delay is in identifying and reaching a medical facility, while the last is in receiving of adequate and appropriate treatment. It is a duty of government to address these delays, including any shortfalls in funding of the health sector that may be connected to the weaknesses in service delivery that lead to these maternal deaths.\r\n\r\nIn 2011, building on civil society advocacy on these three delays, the Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) took a further step of petitioning the constitutional court, seeking declaration(s) that the non-provision of healthcare in government health facilities leading to the death of mothers is an infringement on rights to life and health.  \r\n\r\nThe petition draws on maternal death reviews from government hospitals, where the cause of death has been cited as lack of facilities, equipment or consumables.  Health workers cite that they did not have equipment for monitoring the deliveries in the theatre and labour suites, including materials like gloves, and noted that there were inadequate trained heath workers.\r\n\r\nWhen complications happen, if women report late to services this reduces their chances of survival. However, the reported shortfalls in health care services have meant that even when they arrived early at hospitals, when labour pains started, women were still at risk. Two cases were cited in the petition. In one, a young woman arrived at 8:00am and died at around 9:00pm when her uterus ruptured, due to obstructed labour. In the second, the woman went to a government Health centre first before being taken to a government district hospital. She could not be saved after she had a retained twin. This woman was reported to have arrived at 2:30pm but to have not been attended to by health workers until she died just after midnight at 12:30am. In both instances, the hospital reports point to lack of basic equipment and supplies for deliveries and lack of staffing.\r\n\r\nThe petition contends that these deaths, arising from the non-provision of basic maternal health care services in government hospitals, is a violation of the right to life guaranteed under Article 22 of the Constitution of Uganda. The petition contends that the right to health under Objectives XIV and XXII is violated when government health workers and government fail to provide the required essential care during the period before and after childbirth. This happens when there is inadequate staffing for maternal health, specifically midwives and doctors, frequent stock-outs of essential drugs for maternal health and lack of Emergency Obstetric Care Services at Health Centres III, IV and hospitals. \r\n\r\nIn taking on this public interest litigation case, CEHURD, and the wider civil society groups who support the petition have acted for a wider concern in society on unacceptable levels of maternal death. Principal State Attorney Patricia Mutesi was reported on Sunday 23 October\u2019s Monitor (www.monitor.co.ug) to have argued that a court determination would amount to usurping of power of the Executive and the Parliament to determine on economic policies. However, Mr David Kabanda, the petitioners\u2019 attorney, said the State objection was misconceived because the matter before court is seeking for court interpretation whether the acts and omissions at the various health centres contravene the Constitution. Irrespective of its outcome, the petition has widened awareness of the right to health and social expectations on maternal health.  Uganda National Health Consumers Organisation (UNHCO) has raised advocacy on the issue (http://unhco.or.ug/news) and a coalition of over 35 civil society organizations has since been formed on maternal health, which is taking up wider health issues, including budget monitoring. This coalition is providing learning and networking on health rights generally, building social activism using evidence from the real situation in health services and the social concerns in communities. \r\n\r\nThe petition sets a precedent on one of the ways of progressively realising the right to health in a resource constrained setting. It may inform the way we address other obligations and entitlements, like access to medicines. Social action through constitutionally set channels is one way society can act to prevent unacceptable death in vulnerable women and to advance health equity in Uganda. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit the CEHURD website: www.cehurd.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Identifying strategies to improve research publication output in health and rehabilitation sciences: A review of the literature","field_subtitle":"Frantz JM and Amosun SL: African Journal of Health Professions Education, 3(1): 7-10, June 2011","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajhpe/article/viewFile/69938/58012","body":"In South Africa, the number of papers produced in health and rehabilitation sciences is insignificant compared with other health-related disciplines, according to the authors of this paper. To identify strategies to increase the number of these papers, the authors reviewed published papers that examined the effectiveness of interventions designed to promote research publications among academics and clinicians in health and rehabilitation sciences programmes. Seven of the papers reported on interventions for academics, and six reported on the interventions for academics in the nursing profession. The most common interventions were \u2018writing support groups\u2019, \u2018writing retreats\u2019, and \u2018writing courses\u2019 that lasted from three days to five years. The interventions were designed to meet the needs of the participants for structured time, motivation, improved writing skills and peer support. All the interventions produced significant research output relating to submission or publication of academic papers. The implementation of these interventions by South African tertiary institutions where health and rehabilitation sciences are offered may improve the number of papers published by the health research community, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Infant feeding choices of HIV-positive mothers in Ghana: How do the roles of counsellors, mothers, families and socio-economic status influence these choices?","field_subtitle":"Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town, Policy Brief: August 2011  ","field_url":"http://uct-heu.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/HEU-Policy-Brief-Alex-040811.pdf","body":"This policy brief draws on evidence from a recent study that investigated the factors influencing the choices of infant feeding of HIV-positive mothers in Ghana through an assessment of the perspectives of HIV-positive mothers and family members (i.e., fathers and grandmothers) in two districts in Ghana. Results from the study showed that HIV-positive mothers had good knowledge and understanding of exclusive breastfeeding and exclusive replacement feeding, however adherence to these feeding options was poor and mixed feeding was common. HIV-positive mothers had access to counseling on replacement infant feeding options but there was an emphasis on exclusive breastfeeding and exclusive replacement feeding and not on other replacement options. HIV-positive mothers faced various obstacles (socio-economic, familial and stigma) in carrying out replacement feeding. Family members and communities have a strong influence on mothers\u2019 infant feeding practices. The authors of the study recommend introducing a multi-dimensional behaviour change strategy which involves mothers, family members and significant community members in order to change perceptions, understanding and attitudes to exclusive replacement feeding and exclusive breastfeeding and at the same time, explicitly deal with the risk in terms of infant survival associated with mixed feeding. Male partners should be involved and counselors should explore why the full range of feeding options (like heat-treated breast milk, animal milk and wetnursing) are not discussed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Is the attendance of paediatricians at all elective caesarean sections an effective use of resources?","field_subtitle":"Tooke LJ, Joolay Y, Horn AR and Harrison MC: South African Medical Journal 101(10): 749-750, October 2011","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/70340/58674","body":"The aim of this study was to determine the need for resuscitation at the birth of babies delivered by elective caesarean section (CS) and to record the time spent by doctors attending such deliveries. Data were collected prospectively on all elective CSs performed at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, over a three-month period. Data collected included: total time involved for paediatrician from call to leaving theatre, management of infant (requiring any form of resuscitation), Apgar scores and neonatal outcome (e.g. admission to nursery). The CSs were classified as low-risk or high-risk. Data were recorded for 138 deliveries. One-hundred-and-fifteen deliveries were classified as uncomplicated and 20 as high-risk. Only one of the babies born from the 115 low-risk CSs needed brief resuscitation, whereas nine of the 20 high-risk deliveries resulted in newborn resuscitation. The reasons for low-risk CS were: previous CS (81); infant of diabetic mother (IDM) and previous CS (16); IDM alone (6); estimated big baby (10); and other (2).The average time spent at each elective CS by the paediatrician was 37 minutes. The authors conclude that, for low-risk CS, the same medical attendance (i.e. a midwife) as for an uncomplicated normal vaginal delivery (NVD) would be appropriate. This would free up a doctor for other duties and assist in de-medicalising a low-risk procedure.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya climate hearings 2011: Communities speak out","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: 11 November, 2011 ","field_url":"http://blogs.oxfam.org/en/blog/11-11-11-kenya-climate-hearings-2011-communities-speak-out","body":"In the run up to the 2011 United Nations climate conference \u2013 hosted in Durban, South Africa, from 28 November to 1 December \u2013 Oxfam is supporting communities to speak out about the impact that climate change is having on their lives. In drought-prone areas of Kenya, Oxfam has worked with communities to organise climate hearings. This document reports that at time of writing four million Kenyans faced hunger as a result of failed rains. The northern regions of Turkana and Wajir experienced chronic drought, leaving over half the population dependant on food aid. The hearings are seen as a vital opportunity for communities to speak out about the dramatic impact that climate change is having on their lives. Testimony from the hearings paints a devastating picture of lives and livelihoods that have been severely disrupted by what communities see as a changing climate. Feedback from the hearings indicate that cattle are crucially important to pastoralists, but with changing weather patterns, cattle-rearing is more and more difficult, and livestock are reduced to feeding on polythene paper and human waste. Women in particular are found to suffer from the consequences of a changing climate, with livestock death leading to food insecurity, falling household incomes and child school drop out. The findings of the hearings were taken to the United Nations Climate Change Summit in Durban in end November 2011.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya to start production of generic ARVs ","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 16 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94212","body":"A Kenyan pharmaceutical company, Universal Corporation, is reported to have been certified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to start producing antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. The company alleges that the cost of its medicines will be at least 30% cheaper than those the government is currently buying from foreign manufacturers in countries like India, largely as it will avoid high importation costs. The authors note that whether or not the government will buy medicines locally depends on their pricing. Activists have called on WHO to certify more local manufacturers to produce high-quality generic drugs. Government officials have welcomed the development as a step in providing universal coverage to all HIV-positive Kenyans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Lessons for innovative health management in the public sector, 2011","field_subtitle":"Doherty J and Gilson L: Oliver Tambo Fellowship Programme, 2011 ","field_url":"http://uct-heu.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Health-Management-report_final.pdf","body":"In June 2010 a conference entitled \u2018Innovative Health Management in the Public Sector\u2019 was held in Cape Town under the banner of the Oliver Tambo Fellowship Programme at the University of Cape Town. Participants offered a number of key messages for policy makers. 1. Prioritise leadership and management development as a key element of health systems strengthening, providing strong political support yet avoiding political interference. 2. Develop a recruitment strategy that appoints appropriately skilled and committed managers to appropriate positions. 3. Recognise that improving physical infrastructure and the quality of services is essential to successful retention. 4. Build and affirm managers\u2019 good values while challenging those who exhibit inappropriate values. 5. Prioritise leadership and management training across the Department of Health and at all levels by developing mentoring mechanisms. 6. Remove unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles that impede dynamic health systems management, decentralise authority for decision-making and reduce management fragmentation to create an enabling environment for managers. 6. Adopt a systemic approach to health systems transformation that includes experimenting with new management practices, creating the space for managers to act proactively rather than simply reacting to daily crises. 7. Explore team work and the creative use of information in developing interventions and assessing progress in an iterative cycle of change. 8. Strengthen the accountability of managers within a supportive environment that allows some mistakes to be made as part of the process of innovation. 9. Develop a strategy and mechanisms for managers around the country to share best practices and experience on an ongoing basis. 10. Create a platform for managers to express their views to senior provincial and national policy-makers. 11. Recognise, value and celebrate the achievements of managers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Medicines Patent Pool responds to ITPC concerns over Gilead-Pool licences","field_subtitle":"Medicines Patent Pool: November 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/78d5bvl","body":"This document provides responses to the concerns expressed by the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) regarding the Gilead-Pool licences issued by the Pool in October 2011. The ITCP was concerned that the licences might undermine TRIPS flexibilities that would allow developing countries to manufacture and purchase cheaper generic medicines, but the Pool refutes this, arguing that one of the core principles of the Pool is to ensure that the terms and conditions it negotiates do not undermine the use of other mechanisms that can improve access to affordable medicines. Least-developed countries (LDCs) still have the option of not introducing patent protection for pharmaceuticals until 2016, the Pool notes. The licences do not require countries to apply to Gilead for \u2018prior permission\u2019 for use of a compulsory licence (CL), as countries retain their sovereign rights under the TRIPS Agreement to issue CLs for any reason, and licensees are expressly required to supply countries that do so. Further, the Pool argues that the licences do not block the ability of excluded countries to parallel import generic medicines \u2013 countries that have adopted appropriate provisions in their national laws may still be able to purchase the patented product at a lower price in a different country. In addition, the Gilead-Pool licences do not prevent licensees from challenging the validity of any of the licensed patents. Generic companies and civil society groups are free to oppose the grant of any patents they feel do not meet the requirements of patentability. Although the Pool does not have the authority to set patentability criteria or to grant patents (this rests with national governments), it can play a role in ensuring they do not block access to medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Mental health service delivery in South Africa from 2000 to 2010: One step forward, one step back","field_subtitle":"Petersen I and Lund C: South African Medical Journal 101(10): 751-757, October 2011","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/samj/article/view/70342/58675","body":"The primary aim of this study was to identify progress and challenges in mental healthcare in South Africa, as well as future mental health services research priorities. A systematic literature review of mental health services research was conducted, including studies from January 2000 to October 2010. Hand searches of key local journals were also conducted. Of 215 articles retrieved, 92 were included. The authors found that, while progress in epidemiological studies has been good, there was a paucity of intervention and economic evaluation studies.  Most studies reviewed were on the status of mental healthcare services, which indicated some progress in decentralised care for severe mental disorders, but also insufficient resources to adequately support community-based services, resulting in the classic \u2018revolving-door\u2019 phenomenon. Common mental disorders remain largely undetected and untreated in primary healthcare. Cross-cutting issues included the need for promoting culturally congruent services, as well as mental health literacy to assist in improving help-seeking behaviour, stigma reduction, and reducing defaulting and human rights abuses. Intervention research is needed to provide evidence of the organisational and human resource mix requirements, as well as cost-effectiveness of a culturally appropriate, task shifting and stepped care approach for severe and common mental disorders at primary healthcare level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Missed opportunity at the first UN High-level Summit on Non-communicable Diseases","field_subtitle":"Blouin C and Bertorelli E: Health Diplomacy Monitor 2(5): 3-5, November 2011","field_url":"http://www.ghd-net.org/sites/default/files/Health%20Diplomacy%20Monitor%20Volume%202%20Issue%205.pdf","body":"On 16 September 2011, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly unanimously adopted a political declaration at the end of its High-Level Summit on Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs), the response to which has been largely positive. But the authors of this article argue that the declaration missed a number of opportunities to effect real change in the fight against NCDs. They note that the declaration did not establish a special funding mechanism devoted to improving access to treatment of NCDs globally, nor did it commit donors and international organisations to invest more resources in that area, as was requested by developing country members of the Group of 77. Also, the final document did not include a reference to the Doha declaration on TRIPs and Public Health adopted in 2001, which re-affirmed the right of governments to adopt measures to protect health, despite this issue being emphasised during the process by the G77. Likewise, the declaration does not include new specific targets in reducing NCDs or concrete measures to be undertaken by governments, thanks largely to the United States, the European Union, and Canada, which generally opposed mandatory targets. The influence of the private sector was also clearly felt in this regard, as, in various side-meetings during the Summit, private sector companies argued for a voluntary rather than a regulatory approach for industry practices. Next steps include the development of targets and of a monitoring framework by the World Health Organisation by 2012. So far, the 68th session of the UN General Assembly in 2014 does not appear to include any discussion of NCDs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"National advocacy and media toolkit for Busan HLF4 ","field_subtitle":"BetterAid and the Open Forum: November 2011","field_url":"http://www.cso-effectiveness.org/national-advocacy-media-toolkit,537.html","body":"BetterAid and the Open Forum have developed this toolkit for use in the run up to and during the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4) (29 November-1 December 2011 in Busan, Korea) and the Busan Civil Society Forum that precedes it. The Toolkit is intended to support national advocacy and media activities, which can be conducted by concerned civil society organisations (CSOs). For CSOs, HLF4 is a particularly significant milestone as it marks the first time that CSOs will participate as full and equal stakeholders in aid effectiveness negotiations alongside governments and external funders. The objectives of this media tool kit are to: attract and focus media attention to effectively communicate the CSO perspective on aid and development effectiveness and reaction to the meeting outcomes to the widest audience possible; and support the lobby initiatives of CSOs with governments and official representatives on the Draft Outcome Document at the HLF4. The Toolkit has a number of templates that can be used and adapted according to national activities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"On seeds: Controlling the first link in the food chain","field_subtitle":"Tandon N: Pambazuka News 557, 9 November 2011 ","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/77809","body":"The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and the Gates Foundation represent the interests of biotechnology companies like Monsanto that are attempting to monopolise Africa\u2019s seed industry, according to the author of this article. With Monsanto among the Foundation's portfolio investments, the author questions the legitimacy of the Foundation\u2019s drive to promote genetically modified (GM) crops produced and patented by Monsanto. The risks to farmers of fully adopting industrial agriculture in general and GM seeds in particular include: transferring their food and farming decisions to global corporations; losing ecological and agricultural diversity as GM crop varieties spread; increased use of pesticide and fertiliser normally required for GM crops; and driving small- and medium-scale family farmers off their land because they cannot afford the expensive inputs that industrial agriculture demands, like patented GM seeds. Instead, the author argues for an approach based on traditional knowledge, with small-scale farmers growing diverse crops for local markets, planting farmer-selected crops from seed saved year-on-year (referred to as heirloom varieties), and, drawing on case studies, argues that integrated farm management based on traditional knowledge \u2013 without using pesticides or chemical fertilisers \u2013 have proven to yield greater harvests. To address the issues of nutrition security, poverty and health in Africa, farmers and governments should not be coerced into following the Western industrial agricultural model, and the Gates Foundation and AGRA should not be regarded as genuine partners in finding solutions to the food crisis in the continent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Open Access Africa 2011: Access to health research for Africa\u2019s health workers","field_subtitle":"Nduba J: African Medical and Research Foundation, 25 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.slideshare.net/BioMedCentral/lasting-health-change-access-to-health-research-for-africas-health-workers","body":"This presentation was delivered at BioMed\u2019s Open Access Conference, held from 24-26 October 2011, in Kumasi, Ghana. It documents work by the African Medical And Research Foundation (AMREF), an international African non-governmental organisation (NGO) that focuses on community health development, with programme offices in seven African countries and direct reach through training, partnerships and consultancy in 33 other African countries. With major information challenges facing African health workers and systems, the use of emerging information and innovations have a huge role to play in improving health and health systems in Africa, the presenter argues, but he warns that tools alone cannot do it \u2013 the content needs to be developed and made available. Therefore, publishing and making information available to Africa\u2019s health workers and practitioners is an urgent issue for the improvement of health services delivery in Africa. AMREF focuses on three broad health system approaches: capacity building for community and health systems including development and support to community health workers; improving health information; and human resources for health, particularly regarding the issues of health worker numbers and skills, training approaches including task shifting, and deployment and retention. Challenges in accessing research were identified as: low investment in research within the continent; lack of infrastructure for accessing research online in appropriate platforms to share research; and the prohibitive cost of accessing research (in print or online). ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Pathways to progress: Transitioning to country-led service delivery pathways to meet Africa\u2019s water supply and sanitation targets","field_subtitle":"De Waal D, Hirn M and Mason N: Water and Sanitation Programme, 2011","field_url":"http://www.wsp.org/wsp/sites/wsp.org/files/publications/CSO-Synthesis-Report.pdf","body":"This report maps progress in water supply and sanitation of 32 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. According to the report, political stability has heavily influenced progress in improving access to water supply and sanitation services with low-income stable countries outperforming low-income fragile and resource-rich countries, breaking with the common perception that access to sanitation and water increases with gross domestic product (GDP). The good progress of low-income stable countries has been assisted by their receiving three times more aid than low-income fragile countries and two times more aid than resource-rich countries, per unserved person. Low-income stable countries making most progress have capitalised on harmonised and aligned aid modalities to successfully transition to more programmatic, \u2018country-led\u2019 forms of service delivery. The authors emphasise that a shift in aid modalities from external funder-driven projects to country-led programmatic approaches can potentially increase access to water and sanitation services for millions of people by 2015. To accelerate progress to meet Millennium Development Goals for water and sanitation, at least an additional US$6 billion a year of domestic and external funding is needed, they add.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Patient satisfaction with health care services provided at HIV clinics at Amana and Muhimbili hospitals in Dar es Salaam","field_subtitle":"Kagashe GAB and Rwebangila F: African Health Sciences 11(Special Issue 1): 560-566, August 2011","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ahs/article/viewFile/70072/58188","body":"Since the establishment of free HIV and AIDS care and treatment services in Tanzania a lot of research has been done to assess how health care providers discharge their duties in these clinics. Little research however has been done regarding satisfaction of HIV patients with free health care services provided. The authors of this study aimed to determine satisfaction of HIV patients with health care services provided at the HIV clinics and specifically, to determine patients\u2019 satisfaction with the general physical environment of the clinic and with services offered by doctors, nurses, laboratory, and pharmacy. A cross-sectional study was conducted at Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) and Amana hospital. A total of 375 patients attending outpatient HIV clinics were selected randomly and interviewed using a questionnaire, after obtaining a verbal consent. Results showed that patients at Amana Hospital clinic were either very satisfied (44.3%) or satisfied (55.7%) and none were dissatisfied, while at MNH clinic 1.1% patients were very satisfied while (94.7%) were satisfied and (4.2%) were dissatisfied with health care services provided. Lack of privacy when consulting with doctors and the dispenser contributed to patients\u2019 dissatisfaction with the services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy Brief 26: Expansion of the private for-profit health sector in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Doherty J, EQUINET: November 2011","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Pol26%20brief%20privatefin.pdf","body":"In recent years there has been increased private for-profit health sector activity in certain countries in East and Southern Africa. External funders and governments have subsidised some of these activities. Private \u2018high-end\u2019 hospitals have begun to service wealthy groups, even in very low income countries. A report published in 2007 by the World Bank\u2019s International Finance Corporation (IFC) encouraged governments to facilitate further private sector growth. This policy brief explores these developments in East and Southern Africa. In contrast to the IFC report, it raises concerns about the adverse consequences of growth in the private for-profit sector, and proposes steps that Ministries of Health should take to protect the integrity and equity of their health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy Brief 27: Constitutional provisions for the right to health in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Mulumba M, Kabanda D, Nassuna V and Loewenson R, EQUINET: November 2011","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Pol%2027%20constitution.pdf","body":"The extent to which health rights are neglected or promoted is a major factor in the promotion of health equity in Africa. Central to this is the incorporation of the right to health in the national Constitution, as the supreme law of the country. Including the right to health as a constitutional right provides a bench mark for government, private sector and society to respect, protect, fulfil and promote it. In many countries in east and southern Africa (ESA) there is advocacy and debate on inclusion in the constitution of the right to health. This brief presents a review of how the constitutions of 14 countries covered by EQUINET include the right to health. It uses as a framework the six core obligations spelt out in General Comment 14 of the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights (ICESR).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty, child sexual abuse and HIV in the Transkei region, South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Banwari M: African Health Sciences 11(Special Issue 1): 8117-8121, August 2011","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ahs/article/viewFile/70081/58202","body":"In this paper, the author argues that poverty robs children of their rights, forcing parents to sell their daughters in exchange for money. The trio of poverty, sexual assaults and HIV are argued to be are complementary to one another. In this paper, five case cases are described, as presented at Sinawe Centre as victims of rape, where money has played a role in the delay in reporting the crime to the police. First, a 13 year old girl was raped by a known person. The cost of settlement was a mere R500 (equivalent to US$70). The second victim was paid R10 or R20 for each sexual act. Third, fourth and fifth cases were young girls who were forced to marry by their parents. The history, physical examination and laboratory investigations are given. Psychosocial and economic aspects are also discussed, such as the cultural practice of lobola (bride price). The author argues that South Africa\u2019s high incidence of HIV and AIDS may be partly linked to the custom of lobola, which is often seen as a monetary transaction, whereby the wife is a bought object and the husband often feels free to acquire mistresses. This increases the possibility of infection, which is turn can be transmitted to the wife. In addition, the author argues that high rates of sexual assault in South Africa run parallel with high levels of HIV prevalence, and mental health problems resulting from rape are seldom treated. Although the South African government Has pledged to provide HIV post-exposure prophylaxis if the survivors of rape present within 72 hours of the event, none of the girls and women in the case studies qualified, as they reported the incidences too late.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Predictors of treatment failure among pulmonary tuberculosis patients in Mulago hospital, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Namukwaya E, Nakwagala FN, Mulekya F, Mayanja-Kizza H and Mugerwa R: African Health Sciences 11(Special Issue 1): 8105-8111, August 2011","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ahs/article/viewFile/70079/58198","body":"Early identification of tuberculosis (TB) treatment failure using cost effective means is urgently needed in developing nations. The authors of this study set out to describe affordable predictors of TB treatment failure in an African setting by determining the predictors of treatment failure among patients with sputum smear-positive pulmonary TB clinic at Mulago Hospital in Kampala, Uganda. This was an unmatched case control study where fifty patients with a diagnosis of TB treatment failure (cases) and 100 patients declared cured after completing anti-TB treatment (controls) were recruited into the study. Cases were compared with controls to determine predictors of treatment failure. Significant predictors of treatment failure in this study included a positive sputum smear at two months of TB treatment and poor adherence to anti-TB treatment. The authors found that positive sputum smear at two months of TB treatment and poor adherence to anti TB treatment were reliable and affordable predictors of TB treatment failure. These predictors may be used in resource-limited settings for early recognition of those at risk and early intervention, they conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevalence and factors associated with traditional herbal medicine use among patients on highly active antiretroviral therapy in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Namuddu B, Kalyango JN, Karamagi C, Mudiope P, Sumba S, Kalende H et al: BMC Public Health 11(855), 10 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-855.pdf","body":"This study aimed at determining the prevalence and factors associated with use of traditional herbal medicines (THM) among HIV-infected patients on highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) attending the AIDS Support Organisation (TASO), a non-governmental organisation offering HIV and AIDS services in Uganda. This was a cross-sectional study carried out in two TASO treatment centres among 401 randomly selected eligible participants. Participants were 18 years and older, and were enrolled on HAART. The authors found that the average prevalence of THM use was 33.7%. Patients on HAART for less than four years were more likely to use THM, as well as those who experienced HAART side effects. Patients older than 39 years old were less likely to use THM. Participants with HAART adherence levels greater than 95% were less likely to use THM. Overall, the prevalence of THM use among participants on HAART was high, which raises clinical and pharmacological concerns that need attention by the health care service providers, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Producing home grown solutions: Think tanks and knowledge networks in international development","field_subtitle":"Datta A: Open Development, World Bank Institute, September 2011","field_url":"http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/devoutreach/article/1303/producing-home-grown-solutions-think-tanks-and-knowledge-networks-internati","body":"In this article, the author argues that international agreements and planning instruments such as the World Bank\u2019s Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) often fail to question the parameters within which national plans are prepared. Home grown solutions can only be produced from knowledge and policies that are locally generated and context specific. Southern knowledge centres (or think tanks) \u2013 which are estimated to number about 2,000 \u2013 then have a crucial role to play in promoting economic and social development in the global South, particularly in the poorer economies. In an increasingly interconnected world, Northern and Southern think tanks are joining forces in partnerships and networks to generate and use knowledge more systematically to address national, regional, and global challenges. A number of examples of North-South collaborations are discussed in the article, including the Chronic Poverty Research Centre and the Climate and Development Knowledge Network. Networks of think tanks can provide an extremely effective mechanism for learning and innovation, the author notes, and they can enable collaboration beyond the usual institutional, cultural, and functional boundaries of an organisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health and public goods ","field_subtitle":"Anomaly J: Public Health Ethics 4(3): 251\u2013259, 27 August 2011","field_url":"http://phe.oxfordjournals.org/content/4/3/251.full.pdf+html","body":"Public health practitioners and theorists are diverse and have various social goals that they promote, but the unique status of public health can be traced to the fact that most of what it has historically concerned itself with can be classified as the provision of health-related public goods, the author of this paper argues. He asserts that a public goods framework serves as a useful criterion for distinguishing public health from private health, and it explains why public health goals have special urgency. Public health goals, properly understood, generally require collective action to achieve, and can be endorsed by a wide variety of moral and political theories. The public goods account has the further advantage of establishing a relatively clear and distinctive mission for public health. It also allows a consensus of people with different comprehensive moral and political commitments to endorse public health measures, even if they disagree about precisely why they are desirable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Putting growth in its place: It has to be but a means to development, not an end in itself","field_subtitle":"Dreze  J and Sen A: Outlook India, 14 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?278843","body":"According to this article, economic growth is not constitutively the same thing as development, in the sense of a general improvement in living standards and enhancement of people\u2019s well-being and freedom. Growth, of course, can be very helpful in achieving development, but the authors argue that this requires active public policies to ensure that the fruits of economic growth are widely shared, as well as making good use of the public revenue generated by fast economic growth for social services, especially for public healthcare and public education. Yet it is also important to recognise that the impact of economic growth on living standards is crucially dependent on the nature of the growth process (for instance, its sectoral composition and employment intensity) as well as of the public policies - particularly relating to basic education and healthcare - that are used to enable common people to share in the process of growth. There is also an urgent need for greater attention to the destructive aspects of growth, such as environmental degradation and involuntary displacement of communities that have strong roots in a particular ecosystem.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration now open for Forum 2012: 24-26 APRIL 2012, Cape Town, South Africa","field_subtitle":"COHRED and the Global Forum","field_url":"http://www.forum2012.org/","body":"Forum 2012 will bring together key actors to make research and innovation work for health, equity and development: governments, industry, social enterprise, non-governmental organisations, researchers, media, funders , international organisations and others. Partipcipants will explore who will explore ways to go \u2018beyond aid\u2019 by building on the rapidly expanding research and innovation capacity of low- and middle-income countries as basis for development. The Forum has three main themes: improving and increasing investments in research and innovation; networking and partnerships in research, technological innovations, social innovations and delivery of better health care; and improvement of health, equity and development of low-income countries by creating a supportive environment, including priority setting in research for health, fair research contracting, research cooperation and ethics, nanotechnologies, technological and social innovations, and using the web as a tool for planning research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration open for SEYCOHAIDS 2012","field_subtitle":"8-10 June 2012: Lilongwe, Malawi","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5ty3mor","body":"SEYCOHAIDS 2012 is the largest international gathering for young people on HIV and AIDS in the Eastern and Southern Africa region, where young researchers, policy makers, activists, educators and people living with HIV will be able to link with people in other countries and meet to share and learn about HIV prevention methods, treatments, care policies and programmes relating to HIV and AIDS in Africa. The broad objectives for the Conference are to: ensure effective and meaningful youth participation in international AIDS response; identify gaps and challenges in government policies in providing youth-friendly HIV and AIDS services; develop regional and country-level strategic programmes for youth and HIV and AIDS; identify and build the capacity of new and emerging youth leaders for the AIDS response to ensure sustainability of youth initiatives at the national, regional and international levels; sustain adult-youth partnerships and dialogue; develop the Southern and Eastern Africa youth network on HIV and AIDS; develop country specific youth networks on HIV and AIDS; establish funding mechanisms for regional and country youth networks; and monitor government and donor commitments to youth and HIV and AIDS. Applicants must be no older than 35 years old at the time of the application.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration open for Third Annual Healthcare Summit: Addressing the issues surrounding healthcare reform in South Africa, 24-26 January 2012, Johannesburg","field_subtitle":"No closing date given for registration","field_url":"http://www.iir.co.za/detail.php?e=2394","body":"The Third Annual Healthcare Summit will be held from 24 to 26 January 2012 in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is a three-day event that deals with all the current issues facing the stakeholders in the healthcare industry. This year\u2019s Summit will focus on the latest developments surrounding healthcare reform in South Africa in both private and public sectors and in particular the impact the NHI is likely to have on the industry. Key topics being addressed include: the impact the NHI will have on the healthcare industry; how the Consumer Protection Act affects the industry; the escalating cost of private healthcare; the pricing structure of doctors vs. those of medical schemes; international benchmarking of pharmaceuticals; the funding of hospitals and how it will improve healthcare facilities; quality assurance in the healthcare industry; the latest fraud trends and their effect on the healthcare industry; and balancing technology advancements against costs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Rehabilitation needs of persons discharged from an African trauma centre ","field_subtitle":"Christian A, Gonz\u00e1lez-Fern\u00e1ndez M, Mayer RS, Haig AJ: Pan African Medical Journal 10(32), September-December 2011","field_url":"http://www.panafrican-med-journal.com/content/article/10/32/full/","body":"In this study, researchers prospectively assessed the functional impairments and rehabilitation needs of Africans admitted to a regional trauma centre in Ghana. It also acts as a pilot study to demonstrate the practical use of the Language Independent Functional Evaluation (L.I.F.E.) software in an acute hospital setting. A five-page questionnaire was used to gather demographic data, cause of disability/injury, severity of disability or functional impairment, and rehabilitation treatment received. Functional status on discharge was evaluated with the L.I.F.E. scale. A total of 84 consecutive consenting subjects were recorded. The predominant disability/injury of respondents involved the lower extremities (70%), followed by upper extremities (23%). The mechanisms of injury were largely related to auto accidents (69%). Falls made up 17% of these injuries and 14% were related to violence. Eleven subjects had disability measured using L.I.F.E and all were classified as having major disabilities. Only 14 patients (17%) received any rehabilitation therapy which consisted of only physical therapy provided at a frequency of once a day for less than one week duration. The researchers found that most persons admitted to a sophisticated trauma unit in Ghana are discharged without adequate rehabilitation services, and that the level of disability experienced by these people can be measured, even while they are still sick and in the hospital, using L.I.F.E. The researchers call on African trauma units to measure the long-term outcomes from their treatments and provide the inpatient medical rehabilitation services that are a standard of care for trauma victims elsewhere in the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Reliability of scored patient-generated subjective global assessment for nutritional status among HIV-infected adults in TASO, Kampala","field_subtitle":"Mokori A, Kabehenda MK, Nabiryo C and Wamuyu MG: African Health Sciences 11(Special Issue 1): 886-892, August 2011","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ahs/article/view/70076/58194","body":"The objective of this study was to establish the reliability of the scored Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) in determining nutritional status among antiretroviral therapy (ART) naive HIV-infected adults. A descriptive, cross sectional study was conducted among outpatient medical clinics in the AIDS Support Organisation (TASO), Mulago Centre, Kampala, Uganda. The study sample totalled 217 HIV-positive patients, consisting of 60 male and 157 female patients, aged 18-67 years old. Data collection was done from April-May 2008. Results showed that only 12% of the subjects were underweight and over half (58.2%) had normal weight. The PG-SGA had low sensitivity (69.2%) and specificity (57.1%) at categorising the risk for malnutrition indicated by Body Mass Index of less than 18.5. The authors note that there was a high prevalence of malnutrition among the study group, but the PGSGA could not adequately discriminate between underweight and normal patients. The tool was not reliable enough for determining nutritional status in this population.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Review of \u2018Paragraph 6\u2019 system, ACTA feature at TRIPS Council","field_subtitle":"Raja K: Third World Network, 8 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/2011/health20111101.htm","body":"At a formal meeting of the regular session of the TRIPS Council on 24-25 October 2011, Member States conducted their annual review of the implementation of the \u2018Paragraph 6\u2019 solution in respect of the TRIPS Agreement and public health. The solution aims to help developing countries with insufficient or no pharmaceutical manufacturing capacities to import cheaper generic medicines produced under compulsory licensing. Ecuador and Venezuela continued to argue that, since the system has only been used once, it is too complicated to be effective, while other Member States questioned whether it is working and said they need more information. Members also agreed to extend the period for acceptance of the protocol amending the TRIPS Agreement (of 2005) for a further two years \u2013 till 31 December 2013 \u2013 until two thirds of World Trade Organisation (WTO) Members accept the amendment, which is required for it to take effect. Discussions were also held on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), during which India, the world\u2019s largest generic manufacturer, stressed that ACTA border measures constituted a grave threat to trade in generics. India argued that ACTA is not legitimate, as it bypasses the multilateral processes of WTO or the World Intellectual Property Organisation and goes far beyond the enforcement levels laid down in the TRIPS Agreement. It noted that ACTA proposals that are underway could undermine the provisions and flexibilities in the TRIPS Agreement by requiring patentability of new uses and minor variations of older known drugs, resulting in indefinite lengthening of the patent life and undermine the generics industry.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Robin Hood taxes: Can the G20 remain blind, deaf and mute?","field_subtitle":"Valot H: CIVICUS, 3 November 2011","field_url":"http://civicus.org/blog/?p=339#more-339","body":"The global financial transaction tax (FTT) is a key proposal that civil society campaigned for at the G20 Cannes Summit, hosted in Cannes, France, from 3-4 November 2011. It has the potential to raise billions of dollars to support social justice goals \u2013 estimates of the amount that FTT could generate range from about US$50 billion to as much as $250 billion if a wide range of transactions are included. The author identifies seven global taxes that could be included as \u2018further transactions\u2019. 1. A tax of 5% on First and Business class air tickets already funds UNITAID, and raises US$200 million annually \u2013 if generalised, it could raise $8 billion globally. 2. A tax on polluting activities, amounting $20-25 for every ton of CO2 would raise $300 billion, while taxation of air and sea international transportation could raise US$40 billion. 3. An additional tax on top of national taxes on transnational societies would eliminate tax havens and would turn these companies into global tax payers, thereby raising $100 billion. 4. A tax on arm sales could garner US$30 billion a year. 5. A tax on capital profits could amount to US$50 billion if it was generalised, if it covered all tax havens and if it was controlled. 6. The tax on currency exchange transactions limited to a rate of 0.005%, and applied to principal currency exchange markets (US$, pound and yen) would generate at least US$33 billion \u2013 if increased to 0.1%, this tax would raise $150-300 billion, as well as becoming an efficient instrument against rampant speculation. 7. A tax of $0.05 on every pack of cigarettes in rich countries (and of $0.01 in poorest countries) would raise an additional $7.7 billion.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/36376","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Socioeconomic-related health inequality in South Africa: evidence from General Household Surveys","field_subtitle":"Ataguba J, Akazili J and McIntyre D: International Journal for Equity in Health 2011, 10:48 November 10 2011","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-10-48.pdf","body":"Inequalities in health have received considerable attention from health scientists and economists. In South Africa, inequalities exist in socio-economic status (SES) and in access to basic social services and are exacerbated by inequalities in health. While health systems, together with the wider social determinants of health, are relevant in seeking to improve health status and health inequalities, those that need good quality health care too seldom get it. Studies on the burden of ill-health in South Africa have shown consistently that, relative to the wealthy, the poor suffer more from more disease and violence. This paper specifically investigates socio-economic related health inequality in South Africa and seeks to understand how the burden of self-reported illness and disability is distributed and whether this has changed since the early 2000s. The study demonstrates the existence of socio-economic gradients in self-reported ill-health in South Africa. The burden of the major categories of ill-health and disability is greater among lower than higher socio-economic groups. Even non-communicable diseases, which are frequently seen as diseases of affluence, are increasingly being reported by lower socio-economic groups. For instance, the concentration index of flu (and diabetes) declined from about 0.17 (0.10) in 2002 to 0.05 (0.01) in 2008. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Speakers of African Parliaments Adopt Resolution on Declaration of Commitment to Prioritise and Increase Budget Support to Maternal, Newborn and Child Health","field_subtitle":"African Parliamentarians: October 2011 ","field_url":"","body":"This Declaration of Commitment by Speakers of Parliament is based on the resolution to the Speakers from the fifth Session of the Second Pan African Parliament held on 3-14 October 2011, in Midrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, urging speakers of Parliament in the continent to prioritise the implementation of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health programmes with country reports on actions taken. The commitment  promises high-level parliamentary support to hasten implementation of the Africa Parliamentary Policy and Budget Action Plan on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, agreed by Chairs of Finance and Budget committees of national parliaments in October 2010.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/36521","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Statement by human rights, women's rights and health groups on the occasion of the presentation of the report by Anand Grover, Un Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health to the UN General Assembly","field_subtitle":"Amnesty International, Marie Stopes International, Women\\'s Global Network for Reproductive Rights et al: 25 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/IOR41/016/2011/en","body":"In this statement, a number of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in health express their support for the report by the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the right to health. They believe the report is of fundamental importance in securing the right to health, in particular because it consolidates years of health and human rights legal analysis, supporting the conclusion that criminal law is an inappropriate tool for regulating sexual and reproductive health matters. Empirical evidence demonstrates that the misuse of criminal laws and punitive policies in the area of sexual and reproductive health cause disproportionate suffering for women; people engaging in same-sex sexual conduct; people identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons; those living with HIV or AIDS; and other groups who already suffer discrimination. The NGOs support the report\u2019s call to immediately decriminalise abortion, ensure access to a full range of modern contraceptive methods, and facilitate access to full, complete, and accurate information on sexual and reproductive health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"TAC calls on government to amend South Africa\u2019s Patents Act and protect our right to health","field_subtitle":"Treatment Action Campaign: 16 November 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d22ls3r","body":"According to this press release by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a South African coalition of HIV and AIDS treatment activists, South Africa currently provides patent protection beyond what is required by the international TRIPS agreement, which regulates patents, including those governing production of medicines. Flexibilities in TRIPS allow developing countries to produce or procure affordable generics and countries like India, Brazil and Thailand have used these flexibilities to curb excessive patenting of pharmaceuticals and promote public health. Yet South Africa has not followed their example, argues TAC, having granted 2,442 pharmaceutical patents in 2008 alone, while Brazil only granted 278 pharmaceutical patents between 2003 and 2008. Although President Jacob Zuma has signed on to a joint declaration with India and Brazil recognising the urgent need to scale up production of generic medicines by using TRIPS flexibilities, TAC argues that government has not yet taken the concrete steps needed to fulfill this commitment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Taking down the \u2018Ivory Tower\u2019: leveraging academia for better health outcomes in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Kolars JC: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(Suppl 1): S1, 9 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-11-S1-S1.pdf","body":"Despite the benefits to collaborative approaches and sharing of best practices, none of this can take place in the absence of adequate funding, the authors of this article argue. They call for re-examination of funding initiatives that bypass academic institutions because of a reluctance to fund \u2018Ivory Tower\u2019 initiatives. Recent initiatives will invest approximately US$130 million over the next five years to strengthen Africa\u2019s educational institutions to produce the quantity and quality of scientists and health care workers needed to address the healthcare problems in the region. Whereas this represents a step in the right direction, substantially more funding will be required, including funding from the African governments themselves, to address national health priorities. The authors challenge conventional notions that academia is hesitant to come down from their ivory towers. Universities can and must be socially relevant. Funding and investments are needed now to make these collaborations sustainable, they conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzanian lessons in using non-physician clinicians to scale up comprehensive emergency obstetric care in remote and rural areas","field_subtitle":"Nyamtema AS, Pemba SK, Mbaruku G, Rutasha FD and Roosmalen JV: Human Resources for Health 9(28), 9 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-9-28.pdf","body":"To address the shortage of healthcare workers providing comprehensive emergency obstetrical care (CEmOC) in Tanzania, an intensive three-month course was developed to train non-physician clinicians for remote health centres. Competency-based curricula for assistant medical officers' (AMOs) training in CEmOC, and for nurses, midwives and clinical officers in anaesthesia and operation theatre etiquette were developed and implemented in Ifakara. A total of 43 care providers from 12 health centres located in 11 rural districts in Tanzania and two from Somalia were trained from June 2009 to April 2010. Of these 14 were AMOs trained in CEmOC and 31 nurse-midwives and clinical officers trained in anaesthesia. The first eight months after introduction of CEmOC services in three health centres resulted in 179 caesarean sections, an increase of institutional deliveries by up to 300%, decreased fresh stillbirth rate and reduced obstetric referrals. There were two maternal deaths, both arriving in a moribund condition. The authors conclude that the training was a success and their model can be used for further training.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The clothes have no emperor","field_subtitle":"Srinath I: CIVICUS, 17 November 2011","field_url":"http://civicus.org/blog/?p=353","body":"According to this article, the recent G20 summit in France and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia were both noteworthy for the continuing lack of substantive action on financial sector reform, climate negotiations, trade and the reform of international institutions. And the prognoses for the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in South Korea and the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in South Africa - scheduled for November 2011 - suggest more of the same will follow. The author argues that COP-17, originally billed as the People\u2019s COP and the African COP, now appears unlikely to live up to either label. Nor, according to the author, does it appear likely that disagreements on the design of the new Green Climate Fund or on a second commitment phase for the Kyoto Protocol will be resolved in time for the conference. What will it take to break the deadlocks and spur leadership capable of responding to the crises, current and impending? As the 2011 movements in the Middle East and North Africa demonstrated, it is argued that civil society needs to challenge the legitimacy of the institutions charged with global governance and demand their radical overhaul or replacement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Climate and Health Summit","field_subtitle":"Durban, South Africa: 4 December 2011","field_url":"http://climateandhealthcare.org/","body":"The First Global Climate and Health Summit aims to bring together key health sector actors to discuss the impacts of climate change on public health and solutions that promote greater health and economic equity between and within nations. The Summit is geared to build the profile of the health sector vis-\u00e0-vis the COP17 negotiations in Durban, and to also help build a broader, longer lasting global movement for a healthy climate. Objectives of the Summit include: raise the profile of public health and the health sector vis-\u00e0-vis the public debate and global negotiations on climate change; catalyse greater health sector engagement on climate issues in a broad diversity of countries; build a common, more coordinated approach to addressing the health impacts of climate change; and develop shared advocacy strategies for strong national and global policy measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The intersecting paradigms of naturopathic medicine and public health: Opportunities for naturopathic medicine","field_subtitle":"Wardle J and Oberg EB: Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 17(11): 1079-1084, November 2011","field_url":"http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2010.0830","body":"Complementary medicine research, including naturopathic medicine research, is plagued with many methodological challenges, the authors of this paper argue. Many of these challenges have also been experienced in public health research. Public health research has met these challenges with a long history of multidisciplinary, multimethod, and whole systems approaches to research that may better resonate with the \u201creal world\u201d clinical settings of naturopathic medicine. Additionally, many of the underlying principles of naturopathic medicine are analogous to the underlying principles and activities of public health, specifically in such areas as health promotion, prevention, patient education, and proactive rather than reactive approaches to disease management and treatment. Future research in the field of naturopathic medicine may benefit from adopting public health research models rather than focusing exclusively on biomedical models, the authors argue. A complementary and collaborative relationship between these fields may provide an opportunity to deliver research that more accurately reflects naturopathic medicine practice, as well as providing the opportunity to improve health outcomes more generally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Thirty-three North American institutions sign declaration on open access","field_subtitle":"Intellectual Property Watch: 13 November 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/7dboan8","body":"At the Berlin 9 conference, held in Washington DC, United States from 9-10 November 2011, it was announced that 33 research institutions, associations and foundations in North America have added their signatures to the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, committing to support open access research in the future. The signing brings the total signatories to nearly 300, including many of the top research institutions in the world. The Berlin Declaration aims to \u2018make scientific and scholarly research more accessible to the broader public by taking full advantage of the possibilities offered by digital electronic communication.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Undernutrition among HIV positive children in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: antiretroviral therapy alone is not enough","field_subtitle":"Sunguya BF, Poudel KC, Otsuka K, Yasuoka J, Mlunde LB, Urassa DP, Mkopi NP and Jimba M: BMC Public Health 11(869), 16 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-869.pdf","body":"The objectives of this study were to compare undernutrition between groups of HIV-positive and HIV-negative children undergoing anti-retroviral therapy (ART) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. From September to October 2010, researchers conducted a cross-sectional survey among 213 ART-treated HIV-positive and 202 HIV-negative children in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. They found that ART-treated HIV-positive children had higher rates of undernutrition than their HIV-negative counterparts. Among the ART-treated HIV-positive children, 78 (36.6%) were stunted, 47 (22.1%) were underweight, and 29 (13.6%) were wasted. Food insecurity was prevalent in over half of ART-treated HIV-positive children's households. Furthermore, ART-treated HIV-positive children were more likely to be orphaned, to be fed less frequently, and to have lower body weight at birth compared to HIV-negative children. The researchers conclude that HIV and AIDS is associated with an increased burden of child underweight status and wasting, even among ART-treated children. In addition to increasing coverage of ART among HIV-positive children, interventions to ameliorate poor nutrition status may be necessary in this and similar settings. Such interventions should aim at promoting adequate feeding patterns, as well as preventing and treating diarrhoea.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Use and understanding of nutrition labels among consumers in Lilongwe (Malawi)","field_subtitle":"Kasapila W and Shawa P: African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development 11(5): 5171-5186, September 2011","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajfand/article/viewFile/70444/58791","body":"In this study, researchers investigated use and understanding of nutrition labels on food packages among urban and rural consumers in Lilongwe, Malawi. They also examined the effect of socio-demographic factors and nutrition knowledge on use of nutrition labels. The researchers surveyed 206 consumers, approached randomly after they checked out at grocery stores. Shop managers and owners gave their consent to conduct the study outside the shops to avoid affecting customer behaviour and revenues. A pre-tested questionnaire was used to collect data for analysis and interpretation. The findings show that self-reported use and understanding of nutrition labels were low, suggesting much lower use and comprehension in real-life retail environments. Urban, educated and female consumers were more likely to read nutrition panels when purchasing food. Nutrition labels were seen as important, particularly when purchasing a product for the first time and when considering buying certain products. In terms of nutrition knowledge, rural consumers were as knowledgeable as urban consumers, but they were less likely to connect their knowledge to emerging non-communicable diseases. The researchers caution that the study had some limitations: for example, they surveyed a small sample of shoppers drawn from one geographical area, therefore their findings are not conclusive. Objective, cross-sectional and longitudinal investigations in future would improve understanding of actual consumer behaviour in retail shops and homes in Malawi, the researchers argue. As this study is the first of its kind in Malawi, it is intended to provide baseline information useful to the healthcare professionals, the government, the food industry and consumers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Water operator partnerships as a model to achieve the Millenium Development Goals for water supply? Lessons from four cities in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Coppel GP and Schwartz K: Water SA 37(4): 575-584, October 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/wsa/article/viewFile/71453/60398","body":"The concept of \u2018water operator partnerships\u2019 (WOPs) has increasingly been promoted as a means to improving water services provision in developing countries. The International Water Association (IWA)defines WOPs as \u2018any formal or informal collaboration or structured partnership aimed at capacity building on a not-for-profit basis. In the WOPs approach emphasis is on capacitating (rather than replacing) the public organisation.  Researchers assessed the potential of such partnerships as a \u2018model\u2019 for contributing to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), by focusing on four water utilities in Mozambique. Although, the study found these partnerships to be successful, their replicability and potential for scale up was found to be quite limited. The study found that WOPs depended for success on the availability of investment funds, and the level of commitment to the partnership, both financial commitment and time and effort of the organisations involved. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO debate over proposed reform agenda and priority-setting","field_subtitle":"Gopakumar KM and Wanis H: Third World Network, 2 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/2011/health20111102.htm","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General\u2019s proposal for reform of WHO has sparked controversy among WHO Member States, resulting in a meeting of the Executive Board (EB) convened on 1-3 November 2011. Member States expressed concern over the speed of the reform process; lack of information, analyses and independent evaluation to guide the reform; WHO's donor-driven approach and growing partnerships; the scope of independent evaluation; and proposals to limit WHO's scope. The EB meeting decided to establish a process for priority-setting of WHO's programme activities as part of the reform agenda, advocating a Member-driven process for priority-setting of the WHO programme, urging the Director-General not to be too hasty in pushing for the reforms until proper consultation with Member States had been made.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Who pays for health care in Ghana?","field_subtitle":"Akazili J, Gyapong J and McIntyre D: International Journal for Equity in Health 10(26), 27 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/10/1/26","body":"This paper presents the first comprehensive analysis of the distribution of health care financing in relation to ability to pay in Ghana. Secondary data from the Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS) 2005/2006 were used, triangulated with data from the Ministry of Finance and other relevant sources, and further complemented with primary household data collected in six districts. Results showed that Ghana's health care financing system is generally progressive. The progressivity of health financing is driven largely by the overall progressivity of taxes, which account for close to 50% of health care funding. The national health insurance (NHI) levy (part of VAT) is mildly progressive and formal sector NHI payroll deductions are also progressive. However, informal sector NHI contributions were found to be regressive. Out-of-pocket payments, which account for 45% of funding, are regressive form of health payment to households. For Ghana to attain adequate financial risk protection and ultimately achieve universal coverage, it needs to extend pre-payment cover to all in the informal sector, possibly through funding their contributions entirely from tax, and address other issues affecting the expansion of the National Health Insurance. Furthermore, the pre-payment funding pool for health care needs to grow so budgetary allocation to the health sector can be enhanced.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Women and smoking: Becoming part of the solution","field_subtitle":"Su\u00e1rez N: MEDICC Review 13(4): 56","field_url":"http://www.medicc.org/mediccreview/articles/mr_227.pdf","body":"Globally, 12% of women smoke, 22% in developed and 9% in developing countries, according to this article. While smoking has peaked in men and begun a slow decline, it is predicted that by 2025, 20% of women worldwide will be smokers, with so many younger women taking up the habit. Tobacco transnationals minimise the dangers of smoking in powerful advertising that goes round the globe, while health agencies and institutions strive to counter these media messages on shoestring budgets - an astounding asymmetry that endangers the health of millions, the author notes. The author argues that we have to go beyond banning tobacco advertising and \u2018demarket\u2019 smoking and counter the positive images that permeate our culture with more sophisticated presentations of the threat to health. Stakeholders also need to create more barriers to tobacco access - in addition to those already banning sales to youngsters and raising cigarette prices - aligning education and legislation for greater effect. And finally, policy makers need to understand more fully the forces that influence people - particularly young women - to start smoking. It is not enough to simply warn people of the dangers of smoking, the article concludes \u2013 stronger measures are needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Women farmers feed the world","field_subtitle":"Hillstrom C: Yes Magazine, October 2011","field_url":"http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/women-farmers-feed-the-world","body":"As African farmers experience escalating anxiety over the appropriation and control of land, seeds and farming techniques by foreign governments and corporations, the multi-million dollar Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa \u2013 a Gates Foundation-funded initiative \u2013 promises to increase food production and defeat poverty in Africa by implementing vigorous Western-style agricultural techniques and genetically modified crops. Modelled on the previous Green Revolutions of Latin America and the Indian sub-continent, the African Green Revolution should heed the environmental devastation these previous experiments in agriculture have wrought, the author of this article cautions, such as seriously depleted water tables and impoverished soil. Although new seeds and tools may bring higher production in the short term, some Africans are concerned about the consolidated control that foreign corporations will exercise over food supply, as well as the precarious dependence on large amounts of water and energy inputs, and the environmental toll such methods may eventually take. A growing movement of local farmers \u2013 largely led by women \u2013 argues that the surest path to food security is ensuring food sovereignty. The article points to a number of international organisations and alliances, like Via Campesina and Groundswell International, which advocate for community-level control over food production. These organisations target primarily women farmers who, according to the article, are responsible for up to 70% of food production in the developing world. The author asserts that supporting small-scale women farmers is crucial to ensuring food sovereignty in poor countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Big think\u2019, disjointed incrementalism: Chinese economic success and policy lessons for Africa, or the case for Pan-Africanism","field_subtitle":"Gros J: African Journal of International Affairs 11(2): 55\u201387, 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajia/article/viewFile/57265/45648","body":"Chinese economic success is not the product of free market accidental coincidence, according to this article \u2013 rather, it is orchestrated by the State through a mixture of nationalism (\u2018big think\u2019) and pragmatic decisions (disjointed incrementalism) in agriculture, finance and industry. By following the Chinese example, the author argues for Pan-Africanism, a form of \u2018big think\u2019. The main obstacle to development in Africa, he argues, may well be how to align the vested, narrow interests of territorially bound rulers with their citizens, whose languages and cultures tend to transcend the colonially determined national boundaries and who are more likely to support development efforts if they are consonant with existing practices and values. The author argues that Pan-Africanism would allow Africa to take advantage of the economies of scale that accrue with larger markets, give Africa better leverage on its natural resources, allow for easier sharing of resources between rich and poor communities and give the continent greater international clout. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"2011 Gender Symposium","field_subtitle":"1-3 November 2011: Cairo, Egypt","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org","body":"In line with its mandate to promote high-level scientific and academic debates on various aspects of socio-economic development in Africa, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) hereby announces the 2011 edition of its Gender Symposium which will be held from 1-3 November, 2011, in Cairo, Egypt. The Gender Symposium is a forum organised annually by CODESRIA to discuss gender issues in Africa, and the theme of this year\u2019s edition is Gender and the Media in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A mid-term assessment of progress towards the immunisation coverage goal of the Global Immunisation Vision and Strategy (GIVS)","field_subtitle":"Brown DW, Burton A, Gacic-Dobo M, Karimov RI, Vandelaer J and Okwo-Bele J: BMC Public Health 11(806), 14 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-806.pdf","body":"The Global Immunisation Vision and Strategy (GIVS 2006-2015) aims to reach and sustain high levels of vaccine coverage, provide immunisation services to age groups beyond infancy and to those currently not reached, and to ensure that immunisation activities are linked with other health interventions and contribute to the overall development of the health sector. The objective of this study was to examine mid-term progress (through 2010) of the immunisation coverage goal of the GIVS for 194 countries or territories with special attention to data from 68 countries which account for more than 95% of all maternal and child deaths. The study presents national immunisation coverage estimates for the third dose of diphtheria and tetanus toxoid with pertussis (DTP3) vaccine and the first dose of measles-containing vaccine (MCV) during 2000, 2005 and 2010. Results show that globally DTP3 coverage increased from 74% during 2000 to 85% during 2010, and MCV coverage increased from 72% during 2000 to 85% during 2010. A total of 149 countries attained or were on track to achieve the 90% coverage goal for DTP3 (147 countries for MCV coverage). The researchers conclude that progress towards GIVS goals highlights improvements in routine immunisation coverage, yet they voice concern that some priority countries showed little or no progress during the past five years. These results highlight that further efforts are needed to achieve and maintain the global immunisation coverage goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"A new global health agenda","field_subtitle":"Partridge EE, Mayer-Davis EJ and Sacco RL: The Scientist, 4 October 2011","field_url":"http://the-scientist.com/2011/10/04/opinion-a-new-global-health-agenda/","body":"The United Nations (UN) High-Level Meeting on Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) has helped raise awareness about the burden of NCDs, but the authors of this article caution that the real work of preventing and controlling NCDs must begin. They put forward several important steps that must be taken immediately. Governments need to implement the commitments in the Political Declaration that call for acceleration of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), a global public health treaty focused on reducing the five million deaths per year caused by tobacco use. In addition, national plans to address NCDs need to be developed and NCDs need to be incorporated into the United Nations\u2019 Millennium Development Goals. Clear, effective, and achievable targets to reduce NCDs - developed with input from health experts and civil society - need to be established and monitored by the World Health Organisation. And, importantly, global and national funding needs to be mobilised by governments, the private sector and civil society so that these plans can be effectively implemented, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Moreover, the global health and development community must commit to greater collaboration across sectors and disease groups. Vertical interventions that target one disease at a time must be folded into comprehensive horizontal health programmes that promote overall health and wellness across the individual\u2019s lifespan.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A win-win solution? A critical analysis of tiered pricing to improve access to medicines in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Moon S, Jambert E, Childs M and von Schoen-Angerer T: Globalization and Health 7(39), 12 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-7-39.pdf","body":"Tiered pricing - the concept of selling drugs and vaccines in developing countries at prices systematically lower than in industrialised countries - has received widespread global support as a way to improve access to medicines for the poor. Researchers in this study carried out case studies based on a review of international drug price developments for antiretrovirals, artemisinin combination therapies, drug-resistant tuberculosis medicines, liposomal amphotericin B (for visceral leishmaniasis), and pneumococcal vaccines. They found several critical shortcomings to tiered pricing: it is inferior to competition for achieving the lowest sustainable prices; it often involves arbitrary divisions between markets and/or countries, which can lead to very high prices for middle-income markets; and it leaves a disproportionate amount of decision-making power in the hands of sellers rather than consumers. In many developing countries, resources are often stretched so tight that affordability can only be approached by selling medicines at or near the cost of production. Policies that \u2018de-link\u2019 the financing of research and development from the price of medicines merit further attention, the authors argue, since they can reward innovation while exploiting robust competition in production to generate the lowest sustainable prices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"African governments, NGOs and civil society: A crisis of legitimacy?","field_subtitle":"Arrianna M: Future Challenges, 3 August 2011 ","field_url":"http://futurechallenges.org/local/african-governments-ngos-civil-society-a-crisis-of-legitimacy/","body":"The author of this article argues that, in Africa, some governments have dodged their responsibility to implement famine-prevention measures because they require a socio-political contract between the government and civil society that allows citizens to hold governments accountable for famine. Instead, through their inaction and acceptance of foreign aid, governments have ceded that responsibility to non-government organisations (NGOs) and \u2018foreign technical experts\u2019 with a narrower definition of social responsibility and far less vested interest in the well-being of citizens. In the last sixty years, well over a trillion dollars of \u2018development aid\u2019 has been transferred from the West to African nations, but the author cautions that this aid comes at a cost: donor dependency, corruption and lack of incentive for governments to govern well and efficiently. In fact, NGOs may well be in competition with African governments as they provide goods and services that the governments do not. As NGOs step in and fill the gaps with their foreign-funded resources and growing presence and capacities, the legitimacy of aid-recipient states is called into question. Arguably, the legitimacy crisis of NGOs is in tandem with the legitimacy crisis of African governments. Because the provision of public goods and resources is part of the socio-political contract between the government and civil society, NGOs do risk undermining the legitimacy of the government. On the flip side, the legitimacy of foreign-funded NGOs comes under question when the interests of their international and surpranational funders conflict with national interests.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Agricultural success from Africa: the case of fertiliser tree systems in southern Africa (Malawi, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe)","field_subtitle":"Ajayi OC, Place F, Akinnifesi FK and Sileshi GW: International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability February 2011: 129-136, 1 February 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6b9nyef","body":"In response to declining soil fertility in southern Africa and the negative effects that this leads to, such as food insecurity, fertiliser tree systems (FTS) were developed as technological innovation to help smallholder farmers to build soil organic matter and fertility in a sustainable manner. In this paper, the authors trace the historical background of FTS and highlight the developmental phases and outcomes of the technology. The synthesis shows that FTS are inexpensive technologies that significantly raise crop yields, reduce food insecurity and enhance environmental services and resilience of agro-ecologies. Many of the achievements recorded with FTS can be traced to some key factors: the availability of a suite of technological options that are appropriate in a range of different household and ecological circumstances, partnership between multiple institutions and disciplines in the development of the technology, active encouragement of farmer innovations in the adaptation process, and proactive engagement of several consortia of partner institutions to scale up the technology in farming communities. It is recommended that smallholder farmers would benefit if rural development planners emphasise the merits of different fertility replenishment approaches and take advantage of the synergy between FTS and mineral fertilisers rather than focusing on `organic vs. inorganic' debates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid effectiveness 2005-10: Progress in implementing the Paris Declaration ","field_subtitle":"Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development: September 2011","field_url":"http://www.aideffectiveness.org/busanhlf4/images/stories/hlf4/Executive_Summary-Progress_since_Paris.pdf","body":"This report draws on the results of the 2011 Survey on Monitoring the Paris Declaration, building on similar surveys undertaken in 2006 and 2008. A total of 78 countries and territories volunteered to participate in the final round of surveys, which look at the state of play in 2010. The results indicate that, at the global level, only one out of the 13 targets established for 2010 \u2013 co-ordinated technical co-operation (a measure of the extent to which external funders co-ordinate their efforts to support countries\u2019 capacity development objectives) \u2013 has been met, albeit by a narrow margin. Nonetheless, it is important to note that considerable progress has been made towards many of the remaining 12 targets. Globally, the survey results show much variation in the direction and pace of progress across external funders and partner countries since 2005. For the indicators where responsibility for change lies primarily with developing country governments, progress has been significant. For example, improvements have been made in the quality of tools and systems for planning and for financial and results management in a number of developing countries, often requiring deep reforms that go beyond aid management to broader aspects of government processes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"An assessment of Makerere University College of Health Sciences: Optimising health research capacity to meet Uganda\u2019s priorities","field_subtitle":"Nankinga Z, Kutyabami P, Kibuule D, Kalyango J, Groves S, Bollinger RC, Obua C: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(Suppl 1):S12, 9 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-11-S1-S12.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers investigated the alignment of health research capacity at Makerere College of Health Sciences (MakCHS) with the health needs and priorities of Uganda, as outlined in the country\u2019s Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP). They assessed MakCHS\u2019s research grants and publication portfolio, as well as all the university\u2019s publications, between January 2005 and December 2009. A total of 58 active grants were identified, of which 18 had been initiated prior to 2005 and there were an average of about eight new grants per year. Most grants funded basic and applied research, with major focus areas being HIV and AIDS (44%), malaria (19%), maternal and child health (14%) and tuberculosis (11%). A total of 837 publications were identified, with an average of 167 publications per year, 66% of which addressed the country\u2019s priority health areas, and 58% had MakCHS faculty members or students as first authors. Findings indicate that the research grants and publications at MakCHS are generally well-aligned with Ugandan Health Ministry priorities. Greater efforts to establish centralised and efficient grants management procedures are needed, the researchers argue. In addition, efforts are needed to expand capacity for MakCHS faculty leadership of grants, as well as to continue to expand the contribution of MakCHS faculty to lead research publications.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Big tobacco and the food and beverage industry are NOT civil society","field_subtitle":"Gonsalves G: Health-e News, 27 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/cancer/news/article.php?uid=20033273","body":"The Global Business Coalition for Health (GBCHealth), which took part in the United Nations Conference on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) held in New York in September 2011, has argued that companies must have a place at the tables where their future is discussed. GBCHealth, which represents companies that manufacture unhealthy (junk) foods and tobacco products, believes that their expertise is essential to developing public health policy. But activists disagree, arguing instead that industries producing unhealthy products should not be viewed as trusted partners and should not have a seat at the table during public health negotiations. In this open letter, AIDS activist Gregg Gonsalves responds to GBCHealth\u2019s article justifying their right to be part of the negotiations. Though GBCHealth has had a long history of working on HIV and AIDS, he argues that big business cannot be considered representative of civil society, which is largely composed of marginalised groups, civil society organisations and other interested parties whose fight for civil, social and economic rights are not part of big business, whose primary goals are profit oriented. He calls on big business to stop trying to halt generic production of anti-retrovirals and drugs for NCDs (such as Novartis' continuing attempts to alter Indian patent law), to stop selling and promoting cigarettes and to stop advertising and marketing of high-sugar and high-fat foods across the globe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Brazil calls for pact on social factors to improve health","field_subtitle":"Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(10): 714-715, October 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/10/11-061011.pdf","body":"In this interview with the World Health Organisation, Brazilian Minister of Health Alexandre Padilha calls on other countries around the world to develop a pact to eradicate poverty and hunger. Padhila calls for the launch of a proactive and rational agenda that encompasses the food, pharmaceutical, arms, tobacco and alcohol industries, as well as action to develop and increase the wealth of peoples, setting goals for environmental sustainability and the end of extreme poverty. The last two United Nations meetings on health \u2013 on polio and HIV and AIDS \u2013 point to the same direction in solving both challenges: equity in the access to prevention measures and treatment, he notes. The Brazilian Ministry of Health has carried out a broad public consultation to prepare a plan to address non-communicable diseases. The prevention and control of these diseases will be the subject of a set of political and governmental policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Building partnerships towards strengthening Makerere University College of Health Sciences: A stakeholder and sustainability analysis","field_subtitle":"Okui O, Ayebare E, Chalo RN, Pariyo GW, Groves S and Peters DH: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(Suppl 1):S14, 9 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-11-S1-S14.pdf","body":"A stakeholder and sustainability analysis of 25 key informant interviews was conducted among past, current and potential stakeholders of Makerere University College of Health Sciences (MakCHS) to obtain their perspectives and contributions to sustainability of the College in its role to improve health outcomes. Results showed that the College has multiple internal and external stakeholders. Stakeholders from Uganda wanted the College to use its enormous academic capacity to fulfil its vision, take initiative, and be innovative in conducting more research and training relevant to the country\u2019s health needs. External stakeholders felt that MakCHS was insufficiently marketing itself and not directly engaging the private sector or Parliament. Stakeholders also indicated MakCHS could better embrace information technology in research, learning and training, and many also wanted MakCHS to start leadership and management training programmes in health systems. This study points towards the need for MakCHS and other African public universities to build a broad network of partnerships to strengthen their operations, relevance and sustainability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants for 2012 Oppenheimer Fund Scholarships","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 6 January 2012","field_url":"http://www.ox.ac.uk/feesandfunding/prospectivegrad/scholarships/university/oppenheimer/","body":"The University of Oxford is seeking applications from students ordinarily resident in South Africa for the 2012 Oppenheimer Fund Scholarships to pursue graduate studies in a variety of fields at Oxford. The Oppenheimer Fund Scholarships are available for ordinarily resident South African students wishing to start any new degree bearing course, with the exception of Post Graduate Certificate and Post Graduate Diploma courses, at the University of Oxford.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for concept notes: Expanding fiscal policies for global and national tobacco control","field_subtitle":"No Closing Date Given","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Funding/Competitions/Pages /CompetitionDetails.aspx?CompetitionID=18","body":"The International Development Research Centre and the Canadian Global Tobacco Control Forum are calling for concept notes concerning the expansion of fiscal policies for global and national tobacco control. The key objective of this call is to generate knowledge designed to accelerate the adoption of effective fiscal policies for tobacco control in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). Key thematic areas include: research on the impact of various types of tobacco taxes or pricing policies; region-based research to establish actual and model budgets for tobacco control; research on coordinated regional and global taxes, tariffs and/or other levies on tobacco products and the profits from tobacco sales; and research to identify barriers to, and strategies for, accessing Official Development Assistance for tobacco control. The principal applicant must be a citizen or permanent resident of a LMIC and with a primary work affiliation in a LMIC institution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for concept notes: Promoting healthy diets","field_subtitle":"No Closing Date Given","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Funding/Competitions/Pages /CompetitionDetails.aspx?CompetitionID=17","body":"The International Development Research Centre is calling for concept notes concerning the promotion of healthy diets as a key strategy for the prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in low- and middle-income countries(LMICs). The key objective of this call is to support Southern-led research designed to influence the adoption and implementation of effective policies and programmes for the promotion of healthy diets in LMICs. Key thematic areas include: research on policies, population-wide programs and community-based interventions that aim to discourage production and consumption unhealthy food products and promote healthy eating; and evidence syntheses or situation analyses to inform policy dialogues and the adoption and implementation of key interventions to address unhealthy diets as a key NCD risk factor. Please note that three major cross-cutting issues are central to the NCD programme: equity, intersectoral action and commercial influence on public health-related policy. The principal applicant must be a citizen or permanent resident of a LMIC and with a primary work affiliation in a LMIC institution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call to spread word about contraception","field_subtitle":"Fokazi S: The Argus, 3 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/capeargus/call-to-spread-word-about-contraception-1.1149354","body":"The number of abortions among women older than 18 has increased steadily over the past two years in the Western Cape Province, according to South African Health MEC Theuns Botha. Responding recently in the legislature on the impact that illegal abortions have on public health care facilities, Botha said such abortions continued to take place, despite the legal service that was offered at more than 30 health care centres in the province. While health care facilities had treated a number of women with complications arising from illegal abortions, Botha said it was difficult to say how many cases there had been as those known to the department were only of women who volunteered the information during treatment. According to the latest figures from the National Health Department, between 1997 \u2013 when legal termination of pregnancy was introduced \u2013 and last year, about 702,354 abortions were performed at public health care facilities nationwide. About 528,000 of these involved teenagers. Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi expressed concern about the number of teenagers who were having abortions, arguing this was proof that young people were engaging in unprotected sex and risking HIV infection. A spokesperson from Marie Stopes \u2013 a non-profit organisation offering reproductive health services \u2013 called on parents and teachers to talk openly about contraception, saying that research showed that most pregnant teenagers are in poor communities where educational and financial opportunities are limited. Women need to be made aware that abortion is not a form of contraception, she said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Climate change and health (Part 1): National Health Insurance could improve health, create jobs and mitigate climate change","field_subtitle":"Sanders D and Reynolds L:  One Million Climate Jobs Campaign, 2011","field_url":"","body":"The advent of South Africa\u2019s National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme opens up a political space to campaign for a health service that will best address South Africa\u2019s health crisis and reduce the extreme inequities between poor and rich, rural and urban, and public sector and private health service users. The authors argue that such a campaign must counter powerful groups with vested interests who portray public systems as inefficient and second-best, and see the NHI as an opportunity to preserve a private health system (which is innately inequitable because of the need to profit from disease). They further argue that the NHI will not only render health care more accessible and equitable, but also create many more jobs and indirectly improve health by reducing the prevalence and depth of poverty. Rationalisation, standardisation and expansion of the skills of community-based care workers is urgently needed, as is improvement of their insecure employment conditions. The proposed \u2018Re-engineering of Primary Health Care\u2019 initiative puts forward a healthcare model that is similar to Brazil\u2019s successful Family Health Programme, and would be substantially cheaper than the current private sector model, and more cost-effective than the current hospital-dominated public sector.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/36401","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Climate change and health (Part 2)","field_subtitle":"Reynolds L and Sanders D: One Million Climate Jobs Campaign, 2011","field_url":"","body":"The World Health Organisation estimates that global warming and trends in rainfall due to human-induced climate change already claim over 150,000 lives annually. Diseases associated with climate change include heart and lung disease due to heat waves, increased spread of infectious diseases, and malnutrition due to crop failures. Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most vulnerable regions, especially its sprawling cities where the effects of urbanisation aggravate extreme climatic events. More people die from the effects of climate change in Africa than anywhere else. Given the devastating and growing impact of climate change on health, it is ironic that health systems themselves contribute substantially to climate change through their enormous greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the authors of this article note. While no data exist for South Africa, estimates from the United Kingdom indicate that the country\u2019s National Health Service contributed 25% of public sector emissions in 2004. The authors emphasise that the parallel policy initiatives of South Africa\u2019s proposed National Health Insurance and \u2018Re-engineering Primary Health Care\u2019 initiative could, if thoughtfully implemented, address three crises simultaneously: the health crisis, the employment crisis and the carbon emissions crisis.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/36408","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Closing the Gap: Policy into practice on social determinants of health","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/sdhconference/Discussion-Paper-EN.pdf","body":"In this background paper to the World Conference on the Social Determinants of Health, held in October 2011, the World Health Organisation (WHO) argues that poor progress in the implementation of a social determinants approach re&#64258;ects in part the inadequacy of governance at the local, national and global levels to address the key problems of the 21st century. WHO proposes a number of priority strategies for action. In terms of governance, WHO argues that governments should build good governance for action on the social determinants of health by implementing collaborative action between sectors (intersectoral action). WHO further recommends that governments should promote participation by: creating the conditions for participation; playing a role as brokers in participation and ensuring representativeness; and facilitating participation by civil society. WHO also considers the role of the health sector in reducing health inequities, arguing that the sector should: execute its role in governance for social determinants; re-orient health care services and public health programmes to reduce inequities; and institutionalise equity into health systems governance. With regard to global action on social determinants, international organisations, non-governmental agencies, bilateral co-operation partners and governments need to align their efforts and priorities for addressing the social determinants of health. Progress also needs to be monitored, as governments should: use measurement and analysis to inform policies and build accountability on social determinants; identify sources, select indicators, collect data, and set targets; move forward despite unavailability of systematic data; and disseminate data on health inequities and social determinants and integrate these data into policy processes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Communiqu\u00e9 on the World We Want Beyond 2015","field_subtitle":"CIVICUS: September 2011","field_url":"http://www.beyond2015.org/sites/default/files/Communiqu%C3%A9_ENG.pdf","body":"Representatives of over seventy national, regional and global civil society organisations met at the CIVICUS World Assembly held in Montreal, Canada, on 11 September 2011. A number of key points arose from the meeting including the need for civil society leadership to frame the discussion and guide the process on the post-2015 global agenda, and the need for a new global vision for the people and the planet that is radical, ambitious and universal. The vision should be strongly rooted in and use International Human Rights instruments as the basis for accountability, and should also be universal in its application across the north and the south and address the redistribution of wealth. It should empower communities on the ground to claim their entitlements and should aim at equity, with explicit commitments towards women and traditionally excluded groups. Furthermore, the vision should be holistic and address the issues of human rights, inequality, gender justice and environmental sustainability. Participants at the Assembly called on the United Nations (as opposed to other global fora such as the G20) to lead the process, with the UN Secretary General providing personal leadership on the post-2015 agenda. Until the end of 2015, civil society will aim to work together to develop a unifying, coherent global agenda and take action to influence the positions of national governments and the UN, participants concluded.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Conference On Social Determinants Of Health: Rio Political Declaration on Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"World Conference on Social Determinants of Health: 21 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/sdhconference/declaration/Rio_political_declaration.pdf","body":"The Rio Declaration is the outcome document of the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health, held from 19-21 October 2011 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the Rio Declaration, heads of government, ministers and government representatives reaffirm their commitment to take action on social determinants of health to create vibrant, inclusive, equitable, economically productive and healthy societies, and to overcome national, regional and global challenges to sustainable development. They recognise that the current global economic and financial crisis urgently requires the adoption of actions to reduce increasing health inequities and prevent worsening of living conditions and the deterioration of universal health care and social protection systems. They offer specific actions under the following common objectives: to adopt better governance for health and development; to promote participation in policy-making and implementation; to further reorient the health sector towards reducing health inequities; to strengthen global governance and collaboration; and to monitor progress and increase accountability. In the declaration, signatories call upon the World Health Organisation, United Nations agencies and other international organisations to advocate for, co-ordinate and collaborate in the implementation of these objectives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Corruption eroding benefits of health projects in Africa","field_subtitle":"The Nation: 31 August 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/news-update/17886-who-corruption-eroding-benefits-of-health-projects-in-africa.html","body":"Corruption is eroding the benefits of good health projects in Africa and governments must look inwards for funding, the World Health Organisation (WHO), has said. In a meeting with African Ministers of Health and Ministers of Finance on 30 August 2011 in Yamoussoukro, Cote d\u2019Ivoire, WHO said solving the problem of funding was necessary for the health sector to thrive in the continent. Director-General of WHO, Margaret Chan, said proper harnessing and utilisation of resources would reduce the dependence on external funders for sponsoring health projects. Chan said the inclusion of these funders in health budgets posed challenges as most of them would weigh options and zero in on areas of interest and priority, which did not necessarily align with government objectives. She said most external funders gave little notice before shifting their targets, thereby creating huge gaps for funding in the countries. She added that \u2018health care has to be regulated so that the private sector provides good services without ripping the people off,\u2019 emphasising that health care projects must not be built only on the principle of attracting funds from politicians, but on principles of effectiveness and sustainability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Country Statement to the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health: Republic of Kenya ","field_subtitle":"Mugo B, Kenyan Minister for Public Health and Sanitation, 21 October 2011","field_url":"","body":"This statement was delivered at the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health, held from 19-21 October 2011 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. According to Kenya\u2019s Minister for Public Health and Sanitation, there are a number of steps that the Kenyan government has taken to reduce inequities in health. In 201 out of the country\u2019s 210 constituencies, a model health facility is being constructed, with an additional 50 health workers employed per constituency, totaling 12,000 additional health workers. The Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) project for urban areas is also being rolled out, with government aiming at attaining full coverage by 2013. The Health Sector Service Fund has also been established, through which funds are being disbursed directly to health facilities that are run by local committees, and intersectoral co-ordinating mechanisms for thematic areas like child health, sanitation and malaria have been created. However, the Minister identified challenges in providing universal access to health services, including inadequate funding to the health sector, the influx of refugees from neighbouring countries with weak health systems, high levels of rural-urban migration, the emerging threat of non-communicable diseases, and hard-to-reach terrains which hinder access to health facilities. With regards to the medical brain drain, the Minister urged the developed countries that are the major beneficiaries of health worker migration to support training of health workers in developing countries.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/36449","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Debate and action about the social determinants of health: The position of the civil society movements","field_subtitle":"ALAMES, Cebes, Cut et al: October 2011","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ALAgov231011.pdf","body":"According to this statement by Latin American social medicine and civil society organisations at the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health, the fundamental cause of the inequalities within and between nations is the neoliberal economy, infused with an exclusively speculative desire for unlimited profit. Capitalism grabs profits and socialises losses, they argue, resorting to new and crueler neoliberal measures that further reduce the fundamental social rights of people. There are abundant resources for all of us on the earth, but the \u2018logic\u2019 of the market prevents people from obtaining what they need. In the area of public health, neoliberalism translates into the commercialisation of life, legal protections for intellectual property for the benefit of the medical industrial complex, control of the media in order to create \u2018need\u2019 through shock, damage to public health systems, manipulation of civil society, multiple forms of violence and other strategies to colonise the \u2018collective thought\u2019. The current dominant societal model, using the lifestyle of affluent Americans as a basis, they argue is not sustainable. The statement concludes with a call for the establishment of global alliances between progressive governments and social movements, and meaningful social participation, as well as support for the creation and consolidation of health systems and social security systems that are universal, free, integral, and public, with coverage for all people for all services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Determinants of fertility in rural Ethiopia: The case of Butajira Demographic Surveillance System (DSS) ","field_subtitle":"Mekonnen W and Worku A: BMC Public Health 11(782), 10 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-782.pdf","body":"In this study, reproductive-age women were recruited from the Butajira Demographic Surveillance System (DSS) database to analyse the determinants of fertility in rural Ethiopia. A district health survey maternity history questionnaire was administered to 9,996 participants. Results showed that delayed marriage, a higher level of education, a smaller family, absence of child death experience and living in food-secured households were associated with a smaller number of children. Fertility was significantly higher among women with no child-sex preference. However, migration status of women was not statistically significant. The researchers argue that policy makers should focus on increasing women\u2019s secondary school enrollment and age at first marriage. The community should also be made aware on the negative impact of fertility on household economy, the environment and the country's socio-economic development at large.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Drivers' and conductors' views on the causes and ways of preventing workplace violence in the road passenger transport sector in Maputo City, Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Couto MT, Tillgren P and Soderback M: BMC Public Health 11(800), 13 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-800.pdf","body":"This study explores and describes the views of drivers and conductors on the causes of workplace violence (WPV) and ways of preventing it in the road passenger transport sector in Maputo, Mozambique. The design was qualitative. Participants were purposefully selected from among transport workers identified as victims of WPV in an earlier quantitative study, and 32 transport professionals were interviewed. The triggers and causes of violence included fare evasion, disputes over revenue owing to owners, alcohol abuse, overcrowded vehicles, and unfair competition for passengers. Failures to meet passenger expectations, e.g. by-passing parts of a bus route or missing stops, were also important. There was disrespect on the part of transport workers, e.g. being rude to passengers and jumping of queues at taxi ranks, and there were also robberies. Proposals for prevention included: training for workers on conflict resolution, and for employers on passenger-transport administration; and promoting learning among passengers and workers on how to behave when travelling collectively. Regarding control and supervision, participants expressed the need for the recording of mileage and for the sanctioning of workers who transgress queuing rules at taxi ranks. They also requested that police or supervisors should prevent drunken passengers from getting into vehicles, and said drivers should refuse to go to dangerous, secluded neighbourhoods. Finally, participants called for an institution to judge alleged cases of employees not handing over demanded revenues to their employer.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Effect of caregivers' depression and alcohol use on child antiretroviral adherence in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Jaspan HB, Mueller AD, Myer L, Bekker L and Orrell C: AIDS Patient Care and STDs 25(10): 595-600, October 2011","field_url":"http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/apc.2010.0323","body":"Paediatric antiretroviral adherence is difficult to assess, the authors of this paper argue, and subjective measures are affected by reporting bias, which in turn may depend on psychosocial factors such as alcohol use and depression. In this study, they enrolled 56 child caregiver dyads from Cape Town, South Africa, and followed their adherence over one month via various methods. The Alcohol Use Disorder Inventory Tool and Beck Depression Inventory 1 were used to assess participants\u2019 alcohol use and levels of depression and their effect on drug adherence. The median age of the children was four years, and median time on antiretroviral therapy (ART) was 20 months. Increased time on ART was associated with poorer adherence via three-day recall. Alcohol use was inversely associated with adherence. Having a mother as a caregiver and shorter time on highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) were significantly associated with better adherence. The authors conclude that paediatric adherence is affected by caregiver alcohol use, but the caregiver\u2019s relationship to the child is most important. This small study suggests that interventions should aim to keep mothers healthy and alive, as well as alcohol-free.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Eliminating malaria: Learning from the past, looking ahead ","field_subtitle":"Roll Back Malaria Partnership: Progress and impact series 8, October 2011","field_url":"http://www.rbm.who.int/ProgressImpactSeries/docs/report9-en.pdf","body":"This latest edition of Roll Back Malaria\u2019s (RBM) global progress report indicates that all but four of the 46 African region countries still have ongoing malaria transmission. Four countries in southern Africa (Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland) share a common goal of eliminating malaria by 2015. They were joined by their four northern neighbours (Angola, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe) in 2009, to form the sub-regional malaria elimination initiative known as the Elimination Eight (E8). Another four countries in Africa (Gambia, Rwanda, S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 and Principe, and Madagascar) have secured Global Fund grants to prepare for elimination. The long-term cost benefit of elimination still needs to be sufficiently documented, RMB  notes, in order to facilitate the required policy and financing commitments. Success is accumulating, however, and the evidence base guiding local, national, regional and global action is growing quickly. Future investment in new malaria control tools and in socio-economic development that will support malaria control and communities broadly will be essential, RBM argues. With strong human capacity, continued investment, evidence-based programming and continued partnership, achieving the ambitious Roll Back Malaria 2015 targets, including elimination in at least eight to ten countries is still possible, the report concludes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. SUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 129: Struggles over voice and power at the World Conference on the Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Feedback request for the programme of the Second Global Symposium in Beijing, 31 October - 3 November 2012","field_subtitle":"Please send your comments and suggestions by 14 November 2011","field_url":"http://bit.ly/uaCxiZ","body":"The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, in collaboration with the Symposium Secretariat, is organizing the technical programme for the Second Global Symposium on Health Systems Research: Inclusion and Innovation Towards Universal Health Coverage  Beijing, China -  31 October - 3 November 2012 and is asking for feedback on the draft programme overview. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"First results of Phase 3 Trial of RTS,S/AS01 malaria vaccine in African children","field_subtitle":"The RTS,S Clinical Trials Partnership: New England Journal of Medicine, 18 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1102287#t=articleTop","body":"An ongoing Phase 3 study of the efficacy, safety and immunogenicity of candidate malaria vaccine RTS,S/AS01 is being conducted in seven African countries, including Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. From March 2009 through January 2011, 15,460 children were enrolled in two age categories - 6 to 12 weeks and 5 to 17 months old - for vaccination with either RTS,S/AS01 or a non-malaria comparator vaccine. After 250 children had an episode of severe malaria, researchers evaluated vaccine efficacy in both age categories. Vaccine efficacy in the combined age categories was 34.8% during an average follow-up of 11 months. Serious adverse events occurred with a similar frequency in the two study groups. Among children in the older age category, the rate of generalised convulsive seizures after vaccination was 1.04 per 1,000 doses. The researchers conclude that the RTS,S/AS01 vaccine provided protection against both clinical and severe malaria in African children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Five Lives: Proposed EU financial transaction tax should help bail out global health","field_subtitle":"Medecins Sans Frontieres ","field_url":"http://www.msfaccess.org/sites/default/files/MSF_assets/CAME/FiveLives/Access_Briefing_FiveLives_ENG_2011_FINAL.pdf","body":"The financial transaction tax (FTT) proposed by France and Germany and due to be discussed in the November G20 Summit, could help save millions of lives if a percentage were allocated to global health, according to an issue brief released today by the international medical humanitarian organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).  MSF\u2019s issue brief, Five Lives, outlines through five personal stories the transformative impact an FTT allocation to global health could have. The report looks at interventions that can prevent a child from becoming severely malnourished to begin with; protect children from deadly measles outbreaks; prevent a baby from acquiring HIV through childbirth; get people on life-saving tuberculosis treatment sooner; and save lives while dramatically reducing the spread of HIV through treatment.  It is estimated the funds raised by an EU FTT could reach 55 billion euros per year. Even a portion of that sum would be a significant boost to tackling global health crises. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth High-level Forum on Aid Effectiveness","field_subtitle":"Busan, Korea: 29 November-1 December 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.oecd.org/document/12/0,3746,en_2649_3236398_46057868_1_1_1_1,00.html","body":"At the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, approximately 2,000 delegates will review global progress in improving the impact and effectiveness of aid, and make commitments that set a new agenda for development. The Forum follows meetings in Rome, Paris and Accra that helped transform aid relationships between donors and partners into true vehicles for development cooperation. Based on 50 years of field experience and research, the five principles that resulted from these fora encourage local ownership, alignment of development programmes around a country\u2019s development strategy, harmonisation of practices to reduce transaction costs, the avoidance of fragmented efforts and the creation of results frameworks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Funding opportunity for registered NGOs to develop and curate thematic pages on a new global youth website","field_subtitle":"No Deadline: Proposals Considered On A Rolling Basis","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6bpzrco","body":"The Youth Initiative of the Open Society Foundations (OSF) is currently seeking proposals from eligible registered NGO\u2019s for up to US$10,000 in funding to develop and curate thematic pages on a new global youth portal and community being developed at www.youthpolicy.org. Youthpolicy.org aims to consolidate knowledge and information on youth policies across the international sector, ranging from analysis and formulation to implementation and evaluation. Themes include, but are not limited to: participation and citizenship; activism and volunteering; children and youth rights; youth with disabilities; global drug policy; community work; research and knowledge; informal learning; youth, environment and sustainability; multiculturalism and minorities; and youth justice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Ghana human resources for health country profile","field_subtitle":"Ministry of Health: 2011","field_url":"http://www.hrh-observatory.afro.who.int/images/Document_Centre/ghana_hrh_country_profile.pdf","body":"According to this profile document, health services and functions in Ghana have been decentralised and budget management centres have been created to improve both access to health services and community involvement in planning and delivery of services. There are about 52,258 individuals currently formally working in the health sector in Ghana. The Ministry of Health employs 42,299 staff, which represents about 81.5% of the total health sector workforce. In addition, about 21,791 people countrywide are registered as engaged in traditional medicine, while 367 people are registered as traditional birth attendants. Current human resources policies and plans emphasise the training of more middle-level cadres, which are cheaper to train and maintain. Distribution of health workers is skewed in favour of the more affluent regions, most of which are in the southern half of the country. Highly skilled professionals are concentrated in Greater Accra region, as well as in Korle Bu and Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospitals. Although training of health professionals has been a shared responsibility between the Ministries of Health and Education, there has not been clearly defined roles and collaboration. There is no comprehensive training policy to clarify roles and address issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global action on social determinants of health","field_subtitle":"Marmot M: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(10): 702, October 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/10/11-094862.pdf","body":"In the three years since \u2018Closing the Gap in a Generation: Health Equity Through Action on the Social Determinants of Health\u2019 was published by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the global financial crisis has deepened and the steps put in place to deal with the crisis have had worse impacts on the poor and relatively disadvantaged, while bad governance nationally and globally persists, and measures to mitigate climate change have served to increase health inequity. Despite the dissenters who claim that social determinants are not the concern of WHO, specialists across WHO used evidence-based research to show that action on social determinants of health was fundamental to disease control programmes. The author of this article suggests that the global community can still make great progress towards closing the health gap by improving the social determinants of health and by ensuring equity for every child from the start, as well as ensuring healthier environments, fair employment and decent work, social protection across the life course and universal health care. But to make progress, the global community must also deal with inequity in power, money and resources \u2013 the social injustice that is killing on a grand scale.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Governance not money at heart of Swaziland's malaise","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 22 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93797","body":"The current financial crisis in Swaziland is so severe that aid agencies are predicting that in the absence of major new loan, a humanitarian crisis could develop within the next few months. Stocks of antiretrovirals have fallen dramatically, reportedly standing at one month's supply, despite Swaziland having the world's highest prevalence of HIV (26.1%), with 70% of the population below the poverty line. However the author reports that loans and other resources are not reaching those with greatest need, and that wide inequalities in wealth exist. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health at the UN: Risks to global economic growth","field_subtitle":"Chand S: Chatham House, 26 September 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.chathamhouse.org/media/comment/view/178391","body":"At the United Nations\u2019 meeting on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in September 2011, heads of state were told that cancers, heart disease and mental health issues were critical to the future of the global economy: NCDs are forecast to cost $47 trillion, or 4% of global gross domestic product (GDP), over the next 20 years. This, the author of this article points out, was the only figure put forward to contextualise NCDs, as the meeting failed to produce any concrete targets, funds and action plan. Although the UN General Assembly called on the World Health Organisation (WHO) to develop a global monitoring framework over the next twelve months, the framework will contain only voluntary targets and there is little in the declaration that is specific on international co-operation or coordination. Most action is for sovereign interpretation and subject to domestic interests. Health system development, the regulation of industry and key interventions across sectors such as education, environment, agriculture, and transport remain areas for intervention at the national level only. While trade issues concerning access to medicines, food regulation and tobacco control are affected by global policy, governments remained divided in their interpretation of such policies. On the one hand, health ministries now recognise the human and economic cost of overt protection of industries but on the other hand, commerce officials continue to promote consumption of goods domestically and internationally with simplistic assumptions about individual and social impacts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health care systems and conflict: A fragile state of affairs","field_subtitle":"Barbour V, Clark J and Jones S: PLoS Medicine 8(7), 26 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001065","body":"The authors of this paper argue that the importance of strong health care systems to fragile nations and the damage done to these systems during conflict receive less attention than they should. They note that the impact of the cycle of violence and poverty on health and health care in fragile states is enormous, to the extent that no low-income fragile or conflict-affected country has yet achieved a single Millennium Development Goal. Although the international community spends billions of dollars each year in aid to these nations, gains have generally been small \u2013 without infrastructure and stability, much of this aid is wasted. In conclusion, the authors argue that adequate and equitable provision of quality health care will be met only if health systems and structures are preserved and developed, and if health care personnel have the freedom and safety to provide necessary care to those who need it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health-care-associated infection in Africa: A systematic review","field_subtitle":"Nejad SB, Allegranzi B, Syed SB, Ellis B and Pittet D: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(10): 757-765, October 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/10/11-088179.pdf","body":"The purpose of this paper was to assess the epidemiology of endemic health care-associated infection (HAI) in Africa. Three databases (PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and the WHO regional medical database for Africa) were searched, of which 19 articles were included in this study, and four abstracts of leading international infection control conferences were also included. The hospital-wide prevalence of HAI varied between 2.5% and 14.8%; in surgical wards, and the cumulative incidence ranged from 5.7% to 45.8%. The largest number of studies focused on surgical site infection, whose cumulative incidence ranged from 2.5% to 30.9%. Data on causative pathogens were available from a few studies only and highlighted the importance of Gram-negative rods, particularly in surgical site infection and ventilator-associated pneumonia. The authors note that limited information is available on the endemic burden of HAI in Africa, even though its frequency is much higher than in developed countries. There is an urgent need to identify and implement feasible and sustainable approaches to strengthen HAI prevention, surveillance and control in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV-1 drug resistance in antiretroviral-naive individuals in sub-Saharan Africa after rollout of antiretroviral therapy: A multicentre observational study","field_subtitle":"Hamers Raph L, Wallis Carole L,  Kityo Cissy, Siwale Margaret,  Mandaliya Kishor, Conradie Francesca et al for PharmAccess African Studies to Evaluate Resistance (PASER): Lancet Infectious Diseases 11(10): 750-759, October 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/653svas","body":"In this study, researchers aimed to assess the prevalence of primary resistance in six African countries after anti-retroviral therapy (ART) roll-out and to determine if wider use of ART in sub-Saharan Africa is associated with rising prevalence of drug resistance. They conducted a cross-sectional study in antiretroviral-naive adults infected with HIV-1 who had not started first-line ART, recruited between 2007 and 2009 from 11 regions in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Of a total of 2,590 participants, 2,436 (94.1%) had a pretreatment genotypic resistance result. Drug class-specific resistance prevalence was 2.5% for nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs), 3.3% for non-NRTIs (NNRTIs), 1.3% for protease inhibitors, and 1.2% for dual-class resistance to NRTIs and NNRTIs. The most common drug-resistance mutations were K103N (1.8%), thymidine analogue mutations (1.6%), M184V (1.2%), and Y181C/I (0.7%). The higher prevalence of primary drug resistance in Uganda than in other African countries is probably related to the earlier start of ART roll-out in Uganda, the authors conclude. Resistance surveillance and prevention should be prioritised in settings where ART programmes are scaled up.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV-1-resistance-associated mutations after failure of first-line antiretroviral treatment among children in resource-poor regions: a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Sigaloff KCE, Calis JCJ,  Geelen SP, van Vugt M and de Wit TFR: Lancet Infectious Diseases 11(10): 769-779, October 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6eoks7c","body":"HIV-positive children are at high risk of drug resistance, which is of particular concern in settings where antiretroviral options are limited. In this review, the authors explore resistance rates and patterns among children in developing countries in whom antiretroviral treatment has failed. They did a systematic search of online databases and conference abstracts and included studies reporting HIV-1 drug resistance after failure of first-line paediatric regimens in children (","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How to operationalise the international tax and development agenda: Concluding communiqu\u00e9","field_subtitle":"International Tax Compact: September 2011","field_url":"http://taxcompact.net/documents/workshop-bonn/2011-09-13_itc_Concluding-communique_en.pdf","body":"The question of how developing countries can improve domestic resource mobilisation (DRM) was one of the main topics under discussion at the latest International Tax Compact (ITC) meeting held from 12 to 14 September 2011 in Bonn, Switzerland. The communiqu\u00e9 identifies five main issues facing developing countries looking to improve DRM: taxation and public financial management; taxation and state-building; taxation for economic growth; extractive resource taxation; and international taxation. Although each of these has been the focus of research, the most interesting questions and issues appear to lie at the intersection of each of these, such as how to align public financial management reforms relating to tax with the objectives of promoting economic growth and state capacity. Many of the issues were touched upon during the ITC meeting, and the discussions highlighted the important research being conducted on both the nature of the challenges developing countries must overcome and the technical and governance aspects of tax reforms. Enhancing tax revenues is not an end in itself, participants emphasised, as taxation is at the centre of resilient state-society relations and must therefore be linked with governance efforts and public service delivery and should be undertaken \u2018with an overarching view to make tax systems more pro-poor\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the international governance of food security and trade","field_subtitle":"M. Ahmad: International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development Issue Paper 38, September 2011","field_url":"http://ictsd.org/downloads/2011/10/ahmad_web_1.pdf","body":"In this paper, the author argues that, in order to ensure food security for everyone, all aspects of the food security supply chain, global governance, investment and trade will need to be addressed simultaneously. For improving global governance, full support should be given to the work of the reformed Committee on World Food Security (CFS). This may involve merging the United Nations (UN) High Level Task Force with the Committee. At the same time, the Committee may need to work more independently of the Rome-based agencies and report to the UN Economic and Social Council with more coordination than has existed so far. To ensure a functional global food supply system, World Trade Organisation members should consider alternative mechanisms for adjusting trade rules and expanding the mandate of the Committee on Agriculture according to the changing global requirements, the article notes. Thanks to many positive developments such as having a reformed CFS, the Global Partnership on Food Security, substantial new funding and a much more coordinated approach, the global community is in a much better position to reduce global hunger. Unfortunately trade rules are not keeping up with other developments the author concludes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Increasing access to institutional deliveries using demand and supply side incentives: Early results from a quasi-experimental study","field_subtitle":"Ekirapa-Kiracho E, Waiswa P, Rahman MH, Makumbi F, Kiwanuka N, Okui O et al: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(Suppl 1):S11, 9 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-11-S1-S11.pdf","body":"To demonstrate how reforms at Makerere University College of Health Sciences (MakCHS) can lead to making systemic changes that can improve maternal health services, the university has developed a demand and supply side strategy by working with local communities and national stakeholders. This quasi-experimental trial was conducted in two districts in Eastern Uganda. The supply side component included health worker refresher training and additions of minimal drugs and supplies, whereas the demand side component involved vouchers given to pregnant women for motorcycle transport and the payment to service providers for antenatal, delivery and postnatal care. Analysis from routine health information systems showed that motorcyclists in the community organised themselves to accept vouchers in exchange for transport for maternal care and have become actively involved in ensuring that women obtain care. Maternal care improved, with the number of safe deliveries in the intervention area immediately jumping from less than 200 deliveries/month to over 500 deliveries/month in the intervention arm. Voucher revenues were used to obtain needed supplies and to pay health workers, ensuring their availability at a time when workloads are increasing. The researchers conclude that transport and service vouchers appear to be a viable strategy for rapidly increasing maternal care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Indian generic company joins the Medicines Patent Pool","field_subtitle":"Medicines Patent Pool: 11 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.medicinespatentpool.org/NEWS-ROOM/News-from-the-Pool/Generics-Join-the-Pool","body":"The Medicines Patent Pool, which negotiates voluntary licences for lower pharmaceutical prices, has announced the signing of an agreement with Indian generics producer Aurobindo Pharma Limited to manufacture antiretroviral (ARV) medicines. The Patent Pool has recently come under criticism from AIDS activists concerned about its July 2011 licence agreement with drug company Gilead, and it remains to be seen if this action will address their concerns. The Medicines Patent Pool said that the agreement will enable Aurobindo to manufacture ARVs licensed to the Pool by Gilead Sciences in July. The uptake of the listed ARVs by generic manufacturers will help close the gap between the arrival of new medical technology in developed country markets and its often delayed arrival in developing countries, according to the Pool. In particular, Aurobindo took advantage of a key provision negotiated by the Pool so it can sell the ARV, tenofovir, to a larger number of countries without paying royalties. The arrangement is expected to make it possible for Aurobindo to sell tenofovir to a larger number of countries than before.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya fills research gap on emerging diseases","field_subtitle":"Adhiambo M: SciDevNet, 5 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/en/news/kenya-fills-research-gap-on-emerging-diseases.html","body":"A laboratory that will research and monitor emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) such as yellow fever and dengue has been set up in East Africa in an attempt to tackle growing vector-borne health threats in the region. The Martin L\u00fcscher Laboratory for Emerging Infectious Diseases was launched with support from the German and Swiss governments at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Kenya on 16 September 2011, and is expected to add capacity to respond to disease outbreaks. According to a researcher at ICIPE, the laboratory will improve risk detection, response capacity and research capability for key insect-transmitted diseases in Kenya and the region. It will also train MSc and PhD students under the centre's capacity building programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenyan government has failed on right to food","field_subtitle":"Kibugu J: Pambazuka News 548, 22 September 2011 ","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76543","body":"Despite guarantees to the right to adequate food in its current Constitution and ratification of several international covenants that expressly recognise this right, the Kenyan government has failed its people in this regard, writes the author of this article. The current food crisis is marred by reports of surplus crops rotting in granaries due to lack of markets or means of transportation to ready markets, while there have been allegations of theft of relief food by government officials. The government has admitted that it does not have sufficient infrastructure to distribute relief food and is relying on local and international relief agencies to do the job. Poor distribution of relief food has been exacerbated by government\u2019s failure to map the drought zones properly, the author argues. Controversy has also raged regarding the safety of genetically modified maize being imported into the country, with the public bio-safety regulatory authority admitting incapacity to conduct the required tests. It is on record that the government ignored the adverse weather forecast from the Kenya Meteorological Department and the local chapter of the International Committee for the Red Cross, failing to plan ahead. Poor government policies that fail to incentivise maize production - the country\u2019s staple food - have also been blamed for declining maize yields, year on year. The author calls on government for effective measures to end the cycle of famines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Land and power: The growing scandal surrounding the new wave of investments in land","field_subtitle":"Zagema B: Oxfam Briefing Paper 151, 22 September 2011","field_url":"https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp151-land-power-rights-acquisitions-220911-en.pdf","body":"The new wave of land deals in agriculture has had a negative impact on the poor in developing countries, according to this paper by Oxfam. Oxfam\u2019s research has revealed that residents regularly lose out to local elites and domestic or foreign investors because they lack the power to claim their rights effectively and to defend and advance their interests. Oxfam makes a number of key recommendations. First, the rights of the communities affected by these deals must be respected and their grievances addressed, and those who are profiting from the international deals must help to ensure this happens. Second, the balance of power must be shifted in favour of local rights-holders and communities. Governments should adopt strong, internationally applicable standards on good governance relating to land tenure and management of natural resources. Third, host governments should respect and protect all existing land use rights, and ensure that the principle of free, prior and informed consent is followed and that women have equal rights to access and control over land. Fourth, investors should respect all existing land use rights. Fifth, financiers and buyers should accept full supply-chain responsibility. Sixth, home country governments should require companies investing overseas to fully disclose their activities, and ensure that standards and safeguards are implemented to protect small-scale food producers and local populations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Leprosy on the increase in Madagascar","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 26 September 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93824","body":"According to IRIN News, new cases of leprosy have been reported from clinics in Antalaha, a remote area of Madagascar. The driving force behind the outbreak of the disease is increased malnutrition, the article reports, caused by dramatic increases in the price of rice. And while people are becoming poorer and more susceptible to illness, the public healthcare system is receiving less money from the government. According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), government spending for health dropped to US$2 a person in 2010, compared to $5 in 2009 and $8 in 2008. Clinics in remote places like Antalaha are the most likely to suffer from shortages of drugs and medical supplies. Six to 12 months of treatment with multidrug therapy - a combination of two antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory (medicines that the World Health Organisation distributes for free) - stops the disease from spreading, but there are other obstacles to overcome. The main one, according to medical workers, is that the Malagasy authorities declared that leprosy had been eradicated from the country in 2010. Medical workers are reported to be afraid to report new cases to the authorities as this will contradict the official position on the disease. Diagnosing the illness can also be tricky in a tropical climate that causes many dermatological problems, and basic items like bandages \u2013 which are needed to dress the wounds \u2013 are usually lacking in health centres.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Major EU grant for essential medicines in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF): 12 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/zimbabwe/media.html","body":"On 12 September 2011, the European Union (EU) signed a grant for \u20ac10 million (US$14 million) with the United nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF), in support of the Essential Medicines Support Programme (EMSP) in Zimbabwe. The money will be used to buy essential drugs and medical supplies which will be distributed to health centres by Natpharm, the supply arm of the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare. Since 2008, availability of essential medicines in Zimbabwe's public health sector has improved largely due to a funding collaboration between the government, UNICEF, the EU, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Ireland. Since 2008, EMSP has received US$52 million in funding, according to UNICEF. The contribution has resulted in 82.5% of the primary health care facilities having 80% of essential medicines available, meaning that there have been virtually no stock outs of essential medicines so far in 2011.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Medical students\u2019 perspective on the Rio Declaration","field_subtitle":"International Federation of Medical Students\u2019 Associations: October 2011","field_url":"http://ifmsa.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/medical-students-perspective-to-the-rio-statement-on-the-social-determinants-of-health/","body":"In response to the Rio Political Declaration at the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health held from 19-21 October in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil the International Federation of Medical Students\u2019 Associations (IFMSA) delegation raised issues that the Declaration failed to address. In their statement, they recognise the Rio Declaration as a major step in the quest for global health equity, but point to its failure to explicitly indicate how the unfair distribution of power, resources and wealth will be addressed, especially by United Nations (UN) Member States, arguing that leaders have missed an opportunity to make a strong statement on this. IFMSA believes that democracy is the key instrument in fixing the existing imbalances in power and in ultimately reducing health inequities, but the Declaration does not emphasise the value of democracy in all processes \u2013 from decision-making to evaluation \u2013 and at all levels \u2013 from community to global level. IFMSA also notes that the Declaration fails to specifically define the role of the private sector in reducing health inequities and does not clearly draw the lines governing engagement between government and the private sector, nor does it demand that global economic governance institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation and the World Bank, adhere to the same standards of transparency, accountability and democracy as those urged of UN Member States. In addition, the Declaration is silent about how tackling health inequities will be financed, making no mention of innovative financing schemes such as progressive taxation on capital gains or extremely-high earners, a financial transactions tax or the prevention of tax evasion. Although the Declaration recognises the importance of engaging with civil society, it does not advocate for the creation of spaces for dynamic dialogue that will enable civil society to be heard, reflecting the fact that civil society was excluded from the official process of developing the Declaration. Finally, IMFSA notes that the Declaration does not explicitly mention the inclusion of young people and youth organisations in the movement for action on social determinants of health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Mental health responses for victims of sexual violence and rape in resource-poor settings","field_subtitle":"Callender T and Dartnall L: Sexual Violence Research Initiative Briefing Paper, January 2011","field_url":"http://www.svri.org/MentalHealthResponse.pdf","body":"This briefing paper provides an overview of existing literature on the mental health effects of sexual violence and rape, a summary of effective interventions, and outlines a brief research agenda for mental health responses to sexual violence in resource-poor settings. The authors found that, in resource-poor settings, most efforts to strengthen responses to survivors of sexual violence have so far focused on the training of specialised staff based in hospitals or crisis centres who administer limited services \u2013 immediate care and a forensic exam \u2013 before referring patients to mental health practitioners or social workers for mental health interventions, if the latter are available. Most therapies and treatments for mental health problems have been implemented in the developed world and may require multiple counselling sessions over the long-term with professional staff, but developing countries generally lack capacity to provide psychological interventions. Of the various approaches, evidence consistently points to cognitive behavioural therapies as being more effective in reducing symptoms of post-traumatic stress than counselling. Sexual violence is an under-researched area across the globe but there is a particular lack of research from resource poor countries on the mental health aftermath of sexual violence. The authors call for further research, providing a basic research agenda at the end of the paper.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Mogae calls for Botswana to legalise homosexuality","field_subtitle":"BBC News Africa: 19 October 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15368752","body":"Botswana should decriminalise homosexuality and prostitution to prevent the spread of HIV, says ex-President Festus Mogae. Mogae, who heads the Botswana government-backed Aids Council, said it was difficult to promote safe sex when the two practices were illegal. He also called for condoms to be distributed in prisons. His views are controversial as many conservative Batswana frown upon homosexuality and prostitution. Yet Botswana has one of the highest HIV rates in the world - 17% of the population is HIV positive. Mogae asserted that homosexuals were Botswana citizens and entitled to the same rights as heterosexual citizens. He said the government's failure to give prisoners' condoms was worsening the HIV and AIDS pandemic. However, a government spokesman on HIV and AIDS said that homosexuality and prostitution would remain illlegal until the government concluded wide-ranging consultations to see whether there was a need to change the law.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"NCDs and HIV fight for limited resources in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 20 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93766","body":"The crowd of health issues jostling for a share of Kenya's inadequate health budget is expanding, with activists calling for an increase in resources for the management of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which account for more than 50% of hospital deaths and admissions, according to Plus News. At the same time, against a backdrop of two consecutive rejections for funding by the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and flat-lined funding from the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, Kenyan AIDS activists worry that any move to increase funding for NCDs could mean less for HIV and AIDS. Just 440,000 out of 1.5 million HIV-positive Kenyans have access to treatment, and more than 100,000 new HIV infections occur annually. Activists have identified the problem as a combination of scarce resources and a lack of political will by the country\u2019s leadership. They claim that the government pays lip service to the global health issues in vogue \u2013 last year it was maternal health, while this year it is NCDs \u2013 without any significant improvements in health services. The medical superintendent of Mbagathi District Hospital in Nairobi says government has policies and guidelines in place for the management of NCDs, but there is a lack of strategic focus on operational implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"New public-private partnership to combat breast and cervical cancer","field_subtitle":"United States Department of State: 13 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2011/09/172240.htm","body":"The United States (US) Department of State, the George W. Bush Institute, the US President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Susan G Komen for the Cure, and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) have launched Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon (PRRR), a partnership to leverage public and private investment in global health to combat cervical and breast cancer, the leading causes of cancer death in women in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. The partnership aims to expand the availability of vital cervical cancer screening and treatment and breast care education, notably for women most at risk of getting cervical cancer in developing nations because they are HIV-positive. With initial indications of interest, PRRR expects to have commitments of up to US$75 million across five years, which will grow to include additional participants and services. The goals are to reduce deaths from cervical cancer by an estimated 25% among women screened and treated through the initiative, significantly increase access to breast and cervical cancer prevention, screening and treatment programmes, and create innovative models that can be scaled up and used globally. This public-private initiative includes initial commitments from founding corporate participants Merck, Becton Dickinson, QIAGEN, Caris Foundation, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline and IBM.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"New WIPO-WHO drug R&D database to pool neglected disease licences","field_subtitle":"New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 19 October 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2011/10/19/new-wipo-who-drug-rd-database-would-pool-neglected-disease-licences/","body":"The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), in conjunction with the World Health Organisation, private sector and foundation partners, is preparing to launch a new voluntary database for the sharing of intellectual property for research and development (R&D) on medicines, vaccines and diagnostics for neglected diseases. The project will target least-developed countries and is likely to include a database and a space for creating partnerships. But budget, oversight and the role of member states are still unclear. The aim of the initiative is to boost discovery and development of medicines, vaccines and diagnostics for neglected tropical diseases plus malaria and tuberculosis through greater availability of intellectual property to researchers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Petition against Medicine Patent Pool Foundation\u2019s deals with drug manufacturers","field_subtitle":"International Treatment Preparedness Coalition: October 2011","field_url":"http://www.itpcglobal.org/","body":"In response to the Medicine Patent Pool Foundation\u2019s (MPPF) first voluntary license agreement with pharmaceutical giant, Gilead, the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) and the Initiative for Medicines, Access and Knowledge \u2013 both aiming to secure universal access to medicines \u2013 called for a meeting with the MPPF, arguing that the agreement represented a setback for universal access. On 2 October 2011, both organisations and members from civil society from the global south met with MPPF and UNITAID in Geneva, and made three demands. First, the agreement with Gilead should be substantially revised or terminated, given Gilead\u2019s bad faith and the controversial terms of the agreement. Second, MPPF should institute an immediate moratorium on negotiations of any new licence agreements with multinational drug companies until such time as standard terms and conditions or a model agreement is agreed to. Third, the current structure of the MPPF needs to be revised, including its governance and administration, goals and mission, and comprehensive reforms must be implemented that are designed to enhance its transparency, accountability and adherence to core principles of health equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Predictors of mosquito net use in Ghana","field_subtitle":"Baume CA and Koh ACF: Malaria Journal 10(265), 15 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-265.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers examined the factors associated with use of nets owned in Ghana. The data was derived from an August 2008 survey in Ghana of households with a pregnant woman or a guardian of a child under five, conducted during the rainy season. A total of 1,796 households were included, which generated a sample of 1,852 mosquito nets. The final multivariate model consisted of ten variables statistically associated with whether or not the net was used the prior night: rural location, lower socio-economic status, not using coils for mosquito control, fewer nets in the household, newer nets and those in better condition, light blue colour, higher level of education of the guardian of the child under five, knowing that mosquitoes transmit malaria, and paying for the net instead of obtaining it free of charge. The results of this study suggest that net use would increase in Ghana if coloured nets were made available in mass distributions as well as in the commercial market; if programmes emphasise that malaria is caused only by night-biting mosquitoes, and that nets protect against mosquitoes better than coils and need to be used even if coils are burning; if donated nets are replaced more frequently so that households have nets that are in good condition; and if there were support for the commercial market so that those who can afford to purchase a net and want to choose their own nets can do so.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Preoperative visual acuity among cataract surgery patients and countries\u2019 state of development: A global study","field_subtitle":"Shah SP, Gilbert CE, Razavi H, Turner EL and Lindfield RJ on behalf of the International Eye Research Network: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(10): 749-756, October 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/10/10-080366.pdf","body":"The aim of this paper was to describe the pre-operative surgical case mix among patients undergoing cataract extraction and explore associations between case mix, country level of development (as measured by the Human Development Index, or HDI) and cataract surgery rates (CSRs). Ophthalmologists at 112 eye hospitals (54% of them non-governmental) in 50 countries provided data on 11,048 cataract procedures over nine months in 2008. Patients whose visual acuity (VA) before surgery was < 6/60 in the better eye comprised 47% of the total case mix in poorly developed countries and 1% in developed countries. Overall, 72% of the eyes undergoing surgery had a VA < 6/60. Very low VA before cataract surgery was strongly associated with poor development at the country level and inversely associated with national CSRs. The researchers conclude that the proportion of patients with very poor preoperative VA is a simple indicator that can be easily measured periodically to monitor progress in ophthalmological services. Additionally, the internet can be an effective tool for developing and supporting an ophthalmological research network capable of providing a global snapshot of service activity, particularly in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Progress report on Students' Health Advocacy Project","field_subtitle":"Guma M: HEPS Uganda, 17 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.heps.or.ug/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=41%3Astudents-health-advocacy-project&catid=22%3Acurrent-campaigns","body":"The Students\u2019 Health Advocacy Project (SHAP) is a community outreach programme of HEPS-Uganda, a health consumers' organisation advocating for health rights and responsibilities that is also a member of the EQUINET network. SHAP targets schools in Rubaga Division to make the students aware of their health rights and responsibilities. This has been going on since 2010. So far, SHAP activities have been conducted in a few schools and for some schools a follow up has been made from the previous outreach made to them, specifically Bright Angels College. The new members of the health club in this school showed great interest in the activities carried out by SHAP and HEPS Uganda. The two organisations are currently refining the programme to make it more focused on raising students\u2019 awareness of their basic health rights. The SHAP team is also working on expanding its activities to various schools in Rubaga and this has been effected through delivering letters so that dates can be scheduled for SHAP to take their presentations to the targeted schools.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Protecting the right to health through action on the social determinants of health: A declaration by public interest civil society organisations and social movements","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement October 21 2011","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/sites/www.phmovement.org/files/AlternativeCivilSocietyDeclaration.pdf","body":"In this declaration by health civil society organisations from around the world, Peoples Health Movement insist that real power be trabsferred to communities to deal with the social determinants of health. A call is made for United Nations Member States and the World Health Organisation to take action around ten key areas affecting the social determinants of health. 1. Implement equity-based social protection systems and maintain and develop effective publicly provided and publicly financed health systems that address the social, economic, environmental and behavioural determinants of health with a particular focus on reducing health inequities. 2. Use progressive taxation, wealth taxes and the elimination of tax evasion to finance action on the social determinants of health. 3. Recognise explicitly the clout of finance capital, its dominance of the global economy, and the origins and consequences of its periodic collapses. 4. Implement appropriate international tax mechanisms to control global speculation and eliminate tax havens. 5. Use health impact assessments to document the ways in which unregulated and unaccountable transnational corporations and financial institutions constitute barriers to Health for All. 6. Recognise explicitly the ways in which the current structures of global trade regulation shape health inequalities and deny the right to health. 7. Reconceptualise aid for health from high-income countries as an international obligation and reparation legitimately owed to developing countries under basic human rights principles. 8. Enhance democratic and transparent decision-making and accountability at all levels of governance. 9. Develop and adopt a code of conduct in relation to the management of institutional conflicts of interest in global health decision making. 10. Establish, promote and resource participatory- and action-oriented monitoring systems that provide disaggregated data on a range of social stratifiers as they relate to health outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Raising the profile of participatory action research at the 2010 Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R, Flores W, Shukla A, Kagis M, Baba A, Ashraf R et al: MEDICC Review 13(3): 35-38, July 2011","field_url":"http://www.medicc.org/mediccreview/articles/mr_207.pdf","body":"By involving citizens and health workers in producing evidence and learning, participatory action research has potential to organise community evidence, stimulate action and challenge the marginalisation that undermines achievement of universal health coverage, the authors of this paper argue. They begin by summarising and analysing the results of two sessions on this research model convened by the authors at the First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Montreux Switzerland, 16\u201319 November 2010. They then review case studies and experiences discussed, particularly their contribution to universal health coverage in different settings. The authors reflect on challenges faced by participatory action research, and outline recommendations from the two sessions, including the creation of a learning network for participatory action research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration now open for Forum 2012: 24-26 April 2012, Cape Town, South Africa","field_subtitle":"COHRED and the Global Forum","field_url":"http://www.forum2012.org/","body":"Forum 2012 will bring together key actors to make research and innovation work for health, equity and development: governments, industry, social enterprise, non-governmental organisations, researchers, media, funders , international organisations and others. Partipcipants will explore who will explore ways to go \u2018beyond aid\u2019 by building on the rapidly expanding research and innovation capacity of low- and middle-income countries as basis for development. The Forum has three main themes: improving and increasing investments in research and innovation; networking and partnerships in research, technological innovations, social innovations and delivery of better health care; and improvement of health, equity and development of low-income countries by creating a supportive environment, including priority setting in research for health, fair research contracting, research cooperation and ethics, nanotechnologies, technological and social innovations, and using the web as a tool for planning research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration open for SEYCOHAIDS 2012","field_subtitle":"8-10 June 2012: Lilongwe, Malawi","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5ty3mor","body":"SEYCOHAIDS 2012 is the largest international gathering for young people on HIV and AIDS in the Eastern and Southern Africa region, where young researchers, policy makers, activists, educators and people living with HIV will be able to link with people in other countries and meet to share and learn about HIV prevention methods, treatments, care policies and programmes relating to HIV and AIDS in Africa. The broad objectives for the Conference are to: ensure effective and meaningful youth participation in international AIDS response; identify gaps and challenges in government policies in providing youth-friendly HIV and AIDS services; develop regional and country-level strategic programmes for youth and HIV and AIDS; identify and build the capacity of new and emerging youth leaders for the AIDS response to ensure sustainability of youth initiatives at the national, regional and international levels; sustain adult-youth partnerships and dialogue; develop the Southern and Eastern Africa youth network on HIV and AIDS; develop country specific youth networks on HIV and AIDS; establish funding mechanisms for regional and country youth networks; and monitor government and donor commitments to youth and HIV and AIDS. Applicants must be no older than 35 years old at the time of the application.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Scaling up action against noncommunicable diseases: How much will it cost?","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/documents/7b7b44af1deedae482d02a5615dd6985.pdf","body":"This paper describes a new &#64257;nancial planning tool developed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to assist low- and middle income-countries in scaling up a core set of interventions to tackle non-communicable diseases (NCDs).The tool can be used to forecast resource needs at national and sub-national levels. It can enhance traditional budgeting mechanisms in countries and provide new information to development agencies about the resources needed to tackle the growing burden of NCDs. The tool has been used to produce a \u2018price tag\u2019 for a combined set of population-based and individual level \u2018best buy\u2019 NCD interventions that have been identi&#64257;ed as priority actions by WHO. The average yearly cost for all low- and middle-income countries is estimated to be US$11.4 billion over the period 2011-2025. The cost per head of population is low, representing an annual investment of under US$1 in low-income countries and US$1.50 in lower middle-income countries. Expressed as a proportion of current health spending, the cost of implementing such a package amounts to 4% in low-income countries and 2% in lower middle-income countries. Population-based \u2018best buy\u2019 interventions address tobacco and harmful alcohol use, as well as unhealthy diet and physical inactivity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Screening for HIV-associated dementia in South Africa: Potentials and pitfalls of task-shifting","field_subtitle":"Robbins RN, Remien RH, Mellins CA, Joska JA and Stein DJ: AIDS Patient Care and STDs 25(10): 587-593, October 2011","field_url":"http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/apc.2011.0154","body":"There is an urgent need for valid, reliable, and simple-to-use screening tools for HIV-associated dementia (HAD) in South Africa, as little is known about its impact on South Africa's 5.5 million people living with HIV (PLWH). Screening for HAD in South Africa involves several challenges, including a lack of culturally appropriate and validated screening tools and a shortage of trained personnel to conduct screening. This study examined rates of positive HAD screens as determined by the cut-off score on the International HIV Dementia Scale (IHDS) administered by non-specialist community health workers (CHWs) in South Africa and examined associations between positive HAD screens and common risk factors for HAD. Sixty-five HIV-positive individuals on antiretroviral therapy (ART) with low CD4 counts and documented ART adherence problems were administered a battery of demographic, psychiatric and neurocognitive screening measures. Positive HAD screens were present in 80% of the sample. Presence of a current alcohol dependence disorder and CD4 counts of 200 or lower were significantly associated with positive HAD screens. HIV-positive South Africans on ART with low CD4 counts and ART adherence problems may be at a very high risk for HAD, the authors stress, highlighting the need for more routine screening and monitoring of neurocognitive functions among South Africa's millions of PLWH on ART. Future research is needed to validate IHDS performance against a gold standard neurocognitive battery for the detection of HAD and to compare performance of CHWs to expert health care personnel in administering the IHDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Seventh PHASA 2011 Conference: 28 - 30 November 2011: Gauteng, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Late registration closes 21 November 2011","field_url":"http://www.phasaconference.org.za/index.html","body":"The 2011 PHASA conference will have as its focus, a scientific debate and discussion on health inequities and the role of public health leadership, education and practice in reducing health equity gaps. The theme of the conference is \"Closing the health equity gap: Public health leadership, education and practice\". A programme of local and international speakers will include policy-makers, leading local and international academics and representatives of international organisations. There are five conference tracks: the social determinants of health; burden of disease and population health; performance of the health system; public health leadership and education; and community action and best practices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Social grants may be discontinued in Swaziland ","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 17 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93981","body":"Swaziland's parliamentarians recently debated the social safety net covering children, the elderly and the disabled. Recipients often depend on these small grants and pensions for survival. The debate on the future of social services was prompted by submissions from the Deputy Prime Minister, Themba Masuku, on the suspension of grants to the elderly. A number of Members of Parliament (MPs) supported the call for a constitutional amendment to abolish these government grants when government had no money to pay for them. The article reports that many pensions were suspended in the first quarter of 2011. In June 2011 only 6,480 pensions were reported to be paid, while at least 40,000 pensioners without bank accounts were reported to have received no benefits, so that OVC grants could be paid instead. The Deputy Prime Minister did not respond to parliamentary questions as to when regular pension payments would resume. The non-payment of social grants is expected to have a knock-on effect on health of the country\u2019s population, particularly those living in extreme poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Human Resources for Health Strategy for the Health Sector: 2012/13-2016/17","field_subtitle":"Department of Health: October 2011","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sites/default/files/hrh_strategy.pdf","body":"In South Africa\u2019s new human resources for health strategy, eight thematic priorities have been identified to form the strategy\u2019s framework: leadership, governance and accountability; health workforce information and health workforce planning; re-engineering of the workforce to meet service needs; scaling up and revitalising education, training and research; creating the infrastructure for workforce and service development in the form of academic health complexes and nursing colleges; strengthening and professionalising the management of human resources and prioritising health workforce needs; ensuring professional quality care through oversight, regulation and continuing professional development; and improving access to health professionals and health care in rural and remote areas. The strategy aims to ensure necessary and equitable staffing of the health system and to ensure a workforce fit for purpose to meet health needs by: developing health professionals and cadres to meet health and health care needs; ensuring the health workforce has an optimal working environment and rewarding careers; ensuring innovative and efficient recruitment and retention of the health workforce; enabling clinical research which enhances clinical and service development; and providing the organisation and infrastructure for health workforce development. The Strategy also contains forecasts on the numbers of health workers required to fill critical gaps in public health service delivery.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"South African health minister promises more doctors and nurses","field_subtitle":"Child K: Mail and Guardian, 11 October 2011  ","field_url":"http://mg.co.za/article/2011-10-11-health-minister-promises-more-doctors-and-nurses/","body":"South African health minister Aaron Motsoaledi has announced that R1.24-billion (US$ 155 million) will be spent to \u2018revitalise nursing colleges\u2019 and improve infrastructure to train more nurses, as part of the department's new human resource policy. For the current financial year, the department will spend US$27.5 million, and $64 million per year thereafter. A department spokesperson said nursing colleges standing empty would have to be fixed up so that they were fit for use. South African universities currently train 1200 doctors each year. Earlier this year Motsoaledi asked the deans of South Africa's medical schools to each train 40 more students per year. Wits University was the first to do so by taking in an extra 40 at the beginning of the year at the cost of R8-million. The Wits medical faculty dean said the country was short of every type of medical specialist and it would take a long time to fix because it took six to eight years to train specialists after they had qualified as doctors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"South African National Health Department to take stand against alcohol and fast food","field_subtitle":"Mkhwanazi A: Health-e News, 19 September 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20033262","body":"Fast food and alcohol advertisements in South Africa could soon be a thing of the past, according to the National Health Department. At a summit held in Johannesburg in September 2011, the Health Minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, highlighted the importance of healthy lifestyles in the fight against non-communicable diseases (NCDs). An Inter-Ministerial Committee on alcohol use and abuse has been set up, aimed at banning alcohol advertising and, despite intense lobbying by the alcohol industry, the Minister has vowed not to change his position. The Minister also aims to target the fast food industry by banning their advertising during children\u2019s television programmes. He says he is working with the relevant industries to make fruit and vegetables cheaper and more accessible, and intends to encourage regular exercise in schools in the form of physical education programmes, citing obesity levels among school children at 23%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Speculating with lives: How global investors make money out of hunger","field_subtitle":"Knaup H, Schiessl M and Seith A: De Spiegel, 1 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,783654,00.html","body":"According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation\u2019s (FAO) Food Price Index, overall food costs rose by 39% in 2011, while grain prices went up by 71%. The authors of this article point to investor speculation in commodity futures as the main culprit for price increases, as the more the price of food commodities increases, the more money pours into the sector and the higher prices rise. Although the volume of index fund speculation increased by 2,300% between 2003 and 2008 alone, the FAO estimates that today only 2% of commodity futures contracts result in the delivery of real goods. The problem is particularly glaring in Ethiopia, the authors note, where 5.7 million Ethiopians are dependent on international food aid, while the government sells or leases large tracts of fertile land to foreign investors. They, in turn, export most of the food they produce to other countries. Since 2007, the Ethiopian government is reported to have approved 815 foreign-funded agricultural projects. Given the threat posed by climate change, the authors call for a radical departure from agricultural mass production, as well as an end to large-scale monocultures and the massive use of pesticides. They argue that this type of agriculture contaminates water and dries up the soil, and that the export-oriented agricultural industry destroys markets in developing countries. What is needed is a re-orientation toward a system of agriculture driven by small farmers who grow their crops at the local level, using both sustainable and environmentally compatible methods. However, governments and economists continue to push for large-scale agriculture as the solution to poverty and hunger, even though it is actually a contributing factor to the problem, the authors argue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Struggles over voice and power at the World Conference on the Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":" Claudio Schuftan, People\u2019s Health Movement Vietnam","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe WHO and Government of Brazil sponsored  Conference on the Social Determinants of Health held in  late October turned out to be a case study of how expectations materialized in a war of brackets added to the text of the original Rio Political Declaration on Social Determinants of Health (www.who.org ). The rich countries\u2019 brackets and  \u2018toning-down-relativisation-adjectives\u2019 won, despite fierce debate.  This begs the question: Are United Nations declarations predictable? \r\n\r\nThe frustration in the halls ran so high that no less than three alternative declarations made it to the floor of the final day. One from the Peoples Health Movement (www.phmovement.org ), one from the Latinamerican Association of Social Medicine (www.alames.org ) and one from the International Federation of Medical Students\u2019 Associations (www.ifmsa.org).\r\n \r\nDr Michael Marmot, chair of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health that produced the 2008 report said: \u2026\u201dClosing the gap in a generation is a rousing call. Did the World Health Organization\u2019s Commission on Social Determinants of Health really believe it to be possible? Technically, certainly. \u2026the evidence suggests that we can make great progress towards closing the health gap by improving the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age.  \u2026..In the three years since \u2018Closing the Gap in a Generation\u2019 was published, there is no question that there is much to make us gloomy: the global financial crisis and the steps put in place to deal with it have worse impacts on the poor and relatively disadvantaged; the persistence of bad governance nationally and globally; climate change and inequitable measures for mitigation and adaptation and, in many countries, an increase in health inequalities\u2026.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe weaknesses were clear.  WHO Member States were reluctant to discuss or redress the power relations that year-in-year-out reproduce health inequalities. The social determinants of health cannot be addressed by just fixing policy coherence and inter-sectoral action in health as is being called for. Obscuring these realities of power under platitudes about inter-sectoral action and policy coherence across sectors only helps to perpetuate the continuing violation of the right to health. In fact there is significant policy coherence across sectors, including the health sector, influenced by currently dominant conservative economic policies which have also promoted a market approach in health care financing. Irrational global trade liberalization, capital flight and a continued unfair regime of patents, especially of medicines are clearly maintaining health inequalities.  Comprehensive primary health care, with proactive community involvement, is the fundamental guide for an equitable health system. The progressive privatization of health care provision over the last three decades has seriously weakened capacities to organise comprehensive primary health care.  \r\n\r\nIt is thus the stubborn combination of poor social policies and programmes, unfair economic arrangements, and bad politics that are depriving large numbers of people of opportunities to lead healthy lives. Reducing health and nutrition inequalities is critically dependent upon changes in the functioning of the global economy.  Differences among countries; between social classes; between men and women; between corporations and communities result from the interaction of the different axes of power which end up critically determining which actions will be taken and which will not on the social determinants of health and nutrition. A willingness to transfer real power to communities is thus key to deal with the existing unequal power relations and with the measures taken to tip them in favour of dire community needs. \r\n\r\nDespite the committed role all representatives of the Brazilian government and civil society in bringing out the deficiencies above, in the final Declaration, no mention was made of redressing the unequal power relations that lie at the base of the determinants. The Declaration thus proposes an apolitical agenda. In this respect it is a step back from the recommendations of the WHO Report on the Social Determinants of Health. \r\n\r\nPeoples Health Movement and Alames in their declarations insist that the institutions, corporations and governments which promote the current state of affairs need to be confronted if there are to be any shifts in the way the social determinants of health are addressed.  These declarations make specific proposals for how to do this. For example, WHO has led the way in developing a global regulatory regime for tobacco control and should do the same for the food industry. The financial sector needs to be held accountable for the economic crisis and contribute to addressing the vast resource gap in health by paying a small tax on financial transactions.  \r\n\r\nThe Conference at best served for leaders to acknowledge social determinants of health as an \u2018issue\u2019. But it leaves us with the lingering question: Can the health and nutrition sector take upon its shoulders the tackling of the social determinants of health?  We are the sector that picks up the pieces of a sick society. Putting our own house in order will not be enough.\r\n\r\nThe declarations referred to in this editorial are included in the newsletter. Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. The views expressed in this editorial are the authors. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit the website of the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health http://www.who.int/sdhconference/en/ and of Peoples Health Movement  at www.phmovement.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The debating chamber: Global Fund delivers lifesaving results","field_subtitle":"Cerrell J: Alert Net, 4 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.trust.org/alertnet/blogs/the-debating-chamber/global-fund-delivers-lifesaving-results/","body":"While the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has recently come under scrutiny about how well it tracks the money it disburses, the author of this article argues that the Fund represents one of the better examples of global funding initiatives for health. He believes that its high level of transparency sets it apart from other bilateral and multilateral institutions, and it is precisely this transparency and accountability that means that any problems in this regard tend to be widely reported. In early 2011, the Fund commissioned an independent panel to evaluate how it can improve its operations and effectiveness. The panel\u2019s recommendations, which were in line with the Global Fund\u2019s own reform agenda, were met by the Global Fund Board\u2019s commitment in October 2011 to deliver on the recommendations and to continue to adjust practices to use its resources as efficiently as possible. Still, some feel that the Fund isn\u2019t going far enough, saying that even very small amounts of money that cannot be accounted for should be grounds for cutting off that country\u2019s grant monies from the Fund. Yet the author argues here that global funding bodies all face some degree of risk from irregularities and, although the Fund should continue to aspire to the highest degrees of effective stewardship of resources and accountability, a perfect score card is not a practical possibility. He cautions that, in pursuit of such rigorous policies, external funders should be careful of unwittingly stifling innovation and new approaches and ultimately reducing impact on health outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The effects of an HIV project on HIV and non-HIV services at local government clinics in urban Kampala","field_subtitle":"Matsubayashi T, Manabe YC, Etonu A, Kyegombe N, Muganzi A, Coutinho A, Peters DH: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(Suppl 1):S9, 9 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-11-S1-S9.pdf","body":"In recent years, the ways in which HIV and AIDS-focused programmes interact with the delivery of other health services is often discussed, but the evidence as to whether HIV and AIDS programmes strengthen or distort overall health services is limited. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of a PEPFAR-funded HIV and AIDS programme on six government-run general clinics in Kampala, Uganda. Longitudinal information on the delivery of health services was collected at each clinic. Monthly changes in the volume of HIV and non-HIV services were analysed, along with a cross-sectional survey utilising patient exit interviews to compare perceptions of the experiences of patients receiving HIV care and those receiving non-HIV care. All HIV service indicators showed a positive change after the HIV programme began. For non-HIV and AIDS health services, TB lab tests and diagnoses increased significantly, and malaria service indicators also improved. Patients\u2019 overall impressions were positive in both the HIV and non-HIV groups, with more than 90% responding favourably about their experiences. This study shows that when a collaboration is established to strengthen existing health systems, in addition to providing HIV and AIDS services in a setting in which other primary health care is being delivered, there are positive effects not only on HIV and AIDS services, but also on other essential services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Climate and Health Summit","field_subtitle":"Durban, South Africa: 4 December 2011","field_url":"http://climateandhealthcare.org/","body":"The First Global Climate and Health Summit aims to bring together key health sector actors to discuss the impacts of climate change on public health and solutions that promote greater health and economic equity between and within nations. The Summit is geared to build the profile of the health sector vis-\u00e0-vis the COP17 negotiations in Durban, and to also help build a broader, longer lasting global movement for a healthy climate. Objectives of the Summit include: raise the profile of public health and the health sector vis-\u00e0-vis the public debate and global negotiations on climate change; catalyse greater health sector engagement on climate issues in a broad diversity of countries; build a common, more coordinated approach to addressing the health impacts of climate change; and develop shared advocacy strategies for strong national and global policy measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The growing caseload of chronic life-long conditions calls for a move towards full self-management in low-income countries","field_subtitle":"Van Olmen J, Ku GM, Bermejo R, Kegels G, Hermann K and van Damme W: Globalization and Health 7(38), 10 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-7-38.pdf","body":"The aim of this paper is to show that current provider-centred models of chronic care are not adequate and to propose 'full self-management' as an alternative for low-income countries. People with chronic life-long conditions need to 'rebalance' their life in order to combine the needs related to their chronic condition with other elements of their life, the authors argue. They have a crucial role in the management of their condition and the opportunity to gain knowledge and expertise in their condition and its management. Therefore, people with chronic life-long conditions should be empowered so that they become the centre of management of their condition. In full self-management, patients take full responsibility for their condition, supported by peers, professionals and information and communication tools. The authors examine two current trends to enhance the capacity for self-management and coping: the emergence of peer support and expert-patient networks, and the development and distribution of smart phone technology.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact on nurses and nurse managers of introducing PEPFAR clinical services in urban government clinics in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Nankumbi J, Groves S, Leontsini E, Kyegombe N, Coutinho A, Manabe Y: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(Suppl 1):S8, 9 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-11-S1-S8.pdf","body":"In an effort to expand much-needed HIV services in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, the Infectious Disease Institute, an affiliate of Makerere University College of Health Science, has established a community-university partnership with the Ministry of Health to implement an innovative model to build capacity in HIV service delivery. In this paper, the authors evaluate the impact on the nurses from this programme to provide more health care in six nurse-managed Kampala City Council (KCC) Clinics. A mixed method approach was used. The descriptive study collected key informant interviews from the clinics\u2019 six nurse managers, and administered a questionnaire to 20 staff nurses between September and December 2009. Results showed that introducing new HIV services into the KCC clinics was positive for the nurses. They identified the project as successful because of perceived improved work environment, increase in useful in-service training, new competence to manage patients and staff, improved physical infrastructure, provision of more direct patient care, motivation to improve the clinic because the project acted on their suggestions, and involvement in role expansion. All of these helped empower the nurses, improving quality of care and increasing job satisfaction.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Solidarity Tobacco Contribution: A new international health\u2010financing concept","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: October 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/nmh/events/un_ncd_summit2011/ncds_stc.pdf","body":"This document was prepared as a follow-up to the United Nations Summit on Non-communicable Diseases, held in September 2011. It proposes a micro-levy on tobacco products \u2013 the Solidarity Tobacco Contribution (STC) \u2013 that can be used to generate revenue for Health Ministries. The STC concept builds on and is additional to existing national taxes on tobacco products and broader World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations for countries to raise their tobacco taxes for public health goals. It does not replace existing national tobacco excise taxes nor does it exclude the need to increase them to WHO&#8208;recommended levels. It is intended to achieve three simultaneous benefits: public health benefits by reducing tobacco consumption and saving lives; a source of revenue to support health; and financial support for international health efforts in developing countries. WHO has conducted an economic feasibility study and has determined that potential revenue from the STC, if applied in 43 countries (G20+), could generate between US$5.5 billion and US$16 billion each year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Thousands of Zimbabwean children die from AIDS each year","field_subtitle":"The Times: 8 September 2011 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5rjrhyf","body":"According to Peter Salama, head of the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF) in Zimbabwe, between 6, 000 and 7,000 children die per year in Zimbabwe as a result of HIV and in most cases it is because these children have failed to access paediatric anti-retroviral therapy (ART). The lack of technology meant that many children were not being tested for HIV, Salama said at an AIDS conference in Harare in September 2011. \u2018It is important to have an early infant diagnosis as 50% of those children not tested will not be able to reach the age of two,\u2019 he added. About one in seven Zimbabweans is infected with HIV, and about 13% of pregnant women are HIV-positive in Zimbabwe. However, the relatively high costs of medical care and the poor economy means many women give birth at home or never return to hospital for post-natal checkups.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Toward a more materialistic medicine: The value of authentic materialism within current and future medical practice","field_subtitle":"Leder D and Krucoff MW: Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 17(9): 859-865, September 2011","field_url":"http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2010.0766","body":"Modern medicine is often accused by diverse critics of being \u2018too materialistic\u2019 and therefore insufficiently holistic and effective. Yet, this critique can be misleading, the authors of this paper argue, as it is dependent upon the ambiguous meanings of \u2018materialism\u2019. The term can refer to the prevalence of financial concerns in driving medical practice or it can refer to \u2018mechanistic materialism,\u2019 the patient viewed as a body-machine. In each case, this article shows that this represents not authentic \u2018materialism\u2019 at play, but a focus upon high-level abstractions. \u2018Bottom-line\u2019 financial or diagnostic numbers can distract practitioners from the embodied needs of sick patients. In this sense, medical practice is not materialist enough. Through a series of clinical examples, the authors explore how an authentic materialism would look in current and future practice. They examine the use of prayer/comfort shawls at the bedside, the redesign of hospitals and nursing homes as enriched healing environments, and a paradigmatic medical device - the implantable cardioverter defibrillator - as it might be presented to patients, in contrast to current practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Trading knowledge as a public good: A proposal for the WTO","field_subtitle":"Hermann RM: Intellectual Property Watch, 14 October 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2011/10/14/trading-knowledge-as-a-public-good-a-proposal-for-the-wto/","body":"From 19-21 September 2011, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) hosted Public Forum 2011, where non-profit organisations Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) and IQsensato held a joint panel session on a proposal to the WTO entitled \u2018An Agreement on the Supply of Knowledge as a Global Public Good\u2019. The session provided a space to debate the feasibility of adding the supply of public goods involving knowledge as a new category in negotiated binding commitments in international trade. Proposal advocates argue that in the wake of current high levels of knowledge protection in the form of patents, the global community faces an under-supply of public goods, including knowledge. Opening up knowledge as a public good would include developing nations that have hitherto been increasingly excluded from accessing knowledge which has been patented by multinationals and developed nations. Options include collaborative funding of inducement prizes to reward open source innovation in areas of climate change, sustainable agriculture and medicine, and agreements to fund biomedical research in areas such as new antibiotics, avian influenza and the development of an AIDS vaccine.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Veteran activists in Uganda disillusioned with direction of HIV response ","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 18 October 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93986","body":"Uganda's longstanding campaigners in its 30-year fight against HIV have expressed discontent with the government's treatment and prevention approaches. Milly Katana, a long-term activist and one of the inaugural board members of the Global Fund to fight HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said that while the injection of millions of dollars had saved lives through treatment, it had also commercialised the industry, leaving it open to abuse by those not truly interested in defeating the epidemic. For Rubaramira Ruranga, executive director of the National Guidance and Empowerment Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda, the lack of proper co-ordination at the top of the HIV response has led to disorganisation in the rest of the sector. He noted that Uganda has strong policies to fight HIV, that are not fully implemented. Gideon Byamugisha, founder member of the International Network of Religious Leaders Living with and Personally Affected by HIV/AIDS, argued that the focus on prevention through safe sex has meant that the 21% of new infections that occur through mother-to-child transmission are being overlooked.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Violence against women and girls in the Horn of Africa: The untold story","field_subtitle":"Costa S and the Women\u2019s Refugee Commission: Huffington Post, 31 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-costa/violence-against-women-an_b_942305.html","body":"This article reports that Somali women and girls living in Ethiopian and Kenyan refugee camps are facing major health problems as camps lack security and basic services like latrines, accompanied by a fourfold increase in reports of sexual violence since May 2011. The real numbers are likely much higher, the Women\u2019s Refugee Commission (WRC) notes, because many women and girls fail to report attacks for fear of their safety, because they don't want to be ostracised or because they don't trust that their rapists will ever be caught or prosecuted. Some of those living in the camps also face violence from their partners, and some are being forced into early marriage or survival sex, because they have no other way to support themselves. WRC argues that immediate action will more effectively protect women and girls than trying to fix problems after they have become entrenched. WRC recommendations include not only ensuring that women and girls have safe access to basic necessities, such as food, cooking fuel, potable water, sanitation and shelter, but that they are protected from sexual violence and that health care, particularly reproductive health care, is provided, using the updated Minimum Initial Service Package for reproductive health as a basis. WRC calls on the international community to rapidly scale up efforts initiated by humanitarian agencies in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Where aid for trade is failing and why: The example of Malawi","field_subtitle":"Said J: Trade Negotiations Insights 10(7), September 2011","field_url":"http://ictsd.org/i/a4t/115355/","body":"Aid for trade (AfT) has proved to be largely ineffective in Malawi because it has had limited success in developing the local human and institutional capacity required to enable trade, according to this article. A key contributor to this has been a failure by trade promoters and external funders to identify where Malawi stands on its development curve. AfT solutions have tended to assume that Malawi is on the same point on its development curve as Cambodia, Vietnam, Ghana or Rwanda. Yet Malawi simply does not have the scale of human capacity that is required to ensure a pro-poor business environment. It lacks the capacity to ensure businesses have affordable access to finance, business development services, inputs, information, markets, labour and technology. The core problem is that civil society, government and the development community have not adequately recognised the roles that development and trade play in their poverty reduction objectives, the author concludes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Why a universal income grant in South Africa makes sense","field_subtitle":"Marais H: Pambazuka News 548, 21 September 2011","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76500","body":"Is job creation really the best way to seek wellbeing for all in countries with chronic, high unemployment? No, according to the author of this article, especially not in a wealthy middle-income country like South Africa, where very high unemployment combines with high poverty rates. A universal income grant, he argues, makes much more sense. He points out that earning a decent secure wage is not a prospect for millions of South Africans, especially with the global economic crisis having hit the country and unemployment standing at 35%. Having a job does not automatically prevent poverty, as most workers earn very low wages and have minimal labour protection, a situation exacerbated by the shift towards the use of casual and outsourced labour and the related decline in real wages for low-skilled workers. Although the current social grant system separates millions from destitution, he notes that it is ill-suited to today\u2019s realities, as it hinges on the fiction that every worker, sooner or later, will find a decent job. In addition, targeted and means-tested social protection is burdensome, costly and humiliating. The author argues that a universal income is developmental and would boost wellbeing and health, referring to studies that show reduced stunting in children, better nutrition levels and greater school enrolment. He notes that a universal grant as small as US$12 per month could close South Africa\u2019s poverty gap by 74% and lift about six million people above a poverty line of US$50 per month.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Will South Africa finally make progress towards a universal health system?","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D: Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town, 12 October 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5u3s4nz","body":"In August 2011, the South African Minister of Health released a Green Paper on introducing a National Health Insurance (NHI). While there has been a relatively muted response to the release of the paper, there has been sufficient public commentary to identify positive and negative key areas. On the positive side, the proposals have been praised for: being based on universal coverage principles; adopting a carefully phased approach; focusing firmly on addressing the problems in the public health sector first; and building a strong foundation of improved primary care services. However, while there appears to be a commitment to a single public pooling and purchasing entity, the Green Paper mentions also considering a multi-payer option whereby private insurance schemes would act on behalf of the NHI, raising concerns about high administration costs, which would limit income and risk cross-subsidies, and reduce the cost-containment benefits that would accrue if government was a single purchaser. The proposal to purchase services from the private sector may also mean a two-tier system will be retained as wealthier groups live closer to private providers than the less well-off and, given the rapid increase in fee levels among private for-profit providers, may threaten the sustainability of the NHI. Although it is proposed that there will be no fees at the point of service, the Green Paper also mentions having to consider co-payments, which would limit the financial protection afforded to beneficiaries. There are clearly some contradictions within this policy document that need to be resolved, the author concludes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"WIPO's ARDI Programme joins Research4Life","field_subtitle":"World Intellectual Property Organisation: September 2011","field_url":"http://www.wipo.int/ardi/en/research4life.html","body":"The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has joined the Research4Life partnership, which enables free or low-cost online access in the developing world to vital scientific research. With a particular focus on applied science and technology, Access to Research for Development and Innovation (ARDI) seeks to reinforce the capacity of developing countries to participate in the global knowledge economy and to support researchers in developing countries in the innovation process to create and develop new solutions to technical challenges faced on local and global levels. ARDI includes a growing network of Technology and Innovation Support Centres (TISCs) based in universities and research centres around the world, whose trained staff support local users in effectively accessing and exploiting technological knowledge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Work on equity in east and southern Africa at the World Conference on the Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Work on health equity in east and southern Africa was given profile at the World Conference on the Social Determinants of Health. Work on equity monitoring, including the Equity Watch in Zimbabwe and the ECSA Region was included in the background paper and reported on by the Hon Minister of Health Zimbabwe, also current chair of the ECSA Health Community. EQUINET as an equity catalyst bringing social forces across state, civil society, academic and parliament institutions was included in a panel on social participation. Community Working Group on Health, the cluster lead for social empowerment made input to the media cover and to the wider civil society platforms, especially of the People's Health Movement, and EQUINET publications were included in the material displayed by WHO Afro. TAC South Africa, the Ministers of Health of South Africa and of Kenya made inputs to panels on institutionalising participation in policy making and on changing the role of public health and Professor Sanders UWC in the final plenary on SDH and the life course. Case studies on work on social determinants of health for the conference from Namibia, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and  Zimbabwe can also be found at www.who.int/sdhconference/resources/case_studies/en/index.html. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"A closer look at the role of community-based health insurance in Rwanda's success","field_subtitle":"Dhillon RS: Global Health Check, 16 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/","body":"Rwanda\u2019s mutuelle health insurance scheme has been consistently held up as an example of how community health insurance can be scaled up to achieve large scale improvements in access and health outcomes. However, the author argues that the role of the mutuelle scheme in achieving recent health improvements in Rwanda has not considered other important factors, particularly the five-fold increase in health spending. The author draws a number of conclusions. First, premiums and co-payments, while less harmful than traditional point-of-service fees, remain a financial barrier without whose removal true universal access to healthcare cannot be achieved. Second, even with high enrollment, the mutuelle generates minimal financing. In order to increase the funds collected, Rwanda is now introducing higher premiums. Third, Rwanda has made unparalleled progress in health by doing what its leadership has felt best for the country and its people. The author indicates that it is important for all aspects of Rwanda\u2019s success to be acknowledged and studied for broader adaptation and, in particular, its increasing and strategic investments in health, strong economic performance, uniquely effective public administration, and popular buy-in to government initiatives, as these factors are part of the reason why the mutuelle as a programme has been as successful as it has.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"A global co-ordinating platform for non-communicable diseases","field_subtitle":"Nishtar S and Jan\u00e9-Llopis E: Journal of Health Communication 16(Suppl 2): 201-205, 14 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10810730.2011.599475","body":"There is a long history of advocacy to place non-communicable diseases higher on the global public health agenda. Although attempts have been made and action is well under way, there is still no co-ordinating mechanism that helps identify action, tracks progress, and stimulates multistakeholder collaboration while preventing duplication of efforts. The September 2011 United Nations High Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases and the call by all parties for more efficient responses to the growing problems of non-communicable diseases presents a unique opportunity to create an institutional mechanism that incentivises coordination. The authors argue that an apex coordinating arrangement would allow efficient global information exchange, mapping existing gaps in action, and identifying and catalysing collaboration across sectors and regions of the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa home to only 2.3% of world's researchers","field_subtitle":"Kigotho W: The Standard, 10 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/sports/InsidePage.php?id=2000040499","body":"Mahmood Mamdani, director of Makerere University's Institute of Social Research in Uganda, has accused universities in Sub-Saharan Africa of not creating researchers but churning out native informers for national and international non-governmental organisations. Addressing academics and students at Makerere, Mamdani said academic research and higher education in most African universities is controlled and dominated by a corrosive culture of consultancy. The little research capacity that exists in Africa, especially in universities, is driven by culture of consultancy and global market trends, with African researchers being used to provide raw material - in form of data - to foreign academics who process it and then re-export it back to Africa. He told his audience that research proposals from African universities are increasingly simply descriptive accounts of data collection and the methods used to collate data. According to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Africa is home to only 2.3% of the world's researchers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Analysing the governance and political economy of water and sanitation service delivery","field_subtitle":"Harris D, Kooy M and Jones L: Overseas Development Institute Working Paper 334, August 2011","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/5911.pdf","body":"Failure to achieve desired human development outcomes in the water supply and sanitation sector over the last decade has prompted this re-assessment of sector strategies and a focus on issues of governance and political economy. The authors assess the applicability of the various political economy analysis (PEA) frameworks for the water and sanitation (WATSAN) sector, drawing out five key points to take into account when developing a sector level PEA framework. First, the sector\u2019s diversity (both the sub-sectors of water supply, sanitation and geographical locations of sub-sector service delivery contexts urban, rural, peri-urban) does not mean that different elements of the WATSAN sector require the application of separate frameworks, but the different historical, institutional and political contexts do need to inform the tailoring of questions and areas of focus across the subsectors. Second, a multi-sector and multi-scalar analysis can help to identify actions and decision making influenced by external processes and actors operating at various scales. Third, a combined sector governance and political economy analysis for the sector is not recommended: a joint analysis requires considerable time and research, and leads to overly normative and prescriptive mindset preventing consideration of a full scope of non-obvious opportunities for intervention. Fourth, a PEA framework for WATSAN requires flexibility in its application to the sector. Fifth, a PEA WATSAN framework needs to focus on both process and outcomes: the majority of PEA and governance studies have failed to drive forward change in the water and sanitation sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Barriers to antiretroviral therapy adherence in rural Mozambique ","field_subtitle":"Groh K, Audet CM, Baptista A, Sidat M, Vergara A, Vermund SH and Moon TD: BMC Public Health 11(650), 16 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-650.pdf","body":"Researchers in this study investigated sub-optimal patient adherence to antiretroviral therapy in 18 clinical sites in rural Zamb\u00e9zia Province, Mozambique. They conducted 18 community and clinic focus groups in six rural districts, interviewing 76 women and 88 men, of whom 124 were community participants (CPs) and 40 were health care workers (HCWs) who provide care for those living with HIV. CP focus groups noted a lack of confidentiality and poor treatment by hospital staff, doubt as to the benefits of antiretroviral therapy and sharing medications with family members. Men expressed a greater concern about poor treatment by HCW than women and health care workers blamed patient preference for traditional medicine and the side effects of medication for poor adherence. In conclusion, perspectives of CP and HCW likely reflect differing socio-cultural and educational backgrounds. Health care workers must understand community perspectives on causes of suboptimal adherence as a first step toward effective intervention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Birth outcomes in South African women receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy: a retrospective observational study","field_subtitle":"Van der Merwe K, Hoffman R, Black V, Chersich M, Coovadia A and Rees H: Journal of the International AIDS Society 14(42), 15 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-14-42.pdf","body":"The objective of this study was to investigate whether in utero exposure to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) is associated with low birth weight and/or preterm birth in a population of South African women with advanced HIV disease. A retrospective observational study was performed on women with CD4 counts &#8804;250 cells/mm3 attending antenatal antiretroviral clinics in Johannesburg between October 2004 and March 2007. Effects of different HAART regimen and duration were assessed. Among HAART-unexposed infants, 27% were low birth weight compared with 23% of early HAART-exposed and 19% of late HAART-exposed infants. In the early HAART group, a higher CD4 cell count was protective against low birth weight and preterm birth. HAART exposure was associated with an increased preterm birth rate, with early nevirapine and efavirenz-based regimens having the strongest associations with preterm birth. The authors conclude that in utero HAART exposure was not significantly associated with low birth weight.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Boston Statement on Non-Communicable Diseases of the Poorest Billion People","field_subtitle":"Participants in the Conference on NCDs of the Poorest Billion: April 2011","field_url":"http://parthealth.3cdn.net/7612953957373a2e4b_pqm6ivpfn.pdf","body":"On 2-3 March 2011, Partners in Health, Harvard University and other organisations met to discuss the non-communicable diseases (NCDs) of the world\u2019s poorest billion people. The Conference was held in Boston, United States, and attended by a wide range of government, civil society and academic organisations who have advocated for the inclusion of NCDs as a priority on the global health agenda. This Statement allies itself with a number of World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations (UN) agreements and resolutions, such as the WHO\u2019s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and its Global Strategy on NCDs and the UN Resolution \u2018Keeping the Promise: United to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals\u2019. The Statement calls on all UN member state Heads of Government and Heads of State to take urgent action to address NCDs amongst the world\u2019s billion poorest people by: leading at global and national levels for NCDs; strengthening health systems and NCD prevention, treatment and care; strengthening research and data systems; and addressing poverty, vulnerability and discrimination.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"BRICS Health Minister\u2019s meeting in Beijing: Focusing on access to medicine","field_subtitle":"Ren M, Zhao C and Chen L: Health Diplomacy Monitor 2(4): 13-14, August 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6k2uge3","body":"At the BRIC Health Minister\u2019s meeting, held on 11 July 2011 in Beijing, the theme was access to medicine, framed by the Beijing Declaration\u2019s affirmation of the importance of technology transfer among the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and the critical role of generic medicines in expanding access to antiretroviral medicines for all. The Health Ministers agreed to establish and encourage a global health agenda to promote innovation and universal access to affordable medicines, vaccines and other health technologies with assured quality, in support of reaching the MDGs and meeting other public health challenges. A powerful alliance could be expected on increasing access to new and innovative antiretroviral therapies (ART) for HIV and AIDS, and developing additional diagnostic tools and treatment for tuberculosis (TB), malaria as well as the neglected diseases. While committed to supporting the TRIPs safeguards and the Doha declaration on TRIPs, the BRICS countries are also determined to ensure that international trade agreements do not undermine TRIPs flexibilities, so as to ensure the sustainable delivery of low-cost quality medicines to low- and middle-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Building a healthier world by tackling non-communicable diseases","field_subtitle":"Roses M: Journal of Health Communication 16(Suppl 2): 3-5, 14 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10810730.2011.601230","body":"In this editorial, the author argues that a comprehensive response to Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) not only calls for systemic changes in our physical and social environments. It also demands that we focus on equitable and universal access to prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, as well as on improving the quality of life of those living with NCDs. The interconnections between policies in agriculture, education, environment, transportation, labor, trade, finance, and health run deep and their contribution to NCDs is as yet underappreciated. Thus, the response to NCDs requires an intersectoral approach \u2013 which includes civil society - that embeds health in policies across the board. Stakeholders need to educate and focus public interest, as well as that of government and industry, on the positive value of health and well-being. This will require a social movement and maximising the use of social media to generate more consumer demand for healthier products and healthier environments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Masters in Public Health, BRAC University, James P Grant School of Public Health","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 31 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.bracuniversity.net/I&S/sph/academics/mphinfo.htm","body":"The James P Grant School of Public Health in Bangladesh is calling for applicants for their Masters in Public Health (MPH) programme. The MPH programme is suited to individuals who wish to build or further enhance their career in public health or allied areas. The MPH is a 51 credits residential programme which begins early in the year and runs full time for 12 consecutive months. There are vacation breaks (2-3 weeks) interspersed through the programme; Multi-disciplinary in design, the programme emphasizes development of the core public health competencies: epidemiology, biostatistics, medical anthropology, qualitative and quantitative and mixed research methods, health systems management, health economics and health care financing, environment and health, health communication, monitoring & evaluation, public health nutrition, demography, sexual and reproductive health, aging and health and non-communicable diseases; The MPH programme here is about one-third the cost of similar programmes in North America and in Europe and is cheaper than even similar programmes in developing countries. The School has a scholarship programme for students from developing countries to promote global access to the MPH based on need, merit and other selection criteria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for concept notes: Expanding fiscal policies for global and national tobacco control","field_subtitle":"No Closing Date Given","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Funding/Competitions/Pages /CompetitionDetails.aspx?CompetitionID=18","body":"The International Development Research Centre and the Canadian Global Tobacco Control Forum are calling for concept notes concerning the expansion of fiscal policies for global and national tobacco control. The key objective of this call is to generate knowledge designed to accelerate the adoption of effective fiscal policies for tobacco control in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). Key thematic areas include: research on the impact of various types of tobacco taxes or pricing policies; region-based research to establish actual and model budgets for tobacco control; research on coordinated regional and global taxes, tariffs and/or other levies on tobacco products and the profits from tobacco sales; and research to identify barriers to, and strategies for, accessing Official Development Assistance for tobacco control. The principal applicant must be a citizen or permanent resident of a LMIC and with a primary work affiliation in a LMIC institution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for concept notes: Promoting healthy diets","field_subtitle":"No Closing Date Given","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Funding/Competitions/Pages /CompetitionDetails.aspx?CompetitionID=17","body":"The International Development Research Centre is calling for concept notes concerning the promotion of healthy diets as a key strategy for the prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in low- and middle-income countries(LMICs). The key objective of this call is to support Southern-led research designed to influence the adoption and implementation of effective policies and programmes for the promotion of healthy diets in LMICs. Key thematic areas include: research on policies, population-wide programs and community-based interventions that aim to discourage production and consumption unhealthy food products and promote healthy eating; and evidence syntheses or situation analyses to inform policy dialogues and the adoption and implementation of key interventions to address unhealthy diets as a key NCD risk factor. Please note that three major cross-cutting issues are central to the NCD programme: equity, intersectoral action and commercial influence on public health-related policy. The principal applicant must be a citizen or permanent resident of a LMIC and with a primary work affiliation in a LMIC institution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for contributions on the Agenda: Forum 2012 ","field_subtitle":"24-26 April 2012: Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.forum2012.org/","body":"Forum 2012 marks the beginning of a new series of the annual Global Forum for Health Research meetings. It will bring together seven key constituencies: governments, research institutions, business, social enterprises/civil society organisations, international organisations, research funders and media. Under the theme of \u2018Beyond aid: Research and innovation as key drivers for health, equity and development\u2019, the Forum will focus on potentials, solutions, and developing capacities \u2013 specifically in low- and middle-income countries and emerging economies \u2013 and how global collaboration can leverage this for a new era of global development support. It aims to contribute to health, equity and development in a measurable way. Forum 2012 will focus on three key areas to achieve this goal: investing in research and innovation for health; networks and networking for research and innovation; and creating an enabling environment for research and innovation (government policies). COHRED and the Global From for Health Research are calling for contributions to setting the agenda for Forum 2012.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Calls for inclusion of MSM in Uganda\u2019s new HIV strategy","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 26 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93586","body":"A new national HIV and AIDS strategic plan for Uganda is due to be finalised before the year's end, and gay rights activists are reported in this article to be urging its authors to break with tradition and, for the first time, provide for programming for men who have sex with men (MSM). A draft version of the new strategic plan distributed to civil society organisations mentioned the MSM community by name under an introductory section outlining groups that have prevalence rates above the national average, but the strategy concluded that MSM did not play \u2018a big role\u2019 in the transmission of HIV in Uganda and did not warrant a high rank among prevention activities. The draft strategy did recommend that more research be done within communities of MSM and injecting drug users to determine whether the groups were at risk of an upsurge in new infections. However, James Kigozi, spokesman for the Uganda AIDS Commission, said that because homosexual activity was illegal in Uganda, programming for MSM was unlikely to make it into the final version on the plan.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Can performance-based financing be used to reform health systems in developing countries?","field_subtitle":"Ireland M, Paul E and Dujardin B: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(9): 695-698, September 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/9/11-087379.pdf","body":"Over the past 15 years, performance-based financing has been implemented in an increasing number of developing countries, particularly in Africa, as a means of improving health worker performance. Scaling up to national implementation in Burundi and Rwanda has encouraged proponents of performance-based financing to view it as more than a financing mechanism, but increasingly as a strategic tool to reform the health sector. The authors of this study argue that results-based and economically driven interventions do not, on their own, adequately respond to patient and community needs, upon which health system reform should be based. They argue that the debate surrounding performance-based financing is biased by insufficient and unsubstantiated evidence that does not adequately take account of context nor disentangle the various elements of the performance-based financing package.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Can South Africa afford not to have a NHI?","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D: Health-e News, 22 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20033238","body":"After much misinformation in the South African press about the proposed new National Health Insurance scheme, the author of this article restates the case for NHI. The proposed NHI is about achieving a universal health system, which means that everyone will enjoy financial protection from high health care costs and be able to access good health services when they really need them. To finance the scheme, government needs to increase public funding for health care to improve the efficiency of public health services and employ more staff in public health facilities \u2013 there are too few staff to cope with the current patient load. The government\u2019s Green Paper on the NHI estimates that the scheme will cost about R125 billion in 2012, increasing to R256 billion in 2025. The author emphasises that this is the total amount of money needed for publicly funded health services, not extra funding. The government is already planning to spend over R112 billion in the 2011/12 financial year on the health system and has budgeted to spend over R120 billion in 2012/13. So, to move forward with the NHI, initially only a little extra funding is needed - about R5 billion in the first year. The gap for NHI funding could easily be funded by a relatively small health tax on personal income and a small payroll tax for employers, amounting to less than 2%. The author argues that, given that the richest 10% of the population has 51% of total income in South Africa, the idea of their cross-subsidising health care for the poor is perfectly equitable and affordable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Cardiovascular disease prevention in Ghana: feasibility of a faith-based organisational approach","field_subtitle":"Abanilla PKA, Huang K, Shinners D, Levy A, Ayernor K, de-Graft Aikins A and Ogedegbe O: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(9): 648-656, September 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/9/11-086777.pdf","body":"The authors of this study examined the feasibility of using community health workers (CHWs) to implement cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention programmes within faith-based organisations in Accra, Ghana. Faith-based organisation capacity, human resources, health programme sustainability/barriers and community members\u2019 knowledge were evaluated. Data on these aspects were gathered through a mixed method design consisting of in-depth interviews and focus groups with 25 church leaders and health committee members from five churches, and of a survey of 167 adult congregants from two churches. Findings indicated that the delivery of a CVD prevention programme in faith-based organisations by CHWs is feasible. Many faith-based organisations already provide health programmes for congregants and involve non-health professionals in their health-care activities, and most congregants have a basic knowledge of CVD. Yet despite the feasibility of the proposed approach to CVD prevention through faith-based organisations, sociocultural and health-care barriers such as poverty, limited human and economic resources and limited access to health care could hinder programme implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Changing the future of obesity: science, policy, and action","field_subtitle":"Gortmaker SL, Swinburn BA, Levy D, Carter R, Mabry PL, Finegood DT et al: The Lancet, 378(9793): 838-847, 27 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2811%2960815-5/abstract?elsca1=ETOC-LANCET&elsca2=email&elsca3=segment","body":"The global obesity epidemic has been escalating for four decades, yet sustained prevention efforts have barely begun. Forecasts suggest that high rates of obesity will affect future population health and economics. The authors of this study identify several cost-effective policies that governments should prioritise for implementation. Systems science provides a framework for organising the complexity of forces driving the obesity epidemic and has important implications for policy makers. Many parties (such as governments, international organisations, the private sector, and civil society) need to contribute complementary actions in a coordinated approach. Priority actions include policies to improve the food and built environments, cross-cutting actions (such as leadership, healthy public policies, and monitoring), and much greater funding for prevention programmes. Increased investment in population obesity monitoring would improve the accuracy of forecasts and evaluations. The integration of actions within existing systems into both health and non-health sectors (trade, agriculture, transport, urban planning, and development) can greatly increase the influence and sustainability of policies. The authors call for a sustained worldwide effort to monitor, prevent, and control obesity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Climate change and health: African countries at greater risk of increased disease burden","field_subtitle":"Machemedze R: Health Diplomacy Monitor 2(4): 15-17, August 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6k2uge3","body":"The author, citing evidence from World Health Organisation, argues that climate change raises challenges for health in Africa for a variety of reasons. African countries have a high burden of climate sensitive diseases and poor public health capability to respond. Under-nutrition and weak infrastructures may reduce the capacity to mitigate the effects of health risks from climate change. Negative effects of climate change on socioeconomic development may also seriously undermine health and well-being of people in such countries. WHO reports that many of the projected impacts on health are avoidable and could be dealt with through a combination of public health strategies, support for adaptation measures in health-related sectors such as agriculture and water management, and an overall long-term strategy to reduce health impacts. In Africa the author argues that countries should implement the priority actions outlined at the 2008 first Inter-ministerial Conference on Health and Environment held in Libreville, Gabon, contained in the Libreville Declaration. This Declaration was signed by 52 African countries and commits them to address challenges relating to health and the environment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Communicating alcohol narratives: Creating a healthier relationship with alcohol","field_subtitle":"Anderson P, Bitarello do Amaral-Sabadini M, Baumberg B, Jarl J and Stuckler D: Journal of Health Communication 16(Suppl 2): 27-36, 2011","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10810730.2011.596609","body":"Alcohol, like mental health, is a neglected topic in public health discussions. However, the authors argue that there is sufficient evidence for it to be defined as a priority public health concern. Although only half the world\u2019s population drinks alcohol, it is the world\u2019s third leading cause of ill health and premature death, after low birth weight and unsafe sex, and the world\u2019s greatest cause of ill health and premature death among individuals between 25 and 59 years of age. This paper outlines current global experiences with alcohol policies and suggests how to better communicate evidence-based policy responses to alcohol-related harm using narratives. The text summarizes six incentives for a healthier relationship with alcohol in contemporary society. These include price and availability changes, marketing regulations, changes in the format of drinking places and on the product itself, and actions designed to nudge people at the time of their purchasing decisions. Communicating alcohol narratives to policymakers more successfully will likely require emphasis on the reduction of heavy drinking occasions and the protection of others from someone else\u2019s problematic drinking.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Concurrent sexual partnerships and associated factors: a cross-sectional population-based survey in a rural community in Africa with a generalised HIV epidemic","field_subtitle":"Maher D, Waswa L, Karabarinde A and Baisley K: BMC Public Health 11(651), 17 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-651.pdf","body":"In a long-standing general population cohort in rural Uganda researchers assessed the prevalence of concurrency and investigated its association with socio-demographic and behavioural factors and with HIV prevalence, using the new recommended standard definition and methodological approaches. Among those eligible, 3,291 (66%) males and 4,052 (72%) females participated in the survey. Among currently married participants, 11% of men and 25% of women reported being in a polygynous union. Among those with a sexual partner in the past year, the proportion reporting at least one concurrent partnership was 17% in males and 0.5% in females. Polygyny accounted for a third of concurrency in men and was not associated with increased HIV risk. Among men there was no evidence of an association between concurrency and HIV prevalence (but too few women reported concurrency to assess this after adjusting for confounding). Regarding sociodemographic factors associated with concurrency, females were significantly more likely to be younger, unmarried, and of lower socioeconomic status than males. Behavioural factors associated with concurrency were young age at first sex, increasing lifetime partners, and a casual partner in the past year (among men and women) and problem drinking (only men). These findings are intended to provide a baseline for measuring changes in concurrency and HIV incidence in future surveys, and a benchmark for other studies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Determinants for HIV testing and counselling in Nairobi urban informal settlements","field_subtitle":"Ziraba AK, Madise NJ, Kimani JK, Oti S, Mgomella G, Matilu M and Ezeh A: BMC Public Health 11(663), 23 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-663.pdf","body":"This study aimed at exploring determinants of HIV testing and counselling in two Nairobi informal settlements. Data are derived from a cross-sectional survey nested in an ongoing demographic surveillance system. A total of 3,162 individuals responded to the interview and out of these, 82% provided a blood sample which was tested using rapid test kits. Approximately 31% of all respondents had ever been tested for HIV through client-initiated testing and counselling (CITC), 22% through provider-initiated testing and counselling (PITC) and 42% had never been tested but indicated willingness to test. Overall, 62% of females and 38% of males had ever been tested for HIV. Males were less likely to have had CITC and also less likely to have had PITC compared to females. Individuals aged 20-24 years were more likely to have had either CITC or PITC compared to the other age groups. Although the proportion of individuals ever tested in the informal settlements is similar to the national average, it remains low compared to that of Nairobi province especially among men. Key determinants of HIV testing and counselling include; gender, age, education level, HIV status and marital status. These factors need to be considered in efforts aimed at increasing participation in HIV testing, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Effect of an expansion in private sector provision of contraceptive supplies on horizontal inequity in modern contraceptive use: evidence from Africa and Asia","field_subtitle":"Hotchkiss DR, Godha D and Do M: International Journal for Equity in Health 10(33), 19 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-10-33.pdf","body":"The study is based on multiple rounds of Demographic and Health Survey data from four selected countries (Nigeria, Uganda, Bangladesh, and Indonesia) in which there was an increase in the private sector supply of contraceptives. The methodology involves estimating concentration indices to assess the degree of inequality and inequity in contraceptive use by wealth groups across time. The results suggest that the expansion of the private commercial sector supply of contraceptives in the four study countries did not lead to increased inequity in the use of modern contraceptives. In Nigeria and Uganda, inequity actually decreased over time; while in Bangladesh and Indonesia, inequity fluctuated. The study results do not offer support to the hypothesis that the increased role of the private commercial sector in the supply of contraceptive supplies led to increased inequity in modern contraceptive use.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Electronic monitoring of treatment adherence and validation of alternative adherence measures in tuberculosis patients: a pilot study","field_subtitle":"Van den Boogaard J, Lyimo RA, Boeree MJ, Kibiki GS and Aarnoutse RE: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(9): 632\u2013639, September 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/9/11-086462.pdf","body":"The objective of this study was to assess adherence to community-based directly observed treatment (DOT) among Tanzanian tuberculosis patients using the Medication Event Monitoring System (MEMS) and to validate alternative adherence measures for resource-limited settings using MEMS as a gold standard. This was a longitudinal pilot study of 50 patients recruited consecutively from one rural hospital, one urban hospital and two urban health centres. Treatment adherence was monitored with MEMS and the validity of a range of adherence measures was assessed, including the Morisky scale, adapted AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) adherence questionnaire, pill counts and medication refill visits. The mean adherence rate in the study population was 96.3%. Adherence was less than 100% in 70% of the patients, less than 95% in 21% of them, and less than 80% in 2%. The ACTG adherence questionnaire and urine colour test had the highest sensitivities but lowest specificities. The Morisky scale and refill visits had the highest specificities but lowest sensitivities. Pill counts and refill visits combined, used in routine practice, yielded moderate sensitivity and specificity, but sensitivity improved when the ACTG adherence questionnaire was added. In conclusion, patients on community-based DOT showed good adherence in this study. The combination of pill counts, refill visits and the ACTG adherence questionnaire could be used to monitor adherence in settings where MEMS is not affordable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Ending aid dependence","field_subtitle":"Tandon Y: Fahamu and Pambazuka Press, September 2008","field_url":"http://fahamubooks.org/book/?GCOI=90638100770030","body":"Developing countries reliant on aid want to escape this dependence, and yet they appear unable to do so. This book shows how they may liberate themselves from the aid that pretends to be developmental but is not. The author cautions countries of the South against falling into the aid trap and endorsing the collective colonialism of the OECD \u2013 the club of rich \u2018donor\u2019 countries. An exit strategy from aid dependence requires a radical shift in both the mindset and the development strategy of countries dependent on aid, and a deeper and direct involvement of people in their own development. It also requires a radical restructuring of the global institutional aid architecture. The author explains how \u2018aid\u2019 is an instrument of imperialism's strategy of domination, which he strongly contrasts with proposals for another form of aid, one rooted in the principles of international and anti-imperialist solidarity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 128: Reclaiming Solidarity is fundamental for Health for All","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity Watch: Assessing Progress towards Equity in Health in Zambia","field_subtitle":"University of Zambia Department of Economics, Ministry of Health Zambia, Training and Research Support Centre: EQUINET, September 2011","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Zambia%20EW%20Aug%202011%20web.pdf","body":"An Equity Watch is a means of monitoring progress on health equity by gathering, organizing, analysing, reporting and reviewing evidence on equity in health. The aim is to assess the status and trends in a range of priority areas of health equity and to check progress on measures that promote health equity against commitments and goals. This first scoping report in Zambia introduces the context and the evidence within four major areas: equity in health, household access to the resources for health, equitable health systems and global justice. It shows past levels (1980\u20132005), current levels (most current data publicly available) and comments on the level of progress towards health equity. The report describes the recovery in health indicators after 2000, given the harsh decline in health and health care from the period of structural adjustment reforms and the AIDS epidemic in 1980-2000. It also indicates that aggregate improvements do not tell the whole story. Inequality in wealth in Zambia remains high and is reflected in rural\u2013urban, wealth, gender and regional differentials in health and in the social determinants of health. Within the health sector steps underway to organize and distribute funds, heath workers and medicines towards primary and district level services are identified AS fundamental to overcome inequalities, but limited by the limited improvement in per capita domestic public sector funding and the increasing reliance on external funding in the heath sector. The report shows that measures such as closing rural\u2013urban inequalities in primary health care, reducing cost barriers by removing user fees or stimulating female uptake of schooling have contributed to overcoming inherited and unfair opportunities for health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Feasibility and acceptability of ACT for the community case management of malaria in urban settings in five African sites","field_subtitle":"Akweongo P, Agyei-Baffour P, Sudhakar M, Simwaka BN, Konate AT, Adongo PB et al: Malaria Journal 10(240), 16 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-240.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers investigated community case management of malaria (CCMm) through community medicine distributors (CMD) in urban areas in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Malawi. CMDs were trained to educate caregivers, diagnose and treat malaria cases in ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Fighting illicit capital flight","field_subtitle":"Abugre C: Pambazuka News 545, 18 August 2011","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/75802","body":"Kenya is allegedly among the top ten developing countries in terms of revenue lost to the European Union and the United States. But what can be done? The author of this article makes a number of recommendations. At national level, he urges the Kenyan government to implement reforms to tax policy, trade policy, customs and laws and to promote inclusive growth. To make this work, he calls for both political will and active civil society participation. He calls on government to change the law to insist on maximum transparency for all international transactions, and for banks to give full disclosure to tax and relevant national authorities. The author argues for using the price filter model used by the United States Customs to monitor trade misinvoicing. The best solution, he notes, will be an international agreement for automatic exchange of tax information globally. In the meantime, he argues for Kenya to sign bilateral information exchange agreements with the major tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions, to be given information on accounts and companies registered in these jurisdictions that trade and do business with Kenya. He also argues for government to require all transnational companies to publish every year Kenya-specific accounts showing the profits or losses they make. Finally, he argues that Kenya follow the lead of Nigeria, which has sued major international companies for corruption and has been compensated through out-of-court settlements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"First meeting of BRICS health ministers brings new leadership to global health","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: 11 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2011/july/20110711bchinabrics/","body":"Universal access to medicines was a key topic of discussion at a meeting on 11 July 2011 of health ministers from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) in Beijing, China. The meeting, hosted by the Government of China, aimed to identify opportunities for BRICS countries to promote wider access to affordable, quality-assured medicines, with a view to reaching the Millennium Development Goals and other public health challenges. A \u2018Beijing Declaration,\u2019 issued on 11 July and signed by ministers of health from the five BRICS countries, underscored the importance of technology transfer among the BRICS countries, as well as with other developing countries, to enhance their capacity to produce affordable medicines and commodities. The Declaration also emphasised the critical role of generic medicines in expanding access to antiretroviral medicines for all. By signing the Declaration, leaders committed to working together to preserve the provisions contained in the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health\u2014provisions that allow for countries to overcome intellectual property rights restrictions on medicines in the interest of public health. The five BRICS countries face similar health challenges, including a double burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases, inequitable access to health services and growing health care costs. Through collective action and influence, the BRICS coalition promises to deliver cost-effective, equitable and sustainable solutions for global health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth High-Level Forum On Aid Effectiveness","field_subtitle":"Busan, Korea: 29 November-1 December 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.oecd.org/document/12/0,3746,en_2649_3236398_46057868_1_1_1_1,00.html","body":"At the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, approximately 2,000 delegates will review global progress in improving the impact and effectiveness of aid, and make commitments that set a new agenda for development. The Forum follows meetings in Rome, Paris and Accra that helped transform aid relationships between donors and partners into true vehicles for development cooperation. Based on 50 years of field experience and research, the five principles that resulted from these fora encourage local ownership, alignment of development programmes around a country\u2019s development strategy, harmonisation of practices to reduce transaction costs, the avoidance of fragmented efforts and the creation of results frameworks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Funding opportunity for registered NGOs to develop and curate thematic pages on a new global youth website","field_subtitle":"No deadline: Proposals considered on a rolling basis","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6bpzrco","body":"The Youth Initiative of the Open Society Foundations (OSF) is currently seeking proposals from eligible registered NGO\u2019s for up to $10,000 in funding to develop and curate thematic pages on a new global youth portal and community being developed at www.youthpolicy.org. Youthpolicy.org aims to consolidate knowledge and information on youth policies across the international sector, ranging from analysis and formulation to implementation and evaluation. Themes include, but are not limited to: participation and citizenship; activism and volunteering; children and youth rights; youth with disabilities; global drug policy; community work; research and knowledge; informal learning; youth, environment and sustainability; multiculturalism and minorities; and youth justice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health diplomacy: A way forward in international affairs","field_subtitle":"Report of the Inaugural Conference of the Global Health Diplomacy Network: Chatham House, 2011","field_url":"http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Global%20Health/280611summary.pdf","body":"The Inaugural Conference of the Global Health Diplomacy Network was held on 28 June 2011 in London, United Kingdom. More than 190 diplomats, health professionals, senior government officials, academics, and representatives of business and non-governmental organisations gathered to discuss contemporary issues in global health diplomacy and outlooks for the future of the Network. After the presentations were held, the Network made a number of resolutions, concluding that the Network should help the health sector understand that the top priorities of foreign policy are national security and economic growth, not health. The health sector must not view the link between health and foreign policy as an opportunity to exploit the foreign policy sector to reach health goals. Instead, it must think how it can advance foreign policy goals and be aware and acknowledge that health policy can have a positive or negative impact on foreign policy and its goals, just as foreign policy can have positive or negative impacts on health. Participants acknowledged that much health diplomacy in Geneva focuses on trade and about intellectual property issues, while there is a wider lack of coherence across the different global institutions and their goals, a problem which has been exacerbated by the proliferation of global actors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalisation and its methodological discontents: Contextualising globalisation through the study of HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Brown GW and Labonte R: Globalization and Health 7(29), 23 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-7-29.pdf","body":"There remains considerable disconnect between globalisation scholars about how to conceptualise its meaning and how we understand how its processes operate and transform our lives. The authors of this article argue that to better understand what globalisation is and how it affects issues such as global health, we can explore how the multiple processes of globalisation are encountered and informed by different social groups within particular contexts. The article reviews how qualitative field research assist in doing this. Three recent case studies conducted on globalisation and HIV and AIDS are reviewed for their use of qualitative  methods in understanding the contexts and processes of globalisation and their impact on health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Green Paper: National Health Insurance","field_subtitle":"Department of Health, South Africa: August 2011","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/list.php?type=National%20Health%20Insurance","body":"South Africa\u2019s National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme is due to be piloted in April 2012. The purpose of this Green Paper is to outline the broad policy proposals for the implementation of NHI. The document is published for public comment and engagement on the broad principles. The NHI will offer all South Africans and legal residents access to a defined package of comprehensive health services. The state is committed to offering as wide a range of services as possible. Although the NHI service package will not include anything and everything, it will offer care at all levels, from primary health care, to specialised secondary care, and highly specialised tertiary and quaternary levels of care. After the consultation process the policy document or White Paper will be finalised. Thereafter draft legislation will be developed and published for public engagement. After public engagement the legislation will be finalised and submitted to Parliament for consideration. After Parliamentary approval, the Bill has to be approved by the President of the Republic. The first five years of NHI will include pilot studies and strengthening the health system in the following areas: management of health facilities and health districts; quality improvement; infrastructure development; medical devices including equipment; human resources planning, development and management; information management and systems support; and the establishment of an NHI Fund.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Have Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations helped or hindered African regional integration?","field_subtitle":"International Food & Agricultural Trade Policy Council: August 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.gmfus.org/galleries/ct_publication_attachments/FINAL_EPA_and_african_integration.pdf;jsessionid=aoNi2yqhzvAhMaT4bk","body":"The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union (EU) and regions of African, Caribbean and Pacific states (ACP) are designed to encourage regional integration and improve trade capacity building and other aid interventions into the developing partner regions. The agreements cover not only trade in goods but also in services and other trade-related areas including intellectual property rights, which affect the production and availability of cheaper generic medicines for developing countries. The objective of this paper is to analyse why the trade and cooperation discussions with the EU have not made further progress towards the objective of African regional integration. This paper first presents an overview of the EPAs negotiations and outlines the main debates about EPAs. It then looks into regional integration in sub-Saharan Africa. It goes on to describe the precise integration objective associated with EPAs and how results have generally been disappointing in meeting the objective of furthering regional integration. The conclusion proposes recommendations on how to boost the negotiation process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS, chronic diseases and globalisation ","field_subtitle":"Colvin CJ: Globalization and Health 7(31), 26 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-7-31.pdf","body":"HIV and AIDS has always been one of the most thoroughly global of diseases. In the era of widely available anti-retroviral therapy (ART), it is also commonly recognised as a chronic disease that can be successfully managed on a long-term basis. This article examines the chronic character of the HIV and AIDS pandemic and highlights some of the changes we might expect to see at the global level as HIV is increasingly normalised as \u2018just another chronic disease\u2019. The article also addresses the use of this language of chronicity to interpret the HIV and AIDS pandemic and calls into question some of the consequences of an uncritical acceptance of concepts of chronicity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Human Resources for Health South Africa 2030: draft HR Strategy for the Health Sector","field_subtitle":"Department of Health: August 2011","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/stratdocs/2011/draftHRstrategy_Consultation.pdf","body":"This Draft Human Resources for Health (HRH) Strategy for South Africa was developed through reviewing policy and research reports and consolidating them in consultation with key informants. It addresses a range of issues affecting HRH in South Africa including: sectoral analysis by professional category and the costs; skills mix; level of human resources; equity and maldistribution; factors affecting shortages; provincial HR and Service Transformation (STP) plans and their use in workforce planning, the re-engineered primary health care (PHC) approach and its impact on HRH, retention and recruitment issues, and management and leadership. The draft strategy also provides projections on future staffing needs, how these quotas will be filled and projected training and educational requirements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Imprisonment and women\u2019s health: concerns about gender sensitivity, human rights and public health","field_subtitle":"Van den Bergh BJ, Gatherer A, Fraser A and Moller L: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(9): 689-694, September 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/9/10-082842.pdf","body":"The health of prisoners is among the poorest of any population group and the apparent inequalities pose both a challenge and an opportunity for country health systems. The high rates of imprisonment in many countries, the resulting overcrowding, characteristics of prison populations and the disproportionate prevalence of health problems in prison should make prison health a matter of public health importance, the authors of this paper argue. Women prisoners constitute a minority within all prison systems and their special health needs are frequently neglected. The urgent need to review current services is clear from research, expert opinion and experience from countries worldwide. Current provision of health care to imprisoned women fails to meet their needs and is, in too many cases, far short of what is required by human rights and international recommendations. National governments, policy-makers and prison management need to address gender insensitivity and social injustice in prisons. There are immediate steps which could be taken to deal with public health neglect, abuses of human rights and failures in gender sensitivity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Increasing evidence for the efficacy of tobacco control mass media communication programming in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Mullin S, Prasad V, Kaur Jand Turk T: Journal of Health Communication 16(Suppl 2): 49-58, 14 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10810730.2011.601395","body":"Anti-tobacco mass media campaigns have had good success at changing knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors with respect to smoking in high-income countries provided they are sustained. Mass media campaigns should be a critical component of tobacco control programs in low- and lower-middle-income countries, the authors of this article argue. Mounting evidence shows that graphic campaigns and those that evoke negative emotions run over long periods of time have achieved the most influence. These types of campaigns are now being implemented in low- and middle-income countries. The authors provide three case studies of first-ever graphic warning mass media campaigns in China, India, and Russia, three priority high-burden countries in the global Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use. In each of these countries, message testing of core messages provided confidence in messages, and evaluations demonstrated message uptake. The authors argue that given the initial success of these campaigns, governments in low- and middle-income countries should consider resourcing and sustaining these interventions as key components of their tobacco control strategies and programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Interview with civil society activist: Gino Govender","field_subtitle":"CIVICUS: August 2011","field_url":"http://civicus.org/news-and-resources/570-interview-with-civil-society-activist-gino-govender","body":"In this interview with Gino Govender, who recently joined Amnesty International\u2019s International Mobilisation team, Govender reveals that Amnesty International has decided to grow in the global south and move closer to the communities and rights holders with whom the human rights organisation works. One of the outcomes of an extensive consultative process is the development of an Africa Growth Strategy, which involves the creation of three regional offices, one of which will be located in and responsible for Southern Africa. With regard to the current state of civil society in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region and in South Africa in particular, Govender is optimistic, arguing that, regionally, civil society is undergoing an important stage of evolution. However, within SADC there are important political, social and economic challenges still to be confronted if the vision of a people-centred regional community that is thriving on the values of solidarity, social justice, equality, dignity, freedom, democracy and production that meets basic human needs are to be realised. He points to a general consensus on the need for a strong and effective civil society in the region and argues that collective leadership united under a common vision for the region is the key. The future for civil society in the region lies in a blend between historically vital sectors that have a wealth of organisational knowledge and experience - like the labour movement, faith-based organisations, womens\u2019 organisations and intellectuals \u2013 and newly established organisations that are dedicated to a single campaign.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Long term virological, immunological and mortality outcomes in a cohort of HIV-infected female sex workers treated with highly active antiretroviral therapy in Africa","field_subtitle":"Huet C, Ouedraogo A, Konate I, Traore I, Rouet F, Kabore A et al: BMC Public Health 11(700), 14 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-700.pdf","body":"The objective of this paper was to describe the long-term virological, immunological and mortality outcomes of providing highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) with strong adherence support to African HIV-infected female sex workers (FSWs) and contrast outcomes with those obtained in a cohort of regular HIV-infected women. FSWs and non-FSWs initiated on HAART between August 2004 and October 2007 were included in the study. Patients were followed monthly for drug adherence (interview and pill count), and at six-monthly intervals for monitoring CD4 counts and HIV-1 plasma viral loads (PVLs) and clinical events. Results showed no statistical differences between outcomes of FSWs and non-FSWs. The authors conclude that clinical and biological benefits of HAART can be maintained over the long term among FSWs in Africa and could also lead to important public health benefits.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Looking at the effects of performance-based financing through a complex adaptive systems lens","field_subtitle":"Macq J and Chiema J: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(9): 699, September 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/9/11-089920.pdf","body":"The authors of this short opinion piece argue that the current debate on performace-based financing (PBF) is misdirected, as external funders try to prove the effectiveness of their contribution by isolating it as the main reason for success while their opponents attempt to prove that another factor is actually the cause of an observed change. Instead, the authors call for comprehensive evaluation of PBF as part of complete health system reform. To respond to some of these key questions, health systems should be analysed using a complex adaptive systems lens. Health system \u2018behaviour\u2019 and particularly counterintuitive behaviour (unexpected changes or lack of change) can be analysed using a complex adaptive systems lens when PBF is introduced, often with a mix of other interventions such as in a context of system reform. The purpose of this analysis is not to isolate causal factors but rather to identify \u2018macro\u2019 characteristics of the system that may explain behaviour change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Making free health care work for all Zambians: will this election deliver?","field_subtitle":"Mwanza F: Global Health Check, 7 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/","body":"This article was written as Zambia went to the polls in September 2011. The author evaluated the impact of the government\u2019s policy to abolish user fees over the past five years. When the Zambian President announced the policy change in January 2006, only three months were allocated for planning and communication, and this he notes resulted in understaffing and a lack of resources including drugs. Measures were not taken to reduce the risk of drug stock-outs and in the first year 60% of essential drugs were unavailable. Many health facilities experienced a loss of income, as compensation for lack of income from user fees was delayed by months. Between 2004 and 2006 there was a large reduction in district non-wage and district drug expenditure (down by 13% and 34% respectively). Overall, quality of health care suffered and patients faced longer waiting times, fewer drugs, and overworked staff. The author argues that, despite the significant shortcomings of the current system, canceling free health care is not an option in a poor country like Zambia. He urges that the issues identified in the evaluation be urgently addressed by the Government of Zambia with aligned support from development partners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Meeting global health challenges through operational research and management science","field_subtitle":"Royston G: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(9): 683-688, September 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/9/11-086066.pdf","body":"In this paper, the author considers how operational research and management science can improve the design of health systems and the delivery of health care, particularly in low-resource settings. He identifies some gaps in the way operational research is typically used in global health and proposes steps to bridge them, before outlining some analytical tools of operational research and management science and illustrating how their use can inform some typical design and delivery challenges in global health. The paper concludes by considering factors that will increase and improve the contribution of operational research and management science to global health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Moving from high level meetings to health for all","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET newsletter","field_url":"","body":"The September 2011 UN High-Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) has come and gone. The political declaration adopted by governments, is included in this newsletter. It points to the need for multi-sectoral public policies that create equitable health-promoting environments. It calls for action across government sectors and partnership across government, civil society and private sector to implement these policies. It mandates WHO to develop for consideration \u2018voluntary global targets\u2019 and indicators for monitoring by 2012, for accountability on the declaration. The Commonwealth issued a statement on 21st September welcoming the declaration as a commitment to deal with NCDs. Others, some included in this newsletter, raised concerns about the absence of clear commitments on funds or targets, such as on access to medicines or on regulations to curb trade in unhealthy products. Questions were raised on what can be achieved through a reliance on partnership and voluntary arrangements, with a call for stronger exercise of public health authority. The High level meeting on NCDs opened a window into the competing influences of politics, commerce, social movement and science on global health negotiations. While evidence of health need and feasible strategy is persuasive input to these competing influences, Thomas Gebauer asserts in this month\u2019s editorial that ethical principles, such as solidarity, are fundamental to health, and must be applied in global negotiations that affect the human right to health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Negotiations on outcome document for the upcoming UN High-level NCDs Meeting","field_subtitle":"Bertorelli E: Health Diplomacy Monitor 2(4): 8-9, August 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6k2uge3","body":"In preparation for the United Nations (UN) High-Level meeting on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in New York from September 19-20, 2011, the UN released an Outcome Document, called the \u2018Zero Draft\u2019, which affirmed the UN\u2019s commitment to combat non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Civil society has voiced concern over the Zero Draft though, saying their input at the 16 June 2011 Informal Interactive Hearing on NCDs was not taken into account. Concerns include the lack of concrete targets and goals, the lack of specific mechanisms for resource mobilisation, and the lack of substantial follow-up to the meeting within the draft document. The role of the private sector in preventing NCDs is also another point of contention, and particularly the role of regulatory approaches, vs the adoption of the voluntary guidelines and targets favoured by the food and beverage industry representatives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"New radio show on African health care systems: African Health Dialogues","field_subtitle":"African Views Radio: 2011","field_url":"http://www.africanviews.org/index.php/events/viewevent /30-history-of-health-care-systems-in-africa-on-av-radio","body":"Every Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Standard time, African Views Radio holds regular discussions on health care systems in Africa in a show called African Health Dialogues. The forum is accessible to online audiences live on air and also via podcast. There is also an opportunity for people to call in via phone to participate in the discussions from any part of the world. The first show aired on 30 July 2011 and explored the status of healthcare systems in Africa with respect to the past, present and future. The producers of the programme are inviting participants to call in and join the discussions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"One year on: the impact of removing health care user fees in Sierra Leone","field_subtitle":"Marriott A: Global Health Check, 1 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/","body":"Before free care for pregnant women and children was introduced in Sierra Leone, 88% of citizens said that their inability to pay was by far the greatest barrier to accessing care when sick. Just 12 months after the introduction of free care, medical care for children under five has increased by 214% and the proportion of children getting approved treatment for diagnosed malaria increased from 51% to 90%. Forty-five percent more pregnant women are delivering in formal clinics and hospitals and the number of delivery complications treated in health units increased 150%, while fatality rate in these cases fell by 61%. Success was achieved, the author of this article argues, through a high level of political commitment and leadership from the President of Sierra Leone and key staff within the Ministry of Health, as well as health worker reform including the elimination of 850 ghost workers from the payroll and salary increases of at least 100% for all staff. Over 1,000 additional workers were hired, facilities were upgraded and major resources and effort went into sorting out the key issue of medicines supply. Countries that want to implement free health care shouldn\u2019t have to wait for external funders to get their house in order, the author concludes \u2013 like Sierra Leone, they should kick start progressive policies in the interests of their citizens that external funders will be forced to follow.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"People\u2019s Charter for Health","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement: 2009","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/sites/www.phmovement.org/files/phm-pch-english.pdf","body":"In 1978, at the Alma&#8208;Ata Conference, ministers from 134 member countries in association with WHO and UNICEF declared \u2018Health for All by the Year 2000\u2019 selecting Primary Health Care as the best tool to achieve it. Unfortunately, the health status of third-world populations has not improved, according to the People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM). In this Charter, PHM lays five health principles that may be applied globally. First, the attainment of the highest possible level of health and well&#8208;being is a fundamental human right, regardless of a person's colour, ethnic background, religion, gender, age, abilities, sexual orientation or class. Second, the principles of universal, comprehensive Primary Health Care (PHC), envisioned in the 1978 Alma Ata Declaration, should be the basis for formulating policies related to health. Now more than ever an equitable, participatory and intersectoral approach to health and health care is needed. Third, Governments have a fundamental responsibility to ensure universal access to quality health care, education and other social services according to people\u2019s needs, not according to their ability to pay. Fourth, the participation of people and people's organisations is essential to the formulation, implementation and evaluation of all health and social policies and programmes. Finally, health is primarily determined by the political, economic, social and physical environment and should, along with equity and sustainable development, be a top priority in local, national and international policy&#8208;making.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"People\u2019s Health Movement launches website and network for students","field_subtitle":"People's Health Movement Students' Coalition: 2011","field_url":"http://www.phmstudents.org/","body":"The People's Health Movement Students' Coalition (PHMSC) is an international, broad-based students' movement representing students' voices within the wider People's Health Movement and beyond. Its primary goal is health for all, i.e. a socially conscious, grassroots approach to health and human rights. The mobilisation of students is crucial to overcoming social, educational, environmental and other injustices that undermine the indivisible health rights of people the world over. PHMSC invites all students and student organisations who believe in a healthier future for everyone (regardless of their background or where they come from), to join the movement. You can sign the People's Charter for Health, join PHMSC\u2019s mailing list or join their Facebook group.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Performance-based financing: the need for more research","field_subtitle":"Basinga P, Mayaka S and Condo J: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(9): 698-699, September 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/9/11-089912.pdf","body":"The authors of this paper suggest that the debate around performance-based financing (PBF) has become polarised, and argue for a more balanced approach. PBF is not a panacea and the provision of inputs, provider training, supervision and health-system strengthening should continue with the aim of producing results. A research agenda and an effective community of practice embracing all views on PBF is critical to understanding more about its potential for helping developing countries to reach some of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Physical inactivity: The \u2018Cinderella\u2019 risk factor for non-communicable disease prevention","field_subtitle":"Bull FC and Bauman AE: Journal of Health Communication 16(Suppl 2): 13-26, 14 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10810730.2011.601226","body":"Physical inactivity has been identified as the fourth leading risk factor for the prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), preceded only by tobacco use, hypertension, and high blood glucose levels, and accounting for more than three million preventable deaths globally in 2010. Physical inactivity is a global public health priority but, in most countries, this has not yet resulted in widespread recognition nor specific physical activity\u2013related policy action at the necessary scale, the authors of this article argue. The authors identify and discuss eight  possible explanations why inactivity is overlooked and the need for more effective communication on the importance of physical activity in the NCD prevention context. Although not all of the issues identified will be relevant for any one country, it is likely that at different times and in different combinations these problems continue to delay national-level progress on addressing physical inactivity in many countries. The authors confirm that there is sufficient evidence to act, and that much better use of well-planned, coherent communication strategies are needed in most countries and at the international level. Significant opportunities exist. The Toronto Charter on Physical Activity and the Seven Investments that Work are two useful tools to support increased advocacy on physical activity within and beyond the context of the crucial UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs in September 2011.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Please no mega-funds: Let\u2019s harness the universal health coverage movement to address NCDs","field_subtitle":"Quick J: Management Sciences for Health, 25 July 2011","field_url":"http://blog.msh.org/2011/07/25/please-no-mega-funds-let%E2%80%99s-harness-the-universal-health-coverage-movement-to-address-ncds/","body":"Rather than call for a new \u2018mega-fund\u2019 for NCDs, the author of this article argues that we need to use the growing focus on NCDS to build a global social movement for Universal Health Coverage (UHC) to address all health needs according to national and local epidemiology and priorities. The UHC movement calls on nations to reform their health plans and financing structures toward access to essential diagnostics, prevention, and treatment for all. Strong equitable health systems are the tipping point for universal health coverage. As demographics change and people with communicable diseases live long enough to develop chronic diseases, a responsive, performance-driven, integrated health systems approach will have the greatest health impact. A strong health system grounded in UHC, working to address NCDs must: be coordinated and integrated to reach people who may otherwise go undetected; deliver integrated care and include all players in the health system; have strong information systems and an educated health workforce; and support local private sector health providers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy turnaround on breastfeeding in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 26 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93600","body":"South Africa's high child mortality rates have forced the government to rethink its policy on infant feeding and move to discontinue the free provision of formula milk at hospitals and clinics, as well as promote an exclusive breastfeeding strategy for all mothers, including those living with HIV. Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi made the announcement on 23 August 2011 after a two-day national consultation on breastfeeding, where participants unanimously recommended the changes. Until now, the country's health system has not supported the practice of breastfeeding and mothers are often discharged as soon as six hours after birth, with no or little counselling on infant feeding, the Minister of Health acknowledged. Formula milk manufacturers and distributors have also promoted their products aggressively, because of the absence of legislation to regulate the marketing of formula milk, according to UNICEF. In December 2009, the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) issued guidelines recommending that infants born to HIV-positive women be exclusively breastfed for the first six months, but South Africa's programme to prevent mother to child HIV transmission has continued to provide free formula to HIV-positive mothers. Representatives of WHO in South Africa are calling on government to implement the guidelines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Political declaration of the High-level Meeting of the General Assembly on the Prevention and Control of Non-communicable Diseases","field_subtitle":"United Nations General Assembly, A/66/L.1, September 2011","field_url":"http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/66/L.1","body":"The United Nations General Assembly adopted by consensus the resolution titled \"Political Declaration of the High-level Meeting of the General Assembly on the Prevention and Control of Non-communicable Diseases\" (document A/66/L.1). The declaration calls for the development of multisectoral public policies that create equitable health-promoting environments that empower individuals, families and communities to make healthy choices and lead healthy lives. It commits governments to accelerate implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and encourages countries, which have not yet done so, to consider acceding to the FCTC. In addition to price and tax measures to reduce tobacco consumption, governments committed to steps that include curbing the extensive marketing to children of foods and beverages that are high in saturated fats, trans-fatty acids, sugars, or salt. Other measures seek to cut the harmful consumption of alcohol, promote overall healthy diets and increase physical activity. It calls for countries to promote, establish or strengthen by 2013, and to implement multisectoral national policies and plans for the prevention and control of NCDs, taking into account, as appropriate, the 2008-2013 WHO Action Plan for the Global Strategy for the Prevention and Control of NCDs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Real Aid: Ending aid dependency","field_subtitle":"Action Aid: 2011","field_url":"http://www.actionaid.org.uk/doc_lib/real_aid_3.pdf","body":"Dependency on aid (external funding) among 54 of the world\u2019s poorest countries has declined by a third over the last decade, according to this new report from ActionAid. The number of low income countries (LICs) receiving external funding equivalent to 30% of government expenditure or more has reduced from 42 to 30 in the past decade. In Zambia, for instance, external funding has fallen from 84% of government expenditure to just 44%. ActionAid notes the apparent paradox that while external funding has increased globally, dependence on the funding has reduced because of strong economic growth. Allied to growth is a new-found determination among poor countries to end 30 or more years of dependence on funding that has seldom delivered the kind of development for which they had hoped. Some of the poorest countries in the world, including Ghana, Rwanda, and Uganda, have set reducing this type of dependence as a key medium-term goal in their national development or aid-management policies. Reliance on external funding in Ghana has reduced from 46% to 27%, Mozambique from 74% to 58% and Rwanda from 86% to 45%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaiming Solidarity is fundamental for Health for All","field_subtitle":"Thomas Gebauer, Executive Director, Medico International, Germany","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn view of the wealth existing in today's world, the prospect of Health for All must not be an illusion any longer. The world doesn\u2019t lack the resources for health; it requires a fair use of what is available, in other words: the redistribution of wealth guided by the concept of solidarity. The world is awash in money. What is missing is the political will of those in power and \u2013 to challenge ourselves \u2013 the public pressure to make change happen.  \r\n\r\nThe struggle for Health for all starts with challenging the prevailing neoliberal paradigm. It is well known that globalisation has widened health inequalities. However, more emphasis should be given to the fact that the transformation of health services into commodities, the linkage of access to health care to individual purchasing power and the dismantling of public health systems has only been possible in the context of a specific ideology - an ideology that has widely affected even those who are suffering the negative consequences of neo-liberalism, the global poor.\r\n\r\nAt the core of the neo-liberal ideology is a concept that replaces social values and institutions such as solidarity and common goods by self responsibility and individual entrepreneurship. \u201cThere is no such a thing as society\u201d, Maggie Thatcher said in the early 80\u2019s - paving the way for the cynical credo of neoliberal politics: If everyone takes care for him/herself, then \u2018all\u2019 are taken care of. \r\n\r\nAlthough there is plenty of evidence that health is primarily a political matter determined by the social environment, neo-liberalism has succeeded in pushing the responsibility for health away from public and state institutions to private actors and individuals, including  individuals perceived as business entrepreneurs in a liberalised market. Even spheres of societies that traditionally do not belong to the field of business, such as health, education and culture, have been increasingly penetrated by market values. \r\n\r\nIt was the French revolution \u2013 calling for Liberty, Equality and Fraternity \u2013 that came up with the first comprehensive list of Human Rights in 1789. \u2018Fraternity\u2019, the revolutionary agenda\u2019s third pillar, may be equated with \u2018solidarity\u2019 in today\u2019s discourse. It has been under permanent siege during the last decades. Millions of people have been excluded from health and social care as a consequence of neglecting the social principles that nurture the cohesion of society. Only by revitalising solidarity \u2013 both as an ethical principle and in its public institutions \u2013can health inequalities be tackled and Health for all achieved. Indeed, there is such a thing as society. \r\n\r\nIt is a fact that there are always and everywhere people too poor to afford adequate health care out of pocket. Even in a perfect world, in which all the social determinants of health are respected, people will fall ill and will be in need of support. Therefore Health for all requires the presence of a permanent and institutionalised redistribution of wealth. Those who are in the position to pay more should also pay for those who are in need. This balancing is exactly meant with the principle of solidarity. It is perhaps the most important key to establishing an effective health care system.\r\n\r\nIn this context it doesn\u2019t matter whether a system is tax-financed or based on the idea of social insurance schemes. Both are socially agreed funding schemes guaranteeing that even members who are not in a position to contribute a single shilling or cent financially to national budgets or social insurance will receive the same services as all the others members when they need them. While individual contributions (in terms of taxes or insurance contributions) are dependent on financial capacities, the entitlement to and claiming of services however, is only determined by needs.\r\n\r\nIt is preciously the principle of solidarity that disconnects access to health care from individual purchasing power: those who are wealthier support those who are poorer, younger, or elderly; and those who are economically active support those who are unemployed, retired and children.\r\n\r\nThus, the principle of solidarity goes far beyond what is usually meant when solidarity refers to empathy and charity. The principle refers rather to an institutionalised solidarity that organises a fair burden sharing. It is fundamental to the \u201csocial infrastructure\u201d of societies. Like the hard infrastructure, like transportation, energy, administration, law enforcement, police, and so on, the social infrastructure also needs to be publically regulated and funded. The term social infrastructure stands for an ensemble of common goods, such as effective health care services, proper education systems, social protection schemes, food security, and so on. In other words, it covers social institutions that are essential for the social cohesion of societies that should therefore accessible for everybody, independent from an individual\u2019s purchasing power.\r\n\r\nIn view of the global poverty affecting one third of the world\u2019s population fiscal policy-making should again focus on the redistribution of wealth. At an International Conference on \u201cStrengthen Local Campaigns for National and International Accountability for Health and Health Services\u201d held in Johannesburg in March 2011 delegates in their statement also called for  \u201cthe principles of social solidarity that are an accepted part of governance within many nations to be extended to the international level\u201d. That sounds quite radical, but even the World Health Organisation (WHO) makes this argument. The World Health Report 2010 invites WHO member states to introduce new fiscal measures to enhance governmental revenue capacities. The report particularly points to the taxation of large and profitable companies as one of the key policy instruments to widen the fiscal space, as well as a levy on currency transactions and a financial transaction tax. The latter would only make sense if it is agreed internationally as a global resource to enable all states to adequately finance health services, including countries in the north facing persistent health sector cuts and sale of public health care services.         \r\n\r\nHealth care systems based on the principle of solidarity still exist. In countries like my own, Germany, they form part of the foundations of the society. Most likely these systems can only be defended by extending them to the international level. In fighting back neo-liberal extremists who are persistently posing deadly threats to societies by dismissing solidarity institutions as a proof of \u201cdevilish socialism\u201d, it is crucial to again struggle for solidarity. This struggle needs to be waged at national level, but it also includes an international dimension, such as in the call for an \u201cInternational Fund for Health\u201d that serves as an international equalisation payment scheme to balance existing financial gaps. For this, countries with higher incomes that can support those at lower incomes would be obliged to contribute to the health budgets of poorer countries. Taking the principle of solidarity forward internationally is not a question of money. It is rather a question of the political will to create a new international treaty regulating that richer countries with higher fiscal capacity are obliged to transfer funds to poorer countries, as long as these are lacking adequate fiscal capacity. It is this principle of solidarity that will realise Health for all and other social rights.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please see the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org. or the MEDICO website at  http://www.medico.de/en/healthfund","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Reducing the silent burden of impaired mental health","field_subtitle":"Jan\u00e9-Llopis E, Anderson P, Stewart-Brown S, Weare K, Wahlbeck K, McDaid D, Cooper C and Litchfield P: Journal of Health Communication 16(Suppl 2): 59-74, 14 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10810730.2011.601153","body":"Mental and behavioural disorders account for about one third of the world\u2019s disability caused by all ill health among adults, with unipolar depressive disorders set to be the world\u2019s number one cause of ill health and premature death in 2030, affecting high- and low-income countries. There is a range of evidence-based cost-effective interventions that can be implemented in parenting, at schools, at the workplace, and in older age that can promote health and well-being, reduce mental disorders, lead to improved productivity, and increase resilience to cope with many of the stressors in the world. These facts need to be better communicated to policymakers to ensure that the silent burden of impaired mental health is adequately heard and reduced.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Register for the Global Climate and Health Summit","field_subtitle":"Durban, South Africa: 4 December 2011","field_url":"http://climateandhealthcare.org/","body":"The First Global Climate and Health Summit aims to bring together key health sector actors to discuss the impacts of climate change on public health and solutions that promote greater health and economic equity between and within nations. The Summit is geared to build the profile of the health sector vis-\u00e0-vis the COP17 negotiations in Durban, and to also help build a broader, longer lasting global movement for a healthy climate. Objectives of the Summit include: raise the profile of public health and the health sector vis-\u00e0-vis the public debate and global negotiations on climate change; catalyse greater health sector engagement on climate issues in a broad diversity of countries; build a common, more coordinated approach to addressing the health impacts of climate change; and develop shared advocacy strategies for strong national and global policy measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Saleability of anti-malarials in private drug shops in Muheza, Tanzania: a baseline study in an era of assumed artemisinin combination therapy (ACT)  ","field_subtitle":"Ringsted FM, Massawe IS, Lemnge MM and Bygbjerg IC: Malaria Journal 10(238), 15 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-238.pdf","body":"The main objective of this study was to conduct a baseline study of the private market for anti-malarials in Muheza town, an area with widespread anti-malarial drug resistance, prior to the implementation of a provider training and accreditation programme that will allow accredited drug shops to sell subsidised Artemether-lumefantrine (ALu). All drug shops selling prescription-only anti-malarials in Muheza voluntarily participated from July to December 2009. Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with owners or shopkeepers on saleability of anti-malarials, and structured questionnaires provided quantitative data on drugs sales volume. Results showed that all surveyed drug shops illicitly sold sulphadoxine-pymimethamine (SP) and quinine (QN), and legally amodiaquine (AQ). In community practice, the saleability of ACT was negligible. SP was best-selling, and use was not reserved for Intermittent Preventive Treatment (IPTp), as stipulated in the national anti-malarial policy. The authors express concern that such drug-pressure in the community equals de facto intermittent presumptive treatment. In an area where SP drug resistance remains high, unregulated SP dispensing to people other than pregnant women runs the risk of eventually jeopardising the effectiveness of the IPTp strategy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Severe acute malnutrition rising in Nairobi","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 22 August 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93551","body":"The food crisis in the Horn of Africa is affecting people in informal urban settlements, but they remain largely overlooked by the aid community, according to IRIN. IN Kenya, emergency relief efforts are focused on the arid north, yet over the past five months, Concern Worldwide has recorded a 62% increase in cases of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) at clinics it supports in Nairobi slum areas, while estimating that the need is much greater. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) concurred that the food crisis is probably affecting people in urban areas more than in the north. Part of the reason malnutrition in urban slums is paid relatively scant attention is that it rarely reaches the emergency level of 15% global acute malnutrition (GAM) rate, at which point government is obliged to take action. In Turkana in the north, 15% GAM would translate to 13,000 children. But in Nairobi district, 13,000 malnourished children would reflect just a 3.45% GAM rate. Currently, the estimated GAM rate is 2.3% in Nairobi's slums.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Sex, drugs and women\u2019s rights","field_subtitle":"Sekeso T: Pambazuka News 545, 22 August 2011","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/75875","body":"In South Africa, drug and alcohol abuse should be an issue of national concern, the author of this article argues. Yet little has been done to curb the use of drugs and reduce their impact on public health outcomes. Alcohol is legal, widely available and relatively inexpensive, which makes it one of the main burdens of disease in the country, ranking third after unsafe sex and interpersonal violence. All three have contributed to the country\u2019s high HIV prevalence rate, while alcohol abuse is increasingly becoming recognised as a key determinant of sexual risk taking and sexual violence, and as a consequence, a direct contributor to HIV transmission rates, and to challenges in HIV treatment and mitigation interventions in sub-Saharan countries. The author also indicates that heavy consumption of alcohol and regular binge drinking by people on anti-retroviral treatment (ART) is also linked to lower levels of treatment adherence and treatment efficacy. The South African government has agreed to several interim resolutions to curb alcohol abuse and better regulate the industry: possibly raising the legal age for purchasing and consuming alcohol from 18 to 21 years; limiting alcohol advertising; reviewing alcohol license fees; harmonising existing liquor legislation; imposing restrictions on the times and days of the week that alcohol can be legally sold and decreasing the number of taverns (shebeens).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Substance use and its predictors among undergraduate medical students of Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Deressa W and Azazh A: BMC Public Health 11(660), 22 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-660.pdf","body":"This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of substance use and identify factors that influenced the behaviour among undergraduate medical students of Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. A cross-sectional study using a pre-tested structured self-administered quantitative questionnaire was conducted in June 2009 among 622 medical students (Year I to Internship programme) at the School of Medicine. Results showed that in the 12 months prior to the study, alcohol was consumed by 22% of students and khat use was reported by 7%. Being male was strongly associated with alcohol use in the last 12 months. Khat use and use of tobacco was strongly and positively associated with alcohol consumption. In conclusion, concordant use of alcohol, khat and tobacco was observed and exposure to friends' use of substances was often implicated. While the findings of this study suggest that substance use among the medical students was not alarming, but its trend increased among students from Year I to Internship programme. The authors caution the university to be vigilant in monitoring and educating the students about the consequences of substance use.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Sustainability of programs to reach high risk and marginalized populations living with HIV in resource-limited settings: Implications for HIV treatment and prevention","field_subtitle":"Montague BT, Vuylsteke B, Buve A: BMC Public Health 11(701), 14 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-701.pdf","body":"The experiences of the past ten years have shown that it is feasible to treat HIV infected patients with ART even in severely resource constrained settings. Achieving the levels of antiretroviral (ARV) coverage necessary to impact the course of the HIV epidemic remains a challenge and ARV coverage in most nations remains short of even current recommendations. Though treatment as prevention and seek, test, treat and retain strategies are attractive, the authors of this article argue that realising the benefits of these strategies means that they must cover hard to reach populations such as sex workers. While evidence on reach of these populations in research settings is encouraging, there are questions on the sustainability of these efforts as patients are transitioned back into national HIV control programmes, many of which are struggling even to maintain the current coverage in the face of declining external funding. The authors conclude that advocacy from both medicine and public health providers will be critical to sustain and enhance the necessary HIV and AIDS treatment and prevention programmes worldwide.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The challenges of achieving high training coverage for IMCI: case studies from Kenya and Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mushi HP, Mullei K, Macha J, Wafula F, Borghi J, Goodman C and Gilson L: Health Policy and Planning (Advance Access), 2 November 2010","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/5/395.full?etoc","body":"Health worker training is a key component of the integrated management of childhood illness (IMCI). The researchers in this study conducted in-depth case studies in two east African countries to examine the factors underlying low training coverage ten years after IMCI had been adopted as policy. A document review and in-depth semi-structured interviews with stakeholders at facility, district, regional/provincial and national levels in two districts in Kenya (Homa Bay and Malindi) and Tanzania (Bunda and Tarime) were carried out in 2007 and 2008. The researchers found that Bunda and Malindi achieved higher levels of training coverage (44% and 25%) compared with Tarime and Homa Bay (5% and 13%). Key factors allowing the first two districts to perform better were: strong district leadership and personal commitment to IMCI, which facilitated access to external funding and encouraged local-level policy adaptation; sensitisation and training of district health managers; and lower staff turnover. However, IMCI training coverage remained well below target levels across all sites. The main barrier to expanding coverage was the cost of training due to its duration, the number of facilitators and its residential nature. Mechanisms for financing IMCI also restricted district capacity to raise funds. Critically, the low priority given to IMCI at national and international levels also limited the expansion of training. Levels of domestic and external funding for IMCI have diminished over time in favour of vertical programmes, partly due to the difficulty in monitoring and measuring the impact of an integrated intervention like IMCI. Alternative, lower cost methods of IMCI training need to be promoted, and greater advocacy for IMCI is needed both nationally and internationally, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The effect of mobile phone text-message reminders on Kenyan health workers' adherence to malaria treatment guidelines: a cluster randomised trial","field_subtitle":"Zurovac D, Sudoi RK, Akhwale WS, Ndiritu M, Hamer DH et al: The Lancet, 378(9793): 795-803, 27 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2811%2960783-6/abstract?elsca1=ETOC-LANCET&elsca2=email&elsca3=segment","body":"In this study, researchers assessed whether text-message reminders sent to health workers' mobile phones could improve and maintain their adherence to treatment guidelines for outpatient paediatric malaria in Kenya. From March 6, 2009, to May 31, 2010, they conducted a cluster-randomised controlled trial at 107 rural health facilities in 11 districts in coastal and western Kenya. Health facilities were randomly allocated to either the intervention group, in which all health workers received text messages on their personal mobile phones on malaria case-management for six months, or the control group, in which health workers did not receive any text messages. They found that 119 health workers received the intervention. Case-management practices were assessed for 2,269 children who needed treatment, indicating that correct artemether-lumefantrine management improved by 23.7% immediately after intervention and by 24.5% six months later. The authors conclude that in resource-limited settings, malaria control programmes should consider use of text messaging to improve health workers' case-management practices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The upcoming Rio Conference on Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R: Health Diplomacy Monitor 2(4): 10-12, August 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6k2uge3","body":"Three years have passed since the World Health Organisation (WHO) Commission on the Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) report was launched and adopted by the World Health Assembly. Progress since 2008 at the international level has been built on the experience and initiative of different countries. For example in Africa in April 2008, work on social determinants of health (SDH) was located in the context of commitments to revitalise primary health care. The first global ministerial conference on healthy lifestyles and non-communicable disease (NCD) control in April 2011 and the UN High-level Meeting on NCD Prevention and Control in September 2011 provide important global platforms to address the SDH. Nevertheless there is debate whether adequate attention has been given to SDH in these forums. On 19-21 October 2011, WHO and the Government of Brazil are convening a global conference on the SDH in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The conference will hopefully provide a platform to tackle issues of social justice in development, to address the deficiencies in present economic thinking on and measures in globalisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"TNCs, transfer pricing and tax avoidance","field_subtitle":"Abugre C: Pambazuka News 545, 18 August 2011","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/75801","body":"In this article, the author considers ways in which multinational companies avoid paying taxes in Africa, thereby undermining government commitments to education, housing and health, among others. The predominant way in which capital is hidden in trade and moved abroad is argued to be through the pricing of imports and exports. While a wide range of actors are argued to use this strategy, the author argues that multinational companies are more easily able to do so as they operate through subsidiaries scattered across the world, and have multiple subsidiaries, with trading between and among subsidiaries of multinational companies comprising as much as 60% of global trade. This gives significant scope for the use of transfer pricing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"UN must stop health-related partnerships with the baby food and junk food industry","field_subtitle":"One Million Campaign, World\u2019s Breastfeeding Movement: August 2011","field_url":"http://www.onemillioncampaign.org/view_campaigns/stop-unhealthy-partnerships-0","body":"The One Million Campaign\u2019s petition to the President of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly urges the UN to re-consider proposed partnerships with the private sector for future work in prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The UN\u2019s draft Political Declaration, developed in preparation for the High-level Summit on Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) in September 2011, contained proposals to allow manufacturers of unhealthy foods - including infant foods and junk foods -to influence future global and national health strategies to control NCDs. The One Million Campaign asserts that strategies to prevent NCDs should emphasise support to women to continue breastfeeding up to two years, especially exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months and end promotion of all foods for infants, and children. Research indicates that this breastfeeding regimen significantly reduces the risk of NCDs. They argue that manufactures of unhealthy foods, breast milk formula and infant foods should not be allowed to participate in developing strategies or making decisions regarding healthy foods and prevention of NCDs, as there is a clear case of conflict of interest.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"UN NCD Summit must address impact of NCDs on women","field_subtitle":"Women for a Healthy Future: August 2011","field_url":"http://www.change.org/petitions/women-demand-a-healthy-future-free-of-chronic-disease","body":"In the run-up to the United Nations (UN) High-level Summit on Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) in September 2011, a number of international women\u2019s rights organisations joined together in a global campaign - Women for a Healthy Future - to demand solutions to NCDs among women. NCDs are the leading cause of death among women, the campaign argues, estimated at 18 million deaths each year. Key NCDs include breast and cervical cancer, with heart disease the primary cause of mortality among women. Girls and women are at a particular disadvantage for getting NCDs, as 60% of the world\u2019s poor are women, and many are malnourished and uneducated. In developing countries, women often cook over open fires and get chronic lung diseases. Women for a Healthy Future has sent a petition to the UN as the new campaign\u2019s first step in a planned programme of action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"UN\u2019s new 2015 AIDS targets to include high-risk groups","field_subtitle":"Mc Clean T: Health Diplomacy Monitor 2(4): 4-7, August 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6k2uge3","body":"It has been a decade since the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on HIV/AIDS adopted a Declaration of Commitment, which contained the first targets to guide the global response to AIDS. Key outcomes of the Declaration include new HIV prevention and treatment targets, a commitment from developing countries to share the financial burden, a compromise on language around drug patents, and a commitment to address high-risk groups, balanced by the reaffirmation of national sovereignty. The most promising outcomes include the adoption of new time-bound targets around HIV prevention and treatment. Governments agreed to a vague commitment to deliver on the UNAIDS estimate of US$24 billion needed for universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care in developing regions by 2015. Instead of allocating new money for AIDS, the Declaration urges developed countries to fulfill pledges to meet the target of 0.7% of GNP for Official Development Assistance (ODA). With regard to trade, a compromise was struck as governments agreed to optimise existing flexibilities under TRIPs specifically geared to promoting access to and trade of medicines, while ensuring that intellectual property rights provisions in trade agreements do not undermine these existing flexibilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Update on preparations for Third People's Health Assembly: July 2012, South Africa","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement: July 2011","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/pha3/updates/1","body":"In the run-up to the Third People\u2019s Health Assembly (PHA3), the People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM) is releasing monthly updates on preparations for the Assembly \u2013 this is the first issue. PHM reports that, in the Africa region, various pre-PHA3 mobilisation activities have begun and in attempt to have co-ordinated efforts towards the assembly, mobilisation committees have been set up. Four sub-regional committees have been formed: West Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa and Central. A regional mobilisation committee will be developed from representatives of these sub-regions aiming to support national initiatives and bring regional health issues to the foreground in PHA3 discussions. Other countries which have started PHA3 activities and discussions are Zimbabwe, Kenya, Pakistan, Togo, Niger, Congo Brazzaville, Italy, Belgium and many others. Join the PHA3 facebook group to stay updated on preparatory events taking place around the world. PHM is calling on all interested parties to inform them what is happening in their countries so it can be shared through the monthly updates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"World Conference On Social Determinants Of Health","field_subtitle":"Rio De Janeiro, Brazil: 19-21 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/sdhconference/background/en /","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) is convening a global conference on 19-21 October, 2011, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to build support for the implementation of action on social determinants of health. The Brazilian Ministry of Health, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) and the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs are working closely with WHO on preparing the event. The conference will bring together Member States and stakeholders to share experiences on policies and strategies aiming to reduce health inequities. The event will provide a global platform for dialogue on how the recommendations of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health (2008) could be taken forward. The key aim of the process is to draw lessons learnt and to catalyse coordinated global action in five key areas: governance to tackle the root causes of health inequities by implementing action on social determinants of health; the role of the health sector, including public health programmes, in reducing health inequities; promoting participation through community leadership for action on social determinants; global action on social determinants by aligning priorities and stakeholders; and monitoring progress in terms of measurement and analysis to inform policies on social determinants.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Statistics 2011","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: August 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/EN_WHS2011_Full.pdf","body":"The World Health Statistics report is an essential resource for policy-makers and researchers working on the identification and reduction of health inequities. A dedicated section in the 2011 report presents data from 93 countries using three health indicators - percentage of births attended by skilled health personnel, measles immunisation coverage among 1-year-olds, and under-five mortality rate - disaggregated according to urban or rural residence, household wealth and maternal education level. The data presented refer to ratios and differences between the most-advantaged and least-advantaged groups.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"World Social Science Report 2010","field_subtitle":"United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO): 2010","field_url":"http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001883/188333e.pdf","body":"According to this report by UNESCO, in sub-Saharan Africa, social science themes have over the years evolved from topics such as structural adjustment, poverty, gender, the spread of armed con&#64258; icts, and HIV and AIDS to more recent concerns such as citizenship and rights in an era of crisis, and the response to neoliberalism. The big challenge, however, is to reconstruct autonomous social science research in Africa. But as the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) points out, the lack of a research infrastructure prevents social scientists from contributing as much as they could to these social endeavours. In low-income countries, the increasing role of consultancy &#64257;rms and NGOs in social science research follows the relative or absolute shrinking of public funds allocated to universities, for research in general and for the social sciences in particular. In such conditions, academics rarely have the chance of working on long-term projects involving strong theoretical considerations. The report also points to the corrosive effect of the \u2018brain drain\u2019 on research in low-income countries and acknowledges many of these countries have instituted measures to help retain professionals, but the ef&#64257;ciency of these measures remains limited as long as working conditions do not improve signi&#64257;cantly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"54th ECSA Health Ministers\u2019 Conference November 7-11 2011:Announcement and Call for Abstracts","field_subtitle":"Abstract call closes 16 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.ecsahc.org/news.php?id=16","body":"The East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC), in collaboration with the Ministries of Public Health and Sanitation and Medical Services Republic of Kenya will host the 54th ECSA Health Minister\u2019s Conference from 07 - 11 November 2011 in Mombasa, Republic of Kenya. The Conference, will bring together Ministers of Health, Senior Officials from Ministries of Health, Experts, Health Researchers, Heads of Health Training Institutions from Member States of the ECSA Health Community; diverse Collaborating Partners in the region and beyond with the aim of identifying policy issues and making recommendations to facilitate the implementation of high impact interventions for improved health outcomes. The theme of the 54th ECSA Health Ministers Conference is \u201cConsolidating the gains: Addressing High Impact Interventions for Improved Health Outcomes\u201d  Abstracts are being invited for presentation of papers under the ECSA-HC Regional Forum on Best Practices which is held annually in conjunction with the Health Ministers Conference for the East Central and Southern Africa - Health Community (ECSA-HC)  You are kindly requested to submit your abstract(s) by 16 September 2011 to admin@ecsa.or.tz. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A financial transaction tax for global health","field_subtitle":"Harm Reduction International: August 2011","field_url":"http://www.ihra.net/files/2011/06/30/FTTHealth.pdf","body":"The financial sector is traditionally under-taxed relative to the rest of the economy, so it is ideally suited as a source of taxes that can be used for global health, according to this brief. Taxes on the sector are also predominantly progressive, falling on the richest institutions and individuals. Harm Reduction International (HRI) proposes a financial transaction tax (FTT) that collects a tiny percentage (between 0.5% and 0.005%) of the value of each financial product that is traded. An average tax of just 0.05% on transactions (such as bond and share sales) could raise as much as US$409 billion a year, HRI notes, significant funding for disease responses and health system strengthening in poorer countries. HRI cautions that the FTT would be in addition to - not instead of - government commitments to overseas development assistance, so it could help bridge the resource gap that currently exists to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"A grander challenge: the case of how Makerere University College of Health Sciences (MakCHS) contributes to health outcomes in Africa","field_subtitle":"Pariyo G, Serwadda D, Sewankambo NK, Groves S, Bollinger RC, Peters DH: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(Suppl 1): S2, 9 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-11-S1-S2.pdf","body":"In 2008, Makerere University began a radical institutional change to bring together four schools under one College of Health Sciences. This paper\u2019s objective is to demonstrate how the University\u2019s leadership in training, research and services has impacted health in Uganda. Data were collected through analysis of key documents; systematic review of MakCHS publications and grants; surveys of patients, students and faculty; and key informant interviews of the College\u2019s major stakeholders. The researchers found that the University inputs to the health sector include more than 600 health professionals graduating per year, many of whom assume leadership positions. University contributions to processes include strengthened approaches to engaging communities, standardised clinical care procedures and evidence-informed policy development. Outputs include the largest number of out-patients and in-patient admissions in Uganda. Outcomes include an expanded knowledge pool, and contributions to coverage of health services and healthy behaviours. Pilot projects have applied innovative demand and supply incentives to create a rapid increase in safe deliveries (three-fold increase after three months), and increased quality and use of HIV services with positive collateral improvements on non-HIV health services at community clinics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Addressing the fear and consequences of stigmatisation: a necessary step towards making HAART accessible to women in Tanzania: a qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Theilgaard ZP, Katzenstein TL, Chiduo MG, Pahl C, Bygbjerg IC, Gerstoft J et al: AIDS Research and Therapy 8(28), 2 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.aidsrestherapy.com/content/pdf/1742-6405-8-28.pdf","body":"Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) has been available free of charge in Tanga, Tanzania since 2005, yet many women referred from prevention of mother-to-child transmission services to the Care and Treatment Clinics (CTC) for HAART never registered at the CTCs. In this study, researchers focused on the motivating and deterring factors to presenting for HAART, particularly in relation to women. A qualitative approach was used, including in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Researchers found that the main deterrent to presenting for treatment appears to be fear of stigmatisation including fear of ostracism from the community, divorce and financial distress. Participants indicated that individual counselling and interaction with other people living with HIV would encourage women to present for HAART, to do so, and indicated that the entrance to the CTC should be placed to allow discreet access. Necessary steps towards encouraging HIV infected women to seek treatment include reducing self-stigma, assisting them to form empowering relationships and to gain financial independence and emphasising the beneficial effect of treatment for themselves and for their children by example.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"African portal on medical education","field_subtitle":"The Sub-Saharan African Medical Schools Study website","field_url":"http://www.samss.org/","body":"The Sub-Saharan African Medical Schools Study (SAMSS) website is a portal for information on medical education in Sub-Saharan Africa. It highlights reports and articles that shed light on the current state of medical education in the region and describes innovations and trends that will shape the future of medical education in Africa. Links to relevant resources are also provided, as well as information about the pioneering work done by the SAMSS team. SAMSS is committed to addressing the extremely low physician to population ratio (13/100,000) in sub-Saharan Africa, arguing that any efforts to stabilise and improve health in the region must address this shortage of physicians. The primary goal of SAMSS is to increase the level of practical knowledge about medical education in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to inform educators, policy makers, and international funders about the challenges and opportunities for increasing the capacity of African medical schools and the retention of their graduates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Analysing the implementation of the rural allowance in hospitals in North West Province, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Ditlopo P, Blaauw D, Bidwell P and Thomas S: Journal of Public Health Policy 32(S80\u2013S93), July 2011","field_url":"http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jphp/journal/v32/n1s/full/jphp201128a.html","body":"Using a policy analysis framework, the authors of this study analysed the implementation and perceived effectiveness of a rural allowance policy and its influence on the motivation and retention of health professionals in rural hospitals in the North West province of South Africa. They conducted 40 in-depth interviews with policy-makers, hospital managers, nurses, and doctors at five rural hospitals and found weaknesses in policy design and implementation. These weaknesses included: lack of evidence to guide policy formulation; restricting eligibility for the allowance to doctors and professional nurses; lack of clarity on the definition of rural areas; weak communication; and the absence of a monitoring and evaluation framework. Although the rural allowance was partially effective in the recruitment of health professionals, it has had unintended negative consequences of perceived divisiveness and staff dissatisfaction. The authors recommend that government should take more account of contextual and process factors in policy formulation and implementation so that policies have the intended impact.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"BRAC University admission to MPH Programme (International)","field_subtitle":"Application Deadline: 30 September 2011","field_url":"http://sph.bracu.ac.bd/academics/mph/Application_Form_MPH.pdf","body":"The BRAC University is calling for applicants for its Masters of Public Heath programme. Since its inception, the School has received 191 diverse students from different corners of the globe such as South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, Australia, North and South Americas, and Europe. The graduates move on to work for their respective governments, national and/or international NGOs, or with various donor and UN agencies. Additionally, universities and research organizations also acquire a large number of our MPH students. The MPH curriculum is structured to maximize learning around the health problems faced by communities in Bangladesh, and elsewhere. This includes extensive field-based instructions complemented by interactive classroom based work in teams. The School has a generous scholarship programme that aims to promote global access to the MPH amongst potential students from all over the world based on merit. The admission process includes an application, reference letters, statement of interest in public health, individual and group interviews, as well as written and oral tests.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Africa Programme for Advanced Research Epidemiology Training","field_subtitle":"No closing date given","field_url":"http://www.aparet.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=57%3Ascientific-fellowship-program&catid=34%3Ademo-category","body":"The Africa Programme for Advanced Research Epidemiology Training(APARET) is an European Union-funded programme whose goal is to support independent research activities by fellows in Africa . The programme will run for four years with three fellow intakes, and each intake will last for two years in selected African research training institutions. During this period, the fellows shall conduct epidemiologic research with their host institutes. A major part of the first year shall be the application for a major research grant. Each fellow shall be supported by a mentor and supervisor and a grant averaging 6,000 Euros to facilitate their research during the fellowship. Fellows will be supervised and trained in planning and conducting independent epidemiological research as well as in the analysis of epidemiological data. Further training will be provided on critically reviewing scientific papers and on the submission of scientific manuscripts to a peer-reviewed journal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: MRC/DfID African Research Leader scheme 2011/12","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 30 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.mrc.ac.uk/Fundingopportunities/Calls/ARL11-12/MRC008051","body":"The MRC/DfID African Research Leader scheme is awarded for non-clinical and clinical researchers of exceptional ability. The aim of the scheme is to strengthen research leadership across sub-Saharan Africa by attracting and retaining talented individuals undertaking high quality programmes of research. The ARL scheme will continue to build on existing strong research partnerships between African and UK research organizations by providing support for outstanding non-clinical and clinical researchers, ideally from less resourced, sub-Saharan Africa countries. The scheme is open to all research areas within the Medical Research Council\u2019s remit that address the priority health problems of people in developing countries and where the research is best conducted in sub-Saharan Africa. This includes biomedical and health research (including social sciences and public health research) relevant to national and regional health needs and priorities. Potential African Research Leader candidates must supply a high-quality science proposal, be affiliated to an African research organisation and have a UK partner (investigator and institution).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for concept notes: Expanding fiscal policies for global and national tobacco control","field_subtitle":"No closing date given","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Funding/Competitions/Pages/CompetitionDetails.aspx?CompetitionID=18","body":"The International Development Research Centre and the Canadian Global Tobacco Control Forum are calling for concept notes concerning the expansion of fiscal policies for global and national tobacco control. The key objective of this call is to generate knowledge designed to accelerate the adoption of effective fiscal policies for tobacco control in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). Key thematic areas include: research on the impact of various types of tobacco taxes or pricing policies; region-based research to establish actual and model budgets for tobacco control; research on coordinated regional and global taxes, tariffs and/or other levies on tobacco products and the profits from tobacco sales; and research to identify barriers to, and strategies for, accessing Official Development Assistance for tobacco control. The principal applicant must be a citizen or permanent resident of a LMIC and with a primary work affiliation in a LMIC institution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for concept notes: Promoting healthy diets","field_subtitle":"No closing date given","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Funding/Competitions/Pages/CompetitionDetails.aspx?CompetitionID=17","body":"The International Development Research Centre is calling for concept notes concerning the promotion of healthy diets as a key strategy for the prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in low- and middle-income countries(LMICs). The key objective of this call is to support Southern-led research designed to influence the adoption and implementation of effective policies and programmes for the promotion of healthy diets in LMICs. Key thematic areas include: research on policies, population-wide programs and community-based interventions that aim to discourage production and consumption unhealthy food products and promote healthy eating; and evidence syntheses or situation analyses to inform policy dialogues and the adoption and implementation of key interventions to address unhealthy diets as a key NCD risk factor. Please note that three major cross-cutting issues are central to the NCD programme: equity, intersectoral action and commercial influence on public health-related policy. The principal applicant must be a citizen or permanent resident of a LMIC and with a primary work affiliation in a LMIC institution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers for the WHO Bulletin","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: 20 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/5/11-088476.pdf","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) is calling for papers for all sections of the Bulletin and encourage authors to consider contributions that address any of the following topics: disease burden assessments in low-income countries, since information in this area is scarce; vaccination implementation and policy, particularly on the cost and public health benefit of vaccination programmes; and the evaluation of nonpharmaceutical public health measures since these are widely described as control measures, but there is less published evidence on their effectiveness than for pharmaceutical interventions (vaccines and medicines). In particular, WHO seeks submission of papers that document experiences from low-resource settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges in linking health research to policy: a commentary on developing a multi-stakeholder response to orphans and vulnerable children in Ghana ","field_subtitle":"Gyapong J, Selby R and Anakwah K: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(Suppl 1): S14, 16 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-S1-S14.pdf","body":"The Ghanaian government\u2019s strategy on orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) recommends they should be encouraged to live in their home communities rather than in institutions. The paper presents lessons here on efforts to use research to build a response across different agencies to address the problems that communities and families face in caring for these children in their communities. This approach to building consensus on research priorities points to the value of collaboration and dialogue with multiple stakeholders as a means of fostering ownership of a research process and supporting the relevance of research to different groups. The authors argue that if the context within which researchers, policy makers and stakeholders work were better understood, the links between them were improved and research were communicated more effectively, then better policy making which links across different sectors may follow. At the same time, collaboration among these different stakeholders to ensure that research meets social needs, must also satisfy the requirements of scientific rigour.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society, public action and accountability in Africa ","field_subtitle":"Devarajan S, Khemani S and Walton M: World Bank, Development Research Group Policy Research Working Paper 5733, July 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3phz3n4","body":"In this paper, the authors examine the potential role of civil society action in increasing state accountability for development in Sub-Saharan Africa. They build on the analytical framework of the World Development Report 2004 on accountability relationships, to emphasise the underlying political economy drivers of accountability and implications for how civil society is constituted and functions. The main argument is that the most important domain for improving accountability is through the political relations between citizens, civil society and state leadership. The evidence broadly suggests that when higher-level political leadership provides sufficient or appropriate powers for citizen participation in holding within-state agencies or frontline providers accountable, there is frequently positive impact on outcomes. However, the big question remaining for such types of interventions is how to improve the incentives of higher-level leadership to pursue appropriate policy design and implementation. The paper concludes that there is substantial scope for greater efforts in this domain, including through the support of external aid agencies. Such efforts and support should, however, build on existing political and civil society structures (rather than transplanting \u2018best practice\u2019 initiatives from elsewhere), and be structured for careful monitoring and assessment of impact.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Comparing private sector family planning services to government and NGO services in Ethiopia and Pakistan: how do social franchises compare across quality, equity and cost?","field_subtitle":"Shah NM, Wang W and Bishai DM: Health Policy and Planning 26:163\u2013171, March 2011","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/suppl_1/i63.full.pdf","body":"Policy makers in developing countries need to assess how public health programmes function across both public and private sectors. The authors of this paper propose an evaluation framework to assist in simultaneously tracking performance on efficiency, quality and access by the poor in family planning services. They applied this framework to field data from family planning programmes in Ethiopia and Pakistan, comparing independent private sector providers; social franchises of private providers; non-government organisation (NGO) providers; and government providers on these three factors. They found that franchised private clinics have higher quality than non-franchised private clinics in both countries. In Pakistan, the costs per client and the proportion of poorest clients showed no differences between franchised and non-franchised private clinics, whereas in Ethiopia, franchised clinics had higher costs and fewer clients from the poorest quintile. These results suggest that there are trade-offs between access, cost and quality of care that must be balanced as competing priorities. The relative programme performance of various service arrangements on each metric will be context specific, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Delivering happiness: Translating positive psychology intervention research for treating major and minor depressive disorders","field_subtitle":"Layous K, Chancellor J, Lyubomirsky S, Wang L and Doraiswamy PM: Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 17(8): 675\u2013683, July 2011","field_url":"http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/acm.2011.0139","body":"Despite the availability of many treatment options, depressive disorders remain a global public health problem, according to this study. In developing countries, the World Health Organisation estimates that less than 10% of those suffering from depression receive proper care due to poverty, stigma and lack of governmental mental health resources and providers. Positive activity interventions (PAIs) are a type of low-cost intervention that teaches individuals ways to increase their positive thinking, positive emotions and positive behaviours. In this article, the authors review the relevant literature on the effectiveness of various types of PAIs, draw on social psychology, affective neuroscience and psychophamacology research to propose neural models for how PAIs might relieve depression, and discuss the steps needed to translate the potential promise of PAIs as clinical treatments for individuals with major and minor depressive disorders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Development at risk: addressing non-communicable diseases at the United Nations High-level Meeting","field_subtitle":"Alwan AD, Galea G and Stuckler D: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(8): 546-547, August 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/8/11-091074.pdf","body":"Preparations for the United Nations High-level Meeting on Non-communicable Diseases in September 2011 have already begun through regional consultations in all six World Health Organisation (WHO) regions. These consultations have resulted in declarations or outcome documents that identify priorities for action against NCDs and outline the expectations of Member States. Based on the regional consultations, some of these expectations include: a greater commitment from policy-makers to NCD prevention; more effective mechanisms and monitoring of intersectoral action; greater accountability of non-health sectors; and scaling-up of WHO\u2019s Action Plan. Despite repeated external funding commitments such as the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action, NCDs receive less than 3% of development assistance for health even though they cause more than one-third of all premature deaths. Ultimately the outcomes of the high-level meeting will depend on the expressed priorities of Member States, the authors of this article argue. At the very least, they conclude, the meeting should increase awareness of NCDs among policy-makers and achieve higher levels of political commitment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic development leaving millions behind","field_subtitle":"D'Almeida K: Inter Press Services, 1 August 2011","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=56700","body":"The Society for International Development (SID)'s triennial World Congress, which concluded on 31 July 2011 in Washington, United States, drew over 1,000 attendees. According to the United Nations Development Programme, which attended the event, the emergence of new paths to development has grown along with the rise of middle- and low-income countries. However much of this growth has not been inclusive. A spokesperson for the UN Development Programme noted at the meeting that the empowerment of women was essential to the solid development of global international economies, a sentiment echoed by many others at the congress. Although 40% of participants were from the global South, one of the speakers, Sanjay Reddy expressed disappointment that the meeting was dominated by Northern development professionals, in particular those who appear to be engaged in for- profit contracting to execute development projects on behalf of organisations such as USAID. Reddy added that, if genuine grassroots development were to take place, SID should return to its original role of facilitating discussions between diverse groups, including voices that call for radically alternative methods to the current neoliberal agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Emerging economies and the development aid discourse","field_subtitle":"Tiwana MS: CIVICUS, August 2011","field_url":"http://www.bond.org.uk/pages/the-networker-emerging-economies-and-the-development-aid-discourse.html","body":"As the centre of global geo-politics continues to shift, much attention is being focused on the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) group of emerging economies and the IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa) group of emerging democracies as their power in global political and economic affairs has increased substantially, the author notes in this article. He calls attention to the implications of the growing power of BRICS and IBSA countries both individually and collectively for global civil society and development cooperation. From civil society\u2019s point of view, concerns have been raised about the fact that while aid is offered to other developing countries by BRICS countries, there is an overall lack of information about the basis on which aid is given by them. Civil society is notably absent from BRICS meetings and summits. Additionally, there is the question of BRICS countries\u2019 limited participation in ongoing multi-lateral processes to ensure harmonisation and transparency of aid. Traditionally, external funder countries have been involved in multiple processes and discussions to reduce aid overlap, faulty prioritisation and wastage. The author recommends greater south-south cooperation led by the democratic trio of IBSA countries. Their civil societies are active and also well placed to connect with their peers in the developing world to promote sustainable development underpinned by democratic values. But this will require some key foreign policy shifts for which civil society needs to lobby hard.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Engaging media in communicating research on sexual and reproductive health and rights in sub-Saharan Africa: experiences and lessons learned","field_subtitle":"Oronje R, Undie C, Zulu E and Crichton J: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(Suppl 1): S7, 16 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-S1-S7.pdf","body":"In sub-Saharan Africa media coverage of reproductive health issues is poor due to the weak capacity and motivation for reporting these issues by media practitioners, the authors of this paper argue. They describe the experiences of the African Population and Health Research Centre and its partners in cultivating the interest and building the capacity of the media in evidence-based reporting of reproductive health issues in sub-Saharan Africa. The authors note that the Research Centre\u2019s media strategy evolved over the years, including: enhancing journalists\u2019 interest in and motivation for reporting on reproductive health issues through training and competitive grants for outstanding reporting; building the capacity of journalists to report reproductive health research and the capacity of reproductive health researchers to communicate their research to media through training for both parties and providing technical assistance to journalists in obtaining and interpreting evidence; and establishing and maintaining trust and mutual relationships between journalists and researchers through regular informal meetings between journalists and researchers, organising field visits for journalists, and building formal partnerships with professional media associations and individual journalists. The authors conclude that a sustained mix of strategies that motivate, strengthen capacity of, and build relationships between journalists and researchers can be effective in enhancing quality and quantity of media coverage of research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"EPA update for the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group","field_subtitle":"Julian M: Trade Negotiations Insights 10(5), July 2011","field_url":"http://ictsd.org/i/news/tni/110497/","body":"Members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group and the European Union (EU) met on 31 May 2011 in Brussels, Belgium to continue ongoing negotiations on Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA). The ACP Ministers re-iterated their request for more flexibility on the part of the EU, including trade in medicines, and called for the reinforcement of the development components of EPAs. They also called for regional integration initiatives to be given precedence and for the preferential market access currently being provided under the EU\u2019s EPA Market Access Regulation to be maintained and extended to other ACP countries until negotiations are concluded. In contrast, the EU Commissioner warned that the market access provided since 2007 to ACP countries that concluded EPA negotiations is temporary and predicated upon implementation of EPAs by ACP countries. He also announced that, owing to prolonged delays and stalemates in the negotiations, by the end of 2011 both parties will have to assess whether concluding negotiations is actually feasible within a realistic timeframe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion Paper 87: Expansion of the private health sector in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Doherty J: EQUINET, August 2011","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20Diss%2087%20Private%20HS.pdf","body":"This review was commission by EQUINET to explore the implications of expansion of the private for profit health sector for equitable health systems in East and Southern Africa. It summarises the rationale behind the IFC\u2019s recommendations. It then explores whether there are signs of increasing for-profit private sector activity in the region, along the lines suggested by the IFC. The report then identifies issues of concern on private for profit activity in the health sector. It is an initial scoping exercise based on a desk review of predominantly grey literature.  It suggests from the evidence presented that Ministries of Health need to highlight both benefits and pitfalls of encouraging for-profit private sector provisioning in economic growth policies and assess the opportunity costs of supporting the for-profit private health sector as opposed to developing the public health system.  Comprehensive policies on the private sector need to be developed, together with a robust regulations and state capacities to monitor private sector activity and enforce regulations and sanctions. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter  127: Expanding the private health sector in our region - healthy partnership or Trojan horse? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity implications of coverage and use of insecticide treated nets distributed for free or with co-payment in two districts in Tanzania: A cross-sectional comparative household survey","field_subtitle":"Ruhago GM, Mujinja PG and Norheim OF: International Journal for Equity in Health 10(29), 21 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-10-29.pdf","body":"Arguments about the most effective and equitable approach to distributing insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) centre around whether to provide ITNs free of charge or continue with existing social marketing strategies. In this study, researchers in Tanzania examined the equity implications of ownership and use of ITNs in households from different socioeconomic quintiles in a district with free ITNs (Mpanda) and a district without free ITN distribution (Kisarawe). They found that ownership of ITNs increased from 29% in the 2007/08 national survey to 90% after the roll out of free ITNs in Mpanda, and use increased from 13% to 77%. Inequality was considerably lower in Mpanda. In Kisarawe, ownership of ITNs increased from 48% in the 2007/08 national survey to 53%, with marked inequality. The results suggest that  inequality in ownership and use of ITNs may be addressed through the provision of free ITNs to all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"EU-India agreement in WTO dispute raises bar for EU drug seizures","field_subtitle":"New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 30 July 2011 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4466ohx","body":"India and the European Union (EU) have signed an agreement that puts more stringent conditions on EU customs authorities that consider stopping shipments of generic pharmaceuticals passing through Europe. The EU has committed to change the regulation that led to seizures in 2008 of legitimate generics from India passing through the Netherlands and other European countries on their way to South America and Africa. The seizures had been initiated by European patent holders even though the shipments were in transit and not destined for European markets. A key element of the agreement is the core principle that \u2018the mere fact that medicines are in transit through EU territory, and that there is a patent title applicable to such medicines in EU territory, does not in itself constitute enough grounds for customs authorities in any Member State to suspect that the medicines at stake infringe patent rights\u2019. Only if there is adequate evidence of a likely diversion of medicines into the EU market, then can EU authorities have grounds for suspicion of infringement of intellectual property rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Exclusive breastfeeding promotion by peer counsellors in sub-Saharan Africa (PROMISE-EBF): a cluster-randomised trial","field_subtitle":"Tyllesk\u00e4r T, Jackson D, Meda N, Engebretsen IMS, Chopra M, Diallo AH et al: The Lancet 378(9789): pp 420-427, 30 July 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3j45n8v","body":"Exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) is reported to be a life-saving intervention in low-income settings. In this study, researchers evaluated the effectiveness of breastfeeding counselling by peer counsellors in Africa. Twenty-four communities in Burkina Faso, 24 in Uganda and 34 in South Africa were included in the study. Of the 2,579 mother-infant pairs assigned to the intervention or control clusters in the three countries, EBF prevalences were recorded along with prevalence of diarrhea. The researchers found that, although it does not affect diarrhoea prevalence, low-intensity individual breastfeeding peer counselling is an achievable target and they urge governments in low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa to scale up EBF counseling to increase the prevalence of EBF.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Expanding the private health sector in our region - healthy partnership or Trojan horse? ","field_subtitle":"Jane Doherty, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn 2007, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group released a report that observed that over half of health care funding in Africa comes from private sources and that there is considerable spending on private health care providers.  It proposed that, if rapid economic growth in Africa is expanding the middle-class, it is also increasing the demand for private health care.  The report encouraged investment in the private health sector as one of the top five areas for investment in Africa. Subsequently, the World Bank introduced the \u201cAfrica Health Fund\u201d, supported by the IFC and the Gates Foundation, amongst others, to fund efforts to expand the private health sector in Africa.  \r\n\r\nShould development aid be used to support the growth of for-profit private providers and private health insurance, as the IFC suggests? Should African governments encourage growth of private for-profit health services? Is this as healthy a partnership as the World Bank and IFC would suggest?\r\n\r\nThese questions need to be answered in all countries in East and Southern Africa, as the private sector already exists, or is growing, in all.  While the not-for-profit private sector, such as faith based services,  has had a long presence and co-operation with governments in the region, growth in the private-for-profit sector appears to be a new trend. \r\n\r\nThere are many examples. In the hospital sector, the Indian hospital group, Fortis Healthcare, and African Medical Investments (which is based in the Isle of Wight in the UK) have initiated investments in high-end \u2018boutique\u2019 hospitals that target the high-income domestic, expatriate, diplomatic and medical tourism markets in Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique and Tanzania, while South African private hospital groups are expanding into other African countries.  The US-based hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners has bought a controlling stake in African Medical Investments which aims to become a leading operator of high-end hospitals. \r\n\r\nAn alliance between two pharmaceutical manufacturers, the South African company, Aspen Pharmacare, and the multinational, GlaxoSmithKline, is leading expansion into many countries in the region.  Private health funders are also spreading. The Tanzanian private health insurer, Strategis, is set to expand rapidly with the sponsorship of the \u201cHealth Insurance Fund\u201d, supported by the Dutch Ministry of Development Cooperation. This fund provides a mix of public, donor and private funding to stimulate private health insurance companies as a  critical step in creating demand for private health care provision.  PharmAccess, a Dutch NGO appointed to manage the Fund, is developing models and contracts to facilitate private health insurance elsewhere in Africa. The \u201cInvestment Fund for Health in Africa\u201d established in 2007, also from the Netherlands and with Pfizer amongst its shareholders, provides private equity to invest in private health care providers. In 2010, it purchased a 20% stake in a private insurance scheme, AAR East Africa, that is based in Kenya but operates in many other countries in the region.  \r\n\r\nSuch initiatives bring immediate investment resources to the region, and provide services to some of the population  However, the experience of South Africa, the country with the longest and most extensive experience of the formal private sector in the region, raises questions about the impact these sorts of activity have on the equity and sustainability of the  wider health system.  \r\n\r\nIn South Africa, after de-regulation of the private health sector in the late 1980s, there was the same growth of private health insurers and providers now being proposed in other parts of Africa. As McIntyre shows in EQUINET Discussion paper 84, this was accompanied by increasing costs of health insurance, rising fees charged by private providers (especially hospitals) and low and shrinking coverage of the population. In 1981 an average household with only one member working in the formal sector devoted just over 7% of its wages to medical scheme contributions for the family. By 2007 this stood at almost 30% of average wages. Monopolies emerged, as the same company involved in private hospitals would also buy into ambulance services and a range of other health care activities. Private beds consolidated over the years within three large private hospital groups. This limited the competition that was supposed to reduce costs and decreased, rather than increased, consumer choice. While this expansion was taking place the private sector also received various public subsidies. At the same time it attracted skilled health professionals trained at considerable public cost away from the public sector.  \r\n\r\nThese trends have proved very difficult to reverse in the 2000s in South Africa, despite considerable efforts by government to re-regulate the sector.  It has made it more difficult to develop policies to achieve universal coverage. The experience is a warning signal for other countries in the region of the political and economic costs of a private-for-profit health sector expanding in a relatively unregulated environment.\r\n\r\nGovernments and communities cannot be mere spectactors of these developments.  They, together with external funders, should be asking questions before they open the door to such trends elsewhere in the region: Who will benefit from the expansion of the private for-profit sector? What consequences will the expansion have on health service prices, resources, services and coverage? Will it support national health policy goals? What regulations and capacities exist in the state to manage this process?\r\n\r\nThere is at present inadequate evidence to provide clear answers to these questions, not least because it is difficult to obtain financial and other information from the private sector. Given their duty to protect the health of the whole population, Ministries of Health should thus remain cautious about fostering the expansion of the for-profit private sector and entering into public-private partnerships without getting clear information about the effects on the equity and sustainability of the wider health system.  \r\n\r\nWhile arguments are being put forward about the investment and profit potential of the private health sector, Ministries of Health need to make clear to their government colleagues not only the advantages, but also the potential pitfalls of encouraging for-profit private sector expansion as part of their economic growth policies. The opportunity costs of supporting the for-private health sector as opposed to developing the public health system need to be made visible. If private investments in the health sector are proposed, it is a duty of the state to require prior independent health impact assessments, especially where public subsidies from government or development aid funds are involved. The assessments should cover issues such as the impact on health care coverage for low income groups, projections of costs and affordability, impacts on public sector resources, the viability of the entire health system, and so on.  \r\n\r\nMinistries of Health and the public cannot allow private sector expansion to take place in a vacuum. Government needs to develop comprehensive policies and a robust regulatory framework for the private sector that protects against the development of monopolies and unethical business practices and aligns investments to national policies and core social objectives, particularly for improving the coverage of appropriate, good quality services in rural areas and low-income populations. Health ministries need to ensure that they have departments and capacities to engage with the private sector and to carry out the basic functions of \u2018due diligence,\u2019  including co-ordination, monitoring, regulation, management, inspection and enforcement of sanctions.  \r\n\r\nAnd as a bottom line, if governments are to gain support for their efforts to manage the for-profit private sector in line with national goals, they must inject resources into the public health system so that it can provide an equitable, effective and good quality alternative to private care.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please read EQUINET Discussion paper 87 and other materials on the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org and visit the Health Economics Unit website at http://heu-uct.org.za/ ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploring new health markets: experiences from informal providers of transport for maternal health services in Eastern Uganda","field_subtitle":"Pariyo G: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(Suppl 1): S10, August 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/11/S1/S10","body":"The author of this paper examined the functioning of the informal transport markets in facilitating access to maternal health care in Eastern Uganda, to demonstrate the role that higher institutions of learning can play in designing projects that can increase the utilisation of maternal health services. Data were collected through qualitative and quantitative methods that included focus group interviews and a review of project documents and facility-level data. There was a marked increase in attendance of antenatal, and delivery care services, with the contracted transporters playing a leading role in mobilising mothers to attend services, the authors found. The project also had economic spill-over effects to the transport providers, their families and community generally. However, some challenges were faced including difficulty in setting prices for paying transporters, and poor enforcement of existing traffic regulations. The findings indicate that locally existing resources such as motorcycle riders can be used innovatively to reduce challenges caused by geographical inaccessibility and a poor transport network with resultant increases in the utilisation of maternal health services. However, care must be taken to mobilise the resources needed and to ensure that there is enforcement of laws that will ensure the safety of clients and the transport providers themselves.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Famine in east Africa caused by human actions not drought","field_subtitle":"Answerman A: Pambazuka News 543: 4 August 2011","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/75437","body":"The famine spreading across the Horn of Africa is not principally the result of drought, but due to political and social circumstances that urgently need to be addressed, the author of this article argues. Global media reports attribute the main cause for the famine to successive seasons of failed rains, yet the author notes here that there has been only one failed rainy season in the Horn so far. The primary cause of the famine is war, the author argues, which has disrupted farmers in Somalia from their normal routines. In the past, a single rainy season failure was easily augmented by relying on stored food from surplus harvests, or from importing food from further south, but violence and fighting has kept farmers from their fields, even if the rains are good, as they were this year. And while there is surplus food, it isn\u2019t getting to the famine area due to lack of infrastructure and local disruption of services. Tanzania, which has had a bumper harvest so far this year, has also banned agricultural sales to the north, for fear it will deplete its own surpluses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness","field_subtitle":"Busan, Korea: 29 November-1 December 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.oecd.org/document/12/0,3746,en_2649_3236398_46057868_1_1_1_1,00.html","body":"At the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, approximately 2,000 delegates will review global progress in improving the impact and effectiveness of aid, and make commitments that set a new agenda for development. The Forum follows meetings in Rome, Paris and Accra that helped transform aid relationships between donors and partners into true vehicles for development cooperation. Based on 50 years of field experience and research, the five principles that resulted from these fora encourage local ownership, alignment of development programmes around a country\u2019s development strategy, harmonisation of practices to reduce transaction costs, the avoidance of fragmented efforts and the creation of results frameworks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Public-Private Health Partnerships: lessons learned from ten years of experience and evaluation","field_subtitle":"Buse K and Tanaka S: International Dental Journal 6(Suppl 2): 2-10, August 2011","field_url":"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1875-595X.2011.00034.x/full","body":"The authors of this paper reviewed and synthesised findings from eight independent evaluations of Global Health Partnerships (GHPs) as well as research projects they had conducted themselves. They present the major drivers of the current GHP trend, briefly review the significant contributions of GHPs to global health and set out common findings from evaluations of these global health governance instruments. The paper answers the question of how to improve GHP performance with reference to a series of lessons emerging from the past ten years of experience. These lessons cover the following areas: value-added and niche orientation; adequate resourcing of secretariats; management practices; governance practices; ensuring divergent interests are met; systems strengthening; and continuous self-improvement. The authors argue in favour of sustained critical reflection and independent evaluation of GHPs so as to ensure optimal results, given the high level of resources that collaboration demands. They call for the opening up of spaces for public debate so that the findings from evaluation can be frankly discussed, as well as highlight the need to apply lessons more widely across and within partnerships.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalisation and health inequalities: Can a human rights paradigm create space for civil society action? ","field_subtitle":"London L,  Schneider H: Social Science & Medicine, doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.03.022 ","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953611001857","body":"While neoliberal globalisation is associated with increasing inequalities, global integration has simultaneously strengthened the dissemination of human rights discourse across the world. This paper explores the seeming contradiction that globalisation is conceived as disempowering nations states\u2019 ability to act in their population\u2019s interests, yet implementation of human rights obligations requires effective states to deliver socio-economic entitlements, such as health. Central to the actions required of the state to build a health system based on a human rights approach is the notion of accountability. Two case studies are used to explore the constraints on states meeting their human rights obligations regarding health, the first drawing on data from interviews with parliamentarians responsible for health in East and Southern Africa, and the second reflecting on the response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa. The case studies illustrate the importance of a human rights paradigm in strengthening parliamentary oversight over the executive in ways that prioritise pro-poor protections and in increasing leverage for resources for the health sector within parliamentary processes. Further, a rights framework creates the space for civil society action to engage with the legislature to hold public officials accountable and confirms the importance of rights as enabling civil society mobilization, reinforcing community agency to advance health rights for poor communities. In this context, critical assessment of state incapacity to meet claims to health rights raises questions as to the diffusion of accountability rife under modern international aid systems. Such diffusion of accountability opens the door to \u2018cunning\u2019 states to deflect rights claims of their populations. We argue that human rights, as both a normative framework for legal challenges and as a means to create room for active civil society engagement provide a means to contest both the real and the purported constraints imposed by globalisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya\u2019s governance reforms \u2018unstoppable\u2019, says Kibaki","field_subtitle":"AfriMap: 18 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.afrimap.org/newsarticle.php?id=3012","body":"Kenyan President, Mwai Kibaki, has assured members of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) that his government is committed to undertaking far-reaching reforms in the management of public affairs and entrenchment in constitutionality. President Kibaki affirmed that Kenya\u2019s process of reforming governance would continue and urged the APRM team to share their experiences, particularly positive developments realised in other parts of the world that would be of value to Kenya and other African nations. Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, noted that Kenya was a pioneer in the review mechanism and was keen to evaluate the status of the country\u2019s governance and explore ways of improving weak areas. He added that Kenya was open to scrutiny by peers and looked forward to a full examination and recommendations for appropriate remedy for various challenges facing the nation and its people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Law on domestic violence a step forward for women\u2019s rights in Angola","field_subtitle":"Redvers L: Inter Press Services, 13 July2011","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=56464","body":"Women suffering domestic abuse who are financially dependent on their abusers can now report the crime with the assurance that they will be able to get financial and medical support from the state, thanks to Angola\u2019s new law on domestic violence. Women\u2019s campaigners have welcomed the introduction of the new law, which was signed into the statue books on 8 July 2011, and which criminalises domestic violence and offers protection to victims and their families. Until now domestic violence had not been illegal in Angola \u2013 and on the rare occasions it reached court, it was prosecuted under rape, assault and battery laws. The new law guarantees support to victims, through safe houses, medical treatment and financial and legal help. In addition, violence has been designated as a \u2018public crime\u2019, which means anyone can report it to the police, not just the victim. However, no details have yet been given about how much money will be made available to victims.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Lives saved by tuberculosis control and prospects for achieving the 2015 global target for reducing tuberculosis mortality","field_subtitle":"Glaziou P, Floyd K, Korenromp EL, Sismanidis C, Bierrenbach AL, Williams BG et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(8): 573-582, August 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/8/11-087510.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers assessed whether the global target of halving tuberculosis (TB) mortality between 1990 and 2015 can be achieved and estimated the number of lives saved globally by the DOTS/Stop TB Strategy of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Mortality from TB since 1990 was estimated for 213 countries using established methods endorsed by WHO. The researchers found that TB mortality among HIV-negative (HIV&#8722;) people fell by 36% between 1990 and 2009 and they predict it could be halved by 2015. The overall decline (when including HIV-positive people, who comprise 12% of all TB cases) was 19%. Between 1995 and 2009, 49 million TB patients were treated under the DOTS/Stop TB Strategy, saving 4.6\u20136.3 million lives, with a further 1 million lives that could be saved annually by 2015. The researchers conclude that their findings indicate that the global target of halving TB deaths by 2015 relative to 1990 is possible. Intensified efforts to reduce deaths among HIV+ TB cases are still needed, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Makerere University College of Health Sciences\u2019 role in addressing challenges in health service provision at Mulago National Referral Hospital","field_subtitle":"Kizza IB, Tugumisirize J, Tweheyo R, Mbabali S, Kasangaki A, Nshimye E et al: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(Suppl 1): S7, 9 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-11-S1-S7.pdf","body":"In 2009, as part of a strategic planning process, Makerere University College undertook a qualitative study to examine care and service provision at Mulago National Referral Hospital (MNRH), identify challenges, gaps, and solutions, and explore how the University could contribute to improving care and service delivery at MNRH. Twenty-three key informant interviews and seven focus group discussions were conducted with nurses, doctors, administrators, clinical officers and other key stakeholders. Participants identified a number of challenges to care and service delivery at MNRH, including resource constraints, staff inadequacies, overcrowding, a poorly functioning referral system, limited quality assurance, and a cumbersome procurement system. They also pointed to insufficiencies in the teaching of professionalism and communication skills to students, and patient care challenges that included lack of access to specialised services, risk of infections, and inappropriate medications. The authors recommend addressing these barriers by strengthening the relationship between the hospital and Makerere. Strategic partnerships and creative use of existing resources, both human and financial, could improve quality of care and service delivery.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Making local government work: An activist\u2019s guide","field_subtitle":"Section27: August 2011","field_url":"http://www.localgovernmentaction.org/PDFs/LG%20GUIDE%20FINAL%20TO%20PRINT.pdf","body":"This guide sets out the legal responsibilities of South African local government and our rights under the Constitution and in law. It shows how to engage government from inside, by participating in formal processes, and from outside by going public through complaints, petitions, protest action, the media and the courts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal depression and early childhood growth in developing countries: systematic review and meta-analysis","field_subtitle":"Surkan PJ, Kennedy CE, Hurley KM and Black MM: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(8): 607-615, August 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/8/11-088187.pdf","body":"In this paper, the authors investigated the relationship between maternal depression and child growth in developing countries through a systematic literature review and meta-analysis. Seventeen studies were included, with a total of 13,923 mother-and-child pairs from 11 countries. The authors found that children of mothers with depression or depressive symptoms were more likely to be underweight or stunted. The selected studies indicated that if the infant population were entirely unexposed to maternal depressive symptoms, 23% to 29% fewer children would be underweight or stunted. The authors call for rigorous prospective studies to identify mechanisms and causes. Early identification, treatment and prevention of maternal depression may help reduce child stunting and underweight in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Millennium Development Goals: progress towards the health-related Millennium Development Goals","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: Fact sheet 290, May 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs290/en/index.html","body":"According to this fact sheet measuring progress towards achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals, annual global deaths of children under five years of age fell to 8.1 million in 2009 from 12.4 million in 1990. Fewer children are underweight. The percentage of underweight children under five years old is estimated to have dropped from 25% in 1990 to 16% in 2010. More women get skilled help during childbirth. The proportion of births attended by a skilled health worker has increased globally, however, in the WHO Africa and South-East Asia regions fewer than 50% of all births were attended. Fewer people are contracting HIV. New HIV infections have declined by 17% globally from 2001\u20132009. Tuberculosis treatment is more successful. Existing cases of TB are declining, along with deaths among HIV-negative TB cases. More people have safe drinking-water, but not enough have toilets. The world is on track to achieve the MDG target on access to safe drinking-water but more needs to be done to achieve the sanitation target.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"MSF launches: Revising TRIPS for public health: an ideas contest ","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 19 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.msfaccess.org/main/access-patents/revising-trips-for-public-health-an-ideas-contest-from-msf /","body":"On the occasion of the ten-year anniversary of the Doha Declaration, Medicins sans Frontieres (MSF) is launching an \u2018ideas contest\u2019 on how to revise TRIPS so that it genuinely meets global public health needs. Contestants are asked to respond to the following question: Can TRIPS be reformed to meet public health needs? If your answer is YES, describe your idea for how the treaty should be changed. If NO, explain why not, and propose an alternative. Anyone is eligible to submit an entry, either as an individual, a team, and/or on behalf of an institution. The contest seeks to attract ideas from around the world from creative thinkers who may be academics, students, activists, analysts, government officials, journalists, or from the private sector. Submissions from low- and middle-income countries are particularly encouraged. There are two submission options: Option 1: A written essay of 500-1000 words (excluding footnotes and references). Option 2: An audio visual entry: video, audio, slideshow or photofilm of no more than five minutes. Submissions should succinctly describe a proposal to change the TRIPS Agreement so that it is conducive to global public health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"National policy development for cotrimoxazole prophylaxis in Malawi, Uganda and Zambia: the relationship between context, evidence and links","field_subtitle":"Hutchinson E, Parkhurst J, Phiri S, Gibb DM, Chishinga N, Droti B and Hoskins S: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(Suppl 1): S6, 16 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-S1-S6.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers conducted a comparative analysis of cotrimoxazole preventive therapy (CPT) in Malawi, Uganda and Zambia. They held 47 in-depth interviews to examine the influence of context, evidence and the links between researcher, policy makers and those seeking to influence the policy process. In relation to context, they found a number of factors to be influential, including government structures and their focus, funder interest and involvement, healthcare infrastructure and other uses of cotrimoxazole and related drugs in the country. In terms of the nature of the evidence, the researchers found that how policy makers perceived the strength of evidence behind international recommendations was crucial (if evidence was considered weak then the recommendations were rejected). Finally, the links between different research and policy actors were considered of critical importance, with overlaps between researcher and policy maker networks crucial to facilitate knowledge transfer. Within these networks, in each country the policy development process relied on a powerful policy entrepreneur who helped get CPT onto the policy agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"New radio show on African health care systems: African Health Dialogues","field_subtitle":"African Views Radio: August 2011","field_url":"http://www.africanviews.org/index.php/events/viewevent/30-history-of-health-care-systems-in-africa-on-av-radio","body":"Every Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Standard time, African Views Radio holds regular discussions on health care systems in Africa in a show called African Health Dialogues. The forum is accessible to online audiences live on air and also via podcast. There is also an opportunity for people to call in via phone to participate in the discussions from any part of the world. The first show aired on 30 July 2011 and explored the status of healthcare systems in Africa with respect to the past, present and future. The producers of the programme are inviting participants to call in and join the discussions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"No excuse for missing the goal","field_subtitle":"Simonelli M: Action Aid International, 21 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.actionaid.org/2011/07/no-excuse-missing-goal","body":"Low-income countries bear over 60% of the HIV disease burden, but ActionAid argue that their total annual resources for HIV went down from 2009 to 2010. This raises a gap between resources available and needed. To close this gap by 2015, UNAIDS estimate that the international community needs to raise an additional US$6 billion annually, with a parallel increase in commitments for the period 2011-2020. Proposed potential sources of funding include innovative financing mechanisms, indirect taxation (airline tickets, mobile phone usage, exchange rate transactions), front-loading mechanisms (IFF-Im) and advance market commitments. The author urges pharmaceutical companies to enter into negotiations with the Patented Medicines Pool and to ensure that the geographic scope of these licensing agreements includes low- and middle-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Non Communicable Diseases: Will industry influence derail UN summit?","field_subtitle":"Cohen D: BMJ 2011;343:d5328","field_url":"","body":"In the run up to the UN summit on non-communicable diseases, there are fears that industry interests might be trumping evidence based public health interventions. Will anything valuable be agreed? With only weeks to go before the summit, years of negotiations seem to be stalling. Discussions have stopped on the document that forms the spine of the summit, and charities are concerned that governments are trying to wriggle out of commitments. For example food is proving to be a sticking point again. Changes to language in the latest version of the draft document are subtle but clearly important. While the so called G77 group of lower income states\u2014including India, China, Kenya, and Brazil\u2014argue that saturated fat should be reduced in processed products, as well as sugar and salt, that recommendation is being resisted by the US, Canada, Australia, and the EU. Other areas of industry interest are proving contentious.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/36330","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Participants called to organise activities at the \u201cPeople First, Not Finance\u201d Alter-Forum","field_subtitle":"French G8G20 2011 Coalition: 27 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.mobilisationsg8g20.org/tous-a-nice-face-au-g20/article/register-an-activity-for-the-alter-forum-in-nice.html","body":"The G20 Summit will take place on 3-4 November 2011 in Cannes, France, and preparations are progressing for the Alter-Forum to be held in Nice, from 1-4 November 2011. The \u201cPeople First, Not Finance\u201d Alter-Forum will be organised around six themes: stop austerity and end inequalities (austerity, employment, social rights, health and welfare); focus on the people, not the market (finance regulation and debt); change the system, not the planet (environment and development); don\u2019t gamble with our food (agriculture, food); indignados, rebels and solidarity (democracy and human rights); and global governance. Several activities will be organised by the coalition, including a protest on 1 November and a press conference on 4 November at the end of the alter-forum and the G20 Summit. The coalition calls on all civil society groups, social movements, NGOs and trade unions to take the initiative of organising one or several events during the Alter-Forum.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Perception and valuations of community-based education and service by alumni at Makerere University College of Health Sciences","field_subtitle":"Mwanika A, Okullo I, Kaye DK, Muhwezi W, Atuyambe L, Nabirye RC: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(Suppl 1): S5, 9 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-11-S1-S5.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers surveyed the alumni of Community-Based Education and Service (COBE) programmes at Makerere University, Uganda, to obtain their perceptions of the management and administration of COBE and whether COBE had helped develop their confidence as health workers, competence in primary health care and willingness and ability to work in rural communities. A total of 150 alumni were contacted, of which 24 (13 females and 11 males) were selected for focus group discussions. The alumni almost unanimously agree that the initial three years of COBES were very successful in terms of administration and coordination. COBES was credited for contributing to development of confidence as health workers, team work, communication skills, competence in primary health care and willingness to work in rural areas. The alumni also identified various challenges associated with administration and coordination of COBES at Makerere. The authors conclude that health planners should take advantage of the long-term positive impact of COBES and provide the programmes with more support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy Brief 24: Preventing substandard, falsified medicines and protecting access to generic medicines in Africa","field_subtitle":"SEATINI; TARSC","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20Polbrief24Counterfeits.pdf","body":"Anti-counterfeiting laws and actions have raised concern about such laws and actions not undermining the flexibilities in the World Trade Organisation TRIPS agreement to protect access to affordable and generic medicines. At the same time, importing countries need measures to protect against substandard imported drugs. The 2011 World Health Assembly resolved that a working group review World Health Organisation (WHO) policy on counterfeit, falsified and substandard medicines, and WHOs relationship with IMPACT. This policy brief defines counterfeit, substandard and falsified medicines. It points to the separate measures and mandates needed to combat each: for dealing with fraudulent trade mark and intellectual property (IP) infringement in counterfeit medicines by IP authorities, for ensuring that any anti-counterfeit measures protect TRIPS flexibilities, including for access to generic medicines; and for national drug regulatory authorities to ensure that substandard and falsified medicines do not compromise health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy Brief 25: Pandemic Influenza Preparedness: sharing of influenza viruses and access to vaccines and other benefits","field_subtitle":"SEATINI; TARSC","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20Pol%20Brief25%20PIP.pdf","body":"The sharing by countries of influenza virus samples is important for vaccine development, and for understanding how viruses are mutating. Developing countries have thus freely provided samples to the World Health Organisation (WHO). But when private pharmaceutical companies use the samples to develop and patent vaccines which the same developing countries cannot afford, this is unjust and exposes thousands of people in developing countries to preventable deaths. This policy brief outlines the opportunities that African countries have to negotiate for equitable benefit sharing in the use of viral resources, through international treaties. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources provide for fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of biological resources. The brief provides information on their enabling clauses and outlines the options that African countries may consider in their negotiations for an equitable system. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Porn video shows, local brew, and transactional sex: HIV risk among youth in Kisumu, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Njue C, Voeten HA and Remes P: BMC Public Health 11(635), 8 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-635.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers conducted a qualitative study to explore risk situations that can explain the high HIV prevalence among youth in Kisumu town, Kenya. They conducted in-depth interviews with 150 adolescents aged 15 to 20, held four focus group discussions, and made 48 observations at places where youth spend their free time. Porn video shows and local brew dens were identified as popular events where unprotected multipartner, concurrent, coerced and transactional sex occurs between adolescents. Forced sex, gang rape and multiple concurrent relationships characterised the sexual encounters of youth, frequently facilitated by the abuse of alcohol, which is available for minors at low cost in local brew dens. A substantial number of girls and young women engaged in transactional sex, often with much older, wealthier partners. The authors conclude that local brew dens and porn video halls facilitate risky sexual encounters between youth and should be regulated and monitored by the government. Young men should be targeted in prevention activities, to change their attitudes related to power and control in relationships, while girls should be empowered how to negotiate safe sex, and their poverty should be addressed through income-generating activities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Provision of injectable contraceptives in Ethiopia through community-based reproductive health agents","field_subtitle":"Prata N, Gessessew A, Cartwright A and Fraser A: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(8): 556-564, August 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/8/11-086710.pdf","body":"The objective of this study was to determine whether community-based health workers in a rural region of Ethiopia can provide injectable contraceptives to women with similar levels of safety, effectiveness and acceptability as health extension workers. The researchers examined the provision of injectable contraceptives by community-based reproductive health agents (CBRHAs). A total of 1,062 women participated in the study. Compared with health post clients, the clients of CBRHAs were, on average, slightly older, less likely to be married and less educated, and they had significantly more living children. Women seeking services from CBRHAs were also significantly more likely to be using injectable contraceptives for the first time; health post clients were more likely to have used them in the past. In addition, clients of CBRHAs were less likely to discontinue using injectable contraceptives over three injection cycles than health post clients. In conclusion, receiving injectable contraceptives from CBRHAs proved as safe and acceptable to this sample of Ethiopian women as receiving them in health posts from health extension workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Report from the 8th World Congress on Health Economics","field_subtitle":"Future Health Systems: August 2011 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3hcl9uy","body":"From 9 to 13 July 2011, members of the Future Health Systems consortium gathered in Toronto, Canada, to participate in the 8th World Congress on Health Economics (iHEA 2011). Following a keynote address that considered the risks of a polarised debate between private or public health care, a presentation considered the future of working with health markets. The focus of the Congress was how to deliver quality health services. Participants argued that ensuring quality in inequitable contexts requires the skillful combination of commodities with knowledge. With this in mind, two panels were convened to look at how both supply side and demand side factors can be altered to improve quality of health care, in terms of both ethics and economics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Report on nine provincial community consultations on health sector reform","field_subtitle":"Black Sash: August 2011","field_url":"http://www.blacksash.org.za/images/final_nhi_synthesis_report.pdf","body":"This report on public healthcare provision in South Africa revealed deficiencies in the national health care system, including a shortage of ambulances, clinics, medical personnel and medication. More than 400 community-based and nongovernment organisations, human rights and health organisations and almost every district municipality across the country participated in the assessment. Patients complained of verbal abuse, discrimination and violation of patient rights, especially with regard to confidentiality. The environmental causes of illness, including poor water quality and a lack of proper sanitation was commonly noted, putting pressure on the health system. Deep concern was also expressed that those suffering from chronic illnesses needed access to social and financial support as well as medical treatment. The consultations exposed an absence of effective monitoring and evaluation systems. There are no central points where complaints can be lodged, the report notes. The report has been released ahead of the scheduled parliamentary debates on the proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Scaling up antiretroviral therapy in Uganda: Using supply chain management to appraise health systems strengthening","field_subtitle":"Windisch R, Waiswa P, Neuhann F, Scheibe F and de Savigny D: Globalization and Health 7(25), 1 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-7-25.pdf","body":"Are Uganda\u2019s health systems are being strengthened to sustain access to antiretroviral therapy (ART)? This study applies systems thinking to assess supply chain management, the role of external support and whether investments create the needed synergies to strengthen health systems. The authors combined data from the literature and key informant interviews with observations at health service delivery level in a study district. Findings indicate that current drug supply chain management in Uganda is characterised by parallel processes and information systems that result in poor quality and inefficiencies. Less than expected health system performance, stock outs and other shortages affect ART and primary care in general. Poor performance of supply chain management is amplified by weak conditions at all levels of the health system, including the areas of financing, governance, human resources and information. Governance issues include the lack to follow up initial policy intentions and a focus on narrow, short-term approaches. In conclusion, the study indicates serious missing system prerequisites. The findings suggest that root causes and capacities across the system have to be addressed synergistically to enable systems that can match and accommodate investments in disease-specific interventions. The multiplicity and complexity of existing challenges require a long-term and systems perspective essentially in contrast to the current short term and programme-specific nature of external assistance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Secrecy surrounds rape of men in war-torn Africa ","field_subtitle":"Storr W: The Observer, 17 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jul/17/the-rape-of-men","body":"Because there has been so little research into the rape of men during war, it's not possible to say with any certainty why it happens or even how common it is, according to this article. Ugandan activists report a veil of secrecy surrounding male rape - the organisations working on sexual and gender-based violence don't talk about it and it\u2019s systematically silenced, even in reports, the author notes. To fill the gap in data, the Refugee Law Project (RLP) in Uganda produced a documentary in 2010 called Gender Against Men, but the producer of the film alleges attempts were made to stop him by well-known international aid agencies. RLP further alleges that one of its funders refused to provide any more funding unless RLP promised that 70% of their client base was female, despite a critical shortage of health and support programmes for vulnerable men in Uganda. RLP calls on African governments, international and local aid agencies and human rights defenders at the United Nations to acknowledge male rape as humanitarian and medical crisis needing urgent attention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Securing the future today: Synthesis of strategic information on HIV and young people","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS Global Interagency Task Team on HIV and young people: August 2011","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/media/unaids/contentassets/documents/unaidspublication/2011/20110727_JC2112_Synthesis_report_en.pdf","body":"According to this report, despite a broad awareness of HIV, comprehensive knowledge of HIV and how to prevent it is still low, even in countries that have been most affected by the epidemic. There are encouraging signs that HIV-prevention efforts are resulting in positive change in sexual behaviours, accompanied by declines in HIV prevalence among young people in the most-affected countries. This should not be cause for complacency, UNAIDS warns. Instead, these successful services and programmes should be built upon to further efforts to reverse the epidemic among young people. To effectively advance the response among young people, UNAIDS argues that there is a need to increase investments. However, it also cautions that simply directing more resources will not increase HIV testing and uptake of services among young people. Instead, empowering young people and particularly young women to exercise their rights to sexual and reproductive health, improve programmes for young people and repeal national laws and policies that restrict access to HIV services for young people is required to protect future generations from HIV. The report highlights that young people are a key resource to reverse the global AIDS epidemic and lead the response in decades to come, but it stresses that the legal and policy barriers that prevent young people from accessing HIV services must be addressed, and young people should be engaged more effectively in the response.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual violence in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Lwanga D: Pambazuka News 543, 3 August 2011","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/75416","body":"According to this article, it is common in Uganda to hear arguments that men rape women because women wear indecent clothing or invite men into their homes or drink late into the night with men or accept a ride home. Much less discussion focuses on the male\u2019s responsibility. The author of the article examines an incident ofalleged rape reported in July 2011 in Uganda\u2019s national media. The media and the public condemned the complainant as a reckless and oversexed con-woman, the author of this article notes. Ensuing debates and responses in the media since the story broke have implied that even as rape victims, women bear sole responsibility for protecting themselves. With regard to sexual violence against women in Uganda, the author concludes it is time men started seeing women as human beings and not sexualised objects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa proposes new watchdog for private hospitals","field_subtitle":"Kahn T: Business Day, 28 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=149360","body":"The chairman of South Africa\u2019s Parliament\u2019s health portfolio committee, Bevan Goqwana, is lobbying for a new, statutory body to oversee private hospitals. Members of his committee grilled the Hospital Association of SA (Hasa) on the prices charged by its members, which include more than 95% of private hospitals. The Council for Medical Schemes said a lack of competition was partly to blame for rising private hospital fees. They said that, in 1996 half the hospitals in metropolitan areas were independent but by 2006 this figure had fallen to 12,3%, due to market concentration in the hands of a few private health care providers, resulting in an oligarchy of providers. Private hospitals and healthcare professionals have faced constant criticism from the Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, for the role he perceives them to be playing in driving up the cost of healthcare. In their defence, Hasa claims that the real cause of high hospital costs in the private sector is the cost of inputs and the expense of increasing hospital capacity with the purchase of expensive specialist equipment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Strange bedfellows: bridging the worlds of academia, public health and the sex industry to improve sexual health outcomes","field_subtitle":"Knerr W and Philpott A: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(Suppl 1): S13, 16 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-S1-S13.pdf","body":"The public health response to sexually transmitted infections, particularly HIV, has been and continues to be overwhelmingly focused on risk, disease and negative outcomes of sex, while avoiding discussion of positive motivations for sex like pleasure, desire and love. Recent advocacy efforts have challenged this approach and organisations have promoted the eroticisation of safer sex, especially in the context of HIV prevention.\r\nThis paper is a case study of one of these organisations \u2013 the Pleasure Project. The authors give a brief background on the public-health approach to sex and sexual health, and recommend an alternative approach that incorporates constructs of pleasure and desire into sexual health interventions. The Pleasure Project\u2019s aims and unorthodox communications strategies are described, as are the response to and impact of its work, lessons learned and ongoing challenges to its approach. Despite the backdrop of sex-negative public health practice, there is anecdotal evidence that safer sex, including condom use, can be eroticised and made pleasurable, based on qualitative research by the Pleasure Project and other like-minded organisations. Yet there is a need for more research on the effectiveness of pleasure components in sexual health interventions, particularly in high-risk contexts, the authors argue. This need has become urgent as practitioners look for new ways to promote sexual health and as new prevention technologies (including female condoms and microbicides) are introduced or disseminated.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategies and tensions in communicating research on sexual and reproductive health, HIV and AIDS: a qualitative study of the experiences of researchers and communications staff","field_subtitle":"Crichton J and Theobald S: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(Suppl 1): S4, 16 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-S1-S4.pdf","body":"This qualitative study focuses on the research communication and policy-influencing objectives, strategies and experiences of four research consortia working in sexual and reproductive health, HIV and AIDS in nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. The authors carried out 22 in-depth interviews with researchers and communications specialists to identify factors that affect the interaction of research evidence with policy and practice, using an adapted version of the Overseas Development Institute\u2019s RAPID analytical framework. Results indicated that the characteristics of researchers and their institutions, policy context, the multiplicity of actors, and the nature of the research evidence all play a role in policy influencing processes. Research actors perceived a trend towards increasingly intensive and varied communication approaches. Effective influencing strategies include making strategic alliances and coalitions and framing research evidence in ways that are most attractive to particular policy audiences. Tensions include the need to identify and avoid unnecessary communication or unintended impacts, challenges in assessing and attributing impact and the need for adequate resources and skills for communications work. The authors conclude that the adapted RAPID framework can serve as a useful tool for research actors to use in resolving tensions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The architecture and effect of participation: a systematic review of community participation for communicable disease control and elimination. Implications for malaria elimination","field_subtitle":"Atkinson JM, Vallely A, Fitzgerald L, Whittaker M and Tanner M: Malaria Journal 10(225), 4 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-225.pdf","body":"This paper reports the findings of an atypical systematic review of 60 years of literature in order to arrive at a more comprehensive awareness of the constructs of participation for communicable disease control and elimination and provide guidance for the current malaria elimination campaign. Of the 60 papers meeting the selection criteria, only four studies attempted to determine the effect of community participation on disease transmission. The studies showed statistically significant reductions in disease incidence or prevalence using various forms of community participation. The use of locally selected volunteers provided with adequate training, supervision and resources is crucial to the success of the interventions in these studies, the authors argue. After a qualitative synthesis of all 60 papers, they elucidate the complex architecture of community participation for communicable disease control and elimination. The authors stress the importance of ensuring that current global malaria elimination efforts do not derail renewed momentum towards the comprehensive primary health care approach. They recommend that the application of the results of this systematic review be considered for other diseases of poverty in order to harmonise efforts at building 'competent communities' for communicable disease control and optimising health system effectiveness.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The conundrum of achieving \"value for money\" in fragile states","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 2 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93402","body":"In the run-up to the fourth High-level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea, in November 2011, analysts are warning that aid measurements cannot be \"dumbed down\", particularly in fragile states. The UK Overseas Development Institute (ODI) has condemned the much-praised British campaign, Make Poverty History, which suggests that all that is required to solve poverty is for rich nations to give money to poor ones. In contrast, the ODI argued that development processes tend to be complex and time-consuming, especially in fragile states and states emerging from conflict. While politicians, press and voters in donor countries often demand greater transparency and less corruption as part of their aid effectiveness criteria, citizens in recipient countries may prioritise other issues like job creation or better health services. This gap in priorities needs to be addressed, the ODI concludes. The World Bank said the Busan meeting should present new funding opportunities, as increasingly important `non-traditional' development funders, such as China, India and the Arab states, will be present, and they will demand effectiveness criteria that are different from those of traditional external funders like the European Union and the United States.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The future of immunisation policy, implementation and financing","field_subtitle":"Levine OS, Bloom DE, Cherian T, de Quadros C, Sow S, Wecker J et al: The Lancet 378(9789): 439-448, 30 July 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4y84aao","body":"The authors of this article warn that new vaccines are likely to be more complex and expensive than those that have been used so effectively in the past, and they could have a multifaceted effect on the disease that they are designed to prevent, as has already been seen with pneumococcal conjugate vaccines. Deciding which new vaccines a country should invest in therefore requires not only sound advice from international organisations such as the world Health Organisation (WHO) but also a well-informed national immunisation advisory committee with access to appropriate data for local disease burden. The authors discuss how the introduction of vaccines might need modification of immunisation schedules and delivery procedures and they outline progressive methods to finance new vaccines in low-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of HIV and AIDS research: a case study from Swaziland","field_subtitle":"Whiteside A and Henry FE: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(Suppl 1): S9, 16 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-S1-S9.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers analysed the impact of the report \u2018Reviewing \u2018Emergencies\u2019 for Swaziland: Shifting the Paradigm in a New Era\u2019, which was published in 2007 and built a picture of the HIV and AIDS epidemic as a humanitarian emergency, requiring urgent action from international organisations, external funders and governments. Following a targeted communications effort, the report was believed to have raised the profile of the issue and Swaziland - a success story for HIV and AIDS research. The authors conducted a literature search on the significance of understanding the research-to-policy interface, using the report as a case study. They explored key findings from the assessment, suggesting lessons for future research projects. They demonstrate that, although complex, and not without methodological issues, impact assessment of research can be of real value to researchers in understanding the research-to-policy interface. Only by gaining insight into this process can researchers move forward in delivering effective research, they argue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of the new WHO Antiretroviral Treatment Guidelines on HIV Epidemic Dynamics and Cost in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Hontelez JAC, de Vlas SJ, Tanser F, Bakker R, B\u00e4rnighausen T et al: PLoS ONE 6(7), July 2011","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0021919","body":"Since November 2009, WHO recommends that adults infected with HIV should initiate antiretroviral therapy (ART) at CD4+ cell counts of &#8804;350 cells/\u00b5l rather than &#8804;200 cells/\u00b5l. South Africa decided to adopt this strategy for pregnant and TB co-infected patients only. The authors estimated the impact of fully adopting the new WHO guidelines on HIV epidemic dynamics and associated costs. For Hlabisa subdistrict, KwaZulu-Natal, they predicted the HIV epidemic dynamics, number on ART and programme costs under the new guidelines relative to treating patients at &#8804;200 cells/\u00b5l for the next 30 years. Calculations indicated that during the first five years, the new WHO treatment guidelines will require about 7% extra annual investments, whereas 28% more patients receive treatment. Furthermore, there will be a more profound impact on HIV incidence, leading to relatively less annual costs after seven years. The resulting cumulative net costs reach a break-even point after on average 16 years. The findings strengthen the WHO recommendation of starting ART at &#8804;350 cells/\u00b5l for all HIV-infected patients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The organisation and implementation of community-based education programmes for health worker training institutions in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Kaye D, Mwanika A, Burnham G, Chang LW, Mbalinda SN, Okullo I et al: BMC International Health and Human Rights 11(Suppl 1): S4, 9 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-11-S1-S4.pdf","body":"This study was undertaken to assess the scope and nature of community-based education (CBE) for various health worker cadres in Uganda. Curricula and other materials on CBE programmes in Uganda were reviewed to assess nature, purpose, intended outcomes and evaluation methods used by CBE programmes. In-depth and key informant interviews were conducted with people involved in managing CBE in twenty-two selected training institutions, as well as stakeholders from the community, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, civil society organisations and local government. The researchers found that CBE curriculum is implemented in most health training institutions in Uganda and is a core course in most health disciplines at various levels. The CBE curriculum is systematically planned and implemented with major similarities among institutions. Organisation, delivery, managerial strategies, and evaluation methods are also largely similar. Strengths recognised included providing hands-on experience, knowledge and skills generation and the linking learners to the communities. Almost all CBE implementing institutions cited human resource, financial, and material constraints. It is still uncertain whether this approach is increasing the number graduates seeking careers in rural health service, one of the stated programme goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The wider determinants of inequalities in health: A decomposition analysis ","field_subtitle":"Sundmacher L, Scheller-Kreinsen D and Busse R: International Journal for Equity in Health 10(30), 26 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-10-30.pdf","body":"The common starting point of many studies scrutinising the factors underlying health inequalities is that material, cultural-behavioural, and psycho-social factors affect the distribution of health systematically through income, education, occupation, wealth or similar indicators of socioeconomic structure. However, little is known regarding if and to what extent these factors can assert systematic influence on the distribution of health of a population independent of the effects channelled through income, education, or wealth. In their analysis, the authors of this paper suggest that three main factors persistently contribute to variance in health: the capability score, cultural-behavioural variables and to a lower extent, the materialist approach. Of the three, the capability score illustrates the explanatory power of interaction and compound effects as it captures the individual's socioeconomic, social, and psychological resources in relation to his/her exposure to life challenges. Models that take a reductionist perspective and do not allow for the possibility that health inequalities are generated by factors over and above their effect on the variation in health channelled through one of the socioeconomic measures are underspecified and may fail to capture the determinants of health inequalities, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Toolkit on Freedom of Information and Women\u2019s Rights in Africa","field_subtitle":"African Women's Development and Communications Network (FEMNET): 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.peacewomen.org/portal_advocacy_item.php?id=40","body":"This toolkit is published by the African Women\u2019s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) with the support of UNESCO. It provides guidance for women\u2019s organisations in Africa on how to organise around freedom of information. It has compiled five case studies from five African countries, namely, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Zambia under different scenarios. As women continue to remain one of the most marginalised groups in African countries, the guide can assist NGOs in adopting new tools in ensuring gender rights and equality. The five case studies discussed in the book provide ideas and experiences faced by organisations lobbying for drafting and passing of a law where ordinary citizens have access to governmental information. From countries like Ghana and Cameroon, where no such law has even been drafted to countries like South Africa where such legislation exists. Studying these case stories from different countries can assist organisations to lobby for such a law and if it exists, how it can be used to create awareness within the community, especially for women empowerment. In general, the toolkit aims to mobilise women\u2019s NGOs to take up freedom of information for ensuring rights and justice for women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Transforming the global tuberculosis response through effective engagement of civil society organisations: the role of the World Health Organisation","field_subtitle":"Getahun H and Raviglione M: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(8): 616-618, August 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/8/11-086801.pdf","body":"The authors of this article argue that governments need to provide civil society organisations with more space and recognition to facilitate a stronger health response with a particular focus on tuberculosis (TB) prevention, care and control. They call on the World health Organisation (WHO) and its international partners to play a brokering and facilitative role to catalyse the process, and they provide a contextual framework to achieve this in the article. In many countries, civil society organisations have been responsible for handling the majority of resources to deliver services to individuals and have played a leading role in developing and implementing sustainable strategies to mitigate the impact of HIV and AIDS. In contrast, TB prevention, care and control activities face numerous challenges. A major problem is that one in three estimated TB cases globally is either not formally reported in the public system or not reached at all by existing services. TB is rarely recognised as a priority by national political authorities, United Nations agencies, development banks, the pharmaceutical industry and philanthropic organisations and often neglected within development, human rights and social justice agendas. Despite some efforts to engage civil society organisations in global TB activities, in many countries they still lack recognition as legitimate partners at national and local level even in established democracies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"UN High-Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases: addressing four questions","field_subtitle":"Beaglehole R, Bonita R, Alleyne G, Horton R, Li L, Lincoln P et al: The Lancet 378(9789): 449-455, 30 July 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3m7bkyt","body":"Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), principally heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases, are a global crisis and require a global response, according to the authors of this report. Yet, despite the threat to human development, and the availability of affordable, cost-effective and feasible interventions, most countries, development agencies and foundations are neglecting the crisis. The authors call on the United Nations, which will gather for its High-Level Meeting on NCDs in September 2011, to launch a coordinated global response to NCDs that is commensurate with their health and economic burdens. The report aims to answer four questions: is there really a global crisis of NCDs? How is NCD a development issue? Are affordable and cost-effective interventions available? And do we really need high-level leadership and accountability? Action against NCDs will support other global health and development priorities, the authors argue, concluding that long-term success will require inspired and committed national and international leadership.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"United Nations Summit On Non-Communicable Diseases","field_subtitle":"19-20 September 2011: New York, United States","field_url":"http://www.esmo.org/policy/political-initiatives /2011-un-summit-on-non-communicable-diseases.html","body":"The United Nations (UN) General Assembly will be holding a UN Summit on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) from 19-20 September 2011. The Summit will focus on the four most prominent non-communicable diseases, namely, cancers, cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes. The aim of the summit is to agree on a global strategy to address NCDs. The UN Summit on NCDs is the second of its kind to focus on a global disease issue. The first UN Summit related to health was the HIV/AIDS meeting in 2001 which led to the creation of the Global Fund. Non-communicable disease indicators are on the agenda for discussion and acceptance of the goals could lead to the future earmarking of overseas development aid to address cancer and other NCDs in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Using research to influence sexual and reproductive health practice and implementation in Sub-Saharan Africa: a case-study analysis","field_subtitle":"Tulloch O, Mayaud P, Adu-Sarkodie Y, Opoku B, Lithur N, Sickle E et al: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(Suppl 1): S10, 16 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-S1-S10.pdf","body":"The case-studies presented in this paper analyse findings from sexual and reproductive health and HIV research programmes in sub-Saharan Africa, including Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania. The analysis emphasises the relationships and communications involved in using research to influence policy and practice and recognises a distinction whereby practice is not necessarily influenced as a result of policy change \u2013 especially in SRH \u2013 where there are complex interactions between policy actors. Both frameworks demonstrate how policy networks, partnership and advocacy are critical in shaping the extent to which research is used and the importance of on-going and continuous links between a range of actors to maximise research impact on policy uptake and implementation. The case-studies illustrate the importance of long-term engagement between researchers and policy makers and how to use evidence to develop policies which are sensitive to context: political, cultural and practical.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Vaccine production, distribution, access and uptake","field_subtitle":"Smith J, Lipsitch M and Almond JW: The Lancet 378(9789): 428-438, 30 July 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3o98s8d","body":"For human vaccines to be available on a global scale, complex production methods, meticulous quality control and reliable distribution channels are needed to ensure that the products are potent and effective at the point of use, the authors of this article argue. The technologies used to manufacture different types of vaccines can strongly affect vaccine cost, ease of industrial scale-up, stability and, ultimately, worldwide availability. The complexity of manufacturing is compounded by the need for different formulations in different countries and age-groups. Reliable vaccine production in appropriate quantities and at affordable prices is the cornerstone of developing global vaccination policies, the author argue. However, they emphasise that to ensure optimum access and uptake, strong partnerships are needed between private manufacturers, regulatory authorities, and national and international public health services. For vaccines whose supply is insufficient to meet demand, prioritisation of target groups can increase the effect of these vaccines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"What has tax got to do with development? A critical look at Mozambique\u2019s and Zimbabwe\u2019s tax systems","field_subtitle":"African Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD): 14 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.eurodad.org/whatsnew/reports.aspx?id=4601","body":"According to AFRODAD, tax revenues are, on average, lower in developing countries than in rich countries; the average revenue in African countries was approximately 15% of GDP in 2008. Hence the argument that if developing countries were able to collect sufficient tax revenues, they might be able to increase their independence, the provision of social protection, infrastructure and basic services such as education and health care which are crucial for development. The two reports on Mozambique and Zimbabwe reveal that mobilising domestic resources as a means to financing development has become an important development issue, a shift from the past emphasis on financing development from aid and external borrowing. For a long time mobilising domestic revenue has been neglected, despite being a better long-term option, AFRODAD argues. The reasons for this included the inherent pessimism about raising revenue, a prevalent \u2018small-state\u2019 ideology and a preference for foreign aid-led solutions. AFRODAD proposes that progressive taxation should play an important role in shaping the distribution of benefits from higher-income citizens to those most in need in a country. The reports also examine the various complexities surrounding taxation as a development finance mechanism in the two country cases including the current tax framework, the amount and extent of tax evasion and more specifically tax incentives and governance in various sectors of the economy. They conclude with policy and institutional recommendations to the governments of Mozambique and Zimbabwe \u2013 and civil society \u2013 to refine their tax systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"What shapes research impact on policy? Understanding research uptake in sexual and reproductive health policy processes in resource-poor contexts","field_subtitle":"Sumner A, Crichton J, Theobald S, Zulu E and Parkhurst J: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(Suppl 1): S3, 16 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-S1-S3.pdf","body":"Assessing the impact that research evidence has on policy is complex, the authors of this paper argue, and they review some of the main conceptualisations of research impact on policy, including generic determinants of research impact identified across a range of settings, as well as the specificities of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) in particular. They identify aspects of the policy landscape and drivers of policy change commonly occurring across multiple sectors and studies to create a framework that researchers can use to examine the influences on research uptake in specific settings, to guide attempts to ensure uptake of their findings. The framework distinguishes between pre-existing factors influencing uptake and the ways in which researchers can actively influence the policy landscape and promote research uptake through their policy engagement actions and strategies. The authors conclude by highlighting the need for continued multi-sectoral work on understanding and measuring research uptake and for prospective approaches to receive greater attention from policy analysts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"World Conference on Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 19-21 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/sdhconference/background/en/","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) is convening a global conference on 19-21 October, 2011, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to build support for the implementation of action on social determinants of health. The Brazilian Ministry of Health, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) and the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs are working closely with WHO on preparing the event. The conference will bring together Member States and stakeholders to share experiences on policies and strategies aiming to reduce health inequities. The event will provide a global platform for dialogue on how the recommendations of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health (2008) could be taken forward. The key aim of the process is to draw lessons learnt and to catalyse coordinated global action in five key areas: governance to tackle the root causes of health inequities by implementing action on social determinants of health; the role of the health sector, including public health programmes, in reducing health inequities; promoting participation through community leadership for action on social determinants; global action on social determinants by aligning priorities and stakeholders; and monitoring progress in terms of measurement and analysis to inform policies on social determinants.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Statistics 2011","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: August 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/EN_WHS2011_Full.pdf","body":"The World Health Statistics report is an essential resource for policy-makers and researchers working on the identification and reduction of health inequities. A dedicated section in the 2011 report presents data from 93 countries using three health indicators - percentage of births attended by skilled health personnel, measles immunisation coverage among 1-year-olds, and under-five mortality rate - disaggregated according to urban or rural residence, household wealth and maternal education level. The data presented refer to ratios and differences between the most-advantaged and least-advantaged groups.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"World Report on Disability","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation and the World Bank Group: June 2011","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2011/9789240685215_eng.pdf","body":"This is the first-ever World Report on Disability (WRD) and it comes at a critical time, now that 150 countries have signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). One billion people in the world are experiencing disability \u2013 one in seven of the world\u2019s population \u2013 and the numbers are rising. The report provides strong evidence of the need to equalise rights and opportunities for persons with disabilities in all aspects of life. The authors highlight the barriers and hardships faced by persons with disabilities, especially in low- and middle-income countries, such as increased unemployment (one in two men and four in five women with disabilities are unemployed globally), increased poverty (higher rates of food insecurity, poor housing, lack of access to safe water and sanitation, and inadequate access to health care), poor educational attainment, poor health outcomes and a higher risk of exposure to violence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zeroing in: AIDS donors and Africa\u2019s health workforce","field_subtitle":"Oomman N, Wendt D and Droggitis C: Centre for Global Development, 2010","field_url":"http://dspace.cigilibrary.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/29517/1/Zeroing%20In-Aids%20Donors%20and%20Africas%20Health%20Workforce.pdf?1","body":"Have AIDS external funders harmed or strengthened health workforce development in countries with severe shortages? This research led to six key findings. First, to staff AIDS programmes, external funders have relied on training existing workers and taskshifting, not on training new health workers. Second, AIDS external funders have swamped countries with in-service training programmes for HIV/AIDS-specific skills. Third, PEPFAR and the Global Fund have relied on task-shifting to lower level health workers without assuring adequate resources or support. Fourth, community health workers are employed as a quick fix without considering their long -term role. Fifth, the incentives that AIDS external funders offer health workers to achieve HIV and AIDS programme targets distort allocations of time and resources to the detriment of other health sector objectives. Finally, AIDS external funders pay health workers through short-term special arrangements without addressing long-term constraints on the public and private health workforce.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Free trade\u2019 is not what Africa needs, Mr Cameron","field_subtitle":"Dearden N: The Guardian, Poverty Matters, 19 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/jul/19/david-cameron-africa-free-trade","body":"On his trip to South Africa on 18 July 2011, British Prime Minister, David Cameron, talked of the need to go beyond debt cancellation and aid and instead promote free trade with Africa. But \u2018free trade\u2019 on inequitable terms has been and will be of no benefit to Africa, the author of this article argues. Africa has much to learn from South Korea, the model to which Cameron refers as a successful example of free-market liberalisation. What Cameron failed to point out, the author notes, is that South Korea used a range of government interventions that are not accepted in free trade practice and are being denied to African governments. The author argues that African prosperity relies on a wholesale rejection of the western free trade model, which means protecting industries, developing alternative and complementary means of trading, control of food production and banking, progressive tax structures, controlled use of savings, and strong regulation to ensure trade and investment really benefits people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A simple way of saving lives through vaccines","field_subtitle":"Maziko Matemba, Health and Rights Education Programme (HREP) Malawi ","field_url":"","body":"Many children across Malawi experience severe diarrhoea caused by a virus called rotavirus. Rotavirus kills more than 500 000 children under the age of five years around the world each year\u2014almost 1 400 deaths each day\u2014the vast majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. In Malawi alone, rotavirus was estimated by Ministry of Health in Malawi  to be responsible for nearly 5 000 deaths every year. Rotavirus attacks our families and threatens our nation\u2019s future by targeting our most precious resource\u2014our children. It spreads through the faecal-oral route, via contact with contaminated hands, surfaces and objects, but is not easily eliminated by improved sanitation. Those with the diarrhoea require oral rehydration and if properly rehydrated have a good chance of recovery. Death is usually through dehydration. . \r\n\r\nThe tragedy is that much of this death and suffering could be prevented right now, if children in Malawi had the same access to life-saving vaccines as children in industrialised countries. In the United States, rotavirus vaccines have been widely available for five years. Before the vaccine was introduced over 2.7 million cases of rotavirus gastroenteritis occurred annually, 60,000 children were hospitalised and around 37 died from the results of the infection in the USA. After the vaccination programme was introduced these rates went down dramatically. In Malawi, where the need is much greater, this vaccination is not yet widely available for children.\r\n\r\nVaccines are one of the best long-term investments to prevent disease and give children a healthy start to life \u2014a few shots or drops can protect a child for a lifetime. And they are one of the most cost effective interventions to prevent illness in a country like ours Malawi many competing health priorities. With rotavirus (A), existing oral vaccines have been shown to provide significant protection against the disease. It is estimated that broad access to rotavirus vaccines in low-income countries could save up to 225 000 children annually. In fact, the World Health Organization strongly recommends including the rotavirus vaccine in all immunisation programmes because of its potential life-saving impact. But even the most effective vaccines will only have an impact if they are made available to people who need them. Yet rotavirus vaccines have been too expensive for low income countries, where health resources are scarce, and external funders have been hesitant to support the vaccine until costs come down.\r\n\r\nIn June, there has been new cause for optimism.  Children in African countries could finally access the same vaccines for rotavirus as children living in high income countries. On June 6, the GAVI [the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation], an international organisation that supports the rollout of vaccines to low-income countries, announced it had been offered a significant price reduction for rotavirus vaccines from a pharmaceutical company, reducing the cost by a third to US$2.50 a dose. By comparison, measles vaccine still costs a lot less, at  19 to 30 cents a dose. So the cost is still relatively high. GAVI, which supports vaccine programmes in Malawi, now plans to rapidly accelerate its financial support for rotavirus vaccines, to scale up access. Malawi was one of the handful of countries that hosted clinical trials demonstrating that rotavirus vaccines save lives. The country is now planning to roll out new vaccines for pneumonia later this year\u2014with the potential to give children protection against another big childhood killer.  These signs of leadership give cause for optimism in a situation where the longer we wait, the more lives are lost.  \r\n\r\nAt the same time, if this is to be sustainable, costs must be brought down even further. There is report of new, more affordable rotavirus vaccines on the horizon that will sustain our efforts to save children\u2019s lives for the long-term. When GAVI announced the price cut for the existing rotavirus vaccine, it disclosed that an Indian rotavirus vaccine candidate \u2013 which should be available around 2015 \u2013 will cost US$1 per dose. While manufacturers in other parts of the South like India are developing vaccines that will assist in improving access and affordability, we should also be asking what we are doing to expand capabilities for vaccine production in Africa.  Vaccines alone will not eliminate rotavirus or solve all of our persistent health problems. We still need to focus on long-term challenges such as improving sanitation, adequate water and strengthening health systems, to prevent faecal borne disease, and ensuring wide knowledge on and access to oral rehydration to prevent child mortality from diarrhoea. But in my view, ensuring access to rotavirus vaccines is a simple prevention measure that we can and should take today.\r\n\r\nAn earlier version of this oped appeared in the Daily Times-Malawi 13 June 2011 and the New Era Press Namibia 2 June 2011. Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat  admin@equinetafrica.org. For further information on this issue or the full please visit Health Rights and Education Programme (www.hrep.org.mw/) or  EQUINET (www.equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Regional Association Of Occupational Health Congress","field_subtitle":"25\u201327 August 2011: Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.sasom.org/sasom-events/details/9-sasom-conference-cape-town","body":"The Africa Regional Association of Occupational Health (ARAOH) Congress is to be hosted by the South African Society of Occupational Medicine Conference (SASOM) from 25\u201327 August 2011 in Johannesburg, South Africa. To register for the event visit the link provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"BRAC University Admission to MPH Programme [International]","field_subtitle":"Application deadline: September 30, 2011","field_url":"http://sph.bracu.ac.bd/academics/mph/Application_Form_MPH.pdf","body":"The BRAC University is calling for applicants for its Masters of Public Heath programme. Since its inception, the School has received 191 diverse students from different corners of the globe such as South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, Australia, North and South Americas, and Europe. The graduates move on to work for their respective governments, national and/or international NGOs, or with various donor and UN agencies. Additionally, universities and research organizations also acquire a large number of our MPH students. The MPH curriculum is structured to maximize learning around the health problems faced by communities in Bangladesh, and elsewhere. This includes extensive field-based instructions complemented by interactive classroom based work in teams. The School has a generous scholarship programme that aims to promote global access to the MPH amongst potential students from all over the world based on merit. The admission process includes an application, reference letters, statement of interest in public health, individual and group interviews, as well as written and oral tests. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for concept notes: IDRC launches new NCD prevention research programme","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: 23 September 2011","field_url":"http://idrc.ca/EN/Programs/Health_and_Health_Systems/Research_for_International_Tobacco_Control/Documents/ncdp-program-announcement.pdf","body":"IDRC's Non-Communicable Disease Prevention programme (NCDP) is a newly approved programme, running from 2011 to 2016, that will provide a response to the major development challenges associated with the rapid rise in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in low- and middle-income countries. The goal of the NCDP programme is to generate new knowledge to inform the adoption and effective implementation of policies and programmes that are low cost but can have a high impact on reducing the NCD burden and improving overall population health in low-and middle-income countries. To that end, the programme will focus on healthy public policies by targeting its research funding on: regulation, legislation and fiscal policies that address the common NCD risk factors, and cost-effective population-wide programmes or community-based interventions that address the common NCD risk factors and that have the potential to be scaled up or translated to policy. IDRC is calling for concept notes on research to expand fiscal policies for global and national tobacco control and research to support interventions that promote healthy diets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers for the WHO Bulletin","field_subtitle":"Deadline For Submissions: 20 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/5/11-088476.pdf","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) is calling for papers for all sections of the Bulletin and encourage authors to consider contributions that address any of the following topics: disease burden assessments in low-income countries, since information in this area is scarce; vaccination implementation and policy, particularly on the cost and public health benefit of vaccination programmes; and the evaluation of nonpharmaceutical public health measures since these are widely described as control measures, but there is less published evidence on their effectiveness than for pharmaceutical interventions (vaccines and medicines). In particular, WHO seeks submission of papers that document experiences from low-resource settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Calling time: Why SAB Miller should stop dodging taxes in Africa","field_subtitle":"ActionAid International: 2011","field_url":"http://www.actionaid.org.uk/doc_lib/calling_time_on_tax_avoidance.pdf","body":"This investigation by ActionAid used published &#64257;nancial information, interviews with government of&#64257;cials and research to follow up on corporate tax avoidance across Africa and India. They estimate that as much as \u00a320 million per year may have been lost in the form of corporate taxes or a fifth of the corporate tax bill that could have paid for education, health and infrastructure. The authors argue for strengthened tax law and revenue administration capacity to deal with taxing multinational companies; improved transparency around corporate reporting; for countries to not give away their right to tax royalties, management fees and other foreign payments at source; and to examine and, where necessary, reform the way they tax multinationals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society organisations and the functions of global health governance: What role within intergovernmental organisations?","field_subtitle":"Lee K: Global Health Governance III(2), 2010","field_url":"http://www.ghgj.org/Lee_CSOs.pdf","body":"Amid discussion of how global health governance should and could be strengthened, the potential role of civil society organisations has been frequently raised. In this paper, the author considers the role of civil society organisations (CSOs) in four health governance instruments under the auspices of the World Health Organisation \u2013 the International Code on the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes, Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, International Health Regulations and Codex Alimentarius. She draws several conclusions about CSO engagement for strengthening global health governance (GHG). First, CSOs have played the biggest roles in initiating, formulating and implementing formal rules in GHG. Second, CSOs cannot perform certain functions, which should be fulfilled by the state to ensure GHG instruments are effective, such as formal mechanisms for monitoring and enforcement by government institutions, with punitive measures for non-compliance embodied in national legislation. Third, GHG remains far from pluralist in a true sense. The case studies suggest that, like global governance as a whole, GHG is being characterised by greater, rather than lesser, concentration of power in fewer hands. CSOs can bring much-needed diversity to the GHG landscape.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community perceptions of malaria and vaccines in South Coast and Busia regions of Kenya","field_subtitle":"Ojakaa DI, Ofware P, Machira YW, Yamo E, Collymore Y, Ba-Nguz A, Vansadia P and Bingham A: Malaria Journal 10(147), 30 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-147.pdf","body":"This qualitative study was conducted in two malaria-endemic regions of Kenya - South Coast and Busia. Participant selection was purposive and criterion based. A total of 20 focus group discussions, 22 in-depth interviews, and 18 exit interviews were conducted. While support for local child immunisation programmes exists, limited understanding about vaccines and what they do was evident among younger and older people, particularly men. In general, parents and caregivers weigh several factors - such as personal opportunity costs, resource constraints, and perceived benefits - when deciding whether or not to have their children vaccinated, and the decision often is influenced by a network of people, including community leaders and health workers. The study raises issues that should inform a communications strategy and guide policy decisions within Kenya on eventual malaria vaccine introduction. Unlike the current practice, where health education on child welfare and immunisation focuses on women, the communications strategy should equally target men and women in ways that are appropriate for each gender, the authors argue. It should involve influential community members and provide needed information and reassurances about immunisation. Efforts also should be made to address concerns about the quality of immunisation services, including health workers' interpersonal communication skills.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Coping self-efficacy as a predictor of adherence to antiretroviral therapy in men and women living with HIV in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Kamau TM, Olson VG, Zipp GP and Clark M: AIDS Patient Care and STDs (online edition ahead of print), 21 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/apc.2011.0125","body":"The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the coping self-efficacy (CSE) scale and adherence to HIV medication in men and women enrolled in a large HIV treatment programme in Kenya. Data were collected from a sample of 354 volunteers attending Nazareth Hospital's nine satellite clinics located in parts of Nairobi, and the central province of Kenya. A social demographic survey, Adult Clinical Trials Group adherence questionnaire, and CSE scale were used to obtain information. Descriptive statistics and logistic regressions were performed to analyse data and to test study hypotheses. The researchers found that females were less likely to be nonadherent than males: the odds of adherence for females were 3.7 of the odds of adherence for males. When controlling for gender, CSE was found to be significant. Adherence to antiretroviral therapy can be partially explained by CSE, the authors conclude. Efforts aimed at building self-efficacy are likely to improve and maintain adherence to HIV and other medication, they argue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Democracy, aid and disabling environment: Motivation and impact on development work in Africa","field_subtitle":"Africa Civil Society Platform on Principled Partnership: 2011","field_url":"http://www.cso-effectiveness.org/IMG/pdf/disenabling_environment-2.pdf","body":"Between 2007 and April 2011, 35 governments across Africa have either passed or are about to pass legislation restricting activities and the existence of civil society organisations (CSOs), according to this review. The trend is even more troublesome, the African Civil Society Platform on Principled Partnership (ACPPP) argues, when one considers that, in about 20 of these cases, the laws are similar in content. What began as a genuine call for mutual accountability and harmonisation of development effort between external funders, governments and CSOs has turned into a wave of legislation and policies targeting CSOs that do not appear to conform to government choices. The review draws from over 17 studies conducted between 2008-2011, discussions with CSOs from 30 countries across Africa, and review of work of several CSOs in conflict prevention and peace building. The ACPPP argues that neither the Paris Principles nor the CSO Principles for Development Effectiveness will be sufficient to deal with the current wave of legislation limiting CSOs. In seeking to reverse this trend, ACPPP proposes that the problem of shrinking space for civil society participation be addressed in its broader perspective, and not just as a violation of human rights, freedom of association or of CSO regulation. The attack on CSOs is about control of power and not regulation. This calls for support for democracy and good governance as drivers of development, the authors argue, particularly in situations of conflict and fragility.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa 1999-2011: Epidemiology and public health implications: A systematic review","field_subtitle":"Hall V, Thomsen RW, Henriksen O and Lohse N: BMC Public Health 11(564), 14 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-564.pdf","body":"In this paper, the authors provide a comprehensive and up-to-date review of the epidemiological trends and public health implications of diabetes in Sub-Saharan Africa They conducted a systematic literature review of papers published on diabetes in Sub-Saharan Africa from 1999-March 2011, providing data on diabetes prevalence, outcomes (chronic complications, infections, and mortality), access to diagnosis and care and economic impact. Type 2 diabetes was found to account for well over 90% of diabetes in Sub-Saharan Africa, and population prevalence proportions ranged from 1% in rural Uganda to 12% in urban Kenya. Reported type 1 diabetes prevalence was low and ranged from 4 per 100,000 in Mozambique to 12 per 100,000 in Zambia. Gestational diabetes prevalence varied from 0% in Tanzania to 9% in Ethiopia. Screening studies identified high proportions (>40%) with previously undiagnosed diabetes, and low levels of adequate glucose control among previously diagnosed diabetics. Barriers to accessing diagnosis and treatment included a lack of diagnostic tools and glucose monitoring equipment and high cost of diabetes treatment. The total annual cost of diabetes in the region was estimated at US$67.03 billion, or US$8836 per diabetic patient. The authors argue that significant interactions between diabetes and important infectious diseases like HIV highlight the need and opportunity for health planners to develop integrated responses to communicable and non-communicable diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"East Africa gripped by severe food crisis ","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 28 June 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93092","body":"East Africa is experiencing a severe food crisis, with at least 10 million people affected in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda, says the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). And according to the Mubarak Relief and Development Organisation (MURDO), a local NGO working in the Lower Shebelle region of Somalia, the international community is not helping. The recent March to May \"long rains\" in Kenya were poor for the second or third successive season in most rangelands and cropping lowlands, with many of these areas receiving 10-50% of normal rains. The consequences include declining water and pasture, and high levels of livestock death. In the predominantly pastoralist north, a low milk supply has contributed to malnutrition levels soaring above 35%. Nationally, at least 3.2 million people are currently food insecure, and even in Kenya's coastal region, thousands are food insecure, says the Kenya Red Cross Society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Effect of concurrent sexual partnerships on rate of new HIV infections in a high-prevalence, rural South African population: a cohort study","field_subtitle":"Tanser F, B\u00e4rnighausen T, Hund L, Garnett GP, McGrath N and Newell M: The Lancet 378(9787): 247-255, 16 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)60779-4/abstract","body":"Concurrent sexual partnerships are widely believed to be one of the main drivers of the HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. For this population-based cohort study, researchers used data from the Africa Centre demographic surveillance site in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, to try to find support for the concurrency hypothesis. A total of 2,153 sexually active men and 7,284 HIV-negative women from the surrounding local community were included in the study. During five years' follow-up, 693 new female HIV infections occurred and the researchers found that - after adjustment for individual-level sexual behaviour and demographic, socioeconomic and environmental factors associated with HIV acquisition - mean lifetime number of partners of men in the immediate local community was predictive of hazard of HIV acquisition in women. A high prevalence of partnership concurrency in the same local community was not associated with any increase in risk of HIV acquisition. The researchers argue that, in similar hyperendemic sub-Saharan African settings, there is a need for straightforward, unambiguous messages aimed at the reduction of multiple partnerships, irrespective of whether those partnerships overlap in time.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 126:  A simple way of saving lives through vaccines ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Forums for advancing equity in Health in east and southern Africa in July","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In July through various institutions EQUINET has participated in forums that are taking forward processes supporting equity in health in the region. In July 18-20, Open Society Foundation AMHI held a strategic convening on community monitoring for accountability in health in Johannesburg South Africa, bringing together experienced practitioners of community monitoring to facilitate networking, collaboration, and experience sharing for strengthening the field.  In July 20 - 22 2011, the 3rd Meeting of the ECSA Health Community Regional Monitoring and Evaluation Expert Core Group met in Dar es Salaam Tanzania to review progress in implementing ministers resolutions, including report on progress on the Equity Watch work. In July 24-26, EQUINET contributed to discussions on framing IDRC work on strengthening equity through applied research capacity building in eHealth, with a focus on how the use of ICT (information technology) can influence health governance and health systems strengthening towards health equity outcomes.  While these activities were hosted by different institutions and connected with different processes in EQUINET, they signalled a common concern with equity as outcome and a common preoccupation with the generation, control and exchange of information and evidence in addressing the imbalances in power and resources that underlie inequalities in health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Framing international trade and chronic disease","field_subtitle":"Labont\u00e9 R, Mohindra KS and Lencucha R: Globalization and Health, 7(21), 4 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-7-21.pdf","body":"The authors of this study developed a generic framework which depicts the determinants and pathways connecting global trade with the rise of chronic disease in many low and middle-income countries (LMICs). They then applied this framework to three key risk factors for chronic disease: unhealthy diets, alcohol and tobacco. This led to specific 'product pathways', which can be further refined and used by health policy-makers to engage with their country's trade policy-makers around health impacts of ongoing trade treaty negotiations, and by researchers to continue refining an evidence base on how global trade is affecting patterns of chronic disease. The authors argue the need for a more concerted approach to regulate trade-related risk factors and thus more engagement between health and trade policy sectors within and between nations. An explicit recognition of the role of trade policies in the spread of non-communicable disease (NCD) risk factors should be a minimum outcome of the United Nations Summit on NCDs in September 2011, with a commitment to ensure that future trade treaties do not increase such risks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health governance, intellectual property and access to essential medicines: Opportunities and impediments for South-South co-operation","field_subtitle":"Aginam O: Global Health Governance IV(1), 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.ghgj.org/Aginam_final.pdf","body":"The author of this article argues that intellectual property rights, in a number of ways, impede access to antiretroviral (ARV) drugs in most developing countries with heavy burdens of AIDS-related mortality and morbidity. He recommends that developing countries that lack the necessary pharmaceutical capacity should exploit emerging opportunities for South-South co-operation. While countries like Brazil and India have produced generic ARV drugs, most developing countries either do not have the technology to do so or they are \u201cpressured\u201d against doing so because of the consequences of violation of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) enforced by the Word Trade Organisation. Most recently, Uganda entered into an agreement with Cipla, an Indian generic manufacturer of ARV drugs to open a drug plant in Uganda. Because such opportunities for South-South co-operation abound in contemporary global AIDS diplomacy, developing countries should ingeniously exploit them in ways that do not violate TRIPS. The impediments to this framework would include circumventing the hurdles posed by TRIPS as well as the pressure by global pharmaceutical corporate giants against such initiatives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Global pharmaceutical development and access: Critical issues of ethics and equity","field_subtitle":"Lage A: MEDICC Review 13(3): 6-22, July 2011","field_url":"http://www.medicc.org/mediccreview/articles/mr_204.pdf","body":"In this article, the author presents global data on access to pharmaceuticals and discusses underlying barriers. Two are highly visible - pricing policies and intellectual property rights \u2013 while two are less recognised - the regulatory environment and scientific and technological capacities. Two ongoing transitions influence and even distort the problem of universal access to medications, the author argues, namely the epidemiologic transition to an increasing burden of chronic non-communicable diseases, and the growing role of biotechnology products (especially immunobiologicals) in the pharmacopeia. Examples from Cuba and Brazil are used to explore what can and should be done to address commercial, regulatory, and technological aspects of assuring universal access to medications.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Governance of mining, HIV and tuberculosis in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Stuckler D, Basu S and McKee M: Global Health Governance IV(1), 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.ghgj.org/Stuckler_final.pdf","body":"Mining in southern Africa has amplified HIV and tuberculosis (TB) epidemics across the continent through social, political, and biological risks posed to miners and their communities, according to this article. Aware of these risks for decades, policymakers have done little to regulate the mining sector\u2019s remarkable impact on Africa\u2019s two largest epidemics, the authors note. They analyse the governance of mining in southern Africa to evaluate the sources of ineffective responses and identify mechanisms for ensuring effective cross-border care and global norms of responsible mining. Their primary argument is that international agencies need to take action to spur the development of effective governance systems currently being constrained by domestic vested interests.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Growing a Better Future ","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: May 2011","field_url":"http://www.scribd.com/doc/56707178/Growing-a-Better-Future-Food-justice-in-a-resource-constrained-world","body":"According to this report by Oxfam, the global food system works only for the few but not for most of the world\u2019s population. It leaves billions of consumers lacking sufficient power and knowledge about what they buy and eat and the majority of small food producers disempowered and unable to fulfill their productive potential. The failure of the system flows from failures of government \u2013 failures to regulate, correct, protect, resist and invest \u2013 which mean that companies, interest groups, and elites are able to plunder resources and to redirect flows of finance, knowledge, and food. Oxfam highlights the need to address the inequities which plague the food system. They argue that global agriculture produces more food than the world\u2019s population needs, much of which is thrown away. Hunger and poverty are concentrated in rural areas, with smallholder food producers routinely deprived of the resources they need to thrive, like water, technology, investment and credit. Large areas of land in Africa and elsewhere are being sold off to foreign investors at rock bottom prices, in deals that offer little to local communities. The report presents new research forecasting price rises for staple grains in the range of 120\u2013180% within the next two decades, as resource pressures mount and climate change takes hold.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health aid governance in fragile states: The Global Fund experience","field_subtitle":"Bornemisza O, Bridge J, Olszak-Olszewski M, Sakvarelidze G and Lazarus JV: Global Health Governance IV(1), 2010","field_url":"http://www.ghgj.org/Lazarus_final.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers analysed Global Fund grant data from 122 recipient countries as an initial exploration into how well these grants are performing in fragile states as compared to other countries. Since 2002, the Global Fund has invested nearly US$ 5 billion in 41 fragile states, and most grants have been assessed as performing well, the researchers found. Nonetheless, statistically significant differences in performance exist between fragile states and other countries, which were further pronounced in states with humanitarian crises. This indicates that further investigation of this issue is warranted: variations in performance may be unavoidable given the complexities of health governance in fragile states, but may also have implications for how the Global Fund and others provide aid. For example, faster aid disbursements might allow for a better response to rapidly changing contexts, and there may need to be more of a focus on building capacity and strengthening health governance in these countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"High prevalence of co-morbidity and need for up-referral among inpatients at a district-level hospital with specialist tuberculosis services in South Africa: the need for specialist support","field_subtitle":"Van der Plas H and Mendelson M:South African Medical Journal  101(8): 529-532, July 2011","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/4570/3305","body":"The authors of this study set out to define the patient population at Cape Town\u2019s district-level hospital offering specialist tuberculosis (TB) services, concerning the noted increase in complex, sick HIV-TB co-infected patients requiring increased levels of care. They surveyed all hospitalised adult patients in Brooklyn Chest Hospital, a district-level hospital offering specialist TB services, from 27-30 October 2008. They found that more than two-thirds of patients in the acute wards were HIV-co-infected, of whom 98% had significant co-morbidities and 60% had a Karnofsky performance score &#8804;30. Twenty-eight per cent of patients did not have a confirmed diagnosis of TB. In contrast, long-stay patients with multi-drug-resistant (MDR), pre-extensively (pre-XDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB had a lower prevalence of HIV co-infection, but manifested high rates of co-morbidity. Overall, one-fifth of patients required up-referral to higher levels of care. In conclusion, the authors note that district-level hospitals, such as Brooklyn Chest Hospital, that offer specialist TB services share the increasing burden of complex, sick, largely HIV-co-infected TB patients with their secondary and tertiary level counterparts. To support these hospitals effectively, outreach, skills transfer through training, and improved radiology resources are required, they argue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"How does Africa tackle cervical cancer?","field_subtitle":"Miranda D: The Guardian, 20 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jun/20/africa-cervical-cancer","body":"Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among women in Africa, according to David Kerr, president of the European Society of Medical Oncology, yet there is a profound lack of reproductive health information for women and delayed access to treatment in rural areas in Africa. He notes that, in many parts of the continent, cancer is stigmatised as a death sentence, and he calls for a long-term strategy for vaccination, screening, treatment and awareness building. Although cancer is slowly receiving attention in Africa, the article notes that other diseases such as AIDS still absorb much of the health funding. The author also argues that many of the strategies aimed at preventing HIV could also help prevent the spread of the human papillomavirus too, which may play a role in the development of cancer. New research tackling AIDS and cancer simultaneously has shown that the anti-retroviral, lopanivir, can kill cells infected by HPV, while leaving healthy cells relatively unharmed. This might prove a useful way to prevent cervical cancer. Also, the drug could be used after a HPV infection, whereas vaccination is only effective prior to it \u2013 and is currently more expensive.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Imprisoned and imperiled: access to HIV and TB  prevention and treatment, and denial of human rights, in Zambian prisons","field_subtitle":"Todrys K, Amon J, Malembeka G, Clayton M, Journal of the International AIDS Society 14(8):2011","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/14/1/8","body":"Although HIV and tuberculosis (TB) prevalence are high in prisons throughout sub-Saharan Africa, little research has been conducted on factors related to prevention, testing and treatment services. To better understand the relationship between prison conditions, the criminal justice system, and HIV and TB in Zambian prisons, the study conducted a mixed-method study, including: facility assessments and in-depth interviews with 246 prisoners and 30 prison officers at six Zambian prisons; a review of Zambian legislation and policy governing prisons and the criminal justice system; and 46 key informant interviews with government and non-governmental organization officials and representatives of international agencies and donors. The study found serious barriers to HIV and TB prevention and treatment, and extended pre-trial detention that contributed to overcrowded conditions. Disparities both between prisons and among different categories of prisoners within prisons were noted, with juveniles, women, pre-trial detainees and immigration detainees significantly less likely to access health services. The authors argue that current conditions and the lack of available medical care in Zambia's prisons violate human rights protections and threaten prisoners' health, and that prison-based health services should make linkages to community-based health care, and address general prison conditions and failures of the criminal justice system that exacerbate overcrowding. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Investigating preferences for mosquito-control technologies in Mozambique with latent class analysis","field_subtitle":"Smith RA, Barclay VC and Findeis JL: Malaria Journal 10(188), 21 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-200.pdf","body":"The aim of this study was to investigate latent classes of users in Mozambique based on their preferences for mosquito-control technology attributes and covariates of these classes, as well as to explore which current technologies meet these preferences. Surveys were administered in five rural villages in Mozambique. The data showed that users' preferences for malaria technologies varied, and people could be categorised into four latent classes based on shared preferences. The largest class, constituting almost half of the respondents, would not avoid a mosquito-control technology because of its cost, heat, odour, potential to make other health issues worse, ease of keeping clean, or inadequate mosquito control. The other three groups are characterised by the attributes which would make them avoid a technology - these groups are labelled as the bites class, by-products class, and multiple-concerns class. Those with multiple concerns, mostly men, were likely to avoid using a malaria product as they would still hear or be bitten by mosquitoes, or found it it expensive or uncomfortable.  Participants in the by-products group, more likely to be females, avoid a malaria product based on heat, odour and side effects. Participants in the bites class\r\navoid a product if they would still be bitten by mosquitoes. To become widely diffused, the authors suggest that end-users should be included in product development to ensure that preferred attributes or traits are considered. This study demonstrates that end-user preferences can be very different and that one malaria control technology will not satisfy everyone.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Investing in the future: lessons learnt from communicating the results of HSV/ HIV intervention trials in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Delany-Moretlwe S, Stadler J, Mayaud P and Rees H: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(Suppl 1):S8, 16 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/9/S1/S8/?mkt","body":"This case study from South Africa focuses on the lessons learnt from communicating the results of four trials evaluating treatment for herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) as a new strategy for HIV prevention. The authors show that contextual factors such as misunderstandings and mistrust played an important role in defining the communications response. Use of different approaches in combination was found to be most effective in building understanding, credibility and trust in the research process. During the communication process, researchers acted beyond their traditional role of neutral observers and became agents of social change. This change in role is in keeping with a global trend towards increased communication of research results and presents both opportunities and challenges for the conduct of future research. Despite disappointing trial results which showed no benefit of HSV-2 treatment for HIV prevention, important lessons were learnt about the value of the communication process in building trust between researchers, community members and policy-makers, and creating an enabling environment for future research partnerships.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage Convenes Third Workshop on Expanding Coverage","field_subtitle":"Results for Development: 13 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.resultsfordevelopment.org/about/newsandevents/joint-learning-network-universal-health-coverage-kicks-third-workshop-mombasa","body":"The Joint Learning Network (JLN) for Universal Health Coverage held its third workshop, \u201cExpanding Coverage to the Informal Sector,\u201d in Mombasa, Kenya on 6-10 June 2011. Over 65 country level policymakers and practitioners from developing countries, including Kenya, Nigeria and Rwanda, participated in four days of discussions and problem-solving on issues related to providing health coverage to poor and informal sector populations. Participants also exchanged ideas about how to improve operations. Topics included partnerships with community organisations for targeting and enrollment, new information communications technologies for premium payment and enrollment verification, and innovative models to ensure access to health services, such as health camps and partnerships with social franchise networks. Participants also discussed how to deal with multiple schemes in moving toward universal coverage, looking at the case study of Kenya\u2019s National Hospital Insurance Fund and the path to universal health coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Labour migration trends and policies in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Crush J and Williams V: Southern African Migration Programme (SAMP) Policy Brief 23, March 2010","field_url":"http://dspace.cigilibrary.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/30704/1/SAMP%20Policy%20Brief%20No.%2023.pdf?1","body":"According to the authors of this study, in southern Africa, the sector most impacted by the brain drain is health. Despite the fact that Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries have adopted a number of financial and non-financial incentives to try to get doctors and nurses to stay, the pull factors attracting health professionals to foreign countries are strong and health workers remain very dissatisfied with existing work conditions. With regard to the migration of health professionals there has been a policy shift away from the early reactive ad hoc policy responses to the development of more comprehensive strategic responses which seek to manage the mobility of health professionals. The authors recommend improving the existing lack of knowledge and data to monitor flows of health professionals into and out of SADC. They also call for bilateral agreements with individual countries involving codes of practice for recruitment and treatment of health workers, exchange programmes for training and development and the provision of health professionals from specific countries. In addition, there is a need for a SADC-wide policy on the movement of health professionals within the region to discourage movement from the poorest and neediest countries to those which are relatively well-endowed, like South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal Deaths Focus Harsh Light on Uganda","field_subtitle":"Celia Dugger, New York Times,  July 29 2011","field_url":"http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/world/africa/30uganda.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hpw","body":"This article reports on two women who died in the process of using or seeking maternal health services in Uganda. These cases are now subjects of a lawsuit filed in March by the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development, a Ugandan nonprofit group, who contend that the government violated the two women\u2019s right to life by failing to provide them with basic maternal care. Dr. Olive Sentumbwe-Mugisa, a Ugandan obstetrician and adviser with the World Health Organization, participated in the Health Ministry\u2019s investigations of the deaths of the women named in the lawsuit against the government concluded that both women arrived in time to be saved. \u201cWe are in a state of emergency as far as maternal services are concerned,\u201d Dr. Sentumbwe-Mugisa said. \u201cWe need to focus on the quality of care in our hospitals and address it in the shortest period of time. That will mean more resources. We cannot run away from that.\u201d While the attorney general\u2019s office has responded that replied that \u201cisolated acts\u201d cited in the case \u201ccannot be used to dim the untiring efforts in the Health Sector, \u201d the authors raise that the case has raised attention and debate, including amongst lawmakers, to the way government has spent its funds more widely, including on military equipment, given the poor improvement in maternal health services. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Midwife shortage in South Africa impacts maternal health","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 27 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93071","body":"Rather than making progress towards the Millennium Development Goal of reducing maternal mortality by 75% by 2015, the number of deaths resulting from pregnancy or childbirth in South Africa has doubled in the past 20 years, according to government figures. For every 100,000 babies born, up to 625 mothers die due to childbirth complications. Loveday Penn-Kekana, from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, believes South Africa's poor maternal health outcomes are linked to the lack of midwifery services. She called for the government to invest in more and better trained midwives, especially as they bore most of the responsibility for day-to-day operations in maternity wards. Midwives are classified as nurses in South Africa so there are no figures on their numbers, but she argues that there are too few. Low enrolment at nursing colleges is part of the problem, but many midwives have also left the public sector to work for higher salaries overseas or in managerial positions, because of the limited opportunities for career development and advancement in the clinical area. The Society of Midwives of South Africa has noted that lack of midwives means that the quality of the services they provide is declining, as existing midwives are overworked. Also, because they argue that people are first trained as a nurse and then given midwifery skills, midwifery is not prioritised. A plan by South Africa's Health Minister to reopen unused nursing colleges across the country and increase the number of nurses may result in more midwives being trained. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mining transparency initiative fails to expose Zambia's lost billions","field_subtitle":"Sharife K: Pambazuka News 536, 23 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/74275","body":"While African governments, such as Zambia, are often singled out as grossly corrupt, not enough is said about corporate tax \u2018avoidance\u2019 on the part of mining companies, which costs the nation billions of US dollars annually, according to this article. And the much-lauded Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) is not helping, the author argues. The EITI standard is meant to \u2018facilitate transparency\u2019 by assessing net discrepancies between resource rents - royalties and taxes remitted by multinationals and received by governments. In 2010, Zambia published its EITI report, disclosing payments from mining companies for the year 2008. It revealed that mining companies remitted US$463 million in payments to the government in 2008, with \u2018significant discrepancies\u2019, noting a net total of \u2018unresolved discrepancies\u2019 of $66 million. Tax havens such as Switzerland are essential to resource-seeking corporations operating in Africa, the author of this article argues, and she estimates more than 85% of asset portfolios for sub-Saharan Africa passes through tax havens. She concludes that EITI\u2019s figures for revenue leakage are underestimated by billions because it does not consider what multinationals ought to have paid Zambia, and it never investigates the means through which corporations were able to circumvent taxation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"MSF launches: Revising TRIPS for public health: An ideas contest","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 19 September 2011","field_url":"http://www.msfaccess.org/main/access-patents/revising-trips-for-public-health-an-ideas-contest-from-msf/","body":"On the occasion of the ten-year anniversary of the Doha Declaration, Medicins sans Frontieres (MSF) is launching an \u2018ideas contest\u2019 on how to revise TRIPS so that it genuinely meets global public health needs. Contestants are asked to respond to the following question: Can TRIPS be reformed to meet public health needs? If your answer is YES, describe your idea for how the treaty should be changed. If NO, explain why not, and propose an alternative. Anyone is eligible to submit an entry, either as an individual, a team, and/or on behalf of an institution. The contest seeks to attract ideas from around the world from creative thinkers who may be academics, students, activists, analysts, government officials, journalists, or from the private sector. Submissions from low- and middle-income countries are particularly encouraged. There are two submission options: Option 1: A written essay of 500-1000 words (excluding footnotes and references). Option 2: An audio visual entry: video, audio, slideshow or photofilm of no more than five minutes. Submissions should succinctly describe a proposal to change the TRIPS Agreement so that it is conducive to global public health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Multinational profit shifting \u2018erodes taxes\u2019","field_subtitle":"Temkin C: Business Day, 30 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=147195","body":"Multinational companies may be engaged in high-risk activity which is eroding the tax base and warrants a tax audit in their respective countries, say senior tax officials of South Africa, Mozambique, Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia. They met at the offices of the African Tax Administration Forum in South Africa on 23 June 2011. Logan Wort, executive secretary of the forum, said that tax authorities in Africa agreed that they would begin work on a multilateral agreement to exchange information on taxpayers, such as multinational companies, for tax purposes. Wort argues that multinationals should not enter into high-risk transactions, such as transfer pricing arrangements, which pose a risk to the tax base. Unfortunately, there is no legal instrument to take collective action against such companies, he said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"No healing here: Violence, discrimination and barriers to health for migrants in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Human Rights Watch: 2009","field_url":"http://dspace.cigilibrary.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/27108/1/No%20Healing%20Here.pdf?1","body":"Human Rights Watch argues that migrants are also especially vulnerable to communicable disease because of substandard living environments, limited sanitation, and cultural and social dislocation, making them vital targets for public health surveillance and intervention. According to Department of Health policies, everyone in South Africa should have access to treatment for communicable disease without cost. Any barrier to prevention and treatment of communicable disease for vulnerable mobile and migrant populations is unwise from a public health perspective, but also a violation of South African and international law. South Africa has recognised the importance of access to health care for vulnerable and migrant populations in its laws and policy documents, yet continues to allow unlawful discrimination by health care staff, undermining efforts to contain disease and improve treatment outcomes. In over 100 interviews with migrants, advocates, health care and other service providers in both urban and border communities, Human Rights Watch found that South Africa\u2019s failure to protect asylum seekers and refugees from deportation and violence leads both to increased disease and injury, and increased barriers to treatment for those conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Occupational segregation, gender essentialism and male primacy as major barriers to equity in HIV care giving: Findings from Lesotho","field_subtitle":"Newman CJ, Fogarty L, Makoae LN and Reavely E: International Journal for Equity in Health 10(24), 8 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-10-24.pdf","body":"In 2008, the Capacity Project partnered with the Lesotho Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in a study of the gender dynamics of HIV and AIDS caregiving in three districts of Lesotho to account for men's absence in HIV and AIDS caregiving and investigate ways in which they might be recruited into the community and home-based care (CHBC) workforce. The researchers used qualitative methods, including 25 key informant interviews with village chiefs, nurse clinicians, and hospital administrators and 31 focus group discussions with community health workers, community members, ex-miners, and HIV-positive men and women. Study participants uniformly perceived a need to increase the number of CHBC providers to deal with the heavy workload from increasing numbers of patients and insufficient new entries. HIV and AIDS caregiving is a gender-segregated job, at the core of which lie stereotypes and beliefs about the appropriate work of men and women. This results in an inequitable, unsustainable burden on women and girls. The authors recommend that HIV and AIDS and human resources stakeholders must address occupational segregation and the underlying gender essentialism and male primacy if there is to be more equitable sharing of the HIV and AIDS caregiving burden and any long-term solution to health worker shortages.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Oxfam launches global GROW campaign","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: 31 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2011-05-31/broken-food-system-environmental-crises-spell-hunger-millions","body":"Oxfam has launched a global campaign, GROW, to combat global hunger. Jeremy Hobbs, Executive Director of Oxfam, said that global agriculture is capable of feeding all of humanity yet one in seven go hungry. The GROW campaign will expose the governments whose failed policies are propping up the broken food system and the clique of 300\u2013500 powerful companies who benefit from and lobby hard to maintain it. For example, four global companies control the movement of most of the world\u2019s food. Three companies \u2013 Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge and Cargill \u2013 control an estimated 90% of the world\u2019s grain trade. Their activities help drive up volatile food prices and they profit from them. In the first quarter of 2008, at the height of a global food price crisis, Cargill\u2019s profits were up 86% and the company is now heading for its most profitable year yet on the back of further disruptions to global food supplies. Oxfam is calling on governments - especially the G20 - to lead the transformation to a fairer more sustainable food system by investing in agriculture, valuing the world\u2019s natural resources, managing the food system better and delivering equality for women who produce much of the world's food. It is calling on the private sector to shift to a business model where profit does not come at the expense of poor producers, consumers and the environment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Pooled funds: Assessing new models for global health R&D financing ","field_subtitle":"Grace C And Pearson M: Centre For Global Health R&D Policy Assessment, 30 November 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4dco7t7","body":"Product development partnerships, non-profit research institutes and private sector groups have come together over the past years to conduct research and development (R&D) in the areas of the development of drugs, vaccines and diagnostics for neglected diseases, including tropical diseases and other major infectious diseases like HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. However, arguments have been put forward that their efforts are disjointed and that funding flows inefficiently to individual research projects resulting in insufficient resources, funding volatility, poor resource allocation, and duplicated and unnecessary efforts. In response, several pooled funding mechanisms have been proposed to address what proponents see as the key problem(s) in the current system: the Industry R&D Facilitation Fund (IRFF) originally proposed by the George Institute; the Fund for Research in Neglected Diseases (FRIND) proposed by Novartis; and the Product Development Partnership Financing Facility (PDP-FF) proposed by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). The goal of this paper is to provide insight into the extent to which these three proposed mechanisms would have a positive effect on accelerating R&D for neglected diseases. It considers how these proposals are likely to perform against two criteria: their capacity to raise additional money for neglected disease R&D and their capacity to improve the efficient allocation of those funds. The authors of the paper use a literature review, interviews with key stakeholders and illustrative modelling to assess the proposals against these two criteria. Most interviewees expressed doubts that common ground could be found with regard to the metrics on resource allocation if the fund were covering a large and diverse part of the R&D space. However, stakeholders overwhelmingly agreed that a pooled fund focused on late stage work only would be a more feasible and useful proposition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Population, health and environment monitoring and evaluation training tool kit","field_subtitle":"Szerz&#337; A: MEASURE Evaluation PRH, 2011","field_url":"http://hu.mutternacht.de/home-hungary/hirek/singleview/browse/4/lastView/258/article/population-health-and-environment-me-training-tool-kit.html","body":"The aim of this training tool kit is to increase the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) capacity, skills and knowledge of those who plan, implement, and evaluate innovative, integrated health and community development programmes in low-resource settings. The tool kit provides managers, technical specialists, and M&E staff with user-friendly, modifiable training components to adapt for a specific developing-country and programmatic context. Users will learn to conduct effective M&E from programme inception to indicator selection through assessment design. The tool kit also promotes M&E efforts that highlight the integrated nature of these programmes and the unique contributions Population, Health and Environment (PHE) programmes make over traditional single-sector efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevention and treatment of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections among men who have sex with men and transgender people","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: June 2011","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2011/9789241501750_eng.pdf","body":"Criminalisation and legal and policy barriers play a key role in increasing HIV vulnerability for men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender people, says the World Health Organisation in this report. More than 75 countries currently criminalise same-gender sexual activity and transgender people lack legal recognition in most countries. These legal conditions force MSM and transgender people to risk criminal sanctions if they want to discuss their level of sexual risk with a service provider and also give police the authority to harass organisations that provide services to these populations. Long-standing evidence indicates that MSM and transgender people experience significant barriers to quality health care due to widespread stigma against homosexuality and ignorance about gender variance in mainstream society and within health systems. Social discrimination against MSM and transgender people has also been described as a key driver of poor physical and mental health outcomes in these populations across diverse settings. In addition to being disproportionately burdened by STI and HIV, MSM and transgender people experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, smoking, alcohol abuse, substance use and suicide as a result of chronic stress, social isolation and disconnection from a range of health and support services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV services: What are the barriers to accessing these services in Zimbabwe? ","field_subtitle":"SHIELD, Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town: July 2011 ","field_url":"http://uct-heu.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/HEU-Policy-Brief-Farai-070711.pdf","body":"This cross-sectional facility-based survey was based on 70 structured face-to-face interviews combined with qualitative research that included two focus group discussions with pregnant women and five in-depth interviews with providers at antenatal care clinics in Marondera. Studies elsewhere have shown that the greatest barriers to the use of PMTCT services are linked to socio-cultural beliefs and in&#64258;uences, including fear of discrimination associated with testing and being HIV positive, and negative perceptions about the e&#64256;ectiveness of anti-retrovirals. None of these barriers were raised by participants in this study. Instead the main barriers were linked to the health system\u2019s failure to meet the needs of pregnant women. Thus, SHIELD concludes, the main reasons why women cannot access PMTCT services are barriers faced in accessing antenatal services, including the cost and acceptability of these services. SHIELD makes a number of recommendations: remove or reduce the cost of antenatal care and delivery user fees for pregnant women, increase women\u2019s access to reliable information, improve the quality of services, and provide training courses for health workers about how to engage with patients in a more acceptable manner.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Program Officer\u2019 with OSF's Public Health Program: Access to Essential Medicines Initiative","field_subtitle":"Application Deadline: August 26, 2011","field_url":"http://www.soros.org/about/locations/new-york/prg-paemi-20110314","body":"The Open Society Foundations seek a full-time Program Officer in its New York office to work with the Public Health Program\u2019s Access to Essential Medicines Initiative.  The overall goal of the Access to Essential Medicines Initiative (AEMI) is to promote increased access to essential medicines in developing countries and countries in post-socialist transition, especially for poor and marginalized populations for whom this access is likely to be elusive. The AEMI pursues this goal by developing civil society capacity for advocacy and leadership on access to medicines at national, regional, and international level, with a specific focus on global South/Eastern European advocates.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Project Accept: Community-based intervention to increase HIV testing and case detection in people aged 16-32 years in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Thailand","field_subtitle":"Sweat M, Stephen M, David C, Marta M, Singh B, Mbwambo J et al: The Lancet Infectious Diseases 11(7), July 2011","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099%2811%2970060-3/abstract?elsca1=TLID-220611&elsca2=email&elsca3=segment","body":"In this study, researchers assessed whether HIV testing could be increased by combination of community mobilisation, mobile community-based voluntary counselling and testing (VCT), and support after testing. Ten communities participated in Project Accept in Tanzania, and eight in Zimbabwe. At each site were paired according to similar demographic and environmental characteristics, and one community from each pair was randomly assigned to receive standard clinic-based VCT (SVCT), and the other community was assigned to receive community-based VCT (CBVCT) plus access to SVCT. The researchers found that the proportion of clients receiving their first HIV test during the study was higher in CBVCT communities than in SVCT communities in all three countries. Although HIV prevalence was higher in SVCT communities than in CBVCT communities, CBVCT detected almost four times more HIV cases than did SVCT across the three study sites. Repeat HIV testing in CBVCT communities increased in all sites to reach 28% of all those testing for HIV by the end of the intervention period. The researchers conclude that CBVCT should be considered as a viable intervention to increase detection of HIV infection, especially in regions with restricted access to clinic-based VCT and support services after testing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Providing HIV health care to all in need: Are ART services equitable in urban South Africa? ","field_subtitle":"SHIELD, Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town: July 2011 ","field_url":"http://uct-heu.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/HEU-Policy-Brief-Sue-July-2011.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers investigated whether anti-retroviral therapy (ART) services for urban HIV-positive adults in two urban areas in South Africa are distributed in an equitable manner, in terms of socio-economic status and gender. HIV-positive people were found to be relatively poor. Over 60% of those with HIV fell into the poorest 40% of the South African population. The users of ART services were in general poorer than the HIV-positive population. Seventy percent of these users fell into the poorest 40% of the South African population. This &#64257;nding was however not statistically signi&#64257;cant, and the proportion of HIV-positive people that were women (or men) was no different to the sex distribution in the users of ART services. Taken together, these &#64257;ndings suggest that the use of ART services in urban South Africa is equitable. The researchers expressed hope that their study will add impetus to commitments to reaching and sustaining full coverage of ART for all in need.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Raising the profile of participatory action research at the 2010 Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R, Flores W, Shukla A, Kagis M, Baba A, Ashraf R et al: MEDICC Review 13(3): 35-38, July 2011","field_url":"http://www.medicc.org/mediccreview/articles/mr_207.pdf","body":"By involving citizens and health workers in producing evidence and learning, participatory action research has potential to organise community evidence, stimulate action, and challenge the marginalisation that undermines achievement of universal health coverage. In this paper, the authors summarise and analyse results of two sessions on this research model convened by the authors at the First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Montreux Switzerland, 16\u201319 November 2010. In so doing, it reviews case studies and experiences discussed, particularly their contribution to universal health coverage in different settings. The authors reflects on challenges faced by participatory action research, and outline recommendations from the two sessions, including the creation of a learning network for participatory action research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Research presented at Sixth International AIDS Society Conference","field_subtitle":"International AIDS Society: 20 July 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.ias2011.org/WebContent/File/IAS%202011%20Wednesday%20Plenary%20Media%20Release_English.pdf","body":"Researchers speaking on the final day of the Sixth International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention, held in Rome, Italy, from 17-20 July 2011, focused on the growing interest in the scientific path to an HIV cure. Discussions around an HIV cure have been growing over the past 12 months and are now gaining momentum with the establishment of an-IAS convened working group concentrating its initial efforts on establishing a global scientific strategy. IAS hopes to unveil their new global scientific strategy at the Seventh International AIDS Conference in Washington in 2012. Researchers also highlighted the need to scale up programmes that could more effectively address both the issues of injecting drug use linked HIV transmission and the still unacceptably high mortality rates amongst pregnant women and young children in sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Retention","field_subtitle":"Capacity Plus: Issue Brief 1, June 2011","field_url":"http://www.capacityplus.org/sites/intrah.civicactions.net/files/resources/Issue_Brief_1_Retention.pdf","body":"In this brief, Capacity Plus notes that people living in rural areas have less access to health workers, and fail to receive vital preventive, curative, and life-saving services. The problem is especially acute in countries with predominately rural populations. Investment in the development of doctors and nurses is wasted if countries cannot place or keep them in the areas where they are most needed, Capacity Plus argues, nor can they achieve their Millennium Development Goals. A number of recommendations are made. Departments of health should aim to understand and test the factors and incentives that influence health workers\u2019 decisions to accept and remain in rural posts, and develop tailored retention schemes. They should prioritise rural retention schemes and strategies in national health workforce plans, involve professional medical and nursing associations in retention advocacy, strengthen and streamline human resources management (HRM) systems that can affect retention, and address gender discrimination in HRM and gender-based violence in health facilities. Furthermore, they should recruit primary health workers from their own communities and from rural backgrounds, locate health professional schools in rural regions and subsidise health worker education in return for service in rural areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SA healthcare spending declines","field_subtitle":"Kahn T: Business Day, 23 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/Content.aspx?id=146523","body":"South Africa\u2019s provincial health departments have dramatically improved their financial management, according to Treasury officials. The nine departments collectively under-spent by US$380 m. in 2010, reversing the trend which saw them run into the red to the tune of $350 m. in the fiscal year 2009-10. The provinces had a combined health budget of $14.7 bn in 2010. This reduction reduces pressure on the Treasury to bail out cash-strapped provinces, a measure it has been loathe to consider for fear of sending the wrong message to provinces that have failed to manage their resources. However, these improvements can mask overspending on some areas at the expense of under- spending on others. The Treasury\u2019s figures show provincial health departments collectively overspent on personnel budgets, but under-spent on capital assets and goods and services in 2010. This created the risk that staff costs might be crowding out expenditure in other critical areas, says the Treasury. It is calling on the government to look carefully at the reasons for underspending in each province, and ensuring that departments are aiming for savings such as negotiating cheaper medicines or more competitively priced tenders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Second Summit of the Movement for Global Mental Health: Cape Town, South Africa: 17 October 2011","field_subtitle":"Closing date for registration: 31 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.globalmentalhealth.org/articles.php?id=212","body":"The Second Summit of the Movement for Global Mental Health forms part of the World Congress of the World Federation for Mental Health. The event will provide a shared platform for professionals and persons affected by mental disorders, active participation of delegates in discussions and debates, and the launch of a new Lancet series on Global Mental Health. The Wellcome Trust will also be providing free registration to a limited number of delegates from low- and middle-income countries. In order to receive free registration, please log onto to www.wmhc2011.com and click on the link to register online.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Seventh Public Health Association Of South Africa (PHASA) Conference: 28-30 November 2011: Gauteng, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Early Registration Deadline: 4 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.phasaconference.org.za/index.html","body":"With increasing global evidence of the widening international, intergroup and interpersonal inequalities in all dimensions of health and human well-being, the 2011 PHASA conference will focus on scientific debate and discussion on health inequities and the role of public health leadership, education and practice in reducing health equity gaps. The programme includes speakers who are policy-makers, leading local and international academics and representatives of international organisations, such as the World Health Organisation and the World Federation of Public Health Associations. The conference theme, \u2018Closing the health equity gap: Public health leadership, education and practice\u2019, forms the basis of a review of the progress that South Africa has made in achieving equity in health status, health care, the social determinants of health and access to resources. The conference will also serve as a country-level build-up to the 2012 conference of the World Federation of Public Health Associations, which will focus on global progress in achieving equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"State of the World\u2019s Mothers Report","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2011","field_url":"http://www.savethechildren.org/atf/cf/%7B9def2ebe-10ae-432c-9bd0-df91d2eba74a%7D/SOWM2011_FULL_REPORT.PDF","body":"This report contains the twelfth annual Mothers\u2019 Index, which documents conditions for mothers and children in 164 countries \u2013 43 developed nations and 121 in the developing world \u2013 and shows where mothers fare best and where they face the greatest hardships. All countries for which sufficient data are available are included in the Index. Some countries from the east, central and southern African region fared poorly in the Index, notably the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which was ranked 37th out of 42 least-developed countries (LDCs). The Central African Republic and Angola also performed poorly, positioned at 33 and 30 respectively. Rwanda, Lesotho, Malawi and Uganda were ranked highest among LDCs, surpassed only by the Maldives in the first place. South Africa\u2019s performance was mediocre, as it was ranked at 19 out of 38 less-developed countries, far behind Cuba, which was ranked first.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategies and tensions in communicating research on sexual and reproductive health, HIV and AIDS: a qualitative study of the experiences of researchers and communications staff","field_subtitle":"Crichton J and Theobald S: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(Suppl 1):S4, 16 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/9/S1/S4/?mkt","body":"This qualitative study focuses on the research communication and policy influencing objectives, strategies and experiences of four research consortia working on sexual and reproductive health (SRH), HIV and AIDS. The researchers carried out 22 in-depth interviews with researchers and communications specialists (research actors) from the four consortia and their partners, working in nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. They found that the characteristics of researchers and their institutions, policy context, the multiplicity of actors, and the nature of the research evidence all play a role in policy influencing processes. Research actors perceived a trend towards increasingly intensive and varied communication approaches. Effective influencing strategies include making strategic alliances and coalitions and framing research evidence in ways that are most attractive to particular policy audiences. Tensions include the need to identify and avoid unnecessary communication or unintended impacts, challenges in assessing and attributing impact and the need for adequate resources and skills for communications work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The best things in life are (nearly) free: Technology, knowledge, and global health","field_subtitle":"Casabonne U and Kenny C: Centre for Global Development Working Paper 252, May 2011","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1425144/","body":"In this paper, the authors investigate the cross-country determinants of health improvements and describe the implications for development policy. The authors argue that making improvements to health need not be expensive. Even very low income countries can make great strides with good technologies and good delivery, but the authors warn that this may take time. They argue that two major factors underlie improved global health outcomes: first,the discovery of cheap technologies that can dramatically improve outcomes; and second, the adoption of these technologies, thanks to the spread of knowledge. Other factors have played a role. Increased income not only allows for improved nutrition, but also helps to improve access to more complex preventative technologies. Institutional development is a second key to the spread of such complex technologies. Nonetheless, evidence of dramatic health improvements even in environments of weak institutions and stagnant incomes suggests that the role of institutional factors may be secondary.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The economics of health and climate change: key evidence for decision making","field_subtitle":"Hutton G: Globalization and Health 7(18), 27 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-7-18.pdf","body":"The author of this article examines the availability and strength of evidence on climate change, economics and health outcomes for policy makers to draw on in making health policy decisions. Eighteen available economic studies were included in the study. The author found that in those studies that put a value on the predicted increased mortality from climate change, the health damages represented an important fraction of overall economic losses. Equally health impacts were important in considering broader measures affecting the economics of climate change beyond the health sector such as agriculture and water supply. Global adaptation cost studies carried out so far indicate costs to the health sector of roughly US$2-5 billion annually (mid-estimates). However, these costs are argued to be an underestimate of the true costs, due to omitted health impacts, omitted economic impacts, and the costs of health actions in other sectors. No published studies compare the costs and benefits of specific health interventions to protect health from the negative effects of climate change. The authors suggest that until further climate change-specific economic studies have been conducted, decision makers should selectively draw on published studies of the costs and benefits of environmental health interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The International Monetary Fund and aid displacement","field_subtitle":"Stuckler D, Basu S And McKee M: International Journal Of Health Services 41(1): 67-76, 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6hox89o","body":"The authors of this paper reviewed aid to health and borrowing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) between 1996 and 2006. They found that, on average, for each US$1 of development assistance for health, only about $0.37 is added to the health system. In their comparison of IMF-borrowing versus non-IMF-borrowing countries, non-borrowers add about $0.45 whereas borrowers add less than $0.01 to the health system. Health system spending grew at about half the speed when countries were exposed to the IMF than when they were not.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Millennium Development Goals Report 2011","field_subtitle":"United Nations: 7 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/11_MDG%20Report_EN.pdf","body":"Despite significant setbacks after the 2008-2009 economic downturn, exacerbated by the food and energy crisis, the United Nations notes that the world is on track to reach poverty-reduction targets, but also notes that progress has been inequitable. According to the United Nations. The number of deaths of children under the age of five declined from 12.4 million in 1990 to 8.1 million in 2009. The largest absolute drops in malaria deaths were in Africa, where 11 countries have reduced malaria cases and deaths by over 50%. New HIV infections are declining steadily, led by sub-Saharan Africa. Between 1995 and 2009, a total of 41 million tuberculosis patients were successfully treated and up to 6 million lives were saved, due to effective international protocols for the treatment of tuberculosis. In contrast, the report notes that progress has been inequitable: the poorest children have made the slowest progress in terms of improved nutrition, poor women and girls remain severely socially disadvantaged, and advances in sanitation often bypass the poor and those living in rural areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The pipers call the tunes in global aid for AIDS: The global financial architecture for HIV funding as seen by local stakeholders in Kenya, Malawi and Zambia","field_subtitle":"Edstr\u00f6m J and MacGregor H: Global Health Governance IV(1), 2010","field_url":"http://www.ghgj.org/Edstrom%20and%20MacGregor_final.pdf","body":"Much theorising about global health governance has taken a view from above and the authors of this article aimed to complement this with perspectives from grassroots organisations and service providers. Based on a qualitative field study conducted in 2009, they investigated the implications of multiple major international financing structures for HIV on local and district-level responses in Kenya, Malawi and Zambia. They conducted 130 interviews at national level and in six districts, triangulated across public and private sectors. The authors found positive as well as negative experiences of engagement with global health initiatives, concluding that these initiatives should engage with each other, with governments and with local stakeholders to develop a joint Code of Practice for more coherent systems down to community levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The risk of asbestos exposure in South African diamond mine workers","field_subtitle":"Nelson G, Murray J and Phillips JI: Annals of Occupational Hygiene 55(6): 569-577, July 2011","field_url":"http://annhyg.oxfordjournals.org/content/55/6/569.long","body":"The objective of this study was to explore the possibility of asbestos exposure during the process of diamond mining. Scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis were used to identify asbestos fibres in the lungs of diamond mine workers who had an autopsy for compensation purposes and in the tailings and soils from three South African diamond mines located close to asbestos deposits. Tremolite-actinolite asbestos fibres were identified in the lungs of five men working on diamond mines. Tremolite-actinolite and/or chrysotile asbestos were present in the mine tailings of all three mines. Mesothelioma, asbestosis, and/or pleural plaques were diagnosed in six diamond mine workers at autopsy. The authors conclude that these findings indicate that diamond mine workers are at risk of asbestos exposure and, thus, of developing asbestos-related diseases. Even at low concentrations, asbestos has the potential to cause disease, and mining companies should be aware of the health risk of accidentally mining it. Recording of comprehensive work histories should be mandatory to enable the risk to be quantified in future studies, the authors argue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of economic power in influencing the development of global health governance","field_subtitle":"Smith RD: Global Health Governance III(2), 2010","field_url":"http://www.ghgj.org/Smith_Role%20of%20Economic%20Power.pdf","body":"The configuration of economic actors has shifted dramatically in recent decades as a consequence of the shift from an international to global economy, according to this article. The 21st century thus faces a fundamentally different economic landscape, with governance far less about formal nation-state negotiation, and far more about informal mechanisms of state and non-state negotiation. Although economic power has always played a role in defining international health governance, this changing global economic context has increased the role of economic power in the development of global health governance. To ensure the continued protection and enhancement of global health, the author argues it is imperative for the health profession to recognise and more actively engage with this changing economic context, in order to seize opportunities and minimise risks to global health. If it does not, the danger is that global health governance will increasingly be determined by economic organisations with the principle concern not of health but of market liberalisation, ultimately constraining the capacity of nation-states to undertake measures to protect and enhance the health of their populations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of health economics research in implementation research for health systems strengthening","field_subtitle":"Mann GH, Thomson R, Jin C, Phiri M, Vater MC, Sinanovic E AND Squire SB:  The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease 15(6): 715-721, June 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3g42hxr","body":"This article presents the most recent World Health Organisation framework for strengthening health systems and considers how health economics research can be used to measure achievements against each of the goals of the framework. Benefits to health systems strengthening of incorporating health economics tools into operational research are highlighted. Finally, health economic tools are placed within an impact assessment framework that facilitates the capture of health systems considerations in implementation research for innovations in tuberculosis diagnosis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The State of World's Midwifery 2011: Delivering Health, Saving Lives","field_subtitle":"United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA): June 2011","field_url":"http://www.unfpa.org/sowmy/resources/en/main.htm","body":"Most of the 58 countries covered in this report have been identified as suffering from a crisis in human resources for health. Collectively, across these countries women gave birth to 81 million babies in 2009, accounting for 58% of the world\u2019s total births. The inequitable \u2018state of the world\u2019 is most evident in the disproportionate number of deaths in these countries: 91% of the global burden of maternal mortality, 80% of stillbirths and 82% of newborn mortality. These figures partly reflect the distribution of the global workforce: less than 17% of the world\u2019s skilled birth attendants are available to care for women in the 58 countries. There is a triple gap, consisting of competencies, coverage and access. The triad of education, regulation and association has insufficient focus on quality of care, the authors argue. Policy coherence is disjointed and access to the necessary strategic intelligence or evidence for action weak. They urge governments to recognise midwifery as a distinct profession, core to the provision of maternal and newborn health services, and promote it as a career with posts at the national policy level. They also make a number of recommendations for governments, regulatory bodies, schools and training institutions, professional midwifery organisations, international organisations and global partnerships, external funders and civil society organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Tunis Consensus: Targeting effective development: From aid effectiveness to development effectiveness","field_subtitle":"African Development Bank Group, NEPAD and African Union: December 2010","field_url":"http://www.aideffectiveness.org/images/tunis/Tunis_Consensus_3mars.pdf","body":"On 4 and 5 November 2010, representatives from across Africa met in Tunis to discuss an African agenda on development effectiveness to take to the Fourth High-Level Forum in Busan in 2011. The Tunis Consensus on an African development effectiveness agenda consists of the following main items: building capable states, with African countries taking leadership on capacity development; developing democratic accountability; promoting South-South co-operation; embracing new development partners; and outgrowing aid dependence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Medicines Situation 2011: Access to controlled medicines","field_subtitle":"Milani B and Scholten W: World Health Organisation, 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/medicines/areas/policy/world_medicines_situation/WMS_ch19_wAccess.pdf","body":"Controlled medicines are medicines that are listed under the international conventions on narcotic and psychotropic drugs and their precursors. Global morphine consumption \u2013 an indicator of access to pain treatment \u2013 has increased over the past two decades, but mainly in a small number of developed countries. Developing countries, which represent about 80% of the world\u2019s population, accounted for only about 6% of global morphine consumption. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Trade liberalisation criticised in UN Conference panel","field_subtitle":"Third World Resurgence 249: 13-17, May 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/resurgence/2011/249/cover03.htm","body":"Participants at an official high-level thematic debate on trade at the United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries, held in Istanbul, Turkey, in May 2011, criticised excessive trade liberalisation as damaging to the economies of least-developed countries (LDCs). President Banda of Zambia, who gave a keynote speech, also criticised the lack of a positive response from the European Union to African demands in the Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations. Martin Khor, Executive Director of the South Centre, noted that many LDCs have higher ratios of exports to gross national product than some developed countries. He argued it is the way in which the LDCs are integrated in trade that has been a disadvantage because LDCs are too dependent on raw materials export, and prices of commodities have had a long-term trend decline, thus causing major revenue and income losses. All speakers agreed that LDCs face the basic problem of supply capacity which hinders them from taking advantage of any market opening and that their exports outside of commodities therefore remain small. Khor emphasised that it is thus vital that LDCs be assisted to increase their capacity to produce in agriculture, industry and services, including health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"UN Summit results disappointing for least-developed countries","field_subtitle":"Khor M: Third World Resurgence 249: 8-9, May 2011","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/resurgence/2011/249/cover01.htm","body":"Held in Istanbul, Turkey on 9-13 May 2011, a United Nations summit to assist least-developed countries (LDCs) ended with new pledges, but the results were disappointing, according to this article. The Istanbul Programme of Action, adopted by the Conference, merely states that those countries already providing more than 0.20% of their gross national product (GNP) as aid to LDCs will continue to do so; those which have met the 0.15% target will undertake to reach 0.20%; and others which have committed themselves to the 0.15% target will either achieve the target by 2015 or try their best to do so. This weak statement with its loopholes was rebuked by the civil society groups attending the Conference. The author of this article notes that the Programme of Action seems to contain more commitments by LDCs to take their own actions than commitments by rich countries to assist them, which is a reversal from previous LDC conferences.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"UNICEF finally reveals what it pays drug companies for vaccines","field_subtitle":"McNeil DJ: Global Health Watch, 27 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/node/475","body":"The United Nations Children's Fund has publicly listed for the first time the price it pays for vaccines. The decision - which immediately revealed wide disparities in what vaccine makers charge - could lead to drastic cuts in prices for vaccines that save millions of children's lives. UNICEF paid US$747 million for vaccines in 2010, buying over two billion doses for 58% of the world's children. Shanelle Hall, director of UNICEF's supply division and the driving force behind the new transparency policy, said she hoped to extend it to other goods that the organisation buys, including mosquito nets, diagnostic kits, essential medicines and ready-to-eat foods for starving children. Newer procurement agencies like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria routinely reveal what they pay for drugs. But vaccines have been largely exempt because UNICEF has avoided confrontation with its suppliers, posting only the average prices it pays; and external funders had not demanded more details. Doctors Without Borders have commented that when external funders see the differentials they will insist on procurement at better prices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"United Nations Summit on Non-Communicable Diseases","field_subtitle":"19-20 September 2011: New York, United States","field_url":"http://www.esmo.org/policy/political-initiatives/2011-un-summit-on-non-communicable-diseases.html","body":"The United Nations (UN) General Assembly will be holding a UN Summit on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) from 19-20 September 2011. The Summit will focus on the four most prominent non-communicable diseases, namely, cancers, cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes. The aim of the summit is to agree on a global strategy to address NCDs. The UN Summit on NCDs is the second of its kind to focus on a global disease issue. The first UN Summit related to health was the HIV/AIDS meeting in 2001 which led to the creation of the Global Fund. Non-communicable disease indicators are on the agenda for discussion and acceptance of the goals could lead to the future earmarking of overseas development aid to address cancer and other NCDs in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Urban farming in DRC: Helping reduce malnutrition","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 28 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93089","body":"Urban farming in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is providing a livelihood for thousands of city dwellers, with vegetables bringing in good money for small growers and helping to alleviate high levels of malnutrition, according to this article. The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has noted that the demand for vegetables and the high prices they command in DRC cities has pushed many jobless residents into becoming small-scale growers. Most of the green spaces along the roadsides of the capital, Kinshasa, have been transformed into small farms. City farmers now grow 122% more produce than they did five years ago, according to the FAO, which is supporting gardeners in five main DRC cities with a US$10.4 million urban horticulture project. Although the project has contributed to improving nutrition in urban areas, the project manager cautions that there is still a lot of work to be done and malnutrition levels remain high: 24% of children in the DRC under five are underweight, 43% are stunted, and 9% are wasted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"US military global health engagement since 9/11: Seeking stability through health","field_subtitle":"Chretien J: Global Health Governance IV(2), 2011","field_url":"http://www.ghgj.org/JeanPaulChretien.pdf","body":"Following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, the United States (US) military expanded its global health engagement as part of broader efforts to stabilise fragile states, formally designating \u201cmedical stability operations\u201d as use of Department of Defense (DoD) medical assets to build or sustain indigenous health sector capacity. Medical stability operations have included medical assistance missions launched by US Africa Command throughout Africa. The public health impact of such initiatives, and their effectiveness in promoting stability is unclear, the author notes. Moreover, humanitarian actors have expressed concern about military encroachment on the \u201chumanitarian space,\u201d potentially endangering aid workers and populations in need, and violating core principles of humanitarian assistance. The DoD should draw on existing data to determine whether, and under what conditions, health engagement promotes stability overseas and develop a shared understanding with humanitarian actors of core principles to guide its global health engagement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Using research to influence sexual and reproductive health practice and implementation in Sub-Saharan Africa: a case-study analysis","field_subtitle":"Tulloch O, Mayaud P, Adu-Sarkodie Y, Opoku BK, Lithur NO, Sickle E et al: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(Suppl 1):S10, 16 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/9/S1/S10/?mkt","body":"In the case-studies presented in this paper, the authors analyse findings from sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and HIV research programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. In their analysis, they emphasise the relationships and communications involved in using research to influence policy and practice and recognises a distinction whereby practice is not necessarily influenced as a result of policy change \u2013 especially in SRH \u2013 where there are complex interactions between policy actors. Policy networks, partnership and advocacy are critical in shaping the extent to which research is used and the importance of on-going and continuous links between a range of actors to maximise research impact on policy uptake and implementation. The case-studies illustrate the importance of long-term engagement between researchers and policy makers and how to use evidence to develop policies which are sensitive to context: political, cultural and practical.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO enters next phase of global plan to increase flu vaccine production","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 14 July 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3eggvj2","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) has announced it will be entering a new phase in its Global Action Plan for Influenza Vaccines (GAP), in which the organisation will be giving more attention to the local health and policy environment. WHO held its first review of phase 1 of GAP on 12-14 July 2011. WHO\u2019s estimate of the seasonal flu vaccine manufacturing capacities is 800,000 million doses per year, compared to 350,000 in 2006. The estimate rises to 1.7 billion doses by 2015 if all the projects going on now are successful. There are currently 37 manufacturers of influenza vaccine in the world, either operating now or operational by 2015. According to WHO, 10 manufacturers are in Europe, 14 in the Western Pacific region, 6 in the South East Asia region, and 5 in the Americas region. Included in the 37 are 11 new manufacturers in 11 low or middle-income countries are part of the GAP programme, which have been working with WHO to acquire technologies to produce influenza vaccine.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Who is covered by health insurance schemes and which services are used in Tanzania? ","field_subtitle":"SHIELD, Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town: July 2011 ","field_url":"http://uct-heu.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/SHIELD-Policy-Brief-TZ_Coverage-Utilisation.pdf","body":"Health insurance cover is gradually increasing among the Tanzanian population since its introduction over a decade ago, according to this policy brief. However, wealthier groups working in the formal sector are more likely to benefit from this development than poorer groups. The diversity of schemes, in terms of contribution rates and benefits offered, means that the effect of insurance is inconsistent, both in terms of the amount and nature of services received by members. What is clear is that insurance is generally increasing the intensity of outpatient care use and also influencing where people go for such care, diverting people from informal drug shops to formal care. CHF members are more likely to use public primary care, than their non&#8208;insured rural counterparts, consistent with their benefit package. Despite equal contributions, NHIF members in urban areas use a much wider range of outpatient care than those in rural areas. SHIELD makes three recommendations for health policy: addressing the lack of publicly available data on use of health services, increasing the availability of affordable insurance options for poorer groups and ensuring greater consistency in benefits offered, and taking into account the inequity in service availability between urban and rural areas when setting premiums for schemes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Who pays for health care in Ghana?","field_subtitle":"Akazili J, Gyapong J, McIntyre D, International Journal for Equity in Health 10(26):2011 ","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/10/1/26","body":"Financial protection against the cost of unforeseen ill health has become a global concern as expressed in the 2005 World Health Assembly resolution (WHA58.33), which urges its member states to \"plan the transition to universal coverage of their citizens\". An important element of financial risk protection is to distribute health care financing fairly in relation to ability to pay. The distribution of health care financing burden across socio-economic groups has been estimated for European countries, the USA and Asia. Until recently there was no such analysis in Africa and this paper seeks to contribute to filling this gap. It presents the first comprehensive analysis of the distribution of health care financing in relation to ability to pay in Ghana. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Why African countries need to participate in global health security discourse","field_subtitle":"Hwenda L, Mahlathi P and Maphanga T: Global Health Governance IV(2), 2011","field_url":"http://www.ghgj.org/HwendaMahlathiMaphanga.pdf","body":"The authors of this article argue that health is an important component of global security. However, the precise meaning and scope of global health security remains contested partly due to suspicions about clandestine motives underlying framing health as a security issue. Consequently, low and middle-income countries have not engaged global discourse on health security, resulting in an unbalanced global health security agenda shaped primarily by the interests of high-income countries, which focuses on a few infectious diseases, bioterrorism and marginalises health security threats of greater relevance to low and middle-income countries. Focusing primarily on African countries, the authors of this paper examine the implications of the participation deficit by the African Group of countries on their shared responsibility towards global health security. After analysing the potential benefits of regional health security co-operation, they conclude that, to ensure that global health security includes the interests of African countries, they should develop a regional health security co-operation framework.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Workplace violence and gender discrimination in Rwanda's health workforce: increasing safety and gender equality","field_subtitle":"Newman CJ, de Vries DH, Kanakuze J and Ngendahimana G: Human Resources for Health 9(19), 19 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-9-19.pdf","body":"The authors of this article examined the influence of gender on workplace violence, and synthesised their findings with other research from Rwanda, before they examined the subsequent impact of the study on Rwanda's policy environment. Fifteen out of 30 districts were selected at random. Forty-four facilities at all levels were randomly selected in these districts. From these facilities, 297 health workers were selected at random, of whom 205 were women and 92 were men. Researchers administered health worker survey, facility audits, key informant and health facility manager interviews and focus groups to collect data in 2007. They found that 39% of health workers had experienced some form of workplace violence in year prior to the study. The study identified gender-related patterns of perpetration, victimisation and reactions to violence. Negative stereotypes of women, discrimination based on pregnancy, maternity and family responsibilities and the 'glass ceiling' affected female health workers' experiences and career paths and contributed to a context of violence. Addressing gender discrimination and violence simultaneously should be a priority for workplace and violence research, workforce policies, strategies, laws and human resources management training, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A review of health system infection control measures in developing countries: what can be learned to reduce maternal mortality","field_subtitle":"Hussein J, Mavalankar DV, Sharma S and D'Ambruoso L: Globalization and Health 7(14), May 2011","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-7-14.pdf","body":"According to this paper, puerperal sepsis is an infection contracted during childbirth and one of the commonest causes of maternal mortality in developing countries, despite the discovery of antibiotics over eighty years ago. Some developing countries have recently experienced increased use of health facilities for labour and delivery care and there is a possibility that this trend could lead to rising rates of puerperal sepsis. Drug and technological developments need to be combined with effective health system interventions to reduce infections, including puerperal sepsis. The authors review health system infection control measures pertinent to labour and delivery units in developing country health facilities. Organisational improvements, training, surveillance and continuous quality improvement initiatives, used alone or in combination have been shown to decrease infection rates in some clinical settings. There is limited evidence available on effective infection control measures during labour and delivery and from low-resource settings. The authors argue that a health systems approach is necessary to reduce maternal mortality and the occurrence of infections resulting from childbirth. Organisational and behavioural change underpins the success of infection control interventions. A global, targeted initiative could raise awareness of the need for improved infection control measures during childbirth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"A review of selected research priority setting processes at national level in low and middle income countries: Towards fair and legitimate priority setting","field_subtitle":"Tomlinson M, Chopra M, Hoosain N and Rudan I: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(19), 15 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-19.pdf","body":"It is estimated that more than US$130 billion is invested globally into health research each year, yet, according to this paper, priority setting in health research investments remain inequitable. The authors reviewed selected priority-setting processes at national level in low and middle income countries, and outlined a set of criteria to assess the process of research priority setting and use these to describe and evaluate priority setting exercises that have taken place at country level. Data were gathered from presentations at a meeting held at the World Health Organisation in 2008 and a web-based search. A number of findings emerged. Across the countries surveyed there was a relative lack of genuine stakeholder engagement, while countries varied markedly in the extent to which the priority setting processes were documented. None of the countries surveyed had a systematic or operational appeals process for outlined priorities, and in all countries (except South Africa) the priorities that were outlined described broad disease categories rather than specific research questions. The authors argue that priority setting processes must have in-built mechanisms for publicising results, effective procedures to enforce decisions as well as processes to ensure that the revision of priorities happens in practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Regional Association Of Occupational Health Congress","field_subtitle":"25\u201327 August 2011: Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.sasom.org/sasom-events/details/9-sasom-conference-cape-town","body":"The Africa Regional Association of Occupational Health (ARAOH) Congress is to be hosted by the South African Society of Occupational Medicine Conference (SASOM) from 25\u201327 August 2011 in Johannesburg, South Africa. To register for the event visit the link provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"African Health Observatory website","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6j5hfjd","body":"The African Health Observatory website is intended to provide an open, transparent, collaborative platform that supports and facilitates the acquisition, generation, diffusion, translation and use of information, evidence and knowledge by countries to improve national health systems and outcomes. It consists of: a web portal for easy access to the best available information; a data-statistics platform enabling data download, processing and analysis, or access to ready-made statistics; a wiki-based collaborative space for the production and updating of comprehensive and analytical country profiles based on both quantitative and qualitative information; a repository of key publications from or associated with the Observatory; the African Health Monitor a quarterly periodical; and, a platform and relevant tools that enable networking, collaborative work and learning within and between groups, communities of practice, institutions, and national health observatories.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Agricultural Outlook 2011-2020","field_subtitle":"United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development: 2011","field_url":"http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/agriculture-and-food/oecd-fao-agricultural-outlook-2011_agr_outlook-2011-en","body":"Contrary to popular perception, the current high food prices will not see more money flowing into agriculture in the long term, according to this forecast. Input costs, including that of fuel and fertiliser, have risen significantly and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) anticipates global agriculture production to slow down in the next decade. The Outlook has forecast in its last three editions that food prices will remain high for the next few decades. Global agricultural production is projected to grow at 1.7% annually until 2020, compared to 2.6% during the previous decade. Slower growth is expected for most crops, especially oilseeds and coarse grains, which face higher production costs and slowing productivity. The FAO estimates that to meet projected demand over the next 40 years, farmers in developing countries need to double production.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS at 30: Nations at the crossroads","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: June 2011","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/unaids_resources/aidsat30/aids-at-30.pdf","body":"According to this UNAIDS report, the global rate of new HIV infections declined by nearly 25% between 2001 and 2009. In South Africa, the rate of new HIV infections fell by more than 35%, with above-average declines in new HIV infections recorded in sub-Saharan Africa. The report found that in the third decade of the epidemic, people were starting to adopt safer sexual behaviours, reflecting the impact of HIV prevention and awareness efforts. However, there are still important gaps \u2013 for example, young women are less likely to be informed about HIV prevention than young men. While the rate of new HIV infections has declined globally, the total number of HIV infections remains high, at about 7,000 per day. According to the report, investments in the HIV response in low- and middle-income countries rose nearly 10-fold between 2001 and 2009, from US$ 1.6 billion to US$ 15.9 billion. However, in 2010, international resources for HIV declined, despite the fact that many low-income countries remain heavily dependent on external financing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"All roads lead back to China","field_subtitle":"Sharife K: Pambazuka News 531, 26 May 2011","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73580","body":"Across Africa, China has become known as the agent of mass construction, bartering infrastructural development \u2013 chiefly mining-specific \u2013 for long-term access to strategic resources. Through this mechanism, Ghanaian cocoa, Gabonese iron and Congolese oil have been swapped for construction of dams (Bui, Poubara, and River Dam), allowing Chinese corporations such as Sinohydro to capture Africa's hydropower market. The 'barter system' enables China to export goods and labour and to 'import' recycled project capital and African resources. In the process, the author of this article argues that China has activated the same 'Western' capitalist vehicles of engagement but with one noticeable difference: prior to Beijing's entrance, just 4% of foreign direct investment (FDI) was earmarked for infrastructure. China has constructed stadiums across the continent, as well as buildings and special economic zones. Though Zambia was pegged as the third largest recipient of Chinese investment in Africa, Zambian labour unions appear apprehensive about Chinese FDI as the means of national development, stating that Chinese FDI has had modest impact on national development, with overall negative impacts on the labour market. In Zambian mines, the bulk of the work is reported to be subcontracted to Chinese workers and companies, leading to complaint of displacement of local workers. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"An assessment of mental health policy in Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia","field_subtitle":"Faydi E, Funk M, Kleintjes S, Ofori-Atta A, Ssbunnya J, Mwanza J et al: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(17), 8 April 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-17.pdf","body":"This paper reports the results of an assessment of the mental health policies of Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia. The WHO Mental Health Policy Checklist was used to evaluate the most current mental health policy in each country. All four national policies addressed community-based services, the integration of mental health into general health care, promotion of mental health and rehabilitation. Only the Zambian policy presented a clear vision, with the other three countries spelling out values and principles, the need to establish a coordinating body for mental health, and to protect the human rights of people with mental health problems. None included all the basic elements of a policy, nor specified sources and levels of funding for implementation. Only Uganda sufficiently outlined a mental health information system, research and evaluation, while only Ghana comprehensively addressed human resources and training requirements. No country had an accompanying strategic mental health plan to allow the development and implementation of concrete strategies and activities. The authors recommend strengthening capacity of key stakeholders in public (mental) health and policy development, the creation of a culture of inclusive and dynamic policy development, and coordinated action to optimise use of available resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Are there particular social determinants of health for the world's poorest countries?","field_subtitle":"Eshetu EB and Woldesenbet SA: African Health Sciences 11(1): 108\u2013115, March 2011","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092326/?tool=pubmed","body":"Despite increased research interest on the social and economic determinants of health (SEDH), the vast majority of studies on this issue are from developed countries. The authors of this study set out to determine whether there are specific social determinants of health in the world's poorest countries, and if so, how they could be better identified and researched in Africa in order to promote and support universal health coverage. They conducted a literature review of existing papers on the social and economic determinants of health, finding that most of the existing studies on the SEDH studies did not provide adequate explanation on the historical and contemporary realities of SEDHs in the world's poorest countries. As these factors vary from one country to another, the authors argue that it is necessary for researchers and policy makers to understand country-specific conditions and design appropriate policies that take due cognisance of these country-specific circumstances. They call for further research in the world's poorest countries, especially in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Are workplace health promotion programmes effective at improving presenteeism in workers? A systematic review and best evidence synthesis of the literature","field_subtitle":"Cancelliere C, Cassidy J, Ammendolia C and Cote P: BMC Public Health 11(395), 26 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-395.pdf","body":"Workplace health promotion (WHP) is a common strategy used to enhance on-the-job productivity. The primary objective of this study was to determine if WHP programmes are effective in improving workers presence at work. The Cochrane Library, Medline, and other electronic databases were searched from 1990 to 2010. After 2,032 titles and abstracts were screened, 47 articles were reviewed, and 14 were accepted (4 strong and 10 moderate studies). These studies contained preliminary evidence for a positive effect of some WHP programmes. Successful programmes offered organisational leadership, health risk screening, individually tailored programs, and a supportive workplace culture. Potential risk factors contributing to presenteeism included being overweight, a poor diet, a lack of exercise, high stress, and poor relations with co-workers and management.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Best practices for an insecticide-treated bed net distribution programme in sub-Saharan eastern Africa","field_subtitle":"Sexton AR: Malaria Journal 10(157), 8 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-157.pdf","body":"Insecticide-treated bed nets are the preeminent malaria control means, although there is no consensus as to a best practice for large-scale insecticide-treated bed net distribution. In order to determine the paramount distribution method, the author of this review assessed literature on recent insecticide treated bed net distribution programmes throughout sub-Saharan Eastern Africa. She included all studies that had taken place in sub-Saharan Eastern Africa, targeted malaria prevention and control, and occurred between 1996 and 2007. Forty-two studies were identified and reviewed. The results indicate that distribution frameworks varied greatly, and so did outcomes of insecticide-treated bed net use. Studies revealed consistent inequities between urban and rural populations, which were most effectively alleviated through a free insecticide-treated bed net delivery and distribution framework. Cost sharing through subsidies was shown to increase programme sustainability, which may lead to more long-term coverage. Thus, distribution should employ a catch up/keep up programme strategy, the author argues. The catch-up programme rapidly scales up coverage, while the keep-up programme maintains coverage levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Biofuels boom in Africa as British firms lead rush on land for plantations","field_subtitle":"Carrington D, Valentino S: The Guardian, Wednesday June 1 2011","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/31/biofuel-plantations-africa-british-firms","body":"British firms are reported to have acquired more land in Africa for controversial biofuel plantations than companies from any other country, a Guardian investigation has revealed. Half of the 3.2m hectares (ha) of biofuel land identified in countries from Mozambique to Senegal is linked to 11 British companies, more than any other country. There are no central records of land acquisitions in Africa, but research by the Guardian revealed 100 biofuel projects in sub-Saharan Africa by 50 companies in more than 20 countries. The authors note that the revelation of the central role of UK companies in biofuels coincides with a report from Oxfam forecasting that the price of staple foods will more than double in the next 20 years. The report identifies biofuels as a factor and demands that western governments end biofuel policies that divert food to fuel for cars. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Abstracts: International Research Symposium on Equitable Health systems for People with Disabilities with a Focus on Low and Middle income countries,  November 8th, 2011","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submission of abstracts: Friday July 29th 2011","field_url":"http://disabilitycentre.lshtm.ac.uk/news-and-events/equityhealthdisability/","body":"The World Report on Disability, mandated by the World Health Assembly and jointly published by WHO and the World Bank, will be launched in June 2011.  The Report highlights gaps in knowledge and stresses the need for further research and changes towards disability inclusive policy and practice. This one day international symposium hosted by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and WHO seeks to bring together researchers, policy makers, disability advocates, NGOs, health and rehabilitation professionals, and donors to share current research on equity in health care for people with disabilities and promote interdisciplinary action in policy relevant research. Abstracts for presentations and posters should focus primarily on research and evidence in low/middle income settings at the level of the individual, at the level of the system or service,  from research to policy. Papers on the above themes that incorporate the following cross-cutting issues are encouraged: Participatory and emancipatory research methods; Methodological issues in the collection of disability-related statistics and examples of where evidence/research has led to change in practice or policy. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: RuDASA Rural Health Conference 8-10 September, South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 16 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.ruralhealthconference2011.co.za/abstract-submission.html","body":"The 2011 Rural Health Conference is titled \"Making Primary Health Care Better' and will be focusing on primary health care and its integration into district systems, as well as on the role of the multidisciplinary team in primary health care. There will also be many practical skills sessions, as well as a track for student presentations and rural health advocacy. For the first time, there will be a dedicated rehabilitation and disability track geared towards allied health professionals. All medical and allied health practitioners, as well as students of these disciplines, are invited to submit abstracts for presentations and posters for the RuDASA Rural Health Conference, to be held in September 2011 in South Africa. Presentation topics should relate to rural health and primary health care. Research pertaining to disabilities and rural health is especially welcomed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers for the WHO Bulletin","field_subtitle":"Deadline For Submissions: 20 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/5/11-088476.pdf","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) is calling for papers for all sections of the Bulletin and encourage authors to consider contributions that address any of the following topics: disease burden assessments in low-income countries, since information in this area is scarce; vaccination implementation and policy, particularly on the cost and public health benefit of vaccination programmes; and the evaluation of nonpharmaceutical public health measures since these are widely described as control measures, but there is less published evidence on their effectiveness than for pharmaceutical interventions (vaccines and medicines). In particular, WHO seeks submission of papers that document experiences from low-resource settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: Establishing an evidence base for e-health","field_subtitle":"Geissbuhler A and Al Shorbaji N: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(6): 394, June 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/6/11-090274.pdf","body":"Evidence is needed to promote equity of access to information and health services, and to strengthen activities and programmes that support local, regional, national and global health communities. There is a critical need to communicate evidence and to provide examples of best practice in the development of effective and efficient solutions to major health challenges. To this end, the World Health Organisation\u2019s Bulletin is calling on authors to contribute papers providing evidence of the impact of e-health methods and tools. Suggested domains include: governance and management of health systems; equity of access to health care; transferable and sustainable economic models; health policy development; information sharing and interoperability to improve the quality, efficiency and continuity of care; information collection and aggregation for public health support; and health workforce development. The Bulletin particularly seek papers that document experiences and lessons learnt in low-resource settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: Global Health Conference 2011 ","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 1 August 2011","field_url":"http://2011globalhealth.org/abstracts.html","body":"Authors involved in original research, innovative projects or novel programmes related to global health are encouraged to submit abstracts for the Global Health Conference 2011 to be held in Canada in November 2011. Abstracts in all areas of global health are welcomed including: the global burden of disease; innovations and interventions to advance global health equity; globalisation, global trade and movement of populations as drivers of health inequity; partnerships and capacity building for education and research in global health; social, economic and environmental determinants of health; and human rights, legal issues, ethics and policy. Abstracts may focus on a new finding, the development of a programme, project or new global health tool, moving from development to implementation, policy or ethical issues, or related topics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: Systematic Reviews","field_subtitle":"No closing date given","field_url":"http://www.systematicreviewsjournal.com/manuscript","body":"A new journal encompassing all aspects of the design, conduct and reporting of systematic reviews in healthcare, Systematic Reviews, is now accepting submissions.Systematic Reviews encompasses all aspects of the design, conduct and reporting of systematic reviews. The journal aims to publish systematic review products including systematic review protocols, systematic reviews related to a very broad definition of health, rapid reviews, updates of already completed systematic reviews, and methods research related to the science of systematic reviews, such as decision modelling. The journal also aims to ensure that the results of all well-conducted systematic reviews are published, regardless of their outcome.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CIVICUS calls on world leaders to make countries accountable for failing aid commitments at OECD summit","field_subtitle":"CIVICUS: e-CIVICUS 538, 26 May 2011","field_url":"http://civicus.org/media-centre/press-releases/427","body":"World leaders should use the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 50th anniversary forum to press for concrete improvements in sustainable development and fighting poverty, CIVICUS said at the opening of the two-day summit in Paris, France, on 24 May 2011. The 34-member institution should make clear that real improvements in poverty eradication depend on countries living up to their aid commitments, CIVICUS said. The organisation stated that it is critical that OECD leaders assess the impact of their efforts and the policies being advanced by international financial institutions to tackle poverty and climate change. The gap between commitments and aid pledges in 2011 has widened. In 2005, members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) collectively promised to commit 0.56% of gross national income to aid. However, in 2010 aid has reached just 0.32%. At current levels, there is little chance that more than a handful of countries will reach the agreed commitment of 0.7% by 2015, CIVICUS warns, arguing that aid effectiveness is being damaged by inflated budgets, a lack of transparency and the failure of several large countries \u2013 namely Germany, Italy and Spain - to honour their commitments laid out in the Accra Agenda for Action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Clusters: A new mechanism to boost food security","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 30 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=92846","body":"Since April 2011, the humanitarian community has been gearing up to deploy a new mechanism aimed at combining expertise on food aid and agricultural assistance to boost food security and make food insecure communities hit by a disaster more resilient. The tool, which is deployed by aid workers in emergency responses, is the \"cluster approach\", first implemented in 2005. A \"cluster\" consists of groupings of UN agencies, NGOs and other international organisations around a sector or service provided during a humanitarian crisis. The cluster approach currently encompasses 11 clusters or sectors such as logistics, water and sanitation, early recovery and nutrition. Agriculture as a separate cluster will cease to exist under the new scheme. The new cluster is led jointly by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP). The tool is aimed at implementing a proper `early recovery' approach by introducing recovery and development aspects into relief work as early as possible and strengthening transition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Common anti-malarial trees and shrubs of east Africa: A description of species and a guide to cultivation and conservation through use","field_subtitle":"Dharani N, Rukunga G, Yenesew A, Mbora A, Mwaura L, Dawson I and Jamnadass R: World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), 2011","field_url":"http://www.worldagroforestry.org/downloads/publications/PDFs/B16781.PDF","body":"This report is a collaboration between traditional medicine practitioners and scientists, and identifies 22 plants used in east Africa with possible anti-malarial properties. In recent years, there has been an emphasis on the use of artemisinin-based medicines based on the Artemisia annua shrub. The recent interest in Artemisia annua, the development of resistance to existing drugs and the limited access of poor communities to modern drugs have stimulated research in the current use and future potential of other plant products in treating malaria, both as part of traditional health care practices and in developing new conventional medicines. This guide describes a range of trees and shrubs that are used as anti-malarial treatments in East Africa. The species chosen for description have been determined by traditional medical practitioners, rural communities and scientists as among those that have potential for further study and development as tree and shrub crops. The intention of this guide is to support the further development of the cultivation of these species by smallholders in the East Africa region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Contraceptive technologies: Responding to women\u2019s needs","field_subtitle":"Darroch JE, Sedgh G and Ball Haley: Guttmacher Institute, April 2011","field_url":"https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/Contraceptive-Technologies.pdf","body":"Each year in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Central Asia and Southeast Asia, 49 million women have unintended pregnancies, leading to 21 million unplanned births, 21 million induced abortions (15 million of which are unsafe), 116,000 maternal deaths and the loss of 15 million healthy years of women\u2019s lives. Seven in 10 women with unmet need for modern contraception in the three regions cite reasons for non-use that could be rectified with appropriate methods. In these three regions, the typical woman with reasons for unmet need that could be addressed with appropriate methods is married, is 25 or older, has at least one child and lives in a rural area. In the short term, women and couples need more information about pregnancy risk and contraceptive methods, as well as better access to high-quality contraceptive services and supplies. In the medium term, adaptations of current methods can make these contraceptives more acceptable and easier to use. Investment in longer-term work is needed to discover and develop new modes of contraceptive action that do not cause systemic side effects, that can be used on demand, and that do not require partner participation or knowledge. Overcoming method-related reasons for non-use of modern contraceptives is projected to reduce unintended pregnancy and its consequences by as much as 59% in these regions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Delivery practices and associated factors among mothers seeking child welfare services in selected health facilities in Nyandarua South District, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Wanjira C, Mwangi M, Mathenge E, Mbugua G and Ng'ang'a Z: BMC Public Health 11(360), May 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-360.pdf","body":"The authors of this study aimed to establish delivery practices and associated factors among mothers seeking child welfare services at selected health facilities in Nyandarua South district, Kenya, to determine whether mothers were receiving appropriate delivery care. A hospital-based cross-sectional survey was conducted among 409 mothers who had delivered while in the study area between August and October 2009. A total of 1,170 deliveries were reported, with 51.8% attended by unskilled birth attendants and 11.7% self administered. Mothers who had unskilled birth attendance were more likely to have less than three years of education and more than three deliveries in a lifetime. The authors conclude that, among the mothers interviewed, utilisation of skilled delivery attendant services was still low. They call for cost effective and sustainable measures to improve the quality of maternal health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing countries propose TRIPS amendment to fight biopiracy","field_subtitle":"Ling CY: Third World Network, 6 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/wto.info/2011/twninfo110602.htm","body":"A large group of developing countries has submitted a proposal to amend the World Trade Organisation's Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement to require the disclosure of origin of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge in patent applications. The proponents stressed that the change would help ensure that the utilisation of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge would comply with the access and benefit-sharing legislation of the country providing genetic resources and traditional knowledge, that is, the country of origin. They call for acknowledgement that a legal obligation establishing such a mandatory disclosure requirement in patent applications will help prevent both misappropriation of genetic resources and the granting of erroneous patents and also enhance transparency about the utilisation of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Differences in the availability of medicines for chronic and acute conditions in the public and private sectors of developing countries","field_subtitle":"Cameron A, Roubos I, Ewen M, Mantel-Teeuwisse AK, Leufkens HGM and Laing RO: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(6): 412-421, June 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/entity/bulletin/volumes/89/6/10-084327.pdf","body":"The objective of this study was to investigate potential differences in the availability of medicines for chronic and acute conditions in low- and middle-income countries. Data on the availability of 30 commonly-surveyed medicines \u2013 15 for acute and 15 for chronic conditions \u2013 were obtained from facility-based surveys conducted in 40 developing countries. The researchers found that availability of medicines for both acute and chronic conditions was suboptimal across countries, particularly in the public sector. Generic medicines for chronic conditions were significantly less available than generic medicines for acute conditions in both the public sector and the private sector. An inverse association was found between country income level and the availability gap between groups of medicines, particularly in the public sector. In low- and lower-middle income countries, drugs for acute conditions were 33.9% and 12.9% more available, respectively, in the public sector than medicines for chronic conditions. Differences in availability were smaller in the private sector than in the public sector in all country income groups. Current disease patterns do not explain the significant gaps observed in the availability of medicines for chronic and acute conditions. Measures are needed to better respond to the epidemiological transition towards chronic conditions in developing countries alongside current efforts to scale up treatment for communicable diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Do existing research summaries on health systems match immunisation managers' needs in middle- and low-income countries? Analysis of GAVI health systems strengthening support","field_subtitle":"Bosch-Capblanch X, Kelly M and Garner P: BMC Public Health 11(449), 8 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-449.pdf","body":"The GAVI Alliance was created in 2000 to increase access to vaccines. More recently, GAVI has supported evidence-based health systems strengthening to overcome barriers to vaccination. The objectives of this study were: to explore countries' priorities for health systems strengthening; to describe published research summaries for each priority area in relation to their number, quality and relevance; and to describe the use of national data from surveys in identifying barriers. From 44 health systems-strengthening proposals submitted to GAVI in 2007 and 2008, the researchers analysed the topics identified, the coverage of these topics by existing systematic reviews, and the use of nation-wide surveys with vaccination data to justify the needs identified in the proposals. Thirty topics were identified and grouped into three thematic areas: health workforce, organisation and management, and supply, distribution and maintenance. The researchers found no reviews that dealt with health information systems, however. Only seven of the reviews were categorised as \u2018highly relevant for policy\u2019. In conclusion, researchers found little quality research that was relevant to managers\u2019 needs. Few proposals used national surveys evidence to identify barriers to vaccination. The author recommends that researchers generating or adapting evidence about health systems need to be more responsive to managers' needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 125: What does \u2018globalisation\u2019 mean for women\u2019s work and health in Africa?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"From aid and humanitarianism to solidarity: Discourses on development and the realities of exploitation","field_subtitle":"Campbell H: Pambazuka News 535, 16 June 2011","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/74098","body":"In this article, Horace Campbell charts Africa\u2019s exploitative history of \u2018aid\u2019 and the struggle to establish a new global system rooted in dignity, equality and genuine social justice. Throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America the author argues that international capitalism has plundered the resources of the planet. Today, \u2018international plunderers\u2019 work with local African allies and sometimes their governments in extracting resources. The author argues that some African leaders have been compromised by their \u201cdevelopment partners\u201d and have remained silent in the face of intensified exploitation of Africa. The continued plunder of resources by oil companies and others has grown in this period, and observers have pointed to the constant interconnections between wars, violence and economics. Similarly, as Africans move into the twenty-first century there is increased interest in the genetic resources and fresh water of Africa, especially the water resources of the Congo River and its tributaries. Thus far there is not enough work on how this century will impact the lives of Africans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"G8 must not forget aid effectiveness, say civil society organisations","field_subtitle":"BetterAid: 25 May 2011 12:31","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/62g7nau","body":"BetterAid, a coalition of over 1,000 civil society organisations, is calling on G8 leaders to commit to improving the effectiveness and impact of development aid by sending a strong political message to the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, which will take place from 29 November to 1 December 2011. In the run up to the summit, the G8 has been accused of deliberately hiding shortfalls in meeting aid commitments made by world leaders in 2005 in Gleneagles by failing to take into account the impact of inflation on their figures. Yet official development assistance plays an integral and complementary role to the broader concerns of the G8 agenda like fighting poverty, mitigating climate change, promoting decent work and stopping corruption. BetterAid highlights four areas where the G8 should push aid effectiveness forward. First, the G8 should ensure democratic ownership and full transparency in development co-operation in line with previous commitments. Second it should commit to a human rights-based approach to development and development cooperation with gender equality, decent work and environmental sustainability at the centre. Third, it should agree to minimum standards to support the work of civil society organisations as development actors in their own right. Fourth, it should initiate fundamental reforms of aid governance at the crucial High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Genuine partnership or a marriage of convenience? India-Africa relations in the 21st century","field_subtitle":"Cheru F and Obi C: Fahamu Books and Pambazuka Press, 2011","field_url":"http://fahamubooks.org/book/?GCOI=90638100776420","body":"While China's relationship to Africa is much examined, knowledge and analysis of India's role in Africa has until now been limited but, as a significant global player, India's growing interactions with various African countries call for detailed analysis of the Asian giant's influence and its relations with the African continent. In this book, which enables readers to compare India to China and other 'rising powers' in Africa, expert African, Indian and western commentators draw on a collection of accessibly written case studies to explore inter-related areas including trade, investment, development aid, civil society relations, security and geopolitics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Observatory website","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.who.int/gho/en/","body":"The Global Health Observatory theme pages provide data and analyses on global health priorities. Each theme page provides information on global situation and trends highlights, using core indicators, database views, major publications and links to relevant web pages on the theme. Comprehensive information is also provided on the Millennium Development Goals. The Health Equity section is focused on urban health and women and health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Sector Strategy for HIV/AIDS 2011-2015","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: May 2011","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA64/A64_15-en.pdf","body":"This strategy is a detailed and comprehensive guide to how health sectors can most effectively tackle the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Data shows that the epidemic has been halted and that the spread of HIV is beginning to be reversed. New infections have fallen by almost 20% in the last ten years and between 2003 and 2009 there was a 13-fold increase in treatment coverage. However, in 2009 only a third of people in need of treatment received it and the demand for resources is still outstripping supply. The Strategy is intended to optimise progress towards universal access and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals. It aims to promote tailored responses to national and regional epidemics and analyses the underlying socio-economic and cultural determinants contributing to the spread of the virus. The strategy seeks to reduce vulnerability and structural barriers to accessing good quality services. It also demonstrates how HIV programmes can play a role in broader health outcomes and recognises the importance of strong health and community systems to guarantee a sustainable response. WHO will make five key contributions to the Global Health Sector Strategy: scale up innovation in prevention; optimise treatment and care; support health for women and children; promote strategic health-sector information and planning; and provide leadership in addressing health equity and HIV (examining inequities in access to HIV services).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"High HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men in Soweto, South Africa: Results from the Soweto Men\u2019s Study","field_subtitle":"Lane T, Raymond HF, Dladla S, Rasethe J, Struthers H, McFarland W and McIntyre J: AIDS Behaviour 15(3): 626\u2013634, April 2011","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2888758/?tool=pubmed","body":"The Soweto Men\u2019s Study assessed HIV prevalence and associated risk factors among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Soweto, South Africa. Using respondent-driven sampling (RDS) recruitment methods, researchers recruited 378 MSM over 30 weeks in 2008. All results were adjusted for RDS sampling design. Overall HIV prevalence was estimated at 13.2%, with 33.9% among gay-identified men, 6.4% among bisexual-identified men, and 10.1% among straight-identified MSM. In multivariable analysis, HIV infection was associated with being older than 25, gay self-identification, monthly income less than ZAR500, purchasing alcohol or drugs in exchange for sex with another man and reporting between six and nine partners in the prior six months, including a regular female partner. The results of the study confirm that MSM are at high risk for HIV infection, with gay men at highest risk. HIV prevention and treatment for MSM are urgently needed, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV infection and sexual risk behaviour among youth who have experienced orphanhood: Systematic review and meta-analysis","field_subtitle":"Operario D, Underhill K, Chuong C and Cluver L: Journal of the International AIDS Society 14(25), 18 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-14-25.pdf","body":"Do orphaned children and adolescents have elevated risk for HIV infection? In this study, researchers examined the state of evidence regarding the association between orphan status and HIV risk in studies of youth aged 24 years and younger. Using systematic review methodology, they identified 10 studies reporting data from 12 countries comparing orphaned and non-orphaned youth on HIV-related risk indicators, including HIV serostatus, other sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy and sexual behaviours. Meta-analysis of HIV testing data from 19,140 participants indicated significantly greater HIV seroprevalence among orphaned (10.8%) compared with non-orphaned youth (5.9%). Trends across studies showed evidence for greater sexual risk behaviour in orphaned youth. In conclusion, studies on HIV risk in orphaned populations, which mostly include samples from sub-Saharan Africa, show nearly two-fold greater odds of HIV infection among orphaned youth and higher levels of sexual risk behaviour than among their non-orphaned peers. Interventions to reduce risk for HIV transmission in orphaned youth are needed to address the sequelae of parental illness and death that might contribute to sexual risk and HIV infection.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How donors performed in 2010","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 31 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=92851","body":"IRIN News has compiled this summary of aid successes and shortfalls among major external funders (donors) in 2010. European Union (EU) member states made pledges to provide 0.56% of gross national income (GNI) as official development aid by 2010, with a view to increasing to 0.7% by 2015. Together, they missed this target by US$21 billion; delivering just under four fifths of the commitment. The UK met the 0.56% goal, putting US$8.5 billion towards development aid in 2010; Germany gave 0.38% at $7.8 billion; and the US $18.5 billion - or 0.21% of GNI. The worst EU aid performers in terms of the proportion of GNI are Italy, Greece, Portugal, Austria and Germany. Best-performing are Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Belgium. G8 and EU aid to sub-Saharan Africa was the highest on record in 2010 at US$18.2 billion; but lower than commitments pledged by G8 leaders in 2005. Assistance to sub-Saharan Africa has increased to $19.6 billion since 2000 - $15.6 billion of it coming from G7 countries (France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, USA and Canada). The G7 delivered 60% of the increase they promised to sub-Saharan Africa in 2005 - largely because the USA, Japan and Canada surpassed their targets, and the UK delivered 86% of its commitment, with an increase of $2.55 billion. Italy, Germany and France are mainly responsible for the shortfall. Italy's aid to sub-Saharan Africa has declined by $78million since 2004.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights and gender equality in health sector strategies: How to assess policy coherence","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2011","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2011/9789241564083_eng.pdf","body":"This tool is intended to support countries as they design and implement national health sector strategies in compliance with legal obligations and commitments. It focuses on practical options and poses critical questions for policy-makers to identify gaps and opportunities in the review or reform of health sector strategies as well as other sectoral initiatives. It is intended for use by various actors involved in health planning and policy making, implementation or monitoring of health sector strategies, namely ministries of health and other sectors, national human rights institutions, development partners and civil society organisations. The tool provides support, as opposed to a set of detailed guidelines, to assess health sector strategies. It allows for assessment at three levels: 1) state obligations and commitments, 2) national legal, policy and institutional frameworks, and 3) health sector strategies, using the various components/building blocks of a health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"If the G8 really wants to make a difference, here are seven action points to create \u2018The World We Want\u2019 ","field_subtitle":"Global Call to Action Against Poverty: 25 May 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6hk3j3q","body":"Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) has proposed seven major issues that must be tackled by the G8 if it is serious about alleviating poverty. Public accountability, just governance and human rights should be enshrined in programmes financed by G8, with reporting that takes into account real prices (after inflation) and is based on consistent year-on-year calculations. The G8 must also place gender equality and empowerment at the heart of its development policies. It should reaffirm the Gleneagles, L\u2019Aquila and Muskoka  commitments in the G8 communiqu\u00e9 and  set out an emergency plan to deliver the US$19 billion shortfall against commitments by 2012. In terms of debt cancellation, the G8 should endorse the formation of an International Debt Court to ensure a fair and transparent process that is independent of borrowers and lenders, based on clear rules, legally enforceable, comprehensive and mandated to assess the validity and legitimacy of all debt cancellation claims. The G8-Africa Declaration and related agreements must be based on fairness to both Northern and Southern countries, ensuring equitable trade conditions. Justice in terms of climate change agreements should be secured for developing countries, and peace and security should also be taken into account by the G8, as democracy is currently being undermined in Africa by continual armed conflict.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Increasing malaria hospital admissions in Uganda between 1999 and 2009","field_subtitle":"Okiro EA, Bitira D, Mbabazi G, Mpimbaza A, Alegana VA, Talisuna AO and Snow RW: BMC Medicine 9(37), May 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1741-7015-9-37.pdf","body":"In this study, monthly pediatric admission data from five Ugandan hospitals and their catchments were gathered retrospectively across 11 years from January 1999 to December 2009. The researchers found that in four out of the five sites under study there was a significant increase in malaria admission rates. At all hospitals, malaria admissions had increased by 47% from 1999. Observed changes in intervention coverage within the catchments of each hospital showed a change in insecticide-treated net coverage from less than 1% in 2000 to 33% by 2009, but this was accompanied by increases in access to nationally recommended drugs at only two of the five hospital areas studied. The authors conclude that their findings show that the reported decline in malaria in Africa is not a universal phenomenon across the continent. More data is needed from a wider range of malaria settings to provide accurate data on progress of the impact of malaria interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Join the Million Message March to the United Nations","field_subtitle":"IMAXi Cooperative And Other Partners: 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.imaxi.org/content/join-million-message-march-united-nations","body":"The Million Message March 2011 is a collaborative communication campaign to mobilise community support and political commitment for the Right to Health and Universal Access. It aims to reach out globally to collect one million messages (by SMS or tweets) from people in need of treatment and care (for HIV, cancer, TB, diabetes, hepatitis and other life-threatening diseases) and their families, care-givers and allies. These \u2018Voices\u2019 will be amplified, disseminated and projected along the \u2018March\u2019 starting at the World Health Assembly in May, through two UN High Level Meetings (HIV in June and Non-Communicable Diseases NCDs in September), and other major health events. The Million Message March will \u2018arrive\u2019 on Human Rights Day, the 10th of December, at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) so that the messages can \u2018Speak-Up\u2019 and be heard at the top of the UN and its Member States. The March began at the World Open Health Assembly (WOHA2011), in tandem with the World Health Assembly, 16-18 May 2011, with a global 'chat' live from Asia, Africa, Europe and NYC.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Joint Meeting of SADC Ministers Responsible for Youth and Ministers Responsible for Vulnerable Children","field_subtitle":"Southern African Development Community: 3 June 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.sadc.int/index/browse/page/868","body":"The Joint Meeting of SADC Ministers responsible for Youth and Ministers Responsible for Vulnerable Children was held in Windhoek, Namibia, from 1-3 June 2011. The meeting was attended by delegates from all SADC Member States, except Seychelles. It was convened to discuss common ways of addressing the increasing problems and concerns of vulnerable children and youth in the SADC Region which include diseases such as HIV and AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis; poverty; hunger and malnutrition; social and political conflicts; disability among children and youth; and the growing problems of pregnancy among teenagers and unemployment among the youth. Ministers adopted common plans and actions for the region that will help to accelerate the delivery of basic services and needs for vulnerable children and youth such as the provision of safe drinking water, health care, education and skills that enable youth to earn income and to create jobs for themselves, protection from abuse, and the provision of housing and family care. Other basic services include those relating to improving the capacity of children and youth to cope with the stresses of life, and to be able to live in harmony with others in society. Ministers agreed to set up the necessary structures required to fully implement their decisions and improve the lives of children and youth in the region. In order to address issues more effectively, they agreed that in future they would meet separately as Ministers responsible for children, and those responsible for youths. Before ending their meeting, Ministers agreed to meet again in 2012 to follow up progress on the implementation of their decisions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Key factors leading to reduced recruitment and retention of health professionals in remote areas of Ghana: a qualitative study and proposed policy solutions","field_subtitle":"Snow RC, Asabir K, Mutumba M, Koomson E, Gyan K, Dzodzomenyo M: et al: Human Resources for Health 9(13), May 2011","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-9-13.pdf","body":"This qualitative study was undertaken to understand how practising doctors and medical leaders in Ghana describe the key factors reducing recruitment and retention of health professionals into remote areas, and to document their proposed policy solutions. In-depth interviews were carried out with 84 doctors and medical leaders, including 17 regional medical directors and deputy directors from across Ghana, and 67 doctors chosen to represent progressively more remote distances from the capital of Accra. All participants felt that rural postings must have special career or monetary incentives given the loss of locum (i.e. moonlighting income), the higher workload, and professional isolation of remote assignments. Career 'death' and prolonged rural appointments were a common fear, and proposed policy solutions focused considerably on career incentives, such as guaranteed promotion or a study opportunity after some fixed term of service in a remote or hardship area. Short-term service in rural areas would be more appealing if it were linked to special mentoring and/or training, and led to career advancement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Land deals in Africa: What is in the contracts?","field_subtitle":"Cotula L: International Institute for Environment and Development (UK), March 2011(revised)","field_url":"http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/12568IIED.pdf?","body":"As world market prices for crops such as grain and soybeans have risen, governments in countries that import food have realised they can no longer depend on the market for supplies. At the same time, predictions that food and water shortages are being exacerbated by climate change and expanding populations have convinced countries such as China, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and others to buy large amounts of land in poor countries in Africa, according to this paper. Agribusinesses, government agencies, and investment funds alike have been acquiring long-term leases for more than 50 million hectares of land in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Mozambique. But in many cases the contracts are just a few pages long, and the land is sold for less than US$1 per hectare. These so-called \u201cland grabs\u201d are water acquisitions as well; some contacts include turning over water rights without a fee. And since most of the leases are for up to 100 years, the local population often loses the rights to its land and water for generations. Why are the governments in these African countries signing such fragile deals? Poor African nations hope to gain jobs and infrastructure development, the author concedes. Yet many local farmers living on land sold to foreign entities stand to lose much as most of the contacts to acquire the land were completed without local participation or notification.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Leprosy now: Epidemiology, progress, challenges and research gaps","field_subtitle":"Rodrigues LC and Lockwood DNJ: The Lancet Infectious Diseases 11(6): 464-470, June 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/69exzfx","body":"Despite widespread implementation of effective multidrug therapy, leprosy has not been eliminated. The authors of this paper report that a third of newly diagnosed patients have nerve damage and might develop disabilities, although the proportion varies according to several factors, including level of self-care. Women who develop leprosy continue to be especially disadvantaged, with rates of late diagnosis and disability remaining high in this subgroup. Leprosy was not a specified disease in the Millennium Development Goals, but improvements in the other areas they cover, such as education and levels of poverty, will help leprosy patients and services, the authors argue. Recommendations for research on diagnosis, treatment, and prevention include further use of molecular analysis of theMycobacterium leprae genome, implementation of BCG vaccination and administration of chemoprophylaxis to household contacts. The authors also suggest development of tools for early diagnosis and detection of infection and nerve damage, and formulation of strategies to manage the chronic complications of leprosy, such as immune-mediated reactions and neuropathy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Local problems, local solutions: An innovative approach to investigating and addressing causes of maternal deaths in Zambia's Copperbelt","field_subtitle":"Hadley MB and Tuba M: Reproductive Health 8(17), 23 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/pdf/1742-4755-8-17.pdf","body":"A pilot study was conducted in one district of Zambia, in which maternal deaths occurring over a period of twelve months were identified and investigated. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with family, focus group discussions and hospital records. A total of 56 maternal deaths were investigated. Poor communication, existing risk factors, a lack of resources and case management issues were the broad categories under which contributing factors were assigned. Potential high impact actions were related to management of AIDS and pregnancy, human resources, referral mechanisms, birth planning at household level and availability of safe blood. In resource-constrained settings, authors note that the Investigate Maternal Deaths and Act (IMDA) approach promotes the use of existing systems to reduce maternal mortality, thereby strengthening the capacity of local health officers to use data to determine, plan and implement relevant interventions that address local factors contributing to maternal deaths. Monitoring actions taken against the defined recommendations within the routine performance assessment should help ensure sustainability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"MaiMwana women's groups: a community mobilisation intervention to improve mother and child health and reduce mortality in rural Malawi","field_subtitle":"Rosato M, Mwansambo C, Lewycka S, Kazembe P, Phiri T, Malamba F, Newell MN, Osrin D, Costello A: Malawi Medical Journal 22 (4): 2010","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/mmj/article/view/63947","body":"This article presents a detailed description of a community mobilization intervention involving women's groups in Mchinji District, Malawi. The intervention was implemented between 2005 and 2010. The intervention aimed to build the capacities of communities to take control of the mother and child health issues that affect them. To achieve this it trained local female facilitators to establish groups and using a manual, participatory rural appraisal tools and picture cards guided them through a community action cycle to identify and implement solutions to mother and child health problems. The groups then catalysed community collective action to address mother and child health issues to improve te health and reduce the mortality of mothers and children. Their impact, implementation and cost-effectiveness have been rigorously evaluated through a randomized controlled trial design and the results of these evaluations will be reported in 2011.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Male involvement in birth preparedness and complication readiness for emergency obstetric referrals in rural Uganda","field_subtitle":"Kakaire O, Kaye DK and Osinde MO: Reproductive Health 8(12), 7 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/pdf/1742-4755-8-12.pdf","body":"The aim of this study was to assess factors associated with birth-preparedness and complication-readiness as well as the level of male participation in the birth plan among emergency obstetric referrals in rural Uganda. This was a cross-sectional study conducted at Kabale regional hospital maternity ward among 140 women admitted as emergency obstetric referrals in antenatal, labor or the postpartum period. Data was collected on socio-demographics and birth preparedness and what roles spouses were involved in during developing the birth plan. The authors observed that male involvement in birth preparedness and complication readiness for obstetric emergencies is still low. Individual women, their spouses, their families and their communities need to be empowered to contribute positively to making pregnancy safer by making and implementing a birth plan.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Marginal profits hamper Kenya\u2019s malaria drug subsidy","field_subtitle":"Esipisu I: Inter Press Services, 19 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.ips.org/africa/2011/05/kenya-small-profit-margin-hinders-access-to-subsidised-anti-malarial-drugs/","body":"Kenyan pharmacists are taking advantage of government-subsidised anti-malarial medications to maximise their profits, according to this article. Media reports from different parts of the country, including rural areas, revealed that retail prices of the subsidised anti-malarial drugs varied from 80 KES (US$1) to 240 KES ($3). Some private pharmacists claimed that they inflated the price to cover distribution costs and other inputs, while many do not stock the subsidised drugs, as profits from subsidised medications were considered too marginal. In order to reduce instances where pharmacists are inflating the cost of the subsidised drugs, the Kenyan government has embarked on awareness campaigns through the media to inform Kenyans of the availability of the drugs, and the recommended prices per dose. Technically, the government of Kenya does not have control over drugs sold in pharmacies in the private sector because the pharmaceutical market in the country is based on \u2018a willing seller, willing buyer\u2019 concept, but the author argues that this does not appear to be working for poor consumers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Members pressurise WHO to follow more inclusive reform process","field_subtitle":"Gopakumar K . and Shashikant S: Third World Network, 6 June 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/2011/health20110601.htm","body":"Dissatisfaction emerged among many Member States over the World Health Organisation\u2019s (WHO) financial reform plans at the 129th session of the WHO Executive Board, held on 25 May 2011. They expressed concern over the lack of detail on the reforms proposed, the stress on \"donor funding\" to resolve the financial difficulties of the WHO, as well as proposals such as the convening of the World Health Forum, which is aimed at increasing the influence of the private sector and external funders in setting the health agenda in the WHO. They also emphasised that the WHO's reform process must be driven by Members States themselves. The discussion resulted in the adoption of a new decision EB 129(8), which sets out a more transparent and inclusive consultative process for the finalisation of a reform plan by November 2011, when the Executive Board will convene for a special session.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Migration and health: A framework for 21st century policy-making","field_subtitle":"Zimmerman C, Kiss L and Hossain M: PLoS Medicine 8(5), 24 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001034","body":"According to this paper, the gap between practice and policy - those providing health services to migrants versus those making policies about migrants' entitlements - is increasingly evident. At the same time that clinicians are treating more diverse migrant groups, policy-makers are attempting to implement restrictive or exclusive immigration-related health policies that contradict public health needs and undermine medical ethics that operate on the ground. Policies that respond to the diversity of migrant groups and their differential health risks and service access must be developed and implemented, the authors of this paper argue. Moreover, to make real advances in the protection of both individual and public health, interventions must target each stage of the migration process and reach across borders. Services should be based on human rights principles that foster available and accessible care for individual migrants.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring trends in HIV prevalence among young people, aged 15 to 24 years, in Manicaland, Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Marsh KA, Nyamukapa CA, Donnelly CA, Garcia-Calleja JM, Mushati P, Garnett GP et al: Journal of the International AIDS Society 14(27), 24 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-14-27.pdf","body":"In June 2001, the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) set a target of reducing HIV prevalence among young women and men, aged 15 to 24 years, by 25% in the worst-affected countries by 2005, and by 25% globally by 2010. In this study, researchers assessed progress toward this UNGASS target in Manicaland, Zimbabwe, using repeated household-based population sero-survey data. Progress towards the target was measured by calculating the proportional change in HIV prevalence among youth and young ANC attendees over three survey periods (rounds 1 to 3). The researchers found that HIV prevalence among youth in the general population declined by 50.7% from round 1 to 3. Among young ante-natal care (ANC) attendees, the proportional decline in prevalence of 43.5% was similar to that in the population, although ANC data significantly underestimated the population prevalence decline from round 1 to 2 and underestimated the increase from round 2 to 3. Reductions in risk behaviour between rounds 1 and 2 may have been responsible for general population prevalence declines. In Manicaland, Zimbabwe, the 2005 UNGASS target to reduce HIV prevalence by 25% was achieved. However, most prevention gains occurred before 2003. ANC surveillance trends overall were an adequate indicator of trends in the population, although lags were observed. Behaviour data and socio-demographic characteristics of participants are needed to interpret ANC trends.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"MSM still \u2018in the closet\u2019","field_subtitle":"Sjolund Y: Mail and Guardian, 13 May 2011 ","field_url":"http://mg.co.za/article/2011-05-13-alarming-hivprevalence-stats/","body":"The Health4Men Clinic at Baragwanath Hospital, South Africa, is an HIV and Aids advocacy network specifically devoted to the needs of men who have sex with men (MSM). Nthato Ramushu from the Clinic says that the term MSM is quite new for many people. Because same-sex sexuality is easily misunderstood, this group is often neglected in HIV prevention and treatment campaigns. He states that almost half of those men living in Soweto, Gauteng who are gay or are MSM are too afraid to identify themselves as gay or MSM, despite their needs for health services and higher risk of HIV infection and transmission. Ramushu noted that many MSM are married men who are not open about their sexuality, fearing rejection by their families and communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"No silver lining to the IMF cloud","field_subtitle":"Srinath I: e-CIVICUS 538, 26 May 2011","field_url":"http://civicus.org/component/content/article/41-desk-of-secretary-general/429-no-silver-lining-to-the-imf-cloud","body":"The author argues that European powers appear set on perpetuating their arbitrary \u2018entitlement\u2019 to the position of Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund in the wake of the controversy that precipitated the resignation earlier in May 2011 of Managing Director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Despite claims from the IMF that the selection this time around would \u2018take place in an open, merit-based, and transparent manner\u2018 as well as a longstanding commitment to open the position to nationals of all member states, most developed country representatives had expressed clear preferences for European candidates even before nominations opened on 23 May, according to this article. Their stances raise fears among developing countries and civil society that pledges to address unrepresentative governance at the Bretton Woods institutions are mere window dressing. Developing countries and emerging economies that account for most of the world's population, over half the world's output and who are being pressed to increase their capital contributions, will have negligible influence in the decision on the Managing director unless they are willing to take a firm, collective stance behind a consensus candidate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Partnership to share research on neglected diseases but keeps IP rights ","field_subtitle":"Intellectual Property Watch: 1 June 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6fptoxr","body":"On 30 May 2011, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) signed an agreement with pharmaceutical manufacturer Sanofi for a three-year research project on nine neglected tropical diseases. Sanofi will bring molecules from its libraries into the partnership, and DNDi and Sanofi will collaborate on the research. According to the agreement, the intellectual property (IP) rights resulting from the partnership will be co-owned by DNDi and Sanofi. Publication of results is hoped to benefit the wider research community and the partnership has commited to improving access to health interventions for patients in all endemic countries, irrespective of their level of economic development. The agreement will cover nine diseases: leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis), onchocerciasis (river blindness), helminthiasis, dracunculiasis (Guinea-worm disease), fasciolosis, and schistosomiasis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Population, behavioural and environmental drivers of malaria prevalence in the Democratic Republic of Congo","field_subtitle":"Messina JP, Taylor SM, Meshnick SR, Linke AM, Tshefu AK, Atua B et al: Malaria Journal 10(161), 9 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-161.pdf","body":"Malaria is highly endemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), but the limits and intensity of transmission within the country are unknown. It is important to discern these patterns as well as the drivers which may underlie them in order for effective prevention measures to be carried out, the authors of this study argue. Using the 2007 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) for the DRC, the authors generated prevalence estimates and explored the ecological drivers of malaria. Of the 7,746 respondents, 29.3% were parasitaemic, with males were more likely to be parasitaemic than older people or females, while wealthier people were at a lower risk. Increased community use of bed nets and community wealth were protective against malaria at the community level but not at the individual level. This research demonstrates the feasibility of using population-based behavioural and molecular surveillance in conjunction with DHS data and geographic methods to study endemic infectious diseases. The authors suggest that spatial information and analyses can enable the DRC government to focus its control efforts against malaria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty and patient abandonment at Muhimbili National hospital, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mwambete KD, Kabasindile S: Tanzania Medical Journal 24 (2): 2009","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/tmj/article/view/53288","body":"Poverty is the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions. Poverty can be caused by unemployment, low education, deprivation and homelessness. This study assessed the relationship between poverty and patient abandonment (PA) in hospitals, and the attitude of health care professionals (HCPs) towards the patient. The study targeted all patients who were abandoned at MNH and who voluntarily accepted to participate in this study under informed consent and strict confidentiality. This is the first study to be conducted in Dar es Salaam with respect to PA in hospital. Results revealed unnecessary overcrowding in wards and overwhelmingly heavy burden of patient care on the HCPs. The study also observed a correlation between poverty and PA, which was to a great extent related to the patient's level of education. The respondents strongly condemned PA immoral. The authors propose that government re-introduce subsidies on services to alleviate the burden of medical expenses incurred by the low income citizens, particularly the unemployed and farmers. The study also recommends that the government should improve services in regional hospitals to reduce  travel and patients care expenses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Proposed EU customs regulation may not dispel fear of wrongful drug seizures","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 31 May 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6ka3hw6","body":"The European Commission has issued a new draft customs regulation that it says addresses past concerns over wrongful seizures of generic drug shipments transiting through European ports. But the new regulation does not substantively change existing rules, it said, and civil society groups say it does not go far enough. The proposal does not explain that the customs regulation is of a procedural nature, and it does not change or add to the rules defining what an intellectual property rights (IPR) infringement is. In 2008, shipments of legitimate generic medicines transiting through Europe were detained by customs authorities on allegation of IPR rights infringement. This triggered the filing of disputes at the World trade Organisation (WTO). On 11 May 2010, India requested consultations at the WTO with the European Union and the Netherlands about seizures of generic drugs coming from India and travelling via the Netherlands to developing countries in Africa and elsewhere. India said those seizures were inconsistent with the obligations of the European Union and the Netherlands of various provisions of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The dispute is ongoing and remains at the consultation phase.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health emergency preparedness and response communications with health care providers: A literature review","field_subtitle":"Revere D, Nelson K, Thiede H, Duchin J, Stergachis A and Baseman J: BMC Public Health 11(337), May 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-337.pdf","body":"In this literature review, researchers investigated the systems and tools used by public health to generate public health emergency preparedness and response (PHEPR) communications to health care providers (HCPs), and to identify specific characteristics of message delivery mechanisms and formats that may be associated with effective PHEPR communications. After a systematic review of peer- and non-peer-reviewed literature, they identified 25 systems or tools for communicating PHEPR messages from public health agencies to HCPs. They found that detailed descriptions of PHEPR messaging from public health to HCPs are scarce in the literature and, even when available, are rarely evaluated in any systematic fashion. Only one study compared the effectiveness of the delivery format, device or message itself. To meet present-day and future information needs for emergency preparedness, the authors argue that more attention needs to be given to evaluating the effectiveness of these systems in a scientifically rigorous manner.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"RCTs: A band-aid on a deeper issue?","field_subtitle":"How Matters: May 2011","field_url":"http://www.how-matters.org/2011/05/24/rcts-band-aid-on-deeper-issue/","body":"With external funders moving towards making randomised controlled trials (RCTs) yet another conditionality of aid, How Matters questions the rationale behind the trend and its implications for non-governmental organisations in least-developed countries. According to the article, most local organisations and grassroots movements in the developing world lack both resources and capacity, and will struggle to meet arduous requirements from external funders to provide evidence that their programmes work, as RCTs are complicated and costly to undertake. How Matters argues that development aid hasn\u2019t reduced poverty, but instead has squashed local initiatives by not giving the due attention to how that aid (and the accompanying monitoring, surveys etc) makes people feel, largely because of prevalent, yet hidden, negative attitudes towards local people and organisations in the aid sector. How Matters calls for greater participation by communities and individuals who are on the receiving end of aid, rather than the current one-way approach whereby researchers and policy makers tell recipients what they need, without considering issues of dignity and respect.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Register for a Certificate course on HIV/AIDS and the law!","field_subtitle":"Section 27: Closing date for registration 8 July 2011;","field_url":"http://www.section27.org.za/2011/06/15/certificate-course-on-hivaids-and-the-law/","body":"Are you a lawyer in government, civil society or private practice? Do you have an interest in understanding or using the law and human rights in responding to the HIV/AIDS epidemic? Or are you a senior manager in government, a health activist, a health journalist or a health care provider with a similar interest? If yes, then consider registering for a certificate course in HIV/AIDS and the law offered by the Mandela Institute (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg) in collaboration with SECTION27. Act fast: the closing date for registration is Friday, 8 July 2011; classes start on Monday, 25 July 2011 at 17h30.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Seventh Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) Conference: 28-30 November 2011: Gauteng, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Early Registration Deadline: 4 August 2011","field_url":"http://www.phasaconference.org.za/index.html","body":"With increasing global evidence of the widening international, intergroup and interpersonal inequalities in all dimensions of health and human well-being, the 2011 PHASA conference will focus on scientific debate and discussion on health inequities and the role of public health leadership, education and practice in reducing health equity gaps. The programme includes speakers who are policy-makers, leading local and international academics and representatives of international organisations, such as the World Health Organisation and the World Federation of Public Health Associations. The conference theme, \u2018Closing the health equity gap: Public health leadership, education and practice\u2019, forms the basis of a review of the progress that South Africa has made in achieving equity in health status, health care, the social determinants of health and access to resources. The conference will also serve as a country-level build-up to the 2012 conference of the World Federation of Public Health Associations, which will focus on global progress in achieving equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual risk taking among patients on antiretroviral therapy in an urban informal settlement in Kenya: A cross-sectional survey","field_subtitle":"Ragnarsson A, Ekstr\u00f6m A, Carter J, Ilako F, Lukhwaro A, Marrone G and Thorson A: Journal of the International AIDS Society 14(20), 18 April 2011","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-14-20.pdf","body":"The authors of this study analysed demographic and contextual factors associated with sexual risk taking among HIV-infected patients on antiretroviral treatment (ART) in Africa's largest informal urban settlement, Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya. In the study, they included 515 consecutive adult patients on ART attending the African Medical and Research Foundation clinic in Kibera in Nairobi. Interviewers used structured questionnaires covering socio-demographic characteristics, time on ART, number of sexual partners during the previous six months and consistency of condom use. Twenty-eight% of patients reported inconsistent condom use. Female patients were significantly more likely than men to report inconsistent condom use. Shorter time on ART was significantly associated with inconsistent condom use. Multiple sexual partners were more common among married men than among married women. ART needs to be accompanied by other preventive interventions, the authors conclude, to reduce the risk of new HIV infections among sero-discordant couples and to increase overall community effectiveness.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexuality among the elderly in Dzivaresekwa district of Harare: the challenge of information, education and communication campaigns in support of an HIV/AIDS response","field_subtitle":"Gutsa, I: African Journal of AIDS Research 10 (1) 95-100: 2011  ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajar/article/view/65424","body":"This ethnographic study in Dzivaresekwa district, Harare, Zimbabwe, examines the issue of sexuality among the elderly and their challenges in accessing information, education, and communication (IEC) campaigns in the face of HIV and AIDS. The research depended heavily on collecting life histories through key informant interviews. The theory of structuration as proposed by Anthony Giddens was adopted as a framework to analyse the findings. The findings reveal that although the sample of elderly people in Dzivaresekwa district were sexually active, HIV/AIDS-related interventions in the form of IEC campaigns mainly focus on the age group of 14\u201349-year-olds, and otherwise consider the elderly only as a group indirectly affected by the epidemic and less at risk of  HIV infection. This is mainly a result of society\u2019s presumption that people withdraw from sexual life with advanced age. Thus, the elderly are incorrectly regarded as sexually inactive and not susceptible to contracting sexually transmitted infections. A fuller understanding of the sexuality of the elderly is important to increase the usefulness HIV/AIDS efforts, while IEC campaigns that target them are still needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Sign the petition to end the global food crisis: GROW","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: 1 June 2011","field_url":"http://e-activist.com/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=142&ea.campaign.id=10694","body":"Help stop the global food crisis with Oxfam's new campaign, GROW. Spiraling prices have driven many millions more into poverty already. This crisis threatens to worsen in future. Oxfam calls on governments to act urgently to stabilise the food markets by agreeing on rules for transparency and responsibility, stopping excessive speculation and other abuses, reforming flawed policies turning grain into biofuels, and increasing investment in food security and climate adaptation in developing countries. To sign the petition, visit the link provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening Health Worker-Community Interactions through Health Literacy and Participatory approaches , Uganda Training workshop report","field_subtitle":"TARSC; HEPS Uganda: May 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6d3hc29","body":"The training held in Kiboga district Uganda was aimed at building capacities of Health workers and communities jointly to work together to strengthen their interactions through health literacy and participatory approaches. It is anticipated that the training will go a long way in strengthening communication between health workers (employed in the health system in the community or the primary care level services) and community members at primary care level towards specific, measurable improvements of the health system for both with local coordination by Health Literacy facilitators. Specifically the training aimed to: Introduce the health literacy programme and Participatory Reflection and Action (PRA) approaches to community members and Health Workers in Kybwanzi District (Former Kiboga District); Provide core skills and information to HEPS Uganda health literacy facilitators to implement joint action to improve and strengthen Community-Health worker interactions; Reflect on the current facilitators and blocks to communication between health workers and communities, and how to improve this; Provide training materials and orient HEPS Uganda facilitators to jointly identify and prioritize health needs and ill health problems, identify actions on shared priorities, identify gaps or barriers to uptake of primary health care (PHC) responses to prioritized problems, and set a shared (HW-Community) action plan and orient HEPS Facilitators in Kybwanzi District on administering the baseline and the programme post survey instruments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Surgery as a public health intervention: Common misconceptions versus the truth","field_subtitle":"Bae JY, Groen RS and Kushner AL: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(6): 395, June 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/6/11-088229.pdf","body":"The authors of this article argue that surgery can and should be recognised as an important global health intervention. To achieve this goal, they emphasise that it is critical to improve the local surgical capacity in low- and middle-income countries. While the accomplishment of this goal will not be easy it is certainly possible, especially when doctors join forces with providers and policy-makers that set the direction of a public health movement that has seen a dramatic change and increase in its authority over the past decade. The authors call on the World Health Organisation to exercise its leadership in advancing the status of surgical care in global health by organising action plans to meet unmet surgical burdens.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania: National Governance and Corruption Survey, 2009","field_subtitle":"Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau: 2011","field_url":"http://www.scribd.com/doc/55797400/Tanzania-anti-corruption-survey-volume-1","body":"Tanzania\u2019s performance in recent international corruption surveys shows a mixed picture. In international ratings, the country has experienced recent set-backs as regards the supply side of good governance, but this is coming from a high level of earlier performance, according to this report. In a household survey, respondents were asked to assess the quality of health services in terms of staff, facilities and surroundings. The findings show that, in general, the quality of services provided by the health sector is favourably perceived by households, with over 65% of respondents rating these services as \u2018good\u2019 or \u2018very good\u2019. However, over 50% of respondents considered medical personnel as corrupt. The authors could not understand how such corrupt medical personnel can deliver good quality services and argue that this apparent contradiction merits further research. Respondents identified a number of barriers to quality health services as serious, namely poor working conditions for medical staff, inadequate coverage of medical services, inadequate infrastructure facilities and equipment, low professional capacity of medical staff, outdated health sector reform programmes and prohibitive cost of accessing health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tax havens or financial sink holes?","field_subtitle":"Boyce JK: Triple Crisis, 18 April 2011","field_url":"http://triplecrisis.com/tax-havens-or-financial-sinkholes/","body":"According to the author of this article, secrecy jurisdictions \u2013 or tax havens - act as financial sinkholes: places where vast sums of money flow between the legitimate world economy and the illicit underworld economy. The costs of financial sinkholes are borne by ordinary citizens throughout the world, not only by taxpayers in industrialised countries but also by many of the world\u2019s poorest people. The author points to the flight of US$735 billion (in constant 2008 dollars) from sub-Saharan Africa from 1970 to 2008. Most of this disappeared into secrecy jurisdictions, with recorded African deposits in Western banks amounting to less than 6% of this amount. To put Africa\u2019s capital haemorrhage into perspective, the total foreign debt of the same countries stood at US$177 billion at the end of 2008. In this sense Africa is a net creditor to the rest of the world because its external assets far exceed its external liabilities. However the assets are private and hidden, whereas the liabilities are public, owed by the people of Africa through their governments. The author points to advocacy from groups like the Tax Justice Network, Global Financial Integrity and Global Witness, who have raised public awareness of these issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The health systems funding platform: Is this where we thought we were going?","field_subtitle":"Hill PS, Vermeiren P, Miti K, Ooms G and Van Damme W: Globalization and Health 7(16), 19 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-7-16.pdf","body":"In March 2009, the Task Force for Innovative International Financing for Health Systems recommended a health systems funding platform for the Global Fund, GAVI Alliance, the World Bank and others, and the Health Systems Funding Platform was soon launched. Despite its potential significance, there has been little comment in peer-reviewed literature, though some disquiet in the international development community around the scope of the Platform and the capacity of the partners, which appears disproportionate to the available information. This case study uses documentary analysis, participant observation and 24 in-depth interviews to examine the processes of development and key issues raised by the Platform. The findings show a fluid and volatile process, with debate over whether ongoing engagement in health system strengthening by the Global Fund and GAVI represents a dilution of organisational focus, risking ongoing support, or a paradigm shift that facilitates the achievement of targeted objectives, builds systems capacity, and will attract additional resources. The tensions, however, appear to have been resolved through a focus on national planning, applying International Health Partnership principles, though the global financial crisis and key personnel changes may yet alter outcomes. Despite its dynamic evolution, the Platform may offer an incremental path towards increasing integration around health systems that has not been previously possible, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The IMF: Violating women since 1945","field_subtitle":"Ahn C and Ramdas K: Foreign Policy in Focus, 19 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_imf_violating_women_since_1945","body":"According to this article, the International Monetary Fund is deepening poverty in developing countries, especially for women who make up 70% of the world\u2019s poor. By means of \u2018structural adjustment programmes\u2019 (SAPs), it pushes for lower tariffs and cuts in government programmes such as welfare and education. IMF-mandated government austerity measures may require cutting public sector jobs, which disproportionately impact women, as women hold most of the lower-skilled public sector jobs, so are often the first to be cut. As social programmes like caregiving are slashed, women are expected to take on additional domestic responsibilities that further limit their access to education or other jobs. In exchange for borrowing US$5.8 billion from the IMF and World Bank, Tanzania agreed to impose fees for health services, which led to fewer women seeking hospital deliveries or post-natal care and naturally, higher rates of maternal death. In Zambia, the imposition of SAPs led to a significant drop in girls\u2019 enrollment in schools and a spike in \u2018subsistence sex\u2019 as a way for young women to continue their educations, the authors note.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The Joint Action and Learning Initiative: Towards a global agreement on national and global responsibilities for health","field_subtitle":"Gostin LO, Friedman EA, Ooms G, Gebauer T, Gupta N et al: PLoS Medicine 8(5), 10 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001031","body":"The Joint Action and Learning Initiative on National and Global Responsibilities for Health (JALI) is a coalition of civil society organisations and academics researching key conceptual questions involving health rights and responsibilities, with the goal of securing a global health agreement and supporting civil society mobilisation around the human right to health. This agreement - such as a Framework Convention on Global Health - would inform post-Millennium Development Goal (MDG) global health commitments. Using broad partnerships and an inclusive consultation process, JALI seeks to clarify the health services to which everyone is entitled under the right to health, the national and global responsibilities for securing this right, and global governance structures that can realise these responsibilities and close major health inequities. Mutual benefits to countries in the Global South and North would come from a global health agreement that defines national and global health responsibilities. JALI aims to respond to growing demands for accountability, and to create the political space that could make a global health agreement possible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Medicines Situation 2011: Good governance for the pharmaceutical sector","field_subtitle":"Kohler JC and Baghdadi-Sabeti G: World Health Organisation, 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/medicines/areas/policy/world_medicines_situation/WMS_ch20_wGoodGov.pdf","body":"Good governance is increasingly understood as necessary for improving access to medicines and contributing to health systems strengthening. This chapter reviews the findings of studies carried out in 25 countries that have examined governance of key functions of pharmaceutical systems within the framework of WHO\u2019s Good Governance for Medicines (GGM) programme. The country studies, which are based on a common methodology, have revealed strengths and several weaknesses  in existing pharmaceutical systems and have provided policy-makers with relevant information to help them better understand the nature of the problems facing the sector and where interventions need to take place. Common strengths in the pharmaceutical systems and procedures include the use of standard application forms in the registration process of medicines, use of national essential medicines lists, existence of standard operating procedures for procurement of medicines and well-established tender committees. Common weaknesses include a lack of access to information, poor enforcement and implementation of laws and regulations, absence of conflict of interest policies among members of various committees, and an inability to ensure that the proper incentives are in place to lessen the likelihood of corruption at both the individual and institutional levels. Governments can reduce corruption by promoting transparency and ethical practices, and by introducing simple measures, such as justification for committee membership, terms of reference, conflict of interest policies and descriptions of the purpose of the committees. International organisations, such as WHO, can provide technical support for these efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Medicines Situation 2011: Traditional medicines: global situation, issues and challenges","field_subtitle":"Robinson MM and Xiaorui Z: World Health Organisation, 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/medicines/areas/policy/world_medicines_situation/WMS_ch18_wTraditionalMed.pdf","body":"Traditional medicines, including herbal medicines, have been, and continue to be, used in every country around the world in some way. In much of the developing world, a large share of the population rely on these traditional medicines for primary care. The global market for traditional medicines was estimated at US$ 83 billion annually in 2008, with an exponential rate of increase.  Traditional medicines are used as prescription or over-the-counter (OTC) medications, as self-medication or self-care, as home remedies, or as dietary supplements, health foods, functional foods, phytoprotectants, and under any of many other titles in different jurisdictions, with only minimal consistency between the definitions of these terms from country to country and significant communication issues as a result. It is difficult to control quality and to ensure safety and efficacy in production of traditional medicines. WHO, in cooperation with the WHO Regional Offices and Member States, has produced a series of technical documents in this field, including publications on Good Agricultural and Collection Practices (GACP) and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), along with other technical support, to assist with standardization and creation of high quality products. Regulation of traditional medicines is a complicated and challenging issue as it is highly dependent upon experience with use of these products. Model countries such as China, India, and South Africa present usable templates, as do the guidelines on regulation and registration of traditional or herbal medicines produced in the WHO African, Eastern Mediterranean, and South-East Asian regions and in the European Union.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Starts With Me: A multilevel evaluation of a comprehensive sex education programme targeting adolescents in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Rijsdijk LE, Bos AE, Ruiter RA, Leerlooijer JN, de Haas B and Schaalma HP: BMC Public Health 11(334), May 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-334.pdf","body":"In this paper, the authors evaluate the effectiveness of the World Starts With Me (WSWM), a comprehensive sex education programme in secondary schools in Uganda, focusing on socio-cognitive determinants of safe sex behaviour, namely delay, condom use and non-coercive sex. A survey of 1,864 students was conducted, which showed significant positive effects of WSMW on beliefs regarding what could or could not prevent pregnancy, the perceived social norm towards delaying sexual intercourse, and the intention to delay sexual intercourse. Furthermore, significant positive effects of WSWM were found on attitudes, self-efficacy and intention towards condom use and on self-efficacy in dealing with sexual violence (pressure and force for unwanted sex). However, all significant positive effects disappeared for those schools that only implemented up to 7 out of 14 lessons in the programme. The authors conclude that the effectiveness of WSWM could be improved by giving more systematic attention to the context in which such a programme is to be implemented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Tips and Tricks on How to Apply for Resources and Grants for Reproductive Health and Poverty Alleviation: Tanzania Edition","field_subtitle":"German Foundation for World Population: 2011","field_url":"http://www.weltbevoelkerung.de/en/t_t_tanzania_eu.pdf","body":"Tips and Tricks is intended to be a resource to grant seekers, as it will provide a source of detailed information on grant-giving organisations existing in Tanzania in the following areas: reproductive health; safe motherhood; adolescent and sexual reproductive health; HIV and AIDS; population and development; women empowerment/gender; health integrated projects; and livelihood.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Tips and Tricks on How to Apply for Resources and Grants for Reproductive Health and Poverty Alleviation: Ugandan Edition","field_subtitle":"German Foundation for World Population: 2011","field_url":"http://www.weltbevoelkerung.de/en/t_t_uganda_eu.pdf","body":"This guide gives information on funding opportunities relevant to civil society organisations with particular interest to those addressing sexual and reproductive health and rights in Uganda. Tips & Tricks seeks to increase transparency of European Union and other donors\u2019 resource allocation for sexual and reproductive health and rights, HIV and AIDS, and population assistance in Uganda. It lists funding priorities in Uganda of the European Commission, European funders, governmental agencies, international NGO\u2019s and private foundations, so that each applicant and funding agency can clearly see what efforts other agencies are undertaking and direct their own endeavours accordingly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards an improved investment approach for an effective response to HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Schwartl\u00e4nder B, Stover J, Hallett T, Atun R, Avila C, Gouws E et al: The Lancet 377(9782): 2031-2041, 3 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2811%2960702-2/fulltext","body":"The authors of this paper argue that substantial changes are needed to achieve a more targeted and strategic approach to investment in the response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic that will yield long-term dividends. Until now, advocacy for resources has been done on the basis of a commodity approach that encouraged scaling up of numerous strategies in parallel, irrespective of their relative effects. The authors propose a strategic investment framework that is intended to support better management of national and international HIV and AIDS responses than exists with the present system. The framework incorporates major efficiency gains through community mobilisation, synergies between programme elements, and benefits of the extension of antiretroviral therapy for prevention of HIV transmission. It proposes three categories of investment, consisting of six basic programmatic activities, interventions that create an enabling environment to achieve maximum effectiveness, and programmatic efforts in other health and development sectors related to HIV and AIDS. The framework is cost effective at US$1,060 per life-year gained, and the additional investment proposed would be largely offset from savings in treatment costs alone.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Treatment delay among tuberculosis patients in Tanzania: Data from the FIDELIS Initiative","field_subtitle":"Hinderaker S, Madland S, Ullenes M, Enarson DA, Rusen ID and Kamara DV: BMC Public Health 11(306), May 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-306.pdf","body":"During 2004-2008, several FIDELIS projects (Fund for Innovative DOTS Expansion through Local Initiatives to Stop TB) in Tanzania were conducted by the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Programme to strengthen tuberculosis (TB) diagnostic and treatment services. The authors of this study assessed the duration and determinants of treatment delay among new smear-positive pulmonary TB patients in FIDELIS projects, and compared delay according to provider visited prior to diagnosis. They included 1,161 cases, 10% of all patients recruited in the FIDELIS projects in Tanzania. Median delay was 12 weeks. Compared to Hai district, Handeni had patients with longer delays and Mbozi had patients with shorter delays. Urban and rural patients reported similar delays. In conclusion, half of the new smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients had a treatment delay longer than 12 weeks. Delay was similar in men and women and among urban and rural patients, but longer in the young and older age groups. Patients using traditional healers had a 25% longer median delay.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"UN summit on HIV/AIDS adopts ambitious targets to defeat epidemic","field_subtitle":"United Nations News Centre: 10 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=38687&Cr=HIV&Cr1=AIDS","body":"At the High-level Meeting on AIDS, held 8\u201310 June 2011 in New York, 3,000 participants gathered to chart a path for the future of the AIDS response, including 30 heads of State and government, along with senior officials, representatives of international organisations, civil society and people living with HIV. The declaration adopted by Member States of the General Assembly contains clear, measurable targets, including targets to halve sexual transmission of HIV by 2015, to reduce HIV transmission among people who inject drugs by 50% by 2015, to ensure that by 2015 no child will be born with HIV, to increase universal access to antiretroviral therapy, to get 15 million people onto life-saving treatment by 2015, and to halve tuberculosis deaths in people living with HIV by 50% by 2015. Member States also pledged to close the global resource gap for AIDS and work towards increasing funding to between $22 and $24 billion per year by 2015. Paul De Lay, Deputy Executive Director of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) noted that the declaration clearly outlines the urgent need to increase access to HIV services for people most at risk of infection, including men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs and sex workers. The pledge to eliminate gender inequality, gender-based abuse and violence and to empower women and girls must be fulfilled without delay, he added.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Use of AUDIT, and measures of drinking frequency and patterns to detect associations between alcohol and sexual behaviour in male sex workers in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Luchters S, Geibel S, Syengo M, Lang'o D, King'ola N, Temmerman M and Chersich M: BMC Public Health 11(384), 25 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-384.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers investigated which alcohol indicator can most effectively detect associations between alcohol use and unsafe sexual behaviour among male sex workers - single-item measures of frequency and patterns of drinking (>=6 drinks on 1 occasion), or the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT). A cross-sectional survey in 2008 recruited male sex workers who sell sex to men from 65 venues in Mombasa district, Kenya, similar to a 2006 survey. Information was collected on socio-demographics, substance use, sexual behaviour, violence and STI symptoms. The 442 participants reported a median 2 clients/week, with half using condoms consistently in the last 30 days. Of the approximately 70% of men who drink alcohol, half drink two or more times a week. Binge drinking was common (38.9%). In conclusion, male sex workers have high levels of hazardous and harmful drinking, and require alcohol-reduction interventions, the authors argue. Compared with indicators of drinking frequency or pattern, the AUDIT measure has stronger associations with inconsistent condom use, STI symptoms and sexual violence. Increased use of the AUDIT tool in future studies may assist in delineating with greater precision the explanatory mechanisms which link alcohol use, drinking contexts, sexual behaviours and HIV transmission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Validating child vaccination status in a demographic surveillance system using data from a clinical cohort study: Evidence from rural South Africa","field_subtitle":"Ndirangu J, Bland R, Barnighausen T and Newell M: BMC Public Health 11(372), May 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-372.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers aimed to validate vaccination data from a longitudinal population-based demographic surveillance system (DSS) against data from a clinical cohort study. The sample included 821 children in the Vertical Transmission cohort Study (VTS), and researchers found that vaccination data in matched children in the DSS was based on the vaccination card in about two-thirds of the cases and on maternal recall in about one-third. In conclusion, the addition of maternal recall of vaccination status of the child to the child\u2019s card information significantly increased the proportion of children known to be vaccinated across all vaccines in the DSS. The authors recommend that information based on both maternal recall and vaccination cards should be used to identify which children have received a vaccination and which have not.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Viewing the Kenyan health system through an equity lens: Implications for universal coverage","field_subtitle":"Chuma J, Okungu V: International Journal for Equity in Health: 26 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/10/1/22/abstract","body":"This paper assessed the extent to which the Kenyan health financing system meets the key requirements for universal coverage, including income and risk cross-subsidisation. Recommendations on how to address existing equity challenges and progress towards universal coverage are made. An extensive review of published and gray literature was conducted to identify the sources of health care funds in Kenya. In cases where data were not available at the country level, they were sought from the World Health Organisation website. Each financing mechanism was analysed in respect to key functions namely, revenue generation, pooling and purchasing. The Kenyan health sector relies heavily on out-of-pocket payments. Government funds are mainly allocated through historical incremental approach. The sector is largely underfunded and health care contributions are regressive (i.e. the poor contribute a larger proportion of their income to health care than the rich). Health financing in Kenya is fragmented and there is very limited risk and income cross-subsidisation. The country has made little progress towards achieving international benchmarks including the Abuja target of allocating 15% of government's budget to the health sector. The Kenyan health system is highly inequitable and policies aimed at promoting equity and addressing the needs of the poor and vulnerable have not been successful. Some progress has been made towards addressing equity challenges, but universal coverage will not be achieved unless the country adopts a systemic approach to health financing reforms. Such an approach should be informed by the wider health system goals of equity and efficiency.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"What could infant and young child nutrition learn from sweatshops? ","field_subtitle":"Singer PA, Ansett S and Sagoe-Moses I: BMC Public Health 11(276), May 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-276.pdf","body":"Adequate infant and young child nutrition demands high rates of breastfeeding and good access to nutrient rich complementary foods, requiring public sector action to promote breastfeeding and home based complementary feeding, and private sector action to refrain from undermining breastfeeding and to provide affordable, nutrient rich complementary foods. The authors argue, however, that public and private sectors do not work well together in improving infant and young child nutrition. The authors argue that there are lessons to learn in managing public and private interactions on nutrition from the actions taken around sweatshops. One example is the Ethical Trading Initiative, in which companies, trade unions, and civil society organisations work together to enhance implementation of labour standards and address alleged allegations of abuse.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"What does \u2018globalisation\u2019 mean for women\u2019s work and health in Africa?","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson, Training and Research Support Centre, Mary Nyamongo African Institute for Health & Development, Sarah Wamala, Karolinska Institute ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe world has become a very small place for some. Globalisation and the movement of people and goods mean that it\u2019s possible on the same day to wake up in Asia and go to sleep in America. Farm products grown in an Africa can be on shelves in Europe within days. Yet it can take the same time or longer for a woman from that African country to get to a hospital with a midwife to access maternal health services. Clearly, the benefits of the increasingly rapid movement of goods, services and information across countries are not obtained by all.  How have women in low-income rural and urban communities in Africa experienced the impact of globalisation? \r\n\r\nA workshop held in Nairobi in May 2011 reviewed this experience and the implications for research on globalisation and health in Africa. The workshop was convened as part of a research programme on globalization and women\u2019s health in east and southern Africa co-ordinated by Karolinska Institute and TARSC. The research programme found, through analysis of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) database, that African countries are becoming more integrated with world markets and that women\u2019s occupational roles are changing, but with inadequate disaggregation of global databases like the MDG data to assess the impact of these changes on women\u2019s health and nutrition. A review of literature on existing studies suggested however that while globalisation related economic and trade policies have provided urban employment and social opportunities for women, they have also been associated with time and resource burdens for them that have had negative consequences for their own and their families\u2019 health and nutrition.  \r\n\r\nExamples of research presented at the workshop similarly suggested that women\u2019s involvement in export oriented coffee production in Uganda and in urban export processing zone (EPZ) factories in Tanzania had brought improved incomes for the women workers, but with longer working hours and weaker social protection. Improved incomes in both groups had not translated to better nutrition or dietary outcomes compared to women working in non EPZ factories or in farms producing food for local markets. For countries seeking to make a link between economic activity and improved health outcomes, this lack of improvement from globalisation related changes is a problem, especially given the context of Sub-Saharan Africa having the highest level of maternal mortality globally, with 900 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, a level well above the targets aimed for in the MDG commitments. While globalisation has been associated with information, research and technological advancements and a wider demand for equity and rights for women, delegates also heard evidence that it has been associated with commercialised health care and reduced public funding, creating barriers to use of health services by poor women. Further, recent features of global markets  - the 2008 financial crisis and the increased price of food and fuel \u2013 were raised by delegates as likely to intensify food insecurity, particularly for those already vulnerable to nutritional stress. Poor women in urban areas are likely to suffer more due to reliance on food purchases. A new trend of purchases or long-term leases for agricultural land by foreign investors for food exports and bio-could further threaten the local agricultural systems that commonly involve small scale women farmers, widening inequities in nutrition, health and access to livelihoods. \r\n\r\nIn discussing this evidence, delegates to the meeting identified that research on globalisation and women\u2019s health in Africa needs to address three broad gaps, if the interests of low-income African women are to be better reflected in economic policies associated with globalisation:\r\ni.\tto bring local evidence and voice into global policy processes; \r\nii.\tto highlight gaps between global policy commitments and local realities; and \r\niii.\tto ask the \u201cwhat if?\u201d  questions, to explore and inform alternatives that would be more health promoting for African women and their livelihoods, and countries. \r\n\r\nThere are many specific areas of research that emanate from these three areas. For example, in the first, evidence on the experience and effect of global processes - whether IMF conditionalities, land grabs, commercialisation of services or other areas - needs to reach and be made accessible to national level and to those negotiating in global forums. Delegates noted that there is already evidence at local and regional level that could be useful for this, if reviewed and appropriately organised. This includes bringing together evidence from evaluations of global programmes and transnational activities in the different countries of the region. \r\n\r\nHowever delegates also called for a shift in agenda formulation, with locally driven evidence and perspectives having greater influence on international agendas.  Examples were given of research that explores such alternatives. For example, IDRCs Ecosystem and Human Health Programmes has supported work in Malawi to assess the effects of local production of nitrogen containing legumes. This was found to have not only improved soil fertility and reduced reliance on imported chemicals, but to also have improved the quality of diets and nutritional outcomes. Delegates concurred that this type of work had the potential of building partnership across actors, disciplines and countries, including with affected communities, that would better connect local level initiatives and evidence with global level processes and policies. While globalisation has raised attention to the injustice of the huge inequalities in women\u2019s health globally, responding to these injustices calls for responses that strengthen the organisation of ideas, evidence and practice from the community level and their influence at national level, as a basis for the engagement in global processes. \r\n\r\nFor further information on this issue please read the background papers at http://sjp.sagepub.com/content/38/4_suppl and the report of the meeting available in the annotated bibliography at http://tinyurl.com/6zeeod5 at www.equinetafrica.org. Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat  admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018It's her responsibility\u2019: Partner involvement in prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV programmes, northern Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Falnes E, Moland K, Tylleskar T, de Paoli M, Msuya SE and Engebretsen IM: Journal of the International AIDS Society 14(21), 26 April 2011","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-14-21.pdf","body":"In this study, the authors explored acceptability of child transmission (PMTCT) programme components and identified structural and cultural challenges to male involvement in pregnancy and childbirth in rural and urban areas of Moshi in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania. Mixed methods were used, including focus group discussions with fathers and mothers, in-depth interviews with fathers, mothers and health personnel, and a survey of 426 mothers bringing their four-week-old infants for immunisation at five reproductive and child health clinics. Routine testing for HIV of women at the antenatal clinic was found to be highly acceptable and appreciated by men, while other programme components, notably partner testing, condom use and the infant feeding recommendations, were met with continued resistance. Very few men joined their wives for testing and thus missed out on PMTCT counselling. The main barriers reported were that women did not have the authority to request their husbands to test for HIV and that the arena for testing, the antenatal clinic, was defined as a typical female domain where men were out of place. The authors conclude that deep-seated ideas about gender roles and hierarchy are the major obstacles to male participation in the PMTCT programme. Empowering men to participate by creating a space within the PMTCT programme that is male friendly should be feasible and should be highly prioritised for the PMTCT programme to achieve its potential.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"2011 Global Health Conference: Advancing health equity in the 21st Century","field_subtitle":"November 13-15, 2011, Montreal Canada","field_url":"http://2011globalhealth.org/abstracts.html","body":"Authors wishing to report original research, innovative projects or novel programs related to global health are encouraged to submit abstracts. Abstracts in all areas of global health are welcoming including:\r\n\u2022Global burden of disease \r\n\u2022Innovations and interventions to advance global Health equity \r\n\u2022Globalization, global trade and movement of populations as drivers of health inequity \r\n\u2022Partnerships and capacity building for education and research in global health\r\n\u2022Social, economic and environmental determinants of health \r\n\u2022Human rights, legal issues, ethics and policy \r\nAbstracts may focus on a new finding, the development of a program, project or new global health tool, moving from development to implementation, policy or ethical issues, or related topics. \r\nAbstract submission deadline: August 1, 2011 ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"2011 UN General Assembly High Level Meeting on AIDS ","field_subtitle":"8\u201310 June 2011: New York","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/aboutunaids/unitednationsdeclarationsandgoals/2011highlevelmeetingonaids/","body":"Thirty years into the AIDS epidemic, and ten years since the landmark United Nations (UN) General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS, stakeholders from around the world will come together to review progress and chart the future course of the global AIDS response at the 2011 UN General Assembly High Level Meeting on AIDS from 8\u201310 June 2011 in New York. Member States are expected to adopt a new Declaration that will reaffirm current commitments and commit to actions to guide and sustain the global AIDS response.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A technical framework for costing health workforce retention schemes in remote and rural areas","field_subtitle":"Zurn P, Vujicic M, Lemi\u00e8re C, Juquois M, Stormont L, Campbell J et al: Human Resources for Health 9(8), April 2011","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-9-8.pdf","body":"This paper proposes a framework for carrying out a costing analysis of interventions to increase the availability of health workers in rural and remote areas with the aim to help policy decision makers. The authors review the evidence on costing interventions to improve health workforce recruitment and retention in remote and rural areas, provide guidance to undertake a costing evaluation of such interventions and investigates the role and importance of costing to inform the broader assessment of how to improve health workforce planning and management. They show show that while the debate on the effectiveness of policies and strategies to improve health workforce retention is gaining impetus and attention, there is still a significant lack of knowledge and evidence about the associated costs. To address the concerns stemming from this situation, key elements of a framework to undertake a cost analysis are proposed and discussed, which should help policy makers gain insight into the costs of policy interventions, to clearly identify and understand their financing sources and mechanisms, and to ensure their sustainability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Achieving a shared goal: Free universal health care in Ghana","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: 2011","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/health/downloads/achieving-shared-goal-healthcare-ghana-100511-en.pdf","body":"According to this report, coverage of Ghana's National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has been exaggerated and could be as low as 18% - less than a third of the coverage suggested by Ghana\u2019s National Health Insurance Authority and the World Bank. Every Ghanaian citizen pays for the NHIS through VAT, but as many as 82% remain excluded. Twice as many rich people are signed up to the NHIS as poor people. Those excluded from the NHIS still pay user fees in the cash and carry system. Twenty five years after fees for health were introduced by the World Bank, they are still excluding millions of citizens from the health care they need. An estimated 36% of health spending is wasted due to inefficiencies and poor investment. Moving away from a health insurance administration alone could save US$83 million each year, Oxfam argues, which is enough to pay for 23,000 more nurses. Oxfam calls on the Ghanaian government to move fast to implement free health care for all its citizens.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Regional Association of Occupational Health Congress","field_subtitle":"25\u201327 August 2011: Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.sasom.org/sasom-events/details/9-sasom-conference-cape-town","body":"The Africa Regional Association of Occupational Health (ARAOH) Congress is to be hosted by the South African Society of Occupational Medicine Conference (SASOM) from 25 \u2013 27 August 2011 in Johannesburg, South Africa.  To register for the event visit the link provided. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Antiretroviral price cuts secured amid growing funding fears","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 19 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92760","body":"Three international organisations have negotiated reductions on key first- and second-line, and paediatric antiretrovirals (ARVs) that will help countries save at least US$600 million over the next three years: the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), the international drug purchasing facility UNITAID and the UK Department for International Development (DFID). The deal, expected to affect most of the 70 countries comprising CHAI's Procurement Consortium, features notable reductions in the prices of tenofovir (TDF), efavirenz, and the second-line ritonavir-boosted atazanavir (ATV/r) used in HIV patients who have failed initial, or \"first-line\", regimens. As part of the deal, the three bodies set price ceilings for more than 40 adult and paediatric ARVs with eight pharmaceutical manufacturers and suppliers, which account for most ARVs sold in countries with access to generic drugs. As a result, the cost of ATV/r is down by two-thirds from just three years ago. Meanwhile, a once-a-day fixed-dose combination (FDC) pill containing TDF and efavirenz will now cost countries less than US$159 per patient per year. In 2008, low-income countries paid about $400 per patient per year for the same pill.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Antiretroviral therapy awareness and risky sexual behaviours: Evidence from Mozambique","field_subtitle":"De Walque D And Kazianga H: Centre For Global Development Working Paper 239, 12 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail /1424741/","body":"The authors of this paper studied how increased access to antiretroviral therapy affects sexual behaviour, using data collected in Mozambique in 2007 and 2008. They surveyed both HIV-positive individuals and households from the general population. The findings support the hypothesis of disinhibition behaviours, where individuals are more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviour when they believe that they will have greater access to better health care, such as antiretroviral therapy. The findings suggest that scaling up access to antiretroviral therapy without prevention programmes may lead to more risky sexual behaviour and ultimately more infections. The authors conclude that with increased antiretroviral availability, prevention programmes need to include educational messages so that individuals know that risky sexual behaviour is dangerous.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Applicants for Master's programmes in: Public Health in Health Promotion with special interest in Tobacco Control","field_subtitle":"University of Pretoria (UP); Applications close 30 June 2011","field_url":"http://web.up.ac.za/default.asp?ipkCategoryID=1339","body":"The University of Pretoria (UP) and the American Cancer Society (ACS) invite applications from citizens from Sub-Saharan Africa for three fully funded fellowships. The UP-ACS Fellowships are awarded for a Master of Public Health degree at the university's School of Health Systems and Public Health. Please visit the Scholarships and internships on the website for information on how to apply. For further assistance kindly contact Joyce Jakavula at joyce.jakavula@up.ac.za.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Applicants: Analysis of  Gender equity in health in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Call closes June 30 2011","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET is commissioning and calling for applicants to prepare, through desk review of existing data and literature on the east and southern African region, a situation report on gender related dimensions of equity in health, and the policy measures and options for addressing gender inequalities. Specifically the report will provide evidence, data and analysis on priority dimensions of gender equity in health in east and southern Africa within the context of the overall framework of progress markers for equity in health defined by EQUINET. The gender equity analysis will be expected to broadly provide \r\n1.\tEvidence on and an analysis of trends over the past decade (2001-2011) (drawing on available secondary data) in terms of gender-related inequalities in health (including in access to social determinants of health and health systems) in East and southern Africa, and identify gaps in addressing these inequalities. \r\n2.\tAn overview of key priorities, policy options and specific measures for improving gender equity in health, drawing on evidence from policy analysis and evaluation, analysis of trends related to gender inequalities and case studies  \r\n3.\tA discussion of the implications of (1) and (2) above for the organisation and financing of health systems and the allocation of resources to and within health systems. \r\nApplications should be emailed by 5:00pm June 30 2011 to admin@equinetafrica.org  with GENDER EQUITY in the subject line and must include information as in the longer version on the website.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/36071","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Expression of Interest for NGOs to implement Community Conversations on HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Nelson Mandela Foundation, Closing date 5 June, 2011","field_url":"http://www.nelsonmandela.org/images/uploads/CCE_Advert_-_GTZ_NMF_Website_(2)-1.pdf","body":"The Nelson Mandela Foundation, in collaboration with the Deutsche Gesellschaft f\u00fcr Internationale Zusammenarbeit, calls on experienced non-governmental organisations capable of implementing community dialogues in all South African provinces to submit Expressions of Interest. Please submit substantive expressions of interest, the company profile and Curriculum Vitae of the individual to be responsible for the assignment to dialogue@nelsonmandela.org. Closing date for applications is 5 June, 2011.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers for the WHO Bulletin","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: 20 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/5/11-088476.pdf","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) is calling for papers for all sections of the Bulletin and encourage authors to consider contributions that address any of the following topics: disease burden assessments in low-income countries, since information in this area is scarce; vaccination implementation and policy, particularly on the cost and public health benefit of vaccination programmes; and the evaluation of nonpharmaceutical public health measures since these are widely described as control measures, but there is less published evidence on their effectiveness than for pharmaceutical interventions (vaccines and medicines). In particular, WHO seeks submission of papers that document experiences from low-resource settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: Global Health Conference 2011 ","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 1 August 2011","field_url":"http://2011globalhealth.org/abstracts.html","body":"Authors involved in original research, innovative projects or novel programmes related to global health are encouraged to submit abstracts for the Global Health Conference 2011 to be held in Canada in November 2011. Abstracts in all areas of global health are welcomed including: the global burden of disease; innovations and interventions to advance global health equity; globalisation, global trade and movement of populations as drivers of health inequity; partnerships and capacity building for education and research in global health; social, economic and environmental determinants of health; and human rights, legal issues, ethics and policy. Abstracts may focus on a new finding, the development of a programme, project or new global health tool, moving from development to implementation, policy or ethical issues, or related topics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Carework and caring: A path to gender equitable practices among men in South Africa?  ","field_subtitle":"Morrell R and Jewkes R: International Journal for Equity in Health 10(17), May 2011","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-10-17.pdf","body":"The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between men who engage in carework and commitment to gender equity. The context of the study was that gender inequitable masculinities create vulnerability for men and women to HIV and other health concerns. A qualitative approach was used. Twenty men from three South African cities who were identified as engaging in carework were interviewed. They were engaged in different forms of carework and their motivations to be involved differed. Some men did carework out of necessity. Poverty, associated with illness in the family and a lack of resources propelled some men into carework. Other men saw carework as part of a commitment to making a better world. 'Care' interpreted as a functional activity was not enough to either create or signify support for gender equity. Only when care had an emotional resonance did it relate to gender equity commitment. Engagement in carework precipitated a process of identity and value transformation in some men suggesting that support for carework still deserves to be a goal of interventions to 'change men'. Changing the gender of carework contributes to a more equitable gender division of labour and challenges gender stereotypes, the authors argue. Interventions that promote caring also advance gender equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil Society Declaration for the UN High Level Meeting on AIDS","field_subtitle":"Global Forum on MSM & HIV: 13 April 2011","field_url":"http://www.msmgf.org/files/msmgf/Advocacy/civil_society_declaration.pdf","body":"On 8 April 2011 over 400 civil society activists gathered in New York for a one-day hearing with United Nations (UN) Member States on progress toward reaching Universal Access to HIV treatment, prevention, care, and support.   This Civil Society Hearing took place as Member States began drafting a new Outcome Document on HIV, to be adopted at a UN High-Level Meeting on AIDS on 8 June 2011. Advocates are calling for a renewed and urgent commitment from member States to reach Universal Access goals by 2015. During the Hearing, civil society advocates stressed that in pursuing Universal Access goals the international community must prioritise public health over politics. They urged Member States to make available to their citizens the full complement of evidence-based HIV prevention, care, treatment, and support technologies and tools as a commitment to the human right to health. They called for the Outcome Document that will emerge from the UN High Level Meeting on HIV AND AIDS to acknowledge global failures to reach Universal Access by 2010, recommit to upholding and implementing priorities in the global AIDS response articulated by key existing global frameworks on HIV, including the UNAIDS 2011-2015 Outcome Strategy, and commit to bold, new targets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Comments on \u2018The future of financing for WHO\u2019","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement: 14 May 2011","field_url":"","body":"According to the People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM), the World Health Organisation (WHO) is initiating reform process to enable the organisation to more effectively respond to today\u2019s global health challenges and particularly to its financing challenges. The PHM proposes that reforms are needed in five areas to enable the WHO to exert its global health leadership role: Giving real voice to multiple stakeholders; improving its transparency, performance, and accountability; providing closer oversight of regions; exerting its legal authority as a rule-making body; and ensuring predictable, sustained financing. To fulfil its mandate the WHO needs a budget that is adequate, predictable and untied. PHM argues that WHO\u2019s state of financing is untenable; only 18% of WHO\u2019s funding comes from core, assessed contributions. The rest is cobbled together from multiple streams of voluntary donations, grants and in-kind support, much of which is conditional. A high proportion of voluntary contributions by member states undermines the organisation\u2019s independence and results in huge inefficiencies. Increasing dependence on private philanthropies and corporates carries serious risks of further distorting WHO's priorities. PHM calls for the assessed contributions formula for countries to be reviewed and revised to help create fair and adequate system of public financing for the WHO. PHM proposes that member states collectively commit to increasing assessed funding so that it reaches 50% of the overall budget over the next five years and warn against WHO pursuing public-private partnerships without ensuring safeguards against corporate influence over policy making and pernicious conflicts of interest.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/36054","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Comparative effectiveness, safety and acceptability of medical abortion at home and in a clinic: a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Ngo TD, Park MH, Shakur H and Free C: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(5): 360-370, May 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/5/10-084046.pdf","body":"The authors of this study compared medical abortion practised at home and in clinics in terms of effectiveness, safety and acceptability. A systematic search for randomized controlled trials and prospective cohort studies comparing home-based and clinic-based medical abortion was conducted. Nine studies met the inclusion criteria. Complete abortion was achieved by 86\u201397% of the women who underwent home-based abortion and by 80\u201399% of those who underwent clinic-based abortion. Pooled analyses from all studies revealed no difference in complete abortion rates between groups. Serious complications from abortion were rare. Women who chose home-based medical abortion were more likely to be satisfied, to choose the method again and to recommend it to a friend than women who opted for medical abortion in a clinic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Consultation on the paper for the World Conference on the Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 3 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/sdhconference/consultation/en/","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) seeks comments and feedback on the current draft of the Conference technical paper, which aims to inform the conference discussions and provide policy-makers with an overview of key strategies to implement action on social determinants of health. In particular, WHO would like comments on whether the draft fully covers the five themes of the Conference, and whether any major strategies for implementation of action on social determinants have been omitted. Please note that comments will not be posted to the public web site.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Delhi Statement: Time to untie the knots: The WHO reform and the need of democratising global health","field_subtitle":"Participants of the World Open Health Assembly: May 2011","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/sites/www.phmovement.org/files/Delhi%20Statement%20-%20Medico%20International%20-%20May%202011.pdf","body":"Representatives of organisations working on campaigns for health and social justice, as well as academia, governments and multilateral institutions, gathered in New Delhi from 2-4 May 2011 to address the need for an effective and accountable global governance for health. They believe that WHO needs to rediscover its fundamental multilateral identity. Drawing on its strengths, the organization has to take advantage of its reform process to rethink and reassert itself as the leading actor in a broader governance for health that is coherent with the need for solid public policy responses to the neoliberal prescriptions, so that globalization be shaped around the core values of equality and solidarity. Beyond mere institutional approaches, issues related to public policies in health have to be democratically debated and tackled at the local, national and regional level. This entails the continued participation and meaningful contribution of communities, public opinions, and their direct empowerment through education and knowledge sharing. Health democracy, namely participation, transparency and accountability in health, is a pre-condition for countries to make an impact in the decision making processes at the global level, within WHO and in other multilateral fora.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing effective chronic disease interventions in Africa: insights from Ghana and Cameroon","field_subtitle":"Atanga LL, Boynton P and Aikins A: Globalization and Health 6(6), 2010","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-6-6.pdf","body":"In this paper, using in-depth case studies of Ghanaian and Cameroonian responses, the authors discuss the challenge of developing effective primary and secondary prevention to tackle chronic diseases such as stroke, hypertension, diabetes and cancers. They observe fundamental differences between Ghana and Cameroon in terms of \"multi-institutional and multi-faceted responses\" to chronic diseases. Whereas Ghana does not have a chronic disease policy, the authors note that it has a national health insurance policy that covers drug treatment of some chronic diseases, a culture of patient advocacy for a broad range of chronic conditions and mass media involvement in chronic disease education. On the other hand, the authors note that Cameroon has a policy on diabetes and hypertension as well as established diabetes clinics across the country and provides training to health workers to improve treatment and education despit lack of community and media engagement. In both countries churches provide public education on major chronic diseases, but neither country has conducted systematic evaluation of the impact of interventions on health outcomes and cost-effectiveness. In conclusion, the authors recommend a comprehensive and integrative approach to chronic disease intervention that combines structural, community and individual strategies. To this end, they outline research and practice gaps and best practice models within and outside Africa that can instruct the development of future interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"E-drug: Training Course in Pharmacoeconomics","field_subtitle":"10-24 June, Accra Ghana","field_url":"http://www.who.int/selection_medicines/pharmacoeconomics/en/index.html","body":"The WHO/Geneva, the WHO Regional Office for Africa, the Ghana National Drugs Programme of the Ministry of Health Ghana, the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Faculty of Pharmacy, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology will jointly organize a 10-day training course on the use of pharmacoeconomics in medicines selection.\r\nThe course aims to build capacities of managers in health insurance programs, procurement agencies and relevant staff in public and private health facilities to make evidenced based decisions on selection of medicines for their essential medicines lists which are used for procurement, re-imbursements under health insurance programs and promote cost effective use of medicines. Preference will be given to participants from the African region, as well as emphasizing preference for people working in the public sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 124: Fair\u2019s fair: Sharing the virus should mean access to the vaccine ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Experiences of participatory action research in building people centred health systems and approaches to universal coverage: Report of the Sessions at the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, Montreux, Switzerland","field_subtitle":" Loewenson R; Flores W; Shukla A; Kagis M; Baba A; Ryklief A; Mbwili-Muleya C; Kakde D, March 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/GSHSR%20PRA%20report%20Dec%202010.pdf","body":"This report presents different experiences of using PAR in health systems from India, East and Southern Africa, Guatemala and Canada. These experiences are used to explore and discuss the learning on methods, on the knowledge generated and the implications for health systems, and what this means for the profile and practice of PAR. The report outlines the presentations and discussions from two sessions on participatory action research convened by the authors at the first Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Montreux Switzerland, November 16-19 2010. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Fair\u2019s fair:  Sharing the virus should mean access to the vaccine","field_subtitle":"Rangarirai Machemedze, SEATINI, Rene Loewenson, TARSC","field_url":"","body":"\r\nWhen Indonesia announced in late 2006 that it had stopped sharing H5N1 virus samples with the World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Influenza Surveillance Network (GISN) - the global alert mechanism for the emergence of influenza viruses with pandemic potential - it shone a torch on an area of global inequity.  Developing countries had been freely providing samples to the GISN, but were then not able to afford the vaccines that pharmaceutical companies developed and patented using the same samples. \r\n\r\nThe sharing by countries of influenza virus samples is important for vaccine development, and for understanding how viruses are mutating. Developing countries have thus freely provided samples to the WHO. But when private pharmaceutical companies use the samples to develop and patent vaccines which the same developing countries cannot afford, this is unjust and undermines public health. \r\n\r\nDealing with epidemics like influenza is not simply a concern at national level. The increased movement of people across nations and continents has been accompanied by an increased risk of spread of diseases across borders, such as bird flu, swine flu, SARS and others. Dealing with these pandemics is a matter of global health security that calls for the sharing of technology, information and resources to detect and respond to epidemics, including through vaccines effective for the current virus strain.  African countries, often lack the infrastructure, skilled personnel and laboratory facilities needed for detecting and managing epidemics. Africa only has 12 National Influenza Centres sampling people with influenza like illnesses. These NICs submit the virus samples to the global network, and they are used to produce to vaccines that contain the major virus strains predicted for that year. The global network provides the means for countries to share in the benefit of these viruses used for vaccines. But, as the 2006 Indonesia action exposed, the benefit is not shared.  \r\n\r\nIn 2007, the World Health Assembly (WHA) requested the WHO Director-General (DG) to convene an intergovernmental meeting to review how to ensure timely sharing of influenza viruses with pandemic potential and equitable access to the benefits from this.  By April 2011 the intergovernmental process had drafted a Framework for this, termed the \u201cStandard Material Transfer Agreement\u201d (SMTA),  that has been tabled and agreed to at the just concluded WHA in May 2011. The Framework contains provisions governing the sharing of influenza viruses and the resulting benefits, and obliges the pharmaceutical industry and other entities that benefit from the WHO virus sharing scheme to share benefits. In the SMTA for entities outside the WHO network, the recipient of the virus has to commit to at least two options of benefit sharing, such as donating at least 10%  percent of vaccine production to WHO, or reserving treatment courses of needed antiviral medicine for the pandemic at affordable price, or granting royalty-free licences to manufacturers in developing countries.\r\n\r\nHowever the Framework does not make mandatory the commitments to share knowledge and technology with developing countries on vaccine production, and is silent on patent issues and availability of affordable vaccines in countries where there is no manufacturing capacity, as is the case in many African countries. So while the SMTA establishes the principle of equity, it doesn\u2019t fully operationalise it. \r\n\r\nThere is some guidance in existing international instruments on this issue. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement makes clear, for example, that intellectual property (IP) should not compromise countries\u2019 obligation to protect public health. IP should thus not be used to deny countries affordable and timely access to vaccines.  The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its associated Nagoya protocol affirm that states have sovereign rights over their own biological resources and to the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of their genetic resources.  The Nagoya protocol goes further to provide more specific information on how this should be achieved through monetary and non monetary benefits. These are not yet provided for in the SMTA and there was some debate on mentioning the protocol in the SMTA. Although there is debate over whether the CBD, which deals with genetic resources that have functional units of heredity, applies to viruses, their intent sends a message on the principle that should guide countries in finalising the SMTA. Whether the Nagoya protocol is named or not, if WHO is a custodian of global health security, it should provide no less protection of benefit sharing than is evident in the CBD, and should further provide for the sort of innovative approaches that facilitate technology and capacity transfer between high and low income countries to operationalise benefits sharing. \r\n\r\nWhen the May 2011 WHA considered the SMTA, it presented an important opportunity to redress an area of global inequity in health.  The debate at the World Health Assembly (WHA) had many interventions, some of which wanted substantial changes. For example Australia and several other countries wanted to delete mention of the Nagoya protocol from the resolution, which the committee recommended. Jamaica wanted to add an obligation for WHO to facilitate access to vaccines and antivirals through stockpiling and affordable pricing. Bolivia proposed that patenting of influenza biological material is against public health interests. In general however countries did not change the text to allow the process to move forward, and Bolivia reserved its rights to seek a prohibition of the patenting of influenza biological materials outside WHO GISRS. The major preoccupation was with implementation. Many low and middle income countries (LMIC) were keen to see how the SMTA would be applied, and Kenya and Algeria urged other countries to support capacities and technology transfer for monitoring and dealing with pandemic disease.  \r\n\r\nThe gathering of people from all corners of the world would seem to be a good reminder of ease with which pandemics could spread, although the environment at the WHA may be very different to that of the low income communities who may have least access to the resources to prevent or manage them. An effective response to the potential severity of a global pandemic calls for strong, and where needed, mandatory commitments, plans and actions to share knowledge, technology and know-how, to prevent IP barriers and to operationalise principles of equity in benefits sharing and access, so that the timely delivery of viral samples translates into the timely access to vaccines for those who need them. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat  admin@equinetafrica.org. For further information on this issue or the full please visit SEATINI (www.seatini.org) or  EQUINET (www.equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Food insecurity grips Horn of Africa","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 18 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92752","body":"The number of people requiring humanitarian assistance in the Horn of Africa could increase sharply in coming months due to below-average rainfall and high food and fuel prices, say aid workers. According to the World Food Programme, the Horn of Africa drought, which began with the failure of the short rains in December 2010, is the first since a two-year regional drought in 2007-2009 that saw the number of people needing humanitarian assistance in the region rise to more than 20 million. Conflict over rising food prices could further increase the number of people requiring help. While governments of the affected countries have already started interventions, short- and long-term international assistance is needed to help address critical needs but also underlying structural causes and chronic vulnerabilities. What is needed, according to this article, is a set of interventions which strengthens people's own resilience capacity and coping mechanisms to survive such severe conditions while at the same time responding to their current humanitarian needs and protecting their livelihoods. It is crucial that people can feed themselves through their own means instead of being dependent on food distributions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global status report on non-communicable diseases 2010","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: April 2011","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2011/9789240686458_eng.pdf","body":"Non-communicable diseases (NCD) occur more commonly among people in lower socioeconomic groups. NCDs and poverty are in a vicious cycle, where poverty exposes people to behavioural risk factors for NCDs and, in turn, the resulting NCDs may become an important driver of poverty. Since in poorer countries most health-care costs must be paid by patients out-of-pocket, the cost of health care for NCDs create signi&#64257;cant strain on household budgets, particularly for lower-income families. Treatment for diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular diseases and chronic respiratory diseases can be protracted and therefore extremely expensive. Such costs can force families into catastrophic spending and impoverishment. Household spending on NCDs, and on the behavioural risk factors that cause them, translates into less money for necessities such as food and shelter, and for the basic requirement for escaping poverty \u2013 education. Each year, an estimated 100 million people are pushed into poverty because they have to pay directly for health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Governance for development in Africa: Building on what works","field_subtitle":"African Power and Politics Programme, Overseas Development Institute: April 2011","field_url":"http://www.institutions-africa.org/filestream/20110419-appp-report-seminar-6-april-2011-odi-london","body":"In this report, the African Power and Politics Programme (APPP) argues that economic growth is slower and more inequitable than it could be, and has not necessarily produced the poverty reduction that might have been hoped for. There is a growing consensus around the world that this is due to failures in governance, to which the APPP adds the hypothesis that the immediate problem is in part due to the application of a \u2018good governance agenda\u2019 that is ideological rather than evidence-based. APPP presents four recommendations. First, moving from \u2018best practice\u2019 to \u2018best fit\u2019 in thinking about institutional development is necessary. Second, a more realistic take on elections and citizen empowerment as means of addressing problems of public goods insufficiency requires us to rely less on the congenial assumption that all good things go together. Third, the leadership factor and the politics thereof are perhaps the biggest influence on the extent to which particular regimes are developmental or not. Fourth, these findings have important implications for aid effectiveness ahead of the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Korea later in 2011. Specifically, the concept of country ownership is due to be revamped, and it should be tied explicitly to this leadership question rather than to democracy, parliamentary oversight, or civil society participation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health workers remain unprotected in Kenya","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 17 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92736","body":"While Kenyan health workers treating tuberculosis patients are working without masks, government officials say problems with the supply chain and funding shortages are the main reason for the lack of protective gear. Health personnel cannot stop treating or offering services to patients even without these commodities and during that time, they risk getting infected by the very patients they treat. According to Joseph Sitienei, head of the National Leprosy and TB Control Programme, sometimes health facilities delay in requesting these much-needed materials and only do so when they completely run out. However, he pointed to increased funding to the health sector recently, which held promise that the situation would improve. He noted that the government is streamlining procurement and supply of commodities including protective gear to health facilities. In contrast, local NGOs say corruption within the health system is to blame for the haphazard availability of medical supplies, with drugs often 'disappearing' from government health facilities and sold to private pharmacies by government pharmacists.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights and gender equality in health sector strategies: How to assess policy coherence","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation and Sida: 2011 ","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2011/9789241564083_eng.pdf","body":"This tool is designed to support countries as they design and implement national health sector strategies in compliance with obligations and commitments. The tool focuses on practical options and poses critical questions for policy-makers to identify gaps and opportunities in the review or reform of health sector strategies as well as other sectoral initiatives. It is intended to generate a national multi-stakeholder process and a cross-disciplinary dialogue to address human rights and gender equality in health sector activities, and may be used by various actors involved in health planning and policy making, implementation or monitoring of health sector strategies. The tool provides support, as opposed to a set of detailed guidelines, to assess health sector strategies. It is not a manual on human rights or gender equality, but it does provide users with references to other publications and materials of a more conceptual and normative nature. The tool is intended to operationalise a human rights-based approach and gender mainstreaming through their practical application in policy assessments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"ICT applications as e-health solutions in rural healthcare in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa","field_subtitle":"Ruxwana NL, Herselman ME and Conradie DP: Health Information Management Journal 39(1), January 2010","field_url":"http://www.himaa.org.au/members/journal/HIMJ_39_1_2010/Ruxwana%20et%20al%20ICT%20rural%20healthcare%20Sth%20Africa.pdf","body":"Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions (e.g. e-health, telemedicine, e-education) are often viewed as vehicles to bridge the digital divide between rural and urban healthcare centres and to resolve shortcomings in the rural health sector. This study focused on factors perceived to in&#64258;uence the uptake and use of ICTs as e-health solutions in selected rural Eastern Cape healthcare centres, and on structural variables relating to these facilities and processes. Attention was also given to two psychological variables that may underlie an individual\u2019s acceptance and use of ICTs: usefulness and ease of use. It is evident that more effective use of ICTs as part of e-health initiatives at the rural healthcare centres was seen to be distinctly possible, but only if perceived shortcomings with regard to structural variables were addressed. Especially relevant was better access to more e-facilities, more health-related information made available via ICTs, ongoing ICT skills training programs and policies for improved technology maintenance and support. In conclusion, all structural and psychological factors investigated were seen to impinge to some extent on effective use of ICT applications as e-health solutions in the rural healthcare centres involved in the study. Furthermore, there was a distinct interplay between the various variables, with perceived ICT-related shortcomings having a negative impact on perceived usefulness and ease-of-use variables and thus decreasing the likelihood of effective e-health solutions. This means that to increase effective use of ICTs that form part of e-health initiatives in the healthcare centres, a vital first step is to address reported perceived shortcomings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the implementation of health workforce policies through governance: a review of case studies","field_subtitle":"Dieleman M, Shaw DM and Zwanikken P: Human Resources for Health 9(10), April 2011","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-9-10.pdf","body":"In this article, the authors describe how governance issues have influenced human resources for health (HRH) policy development and to identify governance strategies that have been used, successfully or not, to improve HRH policy implementation in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). They performed a descriptive literature review of HRH case studies which describe or evaluate a governance-related intervention at country or district level in LMIC. In total 16 case studies were included in the review and most of the selected studies covered several governance dimensions. The dimension 'performance' covered several elements at the core of governance of HRH, decentralisation being particularly prominent. Although improved equity and/or equality was, in a number of interventions, a goal, inclusiveness in policy development and fairness and transparency in policy implementation did often not seem adequate to guarantee the corresponding desirable health workforce scenario. This review shows that the term 'governance' is neither prominent nor frequent in recent HRH literature. It provides initial lessons regarding the influence of governance on HRH policy development and implementation. The review also shows that the evidence base needs to be improved in this field in order to better understand how governance influences HRH policy development and implementation. Tentative lessons are discussed, based on the case studies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Innovative public-private partnerships to maximise the delivery of anti-malarial medicines: lessons learned from the ASAQ Winthrop experience","field_subtitle":"Bompart F, Kiechel J, Sebbag R and Pecoul B: Malaria Journal 10(143), May 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-143.pdf","body":"This case study describes how a public-private partnership initiated to develop a new anti-malarial combination has evolved over time to address issues posed by its effective deployment in the field. In 2002, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) created the FACT project to develop two fixed-dose combinations, artesunate-amodiaquine and artesunate-mefloquine, to meet the WHO anti-malarial treatment recommendations and international regulatory agencies approval standards. In co-operation with private drug manufacturers, the partners developed the product and embarked on additional partnerships to ensure the adoption of this new medicine by malaria-endemic countries. The speed at which the drug was adopted in the field is argued to show the power of partnerships that combine different sets of strengths and skills, and that evolve to include additional actors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Interventions encouraging the use of systematic reviews by health policymakers and managers: A systematic review","field_subtitle":"Implementation Science 6:43, April 2011","field_url":"http://www.implementationscience.com/content/pdf/1748-5908-6-43.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers systematically reviewed the evidence on the impact of interventions for seeking, appraising, and applying evidence from systematic reviews in decision-making by health policymakers or managers. A total of 11,297 titles and abstracts were reviewed leading to retrieval of 37 full-text articles for assessment; four of these articles met all inclusion criteria. Three articles described one study where five systematic reviews were mailed to public health officials and followed up with surveys at three months and two years. The studies found that from 23% to 63% of respondents had used the systematic reviews in policymaking decisions. One trial indicated that tailored messages combined with access to a registry of systematic reviews had a significant effect on policies made in the area of healthy body weight promotion by health departments. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Introduction to Proposal Writing","field_subtitle":"Fundsforngos: 16 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.fundsforngos.org/how-to-write-a-proposal/introduction-to-proposal-writing/","body":"Proposals have recently become more sophisticated, reflecting the increased competitiveness and larger resources existing in the NGO sector. Enormous opportunities existing in the sector have led to the trend of making proposal writing a profession. Proposal writing poses many challenges, especially for small and unskilled NGOs. In this manual, some basic and necessary information required for developing a proposal is discussed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Join the Million Message March to the United Nations","field_subtitle":"iMAXi Cooperative and other partners: 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.imaxi.org/content/join-million-message-march-united-nations","body":"The Million Message March 2011 is a collaborative communication campaign to mobilise community support and political commitment for the Right to Health and Universal Access. It aims to reach out globally to collect one million messages (by SMS or tweets) from people in need of treatment and care (for HIV, cancer, TB, diabetes, hepatitis and other life-threatening diseases) and their families, care-givers and allies. These \u2018Voices\u2019 will be amplified, disseminated and projected along the \u2018March\u2019 starting at the World Health Assembly in May, through two UN High Level Meetings (HIV in June and Non-Communicable Diseases NCDs in September), and other major health events. The Million Message March will \u2018arrive\u2019 on Human Rights Day, the 10th of December, at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) so that the messages can \u2018Speak-Up\u2019 and be heard at the top of the UN and its Member States. The March began at the World Open Health Assembly (WOHA2011), in tandem with the World Health Assembly, 16-18 May 2011, with a global 'chat' live from Asia, Africa, Europe and NYC.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge Translation Toolkit: Bridging the Know\u2013Do Gap: A Resource for Researchers","field_subtitle":"Bennett G and Jessani N: IDRC, June 2011 ","field_url":"http://publicwebsite.idrc.ca/EN/Resources/Publications/Pages/IDRCBookDetails.aspx?PublicationID=851","body":"This Knowledge Translation Toolkit provides a thorough overview of what knowledge translation (KT) is and how to use it most effectively to bridge the \u201cknow\u2013do\u201d gap between research, policy, practice, and people. It presents the theories, tools, and strategies required to encourage and enable evidence-informed decision-making. The toolkit builds upon extensive research into the principles and skills of KT: its theory and literature, its evolution, strategies, and challenges. The book covers an array of crucial KT enablers \u2014 from context mapping to evaluative thinking \u2014 supported by practical examples, implementation guides, and references. Drawing from the experience of specialists in relevant disciplines around the world, the toolkit aims to enhance the capacity and motivation of researchers to use KT and to use it well.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Local pharmaceutical production in developing countries: How economic protectionism undermines access to quality medicines","field_subtitle":"Bate R: Campaign For Fighting Diseases Discussion Paper No. 1, January 2008","field_url":"http://www.unido.org/fileadmin/user_media/Services /PSD/BEP/Local%20Pharmaceutical%20Production%20web.pdf","body":"The author of this paper argues for public-private partnerships to help deliver locally produced generics in Africa, and against protectionism in favour of open market access. He points to promising developments, such as experienced Indian and Western pharmaceutical firms undertaking original research and development and partnering with firms in African countries. He believes this investment by reputable companies should help ensure quality drugs are produced by furnishing the technical expertise that overcomes capacity constraints. Local production enterprises in Africa will allow international companies to diversify their supply sources, the author argues, guarding against potentially disastrous shocks such as a natural disaster that would destroy an Artemisia crop and send the price of artemisinin-based malaria drugs skyrocketing. Local production partnerships could encourage trade, especially because the bulk active ingredients needed to produce them still come most efficiently from abroad. Partnerships between foreign pharmaceutical firms and African companies may also help train a pool of skilled workers, improving a country\u2019s long-term development prospects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Masculinity as a barrier to men's use of HIV Services in Zimbabwe ","field_subtitle":"Skovdal M, Campbell C, Madanhire C, Mupambireyi Z, Nyamukapa C and Gregson S: Globalization and Health 7(13), May 2011","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-7-13.pdf","body":"According to this paper, a growing number of studies highlight men's social disadvantage in making use of HIV services. Drawing on the perspectives of 53 ARV users and 25 healthcare providers, researchers examined qualitatively how local constructions of masculinity in rural Zimbabwe impact on HIV testing and treatment uptake. They found that informants reported a clear and hegemonic notion of masculinity that required men to be and act in control, to have know-how, be strong, resilient, disease free, highly sexual and economically productive. However, such traits were in direct conflict with the 'good patient' persona who is expected to accept being HIV positive, take instructions from nurses and engage in health-enabling behaviours such as attending regular hospital visits and refraining from alcohol and unprotected extra-marital sex. This conflict between local understandings of manhood and biopolitical representations of 'a good patient' can provide a possible explanation to why so many men do not make use of HIV services in Zimbabwe. The researchers urge HIV service providers to consider the obstacles that prevent many men from accessing their services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Non-communicable diseases: A priority for women's health and development","field_subtitle":"NCD Alliance: 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/pmnch/topics/maternal/2011_women_ncd_report.pdf.pdf","body":"This report focuses on the specific needs and challenges of girls and women at risk of, or living with non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The authors contend that NCDs impact on women\u2019s health and development across the lifecycle, causing morbidity and mortality, and compromising their socio-cultural status in communities. In light of this, the authors argue that failure to act now on NCDs will undermine development gains made to date, including progress made on women\u2019s empowerment. They argue that recognition of the importance of women\u2019s contribution to society in their productive and reproductive roles as well as consumers and providers of healthcare will enable real progress in turning back the global epidemic of NCDs. In conclusion, the authors note that there is lack of awareness around this critical issue for women's health and thus call for attention to NCDs as a priority for women\u2019s health and development, policy dialogue on the particular issues related to girls and women and evidence-informed actions by all partners to improve the health and lives of girls and women worldwide.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Opt-out provider-initiated HIV testing and counselling in primary care outpatient clinics in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Topp SM, Chipukuma JM, Chiko MM, Wamulume CS, Bolton-Moore C and Reid SE: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(5): 328-335A, May 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/5/10-084442.pdf","body":"The authors of this study aimed to increase case-finding of infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in Zambia and their referral to HIV care and treatment by supplementing existing client-initiated voluntary counselling and testing (VCT), the dominant mode of HIV testing in the country. Lay counsellors offered provider-initiated HIV testing and counselling (PITC) to all outpatients who attended primary clinics and did not know their HIV serostatus. After the addition of PITC to VCT, the number tested for HIV infection in the nine clinics was twice the number undergoing VCT alone. Over 30 months, 44,420 patients were counselled under PITC and 31,197 patients, 44% of them men, accepted testing. Of those tested, 21% were HIV+; 38% of these HIV+ patients enrolled in HIV care and treatment. The median time between testing and enrolment was 6 days. The acceptability of testing rose over time. In conclusion, the introduction of routine PITC using lay counsellors into health-care clinics in Lusaka, Zambia, dramatically increased the uptake and acceptability of HIV testing. Moreover, PITC was incorporated rapidly into primary care outpatient departments. Maximizing the number of patients who proceed to HIV care and treatment remains a challenge and warrants further research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevalence and risk factors of malaria among children in southern highland Rwanda","field_subtitle":"Gahutu J, Steininger C, Shyirambere C, Zeile I, Cwinya-Ay N, Danquah I: Malaria Journal 10(134), May 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-134.pdf","body":"Increased control has produced remarkable reductions of malaria in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa, including Rwanda. In the southern highlands, near the district capital of Butare, a combined community- and facility-based survey on Plasmodium infection was conducted early in 2010. In this study, a total of 749 children below five years of age were examined including 545 randomly selected from 24 villages, 103 attending the health centre in charge, and 101 at the referral district hospital. The researchers found that one out of six children under five years of age is infected with malaria. The many asymptomatic infections in the community form a reservoir for transmission of malaria. Risk factors for malaria include low socio-economic status and ineffective self-reported bed net use.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health perspectives of preeclampsia in developing countries: Implication for health system strengthening","field_subtitle":"Osungbade KO and Olusimbo KJ: Pregnancy 2011(481095), 4 April 2011","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3087154/pdf/JP2011-481095.pdf","body":"This study is a review of public health perspectives of preeclampsia in developing countries and implications for health system strengthening.  Literature from Pubmed (MEDLINE), AJOL, Google Scholar, and Cochrane database were reviewed. Results showed that the prevalence of preeclampsia in developing countries ranges from 1.8% to 16.7%. Many challenges exist in the prediction, prevention, and management of preeclampsia. Promising prophylactic measures like low-dose aspirin and calcium supplementation need further evidence before recommendation for use in developing countries. Treatment remains prenatal care, timely diagnosis, proper management, and timely delivery. Overcoming the prevailing challenges in the control of preeclampsia in developing countries hinges on the ability of health care systems to identify and manage women at high risk, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Reforming the World Health Organisation","field_subtitle":"Sridhar D and Gostin LO: Journal of the American Medical Association, 29 March 2011","field_url":"http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1799432","body":"In this commentary, the authors offer five proposals for re-establishing WHO\u2019s leadership. First, WHO should give real voice to multiple stakeholders, including philanthropies, businesses, public/private partnerships, and civil society. Second, WHO should improve transparency, performance and accountability, as stakeholders demand clarity on how their resources will achieve improved health outcomes. Also, WHO should exercise closer oversight of regions, and exert legal authority as a rule-making body. Finally, WHO should ensure predicable, sustainable financing, reducing extra-budgetary funding, which now represents almost 80% of the agency's budget. The ideal solution would be for the World Health Assembly (WHA) to set higher member state contributions. Failing decisive WHA action, the WHO should consider charging overheads of 20-30% for voluntary contributions to supplement its core budget.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Registering new drugs for low-income countries: The African challenge","field_subtitle":"Moran M, Strub-Wourgaft N, Guzman J, Boulet P, Wu L et al: PLoS Medicine 8(2), 1 February 2011","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/documents/s17765en /s17765en.pdf","body":"In this study, the authors argue that an optimal drug registration approach for Africa should reliably evaluate safety, efficacy, and quality of drugs for African use. It should include African expertise, contribute to building African regulatory capacity, and, ultimately, expedite African access by reducing duplicative and sequential reviews by different regulators. However they present an overview of the current situation that shows the present system of drug approval to be far from achieving these goals, with inefficiencies in the use of regulatory resources and in the uptake of capacity-building opportunities for African regulators. As a result regulatory processes and decisions may not meet current needs. The authors recommend that countries institute formal twinned regulatory reviews, fund Centres of Regulatory Excellence in each of Africa\u2019s main regions and conduct a strategic review of WHO drug pre-qualification disease and product priorities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Rethinking health-care systems: a focus on chronicity","field_subtitle":"Allotey P, Reidpath DD and Yasin RS: The Lancet 377(9764): 450-451, February 2011","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)61856-9/fulltext#article_upsell","body":"The authors explain how health-care systems are currently facing an increasing burden of chronic disease aggravated by ageing populations, by the continuing risk of infectious diseases and by global pandemics. While the authors welcome the timely present focus on health systems, there are gaps in responding to the burden of chronic disease in developing countries. Discussions to date largely centre on delivering the model of acute-centric care, with some concentration on tackling the weaknesses in the six key components of health systems: service delivery, finance, governance, technologies, workforce, and information; and within the context of universal coverage and equity. Although this approach might be appropriate for acute conditions, and arguably for higher-income countries, the paper argues that it is unaffordable and unsustainable given the increasing burden of chronic disease in low income and middle-income countries. The authors concludes that primary health care approaches might have a better chance of success.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"School HIV tests for South Africa on hold","field_subtitle":"Masuku  S: Sunday Times, 12 May 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article1063135.ece/School-HIV-tests-on-hold","body":"The introduction of the South African government's HIV tests on schoolchildren has been delayed by legal and confidentiality concerns, but officials insist a pilot project will start later in the year. After the national Department of Health announced the planned testing in January 2011, a pilot project to test pupils, voluntarily, was due to start at several schools in February. But it was shelved because crucial ethical and legal questions had not been answered. A team was set up to test the feasibility of the project, but four months later it has still not completed its research and consultations. Most teachers' unions and parents' organisations supported the proposal in principle, saying HIV screening could help curb the spread of HIV and reduce teenage pregnancies. But some expressed misgivings about how it might affect pupils and the learning environment. Parents must consent to tests and counselling must be provided by the schools.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Social determinants approaches to public health: From concept to practice ","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2011","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2011/9789241564137_eng.pdf","body":"The thirteen case studies contained in this publication \u2013 including studies from Tanzania and South Africa - were commissioned by the research node of the Knowledge Network on Priority Public Health Conditions (PPHC-KN), a WHO-based interdepartmental working group associated with the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health. The publication is a joint product of the Department of Ethics, Equity, Trade and Human Rights (ETH), Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP), and Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (AHPSR). The case studies describe a wealth of experiences with implementing public health programmes that intend to address social determinants and to have a great impact on health equity. They also document the real-life challenges in implementing such programmes, including the challenges in scaling up, managing policy changes, managing intersectoral processes, adjusting design and ensuring sustainability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Stillbirths: Where? When? Why? How to make the data count?","field_subtitle":"Lawn JE, Blencowe H, Pattinson R, Cousens S, Kumar R, Ibiebele I et al: The Lancet 377(9775): 1448-1463, 23 April 2011","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2810%2962187-3/fulltext","body":"Despite increasing attention and investment for maternal, neonatal, and child health, stillbirths remain invisible - not counted in the Millennium Development Goals, nor tracked by the UN, nor in the Global Burden of Disease metrics. At least 2.65 million stillbirths were estimated worldwide in 2008, of which 98% occured in low-income and middle-income countries. Worldwide, 67% of stillbirths occur in rural families, 55% in rural sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, where skilled birth attendance and caesarean sections are much lower than that for urban births. National estimates of causes of stillbirths are scarce, and multiple classification systems impede international comparison. Immediate data improvements are feasible through household surveys and facility audit, and improvements in vital registration, including specific perinatal certificates and revised International Classification of Disease codes, are needed, according to the authors of this article.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening Health Worker-Community Interactions through Health Literacy and Participatory approaches , Zambia Training workshop report","field_subtitle":"Training and Research Support Centre; Lusaka District Health Management Team, May 2011","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Zam%20HCW-HL%20TngRep%20Mar2011.pdf","body":"The training held in Lusaka district Zambia was aimed at building capacities of Health workers and communities jointly to work together to strengthen their interactions through health literacy and participatory approaches. It is anticipated that the training will go a long way in strengthening communication between health workers (employed in the health system in the community or the primary care level services) and community members at primary care level towards specific, measurable improvements of the health system for both with local coordination by Health Literacy facilitators. Specifically the training aimed to: \u2022Introduce the health literacy programme and Participatory Reflection and Action (PRA) approaches to community members and Health Workers in Lusaka District \u2022Provide core skills and information to health literacy facilitators to implement joint action to improve and strengthen Community-Health worker interactions \u2022Reflect on the current facilitators and blocks to communication between health workers and communities, and how to improve this. \u2022Provide training materials and orient facilitators to jointly identify and prioritize health needs and ill health problems, identify actions on shared priorities, identify gaps or barriers to uptake of primary health care (PHC) responses to prioritized problems, and set a shared (HW-Community) action plan. \u2022Orient Facilitators in Lusaka District on administering the baseline and the programme post survey instruments. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"The ability of select sub-Saharan African countries to utilise TRIPs Flexibilities and Competition Law to ensure a sustainable supply of essential medicines: A study of producing and importing countries","field_subtitle":"Avafia T, Berger J and Hartzenberg T: ICTSD, UNCTAD and tralac, 2006","field_url":"http://www.iprsonline.org/unctadictsd/docs/Trade%20and%20Competition%2030%203%2006%20final%20Edit1%20_2_%20_2_.pdf","body":"Despite the successes in using competition law to reduce drug prices in South Africa, the prospects of other countries in the region being able to utilise competition law and policy to attain similar objectives are not high, due to a lack of institutional capacity (in some cases) and a lack of expertise, the authors of this paper argue. By taking an initial focus on domestic legislation, SADC countries may ultimately pave the way for a form of regional harmonisation for competition policy. As developments in South Africa have shown, national competition policy can ensure that national markets function efficiently, assure consumers of competitive prices and product choices, and promote other such efficiency-plus objectives. However, it is true that market developments tend to outstrip policy and regulatory developments. This region demonstrates perhaps one of the most confusing and complex arrays of overlapping membership of regional trade organisations with various countries being members either of SACU, SADC or COMESA. Given the mix of multiple memberships of regional trading organisations in the region, it is suggested that the two most viable (but by no means exclusive) options to explore for a regional competition policy are COMESA and SACU.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Brazzaville Declaration On Noncommunicable Diseases Prevention And Control In The Who African Region","field_subtitle":"Brazzaville, Congo, 4-6 April 2011","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/en/media-centre/pressreleases/2839-african-health-ministers-adopt-brazzaville-declaration-on-noncommunicable-diseases.html","body":"Ministers of Health and Heads of Delegation of the WHO African Region, having convened at a Regional Consultation on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) in Brazzaville, Congo, from 4-6 April 2011 in preparation for the 28-29 April 2011 Moscow Ministerial Meeting on Healthy Lifestyles and NCDs; and the United Nations High-Level Summit on NCDs, to be held in New York, USA, in September 2011; made this statement on Noncommunicable Diseases prevention and control in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The clinical burden of malaria in Nairobi: a historical review and contemporary audit","field_subtitle":"Mudhune SA, Okiro EA, Noor AM, Zurovac D, Juma E, Ochola SA and Snow RW: Malaria Journal 10(138), May 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-138.pdf","body":"This paper presents a combined historical and contemporary review of the clinical burden of malaria within one of Africa's largest urban settlements, Nairobi, Kenya. The authors conducted a review of historical reported malaria case burdens since 1911 within Nairobi using archived government and city council reports. An audit of 22 randomly selected health facilities within Nairobi was undertaken, including interviews with health workers, and a checklist of commodities and guidelines necessary to diagnose, treat and record malaria. The researchers found that, from the 1930s through to the mid-1960s, malaria incidence declined coincidental with rapid population growth. During this period malaria notification and prevention were a priority for the city council. From 2001-2008 reporting systems for malaria were inadequate to define the extent or distribution of malaria risk within Nairobi. The facilities and health workers included in this study were not universally prepared to treat malaria according to national guidelines or identify foci of risks due to shortages of national first-line drugs, inadequate record keeping and a view among some health workers (17%) that slide negative patients could still have malaria. Combined with historical evidence, there is a strong suggestion that very low risks of locally acquired malaria exist today within Nairobi's city limits and this requires further investigation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The combined effect of determinants on coverage of intermittent preventive treatment of malaria during pregnancy in the Kilombero Valley, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Gross K, Alba S, Schellenberg J, Kessy F, Mayumana I and Obrist B: Malaria Journal 10(140), May 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-140.pdf","body":"Coverage for the recommended two intermittent preventive treatment during pregnancy (IPTp) IPTp doses is still far below the 80% target in Tanzania. This paper investigates the combined impact of pregnant women's timing of ANC attendance, health workers' IPTp delivery and different delivery schedules of national IPTp guidelines on IPTp coverage. Data on pregnant women's ANC attendance and health workers' IPTp delivery were collected from ANC card records during structured exit interviews with ANC attendees and through semi-structured interviews with health workers in south-eastern Tanzania. Among all women eligible for IPTp, 79% received a first dose of IPTp and 27% were given a second dose. Although pregnant women initiated ANC attendance late, their timing was in line with the national guidelines recommending IPTp delivery between 20-24 weeks and 28-32 weeks of gestation. Only 15% of the women delayed to the extent of being too late to be eligible for a first dose of IPTp. This study suggests that facility and policy factors are greater barriers to IPTp coverage than women's timing of ANC attendance. Simplified IPTp guidelines for front-line health workers as recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) could lead to a 20% increase in IPTp coverage. Pregnant women also need to be educated about the risks of malaria during pregnancy and their right to receive health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The cost-effectiveness of preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review","field_subtitle":"Johri M And Ako-Arrey D: Cost Effectiveness And Resource Allocation 9(3), 9 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/pdf /1478-7547-9-3.pdf","body":"The authors of this study reviewed the cost-effectiveness of interventions to prevent mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). They identified 19 articles published in nine journals from 1996 to 2010, 16 concerning sub-Saharan Africa. Collectively, the articles suggest that interventions to prevent paediatric infections are cost-effective in a variety of LMIC settings, as measured against accepted international benchmarks. The authors conclude that interventions to prevent HIV MTCT are compelling on economic grounds in many resource-limited settings and should remain at the forefront of global HIV prevention efforts. Future cost-effectiveness analyses should focus on local assessment of rapidly evolving HIV MTCT options, strategies to improve coverage and reach underserved populations, evaluation of a more comprehensive set of MTCT approaches, and the integration of HIV MTCT and other sexual and reproductive health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The costs of performance-based financing","field_subtitle":"Kalk A: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(5): 319, May 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/5/11-087247.pdf","body":"Is performance-based financing just a donor fad or a catalyst for wider reform? Looking at the broader evidence, the author offers several arguments against performance-based financing, based on three main issues. First, there is the issue of its effect on worker motivation in the health sector. It is argued that the introduction of financial incentives into a working environment characterised by a high degree of idealism might actually erode workers\u2019 intrinsic motivation. Second, performance-based financing focuses on a certain range of indicators, resulting in the neglect of non-remunerated aspects of work and the focus on remunerated ones. Third, the hidden costs of performance-based financing are not limited to emotional costs (concerning the self-esteem of health workers) and technical costs (due to misdirected focus on indicators). There are considerable costs (both financially and in working hours invested) in establishing a performance-based financing system that continuously monitors the quantity and perceived quality of health-sector performance. The author notes that all these negative side-effects of performance-based financing are consistently depicted in broader reviews as well as in detailed examination of its use in Rwanda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The emergence of insecticide resistance in central Mozambique and potential threat on the successful indoor residual spraying malaria control programme","field_subtitle":"Abilio AP, Kleinschmidt I, Coleman M et al: Malaria Journal 10(110), May 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-110.pdf","body":"Malaria vector control by indoor residual spraying was reinitiated in 2006 with DDT in Zambezia province, Mozambique. In 2007, these efforts were strengthened by the President's Malaria Initiative. This paper reports on the monitoring and evaluation of this programme as carried out by the Malaria Decision Support Project. Annual cross sectional household parasite surveys were carried out to monitor the impact of the control programme on prevalence of Plasmodium falciparum in children aged 1 to 15 years. In 2006, the sporozoite rate in Anopheles gambiae s.s. was 4% and this reduced to 1% over 4 rounds of spraying. The sporozoite rate for An. funestus was also reduced from 2% to 0 by 2008. Of the 437 Anopheles arabiensis identified, none were infectious. Overall prevalence of P. falciparum in the sentinel sites fell from 60% to 32% between October 2006 and October 2008. In conclusion, it appears that both An. gambiae s.s. and An. funestus were controlled effectively with the DDT-based IRS programme in Zambezia, reducing disease transmission and burden. However, the discovery of pyrethroid resistance in the province and Mozambique's policy change away from DDT to pyrethroids for IRS may threaten the gains made.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The hidden inequity in health care","field_subtitle":"Starfield B: International Journal for Equity in Health 10:15, 2011","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-10-15.pdf","body":"According to this article, inequity is built into western health systems, due to the disease focus that they have. Diseases are only a partial picture of peoples health, and low income populations experience multiple diseases. The author argues that the problems that bother and disable people, such as chronic pain, deserve more attention because many of these problems cannot be related to specific diseases. It is thus more useful for health services to focus on population health, and manage the multiple health challenges that people, especially poor people have, rather than tackle single diseases and leave the wider ill health burden unmanaged. The author calls on primary care physicians to take leadership in moving medical care where it needs to be: to the care of patients and populations and not the care of diseases. Primary health care that integrates disease with other aspects of patient health is seen as the way forward.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The initial pharmaceutical development of an artesunate/amodiaquine oral formulation for the treatment of malaria: a public-private partnership","field_subtitle":"Lacaze C, Kauss T, Kiechel J, Caminiti A, Fawaz F, Terrassin L at al: Malaria Journal 10(142), May 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-142.pdf","body":"This paper reports on the initial phases of the pharmaceutical development of an artesunate-amodiaquine (ASAQ) bilayer co-formulation tablet, undertaken following pre-formulation studies by a network of scientists and industrials from institutions of both industrialised and low income countries. University researchers, private companies specialised in pharmaceutical development and clinical batch manufacturing, as well as the World Health Organisation and Medecins Sans Frontieres collaborated on the project within a larger public-private partnership (the FACT project). The main pharmaceutical goal was to combine in a solid oral form two incompatible active principles while preventing artesunate degradation under tropical conditions. Collaborations between research and industrial groups greatly accelerated the process of development of the bi-layered ASAQ tablet. No intellectual property right was claimed. Lack of public funding was the main obstacle hampering the development process. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The Joint Action And Learning Initiative: Towards A Global Agreement On National And Global Responsibilities For Health","field_subtitle":"Gostin LO, Friedman EA, Ooms G, Gebauer T, Gupta N, Sridhar D et al: PLoS Medicine, May 2011","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001031","body":"A coalition of civil society organisations and academics is initiating a Joint Action and Learning Initiative on National and Global Responsibilities for Health (JALI) to research key questions involving health rights and responsibilities, with the goal of securing a global health agreement and supporting social mobilisation around the right to health. A Framework Convention on Global Health would inform post-Millennium Development Goal global health commitments, be grounded in the right to health, help resolve unconscionable global health inequities, and ensure universal health coverage. JALI seeks to clarify the health services to which everyone is entitled under the right to health, the national and global responsibilities for securing this right, and global governance structures that can realise these responsibilities and close major health inequities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The Joint Africa-EU Strategy","field_subtitle":"Faria F and Laporte G: Trade Negotiations Insights 10(9), December 2010-January 2011","field_url":"http://www.acp-eu-trade.org/library/files/tni_en_9-10.pdf","body":"This article looks at the main challenges to European Union-Africa relations in light of the EU-Africa summit held in Tripoli, Libya from 29-30 November 2010. The Tripoli meeting marked the third Africa-EU Summit since 2000. In 2007, both parties to the JAES pledged to work together to implement the Africa Health Strategy, the EU Project on Human Resources for Health, the Abuja commitment to dedicate 15% of government financing for health, and the European Programme for Action to Tackle the Shortage of Health Workers in Developing Countries. President Jacob Zuma of South Africa openly expressed his concern that after ten years of the partnership, there was still too little to show in terms of tangible implementation of the undertakings made in previous summits. He cautioned the summit against committing to another action plan when commitments made in the past have not been implemented. The author noted that for example the ongoing Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations, have become a contentious issue in EU-Africa relations, with clauses that may negatively impact on the production of affordable generic medicines for developing countries by rigorously protecting patent holders in developed countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The mental health workforce gap in low- and middle-income countries: a needs-based approach","field_subtitle":"Bruckner TA, Scheffler RM, Shen G, Yoon J, Chisholm D, Morris J et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(3): 184-194, March 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/3/10-082784/en/index.html","body":"The authors of this study estimated the shortage of mental health professionals in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). They used data from the World Health Organisation\u2019s Assessment Instrument for Mental Health Systems (WHO-AIMS) from 58 LMICs, country-specific information on the burden of various mental disorders and a hypothetical core service delivery package to estimate how many psychiatrists, nurses and psychosocial care providers would be needed to provide mental health care to the total population of the countries studied. All low-income countries and 59% of the middle-income countries in the sample were found to have far fewer professionals than they need to deliver a core set of mental health interventions. The 58 LMICs sampled would need to increase their total mental health workforce by 239 000 full-time equivalent professionals to address the current shortage, the authors conclude. Country-specific policies are needed to overcome the large shortage of mental health-care staff and services throughout LMICs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The training and professional expectations of medical students in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Ferrinho P, Sidat M, Fresta M, Rodrigues A, Fronteira I, da Silva F et al: Human Resources for Health 9(9), April 2011","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-9-9.pdf","body":"The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the professional expectations of medical students during the 2007-2008 academic year at the public medical schools of Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, and to identify their social and geographical origins, their professional expectations and difficulties relating to their education and professional future. Data were collected through a standardised questionnaire applied to all medical students registered during the 2007-2008 academic year. Researchers found that most academic performance of students was poor, and related to difficulties in accessing materials, finances and insufficient high school preparation. Approximately 75% want to train as hospital specialists and to follow a hospital-based career. A significant proportion is unsure about their future area of specialisation, which for many students is equated with migration to study abroad. Medical education is an important national investment, but the returns obtained are not as efficient as expected, the authors conclude. Developing a local postgraduate training capacity for doctors might be an important strategy to help retain medical doctors in the home country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Medicines Situation 2011: Medicines prices, availability and affordability","field_subtitle":"Cameron A, Ewen M, Auton M and Abegunde D: World Health Organisation, 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/medicines/areas/policy/world_medicines_situation/WMS_ch6_wPricing_v6.pdf","body":"Surveys of medicine prices and availability, conducted using a standard methodology, have shown that poor medicine availability, particularly in the public sector, is a key barrier to access to medicines. Public sector availability of generic medicines is less than 60% across WHO regions, ranging from 32% in the Eastern Mediterranean Region to 58% in the European Region. Private sector availability of generic medicines is higher that in the public sector in all regions. However, availability is still less than 60% in the Western Pacific, South-East Asia and Africa Regions. Due to low availability of medicines in the public sector, patients are often forced to purchase medicines in the private sector. When originator brands are prescribed and dispensed for products that are also available in generic form, patients are paying four times more, on average, to purchase the brand. High medicine prices increase the cost of treatment. Low public sector availability can be addressed through improved procurement efficiency, and adequate, equitable and sustainable financing. Medicine prices can be reduced by eliminating duties and taxes on medicines and promoting the use of quality-assured generic medicines. Mark-ups can also be regulated to avoid excessive add-on costs in the supply chain. The most appropriate actions to follow depend on a country\u2019s individual survey results and their underlying determinants, as well as local factors including existing pharmaceutical policies and market situations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Medicines Situation 2011: Rational use of medicines","field_subtitle":"Holloway K and van Dijk L: World Health Organisation, 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/medicines/areas/policy/world_medicines_situation/WMS_ch14_wRational.pdf","body":"Irrational use of medicines is an extremely serious global problem that is wasteful and harmful, according to the authors of this paper. In developing and transitional countries, in primary care less than 40% of patients in the public sector and 30% of patients in the private sector are treated in accordance with standard treatment guidelines. Antibiotics are misused and over-used in all regions. In developing and transitional countries, while only 70% of pneumonia cases receive an appropriate antibiotic, about half of all acute viral upper respiratory tract infection and viral diarrhoea cases receive antibiotics inappropriately. Patient adherence to treatment regimes is about 50% worldwide and lower in developing and transitional countries. Harmful consequences of irrational use of medicines include unnecessary adverse medicines events, rapidly increasing antimicrobial resistance (due to over-use of antibiotics) and the spread of blood-borne infections such as HIV and hepatitis B/C (due to unsterile injections) all of which cause serious morbidity and mortality and cost billions of dollars per year. Effective interventions to improve use of medicines are generally multi-faceted. They include provider and consumer education with supervision, group process strategies (such as peer review and self-monitoring), community case management (where community members are trained to treat childhood illness in their communities and provided with medicines and supervision to do it) and essential medicines programmes with an essential medicine supply element.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Tips and Tricks on How to Apply for Resources and Grants for Reproductive Health and Poverty Alleviation: East African Edition","field_subtitle":"German Foundation for World Population: 2011","field_url":"http://www.euroresources.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Tips_and_Tricks/Tip_Tricks_East_Africa_high_res.pdf","body":"Tips and Tricks East Africa has been divided into five sections based on geographic coverage. The first section is regional and includes European funding programmes managed by the European Commission as well as bilateral programmes from European countries, available for non-profit organisations working in the population and reproductive health sector in the region. In addition, non-European programmes have been included when they are particularly relevant. The remaining sections have been divided by individual country. Organisations are advised to review the information in their country\u2019s section as well as the Regional Section. Section 2 includes funding programmes in Ethiopia, Section 3 in Kenya, Section 4 in Tanzania and Section 5 in Uganda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Tips and Tricks on How to Apply for Resources and Grants for Reproductive Health and Poverty Alleviation: Kenya Edition","field_subtitle":"German Foundation for World Population: 2011","field_url":"http://www.weltbevoelkerung.de/en/t_t_kenya_eu.pdf","body":"This publication aims at providing current, accurate, practical and user-friendly funding information to governmental and non-governmental institutions in Kenya. It includes information on European Union (EU) donor governments\u2019 bilateral and multilateral ODA, priority sectors, relevant activities and cooperation with NGOs. Tips & Tricks seeks to increase transparency of EU and other donors\u2019 resource allocation for sexual and reproductive health and rights, HIV and AIDS and population assistance in Kenya. It lists funding priorities in Kenya of the European Commission, European funders, governmental agencies, international NGO\u2019s and private foundations, so that each applicant and funding agency can clearly see what efforts other agencies are undertaking and direct their own endeavours accordingly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards better use of evidence in policy formation: A discussion paper","field_subtitle":"Gluckman P: Office of the New Zealand Prime Minister\u2019s Science Advisory Committee, April 2011","field_url":"http://www.pmcsa.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Towards-better-use-of-evidence-in-policy-formation.pdf","body":"According to this paper, science is increasingly being applied to systems that are complex, non-linear and dynamic, including questions about climate, environment, society, health and human behaviour, with limited results. At the beginning of the 21st century, policy makers and their expert advisors are working in an environment where the values and outputs of science are questioned by an increasingly informed, involved and vociferous society. Science and technology are now focused on complex systems, in part because it is around such complexity that governments must make decisions. Broadly, improvement in the use of science-based evidence is likely to be gradual and incremental and will require \u2018buy-in\u2019 from many stakeholders. The author argues that progress will be dependent on attitudes and approaches taken by agency heads. Other areas may need additional work \u2013 for example in establishing across-government principles for protecting the integrity of scientific advice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Ugandan MP to persevere with Anti-Homosexuality Bill","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 17 May 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92739","body":"Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill and HIV Prevention and Control Bill are likely to be carried over to the new session of parliament, despite international and local pressure. David Bahati, the Member of Parliament who introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in 2009, said he fully intended to re-introduce the bill into the next session. The new parliament was sworn in on 16 May 2011. Men who have sex with men (MSM) are considered by the Uganda AIDS Commission to be a \"most at-risk population\", but because homosexual acts are illegal, there are no policies or services targeting HIV interventions towards them. AIDS activists say the bill would only drive an already stigmatised population further underground, leaving them even more vulnerable to HIV. Amid international condemnation in 2010, President Yoweri Museveni said he would not back a bill with either death penalty or \"aggravated homosexuality\" provisions. Nevertheless, activists say a weaker version of the bill would retain the illegal nature of homosexuality and keep homosexual people in the closet while encouraging dangerous stigma against them in society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"WHA defers to 2014 decision on smallpox virus stocks destruction","field_subtitle":"Li Ching L, SUNS #7158 26 May 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/2011/health20110507.htm","body":"Attempts by the United States to prolong the retention of variola (smallpox) virus stocks have been thwarted at the World Health Assembly (WHA) that met from 16 to 24 May. The WHA instead decided to put aside the US proposal in favour of resuming the discussion at the 67th WHA in 2014. The decision followed contentious discussions on a draft resolution, proposed by the US and several co-sponsors, that would have allowed continued retention of the existing virus stocks, with a report on progress of research only in five years' time (2017), at the 69th WHA. Despite an informal working group meeting to deliberate the issue, there was no consensus and a decision was then made to defer the discussion on the draft resolution. In the final decision adopted on 24 May, the WHA decided to strongly reaffirm the decisions of previous WHA sessions that the remaining stocks of variola virus should be destroyed. It also reaffirmed the need to reach consensus on a proposed new date for the destruction of variola virus stocks when research outcomes critical to an improved public health response to an outbreak so permit. It further decided to include a substantive item \"Smallpox eradication: Destruction of variola virus stocks\" on the provisional agenda of the 67th WHA session.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"White paper on China's foreign aid","field_subtitle":"The People's Republic of China: April 2011","field_url":"http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-04/21/c_13839683.htm","body":"In their white paper on foreign aid, the Chinese government notes that, currently, the environment for global development is not favourable. With the repercussions of the international financial crisis continuing to linger, global concerns such as climate change, food crisis, energy and resource security, and epidemic of diseases have brought new challenges to developing countries, aggravating the imbalance in the development of the global economy, and widening the gap between North and South, rich and poor. The international community should strengthen co-operation and jointly rise to the challenges facing development, according to the paper. Against this background, China has a long way to go in providing foreign aid. The Chinese government will make efforts to optimise the country's foreign aid structure, improve the quality of foreign aid, further increase recipient countries' capacity in independent development, and improve the pertinence and effectiveness of foreign aid. China further pledges to continue to promote South-South co-operation, gradually increase its foreign aid input on the basis of the continuous development of its economy and promote the realisation of the UN Millennium Development Goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO: Spotlight on non-communicable diseases prevention and control","field_subtitle":"Gopakumar K, Bodini C, SUNS #7157 25 May 2011","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/2011/health20110506.htm","body":"Many developing countries stressed the importance of access to medicines and of addressing the social determinants of health in order to prevent and control non-communicable diseases. Interventions also called for more funding and political commitment, better private sector regulation and policy-making free of conflict of interests. Several Member States also supported the inclusion of mental health in the context of NCDs. This was at the 64th World Health Assembly (WHA) meeting in Geneva on 16-24 May, during a discussion on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) that considered the WHO Secretariat report on the matter and adopted a  resolution sponsored by 61 Member States including EU member countries. The article reports on the debates and the resolution. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"World Conference on Social Determinants of Health (WCSDH): Technical Paper","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/sdhconference/consultation/draft_WCSDH_Technical_Paper.pdf","body":"A draft technical background paper for the World Conference on the Social Determinants of Health October 2011 is being circulated for peer review. It covers the five themes of the Conference, selected to highlight key ways of successfully implementing policies on social determinants. These themes are closely inter-related, reflecting the need for action on social determinants to be undertaken across society: governance to tackle the root causes of health inequities by implementing action on social determinants of health; the role of the health sector, including public health programmes, in reducing health inequities; promoting participation by providing community leadership for action on social determinants; global action on social determinants, especially regarding aligning priorities and stakeholders; and monitoring progress in terms of measurement and analysis to inform policies on social determinants.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A conceptual framework for action on the social determinants of health ","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2010","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241500852_eng.pdf","body":"The Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) framework shows how social, economic and political mechanisms give rise to a set of socioeconomic positions, whereby populations are stratified according to income, education, occupation, gender, race/ethnicity and other factors. These socioeconomic positions in turn shape specific determinants of health status (intermediary determinants) reflective of people\u2019s place within social hierarchies; based on their respective social status, individuals experience differences in exposure and vulnerability to health-compromising conditions. The CSDH framework departs from many previous models by conceptualising the health system itself as a social determinant of health (SDH). The role of the health system becomes particularly relevant through the issue of access, which incorporates differences in exposure and vulnerability, and through intersectoral action led from within the health sector. Arguably the single most significant lesson of the CSDH conceptual framework is that interventions and policies to reduce health inequities must not limit themselves to intermediary determinants, but must include policies specifically crafted to tackle the social mechanisms that systematically produce an inequitable distribution of the determinants of health among population groups. To tackle structural, as well as intermediary, determinants requires intersectoral policy approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A turning point for global health governance","field_subtitle":"Kickbusch I: Global Health Europe Task Force, 3 February 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3q2brgl","body":"This article is a review of the January 2011 Executive Board meeting of the World Health Organisation (WHO). The author identifies a new sense of purpose and willingness of member states to address politically complex issues head on and work towards acceptable compromises in the interest of global health. This was exemplified by the negotiation of a proposal from the African group of countries to institute a policy of rotation between geographic regions for the election of future WHO Director-Generals. The issue could have led to political deadlock on the board, the author argues, but it was artfully avoided through a deft show of statesmanship and above all a collective desire to see the board succeed in its work. The African group of countries also called for a greater involvement of developing nations and emerging economies in global health governance. Concrete proposals for how to move forward with a sense of urgency were raised, and Director General Margaret Chan received a clear mandate to develop reform proposals for discussions at the World Health Assembly in May 2011.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Action on the social determinants of health: Learning from previous experiences","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2010","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241500876_eng.pdf","body":"The 2000s have seen health stand higher than ever on the international development agenda, and stakeholders increasingly acknowledge the inadequacy of health strategies that fail to address the social roots of illness and well-being. Momentum for action on the social dimensions of health is building. Based on the historical survey, four key issue areas are highlighted here, relevant to work on social determinants of health. The first concerns the scope of change and appropriate policy entry points, and the choice between comprehensive and selective primary health care that confronted public health leaders in the 1980s. The work needs evaluation criteria for identifying appropriate policy entry points for different countries/jurisdictions. Potential resistance to social determinants messages can be anticipated from several constituencies, but there are also exceptional political opportunities, including in the global and national processes connected to the MDGs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Activism as a social determinant of health ","field_subtitle":"Mark Heywood, SECTION27, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"\r\nWe are living during a time of unprecedented threat and opportunity for the right to health. We are seeing cutbacks in the funding for prevention and treatment of HIV, retreats from commitments to \u2018universal access\u2019 to HIV and TB treatment, attacks on human rights and new threats to national and global health, including through climate change and food insecurity. At the same time there are new and better technologies available for health, new medicines and  diagnostics for common diseases like tuberculosis, and an array of interventions that could improve health and reduce malnutrition. Some states, particularly South Africa and Brazil, are seriously seeking to improve health on the principle that health is a human right. But it is questionable whether they have the resources to do it. There are examples of growing global co-operation and legal agreement around social challenges, such as climate change, although not yet around the most immediate social challenges that face the poor. Activist movements exist around AIDS, health and around social justice. \r\n\r\nThe Commission on the Social Determinants of Health pointed to the demand for a response to this moment of contradiction between threat and opportunity from a leadership and governance that is driven by social justice. It stated: \u201cIn order to address health inequities, and inequitable conditions of daily living, it is necessary to address inequities \u2013 such as those between men and women \u2013 in the way society is organized. This requires a strong public sector that is committed, capable, and adequately financed. To achieve that requires more than strengthened government \u2013 it requires strengthened governance: legitimacy, space, and support for civil society, for an accountable private sector, and for people across society to agree public interests and reinvest in the value of collective action. In a globalized world, the need for governance dedicated to equity applies equally from the community level to global institutions.\u201d\r\n\r\nThis is not a new call. It resonates with the recognition of the right to health as a human right found in the 1946 World Health Organisation Constitution, the 1966 International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the 1978 Alma Ata Declaration and the 2000 UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights \u2018General Comment 14\u2019 on Article 12 of ICESCR. Increasingly it is also reflected in the incorporation of the right to health into the national constitutions of over seventy countries in the last decade. \r\n\r\nNevertheless good health and access to adequate health care services remains out of reach to billions of people. Nearly two billion people (a third of the world\u2019s population) lack access to essential medicines and about 150 million people suffer financial catastrophe annually due to ill health, while the costs of care pushes 100 million below the poverty line. \r\n\r\nThe world is well aware of these facts. They are published by the WHO and others.  When these facts are raised in international forums, it has led states to make bold promises\u2026.that they later do not keep.   In Africa, 19 of the African countries who signed the 2001 Abuja Declaration to spend 15% of their government budget on health al\u00aclocate less now than they did in 2001. Yet the WHO indicate that low-income countries could raise an additional US$ 15 billion a year for health from domestic sources by increasing health\u2019s share of total government spending to 15%. Neither are high income countries meeting their promises. According to the \u2018Africa Progress Report 2010\u2019, published by a unique panel chaired by Kofi Annan, when the $25 billion Gleneagles commitment comes due at the end of 2011, the resources allocated by G8 countries will have fallen short by at least $9.8 billion. The panel calls this a \u201cstaggering shortfall.\u201d \r\n\r\nDoes this mean that the right to health has no value? No. Has the right to health been sufficiently popularised or used? No. Are the state and United Nations institutions who have a duty to protect and realise the right to health fulfilling their obligations? No. \r\n\r\nIn the last decade AIDS activists have established in practice the principle that states must fund treatment as a right, with the organisation of resources globally to meet this obligation. Currently we are seeing a reversal of this basic entitlement, as the right to these resources are being challenged by arguments over cost effectiveness, a retreat from funding treatment in middle income countries, despite the fact that three quarters of the poorest people in the world live in middle income countries;  and a claim that too much money is going to AIDS treatment, despite the fact that an estimated ten million people still need treatment globally.  Some states in low income countries claim to have inadequate resources for health even while their political and economic elites grow visibly wealthier, and even states who have met the Abuja commitment try to fairly distribute unfairly inadequate amounts of money for health. \r\n\r\nThe Commission on the Social Determinants of Health called for conditions that would enable civil society to organize and act in a way that promotes and realises the political and social rights affecting health equity.  It seems that we should go further than this, given the reversals in progress and growing inequalities in health. We need to see the level of activism by civil society as a key social determinant of health. The fight for health should be a central pillar of all movements for social justice and equality, not in the abstract, but for the specific goods, institutions, demands and resources that will realise the right to health. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org.This is an edited extract of a speech given at the Southern African Regional Dialogue on Realising the Right to Health in March 2011. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed and for this and other presentations made at the conference see: www.section27.org.za.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"An Update on Intellectual Property Claims Related to Global Pandemic Influenza Preparedness with Comments on the WIPO Patent Search Report on Pandemic Influenza Preparedness","field_subtitle":"Hammond E: Third World Network, 8 April 2011","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/PCT-PATENT-APPLICATIONS-FOR-INFLUENZA-VACCINES.pdf","body":"In this report, the author found that proprietary rights on \u201cinfluenza genetic sequences and the proteins they encode, used in vaccines,\u201d get in the way of developing countries\u2019 access to medicines. The study shows a sharp rise in patent applications in this area since 2006, shortly after the outbreak of H5N1 in late 2005. The study lists a series of examples of patent applications, such as Baxter International, for the production of influenza vaccines, published in July 2010. This patent application includes animal and human H5N1 types from China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Turkey, and Singapore. According to the author, developing countries \u201ccollect and share influenza viruses with WHO\u2019s Global Influenza Surveillance Network with the understanding that those viruses are to be used for public health.\u201d However, proprietary claims can prevent access to technology and products produced with a given technology, he said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Annual performance report 2010: Strengthening accountability to achieve the health MDGs","field_subtitle":"International Health Partnership and Related Initiatives: 2011","field_url":"http://ihpresults.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/IHP+-Report_ENGLISH+Cover.pdf","body":"The International Health Partnership and Related Initiatives (IHP+) was launched in 2007 with a commitment by developing country governments and Development Partners to \u2018work effectively together with renewed urgency to build sustainable health systems and improve health outcomes in low and middle-income countries\u2019. This independent review has found that the participating country governments and Development Partners made some progress in improving how effectively they were delivering and using health aid by 2009. These findings are broadly consistent with those from the OECD 2008 Paris Declaration monitoring survey, which is conducted at the national level (i.e. does not capture sectoral performance), and covers a larger number of countries and Development Partners. Ethiopia, Mali and Mozambique have seen the most improvements in Development Partners actions to meet their IHP+ targets. Burundi, Djibouti, DRC, Niger and Nigeria have benefitted less. However, these results might be expected given the length of time since each country joined the IHP+ (Djibouti only signed up to the IHP+ Global Compact in July 2009, Niger and DRC in May 2009) and the relative strength of these countries systems and processes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: SANNAM Biennial Conference","field_subtitle":"Closing Date: 15 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.sannam.org.za/CALL_FOR_ABSTRACTS_SANNAM_FIRST_BIENNIAL_CONFERENCE.pdf","body":"The SANNAM Biennial Conference and Annual General Meeting will take place from 16-18 November 2011 in Gaborone, Botswana. SANNAM is calling for abstracts for the conference, the main theme of which is \u2018Engaging Communities for Accelerating the Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in the SADC Region\u2019. Sub-themes include: health care programmes for addressing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); transforming general educational education for MDGs; strengthening educational nursing and midwifery for improvement for MDGs; community participation and MDGs; capacity building, leadership and MDGs; monitoring and evaluation progress for achievement/milestones on MDGs; challenges/factors related to MDGS; enhancing the environment for achieving MDGs; the expansion of nursing services to meet MDGs; collaboration and partnerships for MDGs; and human resources for achieving MDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Seventh PHASA Conference: \"Closing the health equity gap: Public health leadership, education and practice\u201d ","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 4 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.phasaconference.org.za","body":"The theme of the 2011 PHASA conference, which will be held from 28-30 November 2011, in Johannesburg, South Africa, is \"Closing the health equity gap: Public health leadership, education and practice\u201d. The theme will enable participants to review the progress that South Africa has made in achieving equity in health status, health care, the social determinants of health and access to resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: ACU Titular Fellowships 2011","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 1 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.acu.ac.uk/member_services/fellowships_mobility/acu_titular_fellowships","body":"The ACU Titular Fellowships provide opportunities for staff from member universities and employees working in industry, commerce or public service in a Commonwealth country to spend periods of time in other member universities or relevant institutions outside their own country. Preference will be given to workers in the following priority subject areas: agriculture, forestry and food sciences, biotechnology, development strategies, earth and marine sciences, engineering, health and related social sciences, information technology, management for change, professional education and training, social and cultural development and university development and management. Fellowships will be tenable for up to a maximum of six months.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for involvement in transformative scale up of health professional education in low and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hrh/education/en/index.html","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO), with support from PEPFAR, is leading an initiative on the transformative scale up of health professional education in low and middle-income countries. This process of scaling up health workers is proposing a change from \"business-as-usual\" in order to ensure that there is not only an increase in the numbers of health workers but in their quality and relevance to the communities they serve. Driven by population health needs, transformative scale-up is a process of education and health systems reform that addresses the quantity, quality and relevance of health care providers in order to increase access to health services and to improve population health outcomes. This cannot be done without the involvement of all relevant stakeholders at the country and regional levels. WHO are therefore inviting participation and call for input on&#8234; how you can advocate with WHO for scaling up transformative education at the country level, and what WHO can contribute to your efforts at the country, regional and global levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: WHO/PLOS collection: No health without research ","field_subtitle":"Pang T And Terry RF: PLoS Medicine 8(1), 25 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001008","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) and Public Library of Science (PloS) are calling for papers for a joint WHO/PLoS collection on the theme of the 2012 World Health Report on Research for Health. This flagship report from WHO will, for the first time in its history, focus on research for better health. The primary target audience of the report will be ministers of health in the WHO member states, and the goal of the report is to provide new ideas, innovative thinking, and pragmatic advice for member states on how to strengthen their own health research systems. In addition to primary research (both quantitative and qualitative) and well-developed case studies, WHO and PLoS also invite the submission of review and policy articles on how national health research systems contribute to the broader international research endeavour, especially in the context of the following areas: global health research governance; inequitable access to the benefits and products of research; global standards for responsible research conduct; and future research trends with implications for the developing world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Proposals for Research Grants: Africa Initiative","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submitting proposals is Tuesday, May 31, 2011.","field_url":"http://www.africaportal.org/research","body":"The Africa Initiative, a joint partnership between The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and Makerere University (MAK), that the research grants competition is now accepting new proposals for funding of up to $15,000 CAD.  They would like to invite applicants to submit proposals that are field-based and address substantive-policy relevant challenges facing African policy makers at national, regional, and global levels in one or more of the areas of conflict resolution, energy, food security, health, migration, and the cross-cutting theme of climate change. The Africa Initiative encourages proposals from relevant fields of physical sciences and social sciences. Priority will be given to African-based scholars, and early- to mid-career Canadian-based researchers. Applicants must have a post-graduate degree or be in the advanced stages of a doctoral program.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CODESRIA: Multinational Working Groups - Health, Society and Politics: For an Equitable Health System in Africa - Call for Proposals","field_subtitle":"All proposals should be received no later than 15 August, 2011","field_url":"http://www.codesria.org","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is calling for proposals for its new Multinational Working Group (GMT) on the theme of \"Health, Society and Politics: for a equitable health system in Africa\u201d. MWG is an important CODESRIA program that aims at promoting multinational and multidisciplinary reflections on issues affecting the African community of social science researchers. Each MWG will be led by two or three coordinators and will include a maximum of fifteen researchers. Two to three senior researchers will be selected as independent assessors and will also be resource persons during the meetings of each Group. The average length of an MWG is two years during which all phases of the research process should be completed and final results prepared for publication in the CODESRIA Book Series. For more details on the MWGs and on the activities of CODESRIA, visit the Council\u2019s website: www.codesria.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Design, implementation and evaluation of a national campaign to distribute nine million free long-lasting insecticidal nets to children under five years of age in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Bonner K, Mwita A, McElroy PD, Omari S, Mzava A, Lengeler C et al: Malaria Journal 10(73), 31 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-73.pdf","body":"After a national voucher scheme in 2004 provided pregnant women and infants with highly subsidised insecticide-treated nets (ITNs), use among children under five years (U5s) in mainland Tanzania increased from 16% in 2004 to 26.2% in 2007. In 2008, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare planned a catch-up campaign to rapidly and equitably deliver a free long-lasting insecticidal net (LLIN) to every child under five years in Tanzania. The ITN Cell, a unit within the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), coordinated the campaign on behalf of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. Nine donors contributed to the national campaign that purchased and distributed 9.0 million LLINs at an average cost of $7.07 per LLIN, including all campaign-associated activities. The campaign covered all eight zones of mainland Tanzania, the first region being covered separately during an integrated measles immunization/malaria LLIN distribution in August 2008, and was implemented one zone at a time from March 2009 until May 2010. ITN ownership at household level increased from Tanzania's 2008 national average of 45.7% to 63.4%, with significant regional variations. ITN use among U5s increased from 28.8% to 64.1%, a 2.2-fold increase, with increases ranging from 22.1-38.3% percentage points in different regions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Driving a decade of change: HIV/AIDS, patents and access to medicines for all","field_subtitle":"'t Hoen E, Berger J, Calmy A and Moon S: Journal of the International AIDS Society 14(15), 27 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-14-15.pdf","body":"Since 2000, access to antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV infection has dramatically increased to reach more than five million people in developing countries. Essential to this achievement was the dramatic reduction in antiretroviral prices, the authors of this paper argue, which was a result of global political mobilisation that cleared the way for competitive production of generic versions of widely patented medicines. Despite these promising changes, a \"treatment timebomb\" awaits, the authors warn. First, increasing numbers of people need access to newer antiretrovirals, but treatment costs are rising since new ARVs are likely to be more widely patented in developing countries. Second, policy space to produce or import generic versions of patented medicines is shrinking in some developing countries. Third, funding for medicines is falling far short of needs. Expanded use of the existing flexibilities in patent law and new models to address the second wave of the access to medicines crisis are required. One promising new mechanism is the UNITAID-supported Medicines Patent Pool, which seeks to facilitate access to patents to enable competitive generic medicines production and the development of improved products. Such innovative approaches are possible today due to the previous decade of AIDS activism. However, the Pool is just one of a broad set of policies needed to ensure access to medicines for all; other key measures include sufficient and reliable financing, research and development of new products targeted for use in resource-poor settings, and use of patent law flexibilities. Governments must live up to their obligations to protect access to medicines as a fundamental component of the human right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 123: Activism as a social determinant of health ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nEQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Explaining household socio-economic related child health inequalities using multiple methods in three diverse settings in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Nkonki LL, Chopra M, Doherty TM, Jackson D and Robberstad B: International Journal for Equity in Health 10(13), 4 April 2011","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-10-13.pdf","body":"The objectives of this study were to measure inequalities in child mortality, HIV transmission and vaccination coverage within a cohort of infants in South Africa. The researchers observed disparities in the availability of infrastructure between least poor and most poor families, and inequalities in all measured child health outcomes. Overall, 75 (8.5%) infants died between birth and 36 weeks. Infant mortality and HIV transmission was higher among the poorest families within the sample. Immunisation coverage was higher among the least poor. The inequalities were mainly due to the area of residence and socio-economic position. This study provides evidence that socio-economic inequalities are highly prevalent within the relatively poor black population. Poor socio-economic position exposes infants to ill health. In addition, the use of immunisation services was lower in the poor households. These inequalities need to be explicitly addressed in future programme planning to improve child health for all South Africans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Exposing misclassified HIV/AIDS deaths in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Birnbaum JK, Murray CJL and Lozano R: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(4): 278-285, April 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/4/11-086280.pdf","body":"The objective of this paper was to quantify the deaths from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) that are misattributed to other causes in South Africa\u2019s death registration data and to adjust for this bias. Differences between global and South African relative death rates were used to identify the causes to which deaths from HIV and AIDS were misattributed in South Africa and quantify the HIV and AIDS deaths misattributed to each. These deaths were then reattributed to AIDS. In South Africa, deaths from HIV and AIDS are often misclassified as being caused by 14 other conditions. Whereas in 1996\u20132006 deaths attributed to HIV and AIDS accounted for 2.0\u20132.5% of all registered deaths in South Africa, the analysis shows that the true cause-specific mortality fraction rose from 19% to 48% over that period. More than 90% of HIV and AIDS deaths were found to have been misattributed to other causes during 1996\u20132006. In conclusion, adjusting for cause of death misclassification, a simple procedure that can be carried out in any country, can improve death registration data and provide empirical estimates of HIV and AIDS deaths that may be useful in assessing estimates from demographic models.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Eye on the ball: Medicine regulation \u2013 not IP enforcement \u2013 can best deliver quality medicines","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: 2 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/en/policy/eye-ball","body":"The report notes that poor-quality, or \"substandard\", medicines threaten patients and public health in developing countries. Prioritisation of medicines regulation by developing-country governments, with the technical and financial support of rich countries, is badly needed. Yet under the guise of helping to address dangerous and ineffective medicines, rich countries are pushing for new intellectual-property rules and reliance on police - rather than health regulatory - action. This approach will not ensure that medicines consistently meet quality standards. Worse, new intellectual property rules can undermine access to affordable generic medicines and damage public health. Developing countries must improve medicines regulation - not expand intellectual-property enforcement - in order to ensure medicine quality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing global health 2010: development assistance and country spending in economic uncertainty","field_subtitle":"Institute For Health Metrics And Evaluation (IHME): 2010 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/68nbtor","body":"This report offers a comprehensive view of trends in public and private financing of development assistance for health (DAH), with preliminary estimates of how the economic downturn is affecting health financing in 2010. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) notes that the global economic recession appears to be contributing to a slowing of the rate of growth in DAH. Estimates show continued growth through 2010 to a total of $26.87 billion by year\u2019s end, but the rate of growth was cut by more than half from an annual average of 13% between 2004 and 2008 to 6% annually between 2008 and 2010. Spending on HIV and AIDS programmes continued to rise at a strong rate, making HIV and AIDS the most funded of all health focus areas. Maternal, newborn and child health received about half as much funding as HIV and AIDS in 2008. Tuberculosis funding grew steadily from 1990 through 2008. Malaria funding rose more dramatically than any other health focus area between 2007 and 2008. Despite much discussion about the need for general health sector support, funding for that area has grown slowly since 2006, according to the report. Non-communicable diseases receive the least amount of funding compared with other health focus areas. Uncertainty about the future of DAH underscores the importance of tracking global health spending to ensure resources are directed as efficiently as possible to the world\u2019s most pressing health needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"First International HIV Social Science and Humanities Conference: 11-13 June 2011: South Africa","field_subtitle":"Closing Date For Registration: 4 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.iaohss.org/index.php/register.html","body":"This conference will consider the link between and contributions of the social sciences and humanities to HIV research and action. The International Association of HIV Social Scientists, which is organising the event, argues that social science emphasises a critical, reflexive stance and willingness to confront the social, ethical, and political dimensions of scientific investigations of the HIV epidemic, which has made it instrumental in successful HIV prevention efforts such as the normalisation of condom use against sexual transmission and the introduction of safe injecting equipment for injecting drug use. Social scientific research has also provided insights into issues related to the treatment and care of people living with HIV and AIDS, and has addressed the broader social and political barriers to effective responses to HIV. Yet there have been few forums in which scholars from different social science and humanities disciplines can come together to develop connections among the various phenomena we study, and between ourselves and our biomedical, policy and community based colleagues. This conference is a forum for those keen to extend the scope of the social sciences and its capacity to trace connections between all kinds of phenomenon, notably those that contribute to the complexity and changing nature of the epidemic. Themes include: treatment as prevention, HIV and the body, social epidemiology and social networks, global politics, and responsibility and risk governance, as well as new directions for HIV and AIDS treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Foreign policy and global health: Country strategies","field_subtitle":"Sridhar D: University of Oxford, 2009","field_url":"http://www.globaleconomicgovernance.org/wp-content/uploads/Health-and-Foreign-Policy-Introduction-28-May-2009.pdf","body":"While health has always been a part of international relations, the author of this paper argues that it is only in recent years that it has attracted much attention and started the move from an issue of \u2018low-politics\u2019 to one of \u2018high-politics.\u2019 While the strategies of most governments point to the increasing central role health plays in national strategy, health is still not yet an issue at the heart of government policy. However, research and thinking by groups such as the Chatham House Centre on Global Health and Foreign Policy and the FIOCRUZ Centre for Global Health and International Co-operation can help it became an increasingly important part of it, the author argues.  Given increased globalisation and \u2018convergence of interest\u2019, there will likely be much more interaction in the future between ministries of health and other ministries, as well as increased priority given to health in foreign policy strategies. The author notes that a call was made in 2009 to the United States (US) President to highlight health as a pillar of US foreign policy, and he predicts that the United States will put more resources into developing a formal foreign relations-based health strategy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Framing health and foreign policy: Lessons for global health diplomacy","field_subtitle":"Labont\u00e9 R and Gagnon ML: Globalization and Health 6:14, December 2010","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/6/1/14","body":"Global health financing has increased dramatically in recent years, indicative of a rise in health as a foreign policy Issue, in the form of global health diplomacy, which informs foreign policy decision-making in the advancement of international co-operation in health. In this paper, the authors review the arguments for health in foreign policy that inform global health diplomacy. These are organised into six policy frames: security, development, global public goods, trade, human rights and ethical/moral reasoning. Each of these frames has implications for how global health as a foreign policy issue is conceptualised. Differing arguments within and between these policy frames, while overlapping, can also be contradictory. This raises an important question about which arguments prevail in actual state decision-making. This question is addressed through an analysis of policy or policy-related documents and academic literature pertinent to each policy framing with some assessment of policy practice. The reference point for this analysis is the explicit goal of improving global health equity. This goal has increasing national traction within national public health discourse and decision-making and, through the Millennium Development Goals and other multilateral reports and declarations, is entering global health policy discussion. Initial findings support conventional international relations theory that most states, even when committed to health as a foreign policy goal, still make decisions primarily on the basis of the \u2018high politics\u2019 of national security and economic material interests. Development, human rights and ethical/moral arguments for global health assistance, the traditional \u2018low politics\u2019 of foreign policy, are present in discourse but do not appear to dominate practice. While political momentum for health as a foreign policy goal persists, the framing of this goal remains a contested issue. The analysis offered in this article may prove helpful to those engaged in global health diplomacy or in efforts to have global governance across a range of sectoral interests pay more attention to health equity impacts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Global cost of child survival: estimates from country-level validation","field_subtitle":"Van Ekdom L, Stenberg K, Scherpbier RW, Niessen LW (on behalf of the ad hoc Study Group for Child Health Cost Validation): Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(4): 267-277, April 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/4/10-081059.pdf","body":"In this study, the authors cross-validated the global cost of scaling up child survival interventions to achieve the fourth Millennium Development Goal (MDG4) as estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2007 by using the latest country-provided data and new assumptions. Twenty-six countries were included. The authors fund that country-level validation caused a 53% increase in original cost estimates (i.e. 9 billion 2004 United States dollars [US$]) for 26 countries owing to revised system and programme assumptions, especially surrounding community health worker costs. The additional effect of updated population figures was small; updated epidemiologic figures increased costs by US$ 4 billion (+15%). New unit prices in the 26 countries that provided data increased estimates by US$ 4.3 billion (+16%). Extrapolation to 75 countries increased the original price estimate by US$ 33 billion (+80%) for 2010\u20132015. In conclusion, country-level validation had a significant effect on the cost estimate. Price adaptations and programme-related assumptions contributed substantially. An additional 74 billion US$ 2005 (representing a 12% increase in total health expenditure) would be needed between 2010 and 2015. Given resource constraints, countries will need to prioritise health activities within their national resource envelope.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health approaches must evolve","field_subtitle":"Akukwe C: African Crisis, June 2010","field_url":"http://www.africancrisis.co.za/Article.php?ID=78574&","body":"According to this article, Africa faces numerous health challenges on the ground, such as lack of skilled health workers and poor social determinants of health, as well as several challenges originating from the global health arena. In global health, idealists who believe that money and technical assistance must be available in sufficient quantities to meet demand are pitted against policy makers who are working with finite resources and competing priorities. The author identifies lack of co-ordination of policies and programmes in Africa as another major obstacle to achieving universal health coverage. In addition, he argues that global health continues to operate on a financing mechanism that strengthens the hand of donor organisations at the expense of host nations and their priorities. Measuring the impact of global health programmes is technically difficult and a massive data gap exists. The author notes lack of participation by target populations in global health initiatives with regard to conceptualisation and design of projects, and their knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of target populations are also seldom included, especially the voices of poor and underserved communities. In Africa and other parts of the developing world, the author argues that global health is evolving from traditional concerns about the spread of infectious diseases to concerns about human security and dignity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health diplomacy: An emerging field","field_subtitle":"Akukwe C: The African Executive, June 2010","field_url":"http://www.africanexecutive.com/modules/magazine/articles.php?article=5277","body":"In this article, the author briefly examines various definitions of \u2018global health diplomacy\u2019 (GHD), reviews possible fundamental principles and discusses unresolved challenges. He argues that fundamental principles of GHD should include: ethical participation and decision making; human rights concerns and enforcements;  rule of law and clear process for settling disputes;  social determinants of health and how to mitigate their impact;  shared bilateral and international interests and priorities; centrality of target populations and sensitivities to local customs, religions and social mores; research as part of efforts to expand the frontiers of the field;  training and field experience for all practitioners;  an understanding of political, policy making, advocacy and implementation issues in global health; globalisation and international trade issues;  integration and mainstreaming of policies and programmes in the relationship between global health, bilateral diplomacy and multilateral development; and public/private/civil society partnerships and alliances. He identifies five challenges for GHD. The first challenge is to further develop the field of GHD as a discipline. The second challenge is how to harmonise the divergent orientation of public health experts, trained diplomats and development experts. Thirdly, stakeholders must ensure that global health diplomacy retains a significant focus on the needs of target populations around the world. Finally, stakeholders must find strategies to maintain the current non-partisan support of policy makers on global health issues over the long term.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and justice activists gather to debate strategies to achieve the right to health","field_subtitle":"Section27: 27 March 2011","field_url":"","body":"On 25-26 March 2011, Section27 convened a meeting of 70 activists and experts from 16 countries, including from EQUINET, mostly from Southern Africa but also from India, Brazil, the United States and Europe. The meeting\u2019s aim was to build a common vision, and if possible programme, for realising the right to health and to discuss how to mobilise and support new campaigns for health at local, national, regional and global levels. A further objective of the consultation was to explore and debate whether, in future, a Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH) could be an effective international legal instrument for coordination of currently fragmented activities, sustainable and sufficient resource mobilisation and standard-setting to realise the right to health. The conference reinforced the view that there is a need to mobilise people from the grass-roots level to fight for their own rights to health by educating people on and popularising the right to health, and linking community and national movements into a truly global movement of for the right to health. Finally, it confirmed the importance of exploring the idea of a future FCGH as one component of this struggle.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/35968","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Health challenges in Africa and the way forward","field_subtitle":"Kirigia JM and Barry SP: International Archives Of Medicine, 18 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.intarchmed.com/content/pdf/1755-7682-1-27.pdf","body":"Africa is confronted by a heavy burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases. Cost-effective interventions that can prevent the disease burden exist but coverage is too low due to health systems weaknesses. This editorial reviews the challenges related to leadership and governance; health workforce; medical products, vaccines and technologies; information; financing; and services delivery. It also provides an overview of the orientations provided by the WHO Regional Committee for Africa for overcoming those challenges. It cautions that it might not be possible to adequately implement those orientations without a concerted fight against corruption, sustained domestic and external investment in social sectors, and enabling macroeconomic and political (i.e. internally secure) environment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health security or health diplomacy? Moving beyond semantic analysis to strengthen health systems and global cooperation","field_subtitle":"Bond K: Health Policy and Planning 23 (6):376-378, August 2008","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/6/376.full","body":"The author of this article argues that the emerging global health diplomacy movement points to the need for core capacities in the public health and diplomatic arenas. Among these are an understanding of international relations among public health professionals and greater recognition by diplomats of the population health outcomes of foreign policy. More specifically, the author notes that their training should include perspectives on globalisation, social determinants of health and cultural competence, macro-economics and political negotiation. Communities and citizens are often not considered in the formal policy arena but play an important role in meeting foreign policy goals and in cultivating trust and friendship across national borders, particularly in times of crisis and emergency. Future foreign policy and global health efforts need to ensure dialogue with affected communities and be more intentional in engaging and citizens groups in defining needs and goals. While it is likely that health security will remain a prominent rationale for developed countries to invest in global health initiatives, a the author concludes that more coherent approach to foreign policy and health diplomacy could result in better alignment between the health security goals of developed countries and health equity and development goals of developing countries, while at the same time recognising and channelling the growing financial and technical contributions of private citizens, companies and organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"How China delivers development assistance to Africa","field_subtitle":"Davies M, Edinger H, Tay N and Naidu S: Centre for Chinese Studies, University of Stellenbosch, February 2008","field_url":"http://collection.europarchive.org/tna/20080305120132/http://dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/china-dev-africa.pdf","body":"According to this article, the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation is the main mechanism whereby China\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its Ministry of Commerce are starting to align their respective responsibilities toward more effective co-ordination and implementation of a Chinese foreign policy and aid policy toward Africa. Figures on China\u2019s aid disbursements to Africa remain vague, the authors note, in absence of a central Chinese aid agency to monitor funding flows to the continent. Part of China\u2019s strategic industrial plan for Africa is to establish five preferential trade and industrial zones for Chinese business entry in Africa: Zambia, Mauritius, Egypt, Nigeria and possibly Tanzania. In 2007, The Chinese Development Bank was designated to manage the US$5 billion China-Africa Development Fund, but the authors cautions that, even though it is termed a \u2018development fund\u2019, it has been actually put in place to finance the market entry of Chinese firms into the African economy. In conclusion, the authors provide recommendations to relevant stakeholders that are engaged in the aid process. Recommendations for African countries include developing a better understanding of the Chinese approach to aid; facilitating regional co-ordination; avoiding poor co-ordination which may lead to Chinese aid fatigue; avoiding the division between traditional and emerging donors; strengthening the African voice; improving the reporting mechanisms within recipient countries; and improving debt reporting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights guidelines for pharmaceutical companies in relation to access to medicines: The sexual and reproductive health context","field_subtitle":"Khosla R and Hunt P: University Of Essex, 3 March 2009","field_url":"http://www.essex.ac.uk/human_rights_centre/research/rth/docs/Final_pharma_for_website.pdf","body":"In this briefing, the authors consider the responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies for enhancing access to medicines in the context of sexual and reproductive health. They first examine the issue of access to medicine in the context of both HIV/AIDS and the human papilloma virus (HPV), highlighting the intersection with the fundamental rights to sexual and reproductive health. Having provided this context, the authors outline the responsibilities of States to ensure that medicines are available, accessible, culturally acceptable, and of good quality. However, they stress that the pharmaceutical sector has an indispensable role to play in relation to the right to health and access to medicines. The responsibility should be shared between the pharmaceutical industry and global and national governing bodies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the implementation of health workforce policies through governance: a review of case studies","field_subtitle":"Dieleman M, Shaw DMP and Zwanikken P: Human Resources for Health 9(10), 12 April 2011","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-9-10.pdf","body":"In this article, the authors describe how governance issues have influenced HRH policy development and identify governance strategies that have been used, successfully or not, to improve HRH policy implementation in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). They performed a descriptive literature review of HRH case studies which describe or evaluate a governance-related intervention at country or district level in LMIC, including a total of 16 case studies. This review shows that the term 'governance' is neither prominent nor frequent in recent HRH literature. It provides initial lessons regarding the influence of governance on HRH policy development and implementation. The review also shows that the evidence base needs to be improved in this field in order to better understand how governance influences HRH policy development and implementation. Tentative lessons are discussed, based on the case studies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Indicators of sustainable capacity building for health research: analysis of four African case studies","field_subtitle":"Bates I, Taegtmeyer M, Squire SB, Ansong D, Nhlema-Simwaka B, Baba A and Theobald S: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(14), 28 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-14.pdf","body":"Despite substantial investment in health capacity building in developing countries, evaluations of capacity building effectiveness are scarce. By analysing projects in Africa that had successfully built sustainable capacity, the authors of this stuy aimed to identify evidence that could indicate that capacity building was likely to be sustainable. Four projects were selected as case studies using pre-determined criteria, including the achievement of sustainable capacity. The authors found that indicators of sustainable capacity building increased in complexity as projects matured and included: early engagement of stakeholders; improved resources; and funding for core activities secured, with management and decision-making led by Southern partners. Projects became sustainable after a median of 66 months. The authors identified the main challenges to achieving sustainability as high turnover of staff and stakeholders, and difficulties in embedding new activities into existing systems, securing funding and influencing policy development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrated biological and behavioural surveillance survey in the commercial agricultural sector: South Africa","field_subtitle":"International Organization For Migration: November 2010","field_url":"http://iom.org.za/site/index.php?option=com_docman%20&task=doc_view&gid=173&Itemid=238","body":"This study found that farm workers in South Africa's Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces have the highest HIV prevalence among any working population in Southern Africa. Conducted from March to May 2010 on 23 commercial farms, the survey included 2,810 farm workers, who anonymously gave blood specimens for HIV testing. The survey found that an average of 39.5% of farm workers who tested were HIV positive, which is more than twice the UNAIDS estimated national prevalence for South Africa of 18.1%. HIV prevalence was significantly higher among female employees, with almost half of the women (46.7%) testing positive compared to just under a third (30.9%) of the male workforce. The study could not pin-point a single factor causing this high rate of HIV infection on these farms, but cites a combination of factors such as multiple and concurrent partnerships, transactional sex, irregular condom use, presence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and tuberculosis, and high levels of sexual violence. The authors of the study note that a major research gap exists with regard to HIV among farm workers in southern Africa and they call for more research. The report makes several recommendations including increasing farm worker access to healthcare and implementing prevention programmes that are goal driven and monitored. The programmes should address gender norms that increase risky behaviour and vulnerability to HIV, such as the belief that a man has to have multiple partners. Both permanent and seasonal farm workers should be included in workplace health and safety policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Integration of tuberculosis and HIV services in low- and middle- income countries: a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Legido-Quigley H, Montgomery CM, Khan P, Fakoya A, Getahun H, Grant AD et al: World Health Organization, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/images/stories/6tuberculosis_hiv_services.pdf","body":"The aim of this study was to synthesise knowledge concerning various models for the integrated delivery of TB/HIV services at health facility level in low- and middle-income countries. The authors conducted a systematic review of literature, selecting 63 papers and 70 abstracts for inclusion, which described 136 examples of models of integration. Strengths and weaknesses of different models of integration are identified. Models based on referral only are easiest to implement, requiring as little as additional staff training and supervision, if a functional referral system exists, but optimal communication is necessary. Models with closer integration are more efficient but require more staff training and may also require additional infrastructure, e.g. private space for HIV counselling. The authors conclude that their comparison of different models of integration of tuberculosis and HIV services was undermined by a lack of rigorous studies. More research is needed to investigate potential efficiencies of integrated care from the perspective of both provider and service user.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"It's time for a new development model","field_subtitle":"Poverty Matters: 2011","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/apr/05/time-for-new-development-model","body":"Health aid advocates are gearing up to lobby for more, and better, aid at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea, in November 2011. And like many others, health aid advocates seem to be missing the bigger picture, according to this paper. While it is vital to improve aid procedures to get more aid flowing for health, this is not the only important issue: continuously overlooked are problems with the whole development model. Part of the problem is an epistemological one involving the discourse about \"poverty reduction\" that has seemingly supplanted earlier understandings of development. It seems, somehow, short-term \"poverty reduction\" has become a stand-in for actual long-term development. The author argues that, while aid advocates lobby external funders in one arena, the advocates' own representatives to the IMF executive board push a conservative monetary policy within another arena that exacerbates the ability of the aid recipients to develop. The same goes for the arena of trade policy, where the donor countries give aid with one hand while pushing for rapid and premature trade liberalisation in poor countries with the other.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenyan High Court enjoins UN in case against generic ARVs ban","field_subtitle":"Kwamboka E: The Standard, 17 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/InsidePage.php?id=2000026980&cid=4","body":"The United Nations has been enjoined in a court case in Kenya case challenging a potential threat to supply of generic drugs for HIV and AIDS. It claimed enforcement of the Anti-Counterfeit Act 2008 would endanger the lives of people infected. The High Court in Nairobi heard those affected would not access affordable and essential drugs. The UN Special Rapporteur indicated his wish to intervene as an interested party to support the constitutional principles of access to essential medicines, according to advocate Ombati Omwanza. Justice Daniel Musinga allowed Anand Grover to represent the UN in the suit. The court allowed importation of generic anti-retrovirals, pending the hearing and determination of this case. The interim order issued in April 2010 was aimed at saving the lives of those living with the virus. The judge\u2019s interim order stopped the implementation of three sections of the new Anti-Counterfeit Act.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Low use of contraception among poor women in Africa: an equity issue","field_subtitle":"Creanga AA, Gillespie D, Karklins S and Tsui AO: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(4): 258-266, April 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/entity/bulletin/volumes/89/4/10-083329.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers examined the use of contraception among women in 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa with regard to wealth-related inequity. The analysis was conducted with Demographic and Health Survey data from 13 sub-Saharan African countries. The researchers found that the use of contraception has increased substantially between surveys in Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia but has declined slightly in Kenya, Senegal and Uganda. Wealth-related inequalities in the met need for contraception have decreased in most countries and especially so in Mozambique, but they have increased in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia with regard to spacing births, and in Malawi, Senegal, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia with regard to limiting childbearing. After adjustment for fertility intention, women in the richest wealth quintile were more likely than those in the poorest quintile to practice long-term contraception.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Malaria diagnostic testing and treatment practices in three different Plasmodium falciparum transmission settings in Tanzania: before and after a government policy change","field_subtitle":"Bastiaens GJ, Schaftenaar E, Ndaro A, Keuter M, Bousema T and Shekalaghe SA: Malaria Journal 10(76), 2 April 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-76.pdf","body":"In this study, the impact of a government policy change, comprising the provision of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) and advice to restrict anti-malarial treatment to RDT-positive individuals, was assessed by describing diagnostic behaviour and treatment decision-making in febrile outpatients ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Memories and blessings of China-Botswana relations: A review on 35 years of diplomatic relations between China and Botswana","field_subtitle":"Huanxing L: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People\u2019s Republic of China, 7 Jan 2010","field_url":"http://www.focac.org/eng/zxxx/t650146.htm","body":"This review by the Chinese ambassador to Botswana marks the 35th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the China and Botswana. According to the ambassador, trade and technical co-operation serve as the driving force behind bilateral relations between the two countries, as China considers mutually beneficial co-operation as more important and useful than unilateral assistance. The Chinese government has also undertaken technical exchanges and transfers with Botswana, notably in agriculture and health. From the 1970s to 1980s, China helped train a group of agriculture technical personnel from Botswana and sent experts to conduct local land survey and planning projects. Three Chinese senior agricultural experts are now helping Botswana in agricultural policy making and improving farming technology. In health and medicine, China has sent medical teams to Botswana since 1980, like the Twelfth Team, comprising 40 medical staff and six support staff, who provide medical services in public hospitals in Gaborone and Francistown. In the review, the ambassador acknowledges that his country aims to further scale up human resources development as an important component of bilateral relations. Since 1999 almost 300 Botswana officials and technicians have attended seminars, workshops and short-term training programmes in China \u2013 covering areas of administrative management, commerce, information etc \u2013 and the number is set to increase.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Millet porridge with Artemisia annua as first aid for African children with malaria?","field_subtitle":"Bonati M, Severino F, Bagnati R, Carr\u00e0 A and Fanelli R: Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine  17(4): 371-373, 2011","field_url":"http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2010.0252","body":"In a few malaria-endemic countries with high disease prevalence, especially in children, and local cultivation of Artemisia annua, the availability of recommended malaria medicines is scant. New sources of treatment could be used, drawing from traditional medicine, the autrhors of this paper argue. A popular African millet-porridge was prepared by adding dried, sieved leaves ofArtemisia annua. Artemisinin concentrations were detected by high-performance liquid chromatography\u2013mass spectrometry. The artemisinin content of the porridge is stable and the concentration is maintained. The taste of the porridge is palatable. Authors conclude that further research is needed before proposing the millet-porridge artemisinin formulation, but such an affordable therapy could be an option in the near future (also) for children living in poor areas where access to effective antimalarial drugs is precluded.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring Equity in Access to AIDS treatment programmes","field_subtitle":"WHO; EQUINET; REACH Trust; TARSC","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/WHO%20EQ%20Monitoring%20AIDS%202011.pdf","body":"Commissioned by the World Health Organization (Department of Ethics, Equity, Trade and Human Rights - Social Determinants of Health) and the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) through REACH Trust and Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) \u2013 2010. \u201c\u2026.Barriers that prevent access to antiretroviral treatment services (ART) are often socially determined. Using the Tanahashi model of health service coverage and by identifying areas of health systems and programs where action needs to be strengthened to improve equity, this publication proposes a set of potential indicators to monitor equity in access to ART. Monitoring equity in access helps decision-makers to reach people frequently excluded from treatment and facilitates efforts to overcome barriers by addressing their social determinants, within and beyond the health system. This jointly prepared publication follows up previous WHO work that explores the barriers and social determinants that impact on specific health conditions presented in the book \"Equity, social determinants and public health programmes\" (2010). It also builds on over 8 years of policy dialogue and research in east and southern Africa in EQUINET on equity in health, with a particular focus on HIV and AIDS. The rationale, concepts and indicators included in this publication can be further refined and adapted in the future to measure equity in access to health services or to other public health programs (e.g. TB, non-communicable diseases). ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Mozambique Country Scorecard 2010","field_subtitle":"International Health Partnership and Related Initiatives: 2011","field_url":"http://ihpresults.net/django/media/scorecards/country-scorecard-Mozambique-en.pdf","body":"According to Mozambique\u2019s scorecard, a national IHP+ Compact was signed in 2008. Prior to that, a SWAp and pooled fund mechanism was in place from 2007. A National Health Sector Plan/Strategy is in place with current targets and budgets that have been jointly assessed. There is currently a costed and evidence based HRH plan in place that is integrated with the national health plan. In 2009 Mozambique allocated 6.8% of its approved annual national budget to health. In 2009, 73% of health sector funding was disbursed against the approved annual budget. In 2009 there was a transparent and monitorable performance assessment framework in place to assess progress against the national development strategies relevant to health and against health sector programmes. Mutual assessments are being made of progress implementing commitments in the health sector, including on aid effectiveness.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"MSF in Mozambique 2001-2010: ten years of HIV projects","field_subtitle":"Medicins Sans Frontiers: 24 November 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/39wspag","body":"This report evaluates the work that Medicins sans Frontiers (MSF) has done in HIV and AIDS in Mozambique over the past ten years. MSF\u2019s HIV and AIDS programmes offer HIV testing and counseling, treatment and prevention of opportunistic infections, paediatric diagnosis and treatment, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, and the provision of anti-retroviral therapy. At the end of August 2010, more than 33,000 people in Mozambique were being treated for HIV and AIDS through MSF\u2019s projects. However, the report cautions that MSF\u2019s model of care is not a prescriptive cure, and significant challenges remain. More than 350,000 people in Mozambique are in need of ARV treatment but do not have access to it, which equates to two-thirds of all HIV-positive Mozambicans. After years of political willingness and financial commitment to combat HIV and AIDS, external funders are now either flatlining, reducing or withdrawing their funding for HIV, thus abandoning those who are still in dire need of lifesaving treatment. HIV-infected people continue to face major barriers in their access to services, even in a context of free treatment. A shortage of qualified health workers is also considered a major barrier to access in Mozambique, with only 3 doctors and 143 nurses per 100,000 people, one of the lowest workforce per population ratios in the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New database on HIV patents","field_subtitle":"Medicines Patent Pool: 2011","field_url":"http://www.medicinespatentpool.org/LICENSING/Patent-Status-of-ARVs","body":"The Medicines Patent Pool, an initiative aiming at increasing access to HIV drugs through voluntary licences of patented drugs, has launched a new database of patent information on HIV medicines. The Medicines Patent Pool's patent database provides information on the patent status of selected antiretrovirals in a large number of low- and middle-income countries. It enables users to search by country/region and by medicine to obtain information on the key patents relating to each medicine.  Wherever a patent has been applied for or granted in a given jurisdiction, the relevant patent number is also provided if available. The data was obtained from and cross-checked between a variety of sources, including many local patent offices that agreed to make this information available via theWorld Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The number of countries included in the database will be expanded periodically as the relevant information is collected by the Medicines Patent Pool.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Nutritional status and HIV in rural South African children","field_subtitle":"Kimani-Murage EW, Norris SA, Pettifor JM, Tollman SM, Klipstein-Grobusch K, G\u00f3mez-Oliv\u00e9 XF et al: BMC Pediatrics 11(23), 25 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2431/11/23","body":"This study involved 671 children aged 12-59 months living in the Agincourt sub-district, rural South Africa in 2007. Anthropometric measurements were taken and HIV testing with disclosure was done using two rapid tests. Z-scores were generated using WHO 2006 standards as indicators of nutritional status. Prevalence of malnutrition, particularly stunting (18%), was high in the overall sample of children. HIV prevalence in this age group was 4.4%. HIV positive children had significantly poorer nutritional outcomes than their HIV negative counterparts. Besides HIV status, other significant determinants of nutritional outcomes included age of the child, birth weight, maternal age, age of household head, and area of residence. HIV is an independent modifiable risk factor for poor nutritional outcomes and makes a significant contribution to nutritional outcomes at the individual level. Early paediatric HIV testing of exposed or at risk children, followed by appropriate health care for infected children, may improve their nutritional status and survival, the authors conclude.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Pan-African Symposium on Infectious Diseases","field_subtitle":"9-11 May 2011: Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.africahealthexhibition.com/Site-Root /Forms/ConferenceEnquiryForm/","body":"This symposium will consider infectious diseases in Africa, including bacterial, viral, fungal and parasitic diseases, which comprise a major cause of death, disability, and social and economic disruption for millions of people in Africa\u2019s developing countries. This conference will aim to look at the borderless effect of infection, its impact on children and the importance of intervention. International speakers will talk about how to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases and discuss new diagnostics vaccines and drug treatments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Patient satisfaction, feasibility and reliability of the satisfaction questionnaire among patients with pulmonary tuberculosis in urban Uganda: a cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Babikako HM, Neuhauser D, Katamba A and Mupere E: Health Research Policy And Systems 9(6), 31 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf /1478-4505-9-6.pdf","body":"The objective of this study was to establish the feasibility and reliability of a questionnaire for healthcare service satisfaction and a questionnaire for satisfaction with information received about TB medicines among adult TB patients attending public and private programme clinics in Kampala, Uganda. Researchers recruited 133 patients of known HIV status and confirmed pulmonary TB who were receiving care at public and private hospitals in Kampala, Uganda. A translated and standardised 13-item patient healthcare service satisfaction questionnaire (PS-13) and the Satisfaction with Information about Medicines Scale (SIMS) tool were administered by trained interviewers. Of the 133 participants, 35% were starting, 33% had completed two months, and 32% had completed eight months of TB therapy. The male to female and public to private hospital ratios in the study population were 1:1. The PS-13 and the SIMS tools were highly acceptable and easily administered. Patients that were enrolled at the public hospital had relatively lower PS-13 satisfaction scores for technical quality of care and responsiveness to patient preferences when compared to patients that were enrolled at the private hospital. The authors conclude that their study provides preliminary evidence that the PS-13 service satisfaction and the SIMS tools are reliable measures of patient satisfaction in TB programmes. Satisfaction score findings suggest differences in patient satisfaction levels between public and private hospitals, as well as between patients starting and those completing TB therapy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Pooled funds: assessing new models for global health R&D financing ","field_subtitle":"Grace C and Pearson M: Centre For Global Health R&D Policy Assessment, 30 November 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4dco7t7","body":"Product development partnerships, non-profit research institutes and private sector groups have come together over the past years to conduct research and development (R&D) in the areas of the development of drugs, vaccines and diagnostics for neglected diseases, including tropical diseases and other major infectious diseases like HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. However, arguments have been put forward that their efforts are disjointed and that funding flows inefficiently to individual research projects resulting in insufficient resources, funding volatility, poor resource allocation, and duplicated and unnecessary efforts. In response, several pooled funding mechanisms have been proposed to address what proponents see as the key problem(s) in the current system: the Industry R&D Facilitation Fund (IRFF) originally proposed by the George Institute; the Fund for Research in Neglected Diseases (FRIND) proposed by Novartis; and the Product Development Partnership Financing Facility (PDP-FF) proposed by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). The goal of this paper is to provide insight into the extent to which these three proposed mechanisms would have a positive effect on accelerating R&D for neglected diseases. It considers how these proposals are likely to perform against two criteria: their capacity to raise additional money for neglected disease R&D and their capacity to improve the efficient allocation of those funds. The authors of the paper use a literature review, interviews with key stakeholders and illustrative modelling to assess the proposals against these two criteria. Most interviewees expressed doubts that common ground could be found with regard to the metrics on resource allocation if the fund were covering a large and diverse part of the R&D space. However, stakeholders overwhelmingly agreed that a pooled fund focused on late stage work only would be a more feasible and useful proposition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Potential impact of single-risk-factor versus total risk management for the prevention of cardiovascular events in Seychelles","field_subtitle":"Ndindjock R, Gedeon J, Mendis S, Paccaud F ahnd Bovet P: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(4): 286-295, April 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/4/10-082370.pdf","body":"The authors of this study set out to assess the prevalence of cardiovascular (CV) risk factors in Seychelles, a middle-income African country, and compare the cost-effectiveness of single-risk-factor management with management based on total CV risk. CV risk factor prevalence and a CV risk prediction chart for Africa were used to estimate the 10-year risk of suffering a fatal or non-fatal CV event among individuals aged 40\u201364 years. These figures were used to compare single-risk-factor management with total risk management in terms of the number of people requiring treatment to avert one CV event and the number of events potentially averted over 10 years. With single-risk-factor management, 60% of adults would need to be treated and 157 cardiovascular events per 100,000 population would be averted per year, as opposed to 5% of adults and 92 events with total CV risk management. Management based on high total CV risk optimizes the balance between the number requiring treatment and the number of CV events averted. In conclusion, total CV risk management is much more cost-effective than single-risk-factor management. These findings are relevant for all countries, but especially for those economically and demographically similar to Seychelles.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty in numbers: the changing state of global poverty from 2005 to 2015","field_subtitle":"Chandy L and Gertz G: Brookings Institution, January 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6zs4bev","body":"This study uses updated global poverty estimates to infer that nearly half a billion people escaped extreme poverty in the five years from 2005 to 2010. However the gains have not been equally distributed, globally. Between 2005 and 2015, Asia\u2019s share of global poverty is expected to fall from two-thirds to one-third, while Africa\u2019s share will more than double from 28% to 60%. Although sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s poverty rate had by 2010 fallen to below 50% for the first time and is projected to fall below 40% by 2015, at global level the authors argue that the share of the world\u2019s poor people living in fragile states is rising sharply and will exceed 50% by 2014.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public seminar discusses fake and substandard medicines","field_subtitle":"Graduate Institute: 2011","field_url":"http://graduateinstitute.ch/Jahia/site/iheid/cache/bypass/lang/en/institute/news?newsId=113082","body":"The Graduate Institute\u2019s Global Health Programme, in cooperation with the University of Ottawa, held a public seminar at the Institute in April 2011 to discuss the threat that fake and substandard medicines pose to public health and the potential role of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in resolving this daunting health challenge. A major theme running throughout the seminar was the need to redress the critical imbalance in the provision of international legal tools to tackle the illicit trade and criminal production of fake medicines. A complete legal system would address both the positive challenge, to promote greater access to safe, WHO-qualified treatments, as well as the negative challenge, to stop criminal activity and bogus treatments that are intentionally fraudulent, illicitly traded and sold. Currently, the global system lacks balance, with most legal tools addressing the issue of counterfeit medicines. In other words, the international system is currently more prepared to tackle this issue as a violation of intellectual property rights rather than as a significant danger to public health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"SANNAM Biennial Conference and Annual General Meeting","field_subtitle":"16-18 November 2011: Gaborone, Botswana","field_url":"http://www.sannam.org.za/CALL_FOR_ABSTRACTS_SANNAM_FIRST_BIENNIAL_CONFERENCE.pdf","body":"This first Southern African Network of Nurses and Midwives (SANNAM) biennial conference will present evidence demonstrating how nurses, as key members of the health team, promote and contribute to quality and access to health care. It will also demonstrate the importance of connecting other health workers and the community at large in accelerating the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The conference will feature plenary sessions, which will set the stage for discussion of critical issues that either facilitate or impede the achievement of the MDGs. Concurrent sessions, symposia, poster presentations, debates and panel discussions will address issues to demonstrate the intricate links between the MDGs SANNAM is calling on all professionals and communities to work collectively at the conference in addressing the links.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Sharm El Sheikh Action Plan (2010-2012)","field_subtitle":"Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People\u2019s Republic of China: 12 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.focac.org/eng/dsjbzjhy/hywj/t626387.htm","body":"One of the action plans emerging from the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation \u2013 the main platform for Chinese-African relations \u2013 is the Sharm El Sheikh Action Plan, in which the Chinese government committed itself over the period 2010-2012 to, among other things, send 50 agricultural technology teams to Africa and help train 2,000 African agricultural technicians, build and implement 20 agricultural technology demonstration centres in Africa, and implement 100 joint research and demonstration projects to aid science and technology transfer. The government has also committed to contribute medical equipment and malaria-fighting materials worth 500 million yuan (US$76.35 million) to 30 hospitals and 30 malaria prevention and treatment centres built by China for Africa in the three-year period. China will invite African professionals working in the field of malaria to attend training programmes in China in an effort to ensure sustainable development of the project. The country will also help relevant African countries train a total of 3,000 doctors, nurses and administrative personnel. Africa and China pledged to scale up joint efforts to prevent and treat major communicable diseases like HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, avian influenza and influenza A (H1N1). The two sides will continue to enhance co-operation in setting up mechanisms to handle public health emergencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"South-South co-operation or trilateral diplomacy?","field_subtitle":"Singh J: InDepth NewsAnalysis, United Nations Development Programme, April 2010","field_url":"http://www.ipc-undp.org/pressroom/pdf/IPCPressroom269.pdf","body":"In this essay, the author considers the impact of the India-Brazil-SouthAfrica (IBSA) and the Brazil-Russia-India-China (BRIC) summits on South-South co-operation and development. In terms of the health sector, the author argues that IBSA and BRIC offer synergies among the countries in the alliances. As regards HIV/AIDS, for instance, the interests of the three countries are quite convergent. India has the second largest number of HIV-positive people (2.4 million) and also the largest generic drugs industry. Brazil has developed role-model public policies in fighting AIDS and exports its know-how to several African, Asian and Latin American countries. South Africa has a high demand in this regard, since it has the largest number of HIV-positive people (5.7 million) and faces severe constraints in democratising public health services regarding the epidemic. In recent years the IBSA countries have been prominent in the G-21 lobby that succeeded in lessening the negative effects of the Trade-Related Aspects Of Intellectual Property Rights agreement (TRIPS). Flexibilities in TRIPS permit governments to issue licenses for generic drug production for the domestic market in the interests of public health, without the consent of the patent owner, to help bring down the high costs for patented drugs in developing countries. India is one of the world\u2019s leading producers of generic medicines. While a trilateral trade agreement has been alluded to on numerous occasions, the author alleges it is unlikely to materialise between India, Brazil and South Africa, which are technically bound to regional trade blocs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"South-South relations: Sino-African engagement and co-operation","field_subtitle":"Herman H: Emerging Powers in Africa Programme, Fahamu, 21 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.focac.org/eng/zfgx/dfzc/t718472.htm","body":"According to this article, China has become one of Africa's leading trading partners, with trade totaling US$106.8 billion in 2008, up 45 per cent from the previous year. China's increasing demand for raw materials to fuel its domestic growth has resulted in agreements on access to and extraction of minerals and oil from resource-rich African countries. China has also become an emerging player in providing financial assistance for infrastructure development in Africa, helping African countries address their infrastructure needs such as railways, hydropower and roads. China has sought to provide concessional financing for infrastructure and construction projects through its Export-Import Bank, often using Chinese companies to carry out the projects. Since 200, China's foreign policy in the region has been directed through the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC), which is the main vehicle for China's activities in Africa, providing a multilateral platform for dialogue with a view to reaching mutually agreeable goals. A number of action plans have emerged from FOCAC, which outline commitments to Africa by the Chinese government, such as the 2009 Sharm El Sheikh Action Plan, in which the Chinese government commits itself to finance the training of African nurses, as well as contribute to malaria health services by supplying equipment and anti-malaria drugs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Stay the Rights Course: UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV and Human Rights: Statement to the 2011 United Nations High Level Meeting on AIDS","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: 6 April 2011","field_url":"http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/9727221/258451825/name/RG_HLM_Statement_FINAL.pdf","body":"The UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV and Human Rights has called on UN Member States to reaffirm the focus on human rights that has driven thirty years of progress in the global HIV response. This statement sets out five non-negotiables for Member States as they negotiate the outcome document for the High-Level Meeting between now and June 8. It states that the outcome document should reaffirm the emphasis on a human rights approach that mutually obliges rich and poor nations to fulfil the human right to health and that respects, protects and fulfils the human rights of people living with, affected by and vulnerable to HIV and AIDS, as well as reaffirm Member States\u2019 shared responsibility to realise the human right to health by setting clear targets for funding the HIV response. Governments should also commit to utilising, to the fullest extent possible, flexibilities under the TRIPS agreement to lower the price of essential medicines, as well as remove laws, policies, practices, stigma and discrimination that block effective responses to AIDS. They should reaffirm the centrality of people living with HIV to the response as well as their human rights to non-discrimination, treatment as prevention, and meaningful participation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The challenge of global health","field_subtitle":"Garrett L: Foreign Affairs 86(1): 14-38, February 2007","field_url":"http://www.surmang.org/pdf/Garrett_Challeng_G._Health.pdf","body":"In this article, the author argues that, despite increased global funding for health, this money is paying for largely unco-ordinated health programmes and directed mostly at speci&#64257;c high-pro&#64257;le diseases, rather than at public health in general, which  not only means that current efforts could fall short of expectations but could actually make things worse on the ground. Some stakeholders see stopping the spread of HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, avian in&#64258;uenza and other major killers as a moral duty, while some see it as a form of public diplomacy and others see it as an investment in self-protection, given that microbes know no borders. There is currently no systemic approach that is designed to match essential health needs with the resources that are actually available. The author calls for a strategic framework that could guide both financial contributions and actions, with external funders focusing on how to build up the capabilities in poor countries in order to eventually transfer operations to local control: in other words, to develop exit strategies so as to avoid either abrupt abandonment of worthwhile programmes or perpetual hemorrhaging of foreign aid. They must help build effective local health infrastructures, as well as local industries, franchises and other pro&#64257;t centres, that can be sustained and thrive from increased health-related spending.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The training and professional expectations of medical students in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Ferrinho P, Sidat M, Fresta MJ, Rodrigues A, Fronteira I, da Silva F et al: Human Resources for Health 9(9), 7 April 2011","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/9/1/9","body":"This paper provides a description and analysis of the professional expectations of medical students during the 2007-2008 academic year at the public medical schools of Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, and identifies their professional expectations and difficulties relating to their education and professional future. Data were collected through a standardised questionnaire applied to all medical students registered during the 2007-2008 academic year. The authors found that medical education is an important national investment, but the returns obtained are not as efficient as expected. Investments in high-school preparation, tutoring, and infrastructure are likely to have a significant impact on the success rate of medical schools. Special attention should be given to the socialization of students and the role model status of their teachers. In countries with scarce medical resources, the hospital orientation of students' expectations is understandable, although it should be associated with the development of skills to coordinate hospital work with the network of peripheral facilities. Developing a local postgraduate training capacity for doctors might be an important strategy to help retain medical doctors in the home country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Third Global Review Of Aid For Trade","field_subtitle":"Geneva, Switzerland: 18-19 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/devel_e/a4t_e /global_review11_e.htm","body":"Is aid for trade working? This is the question that the Third Global Review of Aid for Trade will seek to address when it convenes in July 2011. The Review will evaluate progress in terms of the Aid-for-Trade Work Programme 2010-2011, which was issued on 27 November 2009. The work Programme\u2019s aim is to keep an on-going focus on aid for trade, which will generate continued impetus to resource mobilisation, mainstreaming, operationalisation and implementation of aid for trade projects. The Work Programme is complemented by Aid-for-Trade meetings, culminating in the Third Global Review of Aid for Trade. The World Trade Organisation is hosting the event.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Toolkit on women's rights and freedom of information","field_subtitle":"African Women\u2019s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET): 2011","field_url":"http://www.peacewomen.org/portal_advocacy_item.php?id=40","body":"'Freedom of Information and Women\u2019s Rights in Africa' is a toolkit guide published by the African Women\u2019s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) with the support of UNESCO. The book provides guidance for women\u2019s organisations in Africa on how to organise around freedom of information. It has compiled five case studies from five African countries, namely, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Zambia under different scenarios.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Translating evidence into policy in low-income countries: lessons from co-trimoxazole preventive therapy","field_subtitle":"Hutchinson E, Droti B, Gibb D, Chishinga N, Hoskins S, Phiri S and Parkhurst J: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(4): 312-316, April 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/4/10-077743.pdf","body":"In the April 2010 issue of the Bulletin, Date et al. expressed concern over the slow scale-up in low-income settings of two therapies for the prevention of opportunistic infections in people living with the human immunodeficiency virus: co-trimoxazole prophylaxis and isoniazid preventive therapy. In this short paper, the authors discuss the important ways in which policy analysis can be of use in understanding and explaining how and why certain evidence makes its way into policy and practice and what local factors influence this process. Key lessons about policy development are drawn from the research evidence on co-trimoxazole prophylaxis, as such lessons may prove helpful to those who seek to influence the development of national policy on isoniazid preventive therapy and other treatments. Researchers are encouraged to disseminate their findings in a manner that is clear, but they must also pay attention to how structural, institutional and political factors shape policy development and implementation. Doing so will help them to understand and address the concerns raised by Date et al. and other experts. Mainstreaming policy analysis approaches that explain how local factors shape the uptake of research evidence can provide an additional tool for researchers who feel frustrated because their research findings have not made their way into policy and practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in lung cancer mortality in South Africa: 1995-2006","field_subtitle":"Bello B, Fadahun O, Kielkowski D and Nelson G: BMC Public Health 11(209), 4 April 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/11/209","body":"Using South Africa's annual mortality and population estimates data, the authors of this study calculated lung cancer age-standardised mortality rates for the period 1995 to 2006. Lung cancer caused 52,217 deaths during the study period. There were 4,525 deaths for the most recent year (2006), with men accounting for 67% of deaths. For the entire South African population, the age-standardised mortality rate of 24.3 per 100,000 persons in 1995 was similar to the rate of 23.8 per 100,000 persons in 2006. Overall, there was no significant decline in lung cancer mortality in South Africa from 1995 to 2006. In men, there was a statistically non-significant annual decline of 0.21 deaths per 100,000 persons. Despite this promising trend, the authors caution that the increasing rate in women is a public health concern that warrants intervention. Smoking intervention policies and programmes need to be strengthened to further reduce lung cancer mortality in men and to address the increasing rates in women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda Human Rights Commission  report disappoints civil society","field_subtitle":"HEPS Uganda: 15 April 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5twttlp","body":"A report released by HEPS Uganda and partner organisations in the Uganda Health Equity Network (UHEN) entitled \u2018Right to Health: A Civil Society Perspective on the 12th Annual Report of the Uganda Human Rights Commission\u2019, has criticised Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) for taking a narrow approach in reporting on the status of the Right to Health in Uganda. Noting that the report is a key tool and an opportunity to inform Parliament on the state of the Right to Health in Uganda, the civil society organisations are concerned that the Uganda Human Rights Commission\u2019s silence on the key determinants of health and the country\u2019s emerging public health challenges suggests that it is not doing enough to fulfil its mandate of promoting and monitoring human rights in the country. The HEPS/UHEN report, analysing the Commission\u2019s most recent report to Parliament, points out that UHRC\u2019s report inexplicably does not report the impact on health of trade, the proposed health insurance scheme, climate change, urbanisation, environmental degradation and similar socioeconomic determinants of health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Ugandan government cuts health budget to refund GAVI cash","field_subtitle":"Mugerwa Y: Saturday Monitor, 18 April 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1146480/-/c2ori5z/-/","body":"The Ugandan Health Ministry has cut its budget to refund about Shs2 billion on behalf of individuals who stole Global Fund money for immunisation of children and financing the health facilities in the country. The directive followed failure by the government to recover the billions stolen from the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunisation (GAVI) from the suspects. About Shs1.6 billion was misappropriated in 2006. However, the amount rose to about Shs2 billion due to the exchange rate. But Ministry of Health officials told the Auditor General in his latest report that they acted on cabinet instructions. Mr Samuel Ssenyonga, the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, said that paying back the stolen funds from the public kitty was meant to allow for more funding from GAVI to be released to the country and more time for government to run after the suspects. He also stated that efforts were being made to get those implicated to refund the cash.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"US project planning to sterilise HIV+ women in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Thom A: Health-e News, 11 April 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20033141","body":"A controversial United States-based project that pays drug users and alcoholics to undergo sterilisation or long-term contraception, is alleged in this article to be setting its sights on women living with HIV in South Africa. The Founder of Project Prevention is reported to have confirmed that they were making plans to offer similar services to women living with HIV in South Africa as well as drug users, in co-operation with local non-governmental organisations. However a government official in the Maternal, Child and Women\u2019s Health in the Department of Health is reported to have said they would approach the Human Rights Commission if the project started operating in South Africa, and that doctors found involved in such medical interventions could be reported to the Health Professions Council of South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"US trade policy and HIV treatment: The struggle for treatment access","field_subtitle":"Petcheskey R: Id21 Insights 75, November 2008","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/insights/2008/rethinking-sexuality-and-policy/us-trade-policy-and-hiv-treatment","body":"The author argues in this paper that United States government policy has violated the rights of African people living with HIV and AIDS through its \u2018moral\u2019 restrictions prioritising abstinence-only sex education, restricting condom distribution and stigmatising sex workers. The author argues that the focus on technocratic approaches such as biomedical quick fixes, like the recent emphasis on male circumcision, ignores the deeply gendered, racial and sexual dimensions of the disease or its social, economic and cultural pathology in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"What does the empirical evidence tell us about the injustice of health inequalities?","field_subtitle":"Deaton A: Princeton University, January 2011","field_url":"http://www.princeton.edu/~deaton/downloads/What_does_the_empirical_evidence_tell_us_about_the_injustice.pdf","body":"In this study, the author reviews a range of health inequalities, across social class, gender, wealth and within and between countries. He tentatively identifies pathways of causality in each case, and makes judgments about whether or not each inequality is unjust. Health inequalities that come from medical innovation are among the most benign, he argues. The author emphasises the importance of early life inequalities, and of trying to moderate the link between parental and child circumstances. He argues that racial inequalities in health are unjust and add to injustices in other domains. The vast inequalities in health between rich and poor countries are neither just nor unjust, nor are they easily addressable. The author concludes that there are grounds to be concerned about the rapid expansion in inequality at the very top of the income distribution: this is not only an injustice in itself, but it poses a risk of spawning other injustices, in education, in health, and in governance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Experts On R&D Financing Aim To Find Solutions, With Short Timeline","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 8 April 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3rp4ncc","body":"The Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development (CEWG) met from 5-7 April 2011. It was the first meeting of the group, set up at the last WHA, to succeed to a previous group, the Expert Working Group(EWG), whose work was criticised by member states and stakeholders as lacking transparency and being tainted with conflict of interest. The mandate given by the WHA to the CEWG was to take the work of the EWG forward, according to the CEWG Chairperson. The group decided that its core mandate was to help deliver on two elements of the Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (GSPOA). These are element 2 on \u201cpromoting research and development\u201d, and element 7 on \u201cpromoting sustainable financing mechanisms.\u201d The EWG\u2019s work was mainly focused on element 7 of the strategy. Beyond those two core elements, the group also sees its work as an integral part of the global strategy and will take into account the interrelation with other elements of the strategy,  such as prioritising research and development needs, building and improving innovative capacity, transfer of technology and application and management of intellectual property to contribute to innovation and promote public health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"World Conference on Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 19-21 October 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/social_determinants/events/world_conference_2011/en/index.html","body":"The aim of the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health is to bring Member States and other actors together to catalyze high level political support for national policies to address social determinants of health to reduce health inequities. Its specific objectives are to: strengthen political commitment by Member States to develop and implement national policies on social determinants of health to reduce health inequities; and share experiences, challenges and technical knowledge on addressing social determinants of health, taking into account the need for strengthening governance arrangements and learning from different contexts. The Conference will serve as a catalyst for the coordination of efforts by national governments, international agencies, academic institutions and civil society organisations in the fight against health inequities. Eight hundred participants are expected, including delegates from health and other sectors, civil society organisations, academics, the private sector and representatives from WHO and other UN and international agencies. Participation will be by invitation only. Participating Member States will be requested to approve the Rio Declaration that will express the global political commitment to implement action on the social determinants of health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Achieving a shared goal: Free universal health care in Ghana","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: March 2011","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/health/downloads/achieving-shared-goal-healthcare-ghana-090311-en","body":"According to this report by Oxfam, coverage of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in Ghana could be as low as 18%. Every Ghanaian citizen pays for the NHIS through Value added Tax (VAT), but as many as 82% remain excluded. They report that 64$ of people in the highest wealth quintile are signed up to the NHIS, compared with 29% of the lowest wealth quintile. Those excluded from the NHIS still pay user fees. They report that the administration of health insurance costs US$83 million each year, enough to pay for 23,000 more nurses. They propose that improved progressive taxation of Ghana\u2019s own resources, especially oil, could increase spending to US$54 per capita, by 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Acting on health through theatre for a change","field_subtitle":"Ethel Chavula, Grace Mathanga, Theatre for a Change, Malawi","field_url":"","body":"\r\nGrace was born in a family of  9 children. She was still in school when her mother became ill, so she dropped out to care for her. She married when she was young. \u201cGod blessed us with 2 children, both girls. Then my two children and my husband died of AIDS. I too have HIV and will never marry again\u201d, she says. When her husband died she had no support for her life as their property was taken by her late husband\u2019s relatives. She was left with nothing and helpless. She did not want to do commercial sex work, but she couldn\u2019t see another option, and it  gave her a means to earn enough to live a  poor, risky and insecure daily life in Lilongwe. \r\n\r\nThis is not an unusual story. For some even younger than Grace, the AIDS epidemic has increased the risk of sexual, physical and emotional harm and neglect. Young women and children who have been deprived of care and support are particularly susceptible to working in the commercial sex industry.  They face risk environments for HIV transmission for themselves and their clients, as well as of violence and other forms of abuse. \r\n\r\nToday the story, at least for Grace, is different. She describes the changes she has brought in her own life and in her community.  She herself has a more secure and healthy life. She also talks about commercial sex workers that have now accessed loans and are moving out of bars and running small businesses. Others have gone back to school.  A meeting of women involved in commercial sex work raises rights and decisions, where to get counselling, testing and treatment for HIV, how to get greater control over their sexual activities and fertility, and how to build skills for other forms of work. \r\n\r\nGrace  points to the lever for this health affirming change - theatre. \r\n\r\n\u201cIn 2007 some of us in commercial sex work trained on legislative theatre. Theatre for a Change contributed to the transformation of my life.\u201d \r\n\r\nTheatre for Change in Malawi equips socially and economically marginalised communities with the communications skills, knowledge and awareness to transform their lives and the lives of others personally, socially and professionally. In Malawi, it works with groups including commercial sex workers to reduce the risk of HIV. It involves women from the core group of former commercial sex workers who work as peer facilitators among younger people getting involved in sex work. Through the theatre and by performing their stories to a variety of audiences,  the women access a voice and a platform to raise concerns and open debate. The process known as Legislative Theatre.  The performances involve the audiences in coming up with solutions to the issues these women face, in the process changing attitudes and catalysing change in both the women themselves, their communities and even in policy makers when they are involved. The theatre work is supported by other programmes to provide access to female and male condoms, to HIV testing and counselling, and to relevant health services, including antiretroviral treatment. These services are available, but their uptake has been blocked by barriers like stigma. This process provides a vehicle for raising the health, gender and sexual rights and responsibilities of sex workers and their clients.  \r\n\r\nAs Grace comments: \u201cNow I know my rights and no one can violate my rights. I have self esteem and I am able to make decisions about my own body.\u201d\r\n\r\nIt is already known that it is more effective to send former commercial sex workers to mobilise and reach out to others, as much as positive peer pressure from men has influenced other men to go for testing and counselling. For the women who have been involved in commercial sex work, the theatre work has helped to reach other commercial sex workers, especially adolescents. It has led to greater openness on health problems and changed attitudes towards commercial sex workers, including amongst the health workers who used to stigmatise commercial sex workers. \r\n\r\nThose involved learn while they teach. They are trained in psychosocial issues and counselling to support their interactions with people of different ages, gender, place and occupation.  They also build a more affirmative view of themselves, from being victims of economic insecurity and social stigma to people who plan and set goals for their own and their family lives.\r\n\r\nGrace sums it up: \u201cEveryday of my life brings an opportunity for a new beginning\u2026I waste not a moment mourning yesterday\u2019s misfortunes, defeats and challenges. These have been my stepping stones.\"\r\n\r\nWhile antiretrovirals provide a therapy for the physical effects of HIV and AIDS, it seems that theatre can also be a powerful and equally necessary therapy for its social effects. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed, a film and further information on the Theatre for a Change programme visit www.tfacafrica.com/What-we-do/TfaC-in-Malawi/Sex-worker-programme","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"African sexualities: A reader","field_subtitle":"Tamale S (ed): FAHAMU Press, coming June 2011","field_url":"http://fahamubooks.org/book/?GCOI=90638100320440","body":"This collection is a groundbreaking volume that provides a critical mapping of the plurality of African sexualities while also challenging the reader to interrogate assumptions, thereby unmapping the intricate tapestry of the broad range of contemporary African sexualities. Incorporating original research and analysis, life stories and artistic expression, this accessible but scholarly book examines, from a distinctly African perspective, dominant and deviant sexualities, analyses the body as a site of political, cultural and social contestation and investigates the intersections between sex, power, masculinities and femininities. Using feminist approaches, African Sexualities analyses sexuality within patriarchal structures of oppression while also highlighting its emancipatory potential.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Agro-ecology and the right to food","field_subtitle":"De Schutter O: United Nations, March 2011","field_url":"http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/officialreports/20110308_a-hrc-16-49_agroecology_en.pdf","body":"This report explores how States can and must achieve a reorientation of their agricultural systems towards modes of production that are highly productive, highly sustainable and that contribute to the progressive realisation of the human right to adequate food. Drawing on an extensive review of the scientific literature published in the last five years, de Schutter identifies agro-ecology as a mode of agricultural development with strong conceptual connections with the right to food. Moreover, agro-ecology delivers advantages that are complementary to better known conventional approaches such as breeding high-yielding varieties. In the report, de Schutter argues that the scaling up of  these experiences is the main challenge today. Appropriate public policies can create an enabling environment for such sustainable modes of production, such as: prioritising the procurement of public goods in public spending rather than solely providing input subsidies; investing in knowledge by reinvesting in agricultural research and extension services; investing in forms of social organisation that encourage partnerships, including farmer field schools and farmers\u2019 movements innovation networks; investing in agricultural research and extension systems; empowering women; and creating a macro-economic enabling environment, including connecting sustainable farms to fair markets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"An assessment of the World Social Forum 2011 in Dakar","field_subtitle":"Miglioretto B: Feminist Dialogues, February 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6drxxzc","body":"In this interview, Lilian Celiberti of Feminist Dialogues reports that the World Social Forum (WSF), held in Dakar, Senegal from 6\u201311  February 2011, was an opportunity for a variety of activists and other civil society stakeholders to take part in discussions across varying perspectives and experiences. She highlights the strong and active participation of African women and youth, and the barriers of poor logistics and translation. She comments that the Declaration of the Women's Organisations was heavily focused on international conventions and UN-Resolutions, despite multiple tensions and conflicts amongst African groups and regions. She recognises that although interpersonal exchanges enable the deepening of debates, \u2018colonisation continues in the divisions that we experience in different parts of the world\u2019, and questions remain unanswered about how to develop collective thinking and solidarity in social movements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Axe descends on US overseas aid","field_subtitle":"Muscara A: Inter Press Services, 16 February 2011","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54501","body":"With United States (US) President Barack Obama's release of his 2012 foreign affairs budget and a Senate proposal to cut US international spending, the fight to sustain US aid abroad is intensifying, according to this article. Development and foreign policy analysts largely praised the administration's funding appeal for maximising returns by focusing spending on strategic areas such as global health, food security and climate change. Major funding hikes include an US$850 million (10.8%) raise for global health and child survival programmes, and a US$400 million (16%) raise for development assistance \u2013 which includes a US$1.1 billion boost to the Feed the Future Initiative and a US$651 million contribution to the Global Climate Change Initiative. But a proposal has been put forward to cut total spending for 2011 by US$100 billion, and conservative lawmakers are moving to lump the international budget with non-security accounts in a bid to make massive reductions possible. Their efforts emerge in the wake of Obama\u2019s State of the Union speech in January 2011, where he pledged to freeze non-security funding for the next five years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"BIAS Free Framework Training of Trainers Workshop","field_subtitle":"Ottawa, June 20-24, 2011","field_url":"","body":"The first BIAS FREE TOT Workshop to be held in Ottawa, June 20-24, 2011, for people who have taken an Introductory BIAS FREE Workshop. The BIAS FREE TOT Workshop is designed to provide participants with an interactive experience to learn and practice together best practices in how to: Introduce participants of Introductory BIAS FREE Workshops to the BIAS FREE Framework, how it works, its purpose, and its cross-equity and cross-cultural applications; Engage participants of Introductory BIAS FREE Workshops in an interactive process to identify from their own experiences, examples of specific biases that derive from any social hierarchy \u2013 gender, ability, race, ethnic/ cultural/religious background, socio-economic status, sexuality, etc. \u2013 and their intersections and compounding effects; Empower participants of Introductory BIAS FREE Workshops to explore and test how to use the Framework in their work and daily lives. If you have not taken an Introductory Workshop already, there are two opportunities for you to do so before the TOT Workshop \u2013 one in Ottawa, 10-12 April and one in Toronto, 3-5 June.  The workshop will be June 20-24, 9:00 \u2013 17:00 Ottawa Canada. The cost is $1500 and a limited number of full and partial scholarships are available. \r\nRegistration and to obtain forms and information by email. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: SANNAM Biennial Conference","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 15 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.sannam.org.za/CALL_FOR_ABSTRACTS_SANNAM_FIRST_BIENNIAL_CONFERENCE.pdf","body":"The SANNAM Biennial Conference and Annual General Meeting will take place from 16-18 November 2011 in Gaborone, Botswana. SANNAM is calling for abstracts for the conference, the main theme of which is \u2018Engaging Communities for Accelerating the Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in the SADC Region\u2019. Sub-themes include: health care programmes for addressing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); transforming general educational education for MDGs; strengthening educational nursing and midwifery for improvement for MDGs; community participation and MDGs; capacity building, leadership and MDGs; monitoring and evaluation progress for achievement/milestones on MDGs; challenges/factors related to MDGS; enhancing the environment for achieving MDGs; the expansion of nursing services to meet MDGs; collaboration and partnerships for MDGs; and human resources for achieving MDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants for short course: Certificate in Intellectual Property and Access to Medicines","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 15 April 2011","field_url":"http://ipatm.ukzn.ac.za","body":"The Faculty of Law at University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), in conjunction with the Foundation Open Society Initiative, is offering a two-week certificate course in Intellectual Property and Access to Medicines. The aim of the course is to equip participants to understand barriers to access to life-saving medicines from innovation to end user, and, in particular, to understand international, regional and national intellectual property regimes, including flexibilities that can be used. The course is action-oriented, with three days spent developing campaign strategies, and thus builds participants' capacity to advocate effectively to enhance access to medicines. The programme is open to East and Southern African residents working in the area of health, access to medicines, trade and development and human rights, including non-governmental organizations and government agencies, as well as health professionals, legal practitioners and academics. The following topics will be covered:  registration of medicines; the impact of intellectual property rights and their flexibilities; regional and bilateral trade agreements; global health ethics and their implications for access to medicines policy; the impact of these regimes on human rights, in particular, the right of access to health care; innovations in research and development in medicines and their impact on neglected diseases; case studies will focus on the past and current campaigns to increase access to medicines. The course will run from 27 June to 8 July 2011.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics ","field_subtitle":"5-19 May 2011: Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.aporde.org.za","body":"The African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE) is a high-level training programme in development economics that aims to build capacity in economics and economic policy-making. The course will run for two weeks and consist of lectures and seminars taught by leading international and African economists. This call is directed at African, Asian and Latin American economists, policy makers and civil society activists who, if selected, will be fully funded. Only 30 applicants will be selected.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: WHO/PLoS Collection: No health without research ","field_subtitle":"Pang T and Terry RF: PLoS Medicine 8(1), 25 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001008","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) and Public Library of Science (PloS) are calling for papers for a joint WHO/PLoS collection on the theme of the 2012 World Health Report on Research for Health. This flagship report from WHO will, for the first time in its history, focus on research for better health. The primary target audience of the report will be ministers of health in the WHO member states, and the goal of the report is to provide new ideas, innovative thinking, and pragmatic advice for member states on how to strengthen their own health research systems. In addition to primary research (both quantitative and qualitative) and well-developed case studies, WHO and PLoS also invite the submission of review and policy articles on how national health research systems contribute to the broader international research endeavour, especially in the context of the following areas: global health research governance; inequitable access to the benefits and products of research; global standards for responsible research conduct; and future research trends with implications for the developing world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can a R&D tax credit expand investment in product development for global health?","field_subtitle":"Rao A: Results for Development Institute, 28 February 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5vjdjg5","body":"This paper identifies some of the advantages and disadvantages of a global health research and development (R&D) tax credit and considers whether it would succeed in increasing the overall volume of global health R&D. In his analysis, the author remains uncertain whether the tax could increase pharmaceutical firms\u2019 return on investments for global health products with small commercial markets or if it could bring down the costs of philanthropic research and help maintain private sector participation in global health. Since there are minimal profits to be reaped from charitable research and benefits, a tax credit is unlikely to appeal to many firms who are not already interested in supporting global health, the author argues. His findings suggest that a global health tax credit is unlikely to result in significantly more or better global health R&D, but he emphasises the limitations of his research, calling for more research into existing fiscal incentives for R&D to clarify the decision-making process that drives global health research in pharmaceutical firms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Can social inclusion policies reduce health inequalities in sub-Saharan Africa? A rapid policy appraisal","field_subtitle":"Rispel LC, de Sousa CA and Molomo BG: Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition 27(4): 492-504, August 2009","field_url":"http://www.bioline.org.br/pdf?hn09048","body":"In this paper, three categories of social inclusion policies are reviewed \u2013 cash-transfers, free social services and specific institutional arrangements for programme integration \u2013 in six selected countries, including Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The authors highlight the impact of these policies on health inequities. They identify crosscutting benefits, such as poverty alleviation, notably among vulnerable children and youths, improved economic opportunities for disadvantaged households, reduction in access barriers to social services, and improved nutrition intake. However, they caution that the impact of these benefits, and hence the policies, on health status can only be inferred. A major weakness of most policies was the lack of a monitoring and evaluation system. The authors call on governments of sub-Saharan African countries to conduct research to measure health inequities and design social policies that address the constraints identified in the research. They also call for support for a strong movement by civil society to address health inequities and to hold governments accountable for improving health and reducing inequities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Coordinating China and DAC development partners: Challenges to the aid architecture in Rwanda","field_subtitle":"Grimm S, H\u00f6\u00df H, Knappe K, Siebold M, Sperrfechter J and Vogler I: German Development Institute, 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4653l6v","body":"This study contributes to the debate on aid effectiveness by exploring challenges to DAC and non-DAC development partner (DP) coordination at country level, with Rwanda serving as the country case. (DAC countries are those listed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development as eligible for European overseas development assistance.) The researchers took Germany as an example of a DAC development partner, with China as an example of a non-DAC partner. Their results showed that Rwanda\u2019s government, despite its aid dependency, demonstrates strong ownership of its development agenda. However, the government has not yet been successful in integrating China into its aid co-ordination architecture. The authors argue that the lack of integration of non-DAC DPs may pose a threat to maintaining Rwanda\u2019s leverage over its DAC partners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Court petitioned over maternal deaths","field_subtitle":"Okanya A: New Vision, 8 March 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/13/748546","body":"A Ugandan health lobby group, the Centre for Health Human Rights and Development, has petitioned the Constitutional Court over the alarming number of maternal deaths in government health facilities - currently, Uganda has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. The group is arguing that government neglect is responsible, manifested in the \u2018careless manner\u2019 in which government hospital staff handle expectant mothers before, during and after birth. They are hoping the Constitutional Court will declare that it is a violation of the right to health when health workers and government fail to take required essential care during pre- and post-natal stages. The petitioners also want financial compensation from government for the affected families.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Demand for malaria drug soars","field_subtitle":"Van Noorden R: Nature News, 6 August 2010","field_url":"http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100803/full/466672a.html","body":"A decade ago, the anti-malaria drug artemisin \u2013 available only from the sweet wormwood plant, Artemisia annua \u2013 was scarce and expensive. But by 2007, the market was wallowing in a surfeit of the drug as farmers flocked to grow the crop. Now, as a US$343-million initiative starts to battle malaria through hugely subsidised medicines, suppliers are again worried that there will not be enough artemisinin to go around, while farmers, plant breeders and synthetic biologists are hoping that they can snap the drug out of its roller-coaster supply cycle. Farmers and scientists are struggling to keep up with needs of ambitious medicine-subsidy programme, the article notes. The authors observe that artemisin yields could be improved by planting new Artemisia strains. On average, one kilogram of its dried leaves yields some 8 grams of artemisinin. Researchers have used selective breeding to create hybrid plants that produce up to 24 grams, according to a British Artemisia breeding consortium. These plants are now being grown and harvested commercially in Madagascar, and trialled in South Africa, Uganda, Zimbabwe and the United States, as well as in Britain.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org Website: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 122: Acting on health through theatre for a change","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nEQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/ \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. \r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"External funders for small community-based organisations","field_subtitle":"How Matters: 2011","field_url":"http://www.how-matters.org/2011/01/13/small-grants-part-2 /","body":"This webpage provides links to external funders that give small, unrestricted grants internationally to directly support community-based organisations and groups. The grants are intended to help small, local organisations firmly establish themselves as civil society institutions within their community. Grants amounts are less than US$20,000.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"First International HIV Social Science and Humanities Conference: 11-13 June 2011: South Africa","field_subtitle":"Closing date for registration: 4 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.iaohss.org/index.php/register.html","body":"This conference will consider the link between and contributions of the social sciences and humanities to HIV research and action. The International Association of HIV Social Scientists, which is organising the event, argues that social science emphasises a critical, reflexive stance and willingness to confront the social, ethical, and political dimensions of scientific investigations of the HIV epidemic, which has made it instrumental in successful HIV prevention efforts such as the normalisation of condom use against sexual transmission and the introduction of safe injecting equipment for injecting drug use. Social scientific research has also provided insights into issues related to the treatment and care of people living with HIV and AIDS, and has addressed the broader social and political barriers to effective responses to HIV. Yet there have been few forums in which scholars from different social science and humanities disciplines can come together to develop connections among the various phenomena we study, and between ourselves and our biomedical, policy and community based colleagues. This conference is a forum for those keen to extend the scope of the social sciences and its capacity to trace connections between all kinds of phenomenon, notably those that contribute to the complexity and changing nature of the epidemic. Themes include: treatment as prevention, HIV and the body, social epidemiology and social networks, global politics, and responsibility and risk governance, as well as new directions for HIV and AIDS treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"GAVI launches new pneumococcal vaccine for children ","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 14 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?Reportid=91913","body":"On 14 February 2011, the GAVI Alliance rolled out its plan for a new pneumococcal vaccine for children, which it aims to administer in 19 countries by 2012 and in more than 40 countries by 2015. GAVI\u2019s plan is part of the global drive to reach the Millennium Development Goals for Maternal and Child Health. The Kenya Medical Research Institute in Kilifi has welcomed the vaccine's rollout in the fight against penicillin-resistant and multi-drug resistant pneumococcal strains of the disease that are emerging in Africa. The Institute noted that the disease also causes severe financial difficulties and emotional burdens for families and communities, most of whom never have sufficient funding to treat their affected children. At US$3.50 per dose, the vaccine being issued in developing countries is about 90% cheaper than in the developed world. GAVI and its partner countries will co-finance the rollout, with governments in the poorest income bracket paying US$0.15 per dose. GAVI warned that participating countries would need to step up their health system capacity to achieve this. In addition, the Alliance\u2019s plans to roll out this and other vaccines for major killer diseases are threatened by a funding gap of US$3.7 billion over the next five years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender empowerment and female-to-male smoking prevalence ratios","field_subtitle":"Hitchman SC and Fong GT: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(3): 195\u2013202, March 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/3/10-079905.pdf","body":"In this study, the authors set out to determine whether countries with high gender empowerment have a higher female-to-male smoking prevalence ratio. They explored the relationship between the United Nations Development Programme\u2019s gender empowerment measure (GEM) and the female-to-male smoking prevalence ratio (calculated from the World Health Organisation\u2019s 2008 Global Tobacco Control Report). Because a country\u2019s progression through the various stages of the tobacco epidemic and its gender smoking ratio are thought to be influenced by its level of development, they explored this correlation as well, with economic development defined in terms of gross national income (GNI) per capita and income inequality (Gini coefficient). In their findings, the authors note that gender smoking ratio was significantly and positively correlated with the GEM. In addition, the GEM was the strongest predictor of the gender smoking ratio after controlling for GNI per capita and for Gini coefficient. Whether progress towards gender empowerment can take place without a corresponding increase in smoking among women remains to be seen, the authors conclude. They argue for stronger tobacco control measures in countries where women are being increasingly empowered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health inequities, environmental insecurity and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals in sub-Saharan Africa: The case study of Zambia","field_subtitle":"Anyangwe SC, Mtonga C and Chirwa B: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 3(3):217-227, September 2006","field_url":"http://www.mdpi.org/ijerph/papers/ijerph2006030026.pdf","body":"According to this paper, Zambia\u2019s Millennium Development Goal (MDG) progress reports of 2003 and 2005 show that it is unlikely that Zambia will achieve even half of its MDG goals, despite laudable political commitment and some advances made towards achieving universal primary education, gender equality, improvement of child health and management of the HIV and AIDS epidemic. The authors of this paper argue that Zambia\u2019s health systems have been weakened by a high disease burden and high mortality rates, natural and man-made environmental threats and some negative effects of globalisation such as major external debt, low world prices for commodities and the human resource \u2018brain drain\u2019. They urge for the government to put its political promises into action, and offer some tried-and-tested strategies and \u2018quick wins\u2019 that have been proven to produce high positive impact in the short term.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health policies and practices toward equity","field_subtitle":"De Sena RR and Silva KL: Revista da Escola de Enfermagem da USP 41: 771-776, December 2007","field_url":"http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0080-62342007000500005&script=sci_arttext","body":"In this study, the authors outline some of the challenges faced when carrying out a financing incidence analysis (FIA) in Ghana, Tanzania and South Africa and illustrate how innovative techniques were used to overcome data weaknesses in these settings. They conducted a FIA for tax, insurance and out-of-pocket payments, drawing data from the Living Standards Measurement Surveys (LSMSs) and household surveys conducted in each of the countries. They found that LSMSs are likely to underestimate financial contributions to health care by individuals. For tax incidence analysis, reported income tax payments from secondary sources were severely under-reported. Income tax payers and shareholders could not be reliably identified. The use of income or consumption expenditure to estimate income tax contributions was found to be a more reliable method of estimating income tax incidence. Assumptions regarding corporate tax incidence had a huge effect on the progressivity of corporate tax and on overall tax progressivity. In terms of policy development, the authors show how data constraints can be overcome for FIA in lower-income countries and provide recommendations for future studies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthy Active Kids: South Africa Report Card 2010","field_subtitle":"Sports Science Institute of South Africa: 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/documents/b4d7824ac057bae337ca5dfabe519032.pdf","body":"This report card on South African children and youth shows that there has been little or no improvement in the areas of tobacco use, nutrition, physical activity and obesity over the last three years. It draws on more than 95 published, peer-reviewed studies or reports, which cumulatively show a decline in physical activity levels, with only 42% of youth having participated in sufficient vigorous physical activity to be considered health-enhancing. Less than one-third of youth surveyed participated in moderate activity and nearly 42% did little or no physical activity. There was an increase in overweight and obese children to 20% and 5% respectively. Nearly 30% of teens consumed fast food two to three times a week, while researchers found that healthy foods in rural settings cost almost twice as much as the unhealthy equivalent, further fuelling unhealthy eating habits. Almost 30% of adolescents say they have ever smoked, while 21% admit to being smokers currently (which is double that of global prevalence estimates). Most smokers start before the age of 19, with 6.8% starting under the age of 10. These trends may give rise to serious non-communicable and preventable diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, lung disease and certain cancers, which are responsible for over half of adult deaths worldwide, according to the report.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV and AIDS patients in need of treatment for pain","field_subtitle":"Kippenberg J and Thomas L: The East African, 15 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/02/15/many-hivaids-patients-suffer-pain-needlessly","body":"In this article, the authors consider a neglected aspect of AIDS and HIV treatment \u2013 pain management. With enormous progress in preventing and treating HIV, more people than ever before now live with HIV as a chronic disease, especially in countries like Kenya, where, over the past year, the number of people receiving anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy has risen by 25%. But HIV patients can su&#64256;er from various types of chronic pain \u2013 and this includes those on ARVs who are living otherwise healthy, active lives \u2013 and pain management is usually overlooked, the authors note. They argue that palliative care, which requires caregivers to improve a patient's quality of life by treating pain and other symptoms, should become an essential element of comprehensive HIV care. It can also help patients to keep taking their antiretroviral drugs. Curative and palliative treatment should work side by side for any patient with a life-threatening disease, the authors state. A major barrier is unavailability of essential pain drugs in Kenya's health facilities. Oral morphine, the mainstay medication for moderate-to-severe chronic pain, is available in just seven of Kenya's 250 public hospitals, and even these facilities sometimes run out, even though oral morphine is inexpensive. However, because of a lack of training, healthcare workers often fear giving an overdose or causing addiction, which can be avoided with proper medical practice. The authors argue for greater, monitored use of morphine for pain management in children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How should we assess knowledge translation in research organisations? Designing a Knowledge Translation Self-Assessment Tool for Research Institutes (SATORI)","field_subtitle":"Gholami J, Majdzadeh R, Nedjat S, Nedjat S, Maleki K, Ashoorkhani M and Yazdizadeh B: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(10), 22 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-11.pdf","body":"The 20th anniversary of the report of the Commission on Health Research for Development inspired a Symposium to assess progress made in strengthening essential national health research capacity in developing countries and in global research partnerships. Significant aspects of the health gains achieved in the 20th century can be attributed to the advancement and translation of knowledge, the authors of this paper argue, and knowledge continues to occupy center stage amidst growing complexity that characterises the global health field. The authors propose a way forward that will entail the reinvigoration of research-generated knowledge as a crucial ingredient for global co-operation and global health advances. However, a number of divisions are identified that need to be addressed, such as the divide between domestic and global health, and the divide among the disciplines of research (biomedical, clinical, epidemiological, health systems), as well as divisions between clinical and public health approaches, between public and private investments, and between knowledge gained and action implemented. Overcoming these obstacles can accelerate progress towards research for equity in health and development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights and development practice","field_subtitle":"Brahmbhatt M and Canuto O: World Bank, February 2011","field_url":"http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPREMNET/Resources/EP50.pdf","body":"In this paper, the authors examine the growing convergence between human rights and development thinking, particularly with regard to social and economic rights. They ask how the dialogue between human rights and development can contribute to furthering progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). They argue that developing countries need to secure relatively good rates of economic growth to make progress, but may be hampered by the fact that they remain far behind the developed world in terms of technology. Given a good enabling environment, most developing economies would be able to raise productivity fairly rapidly by absorbing existing knowledge from abroad, rather than inventing it for themselves. The rapid growth of South-South trade and investment flows among developing countries would be another supportive factor, but the authors caution that economic growth alone will not guarantee reaching MDG outcomes: governments need to ensure that the economic benefits of growth are equitably distributed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving child survival through environmental and nutritional interventions: The importance of targeting interventions toward the poor","field_subtitle":"Gakidou E, Oza S, Vidal Fuertes C, Li AY, Lee DK, Sousa A et al: Journal of the American Medical Association 298(16):1876-87, 24 October 2007","field_url":"http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/298/16/1876.long","body":"The authors of this study set out to estimate the reduction in child mortality as a result of interventions related to the environmental and nutritional Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to estimate how the magnitude and distribution of the effects of interventions vary based on the economic status of intervention recipients. They modelled the mortality effects of interventions on child nutrition and environmental risk factors, using data on economic status, child underweight, water and sanitation, and household fuels. The authors found that providing these interventions to all children younger than five years old would result in an estimated annual reduction in child deaths of 49,700 (14%) in Latin America and the Caribbean, 0.8 million (24%) in South Asia, and 1.47 million (31%) in sub-Saharan Africa. These benefits are equivalent to 30% to 48% of the current regional gaps toward the MDG target on reducing child mortality, the authors point out. Fifty percent coverage of the same environmental and nutritional interventions, as envisioned by the MDGs, would reduce child mortality by 26,900, 0.51 million, and 1.02 million in the three regions, respectively, but only if the interventions are implemented among the poor first.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"International Conference on Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health: Establishing the links","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 14 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?Reportid=91907","body":"At the International Conference on Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health, held from 10 to 12 February 2011 in India, participants reached consensus that the way forward for improving agriculture, nutrition and health was to think and act multi-sectorally and inter-sectorally, and break down the silos among the three disciplines. Symptoms of the breakdown surfaced in 2007/2008, during the global food price crisis, said David Nabarro, the UN Special Representative on Food Security and Nutrition, when increased prices contributed to a rise in poverty and hunger around the world. Women's health was a central feature in most of the conference debates. Various speakers pointed out that a woman's well-being shaped the future of her children, especially her daughters, the mothers of the next generation. The future prosperity of a country often also rested on the shoulders of women, as agriculture not only created economic growth, they argued, but children who ate well often went on to earn better incomes. Experts said it was time to re-establish the links between agriculture, nutrition and health, and perhaps educate each sector about the objectives of the others.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Learning from evaluations: The HarvestPlus Orange-Fleshed Sweet Potato Project in Mozambique and Uganda","field_subtitle":"Gilligan DO: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), 11 February 2011","field_url":"http://2020conference.ifpri.info/files/2010/12/02-11-2011_parallel2C_Gilligan.pdf","body":"From 2007 to 2009, HarvestPlus (a global NGO aimed at reducing world hunger) and its partners disseminated orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) to 24,000 farming households in Uganda and Mozambique with the goal of reducing vitamin A deficiency. OFSP has higher vitamin A levels than white or yellow sweet potato. An evaluation of the intervention found a 68% and 61% increase in adoption of OFSP in Mozambique and Uganda respectively. The share of OFSP in the total area dedicated to sweet potato increased sharply as households substituted white or yellow sweet potato with OFSP. There was also a significant net increase in vitamin A intakes in young and older children and women in these countries. In some instances, this increased intake resulted in children reaching the recommended intakes for their age group. The author of the study discusses how to reduce costs of promoting and scale up of the intervention through greater diffusion of OFSP between farming communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Lesotho launches programme to reach MDGs","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 22 February 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=92002","body":"In June 2010, the Lesotho health department, in partnership with the World Health Organisation and the United Nations (UN) Children's Fund, launched a programme targeting the four worst-performing Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), namely those relating to the eradication of poverty and hunger, to reducing child and maternal mortality and to combating HIV. The programme has been implemented in the four worst-performing of Lesotho's 10 districts. Interventions are focused on helping mothers, and the programme also tries to address the lack of coordination and wasted resources that have plagued aid delivery in the past. The health department aims to identify pregnant, breast-feeding and HIV-positive mothers and their infants who are in need of food rations from the World Food Programme. They will be supplied with seeds, tools and advice on how to grow vegetables and raise chickens, in the hope of making them less reliant on food assistance, and will later receive training on how to start small businesses. By 2012, the programme should have yielded enough results and best practices for government to decide whether to take over and replicate it in other districts. The UN resident coordinator in Lesotho has called for funding for the programme to become part of the national budget, otherwise it runs the risk of failing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Letter to Partners 2011, from the UNAIDS Executive Director ","field_subtitle":"Sidib\u00e9 M: UNAIDS, 18 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/media/unaids/contentassets/documents/document/2011/20110218a_LetterToPartners.pdf","body":"This Letter to Partners coincides with the 10th anniversary of the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS and five years since the world committed to achieve universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. In the letter, Michel Sidib\u00e9 outlines a set of six new frontiers to move the global AIDS response forward. He calls for the democratisation of the response: political promises must be realised in the form of improved resources and services, and the communities that are served must be included in decision-making. Also, he notes that the law must work for not against AIDS: for example, national laws must stop discrimination against people living with HIV, men who have sex with men, lesbians, people who inject drugs, sex workers and transgender people. Sidib\u00e9 calls on stakeholders to reduce the upward trajectory of programme costs, and make funding for AIDS a shared responsibility, as well as help build the AIDS movement as a bridge to development and foster scientific innovation for HIV prevention and treatment. According to Sidib\u00e9, each of the six new frontiers supports the other, and he cautions that a singular advancement in only one will not be sufficient to move the entire global AIDS response forward.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Local pharmaceutical production in developing countries: How economic protectionism undermines access to quality medicines","field_subtitle":"Bate R: Campaign for Fighting Diseases discussion paper no. 1, January 2008","field_url":"http://www.unido.org/fileadmin/user_media/Services/PSD/BEP/Local%20Pharmaceutical%20Production%20web.pdf","body":"The author of this paper argues for public-private partnerships to help deliver locally produced generics in Africa, and against protectionism in favour of open market access. He points to promising developments, such as experienced Indian and Western pharmaceutical firms undertaking original research and development and partnering with firms in African countries. He believes this investment by reputable companies should help ensure quality drugs are produced by furnishing the technical expertise that overcomes capacity constraints. Local production enterprises in Africa will allow international companies to diversify their supply sources, the author argues, guarding against potentially disastrous shocks such as a natural disaster that would destroy an Artemisia crop and send the price of artemisinin-based malaria drugs skyrocketing. Local production partnerships could encourage trade, especially because the bulk active ingredients needed to produce them still come most efficiently from abroad. Partnerships between foreign pharmaceutical firms and African companies may also help train a pool of skilled workers, improving a country\u2019s long-term development prospects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Missed opportunities in TB diagnosis: a TB Process-Based Performance Review tool to evaluate and improve clinical care","field_subtitle":"Field N, Murray J, Wong ML, Dowdeswell R, Dudumayo N, Rametsi L et al: BMC Public Health 11(127), 22 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-127.pdf","body":"The TB Process-Based Performance Review (TB-PBPR) tool was developed to identify \u2018missed opportunities\u2019 for timely and accurate diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB). The tool enables performance assessment at the level of process and quality of care. It is a single-page structured flow-sheet that identifies 14 clinical actions (grouped into elicited symptoms, clinical examination and investigations). In this study, the tool is evaluated. Medical records from selected deceased patients were reviewed at two South African mine hospitals (A = 56 cases; B = 26 cases), a South African teaching hospital (C = 20 cases) and a UK teaching hospital (D = 13 cases). The researchers found that, in hospital A, where autopsy was routine, TB was missed in life in 52% of cases and was wrongly attributed as the cause of death in 16%. Clinical omissions were identified at each hospital and at every stage of clinical management. For example, recording of chest symptoms was omitted in up to 39% of cases, sputum smear examination in up to 85% and chest radiograph in up to 38% of cases respectively. In conclusion, the authors found that simple clinical actions were omitted in many cases and the tool was effective in detecting these errors. The tool, in conjunction with a manual describing best practice, is adaptable to a range of settings, is educational and enables detailed feedback within a TB programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mobilising political will to contain antimicrobial resistance","field_subtitle":"Chatterjee P and Fleck F: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 89(3): 168\u2013169, March 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/3/11-030311/en/index.html","body":"Antimicrobial resistance is a global problem that affects all countries. This year\u2019s World Health Day on 7 April aims to make governments more aware of the problem and to encourage them to take measures to combat this global threat. According to this article, clinicians agree that one of the biggest challenges is finding out the true size of the problem of resistant infections in each country. Data is lacking, they say. The problem of microbial resistance is significant in middle- and low-income countries: for example, poor children in Africa, Asia and Latin America suffering from pneumonia, meningitis or blood stream infections are often given old drugs rendered ineffective by resistance since they are the only available treatment options. For some, simply restricting over-the-counter sales of antimicrobials does not go far enough, and they suggest that more is needed to curb the use of second-line antibiotics, which should be used to treat infections when first-line antibiotics fail and may be the last resort. They argue that the beneficial effect of restriction of first-line antibiotics sold over the counter will be evident in the long term, but what is needed most is restriction of higher-end antibiotics used in hospitals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"National female literacy, individual socio-economic status and maternal health care use in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"McTavish S, Moore S, Harper S and Lynch J: Social Science and Medicine 71(11):1958-1963, December 2010","field_url":"http://kit.nl/smartsite.shtml?ch=KIT&id=%2052227","body":"In this study, the authors examine the importance of national female literacy on women\u2019s maternal health care use in sub-Saharan Africa, using data from the 2002-2003 World Health Survey. They found that, within the various countries, individual age, education, urban residence and household income were associated with lack of maternal health care. National female literacy modified the association of household income with lack of maternal health care use. The strength of the association between income and lack of maternal health care was weaker in countries with higher female literacy. The study concludes with the observation that higher national levels of female literacy may reduce income-related inequalities through a range of possible mechanisms, including women\u2019s increased labour participation and higher status in society. National policies that are able to address female literacy and women\u2019s status in sub-Saharan Africa may help reduce income-related inequalities in maternal health care use.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"National Health Insurance: Providing a vocabulary for public engagement","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D: South African Health Review, Health Systems Trust, 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/uploads/files/sahr10_15.pdf","body":"The purpose of this chapter in the South African Health Review is to describe the proposed national health insurance (NHI) in South Africa. The author explains the objective of the proposed reform, evaluates how South Africa currently fares relative to this objective and explores the implications of lessons from international experience for the South African health system. She argues that the term \u2018NHI\u2019 has itself contributed to the confusion about the intended reform and that the focus should instead be placed on its core objective \u2013 a universal health system that ensures that everyone is able to use health services when needed and that provides financial protection against the costs of health care for everyone. Another key area of contention has been whether NHI is affordable or not. The author argues that universal health care is affordable and, instead, the debate around affordability should rather be focused on the appropriateness and effectiveness of system design. The author calls for constructive and evidence-informed debate from all stakeholders on how best to achieve improved health for all South Africans through health system reform.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Negotiators produce new version of Traditional Knowledge Treaty at WIPO","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 25 February 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/48j48r6","body":"In February 2011, experts gathered at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) to rewrite the negotiating document on intellectual property rights and traditional knowledge. The new document caused disagreements over common language in most articles, in particular, Article 1 on the subject matter of protection of traditional knowledge, which includes the definition of traditional knowledge (TK), the criteria for eligibility and on secret TK. To accommodate different opinions, several options were listed in the draft document. In Article 1, one of the options mentions the fact that, among eligibility criteria, protection should extend to TK not widely known outside that community, which could imply that some TK already in the public domain would not be considered as eligible. A representative of the Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism argued that the language in Article 1 might be misconstrued as intellectual property language and it was important that Article 1 really reflect the integrity of TK in its cultural context as a dynamic form of knowledge transmitted from generation to generation to serve the interest of the community. Article 2 only contains two brackets signifying lack of agreement, one of which is around the word \u2018nations\u2019 as beneficiaries of protection. Some countries would like the protection to include indigenous peoples, local communities and nations. The representative of the Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism said beneficiaries should be TK holders themselves, and not nations. A developed country source agreed, noting that indigenous peoples and local communities are holders of TK and should be beneficiaries and managers of their rights, but that nations could not be beneficiaries of the instrument being elaborated as this would confuse intellectual property rights with public heritage protection.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way","field_subtitle":"Symphony Way pavement dwellers: FAHAMU Press, October 2010","field_url":"http://www.fahamubooks.org/book/?GCOI=90638100888310","body":"Many outside South Africa imagine that after Mandela was freed and the ANC won free elections all was well. But for many the struggle against apartheid, poverty and inequality continues, according to this book. Early in 2007 hundreds of families living in shacks in Cape Town were moved into houses they had been waiting for since the end of apartheid. But soon they were told the move was illegal and they were evicted. They built shacks alongside the road opposite and organised themselves into the Symphony Way Anti-Eviction Campaign. In this book they tell their own stories, in words and photographs, of the struggle for justice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"No unqualified acceptance for prequalified medicines","field_subtitle":"Brieger B: Malaria Free Future, 14 August 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.malariafreefuture.org/blog/?p=1018","body":"The proposed intervention by The Global Fund to drastically reduce prices of Artemisinin Combined Therapies (ACTs) through its Affordable Medicines for Malaria programme (AMFm) will see ACTs from six foreign companies sell ACTs at a reduced, monitored price regime of between US$0.40 and 0.47. However, controversy has arisen over two competing development goals - making high quality medicines available to those in need at affordable prices vs strengthening local industrial capacity. The paper argues from the Nigeria situation, that manufacturers in Nigeria have practically no access to bank credit and provide their own infrastructural requirements, compared to foreign counterparts who may have access to cheap credit, enjoy tax reliefs and export incentives. This makes it difficult for Nigerian manufacturers to compete with their foreign counterparts. It is not clear whether there are actual foreign assistance efforts aimed at building the capacity of malaria endemic countries in Africa to produce their own pharmaceutical products.  The author suggests that if such a longer term project were started in parallel with efforts like AMFm, there may be more acceptance for temporary set backs in the local market, given that the international community is trying to strengthen countries\u2019 abilities to fight malaria into the future. The author calls for an aid programme that can address the infrastructural problems facing Nigerian manufacturers and provide a legal framework that protects intellectual property and gives the local companies a fair chance to compete.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Open source for neglected diseases: Challenges and opportunities","field_subtitle":"Masum H and Harris R: Results for Development Institute, 22 February 2011 ","field_url":"http://healthresearchpolicy.org/sites/healthresearchpolicy.org/files/assessments/files/OS_for_NTDs_Consultation%20Draft.pdf","body":"In this paper, the authors discuss open source approaches for research and development (R&D) for neglected diseases, and their potential to lower costs and R&D time frames, increase collaboration and build a knowledge commons. They describe existing initiatives and debates, and suggest how readers and the global health community might better make use of open source approaches. While most of the open source initiatives examined in the review appear to demonstrate significant potential, the authors conclude that hard evidence of impact appears to be limited thus far. They make three short-term recommendations. Governments and other stakeholders should first develop detailed profiles of open source initiatives for R&D into neglected diseases, then they should prioritise gaining more substantial and long-term investments into the area. Finally, they should start a demand-driven website incorporating a group weblog, which will act as a focal point for disparate threads of discussion as well as seeding connections and a sense of community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Overcoming gaps to advance global health equity: A symposium on new directions for research","field_subtitle":"Frenk J and Chen L: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(11), 22 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-10.pdf","body":"This knowledge translation self-assessment tool for research institutes (SATORI) was designed to assess the status of knowledge translation in research institutes. It identifies the gaps in capacity and infrastructure of knowledge translation support within research organisations. Research institutes using SATORI have pointed out that strengthening knowledge translation is paramount and may be achieved through the provision of financial support for knowledge translation activities, creating supportive and facilitating infrastructures, and facilitating interactions between researchers and target audiences to exchange questions and research findings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Pan-African Symposium on Infectious Diseases","field_subtitle":"9-11 May 2011: Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.africahealthexhibition.com/Site-Root /Forms/ConferenceEnquiryForm/","body":"This symposium will consider infectious diseases in Africa, including bacterial, viral, fungal and parasitic diseases, which comprise a major cause of death, disability, and social and economic disruption for millions of people in Africa\u2019s developing countries. This conference will aim to look at the borderless effect of infection, its impact on children and the importance of intervention. International speakers will talk about how to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases and discuss new diagnostics vaccines and drug treatments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Parental control and monitoring of young people's sexual behaviour in rural North-Western Tanzania: Implications for sexual and reproductive health interventions","field_subtitle":"Wamoyi J, Fenwick A, Urassa M, Zaba B and Stones W: BMC Public Health 11(106), 16 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-106.pdf","body":"This paper examines parental control and monitoring and the implications of this on young people's sexual decision making in a rural setting in North-Western Tanzania. Data collection involved 17 focus group discussions and 46 in-depth interviews conducted with young people aged 14-24 years and parents/carers of young people within this age-group. The researchers found that parents were motivated to control and monitor their children's behaviour for reasons such as social respectability and protecting them from unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. Children from single-parent families reported that they received less control and researchers noted that a father's presence in the family seemed important in controlling the activities of young people, while a mother's did not appear to. Girls received more supervision compared to boys. Despite parents making efforts to control and monitor their young people's sexual behaviour, the researchers conclude that parents are faced with major challenges, such as too little time available to spend with their children, which make it difficult for them to monitor them effectively. The researchers argue that there is a need for interventions, such as parenting skills-building, that might enable parents to improve their relationships with their children and help guide their sexual behaviour.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Pooled funds: Assessing new models for global health R&D financing","field_subtitle":"Grace C, Pearson M and Lazdins J: Results for Development Institute, 30 November 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/65g2wxf","body":"With growing interest in methods to accelerate the development of drugs, vaccines and diagnostics for neglected diseases, product development partnerships (PDPs), non-profit research institutes and private sector groups have come together to conduct R&D in these areas. However, some argue that their efforts are disjointed and that funding flows inefficiently to individual research projects resulting in insufficient resources, funding volatility, poor resource allocation and duplicated, as well as unnecessary, efforts. In this paper, the authors evaluate several pooled funding mechanisms that have been proposed to address these problems: the Industry R&D Facilitation Fund (IRFF) originally proposed by the George Institute; the Fund for Research in Neglected Diseases (FRIND) proposed by Novartis; and the Product Development Partnership Financing Facility (PDP-FF) proposed by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). These proposals are measured against two criteria: their capacity to raise additional money for neglected disease R&D and their capacity to improve the efficient allocation of those funds. The authors conclude that all three proposals had potential, but the challenge with deciding which proposal to implement is the lack of clarity and agreement on what exactly the core problems facing R&D funding flows for neglected diseases are.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor mental health and sexual risk behaviours in Uganda: A cross-sectional population-based study","field_subtitle":"Lundberg P, Rukundo G, Ashaba S, Thorson A, Allebeck P, Ostergren P and Cantor-Graae E: BMC Public Health 11(125), 21 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-125.pdf","body":"In this study, researchers investigated whether depression, psychological distress and alcohol use are associated with sexual risk behaviours in young Ugandan adults. They sampled households in two Ugandan districts, recruiting 646 men and women aged 18-30 years. Participants were assessed for depression and psychological distress, as well as alcohol use and sexual behaviour risk. Researchers found that depression was associated with a greater number of lifetime partners and, among women, with having concurrent partners. Psychological distress was associated with a greater number of lifetime partners in both men and women but was only marginally associated with having concurrent partners among women. Psychological distress was associated with inconsistent condom use among men. Alcohol use was associated with a greater number of lifetime partners and with having concurrent partners in both men and women, with particularly strong associations for both outcome measures found among women. The researchers conclude that poor mental health is associated with sexual risk behaviours in a low-income sub-Saharan African setting. They argue that HIV preventive interventions should consider including mental health and alcohol use reduction components into their intervention packages, especially in settings where depression, psychological distress and alcohol use are common.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Preliminary notes on the World Social Forum 2011, Dakar","field_subtitle":"Caruso G: Wordpress 22 February 2011 ","field_url":"http://giuseppecaruso.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/a-preliminary-assessment-of-the-world-social-forum-2011-dakar/","body":"In this assessment of the World Social Forum (WSF), which took place in Dakar, Senegal, from 6\u201311  February 2011, the author highlights an important trend in global activism: activists arrived already well prepared and networked among them and with local partners and with a key concern about further strengthening regional and global alliances on shared issues. Those convergences, at the heart of WSF\u2019s mission, proved exceedingly successful, beyond activists\u2019 expectations even, and for some seem to indicate a clear trend towards consolidation of struggles at the global level. The convergence of the Assembly of Social Movements, a regular event at the forums since the first edition, saw the participation of thousands of activists from all around the world. The success of the assemblies moved in the direction of addressing some of the long standing concerns of some WSF organisers and critics, namely the fragmentation of the programme and the atomisation of the different strands of global activism with the perceived outcome of weakening the resistance against neoliberalism and reducing the impact of imaginations and practices aimed at building a new, more equitable  world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Reductions in malaria and anaemia case and death burden at hospitals following scale up of malaria control in Zanzibar, 1999-2008","field_subtitle":"Aregawi MW, Ali AS, Al-Mafazy A, Molteni F, Katikiti S, Warsame M et al: Malaria Journal 10(46), 18 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-46.pdf","body":"In Zanzibar, the Ministry of Health and its partners accelerated malaria control from September 2003 onwards by scaling up provision of insecticide-treated nets, indoor-residual spraying and artemisinin-combination therapy. The authors of this study assessed the impact of the scale up on malaria burden at six out of seven in-patient health facilities in Zanzibar by comparing numbers of out-patient and in-patient cases and deaths between 2008 and the pre-intervention period 1999-2003. They found that, in 2008, for all age groups combined, malaria deaths had fallen by an estimated 90%, malaria in-patient cases by 78% and parasitologically confirmed malaria out-patient cases by 99.5%. Anaemia in-patient cases decreased by 87%, but declines in anaemia deaths and out-patient cases were statistically insignificant due to small numbers. Reductions were similar for children under-five and older ages. The authors conclude that the government\u2019s scaling up effective malaria interventions reduced malaria-related burden at health facilities by over 75% over a period of five years. They argue that, in high-malaria settings, intensified malaria control can substantially contribute to reaching the Millennium Development Goal 4 target of reducing under-five mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Reflections on the ethics of recruiting foreign-trained human resources for health","field_subtitle":"Runnels V, Labont\u00e9 R and Packer C: Human Resources for Health 9(2), 20 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/9/1/2","body":"Developed countries' gains in health human resources (HHR) from developing countries with significantly lower ratios of health workers have raised questions about the ethics or fairness of recruitment from such countries. Little is known, however, about actual recruitment practices. In this study, the researchers focus on Canada (a country with a long reliance on internationally trained HHR) and recruiters working for Canadian health authorities. They conducted interviews with health human resources recruiters employed by Canadian health authorities to describe their recruitment practices and perspectives and to determine whether and how they reflect ethical considerations. HHR recruiters' reflections on the global flow of health workers from poorer to richer countries mirror much of the content of global-level discourse with regard to HHR recruitment. A predominant market discourse related to shortages of HHR outweighed discussions of human rights and ethical approaches to recruitment policy and action that consider global health impacts. The researchers conclude by suggesting that the concept of corporate social responsibility may provide a useful approach at the local organisational level for developing policies on ethical recruitment. Such local policies and subsequent practices may inform public debate on the health equity implications of the HHR flows from poorer to richer countries inherent in the global health worker labour market, which in turn could influence political choices at all government and health system levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Registering new drugs for low-income countries: The African challenge","field_subtitle":"Moran M, Strub-Wourgaft N, Guzman J, Boulet P, Wu L et al: PLoS Medicine 8(2), 1 February 2011","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/documents/s17765en/s17765en.pdf","body":"In this study, the authors argue that an optimal drug registration approach for Africa should reliably evaluate safety, efficacy, and quality of drugs for African use. It should include African expertise, contribute to building African regulatory capacity, and, ultimately, expedite African access by reducing duplicative and sequential reviews by different regulators. However they present an overview of the current situation that shows the present system of drug approval to be far from achieving these goals, with inefficiencies in the use of regulatory resources and in the uptake of capacity-building opportunities for African regulators. As a result regulatory processes and decisions may not meet current needs. The authors recommend that countries institute formal twinned regulatory reviews, fund Centres of Regulatory Excellence in each of Africa\u2019s main regions and conduct a strategic review of WHO drug pre-qualification disease and product priorities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Retention in HIV care for individuals not yet eligible for anti-retroviral therapy: Rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Lessells RJ, Mutevedzi PC, Cooke GS and Newell M: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 56(3): e79-e86, 1 March 2011","field_url":"http://journals.lww.com/jaids/Fulltext/2011/03010/Retention_in_HIV_Care_for_Individuals_Not_Yet.11.aspx","body":"The authors of this study assessed retention in HIV care for individuals not yet eligible for antiretroviral therapy (ART) and explored factors associated with retention in a rural, public health HIV programme in South Africa. During the period January 2007 to December 2007, HIV-infected adults (&#8805;16 years) who were not yet eligible for ART, with a CD4 count of >200, were included in the analysis. Retention was defined by repeat CD4 count within 13 months. A total of 4,223 participants were included in the analysis, of whom 83.9% were female. Overall retention was 44.9%, with 201 days as median time to return to the clinic. Males were independently associated with lower odds of retention, and older participants with higher odds of retention. The authors conclude that retention in HIV care before eligibility for ART is poor, particularly for younger individuals and those at an early stage of infection. Further work to optimise and evaluate care and monitoring strategies is required to realise the full benefits of the rapid expansion of HIV programmes in sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Review of 'The bottom billion' by Paul Collier ","field_subtitle":"Reinert ES: Journal of Global History 6(1): 156\u2013158, February 2011","field_url":"http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=8129537&jid=JGH&volumeId=6&issueId=01&aid=8129535&bodyId=&membershipNumber=&societyETOCSession=","body":"In this review of the book, \u2018The bottom billion: Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it\u2019, by Paul Collier (Oxford University Press, 2008), Reinert identifies Collier\u2019s core argument: four \u2018traps\u2019 lock Africa into poverty, namely the conflict trap, the natural resource trap, the trap of being landlocked with bad neighbours, and the trap of bad governance in a small country. Collier\u2019s analysis, Reinert argues, represents a departure from traditional development economics to \u2018development aid strategy\u2019, and comes at a time when the world has long been dominated by Washington Consensus policies pushing for market liberalisation. Compared to the first decades after the Second World War, the growth record of this neo-liberal period has been dismal, he notes, especially in Africa. However, the reviewer expresses some concern that the book appears to defend the past policies of the World Bank, with the most salient misinterpretation of history being Collier\u2019s presentation of the successes of China and India as a result of the policies of the Washington Institutions, when in fact their success was the result of actually not following the policies and rather opening their markets gradually. Collier tends to reverse the directions of the arrows of causality and even to disregard co-evolution of economic structure and institutions. As a former employee of the Washington Institutions responsible for enforcing neo-liberalism, the reviewer concludes that he attempts to cover up the past rather than present new constructive insights, and the book contains more descriptions of symptoms of poverty than of its root causes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Risk factors associated with sexual violence towards girls in Swaziland","field_subtitle":"Breiding MJ, Reza A, Gulaid J, Blanton C, Mercy JA, Dahlberg LL, Dlamini N and Bamrah S: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(3): 203\u2013210, March 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/3/10-079608.pdf","body":"The primary objective of this study was to explore risk factors for sexual violence in childhood in a nationally representative sample of females aged 13 to 24 years in Swaziland. During a household survey respondents were asked to report any experiences of sexual violence before the age of 18 years. A total of 1,244 respondents were included in the study. Using the survey data, the researchers then analysed the association between childhood sexual violence and several potential demographic and social risk factors. They found that, compared with respondents who had been close to their biological mothers as children, those who had not been close to her had higher odds of having experienced sexual violence, likewise with those who had had no relationship with her at all. In addition, greater odds of childhood sexual violence were noted among respondents who were not attending school at the time of the survey, who were emotionally abused as children, and who knew of another child who had been sexually assaulted or was having sex with a teacher. Childhood sexual violence was positively associated with the number of people the respondent had lived with at any one time. Inadequate supervision or guidance and an unstable environment put girls at risk of sexual violence, the authors conclude, calling for greater educational opportunities and improved mother-daughter relationships.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"SANNAM Biennial Conference and Annual General Meeting","field_subtitle":"16-18 November 2011: Gaborone, Botswana","field_url":"http://www.sannam.org.za/CALL_FOR_ABSTRACTS_SANNAM_FIRST_BIENNIAL_CONFERENCE.pdf","body":"This first Southern African Network of Nurses and Midwives (SANNAM) biennial conference will present evidence demonstrating how nurses, as key members of the health team, promote and contribute to quality and access to health care. It will also demonstrate the importance of connecting other health workers and the community at large in accelerating the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The conference will feature plenary sessions, which will set the stage for discussion of critical issues that either facilitate or impede the achievement of the MDGs. Concurrent sessions, symposia, poster presentations, debates and panel discussions will address issues to demonstrate the intricate links between the MDGs SANNAM is calling on all professionals and communities to work collectively at the conference in addressing the links.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"School: A place for children to learn their HIV status?","field_subtitle":"Editorial: The Lancet 377(9765):528, 12 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)60183-9/fulltext?rss=yes","body":"The South African government has announced that it will soon launch a controversial step in its national campaign to test 15 million people for HIV by June 2011. Under the plans, children and adolescents will be offered voluntary HIV testing and counselling in high schools. This editorial addresses some of the major obstacles it predicts the campaign will face. Under South African law, children aged 12 years and older can give consent to a HIV test. But some issues remain problematic, such as how a health worker should determine whether consent provided by a 12-year-old or adolescent is sufficiently informed or not, and how to ensure confidentiality of test results. It is also not clear whether children who test positive will receive anti-retroviral therapy, or if parental or peer pressure might be applied on children to divulge their test results. The Lancet editors call on the task team that is planning the intervention to consider whether schools are the best place for children to learn their HIV status. Problems in the national HIV testing and counselling campaign, launched in April 2010, heed a cautionary warning, the editors note. Monitoring and evaluation of the campaign has so far been poor and there have been reports of HIV-positive people not being referred for treatment, clinics not complying with national testing and counselling protocols, and anecdotal reports of coercive testing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Sixth International ISEQH Conference: Making policy a health equity-building process","field_subtitle":"Cartagena De Indias, Colombia: 26-28 September, 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.iseqh.org/congreso.html","body":"The International Society for Equity in Health- ISEqH - will hold its Sixth International Conference: Making Policy a Health Equity Building Process in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia - September 26-28, 2011. Equity is an important issue to champion for, however nobody disagrees with it because is too broad. The conferebce aims to provide more detail, to be more specific and, at the same time, offer a multi-disciplinary look. The organisers call for submissions for organised sessions by 4 March and individual abstracts by 15 April 2011. All participants are invited to submit an abstract for symposia and/or oral and/or poster presentations to abstracts@iseqh.org. It is not necessary to be a member of the International Society for Equity in Health to submit an abstract.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"South-South trade booming despite high trade barriers ","field_subtitle":"Prinsloo L: Trade Law Centre for South Africa, 17 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.tralac.org/cgi-bin/giga.cgi?cmd=cause_dir_news_item&news_id=99102&cause_id=1694","body":"South-South trade is growing fast, but barriers among developing countries are still up to seven times higher than those imposed by the developed world, according to this article. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has announced that exports from developing countries have grown to 37% of global trade, of which about 50% related to South-South trade. Historically, developing countries focused on preferential access to developed markets, but an OECD spokesperson said that the global economy had dramatically changed over the last two decades with wealth shifting from the developed world to developing countries, necessitating a change in thinking and attitude when it came to trade. The OECD anticipates that the growth trend would continue, predicting an increased contribution by developing countries. However, OECD pointed out that accelerated growth had resulted in greater inequalities in society, which could lead to political unrest, like the recent civil demonstrations in North Africa. The OECD called for good policy and governance in developing countries to build the correct developmental infrastructure, improve education and health, and increase human capital, while continuously diversifying their economies with a strong focus on productivity and innovation. One way to achieve this is through peer-to-peer learning, where policymakers can come together and share their successes and failures with each other, OECD argues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"State strategies of governance in biomedical innovation: Aligning conceptual approaches for understanding 'Rising Powers' in the global context","field_subtitle":"Salter B and Faulkner A: Globalization and Health 7(3), 24 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-7-3.pdf","body":"Innovation in biomedicine is a global enterprise in which 'Rising Power' states (emerging states) figure prominently, and which undoubtedly will re-shape health systems and health economies globally, the authors of this paper argue. Against this background, they present an overview of a range of approaches that have potential for advancing understanding of governance of global life science and biomedical innovation, with special reference to the 'Rising Powers'. The authors\u2019 analysis indicates significant convergences and complementarities between the approaches discussed, concluding that the role of the national state itself has become relatively neglected in much of the relevant literature. They call for a new approach that enables innovation and governance to be seen as 'co-producing' each other in a multi-level, global ecology of innovation, taking account of the particular, differing characteristics of different emerging scientific fields and technologies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategic Leadership Course in Global Health Diplomacy in East, Central and Southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"Nairobi, 14th to 18th March 2011","field_url":"","body":"The course brought together senior officers from the health and related sectors in the East, Central and Sothern Africa-Health Community region (ECSA-HC). The need to build capacity and create strategic leadership in global health diplomacy is clearly manifest in the performance of the regional delegations in regional and global fora. The purpose of the course is to introduce, provide an overview and share information on Global Health Diplomacy, discuss key issues and challenges for GHD for the region and hear inputs about other regions on their response to these challenges. The participants discussed an assessment of institutional capacities and needs, information resources and sources at regional and country level support for Global Health Diplomacy; and shared and enhance their negotiation GDH negotiation skills. This course has been developed in close cooperation between the School of Public Health-University of Nairobi, the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation Kenya, ECSA-Health Community Secretariat, the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET), with support from Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Geneva","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Tackling tuberculosis with an all-inclusive approach","field_subtitle":"Cumberland S: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(3): 170\u2013171, March 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/3/11-040311.pdf","body":"In this interview with Dr Lucica Ditiu, newly appointed executive secretary of the Stop TB Partnership, she reports that global tuberculosis (TB) control is reaching a plateau, especially in case detection, due to the fact that the most vulnerable, marginalised, high-risk populations are still not being reached. She argues that TB cannot be tackled without looking at the bigger picture, as it is a disease of poverty and is directly linked to poor nutrition and living conditions, as well as other social determinants of health, like education. These factors, combined with a lack of awareness and the stigma of TB, mean people often delay seeking care. Countries still face problems in planning, forecasting their needs, with supply shortages throughout the developing world, and Ditiu calls on civil society organisations and activists to continue to help flag these shortages. She praised current collaboration and integration efforts for HIV and TB health services, which were already showing results, but pointed to the need to scale up services and funding.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Tax us if you can: Why Africa should stand up for tax justice","field_subtitle":"Tax Justice Network, January 2011","field_url":"http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/tuiyc_africa_final.pdf","body":"Bad governance and the persistence of tax avoidance allow billions of dollars of profit to be siphoned out of Africa, untaxed, every year, according to this report. For the past 25 years, tax revenues in most African countries have missed even the low target of 15% of gross domestic product, far less than rich countries\u2019 average of 35%. Tax Justice Network (TJN) notes that 80% of Africa\u2019s exports consist of primary commodities and, while African governments depend heavily on the resource rents from these commodities, many commodities are exempt from taxation. Multinational companies operating in African economies, including those of least-developed countries, are granted massive tax exemptions by under-resourced, inept or corrupt tax officials, according to TJN, and they enjoy tax holidays and deferments, extremely low royalty payments and cheap access to natural resources. For example, estimates in the report indicate that Kenya\u2019s government only manages to collect 35% of the corporate income tax required by national law. The cumulative stock of illicit financial flows from Africa is estimated at US$854 billion between 1970 and 2008, or more than US$30 billion each year. Because borders are one of the few effective tax collection points, tariffs are rigorously enforced, which holds back regional economic integration, TJN argues. TJN argues further that some African countries have become tax havens for corporations exporting resources, including mineral resources, from the region. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The cost-effectiveness of preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review","field_subtitle":"Johri M and Ako-Arrey D: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 9(3), 9 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/pdf/1478-7547-9-3.pdf","body":"The authors of this study reviewed the cost-effectiveness of interventions to prevent mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). They identified 19 articles published in nine journals from 1996 to 2010, 16 concerning sub-Saharan Africa. Collectively, the articles suggest that interventions to prevent paediatric infections are cost-effective in a variety of LMIC settings, as measured against accepted international benchmarks. The authors conclude that interventions to prevent HIV MTCT are compelling on economic grounds in many resource-limited settings and should remain at the forefront of global HIV prevention efforts. Future cost-effectiveness analyses should focus on local assessment of rapidly evolving HIV MTCT options, strategies to improve coverage and reach underserved populations, evaluation of a more comprehensive set of MTCT approaches, and the integration of HIV MTCT and other sexual and reproductive health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The creation of the health consumer: Challenges on health sector regulation after managed care era","field_subtitle":"Iriart C, Franco T and Merhy EE: Globalization and Health 7(2), 24 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-7-2.pdf","body":"In this study, the authors examined how economic reforms, like structural adjustment programmes that were developed and implemented in the 1990s, have affected the health sector. They report that these policies facilitated reforms in the health sector that facilitated the entry of multinational financial (insurance) and pharmaceutical capital. This redefined both the health-ill-care model and converted patients into consumers being pressured to buy products, largely via the media and the advertising industry.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The importance of strategic management in the implementation of private medicine retailer programmes: Case studies from three districts in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Abuya T, Amin A, Molyneux S, Akhwale W, Marsh V and Gilson L: BMC Health Services Research 10(Suppl 1), 2010","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6963-10-s1-s7.pdf","body":"In Kenya\u2019s Home Management of Malaria Strategy, the government seeks to improve prompt and effective anti-malarial drug availability through the informal sector, with a potential channel being the private medicine retailers (PMRs). This paper examines the implementation processes of three PMR programmes in Kenya, in the Kwale, Kisii Central and Bungoma districts. The research methods included 24 focus group discussions with clients and PMRs, 19 in-depth interviews with implementing actors, document review and a diary of events. The researchers found that the Kisii programme was successfully implemented, thanks to good relationships between district health managers and the \u2018resource team\u2019, and supported by a memorandum of understanding. It had flexible budgetary and decision making processes which were responsive to local contexts, and took account of local socio-economic activities. In contrast, the Kwale programme, which had implementation challenges, was characterised by a complex funding process, with lengthy timelines tied to the government financial management system. Although there was a flexible funding system in Bungoma, a perceived lack of transparency in fund management, inadequate management of inter-organisational relationships, and inability to adapt and respond to changing circumstances led to implementation difficulties. The researchers conclude that an active strategy to manage relationships between implementing actors through effective communication mechanisms is essential for the PMR approach to work, in conjunction with a strong and transparent management system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The mental health workforce gap in low- and middle-income countries: A needs-based approach","field_subtitle":"Bruckner TA, Scheffler RM, Shen G, Yoon J, Chisholm D, Morris J et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(3): 184\u2013194, March 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/3/10-082784.pdf","body":"The objective of this study was to estimate the shortage of mental health professionals in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The researchers used data from the World Health Organisation\u2019s Assessment Instrument for Mental Health Systems (WHO-AIMS) from 58 LMICs, as well as country-specific information on the burden of various mental disorders, focusing on eight mental health issues: depression, schizophrenia, psychoses other than schizophrenia, suicide, epilepsy, dementia, disorders related to the use of alcohol and illicit drugs, and paediatric mental disorders. The researchers found that all low-income countries and 59% of the middle-income countries in the sample had far fewer professionals than needed to deliver a core set of mental health interventions. According to their calculations, the 58 LMICs sampled would need to increase their total mental health workforce by 239,000 full-time equivalent professionals to address the current shortage. The authors of the study call for country-specific policies to overcome the large shortage of mental health-care staff and services in LMICs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The need for a transdisciplinary, global health framework","field_subtitle":"Picard M, Sabiston CM and McNamara JK: The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 17(2): 179-184, February 2011","field_url":"http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2010.0149","body":"Health research consists of multiple disciplines that conceptualise and operationalise health in different ways, making integration of knowledge difficult, according to the authors of this paper. They argue that, to help researchers and practitioners study and intervene on complex health processes, comprehensive integrative frameworks linking multiple disciplines and bodies of knowledge must be developed. To this end, they propose a conceptual framework of health that integrates multiple elements from biomedical, psychosocial, behavioural, and spiritual research, using a \u2018transdisciplinary\u2019 approach. The framework includes discipline-specific constructs and domains, outlines their interactions, and links them to a global or holistic concept of health. In this context, health is seen as an emergent individual experience, transcending objective and subjective classifications of health and disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of the private sector in the context of aid effectiveness","field_subtitle":"Davies P: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/7/58/47088121.pdf","body":"The purpose of this report is to identify and summarise lessons learned, opportunities and challenges in relation to the role of the private sector in the context of aid effectiveness. The authors conducted 47 qualitative interviews with different stakeholders, including external funders, private sector representatives (for-profit and private foundations), partner countries, civil society organisations and independent experts. Some respondents emphasised that the profit-driven incentives of the private sector seldom converge with development objectives, which poses challenges for the aid effectiveness agenda. In contrast, others noted that business incentives can converge with those of donors and partner countries, and private sector companies can contribute to development in three main ways, namely by integrating their core business operations and value chains, by making social investments and undertaking philanthropic ventures, and by promoting public advocacy, policy dialogue and institution strengthening. External funders in particular emphasised that for-profit private sector contributions to the development process are more sustainable if they are embedded in the core business strategy of a company. The authors propose new types of inclusive business models, with increased commitments to include people living in poverty as part of core business strategy, and where the private sector contributes best to aid objectives by running responsible businesses but also plays diverse roles and engages directly in aid processes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The state of food and agriculture, 2010-2011","field_subtitle":"Food and Agriculture Organisation: 2011","field_url":"http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i2050e/i2050e.pdf","body":"According to this report, the agriculture sector is underperforming in many developing countries, in part because women do not have equal access to the resources and opportunities they need to be more productive. The gender gap imposes real costs on society in terms of lost agricultural output, food security and economic growth, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) argues. Promoting gender equality is not only good for women \u2013 it is also good for agricultural development. Women make essential contributions to the rural economy of all developing country regions as farmers, labourers and entrepreneurs. Their roles are diverse and changing rapidly, so generalisations should be made carefully, the FAO warns. Yet one finding is strikingly consistent across countries and contexts: women have less access than men to agricultural assets, inputs and services and to rural employment opportunities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Third Global Review of Aid for Trade","field_subtitle":"Geneva, Switzerland: 18-19 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/devel_e/a4t_e /global_review11_e.htm","body":"Is aid for trade working? This is the question that the Third Global Review of Aid for Trade will seek to address when it convenes in July 2011. The Review will evaluate progress in terms of the Aid-for-Trade Work Programme 2010-2011, which was issued on 27 November 2009. The work Programme\u2019s aim is to keep an on-going focus on aid for trade, which will generate continued impetus to resource mobilisation, mainstreaming, operationalisation and implementation of aid for trade projects. The Work Programme is complemented by Aid-for-Trade meetings, culminating in the Third Global Review of Aid for Trade. The World Trade Organisation is hosting the event.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Tide turns for drug manufacturing in Africa","field_subtitle":"Anderson T: The Lancet 375(9726): 1597-1598, 8 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)60687-3/fulltext","body":"According to this article, a drugs producer in Uganda has become the first in a least-developed country (LDC) to achieve a world-class seal of quality for its manufacturing standards. The Quality Chemicals plant, in the Ugandan capital Kampala, is the first to get this far along the World Health Organisation (WHO) pre-qualification process, a stringent quality check imposed on manufacturers of drugs. The next step is to gain approval, or pre-qualification, for each malaria and HIV/AIDS drug the firm produces, before international agencies, such as UNICEF, are allowed to buy from the company. It is an important milestone because of scepticism over domestic, or local manufacturing, in such countries, the author notes. There are around 37 manufacturers in sub-Saharan Africa. Pharmaceutical companies from Democratic Republic of the Congo to Ethiopia are being helped to reach international standards too. German development agency GTZ is even sending individual inspectors from the German regulator to Africa to do personal plant assessments. Although no substitute for a full WHO pre-qualification, the process helps identify improvements necessary to reach international standards.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Tracking and monitoring the health workforce: A new human resources information system (HRIS) in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Spero JC, McQuide PA and Matte R: Human Resources for Health 9(6), 17 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/9/1/6","body":"The purpose of this article is twofold. First, the authors describe Uganda's transition from a paper filing system to an electronic HRIS capable of providing information about country-specific health workforce questions. They then examine the ongoing five-step HRIS strengthening process used to implement an HRIS that tracks health worker data at the Uganda Nurses and Midwives Council (UNMC). Secondly, they describe how HRIS data can be used to address workforce planning questions via an initial analysis of the UNMC training, licensure and registration records from 1970 through May 2009. The data indicate that, for the 25 482 nurses and midwives who entered training before 2006, 72% graduated, 66% obtained a council registration, and 28% obtained a license to practice. Of the 17,405 nurses and midwives who obtained a council registration as of May 2009, 96% are of Ugandan nationality and just 3% received their training outside of the country. Thirteen per cent obtained a registration for more than one type of training. Most (34%) trainings with a council registration are for the enrolled nurse training, followed by enrolled midwife (25%), registered (more advanced) nurse (21%), registered midwife (11%), and more specialised trainings (9%). The authors conclude that the UNMC database is valuable in monitoring and reviewing information about nurses and midwives. However, information obtained from this system is also important in improving strategic planning for the greater health care system in Uganda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"UCT hosts a programme for Scholars at Risk to spend between 6 and 12 months at UCT, with a focus on Scholars in Africa","field_subtitle":"The closing date for application submission is 20 April 2011","field_url":"","body":"The University of Cape Town (UCT) in partnership with the Sigrid Rausing Trust announces a new opportunity to benefit academic scholars at risk.\r\nThe proposed opportunity is aimed at helping academic scholars who are at political risk in African countries, and/or those academics within African countries at risk through lack of resources and governmental support, many of whom are women.  It will include some academics defined as 'at risk' through the New York - based Scholars at Risk organization.\r\nThe Programme varing from 3 months to 12 months duration, started in 2007. 'At risk' academics will be able to further their studies at UCT, to build their CVs, and re-establish their careers. Candidates will be selected based on their ability to add to academic endeavour, whether they can be suitably housed within the various host faculties and their departments, and on their need. The Application form and further information can be requested from Ms Norma Derby, International Academic Programmes Office, norma.derby@uct.ac.za ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Underpaid and overworked: A cross-national perspective on care workers","field_subtitle":"Razavi S and Staab S: International Labour Review 149(4), December 2010","field_url":"http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BCCF9/(httpPublications)/11F4613A375B94D9C125776D00448527?OpenDocument","body":"Over the past decades, changes in economic, social and demographic structures have spurred the growth of employment in care-related occupations. As a result care workers comprise a large and growing segment of the labour force in both North and South. One impetus for much of the research and policy work in this area is a concern about the labour market disadvantages of particular segments of the care workforce (such as migrant domestic workers, elderly carers, and nursing aides). Although the issue of care work and its vulnerability is a global phenomenon, this issue of the International Labour Review presents a collection of essays that pay particular attention to developing country contexts where issues of worker insecurity and exploitation are most intransigent, and where research has been sparse and data gaps are often significant. The special issue raises questions about who the care workers are, whether they are recognised as workers, how their wages compare to those of other workers with similar levels of education and skill, the conditions under which they work, and how their interests could be better secured.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Unfairly dismissed HIV-positive man gets justice","field_subtitle":"Mkhwanazi A: Health-e News, 17 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20033084","body":"A HIV-positive South African man has won a case of discrimination and unfair dismissal against his former employers in the Labour Court, and he says he hopes the ruling will encourage other HIV-positive people who are being discriminated against by their employers to come forward. The court ruling stated that he was unfairly dismissed by his employer because of his HIV status. The man was dismissed two years ago immediately after his former employer discovered that he was HIV-positive. Human rights organisation Section 27 has hailed the ruling, saying it sends a clear message that HIV-positive people cannot be discriminated against. According to Section 27, people with HIV should come forward and seek the protection of the law because if they go to court and their case is clear, they will win in court and the employer will be forced to pay compensation or legal costs. Advocates identified two major barriers to seeking legal redress in cases of discrimination against HIV-positive people \u2013 most people are not aware of their rights, and lawyers are inaccessible because the cost of their services is beyond the means of ordinary South Africans. Without proper legal services, they warn, it\u2019s unlikely that claims will succeed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Use of health information technology among racial and ethnic underserved communities","field_subtitle":"Gibbons MC: Perspectives in Health Information Management 8(Winter), 1 January 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5ut3fn3","body":"In this article, the author examines the potential role of health information technology (IT) in addressing healthcare disparities among racial and ethnic minority populations. The author\u2019s overview of health IT utilisation among healthcare providers reveals that use of health IT among racial and ethnic minorities carries significant promise and potential. Yet realising the potential will not come without surmounting several significant technical, practical and human challenges. In order to measure success or failure, he argues for ongoing surveillance and monitoring of progress at a national level. However, because of the great diversity in the types of technologies, types of users, and settings in which health IT may be employed, obtaining accurate estimates of adoption and utilisation will be a significant challenge. In addition, the development of the \u2018meaningful use\u2019 criteria and the linking of meaningful use to provider reimbursement will help, the author adds. As patients become more involved in accessing, managing, and using their health information, a need to develop \u2018meaningful patient use\u2019 criteria may arise, he predicts, which will help refine systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"What factors are associated with recent intimate partner violence? Findings from the WHO multi-country study on women's health and domestic violence","field_subtitle":"Abramsky T, Watts CH, Garcia-Moreno C, Devries K, Kiss L, Ellsberg M et al: BMC Public Health 11(109), 16 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-109.pdf","body":"Despite a growing body of research into risk factors for intimate partner violence (IPV), methodological differences limit the extent to which comparisons can be made between studies. The authors of this study used data from ten countries (including Namibia and Tanzania) from the World Health Organisation\u2019s Multi-country Study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence to identify factors that are consistently associated with abuse across sites. Standardised population-based household surveys were conducted between 2000 and 2003, with one woman aged 15-49 years randomly selected from each sampled household. Those who had ever had a male partner were asked about their experiences of physically and sexually violent acts. The researchers found that, despite wide variations in the prevalence of IPV, many factors affected risk similarly across sites. Secondary education, high socio-economic status and formal marriage offered protection, while the risk of IPV increased with alcohol abuse, cohabitation, young age, attitudes supportive of wife beating, having outside sexual partners, experiencing childhood abuse, growing up with domestic violence, and experiencing or perpetrating other forms of violence in adulthood. The strength of the association was greatest when both the woman and her partner had the risk factor. The authors conclude that current IPV prevention programmes should pay greater attention to transforming gender norms and attitudes, addressing childhood abuse and reducing harmful drinking. Development initiatives to improve access to education for girls and boys may also have an important role in violence prevention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"What is the point of the point-of-care? A case study of user resistance to an e-health system","field_subtitle":"Whittaker L, van Zyl J and Soicher AS: Telemedicine and e-Health 17(1): 55-61, 6 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/tmj.2010.0008","body":"The purpose of this article is to explore the responses of nurses to a point-of-care e-health system that was implemented in a large private hospital in South Africa, to find out why the nursing staff rejected the implementation of the system. The authors of the study examined user responses with reference to a model designed to account for the use and adoption of mobile handheld devices, having adapted the model for an e-health context. In addition to the input features of technological characteristics and individual differences identified in the model, the added features of nursing culture and group differences were found to be influential factors in fuelling the nurses' resistance to the point-of-care system. Nurses perceived a lack of cultural fit between the system and their work. Their commitment to their nursing culture meant that they were not prepared to adapt their processes to integrate the system into their work, believing it might reduce quality of care. The study shows that the model is useful for understanding adoption in an organisational context and also that the additional elements of nursing culture and group differences are important in an e-health context.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Where is the Paris Agenda heading? Changing relations in Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Od\u00e9n B and Wohlgemuth L: European Centre for Development Policy Management Briefing Note 21, February 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4pdrono","body":"How has the Paris Declaration has been translated into action in Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia? The authors of this study found that, despite some positive developments, the dialogue between donor and recipient governments is breaking down. External funders are becoming increasingly concerned with governance issues in recipient countries, so the dialogue has become more political in nature. At some point in the past, all three countries have had their general budget support temporarily suspended or permanently stopped due to corruption disputes. The authors argue that the dialogue structure developed so far by external funders has become too complex for the three recipient countries, which have insufficient capacity and lack funds for higher-than-expected transaction costs. In conclusion, the authors recommend that stakeholders must try to deal with the inherent contradictions between aid partners: on the external funders\u2019 side there is increasing concentration on short term quantifiable results, a continuous tendency for micro-management and over-optimistic expectations on the speed of agreed reforms, while on the recipients\u2019 side, a lack of visible improvements in governance has undermined the necessary trust needed for increased alignment and programme-based forms of aid.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Who is covered by health insurance schemes and which services are used in Tanzania?","field_subtitle":"Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town: SHIELD Policy Brief, March 2011","field_url":"http://uct-heu.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/SHIELD-Policy-Brief-TZ_Coverage-Utilisation.pdf","body":"According to this brief, health insurance cover is gradually increasing among the Tanzanian population since its introduction over a decade ago. However, wealthier groups working in the formal sector are more likely to benefit from this development than poorer groups. The diversity of schemes, in terms of contribution rates and benefits offered, means that the effectiveness of insurance is inconsistent, both in terms of the amount and nature of services received by members. What is clear is that insurance is generally increasing the intensity of outpatient care use and also influencing where people go for such care, diverting people from informal drug shops to formal care. Members with insurance are more likely to use public primary care than their non&#8208;insured rural counterparts, consistent with their benefit package. Despite equal contributions, health insurance members in urban areas use a much wider range of outpatient care than those in rural areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Who Says Research Can't Be Dramatic?","field_subtitle":"Nyasha Musandu, Interpress service, March 28 2011","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55018","body":"The Soul City Institute for Health and Development Communication, a non profit organisation, was started in 1992 in a bid to reduce child mortality caused by dehydration. \"Children were dying unnecessarily and it was because people did not know what they were supposed to be doing,\" says Goldstein. Information was widely available on the process of rehydration but it did not seem to be having an impact on the desired audience. After studying the situation, Soul City decided to launch a television soap opera to capture their target audience. A radio show and newspaper series quickly followed. In trying to describe the relationship between research and mass media campaigns, Goldstein uses the phrase \"simplification versus complexity.\" At one end stands the scientist who seeks in-depth knowledge and at the other the ordinary non-scientific individual who prefers a simple explanation. Melissa Meyer, Project Coordinator for the HIV/AIDS and the Media Project, says, \"Research and entertainment need not be at odds with each other. With just a slight adjustment in perspective, they can be used very effectively to complement each other.\" ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO, WTO and WIPO collaborate on IP and access to medicine","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 18 February 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5ua4vvt","body":"The technical symposium on \u2018Access to Medicines, Patent Information and Freedom to Operate\u2019, held on 18 February 2011 in Switzerland, was hosted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and co-organised by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). According to Margaret Chan, WHO\u2019s Director-General, countries could save about 60% of their pharmaceutical expenditures by shifting from originator medicines to generic medicines, but a lack of essential procurement and regulatory capacities are preventing this shift in many developing countries. This is especially so in relation to non-communicable diseases, which is a growing problem in low and middle income countries. She called for more transparent and accessible data on patents to help with decisions on the \u2018freedom to operate\u2019, such as a user-friendly database that contains public information on the administrative status of health-related patents. Pascal Lamy, WTO Director-General, said the main aim of the symposium was not to enter policy discussions or legal debates but rather to evaluate the area where the three agencies could collaborate to provide an information base for policy debates. He argued for a move from raw data to accessible, trusted, neutral and relevant information that directs policymaking processes, practical innovation and procurement strategies. However, some participants at the symposium called for greater involvement of the generic industry to provide affordably priced medicines, and questioned the legitimacy of WIPO involvement in public health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Women and the smoking epidemic: Turning the tide","field_subtitle":"Pathania VS: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(3): 162, March 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/3/11-086389.pdf","body":"According to this editorial from the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, most of the literature on gender differences in smoking has focused on differences in traditional sex roles. These roles have translated historically into social norms, such as disapproval of female smoking, and gender-specific personal characteristics, such as greater rebelliousness among men, which is linked to higher smoking rates. However, countries can vary widely in their actual experience with the smoking epidemic. For example, smoking levels among Chinese women have always been low and even dropped during the 20th century. In the 21st century, the situation is changing, the author argues, noting that social norms that slowed the diffusion of smoking among women are diminishing in most parts of the developing world, an unintended consequence of gender empowerment and economic growth, which allow women to freely make choices and furnish them with the economic resources to pursue those choices. A clue to the changing demographics of smokers is found in the narrowing gender gap in the rates of smoking experimentation and adoption among teenagers around the world. The author call for more research on how women view triggers that could lead to smoking adoption, such as peer pressure and role models, how addiction develops in female smokers, and how they weigh the costs and benefits of smoking.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Day: Antimicrobials","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: April 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/world-health-day/2011/world-health-day2011-brochure.pdf","body":"On World Health Day, 7 April 2011, the focus will be on antimicrobials. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the use and misuse of antimicrobials in human medicine and animal husbandry over the past 70 years have increased the number and types of micro organisms resistant to these medicines, causing deaths, greater suffering and disability, and higher health-care costs. If this phenomenon continues unchecked, WHO warns, many infectious diseases risk becoming uncontrollable and could derail progress made towards reaching the health-related United Nations Millennium Development Goals for 2015. Furthermore, the growth of global trade and travel allows resistant organisms to spread worldwide within hours. WHO calls on governments and stakeholders to implement the policies and practices needed to prevent and counter the emergence of highly resistant micro-organisms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Organisation call for papers: Violence against women as a health issue","field_subtitle":"Submissions may be made throughout 2011","field_url":"http://submit.bwho.org","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) is inviting submissions of papers describing research that addresses violence against women. WHO is particularly interested in research with a strong intervention focus, including ways to get violence against women onto different policy agendas, lessons about how to address some of the challenges policy-makers face, and innovative approaches to prevention or service provision, including community-based programmes in both conflict- and crises-affected and more stable settings. Papers may address more neglected forms of violence against women or provide evidence on the costs and cost-effectiveness of intervention responses. Descriptive research that contributes to a better understanding of the global prevalence and costs of violence, or that provides evidence about the root causes of such violence, will also be considered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"World Malaria Report 2010","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/malaria/world_malaria_report_2010/worldmalariareport2010.pdf","body":"This report released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) reveals that a third of 306 anti-malarial medicines collected and tested from six African countries failed to meet international quality standards. Reasons for this failure include insufficient active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), an excess of degradation substances, and poor dissolution. In fact in two samples one of the APIs was totally absent. The countries surveyed were Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania. The quality of anti-malarial medicines varied across countries, from Ethiopia \u2013 where no samples failed quality testing \u2013 to Nigeria, where the highest incidence of failure occurred (64%). This result implies that a patient in Nigeria is more likely to be treated with a substandard anti-malarial than a patient in a country that complies with international quality standards. Failure rates were noticeably low for WHO-prequalified medicines available in these countries (less than 4%) as well as for imported products manufactured by well-established manufacturers. The report concludes that WHO prequalification is a highly effective mechanism for verifying the quality of medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe gets funding for HIV-positive mothers and babies","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 22 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=92005","body":"A US$45 million five-year grant has been awarded to the Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric Foundation (EGPAF) to fund various child HIV interventions in Zimbabwe. Some of this funding is intended for the country\u2019s prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programme, which, according to this article, is performing poorly, as more 150,000 children are estimated to be HIV positive and more than 90% of childhood HIV infections can be attributed to mother-to-child transmission. USAID blamed the high figure on the fact that most children were \u2018getting lost in the system\u2019 because their mothers did not return to clinics for additional maternal and child health services after the initial visit to the antenatal clinic. Financial constraints and lack of knowledge about the importance of registering for antenatal services were identified as major barriers, while long distances from health facilities prevented many women from accessing treatment for their infants. In the article, Plus News argues that the government should implement the 2010 World Health Organisation guidelines on PMTCT, which recommend that all HIV-positive pregnant women begin anti-retroviral treatment at 14 weeks of pregnancy and continue until they stop breastfeeding.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"2011: A perfect storm for global health","field_subtitle":"France T: Inis Communication News, 27 January 2011 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5t9udjf","body":"The author predicts significant adjustments in the global health status quo in the coming year and identifies seven forces that are converging towards what appears to be an inevitable tipping point. Some changes will be gradual, others may appear as sudden shifts. Each of these forces has the potential to make a significant difference in its own right, but as they begin to interact and influence one another, business as usual is an unlikely outcome. Within the health sector the forces include a shift in public health priorities towards maternal and child health, non-communicable diseases, urban health promotion and primary health care renewal, as well as a shift in national health programmes and global public health initiatives from delivering the downstream interventions that constitute traditional health care services towards addressing the social determinants of health. Also included is the increased focus on health system strengthening, and continued growth in domestic health funding, particularly in the middle-income countries that are experiencing economic growth. The author also points to a change in the locus of global health governance, as countries with emerging economies, like Brazil, China, India and South Africa, exert an increasing influence on global health policies and agendas, linking them increasingly to foreign policy priorities. The author predicts other major forces affecting the global health status quo will be the new global financial reality, where international assistance for health will continue to grow, but the new fiscal prudence will bring stringent accountability and demand for aid effectiveness.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A surprising prevention success: Why did the HIV epidemic decline in Zimbabwe?","field_subtitle":"Halperin DT, Mugurungi O, Hallett TB, Muchini B, Campbell B et al: PLoS Med 8(2): 8 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000414","body":"In the context of growing recognition that primary prevention, including behavioural change, must be central in the fight against HIV and AIDS, the authors of this study conducted an extensive multi-disciplinary synthesis of the available data on the causes of the remarkable HIV decline that has occurred in Zimbabwe (29% estimated adult prevalence in 1997 to 16% in 2007) despite severe social, political, and economic disruption in the country. The behavioral changes associated with HIV reduction - mainly reductions in extramarital, commercial and casual sexual relations, and associated reductions in partner concurrency - appear to have been stimulated primarily by increased awareness of AIDS deaths and secondarily by the country's economic deterioration. These changes were probably aided by prevention programs utilising both mass media and church-based, workplace-based, and other inter-personal communication activities, the authors surmise. They conclude that focusing on partner reduction, in addition to promoting condom use for casual sex and other evidence-based approaches, is crucial for developing more effective prevention programmes, especially in regions with generalised HIV epidemics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Accounting for model uncertainty in estimating global burden of disease","field_subtitle":"Vock DM, Atchison EA, Legler JM, McClure DRJ, Carlyle JC, Jeavons EN and Burton AH: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation (89): 112-120, February 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/2/09-073577.pdf","body":"The authors of this study aimed to illustrate the effects of failing to account for model uncertainty when modelling is used to estimate the global burden of disease, with specific application to childhood deaths from rotavirus infection. To estimate the global burden of rotavirus infection, different random-effects meta-analysis and meta-regression models were constructed by varying the stratification criteria and including different combinations of covariates. The models were then compared. The authors found that, in the models they examined, the estimated number of child deaths from rotavirus infection varied between 492,000 and 664,000. While averaging over the different models\u2019 estimates resulted in a modest increase in the estimated number of deaths (541,000 as compared with the World Health Organization\u2019s estimate of 527,000), the width of the 95% confidence interval increased from 105,000 to 198,000 deaths when model uncertainty was taken into account. The authors conclude that sampling variability explains only a portion of the overall uncertainty in a modelled estimate. The uncertainty owing to both the sampling variability and the choice of model(s) should be given when disease burden results are presented. Failure to properly account for uncertainty in disease burden estimates may lead to inappropriate uses of the estimates and inaccurate prioritisation of global health needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS activists outraged by Kenyan minister\u2019s proposal to 'lock up' HIV-positive people","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 31 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91775","body":"Kenyan AIDS activists are demanding a full apology from a Kenyan cabinet minister who recently suggested that isolating HIV-positive people may be the way to eradicate the pandemic. At a 28 January 2011 meeting with members of parliament on HIV and AIDS, Esther Murugi, Minister for Special Programmes, put forward the option of permanently \u2018locking up\u2019 positive people to keep them out of general society. Kenya's National AIDS Control Council falls under the Ministry of Special Programmes. Nelson Otwoma, coordinator of the Network of People living with HIV/AIDS in Kenya, said her comments were highly irresponsible and only contributed to stigma surrounding the disease. She believed that the minister\u2019s comments could prompt a wave of hatred against HIV positive people among \u2018people who might hold a view like hers and who were simply waiting for a trigger\u2019. Jacqueline Sewe, a member of local NGO, Women Fighting AIDS in Kenya (WOFAK), has called on the minister to either publicly apologise to people living with HIV or resign, highlighting the fact that HIV is not a contagious disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Angola to boost polio eradication programme","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 25 January 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=91729","body":"The Angolan government is preparing to renew efforts to eradicate polio with support from global partners, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has made polio eradication its top priority. Angola succeeded in stamping out polio for three consecutive years at the beginning of the century, but a strain of the virus prevalent in India reappeared in 2005 and has since spread to the neighbouring countries of Namibia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo. In 2010, 32 people in Angola contracted the highly infectious and incurable disease. Angola's health system, still recovering from years of war, only managed to fully vaccinate 35% of infants in 2009. According to UNICEF, supplementary immunisation campaigns have been beset by a lack of manpower, technical capacity and planning, particularly in Luanda where most of the polio cases in recent years have been concentrated. Since the war, Luanda's population has boomed, and many of the rural migrants live in cramped conditions with little access to safe water and sanitation. Such conditions are ideal for spreading polio, which is transmitted through faecal-oral contact. During a meeting on 24 January 2011 with Anthony Lake, UNICEF Executive Director, and Tachi Yamada, president of The Gates Foundation's global health programme, Jos\u00e9 Eduardo dos Santos, Angola\u2019s president, reaffirmed the government's commitment to eradicating polio. The government's strategy consists of better surveillance of new polio cases, accelerated routine immunisation of children, better-quality vaccination campaigns and a campaign to promote household water treatment and hygiene.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Anti-Hunger and Food Sovereignty Campaign launched","field_subtitle":"Democratic Left Front: 16 January 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/68sr7mm","body":"The transnational influence in South Africa's economy is argued in this paper to be linked with ecological and economic problems that reflect in increasing hunger and health problems, higher food prices and polluting agro-processing. The Democratic Left Front proposes an Anti-Hunger and Food Sovereignty Campaign to challenge the current reality and politicise the food question in a people-centred way. They propose a campaign that is advanced from the grassroots through participatory processes, to mobilise mass forces against hunger and the way the current agro-processing industry shifts the value away from producers and raises costs for poor communities. They propose an alternative food economy as part of a wider socio-economic change, guided by the principles of solidarity, collective ownership, self-management, democratic control of capital, an eco-centric emphasis, direct community benefit and participatory democracy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Antiretroviral therapy awareness and risky sexual behaviours: Evidence from Mozambique","field_subtitle":"De Walque D and Kazianga H: Centre for Global Development Working Paper 239, 12 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1424741/","body":"The authors of this paper studied how increased access to antiretroviral therapy affects sexual behaviour, using data collected in Mozambique in 2007 and 2008. They surveyed both HIV-positive individuals and households from the general population. The findings support the hypothesis of disinhibition behaviours, where individuals are more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviour when they believe that they will have greater access to better health care, such as antiretroviral therapy. The findings suggest that scaling up access to antiretroviral therapy without prevention programmes may lead to more risky sexual behaviour and ultimately more infections. The authors conclude that with increased antiretroviral availability, prevention programmes need to include educational messages so that individuals know that risky sexual behaviour is still dangerous.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Applications open for membership of the Advisory Group on Funding Priorities","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 20 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.unitaid.eu/","body":"The World Health Organisation and UNITAID are looking for individuals wishing to serve on UNITAID\u2019s Advisory Group on Funding Priorities (AGFP). The AGFP aims to contribute to scaling up access to treatment for HIV and AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis for people in developing countries by leveraging price reductions of quality drugs and diagnostics, which currently are unaffordable for most developing countries, and to accelerate the pace at which they are made available. It is an independent expert panel that assists in identifying \u2013 according to the UNITAID Strategy endorsed by the Board - potential priority niches of high-market and public health impact to be funded by UNITAID. Members of the AGFP are high-level experts with academic or major organisational experience in their fields of work, which will also be the areas of UNITAID's focus. The panel is broadly constituted, comprising members with expertise in the public health aspects of UNITAID\u2019s areas of work, health economics, market dynamics, programme management, health research and new product development. Submissions should be sent to arrive no later than Sunday 20th March 2011.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Are patents impeding medical care and innovation? ","field_subtitle":"Gold ER, Kaplan W, Orbinski J, Harland-Logan S and Marandi S\u201d PLoS Medicine 7(1), 5 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.ploscollections.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000208","body":"The international debate around patents has been largely framed in terms of \u2018protection for\u2019 versus \u2018access to\u2019 intellectual property (IP), according to this article. If the framing of the debate shifts to a focus on research and development, this is likely to strengthen the leverage of developing countries to change the dynamics of IP negotiations in trade agreements, the authors argue. In fact, shifting the entire debate from IP rights to the research and development (R&D) gap may help tackle the fundamental problem of a monopoly-based innovation and access system. One example is nonexclusive licensing practices, such as those used by the not-for-profit Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative. The initiative finances R&D up front and offers the outcome of its research on a nonexclusive basis to generic producers, allowing for technology transfer and competition among multiple producers. Furthermore, universities currently hold important patents on many life-saving drugs, which prompted Universities Allied for Essential Medicines to propose that when a university licenses a promising new drug candidate to a pharmaceutical company, it should require that the company allow the drug to be made available in low income countries at the lowest possible cost. Another alternative to overcoming current patent barriers is the use of patent pools, as proposed by the World Health Organization, M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, and UNITAID. Here, a number of patents held by different entities, such as companies, universities, or research institutes, are pooled and made available to others for production or further development. The patent holders receive royalties that are paid by those who use the patents. The pool manages the licences, the negotiations with patent holders, and the receipt and payment of royalties, in a manner that facilitates access to medicines in low income countries. The author proposes that other innovative policy proposals, such as the Heath Impact Fund (a strategy to create a publicly funded \u2018pot of gold\u2019 that would attract the private sector to create R&D innovations that effectively address priority global heath needs), be implemented. However the author argues that using patents as the financial incentive to encourage the pharmaceutical industry to develop drugs for the world's poor is of limited use, given that the market is nonexistent as neither governments nor patients can afford the end product.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Because I am a girl: The state of the world's girls 2010 ","field_subtitle":"Plan: 2010","field_url":"http://plan-international.org/girls/static/docs/BIAAG_2010_EN2.pdf","body":"This report is the fourth in a series of annual reports published by Plan examining the rights of girls around the world throughout their childhood, adolescence and as young women. The short section regarding the health of girls is based on Plan\u2019s cohort studies in Togo, Benin and Uganda. Their research find that nutritional deficiencies in early childhood are linked to learning difficulties and lower educational attainment. Girls not only faced a daily challenge of poor nutrition, but were more vulnerable to illness and disease. Despite immunisation coverage rates of above 90% of girls, many still face persistent illness. Malaria, for example, continues to affect many girls in Uganda, with the children treated at various times over the year either at the local health centre or the nearest hospital. Plan calls for governments to increase their investment in prevention and treatment of the range ofillnesses that affect girls, like malaria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants for Fondation Ensemble\u2019s Small Grants Fund","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 11 March 2011","field_url":"http://www.fondationensemble.org/amicprog_fond.php","body":"Fondation Ensemble\u2019s Small Grants Fund provides funding in the areas of animal biodiversity, water and sanitation, and sustainable development. The Small Grants Fund of the Foundation represents the 15% of its annual endowment and it has no geographical priorities (proposals can be submitted from around the world). Small and medium-sized NGOs are especially encouraged to apply to this Fund. Please note that half the funds are available for programmes to conserve threatened animal species, while the other half is evenly shared between water and sustainable development projects. The maximum amount of money that will be invested per project by the Foundation is 30,000 Euros. Fondation can provide up to 50% of the total budget. There are two separate application forms under this Fund. For projects relating to water and sustainable development, please note that you should use the Small Grants form.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics ","field_subtitle":"5-19 May 2011: Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.aporde.org.za","body":"The African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE) is a high-level training programme in development economics that aims to build capacity in economics and economic policy-making. The course will run for two weeks and consist of lectures and seminars taught by leading international and African economists. This call is directed at African, Asian and Latin American economists, policy makers and civil society activists who, if selected, will be fully funded. Only 30 applicants will be selected.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for contributions to the World Health Report 2012","field_subtitle":"No closing date given ","field_url":"http://www.ploscollections.org/article/browseIssue.action?issue=info%3Adoi/10.1371/issue.pcol.v01.i09","body":"Plos Medicine and the World Health Organisation (WHO) are calling for contributions to its World Health Report 2012, which will be themed \u2018No Health without research\u2019.  Research in any of the following areas may be submitted: setting and implementing health research priorities; building, strengthening, and retaining research capacity, at both the individual and institutional levels; national research and development initiatives and experiences to produce needed medical products using TRIPS flexibilities; appropriate use of evidence in health policy development; organizing research within a country, including the establishment of effective research networks and sustainable governance mechanisms; standards and mechanisms to ensure the responsible conduct of research; exercises to evaluate the impact of research investments; and external foreign aid for research. Once a paper is accepted for publication in a PLoS journal it will then be forwarded to the selection panel for the collection. This panel, which will comprise PLoS and WHO staff, will decide on the articles for inclusion in the collection.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines","field_subtitle":"No closing date given","field_url":"http://journals.sfu.ca/africanem/index.php/ajtcam /index","body":"The African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines will publish a special issue in 2011 entitled \u2018Reviews of Modern Tools in Traditional Medicines\u2019. Experts may write on any of the following topics: specific case management studies in traditional medicines, traditional medical practice in different systems of traditional medicines, African, Chinese or Indian traditional medicines, complementary and alternative medicines, other systems of traditional medicines, evaluation of herbal products as potential medicines/drugs, clinical trials of herbal medicines, traditional medicines and HIV and AIDS, chemical profiling of herbal medicines, cultivation of medicinal plants, safety evaluation of herbal products/medicines, standardisation of herbal medicines, packaging of herbal products, economics of herbal medicines, and biotechnology and traditional medicines. Accepted papers after review will be published without the usual publication fees. Abstracts of accepted papers may also appear in French. Authors should please read the instructions for authors on the journal\u2019s website in preparing their manuscripts. Papers should be uploaded online on the journal\u2019s website or sent to the editor and marked \u2018Paper for Special Issue\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for participants in consultation on global health priorities","field_subtitle":"Global Health Research Initiative: 2011","field_url":"http://www.conceptsystemsglobal.com/project_home.php?project=257&area=b","body":"Canada\u2019s Global Health Research Initiative (GHRI) is inviting researchers and decision-makers from around the world to participate in an online consultation process to identify global health research priorities. The results of this exercise will be used to inform the development of the next strategic plan of the Global Health Research Initiative and GHRI will also share the results on the Web with the global health community. Filling in the online form should take between eight and ten minutes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Chairperson\u2019s report: Eighth Plenary Meeting of the Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development","field_subtitle":"Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development: December 2010","field_url":"http://www.leadinggroup.org/IMG/pdf_Chairman_summary.pdf","body":"At this meeting, held in Tokyo from 16-17 December 2010, participants took note of the significant positive impact of innovative financing in the health sector including IFFIm, advance market commitment (AMC), the air Ticket levy, and private sector initiatives. New ideas were also introduced like a tobacco tax and new public-private partnerships. The setting up of a dedicated Task force was put forward for consideration. Participants also reconfirmed the necessity of reducing the cost of migrants\u2019 remittances, and the improvement of their impact on development in recipient countries, including through microcredit institutions. For the way forward, participants pledged support for scaling up of initiatives and concrete actions, promising to work within the United Nations (UN) to foster follow up of the UN Resolution on Innovative financing for Development, with special emphasis on least-developed countries. The Group called on the G20 group of nations to give due attention to the potential of innovative financing in its development agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Climate for evidence-informed health systems: A print media analysis in 44 low- and middle-income countries that host knowledge-translation platforms","field_subtitle":"Cheung A, Lavis JN, Hamandi A, El-Jardali F, Sachs J, Sewankambo N and Team K: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(7), 8 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-7.pdf","body":"The authors of this study conducted a print media analysis in 44 countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean to find out whether and how policymakers, stakeholders, and researchers talk in the media about three topics: policy priorities in the health sector, health research evidence, and policy dialogues regarding health issues. In their literature review, the authors identified approximately five times more articles describing health research evidence compared to the number of articles describing policy priorities. Few articles describing health research evidence discussed systematic reviews (2%) or health systems research (2%), and few of the policy dialogue articles discussed researcher involvement (9%). News coverage of these concepts was highly concentrated in several countries like China and Uganda, while few articles were found for many other jurisdictions. The authors conclude that, in many countries of the countries reviewed, the print media (as captured in a global database) are largely silent about these three topics central to evidence-informed health systems. These findings suggest the need for proactive-media engagement strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Contrasting reasons for discontinuation of antiretroviral therapy in workplace and public-sector HIV programmes in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Dahab M, Kielmann K, Charalambous S, Karstaedt AS, Hamilton R and la Grange L: AIDS Patient Care and STDs 25(1): 53-59, January 2011","field_url":"http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/apc.2010.0140","body":"Researchers in this study investigated reasons for clinical follow-up and treatment discontinuation among HIV-infected individuals receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) in a public-sector clinic and in a workplace clinic in South Africa. Participants in a larger cohort study who had discontinued clinical care by the seventh month of treatment were traced using previously provided locator information. Those located were administered a semi-structured questionnaire regarding reasons for discontinuing clinical follow-up. Participants who had discontinued antiretroviral therapy were invited to participate in further in-depth qualitative interviews. Fifty-one of 144 (35.4%) in the workplace cohort had discontinued clinical follow-up by the seventh month of treatment. The median age of those who discontinued follow-up was 46 years and median educational level was five years. By contrast, only 16.5% (44/267) of the public-sector cohort had discontinued follow-up. Among them the median age was 37.5 years and median education was 11 years. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 17 workplace participants and 10 public-sector participants. The main reasons for attrition in the workplace were uncertainty about own HIV status and above the value of ART, poor patient\u2013provider relationships and workplace discrimination. In the public sector, these were moving away and having no money for clinic transport. The authors argue that, in the workplace, efforts to minimise the time between testing and treatment initiation should be balanced with the need to provide adequate baseline counselling taking into account existing concepts about HIV and ART. In the public sector, earlier diagnosis and ART initiation may help to reduce early mortality, while links to government grants may reduce attrition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Dakar 2011: the 11th edition of the World Social Forum is developing an \u201cAfrican Consensus\u201d","field_subtitle":"Afrique Avenir from Development February 17th, 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.afriqueavenir.org/en/2011/02/17/dakar-2011-the-11th-edition-of-the-world-social-forum-is-developing-an-african-consensus/","body":"As part of the 11th edition of the World Social Forum (WSF) in Dakar, African civil society presented the draft of an African Consensus, to spur endogenous development of the continent. The WSF is an initiative of civil society and a democratic meeting place that aims to stimulate debate and deepen the collective thinking. This is a space where all types of social movements come to discuss world problems in a democratic way. Members of the International Committee of the Forum discussed the prospects for social movements to make proposals and alternatives to \"a neoliberal system that is currently going through deep crisis\". Inspired by that of the Himalayas, an innovative approach to development, the \"African Consensus\" refers to the implementation of economic platforms and autonomous enterprises programmes based on local realities, through skills transfer that give a sense of responsibility. Unlike the \"Washington Consensus\", which enhances the immediate liberalization of markets, privatization of enterprises, the elimination of subsidies, the \"African Consensus\" is based on the fact that Africa is not poor, but that it enjoys great wealth and the mosaic of cultures and ethnicity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Davos calls for greater investment in disease prevention for children","field_subtitle":"World Economic Forum: January 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/64bd29b","body":"During a World Economic Forum held from 26-29 January 2011 in Davos, Switzerland a panel discussion was held on children\u2019s health, the first in the history of the Forum. The panel included World Health Organization Director-General, Margaret Chan, who called for universal access to vaccines for preventable diseases, insecticide-treated bed nets for all children living in malaria zones and proper and balanced nutrition for children. It also included Melinda Gates from the Gates Foundation, who called for greater investment in women and frontline health workers, such as community health workers, as well as universal vaccine access for all children. The panel included a number of speakers from the private sector, such as Muhtar A. Kent, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Coca-Cola Company, USA; Lars Rebien Sorensen, President and Chief Executive Officer, Novo Nordisk, Denmark who raised some examples of how product innovation can respond to health needs. While there was pressure for private sector involvement in improving child health globally, there was also critique of insufficient product innovation to make food and other products less harmful to child health; that industry voice and influence in political circles is stronger than that of people working with child health; that cuts to financing of social services are having a negative effect on child health; and the question was asked: \"Can we have healthy children without healthy labour conditions and healthy wages?\" ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing countries concerned over WHO\u2019s finance reform plan ","field_subtitle":"Gopakumar KM and Shashikant S: Third World Network, 28 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/2011/health20110103.htm","body":"Developing countries have highlighted a number of concerns over the reform agenda of \u2018The Future of Financing for WHO\u2019, which was unveiled by the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) at the 128th session of the organization's Executive Board held from 17-25 January. Several developing countries pointed out that health cannot be de-linked from socio-economic development, and voiced strong support for the WHO's role in development and its leadership on global health issues. There was also a call for a transparent process to discuss the reform. While the reform agenda was initially instigated by the need to ensure more predictable and sustainable financing for WHO, proposals for reform that are contained in Director-General Margaret Chan's report suggest a more far-reaching agenda that could lead to significant changes in the role of WHO on matters of public health at the global level. In depating the proposals representatives of several low and middle income countries pointed out that health cannot be de-linked from socio-economic development and WHO cannot be reduced to being a mere technical agency. They also expressed strong support for WHO's role in development and its leadership in global health issues. Civil society groups, including the People\u2019s Health Movement cautioned that public health should not take a back seat to market-led initiatives. Mozambique, on behalf of the African group, stated that reform of the organisation should maintain WHO's leadership position in international health, adding that any debate on financial aspects deserves a wider discussion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion Paper 85: Experiences of implementation of a deprivation-based resource allocation formula in Zambia: 2004\u20132009","field_subtitle":"Chitah BM: Department Of Economics, University Of Zambia, December 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Zambia_RA%20rep%20Dec%202010.pdf","body":"This study was undertaken by University of Zambia within the Health Financing theme work of the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) within a regional programme that is exploring progress in integrating equity into resource allocation. The study was undertaken to update the experiences and progress on the design, review and implementation of an equity-based resource allocation formula in the Zambian health sector. The author found that the formula has only been implemented in partial form, and that second and third generation formulae have not been adjusted in the implementation process. A severe lack of funding for the public health system, whose funding is smaller than the financing for specific health programmes like HIV and AIDS, remains a significant concern. The study makes a number of recommendations. The author calls for more research evaluating the changes in health outcomes, outputs or processes as a consequence of implementing resource allocation formulae. He calls for integration of financing and expansion of the pooled funding for the health sector to raise possibilities for a realistic implementation of the resource allocation formula. Richer districts should not have to risk a revenue reduction. The way to achieve the formula should rather use limited revenue growth in these districts relative to accelerated revenue growth for the poorer districts. A clear time line should be established with regard to the transformation of resource allocation and this should be updated based on emerging evidence. A monitoring and evaluation process should track performance of both resource allocation and health and health care outcomes. Finally, the Ministry of Health should evaluate the effect of structural changes with regard to resource management and performance so as to ensure optimum implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion Paper 86: Regional resources and interactions for evidence based health policy in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, TARSC, ACHEST and ASHGOVNET: February 2011","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss86%20KTP%20Mapping%20RepFeb2011.pdf","body":"The 52nd Health Ministers Conference of the East, Central and Southern African Health Community that took place from 25-29 October 2010 in Harare, Zimbabwe, under the theme: Moving from Knowledge to Action: Harnessing Evidence to Transform Healthcare. The meeting recognised the limited production and use of locally generated evidence to influence policy within the region, and resolved to promote use of evidence in decision making and policy formulation within the region and make more effective links with existing resources and institutions within the region for this. This report provides information to support the connections particularly between regional institutions and regional policy forums. It provides summary information from desk review, internet sites and email follow up on the 25 institutions and networks in East and Southern Africa (ESA) identified that are local to the region and that undertake health policy, strategy, and health systems work at regional level. The report further presents the perceptions from key informant interview of six regional policy institution personnel of the current links with technical institutions in the region, and how they can be improved. The evidence gathered is used to suggest implications for strengthening links between regional technical institutions and regional policy forums. The recommendations identify actions that can be taken with current resources, and those that call for additional investment or re-orientation of resources. The authors welcome feedback and comment on the issues raised, as well as information on other institutions from within the region working at regional level on health policy issues to add to the database compiled.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org Website: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 121: What blocks us from fairly allocating our health care resources?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/ \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. \r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"External funders for small community-based organisations","field_subtitle":"How Matters: 2011","field_url":"http://www.how-matters.org/2011/01/13/small-grants-part-2/","body":"This webpage provides links to external funders that give small, unrestricted grants internationally to directly support community-based organisations and groups. The grants are intended to help small, local organisations firmly establish themselves as civil society institutions within their community. Grants amounts are less than US$20,000.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Eye on the ball: Medicine regulation \u2013 not IP enforcement \u2013 can best deliver quality medicines","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: Briefing Paper 143, 2 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/eye-on-the-ball-medicine-regulation-020211-en.pdf","body":"According to this report by Oxfam, poor-quality, or \u2018substandard\u2019, medicines threaten patients and public health in developing countries. Prioritisation of medicines regulation by developing-country governments, with the technical and financial support of rich countries, is badly needed. However, under the guise of helping to address dangerous and ineffective medicines, rich countries are pushing for new intellectual-property rules and reliance on police \u2013 rather than health regulatory \u2013 action. This approach will not ensure that medicines consistently meet quality standards. Worse, new intellectual property rules can undermine access to affordable generic medicines and damage public health. Oxfam argues. Developing countries must improve medicines regulation \u2013 not expand intellectual-property enforcement \u2013 in order to ensure medicine quality. Oxfam recommends that developed-country governments should expand funding and support for national and regional initiatives that increase the ability of drug-regulatory authorities in developing countries to protect their populations from harmful products, and stop pursuing TRIPS-plus enforcement measures (intellectual property rules that exceed minimum obligations under global trade rules) through internal regulations, multilateral trade initiatives, bilateral trade agreements, or through technical assistance. Developing-country governments should prioritise the expansion of public health-care infrastructure and invest in drug-regulatory authorities' capacity together with the provision of free essential medicines, as well as promote generic competition in national medicines policies, including implementation of TRIPS flexibilities in national laws, and reject initiatives modeled on ACTA, and any other TRIPS-plus enforcement initiatives. Oxfam calls on the  World Health Organisation (WHO) to  prioritise its comprehensive programme of work, which underpins access to affordable, quality medicines for its Member States, and disband IMPACT, the controversial task force that inappropriately uses an intellectual property framework to evaluate the public-health problem of unsafe medicines. Oxfam also calls on pharmaceutical companies to adhere consistently to WHO quality standards and to recognise the damage inflicted on public health as a result of the confusion of quality with intellectual-property issues in initiatives such as IMPACT, and correct this fundamental error in their public statements and documents.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Faith-based organisations and service delivery: Some gender conundrums","field_subtitle":"Tadros M: UNRISD Programme on Gender and Development Paper 11, October 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5t9dpk3","body":"This paper deals specifically with the gender issues that arise in the role of faith-based organisations (FBOs) in service delivery. The author analysed secondary sources on FBOs affiliated to organised religion and other faith movements. The FBO services reviewed were in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and the United States. The author presents no generic conclusions about this diverse group of actors but raises questions about the implications of FBOs as service providers for the advancement of gender equality. She raises questions on the nature of an FBO\u2019s gender agenda, especially because a single organisation often takes different standpoints on various gender issues. Secondly, she questions the way the spiritual and social activities often provided relate to the way FBOs often delineate how women are expected to exercise their agency. She observes that while many FBOs work successfully at grassroots level, this does not necessarily mean that they all emerge from within the community or that they are necessarily \u2018indigenous\u2019. She notes the dilemma women face when the extension of services and assistance is conditional on their conforming to the FBOs\u2019 interpretation of religiously appropriate gender roles and behaviour. Referring to ethnographic studies, she suggests that services may sometimes be used overtly or more subtly to inculcate religious values and ideologies. The complexity and variation in FBOs means that one needs to be cautious about drawing policy conclusions that re applicable to all faith-based actors engaged in service delivery. She rather argues for measures to engage with faith leaders on their gender agendas and the manner in which services take into account embedded partriarchal and other power relations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Family planning in sub-Saharan Africa: Progress or stagnation?","field_subtitle":"Cleland JG, Ndugwa RP and Zulu EM: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation (89): 137-143, February 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/2/10-077925.pdf","body":"The primary objective of this paper was to review progress towards adoption of contraception among married or cohabiting women in western and eastern Africa between 1991 and 2004 by examining subjective need, approval, access and use. Indicators of attitudes towards and use of contraception were derived from Demographic and Health Surveys and trends were examined for 24 countries that had conducted at least two surveys between 1986 and 2007. In western Africa, the subjective need for contraception remained unchanged; about 46% of married or cohabiting women reported a desire to stop and/or postpone childbearing for at least two years. The percentage of women who approved of contraception rose from 32 to 39 and the percentage with access to contraceptive methods rose from 8 to 29. The proportion of women who were using a modern method when interviewed increased from 7 to 15% (equivalent to an average annual increase of 0.6 percentage points). In eastern African countries, trends were much more favourable, with contraceptive use showing an average annual increase of 1.4 percentage points (from 16% in 1986 to 33% in 2007).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"First International HIV Social Science and Humanities Conference: 11-13 June 2011: South Africa","field_subtitle":"Closing date for registration: 4 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.iaohss.org/index.php/register.html","body":"This conference will consider the link between and contributions of the social sciences and humanities to HIV research and action. The International Association of HIV Social Scientists, which is organising the event, argues that social science emphasises a critical, reflexive stance and willingness to confront the social, ethical, and political dimensions of scientific investigations of the HIV epidemic, which has made it instrumental in successful HIV prevention efforts such as the normalisation of condom use against sexual transmission and the introduction of safe injecting equipment for injecting drug use. Social scientific research has also provided insights into issues related to the treatment and care of people living with HIV and AIDS, and has addressed the broader social and political barriers to effective responses to HIV. Yet there have been few forums in which scholars from different social science and humanities disciplines can come together to develop connections among the various phenomena we study, and between ourselves and our biomedical, policy and community based colleagues. This conference is a forum for those keen to extend the scope of the social sciences and its capacity to trace connections between all kinds of phenomenon, notably those that contribute to the complexity and changing nature of the epidemic. Themes include: treatment as prevention, HIV and the body, social epidemiology and social networks, global politics, and responsibility and risk governance, as well as new directions for HIV and AIDS treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Food crisis, household welfare, and HIV/AIDS treatment: Evidence from Mozambique","field_subtitle":"De Walque D, Kazianga H, Over M and Vaillant J: Centre for Global Development Working Paper 238, 6 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1424730/","body":"Using panel data from Mozambique collected in 2007 and 2008, the authors explore the impact of the food crisis on welfare of households with people living with HIV and AIDS. The analysis finds that there has been a real deterioration of welfare in terms of income, food consumption, and nutritional status in Mozambique between 2007 and 2008, among both sets of households. Households with people living with HIV have not suffered more from the crisis than others. Results on the evolution of labour-force participation suggests that initiation of treatment and better services in health facilities have counterbalanced the effect of the crisis by improving the health of patients and their labour-force participation. The authors look at the effect of the change in welfare on the frequency of visits to health facilities and on treatment outcomes. Both variables can proxy for adherence to treatment. This is a particularly crucial issue as it affects both the health of the patient and public health because sub-optimal adherence leads to the development of resistant forms of the virus. The authors find no effect of the change in welfare on the frequency of visits, but they do find that people who experienced a negative income shock also experienced a reduction or a slower progress in treatment outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Food security, price volatility and trade: Some reflections for developing countries","field_subtitle":"Diaz-Bonilla E and Ron JF: International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) Issue Paper 28, 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/63k4awd","body":"The authors have two main policy messages from this study for food security and trade for low and middle income countries. First, as evidence shows that poverty and hunger materialise at household and individual levels, the special and differential treatment for developing countries in trade negotiations at the national and/or crop levels may not be sufficient to reach the households and individuals at risk. Secondly, they argue for a balance between protections that help small producers with protections for poor consumers. They propose increased investments in physical capital and human development, land tenure, water access, technology, infrastructure and general services (such as health and education), especially focusing on poor and female headed households. They call for state support to non-agricultural rural enterprises and also well-designed safety nets, including conditional cash transfers (CCT), school lunches, women and infant nutrition and food-for-work. They propose strengthening of organisations of small farmers and women and supporting their participation in policy and political processes. This is argued to demand financial, human and institutional capacity support.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"From aid to development effectiveness: A working paper","field_subtitle":"Kindornay S: North-South Institute, January 2011","field_url":"http://www.nsi-ins.ca/english/pdf/Kindornay.pdf","body":"In November 2011, the international community will meet in South Korea for the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness. The aim of this paper is to inform and prompt debates on development effectiveness in the lead up to the Forum. The author observes that the concept of development effectiveness responds to many of the criticisms leveled at development efforts historically, such as: narrow focus on aid, rigid and often ineffective and irrelevant measurements of successes and failures, the need to address systemic inequality at the international level and improve partner-country ownership of development, and limited attention to and insufficient understanding of issues relating to power and the root causes of poverty. Development effectiveness could be an important \u2018game changer\u2019 for the international aid effectiveness agenda and have far-reaching implications for global development agendas and priorities, the author of this study argues. Development effectiveness is about more than aid effectiveness, she notes, both in design and substance. Aid effectiveness is still important in this context and will most certainly be a part of a development effectiveness agenda in the short and medium terms. Depending on how it is articulated and operationalised, development effectiveness could lay the foundation for different types of partnerships between external funders, partner-country governments and institutions, civil society organisations, philanthropists, private-sector actors, and citizens, with implications for accountability and implementation mechanisms. A shift to development effectiveness will require different evaluation and monitoring tools, especially if it involves something more than organisational effectiveness. Given these considerations, policymakers should avoid rushing into an international agreement on development effectiveness, the author cautions, to ensure that, when one emerges, it is based on international consensus and can be easily operationalised and communicated not only at the global level but also on the ground in partner countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Gay activist beaten to death in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Human Rights Watch: 27 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/01/27/uganda-promptly-investigate-killing-prominent-lgbt-activist","body":"Human Rights Watch has urged the Uganda Police Force to urgently investigate the murder of David Kato, a prominent gay activist who opposed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill submitted to parliament in 2009. \u2018The government should ensure that members of Uganda's LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] community have adequate protection from violence and take prompt action against all threats or hate speech likely to incite violence, discrimination, or hostility toward them,\u2019 the group said in its statement. Police are investigating the matter and called for gay people who are being harassed to come forward and report these incidents - otherwise the police are not in a position to protect them. However, homosexuality is a criminal offence in Uganda, and reporting harassment to the police is a risk few are willing to take. Only a handful of gay Ugandans are \u2018out of the closet\u2019, with most preferring to live anonymously in a society where homosexuality is taboo. The criminalisation of homosexuality is predicted to have a negative effect on the transmission of HIV in the country, as gay men are unlikely to use health facilities for fear of discrimination and possible legal prosecution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Global plan for artemisinin resistance containment","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization and Roll Back Malaria: January 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/malaria/publications/atoz/artemisinin_resistance_containment_2011.pdf","body":"The world risks losing its most potent treatment for malaria unless steps are quickly taken to prevent the development and spread of drug-resistant parasites, according to this action plan by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Roll Back Malaria partnership (RBM). The plan outlines the necessary actions to contain and prevent resistance to artemisinins, which are the critical component of artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), the most potent weapon in treating falciparum malaria, the deadliest form of the disease. Resistance to artemisinins has already emerged in areas on the Cambodia-Thailand border. Although ACTs are currently more than 90% efficacious around the world, quick action is essential, WHO and RBM argue. If these treatments fail, many countries will have nothing to fall back on. The global plan aims to contain and prevent artemisinin resistance through a five-step action plan. 1. Stop the spread of resistant parasites through a fully funded and implemented malaria control agenda. 2. Increase monitoring and surveillance for artemisinin resistance. 3. Improve access to malaria diagnostic testing and rational treatment with ACTs and reduce unnecessary use of ACTs \u2013 WHO recommends diagnostic testing of all suspected malaria cases prior to treatment. 4. Invest in artemisinin resistance-related research, especially with regard to developing more rapid techniques for detecting resistant parasites, and to developing new classes of antimalarial medicines to eventually replace the ACTs. 5. Motivate action and mobilise resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Grappling with governance: Perspectives on the African Peer Review Mechanism","field_subtitle":"Gruzd S: South African Institute of International Affairs, January 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/63exekf","body":"The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), a tool designed to promote good governance on the continent, is built on the belief that the continent does not lack ideas to advance its development, but that states have struggled to live up to their principles and implement their policies. The APRM rests on the fundamental belief that good governance is a precondition for taking Africa out of its spiral of conflict, underdevelopment, poverty and increasing marginalisation in a globalised world. Looking back almost a decade after the APRM was first conceived, Grappling with Governance explores how this complex process has evolved from theory to practice in a variety of contexts. In a combination of case studies and transversal analysis, multiple voices from different African civil society actors - mainly analysts, activists and journalists - examine the process from their specialised perspective. The chapters tease out what can be learned about governance in Africa from these experiences, and the extent to which the APRM has changed the way that governments and civil society groups engage. This book demonstrates that undergoing review through the APRM can be messy, haphazard and full of reversals. Like any tool, the APRM\u2019s effectiveness depends on the suitability of its design for the task at hand, the situation in which it is used, and the skill of its user. The different authors reflect on these characteristics as users of this tool. While it is ill-advised to draw universal conclusions, this book nevertheless demonstrates that the APRM has added value, sometimes in unexpected ways.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health focus on chronic diseases at Davos","field_subtitle":"World Economic Forum: January 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6f3bobz","body":"At the World Economic Forum, held from 26-29 January 2011 in Davos, Switzerland, the debate on health centred on combating chronic or non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity. A panel was held to discuss the issue, where speakers highlighted the need to redefine \u2018global health\u2019 to include not only infectious diseases such as HIV and AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, but also NCDs. NCDs were noted to cause more than 60% of deaths around the world, of which 80% are in the developing world, yet only about 3% of developmental assistance goes specifically towards chronic disease. The panel discussed the potential of technologies to improve health, such as cellphone technology in monitoring patients\u2019 health. The private sector was argued to have a role in implementing workplace policies to support employees\u2019 health and well-being. The panel called for a diagonal approach blending disease specific programmes with health system strengthening, through specific priorities being used to drive general improvements and to build capacity of the public health sector to meet both current and future health challenges. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Health workforce skill mix and task shifting in low-income countries: A review of recent evidence","field_subtitle":"Fulton BD, Scheffler RM, Sparkes SP, Auh EY, Vujicic M and Soucat A: Human Resources for Health 9(1), 11 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-9-1.pdf","body":"Task shifting, defined as delegating tasks to existing or new cadres with either less training or narrowly tailored training, is a potential strategy to address health worker shortages in low-income countries. This study uses an economics perspective to review the skill mix literature to determine the evidence in favour of task shifting, identify gaps in the evidence and propose a research agenda. Thirty-one studies, primarily from low-income countries and published between 2006 and September 2010, were included. First, the studies provide substantial evidence that task shifting is an important policy option to help alleviate workforce shortages and skill mix imbalances. Second, although task shifting is promising, it can present its own challenges, the authors argue, such as quality and safety concerns, professional and institutional resistance, and the need to sustain motivation and performance. Third, most task shifting studies compare the results of the new cadre with the traditional cadre. Studies also need to compare the new cadre's results to the results from the care that would have been provided - if any care at all - had task shifting not occurred. The authors conclude that task shifting is a promising policy option to increase the productive efficiency of the delivery of health care services, increasing the number of services provided at a given quality and cost. Future studies should examine the development of new professional cadres that evolve with technology and country-specific labour markets. To strengthen the evidence, skill mix changes need to be evaluated with a rigorous research design to estimate the effect on patient health outcomes, quality of care, and costs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV\u2013malaria co-infection: Effects of malaria on the prevalence of HIV in east sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Cuadros DF, Branscum AJ and Crowley PH: International Journal of Epidemiology (advance access), 11 January 2011","field_url":"http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/01/11/ije.dyq256.full.pdf+html","body":"This is the first study to report malaria as a risk factor of concurrent HIV infection at the population level. The authors examined the association between malaria and HIV prevalence in east sub-Saharan Africa. They used large nationally representative samples of 19,735 sexually active adults from the 2003\u201304 HIV and AIDS indicator surveys conducted in Kenya, Malawi and Tanzania, as well as the Atlas Malaria Project, and analysed the relationship between malaria and HIV prevalence, adjusting for important socio-economic and biological cofactors. They found that individuals who live in areas with a high malaria parasite rate are about twice as likely to be HIV positive compared with individuals who live in areas with a low parasite rate. The authors argue that these findings emphasise the need for field studies focused on quantifying the interaction among parasitic infections and risk of HIV infection, as well as studies to explore the impact of control interventions. Public health programmes in the region should be focused on reducing malaria transmission, especially in HIV-infected individuals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How should access to antiretroviral treatment be measured?","field_subtitle":"Johnson LF and Boulle A: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation (89): 157-160, February 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/2/10-080911.pdf","body":"The current globally agreed definition of cumulative anti-retroviral therapy (ART) coverage is expressed as the number of individuals receiving ART at a point in time divided by the number of individuals who are eligible to receive treatment at the same point in time (including those who are already receiving ART). The authors of this paper acknowledge that so far it has proved an invaluable tool for promoting the systematic estimation of ART coverage at country level and for holding countries accountable through reporting requirements, such as those requested by the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS). But, as programmes mature and funding for ART becomes more uncertain, the increasing number of patients on ART included in the definition render the measure increasingly insensitive to annual changes in ART enrolment, the authors argue. In response to the need to expand reporting of ART access to include measures of recent enrolment, they propose a new definition to complement the existing UNGASS definition of ART coverage. The ratio of ART initiation to HIV progression is not only a better reflection of recent programme performance, the authors argue, but also a more robust measure that is less sensitive to model assumptions and to changes in ART eligibility criteria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Illicit financial flows from developing countries: 2000-2009","field_subtitle":"Kar D and Curcio K: Global Financial Integrity, January 2011  ","field_url":"http://www.gfip.org/storage/gfip/documents/reports/IFF2010/gfi_iff_update_report-web.pdf","body":"This report is an update of Global Financial Integrity\u2019s 2008 report, which found that developing countries lost between US$859 billion and US$1.06 trillion in illicit financial outflows in 2006. On the same basis, this report finds that illicit outflows increased to between US$1.26 and US$1.44 trillion in 2008 and that, on average, developing countries lost from US$725 billion to US$810 billion per year over the nine-year period, 2000-2008. Globally, illicit flows increased by 18% per annum from US$369.3 billion at the start of the decade to US$1.26 trillion in 2008. When adjusted for inflation, the real growth of such outflows was 12.7%. Illicit flows from Africa grew by 21.9% over the nine years, representing 4.5% of total illicit flows. Trade mispricing accounts for 54.7% of cumulative illicit flows from developing countries, according to the report, which identifies bribery, theft, kickbacks and corporate tax evasion as other significant sources of illicit flows.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Imprisoned and imperiled: Access to HIV and TB prevention and treatment, and denial of human rights, in Zambian prisons","field_subtitle":"Todrys KW, Amon JJ, Malembeka G, Clayton M: Journal of the International AIDS Society 14(8), 11 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-14-8.pdf","body":"Although HIV and tuberculosis (TB) prevalence are high in prisons throughout sub-Saharan Africa, little research has been conducted on factors related to prevention, testing and treatment services. To better understand the relationship between prison conditions, the criminal justice system, and HIV and TB in Zambian prisons, the authors of this study conducted facility assessments and in-depth interviews with 246 prisoners and 30 prison officers at six Zambian prisons, as well as 46 key informant interviews with government and non-governmental organisation officials and representatives of international agencies and external funders. A review of Zambian legislation and policy governing prisons and the criminal justice system was also conducted. The findings indicated serious barriers to HIV and TB prevention and treatment, and extended pre-trial detention that contributed to overcrowded conditions. Disparities both between prisons and among different categories of prisoners within prisons were noted, with juveniles, women, pre-trial detainees and immigration detainees significantly less likely to access health services. The authors call on the government to make immediate improvements to the situation and they recommend that external funders to co-operate with the Zambian government to ensure that funding in such areas as health services respect human rights standards.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Innovative financing : It is now time for action","field_subtitle":"Kouchner B, Okada K and Michel C: The Leading Group, 7 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.leadinggroup.org/article709.html","body":"The authors of this study, who represent France, Japan and Belgium, identify current measures of innovative financing as including taxes on airline tickets to finance access to essential medicines through UNITAID, an innovative financing fund hosted by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and bonds secured by government pledges to finance immunisation (GAVI). Such measures have made it possible to mobilise resources to fight against the three major infectious diseases (HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria) and to scale up immunisation programmes, the authors argue. They have produced remarkable results. Moreover, efforts to encourage voluntary contributions such as donations by citizens, consumers and companies have been made. The Doha Conference in November 2008 called on the world to expand the scope of innovative development financing. New instruments that are based on global activities are becoming available, as well as broad-based financing that could, through numerous miniscule contributions, change the public health financing landscape, if properly coordinated. Before the UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals in September 2010, France, Japan and Belgium agreed to endeavour to make more countries understand the importance of innovative development financing, whose success has already generated more than US$3 billion since 2006. As a step towards achieving this aim, the countries established a Taskforce on International Financial Transactions for Development in October 2009 with two objectives: to come up with a shared analysis of what is feasible and to make concrete, realistic proposals. The authors caution that developing countries can no longer rely on traditional overseas development assistance. Instead, the challenge ahead is to design an innovative mechanism based on strict governance and allocation criteria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenyan High Court enjoins UN in case against generic ARVs ban","field_subtitle":"Kwamboka E: The Standard: 17 January 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/InsidePage.php?id=2000026980&cid=4","body":"The United Nations (UN) has been enjoined in a case that claims that enforcement of the Anti-Counterfeit Act 2008 would endanger lives due to limits to access to affordable and essential drugs. The Special Rapporteur from the UN, Mr Anand Grover, intervened in the suit as an interested party to support the constitutional principles of access to essential medicines. The court allowed the importation of generic anti-retrovirals (ARVs), pending the hearing and determination of this case. The interim order issued in April 2010 was aimed at saving the lives of those living with the virus by stopping implementation of three sections of the new Anti-Counterfeit Act, which was enacted by Parliament in 2008. While the objective of the Act was to prohibit trade in counterfeit goods, advocate Omwanza told the court if implemented the clauses would deny people using ARVs access to affordable and essential medication necessary for their fulfillment of the right to life, as enshrined in the Constitution. Although generic drugs for the treatment of HIV and AIDS are available and affordable, the advocate argued that if implemented the clauses would force government to buy more expensive branded medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternity at work: A review of national legislation","field_subtitle":"International Labour Organization : 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5swg5dl","body":"Maternity protection for women workers is essential for ensuring women's access to equality of opportunity and treatment in the workplace, the International Labour Organization (ILO) argues in this review. Maternity protection also contributes to the health and well-being of mothers and their babies, and may thereby be linked to the achievement of Millennium Development Goal 3 (promoting gender equality and women's empowerment) and Goals 4 and 5 on the reduction of child mortality and improvement of the health of mothers. This updated review of national legislative provisions for maternity protection in 167 ILO member states assesses how well countries\u2019 provisions conform to the ILO Maternity Protection Convention of 2000 and its accompanying recommendation no. 191. The review shows that, over the last 15 years, there have been noticeable improvements in maternity protection legislation around the world, with a shift towards longer rest periods at the time of childbirth, and movement away from employer liability systems of financing maternity leaves. The report focuses on the key aspects of maternity leave provisions: the duration, the benefit paid and the source of the funding, as well as other kinds of leave provision, safeguards on employment, health and safety, and breastfeeding. There are also annexes containing information on maternity provisions by region and country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring adherence to antiretroviral therapy in northern Tanzania: Feasibility and acceptability of the Medication Event Monitoring System","field_subtitle":"Lyimo RA, van den Boogaard J, Msoka E, Hospers HJ, van der Ven A, Mushi D and de Bruin M: BMC Public Health 11(92), 9 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-11-92.pdf","body":"An often-used tool to measure adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) is the Medication Event Monitoring System (MEMS), an electronic pill-cap that registers date and time of pill-bottle openings. Despite its strengths, MEMS-data can be compromised by inaccurate use and acceptability problems due to its design. These barriers remain, however, to be investigated in resource-limited settings. The authors of this study evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of using MEMS-caps to monitor adherence among HIV-infected patients attending a rural clinic in Tanzania's Kilimanjaro Region. Eligible patients were approached and asked to use the MEMS-caps for three consecutive months. Thereafter, qualitative, in-depth interviews about the use of MEMS were conducted with the patients. Twenty-three of the 24 patients approached agreed to participate. Apart from MEMS-use on travel occasions, patients reported no barriers regarding MEMS-use. Unexpectedly, the MEMS-bottle design reduced the patients' fear for HIV-status disclosure. Patients indicated that having their behavior monitored motivated them to adhere better. MEMS-data showed that most patients had high levels of adherence and there were no bottle-openings that could not be accounted for by medication intake. Non-adherence in the days prior to clinic visits was common and due to the clinic dispensing too few pills. The authors conclude that MEMS-bottle use was readily accepted by patients, but patients need to be more explicitly instructed to continue MEMS-use when travelling. In addition, even if HIV clinics have sufficient staff and free medication, supplying an insufficient amount of pills may impose adherence barriers on patients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Nagoya Protocol may impact on WHO\u2019s influenza preparedness negotiations","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 7 February 2011 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/65zh7le","body":"The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising, adopted on 29 October 2010 and the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD), both have implications for the WHO intergovernmental dialogue on influenza preparedness and virus sharing.  Article 8 requires countries to \u2018pay due regard\u2019 to \u2018cases of present or imminent emergencies that threaten or damage human, animal or plan health\u2019. Article 4 calls for \u2018due regard\u2019 to be paid to ongoing work or practices, provided such work or practices are supportive of and do not run counter to the objectives of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Protocol. The CBD and protocol are important as they have a legally binding status as they are treaties. Notably the United States is not party to the CBD. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Navigating a perfect storm","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET newsletter","field_url":"","body":"In this issue of the newsletter one author claims that this may be a year of a \u2018perfect storm\u2019 in health, where increased knowledge, widening health priorities, new institutional coalitions, economic challenges and innovations coalesce to create new ways of doing things. Some of these new approaches could advance health equity. For example in this newsletter there are contributions that call for a shift in focus from intellectual property as a stimulus for innovation in health technology to innovative policies for equity in research and development; from aid effectiveness to development effectiveness; or from downstream medical interventions to more upstream measures addressing the population-level determinants of ill health. Debates at the recent WHO Executive Board on reform of the organisation raised issues of equity in its leadership, organisation and funding. At the recently held World Social Forum, an \u2018African Consensus\u2019 presented alternative thinking about the continent and its economic and social development to the rapid liberalization and privatization policies of the \u2018Washington Consensus\u2019. Bona Chitah's editorial suggests that translating new thinking into health equity outcomes calls for feasible technical options, but more deeply demands an ethical foundation that is clear, shared and strong enough to navigate and sustain implementation, whatever the tide. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"New rules eyed for election of WHO Director-General","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 18 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2011/01/18/new-rules-eyed-for-election-of-who-director-general/","body":"With the current World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General\u2019s term of office ending in June 2012, WHO members have set up a drafting group to try to reconcile divergent views on the process leading to the election. At the WHO Executive Board meeting, which ran from 17-25 January 2011, some countries were in favour of geographical rotation, citing over 60 years of no representation from their regions, while others objected that rotation should not override more important selection criteria such as expertise and experience, as it could endanger the organisation\u2019s future. A draft resolution on the rules of procedure for the appointment of the WHO Director-General (DG) was proposed by Burundi on behalf of the member states of the African region, asking for the Executive Board to approve the principle of geographical rotation of the post of DG among the six regions of WHO, namely Africa, the Americas, South-East Asia, Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Pacific. In this draft resolution, Burundi stressed the need for further strengthening of guarantees of transparency and equity among the six geographical regions of the WHO in the process of nominating and appointing the DG. The proposed document stirred a debate that some countries said has been on the table since 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Online database of research accountability tools","field_subtitle":"One World Trust: November 2010","field_url":"http://www.oneworldtrust.org/apro/","body":"The One World Trust (OWT), with support from the International Development Research Centre, has created an interactive, online database of tools to help organisations conducting policy relevant research become more accountable. OWT believes policy-relevant research and innovation must continually take into account and balance the needs of a diverse set of stakeholders: from the intended research users, to their clients and donors, to the research community and the research participants. Responsiveness to all of these is crucial if they are to be legitimate and effective. In this, accountable processes are as important as high quality research products. OWT has built the online accountability database to support researchers, campaigners and research managers to think through the way they use evidence to influence policy in an accountable way. The database provides an inventory of over two hundred tools, standards and processes within a broad, overarching accountability framework. Each tool is supported by sources and further reading.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Online tool to help doctors make treatment decisions for drug resistant HIV-positive patients","field_subtitle":"Response Data Initiative: 2010","field_url":"http://www.hivrdi.org/","body":"This online resource can help doctors select the most effective combination of anti-HIV drugs for patients with extensive experience of antiretroviral therapy. The HIV Resistance Response Database Initiative is a not-for-profit organisation with the mission of improving the clinical management of HIV infection through the application of bioinformatics to HIV drug resistance and treatment outcome data. The RDI has three specific goals: to be an independent repository of HIV resistance and treatment outcome data; to use bioinformatics to explore the relationships between resistance, other clinical and laboratory factors and HIV treatment outcome; and to develop and make freely available a system to predict treatment response, as an aid to optimising and individualising the clinical management of HIV infection. The HIV Treatment Response Prediction System is based on a computer model that includes information gathered from 65,000 HIV-positive patients across the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Paid care workers in Tanzania: A general description of nurses and home-based care givers","field_subtitle":"Meena R: UNRISD Research Report, 4 May 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6ax7lcg","body":"The author of this study assessed the situation of nurses and home-based care givers in Tanzania and found a number of challenges.  Most non-household care services for PLWHAs were found to be carried out by a few civil society organisations, which are heavily reliant on external funding and the labour of volunteers, mostly women. This dependency on external funding and volunteer labour is argued to threaten the sustainability of the HBC programme. Volunteers include retired nurses, PLWHAs and poor women, who subsidise the cost of care out of their pockets by helping PLWHAs, such as with transport to clinics. Within the health workforce, the nursing cadre (the majority of whom are women) carry a disproportionate burden of care without adequate compensation, with gaps in provision of proper protective gear and allowances for HBC nurses not adequately covering transport costs and other hidden expenses. The authors note that this gap could be addressed, but many district councils do not have capacity to utilise the AIDS money allocated to them. They conclude that the HBC programme appears to have created unexpected financial burdens for households, and for paid HBC employees and volunteers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Pan-African Symposium on Infectious Diseases","field_subtitle":"9-11 May 2011: Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.africahealthexhibition.com/Site-Root /Forms/ConferenceEnquiryForm/","body":"This symposium will consider infectious diseases in Africa, including bacterial, viral, fungal and parasitic diseases, which comprise a major cause of death, disability, and social and economic disruption for millions of people in Africa\u2019s developing countries. This conference will aim to look at the borderless effect of infection, its impact on children and the importance of intervention. International speakers will talk about how to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases and discuss new diagnostics vaccines and drug treatments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Partnering to keep health workers in the communities that need them","field_subtitle":"Dwyer S: Capacity Plus, January 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.capacityplus.org/sites/intrah.civicactions.net/files/resources/Voices_2_WHO.pdf","body":"With increased global attention on health worker retention, this analysis of the current situation finds a diversity of country contexts and situations that affect health worker retention and proposes that policy-makers develop a tailored bundle of interventions to attract health workers to rural service and encourage them to stay that are most appropriate for their own context and situation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Patient satisfaction, feasibility and reliability of the satisfaction questionnaire among patients with pulmonary tuberculosis in urban Uganda: A cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Babikako HM, Neuhauser D, Katamba A and Mupere E: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(6), 31 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-6.pdf","body":"The objective of this study was to establish the feasibility and reliability of a questionnaire for healthcare service satisfaction and a questionnaire for satisfaction with information received about TB medicines among adult TB patients attending public and private programme clinics in Kampala, Uganda. Researchers recruited 133 patients of known HIV status and confirmed pulmonary TB who were receiving care at public and private hospitals in Kampala, Uganda. A translated and standardised 13-item patient healthcare service satisfaction questionnaire (PS-13) and the Satisfaction with Information about Medicines Scale (SIMS) tool were administered by trained interviewers. Of the 133 participants, 35% were starting, 33% had completed two months, and 32% had completed eight months of TB therapy. The male to female and public to private hospital ratios in the study population were 1:1. The PS-13 and the SIMS tools were highly acceptable and easily administered. Patients that were enrolled at the public hospital had relatively lower PS-13 satisfaction scores for technical quality of care and responsiveness to patient preferences when compared to patients that were enrolled at the private hospital. The authors conclude that their study provides preliminary evidence that the PS-13 service satisfaction and the SIMS tools are reliable measures of patient satisfaction in TB programmes. Satisfaction score findings suggest differences in patient satisfaction levels between public and private hospitals, as well as between patients starting and those completing TB therapy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Performance-based financing: Just a donor fad or a catalyst towards comprehensive health-care reform?","field_subtitle":"Meessen B, Soucat A and Sekabaraga C: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation (89): 153-156, February 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/2/10-077339.pdf","body":"Critics of performance-based financing suggest that it may be a fad of external funders, with limited potential to improve service delivery. Most critics view it solely as a provider payment mechanism. The authors of this article argue that performance-based financing can catalyse comprehensive reforms and help address structural problems of public health services, such as low responsiveness, inefficiency and inequity. The emergence of performance-based financing in Africa may profoundly transform the public sectors of the low-income countries in the region. However, the authors caution on the limits to performance-based financing, particularly as some dimensions of performance are difficult to measure and, therefore, to remunerate. More classical support and mechanisms will remain crucial for strengthening health systems in low-income countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty in numbers: The changing state of global poverty from 2005 to 2015","field_subtitle":"Chandy L and Gertz G: Brookings Institution, January 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6zs4bev","body":"This study uses updated global poverty estimates to infer that nearly half a billion people escaped extreme poverty in the five years from 2005 to 2010. However the gains have not been equally distributed, globally.  Between 2005 and 2015, Asia\u2019s share of global poverty is expected to fall from two-thirds to one-third, while Africa\u2019s share will more than double from 28% to 60%. Although sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s poverty rate had by 2010 fallen to below 50% for the first time and is projected to fall below 40% by 2015, at global level the authors argue that the share of the world\u2019s poor people living in fragile states is rising sharply and will exceed 50% by 2014. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevalence of latent tuberculosis infection among gold miners in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Hanifa Y, Grant AD, Lewis J, Corbett EL, Fielding K and Churchyard G: International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease 13(1):39-46, January 2009","field_url":"http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iuatld/ijtld/2009/00000013/00000001/art00008","body":"This paper reports on the prevalence of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) and risk factors for a positive tuberculin skin test (TST) among gold miners in South African gold mines. Among 429 participants, the estimated prevalence of LTBI was 89%; 45.5% of HIV-positive participants had a zero TST response compared to respectively 13% and 13.5% in the HIV-negative and status unknown participants. In participants with TST > 0, there was no significant difference between size of response by HIV status. Factors independently associated with a TST < 10 mm were positive HIV status and not working underground. The authors conclude that the prevalence of LTBI is very high in gold miners in South Africa. HIV-infected individuals are more likely to have a negative TST, but HIV infection does not affect the size of TST response.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Pushing HIV on to the Uganda presidential candidates' agenda","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 16 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91941","body":"Civil society activists say Uganda's presidential candidates have not placed sufficient emphasis on how they plan to tackle the HIV and AIDS epidemic should they come into office, despite rising HIV prevalence and major funding problems. Critics maintain there is not enough focus on HIV and AIDs in the election, with candidates\u2019 manifestos mostly making general statements on health. Local civil society activists have lobbied all major political parties to commit to a \u2018ten-point platform\u2019 to fight HIV and AIDS, which includes commitments to fully fund the fight against HIV, increase the number of health workers and end corruption in the health sector. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Questionnaire for shaping the agenda of the Geneva Health Forum 2012","field_subtitle":"Geneva Health Forum: February 2011","field_url":"http://questio.hcuge.ch/ghf/ghfthemes2012/ghfthemes2012.hyp?lang=EN&query=input&format=html","body":"The Geneva Health Forum is calling for public participation to help refine the agenda for the next Geneva Health Forum in 2012. All interested parties are invited to complete their questionnaire to help determine what will be the focus of the next Forum. Participants will be asked to rank four themes and give suggestions on what must be addressed at the GHF 2012. The four themes are: urbanisation and access to health; gender and global access to health ; chronic diseases and access to services ; and empowerment and self-reliance for individuals and communities. The questionnaire should take only a minute to complete.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Reflecting on 20 years of the Human Development Report","field_subtitle":"International Development Research Centre (IDRC): November 2010","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-159739-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html","body":"The first Human Development Report was released in 1990 and the 2010 edition marked the 20th anniversary of these annual United Nations Development Programme reports.  A panel discussion at the report\u2019s launch in early November 2010 discussed the findings of the report. David Morrison, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Capital Development Fund, noted how approaches in development 20 ago equated with economic growth and how this has changed, as people have become aware that any measurement of well-being should include opportunities for education and health, and the ability to use knowledge to shape one\u2019s destiny. The panellists highlighted the innovative ways the report continues to measure poverty, including this year\u2019s addition of three new indices, which allow researchers more leeway to compare findings. One of the new measures is the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), a tool which aims to give a more accurate picture of acute poverty than traditional \u2018dollar-a-day\u2019 measures by considering indicators of health, education, and standard of living, in addition to income. One advantage of the tool is it indicates the source of poverty, giving policy makers some insight about causes and manifestations of poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Research on health transition in Africa: Time for action ","field_subtitle":"Maher D and Sekajugo J: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(5), 28 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-5.pdf","body":"With rapidly increasing globalisation, trends towards unhealthy diets, obesity, sedentary lifestyles and unhealthy habits are resulting in an increased worldwide burden of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs). In Africa this means that health systems face the challenge of an increasing burden of NCDs as well as continuing high morbidity and mortality from communicable diseases. This health transition represents an enormous challenge to Africa as the region with the least resources for an effective response, the authors of this paper argue. As previous epidemics, including HIV, have caught Africa unprepared, they urge the health community to plan ahead for health transition in Africa. Health research is identified as having a key role to play in meeting health and development goals, and must be responsive to changing disease patterns, such as health transition. Key areas for further research suggested in this paper include: epidemiological research so that a good understanding of the distribution in Africa of communicable and non-communicable diseases can inform health planning; research on the interactions between communicable and non-communicable diseases; health system research with a particular focus on new approaches to improve the primary care response to health transition; and policy research to evaluate the more upstream measures addressing the population-level determinants of NCDs. The authors call on government and public health stakeholders to capitalise on the global policy environment, which is becoming more favourable to action on health transition in Africa, and implement a research agenda for health transition. Alliances have a key role to play in Africa as well as in other regions in implementing the research agenda on health transition by building research capacity and mobilising the necessary investments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Seasonal and geographic differences in treatment-seeking and household cost of febrile illness among children in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Ewing VL, Lalloo DG, Phiri KS, Roca-Feltrer A, Mangham LJ and San Joaquin MA: Malaria Journal 10(32), 8 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-10-32.pdf","body":"Households in malaria endemic countries experience considerable costs in accessing formal health facilities because of childhood malaria. The Ministry of Health in Malawi has defined certain villages as hard-to-reach (HTR) on the basis of either their distance from health facilities or inaccessibility. Some of these villages have been assigned a community health worker, responsible for referring febrile children to a health facility. In this study, researchers compared health facility utilisation and household costs of attending a health facility between individuals living near the district hospital and those in HTR villages. Two cross-sectional household surveys were conducted in the Chikhwawa district of Malawi; one during each of the wet and dry seasons. Half the participating villages were located near the hospital, the others were in HTR areas. The researchers found that those people living in HTR villages were less likely to attend a formal health facility compared to those living near the hospital. Analyses including community health workers (CHWs) as a source of formal health-care decreased the strength of this relationship, and suggested that consulting a CHW may reduce attendance at health facilities, even if indicated. Household costs for those who attended a health facility were greater for those in HTR villages than for those living near the district hospital. The researchers call on health service planners to consider geographic and financial barriers to accessing public health facilities in designing appropriate interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Second Conference of The African Health Economics and Policy Association","field_subtitle":"15-17 March 2011: Senegal ","field_url":"http://afhea.org/","body":"The Second Conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) will be held in Saly Portudal (Palm Beach), Senegal from 15-17 March 2011. The overall theme of this conference is \u2018Toward universal health coverage in Africa\u2019. Universal coverage is understood to mean providing financial protection against health care costs for all, as well as ensuring access to quality health care for all when needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Sensitivity of hospital-based surveillance for severe disease: A geographic information system analysis of access to care in Kilifi district, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Mo\u00efsi JC, Nokes DJ, Gatakaa H, Williams TN, Bauni E, Levine OS and Scott JAG: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation (89): 102-111, February 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/entity/bulletin/volumes/89/2/10-080796.pdf","body":"The authors of this study set out to explore the relationship between homestead distance to hospital and access to care and to estimate the sensitivity of hospital-based surveillance in Kilifi district, Kenya. In 2002\u20132006, clinical information was obtained from all children admitted to Kilifi District Hospital and linked to demographic surveillance data. Travel times to the hospital were calculated and the relationships between travel time, cause-specific hospitalization rates and probability of death in hospital were examined. The analysis included 7,200 admissions (64 per 1,000 child-years). Median pedestrian and vehicular travel times to hospital were 237 and 61 minutes, respectively. Hospitalisation rates decreased by 21% per hour of travel by foot and 28% per half hour of travel by vehicle. Distance was positively associated with the probability of dying in hospital. In this setting, hospital utilisation rates decreased and the severity of cases admitted to hospital increased as distance between homestead and hospital increased. Access to hospital care for children living in remote areas was low, particularly for those with less severe conditions. Distance decay was attenuated by increased levels of maternal education. Hospital-based surveillance underestimated pneumonia and meningitis incidence by more than 45% and 30%, respectively, the researchers found.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Sixth International ISEqH Conference: Making policy a health equity building process","field_subtitle":"Cartagena De Indias, Colombia: 26-28 September, 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.iseqh.org/congreso.html","body":"The International Society for Equity in Health- ISEqH - will hold its 6th International Conference: Making Policy a Health Equity Building Process in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia - September 26-28, 2011. Equity is an important issue to champion for, however nobody disagrees with it because is too broad. The conferebce aims to provide more detail, to be more specific and, at the same time, offer a multi-disciplinary look. The organisers call for submissions for organised sessions by 4 March and individual abstracts by 15 April 2011. All participants are invited to submit an abstract for symposia and/or oral and/or poster presentations to abstracts@iseqh.org. It is not necessary to be a member of the International Society for Equity in Health to submit an abstract.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"South African government to launch regional aid agency","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 17 January 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91651","body":"South Africa is set to launch its own development aid agency in 2011. The South African Development Partnership Agency is expected to become operational before mid-2011 and will work with other external funding agencies to coordinate development programmes, mainly on the African continent. Although the government is hoping for contributions from the private sector, most of the funding will come from public money, according to Ayanda Ntsaluba, Director-General of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation. Since 2001, the South African government has channelled its aid contributions through the African Renaissance Fund (ARF), which is administered by the department. Much of the assistance provided by the ARF has focused on conflict resolution and peacekeeping in various countries, including Mali, Zimbabwe, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, transparency and accountability was problematic and Ntsaluba conceded that the tracking of ARF funds had not been optimal. Although the mandate for the new agency was still in draft form, he said South Africa would continue providing assistance to countries recovering from conflict. He assured critics that the new agency would be set up as a separate institution, with the administrative capacity to track and oversee all the programmes it funded.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategic Leadership Course in Global Health Diplomacy in East, Central and Southern Africa, Nairobi, 14th to 18th March 2011","field_subtitle":"ECSA Health Community, University of Nairobi, Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation Kenya, EQUINET, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies","field_url":"","body":"The course will bring together senior officers from the health and related sectors in the East, Central and Sothern Africa-Health Community region (ECSA-HC). The need to build capacity and create strategic leadership in global health diplomacy is clearly manifest in the performance of the regional delegations in regional and global fora. The purpose of the course is to introduce, provide an overview and share information on Global Health Diplomacy, discuss key issues and challenges for GHD for the region and hear inputs about other regions on their response to these challenges. The participant will discuss an assessment of institutional capacities and needs, information resources and sources at regional and country level support for Global Health Diplomacy. The facilitation at the course will also enable the participants to share and enhance their negotiation GDH negotiation skills. This course has been developed in close cooperation between the School of Public Health-University of Nairobi, the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation Kenya, ECSA-Health Community Secretariat, the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET), and the Global Health Programme with support from Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Geneva. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania records dismal score on MDGs four years to deadline","field_subtitle":"Qorro E: The Citizen, 30 January 2011 ","field_url":"http://thecitizen.co.tz/sunday-citizen/-/7792-tanzania-records-dismal-score-on-mdgs-four-years-to-deadline","body":"With four years to go, Tanzania still lags behind other East African countries towards the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to this article, only surpassing war-torn Burundi. The minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Haji Mponda, admitted that he was aware of the problem and expressed the government\u2019s willingness to ensure that some of the targets are fully realised by 2015. He highlighted the achievements made by the government, specifically in 2007, when the rate of HIV prevalence dropped from 7% to 5% and that of 2004 to 2005, when the number of maternal deaths went down from 98 to 51 out of every 1,000 deaths. The report comes exactly 10 years since the UN's adoption of the goals and twenty years since the recording of most baseline data surface. Despite an extraordinary public campaign to mobilize support for the MDGs, there has been surprisingly little effort to track, record, and disseminate information regarding progress toward the goals at the country level, the authors of the report argued. Reacting to Tanzania\u2019s poor performance, the head of Twaweza, an information advocacy organization, expressed concern that Tanzania still lagged behind its peer East African neighbours. He challenged the government to review each of the eight MDGs by involving stakeholders in health, poverty reduction, environment and other sectors that are related to the MDGs.  He also called for independent evaluation bodies of these strategies, with stakeholders involved and not just the government officials and added reports ought to be made available in the public domain, so that citizens know where the country is headed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The case for reactive mass oral cholera vaccinations","field_subtitle":"Reyburn R, Deen JL, Grais RF, Bhattacharya SK, Sur D, Lopez AL et al: Neglected Tropical Diseases, 25 Jan 2011","field_url":"http://www.plosntds.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pntd.0000952","body":"Despite more than half a century of advocacy for safe water, sanitation and hygiene, approximately 100,000 cholera cases and 5,000 deaths were reported in Zimbabwe between August 2008 and by July 2009. Safe and effective oral cholera vaccines have been licensed and used by affluent tourists for more than a decade to prevent cholera. The authors of this study investigated whether oral cholera vaccines could be used to protect high risk populations at a time of cholera. They calculated how many cholera cases could have been prevented if mass cholera vaccinations would have been implemented in reaction to past cholera outbreaks, estimating that determined, well-organised mass vaccination campaigns could have prevented 34,900 (40%) cholera cases and 1,695 deaths (40%) in Zimbabwe. They identify barriers to implementation of mass vaccinations, particularly the cost of the vaccine.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of the National HIV Health Care Worker Hotline on patient care in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Chisholm BS, Cohen K, Blockman M, Kinkel H, Kredo TJ and Swart AM: AIDS Research and Therapy 8(4), 26 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.aidsrestherapy.com/content/pdf/1742-6405-8-4.pdf","body":"In South Africa, many health care workers managing HIV-infected patients - particularly those in rural areas and primary care health facilities - have minimal access to information resources and to advice and support from experienced clinicians. The Medicines Information Centre, based in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Cape Town, has been running the National HIV Health Care Worker (HCW) Hotline since 2008, providing free information for HIV treatment-related queries via telephone, fax and e-mail. This questionnaire-based study showed that 224 (44%) of the 511 calls that were received by the hotline during the two-month study period were patient-specific. Ninety-four completed questionnaires were included in the analysis. Of these, 72 (77%) were from doctors, 13 (14%) from pharmacists and 9 (10%) from nurses. Ninety-six percent of the callers surveyed took an action based on the advice they received from the National HIV HCW Hotline. Most of the queries concerned the start, dose adaptation, change or discontinuation of medicines. Less frequent actions taken were adherence and lifestyle counselling, further investigations, referring or admission of patients. The authors of this study conclude that the information provided by the National HIV HCW Hotline on patient-specific requests has a direct positive impact on the management of patients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The International Monetary Fund and aid displacement","field_subtitle":"Stuckler D, Basu S and McKee M: International Journal of Health Services 41(1): 67-76, 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6hox89o","body":"The authors of this paper reviewed aid to health and borrowing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) between 1996 and 2006. They found that, on average, for each US$1 of development assistance for health, only about $0.37 is added to the health system. In their comparison of IMF-borrowing versus non-IMF-borrowing countries, non-borrowers add about $0.45 whereas borrowers add less than $0.01 to the health system. Health system spending grew at about half the speed when countries were exposed to the IMF than when they were not.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Joint Africa-EU Strategy: Quo vadis after Tripoli?","field_subtitle":"Faria F and Laporte G: Trade Negotiations Insights 10(9), December 2010-January 2011","field_url":"http://www.acp-eu-trade.org/library/files/tni_en_9-10.pdf","body":"This article looks at the main challenges to European Union-Africa relations in light of the EU-Africa summit held in Tripoli, Libya from 29-30 November 2010. The Tripoli meeting marked the third Africa-EU Summit since 2000.  In 2007, both parties to the JAES pledged to work together to implement the Africa Health Strategy, the EU Project on Human Resources for Health, the Abuja commitment to dedicate 15% of government financing for health, and the European Programme for Action to Tackle the Shortage of Health Workers in Developing Countries. President Jacob Zuma of South Africa openly expressed his concern that after ten years of the partnership, there was still too little to show in terms of tangible implementation of the undertakings made in previous summits. He cautioned the summit against committing to another action plan when commitments made in the past have not been implemented. The author noted that for example the ongoing Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations, have become a contentious issue in EU-Africa relations, with clauses for example that may negatively impact on the production of affordable generic medicines for developing countries by rigorously protecting patent holders in developed countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The relationship between (stigmatising) views and lay public preferences regarding tuberculosis treatment in the Eastern Cape, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Cramm JM and Nieboer AP: International Journal for Equity in Health 10(2), 14 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-10-2.pdf","body":"This study examined 'stigmatising' ideas and the view that TB patients should queue with other chronically ill patients at health facilities. Data was gathered through a survey administered to respondents from 1,020 households in Grahamstown, South Africa. The survey measured stigmatisation surrounding TB and HIV and AIDS, and determined perceptions of respondents whether TB patients should queue with other chronically ill patients. Results showed that respondents with TB-stigmatising ideas held positive attitudes toward volunteer support, special TB queues, and treatment at clinics, but held negative attitudes toward temporary disability grants, provision of information at work or school, and treatment at the TB hospital. Respondents who felt it beneficial for TB patients to queue with other chronically ill patients conversely held positive attitudes toward provision of porridge and disability grants, and treatment at the TB hospital, while they held negative attitudes toward volunteer support, special TB queues, information provision at work or school, and treatment at clinics. The authors conclude that TB stigma and the view that TB patients should queue with other chronically ill patients are associated with opposing attitudes and preferences towards TB treatment. These opposing attitudes complicate treatment outcomes, and the authors suggest that complex behaviours must be taken into account when designing health policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Report 2011","field_subtitle":"Human Rights Watch: 2011","field_url":"http://www.hrw.org/en/world-report-2011?tr=y&auid=7674654","body":"This report, compiled annually by Human Rights Watch (HRW), is focused on human rights, but it makes a number of observations about the state of health services in several east, central and southern African countries. It notes that, partly due to health care system failures, tens of thousands of Kenyan women and girls die each year in childbirth and pregnancy, while more suffer preventable injuries, serious infections, and disabilities. Maternal deaths represent 15% of all deaths for women of reproductive age, while an estimated 300,000 women and girls are living with untreated fistula. Kenya\u2019s restrictive abortion laws, which criminalise abortion generally, are argued to contribute to maternal death and disability, as unsafe abortions account for 30% of maternal deaths. HRW also alleges that the Kenyan government fails to provide adequate pain treatment and palliative care for hundreds of thousands of children with diseases such as cancer or HIV and AIDS. Oral morphine, an essential medicine for pain treatment, is currently out of stock. Kenya\u2019s few palliative care services, which provide pain treatment but also counselling and support to families of chronically ill patients, lack programmes for children. In South Africa, millions of suffer from inadequate access to shelter, water, education, and health care, according to the report. South Africa is unlikely to meet the health-related Millennium Development Goals, and is one of only eight countries in the region where the rate of maternal deaths seems to be increasing. The South African government estimates that the maternal mortality ratio was 625 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2007, up from 150 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1998. In Uganda, women face numerous obstacles to reproductive health products and services such as contraception, voluntary sterilisation procedures, and abortion after rape. The most common barriers are long delays in obtaining services, unnecessary referrals to other clinics, demands for spousal permission contrary to law, financial barriers, and, in some cases, arbitrary denials. As a direct result of these barriers, women and girls may face unwanted or unhealthy pregnancies. Unsafe abortions have been a leading cause of maternal mortality for decades. HRW argues that government oversight of reproductive health care and accountability practices is seriously deficient.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Third Annual HIV in Context Research Symposium: New Research in Gender, Violence and HIV","field_subtitle":"28-29 March 2011: University of the Western Cape, South Africa","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5r3u5sm","body":"At the third annual HIV in Context Research Symposium, researchers, policy makers, activists and practitioners will share emerging and ongoing research at the intersections of gender, violence and HIV. Roundtables, panels and debates will address the following thematic areas: gender-based and sexual violence; gendered experiences of interpersonal, criminal, political and structural violence; gender(ed) inequalities in vulnerability; violence and HIV and barriers to effective access health, education, legal, economic interventions against gendered violence and HIV; intervention research, longitudinal research and capacity strengthening; primary health care and gender, violence and HIV; and theoretical and methodological developments in research against gendered and gender violence and HIV. The two-day Symposium will review and debate the state of the art in research, policy and practice to support ongoing and emerging research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Third Global Review of Aid for Trade","field_subtitle":"Geneva, Switzerland: 18-19 July 2011","field_url":"http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/devel_e/a4t_e/global_review11_e.htm","body":"Is aid for trade working? This is the question that the Third Global Review of Aid for Trade will seek to address when it convenes in July 2011. The Review will evaluate progress in terms of the Aid-for-Trade Work Programme 2010-2011, which was issued on 27 November 2009. The work Programme\u2019s aim is to keep an on-going focus on aid for trade, which will generate continued impetus to resource mobilisation, mainstreaming, operationalisation and implementation of aid for trade projects.  The Work Programme is complemented by Aid-for-Trade meetings, culminating in the Third Global Review of Aid for Trade. The World Trade Organisation is hosting the event.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Tracking and monitoring the health workforce: A new human resources information system (HRIS) in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Spero JC, McQuide PA, Matte R: Human Resources for Health 9(6), 17 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-9-6.pdf","body":"The purpose of this article is twofold. First, the authors describe Uganda's transition from a paper filing system to an electronic Human Resource Information System (HRIS) capable of providing information about country-specific health workforce questions. They examine the ongoing five-step process to strengthen the HRIS to track health worker data at the Uganda Nurses and Midwives Council (UNMC). Second, they describe how HRIS data can be used to address workforce planning questions via an initial analysis of the UNMC training, licensure and registration records from 1970 through May 2009. The data indicated that, for the 25,482 nurses and midwives who entered training before 2006, 72% graduated, 66% obtained a council registration, and 28% obtained a licence to practice. Of the 17,405 nurses and midwives who obtained a council registration as of May 2009, 96% are of Ugandan nationality and just 3% received their training outside of the country. Thirteen percent obtained a registration for more than one type of training. Most (34%) trainings with a council registration are for the enrolled nurse training, followed by enrolled midwife (25%), registered (more advanced) nurse (21%), registered midwife (11%), and more specialised trainings (9%). The authors found the UNMC database was valuable in monitoring and reviewing information about nurses and midwives. However, they add that information obtained from this system is also important in improving strategic planning for the wider health care system in Uganda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in public opinion on health care in Zimbabwe: 1999-2010","field_subtitle":"Afrobarometer: Briefing Paper 99, February 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/69nd7ge","body":"This survey was conducted in October 2010 in Zimbabwe. Afrobarometer found that access to modern medical care and medicine improved in 2009 and 2010, although 39% of respondents often or always went without modern medical care and medicine in 2010. One in five had access to traditional medicines, while more than half of respondents (55%) experienced difficulty when seeking treatment at a clinic. A third and a quarter of respondents always or often went without food and water respectively in 2010, increasing potential for malnutrition and cholera. Seven out of ten (71%) regularly had no cash, curtailing their ability to pay for treatment or even transport to a health facility. One in five Zimbabweans (20%) made illegal payments to public health facilities. The high cost of medical care was identified as the most important health problem in the country, followed by shortages of supplies, poor infrastructure and insufficient staff. One in three was not satisfied with maternal and child health care services, and the same number was dissatisfied with nurses and midwives, while one in four was dissatisfied with the village health workers network. Reports of dirty facilities and illegal payments increased since 2005. There was some improvement with the availability of medical supplies and doctors in public clinics since 2005 and widespread satisfaction with government performance on HIV and AIDS, but most respondents (58%) did not want government to prioritise HIV and AIDS above other health problems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Underpaid and overworked: A cross-national perspective on care workers","field_subtitle":"Razavi S and Staab S (eds): International Labour Review 149(4), December 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6fgchbr","body":"Over the past decades, changes in economic, social and demographic structures have spurred the growth of employment in care-related occupations, according to this special edition of the International Labour Review (ILR). As a result, care workers comprise a large and growing segment of the labour force in both North and South. One impetus for much of the research and policy work in this area is a concern about the labour market disadvantages of particular segments of the care workforce (such as migrant domestic workers, elderly carers, and nursing aides). Although the issue of care work and its vulnerability is a global phenomenon, the collection of papers in the ILR pays particular attention to developing country contexts where issues of worker insecurity and exploitation are most intransigent, and where research has been sparse and data challenges are often significant. The book raises questions about who the care workers are, whether they are recognised as workers, how their wages compare to those of other workers with similar levels of education and skill, the conditions under which they work, and how their interests could be better secured. This ILR contains two research papers relevant to the east, central and southern African region, one of which deals with nurses and home-based caregivers in Tanzania and the other which deals with nurses, social workers and home-based care workers in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Urbanisation and infectious diseases in a globalised world","field_subtitle":"Alirol E, Laurent G, Stoll B, Chappuis F, Louta L: The Lancet Infectious Diseases 11(2), February 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5rddrr8","body":"The United Nations predicts that the world's urban population will almost double from 3.3 billion in 2007 to 6.3 billion in 2050. Most of this increase will be in developing countries. Exponential urban growth is having a profound effect on global health. Because of international travel and migration, cities are becoming important hubs for the transmission of infectious diseases, as shown by recent pandemics. Physicians in urban environments in developing and developed countries need to be aware of the changes in infectious diseases associated with urbanization, the authors of this review argue. Furthermore, health should be a major consideration in town planning to ensure urbanisation works to reduce the burden of infectious diseases in the future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WFP and UNICEF sign deal to reduce child stunting in ESA ","field_subtitle":"Langa L: Health-e News, 20 January 2011 ","field_url":"http://health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20033055","body":"The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF) have signed an agreement to work together to reduce child stunting in Eastern and Southern Africa in an effort to reach the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015. UNICEF and WFP acknowledged the progress that had been made to address the nutritional factors hampering children\u2019s health. UNICEF said that the prevalence of stunting in the developing world declined from 40% to 29% between 1990 and 2008. Stunting in Africa only fell from 38% to 34% in the same period. Of the 24 countries that make up 80% of the world\u2019s stunting burden, at least seven are in Eastern and Southern Africa. UNICEF argues that investing in child nutrition pays high dividends for a country\u2019s social and national development. National nutrition strategies need to tackle not only the root causes of stunting, but also to target the most vulnerable children and their families, including those in remote areas, or from the poorest and most marginalised communities. Only 11 African countries are on track to reaching the Millennium Development Goals to halve hunger by 2015, four of which are from the eastern and southern African (ESA) region: Mozambique, Botswana, Swaziland and Angola.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"What blocks us from fairly allocating our health care resources?","field_subtitle":"Bona Chitah, Department of Economics, University of Zambia ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nMuch attention has recently been given to raising an adequate level of resources for health, especially to achieve goals of universal coverage. But if these resources are to reach those who need them, we also need to allocate resources fairly. This is particularly important given the very different access different social groups have to health care. In spite of the recognition by many countries for needs based resource allocation,  including my own country, Zambia, our experience suggests that we still face many obstacles to put this intention into practice. \r\n\r\nData in Zambia shows, for instance, that although the allocation formula was radically revised  with policy support in 2004/5 to incorporate deprivation and population weights, the new formula has still not been fully implemented. We realize that applying a formula to redistribute resources on the basis of need is not just a technical issue, but has significant political implications. We found in our research in 2007 and 2010 that applying a formula that takes deprivation into account in Zambia implies a loss of over 30% of revenue for the wealthiest districts, if immediately implemented.  This raised considerable resistance towards an immediate implementation of the revised formula from key stakeholders such as district health management teams, as well as from the political leadership in the affected districts.   \r\n\r\nAllocating a fair share of health care resources to those with greatest health need is not only an ethical issue. It  also makes public health sense to reduce the burden of disease, improve the uptake of health care  and reduce avoidable inequalities in health. It makes economic sense in terms of poverty reduction and improved productivity, Needs based allocation of resources combines with other elements of priority setting in health, including the setting of basic entitlements and ensuring the effectiveness of health interventions.  So why have we faltered in achieving this goal? \r\n\r\nA common explanation is that the available resources are too limited to allocate equitably. How do you distribute an unfair total amount fairly?  Prior work in EQUINET has shown that it is easier to reallocate new resources equitably when budgets are increasing than to redistribute static or shrinking budgets. In 1995 to 2006 in Zambia, according to the Ministry of Health, the total health expenditure per capita ranged from $17.50 in 1999 to $58.00 in 2006, but the government share was only between 8 \u2013 14 per cent of this.  The resource allocation formula was applied only to the recurrent budget, and between 2004 and 2009, the per capita recurrent budgets to districts ranged between only US$1.50 and US$ 4.14.   How much impact can be achieved on inequalities in access and coverage health when such limited resources are being reallocated? So even though fair resource allocation is a demand that arises from the scarcity of health care resources, it is itself limited by that scarcity. Breaking this vicious cycle would be important for equity. \r\n\r\nIt is thus a problem that the significant resources that come from external funders are not themselves subject to a needs based resource allocation formula. National Health Accounts data in Zambia show that 44% of health finances are spent on district health services comprising the district health management offices, district hospitals and health centres, and 20% on provincial and tertiary facilities. Of these expenditures, the share of external funding was 42%, and funding earmarked for HIV/AIDS made up almost 25% of this.  These funds are disbursed as vertical funding for specific targeted programmes and purposes. The funds are distributed primarily to achieve geographical coverage, with less concern for equity, as has been the case for Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission and general ante-retroviral treatment programmes that command significant resources. \r\n\r\nWhile the adequacy of funds available for reallocation and the segmentation of external funds may weaken resource allocation, there is a deeper issue: Priority setting - and thus allocation-  has not been strongly grounded in ethical values or social norms.  It makes a difference whether financing decisions, including those related to the allocation of resources, are based on the pursuit of equity and social justice,   on utilitarian issues of efficiency, including economic efficiency, or on an egalitarian liberalism that aims for steadily improving coverage, complemented by individual actions to enhance uptake.\r\n\r\nThe lack of a shared ethical premise supporting resource allocation may be the most significant constraint to advancing the fair allocation of resources. Experiences of resource allocation in Zambia suggest that reforms aimed at enhancing fairness in resource allocation falter more easily when they are not protected, or demanded, by a strong expression of social norms and values.  It could thus be the key factor leading to uncertainty, and sometimes failure to implement resource allocation in a consistent and committed way for the effective strengthening of the health system in low resource settings. So while we build the technical measures and institutional capacities to more fairly allocate the resources for health, we also need to ensure that the ethical foundation it is based on is clear, shared and strong enough to sustain implementation on the face of the other blocks we face. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed, and reports on equity in resource allocation please visit  the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"What does the empirical evidence tell us about the injustice of health inequalities?  ","field_subtitle":"Deaton A: Centre for Health and Wellbeing, Princeton University, January  2011","field_url":"http://www.princeton.edu/~deaton/downloads/What_does_the_empirical_evidence_tell_us_about_the_injustice.pdf","body":"Whether or not health inequalities are unjust, as well as how to address them, depends on how they are caused, the author of this paper argues. He reviews a range of health inequalities in different countries and internationally, between genders, class, income and racial groups and between countries, tentatively identifying pathways of causality in each case, and making judgments about whether or not each inequality is unjust. He asserts that health inequalities that arise due to medical innovation are among the most benign, while those that arise due to inequalities in early life are more significant, pointing to the importance of parental and child circumstances. Society judges racial inequalities in health as unjust, adding to injustices in other domains. While the inequalities in health between rich and poor countries are wide, the author asserts that they are not perceived as just nor unjust, nor are they easily addressed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO faces funding shortfall in 2011","field_subtitle":"Saez C and New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 17 January 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5w8xvln","body":"At the opening of the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) Executive Board meeting, held from 17\u201325 January 2011, there were calls for reform amid concerns about WHO\u2019s finances for the year ahead. WHO Director-General, Margaret Chan, said that the United Nations agency is stretched thin due to a high level of demand impacting its efficiency in some areas, and that far-reaching reform is needed. She also warned against big corporations\u2019 influence on policies, in her response to dissension over a pharmaceutical industry representative named by the WHO secretariat to join a new research and development funding working group. In her opening remarks, Chan underlined the financial shortfall of the WHO, which some later said could range between US$200 and $600 million dollars in the biennium.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO members express dismay at delay on counterfeit medicines group","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 19 January 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6gay5a8","body":"At the World Health Organization (WHO) Executive Board meeting, held from 17-25 January 2011, members raised strong concerns that a working group they mandated last May to address problems with WHO policy on counterfeit and substandard medicines has yet to be formed \u2013 with only four months remaining before it must report back to members. The Indian delegation called for a halt to WHO activities on anti-counterfeiting until the outcome of the working group is accepted by member states. Members agreed falsified medicines were a threat for global public health but some delegates argued the solution cannot be dominated by intellectual property rights enforcement concerns. The Indian delegate said that the working group was supposed to investigate the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT). IMPACT is a project with international police agency Interpol and other agencies, housed within WHO, and is meant to \u2018halt the production, trading and selling of fake medicines around the globe\u2019. It has been criticised in the past by some countries who claim IMPACT has not helped clarify the confusion between substandard, falsified or unsafe drugs and legal, reliable generic medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO R&D financing committee approved with controversial industry expert","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 22 January 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/66honln","body":"A compromise was struck at the World Health Organization (WHO) Executive Board meeting, held from 17-25 January 2011, allowing a Swiss pharmaceutical industry representative to sit on a committee selecting proposals for research and development (R&D) financing for neglected diseases, despite the fact that he is author of one of the proposals. In light of the fact that a predecessor working group fell prey to allegations of conflict of interest and lack of transparency, WHO added special safeguards to prevent undue influence, but questions remain for some about conflict of interest. The compromise was reached in the margins of the meeting after developed countries threatened to subject other committee appointees to scrutiny. Developing countries, including those with burgeoning generics industries also have candidates on the 21-member expert committee, though none is considered as directly positioned to benefit from the outcome. Critics say the Swiss private sector proposal could be worth billions of dollars to developed country brand-name pharmaceutical companies. Thailand raised concerns about the proposed expert and Brazil argued that equity in global health was at stake.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Why, when and how men rape: Understanding rape perpetration in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Jewkes R, Sikweyiya Y, Morrell R and Dunkle K: South African Crime Quarterly 34: 23-31, December 2010","field_url":"http://www.iss.co.za/uploads/JewkesSikweyiyaMorrellDunkle.pdf","body":"This article reports the findings of research conducted with a randomly selected sample of men aged 18\u201349 years from the general population of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, who were asked in an anonymously conducted survey about their rape perpetration practices, motivations, and consequences thereof. Overall 27.6% of men had forced a woman to have sex with them against her will, whether an intimate partner, stranger or acquaintance. Some perpetrated alone, others with accomplices. Most men who had raped had done so more than once, started as teenagers, and often had different types of victims. Asked about motivations, men indicated that rape most commonly stemmed from a sense of sexual entitlement, and it was often an act of bored men (alone or in groups) seeking entertainment. Rape was often also a punishment directed against girlfriends and other women, and alcohol was often part of the context. A third of men had experienced no consequences from their acts, not even feelings of guilt. More commonly there was remorse and worry about consequences, and in a third of cases there had been action against them from their family, that of the victims, or respected community members, and about one in five had been arrested for rape. This research confirms that rape is prevalent in South Africa, with only a small proportion of incidents reported to the police. Many of the roots of the problem lie in an accentuated gender hierarchy. This highlights the importance of interventions and policies that start in childhood and seek to change the way in which boys are socialised into men, building ideas of gender equity and respect for women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Organization call for papers: Violence against women as a health issue","field_subtitle":"Submissions May Be Made Throughout 2011","field_url":"http://submit.bwho.org","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) is inviting submissions of papers describing research that addresses violence against women. WHO is particularly interested in research with a strong intervention focus, including ways to get violence against women onto different policy agendas, lessons about how to address some of the challenges policy-makers face, and innovative approaches to prevention or service provision, including community-based programmes in both conflict- and crises-affected and more stable settings. Papers may address more neglected forms of violence against women or provide evidence on the costs and cost-effectiveness of intervention responses. Descriptive research that contributes to a better understanding of the global prevalence and costs of violence, or that provides evidence about the root causes of such violence, will also be considered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A framework for entry: PAR values and engagement strategies in community research","field_subtitle":"Ochocka J, Moorlag E and Janzen R: Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement (3), 2010","field_url":"http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/ojs/index.php/ijcre/article/view/1328","body":"The purpose of this article is twofold: to explore the entry process in community-based research when researching sensitive topics; and to suggest a framework for entry that utilises the values of participatory action research (PAR). The article draws on a collaborative community-university research study that took place in the Waterloo and Toronto regions of Ontario, Canada, from 2005\u20132010. The article emphasises that community entry is not only about recruitment strategies for research participants or research access to community but it is also concerned with the ongoing engagement with communities during various stages of the research study. The indicator of success is a well established and trusted community-researcher relationship. This article first examines this broader understanding of entry, then looks at how community research entry can be shaped by an illustrative framework, or guide, that uses a combination of participatory action research (PAR) values and engagement strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"A rethink is needed on Africa\u2019s EPAs with the EU","field_subtitle":"Khor M: South Bulletin 52, 25 November 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2voczaq","body":"African countries have stalled on signing economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with the European Commission because they fear negative consequences for their smaller economies, this article reports. To avoid the pitfalls of signing the EPAs in their current form, the article suggests African countries should negotiate trade preferences. The author notes that the 33 least-developed countries (LDCs) in the African Union do not have to sign the EPAs since their trade preferences will continue under the \u2018Everything But Arms\u2019 scheme. They should not have to sign EPAs in order to maintain the common external tariffs they have or would like to have with the non-LDCs in their regional economic groupings. Instead, the 14 non-LDCs can request that the EU provide them also with the \u2018Everything But Arms\u2019 scheme, without their having to give preferences to the EU in return. He argues that there is a good case for this, as these 14 countries are also poor and vulnerable, and have similar characteristics as the LDCs. Moreover, they belong to regional economic groupings in which LDCs are the majority of the membership, and there is thus also a good case that they be given a similar status as the LDCs so that these groupings can continue with their common tariffs, without the LDCs having to be sacrificed. There are a number of cases in the WTO in which waivers have been given for non-reciprocal agreements between a developed country member and a developing country or region. The article concludes that the best option to resolve the EPA impasse is for Europe to give a non-reciprocal preferential package for Africa as a region, or for the 14 African non-LDCs, in a treatment similar to \u2018Everything But Arms\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to essential medicines in national constitutions","field_subtitle":"Perehudoff SK, Laing RO and Hogerzeil HV: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88:800, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/11/10-078733/en/index.html","body":"In 2008 WHO analysed 186 national constitutions and found that 135 (73%) include provisions on health or the right to health. Of these, 95 (51%) constitutions mention the right to access health facilities, goods and services, which includes medicines. Only four national constitutions (2%) specifically mention universal access to medicines. There are at least three different routes, the study argues, through which the right to health \u2013 and essential medicines \u2013 can be recognised in national legal frameworks. The strongest government commitment is created by including the right to essential goods and services in the national constitution. The second approach is constitutional recognition that international treaties ratified by the State override or acquire the status of national law. The third option, inclusion of health rights in other national legislation, is easier to create but also easier to change or cancel. The full range of strategies should be used to promote universal access to essential medicines through rational selection, affordable prices, sustainable financing and reliable health systems, the article argues. Constitutional recognition of the right to access essential medicines is an important sign of national values and commitment, but is neither a guarantee nor an essential step \u2013 as shown by those countries that have failing health systems despite good constitutional language, and those that have good access without it. Yet constitutional recognition creates an important supportive environment, especially in middle-income countries where health insurance systems are being created and patients are becoming more aware of their rights and are more vocal in demanding them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"ACTA is trade terrorism","field_subtitle":"Jishnu L: Down to earth, 15 December 2010","field_url":"http://www.downtoearth.org.in/node/2345","body":"This article is concerned with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), an international agreement that seeks to strengthen the power of enforcement agencies, such as customs, to seize products that are fakes and infringe intellectual property rights (IPRs). It would allow customs officials to seize products \u2013 including generic medicines - if they believe these are counterfeit. The problem with this, the author argues, is the presumption that customs officials are competent to make such technical judgments, when they are not. These agencies could thus be used by rights holders to launch action against exporters from the developing world in a move that could destroy their business. Initiating proceedings places exporters in a tough financial position even if the goods turn out to be bona fide, as they would have to pay exorbitant legal fees to fight in court. Although ACTA is being presented as an anti-counterfeiting measure, it really has very little to do with controlling the international trade in counterfeit goods, the author argues, whose value has been exaggerated by its proponents. Rather, the effort is to bring about a fundamental shift in the rules governing international trade in a wide variety of knowledge goods - counterfeit or not. For India and the developing world, a primary concern is generic drugs.  The article points to the fact that ACTA does not include any due processes, and encourages award of significant damages based on the suggested retail price, which makes valuations and lost profit presumptions in favour of the rights holders. It also extends injunctions to third parties not directly accused as infringers of IPRs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"African Union Summit 2011","field_subtitle":"Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: 24-31 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.africa-union.org/root/au/index/index.htm","body":"The 21st African Union Summit will take place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at the African Union Headquarters and the Conference Centre of United Nations  Economic Commission for Africa (UNCC-ECA) from 24-31 January 2011. The theme of the Summit is \u2018Towards Greater Unity and Integration through Shared Values.\u2019 The main events are : 24-25 January 2011: 21st Session of the Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC); 27-28 January 2011: 18th Session of the Executive Council; and 30-31 January 2011: 16th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Aide-memoire for a strategy to protect health workers from infection with blood-borne viruses","field_subtitle":"Safe Injection Global Network: 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/injection_safety/toolbox/en/AM_HCW_Safety_EN.pdf","body":"This aide-memoire from the World Health Organization identifies the key universal precautions that health care workers (HCWs) should take to lessen their risk of contracting blood-borne diseases in the workplace, notably HIV and hepatitis B and C. It argues for hepatitis B immunisation for all HCWs, provision of necessary safety equipment, like gloves and goggles, and effective management of post-exposure treatment of HCWs who may have been accidentally exposed to blood. A number of procedures are proposed for healthcare facilities that wish to implement a strategy for dealing with accidental exposure, such as setting up and empowering an Infection Control Committee, using surveillance to identify risk situations and procedures and modify them wherever possible, and achieving compliance with universal precautions though ongoing commitment and training of all staff members. The strategy emphasises the important role of health managers in monitoring and supervising the programme, in co-ordination with the Infection Control Committee.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Alcohol harm: Beyond the body to the body politic","field_subtitle":"Gonz\u00e1lez R: MEDICC Review 12(4):30-33, October 2010","field_url":"http://www.medicc.org/mediccreview/articles/mr_168.pdf","body":"In light of the World Health Organization's declaration that non-dependent drinking contributes more to the global burden of alcohol-related disease than does drinking by those who meet diagnostic criteria for dependence, this article argues that clinicians, researchers and decision-makers need to consider microsocial and macrosocial impacts of alcohol use, not just addiction and clinical effects on individuals meeting diagnostic criteria at the extreme high end of the alcohol-use spectrum. It suggests some qualitative dimensions to further define social or low-risk drinking and proposes that all drinking beyond that be described as harmful, because of its impacts on personal, community and population health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Botswana prioritises HIV prevention to cut ART costs","field_subtitle":"Afrique Avenir: 8 December 2010","field_url":"http://www.afriqueavenir.org/en/2010/12/08/hiv-treatment-hits-on-botswana-economy/","body":"Botswana has said it is prioritising the prevention of new HIV infections as its number one HIV and AIDS strategy, since the cost of keeping people alive on treatment is no longer sustainable. National AIDS Council spokesperson, Lorato Mongatane, said there is need for a comprehensive public awareness campaign to ensure the nation is made aware of the cost of the national response to HIV and AIDS and its impact on economic growth. Mongatane said with over 150,000 people on treatment and HIV and AIDS budget for 2010/2011 exceeding US$500 million, the Botswana government is prioritising the prevention of new infections to ensure that the number of people living with HIV and AIDS stabilises to help contain the cost over time. She pointed out that HIV prevention knowledge has not translated into major behaviour changes that could ultimately reduce the number of new infections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Bridging the gap in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88:798, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/11/10-021110/en/index.html","body":"According to this article, South African government spending on health care comprises less than half of total health expenditure even though the public system serves more than 80% of the population (i.e. around 40 million South Africans) without private health insurance. Around 70% of all doctors and most specialists only work in the private sector, the remaining 30% serve the public sector. Sixteen per cent of the population use private doctors and hospitals which are covered by their health insurance, often with a monthly contribution from their employers. It is this stark public\u2013private divide that the South African Government hopes its proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme will deal with by providing universal access to health care based on need rather than ability to pay.  Despite some reservations about whether government can afford to pay for the proposed national health insurance scheme, an integrated pool of funds has been offered as one way to ensure that all the public sector\u2019s available human resources are used more effectively and efficiently. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Building multisectoral partnerships for population health and health equity  ","field_subtitle":"Fawcett S, Schultz J, Watson-Thompson J, Fox M and Bremby R: Preventing Chronic Disease 7(6), November 2010","field_url":"http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2010/nov/10_0079.htm","body":"In this article, some of the factors that contribute to poor performance in achieving population health goals are examined, such as lack of shared responsibility for outcomes, lack of co-operation and collaboration, and limited understanding of what works. It also considers challenges to engaging stakeholders at multiple levels in building collaborative partnerships for population health. It outlines twelve key processes for effecting change and improvement, such as analysing information, establishing a vision and mission, using strategic and action plans, developing effective leadership, documenting progress and using feedback, and making outcomes matter. The article concludes with recommendations for strengthening collaborative partnerships for population health and health equity. These include establishing monitoring and evaluation systems, developing action plans that assign responsibility for changing communities and systems, facilitating natural reinforcement for people working together across sectors and ensuring adequate funding for collaborative efforts. Governments should also provide training and technical support for partnerships, establish participatory evaluation systems and arrange group contingencies to ensure accountability  for progress and improvement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: First International HIV Social Science and Humanities Conference","field_subtitle":"Submission date: 25 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.iaohss.org/index.php/abstract.html","body":"The International Association of HIV Social Scientists is calling for abstracts for the First International HIV Social Science and Humanities Conference. Abstracts should cover any of the following themes: treatment as prevention, HIV and the body, social epidemiology and social networks, global politics, responsibility and risk governance, and new directions for HIV and AIDS treatment. The abstracts should be original contributions to any of the themes listed above and demonstrate the contribution of the social sciences or humanities to any aspect of the HIV epidemic. The conference welcomes papers, session proposals and events that are innovative in their delivery, organization, range of topics and type of public or audience. As well as traditional research papers, proposals are open for sessions and papers using \u2018new media\u2019 or other new forms of presentation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants for Sonke Health and Human Rights Fellowship ","field_subtitle":"Application deadline: 1 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.genderjustice.org.za/hhrfellowship","body":"The University of California (UCLA) Sonke Health and  Human Rights Fellowship will provide specialised training in the United States to top graduates from South African law schools for careers as impact-oriented public interest lawyers in the areas of health, human rights, HIV prevention, and gender equality. The Fellowship offers a full-tuition grant to enroll in UCLA Law\u2019s Master of Law Program (LL.M.), assists fellows in securing living and travel expenses for their studies, and offers the opportunity to apply for a one-year fellowship placement with Sonke in Cape Town or Johannesburg. Courses include Problem Solving in the Public Interest, and Human Rights and Sexual Politics. Upon completion of the LL.M. degree, each fellow will have the opportunity to apply for a year-long fellowship placement with Sonke in South Africa. If awarded, the fellow will undertake cutting edge legal work to address the gender inequality dynamics driving the spread of HIV and examine how to engage men and boys as stakeholders in gender and health equity. The Fellowship is open to experienced lawyers and new law graduates holding LL.B. degrees classified second class (division one) or higher from South African law school programmes. Competitive applicants will also have a demonstrated commitment to health, human rights, or gender equality, and work or volunteer experience in this area.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics","field_subtitle":"5-19 May 2011: Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.aporde.org.za","body":"The African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE) is a high-level training programme in development economics that aims to build capacity in economics and economic policy-making. The course will run for two weeks and consist of lectures and seminars taught by leading international and African economists. This call is directed at African, Asian and Latin American economists, policy makers and civil society activists who, if selected, will be fully funded. Only 30 applicants will be selected.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Developing country scholarships","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 14 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.cud.be/content/view/339/208/lang,/","body":"The CUD (Cutting-edge International Trainings and Courses for Development) Scholarships Programme for the year 2011-2012 is available for applicants from developing countries. Courses include Masters in Public Health, Master in Development, Environment and Society, Master of Science and Supplementary Environmental Management in Developing Countries, Management Systems in Health Services, and Methodology in Support of Innovation in Family Planning. Some of these courses and trainings are in French and candidates should be familiar with the language before applying for them. Nevertheless, selected candidates also need to learn French while participating in the programme. Only candidates from specific countries may apply, including South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Eligible candidates will be those holding a graduate degree comparable to a Belgian University graduate degree. After completion of the programme, selected candidates should return  to their country and pursue work in the field in which they have undergone the course or training.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for participants in online debate: What is the future for sustainable livelihood approaches? ","field_subtitle":"Institute for Development Studies, United Kingdom: 26 January 2011","field_url":"http://community.eldis.org/.59e37061","body":"The Sustainable Livelihood Approach (SLA) is a people-centred approach used by non-governmental organisations and researchers to identify the main constraints and opportunities faced by poor people, as expressed by the people themselves. It consists of a framework and a set of guiding principles that aim to protect and foster the resources and livelihood assets of poor people, such as their natural resources, technologies, skills, knowledge, capacity, health, access to education, sources of credit and their networks of social support. The approach is intended to help stakeholders to navigate the complex reality of the development context and ensure people are at the centre of development. Some critiques of SLA point to its limitations in dealing adequately with some issues such as power, gender and governance, and many in the development sector incorrectly assume that SLA is only relevant at the micro level. At the sixth and final seminar on Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches (SLAs), taking place at the Institute of Development Studies on 26 January 2011, you can take part in the online debate. Some directions for debate include what the future holds for SLAs, how SLAs are relevant to current development challenges and how SLAs need to adapt, as well as research, policy and practical implications for the future. To register, please email the seminar administrator at the address provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Community 21: Digital toolbox for sustainable communities","field_subtitle":"Gant N and Gittins T: Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement (3), 2010","field_url":"http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/ojs/index.php/ijcre/article/view/1540","body":"This article describes the 'Toolbox for the 21st Century Village' action research project and outline the critical research contexts that underpin its development as an online informatics and social engagement tool aimed at facilitating understanding, sharing and planning of integrated sustainability by individual communities. The article questions the assumption that rural livelihoods are necessarily \u2018green\u2019, arguing that rural behaviours are disproportionately dependent on natural resources and as a consequence are \u2018less sustainable\u2019, despite relative autonomy and community potential to make significant gains. The article also explores how the term \u2018sustainability\u2019 serves to divide and detract as a polemic and absolute term, whereas the term \u2018self-sufficiency\u2019 may be more appropriate to meaningful sustainable development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Connecting the streams: Using health systems research knowledge in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R: World Health Organization, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/images/stories/2connecting_the_streams.pdf","body":"This paper was commissioned as a background discussion paper for the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, held in Switzerland from 16-19 November 2010. It explores experiences of and factors that influence how knowledge from health systems research (HSR) is translated into policy and practice, particularly at the national level, in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). It found that whether the knowledge from health systems research (HSR) is used in policy and practice in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) depends on the political economy context, the policy environment, institutional capacities and practice in the health system, and the research community. The study aims to link these four \u2018streams\u2019 and their impact on HSR. Although not always well documented, there is experience within LMIC on the strategic use of HSR. There are also some conditions that appear to be a greater challenge for LMICs, particularly low-income countries (LICs). International agencies have a more powerful influence on research agendas and resources in LICs, while resources for sustained research programmes and interaction are limited, as are the incentives, time, resources and authority for local personnel to gather and use evidence. Much LIC research is poorly published in accessible databases and a significant digital divide discourages HSR and its use. Local level personnel, especially in peripheral areas, face these constraints most sharply.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Declining customs union revenues may undermine AIDS response in Swaziland","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 16 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91103","body":"Economic collapse in Swaziland, exacerbated by a major decline in revenue from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), has cast uncertainty over financing the national HIV and AIDS response. According to the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development, revenue from SACU contributed 76% of the Swazi government's income in 2009 but dropped in 2010 and is expected to continue declining over the next decade. The decline in SACU tariffs and revenue collection has been identified as part of a policy shift towards freer trade within the southern African region and it is likely to continue. The National Emergency Response Council on HIV/AIDS (NERCHA) has blamed the situation on years of government overspending and the International Monetary Fund has urged the government to downsize the civil service by almost a third. Swaziland is heavily dependent on foreign donors to finance its HIV and AIDS programmes and doubts have been expressed that external funders might fill the gap left by an increasingly insolvent government. Meanwhile, the government assures that health services will not be cut, although long-term financing remains uncertain and there are concerns that no funds will remain to expand HIV and AIDS services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Effects of a mobile phone short message service on antiretroviral treatment adherence in Kenya (WelTel Kenya1): A randomised trial","field_subtitle":"Lester RT, Ritvo P, Mills EJ, Kariri A, Karanja S, Chung MH et al: The Lancet 376(9755):1838-1845, 27 November 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/32fcgp2","body":"This study aimed to assess whether mobile phone communication between health-care workers and patients starting antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Kenya improved drug adherence and suppression of plasma HIV-1 RNA load. Between May 2007 and October 2008, a total of 538 randomly assigned HIV-infected adults who initiated ART in three clinics in Kenya were selected. Patients in the intervention group received weekly SMS messages from a clinic nurse and were required to respond within 48 hours. Adherence to ART was reported in 168 of 273 patients receiving the SMS intervention compared with 132 of 265 in the control group. Suppressed viral loads were reported in 156 of 273 patients in the SMS group and 128 of 265 in the control group. The number needed to treat (NNT) to achieve greater than 95% adherence was nine and the NNT to achieve viral load suppression was 11. The study concludes that patients who received SMS support had significantly improved ART adherence and rates of viral suppression compared with the control individuals. Mobile phones might be effective tools to improve patient outcomes in resource-limited settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 119: Universal coverage - A shift in the international debate on global health ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"European report on development 2010: Social protection for inclusive development: A new perspective for EU co-operation with Africa","field_subtitle":"Robert Schumann Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute: 7 December 2010","field_url":"http://erd.eui.eu/media/2010/ERD2010_Advanced_copy.pdf","body":"The 2010 edition of the European Report on Development (ERD) deals with the issues of poverty, inequality and social protection, notably in sub-Saharan Africa. It examines the external shocks that African countries experiencing chronic poverty are undergoing, such as climate change, food and fuel price volatility, or the recent financial crisis. These shocks are undermining progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, and the report highlights increasing demand for new and more substantive social protection programmes in many African countries. It focuses on the role of formal and informal mechanisms of social protection as a means to enhance the resilience of sub-Saharan countries when faced with shocks (short-term) and structural vulnerabilities such as poverty traps (long-term). Specific interventions targeting the most vulnerable sectors of the population should go hand in hand with more traditional pro-growth policies, the report argues, especially when dealing with emerging unstable global socio-economic scenarios.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Experts warn Zimbabwe\u2019s gains in HIV/AIDS could be eroded if funding is cut","field_subtitle":"Sandra Nyaira, Health Concepts Africa, 7 December","field_url":"http://blog.demitaghealthconcepts.com/?p=618","body":"Global Fund spokesman Jon Liden said it is not exceptional for proposals to be rejected, adding that Zimbabwe has enough funds coming from the organization to keep its programs going. Health experts said Monday that Zimbabwe\u2019s gains in the fight against HIV/AIDS could be eroded if the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria adopts a decision by its technical review panel not to fund Zimbabwe\u2019s Round 10 proposal.A spokesperson for the Global Fund confirmed the technical panel had not recommended funding of the country\u2019s latest HIV and TB grant requests. But Jon Liden said it is not unusual for proposals to be rejected, adding that Zimbabwe has enough funds coming from the organization to keep its programs going. Coordinator Gilles Van Cutsen of the medical relief group Doctors Without Borders said the Global Fund should reconsider its decision. Cutsen told VOA Studio 7 reporter Sandra Nyaira that the failure to recommend funding of the proposal is a disaster for Zimbabwe, noting that other countries in the region such as Lesotho and Mozambique have also seen their latest bids rejected. Programs manager Raymond Yekeye of the National Aids Council said Zimbabwe must look to other sources for funding to ensure gains are not rolled back.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"First International HIV Social Science and Humanities Conference: 11-13 June 2011: South Africa","field_subtitle":"Registration date: Early: \u2022Early registration fee prior to 25 February 2011 Regular: by 4 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.iaohss.org/index.php/register.html","body":"This conference will consider the link between and contributions of the social sciences and humanities to HIV research and action. The International Association of HIV Social Scientists, which is organising the event, argues that social science emphasises a critical, reflexive stance and willingness to confront the social, ethical, and political dimensions of scientific investigations of the HIV epidemic, which has made it instrumental in successful HIV prevention efforts such as the normalisation of condom use against sexual transmission and the introduction of safe injecting equipment for injecting drug use. Social scientific research has also provided insights into issues related to the treatment and care of people living with HIV and AIDS, and has addressed the broader social and political barriers to effective responses to HIV. Yet there have been few forums in which scholars from different social science and humanities disciplines can come together to develop connections among the various phenomena we study, and between ourselves and our biomedical, policy and community based colleagues. This conference is a forum for those keen to extend the scope of the social sciences and its capacity to trace connections between all kinds of phenomenon, notably those that contribute to the complexity and changing nature of the epidemic. Themes include: treatment as prevention, HIV and the body, social epidemiology and social networks, global politics, and responsibility and risk governance, as well as new directions for HIV and AIDS treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Five ways to reduce trauma in AIDS orphans","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 10 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=90992","body":"In this article, International Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) offers five strategies to reduce the psychological trauma experienced by African AIDS orphans. In Africa, most orphans remain with their extended families, being cared for by either the remaining parent, or by grandparents or other relatives, and this approach has been shown to minimise trauma for the children. Institutional care should only be a temporary solution or last resort, the article argues. Also, keeping brothers and sisters together also enhances their emotional wellbeing.  Other strategies include meeting the basic needs of orphans, for example by instituting school feeding schemes and providing social grants, as well as providing psycho-social care in the form of grief counseling and peer support groups. Governments should also ensure that orphans remain at school. So far, free primary education has gone some way to improving overall school attendance, but other factors, such as living with a non-relative, appear to continue to hamper orphans' education. Finally, the article agues for more support for the carers of orphans, especially custodial grandparents. It recommends that health workers and home-based caregivers be trained to support orphans' caregivers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Food Outlook 2010","field_subtitle":"Food and Agriculture Organization: November 2010","field_url":"http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/al969e/al969e00.pdf","body":"If wheat and maize production do not rise substantially in 2011, global food security could be uncertain for the next two years, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned in its latest Food Outlook report. Wheat and maize prices have passed their 2009 highs, with FAO adding that international food import bills could surpass one trillion US dollars in 2010. Food imports last topped the trillion dollar mark during the 2007/2008 food price crisis. The FAO anticipates that world cereals stocks will shrink by 7%, with barley declining by 35%, maize by 12% and wheat by 10%. Six percent more maize will have to be produced in 2011 than in 2010, while wheat stocks need to rise by more 3.5% to ensure the world has enough reserves to tide it over 2011. The FAO has cautioned  that its calculations have not taken into account the possibility of unfavourable weather conditions in 2011.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Free software to determine costs of rural health worker retention ","field_subtitle":"Capacity Plus: 7 December 2010","field_url":"http://www.capacityproject.org/hris/suite/","body":"CapacityPlus\u2019s iHRIS software is open sourcesoftware that is designed to help  organisations and governments to cost interventions to retain rural health workers. It is based on the World Health Organization\u2019s global policy recommendations for rural retention. Using this software, health workforce leaders will be able to determine the costs of different retention interventions across cadres at the national, regional, district, or facility level. The software guides users through the costing process step by step. Based on data entered, it will determine the total costs and generate reports for each intervention. Stakeholders can use the results to determine the economic feasibility of different scenarios. This is the first iHRIS product that will be coded in-country and is currently being coded in Uganda. Capacity Plus aims to not only meet the specific goal of retaining rural health workers, but also to build in-country information technology (IT) capacity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"From poverty to power: How active citizens and effective states can change the world","field_subtitle":"Green D: Oxfam,  2008","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/downloads/FP2P/FP2P_BK_Whole.pdf","body":"This book articulates a vision of women and men in communities everywhere who are equipped with education, enjoy good health, have rights, dignity and a voice \u2013 and are in charge of their own destinies. What is required to achieve that is nothing less than a global new deal \u2013 a redistribution of power, opportunities, and assets. The report considers the alternative of a world of ever-deepening gulfs between the \u2018haves\u2019 and the \u2018have-nots\u2019 as unsustainable. Based on its experience in more than 100 countries around the world, Oxfam argues that the necessary redistribution can best be accomplished through a combination of active citizens and effective nation states. Markets alone cannot meet the challenges of poverty, inequality and environmental degradation. Effective states and active citizens must ensure the market delivers growth that benefits poor people. An economics for the twenty-first century is needed that provides tools to enable countries to achieve growth that is environmentally sustainable. This new economics will recognise the importance of unpaid work, predominantly by women and target poverty and inequality. It discusses case studies, including the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender and multiple and concurrent partnerships in Zambia: Focus on mobility","field_subtitle":"International Organization for Migration: 2010","field_url":"http://iom.org.za/site/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=167&Itemid=238","body":"This study, conducted between May 2009 and January 2010, undertook to explore the social, economic and cultural factors related to engagement in multiple concurrent sexual partnerships in Zambia. In-depth interviews were conducted at seven geographically diverse sites across Zambia. Interviews were conducted with 301 men and women who perceived themselves to be in stable relationships. Researchers used structured interviews and careful probing to elicit detailed information on all sexual partnerships during the previous 12 months. They found that overlapping concurrency was frequent among both men (71%) and women (46%) who identified themselves as being in stable relationships. Men who reported overlapping concurrency averaged three partners compared with women who had approximately two partners over the 12-month recall period. Quantitative data indicated that a high degree of mobility, with more than three-quarters of the entire sample indicating some degree of travel in their daily lives. The study calls for more research into the role of mobility in HIV transmission, as well as more national surveillance (biological and behavioural) data on mobile and migrant populations in Zambia. Currently, there is no systematic framework for collecting behavioral or biomedical data from migrant/mobile populations, and numerous gaps exist in data with regard to these groups.  In addition, HIV prevention efforts must reflect a better understanding of the social and cultural nuances of mobility and migration that affect decisions to engage in sexual concurrency.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Global currency wars and US imperialism","field_subtitle":"Amin S: Pambazuka News (507), 25 November 2010 ","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/69029","body":"According to this article, the developing countries of the South should seek to establish trade and financial arrangements between themselves. Instead of seeking alliances with the United States or China, they could construct regional arrangements independently from the rules governing the global system. In this way, the economies of emerging countries will not have to be contingent on the problems experienced by the economies of these superpowers. A regional currency basket is also proposed, to build local capacity and independence. These various arrangements in different parts of the South could eventually be inter-related at the level of a global South. The article points to the failure of the G20 to reach consensus on a number of issues, including trading in health services, as indication that there is no possible global consensus.  The author suggests that the way forward for countries of the South is to take independent initiatives among themselves.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund rejects Zimbabwe\u2019s HIV and TB funding application","field_subtitle":"Afrique Avenir: 4 December 2010","field_url":"http://www.afriqueavenir.org/en/2010/12/04/global-fund-rejects-zimbabwe%E2%80%99s-hiv-funding-application/","body":"The Global Fund to Fight HIV, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria has rejected Zimbabwe\u2019s application for US$220 million to finance HIV and TB programmes for 2011, threatening to derail progress achieved so far towards efforts containing the two diseases. The Global Fund did not give reasons for the rejection. Zimbabwe had applied for US$170 million for HIV and US$50 million for TB. National Aids Council chief executive, Dr Tapiwa Magure, described the development as devastating, and doubted that Zimbabwe would be able to attain the Millennium Development Goal of universal access to treatment. Zimbabwe\u2019s adult HIV prevalence has been on a downward trend, dropping from 18.1% in 2006 to 13.7% in 2009. Yet, according to the government, about 343,600 adults and 35,200 children under 15 years urgently need anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment out of a total of 1.2 million Zimbabweans living with HIV and AIDS. The government\u2019s anti-retroviral programme only caters for about 200,000 infected people, while an estimated 3,000 people die of AIDS-related illnesses every week.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Global tuberculosis control report 2010","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 11 November 2010","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241564069_eng.pdf","body":"The Global Tuberculosis Control Report is compiled annually by the World Health Organization, and this edition documents the success and challenges in tuberculosis (TB) treatment worldwide during 2009/2010. Some successes are highlighted, such as a 35% drop in the TB death rate since 1990, with a slow decline in TB incidence.  It indicates that the world is on track to reach the Millennium Development Goal for TB incidence, and the Stop TB Partnership 2015 target for TB mortality. There has also been major progress in improving access to diagnosis and treatment, and also in the scale up of TB/HIV intervention and strengthening of laboratory services. However, major challenges still exist. In 2009, 1.7 million died from TB, and although incidence levels are falling, they are falling too slowly, the report has revealed. It predicts that, under the current rate of decline, TB will not be eliminated within the next generation. Also, the response to multi-drug resistant TB is still insufficient and more efforts are needed to scale up and strengthen programmes, especially with 440,000 new cases emerging each year. Less than 5% of those cases are being properly treated, the report notes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global women\u2019s health in 2010: Facing the challenges","field_subtitle":"Lester F, Benfield N and Fathalla MMF: Journal of Women's Health 19(11): 2081-2089, November 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/jwh.2010.2083","body":"According to this article, women's health is closely linked to a nation's level of development, with the leading causes of death in women in resource-poor nations attributable to preventable causes. Unlike many health problems in rich nations, the cure relies not only on the discovery of new medications or technology but also getting basic services to the people who need them most and addressing underlying injustice. In order to do this, the article argues that political will and financial resources must be dedicated to developing and evaluating a scaleable approach to strengthen health systems, support community-based programmes, and promote widespread campaigns to address gender inequality, including promoting girls' education. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have highlighted the importance of addressing maternal health and promoting gender equality for the overall development strategy of a nation. The authors of this article urge stakeholders to capitalise on the momentum created by this and other international campaigns and continue to advocate for comprehensive strategies to improve global women's health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health transition in Africa: Practical policy proposals for primary care","field_subtitle":"Maher D, Smeeth L and Sekajugo J: Bulletin of the World health Organization 88(12): 943-948, December 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/12/10-077891.pdf","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa is undergoing health transition as increased globalisation and accompanying urbanisation are causing a double burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases. This study indicates that rates of communicable diseases such as HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Africa are the highest in the world and the impact of non-communicable diseases is also increasing. For example, age-standardized mortality from cardiovascular disease may be up to three times higher in some African than in some European countries. As the entry point into the health service for most people, primary care plays a key role in delivering communicable disease prevention and care interventions. This role could be extended to focus on non-communicable diseases as well, within the context of efforts to strengthen health systems by improving primary-care delivery. The study puts forward several policy proposals to improve the primary-care response to the problems posed by health transition. Governments should improve data on communicable and non-communicable diseases and implement a structured approach to the improved delivery of primary care. They should also focus on quality of clinical care, align the response to health transition with health system strengthening and capitalise on a favourable global policy environment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV prevention jeopardised by Kenya\u2019s call for arrest of  gay people","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 30 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91241","body":"Gay Kenyans will be driven further underground and away from HIV prevention, treatment and care services following a recent call by Prime Minister Raila Odinga for a nationwide crackdown on homosexuals, activists say.  Addressing a rally in Nairobi on 28 November, Odinga ordered the police to arrest and bring criminal charges against anyone found engaging in sex with someone of the same gender. He added that the country's constitution made it clear that homosexual activity was not tolerated. David Kuria, chair of the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya, said the prime minister's remarks will negatively impact the government's efforts to include the country's gay population in HIV prevention programmes. For example, activists warned that few would be willing to participate in a government survey - due to start in December - that aims to draw on responses from the country's gay population to inform HIV programming for men who have sex with men (MSM). Activists said potential respondents would be too fearful of being targeted by the authorities. Homophobia is widespread in Kenya, but this is the first time such a senior political figure has openly called for legal action against homosexuals. In October, a cabinet minister who called for tolerance towards gays was urged to resign for promoting \u2018un-African\u2019 culture.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS: Simplify to treat more","field_subtitle":"Medicins Sans Frontiers: 29 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/publications/article.cfm?id=4888&cat=special-report","body":"Based on field experience in environments with limited resources, this paper aims to illustrate the various strategies developed by Medicins sans Frontiers (MSF) to simplify patient screening and follow-up in order to increase access to anti-retroviral treatment. These include decentralising and streamlining treatment protocols, transferring skills, beginning treatment earlier, using new biological monitoring tools, gaining access to new drugs with fewer side effects, and not leaving out patients with complicated cases. The new strategies tend to place more responsibility on patients and simplify their treatment. Medical teams can then focus on treating the most complicated cases. Decentralising medical care and delegating responsibilities to less-qualified personnel (task shifting) are crucial, the paper argues. By giving patients more autonomy and making them responsible for their health, this paper argues, health facilities can spread out their medical consultations to every six months and thus reduce their workload. Simplifying medical follow-up may be achieved by decentralising and streamlining patient care and ensuring that two essential blood tests are available to patients - measuring the CD4 cell count, and the viral load.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How to scale up delivery of malaria control interventions: A systematic review using insecticide-treated nets, intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy, and artemisinin combination treatment as tracer interventions","field_subtitle":"Willey B, Smith L and Schellenberg JA: World Health Organization, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/images/stories/5scale_up_delivery_malaria_control.pdf","body":"This study aimed to synthesise recent evidence on how to scale up the delivery of malaria interventions in endemic regions through a systematic review of the available literature. A total of 39 papers were selected, which related to delivery at scale of intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy, artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) or insecticide treated nets (ITNs). In terms of coverage and equity, the review found that the evidence to link changes in coverage to any specific strategy is weak: only 3 of 24 studies reporting coverage had a concurrent comparison group, and only one was classified as high-level evidence using the GRADE criteria. For ACT, an associated increase in treatment among children (73% to 88%) was reported with delivery through accredited drug dispensing outlets and health facilities in Tanzania. For ITN programmes, instances where household ownership or use of nets reached targets of 80% were associated with free delivery of nets through campaigns. The study identifies barriers and facilitators to interventions, notably cost as a barrier. The study cautions that, to prioritise strengthening of health system elements for scale up, systematic reviews alone are not sufficient and additional research methods are needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Innovative financing for development takes a step forward at the 2010 UN summit","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R: Health Diplomacy Monitor 1(4):6-9, November 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.ghd-net.org/sites/default/files/Health%20Diplomacy%20Monitor%20Issue%204_0.pdf","body":"On 20-22 September 2010, world leaders gathered in New York to examine what needs to be done to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The United Nations called for accelerated progress to meet the MDGs, citing unpredictable and insufficient international financing as the main obstacle. New mechanisms proposed for health financing included a currency transaction tax, in addition to overseas development aid. Mechanisms already launched have been projected to raise a further approximately US$$1billion annually. The transaction tax will raise an estimated US$30 billion per year. Multilateral tax funding has been blocked in the past by concerns over democratic oversight and how the revenues will be spent. The Summit recognised in its draft resolution that \u2018innovative financing mechanisms can make a positive contribution\u2019 and called for such financing to scale up and supplement, but not substitute, traditional sources. This article argues that it is likely that attention will grow around effective means to levy global economic activity to pay for global public goods, raising new resources for health and new challenges for African health diplomacy and systems to encourage, orient and effectively apply these resources. (Authors from TARSC and SEATINI in EQUINET contribute to the Global Health Diplomacy Monitor). ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrated biological and behavioural surveillance survey in the commercial agricultural sector: South Africa","field_subtitle":"International Organization for Migration: November 2010","field_url":"http://iom.org.za/site/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=173&Itemid=238","body":"This study found that farm workers in South Africa's Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces have the highest HIV prevalence among any working population in Southern Africa. Conducted from March to May 2010 on 23 commercial farms, the survey included 2,810 farm workers, who anonymously gave blood specimens for HIV testing. The survey found that an average of 39.5% of farm workers who tested were HIV positive, which is more than twice the UNAIDS estimated national prevalence for South Africa of 18.1%. HIV prevalence was significantly higher among female employees, with almost half of the women (46.7%) testing positive compared to just under a third (30.9%) of the male workforce. The study could not pin-point a single factor causing this high rate of HIV infection on these farms, but cites a combination of factors such as multiple and concurrent partnerships, transactional sex, irregular condom use, presence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and tuberculosis, and high levels of sexual violence. The authors of the study note that a major research gap exists with regard to HIV among farm workers in southern Africa and they call for more research. The report makes several recommendations including increasing farm worker access to healthcare and implementing prevention programmes that are goal driven and monitored. The programmes should address gender norms that increase risky behaviour and vulnerability to HIV, such as the belief that a man has to have multiple partners. Both permanent and seasonal farm workers should be included in workplace health and safety policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrating women\u2019s human rights into global health research: An action framework","field_subtitle":"Baptiste D, Kapungu C, Khare MH, Lewis Y and Barlow-Mosha L: Journal of Women's Health 19(11):2091-2099, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/jwh.2010.2119","body":"This article proposes six action strategies to guide global health researchers to synergistically target women's health outcomes in the context of improving their right to freedom, equity, and equality of opportunities. Its main purpose is to offer a feasible approach to health researchers who, conceptually, may link women's health to social and cultural conditions but are looking for practical implementation strategies to examine a women's health issue through the lens of their human rights. The proposed strategies include becoming fully informed of women's human rights directives to integrate them into research, mainstreaming gender in the research, using the expertise of grass-roots women's organisations in the setting, showcasing women's equity and equality in the organisational infrastructure, disseminating research findings to policymakers in the study locale to influence health priorities, and publicising the social conditions that are linked to women's diseases. The article explores conceptual and logistical dilemmas in transforming a study using these principles and also provides a case study to illustrate how these strategies can be operationalised.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Intellectual property and technology transfer: Common challenges, building solutions ","field_subtitle":"WIPO Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP): November 2010  ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2do4axm","body":"Based on the outcome of a meeting that took place from 22-26 November in Switzerland, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has initiated an intellectual property (IP) project aimed at developing countries. The New Platform for Technology Transfer and IP Collaboration addresses WIPO Development Agenda recommendations 19, 25, 26 and 28 regarding developing countries. These recommendations require WIPO to facilitate access to knowledge and technology for developing countries and least-developed countries, to promote the transfer and dissemination of technology to benefit developing countries, and to foster research co-operation between developed and developing countries. The project consists of five phases: the organisation of five regional technology transfer consultation meetings, the commissioning of peer-reviewed analytic studies, the organisation of a High-Level International Expert Forum, the creation of a web forum on technology transfer and IP, and \u2018the incorporation of any adopted set of recommendations resulting from the above activities into the WIPO programmes\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Involving vulnerable populations of youth in HIV prevention clinical research","field_subtitle":"Borek N, Allison S and C\u00e1ceres C: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 54: S43-S491, July 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3yedv6n","body":"Adolescents continue to be at high risk for HIV infection, with young men who have sex with men and youth with drug abuse and/or mental health problems at particularly high risk, according to this study. Multiple factors may interact to confer risk for these youth. Engaging vulnerable youth in HIV prevention research can present unique challenges in the areas of enrollment, retention, and trial adherence. Examples of successful engagement with vulnerable youth offer encouraging evidence for the feasibility of including these youth in clinical trials. Ethical challenges must be taken into consideration before embarking on biomedical HIV prevention studies with vulnerable youth, especially in the global context. Given the many individual and contextual factors that contribute to their high-risk status, the study urges that vulnerable youth populations be included in HIV prevention clinical research studies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"It is time to talk about people: A human-centered healthcare system ","field_subtitle":"Searl MM, Borgi L and Chemali Z: Health Research Policy and Systems 8(35), 26 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-8-35.pdf","body":"Examining vulnerabilities within the world\u2019s current public healthcare systems, the authors of this study propose borrowing two tools from the fields of engineering and design: A systems approach, as advocated by Reason in 1990, and a user-centered design, as advocated by Norman and Draper. Both approaches are human-centered in that they consider common patterns of human behaviour when analysing systems to identify problems and generate solutions. This paper examines these two human-centered approaches in relation to health care systems. It argues that maintaining a human-centered orientation in clinical care, research, training and governance is critical to the evolution of an effective and sustainable health care system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"It\u2019s our water too! Bringing greater equity in access to water in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Hoogeveen H and Nduko J: Uwazi Policy Brief 09/2010, September 2010","field_url":"http://twaweza.org/uploads/files/Its%20our%20water%20too_English.pdf","body":"This brief notes some developments in the provision of water to poor Kenyans since the enactment of the 2002 Water Act. These include increased government spending for further water provision and policy reforms that separated asset ownership from service provision, regulation and policy formulation. Yet it found that at least 16 million Kenyans do not receive clean, piped water and remain at risk for water-borne diseases. It also noted that urban water kiosks provide an inadequate service, with many users forced to use minimal quantities of water as distance, waiting times and cost make water inaccessible. Poor people in urban areas appear to pay much more for water than those with piped water, while urban coverage of the piped system is declining. Large inequities exist in access to water as the struggle for water by the excluded sections of Kenya\u2019s population contrasts sharply with the privileged, who benefit from water delivered to their homes, often at very low prices. At the current pace of expansion, the author argues that it will take unacceptably long to cover populations that urgently need water. It estimates that it will take at least 30 years for rural areas to have acceptable water supplies. The government\u2019s budgets allocated to water provision, the author argues, do not reflect need. To address existing inequalities, the government should urgently develop and implement a needs-based budget allocation formula.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Managing incentives for health providers and patients in the move towards universal coverage","field_subtitle":"Lagarde M, Powell-Jackson T and Blaauw D: World Health Organization, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/images/stories/1managing_incentives.pdf","body":"This paper was commissioned as a background paper for discussion at the First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, held 16-19 November, 2010, in Montreux, Switzerland. It argues that, to advance towards universal coverage, decision-makers have to determine ways to incentivise providers and patients alike to increase access to good quality health services and promote efficient modes of delivery that can be sustainable. It found little rigorous evidence to guide policymakers on how the theoretical incentives created by different payment mechanisms for individual providers or facilities operate in practice. Available data indicates that fee-for-service systems (for individuals or facilities) result in higher rates of utilisation and resource use. Limited evidence on reimbursement mechanisms for facilities suggests that case-based payments are efficiency enhancing, but important questions remain about their impact on quality of care and the possibility of implementing them in systems or facilities where capacity is low. The evidence in support of pay-for-performance (P4P) mechanisms was found to be mixed and the paper advises policymakers seeking to implement P4P schemes to proceed with caution. Conditional cash transfers (CCT) were found to have been effective in increasing uptake of health services, but continued success is likely to be dependent on adequate infrastructure, reliable funding and technical capacity. Key questions remain about the desirability and cost-effectiveness of CCTs, in particular in low-income settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Microfinance: A general overview and implications for impoverished individuals living with HIV/AIDS ","field_subtitle":"Caldas A, Arteaga F, Mu\u00f1oz M, Zeladita J, Albujar M, Bayona J and Shin S: Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved 21(3):986-1005, August 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/38yjlpe","body":"Microfinance among people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHAs) faces some opposition and remains understudied. This literature review examines microfinance\u2019s evolution and impact on a variety of social and health indicators and its emerging implementation as a primary prevention tool for HIV and economic intervention for PLWHAs. There is an abundance of literature supporting the apparent utility of microfinance. However the author argues that understanding of the subject remains clouded by the heterogeneity and methodological limitations of existing impact studies, the still limited access to microfinance in this population and inadequate understanding of the specific challenges posed by the socioeconomic and health issues of PLWHA. The author concludes that carefully designed studies are needed to assess the role of microfinance for PLWHA.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Migration and health in South Africa: A review of the current situation and recommendations for achieving the World Health Assembly Resolution on the Health of Migrants","field_subtitle":"International Organization for Migration: November 2010","field_url":"http://iom.org.za/site/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=170&Itemid=238","body":"This paper identifies South Africa as a country with much internal and cross-border migration within a region of high population mobility, and argues that the country urgently needs to develop, implement and monitor an evidence-based, coordinated, multilevel national response to migration and health. This includes acknowledging the developmental benefits of migration, ensuring \u2018healthy migration\u2019 and engaging with a \u2018place-based\u2019 approach to addressing the diverse health needs and health impacts of the multiple migrant groups present within South Africa. The paper recommends that South Africa develop a co-ordinated regional response to migration and health. It should support the implementation of a regional framework for communicable diseases and population mobility. Four priority areas were identified: monitoring migrant health, developing partnerships and networks, developing migrant-sensitive health systems and putting in place policy and legal frameworks for migrants\u2019 health. Migrants and migrant communities should be involved in health and migration responses, the paper argues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring and surveillance of chronic non-communicable diseases: Progress and capacity in high-burden countries","field_subtitle":"Alwan A, MacLean DR, Riley LM, d'Espaignet ET, Mathers CD, Stevens GA and Bettcher D: The Lancet 376(9755):1861-1868, 27 November 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/36umdgh","body":"The burden of chronic, non-communicable diseases in low-income and middle-income countries is increasing. This study outlines a framework for monitoring of such diseases and reviews the mortality burden and the capacity of countries to respond to them. It draws on World Health Organization (WHO) data and published work for prevalence of tobacco use, overweight, and cause-specific mortality in 23 low-income and middle-income countries with a high burden of non-communicable disease. Although reliable data for cause-specific mortality was scarce, non-communicable diseases were estimated to be responsible for 23.4 million (or 64% of the total) deaths in the 23 countries that were analysed, with 47% occurring in people who were younger than 70 years. Tobacco use and overweight were found to be common in most of the countries and populations we examined, but coverage of cost-effective interventions to reduce these risk factors is low. Capacity for prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, including monitoring and surveillance operations nationally, is inadequate. A surveillance framework, including a minimum set of indicators covering exposures and outcomes, is essential for policy development and assessment and for monitoring of trends in disease, the study argues. However, technical, human and fiscal resource constraints are major impediments to the establishment of effective prevention and control programmes. Despite increasing awareness and commitment to address chronic disease, the study found that concrete actions by global partners to plan and implement cost-effective interventions were inadequate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Monkey Bay, Malawi Participatory Communication Project with Orphans and Vulnerable Children","field_subtitle":"Child Minders Partnership for Development;  Training and Research Support Centre; REACH Trust; Dzimwe Community Radio; Monkey Bay Community-Based Organisations; Monkey Bay orphans","field_url":"","body":"This radio series was developed from a participatory communications process undertaken in Monkey Bay, Malawi. The participatory communication process was a follow up to previous PRA research, and sought to identify a key message, the audience participants wanted the message to reach and the medium appropriate for doing so. In the participatory process, it was decided to communicate a positive message about how girl orphans and vulnerable children could avoid sex work to local stakeholders such as community-based organisations, families and local government officials. The participants chose to create a radio drama, for broadcast in Chichewa on Dzimwe Community Radio station. The script was developed by participants in the workshop, including orphans and vulnerable children and reformed sex workers; the children then acted in the show, and the show was later broadcast in several parts. The radio drama focuses on the ordeals of one character, Irene, who is an orphan staying with an abusive aunt.  Despite the ordeals she goes through she finally succeeds, while the promiscuous children around her who turn to sex work, loose. The show encourages listeners to love and understand the needs of orphans and encourages orphans to seek positive ways out of their difficulties, not sex work. The file size for the programme is too large to upload but can be sent by direct email on request to admin@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Montreux Statement from the Steering Committee of the First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"Steering committee, GSHSR, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/images/slides/friday/montreux_statement.pdf","body":"Following the five days of keynotes, plenaries, concurrent sessions, satellites and informal discussions and debates at the November 16-19 2010 First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR), Montreux, Switzerland, the final statement to the conference from the Steering Committee recognized \u201cthat there is an enormous energy to move forward with a further agenda of action reflecting the spirit and commitment that brought us to Montreux from Mexico and Mali\u201d. The steering committee initiated a new alliance of actors globally with an agenda of work to:\r\no\telectronically archive and disseminate the papers and debates at the conference\r\no\tcreate an international society for health systems research, knowledge and innovation, to build greater constituency, credibility and capacity for improved and interdisciplinary HSR globally, and to provide visibility and support to regional, national and collaborative efforts on HSR; \r\no\twork with the priority agendas related to the recently agreed United Nations SG strategy on maternal, neo-natal and child health; and the upcoming UNGASS related to non communicable diseases to bring more effective health systems strengthening to accelerate universal health coverage. \r\nA Second Global Symposium on Health Systems Research is planned for 2012 or 2013 to evaluate progress, share insights and recalibrate the agenda of science to accelerate universal health coverage, hosted by China.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"MSF in Mozambique 2001-2010: Ten years of HIV projects","field_subtitle":"Medicins sans Frontiers: 24 November 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/39wspag","body":"This report evaluates the work that Medicins sans Frontiers (MSF) has done in HIV and AIDS in Mozambique over the past ten years. MSF\u2019s HIV and AIDS programmes offer HIV testing and counseling, treatment and prevention of opportunistic infections, paediatric diagnosis and treatment, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, and the provision of anti-retroviral therapy. At the end of August 2010, more than 33,000 people in Mozambique were being treated for HIV and AIDS through MSF\u2019s projects. However, the report cautions that MSF\u2019s model of care is not a prescriptive cure, and significant challenges remain. More than 350,000 people in Mozambique are in need of ARV treatment but do not have access to it, which equates to two-thirds of all HIV-positive Mozambicans. After years of political willingness and financial commitment to combat HIV and AIDS, external funders are now either flatlining, reducing or withdrawing their funding for HIV, thus abandoning those who are still in dire need of lifesaving treatment. HIV-infected people continue to face major barriers in their access to services, even in a context of free treatment. A shortage of qualified health workers is also considered a major barrier to access in Mozambique, with only 3 doctors and 143 nurses per 100,000 people, one of the lowest workforce per population ratios in the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"MSM left out of media reports and HIV prevention programmes in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 26 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91198","body":"Men who have sex with men (MSM) do not make headlines in South African media and HIV experts have warned that a lack of accurate coverage prevents targeted HIV prevention and care for these men. Human rights activists have spoken up about the South African media's tendency to divide men into two groups - heterosexual or homosexual - and caution against reinforcing stereotypes that deter them from accessing target HIV services for fear of being labelled. About 6% of lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex people and MSM surveyed have reported being turned away from government clinics, the government estimates. According to the national strategic plan (NSP), at least 70% of MSM should have been reached with a comprehensive, customised HIV prevention package by 2011. But the country is unlikely to meet this target. According to a recently released government review of NSP progress, nobody is systematically collecting data on HIV prevention among MSM.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New blog: Governance for Development","field_subtitle":"World Bank: 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2v67v2s","body":"This new blog is aimed at helping development practitioners to better understand and address the governance and corruption (GAC) impediments to development effectiveness, including how GAC may be dealt with by policy reforms and how effective community participation may be increased. It provides a forum for World Bank Group staff engaged in GAC mainstreaming and the wider development community for experience sharing, reflection and discussion regarding the implications of GAC mainstreaming for development work. The blog mandates a methodology for GAC work that works \u2018with the grain\u2019, in a way that takes institutions and politics into account calls for different approaches to engagement \u2013 and different ways of identifying which approaches make sense across different country contexts. A spectrum of approaches is discussed, ranging from incremental approaches, which adapt their design to the existing context, to transformational approaches, which seek to expand and accelerate change. Relevant stakeholders and policy makers are invited to discuss their experiences of the various approaches and share tools for better shaping and measuring governance and accountability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New health financing network","field_subtitle":"Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage: September 2010","field_url":"http://www.jointlearningnetwork.org/","body":"The Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage (JLN) is a new platform that aims to connect health financing practitioners from across the globe to share experiences and solve problems together. The JLN is a network of countries and partners implementing reforms to expand health coverage. Its activities include practitioner-to-practitioner based learning activities on various technical topics, dissemination of technical resources and documentation of country reform experiences. The JLN gathers and consolidates technical materials related to health financing reforms from many sources, including member countries and international technical and academic partners. It also offers financial assistance to support practitioner-to-practitioner learning, targeted technical assistance, and other priority areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Our wishes for a peaceful, re-energising new year ....","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET Newsletter","field_url":"","body":"This month's editorial draws our attention to the shift the profile on universal coverage has brought in the international debate on global health. Much of this dialogue on universal coverage has been focused on financing issues. However universal policies cannot be only technical, or financial. A December 2010 World Conference on Universal Social Security Systems in Brazil put it simply - universal policies are the means to deliver on rights based guarantees that citizens are entitled to and that states have a duty to ensure, including access to health care. At national and global level there is a huge gap in how this is delivered on. Researchers from Africa, Asia and the Americas observed in a statement at the final plenary of the first Global Symposium on health systems research: \u201cEquity is the central goal.  Universal health coverage is the means of achieving equity\u201d. As experience has taught in many places, closing this gap, nationally and globally, calls, beyond technical options, on political leadership and social power and action. What we say and do within and across all our different constituencies will be pivotal in realising universal policies in health. We wish you a safe, healthy and peaceful new year and look forward to our interaction towards equity in 2011.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Pan-African Symposium on Infectious Diseases","field_subtitle":"9-11 May 2011: Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.africahealthexhibition.com/Site-Root/Forms/ConferenceEnquiryForm/","body":"This symposium considers infectious diseases in Africa, including bacterial, viral, fungal and parasitic diseases, which comprise a major cause of death, disability, and social and economic disruption for millions of people in Africa\u2019s developing countries. This conference will aim to look at the borderless effect of infection, its impact on children and the importance of intervention. International speakers will talk about how to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases and discuss new diagnostics vaccines and drug treatments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory action research approaches and methods","field_subtitle":"Gibson N: Routledge, 2010","field_url":"http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/ojs/index.php/ijcre/article/view/1039","body":"This book captures developments in Participatory Action Research (PAR), exploring the justification, theorisation, practice and implications of PAR. It offers a critical introduction to understanding and working with PAR in different social, spatial and institutional contexts. The authors engage with PAR\u2019s radical potential, while maintaining a critical awareness of its challenges and dangers. The book is divided into three parts. The first part explores the intellectual, ethical and pragmatic contexts of PAR; the development and diversity of approaches to PAR; recent poststructuralist perspectives on PAR as a form of power; the ethic of participation; and issues of safety and well-being. Part two is a critical exploration of the politics, places and practices of PAR. Contributors draw on diverse research experiences with differently situated groups and issues including environmentally sustainable practices, family livelihoods, sexual health, gendered experiences of employment, and specific communities such as people with disabilities, migrant groups, and young people. The principles, dilemmas and strategies associated with participatory approaches and methods including diagramming, cartographies, art, theatre, photovoice, video and geographical information systems are also discussed. Part three reflects on how effective PAR is, including the analysis of its products and processes, participatory learning, representation and dissemination, institutional benefits and challenges, and working between research, action, activism and change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Pneumonia report card: 2010","field_subtitle":"International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC), Johns Hopkins University: 12 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.jhsph.edu/bin/k/m/pneumoniareportcard.pdf","body":"The 15 countries evaluated in this report card - including Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda - account for nearly three-quarters of all pneumonia deaths worldwide. The card provides a total score for each country by evaluating data on seven key interventions identified by the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia (GAPP), which indicated that up to two-thirds of child pneumonia deaths could be prevented if at least 90% of children had access to a few simple, effective pneumonia interventions. GAPP\u2019s recommended 90% coverage on the interventions is based on the need to reach Millennium Development Goal targets for child survival by 2015. The interventions include prevention measures, protection measures and treatment. The card finds that country scores fall far short, ranging from 61 to 23% on these measures combined. While some pneumonia vaccines like measles and pertussis are already in widespread use, the card shows that new pneumonia vaccines against Hib and pneumococcal infections have not yet been adopted in all countries. With support from the GAVI Alliance, nearly all of these countries are expected to increase coverage of existing vaccines, as well as introduce Hib and pneumococcal vaccines, in the next five years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Quality of care offered to children attending primary health care clinics in Johannesburg","field_subtitle":"Thandrayen K and Saloojee H: South African Journal of Child Health 4(3):73-77, September 2010","field_url":"http://www.sajch.org.za/index.php/SAJCH/article/viewFile/260/189","body":"The objective of this study was to assess the quality of child health services provided at primary health care (PHC) facilities in Johannesburg, South Africa. Sixteen PHC clinics were surveyed, using a researcher-developed structured checklist based on national guidelines and protocols. Most facilities were found to be adequately equipped and well stocked with drugs. A total of 141 sick child and 149 well child visits were observed. Caregivers experienced long waiting times (mean length of 135 minutes). Many routine examination procedures were poorly performed, with an adequate diagnosis established in 108 of 141 consultations (77%), even though health professionals were experienced and well trained. Triage and attention to danger signs were poor. An antibiotic was prescribed in almost half of the consultations, but antibiotic use was unwarranted in one-third of these cases. Health promotion activities (such as growth monitoring) were consistently ignored during sick child visits. HIV status was seldom asked about or investigated, for the mother or for the child. Growth monitoring and nutritional counselling at well child visits was generally inadequate, with not one of 11 children who qualified for food supplementation receiving it. In conclusion, the findings indicate that PHC offered to children in Johannesburg is seriously inadequate. The study urges for a deliberate and radical restructuring of PHC for children, with clearly defined and monitored standard clinical practice routines and norms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional meeting on health and human rights: Report of proceedings, Kampala Uganda","field_subtitle":"HEPS Uganda, Learning Network for Health & Human Rights, University of Cape Town and EQUINET: October 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Hrights%20mtg%20rep%20Oct2010.pdf","body":"The Learning Network for Health & Human Rights (South Africa) through University of Cape Town and HEPS-Uganda co-convened this regional meeting in Kampala Uganda on 8 October 2010 within the Regional Network for Equity in Heath in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET). The primary intention of the meeting was to enable the regional sharing of best practice around the right to health and community participation, as well as to explore the development of a toolkit/training manual on the Right to Health for Civil Society groups in the region. Discussions for the way forward included plans for future action on the toolkit, a human rights curriculum for health workers, and for community governance structures for health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Report of the 11th Meeting of the Joint AUC-EC Task Force, 20-21 October 2010, Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Joint AUC-EC Task Force: November 2010","field_url":"http://europafrica.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/11th_meeting_jtf_201010212.pdf","body":"This report includes the draft version of the Joint Africa-Europe Strategy (JAES) Action Plan 2011-2013 for the Partnership on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), which commits the European Community and African Union (AU) partnership to several health actions and goals, focused on implementing the Campaign for Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA), increasing human resources for health in Africa and ensuring that governments meet their Abuja commitment to allocate 15% of spending on health. Certain goals are provided. By 2013, CARMMA must have been launched in all 53 AU Members States and its strategy implemented in at least 25 Members States. By 2013, more AU Member States should have improved access to HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria services by implementing the \u2018Abuja Call\u2019 with its new set indicators aligned with those of MDG 6. Finally, by 2013, more Member States must have strengthened their health systems through improved human resources for health strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Resolution on Economic Partnership Agreements ","field_subtitle":"African Caribbean and Pacific Council of Ministers: South Bulletin 52, 25 November 2010 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/35ynlsa","body":"This resolution was adopted by the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Council of Ministers during their meeting in Brussels on 8-10 November 2010. It makes no explicit references to health, but the inclusion of health may be inferred by references to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), food insecurity and development aid. The Council re-affirmed the need to develop objective criteria that will be used to determine the parameters to enable the conclusion and implementation of the economic partnership agreements (EPAs). These criteria may be linked to a number of areas, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), agricultural production, and the level of official development aid. The Council calls on the European Union to demonstrate maximum flexibility on all the outstanding contentious issues, with a view to resolving them and thereby affording the ACP States and regions the opportunity to grow economically, particularly in the context of south-south trade, and allow for maximum use of policy space for development purposes. The Council requests that the EU include a specific safeguard clause for agriculture in the framework of the EPAs while maintaining the possibility of resorting to the Special Safeguard Mechanism during WTO negotiations, to help protect small farmers and maintain food security in the ACP regions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Rwanda to install 700 condom vending machines","field_subtitle":"Afrique Avenir: 1 December 2010","field_url":"http://www.afriqueavenir.org/en/2010/12/01/rwanda-to-install-700-condom-vending-machines/","body":"The government of Rwanda, through the National AIDS Commission, is intensifying condom use campaigns with plans to install seven hundred condom vending machines countrywide in 2011, the executive secretary of the National Aids Commission, Anita Asiimwe, has said. The Commission plans to install the vending machines at places of hospitality like hotels, bars, and restaurants for easy access. The machines helped many people avoid the embarrassment of buying condoms in ordinary shops, she said. The condom use campaigns were launched in 2009 and had proved positive with people changing attitude towards the method. The campaign launched to mark 2009\u2019s World Aids Day was meant to sensitise the public on condom use on top of abstinence and faithfulness \u2013 topics which were given much publicity but without quantified results. The seven hundred condom vending machines follow another one hundred and fifty machines that were installed in 2009.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Second Conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association","field_subtitle":"15-17 March 2011: Senegal ","field_url":"http://afhea.org/","body":"The Second Conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) will be held in Saly Portudal (Palm Beach), Senegal from 15-17 March 2011. The overall theme of this conference is \u2018Toward universal health coverage in Africa\u2019. Universal coverage is understood to mean providing financial protection against health care costs for all, as well as ensuring access to quality health care for all when needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health","field_subtitle":"25-29 January 2011: Bangkok, Thailand","field_url":"http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/forum/2011/en/index.html","body":"The Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health is intended to build upon the successes achieved in the previous Global Forum, held in 2010 in Kampala, and will provide a platform to review progress made in fulfilling the commitments outlined in the Kampala Declaration and the Agenda for Global Action. It will be an opportunity to further galvanise and accelerate the global movement on human resources for health (HRH) towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals and Universal Health Coverage. Expected outcomes include sustaining the global movement on HRH and sharing of knowledge and experiences and measuring the progress made since Kampala through concrete examples of global and country actions. The Forum will also be expected to find strategies for coping with new and emerging issues and challenges in HRH.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Shortage of doctors hits hospitals in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Manyukwe C: The Financial Gazette, 5 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.financialgazette.co.zw/top-stories/6187-crisis-in-health-delivery-system-as---.html","body":"This summary of a report by the Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Welfare in Zimbabwe notes that the shortage of doctors in Zimbabwe has reached crisis levels with the country having only 21% of the required medical practitioners. The report by the Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Welfare provided statistics showing that vacancy levels stand at 80% for midwives, 62% for nursing tutors, 63% for medical school lecturers and over 50% for pharmacy, radiology and laboratory personnel. Poor working conditions were cited as among the reasons for the high vacancy rates.  The report added that these shortages and disruption of transport and telecommunications have compromised patient transfers, malaria indoor residual spraying, drug distribution and supervision of districts and rural health centres.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"South African national HIV prevalence, incidence, behaviour and communication survey, 2008: The health of our children","field_subtitle":"Shisana O, Rehle T And Simbayi L: Human Sciences Research Council, 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?productid=2279%20&freedownload=1","body":"In this report, research findings from a population-based household survey are presented on the general health status of infants, children, and adolescents in South Africa including morbidity, utilisation of health facilities, immunisation coverage, HIV status and associated risk factors. It also investigates the exposure of children and adolescents to HIV communication programmes. Close to 90% of children visited a public or private outpatient clinic the last time they were sick, indicating a high rate of utilisation for health services in South Africa. However, more than 20% of children were hospitalised for an average duration of 6.9 days. This demonstrates both the failure of the primary health care system to prevent and adequately manage diseases and the low quality of care provided in these services. This report is intended to play a vital role in assisting policy makers and stakeholders in targeting and prioritising key issues in planning and programming efforts focusing on the broad health issues of South African children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"State of the union South Africa report 2010","field_subtitle":"Continental Advisory Research Team: 2010","field_url":"http://www.stateoftheunionafrica.org/documents /South%20Africa%20Final.pdf","body":"This report evaluates South Africa\u2019s compliance with twelve selected African Union (AU) instruments to which it is a signatory. Eight of these twelve instruments are treaties while four are strategies, resolutions or plans of action. While treaties are legally binding on States Parties, resolutions are not. Seven of the treaties are already in force. Two await the required instruments of ratification to become effective and have not yet been signed or ratified by South Africa. Several health instruments are covered, including the Africa Health Strategy 2007-2015 (AHS), the Abuja Call for Accelerated Action towards Universal Access to HIV and AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Services in Africa by 2010, and the Maputo Plan of Action for the Operationalisation of the Continental Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Policy Framework 2007-2010 (MPA). The audit of compliance indicates that South Africa has made significant strides to comply with the selected AU instruments, though much remains to be done. For example, in terms of the Abuja call, the country has a solid HIV and AIDS programme in place and is making progress towards treating tuberculosis and malaria, but the report points to lack of political will, lack of financial resources, and lack of public involvement and well-trained medical staff as factors impeding compliance with the AHS and the MPA. Many health workers are noted to not know about these health instruments because the government has failed to popularise them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Striving to provide first-, second- and third-line ARVs in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Europe-Africa Research Network for Evaluation of Second-line Therapy (EARNEST): 2010 ","field_url":"http://earnest.cineca.org/index.php","body":"Life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) medication is reaching more HIV-positive Ugandans than ever before, but health workers are concerned about how they will deal with the inevitable rise in drug resistance.  An estimated 400 accredited facilities are providing about 218,000 Ugandans with ARVs, and more than 300,000 have enrolled on HIV treatment, but many patients have died and some have simply abandoned treatment.  Although studies show that ARV adherence is generally high, frequent drug stock-outs as a result of funding shortages and supply-chain problems as well as food insecurity mean that patients have experienced interruptions in their treatment regimens, predisposing them to resistance. The Europe-Africa Research Network for Evaluation of Second-line Therapy (EARNEST) trial is trying to determine the best option for resource-limited settings at the Infectious Disease Institute (IDI), part of the Mulago Hospital Complex in the capital, Kampala. Currently, about 3% of adults and 4.6%  of children on ARVs are taking second-line drugs. According to the previous World Health Organization's CD-4 count cut-off of 200, the Ministry of Health has estimated that 379,551 more people would require ARVs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of an emergency hiring plan on the shortage and distribution of nurses in Kenya: The importance of information systems","field_subtitle":"Gross JM, Riley PL, Kiriinya R, Rakuom C, Willy R, Kamenju A et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88:798, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/11/09-072678-ab/en/index.html","body":"This study sought to analyse the effect of Kenya\u2019s Emergency Hiring Plan for nurses on their inequitable distribution in rural and underserved areas, using data from the Kenya Health Workforce Informatics System. It found that, of the 18,181 nurses employed in Kenya\u2019s public sector in 2009, 1,836 (10%) had been recruited since 2005 through the Emergency Hiring Plan. Nursing staff increased by 7% in hospitals, 13% in health centres and 15% in dispensaries. North Eastern province, which includes some of the most remote areas, benefited most, with nurses increasing by 37%. By February 2010, 94% of the nurses hired under pre-recruitment absorption agreements had entered the civil service. The study cautions that, despite promising preliminary indicators of sustainability, continued monitoring will be necessary over the long term to evaluate future nurse retention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of cell phones on public health surveillance","field_subtitle":"Hu SS, Balluz L, Battaglia MP and Frankel MR: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88:799, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/11/10-082669/en/index.html","body":"This article argues that mobile phone connectivity in developing countries facilitates social and economic development through increased access to people, information and services such as health care, education, employment opportunities and market information. In developing countries, which lack the physical and technical infrastructure present in more developed nations, cell phone surveys provide an inexpensive and feasible way to conduct population-based data collection. However, the authors point out several issues that should be considered when conducting cell phone surveys in developing countries. Reception may not be available in rural zones, and it may be difficult to sample owners from cell phone registration lists if most users are unregistered. In addition, one needs to be aware of the cost that cell phone subscribers pay to receive a call and offer reimbursement for the time spent responding to the survey. Selection of one adult respondent from a sample household should always include consideration of the number of adults with cell phones in the household and whether people share cell phones. Text messages rather than voice calls may also be the primary means of cell phone communication in developing countries. The authors conclude that cell phone health surveys may come into wider use if the above issues can be addressed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of trade agreements on health in the African region: The case of economic partnership agreements (EPAs)","field_subtitle":"Machemedze R:  Health Diplomacy Monitor 1(4): 21-23, November 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.ghd-net.org/sites/default/files/Health%20Diplomacy%20Monitor%20Issue%204_0.pdf","body":"African countries are currently negotiating economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with the European Union to replace existing preferential trade agreements. The proposed EPAs cover a wide range of issues and are likely to impact on health, this article notes. The impacts include effecfts on public revenues for health and health care, access to medicines and determinants of health like food security. Without careful analysis during the negotiations, the author of this article warns EPAs could have negative impacts on the health systems and population health in Africa. Market liberalisation under structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) have so far weakened public health systems in Africa, the article argues, resulting in increased commercialisation of public services, falling public budgets for public health care, a shift in government away from direct health service provision to outsourcing contractors and the liberalisation of health insurance rather than tax-based financing. There have been concerns trade commitments in the EPA would translate into more market-based reforms and the negative effects they have been associated with. As negotiations are still underway, the author urges for government and other stakeholders to ensure clauses are included that explicitly protect health and do not mitigate national health objectives and commitments. (Authors from SEATINI and TARSC in EQUINET are contributing to the Global Health Diplomacy Monitor).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"The international political economy of global universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"Ooms G, Hammonds R and van Damme W: World Health Organization, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/images/stories/3international_policy_economy.pdf","body":"This paper argues that the case for global universal coverage is strong, yet it is not pursued actively enough. Although there may be a problem of \u2018free riders\u2019 (countries hoping that other countries will pay for a global public good), the main obstacle would be that global universal health coverage reduces country autonomy and embraces a paradigm of managing mutual dependence. Even if mutual dependence in health is a reality, the paper notes, countries nonetheless try to preserve their autonomy: richer countries require assurances regarding how the assistance they provide will be used (in a manner that serves their interests too), while poorer countries want to have the freedom to address their own health priorities. Recent paradigm shifts in the practice of international health financing can be seen as attempts to manage mutual dependence in health while trying to preserve country autonomy. Over the past decades, these attempts to better manage mutual dependence in health have led to increasingly sophisticated governance mechanisms. The authors suggest that a combination of the best elements of these mechanisms could help progress the world towards global universal health coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The least-developed countries report 2010: Towards a new international development architecture for least-developed countries ","field_subtitle":"United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD): 25 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/ldc2010_en.pdf","body":"This report calls for the creation of a new international development architecture (NIDA) for least-developed countries (LDCs) that will reverse their marginalisation in the global economy and help them catch up, while supporting a pattern of accelerated economic growth and diversification that will improve the general health and well-being of all their people. It argues that these objectives can be achieved if there is a paradigm shift that supports new, more inclusive development paths in LDCs and outlines alternative policy scenarios to accelerate growth and reduce poverty. The NIDA will consist of formal and informal institutions, rules and norms, including incentives, standards and processes, which would shape international economic relations in a way that is conducive to sustained and inclusive development. It will be supported by reforms of the global economic regimes that directly affect development and poverty reduction in LDCs, as well as the design of a new generation of special international support mechanisms (ISMs) for LDCs aimed at addressing their specific structural constraints and vulnerabilities. Increasing South-South cooperation could also play an important role.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The UN General Assembly High-level Plenary Meeting: A turning point for the MDGs?","field_subtitle":"Mogedal S: Health Diplomacy Monitor 1(4):1-3, November 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.ghd-net.org/sites/default/files/Health%20Diplomacy%20Monitor%20Issue%204_0.pdf","body":"This article reviews the debates at the United Nation\u2019s Millennium Development Goal Summit, held from 20-22 September 2010. Rather than bringing a convincing message about a turning point for the future, the article argues that the Summit highlights missed opportunities in acting on what has already been agreed to. Barriers to moving forward are hardly mentioned and strategies to overcome them remain largely vague. The outcome of the High Level Meeting can therefore be seen as mixed and fragile as the uneven successes and progress documented in the UN Secretary General\u2019s report to the meeting. On the positive side, the negotiated outcome document combines a return to basics. In promoting public health for all, it brings back the integrated primary health care approach, the social justice and rights imperatives, and participation of civil society as in the Alma Ata Declaration, together with conditional cash transfer, new technology and innovative finance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Health Organization policy on global women's health: New frontiers","field_subtitle":"Harris J, Merialdi M, Merzagora F, Aureli F and Bustreo F: Journal of Women's Health 19(11):2115-2118, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/jwh.2010.2101","body":"This article reviews formal and informal mechanisms through which the World Health Organization (WHO) is promoting policies for the advancement of women's health, such as Countdown to 2015 and the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health. Specific attention is given to examples of innovative strategies WHO has adopted in recent years to increase political commitment to women's and children's health and influence the development of policies supportive of country efforts to achieve Millennium Development Goals 4 (MDG4) and MDG 5 (to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health, respectively). It is expected that WHO\u2019s commitment to women\u2019s health and efforts to translate its political agenda of improving the lives of women and girls through influencing policy development at the country level will progressively increase under the leadership of Dr Margaret Chan, the current WHO Director General. The Director-General has indicated that improvements in the health of the people of Africa and the health of women are considered the key indicators of WHO\u2019s performance in the coming year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Trade and Development Report 2010","field_subtitle":"United Nations Congress on Trade and Development: 2010","field_url":"http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/tdr2010_en.pdf","body":"Health is not mentioned much in this report, with its focus on trade and development, but a few links are made. The report argues that, in developing countries, as in developed countries, the ability to achieve sustained growth of income and employment on the basis of productivity growth depends critically on how the resulting gains are distributed within the economy, how much additional wage income is spent for the consumption of domestically produced goods and services, and whether higher profits are used for investment in activities that simultaneously create more employment, including in some service sectors, such as the delivery of health and education. In most developing countries there is a pressing need to increase public sector provision of essential social services, especially those concerned with nutrition, sanitation, health and education, according to the report. This is important not only for the obvious direct effects in terms of improved material and social conditions, but also for macroeconomic reasons. The public provision of such services tends to be labour-intensive, and therefore also has considerable direct effects on employment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Ugandan government to employ 1,000 doctors","field_subtitle":"Businge C and Bwambale T: New Vision, 22 November, 2010","field_url":"http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/739044","body":"A total of 1,000 doctors are to be hired to improve the delivery of health services, according to Uganda\u2019s Health Service Commission. The Commission's chairman said an advert will be placed in the newspapers in December and the interviews will follow thereafter. He said the recruitment of health workers will be a continuous and consistent process every year. Makerere, the most prestigious medical school in the country, produces about 100 doctors a year. In total, the country produces about 250 doctors per year, including other universities. In Uganda, the doctor to patient ratio is 1:24,725, falling short of the 1:600 standard set by the World Health Organisation. The recruitment is part of the five-year new health sector strategic and investment plan. Plans are also in advanced stages to increase salaries for all health personnel, according the directorate of health services. The health service commission has also proposed to the Cabinet to have doctors availed vehicle and housing soft loans. The Government offers newly recruited medical officers a gross monthly salary of Ugandan sh626,181, while the highest medical officer at the level of a consultant takes home sh1.6 million per month. Despite a recent 30% increase in salaries for Ugandan health workers, they still earn three times less than workers in neighbouring Rwanda and Kenya.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"UNAIDS report on the global AIDS epidemic: 2010","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: November 2010","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/documents/20101123_GlobalReport_em.pdf","body":"This report shows that the AIDS epidemic is beginning to change course as the number of people newly infected with HIV is declining and AIDS-related deaths are decreasing. Together, these are contributing to the stabilisation of the total number of people living with HIV in the world. Data from the report indicates that an estimated 2.6 million people became newly infected with HIV, nearly 20% fewer than the 3.1 million people infected in 1999. In 2009, 1.8 million people died from AIDS-related illnesses, nearly one-fifth lower than the 2.1 million people who died in 2004. At the end of 2009, 33.3 million people were estimated to be living with HIV, up slightly from 32.8 million in 2008. This is in large part due to more people living longer as access to antiretroviral therapy increases, the report argues. From 2001 to 2009, the rate of new HIV infections stabilised or decreased by more than 25% in at least 56 countries around the world, including 34 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Of the five countries with the largest epidemics in the region, the report notes that four countries - Ethiopia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe - have reduced rates of new HIV infections by more than 25%, while Nigeria\u2019s epidemic has stabilised. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the region most affected by the epidemic, with 69% of all new HIV infections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal antiretroviral treatment: The challenge of human resources","field_subtitle":"B\u00e4rnighausen T, Blooma DE and Humair S: Bulletin of the World health Organization 88(12): 943-948, December 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/12/09-073890.pdf","body":"Despite scale up of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) in Africa, this study draws attention to the shortage of quality data to assess the impact of task-shifting and the loss of doctors from other parts of the health system to HIV and AIDS programmes. It calls for greater documentation and further studies how past increases in ART coverage have been achieved, for instance, by assessing health worker performance using surveys of ART facilities. However, the paper argues that such research alone is not enough. Some of the most important factors determining the long-term progress towards universal coverage \u2013 such as \u2018victim of our own success\u2019 mechanisms \u2013 may only become apparent with time and as ART coverage increases. The challenge of predicting future need through the study of past outcomes is exacerbated by uncertainties around the definition of ART need (such as increases in the CD4 count threshold for treatment eligibility) and ART-related health problems (such as widespread viral resistance). Health policy-makers need to anticipate these factors with the aid of models, allow for significant uncertainty in their ART strategies, and set realistic expectations for the magnitude of resources required for universal ART coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal coverage - A shift in the international debate on global health ","field_subtitle":"Thomas Gebauer, Executive Director, Medico International/Germany","field_url":"","body":"Today, over 100 million people are cast into poverty each year because they have to pay for health care services \u201cout of pocket\u201d. The lack of adequate social protection in health and the lack of health care coverage in case of ill health, plays a decisive role in the scandalous inequity in access to proper health care - challenging all countries, not least those in Africa.   \r\n\r\nOn November 22-23, 2010, on the occasion of the presentation of the World Health Report (WHO) Report for 2010 on \u2018Health Systems Financing \u2013 the path to Universal Coverage\u2019, the German Federal Government, together with the WHO, convened an International Conference in Berlin. The gathering was attended by almost thirty Ministers of Health from all over the world together with government officials, politicians, some researchers and a few non government organisations. \r\n \r\nEveryone agreed on the aim to achieve universal coverage. Remarkably the model that was presented by WHO concerning this doesn\u2019t speak about just going for \u201csome coverage\u201d or essential minimum packages for the poor, but demands from all countries to do their utmost to set up pooled funds that cover three dimensions: expanding the number of people covered, expanding the scope of services and reducing cost sharing (direct payment such as user fees). \r\n\r\nWHO General Director Dr Margaret Chan who addressed the audience at the beginning raised the demand to get rid of user fees, because \"user fees punish the poor\". All countries have people who are too poor to contribute financially to health care. They need to be subsidised from pooled funds, generally tax-based health systems. Out of pocket payments have to be reduced by promoting prepayment and pooling systems (tax-based or mandatory social heath insurance). All agreed that there is no \u2018silver bullet\u2019 that serves as a solution for all countries. There is no global scheme that has to be \"adopted\" by all countries, but the need is to \u201cadapt\u201d a way to move forward in the three dimensions (population covered, the scope of services expanded and cost sharing reduced) at national level. Universal coverage cannot be achieved by connecting access to health care with individual purchasing power, but only by solidarity. This means that people who are richer also contribute to the health needs of those who are poorer. By articulating these principles, WHO has opened space for national adaptations. This provides civil society organizations with the opportunity to continuously engage and challenge their governments on their delivery on these principles, such as what they are doing to expand the scope of services.  \r\n \r\nWith exception of few participants nobody mentioned private companies as relevant actors. Achieving universal coverage requires the strengthening of health systems. Ensuring affordable access to health was ultimately seen to be a public responsibility and not to be relegated to private insurance companies. Participants from Africa reiterated the 2001 Abuja Declaration to allocate at least 15% of annual government domestic spending to the improvement of the health sector.  \r\n\r\nTo ultimately realize the right to health, governments have to create the needed fiscal space. In this regard, the 2010 World Health Report mentions as possible new sources of revenue: a special levy on large and profitable companies, a currency transaction levy, a financial transaction tax, and the so-called sin-taxes (alcohol, tobacco). No reference was made to \u2018for profit Public-Private-Partnerships\u2019.   \r\n \r\nIn the context of global responsibilities, the report states that countries providing overseas development aid should do more to meet their international commitments,  by providing a more predictable and long-term flow of aid.\r\n \r\nWe should not be surprised to find that a ministerial conference also produces nice and bubbly words. Some of the presenters mixed up risk-sharing with solidarity-actions. And when it came to actions many preferred to be vague in their statements. Nevertheless, there is an interesting shift in the international debate on global health. Thirty two years after its first use, the concept of \u2018Health for all\u2019 is back on the agenda.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please see the 2010 World Health Report, www.who.int/whr/2010/en/index.html , the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org. or the MEDICO website at  http://www.medico.de/en/ ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Water sector governance in Africa","field_subtitle":"African Development Bank: November 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/339zoa8","body":"This report was launched during the Third African Water Week in Addis Ababa on 23 November 2010. About 350 million Africans still do not have access to water, according to the report. The author investigates whether poor governance has been a major contributory factor in the lack of sustainability in the African water sector. The report identifies numerous but common governance risks, and shows that these are easily identifiable and preventable. The main challenges and issues in the water sector are identified as sustainability, capacity and finance. The report also finds that substantial gains would be made if government assessments became standard procedure and if governance criteria were introduced in donor project approval procedures. While local and national institutions have the most visible role to play in governing the water sector, the report notes that it is the sector\u2019s underlying policies, legislation and regulations that provide the foundation for overall governance. To meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, an enormous annual investment is required, probably more than four to five times current investment rate in the water sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Website for knowledge brokers and intermediaries","field_subtitle":"Knowledge Brokers Forum: 2010","field_url":"http://www.knowledgebrokersforum.org","body":"Research Matters has launched a web resource for knowledge brokers and intermediaries, which includes those who are interested in knowledge translation and how research evidence can influence decision making. The forum is a shared space for knowledge brokers and intermediaries, people involved in knowledge translation and peers interested in the subject. It is designed as a space where they can access and share resources on the strategic, practical and technical aspects of knowledge brokering and intermediary work, learn from a global community of peers working in the field and share experiences with others. In addition to providing a space for discussions, requesting peer advice and posting knowledge translation-related blogs, the forum will be hosting regular themed discussions, including how evidence is used in the development of policy and practice and what this means for knowledge brokers and intermediaries, how to conduct knowledge brokering and intermediation on issues where opinion divides sharply, and how to measure the effectiveness of knowledge brokering and intermediation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"What is known about the effects of medical tourism in destination and departure countries? A scoping review","field_subtitle":"Johnston R, Crooks VA, Snyder J and Kingsbury P: International Journal for Equity in Health 9(24), 3 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-9-24.pdf","body":"Medical tourism involves patients intentionally leaving their home country to access non-emergency health care services abroad. This article reviewed academic articles, grey literature, and media sources extracted from 18 databases to examine what is known about the effects of medical tourism in destination and departure countries. It found that most of the 203 sources accepted into the review offer a perspective of medical tourism from the Global North only, focusing on the flow of patients from high-income nations to lower- and middle-income countries, biasing the findings. Five interrelated themes emerged: medical tourism was promoted as a solution to health system problems and a revenue-generating industry offering patients higher standard of care, but some studies criticised it for using scarce public resources and causing health inequity. The study concluded that what is currently known about the effects of medical tourism is minimal, unreliable, geographically restricted and mostly based on speculation. Additional primary research on the effects of medical tourism is needed if the industry is to develop in a manner that is beneficial to citizens of both departure and destination countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"What must be done to enhance capacity for health systems research? ","field_subtitle":"Bennett S, Paina L, Kim C, Agyepong I, Chunharas S, McIntyre D and Nachuk S: World Health Organization, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/images/stories/4enhance_capacity.pdf","body":"This paper was commissioned as a background discussion paper for the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, held in Switzerland from 16-19 November 2010. It discusses how best to enhance capacity for health systems research (HSR), with a particular focus on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). A systematic review was conducted of initiatives and interventions that have sought to enhance capacity for health systems research. The review sought to identify and include all papers that described a capacity development initiative for health systems or health services research. Out of 73 articles identified, 24 papers were concerned with LMICs. The articles found in the review focused primarily on the individual and organisational levels and paid less attention to the broader environment such as national research funding systems and their links to HSR. This may be because many of the papers were from high-income countries, where the challenges faced are somewhat different in nature to LMICs. Given the very weak evidence found through the systematic review, the recommendations build upon the findings from the review, but also draw upon the experience of the authors, to identify promising avenues for capacity development in the future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Women\u2019s and children\u2019s health: From pledges to action","field_subtitle":"Bustreo F and Frenk J: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88:798, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/11/10-083485/en/index.html","body":"The United Nations Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health, together with the African Union\u2019s commitment to deliver a coordinated campaign to improving maternal, child and newborn health and the G8\u2019s commitment of US$5 billion, form part of a global strategy to save 16 million mothers and children by 2015. The strategy, according to this article, aims to integrate service delivery and funding platforms, involving a wide range of stakeholders, research and innovation, and track progress through an accountability framework. Planned outcomes include: 43 million new users having access to comprehensive family planning and 19 million more women giving birth attended by a skilled health worker with access to necessary infrastructure, drugs, equipment and regulations. The strategy is designed to ensure that 2.2 million additional neonatal infections are treated, 21.9 million additional infants are breastfed, 15.2 million more children are fully immunised in the first year of life and that 117 million more children aged less than five years receive vitamin A supplements. To deliver these interventions, 85,000 more health facilities and up to 3.5 million additional health workers are needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Report","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: November 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/whr/2010/whr10_en.pdf","body":"In its annual World Health Report, the World Health Organization (WHO) shows how all countries, rich and poor, can adjust their health financing mechanisms so more people get the health care they need. It highlights three key areas where change can happen \u2013 raising more funds for health, raising money more fairly, and spending it more efficiently. WHO says that in many cases, governments can allocate more money for health. In 2000, African heads of State committed to spend 15% of government funds on health, a goal that three countries \u2013 Liberia, Rwanda and Tanzania \u2013 have already achieved. If the governments of the world\u2019s 49 poorest countries each allocated 15% of state spending to health, they could raise an additional $15 billion per year \u2013 almost doubling the funds available, notes the report. Countries can also generate more money for health through more efficient tax collection, and find new sources of tax revenue, such as sales taxes and currency transactions. A review of 22 low-income countries shows that they could between them raise $1.42 billion through a 50% increase in tobacco tax. The report also cites the role of the international community, noting that most donors still need to allocate 0.7% gross domestic product (GDP) to official development assistance. Smarter spending could also boost global health coverage anywhere between 20-40%, the report points out, highlighting 10 areas where greater efficiencies are possible, including the use of generic drugs wherever possible \u2013 a strategy that saved almost US$2 billion in 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2011-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"128th WHO Executive Board Meeting: 17-25 January 2011: Geneva, Switzerland","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/33r5vbj","body":"The Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) has decided that its 128th session should be convened on 17 January 2011, at WHO headquarters, Geneva, and should close no later than 25 January 2011. The Board further decided that the thirteenth meeting of the Programme, Budget and Administration Committee of the Executive Board should be held on 13 and 14 January 2011, at WHO headquarters.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"2010 Corruption Perceptions Index","field_subtitle":"Transparency International: 2010","field_url":"http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2010/results","body":"The 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index shows that nearly three quarters of the 178 countries in the index score below five, on a scale from 10 (highly clean) to 0 (highly corrupt). These results indicate a serious corruption problem. To address these challenges, Transparency International recommends that governments integrate anti-corruption measures in all spheres, from their responses to the financial crisis and climate change to commitments by the international community to eradicate poverty. It also advocates stricter implementation of the UN Convention against Corruption, the only global initiative that provides a framework for putting an end to corruption.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Addressing global health governance challenges through a new mechanism: The proposal for a Committee C of the World Health Assembly","field_subtitle":"Kickbusch I, Hein W and Silberschmidt G: Global Health Diplomacy Network, 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/34ex6cm","body":"This paper argues that the World Health Organization (WHO) should act as the directing and co-ordinating authority on future international health work, and its global health leadership must be earned through strategic and selective engagement. The authors caution that the focus of the paper is not the co-ordination of external development funders for health \u2013 which they do not consider WHO\u2019s role \u2013 but the challenge of how WHO\u2019s accountability to the global health community can be increased in the context of other normative and strategic dimensions of global health governance. WHO needs to provide mechanisms and instruments that link the new global health actors to the system of multilateral intergovernmental institutions, and it should engage in new ways with the many non-health actors that can influence health both positively and negatively, as well as improve its co-ordination function in relation to the development of legal instruments for health. The authors consider the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an inclusive forum that allows poorer countries to have a voice in global health. Consequently, they propose the establishment of a Committee C of the WHA, which will be legitimately represented and will deal with coherence, partnerships and the co-ordination of global health governance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid effectiveness: Why does it matter to partners in South-South co-operation?","field_subtitle":"Gurria A: Development Outreach, October 2010:10-12, 2010","field_url":"http://siteresources.worldbank.org/WBI/Resources/213798-1286217829056/gurria.pdf","body":"What is the relevance of the aid commitments embodied in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005) and the Accra Agenda for Action (2008) to development actors in South-South co-operation? While research on South-South co-operation is increasing, this article notes that it appears to be largely focused on financial flows or on a limited number of emerging economies, but not on the experiences of practitioners of South-South (SS) co-operation themselves. The article offers two reasons why aid matters for SS partners. First, aid effectiveness is important for partner countries. The effectiveness commitments embodied in the Paris Declaration and the Accra Agenda for Action have failed to promote behavior change, for example, in increasing the use of country systems and in making aid more predictable. One possible solution is the internationally recognised Survey on Monitoring the Paris Declaration, which tracks the implementation of the Paris commitments. Second, development actors need to go beyond the conventional \u2018donor-recipient\u2019 relationship, especially as the development co-operation architecture is becoming more diversified and complex. The Accra Agenda for Action in 2008 opened the door to encourage an inclusive and effective development partnership with civil society, parliamentarians, private sector, providers of South-South co-operation, foundations and global programmes. More actors are taking ownership of the aid effectiveness agenda by shaping it with their own views and experiences. One such example is the Dili Declaration (April 2010), in which a group of fragile states, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, have adapted aid effectiveness principles to their situations of national conflict and fragility.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Best Practices in Global Health Award","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 15 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.ngopulse.org/opportunity/best-practices-global-health-award-0","body":"The Best Practices in Global Health Award is given annually by the Global Health Council to celebrate and highlight the efforts of a public health practitioner or organisation dedicated to improving the health of disadvantaged and disenfranchised populations, and to recognise the programmes that effectively demonstrate the links between health, poverty and development. The person or organisation selected for this award must be able to demonstrate the success of their programme(s) and measurable results in the field, as well as possess the ability and expertise to share, inspire and extend best practices for improving health. If you would like to nominate someone, visit the website address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Building a healthy society  in South Africa: perspectives and actions","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET newsletter","field_url":"","body":"When the first  Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, held under the theme \"Science to Accelerate Universal Health Coverage\" ended a week ago, after hearing the concluding statement (included in this newsletter), many people went back to heavily fragmented health systems with very different experiences of access and service for different social groups. The two editorials in this newsletter take the issue of universal coverage to the real time of the policies and interests being negotiated at country level in South Africa. The discussion by Di McIntyre on national health insurance in South Africa points to the importance of perspective and clarity on the long term implications of choices being made in the current debates on national health insurance; while the report by Jacky Thomas of SANGOCO points to the measures civil society are taking to move from issue specific to common platforms, to challenge unhealthy divisions in systems and in society. Together they raise the challenge of twinning perspective with knowledge, and knowledge with organisation, to build universal, integrated health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals: Muskoka Initiative Partnership Programme","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: 28 January 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/38kg8jp","body":"The Canadian International Development Agency\u2019s (CIDA) Partnerships with Canadians Branch (PWCB) is launching a C$75 million call for projects over $500,000 to take a comprehensive and integrated approach to address maternal, newborn, and child health, under its Partners for Development Programme. Projects must align with the elements and principles of Canada's contribution to the Muskoka Initiative, which will focus its efforts along three key paths: strengthening health systems to improve health service delivery at the district level by training more health workers and expanding access for mothers and children to needed health care facilities and interventions; improving nutrition by increasing access to healthy and nutritious food and needed nutritional supplements that help reduce mortality; and addressing the leading diseases and illnesses that are killing mothers and their children. Projects must be implemented in eligible countries with high rates of maternal and child mortality. Eligible countries in the East, Central and Southern African region are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. This call will fund projects from Canadian organisations in partnership with organisations in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for scholarship applications: Netherlands Fellowship Programme ","field_subtitle":"Submission deadlines: Vary for different sub-programmes, mostly in 2011","field_url":"http://www.nuffic.nl/international-organizations/services/scholarships","body":"Funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and managed by the Netherlands Organizations for International Co-operation in Higher Education (NUFFIC), the Netherlands Fellowship Programme is an opportunity for non-governmental organisations, governmental and private organisations in developing countries to build their capacity. The overall aim of the NFP is to help alleviate qualitative and quantitative shortages of skilled staff within a wide range of governmental, private and non-governmental organizations by offering fellowships to mid-career professionals to improve the capacity of the organizations they work for. The need for training has to be evident within the context of an organisation. Candidates from Sub-Saharan Africa, women and members of priority groups and marginalised regions are specifically invited to apply for an NFP fellowship. The NFP offers several sub-programmes. Each sub-programme has a separate section on the Fellowship Programme\u2019s website, with information about eligibility criteria, application and selection and deadlines (if applicable). Sub-programmes include short courses, master\u2019s degrees and PhD studies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Catalysing change: The system reform costs of universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"Rockefeller Foundation: 15 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/uploads/files/ebafb89b-2d68-45c0-885e-74d40e8c55d9.pdf","body":"This report aims to call health leaders\u2019 attention to the importance and feasibility of establishing the systems and institutions needed to pursue universal health coverage (UHC). It also seeks to quantify the transition costs associated with reforming a health system away from one that relies on out-of-pocket payments and towards one in which health expenditures are more evenly distributed and that can supply UHC. Although models for UHC vary by country, governments are re-organising national health systems to share health costs more equitably across the population and its life cycle, instead of concentrating the burden on the few who face catastrophic illness in any given year. Using examples from four countries that have made tremendous strides toward achieving universal coverage, including Rwanda, the report puts an approximate price tag on these investments. It concludes that relatively small early investments can set countries on the path toward UHC.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Combating poverty and inequality: Structural change, social policy and politics","field_subtitle":"United Nations Research Institute for Social Development: 2010 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3yauw4j","body":"This report seeks to explain why people are poor and why inequalities exist, as well as what can be done to rectify these injustices. It explores the causes, dynamics and persistence of poverty; examines what works and what has gone wrong in international policy thinking and practice; and lays out a range of policies and institutional measures that countries can adopt to alleviate poverty. It notes that current approaches to reducing poverty and inequality fail to consider key institutional, policy and political dimensions that may be both causes of poverty and inequality, and obstacles to their reduction. Moreover, when a substantial proportion of a country\u2019s population is poor, it makes little sense to detach poverty from the dynamics of development. For countries that have been successful in increasing the well-being of most of their populations over relatively short periods of time, the report shows, progress has occurred principally through State-directed strategies that combine economic development objectives with active social policies and forms of politics that elevate the interests of the poor in public policy. The report is structured around three main issues, which, it argues, are the critical elements of a sustainable and inclusive development strategy: patterns of growth and structural change (whether in the agricultural, industrial or service sectors) that generate and sustain adequately paid jobs; comprehensive social policies that are grounded in universal rights and that support structural change, social cohesion and democratic politics; and protection of civic rights, activism and political arrangements that ensure that States are responsive to the needs of citizens and that the poor have some influence in how policies are made.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community health committees as a vehicle for participation in advancing the right to health","field_subtitle":"Glattstein-Young G and London L: Critical Health Perspectives 2(1):1-2, September 2010","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/sites/www.phmovement.org/files/CriticalHealthPerspectivesSeptember2010.PDF","body":"This paper explores whether community participation through health committees can advance the right to health, and what constitutes best practice for community participation through South African health committees. It reports on a series of 32 in-depth interviews with members of three community health committees and health service providers in the Cape Metropolitan area. The interviews revealed that, even in resource-constrained settings, community participation through health committees can advance the right to health. This advance mainly occurs through reported improvements in the acceptability and accessibility of local health services. Still, progress is restricted by the amount of power held at different levels of decision-making. The most prominent barriers to participation mentioned by participants included underrepresentation of vulnerable and marginalised groups, and the absence of a formal mandate giving health committees clear objectives and the authority to achieve them, which undermined their ability to make any significant improvements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Congo-Brazzaville launches campaign to reduce maternal and child mortality","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 28 October 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=90903","body":"Malnutrition in Congo-Brazzaville causes more than a quarter of deaths among children under five, according to United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). In response, on 20 October 2010, the Act Now, No Woman Should Die Giving Life campaign was launched across the country. It aims to reduce maternal and child mortality, and involves the government, three United Nations (UN) agencies, civil society and private partners. It aims to reduce the maternal mortality rate of 781 per 100,000 live births, as well as child mortality. UNICEF also pointed out health inequities, as the rich have access to faster essential interventions than the poor and stressed that reducing this inequality is essential to achieve the Millennium Development Goals related to health. The Congolese Minister for Health and Population assured that adoption of the new national roadmap will accelerate reduction in mortality rates. He said that since 2008 pregnant women and children aged 5-15 have been able to access free malaria treatment, and from January 2011 pregnant women will be able to get free Caesarean sections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Corporate think-tanks, free market ideology and the attack on the right to health","field_subtitle":"London L and Reynolds L: Critical Health Perspectives 2(2):1-3, October 2010","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/sites/www.phmovement.org/files/CHPOctober2010Vol2Issue2.PDF","body":"According to this article, one aspect of the efforts of global capital to shape health policy in developing countries is the practice of so-called \u2018independent\u2019 think tanks, which seek to put into the public domain seemingly dispassionate opinion pieces on public policy, but which are openly oriented to promoting free market policy at the expense of public benefit. These think tanks propose that only free market liberalisation can solve problems related to food security, housing and health, but offer limited empirical evidence for this. The role of large corporate funding in their work is obscured. The article presents one example, the London-based International Policy Network, which is argued to promote private healthcare by arguing that human rights are not indivisible and inalienable, and by dismissing the validity of social and economic rights, particularly the right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Countdown to 2015: Assessment of official development assistance to maternal, newborn, and child health, 2003-08","field_subtitle":"Pitt C, Greco G, Powell-Jackson T and Mills A: The Lancet 376(9751), 30 October 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/33s6ab6","body":"Many of the 68 priority countries in the Countdown to 2015 Initiative are dependent on official development assistance (ODA). This study analysed aid flows for maternal, newborn, and child health for 2007 and 2008 and updated previous estimates for 2003\u201406. It found that, in 2007 and 2008, US$4.7 billion and $5.4 billion, respectively, were disbursed in support of maternal, newborn and child health activities in all developing countries, reflecting a 105% increase between 2003 and 2008, but no change relative to overall ODA for health. Targeting of ODA to countries with high rates of maternal and child mortality improved over the six-year period, although some of these countries persistently received far less ODA per head than did countries with much lower mortality rates and higher income levels. Funding from the GAVI Alliance and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria exceeded core funding from multilateral institutions, and bilateral funding also increased substantially between 2003 and 2008, especially from the United States and the United Kingdom. However, the authors caution that these increases do not reflect increased prioritisation relative to other health areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Decreased sexual risk behavior in the era of HAART among HIV-infected urban and rural South Africans attending primary care clinics","field_subtitle":"Venkatesh KK, de Bruyn G, Lurie MN, Mohapi L, Pronyk P, Moshabela M et al: AIDS 2010(24):2687-2696","field_url":"http://journals.lww.com/aidsonline/Citation/2010/11130/Antiretroviral_treatment_is_a_behavioural.17.aspx","body":"In light of increasing access to antiretroviral therapy in sub-Saharan Africa, the authors conducted a longitudinal study to assess the impact of antiretroviral therapy on sexual risk behaviours among HIV-infected South Africans in urban and rural primary care clinics. This prospective observational cohort was conducted at rural and urban primary care HIV clinics, consisting of 1,544 men and 4,719 women enrolled from 2003 to 2010, and representing 19,703 clinic visits. The primary outcomes were being sexually active, unprotected sex and more than one sex partner and were evaluated at six-monthly intervals. Generalised estimated equations assessed the impact of antiretroviral therapy on sexual risk behaviours. Among 6,263 HIV-infected men and women, over a third (37.2%) initiated antiretroviral therapy (ART) during study follow-up. In comparison to pre-ART follow-up, visits while receiving antiretroviral therapy were associated with a decrease in those reporting being sexually active. Unprotected sex and having more than one sex partner were reduced at visits following ART initiation compared to pre-ART visits. Sexual risk behaviour significantly decreased following antiretroviral therapy initiation among HIV-infected South African men and women in primary care programmes. The study concludes that further expansion of ART programmes could enhance HIV prevention efforts in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing Antiretroviral Therapy in Africa (DART): Policy recommendations","field_subtitle":"DART: 2010","field_url":"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGE5gj9rFuY","body":"This short film argues that many more people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa could be treated if laboratory tests were used in a targeted rather than routine way. Trial participants, practitioners and investigators explain how maintaining and scaling up access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) in low- and middle-income countries could be possible on current funding levels, even in the midst of a global economic crisis. The principal message from Developing Antiretroviral Therapy in Africa (DART) is that ART saves lives, and that it can be delivered safely and successfully without the use of routine laboratory testing for drug toxicity and side effects. Use of routine CD4 testing for monitoring disease progression is argued to offer only a small benefit to patients after the second year of therapy. Trial investigators believe that priority should be given to widening access to first- and second-line drugs to treat HIV, with resources focused on strengthening healthcare systems and training well-supervised healthcare workers to deliver quality care in rural areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Differences in access and patient outcomes across antiretroviral treatment clinics in the Free State province: A prospective cohort study","field_subtitle":"Ingle SM, May M, Uebel K, Timmerman V, Kotze E, Bachmann M et al: South African Medical Journal 100(1): 675-681, October 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article /viewFile/3952/2971","body":"This study assessed differences in access to antiretroviral treatment (ART) and patient outcomes across public sector treatment facilities in the Free State province, South Africa. It took the form of a prospective cohort study with retrospective database links. Data on patients enrolled in the treatment programme was analysed across 36 facilities between May 2004 and December 2007. Of 44,866 patients enrolled, 15,219 initiated treatment within one year, 8,778 died within one year (7,286 before accessing ART). Outcomes at one year varied greatly across facilities and more variability was explained by facility-level factors than by patient-level factors. The odds of starting treatment within one year improved over calendar time. Patients were less likely to start treatment if they were male, severely immunosuppressed, or underweight. Men were also more likely to die in the first year after enrolment. Although increasing numbers of patients started ART between 2004 and 2007, many patients died before accessing ART. Patient outcomes could be improved by decentralisation of treatment services, fast-tracking the most immunodeficient patients and improving access, especially for men.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Doubling the number of health graduates in Zambia: Estimating feasibility and costs","field_subtitle":"Aaron T, Kapihya M, Libetwa M, Lee J, Pattinson C, McCarthy E and Schroder K: Human Resources for Health 8(22), 22 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-8-22.pdf","body":"In response to its critical health worker shortages, the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Zambia plans to double the annual number of health training graduates in the next five years to increase the supply of health workers. This study sought to determine the feasibility and costs of doubling training institution output through an individual school assessment framework. Assessment teams consulted faculty, managers and staff in all of Zambia's 39 public and private health training institutions in 2008. The individual school assessments affirmed the MoH's ability to double the graduate output of Zambia's public health training institutions. Lack of infrastructure was determined as a key bottleneck in achieving this increase while meeting national training quality standards. The authors argue that an investment of US$ 58.8 million is required to meet infrastructure needs, and the number of teaching staff must increase by 111% over the next five years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"East Africa Public Health Laboratory Networking Project for Africa","field_subtitle":"Governments of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda and the World Bank: April 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3xt47tr","body":"The objective of the East Africa Public Health Laboratory Networking Project for Africa is to establish a network of efficient, high quality, accessible public health laboratories for the diagnosis and surveillance of tuberculosis and other communicable diseases. There are three components to the project, the first component being regional diagnostic and surveillance capacity. This component will provide targeted support to create and render functional the regional laboratory network. Uganda, working in close collaboration with the East, Central and Southern African Health Community (ECSA-HC), will lead the establishment of the network. The second component is joint training and capacity building. The project will support training in a range of institutions in the four countries and across the region. Tanzania will provide leadership in this area and establish a regional training hub. It will provide practical training at its state-of-the-art national health laboratory quality assurance and training centre and in-service training and post-graduate mentorships at the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences. Finally, the third component includes joint operational research, knowledge sharing and regional co-ordination, and programme management.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"East, Central and Southern African Health Community: Resolutions of the 52nd Health Ministers Conference","field_subtitle":"ECSA Health Ministers: November 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ECSgov20112010.pdf","body":"The 52nd East, Central and Southern African (ECSA) Health Ministers Conference was held in Zimbabwe from 25-29 October 2010, with the theme \u2018Moving from Knowledge to Action: Harnessing Evidence to Transform Healthcare\u2019. A number of resolutions were passed, calling for governments to promote evidence-based policy making, engage with the international community/global movement towards achieving universal health coverage, develop training programmes and monitoring mechanisms for improved maternal child health and reproductive health/family planning, establish and/or strengthen a national gender commission for dealing with gender-based violence and child sexual abuse, develop and monitor strategies for retaining health workers in the region and support strategic leadership in global health diplomacy. Further resolutions call for ECSA countries to prioritise nutrition interventions, strengthen monitoring and evaluation systems, strengthen the response to multi-drug resistant and extremely drug resistant tuberculosis, and strengthen partnerships for health by ensure that partner involvement in health programmes is aligned and harmonised with national health policies, plans and priorities. The countries should develop mechanisms for tracking health care investment and evaluating the outcomes of partnerships.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic outcomes of patients receiving antiretroviral therapy for HIV/AIDS in South Africa are sustained through three years on treatment","field_subtitle":"Rosen S, Larson B, Brennan A, Long L, Fox M, Mongwenyana C: PLoS One 5(9), 14 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0012731","body":"The authors of this study assessed symptom prevalence, general health, ability to perform normal activities, and employment status among adult antiretroviral therapy (ART) patients in South Africa over three full years following ART initiation. A cohort of 855 adult pre-ART patients and patients on ATY for ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Emerging economies\u2019 new initiative on falsified and substandard medicines","field_subtitle":"New W and Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 22 October 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3azno4h","body":"The governments of Brazil, India and South Africa convened a meeting on 15 October in Geneva themed \u2018Falsified and substandard medicines: Current challenges and long-term solutions: A public health perspective\u2019. These major generic medicines-producing nations discussed the dangers of compromised medical products and joined together to urge new steps such as a better definition of what is counterfeit, a focus on public health instead of intellectual property, and strengthening national regulatory capabilities beyond enforcement actions, which they say have been manipulated and sometimes counterproductive. Speakers levelled strong criticism at those who traffic in counterfeit medicines or in substandard medicines but criticised enforcement efforts from developed countries, charging them with intent to confuse the public about generics. Two solutions were put forward: an intensive focus on defining counterfeit, substandard and related terms, and bolstering national regulatory capacity. Speakers stressed that the problem is one of public health, not intellectual property rights, saying the quality is for regulatory authorities \u2013 including public health authorities - to determine, not originator pharmaceutical companies. The developing country initiative comes in the context of the May 2010 World Health Assembly\u2019s establishment of an intergovernmental working group on the issue to look at WHO\u2019s role in ensuring the availability of quality, safe, efficacious and affordable medicines, and to investigate its relationship with the controversial, Interpol-driven International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 118: Building a healthy society in South Africa: perspectives and actions","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity and adequacy of international donor assistance for global malaria control: An analysis of populations at risk and donor commitments ","field_subtitle":"Snow RW, Okiro EA, Gething PW, Atun R and Hay SI: The Lancet 376(9750): 1409-1416, 23 October 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/36pkxlo","body":"This study found that international financing for malaria control has increased by 166% (from $0.73 billion to $1.94 billion) since 2007 and is broadly consistent with biological needs. African countries have become major recipients of external assistance, but countries where malaria continues to pose threats to control ambitions are not as well funded. Twenty-one countries have reached adequate assistance to provide a comprehensive suite of interventions by 2009, including twelve countries in Africa. However, this assistance was inadequate for 50 countries, representing 61% of the worldwide population at risk of malaria - including ten countries in Africa and five in Asia that co-incidentally are some of the world\u2019s poorest countries. Approval of external funding for malaria control does not correlate with gross domestic product, the study found. In conclusion, funding for malaria control worldwide is 60% lower than the US$4.9 billion needed for comprehensive control in 2010. This includes funding shortfalls for a wide range of countries with different numbers of people at risk and different levels of domestic income. More efficient targeting of financial resources against biological need and national income should create a more equitable investment portfolio that with increased commitments will guarantee sustained financing of control in countries most at risk and least able to support themselves.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity-oriented toolkit for health technology assessment ","field_subtitle":"WHO Collaborating Centre for Knowledge Translation and Health Technology Assessment in Health Equity: 2010","field_url":"http://bit.ly/9HH5Wy","body":"The Equity-Oriented Toolkit is currently in the process of being updated and expanded. It is based on a needs-based model of health technology assessment (HTA). It provides tools that explicitly consider health equity at each of the four steps of HTA: burden of illness, community effectiveness, economic evaluation, knowledge translation and implementation. It also incorporates concepts of health impact assessment within the HTA process. The World Health Organization is seeking suggestions on validated and widely disseminated HTA tools that explicitly consider health equity and that are relevant to the toolkit. These tools may be specific analytical methods such as the Disability-Adjusted Life Years, checklists such as the Health Impact Screening Checklist, software programmes such as the Harvard Policy Maker, databases such as The Cochrane Library. Visit the website to make your suggestions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Europe promises to fix laws governing counterfeit medicine seizures","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 20 October 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2wt4us6","body":"European governments have promised to fix laws that caused generic medicine seizures in the Netherlands, the Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry announced. He added that seizures were illegal under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement. Minister Anand Sharma pointed to significant savings in buying Indian-made generics for developing countries, for example by reducing the price of treatment for one patient for one year of antiretroviral medicines from US$12,000 to $400. He cautioned against confusing generic medicines with counterfeits, arguing that India was fully TRIPS compliant. India has had meetings with the Directorate-General for Trade at the European Commission, and European Union (EU) Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht and his predecessor Catherine Ashton in this regard. Some were expecting India to call for formation of a panel in the dispute case after several months of consultations, but the Minister said that he has received \u2018clear assurance [from] the EU trade commissioner that the notification under which actions were taken was misinterpreted and will be amended to plug all loopholes\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Examining health-care volunteerism in a food-  and financially insecure world","field_subtitle":"Maes K: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88(11), November 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/11/09-074120/en/index.html","body":"Insecure access to food is increasingly recognized as a major contributor to cycles of poverty and HIV and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, according to this article. In this context, volunteers espouse desires for economic \u2018progress\u2019 amid a mix of pro-social and self-interested motivations to be volunteer AIDS caregivers. For these volunteers, food insecurity was particularly demotivating. Food crisis on top of chronic food insecurity pushed them to reconsider what they deemed as appropriate compensation for their efforts. Ironically, volunteers in such contexts may often be poorer than their clients. Ideally, effective and resilient community health workers should derive mental satisfaction and fair remuneration from their labour. The question for policy-makers is how to generate the spiritual benefits of altruistic, compassionate care as well as a level of remuneration that allows for secure livelihoods among volunteers who are often socioeconomically marginalized. WHO\u2019s recent recommendation challenges various public and private entities to adapt to a system in which funding and other measures are used to create fairly-paid and secure health-care jobs in low-income countries facing pervasive food insecurity and high burdens of chronic and infectious disease. In sub-Saharan Africa, hiring, training and paying community health workers may be a win-win situation: people receive secure jobs that provide food security for their families and communities, and their participation strengthens health-care systems and people in need of care. The article emphasises that health programmers need to listen to what volunteers themselves \u2013 and the people whom they serve \u2013 say about the benefits and costs of volunteering.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Expansion of cancer care and control in countries of low and middle income: A call to action","field_subtitle":"Farmer P, Frenk J, Knaul FM, Shulman LN, Alleyne G, Armstrong L et al: The Lancet 376(9747):1186-1193, 2 October 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2810%2961152-X/abstract","body":"The authors of this article challenge the public health community's assumption that cancers will remain untreated in poor countries, and note the analogy to similarly unfounded arguments from more than a decade ago against provision of HIV treatment in poor countries. In resource-constrained countries without specialised services, experience has shown that much can be done to prevent and treat cancer by deploying primary and secondary caregivers, using off-patent drugs, and applying regional and global mechanisms for financing and procurement. Furthermore, several middle-income countries have included cancer treatment in national health insurance coverage, with a focus on people living in poverty. These strategies can reduce costs, increase access to health services and strengthen health systems to meet the challenge of cancer and other diseases, the authors argue. To promote cancer treatment in poor countries, the Global Task Force on Expanded Access to Cancer Care and Control in Developing Countries was formed in 2009. It is composed of leaders from the global health and cancer care communities, and is dedicated to proposal, implementation and evaluation of strategies to advance this agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Global strategy for women\u2019s and children\u2019s health ","field_subtitle":"United Nations: 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.un.org/sg/hf/Global_StategyEN.pdf","body":"The Global strategy for women\u2019s and children\u2019s health sets out the key areas where action is urgently required to enhance health financing, strengthen policy and improve service delivery. It argues that investing in women\u2019s and children\u2019s health reduces poverty, stimulates economic productivity and growth, is cost-effective and helps women and children realise their human rights. The report makes a number of recommendations. First, it urges governments and the global community to support country-led health plans, emphasising life-saving interventions and ensuring that women and their children can access prevention, treatment and care when and where they need it. The report also advocates for stronger health systems, with sufficient skilled health workers at their core and innovative approaches to financing, product development and the efficient delivery of health services. The over-reaching aim of the report is to help reach the goal of saving the lives of 16 million women and children by 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and development: Global update: October 2010","field_subtitle":"HLSP Institute: October 2010","field_url":"http://www.hlsp.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=k1x7K9wfrlw%3D&tabid=1547","body":"The HLSP Institute\u2019s Global Update is a reference guide to the key events and activities of six months \u2013 April to September 2010 \u2013 in the health and development arena, with particular focus on aid effectiveness, health systems and public health. It reports on the United Nations (UN) Children\u2019s Fund\u2019s proposal to take a more equity-based approach to child health. The intended strategies are: upgrading selected facilities, particularly for maternal and newborn care, and expanding maternity services at the primary level, including maternity \u2018waiting homes\u2019; tackling the multiple barriers to access by the poorest \u2013 from massively expanding outreach services, and eliminating user charges, to extending cash transfers to cover indirect costs (e.g. transport); and task shifting, with more community outreach and involvement, and making greater use of community health workers to deliver basic health care services outside facilities. In terms of the global AIDS response, the update notes that the global AIDS response is at a crossroads, with a shortfall on achieving universal access targets, together with signs of funding declines and shortfalls. There has been growing attention to maternal health and commitments made in the US Global Health Initiative, the G8, the African Union Summit in Kampala in July 2010 and the MDG Summit in September 2010, with significant resources allocated to this area.  The authors argue that assessing progress on delivery on these commitments and the impact of the resources is limited by lack of reliable and accurate maternal mortality data.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Financing for Universal Coverage in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Workers World Media Productions, UCT Health Economics Unit, EQUINET","field_url":"","body":"Labour Voices of the Airwaves is broadcast in five languages on 39 community radio stations in South Africa. This 7-minute long show broadcast earlier this year looks at the South African government's progress towards the World Health Assembly resolution on universal coverage, defined as adequate access for all at an affordable price. The spokesperson from the Ministerial Advisory Committee on the National Health Insurance (NHI), Fidel Radebe explained that the NHI is intended to be a financing system to provide universal coverage to all South Africans. Prof Di McIntyre from EQUINET -Health Economics Unit at the University of Cape Town, argued that universal coverage can only be achieved through fair financing mechanisms, and these would either be tax funding or a national health insurance scheme that integrates all funds into one pool for the benefit of all. Nehawu spokesperson Sizwe Mpamla explained why the union is in favour of NHI, saying that an universal health system would mean increased funding for the public health sector, which would lead to improved facilities and this would positively impact on health workers working conditions. Asanda Fonqa of Denosa was similarly positive about the move towards NHI. Prof David Sanders of the School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape said that NHI would only contribute to achieving universal coverage if it chose a viable model for delivery; he said that if the bulk of NHI funds were used to cover private health services, universal coverage would not be achieved. Activists like Sipho Magodella of the Anti-Privatisation Forum  remained skeptical that the government was really committed to delivering an equitable, universal health system and therefore skeptical of the planned NHI. Only when the full NHI proposal is made public will South Africans be able to assess to what extent it is likely to bring about universal coverage. This file is too large to load to the website so those interested are asked to contact admin@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV infection in older adults in sub-Saharan Africa: Extrapolating prevalence from existing data","field_subtitle":"Negin J and Cumming RG: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88(11), November 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/11/10-080994/en/index.html","body":"This study sought to quantify the number of cases and prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection among older adults in sub-Saharan Africa. It reviewed data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), of which 8 surveys contained data on HIV infection among men aged &#8805; 50 years. Data was also extrapolated from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS on the estimated number of people living with HIV and on HIV infection prevalence among adults aged 15\u201349 years. The study found that, in 2007, approximately 3 million people aged &#8805; 50 years were living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. The prevalence of HIV infection in this group was 4.0%, compared with 5.0% among those aged 15\u201349 years. Of the approximately 21 million people in sub-Saharan Africa aged &#8805; 15 years that were HIV+, 14.3% were &#8805; 50 years old. The study concludes that to better reflect the longer survival of people living with HIV and the ageing of the HIV+ population, indicators of the prevalence of HIV infection should be expanded to include people > 49 years of age. Little is known about comorbidity and sexual behaviour among HIV+ older adults or about the biological and cultural factors that increase the risk of transmission. HIV services need to be better targeted to respond to the growing needs of older adults living with HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How HIV/AIDS scale-up has impacted on non-HIV priority services in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Brugha R, Simbaya J, Walsh A, Dicker P and Ndubani P: BMC Public Health 10(540), September 2010","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/10/540","body":"Much of the debate as to whether or not the scaling up of HIV service delivery in Africa benefits non-HIV priority services has focused on the use of nationally aggregated data. This paper analyses and presents routine health facility record data to show trend correlations across priority services. The authors conducted a review of district office and health facility client records for 39 health facilities in three districts of Zambia, covering four consecutive years (2004-2007). Intra-facility analyses were conducted, service and coverage trends assessed and rank correlations between services measured to compare service trends within facilities. Voluntary counselling and testing, antiretroviral therapy and prevention of mother-to-child transmission client numbers and coverage levels were found to have increased rapidly during the period. There were some strong positive correlations in trends within facilities between reproductive health services (family planning and antenatal care) and antiretroviral therapy and prevention of mother-to-child transmission. Childhood immunisation coverage also increased. Stock-outs of important drugs for non-HIV priority services were significantly more frequent than were stock-outs of antiretroviral drugs. The analysis shows scale-up in reproductive health service numbers in the same facilities where HIV services were scaling up. While district childhood immunisations increased overall, this did not necessarily occur in facility catchment areas where HIV service scale-up occurred. The paper demonstrates an approach for comparing correlation trends across different services, using routine health facility information. Larger samples and explanatory studies are needed to understand the client, facility and health systems factors that contribute to positive and negative synergies between priority services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How Ray Suarez really caught the global health bug","field_subtitle":"Fortner R: Columbia Journalism Review, 7 October 2010","field_url":"http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/how_ray_suarez_really_caught_t.php","body":"This article raises the question of whether the Gates Foundation\u2019s underwriting of journalism, for example by funding radio health programmes in the United States (US) and health journals like Global Health, creates a conflict of interest for journalists, especially when the Foundation does not disclose its funding upfront. Although the Foundation might not have advocated for specific programmes, it does have distinct policy preferences and  policy-shaping efforts, potentially influencing the media. The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), which was given a five-year, US$9.9 million grant last year by the Gates Foundation, is supposed to provide independent analysis of US global health policies, which have direct bearing on the Gates Foundation\u2019s programmes. Prominent among these programmes is KFF\u2019s US Global Health Policy portal, which selects and summarises global health news from more than 200 worldwide sources spanning mainstream media outlets to blogs. KFF sends a daily email news digest to policy makers, opinion leaders and journalists. The author argues that, not only does KFF have the power to choose what constitutes global health news but, in summarising the stories it selects, it can give them a construction of its own choosing. In key instances, the KFF\u2019s global health news coverage suggests bias both in story selection and preferential treatment of the Gates Foundation. The author calls for increased transparency of funding sources for health programmes and health journalism.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementation research platform launched at Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"TDR News: 17 November 2010","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/tdr/svc/news-events/news/ir-launch","body":"A new platform for scaling up drugs and other health interventions to meet national and regional needs in developing countries was launched at the opening of the First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, held from 16-19 November 2010 in Switzerland. The platform is a new collaboration of several organisations at the World Health Organization, with funding from the Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation (NORAD) and the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (SIDA). The first seven projects were announced, which include projects in Kenya and Uganda. The platform is guided by an open, transparent selection of proposals and has been set up to help build evidence for the health-related Millennium Development Goals to improve child and maternal health and reduce HIV/AIDS, and to build capacity for health systems research and knowledge translation, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. The platform is intended to allow a greater degree of \u2018inter-disciplinarity\u2019 to strengthen the whole health system. It will examine the interface between scale-up and implementation of health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving health and social cohesion through education ","field_subtitle":"Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development: September 2010","field_url":"http://browse.oecdbookshop.org/oecd/pdfs/browseit/9610081E.PDF","body":"This report notes that, despite the important role education plays in shaping indicators of progress, we understand little about the causal relationships and pathways between educational interventions and social outcomes. The report provides a synthesis of the existing evidence, data analyses and policy discussions. It finds that education has the potential to promote health directly and through supporting civic and social engagement. Education may reduce inequalities by fostering cognitive, social and emotional skills and promoting healthy lifestyles, participatory practices and norms. These efforts are most likely to be successful when family and community environments are aligned with the efforts made within educational institutions. This calls for policy coherence across sectors and across the stages of education.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"India, South Africa to team up on HIV vaccine research","field_subtitle":"Padma TV: Science and Development Network, 19 October 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/en/news/india-south-africa-to-team-up-on-hiv-vaccine-research.html","body":"India and South Africa will launch a joint research project to find vaccines for HIV strains common to both countries. The project was formally approved by the governments of both countries last spring and is expected to be launched by the end of 2010. Virander Chauhan, director of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi, said that the five-year, US$1 million dollar project will involve around five research groups from each country with core competence in basic and HIV vaccine research. A successful partnership could serve as a model for similar South\u2013South collaborations and inspire other developing countries to go the same route.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Is a National Health Insurance the right path for South Africa?","field_subtitle":"Di McIntyre, Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThere has been considerable media debate about the proposal to implement a National Health Insurance (NHI) in South Africa.  This editorial attempts to unpack the options that face South Africa by painting scenarios of where we could head.  These scenarios focus on two key elements of current debates: firstly whether this major health system reform will be \u2018affordable\u2019 and \u2018sustainable\u2019; and secondly, whether we are able to achieve an integrated health system or are destined to continue to have a highly fragmented health system. \r\n\r\nIt appears that we have essentially four scenarios for the South African health system: \r\n1: the \u2018no go\u2019 option\r\n2: the unsustainable, \u2018divided forever\u2019 option\r\n3: the sustainable, \u2018second rate\u2019 health system with fragmentation option, and \r\n4: the integrated, \u2018healthy nation\u2019 option. \r\n\r\nThe starting point for considering what health system changes would be helpful is to be clear about the path on which we are currently set. Our health system is heavily fragmented.  A key division is between those that are medical scheme (private insurance) members (16% of South Africans) and those that are not (the remaining 84%).  Health service access is very different for these two groups.\r\n\r\nOur current health system is \u2018second rate\u2019 in many ways.  For increasing numbers of families, medical scheme cover is just not affordable. In the early 1980s, medical scheme contributions for a family took about 7% of average formal sector wages and salaries.  This had increased to a staggering 30% by 2007.  The challenges facing the under-resourced public health sector are well known. There is no question that change is needed, and needed soon.\r\n\r\nIf this is not the direction in which we want to head, where do we want to go?  Some argue that we need to pursue \u2018social health insurance\u2019 (SHI) \u2013 the \u2018divided forever\u2019 scenario.  It is proposed that everyone who is formally employed and who earns more than the income tax threshold should be required to have medical scheme membership.  The problem is that this scenario is a very expensive option.  R1 in every R10 spent in South Africa would have to be spent on medical schemes alone, for the benefit of less than 40% of South Africans.\r\n\r\nThis scenario is called \u2018divided forever\u2019 because it will entrench a fragmented two-tier system between the haves (those that have insurance cover and access to any health service they desire) and the have nots.  Proponents of this path argue that SHI is a logical step towards universal coverage.  But experience in other middle-income countries, notably many Latin American countries, shows that it is very difficult to overcome the divisions created by SHI once they have been entrenched.\r\n \r\nMany believe that, instead, an integrated system is needed.  What is so prized about such a system?  The global call for progress to universal health systems is based on the following two principles:\r\nThat no one should have their livelihood threatened because they have to pay for health care, i.e. that all citizens should be provided with financial protection from health care costs; and\r\nThat all citizens should be able to access the health care they need.\r\n\r\nIn order for these principles to be realised, an integrated health system is needed. It simply doesn\u2019t work to have all the richer, healthier people contributing to and benefiting from one funding pool (or worse, a number of fragmented pools) and all the poorer, sicker people in a completely separate funding pool.  You end up having a lot or most of the money for health care going to serve a relatively healthy minority and very little money available to provide health care for those who bear most of the burden of ill-health.\r\n\r\nOne way of pursuing an integrated system is to attempt to cover everyone using the current medical scheme model.  However, this would result in more than R2 in every R10 that is spent in South Africa going to cover the entire population via medical schemes. For this reason, this scenario has been called a \u2018no go\u2019 \u2013 no country in the world has such a system and it is not something worth even considering for South Africa.\r\n\r\nI believe that it is possible to achieve an affordable or sustainable and integrated system.   Everyone agrees that the first step is to substantially improve services in the public health sector.  There is much to be done, both in terms of improved management and resourcing.  Some say: \u201cwhy not just focus on improving the public sector\u201d.  The most valuable and scarce resource in the health sector is that of health professionals.  We could be utilising the human resources we have far more efficiently and equitably than at present.  However, this is only possible if we have a large integrated pool of public funds that can be used to purchase health services from public and private providers for the benefit of all South Africans.  It is not simply a matter of focusing on improving the public sector. We need to change the way in which health services are funded if we are to effectively use the health professional resources in South Africa so that everyone can access health services on the basis of their need for care and not on the basis of their ability to pay.\r\n\r\nEnsuring affordability in a universal health system requires other changes.  Two things are particularly important.  First, it is critical to have high quality primary level services and for primary care providers to determine access to specialist and hospital inpatient care.  Second, we need to change the incentive structure for health care providers. At the moment, we pay private doctors and hospitals a fee for every service delivered; the incentive is to provide as many services as possible.  International experience clearly demonstrates that changing the way of paying providers is necessary to secure greater value for money.\r\n\r\nThe \u2018healthy nation\u2019 scenario is what I believe public debate should focus on.  Surely we can all agree that we do not want to continue on the current path (the \u2018second rate system\u2019)? Instead of saying that health system change is unaffordable, let\u2019s focus on how we can achieve a sustainable, integrated health system that benefits all.  A health system that brings our nation together rather than dividing us further.\r\n\r\nThis editorial has been modified by the author from a longer version published in the South African Independent Online media \u2013 the Mercury, the Star and the Argus.  Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit the Health Economics Unit website at http://heu-uct.org.za/ and the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of the Mozambique Equity Watch, Report, Maputo, September 27","field_subtitle":"Ministry of Health Government of Mozambique, EQUINET: November 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Moz%20EW%20Launch%20rep%20Sep2010.pdf","body":"On September 27 2010, the Ministry of Health of Mozambique, in co-operation with partners, launched the Mozambique Equity Watch report. The launch was held during a one-week World Health Organisation AFRO training course building capacities in health equity and the social determinants of health. The launch was held in co-operation with EQUINET, represented through Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC). The report was launched by the Minister of Health and attended by officials of the Ministry and other sectors of government, the National Institute of Health, various technical institutions, and partners of the Mozambique Sector Wide Programme (SWAP) in health, including the focal point for the donor community, WHO and UNICEF. The Minister noted in the launch the need to now make effective use of the evidence in various forums and that the Ministry would want to repeat the Equity Watch in 2012 to see what progress has been made, and to include the inputs from other sectors of government and from civil society. After the presentations and comments participants were organized in three groups to discuss and propose measures for the follow up action on the Equity Watch: 1. On the actions to be taken by the Ministry of Health 2. On taking forward the dialogue with other stakeholders and partners on the report 3. On areas of follow up investigation and research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Looking to the environment for lessons for global health diplomacy ","field_subtitle":"Kirton JJ and Guebert JM: Global Health Diplomacy Programme, University of Toronto, May 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/33dpaa3","body":"This study first briefly reviews the historical evolution of global environmental diplomacy and governance. It then examines its dominant ideas, instruments, and institutions, including the key environment-economy connection, comparing them with the experience in health at every stage. Its analysis reveals that both environmental and health diplomacy are better at solving yesterday\u2019s specific, acute, concentrated, deadly problems than today and tomorrow\u2019s diffuse, silent, chronic, cumulative but more dangerous and deadly ones. The authors therefore advise caution when sharing lessons, in light of the significant failures in each field. The environmental field is seen as more progressive than health, which has relied largely on the 1948 World Health Organization (WHO) Constitution\u2019s  principles, with little added to elaborate and modernise it since. The authors argue that environmental diplomacy and governance is better integrated with the economy and peoples\u2019 livelihoods, which depend on natural resources, while the global health sector still struggles to promote a socio-economic approach, amid the many incentives to focus on single, high-profile diseases. The paper calls for more civil society participation in health, referring to lessons from a long tradition of environmental activism. Health could engage more with  groups, such as the G8 and G20, so that health issues are recognised and integrated within economic policy dialogue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Many voices and one platform: Reflections from NGO Week in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Jacky Thomas, SANGOCO Western Cape","field_url":"","body":"While individual organisations in civil society in South Africa are known for their struggles to ensure access to medicines, access to water, land shelter and other rights, September 2010 provided an opportunity for civil society across platforms and constituencies to build wider solidarity around poverty and inequality.  \r\n\r\nSince 1997, civil society in South Africa has gathered every two years to learn from each other, dialogue and debate, propose input into government policies and programmes and strengthen civil society\u2019s role in challenging poverty and inequality.  In 2010, this \u2018NGO Week\u2019 was on 20th-25th September in Cape Town under the banner of \u201cBuilding Solidarity to Fight Poverty and Inequality\u201d starting on Monday, 20th September 2010, ending with a Heritage Day Festival on Friday, 24th September 2010. \r\n\r\nThe week brought together a range of existing civil society campaigns, such as The Right to Health Campaign, The Peoples\u2019 Budget Campaign, 16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women and Children, Amplifying Feminist Voices and Building a Popular Education Movement.  amongst others. The organisations that came together involve and work with a range of constituencies, including women, organised workers, health workers, people living with HIV and religious groups. The organisations included those that advanced issue based campaigns, like the Treatment Action Campaign, Feminist Forum, Women on Farms and the Learning Network,  broad sectoral movements like Popular Education Movement and People\u2019s Health Movement  and membership based umbrella organisations like the South African Council of Churches (SACC), or the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). The gathering provided an opportunity for dialogue, self-organized workshops and sharing of case studies across the different groups, to build shared understanding on challenges and approaches to dealing with socio-economic rights. For example the campaign for the right to health, that includes the right to healthy living and social conditions and to access health care, was adopted by all groups as a common cause for all. \r\n\r\nOver five hundred and fifty participants from civil society used the discussions and interaction to build and strengthen the kind of cross-cutting civil society platforms needed to tackle the multidimensional nature of poverty and inequality. Resolutions were made on actions that would benefit individual platforms but also have wider and more general impact, such as   ensuring an enabling environment for the non-profit sector, or strengthening community action and participation around rights to health. These wider platforms call for strong networking across sectors, with strong leadership and accountable, transparent, democratic governance. Civil society organisations (CSOs) agreed that this calls for partnerships to build knowledge and learning between civil society and other institutions. Hence civil society was encouraged to partner with the twelve Higher Education and Research Institutions in the country, particularly the five in the Western Cape Province. \r\n\r\nAs a result of the deliberations of the week, the CSOs involved developed a number of resolutions on joint action (see http://www.sangocowc.org for the full resolutions).  For example, as one outcome, CSOs are now interrogating and making input to the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) Report from South Africa. These reports  have been adopted at African Union level to report on developments in governance on the continent. The CSO contribution in South Africa will feed into the draft of the Second Report on the Implementation of South Africa\u2019s APRM Programme of Action,  and through this into the wider continental discussion. Civil society resolved on a range of platforms to strengthen their role as a watchdog, to widen networks, to include champions from key stakeholder groups and to support and monitor our own programmes of action. The week ended with a cultural festival on the final day to commemorate \u2018Community House\u2019, which has a rich history as a hub of radical civil society organisations and trade unions.\r\n\r\nThe South African Non-Governmental Organisation Coalition (SANGOCO) was tasked to co-ordinate and monitor the implementation of the resolutions. SANGOCO is a coalition of civil society networks and organisations. It originated in 1997 to re-build civil society and the society at large within the context of a world where social justice and civil liberties are under attack. It aims to establish a strong and vibrant civil society that has capabilities and policy influence in the interests of people, especially poor people. SANGOCO seeks to hold government programmes and policies accountable for the extent to which they effectively serve the needs and interests of poor people.  SANGOCO was mandated by the CSOs to coordinate sectoral and cross-sectoral working groups to take forward the resolutions over the next two years 2012.  \r\n\r\nIt was important for us that civil society representatives from other countries in east and southern Africa participated in the events of the week, including groups from Namibia, Mozambique, and Malawi, as well as people from civil society centres as far afield as Denmark, USA and India. The lunchtime cultural events provided an interactive marketplace where people from civil society from across different countries discussed and exchanged experiences on common struggles.  The South African organisations urged their counterparts in other countries in the region to also strengthen their umbrella bodies and networking on common platforms. \r\n\r\nPoverty has many dimensions and inequality exists across a range of social and economic factors. South African civil society has recognized that while issue specific platforms help to raise profile and draw attention to specific areas of deprivation, we need to bring civil society together around common agendas to address the many dimensions of poverty and causes of inequality.  Even more so do we need to bring together civil society across East and Southern Africa to tackle the much deeper levels of poverty and inequality in the region,  given the degree to which our economies, societies, labour markets and trade are interlinked.  The policy dialogues and debates that were held during NGO Week 2010 in South Africa have helped strengthen these cross cutting coalitions in South Africa. We hope that they spread throughout the region. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For further information on SANGOCO or the NGO Week please contact sangocowesterncape@telkomsa.net or visit www.sangocowc.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal deaths associated with eclampsia in South Africa: Lessons to learn from the confidential enquiries into maternal deaths, 2005-2007","field_subtitle":"Moodley J: South African Medical Journal 100(11):717-719, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/4424/2995","body":"Eclampsia is the commonest direct cause of maternal death in South Africa. The latest Saving Mothers Report (2005-2007) indicates that there were 622 maternal deaths due to hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. Of these, 334 (55.3%) were due to eclampsia; of the eclamptic deaths, 50 were over the age of 35 years and 83 were under 20 years old. Avoidable factors involved patient related factors (mainly delay in seeking help), administrative factors (mainly delay in transport) and health personnel issues (mainly due to delay in referring patients). The major causes of death were cerebrovascular accidents and cardiac failure. The majority of deaths due to cardiac failure were due to pulmonary oedema. To reduce deaths from eclampsia, this study argues that more attention must be given to the detection of pre-eclampsia; the provision of information on the advantages of antenatal care to the population at large and training of health professions in the management of obstetric emergencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Montreux Statement from the Steering Committee of the First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"Steering Committee of the First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research: 19 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/index.php/montreux-statement","body":"At the end of the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, held from 16-29 November 2010 in Montreux, Switzerland, the Steering Committee made a number of resolutions. They proposed to electronically preserve and disseminate the knowledge from the symposium, using innovative communication channels. They also committed to creating an International society for health systems research, knowledge and innovation, with the goal of advancing \u2018science to accelerate universal health coverage\u2019, to take build greater constituency, credibility and capacity for health systems research globally. The Committee will give visibility and support to regional and national efforts to strengthen health systems research, promoting strengthened health systems within priority UN agendas and accelerating universal health coverage. Contributions will be solicited from the global scientific community to establish norms, standards and practices to strengthen the foundations for health systems research. The Committee will also identify joint opportunities for collaborative research and knowledge production across different disciplines, sectors, stakeholders and geographies. Finally, the Committee agreed to gather for a Second Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in 2012 or 2013 to evaluate progress, share insights and recalibrate the agenda of science to accelerate universal health coverage. China has offered to host the Symposium.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New African-led health network launched to increase innovation and access to medicines","field_subtitle":"TDR News: 8 October 2010","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/tdr/svc/news-events/news/andi-eca-initiative","body":"The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are joining forces to establish an African-owned and -governed initiative to promote innovation for the research and development of pharmaceuticals and other products to meet the health needs of the continent. The African Network for Drugs and Diagnostics Innovation (ANDI) will be based in Ethiopia and will help build research capacity on the continent and link biomedical innovation to development and public health. Overall, ANDI aims to mobilise Africa health research capability, uncapping African health innovation potential and expanding global partnerships and regional collaborations to accelerate the delivery of quality health care in Africa. Specific goals include increasing research and development collaboration among African institutions and countries, and fostering public-private partnerships within Africa to support the development and manufacture of new drugs and health products. It also aims to generate and manage intellectual property, explore innovative mechanisms to encourage and reward local innovation \u2013 including research drawing on traditional medicine \u2013 and promote long-term economic sustainability by supporting research and development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"New online tool for tracking EU support for global health ","field_subtitle":"Action for Global Health: 2010","field_url":"http://www.actiontracker.eu","body":"In 1970, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 2626 (1), which pledged for the first time that developed nations would provide 0.7% of their wealth in foreign aid. Forty years later this pledge has yet to be realised and currently looks unlikely to be met. On the 40th anniversary of the Resolution, Action for Global Health has launched an \u2018Action Tracker\u2019, an online tool that tracks the contributions that European Union (EU) member states make to improve health in developing countries. It determines whether or not these states are actually providing 0.7% of their wealth for development aid, and calculates how much of this aid is devoted to health. So far the Action Tracker has data on about half the countries in the EU, but will develop over time to include all 27 EU member states. It will also assess to what extent they are implementing their commitments to make this aid more effective and ensuring their other policies support health in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New technology in Mozambique for HIV testing and treatment","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 25 October 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=90868","body":"Delayed test results often mean HIV patients in Mozambique fail to get timely treatment, but new technology is reducing the need to send tests to far away laboratories, and speeding up test results and HIV treatment. After a successful 2009 pilot, the country has nationally rolled out SMS or text message printers, which transmit the results of infant HIV tests electronically from two central reference laboratories in Maputo and the northern provincial capital, Nampula, to more than 275 health centres. Previously, test samples and results would have taken on average three weeks and up to several months to be transported to and from clinics via car, plane and even kayak in remote parts of the country. According to research conducted by the Ministry of Health and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), who developed the technology, the time it took for clinics to receive test results dropped from an average of about three weeks to about three days after the printers were introduced. This, in turn, reduced the time it took to start infants on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment as part of national prevention of mother-to-child (PMTCT) HIV transmission services by about four months. The number of infants starting treatment also increased by 60%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New website on global health diplomacy","field_subtitle":"GHD.Net: 2010","field_url":"http://www.ghd-net.org/","body":"The Global Health Diplomacy Network (GHD.Net) brings together researchers and practitioners with the common goal of improving capacity for health diplomacy (GHD). GHD.Net defines \u2018global health diplomacy\u2019 as the policy-shaping processes through which States, intergovernmental organisations and non-State actors negotiate responses to health challenges or utilise health concepts or mechanisms in policy-shaping and negotiation strategies to achieve other political, economic or social objectives. GHD.Net\u2019s mission is to increase knowledge about GHD, improve training and education for those who engage in GHD, and innovate in the provision of advice into GHD processes. Through its website, publications, and other activities, it aims to put in the public domain up-to-date information on research and training in this field. It will also track and report on current diplomatic negotiations that have direct or indirect impact on health policy and health. It has four functions: to act as a clearinghouse for GHD-related information; to enhance connectivity among network participants; to develop content for research, training and education; and to build capacity, especially in partnership with interested institutions and individuals in low-income countries. GHD.Net will also identify the characteristics of health as a foreign policy and diplomatic issue and provide research, training, and policy-relevant inputs to contribute to improving the protection and promotion of health through foreign policy and diplomatic means. It offers training and regularly calls for submission of research papers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"No sign of a dependency culture in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Noble M and Ntshongwana P: Human Sciences Research Council, 2008","field_url":"http://www.hsrc.ac.za/Document-2716.phtml","body":"This brief is based on the Human Sciences Research Council\u2019s (HSRC) 2006 Social Attitudes Survey and aims to explore the existence of a so-called \u2018dependency\u2019 culture among the unemployed and social grants recipients. It seeks to inform the policy context around social security in South Africa. By providing evidence to show that poor people demonstrate a greater attachment to the labour market than the non-poor, it challenges the notion that the provision of social grants will rear a \u2018dependency culture\u2019 among the unemployed and recipients of social grants. It suggests that both groups of people are interested in and are motivated to find work. It also provides the evidence to show that, among the poor, having a job is perceived to be better than claiming grants and work is valued for its social integration role and helps to overcome feelings of isolation. The brief\u2019s findings indicate that the Child Support Grant does not discourage people from seeking work. It appears the main cause of people remaining unemployed is the structural conditions of the labour market, as opposed to a reluctance to find work and choosing, instead, to rely on State support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Profile and professional expectations of medical students in Mozambique: A longitudinal study","field_subtitle":"Paulo F, Fronteira I, Sidat M, da Sousa F and Dussault G: Human Resources for Health 8(21), 21 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-8-21.pdf","body":"This paper compares the socioeconomic profile of medical students registered at the Faculty of Medicine of Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (FM-UEM), Maputo, for the years 1998/99 and 2007/08. Its objective is to describe the medical students' social and geographical origins, expectations and perceived difficulties regarding their education and professional future. Data was collected through questionnaires administered to all medical students. The response rate in 1998/99 was 51% (227/441) and 50% in 2007/08 (484/968). The main results reflect a doubling of the number of students enrolled for medical studies at the FM-UEM, associated with improved student performance (as reflected by failure rates). Nevertheless, satisfaction with the training received remains low and, now as before, students still identify lack of access to books or learning technology and inadequate teacher preparedness as major problems. In conclusion, there is a high level of commitment to public sector service. However, students, as future doctors, have very high salary expectations that will not be met by current public sector salary scales. This is reflected in an increasing degree of orientation to double sector employment after graduation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Progress can kill","field_subtitle":"Survival International: 2010","field_url":"http://www.survivalinternational.org/progresscankill","body":"According to this report, forcing 'development' or 'progress' on indigenous people does not make them happier or healthier. The authors argue that indigenous peoples' well-being is primarily affected by whether their land rights are respected. Where this is not the case, and where indigenous people are not given a role in guiding development actions, they suffer poorer health outcomes, with increased rates of obesity and malnutrition, drug addiction, alcoholism, and with a change to Western diets, diabetes. The report links identity, freedom and mental health and argues that mental health problems, notably suicide, increase dramatically when a group\u2019s identity and freedom is taken away.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Protection of human participants in health research: A comparison of some US federal regulations and South African research ethics guidelines","field_subtitle":"Cleaton-Jones P and Wassenaar D: South African Medical Journal 100(11): 710-716, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/4525/2993","body":"In response to criticism of ethical review of a South African clinical trial, this study contrasts aspects of the United States (US) Common Rule with South African research ethics requirements. In the US the Common Rule does not apply to all health research and allows many exemptions from ethics review and waivers of informed consent. The study found that, at a structural level, research ethics review in South Africa is in many cases equivalent to the US institutional review board (IRB) and Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) oversight system, is wider reaching, and has no exclusions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Rapid implementation of an integrated large-scale HIV counselling and testing, malaria and diarrhoea prevention campaign in rural Kenya","field_subtitle":"Lugada E, Millar D, Haskew J, Grabowsky M, Garg N, Vestergaard M et al: PLoS One 5(8), 6 August 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0012435","body":"This study is based on a one-week integrated multi-disease prevention campaign in Lurambi, Western Kenya. The aim was to offer services to at least 80% of those aged 15-49. Thirty-one temporary sites in strategically dispersed locations offered: HIV counselling and testing, 60 male condoms, an insecticide-treated bed net, a household water filter for women or an individual filter for men, and, for those testing HIV+, a three-month supply of cotrimoxazole and referral for follow-up care and treatment. Over seven days, 47,311 people attended the campaign with a 96% uptake of the multi-disease preventive package. Of these, 99.7% were tested for HIV (80% had previously never tested), of whom 4% tested positive. Three-hundred and eighty-six certified counsellors attended to an average of 17 participants per day, consistent with recommended national figures for mass campaigns. Among women, HIV infection varied by age and tended to correlate with an ended marriage and unemployment. Always using condoms with a non-steady partner was more common among HIV-infected women participants who knew their status compared to those who did not. The study concludes that integrated campaigns can efficiently cover large proportions of eligible adults in rural underserved communities with multiple disease preventive services to help achieve various national and international health development goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Roundtable on counterfeit, falsified and substandard medicines: 16 December 2010: London, United Kingdom","field_subtitle":"Centre on Global Health Security: 2010 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/32ttjnq","body":"The threat from counterfeit and sub-standard medicines is growing, particularly in poorer countries with weak regulatory mechanisms and poorly monitored distribution networks. Counterfeiting can be very profitable, and counterfeiters are increasingly sophisticated, making patients in developing countries, who usually have to buy medicines from their own resources, particularly vulnerable. The Centre on Global Health Security is organising this roundtable meeting, the objective of which is to help refine definitions of counterfeit, falsified and substandard medicines and to consider possible ways forward for the international community in addressing the health hazards posed by these medicines. Participants will include senior representatives from concerned international organisations, governments, industry, academia and civil society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Sharing best practices through online communities of practice: A case study","field_subtitle":"Audaya T, Fried GP, Johnson P and Stilwell BJ: Human Resources for Health 8(25), 12 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-8-25.pdf","body":"This study looks at successful examples of health-focused online communities, like the Capacity Project\u2019s Global Alliance for Pre-Service Education (GAPS), which provides an online forum to discuss issues related to teaching and acquiring competence in family planning in developing countries, and the Global Alliance for Nursing and Midwifery's ongoing web-based community of practice (CoP), which reaches many participants in a range of settings. In the survey, GAPS members suggested that, instead of focusing solely on family planning competencies, GAPS should include professional competencies (e.g. communication, leadership, cultural sensitivity, teamwork and problem solving) that would enhance the resulting health care graduate's ability to operate in a complex health environment. Resources to support competency-based education in the academic setting must be sufficient and appropriately distributed. The study concludes that online CoPs are a useful interface for connecting developing country experiences. To sustain an online CoP, funds must come from an international organisation (e.g. the World Health Organization) or a university that can carry the long-term costs. Eventually, the long-term effectiveness and sustainability of GAPS rests on its transfer to the members themselves.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Social sciences research in neglected tropical diseases: The ongoing neglect in the neglected tropical diseases ","field_subtitle":"Allotey P, Reidpath DD and Pokhrel S: Health Research Policy and Systems 8(32), 21 October 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-8-32.pdf","body":"Infectious diseases are bound by a complex interplay of factors related as much to the individual as to the physical, social, cultural, political and economic environments. Furthermore each of these factors is in a dynamic state of change, evolving over time as they interact with each other. Simple solutions to infectious diseases are therefore rarely sustainable solutions, this article argues. This calls for interdisciplinary approaches that address complexity. The article proposes that research and the largely biomedical interventions for neglected tropical diseases, largely neglect the social and ecological contexts that lead to the persistence of these diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"South meets South: Enriching the development menu","field_subtitle":"Maruri E and Fraeters H: Development Outreach, October 2010:4-6, 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/32wn6gh","body":"According to the authors of this article, the exchange of South-South knowledge and experience has an enormous potential role in the emerging global development architecture. Many current answers to development challenges come from developing countries. For example, developing countries have designed and implemented solutions that have no precedent in the developed world, such as microfinance models in countries like Bangladesh and Indonesia, or the use of mobile technologies for all kinds of services in Africa and elsewhere, including health. Those same developing countries are building strong and reputable academic institutions and development think tanks, with implications for the diversity, sources, and availability of development knowledge and experience. The article proposes greater investment in a more demand-driven model of co-operation that promotes horizontal relationships, invests in local capacity and moves away from a one-size-fits-all solution. For this new approach to work, regional and global multilaterals should mainstream South-South approaches in their business lines and develop funding and brokering mechanisms for low-and middle-income countries, as well as for short-term and long-term projects. Traditional external funders need to be made aware of the win-win opportunity that lies in developing capacity in one country to promote sustainable change in another, and they need to adapt their co-operation strategies accordingly. Parliamentarians and civil society organisations can ensure that governmental peer learning fosters democratic ownership and human rights. Academia and the private sector can help enrich the agenda and engage more with governments and other stakeholders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"South-South co-operation and knowledge exchange: A perspective from civil society","field_subtitle":"Cruz A: Development Outreach, October 2010:25-37, 2010","field_url":"http://siteresources.worldbank.org/WBI/Resources/213798-1286217829056/cruz.pdf","body":"This article reports efforts of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to make South-South (SS) co-operation a vehicle for knowledge exchange. The article argues that SS co-operation must be aligned to national development strategies developed through broad-based processes with the participation of parliaments, CSOs, academic institutions, and independent media. It calls for mutual accountability between Southern external funders, countries and their citizens, and increased inclusion of affected actors in assessing aid and development effectiveness.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"South-South mutual learning: A priority for national capacity development in Africa","field_subtitle":"Mayaki IA: Development Outreach, October 2010:13-21, 2010","field_url":"http://siteresources.worldbank.org/WBI/Resources/213798-1286217829056/mayaki.pdf","body":"This article considers new opportunities for South-South co-operation, and proposes that the G20 is a good platform for African countries to leverage South-South (SS) exchange practices. African organizations, like the African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for Africa\u2019s Development (NEPAD), offer mutual learning opportunities to other South countries, like Brazil, and have supported both South-South and North-South knowledge exchanges. The development priorities identified by the AU and NEPAD have been guided by sectoral policy frameworks encouraging innovative exchanges in multistakeholder collaborations and partnerships. If Africa is to be globally competitive, greater investment in this kind of knowledge and learning will be required, the article argues. Knowledge-based approaches to resolving Africa\u2019s development challenges should be strengthened, with research and innovation helping to expand the SS co-operation policy frontiers. Strategically designed institutional arrangements can facilitate the participation of multiple stakeholders, thus fostering the formation of social capital by enhancing SS networks for the exchange of knowledge. Existing regional frameworks are critical in guiding and framing the knowledge and learning architecture in Africa, but innovations must be grounded in the realities of the continent to achieve their desired results. The article concludes that the success of this new development paradigm depends on the establishment of new partnerships to foster more inclusive, equitable and sustainable forms of development co-operation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Statement from the People's Health Movement on the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research","field_subtitle":"People's Health Movement: 18 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PHMval20112010.pdf","body":"This statement was released by the People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM) in response to the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, held from 16-29 November 2010 in Montreux, Switzerland. It raises a number of issues and suggestions for the future. It identifies some areas of relative neglect that may be rectified in the next Symposium, such as: the role of the health system in promoting primary health care, including the involvement of communities and intersectoral action; the place of people and participatory research in the field of health systems research; the challenge of balancing equity with universal coverage; and the roles of and interrelationship between public financing and insurance. PHM detects a tacit approval for the expansion of private financing and insurance models, which they consider problematic. While the importance of political and ideological factors were mentioned several times, PHM believes that more discussion could be had to discuss and determine the political, normative and ideological views of the community of health systems researchers. Health systems policy should be informed by research, but it needs to be shaped by normative principles and values first. At the Symposium, PHM notes that there was inadequate discussion about the way the HSR is shaped by university/academic context and the publishing industry and no discussion about the political economy of HSR and the biases in the research agenda that exist. Finally, PHM urges leaders and civil society not to tolerate the \u2018myth of scarce resources\u2019, and instead insist on equal focus and emphasis on the structural and macro-economic context of health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Task shifting in Mozambique: Cross-sectional evaluation of non-physician clinicians' performance in HIV/AIDS care","field_subtitle":"Brentlinger PE, Assan A, Mudender F, Ghee AE, Torres JV, Mart\u00ednez PM et al: Human Resources for Health 8(23), 12 October 2010","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-8-23.pdf","body":"In 2007, the Mozambican Ministry of Health (MoH) conducted a nationwide evaluation of the quality of care delivered by non-physician clinicians (t\u00e9cnicos de medicina, or TMs), after a two-week in-service training course emphasising antiretroviral therapy (ART). Forty-four randomly selected TMs were directly observed by expert clinicians as they cared for HIV-infected patients in their usual worksites. Observed clinical performance was compared to national norms as taught in the course. In 127 directly observed patient encounters, TMs assigned the correct WHO clinical stage in 37.6%, and correctly managed co-trimoxazole prophylaxis in 71.6% and ART in 75.5%. Correct management of all five main aspects of patient care (staging, co-trimoxazole, ART, opportunistic infections, and adverse drug reactions) was observed in 10.6% of encounters. The observed clinical errors were heterogeneous. Common errors included assignment of clinical stage before completing the relevant patient evaluation, and initiation or continuation of co-trimoxazole or ART without indications or when contraindicated. In Mozambique, the in-service ART training was suspended. The MoH subsequently revised the TMs' scope of work in HIV/AIDS care, defined new clinical guidelines, and initiated a nationwide re-training and clinical mentoring program for these health professionals. Further research is required to define clinically effective methods of health-worker training to support HIV and AIDS care in Mozambique and similarly resource-constrained environments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Taskforce to be established for UN General Assembly 2011 Comprehensive AIDS Review","field_subtitle":"International Council of AIDS Service Organizations: November 2010","field_url":"","body":"In 2006, the United Nations General Assembly (GA) agreed to undertake a comprehensive review in 2011 of the progress achieved in realising the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS and the Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS. Civil society involvement is being called for in the UN General Assembly 2011 Comprehensive AIDS Review, to be held in New York in June 2011 (still to be confirmed). A Civil Society Task Force (CSTF) is being set up as a mechanism to facilitate input of civil society and the private sector in the 2011 Review, including the preparatory process. The Task Force will include twelve individuals from a broad range of civil society groups and from geographically diverse countries. The Task Force will lead on: shaping and implementing the design for the Civil Society Dialogue in April 2011, including format, topics, messages and speakers; devising criteria and the call for nominations for civil society speakers; identifying, preparing and briefing civil society speakers for all formal sessions; and briefing civil society participants in the High Level Meeting. Those civil society advocates interested in participating in joint advocacy and mobilisation are invited to join the AIDS Review listserve.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/35581","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The AIDS Response and the Millennium Development Goals: Rwanda Case Study","field_subtitle":"Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS): September 2010","field_url":"http://data.unaids.org/pub/Report/2010/20100917_rwanda_aids_plus_mdgs_en.pdf","body":"This case study on Rwanda investigates the links between investments in the AIDS response (specifically, Millennium Development Goal 6) and progress towards other health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The methodology used for this study draws on a rapid assessment approach, with significant study limitations, and the authors caution that their study should only be seen as a step-wise contribution to a more rigorous, research-based analysis. They also emphasise that recent developments in the health sector have a bearing on this study, such as decentralisation of healthcare services with structural integration and establishment of a cadre of community health workers, as well as scaling up of performance-based financing and community-based health insurance. Overall, Rwanda has made good progress in addressing MDG 6. The multisectoral AIDS response, which is based on the principles of the \u2018Three Ones\u2019, has resulted in a decline in HIV prevalence to 3% (from 11% in 2000), with some 76,726 individuals receiving ART in 2009 (representing around 77% of those in need). In terms of the other health-related MDGs, investments in the scale-up of prevention of mother-to-child transmission and paediatric ART are likely to have contributed to the reduction of child mortality in Rwanda (MDG 4), while the country shows a 25% reduction in maternal mortality between 2000 and 2005 (MDG 5), and investments from the AIDS response are suggested to have contributed to the prevention and mitigation of violence against women (MDG 3).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The child health implications of water privatisation in Africa","field_subtitle":"Kosec K: Stanford University, March 2009","field_url":"http://extranet.isnie.org/uploads/isnie2009/kosec.pdf","body":"Each year, diarrhoeal diseases claim the lives of nearly two million people \u2013 90% of them children under the age of five. The problem is especially critical in Africa, a continent that contains 10% of the world's population, but accounts for 40% of the deaths of children under age five. This paper uses panel data on the sub-national regions of 26 African countries over 1985-2006, a period of expanded private sector participation in water supplies to explore the impact on child health. Using a fixed effects analysis the author suggests that an expansion in piped water after PSP was associated with a 5% decrease in diarrhoea in children under-five.  The author notes, however, that PSP In Africa was often pursued as a remedy to a severely distressed water sector with government under-investment for years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of an emergency hiring plan on the shortage and distribution of nurses in Kenya: The importance of information systems","field_subtitle":"Gross JM, Riley PL, Kiriinya R, Rakuom C, Willy R, Kamenju A et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88(11), November 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/11/09-072678/en/index.html","body":"This study analysed the effect of Kenya\u2019s Emergency Hiring Plan for nurses on their inequitable distribution in rural and underserved areas. It used data from the Kenya Health Workforce Informatics System on the nursing workforce to determine the effect of the Emergency Hiring Plan on nurse shortages and maldistribution. Of the 18,181 nurses employed in Kenya\u2019s public sector in 2009, 1,836 (10%) had been recruited since 2005 through the Emergency Hiring Plan. Nursing staff increased by 7% in hospitals, 13% in health centres and 15% in dispensaries. North Eastern province, which includes some of the most remote areas, benefited most: the number of nurses per 100 000 population increased by 37%. The next greatest increase was in Nyanza province, which has the highest prevalence of HIV infection in Kenya. Emergency Hiring Plan nurses enabled the number of functioning public health facilities to increase by 29%. By February 2010, 94% of the nurses hired under pre-recruitment absorption agreements had entered the civil service. Preliminary indicators of sustainability are promising, as most nurses hired are now civil servants. However, continued monitoring will be necessary over the long term to evaluate future nurse retention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The world health report: Health systems financing: The path to universal coverage","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: November 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/whr/2010/en/index.html","body":"In this report, the World Health Organization maps out what countries can do to modify their financing systems so they can move more quickly towards the goal of universal health coverage and sustain the gains that have been achieved. The report builds on new research and lessons learnt from country experience. It provides an action agenda for countries at all stages of development and proposes ways that the international community can better support efforts in low income countries to achieve universal coverage and improve health outcomes. To ensure universal coverage, countries must raise sufficient funds, reduce the reliance on direct payments to finance services, and improve efficiency and equity. The report proposes three ways for governments to raise money: increase the efficiency of revenue collection, re-prioritise government budgets and put innovative financing mechanisms in place.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"US agencies plan to invest US$130 million in African medical education","field_subtitle":"National Institutes of Health News: 7 October 2010","field_url":"http://www.nih.gov/news/health/oct2010/fic-07.htm","body":"The United States (US) Department of Health and Human Services is partnering with the US President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) with a plan to invest US$130 million over five years in African medical education to increase the number of health care workers. Through the Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI), grants are being awarded directly to African institutions in a dozen countries, working in partnership with US medical schools and universities. The initiative will form a network including about 30 regional partners, country health and education ministries, and more than 20 US collaborators.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"What is next for the G20? Investing in health and development ","field_subtitle":"Chatham House: September 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/17431_300610summary.pdf","body":"This report summarises the main themes, ideas and discussion points from the G20 Conference, held on 30 June 2010. The purpose of this conference was to explore options for the future for the G20 in advancing key issues in global health and development, set against a background of a G8 legacy of contributions to global health aid and the G20\u2019s current focus on the economic crisis. Several themes emerged. First, the Global Fund noted it cannot meet its funding promises and is looking for contributors for the next three years. The Fund needs US$10 billion to sustain current levels, and $17 billion to continue to make gains in fighting HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The conference heard that there is a real possibility of eradicating polio in the next ten years, as just four countries still suffer from the disease, but this  requires a concerted effort and political will. While it could be expensive, the long-term savings may be huge as people will no longer need to be immunised against the disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"What must be done to enhance capacity for health systems research?","field_subtitle":"Bennett S, Paina L, Kim C, Agyepong I, Chunharas S and McIntyre D: Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/images/stories/4enhance_capacity.pdf","body":"This background paper was prepared for the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, held from 16-19 November 2010 in Switzerland, and it is concerned with how best to enhance capacity for health systems research (HSR), with a particular focus on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). A systematic review was conducted of initiatives and interventions that have sought to enhance capacity for health systems research, and 73 research papers were included - 49 papers from high-income countries (HICs) and 24 from low- and middle-income countries. The review found that capacity building initiatives focused primarily on the individual and organisational levels and paid less attention to the broader environment, such as national research funding systems and their links to HSR. Governments, donors and non-governmental organisations are urged to invest in co-ordinated efforts to develop additional capacity for health systems research, partly by re-directing funding that currently goes to short-term technical assistance towards longer-term institutional support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Working to overcome the global impact of neglected tropical diseases","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/neglected_diseases/2010report/NTD_2010report_web.pdf","body":"Despite lack of resources, activities undertaken to mitigate the impact of neglected tropical diseases are so far producing unprecedented results, according to this report. It points to a number of successes: treatment with preventive chemotherapy reached 670 million people in 2008, while dracunculiasis, also called guinea worm disease, is on course to becoming first disease eradicated not by a vaccine, but by health education and behaviour change. Reported cases of sleeping sickness have also dropped to their lowest level in 50 years. The report notes opportunities for strengthening delivery systems, such as by targeting primary schools to treat millions of children for schistosomiasis and helminthiasis in Africa. In addition, better co-ordination is argued to be needed, such as with veterinary public health and to respond to changing disease patterns resulting from climate change and environmental factors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Young and vulnerable: Spatial-temporal trends and risk factors for infant mortality in rural South Africa (Agincourt), 1992-2007","field_subtitle":"Sartorius BK, Kahn K, Vounatsou P, Collinson MA and Tollman SM: BMC Public Health 10(645), 26 October 2010","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/10/645","body":"This study assessed changes in infant mortality patterns from 1992 to 2007, as well as factors associated with infant mortality risk in the Agincourt sub-district, rural northeast South Africa. Period, sex, refugee status, maternal and fertility-related factors, household mortality experience, distance to nearest primary health care facility and socio-economic status were examined as possible risk factors. The survey found that infant mortality increased significantly over the study period, largely due to the impact of the HIV epidemic. There was a high burden of neonatal mortality, with several \u2018hot spots\u2019 close to health facilities. Significant risk factors for all-cause infant mortality were mother's death in first year (most commonly due to HIV), death of previous sibling and increasing number of household deaths. Being born to a Mozambican mother posed a significant risk for infectious and parasitic deaths, particularly acute diarrhoea and malnutrition. The study concludes that prevention of vertical transmission of HIV and survival of mothers during the infants' first year in high-prevalence villages needs to be urgently addressed, including through expanded antenatal testing, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, and improved access to antiretroviral therapy. Persisting risk factors, including inadequate provision of clean water and sanitation, are yet to be fully addressed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"2010 mutual review of development effectiveness in Africa","field_subtitle":"United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development: 2010","field_url":"http://www.africapartnershipforum.org/dataoecd/15/52/46031577.pdf","body":"According to this review, the achievements of African governments on political and economic governance, and peace and security have been an important factor in helping the continent weather the impact of the crisis over 2009\u20132010. Improvements to macroeconomic frameworks have created the fiscal space for counter-cyclical policies, which have helped partly to cushion the impact of the crisis and provide a foundation for recovery. Improvements in political governance have helped to maintain political stability in the face of economic shocks. External financial support has held up in the face of fiscal pressures, even if at a level below earlier commitments. And trade is recovering dramatically, enabled in part by success in resisting protectionism during the crisis, even though discussions on further trade liberalisation on a global basis remain stalled. At the same time, the impact of the crisis has still been severe. Although the picture varies significantly by sub-region, growth rates for the continent as a whole fell from an average of about 6% in 2006\u20132008 to 2.2% in 2009, meaning that the growth of per capita gross domestic product came to a near standstill. Although forecasts for 2010 and 2011 are more positive, the loss of growth in 2009 and its impact over the next two to three years have set back the impressive progress that Africa had started to make towards the Millennium Development Goals, and has left the legacy of significantly greater challenges over the five-year period remaining, to 2015. The review makes nine recommendations. Recommendations for Africa itself include improved political and economic governance, working towards peace and security, increased regional integration, and domestic revenue mobilisation and allocation. For Africa\u2019s partners, the paper recommends improvements in economic governance, and greater trade and official development assistance. Global recommendations include addressing climate change and climate change finance, as well as enhanced participation in global governance for Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"2010 Regional Meeting of Parliamentary Committees on Health in Eastern and Southern Africa: \u201cRepositioning Family Planning and Reproductive Health in the Eastern and Southern Africa Region: Challenges and Opportunities","field_subtitle":"SEAPACOH: September 2010","field_url":"http://ppdafrica.org/docs/SEAPACOH2010/resolutions.pdf","body":"At the Regional Meeting of Parliamentary Committees on Health in Eastern and Southern Africa, held in Kampala, Uganda, on 28-29 September 2010, the Southern and East African Parliamentary Alliance of Committees On Health (SEAPACOH) committed themselves to the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the Maputo Plan of Action and the Accra Agenda for Aid Effectiveness. SEAPACOH underscored its role in offering leadership to ensure good governance in all matters of health, as well as to continue providing stewardship on policy, legislation and budgetary oversight, and ensure that family planning and population issues are integrated into national development strategies, including the poverty reduction strategies and action plans. It also championed advocacy strategies to promote family planning as essential to the achievement of all MDGs, especially MDG4 and MDG5, in partnership with civil society organizations and the media, and promote gender equity. In terms of financing, SEAPACOH will advocate for increased government resources to health to realise the Abuja target of 15%, ensure accountability in public expenditures and continue support for strengthening health systems. It also aims to enhance partnerships with civil society organisations and learn from the best practices in countries in the region through South-South cooperation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"A magic bullet for the \u2018African\u2019 mother? Neo-imperial reproductive futurism and the pharmaceutical \u2018solution\u2019 to the HIV/AIDS crisis ","field_subtitle":"Booth KM: Social Politics 17(3), Fall 2010","field_url":"http://sp.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/3/349.short","body":"On the basis of an analysis of popular and medical texts which address a debate over the ethics of clinical drug trials designed mainly for sub-Saharan Africa, this paper argues that the international public health discourse about infant HIV infection in Africa reflects and legitimates a anti-reproductive justice ideology. The author argues that the texts most commonly advance the view that biomedicine, funded from outside Africa with medicines from outside the continent, is the magic bullet that addresses mother and child HIV, avoiding issues of domestic advance in reproductive and sexual rights. This dominant focus is argued to give greater control over HIV to biomedical perspectives and to strengthen right-wing movements against advances in reproductive rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A methodology for human rights impact assessment (draft version): Systematically identifying, predicting and responding to projects' potential impacts on human rights","field_subtitle":"Nomogaia Foundation: 2008 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/38xjljj","body":"The goal of this methodology is to assist in the creation of valid, useful and ultimately meaningful human rights impact assessments. This followed the United Nation\u2019s Special Representative on Human Rights and Business Professor John Ruggie's presentation to the Human Rights Council with a framework for delegating human rights and responsibilities between governments and companies. The process of creating and using HRIA is still in its early phases. Their relevance will depend on a continuing improvement of method, capacity and result which can only be accomplished through the sharing of experience and information between companies and assessors. The methodology looks at HRIA assessment sources, goals, and types. It covers basic concepts and looks provides five steps for implementation:  gather project contexts and company information; drawing up a preliminary list of impacted rights; drawing up a preliminary list of impacted right holders; special topics; and inquiry guided by topic catalogue. The methodology offers recommendations for policies, procedures, structures and action. It also provides an appendix of other tools and selected best practices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Acceptance of HIV testing for children ages 18 months to 13 years identified through voluntary, home-based HIV counseling and testing in western Kenya","field_subtitle":"Vreeman RC, Nyandiko WM, Braitstein P, Were MC, et al: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 55(2), 1 October 2010","field_url":"http://journals.lww.com/jaids/Fulltext/2010/10010/Acceptance_of_HIV_Testing_for_Children_Ages_18.25.aspx","body":"Home-based voluntary counseling and testing (HCT) presents a novel approach to early diagnosis. This study sought to describe uptake of pediatric HIV testing, associated factors, and HIV prevalence among children offered HCT in Kenya. HCT was offered to 2,289 children (18 months to 13 years) and accepted for 1,294 (57%). Children were more likely to be tested if more information was available about a suspected or confirmed maternal HIV infection, if parents were not in household, if they were grandchildren of head of household, or if their father was not in household. Of the eligible children tested, 60 (4.6%) were HIV infected. The paper concludes that HCT provides an opportunity to identify HIV among high-risk children, but acceptance of HCT for children was limited. Further investigation is needed to identify and overcome barriers to testing uptake.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Access challenges in TB, ART and maternal health services: Phase 1 results: Researching Equity in Access to Health Care Project","field_subtitle":"University of the Witwatersrand Centre for Health Policy: August 2009","field_url":"http://www.rhap.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/REACH-1-user-report.pdf","body":"This report provides highlights of the findings of the phase 1 Researching Equity in Access to Health Care (REACH) project, completed in 2009. REACH aims to document levels of and inequities in access, according to socio-economic status, gender, and urban/rural status, within the public health system for three services: maternal health (focusing on emergency and specialised needs at the time of delivery), tuberculosis (TB) care, and antiretroviral therapy. Detailed case studies were undertaken in various parts of South Africa. During 2008 and 2009, the REACH project undertook exit interviews with approximately 4,000 adult (+18 years) users of TB, HIV and maternal health services, carried out quality of care assessments in fifty health facilities, and analysed secondary data from a variety of sources to establish the socio-economic profile of facility catchment populations. The project found that considerably greater access barriers are experienced by rural compared to urban communities, with respect to distance, time, costs and staff attitudes. Rural women experience large health cost burdens during their pregnancy and at the time of delivery, and coverage by a minimum package of antenatal care is still inadequate.  TB services were found to be more accessible than anti-retroviral therapy services in all dimensions of availability, affordability and acceptability. The report also notes there was considerable local variation in nature of services (e.g. home visits) and policies (e.g. birth companions).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Achieving the MDGs: The contribution of family planning ","field_subtitle":"Ochan W: UNFPA Uganda, September 2010","field_url":"http://ppdafrica.org/docs/SEAPACOH2010/ochan-mdgsfp.pdf","body":"In this presentation, the author argues that investing in family planning is the single most strategic, low cost, high impact and quick win strategy to achieving economic, social and political transformation. The author reviews several instruments for investing in family planning in Uganga, such as the National Development Plan (2010\u20132014), which has clear targets for family planning and focuses on investing in \u2018demographic window\u2019 (when the proportion of population of working age group is particularly prominent in a country), and the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, to which the government should link National Development Programme targets and in which the appropriate sectors should be prioritised to bring about investment. The Annual Health Sector budget allocation is reported to have been relatively stagnant for FP over the years and must be increased. In addition, government needs to monitor whether or not the allocated funds are actually spent on FP.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"African finance ministers accused of failing to fund health sector","field_subtitle":"Olupot M: AllAfrica.com: 28 September 2010","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/201009290120.html","body":"The deputy speaker of Uganda\u2019s Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, has accused finance ministers in Africa of being insensitive by failing to prioritise the health sector during allocation of funds. She accused finance ministers of being unaware of the realities of everyday health care. She recommended that the ministers should be invited to conferences like the regional meeting of the Southern and Eastern Africa Parliamentary Alliance of Committees on Health near Kampala, where she was speaking. Kadaga said Uganda had registered progress in various sectors of development, including education, women\u2019s empowerment and HIV and AIDS, but women and infant health had lagged behind. She attributed this to the country\u2019s \u2018weak health system, as well as inadequate human resources for health, especially reproductive health\u2019. The reproductive health and family planning services, Kadaga said, remain mainly urban-based yet most women live in rural areas. Kadaga also decried the high population growth rate in Africa, saying it was a major challenge to the Governments' efforts to reduce poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"African Women's Development Fund: Main grants programme","field_subtitle":"Deadline: Rolling Deadline","field_url":"http://www.awdf.org/the-process/main-grants","body":"The African Women's Development Fund (AWDF) funds local, national, sub-regional, and regional organisations in Africa working towards women\u2019s empowerment. The AWDF is an institutional capacity-building and programme development fund, which aims to help build a culture of learning and partnership within the African women's movement. In addition to awarding grants, the AWDF attempts to strengthen the organisational capacities of its grantees. The AWDF funds work in six thematic areas: women's human rights; political participation; peace building; health, reproductive rights; economic empowerment; and HIV and AIDS. Applicants are expected to build relevant and reasonable running/core costs into their project proposals. Grants are made to national and regional organisations for aspects of organisational growth and development such as strategic planning, developing fundraising strategies, communications systems, retreats, governance systems etc. Grants cover capital costs such as purchase of computers, printers, and photocopiers. The AWDF makes grants in three cycles each year. Applications can be sent in at any time. Organisations can apply for grants ranging from US$1,000 - US$40,000. Grants over US$20,000 are only made to organisations which operate on a regional basis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid, trade or taxes? How will global goals be financed? ","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson, Training and Research Support Centre","field_url":"","body":"Archbishop Ndungane, president of the African Monitor, commented after the United Nations (UN) Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in September 2010 on the gap between the concrete commitments made and clear plans for how they will be implemented. A bottom line for this is money. \r\n\r\nEven before the Summit the UN Secretary-General in his March 2010 report had observed that unpredictable and insufficient international financing was blocking progress on the MDGs. Health needs alone at global level have been estimated to cost up to US$76 billion annually by 2015.  The UN Non government Liaison Service reported this year that the financial deficit on resources to meet the MDGs could reach between US$324 - $336 million in 2012-2017, including a shortfall of about US$168-$180 million in official development assistance (ODA). \r\n\r\nWhich country and community you live in and what income group you are borne into affects your chances for health and for accessing the resources for health. This leads to an unacceptable global inequity.  African countries, with the highest rates of mortality and ill health globally, are also most disadvantaged by widening gaps between rich and poor countries, by diminishing commodity prices and by outflows of key resources, such as skilled personnel. The financial crisis triggered by the US and European banking crisis has exacerbated this shortfall, creating a budget revenue hole of $65 billion in low and middle income countries. According to Development Finance International, aid has filled only one-third of this hole in revenue. \r\n \r\nSo African countries and people have a significant interest in debates on how global commitments will be financed.  \r\n\r\nODA has been one way of releasing immediate resources for global priorities. Almost all low income countries could absorb much more aid without negative economic consequences, whereas they have much less space to borrow or to raise taxes. Attention has thus grown on how far the international community has fulfilled long-standing aid promises and improved aid effectiveness. A 2009 Mutual Review by the UN Economic Commission for Africa and OECD noted the welcome increase in commitments made at G8 and other summits. These include commitments to 0.7% of Gross national income to ODA in 2002; to an increase of $25 billion annually in aid to Africa in 2005; to an additional US$60bn to fight infectious diseases and strengthen health systems in 2006; to US$22bn to raise productivity of smallholder farming and $30bn for climate change mitigation in 2009;  and to support for Universal access to HIV prevention and treatment. At the 2010 UN Summit an additional $40bn was pledged for the Global Strategy on Women\u2019s and Children\u2019s Health.  The UN ECA and OECD report also noted that while progress was being made to the target of 0.7% ODA, it was still at 0.43% of combined GNI, with improved ODA largely related to debt relief flows in 2005/6. OECD reports indicate that less than half the $25bn promised in 2005 has been delivered and shortfalls exist on other pledges made.  \r\n\r\nThe UNECA / OECD report points out that the most significant source of development finance in Africa is domestic revenue, making up 75% of its development financing. It indicates therefore that for African countries to raise the domestic revenue to deliver on development commitments, multilateral trade negotiations need to yield more substantial and faster improvements in market access and returns, and progress needs to be made in investment in areas such as energy access, technology transfer, infrastructure and climate adaptation. A further response to the resource gap is to reverse the net transfer of financial resources out of Africa. For example, Global Financial Integrity (2010) estimated that between 1970 and 2008 the outflows from Africa due to trade mispricing alone were as great as ODA inflows.  \r\n\r\nUnpredictable, inadequate aid flows and the slow progress in improved returns from the global economy have raised doubt whether business as usual will be enough to raise the funds needed to meet global goals. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of Spain both raised in their addresses to the 2010 UN Summit the need for new approaches to financing global commitments, especially through a new tax on international currency transactions. President Sarkozy stated in his address to the Summit: \u201cWe can decide here to implement innovative financing, the taxation of financial transactions. Why wait? Finance has been globalized. Why shouldn\u2019t we demand that finance contribute to stabilizing the world through a minuscule tax on each financial transaction?\u201d\r\n\r\nWhen a similar call was made by Nobel prize-winning U.S. economist James Tobin in 1972, and by UN panel chair Ernest Zedillo in 2000, it met strong opposition.  However since then, a range of innovative development financing options based on levies have been established: UNITAID, an international facility for the purchase of drugs to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis launched by Brazil, Chile, France, Norway and the United Kingdom in 2007, has raised US$1.5 billion in three years, 65% of which came from a micro-tax scheme on air tickets. In 2009, as a result of a Task force in Innovative Financing, a number of new facilities were introduced, including a US$1 billion expansion of the International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm); a new mechanism for making voluntary contributions when buying airline tickets, expected to raise up to US$3.2 billion by 2015; US$360 million worth of debt conversions in the Global Fund's Debt2Health Initiative; a VAT tax credit pilot scheme called De-Tax, expected to raise up to US$220 million a year in VAT resources; and a commitment to explore a second Advance Market Commitment for life-saving vaccines. In March 2010, the UN with country partners and the American Society of Travel Agents, launched \u2018MASSIVEGOOD\u2019 an offshoot of UNITAID, that provides travellers in the United States the option of making a voluntary contribution of up to $50 when purchasing tickets, booking a hotel room or renting a car online. This is expected to bring in up to US$1 billion in four years to support treatment for children with HIV,  for tuberculosis and insecticide treated bed nets.  Such funds bring significant new resources, and raise challenges for how they support the financing of systems and improve the production of domestic revenue. \r\n\r\nThese financial innovations, the impending deadlines for action on global commitments and a funding gap that is not being met through current approaches has brought new demand for the introduction of an international multi-currency transaction tax. Sixty countries in the Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development (LGIFD) support it, and the potential financial contribution is significant. Financial flows have increased sevenfold since 2000, with a volume of transactions worldwide of about $3.6 trillion daily for foreign exchange,  of $210 billion daily for bonds and $800 billion for stocks. At a session on 21 September at the Summit, Bernard Kouchner, foreign minister of France, held up a five-cent coin saying: \u2018This will be the tax on a 1000-dollar transaction. It is impossible not to accept that. Especially when you have in mind that the result of such a tax would be 40 billion dollars a year..'.  \r\n\r\nAn approaching deadline to account for global goals and an economic crisis may be a challenging situation for global social commitments, but it may also be an opportunity to implement the possible - to advance sustainable and equitable ways of financing them. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. Further information on this issue and the UN 2010 Summit can also be found in the Health Diplomacy Monitor www.ghd-net.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Antiretroviral therapy for HIV infection in adults and adolescents: Recommendations for a public health approach","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2010","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241599764_eng.pdf","body":"This 2010 update of the original 2006 publication by the World Health Organization (WHO) outlines a public health approach to the delivery of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) for adults and adolescents in settings with limited health systems capacity and resources. The recommendations encourage earlier HIV diagnosis and earlier antiretroviral treatment, and promote the use of less toxic regimens and more strategic laboratory monitoring. The guidelines identify the most potent, effective and feasible first-line, second-line and subsequent treatment regimens, applicable to the majority of populations, the optimal timing of ART initiation and improved criteria for ART switching, and introduce the concept of third-line antiretroviral regimens. The primary audiences are national treatment advisory boards, partners implementing HIV care and treatment, and organisations providing technical and financial support to HIV care and treatment programmes in resource-limited settings. WHO notes that it is critical that national ART programme and public health leaders consider these recommendations in the context of countries\u2019 HIV epidemics, the strengths and weaknesses of health systems, and the availability of financial, human and other essential resources and adapt the guidelines carefully. It is similarly important to ensure that the adaptation of these guidelines do not stifle ongoing or planned research, since the new recommendations reflect the current state of knowledge and new information for sustainability and future modifications of existing guidelines will be needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Better antiretroviral therapy outcomes at primary healthcare facilities: An evaluation of three tiers of ART services in four South African provinces ","field_subtitle":"Fatti G, Grimwood A and Bock P PLoS ONE 5(9), 21 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0012888","body":"This study compares effectiveness of antiretroviral therapy (ART) services between primary healthcare (PHC) facilities and hospitals in low-income settings. A retrospective cohort study was conducted including ART-na\u00efve adults from 59 facilities in four provinces in South Africa, enrolled between 2004 and 2007. A total of 29,203 adults from 47 PHC facilities, nine district hospitals and three regional hospitals were included. Patients at PHC facilities had more advanced WHO stage disease when starting ART. Retention in care was 80.1%, 71.5% and 68.7% at PHC, district and regional hospitals respectively, after 24 months of treatment. The study concludes that ART outcomes were superior at PHC facilities, despite PHC patients having more advanced clinical stage disease when starting ART, suggesting that ART can be adequately provided at this level and supporting the South African government's call for rapid up-scaling of ART at the primary level of care. Further prospective research is required to determine the degree to which outcome differences are attributable to either facility level characteristics or patient co-morbidity at hospital level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Biodiversity ABS Protocol needs political will to survive ","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 28 September 2010 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2vatud6","body":"Substantive progress eluded the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) Interregional Negotiating Group on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS), which met from 18-21 September in Montreal, Canada. This third attempt at finding consensus on key aspects of the text was unsuccessful and negotiations were postponed to October 2010. At stake is a binding instrument aimed at protecting against extraction of biological resources without proper access to or benefits from products arising from them. Outstanding issues include what genetic resources may be excluded from the text, such as human genetic resources, or human pathogens, and the benefits to indigenous peoples and local communities who are often the most affected by biopiracy. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications: African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE): 5-19 May 2011, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 6 December 2010","field_url":"http://www.aporde.org.za","body":"The fifth African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE) will be held in Johannesburg (South Africa) from the 5th to the 19th of May 2011. APORDE is a high-level training programme in development economics which aims to build capacity in economics and economic policy-making. The course will run for two weeks and consist of lectures and seminars taught by leading international and African economists. This call is directed at talented African, Asian and Latin American economists, policy makers and civil society activists who, if selected, will be fully funded. APORDE will cover essential topics in development economics, including industrial policy, inequality, poverty, financial crises and social policy. Lectures will equip participants with key information pertaining to both mainstream and critical approaches. Day lectures will last for three and a half hours, while a number of shorter lectures will also be organised.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Change in population TB incidence trends after the roll-out of ART in Karonga District, North Malawi ","field_subtitle":"Houben R and Mboma S: INDEPTH Network, 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2usejsx","body":"The aims of this study were to determine the relative incidence of tuberculosis (TB) by HIV or anti-retroviral therapy (ART) status and the effect of the ART roll-out on TB incidence trends in Karonga District, Malawi. Data from the Karonga Prevention Study was analysed, including TB epidemiological studies done since 1985 and data on ART services available since 2005. The study found that relative incidence of TB was high early after initiation on ART and decreases with time, but still remains elevated. Recommendations include starting ART earlier, further collaboration between and greater integration of TB and ART programmes, and intensified case finding for TB in high-risk populations of patients receiving ART.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Citizens\u2019 agenda for Africa\u2019s development","field_subtitle":"African Monitor: 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.africanmonitor.org/Site/docs/Citizens_Agenda.pdf","body":"This document reports efforts that were made across Africa to gather grassroots opinions to reflect the views and aspirations of ordinary Africans in shaping the policy agenda for the forthcoming decade. It found that Africa is endowed with natural and human resources whose development is in the interest of world security due to its global strategic importance. Meanwhile, the increasing return of the diasporas is raising the demand for accountable governance and economic development. The current so-called development is exclusionary and does not reach the intended beneficiaries - hence their minimal access to basic services such as health, education, water and sanitation. The report makes a number of recommendations, like replacing the current unjust and exclusionary development ideal with one that is values-based and sustainable, spelling out the Millennium Development Goals need to be spelt out properly for the African and Western public with the emphasis on detailing the public good, ensuring that African governments operate with financial transparency especially in the extractive sector, and making civil society, professional associations, social movements and business entrepreneurs catalysts for engendering accountability from governments, NGOs, donors and big businesses. Agriculture, food security and the informal sector should be prioritised by African governments and those who support Africa\u2019s development, and the skills and remittances of the returning African Diaspora must be harnessed and used to ensure good governance on the continent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Combating poverty and inequality: Structural change, social policy and politics","field_subtitle":"United Nations Research Institute for Social Development: September 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/38f882l","body":"Poverty reduction is a central feature of the international development agenda and contemporary poverty reduction strategies increasingly focus on \u2018targeting the poor\u2019, yet poverty and inequality remain intractable foes. This paper argues that this problem exists because many current approaches to reducing poverty and inequality fail to consider key institutional, policy and political dimensions that may be both causes of poverty and inequality, and obstacles to their reduction. Moreover, when a substantial proportion of a country\u2019s population is poor, it makes little sense to detach poverty from the dynamics of development. For countries that have been successful in increasing the well-being of the majority of their populations over relatively short periods of time, the report shows, progress has occurred principally through state-directed strategies that combine economic development objectives with active social policies and forms of politics that elevate the interests of the poor in public policy. The report is structured around three main issues, which, it argues, are the critical elements of a sustainable and inclusive development strategy: patterns of growth and structural change that generate and sustain jobs that are adequately remunerated and accessible to all, regardless of income or class status, gender, ethnicity or location; comprehensive social policies that are grounded in universal rights and that are supportive of structural change, social cohesion and democratic politics; and protection of civic rights, activism and political arrangements that ensure states are responsive to the needs of citizens and the poor have influence in how policies are made.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community activists fear tenofovir gel might replace condoms ","field_subtitle":"Yeni A: Health-e News, 20 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032934","body":"Recent preliminary results of Caprisa's study of the microbicide gel, Tenofovir, which showed that it can protect women from HIV infection by about 39%, have sparked concern that people might be less cautious about the use of condoms. Communities activists say condoms are already being used sparingly, with some suggesting that use of the gel might worsen the rate of condom use. Vusi Msiza, a South African community activist from Kwa-Tema, on Gauteng\u2019s East Rand, said that the results have brought hope, but cautioned that they could also create a misperception. He urged that the message needs to be clear: there is a need to advocate use of the gel, but he also urged men to take initiative by using condoms. But other members of his community have hailed the results of the Caprisa study, saying it will give women some power as there are perceived stereotypes in using condoms. Charles Hlatshwayo who is part of a community advisory board on clinical trials in Soweto, said that the results spell good news. However, he cautioned that there might be resistance towards using the gel.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Context counts: Training health workers in and for rural and remote areas","field_subtitle":"Strasser R and Neusy A: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88(10): 777-782, October 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/10/09-072462.pdf","body":"Access to well trained and motivated health workers is the major rural health issue. Without local access, it is unlikely that people in rural and remote communities will be able to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Studies in many countries have shown that the three factors most strongly associated with entering rural practice are: a rural background; positive clinical and educational experiences in rural settings as part of undergraduate medical education; and targeted training for rural practice at the postgraduate level. This paper presents evidence for policy initiatives involving the training of medical students from, in and for rural and remote areas. It gives examples of medical schools in different regions of the world that are using an evidence-based and context-driven educational approach to producing skilled and motivated health workers. It demonstrates how context influences the design and implementation of different rural education programmes. Successful programmes have overcome major obstacles including negative assumptions and attitudes, and limitations of human, physical, educational and financial resources. Training rural health workers in the rural setting is likely to result in greatly improved recruitment and retention of skilled health-care providers in rural underserved areas with consequent improvement in access to health care for the local communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Declining child mortality in northern Malawi despite high rates of infection with HIV","field_subtitle":"Jahn A, Floyd S, Crampin AC, Mvula H, Mwinuka V, Mwaiyeghele E et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88(10): 746\u2013753, October 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/10/09-075085.pdf","body":"This study aimed to determine whether routine surveys, such as the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), have underestimated child mortality in Malawi. Rates and causes of child mortality were obtained from a continuous-registration demographic surveillance system (DSS) in Malawi for a population of 32,000. Between August 2002 and February 2006, 38,617 person-years of observation were recorded for 20,388 children aged < 15 years. There were 342 deaths. Re-census data, follow-up visits at 12 months of age and the ratio of stillbirths to neonatal deaths suggested that death registration by the DSS was nearly complete. Infant mortality was 52.7 per 1000 live births, under-5 mortality was 84.8 per 1000 and under-15 mortality was 99.1 per 1000. One-fifth of deaths by age 15 were attributable to HIV infection. Child mortality rates estimated with the DSS were approximately 30% lower than those from national estimates as determined by routine surveys. The fact that child mortality rates based on the DSS were relatively low in the study population is encouraging and suggests that the low mortality rates estimated nationally are an accurate reflection of decreasing rates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Direct facility funding as a response to user fee reduction: Implementation and perceived impact among Kenyan health centres and dispensaries ","field_subtitle":"Opwora A, Kabare M, Molyneux S and Goodman C: Health Policy and Planning 25(5): 406-418, September 2010","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/25/5/406.full.pdf+html","body":"Direct facility funding (DFF) links facility funding levels to general indicators of facility size and workload rather than specific output targets. To reduce user fees, DFF was piloted in Coast Province, Kenya, with health facility committees (HFCs) responsible for managing the funds. This study evaluated the implementation and perceived impact 2.5 years after DFF introduction. Quantitative data collection at 30 public health centres and dispensaries included a structured interview with the staff member in-charge, record reviews and exit interviews. In-depth interviews were also conducted with the in-charge and HFC members at 12 facilities, and with district staff and other stakeholders. DFF procedures were well established and it made an important contribution to facility cash income, accounting for 47% in health centres and 62% in dispensaries. DFF was perceived to have a highly positive impact through funding support staff such as cleaners and patient attendants, outreach activities, renovations, patient referrals and increasing HFC activity. A number of problems were identified, such as inadequate HFC training, and lack of DFF documentation at facility level. Charging user fees above those specified in the national policy remained common, and understanding of DFF among the broader community was very limited. The study concludes that relatively small increases in funding may significantly affect facility performance when the funds are managed at the periphery. Kenya plans to scale up DFF nationwide and the authors indicate this is warranted, but should include improved training and documentation, greater emphasis on community engagement, and insistence on user fee adherence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Earlier HIV diagnosis: Are mobile services the answer?","field_subtitle":"Van Schaik N, Kranzer K, Wood R and Bekker LG: South African Medical Journal 100(1): 671-674, October 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/4162/2975","body":"This paper\u2019s objective was to assess the age and gender differences of clients accessing mobile HIV counselling and testing (HCT) compared with clients accessing facility-based testing, and to determine the difference in HIV prevalence and baseline CD4 counts. A prospective observational cross-sectional study was conducted of three different HIV testing services in Cape Town. The researchers compared data on age, sex, HIV status and CD4 counts collected between August and December 2008 from a mobile testing service (known as the Tutu Tester), a primary health care clinic, and a district hospital. A total of 3,820 individuals were tested. Of the HIV-infected individuals from the mobile service, 75% had a CD4 count higher than 350 cells/\u00b5l compared with 48% and 32% respectively at the clinic and hospital. Age- and sex-adjusted risk for HIV positivity was 3.5 and 4.9 times higher in the clinic-based and hospital-based services compared with the mobile service. The authors conclude that mobile services are accessed by a different population compared with facility-based services. Mobile service clients were more likely to be male and less likely to be HIV-positive, and those infected presented with earlier disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 117: Aid, trade or taxes? How will global goals be financed? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET sessions and marketplace stand at the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, November 16-19 2010 ","field_subtitle":"TARSC (EQUINET Secretariat)","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/index.php/programme","body":"Members of the EQUINET steering committee will be presenting work at the First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, November 16-19 2010. EQUINET (through TARSC), with CGESS Guatemala and SATHI India is holding a session reviewing experiences with participatory action research (PAR) on health systems in Latin America, Africa, Asia and North America.  In a roundtable, the case studies from the four regions will be presented and discussed to examine and reflect on the shared learning on health systems derived from PAR, the methods used and their application in health systems research and policy change. EQUINET will also have a marketplace stand at the Symposium and welcome visitors to the stand to see publications and hear more about the work of the network.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity Watch: Assessing Progress towards Equity in Health in Mozambique ","field_subtitle":"Ministry of Health Mozambique, Training and Research Support Centre and EQUINET: September 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Moz%20EW%20Eng%20Oct2010.pdf","body":"An Equity Watch is a means of monitoring progress on health equity by gathering, organizing, analysing, reporting and reviewing evidence on equity in health. Equity Watch work is being implemented in countries in East and Southern Africa in line with national and regional policy commitments. This report presents the Equity Watch in Mozambique. It explores the dimensions of inequality that need to be addressed for the improvements in economic performance to translate into the eradication of poverty and sustained and widest improvements in human development. It focuses on the social determinants of health and the features of the health system that have been shown to make a difference in reducing social inequalities, including in health, and asks the question: what progress are we making? The report examines the positive results achieved so far in health equity in Mozambique, the current levels and the prevailing constraints, in the context of the overall national response to equity. It presents recommendations based on an analysis of information available.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Examining the \u2018urban advantage\u2019 in maternal health care in developing countries ","field_subtitle":"Matthews Z, Channon A, Neal S, Osrin D, Madise N et al: PLoS Medicine 7(9), 14 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000327","body":"Although recent survey data make it possible to examine inequalities in maternal and newborn health care in developing countries, analyses have not tended to take into consideration the special nature of urban poverty. Using improved methods to measure urban poverty in 30 countries, this study found substantial inequalities in maternal and newborn health, and in access to health care. The \u2018urban advantage\u2019 is, for some, non-existent. The urban poor do not necessarily have better access to services than the rural poor, despite their proximity to services. There are two main patterns of urban inequality in developing countries: massive exclusion, in which most of the population do not have access to services, and urban marginalisation, in which only the poor are excluded. At a country level, these two types of inequality can be further subdivided on the basis of rural access levels. Inequity is not mandatory. Patterns of health inequality differ with context, and there are examples of countries with relatively small degrees of urban inequity. Women and their babies need to have access to care, especially around the time of birth. Different strategies to achieve universal coverage in urban areas are needed according to urban inequality typology, but the evidence for what works is restricted to a few case studies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Expansion of antiretroviral treatment to rural health centre level by a mobile service in Mumbwa district, Zambia","field_subtitle":"Dube C, Nozaki I, Hayakawa T, Kakimoto K, Yamada N and Simpungwe JB: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88(10): 788-791","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/10/09-063982.pdf","body":"Despite the Zambian Government\u2019s effort to expand services to district level, this study reports that it is still hard for people living with HIV to access antiretroviral treatment (ART) in rural Zambia. Strong demands for expanding ART services at the rural health centre level face challenges of resource shortages. The Mumbwa district health management team introduced mobile ART services using human resources and technical support from district hospitals, and community involvement at four rural health centres in the first quarter of 2007. This paper discusses the uptake of the mobile ART services in rural Mumbwa. Before the introduction of mobile services, ART services were provided only at Mumbwa District Hospital. The study found that mobile services improved accessibility to ART, especially for clients in better functional status, i.e. still able to work. In addition, these mobile services may reduce the number of cases \u2018lost to follow-up\u2019. This might be due to the closer involvement of the community and the better support offered by these services to rural clients. These services helped expand services to rural health facilities where resources are limited, bringing them as close as possible to where clients live.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing and benefit incidence in the South African health system: Preliminary results","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D and Ataguba J: Health Economics Unit Working Paper 09-1, January 2009","field_url":"http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/heu//SHIELD/reports/SouthAfrica2.pdf","body":"Overall, this paper found that health care in South Africa is very \u2018pro-rich\u2019, with the richest 20% of the population receiving 36% of total benefits (despite having a \u2018health need share\u2019 of less than 10%) while the poorest 20% receive only 12.5% of the benefits (despite having a \u2018health need share\u2019 of more than 25%). The findings indicate that there is a lack of cross-subsidies in the overall health system in South Africa. Although health care financing is \u2018progressive\u2019, this is largely due to the richest groups bearing the burden of medical scheme funding. However, the richest groups are the exclusive beneficiaries of these funds. The study shows that benefit incidence in South Africa is inequitable and notes that, in terms of a solution, the only component of the current South African health system that could contribute to overall income and risk cross-subsidies is tax funding. However, the strongly progressive component of personal income tax is to some extent offset by the regressivity of excise taxes and fuel levies and the proportional impact of VAT. In the context of the degree of income inequalities that exist in South Africa, the paper calls for a move to a health system where South Africans contribute according to ability-to-pay and benefit according to need for health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing equitable access to antiretroviral treatment in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Cleary S and McIntyre M: BMC Health Services Research 10 (Suppl 1), 2 July 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/10/S1/S2","body":"This paper considers the minimum resources that would be required to achieve South Africa\u2019s proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) system and contrasts these with the costs of scaled up access to antiretroviral treatment (ART) between 2010 and 2020. The costs of ART and universal coverage (UC) were assessed through multiplying unit costs, utilisation and estimates of the population in need during each year of the planning cycle. Costs are from the provider\u2019s perspective reflected in real 2007 prices. The study found that the annual costs of providing ART increase from US$1 billion in 2010 to US$3.6 billion in 2020. If increases in funding to public healthcare only keep pace with projected real gross domestic product (GDP) growth, then close to 30% of these resources would be required for ART by 2020. However, an increase in the public healthcare resource envelope from 3.2% to 5%-6% of GDP would be sufficient to finance both ART and other services under a universal system (if based on a largely public sector model) and the annual costs of ART would not exceed 15% of the universal health system budget.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing the Millennium Development Goals for health and beyond:  sustaining the \u2018Big Push\u2019","field_subtitle":"Ooms G, Stuckler D, Basu S and McKee M:Globalization and Health 6(17), 2010","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-6-17.pdf","body":"Many of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)are not being achieved in the world\u2019s poorest countries, yet only five years remain until the target date. The financing of these Goals is not merely insufficient; current evidence indicates that the temporary nature of the financing, as well as challenges to coordinating its delivery and directing it to the most needy recipients, hinder achievement of the Goals in countries that may benefit most. Traditional approaches to providing development assistance for health have not been able to address both prevalent and emergent public health challenges captured in the Goals; these challenges demand sustained forms of financial redistribution through a coordinated mechanism. This paper proposes a global social health protection fund to address recurring failures in the modern aid distribution mechanism. Such a Fund could use established and effective strategies for aid delivery to mitigate many financial problems currently undermining the MDG initiative.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"First patent holder grants licences to UNITAID ","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 1 October 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2u3tk32","body":"The United States National Institutes of Health has become the first patent holder to join the newly created Medicines Patent Pool, a project of the drug-purchasing mechanism, UNITAID. Public health organisations, such as Medicins sans Frontiers, hailed the move as key step in the right direction but said there is still much work to do. The pool is intended to be a \u2018one-stop shop\u2019 for licensing on generic versions of patented HIV medicines. The hope is that by cutting down on the complexity and cost that often surrounds the licensing process \u2013 particularly when one drug can carry several patents from several different places \u2013the pool will reduce the cost and increase the speed at which generic medicines can be made available. It is also hoped that the ease of licensing will help ease also the development of affordable formulations specific to children and to conditions in poorer countries where they are often needed. According to Guy Willis of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Authorities (IFPMA), the UNITAID Patent Pool is part of an increasing trend towards open innovation in research and development to create new medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund replenishment meeting ends with massive funding shortfall, as millions of lives hang in the balance","field_subtitle":"Results UK: 6 October 2010 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3aclh5l","body":"At the conclusion of the meeting to replenish the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on 5 October 2010 in New York, donors fell far short of investing the US$20 billion needed to fully fund the fight against the three pandemics. Instead of the doubling of funding commitments needed to accelerate HIV, TB and malaria programme scale up, countries announced initial increases averaging approximately 25% or, in the case of some donors such as the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain, did not pledge at all. This shortfall, unless corrected, will mean that the Global Fund will have to reject high-quality country proposals, and dramatically slow down the pace of scale up. The pledges and projections add up to $11.687 billion. Unless more commitments are made, the $8.3 billion funding shortfall will result in millions of deaths: at least 3.1 million people will die of AIDS and more than 2.9 million in need of TB treatment will not have access. On the positive side, one outcome of the meeting was the first ever multi-year commitment to the Fund from the United States, which intends to seek $4 billion for the Fund for 2011 through 2013, amounting to a 38% increase over the preceding three-year period.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Global income inequality","field_subtitle":"Milanovic B: World Bank, April 2010","field_url":"http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTDECINEQ/Resources/inet.pdf","body":"According to this presentation, over the long run, the importance of within-country inequalities has decreased and the importance of between-country inequalities has increased, while the global division between countries is actually greater than that between social classes. The presentation refers to two factors affecting an individual\u2019s levels of wealth: citizenship premium and parental premium. According to citizenship premium, if the mean income of country where you live increases by 10%, your income goes up by about 10% too (called \u2018unitary elasticity\u2019). The parental premium states that, if your parents are one income class higher, your income increases by about 10.5% on average. In terms of global inequality of opportunity, country of citizenship explains 60% of variability in global income, while citizenship and parental income class combined explain more than 80%. In conclusion, if most of one\u2019s income is determined by citizenship, then there is little equality of opportunity globally and citizenship may be regarded as a rent (unrelated to individual effort or whether or not the individual deserves it or not).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global inequality and the global inequality extraction ratio: The story of the past two centuries","field_subtitle":"Milanovic B: World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 5044, September 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3a2bvbl","body":"Using social tables, the author estimates global inequality (inequality among world citizens) from the early 19th century until the 21st century. The analysis shows that the level and composition of global inequality have changed over the past two centuries. The level has increased, reaching a high plateau around the 1950s, and the main determinants of global inequality have become differences in mean country incomes rather than inequalities within nations. The inequality extraction ratio (the percentage of total inequality that was extracted by global elites) has remained surprisingly stable, at around 70% of the maximum global Gini co-efficient, during the past 100 years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Governance Matters 2010: Worldwide Governance Indicators highlight governance successes, reversals, and failures","field_subtitle":"Kaufmann D: Brookings Institution, 24 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0924_wgi_kaufmann.aspx","body":"The updated version of the Worldwide Governance Indicators, covering 213 countries over the 1996-2009 period, has found that the world continues to underperform on governance. Over the past decade, dozens of countries have improved significantly on such dimensions of governance such as rule of law and voice and accountability. But a similar number of countries have experienced marked deteriorations, while others have seen short-lived improvements that are later reversed, and scores of countries have not seen significant trends one way or the other. A number of key messages emerged. The most powerful economies are not always the best governed \u2013 likewise, good governance is also found in countries that are not wealthy. Governance can significantly improve over a relatively short period of time yet, on average, the world has not significantly improved in the quality of governance over the past dozen years. Sustained commitment to governance reforms is needed to avoid reversals. The authors warn that measuring governance is difficult, and all measures of governance are necessarily imprecise, requiring interpretative caution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV-related cancer poorly diagnosed and treated, says MSF","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 20 September 2010 ","field_url":"Http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=90528","body":"Kaposi's sarcoma (KS), an HIV-related cancer, is neglected in HIV and AIDS services in Africa, according to Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF). How to administer chemotherapy at a small rural clinic is just one of the many difficulties faced by health workers treating patients with KS at 10 health facilities run by Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) in the Chiradzulu district of southern Malawi. Other challenges are the lack of infrastructure and safety equipment for injection-driven chemotherapy, poor case management and problematic drug supplies. MSF research, which was presented at the meeting of the Rural Doctors Association of Southern Africa (RuDASA) in Swaziland in August, found that about 7% of 11,100 ARV patients surveyed in Thyolo district had KS. Dr Francois Venter, head of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, said that the incidence rate in Africa is still lower than developed countries, but because of the sheer number of patients and because they present so late for treatment, KS remains an ever-present danger. He noted that the cancer was difficult to manage even in better-resourced healthcare settings like academic hospitals.  MSF is now planning to train palliative care teams to handle difficult cases, and to develop a protocol to guide health workers regarding the special needs of KS patients, including how to dress lesions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Home self-testing for HIV: AIDS exceptionalism gone wrong","field_subtitle":"Richter M, Venter WDF and Gray A: South African Medical Journal 100(1): 636-642, October 2010","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/4198/2959","body":"Self-tests for HIV in South Africa are currently unregulated. Gaps in law and policy have created a legal loophole where such tests could effectively be sold in supermarkets, but not in pharmacies. At the same time, South Africa lacks an effective regulating mechanism for diagnostic tests, which brings the quality and reliability of all self- tests into question. The authors argue for greater access to, and availability of, quality HIV self-tests, despite drawbacks like increased risk of unmanaged anxiety with potential for suicide if a positive result is given, lack of counselling and possible family coercion into testing. They argue that self-testing will lead to earlier diagnosis of HIV status and earlier enrolment into treatment, and decrease the costs associated with traditional voluntary counselling and testing, and allay fears about stigma and confidentiality when testing in public facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of the South African Mental Health Care Act No. 17 of 2002 on regional and district hospitals designated for mental health care in KwaZulu-Natal","field_subtitle":"Ramlall S, Chipps J and Mars M: South African Medical Journal 100(1): 667-670, October 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/4129/2969","body":"The South African Mental Health Care Act (the Act) No. 17 of 2002 stipulated that regional and district hospitals be designated to admit, observe and treat mental health care users (MHCUs) for 72 hours before they are transferred to a psychiatric hospital. This study surveyed medical managers in 49 \u2018designated\u2019 hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) on infrastructure, staffing, administrative requirements and mental health care user case load pertaining to the Act for the month of July 2009. Thirty-six (73.4%) hospitals responded to the survey: 83.3% stated that the Act improved mental health care for MHCUs through the protection of their rights, provision of least restrictive care, and reduction of discrimination; 27.8% had a psychiatric unit and, of the remaining 26 hospitals, 30.6% had general ward beds dedicated for psychiatric admissions; 44.4% had some form of seclusion facility; and 66.7% provided an outpatient psychiatric service. Seventy-six per cent of admissions were involuntary or assisted. Thirteen of the 32 state psychiatrists in KZN were employed at eight of these hospitals. Designated hospitals expressed dissatisfaction with the substantial administrative load required by the Act. The Review Board had not visited 29 (80.6 %) hospitals in the preceding 6 months. Although \u2018designated\u2019 hospitals admit and treat assisted and involuntary MHCUs, they do so against a backdrop of inadequate infrastructure and staff, a high administrative load, and a low level of contact with Review Boards.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Implications of the Adelaide Statement on Health in all policies","field_subtitle":"Krech R, Valentine NB, Reinders LT and Albrechta D: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88(10): 720, October 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/10/10-082461.pdf","body":"Data presented at the United Nations Summit in September in New York has revealed that many countries are unlikely to achieve all the health targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. The simultaneous and interrelated challenges of poverty, health, food security, energy, the global economic crisis and climate change should be viewed by the global community as a unique opportunity to develop innovative approaches to achieve sustainable growth without compromising health equity. One such innovative approach is the concept of working across many sectors to improve governance for health and well-being. The 2010 Adelaide Statement on Health draws on the increasing body of knowledge on \u201cjoined-up\u201d government to propose a new way for governments to engage multiple sectors in the joint goal of improving health and well-being. The article calls for an accountability mechanism between governments and their citizens, to ensure that global commitments on health are honoured. The shortfalls in progress towards the MDGs have occurred not because they are unreachable, it argues, but rather due to unmet commitments, inadequate resources, lack of focus and insufficient interest in sustainable development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"INDEPTH tools for equity in health","field_subtitle":"INDEPTH Network","field_url":"http://www.indepth-network.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=746&Itemid=628","body":"The INDEPTH Network has conducted two INDEPTH Health Equity studies. Study Phase 1, which is leading to a monograph, demonstrated that large disparities exist in terms of health outcomes among different socio-economic subgroups among populations in INDEPTH sites that cover small geographically defined populations. These sites include two countries in southern Africa - Tanzania and South Africa. With this evidence, the Network decided to move to the next stage, Study Phase 2, to develop intervention studies or manipulate existing interventions to have a pro-poor focus in order to inform policy. The Network has also developed a tool for measuring socio-economic status, which is available on their website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrating poverty and social analysis into Aid for Trade programmes","field_subtitle":"Overseas Development Institute: September 2010","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/5041.pdf","body":"This paper argues that poverty and social analysis should inform the monitoring and evaluation frameworks of policies and programmes in order to demonstrate the distributional impact of initiatives. Indicators need to be identified and progress should be monitored in a disaggregated way \u2013 that is, not just how much more trade, income or employment was generated as a result of an initiative, but also for whom the initiative generated trade, income or employment. Policymakers should design policies or programmes in a way that caters to differentiated needs. For example, they should ensure that trade-related infrastructure (e.g. roads, telecommunications and electrification) reaches and benefits typically poorer trading groups, such as female traders, informal traders and those in remote rural areas. They should also support complementary policies that help tackle identified binding constraints to trade and which enhance people\u2019s abilities to engage with and benefit from trade (e.g. access to land, access to credit and financial services, access to business education and marketing support). They should support mitigating measures that manage the adverse impacts that may stem from trade policy changes and consider activities that cushion or manage these impacts, such as vocational training to enable laid-off workers to diversify their income streams and shift into sectors with export potential.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Interview with Archbishop Ndungane on outcomes of UN MDG Summit","field_subtitle":"Eldis Aid blog: 29 September 2010","field_url":"http://community.eldis.org/aidanddebt/.59bc861b/.59e034fa","body":"In this interview with Archbishop Ndungane, president and founder of African Monitor, he assesses the outcomes of the United Nations Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). On the positive side, he welcomes the fact that the outcome document is comprehensive, touching on almost everything that needs to be addressed if MDGs are to be met, with commitments that are measurable and therefore can be tracked. The specific amounts committed by specific stakeholders is also a step in the right direction, according to him. Clause 23 (c) makes specific reference to the promotion of national food security strategies that strengthen support for smallholder farmers and contribute to poverty eradication. This is key to poverty eradication, particularly where without exception, 70% of the population in rural areas depend on agriculture for their livelihood. According to the Archbishop also commendable are the specific focus on maternal and child health, the references to lessons learnt, particularly the issue of supporting community-led strategies; and the commitment to strengthening the statistical capacity to produce reliable and disaggregated data. He also pointed out a number of concerns about the Summit, in the lack of any guarantee that the concrete commitments will go beyond mere \u2018lip service\u2019; the lack of clear mechanisms for enforcement; and the repetition of principles that have proved difficult to operationalise without new angles on how they are going to be implemented in reality. Finally, although there are specific commitments, world leaders need to find mechanisms to reinvigorate and stimulate the local energies, initiatives and actions which are people-driven. They should look beyond 2015 and work for sustainable solutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Keeping the promise: United to achieve the Millennium Development Goals","field_subtitle":"United Nations General Assembly: 17 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.un.org/en/mdg/summit2010/pdf/mdg%20outcome%20document.pdf","body":"The General Assembly adopted this outcome document at the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals, held in September 2010. It reaffirms the United Nations\u2019 commitment to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and calls on all stakeholders, including civil society, to enhance their role in national development efforts as well as their contribution to achieving the MDGs. The resolution indicates that there has been a mix of successes and failures in achieving the MDGs, with uneven progress and many remaining challenges and opportunities. It recognises that developing countries have made significant efforts towards achieving the MDGs and have had major successes in realising some of the targets of the MDGs, such as combating extreme poverty, improving school enrolment and child health, reducing child deaths, expanding access to clean water, improving prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, expanding access to HIV prevention, treatment and care, and controlling malaria, tuberculosis and neglected tropical diseases. However, much more needs to be done to reach the MDGs, as progress has been uneven among regions and between and within countries. Hunger and malnutrition rose again from 2007 through 2009, partially reversing prior gains. There has been slow progress in reaching full and productive employment and decent work for all, advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women, achieving environmental sustainability and providing basic sanitation. New HIV infections still outpace the number of people starting treatment. In particular, the Assembly criticised the slow progress that has been made in improving maternal and reproductive health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"MDGs, women and peace: Towards uMunthu","field_subtitle":"Sharra S: Pambazuka News (497), 23 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/67215","body":"For the empowerment of women to make a real difference in the promotion of peace, the discussion needs to shift from one of competing forces to one of cooperation and collaboration, according to this article. Feminist scholars argue that both men and women possess characteristics that are considered, for lack of more refined language, masculine as well as feminine. The difference lies in the way we are socialised. We grow up being taught to behave in a particular way due to what society perceives gender differences to mean and to require. Social norms compel us to reinforce these perceptions and expectations, and then to undermine them when we use those very perceptions and expectations to blame one gender for being collaborative rather than competitive, accommodating rather than uncompromising, submissive rather than aggressive, gentle rather than violent. This article argues that it is in peace education and peace studies that a more meaningful perspective on gender equality has been developed. Such a perspective might enable leaders to promote uMunthu (belief that all humans are connected and therefore deserve respect), peace and social justice at the local and global level, making them much more relevant to the majority of people around the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"MDGs: The contribution of family planning in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Mwita C: Africa Population and Health Research Centre, 28 September 2010","field_url":"http://ppdafrica.org/docs/SEAPACOH2010/mwita.pdf","body":"In this presentation, the author  argues that meeting unmet need for family planning services in Kenya could help the country \u2018significantly\u2019 generate resources and save costs to achieve universal primary education, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, ensure environmental sustainability, and help combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases. It draws on research to show that greater access to FP information and services in Kenya could contribute directly to the country\u2019s attainment of Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 (to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring and correcting biased child mortality statistics in countries with generalised epidemics of HIV infection","field_subtitle":"Hallett TB, Gregson S, Kurwa F, Garnett GP, Dube S, Chawira G et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88(10): 761\u2013768, October 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/10/09-071779.pdf","body":"In countries with generalized epidemics of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, standard statistics based on fertility history may misrepresent progress towards this target owing to the correlation between deaths among mothers and early childhood deaths from acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. To empirically estimate this bias, this study collected child mortality data and fertility history, including births to deceased women, through prospective household surveys in eastern Zimbabwe during 1998\u20132005. According to the empirical data, standard cross-sectional survey statistics underestimated true infant and under-5 mortality by 6.7% and 9.8%, respectively. These estimates were in agreement with the output from the model, in which the bias varied according to the magnitude and stage of the epidemic of HIV infection and background mortality rates. The bias was greater the longer the period elapsed before the survey and in later stages of the epidemic. Bias could substantially distort the measured effect of interventions to reduce non-HIV-related mortality and of programmes to prevent mother-to-child transmission, especially when trends are based on data from a single survey. A mathematical model with a user-friendly interface is available to correct for this bias when measuring progress towards Millennium Development Goal 4 in countries with generalised epidemics of HIV infection.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Mental health services funding and development in KwaZulu-Natal: A tale of inequity and neglect","field_subtitle":"Burns JK: South African Medical Journal 100(1): 662-666, October 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/4100/2968","body":"As a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, South Africa has committed itself to transformation aimed at ending the inequities that characterise mental health service provision and \u2018closing the gap\u2019. To measure South Africa\u2019s progress, this study compared budget allocations over a five-year period to six psychiatric and six general hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and contrasted current numbers of psychiatric beds and psychiatric personnel in that province with the numbers required to comply with national norms. It found that the mean increase in budget allocations to public psychiatric hospitals was 3.8% per annum, while that to general hospitals over the same period was 10.2% per annum. The median cumulative budget increase for psychiatric hospitals was significantly lower than that of general hospitals. No psychiatric hospitals received specific funding for tertiary services development. KZN has 25% of the acute psychiatric beds and 25% of the psychiatrists required to comply with national norms, with the most serious shortages experienced in northern KZN. There are 0.38 psychiatrists per 100 000 population in KZN. In conclusion, the author argues that inequitable funding, inadequate facilities and significant shortages of mental health professionals pervade the mental health and psychiatric services in KZN; and that there is little evidence of government abiding by its public commitments to redress the inequities that characterise mental health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Modelling the estimated resource requirements of alternative health care financing reforms in South Africa","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D: SHIELD Work Package 5 Report, October 2010","field_url":"http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/heu//SHIELD/reports/SHIELD%20Modelling%20report%20final.pdf","body":"This report is part of the SHIELD (Strategies for Health Insurance for Equity in Less Developed Countries) project, which aims to critically evaluate existing inequities in health care in Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania and the extent to which changes in health care financing mechanisms could address equity challenges. The first phase of SHIELD involved undertaking detailed financing incidence analyses (i.e. an evaluation of the distribution of the current health care financing burden between socio-economic groups relative to each group\u2019s ability-to-pay) and benefit incidence analyses (i.e. an evaluation of the distribution of the benefits of using health services across socio-economic groups relative to each group\u2019s need for health care) as a means of identifying existing health system inequities and the factors contributing to these inequities in each of the three countries. The second phase of SHIELD relates to identifying and critically evaluating options for the future development of health care financing mechanisms in relation to their potential equity impact and their feasibility and sustainability given attitudes of key stakeholders. This report focuses on aspects of this phase of work in South Africa, namely the feasibility and sustainability of alternative health financing reforms in relation to their respective resource requirements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring the millennium development goals: The potential role of the INDEPTH Network","field_subtitle":"Bangha M, Diagne A, Bawah A and Sankoh O: Global Health Action 3(2010), 13 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.net/index.php/gha/article/viewArticle/5517","body":"The Millennium Declaration, adopted by the United Nations in 2000, set a series of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as priorities for UN member countries, committing governments to realising eight major MDGs and 18 associated targets by 2015. Progress towards these goals is being assessed by tracking a series of 48 technical indicators that have since been unanimously adopted by experts. This concept paper outlines the role member Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSSs) of the INDEPTH Network could play in monitoring progress towards achieving the MDGs. The unique qualities of the data generated by HDSSs lie in the fact that they provide an opportunity to measure or evaluate interventions longitudinally, through the long-term follow-up of defined populations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Narrowing the gaps to meet the goals","field_subtitle":"United Nations Children\u2019s Fund: 7 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/media/files/Narrowing_the_Gaps_to_Meet_the_Goals_090310_2a.pdf","body":"This special report found that national burdens of disease, undernutrition, ill health, illiteracy and many protection abuses are concentrated in the most impoverished child populations. It argues that providing these children with essential services through an equity-focused approach to child survival and development has great potential to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and other international commitments to children. An equity-focused approach could bring vastly improved returns on investment by averting far more child and maternal deaths and episodes of undernutrition and markedly expanding effective coverage of key primary health and nutrition interventions. Nearly 1.8 billion people have gained access to improved drinking water in the past two decades. HIV prevalence appears to have stabilized in most regions, and deaths from AIDS have fallen since 2004. And despite the global economic crisis, progress is still being made in reducing income poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"National and global responsibilities for health","field_subtitle":"Gostin LO, Heywood M, Ooms G, Grover A, R\u00f8ttingene J and Chenguang W: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88(10): 719-719A, October 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/10/10-082636.pdf","body":"The World Health Organization is establishing the Joint Learning Initiative (JLI) on National and Global Responsibilities for Health to articulate an overarching, coherent framework for sharing the responsibility for health that goes further than the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The Initiative forges an international consensus around solutions to four critical challenges: defining essential health services and goods; clarifying governments\u2019 obligations to their own country\u2019s inhabitants; exploring the responsibilities of all governments towards the world\u2019s poor; and proposing a global architecture to improve health as a matter of social justice. The first challenge for the JLI is to determine essential health services and goods that every person has a right to expect. The JLI aims to launch a wide participatory process involving all major stakeholders, including international organizations, governments, industry, philanthropists and civil society, and emphasises a bottom-up approach to decision making.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"National poverty reduction strategies and HIV/AIDS governance in Malawi: A preliminary study of shared health governance ","field_subtitle":"Wachira C and Ruger JP: Social Science and Medicine, 9 June 2010 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/33zstog","body":"This article reports findings about the impact of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) process on Malawi\u2019s National HIV/AIDS Strategic Framework (NSF). In 2007, researchers conducted a survey to measure perceptions of NSF resource levels, participation, inclusion, and governance before, during, and after Malawi\u2019s PRSP process (2000\u20132004). They also assessed principle health sector and economic indicators and budget allocations for HIV and AIDS. These indicators are part of a new conceptual framework called shared health governance (SHG), which seeks congruence among the values and goals of different groups and actors to reflect a common purpose. Under this framework, global health policy should encompass: consensus among global, national, and sub-national actors on goals and measurable outcomes; mutual collective accountability; and enhancement of individual and group health agency. Indicators to assess these elements included: goal alignment; adequate resource levels; agreement on key outcomes and indicators for evaluating those outcomes; meaningful inclusion and participation of groups and institutions; special efforts to ensure participation of vulnerable groups; and effectiveness and efficiency measures. Results suggested that the PRSP process supported accountability for NSF resources. However, the process may have marginalised key stakeholders, potentially undercutting the implementation of HIV and AIDS Action Plans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"New gender and health online resource launched","field_subtitle":"Canadian Institute of Health Research Institute of Gender and Health (IGH) and the Campbell and Cochrane Equity Methods Group: 2010","field_url":"http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/42414.html","body":"The Canadian Institute of Health Research Institute of Gender and Health (IGH) Cochrane Corner is a new online resource that highlights reviews pertinent to gender, sex, and health questions. It aims to introduce those working in gender, sex, and health to the methods of the Cochrane Collaboration and, reciprocally, to bring awareness of sex- and gender-based analyses to the Cochrane community. The Corner will provide a range of knowledge users with a gender- and sex-focused entr\u00e9e into the collection of research evidence provided through the Cochrane Library. By creating a focused collection of systematic reviews relevant to gender, sex, and health, the IGH Cochrane Corner will be a valuable tool for knowledge translation in the field. The Corner also features an original series of columns, which highlight methodological, substantive, or newsworthy issues related to sex, gender, health, and systematic reviews. The columns reflect current knowledge and activities in the field.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Observat\u00f3rio da Equidade: Avalia\u00e7\u00e3o do progresso da equidade na sa\u00f9de","field_subtitle":"Minist\u00e9rio da Sa\u00fade de Mo\u00e7ambique,Training and Research Support Centre and EQUINET: September 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Moz%20EW%20Port%20Oct2010.pdf","body":"This document is published in Portuguese. \u2018Observat\u00f3rio de Equidade\u2019 \u00e9 um meio de monitoria do progresso da equidade na sa\u00fade atrav\u00e9s da recolha, organiza\u00e7\u00e3o, an\u00e1lise de dados e elabora\u00e7\u00e3o de relat\u00f3rios sobre a equidade na sa\u00fade. Este relat\u00f3rio explora as dimens\u00f5es da inequidade que precisam de ser resolvidas para garantir melhorias no desempenho econ\u00f3mico para conduzir \u00e0 erradica\u00e7\u00e3o da pobreza e ao alcance de melhorias sustent\u00e1veis no desenvolvimento humano. D\u00e1 enfoque \u00e0s determinantes sociais da sa\u00fade e \u00e0s caracter\u00edsticas do sistema de sa\u00fade que provaram fazer a diferen\u00e7a na redu\u00e7\u00e3o das inequidades sociais, incluindo na sa\u00fade, e faz a seguinte pergunta: Que progresso estamos a fazer? O relat\u00f3rio analiza os resultados positivos alcan\u00e7ados at\u00e9 agora, os n\u00edveis actuais e os constrangimentos prevalecentes, no contexto da resposta nacional em rela\u00e7\u00e3o \u00e0 inequidade. Apresenta recomenda\u00e7\u00f5es baseadas numa an\u00e1lise da informa\u00e7\u00e3o dispon\u00edvel.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Open Access Africa Conference ","field_subtitle":"Nairobi, Kenya: 11-12 November 2010","field_url":"http://blogs.openaccesscentral.com/blogs/bmcblog /entry/open_access_africa","body":"In partnership with Computer Aid International, BioMed Central will be hosting a two-day conference on open access publishing at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya, from 11-12 November 2010. Open access to the results of scientific and medical research has potential to play an important role in international development, and this conference will discuss the benefits of open access publishing in an African context, from the perspective of both readers seeking access to information, and researchers seeking to globally communicate the results of their work. Attendance at the conference is free and is open to researchers, librarians, vice-chancellors and funders for discussions on access to scientific research. However, space is limited so, to reserve your place, please send an email to the address given here.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy development in malaria vector management in Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe ","field_subtitle":"Cliff J, Lewin S, Woelk G, Fernandes B, Mariano A, Sevene E et al: Health Policy and Planning 25(5): 372-383, September 2010 ","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/25/5/372.full.pdf+html","body":"Indoor residual spraying (IRS) and insecticide-treated nets (ITNs), two principal malaria control strategies, are similar in cost and efficacy. This study aimed to describe recent policy development regarding their use in Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Using a qualitative case study methodology, researchers undertook semi-structured interviews of key informants from May 2004 to March 2005, carried out document reviews and developed timelines of key events. They found that a disparate mix of interests and ideas slowed the uptake of ITNs in Mozambique and Zimbabwe and prevented uptake in South Africa. Most respondents strongly favoured one strategy over the other. In all three countries, national policy makers favoured IRS, and only in Mozambique did national researchers support ITNs. Outside interests in favour of IRS included manufacturers who supplied the insecticides and groups opposing environmental regulation. International research networks, multilateral organisations, bilateral donors and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) supported ITNs. Research evidence, local conditions, logistic feasibility, past experience, reaction to outside ideas, community acceptability, the role of government and NGOs, and harm from insecticides used in spraying influenced the choice of strategy. The end of apartheid permitted a strongly pro-IRS South Africa to influence the region, and in Mozambique and Zimbabwe, floods provided conditions conducive to ITN distribution. The study concludes that both IRS and ITNs have a place in integrated malaria vector management, but pro-IRS interests and ideas have slowed or prevented the uptake of ITNs. Those intending to promote new policies such as ITNs should examine the interests and ideas motivating key stakeholders and their own institutions, and identify where shifts in thinking or coalitions among the like-minded may be possible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Population and reproductive health challenges in eastern and southern Africa: Policy and programme implications","field_subtitle":"Zulu EM: African Institute for Development Policy, September 2010","field_url":"http://ppdafrica.org/docs/SEAPACOH2010/zulu.pdf","body":"This presentation investigates the barriers to access that couples face when deciding to use family planning. It identifies a number of key barriers in Africa, including limited method choice, prohibitive financial costs, psychosocial factors relating to the status of women, medical and legal restrictions, provider bias and misinformation. The author of the presentation has two recommendations. Firstly, Governments should prioritise family planning and have line items in their budgets for family planning training and services, and for commodities. Secondly, they should make available the fullest possible range of contraceptive choices, including voluntary sterilisation, through the widest range of distribution channels, backed up by access to safe abortion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Population uptake of antiretroviral treatment through primary care in rural South Africa","field_subtitle":"Cooke GS, Tanser FC, Barnighausen TW and Newell M: BMC Public Health 10(585), 29 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-10-585.pdf","body":"This study investigated the factors associated with uptake of antiretroviral therapy (ART) through a primary healthcare system in rural South Africa. Detailed demographic, HIV surveillance and geographic information system (GIS) data was used to estimate the proportion of HIV positive adults accessing antiretroviral treatment within northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa in the period from initiation of antiretroviral roll-out until the end of 2008. Demographic, spatial and socioeconomic factors influencing the likelihood of individuals accessing antiretroviral treatment were explored using multivariable analysis. Mean uptake of ART among HIV positive resident adults was found to be 21.0%. Uptake among HIV positive men (19.2%) was slightly lower than women (21.8%). An individual's likelihood of accessing ART was not associated with level of education, household assets or urban/rural locale. ART uptake was strongly negatively associated with distance from the nearest primary healthcare facility. Despite concerns about the equitable nature of antiretroviral treatment rollout, the study identified very few differences in ART uptake across a range of socio-demographic variables in a rural South African population. However, even when socio-demographic factors were taken into account, individuals living further away from primary healthcare clinics were still significantly less likely to be accessing ART.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Preventing cervical cancer in South Africa. Would adding the HPV vaccine to the screening programme be cost-effective?","field_subtitle":"Health Economics Unit Policy Brief: September 2010","field_url":"http://uct-heu.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/policy-brief_preventing-cervical-cancer.pdf","body":"This research asks whether a cervical cancer prevention programme in South Africa that includes an HPV vaccine is more cost-effective than the current strategy of screening alone. It found that, while a combination of vaccination and screening at the current vaccine price is more costly than screening alone, it is a cost-effective strategy for preventing cervical cancer. The main cost driver is the vaccine cost. If the vaccine price is reduced, vaccination followed by screening might be a very affordable policy option. The vaccine has the potential to reduce the incidence of HPV-related diseases, and to reduce the cost of treating cervical cancer. This requires a well-functioning screening programme aimed at secondary prevention of cervical cancer as the HPV vaccine does not eliminate, but rather reduces the risk of cervical cancer. In South Africa, screening coverage is very low (well below 50%) and adherence to treatment of pre-cancerous and cancerous lesions is also less than 100%, thus having another preventative measure could be desirable. Approaches for reducing the cost of introducing the vaccine (which should be publicly funded) include accessing international funding mechanisms, such as the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF), using public-private partnerships and getting commitment from pharmaceutical companies to reduce prices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV with Highly Active Antiretroviral Treatment in Tanzania: A prospective cost-effectiveness study ","field_subtitle":"Robberstad  B, Evjen-Olsen B: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 55(3):397-403, 1 November 2010","field_url":"http://journals.lww.com/jaids/Abstract/2010/11010/Preventing_Mother_to_Child_Transmission_of_HIV.18.aspx","body":"Recent guidelines recommend that all HIV-infected women should receive highly active antiretroviral therapy throughout pregnancy and lactation, irrespective of whether or not they need it for their own health. This strategy for prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV is more effective than the well-established use of single-dose nevirapine, but it is also a more costly alternative. In this economic evaluation, the researchers used a decision model to combine the best available clinical evidence with cost, epidemiological and behavioural data from Northern Tanzania. It found that a highly active antiretroviral therapy-based PMTCT Plus regimen is more cost effective than the current Tanzanian standard of care with single-dose nevirapine. Although PMTCT Plus is roughly 40% more expensive per pregnant woman than single-dose nevirapine, the expected health benefits are 5.2 times greater. The incremental cost effectiveness ratio of the PMTCT Plus intervention is calculated to be US$4,062 per child infection averted and $162 per disability-adjusted life year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"PRO2000 vaginal gel for prevention of HIV-1 infection (Microbicides Development Programme 301): A phase 3, randomised, double-blind, parallel-group trial","field_subtitle":"Sheena McCormack, Gita Ramjee, Anatoli Kamali, Helen Rees, Angela M Crook, Mitzy Gafos et al: The Lancet  376(9749): 1329 - 1337, 16 Oct 2010","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2810%2961086-0/abstract","body":"Microbicides Development Programme 301 was a phase 3, randomised, double-blind, parallel-group trial, undertaken at thirteen clinics in South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. The study enrolled 9,385 of the initial 15,818 women who were screened. Mean reported gel use at last sex act was 89%. HIV-1 incidence was much the same between groups at study end, for placebo, for hazard ratio 1.05, and at discontinuation. Incidence of the primary safety endpoint at study end was 4.6 per 100 woman-years in the 0.5% PRO2000 group and 3.9 in the placebo group; and was 4.5 in the 2% PRO2000 group at discontinuation. The study concludes that, although they are safe, 0.5% PRO2000 and 2% PRO2000 gels are not efficacious against vaginal HIV-1 transmission and are not indicated for this use.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Profile and professional expectations of medical students in Mozambique: A longitudinal study","field_subtitle":"Ferrinho P, Fronteira I, Sidat M, de Sousa F and Dussault G: Human Resources for Health 8(21), 21 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-8-21.pdf","body":"This paper compares the socioeconomic profile of medical students registered at the Faculty of Medicine of Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (FM-UEM), Maputo, for the years 1998/99 and 2007/08. Its objective is to describe the medical students' social and geographical origins, expectations and perceived difficulties regarding their education and professional future. Data was collected through questionnaires administered to all medical students. The response rate in 1998/99 was 51% and 50% in 2007/08. The main results reflect a doubling of the number of students enrolled for medical studies at the FM-UEM, associated with improved student performance (as reflected by failure rates). Nevertheless, satisfaction with the training received remains low and, now as before, students still identify lack of access to books or learning technology and inadequate teacher preparedness as major problems. Despite a high level of commitment to public sector service, students, as future doctors, have very high salary expectations that will not be met by current public sector salary scales, as reflected in an increasing degree of orientation to double sector employment after graduation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Provisions for consent by children to medical treatment and surgical operations, and duties to report child and aged persons abuse","field_subtitle":"McQuoid-Mason D: South African Medical Journal 100(1): 646-648, October 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/4278/2977","body":"New sections of the Children\u2019s Act and the Children\u2019s Amendment Act in South Africa came into effect on 1 April 2010. The Children\u2019s Act dealing with the capacity of children to consent to HIV testing and to access contraceptives have been in effect since 1 July 2007 and the new sections now allow children of 12 years of age to consent to medical treatment, and to surgical operations with the assistance of their parent or guardian. The provisions allowing consent to termination of pregnancy by girls of any age in the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act are not affected by this Act.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-private partnerships policy and practice: A reference guide ","field_subtitle":"Yong HK (ed): Commonwealth Secretariat, September 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/34j586c","body":"This reference guide on public-private partnerships (PPP) theory and practice is intended for senior policy-makers and other public sector officials in developing countries. The guide, available on order from the Commonwealth Secretariat, focuses on the key lessons learned and emerging best practice from successful and failed PPP transactions over the past thirty years. The guide provides a background to PPPs: concepts and key trends; the infrastructure PPP project development process; constraints to infrastructure PPPs and measures to alleviate them; donor initiatives to support infrastructure PPPs; recent PPP experience in Commonwealth developing countries and lessons learned and emerging best practices on PPPs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Pushing back against linearity: Report of the Big Push Back","field_subtitle":"Eyben R: Institute of Development Studies, 29 September 2010","field_url":"http://aidontheedge.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/meeting_report.pdf","body":"The Big Push Back, which took place on 22 September 2010, was convened by the Participation and Social Change team at the United Kingdom\u2019s Institute of Development Studies. With over 70 attendees, the theme of the meeting was to reflect on and develop strategies for \u2019pushing back\u2019 against the increasingly dominant bureaucratisation of the development agenda and the pressure to design projects/programmes and report on performance in a manner that assumes all problems are bounded/simple. This is reported to result in research that is linear (cause-effect) based, at the expense of research that is emergent, i.e. a complex, only partially controllable process in which local actors may have conflicting views on what is happening, why and what can be done about it, where complexity is recognised and accountability promoted to those people international funds are supposed to serve. The meeting also called for collaboration with people inside funding and development agencies who are equally dissatisfied with the prevailing \u2018audit culture\u2019, and communication to build public understanding that some aspects of development work that cannot be reduced to numbers are also valuable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Rabies: A hidden killer of humans","field_subtitle":"Yeni A: Health-e News, 23 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032947","body":"An estimated 55,000 people die of rabies in Africa and Asia every year, a viral disease passed from an infected animal to a human through biting or scratching. In both humans and animals it is deemed fatal once it enters the central nervous system, with only a handful of survivors. Already nine human cases that resulted in death have been confirmed in South Africa this year; three in the Eastern Cape, two in Kwa Zulu-Natal, one in Mpumalanga and three in Limpopo. Experts in the medical fraternity have described this as worrying, saying people need to be aware of rabies. Professor Lucille Blumberg of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, says her institution deals with up to 20 cases of human rabies per year. She says that if a person is bitten by a stray animal, they should immediately wash the wound very well, to physically remove the virus, then visit a clinic immediately to get an injection to prevent infection and to go on a course of injections to develop antibodies to the disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Recruiting heterosexual couples from the general population for studies in rural South Africa: Challenges and lessons ","field_subtitle":"McGrath N, Hosegood V, Chirowodza A, Joseph P, Darbes L, Boettiger M and van Rooyen H: South African Medical Journal 100(1): 658-660, October 2010","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/4280/2978","body":"Couples should be included in HIV prevention research, but their recruitment in southern Africa is challenging given high levels of migration and non-cohabitation, according to the authors of this pilot study. The study describes the recruitment strategies and experiences in rural South Africa when conducting HIV research. With the aim of recruiting 20 couples at mobile voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) caravans and community venues, 75 index partners were screened with an average of four additional contacts required to schedule interviews. The study found that, despite the care taken to maximise recruitment, recruiting just 20 couples required a substantial investment of time and resources, so recruiting and interviewing couples is a feasible option, but requires substantial resources. Given the need to identify effective HIV behavioural interventions in South Africa, the authors believe that couples-focused studies and interventions can be one possible component in efforts to promote testing and reduce HIV transmission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Request for input: Equity-oriented toolkit for health technology assessment","field_subtitle":"Jandu MB: Equity Update 4(2): 30 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.cgh.uottawa.ca/whocc/projects/eo_toolkit/index.htm","body":"The WHO Collaborating Centre for Knowledge Translation and Health Technology Assessment in Health Equity, housed at the Centre for Global Health at the University of Ottawa, is currently in the process of updating and expanding its Equity-Oriented Toolkit for Health Technology Assessment (HTA). The Equity-Oriented Toolkit is based on a needs-based model of HTA. It provides tools that explicitly consider health equity at each of the four steps of health technology assessment: burden of Illness, community effectiveness, economic evaluation, and knowledge translation and implementation. It also incorporates concepts of health impact assessment within the HTA process. The centre is seeking suggestions on validated and widely disseminated HTA tools that explicitly consider health equity and that are relevant to the toolkit. These tools may be specific analytical methods such as the Disability-Adjusted Life Years, checklists such as the Health Impact Screening Checklist, software programmes such as the Harvard Policy Maker, and databases such as the Cochrane Library.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Resolutions of the Governance Cluster of the Regional Coordination Mechanism of United Nations Agencies and Partner Organisations","field_subtitle":"Governance Cluster of the Regional Coordination Mechanism of United Nations Agencies and Partner Organisations: 15 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.nepad.org/system/files/Econ.pdf","body":"The Governance Cluster of the Regional Coordination Mechanism of United Nations Agencies and Partner Organisations held its annual retreat in Johannesburg South Africa on 14-15 September 2010, at which a number of resolutions were adopted. The Cluster resolved that UN agencies\u2019 support to the African Union Commission (AUC), the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA) and the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) should be premised on the strategic orientation and priorities of these institutions as articulated in their strategic plans and other relevant documents. Horizontal interaction/links should be developed among the RECs for purposes of joint planning, programming, and sharing of information and experience. Also, AU member states should be encouraged to make efforts to sign, ratify, domesticate and apply existing charters, treaties, protocols, conventions and declarations on governance, democracy and human rights. They should also accelerate the ratification of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, 2007. To date, about 38 AU member states have signed this historic democracy charter. Eight more signatories are required to ratify the charter. AU member states that have already signed and ratified the Charter must set in motion steps for its domestication and application, and a comprehensive mechanism should be established to monitor and evaluate implementation of existing African charters, protocols and treaties relating to governance. More AU member states should accede to the African Peer Review Mechanism, as well.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Risk equalisation and voluntary health insurance: The South Africa experience","field_subtitle":"McLeod H and Grobler P: Health Policy 98(1): 27-38, November 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/39goz5e","body":"South Africa intends implementing major reforms in the financing of healthcare. Free market reforms in private health insurance in the late 1980s have been reversed by the new democratic government since 1994 with the re-introduction of open enrolment, community rating and minimum benefits. A system of national health insurance with income cross-subsidies, risk-adjusted payments and mandatory membership has been envisaged in policy papers since 1994. Subsequent work has seen the design of a Risk Equalisation Fund intended to operate between competing private health insurance funds. This paper outlines the South African health system and describes the risk equalisation formula that has been developed. The risk factors are age, gender, maternity events, numbers with certain chronic diseases and numbers with multiple chronic diseases. The Risk Equalisation Fund has been operating in shadow mode since 2005 with data being collected but no money changing hands. The South African experience of risk equalisation is of wider interest as it demonstrates an attempt to introduce more solidarity into a small but highly competitive private insurance market. The measures taken to combat over-reporting of chronic disease should be useful for countries or funders considering adding chronic disease to their risk equalisation formulae.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Should we pursue a universal health system or something else in South Africa?","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D: SHIELD Policy Brief 2: 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3azef2r","body":"This brief is part of the SHIELD (Strategies for Health Insurance for Equity in Less Developed Countries) project. The brief calculates that the total resource requirements for the \u2018mandatory extension of medical scheme coverage\u2019 option (or SHI) will be considerable. Only one country in the world has spending levels as high as 13% of GDP \u2013 the USA. The brief dismisses this option as unaffordable in the South African context, based on the fact that the burden on households that are required to join a medical scheme will be very high, with scheme contribution rates per person being twice as high as they currently are in real terms (i.e. before the effect of inflation is added). The major decision facing policy makers is therefore whether we should retain the status quo or whether the country should pursue a universal health system. The \u2018universal coverage\u2019 option would see health spending levels increasing in line with expected growth in gross domestic product (GDP), so that when fully implemented, total health care spending as a percentage of GDP would be comparable to what it currently is. The author points out that the key challenge with pursuing universal coverage is the need to allocate more public funds to the health sector, partly through increased taxes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Sign the petition: Europe! Hands off our medicine!","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 30 November 2010","field_url":"https://action.msf.org/en_CH","body":"Medicins sans Frontieres has launched its campaign \u2018Europe! Hands off our medicine\u2019 to fight against legislative changes that could see the supply of generic drugs from India and other countries shut down or significantly reduced. This is an appeal to you to sign the petition and distribute it as widely as possible in your country and networks. Millions of people in developing countries rely on affordable generic medicines to stay alive. More than 80% of the medicines used by MSF to treat AIDS across the developing world are produced in India. But the European Commission (EC) is now launching an attack on affordable medicines by pushing for unfair legislation to govern the production, registration, transportation and exportation of generic medicines. This legislation makes no clear distinction between fake drugs and genuine generics. People who need generics could face shortages and may die if they need are life-saving drugs. Negotiations are ongoing between the European Union and India, and MSF wants to use this petition to draw the attention to this problematic issue and send a message to the EC Trade Commissioner, Karel De Gucht, and European Union governments, calling on him to put a halt to Europe\u2019s destructive trade policies and to commit to an agenda that will offer access to medicines for all. To sign on, click on the link given here.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Small states: Economic review and basic statistics, volume 14 ","field_subtitle":"Commonwealth Secretariat: September 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3y7bsat","body":"This annual collection of key economic and statistical data on states with fewer than five million inhabitants is designed as a reference for economists, planners and policy-makers. The book contains fifty-four tables covering selected economic, social, demographic and Millennium Development Goal indicators culled from international and national sources and presents information unavailable elsewhere. A detailed parallel commentary on trends in Commonwealth small states, looking at growth, employment, inflation, human development, and economic policy, permits a deeper understanding of developments behind the figures. The book also includes three articles focusing on trade in services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Social accountability: Tools and mechanisms for improved urban water services ","field_subtitle":"Velleman Y: WaterAid Working Paper, June 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.environmentportal.in/files/social_accountability_final.pdf","body":"This paper discusses the need for specific pro-poor measures to ensure water service provision to poor urban populations. Given the proven importance of pro-poor measures for urban water service delivery and viability, the question arises as to why such measures are not undertaken by utilities as normal practice. Although financial constraints matter, they do not constitute the only barrier. The report argues that the missing ingredient needed in order to reach poor people is accountability to the people, which necessitates the meaningful involvement of users in the planning, delivery and monitoring of water services. This increases the chances of delivering reliable, sustainable and affordable water services to more urban inhabitants. The engagement of users in utility reforms and ongoing service improvement processes is crucial, since reforms to improve efficiency (inevitably the main driver for reforms) do not necessarily translate into geographical equity or a commitment to serve the poor. Without incentives, a clear mandate to serve the poor or a \u2018champion\u2019, companies chase markets that are \u2018easy\u2019, offer the highest returns and do not require subsidies. However, user engagement is far from simple and its outcomes far from predictable. The paper draws on a variety of literature, as well as a series of key-informant interviews.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Social transfers: A critical strategy to meet the MDGs","field_subtitle":"Bourne AW and Morgan F: HelpAge International, 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.helpage.org/resources/publications/","body":"This brief outlines the role that social transfers have to play in providing an inclusive framework to reduce intergenerational and chronic poverty.  The authors argue that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), in common with many development, policies and programmes, focus effort on children, young people and the \u2018working-age\u2019 poor.  However, they fail to recognise and support the social, economic and caring needs and contributions of older people. The paper highlights HelpAge's call on the international community to invest in government-led social transfer schemes in order to accelerate progress to achieve the MDGs. HelpAge calls for multilateral and bilateral development agencies to commit to working in partnership with national governments and invest in the development or scaling up of long-term, sustainable social transfer schemes, disaggregated monitoring of aid budgets and national government budgets to track the impact of social transfers, and recognition by the United Nations\u2019 MDG database of the need for age-disaggregated data to ensure the effective monitoring and evaluation of the MDGs for all age groups.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa and the MDGs: Talking left, walking right","field_subtitle":"Bond P: Pambazuka News (497), 23 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/67185","body":"In this interview, Patrick Bond discusses the failings of South Africa\u2019s drive towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the extent to which the country\u2019s government continues to operate against the interests of its poor majority. According to Bond, South African urban poverty increased from 1993\u20132008 and rural poverty declined only because more poor people moved to the cities and the welfare grant system was extended. The South African economy is structured so as to generate poverty-expanding 'growth' of GDP (gross domestic product) so, as accumulation of capital occurs in much of South Africa, the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer. That structuring happens in ways concordant with the speculative, financial-driven and profit-exporting character of capitalism, interrupted only briefly by the great crash of 2008. Most of Pretoria's economic policies amplify this trend because of their neoliberal (pro-business) character, he argues. South Africa cannot be confident of making progress on any MDGs, given the coming austerity associated with a failing global and national 'Keynesian' (deficit-based) macroeconomic strategy that was largely based on white-elephant infrastructure investments. Such spending \u2013 especially for now-empty World Cup soccer stadiums costing R22 billion \u2013 plus declining state revenues (as profits and taxes fell) moved the national budget from a surplus of around 1% of GDP to more than 7%. What is therefore likely, within five years, is a similar turn by the Treasury to the kind of austerity now being felt in many other countries which ratcheted up their deficits to deal with the crisis. As shown in the recent civil servants' strike, the state is willing to put services mainly utilised by the poor majority \u2013 public schools, clinics and hospitals \u2013 at risk to maintain some semblance of fiscal discipline, which does not bode well for future state expenditure on MDG-related needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Child Gauge 2009/2010","field_subtitle":"Kibel M, Lake L, Pendlebury P and Smith C (eds): Children's Institute, University of Cape Town, May 2010","field_url":"http://www.ci.org.za/depts/ci/pubs/pdf/general/gauge2009-10/south_african_child_gauge_09-10.pdf","body":"South Africa is one of only 12 countries that has failed to reduce child mortality since 1990, according to the South African Child Gauge 2009/2010, an annual review of the situation of children in the country. The review contains essays by child health experts from across the country. While South Africa is making progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target on sustainable access to safe drinking water, this has not trickled down to children: Only 64% of children have access to safe drinking water on site. Progress has been slow for access to basic sanitation, education and gender equality. On the MDG targets for reducing child hunger, HIV, tuberculosis and child mortality, South Africa is not making any progress. South Africa has also failed to submit its reports on progress in relation to implementing the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child \u2013 the key accountability mechanism aimed at monitoring South Africa\u2019s progress in promoting the maximum survival and development of children. Improving child health outcomes requires concerted action from both within and outside the formal health care system. To reduce child mortality, governments should alleviate poverty and eliminate inequality, as well as improve the performance of its health services, and medical interventions should focus on prevention and encourage the participation of children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Subsidies won't keep poverty levels down in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 29 September 2010 ","field_url":"Http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=90618","body":"In response to food price riots in early September, the Mozambican government has laid on a range of price cuts and subsidies to make life easier for the poor, and has promised to do some belt tightening of its own. On 21 September 2010, two weeks after the first riots, it was reported that registered bakers would receive a subsidy for wheat flour and other relief measures included halving water connection fees for low-consumption households, considerably reducing the cost of piped water to the poor, and giving free electricity to low-consumption households consuming 100 kwh or less. Food prices for some basic items were also reduced and customs duties lowered on vegetable imports from South Africa. Analysts argue that a better long-term strategy to fight poverty and the rising cost of living would be for Mozambique to grow its own food, instead of relying on imports from South Africa. An increase in agricultural output would shelter the country\u2019s food supply from volatile international markets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tenofovir gel trial: Results","field_subtitle":"Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa: July 2010","field_url":"http://www.caprisa.org/joomla/","body":"The results of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) 004 tenofovir gel trial showed a 39% reduction in new HIV infections, and are considered a critical first step to getting an effective HIV prevention method for women.  Much more research still needs to be done, CAPRISA cautions.  As a follow-up to the CAPRISA 004 tenofovir gel trial, the global microbicide community has yet to define the quickest route to getting tenofovir gel to the public.  There was consensus among the community members that confirmatory trials and implementation studies are urgently needed.  However, a key challenge is insufficient funding to undertake the critical next steps. The proposed research is expected to cost approximately US$100 million over three years, of which only $58 million has been committed so far.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The global capitalist crisis and Africa\u2019s future: Part I","field_subtitle":"Nabudere DW: Pambazuka News (497), 23 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/67237","body":"This article argues that Africa today is trailing the rest of the world because, in part, the African leadership has failed to mobilise its people along the lines of a Pan-African agenda that informed the earlier phases of our political development. This is due to its weak ideological base, which, instead of drawing from such a heritage, is wedded to Western ways of knowing and doing things which we have derived from their educational institutions without questioning, including Christian and Muslim religious influences. While these external interventions have added to Africa\u2019s modern culture, the article argues, they have also left a negative impact on African intellectual capacity to think independently unlike, say, the Asian intellectuals and political leaders who have links to their religions and cultures. This is due to the fact that Asia, unlike Africa, was less destabilised by way of religious intrusions, resulting in its intellectual and political leadership remaining more anchored to their religions, languages and cultures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Plan to Stop TB 2011-2015","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization Stop TB Partnership: 2010","field_url":"http://www.stoptb.org/assets/documents/global/plan/TB_GlobalPlanToStopTB2011-2015.pdf","body":"The Global Plan to Stop TB 2011-2015 is a new roadmap for curbing the global epidemic of tuberculosis, and it aims to save five million lives between 2011 and 2015 and eliminate TB as a public health problem by 2050 but comes with a price tag of US$47 billion, nearly half of which must still be found. The Plan builds on progress towards goals laid out in 2006 to halve TB prevalence and death rates by 2015 and scale up TB diagnosis, treatment and care, but adds essential research targets including the development of faster methods to test and treat TB and to prevent it through an effective vaccine. Specifically, the plan provides countries with guidance on how to improve TB control through scaling up existing interventions for its diagnosis and treatment and by making use of new diagnostic tests and drugs that will become available over the next five years. A new test that uses molecular line probe assays to detect multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB in a few days instead of the weeks needed using older testing methods has already been introduced in some countries. Other tests that will soon be available can detect TB in a matter of hours. The pipeline of new TB drugs promises shorter treatment times. Meanwhile, nine TB vaccine candidates are in clinical trials and a new generation of TB vaccines is expected to be available by 2020. Other major elements of the plan focus on efforts to combat drug-resistant TB and TB in people living with HIV. It calls for a scale-up in access to tests that can detect resistance to first- and second-line TB drugs, identifying limited laboratory capacity as the main reason why only 5% of the estimated 440,000 people who had MDR-TB in 2008 were diagnosed. It also recommends testing all TB patients for HIV and providing antiretroviral treatment to all those who test positive.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of birth order in infant mortality in Ifakara in rural Tanzania ","field_subtitle":"Sangber-Dery MD: INDEPTH Network, 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/34dxjvj","body":"Compared with some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, infant mortality rate is relatively high in Tanzania, at 68 per 1000 live births (2004-2005). Studies of factors affecting infant mortality have rarely considered the role of birth order. This study aims to contribute to fill this research gap by determining the risk factors associated with infant mortality in Ifakara in rural Tanzania from January 2005 to December 2007. Data for 8,916 live births born from 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2007 was extracted for analysis. The study found that first and higher birth orders had highest levels of infant death, while mothers younger than 20 years old had the highest infant mortality. From 2005\u20132007, malaria remained the leading cause of infant death. Giving birth at the hospital was perceived by women to be associated with severe delivery complications. The study recommends that Tanzania\u2019s health systems urgently need strengthening, and efforts should be made to communicate the benefits of health facility deliveries more effectively. Voluntary and community health workers also need to be trained adequately to recognise factors that put infants at risk.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Third HIV and AIDS in the Workplace Research Conference","field_subtitle":"Pre-conference Registration Closing Date: 5 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.sabcoha.org/conference/index.php?option=com_content%20&task=view&id=1&Itemid=1","body":"The Third HIV and AIDS in the Workplace Research Conference, taking place in Johannesburg from 9-11 November, will reflect on the intersection of workplace HIV responses, academic research and surveillance, with a particular focus on strengthening prevention interventions in the fight against HIV and AIDS in Africa, linking prevention research to workplace practice. Prevention will be a key priority focus area, as success in preventing new infections is now widely accepted as the key to ultimately curbing the impact of HIV and AIDS on South Africa and its people. The Conference offers an opportunity for business to step back and reflect on HIV and AIDS programmes, using the lens of research and practice to consider what has worked and what lessons can be extracted. The Conference is also a platform to translate research into meaningful and sustainable responses that can be applied in the workplace.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Tools to make policy research accountable","field_subtitle":"One World Trust: 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.oneworldtrust.org/apro/","body":"The One World Trust, with support from the International Development and Research Centre, has created an interactive, online database of tools to help organisations conducting policy relevant research become more accountable. The database provides an inventory of over two hundred tools, standards and processes within a broad, overarching accountability framework. With a dynamic interface and several search functions, it allows users to identify aspects of accountability that interests them, and provides ideas to improve their accountability in this context. Each tool is supported by sources and further reading. The site also encourages engagement with and discussion on the database content, through allowing users to comment on individual tools, or to submit their own tools, processes and standards for inclusion. The database is an output of a three-year project, titled \u2018Accountability Principles for Research Organisations\u2019. Working with partners across the globe, the project has generated an accountability framework which is sufficiently flexible to apply to many contexts and different organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards universal access: Scaling up priority HIV/AIDS interventions in the health sector","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS, the UN Children's Fund and the World Health Organization: September 2010","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241500395_eng.pdf","body":"A global shortage of funds for the fight against HIV means universal access to prevention, treatment and care is unlikely unless HIV programmes get better value for their investments, according to this report. It argues that there is a need to \u2018enhance the impact of current investments by improving the efficiency, effectiveness and quality of programmes, strengthening links between programmes, and building systems for a sustainable response. Although 5.25 million people accessed life-prolonging antiretroviral medication in 2009 - up 1.2 million from 2008 - the report notes that funding shortages, limited human resources, weak procurement and supply management systems for HIV drugs and diagnostics, and other bottlenecks continued to hamper the scale-up of treatment. An estimated 53% of pregnant women worldwide in need of prevention of mother-to-child transmission services received them in 2009, but only 28% HIV-positive children received treatment in 2009, compared to 36% for adults, and just 15% of children born to HIV-positive mothers were given appropriate infant diagnostics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Trade and development report 2010","field_subtitle":"United Nations Conference on Trade and Development: 2010","field_url":"http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/tdr2010_en.pdf","body":"This paper points to the failure of the \u2018post-Washington Consensus\u2019 in the 1990s to reduce poverty, due to macroeconomic policies that promoted fixed investment, neglect of productivity growth and employment creation, a focus on price stabilisation, the absence of accelerated structural change and insufficient capital accumulation. Consequently, the development gap has widened over the past 20 years in South America and Africa. In most developing countries there is a pressing need to increase public sector provision of essential social services, especially those concerned with nutrition, sanitation, health and education. This is important not only for the obvious direct effects in terms of improved material and social conditions, the paper notes, but also for macroeconomic reasons. The public provision of such services tends to be labour intensive, and therefore also has considerable direct effects on employment. Government revenues from the extractive industries could be used not only for public investments in infrastructure, health and education, but also for the provision of fiscal incentives and improved public services under industrial policies aimed at diversification of economic activities. This would reduce countries\u2019 dependence on natural resources. Growth in the modern sector is associated with higher private and public investment in fixed capital as well as greater government spending for the provision of education and health services and social protection.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Training mid-level workers in Africa: A review","field_subtitle":"Ray S: University of Botswana, October 2010","field_url":"http://www.rhap.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Ray-Training-mid-level-workers-in-Africa-8-9-101.pdf","body":"This presentation is based on a literature review that was carried out as part of a research collaboration between the School of Public Health Wits University and the African Population Health Research Centre, Nairobi, Kenya, with feedback from colleagues in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and South Africa. The review found that mid-level workers (MLWs) were active in 25 of the 47 sub-Saharan African countries reviewed: 18 countries had non-nurse based programmes for training secondary school leavers, which avoided depleting scarce ranks of nurses. MLWs were treated as second-best or a temporary stop gap until enough physicians were trained, instead of being recognised as key front line health workers responsible for care of their communities. Problems affecting MLWs were identified as: poor work environment; perceptions of resource inadequacy, with staff members indicating that they had neither sufficient staff nor time to do their work; poor pay and low status; inadequate management support and a sense of not being valued by their managers; and burnout, emotional exhaustion and low personal accomplishment. The presentation cautions that increasing numbers of MLWs is not a solution on its own. Accompanying investment is needed in supervision, district team strengthening, morale building and training. Recognition, career and skills development are strong motivators for MLWs, while positive feedback from patients is valued and seen as indicator of professional conduct. The need for professionalisation of MLWs is also underscored.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in maternal mortality: 1990 to 2008","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, United Nations Children\u2019s Fund, United Nations Population Fund and the World Bank: September 2010","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241500265_eng.pdf","body":"This review uses Millennium Development Goal 5 (reducing the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters and achieving universal access to reproductive health by 2015) to assess global progress in improving maternal health. The main study limitation was a lack of reliable and accurate data on maternal mortality, particularly in developing-country settings where maternal mortality is high. An estimated 358,000 maternal deaths occurred worldwide in 2008, a 34% decline from the levels of 1990. Despite this decline, developing countries continued to account for 99% (355,000) of the deaths, with sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia accounting for 87% (313,000). Overall, it was estimated that there were 42,000 deaths due to AIDS among pregnant women in 2008. About half of those were assumed to be maternal. The contribution of AIDS was highest in sub-Saharan Africa where 9% of all maternal deaths were due to AIDS. These estimates provide an up-to-date indication of the extent of the maternal mortality problem globally. They reflect the efforts by countries, which have increasingly been engaged in studies to measure maternal mortality and strengthen systems to obtain better information about maternal deaths. The modest and encouraging progress in reducing maternal mortality, the review argues, is likely due to increased attention to developing and implementing policies and strategies targeting increased access to effective interventions. Such efforts need to be expanded and intensified, to accelerate progress towards reducing the still very wide disparities between developing and developed worlds.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"UN human rights chief welcomes MDG summit outcome and notes some gaps","field_subtitle":"United Nations News Room: 23 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=36087&Cr=mdgs&Cr1=","body":"Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, has described as \u2018a very significant advance\u2019 the outcome document of the UN\u2019s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) summit, but noted a number of gaps in some aspects of the global plan of action to eradicate poverty and end social-economic inequality. During the summit, she emphasised that States should take a human rights-based approach to the MDGs, which would mean that development and aid policies should explicitly prioritise the needs of the poorest and most excluded people. But she stressed that, with their emphasis on global average targets, the MDGs often neglect large segments of the world\u2019s population, and may unwittingly exacerbate existing inequalities. The principle of participation, for example, is reflected strongly in relation to the empowerment of women, but there is no explicit recognition of participation as a right, and no specific commitments to guarantee freedom of expression and association or other human rights guarantees necessary for active, free and meaningful participation. Issues of accountability, good governance and the rule of law are referred to in a number of contexts, she said, but in relation to MDG 8, which mandates a global partnership for development, there is still a critical accountability defect because it lacks time-bound targets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Website for rural health","field_subtitle":"Rural Health Advocacy Project: 2009","field_url":"http://www.rhap.org.za/?page_id=7","body":"The Rural Health Advocacy Project (RHAP) was launched in August 2009 in response to the specific health challenges in rural areas. The RHAP believes that a focus on rural health is key to improving national health outcomes and achieving progress towards the millennium development goals. This is because rural communities have poorer health status, less access to health care facilities, fewer resources, less information and fewer health care professionals than their counterparts in urban areas.  The RHAP believes that for South Africa to improve its health outcomes, the problems faced by rural communities need specific attention. The RHAP is a partnership between the Wits Centre for Rural Health (CRH), the Rural Doctors Association of Southern Africa (RuDASA) and SECTION27, incorporating the AIDS Law Project. The website contains news items and papers by researchers on various topics regarding rural health, such as health worker retention, health services and health financing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A fair chance at life: Why equity matters for child mortality ","field_subtitle":"Save the Children: September 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/docs/A_Fair_Chance_at_Life.pdf","body":"Save the Children\u2019s research compares mortality rates of poor children and rich children in 32 countries. In many countries that are successfully reducing child mortality, progress is concentrated among the poorest and most disadvantaged children. Conversely, in countries making slow or no progress, disparities in life chances between children from the poorest and richest backgrounds tend to be extreme. Since 1990, the global child mortality rate has declined by 28%, which falls short of the target set by Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 (a two-thirds reduction by 2015). Still, many high-mortality countries have substantially reduced child deaths, and 19 of 68 high-priority countries are now expected to meet MDG 4. The findings underscore a great gap in reaching the poorest with essential health care, including pre-and post-natal care, skilled attendance at birth, and low-cost prevention and treatment for the major child killers \u2013 pneumonia, diarrhoea, and malaria. Save the Children found inequity in child survival to be a persistent and sometimes growing problem in many of the world\u2019s developing countries, where 99% of all child deaths occur.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A lifeline to treatment: The role of Indian generic manufacturers in supplying antiretroviral medicines to developing countries","field_subtitle":"Waning B, Diedrichsen E and Moon S: Journal of the International AIDS Society 13(35), 14 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-13-35.pdf","body":"This study set out to produce quantitative estimates of the Indian role in generic global anti-retroviral (ARV) supply to help understand potential impacts of such measures on HIV and AIDS treatment in developing countries. It utilised transactional data containing 17,646 donor-funded purchases of ARV tablets made by 115 low- and middle-income countries from 2003 to 2008 to measure market share, purchase trends and prices of Indian-produced generic ARVs compared with those of non-Indian generic and brand ARVs. The study found that Indian generic manufacturers dominate the ARV market, accounting for more than 80% of annual purchase volumes. From 2003 to 2008, the number of Indian generic manufactures supplying ARVs increased from four to 10 while the number of Indian-manufactured generic products increased from 14 to 53. Indian-produced generic ARVs used in first-line regimens were consistently and considerably less expensive than non-Indian generic and innovator ARVs. The study warns that future scale up using newly recommended ARVs will likely be hampered until Indian generic producers can provide the dramatic price reductions and improved formulations observed in the past. Rather than agreeing to inappropriate intellectual property obligations through free trade agreements, India and its trade partners - plus international organisations, donors, civil society and pharmaceutical manufacturers - should ensure that there is sufficient policy space for Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers to continue their central role in supplying developing countries with low-priced, quality-assured generic medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A methodology for human rights impact assessment: Systematically identifying, predicting and responding to projects potential impacts on human rights ","field_subtitle":"Nomogaia Foundation: 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/manuals-and-toolkits&id=45326&type=Document","body":"This Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) manual aims to systematically identify, predict and respond to projects' potential impacts on human rights. The goal of this methodology is to assist in the creation of valid, useful and ultimately meaningful human rights impact assessments. The process of creating and using HRIA is still in its early phases, the manual observes and their relevance will depend on a continuing improvement of method, capacity and result which can only be accomplished through the sharing of experience and information between companies and assessors. The methodology looks at HRIA assessment sources, goals, and types. It covers basic concepts and looks provides five steps for implementation:  gather project contexts and company information; drawing up a preliminary list of impacted rights; drawing up a preliminary list of impacted right holders; special topics; and inquiry guided by topic catalogue. The manual offers recommendations for policies, procedures, structures and action. It also provides an appendix of other tools and selected best practices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Accelerating progress on the MDGs: Country priorities for improving performance ","field_subtitle":"Greeley M: Institute of Development Studies, September 2010","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/index.cfm?objectid=0F7D7B51-B1F3-49B9-BE00FF359BE0A95D","body":"This report was prepared to advise the United Nations Development Group Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Task Force at the United Nations Summit on the MDGs, held from 20\u201324 September 2010, in the United States. It discusses six priorities to help countries to accelerate progress towards meeting the MDGs. 1. Country-led MDG strategies should integrate MDGs in their national development strategies, grounded in annual resource budgets that are planned through a medium-term expenditure framework. 2. A local accountability plan should be used to implement and evaluate results with mechanisms that are transparent and accountable to citizens. Policy, legal and institutional frameworks must make accountability real. 3. Governments should prioritise community participation and partnerships, taking full advantage of the efficiency and effectiveness gains from community involvement and through the use of the private sector and south-south partnerships. 4. Gender equality and women\u2019s empowerment should be high on the agenda, and world leaders must recognise that progress on gender equality and women\u2019s empowerment is critical to progress on the MDGs overall. 5. A policy of inclusion should be followed that addresses issues of inequality, exclusion and discrimination. Governments must assess and strengthen the targeting of public services and programmes to address inequality and all those that suffer from discrimination and social exclusion. 6. Resilience, for example in adapting to climate change, should help to protect the most vulnerable. Governments should adopt an effective and inclusive approach to social protection and prioritise sustainable development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Activists appeal for release of Kenyan TB prisoners","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 15 September 2010","field_url":"Http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=90481","body":"Kenyan human rights activists have filed an appeal for the release of two men imprisoned for defaulting on their tuberculosis (TB) treatment, and are warning that the arrests could discourage other patients from seeking treatment. The appeal has been filed at Kapsabet court in Rift Valley Province. Arrested in August 2010, the two men have been held in police remand in Kapsabet for \u2018posing a risk to the health of the wider community\u2019. Under the Public Health Act, they can be held until the district medical officer who ordered their arrest decides they are no longer a public health threat. According to Nelson Otwoma, national coordinator of the Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Kenya, the two men have not been isolated, posing a health risk to other inmates. He warned that the arrests could act as a deterrent to patients needing treatment. \u2018This is a negative consequence of the government's action\u2019, he added, denouncing criminalisation of the disease. \u2018Counselling of those on treatment will have better outcomes,\u2019 he noted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"African traditional knowledge and folklore given IP protection despite warning of traditional knowledge commodification ","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 12 September 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3xupquc","body":"At the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) diplomatic conference on 9-10 August in Swakopmund, Namibia, the protocol on the Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Expressions of Folklore was signed by African nine states. ARIPO currently has 17 member states. Nine states signed the protocol and the remaining eight states will have to accede to the protocol. Some states have already initiated the process for the ratification and accession, according to a spokesperson for ARIPO, Emmanuel Sackey. The protocol will enter into force after six contracting states have ratified or acceded to it, Sackey said. The organisation is expected to take initiatives on traditional knowledge and link its initiatives with those undertaken by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) through its active involvement in the WIPO activities in this field. The protocol is meant to \u2018protect creations derived from the exploitation of traditional knowledge in ARIPO member states against misappropriation and illicit use through bio-piracy,\u2019 according to ARIPO. The protocol should also prevent the \u2018grant of patents in respect of inventions based on pirated traditional knowledge (\u2026) and to promote wider commercial use and recognition of that knowledge by the holders, while ensuring that collective custodianship and ownership are not undermined by the introduction of new regimes of private intellectual property rights.\u2019 The United Nations has warned against the application of western legal and economic principles to collectively owned knowledge in traditional communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"African Women's Development Fund: Main Grants Programme","field_subtitle":"Deadline: Rolling deadline","field_url":"http://www.awdf.org/the-process/main-grants","body":"The African Women's Development Fund (AWDF) funds local, national, sub-regional, and regional organisations in Africa working towards women\u2019s empowerment. The AWDF is an institutional capacity-building and programme development fund, which aims to help build a culture of learning and partnership within the African women's movement. In addition to awarding grants, the AWDF attempts to strengthen the organisational capacities of its grantees. The AWDF funds work in six thematic areas: women's human rights; political participation; peace building; health, reproductive rights; economic empowerment; and HIV and AIDS. Applicants are expected to build relevant and reasonable running/core costs into their project proposals. Grants are made to national and regional organisations for aspects of organisational growth and development such as strategic planning, developing fundraising strategies, communications systems, retreats, governance systems etc. Grants cover capital costs such as purchase of computers, printers, and photocopiers. The AWDF makes grants in three cycles each year. Applications can be sent in at any time. Organisations can apply for grants ranging from US$1,000 - US$40,000. Grants over US$20,000 are only made to organisations which operate on a regional basis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa\u2019s trade in services and economic partnership agreements","field_subtitle":"Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM), Africa Region: 28 June 2010","field_url":"http://drop.io/melissajulian3/asset/epas-africa-services-world-bank-280610-doc","body":"According to this paper from the World Bank, an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) is unlikely to offer much in terms of improved access to European Union services markets, especially for temporary movement of unskilled workers, a key issue for African countries. The main impacts of a services EPA for African countries would come from locking in openness to trade, providing precedents for regulation in key sectors, cooperation on competition policy and support for regional integration. According to the Bank, many of these goals could be pursued through a more cooperative approach with interested African countries, without necessarily negotiating and signing a broad EPA agreement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Are the Millennium Development Goals proving counter-productive?","field_subtitle":"Bello O: FRIDE Policy Brief 53, August 2010","field_url":"http://www.fride.org/publication/795/are-the-millennium-development-goals-proving-counter-productive","body":"According to this article, the European Union\u2019s (EU) discourse on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) remains unhelpfully inward-looking and official rhetoric falls short on concrete plans for connecting EU aid to trade and investment in partner developing countries. The restrictive, technical approach of the MDGs has come under criticism, inspiring external funders in Asia and elsewhere to seize the initiative to canvass their own successful development models for Africa. To counter charges that the MDGs focus too narrowly on the social dimensions of development, this article argues that the eighth goal (Global Partnership for Development) must be radically revised better to exploit the unfulfilled potentials of \u2018technology for development\u2019 within an \u2018MDGs +\u2019 plan. It suggests adding a ninth goal focused specifically on capacity-building and stimulating adapted local solutions in developing countries through technological and knowledge transfer from the outside. Promoting access to simple, transferable, clean, cutting-edge technology in low-income countries should become a priority.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing equity in systematic reviews: Realising the recommendations of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"Tugwell P, Petticrew M, Kristjansson E, Welch V, Ueffing E and Waters E et al: British Medical Journal 341(c4739), 13 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/content/341/bmj.c4739.full?papetoc","body":"The Commission on Social Determinants for Health has recommended assessment of health equity effects of public policy decisions, and this study provides guidance on assessing equity for users and authors of systematic reviews of interventions. Particular challenges occur in seven components of such reviews: developing a logic model; defining disadvantage and for whom interventions are intended; deciding on appropriate study design(s); identifying outcomes of interest; process evaluation and understanding context; analysing and presenting data; and judging applicability of results. The study concludes that greater focus on health equity in systematic reviews may improve their relevance for both clinical practice and public policy making.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Beyond New York and Vienna- what local change from global talk?","field_subtitle":"Editor","field_url":"","body":"The editorials in this newsletter comment on two global events, two months apart. The first is the 18th International AIDS Conference held in Vienna in July, and the second the UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals being held in New York in September. Both conferences have triggered a wealth of ideas, debates and publication, some of which we include in the newsletter. Both deal with heads of state commitments, made in prior conferences: The first to universal access to treatment for AIDS, the second to the eight MDGs. In the first editorial Sharonann Lynch reminds that after the \u201ctalk and spectacle\u201d, many conference participants go back to work in impoverished realities. She suggests concrete people-centred strategies for delivering on treatment commitments in these conditions. In the second, Ranga Machemedze asserts that many living in the most impoverished realities have not yet benefited from the MDGs, even when progress has been made at national level, and asks what the UN Summit will do to close the gap. For both, the test of the global talk is the concrete local improvement it produces for the most disadvantaged communities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Beyond Vienna: possible game-changers for scaling up optimal AIDS treatment ","field_subtitle":"Sharonann Lynch, HIV/AIDS Policy Advisor, Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines, M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)","field_url":"","body":"After the 18th International AIDS Conference (IAC) has wound down in Vienna, the word in the hallways is that the science is in: earlier initiation of treatment and improved antiretroviral (ARV) drug regimens are better for individual patients and communities, and may even ultimately reduce transmission of HIV. Some of the new data presented at the conference come from MSF's project in Lesotho, where I worked from 2006 to 2009. In a two-year study of 1,128 patients from rural Lesotho, where the government has adopted new World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, patients starting treatment earlier (at CD4 count 60% less likely to be hospitalized compared with those started when their disease was already advanced (CD4 ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Botswana passes amendment to end dismissal based on HIV status","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 9 September 2010","field_url":"Http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=90437","body":"The Botswana government has passed an amendment to its Employment Act that will bring an end to dismissal based on an individual's sexual orientation or HIV status, but rights groups believe the legislation needs to go further.  Civil society organizations in Botswana welcomed the move but said legislation to protect the rights of people living with HIV in the workplace was necessary. The Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS (BONELA) noted that \u2018tolerance and acceptance of sexual minorities will ensure universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support - crucial for Botswana to achieve its ... goal of zero new HIV infections by 2016\u2019. Gadzani Mhotsha, Secretary General of the Botswana Federation of Trade Unions (BFTU) warned that the legislation was not comprehensive enough in dealing with the serious issues of HIV at the workplace and called for comprehensive legislation, not piecemeal amendments. BONELA also added that a specific HIV Employment Act should be passed that attends to matters of reasonable accommodation for those who are HIV-positive, ensuring they have a safe and supportive environment to access treatment, care and support. Civil society has also called on the government to enact laws prohibiting private sector employers from testing potential employees for HIV and subsequently disqualifying them on the basis of an HIV-positive status.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for entries: World Habitat Awards 2010","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 1 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.worldhabitatawards.org/","body":"The Building and Social Housing Foundation is seeking entries for the World Habitat Awards 2010. Now in their 25th year, the World Habitat Awards seek to identify practical, innovative and sustainable solutions to current housing issues faced by countries of the Global South, as well as the North, which are capable of being transferred or adapted for use elsewhere. The competition is open to all individuals and organisations, including central and local governments, non-governmental organisations, community-based groups, research organisations and the private sector. Each year a panel of international judges assesses the projects entered for the competition and selects two winners. An award of \u00a310,000 is presented to the winners at the annual United Nations global celebration of World Habitat Day. This year\u2019s World Habitat Awards were presented to the Local Housing Movement Programme, from Egypt, and Ekostaden Augustenborg, from Sweden. You can find details of these two winning projects and the competition finalists on the World Habitat Awards website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: AIDS Research and Therapy","field_subtitle":"Biomed Central: 2010","field_url":"http://www.aidsrestherapy.com/manuscript/","body":"Biomed Central is calling for contributions to AIDS Research and Therapy, and the rest of the BioMed Central journal portfolio, which are all covered by an open access license agreement, meaning that anyone with internet access can read, download, redistribute and reuse published articles. In other words, if you publish your next article with AIDS Research and Therapy, you will be able to reach a potentially wider audience than you would by publishing in a subscription journal. Your published article can then be posted on your personal or institutional homepage, e-mailed to friends and colleagues, printed, archived in a collection, distributed on CD-ROM, included in coursepacks, quoted in the press, translated and further distributed as often and widely as possible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Canada\u2019s health care system: A relevant approach for South Africa?","field_subtitle":"Birn A and Nixon S: South African Medical Journal 100(9): 516\u2013520, August 2010","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/3845/2909","body":"While countries such as the USA, South Africa and China debate health reforms to improve access to care while rationalising costs, Canada\u2019s health care system has emerged as a notable option. According to this article, in the United States (US), meaningful discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the Canadian system has been thwarted by ideological mudslinging on the part of large insurance companies seeking to preserve their ultra-profitable turf and backed by conservative political forces stirring up old fears of \u2018socialised medicine\u2019. These distractions have relegated the possibility of a \u2018public option\u2019 to the legislative dustbin, leaving tens of millions of people to face uninsurance, under-insurance, bankruptcy and unnecessary death and suffering, even after passage of the Obama health plan. While South Africa appears to experience similar legislative paralysis, there remains room for reasoned health reform debate to address issues of equity, access, and financing. This article contributes to the debate from a Canadian perspective by setting out the basic principles of Medicare (Canada\u2019s health care system), reviewing its advantages and challenges, clarifying misunderstandings, and exploring its relevance to South Africa. It periodically refers to the US because of the similarities to the South African situation, including its health care system, which mirrors South Africa\u2019s current position if left unchanged. The article concludes that, while Medicare is neither flawless nor a model worthy of wholesale imitation, an open discussion of Canada\u2019s experience should be included in South Africa\u2019s current policy and political efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Casebook on ethical issues in international health research","field_subtitle":"Cash R, Wikler D, Saxena A and Capron A (eds): World Health Organization, 2009","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2009/9789241547727_eng.pdf","body":"This compilation of case studies in research ethics is designed for use by course instructors and workshop leaders. The editors argue that the use of case studies in workshops and formal courses is an especially valuable teaching tool, as students and workshop participants can grapple with ethical dilemmas and uncertainties in concrete situations. The editors have collected 64 case studies, based on episodes that have occurred in global health research throughout the world. Eight chapters comprise the cases un\u00acder the following titles: Defining research; Issues in study design; Harm and benefit; Voluntary informed consent; Standard of care; Obligations to participants and communities; Privacy and confidential\u00acity; and Professional ethics. Each chapter begins with an introduction that outlines the issues and provides some guidance for the topics addressed in the cases, and ends with a brief annotated list of suggested readings. Questions for discussion follow each case. In each chapter there is cross-referencing to cases in other chapters.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society: Only the clampdown is transparent","field_subtitle":"Srinath I and Tiwana M: The Guardian, 12 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/sep/12/civil-society-millennium-development-goals","body":"According to this article by the secretary general and policy manager of CIVICUS, too little partnership and too little space for civil society is marring progress on the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The writers express their utmost concern that there is insufficient political will among governments to acknowledge the role of other stakeholders, including civil society, in charting a course for accelerated action on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) between now and 2015 and to work in partnership with them. They refer to the increasing trend to systemically restrict freedoms of expression, association and assembly \u2014 freedoms that are key to the work of civil society. Against this background, they argue that it is increasingly clear that civil society organisations \u2013 which include non-governmental organisations, social movements, think tanks, faith-based charities and community-based organisations \u2013 must play a key role in supplementing the efforts of governments and the private sector in order to make substantial progress towards achieving the MDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community health committees as a vehicle for participation in advancing the right to health","field_subtitle":"Glattstein-Young G and London L: Critical Health Perspectives 2(1): September 2010","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/sites/www.phmovement.org/files/CriticalHealthPerspectivesSeptember2010.PDF","body":"This paper explores whether community participation through health committees can advance the right to health, and what constitutes best practice for community participation through South African health committees. The paper reports on a series of 32 indepth interviews with members of three Community Health Committees and health service providers in the Cape Metropolitan area and provides some valuable insight into these areas. The most prominent barriers to participation mentioned by participants, included underrepresentation of vulnerable and marginalised groups, and the absence of a formal mandate giving Health Committees clear objectives and the authority to achieve them. A number of characteristics of Health Committees were identified that promoted more meaningful participation: a facility manager who helps tip the balance of power from health professionals towards the community by sharing decision-making with the Health Committee and by involving the Committee in facility operations; a form of apprenticeship in which newer Health Committee members learn skills and procedures from more experienced members; intersectoral activity through the regular involvement of ward councillors and environmental health officers in Health Committee meetings and activities; a mechanism for the Health Committee to be involved in the reviewing and resolution of patient-based complaints at health facilities; the use of the media and written sources of information by Committees to increase their visibility in the clinic and in the community, disseminate important health-related information, inform the community of Health Committee activities and broaden participation. Achieving small gains appeared to act as positive reinforcement and strengthen the Health Committees to achieve bigger gains.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Concurrent sexual partnerships do not explain the HIV epidemics in Africa: A systematic review of the evidence","field_subtitle":"Sawers L and Stillwaggon E: Journal of the International AIDS Society 13(34), 13 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-13-34.pdf","body":"The notion that concurrent sexual partnerships are especially common in sub-Saharan Africa and explain the region's high HIV prevalence is accepted by many as conventional wisdom. This paper\u2019s findings contradict that belief. The paper evaluated the quantitative and qualitative evidence offered by the principal proponents of the concurrency hypothesis and analysed the mathematical model they use to establish the plausibility of the hypothesis. It found that research seeking to establish a statistical correlation between concurrency and HIV prevalence either finds no correlation or has important limitations. Furthermore, in order to simulate rapid spread of HIV, mathematical models require unrealistic assumptions about frequency of sexual contact, gender symmetry, levels of concurrency, and per-act transmission rates. The paper  considers qualitative evidence offered by proponents of the hypothesis as irrelevant since, among other reasons, there is no comparison of Africa with other regions. It concludes that promoters of the concurrency hypothesis have failed to establish that concurrency is unusually prevalent in Africa or that the kinds of concurrent partnerships found in Africa produce more rapid spread of HIV than other forms of sexual behaviour. Policy makers should turn attention to drivers of African HIV epidemics that are policy sensitive and for which there is substantial epidemiological evidence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Countdown to 2015: Assessment of official development assistance to maternal, newborn, and child health","field_subtitle":"Pitt C, Greco G, Powell-Jackson T and Mills Anne: The Lancet 376(9745): no page no\u2019s, 18 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2810%2961302-5/fulltext","body":"This paper analysed aid flows for maternal, newborn, and child health for 2007 and 2008 and updated previous estimates for 2003-2006 in the 68 priority countries in the Countdown to 2015 Initiative. The complete aid activities database of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development for 2007 and 2008 was manually coded and analysed with methods that were previously developed to track overseas development assistance (ODA). The researchers analysed the degree to which external funders target their ODA to recipients with the greatest maternal and child health needs and examined trends over the six years. They found that, in 2007 and 2008, US$4.7 billion and $5.4 billion (constant 2008 US$), respectively, were disbursed in support of maternal, newborn, and child health activities in all developing countries, reflecting a 105% increase between 2003 and 2008, but no change relative to overall ODA for health, which also increased by 105%. Targeting of ODA to countries with high rates of maternal and child mortality improved over the 6-year period, although some of these countries persistently received far less ODA per head than did countries with much lower mortality rates and higher income levels. Funding from the GAVI Alliance and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria exceeded core funding from multilateral institutions, and bilateral funding also increased substantially between 2003 and 2008, especially from the United States and the United Kingdom. The paper welcomes increases in ODA to maternal, newborn, and child health during 2003-2008 and the improved targeting of ODA to countries with greater needs. Nonetheless, these increases do not reflect increased prioritisation relative to other health areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Countdown to 2015: Decade report (2000\u20132010): Taking stock of maternal, newborn and child survival","field_subtitle":"Countdown to 2015: 2010","field_url":"http://www.countdown2015mnch.org/documents/2010report/CountdownReportAndProfiles.pdf","body":"This decade report collects and analyses data from the 68 countries that account for at least 95% of maternal and child deaths. It reviews progress made from 2000-2010 and provides a mix of good and bad news. Good news is that the under-5 child mortality rate has declined by 28% from 1990 2008, accounting for a reduction of nearly four million child deaths per year. Nineteen of the 68 Countdown countries are now on track to meet Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4, which calls for reducing child deaths by two-thirds between the 1990 base line and 2015. However, many Countdown countries are still off track for achieving MDGs 4 and 5 and are not increasing coverage of key health interventions quickly enough, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The report further found that most of the 68 Countdown countries were experiencing poorly functioning health infrastructure, inadequate numbers of health workers, slow adoption of evidence-based health policies and insufficient focus on quality of care. The report argues that only a dramatic acceleration of political commitment and financial investment can make achieving MDGs 4 and 5 possible by 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Does South Africa need a national clinical trials support unit?","field_subtitle":"Siegfried N, Volmink J and Dhansay A: South African Medical Journal 100(9): 521\u2013524, August 2010","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/3958/2898","body":"No national South African institution provides a coherent suite of support, available skills and training for clinicians wishing to conduct randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in the public sector. This study assesses the need for establishing a national South African Clinical Trials Support Unit. Key informant interviews were conducted with senior decision-makers at institutions with a stake in the South African public sector clinical trials research environment. The study found that trial conduct in South Africa faces many challenges, including lack of dedicated funding, the burden on clinical load, and lengthy approval processes. Strengths include the high burden of disease and the prevalence of treatment-na\u00efve patients. Participants expressed a significant need for a national initiative to support and enhance the conduct of public sector RCTs. Research methods training and statistical support were viewed as key. There was a broad range of views regarding the structure and focus of such an initiative, but there was agreement that the national government should provide specific funding for this purpose. In conclusion, stakeholders generally support the establishment of a national clinical trials support initiative. Consideration must be given to the sustainability of such an initiative, in terms of funding, staffing, expected research outputs and permanence of location.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic partnership agreements and food security","field_subtitle":"Matthews A: Trade Negotiations Insights 9(5), June 2010","field_url":"http://ictsd.org/i/news/tni/76870/","body":"The African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries face a massive challenge in tackling hunger and under-nutrition, but many critics have argued that the commitments required of ACP countries under Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) will make this more difficult. This article investigates the threat to food security posed by these agreements. While some observers blame trade liberalisation for these problems, the article identifies the lack of investment to improve productivity and address supply-side constraints as the major limiting factor. It argues that the debate around the issue of EPAs and food security distracts from the more important question of what domestic initiatives ACP countries need to take to ensure that agriculture can play its role as an engine of economic growth and poverty reduction. Government should invest in agriculture rather than rely on trade restrictions for food security. The potential of EPAs to improve food security can only be realised by a focus on greater agricultural investment and improved institutions. Resources can be made available from the EU budget, the EU\u2019s European Development Fund and bilateral external funders, but the prerequisite is that these requirements are prioritised by ACP countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. \r\n\r\nThe views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 116: Beyond New York and Vienna- what local change from global talk?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity as a shared vision for health and development","field_subtitle":"Editorial: The Lancet 376(9745): 929, 18 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673610614316/fulltext?rss=yes","body":"According to the September editorial of The Lancet, overall, progress on achieving the Millennium Development Goals(MDGs) is uneven, with some regions, especially in the poorer countries, lagging far behind. The editors argue that business cannot continue as usual in the next five years if the promises made a decade ago are to be met. On the positive side, the MDGs have achieved much. They have mobilised unprecedented political support, advocacy efforts, financial resources, and have encouraged improved monitoring and evaluation of programmes. However, the editors argue that the targets were narrow and fragmented. Potential links and synergies between goals have not been fully realised. Over the past 40 years improvements in women's education (MDG 2) has reduced child mortality (MDG 4) substantially, averting 4.2 million deaths globally. Furthermore, the results point to the importance of a reduction of the gender gap in educational achievement, thereby promoting gender equity and empowering women (MDG 3). The addition of new targets over time has also been unsuccessful, as seen with universal access to reproductive health. Newer priorities facing the world, such as non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and climate change, have been slow to be accepted in the current framework, although the focus on NCDs at the UN General Assembly in September, 2011 may be an important step forward. Given these problems and challenges, the editorial proposes that the next MDG framework be built on a shared vision of development across the life course rather than on separate goals and targets. It argues that the issue of equity should be central to any measures, focusing on those who are marginalised.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Evidence- and rights-based planning and support tool for SRHR /HIV-prevention interventions for young people: How can organisations ensure their SHRH interventions are effective?","field_subtitle":"Leerlooijer J, WPF and STOP AIDS NOW!: World Population Fund, 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.wpf.org/documenten/OVC_E-PAT_tool_UK.pdf","body":"This tool attempts to document the most importance evidence regarding sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in a way that is useful to organisations with limited time and resources, working in the day-to-day practice of SHRH education for young people. It has been tested in workshops in South Africa and Pakistan partner organisations who implement SRHR/HIV interventions for young people. This tool is for project managers who either design new programmes or who evaluate existing programmes. It focuses on the planning of SRHR/ HIV prevention interventions for young people and consists of 28 indicators for successful/ effective education programmes. The indicators are based on existing theories and evidence and are based on the Intervention Mapping framework. The tool looks at different approaches such as a theory and evidenced approach and a rights-based approach and then outlines six tools to support the following planning and implementation processes: involvement; needs assessment/situation analysis; objectives; evidence-based intervention design; adoption and implementation; and monitoring and evaluation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing public health in Africa","field_subtitle":"Anyangu-Amu S: Inter-Press Service News, 14 September 2010","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/newsTVE.asp?idnews=52832","body":"Campaigners for increased health financing have welcomed the commitment by African Union member states to direct more resources to health. But the needs of the continent seem to dwarf available budgets. During the 15th Summit of the African Union heads of state in Kampala in July, African leaders committed to mobilise more resources for the health sector in addition to the allocation of 15 percent of national budgets. However, national resources are considered insufficient to meet the demand. Dr Thomas Kibua, director of health policy and systems research at the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF), says even if every African states were to increase allocation to the health sector to 15%, none of the three health-related millennium development goals will be achieved. States would have to increase allocation to health care to 45%, he argued, which is untenable for any country. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Getting to zero: UNAIDS Joint Programme Strategic Plan 2011-2015","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: 10 September 2010","field_url":"http://aidsspace.org/upload_desc.php?user=3081&upid=911","body":"The draft version of UNAIDS\u2019s strategic plan for 2011\u20132015 is now available for input from interested parties around the world. To add your comment, visit the link given here. The main goals of the plan are to help achieve universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support, halt the spread of HIV and contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). UNAIDS aims to revolutionise HIV prevention efforts by supporting communities to demand effective prevention approaches and supporting countries to deliver the appropriate combination of biomedical, behavioural and structural approaches. It also aims to support the development of more effective, ethical, affordable and sustainable approaches to treatment including its delivery and to scale up HIV counselling, testing and treatment access and coverage. UNAIDS will intensify its support to governments to realise and protect human rights in the HIV response, promote the enactment and enforcement of supportive laws and the removal of punitive laws, support communities to challenge harmful social and gender norms, address gender-based violence and promote the rights of women and girls for gender equality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Guns and gender-based violence in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Abrahams N, Jewkes R and Mathews S: South African Medical Journal 100(9): 586\u2013588, September 2010","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/3904/2939","body":"The criminal use of firearms in South Africa is widespread and a major factor in the country having the third-highest homicide rate in the world. Violence is a common feature of South African society. A firearm in the home is a risk factor in intimate partner violence, but this has not been readily demonstrated in South Africa because of a lack of data, according to this paper. The paper drew on several South African studies including national homicide studies, intimate partner studies, studies with male participants and studies from the justice sector, to discuss the role of gun ownership on gender-based violence. It concludes that guns play a significant role in violence against women in South Africa, most notably in the killing of intimate partners. Although the overall homicide data suggest that death by shooting is decreasing, data for intimate partner violence are not readily available. It was unclear if the overall decrease in gunshot homicides applies to women in relationships. In view of the general role guns play in violence against women, the paper urges the government to keep gun control high on the legislative agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV prevalence and related factors: Higher education sector study, South Africa, 2008\u20132009","field_subtitle":"South African Higher Education HIV/AIDS Programme: 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2wwzayv","body":"This study looked at HIV prevalence in the higher education sector in South Africa. It reported both quantitative and qualitative data. Out of a total of 29,856 eligible participants available at testing venues, 79,1% participated fully by completing questionnaires and providing specimens. Because of a substantial amount of missing data in 230 questionnaires, the final database consisted of 23,375 individuals made up of 17,062 students, 1,880 academic staff and 4,433 administrative and service staff. The mean HIV prevalence for students was 3,4%. HIV was significantly more common among men (6,5%) and women (12,1%) who reported symptoms of a sexuallty transmitted infection (STI) in the last year compared to men (2,5%) and women (6%) who did not report an STI. First-year students appeared to lack the required experience to make good, risk-aware decisions, especially regarding sexual liaisons and the use of alcohol. Qualitative data pointed to underlying causes of HIV transmission on campus as including reported transactional sex, intergenerational sex (a young woman with an older wealthier man), poor campus leadership on HIV and AIDS, limited uptake of voluntary testing and counseling services, poor levels of security on campus and stigma surrounding the disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Human survival depends on shared technology, says new UN climate chief ","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 3 September 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3x228pm","body":"Christiana Figueres, newly appointed executive secretary of the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), has voiced the UN\u2019s position on the state of climate change negotiations and said that there is a constructive atmosphere and a growing sense of urgency among governments about climate change mitigation. At Cancun, Mexico, where the sixteenth Conference of the Parties will be held from 29 November\u201310 December 2010, governments need to go from the politically possible to the politically irreversible, she said. During the last meeting in Bonn, Germany, in June 2010, Figueres said that countries decided that the \u2018text before them is now a negotiation text,\u2019 and a \u2018party text,\u2019 which shows serious commitment, she said. In addition, comments were heard from \u2018very important countries\u2019 that their confidence and trust in the negotiation process was restored, which was not the case at the end of the 2009 conference at Copenhagen. Figueres said that she was expecting governments attending the Cancun meeting to make decisions on the relevant financing mechanism and technology for fighting global climate change, on how to push forward reduction of emissions from deforestation, on adaptation, and on monitoring, she said. At Cancun, four or five decisions could be taken to establish the operational entities that would be the basis for the next chapter of the climate regime.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Increased educational attainment and its impact on child mortality: A systematic analysis in 175 countries from 1970 to 2009","field_subtitle":"Gakidou E, Cowling K, Lozano R, Murray CJL: The Lancet 376(9745): 959-974, 18 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2810%2961257-3/fulltext","body":"This paper considers previous systematic assessments of educational attainment, and estimated the contribution of improvements in women's education to reductions in child mortality in the past 40 years. The authors compiled 915 censuses and nationally representative surveys, and estimated mean number of years of education by age and sex. They found that the global mean number of years of education increased from 4.7 years to 8.3 years for men and from 3.5 years to 7.1 years for women. For women of reproductive age (15-44 years) in developing countries, the years of schooling increased from 2.2 years to 7.2 years. By 2009, in 87 countries, women aged 25\u201434 years had higher educational attainment than had men in the same age bracket. Of 8.2 million fewer deaths in children younger than five years between 1970 and 2009, the paper estimates that 4.2 million (51.2%) could be attributed to increased educational attainment in women of reproductive age. In conclusion, the substantial increase in education, especially of women, and the reversal of the gender gap have important implications not only for health but also for the status and roles of women in society. The continued increase in educational attainment even in some of the poorest countries suggests that rapid progress in terms of Millennium Development Goal 4 might be possible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Influence of gender on loss to follow-up in a large HIV treatment programme in western Kenya","field_subtitle":"Ochieng-Ooko V, Ochieng D, Sidle JE, Holdsworth M, Wools-Kaloustian K, Siika AM et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 681\u2013688, September 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/9/09-064329.pdf","body":"The objective of this study was to determine the incidence of loss to follow-up in a treatment programme for people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in Kenya and to investigate how loss to follow-up is affected by gender. Between November 2001 and November 2007, 50,275 HIV-positive individuals aged 14 years and older (69% female) were enrolled in the study. An individual was lost to follow-up when absent from the HIV treatment clinic for more than three months if on combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) or for more than six months if not. Overall, 8% of individuals attended no follow-up visits, and 54% of them were lost to follow-up. The overall incidence of loss to follow-up was high, at 25.1 per 100 persons annually. Among the 92% who attended at least one follow-up visit, the incidence of loss to follow-up before and after starting cART was respectively 27.2 and 14.0 per 100 persons annually. Baseline factors associated with loss to follow-up included younger age, a long travel time to the clinic, patient disclosure of positive HIV status, high CD4+ lymphocyte count, advanced-stage HIV disease, and rural clinic location. Men were at an increased risk overall and before and after starting cART. The study concluded that interventions designed separately for men and women could improve retention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Innovative health service delivery models in low- and middle-income countries: What can we learn from the private sector? ","field_subtitle":"Bhattacharyya O, Khor S, McGahan A, Dunne D, Daar AS and Singer PA: Health Research Policy and Systems 8(24), 15 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf /1478-4505-8-24.pdf","body":"This study examined peer-reviewed and grey literature on examples of innovation in private sector health care. From 46 studies, 10 case studies were selected spanning different countries and health service delivery models. The cases included social marketing, cross-subsidy, high-volume, low cost models. They tended to have a narrow clinical focus, facilitating standardised care models but allowing experimentation with delivery models. Information on the social impact of these innovations was variable, with more data on availability and affordability and less on quality of care. The study calls for more rigorous evaluations to investigate the impact and quality of private health service innovations and to determine the effectiveness of the strategies used.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Intimate partner violence, health behaviours, and chronic physical illness among South African women","field_subtitle":"Gass JD, Stein DJ, Williams DR, Seedat S: South African Medical Journal 100(9): 582\u2013585, September 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/4274/2938","body":"According to this study, there have been few studies on domestic violence and women in developing countries, including South Africa, which has one of the highest rates of intimate partner violence in the world. The study examined the association between physical intimate partner violence and physical health outcomes and behaviours among South African women. Using data from the cross-sectional, nationally representative South Africa Stress and Health Study, the study assessed exposure to intimate partner violence, health-risk behaviours, health-seeking behaviours and chronic physical illness among a sample of 1,229 married and cohabiting women. It found the prevalence of reported violence was 31%. This correlated with several health-risk behaviours (smoking, alcohol consumption, and use of non-medical sedatives, analgesics and cannabis) and health-seeking behaviours (recent visits to a medical doctor or healer). Intimate partner violence was not significantly associated with chronic physical illness, although rates of headache, heart attack and high blood pressure reached near-significance. The study recommends that public health programmes in South Africa should incorporate interventions to mitigate the impact of violence on victims and reduce the risk of negative behavioural outcomes. Further investigation of the pathways between violence exposure and health behaviours is needed to inform the design of such programming.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya food security outlook update","field_subtitle":"USAID, Famine Early Warning Systems Network and United Nations World Food Programme: August 2010","field_url":"http://www.fews.net/docs/Publications/Kenya_FSOU_August_2010_final.pdf","body":"According to this report, malnutrition levels in pastoralist districts of northeastern Kenya have remained high, despite recent rains that boosted livestock productivity, the mainstay of the local economy. Improvements in household food security have not translated into a decisive reduction in rates of child malnutrition in the northeastern districts, suggesting that causal factors of the unacceptably high rates go beyond availability of food at the household level. The Ministry of Health and its partners found Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) levels above the World Health Organization's 15% emergency threshold in Mandera Central Districts, Wajir South and Wajir East. Mandera West recorded GAM rates above 25%. High illiteracy levels may mean that parents do not ensure their children receive a balanced diet, resulting in malnutrition. The report also emphasises the growing problem of urban poverty, with an estimated 3.5&#8208;4.1 million (or up to 20%) out of 13.5 million urban households situated in high-density areas that are suffering various degrees of food insecurity. Further assessment of urban poverty in Kenya is already underway, according to the Ministry.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Levels and trends in child mortality, 1990-2009","field_subtitle":"You D, Jones G, Hill K, Wardlaw T and Chopra M: The Lancet 376(9745): 931\u2013933, 18 September 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2810%2961429-8/fulltext","body":"According to this article, the latest estimates of under-five mortality from the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (IGME) show a one-third decline at the global level of under-five mortality rates from 89 deaths per 1000 livebirths in 1990 to 60 in 2009. Over the same period, the total number of under-five deaths has decreased from 12.4 million in 1990 to 8.1 million in 2009. The article argues that this constitutes evidence that progress on child mortality is being made across all regions of the world, with many regions having reduced the under-five mortality rate by 50% or more. With only five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), progress needs to be accelerated. These IGME estimates are the latest available information on child mortality to provide a basis for assessing progress and reaching consensus for action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Lost opportunities to complete CD4+ lymphocyte testing among patients who tested positive for HIV in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Larson BA, Brennan A, McNamara L, Long L, Rosen S, Sanne I and Fox MP: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 675\u2013680, September 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/9/09-068981.pdf","body":"The study\u2019s aim was to estimate rates of completion of CD4+ lymphocyte testing (CD4 testing) within 12 weeks of testing positive for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) at a large HIV/AIDS clinic in South Africa, and to identify clinical and demographic predictors for completion. In the study, CD4 testing was considered complete once a patient had retrieved the test results. To determine the rate of CD4 testing completion, researchers reviewed the records of all clinic patients who tested positive for HIV between January 2008 and February 2009 to identify predictors for completion through multivariate logistic regression. Of the 416 patients who tested positive for HIV, 84.6% initiated CD4 testing within the study timeframe. Of these patients, 54.3% were immediately eligible for antiretroviral therapy (ART) because of a CD4 cell count &#8804; 200/\u00b5l, but only 51.3% of the patients in this category completed CD4 testing within 12 weeks of HIV testing. Among those not immediately eligible for ART, only 14.9% completed CD4 testing within 12 weeks. Overall, of HIV+ patients who initiated CD4 testing, 65% did not complete it within 12 weeks of diagnosis. The higher the baseline CD4 cell count, the lower the odds of completing CD4 testing within 12 weeks. The study concluded that patient losses between HIV testing, baseline CD4 cell count and the start of care and ART are high. As a result, many patients receive ART too late. It recommends health information systems that link testing programmes with care and treatment programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Member States focus on reducing poverty ahead of UN summit","field_subtitle":"United Nations: 15 September 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=35930&Cr=MDG&Cr1=","body":"In the run-up to the United Nations\u2019 (UN) three-day summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), held in New York from 20\u201324 September 2010, UN Member States underlined the vital role that democracy plays in reducing poverty. Democracy remains central to any development approach, Joseph Deiss, President of the General Assembly, told a meeting at UN Headquarters. He identified the pursuit of the MDGs \u2013 which include reducing poverty, fighting disease, halting environmental degradation and boosting health \u2013 along with UN reform and the promotion of environmentally sustainable development as key areas of focus for the Summit. In particular, he argued that stakeholders must bridge the gaps in the fight against hunger, child mortality and maternal health. He called for a sincere commitment from all world leaders taking part in the Summit and a genuine plan of action to ensure that the MDGs are reached. Member States are expected to come prepared to put forward concrete commitments on what they will do over the next five years to reach the MDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Millennium Development Goal 8: The Global Partnership for Development at a critical juncture","field_subtitle":"MDG Gap Task Force: United Nations, 2010","field_url":"http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/10-43282_MDG_2010%20%28E%29%20WEBv2.pdf","body":"This report by the United Nations assesses global progress towards meeting Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 8: Develop a global partnership for development. According to the report, only five member countries of the Development Assistance Committee have met their pledge, made in 2005, to pay 0.7% of their gross national as official development assistance, representing a major shortfall in funding. Market access (trade) has not improved, for developing countries, with no reductions in tariffs and no agreements having yet been reached at the Doha negotiations. The debt situation of many developing and transition economy countries deteriorated during the financial and economic crisis owing to the slowing down of the global economy and the fall in trade, remittances and commodity prices. In terms of access to affordable essential medicines, the report urges countries without significant pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity to take advantage of flexibilities in the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to import affordably priced essential medicines or, if they have the capacity, to produce generic pharmaceuticals and promote foreign investment to acquire new technologies for producing the medicines. With regard to new technologies, disparities between developed and developing countries remain. Large regional disparities in the use and uptake of information and communication services also persist. For instance, access to the Internet at broadband speeds remains very low in developing countries and is practically negligible in less-developed countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Mobile learning for HIV/AIDS healthcare worker training in resource-limited settings","field_subtitle":"Maria Z, Iglesias D, Kiyan C, Echevarria J, Fucay L, Llacsahuanga E et al: AIDS Research and Therapy 7(35), 8 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.aidsrestherapy.com/content/pdf/1742-6405-7-35.pdf","body":"This study presents an innovative approach to healthcare worker (HCW) training using mobile phones as a personal learning environment. Twenty physicians used individual Smartphones, each equipped with a portable solar charger. A set of 3D learning scenarios simulating interactive clinical cases was developed and adapted to the Smartphones for a continuing medical education programme lasting three months. A mobile educational platform supporting learning events tracked participant learning progress. Learning outcomes were verified through mobile quizzes using multiple choice questions at the end of each module. Training, supervision and clinical mentoring of health workers are the cornerstone of the scaling up process of HIV and AIDS care in resource-limited settings. Educational modules on mobile phones can give flexibility to HCWs for accessing learning content anywhere. However lack of software interoperability and the high investment cost for the Smartphones' purchase could represent a limitation to the wide spread use of such learning programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mothers' knowledge and utilization of prevention of mother to child transmission services in northern Tanzania ","field_subtitle":"Falnes EF, Tylleskar T, de Paoli MM, Manongi R, Engebretsen IMS: Journal of the International AIDS Society 13(36), 14 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-13-36.pdf","body":"This study examined the utilisation of the prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) services in five reproductive and child health clinics in 2007 and 2008 in Moshi, northern Tanzania, after the implementation of routine counselling and testing and explored the level of knowledge the postnatal mothers had about PMTCT. Researchers interviewed 446 mothers when they brought their four-week-old infants to five reproductive and child health clinics for immunization and conducted thirteen in-depth interviews with mothers and nurses, four focus group discussions with mothers, and four observations of mothers receiving counselling. The study found that nearly all mothers (98%) were offered HIV testing, and all who were offered accepted. However, the counselling was hasty with little time for clarifications. Mothers attending urban antenatal clinics tended to be more knowledgeable about PMTCT than the rural attendees. Compared with previous studies in the area, this study found that PMTCT knowledge had increased and the counsellors had greater confidence in their counselling. The study concludes that when the PMTCT programme has had time to get established, both its acceptance and the understanding of the topics dealt with during the counselling increases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Multidrug and extensively drug-resistant TB (M/XDR-TB): 2010 global report on surveillance and response","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2010","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241599191_eng.pdf","body":"This report presents the global treatment outcomes from all sites providing complete data for new and previously treated multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) patients. Ten of the 27 high MDR-TB burden countries reported treatment outcomes. A total of 71 countries and territories provided complete data for treatment outcomes for 4,500 MDR-TB patients. In 48 sites documenting outcomes, patient management and drug quality were found to conform to international standards. Treatment success was documented in 60% of patients overall. The report found that treatment success in MDR-TB patients remains low, even in well-resourced settings because of a high frequency of death, treatment failure and default, as well as many cases reported without definitive outcomes. New findings presented in this report give reason to be cautiously optimistic that MDR-TB can be controlled. While information available is growing and more and more countries are taking measures to combat MDR-TB, urgent investments in infrastructure, diagnostics, and provision of care are essential if the target established for 2015 \u2013 the diagnosis and treatment of 80% of the estimated M/XDR-TB cases \u2013 is to be reached.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Mutual Review of Development Effectiveness in Africa Report 2009: Promise and performance","field_subtitle":"Economic Commission for Africa and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development: 2009","field_url":"http://www.africapartnershipforum.org/dataoecd/62/43/42179846.pdf","body":"According to this report, progress towards achieving sustained and sustainable development in Africa have had mixed results so far. Some positive results have been achieved. Africa has achieved strong and sustained economic growth, outpacing global per capita growth since 2001 after lagging behind for two decades, and helping to reduce the proportion of its population living on less than US$1 a day. Multi-party democracy has taken a stronger hold, and the number of state-based armed conflicts has been reduced. There has been significant progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) goal of universal primary education. However progress on other MDGs, particularly maternal mortality, has been poor and, according to present trends, no country in Africa will meet all the MDGs by 2015. The report underlines the need to scale up efforts to improve governance including by consolidating the trend to multiparty democracy. Stronger action needs to be taken to resolve long-running conflicts that continue to cause immense human suffering in the continent. Capacity shortages remain a key constraint in all areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New postgraduate programme for communication in health","field_subtitle":"University of Witwatersrand: September 2010","field_url":"http://web.wits.ac.za/NewsRoom/NewsItems/SOULCITY.htm","body":"The Soul City Institute for Health and Development Communication and the Wits School of Public Health have launched a post-graduate degree programme aimed at developing professionals who will promote and implement social and behaviour change communication in health. The study of Social and Behaviour Change Communication will look at a host of health challenges, including tuberculosis, malaria, chronic and lifestyle diseases. Behaviour change in relation to HIV, for which a vast field of study already exists, will also form part of the curriculum. The division will help students develop skills to apply social and behavioural theory to a range of interventions that include social mobilisation, advocacy, social marketing, edutainment and monitoring and evaluation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New website for knowledge brokering","field_subtitle":"Research Matters: September 2010","field_url":"http://www.knowledgebrokersforum.org","body":"Research Matters has launched a new web resource for knowledge brokers and intermediaries. The forum is a shared space for knowledge brokers and intermediaries, people involved in knowledge translation and peers interested in the role. It is designed as a space where you can: access and share resources on the strategic, practical and technical aspects of knowledge brokering and intermediary work; learn from a global community of peers working involved in knowledge brokering and intermediary work; share experiences on knowledge brokering and intermediary work with others; and obtain advice and peer support on issues and challenges they face. In addition to providing a space for discussions, requesting peer advice and posting knowledge-related blogs, the forum will be hosting regular themed discussions. If you are someone who is interested in knowledge translation and how research evidence can influence decision making, you might be interested in joining the Knowledge Brokers\u2019 Forum at the website address provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"One MDG that can be achieved now: Market access for the poorest countries","field_subtitle":"Elliott KA: Trade Negotiations Insights 9(5), June 2010","field_url":"http://ictsd.org/i/news/tni/76882/","body":"This article explains how trade preference programmes can be made more effective for poorer countries. It is based on five principles put forward by the Center for Global Development (CGD) to make trade preferences more effective for less-developed countries: expand coverage to all exports from all least developed countries; relax restrictive rules of origin; make trade preference programmes permanent and predictable; promote co-operation between countries giving and receiving preferences; and encourage advanced developing countries to implement trade preference programmes that adopt the other four principles. It argues that extending full duty-free, quota-free market access to all least developed countries would have far more power if it is a project of the G-20, not just the G-8, and Brazil, China, India and Turkey are already showing the way. The author urges the G-20 to show its leadership on global development issues and to realise the Millennium Development Goal of using trade as a tool for development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Open Access Africa Conference ","field_subtitle":"Nairobi, Kenya: 11-12 November 2010","field_url":"http://blogs.openaccesscentral.com/blogs/bmcblog/entry/open_access_africa","body":"In partnership with Computer Aid International, BioMed Central will be hosting a two-day conference on open access publishing at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya, from 11-12 November 2010. Open access to the results of scientific and medical research has potential to play an important role in international development, and this conference will discuss the benefits of open access publishing in an African context, from the perspective of both readers seeking access to information, and researchers seeking to globally communicate the results of their work. Attendance at the conference is free and is open to researchers, librarians, vice-chancellors and funders for discussions on access to scientific research. However, space is limited so, to reserve your place, please send an email to the address given here.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Out of the Box Prize 2010 for Community Health and Development","field_subtitle":"Deadline For Submissions: 31 October 2010","field_url":"http://ctb.ku.edu/en/default.aspx","body":"Community Toolbox, a global resource of free information on essential skills for building healthy communities is inviting applications for its Out of the Box Prize 2010. The Prize has been established to honour innovative approaches to promoting community health and development worldwide. Non-governmental organisations and other groups working in the areas of community health, education, urban or rural development, poverty, the environment, social justice or other related issues of importance to communities in any part of the world can apply for the Prize. The Prize is looking for innovative and promising approaches implemented in these areas. Innovative approaches may include \u2018a unique or effective way of planning or implementing a change effort, creative use of existing community resources, original ways of generating participation and collaboration, implementing a best practice within a new context or group, or other innovative and promising approaches. The grand prize consists of a US$5,000 cash award and a customised WorkStation for your organisation to the value of $2,100.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Overview of research activities associated with the World Health Organization: Results of a survey covering 2006/07 ","field_subtitle":"Terry RF and Rijt TV: Health Research Policy and Systems 8(25), 6 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-8-25.pdf","body":"This paper presents the first comprehensive effort to provide an overview of the research associated with the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in 2006/07. Information was obtained by questionnaire and interviews with senior staff operating at WHO headquarters in Geneva. The paper found that 45% of WHO permanent staff are involved with health research and the WHO's approach to research is predominantly focused on policy, advocacy, health systems and population based research. The Organization principally undertakes secondary research using published data and commissions others to conduct this work through contracts or research grants. This approach is broadly in line with the stated strategy of the Organization. The researchers note that the difficulty in undertaking this survey highlights the complexity of obtaining an organisation-wide assessment of WHO\u2019s research activity in the absence of common standards for research classification, methods for priority setting and a mechanism across WHO, or within the governance of global health research more generally, for managing a research portfolio. As the rollout of the WHO strategy on research for health proceeds, the researchers expressed hope that similar exercises will be undertaken at the WHO Regional Offices and in support of capacity building of national health research systems within Member States.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Prison over-crowding spreads TB and HIV in South African province","field_subtitle":"Cullinan K: Health-e News, 2 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032914","body":"Severe overcrowding in KwaZulu-Natal\u2019s prisons is contributing to the spread of HIV and tuberculosis and driving the high death toll in prisons, according to King Kumalo, provincial deputy director of health services in the Department of Correctional Services (DCS), in his address to the annual meeting of Hospice Palliative Care Association on 1 September 2010. So far this year, 120 prisoners have died of \u2018natural causes\u2019 (diseases) and eight of unnatural causes in KwaZulu-Natal, he reported. In the past, there were more unnatural deaths such as murder and suicide than natural deaths, said King. Last year, 168 prisoners died of natural causes while 14 died of natural causes. As a result of the high death toll, the DCS has brought in hospice workers to assist them to treat people with advanced disease who are in need of pain relief. The HPCA, cares for over 70,000 patients at 200 sites countrywide, also has a memorandum of understanding with the SA National Defence Force to provide palliative care (pain relief). However, hospice workers reported that HIV and TB \u2013 particularly drug-resistant TB - were challenging their resources. A shortage of beds for patients, long travelling distances to treatment centres were cited as obstacles, while many of the local clinics were reported to not offer monthly tests on people with drug-resistant TB because staff are scared of becoming infected.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Process and impact of the scale up of a youth friendly health services initiative in Northern Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Renju J, Andrew B, Nyalali K, Kishamawe C, Kato C, Changalucha J and Obasi A: Journal of the International AIDS Society 13(32), 23 August 2010","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-13-32.pdf","body":"This study took the form of a process evaluation of the tenfold scale-up of an evaluated Youth Friendly Service (YFS) intervention in Mwanza Region, Tanzania to identify key facilitating and inhibitory factors from both user and provider perspectives. The intervention was scaled up in two training rounds lasting six and ten months and evaluated through a simulated patient study, focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews with health workers and trainers, training observations and pre- and post-training questionnaires. The study found that, between 2004 and 2007, local government officials trained 429 health workers. The training was well implemented and over time trainers' confidence and ability to lead sessions improved. The scale-up faced challenges in the selection and retention of trained health workers, however, and was limited by various contextual factors and structural constraints. The study concludes that YFS interventions can remain well delivered even after expansion through existing systems. The scaling up process did affect some aspects of intervention quality and the findings emphasise the need to train more staff (both clinical and non-clinical) per facility in order to ensure YFS delivery. Further research is needed to identify effective strategies to address structural constraints and broader social norms that hampered the scale-up.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Promising practices to build human resources capacity in HIV strategic information","field_subtitle":"Jaskiewicz W, Fitzgerald L, Fogarty L, Huber A, Peersman G, Schalk-Zaitsev S et al: Capacity Project, September 2009","field_url":"http://www.globalhivmeinfo.org/DigitalLibrary/Digital%20Library/Promising%20Practices%20to%20Build%20HR%20Capacity%20in%20HIV.pdf","body":"This compendium of examples of promising practices for evidence-based planning and decision-making for dealing with the HIV pandemic is based on the premise that building national strategic information (SI) and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) capacity requires supportive policies for health workers, as well as organisational and leadership development and individual technical capacity development. The promising practices cover the core components of SI (M&E; surveys and surveillance; and health management information systems, including geographical information systems) and span six \u2018action fields\u2019 (policy, leadership, partnership, finance, human resource management systems and education) to provide a comprehensive lens through which to strategically plan for and implement M&E workforce strengthening initiatives. By examining the experiences in detail, reviewing available results and supporting materials as well as considering the implementation context, users of the compendium may be able to identify approaches worth testing in their own countries. While the list of practices is by no means exhaustive or representative, it does provide an important starting point upon which to build a more comprehensive learning resource for human resources capacity building for effective HIV M&E systems and strategic information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Protecting health: Thinking small","field_subtitle":"Sinhaa SR and Batniji R: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 713\u2013715, September 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/9/09-071530.pdf","body":"Despite the strengths of microfinance, this article argues that it has thus far been largely inaccessible to the absolute poorest communities. The poorest communities continue to depend on public spending and external funding, unable to benefit from microcredit or microsavings because of an absolute lack of capital. Microfinance may alleviate some financial burden on the public sector by providing coverage for some of these people, but its ability to provide for extremely poor people remains to be seen. The article calls on international organisations such as the World Health Organization and the World Bank to continue to make microfinance for health a consideration in technical advice given to governments on health-care financing and social protection. They should also fund systematic, evaluative research so that science can back up what seems to be a logical and useful approach to health-care financing for the poor, particularly as it emphasises prevention and health promotion. The large-scale delivery of these tools will depend on repeated local adoption that must grow from communication of demonstrated success and advice on implementation of effective models. The article concludes that we already have enough knowledge to recognise that microfinance is an important tool in protecting health and that what is required now is further action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health science and the global strategy on alcohol ","field_subtitle":"Babor TF: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 643, September 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/9/10-081729.pdf","body":"In May 2010, the World Health Assembly adopted Resolution EB126.R11, its Global Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol, based in part on an extensive amount of evidence on both alcohol's contribution to the global burden of disease and the policies capable of ameliorating the harm it causes. Now that the strategy has been adopted, this article calls for public health science to take on two new challenges. The first is to expand the evidence base so that it applies not just to the developed countries where most of the world's alcohol consumption is concentrated, but also to the low- and middle-income countries where alcohol consumption is increasing and where the policy response is still weak. The second challenge is to use scientific research to guide the adoption of effective alcohol policies at the national and international levels. The author of the article urges for a systematic investigation of the alcohol industry itself as a vector for alcohol-related disease and disability. Aggressive marketing of alcoholic beverages in low-consumption developing countries needs to be monitored, as does industry compliance with its own codes for responsible advertising. More stringent measures to protect young people from exposure to irresponsible advertising need to be considered, as self-regulation codes are easily circumvented and not enforceable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration officially closes on 1 October 2010. for First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research: Science to Accelerate Universal Health Coverage","field_subtitle":"16\u201319 November 2010: Montreux, Switzerland","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/","body":"Registration for the First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, organised by the World Health Organization (WHO) and partners on \u2018Science to Accelerate Universal Health Coverage\u2019 closes on 1 October. Registration can be done at http://www.hsr-symposium.org/index.php/registration.  The event will be attended by researchers, policy-makers, funders, and other stakeholders representing diverse constituencies who will to share evidence, identify significant knowledge gaps, and set a research agenda that reflects the needs of low- and middle-income countries. The specific objectives of the symposium are to: share state-of-the art research on universal health coverage; develop a global agenda of priority research on accelerating progress towards universal health coverage; facilitate greater research collaboration and learning communities across disciplines, sectors, initiatives and countries; strengthen the scientific rigour of the field of health systems research including concepts, frameworks, measures and methods; and identify mechanisms for strengthening capacities \u2013 individual, institutional and infrastructural \u2013 for research on health systems particularly in low- and middle-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Restoring hope: Reinvigorating the Millennium Development Goals","field_subtitle":"International Monetary Fund: September 2010","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2010/09/pdf/fd0910.pdf","body":"This collection of essays assesses how the world is doing in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The lead essay, 'Regaining Momentum,' notes that, while several of the MDGs are within reach, the global economic crisis has set back progress toward a number of the targets, especially those related to health. Developing countries will need the support of advanced economies in to get back on track. In other essays, economist Jagdish Bhagwati calls into question the premise of the MDGs and economists Arvind Panagariya and Rodney Ramcharan debate on how important it is to fight inequality. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Rethinking HIV exceptionalism: The ethics of opt-out HIV testing in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"April MD: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 703\u2013708, September 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/9/09-073049.pdf","body":"Opt-out testing for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) incorporates testing as a routine part of health care for all patients unless they refuse. The ethics of this approach to testing in sub-Saharan Africa is a source of controversy. Opt-out HIV testing is expected to improve survival by increasing case detection and thus linking more HIV-infected people to earlier treatment, provided there is effective patient follow-up and programme sustainability. At the population level, these benefits will likely outweigh the potential negative consequences of individuals experiencing HIV-related stigma, according to this article. These justifications appeal to consequentialist moral theories that the acceptability of an action depends upon its outcomes. On the other hand, liberal moral theories state that the autonomy of individuals should always be protected unless restricting autonomy is necessary to protect the welfare of others. Opt-out consent may restrict autonomy and it is unclear whether it would benefit people other than those being tested. Yet, the doctrine of libertarian paternalism proposes that it is justifiable and desirable to use unobtrusive mechanisms to help individuals make choices to maximise their own welfare. Central to this idea are the premises featured by supporters of opt-out consent that individuals will not always make the best choices for their own welfare but they may be influenced to do so in ways that will not compromise their freedom of choice. Also important is the premise that all policies inevitably exert some such influence: opt-in consent encourages test refusal just as opt-out consent encourages acceptance. Based on these premises, the article argues that opt-out testing may be an effective and ethically acceptable policy response to Africa\u2019s HIV epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Rising food prices hit Africa\u2019s poorest again","field_subtitle":"Rowling M: Amandala Publishers, 1 September 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.amandlapublishers.co.za/home-menu-item/423-from-maputo-to-mogadishu-rising-food-prices-hit-poorest-again-","body":"Consumer anxieties over the rising cost of food in rich and poor countries alike are stoking fears of social unrest in impoverished parts of the world once again. On 1 September 2010, at least six people - including two children - were killed during violent demonstrations over soaring prices for basic necessities, including bread and fuel, in and around Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, one of Africa's poorest countries. The government has increased bread prices by 30% and protestors complained that they are struggling to feed themselves and their families. The violence echoes the food price crisis of 2007-2008, which helped push the number of hungry people in the world above a billion, and sparked protests and riots in nearly 40 countries. Surging wheat prices - mainly due to Russian restrictions on sales following a major drought there - drove international food prices up 5% in August, the biggest month-on-month increase since November 2009, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). The FAO's Food Price Index - a basket of meat, dairy, cereals, oils, fats and sugar - has reached its highest level since September 2008, but is still 38% below its peak in June 2008. The FAO says the forecast for world cereal production this year has been lowered by 41 million tons to 2,238 million tons since June, but that would still be the third highest annual amount on record and above the five-year average.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Seminars on African nutrition","field_subtitle":"Deadline for applications: 10 October 2010","field_url":"http://www.africanutritionleadership.org","body":"The ninth of a series of seminars of the African Nutrition Leadership Programme (ANLP) will be held in South Africa from 15-25 March 2011. The aim of this programme is to assist the development of future leaders in the field of human nutrition in Africa. Emphasis will be on understanding and developing participants\u2019 qualities and skills as leaders, team building, communication and nutrition information in a broader context, and to understanding the role of nutrition science in the world around us. The programme is designed for individuals who have experience in various fields of nutrition. Preference will be given to candidates with a postgraduate qualification, postdoctoral fellows and candidates with comparable working experience in the broader human nutrition sciences, studying or working in Africa. ANLP is also actively seeking applications from participants who are under the age of 40 years. The maximum number of participants is 30 and the course fee is \u20ac1,200.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Social transfers reduce poverty in Southern Africa, say experts","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 17 September 2010","field_url":"Http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=90514","body":"Southern African countries have some of the world's worst income distribution, but can often afford social transfers, which have proved an efficient means of reducing the number of poor, according to regional experts. They say that funds can always be found by governments that have the political will to generate and dedicate money to social transfer schemes. Social transfers cover the various forms of social assistance for low-income or no-income individuals and households, and can include child support grants, non-contributory pensions, school feeding schemes, and agricultural or other inputs. In South Africa, social transfers like old-age pensions, and the child support grants introduced in the early 1990s, have managed to improve the lot of at least 47% of people living on less than US$2 a day, according to this article. Six countries in Southern Africa - Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland - provide non-contributory social pensions modelled on European social welfare policies. Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia, among others, are experimenting with some cash transfer programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Watch Report 2010: After the fall: Time for a new deal","field_subtitle":"Social Watch: 2010","field_url":"http://www3.socialwatch.org/sites/default/files/Social-Watch-Report-2010.pdf","body":"Social Watch\u2019s report calls for justice of all kinds, including climate justice, financial, fiscal and economic justice, and social and gender justice. The report addresses various thematic issues, and looks at international and national progress made on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It notes with concern that progress on poverty reduction has slowed down since the MDGs were set and notes that social progress does not automatically follows economic growth. It highlights that better (non-monetary) indicators are needed to more accurately monitor the evolution of poverty in the world. The report further calls for a complete transformation of society along the lines of a new logic that prioritises human needs over corporate profits; in other words, it calls for \u2018a new social deal.\u2019 Besides, it underlines the need to rethink macroeconomics and recognise the role of women in an extensive care economy; and addresses civil society concerns regarding the fundamental ambiguity surrounding the status of public banks such as the European Investment Bank (EIB). A new approach in the advocacy work of civil society organisations is recommended, called \u2018critical shareholding\u2019, which will allow civil society organisations and networks buy shares in companies that have negative social and environmental impacts, after which they can criticise these firms from the inside.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"South African initiative to address rural health worker shortages ","field_subtitle":"Yeni A: Health-e News, 13 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032920","body":"Retaining health workers in rural facilities remains a major challenge facing South Africa and other developing nations. But an initiative in the Western Cape shows that the challenge of retaining health workers in rural facilities can be overcome. After unsuccessful attempts by Tygerberg Hospital to recruit and retain rural health workers, the hospital decided to open a nursing college in the Boland region, a large farming area nearby. Helise Schumann, who co-ordinates the activities of the college, pointed out that 70% of all nursing staff in the Boland area (about 800 nursing staff) have been trained through the school. The school uses a step-ladder approach by first starting with training the school\u2019s own staff, like cleaners, porters, food services aid and laundry staff, so they could qualify as nursing assistants. Neighbouring facilities, like Worcester and a number of district hospitals, also owe their staffing levels to the nursing college. She says the college follows a strict selection process when recruiting candidates. The nursing college trains up to 100 students per year. It targets unemployed people and school leavers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa\u2019s national HIV testing campaign not showing results","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 7 September 2010 ","field_url":"Http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=90410","body":"South Africa is trying to pull off the most extensive global HIV testing campaign but the ambitious initiative is facing some daunting realities. Launched in April 2010, the campaign aims to test 15 million South Africans over 12 months. But five months in, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has admitted the initiative has stalled. The government is preparing to re-launch the campaign and expand its reach to schools and workplaces. With an adult HIV prevalence of about 18%, just over one million South Africans were on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment as of May 2010, according to National Health Council data. If the campaign is successful in diagnosing more people with HIV and referring them to care, an additional 590,000 people could be eligible for treatment by April 2011, according to health department estimates. However, Mark Heywood, vice-chairman of the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), referred to government statistics that show that between April and July 2010, about 1.7 million people were tested for HIV as part of the campaign, but, of 300,000 people who tested positive, only half were referred to any related health services. A poor referral system may also explain why, despite a surge in the uptake of voluntary counselling and HIV testing, only an additional 3,000 people were put on ARVs in the campaign's first two months.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening health systems at facility level: Feasibility of integrating antiretroviral therapy into primary health care services in Lusaka, Zambia","field_subtitle":"Topp SM, Chipukuma JM, Giganti M, Mwango LK, Chiko LM et al: PLoS ONE 5(7): e11522, 13 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0011522","body":"This paper presents the results of a feasibility study of a fully integrated model of HIV and non-HIV outpatient services in two urban Lusaka clinics. Assessment of feasibility included monitoring rates of HIV case-finding and referral to care, measuring median waiting and consultation times and assessing adherence to clinical care protocols for HIV and non-HIV outpatients. Provider and patient interviews at both of the sites in the study indicated broad acceptability of the model and highlighted a perceived reduction in stigma associated with integrated HIV services. The paper argues that integrating vertical anti-retroviral therapy and outpatient services is feasible in the low-resource and high HIV-prevalence setting of Lusaka, Zambia. Integration enabled shared use of space and staffing that resulted in increased HIV case finding, a reduction in stigma associated with vertical ART services but resulted in an overall increase in patient waiting times. Further research is required to assess long-term clinical outcomes and cost effectiveness in order to evaluate scalability and generalisability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The African Peer Review Mechanism: Positive governance strides in the right direction? ","field_subtitle":"Negatu G and Gruzd S: South African Institute of International Affairs: 24 August 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.saiia.org.za/diplomatic-pouch/the-african-peer-review-mechanism-positive-governance-strides-in-the-right-direction.html","body":"Almost a decade after its inception, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) continues to be the continent\u2019s major governance monitoring mechanism. According to this article, the APRM has raised awareness of governance issues, energised the African continent and taken small but significant steps to remedy big problems. It has brought benefits to those countries that have taken it seriously. Recognising this, it is clear that more countries need to be encouraged to be part of the APRM process, and that countries that have made commitments to improve governance be held accountable for promises and progress. However, there have been challenges. For example, the rate of reviews is relatively slow, with the first country (Ghana) only peer reviewed in January 2006, almost four years after the APRM was established. It has been seven years since the launch of the APRM, and so far only 13 of the 29 acceding member countries have been reviewed. In addition, recommendations in the reviews are not mandatory or enforceable and have generally gone unheeded by African governments. For example, the review for Kenya predicted post-election ethnic-related violence in 2007, yet the Kenyan government took no measures to prevent the violence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The benefits of educating women","field_subtitle":"Cleland J: The Lancet 376(9745): 933\u2013934, 18 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2810%2961417-1/fulltext","body":"According to this article, the absence of a threshold in the association between maternal education and child survival suggests that the obvious causal pathway - increased understanding of disease causation, prevention, and cure - might only be part of the explanation. This has led to investigations of many possible behavioural links, including better domestic hygiene, more intense mother-child interactions, and greater maternal decision-making power among mothers who are more educated than among those who are less educated. However, the use of child health services offers the strongest empirical support. Exposure to primary schooling increases a mother's propensity to seek modern preventive or curative services for her children. Schooling seems to engender in adults an increased identification with health institutions, and the confidence and skills to access services and comply with advice. It is likely that the symbiotic effect of schooling and health-service use indicates that improvements in the education of women of reproductive age might account for half of the reduction in mortality in children aged under five years. This contribution is far greater than increased  income, a finding that is consistent with previous studies. Income and educational increases are only slightly correlated. Analyses of states that achieved high life-expectancies despite low-income levels (eg: China, Costa Rica, Kerala, and Sri Lanka) revealed a common characteristic: sustained political commitment to equitable access to primary schooling and health care for both sexes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The hope and the promise of the UN Resolution on non-communicable diseases","field_subtitle":"Alleyne G, Stuckler D and Alwan A: Globalization and Health 6(15), 9 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-6-15.pdf","body":"On 13 May 2010, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly passed resolution 265, \u2018Prevention and control of non-communicable diseases\u2019, which called for Heads of State to address NCDs in a high-level plenary meeting scheduled for September 2011. Out of this meeting, and its associated outcome document, will come a series of programmatic steps by all UN members. This editorial analyses the UN resolution and describes the kinds of outcomes that are possible and needed to make chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) a global priority among international leaders and to generate global interest and a social movement to ensure commitment by Heads of State. The authors argue that the attention of Heads of State and Government must be secured to promote their participation in the meeting in September 2011. Second, while Member States will decide on the final outcomes of the meeting, international development agencies, the World Bank, UN Agencies, civil society, and the private sector must provide support through a consultative process towards the outcome document. Third, stakeholders must be rallied around a common vision and road map to operationalise a global response to NCDs during the decades to come.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of the global financial crisis on the budgets of low-income countries","field_subtitle":"Development Finance International: 2010","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/impact-global-economic-crisis-lic-budgets-0710.pdf","body":"This report, written for Oxfam, examines the impact of the global financial crisis on the budgets of low-income countries, especially their spending to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It points out that the current global economic crisis has created a huge budget revenue hole of US$65 billion, of which aid has filled only one-third. As a result, after some fiscal stimulus to combat the crisis in 2009, most low-income countries (LICs) \u2013 including those with International Monetary Fund (IMF) programmes \u2013 are cutting MDG spending, especially on education and social protection. They have also had to borrow expensive domestic loans, and increase anti-poor sales taxes. The report argues that almost all LICs could absorb much more aid without negative economic consequences (whereas they have much less space to borrow or to raise taxes). It urges the international community to make strong new aid commitments at the Millennium Summit in September 2010, funded by financial transaction taxes or other innovative financing. The IMF should encourage LICs to spend more on MDG goals and on combating climate change and to report regularly on such spending, and LIC governments should increase spending on social protection and education, and bolster efforts to fight tax avoidance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Millennium Development Goals Report","field_subtitle":"United Nations: 2010","field_url":"http://www.un.org/en/mdg/summit2010/pdf/MDG%20Report%202010%20En%20r15%20-low%20res%2020100615%20-.pdf","body":"This report on progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals is mixed. It acknowledges some success but also points to shortcomings. Successes include progress on poverty reduction \u2013 with the developing world as a whole remaining on track to achieve the poverty reduction target by 2015 \u2013 and improvements in key disease interventions, which have cut child deaths from 12.5 million in 1990 to 8.8 million in 2008. Between 2003 and 2008, the number of people receiving antiretroviral therapy increased tenfold - from 400,000 to 4 million - corresponding to 42% of the 8.8 million people who needed treatment for HIV. However, some challenges remain. The most severe impact of climate change is being felt by vulnerable populations who have contributed least to the problem, gender equality has shown little progress, armed conflict continues to add to the growing number of refugees worldwide and the number of people who are undernourished has continued to grow, as the slow progress in reducing the prevalence of hunger has stalled in some regions. About one in four children under the age of five are underweight, mainly due to lack of adequate and quality food, inadequate water, sanitation and health services, and poor care and feeding practices. An estimated 1.4 billion people were still living in extreme poverty in 2005. Moreover, the effects of the global financial crisis are likely to persist: poverty rates will be slightly higher in 2015 and even beyond, to 2020, than they would have been had the world economy grown steadily at its pre-crisis pace.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Millennium Development Goals: A cross-sectoral analysis and principles for goal setting after 2015","field_subtitle":"Waage J, Banerji R, Campbell O, Chirwa E, Collender G and Dieltiens V: The Lancet 376(9745):  991\u20131023, 18 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2810%2961196-8/fulltext","body":"This paper aims to identify cross-cutting challenges that have emerged from Millennium development Goal (MDG) implementation so far. The MDGs have had notable success in encouraging global political consensus, providing a focus for advocacy, improving the targeting and flow of aid, and improving the monitoring of development projects. However, they have also encountered a range of common challenges with regard to conceptualisation and execution: gaps that exist in goals, targets with too narrow a focus, a lack of ownership and poor equity outcomes. The paper concludes that future goals should be built on a shared vision of development, and not on the bundling together of a set of independent development targets. Development should be conceptualised as a dynamic process involving sustainable and equitable access to improved wellbeing, which is achieved by expansion of access to services that deliver the different elements of wellbeing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Third HIV and AIDS in the Workplace Research Conference","field_subtitle":"Pre-conference registration closing date: 5 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.sabcoha.org/conference/index.php?option=com_content%20&task=view&id=1&Itemid=1","body":"The Third HIV and AIDS in the Workplace Research Conference, taking place in Johannesburg from 9-11 November, will reflect on the intersection of workplace HIV responses, academic research and surveillance, with a particular focus on strengthening prevention interventions in the fight against HIV and AIDS in Africa, linking prevention research to workplace practice. Prevention will be a key priority focus area, as success in preventing new infections is now widely accepted as the key to ultimately curbing the impact of HIV and AIDS on South Africa and its people. The Conference offers an opportunity for business to step back and reflect on HIV and AIDS programmes, using the lens of research and practice to consider what has worked and what lessons can be extracted. The Conference is also a platform to translate research into meaningful and sustainable responses that can be applied in the workplace.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Tools to make policy research accountable ","field_subtitle":"One World Trust: 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.oneworldtrust.org/apro/","body":"One World Trust, with support from the International Development and Research Centre (IDRC), has created an interactive, online database of tools to help organisations conducting policy-relevant research to become more accountable. The database provides an inventory of over two hundred tools, standards and processes within a broad, overarching accountability framework. With a dynamic interface and several search functions, it allows users to identify aspects of accountability that interest them, and provides ideas to improve their accountability in this context. Each tool is supported by sources and further reading. The site also encourages engagement with and discussion on the database content, through allowing users to comment on individual tools, or to submit their own tools, processes and standards for inclusion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards universal ARV access: Achievements and challenges in Free State Province, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Uebel KE, Timmerman V, Ingle SM, van Rensburg DHCJ, Mollentze WF: South African Medical Journal 100(9): 589 \u2013 593, September 2010","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/3897/2940","body":"This paper sought to study the progress and challenges with regard to universal antiretroviral (ARV) access in Free State Province, South Africa. Data from the first four years of the public sector ARV roll-out and selected health system indicators was used. Data was collected from the public sector ARV database in Free State Province for new patients on ARVs, average waiting times and median CD4 counts at the start of treatment. Information on staff training, vacancy rates and funding allocations for the ARV roll-out was obtained from official government reports. Projections were made of expected new ARV enrolments for 2008 and 2009 and compared with goals set by the National Strategic Plan (NSP) to achieve universal access to ARVs by 2011. The researchers found that new ARV enrolments increased annually to 25% of the estimated need by the end of 2007. Average waiting times to enrolment decreased from 5.82 months to 3.24 months. Median CD4 counts at enrolment increased from 89 to 124 cells/mm3. There is a staff vacancy rate of 38% in the ARV programme and an inadequate increase in budget allocations. The paper concludes that current vertical model of ARV therapy delivery is unlikely to raise the number of new enrolments sufficiently to achieve the goals of universal access by 2011 as envisaged by the NSP. The Free State is implementing a project (STRETCH trial) to broaden the ARV roll-out in an attempt to increase access to ARVs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in maternal mortality: 1990 to 2008","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations Population Fund and the World Bank: 2010","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241500265_eng.pdf","body":"The number of women dying due to complications during pregnancy and childbirth has decreased by 34% from an estimated 546,000 in 1990 to 358,000 in 2008, according to this report. Despite the progress, the report notes that the annual rate of decline is less than half of what is needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of reducing the maternal mortality ratio by 75 between 1990 and 2015. This will require an annual decline of 5.5%. The 34% decline since 1990 translates into an average annual decline of just 2.3%. In the period from 1990 to 2008, ten out of 87 countries with maternal mortality ratios equal to or over 100 per 100,000 live births in 1990 are on track with an annual decline of 5.5% between 1990 and 2008. At the other extreme, 30 made insufficient or no progress since 1990. The study shows progress in sub-Saharan Africa, where maternal mortality decreased by 26%. Ninety-nine per cent of all maternal deaths in 2008 occurred in developing regions, with sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia accounting for 57% and 30% of all deaths, respectively.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"United States helps bridge gap in Uganda\u2019s ARV supply","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 13 September 2010","field_url":"Http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=90454","body":"The United States (US) President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has boosted its assistance to Uganda's AIDS programme with an emergency supply of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs worth more than US$5.5 million - enough to put an estimated 72,000 HIV-infected people on the treatment over the next two years. But it has also served notice that Uganda must find new sources of funding if its HIV programmes are to be sustainable. The drugs are expected to help bridge the gap in the availability of ARV drugs in Uganda and prevent stock-outs and are included as part of an increase in funding recently announced by PEPFAR, following appeals from Ugandan AIDS activists and health providers struggling to put patients on ARVs. Uganda is the biggest recipient of PEPFAR funds.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Vitamin A supplementation and neonatal mortality in the developing world: A meta-regression of cluster-randomised trials","field_subtitle":"Rotondi MA and Khobzi N: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 697\u2013702, September 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/9/09-068080.pdf","body":"The objective of this study was to assess the relationship between the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency among pregnant women and the effect of neonatal vitamin A supplementation on infant mortality. The study\u2019s literature review revealed that studies of neonatal supplementation with vitamin A have yielded contradictory findings with regard to its effect on the risk of infant death, possibly owing to heterogeneity between studies. One source of that heterogeneity is the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency among pregnant women, which the study examined using meta-regression techniques on eligible individual and cluster-randomised trials. The meta-regression analysis revealed a statistically significant linear relationship between the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency in pregnant women and the observed effectiveness of vitamin A supplementation at birth. In regions where at least 22% of pregnant women have vitamin A deficiency, the study recommends giving neonates vitamin A supplements to help protect against infant death.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"What will African countries bring back from the UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals? ","field_subtitle":"Rangarirai Machemedze, SEATINI","field_url":"","body":"\r\nAccording to UN reports, sub-Saharan Africa has the world\u2019s highest rate of child mortality, with one in seven children dying before their fifth birthday.  The region has witnessed a 22% decline in the under-5 mortality rate since 1990, although significant variation exists between countries. Although rates of infant mortality have declined since 1990, 17 of the 20 countries with the highest infant mortality rates are African. Maternal mortality is the health indicator that shows the widest gaps between rich and poor, both between and within countries.  While data is scarce, WHO estimates that 900 women die per 100 000 live births in Africa. The continent, with the exception of Namibia, is identified by the UN as experiencing high or very high maternal mortality. Sub-Saharan Africa is also the region most affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, with over two thirds of all people living with HIV worldwide, and nearly three-quarters of AIDS-related deaths. There are some positive signs: the rate of new HIV infections has slowly declined, and 44% of adults and children in need of antiretroviral therapy had access to treatment, up from 2 % five years earlier. Efforts to combat malaria have progressed: the use of insecticide treated nets by children in 26 African countries rose from 2% in 2000 to 22% in 2008.\r\n\r\nAfrican countries have developed numerous strategies to reach the goals. In 2006, the African Union endorsed the Maputo Plan of Action on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, and 22 countries have since set Maternal and Newborn Health Road Maps to improve sexual and reproductive health  through laws, policies and health systems.  The AU\u2019s African Health Strategy 2007-2015 proposes to strengthen equitable health systems; the AU\u2019s 2005 Gaborone Declaration commits to universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care; the 2001 Abuja Declaration commits African states to allocate 15% of their national budgets to health and the 2008 Ouagadougou Declaration commits to advancing Primary Health Care and Health Systems in Africa.  The 2010 African Union summit held in July in Kampala, passed a number of resolutions, including a renewed commitment to the 15% budgetary allocation to health; and CARMMA- the Campaign for the Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa.\r\n\r\nThe African Union and its member states must, however, go beyond rhetoric to implement the promises set out in their declarations and produce tangible results. For example, the Global Fund has reported that as of 2007, out of 52 African countries (no data was available for Somalia), only three (Botswana, Djibouti, and Rwanda) had met the 15% target for health budgets, while three more (Liberia, Malawi and Burkina Faso) surpassed this target. \r\n\r\nThe UN  report, Keeping the Promise \u2013 United to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals for the 2010 MDG summit being held in late September in New York has a paragraph on Africa stating that the continent is lagging behind on many of the MDGs, that progress has been made in some African countries but that the poorest ones remain \u201ca grave concern, especially in the wake of the hard hitting financial and economic crisis\u201d. The UN note in the report that while aid to Africa has increased in recent years, it still lags far behind commitments made. Will the Summit produce the resources called for by the UN through delivery of these commitments?  Will the UN MDG Summit in September go beyond rhetoric to action? Will it unleash the resources to move from the many strategies to practice? \r\n\r\nAfter all is said and done in September, one sign of that must be the extent to which whatever is said is translated into local level interventions and reaches vulnerable groups.  This needs to be tracked, but the UN only collects MDG data aggregated at the national level, making it difficult to track how far this is being achieved. There is  no provision in country reports for disaggregation of country-level data to assess sub-national progress on the MDGs.  The reports do not therefore capture the stark inequalities among different regions, socio-economic, ethnic, racial and cultural groups within countries on accessing the resources for health or achieving the MDGs. \r\n\r\nAnd should we be measuring targets or rates of progress?  The World Bank noted in 2010 that uniform goals like reducing infant mortality by two-thirds, maternal mortality by three-quarters can underestimate progress in poor countries and communities. Why? Because the greater the distance to the goals from low starting points in poor countries, the greater the improvement needed to reach the targets. Is it the rate of progress, or the likelihood of achieving the targets that should be evaluated? While the target is the outcome we are aiming for, Fukuda and Greenstein  argued in 2010 that  the rate of progress tells more about the likelihood of achieving it along the way, and would place more pressure on governments to do more.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. This editorial has been edited from the original that appeared in the Health Diplomacy Monitor Special Issue on the UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals, Vol 1 Issue 3. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org or see the Global Health Diplomacy website at  www.ghd-net.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"WIDE launches Gender Justice Beyond the MDG Campaign","field_subtitle":"WIDE: September 2010","field_url":"http://www.wide-network.org/","body":"In preparation for the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Summit, held from 20-22 September 2010, in New York, Women in Development Europe (WIDE) launched the new campaign \u2018Mobilising for Gender Justice Beyond the MDGs\u2019 to advance gender and social justice for all. WIDE\u2019s view on the MDGs framework is that it offers too narrow and minimalist a focus for measuring development or the advancement of gender equality and women\u00b4s rights. WIDE considers that the MDGs\u2019 shortcoming is that the indicators exclude the structural nature of poverty as well as the structural nature of gender inequality. WIDE is inviting participation in the \u2018Gender Justice Beyond the MDG Campaign\u2019 to share analysis, opinions, activities and proposals, news, processes, expectations and outcomes of the summit.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Working with the grain to change the grain: Moving beyond the Millennium Development Goals","field_subtitle":"Vernon P and Baksh D: International Alert, September 2010","field_url":"http://www.international-alert.org/pdf/MDG%20report_September%202010.pdf","body":"This article predicts that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will not be achieved by 2015. Progress is especially slow in fragile contexts, where institutions are weak and there is a risk of violent conflict. But a closer examination shows that the MDGs are inadequate measures of development progress, and as such they represent an international development paradigm that is tired and confused. The article proposes a more \u2018useful\u2019 way to consider human progress: consider a \u2018developed society\u2019 as one with a defined set of characteristics and create from these a vision for change. Building on work by others, the authors propose a generic vision consisting of six key characteristics: equal access to political voice, and the legitimate and accountable use of power; equal participation in a vibrant and sustainable economy; equal access to justice, and equality before the law; freedom from insecurity; the ability of people to maintain their mental and physical well-being, to have aspirations and make progress towards them; and the self-reinforcing presence of institutions and values that support and enable equitable progress and peace. While these characteristics provide a vision of human progress, they do not provide guidance on how to get there, the authors caution. The \u2018how\u2019 of implementation has to be defined at a local, rather than a global level, and should be informed by lessons from history.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"15% Campaign Welcomes AU\u2019s restatement of financing commitment and identifies six key policy and budget priorities","field_subtitle":"Africa Public Health Alliance & 15% Plus Campaign: 19 August 2010","field_url":"","body":"The Africa Public Health Alliance & 15% Plus Campaign has welcomed the laudable decisions by the July 2010 African Union Heads of State Summit on various health policies and budget commitments, especially the restatement of the 2001 Abuja commitment to allocate at least 15% of annual budgets to health. The Alliance has identified six key areas requiring improvement. 1. More investment is needed in immunisation, in social determinants of health, in integrated health services and population and social development as this is crucial to reducing child mortality and improving healthy life expectancy. 2. The absolute level of per capita investment in health is as important as percentage allocation and should be increased to above at least $38 per capita. 3. Integrated health, education and labour policies are crucial to resolving health workforce shortages \u2013 and meeting all health Millennium Development Goals. 4. Ensuring gender equity in health budgeting is crucial, especially regarding adolescent and youth health. 5. The capacity for production, purchase and distribution of pharmaceuticals, essential medicines and commodities must be improved to prevent stock outs. 6. There should be at least one well-staffed and properly equipped primary health care clinic per community.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/35361","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"A progressive decline in the burden of malaria in north-eastern Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mmbando BP, Vestergaard LS, Kitua AY, Lemnge MM, Theander TG and Lusingu JPA: Malaria Journal 9(216), 23 July 2010","field_url":"http://malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-9-216.pdf","body":"In this study, malaria prevalence and morbidity were monitored in two villages in north-eastern Tanzania \u2013 a lowland village and a highland village from 2003 to 2008. Trained village health workers treated presumptive malaria with the Tanzanian first-line anti-malarial drug and collected blood smears that were examined later. The prevalence of malaria parasitaemia across years was monitored through cross-sectional surveys, and was found to decrease in the lowland village 78.4% in 2003 to 13.0% in 2008, while in the highland village, prevalence dropped from 24.7% to 3.1% in the same period. Similarly, the incidence of febrile malaria episodes in the two villages dropped by almost 85%, with a marked reduction in anaemia in young children in the lowland village. According to the study, this decline is likely to be due to a combination of factors that include improved access to malaria treatment provided by the trained village helpers, protection from mosquitoes by increased availability of insecticide-impregnated bed nets and a reduced vector density. If this decline in malaria morbidity is sustained, it will have a marked effect on the disease burden in this part of Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to Medicine Index 2010","field_subtitle":"Access to Medicine Foundation: 2010","field_url":"http://www.accesstomedicineindex.org/content/index-2010-0","body":"The Access to Medicine Index independently assesses how individual pharmaceutical companies perform in promoting universal access to essential medicines, and may be used as a tool in improving performance. The 2010 ranking reveals important progress, if only because companies have shown far greater willingness to open up. The Index unveils improvements research and development, and pricing, but also shows that the industry as a whole still has a long way to go, according to Wim Leereveld, the Index's founder. The Access to Medicine Index ranks 20 of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies on their efforts to make sure that medicines are made for, and reach, people in developing countries. The Index encourages drug companies to compete and offers investors and others a way to compare their social responsibility records.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"African AIDS and health activists react to conclusion of AU Heads of State Summit:Declarations don\u2019t save lives: Show us the money for health","field_subtitle":"Health GAP: 1 August 2010","field_url":"","body":"At the close of the African Union (AU) Heads of State Summit, health experts and activists from across Africa expressed grave concern that leaders are not delivering on fundamental commitments to expand investments in maternal and child health and other life-saving health services, including treatment and prevention for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. Although the AU Summit asserted that universal access to quality healthcare is a human right, the advocates expressed disappointment at the overall outcome \u2013 particularly regarding mobilising additional resources needed to save lives and advance maternal and child health. For example, the Declaration on Maternal and Child Health has committed AU Members to \u2018enhancing domestic resources\u2019 but not to a concrete, time bound increase in domestic investment in health. Activists also challenged donor governments to keep their health funding promises, including the commitment to scale up investments in order to reach universal access to HIV treatment and prevention.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/35307","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"African leaders affirm pledge of 15% of national budgets to health ","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 28 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=90000","body":"At the end of their meeting on 27 July 2010 in Kampala, Uganda, members of the African Union (AU) reaffirmed that they would strive to spend 15% of their national budgets on health, but health experts like Chikezie Anyanwu, Africa Advocacy Advisor to Save the Children, which works to promote children's rights, were unsure of how effectively the money would be spent. According to him, countries could spend more than 15% and still show no real reduction in the deaths of children younger than five, or among women during or after childbirth, as specified in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations. Rwanda, Liberia and Tanzania are the only three African countries devoting more than 15% of their national spending on health, said Anyanwu, citing a 2010 World Health Organization (WHO) report, based on data from 2007. But they have made insufficient progress in meeting MDGs 4 and 5, which aim to reduce maternal and child mortality. In South Africa, one of the most developed and richest countries in the continent, the infant mortality rate has escalated and the country will probably not achieve the MDG target by the deadline of 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS activists denounce European Commission\u2019s actions in trade","field_subtitle":"Act Up-Paris: 21 July 2010","field_url":"","body":"Act-Up Paris made this speech via the European Commission's (EC) satellite to the International AIDS Conference, held from 18 \u2013 23 July in Vienna, Austria. It denounces the EC\u2019s actions, such as its decision to take a trade-based and not a health-based approach to access to medicines, and accuses the body of duplicity in its Free Trade Agreement negotiations with India, its negotiations regarding the proposed All Censorship Trade Agreement (ACTA), which aims to govern global intellectual property rights, and seizures of allegedly counterfeit generics being transported from India to South America and Africa. Act-Up Paris asserts that the EC is working to make medicines more expensive, while at the same time freezing its contributions to the Global Fund. It urges the EC to respect the Doha Declaration and to embark on a global rights-based approach to dealing with HIV and AIDS.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/35257","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Behavioural interventions for HIV positive prevention in developing countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis","field_subtitle":"Kennedy CE, Medley AM, Sweat MD and O\u2019Reilly KR: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 615\u2013623, August 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/8/BLT.09.068213.pdf","body":"This study\u2019s aim was to assess the evidence for a differential effect of positive prevention interventions among individuals infected and not infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in developing countries, and to assess the effectiveness of interventions targeted specifically at people living with HIV. The researchers conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of papers on positive prevention behavioural interventions in developing countries published between January 1990 and December 2006. Nineteen studies met the inclusion criteria. The meta-analysis showed that behavioural interventions had a stronger impact on condom use among HIV-positive (HIV+) individuals than among HIV-negative individuals. Interventions specifically targeting HIV+ individuals also showed a positive effect on condom use. However, interventions included in this review were limited both in scope (most were HIV counselling and testing interventions) and in target populations (most were conducted among heterosexual adults or HIV-serodiscordant couples). Current evidence suggests that interventions targeting people living with HIV in developing countries increase condom use, especially among HIV-serodiscordant couples. Comprehensive positive prevention interventions targeting diverse populations and covering a range of intervention modalities are needed to keep HIV+ individuals physically and mentally healthy, prevent transmission of HIV infection and increase the agency and involvement of people living with HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Building and retaining the neglected anaesthesia health workforce: Is it crucial for health systems strengthening through primary health care?","field_subtitle":"Cherian M, Choo S, Wilson I, Noel L, Sheikh M, Dayrit M and Groth S: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 637\u2013639, August 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/8/09-072371.pdf","body":"Physician anaesthetists are scarce in many developing countries and not available at first referral level health facilities. According to this article, the shortage exists because there is not enough recognition of the need for surgical and anaesthesia services at all levels of the health system and their potential to reduce mortality and morbidity. As a result, there is a serious lack of equitable services in developing countries, especially in rural and remote areas. Creating awareness through better documentation of the burden of disease, in terms of death and disability that can be prevented by availability of surgical and anaesthesia services, would be an important step to generate political commitment and local investments in education, training and retention of the health workforce. This needs to be followed up by appropriate policies, legislation, and the establishment of innovative and effective anaesthesia training programmes that address both the immediate need as well as the long-term needs of the health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for funding proposals: Second International Decade of the World\u2019s Indigenous Peoples","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 1 October 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/323crov","body":"The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNFPII) is the advisory body to the United Nations Economic and Social Council for discussing indigenous issues related to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health and human rights. It has a trust fund on indigenous issues relating to the Second International Decade of the World\u2019s Indigenous People. This Fund is now offering funding for non-governmental organisations for 2011. Projects can be proposed in the areas of culture, education, health, human rights, the environment and social and economic development. All projects should primarily be focused upon indigenous peoples and they should directly benefit them. The guidelines suggest that the project proposals should be developed by indigenous people, but in cases where non-indigenous organisations are submitting proposals, they should develop them with full participation, consultation and free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples, groups or committees receiving the benefits of the project.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 30 September 2010","field_url":"http://journals.sfu.ca/africanem/index.php/ajtcam /index","body":"The African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines (AJTCAM) will publish a special issue in 2011 entitled 'Reviews of modern tools in traditional medicines'. Experts in different fields may write on any of the following topics: specific case management studies in traditional medicines (malaria, diabetes, snake bites, cancer, infertility etc); traditional medical practice (general practice, psychiatry, traditional birth attendants etc) in different systems of traditional medicines; African traditional medicines; Chinese traditional medicines; Indian systems of medicines; complementary and alternative medicines; other systems of traditional medicines; evaluation of herbal products as potential medicines/drugs; clinical trials of herbal medicines; traditional medicines and HIV and AIDS \u2013 current research; chemical profiling of herbal medicines; cultivation of medicinal plants; safety evaluation of herbal products/medicines; standardisation of herbal medicines; packaging of herbal products; economics of herbal medicines; and biotechnology and traditional medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Closing the gaps: From science to action in maternal, newborn, and child health in Africa","field_subtitle":"Bennett S and Ssengooba F: PLoS Medicine 7(6), 29 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000298","body":"This article identifies two \u2018gaps\u2019 in maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH): a \u2018science to policy and practice\u2019 gap, where, despite mounting research on MNCH, it has failed to achieve importance on the domestic policy agendas of African countries; and a \u2018policy to practice\u2019 gap, where, despite clear policy commitments to MNCH, substantial challenges prevent these policies from being implemented effectively. The article focuses on the \u2018science to policy and practice\u2019 gap, in the belief that action to address the second gap is already mobilised, although clearly not yet fully effective. In contrast, the first gap remains neglected. It first addresses what is already known about how scientific evidence has influenced MNCH policy and practice, then it considers some of the key challenges in closing the science to policy and practice gap, and concludes by identifying promising paths for future action: developing MNCH policy networks, mainstreaming the use of MNCH science and investing in innovative approaches to develop and apply MNCH evidence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Commonwealth Health Ministers Meeting, Geneva, Switzerland, 16 May 2010: Ministerial Statement on MDGs","field_subtitle":"Commonwealth Secretariat: 16 May 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/377otx2","body":"In this statement, Commonwealth Health Ministers acknowledged the progress made globally towards the attainment of the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including the steady reduction in under-five deaths from 12.6 million in 1990 to 9 million in 2007. They note that at least 16 developing Commonwealth countries have achieved or are on track to achieve MDG 5. Ministers called on the global community, especially the G8 and G20, to support maternal and newborn health programmes, and to meet MDGs 4 and 5. They particularly called for support to meet the target of 90% of births being attended by skilled health workers by 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Costs and choices: Financing the long-term fight against AIDS","field_subtitle":"Results for Development Institute: 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/35k2j4h","body":"Despite the enormous progress that has been made over the past decade, there are still huge gaps and deficiencies in national plans, budgets, and expenditure tracking systems, according to this paper. Few countries have developed detailed cost estimates of their national strategic plans. All too often, they do not specify how limited resources will be allocated, nor how priorities will be set if they are unable to achieve their goals. The paper argues that, even if AIDS costs are almost certain to rise between now and 2031, the cost trajectory can be significantly influenced by our actions today. Policy choices have different price tags \u2013 ranging from $397 billion to $722 billion over the 22-year period. Reducing costs will demand stronger political will and AIDS financing capacity, but the potential payoff in making the right choices is great, leading to fewer infections and more lives saved. Governments and development partners could be much more effective in the AIDS activities they back, and more financially efficient, if they focused resources on prevention programmes that are more closely aligned with specific epidemics.  The paper also argues that showing that money for AIDS can be used more efficiently and to achieve greater benefits will also help to maintain political support and enthusiasm for the large-scale efforts that will need to be sustained for decades to come. These steps will require global creativity, national and international leadership, and improved policies and programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Coverage of anti-counterfeit policy debate varies widely across global media ","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 2 August 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/37s4w9j","body":"Are counterfeit products first and foremost a threat to human health and safety or is provoking anxiety just a clever way for wealthy nations to create sympathy for increased protection of their intellectual property rights? This article indicates that coverage of this issue in the world\u2019s news media varies greatly. Some argue that attempts to fight fake drugs are as much a risk to access to the real medicines as the fakes themselves. Legitimate, low-cost generics \u2013 often the only medicines the poor can afford \u2013 can get caught in the crossfire of anticounterfeiting enforcement measures. In addition, they say, there is need to combat not only medicines that violate trademarks (as counterfeit is often defined) but also medicines of general low quality (harder to spot and often, some say, a greater problem). The article examines a variety of news items that have recently appeared in the international media. Sources in American media have focused on organised crime in drug counterfeiting without considering the problems of access to medicines in developing countries. On the other hand, India\u2019s newspapers are concerned with the impact of new legislation on the production of generics and the United Kingdom\u2019s BBC has acknowledged the problems of access to medicine.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Decisions of the Fifteenth African Union Summit","field_subtitle":"African Union: 29 July 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/39l32t3","body":"The African Union (AU) Summit in Kampala August 2010 adopted an action plan for the improvement of maternal, infant and child health and development and made a commitment to spending 15% of national budgets in an effort to reach the Millennium Development Goals in this area. An AU task force will track progress to ensure implementation. On the partnership for the eradication of mother-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT), the Assembly invited all Member States to intensify efforts relating to antiretroviral treatment and PMTCT and to extend such efforts to primary health centres. The Assembly underscored the need for programmes for the total eradication of PMTCT and called for all African actors concerned to act immediately to make eradication a realisable outcome. An initiative on agriculture and food security was also launched. Economic growth, job creation and investment are the preferred focus for the Africa-Europe Summit in November and the next AU Summit in 2011 will focus on the Pan-African Governance Architecture.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Differences in antiretroviral scale up in three South African provinces: The role of implementation management","field_subtitle":"Schneider H, Coetzee D, van Rensburg D and Gilson L: BMC Health Services Research 10(Suppl 1): S4, 2 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/10/S1/S4","body":"This is a comparative case study of the early management of ART scale up in three South African provincial governments \u2013 Western Cape, Gauteng and Free State \u2013 focusing on both operational and strategic dimensions. Drawing on surveys of models of ART care and analyses of the policy process conducted in the three provinces between 2005 and 2007, as well as a considerable body of grey and indexed literature on ART scale up in South Africa, it draws links between implementation processes and variations in provincial ART coverage (low, medium and high) achieved in the three provinces. While they adopted similar chronic disease care approaches, the study found that the provinces differed with respect to political and managerial leadership of the programme, programme design, the balance between central standardisation and local flexibility, the effectiveness of monitoring and evaluation systems, and the nature and extent of external support and programme partnerships. This case study points to the importance of sub-national programme processes and the influence of factors other than financing or human resource capacity, in understanding intervention scale up.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Environmental scan: Mapping HIV research priorities for women and children","field_subtitle":"International AIDS Society: July 2010","field_url":"http://www.iasociety.org/Web/WebContent/File/ILF_Environmental_Scan_July2010.pdf","body":"This Environmental Scan covers three broad research areas: clinical research (prevention of mother to child transmission, or PMTCT, and paediatric treatment), clinical research (women and antiretroviral therapy) and operations research (delivering treatment to women). A parallel consultative process, led by UNICEF, addressed operations research/implementation science questions related to PMTCT, including paediatric care, treatment and support. The report found that there has been substantial progress in improving access to anti-retroviral therapy (ART) in low- and middle-income countries in recent years. The need to better understand the potential role of sex differences in HIV disease progression and treatment response is being increasingly recognised by the research community as an understudied area of inquiry. To date, there is no evidence to support differential treatment strategies for men and women. Clinical trials addressing this question are still too few and too small to provide definitive answers. Women face greater threats to personal safety and financial security than men do and as a result, they experience HIV stigma more forcefully. Some studies have identified failure to successfully integrate HIV treatment programmes with other women\u2019s health services as a particular barrier to accessing ART.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 115: The Emperor Unclothed: Intellectual Property Rights or Human Rights ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Estimating the cost of care giving on caregivers for people living with HIV and AIDS in Botswana: A cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Ama NO and Seloilwe ES: Journal of the International AIDS Society 13(14), 2010","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2880016/?tool=pubmed","body":"Community home-based care is the Botswana Government's preferred means of providing care for people living with HIV. However, according to this study, primary (family members) or volunteer (community members) caregivers experience poverty, are socially isolated, endure stigma and psychological distress, and lack basic care-giving education. Community home-based care also imposes considerable costs on patients, their caregivers and families in terms of time, effort and commitment. The study estimated the cost incurred in providing care for people living with HIV through a stratified sample of 169 primary and volunteer caregivers drawn from eight community home-based care groups in four health districts in Botswana. The results show that the mean of the total monthly cost (explicit and indirect costs) incurred by the caregivers was US$ 90.45, while the mean explicit cost of care giving was $65.22. This mean of the total monthly cost is about one and a half times the caregivers' mean monthly income of $66.00 and more than six times the Government of Botswana's financial support to the caregivers. In addition, the cost incurred per visit by the caregivers was $15.26, while the total expenditure incurred per client or family in a month was $184.17. The study concludes that, as the cost of providing care services to people living with HIV is very high, the government of Botswana should substantially increase the allowances paid to caregivers and the support it provides for the families of the clients. The overall costs for such a programme would be quite low compared with the huge sum of money budgeted each year for health care and for HIV and AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Field epidemiology training programmes in Africa: Where are the graduates? ","field_subtitle":"Mukanga D, Namusisi O, Gitta SN, Pariyo G, Tshimanga M, Weaver A and Trostle M: Human Resources for Health 8(18), 9 August 2010","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-8-18.pdf","body":"There is currently limited published evidence of health-related training programmes in Africa that have produced graduates, who remain and work in their countries after graduation. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that the majority of graduates of field epidemiology training programmes (FETPs) in Africa stay on to work in their home countries, many as valuable resources to overstretched health systems. In this study, alumni data from African FETPs were reviewed in order to establish graduate retention. Retention was defined as a graduate staying and working in their home country for at least three years after graduation. African FETPs are located in a number of African countries \u2013 this paper only includes the Uganda and Zimbabwe FETPs, as all the others are recent programmes. The review shows that enrolment increased over the years, and that there is high graduate retention, with 85.1% of graduates working within country of training, mostly for Ministries of Health and non-governmental organisations. Retention of graduates with a medical undergraduate degree was slightly higher than for those with other undergraduate qualifications. The paper concludes that African FETPs have unique features which may explain their high retention of graduates, including: programme ownership by ministries of health and local universities; well defined career paths; competence-based training coupled with a focus on field practice during training; awarding degrees upon completion; extensive training and research opportunities made available to graduates; and the social capital acquired during training.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing the response to AIDS in low-and middle-income countries: International assistance from the G8, European Commission and other donor governments in 2009","field_subtitle":"Kates J, Boortz K, Lief E, Avila C, Gobet B: Kaiser Family Foundation and UNAIDS: 2010","field_url":"http://www.kff.org/hivaids/upload/7347-06.pdf","body":"This report provides the latest data available on donor funding based on data provided by governments. The year 2009\u2019s totals reflect a substantial increase in funding provided by the United States (rising from US$3.95 billion in 2008 to $4.4 billion in 2009), which helped to offset reductions in support from Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and the Netherlands. According to the report, the United States remains the largest donor nation in the world, accounting for more than half (58%) of 2009 disbursements, followed by United Kingdom (10.2%), Germany (5.2%), the Netherlands (5%) and France (4.4%). UNAIDS estimates that $23.6 billion was needed to address the epidemic in low- and middle- income countries in 2009, which suggests a growing gap of $7.7 billion between available resources and need. In 2009, donor governments disbursed $5.9 billion bilaterally and earmarked funds for HIV through multilateral organisations, as well as an additional US$1.6 billion to combat HIV through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and US$123 million to UNITAID.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Gates Foundation buys shares in Goldman Sachs and Monsanto","field_subtitle":"Borzo J: Dow Jones, 16 August 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2324u7a","body":"The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, known for concentrating on vaccines and AIDS in its charitable work, has added Ecolab and Monsanto to its portfolio. Monsanto is the world largest biotechnology company dealing in genetically modified organisms. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Forum for Health Research, Forum 2009: Innovating for the Health of All","field_subtitle":"Jupp S: MEDICC Review 12(3): 5\u20137, July 2010","field_url":"http://www.medicc.org/mediccreview/articles/mr_149.pdf","body":"This article discuss the work of the Global Forum, a global body of health decision-makers that focuses on questions of equity, advocating for more research to address the health problems of those most in need \u2013 essentially the poor and marginalised \u2013and providing evidence to support greater investments in neglected areas. Since the Forum\u2019s previous conference in 2009, the article notes that a paradigm shift has taken place from \u2018health research\u2019 to \u2018research for health\u2019. This new approach promotes greater understanding among all stakeholders of the impact on health of policies, programmes, processes, actions or events originating from other sectors. It also is intended to assist in developing interventions that will help prevent or mitigate any adverse impact on health and contribute to the achievement of health equity. While the number of resources, actors and efforts to address the health problems of the poor have grown signifi cantly in recent years, the range of health challenges faced by low- and middle-income countries has expanded considerably, demanding a more extensive research portfolio. Challenges include countries that are not on track to reaching the Millennium Development Goals, rising rates of chronic non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries, urbanisation, demographic shifts, climate change, food security, the threat of pandemics, and the global financial crisis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Global funds: Allocation strategies and aid effectiveness","field_subtitle":"Isenman P, Wathne C and Baudienville G: Overseas Development Institute, 14 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/4947.pdf","body":"This report starts with a brief overview of the Paris/Accra approach to aid effectiveness and a definition of global funds and partnerships and their role in the overall aid architecture. It summarises strategies for allocating funds across countries, including challenge funds and results-based aid, as well as specific model examples used by selected global funds and partnerships. It found that global funds, like external funders in general, seek to maximise the impact of their assistance and use a variety of allocation mechanisms to ration their funds. Overall, country sub-sectoral support can vary in modality (including sectoral budget support) and may make use of indicative country allocations based on need and performance. The difference between the approaches of global funds and of Paris/Accra \u2018horizontal\u2019 aid is not whether they seek to achieve results. Instead, the differences lie in how the fund allocation strategies are designed and implemented to achieve these results. A key issue for all approaches to linking finance to results is the relative emphasis between short- and medium- to longer-term results and between results per se and intermediate steps that bring them about. In this context, this report also emphasises three issues related to achieving medium- to long-term results: predictability, sustainability and capacity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Global HIV/AIDS survey reveals critical gap in patient-physician conversations that may affect long-term health outcomes","field_subtitle":"International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care (IAPAC): 22 July 2010","field_url":"http://iapac.org/ATLIS/ATLIS2010/ATLIS%202010%20Global%20Press%20Release%20FINAL.pdf","body":"Results from the AIDS Treatment for Life International Survey (ATLIS 2010), a multi-country survey of more than 2,000 people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), were presented at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna, held from 19\u201323 July 2010. The results revealed a significant gap in patient-physician dialogue about critical health-related conditions that may negatively impact patients\u2019 overall long-term health, quality of life, and treatment outcomes. While the ATLIS 2010 findings showed a high degree of patient satisfaction with HCPs globally (97%), and the majority of patients believe they are being treated according to their individual needs (84%), some respondents claim to have never engaged in important discussions related to their long-term wellness, such as health history, present medical conditions, treatment side effects, new treatment options, or how all of these factors may impact their overall health and treatment outcomes. The report calls for more in-depth discussions to reinforce the importance of adherence to HIV medicines and avoidance of HIV drug resistance. The main findings were that co-morbid conditions are increasingly affecting PLWHAs, there is a critical need for patient literacy in treatment adherence and drug resistance, and that side effects caused by anti-retrovirals need to be monitored closely.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health workforce responses to global health initiatives funding: A comparison of Malawi and Zambia","field_subtitle":"Brugha R, Kadzandira J, Simbaya J, Dicker P, Mwapasa V and Walsh A: Human Resources for Health 8(19), 11 August 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/8/1/19","body":"This paper reports and analyses health workforce responses in Malawi and Zambia during a period of large increases in global health initiative (GHI) funds. Health facility record reviews were conducted in 52 facilities in Malawi and 39 facilities in Zambia in 2006/07 and 2008, as well as interviews with staff. Facility data confirmed significant scale-up in HIV and AIDS service delivery in both countries. In Malawi, this was supported by a large increase in lower trained cadres and only a modest increase in clinical staff numbers. In Zambia, total staff and clinical staff numbers stagnated between 2004 and 2007. Key informants described the effects of increased workloads in both countries and attributed staff migration from public health facilities to non-government facilities in Zambia to PEPFAR. Malawi, which received large levels of GHI funding from only the Global Fund, managed to increase facility staff across all levels of the health system: urban, district and rural health facilities, supported by task-shifting to lower trained staff. The more complex GHI arena in Zambia, where both Global Fund and PEPFAR provided large levels of support, may have undermined a coordinated national workforce response to addressing health worker shortages, leading to a less effective response in rural areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV and TB funding cutbacks will hamper treatment success","field_subtitle":"Motsoaledi A: Health-e News, 22 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032873","body":"South African Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi cautioned those attending the International AIDS conference, held in Vienna, Austria, from 19\u201327 July 2010, that backtracking on funding for HIV could threaten treatment success rates. In his speech to the Conference, he outlined success stories in the fight against HIV and AIDS in South Africa, such as integrating HIV and tuberculosis services and committing an additional US$400 million to expand anti-retroviral therapy. He noted that African civil society organisations have a key role to play in holding all stakeholders accountable. He also called for increased funding, full replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis and long-term term partnerships between international funders and recipient countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV decline in Zimbabwe due to reductions in risky sex? Evidence from a comprehensive epidemiological review","field_subtitle":"Gregson S, Gonese E, Hallett TB, Taruberekera N, Hargrove JW et al: International Journal of Epidemiology (ahead of print), 2010","field_url":"http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/dyq055v1?view=long&pmid=20406793","body":"Recent data from antenatal clinic surveillance and general population surveys suggest substantial declines in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevalence in Zimbabwe. The authors assessed the contributions of rising mortality, falling HIV incidence and sexual behaviour change to the decline in HIV prevalence. Comprehensive review and secondary analysis of national and local sources on trends in HIV prevalence, HIV incidence, mortality and sexual behaviour covering the period 1985-2007 was conducted. HIV prevalence fell in Zimbabwe over the past decade (national estimates: from 29.3% in 1997 to 15.6% in 2007). National census and survey estimates, vital registration data from Harare and Bulawayo, and prospective local population survey data from eastern Zimbabwe showed substantial rises in mortality during the 1990s levelling off after 2000. Direct estimates of HIV incidence in male factory workers and women attending pre- and post-natal clinics, trends in HIV prevalence in 15-24-year-olds, and back-calculation estimates based on the vital registration data from Harare indicated that HIV incidence may have peaked in the early 1990s and fallen during the 1990s. Household survey data showed reductions in numbers reporting casual partners from the late 1990s and high condom use in non-regular partnerships between 1998 and 2007. These findings provide the first convincing evidence of an HIV decline accelerated by changes in sexual behaviour in a southern African country. However, in 2007, one in every seven adults in Zimbabwe was still infected with a life-threatening virus and mortality rates remained at crisis level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV generics under threat from tighter patenting rules","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 2 August 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?Reportid=90041","body":"Most of the estimated 5.2 million people worldwide on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment are taking generic versions manufactured primarily in India, but tighter global intellectual property rights and trade rules could shut down this trade. While the patents on many older, first-line ARVs have expired, leaving generic manufacturers free to produce them, newer, less toxic and more effective drugs are patented and priced out of reach of less developed nations. The main way generics manufacturers can produce newer drugs is to obtain a \u2018voluntary licence\u2019 from the patent holder. This usually sets quality requirements and defines the markets in which the licensee can sell the product. For example, pharmaceutical giant Gilead has allowed the South African firm, Aspen Pharmacare, to manufacture and distribute branded and generic versions of tenofovir, one of the newer first-line ARV drugs. However, civil society activists say voluntary licences skew the balance of power too far in favour of patent-holders and present a way to control generic competition by creating dependency on the innovator companies, according to this article. The United States and the European Union have been accused of pressuring developing countries by using trade threats to coerce these countries into adopting intellectual property laws that will increase the cost of medicines. By jeopardising generics, especially those from India, this article argues that they are effectively putting millions of lives at risk.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Hospital capacity planning: From measuring stocks to modelling flows","field_subtitle":"Rechel B, Wright S, Barlow J and McKee M: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 632\u2013636, August 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/8/09-073361.pdf","body":"The metric of \u2018bed numbers\u2019 is commonly used in hospital planning, but it fails to capture key aspects of how hospital services are delivered. Drawing on a study of innovative hospital projects in Europe, this article argues that hospital capacity planning should not be based on beds, but rather on the ability to deliver processes. It proposes using approaches that are based on manufacturing theory such as \u2018lean thinking\u2019 that focuses on the value that different processes add for the primary customer, i.e. the patient. It argues that it is beneficial to look at the hospital, not from the perspective of beds or specialties, but rather from the path taken by the patients who are treated in them, the respective processes delivered by health professionals and the facilities appropriate to those processes. Systematised care pathways seem to offer one avenue for achieving these goals. However, they need to be underpinned by a better understanding of the flows of patients, work and goods within a hospital, the bottlenecks that occur, and translation of this understanding into new capacity planning tools.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Hypertension: Detection and management in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Rayner B: Nephron Clinical Practice 116: 269\u2013273, 16 July 2010","field_url":"http://content.karger.com/produktedb/produkte.asp?typ=pdf&file=000318788","body":"High blood pressure in South Africa is estimated to have caused 46,888 deaths and 390,860 disability-adjusted life years in 2000. Yet, according to this paper, detection and management of hypertension remains suboptimal due to inadequate public health care facilities. Mass rural to urban migration and rapid changes in lifestyle and risk factors account for the rising prevalence of hypertension, but genetic factors may also play an important contributory role. Black South Africans also appear to be more prone to complications of hypertension, particularly stroke, heart failure, and hypertensive nephrosclerosis, and respond poorly to ACE inhibitors as monotherapy. Proactive public health interventions at a population level need to be introduced to control this growing epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of HIV and AIDS programmes on health system strengthening","field_subtitle":"Alcorn K: Aidsmap, 20 July 2010","field_url":"http://aidsmap.com/page/1492855/","body":"Research presented at the Eighteenth International AIDS Conference, held from 19\u201327 July in Vienna, Austria, appears to indicate that the impact of HIV spending on other major health problems, particularly the Millennium Development Goals on child mortality and maternal mortality, has been limited to date, despite compelling evidence of the impact of HIV on child and maternal mortality, particularly in southern Africa. Other studies presented at the Conference were less clear-cut in their findings. For example, research in Rwanda, which compared 26 pairs of health centres \u2013 one providing HIV care and the other not \u2013 found that, although centres providing HIV care showed a trend towards better outcomes with regard to a range of indicators including child immunisation, adult and child hospitalisation and curative visits to the health centre, the only indicator on which HIV clinics did significantly better was providing BCG vaccinations to all patients. Researchers agreed that more research was needed, looking in particular at a wider range of settings and services, and taking into account the effects of other recent global health initiatives, notably GAVI, which has been supporting the purchase of vaccines for child immunisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Increasing access to health workers in remote and rural areas through improved retention: Global policy recommendations ","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: July 2010 ","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241564014_eng.pdf","body":"The World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) recommendations focus on education, regulatory mechanisms, financial incentives, and personal and professional support. In terms of education, WHO recommends that countries use targeted admission policies to enrol students with a rural background in education programmes to increase the likelihood of graduates choosing to practise in rural areas. Undergraduate students should be exposed to rural community experiences and clinical rotations and study curricula should be revised to include rural health topics. Regulatory recommendations include introducing and regulating enhanced scopes of practice in rural and remote areas to increase the potential for job satisfaction. Compulsory service requirements in rural and remote areas should be accompanied with appropriate support and incentives to increase recruitment and subsequent retention of health professionals in these areas. Governments should use a combination of fiscally sustainable financial incentives, such as hardship allowances, grants for housing, free transportation and paid vacations, to improve rural retention. Personal and professional support should also be offered by improving living conditions for health workers and their families and investing in infrastructure and services. A good and safe working environment should be provided, with sufficient equipment and supplies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequalities in child survival: Looking at wealth and other socio-economic disparities in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Garde M and Sabina N: Save the Children UK, 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3xl9u43","body":"The analysis in this paper illustrates that the child survival picture \u2013 in terms of rate and inequality \u2013 varies in the developing world, highlighting the importance of differentiated child survival strategies between middle- and low-income countries. In many countries, reductions in child mortality among poorer households have been smaller than for the higher income groups. Once child mortality is concentrated among lower income groups \u2013 as is the case in many middle-income countries \u2013 major efforts to reduce child mortality should be equalising, but these require a focus on systematic interventions rather than \u2018quick win\u2019 strategies. On the other hand, under-five mortality in low-income countries is usually high not only among the poorest quintile, but in the bottom 40\u201360% of the population, suggesting the need for more comprehensive strategies to reduce under-five mortality across a broader spectrum of the population. \r\nThe paper argues that neonatal mortality tends to fall more slowly than under-five mortality, since reducing it needs longer-term and relatively more expensive interventions associated with functioning health systems. This indicates that while there are quick wins that can help improve child survival, middle-income countries (and low-income ones that have relatively low child mortality rates) need to focus more on reducing neonatal deaths.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Keeping a watch: Good news from the AU, and threats from the IP enforcement agenda ","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET newsletter","field_url":"","body":"In this issue we bring news of cause to celebrate, but also a call for action on an expanding IP enforcement agenda that challenges our rights to health. In the section on 'Resource allocation and health financing' we welcome the heads of state restatement of their 2001 Abuja commitment to allocate at least 15% of annual budgets to health. EQUINET was part of this campaign (have a look at Newsletter #113) and while we recognise that 15% of government's own spending may not be sufficient resources for health,  it does signal a prioritisation of the domestic and public sector role in health. This newsletter editorial draws our attention to an issue that needs attention, and more than that, action. In the competition between social rights to health, and private rights to intellectual property, our dependence on medicines purchased from outside Africa makes us weak defenders of rights to health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya clamps down on bogus herbalists","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 17 August 2010","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=90194","body":"The Kenyan government is drafting new regulations to stop fraudulent herbalists claiming to be able to treat diseases, including HIV, from practising. Anybody found selling untested herbal products will face legal action for \u2018endangering people's lives,\u2019 said Jayesh Pandit, head of pharmacovigilance at the Pharmacy and Poisons Board. The Pharmacy and Poisons Board has registered 300 legitimate herbalists, but thousands more are practising outside the law, often selling useless or even harmful products to desperate patients. According to the World Health Organization, up to 80% of Africans use traditional medicine. The government is planning to introduce a \u2018Traditional Medicines Practitioners Bill\u2019, which will regulate the use of herbal medicines and define the punishment to be handed down to herbalists practising illegally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya: Health Sector Support Project","field_subtitle":"World Bank: 29 June 2010 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/37kbxr2","body":"The objectives of the Health Sector Support Project (HSSP) for Kenya, which is funded by the World Bank, are to improve: the delivery of essential health services for Kenyans, especially the poor; and the effectiveness of planning, financing and procurement of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies. There are two components to the project, the first component being effective and transparent implementation of the Kenya Essential Package for Health (KEPH) through Health Sector Services Fund (HSSF) grants and performance strengthening. The project will support the effective implementation of the KEPH, through financing the HSSF targeted at health service delivery levels one, two, and three. The HSSF aims to improve the delivery of quality essential services, especially at the sub-district and community levels, in an equitable and efficient manner, through: generating and providing sufficient resources for implementing each facility's Annual Operational Plan (AOP) to address preventive, promotive, and curative services at levels one, two, and three, and to account for them in an efficient, and transparent manner according to current government systems; and supporting capacity building in the management of health facilities. Finally, the second component is the availability of essential health commodities and supply chain management reform. This component will be implemented in parallel with the HSSF, to ensure an improved availability of commodities in, and enhance the quality of care provided at, the lower levels of the public health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Learning from maternal and child health successes in Africa","field_subtitle":"World Bank: 23 July 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/32se6uj","body":"This article focuses on a number of countries in Africa that have made improvements in their health outcomes and that are on their way to meeting their health Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets, including Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda. Infant mortality fell by over 40% in Tanzania, from 99 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1999 to 58 in 2007-08, which suggests that the country can reach its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target by 2015. Under-five mortality has also declined, from 146 deaths per 1,000 live births to 91. After a period of stagnation during which infant and child mortality rates deteriorated and life expectancy dropped, Kenya has recently made very significant progress, reversing its negative health trends between 2003 and 2007. The 2008 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) reveals remarkable declines in infant and under-five mortality rates in this period (from 77 to 52, and from 115 to 74, per 1000 live births, respectively). After the 1994 conflict, which took a great toll on the health sector, Rwanda entered the 21st century with one of the weakest health systems in the world. Yet today it shows some very strong health results. Assisted childbirths rose from 39% in 2005 to 52 percent in 2008; while under-5 mortality fell by a third, from 152 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2005 to 103 in 2008. And the use of modern contraception has increased from 10% to 27% in just three years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Making motherhood and childhood safer: Scaling up AIDS services accelerates progress towards all health goals","field_subtitle":"International AIDS Society: June 2010","field_url":"http://www.iasociety.org/Web/WebContent/File/MCH_paper_June_2010.pdf","body":"According to this paper, the world is off track in meeting the Millennium Development Health Goals. It urges world leaders and other stakeholders to accelerate progress to reach the goals set to improve maternal and child health. It calls for rapid expansion of antiretroviral coverage for women with HIV in order to reduce maternal mortality, rapid expansion of antiretroviral treatment for all men and women with HIV, the integration of services to prevent HIV transmission to infants and to achieve rapid paediatric HIV diagnosis across all sexual and reproductive health services and all services for newborns. Governments are urged to provide support to implement the most effective antiretroviral regimens to prevent HIV transmission to infants and scale up efforts to diagnose HIV in children, expand ART for children and the paper argues that expanded funding for the Global Fund is required to bring it in line with its most ambitious scenario of USD$20 billion for the next three years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Making the web work for scientific research","field_subtitle":"Science Online London, 16 August 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.scienceonlinelondon.org/blog/","body":"In preparation for the Science Online London 2010 Conference, which will be held from 3-4 September 2010 in London, United Kingdom, this video provides information on how the web is changing the way researchers conduct, communicate, share, and evaluate their work. The video is a panel discussion with Jimmy Watson, Stephen Friend and John Wilbanks, which is moderated by Tim O\u2019Reilly. Some of the topics they talk about will also be discussed at Science Online London, such as new platforms for collaboration, networking and sharing research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Mass HIV testing campaign unjustified if people fail to receive treatment, activist argues","field_subtitle":"Pebody R: Aidsmap, 27 July 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/page/1496528/","body":"In his address to the Eighteenth International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Mark Heywood of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has warned that South Africa\u2019s campaign to test 15 million people for HIV in one year risks being implemented in a way that undermines people\u2019s human rights. Incidents of coercive testing have been recorded but the lack of effective monitoring procedures means that it\u2019s impossible to know whether those incidents are widespread or not. The testing campaign is a means to an end, and not of value in itself, he said. Unless the campaign delivers on its promise to link newly diagnosed people into treatment services, then the means to achieve this end will be unjustifiable. He noted human rights concerns about a lack of monitoring of \u2018adverse events\u2019, such as whether a person who is diagnosed with HIV then suffers discrimination, suffers violence or gains access to treatment. Incidents of refusing HIV-positive patients access to health services have been recorded by the TAC in South Africa. Heywood said it was unclear whether such incidents were rare or widespread, but that any violations of basic principles should be taken seriously.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Meeting report: The role and functioning of Medical Aid Societies in Zimbabwe ","field_subtitle":"TARSC, SEATINI, Zimbabwe MoHCW and EQUINET: August 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/CapflowsZim%20mtgrepJuly10.pdf","body":"The national review meeting on the role of the medical aid societies in Zimbabwe was convened by TARSC, SEATINI with collaboration from the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, and support from the Southern African Health Trust through ISER, Rhodes University, in EQUINET. The activity was one of a series in a regional programme on capital flows in the health sector in southern Africa co-ordinated by ISER. The workshop brought together researchers, policy makers, health sector regulators and the medical aid societies to discuss issues around the flow and impact of capital flows through medical aid societies in the health sector in Zimbabwe. The review workshop guided by the research work that was implemented in Zimbabwe by TARSC and SEATINI on capital flows in the health sector, separately reported in EQUINET discussion paper 82. The meeting raised issues in relation to the functioning of medical aid societies and made recommendations to address them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Mortality and health among internally displaced persons in western Kenya following post-election violence, 2008: Novel use of demographic surveillance","field_subtitle":"Feikin DR, Adazu K, Obor D, Ogwang S, Vulule J, Hamela MJ and Laserson K: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 601\u2013608, August 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/8/09-069732.pdf","body":"This study\u2019s objective was to evaluate mortality and morbidity among internally displaced persons (IDPs) who relocated in a demographic surveillance system (DSS) area in western Kenya following post-election violence. In 2007, 204 000 individuals lived in the DSS area, where field workers visited households every four months to record migrations, births and deaths. Between December 2007 and May 2008, 16,428 IDPs migrated into the DSS, and over half of them stayed six months or longer. In 2008, IDPs aged 15\u201349 years died at higher rates than regular residents of the DSS. A greater percentage of deaths from HIV infection occurred among IDPs aged &#8805; 5 years (53%) than among regular DSS residents (25\u201329%). Internally displaced children < 5 years of age did not die at higher rates than resident children but were hospitalised at higher rates. In conclusion, HIV-infected internally displaced adults in conflict-ridden parts of Africa were found to be at increased risk of HIV-related death. Relief efforts should extend to IDPs who have relocated outside IDP camps, particularly if afflicted with HIV infection or other chronic conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Multidrug and extensively drug-resistant TB (M/XDR-TB): 2010 global report on surveillance and response","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2010","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241599191_eng.pdf","body":"According to this report, in 2008, an estimated 390 000\u2013510 000 cases of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) emerged globally (best estimate, 440 000 cases). Among all incident TB cases globally, 3.6% are estimated to have MDR-TB. The report notes that more data on drug resistance has become available and estimates of the global MDR-TB burden have been improved. Even in settings gravely affected by drug resistance, it is possible to control MDR-TB, although new findings presented in this report give reason to be cautiously optimistic that drug-resistant TB can be controlled. While information available is growing and more and more countries are taking measures to combat MDRTB, urgent investments in infrastructure, diagnostics, and provision of care are essential if the target established for 2015 \u2013 the diagnosis and treatment of 80% of the estimated MDR-TB and extensively drug-resistant TB cases \u2013 is to be reached.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New health research website for Africa","field_subtitle":"The Initiative to Strengthen Health Research Capacity in Africa","field_url":"http://ishreca.tropika.net/","body":"The Initiative to Strengthen Health Research Capacity in Africa (ISHReCA) is an African-led initiative aimed at building a strong foundation for health research in Africa. ISHReCA was born out of consultative meetings between African researchers and research funders and aims to serve as a forum for African scientist to collate ideas about capacity building and to speak to funders collectively. It emphasises a comprehensive approach to capacity building that leads to sustained increase recruitment, training and retention of African scientists. This website serves three key purposes. First, it provides a forum for African health researchers to discuss capacity building needs and approaches. These discussions will be used to negotiate with funders' innovative initiatives for capacity building and to give feedback to funders on current capacity building initiatives. Second, it is a resource tool for providing up-to-date information on capacity building to African health researchers. Third, it is a tool for collecting information for an African health researchers\u2019 database, which will hopefully be used to facilitate the development of collaboration networks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Operational Hospital Management Conference 2010","field_subtitle":"Johannesburg, South Africa: 4-6 August 2010","field_url":"http://www.ohmc.co.za","body":"The Operational Hospital Management Conference is aimed at improving performance and the quality of services at public hospitals. It offers a learning and sharing opportunity for all management levels within South Africa\u2019s public hospitals and health care sector. It will assist healthcare management with practical solutions to meet the ever-increasing demands being placed on services, clinical and hospital resources. Determined by continuous research, the programme explores the key aspects and issues that healthcare management is faced with today. The programme provides a robust agenda of keynote and case study presentations and panel discussions. The Conference will focus on key industry issues presented in a combination of keynote presentations and panel discussions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Out of the Box Prize 2010 for Community Health and Development","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: 31 October 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/38tfmj6","body":"Community Toolbox, a global resource of free information on essential skills for building healthy communities is inviting applications for its Out of the Box Prize 2010. The Prize has been established to honour innovative approaches to promoting community health and development worldwide. Non-governmental organisations and other groups working in the areas of community health, education, urban or rural development, poverty, the environment, social justice or other related issues of importance to communities in any part of the world can apply for the Prize. The Prize is looking for innovative and promising approaches implemented in these areas. Innovative approaches may include \u2018a unique or effective way of planning or implementing a change effort, creative use of existing community resources, original ways of generating participation and collaboration, implementing a best practice within a new context or group, or other innovative and promising approaches. The grand prize consists of a US$5,000 cash award and a customised WorkStation for your organisation to the value of $2,100.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Overcoming barriers to improved research on the social determinants of health","field_subtitle":"Baum F: MEDICC Review 12(3): 36\u201338, July 2010","field_url":"http://www.medicc.org/mediccreview/articles/mr_156.pdf","body":"This paper examines the recommendations of the World Health Organization's Commission on the Social Determinants of Health regarding the need for improved research on determinants of health inequity and discusses the following barriers to implementation of those recommendations: the power of the biomedical imagination in health and medical research; emphasis on vertical health programming; ideological biases outweighing evidence in policy decisions; and academic reward systems, including the inherent conservatism of peer review. The paper concludes with suggestions for changing research funding and assessment systems to overcome these barriers, for example by setting the agenda for social determinants research in consultation with researchers, policy actors and, wherever possible, relevant affected communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Ownership and usage of insecticide-treated bed nets after free distribution via a voucher system in two provinces of Mozambique","field_subtitle":"De Oliveira AM, Wolkon A, Krishnamurthy R, Erskine M, Crenshaw DP, Roberts J and Sa\u00fate F: Malaria Journal 9(222), 4 August 2010","field_url":"http://malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-9-222.pdf","body":"During a national immunisation campaign in Mozambique, vouchers, which were to be redeemed at a later date for free insecticide-treated nets (ITNs), were distributed in Manica and Sofala provinces. A survey to evaluate ITN ownership and usage post-campaign was conducted. Four districts in each province and four enumeration areas (EAs) in each district were selected using probability proportional to size. Valid interviews were completed for 947 of the 1,024 selected households (HHs). HH ownership of at least one bed net of any kind was, in Manica and Sofala respectively, 20.6% and 35.6% pre-campaign and 55.1% and 59.6 post-campaign. The researchers conclude that ITN distribution increased bed net ownership and usage rates. Integration of ITN distribution with immunisation campaigns presents an opportunity for reaching malaria control targets and should continue to be considered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Peer educator programme reaches sex workers in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 11 August 2010","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=90129","body":"Sex Workers Outreach Programme (SWOP) is a project run by the University of Nairobi and Canada's University of Manitoba, which trains sex workers to be peer educators for other sex workers and inform them about sexual health and rights. Through the SWOP programme, educators have enabled more than 3,000 of their Nairobi peers to get tested for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. They have also taught them skills to negotiate condom use with their clients. Since 2008, the SWOP clinic in Nairobi, which is open 24 hours a day, has provided HIV prevention services to more than 7,000 commercial sex workers, 150 of them male. The HIV prevalence among those tested is 33 percent. The prevention package includes condom demonstration and provision, sexually transmitted infection screening and treatment, family planning and post-exposure prophylaxis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Progamme aims to get South African men tested for HIV and involved in PMTCT","field_subtitle":"Bodibe K: Health-e News, 5 August 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032885","body":"You Can Count on Me is a Pepfar-funded programme in South Africa that aims to change men\u2019s behaviour and to educate them about the prevention of HIV transmission from mother to child (PMTCT). The programme trains men to understand what HIV is, how it\u2019s transmitted, how to prevent it in the general population, to protect babies from getting it and to help their partners along the journey of pregnancy. Model students in these workshops are then selected to train other men across the nine provinces. Approximately 10,000 men have been reached through face-to-face community meetings. The programme provides support for men to become involved in the pregnancy of their partners, as it regards men\u2019s sexual behaviour as one of the main drivers of the HIV and AIDS epidemic in southern Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Protecting the rights of sexual minorities in the fight against HIV ","field_subtitle":"Bako JC: International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association: 3 August 2010","field_url":"http://ilga.org/ilga/en/article/my6NIpy1Hf","body":"The AIDS 2010 conference theme emphasises the central importance of protecting and promoting human rights as a prerequisite to a successful response to HIV. The right to dignity and self-determination for key affected populations, to equal access to health care and life-saving prevention and treatment programmes, and the right to evidence-based interventions based on evidence rather than ideology are all incorporated in this urgent demand for action. Rights Here, Rights Now, a campaign launched by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, emphasises that concrete human rights measures need to be in place to protect those most vulnerable to and affected by HIV, especially women and girls, people who use drugs, migrants, prisoners, sex workers, men who have sex with men and transgender persons.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-private partnerships for public health ","field_subtitle":"Reich MR (ed): Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, 2002","field_url":"http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/michael-reich/files/Partnerships_book.PDF","body":"Global health problems require global solutions, and public-private partnerships are increasingly being called upon to provide these solutions. These partnerships involve private corporations in collaboration with governments, international agencies and non-governmental organisations. According to this book, they can be very productive, but they also bring their own problems. The book examines the organisational and ethical challenges of partnerships and suggests ways to address them. It considers issues such as creating shared objectives and shared values in a partnership, and fostering and sustaining trust among partners in times of conflict and uncertainty. It focuses on public-private partnerships that seek to expand the use of specific products to improve health conditions in poor countries and includes case studies of partnerships involving specific diseases such as trachoma and river blindness, international organisations such as the World Health Organization, multinational pharmaceutical companies, and products such as medicines and vaccines. Individual chapters draw lessons from successful partnerships, as well as troubled ones, to help guide efforts to reduce global health disparities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Report of the 1st Regional Monitoring and Evaluation Expert Core Group, 12-16 July 2010, Harare, Zimbabwe ","field_subtitle":"ECSA-HC, MoHCW Zimbabwe, Tides Foundation, USAID and EQUINET: August 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ECSA%20M&E%20ExpGp%20Report.pdf","body":"The ECSA Secretariat organised the first Regional Monitoring and Evaluation Expert Core Group meeting in Harare Zimbabwe from 12th to 16th July 2010. The participants came from Member States of Tanzania, Kenya, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique and Mauritius and international partners, namely EQUINET, UNICEF, ESARO, WHOIST/ESA and USAID-EA. The meeting deliberated and agreed on the Terms of Reference for the regional M&E Expert Group. The meeting also updated the HMC Monitoring tool, adopted with amendments the Regional Core set of indicators that will be used to monitor progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), finalised the M & E Framework, developed indicators to monitor the implementation of the HMC resolutions and included indicators to monitor health equity in order to address inequalities in health in the region. In addition, the meeting resolved that it was necessary to monitor other codes, protocols and conventions such as the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International recruitment of health personnel. The indicators and the monitoring tools agreed upon by the expert core group will not only make it easier to compare member states in progress towards achieving the MDGs, addressing equity issues in health and implementation of the HMC resolutions, but also will be valuable in evaluation of in country changes from the baseline. The meeting also discussed, reviewed and adopted the Equity watch work in east and southern African countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Reproductive health and human rights: The way forward","field_subtitle":"Reichenbach L and Roseman MJ (eds): University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009","field_url":"http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14623.html","body":"This book is a collection of 16 critical essays by leading scholars and practitioners in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights. Each author analyses the legacy of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) from a different perspective or focuses on a particular topic. They examine strengths, weaknesses and whether and how the ICPD mandate can still be used to improve sexual and reproductive health. Given the complexities and challenges of implementing and continuing to take forward the ICPD agenda after more than fifteen years, the undertaking in this volume is laudable. The essays all contain some dimension that should be of interest to a variety of readers. Some provide historical background which might otherwise be forgotten. Several other authors point out that the absence of reproductive health in the initial targets for the Millennium Development Goals was a serious setback. While the target of \u2018universal access to reproductive health\u2019 has since been added, one of the essays, \u2018Mobilising resources for reproductive health\u2019, points out that a strong evidence base is needed to demonstrate that poor reproductive health outcomes do, in fact, undermine the chances of the poor to escape poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Research for health equity: Knowing is not enough","field_subtitle":"Editorial: MEDICC Review 12(3): 3, July 2010","field_url":"http://www.medicc.org/mediccreview/articles/mr_148.pdf","body":"In 1990, a report from the Commission on Health Research for Development pointed to the gross imbalance between the magnitude of diseases affecting the world\u2019s poor majority and the meager funds spent on research to fight them. Responding to growing momentum, in 1997 the Global Forum for Health Research was founded to address this skewed research agenda. In the editorial, the editors of MEDICC Review reviews progress made since 1997 in terms of the Global Forum\u2019s agenda. They refer to the contributions of Cuba and other developing nations to the evidence suggesting that only through simultaneous development of technologies and public health strategies can disease be effectively tackled and prevented. In turn, this requires the political will to consciously develop health research capacities and a health research system with lines of investigation well-matched to disease burden and national public health priorities. Since 1997, when lack of financing for biomedical research on diseases of the poor was the main health equity concern, over time the health equity lens has revealed other, more complex dimensions of the factors influencing research priorities and the eventual application of their findings. The editors argue that this requires an approach that moves the debate from issues of biomedical and technological research to introduce tough questions about implementation, bringing in discussion of health systems, social innovation, and ways for equity-guided research to become more influential in policy decisions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Scale-up of a decentralised HIV treatment programme in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: Does rapid expansion affect patient outcomes?","field_subtitle":"Mutevedzi PC, Lessells RJ, Heller T, Barnighausen T, Cookea GS and Newell M: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 593\u2013600, August 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/8/09-069419.pdf","body":"This study aimed to describe the scale-up of a decentralised HIV treatment programme delivered through the primary health care system in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, and to assess trends in baseline characteristics and outcomes in the study population. A total of 5,719 adults who initiated ART between October 2004 and September 2008 were included and stratified into six-month groups. There was an increase in the proportion of women who initiated ART while pregnant but no change in other baseline characteristics over time. Overall retention in care at 12 months was 84%, while 10.9% died and 3.7% were lost to follow-up. Mortality was highest in the first three months after ART initiation, with 30.1 deaths per 100 person\u2013years. At twelve months, 23% had a detectable viral load. The study concluded that outcomes were not affected by rapid expansion of this decentralised HIV treatment programme. The relatively high rates of detectable viral load highlight the need for further efforts to improve the quality of services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Scaling up integration: Development and results of a participatory assessment of HIV/TB services, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Scott V, Chopra M, Azevedo V, Caldwell J, Naidoo P and Smuts B: Health Research Policy and Systems 8(23), 13 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/8/1/23","body":"This research was set in public primary care services in Cape Town, South Africa and aims to determine how middle level managers could be empowered to monitor the implementation of an effective, integrated HIV/TB/STI service. A team of managers and researchers designed an evaluation tool to measure implementation of key components of an integrated HIV/TB/STI package with a focus on integration. The tool was extensively piloted in two rounds involving 49 clinics in 2003 and 2004. A subsequent evaluation of 16 clinics was done in February 2006. While the physical infrastructure and staff were available, there was problem with capacity in that there was insufficient staff training. Weaknesses were identified in quality of care and continuity of care (only 24% of clients diagnosed with HIV were followed up for medical assessment). Facility and programme managers felt that the evaluation tool generated information that was useful to manage the programmes at facility and district level. On the basis of the results facility managers drew up action plans to address three areas of weakness within their own facility. This use of the tool which is designed to empower programme and facility managers demonstrates how engaging middle managers is crucial in translating policies into relevant actions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Seven strategies for smarter HIV programmes","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 22 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=89923","body":"IRIN/PlusNews has put together a list of seven ways in which HIV service providers could cut costs and improve their efficiency. Task-shifting has already seen positive results in Ethiopia, Malawi and Mozambique, but insufficiently trained medical staff can be harmful to national antiretroviral (ARV) programmes. Community support also plays a significant role in HIV education and care in many poor countries where relatives and neighbours often help to monitor patients and raise awareness about HIV. The cost of combination ARV therapy has come down significantly from about US$10,000 per person per year in 2000 to about $88 a year. However, second- and third-line anti-retrovirals are still prohibitively expensive for low-income countries. Simpler drug delivery systems will help reduce the amount of money spent on non-drug-related costs, especially as between two-thirds and 80% of money spent on HIV is related to service delivery, patient monitoring and laboratory costs. Using technology, such as SMS-based check-ups, may help save patients the costs of travelling to a clinic every month. Country ownership and health system integration are also crucial for success in fighting HIV in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Child Gauge 2009/2010","field_subtitle":"Kibel M, Lake L, Pendlebury P and Smith C (eds): Children's Institute, University of Cape Town, 2010","field_url":"http://www.ci.org.za/depts/ci/pubs/pdf/general/gauge2009-10/south_african_child_gauge_09-10.pdf","body":"The South African Child Gauge monitors the realisation of children\u2019s rights and is published annually. Key features include: legislative developments affecting children; child-centred data tracking children\u2019s access to social assistance, education, housing, health and other services; and a series of essays to inform, focus and sometimes direct national dialogue and debate.  While South Africa is making progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target on sustainable access to safe drinking water, this has not trickled down to children \u2013 only 64% of children have access to safe drinking water on site. Progress has been slow for access to basic sanitation, education and gender equality. On the MDG targets for reducing child hunger, HIV, tuberculosis and child mortality, South Africa is not making any progress, according to the Gauge. South Africa has also failed to submit its reports on progress in relation to implementing the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child \u2013 the key accountability mechanism aimed at monitoring South Africa\u2019s progress in promoting the maximum survival and development of children. The report further notes that South Africa is one of only twelve countries worldwide that has failed to reduce child mortality since 1990.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"South African government must guarantee health service delivery in the Eastern Cape","field_subtitle":"Public Service Accountability Monitor: 30 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.psam.org.za/newsitem.php?nid=1367","body":"In this statement, the Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM)points out that, by the end of the 2009/10 financial year, the Eastern Cape Department of Health had accrued debt of approximately US$ 245 million. PSAM argues that this overspending was largely as a result of underfunded and unbudgeted mandates relating to human resources, as well as higher than expected costs for pharmaceuticals and laboratory services. It notes that the debt has already resulted in stock-outs of basic medicines, but cautions that the issue is not only one of inadequate funding. Over the last ten years the Eastern Cape Department of Health has consistently received poor audit opinions from the Auditor General. These opinions have revealed that chronic financial mismanagement continues to result in the misuse and misappropriation of public funds. This means that even those resources which are available have not been used appropriately. The PSAM calls on the National Department of Health and the National Treasury to make public details of the Eastern Cape Department of Health\u2019s financial status, and to publicly guarantee that no patients in the province will be refused basic treatments because of a shortage of medicines and medical supplies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening health systems at facility level: Feasibility of integrating antiretroviral therapy into primary health care services in Lusaka, Zambia","field_subtitle":"Topp SM, Chipukuma JM, Giganti M, Mwango LK, Chiko LM et al: PLoS ONE 5(7): e11522, 13 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0011522","body":"This paper presents results from a feasibility study of a fully integrated model of HIV and non-HIV outpatient services in two urban Lusaka clinics. Assessment of feasibility included monitoring rates of HIV case-finding and referral to care, measuring median waiting and consultation times and assessing adherence to clinical care protocols for HIV and non-HIV outpatients. Provider and patient interviews at both of the sites in the study indicated broad acceptability of the model and highlighted a perceived reduction in stigma associated with integrated HIV services. The paper noted that integrating vertical anti-retroviral therapy and outpatient services is feasible in the low-resource and high HIV-prevalence setting of Lusaka, Zambia. Integration enabled shared use of space and staffing that resulted in increased HIV case finding, a reduction in stigma associated with vertical ART services but resulted in an overall increase in patient waiting times. Further research is required to assess long-term clinical outcomes and cost effectiveness in order to evaluate scalability and generalisability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Synthesis report on the first phase of the evaluation of the implementation of the Paris Declaration","field_subtitle":"Wood B, Kabell D, Sagasti F and Muwanga N: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, July 2008","field_url":"http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/19/9/40888983.pdf","body":"This report synthesises the results of the first evaluation of the early implementation of the Paris Declaration, from March 2005 to late 2007. It comprises extensive assessments in eight countries, together with \u2018lighter\u2019 studies on eleven development partner agencies, focusing at the headquarters level. It found that the principle of ownership has gained much greater prominence since 2005, although the evaluations show that the practical meaning and boundaries of country ownership and leadership often remain difficult to define. The evaluations do not suggest any backsliding on harmonisation, but neither do they indicate any overall trend toward progress. All the evaluations convey a sense that the joint processes for tracking progress and resolving problems fall short in terms of mutual accountability. Development agency and partner country evaluations reveal that, despite clear commitments to alignment, implementation of the various components of alignment set out in the Paris Declaration has been highly uneven.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The African Peer Review Mechanism: A compilation of studies of the process in nine African countries","field_subtitle":"Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA): 2010","field_url":"http://drop.io/melissajulian3/asset/aprm-process-studies-open-society-0710-pdf","body":"This compilation includes peer reviews on government accountability from Kenya and South Africa. The Kenyan review concluded that, while the reviewing process yielded a lot of data it was not as empowering and inclusive as it should have been and did not foster significant dialogue between Kenya\u2019s government and its people. This was in part due to the way the self-assessment was carried out and also because it was focused on the efficiency and effectiveness of government, and not democratic decision-making and human rights. The South African review concluded that, while the reviewing process had many strengths, it had too great a level of government control, an overly ambitious timetable, and lacked meaningful civil society input.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The DDT debacle: Are we poisoning rural communities?","field_subtitle":"Basson W: Science in Africa, May 2010","field_url":"http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2010/may/ddt_final.htm","body":"This paper inputs to the debate on use of DDT in Africa. Its use has been promoted due to its effectiveness in controlling malaria at population level, with significant mortality declines. The author of this paper notes that DDT is used for malaria control in high-risk areas such as KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo and that high levels of DDT and one of its byproducts, DDE were found in the water, sediment, soil, vegetables, chicken and fish meat in Limpopo, a province bordering Zimbabwe and Mozambique, with possible health and cancer risks. According to the Limpopo Malaria Control Programme, this area has been sprayed with DDT annually since 1966. The article recommends further research to focus on human exposure and health effects in communities where DDT is currently being sprayed for malaria control. Noting the effetiveness of spraying as a means of cintrol he argues for more research into the development of safe and effective alternatives to DDT.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The economic consequences of \u2018brain drain\u2019 of the best and brightest: Microeconomic evidence from five countries","field_subtitle":"Gibson J and McKenzie D: World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 5394, 1 August 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2uplcsg","body":"The \u2018brain drain\u2019 has long been a common concern for migrant-sending countries, particularly for small countries where high-skilled emigration rates are highest. However, while economic theory suggests a number of possible benefits, in addition to costs, from skilled emigration, the evidence base on many of these is very limited, according to this review. Moreover, the lessons from case studies of benefits from skilled emigration may not be relevant to much smaller countries. This paper presents the results of innovative surveys which tracked academic high-achievers to wherever they moved in the world in order to directly measure at the micro level the channels through which high-skilled emigration affects the sending country. The results show that there are very high levels of emigration and of return migration among the very highly skilled. The income gains to the best and brightest from migrating are very large, and an order of magnitude or more greater than any other effect. There are large benefits from migration in terms of postgraduate education. Most high-skilled migrants from poorer countries send remittances; but involvement in trade and foreign direct investment is a rare occurrence. There is considerable knowledge flow from both current and return migrants about job and study opportunities abroad, but little net knowledge sharing from current migrants to home country governments or businesses. Finally, the fiscal costs vary considerably across countries, and depend on the extent to which governments rely on progressive income taxation \u2013 the greater the reliance on progressive taxation, the higher the fiscal cost of losing health professionals to the economy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The effect of fiscal policy on diet, obesity and chronic disease: A systematic review","field_subtitle":"Thow AM, Jan S, Leeder S and Swinburn B: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 609\u2013614, August 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/8/09-070987.pdf","body":"This study\u2019s objective was to assess the effect of food taxes and subsidies on diet, body weight and health through a systematic review of the literature. Researchers searched the English-language published and grey literature for empirical and modelling studies on the effects of monetary subsidies or taxes levied on specific food products on consumption habits, body weight and chronic conditions. Twenty-four studies met the inclusion criteria. The study found that, in general, taxes and subsidies influenced consumption in the desired direction, with larger taxes being associated with more significant changes in consumption, body weight and disease incidence. However, studies that focused on a single target food or nutrient may have overestimated the impact of taxes by failing to take into account shifts in consumption to other foods. The quality of the evidence was generally low. The study concludes that food taxes and subsidies have the potential to contribute to healthy consumption patterns at the population level. However, the empirical evaluation of existing taxes should become a research priority, along with research into the effectiveness and differential impact of food taxes in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Emperor Unclothed: Intellectual Property Rights or Human Rights ","field_subtitle":"Riaz K. Tayob,  SEATINI South Africa","field_url":"","body":"The 18 to 23 July International AIDS Conference held in Vienna this year, subtitled \u201cRights Here, Right Now\u201d was a platform to raise, yet again, the values based universal and indivisible human rights and the political commitments that inform our response, globally, to the unacceptable level of new HIV infection and mortality from AIDS. At the same time the shrinking provision of aid to low income countries and persistence of avoidable inequities globally in the progressive realisation of these rights starkly raises the reality of the competition between social rights to health, and private rights to intellectual property. \r\n\r\nInternational aid to developing countries has declined in the past two years, with a fall of $1.1 billion in high income country support for developing country AIDS programmes between 2008 and 2009, according to UNAIDS and Kaiser Foundation. At the same time rich countries continue to pursue with vigour stronger protections for intellectual property rights (IPR) \u2013 in what is now known as the \u2018IP Enforcement  Agenda\u201d. The effects of strong IPR protection may have been abated in earlier years by aid support for purchase of patented medicines, but low income countries seeking to meet needs in the current financial squeeze by procuring cheaper options or initiating their own local production of  medicines, including of anti-retrovirals, face an unabated challenge to their implementing even those measures that are legal under the World Trade Organisation's (WTO's) Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement. \r\n\r\nThe fall in funding to AIDS has itself been challenged by many, including the President of the International AIDS Society, Dr. Julio Montaner, and Stephen Lewis (former UN special envoy for HIV/Aids in Africa). As Dr Montaner  said: \u201cInternational governments say we face a crisis of resources, but that is simply not true: The challenge is not finding money, but changing priorities. When there is a Wall Street emergency or an energy crisis, billions upon billions of dollars are quickly mobilized. People\u2019s health deserves a similar financial response and much higher priority.\u201d\r\n\r\nAt the same time the fall in funding has made very clear the need to implement long-standing calls by progressive civil society to put in place more predictable means of global financing, and for African countries to maximise use of TRIPS flexibilities and to advance local production of pharmaceuticals. Yet is it precisely in this arena that measures are being taken to strengthen and enforce intellectual property rights and reduce the flexibilities needed by developing countries. There have been numerous examples of this, included those reported in prior issues of the EQUINET newsletter. \r\n\r\nMeasures to reinforce IPRs include in regional and bilateral agreements provisions that exceed TRIPs  requirements and reduce the flexibilities provided by TRIPS (TRIPS plus); and also pressures on African countries not to exercise rights to compulsory licensing or parallel importation. The EU, which stated its commitment to access to medicines, has pursued measures that exceed TRIPs obligations in its trade agreements with developing countries including with India, in spite of an EU Parliamentary resolution on 12 July 2007 (P6_TA(2007)0353) urging it not to do so. There have been seizures in the EU of generic medicines in transit, not destined for Europe, performed at the insistence of EU pharmaceutical companies for allegedly  being  counterfeit. The EU has contributed to work on anti-counterfeiting legislation in East African countries that has raised new IPR restrictions on legitimate generic medicines, defining them within the scope of counterfeits (see EQUINET Newsletter 111). Similar seizure laws are being  supported through a global initiative called IMPACT.\r\n\r\nSignificantly at the July AIDS conference, attention was also drawn to the use by the USA of  its  \u2018Special 301\u2019 law which it uses to list and \u201cshame\u201d countries for violating US commercial interests by not providing sufficient protection to IPRs. Health Gap, the Foundation for AIDS Rights and the Thai Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS with others have filed a complaint with the UN's Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Anand Grover, alleging that use of this law reduces access to medicines in low and middle income nations and violates international human rights obligations.\r\n \r\nGlobal institutions appear to be offering weak protection to developing countries in their efforts to assert their rights, and the rights and flexibilities provided for in global treaties. In the 2006/7, during the WHO's negotiations on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (for so-called \u201cneglected diseases\u201d) efforts were made to contain the challenge to IPRs from neglected diseases by including a proposal to limit the scope of the discussion to only 14 diseases, a due process violation as no country proposed this for inclusion in the negotiating text.  The IMPACT programme referred to earlier has had an association with WHO that was heavily criticised at the 2010 World Health Assembly. The WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), instead of the defending the flexibilities provided in its own instruments through multilateral measures, has allowed the US room for unilateralism on its Special 301 law in a January 1999 dispute  raised by the European Community. This was a decision that Chakravarthi Raghavan of the South-North  Development Monitor termed as blatantly based on politics, rather than legal interpretation.  \r\n\r\nAlmost a decade since the 2001 Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health made the important step of asserting more clearly the rights countries already enjoyed to promote access to medicines, few countries  have been able to use the rights enshrined in it. The Declaration was needed then because poor countries were precluded from using these rights by the rich countries. The cases cited in this editorial suggest that the last decade has been one of countless efforts to restrict and reverse those rights.\r\n\r\nThis is in a context where the latest WHO treatment guidelines recommend that people with HIV should start treatment earlier, bringing treatment for people in developing countries in line with treatment in wealthy nations, to help prevent transmission of  HIV. Of the 14 million people needing treatment, only 4 million currently receive it. While private rights to IPRs are being vigorously enforced, who is vigorously enforcing the rights to life and health of these 10 million people, or the millions more who need medicines for other common diseases, including chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension? \r\n\r\nAnd where will we be ten years from now, with an unabated and expanding IP enforcement agenda?. The evidence from recent years outlined here suggests that basing future access to medicines on a benevolent global market, or even one that prioritises human rights in one region over commercial rights in another may be wishful thinking. There seems to be no alternative  but  for African countries to set a vision, and to develop, negotiate, build space for and implement strategies for their own local production of medicines, to meet their own market and population needs, while simultaneously fending off an IP enforcement  agenda that does not meet their interests, in all its guises.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Third HIV and AIDS in the Workplace Research Conference","field_subtitle":"Pre-conference registration closing date: 5 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.sabcoha.org/conference/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=1","body":"The Third HIV and AIDS in the Workplace Research Conference, taking place in Johannesburg from 9-11 November, will reflect on the intersection of workplace HIV responses, academic research and surveillance, with a particular focus on strengthening prevention interventions in the fight against HIV and AIDS in Africa, linking prevention research to workplace practice. Prevention will be a key priority focus area, as success in preventing new infections is now widely accepted as the key to ultimately curbing the impact of HIV and AIDS on South Africa and its people. The Conference offers an opportunity for business to step back and reflect on HIV and AIDS programmes, using the lens of research and practice to consider what has worked and what lessons can be extracted. The Conference is also a platform to translate research into meaningful and sustainable responses that can be applied in the workplace.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Transactional sex amongst young people in rural northern Tanzania: An ethnography of young women's motivations and negotiation","field_subtitle":"Wamoyi J, Wight D, Plummer M, Mshana GH and Ross D: Reproductive Health 7(2), 29 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/7/1/2","body":"The aim of this paper is to examine young women's motivations to exchange sex for gifts or money, the way in which they negotiate transactional sex throughout their relationships, and the implications of these negotiations for the HIV epidemic. An ethnographic research design was used, with information collected primarily using participant observation and in-depth interviews in a rural community in North Western Tanzania. The qualitative approach was complemented by an assisted self-completion questionnaire. The study found that transactional sex underlay most non-marital relationships and was not, per se, perceived as immoral. However, women's motivations varied, for instance: escaping intense poverty, seeking beauty products or accumulating business capital. There was also strong pressure from peers to engage in transactional sex, in particular to consume like others and avoid ridicule for inadequate remuneration. Young women actively used their sexuality as an economic resource, often entering into relationships primarily for economic gain. In conclusion, transactional sex is likely to increase the risk of HIV by providing a dynamic for partner change, making more affluent, higher-risk men more desirable, and creating further barriers to condom use. Behavioural interventions should directly address how embedded transactional sex is in sexual culture.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda: Health Systems Strengthening Project","field_subtitle":"World Bank: 25 May 2010 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3yyrxlh","body":"The objective of the Health Systems Strengthening Project, which is funded by the world Bank, is to deliver the Uganda National Minimum Health Care Package (UNMHCP) to Ugandans, with a focus on maternal health, newborn care and family planning. This will be achieved through improving human resources for health; physical health infrastructure; and management, leadership and accountability for health service delivery. There are four components to the project, the first component being improved health workforce development and management. The objective of this component is to improve development and management of the health workforce. The second component is the improved infrastructure of existing health facilities. The objective of this component is to improve infrastructure of existing health facilities. Emphasis will be placed on providing minimum quality standards of health care services, especially in the areas of maternal and child health, through: renovation of selected health facilities; provision of medical equipment; improved capacity for operations and maintenance; and strengthening the referral system. The third component is the improved leadership, management, and accountability for health service delivery. The objective of this component is to strengthen management, leadership, and accountability for health service delivery. Finally, the fourth component is the improved maternal, newborn and family planning services. The objective of this component is to improve access to, and quality of, maternal health, newborn care, and family planning services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"UN General Assembly adopts resolution recognising access to clean water and sanitation as human right","field_subtitle":"United Nations: 28 July 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2010/ga10967.doc.htm","body":"The United Nations (UN) General Assembly has declared access to safe, clean drinking water and sanitation to be a \u2018'human right' in this resolution, which more than 40 countries (including the United States) didn't support. The text is non-binding. The resolution expresses deep concern that, despite the fact that the Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) adopted by world leaders in 2000 call for the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation to be cut in half by 2015, an estimated 884 million people still lack access to safe drinking water and more than 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation. In the resolution, the Assembly calls on UN \u2018member states and international organisations to offer funding, technology and other resources to help poorer countries scale up their efforts to provide clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for everyone\u2019. Additionally, the resolution backs the UN Human Rights Council recommendation that the UN independent expert on the issue of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation must report annually to the General Assembly. This annual report will focus predominantly on the principle challenges of achieving the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation, as well as progress towards the relevant MDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"UNICEF and WHO appeal for joint efforts to stop polio in Angola","field_subtitle":"Afrique enligne: 4 August 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/39xqrne","body":"UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have appealed for the participation of all sectors of the Angolan society to ensure the vaccination of about 5.6 million children under five years against polio from 10\u201312 September 2010. The two United Nations agencies said the exercise was aimed at protecting children in the country against the crippling disease, and a forerunner to Angola's plans to carry out a national vaccination campaign in 2011. It is also part of the Emergency Plan of the Angolan government to eradicate poliomyelitis. According to Angola's Ministry of Health, the country has recorded 17 cases of poliomyelitis in 2010 in the provinces of Luanda, Bengo, Huambo, Bi\u00e9, Lunda Norte and Lunda Sul. The Ministry warned that the disease is spreading and affecting children who live in the border regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Angolan government has so far committed to releasing US$9.3 million to support vaccination in the 32 main districts in order to increase the coverage to at least 90%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Urge your country's ambassador to the UN to listen to community-based advocates and stand by human rights frameworks","field_subtitle":"Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights: 2010","field_url":"http://www.wgnrr.org/campaigns","body":"The Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights is calling on all people's rights, health rights, reproductive justice, and economic and social justice advocates to join them in writing to country representatives at the United Nations Headquarters to raise concerns about the upcoming High Level Summit on the Millennium Development Goals. With the ongoing lobbying by advocates working on sexual and reproductive rights with access to the halls of the UN, and community level mobilisations for social change, there is pressure mounting on state representatives to the summit to incorporate the Network\u2019s suggestions into their position statements and negotiation points. The network is expressing concerns that grassroots people speaking up for basic rights are being systematically shut out of UN processes. The letter asks for the state delegation to the MDG Summit to include members of civil society groups, particularly those representing the concerns of marginalised communities, and calls for modification of the high level advisory panel in order to respect principles of gender parity, and to include women as advisors for MDG 5, and increase the number of representatives from the Global South, with an emphasis on those from civil society organisations. The network calls on civil society to add voice to the call by forwarding the letter provided on the website to the country\u2019s ambassador.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"What next for the Joint Africa-EU Strategy? Perspectives on revitalising an innovative framework","field_subtitle":"Bossuyt J and Sherriff A: European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) Discussion Paper 94, March 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2vj8e3p","body":"This discussion paper underlines a major risk in the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) implementation process so far: the perceived gradual dilution of the political substance of the new policy framework. This risk lies in contrast to the original negotiations for the JAES, where there was a much stronger commitment to negotiating political differences. It is reflected in the fact that the JAES finds it difficult (so far) to politically uplift the partnership \u2018beyond Africa\u2019, \u2018beyond cooperation\u2019 and \u2018beyond institutions\u2019. According to this paper, the dilution should be a matter of concern considering that the added value of the JAES, compared to existing policy frameworks such as the Cotonou Agreement or bilateral relations, precisely lies in its ambitious political agenda to renew and transform Africa- EU relations. Little tangible progress has been achieved in establishing the JAES as the overarching political framework for Africa-EU relations. Levels of ownership tend to be low beyond the inner circle of those concerned with the JAES. The paper argues that that the current difficulties experienced by the JAES are linked to fundamental political choices in the implementation strategies followed so far rather than to the validity of the overall vision underlying the search for a renewed Africa-EU partnership.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"What will it take to achieve the Millennium Development Goals? An international assessment","field_subtitle":"United Nations Development Programme: June 2010","field_url":"http://content.undp.org/go/cms-service/stream/asset/?asset_id=2620072","body":"Drawing on evidence of what has worked in 50 countries, this report provides an eight-point MDG action agenda to accelerate and sustain development progress over the next five years. The eight points focus on supporting nationally-owned and participatory development; pro-poor, job-rich inclusive growth including the private sector; government investments in social services like health and education; expanding opportunities for women and girls; access to low carbon energy; domestic resource mobilisation; and delivery on Official Development Assistance commitments. From the abolition of primary school fees leading to a surge in enrolment in Ethiopia to innovative health servicing options in Afghanistan reducing under-five child mortality, the report brings forward concrete examples that have worked and can be replicated, even in the poorest countries, to make real progress across the Millennium Development Goals. Rapid improvements in both education and health, the report illustrates, have occurred in countries where there were adequate public expenditures and strong new partnerships, where economic growth is job-rich and boosts agricultural production, where robust social protection and employment programmes are in place, and where development is country led, with an effective government in place.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Who benefits from health care in Tanzania?","field_subtitle":"Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town: 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/39bktuw","body":"According to this fact sheet, health care services overall in Tanzania benefit the rich more than the poor. In particular, the poorest 20% receive less benefit than they need. Benefits from outpatient and inpatient care in public hospitals, and private facilities are pro-rich, while benefits from faith-based facilities are generally evenly distributed with benefits being shared equally among people of all socio-economic groups, especially for inpatient care. Distance to referral facilities and cost are two factors that limit access to inpatient care for poorer groups, especially in rural areas. Poor quality of care in public facilities leads to a preference for private facilities among those who have the ability to pay. The greater availability of faith-based providers in rural areas and their flexible pricing policies leads to a more even share of benefits between rich and poor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO declares flu pandemic over, experts behind response are revealed","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 10 August 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2v57bkq","body":"The pandemic threat of the H1N1 or \u2018swine flu\u2019 virus has now passed, according to World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, Margaret Chan. The virus has largely run its course, said Chan, though she added that WHO continues to recommend the use of remaining pandemic vaccines as their efficacy has not decreased. The announced closing of the pandemic period means that the names of the WHO\u2019s Emergency Committee, which decided when to declare the pandemic and when it could be considered ended, are now public. This new information should help answer some of the more critical questions being asked about WHO\u2019s influenza response, such as whether conflicts of interest within the body\u2019s expert advisory group led to an exaggeration of the risks of the H1N1 virus.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO launches Global Network of Age-friendly Cities","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 29 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2010/age_friendly_cities_20100628/en/index.html","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched the Global Network of Age-friendly Cities as part of a broader response to the rapid ageing of populations. WHO notes that populations in almost every corner of the world are growing older. The greatest changes are occurring in less-developed countries. By 2050, it is estimated that 80% of the expected 2 billion people aged 60 years or over will live in low- or middle-income countries. The Network aims to help cities create urban environments that allow older people to remain active and healthy participants in society. While the response to population ageing has often focussed on the implications for governments of increasing demand for pensions and health care, WHO tries to place more emphasis on the positive contributions older people make to society. It underlines the importance for older people of access to public transport, outdoor spaces and buildings, as well as the need for appropriate housing, community support and health services. But it also highlights the need to foster the connections that allow older people to be active participants in society, to overcome ageism and to provide greater opportunities for civic participation and employment. Cities that are interested in joining the Network, should contact Dr John Beard at the email address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Who pays for health care in Tanzania?","field_subtitle":"Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town: 2010","field_url":"http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/heu/SHIELD/reports/SHIELD_Tanzania_WhoPaysForHealthCare.pdf","body":"This fact sheet notes that donor funding and general tax revenue are the main sources of health financing in Tanzania. Funding for health care may be progressive or regressive. Tax revenue in Tanzania is relatively progressive. Income tax is the most progressive, but Value Added Tax (VAT), import and excise tax are also marginally progressive. VAT contributes the most to tax revenue. About 10% of tax revenue goes to health care. Regressive payments include out-of-pocket payments, or direct payments to health care providers, represent a significant share of total health care financing and over half of household contributions to health care. Health insurance contributions are still a relatively small share of total health financing due to the limited coverage of insurance (less than 10% of the population). Contributions to the National Health Insurance Fund are progressive as members are concentrated among higher income groups and contributions are proportional to income. The Community Health Fund is regressive as membership is concentrated among lower income groups and the contribution is a flat rate irrespective of income.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Youth Zones: Dealing with the aftermath of conflict or natural disasters","field_subtitle":"United Nations Population Fund: 20 August 2010","field_url":"https://www.unfpa.org/public/home/news/pid/6443","body":"This new film, Youth Zones, Voices from Emergencies documents the lives of young people affected by conflict and natural disaster in five countries, including Uganda. It show how, in conflicts and natural disasters around the world, young people, at a crucial stage of their development, are faced with profound challenges. Emergencies often steal their adolescence and force them to undertake adult responsibilities. The structures and institutions that should guarantee their secure, peaceful development \u2013 schools, family, community and health centres \u2013 have often broken down, leaving them with little, if any, support. Access to basic sexual and reproductive health services, including information on sexually transmitted infections and HIV, is often impossible. Yet in the midst of hardship and deprivation, this film show how young people exhibit tremendous resilience. They raise their younger siblings, form youth groups and organisations, put food on the table for their families, conduct peer education activities, contribute to peace movements, galvanise their communities and contribute in numerous other ways to positive change. The film is available in English, Spanish, Arabic, and Luo with English subtitles.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe National Nutrition Survey 2010","field_subtitle":"National Nutrition Surveillance Assessments: July 2010","field_url":"http://ochaonline.un.org/Default.aspx?alias=ochaonline.un.org/zimbabwe","body":"New data on the nutritional status of Zimbabwe\u2019s children reveals that more than one third of Zimbabwe\u2019s children under the age of five are chronically malnourished and consequently stunted. Zimbabwe\u2019s current food production remains too low to meet national requirements. Years of persistent droughts and the downturn of the Zimbabwean economy over the past decade have adversely affected food availability in many homes in Zimbabwe. The report calls for accelerated action to reverse chronic malnutrition and maintain the low levels of acute malnutrition highlighted by the report. Chronic malnutrition poses long-term survival and development challenges for Zimbabwe. The survey also shows plummeting exclusive breastfeeding rates. However, the low and stable rates of severe acute malnutrition that were found are a sign that the food security programmes supported by the international community are reaping benefits. The report also acknowledges the tremendous coping mechanisms of the Zimbabwean people at a time of great difficulty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"2010 European aid report","field_subtitle":"European Commission : 28 June 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/36mmqr8","body":"This report provides details on the performance, results and prospects in cooperation led by the European Commission (EC) with 140 countries and regions and in areas such as the Millennium Development Goals, aid effectiveness and policy coherence for development.  The report also examines sectors of cooperation ranging from democracy and human rights to stability and macro-financial assistance. Specific aid instruments and delivery modalities such as the European Union (EU) Food Facility and \u2018Vulnerability FLEX\u2019 instrument, technical cooperation and budget support are also examined. Coordination with EU Member States is also assessed. Overall, EC external aid results show that project performance improved compared to the previous year. 94% of the projects are now rated positively. The report asserts that the EC has acted to ensure that the impact of its resources are maximised, that the EU has shown the capacity to innovate and adapt its aid instruments to meet new challenges and that the dynamics of this process have created new synergies and more effective results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"2010 global award to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV for South African programme ","field_subtitle":"Health-e News: 18 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032840","body":"A Cape Town-based health programme, mothers2mothers (m2m), has received the 2010 Award for Best Practices in Global Health for initiatives to reduce mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV. The Award is given annually to highlight the efforts of individuals dedicated to improving the health of disadvantaged and disenfranchised populations, and it recognises programmes that demonstrate the links between health, poverty and development. The m2m programme began in 2001 and has grown from one site in South Africa to more than 645 sites in South Africa, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, Swaziland and Zambia. It employs over 1,600 HIV-positive women who conduct more than 200,000 client interactions per month. In the programme, HIV-positive mothers are trained as mentors for HIV-positive pregnant mothers seeking health care. By effectively professionalising their role alongside overburdened doctors and nurses, these \u2018mentor mothers\u2019 fill health care delivery gaps in the prevention of MTCT of HIV and help breakdown stigma and other treatment barriers, as they are perceived as role models in clinics and their communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Achieving sustainable health development in the African region: Strategic directions for WHO 2010\u20132015","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2010","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/en/media-centre/notes-for-the-press/2345-strategic-directions-2010-2015.htm","body":"This document details the main strategic directions for the work of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the African Region for the period 2010\u20132015 and considers regional responses to the global health agenda, including new policies and tools for programmes related to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). WHO\u2019s strategic directions recognise the socio-economic dimension of health development and propose orientations to address the most serious health problems faced by people in Africa, as well as their key determinants. The document focuses on WHO\u2019s mandate and its core functions, articulating its role in addressing Africa\u2019s public health priorities, while giving space to other stakeholders involved in strengthening the implementation capacity of national health systems under the leadership of governments. Successful implementation of the strategic directions will require strong leadership, accountability and efficient use of resources. Those countries that have made progress towards achieving the MDGs are urged to share best practices with other countries in the region. According to WHO, boosting the capacity of health systems and improved monitoring and evaluation should enable the scaling up of proven and cost-effective health interventions and pave the way towards accelerated implementation of programmes aimed at achieving health MDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Adelaide Statement on Health in All Policies: Moving towards a shared governance for health and well-being","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/social_determinants/hiap_statement_who_sa_final.pdf","body":"The Adelaide Statement was developed by the participants of the Health in All Policies International Meeting, held in Adelaide, Australia from 13\u201315 April 2010. Its aim is to engage leaders and policy-makers at all levels of government, including local, regional, national and international governments. It emphasises that government objectives are best achieved when all sectors include health and well-being as a key component of policy development and that the social determinants of health should be considered when addressing public health issues. Although many other sectors already contribute to better health, significant gaps still exist. The Adelaide Statement outlines the need for a new social contract between all sectors to advance human development, sustainability and equity, as well as to improve health outcomes. This requires a new form of governance with joined-up leadership within governments, across all sectors and between levels of government. The Statement highlights the contribution of the health sector in resolving complex problems across government.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Adolescent health: What they don\u2019t know CAN hurt them ","field_subtitle":"Barbara Kaim, Training and Research Support Centre, Zimbabwe ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nA quarter of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa are young people between the ages of 10 and 19 years. These young people carry the hopes and dreams of their families, their communities and their nation. They are the future leaders and, perhaps as important, the future parents of the next generation. \r\n\r\nThey live in a world where to be an adolescent is increasingly risky. Adolescents typically take risks, but with the AIDS epidemic, risk-taking can be fatal. When adolescents have unplanned and unprotected sex, sexually transmitted infections can cause infertility or cervical cancer, and pregnancy in adolescents is more risky, with higher rates of death in both adolescent mothers and their babies than in adults. Unsafe abortions amongst adolescents are unacceptably high, and early sexual activity may limit educational attainment and deprive young people of the opportunity to form mature, loving relationships. So it\u2019s a tragic and unacceptable  sign that most new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa occur among adolescents and young adults.  \r\n\r\nAdolescents grow up today in a different world. High rates of urbanization, extended periods of schooling and growing poverty contribute to a challenging social context for young people.  \r\n\r\nTraditional ways of preparing young people for adulthood, which relied on extended family members, are less practiced and might not be adequate to address the pressures that adolescents face. In the past, sexual maturity was closely followed by marriage. Today, young people reach puberty at younger ages and wait longer to marry. Because the aunt or uncle may not be available, or may not be considered relevant, many adolescents turn to other sources. Today, many young people learn from peers or the media. Much of this information is inadequate and sometimes it is just plain wrong.\r\n\r\nSchools are an ideal setting in which to reach large numbers of young people with the information they need, including reproductive knowledge and life skills. Yet, wherever it has been introduced, the teaching of reproductive health in schools has generated controversy. Debate exists around what information should be given and how much, especially regarding sexual intercourse, pregnancy and disease prevention. Some adults are resistant to even acknowledging that teenage sex is taking place. Others are concerned that sex education will lead to sexual activity. These viewpoints are often based more on values and beliefs than on facts. Hence the same arguments are repeated again and again, year after year, despite contrary evidence. Its very likely these same views will continue to be expressed into the future.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, facts do help.  Studies have shown, both regionally and internationally, that comprehensive sex education is effective in improving knowledge and reducing sexual risk behaviours, and that it does not increase sexual activity. In 1997, a UNAIDS study reviewing 53 sex education programmes globally found that 22 had a positive effect of safer adolescent sexual behaviour, and 27 had no impact. In the 3 studies where there was an increase in sexual activity, there were concerns about the design of the assessment and the validity of conclusions.\r\n\r\nSuch studies suggest that rather than sex education causing young people to have sex, the opposite is more likely to be the case: Giving young people more complete and accurate information, and more opportunities to discuss issues in an open and non-judgemental environment enables them to make more responsible choices.  \r\n\r\nClearly the design and quality of the programme matters. Strengthening sex education programmes can be difficult in resource-strained countries. However some aspects of effective programmes that have been identified from reviews can be applied across different settings, including those  where resources are scarce. These include:\r\n\u2022\tadopting school curricula that provide comprehensive, accurate sexual and reproductive health information;\r\n\u2022\tsupporting teacher training; \r\n\u2022\treaching young adolescents with information early, before they leave school and before they begin sexual activity; \r\n\u2022\tstrengthening health and other community services for young people and ensuring that these services are youth-friendly, and \r\n\u2022\thelping adolescents stay in school. Even if they do not receive sex education, young people who stay in school are less likely then their peers to have sex. \r\n\r\nSuccessful reproductive health programmes are not simply a matter of education. They involve youth issues, gender issues, human rights issues, and health issues. They involve and give a central role to youth themselves. They encourage young people to articulate and discuss issues, to talk about their lives, to understand their options, and to get the skills and support they need for healthy choices. And of course, for young people, they must also be fun. \r\n\r\nOur efforts towards reducing maternal mortality or new HIV infection cannot be said to be successful as long as we have not made significantly more progress in reducing the risk for adolescents. Achieving this and reaching young people can\u2019t be left to teachers alone. Parents, civic leaders, health providers, other government ministries all have a role to play. Support of youth is a multi-sectoral effort. As adults planning for a better future for our young people, we are all their parents.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org or see as an example of resources for adolescent reproductive health the Auntie Stella materials on the TARSC website at http://www.auntiestella.org/ ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Advancing child-sensitive social protection","field_subtitle":"Institute of Development Studies, International Labour Organization, United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID), HelpAge International and Hope & Homes for Children: United Nations Children's Fund, 2010","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/files/CSSP_joint_statement_8.20.09.pdf","body":"This joint statement from a range of international development organisations argues that regular, predictable social transfers (cash or in kind) from governments to communities can reduce child poverty and vulnerability by helping to ensure children get access to basic social services. Social insurance offers access to health care for children, as well as services to support communities to reach all households and individuals, including children. The statement  propose steps that governments and international development partners can take to further social protection in the interests of children, such as ensuring that existing social protection policies and programmes are child-sensitive and setting priorities and sequence policy development and implementation to progressively realise a basic social protection package that is accessible to all those in need. The statement calls for governments and donors to seek to improve fiscal space and increase available resources for child-sensitive social protection programmes, while making broader efforts to build awareness, political will, capacity and intersectoral coordination. Adequate investment is required, and links should be built between transfers and social services to ensure the reach, effectiveness and impact of social protection. At the same time, ongoing research, monitoring and evaluation are needed to better understand effective programme design and implementation, as well as how child-sensitive approaches can benefit the wider community and national development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"African leaders urged to deliver on African Union Summit theme of saving lives of children and mothers ","field_subtitle":"Save the Children: 22 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.savethechildren.org/newsroom/2010/african-union-summit-kampala.html","body":"In the lead up to the African Union Summit, held from 19 to 27 July 2010 in Uganda, Save the Children has joined a broad coalition of civil society groups from across Africa and around the world to call on African leaders to deliver four key commitments that will save the lives of mothers and children. Civil society recommend that leaders at the Summit should commit to putting a plan in place. Every African country must develop and implement an accelerated national plan for reducing maternal, newborn and child deaths. Stakeholders should make sure that the resources are available. Every African country should meet and exceed its 2001 promise in Abuja, Nigeria to spend at least 15% of the national budget on health care. Additionally, a meaningful portion of this budget must specifically dedicated to maternal, newborn, and child health. Thirdly, health worker shortages should be addressed. Countries must recruit, train and retain more doctors, nurses, and midwives to help reduce the overall gap of 800,000 health workers in Africa by 2015. Fourthly, the coverage gap between rich and poor must be addressed. Countries must ensure health care, including emergency obstetric care, is accessible for the poorest people and is free at the point of use for pregnant women and children under five.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Barriers to prompt and effective malaria treatment among the poorest population in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Chuma J, Okungu V and Molyneux C: Malaria Journal 9(144), 27 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/9/1/144","body":"This paper explores access barriers to effective malaria treatment among the poorest population in four malaria endemic districts in Kenya. The study was conducted in the poorest areas of four malaria endemic districts in Kenya. Multiple data collection methods were applied including: a cross-sectional survey of 708 households; 24 focus group discussions; semi-structured interviews with 34 health workers; and 359 patient exit interviews. The paper found that multiple factors related to affordability, acceptability and availability interact to influence access to prompt and effective treatment. Regarding affordability, about 40% of individuals who self-treated using shop-bought drugs and 42% who visited a formal health facility reported not having enough money to pay for treatment and other factors influencing affordability included seasonality of illness and income sources, transport costs, and unofficial payments. Regarding acceptability, the major interrelated factors identified were provider patient relationship, patient expectations, beliefs on illness causation, perceived effectiveness of treatment, distrust in the quality of care and poor adherence to treatment regimes. Availability barriers identified were related to facility opening hours, organisation of health care services, drug and staff shortages.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Bed net ownership in Kenya: The impact of 3.4 million free bed nets","field_subtitle":"Hightower A, Kiptui R, Manya A, Wolkon A, Vanden Eng J, Hamel M, Noor A, Sharif SK, Buluma R, Vulule J et al: Malaria Journal 9(183), 24 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-9-183.pdf","body":"In July and September 2006, 3.4 million long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets (LLINs) were distributed free in a campaign targeting children 0-59 months old (CU5s) in the 46 districts with malaria in Kenya. A survey was conducted one month after the distribution to evaluate who received campaign LLINs, who owned insecticide-treated bed nets and other bed nets received through other channels, and how these nets were being used. In targeted areas, 67.5% of all households with CU5s received campaign LLINs. Including previously owned nets, 74.4 % of all households with CU5s had an ITN. Over half of CU5s (51.7%) slept under an ITN during the previous evening. Nearly 40% of all households received a campaign net, elevating overall household ownership of ITNs to 50.7%. The campaign was successful in reaching the target population, families with CU5s, the risk group most vulnerable to malaria. Targeted distribution strategies will help Kenya approach indicator targets, but will need to be combined with other strategies to achieve desired population coverage levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Building momentum and saving lives","field_subtitle":"Health Metrics Network: 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/healthmetrics/news/HMN_Results_Report_2010_web.pdf","body":"Health information systems (HIS) are increasingly being recognised as the \u2018central nervous system\u2019 of the health sector, with the information they generate being used for decision making to improve health system performance, accountability and health outcomes. To guide countries in developing and strengthening their HIS, Health Metrics Network (HMN) has developed a standard reference for health information systems development, the HMN Framework. This brief report demonstrates the widespread application of the Framework and the growing body of evidence that better health information improves health outcomes and contributes to saving lives. By 2010, HMN tracked a cumulative total of US$ 514 million from a limited number of domestic and donor sources that was invested in HIS strengthening globally. Although estimates show an upward trend in investment, the brief argues that further resources are needed to meet the increasing demand from countries for HIS investment. It argues that a strengthened HIS produces better quality information for use in decision making, and that information-driven decisions lead to cost savings, more efficient use of resources, better quality essential health services, improved coverage and more lives saved.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications: Commonwealth Foundation Civil Society Responsive Grants","field_subtitle":"Closing Dates: 30 September Or 31 December 2010","field_url":"http://www.fundsforngos.org/cwfcsres","body":"The Commonwealth Foundation\u2019s Civil Society Responsive Grants are intended for organisations planning a regional or international workshop or an exchange visit to another non-governmental organisation (NGO) or project. The grants support strengthening of civil society for sustainable development, democracy and intercultural learning within the Commonwealth countries, and may cover short training courses, workshops, seminars, conferences, cultural festivals, exchanges and study visits in other Commonwealth countries. They are targeted at Commonwealth developing countries. Generally, the Foundation awards g around \u00a35,000, but NGOs can request funding up to \u00a310,000. In rare cases, Grants of up to \u00a320,000 can also be made. The grants support activities in four main areas: culture; governance and democracy; human development; and communities and livelihoods.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications: Netherlands Fellowship Programme","field_subtitle":"Deadlines Vary According To Country Of Origin","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/32wq7yd","body":"Funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP) offers an opportunity for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in developing countries to gain skills and build their capacities internationally through training and education. Mid-career staff working in organisations in developing countries can apply for this fellowship programme. Applicants must be nominated by their organisations. Applicant should have at least three years of work experience. Further refresher courses are offered to NFP alumni developed for the purpose of prolonging the effect of the previous fellowship given. NFP has dedicated half of the budget to be spent on fellowships for female candidates and candidates from sub-Saharan Africa. Please note that there are different deadlines and different durations for various programmes of the fellowship, depending on which country you come from.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications: Synergos Fellowship","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 31 August 2010","field_url":"http://www.synergos.org/fellows/","body":"The Senior Fellows Programme is looking for civil society leaders who are committed to collaborative action to bring sustainable, systemic improvements in the lives of the communities they serve. To qualify for the programme, these leaders must present a compelling vision for solving complex, systemic problems of poverty, inequity and social injustice, and show commitment to the participation of and accountability to the community they serve, as well as credibility and legitimacy from that community to speak authoritatively about its issues. The Fellowship lasts three years and the fellows are expected to take part in activities while performing their ongoing professional responsibilities. This includes attending Senior Fellows global and regional events, being available for peer consulting, exchange and field service opportunities, and contributing to the programme\u2019s shared body of knowledge. Synergos covers the costs of the activities during the three years, and fellows are expected to remain part of the Fellows Network after completion of their three-year programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Campaigners seek urgent steps to save 11 million African women","field_subtitle":"Afrique en ligne: 27 July 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/28u5bga","body":"Civil society campaigners attending the African Union Summit, held from 19 to 27 July 2010 in Kampala, Uganda, have called for an investment of US$32 billion to help improve the health status of African women. The campaigners said that, in the next five years, eleven million African women and children could be saved by creating near-universal availability of key life-saving interventions. The group, which includes the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health that is campaigning for the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), are seeking new investments in stopping the deaths of women and children, which is the main issue slated for discussion by the African leaders. They have called for interventions in antenatal care, emergency care at the time of birth, post-natal care, treatment of childhood illnesses, and immunisation. These investments, they said, will cost an additional US$32 billion, or about US $8 per person per year over the next five years. This would allow 95% population coverage and bring most African countries in line with MDGs 4 and 5, which call for reducing the number of deaths among children under 5 by two thirds, and reducing maternal deaths by three-quarters by 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Capacity development for health research in Africa: Experiences managing the African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship Programme","field_subtitle":"Kabiru CW, Izugbara CO, Wambugu SW and Ezeh AC: Health Research Policy and Systems 8(21), 29 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-8-21.pdf","body":"Africa's progress depends on her capacity to generate, adapt, and use scientific knowledge to meet regional health and development needs. Yet, according to this paper, Africa's higher education institutions that are mandated to foster this capacity lack adequate resources to generate and apply knowledge, raising the need for innovative approaches to enhance research capacity. The paper describes a newly developed programme to support PhD research in health and population sciences at African universities: the African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship (ADDRF) Programme. It documents the authors\u2019 experiences implementing the programme. As health research capacity-strengthening in Africa continues to attract attention and as the need for such programmes to be African-led is emphasised, the authors propose that their experiences in developing and implementing the ADDRF may offer invaluable lessons to other institutions undertaking similar initiatives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Changing the course of AIDS","field_subtitle":"Dickinson D: Cornell University Press, 2009","field_url":"http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=5477","body":"This book is an in-depth evaluation of a new approach to create behavioural change that could affect the course of the global health crisis of HIV and AIDS. Taking a close look at the South African HIV and AIDS epidemic, it demonstrates that regular workers serving as peer educators can be as \u2013 or even more \u2013 effective agents of behavioural change than experts who lecture about the facts and so-called appropriate health care behaviour. After spending six years researching the response of large South African companies to the AIDS epidemic, Dickinson describes the promise of this grassroots intervention and the limitations of traditional top-down strategies. His case studies directly examine the South African workplace to tackle sexual, gender, religious, ethnic, and broader social and political taboos that make behaviour change so difficult, particularly when that behaviour involves sex and sexuality. Dickinson's findings show that people who are not officially health care experts or even health care workers can be skilled and effective educators. This book demonstrates how peer education can be used as a tool for societies grappling with the HIV and AIDS epidemic and why those interested in changing behaviours to ameliorate other health problems like obesity, alcoholism, and substance abuse have so much to learn from the South African context.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Closing the gaps: From science to action in maternal, newborn, and child health in Africa","field_subtitle":"Bennett S and Ssengooba F: PLoS Medicine 7(6), June 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000298","body":"This article focuses on the challenge of translating science into policy and practice in Africa\u2019s maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) services. The article indentifies several barriers to closing the gap, such as competing health priorities in Africa that make it more difficult to keep MNCH on the health agenda, the lack of a strong, organised lobby for promoting MNCH, and poor routine data collection. It offers three strategies to help close the gap: developing MNCH policy networks that pursue a bottom-up approach and go beyond politicians and ministers to engage civil society, front-line health workers, researchers and the media; mainstreaming the use of MNCH science to develop an evidence-based approach that will support planning and monitoring processes, thereby strengthening the overall process of health planning; and investing in innovative approaches to develop and apply MNCH evidence by building local capacity to conduct relevant research for policy and implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community acceptability of use of rapid diagnostic tests for malaria by community health workers in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Mukanga D, Tibenderana JK, Kiguli J, Pariyo GW, Waiswa P, Bajunirwe F, Mutamba B, Counihan H, Ojiambo G and Kallander K: Malaria Journal 9(203), 13 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475","body":"This study assessed community acceptability of the use of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) by Ugandan CHWs, locally referred to as community medicine distributors (CMDs). The study was conducted in Iganga district using 10 focus group discussions (FGDs) with CMDs and caregivers of children under five years, and 10 key informant interviews (KIIs) with health workers and community leaders. The study found that CMDs are trusted by their communities because of their commitment to voluntary service, access, and the perceived effectiveness of anti-malarial drugs they provide. Some community members expressed fear that the blood collected could be used for HIV testing, the procedure could infect children with HIV, and the blood samples could be used for witchcraft. Education level of CMDs is important in their acceptability by the community, who welcome the use of RDTs given that the CMDs are trained and supported. Anticipated challenges for CMDs included transport for patient follow-up and picking supplies, adults demanding to be tested, and caregivers insisting their children be treated instead of being referred. Use of RDTs by CMDs is likely to be acceptable by community members given that CMDs are properly trained, and receive regular technical supervision and logistical support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community HIV drug distribution improves adherence","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 7 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=89757","body":"Local East African programmes are discovering the benefits of bringing HIV services closer to rural communities, with mobile drug distribution improving HIV-positive patients' adherence to antiretroviral treatment (ART). Health facilities in rural areas are normally remote, but by using mobile care and treatment centres, it is easy to reach populations who may not otherwise have access to services, according to the Support for International Change (SIC), a local HIV-focused non-governmental organisation in Tanzania. SIC reports using mobile drug distribution in northern Tanzania and witnessing a reduction of cases lost to follow up, compared to local health facilities that are recording higher levels of drop-out amongst patients. Patients must visit a hospital for their initial diagnosis and ART prescription, and are required to visit the health centre periodically, but in between visits, SIC uses community-based volunteers and trained medical workers to drive around villages refilling prescriptions as well as providing education on condom use and the prevention of opportunistic infections. SIC in Tanzania reaches nearly 2,500 people with mobile ART clinics and has so far trained around 200 health workers in Babati District in northern Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community-directed interventions for priority health problems in Africa: Results of a multicountry study","field_subtitle":"CDI Study Group: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 509-518, July 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/7/09-069203/en/index.html","body":"The community-directed intervention (CDI) strategy is an approach in which communities themselves direct the planning and implementation of intervention delivery. This CDI study involved multi-disciplinary research teams from seven sites in three African countries, including Uganda. Integrated delivery of different interventions through the CDI strategy proved feasible and cost-effective where adequate supplies of drugs and other intervention materials were made available. Communities, health workers, policy-makers and other stakeholders were quite supportive and their buy-in to the CDI approach increased significantly over time. Since intervention coverage also increased as more interventions were gradually included in CDI delivery, the results of the study are promising in terms of the sustainability of the CDI approach. Based on its findings, the study recommends that CDI approaches be adopted for integrated, community-level delivery of appropriate health interventions in the 16 African countries with experience in community-directed treatment for onchocerciasis control. This may comprise the interventions tested in this study, especially for malaria, or other intervention packages chosen on the basis of the lessons learnt.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Compulsory service programmes for recruiting health workers in remote and rural areas: Do they work?","field_subtitle":"Frehywot S, Mullan F, Paynea PW and Rossa H: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 364\u2013370, May 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/5/09-071605.pdf","body":"Compulsory service programmes have been used worldwide as a way to deploy and retain a professional health workforce within countries. This study identified three different types of compulsory service programmes in 70 countries. These programmes are all governed by some type of regulation, ranging from a parliamentary law to a policy within the ministry of health. Depending on the country, doctors, nurses, midwives and all types of professional allied health workers are required to participate in the programme. Some of the compliance-enforcement measures include withholding full registration until obligations are completed, withholding degree and salary, or imposing large fines. This paper aims to explain these programmes more clearly, to identify countries that have or had such programmes, to develop a typology for the different kinds and to discuss the programmes in the light of important issues that are related to policy concepts and implementation. As governments consider the cost of investment in health professionals\u2019 education, the loss of health professionals to emigration and the lack of health workers in many geographic areas, they are using compulsory service requirements as a way to deploy and retain the health workforce.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Concurrent partnerships as a driver of the HIV epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa? The evidence is limited","field_subtitle":"Lurie MN and Rosenthal S: AIDS Behavaviour 14:17\u201324, 2010","field_url":"http://www.springerlink.com/content/w21330981283021w/fulltext.pdf","body":"According to this article, the evidence that concurrency is driving the African AIDS epidemics is limited. There is as yet no conclusive evidence that concurrency is associated with HIV prevalence, nor that it increases the size of an HIV epidemic, the speed of HIV transmission and the persistence of HIV in a population. The article admits that concurrency could theoretically play a dominant role in transmission of HIV through networks, but it argues that this should not be taken to mean that it is or it has played that role. Little evidence supports the hypothesis that sexual behavior differs dramatically in Africa compared to the rest of the world, nor that sexual behavior in Africa is different in countries with high versus low HIV prevalence. Without strong data showing that people have more concurrent partnerships in Africa than elsewhere and that places with high levels of concurrency also have high levels of HIV, the authors conclude that only under certain conditions may concurrency be a significant driver of the HIV epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa. To definitively answer this question, additional studies are needed. Improved methods for measuring sexual behavior and particularly partnership duration and overlap are also required, with better study designs. Designing prevention interventions around concurrency without a better understanding of the intricacies of the relationship between concurrency and HIV transmission may well not produce the intended result of preventing new HIV infections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Costing the scaling-up of human resources for health: Lessons from Mozambique and Guinea Bissau","field_subtitle":"Tyrrell AK, Russo G, Dussault G, Ferrinho P: Human Resources for Health 8(14), 25 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-8-14.pdf","body":"This paper reports on two separate experiences of costing for Human Resources Development Plans (HRDP) costing in Mozambique and Guinea Bissau, with the objective of providing an insight into the practice of costing exercises in information-poor settings, as well as to contribute to the existing debate on human resources costing methodologies. The study adopts a case-study approach to analyse the methodologies developed in the two countries, their contexts, policy processes and actors involved. From the analysis of the two cases, it emerged that the costing exercises represented an important driver of the HRDP elaboration, which lent credibility to the process, and provided a financial framework within which HRH policies could be discussed. In both cases, bottom-up and country-specific methods were designed to overcome the countries' lack of cost and financing data, as well as to interpret their financial systems. Such an approach also allowed the costing exercises to feed directly into the national planning and budgeting process. The authors conclude that bottom-up and country-specific costing methodologies have the potential to serve adequately the multi-faceted purpose of the exercise. However, adopting pre-defined and insufficiently flexible tools may undermine the credibility of the costing exercise, and reduce the space for policy negotiation opportunities within the HRDP elaboration process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Department of Health memo on three months\u2019 supply of ARVs","field_subtitle":"South African National Department of Health: 2 July 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/29tyz6h","body":"In this statement, the South African Department of Health has given the go-ahead for patients on antiretroviral treatment (ART) to be given three months supply of medicines instead of one month. It will be more convenient for patients because they will have to make fewer trips to their health facility. It will also reduce patient-load on the health system, particularly on health facility pharmacies given the shortage of pharmacists in the public health system. The Department of Health states: \u2018There is no indication of any legislation prohibiting the supply of medicines for three months to any one patient. This practice should only be implemented once the patient has proved stable on the regimen.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Development of human resources for health in the WHO African Region: Current situation and way forward","field_subtitle":"Awases M, Nyoni J, Bessaoud K, Diarra-Nama AJ, Ngenda CM: African Health Monitor 12: 22\u201329, April-June 2010","field_url":"http://ahm.afro.who.int/issue12/ahm-12.pdf","body":"This review of human resources in the health sector indicates that the African Region is faced with severe shortages of doctors and nurses, with only 590,198 health workers against an estimated requirement of 1,408,190 health workers. This situation is compounded by inappropriate skill mixes and gaps in service coverage. The estimated critical shortages of doctors, nurses and midwives is over 800,000. The problem is more severe in rural and remote areas where most people typically live in the countries in the African Region. This review provides information about the efforts and commitments by World Health Organization Member States and the various opportunities created by regional and global partners, including the progress made. The paper also explores issues and challenges related to the underlying factors of the health worker crisis, such as chronic underinvestment in health systems development in general, and specifically in human resources for health development, migration of skilled health personnel as a result of poor working conditions and remuneration, lack of evidence-based strategic planning, insufficient production of health workers and poor management systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Diabetes cases in Africa predicted to double by 2030","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 28 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89660","body":"Without a major breakthrough in preventing and treating diabetes, the number of cases in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to double, reaching 24 million by 2030, according to the Brussels-based International Diabetes Federation (IDF). Jean Claude Mbanya, IDF president and the study's lead researcher, said that diabetes had been misunderstood as a rich country problem, despite medical data compiled by IDF showing that 70% of cases were reported in low- and middle-income countries. Mabanya noted that there is also the perception that when diabetes does affect people in low-income countries, it only affects those who are the wealthy elite, despite the fact that diabetes is devastating for the poor, especially when it affects breadwinners. Data is scarce in Africa and estimates are based on a limited number of studies. Mabanya called for more studies to increase confidence in the numbers. He added that most people in Africa who have diabetes are undiagnosed and, therefore, even when statistics are available from health systems, the size of the problem will always be underestimated.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic Development in Africa Report 2010","field_subtitle":"United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD): 18 June 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2a4ytfl","body":"The Economic Development in Africa Report 2010 examines recent trends in the economic relationships of Africa with other developing countries and the new forms of partnership that are animating those relationships. It discusses the variety of institutional arrangements that are guiding and encouraging these new economic relationships, provides up-to-date information on African trade with other developing countries outside Africa, describes official financial flows and foreign direct investment into Africa from those countries and assesses important policy issues that arise from the new relationships in each of these areas. The report argues that South\u2013South cooperation opens new opportunities for Africa, and the main challenge facing African countries is how to harness these new relationships more effectively to further their long-term development goals. It also stresses the need to broaden the country and sectoral focus of cooperation with the South to ensure that the gains are better distributed across countries. It argues that South\u2013South cooperation should be seen as a complement rather than a substitute for relations with traditional partners, and that the latter can make South\u2013South cooperation work for Africa by strengthening support for triangular co-operation as well as through better dialogue with developing country partners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Effect of incentives on insecticide-treated bed net use in sub-Saharan Africa: A cluster randomised trial in Madagascar","field_subtitle":"Krezanoski PJ, Comfort AB and Hamer DH: Malaria Journal 9(186), 27 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-9-186.pdf","body":"To date, no study has yet looked at the effect of incentives on the use of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs). This study aims to fill the research gap. It took the form of a cluster randomised controlled trial testing household-level incentives for ITN use following a free ITN distribution campaign in Madagascar. The study took place from July 2007 until February 2008. Twenty-one villages were randomised to either intervention or control clusters. At baseline, 8.5% of households owned an ITN and 6% were observed to have a net mounted over a bed in the household. At one month, there were no differences in ownership between the intervention and control groups, but net use was substantially higher in the intervention group (99% vs. 78%). After six months, net ownership had decreased in the intervention compared to the control group (96.7% vs. 99.7%). There was no difference between the groups in terms of ITN use at six months; however, intervention households were more likely to use a net that they owned (96% vs. 90%). The study concludes that providing incentives for behaviour change is a promising tool that can complement traditional ITN distribution programmes and improve the effectiveness of ITN programmes in protecting vulnerable populations, especially in the short-term.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion paper 83: The drugs industry and access to essential medicines in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mhamba RM and Mbirigenda S: Training and Research Support Centre, SEATINI, Rhodes University and EQUINET, July 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS83TZN%20medicines%20mhamba.pdf","body":"This paper outlines the flows of private capital that lie behind the growth of the for-profit pharmaceutical sector in Tanzania. It reports an analysis of the policy, access and equity challenges posed by the shift to increasing private sector participation in the sector. The study was implemented within EQUINET by the Institute of Development Studies, University of Dar es Salaam, in a regional programme co-ordinated by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, South Africa. Strengthening the pharmaceutical sector to produce an adequate supply of medicines in Tanzania, for Tanzanians, is hindered by numerous constraints, including: non inclusion of TRIPS flexibilities in Tanzanian law; lack of skilled staff; financial constraints; poor industrial infrastructure and services; weak local and international pharmaceutical industry links; and counterfeit medicines entering the market. The report recommends that the health ministry step up its own monitoring systems to ensure effective distribution of medicines to health facilities. New legislation is also needed to improve quality standards, implement TRIPS flexibilities in Tanzanian law, and tackle substandard medicines entering the market.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion paper 84: Private sector involvement in funding and providing health services in South Africa: Implications for equity and access to health care","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D: Health Economics Unit (University of Cape Town), ISER (Rhodes University) and EQUINET, July 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS84privfin%20mcintyre.pdf","body":"The private health sector in South Africa is substantial. This paper explores the private sector involvement in funding and providing health services in South Africa and the implications for equity and access to health care. Serious challenges face the private health care sector in South Africa, not least of all the very rapid increases in expenditure and, hence, contribution rates in medical schemes. A range of factors underlie these trends; but in recent years, schemes\u2019 spending increases have been driven largely by private for-profit hospitals and specialists, with the number of private hospital beds increasing rapidly and considerable consolidation of beds within three large private hospital groups. The 2007 policy conference of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) resolved to introduce a National Health Insurance (NHI). If successfully implemented, the substantial reforms envisaged will promote health system equity, affordability and sustainability within South Africa. However, there are growing concerns that the introduction of these reforms will contribute to increased activities by South African private for-profit health care companies in other African countries. Private health care firms in South Africa not only have an interest in expanding into other African countries, they will also have access to substantial investment resources. In particular, the World Bank\u2019s International Finance Corporation (IFC) is actively seeking to invest in the private health sector in African countries. The experience of the private health sector in South Africa should be taken into account by policy-makers in other African countries when considering what role they envisage for the private health sector within their country context.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 114: Adolescent health: What they don\u2019t know CAN hurt them ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Policy Brief 23: Strategies to improve equitable domestic financing to reach universal coverage in East and Southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"HealthNet Consult, Health Economics Unit (University of Cape Town), TARSC and EQUINET: July 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/POL%20Brief%2023%20domfin.pdf","body":"In most East and Southern African (ESA) countries, total health expenditure from all sources, including external resources, is still less than the US$ 45 per capita per year needed to provide basic health services. This limits their ability to achieve universal coverage of basic health services. This policy brief draws policy makers\u2019 attention to the demands and challenges in health financing in meeting universal coverage, the demand for improved domestic public financing for health, and suggests options for doing this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluation of medication adherence methods in the treatment of malaria in Rwandan infants","field_subtitle":"Twagirumukiza M, Kayumba PC, Kips JG, Vrijens B, Vander Stichele R, Vervaet C, Remon JP and Van Bortel LM: Malaria Journal 9(206), 16 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-9-206.pdf","body":"The objective of this paper was to compare three methods for evaluating treatment adherence in a seven-day controlled treatment period for malaria in children in Rwanda. Fifty-six children younger than five years old with malaria were recruited at the University Hospital of Butare, Rwanda. Three methods to evaluate medication adherence among patients were compared: manual pill count of returned tablets, patient self-report and electronic pill-box monitoring. Medication adherence data were available for 54 of the 56 patients. Manual pill count and patient self-report yielded a medication adherence of 100% for the in- and out-patient treatment periods. Based on electronic pill-box monitoring, medication adherence during the seven-day treatment period was 90.5%. Based on electronic pill-box monitoring inpatient medication adherence (99.3%) was markedly higher than out-patient adherence (82.7%), showing a clear difference between health workers' and consumers' medication adherence. In conclusion, health workers' medication adherence was good. However, a significant lower medication adherence was observed for consumers' adherence in the outpatient setting. This was only detected by electronic pill-box monitoring. Therefore, this latter method is more accurate than the two other methods used in this study.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Five-Year Review Of The Abuja Call For Accelerated Action Towards Universal Access To HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Services By 2010  Progress Report (2006-2010), ","field_subtitle":"African Union","field_url":"http://www.africa-union.org/root/au/conferences/2010/july/summit/15thsummit.html","body":"The 2010 AU Summit reviewed the status of implementation of the Declarations and Plans of Action on the 2000 Abuja Summit on Roll Back Malaria (RBM) and the 2001 Abuja Summit on HIV/AIDS, TB and Other Related Infectious Diseases (ORID).  The document provides an update on the progress 2006-2010 on these commitments.  Since 2006, significant progress has been made by Member States towards universal access to health services in general and HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in particular.  The report indicates that in spite of the commendable progress made, this is still insufficient to attain the Abuja target of universal access to HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria services by 2010.  The \u2018final push\u2019 towards universal access should be advanced through intensified implementation of national programmes with the support of the UN system and international partners, further mobilization with more rational use of resources, and better harmonization and coordination of partnerships at national, regional and continental levels. Reducing the impact of the three diseases would significantly propel efforts to achieve, not only MDG 6 and other health related MDGs, but also development goals related to women's and children's rights to health, education, nutrition and equality, as well as the reduction of extreme poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Food sovereignty in Africa: The people's alternative","field_subtitle":"Goita M: Pambazuka News 490, 13 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65933","body":"The different explanations given for Africa\u2019s current food crisis seem to miss the real causes of the problem, according to this article. The crisis is not of an economic nature. Rather, it is the endpoint of the dismantling of Africa\u2019s agricultural sector and its linking to the international market and brutal liberalism. The article cautions that there are huge risks associated with linking African agriculture to global markets dominated by subsidised produce from the United States and the European Union. There is also the threat of genetically modified organisms and other industrial hybrids that could wipe out tradition systems. Radical measures are necessary to safeguard local production and producers, who make up close to 80% of the population in some countries. Based on an analysis of the political choices that have contributed to the current situation, notably the structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s, the article proposes solutions and decisions that need to be taken to achieve food sovereignty in Africa, such as re-nationalising agri-food industries that are strategic to agricultural development and setting in place agricultural policies that are based on food sovereignty and that make all issues related to food human rights issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourteenth Annual Conference on Rural Health","field_subtitle":"Final date for pre-registration: 15 August 2010","field_url":"http://www.rudasa.org.za/","body":"The 14th Annual Conference on Rural Health will be held from 26\u201328 August 2010 in Swaziland. Plenary sessions will focus on creative ways of funding health care and personal accounts of having made a difference. The Skills Training Programme includes treating Kaposi Sarcoma at a rural hospital, managing snakebites, new developments in mental health care and developing a decentralised drug-resistant tuberculosis programme. The Scientific Programme will provide a platform where delegates can present their achievements. Five oral presentations or posters grouped around a similar theme will be discussed during the sessions, with time for participation. The Medical Training Track will be relevant to student participants, as it includes in-depth discussions of medical training needs. A debate will be held on the issue of mid-level health workers, with experts from Mozambique, Botswana, Malawi and South Africa outlining advances made in these countries. The traditional Focus on Advocacy Track is expected to be vigorous, given the participation of the new Rural Health Advocacy Project. For the first time there will be a track dedicated entirely to debating policy issues and formulating resolutions. Health care professionals who are interested in rehabilitation will be able to attend multi-disciplinary sessions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthcare workers handbook on influenza","field_subtitle":"National Institute for Communicable Diseases: 1 July 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.nicd.ac.za/outbreaks/h1n1/docs/Healthcare_Workers_Handbook_on_Influenza_in_SA_2010_07_01.pdf","body":"The updated 2010 healthcare workers handbook on influenza provides detailed guidelines on the diagnosis and management of influenza, both seasonal and pandemic, for healthcare workers in South Africa. It gives historical background to the disease in southern Africa, symptoms, case descriptions, information on laboratory testing and clinical management guidelines. The guide concludes with a section on infection management and control.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Help a phone call away for sex workers ","field_subtitle":"Langa L: Health-e News, 5 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032854","body":"South Africa\u2019s Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) and Sisonke have launched a helpline for commercial sex workers. The line was initiated to give commercial sex workers a platform to voice the concerns and fears they face at work. SWEAT noted that it was not easy for commercial sex workers to get adequate information because they are often scared of revealing what they do to earn a living. The line could also be used by anyone who wanted to get information about the industry. The line opened at the beginning of June and provides assistance on sexual health, drug and alcohol problems as well as emotional and work related matters. Those with e-mail access can also send e-mails. Commercial sex workers needing assistance would be assisted by trained counsellors from 9 am to 5pm with plans to upgrade the line to a 24-hour facility. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV prevention response and modes of transmission analysis","field_subtitle":"Wabwire-Mangen F, Odiit M, Kirungi W, Kisitu DK, Wanyama JO: UNAIDS and Government of Uganda, March 2009","field_url":"http://unaidsrstesa.org/files/u1/Uganda_MoT_Country_Synthesis_Report_7April09_0.pdf","body":"This review aimed to identify the current modes of transmission of HIV in Uganda, as well as where and among whom incident HIV infections are occurring. It indicates that the previously heralded decline in prevalence from a peak of 18% in 1992 to 6.1% in 2002 may have ended. There is stabilisation of prevalence between 6.1 and 6.5% in some antenatal care sites and even a rise in others. This is accompanied by deterioration in behavioural indicators especially an increase in multiple concurrent partnerships. There has also been a shift in the epidemic from spreading mainly in casual relationships to also seeing a large proportion of new infections in people in long-term stable relationships. The main risk factors for transmission were identified as having, multiple partners, discordance and non-disclosure, lack of condom use, transactional sex, cross-generational sex, presence of herpes simplex and sexually transmitted infections, alcohol and drug use, and behavioural disinhibition due to anti-retroviral therapy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV prevention with MSM: Balancing evidence with rights-based principles of practice","field_subtitle":"Global Forum on MSM and HIV (MSMGF): June 2010 ","field_url":"http://msmgf.org/documents/MSMGF_Policy_Brief_Prevention.pdf","body":"For years, there has been silence at the global level about the disproportionate impact that HIV and AIDS have on men who have sex with men (MSM). This silence has led to unabated epidemics and especially weak HIV prevention programming at national levels for MSM across the globe. This policy brief aims to provide universal guidelines for HIV and AIDS services that target MSM. It also discusses the legal context in Africa, where sex between members of the same sex is illegal in most countries, explaining how criminalising homosexuality heightens the risk for HIV transmission and drives those most at need away from prevention, care, treatment, and support services. The brief points to consensus among HIV behavioral researchers and practitioners that combination approaches to prevention, sustained over time and tailored to the specific local needs of MSM, should be adopted to effectively address HIV prevalence and incidence among MSM. These approaches should combine and integrate biomedical and behavioral strategies with community-level and structural approaches. The brief provides some important core principles of practice that can serve as broad guidelines in the design, implementation, and evaluation of targeted HIV prevention programmes and paradigms within MSM communities worldwide.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"How should MDG implementation be measured: Faster progress or meeting targets?","field_subtitle":"Fukuda-Parr S and Greenstein J: International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth Working Paper 63, 2010","field_url":"http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCWorkingPaper63.pdf","body":"This paper questions the current methodology that is widely used to assess progress in implementing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a methodology that asks whether or not the targets are likely to be met. The paper demonstrates that the appropriate question should be whether more is being done to live up to that commitment, resulting in faster progress. It notes that the MDGs have led to an unprecedented mobilisation of the United Nations system and the international community, yet the results show that there has not been a post-MDG acceleration of improvement in most countries for most indicators, and that many countries have in fact regressed. The critical question for MDG implementation is to understand where and why progress has accelerated and why and where it hasn\u2019t gone faster. The authors conclude that global goals are normative commitments that can be used in development policy as normative priorities, and that using them as planning targets, particularly at the national level, can be highly misleading.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"IDRC internship awards competition ","field_subtitle":"Application Deadline: 12 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-84370-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html","body":"The main goal of the International Development and Research Centre (IDRC) Internship Awards is to provide exposure to research for international development through a programme of training in research management and grant administration under the guidance of IDRC programme staff. Internships are designed to provide hands-on learning experiences in research programme management and in the creation, dissemination and utilisation of knowledge from an international perspective. The interns will first undertake a programme of research on the topic submitted when competing for the internship award. Thereafter, they will be expected to provide support to management and programme staff in some of the following areas: synthesis of project outcomes; production of publications and dissemination materials or activities on research results; participation in team meetings; research tasks to locate, review and synthesise relevant material; preparation of state-of-the-art reviews; preparation of correspondence, reports and presentations; assistance with the organisation of meetings, workshops and seminars; preparation of minutes; updating and maintaining databases; and maintenance of the website; and exchange with other institutions working on a broad range of issues related to programming.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the availability, quality and use of health information, research evidence and knowledge to strengthen health systems","field_subtitle":"Kebede D, Zielinski C, Mbondji PE, Sanou I, Edoh EA, Soumbey-Alley W, Lusamba-Dikassa P: African Health Monitor 12: 53\u201367, April-June 2010","field_url":"http://ahm.afro.who.int/issue12/ahm-12.pdf","body":"According to this study, the availability, quality and use of health information, research evidence and knowledge is not adequate in the African Region. This has resulted in two major types of knowledge gaps: gaps in health knowledge, and the so-called \u2018know-do gap\u2019. Health knowledge gaps are where essential answers on how to improve the health of the people in the Region are missing. This is an issue related to the acquisition or generation of health information and research evidence. The \u2018know-do gap\u2019 is the failure to apply all existing knowledge to improve people\u2019s health. This is related to the issue of sharing and translation of health information, research evidence, or knowledge. Although there are major structural constraints, the study argues that the key to narrowing the knowledge gap and sustaining health and development gains is a long-term commitment to strengthen national capability to ensure the availability of relevant and high quality health information and evidence and its use for policy and decision making. Close links and the co-ordination of fragmented disciplines such as information, health research and knowledge management are argued to be an essential step in this process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the use of evidence in health impact assessment","field_subtitle":"Mindell J, Biddulph J, Taylor L, Lock K, Boaz A, Joffe M and Curtis S: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 556\u2013559, July 2010 543\u2013550","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/7/09-068510.pdf","body":"Health impact assessment (HIA) has been proposed as one mechanism that can inform decision-making by public policy-makers, yet it has been criticised for a lack of rigour in its use of evidence. The aim of this study was to formulate, develop and test a practical guide to reviewing publicly available evidence for use in HIA. The formulation and development of the guide involved substantial background research, qualitative research with the target audience, substantial consultations with potential users and other stakeholders, a pilot study to explore content, format and usability, and peer review. Finally, the guide was tested in practice by invited volunteers who used it to appraise existing HIA evidence reviews. During development, a wealth of data was generated on how the guide might be applied in practice, on terminology, on ensuring clarity of the text and on additional resources needed. The final guide provides advice on reviewing quantitative and qualitative research in plain language and is suitable for those working in public health but who may not have experience in reviewing evidence. During testing, it enabled users to discriminate between satisfactory and unsatisfactory evidence reviews. By late 2009, 1,700 printed and 2,500 downloaded copies of the guide had been distributed. In conclusion, substantive and iterative consultation, though time-consuming, was pivotal to producing a simple, systematic and accessible guide to reviewing publicly available research evidence for use in HIA.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequities in the global health workforce: The greatest impediment to health in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Anyangwe SCE and Mtonga Chipayeni: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 4(2): 93-100, 2007","field_url":"http://www.mdpi.org/ijerph/papers/ijerph2007040002.pdf","body":"According to this paper, about 59 million people make up the health workforce of paid full-time health workers world-wide. However, enormous gaps remain between the potential of health systems and their actual performance, and there are far too many inequities in the distribution of health workers between countries and within countries. Sub-Saharan Africa, with about 11% of the world\u2019s population, bears over 24% of the global disease burden, is home to only 3% of the global health workforce, and spends less than 1% of the world\u2019s financial resources on health. In most developing countries, the health workforce is concentrated in the major towns and cities, while rural areas can only boast of about 23% and 38% of the country\u2019s doctors and nurses respectively. The imbalances exist not only in the total numbers and geographical distribution of health workers, but also in the skills mix of available health workers. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa would need to increase their health workforce by about 140% to achieve enough coverage for essential health interventions to make a positive difference in the health and life expectancy of their populations. The paper argues that the global health workforce crisis can be tackled if there is global responsibility, political will, financial commitment and public-private partnership for country-led and country-specific interventions that seek solutions beyond the health sector. Only when enough health workers can be trained, sustained and retained in sub-Saharan African countries will there be meaningful socio-economic development and the faintest hope of attaining the Millennium Development Goals in the sub-continent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Innovative health service delivery models in low and middle income countries: What can we learn from the private sector? ","field_subtitle":"Bhattacharyya O, Khor S, McGahan A, Dunne D, Daar AS and Singer PA: Health Research Policy and Systems 8(24), 15 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-8-24.pdf","body":"This study reviewed peer-reviewed and grey literature on examples of innovation in pruvate sector health care. From 46 studies, 10 case studies were selected spanning different countries and health service delivery models. The cases included social marketing, cross-subsidy, high-volume, low cost models. They tended to have a narrow clinical focus, facilitating standardised care models but allowing experimentation with delivery models. Information on the social impact of these innivations was variable, with more data on availability and affordability and less on quality of care. More rigorous evaluations are needed to investigate the impact and quality of private health service innovations and to determine the effectiveness of the strategies used.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Innovative responses for preventing HIV transmission: The protective value of population-wide interruptions of risk activity","field_subtitle":"Parkhurst J and Whiteside A: Southern African Journal of HIV Medicine 87: 19-21, April 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.sajhivmed.org.za/index.php/sajhivmed/article/view/612/478","body":"This article argues that a population-wide interruption of risk behaviour for a set period of time could reduce HIV incidence and make a significant contribution to prevention efforts. If everyone in a population abstained from high-risk sex for a given period of time, in theory the viral loads of all recent seroconverters should pass through the acute infection period. When risk behaviour resumed there would be almost no individuals in the high-viraemic phase, thereby reducing infectivity, and HIV incidence would fall. The article calls for mathematical modelling of periodic risk behaviour interruptions, as well as encouragement of policy interventions to develop campaigns of this nature. A policy response, such as a \u2018safe sex/no sex\u2019 campaign in a cohesive population, deserves serious consideration as an HIV prevention intervention. In some contexts, periods of abstinence from risky behaviour could also be linked to existing religious practices to provide policy options, for example sexual abstinence practiced during the Muslim holy month of Ramadaan.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Letter from 117 African civil society organisations to July 2010 African Union Summit ","field_subtitle":"Africa Public Health Alliance & 15% Plus Campaign: July 2010","field_url":"http://www.africanexecutive.com/modules/magazine/articles.php?article=5342&magazine=292","body":"One hundred and seventeen African health, social development, gender-based, youth and human rights organisations, as well as trade unions, have signed and submitted a letter to the 15th African Union Summit of Heads of State, which took place from 19-27 July 2010 in Uganda. The letter was featured in the July EQUINET newsletter since which time the large number of civil society organisations have signed on. The letter sent to the chairman of the African Union urged governments to uphold, improve and urgently implement African and global health and social development financing commitments, including the Abuja Commitment to allocate 15% of national budgets to health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Long-term biological and behavioural impact of an adolescent sexual health intervention in Tanzania: Follow-up survey of the community-based MEMA kwa Vijana trial","field_subtitle":"Doyle AM, Ross DA, Maganja K, Baisley K, Masesa C et al. PLoS Medicine 7(6): 8 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000287","body":"This is a cross-sectional survey (June 2007 through July 2008) of 13,814 people aged 15\u201330 years who had attended trial schools on sexual education during the first phase of the MEMA kwa Vijana sexual health intervention trial (1999\u20132002). Prevalences of the primary outcomes HIV and herpes simplex 2 (HSV-2) were 1.8% and 25.9% in males and 4% and 41.4% in females, respectively. The intervention did not significantly reduce risk of HIV or HSV-2 but was associated with a reduction in the proportion of males reporting more than four sexual partners in their lifetime and an increase in reported condom use at last sex with a non-regular partner among females. There was a clear and consistent beneficial impact on knowledge, but no significant impact on reported attitudes to sexual risk, reported pregnancies, or other reported sexual behaviours. The study concluded that knowledge of sexual and reproductive health can be improved and retained long-term, but this intervention had only a limited effect on sexual behaviour. Youth interventions integrated within intensive, community-wide risk reduction programmes may be more successful and should be evaluated.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Meeting human resources for health staffing goals by 2018: A quantitative analysis of policy options in Zambia ","field_subtitle":"Tjoa A, Kapihya M, Libetwa M, Schroder K, Scott C, Lee J and McCarthy E: Human Resources for Health 8(15), 30 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-8-15.pdf","body":"The authors of this study developed a model to forecast the size of the public sector health workforce in Zambia over the next ten years to identify a combination of interventions that would expand the workforce to meet staffing targets. The key forecasting variables are training enrolment, graduation rates, public sector entry rates for graduates, and attrition of workforce staff. With no changes to current training, hiring, and attrition conditions, the total number of doctors, clinical officers, nurses, and midwives will increase from 44% to 59% of the minimum necessary staff by 2018. No combination of changes in staff retention, graduation rates, and public sector entry rates of graduates by 2010, without including training expansion, is sufficient to meet staffing targets by 2018 for any cadre except midwives. Training enrolment needs to increase by a factor of between three and thirteen for doctors, three and four for clinical officers, two and three for nurses, and one and two for midwives by 2010 to reach staffing targets by 2018. Necessary enrolment increases can be held to a minimum if the rates of retention, graduation, and public sector entry increase to 100% by 2010, but will need to increase if these rates remain at 2008 levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Millennium Development Goals report card: Learning from progress","field_subtitle":"Overseas Development Institute: 2010","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/4908.pdf","body":"This report is part of initial findings from an ongoing review of development progress to generate comparative analysis that illustrates relative and absolute progress at national, sub-national and regional levels. The analysis is based on the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) database, household demographic and health surveys and multiple indicator cluster surveys. Two measures are used to evaluate progress: absolute and relative. Both measures are needed to tell the full story of progress, particularly in low-income countries. The report found that most countries are making progress on most of the key MDG indicators. For example, the number of people living in extreme poverty fell from an estimated 1.8 billion in 1990 to 1.4 billion in 2005. The share of children in primary school in low- and middle-income countries has risen from just over 70% to well over 80%. Ninety-five per cent of countries are making progress in reducing child mortality, which overall fell from 101 to 69 per 1000 live births between 1990 and 20071. And, despite wide variation in progress on maternal mortality, access to maternal health services has increased in about 80% of countries. The key message from many years of working towards the MDGs is that progress is possible. In every aspect of development \u2013 even in the least successful of the MDGs reviewed here, on maternal health (Goal 5) \u2013 a significant number of countries have made real achievements. Although these statistics are encouraging, the challenge for the remaining five years and beyond is to learn from, and build upon, progress made.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"National Strategic Plan 2007\u20132011: Mid-term review 2010","field_subtitle":"South African National AIDS Council: June 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/pdf/Mid_Term_Review_of_the_NSP_%28preliminary_report%29.pdf","body":"This review of the HIV and AIDS national strategic plan (NSP) since the NSP's inception in 2007, reports that condom use has almost doubled, treatment coverage among adults living with HIV has almost tripled, and prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) services among HIV-positive pregnant women has reached 76%. In contrast, the uptake of dual ARV therapy PMTCT has been problematic, and there are major shortcomings in monitoring and evaluation (M&E) that could leave decision-makers operating in a vacuum, the report warns. It notes that while provinces had adopted the dual therapy regimen and were training health workers to administer it, some districts were still using the outdated single dose of Nevirapine because funding to buy the ARVs for dual therapy was problematic. It also highlights a dearth of data on babies born HIV-positive, but quotes department of health estimates showing that almost 40% of infants exposed to HIV were put at risk of contracting the virus by incomplete provision of PMTCT services. Problems with monitoring and evaluation were also highlighted, with inadequate data on mothers, babies and HIV-positive patients awaiting treatment. The report suggests that measuring South Africa's success against numerous goals and objectives set by the NSP may be logistically and bureaucratically challenging. Despite a wealth of information on HIV and AIDS that is collected to fulfill government reporting requirements, the uneven quality, scope and availability of the data has presented considerable challenges to those trying to implement evidence-based HIV interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New health market initiative launched","field_subtitle":"Results for Development: July 2010","field_url":"http://healthmarketinnovations.org","body":"Results for Development has launched its new Centre for Health Market Innovations (CHMI), a new initiative that works to improve health markets in developing countries to deliver better results for the poor. CHMI is a publicly accessible global knowledge platform that collects, analyses and disseminates information about health market innovations and facilitates the creation of strategic links among key stakeholders. It provides access to interactive, comparable and filterable information on health market programmes. You can use CHMI for research, to allow you to promote your ideas, publications and programmes, and enable you to make better connections with people in the field. The website contains a programmes database and funder database. It also contains information about health market innovations, which are programmes and policies that harness market incentives and mitigate the negative effects of unregulated markets to provide better health and financial protection for the poor. You can join the conversation on the blog, as well as provide feedback on the site.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Open letter to UN Secretary General from civil society ","field_subtitle":"United Nations: 23 June 2010 ","field_url":"http://civicus.org/media/TWWW_UN_media_release_100623_FINAL.pdf","body":"Civil society activists and anti-poverty campaigners from around the world have personally delivered a letter containing recommendations for a breakthrough plan to end poverty and inequality to United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. The open letter was signed by more than 120 civil society organisations, including Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), the Feminist Task Force, CIVICUS, End Water Poverty and the International Trade Union Confederation. It contains nine key recommendations, including calls for greater accountability, measures to increase gender equality and reduce social exclusion and the provision of quality affordable public services. GCAP affirmed that signatories to the letter were determined to ensure that the breakthrough plan is developed further and implemented to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The campaign is intended to be extended to all UN member states, as well as to the United Nations Summit, which will be held in September and is expected to produce additional pledges to achieve the MDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Paperless registration during survey enumerations and large oral cholera mass vaccination in Zanzibar, the United Republic of Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Ali M, Deen JL, Khatib A, Enwere G, von Seidlein L, Reyburn R, Ali SM, Chang NY, Perroud V, Marodon F, et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 556\u2013559, July 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/7/09-070334.pdf","body":"Field trials require extensive data preparation and complex logistics. The use of personal digital assistants (PDAs) can bypass many of the traditional steps that are necessary in a paper-based data entry system. In this study, the authors programmed, designed and supervised the use of PDAs for a large survey enumeration and mass vaccination campaign. The project was implemented in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Zanzibar is composed of two main islands, Unguja and Pemba, where outbreaks of cholera have been reported since the 1970s. PDAs allowed the researchers to digitise information at the initial point of contact with the respondents. Immediate response by the system in case of error helped ensure the quality and reliability of the data. PDAs provided quick data summaries that allowed subsequent research activities to be implemented in a timely fashion. Portability, immediate recording and linking of information was found to enhance structured data collection in the study. The study recommends PDAs as more useful than paper-based systems for data collection in the field, especially in impoverished settings in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Perceptions of rewards among volunteer caregivers of people living with AIDS working in faith-based organisations in South Africa: A qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Akintola O: Journal of the International AIDS Society 13(22), 14 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-13-22.pdf","body":"This study aims to fill a research gap regarding the positive health and socio-economic outcomes and experiences of volunteers in the home-based care context in South Africa. It investigated the perception of rewards among volunteers working in home-based care settings. Qualitative interviews were conducted with a purposively selected sample of 55 volunteer caregivers using an interview schedule containing open-ended questions. The study found that volunteer caregivers derived intrinsic rewards, related to self-growth and personal development, which were a direct consequence of the experiences of caring for terminally ill patients with AIDS. Extrinsic rewards came from appreciation and recognition shown by patients and community members. The greatest sources of extrinsic rewards were identified as the skills and competencies acquired from training and experience while caring for their patients, and volunteers' ability to make a difference in the community. The insights revealed by this study may be useful to programme managers in recruiting and assisting volunteers by helping managers to identify and reflect on rewards in the caregiving situation as a means of reducing the burden of care and sustaining volunteer interest in caregiving.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor health services in Swaziland hamper PMTCT progress","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 28 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89655","body":"According to this article, Swaziland has made remarkable progress in reducing HIV transmission from infected mothers to their babies, but health activists have raised concerns that this progress may be stalled or even reversed if lapses in basic health services are not addressed.  Since prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) services became available in 2003, HIV transmission has almost halved, from 40% of children becoming infected by their HIV-positive mothers to 21%.  The number of teenage pregnancies has also fallen. As teen mothers are less likely to use antenatal care and PMTCT services, fewer teens giving birth means fewer HIV-positive babies. However, a significant proportion of pregnant women are giving birth at home, and so are not using PMTCT services. A rise in home deliveries appears to be a direct result of poor conditions at underfunded clinics and hospitals. Leaking roofs, unreliable water supplies and a lack of beds at clinics are contributing to the problem of \u2018burnout\u2019 among nurses. According to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, a pregnant woman's HIV status should be determined in her first trimester so as to provide optimal PMTCT services, but Swazi tradition discourages women from talking about a pregnancy during the first 14 weeks and, as a result, women delay seeking treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Practical approaches to the aid effectiveness agenda: Evidence in aligning aid information with recipient country budgets","field_subtitle":"Moon S and Mills Z: Overseas Development Institute Working Paper 317, July 2010","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/4801.pdf","body":"This paper explores the links between aid and budgets in two ways. First, it documents similarities among 14 aid-recipient country budgets, comparing them with the Creditor Reporting System of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC/CRS) and the UN Classification of the Functions of Government (COFOG) system. It assesses the fit of the latter for practical use by donor agencies. The main aim is to contribute to the development of more comprehensive sub-sector classifications, which may also be movable among top-level sectors, so as to fit around decisions made at country level on sector definitions. Second, the paper constructs a generic functional classification, designed specifically for the purpose of examining budget administrative classifications. This set of functions is grouped at sector level for ease of analysis and use, but is anchored on the lowest level of the classification. The aim was to review the commonalities between budget administrative classifications and develop a draft set of generic functional definitions that best align with the administrative structures of the countries in the sample. Those definitions may then be tested at donor headquarters level. The paper also makes recommendations on how to facilitate the transfer of aid information, particularly aid that is not spent through recipient country budget systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Re-thinking global health sector efforts for HIV and tuberculosis epidemic control: Promoting integration of programme activities within a strengthened health system","field_subtitle":"Maher D: BMC Public Health 10(394), 2010","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-10-394.pdf","body":"The aim of this paper is to reconsider established practices and policies for HIV and tuberculosis epidemic control, aiming at delivering better results and value for money. This may be achieved by promoting greater integration of HIV and tuberculosis control programme activities within a strengthened health system. The current health system approach to HIV and tuberculosis control often involves separate specialised services. Despite some recent progress, collaboration between the programmes remains inadequate, progress in obtaining synergies has been slow, and results remain far below those needed to achieve universal access to key interventions. A fundamental re-think of the current strategic approach involves promoting integrated delivery of HIV and tuberculosis programme activities as part of strengthened general health services: epidemiological surveillance, programme monitoring and evaluation, community awareness of health-seeking behavior, risk behaviour modification, infection control, treatment scale-up (first-line treatment regimens), drug-resistance surveillance, containing and countering drug-resistance (second-line treatment regimens), research and development, global advocacy and global partnership. Health agencies should review policies and progress in HIV and tuberculosis epidemic control, learn mutual lessons for policy development and scaling up interventions, and identify ways of joint planning and joint funding of integrated delivery as part of strengthened health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Recommendation concerning HIV and AIDS and the World of Work, 2010 (No 200)","field_subtitle":"International Labour Organization: June 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/322ryc3","body":"The International Labour Organization\u2019s (ILO) Code of Practice on HIV and AIDS, which aims to strengthen the global response to HIV in the workplace, was adopted by governments, employers and workers at the annual conference of the ILO, held in Switzerland from 2\u201318 June 2010. As a new labour standard, it is intended to reinforce and extend anti-discrimination policies in the workplace. It reaffirms the right to continued employment regardless of HIV status and asserts that workers should not be screened for HIV for employment purposes. The standard also recognises the need for focused action to protect the rights of populations that may be more vulnerable to HIV infection, and is expected to provide support to the goal of universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. The labour costs of HIV are recognised in the standard, especially since HIV affects the most economically active age range in every population and the loss of most the 33.4 million people living with HIV would represent a major loss of skills and experience that might have a negative effect on economies and communities. The standard is the first internationally-sanctioned instrument that focuses specifically on HIV in the workplace. It is expected to significantly enhance the impact of HIV prevention and treatment programmes in the workforce globally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional integration, fragility and institution building: An analytical framework applied to the African context","field_subtitle":"Verdier T: European University Institute Working Paper, June 2010","field_url":"http://erd.eui.eu/media/2010/RSCAS_2010_38.pdf","body":"This paper discusses how regional integration processes may contribute to state building and reduce economic and social insecurity. After presenting a simple conceptual framework to discuss the effects of external and regional integration in weak states, it analyses the policy trade-offs that may arise in such contexts. The paper then reviews the specific regional experiences of sub-Saharan countries. Finally, it discusses policy implications for the European Union (EU) in the context of its regional trade and development policies with African countries. The author concludes that a two-tier approach to regional integration, which combines both top-down and bottom-up processes, is necessary; the EU approach to regional integration in Africa should promote \u2018building blocks\u2019 and not \u2018stumbling blocks\u2019; and specific considerations should be given to make the strategy for trade integration responsive to the needs of fragile states. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Revised ACP-EU Partnership Agreement","field_subtitle":"ACP Council and the ACP-EU Council of Ministers: 7 June 2010","field_url":"http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/10/st09/st09565.en10.pdf","body":"The African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Council and the ACP-EU (European Union) Council of Ministers met from 17-22 June to sign the revised ACP-EU Partnership Agreement. Aimed at eradicating poverty and supporting sustainable development and the gradual integration of the ACP states into the world economy, the agreement was finalised in 2000 and is reviewed every five years. The 2010 amendments seek to improve EU policy coherence for development, the promotion of domestic resource mobilisation, an d the role of non-state actors in cooperation. Cooperation and political dialogue is also enhanced to address the Millennium Development Goals, climate change, food security, state fragility, HIV and AIDs, organised crime and aid for trade. The revision further contains enhanced regional integration provisions and makes the African Union a partner to the agreement. The parties also adopted joint statements on the Millennium Development Goals and on climate change which should strengthen their position in the upcoming international negotiations on these issues. The ACP Council adopted unilateral declarations asking the EU to revisit its position on contentious issues in the Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations and on trade arrangements in bananas, sugar and cotton.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Scaling up integration: Development and results of a participatory assessment of HIV/TB services, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Scott VE, Chopra M, Azevedo V, Caldwell J, Naidoo P and Smuts B: Health Research Policy and Systems 8(23), 13 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-8-23.pdf","body":"This research, set in public primary care services in Cape Town, South Africa, set out to determine how middle level managers could be empowered to monitor the implementation of an effective, integrated HIV/TB/STI service. A team of managers and researchers designed an evaluation tool to measure implementation of key components of an integrated HIV/TB/STI package with a focus on integration. The tool was extensively piloted in two rounds involving 49 clinics in 2003 and 2004 to identify data necessary for effective facility-level management. A subsequent evaluation of 16 clinics (2 per health sub district, 12% of all public primary care facilities) was done in February 2006. While the physical infrastructure and staff were available, there was problem with capacity in that there was insufficient staff training (for example, only 40% of clinical staff trained in HIV care). Weaknesses were identified in quality of care (for example, only 57% of HIV clients were staged in accordance with protocols) and continuity of care (for example, only 24% of VCT clients diagnosed with HIV were followed up for medical assessment). Facility and programme managers felt that the evaluation tool generated information that was useful to manage the programmes at facility and district level. On the basis of the results facility managers drew up action plans to address three areas of weakness within their own facility.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Social protection in Africa: Where next?","field_subtitle":"Institute of Development Studies: June 2010","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/go/news/social-protection-in-africa-where-next","body":"This paper challenges current practices within the research and funding community. It notes that social protection is an extremely important policy agenda for Africa, and that remarkable progress has been made in a very short time. In recent years, external funders and other external actors have invested heavily in financing social protection projects, strengthening capacity among implementing agencies, and building the evidence base to demonstrate the powerful positive impacts of social protection programmes. Nonetheless, many governments remain resistant to social protection, as advocated by external funders and international non-government organisations. Also, where governments express a preference for different funding models, these are often neglected or dismissed, while 'beneficiaries' themselves are hardly ever consulted. This paper notes that a fundamental rethinking is required that takes domestic political priorities and policy processes into account. It concludes by proposing ten principles for future engagement by development partners with social protection policy processes in Africa, including support for national policy priorities and minimise policy intrusion; limits on pilot project 'experiments'; and the involvement of programme participants at all stages, starting with vulnerability assessments and project selection.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"South African national HIV prevalence, incidence, behaviour and communication survey, 2008: The health of our children","field_subtitle":"Shisana O, Simbayi LC, Rehle T, Zungu NP, Zuma K, Ngogo N, Jooste S, Pillay-Van Wyk V, Parker W, Pezi S, Davids A, Nwanyanwu O, Dinh TH and SABSSM III Implementation Team: Human Sciences Research Council, 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?productid=2279&freedownload=1","body":"In this report, research findings from a population-based household survey are presented on the general health status of infants, children, and adolescents in South Africa including morbidity, utilisation of health facilities, immunisation coverage, HIV status and associated risk factors. The study also investigates the exposure of children and adolescents to HIV communication programmes. Major recommendations were that the number and scope of community health workers be expanded to include high-impact but low-cost health and nutrition interventions. The report found very little exclusive breastfeeding, with 51.3% of babies on mixed feeding. The report highlighted the lack of HIV communication programmes in rural areas, and for English, Afrikaans, Tsonga and Venda speakers, recommending that future campaigns also focus more strongly on complementing school-based programmes and on children. It recommends implementing an accreditation system \u2018as a matter of urgency\u2019 to regularly monitor the quality of health facilities and to serve as a mechanism to hold managers accountable for the health outcomes of mothers and children. The report may be used by policy makers and stakeholders in targeting and prioritising key issues in planning and programming efforts focusing on the broad health issues of South African children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening care for the injured: Success stories and lessons learned from around the world","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization (WHO): 2010","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241563963_eng.pdf","body":"This book discusses a range of case studies in trauma care, including pre-hospital, hospital-based, rehabilitation and system-wide settings, from all regions of the world and at all socioeconomic levels. It aims to share some of the valuable lessons learned and focuses on practical, affordable and sustainable efforts to improve trauma care, identifying useful methods and strategies that could be adapted for use in other places. It also seeks to dispel the view that little can be done to improve trauma care in low- and middle-income countries. Improvements in care may be measured using outcomes data on decreased mortality or other tangible patient benefits, such as decreased morbidity, improved functional outcome or decreased costs. Performance may also be measured in terms of how much time is devoted to emergency procedures, appropriate use of particular life-saving procedures and greater availability of the human and physical resources needed to provide quality care. The book calls for improvements in training, supervision and monitoring of staff, increased political commitment and timely and accurate data to better inform policy decisions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening public health laboratories in the WHO African Region: A critical need for disease control","field_subtitle":"Ndihokubwayo JB, Kasolo F, Yahaya AA and Mwenda J: African Health Monitor 12: 47\u201352, April-June 2010","field_url":"http://ahm.afro.who.int/issue12/ahm-12.pdf","body":"Although progress has been made in strengthening laboratory capacity to support programmes such as poliomyelitis eradication, HIV prevention and control, and measles elimination, this study notes that challenges remain. These include the lack of national policy and strategy for laboratory services, insufficient funding, inadequately trained laboratory staff, weak laboratory infrastructure, old or inadequately serviced equipment, lack of essential reagents and consumables, and limited quality assurance and control protocols. Laboratories are usually given low priority and recognition in most national health delivery systems. The study identifies the main challenge as the need to develop a comprehensive national laboratory policy that addresses the above issues. Other recommendations include improving laboratory leadership, strengthening the laboratory supply and distribution system, improving monitoring, providing adequate training for staff, strengthening information systems and putting in place effective monitoring and evaluation systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Sub-Saharan Africa's mothers, newborns, and children: How many lives could be saved with targeted health interventions? ","field_subtitle":"Friberg IK, Kinney MV, Lawn JE, Kerber KJ, Odubanjo MO et al: PLoS Medicine 7(6), 21 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000295","body":"According to this paper, sub-Saharan Africa is at a critical point for achieving the Millennium Development Goals for maternal and child survival. It urges for strategic action to be taken now to maximise mortality reduction by 2015. It estimates mortality reduction for 42 sub-Saharan African countries if 90% coverage of maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) interventions was achieved \u2013 nearly four million African women, newborns and children could be saved each year. The study also undertook a detailed analysis of nine African countries that estimated mortality reductions and additional cost for feasible increases in coverage of selected high-impact MNCH interventions considering three differing health system contexts. It revealed that a 20% coverage increase for selected community-based/outreach interventions would save an estimated 486,000 lives and cost an additional US$1.21 per capita. Increasing the quality of current facility births would save 105,000 lives and cost an additional US$0.54 per capita. The study concludes that functioning health systems require both community-based or outreach services and facility-based care. Maximising mortality impact for Africa's mothers, newborns, and children will depend on using local data to prioritise the most effective mix of interventions, while building a stronger health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Sub-Saharan Africa's mothers, newborns, and children: Where and why do they die? ","field_subtitle":"Kinney MV, Kerber KJ, Black RE, Cohen B, Nkrumah F et al: PLoS Medicine 7(6), 21 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000294","body":"According to this report, 4.4 million children and 265,000 mothers die in sub-Saharan Africa every year, which amounts to half of the world's maternal, newborn and child deaths. It identifies the five biggest challenges for maternal, newborn and child health in sub-Saharan Africa as pregnancy and childbirth complications, newborn illness, childhood infections, malnutrition, and HIV and AIDS. Many scientifically proven health interventions are available for maternal, newborn, and child health such as medicines, immunisations, insecticide-treated bed nets, and equipment for emergency obstetric care. Yet many African governments are currently underutilising existing scientific knowledge to save women's and children's lives. The report recommends a scientific approach based on local epidemiological and coverage data that will prioritise the highest impact and most appropriate interventions in a given context. Although most countries in sub-Saharan Africa are behind in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for maternal and child health by 2015, progress in several low-income countries demonstrates that the MDGs could still be attained through immediate strategic investments in selected evidence-based interventions and targeted health systems strengthening.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Swimming upstream: Why sanitation, hygiene and water are so important to mothers and their daughters","field_subtitle":"Brocklehursta C and Bartramb J: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 482, July 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/7/10-080077.pdf","body":"Though global progress in sanitation has been poor, some low income countries have achieved a reduction of up to 60% in the proportion of people without improved sanitation. This article argues that it is likely that this progress was not simply due to installing infrastructure, but also due to political support, modest financing cleverly applied and a focus on changing behaviour and social norms. Building demand for toilets, especially among those people who have practiced open defecation all their lives, helps trigger household investments. Evidence that these approaches are effective suggests that accelerated progress is possible. Barriers in providing drinking-water can also be overcome using innovations like low-cost drilling techniques and cheaper hand pumps, the use of locally-managed, small-scale systems and civil society intermediation between poor communities and service providers. Providing water, sanitation and hygiene in schools is increasingly a priority for ministries of education in developing countries. Emerging designs for toilets that incorporate privacy and facilities for menstrual hygiene provide a multitude of benefits. Water, sanitation and hygiene also enable women to play roles in their community\u2019s development, including decision-making and management of water and sanitation systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"System effectiveness of a targeted free mass distribution of long lasting insecticidal nets in Zanzibar, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Beer N, Ali AS, de Savigny D, Al-Mafazy AH, Ramsan M, Abass AK, Omari RS, Bjorkman A, Kallander K: Malaria Journal 9(173), 18 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-9-173.pdf","body":"A targeted mass distribution of free LLINs to children under five and pregnant women was implemented in Zanzibar between August 2005 and January 2006. The outcomes of this distribution among children under five are evaluated in this study, four to nine months after implementation. Two cross-sectional surveys were conducted in May 2006 in two districts of Zanzibar: Micheweni (MI) on Pemba Island and North A (NA) on Unguja Island. Household interviews were conducted with 509 caretakers of under-five children, who were surveyed for socio-economic status, the net distribution process, perceptions and use of bed nets. The overall proportion of children under five sleeping under any type of treated net was 83.7% in MI and 91.8% in NA. The LLIN usage was 56.8% in MI and 86.9% in NA. Overall system effectiveness was 49% in MI and 87% in NA, and equity was found in the distribution scale-up in NA. In both districts, the predicting factor of a child sleeping under an LLIN was because caretakers had received a LLIN or considered LLINs to be better than conventional nets. In conclusion, targeted free mass distribution of LLINs can result in high and equitable bed net coverage among children under five. However, in order to sustain high effective coverage, there is need for complimentary distribution strategies between mass distribution campaigns. Considering the community's preferences prior to a mass distribution and addressing the communities concerns through information, education and communication, may improve the LLIN usage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Ten best resources on health workers in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Gr\u00e9pin KA and Savedoff WD: Health Policy and Planning 24: 479\u2013482, July 2009","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/24/6/479.pdf","body":"According to this review, researchers and policymakers in the past have paid little attention to the role of health workers in developing countries but a new generation of studies are providing a fuller understanding of these issues using more sophisticated data and research tools. The review refers to recent research that views health workers as active agents in dynamic labour markets who are faced with many competing incentives and constraints. Studies using this approach appear to provide greater insights into human resource requirements in health, the motivations and behaviours of health workers and health worker migration. The review urges for more high-quality research on the role of health workers in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The background to the Algiers declaration and the framework for its implementation to improve health systems","field_subtitle":"Lusamba-Dikassa P, Kebede D, Sanou I, Edoh EA, Soumbey-Alley W, Mbondji PE, Zielinski C and Sambo LG: African Health Monitor 12: 6\u20139, April-June 2010","field_url":"http://ahm.afro.who.int/issue12/ahm-12.pdf","body":"The Algiers Declaration on Narrowing the Knowledge Gap to Improve Africa\u2019s Health was adopted during a Conference held in Algiers, Algeria, in June 2008. The Conference, which brought Ministers from the African Region together with researchers, non-governmental organisations, donors and the private sector, renewed commitments to narrow the knowledge gap in order to improve health development and health equity in the Region. This paper describes the background to the Algiers Declaration and the Framework for its implementation and their significance in assisting efforts by countries in the Region to strengthen their health systems. The paper argues that countries should implement the series of steps in the Algiers Framework to strengthen their health systems. These steps will help them to develop the content, processes and use of technology aimed at improving: the availability of relevant and timely health information; the management of health information through better analysis and interpretation of data; the availability of relevant, ethical and timely research evidence; the use of evidence by policy-makers and decision-makers; improving dissemination and sharing of information, evidence and knowledge; access to global health information; and the use of information and communication technologies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The experiences of people living with HIV/AIDS and of their direct informal caregivers in a resource-poor setting","field_subtitle":"Majumdar B and Mazaleni N: Journal of the International AIDS Society 13(20), 11 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-13-20.pdf","body":"The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the challenges faced by people who are living with HIV or AIDS (PLWHAs) and their caregivers in resource-poor, remote South African villages. In-depth interviews were conducted with nine PLWHAs and their direct informal caregivers. Interviews explored the themes of physical, emotional and social wellbeing. Two focus groups were also conducted. The results of the study underscored the needs of PLWHAs and the needs of their direct informal caregivers, which include physical/medical, social, material, financial, instrumental and physiological/emotional needs, as well as gender issues. In developing home-based care programmes, the study argues that it is vital to consider the perceived needs of PLWHAs and their caregivers. The results from this study may serve as a basis for the development of a home-based care programme in similar remote and resource-poor settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Ouagadougou declaration on primary health care and health systems in Africa: Achieving better health for Africa in the new millennium","field_subtitle":"Path\u00e9 S, Habib B, Joses S, Kirigia M, Nyoni J, Bessaoud K, Trapsida J, Bosco J, Edoh N, Soumbey-Alley W et al: African Health Monitor 12: 10\u201321, April-June 2010","field_url":"http://ahm.afro.who.int/issue12/ahm-12.pdf","body":"The Ouagadougou Declaration on Primary Health Care and Health Systems in Africa focuses on nine major priority areas: leadership and governance for health, health services delivery, human resources for health, health financing, health information systems, health technologies, community ownership and participation, partnerships for health development and research for health. This paper describes a framework constructed for implementing the necessary activities in each of these priority areas, and proposes recommendations for consideration by World Health Organization Member States in the development of their own country frameworks. In conclusion, countries are expected to use this Framework, adapted to their own specific situations, by taking into account the progress made and the efforts needed for better and more equitable health outcomes. The Regional Committee is requested to endorse the Framework and urges Member States to put in place monitoring frameworks that feed into the national and regional observatories. Partners are expected to support countries in a harmonised and predictable manner that reduces fragmentation during the implementation of the Ouagadougou Declaration. It is expected that the implementation of the Ouagadougou Declaration by countries will contribute in accelerating progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, and reduce the inequities and social injustices that lead to large segments of the population remaining without access to essential health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The political economy of the MDGs: Retrospect and prospect for the world\u2019s biggest promise","field_subtitle":"Hulme D and Scott J: Brooks World Poverty Institute, University of Manchester, Working Paper 110, 2010","field_url":"http://www.bwpi.manchester.ac.uk/resources/Working-Papers/bwpi-wp-11010.pdf","body":"This paper reviews the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) process, drawing some recommendations to feed into the debate concerning what will take their place in 2015 when the process comes to an end. The authors note that creating the MDGs was a process that was led by rich countries, with comparatively little involvement of the lower- and middle-income countries. Likewise, the merging of the international development goals (IDGs) and MDGs was undertaken mainly between rich countries and the United Nations. In this sense, the author indicates that rich countries needed ambitious goals for their image and legitimacy, while developing countries were more interested in national goals. The paper found some clear progress in meeting the MDGs, notably the reduction of extreme poverty and also an improvement in primary school enrolments, and similarly, the paper predicts that the target of halting and reversing the spread of HIV is likely to be met. However, several areas have shown only weak improvements and even the successes are qualified. Progress has been highly geographically uneven, with global progress masking regional slippage, and regional progress masking deterioration in individual countries. The paper concludes that the opportunity created by the Millennium Movement to mobilise countries and people against poverty has been lost. The MDGs have made a difference but they have not transformed the process of international co-operation in the ways that their proponents had initially hoped.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The prevalence and drug sensitivity of tuberculosis among patients dying in hospital in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: A postmortem study","field_subtitle":"Cohen T, Murray M, Wallengren K, Alvarez GG, Samuel EY et al: PLoS Medicine 7(6), 22 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000296","body":"In this study, limited autopsies were conducted on young adults dying in a single public hospital in the province of KwaZulu-Natal between October 2008 and August 2009 in order to estimate the magnitude of deaths attributable to tuberculosis. A representative sample was taken of 240 adult inpatients (aged 20\u201345 years) who died after admission to Edendale Hospital. Ninety-four% of the study cohort was HIV seropositive and 50% of decedents had culture-positive tuberculosis at the time of death. Fifty percent of the participants were on treatment for tuberculosis at the time of death and 58% of these treated individuals remained culture positive at the time of death. Of the 50% not receiving tuberculosis treatment, 42% were culture positive. Seventeen percent of all positive cultures were multidrug resistant and 16% of patients dying during the initiation phase of their first ever course of tuberculosis treatment were infected with multidrug-resistant bacilli. The findings reveal the immense toll of tuberculosis among HIV-positive individuals in KwaZulu-Natal, as well as suggesting that the diagnosis of tuberculosis was made too late to alter the fatal course of the infection for many of the individuals. The study also revealed a significant burden of undetected multidrug-resistant tuberculosis among HIV-co-infected individuals dying in this setting. It recommends new public health approaches that improve early diagnosis of tuberculosis and accelerate the initiation of treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Trade regionalisation and openness in Africa","field_subtitle":"Iapadre L and Luchetti F: European University Institute Working Paper, June 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2f4gsb6","body":"The intensity of trade among countries belonging to the same region depends not only on the existence and effectiveness of a regional integration agreement, but also on other factors, which include the overall trade policy orientation and the relative level of geo-graphic and economic barriers affecting intra- and extra-regional trade. The paper presents a set of indicators aimed at measuring the intensity of bi-lateral trade preferences. These indicators suggest that most African countries trade more intensely with coumtries in the same region than with the rest of the world. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding the correlations between wealth, poverty and human immunodeficiency virus infection in African countries","field_subtitle":"Parkhurst JO: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 519-526, July 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/7/09-070185.pdf","body":"The objective of this paper was to investigate the relationships between the prevalence of HIV infection and underlying structural factors of poverty and wealth in several African countries. A retrospective ecological comparison and trend analysis was conducted by reviewing data from demographic and health surveys, AIDS indicator surveys and national sero-behavioural surveys in twelve sub-Saharan African countries with different estimated national incomes. The relationship between the prevalence of HIV infection and household wealth quintile did not show consistent trends in all countries. In particular, rates of HIV infection in higher-income countries did not increase with wealth. The Tanzanian data illustrated that the relationship between wealth and HIV infection can change over time in a given setting, with declining prevalence in wealthy groups occurring simultaneously with increasing prevalence in poorer women. In conclusion, both wealth and poverty can lead to potentially risky or protective behaviours. To develop better-targeted HIV prevention interventions, the paper urges the HIV community to recognise the multiple ways in which underlying structural factors can manifest themselves as risk in different settings and at different times. Context-specific risks should be the targets of HIV prevention initiatives tailored to local factors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Unemployment and poverty halved by 2014?","field_subtitle":"Meth C: School of Development Studies, University of Kwazulu-Natal, Working Paper 56, 2009","field_url":"http://sds.ukzn.ac.za/files/WP%2056%20Meth.pdf","body":"This paper examines the South African government\u2019s mandate to halve unemployment and poverty by 2014, noting the growing evidence of the unlikelihood of this happening. The paper found that disagreements among academics on the severity of poverty can be traced to the failure by Statistics South Africa to conduct adequate surveys on poverty, while unemployment rates have undermined the progress of poverty-elevation made since 2006. It estimates that, in 2014, there will still be between three and five million unemployed lacking any kind of income protection. The impact of AIDS on mortality also means that the number of poor has been significantly reducing, also impacting on unemployment rates. The paper attempts to explain the reasons behind the offhand rejection of the 'Basic Income Grant' (BIG) by government, concluding that the political bargains were behind scrapping the proposal of BIG.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Using human rights for sexual and reproductive health: Improving legal and regulatory frameworks","field_subtitle":"Cottingham J, Kismodi E, Hilber AM, Lincetto O, Stahlhofer M and Gruskin S: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88:551\u2013555, July 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/7/09-063412.pdf","body":"This paper describes the development of a tool that uses human rights concepts and methods to improve relevant laws, regulations and policies related to sexual and reproductive health. This tool aims to improve awareness and understanding of States\u2019 human rights obligations. It includes a method for systematically examining the status of vulnerable groups, involving non-health sectors, fostering a genuine process of civil society participation and developing recommendations to address regulatory and policy barriers to sexual and reproductive health with a clear assignment of responsibility. Strong leadership from the ministry of health, with support from the World Health Organization or other international partners, and the serious engagement of all involved in this process can strengthen the links between human rights and sexual and reproductive health, and contribute to national achievement of the highest attainable standard of health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Vienna Declaration calls for science-based drug policies","field_subtitle":"AIDS Map: 30 June 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/page/1446226/","body":"Three leading scientific and health policy organisations have launched a global drive for signatories to the Vienna Declaration, a statement seeking to improve community health and safety by calling for the incorporation of scientific evidence into illicit drug policies. Misguided drug policies that criminalise drug abuse are claimed to fuel the AIDS epidemic and result in violence, increased crime rates and destabilisation of entire states, without evidence they have reduced rates of drug use or drug supply. Scientists are calling for evidence-based approaches to illicit drug policy that start by recognising that addiction is a medical condition, not a crime. The Vienna Declaration describes the known harms of conventional \u2018war on drugs\u2019 approaches and calls for governments to implement evidence-based approaches that respect, protect and fulfil human rights, as well as reduce harms deriving from current policies. This would allow for the redirection of the vast financial resources towards where they are needed most: implementing and evaluating evidence-based prevention, regulatory, treatment and harm reduction interventions. Legal barriers to scientifically proven prevention services such as needle programmes and opioid substitution therapy (OST) mean hundreds of thousands of people become infected with HIV and Hepatitis C (HCV) every year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"What can global health institutions do to help strengthen health systems in low-income countries? ","field_subtitle":"Balabanova D, McKee M, Mills A, Walt G, Haines A: Health Research Policy and Systems 8(22), 29 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-8-22.pdf","body":"This paper argues that weaknesses in health systems have contributed to a failure to improve health outcomes in developing countries, despite increased official development assistance. Changes in the demands on health systems, as well as their scope to respond, mean that the situation is likely to become more problematic in the future. Diverse global initiatives seek to strengthen health systems, but progress will require better coordination between them, use of strategies based on the best available evidence obtained especially from evaluation of large scale programmes, and improved global aid architecture that supports these processes. This paper sets out the case for global leadership to support health systems investments and help ensure the synergies between vertical and horizontal programmes that are essential for effective functioning of health systems. At national level, it is essential to increase capacity to manage and deliver services, situate interventions firmly within national strategies, ensure effective implementation, and co-ordinate external support with local resources. Health systems performance should be monitored, with clear lines of accountability, and reforms should build on evidence of what works in what circumstances.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"When did medicines become essential?","field_subtitle":"Greene JA: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 483\u2013484, July 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/7/10-079970.pdf","body":"According to this article, placing essential medicines at the centre of global health priorities is not without its risks. The geography of access is closely linked to other structural determinants of inequality, few of which can be fixed merely by providing a pipeline of medicines. Access to essential medicines is therefore a necessary condition but is not sufficient on its own for the amelioration of broad health disparities in global health. On the other hand, to truly engage the social factors that determine the development, production, regulation, distribution, utilisation and consumption of essential medicines is to engage with the project of understanding health disparities and the challenges of strengthening health systems at the most detailed level. As essential medicines programmes continue to expand, this article argues that it is crucial that they have the resources and leadership to realise this vision in the broadest sense possible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO model formulary for children","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization. 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/selection_medicines/list/WMFc_2010.pdf","body":"This is the first Model Formulary for Children released by the World Health Organization (WHO), which provides information on how to use over 240 essential medicines for treating illness and disease in children from 0 to 12 years of age. A number of individual countries have developed their own formularies over the years, but until now there was no single comprehensive guide to using medicines in children for all countries. The Model Formulary is the first resource for medical practitioners worldwide that provides standardised information on the recommended use, dosage, adverse effects and contraindications of medicines for use in children. The new Formulary is based on the best global evidence available as to which medicines should be used to treat specific conditions, how they should be administered and in what dose. The Formulary also identifies a number of areas where more research is needed to provide better treatment for children, such as child appropriate antibiotics to treat pneumonia and specific medicines for neonatal care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Who wants to work in a rural health post? The role of intrinsic motivation, rural background and faith-based institutions in Ethiopia and Rwanda","field_subtitle":"Serneels P, Montalvo JG, Pettersson G, Lievens T, Buterae JD and Kidanuf A: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 342\u2013349, May 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/5/09-072728.pdf","body":"The objective of this paper was to understand the factors influencing health workers\u2019 choice to work in rural areas as a basis for designing policies to redress geographic imbalances in health worker distribution. Data from a cohort survey of 412 nursing and medical students in Rwanda was used to examine the determinants of future health workers\u2019 willingness to work in rural areas as measured by rural reservation wages. The data was combined with data from an identical survey in Ethiopia to enable a two-country analysis. The research found that health workers with higher intrinsic motivation \u2013 measured as the importance attached to helping the poor \u2013 as well as those who had grown up in a rural area and Adventists who had participated in a local bonding scheme were all significantly more willing to work in a rural area. The main result for intrinsic motivation in Rwanda was strikingly similar to the result obtained for Ethiopia and Rwanda combined. In conclusion, intrinsic motivation and rural origin play an important role in health workers\u2019 decisions to work in a rural area, in addition to economic incentives, while faith-based institutions can also influence the decision.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"World Economic and Social Survey 2010","field_subtitle":"United Nations: June 2010","field_url":"http://www.un.org/esa/policy/wess/wess2010files/wess2010.pdf","body":"The global financial crisis has also exposed serious weaknesses in global economic governance, according to this report. The report proposes fundamental revisions of the existing institutions for global economic governance. But for an effective more sustainable rebalancing of the global economy much closer coordination is needed across the trading system, the new regime for international financial regulation, the global reserve system and the mechanisms for mobilising and channelling development finance and climate funding. At present, the Group of 20 (G20) is taking on some areas of coordination, but as an informal platform responding to the crisis it has mostly focused on financial reforms. The report notes that sustainable rebalancing of the world economy will take years, if not decades, and can only be successful if there is greater policy coherence. To this end, it proposes that the international community consider institutionalising a global economic coordination mechanism within the more representative multilateral system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"World soccer\u2019s hidden HIV/AIDS epidemic and the 2010 World Cup ","field_subtitle":"Witzig R: Health-e News, 30 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032848","body":"The writer of this article argues that FIFA, as the world\u2019s football authority, has an ethical responsibility for social action, especially with regard to HIV and AIDS and the World Cup. As the overwhelming percentage of professional footballers come from poverty or financially disadvantaged childhoods, world football owes a tremendous debt to these poorer communities who, by their resourcefulness, allowed world&#8208;class footballers to develop. FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, claims that FIFA has been \u2018committed to a wide range of humanitarian projects\u2019 but the author argues these are largely insufficient. For example, the FIFA \u2018Football for Hope\u2019 project is costing only about US$17 million, while FIFA is expected to net revenues of US$3.3 billion and profits of US$1.7 billion from the Cup. The project costs amount to a mere 0.5% of the revenues and 1% of the earnings for South African charities. The author challenges FIFA to recognise that other sports have already done more per capita than world soccer for human development, specifically HIV and AIDS education and empowerment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Wrong schools or wrong students? The potential role of medical education in regional imbalances of the health workforce in the United Republic of Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Leon BK and Kolstad JR: Human Resources for Health 8(3), July 2010","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-8-3.pdf","body":"This paper reviews available research evidence that links medical students\u2019 characteristics with human resource imbalances and the contribution of medical schools in perpetuating an inequitable distribution of the health workforce. Existing literature on the determinants of the geographical imbalance of clinicians, with a special focus on the role of medical schools, is reviewed. Structured questionnaires collecting data on demographics, rural experience, working preferences and motivational aspects were administered to 130 fifth-year medical students at the medical faculties of MUCHS (University of Dar es Salaam), HKMU (Dar es Salaam) and KCMC (Tumaini University, Moshi campus) in the United Republic of Tanzania. The 130 students represented 95.6% of the Tanzanian finalists in 2005. The paper found that the lack of a primary interest in medicine among medical school entrants, biases in recruitment, the absence of rural related clinical curricula in medical schools, and a preference for specialisation not available in rural areas are among the main obstacles for building a motivated health workforce that could help correct the inequitable distribution of doctors in the United Republic of Tanzania. The paper suggests that there is a need to re-examine medical school admission policies and practices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A call to keep the promise","field_subtitle":"Editor","field_url":"","body":"With the World Cup football taking place in South Africa absorbing attention, its possible to miss two important meetings taking place at the same time. The first is the 36th G8 and G20 summits taking place in Canada in late June under the theme 'Recovery and New Beginning', and the second the 15th African Union Summit on 19\u201327 July in Kampala, Uganda, under the theme \u2018Maternal, infant and child health and development in Africa\u2019.  This newsletter flags concern over these leaders keeping the promise: G8 leaders to their development and aid commitments and African leaders to the Abuja commitments on health, including for 15% of their budgets to go to health. In this issue, a 63rd World Health Assembly resolution points to the need for strengthened health systems to address the relatively slow progress in Africa towards the health MDGs. Geoffrey Njora cautions leaders on taking the advice of finance ministers\u2019 to reverse on the commitments they made at Abuja. M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res call the G8 to account over the 'flatlining' of AIDS funding and Oxfam over the inadequate resources allocated for maternal health. African civil society through the Africa Public Health Alliance & 15% Plus Campaign are petitioning AU Heads of States on the grave concerns of African citizens to meet crucial commitments on health and social development in Kampala, in particular the 2001 Abuja pledge on health financing, while the Civil Society Forum on the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child call for the G8 and African leaders to meet their promises on funding health as we get closer to 2015. What governments deliver at these two summits is worth keeping an eye on- it affects millions of lives. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"A decline in new HIV infections in South Africa: Estimating HIV incidence from three national HIV surveys in 2002, 2005 and 2008","field_subtitle":"Rehle TM, Hallett TB, Shisana O, Pillay-van Wyk V, Zuma K et al PLoS ONE 5(6), 14 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0011094","body":"This study used a validated mathematical method to estimate the rate of new HIV infections (HIV incidence) in South Africa using nationally representative HIV prevalence data collected in 2002, 2005 and 2008. The observed HIV prevalence levels in 2008 were adjusted for the effect of antiretroviral treatment on survival. In the period 2002\u20132005, the HIV incidence rate among men and women aged 15\u201349 years was estimated to be 2 new infections each year per 100 susceptible individuals. The highest incidence rate was among 15\u201324 year-old women, at 5.5 new annual infections per 100 individuals, which declined to 60% to 2.2 There was evidence from the surveys of significant increases in condom use and awareness of HIV status, especially among youth. The analysis demonstrates how serial measures of HIV prevalence obtained in population-based surveys can be used to estimate national HIV incidence rates. It also underlines the need to determine the impact of ART on observed HIV prevalence levels. The estimation of HIV incidence and ART exposure is crucial to disentangle the concurrent impact of prevention and treatment programs on HIV prevalence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A framework for developing an evidence-based, comprehensive tobacco control programme ","field_subtitle":"Rosen L, Rosenberg E, McKee M, Gan-Noy S, Levin D, Mayshar E, Shacham G, Borowski J, Bin Nun G and Lev B: Health Research Policy and Systems 8(17), 27 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-8-17.pdf","body":"Tobacco control is an area where the translation of evidence into policy would seem to be straightforward, given the wealth of epidemiological, behavioural and other types of research available. Yet, even here challenges exist. These include information overload, concealment of key (industry-funded) evidence, contextualisation, assessment of population impact and the changing nature of the threat. This article describes the steps that may be taken to develop a comprehensive tobacco control strategy: compilation of a list of potential interventions; modification of that list based on local needs and political constraints; streamlining the list by categorising interventions into broad groupings of related interventions to form the basis of a comprehensive plan; and refinement of the plan by comparing it to existing comprehensive plans. The proposed framework for adapting existing approaches to the local social and political climate may assist others planning for smoke-free societies. Additionally, this experience has implications for development of evidence-based health plans addressing other risk factors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A new twist in the conditionality tale: Using budget support to foster good political governance","field_subtitle":"Hayman R: Centre for African Studies, Edinburgh, April 2010","field_url":"http://www.psa.ac.uk/journals/pdf/5/2010/364_453.pdf","body":"The provision of aid directly to government, known as direct budget support, has recently been promoted as the best possible tool for improving the impact of aid and ensuring governments take the lead in implementing national development strategies. However, this paper argues that nothing in the theory of budget supports suggests that it can or should be used as an instrument for influencing political processes. Yet over the last decade, budget support has repeatedly been subject to delays and halts, sometimes for political reasons. While these are often due to administrative problems on the funder's side, the number of incidents of budget support being halted in response to digression from democratic norms by recipient countries is on the rise. This paper questions the theories and conditions underpinning budget support. It appears that external funders are quite prepared to use conditionalities. However, to date, there is little evidence to suggest that these conditionalities bring about democratic change in the recipient country.  Rather than budget support becoming a viable instrument for fostering better political practice, it would appear that there is a tightening of selectivity criteria in deciding who gets budget support and that these incidents represent the weeding out of a few 'bad apples'.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"A systematic review of task-shifting for HIV treatment and care in Africa","field_subtitle":"Callaghan M, Ford N and Schneider H: Human Resources for Health 8(8), 31 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/8/1/8","body":"Task shifting, or delegating tasks performed by physicians to staff with lower-level qualifications, is considered a means of expanding rollout in resource-poor or HRH-limited settings. This literature review aimed to assess task-shifting for HIV treatment and care in Africa. Of a total of 2,960 articles, 84 were included in the core review, including research from ten countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The most common intervention studied was the delegation of tasks from doctors to nurses and other non-physician clinicians. Five studies showed that task-shifting allowed for expansion of health services, while two concluded task shifting was cost effective and nine reported equal or better quality of care. The review concludes that task shifting offers high-quality, cost-effective care to more patients than a physician-centred model. The main challenges to implementation include adequate and sustainable training, support and pay for staff in new roles, the integration of new members into health-care teams, and the compliance of regulatory bodies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Activists call for integrated HIV/TB services","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 3 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89358","body":"A consortium of AIDS organisations has given the South African government three months to deliver on promises to integrate tuberculosis (TB) and HIV services. A local AIDS lobby group, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), international medical charity Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) and the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), a regional partnership of non-governmental organisations, were among civil society groups that issued the deadline at the South African TB Conference in Durban, which took place from 1\u20134 June 2010. MSF spokesperson Lesley Odendal called the three-month deadline 'generous' because TB and HIV care should have been integrated by 1 April 2010, according to newly adopted national antiretroviral (ARV) treatment guidelines, but the Department of Health has yet to issue an implemention plan. TAC Deputy Secretary General, Lihle Dlamini, noted that integrating TB and HIV care would lead to earlier diagnosis of TB, especially strains of the disease occurring outside the lungs, which are common in co-infected patients. It would also help health workers become more familiar with the potentially severe interactions between antiretroviral (ARV) and TB drugs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Civil Society Letter to July 2010 African Union Summit  on upholding African Health and Social Development Commitments","field_subtitle":"Africa Public Health Alliance & 15% Plus Campaign, June 2010","field_url":"","body":"African civil society through the Africa Public Health Alliance & 15% Plus Campaign are petitioning AU Heads of States through  Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika, Chairperson of the African Union on the grave concerns of African citizens that some Heads of State are being advised to repudiate crucial commitments on health and social development, in particular the 2001 Abuja pledge on health financing. They note that despite some recent progress, healthy life expectancy in Africa is at a low of 45 years resulting in un-fulfilled personal, national and continental potential and aspirations, and the loss of billions of dollars in productivity. They note that it would be a historic setback for African governments to drop health and social development commitments, or suggest in anyway that the health of African economies exists in isolation from the overall health of African citizens. Giving evidence to support the need for adequate health sector financing, the petition urges heads of state to ensure that the July 2010 AU Summit restates the Abuja commitments; and supports the AU Commission in working with governments and civil society to monitor and report on health gains, and ensure a 10th year review of the 2001 Abuja commitments by April 2011.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/35201","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"African finance ministers dismiss development declarations","field_subtitle":"Njora G: Pambazuka News April 2010 ","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/63894","body":"The author flags concern about the actions of some African finance ministers to reverse their Heads of state commitments, such as those made on 15% government funding to health in Abuja in 2001. South African, Rwandan and Egyptian finance ministers succeeded in deleting any reference to budgetary targets for education, health, agriculture and water from the report and resolutions of the annual meeting of the African Union and Economic Commission for the Africa Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development held in Malawi in March 2010. Many consequences are seen to flow from this, if heads of state follow the same path. It could indicate an abandonment of the bold financing that has gone into reversing vulnerability to food insecurity, disease and denial of access to health care and education. It questions how Africa would, after reversing from its own commitments, hold the G8 and international community to their commitments to contribute 0.7% of their gross national product and to double development assistance to Africa.  The dismissive nature with which the finance ministers have treated these targets begs the question of whether the MDGs and all the other decisions taken under the auspices of the African Union will go the same way.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/35133","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"An interview with Alhaji Mohamed Daramy, ECOWAS Commissioner for Trade, Customs and Free Movement of Persons and Goods","field_subtitle":"Trade Negotiations Insights 9(5): June 2010","field_url":"http://ictsd.org/i/library/76877/","body":"In this interview, Alhaji Mohamed Daramy affirms his support for economic partnership agreements (EPAs) but warns that the required fiscal reforms will not come without an upfront cost, and he believes an EPA regional fund should be created to support this process, to which the European Union (EU) should contribute. He argues for a five-year transition period after the signature of an EPA, after which an efficient indirect taxation system should be put in place. Within this period, ECOWAS will aim to move some activities from the informal sector to the formal economy. The certainty and sustainability of financing ECOWAS activities will then be reviewed at this point.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Are Namibian women being forcibly sterilised? ","field_subtitle":"Van den Bosch S: Inter Press Service News, 31 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=23739","body":"A landmark court case, alleging that HIV-positive women were forcibly sterilised in Namibian state hospitals is taking place in Windhoek, Namibia. Human rights groups claim the practice has continued long after the authorities were notified. Three women's cases will be heard initially. Each woman is demanding the equivalent of US$132,000 in damages. 'The first cases emerged during community meetings in early 2008. In the months that followed we interviewed 230 women, 40 of whom were sterilised against their will,' says Veronica Kalambi of the International Community of Women living with HIV (ICW). 'In August 2008 we formally alerted the Ministry during a meeting with the deputy Minister.' The State will argue that consent forms were signed in all three cases.  However, the women\u2019s lawyers maintain the process necessary for 'informed consent' was not followed and the women were coerced, or did not understand the procedure.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Beyond the baby factory for women in the developing world","field_subtitle":"Staunton M: guardian.co.uk, 13 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/13/maternal-health-baby-factory","body":"This article is concerned with the lack of integrated healthcare services for expectant mothers in developing nations. For example, mothers-to-be have may have to visit up to five different healthcare providers for services that could be provided by one clinic. The article identifies the need for women to take control of their own bodies and for their choices to be respected as the main issue facing maternal health in the world's poorest countries. Women should be able to decide when to have children, how often to have children and if they want children at all. The article also argues for empowering young women to pursue whatever life they choose for themselves, noting that a woman should be more than just a \u2018baby factory\u2019 but should also be able to pursue a career and other options. Reducing maternal mortality requires the unmet needs for family planning and reproductive health to be addressed alongside the other unmet needs of pregnant women. The article expresses disappointment that, at the 2010 Women Deliver Conference, held from 7\u20139 June 2010 in the United States, there was little talk of the millions of vulnerable and marginalised adolescent girls who are failing to access reproductive and maternal services. Whether this inequality is to be addressed or entrenched was apparently unclear from the Conference\u2019s discussions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Budget support and MDG performance","field_subtitle":"Beynon J and Dusu A: European Commission, 30 March 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2vafr6t","body":"This study analysed the relationship between the provision of general budget support (GBS) and Millennium Development Goal (MDG) performance, by disaggregating countries into 'high' and 'low' budget support recipients and assessing the extent to which selected MDGs have improved in each of these groups. It found that high GBS recipients have performed better, often significantly so, in all four MDGs assessed (covering primary enrolment, gender parity in education, child mortality, and access to water), as well as in terms of improvements in the Human Development Index (HDI), in the period 2002-2007. Correlation analysis also suggests that there is a positive relationship between budget support receipts and MDG performance (significant in the case of both education indicators and the HDI), but it is not always strong and other factors will also be important determinants of MDG performance. It also found that, even when quality of the policy environment, income level and aid dependency are controlled for, high GBS recipients have on average still performed better than other countries. The study cautions that it is an analysis of association, not causality. Nevertheless, the results overall do provide more comprehensive support for the view that countries receiving large amounts of budget support perform better than those receiving little or no budget support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Sixth College of Health Sciences (MU-CHS) Annual Scientific Conference and 18th UNACOH Annual Scientific Conference ","field_subtitle":"Submission deadline: 31 July 2010","field_url":"http://med.mak.ac.ug/p.php?a=view&vID=185&p=Scientific%20Conference","body":"This year's conference will be held from 22nd -24th September 2010 in Kampala, Uganda. The theme of the conference is 'Global health challenges: Training, research, service delivery: Maximising benefits to the people'. The conference covers a range of sub-themes, including HIV and co-morbidities, reproductive and child health, non-communicable diseases, mental health, neglected diseases, health systems research, health management information systems, public policy and advocacy, leadership and governance, service delivery models (task shifting, recruitment and retention of staff), community participation and initiatives in health, occupational health, climatic change and its impact on health, and health care financing. Abstracts covering any of the sub-themes will be accepted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications: Commonwealth Foundation Civil Society Responsive Grants","field_subtitle":"Closing dates: 30 September or 31 December 2010","field_url":"http://www.fundsforngos.org/cwfcsres","body":"The Commonwealth Foundation\u2019s Civil Society Responsive Grants are intended for organisations planning a regional or international workshop or an exchange visit to another non-governmental organisation (NGO) or project. The grants support strengthening of civil society for sustainable development, democracy and intercultural learning within the Commonwealth countries, and may cover short training courses, workshops, seminars, conferences, cultural festivals, exchanges and study visits in other Commonwealth countries. They are targeted at Commonwealth developing countries. Generally, the Foundation awards g around \u00a35,000, but NGOs can request funding up to \u00a310,000. In rare cases, Grants of up to \u00a320,000 can also be made. The grants support activities in four main areas: culture; governance and democracy; human development; and communities and livelihoods.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications: Netherlands Fellowship Programme","field_subtitle":"Deadlines vary according to country of origin","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/32wq7yd","body":"Funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP) offers an opportunity for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in developing countries to gain skills and build their capacities internationally through training and education. Mid-career staff working in organisations in developing countries can apply for this fellowship programme. Applicants must be nominated by their organisations. Applicant should have at least three years of work experience. Further refresher courses are offered to NFP alumni developed for the purpose of prolonging the effect of the previous fellowship given. NFP has dedicated half of the budget to be spent on fellowships for female candidates and candidates from sub-Saharan Africa. Please note that there are different deadlines and different durations for various programmes of the fellowship, depending on which country you come from.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for letters of intent: WHO's grants programme for implementation research","field_subtitle":"Submission deadline: 31 July 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/callsforproposals/alliancehpsr_irpcallforlettersofintent.pdf","body":"Applicants are invited to submit letters of intent for the World Health Organization's Grants Programme of its Implementation Research Platform for the years 2010-2011. Letters of intent should describe prospective implementation research studies that would assist the scaling-up of health interventions to accelerate progress on Millennium Development Goals 4, 5 and 6, and promote sustainability in the strengthening of health systems. The following three types of research studies will be considered: new implementation research studies; additional implementation research within ongoing studies; and analyses of relevant existing datasets and policy analyses from completed qualitative and quantitative studies or datasets collected as part of routine reporting systems, such as monitoring and evaluation. The size of the budget for each grant will be based on the scope and focus of research proposals. The maximum budget for any individual country proposal supported from this initiative should not exceed US$500,000.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Capital flows through Medical Aid Societies in Zimbabwe\u2019s health sector ","field_subtitle":"Shamu S, Loewenson R, Machemedze R and Mabika A: EQUINET, May 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS82zimcapflow.pdf","body":"Medical aid societies (MAS) in Zimbabwe cover a tenth of the population, and about 80% of income to private health care providers in Zimbabwe comes from MAS. They contribute more than 20% of the country\u2019s total health expenditure. This paper outlines the flows of private capital that lie behind the growth of the profit medical aid and insurance health care sector in Zimbabwe. It was implemented within the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) by Training and Research Support Centre and SEATINI, in a regional programme co-ordinated by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, South Africa. The report proposes measures for improving the functioning of and equity in the sector and to address the current exposure of beneficiaries. Strengthening the regulatory environment will help to address legal ambiguities on investment of the industry\u2019s \u2018surplus\u2019 funds, to ensure the multiple relevant laws from finance and health are known and applied by MAS/ insurance providers, and to fairly and firmly enforce the law. The sector should ensure timely scheme reporting as required by law and maintenance of a database with basic information on schemes, as well as registration of all schemes, avoiding increasing segmentation of the sector into small fragmented risk pools from individual schemes and encouraging (for example through enforcement of regulation on registration and liquidity requirements), mergers into larger and more viable risk pools. Regulatory and scheme policy measures should be introduced that require and implement cross-subsidies necessary for equity and ensuring benefits packages cover personal care and personal prevention services. Other measures include taking up the shortfalls in coverage of medicines on existing plans, checking the degree of vertical integration in each scheme and unbundling any monopolies across the sector that are limiting patient choice (e.g. paying only for selected linked services), and improving the outreach of consumer information on schemes, benefits packages and consumer rights to members and organisations servicing members (e.g. the labour movement and employer organisations).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Cautious welcome for new UK aid commitments","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 4 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89368","body":"Aid analysts have welcomed some of the international development priorities of Britain's new coalition government, particularly the commitment to stick to the previous government's pledge to boost aid spending to 0.7% of national income by 2013. The new Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell, stressed accountability and transparency of aid, alongside 'radical steps' to use the private sector more effectively to create wealth, in a 3 June speech to UK aid community representatives. He has also pushed reducing maternal and child mortality and empowering women, and continued support to education and healthcare, with malaria singled out for US$732 million a year until 2015. To make aid more effective, Mitchell proposes to redirect \u00a3100 million of aid from low-priority or poor-performing projects to programmes with a better success rate. A trend towards private sector involvement is being promoted, although Chapman said basic services, such as health and education, were best delivered by a more efficient public sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Child poverty in Africa: An overview ","field_subtitle":"Tsegaye S: African Child Policy Forum, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3xu2edm","body":"This book aims to give a bird\u2019s eye view of the situation of child poverty in Africa. It highlights the paradox of countries that have an abundance of natural resources, especially oil and diamonds, yet whose populations largely suffer from poverty, such as Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria. The book points to a symbiotic relationship between poverty and armed conflicts as Africa is slowly extricating itself from the intertwined problems of conflict, poverty, hunger and illiteracy. The book argues that improved governance and increased investments in key social sectors have created an unprecedented sense of optimism. Nevertheless, millions of African children still struggle on the margins. At least 600 million children under the age of 18 are surviving on less than US$1 a day worldwide and 40% of these children live in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Climate change: A creeping catastrophe","field_subtitle":"Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 410\u2013411, June 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/6/10-040610.pdf","body":"In this interview, Dr Colin Summerhayes, president of the Society for Underwater Technology, talks about how the world\u2019s climate is changing and the expected consequences on health. He predicts that, as the rise in temperatures as a result of global warming will be quite slow over the next 30 years, we should not expect an instant change in health factors. He refers to the change as a \u2018creeping catastrophe\u2019. As well as increased morbidity and mortality from extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, droughts and floods, Summerhayes anticipates that climate change is likely to increase the burden of malnutrition, diarrhoea and infectious diseases. There is also likely to be a rising frequency of cardio-respiratory diseases because of changes in air quality and in distribution of some disease vectors. All of this could impose a substantial burden on health services. He notes that some scientists now believe there will be both contractions and expansions in the occurrence of malaria, with changes in transmission seasons.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Course in social medicine offered at Lacor Hospital, Gulu, Uganda: 10 January to 4 February 2010","field_subtitle":"Application deadline: 30 July 2010","field_url":"http://globalhealth.stanford.edu/education/medstudents/social_medicine_course_prospectus_2011.pdf","body":"'Beyond the Biological Basis of Disease: The Social and Economic Causation of Illness\u2019 is the title of this on-site immersion course in social medicine, which is designed for 15 international medical students (clinical years) and 15 Ugandan medical students (3rd\u20135th year) from Gulu University. It intersects the study of clinical medicine in a resource-poor setting with social medicine topics such as globalisation, war, human rights, and narrative medicine, among others. Credit for away-rotations can also be arranged. Total student costs for the course are estimated at US$2,650, including a round trip to Uganda from the US, accommodation and food.  The main objectives of the course are to: provide a structured global health immersion experience for medical students with dedicated supervision and teaching in clinical medicine and social medicine; study issues related to global health in a resource-poor setting with an emphasis on local and global context; foster critical analysis of global health interventions in resource-poor settings; facilitate the development of a clinical approach to disease and illness using a biosocial model through structured supervision and teaching; build an understanding and skill set associated with physician advocacy; and promote international solidarity and partnership in generating solutions to global health challenges facing societies throughout the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"East African Community Statistic Database","field_subtitle":"East African Community: 2010","field_url":"http://www.eac.int/statistics/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=143&Itemid=109#health","body":"The East African Community (EAC) statistics database contains indices for a range of social sectors of countries in the region, including education, labour, culture, housing, environment and health. Population indices include life expectancy, mortality rates and demographic indicators. Health indices include public health expenditure per capita, expenditure on health to gross domestic product and public health expenditure to total budget.  Statistics for immunisation rates and HIV prevalence are also supplied.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic partnership agreements and food security","field_subtitle":"Matthews A: Trade Negotiations Insights 9(5), June 2010","field_url":"http://ictsd.org/i/news/tni/76870/","body":"The African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries face a massive challenge in tackling hunger and under-nutrition, but many critics have argued that the commitments required of ACP countries under Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) will make this more difficult. This article investigates the threat to food security posed by these agreements. While some observers blame trade liberalisation for these problems, the article identifies the lack of investment to improve productivity and address supply-side constraints as the major limiting factor. It argues that the debate around the issue of EPAs and food security distracts from the more important question of what domestic initiatives ACP countries need to take to ensure that agriculture can play its role as an engine of economic growth and poverty reduction. Government should invest in agriculture rather than rely on trade restrictions for food security. The potential of EPAs to improve food security can only be realised by a focus on greater agricultural investment and improved institutions. Resources can be made available from the EU budget, the EU\u2019s European Development Fund and bilateral external funders, but the prerequisite is that these requirements are prioritised by the ACP countries themselves.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org Website: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter # 113: A call to keep the promise","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Fifteenth African Union Summit","field_subtitle":"19\u201327 July 2010: Kampala, Uganda","field_url":"http://www.africa-union.org/root/au/conferences/2010/july/summit/15thsummit.html","body":"The theme of this year's African Union Summit is: \u2018Maternal, infant and child health and development in Africa\u2019. The agenda of meetings will be as follows: From 19\u201320 July 2010 the 20th Ordinary Session of the Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC) will be held. From 22\u201323 July 2010, 17th Ordinary Session of the Executive Council will be held. The Summit will conclude on 25\u201327 July 2010 with the 15th Ordinary Session of the Assembly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Forced sterilisation of HIV-positive women in Namibia","field_subtitle":"AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa: 1 June 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.arasa.info/taxonomy/term/261","body":"This piece provides information on the civil society solidarity with three HIV-positive women in Namibia who are claiming compensation for alleged sterilisation without informed consent. The women are each suing the Ministry of Health and Social Services for alleged violation of their right to dignity, to non-discrimination and to found a family. A petition on the issue, signed by more than 1,000 people from Namibia and around the world, was handed to the Ministry of Health and Social Services. The petition demands that, amongst other things, the Ministry of Health and Social Services issue a circular to both the public and private health facilities explicitly prohibiting the practice of sterilisation without informed consent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Gang rapes reported on the rise in Kenya","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 31 May 2010","field_url":"http://wwwl.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89315","body":"Most cases of gender-based violence (GBV) reported to the Nairobi Gender Violence Recovery Centre between April 2009 and March 2010 occurred in the capital's city centre, according to the centre's annual report, which also recorded an increase in gang rapes. 'A disturbing trend of GBV in the reported year is the continued number of gang rapes where the number of perpetrators per act increased from [a range of] 2-11 [perpetrators] to 2-20,' Teresa Omondi, the centre's executive director said. The centre, at the Nairobi Women's Hospital, registered 2,487 GBV survivors between April 2009 and March 2010, 52% (1,285) of whom were women, 45% (1,125) children and 3% men (77). According to the centre, neighbours topped the list of perpetrators named by survivors. Husbands and friends came second and third. Others included boyfriends, fathers, other relatives (uncles, aunts and cousins), house helps, teachers and classmates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Gates Foundation funds US$1.5 bn for maternal and child health, but not for abortions","field_subtitle":"Dreaper J: BBC News, 12 June 2010","field_url":"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/10297378.stm","body":"The Gates Foundation has announced that it will be devoting US$1.5bn to boosting women and children's health over the next five years. This has been interpreted as a change in direction from funding specific vaccines and the fight against particular diseases. Some campaigners have called for a new global fund for maternal and child health, like the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which channels billions of pounds of taxpayers' money given by governments, including the United Kingdom. The Fund\u2019s head, Dr Michel Kazatchkine, insisted his organisation was best placed to continue tackling the problems which led to mothers dying. He said: \u2018It's very clear from recent analysis that the slow progress on MDG5 [Millennium Development Goal 5] has been because of AIDS. And at least one in five deaths at the time of childbirth is directly linked to HIV.\u2019 However, abortion was not covered by the Gates funding, despite the fact that \u2018unsafe abortion contributes to one in seven maternal deaths across the world\u2019, according to Kazatchkine. \u2018These women are already stigmatised, and they shouldn't be ignored.\u2019 The Gates Foundation says it supports family planning, but it does not fund abortion or take a position on the issue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender justice in trade policy: The gender effects of economic partnership agreements","field_subtitle":"One World Action: 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3xnd7mg","body":"This study provides the first detailed economy-wide analysis of the likely gender effects of economic partnership agreements (EPAs) based on the goods tariff liberalisation schedules agreed by Tanzania, Mozambique and Jamaica. The study found that the employment and production effects of trade liberalisation on women will depend on the extent to which women are employed in the sectors sensitive to import competition, but most importantly, their ability to relocate to an expanding sector of production. It predicts that, under an EPA, women\u2019s employment is likely to be minimally affected in Jamaica, Mozambique and Tanzania. Findings suggest that the consumption effect of trade may be regressive: imports, such as washing machines in Mozambique or gas cookers in Tanzania, will most likely benefit the wealthier, as they are not consumed by poorer households. For example, increasing availability of household appliances could reduce the workload of women with access to electricity, but only 7% of Mozambican households have access and an indirect effect could be a drop in demand for domestic workers, most of whom are women. The loss of government revenue from tariff removal constitutes the most immediate and significant impact, estimated at 2% of revenue, with too little time to compensate for lost revenue. The study urges that further monitoring of the implementation of trade liberalisation is required from a gender perspective. The gender-aware framework and analytical approach developed could be used to examine other EPAs and other trade agreements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"General Household Survey 2009","field_subtitle":"Statistics South Africa: 2009","field_url":"http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0318/P0318June2009.pdf","body":"The 2009 General Household Survey entailed face-to-face interviews with a total of 25,361 households (including multiple households) across all nine provinces. It confirms a number of positive trends related to service delivery as established by previous surveys. However, although access to basic services continues to improve, there is some discontent with the quality of those services. In the case of housing, for example, 16.1% of those occupying state-subsidised housing said that the walls were weak or very weak and 14.9% regard their roofs as weak or very weak. Similarly, although 58% of users of water services said that the quality of such services was good, there has been a steady decline in levels of satisfaction since 2005. The survey also reveals that the number of people living in informal dwellings has dropped. In spite of the resolution to eradicate the use of bucket toilets, it has been found that as soon as bucket toilets were eliminated in a community, other newly formed communities started using the system for a lack of alternatives. Nationwide the percentage of households with no toilets or bucket toilets decreased from 12.6% in 2002 to 6.6% in 2009.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Geographical distribution of financial flows to developing countries: 2004-2008","field_subtitle":"Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development: 2010","field_url":"http://www.oecd.org/document/57/0,3343,en_2649_34447_1897081_1_1_1_1,00.html","body":"This book provides comprehensive data on the volume, origin and types of aid and other resource flows to around 150 developing countries. The data show each country's intake of Official Development Assistance, as well as other official and private funds from members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development\u2019s Development Assistance Committee, multilateral agencies and other key external funders. Key development indicators are given for reference.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health and foreign policy","field_subtitle":"Harley Feldbaum, Kelley Lee and Joshua Michaud: Epidemiologic Reviews, 27 April 2010","field_url":"http://epirev.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/mxq006v1","body":"Health has long been intertwined with the foreign policies of states. In recent years, however, global health issues have risen to the highest levels of international politics and have become accepted as legitimate issues in foreign policy. This elevated political priority is in many ways a welcome development for proponents of global health, and it has resulted in increased funding for and attention to select global health issues. However, this paper argues that there has been less examination of the tensions that characterise the relationship between global health and foreign policy and of the potential effects of linking global health efforts with the foreign policy interests of states. The paper reviews the relationship between global health and foreign policy by examining the roles of health across four major components of foreign policy: aid, trade, diplomacy and national security. For each of these aspects of foreign policy, the paper reviews current and historical issues and discuss how foreign policy interests have aided or impeded global health efforts. The increasing relevance of global health to foreign policy holds both opportunities and dangers for global efforts to improve health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Guidance for reconciling patent rights and disclosure of findings at scientific meetings ","field_subtitle":"Lipkus NB, Mackie JE and Singer PA: Health Research Policy and Systems 8(15), 25 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-8-15.pdf","body":"Open collaboration and sharing of information among scientists at scientific meetings can foster innovation and discovery. However, such sharing can be at odds with potential patenting and commercialisation objectives. This tension may be mitigated if certain procedures are followed in the context of scientific meetings. The article first discusses what makes a scientific finding patentable and then sets out four specific patent issues for scientists to consider before attending a scientific meeting and sharing their research. Finally, it provides recommendations on how scientists can best protect their intellectual property rights while sharing information at scientific meetings.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health systems financing and the path to universal coverage","field_subtitle":"Evans DB and Etienne C: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 402\u2013403, June 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/6/10-078741.pdf","body":"The authors identify two prerequisites for universal health coverage. The first is to ensure that financial barriers do not prevent people from using the services they need, such as prevention, promotion, treatment and rehabilitation. The second is to ensure that they do not suffer financial hardship because they have to pay for these services. Even with the recent increase in external funds for health in low-income countries, these countries still have to find almost 75% of their health funding in domestic sources. The way that countries raise those funds is critical. Direct payments that are required when people obtain care (e.g. user charges) prevent many people from seeking care in the first place, and may result in financial catastrophe, even impoverishment, for many. The authors recommend that, to improve universal coverage, systems need to raise the bulk of funds through forms of prepayment (e.g. taxes and/or insurance), and then pool these funds to spread the financial risk of illness across the population. Health financing systems with inbuilt incentives should ensure that these funds are used efficiently and equitably.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV decline in Zimbabwe due to reductions in risky sex? Evidence from a comprehensive epidemiological review","field_subtitle":"Gregson S, Gonese E, Hallett TB, Taruberekera N, Hargrove JW, Lopman B, Corbett EL, Dorrington R, Dube S, Dehne K and Mugurungi O: International Journal of Epidemiology (advance online edition), 20 April 2010","field_url":"http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/dyq055v1","body":"This study assessed the contributions of rising mortality, falling HIV incidence and sexual behaviour change to the decline in HIV prevalence in Zimbabwe. Comprehensive review and secondary analysis was conducted of national and local sources on trends in HIV prevalence, HIV incidence, mortality and sexual behaviour covering the period 1985\u20132007. Data from eastern Zimbabwe showed substantial rises in mortality during the 1990s, levelling off after 2000. Estimates of HIV incidence indicated that HIV incidence may have peaked in the early 1990s and fallen during the 1990s. Household survey data showed reductions in numbers reporting casual partners from the late 1990s and high condom use in non-regular partnerships between 1998 and 2007. These findings provide the first convincing evidence of an HIV decline accelerated by changes in sexual behaviour in a southern African country. However, in 2007, one in every seven adults in Zimbabwe was still infected with a life-threatening virus and mortality rates remained at crisis level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"IDRC Internship Awards competition ","field_subtitle":"Application deadline: 12 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-84370-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html","body":"The main goal of the International Development and Research Centre (IDRC) Internship Awards is to provide exposure to research for international development through a programme of training in research management and grant administration under the guidance of IDRC programme staff. Internships are designed to provide hands-on learning experiences in research programme management and in the creation, dissemination and utilisation of knowledge from an international perspective. The interns will first undertake a programme of research on the topic submitted when competing for the internship award. Thereafter, they will be expected to provide support to management and programme staff in some of the following areas: synthesis of project outcomes; production of publications and dissemination materials or activities on research results; participation in team meetings; research tasks to locate, review and synthesise relevant material; preparation of state-of-the-art reviews; preparation of correspondence, reports and presentations; assistance with the organisation of meetings, workshops and seminars; preparation of minutes; updating and maintaining databases; and maintenance of the website; and exchange with other institutions working on a broad range of issues related to programming.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequities in utilisation of maternal health interventions in Namibia: Implications for progress towards MDG 5 targets ","field_subtitle":"Zere E, Tumusiime P, Walker O, Kirigia J, Mwikisa C and Mbeeli T: International Journal for Equity in Health 9(16), 12 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-9-16.pdf","body":"The objective of this study is to measure socio-economic inequalities in access to maternal health services in Namibia and propose recommendations relevant for policy and planning. Data from the Namibia Demographic and Health Survey 2006-07 was analysed for inequities in the utilisation of maternal health. Regions with relatively high human development index were found to have the highest rates of delivery by skilled health service providers. The rate of caesarean section in women with post secondary education is about seven times that of women with no education. Women in urban areas are delivered by skilled providers 30% more than their rural counterparts. High-income households use the public health facilities 30% more than poor households for child delivery. The paper concludes that, in the presence of inequities, it is difficult to achieve a significant reduction in the maternal mortality ratio needed to realise the Millennium Development Goal 5 targets. This is not achievable if a large segment of society has inadequate access to essential maternal health services and other basic social services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"International AIDS conference 2010","field_subtitle":"18\u201323 July 2010: Vienna, Austria","field_url":"http://www.aids2010.org/Default.aspx?pageId=169","body":"The International AIDS Conference gathers together those working in the field of HIV, as well as policy makers, persons living with HIV and other individuals committed to ending the pandemic. It is a chance to assess where we are, evaluate recent scientific developments and lessons learnt, and collectively chart a course forward. Given the 2010 deadline for universal access set by world leaders, AIDS 2010 will coincide with a major push for expanded access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support, despite the current global economic crisis threatening to undermine public investments. The Conference aims to demonstrate the importance of continued HIV investments to broader health and development goals. AIDS 2010 is also an opportunity to highlight the critical connection between human rights and HIV \u2013 a dialogue begun in Mexico City in 2008. The AIDS 2010 programme will present new scientific knowledge and offer opportunities for structured dialogue on the major issues facing the global response to HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Latecomer development: Innovation and knowledge for economic growth","field_subtitle":"Oyelaran-Oyeyinka B and Sampath PG: Routledge, 2010","field_url":"http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415560115/","body":"This book is based on a macro analysis of 79 countries and micro-surveys in different sectors and countries, spanning seven years. In it, the authors argue that rich countries have built strong institutions to complement to their production systems, which has allowed them to build up strong production and the exportation of high quality goods and services, a path followed by emerging economies. However, poor countries continued to produce raw materials for the richer countries. Central to the production activities of all countries that became rich is a set of industrial and innovation policies, which are discussed in the book. \u2018Latecomer countries\u2019 are defined as countries that are late in developing, and which do not innovate at the 'global frontier,' which is occupied by the top industrialised countries. They need industrial and innovation policies that shift attention from commodities to development of productive capacities. Innovation is not research and development, it is about knowledge that countries acquire, according to the book.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Local-level mortality surveillance in resource-limited settings: A case study of Cape Town highlights disparities in health","field_subtitle":"Groenewald P, Bradshaw D, Daniels J, Zinyakatira N, Matzopoulos R, Bourne D, Shaikhd N and Naledid T: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 444\u2013451, June 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/6/09-069435.pdf","body":"This study sought to identify the leading causes of mortality and premature mortality in Cape Town, South Africa, and its subdistricts, and to compare levels of mortality between subdistricts. It analysed Cape Town mortality data for the period 2001\u20132006 by age, cause of death and sex. The study found that the pattern of mortality in Cape Town reflects the quadruple burden of disease observed in the national cause-of-death profile, with AIDS, other infectious diseases, injuries and non-communicable diseases all accounting for a significant proportion of deaths. AIDS has replaced homicide as the leading cause of death. AIDS, homicide, tuberculosis and road traffic injuries accounted for 44% of all premature mortality. Khayelitsha, the poorest subdistrict, had the highest levels of mortality for all main cause groups. The study emphasises how local mortality surveillance helps to map out the differential needs of the population of Cape Town. Data used in the study may provide a wealth of data to inform planning and implementation of targeted interventions. Multisectoral interventions will be required to reduce the burden of disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi moves to adopt WHO guidelines","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 27 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?Reportid=89266","body":"Developing countries like Malawi are calculating the cost of adhering to new World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines that recommend starting HIV-positive people on antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) sooner. Malawi is one of three African countries that have conducted WHO-supported feasibility studies to assess what adopting the new guidelines would mean, and has announced plans to roll out the new WHO guidelines by mid-2011, said Dr Frank Chimbwandira, head of the HIV and AIDS department in the Ministry of Health. According to the feasibility study, the number of people on treatment would rise by about 50%, which could double the cost of the national ARV programme in terms of additional personnel and equipment, and would probably also mean waiting lists at many clinics. Implementing the WHO guidelines would mean major changes to national treatment protocols: HIV-positive people would start taking ARVs at a much higher CD4 count of 350, regular CD4 count and viral load monitoring would be conducted, and potentially more expensive treatment regimens would be adopted - including phasing out the ARV, stavudine, which has been associated with increased side-effects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Mercury exposure in a low-income community in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Oosthuizen MA, John J and Somerset V: South African Medical Journal, 100(6): 366\u2013371, June 2010","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/3863/2828","body":"This study aimed to establish whether a specific community in a gold mining area, with potentially associated small-scale gold mining activities, was exposed to mercury. Thirty respondents completed a questionnaire  and mercury levels were determined in 28 urine and 20 blood samples of these respondents. Three (15%) of the blood samples exceeded the guideline for individuals who are not occupationally exposed, while 14 (50%) of the urine samples exceeded the guideline for mercury in urine for those not exposed occupationally. The cause of these elevated levels is unknown, as only 20% of respondents indicated that they used coal as an energy carrier. Furthermore, nobody from the community was reportedly formally employed in a goldmine. Nineteen (63%) respondents consumed locally caught fish, while 20 (67%) drank water from a river. The study concluded that some individuals in this study may be occupationally exposed to mercury through small-scale gold mining activities. As primary health facilities will be the first point of entry for individuals experiencing symptoms of mercury poisoning, South African primary health care workers need to take cognisance of mercury exposure as a possible cause of neurological symptoms in patients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Minimal G8 Maternal Health Initiative sends disturbing message to women and girls","field_subtitle":"Oxfam Canada, June 2010","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.ca/node/2119","body":"As the G8 Summit comes to a close, international agency Oxfam criticized the leaders for their failure to deliver on their promises and for trying to divert attention by cobbling together a small initiative for maternal and child health. \u201cNo maple leaf is big enough to hide the shame of Canada\u2019s summit of broken promises,\u201d said Mark Fried, spokesperson for Oxfam. \u201cThe G8\u2019s failure will leave a sad legacy of kids out of school, denied medicines for the sick, and no food for the hungry.\u201d With total G8 aid frozen, their five billion dollar commitment to maternal health will likely be taken from vital areas such as education and food, cautioned Oxfam. Oxfam also urged the G20 to adopt a financial transaction tax to raise the funds necessary to fight poverty and climate change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Namibian civil society calls for public health system reform","field_subtitle":"Jacobs C: AllAfrica.com, 4 June 2010","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/201006040948.html","body":"Civil society organisations in Namibia have called for reforms in the country's public health system after a case of  women who were allegedly sterilised without their consent has come to court. According to the coordinator of the AIDS Law Unit of the Legal Assistance Centre, Amon Ngavetene,  the redress sought is for reform in the country's health system, and particularly training and supervision of medical staff on the rights of patients. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"No time to quit: HIV/AIDS treatment gap widening in Africa","field_subtitle":"M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res: 2010","field_url":"http://www.msf.org/source/countries/africa/southafrica/2010/no_time_to_quit/HIV_Report_No_Time_To_Quit.pdf","body":"In this report, M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) notes that major funders now seem to be withdrawing HIV and AIDS funding to countries like Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Lesotho, Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to MSF, PEPFAR has flatlined its funding for 2009-2014 and as of 2008-9, further decreased its annual budget allocations for the coming years by extending the period to be covered with the same amount of money. The World Bank currently prioritises investment in health system strengthening and capacity building in planning and management over HIV-dedicated funding, thereby reducing their support for HIV and AIDS care. In addition, UNITAID is phasing out its funding for drugs and other medical commodity procurement through the Clinton Foundation. By 2012, funding for second-line anti-retrovirals (ARVs) and paediatric commodities should end in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Malawi. The Global Fund is also currently facing a serious funding shortfall. To compound the problem further, MSF adds that all current funding scenarios are inadequately reflecting demand, as none includes the additional resources required to implement the new World Health Organization guidelines on earlier treatment and improved drug regimens.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"One Millennium Development Goal that can be achieved now: Market access for the poorest countries","field_subtitle":"Elliott KA: Trade Negotiations Insights 9(5), June 2010","field_url":"http://ictsd.org/i/news/tni/76882/","body":"This article outlines how trade preference programmes can be made more effective for low income countries. It is based on five principles put forward by the Center for Global Development (CGD) to make trade preferences more effective for less-developed countries: expand coverage to all exports from all least developed countries; relax restrictive rules of origin; make trade preference programmes permanent and predictable; promote co-operation between countries giving and receiving preferences; and encourage advanced developing countries to implement trade preference programmes that adopt the other four principles. It argues that extending full duty-free, quota-free market access to all least developed countries would have far more power if it is a project of the G-20, not just the G-8, and Brazil, China, India and Turkey are already showing the way. The author urges the G-20 to show its leadership on global development issues and to realise the Millennium Development Goal of using trade as a tool for development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Open letter to G8: Meeting promises for the children of Africa, our future","field_subtitle":"Civil Society Forum on the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC): June 2010","field_url":"","body":"The Civil Society Forum on the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) has written this open letter to G8 Countries to urge them to meet their promises for external funding to African countries, noting that countries have failed to fulfil their promise for increased aid allocation to Africa \u2013 with assistance from France and Germany increasing by just 25%, while Italy is actually set to reduce its contribution by 6% this year. They also urge for continued commitment within Africa to pledges made by leaders. The members note that while domestic allocations are difficult to achieve with all the pressures on very limited resources, they are critical for the health sector if we are to meet the MDGs. The letter draws special attention to the need for investing in maternal, newborn and child health. ACRWC is urging African leaders to endorse the letter. They ask readers to circulate the letter through networks and for those connected, directly to the Africa leaders. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/35138","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Our common strategic interests: Africa's role in the post-G8 world","field_subtitle":"Cargill T: Chatham House, June 2010","field_url":"http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/16704_r0610_africag8.pdf","body":"The author argues that global players that develop greater diplomatic and trade relations with African states will be greatly advantaged. For many countries, particularly those that have framed their relations with Africa largely in humanitarian terms, this is argued to require a shift in public and policy perceptions. Without this shift, many of Africa's traditional partners, especially in Europe and North America, will lose global influence and trade advantages to the emerging powers in Asia, Africa and South America. The author argues that economic fortunes across Africa are diverging, making it less meaningful to treat Africa as a single entity in international economic negotiations. He claims that it is in the global interest that the African Union should be granted a permanent place at the G20 and that in turn, a more focused, sophisticated and strategic African leadership is needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Overall WD-SA findings: Straight talk to strengthen delivery in the water services sector","field_subtitle":"Galvin M: Water Dialogues-South Africa, 2010","field_url":"http://www.waterdialogues.org/south-africa/overall.htm","body":"This is a synthesis report of eight case studies conducted across South Africa to investigate sanitation and the delivery of clean water. The findings and conclusions have been captured under four cross-cutting issues: public participation and politics; accountability and regulation; service levels, financing and affordability; and institutional approaches. The research showed that finding workable solutions and taking appropriate decisions can only be achieved through a thorough understanding of the local context and realities. There is no one-size-fits-all best-approach, and institutional models work best when they are developed on the basis of robust, comprehensive local assessment of what the key challenges are and how best to meet them. The author argues for a multi-jurisdictional water utility model, across more than one municipality, as having the potential to make the best use of available skills and resources and achieve economies of scale. Sufficient municipal capacity, consolidation of services, clear organisational objectives, and staff commitment and capability are identified as critical to success. The studies indicate that, internationally and nationally, there is a need to shift away from an excessive preoccupation with institutional approaches, which tend to rely on layers of capacity and governance that are generally quite rare or undeveloped, and rather focus on the basics of good operational practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Parliamentary statement from Women Deliver Conference","field_subtitle":"Parliamentarians attending the conference: June 2010","field_url":"http://www.womendeliver.org/assets/Parliamentary_Statement_Women_Deliver.pdf","body":"This statement was made by parliamentarians who attended the Women Deliver Conference, which was held from 7\u20139 June in Washington, DC, United States. The statement addresses a number of areas: creating laws and policies with and for women and girls; giving women and girls their fair share of funding (budget and oversight responsibilities); advocating for a women\u2019s and girl\u2019s agenda everywhere by advancing Millennium Development Goal 5 locally, nationally, regionally and globally; and raising awareness and building knowledge on women\u2019s and girls\u2019 issues. The Parliamentarians pledge to carry out these actions and to systematically and actively monitor their progress. They commit to communicate the results achieved in working with their respective authorities and work in close co-operation with civil society and other key stakeholders to support national action plans to be presented during the United Nations High Level Review meeting on the Millennium Development Goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor MDR-TB knowledge among South African nurses ","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 15 June 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89497","body":"South Africa has one of the highest rates of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), but a new study has found that many nurses have not been trained to handle this deadly, difficult-to-treat strain of the disease. The research, presented at the South African TB Conference, which was held from 1\u20134 June 2010 in Durban, found that only about 19% of the 16 health facilities surveyed in rural and urban areas of Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal provinces had nurses with formal training in MDR-TB management. Dr Tsholofelo Mhlaba, of Health Systems Trust, a health research non-governmental organisation, said some nurses who had been trained to handle MDR-TB demonstrated similar levels of knowledge as those who were untrained. Some nurses tried to fill this knowledge gap with reading and internet research, but many considered MDR-TB a rare problem, even in KwaZulu-Natal, which has the highest incidence of drug-resistant TB in the country. Inadequate understanding of the disease led to poorly recorded patient histories and failure to follow up on people who had been in close contact with MDR-TB patients, such as household members.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Primary health care facility infrastructure and services and the nutritional status of children 0 to 71 months old and their caregivers attending these facilities in four rural districts in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal Provinces, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Schoeman S, Smuts CM, Faber M, Van Stuijvenberg M, Oelofse A, Laubscher JA, Benad\u00e9 AJS and Dhansay MA: South African Journal of Clinical Nutrition 23(1):21-27, 2010","field_url":"http://ajol.info/index.php/sajcn/article/viewFile/52744/41350","body":"The objective of this study was to assess primary health care (PHC) facility infrastructure and services, and the nutritional status of 0 to 71-month-old children and their caregivers attending PHC facilities in the Eastern Cape (EC) and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) provinces in South Africa. Structured interviewer-administered questionnaires and an anthropometric survey were administered. Of the 40 PHC facilities, 14 had been built or renovated after 1994. Only a quarter of PHC facilities had access safe drinking water and fewer had operational telephones. According to more than 80% of the nurses, problems with basic resources and existing cultural practices influenced the quality of services. Few households reported that they had enough food at all times, while the reported prevalence of diarrhoea was high at 34\u201338%. The study concluded that problems regarding infrastructure, basic resources and services adversely affected PHC service delivery and the well-being of rural people, and therefore need urgent attention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Priorities for research into human resources for health in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Ranson M, Chopra M, Atkins S, Dal Pozc RM and Bennetta S: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 435\u2013443, June 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/6/09-066290.pdf","body":"This study aimed to identify the human resources for health (HRH) policy concerns and research priorities of key stakeholders in low- and middle-income countries; to assess the extent to which existing HRH research addresses these concerns and priorities; and to develop a prioritised list of core research questions requiring immediate attention to facilitate policy development and implementation. The study involved interviews with key informants, including health policy-makers, researchers and community and civil society representatives, in 24 low- and middle-income countries, and a literature search for relevant research reviews, from which research questions were prioritised. The questions ranked as most important at the consultative workshop were: To what extent do incentives work in attracting and retaining qualified health workers in underserviced areas? What is the impact of dual practice and multiple employment? How can incentives be used to optimise efficiency and the quality of health care? There was a clear consensus about the type of HRH policy problems faced by different countries and the nature of evidence needed to tackle them. The study concludes that co-ordinated action to support and implement research into the above questions could have a major impact on health worker policies and, ultimately, on the health of the poor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Privatisation in the health sector in Africa","field_subtitle":"Mariott A: Oxfam UK: 2010","field_url":"http://www.aefjn.org/index.php/medicines.150/articles/privatization-in-the-health-sector-in-africa.html","body":"According to this article, developing countries are put under increasing pressure to promote the private sector. It investigates how aid impacts on health in poor countries and the pressure donors put on developing countries to promote the private sector. Proponents of privatisation argue that, because the private sector is already significant, it will be key in scaling up, but this article indicates that privatisation says nothing about the right to health. Likewise, no evidence exists that conclusively demonstrates that the private sector is more efficient and can help reduce costs, and improvements in quality of care and accountability to patients have yet to be proven. A further evidence gap emerges when proponents claim that the private sector can help reach the poor. Public sector success stories, such as those of Bostwana, Cuba, Uganda and Eritrea still need to be studied further. Oxfam demands that external funders be honest, stop promoting unproven and risky private sector approaches, learn from countries that have achieved universal and equitable access, and prioritise rapidly expanding and strengthening free government healthcare.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Reconsidering regional integration in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"McCarthy C: Tralac and Danida, 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/33kk6xw","body":"This paper explores regional integration in Africa.  The author observes that fragmentation of countries has led to the absence of scale in the production of goods and services. Industrialisation and regional integration policies were proposed to overcome this. For some communities, such as the Southern African Development Communities, there were also political objectives. None of the regional integration arrangements are yet fully fledged customs unions. The author notes the limits to intraregional trade by virtue of the low industrial capacity of the countries in the region. However regional integration provides in theory the economies of scale that attract investment and protects producers within a common market. He argues that these benefits  of regional integration have not been achieved. As regional integration is argued to be important, the author argues that it needs to be more strongly based on national strategies for enhancing production capacities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional economic outlook: Sub-Saharan Africa: Back to high growth?","field_subtitle":"International Monetary Fund: April 2010","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/reo/2010/afr/eng/sreo0410.pdf","body":"According to this report, the current economic slowdown in sub-Saharan Africa may soon be over. Output is projected to expand by 4\u00be% in 2010, compared to 2% in 2009. Most countries in the region are now bouncing back from the growth slowdown or contraction in output experienced during the global recession. The brevity of the slowdown owes much to the relative strength of the region\u2019s economies heading into 2008\u20132009, the expansionary macro-economic stance then adopted by most countries, and the relatively quick recovery in global economic activity. The report predicts that prospects for 2011 and beyond look good. Output growth is projected to accelerate to 5\u00be% in 2011, playing off the expected continued improvement in global economic conditions. Over the medium term, growth rates in most sub-Saharan African countries are expected to be only marginally below those enjoyed in the mid-2000s. In the meantime, most countries have been able to shield pro-poor and pro-growth public spending. According to preliminary budget out-turn numbers, health and education spending increased in real terms in 20 of the 29 low-income countries in the region in 2009. In a similar vein, government capital spending also looks to have held up in 2009, increasing in real terms in more than half of the countries in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Serie de Politicas 18: Com\u00e9rcio e Sa\u00fade na \u00c1frica Oriental e Austral ","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R, Tayob R, Wadee H, Makombe P and Mabika A: EQUINET, June 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/POLBRIEF18%20TRADE%20PORT.pdf","body":"This leaflet is a translation of EQUINET\u2019s policy brief on trade and health. The summary information is shown here in Portuguese. O crescimento do com\u00e9rcio internacional tem conseq\u00fc\u00eancias significativas para a sa\u00fade p\u00fablica. A rela\u00e7\u00e3o entre o com\u00e9rcio e a sa\u00fade n\u00e3o \u00e9 simples, e n\u00e3o \u00e9 unidirecional. Neste informe levantamos quest\u00f5es sobre porqu\u00ea \u00e9 que quest\u00f5es sobre o com\u00e9rcio t\u00eam que ser compreendidas e geridas com o intuito de promover a sa\u00fade e real\u00e7amos as principais preocupa\u00e7\u00f5es em sa\u00fade p\u00fablica decorrentes dos acordos sobre o com\u00e9rcio livre. Chamamos a aten\u00e7\u00e3o para as medidas que os governos e a sociedade civil na regi\u00e3o podem tomar com vista a alcan\u00e7ar maior coer\u00eancia entre o com\u00e9rcio e as pol\u00edticas de sa\u00fade, de maneira a que o com\u00e9rcio internacional e as regras do com\u00e9rcio maximizem os benef\u00edcios para a sa\u00fade e minimizem os riscos em sa\u00fade, especialmente para popula\u00e7\u00f5es pobres e vulner\u00e1veis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Sharing health data: Good intentions are not enough","field_subtitle":"Pisani E and AbouZahr C: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 462\u2013464, June 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/6/09-074393.pdf","body":"According to this article, epidemiologists and public health researchers are moving very slowly in the data-sharing revolution, and agencies that maintain global health databases are reluctant to share data too. Funders of public health research are beginning to call for change and developing data-sharing policies that are in the public interest. However they are not yet adequately addressing the obstacles that underpin the failure to share data, which include professional structures that reward publication of analysis but not of data, and funding streams and career paths that continue to undervalue critical data management work. Practical issues need to be sorted out too: how and where should data be stored for the long term, who will control access and who will pay for those services? The article offers goals for data sharing and a work plan for reaching them, and challenges respondents to move beyond well-intentioned, but largely aspirational, data-sharing plans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Sixty-third World Health Assembly resolution on advancing food safety initiatives","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 20 May 2010 ","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA63/A63_R3-en.pdf","body":"A resolution at the 63rd World Health Assembly states that food-borne diseases continue to represent a serious threat to the health of millions of people in the world, particularly those in developing countries with poor nutritional status. It refers to the links between food safety, nutrition and food security, and acknowledges the instrumental role of food safety in eradicating hunger and malnutrition, in particular in low-income and food-deficit countries, while also acknowledging increasing evidence that many communicable diseases are transmitted through food, a risk that is increased by the growing global trade in food. It calls for closer collaboration between the health sector and other sectors, and increased action on food safety at international and national levels, across the full length of the food-production chain, to reduce significantly the incidence of food-borne disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Sixty-third World Health Assembly resolution on blood products","field_subtitle":"Secretariat of the World Health Organization: 21 May 2010 ","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA63/A63_R12-en.pdf","body":"The 63rd World Health Assembly raised concern that access globally to blood products is unequal and that access to these products by developing countries needs to be escalated. A major factor limiting the global availability of plasma-derived medicinal products is an inadequate supply of plasma meeting internationally recognised standards for fractionation, usually in developing countries, which lack blood components separation technology and fractionation capacity. The resolution of the Assembly calls for good practices to be implemented in recruiting voluntary healthy blood and plasma donors from low-risk donor populations and in testing and processing to be covered by relevant, reliable quality-assurance systems. Stringent regulatory control is vital in assuring the quality and safety of blood products, as well as of related in vitro diagnostic devices, and special effort will be needed to strengthen globally the technical capacity of regulatory authorities to assure the appropriate control worldwide.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Sixty-third World Health Assembly resolution on marketing of food and non-alcoholic beverages to children","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 21 May 2010 ","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA63/A63_R14-en.pdf","body":"This resolution from the World Health Assembly calls on member states to implement recommendations on the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children, while taking into account existing legislation and policies, as appropriate. Governments should identify the most suitable policy approach and develop new policies and strengthen existing policies that aim to reduce the impact of marketing unhealthy foods on children, as well as to establish a system for monitoring and evaluating the implementation of the recommendations on the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children. They should take active steps to establish intergovernmental collaboration to reduce the impact of cross-border marketing and co-operate with civil society and with public and private stakeholders in implementing the set of recommendations on the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Sixty-third World Health Assembly resolution on monitoring of the achievement of the health-related Millennium Development Goals","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 21 May 2010 ","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA63/A63_R15-en.pdf","body":"Expressing concern at the relatively slow progress in attaining the Millennium Development Goals, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the World Health Assembly in this resolution reaffirms the commitments by developed countries to a target of 0.7% of gross national income on official development assistance by 2015, with an interim goal of  0.56% of gross national income for official development assistance by 2010. It urges United Nations member states to strengthen their health systems so that they deliver equitable health outcomes and achieve Millennium Development Goals 4, 5 and 6. It urges for policy review in areas that are limiting progress, including on the recruitment, training and retention of health workers, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Governments should reaffirm the values and principles of primary health care, including equity, social justice and community participation, as the basis for strengthening health systems. Health equity should be taken into account in all national policies that address the social determinants of health, and governments should consider developing and strengthening universal comprehensive social protection policies, including health promotion, disease prevention and health care, and further commit themselves to increased investment in financial and human resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Sixty-third World Health Assembly resolution on partnerships","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 21 May 2010 ","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA63/A63_R10-en.pdf","body":"This publication is a response to the critical need for, and contribution of, collaborative partnerships with the World Health Organization (WHO) to achieve global health outcomes. It refers to WHO\u2019s Constitution, the Eleventh General Programme of Work, 2006\u20132015 and the medium-term strategic plan 2008\u20132013, which describe collaboration and coordination as core functions of the Organization, while noting that the growth of health partnerships and other forms of collaboration have increased greatly in the past decade. It recommends that WHO develop a policy governing its engagement in, and hosting of, partnerships in a manner that avoids duplication of WHO\u2019s core responsibilities in its partnership activities. Collaboration of WHO with stakeholders should be based on clear distinction of roles that creates added value, synergies and coordination among different programmes that support achievement of global and national health outcomes and reduce transaction costs. It calls upon United Nations member states to take the policy into account when seeking engagement by the Director-General in partnerships, in particular with regard to hosting arrangements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Social enterprise: A global comparison ","field_subtitle":"Kerlin JA: Tufts University, 2009 ","field_url":"http://preview.tinyurl.com/3a7cs9f","body":"Social enterprise \u2013 the use of market-based, civil society approaches to address social issues \u2013 has been a growing phenomenon for over twenty years. Gathering essays by researchers and practitioners from around the globe, this book examines, from a local perspective, the diverse ways in which social enterprise has emerged in different regions. Each chapter examines the conceptualisation, history, legal and political frameworks, supporting institutions, and latest developments and challenges for social enterprise in a given region or country. In the final chapter, the author presents a comparative analysis of the various models and contexts for social enterprise, showing how particular strengths in each environment lead to different enterprise initiative models.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Sterilisation of HIV-positive women without their consent is highly unacceptable","field_subtitle":"Solidarity Community Care Organisation: June 2010","field_url":"","body":"In this open letter, the Solidarity Community Care Organisation condemns the sterilisation of HIV-positive women without their consent in Namibia as discriminatory. It identifies other forms of discrimination against HIV-positive Namibians, such as a medical aid scheme that accepts HIV-positive clients who are on anti-retroviral therapy, while excluding those who are not. The Solidarity Community Care Organisation urges all HIV-positive persons in the country to unite and fight for their rights while fulfilling their obligations, such as restraining from spreading the virus. It also calls for all HIV-positive Namibians to denounce all forms of discrimination wherever they manifest themselves in Namibia.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/35156","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategies to reduce the harmful use of alcohol: Draft global strategy ","field_subtitle":"Secretariat of the World Health Organization: 25 March 2010 ","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA63/A63_13-en.pdf","body":"The World Health Organisation Secretariat has produced a draft strategy to reduce harmful use of alcohol through an inclusive and broad collaborative process with stakeholders in member states. The draft strategy is based on existing best practices and available evidence on effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of strategies and interventions to reduce the harmful use of alcohol. The document describes the strategy, which includes: increasing global action and international cooperation; ensuring intersectoral action; according appropriate attention; balancing different interests; focusing on equity; considering context in recommending actions; and strengthening information systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Supporting regional integration in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"McCarthy C, Cronj\u00e9 JB, Denner W, Fundira T, Mwanza W, Bursvik E: Trade Law Centre for Southern Africa and the Royal Danish Embassy, 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/32mwtaz","body":"This collection of papers reviews select issues on the regional integration agenda in east and southern Africa. It starts by assessing the African Paradigm of Regional Integration, as well as the broader AU integration agenda. It also reflects on the impact of the global economic crisis on Africa. This is followed by a review of progress on regional integration in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). It then considers country-specific issues, including the trade policy choices of several countries, the role of new generation trade issues, such as services on the regional integration agenda, and assesses the status of protectionism, trade remedies and safeguards in regional trade agreements, both intra- and extra-regional. Finally, it presents a review of the developments in the negotiations concerning SADC\u2019s economic partnership agreements, specifically focusing on concerns raised within the SADC group.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Survey of children accessing HIV services in a high prevalence setting: Time for adolescents to count?","field_subtitle":"Ferrand R, Lowe S, Whande B, Munaiwa L, Langhaug L, Cowan F, Mugurungi O, Gibb D, Munyati S, Williams BG and Corbetta EL: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 424\u2013438, June 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/6/09-066126.pdf","body":"In this study, the main objectives were to establish the proportion of adolescents among children infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in Zimbabwe who receive HIV care and support, and what clinic staff perceive to be the main problems faced by HIV-infected children and adolescents. In July 2008, the researchers sent a questionnaire to all 131 facilities providing HIV care in Zimbabwe, requesting an age breakdown of the children (aged 0\u201319 years) registered for care and asking to identify the two major problems faced by younger children (0\u20135 years) and adolescents (10\u201319 years). Nationally, 115 (88%) facilities responded. Of the 98 (75%) that provided complete data, 196,032 patients were registered and 24,958 (13%) of them were children. The main problems for younger children were identified as malnutrition and lack of appropriate drugs (cited by 46% and 40% of clinics, respectively), while adolescents were most concerned about psychosocial issues and poor drug adherence (cited by 56% and 36%, respectively).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"TB response fails South African children","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 2 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=89343","body":"The fight against tuberculosis (TB) is argued to have failed children: the share of paediatric TB is increasing, and children have not escaped the rising tide of drug-resistant strains, according to new research presented at the South African TB Conference, which was held from 1\u20134 June 2010. Dr Ntombi Mhlongo-Sigwebela, TB programme director at the University Research Company, a public health consultancy, told the conference in Durban that TB in children under four years of age now accounted for about 9% of all national TB cases annually. Dr Kalpesh Rahevar, a World Health Organization (WHO) medical officer, said inconclusive conventional TB skin tests (to determine whether a patient has a latent TB infection) and the inability to get sputum samples from young children made paediatric TB more difficult to diagnose and treat than in adults. Paediatric drug formulations and international treatment guidance for children were also inadequate, said Dr Ben Marais of the University of Stellenbosch, in Western Cape Province.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The African report on child wellbeing: 2008 ","field_subtitle":"African Child Policy Forum: 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/382uhqu","body":"Child-friendliness is a manifestation of the political will of governments to make the maximum effort to meet their obligations to respect, protect and fulfill children\u2019s rights and ensure their wellbeing. This report has developed and used a Child-friendliness Index to assess the extent to which African governments are living up to their responsibilities to respect and protect children and to ensure their wellbeing. Three dimensions of child-friendliness were identified: protection of children by legal and policy frameworks; efforts to meet basic needs, assessed in terms of budgetary allocation and achievement of outcomes; and the effort made to ensure children\u2019s participation in decisions that affect their wellbeing. Though child participation is important, it was not possible to obtain sufficient data on this dimension during the development of the Index. Mauritius and Namibia emerged as the first and second most child-friendly governments respectively in Africa, followed by Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Kenya, South Africa, Malawi, Algeria, and Cape Verde. At the other extreme are the ten least child-friendly governments in Africa, the last being Guinea-Bissau preceded by Eritrea, Central African Republic, Gambia, S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 and Principe, Liberia, Chad, Swaziland, Guinea and Comoros.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The EU-Africa partnership: At a strategic crossroads","field_subtitle":"Bello O: FRIDE policy brief 47, May 2010","field_url":"http://www.fride.org/publication/766/a-crucial-moment-in-eu-africa-relations","body":"The Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) launched by European and African leaders at the Lisbon summit of 2007 is argued to have so far failed to deliver on its key promise to fundamentally transform development and political cooperation between the continents. Three years of uncertain implementation reveals just how wide a gap separates the rhetoric and reality of the new strategic partnership. This policy brief shows how the Joint Africa-EU Strategy has struggled to integrate some pre-existing frameworks and transform the logic of elevated partnership. Both sides admit difficulties in the face of unfulfilled expectations of additional European Union (EU) funding. At the same time implementation of the agreement is clouded by dissonant discourses from both sides of the negotiation table. To complicate matters further, institutional complexity in Europe is met by an embryonic process of continental integration in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The forced and coerced sterilisation of HIV-positive women in Namibia","field_subtitle":"International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW): March 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2vw9jrs","body":"This report provides an analysis of research on cases of sterilisation of HIV positive women in Namibia. A series of focus groups and interviews produced evidence that the authors report suggesting that a number of HIV positive women were being forced into sterilisation by hospital staff. The research was conducted between 21 January 2008 and 22 of April 2008 with a total of 230 HIV positive women. Women participated in focus groups and interviews about their experiences. The analysis takes a rights-based approach and presents a detailed account of Namibia\u2019s obligations under international and regional human rights law. The evidence from the focus groups is argued to indicate that these rights have been violated. The report uncovered many types of discrimination against HIV-positive mothers, such as being coerced into using injectable contraceptives, failure to obtain consent for sterilisation and obtaining consent under duress. The authors call on all relevant parties, especially the Ministries of Health and Justice, address this violation of human rights immediately.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of global health initiatives on trust in health care provision under extreme resource scarcity: Presenting an agenda for debate from a case study of emergency obstetric care in Northern Tanzania ","field_subtitle":"Olsen OE: Health Research Policy and Systems 8(14), 25 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-8-14.pdf","body":"This article sets out to discuss and analyze the described collapse of health services through a brief case study on provision of Emergency Obstetric Care in Northern Tanzania. The article argues that since the Alma Ata conference on Primary Health Care developments in global health initiatives have not been successful in incorporating population trust into the frameworks, instead focusing narrowly on expert-driven solutions through concepts such as prevention and interventions. The need for quantifiable results has pushed international policy makers and donors towards vertical programmes, intervention approaches, preventive services and quantity as the coverage parameter. Health systems have consequently been pushed away from generalised horizontal care, curative services and quality assurance, all important determinants of trust. The article proposes a new framework that places generalised services and individual curative care in the centre of the health sector policy domain. It concludes that an increased focus on quality and accountability to secure trust is an important precondition for enabling the political commitment to mobilise necessary resources to the health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of urban municipal governments in reducing health inequities: A meta-narrative mapping analysis","field_subtitle":"Collins PA and Hayes MV: International Journal for Equity in Health, 25 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-9-13.pdf","body":"Despite the establishment of a 'health inequities knowledge base', the precise roles for municipal governments in reducing health inequities at the local level remain poorly defined. The objective of this study was to monitor thematic trends in this knowledge base over time, and to track scholarly prescriptions for municipal government intervention on local health inequities. Of the total of 1,004 journal abstracts pertaining to health inequities that were analysed, the overall quantity of abstracts increased considerably over the 20 year timeframe. 'Healthy lifestyles' and 'healthcare' were the most commonly emphasised themes, but only 17% of the abstracts articulated prescriptions for municipal government interventions on local health inequities. This study has demonstrated a pervasiveness of 'behavioural' and 'biomedical' perspectives, and a lack of consideration afforded to the roles and responsibilities of municipal governments, among the health inequities scholarly community. Thus, despite considerable research activity over the past two decades, the 'health inequities knowledge base' inadequately reflects the complex aetiology of, and solutions to, population health inequities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The willingness of private-sector doctors to manage public-sector HIV/AIDS patients in the eThekwini metropolitan region of KwaZulu-Natal","field_subtitle":"Naidoo P, Jinabhai CC and Taylor M: African Journal of Primary Health Care and Family Medicine 2(1), 2010","field_url":"http://www.phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/102/55","body":"This paper aimed to gauge the willingness of private-sector doctors in the eThekwini Metropolitan (Metro) region of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa to manage public-sector HIV and AIDS patients. A descriptive cross-sectional study was undertaken among private-sector doctors, both general practitioners (GPs) and specialists working in the eThekwini Metro, using an anonymous, structured questionnaire to investigate their willingness to manage public-sector HIV and AIDS patients and the factors associated with their responses. Most of the doctors were male GPs aged 30\u201350 years who had been in practice for more than ten years. Of these, 133 (77.8%) were willing to manage public-sector HIV and AIDS patients. Of the 38 (22.2%) that were unwilling to manage these patients, more than 80% cited a lack of time, knowledge and infrastructure to manage them. The paper concluded that many private-sector doctors are willing to manage public-sector HIV and AIDS patients in the eThekwini Metro, which could potentially remove some of the current burden on the public health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Tool to help NGOs deal with climate change","field_subtitle":"Wiggins S: Tearfund, 2009","field_url":"http://tilz.tearfund.org/webdocs/Tilz/Topics/Environmental%20Sustainability/CEDRA%20D5.pdf","body":"This tool, entitled 'Climate Change and Environmental Degradation Risk and Adaptation Assessment' (CEDRA), helps non-governmental organisations (NGOs) access and understand climate change and environmental degradation, and the science behind it, and compare this with local experience of environmental change. The tool was developed through NGO experience of problems as a result of changing weather patterns in countries like Afghanistan. CEDRA involves six steps: identifying environmental hazards, prioritising hazards that need to be addressed, selecting adaptation options, addressing unmanageable risks, considering new project locations, and a process of continual review, which should take place every year. It provides a check-list for each of the steps, with samples of questions that need to be asked, and underlines the involvement of beneficiary communities at every stage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Umthente, uhlaba, usamila: The second South African national youth risk behaviour survey 2008","field_subtitle":"Medical Research Council: 2010","field_url":"http://www.mrc.ac.za/healthpromotion/yrbs_2008_final_report.pdf","body":"For this survey, school learners completed a self-administered questionnaire, in addition to having their height and weight measures taken, in 2008. The overall response rate was 71.6%. In summary, there were considerable variations across age, gender, grade, race and province for each of the risk behaviours. With regard to behaviours related to infectious diseases, 38% of learners had reported ever having had sex, with 13% of them reporting their age of initiation of sexual activity as being under 14 years old, while 63% always washed their hands before eating and 70% always washed their hands after going to the toilet. High levels of violence were indicated by the 15% of learners reported carrying weapons and 36% who reported they had been bullied in the month prior to the survey. Learners reported alcohol consumption was 50% for ever having drunk alcohol and 35% for having drunk alcohol in the past month, and 29% for having engaged in binge drinking in the month prior to the survey. The study makes specific recommendations to address the clusters of behaviours covered in this survey, based on the concept of intersectoral intervention development or solutions to limit the behaviours that place young people at risk for premature morbidity and mortality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Using anti-retrovirals for prevention: Proceed with caution, say researchers","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 25 May 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=89249","body":"Two new studies have confirmed fears that the use of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to prevent HIV could lead to drug resistance if inadvertently used by people who were already infected. The findings, presented at the International Microbicides Conference in the United States earlier in May, suggest that regular HIV testing would have to be an integral part of any prevention programme using ARVs. Prevention approaches incorporating ARVs are still being tested in clinical trials, but are thought to be among the most promising potential interventions against HIV. One approach, called pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), would involve giving a daily dose of a single ARV drug to people who were HIV-negative but at high risk. This could be effective in preventing HIV, but if someone who is already infected is treated, this could raise the risk of developing resistant strains of the virus.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Veil of secrecy on anti-counterfeit bill ","field_subtitle":"Mpaka C: Malawi News, 12 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.bnltimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3917&Itemid=28","body":"Health activists in Malawi have expressed concern at what they call government\u2019s \u2018secret conduct\u2019 on the proposed anti-counterfeit law, which they fear could legislate against the generic drugs on which Malawi\u2019s health care system heavily relies. In keeping with World Trade Organisation (WTO) and international trade agreement terms, countries in East and Southern Africa are introducing laws reportedly to crack down on infringement of trademark and intellectual property rights. According to this article, Malawi\u2019s proposed law to that effect has already been examined by Cabinet on its way to becoming law. However, health activists have expressed concern that the law may cause drug stock-outs if generic medicines are treated as counterfeits, as has been raised in East African versions of counterfeit law. Government is allegedly denying health civil society access to the document, saying it is not for public consumption. Executive Director for the umbrella body Malawi Health Equity Network (MHEN), Martha Kwataine, said enacting a law against generic medical products will reverse Malawi\u2019s efforts in improving health care and worsen drug stock outs in hospitals. \u2018Once we have the new laws, it means we will be forced to buy the most expensive brand-name drugs,\u2019 she added. \u2018The big companies that are owners of the patents will be making huge profits at the expense of the lives of poor people in Malawi.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO funders: Setting the agenda for global public health?","field_subtitle":"Knowledge Ecology International: 15 May 2010","field_url":"http://keionline.org/node/839","body":"This article supplies basic information on external funding for the World Health Organization's (WHO) activities. The total amount of 'specified' voluntary contributions for the period of 2008 to 2009 is around US$2.3 billion dollars. The Total General Fund for WHO, including specified voluntary contributions, 'core' voluntary contributions and contributions to WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and the Stop TB Partnership Global Drug Facility, stands at $2,744,594,186 dollars. Unofficial sources within WHO have confirmed that these voluntary contributions form around 80% of WHO\u2019s operating budget. The main external funders have been identified as (in descending order): the United States of America, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Rotary International, Norway, Canada, the European Commission, the Global Alliance for Vaccine Immunization (GAVI) and Hoffmann-La Roche. WHO confirmed that Roche's $84 million figure relates to in-kind contributions following the H1N1 pandemic response.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO global code of practice on the international recruitment of health personnel","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 21 May 2010","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA63/A63_R16-en.pdf","body":"This resolution of the 63rd World Health Assembly outlines a set of standards for the international recruitment of health personnel. The code of practice aims to establish and promote voluntary principles and practices for the ethical international recruitment of health personnel. It provides member states with ethical principles for international health worker recruitment that strengthen the health systems of developing countries. It discourages states from actively recruiting health personnel from developing countries that face critical shortages of health workers, and encourages them to facilitate the 'circular migration of health personnel' to maximise skills and knowledge sharing. It enshrines equal rights of both migrant and non-migrant health workers. The code sets the provisions for member states to monitor and report on the implementation of the code, for reporting back to the Assembly in 2012. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO: Equity, social determinants and public health programmes ","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2010","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241563970_eng.pdf","body":"This book analyses the impact of social determinants on specific health conditions. It presents promising interventions to improve health equity for: alcohol-related disorders, cardiovascular diseases, child health and nutrition, diabetes, food safety, maternal health, mental health, neglected tropical diseases, oral health, pregnancy outcomes, tobacco and health, tuberculosis, and violence and injuries. Individual chapters represent the major public health programmes at WHO, reflecting the premise that health programmes must lead the way by demonstrating the relevance, feasibility and value of addressing social determinants. Each chapter is organised according to a common framework that allows a fresh but structured look at common, high burden public health problems. Levels in this framework range from the overall structure of society, to differential exposure to risks and disparate vulnerability within populations, to individual differences in health care outcomes and their social and economic consequences. Throughout the volume, an effort is made to identify entry-points, within existing health programmes, for interventions that address the upstream causes of ill-health. Possible sources of resistance or opposition to change are also consistently identified.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Women Deliver Conference urges world leaders to reduce maternal and child mortality","field_subtitle":"Women Deliver: June 2010","field_url":"http://www.womendeliver.org/conferences/-2010-conference/","body":"About 3,500 advocates, policymakers, development leaders, health care professionals, youth advocates, celebrities and media personnel from 140 countries attended the 2010 Women Deliver Conference, held from 7\u20139 June in Washington, DC, United States. The conference challenged the international community to dramatically reduce maternal and child mortality by committing US$12 billion in aid. Three messages emerged from the conference. First, maternal and newborn mortality rates are dropping, but the work is far from done. Second, investing in girls and women is not only the right thing to do, but it makes economic sense. Third, although solutions exist to achieve Millennium Development Goal 5, which aims to reduce maternal and infant mortality, what is lacking are the requisite political will and the equitable allocation of resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Women's rights take one step forward, two steps back","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 16 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89510","body":"Much to the frustration of gender activists, Swaziland's Supreme Court has reversed a February 2010 High Court ruling that allowed a married woman to register property in her own name. Activist Mary-Joyce Doo Aphane wished to register a house in her own name and challenged the country's 1968 Deeds Registry Act. She was granted a High Court order declaring the section unconstitutional. Yet three months later, the Supreme Court suppressed the High Court judgment. Although the Constitution grants men and women equal rights, in practice the old laws on the statute books still define gender relations in this absolute monarchy. According to the authors, not having property rights means many women are not able to leave abusive husbands because it would mean they have nowhere to live, no money and no family support. The Attorney General's office, which drafts legislation for parliamentary consideration, would not comment on its timeframe for revising the property law, and most gender activists remain sceptical that the deadline set by the Supreme Court will be met by parliament.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A call for a massive paradigm shift from just health financing to integrated health, population and social development investment in Africa: The case for progressing from only 15% to 15%+","field_subtitle":"Sankore R: Africa Public Health Alliance, 15%+ Campaign and Africa Public Health Parliamentary Network, April 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/SANfin23052010.pdf","body":"This paper was presented at the African Union's (AU) Continental Conference on Maternal, Infant and Child Health in Africa from 19 to 21 April 2010. It outlines the basis for a required paradigm shift in \u2018health financing\u2019 in Africa, given the limited gains from isolated health financing and the rising health burden and mortality in 2010 since 2000. In April 2001, African Heads of State met in Abuja, Nigeria to make the continent's main financial commitment towards meeting the health Millennium Goals by pledging to allocate at least 15% of domestic national budgets to health. Yet nine years later, the pledge remains largely unmet. Broad-based social development investment is required in addition to the 15% pledge and the paper calls for investment in integrated and needs-based health, population and social development, moving from just 15% to 15%+.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"A critical review of interventions to redress the inequitable distribution of healthcare professionals to rural and remote areas ","field_subtitle":"Wilson NW, Couper ID, De Vries E, Reid S, Fish T and Marais BJ: Rural and Remote Health 9(1060), 5 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.rrh.org.au/publishedarticles/article_print_1060.pdf","body":"This review provides a comprehensive overview of the most important studies addressing the recruitment and retention of doctors to rural and remote areas. A comprehensive search of the English literature was conducted using the National Library of Medicine\u2019s (PubMed) database and a total of 110 articles were included. The available evidence was classified into five intervention categories: selection, education, coercion, incentives and support. The main definitions used to define \u2018rural and/or remote\u2019 in the articles reviewed were summarised before the evidence in support of each of the five intervention categories was presented. The review argues for the formulation of universal definitions to assist study comparison and future collaborative research. Although coercive strategies address short-term recruitment needs, little evidence supports their long-term positive impact. Current evidence only supports the implementation of well-defined selection and education policies, although incentive and support schemes may have value. The review concludes that the impact of untested interventions needs to be evaluated in a scientifically rigorous fashion to identify winning strategies for guiding future practice and policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A landscape analysis of global players\u2019 attitudes toward the private sector in health systems and policy levers that influence these attitudes","field_subtitle":"Hozumi D, Frost L, Suraratdecha C, Pratt BA, Yuksel S, Reichenbach L and Reich M: Rockefeller Foundation, 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2v2c5c8","body":"This research project aimed to assess current attitudes of major global and national stakeholders on the role of the private sector in low- and lower-middle-income countries in health service provision and financing. The research team used qualitative and quantitative methods to gather data on attitudes toward the private sector. The research found that there was no agreement about what the 'private sector' or a 'public-private partnership' was. Most respondents gave qualified responses in their views of the private sector, although their perceptions varied depending on their personal ideology and history, type of intervention, area of focus, and country context. Negative views were deeply rooted. The public sector viewed the private sector as a means to an end. At the national level, the private sector feared government interference, while the public sector feared a loss of control. There was significant experience with many different forms and models of public-private interaction. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Address by WHO Director-General to the Sixty-third World Health Assembly","field_subtitle":"Chan M: World Health Organization, 18 May 2010","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA63/A63_3-en.pdf","body":"In her address at the 2010 World Health Assembly, Margaret Chan charted the successes and failures of public health over the past year. She underlined the importance of equity and social justice, which are central to the Millennium Declaration and its goals, as well as the primary health care approach. Principles such as universal access to services, multisectoral action and community participation form a solid basis for strengthening health systems. However, efforts to reduce maternal and newborn deaths have shown the slowest progress of all the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in all regions, largely, as she pointed out, because reducing these deaths depends absolutely on a well-functioning health system. She informed participants that, in preparation for the September United Nations Summit on the Millennium Development Goals, the Secretary-General\u2019s office is finalising a joint action plan to accelerate progress in reaching the health-related MDGs, with a special focus on maternal and child health. She urges all participants to maintain a focus on building strong health systems and improving regulatory capacity. Acknowledging that WHO has not met its goals in the past, she re-iterated the organisation's commitment to improving fundamental capacities to help reach international commitments, increase efficiency and fairness, improve health outcomes in sustainable ways and move countries towards greater self-reliance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa\u2019s Peer Review Mechanism: A seven country survey","field_subtitle":"Bing-Pappoe A: Partnership Africa Canada, March 2010","field_url":"http://www.pacweb.org/Documents/APRM/APRM_Seven_countries_March2010-E.pdf","body":"This report assesses the progress made in some of the major countries that have begun to implement the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) and address their governance problems, including two countries from east and southern Africa \u2013 South Africa and Kenya. The overall picture is generally positive, with dialogue between stakeholders occurring and changes being introduced in the ways policies are developed and implemented. There is peer learning, with experiences from a given country being introduced to others. But the report notes that the pace of learning and the pace of change are slow. It argues that the APRM itself has to be changed to make it more straightforward and more efficient. Human and financial resources must be increased at the national level to help countries carry out their evaluations successfully and, more importantly, implement the priority actions that are agreed on. The report argues that civil society is a key player in the APRM, but this is often forgotten by governments, by the continental APRM authorities and by external funders, and the inclusion of civil society representatives in the APRM process is often just an afterthought.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid to Africa: What can the EU and China learn from each other?","field_subtitle":"Ling J: South African Institute of International Affairs occasional paper 56, 2010","field_url":"http://www.saiia.org.za/images/stories/pubs/occasional_papers/saia_sop_56_ling_20100326.pdf","body":"This occasional paper focuses on China\u2019s and the EU\u2019s aid policies towards Africa by examining their different approaches to aid and the internal logic behind these differences in order to facilitate mutual understanding. It points out that, due to their different development stages, different development models and different aid co-operation experiences in Africa, China and the EU have developed different aid principles, priorities and modalities with different logics. China advocates more \u2018co-operation\u2019 than \u2018aid\u2019 itself, so the country\u2019s main principles guiding the way in which it manages aid are no political conditions attached to aid provisions, two-way co-operation and a win-win formula. The EU considers aid as a one-way instrument to promote Africa\u2019s good governance and sustainable development, so the key principles that it applies are conditionality, one-way benevolence and co-responsibility. However, the paper highlights that these different logics behind the EU\u2019s and China\u2019s policy approaches are not necessarily contradictory. It proposes that both sides should shift perspective, putting aside the perception of \u2018competing models\u2019, to study the points of overlap and thus open a new window for co-operation. Considering the wide perception gap that exists between the two sides, the author recommends that a practical and pragmatic way to advance co-operation may be through focusing initially on second track approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS Law Project relaunches with broader focus","field_subtitle":"Kerry Cullinan: Health-e News, 11 May 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032775","body":"The AIDS Law Project, one of South Africa's leading HIV and AIDS rights campaigners, has ceased to exist in its present form. Instead it has become part of Section27, a non-profit organisation that will focus on all 'the socio-economic conditions that undermine human dignity and development, prevent poor people from reaching their full potential and lead to the spread of diseases that have a disproportionate impact on the vulnerable and marginalised'. Section27 gets its name from the section in the country\u2019s Constitution that states everyone has the right to access to health care services, enough food and water and social security. The organisation faces a potential legal battle over the right to use the name, Section27, as the Companies and Intellectual Properties Registration Organisation (CIPRO) claims that this name is the preserve of government only. Director Mark Heywood explained the change: 'To sustain the response to HIV, reduce new infections and ensure sustained access to treatment, it is necessary to campaign for equity, equality and quality in the health system.' Head of litigation services Adila Hassan said the new organisation will still focus on HIV/AIDS but also on the 'underlying determinants of health, and to do this we will be focusing on education and sufficient food as two such determinants'. Section27 will also defend the Constitution and its foundational values.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Alternatives to privatisation of health services: Perspective from Africa","field_subtitle":"Dambisya Y: University of Limpopo and EQUINET in the Municipal Services Project: 2010","field_url":"http://www.municipalservicesproject.org/sites/default/files/Yoswa%20Dambisya%20Health.pdf","body":"The Municipal Services Project and Focus on the Global South held a one-day workshop on building alternatives to the privatisation of basic services on 31 March 2010 in New Delhi, India. This presentation on health in Africa was given at the workshop. The presenter discussed some alternatives to privatisation, such as community-based health insurance and mutual health organisations. Functional national health insurance schemes are already in operation in Ghana and Nigeria, while South Africa is busy putting together its own scheme and a similar scheme is in its initial stages in Uganda. Community-based alternatives to the privatisation of health services were considered but measures are needed to promote equity through cross-subsidisation provisions for democratic participation and improved quality of health services. However, the presenter pointed out that administrative efficiency and the cost effectiveness of collecting the premiums in community-based approaches were often problematic and sustainability was also a challenge, and faced dwindling membership due to low income. Benefits, including improved accountability through greater member involvement, were more likely if these approaches were  integrated with national health systems, as shown in Rwanda, Tanzania and Ghana.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Archbishop Tutu calls for review of African health financing and development commitments","field_subtitle":"Pambazuka News: 13 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/64418","body":"Honorary Chair and Patron of the Africa Public Health Alliance and 15% Plus Campaign, Desmond Tutu, has called on African Heads of State and Ministers of Health and Finance to work urgently towards meeting their Abuja commitments before the 2011 High Level Progressive Review of Africa's commitment to health financing. He pointed out that, in the past nine years, only six out of 53 African Union member states have met their 2001 Abuja commitment to pledge 15% of their budgets to health. He attributed shortfalls on meeting health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)to a combination of low per-capita investment in health and low investment in social determinants of health, such as clean water, improved sanitation, poor nutrition and gender equity in health, as well as a lack of pharmaceutical capacity and access to medicines. He urged the education and labour sectors to train and retain the necessary numbers of health workers, and double per capita investment in health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing and strengthening civil society worldwide: An updated programme description of the CIVICUS Civil Society Index: Phase 2008 to 2010","field_subtitle":"CIVICUS: April 2010","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/media/Assessing%20and_Strengthening_Civil_Society%20Worldwide2008-10.pdf","body":"This paper argues that it is necessary to conduct a participatory, cross-national assessment and action-planning programme on civil society in all developing and developed countries. It acknowledges the scarcity of sound empirical studies on civil society and identifies some of the causes for this situation, including the elusive and highly disputed nature of the concept of civil society and a lack of valid data in many regions of the world, as well as the trend of confusing the tasks of advancing the normative ideal of civil society with honestly assessing its current reality. CIVICUS believes that reflections on the current reality of civil society are necessary to strengthen civil society. In other words, only by knowing the current state of civil society, can one work to successfully improve it. The paper argues that cross-national research, covering a wide range of different contexts, is a conceptual, methodological, cultural and logistical minefield. But by designing an assessment tool based on context, and by designing it in a way which, in principle, should make it applicable in every country, the Civil Society Index aims to push the boundaries of existing comparative work on the topic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing bed net use and non-use after long-lasting insecticidal net distribution: A simple framework to guide programmatic strategies","field_subtitle":"Van den Eng JL, Thwing J, Wolkon A, Kulkarni MA, Manya A, Erskine M, Hightower A, Slutsker L: Malaria Journal 9(133), 18 May 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-9-133.pdf","body":"In this paper, a simple method based on the end-user as the denominator was employed to classify individuals into one of four insecticide-treated net (ITN) use categories: living in households not owning an ITN; living in households owning, but not hanging an ITN; living in households owning and hanging an ITN, but who are not sleeping under one; and sleeping under an ITN. This framework was applied to survey data designed to evaluate distribution of long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) following integrated campaigns in five African countries, including Madagascar and Kenya. The study found that the percentage of children ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Breaking the boundaries of depression ","field_subtitle":"Langa L: Health-e News, 21 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032753","body":"The Perinatal Mental Health Project in Cape Town, which offers counselling to mothers throughout their pregnancy, is playing a role by tackling depression in the initial stages of the pregnancy. While most programmes only tackle cases of depression among pregnant women after the birth of the baby, the Perinatal Mental Health Project (PMHP) at the University of Cape Town intervenes during the early stages of pregnancy. Simone Honikman, director of the project said severe cases of depression could be treated more successfully if detected early. According to PMHP, South Africa\u2019s postnatal depression (PND) prevalence is three times that in developed countries. For over eight years the PMHP has screened about 8,000 pregnant women for mental health conditions, while up to 1 234 women have been counselled as part of this free service. The PMHP model is one of integration. Mental health care is provided on site together with antenatal care services. This means that the mothers needing help can access this service at the same service point where they receive other health care related to the pregnancy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Second Conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AFHEA)","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 31 August 2010","field_url":"http://heu-uct.org.za/call-for-abstracts-2nd-conference-of-the-african-health-economics-and-policy-association-afhea","body":"All African health economists and health policy analysts, whether working in Africa or on research of relevance to Africa, are invited to submit abstracts for the Second Conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA), which will be held in Dakar, Senegal from 15\u201319 March 2011 (these dates are provisional). The overall theme of this conference is 'Toward universal health coverage in Africa'. Abstracts are encouraged for research related to the sub-themes of the conference: health care financing for universal financial protection in Africa; promoting universal access to needed health services; and strategies and tactics for key steps to move towards universal coverage. Individuals are also encouraged to submit abstracts on any other interesting or topical research, especially on any aspect of the health system that could contribute to universal coverage. Abstracts may be submitted in English or French and must not exceed 400 words in length. It should indicate the aim and objectives of the paper, the methods used and the key findings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Applications: Graca Machel Scholarships for Postgraduate Study in South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 10 August 2010","field_url":"http://www.canoncollins.org.uk","body":"The key aim of the Gra\u00e7a Machel Scholarship Programme is to help provide the female human resources necessary for economic, social and cultural development in the southern African region and to develop an educated and skilled workforce that can benefit the wider community. Scholarships that target women have long been recognised as an effective approach in addressing gender equality and eradicating poverty. By providing opportunities to study at postgraduate level, these scholarships aim to empower women and to equip them to take up leadership positions in order to have a direct impact in the communities, nations and region in which they live. These female scholars must be positive role models for other women. The scholarships are for female students from Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe studying in South Africa. They are valid for two years\u2019 postgraduate study and include payment of a maintenance allowance, travel, health insurance and tuition fees. Applicants must have at least two years\u2019 relevant work experience.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for case studies and testimonies for Global Health Watch","field_subtitle":"Deadline for first draft: 30 August 2010","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/node/30","body":"Global Health Watch is putting out a call for the submission of country- or region-specific case studies and testimonies. These case studies and testimonies will form part of the electronic platform of the alternative world health and selected case studies shall also be incorporated into the final document of Global Health Watch 3 \u2013 scheduled for publication in 2011. Topics include: positive and negative examples of policies and actions to secure improved and equitable access to health care; examples of interventions to address public sector corruption and inefficiency; examples of effective, efficient and inclusive public health care systems; evidence showing the negative effects of commercialised health care on professional ethics; case studies on what is driving good and bad processes of decentralisation, with some analysis illustrative case studies of where deconcentration, devolution and delegation have worked, where it hasn\u2019t worked and why; the good and bad practices bilateral and multi-lateral external funders on public health stewardship and on the performance of health care systems; examples of civil society resistance to the effect of privatised public water and electricity utilities on equitable and fair access; case studies of the positive and negative impact of multi-national corporations on health policy; case studies of the difficulty that governments have in responding to the needs and demands of multiple international agencies (creditors such as the World Bank, traditional bilateral external funders and relatively new institutions such as GAVI and the Global Fund). Global Health Watch is looking for concise submissions of 1,000 to 2,000 words with pictures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for essays: 'Emerging Voices' in global public health","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 4 June 2010","field_url":"http://internationalhealthpolicies.blogspot.com/2010/04/calleng.html","body":"The Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium (ITM) wants to encourage 'Emerging Voices' from developing countries to participate actively in international academic conferences and to raise their voice in the scientific debate. To identify those promising experts, it has launched an essay competition on how health research can foster significant progress towards universal health coverage in low-income countries. Applicants from developing countries are invited to submit a personal single-author essay. Authors must have been born on or after 1 January 1965. The essay can be in English or in French, and should not exceed 1,500 words. It will be accompanied by a short CV and a cover letter. The submission of an abstract related to the research the author is participating in is encouraged. Authors of selected essays will be invited to present their work at the colloquium of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, from 8 to 10 November 2010 and to participate in the First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Montreux, Switzerland, from 16 to 19 November 2010. A number of travel grants to participate in the Antwerp and Montreux events in November 2010 will be awarded.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines ","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 30 September 2010","field_url":"http://journals.sfu.ca/africanem/index.php/ajtcam/index","body":"The African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines (AJTCAM) will publish a special issue in 2011 entitled 'Reviews of modern tools in traditional medicines'. Experts in different fields may write on any of the following topics: specific case management studies in traditional medicines (malaria, diabetes, snake bites, cancer, infertility etc); traditional medical practice (general practice, psychiatry, traditional birth attendants etc) in different systems of traditional medicines; African traditional medicines; Chinese traditional medicines; Indian systems of medicines; complementary and alternative medicines; other systems of traditional medicines; evaluation of herbal products as potential medicines/drugs; clinical trials of herbal medicines; traditional medicines and HIV and AIDS \u2013 current research; chemical profiling of herbal medicines; cultivation of medicinal plants; safety evaluation of herbal products/medicines; standardisation of herbal medicines; packaging of herbal products; economics of herbal medicines; and biotechnology and traditional medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can foreign policy make a difference to health? ","field_subtitle":"M\u00f8gedal S and Alveberg BL: PLoS Medicine 7(5), May 11, 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000274","body":"According to this article, World Health Organization (WHO) member states are responsible for directing and enabling WHO to undertake its normative and standard-setting functions effectively in facing the increasingly transnational nature of health threats, to be a trusted repository for knowledge and information, and to act as an effective convener of multiple players and stakeholders that can drive appropriate convergence, innovation, and effective decision making for health in a diverse landscape. In support of effective health governance, it states that better evidence and best practices are needed on how foreign policy can improve policy coordination at all levels and create an improved global policy environment for health. Foreign policy practitioners need to become more aware of positive and negative impact of policy options and decisions on health outcomes. This is how foreign policy can make a difference to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Child consent in South African law: Implications for researchers, service providers and policy-makers","field_subtitle":"Strode A, Slack C, Essack Z: South African Medical Journal 100: 247-249, 2010","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/3609/2762","body":"Children under 18 are legal minors who, in South African law, are not fully capable of acting independently without assistance from parents/legal guardians. However, in recognition of the evolving capacity of children, there are exceptional circumstances where the law has granted minors the capacity to act independently. This paper describes legal norms for child consent to health-related interventions in South Africa, and argues that the South African parliament has taken an inconsistent approach to: the capacity of children to consent; the persons able to consent when children do not have capacity; and restrictions on the autonomy of children or their proxies to consent. In addition, the rationale for the differing age limitations, capacity requirements and public policy restrictions has not been specified. The paper argues that these inconsistencies make it difficult for stakeholders interacting with children to ensure that they act lawfully.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"CIVICUS World Assembly 2010: Montr\u00e9al, Canada: 20-23 August 2010 ","field_subtitle":"Closing date for registration: 6 August 2010","field_url":"https://www.civicusassembly.org/","body":"Every year, the CIVICUS World Assembly offers about fifty activities grouped around the overall theme, an annual focus theme and sub-themes. The activities comprise plenary sessions, round tables, workshops, networking sessions and formal events. The 2010 World Assembly in Montreal will introduce the concept of interactive group discussions (or Parcours) for the first time. The overall theme of the CIVICUS World Assembly is 'Acting Together for a Just World'. Every year this is explored through a focus theme. In 2010 the focus theme will be 'Seeking Out Solutions'. This theme will address the issues of economy, development and climate. The Assembly has a number of aims. It offers: to provide first hand knowledge on the state of the art of civil society thinking; to establish cross-cutting relationships with civil society, business, media, government and donor organisation professionals from around the globe; in-depth exchange of expertise on how people from all sectors act together to (re)gain the power to enforce decisions; training and capacity building on a wide range of tangible skills e.g. fundraising, networking, mobilisation, volunteering, campaigning etc; and the opportunity to find partners and funding to realise and expand your projects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Commonwealth Ministerial Statement on MDGs","field_subtitle":"Commonwealth Health Ministers: 16 May 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/377otx2","body":"This statement was made after a meeting of Commonwealth Health Ministers (CHMM), which was held on 16 May 2010 in Geneva, Switzerland. The theme of the meeting was 'The Commonwealth and the Health MDGs by 2015'. The Meeting noted that only 5% of Commonwealth developing countries have met Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 targets or are on track to do so. At least 19 countries have high maternal mortality rates, and only 36% of developing Commonwealth countries have achieved or are on track to achieve the targets for births attended by skilled staff. The Meeting also noted the major challenges facing the world, and Commonwealth countries in particular, if the MDGs are to be met. Ministers were optimistic that many of the 2015 MDG targets could be met by Commonwealth countries. They, however, noted that this would require greater technical co-operation; attention to enabling environments, including legal frameworks, and where appropriate free healthcare to mothers and children; and an integration of preventative and curative services in the context of strengthening health systems through primary healthcare. Ministers called on the global community, especially the G8 and G20, to support maternal and newborn health programmes, and to meet MDGs 4 and 5. While acknowledging the tremendous achievements in access to anti-retroviral treatment, the Ministers noted that two thirds of those needing treatment did not receive it. Ministers pledged support for the greater alignment of non-communicable disease issues with the MDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Compulsory service programmes for recruiting health workers in remote and rural areas: do they work?","field_subtitle":"Frehywot S, Mullan F, Payne PW and Ross H: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88:350\u2013356, May 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/5/09-071605.pdf","body":"Compulsory service programmes have been used worldwide as a way to deploy and retain a professional health workforce within countries. Other names for these programmes include 'obligatory', 'mandatory', 'required' and 'requisite.' All these different programme names refer to a country\u2019s law or policy that governs the mandatory deployment and retention of a heath worker in the underserved and/or rural areas of the country for a certain period of time. This study identified three different types of compulsory service programmes in 70 countries. These programmes are all governed by some type of regulation, ranging from a parliamentary law to a policy within the ministry of health. Depending on the country, doctors, nurses, midwives and all types of professional allied health workers are required to participate in the programme. Some of the compliance-enforcement measures include withholding full registration until obligations are completed, withholding degree and salary, or imposing large fines. This paper aims to explain these programmes more clearly, to identify countries that have or had such programmes, to develop a typology for the different kinds and to discuss the programmes in the light of important issues that are related to policy concepts and implementation. As governments consider the cost of investment in health professionals\u2019 education, the loss of health professionals to emigration and the lack of health workers in many geographic areas, they are using compulsory service requirements as a way to deploy and retain the health workforce.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Control, not elimination, key to Africa malaria battle, argue experts","field_subtitle":"Wellcome Trust: 26 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/2010/News/WTX059207.htm","body":"Global efforts focusing on eliminating malaria are counterproductive to the fight against the disease in Africa, experts have warned. They emphasise the importance of maintaining, and building on, control strategies rather than aiming for a target that may not be met. Buoyed by a reduction in malaria mortality in Africa, health leaders in 2007 switched their primary goal from control to elimination. But researchers from the Kenya Medical Research Institute-Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Nairobi now say that the emphasis on elimination or eradication in strategic plans for the next 10 to 20 years in Africa is 'at best irrelevant and at worst counterproductive', raising expectations that cannot be met. Increased use of insecticide-treated bed nets, improved rapid diagnostic tests and the replacement of failing drugs with artemisinin-based combination therapy are among the interventions that have helped to reduce malaria transmission and incidence substantially across the continent. On the coast of Kenya, for example, the incidence of severe malaria has fallen by more than 90% in the last five years. However, the researchers warn that positive results are not universal throughout Africa. A substantial funding gap remains to meet the estimated US$4 per head needed to treat malaria, which currently stands at less than US$1 per head.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Countries with emerging economies discuss rural transformations at international conference","field_subtitle":"International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) and United Nations Development Programme: 6 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.ipc-undp.org/pressroom/pdf/IPCPressroom284.pdf","body":"The International Conference on Dynamics of Rural Transformation in Emerging Economies was held from 14 to 16 April 2010 in New Delhi, India. Up to 300 participants with over 70% from emerging economy countries and 30% from other developing countries, including those in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, joined the discussions. Debates during the conference suggested that food security policies could be further explored as an important field for South-South knowledge sharing. The Conference offered an opportunity for stakeholders to discuss concepts and policies concerning rural development . The discussions raised areas that participants agreed would be explored in further dialogue, such as the increase in urban-rural disparities, the expansion of rural non-farm income-generation options, migration and environmental concerns, as well as persisting issues of food insecurity, land tenure and rural poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing the agenda for European Union collaboration on non-communicable diseases research in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"McCarthy M, Maher D, Ly A and Ndip A: Health Research Policy and Systems 8(13), 19 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-8-13.pdf","body":"This report presents findings of a European-Africa consultation on the research agenda for non-communicable diseases. The workshop found that research in Africa can draw from different environmental and genetic characteristics to understand the causes of non-communicable diseases, while economic and social factors are important in developing relevant strategies for prevention and treatment. The suggested research needs include better methods for description and recording, clinical studies, understanding cultural impacts, prevention strategies, and the integrated organisation of care. Specific fields proposed for research are listed in the report. Although the European Union Seventh Framework Research Programme prioritises biomedical and clinical research, it recommends that research for Africa should also address broader social and cultural research and intervention research for greatest impact. Research policy leaders in Africa must engage national governments and international agencies as well as service providers and research communities. None can act effectively alone.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Development co-operation report 2010","field_subtitle":"Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development: April 2010","field_url":"http://www.link2007.org/assets/files/documenti/OCSE-DAC2010.pdf","body":"Members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) gave US$121.5 billion in bilateral aid in 2009, reaching a historic high, but the gap between commitments and promises made in 2005 is widening, according to this report. In 2005 DAC external funders collectively promised to commit 0.56% of gross national income to aid by 2010, but reached just 0.31% in 2009. Though aid commitments have continued to increase, the rate of increase has dropped off in the past few years, making external funders increasingly off-track. DAC external funders gave US$27 billion to Africa in 2009, an increase of 3% on 2008, but this is still less than half of the extra aid they promised at Gleneagles in 2005. Norway, France, the UK, Korea, Finland, Belgium and Switzerland all increased their aid commitments, while Japan, Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal, among others, reduced theirs. The largest external funders by volume were the USA, France, Germany, the UK and Japan, but just five countries met or exceeded the UN overseas development aid target of 0.7% of national income: Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. External funders pledged to increase aid to US$130 billion by 2010; but the report predicts they will fall short by US$78 billion (both figures in 2004 US dollars).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Educating leaders in hospital management: A new model in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Kebede Sosena, Abebe Y, Wolde M, Bekele B, Mantopoulos J and Bradley EH: International Journal for Quality in Health Care 22(1):39-43, 2010","field_url":"http://intqhc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/22/1/39","body":"In this study, an initial assessment of hospital management systems demonstrated weak functioning in several management areas. In response, the authors developed a novel Master of Hospital Administration (MHA) programme, a collaborative effort of the Ethiopian Ministry of Health (MoH), the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative, Jimma University and Yale University. The MHA is a two-year executive style educational programme to develop a new cadre of hospital leaders, consisting of 5% classroom learning and 85% executive practice. It has been implemented with 55 hospital leaders in the position of chief executive officer within the MoH, with courses taught in collaboration by faculty of the North and the South universities. The programme has enrolled two cohorts of hospital leaders and is working in more than half of the government hospitals in Ethiopia. Lessons learned include the need to: balance education in applied technical skills with more abstract thinking and problem solving; recognise the interplay between management education and policy reform; remain flexible as policy changes have direct impact on the project; be realistic about resource constraints in low-income settings, particularly information technology limitations; and manage the transfer of knowledge for long-term sustainability. The authors hope that this programme will set a precedent for other sub-Saharan countries wishing to improve their health sector management.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org Website: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 112: Finishing line or milestone? The new global code and equity in the response to health worker migration ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Policy Brief 22: Anti-counterfeiting laws and access to essential medicines in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD), TARSC, EQUINET: March 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/POL%20Brief22%20counterfeits.pdf","body":"The countries in eastern and southern Africa and the East African Community are at various stages of enacting laws to address counterfeiting. Substandard and fasified medicines are a problem for public health if they lack the active ingredients that make them effective, or if they are harmful. Yet making quality, safety and efficacy an intellectuual property issue, and defining counterfeiting so widely as to include generic medicines have even greater potential public harm, as they may make these essential medicines available as branded versions, at significantly higher cost. This policy brief draws policy makers attention to the need to ensure that counterfeit laws do not include generic medicines and that falsified medicines are dealt with under public health and not ntellectual propoperty law. It discusses the key issues in these laws and draft laws and how they are likely to affect public health and access to essential medicines in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET: Rede Regional para a Equidade em Sa\u00fade na \u00c1frica Oriental e Austral","field_subtitle":"EQUINET: May 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQUINET%20brief%202010%20Portuguese.pdf","body":"Leaflet on EQUINET: A Rede Regional para a Equidade em sa\u00fade na \u00c1frica oriental e austral (EQUINET) \u00e9 uma rede de profi ssionais, membros da sociedade civil, formuladores de diretrizes pol\u00edticos, ofi ciais do estado e outros dentro desta regi\u00e3o que se juntaram como catalisadores de equidade, para poder promover e realizar os valores compartilhadas da equidade e justice social na sa\u00fade.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET: R\u00e9seau R\u00e9gionale pour l\u2019\u00c9quit\u00e9 en Sant\u00e9 en Afrique Orientale et Australe","field_subtitle":"EQUINET: May 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQUINET%20brief%202010%20French.pdf","body":"Briefing leaflet on EQUINET. Le R\u00e9seau R\u00e9gional sur l\u2019Equit\u00e9 en mati\u00e8re de sant\u00e9 en Afrique orientale et australe (EQUINET) est un r\u00e9seau de professionnels, membres de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 civile, d\u00e9cideurs, employ\u00e9s gouvernementaux et autres personnalit\u00e9s de la r\u00e9gion qui se sont r\u00e9unis pour mettre en oeuvre une politique en mati\u00e8re d\u2019\u00e9quit\u00e9, ce afi n de promouvoir et d\u00e9fi nir des valeurs communes en mati\u00e8re d\u2019\u00e9quit\u00e9 et de justice sociale au niveau de la sant\u00e9.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Erythrocytic and bloodstage malaria vaccines fail: A meta-analysis of fully protective immunizations and novel immunological model ","field_subtitle":"Guilbride DL, Gawlinski P and Guilbride PDL: PLoS ONE 5(5), 19 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0010685","body":"According to this study, clinically protective malaria vaccines consistently fail to protect adults and children in endemic settings, and at best only partially protect infants. It identified and evaluated 1,916 immunisation studies between 1965 and 2010, and excluded partially or nonprotective results to find 177 completely protective immunisation experiments. Detailed re-examination revealed an unexpectedly mundane basis for selective vaccine failure: live malaria parasites in the skin inhibit vaccine function. It show how published molecular and cellular data support a testable, novel model where parasite-host interactions in the skin induce malaria-specific regulatory T cells, and subvert early antigen-specific immunity to parasite-specific immunotolerance. This ensures infection and tolerance to re-infection. The paper concludes that skinstage-initiated immunosuppression, unassociated with bloodstage parasites, systematically blocks vaccine function in the field. The model it uses exposes novel molecular and procedural strategies to significantly and quickly increase protective efficacy in both pipeline and currently ineffective malaria vaccines, and forces fundamental reassessment of central precepts determining vaccine development. This has major implications for accelerated local eliminations of malaria, and significantly increases potential for eradication.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Estimating the cost of care giving on caregivers for people living with HIV and AIDS in Botswana: A cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Ama NO and Seloilwe ES: Journal of the International AIDS Society 13(14), 20 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-13-14.pdf","body":"Community home-based care is the Botswana Government's preferred means of providing care for people living with HIV (PLHIV). However, primary (family members) or volunteer (community members) caregivers experience poverty, are socially isolated, endure stigma and psychological distress, and lack basic care-giving education. This study estimated the cost incurred in providing care for PLHIV through a stratified sample of 169 primary and volunteer caregivers drawn from eight community home-based care groups in four health districts in Botswana. The results show that the mean of the total monthly cost (explicit and indirect costs) incurred by the caregivers was US$90.45, while the mean explicit cost of care giving was US$65.22. This mean of the total monthly cost is about one and a half times the caregivers' mean monthly income of US$66 and more than six times the Government of Botswana's financial support to the caregivers. The study, therefore, concludes that as the cost of providing care services to PLHIV is very high, the Government of Botswana should substantially increase the allowances paid to caregivers and the support it provides for the families of the clients. The overall costs for such a programme would be quite low compared with the huge sum of money budgeted each year for health care and for HIV and AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluated strategies to increase attraction and retention of health workers in remote and rural areas","field_subtitle":"Carmen Dolea, Laura Stormont & Jean-Marc Braichet: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88:350\u2013356, May 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/5/09-070607.pdf","body":"The lack of health workers in remote and rural areas is a worldwide concern. Many countries have proposed and implemented interventions to address this issue, but very little is known about the effectiveness of such interventions and their sustainability in the long run. This paper provides an analysis of the effectiveness of interventions to attract and retain health workers in remote and rural areas from an impact evaluation perspective. It reports on a literature review of studies that have conducted evaluations of such interventions. It presents a synthesis of the indicators and methods used to measure the effects of rural retention interventions against several policy dimensions such as: attractiveness of rural or remote areas, deployment/recruitment, retention, and health workforce and health systems performance. It also discusses the quality of the current evidence on evaluation studies and emphasises the need for more thorough evaluations to support policy-makers in developing, implementing and evaluating effective interventions to increase availability of health workers in underserved areas and ultimately contribute to reaching the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Experiences in conducting multiple community-based HIV prevention trials among women in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Ramjee G, Coumi N, Dladla-Qwabe N, Ganesh S, Gappoo S, Govinden R, Guddera V, Maharaj R, Moodley J, Morar N, Naidoo S, Palanee T: AIDS Research and Therapy 7(10), 23 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.aidsrestherapy.com/content/7/1/10","body":"This paper conducted four phase III and one phase IIb trials of women-initiated HIV prevention options in KwaZulu-Natal between 2003 and 2009. A total of 7,046 women participated, with HIV prevalence between 25% and 45% and HIV incidence ranging from 4.5-9.1% per year. Community benefits from the trial included education on HIV prevention, treatment and care and provision of ancillary care (such as pap smears, reproductive health care and referral for chronic illnesses). Social benefits included training of home-based caregivers and sustainable ongoing HIV prevention education through peer educator programmes. Several challenges were encountered, including manipulation by participants of their eligibility criteria in order to enrol in the trial. Women attempted to co-enrol in multiple trials to benefit from financial reimbursements and individualised care. The trials became ethically challenging when participants refused to take up referrals for care due to stigma, denial of their HIV status and inadequate health infrastructure. Lack of disclosure of HIV status to partners and family members was particularly challenging. The researchers concluded that conducting these five trials in a period of six years provided them with invaluable insights into trial implementation, community participation, recruitment and retention, provision of care and dissemination of trial results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Finishing line or milestone? The new global code and equity in the response to health worker migration ","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson, Training and Research Support Centre ","field_url":"","body":"In a landmark moment on May 21 2010, the World Health Assembly adopted the Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel. It marks the culmination of a decade of advocacy on the recruitment and flow of skilled health workers, particularly from Africa to high income countries.  In 2001 Southern African Development Community  (SADC) health ministers called recruiting health workers from their understaffed, overburdened health systems \u2018looting\u2019 and observed that the outmigration of skilled people \u2018further entrenches inequitable wealth and resources\u2019.  In 2009, despite having 25% of the global disease burden and 60% of people living with HIV, Africa had only 1% of global health spending and only 2% of the global health work force.   It is clearly inequitable to lose health workers from low income countries with high health need to the richest countries in the world with significantly lower disease burdens. \r\n\r\nMigration is not the sole factor leading to understaffing. In 2000, WHO estimated that African-born doctors and nurses working in high income OECD countries represented no more than 12% of  the total shortage in the region.  Inadequate production,  limits to health worker training, employment and conditions imposed by resource shortages and fiscal thresholds, the disincentive of falling real wages in the health sector and other factors have been cited for shortfalls. Neither are the drivers for migration solely due to pull factors from high income countries. Economic, political, social and health system conditions in Africa are significant push factors driving migration. \r\n\r\nIn 2004, motivated by African countries, the World Health Assembly (WHA) requested the Director-General to develop a code of practice on the international recruitment of health personnel and to give consideration to the establishment of mechanisms to mitigate the adverse impact on developing countries of migration. Notably African countries sought to address both ethical recruitment and compensation for the losses they were experiencing through migration, including lost public investments in training, weakened capacities in health systems, loss of expertise and social disruption. Estimates set this at $60 000 in training costs alone for each doctor. In 2001 WHO estimated that South Africa lost US$37 million annually in direct financial losses in training costs, against OECD report of a combined (multilateral and bilateral) total education assistance received by the country in 2000 of US$35.5 million. Further, having experienced continued and rising outflows and foreign employment of health workers even in the face of codes such as the 2001/4 UK Code of Practice, African countries were concerned about how to ensure compliance with any instrument for managing recruitment. Within the SADC region, more binding measures were being used, such as the  2006 South African policy on recruitment and employment of foreign health professionals, which forbade individual applications from identified developing countries, in particular from SADC countries. \r\n \r\nAfter six years of advocacy and work on the issue, the 2010 WHA adopted the global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel. Its development has included multi-stakeholder consultation and review, including civil society through the Global Health Workforce Alliance, and the WHO regional forums. EQUINET was one of the more than 75 organisations making submissions on the draft. Country submissions on the draft submitted to the Assembly through the WHO Executive Board continued to reflect polarised positions on certain issues (see A63/INF.DOC/2 at http://apps.who.int/gb/e/e_wha63.html). The consensus outcome on the code was thus cause for specific recognition of role of the USA and African delegations in reaching agreement.  The new Code of Practice is now the fourth WHO global legal instrument. The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and the International Health Regulations are legally binding international treaties, while the Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel and the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes are both voluntary instruments. \r\n\r\nThe new Code includes ten articles advising both source and destination countries on how to regulate the recruitment of health personnel, as a core component of national to global responses to health systems strengthening. The text makes clear that it is voluntary, and serves as a reference for countries in establishing or improving more binding national laws, policies, bilateral agreements and other international legal instruments on health worker recruitment. It links \u201cproperly managed\u201d recruitment to health systems strengthening, especially in developing countries, and to safeguarding the rights of health workers, including their labour and social rights. It raises that countries should mitigate the negative effects and maximise the positive effects of migration on the health systems of the source countries, should plan workforces to reduce dependency on migration and should facilitate circular migration. It provides for gathering and sharing of data and information on international recruitment of health personnel. \r\n\r\nWill it address the equity concerns that African countries have raised? \r\n\r\nThe commitment to developing countries, to health systems strengthening, to fair treatment of migrant workers and to ethical recruitment all signal that the code is a major step towards just outcomes. \r\n\r\nEquity is less explicitly addressed within the code than in the debates that led to it. There is no reference to compensation. This was resisted by countries such as Canada, UK and Australia, who did not sign the earlier 2003 Commonwealth Code of Practice in part for its reference to this. Even reference to \u201cmutuality of benefits\u201d or \u201cbalancing\u201d of gains and losses included in earlier drafts has been removed in the final draft. The code does make reference to the obligations of governments to protect population health and to equitable health systems. It recognises the \u201cnegative effects of health personnel migration on the health systems of developing countries\u201d (Article 3.2), and the greater need of developing countries to health systems strengthening. In its remedies, while Article 5.1 seeks to ensure that both source and destination countries derive benefits from international migration, it does not include any reference to balancing or fairly distributing these benefits.  Measures of technical assistance, training and other areas of support are thus included as means to \u201cpromote international co-ordination and co-operation on international recruitment of personnel\u201d (Article 5.2), and not as measures of redress for negative effects of migration.  \r\n\r\nPerhaps this outcome reflects the balance of resources, political forces, power and formal evidence.  The resource flows between source and receiving countries are neither simple to collect nor manage. The costs and returns accrue at different levels to individuals, households, communities, private and public sectors. Many of the flows and the measures to manage them lie outside the health sector, in economic, tax, immigration, employment, social security and other areas. \r\n\r\nNevertheless, these constraints and the goodwill around the code should not make it a smokescreen for the continuing research, innovation and dialogue needed to build on the code to further improve fairness and equity in managing these flows. The code has not limited itself to health sector measures, as some measures proposed such as \u201ccircular migration\u201d will have implications for immigration, citizenship and labour market laws. Further, an explicit commitment to equity in Article 5.7 provides that \u201cmember states should consider adopting measures to address the geographical maldistribution of health workers\u201d could be read to call for measures and resources at national, regional and international level.  The code should thus be taken as a platform from which to further explore, develop and raise through its future review at WHA the options for measuring and fairly managing the resource flows between countries, including through tax and funding measures.  \r\n\r\nTaking the voluntary code to binding agreements and practice is the next front of action, as is monitoring and raising evidence to inform implementation for the next formal global review of the code at the 2012 WHA. Both areas raise challenges if countries in the region are to keep the push for equitable outcomes: to overcome information and evidence gaps, to inform and negotiate fair bilateral agreements, and to ensure that bilateral agreements reinforce and do not disrupt agreements that encourage skills production, circulation and retention within the region, such as the SADC protocols and strategies on education and training, on the movement of persons and on attracting and retaining health professionals. \r\n\r\nExperience on prior codes suggests that civil society can play an important role in advancing implementation if effectively engaged. In particular, health workers, and especially female health workers, should not become commodified \u2018objects\u2019 to be traded in negotiations, but actively informed and involved through their associations. \r\n\r\nPhilemon Ngomu of the Southern African Network of Nurses and Midwives (SANNAM) reminds us, further, that the code is only one of a number of measures to address the conditions affecting recruitment and migration: \u201cThe very negative implications of political unrest and socio-economic crisis are major driving factors, and the code should not be taken in isolation of peace keeping and socio-economic and welfare initiatives. We cannot stop brain drain without addressing these issues\u201d.  When countries report back to the next United Nations General Assembly on the code, as feedback on Resolution 64/108 on Global Health and Foreign Policy, hopefully they will raise this, and make the point that the code is a significant milestone, but not a finishing line, in the path towards the fairer outcomes for health that African Health Ministers sought in 2001.  \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org. The next newsletter will provide the text of the code and all final resolutions from the World Health Assembly. Interim documents can be found at http://apps.who.int/gb/e/e_wha63.html  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Football match spectator sound exposure and effect on hearing: A pretest-post-test study","field_subtitle":"Swanepoel D, Hall JW: South African Medical Journal 100: 239-242, 2010","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/4091/2760","body":"This study aimed to determine noise exposure levels of spectators at a FIFA 2010 designated training stadium during a premier soccer league match and changes in auditory functioning after the match. This was a one-group pretest\u2013post-test design of football spectators attending a premier soccer league match at a designated FIFA 2010 training stadium in Gauteng, South Africa. Individual spectator noise exposure for the duration of the football match and post-match changes in hearing thresholds were measured with pure-tone audiometry, and cochlear functioning was measured with distortion product oto-acoustic emissions (DPOAEs). The study found that average sound exposure level during the match was 100.5 LAeq (dBA), with peak intensities averaging 140.4 dB(C). A significant deterioration of post-match hearing thresholds was evident at 2,000 Hz, and post-match DPOAE amplitudes were significantly reduced at 1,266, 3,163 and 5,063 Hz. In conclusion, exposure levels exceeded limits of permissible average and peak sound levels. Significant changes in post-match hearing thresholds and cochlear responsiveness highlighted the possible risk for noise-induced hearing loss. Public awareness and personal hearing protection should be prioritised as preventive measures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"From HIV diagnosis to treatment: Evaluation of a referral system to promote and monitor access to antiretroviral therapy in rural Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Nsigaye R, Wringe A, Roura M, Kalluvya S, Urassa M, Busza J and Zaba B: Journal of the International AIDS Society 12(31), 11 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/12/1/31","body":"In collaboration with local stakeholders, this study designed and assessed a referral system to link persons diagnosed at a voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) clinic in a rural district in northern Tanzania with a government-run HIV treatment clinic in a nearby city. Two-part referral forms, with unique matching numbers on each side were implemented to facilitate access to the HIV clinic, and were subsequently reconciled to monitor the proportion of diagnosed clients who registered for these services, stratified by sex and referral period. Delays between referral and registration at the HIV clinic were calculated, and lists of non-attendees were generated to facilitate tracing among those who had given prior consent for follow up. The study found that referral uptake at the HIV clinic averaged 72% among men and 66% among women during the first three years of the national antiretroviral therapy (ART) programme, and gradually increased following the introduction of the transportation allowances and community escorts, but declined following a national VCT campaign. It concluded that the referral system reduced delays in seeking care, and enabled the monitoring of access to HIV treatment among diagnosed persons. Similar systems to monitor referral uptake and linkages between HIV services could be readily implemented in other settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Gates Foundation funds 78 new innovative global health projects","field_subtitle":"Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: 10 May 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.gatesfoundation.org/press-releases/Pages/grand-challenges-explorations-round-four-winners-100509.aspx","body":"The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced 78 grants of US$100,000 each in the latest round of Grand Challenges Explorations. Grants have been awarded for the development of a low-cost cell phone microscope to diagnose malaria, the study of the strategic placement of insect-eating plants to reduce insect-borne diseases, and the investigation of nanoparticles to release vaccines when they come in contact with human sweat. The grants support research across 18 countries and six continents. This year\u2019s European grantees are based at universities, research institutes and non-profit organisations. The winners represent groups in Germany, Sweden, Norway and the United Kingdom. Some examples of the projects funded in this round include more effective vaccines, a 'seek-and-destroy' laser vaccine, treating worm infections to improve vaccine effectiveness and new strategies to fight malaria, such as insecticide-treated traditional scarves, using carnivorous plants to control mosquitoes and using cell phone microscope to diagnose malaria. Solutions to promote family health include using ultrasound as a reversible male contraceptive and the use of vitamin A probiotics to combat diarrhoea.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Action International letter to WHO on counterfeit medical products","field_subtitle":"Health Action International: May 2010","field_url":"","body":"In this open letter to Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Health Action International (HAI) urges WHO to dissociate itself from the work of IMPACT, a global intellectual property (IP) enforcement body that seeks to impose an IP agenda to deal with broader problems of medical products with compromised quality, safety and efficacy. It further demands that WHO no longer involve itself in IP enforcement with regard to pharmaceuticals and other medical products. It argues that, not only is the IP enforcement agenda ineffective in terms of addressing the wider public health threats from spurious and sub-standard medical products, but it has also been shown to impede access to medicines by undermining competition from generic medicines. WHO should continue to prioritise public health issues over issues of trade, which HAI points out has always been WHO's proper mandate.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/35045","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Increasing access to health workers in underserved areas: A conceptual framework for measuring results","field_subtitle":"Huicho L, Dieleman M, Campbell J, Codjia L, Balabanova D, Dussault G and Dolea C: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88:350\u2013356, May 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/5/09-070920.pdf","body":"Many countries have developed strategies to attract and retain qualified health workers in underserved areas, but there is only scarce and weak evidence on their successes or failures. It is difficult to compare lessons and measure results from the few evaluations that are available. Evaluation faces several challenges, including the heterogeneity of the terminology, the complexity of the interventions, the difficulty of assessing the influence of contextual factors, the lack of baseline information, and the need for multi-method and multi-disciplinary approaches for monitoring and evaluation. Moreover, the social, political and economic context in which interventions are designed and implemented is rarely considered in monitoring and evaluating interventions for human resources for health. This paper proposes a conceptual framework that offers a model for monitoring and evaluation of retention interventions taking into account such challenges. The conceptual framework is based on a systems approach and aims to guide the thinking in evaluating an intervention to increase access to health workers in underserved areas, from its design phase through to its results. It also aims to guide the monitoring of interventions through the routine collection of a set of indicators, applicable to the specific context. It suggests that a comprehensive approach needs to be used for the design, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and review of the interventions. The framework is not intended to be prescriptive and can be applied flexibly to each country context. It promotes the use of a common understanding on how attraction and retention interventions work, using a systems perspective.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"India, Brazil raise dispute over EU drug seizures","field_subtitle":"Raja K: Third World Network, 17 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/wto.info/2010/twninfo100509.htm","body":"India and Brazil have taken the first step towards raising a dispute at the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the European Union (EU) and the Netherlands over the seizure by EU customs of generic medicines in transit to developing countries. Their request for consultations under the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism is the first step in the possible establishment of a panel at the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), if the consultations fail. Indian ambassador, Ujal Singh Bhatia, said that both India and Brazil were concerned primarily over two considerations. Firstly, the seizures seemed to emanate from complaints made by patent holders in Europe, even though the generic drugs were perfectly legitimate under WTO rules in the source countries, as well as in the destination countries. He noted that the intellectual property issues raised were unmerited and international transit guarantees were being violated. Secondly, he noted that the seizures confused intellectual property rights with substandard or spurious medicines. He believed there was a concerted effort to put together a TRIPS-plus enforcement agenda that does away with the flexibilities that are guaranteed to developing countries under the TRIPS regime.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"International migration of health workers: Improving international co-operation to address the global health workforce crisis","field_subtitle":"Organization for Economic Development and Co-operation and World Health Organization: February 2010","field_url":"http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/8/1/44783473.pdf","body":"This policy brief notes that a significant share of health worker migration is occurring between Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, even though the bulk of migration flows is originating from developing and emerging countries. Countries with expatriation rates of doctors above 50% (which means that there are as many doctors born in these countries working in the OECD countries as there are working in their home country) include five African countries: Mozambique, Angola, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Liberia. The brief found that the needs for health workers in developing countries, as estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO), largely outstrip the numbers of immigrant health workers from those countries working in OECD countries. In 2000, all African-born doctors and nurses working in the OECD represented no more than 12% of the total shortage for the region, as estimated by WHO. The brief argues that international migration is neither the main cause of healthcare shortages in developing countries, nor would its reduction be enough to address to the worldwide health human resources crisis. It recommends that receiving countries should expand education and training capacity to reduce dependency on foreign health personnel to fill domestic needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of new grant: Development Innovation Fund","field_subtitle":"Closing date: April 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/38cncvf","body":"Small and medium-sized non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and community-based organisations can access funding opportunities from a new grant from the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) called the Development Innovation Fund. The application form has also been kept simple and is no longer than five pages. Any not-for-profit organisation located in a developing country can apply for funding. New organisations set up during last one or two years can also apply for this Fund. The organisation\u2019s income during the last three years should not have exceeded more than \u00a3500,000. Project proposals can be submitted with budgetary requests of up to \u00a360,000. Proposed projects may be awarded 100% funding support. There are three funding rounds but their timings have not been specified. Projects can be proposed for a period of 12 months only. The Fund has not specified any issue, theme or topic on which the funding will be prioritised. Applicant organisations can propose projects on any theme, such as from livelihood development, education and health, but all proposed interventions should directly work to reduce poverty in a developing country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Les Resolutions pour l'action, Troisi\u00e8me Conf\u00e9rence R\u00e9gionale de EQUINET sur l\u2019\u00c9quit\u00e9 en Mati\u00e8re de Sant\u00e9 en Afrique Orientale et Australe","field_subtitle":"EQUINET: September 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20Conf%20resol%20FRENCH%20Sep09.pdf","body":"EQUINET September 2009 Conference Resolutions translated into French: Plus de 200 employ\u00e9s gouvernementaux, parlementaires, membres de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 civile, professionnels de sant\u00e9, chercheurs, universitaires et d\u00e9cideurs, mais aussi les membres des Nations Unies, d\u2019organisations internationales et non-gouvernementales d\u2019Afrique orientale et Australe se sont rassembl\u00e9s \u00e0 la troisi\u00e8me Conf\u00e9rence R\u00e9gionale de EQUINET sur l\u2019\u00c9quit\u00e9 en Mati\u00e8re de Sant\u00e9 en Afrique Orientale et Australe, qui s\u2019est tenue du 23 au 25 septembre 2009 au complexe h\u00f4telier de Munyonyo \u00e0 Kampala. Les d\u00e9l\u00e9gu\u00e9s ont reconnu des in\u00e9galit\u00e9s significatives, grandissantes, \u00e9vitables et injustes en mati\u00e8re de sant\u00e9 et de ressources de sant\u00e9 dans nos pays, notre r\u00e9gion et notre monde. Comme la Commission de l\u2019Organisation Mondiale de la Sant\u00e9 sur les D\u00e9terminants Sociaux de la Sant\u00e9, nous sommes conscients que cette injustice sociale est en train de d\u00e9cimer certaines populations \u00e0 une grande \u00e9chelle. Bien que nous ayons dans notre r\u00e9gion les ressources de sant\u00e9 n\u00e9cessaires, nous notons que beaucoup d\u2019entre elles, dont les professionnels de sant\u00e9, quittent l\u2019Afrique. Nos ressources restantes atteignent par cons\u00e9quent rarement les personnes les plus d\u00e9munies. Ceux qui en ont le plus besoin n\u2019y acc\u00e8dent pas suite aux contraintes \u00e9conomiques, caus\u00e9e par cette in\u00e9galit\u00e9.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Medicrime: Another anti-counterfeiting convention emerges in Europe ","field_subtitle":"Emert M: Intellectual Property Watch, 24 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2010/04/24/medicrime-another-anti-counterfeiting-convention-emerges-in-europe/","body":"While the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is getting a lot of attention with its draft consolidated version just published, there is another convention dealing with one major aspect it was always said ACTA would tackle. The Medicrime Convention of the Council of Europe sets the first international standard for criminalising the manufacturing and distribution of counterfeited medicine risking public health. Governments that will sign the convention later this year commit to establish as offences 'the intentional manufacturing of counterfeit medical products, active substances, excipients, parts, materials and accessories' (Article 5), 'the supplying or the offering to supply, including brokering, the trafficking, including keeping in stock, importing and exporting of counterfeit medical products, active substances, excipients, parts, materials and accessories' (Article 6) and also the 'falsification of documents' (Article 7). Medicrime also covers falsified medical devices and aims to see 'aiding, abetting and attempt' of the described acts criminalised. According to Medicrime, falsification of generic drugs also would be covered and so would the distribution of legal drugs on the black market like hormones sold without prescription to people who want to build up their muscles or enhance their performance. Also drugs brought to the market without undergoing existing controls will be covered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"MEDINFO 2010: Thirteenth International Congress on Medical Informatics","field_subtitle":"12\u201315 September 2010, Cape Town: Registration Period: 1 March To 30 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.medinfo2010.org/index.php?option=com_content%20&view=article&id=48&Itemid=88","body":"This will be the first time MEDINFO is held in Africa. The Congress aims to boost exposure to grassroots healthcare delivery and the underpinning health information systems, as well as to open the door to new academic partnerships into the future and help to nurture a new breed of health informaticians. The theme for the Congress is \u2018Partnerships for effective e-health solutions\u2019, with a particular focus on how innovative collaborations can promote sustainable solutions to health challenges. Information and communication technologies may have enormous potential for improving the health and lives of individuals. Innovative and effective change using such technologies is reliant upon people working together in partnerships to create innovative and effective solutions to problems with particular regard to contextual and environmental factors. To this end, the Congress brings together the health informatics community from across the globe who are seeking to work together and share experiences and knowledge to promote sustainable solutions to global health challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Motivation and retention of health workers in developing countries: A systematic review","field_subtitle":"Willis-Shattuck M, Bidwell P, Thomas S, Wyness L, Blaauw D and Ditlopo P: BMC Health Services Research 8(247), 4 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/8/247","body":"The authors of this paper undertook a systematic review to consolidate existing evidence on the impact of financial and non-financial incentives on health worker motivation and retention. They searched four literature databases, as well as Google Scholar and the journal, Human Resources for Health. Grey literature studies and informational papers were also captured. Twenty articles met the inclusion criteria, consisting of a mix of qualitative and quantitative studies. Seven major motivational themes were identified: financial rewards, career development, continuing education, hospital infrastructure, resource availability, hospital management and recognition/appreciation. There was some evidence to suggest that the use of initiatives to improve motivation had been effective in helping retention, but less clear evidence on the differential response of different cadres. While motivational factors are undoubtedly country specific, the authors identified financial incentives, career development and management issues as core factors. The authors concluded that financial incentives alone are not enough to motivate health workers, that recognition is highly influential in health worker motivation and that adequate resources and appropriate infrastructure can improve morale significantly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"MRC/DFID African Research Leader Scheme","field_subtitle":"Closing date for applications: 10 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.ukcds.org.uk/funding-MRC_DfID_African_Research_Leader_scheme-237.html","body":"Up to three awards are available for outstanding health researchers from sub-Saharan Africa to strengthen their research skills and build partnerships with a United Kingdom (UK) research institution through a new pilot scheme jointly funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Department for International Development (DFID). The African Research Leader scheme is a highly prestigious award which aims to strengthen research leadership and capacity across sub-Saharan Africa by attracting and retaining researchers of high ability. The pilot scheme is open to all research areas within MRC\u2019s remit that specifically address the priority health problems of people in developing countries and which cannot easily be achieved in the UK. The scope of the scheme includes biomedical and health research, including social sciences and public health research, and translational research relevant to African national and regional health needs and priorities. Awards of up to \u00a3500K will be offered to two or three research leaders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Multidrug and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis: 2010 global report on surveillance and response","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 18 March 2010","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241599191_eng.pdf","body":"In some areas of the world, one in four people with tuberculosis (TB) becomes ill with a form of the disease that can no longer be treated with standard drugs regimens, according to this report. It estimates that, worldwide, 440,000 people had multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) worldwide in 2008 and that a third of them died. Of those patients receiving treatment, 60% were reported as cured, yet only an estimated 7% of all MDR-TB patients are diagnosed. These figures point to the urgent need for improvements in laboratory facilities, access to rapid diagnosis and treatment with more effective drugs and regimens shorter than the current two years. In Africa, there is a low percentage of MDR-TB reported among new TB cases, compared with regions such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia, due in part to the limited laboratory capacity to conduct drug resistance surveys. Latest estimates of WHO put the number of MDR-TB cases emerging in 2008 in Africa at 69,000. Previous reports found high levels of mortality among Africans living with HIV and infected with MDR-TB and extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"New project to improve reproductive health services in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"CORDIS News: 7 May 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2v8pgxm","body":"Reproductive health problems among teenagers are the focus of a new European Union-funded project, which will investigate the effectiveness of existing programmes and identifying the structural drivers that restrict access to adolescent reproductive health (ARH) services in Niger and Tanzania. The INTHEC ('Health, education and community integration: evidence based strategies to increase equity, integration and effectiveness of reproductive health services for poor communities in sub-Saharan Africa') project has received EUR 2.75 million in funding under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme. The project, launched in March 2010 and scheduled to end in February 2014, will also address the cultural barriers that currently limit access to or curb the effectiveness of ARH services in the two countries. Led by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom, the INTHEC consortium consists of experts from the fields of reproductive health research and interventional implementation, as well as leaders in governance and policymaking in Belgium, Niger and Tanzania. The government ministries responsible for ARH in Tanzania and Niger are partners in the programme, meaning that the outcome of the research will be genuinely owned by the key policymakers, helping ensure the impact of this research beyond the life of the project.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"NGOs concerned over WHO's role in tackling counterfeit drugs","field_subtitle":"Raja K: Third World Network, 12 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/2010/health20100504.htm","body":"More than 45 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), from countries as diverse as Switzerland, India, the United States and Uganda, have voiced concern over the involvement of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the issue of 'counterfeit' medical products. In an open letter to WHO, the NGOs criticised WHO's involvement in the International Medical Product Anti-Counterfeit Taskforce (IMPACT), including its links to entities that are engaged in matters pertaining to intellectual property (IP) enforcement, the central role played by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Associations (IFPMA) in IMPACT's activities, the lack of transparency surrounding IMPACT's activities and the lack of accountability, as IMPACT has operated outside the purview of WHO member states. The open letter said that equating 'counterfeit' with spurious and falsely labelled pharmaceutical products not only undermines confidence in much-needed affordable quality generic products but also results in public health problems being addressed through an IP enforcement lens. It noted that spurious and falsely labelled pharmaceuticals will arise irrespective of whether or not there is an IP violation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"NIH partners with PEPFAR to strengthen medical education in Africa","field_subtitle":"National Institutes of Health: 15 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.nih.gov/news/health/mar2010/fic-15.htm","body":"The National Institutes of Health has announced a new initiative to strengthen medical education in sub-Saharan Africa, in collaboration with the President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The programme, called the Medical Education Partnership Initiative, is a joint effort of the Office of the United States Global AIDS Coordinator, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States Department of Defense and 19 components of NIH. This programme is in support of PEPFAR's goal to increase the number of new health care workers by 140,000, and will also serve the related objectives of strengthening host-country medical education systems and enhancing clinical and research capacity in Africa. Foreign institutions and their partners in PEPFAR-supported Sub-Saharan African countries are invited to submit proposals to develop or expand models of medical education. These models are intended to contribute to the sustainability of country HIV and AIDS responses by expanding the pool of well-trained clinicians. The awards will also build the capacity of local scientists and health care workers to conduct multidisciplinary research, so that discoveries can more effectively be adapted and implemented in their communities and countries. Nine programmatic awards are available.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Online resource for NGOs","field_subtitle":"Funds for NGOs ","field_url":"http://www.fundsforngos.org/about-us/#ixzz0mO9DVM8a","body":"Funds for NGOs.org is an online initiative working for the sustainability of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) by increasing their access to external funders, resources and skills. It uses online technologies to spread knowledge about organisational sustainability, promote creative ideas for long-term generation of institutional funds for development interventions, improve professional efforts in resource mobilisation and advocate for increased allocation of donor resources for building the skills and capacities of NGOs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Pandemic influenza preparedness: Sharing of influenza viruses and access to vaccines and other benefits","field_subtitle":"Secretariat of the World Health Organization: 19 March 2010","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA63/A63_R1-en.pdf","body":"This publication affirms the World Health Organization's commitment to continue to work with member states and relevant regional economic integration organisations on the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework for the Sharing of Influenza Viruses and Access to Vaccines and Other Benefits. It guarantees to convene the Open-Ended Working Group before the 128th session of the Executive Board and to undertake any necessary technical consultations and studies to support the work of the Open-Ended Working Group in reaching a final agreement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Pandemic preparedness: Creating a fair and equitable influenza virus and benefit sharing system","field_subtitle":"Shashikant S (ed): Third World Network, 2010","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/books/Pandemic.Preparedness.htm","body":"In 2007, world attention was focused on the World Health Organization (WHO) when claims emerged that WHO\u2019s Global Influenza Surveillance Network (GISN) was unfair to the interests and needs of developing countries. According to this book, GISN has failed to deliver fair and equitable benefit-sharing with regard to vaccines, anti-virals and other technologies by not ensuring these products were available at affordable prices to developing countries that were most affected by the influenza outbreak. At the same time, developed countries profited from the virus sharing system by, for example, having timely access to vaccines and making intellectual property (IP) rights claims over shared biological materials and products developed using such materials. Developing countries thus potentially face astronomical bills for the purchase of vaccines and other medical supplies, as well as difficulties in accessing such supplies, due to their limited availability. Latest technologies were also protected by IP rights, creating more obstacles for developing countries that might seek to build their own production capacity. This book provides an in-depth understanding of the background to, and rationale for, the current WHO negotiations on influenza virus and benefit sharing, as well as a front-line view of the negotiations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory Communications for orphans and vulnerable children in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Training and Research Support Centre; Country Minders for People's Development: May 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Malawicomm%20repFeb2010.pdf","body":"This is a report of a workshop for a project that TARSC and Country Minders for People\u2019s Development (CMPD), under the auspices of EQUINET, undertook as a pilot to explore options for participatory communications with the community-based organisations and some of the orphans and vulnerable children in Monkey Bay, Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Patents impeding medical care and innovation? ","field_subtitle":"Gold ER, Kaplan W, Orbinski J, Harland-Logan S and N-Marandi S: PLoS Med 7(1), January 5, 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000208","body":"Pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers argue that the current patent system is crucial for stimulating research and development (R&D), leading to new products that improve medical care. The financial return on their investments that is afforded by patent protection, they claim, is an incentive toward innovation and reinvestment into further R&D. But this view has been challenged in recent years. Many commentators argue that patents are stifling biomedical research, for example by preventing researchers from accessing patented materials or methods they need for their studies. Patents have also been blamed for impeding medical care by raising prices of essential medicines, such as antiretroviral drugs, in poor countries. This debate examines whether and how patents are impeding health care and innovation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy interventions that attract nurses to rural areas: A multicountry discrete choice experiment","field_subtitle":"Blaauw D, Erasmus E, Pagaiya N, Tangcharoensathein V, Mullei K, Mudhune S, Goodman C, English M and Lagarde M: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88:350\u2013356, May 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/5/09-072918.pdf","body":"This study aimed to evaluate the relative effectiveness of different policies in attracting nurses to rural areas in Kenya, South Africa and Thailand using data from a discrete choice experiment (DCE). A labelled DCE was designed to model the relative effectiveness of both financial and non-financial strategies designed to attract nurses to rural areas. Data were collected from over 300 graduating nursing students in each country. Mixed logit models were used for analysis and to predict the uptake of rural posts under different incentive combinations. The study found that nurses\u2019 preferences for different human resource policy interventions varied significantly between the three countries. In Kenya and South Africa, better educational opportunities or rural allowances would be most effective in increasing the uptake of rural posts, while in Thailand better health insurance coverage would have the greatest impact. In conclusion, it recommends that DCEs can be designed to help policy-makers choose more effective interventions to address staff shortages in rural areas. Intervention packages tailored to local conditions are more likely to be effective than standardised global approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevention and control of non-communicable diseases: Implementation of the global strategy","field_subtitle":"Secretariat of the World Health Organization: 1 April 2010","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA63/A63_12-en.pdf","body":"This report provides an overview of progress in implementing the action plan for the global strategy for the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases since its endorsement by the Sixty-first World Health Assembly in May 2008. The action plan aims to: map the emerging epidemics of non-communicable diseases and analyse their social, economic, behavioural and political determinants; reduce the level of exposure of individuals and populations to the common modifiable risk factors; and strengthen health care for people with non-communicable diseases by developing evidence-based norms, standards and guidelines for cost-effective interventions and by orienting health systems to respond to the need for effective management of diseases of a chronic nature. The plan covers six objectives, each with two sets of proposed actions, for member states and international partners, and one set of actions for the WHO Secretariat. Its implementation is to be reviewed at the end of the first biennium.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Primary care morbidity in Eastern Cape Province","field_subtitle":"Brueton V, Yogeswaran P, Chandia J, Mfenyana K, Modell B, Modell M, Nazareth I: South African Medical Journal 100:309-312, 2010","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/3427/2800","body":"Primary health care in rural South Africa is predominantly provided by remote clinics and health centres. In 1994, health centres were upgraded and new health centres developed to serve as a health care filter between community clinics and district hospitals. This study set out to describe the spectrum of clinical problems encountered at a new health centre in an area of high economic deprivation and compare this with an adjacent community clinic and district hospital. The International Classification of Primary Care-2 (ICPC-2) was used to code data collected over a 13-week period from patients presenting at a community clinic, health centre and district hospital. Altogether, 4,383 patient encounters were recorded across all three sites in 2001. Most contacts at the clinic (97%) and the health centre (80%) were with a nurse. Females over 15 years of age comprised over half of all contacts at health facilities (53%). The most common diagnosis category was respiratory (23%). Cough was the most common symptom. Thirty per cent of children up to 5 years of age were seen for immunisations. Most childhood immunisations (79%) were carried out at the health centre. The study concluded that, of all the health care facilities surveyed, the health centre had the highest throughput of patients, indicating that the health centre is an efficient filter between the community and hospital. In this light, the ICPC-2 system can be successfully used to monitor encounters at similar African health care facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Progress on sanitation and drinking water: 2010 update report","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization and United Nations Children's Fund Joint Monitoring Programme: 15 March 2010","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241563956_eng_full_text.pdf","body":"With 87% of the world\u2019s population or approximately 5.9 billion people using safe drinking water sources, the world is on track to meet or even exceed the drinking water target of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to this new report. The report confirms that advances continue to be made towards greater access to safe drinking water. In contrast, progress in relation to access to basic sanitation is insufficient to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Quantifying the lack of scientific interest in neglected tropical diseases ","field_subtitle":"Vanderelst D and Speybroeck N: PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 4(1), January 26, 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.plosntds.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pntd.0000576","body":"Since 1990, the World Health Organization has used the disability-adjusted life year (DALY) statistic to quantify the burden of diseases. This indicator quantifies both morbidity and mortality due to diseases. This article notes that estimating DALYs is intrinsically problematic since, for some conditions, only limited data is available. For several tropical diseases, especially those affecting people in the poorest countries, it has been argued that DALYs are systematically underestimated. Because it is considered economically unprofitable, virtually no new drugs are being developed for this group of conditions. Being underestimated and lacking targeted drug development programmes, these conditions have been termed neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Although there may be room for improvement in the calculation of DALYs related to NTDs, the article acknowledges that governments and policy makers use them to determine priorities in prevention and health care and therefore they cannot be ignored. It argues that research efforts targeted at a disease should ideally be in proportion to its global health impact. It considers that NTDs may be neglected twice: once by being attributed an underestimated DALY and again by limited scientific attention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Resolu\u00e7\u00f5es Para Ac\u00e7\u00e3o: Recuperar os Recursos para Sa\u00fade","field_subtitle":"EQUINET: September 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Sep%2009%20Conf%20Resol%20Portuguese.pdf","body":"EQUINET September 2009 Conference Resolutions translated into Portuguese: Mais de 200 oficiais de governo, membros de parlamento, membros de sociedade civil, trabalhadores de sa\u00fade, pesquisadores, acad\u00eamicos, e executores de pol\u00edtica assim como pessoal das Na\u00e7\u00f5es Unidas, e organiza\u00e7\u00f5es internacionais bem como n\u00e3o governamentais de Africa Oriental e Austral, encontraram na terceira confer\u00eancia regional da EQUINET sobre Equidade em Sa\u00fade em \u00c1frica, realizado entre 23-25 setembro 2009, em Munyonyo, Kampala.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Sector approaches: Dutch reflections from the field","field_subtitle":"Van Esch W, Gerritsen M, de Groot C, Vogels M and Boesen N: Capacity4Dev, March 2010","field_url":"http://capacity4dev.ec.europa.eu/papers-sector-appraches-version-20","body":"This paper looks first at the relevance of sector approaches and their overall effectiveness, then on the systemic challenges that they entail. This is followed by a closer look of the links between sector approaches and global agendas, and of sector approaches in fragile situations. Operational aspects, the particular challenges related to policy/political dialogue, accountability, monitoring and quality assurance are presented, and the issue of modalities \u2013 budget support, pooled funding and/or projects \u2013 is touched upon. Finally, the changing roles played by embassy staff are discussed. Although external funders are expected to respect sovereignty and not to interfere in internal affairs, this paper argues that in reality they do interfere, no matter what they do \u2013 the money they bring to the table will, no matter what, modify power structures and strengthen some actors while weakening others. The challenge is therefore to intervene in a way that does not enter into big (party) politics, but aims at strengthening the domestic sector system of politics, policies, knowledge and institutions that can bring the sector forward in a direction that fits both donor objectives and the objectives of domestic stakeholders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Sixty-third World Health Assembly closes after passing multiple resolutions ","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization 21 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2010/wha_closes_20100521/en/index.html","body":"The 63rd World Health Assembly, which brought together Health Ministers and senior health officials from the World Health Organization's (WHO) Member States, concluded on 21 May 2010. The delegates adopted resolutions on a variety of global health issues including: a global strategy and plan of action for public health, innovation and intellectual property; convening an intergovernmental working group to deal with counterfeit medical products; developing a comprehensive approach to the prevention and control of viral hepatitis; monitoring the achievement of the health-related Millennium Development Goals; enforcing the global code of practice for the international recruitment of health personnel; ensuring food safety; implementing the global strategy for the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases; implementing strategies to reduce the harmful use of alcohol; global eradication of measles by 2015; increasing availability, safety and quality of blood products; new guidelines on human organ and tissue transplantation; intensifying efforts to improve treatment and prevention of pneumonia; increased political commitment and a global strategy for better infant and young child nutrition; redressing the limited focus to date on preventing and managing birth defects; sharing of influenza viruses and access to vaccines and other benefits with regard to pandemic influenza preparedness; and implementing the International Health Regulations of 2005.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa redoubles efforts against AIDS","field_subtitle":"Dugger CW: New York Times, 25 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/health/policy/26safrica.html","body":"South Africa has launched an extensive programme of HIV testing, treatment and prevention that United Nations officials say is the largest and fastest expansion of AIDS services ever attempted by any nation. In the past month alone the government has enabled 519 hospitals and clinics to dispense AIDS medicines, more than it had in all the years combined since South Africa began providing antiretroviral drugs to its people in 2004, according to this article. The government has trained the hundreds of nurses now prescribing the drugs \u2014 formerly the province of doctors \u2014 and will train thousands more so that each of the country\u2019s 4,333 public clinics can dispense AIDS medicines. President Jacob Zuma has inaugurated a campaign to test 15 million of the country\u2019s 49 million people for HIV by June 2011.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"South African guidelines for the diagnosis, management and prevention of acute viral bronchiolitis in children","field_subtitle":"Green RJ, Zar HJ, Jeena PM, Madhi SA, Lewis H: South African Medical Journal 100:320-325, 2010","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/4016/2802","body":"The objective of this paper was to develop and publish a guideline for doctors managing acute viral bronchiolitis because this condition is extremely common in South Africa. Acute viral bronchiolitis is responsible for significant morbidity in the population, and subsequently a great deal of patient and parental distress, and the disease is costly, since many children are unnecessarily subjected to investigations and treatment strategies that are of no proven benefit. The main aims of the guideline are to promote an improved standard of treatment based on understanding of the disease and its management, and to encourage cost-effective and appropriate management. A detailed literature review was conducted and summarised into this document by a selected working group of paediatricians from around the country. Recommendations include the appropriate diagnostic and management strategies for acute viral bronchiolitis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategies to reduce the harmful use of alcohol: Draft global strategy ","field_subtitle":"Secretariat of the World Health Organization: 25 March 2010","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA63/A63_13-en.pdf","body":"The Secretariat has drafted this strategy to deal with alcohol abuse through an inclusive and broad collaborative process with member states. In doing so, it took into consideration the outcomes of consultations with other stakeholders on ways in which they can contribute to reducing the harmful use of alcohol. The draft strategy is based on existing best practices and available evidence of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of strategies and interventions to reduce the harmful use of alcohol. This document first outlines the history of the consultative process to determine what approaches to take for combating alcohol abuse before it describes the strategy, which consists of a number of areas: increasing global action and international cooperation; ensuring intersectoral action; according appropriate attention; balancing different interests; focusing on equity; considering context in recommending actions; and strengthening information systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening the capacity of governments to constructively engage the private sector in providing essential health-care services","field_subtitle":"Secretariat of the World Health Organization: 25 March 2010","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA63/A63_25-en.pdf","body":"This report points out that the private health sector is growing rapidly in low- and middle-income countries, while the debate about the purported advantages and drawbacks of the reliance on public, private not-for- profit and private for-profit providers has suffered from a distinct lack of factual documentation and evidence. It indicates a need for better empirical information, over a range of contexts, on the characteristics, extent, growth and consequences of unregulated commercial care provision. Such information should cover short- and long-term impact on safety, access, quality of care, health outcomes, health equity and social outcomes, as well as the level of trust in health systems and health authorities. An improved evidence base would also allow for a more productive exchange of experience between countries on best practices regarding constructive engagement with and regulation of different types of health-care providers. In many low- and middle-income countries reduced institutional capacity constrains constructive engagement with the wide range of actors involved in health-care provision. The World Health Organization aims to consolidate experience, document best practice and facilitate exchange and joint learning about ways to strengthen government capacity for constructive engagement and effective oversight of the full range of health-care providers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Supporting the Use of Research Evidence (SURE) for policy in African health systems","field_subtitle":" SURE and REACH: 2010","field_url":"http://www.evipnet.org/local/SURE%20Website/Videosaudios.htm","body":"SURE is a collaborative project that builds on and supports the Evidence-Informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) in Africa and the Region of East Africa Community Health (REACH) Policy Initiative. These educational video and audio documentaries let people describe in their own words how the SURE project, a collaboration of EVIPNet Africa and REACH, is working to improve health systems in Africa by making better use of research evidence to inform decisions. The audience can hear this and see the context in which people are working. The documentaries can be downloaded and used in meetings or broadcasts to introduce concepts, raise awareness and generate discussion about evidence-informed health policymaking. They are targeted at a broad audience, including policymakers, researchers, stakeholders and the general public.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Taking stock of the Joint EU-Africa Strategy and Africa\u2019s international relations","field_subtitle":"South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) and the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM): 11 March 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2w4sfcb","body":"At a meeting in Addis Ababa in February 2010, African Heads of States reviewed the framework guiding the relationship between the two continents, namely, the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) and its associated Action Plan. The meeting noted that the JAES aims to upgrade European Union-Africa relations to a strategic political partnership based on joint interests and a common vision. It is meant to enable continent-continent cooperation, especially with a view to addressing global challenges such as climate change, terrorism etc., while fostering integration on both sides. It serves as an over-arching and inclusive framework for EU-Africa relations. However, three major challenges facing the JAES have been identified: lack of engagement of all stakeholders, lack of results from cooperation and dialogue in this framework so far, and the fact that political dialogue is not driving partnerships. According to this report, a genuine change in mentality has not yet taken place, and the JAES is currently not being used as a true partnership between the two players to address important global challenges. It further argues that most of the current cooperation could be done through other already existing frameworks. It concludes that there is a risk that the framework will lose credibility if its added value is not clarified.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ten reasons to oppose criminalisation of HIV exposure or transmission","field_subtitle":"AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa: December 2008","field_url":"http://arasa.info/old/files/pub_10reasons_20081201-1.pdf","body":"This document presents ten reasons why exposing or transmitting HIV to someone else should not be criminalised. It argues that criminalising HIV transmission is justified only when individuals purposely or maliciously transmit HIV with the intent to harm others. In these rare cases, existing criminal laws can and should be used, rather than passing HIV-specific laws. Furthermore, applying criminal law to HIV exposure or transmission does not reduce the spread of HIV, undermines HIV prevention efforts and promotes fear and stigma. Instead of providing justice to women, applying criminal law to HIV exposure or transmission endangers and further oppresses them. It points out that laws criminalising HIV exposure and transmission are drafted and applied too broadly, and often punish behavior that is not blameworthy. They are often applied unfairly, selectively and ineffectively, and ignore the real challenges of HIV prevention. Rather than introducing laws criminalising HIV exposure and transmission, legislators must reform laws that stand in the way of HIV prevention and treatment, and instead take a human-rights position in response to the problem.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The 2010 ERD report: Promoting resilience through social protection","field_subtitle":"European Report for Development: March 2010","field_url":"http://erd.eui.eu/media/2010/Ouline%20Report%20Final.pdf","body":"The focus of this report is on sub-Saharan Africa because this region appears to be particularly lagging behind in the sphere of the provision of social protection, being at the same time more vulnerable than other developing areas. More people live below the poverty line, more people die of HIV or malaria, income distribution is very unequal, more people depend on volatile agriculture, the climate changes threaten to bring about more dramatic natural disasters, state institutions are often unrecognised or illegitimate, economies are less diversified and violent conflict is rife. In the aftermath of the three crises (food, fuel and financial), which in a short time span have hit the world economy, sub-Saharan Africa has little resources to react. The European Union, together with other external funders, this paper argues, should pursue a development policy that reinforces social protection and, in particular, can help sub-Saharan African countries to build resilience through social protection, and break out of vicious circles and poverty traps. However, the paper cautions that any action can interfere with ownership; furthermore, overseas development assistance can itself become a source of vulnerability if the initial commitments in terms of amounts, targets and time horizon are not fulfilled.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The burden of imported malaria in Gauteng Province","field_subtitle":"Weber IB, Baker L, Mnyaluza J, Matjila MJ, Barnes K, Blumberg L: South African Medical Journal 100:300-303, 2010","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/3599/2797","body":"This study aimed to describe the burden of malaria in Gauteng Province, and to identify potential risk factors for severe disease. It conducted a prospective survey of malaria cases diagnosed in hospitals throughout Gauteng from December 2005 to end November 2006. It identified 1,701 malaria cases, of which 1,548 (91%) were seen at public sector hospitals and 153 (9%) at private hospitals, while 1,149 (68%) patients were male. Most (84%) infections were acquired in Mozambique. While most patients appropriately received quinine, only 9% of severe malaria cases received the recommended loading dose. The incidence of malaria in Gauteng was higher than previously reported, emphasising the need to prevent malaria in travellers by correct use of non-drug measures and, when indicated, malaria chemoprophylaxis. Disease severity was increased by delays between onset and treatment and lack of partial immunity. The study recommends that providers should consult the latest guidelines for treatment of malaria in South Africa, particularly about treatment of severe malaria. A change in drug policy to artemisinin combination therapy for imported uncomplicated malaria in non-malaria risk provinces should be strongly considered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The church resolves to intensify its response to AIDS ","field_subtitle":"Bodibe K: Health-e News, 6 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032774","body":"African church leaders met in Johannesburg in May 2010 to find common ground in response to HIV and AIDS. At the meeting, the church acknowledged that it has failed to react timeously and effectively to the challenge of AIDS. At the meeting, church leaders spoke out about the silence and judgmental stance that characterised their response to the HIV and AIDS epidemic. The church resolved to amend its ways.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The deadly ideas of neoliberalism: How the IMF has undermined public health and the fight against AIDS ","field_subtitle":"Rowden R: Zed Books, 2010","field_url":"http://www.zedbooks.co.uk/book.asp?bookdetail=4333","body":"This book explores the history of and current collision between two of the major global phenomena that have characterised the last 30 years: the spread of HIV and other diseases of poverty and the ascendancy of neoliberal economic ideas. The book explains not only how International Monetary Fund policies of restrictive spending have exacerbated public health problems in developing countries, in particular the HIV and AIDS crisis, but also how such issues cannot be resolved under these economic policies. It also suggests how mounting global frustration about this inability to adequately address HIV and AIDS will ultimately lead to challenges to the dominant neoliberal ideas, as other more effective economic ideas for increasing public spending are sought. Rowden offers a unique and in-depth critique of development economics, the political economy dynamics of global foreign aid and health institutions, and how these seemingly abstract factors play out in the real world - from the highest levels of global institutions to African finance and health ministries to rural health outposts in the countryside of developing nations, and back again.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The health-related quality of life of people living with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa: A literature review and focus group study","field_subtitle":"Robberstad B and Olsen JA: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 8(5), 2010","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/pdf/1478-7547-8-5.pdf","body":"While health outcomes of HIV and AIDS treatments in terms of increased longevity has been the subject of much research, there appears to be very limited research on the improved health-related quality of life (HRQL) that can be applied in cost-utility analyses in Africa south of the Sahara. In this study, a systematic review of the literature on HRQL weights for people living with HIV and AIDS in Africa was performed, and the study also used focus group discussions in panels of clinical AIDS experts to test the preference based on a generic descriptive system EQ-5D. It contrasted quality of life with and without antiretroviral therapy (ART), and with and without treatment failure. It found that only four papers estimated the HRQL weights for HIV and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa with generic preference based methodologies that can be directly applied in economic evaluation. A total of eight studies were based on generic health profiles. The focus group discussions revealed that HRQL weights are strongly correlated to disease stage. Furthermore, clinical experts consistently report that ART has a strong positive impact on the HRQL of patients, although this effect appears to rebound in cases of drug resistance. The study concluded that EQ-5D appears to be an appropriate tool for measuring and valuing HRQL of HIV and AIDS in Africa. More empirical research is needed on various methodological aspects in order to obtain valid and reliable HRQL weights in economic evaluations of HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The rise and fall of the GDP","field_subtitle":"Gertner J: New York Times, May 10, 2010","field_url":"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/magazine/16GDP-t.html?pagewanted=1&emc=eta1","body":"This article critiques the limitations of gross domestic product (GDP) as a measurement of a nation's success \u2013 do individuals living in countries with a high GDP really have a better life than those who don't? It discusses the work of the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission in attempting to find a set of indicators that better represent individuals\u2019 circumstances today, recommending that every country should also apply other indicators to capture what is happening economically, socially and environmentally. Most criticisms of GDP fall into two distinct camps: some maintain that GDP itself needs to be fixed, while others seek to recast the criticism of GDP from an accounting debate to a philosophical one, as our reliance on such a measure suggests that we may still be equating economic growth with progress on a planet that is already overburdened by human consumption and pollution. One measure has succeeded in challenging the hegemony of growth-centric thinking \u2013 the Human Development Index (HDI), which turns 20 this year and is still used by the United Nations. The HDI incorporates a nation\u2019s GDP and two other modifying factors: its citizens\u2019 education, based on adult literacy and school-enrolment data, and its citizens\u2019 health, based on life-expectancy statistics. But the HDI has plenty of critics. For example, a slight drop in literacy rates can have a disproportionate effect on a nation's HDI ranking. As a result, researchers are continuing their search for a set of indicators that will reliably measure progress for all nations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The sector approach version 2.0: Getting results as the world gets flatter","field_subtitle":"Van Esch W, Gerritsen M, de Groot C, Vogels M and Boesen N: Capacity4Dev, March 2010","field_url":"http://capacity4dev.ec.europa.eu/papers-sector-appraches-version-20","body":"Is the sector approach still relevant to development assistance and aid given the track record and the rapidly changing global context? Or is it time \u2013 again \u2013 to look for something new that might work better? This paper argues that the sector approach continues to be relevant, but that it needs to become a 'sector approach version 2.0'. This requires significant \u2013 and difficult - changes in how external funders work. The new approach has to make where connectivity, collaboration, communication and horizontal knowledge acquisition central to its aims. This entails addressing five closely linked challenges: accepting the complexity of the task; working proactively with the new global interconnectedness; paying more attention to knowledge, dialogue, quality and results; adapting the sector approach to the specific context and sector, particularly in fragile situations; and gaining leverage as 'brokers' of knowledge and agendas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Twenty-first century aid: Recognizing success and tackling failure","field_subtitle":"Oxfam International: May 2010","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp137-21st-century-aid.pdf","body":"This report examines the evidence for and against foreign aid, and finds that, while there is much room for improvement, good quality 21st century aid not only saves lives, but is indispensable in unlocking poor countries\u2019 and people\u2019s ability to work their own way out of poverty. It makes a number of recommendations. Countries and stakeholders should ensure aid is channelled to help support active citizens, build effective states as a pathway to reducing poverty and inequality, and support diverse forms of financing to contribute to development. They should deliver aid through a mix of models, including increasing budget support wherever possible, and ensure that a percentage of aid flows are channelled to civil society organisations, to enable people to better hold their governments to account. Also, there is a need to dramatically improve the predictability of aid, by increasing the proportion of aid that is general budget support where possible and by sector support where general budget support is not an option, and limit conditions attached to aid to mutually agreed poverty indicators. Rich countries should give at least 0.7% of their national income in aid, and set out how this target will be reached, with legally binding timetables. Furthermore, the global community should reject a culture of corruption, uphold human rights standards, and act in ways which are transparent and open to scrutiny. It should also provide legal environments in which civil society organisations monitoring government activities can flourish and respect the independence of non-government bodies like audit offices and the judiciary.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Twenty-Sixth International Paediatric Association (IPA) Congress of Paediatrics, 2010","field_subtitle":"Registration deadline: 22 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.ipa-world.org/IPAcongress/default.htm?ref3=db1%20IPA_reg%40kenes.com","body":"Three leading paediatric associations are uniting to host the 26th IPA Congress of Paediatrics in Johannesburg, South Africa from 4\u20139 August 2010. More than 5,000 participants are expected to attend this landmark event, the first IPA congress to be held in sub-Saharan Africa. It will unite paediatricians and health professionals working towards the target set by Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce child mortality by two thirds before 2015. The scientific programme is designed to meet the needs of general paediatricians from both the developed and the developing world. Plenary sessions will include: the MDGs and the current state of health of children in the world, and progress towards the MDGs; the state of the world\u2019s newborns, including major issues determining maternal and newborn health in developing and developed countries; the determinants of health, such as genetics, nutrition and the environment; disasters and trauma affecting child health, such as disasters, crises and the worldwide epidemic of trauma; and the global burden of infectious diseases affecting children and the challenge of emerging infections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"UN launches online drive to spur action against global hunger","field_subtitle":"United Nations News Centre: 11 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34660&Cr=hunger&Cr1=","body":"The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has launched a major online drive to spur action to eliminate hunger and highlight the fact that one in six people worldwide go hungry everyday. Through its '1 billionhungry project' people can voice their opinions about world hunger by adding their names to an online petition. The campaign uses a yellow whistle as an icon encouraging people to blow the whistle against this global scourge. Events in support of the petition launch are organised through FAO offices around the world. International athletes, football players and recording artists will add their voices to the campaign. Civil society organisations, including the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, will also promote the campaign through their own networks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"UN launches plan to combat spread of HIV among women and girls","field_subtitle":"United Nations Development Programme: 2 March 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/35rcrwu","body":"The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has unveiled its new agenda for action to combat the spread of HIV among women and girls, which underscores the need to understand and respond to the particular effects of the HIV epidemic on women and girls and translate political commitments into scaled-up action. It calls on the United Nations to support governments, civil society and development partners in reinforcing country actions to put women and girls at the centre of the AIDS response, ensuring that their rights are protected. The UNDP will support leadership development for HIV positive women and girls in 30 countries, support positive women\u2019s networks being fully involved and reporting on the Millennium Development Goals, encourage countries to put HIV reporting into their reporting under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and initiate 'know your rights' campaigns focusing on the rights of women and girls in a number of countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"University of the Western Cape Spring School 2010: 6 to 18 September 2010 ","field_subtitle":"Closing date for applications: 25 June 2010 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2ubvuze","body":"The University of the Western Cape Spring School is offering one-week courses over four weeks in September 2010 in parallel sessions by experts in their fields. Courses offer health workers exposure to the latest thinking in public health and opportunities to extend their own knowledge and skills in the field. Bookings are taken on a first-come first-served basis, as the courses are often over-subscribed. Courses are open to students registered in the SOPH Postgraduate Programme, health workers from the health and social services and the general public. Over the years, at least 6,000 participants, mainly nurses and middle level managers from all over South Africa and from many other African countries, have attended these professional development courses. Many participants have been sent by a health authority, an important indication that the services place value on our training courses.  At the school, health and welfare professionals will be able to exchange ideas relevant to health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Urban planning essential for public health","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 7 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2010/urban_health_20100407/en/index.html","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a campaign to highlight urban planning as a crucial link to building a healthy 21st century. In particular, WHO calls on municipal authorities, concerned residents, advocates for healthy living and others to take a close look at health inequities in cities and take action. Rapid urbanisation has resulted in significant changes in our living standards, lifestyles, social behaviour and health. This article notes that many cities face a triple threat: infectious diseases, which thrive when people are crowded together; chronic, non-communicable diseases including diabetes, cancers and heart disease, which are on the rise with unhealthy lifestyles; and urban health is often further burdened by road traffic accidents, injuries, violence and crime. WHO outlines five actions that could significantly increase the chance people will be able to enjoy better urban living conditions: promote urban planning for healthy behaviours and safety; improve urban living conditions; ensure participatory governance; build inclusive cities that are accessible and age-friendly; and make cities resilient to disasters and emergencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Vaccine influences the immune response to BCG vaccination","field_subtitle":"Sartono E, Lisse IM, Terveer EM, van de Sande PJM and  Whittle H: PLoS ONE 5(5), 21 May 21 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0010328","body":"Oral polio vaccine (OPV) is recommended to be given at birth together with BCG vaccine. This study investigated the effect of OPV given simultaneously with BCG at birth on the immune response to BCG vaccine. It compared the in vitro and the in vivo response to PPD in the infants who received OPV and BCG with that of infants who received BCG only. The study is the first to address the consequences for the immune response to BCG of simultaneous administration with OPV. The authors expressed concern that the results indicate that the common practice in low-income countries of administering OPV together with BCG at birth may down-regulate the response to BCG vaccine.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO\u2019s role and responsibilities in health research: Draft WHO strategy on research for health","field_subtitle":"Secretariat of the World Health Organization: 25 March 2010","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA63/A63_22-en.pdf","body":"This strategy document acknowledges that research is central to economic development and global health security and recognises that, in order to be effective, research has to be multidisciplinary and intersectoral in nature. In the face of current and emerging health threats \u2013 such as those posed by pandemics, chronic diseases, food insecurity, the impact on health of climate change, and fragile health systems \u2013 the document affirms that the Secretariat, member states and World Health Organization (WHO) partners have a joint responsibility to ensure that research and evidence help to achieve health-related development goals and improve health outcomes. It recommends an approach that involves all government departments so that health is reflected in all government policies. It identifies five interrelated goals that will help realise the draft strategy\u2019s vision: the strengthening of research culture across WHO; the reinforcement of research that responds to priority health needs; improving capacity to strengthen national health research systems; the promotion of good practice in research, drawing on WHO\u2019s core function of setting norms and standards; and strengthening of links between the policy, practice and products of research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Statistics 2010","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 10 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/EN_WHS10_Full.pdf","body":"The World Health Statistics series is the World Health Organization's annual compilation of health-related data for its 193 member states, and includes a summary of the progress made towards achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and associated targets. As with previous versions, World Health Statistics 2010 has been compiled using publications and databases produced and maintained by the technical programmes and regional offices of WHO. Indicators have been included on the basis of their relevance to global public health; the availability and quality of the data; and the reliability and comparability of the resulting estimates. Taken together, these indicators provide a comprehensive summary of the current status of national health and health systems in the following nine areas: mortality and burden of disease; cause-specific mortality and morbidity; selected infectious diseases; health service coverage; risk factors; health workforce, infrastructure and essential medicines; health expenditure; health inequities; and demographic and socioeconomic statistics. With only five years remaining to 2015, the report notes that there are signs of progress in many countries in achieving the health-related MDGs. In other countries, progress has been limited because of conflict, poor governance, economic or humanitarian crises, and lack of resources. The effects of the global food, energy, financial and economic crises on health are still unfolding, and action is needed to protect the health spending of governments and external funders alike.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"A guide to implementing an HIV and AIDS workplace programme","field_subtitle":"Higher Education HIV/AIDS Programme: 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y2kmpts","body":"This guide is designed to be a 'support tool' to assist institutions in developing and enhancing their HIV and AIDS workplace programmes. It has been aligned to the Framework for HIV and AIDS Workplace Programmes, which was developed for South Africa's higher education sector. The framework has six key performance areas that make up a comprehensive workplace programme and the guide sets out key standards for each of the performance areas. The areas are: strategic leadership, decision-making and co-ordination; research and analysis; workplace HIV and AIDS policy; workplace HIV and AIDS prevention programmes; workplace HIV and AIDS treatment and care strategies; and monitoring and evaluation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A handbook on best practices regarding HIV and AIDS for people with disabilities","field_subtitle":"Voluntary Service Overseas: 2010","field_url":"http://www.vso.org.uk/Images/hiv-aids-and-disabilities-handbook_tcm79-25401.pdf","body":"The goal of this handbook is to highlight some of the best practices around the world in HIV and AIDS services, programmes and policies for people with disabilities. It describes how systematic efforts were made to identify case studies from various countries. However, the numbers of case studies obtained were smaller than expected. This could be an indication that there is little documentation of practice in HIV and AIDS and disability. It could also be that organisations primarily working with disabilities have given minimal attention to HIV and AIDS, and similarly little attention is paid to disability by mainstream HIV and AIDS organisations. This handbook is primarily aimed at organisations involved in or intending to be involved in programming and advocacy to influence or to develop policy and programmes in HIV and AIDS service delivery for persons with disabilities. This handbook is divided into four chapters, each addressing a particular broad topic in reference to best practices for disability and HIV and AIDS. The categories of disabilities covered in the handbook are the deaf, the visually impaired, and the physically and intellectually challenged.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A quality of development assistance index","field_subtitle":"Kharas H: Brookings Institution, 24 March 2010","field_url":"http://data.irtheoryandpractice.org/~oxford/papers/Kharas_2010.pdf","body":"This article begins by acknowledging that numerous obstacles exist to improving on current development assistance indices, including: attribution across multiple donors, long time lags between aid and results with unknown lag times, the micro-macro paradox (where donor projects are deemed successful but results are not translated to macro indicators) and difficulties in aggregating across different components of 'development' such as poverty reduction, service delivery and economic growth. The article puts forward a model for measuring quality of development assistance and recommends benchmarking against specific quality indicators, based on literature, with a focus on aid processes not outcomes. It states that the index should require that large number of donors are compared to establish the 'best in class'. Quantitative indices and indices that measure change over time should also be developed and linked to changes in management decisions in aid agencies. Four indices are proposed to measure different aspects of aid effectiveness: maximising impact; reducing burden; foster institutions; and transparency.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"A systematic review of task shifting for HIV treatment and care in Africa","field_subtitle":"Callaghan M, Ford N and Schneider H: Human Resources for Health 8(8), 31 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-8-8.pdf","body":"This study conducted a systematic literature review of task shifting and found 2,960 articles, of which 84 were included in the core review. Fifty-one articles reported outcomes, including research from ten countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The most common type of task shifting studied was the delegation of tasks from doctors to nurses and other non-physician clinicians, especially initiating and monitoring highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART). Five studies showed increased access to HAART through expanded clinical capacity; four concluded task shifting is cost effective; nine showed staff could deliver equal or better quality of care; and studies on whether non-physicians and physicians were in agreement with their clinical decisions offered mixed results, with most showing good agreement. The study argues that task shifting is an effective strategy for addressing shortages of health workers in HIV treatment and care and believes it offers high-quality, cost-effective care to more patients than a physician-centered model could. The main challenges to implementation include adequate and sustainable training, support and pay for staff in new roles, the integration of new members into healthcare teams, and the compliance of regulatory bodies. The study recommends that task shifting should be considered for careful implementation where health worker shortages threaten rollout programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid transparency: The practitioner's guide","field_subtitle":"Christiansen K: Yale Journal of International Affairs, Winter 2010: 49\u201356 ","field_url":"http://yalejournal.org/sites/default/files/articles/49-56_0.pdf","body":"This article argues that, as a result of the current financial crisis, there has been a resurgence of commitment to transparency in overseas development aid (ODA) in all areas and greater focus on the effectiveness of spending. It notes that progress on ODA transparency can occur swiftly and the impacts can be significant. Eighteen donors are reported to have signed up to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), including major multilateral and bilateral donors like the World Bank and the United Kingdom\u2019s Department for International Development (DFID). The process of defining the standards is ongoing, calling for common standards of transparency, including publication of what is funded. One of the consequences of lack of transparency on ODA resources is the issue of donor \u2018orphans\u2019 or \u2018darlings\u2019 - where aid flows disproportionately to a particular region, sector, issue or ministry. Greater levels of information and transparency is needed on ODA benefits to civil society, including non-governmental organisations, parliamentarians and direct beneficiaries. This is a prerequisite for not only holding donors and service providers accountable over commitments they have made, but also for citizens to hold their governments to account over discrepancies between ODA received and spent on behalf of beneficiaries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Anti-counterfeiting legislation in east Africa: A new assault against TRIPS flexibilities for access to medicine?","field_subtitle":"Mulumba, Moses, Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development, Uganda ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nAfrican countries face a dilemma that if not reasonably resolved could threaten access to essential medicines. On the one hand countries need to protect their populations against potentially harmful counterfeit medicines, and to protect producers against unfair competition. On the other hand, the laws and measures that do this should not act as a barrier to cheaper, generic medicines. The current proposals for laws to protect against counterfeits in east Africa seem to be excessively weighted towards protecting intellectual property at the cost of access to legitimate generic versions of medicines. \r\n\r\nThere seems to be no universally accepted definition of \u2018counterfeits\u2019. This has caused confusion and created a loophole in determining what a counterfeit product is. The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined a counterfeit medicine as: \u2019one which is deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled with respect to identity and/or source. Counterfeiting can apply to both branded and generic products and counterfeit products may include products with the correct ingredients or with the wrong ingredients, without active ingredients, with insufficient active ingredients or with fake packaging.\u2019\r\n\r\nThis definition makes the element of fraud essential in defining a counterfeit medicine, either in relation to the identity or the source of the product. WHO points to the public health risk of using products that have the wrong ingredients or which lack active ingredients. \r\n\r\nFrom an intellectual property perspective, counterfeits are defined in Article 51, Footnote 14 (a) of the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement which limits the definition of counterfeits to trademark and copy right infringements. Under this provision, counterfeit trademark goods mean \u2019any goods, including packaging, bearing without authorization a trademark which is identical to the trademark validly registered in respect of such goods, or which cannot be distinguished in its essential aspects from such a trademark, and which thereby infringes the rights of the owner of the trademark in question under the law of the country of importation\u2019. This definition refers to only one aspect of intellectual property, that is trademarks, and associates counterfeiting with the issue of trademark infringement.\r\n\r\nIn their efforts to address counterfeits, East African countries are enacting anti counterfeit legislation. Kenya has a law in place, Tanzania has regulations while Uganda has a draft Bill. These laws have adopted a broad definition of counterfeits. For example section 2 of the Anti Counterfeit Act in Kenya provides that: \u2019counterfeiting includes manufacture, production, packaging, re-packaging, labelling or making, whether in Kenya or elsewhere, of any goods identical or substantially similar to protected goods without the authority of the owner of any intellectual property right (IPR) subsisting in Kenya or elsewhere in respect of those protected goods\u2026.. In relation to medicine, this includes the deliberate and fraudulent mislabelling of medicine with respect to identify or source, whether or not such products have correct ingredients, wrong ingredients, have sufficient active ingredients or have fake packaging\u2019. \r\n\r\nSuch a definition goes beyond the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement Article 51 above.\r\n\r\nIt implies that legitimate generic versions of medicines fall within the scope of counterfeits. The provisions have thus raised deep concerns among manufacturers and consumers of generic drugs in low income countries as they effectively withdraw the flexibilities provided in the TRIPS agreement to produce and procure generic medicines for public health reasons, and may thus deny patients access to safe and effective, high quality generic drugs.\r\n\r\nGeneric drugs are produced and distributed without patent protection. They should contain the same active ingredients as the original formulation and be tested to ensure that they are safe and effective. They are usually available once the patent protections afforded to the original developer have expired. However generic drugs can be available during the life time of a patent if national laws provide for the TRIPS flexibilities, under which governments may issue compulsory licences to purchase generic drugs if they are needed for public health reasons. The provisions for compulsory licensing allow for exact copies of the brand to be produced without the consent of the patent owner. Generic drugs made available on under compulsory licensing are not counterfeits, as they are neither fraudulent nor do they infringe trademarks. The proposed legislation on counterfeiting in many east African countries does not recognise this.\r\n\r\nFor instance the law already enacted in Kenya (Kenya Anti-Counterfeit Act 13 of 2008) and that being proposed in Uganda (Uganda Counterfeit Goods Bill 2009) require the consent of the intellectual property owner to produce a generic version of the drug. This implies that should the manufacture of the generic drug take place without this consent, then what is manufactured is a counterfeit. This requirement undermines the States\u2019 ability to use the TRIPS flexibilities and wrongly applies controls for fraudulent medicines to producers of generic medicines.\r\n\r\nThe TRIPS flexibilities have been contested in the past as they bias trade law towards social equity and away from corporate interests. The new counterfeit laws open a new possibility for multinationals to limit the flexibilities. The East African Community (EAC) is currently working on a policy and law on Anti-Counterfeiting, Anti-Piracy and Other Intellectual Property Rights Violations, as a \u201crobust legal framework for the protection and enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights\u201d in the region. The technical inputs to this need to be adjudicated for the interests they are advancing. For example, the East African Business Council has reported receiving support for its inputs on anti counterfeiting laws from the Investment Climate Facility. Based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania ICF describes itself as a unique partnership between private companies, development partners and governments. As viewed from their website, ICF aims to work with receptive African governments to make the continent a better place to do business (http://www.icfafrica.org/). While there are legitimate business interests in protecting against fraud or infringement of trademark, it seems unlikely that an organization like ICF would thus draw attention to provisions that limit business, like the TRIPS flexibilities, when these open branded drugs to price competition from generics. An imbalance in the focus on intellectual property to the cost of access to medicines is precisely what motivated the TRIPS flexibilities, and the same imbalance appears to be creeping back.\r\n\r\nGovernments should ensure that their counterfeit laws continue to protect gains won through the TRIPS flexibilities and use these fully. For this, counterfeit laws should be clear in their definitions and exclude any possibility of generic medicines being covered by these definitions. Producers of generic medicines should not have to apply for permission from the intellectual property when they are covered by government compulsory licenses and provisions for parallel importation. Drug regulatory authorities should have a role in administration of proposed anti-counterfeit laws where this relates to determinations on counterfeit medicines. It is important for countries in East Africa, and the region as a whole, to ensure that in solving one problem they do not create another. The harm caused by communities in African countries not accessing essential medicines would be enormous. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this editorial  please visit the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessment study on mobile and migrant populations\u2019 access to HIV prevention and treatment and care services in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"National AIDS Council: March 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y7csa7u","body":"This study is one of Zimbabwe's national efforts to assess specific HIV and AIDS needs of mobile and migrant populations (MMPs) in the country and the barriers to accessing HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment and care services by these groups. The study also sought to identify the gaps that exist in meeting the HIV and AIDS needs for MMPs. The study was conducted in all major corridors in Zimbabwe, targeting a range of groups of MMPs. It found that the rising poverty levels (and in some cases absolute poverty levels) emanating from the rapid socio-economic decline and political uncertainty in the country, have provided a basis upon which vulnerability to HIV infection of MMPs, as well as that of the general population is premised. The study calls for improved coordination and strategic partnerships, modification of art access regulations, inclusive programming, awareness raising and creating regional approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Budget institutions and fiscal performance in low-income countries","field_subtitle":"Dabla-Norris E, Allen R, Zanna L, Prakash T, Kvintradze E, Lledo V, Yackovlev I and Gollwitzer S: International Monetary Fund Working Paper WP/10/80, March 2010","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2010/wp1080.pdf","body":"The academic literature on budget institutions in low-income countries is scarce, and originates to a large extent from the field work of donors and development agencies. This study is intended to fill that research gap. It has developed a composite index of the quality of budget institutions for 72 low-income and middle-income countries drawing upon empirical studies, budget survey databases and assessment reports, supplemented by case studies and other reports and data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and donors engaged in capacity building in low-income countries. It found that, in general, budget institutions in low-income countries are much less developed than in developed and emerging market countries, and display widely different characteristics that reflect country-specific factors, such as colonial heritage, and a variety of cultural and administrative traditions and practices. Evidence suggests that weak capacity, ineffective civil society institutions and political/economic factors act as a severe constraint on the progress of modernising budget institutions. In low-income countries, numerical targets and formal constraints on spending and fiscal deficit that exist on paper may not be binding in practice because mechanisms that make adherence to budget rules and procedures transparent, and hold government ministers and officials accountable for their decisions, are usually not well established. Therefore, this study argues, enhancing the transparency and comprehensiveness of the budget process, and public dissemination of budget documents, even in the absence of formal rules, may be particularly important.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Conference: Parasite to prevention: Advances in the understanding of malaria. Venue: Edinburgh Conference Centre, United Kingdom, 20-22 October 2010","field_subtitle":"Submission deadline: 2 July 2010","field_url":"http://biomedcentral.cvent.com/EVENTS/Info/Custom.aspx?cid=19&e=1c099f13-6568-4bc8-86b2-89ac5268c546","body":"This international conference brings together leading researchers and industry representatives who will review important recent findings in parasite and vector biology, disease pathophysiology and immunology, disease treatment, prevention and control. Attendees will learn about the latest developments in key areas and initiatives that are at the forefront of malaria research. Topics include parasite and vector cell biology, disease pathogenesis, drug discovery, immunology and vaccine development, and disease control. All participants are invited to submit abstracts for oral and poster presentations. A significant number of talks will be selected from registrants. The time allowed for selected oral presentations will be ten minutes with an additional five minutes for discussion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Eighteenth International AIDS Conference, 18-23 July 2010, Vienna, Austria","field_subtitle":"Late breaker submission deadline: 20 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.aids2010.org/Default.aspx?pageId=169","body":"The International AIDS Conference is the premier gathering for those working in the field of HIV, as well as policy makers, persons living with HIV and other individuals committed to ending the pandemic. It is a chance to assess where we are in terms of the AIDS pandemic, evaluate recent scientific developments and lessons learnt, and collectively chart a course forward. Given the 2010 deadline for universal access set by world leaders, AIDS 2010 will coincide with a major push for expanded access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. The programme will present new scientific knowledge and offer many opportunities for structured dialogue on the major issues facing the global response to HIV. A variety of session types \u2013 from abstract-driven presentations to symposia, bridging sessions and plenaries \u2013 will meet the needs of various participants. Other related activities, including the Global Village, satellite meetings, exhibitions and affiliated events, will offer an opportunity for professional development and networking.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Second conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA)","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 31 August 2010","field_url":"http://heu-uct.org.za/call-for-abstracts-2nd-conference-of-the-african-health-economics-and-policy-association-afhea/","body":"All African health economists and health policy analysts, whether working in Africa or on research of relevance to Africa, are invited to submit abstracts for the Second Conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA), which will be held in Dakar, Senegal from 15\u201319 March 2011 (these dates are provisional). The overall theme of this conference is 'Toward universal health coverage in Africa'. Abstracts are encouraged for research related to the sub-themes of the conference: health care financing for universal financial protection in Africa; promoting universal access to needed health services; and strategies and tactics for key steps to move towards universal coverage. Individuals are also encouraged to submit abstracts on any other interesting or topical research, especially on any aspect of the health system that could contribute to universal coverage. Abstracts may be submitted in English or French and must not exceed 400 words in length. It should indicate the aim and objectives of the paper, the methods used and the key findings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications: Graca Machel scholarships for postgraduate study in South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 10 August 2010","field_url":"http://www.canoncollins.org.uk","body":"The key aim of the Gra\u00e7a Machel Scholarship Programme is to help provide the female human resources necessary for economic, social and cultural development in the southern African region and to develop an educated and skilled workforce that can benefit the wider community. Scholarships that target women have long been recognised as an effective approach in addressing gender equality and eradicating poverty. By providing opportunities to study at postgraduate level, these scholarships aim to empower women and to equip them to take up leadership positions in order to have a direct impact in the communities, nations and region in which they live. These female scholars must be positive role models for other women. The scholarships are for female students from Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe studying in South Africa. They are valid for two years\u2019 postgraduate study and include payment of a maintenance allowance, travel, health insurance and tuition fees. Applicants must have at least two years\u2019 relevant work experience.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals: \u2018Advancing health equity through research and practice: Identifying what works to reduce health inequities\u2019","field_subtitle":"Submission deadline: 23 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/Media-Publications/Archive-news/Call-for-research-proposals-from-civil-society-organizations-CSOs","body":"The World Health Organization's Scientific Resource Group on Equity Analysis and Research, together with the Global Forum for Health Research and the People's Health Movement, have announced a call for research proposals from civil society organisations (CSOs) on the theme: \u2018Advancing health equity through research and practice: Identifying what works to reduce health inequities\u2019. In their proposals, CSOs may evaluate interventions they have implemented and their impacts both on health outcomes and on health equity. The interventions to be evaluated need to address social, economic and political determinants of health. The evaluation should examine inequities among different social groups, not only between one disadvantaged group and a population average. Interventions could potentially be adapted for implementation in other countries. Teams submitting expressions of interest should demonstrate expertise in research for health or development, ability to design evaluation studies and ability to analyse data to evaluate impacts of interventions on health and health equity. Demonstration of advanced writing skills will be an advantage. A budget and timeline must be included, specifying how the case award will contribute to the overall evaluation of the intervention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for young researchers: First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research: 16-19 November 2010: Montreux, Switzerland","field_subtitle":"Submission deadline: 17 May 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/index.php/young-researchers-call","body":"The World Health Organization and partners will convene the inaugural global symposium on health systems research in 2010. Researchers, policy-makers, funders, and other stakeholders representing diverse constituencies will gather to share evidence, identify significant knowledge gaps, and set a research agenda that reflects the needs of lowand middle-income countries. The first symposium will be dedicated to improving the scientific evidence needed by health policy-makers and practitioners to inform their decisions related to accelerating universal health coverage. Young professionals working in or interested in the wide spectrum of health systems research are invited to submit essays covering one or more of the following areas of inquiry: the political economy of universal coverage; health system financing; scale-up of health services; and knowledge translation. Each submitted essay should reflect the young researcher\u2019s unique perspective on a particular aspect(s) of health systems research. It should include structured arguments and critical analysis based on original quantitative and/or qualitative research, with the intent to demonstrate impact on health and health equity. The essay should be less technical and more provocative, idealistic and inspirational. It should demonstrate the 'human face' of health systems research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can the Millennium Development Goals database be used to measure the effects of globalisation on women\u2019s health in sub-Saharan Africa? A critical analysis","field_subtitle":"Wamala S, Breman A, Richardson MX and Loewenson R: Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 38(4):18\u201328, April 2010","field_url":"http://sjp.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/38/4_suppl/18","body":"This study used the Millennium Development Goals\u2019 (MDG) database from 2000 to 2006 to investigate the association between globalisation and women\u2019s health in sub-Saharan Africa based on various determinants of heath. Results suggest that developing countries are becoming more integrated with world markets through some lowering of trade barriers. At the same time, women\u2019s occupational roles are changing, which could affect their health status. However, it is difficult to measure the impact of globalisation on women\u2019s health from the MDG database. First, data on trade liberalisation is aggregated at the regional level and does not hold any information on individual countries. Second, too few indicators in the MDG database are disaggregated by sex, making it difficult to separate the effects on women from those on men. The paper concludes that the MDG database is not adequate to assess the effects of globalisation on women\u2019s health in Sub-Saharan Africa. It recommends that researchers aim to address this research question to find other data sources or turn to case studies. Further research on globalisation and health, using reliable sources, is urgently needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Child survival and development strategy, 2008-2015","field_subtitle":"Kenyan Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation and Ministry of Medical Services: January 2009","field_url":"http://www.usaid.gov/ke/ke.buproc/27109CSDSCURRENTDRAFT.doc","body":"The child survival and development strategy in Kenya is guided by the National Health Sector Strategic Plan II: 2005\u20132010 (NHSSP II), the targets anticipated in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Vision 2030 goals. The health sector has laid down policy and plans to facilitate the implementation of accelerated child survival and development within this strategy. The health sector currently faces several challenges and needs to focus on improving access to health services, as utilisation remains low, with more than 47% of the population travelling more than five kilometres to reach a health facility. Yet several notable achievements have been made in efforts to reduce the causes of childhood morbidity and mortality, especially with regards to malaria, vaccine preventable diseases, diarrhoea and in improving water and sanitation. There still needs to be a significant scaling up of activities related to specific targets both in terms of programme delivery and financing. Despite recent improvements, Kenya still needs to reduce infant mortality from 77 to 26 deaths per 1,000 live births and under five mortality from 115 to 33 deaths per 1,000 live births to achieve MDGs on child survival and development by 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"CIVICUS World Assembly 2010: Montr\u00e9al, Canada: 20-23 August 2010 ","field_subtitle":"Closing date For registration: 6 August 2010","field_url":"https://www.civicusassembly.org/","body":"Every year, the CIVICUS World Assembly offers about fifty activities grouped around the overall theme, an annual focus theme and sub-themes. The activities comprise plenary sessions, round tables, workshops, networking sessions and formal events. The 2010 World Assembly in Montreal will introduce the concept of interactive group discussions (or Parcours) for the first time. The overall theme of the CIVICUS World Assembly is 'Acting Together for a Just World'. Every year this is explored through a focus theme. In 2010 the focus theme will be 'Seeking Out Solutions'. This theme will address the issues of economy, development and climate. The Assembly has a number of aims. It offers: to provide first hand knowledge on the state of the art of civil society thinking; to establish cross-cutting relationships with civil society, business, media, government and donor organisation professionals from around the globe; in-depth exchange of expertise on how people from all sectors act together to (re)gain the power to enforce decisions; training and capacity building on a wide range of tangible skills e.g. fundraising, networking, mobilisation, volunteering, campaigning etc; and the opportunity to find partners and funding to realise and expand your projects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society: A missing link in development","field_subtitle":"Results for Development Institute and the Global Health Council: 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y49denv","body":"Despite the significant success of global health programs, there is a continuing gap between policy analysis and action. This paper is the first in a series, cosponsored by Results for Development Institute and the Global Health Council, which presents examples and opportunities of how evidence-based research can be translated into policies and programmes that will improve the health of poor people in developing countries. The series includes six presentations that draw from Results for Development's expertise in transparency and governance, the role of the private sector in health, health ministry capacity building, health financing and the health workforce. The first of these talks, 'Civil Society: A Missing Link in Development' took place on 29 March 2010 and featured civil society leaders from India, South Africa and Uganda, who are participating in the Institute's Transparency and Accountability Programme. You can watch the presentations on the website given above.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Clinical guidelines for the management of HIV and AIDS in adults and adolescents","field_subtitle":"South African National Department of Health: 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/documents/0ba405d9042e557a9fb1987adb68cb97.pdf","body":"These clinical guidelines are designed to address the current goals of the South African government's programme for managing HIV and AIDS, including: integrating services for HIV, tuberculosis (TB), maternal and child health, sexual and reproductive health, and wellness; earlier HIV diagnosis; preventing HIV disease progression; averting AIDS-related deaths; retaining patients on lifelong therapy; reducing infection; and mitigating the impact of HIV and AIDS. They contain relevant information on the government's national eligibility criteria for starting anti-retroviral therapy (ART) regimens, national ART regimens, national monitoring for adults and adolescents with HIV, national ART and anti-retroviral regimens for HIV positive pregnant women and their infants, and recommended ART regimens for treatment-naive adults and adolescents. They also indicate what to expect in the first four months of ART and when it is necessary to switch ART. Concomitant TB and its relationship with HIV is also addressed. Most of the document is dedicated to the relevant criteria and correct procedures for patient management.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Commitment to Development Index 2009","field_subtitle":"Centre for Global Development: 2009","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/section/initiatives/_active/cdi/","body":"The Commitment to Development Index (CDI) rates 22 rich countries on how much they help poor countries build prosperity, good government, and security. Each rich country gets scores in seven policy areas, which are averaged for an overall score. The policy areas include foreign aid, commerce, migration, the environment and military affairs. This website provides an interactive resource for determining scores. You can browse the charts by clicking bars, country names and policy components and explore the data maps to see results in another way. In 2009, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and New Zealand ranked highest, while South Korea, Japan, Switzerland and Greece ranked lowest.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Communication on humanitarian food assistance","field_subtitle":"European Council: 31 March 2010","field_url":"http://ec.europa.eu/echo/files/policies/sectoral/Food_Assistance_Comm.pdf","body":"This communication lays out a new policy framework for European Union humanitarian action to strengthen efforts to tackle food insecurity in humanitarian crises.  In it, the he European Commission reports its intention to strengthen four pillars of food security in general and emergency settings by increasing availability of food, improving access to food, improving quality and ensuring people eat nutritious food, and boosting the effectiveness of crisis prevention and management. Key points include the benefits of involving beneficiaries in operations and incorporating gender, livelihood and protection considerations in assessing needs and designing and delivering responses. The Commission draws attention to the needs of nutritionally vulnerable groups, including children under-two and pregnant women, while urging for integration of programmes so that needs are addressed holistically, and underlining the importance of linking relief with rehabilitation and development. The framework on food security spells out the need to support agriculture in poor countries to help them reach the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving hunger and poverty by 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"East African anti-counterfeit laws to limit access to ARVs","field_subtitle":"Michael W: Business Day, 5 April 2010 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y6fal9y","body":"The author of this article asserts that East African countries risk not attaining the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on universal treatment of people living with HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases if the region\u2019s parliament adopts the draft anti-counterfeit laws currently under consideration. Civil society representatives, government officials and intellectual property experts have warned that the region would not meet this MDG if it adopted the proposed policy and bill, as they would block the production and importation of generic medicines used by health care services to treat diseases. The countries affected are Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya. The draft laws could erode recent gains in scaling up treatment of people living with HIV and AIDS, according to Tenu Avafia, policy specialist on intellectual property, trade and HIV and AIDS at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion paper 81: Provisions for the right to health in the Constitutions of east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Mulumba M, Kabanda D and Nassuna V: EQUINET, April 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss81%20ESAconstitution.pdf","body":"This report presents a detailed desk review providing the constitutional provisions of the right to health in 15 countries in east and southern Africa (ESA): Angola, Botswana, Congo-Brazzaville, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Zambia. The review was carried out within the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) by the Center for Health, Human Right and Development. This paper used the six core obligations as spelt out in General Comment 14 to assess the inclusion of the right to health in the constitutional provisions of the ESA countries: to ensure the right of access to health facilities, goods and services on a non-discriminatory basis, especially for vulnerable or marginalised groups; to ensure access to the minimum essential food which is nutritionally adequate and safe, to ensure freedom from hunger to everyone; to ensure access to basic shelter, housing and sanitation, and an adequate supply of safe and potable water; to provide essential drugs, as from time to time defined under the WHO Action Programme on Essential Drugs; to ensure equitable distribution of all health facilities, goods and services; and to adopt and implement a national public health strategy and plan of action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 111: Anti-Counterfeiting Legislation in east Africa: A new assault against TRIPS flexibilities for access to medicine? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Policy Brief 22: Anti-counterfeiting laws and access to essential medicines in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHRUD), TARSC and EQUINET: April 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/POL%20Brief%2022%20counterfeits.pdf","body":"The countries in eastern and southern Africa and the East African Community are at various stages of enacting laws to address counterfeiting. Counterfeiting is a problem for public health if counterfeit medicines lack the active ingredients that make them effective, or if they are harmful. Yet laws that define counterfeiting so widely as to include generic medicines have even greater potential public harm, as they may make these essential medicines available as branded versions, at significantly higher cost. This policy brief draws policy makers\u2019 attention to the need to ensure that counterfeit laws do not inadvertently include generic medicines. It discusses the key issues in these laws and draft laws and how they are likely to affect public health and access to essential medicines in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Estimating the obstetric costs of female genital mutilation in six African countries","field_subtitle":"Adam T, Bathija H, Bishai D, Bonnenfant Y, Darwish M, Huntington D, Johansen E and the FGM Cost Study Group of the World Health Organization: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 281\u2013288, April 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/4/09-064808.pdf","body":"This study's main objective was to estimate the cost to the health system of obstetric complications due to female genital mutilation (FGM) in six African countries. A multistate model was used, which depicted six cohorts of 100,000 15-year-old girls who survived until the age of 45 years. The risk of obstetric complications was estimated based on a 2006 study of 28,393 women. The annual costs of FGM-related obstetric complications in the six African countries studied amounted to I$ 3.7 million and ranged from 0.1 to 1% of government spending on health for women aged 15\u201345 years. In the current population of 2.8 million 15-year-old women in the six African countries, a loss of 130,000 life years is expected owing to FGM\u2019s association with obstetric haemorrhage. This is equivalent to losing half a month from each lifespan. Beyond the immense psychological trauma it entails, FGM imposes large financial costs and loss of life. The cost of government efforts to prevent FGM will be offset by savings from preventing obstetric complications.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"EU supports law threatening access to medicines","field_subtitle":"Michael W: Inter Press Service, 15 March 2010","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/201003150638.html","body":"The European Union (EU) is reported to be funding the drafting of Uganda's controversial Counterfeit Goods Bill, a proposed law that has caused an outcry as it threatens access to life-saving generic medicines in this low income East African country. According to the article, about 90% of medicines used in Uganda's health-care system are imported, of which about 93% are generics. According to this article, part of the five million euros that Uganda's ministry on tourism, trade and industry received from the EU in a financing agreement signed in July 2009 was to finance the drafting of this contentious bill that has consistently been criticised as a threat to treatment. The financing agreement is aimed at supporting Uganda's implementation of the economic partnership agreement (EPA) between the EU and East African countries. Health activists have criticised the draft law for defining counterfeiting so broadly as to criminalise the production and importation of generic medicines, including those for HIV and AIDS and malaria. They note that the draft law does not take advantage of the flexibility that Uganda, as a least developed country, has until 2016 before it is obliged to provide patent protection for pharmaceutical products as per the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) regime of the World Trade Organisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EU threatens to withdraw EAC trade preferences if interim EPA not signed","field_subtitle":"Julian M: Trade Negotiation Insights 9(2): 13\u201314, March 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.acp-eu-trade.org/library/files/tni_en_9-2.pdf","body":"The head of the European Union (EU) delegation to Tanzania, Ambassador Timothy Clark, says a realistic timetable for signing the East African Community\u2019s (EAC) interim economic partnership agreements (EPAs) must be established. Clark said: 'The situation, as it stands now, is untenable. EAC countries, despite not signing the EPA, have been enjoying free access to EU markets in the same way with other African, Carribean and Pacific (ACP) countries that took legally binding commitments by signing EPAs. This is inconsistent and contrary to both EU law and World Trade Organization rules.' However, Tanzanian Trade Minister, Mary Nagu, said the EAC wanted firm commitments from the EU on development assistance before it would sign a full agreement, including assistance for infrastructure, such as properly working railways and ports to enable Tanzania to trade. She called for a level playing field for Tanzanian trade, with Tanzania enjoying an equal footing with the EU. She did not see aid as a long-term solution to the country's financial woes. Despite the current situation, withdrawing trade preferences provided to the EAC under the EU\u2019s EPA market access regulation is reported to require a unanimous vote by EU Member States, which may prove politically difficult at present.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Europe\u2019s contribution to anti-corruption efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Kaninda JT and Schepers S: European Policy Centre Policy Brief, March 2010","field_url":"http://www.epc.eu/TEWN/pdf/289735040_Sub-Saharan%20Africa.pdf","body":"This article outlines the measures that European Union (EU) and African countries are planning through the economic partnership agreements to address public and private corruption, including non-compliance with promised off-sets in public contracts, in both African and EU governments and companies. Corruption is argued to distort fair competition, as companies gain competitive advantages and increase profitability and share value through illegal and unethical behaviour, while those companies that choose to be responsible find themselves at a disadvantage. Africa is argued to be no more corrupt than any other region, with alleged costs to African economies of US$148 bn per year, according to estimates by the Commission of the African Union. Corruption is argued to be responsible for losses of up to 50% of countries\u2019 tax revenue, in many cases more than foreign debt. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Fatal injuries among urban children in South Africa: Risk distribution and potential for reduction","field_subtitle":"Burrows S, van Niekerk A and Laflamme L: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 267\u2013272, April 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/4/09-068486.pdf","body":"The objective of this study was to determine the leading causes of fatal injury for urban South African children aged 0\u201314 years, the distribution of those causes and the current potential for safety improvements. Injury surveillance data was obtained from the National Injury Mortality Surveillance System 2001\u20132003 for six major South African cities varying in size, development and sociodemographic composition. The study identified the leading causes of fatal injury in childhood as road traffic injuries \u2013 among vehicle passengers and especially among pedestrians \u2013 drowning, burns and, in some cities, firearm injuries. Disparities between cities and between population groups were largest for deaths from pedestrian injuries, while differences between boys and girls were greatest for drowning deaths. The study concluded that, in the face of the high variability observed between cities and population groups in the rates of the most common types of fatal injuries, a safety agenda should combine safety-for-all countermeasures and targeted countermeasures that help reduce the burden for those at greatest risk.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Fixing failed foreign aid: Can agency practices improve?","field_subtitle":"Williamson CR: Development Research Institute, New York University, 2010","field_url":"http://data.irtheoryandpractice.org/~oxford/papers/Williamson_2010.pdf","body":"The goal of this paper is twofold. First, the paper extends the analysis evaluating the performance of aid agencies by creating several best and worst practices indices, including an overall aid agency index. It does so by relying on a newly available dataset and draw from the benchmarks established in the previous literature where different measures of aid transparency, specialisation, selectivity, ineffective aid channels and overhead costs are utilised. Secondly, the analysis attempts to explain agency behaviour, addressing why agencies behave the way they do. This section relies on bureaucracy theory to address the capability of agencies to achieve best practices, highlighting both economic and political constraints.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Global disparities in the epilepsy treatment gap: A systematic review","field_subtitle":"Meyer A, Dua T, Ma J, Saxena S and Birbeck G: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 260\u2013266, April 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/4/09-064147.pdf","body":"This study sought to describe the magnitude and variation of the epilepsy treatment gap worldwide. A systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature published from 1 January 1987 to 1 September 2007 in all languages was conducted, using PubMed and EMBASE. The purpose was to identify population-based studies of epilepsy prevalence that reported the epilepsy treatment gap, defined as the proportion of people with epilepsy who require but do not receive treatment. The study found that the treatment gap was over 75% in low-income countries and over 50% in most lower middle- and upper middle-income countries, while many high-income countries had gaps of less than 10%. However, treatment gaps varied widely both between and within countries. The dramatic global disparity in the care for epilepsy between high- and low- income countries, and between rural and urban settings, calls for immediate attention, according to the study. It urged for a broadening of current understanding of the factors affecting the treatment gap and recommended that future investigations should explore other potential explanations of this gap.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Greening aid? Understanding the environmental impact of development assistance","field_subtitle":"Hicks RL, Parks BC, Roberts JT, Tierney MJ: Oxford University Press: 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y5hpkqy","body":"Every year, billions of dollars of environmental overseas development aid (ODA) flow from high income countries in the North to low income countries in the South. This book interrogates this flow of ODA by addressing a number of questions. Why do countries provide this ODA? What do they seek to achieve? How effective is the ODA provided? And does it always go to the places of greatest environmental need? These questions are addressed using a comprehensive dataset of ODA.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Growing threat from counterfeit medicines","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 247\u2013248, April 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/4/10-020410.pdf","body":"Worldwide sales of counterfeit medicines could top US$75 billion this year, a 90% rise in five years, according to this article. The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently working with Interpol to dislodge the criminal networks making billions of dollars from the trade in counterfeit medicines and posing a growing threat to public health. In 2006, the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force (IMPACT) was launched, drawing members from international organisations, enforcement agencies, industry and nongovernmental organisations. Sabine Kopp, IMPACT\u2019s interim executive secretary and manager of WHO\u2019s anti-counterfeiting programme, says that WHO is currently conducting a survey to compare legislation and terminology used to combat counterfeiting of medical products in different countries. It is difficult to measure the extent of the problem when there are so many sources of information and different definitions of 'counterfeit'.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Guidelines for the management of HIV in children: Second edition","field_subtitle":"South African National Department of Health: 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/documents/35cc37337b5448b6d06f48440fb424cc.pdf","body":"These guidelines contain essential information on prevention of mother-to-child transmission, as well as counselling, support and testing, and preventing paediatric HIV infection. Clinical features of HIV-positive children are provided. Care guidelines are given on HIV-positive children on anti-retroviral therapy (ART). Nutritional support is also covered, providing indicators for assessing the nutritional status of children and requirements for nutritional support, including nutrition interventions in situations where children have not been adequately nourished. Treatment guidelines for concomitant tuberculosis are also given, along with responses to adverse advents, like side-effects from ART, and guidelines for treatment of a range of typical secondary infections, like respiratory infections, thrush and gastro-enteritis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Hidden and exposed: Urban refugees in Nairobi, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Pavanello S, Elhawary S and Pantuliano S: Humanitarian Policy Group Working Paper, March 2010","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/4786.pdf","body":"This report examines the daily challenges urban refugees face, including police harassment, discrimination and limited livelihood opportunities. The report presents the challenges that affect refugees and explores the policies and current assistance government is giving to them, to identify ways of attending to their long-term and immediate needs. The authors suggest a gap in clear policy on the issue. They point to issues for policy attention: Many refugees have not registered with authorities and lack required identification documents. In addition, they experience difficulties in accessing formal employment and face problems of poor access to adequate health and education services and precarious living conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"High malnutrition rates a silent emergency in DRC","field_subtitle":"World Food Programme: 6 April 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.wfp.org/news/news-release/high-malnutrition-rates-silent-emergency-drc","body":"Nutrition surveys carried out by the government of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with the support of the United Nations (UN) Children\u2019s Fund and the UN World Food Programme, have found unusually high levels of malnutrition in children living in five provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Experts believe the basic structural causes of malnutrition have been aggravated by conflict, high food prices and the global financial crisis, which has shaken the mining industry in the west and south-east of the country. Some 530,000 children under five and more than one million pregnant women need urgent nutrition interventions, according to the DRC Ministry of Health. In several areas surveyed, global acute malnutrition rates are above the 10% threshold for intervention and also in some cases above the emergency threshold of 15%. The causes behind such high malnutrition rates vary from one territory to another and are identified in the survey as lack of access to healthcare and to safe drinking water, poor access to good quality food, non-optimal feeding practices of infants, young children and women, and lack of tools and seeds for agriculture.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV prevalence and related factors: Higher education sector study, South Africa, 2008\u20132009","field_subtitle":"Higher Education HIV/AIDS Programme: 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y7ben6y","body":"This study looked at HIV prevalence in the higher education sector in South Africa. It reported both quantitative and qualitative data. Out of a total of 29,856 eligible participants available at testing venues, 79,1% participated fully by completing questionnaires and providing specimens. Because of a substantial amount of missing data in 230 questionnaires, the final database consisted of 23,375 individuals made up of 17,062 students, 1,880 academic staff and 4,433 administrative and service staff. The mean HIV prevalence for students was 3,4%. HIV was significantly more common among men (6,5%) and women (12,1%) who reported symptoms of a sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the last year compared to men (2,5%) and women (6%) who did not report an STI. First-year students appeared to lack the required experience to make good, risk-aware decisions, especially regarding sexual liaisons and the use of alcohol. Qualitative data pointed to underlying causes of HIV transmission on campus as including reported transactional sex, intergenerational sex (a young woman with an older wealthier man), poor campus leadership on HIV and AIDS, limited uptake of voluntary testing and counselling services, poor levels of security on campus and stigma surrounding the disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya AIDS indicator survey ","field_subtitle":"Government of Kenya: September 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.aidskenya.org/public_site/webroot/cache/article/file/Official_KAIS_Report_20091.pdf","body":"The 2007 Kenya AIDS indicator survey is the first of its type in Kenya and provides data on HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), which may be used for advocacy and planning appropriate interventions for HIV prevention, treatment and care. It found that, of adults aged 15-64 years, an estimated 7.1%, or 1.42 million people, were living with HIV infection in 2007. Prevalence among adults aged 15-49 years was 7.4%, and was not statistically different from an earlier estimate of 6.7%. Women were more likely to be infected (8.4%) than men (5.4%). In particular, young women aged 15-24 years were four times more likely to be infected (5.6%) than young men of the same age group (1.4%). Knowledge of HIV status was low (16.4% of HIV-infected respondents), likewise with knowledge of partner\u2019s HIV status. Co-infection with STIs and HIV was common: 16.9% of persons with syphilis were infected with HIV, as were 16.4% of persons with HSV-2 infection. At the time of the survey, an estimated 344,000 HIV-discordant couples needed targeted HIV testing and prevention. Overall, 57.5% of women and 56.4% of men reported having had unprotected sex with at least one partner of HIV-discordant or unknown HIV status in the twelve months prior to the survey.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Making aid work: Towards better development results: Practical guidance for parliamentarians on the role of parliaments in development effectiveness","field_subtitle":"Hudson A, Wild L and Weinstock J: Overseas Development Institute, March 2010","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/4799.pdf","body":"This paper argues that parliaments and parliamentarians have a crucial role to play in ensuring that governments are accountable for the decisions that they make about how resources \u2013 including aid \u2013 are spent. The scope parliaments actually have to play this role varies widely. Some parliaments benefit from large resources and a legal framework that back them in playing their oversight and legislative role. Many other parliaments, especially in developing countries, lack resources or power to play an effective role in promoting development or the more effective use of aid. Parliamentarians themselves come from all walks of life and do not share the same knowledge on these issues, and there is no consensus among parliamentarians or across countries on the ways and means by which they can enhance oversight of development policies and how development resources are used. This guidance note addresses some of these challenges and seeks to provide parliamentarians and those who work with them with a common understanding and clear guidance on what they can do to promote more effective and accountable use of aid in particular and of development resources in general.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal deaths decline sharply across the globe","field_subtitle":"Grady D: New York Times, 13 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/health/14births.html","body":"For the first time in decades, researchers are reporting a significant drop worldwide in the number of women dying each year from pregnancy and childbirth, to about 342,900 in 2008 from 526,300 in 1980. The findings, published in the medical journal The Lancet, challenge the prevailing view of maternal mortality as an intractable problem that has defied every effort to solve it. 'The overall message, for the first time in a generation, is one of persistent and welcome progress,' the journal\u2019s editor, Dr Richard Horton, wrote. The study cited a number of reasons for the improvement: lower pregnancy rates in some countries; higher income, which improves nutrition and access to health care; more education for women; and the increasing availability of 'skilled attendants' \u2013  people with some medical training \u2013 to help women give birth. Improvements in large countries like India and China helped to drive down the overall death rates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring adult mortality using sibling survival: A new analytical method and new results for 44 countries","field_subtitle":"Obermeyer Z, Rajaratnam JK, Park CH, Gakidou E, Hogan MC et al: Public Library of Science Medicine 7(4), 13 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000260","body":"This study presents the Corrected Sibling Survival (CSS) method, which addresses both the survival and recall biases that have plagued the use of survey data to estimate adult mortality. It applies the method to generate estimates of and trends in adult mortality for 44 countries with District Health Survey sibling survival data. Findings suggest that levels of adult mortality prevailing in many developing countries are substantially higher than previously suggested by other analyses of sibling history data. Generally, estimates here show the risk of adult death between the ages of 15 and 60 to be about 20\u201335% for females and 25\u201345% for males in sub-Saharan African populations largely unaffected by HIV. In southern African countries, where the HIV epidemic has been most pronounced, as many as eight out of ten men alive at the age of fifteen will be dead by age 60, as will six out of ten women. The results of this study represent an expansion of direct knowledge of levels and trends in adult mortality in the developing world. The study recommends that governments use the CSS method for more accurate tracking of adult mortality rates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring under-five mortality: Validation of new low-cost methods","field_subtitle":"Rajaratnam JK, Tran LN, Lopez AD and Murray CJL: Public Library of Science Medicine 7(4), 13 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000253","body":"Although global under-five mortality is declining, this paper argues that it is unlikely that Millennium Development Goal 4 will be reached by 2015. The researchers used data about all children born and dead children extracted from 169 Demographic and Health Surveys covering 70 countries to develop four new methods to estimate under-five mortality. Their findings suggest that application of the new methods developed by the researchers could significantly improve the accuracy of estimates of under-five mortality based on summary birth history data. The researchers warn that although their methods can provide accurate estimates of recent under-five mortality, they might not capture rapid fluctuations in mortality such as those that occur during wars. However, they suggest, the two questions needed to generate the data required to apply these new methods could easily be included in existing survey programmes and in routine censuses. Consequently, systematic application of the methods proposed in this study should provide policy makers with the information about levels, recent trends, and inequalities in child mortality that they need to accelerate efforts to reduce the global toll of childhood deaths.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"MEDINFO 2010: Thirteenth International Congress on Medical Informatics","field_subtitle":"12\u201315 September 2010, Cape Town: Registration Period: 1 March To 30 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.medinfo2010.org/index.php?option=com_content%20&view=article&id=48&Itemid=88","body":"This will be the first time MEDINFO is held in Africa. The Congress aims to boost exposure to grassroots healthcare delivery and the underpinning health information systems, as well as to open the door to new academic partnerships into the future and help to nurture a new breed of health informaticians. The theme for the Congress is \u2018Partnerships for effective e-health solutions\u2019, with a particular focus on how innovative collaborations can promote sustainable solutions to health challenges. Information and communication technologies may have enormous potential for improving the health and lives of individuals. Innovative and effective change using such technologies is reliant upon people working together in partnerships to create innovative and effective solutions to problems with particular regard to contextual and environmental factors. To this end, the Congress brings together the health informatics community from across the globe who are seeking to work together and share experiences and knowledge to promote sustainable solutions to global health challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Mobile phones monitor HIV patients","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 1 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88653","body":"A Kenyan initiative to use mobile phones to improve health systems indicates that the use of mobile phones to track patients may help relieve the burden of overworked health workers. 'Eighty percent of those [health workers] we talked to in Nairobi and Kajiado said they feel relieved - health workers need that kind of relief,' said Sarah Karanja, study coordinator of the Weltel Project. 'Patients, on the other hand, feel they are cared for which is good for their health and wellbeing.' Weltel uses a weekly text message to study mobile-phone effectiveness for health. The message to the patient reads 'Mambo', Swahili for 'How are you?' to which the patients can respond 'Sawa' ('OK') to show they are fine, or 'Shida', which means 'problem', to show they need attention. Patients who respond Shida and non-responders are followed up with a call from the clinic nurse to identify and handle any problems. Initial study findings reveal that 80% of patients are comfortable with the use of mobile phones to manage their HIV care and treatment. Mobile phone use in Kenya has risen rapidly from 200,000 users in 2000 to an estimated 17.5 million today, offering great potential for expanding the use of mobile phones for health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring the quality of public spending in the social sectors in developing countries: Lessons from public expenditure tracking surveys and other sources ","field_subtitle":"Glassman A, Becker L and Bun C: Transparency and Accountability Project (TAP), Brookings Institution, January 2008","field_url":"http://www.resultsfordevelopment.org/sites/default/files/resources/Monitoring-Quality-of-Public-Spending-in-the-Social-Sectors-pdf.pdf","body":"This paper reviewed 29 public expenditure tracking surveys (PETS) and related literature produced since the mid-1990s to identify common problems and lessons learned to improve the quality of public spending in the social sectors via civil society oversight and involvement. It examines ten of the most commonly reported problems in public expenditure management in the social sectors, like the limitations imposed by highly earmarked budgets, which do not allow for reallocation towards priorities, and public monies that do not reach the poor or are 'leaked' to unintended uses. Other problems include corruption, incomplete information and inefficient transfer and expenditure operations, health workers who face perverse incentives, and inefficient, low-quality and unresponsive health services that result in wastage. User fees and informal payments are also to blame for a lack demand from the population for health services. The paper argues that civil society organisations may have a critical role to play in improving the quality of social spending in developing countries. It recommends generating and disseminating information on flows of public spending and materials, advocating for and participating in organisational structures that incorporate citizens in oversight, preparing and disseminating citizen report cards, and carrying out PETS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"MRC/DFID African Research Leader scheme","field_subtitle":"Closing date for applications: 10 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.ukcds.org.uk/funding-MRC_DfID_African_Research_Leader_scheme-237.html","body":"Up to three awards are available for outstanding health researchers from sub-Saharan Africa to strengthen their research skills and build partnerships with a United Kingdom (UK) research institution through a new pilot scheme jointly funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Department for International Development (DFID). The African Research Leader scheme is a highly prestigious award which aims to strengthen research leadership and capacity across sub-Saharan Africa by attracting and retaining researchers of high ability. The pilot scheme is open to all research areas within MRC\u2019s remit that specifically address the priority health problems of people in developing countries and which cannot easily be achieved in the UK. The scope of the scheme includes biomedical and health research, including social sciences and public health research, and translational research relevant to African national and regional health needs and priorities. Awards of up to \u00a3500K will be offered to two or three research leaders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Multidrug and extensively drug-resistant TB (M/XDR-TB): 2010 global report on surveillance and response","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2010","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241599191_eng.pdf","body":"This report presents for the first time the treatment outcomes from all sites providing complete data for new and previously treated multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) patients. Ten of the 27 high MDR-TB burden countries reported treatment outcomes. A total of 71 countries and territories provided complete data for treatment outcomes for 4,500 MDR-TB patients. In 48 sites documenting outcomes, patient management and drug quality were found to conform to international standards. Treatment success was documented in 60% of patients overall. The report found that treatment success in MDR-TB patients remains low, even in well-resourced settings because of a high frequency of death, treatment failure and default, as well as many cases reported without definitive outcomes. New findings presented in this report give reason to be cautiously optimistic that MDR-TB can be controlled. While information available is growing and more and more countries are taking measures to combat MDR-TB, urgent investments in infrastructure, diagnostics, and provision of care are essential if the target established for 2015 \u2013 the diagnosis and treatment of 80% of the estimated M/XDR-TB cases \u2013 is to be reached.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"New edition of Facts for Life launched","field_subtitle":"UNICEF, WHO, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNDP, UNAIDS, WFP and the World Bank: March 2010","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/publications/index_4387.html","body":"Since it was first published in 2002, Facts for Life has sold over 15 million copies in 215 languages. It aims to help save the lives of millions of children by putting lifesaving knowledge about children\u2018s health into the hands of those who need it most: parents, caregivers, health workers, government officials, journalists and teachers. This new edition has updated information on safe motherhood, early childhood development, nutrition, HIV and AIDS and other major causes of childhood illnesses and death. It aims to use the best current understanding of science, policy and practice. It presents in simple language, practical, effective, low-cost ways of protecting children\u2018s lives and promoting their development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New model for HIV data takes into account new science","field_subtitle":"Odendal L: Health-e News, 23 March 2010","field_url":"http://health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032699","body":"Researchers are designing a new model for determining the demographic impact of HIV and AIDS in South Africa. Modelers Leigh Johnson of the Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Research and Rob Dorrington of the Centre for Actuarial Research at the University of Cape Town have launched the ASSA 2008 model, which has replaced the ASSA 2003 model for estimating HIV prevalence, HIV-related deaths, the numbers of those in need ofanti-retrovirals (ARVs) and the impact of HIV interventions. According to Johnson, the reason the model needed to be updated was because the prevalence data projected was no longer correct because of the new data that emerged from South Africa\u2019s antenatal HIV-prevalence survey. The survey increased the number of women who were tested for HIV and was thus more representative, although there was very little difference in the HIV prevalence results across the board from the ASSA 2003 and 2008 models. ASSA 2008 takes into account new epidemiological data to allow for more accurate projections of HIV prevalence and impact of interventions. It includes the ARV rollout data for up to the end of 2008. Because data shows that two-thirds of people starting ARVs are females, the ASSA 2008 model allows for different rates of ARV initiation in males and females, as well as for children and adults.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Overview of a formal scoping review on health system report cards","field_subtitle":"Brien SE, Lorenzetti DL, Lewis S, James K and William AG: Implementation Science 5(2), January 2010","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2823624/","body":"Scoping is a novel methodology for systematically assessing the breadth of a body of literature in a particular research area. The objectives of this review were to showcase the scoping review methodology in the review of health system quality reporting, and to report on the extent of the literature in this area. A scoping review was performed based on the York methodology. The researchers searched fourteen peer-reviewed and grey literature databases, specific websites, reference lists and key journals for relevant material and also solicited input from key stakeholders. A total of 1,222 articles were included. These were categorised and catalogued according to the inclusion criteria, and further subcategories were identified through the charting process. Topic areas represented by this review included the effectiveness of health system report cards (194 articles), methodological issues in their development (815 articles), stakeholder views on report cards (144 articles), and ethical considerations around their development (69 articles). The review concluded that the scoping review methodology allowed for the convenient characterisation and cataloguing of the extensive body of literature pertaining to health system report cards. The resulting literature repository from this review could prove useful to researchers and health system stakeholders interested in the topic of health system quality measurement and reporting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Packages of care for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Flisher AJ, Sorsdahl K, Hatherill S and Chehil S: Public Library Of Science Medicine 7(2), 23 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000235","body":"Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) is a multidimensional disorder that, although commonest in childhood and adolescence, can be diagnosed across the age span. Worldwide prevalence is about 5%. This study recommends an appropriate package of treatment for AD/HD in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), which should include screening of high-risk groups, psychoeducational interventions with caregivers, methylphenidate, and behavioural interventions. Strategies to facilitate the delivery of effective interventions in LMICs should increase demand for services, access to AD/HD interventions, and the capacity of health care teams, as well as improve recognition of AD/HD, develop community-based and practice-based programs, and address the impact of AD/HD on other health and social outcomes. Interventions to address AD/HD should be part of a more comprehensive package of services for mental disorders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Packages of care for epilepsy in low- and middle-income countries ","field_subtitle":"Mbuba CK and Newton CR: Public Library Of Science Medicine 6(10), 13 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000162","body":"Epilepsy is the most common chronic neurological disorder, affecting over 65 million people worldwide, of whom 80% are estimated to live in low- or middle-income countries (LMICs). Anti-epileptic drugs are very effective in controlling seizures, but most people with epilepsy in LMICs do not receive appropriate treatment. According to this review, this 'treatment gap' is influenced by factors such as limited knowledge, poverty, cultural beliefs, stigma, poor health delivery infrastructure, and shortage of trained health care workers. Several studies implementing interventions at the community level (for example, training programmes for primary health care workers) have successfully improved the identification of people with epilepsy and reduced the treatment gap. The sustainability of these interventions needs to be addressed, however, and efforts must be made to ensure a continuous supply of anti-epileptic drugs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Peer review: A guide for researchers","field_subtitle":"Research Information Network: March 2010","field_url":"http://www.rin.ac.uk/system/files/attachments/Peer-review-guide-FINAL-March10.pdf","body":"This guide provides an overview of peer review and an assessment of the practice to date. It begins by discussing the main concepts related to peer reviewing of research papers before it outlines the peer review process generally, and specifically with relation to grant applications. It assesses the peer review process by addressing some of its shortcomings. For example, instances of malpractice and misconduct continue and, as reviewers themselves are fallible, peer review cannot provide a guarantee against the publication of bad research. So a number of published papers are retracted each year for a variety of reasons, and there is evidence that the number is rising. The core issues of transparency and subjectivity are discussed in the guide under the idea that peer review should foster fairness. However, financing the high costs of peer review mechanisms still proves problematic. On the positive side, major new opportunities in digital technology, such as the internet, have improved connectivity between stakeholders of the process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Public financing of health in developing countries: A cross-national systematic analysis","field_subtitle":"Lu C, Schneider MT, Gubbins P, Leach-Kemon K, Jamison D and Murray CJL: the lancet.com, 9 April 2010","field_url":"http://press.thelancet.com/addtionality.pdf","body":"This study was based on a systematic analysis of all data sources available for government expenditures on health as agent in developing countries, including government reports and databases from the World Health Organization and the International Monetary Fund. It found that, in all developing countries, public financing of health in constant US$ from domestic sources increased by nearly 100% from 1995 to 2006. Furthermore, development assistance for health (DAH) to government appeared to have a negative and significant effect on domestic government spending on health \u2013 for every US$1 of DAH to government, government health expenditures from domestic resources were reduced by $0\u202243. To address the negative effect of DAH on domestic government health spending, the study recommends strong standardised monitoring of government health expenditures and government spending in other health-related sectors; establishment of collaborative targets to maintain or increase the share of government expenditures going to health; investment in the capacity of developing countries to effectively receive and use DAH; careful assessment of the risks and benefits of expanded DAH to non-governmental sectors; and investigation of the use of global price subsidies or product transfers as mechanisms for DAH.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health in an interdependent world: Cash commodities, capacities and conspiracies","field_subtitle":"Chan M: 24 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2010/dg_lecture_20100324_en.pdf","body":"In this speech, delivered as the Eighth Annual Jeffrey P Koplan Global Leadership in Public Health Lecture in Atlanta, in the United States, Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, has admitted that global governance has failed to embrace equity as an explicit policy objective in the international systems that govern financial markets, economic relations, trade, commerce and foreign affairs. And health has suffered as a result. She criticises the way in which development models have assumed that living conditions and health status would somehow automatically improve as countries modernised, liberalised their trade and experienced rapid economic growth \u2013 yet this has not happened. She also points out that international trade agreements will not, by themselves, guarantee food, job or health security, nor access to affordable medicines. Instead, all of these outcomes require deliberate policy decisions. She calls for world leaders to recognise that health concerns can, in some instances, be more important than economic interests and that the net result of all our international policies should be to improve the quality of life for as many of the world\u2019s people as possible. Greater equity in health status should be adopted as an indicator of human progress, she recommends.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-private partnerships and global health equity: Prospects and challenges ","field_subtitle":"Asante AD and Zwi AB: Indian Journal of Medical Ethics 4(4), 2007","field_url":"http://www.issuesinmedicalethics.org/154ie176.html","body":"Health equity remains a major challenge to policymakers despite the resurgence of interest to promote it. In developing countries, especially, the sheer inadequacy of financial and human resources for health and the progressive undermining of state capacity in many under-resourced settings have made it extremely difficult to promote and achieve significant improvements in equity in health and access to healthcare. In the last decade, public-private partnerships have been explored as a mechanism to mobilise additional resources and support for health activities, notably in resource-poor countries. While public-private partnerships are conceptually appealing, many concerns have been raised regarding their impact on global health equity. This paper examines the viability of public-private partnerships for improving global health equity and highlights some key prospects and challenges. The focus is on global health partnerships and excludes domestic public-private mechanisms such as the state contracting out publicly-financed health delivery or management responsibilities to private partners. The paper is intended to stimulate further debate on the implications of public-private partnerships for global health equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Rwandans with disabilities left out of condom campaign","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 9 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88761","body":"Rwanda's national condom awareness campaign has failed to include messages designed for people with disabilities, despite their risk of HIV being the same as the rest of the population. Many disabled people are sexually active and may take part in unprotected sex, according to Jacques Sindayigaya, coordinator of the HIV programme for the non-governmental organisation, Handicap International. A three-month government campaign, which mainly used radio and television spots as well as billboards and more than 200,000 posters to spread information on condoms, ended in February 2010. According to government sources, it was successful in raising awareness. However, this article points to the need for such campaigns to also target the specific needs and situations of those with disability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Second South African tuberculosis conference","field_subtitle":"Durban, South Africa: 1-4 June 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.tbconference.co.za","body":"The second South African tuberculosis (TB) conference will focus on partnerships and how solidarity among the state, private sector and civil society at all levels and structures can increase access to services and prevent people dying from a curable disease. Forging Strategic Partnerships to Fight TB and HIV is the theme for this Conference, which will build on the awareness and commitment made by 1,657 people who contributed to the success of the first South African TB Conference in 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Stories of innovation and impact: The Global Fund 2010","field_subtitle":"The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria: 2010","field_url":"http://www.theglobalfund.org/documents/replenishment/2010/Success_Stories_en.pdf","body":"This review of Global Fund projects in 2010 includes some chapters on projects they have funded in the east, central and southern African region. A chapter on HIV prevention in South Africa focuses on peer education in townships, while prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Namibia is also covered in terms of breaking the stigma surrounding the disease. Malaria prevention in Zambia is presented as a success story, as clinics are reported to be 'empty of patients', and a chapter on malaria prevention in Swaziland outlines the country's ambitious plan to eliminate malaria by 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Structured approaches for the screening and diagnosis of childhood tuberculosis in a high prevalence region of South Africa","field_subtitle":"Hatherill M, Hanslo M, Hawkridge T, Little F, Workman L, Mahomed H, Tameris M, Moyo S, Geldenhuys H, Hanekom W, Geiter L and Hussey G: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88: 312\u2013320, April 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/4/09-062893.pdf","body":"This study had three aims: to measure agreement between nine structured approaches for diagnosing childhood tuberculosis; to quantify differences in the number of tuberculosis cases diagnosed with the different approaches, and to determine the distribution of cases in different categories of diagnostic certainty. It investigated 1,445 children aged less than two during a vaccine trial held in a rural South African community from 2001 to 2006. Clinical, radiological and microbiological data were collected prospectively. Tuberculosis case status was determined using each of the nine diagnostic approaches. Tuberculosis case frequency ranged from 6.9% to 89.2%. Significant differences in case frequency occurred in 34 of the 36 pair-wise comparisons between structured diagnostic approaches. There was only slight agreement between structured approaches for the screening and diagnosis of childhood tuberculosis and high variability between them in terms of case yield. Diagnostic systems that yield similarly low case frequencies may be identifying different subpopulations of children. The study findings do not support the routine clinical use of structured approaches for the definitive diagnosis of childhood tuberculosis, although high-yielding systems may be useful screening tools.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Supervision of community peer counsellors for infant feeding in South Africa: An exploratory qualitative study ","field_subtitle":"Daniels KL, Nor B, Jackson DJ, Ekstrom E and Doherty T: Human Resources for Health 8(6), 30 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-8-6.pdf","body":"This qualitative paper reports on the experience of three community health worker (CHW) supervisors who were responsible for supporting infant feeding peer counsellors. The intervention took place in three diverse settings in South Africa. Each setting employed one CHW supervisor, each of whom was individually interviewed for this study. The study forms part of the process evaluation of a large-scale randomised controlled trial of infant feeding peer counselling support. The findings highlight the complexities of supervising and supporting CHWs. In order to facilitate effective infant feeding peer counselling, supervisors in this study had to move beyond mere technical management of the intervention to broader people management. While their capacity to achieve this was based on their own prior experience, it was enhanced through being supported themselves. In turn, resource limitations and concerns over safety and being in a rural setting were raised as some of the challenges to supervision. Adding to the complexity was the issue of HIV. Supervisors not only had to support CHWs in their attempts to offer peer counselling to mothers who were potentially HIV positive, but they also had to deal with supporting HIV-positive peer counsellors. This study highlights the need to pay attention to the experiences of supervisors so as to better understand the components of supervision in the field.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Systematic review exploring time trends in the association between educational attainment and risk of HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Hargreaves JR, Bonell CP, Boler T, Boccia D, Birdthistle I, Fletcher A, Pronyk PM and Glynn JR: AIDS 22:403\u2013414, January 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y7vnw7q","body":"This paper assesses evidence on the association between educational attainment and risk of HIV infection over time in sub-Saharan Africa through a systematic review of published peer-reviewed articles. Approximately 4,000 abstracts and 1,200 full papers were reviewed, of which 36 were included in the study, containing data on 72 discrete populations from 11 countries between 1987 and 2003, and representing over 200,000 individuals. Studies on data collected prior to 1996 generally found either no association or the highest risk of HIV infection among the most educated. Studies conducted from 1996 onwards were more likely to find a lower risk of HIV infection among the most educated. HIV prevalence appeared to fall more consistently among highly educated groups. In several populations, associations suggesting greater HIV risk in the more educated at earlier time points were replaced by weaker associations later. It seems that HIV infections are shifting towards higher prevalence among the least educated in sub-Saharan Africa, reversing previous patterns. Policy responses that ensure HIV-prevention measures reach all strata of society and increase education levels are urgently needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Tackling Africa's chronic disease burden: From the local to the global ","field_subtitle":"De-Graft Aikins A, Unwin N, Agyemang C, Allotey P, Campbell C and Arhinful D: Globalization and Health 6(5), 19 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-6-5.pdf","body":"There is a strong consensus that Africa faces significant challenges in chronic disease research, practice and policy. This editorial reviews eight original papers submitted to a Globalization and Health special issue themed: 'Africa's chronic disease burden: Local and global perspectives'. The papers offer new empirical evidence and comprehensive reviews on, among others, diabetes in Tanzania, and HIV and AIDS care-giving among children in Kenya. Regional and international reviews are offered on cardiovascular risk in Africa, comorbidity between infectious and chronic diseases and cardiovascular disease, diabetes and established risk factors among populations of sub-Saharan African descent in Europe. The editorial discusses insights from these papers within the contexts of medical, psychological, community and policy dimensions of chronic disease. It argues that there is an urgent need for primary and secondary interventions and for African health policymakers and governments to prioritise the development and implementation of chronic disease policies. Two gaps need critical attention. The first gap concerns the need for multidisciplinary models of research to properly inform the design of interventions. The second gap concerns understanding the processes and political economies of policy making in sub-Saharan Africa. The editorial concludes that the economic impact of chronic diseases for families, health systems and governments and the relationships between national policy making and international economic and political pressures have a huge impact on the risk of chronic diseases and the ability of countries to respond to them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The roles of educators in mitigating the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the education system in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Higher Education HIV/AIDS Programme: December 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yytechl","body":"The purpose of this study was to determine the roles of educators in mitigating the impact of the HIV and AIDS pandemic, and to ascertain the skills and knowledge required by them to play such roles effectively. The study gathered data from 3,678 survey respondents to a questionnaire. Qualitative fieldwork showed that levels of concern among educators were polarised with respect to HIV and AIDS pandemic, ranging from lack of concern and denial of its importance to extreme concern and a strong sense of ethical responsibility to mitigate its impact. However, most respondents displayed a very high level of concern regarding the pandemic. They pointed to an urgent need for training and resources for future roles. The study made four recommendations. It urged for a resolution to South Africa's current strategic dilemma, namely whether to prescribe approaches to mitigating the impact of the pandemic or allow individuals and institutions to develop their own responses. It also called for curriculum interventions that meet the challenges of the pandemic, differentiated interventions that enable educators to meet the challenges of the pandemic and more time to develop appropriate resources and support, including training.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Twenty-sixth International Paediatric Association (IPA) Congress of Paediatrics, 2010","field_subtitle":"Registration deadline: 22 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.ipa-world.org/IPAcongress/default.htm?ref3=db1%20IPA_reg%40kenes.com","body":"Three leading paediatric associations are uniting to host the 26th IPA Congress of Paediatrics in Johannesburg, South Africa from 4\u20139 August 2010. More than 5,000 participants are expected to attend this landmark event, the first IPA congress to be held in sub-Saharan Africa. It will unite paediatricians and health professionals working towards the target set by Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce child mortality by two thirds before 2015. The scientific programme is designed to meet the needs of general paediatricians from both the developed and the developing world. Plenary sessions will include: the MDGs and the current state of health of children in the world, and progress towards the MDGs; the state of the world\u2019s newborns, including major issues determining maternal and newborn health in developing and developed countries; the determinants of health, such as genetics, nutrition and the environment; disasters and trauma affecting child health, such as disasters, crises and the worldwide epidemic of trauma; and the global burden of infectious diseases affecting children and the challenge of emerging infections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal access by 2010: Scaling up for success","field_subtitle":"International AIDS Society Policy Paper: March 2010","field_url":"http://www.iasociety.org/Web/WebContent/File/3Gs_Policy_Paper_18_03_10.pdf","body":"This paper presents data to show how under-financing the global response to AIDS has proven disastrous in the past. The lack of an early, well-financed and effective response to AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s provided an opportunity for this epidemic to grow rapidly when a sustained, global response could have prevented the spread of HIV and the resulting impact on the health, economies and communities of the world\u2019s poorest nations. Recent increases in dedicated AIDS financing, however, particularly over the last five years, have produced impressive gains across a wide range of health, development, economic and social indicators. Increases in the number of people on HIV treatment tracks the increase in donor financing for AIDS. In 2008 alone, funding for HIV-specific programmes from wealthy countries grew to US$7.7 billion \u2013 a 56% increase from 2007. The brief urges governments and other stakeholders to adopt progressive financing mechanisms for health. It notes that, if full investments were made in country-level universal access targets by 2010 that: the number of new HIV infections averted in 2009-2010 alone would be 2.6 million; the number of deaths averted over that year would be 1.3 million; and incidence of HIV over that year would be cut by nearly 50%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"What can we conclude from death registration? Improved methods for evaluating completeness ","field_subtitle":"Murray CJL, Rajaratnam JK, Marcus J, Laakso T, Lopez AD: Public Library of Science Medicine 7(4), April 13, 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000262","body":"This paper systematically evaluates the performance of 234 variants of DDM methods in three different validation environments where the researchers knew or had strong beliefs about the true level of completeness of death registration. Using these datasets, it identified three variants of the DDMs that generally perform the best. It also found that even these improved methods yield uncertainty intervals of roughly one-quarter of the estimate. Finally, it demonstrates the application of the optimal variants in eight countries. In its conclusion, it notes that partial vital registration data in measuring adult mortality levels and trends still has a role, but such results should only be interpreted alongside all other data sources on adult mortality and the uncertainty of the resulting levels, trends, and age-patterns of adult death considered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Where there are no pharmacists: A guide to managing medicines for all health workers","field_subtitle":"Andersson S and Snell B: Third World Network and Health Action International Asia Pacific, 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/books/HAI.htm","body":"Where There Are No Pharmacists is about managing medicines. It explains how to order them, store them, prepare them, dispense them and use them safely and effectively. This book provides advice on all these aspects for people working with medicines as well as information to help communities benefit from the use of medicines. It provides guidance for anyone who is doing the work of a pharmacist; anyone who sells, dispenses, prepares, manages, or explains to others how to use medicines. It is especially intended for use in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Who benefits from health care in South Africa?","field_subtitle":"Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town: Information sheet 5, 2010","field_url":"http://uct-heu.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/IS5_heu_WhoBenefitsFromHealthCare.pdf","body":"According to this information sheet, within the public sector, the poor benefit relatively more than the rich from outpatient services at lower levels of care (i.e., district hospitals, clinics and community health centres). The rich benefit considerably more than the poor from regional and central hospital services (both outpatient and inpatient services) and also benefit more from public sector inpatient services overall. The rich benefit far more from private sector services than the poor; the richest 40% of the population receive about 70% of the benefits of private outpatient services (from general practitioners, specialists, dentists and retail pharmacies) and nearly 80% of the benefits of inpatient care in private hospitals. Overall, health care benefits in South Africa are very \u2018pro-rich\u2019, with the richest 20% of the population receiving more than a third of total benefits while the poorest 20% receive less than 13% of the benefits, despite the poor bearing a much greater share of the burden of ill-health than the rich.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Who pays for health care in South Africa?","field_subtitle":"Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town: Information sheet 4, 2009","field_url":"http://uct-heu.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IS4_heu_WhoPaysForHealthCare.pdf","body":"This information sheet provides basic facts about financing of health care in South Africa. Health care financing is based on tax, which, in South Africa, is relatively progressive. Tax revenue is the only funding in South Africa that is used for health services that benefit all. Out-of-pocket payments or direct payments to health care providers are regressive. Medical scheme contributions are the biggest single share of health care financing in South Africa. Lower income medical scheme members contribute a higher percentage of their income than higher income medical scheme members. The greatest burden of funding health services rests on medical scheme members, particularly the lowest income scheme members, and the largest part of this burden takes the form of medical scheme contributions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Will we end the HIV epidemic? The impact of HIV treatment on HIV prevention and implications for the 2010 replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria","field_subtitle":"International AIDS Society: March 2010","field_url":"http://www.iasociety.org/Web/WebContent/File/IAS_GFRreport_March_2010.pdf","body":"According to this article, since the 2005 commitment by G8 leaders \u2013 and thereafter all United Nations Member States \u2013 to work towards universal access to HIV treatment, prevention and care by 2010, many resource-limited countries have been highly successful in decreasing AIDS-related morbidity and mortality and slowing down the spread of HIV. The efforts to achieve this scale up have been driven by governments and civil society in these countries, with much of the resources provided by external partners, in particular the United States' PEPFAR2 and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. Since its inception in 2002, the investments made through the Global Fund are estimated to have saved five million lives, including through the provision of HIV treatment to 2.5 million people. This article poses a question to donors to the Global Fund: How many more lives they are prepared to save in the next three years? And will they make the bold investments required to make a real change to the future course of the HIV epidemic?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Working together to reduce harmful drinking","field_subtitle":"Grant Marcus and Mark Leverton (eds): The International Centre for Alcohol Policies, October 2009","field_url":"http://www.clinicalpsychologyarena.com/working-together-to-reduce-harmful-drinking-9780415800877","body":"According to this book, the abuse of alcohol has drastic consequences on the safety and health outcomes of nations. Road accidents, family and sexual violence and homicide and foetal alcohol syndrome, are some of the occurrences where alcohol tends to have a direct role. Working Together to Reduce Harmful Drinking contains nine chapters written by experts in the alcohol industry, government and academia. It seeks to contribute to a global strategy to reduce irresponsible and harmful alcohol consumption and its attendant risks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Worrying rise in STIs among young Zimbabweans","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 14 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=88810","body":"A new report by Zimbabwe's National AIDS Council (NAC), showing a dramatic rise in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among people aged 15 to 24 in the capital, Harare, has health experts worried that the country's success so far in reducing HIV could be reversed. STIs heighten vulnerability to HIV infection, and this age group is one of the most affected. According to the NAC report, more than 24,000 people were treated for STIs in 2009, compared to 8,500 cases recorded in 2008. During this time almost 900,000 male condoms and over 155,000 female condoms were distributed in Harare. Itai Rusike, executive director of the Community Working Group on Health (CWGH), a network of civic groups that promote health awareness, blamed the rise in STIs on a too-narrow focus on HIV and AIDS treatment, at the cost of prevention interventions, especially for young people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Youth participation in development: A guide for development agencies and policy makers","field_subtitle":"Students Partnership Worldwide and DFID\u2013CSO Youth Working Group: March 2010","field_url":"http://www.ygproject.org/sites/default/files/6962_Youth_Participation_in_Development.pdf","body":"This guide explores a number of different themes related to youth participation in development: governance, voice and accountability, post-conflict transition and livelihoods, and sexual and reproductive health. In the sexual and reproductive health section, several examples of youth-focused health initiatives from Uganda are discussed, such as Uganda's National Development Plan and the Youth Empowerment Programme. Another health initiative, Young, Empowered and Healthy (Yeah) is a sexual health campaign for and by young people in Uganda was launched in 2004 under the auspices of the Uganda AIDS Commission and uses radio and other media to reach youth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"'Danger pay\u2019 for TB staff?","field_subtitle":"Cullinan K: Health-e News, 23 March 2010  ","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032700","body":"Durban health workers who treat patients with drug-resistant TB are noted to face increase risk of drug resistant TB. According to Dr Iqbal Master, head of clinical services at King George V Hospital in Durban, the province\u2019s specialist hospital for drug-resistant TB, they should be given special incentives to recognise this. King George V Hospital has been trying to get itself declared 'inhospitable', which would mean that staff would get additional incentives for this. Workers at the facility are reported to be six times more likely to get drug-resistant TB than ordinary members of the public. In the last decade, 14 staff members are reported to have died of the TB and one staff member was being treated for drug-resistant (XDR) TB.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"'Side dishes' campaign in Uganda gets people talking","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 24 March 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88543","body":"A national campaign to encourage sexual fidelity in Uganda is reported to have got the country talking. The nine-month-long 'One Love' campaign is in the second of three phases, which uses television and radio ads that highlight AIDS-related deaths from 'eating a side dish' - a euphemism for having a sexual relationship outside marriage. The intention of the second phase is to bring home the effects of infidelity, not just on health, but on the lives of the people they care for most. The first phase - which ended in February - introduced the public to sexual networks, using forum theatre in rural communities and billboards, TV ads and radio spots in towns urging people to 'get off the sexual network'. Previous prevention campaigns have failed to directly address married and cohabiting Ugandans, the most likely group to become HIV infected. Beyond the traditional routes of advertising, the campaign has also employed mobile-phone technology and the social networking site Facebook to engage with younger people in a higher socio-economic group.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"2010 Mass Immunisation Campaign","field_subtitle":"Department of Health, South Africa: 2010","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/immune-f.html","body":"This website contains all the documentations relevant to the South African Department of Health\u2019s national mass immunisation campaign of 2010. Documents cover immunisations against polio, measles and influenza, vitamin A supplementation and preventing worm infestation, together with evaluation guidelines. The website also provides emergency procedures to follow in case of anaphylaxis, information on the cold chain for vaccines, vaccine stock control and data, and worker-oriented information on the role of team leaders and supportive supervision. It also details the government\u2019s social mobilisation campaign to promote immunisation and awareness of the procedure.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A cluster randomized trial of routine HIV-1 viral load monitoring in Zambia: Study design, implementation, and baseline cohort characteristics ","field_subtitle":"Koethe JR, Westfall AO, Luhanga DK, Clark GM and Goldman JD et al: Public Library of Science ONE 5(3), 12 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0009680","body":"This study took the form of a cluster randomised controlled trial to compare the use of routine viral load (VL) testing for antiretroviral therapy (ART) versus local standard of care (which uses immunological and clinical criteria to diagnose treatment failure, with discretionary VL testing when the two do not agree). Twelve ART clinics in Lusaka, Zambia were included. The study was powered to detect a 36% reduction in mortality at 18 months. From December 2006 to May 2008, the study completed enrolment of 1,973 participants. Measured baseline characteristics did not differ significantly between the study arms. Enrolment was staggered by clinic pair and truncated at two matched sites. A large clinical trial of routing VL monitoring was successfully implemented in a dynamic and rapidly growing national ART program. Close collaboration with local health authorities and adequate reserve staff were critical to success. Randomised controlled trials such as this will likely prove valuable in determining long-term outcomes in resource-constrained settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Adolescent HIV: Cause for concern in southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Gray GE: Public Library of Science Medicine 7(2): 2 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000227","body":"In 2006, the Society for Adolescent Medicine issued its second position paper on HIV/AIDS in adolescents. It noted that although great progress had been made in the scientific understanding, diagnosis and treatment of HIV, and the prevention of perinatal transmission, there was a growing HIV crisis in the developing world. At least half of all new infections in the developing world were amongst youth and young adults, and a substantial number of teenagers and young adults were already living with HIV and AIDS. As HIV epidemics mature, increasing numbers of children infected perinatally survive and will present with HIV-related symptoms in older childhood and adolescence. Whilst the epidemiology of sexually acquired HIV infection amongst 15\u201324 year olds is well described in southern Africa, few data on the prevalence and disease pattern of perinatally acquired HIV infection in older children and adolescence exist. Recent data from a household survey conducted in South Africa in 2008 estimated the prevalence of HIV in children aged 2\u201314 years to be 2.5%. The survey indicates the relatively high prevalence of HIV in children and adolescents in this region. Most of these infections are acquired early in life and are probably undiagnosed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid for trade: An opportunity for re-thinking aid for economic growth","field_subtitle":"Br\u00fcntrup M and Voionmaa P: Trade Negotiation Insights 9(2), March 2010","field_url":"http://www.acp-eu-trade.org/library/files/tni_en_9-2.pdf","body":"In this article discussing aid for trade (AfT) initiatives between European and African states, the author points out that AfT may be misused, as it aims to integrate developing countries into global markets, which serves the interests of the Western world as they view these African states as (future) trading partners and as drivers of the global trade policy agenda they serve. Another risk of AfT is that it tends to underestimate the potential of domestic markets. For instance, the rapidly growing population and urbanisation in many African countries creates great opportunities for domestic farmers and food industries. The AfT agenda also adds to the increasing number of \u2018vertical\u2019 initiatives, such as the fund for HIV and AIDS or infrastructure. This leads to a segmentation of development cooperation, while efforts instead should seek to make aid more flexible by aligning it to developing countries\u2019 priorities without earmarking it in advance for certain thematic issues. For all these reasons, the authors recommend a very careful, transparent and participatory use of the AfT initiative. Trade and AfT are not ends in themselves, but means to achieve the ultimate goal of reducing poverty. Hence, AfT must be embedded in overarching national growth and poverty strategies which balance inward and outward orientation of national economies and ultimately aim to generate resources for social development and poverty reduction.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid workers battle to help \u2018forgotten\u2019 refugees","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 10 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88379","body":"With at least 67,000 refugees in southwest Uganda, the government and aid workers are still battling inadequate resources in what a United Nations (UN) official described as a \u2018silent emergency\u2019. \u2018We can hardly meet international standards of indicators such as water, health and food,\u2019 reported Nemia Temporal, deputy representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Uganda. \u2018For instance, we are delivering fifteen litres [of water] per person per day instead of the standard twenty litres.\u2019 After years of protracted conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with large influxes to neighbouring countries, the situation of the majority Congolese refugees is no longer considered that urgent by the wider aid community, Temporal said. At least 45,000 Congolese live in the 217sqkm Nakivale settlement in Isingiro District and Kyaka II in Kyegegwa District, where, thanks to the Ugandan government's refugee-friendly policy, they cultivate small pieces of land. Among the aid delivery gaps were the provision of shelter (plastic sheeting), water, health and sanitation, infrastructure and refugee protection. She urged a shift in humanitarian assistance so that relief aid goes hand-in-hand with livelihood support \u2018right from day one'.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"An overview of the food security situation in eastern Africa","field_subtitle":"Mukhebi A, Mbogoh S and Matungulu K: United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), 2010 ","field_url":"http://uneca.org/eca_programmes/srdc/ea/meetings/srcm2010/Food%20Security%20OVERVIEW.pdf","body":"This report presents the preliminary findings of a study undertaken in six pilot countries \u2013 Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and DR Congo. The objectives of the study were to provide a detailed assessment of food security-related initiatives, plans and strategies and also to describe the status of food security in the six countries. Based on the experiences and lessons learnt thereof, the study proposed ways of enhancing synergies and coherence between the identified food security initiatives of the regional economic communities (RECs), inter-governmental organisations (IGOs) and individual member states within Eastern Africa, to strengthen regional and country-specific partnerships in the development of a regional food security programme for Eastern Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Are the investments in national HIV monitoring and evaluation systems paying off?","field_subtitle":"Peersman G, Rugg D, Erkkola T, Kiwango E and Yang JM: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 52(S2): S87-S96, December 2009","field_url":"http://journals.lww.com/jaids/Fulltext/2009/12012/Are_the_Investments_in_National_HIV_Monitoring_and.3.aspx","body":"Globally, concerted efforts and substantial financial resources have gone toward strengthening national monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems for HIV programmes. This paper explores whether those investments have made a difference in terms of data availability, quality and use for assessing whether national programmes are on track to achieve the 2015 Millennium Development Goal of halting and reversing the global HIV epidemic. It found a marked increase in the number of countries where the prerequisites for a national HIV M&E system are in place, as well as in human resources devoted to M&E at the national level. However, crucial gaps remain, such as available M&E data and data quality assurance. The extent to which data are used for programme improvement is difficult to ascertain. There is a potential threat to sustaining the current momentum in M&E, as governments have not committed long-term funding and current M&E-related expenditures are below the minimum needed to make M&E systems fully functional. Nonetheless, essential data gaps will need to be filled urgently to provide quality data to guide future decision making.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Benefits of global partnerships to facilitate access to medicines in developing countries: A multi-country analysis of patients and patient outcomes in GIPAP","field_subtitle":"Kanavos P, Vandoros S and Garcia-Gonzalez P: Globalization and Health 5(19), 31 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/5/1/19","body":"Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML), a rare disease, can be treated effectively, but the pharmaceutical treatment available (imatinib) is costly and unaffordable by most patients. 'GIPAP' is a programme set up between a manufacturer and a non-governmental organisation to provide free treatment to eligible CML patients in 80 countries worldwide. This study discusses the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of patients participating in GIPAP. It researches the impact GIPAP is having on health outcomes (survival) of assistance-eligible CML patients and discusses the determinants of such outcomes and whether there are any variations according to socio-economic, demographic, or geographical criteria. Data for 13,568 patients across 15 countries, available quarterly, was analysed over the 2005-2007 period. GIPAP was found to have a significant positive effect on patient access to medicines for CML and on survival rates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research: Science to accelerate universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 30 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/","body":"The Symposium is the first of its kind targeting a multi-disciplinary field and audience and will gather researchers, policy-makers, funders and other stakeholders in a three-day conference. Researchers, policy-makers, funders, and other stakeholders representing diverse constituencies will meet from 16\u201319 November 2010 in Montreux, Switzerland, to share evidence, identify significant knowledge gaps, and set a research agenda that reflects the needs of low and middle-income countries. Themes include: political economy of universal health coverage; health system financing; scaling-up of health services; monitoring and evaluation; knowledge translation; terminology, taxonomies and frameworks; methods for health science research (HSR) and knowledge translation; measures used in HSR; capacity building for HSR; and multidisciplinary approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Ninth Scientific Conference and Third Quadrennial Meeting: Revitalising primary health care and achieving the Millennium Development Goals: Lusaka, Zambia, 23\u201327 August 2010","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 15 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.ecsa.or.tz","body":"Applicants are invited to submit abstracts to this year\u2019s conference on the theme \u2018Revitalising primary health care and achieving the Millennium Development Goals\u2019. There are six sub-themes: strengthening human resources for health management for effective health; fostering quality assurance in health care; enhancing equitable access to mental health care services through primary health care; improving maternal and child health; advocating for improved sexual and reproductive health services; strengthening primary health care for prevention and control of communicable and non-communicable diseases and lifestyle health problems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications: Graca Machel Scholarships for postgraduate study in South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 10 August 2010","field_url":"http://www.canoncollins.org.uk","body":"The key aim of the Gra\u00e7a Machel Scholarship Programme is to help provide the female human resources necessary for economic, social and cultural development in the southern African region and to develop an educated and skilled workforce that can benefit the wider community. Scholarships that target women have long been recognised as an effective approach in addressing gender equality and eradicating poverty. By providing opportunities to study at postgraduate level, these scholarships aim to empower women and to equip them to take up leadership positions in order to have a direct impact in the communities, nations and region in which they live. These female scholars must be positive role models for other women. The scholarships are for female students from Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe studying in South Africa. They are valid for two years\u2019 postgraduate study and include payment of a maintenance allowance, travel, health insurance and tuition fees. Applicants must have at least two years\u2019 relevant work experience.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications: YouthActionNet 2010 Global Fellowship Programme","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 9 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.youthactionnet.org/index.php?fuse=mediacontent&id=151","body":"A programme of the International Youth Foundation, YouthActionNet seeks to develop a new generation of socially conscious global citizens who create positive change in their communities, their countries, and the world. Each year, 20 young social entrepreneurs are selected as YouthActionNet Global Fellows following a competitive application process. The yearlong Global Fellowship includes: skill-building, networking and resources, and advocacy. It is open to all young people aged 18\u201329. Applicants must be the founder/co-founder of an existing organisation, or a project within an organisation, with a demonstrated one year track record of leading societal change. Proficiency in English is required, and applications must be submitted in English. Applicants must attend the full retreat, 1\u20138 October 2010 (all expenses paid).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Causes of acute hospitalization in adolescence: Burden and spectrum of HIV-related morbidity in a country with an early-onset and severe HIV epidemic: A prospective survey","field_subtitle":"Ferrand RA, Bandason T, Musvaire P, Larke N, Nathoo K, Mujuru H, Ndhlovu CE, Munyati S, Cowan FM, Gibb DM and Corbett EL: Public Library of Science Medicine 7(2): 2 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000178","body":"Survival to older childhood with untreated, vertically acquired HIV infection, which was previously considered extremely unusual, is increasingly well described. However, the overall impact on adolescent health in settings with high HIV sero-prevalence has not previously been investigated. Adolescents (aged 10\u201318 y) systematically recruited from acute admissions to the two public hospitals in Harare, Zimbabwe, answered a questionnaire and underwent standard investigations including HIV testing, with consent. Pre-set case-definitions defined cause of admission and underlying chronic conditions. Participation was 94%. One hundred and thirty-nine (46%) of 301 participants were HIV-positive, but only four were positive for herpes simplex virus-2 (HSV-2). Case fatality rates were significantly higher for HIV-related admissions (22% versus 7%, p","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Cholera prevention programme in Malawi a beacon of success","field_subtitle":"Ngozo C: Inter Press Service News Agency, 23 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=50439","body":"Mkanda, in central Malawi, is presented as a successful example of cholera control through the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach, with a fall from  fourteen to zero cholera cases in a year. The article does not give adequate evidence to attribute the cause of the decline, but toilet availability and community awareness both improved in the year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"CIVICUS World Assembly 2010: Montr\u00e9al, Canada: 20-23 August 2010  ","field_subtitle":"Closing date for registration: 6 August 2010","field_url":"https://www.civicusassembly.org/","body":"Every year, the CIVICUS World Assembly offers about fifty activities grouped around the overall theme, an annual focus theme and sub-themes. The activities comprise plenary sessions, round tables, workshops, networking sessions and formal events. The 2010 World Assembly in Montreal will introduce the concept of interactive group discussions (or Parcours) for the first time. The overall theme of the CIVICUS World Assembly is 'Acting Together for a Just World'. Every year this is explored through a focus theme. In 2010 the focus theme will be 'Seeking Out Solutions'. This theme will address the issues of economy, development and climate. The Assembly has a number of aims. It offers: to provide first hand knowledge on the state of the art of civil society thinking; to establish cross-cutting relationships with civil society, business, media, government and donor organisation professionals from around the globe; in-depth exchange of expertise on how people from all sectors act together to (re)gain the power to enforce decisions; training and capacity building on a wide range of tangible skills e.g. fundraising, networking, mobilisation, volunteering, campaigning etc; and the opportunity to find partners and funding to realise and expand your projects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Conditional cash transfers: A \u2018pathway to women\u2019s empowerment\u2019? Do cash transfers continue poor women\u2019s second-class citizenship status? ","field_subtitle":"Molyneux M: Pathways of Women's Empowerment RPC, 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.pathwaysofempowerment.org/PathwaysWP5-website.pdf","body":"Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) provide mothers of school-age children in extreme poverty with a cash subsidy conditional on their children's attendance at school and health clinics. This paper assesses the evidence for the claim that these programmes empower women. It finds that, although CCTs are designed to target the extremely poor and the particularly vulnerable, they operate under a highly selective definition of social need, and these programmes privilege and target some needs over others even at household level, reinforcing social/gender inequalities within the family itself. Highly unequal gender relations were found to be central in the functioning of such programmes. The paper argues that cash transfers should be part of a broader effort to improve and strengthen the social sector while attending to the urgent needs of the most deprived. If they signal a move in the direction of residualist welfare policies designed as compensation for exclusionary economic development, then they represent a more worrying trend. If cash transfers are to enhance the life chances of seriously disadvantaged populations, their design needs to take into account the household as a whole, so that the needs of all members are met.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Course on global health diplomacy, Geneva 21-25 June 2010","field_subtitle":"The Global Health Programme at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID): Deadline for applications: 2 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.globalhealtheurope.org/images/stories /Executive_course_on_Global_Health_Diplomacy_2010_v3.pdf","body":"Diplomacy is undergoing profound changes in the 21st century - and global health is one of the areas where this is most apparent. As health moves beyond its purely technical realm to become an ever more critical element in foreign policy, security policy and trade agreements, new skills are needed to negotiate global regimes, international agreements and treaties, and to maintain relations with a wide range of actors. The summer course will focus on health diplomacy as it relates to health issues that transcend national boundaries and are global in nature, discuss the challenges before it, and how they are being addressed by different groups and at different levels of governance. Deliberations include Intellectual Property Rights, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the International Health Regulations, the creation of new finance mechanisms such as the Global Fund for Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria or UNITAID, and the response to SARS and Avian Flu. The course director is Prof. Dr. Ilona Kickbusch. Tuition for attending the programme is 2,800 Swiss francs, excluding travel costs, accommodation or other living expenses in Geneva.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 80: Implementation of the TRIPS flexibilities by east and southern African countries: Status of patent law reforms by 2010","field_subtitle":"Munyuki E and Machemedze R: January 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss80TRIPSupdate2010.pdf","body":"Least developed countries have until 2016 to reform their IP regimes and enact new patent laws in line with Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). A number of amendments to the TRIPS agreement were made \u2013 TRIPS 'flexibilities' \u2013 to take care of the health-related concerns of developing countries. Member states have the authority to use these flexibilities when this is necessary to protect public health and to promote access to medicines. The Southern and Eastern African Trade, Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI), under the umbrella of the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET), carried out an assessment of LDCs in East and Southern Africa with regard to their progress towards the new intellectual property (IP) regimes. The study reviewed the situation in sixteen east and southern African countries through a desk review of published and grey literature. The study found that most of the IP regimes currently in ESA countries were in existence before the TRIPS agreement was adopted. These included laws that provide some flexibilities, which were in most cases not being implemented. Only Mauritius and Zambia have formally adopted the protocol amending the TRIPS agreement at the WTO. The December 2009 deadline has been further extended to the end of December 2011 and it is important for all ESA countries to formally adopt the proposal by then to avoid unnecessary renegotiations of the TRIPS amendments. This paper presents a number of recommendations on how ESA countries should apply and implement the TRIPS flexibilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Entries to Susie Smith Memorial Prize now invited for 2010 ","field_subtitle":"Oxfam GB: Closing date: 18 April 2010","field_url":"","body":"The Susie Smith memorial prize of \u00a33000 will be awarded to a single piece of already published writing on HIV and AIDS from sub-Saharan Africa. Any type of piece \u2013 (e.g. poetry, fiction, article, chapter of a book) \u2013 of up to 10,000 words, in English, and published since January 2006, will be eligible. The judges will focus on two key elements: Quality of the piece itself (writing, analysis, insights); and evidence of impact of the writing in the media and/or with people, governments or other institutions. All submissions must be received by 18 April 2010 and include a cover letter outlining what kind of impact the piece has had and/or what it has achieved, sent to: Susie Smith Memorial Prize Submission, Oxfam Great Britain, Oxfam House, John Smith Drive, Oxford, OX4 2JY.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org Website: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free.\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 110: Keeping an eye on equity: Community Visions of equity in health ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET: Regional network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"TARSC and EQUINET: March 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Equinet%20brief%202010.pdf","body":"The Regional Network on Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) is a network of professionals, civil society members, policy makers, state officials and others within the region who have come together as an equity catalyst, to promote and realise shared values of equity and social justice in health. This brief outlines EQUINET's mission, organisation, areas of work and resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EU\u2019s win in tough trade deal may set precedent for developing nations","field_subtitle":"Cronin D: Intellectual Property Watch, 25 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/2010/02/25/tough-ip-health-provisions-in-europes-colombiaperu-trade-deal/","body":"This piece sends a warning signal on the issue of patenting on trade agreements. Far-reaching provisions on the patenting of medicine have been inserted into a controversial free trade agreement (FTA) between the European Union (EU) and Colombia and Peru. While less ambitious on patenting and with shorter durations of exclusivity than proposals earlier put forward by EU, in the agreement makers of branded drugs will enjoy \u2018test data exclusivity\u2019 over the scientific formulae they have used and will be able to delay generic versions of their products from appearing on the market. This data exclusivity will apply for five years, increasing the amount countries spend on  medicines in the period, despite high poverty levels. The concern for Africa is that this agreement sets an unfortunate precedent for countries concluding trade agreements with the EU, notably the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group, to avoid such clauses which undermine their efforts to meet the health care needs of their citizens.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Free journal access via HINARI Programme for Access to Health Research","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hinari/en/","body":"The Programme for Access to Health Research (HINARI) provides free or very low cost online access to the major journals in biomedical and related social sciences to local, not-for-profit institutions in developing countries. More than 150 publishers are offering more than 6,200 journals in HINARI and others will soon be joining the programme. HINARI was developed in the framework of the Health InterNetwork, introduced by the United Nations' Secretary General Kofi Annan at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000. Local, not-for-profit institutions in two groups of countries may register for access to the journals through HINARI. The country lists are based on GNI per capita (World Bank figures). Institutions in countries with GNI per capita below US$1,250 are eligible for free access. Institutions in countries with GNI per capita between $1,250-$3,500 pay a fee of $1,000 per year / institution. Eligible categories of institutions are: national universities, research institutes, professional schools (medicine, nursing, pharmacy, public health, dentistry), teaching hospitals, government offices and national medical libraries. All staff members and students are entitled to access to the journals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Gaps in HIV prevention for pregnant Kenyan women","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 22 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=88513","body":"The Kenyan government is considering a policy of repeat HIV testing during pregnancy. 'Currently, the lack of it is a gap in our policies,' said Peter Cherutich, head of HIV prevention at the National AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections Control Programme. 'Testing should be done periodically, even after childbirth, because a mother can become infected even during the breastfeeding period.' At present, HIV-positive mothers and their babies in Kenya are given a combination of three antiretroviral drugs after a single test, usually carried in the early stages of the pregnancy. 'If a woman tests negative during her prenatal test, gets infected during the pregnancy, and is not given the necessary medication during labour to protect the child, she stands a chance of infecting her child at birth or even during breastfeeding and you go back to square one,' Cherutich said. Infants contracting HIV through their mothers account for about 20% of an estimated 166,000 annual HIV infections in Kenya.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Health care financing in South Africa: Moving towards universal coverage","field_subtitle":"Ataguba JE and Akazili J: Continuing Medical Education, 28(2): 74\u201378, February 2010","field_url":"http://www.cmej.org.za/index.php/cmej/article/viewFile/1782/1466","body":"This article argues that South Africa\u2019s proposed national health insurance (NHI) puts it on a trajectory of achieving universal access to quality health care for all its residents. It reports that current inequalities and inequities in access and utilisation of health care services place a greater burden on the poor and vulnerable. While it argues that the proposed NHI is not a magic bullet for all the problems of the health sector in South Africa, if it is well designed, planned, managed and effectively implemented, it is likely to improve the overall health outcomes of South Africans, as well as nudge the country towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"High uptake of HIV testing for tuberculosis patients in an integrated primary health care HIV/TB programme in rural KwaZulu-Natal","field_subtitle":"Wallrauch C, Heller T, Lessells R, Kekana M, Barnighausen T, Newell M: South African Medical Journal 100(3): 146\u2013147, March 2010","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/3898/2700","body":"Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the HIV-infected African population. The need for improved integration of HIV and TB services was highlighted by the World Health Organization (WHO) several years ago, but implementation of recommendations has been slow. HIV testing for TB patients is the gateway for combined HIV and TB treatment, care and prevention yet, in 2007, only 37% of TB patients in the WHO African region were tested for HIV. While some countries reported testing rates above 75%, a testing rate of only 39% was reported in South Africa, the country with the largest burden of HIV/TB co-infection. This study describes efforts to ensure high HIV testing rates in TB patients via an integrated programme at primary health care level in rural KwaZulu-Natal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV prevention for South African youth: Which interventions work? A systematic review of current evidence","field_subtitle":"Harrison A, Newell M, Imrie J and Hoddinott G: BMC Public Health 10(102), 26 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-10-102.pdf","body":"In South Africa, HIV prevalence among youth aged 15-24 is among the world's highest, which prompted this review to assess youth HIV-prevention interventions in the country since 2000. Eight interventions were included, all of which were similar in HIV prevention content and objectives, but varied in thematic focus, hypothesised causal pathways, theoretical basis, delivery method, intensity and duration. Interventions were school- or group-based, involving in- and out-of-school youth. Primary outcomes included HIV incidence, reported sexual risk behaviour alone, or with alcohol use. Interventions led to reductions in sexually transmitted infections and reported sexual or alcohol risk behaviours, although effect size varied. All but one targeted at least one structural factor associated with HIV infection: gender and sexual coercion, alcohol/substance use or economic factors. Delivery methods and formats varied, and included teachers, peer educators and older mentors. School-based interventions experienced frequent implementation challenges. Key recommendations include: address HIV social risk factors, such as gender, poverty and alcohol; target the structural and institutional context; work to change social norms; and engage schools in new ways, including participatory learning.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights and HIV advocacy tools","field_subtitle":"United Nations Development Programme: 1 January 2009","field_url":"http://www.chr.up.ac.za/undp/introduction.html","body":"This set of advocacy tools was developed by the AIDS and Human Rights Research Unit, a joint programme of the Centre for Human Rights and the Centre for the Study of AIDS at the University of Pretoria, and the United Nations Development Programme. According to the developers, violations of human rights exacerbate the spread of the pandemic and the impact of HIV on individuals, communities, and countries is worsened by the inadequate realisation of human rights. The tools are a series of documents created to respond to an identified need for advocacy and information material on human rights-based responses to HIV. They are based on the premise that ensuring the implementation and respect of human rights norms and standards will contribute to reduce vulnerability to HIV transmission, challenge stigma and discrimination, and ensure access to HIV-related treatment, care and support services. They are designed to assist parliamentarians, government officials, members of the judiciary, lawyers, civil society organisations, people living with HIV, and all interested institutions and individuals in the implementation and advocacy of human rights norms in the context of the HIV pandemic. They are designed to enhance efforts at national, regional, and global levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of antiretroviral therapy on incidence of pregnancy among HIV-infected women in sub-Saharan Africa: A cohort study ","field_subtitle":"Myer L, Carter RJ, Katyal M, Toro P and El-Sadr WM et al: Public Library of Science Medicine 7(2), 9 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000229","body":"This study investigated whether or not antiretroviral therapy (ART) influences pregnancy rates. It analysed data from the Mother-to-Child Transmission-Plus (MTCT-Plus) Initiative, a multi-country HIV care and treatment programme for women, children and families. From eleven programmes in seven African countries, women were enrolled into care regardless of HIV disease stage and followed at regular intervals, while ART was initiated according to national guidelines on the basis of immunological and/or clinical criteria. Factors independently associated with increased risk of incident pregnancy included younger age, lower educational attainment, being married or cohabiting, having a male partner enrolled into the program, failure to use nonbarrier contraception, and higher CD4 cell counts. The study found that ART use is associated with significantly higher pregnancy rates among HIV-infected women in sub-Saharan Africa. While the possible behavioural or biomedical mechanisms that may underlie this association require further investigation, these data highlight the importance of pregnancy planning and management as a critical but neglected component of HIV care and treatment services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Implicit value judgments in the measurement of health inequalities","field_subtitle":"Harper S, King NB, Meersman SC, Reichman ME, Breen N and Lynch J: Milbank Quarterly Volume 88, Number 1, 2010","field_url":"http://www.milbank.org/quarterly/8801feat.html","body":"This study questions the assumption that the measurement of health inequalities is a value-neutral process that provides objective data that is then interpreted using normative judgments about whether a particular distribution of health is just, fair or socially acceptable. The study discusses five examples in which normative judgments play a role in the measurement process itself, through either the selection of one measurement strategy to the exclusion of others or the selection of the type, significance, or weight assigned to the variables being measured. Overall, it found that many commonly used measures of inequality are value laden and that the normative judgments implicit in these measures have important consequences for interpreting and responding to health inequalities. Because values implicit in the generation of health inequality measures may lead to radically different interpretations of the same underlying data, the study urges researchers to explicitly consider and transparently discuss the normative judgments underlying their measures. Policymakers and other consumers of health inequalities data should pay close attention to the measures on which they base their assessments of current and future health policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Interview with Global Fund director Michel Kazatchkine","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 12 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=88413","body":"In this interview, the executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Michel Kazatchkine answers some questions about HIV and AIDS funding at the launch of the organisation's 2010 report. He said that he considered AIDS an exceptional threat, quoting the large numbers affected by the epidemic. He did not think that too much has been invested in HIV and AIDS to the detriment of other illnesses, pointing out that over a third of the overall funding of the Global Fund goes to strengthening health systems. The interview reports on the limited impact of the financial crisis on the Global Fund, the significant contribution of the Fund to anti-retroviral treatment in low-income countries and observations on the channels for the funds of the organisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Is Africa heading for another food crisis?","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 2 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88287","body":"Long, dry spells in parts of Africa have cast an uncertain cloud over crop yields for 2010 in some African countries. Food prices are lower than 2008 levels, but higher than in 2007. Abdolreza Abbassian, economist and secretary of the Intergovernmental Group on Grains at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) observed that it would take \u2018two consecutive bad years\u2019 for the 2008 food crisis to be repeated. Global cereal stocks were reported to be at comfortable levels, although reduction in producer subsidies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries has meant smaller surpluses in these regions, affecting overall available supplies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Keeping an eye on equity: Community visions of equity in health ","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Eye on equity team: R Loewenson, T Loewenson, B Kaim, M Chigama, S Juma, J Musingye, D Baatjies, A Zulu Lishandu, M Ulola, S Ally Joe, D Masuku, J Ongala, A Muhinda, M Masaigana, A Ryklief, C Mbwili, A Baba, W Nelson, S Mbuyita","field_url":"","body":"\u201cI feel free- I am liberated by this new skill- I am now able to communicate my world.\u201d \r\nMeso Ulola, a community member from Bunia, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo pointed to his camera as the instrument of his liberation. Behind him a sequence of photographs from his community told a story: a pregnant woman blocked by a river from the road to health services; community members discussing issues around chalk images on a board; young men heaving logs across a river and images of a motorbike crossing a newly constructed bridge. \r\n\r\nIn the last five years EQUINET has through Training and Research Support Centre and Ifakara Health Institute been supporting institutions that work at community level to carry out participatory action research studies in east and southern Africa. In each of the nine country sites, in both rural and urban settings, these studies have explored how communities are interacting with health systems. The issues they addressed ranged from how to overcome the barriers people who consume harmful levels of alcohol face in adhering to ante-retroviral treatment, to how to improve communication between people and health workers in local health planning. The reports of these studies can be found on the EQUINET website (www.equinetafrica.org). However, we struggled with how the communities involved could themselves communicate the realities of their lives, actions and insights, and be useful to community discussion on how to address the determinants of health. \r\n\r\nWe proposed to use photography as one tool for this. Facilitators and community members from the participatory work in seven sites coming from DRC, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Zambia were trained in photography skills and we embedded photography within the participatory work. We wanted the photos to express the lives of the people involved, to show the diversity of views, to allow both painful and hopeful images to surface, to pose questions, probe, give visions of solutions and actions. The photos were as much a means to encourage local community discussion as to raise wider awareness and community voice on issues. This was not an academic exercise, or about outsiders documenting people as victims, but about community members documenting their own situation and actions to improve social justice in health. We called it \u201cKeeping an eye on equity: Community visions of equity in health\u201d.\r\n\r\nIt wasn\u2019t straightforward. How to recharge batteries of cameras in communities that had no electricity? How to share photographs so all could comment when internet access is limited and slow? However even from remote areas in Western Kenya or a border town in Zimbabwe, the photos were uploaded to a shared website, we sent comments to each other, and the stories began to emerge through the images. After several months, the photographers chose those images that best communicated their reality and stories. These were compiled, have been shown locally in each setting in different ways, and will be used in ongoing work. They were also compiled by TARSC into an exhibit from all the countries at EQUINETs regional conference on equity in health in September 2009, and used to stimulate discussion on the issues raised, and on the power of different kinds of evidence in catalyzing action on health equity. As one participant at the conference commented: \u201cFrom other sources of evidence I imagined reality. From the photos I saw reality\u201d. \r\n\r\nSome of this work is now produced as a book newly available on the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Eye%20on%20Equity%20book2010.pdf. The book introduces and communicates the work underway, and opens discussion on community photography as a tool for change. \r\n\r\nDid we achieve our goal, of raising reality and issues as communities see them, and giving communities more direct voice in advancing equity in health? \r\n\r\nWhen we brought the work of all the countries together, new patterns emerged. For example children and women featured strongly across the images. Its clear that we feel injustice strongly when we see children in unfair and harmful situations. It motivates us to act. Women constantly appeared in the images as active not passive. The images showed how women, often invisibly, are using the resources available to take diverse actions for health. The photographs provided a new lens to discuss what was going on in communities, often raising issues that had become invisible or hidden. Discussing the experience, the community photographers observed that \u201cthe camera allowed is to connect with people in unexpected ways, and to hear people\u2019s opinions of their health and health care. The camera seemed to open new channels of communication, raising issues that may otherwise have been buried\u201d. Others observed, \u201cour photographs made us look afresh at unhealthy situations. They have also encouraged us by showing what we have achieved\u201d. \r\n\r\nThis is important given that our participatory research showed that our health systems have high legitimacy, but weak capabilities for social roles. They weakly address barriers and facilitators to uptake of services and there are many communication gaps between health workers and communities. These issues are well within our grasp to change, but communication is vital for this. The most vulnerable in communities often face an imbalance in power, skills and common language in communicating with health workers, and may deal with this by dropping out of services. Our experience suggests that community photography, embedded within participatory, collective processes, may be one way of offering new power to communities to collectively show their realities, without feeling limited by language. \r\n\r\nThe way we use and respond to photography has as much to with reclaiming the resources for health as the way we implement research or use evidence. We are bombarded by visual images every day of our lives \u2013 pictures on billboards, on many of the consumer products we buy, in leaflets, posters, books, on television or media. Every day we unconsciously interpret and respond to these images, influencing our attitudes, beliefs, values and life style. As Susan Sontag said in 1973, photographs invite us to think or feel in particular ways and \u201c\u2026 are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation and fantasy.\u201d In our work as health facilitators and activists, we see that photography in the hands of communities has the potential not only to give communities the power to present reality as they see it, but to use these images to move people from a point of feeling to questioning, to thinking about what change is needed. This is the power of the visual in the right context \u2013 to play a part in this process.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please read the PRA reports on the EQUINET website and the Eye on Equity Book.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Keeping an eye on equity: Community visions of equity in health","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R, Loewenson T, Kaim B, Chigama M, Juma S, Musingye J, Baatjies D, Zulu Lishandu A, Ulola M, Ally Joe S, Masuku D, Ongala J, Muhinda A, Masaigana M, Ryklief A, Mbwili C, Baba A, Nelson W and Mbuyita S: EQUINET, March 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Eye%20on%20Equity%20book2010.pdf","body":"Photographs speak louder than words. This book presents photographs taken by community photographers in seven east and southern African countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa and Zambia. We called our photographers the \u2018Eye on equity\u2019 team because the work was part of EQUINET\u2019s participatory action research work. Implemented through institutions in east and southern Africa, this work investigated, documented and implemented actions to understand and promote equity in health. We added photography as another tool to build and strengthen people-centred health systems and people\u2019s empowerment in health. The book presents images of equity in health and of actions to improve health. These are the stories of insiders: of members, health workers and health activists in the communities that are shown in the photographs. The photographs are being used to stimulate discussion of health issues and actions. The book thus introduces both the realities and the work underway. It opens discussion on community photography as a means of keeping an eye on equity and as a tool for change. The web version is for onscreen viewing. For a hard copy of the book please contact us at the email address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Keeping the promise: A forward-looking review to promote an agreed action agenda to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015","field_subtitle":"Ki-Moon B, United Nations Secretary-General: 12 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/64/665","body":"This report, which is issued pursuant to General Assembly resolution 64/184, presents information on progress made in achieving the Millennium Development Goals through a comprehensive review of successes, best practices and lessons learned, obstacles and gaps, and challenges and opportunities, leading to concrete strategies for action. It consists of four main sections. The introduction examines the importance of the Millennium Declaration and how it drives the United Nations development agenda. The second section reviews progress on achieving the Millennium Development Goals, presenting both shortfalls and successes in the global effort and outlines emerging issues. The third section sums up lessons learned to shape new efforts for accelerating progress to meet the Goals and identifies key success factors. The fourth and final section lists specific recommendations for action. The report calls for a new pact to accelerate progress in achieving the Goals in the coming years among all stakeholders, in a commitment towards equitable and sustainable development for all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi plans to scale up antiretroviral therapy for 2010","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 19 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=88480","body":"Malawi's government has set itself a major challenge this year, announcing plans to more than double the number of people receiving antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to half a million by the end of 2010. The country recently adopted new World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines that raise the threshold for ARV therapy from a CD4 count (a measure of immune system strength) of less than 200, to a CD4 count of 350, regardless of whether the patient is displaying symptoms. Some experts argue that starting patients on ARVs earlier could save the government money in the long term by reducing opportunistic infections such as tuberculosis. UNAIDS Country Coordinator, Patrick Brenny, said the targets were reachable, provided the country could mobilise the resources, including money, drugs and manpower. He noted that the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria had expressed willingness to fund implementation of new WHO treatment guidelines. Malawi has just had its funding extended by the Fund for a further six years and is now looking at how to make best use of the money in relation to the new guidelines. Brenny said Malawi was also researching ways to reduce its high dependence on foreign aid, including the possibility of building a local ARV manufacturing plant in partnership with Indian drug companies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Meals per gallon: The impact of industrial biofuels on people and global hunger","field_subtitle":"ActionAid: 2010","field_url":"http://www.actionaid.org.uk/doc_lib/meals_per_gallon_final.pdf","body":"In their new report, ActionAid estimates that, if all global biofuel targets are met, global food prices could rise by up to an additional 76% by 2020, causing an estimated 600 million extra people to go hungry. The report indicates that industrial biofuels are having disastrous local impacts on food security and land rights in many of the communities where they are grown. The scale of the current land grab has escalated in Africa \u2013 in just five African countries, 1.1 million hectares have been given over to industrial biofuels \u2013 an area the size of Belgium. Also, many industrial biofuels do not have lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to fossil fuels. The report puts forward a number of recommendations: placing a moratorium on the further expansion of industrial biofuel production and investment; ensuring that member states do not lock-in industrial biofuels to their 2010 national action plans; ending targets and financial incentives for industrial biofuels; and supporting small-scale sustainable biofuels in the European Union and abroad.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"MEDINFO 2010: Thirteenth International Congress on Medical Informatics","field_subtitle":"12\u201315 September 2010, Cape Town: Registration Period: 1 March to 30 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.medinfo2010.org/index.php?option=com_content%20&view=article&id=48&Itemid=88","body":"This will be the first time MEDINFO is held in Africa. The Congress aims to boost exposure to grassroots healthcare delivery and the underpinning health information systems, as well as to open the door to new academic partnerships into the future and help to nurture a new breed of health informaticians. The theme for the Congress is \u2018Partnerships for effective e-health solutions\u2019, with a particular focus on how innovative collaborations can promote sustainable solutions to health challenges. Information and communication technologies may have enormous potential for improving the health and lives of individuals. Innovative and effective change using such technologies is reliant upon people working together in partnerships to create innovative and effective solutions to problems with particular regard to contextual and environmental factors. To this end, the Congress brings together the health informatics community from across the globe who are seeking to work together and share experiences and knowledge to promote sustainable solutions to global health challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Mental health website","field_subtitle":"Movement for Global Mental Health: 2008","field_url":"http://www.globalmentalhealth.org/articles.html","body":"This website aims to improve services for people with mental disorders worldwide. In so doing, two principles are fundamental: first, the action should be informed by the best available scientific evidence; and, second, it should be in accordance with principles of human rights. The Movement is a global network of individuals and institutions who support this mission. The Movement's goal is to support demands for the scaling up of treatments for mental disorders, for the human rights of those affected to be protected, and for more research in low- and middle-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Multidrug and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis: 2010 global report on surveillance and response","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2010","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241599191_eng.pdf","body":"This report includes data on testing for extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) from 46 countries that have reported continuous surveillance or representative surveys of second-line drug resistance among multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) cases. Combining data from these countries, 5.4% of MDR-TB cases were found to have XDR-TB. Eight countries reported XDR-TB in more than 10% of MDR-TB cases. To date, a cumulative total of 58 countries have confirmed at least one case of XDR-TB. According to the Stop TB Partnership\u2019s Global Plan to Stop TB, 2006\u20132015, 1.3 million MDR-TB cases will need to be treated in the 27 high-burden countries between 2010 and 2015 at an estimated total cost of US$ 16.2 billion. The current level of funding in 2010 \u2013 including grants and other loans \u2013 in these countries is US$ 0.4 billion. Mobilisation of both national and international resources is urgently required to meet the current and future need. The funding required in 2015 is predicted to be 16 times higher than the funding that is available in 2010.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"National and subnational HIV/AIDS coordination: Are global health initiatives closing the gap between intent and practice?","field_subtitle":"Spicer N, Aleshkina J, Biesma R, Brugha R, Caceres C, Chilundo B, Chkhatarashvili K, Harmer A, Miege P, Murzalieva G, Ndubani P, Rukhadze N, Semigina T, Walsh A, Walt G and Zhang X: Globalization and Health 6(3), 2 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/6/1/3","body":"This study reviews primary data from seven country studies on the effects of three GHIs on coordination of HIV and AIDS programmes: the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and the World Bank's HIV and AIDS programmes, including the Multi-country AIDS Programme (MAP). In-depth interviews were conducted at national and sub-national levels (179 and 218 respectively) in seven countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America, between 2006 and 2008. Studies explored the development and functioning of national and sub-national HIV coordination structures, and the extent to which coordination efforts around HIV and AIDS are aligned with and strengthen country health systems. Positive effects of GHIs included the creation of opportunities for multi-sectoral participation, greater political commitment and increased transparency among most partners. However, the quality of participation was often limited, and some GHIs bypassed coordination mechanisms, especially at the sub-national level, weakening their effectiveness. The paper identifies residual national and sub-national obstacles to effective coordination and optimal use of funds by focal GHIs, which these GHIs, other donors and country partners need to collectively address.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Natural ventilation for infection control in health-care settings","field_subtitle":"Atkinson J, Chartier Y, Pessoa-Silva CL, Jensen P, Li Y and Seto W: World Health Organization, 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/publications/natural_ventilation.pdf","body":"Adequate ventilation can reduce the transmission of infection in health-care settings. Natural ventilation can be one of the effective environmental measures to reduce the risk of spread of infections in health care. This guideline first defines ventilation and then natural ventilation. It explores the design requirements for natural ventilation in the context of infection control, describing the basic principles of design, construction, operation and maintenance for an effective natural ventilation system to control infection in health-care settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"New model for HIV data takes into account new science","field_subtitle":"Odendal L: Health-e News, 23 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032699","body":"A new model for determining the demographic impact of HIV and AIDS in South Africa has been designed by two researchers, Leigh Johnson of the Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Research  and Rob Dorrington of the Centre for Actuarial Research at the University of Cape Town. The new model is to replace the ASSA 2003 model for estimating HIV prevalence, HIV-related deaths, the numbers of those in need of ARVs and the impact of HIV interventions to integrate new data emerging from South Africa\u2019s antenatal HIV-prevalence survey. The new model includes the ARV rollout data for up to the end of 2008. Because data shows that two-thirds of people starting ARVs are females, the model allows for different rates of ARV initiation in males and females, as well as for children and adults. It also recognises that the variable attrition rate across provinces.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New online civil society project","field_subtitle":"Civil Society Gateway: 2010","field_url":"http://www.civilsocietygateway.org","body":"If you\u2019re working in civil society and looking to sharpen your skills in communicating effectively with the media about your work against poverty, the environment and other issues \u2013 especially if you\u2019re presenting research from the South \u2013 then this online resource may be most helpful. The Civil Society Gateway aims to reduce isolation of civil society organisations, experts and other individuals by bringing them together in one place, where they can communicate on a wide range of themes. Easily searchable by geography and theme, this tool helps journalists and the media find the sources they need from civil society to produce their stories. The Civil Society Gateway was made possible through a partnership between CIVICUS (World Alliance for Citizen Participation) and the Inter Press Service (IPS), with the support of Oxfam Novib.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"OECD International Development Statistics 2010","field_subtitle":"Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): 17 February 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.oecd.org/document/1/0,3343,en_2649_34447_1895553_1_1_1_1,00.html","body":"Aid to developing countries in 2010 will reach record levels in United States dollar terms after increasing by 35% since 2004. But it will still be less than the world\u2019s major aid donors promised five years ago at the Gleneagles and Millennium + 5 summits. Though a majority of countries will meet their commitments, the underperformance of several large donors means there will be a significant shortfall, according to this OECD review. Africa, in particular, is likely to get only about USD 12 billion of the USD 25 billion increase envisaged at Gleneagles, due in large part to the underperformance of some European donors who give large shares of official development assistance (ODA) to Africa. Other Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries made varying ODA commitments for 2010, and most, but not all, will fulfill them. The United States pledged to double its aid to sub-Saharan Africa between 2004 and 2010. Canada aimed to double its 2001 International Assistance Envelope level by 2010 in nominal terms. Australia aimed to reach $A 4 billion. New Zealand plans to achieve an ODA level of $NZ 600 million by 2012-13. All four countries appear on track to meet these objectives. Norway will maintain its ODA level of 1% of its GNI, and Switzerland will likely reach 0.47% of its GNI, exceeding its previous commitment of 0.41%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Online protest fails to halt Uganda\u2019s anti-gay bill","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 2 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88275","body":"More than 450,000 people have signed an online petition urging Uganda's parliament to drop a bill that would impose the death sentence when a positive person has sex with someone of the same sex who is disabled or under the age of 18. On 1 March, the petition was presented to the speaker of Uganda's Parliament, Hon Edward Ssekandi, by the country\u2019s AIDS activists, including founder of the national non-governmental organisation, The AIDS Support Organization, Noerine Kaleeba, and Canon Gideon Byamugisha, the first religious leader to publicly declare that he was living with HIV. Responding to the petition, Hon Ssekandi said it could not be withdrawn at this stage, not even by the MP who tabled it; but he assured the activists that their concerns would be passed on to the legislature. The legislature would debate passing the bill, amending it or not passing it. Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda, but the new law would impose more stringent punishments for homosexual activity, while compelling people in authority with knowledge of such activity to report it or face criminal charges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Packages of care for alcohol use disorders in low- and middle-income countries ","field_subtitle":"Benegal V, Chand PK and Obot IS: Public Library of Science Medicine 6(10), 27 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000170","body":"Alcohol use disorders (AUDs) \u2013 conditions that range from hazardous and harmful alcohol use to alcohol dependence \u2013 are a low priority in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), despite causing a large health burden. Most alcohol-related harm is attributable to hazardous/harmful drinkers who make disproportionate use of primary health care systems, but often go undetected and untreated for long periods, even though brief, easily delivered interventions are effective in this group of people. Health care systems in LMICs currently focus on providing tertiary care services for the treatment of dependence (where there is often a poor outcome). This study indicates that the focus needs to shift towards the cost-effective strategy of providing brief interventions for early AUDs. Effective evidence-based combinations of psychosocial and pharmacological treatments for AUDs are available in LMICs but are costly to implement. Policy makers need to ensure that people with AUDs are offered the most appropriate services using stepped-care solutions that start with simple, structured advice for risky drinkers and progress to specialist treatment services for more serious AUDs. LMICs also need to improve their implementation of proven population-level preventive measures to reduce the health burden due to AUDs. An international Framework Convention on Alcohol Control may help them do this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Packages of care for dementia in low- and middle-income countries ","field_subtitle":"Prince MJ, Acosta D, Castro-Costa E, Jackson J and Shaji KS: Public Library of Science Medicine 6(11), 3 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000176","body":"Two-thirds of people with dementia live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where there are few services available and levels of awareness and help-seeking are low. After early diagnosis, the principal goals for management of dementia are optimising physical health, cognition, activity, and wellbeing; detecting and treating behavioural and psychological symptoms (BPSD); and providing information and long-term support to carers. This study recommends that routine packages of continuing care should comprise diagnosis coupled with information, regular needs assessments, physical health checks, and carer support, and where necessary carer training, respite care, and assessment and treatment of BPSD. Care can be delivered by trained primary care teams working in a collaborative care framework. Continuing care with practice-based care coordination, and community outreach are essential components of this model. Efficient care delivery in LMICs involves integrating dementia care with that of other chronic diseases and community-support programmes for the elderly and disabled.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Packages of care for depression in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Patel V, Simon G, Chowdhary N, Kaaya S and Araya R: Public Library of Science Medicine 6(10), 6 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000159","body":"Depression is clearly a global health priority. Improving the recognition of this disorder in clinical populations in LMICs is aided by the successful adaption of depression-screening instruments from HIC settings into settings with few resources and weaker health systems. This review suggests that evidence-based treatments such as antidepressants and psychotherapy are effective in managing depression; it is important, however, that such treatments are adapted when used in LMICs to increase their acceptability, accessibility, and manage their costs. The review proposes two packages of care on the basis of the availability of mental health specialist resources. The delivery of these treatments should ideally be carried out through an integration of depression programmes into existing health services or community settings with task-shifting to non-specialist health workers to deliver front-line care and a supervisory framework of appropriately skilled mental health workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Packages of care for schizophrenia in low- and middle-income countries ","field_subtitle":"Mari JJ, Razzouk D, Thara R, Eaton J and Thornicroft G: Public Library of Science Medicine 6(10), 20 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000165","body":"It is estimated that about 41.7 million people need treatment for schizophrenia and related disorders in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The majority of these cases are concentrated in Asia (70%) and Africa (16%). In countries with low resources, general physicians and primary health care workers can be trained to recognise and treat people with psychotic disorders in the community. This study found that health systems can scale up such interventions across all routine-care settings by training general physicians and primary health care workers to recognise and treat clients with schizophrenia with effective, evidence-based interventions. In addition, first- and second-generation antipsychotics (FGAs and SGAs) are similarly effective in the acute treatment of psychotic symptoms. In addition, a number of trials have shown the efficacy of psycho-educational strategies to improve adherence to antipsychotics, to decrease relapse and readmission rates, and to have a positive impact in social functioning of family members and patients. The study recommends a package of care combining low doses of conventional antipsychotics along with brief and simple psycho-educational interventions as an important strategy to decrease the treatment gap for schizophrenia in LMICs. The combination of FGAs and psycho-educational interventions are more cost-effective than the use of drugs alone.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory Learning and Action 60: Community-based adaptation to climate change","field_subtitle":"International Institute for Environment and Development, 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdfs/14573IIED.pdf","body":"The articles in this issue on participatory learning and action focus on the recent approaches to adaptation to climate change utilising the priorities, knowledge and capacities of local people. Community-based adaptation (CBA) draws on participatory approaches and methods developed in both disaster risk reduction and community development work and sectoral-specific approaches. The emphasis now leans to policy processes and institutionalisation, issues of difference and power, assessing the quality and understanding the impact of participation, rather than promoting participation. Participatory Learning and Action reflects these developments and recognises the importance of analysing and overcoming power differentials which work to exclude the marginalised. This issue is divided into three sections: reflections on participatory processes and practice in community-based adaptation to climate change; participatory tool-based case studies; and participatory tools, with step-by-step descriptions of how to use them. The report also presents two important tools: communication maps, which help participants to understand communication patterns and relationships, and a tool called Rivers of Life, where participants reflect on personal experiences that have motivated them in their personal lives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy development in malaria vector management in Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Cliff J, Lewin S, Woelk G, Fernandes B, Mariano A, Sevene E, Daniels K, Matinhure S, Oxman A and Lavis J: Health Policy and Planning (Advance Access), 21 February 2010","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/czq008v1","body":"Indoor residual spraying (IRS) and insecticide-treated nets (ITNs), two principal malaria control strategies, are similar in cost and efficacy. This study aimed to describe recent policy development regarding their use in Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Using a qualitative case study methodology, semi-structured interviews of key informants were undertaken from May 2004 to March 2005, and a document review was carried out. Most respondents in the study strongly favoured one strategy over the other \u2013 IRS versus ITNs. In all three countries, national policy makers favoured IRS, and only in Mozambique did national researchers support ITNs. Outside interests also played a significant role in influencing policy. Research evidence, local conditions, logistic feasibility, past experience, reaction to outside ideas, community acceptability, the role of government and non-governmental organisations, and harm from insecticides used in spraying influenced the choice of strategy. In conclusion, it may be time for policy makers to consider changing from their favoured IRS strategy, while those intending to promote new policies such as ITNs should examine the interests and ideas motivating key stakeholders and their own institutions, and identify where shifts in thinking or coalitions among the like-minded may be possible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Preventive health services are the future, says South African health minister","field_subtitle":"Thom A: Health-e News, 10 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032669","body":"South Africa\u2019s health minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, is reported as having called for South Africa\u2019s health system to make a 180 turn away from the dominant curative health system, which is unsustainable and unaffordable, to a health system where prevention is the cornerstone. This and the primary health care approach is argued by the Minister to make the national health insurance system an affordable option and to improve equity and universal coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Private aid for state hospitals ","field_subtitle":"Parker F: Mail and Guardian, 22 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-02-22-private-aid-for-state-hospitals","body":"In a move that has already sparked controversy, the South African treasury is to draw private business into the public health sector as a way of upgrading the services provided by state hospitals. In his budget speech, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan  referred to broadening the implementation of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the health sector to improve hospitals system as a \u201cprerequisite for the introduction of a national health insurance system\u201d. A flagship PPP project is proposed as Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Johannesburg, for which a feasibility study is now complete. However the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), the largest union in the country, has opposed PPPs as a vehicle for privatisation, which is argued to lead to higher costs, poorer services and the loss of jobs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Progress on sanitation and drinking water: 2010 update report ","field_subtitle":"WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP): March 2010","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241563956_eng_full_text.pdf","body":"Unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene claim the lives of an estimated 1.5 million children under the age of five each year. Almost 884 million people are living without access to safe drinking water and approximately three times that number lacking basic sanitation. This report confirms that advances continue to be made towards greater access to safe drinking water. Progress in relation to access to basic sanitation is, however, insufficient to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. The vast majority of people without access to water and sanitation live in rural areas (eight out of ten and seven out ten people respectively). A similar disparity is found between poor and non-poor people. A comparison between the richest and poorest 20% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa reveals that the richest are more than twice as likely to use an improved drinking-water source and almost five times more likely to use improved sanitation facilities. Although there is insufficient data at present, country data available confirms similar disparities elsewhere.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public sector health care spending in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Health Economics Unit (HEU), University of Cape Town: HEU Health Care Financing Information Sheet, 2009","field_url":"http://uct-heu.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IS1_heu_PublicSectorFundingSpending.pdf","body":"This sheet provides information on public sector health care spending in South Africa. I found that public sector health spending as a share of total government spending has remained relatively constant. However, it has been following a downward trend in that it did not keep pace with inflation or population growth through much of the 1990s, but there have been recent increases. Public sector health personnel employment also declined in the 1990s; there is an urgent need for additional clinical staff. The largest single share of funds is spent on primary care and district hospitals. It argues that meeting one of South Africa's major health challenges, namely HIV and AIDS treatment, will require resources that exceed those currently available.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Registration for the First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research November  2010","field_subtitle":"Registration is now open!","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/","body":"Researchers, policy-makers, representatives of donor and multinational organizations, and other stakeholders representing diverse constituencies will gather in Montreux, Switzerland to share evidence, identify significant knowledge gaps, and set a research agenda aimed at accelerating universal health coverage. Registration to the Symposium is limited, so register early to ensure your participation. For information on registration fees and conditions visit http://www.hsr-symposium.org/index.php/registration. \r\nApplication is now open for the following: \r\n- Young Researcher Programme - http://www.hsrsymposium.org/index.php/young-researchers-call\r\n- Scholarships  - \t\thttp://www.hsrsymposium.org/index.php/scholarships\r\n- Satellite sessions -       http://www.hsrsymposium.org/index.php/satellite-meetings\r\n- Marketplace stalls - \thttp://www.hsr-symposium.org/index.php/marketplace\r\nThe Call for Abstracts closes on April 30, 2010 ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Rich countries have no excuse for broken aid promises","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: 17 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2010-02-17/rich-countries-have-no-excuse-broken-aid-promises","body":"Responding to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development\u2019s (OECD) predictions that 2010 will see overseas aid stand at $21bn lower than promised, Head of Oxfam Campaign, Emma Seery observed that the missing $21 billion could pay for every child to go to school, and could save the lives of 2 million of the poorest mothers and children, \"making this failure of the richest countries nothing short of a scandal\". Oxfam estimates it would cost $16bn each year to ensure that every child gets the chance to go to school and $5bn would provide improved medical care that would save the lives of about 2 million mothers and children. \u2018Rich countries have no excuse for failing to deliver the aid increases they promised\u2019, she added. Collectively the EU-15 who are members of the OECD will miss their 0.51% aid target they committed to in 2005, with OECD projections putting them at just 0.48% average in 2010. Nine out of ten Europeans believe strongly that their leaders must meet their aid promises, despite the economic downturn, according to a recent Eurobarometer study.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Statement before the 2011 High Level Forum on aid effectiveness","field_subtitle":"Capacity4Dev: March 2010","field_url":"http://capacity4dev.ec.europa.eu/time-learn-and-act","body":"Some 300 participants gathered in Bogota, Colombia, from the 24-26 March, for an intermediate international meeting to discuss and agree on policy recommendations ahead of a 2011 High Level Forum on aid effectiveness in South Korea. Capacity development (CD) is strongly embedded in the agenda of the South. This agenda aims to harness broad political leadership, get beyond fragmented and piecemeal approaches, address systemic issues related to state reform and incentives, and make increased use of South-South co-operation and regional/local resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Strong ministries for strong health systems","field_subtitle":"Omaswa F and Boufford JI: African Center for Global Health and Social Transformation (ACHEST) and the New York Academy of Medicine: January 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Strong_Ministries_Report.pdf","body":"This study and report were commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation to explore the feasibility of establishing a support mechanism for ministers and ministries of health especially in the poorest countries, as part of the Foundation\u2019s Transforming Health Systems initiative.  Based on data from minister and stakeholder interviews and supporting research and consultation activities, this report offers seven action items geared toward building a systematic and sustained program of support for health ministries. Recommendations and proposals provided address: capacity assessment tools; leveraging existing management development resources; mapping country networks of expertise; regional networks to support health systems stewardship and governance; knowledge networks to support ministers of health; executive leadership development; and advocacy for strengthening health ministries.  Collective action on these proposals is needed to strengthen health ministries and enhance the leadership capabilities of ministers. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Systematic review of methods for evaluating healthcare research economic impact","field_subtitle":"Yazdizadeh B, Majdzadeh R and Salmasian H: Health Research Policy and Systems 8(6), 2 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-8-6.pdf","body":"The economic benefits of healthcare research require study so that appropriate resources can be allocated to this research, particularly in developing countries. This study took the form of a systematic review to identify the methods used to assess the economic impact of healthcare research, and the outcomes. The initial search yielded 8,416 articles, of which 18 articles were included in the analysis, as well as eleven other reports. It found that the outcomes assessed as healthcare research payback included direct cost-savings, cost reductions in healthcare delivery systems, benefits from commercial advancement, and outcomes associated with improved health status. The study found that different methods and outcomes can be used to assess the economic impacts of healthcare research. However, none of the research from low- and middle-income countries had evaluated the economic return of research. The authors recommend a consensus on practical guidelines at international level in order to build capacity, arrange for necessary informative infrastructures and promote necessary skills for economic evaluation studies in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Task shifting routine inpatient pediatric HIV testing improves program outcomes in urban Malawi: A retrospective observational study","field_subtitle":"McCollum ED, Preidis GA, Kabue MM, Singogo EBM and Mwansambo C et al: Public Library of Science ONE 5(3), 10 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0009626","body":"This study evaluated two models of routine HIV testing of hospitalised children in a high HIV-prevalence resource-constrained African setting. Both models incorporated task shifting, namely the allocation of tasks to the least-costly, capable health worker. Two models were piloted for three months each within the paediatric department of a referral hospital in Lilongwe, Malawi between January 1 and June 30, 2008. Model 1 utilised lay counsellors for HIV testing instead of nurses and clinicians, while Model 2 further shifted programme flow and advocacy responsibilities from counsellors to volunteer parents of HIV-infected children, called 'patient escorts'. The strategy presented here in the two models, namely task shifting from lay counsellors alone to lay counsellors and patient escorts, was found to improve programme outcomes greatly, while only marginally increasing operational costs. The wider implementation of this strategy could accelerate paediatric HIV care access in high-prevalence settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"TB treatment initiation and adherence in a South African community influenced more by perceptions than by knowledge of tuberculosis","field_subtitle":"Cramm JM, Finkenfl\u00fcgel HJM, M\u00f8ller V and Nieboer AP: BMC Public Health 10(72), 17 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-10-72.pdf","body":"This study investigated knowledge of, perceptions of and access to tuberculosis (TB) treatment and adherence to treatment among an Eastern Cape population in South Africa. An area-stratified sampling design was applied. A total of 1,020 households were selected randomly in proportion to the total number of households in each neighbourhood. It found TB knowledge was fairly good among this community. A full 95% of those interviewed believe people with TB tend to hide their TB status out of fear of what others may say and therefore may not seek treatment. Regression analyses revealed that in this population young and old, men and women and the lower and higher educated share the same attitudes and perceptions, suggesting that the findings are likely to reflect the actual situation of TB patients in the population. Future interventions should be directed at improving attitudes and perceptions to potentially reduce stigma. This requires a patient-centred approach to empower TB patients and their active involvement in the development and implementation of stigma reduction programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The 'ART' of linkage: Pre-treatment loss to care after HIV diagnosis at two PEPFAR sites in Durban, South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Losina E, Bassett IV, Giddy J, Chetty S and Regan S et al: Public Library of Science ONE 5(3), 4 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0009538","body":"Although loss to follow-up after antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation is increasingly recognized, little is known about pre-treatment losses to care (PTLC) after an initial positive HIV test. The objective of this paper was to determine PTLC in newly identified HIV-infected individuals in South Africa. It examined records of patients presenting for HIV testing at two sites offering HIV and CD4 count testing and HIV care in Durban, South Africa. PTLC was defined as failure to have a test for CD4 count within eight  weeks of HIV diagnosis. Infected patients were significantly more likely to have PTLC if they lived &#8805;10 kilometers from the testing centre, had a history of tuberculosis treatment or were referred for testing by a health care provider rather than self-referred. Patients with one, two or three of these risks for PTLC were 1.88, 2.50 and 3.84 times more likely to have PTLC compared to those with no risk factors. In conclusion, nearly half of HIV-infected persons at two high prevalence sites in Durban, South Africa, failed to have CD4 counts following HIV diagnosis. These high rates of pre-treatment loss to care highlight the urgent need to improve rates of linkage to HIV care after an initial positive HIV test.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The future of financing for WHO: Report of an informal consultation convened by the Director-General, Geneva, Switzerland, 12\u201313 January 2010","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: March 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/dg/who_futurefinancing2010_en.pdf","body":"Several themes emerged from initial discussions in this consultation, which was convened by the World Health Organization (WHO): determining to what extent, and how, WHO should  address the broader social and economic determinants of health; deciding what constitutes good partnership behaviour at global and country level; determining how WHO can match the support it provides more closely and flexibly to the needs of different countries; and improving WHO\u2019s involvement in the field of technical collaboration. Participants agreed that improving performance is intimately linked to the way WHO is financed and this warrants further consideration. They indicated a need to seek the views of all member states on the wider issues raised at this meeting. Questions raised in this report will be used as the basis for a web-based consultation, to which all countries will be invited to contribute their views.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Fund 2010: Innovation and impact","field_subtitle":"Global Fund: 2010","field_url":"http://www.theglobalfund.org/documents/replenishment/2010/Global_Fund_2010_Innovation_and_Impact_en.pdf","body":"The Global Fund 2010 results report has projected that the virtual elimination of mother-to-child HIV transmission by 2015 is within reach, that malaria may be eliminated as a public health problem within a decade, and that the international target of halving tuberculosis prevalence could be met by 2015. According to the report, Fund-supported programmes saved at least 3,600 lives per day in 2009 and an estimated total of 4.9 million since the creation of the Fund in 2002. By the end of 2009, Fund-supported programmes provided antiretroviral treatment to 2.5 million people with HIV and AIDS, treatment to 6 million people who had active TB, and had distributed 104 million insecticide-treated nets to prevent malaria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The public-private health sector mix in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Health Economics Unit (HEU), University of Cape Town: HEU Health Care Financing Information Sheet, 2009","field_url":"http://uct-heu.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/IS3_heu_PublicPrivateMix.pdf","body":"This sheet provides information on financing in the public and private health sectors in South Africa. It notes that medical schemes cover 16% of the population, on whom about R11,300 is spent per person (this includes both medical scheme spending and out-of-pocket payments), while the public sector covers most of the rest of the population, particularly the 68% who do not use any private care \u2013 government spends about R1,900 per person on this group. Sixteen percent of the population use the private sector on an out-of-pocket basis for primary care but are almost entirely dependent on the public sector for hospital care; for this group nearly R2,500 is spent per person. Medical scheme spending has been increasing, while public sector health spending has been largely stagnant until recently. Most health professionals (except enrolled nurses) work in the private health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The rise of budget support in European development cooperation: A false panacea","field_subtitle":"Alvarez RC: FRIDE Policy Brief 31, January 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ykq8mcz","body":"According to this policy brief, European aid donors are taking steps to meet promises to deliver a higher share of development aid directly to governments in the form of budget support. The brief points to positive and negative consequences of budget support. While budget support is argued to enhance local accountability, it may not succeed unless government recipients are accountable to their populations for how the funds are used. A more self-serving reason is argued for donors to turn to budget support \u2013 it enables the donor to increase aid delivery, thus meeting disbursement rates, without requiring an enlargement of their own administrative operations, thereby keeping costs down. This motivation has more to do with donors\u2019 institutional dynamics than with poverty reduction. The brief calls for a more nuanced political analysis to ensure that budget support enhances rather than undermines democratic accountability in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The shifting demographic landscape of pandemic influenza ","field_subtitle":"Bansal S, Pourbohloul B, Hupert N, Grenfell B and Meyers LA: Public Library of Science ONE 5(2), 26 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0009360","body":"As pandemic (H1N1) influenza spreads around the globe, it strikes school-age children more often than adults. Although there is some evidence of pre-existing immunity among older adults, this alone may not explain the significant gap in age-specific infection rates. Based on a retrospective analysis of pandemic strains of influenza from the last century, this study shows that school-age children typically experience the highest attack rates in primarily naive populations, with the burden shifting to adults during the subsequent season. Using a parsimonious network-based mathematical model, which incorporates the changing distribution of contacts in the susceptible population, it demonstrates that new pandemic strains of influenza are expected to shift the epidemiological landscape in exactly this way. The analysis here provides a simple demographic explanation for the age bias observed for H1N1/09 attack rates, and suggests that this bias may shift in the future. These results have significant implications for the allocation of public health resources for H1N1/09 and future influenza pandemics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The social and economic impacts of South Africa\u2019s child support grant","field_subtitle":"Williams MJ: Economic Policy Research Institute Working Paper 40, November 2007","field_url":"http://www.epri.org.za/rp40.pdf","body":"Evidence from this South African study indicates that cash transfers achieve positive education, health and nutrition outcomes. South Africa's child support grant (CSG) is the country's largest social cash transfer programme and is regarded as one of the government's most successful social protection interventions. This study analysed panel data constructed from general household surveys (2002 to 2004), and compared eligible children who received the CSG in 2003 and 2004 with those who did not receive it. It found robust evidence that the CSG is improving nutrition and education outcomes for children. Hunger, as defined by the lack of food in a household, fell among both CSG recipients and non-recipients over the study period, but the reduction was found to be two to three times larger for children receiving the grant. Children under seven years of age who were eligible for the CSG were significantly less likely to be attending school in 2002 than those not receiving the CSG, but after receiving the CSG for two years there was a 6% increase in their pre-school and early grades enrolment by 2004. The study concludes that these effects are likely to be sustained over time among households receiving the CSG, with cumulative improvements in children\u2019s nutrition and educational attainment in the future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The story of bottled water","field_subtitle":"The Story of Stuff: March 2010","field_url":"http://www.storyofbottledwater.org","body":"This short video about the story and challenges to local communities of production of bottled water was launched as part of World Water Day on 22 March 2010. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tracking progress in advocacy: Why and how to monitor and evaluate advocacy projects and programmes","field_subtitle":"O\u2019Flynn M: International NGO Training and Research Centre (INTRAC) M&E paper 4, October 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yhtyrq6","body":"This paper begins by introducing the scope of and rationale for engaging in advocacy work as part of development interventions. It notes that effective advocacy can prove to be a very powerful and empowering strategy, and contrasts this with ineffective advocacy strategies, which can be hugely wasteful of time and resources and leave stakeholders feeling bewildered, disempowered or uninterested. It then focuses on the issue of monitoring and evaluating (M&E) these efforts \u2013 offering reasons why and when these processes should be planned and implemented, what\u2019s involved, and who should be engaged in the process. The paper discusses organisational approaches to M&E of a number of agencies in the development sector, like Oxfam and the Institute of Development Research (IDR), and offers tools and methods for M&E of advocacy projects in international and national non-governmental organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in human development","field_subtitle":"Rodr\u00edguez FR: United Nations Development Programme, 15 March 2010","field_url":"http://hdr.undp.org/en/mediacentre/lets-talk-hd/","body":"According to this report, the past four decades have, by and large, been a time of substantial progress in human development for the world as a whole. The world\u2019s average Human Development Index (HDI) grew by 29% in this period. Only one of the 111 countries in the dataset saw a decline in its HDI since 1970 \u2013 Zambia. Strikingly, the improvements in the HDI come from improvements in education and health. But the author warns that one cannot assume that free-market globalisation has brought these benefits to people in the developing world. Instead, he points to current evidence that shows that the massive increases in education and health achieved over the past 40 years had little if anything to do with globalisation but rather with the decision by states to expand their educational and health systems, coupled by initiatives of the international community to enable access to vaccines and antibiotics. He refers to research that shows that the correlation between economic growth and changes in the non-income components of human development is nearly zero. These results, he suggests, indicate that the oft-repeated dictum that economic growth is a necessary condition for increasing human development is simply not true.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tuberculosis and air travel: A systematic review and analysis of policy","field_subtitle":"Abubakar I: The Lancet Infectious Diseases 10: 176\u201383, 2010","field_url":"http://press.thelancet.com/airtravel.pdf","body":"WHO international guidelines for the control of tuberculosis (TB) in relation to air travel require \u2013 after a risk assessment \u2013 tracing of passengers who sat for longer than eight hours in rows adjacent to people with pulmonary TB who are smear positive or smear negative. A further recommendation is that people with active TB should not carry out commercial air travel until the person has two consecutive negative sputum smears for drug-susceptible TB or two consecutive cultures for multidrug-resistant TB. This review examines the evidence put forward to support these recommendations and assesses whether such an approach is justifiable. A systematic review identified 39 studies of which 13 were included. The majority of studies found no evidence of transmission. Only two studies reported reliable evidence of transmission. Various factors made the screening process highly inefficient, including time and money spent on tracing and investigating passengers who tested positive and contacting different national authorities in the course of investigations. The analysis suggests that there is reason to doubt the value of actively screening air passengers for infection with TB and that the resources used might be better spent addressing other priorities for the control of the disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Twenty-sixth International Paediatric Association (IPA) Congress of Paediatrics, 2010","field_subtitle":"Registration deadline: 22 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.ipa-world.org/IPAcongress/default.htm?ref3=db1%20IPA_reg%40kenes.com","body":"Three leading paediatric associations are uniting to host the 26th IPA Congress of Paediatrics in Johannesburg, South Africa from 4\u20139 August 2010. More than 5,000 participants are expected to attend this landmark event, the first IPA congress to be held in sub-Saharan Africa. It will unite paediatricians and health professionals working towards the target set by Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce child mortality by two thirds before 2015. The scientific programme is designed to meet the needs of general paediatricians from both the developed and the developing world. Plenary sessions will include: the MDGs and the current state of health of children in the world, and progress towards the MDGs; the state of the world\u2019s newborns, including major issues determining maternal and newborn health in developing and developed countries; the determinants of health, such as genetics, nutrition and the environment; disasters and trauma affecting child health, such as disasters, crises and the worldwide epidemic of trauma; and the global burden of infectious diseases affecting children and the challenge of emerging infections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Unplanned ART treatment interruptions in southern Africa: What can we do to minimise the long-term risks? ","field_subtitle":"Veenstra N, Whiteside A, Gibbs A and Lalloo D: Health Economics and AIDS Research Division (HEARD), University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2010","field_url":"http://www.heard.org.za/heard-resources/publications","body":"Adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) is important to optimise treatment outcomes and prevent the development of drug resistance. It is however compromised under a number of situations in the countries most heavily affected by HIV and AIDS. The question this paper is concerned with is: \u2018How do we keep people on treatment?\u2019 It proposes that the answer to this question is an improved understanding of why adherence is important; what levels of adherence are needed to ensure that treatment remains effective; how different types of crisis affect access to treatment; and how patients and service providers respond to difficulties. The paper considers the longer-term impact of unplanned ART treatment interruptions and offers suggestions as to how they might be avoided and managed in future. It considers three case studies, by looking at the problems with health system functioning and ART delivery during the 2007 public sector strike in South Africa, the ongoing political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe and the 2008 floods in Mozambique. It is based on a literature review and a relatively small number of interviews with health managers and clinicians in each country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Women\u2019s empowerment lifts obstacles to achieving development goals, Ban says","field_subtitle":"United Nations News Centre: 3 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33954&Cr=gender%20equality&Cr1=","body":"More than a decade after world leaders agreed to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women, their empowerment remains a necessary element in attaining development targets, said United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, addressing the Commission on the Status of Women in the run-up to International Women\u2019s Day, which is observed annually on 8 March. \u2018Until women and girls are liberated from poverty and injustice, all our goals \u2013 peace, security, sustainable development \u2013 stand in jeopardy,\u2019 Ban said. This year is the 15th anniversary of the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action \u2013 the outcome of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 \u2013 which remains the most comprehensive global policy framework to achieve the goals of gender equality, development and peace. In September 2009, it was announced that four UN agencies and offices \u2013 including the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) \u2013 will be amalgamated to create a new single entity within the world body to promote the rights and well-being of women worldwide and to work towards gender equality. Mr Ban urged the General Assembly to adopt a resolution \u2018without delay\u2019 to set up this new entity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Wrong schools or wrong students? The potential role of medical education in regional imbalances of the health workforce in the United Republic of Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Leon BK and Kolstad JR: Human Resources for Health 8(3), 26 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-8-3.pdf","body":"This paper is based on the premise that medical schools can play an important role in solving the problem of geographical imbalance of doctors in the United Republic of Tanzania. It reviews available research evidence that links medical students' characteristics with human resource imbalances and the contribution of medical schools in perpetuating an inequitable distribution of the health workforce. Structured questionnaires were also administered to 130 fifth-year medical students at the medical faculties of MUCHS (University of Dar es Salaam), HKMU (Dar es Salaam) and KCMC (Tumaini University, Moshi campus) in Tanzania. The study found a lack of a primary interest in medicine among medical school entrants, biases in recruitment, the absence of rural-related clinical curricula in medical schools, and a preference for specialisation not available in rural areas. These were considered the main obstacles for building a motivated health workforce to help correct the inequitable distribution of doctors in the Tanzania. The study suggests that there is a need to re-examine medical school admission policies and practices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"2009 Aids epidemic update","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS and World Health Organization: November 2009","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/HIVData/EpiUpdate/EpiUpdArchive/2009/default.asp","body":"According to new data presented in this update, new HIV infections have been reduced by 17% over the past eight years. Since 2001, when the United Nations Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS was signed, the number of new infections in sub-Saharan Africa is approximately 15% lower, which is about 400,000 fewer infections in 2008. In East Asia new HIV infections declined by nearly 25% and in South and South East Asia by 10% in the same time period. In Eastern Europe, after a dramatic increase in new infections among injecting drug users, the epidemic has leveled off considerably. However, in some countries there are signs that new HIV infections are rising again. The report highlights that, beyond the peak and natural course of the epidemic, HIV prevention programmes are making a difference. \u2018The good news is that we have evidence that the declines we are seeing are due, at least in part, to HIV prevention,\u2019 said Michel Sidib\u00e9, Executive Director of UNAIDS. \u2018However, the findings also show that prevention programming is often off the mark and that if we do a better job of getting resources and programmes to where they will make most impact, quicker progress can be made and more lives saved.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A call for applicants to the short course: The struggle for health","field_subtitle":"Application deadline: 7 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/iphu/en/kisumu/announce","body":"The International People's Health University (IPHU) of the People's Health Movement (PHM) and The Great Lakes University of Kisumu (GLUK) are holding a ten-day short course for health activists scheduled in Kisumu, Kenya 19-28 April, 2010. The course will be conducted in English. A limited number of scholarships for travel and accommodation will be available for qualified applicants from sub-Saharan Africa and Kenya. Younger health activists and practitioners working on the issues of health, gender and human rights and particularly including those involved in the People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM). Applications are particularly welcomed from from women and from South Africa, Botswana, Congo, Tanzania, Namibia and Ghana.  Applicants should be fluent in English. Priority, with respect to enrolment, will be given to younger people motivated to get involved in PHM, primary health care and public health practitioners, and people with a track record as health activists within the PHM, in particular those who have been actively involved in organisations that are part of the PHM.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A guide to tools for assessments in sexual and reproductive health","field_subtitle":"United Nations Population Fund: 2010","field_url":"http://www.unfpa.org/public/publications/pid/4778","body":"Fifteen years after the International Conference on Population Development, a large global family of development workers committed to universal access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) continue to work on improving the lives and expanding the choices of individuals and couples. This guide considers reproductive health as a human right, while it notes that reproductive health conditions are the leading cause of death and illness in women of childbearing age worldwide. At least 200 million women who want to plan their families or space their births lack access to safe and effective contraception. Investments in reproductive health save and improve lives, slow the spread of HIV and encourage gender equality. These benefits extend from the individual to the family and from the family to the world. Yet resources allocated for improving SRH are scarce and needs are urgent. The guide aims to help practitioners to use limited resources in the most effective way. Contributors to the guide have developed and used many tools and methodologies to promote SRH \u2013 these are streamlined in the guide for the busy programme manager at national or district level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Accelerating progress in maternal and newborn health: 'H4' agencies present their plan","field_subtitle":"United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA): 29 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.unfpa.org/public/News/pid/3918","body":"Improving maternal health and reducing newborn deaths is a complex undertaking because, among other things, it involves strengthening health systems, scaling up programmes to reach remote rural areas and marginalised populations, and ensuring that appropriate resources are committed to what some consider a \u2018woman\u2019s issue.\u2019 WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF and the World Bank, known as the \u2018Health 4\u2019 or \u2018H4\u2019, are supporting countries with the highest maternal mortality, starting with six countries that include the Democratic Republic of Congo. In these countries they are supporting strengthening health systems to reduce maternal mortality by 75% and achieve universal access to reproductive health. The four agencies are seeking to enhance collaboration to not only get more money for health, but also more health for the money, by harmonising and working jointly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid for trade and climate change financing mechanisms: Maximizing benefits from complementarities","field_subtitle":"Ancharaz VD: Trade Negotiation Insights Issue 10(8), December 2009-January 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.acp-eu-trade.org/library/files/tni_en_8-10.pdf","body":"This article argues that climate change and aid for trade financing initiatives can be used in a complementary manner to overcome their weaknesses and promote synergies in affected countries. Most less developed countries (LDCs) are more concerned with day-to-day survival than with climate change. A number of these countries have received Aid for Trade (AFT) to help them invest in trade-related economic infrastructure and to build supply-side capacity. Climate change and aid for trade financing initiatives are argued to need greater coherence and complemetarity. One step, it is argued in this paper, is for aid-for-trade initiatives operating largely at the bilateral level in what is argued to be a rather uncoordinated manner to be more formalised and multilateral.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Bridging the gaps among research, policy and practice in ten low- and middle-income countries: Development and testing of a questionnaire for researchers","field_subtitle":"Cameron D, Lavis JN, Guindon GE, Akhtar T, Posada FB, Ndossi GD, Boupha B and Research to Policy and Practice Study Team: Health Research Policy and Systems 8(4), 29 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-8-4.pdf","body":"Country teams from ten low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), including Tanzania, participated in the development and testing of a questionnaire to assist researchers, policymakers, and healthcare providers to describe and monitor changes in efforts to bridge the gaps among research, policy and practice. The study found that internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) for sets of related items was very high, ranging from 0.89 to 0.96, suggesting some item redundancy. Both face and content validity were determined to be high. Assessments of construct validity using criterion-related measures showed statistically significant associations for related measures. Assessments using convergent measures also showed significant associations. In conclusion, while no direct comparison can be made to a comparable questionnaire, the findings do suggest a number of strengths of the questionnaire but also the need to reduce item redundancy and to test its capacity to monitor changes over time.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Bridging the gaps among research, policy and practice in ten low- and middle-income countries: Development and testing of questionnaire for health-care providers","field_subtitle":"Guindon GE, Lavis JN, Boupha B, Shi G, Sidibe M, Turdaliyeva B and Research to Policy and Practice Study Team (RPPST): Health Research Policy and Systems 8(3), 29 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-8-3.pdf","body":"Country teams from ten low- and middle-income countries, including Tanzania, participated in the development, translation, pilot-testing and administration of a questionnaire designed to measure health-care providers' views and activities related to improving their clinical practice and their awareness of, access to and use of research evidence, as well as changes in their clinical practice that they attribute to particular sources of research evidence that they have used. The study found that the questionnaire had high internal consistency, with Cronbach's alphas between 0.7 and 0.9 for 16 of 20 domains and sub-domains (identified by factor analyses). Cronbach's alphas were greater than 0.9 for two domains, suggesting some item redundancy. In conclusion, the analysis points to a number of strengths of the questionnaire \u2013 high internal consistency (reliability) and good face and content validity \u2013 but also to areas where it can be shortened without losing important conceptual domains.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Building bridges using narrative techniques: Using stories to share understanding about directions in development cooperation ","field_subtitle":"Colton S, Ward V and Brutschin J: Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/home&id=34942&type=Document","body":"The act of telling a story is a deceptively simple and familiar process, a way to evoke powerful emotions and insights. By contrast, working with stories in organisational settings \u2013 to aid reflection, build communities, transfer practical learning or capitalise experiences \u2013 is more complicated. This guide is designed to create story-telling skills and confidence. It provides ideas about development cooperation contexts in which stories can be an effective communication tool. The authors argue that story telling is not suitable for every situation. Methodologies should be selected by practitioners with due care to the wider working context and intention. Some methods, for example the systemic introduction of story into core organisational processes such as evaluation, need patience and management backing over a long period, for the right approach to be developed through trial and error.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research: Science to accelerate universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 30 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/","body":"The Symposium is the first of its kind targeting a multi-disciplinary field and audience and will gather researchers, policy-makers, funders and other stakeholders in a three-day conference. Researchers, policy-makers, funders, and other stakeholders representing diverse constituencies will meet from 16\u201319 November 2010 in Montreux, Switzerland, to share evidence, identify significant knowledge gaps, and set a research agenda that reflects the needs of low and middle-income countries. Themes include: political economy of universal health coverage; health system financing; scaling-up of health services; monitoring and evaluation; knowledge translation; terminology, taxonomies and frameworks; methods for health science research (HSR) and knowledge translation; measures used in HSR; capacity building for HSR; and multidisciplinary approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for donations to fight against Uganda's Anti-gay Bill","field_subtitle":"Avaaz: 26 February 2010","field_url":"https://secure.avaaz.org/en/ugandan_voices/?vl","body":"In just two weeks, nearly half a million people have signed the global petition against Uganda's proposed law to sentence gay people to death and jail their friends. But more is needed. Extremists are escalating their rhetoric, with one pastor showing gay pornography in order to whip up rage. But very few Ugandans know the harsh details of this draconian bill. And no public opinion poll has asked whether the Ugandan people would support such mass execution. The Ugandan movement against the bill hasn't had the resources to inform their fellow citizens about the bill's deadly provisions. If enough people contribute, Avaaz can help launch radio spots, newspaper ads and billboard campaigns that reach millions of Ugandans with the truth and a call to protect human rights. Donate now to fuel the defence of rights in Uganda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Canada\u2019s G8 focus on maternal and child health will help global efforts","field_subtitle":"United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF): 29 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/media/media_52653.html","body":"Canada has announced that it will make maternal and child health a priority when it hosts the G8 summit in June 2010. Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, said in a statement that his country would champion a major initiative to improve the health of women and children in the world\u2019s poorest regions. He said that members of the G8 could make a difference in maternal and child health and that Canada would be making this the top priority in June. The Prime Minister suggested that the solutions are within reach for the international community and include better nutrition, clean water, inoculations and training of health workers. With only five years left to achieve the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), successes have been achieved but much more needs to be done, particularly with MDG 5, which targets maternal health and lags furthest behind of all the eight MDG targets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Cervical cancer screening in Zambia saves lives","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 18 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88156","body":"Cervical cancer is a leading killer among women living with HIV, but a low-cost screening programme developed in Zambia is proving that simple techniques can go a long way in saving lives. New research presented at the 17th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in San Francisco has shown that cervical cancer screening among HIV-positive women prevented one death for every 32 women screened. The research originated from a pilot study of about 6,600 HIV-positive women examined as part of the Cervical Cancer Prevention Programme in Zambia (CCPPZ), an ongoing low-cost screening project. More than half the women had abnormal results, and about 20% were diagnosed as having lesions at varying stages from pre-cancerous to advanced cancer. Screening by the programme's service costs about US$1 as compared to pap smears that cost about $15 and remain prohibitively expensive even in richer countries like South Africa. To keep costs this low, the programme enables health workers and nurses to carry out screening and treatment, allowing doctors - already in short supply - to perform other tasks. The screening programme has also drawn interest from other countries, including Botswana, Tanzania and Cameroon, which have sent delegations for training.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"China and international partners discuss China\u2019s new strategy for improving health in Africa","field_subtitle":"World Bank News and Broadcast: 10 December 2009","field_url":"http://go.worldbank.org/WW84SGFAU0","body":"A group of senior officials from China, Africa and from international organisations involved in health assistance in Africa met in Beijing on 4-5 December 2009 to review China\u2019s health assistance to Africa and to discuss opportunities for international cooperation in achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals in Africa. The International Roundtable on China-Africa Health Collaboration was part of an ongoing effort by Government of China to develop a new strategy for health assistance to Africa as part of its overall South-South collaboration. A key message, emphasised by representatives of international organisations, African officials, and Chinese officials alike, is the importance of strong country ownership, on the one hand, and benefits of working through partnership, on the other. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Ethiopian Minister of Health and Chair of the Global Fund to Fight AID Tuberculosis and Malaria, described his country\u2019s experience in working under the framework of the International Health Partnership, with its reliance on supporting Ethiopia\u2019s national health development plan. He noted that \u2018it is through ownership that you can generate commitment, and with commitment begin to see results\u2019. He also noted an African proverb, which was quoted by Chinese Premier Wen Jiaobao in his speech at the recent Forum on China Africa Cooperation, and which says \u2018If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Comments on the Copenhagen Accord","field_subtitle":"South Centre: South Centre Informal Note 52, 18 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.southcentre.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1216&Itemid=67","body":"According to South Centre, the Copenhagen Accord has five important implications and effects. First, it lays the foundation for weakening the Kyoto Protocol as the multilateral treaty instrument for developed countries\u2019 binding emission reduction commitments. Second, it creates the potential for changing the balance of obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by laying the basis for a new set of obligations for developing countries. Third, it re-interprets the commitments of developed countries to provide or mobilise climate financing to support developing countries\u2019 climate change-related mitigation and adaptation actions in ways that are conditional and highly ambiguous. Fourth, it creates a parallel framework of climate change-related \u2018commitments\u2019 and actions, thereby laying the foundation for a shift away from the UNFCCC per se as the primary multilateral treaty instrument for global long-term cooperative action on climate change. Fifth, it recognises the science relating to a two degree centrigrade global temperature increase but does not elaborate on how this would be achieved. It also talks about equity but does not define clearly how equity considerations are to be addressed, what it means, and the modalities for achieving equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Copenhagen and after","field_subtitle":"Khor M: South Centre Climate Policy Brief 2, 27 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.southcentre.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1216&Itemid=67","body":"The Copenhagen Accord presented after the climate summit is only three pages in length. According to the author of this article, what is left out is probably more important than what it contains. The Accord does not mention any figures of the emission reduction that the developed countries are to undertake after 2012, either as an aggregate target or as individual country targets. The author believes this failure at attaining reduction commitments is the biggest failure of the document and of the whole Conference. It marks the failure of leadership of the developed countries, which are responsible for most of the greenhouse gases retained in the atmosphere, to commit to an ambitious emissions target. While developing countries have demanded that the aggregate target should be over 40% reduction by 2020 compared to 1990 levels, the national pledges to date by developed countries amount to only 13\u201319% in aggregate. Perhaps this very low ambition level is the reason that the Accord remains silent on this issue, except to state a deadline of 31 January 2010 for countries to provide their targets. The author doubts this deadline will be met given the reluctance to be explicit on this in the last four years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Course on Global Health Diplomacy, Geneva 21 - 25 June 2010 ","field_subtitle":"The Global Health Programme at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), Deadline for applications 2 April 2010","field_url":"http://www.globalhealtheurope.org/images/stories/Executive_course_on_Global_Health_Diplomacy_2010_v3.pdf","body":"Diplomacy is undergoing profound changes in the 21st century - and global health is one of the areas where this is most apparent. As health moves beyond its purely technical realm to become an ever more critical element in foreign policy, security policy and trade agreements, new skills are needed to negotiate global regimes, international agreements and treaties, and to maintain relations with a wide range of actors. \r\nThe summer course will focus on health diplomacy as it relates to health issues that transcend national boundaries and are global in nature, discuss the challenges before it, and how they are being addressed by different groups and at different levels of governance. Deliberations include Intellectual Property Rights, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the International Health Regulations, the creation of new finance mechanisms such as the Global Fund for Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria or UNITAID, and the response to SARS and Avian Flu. The course director is Prof. Dr. Ilona Kickbusch. Tuition for attending the programme is 2,800 Swiss francs, excluding travel costs, accommodation or other living expenses in Geneva.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Development aid that makes a difference","field_subtitle":"WRR Scientific Council for Government Policy: 18 January 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ygn9yu5","body":"The WRR Council notes that it is significant that three quarters of Dutch development aid is spent on healthcare and education, and less than a quarter on infrastructure, agriculture and economic activity. Although it is important to provide social care from a humanitarian perspective, the Council adds that it does not automatically lead to the fundamental changes which promote growth and development, and which gradually make countries and peoples self-sufficient. It is important to start approaching development from a far broader perspective. Stability and security, trade conditions that facilitate development, combating tax evasion, a fair tax system which does not entice companies to pay taxes in the Netherlands instead of in developing countries, less stringent intellectual property rights for poor countries, a more productive policy on knowledge exchange, and a more properly thought-out migration policy can all be of greater significance to the development of countries than classical aid provided in situ. The development perspective will have to be better incorporated into policy in these areas, and that calls for more policy coherence for development. Furthermore, attention to global public goods such as financial stability, climate policy and the eradication of contagious diseases will become increasingly important.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Distance learning courses for development, including public health","field_subtitle":"Distance Learning for Development: 2010","field_url":"http://www.dl4d.ac.uk/","body":"DL4D (Distance Learning for Development) offers postgraduate training to those working in the field of international development. This site has information on over 140 short courses available to study at a distance. They cover the range of skills and knowledge areas expected of the international development professional, including: essential skills for implementing and managing projects in developing countries; introductions to macro-level economic and policy-making practice; and advanced courses in health, sanitation, agriculture and environmental studies. All courses are available as stand-alone units of study. They may also contribute towards a broader programme of learning, leading to internationally recognised higher-level qualifications. Some courses are only available at certain times of year. Check the details of the courses you are interested in for more information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Effect of human rotavirus vaccine on severe diarrhea in African infants","field_subtitle":"Madhi SA, Cunliffe NA, Steele D, Witte D, Kirsten M, Louw C, Ngwira B, Victor JC, Gillard PH, Cheuvart BB, Han HH and Neuzil KM: New England Journal of Medicine 362(4): 289\u2013298, 28 January 2010","field_url":"http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/362/4/289?ijkey=126ff5303335bf527b74d952aca26632f9635f27","body":"This study took the form of a randomised, placebo-controlled, multicenter trial in South Africa and Malawi to evaluate the efficacy of a live, oral rotavirus vaccine in preventing severe rotavirus gastroenteritis. A total of 4,939 infants were enrolled and randomly assigned to one of the three groups: 1,647 infants received two doses of the vaccine, 1,651 infants received three doses of the vaccine, and 1,641 received placebo. Of the 4,417 infants included in the per-protocol efficacy analysis, severe rotavirus gastroenteritis occurred in 4.9% of the infants in the placebo group and in 1.9% of those in the pooled vaccine group. Vaccine efficacy was lower in Malawi than in South Africa (49.4% vs. 76.9%); however, the number of episodes of severe rotavirus gastroenteritis that were prevented was greater in Malawi than in South Africa (6.7 vs. 4.2 cases prevented per 100 infants vaccinated per year). Efficacy against all-cause severe gastroenteritis was 30.2%. In conclusion, human rotavirus vaccine significantly reduced the incidence of severe rotavirus gastroenteritis among African infants during the first year of life.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Entries to Susie Smith Memorial Prize now invited for 2010 ","field_subtitle":"Oxfam GB, Closing date 18th of April 2010","field_url":"","body":"The Susie Smith memorial prize of \u00a33000 will be awarded to a single piece of already published writing on HIV and AIDS from sub-Saharan Africa. Any type of piece \u2013 (e.g. poetry, fiction, article, chapter of a book) \u2013 of up to 10,000 words, in English, and published since January 2006, will be eligible. The judges will focus on two key elements: Quality of the piece itself (writing, analysis, insights); and evidence of  impact of the writing in the media and/or with people, governments or other institutions. All submissions must be received by 18th April 2010 and include a cover letter outlining what kind of impact the piece has had and/or what it has achieved sent to Susie Smith Memorial Prize Submission \r\nOxfam Great Britain Oxfam House John Smith Drive Oxford OX4 2JY. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EPA services negotiations: An ESA perspective","field_subtitle":"Boodhoo N: Trade Negotiations Insights 1(9), February 2010","field_url":"http://www.acp-eu-trade.org/library/files/TNI_FEB10_ENG_WEB.pdf","body":"The author of this article believes that trade in services will play a more prominent role in the economic development of the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) countries in the coming years. He calls for special attention to be given to strengthening capacity and improving competitiveness in African countries and to providing appropriate flexibility in the sequencing of liberalisation commitments. Services account for between 30% and 60% of the GDP in African countries. Countries with a more developed services sector have tended to adopt an offensive stance in trade negotiations on services, such as with the EU, while the majority of states have favoured a defensive posture. This latter group argues that liberalisation of services trade should be preceded by capacity building to develop the necessary regulatory framework, given that this is lacking in many African countries. Trade liberalisation should not, in their view, be viewed as a magic wand that will inevitably lead to the development of their nascent services sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 109: Reflecting on the Copenhagen Summit from a health perspective: Development and mitigation of global warming are not mutually exclusive options! ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"European Parliament resolution of 20 January 2010 on the second revision of the ACP-EC Partnership Agreement (Cotonou Agreement)","field_subtitle":"European Parliament: 20 January 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yjap93z","body":"The European Parliament in considering the second review of the Cotonou Agreement between European and African and Caribbean states, deplored the fact that the Parliament, the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA), national parliaments of the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) States and civil society organisations and non-state actors were not involved in the decision-making process that led to the identification of areas and articles of the Cotonou Agreement for revision and to the establishment of the negotiating mandates adopted by the Council of the European Union (EU) and the ACP Council of Ministers. This omission was argued to affect the transparency and credibility of the revision process and to alienate EU and ACP populations from their governments and institutions. The Parliament stressed the need to consolidate the political dimension of the Cotonou Agreement, particularly in respect of the commitment of the parties to implement the obligations stemming from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The European Parliament called on the Commission, the EU and the ACP Council to take into account the principles and results of the International Aid Transparency Initiative, and to launch a debate, involving also non state actors, on the future of ACP-EU relations post-2020.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Expiry of medicines in supply outlets in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Nakyanzi JK, Kitutu FE, Oria H and Kamba PF: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88(2): 154\u2013158, February 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/2/08-057471/en/index.html","body":"The expiry of medicines in the supply chain is a serious threat to the already constrained access to medicines in developing countries. This study investigated the extent of, and the main contributing factors to, expiry of medicines in medicine supply outlets in Kampala and Entebbe, Uganda. A cross-sectional survey of six public and 32 private medicine outlets was done using semi-structured questionnaires. The study area has 19 public medicine outlets (three non-profit wholesalers, 16 hospital stores/pharmacies), 123 private wholesale pharmacies and 173 retail pharmacies, equivalent to about 70% of the country\u2019s pharmaceutical businesses. The findings indicate that medicines prone to expiry include those used for vertical programmes, donated medicines and those with a slow turnover. Sound coordination is needed between public medicine wholesalers and their clients to harmonise procurement and consumption as well as with vertical programmes to prevent duplicate procurement. Additionally, national medicine regulatory authorities should enforce existing international guidelines to prevent dumping of donated medicine. Medicine selection and quantification should be matched with consumer tastes and prescribing habits. Lean supply and stock rotation should be considered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Free-trade agreements: The other side of liberalization: What is developing countries\u2019 room to manoeuvre?","field_subtitle":"Lagandr\u00e9 D, Rolland J and Alpha A: Trade Negotiation Insights 10(8), December 2009-January 2010","field_url":"http://www.acp-eu-trade.org/library/files/tni_en_8-10.pdf","body":"The degree and pace of liberalisation necessary for a free-trade agreement (FTA) to comply with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules (especially Article XXIV of GATT) remains an important discussion point in EPA (economic partnership agreement) negotiations. This article helps clarify the different interpretations of Article XXIV by analysing some 40 free-trade agreements notified to the WTO, including interim EPAs. Developing countries can make proposals for flexibilities in the FTAs they negotiate with developed countries. The concept of asymmetry justifies this approach, and these flexibilities are an important means for adjusting to liberalisation that goes beyond WTO requirements. Two WTO legal texts can be used as a basis: on the one hand, the enabling clause which states that \u2018contracting parties may accord differential and more favourable treatment to developing countries, without according such treatment to other contracting parties\u2019, and, on the other hand, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which allows some flexibility to developing countries depending on their global and sectorial and subsectorial development level. At a time when the West Africa and Central Africa EPA negotiations have stalled over provisions that would provide more flexibility, the analysis of the FTAs notified to the WTO reveals that there is room to manoeuvre. Indeed, the precedent set in some FTAs is a basis for understanding and accepting the ACP\u2019s request to liberalise 60% \u2013 and not 80% \u2013 of their market or to benefit from a 25-year transition period.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Gates Foundation gives boost to tobacco control in Africa","field_subtitle":"Health-e News: 4 February 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032637","body":"The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given a grant of US$7 million over five years to the American Cancer Society to lead and coordinate the African Tobacco Control Consortium, a global coalition of public health-oriented organisations focusing on using evidence-based approaches to stem the tobacco epidemic in Africa. According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, much of the rise in cancer in Africa can be attributed to widespread tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke. Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in the world, and according to the World Health Organization, if current trends continue, tobacco use will cause one billion deaths worldwide during this century. As the managing organisation, the Society will collaborate with consortium partners to implement an ambitious tobacco control program across the 46 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. The overall goal will be to reduce tobacco use in these countries by implementing proven strategies at the national and local level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender, climate change and health","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/globalchange/publications/reports/final_who_gender.pdf","body":"Effects of climate change on health will impact on most populations in the coming decades and put the lives and well-being of billions of people at increased risk, according to this report. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that \u2018climate change is projected to increase threats to human health\u2019. Climate change can affect human health directly (such as impacts of thermal stress, death/injury in floods and storms) and indirectly through changes in the ranges of disease vectors (such as mosquitoes), water-borne pathogens, water quality, air quality, and food availability and quality. The report also states that social impacts will vary dependent on age, socioeconomic class, occupations and gender, and the world\u2019s poorest people will be most affected. The risks to health from climate change arise from: direct stresses (such as heatwaves, weather disasters and workplace dehydration); ecological disturbance (such as altered infectious disease patterns); disruptions of ecosystems on which humanity depends (for example, health consequences of reduced food yields); and population displacement and conflict over depleted resources (for example, water, fertile land, fisheries).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global tuberculosis control: A short update to the 2009 report","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/tb/publications/global_report/2009/update/tbu_9.pdf","body":"This report is a short update to the WHO report on global tuberculosis (TB) control that was published in March 2009, based on data collected from July to September 2009. It is designed to fill an 18-month gap between the full reports of 2009 (in March) and 2010 (in October), following changes to the production cycle of the report in 2009 that have been made to ensure that future reports in the series contain more up-to-date data. In 2008, there were an estimated 8.9\u20139.9 million incident cases of TB, 9.6\u201313.3 million prevalent cases of TB, 1.1\u20131.7 million deaths from TB among HIV-negative people and an additional 0.45\u20130.62 million TB deaths among HIV-positive people (classified as HIV deaths in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases), with best estimates of 9.4 million, 11.1 million, 1.3 million and 0.52 million, respectively. The number of notified cases of TB in 2008 was 5.7 million, equivalent to 55\u201367% of all incident cases, with a best estimate of 61% (10% less than the Global Plan milestone of a case detection rate of 71% in 2008). Among patients in the 2007 cohort, 87% were successfully treated; this is the first time that the target of 85% (first set in 1991) has been exceeded at global level. Funding for TB control has increased since 2002, and is expected to reach US$ 4.1 billion in 2010. Funding gaps remain, however; compared with the Global Plan, funding gaps amount to at least US$ 2.1 billion in 2010.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Grants database for European Union","field_subtitle":"European Projects Database: 2008","field_url":"http://ec.europa.eu/eahc/projects/database.html","body":"The European Union (EU) established this projects database in December 2008. It \u2018includes information about projects, conferences, and operating grants funded through calls for proposals in the years 2003 to 2008 under the previous EU Public Health Programme and the current EU Health Programme 2008-2013\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Grants for 'Supporting and Strengthening Local Authority Associations at ACP National and Regional Levels' (ARIAL) Programme","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submission of proposals: 31 March 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yfjgvue","body":"The European Development Fund is offering grants for its ARIAL programme. The overall objective of the programme is to promote the political recognition and engagement of the local authorities (LAs) as important players and partners of development. The specific objective of the programme is to promote and strengthen the capacity of LAs in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. In particular it seeks to strengthen LA representative institutions from the national level up to the international level so that they will be able to take part in the implementation of development policies, in particular with the European Union, and play a political role as provided for by the Cotonou Agreement. The core target group will be existing national and regional local authority associations, which are still to be identified by the successful candidates. Applicants will explain the methodology with which they plan to select/or have already selected the associations who will receive their support. Any selection process should ensure the effective representation of all ACP regions, and, where possible, all ACP countries. The successful candidate will ensure that existing associations, who most effectively represent local authorities, will receive support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Greenpeace Copenhagen outcome assessment","field_subtitle":"Greenpeace: 19 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/cop15-assessment.pdf","body":"This document outlines Greenpeace\u2019s assessment of the decisions taken at the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change held in Denmark in December 2009. In this, Greenpeace calls for a financial mechanism for dealing with climate change that is transparent and inclusive. At Copenhagen, Governments agreed to establish a Copenhagen Climate Fund, which Greenpeace believes is one step to ensuring that investments take place where they are most needed, noting that developing country action on climate change must have technological and financial support from industrialised countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV-positive Zimbabweans want constitutional rights","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 4 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87999","body":"AIDS activists in Zimbabwe have launched a major drive to ensure that the rights of people living with HIV are enshrined in the new constitution. The Global Political Agreement signed in September 2008 between Zimbabwe's various political rivals, which gave rise to the coalition government in February 2009, includes writing the new constitution expected to be introduced in 2010. \u2018We are not calling for a token participation, but significant and meaningful involvement that will go a long way in promoting our welfare and rights when the constitution is adopted,\u2019 Tonderai Chiduku, advocacy coordinator of Zimbabwe National Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS (ZNNP+) said. The Southern Africa AIDS Information Dissemination Service (SAFAIDS) and ZNNP+ are calling for a bill of rights that would promote better access to health services. An estimated two million people are living with HIV and AIDS in Zimbabwe, one of the countries hardest hit by HIV and AIDS, but have never before been actively involved in such legislation and do not have representation in parliament, Chiduku said. The activists have also urged policy-makers to include a clause that would commit the government to spending a minimum of 10\u201315% of the national budget on healthcare.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Hospitalization in adolescence: Burden and spectrum of HIV-related morbidity in a country with an early-onset and severe HIV epidemic: A prospective survey ","field_subtitle":"Ferrand RA, Bandason T, Musvaire P, Larke N and Nathoo K : Public Library of Science and Medicine 7(2): 2 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000178","body":"Adolescents (aged 10\u201318) were systematically recruited from acute admissions to the two public hospitals in Harare, Zimbabwe, to answer a questionnaire and undergo standard investigations including HIV testing, with consent. Pre-set case-definitions defined cause of admission and underlying chronic conditions. Participation was 94%. In total, 139 (46%) of 301 participants were HIV-positive, but only four were herpes simplex virus-2 (HSV-2) positive. Age and sex did not differ by HIV status, but HIV-infected participants were significantly more likely to be stunted, have pubertal delay, and be maternal orphans or have an HIV-infected mother. In conclusion, HIV is the commonest cause of adolescent hospitalisation in Harare, mainly due to adult-spectrum opportunistic infections plus a high burden of chronic complications of paediatric HIV and AIDS. Low HSV-2 prevalence and high maternal orphanhood rates provide further evidence of long-term survival following mother-to-child transmission. Better recognition of this growing phenomenon is needed to promote earlier HIV diagnosis and care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How multi-media can bring better perspectives to sub-Saharan African development issues","field_subtitle":"Ivo AM: African Centre for Community and Development, 22 January 2010","field_url":"http://community.eldis.org/.59d119ea","body":"This article explores the use of multimedia to enhance development enquiry and analysis, and the design and implementation of process interventions aimed at poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa. It discusses some important interventions in Africa: the Catalyzing Access to ICT in Africa (CATIA) programme; the LINK Centre (University of the Witwatersrand); the Acacia Initiative; the African Information Society Initiative (AISI); the APC (Association for Progressive Communications); and Research ICT Africa. Despite these interventions, Africa still faces problems of access and use of these interventions and services, especially among poor and vulnerable people. The areas of weakness include: poor performance in the telecommunications sector; little e-access and use in small and medium enterprises; and absence of an equitable system of intellectual property rights that is friendly to developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa. As a result the author observes barriers to access often expensive, modern technologies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Huge cuts in aid ahead for HIV and AIDS treatment ","field_subtitle":"Cullinan K: Health-e News, 27 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032631","body":"South Africa is reported to be facing large cuts in external funding, such as in falling US funding,  for its HIV and AIDS programme over the next five years, despite needing an extra R2-billion a year to reach all those who need antiretroviral treatment. Almost a million South Africans will soon be on lifelong antiretroviral treatment and this number will triple in the next decade if government keeps to its implementation plan. Scenario planning by Treasury indicates that the demand for treatment and care will peak in 2021, when the country would need close to South African Rands 30-billion (about 4.3 billion US dollars). ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Human resources for health dossier","field_subtitle":"Eldis: 2009","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/healthsystems/dossiers/hr/index.htm","body":"This dossier offers practical up to date information about how to address human resource problems and issues, drawing upon evidence about what works, and identifying innovations in approaches, policy and practice. Developing countries have committed to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). They will need to make the most effective use of all available resources to achieve the MDGs - this includes human resources. Many countries are improving their short and medium term financial planning and budgetary processes but in the past, few, if any, have given human resource management a similar focus. Now, however, human resources are being seen to be as crucial as money in improving services for poor people. Sections include: planning for human resources; strengthening capacity; migration; management issues; international initiatives; and a section focusing on Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights and health go hand-in-hand: An interview with Savitri Goonesekere","field_subtitle":"Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88(2), February 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/2/10-030210/en/index.html","body":"This paper reports on an interview with Professor Savitri Goonesekere, an international expert on the rights of women and children and a member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women between 1999 and 2002. In the interview she notes \u2018a cynicism about rights and what they can do, especially in developing countries. This just encourages states not to implement the treaties they have signed'. She notes that human rights laws create a culture of support for implementing health policies by helping the community to monitor the state\u2019s actions and programmes. She notes that some argue that if health policies are in place, health rights do not need to be put in the constitution and other laws. However she suggests that political systems are very fragile and a change in a health minister can bring in someone with a different attitude, leading everything to change. 'If a right is not in place in a law or constitution, it\u2019s very easy to pull it back.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Humanitarian Fund 2010","field_subtitle":"Closing date for applications: 5 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.bma.org.uk/international/international_development/humfund2010.jsp","body":"The 2010 Humanitarian Fund is now accepting applications. The Fund, supported by donations from the BMA and Royal College of Nursing, offers grants of up to \u00a33,000 for projects taking place in developing countries. Projects must offer clear health benefits to the local population, must involve at least one current National Health Service employee and should have a sustainable impact. The grants will cover incidental costs such as travel and accommodation only (not equipment or drugs). For more details on the Fund please contact the BMA\u2019s International Dept at the email address given or complete and return the application form on their website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Humanitarian horizons: A practitioners' guide to the future","field_subtitle":"Feinstein International Centre, Tufts University: January 2010","field_url":"https://wikis.uit.tufts.edu/confluence/display/FIC/Humanitarian+Horizons+--+A+Practitioners","body":"This guide is an attempt to help humanitarian aid agencies look a generation into the future to begin making the necessary changes now to their thinking and organisation, to ensure that they continue to deliver the right assistance and protection to the right people in the right ways. It examines possible future scenarios and the consequences they may bring with them for humanitarian agencies. Three central themes emerge: the emergence of a \u2018new humanitarianism\u2019 that will be part of neither the humanitarian nor development systems; the continued growth of information, communication and technology tools; and strategic leadership that is central to humanitarian action in an increasingly uncertain world. Navigating these dynamics is noted to require leadership that is comfortable with ambiguity and risk, drawing on evidence and data, but not constrained by its absence. According to the guide, agencies need a leadership that encourages dissent and experimentation, in organisations that are flatter, able to implement functions of both ground delivery and global analysis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Indian exporters breathe easy as East African nations reject draft","field_subtitle":"Unnikrishnan CH: Livemint, 21 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.livemint.com/2010/02/21221234/Indian-exporters-breathe-easy.html","body":"In this report, the authors allege relief for Indian generic drug manufacturers, as five East African countries \u2013 Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Sudan \u2013 refused in a health meeting to endorse a proposal by the East African Community (EAC) to introduce an anti-counterfeit products law. The law, which could have potentially blocked exports of generic drugs from India because of a lack of clarity on what is counterfeit, had worried the Indian drug industry ever since the 2007 draft proposal by the EAC. East African countries together contribute almost one-fifth of India's Rs40,000 core drug exports. Kenya passed a similar law in 2008 that Uganda had used as a model for its own draft Bill last year, and which was due for implementation this year. The Ugandan Bill has been sent back for review. The members of the East African states present at this regional health meeting refused to endorse the draft proposal and demanded that the definition of generics be what WHO [the World Health Organization] stipulates. The views of trade ministers are, however, not made clear in the report. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"International flow of Zambian nurses","field_subtitle":"Hamada N, Maben J, McPake B and Hanson K: Human Resources for Health 7(83), 11 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/7/1/83","body":"This paper highlights and discusses changing patterns of outward migration of Zambian nurses in the light of policy developments in Zambia and in receiving countries. Prior to 2000, South Africa was the most important destination for Zambian registered nurses. In 2000, new destination countries, such as the United Kingdom, became available, resulting in a substantial increase in migration from Zambia. This was attributed to a policy of active recruitment by the United Kingdom's National Health Service and Zambia's policy of offering Voluntary Separation Packages: early retirement lump-sum payments promoted by the government, which nurses used towards migration costs. The dramatic decline in migration to the United Kingdom since 2004 was reported to be most likely due to increased difficulties in obtaining United Kingdom registration and work permits. Despite smaller numbers, enrolled nurses were also noted now to be leaving Zambia for other destination countries. This paper argues that the focus of any migration strategy should be on how to retain a motivated workforce through improving working conditions and policy initiatives to encourage nurses to stay within the public sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Interview with Dr Otis Brawley, Chief Medical Officer of the American Cancer Society on the eve of World Cancer Day (February 4)","field_subtitle":"Health-e News: 3 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032636","body":"In this interview, Dr Brawley discusses the challenges particular to Africa in relation to cancer and debunks some of the myths around cancer. He believes Africa is addressing the cancer pandemic, but more focus is needed to bring politicians and non-government organisations into the fold to address cancer in Africa. Cervical cancer is highly treatable in many areas of the world and abilities to prevent, detect and treat it need to reach African more widely. Smoking, which is not very common in Africa but is growing, needs to be stopped to prevent an epidemic of lung cancer. With regard to the role tobacco control plays in cancer control in Africa, he noted that the Africa Tobacco Control Regional Initiative, the Africa Tobacco Control Alliance, and the Framework Convention Alliance have already been instrumental in helping to establish an agenda for cancer control in Africa. With tobacco companies looking at Africa as an area of market growth there is need to combat what could be an epidemic of lung cancer, cardiac and other diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Is the EU's governance 'good'?: An assessment of EU governance in its partnership with ACP States","field_subtitle":"Slocum-Bradley N and Bradley A: United Nations University\u2019s Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS), February 2010","field_url":"http://www.cris.unu.edu/fileadmin/workingpapers/W-2010-1.pdf","body":"Distinguishing between \u2018(good) governance\u2019 as a process and an outcome, this paper examines both the processes and outcomes of governance in the context of the European Union\u2019s (EU) relationship with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States within the period of the Cotonou Agreement (CA). It discusses and assesses a variety of governance mechanisms, including the European Commission\u2019s use of the governance concept, economic partnership agreements (EPAs), manifestations of partner preferences, the revision of the CA, and Fisheries Partnership Agreements. Specific examples of the wielding of each mechanism are assessed based upon two criteria: the extent to which the wielding of the mechanism by the EU is a manifestation of \u2018good governance\u2019, and the extent to which the EU\u2019s wielding of the mechanism has resulted, or is likely to result, in the sustainable development of and reduction of poverty in ACP countries. The examples are chosen to illustrate contradictions between rhetoric and practice and the consequential negative (actual and potential) impact upon development in ACP States. The final section offers suggestions for improving the EU\u2019s governance processes and their outcomes for development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Join the World Health Day campaign: 1,000 Cities, 1,000 Lives","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/world-health-day/2010/en/index.html","body":"World Health Day, 7 April 2010, will focus on urbanisation and health. The theme was selected in recognition of the effect urbanisation has on our collective health globally and for us all individually. Tell the world about what is happening in your city and exchange ideas with people from around the globe. Go to the campaign social media site to join the discussion, upload your videos and photos and nominate your urban health hero. With the campaign 1000 cities, 1000 lives, events will be organised worldwide during the week of 7 \u2013 11 April 2010. The global goals of the campaign are: 1,000 cities \u2013 to open up public spaces to health, whether it be activities in parks, town hall meetings, clean-up campaigns, or closing off portions of streets to motorised vehicles \u2013 and 1,000 lives \u2013 to collect 1,000 stories of urban health champions who have taken action and had a significant impact on health in their cities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Keeping an eye on Equity: Community visions of  equity in health","field_subtitle":"TARSC, LDHMT, IPASC, HocSI, RHE, HEPS, IHRG, Msichoke, IHI","field_url":"","body":"In the last five years EQUINET has through Training and Research Support Centre and Ifakara Health Institute supported participatory action research work in nine countries in east and southern Africa exploring different aspects of community interactions with health systems. We did this to better understand these social dimensions of health, and, more importantly to support the empowerment of groups affected by health issues to analyse, act on and change the conditions that undermine their health. In 2008, working with seven institutions, we developed capacities to use photography as a tool for visual literacy, to support reflection and action in sites in seven countries in east and southern Africa. This book presents the work carried out in 2009, embedded within our work on strengthening people\u2019s power in health. It presents through photography the lives of the people involved, the  diversity of views on the determinants of health in these communities, the visions of solutions and the actions taken to act on the problems identified. The book is currently available as a hardcopy from the EQUINET secretariat. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Medicines: Counterfeit medicines","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: Fact sheet No 275, January 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs275/en/index.html","body":"This fact sheet contains vital information on counterfeit medicines, especially regarding identification of these medicines. Counterfeit medicines are medicines that are deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled with respect to identity and/or source. Use of counterfeit medicines can result in treatment failure or even death. Public confidence in health-delivery systems may be eroded following use and/or detection of counterfeit medicines. Both branded and generic products are subject to counterfeiting. All kinds of medicines have been counterfeited, from medicines for the treatment of life-threatening conditions to inexpensive generic versions of painkillers and antihistamines. Counterfeit medicines may include products with the correct ingredients or with the wrong ingredients, without active ingredients, with insufficient or too much active ingredient, or with fake packaging.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"MEDINFO 2010: 13th International Congress on Medical Informatics 12\u201315 September 2010, Cape Town","field_subtitle":"Registration period: 1 March to 30 June 2010","field_url":"http://www.medinfo2010.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=88","body":"This will be the first time MEDINFO is held in Africa. The Congress aims to boost exposure to grassroots healthcare delivery and the underpinning health information systems, as well as to open the door to new academic partnerships into the future and help to nurture a new breed of health informaticians. The theme for the Congress is \u2018Partnerships for effective e-health solutions\u2019, with a particular focus on how innovative collaborations can promote sustainable solutions to health challenges. Information and communication technologies may have enormous potential for improving the health and lives of individuals. Innovative and effective change using such technologies is reliant upon people working together in partnerships to create innovative and effective solutions to problems with particular regard to contextual and environmental factors. To this end, the Congress brings together the health informatics community from across the globe who are seeking to work together and share experiences and knowledge to promote sustainable solutions to global health challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"New AIDS and HIV website launched","field_subtitle":"Aids and Law Exchange (AIDS LEX): 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.aidslex.org","body":"The AIDS and Law Exchange (AIDSLEX) is a new website that may be used as an online resource tool for activists, community organisations, researchers, policy-makers, journalists, health workers and anyone who seeks quick and easy access to a wide range of resources about HIV, human rights and the law. It helps people around the world communicate and share information, materials and strategies, with the ultimate goal of contributing to a global effort to protect and promote the human rights of people living with or vulnerable to HIV and AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New forum for traditional medical practitioners","field_subtitle":"African Networks on Ethnomedicines: February 2010","field_url":"http://www.africanethnomedicines.net/forum/index.php","body":"African Networks on Ethnomedicines, the publisher of African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines (AJTCAM) has launched an interactive forum for traditional medical practitioners. It is hoped that it will prove to be a useful resource for traditional medical practitioners and others in uplifting the standard of traditional medicines and alternatives medicines. In order to post on this forum, you may register with your username and password. If you have registration problems, enable cookies on your browser.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New parliament group monitors EU trade pacts\u2019 impact on poor\u2019s medicines access ","field_subtitle":"Cronin D: Intellectual Property Watch, 28 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2010/01/28/new-parliament-group-monitors-eu-trade-pacts-impact-on-poors-medicines-access/","body":"A member of the European Parliament is reported to have argued that trade agreements must not contain clauses on intellectual property rights that could imperil poor people's access to affordable medicines. A veteran member of the European Parliament (MEP), David Martin, is reported to have expressed concern about \u2018data exclusivity\u2019 requirements, whereby major pharmaceutical companies would be able to block India\u2019s generic medicines industry from using the formulae with which new drugs are developed for a period of several years. This is because India is a leading exporter of low-priced generic medicines to other developing countries, and such provisions have repercussions for those countries to which generic medicines from India are provided, including African countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"New treatment guidelines announced for South Africa","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 16 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=88126","body":"New national treatment guidelines are set to make the world's largest antiretroviral (ARV) programme even bigger as South Africa extends treatment to more HIV-positive infants, pregnant women and people battling HIV-tuberculosis (TB) co-infection. Dr Nono Simelela, CEO of the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), confirmed that the revised guidelines were in the final stages of editing and would go to print in March, while implementation is scheduled to begin on 1 April 2010. Major changes to the guidelines include providing ARVs to all HIV-positive infants less than one year old regardless of their CD4 count \u2013 which measures immune system strength \u2013 without having an expensive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test that is not widely available at clinics to confirm their HIV status. Pregnant HIV-positive women will be able to start treatment at a new, higher CD4 count of 350, as will all TB/HIV co-infected patients, rather than having to wait until their CD4 counts fell to 200 or below as was previously the case. TB remains the leading cause of death among people living with HIV. The shifts in treatment could significantly reduce infant and maternal mortality due to HIV, and lower the rate of new infections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Patent pools for ARVs: Industry perspectives from ASPEN","field_subtitle":"Nicolaou S: AIDS Journal 4: 60\u201361, 19 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2819695/?tool=pubmed","body":"In this article, the author states that affordability through reduced pricing is only one part of enhancing access to treatment in public health emergencies: supply security and the guarantee of supply consistency is the other. To the extent that patent pooling is able to create regional African manufacturing capability, Africans will support the concept. However, if it further decentralises manufacture away from the continent and increases Africa\u2019s dependence on imports, it can potentially weaken supply security and will continue to relegate Africa a continent of dependency, rather than one that invests in its own capability. The author cautions that patent pooling should be viewed guardedly on the African continent and only be embraced if it is consistent with the AU Heads of State\u2019s call for an African manufacturing plan. Africa must aspire to move from \u2018converting charity dollars into sustainable, long term investment dollars\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Protecting health from climate change: Connecting science, policy and people","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization 2009","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2009/9789241598880_eng.pdf","body":"All populations will be affected by a changing climate but, according to this article, the initial health risks vary greatly, depending on where and how people live. People living in small island developing states and other coastal regions, megacities, and mountainous and polar regions are all particularly vulnerable in different ways. Health effects are expected to be more severe for elderly people and people with infirmities or pre-existing medical conditions. The groups who are likely to bear most of the resulting disease burden are children and the poor, especially women. The major diseases that are most sensitive to climate change \u2013 diarrhoea, vector-borne diseases like malaria, and infections associated with undernutrition \u2013 are most serious in children living in poverty. Strengthening of public health services needs to be a central component of adaptation to climate change. The international health community already has a wealth of experience in protecting people from climate-sensitive hazards, and proven, cost-effective health interventions are already available to counter the most urgent of these. Broadening the coverage of available interventions would greatly improve health now. Coupled with forward planning, it would also reduce vulnerability to climate changes as they unfold in the future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Quest for quality: Guide for in-country discussions on human resources for health","field_subtitle":"Cordaid: February 2010","field_url":"http://www.cordaidpartners.com/rooms/human-resources-in-health-hrh/documents/866-guidelines-cases-quest-for-quality","body":"This paper presents and discusses a variety of experiences of faith-based organisations (FBOs) working in rural and remote areas of Anglophone Africa in dealing with human resources for health (HRH). The paper is intended to be used in discussions among people working in the field of HRH or who have tasks related to the management of health staff. It covers a number of case studies, including those in sub-Saharan Africa. It can be used for HRH discussions at different levels - at the level of umbrella organizations of FBOs, at district level, or at health facility level - and in different settings such as decentralised or centralised settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Rapid advice: Antiretroviral therapy for HIV infection in adults and adolescents","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 30 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hiv/pub/arv/rapid_advice_art.pdf","body":"In 2006, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that all patients start anti-retroviral therapy (ART) when their CD4 count (a measure of immune system strength) falls to 200 cells/mm3 or lower, at which point they typically show symptoms of HIV disease. Since then, studies and trials have clearly demonstrated that starting ART earlier reduces rates of death and disease. WHO is now recommending that ART be initiated at a higher CD4 threshold of 350 cells/mm3 for all HIV-positive patients, including pregnant women, regardless of symptoms. WHO also recommends that countries phase out the use of Stavudine, or d4T, because of its long-term, irreversible side-effects. Stavudine is still widely used in first-line therapy in developing countries due to its low cost and widespread availability. Zidovudine (AZT) or Tenofovir (TDF) are recommended as less toxic and equally effective alternatives. The 2009 recommendations outline an expanded role for laboratory monitoring to improve the quality of HIV treatment and care. They recommend greater access to CD4 testing and the use of viral load monitoring when necessary. However, access to ART must not be denied if these monitoring tests are not available.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Rapid advice: Infant feeding in the context of HIV","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 30 November 2009","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2009/9789241598873_eng.pdf","body":"World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations on infant feeding and HIV were last revised in 2006. Significant programmatic experience and research evidence regarding HIV and infant feeding have accumulated since then. In particular, evidence has been reported that antiretroviral (ARV) interventions to either the HIV-infected mother or HIV-exposed infant can significantly reduce the risk of postnatal transmission of HIV through breastfeeding. This has major implications for how women living with HIV might choose to feed their infants, and how health workers should counsel mothers when making these choices. The potential of ARVs to reduce HIV transmission throughout the period of breastfeeding also highlights the need for guidance on how child health services should commu\u00acnicate information about ARVs to prevent transmission through breastfeeding, and the implications for feeding of HIV exposed infants through the first two years of life.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Rapid advice: Use of antiretroviral drugs for treating pregnant women and preventing HIV infection in infants","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 30 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hiv/pub/mtct/rapid_advice_mtct.pdf","body":"In 2006, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that ARVs be provided to HIV-positive pregnant women in the third trimester (beginning at 28 weeks) to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. At the time, there was insufficient evidence on the protective effect of ARVs during breastfeeding. Since then, several clinical trials have shown the efficacy of ARVs in preventing transmission to the infant while breastfeeding. The 2009 recommendations promote the use of ARVs earlier in pregnancy, starting at 14 weeks and continuing through the end of the breastfeeding period. WHO now recommends that breastfeeding continue until the infant is 12 months of age, provided the HIV-positive mother or baby is taking ARVs during that period. This will reduce the risk of HIV transmission and improve the infant's chance of survival. \u2018In the new recommendations, we are sending a clear message that breastfeeding is a good option for every baby, even those with HIV-positive mothers, when they have access to ARVs,\u2019 said Daisy Mafubelu, WHO's Assistant Director General for Family and Community Health. National health authorities are encouraged by WHO to identify the most appropriate infant feeding practice (either breastfeeding with ARVs or the use of infant formula) for their communities. The selected practice should then be promoted as the single standard of care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Reflecting on the Copenhagen Summit from a health perspective: Development and mitigation of global warming are not mutually exclusive options! ","field_subtitle":"David Legge, People\u2019s Health Movement and International People\u2019s Health University ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn the last weeks of 2009, the UN held a meeting in Copenhagen to thrash out a comprehensive global agreement that could be converted into an internationally legally binding treaty to prevent dangerous global warming. By the end of the Copenhagen conference, the outcome was far from this:  The conference accord  preserved the Kyoto protocol, and while it recognised that global warming be limited to an increase of less than two degrees centigrade, it did not set targets for greenhouse gas cuts. While it set an aim to provide $30bn a year for poor countries to adapt to climate change rising to $100bn a year by 2020, it did not detail the source of these funds. It set no deadline for the conclusion of the climate talks.\r\n\r\nThe failure at Copenhagen has deep implications for people\u2019s health, particularly in Africa, where the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warn that consequences of global warming, such as loss of wetlands, will lead to increased frequency and severity of drought, further jeopardising food security (http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg2/index.php?idp=667). But what role do health activists play in this struggle?  What are the special interests of health activists in relation to climate change and what special leverage might people\u2019s health networks contribute in controlling the drivers of global warming? With the prevailing global inequities and the heavy disease burden and high barriers to health care in low income countries, such as in Africa, we need to understand the North- South dimensions of the Copenhagen fiasco.\r\n\r\nIt appears that the high income countries approached Copenhagen with low ambitions and high conditions, including conditions that tied their own action to comparable commitments from the big developing countries like South Africa, downplaying the role that emissions from high income countries have played in the historical accumulation of greenhouse gases. It appears that the big developing countries, led by China and India, were unwilling to accept the kind of restrictions on their economic development that were being canvassed and were unwilling to slow down what they described as the liberation of millions of desperately poor people from poverty. With pathways to less harmful economic development dependant on access to the necessary non-polluting technologies, the developing countries were not happy with the offers from the rich countries on this front.\r\n\r\nControl of global warming and opportunities for economic development are both framed by the wider regime of global economic governance. The inequities, imbalances and instabilities of the global economy, manifest in the global food crisis and the global financial crisis, are direct reflections of this regime. Neoliberal globalisation is built upon a consumerism (with concomitant carbon pollution) that marginalises a billion humans, who are required neither for their labour power nor their buying power. In Copenhagen these inequities were again unmasked, in relation to the crisis of global warming.\r\n\r\nIt is untenable that these global policy challenges should be allowed to force a choice in low income and developing countries between economic development OR a mitigation of global warming. Rather we need to work towards a regime of global economic governance which reconciles the need for sustainable economic development for countries in Africa and other parts of the global south, and the need to contain global CO2 levels to 350ppm. Such a regime is technically and economically possible. The main challenge is political.\r\n\r\nWhat does this mean for health activists?  It raises four imperatives:\r\n\r\nFirstly, we need to get our facts straight and build a robust analysis. We need to understand clearly the positions that were advanced by the various groups of countries at Copenhagen, put them in the context of the political economy of energy and global economic governance, and explore their health implications. \r\n\r\nSecondly, we need to put sustainable economic development at the forefront of a shared struggle for health and for tackling global warming. This is not the high consumption, low employment, neoliberal globalised production model of development, but a more sustainable autonomous development, based to a large degree on local production and supply.\r\n\r\nThirdly, we need to build pressure on all governments, north and south, to accelerate the reform of domestic energy production and energy use, while continuing to work for binding international agreements.\r\n\r\nFourthly, in addition to energy efficiency and the move to renewables, we need to profile energy equity, or the fair distribution of energy resources across countries, social groups and generations. This has implications for high income countries, where the profligate use of carbon based energy is embedded in culture, economy and infrastructure. It also has implications for the elites and middle classes of low income countries. It calls for an alternative culture of global solidarity.\r\n\r\nThese four imperatives have implications for the work of health activists. \r\n\r\nComprehensive primary health care is fundamental for improving access to health care and action on the social determinants of health.  It is also a strategy of social change through community mobilisation based on partnerships between PHC practitioners and the communities they are serving.  It follows that energy reform must be included in the discourse on \u2018the social determinants of health\u2019 and community mobilisation for health. It must also be clearly contextualised in relation to the same problems of current economic globalisation that drive inequity in health, raising the challenge of global economic reform. \r\n\r\nGlobal solidarity is central to taking forward comprehensive PHC. This calls for health activists to build communication channels and opportunities for collaboration across various axes of difference (nation, race, gender, religion as well as class) so that the forces for progressive global change can be more coherent and effective. Energy reform (including energy equity as well as efficiency and the use of renewables) must be included in this communication, in the context of economic globalisation.\r\n\r\nIntersectoral collaboration is a core principle of all public health work. This calls on health social movements, like Peoples Health Movement, to build relationships with social movements who share common perspectives and values within other sectors, including with those engaging on global warming, environmental justice  and energy reform. \r\n\r\nUnder the banner of the \u2018right to health\u2019, health as a basic human right de-normalises the status quo and inspires communities in their struggle for access and for decent living conditions. This is a political struggle as much as it is a moral claim. The political analysis which guides this practice must take us beyond the noise of Copenhagen to explain the workings of neo-liberal globalisation in relation to health, economic development and global warming.   Opportunities like the Third People\u2019s Health Assembly, planned for Cape Town in July 2011, are thus important for us to deepen our understanding of these relationships and what this means for our work as health activists in Africa, and globally.\r\n \r\nEditor's comment: This issue EQUINET includes a focus on what the climate change discussions mean for health in east and southern Africa. We welcome materials, comments and editorial input from others working in this area, to further develop our work and understanding in the region.  Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this oped to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please also visit the websites of the People\u2019s Health Movement http://www.phmovement.org/  and International People\u2019s Health University  http://www.phmovement.org/iphu/ ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Seminar: Current African thinking on developmental governance","field_subtitle":"Dakar: 10\u201312 March 2010","field_url":"http://www.iag-agi.org/spip/article265.html","body":"As part of the African Governance Institute\u2019s activities programme in policy dialogue and advocacy for democratic and participatory governance in Africa, this seminar is designed to allow governance experts, governance practitioners from the public and private sectors, and civil society activists to engage in an intellectual dialogue on the major challenges facing Africa and to propose ways in which to rethink governance in general, and developmental governance in particular, with a view to satisfying the people\u2019s aspirations for peace, human rights and development. The development challenge for Africa is to institute policies, institutions and processes that would help eradicate poverty and enhance socio-economic transformations as a means of reinforcing human security and ensuring self-sustaining development. Given the challenges of globalisation and the worldwide hegemony of liberal ideology, it is imperative that in the current rehabilitation of the pan-African project of continental unity, those in position of authority in politics, bureaucracy, civil society and the private sector, be challenged to generate new African thinking on developmental governance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Sex work and the 2010 FIFA World Cup: Time for public health imperatives to prevail","field_subtitle":"Richter ML, Chersich MF, Scorgie F, Luchters S, Temmerman M and Steen R: Globalization and Health 6(1), 11 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-6-1.pdf","body":"In the context of South Africa's intense preparation for hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup, anxiety over HIV transmission in the context of sex work has sparked debate on the most appropriate legal response to this industry. Drawing on existing literature, the authors highlight the increased vulnerability of sex workers in the context of the HIV pandemic in southern Africa. They argue that laws that criminalise sex work not only compound sex workers' individual risk for HIV, but also compromise broader public health goals. International sporting events are thought to increase demand for paid sex and, particularly in countries with hyper-endemic HIV such as South Africa, likely to foster increased HIV transmission through unprotected sex. The 2010 FIFA World Cup presents a strategic opportunity for South Africa to respond to the challenges that the sex industry poses in a strategic and rights-based manner. Public health goals and growing evidence on HIV prevention suggest that sex work is best approached in a context where it is decriminalised and where sex workers are empowered. In short, the authors argue for a moratorium on the enforcement of laws that persecute and victimise sex workers during the World Cup period.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual health and HIV knowledge, practice and prevalence among male inmates in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Kupe N: Liverpool VCT, Care and Treatment (LVCT), 26 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.aidsportal.org/repos/Research%20Summary%20-LVCT.doc","body":"The need for empirical evidence on the state of HIV and AIDS in prisons in Kenya which can influence prison specific policy formulation nationally prompted this study. Its objectives included describing the level of knowledge of HIV among male inmates; describing the sexual health knowledge and practices among male inmates before and during imprisonment; determining the prevalence and predictors of HIV infection among male inmates; and examining policy, practice and legal frameworks around prevention of HIV infection in prisons. A cross sectional study design was utilised. Data was collected from inmates and stakeholders involved in HIV and AIDS policy formulation using quantitative and qualitative approaches respectively. Both the inmates and the key informants agreed that consensual and non-consensual sex occurs between inmates. Although not many inmates were found to be abusing drugs, those who were doing so were likely to be first timers in prison. Without underestimating the role played by condoms in HIV prevention, their provision in prisons is not a panacea to the consequences of sexual practice among inmates. There is therefore a need for a comprehensive approach in programming which will be fundamental in alleviating the HIV/AIDS scourge in prisons.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Shot in the arm for HIV and AIDS treatment and for public-private partnerships","field_subtitle":"Kahn T: Business Day, 18 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/Content.aspx?id=94117","body":"The South African Government Treasury is reported to have set aside an extra R8,4bn for HIV and AIDS over the next three years, reflecting its commitment to improving the quality of services for people affected by the disease and to doubling the number of patients getting life-saving antiretroviral therapy. An increase in funds flowing to provinces through conditional grants for HIV and AIDS and increased budget allocations to to wage increases for doctors, dentists, pharmacists and emergency services personnel, and for therapeutic practitioners such as physiotherapists intend to retain vital skills in the public sector, while a hospital revitalisation grant covers costs of refurbishing public hospitals. Citing Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, the report notes that these investments seek to improve the public health care sector as part of building a closer partnership between the public and private healthcare systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Sign the petition: 10 solutions to end poverty","field_subtitle":"The End of Poverty Campaign: 2009","field_url":"http://www.theendofpoverty.com/sign_petition.html","body":"The goal of this petition is to get 10 million signatures (globally) in 10 years and to moblise support to force world leaders to implement anti-poverty policy changes. Ten solutions are proposed to end poverty. Full equality between men and women, a worldwide minimum wage of $20 per day and the end of child labour are proposed, as well as guarantees of shelter, healthcare, education, food and drinking water as basic human rights. Land redistribution, an end to private monopoly ownership over natural resources, the termination of intellectual property rights on pharmaceutical drugs and the cancellation of third world debt are also mentioned. Total transparency is demanded for any corporation with more than 100 employees and a 1% tax on all benefits distributed to shareholders of corporations to create unemployment funds. Other solutions include the termination of tax havens around the world, cancellation of taxes on labour and basic consumption while introducing global taxes, equal voting for developing countries in international organisations such as the IMF, and a commitment by industrialised countries to decrease carbon emission by 50% over a ten-year period, as well as reducing by 25% each developed country\u2019s consumption of natural resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Small change: Why business won\u2019t save the world","field_subtitle":"Edwards M: January 2010","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/media/small-change-book.pdf","body":"In this book the author cautions against promises of the market as a means to meeting the challenges of social change. The author proposes that real change will come when business acts more like civil society, not the other way around, as business by its very nature is not equipped to attack the root causes of poverty, inequality, violence, and discrimination. Achieving fundamental social transformation requires a different set of operating values \u2013 cooperation rather than competition, collective action more than individual effort, and patient, long-term support for systemic solutions over immediate results. He argues that people give their money and time to social change organisations to serve a cause, not a balanced quarterly spreadsheet. With a vested interest in the status quo, all business can promise are valuable but limited advances: small change, in comparison to the more sweeping transformation that can be brought about by social action. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"South African military gets new HIV policy","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 26 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=87879","body":"In late 2009 the South African government announced that it had approved a new HIV and AIDS policy in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). This was widely welcomed by AIDS and human rights lobbyists. A November 2009 statement by the SANDF noted that the new policy made provision for the recruitment and selective deployment of HIV-positive members of the military. The new policy complies with a High Court ruling in May 2008, which found that the previous policy of excluding HIV-positive people from recruitment and foreign deployment was unconstitutional. The new policy draws on a system of classifying soldiers according to their health status and needs. An HIV-positive soldier who is stable and asymptomatic can now be classified as a \u2018G2K1\u2019, meaning they have a chronic but treatable disease and can be deployed \u2018anywhere at any time\u2019. An HIV-positive recruit is required to be on ante-retrovirals for three to six months before being considered for deployment, and failure to adhere to treatment is grounds for being declared \u2018temporarily unfit for deployment and military courses\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Systems thinking for health systems strengthening","field_subtitle":"Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research: 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.actionforglobalhealth.eu/news/systems_thinking_for_health_systems_strengthening","body":"This report offers a fresh and practical approach to strengthening health systems through \u2018systems thinking\u2019. It first decodes the complexity of a health system, and then applies that understanding to design better interventions to strengthen health systems, increase coverage, and improve health. The report suggests ways to more realistically forecast how health systems might respond to strengthening interventions, while also exploring potential synergies and dangers among those interventions. Additionally, it shows how better evaluations of health system strengthening initiatives can yield valuable lessons about what works, how it works and for whom. It is hoped that this report will deepen understanding and stimulate fresh thinking among stewards of health systems, health systems researchers, and development partners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The adequacy of policy responses to the treatment needs of South Africans living with HIV (1999-2008): A case study","field_subtitle":"Gow JA: Journal of the International AIDS Society 12(37), 14 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2804692/pdf/1758-2652-12-37.pdf","body":"In this study, national antiretroviral therapy (ART) policy is examined over the period of 1999 to 2008, which coincided with the government of President Thabo Mbeki and his Minister of Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. The movement towards a national ART programme in South Africa was an ambitious undertaking, the likes of which had not been contemplated before in public health in Africa. One million AIDS-ill individuals were targeted to be enrolled in the ART programme by 2007/08. Fewer than 50% of eligible individuals were enrolled. This failure resulted from lack of political commitment and inadequate public health system capacity. The human and economic costs of this failure are large and sobering. The total lost benefits of ART not reaching the people who need it are estimated at 3.8 million life years for the period, 2000 to 2005. The economic cost of those lost life years over this period has been estimated at more than US$15 billion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The challenge of accountability for development agencies within their own countries and before their peers: A comparative study","field_subtitle":"Vielajus M, Hudson A, Jonsson L and Neu D: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, December 2009","field_url":"http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/58/10/44251093.pdf","body":"This study proposes to sketch out an overview of the challenge of accountability within donor countries, and includes a few innovative initiatives set up by these countries to reinforce the demand for accountability, as well as to advance the production of \u2018accountable\u2019 information and diversify the tools for disseminating agencies\u2019 action and for opening the debate. It aims to find the thread linking services provided by different agencies, to understand how they interface and what their limitations are. The study poses and attempts to answer the following questions: What is the \u2018accountability demand\u2019 currently levelled at development agencies? How can the tools for producing and disseminating information be \u2018grown\u2019 so as to meet the mounting accountability objective? How can the agencies\u2019 accountability targets and tools be broadened to better answer the needs for information and dialogue of the stakeholders and the public at large?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The end of poverty?","field_subtitle":"Diaz P: 2009","field_url":"http://www.theendofpoverty.com/synopsis.html","body":"According to this film, global poverty did not just happen. It began with military conquest, slavery and colonisation that resulted in the seizure of land, minerals and forced labour. Today, the problem persists because of unfair debt, trade and tax policies \u2013 in other words, wealthy countries taking advantage of poor, developing countries. Actor and activist, Martin Sheen, narrates the film, a feature-length documentary directed by award-winning director, Philippe Diaz, which explains how today's financial crisis is a direct consequence of these unchallenged policies that have lasted centuries. It considers that 20% of the planet's population uses 80% of its resources and consumes 30% more than the planet can regenerate. At this rate, to maintain our lifestyle means more and more people will sink below the poverty line. Filmed in the slums of Africa and the barrios of Latin America, \u2018The end of poverty?\u2019 features expert insights from: Nobel prize winners in Economics, Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz; authors Susan George, Eric Toussaint, John Perkins, Chalmers Johnson; university professors William Easterly and Michael Watts; government ministers such as Bolivia's Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera and the leaders of social movements in Brazil, Venezuela, Kenya and Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The global health system: Strengthening national health systems as the next step for global progress","field_subtitle":"Frenk J: Public Library of Science Medicine 7(1), 12 January 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yllj49a","body":"According to this study, three circumstances make the present moment unique for global health. First, health has been increasingly recognised as a key element of sustainable economic development, global security, effective governance and human rights promotion. Second, due to the growing perceived importance of health, unprecedented \u2013 albeit still insufficient \u2013 sums of funds are flowing into this sector. Third, there is a burst of new initiatives coming forth to strengthen national health systems as the core of the global health system and a fundamental strategy to achieve the health-related Millennium Development Goals. In order to realise the opportunities offered by the conjunction of these unique circumstances, it is essential to have a clear conception of national health systems that may guide further progress in global health. To that effect, the first part of this document examines some common misconceptions about health systems. Part two explains a framework to better understand this complex field. Finally, a list of suggestions is offered on how to improve national health system performance and what role global actors can play.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The MDGS and beyond:Pro-poor policy in a changing world","field_subtitle":"Sumner A And Melamed C (eds): Poverty In Focus 19, January 2010","field_url":"http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCPovertyInFocus19.pdf","body":"This issue of Poverty in Focus reviews the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to date and asks what can be done to accelerate MDG progress in the years 2010\u20132015 and beyond. There have been numerous calls for a new development narrative/paradigm from developing countries, international civil society organisations and development agencies. The contributing authors believe this changing context will affect the debate on the MDGs, past and future, in ways that perhaps only now are starting to become clear. They also believe that impact of the current financial crisis is likely to continue to frame debates over the next five years, and will be critical in determining the economic and social environment. Economic uncertainty in donor countries is also leading to declining public support for aid budgets. They predict the coming period is likely to be much less certain as developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, face several interconnected crises to which climate change is central, and which will change the context for achieving the MDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The prevalence and functional impact of musculoskeletal conditions amongst clients of a primary health care facility in an under-resourced area of Cape Town","field_subtitle":"Parker R and Jelsma J: BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders 11(2), 4 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2474-11-2.pdf","body":"The objective of the study was to determine the prevalence of musculoskeletal conditions (MSC) and the functional implications in a sample of people attending community health centres in Cape Town, South Africa. It was conducted in clinics in two resource poor communities. A total of 1,005 people were screened. Of these, 362 (36%) reported MSC not due to injury in the past three months. Those with MSC had higher rates of co-morbidities in every category than those without. The mean Disability Index for those with MSC was mild to moderate, and moderate to severe in those aged over 55 years. In conclusion, although the sample may not be representative of the general community, the prevalence is considerably greater than those reported elsewhere, even when the population of the catchment area is used as a denominator. The common presentation of MSC with co-morbid diabetes and hypertension requires holistic management by appropriately trained health care practitioners. Any new determination of burden of disease due to MSC should recognise that these disorders may be more prevalent in developing countries than previously estimated.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The South South North capacity building module on poverty reduction","field_subtitle":"South South North: 2006 ","field_url":"http://www.southsouthnorth.org/","body":"The South South North (SSN) network adopts a pragmatic approach to tackling climate change and sustainable development. This module incorporates the main approaches and provides a toolkit for practitioners wishing to implement mitigation and/or adaptation in communities in developing countries. These tools and methodologies are gleaned from a learning-by-doing approach from projects implemented in countries like South Africa, Tanzania and Mozambique. The SSN mitigation programme describes the SSN Matrix Tool of criteria and indicators for appraising sustainable development projects. The SSN adaptation programme details the community based approach to adaptation (CBA) and details the SSN Adaptation Project Protocol \u2018SSNAPP\u2019 methodology, including the selection of community-based projects, and \u2018mapping\u2019 of vulnerable areas. This is followed by a \u2018bottom-up\u2019 approach of identifying a beneficiary community, to confirm vulnerability \u2018hotspots\u2019 and learn about current coping mechanisms to incorporate into an adaptation strategy. The SSN capacity building approach deals with indicators of sustainability. The SSN technology receptivity programme describes the steps for identifying and contributing to the technical receptivity and capacity of the programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The tuberculosis challenge in a rural South African HIV programme ","field_subtitle":"Houlihan CF, Mutevedzi PC, Lessells RJ, Cooke GS, Tanser FC and Newell M: BMC Infectious Diseases 10(23), 10 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2334-10-23.pdf","body":"South Africa remains the country with the greatest burden of HIV-infected individuals and the second highest estimated tuberculosis (TB) incidence per capita worldwide. This study reviewed records of consecutive HIV-infected people initiated onto ART between 1 January 2005 and 31 March 2006. Patients were screened for TB at initiation and incident episodes recorded. CD4 counts, viral loads and follow-up status were recorded; data was censored on 5 August 2008. Geographic cluster analysis was performed using spatial scanning. Eight hundred and one patients were initiated. TB prevalence was 25.3%, associated with lower CD4 and prior TB. Prevalent and incident TB were significantly associated with mortality. Incident TB was associated with a non-significant trend towards viral load >25copies/ml. A low-risk cluster for incident TB was identified for patients living near the local hospital in the geospatial analysis. The study concluded that there is a large burden of TB in the population. Rate of incident TB stabilises at a rate higher than that of the overall population. This data highlights the need for greater research on strategies for active case finding in rural settings and the need to focus on strengthening primary health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Twenty-Sixth International Pediatric Association (IPA) Congress of Pediatrics, 2010","field_subtitle":"Registration deadlines: 31 March and 22 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.ipa-world.org/IPAcongress/default.htm?ref3=db1%20IPA_reg%40kenes.com","body":"Three leading paediatric associations are uniting to host the 26th IPA Congress of Pediatrics in Johannesburg, South Africa from 4\u20139 August 2010. More than 5,000 participants are expected to attend this landmark event, the first IPA congress to be held in sub-Saharan Africa. It will unite paediatricians and health professionals working towards the target set by Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce child mortality by two thirds before 2015. The scientific programme is designed to meet the needs of general paediatricians from both the developed and the developing world. Plenary sessions will include: the MDGs and the current state of health of children in the world, and progress towards the MDGs; the state of the world\u2019s newborns, including major issues determining maternal and newborn health in developing and developed countries; the determinants of health, such as genetics, nutrition and the environment; disasters and trauma affecting child health, such as disasters, crises and the worldwide epidemic of trauma; and the global burden of infectious diseases affecting children and the challenge of emerging infections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"UK PubMed Central improves access to free online life sciences resource","field_subtitle":"UKPMC: 13 January 2010","field_url":"http://beta.ukpmc.ac.uk/","body":"Developed in direct consultation with researchers, the newly launched open beta version of the UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) site offers a whole range of new search and data mining tools designed to unlock the scientific knowledge held by the repository. It will enable researchers to search and link information from literature and drill down into underlying datasets in new and innovative ways. The easy-to-use, intuitive interface developed by the British Library for the latest open beta version will enable researchers to: conduct a full-text search of 1.7 million articles; access abstracts for over 19 million articles; exploit the scientific literature with innovative features that enrich abstracts and full-text articles by linking scientific terms to other sources of quality-assured and useful information; and search content not included in traditional journal literature \u2013 including clinical guidelines, as well as other hard-to-find material such as PhD theses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Unlocking the potential of the child: Improving Social Support and Health Care of Orphans and Vulnerable Children Through Increased Child Participation in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Masuku D, Mhlanga H, Ntini S, Kaim B, EQUINET PRA paper, February 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ZIMPRARepFeb2010.pdf","body":"The AIDS epidemic has resulted in over 1 million orphans and many other vulnerable children in Zimbabwe. Most of these children remain in their communities, either in child-headed households or looked after by their extended family or members of the community. While there has been a massive response from local organisations to the plight of these children, many programmes have been designed in a top-down manner, without taking into consideration the views of the children themselves.   The study used a mix of quantitative assessment and participatory action research methods (PRA) to explore and strengthen the participation of orphans and vulnerable children in primary health care (PHC) in Victoria Falls, a town in the north-western part of Zimbabwe. Children, community representatives and health workers identified three priority health problems faced by these children, ie: poor access to ART;  child abuse; and poor housing. Structural constraints, such as poverty and weakened health and community services, were seen as the primary underlying causes of these problems. Those involved identified actions they could take to address these problems, and based on this community organisations strengthened psychosocial support activities, undertook a number of awareness campaigns, initiated and participated in child protection committees and started to meet monthly to strengthen coordination. A participatory review of the interventions suggested that child involvement is an important component in a primary health care approach to designing ways of meeting children's needs, through structured platforms for the exchange of information and experiences, provision of child friendly services, and promotion of effective communication between health workers, community members and children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Updating the economic partnership agreements to match today\u2019s global challenges","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.gmfus.org/publications/article.cfm?id=706&parent_type=P","body":"German Marshall Fund of the United States: 19 November 2009\r\nThis document is a collection of seventeen essays on economic partnership agreements (EPAs) authored by recognised trade experts and senior policy-makers. Their responses constitute a mix of positive and negative elements, reflecting the complexity of the EPA processes. The negative message here is that EPAs are not useful or, at least, that these agreements are not necessarily relevant in light of the challenges faced by poor and vulnerable states, such as the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. The positive message is that all stakeholders continue to strongly believe that the EPAs should and can make a positive difference and that it is therefore possible to shape them for a truly positive outcome. The views expressed here reflect great convergence over the fact that there continues to be a huge trust gap in the negotiations. Whether perceived or observed, there is a persistent impression among ACP negotiators that EPAs are about European interests. Without trust among negotiating parties, chances are scant that negotiations will actually lead to genuine partnerships, as implied by the term \u2018economic partnership agreement\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Wellcome Trust seeks world class researchers to tackle most ambitious biomedical research questions","field_subtitle":"Wellcome Trust: January 2010","field_url":"http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Funding/investigator-awards/index.htm","body":"Researchers during the early stages of their independent research careers often find it hard to obtain grant support in competition with more established colleagues. This is paradoxical since there is evidence that researchers at the start of their independent careers are at their most creative. The Wellcome Trust Investigator Awards will be specifically targeted at this group of researchers; Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Awards will be reserved for fully-established independent researchers. Investigator Awards will be made available at two levels of experience and seniority: Wellcome Trust Investigator Awards and Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Awards. In addition to these new awards, the Trust will be introducing Enhancement Awards, which will be available to Wellcome Trust Investigators, Research Fellows and Strategic Award holders. These will provide flexible additional funding to support evolving research programmes and could, for example, support equipment, collaborations, and additional research costs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"WFP urges doctors to join fight against malnutrition","field_subtitle":"WFP: 26 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.wfp.org/stories/wfp-urges-doctors-join-fight-against-malnutrition","body":"World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director Josette Sheeran has urged doctors and medical experts to put their knowledge to work to support the battle against malnutrition, a factor in 10,000 child deaths every day. Speaking at the Royal Society of Medicine in London, Sheeran said that the world already had the ability and knowledge to tackle the challenge of malnutrition. What was lacking was the coordinated focus and political will, she said. 'We need to harness what we know \u2013 take the knowledge that we have right now and put it into action. We cannot wait,' she said in remarks to a breakfast meeting with a group of eminent doctors and medical experts. If a child under two is deprived of the nutrition needed for mental and physical growth, the damage is irreversible, Sheeran noted. 'For the world's bottom billion, can we take the technology and what we know, and ensure that there is access to nutrition? And can we stand with those under two year olds and at least make sure they are getting a shot at life?' The costs of undernutrition are high. Without adequate nutrition children cannot learn in school, HIV and AIDS drugs don\u2019t work, populations are more vulnerable to disease and economic growth is undermined, she added.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"What you count is what you target: The implications of maternal death classification for tracking progress towards reducing maternal mortality in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Cross S, Bell JS and Graham WJ: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88(2): 147\u2013153, February 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/2/09-063537/en/index.html","body":"The first target of the fifth United Nations Millennium Development Goal is to reduce maternal mortality by 75% between 1990 and 2015. According to this article, the target is critically off track. Despite difficulties inherent in measuring maternal mortality, it notes that interventions aimed at reducing it must be monitored and evaluated to determine the most effective strategies in different contexts. In some contexts, the direct causes of maternal death, such as haemorrhage and sepsis, predominate and can be tackled effectively through providing access to skilled birth attendance and emergency obstetric care. In others, indirect causes of maternal death, such as HIV and AIDS and malaria, make a significant contribution and require alternative interventions. Methods of planning and evaluating maternal health interventions that do not differentiate between direct and indirect maternal deaths may lead to unrealistic expectations of effectiveness or mask progress in tackling specific causes. The article analyses historical data from England and Wales and contemporary data from Ghana, Rwanda and South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Who benefits from health care in South Africa? ","field_subtitle":"University of Cape Town Health Economics Unit Information Sheet","field_url":"http://uct-heu.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/IS5_heu_WhoBenefitsFromHealthCare.pdf","body":"This information sheet presents evidence on the distribution of benefit of health services in South Africa. Within the public sector, the poor benefit relatively more than the rich from outpatient services at lower levels of care. The rich benefit considerably more than the poor from regional and central hospital services (both outpatient and inpatient services) and also benefit more from public sector inpatient services overall. The rich benefit far more from private sector services than the poor; the richest 40% of the population receive about 70% of the benefits of private outpatient services (from general practitioners, specialists, dentists and retail pharmacies) and nearly 80% of the benefits of inpatient care in private hospitals. Overall, health care benefits in South Africa are very \u2018pro-rich\u2019, with the richest 20% of the population receiving more than a third of total benefits while the poorest 20% receive less than 13% of the benefits, despite poor people bearing a much greater share of the burden of ill-health than rich people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic 2009: Implementing smoke-free environments","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: December 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/tobacco/mpower/2009/en/index.html","body":"Only 5.4% of the world's population was covered by comprehensive smoke-free laws in 2008, up from 3.1% in 2007, according to the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) second report on the global tobacco epidemic. The report also describes countries' efforts to implement the tobacco control package called MPOWER, which WHO introduced in 2008 to help countries implement some of the demand reduction measures in the WHO Framework Convention and its guidelines. These measures are: monitor tobacco use and the policies to prevent it; protect people from tobacco smoke; offer people help to quit tobacco use; warn about the dangers of tobacco; enforce bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; and raise taxes on tobacco. Less than 10% of the world's population is covered by any one measure, the report states. The report tracks the global tobacco epidemic, giving governments and other stakeholders a tool to see where evidence-based demand reduction interventions have been implemented and where more progress is needed. It gives country-by-country tobacco use prevalence figures as well as data about cigarette taxation, bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, support for treatment of tobacco dependence, enforcement of tobacco-free laws and monitoring of the epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Why South Africa needs a competitive ARV tender","field_subtitle":"Budget and Expenditure Monitoring Forum: Health-e News, 24 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032659","body":"The South African Budget and Expenditure Monitoring Forum meeting in February 2010 was reported to raise a number of issues relevant to antiretroviral (ARV) tenders to ensure adequate supplies of appropriate medicines at the lowest possible prices. The meeting noted the need for co-operation between treasury and health departments to achieve a scale of procurement to use the leverage of the world\u2019s largest ARV treatment programme to get the best possible deals from drug companies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"World Report 2010","field_subtitle":"Human Rights Watch: 2010","field_url":"http://www.hrw.org/en/world-report-2010","body":"This 20th annual World Report summarises human rights conditions in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide, based on investigative work in 2009 by Human Rights Watch (HRW) staff in partnership with human rights activists in the country in question. HRW notes that attacking human rights defenders, organisations, and institutions aims to silence the messenger, to deflect pressure and to lessen the cost of committing human rights violations. In the report, HRW calls on government supporters of human rights to defend the defenders by identifying and countering these attacks. The report also points out that defense of human rights, including health rights, depends on the vitality of the human rights movement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"WTO members to consider review of TRIPS public health amendment","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 11 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2010/02/11/wto-members-to-consider-review-of-trips-public-health-amendment/","body":"A waiver to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules intended to aid people in poor countries in gaining access to medicines is reported to have remained essentially unused in the over six-and-a-half years since it was put in place. Member states of the WTO will be holding an informal meeting to discuss this situation and see what, if anything, needs be done. The 2003 waiver was made an amendment in 2005 within the WTO Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement to allow for increased export of medicines made under compulsory licences. This was intended to give a helping hand to nations without a domestic pharmaceutical industry, who might have public health needs for a patented and unaffordable medicine they are unable to produce themselves. \r\nUnder TRIPS, compulsory licences are meant to primarily serve a national market, but the TRIPS public health amendment (often referred to as the \u2018paragraph 6\u2019 solution referring to the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health) allows countries with pharmaceutical industries to manufacture and export more medicines under a compulsory licence to countries without them, provided certain conditions are met.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwean government to double number of people on HIV treatment","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 22 January 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87841","body":"The Zimbabwe Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Dr Henry Madzorera is reported to have announced plans to increase the number of people on anteretrovirals from the current 180,000 to 300,000 (or 60% of the 500,000 adults estimated to need treatment) using resouces from the Global Fund, the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and a basket funding mechanism to which donors contribute for various HIV and AIDS interventions, known as the Expanded Support Programme on HIV/AIDS (ESP). ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"'Intellectual property rights do not assure quality': Interview with Sisule Musungu","field_subtitle":"Van der Westhuizen C and Michael W: IPS News Agency, 18 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=50013","body":"Kenya and Tanzania have recently passed anti-counterfeit laws and regulations that risk blocking legitimate generic medicines instead of fake products, which is the purported purpose of these laws. Uganda is now considering a similar bill. Like the other East African legal provisions, Uganda's draft bill defines counterfeiting in such a way as to criminalise manufacturers and importers of safe, high-quality generic medication. Critics say Uganda already has adequate legislation against fake products. To explain what is spurring the adoption of these new laws on intellectual property rights, intellectual property rights expert, Sisule Musungu, points to the politics of global trade. In this interview, he notes: '\u2026Intellectual property rights don't guarantee quality or certification of quality. And that is why talking about quality and intellectual property does not add up because they are two different things: the latter confers rights to intellectual property owners and has nothing to do with the quality of products.'","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"'Less noisy' female condom proves a hit in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 22 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=87526","body":"Ten months after being re-launched, a new brand of female condom has proven popular among Ugandan women. FC2 was launched in February; the government stopped distributing the original female condom, FC1, in 2007 on the grounds that women had complained it was smelly and noisy during sex. 'The new condom has improved features and will enable women to have a procedure within their control to give them more choices for prevention [of HIV and unwanted pregnancies],' said Vashta Kibirige, the coordinator of the condom unit at the Ministry of Health. The UN Population Fund and the NGO, Programme for Accessible health Communication and Education, are spearheading the re-launch of the female condom, which is still in the sensitisation stage and will become available to the public in 2010. The women questioned said the new condom was less noisy, more comfortable and well lubricated, increasing their sexual pleasure. It also has no smell and can be inserted in the vagina at least eight hours before sex, which the women liked a lot.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A historical reflection on research evaluation studies, their recurrent themes and challenges","field_subtitle":"Marjanovic S, Hanney S and Wooding S: RAND Corporation, 2009","field_url":"http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2009/RAND_TR789.pdf","body":"This report presents a historical reflection on research evaluation studies, their recurrent themes and challenges, and their implications. It critically examines studies of how scientific research drives innovation and socioeconomic benefits. First, it provides a predominantly descriptive historical overview of some landmark studies in the research evaluation field, from the late 1950s until the present day, and highlights some of their key contributions. Then, it reflects on the historical overview analytically, in order to discuss some of the methodological developments and recurrent themes in research evaluation studies. The report concludes by discussing the enduring challenges in research evaluation studies and their implications. The authors emphasise that this report does not address all of the key studies in the research evaluation field. The evaluation literature today is so extensive that a selective approach is necessary to focus on those studies that they feel provide the most valuable insights in the context of biomedical and health research evaluation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Achieving high coverage of larval-stage mosquito surveillance: Challenges for a community-based mosquito control programme in urban Dar es Salaam, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Chaki PP, Govella NJ, Shoo B, Hemed A, Tanner M, Fillinger U and Killeen GF: Malaria Journal 8(311), 30 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-8-311.pdf","body":"Preventing malaria by controlling mosquitoes in their larval stages requires regular sensitive monitoring of vector populations and intervention coverage. The study assessed the effectiveness of operational, community-based larval habitat surveillance systems within the Urban Malaria Control Programme (UMCP) in urban Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Cross-sectional surveys were carried out to assess the ability of community-owned resource persons (CORPs) to detect mosquito breeding sites and larvae in areas with and without larviciding. CORPs reported the presence of 66.2% of all aquatic habitats, but only detected Anopheles larvae in 12.6% of habitats that contained them. Detection sensitivity was particularly low for late-stage Anopheles, the most direct programmatic indicator of malaria vector productivity. Whether a CORP found a wet habitat or not was associated with their unfamiliarity with the area. Accessibility of habitats in urban settings presents a major challenge because the majority of compounds are fenced for security reasons. Furthermore, CORPs under-reported larvae especially where larvicides were applied. This UMCP system for larval surveillance in cities must be urgently revised to improve access to enclosed compounds and the sensitivity with which habitats are searched for larvae.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid and growth: Have we come full circle? ","field_subtitle":"Channing A, Jones S and Tarp F: UNU-WIDER Working Paper 2009/05, October 2009","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/working-papers/discussion-papers/2009/en_GB/dp2009-05/","body":"In this paper, the authors state that the micro-macro paradox has been revived. Despite broadly positive evaluations at the micro and meso-levels, they note that recent literature has turned decidedly pessimistic with respect to the ability of foreign aid to foster economic growth. Policy implications, such as the complete cessation of aid to Africa, are being drawn on the basis of fragile evidence. This paper first assesses the aid-growth literature with a focus on recent contributions. The aid-growth literature is then framed, for the first time, in terms of the Rubin Causal Model, applied at the macroeconomic level. Its results show that aid has a positive and statistically significant causal effect on growth over the long run with point estimates at levels suggested by growth theory. It concludes that aid remains an important tool for enhancing the development prospects of poor nations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Analysing and managing the political dynamics of sector reforms: A sourcebook on sector-level political economy approaches","field_subtitle":"Edelmann D: Overseas Development Institute Working Paper 309, November 2009","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/4323.pdf","body":"This book identifies four types of dynamics impact on reforms at the sector-level: sector-specific dynamics, cross-sectoral dynamics, the dynamics of the political process and country-wide dynamics. It divides approaches into two groups: sector-level political economy approaches; and country-level and politics-centred political economy approaches. Based on this analysis, the book found that sector-level political economy approaches can be characterised by a series of strengths, weaknesses and gaps. Strengths tended to be their focus on core development challenges, methodological diversity and dynamic evolution. Weaknesses, on the other hand, tended to be around having a very small number of empirical, comparable and publicly accessible sector studies; too few policy management-oriented action frameworks and an insufficient theoretical guidance on using some approaches, frameworks and matrices. Gaps were identified in the assessment of political viability of sector reforms; in the analysis of domestic decision making and subsequent implementation; and in the consideration of concrete operational implications. One of the sectors covered in this book is the health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing the incremental effects of combining economic and health interventions: the IMAGE study in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Kim J, Ferrari G, Abramsky T, Watts C, Hargreaves J, Morison L, Phetla G, Porter J and Pronyk P: Bulletin of the world Health Organization 87(11):824-32, November 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0042-96862009001100010&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en","body":"This study's aim was to explore whether adding a gender and HIV training programme to microfinance initiatives can lead to health and social benefits beyond those achieved by microfinance alone. Cross-sectional data were derived from three randomly selected matched clusters in rural South Africa. Adjusted risk ratios (aRRs) employing village-level summaries compared associations between groups in relation to indicators of economic well-being, empowerment, intimate partner violence (IPV) and HIV risk behaviour. The magnitude and consistency of aRRs allowed for an estimate of incremental effects. A total of 1,409 participants were enrolled, all female, with a median age of 45. After two years, both the microfinance-only group and the IMAGE group showed economic improvements relative to the control group. However, only the IMAGE group demonstrated consistent associations across all domains with regard to women's empowerment, intimate partner violence and HIV risk behaviour. In conclusion, the addition of a training component to group-based microfinance programmes may be critical for achieving broader health benefits. Donor agencies should encourage intersectoral partnerships that can foster synergy and broaden the health and social effects of economic interventions such as microfinance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Attitudes towards African traditional medicine and Christian spiritual healing regarding treatment of epilepsy in a rural community of northern Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Winkler AS, Mayer M, Ombay M, Mathias B, Schmutzhard E and Jilek-Aall L: African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines 7(2): 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yf9xaz9","body":"In this study, 167 people (59 people with epilepsy [PWE], 62 relatives of PWEs and 46 villagers) were interviewed at a local hospital and in the community with a semi-structured validated questionnaire regarding the prevailing attitude towards traditional medicine for treatment of epilepsy in a rural area of northern Tanzania. Various traditional healing methods (THM) could be ascertained, namely traditional herbal medicine, spiritual healing, scarifications and spitting. In total, 44.3% the interviewed people were convinced that epilepsy could be treated successfully with THM. Interestingly, 34.1% thought that Christian prayers could cure the cause and/or treat symptoms of epilepsy. Significantly more PWE and their relatives were in favour of THM compared to villagers not knowing about or not immediately affected by epilepsy. Further factors influencing people\u2019s attitudes towards THM were gender, tribe, religion and urbanity of people\u2019s dwellings. This study demonstrates that not only THM but also prayers in the Christian sense seem to play an important role in people\u2019s beliefs regarding successful treatment of epilepsy. Factors influencing this belief system have been identified and are discussed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Benefits of global partnerships to facilitate access to medicines in developing countries: A multi-country analysis of patients and patient outcomes in GIPAP","field_subtitle":"Kanavos Panos, Vandoros Sotiris and Garcia-Gonzalez Pat: Globalization and Health 5(19), 31 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-5-19.pdf","body":"Access to medicines in developing countries continues to be a significant problem due to lack of insurance and lack of affordability. Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), a rare disease, can be treated effectively, but the pharmaceutical treatment available (imatinib) is costly and unaffordable for most patients. GIPAP is a programme set up between a manufacturer and a non-governmental organisation to provide free treatment to eligible CML patients in 80 countries worldwide. In this study, data for 13,568 patients across 15 countries, available quarterly, were analysed over the 2005-2007 period. Four waves of patients entering quarterly in 2005 were used to evaluate patient survival over the sample period. Having controlled for age, location and occupation, the analysis showed that patients were significantly more likely to move towards a better health state after receiving treatment irrespective of their disease stage at the point of entry to the programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Breast is always best, even for HIV-positive mothers","field_subtitle":"Langa L: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 88:9\u201310, January 2010","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/1/10-030110.pdf","body":"Despite emerging evidence that HIV-positive mothers should breastfeed to maximise their babies\u2019 health prospects, South African health workers face a battle to change attitudes and habits. The 2003 South African Demographic Health Survey found that fewer than 12% of infants are exclusively breastfed during their first three months and this drops to 1.5% for infants aged between three and six months. Some health workers themselves have yet to be convinced of the benefits of breastfeeding, even for mothers who aren\u2019t HIV positive. 'There exists the general idea that it is not important, that there is no critical reason to breastfeed, especially when you can formula feed,' says Linda Glynn, breastfeeding consultant at Mowbray Maternity Hospital in Cape Town. 'Some [health workers] think breastfeeding is a waste of time and an inconvenience.' Yet, the risks of not breastfeeding often go unrecognised. Most children born to HIV-positive mothers and raised on formula do not die of AIDS but of under-nourishment, diarrhoea, pneumonia and other causes not related to HIV. The World Health Organization recommends that all new mothers, regardless of their HIV status, practise exclusive breastfeeding for a minimum of six months.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Breastfeeding, mother-to-child HIV transmission, and mortality among infants born to HIV-infected women on highly active antiretroviral therapy in rural Uganda ","field_subtitle":"Homsy J, Moore D, Barasa A, Were W, Likicho C, Waiswa B, Downing R, Malamba S, Tappero J and Mermin J: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 53(1): 28-35, January 2010","field_url":"http://journals.lww.com/jaids/Fulltext/2010/01010/Breastfeeding,_Mother_to_Child_HIV_Transmission,.6.aspx","body":"Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) drastically reduces mother-to-child transmission of HIV, but where breastfeeding is the only safe infant feeding option, HAART for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission needs to be evaluated in relation to both HIV transmission and infant mortality. One hundred-and-two >=18-year old women on HAART in rural Uganda who delivered one or more live infants between 1 March 2003 and 1 January 2007 were enrolled in a prospective study to assess HIV transmission and infant survival. Of 118 infants born during follow-up, 109 were breastfed. In total, 23 infants died during follow-up at a median age of 3.7 months; 15 of whom with severe diarrhoea and/or vomiting in the week preceding their death. The study concludes that, in resource-constrained settings, HIV-infected pregnant women should be assessed for HAART eligibility and treated as needed without delay, and should be encouraged to breastfeed their infants for at least six months.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Experimental Biology 2010 meeting","field_subtitle":"Due date: 24 February 2010","field_url":"http://experimentalbiology.org/content/default.aspx","body":"Experimental Biology is an annual meeting comprising of nearly 13,000 scientists and exhibitors representing six sponsoring societies and 18 guest societies, which will be held from 24\u201328 April 2010 in Anaheim. General fields of study include anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, molecular biology, pathology, nutrition, pharmacology and immunology. EB 2010 is open to all members of the sponsoring and guest societies and nonmembers with interest in research and life sciences. The majority of scientists represent university and academic institutions as well as government agencies, non-profit organisations and private corporations. This multidisciplinary, scientific meeting features plenary and award lectures, pre-meeting workshops, oral and posters sessions, on-site career services and exhibits of an exhibit floor with an array of equipment, supplies and publications required for research labs and experimental study.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Twenty-sixth International Pediatric Association (IPA) Congress of Pediatrics 2010","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 10 February 2010","field_url":"http://www2.kenes.com/ipa/scientific/Pages/Call.aspx","body":"Abstract submission for IPA 2010 is still open. Participants wishing to propose papers for oral or poster presentations are invited to submit their abstracts via the Congress website address given here. Abstracts should be limited to 250 words. Topics include: child health and survival; Millennium Development Goals; neurology; cardiology; dermatology; endocrinology, diabetes, obesity and adolescent medicine; genetics, congenital anomalies; infectious diseases; allergy and immunology; development, neurodevelopmental disability and other long term outcome studies; pulmonology; nephrology; nutrition, gastroenterology and metabolism; pharmacology; neonatology; haematology and oncology; education and training; paediatric surgery and surgical sub-specialties; and miscellaneous topics. Only abstracts of authors who have paid their registration fees by 31 March 2010 will be scheduled and included in the final programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for governments to curb human rights abuses of migrants","field_subtitle":"December 18: 17 December 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.december18.net/article/statement-un-committee-migrant-workers-and-special-rapporteur-bustamante","body":"Despite the increased efforts of the international community, including civil society, in promoting sound, equitable, humane and lawful conditions of migration, migrants continue being exposed to commoditisation and human rights violations. Building on recommendations by the Committee on Migrant Workers, December 18 strongly recommends that all states implement gender-sensitive legislation that extends the protections of international labour standards to migrant workers. It also calls on Governments to curb abuses of recruitment agencies, enhance legal channels for migration and open up judicial mechanisms to victims of abuse, regardless of their immigration status. The situation of migrant children also remains a particular concern, especially those who are unaccompanied and at risk of being smuggled or trafficked. All migrants are protected by human rights and labour standards, including the International Convention for the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, regardless of immigration status. Migrant children\u2014whether accompanied or not and whatever their migratory status\u2014are equally entitled to all the rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. December 18 urges all states to ratify and implement the International Convention for the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2010.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers on universal access","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 26 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.heard.org.za/capacity-building/young-researchers-initiative","body":"HEARD at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa is offering to support up to 12 young researchers by linking you to an international academic mentor who will support your writing of an article for submission for publication. If you are a young researcher (35 or under on 1st January 2010), resident in the SADC and EAC region and have exciting and original research on universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support, now is your chance to submit an article to a reputable peer reviewed international journal. Submissions need to include the application form (available on the website address given below) and a 10,000-word paper on a topic engaging with universal access. Papers should be no longer than 10,000 words and must be written in English. All disciplines may submit papers on universal access but topics should focus on social science, humanities or economics issues. Bio-medical topics will not be considered for support. Based on regional priorities, particular attention will be given to papers on issues faced by women \u2013 including sexual and reproductive health and rights; prevention topics in general and topics of health and economics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for participants: MA Participation, Power and Social Change","field_subtitle":"Applications now open","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/go/teaching/postgraduate-programmes /ma-participation-power-and-social-change","body":"The MA or Masters in Participation, Power and Social Change (MAP), offered by the University of Sussex, United Kingdom, is an 18-month programme providing experienced development workers and social activists with the opportunity to critically reflect on their practice and develop their knowledge and skills while continuing to work or volunteer for most of this period. The MA combines academic study, practical experience and personal reflection. Students carry out an action research project related to their work, inquiring into the challenges of participation and power relations, reflecting on their actions and assumptions, and exploring what it means to facilitate change. Designed for development workers and social change activists, this course combines academic study, practical experience and personal reflection. Students are able to continue with their work or volunteering activities while pursuing an MA degree, which includes a 12-month period of work-based learning in which they carry out an inquiry into their own practice. IDS is seeking interested people with at least three to five years of experience to join the October 2010 intake.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"China into Africa: Trade, aid and influence","field_subtitle":"Robert I and Rotberg R (eds): Brookings Institution Press, 2008","field_url":"http://www.brookings.edu/press/Books/2008/chinaintoafrica.aspx","body":"According to this book, the first certain trade between Africa and China may be dated from the fourteenth century, but east African city-states may have been trading with southern China even earlier. In the mid-twentieth century, Maoist China funded and educated sub-Saharan African anticolonial liberation movements and leaders, and China then assisted new sub-Saharan nations. Africa and China are now immersed in their third and most transformative era of heavy engagement, one that this book believes will promise to do more for economic growth and poverty alleviation than anything attempted by Western colonialism or international aid programs. Robert Rotberg and his Chinese, African and other colleagues discuss this important trend and specify its likely implications. Among the specific topics tackled here are China\u2019s interest in African oil; military and security relations; the influx and goals of Chinese aid to sub-Saharan Africa; human rights issues; and China\u2019s overall strategy in the region. China\u2019s insatiable demand for energy and raw materials responds to sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s relatively abundant supplies of unprocessed metals, diamonds, and gold, while offering a growing market for Africa\u2019s agriculture and light manufactures. As the book illustrates, this evolving symbiosis could be the making of Africa, the poorest and most troubled continent, while it further powers China\u2019s expansive economic machine.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Consolidating progress: what have we done to use the flexibilities in the TRIPS agreement won at Doha in 2001?","field_subtitle":"Elijah Munyuki, Rangarirai Machemedze, SEATINI, Rene Loewenson, TARSC","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) Agreement of the World Trade Organisation came into effect on 1 January 1995 and set standards for intellectual property systems. Least Developed Countries (LDCs) have until 2016 to bring their systems into line with TRIPS for pharmaceutical patents.  Five years may seem a long time. But how far have we come in the 15 years since the agreement was passed?\r\n\r\nOne of the most important steps taken after the agreement was the successful advocacy at the WTO Ministerial conference in Doha in 2001 to include flexibilities in the TRIPs agreement so poorer countries could address their public health crises, especially given the AIDS epidemic. Paragraph 17 of the Doha Declaration provided that the TRIPS Agreement be interpreted in a manner supportive of public health by promoting access to existing medicines. The flexibilities provided for compulsory licensing or the right to grant a license, without permission from the license holder; for parallel importation or the right to import products patented in one country from another country where the price is less; for exceptions from patentability and limits on data protection and for early working, known as the Bolar Provision, allowing generic producers to conduct tests and obtain health authority approvals before a patent expires, making cheaper generic drugs available more quickly at that time.  The World Health Organisation (WHO) in its 2008 Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property, urged for these flexibilities to be implemented in national laws and international agreements, including facilitating, through export, access to pharmaceutical products in countries with insufficient or no manufacturing capacity.\r\n\r\nNine years after Doha, a review of legislation  shows that the intellectual property regimes in place in many east and southern African (ESA) countries have not been significantly changed. Patenting laws in many countries (eg Botswana and DRC) were passed before the TRIPS agreement or Doha round. Some (such as Zimbabwe and Zambia) already provided for the flexibilities, but some still have gaps, such as in South Africa, where flexibilities enabling production and export of medicines to the region are still to be enacted. Some countries, such as Kenya, have enacted new laws providing for flexibilities, while in others (such as Uganda and Namibia), these proposals still remain in draft form. While WTO provides for countries to provide the TRIPS Council with \"as much information as possible on their individual priority needs for technical and financial cooperation in order to assist them in taking steps necessary to implement the TRIPS Agreement, \" so far in ESA only Uganda has taken this step.  LDCs in ESA do not have to give exclusive marketing rights to pharmaceuticals that are subject of a patent application until 1 January 2016, but it is unclear how many countries have yet conducted self-assessments to prepare negotiating positions for possible extension of this waiver. \r\n\r\nEven those ESA countries that have the flexibilities in their laws are not fully implementing them. They face a number of constraints. Most ESA countries lack domestic pharmaceutical research and manufacturing capacities and have insufficient technical and infrastructural capacities to effectively regulate medicines. Countries have weaknesses in their pharmaceutical management and procurement systems, and in accessing pricing and patent status information.  Countries also face economic and political pressures. Stronger property rights (including of intellectual property) is urged as necessary for foreign direct investment and countries face trade and investment pressures not to use the TRIPS flexibilities. \r\n\r\nAfrican configurations are at various stages of negotiating comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements with the European Union, for example. While the underlying 2000 Cotonou Agreement does not oblige ESA countries to negotiate IPR rules and aims for \u201cco-operation\u201d in the field of IPRs, the overall intention of the agreement is to protect intellectual property rights. EU business seeks to open new markets for its exports and this includes protecting intellectual property, given the heavy involvement of  EU companies in research and development. The African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA (2000) has unilaterally extended market access to ESA countries, with one of the requirements for eligibility being that the country should commit itself to eliminating barriers to US trade and investment by \u201cprotecting intellectual property rights,\u201d and desist from interfering in the economy through measures such as price controls, subsidies and government ownership of economic assets. Most recently, anti-counterfeit laws, such as those passed in Kenya, under debate in Uganda and effected through amendments to existing law in Tanzania,  while seeking to prevent the damage caused by fake medicines, have the potential to limit the legal production and distribution of generic medicines. When Anti-Counterfeit Laws define a counterfeit as a good that is identical or substantially similar to a good protected under an intellectual property right, they appear in effect to include legal generic products. It seems these states have not designed their anti-counterfeit laws to adequately take into account the protection of TRIPS flexibilities. \r\n\r\nA lack of vigilance to protecting the ground won at Doha is now apparent in a new problem.  The 2001 public health related aspects of the TRIPS flexibilities now have to be formally adopted at the World Trade Organisation. For this two thirds of countries need to propose the formal adoption. By December 2009, according to the WTO (http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/amendment_e.htm), only Mauritius and Zambia in ESA had added their names to this proposal. In other words the ESA countries have not added their names to the critical mass needed to enable a formal adoption of the protocol amending the TRIPS agreement at the WTO.  This formal adoption should have been implemented by December 2007. The deadline was extended to December 2009, and on 17th December 2009, WTO members agreed to a second extension to December 2011.  It is important for ESA countries to now formally propose adoption to avoid the unnecessary renegotiation of these critical amendments to the TRIPs agreement. \r\n\r\nAdvances can never be taken for granted in a rapidly changing world, and neither can the five year period we have left before TRIPS is fully enforced, for us to put in place a self determined legal, institutional and investment environment for drug manufacture and procurement in ESA countries. For now there is an urgent need for all ESA countries to endorse the protocol on the TRIPS amendments  that the flexibilities are entrenched.  In the next five years we still appear to have much to do to take advantage of the flexibilities through our laws, policies and capacities, including with respect to the production and export of medicines within the region, and to set the terms for discussions on intellectual property regimes (IPRs) with trade and development partners in a manner that puts us in a stronger position to produce and procure medicines and to protect public health.  Our national health strategic plans in ESA should all include clear roadmaps of how we will effectively use the next five years to achieve this. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit the SEATINI website at http://seatini.org/  and the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Contribution of ecosystems services to human health and wellbeing","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, United Nations Environment Programme and Republique Gabonaise: 19 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.unep.org/health-env/pdfs/TD-Ecosystem-services.pdf","body":"By framing human health and wellbeing in the context of an ecosystems approach, this paper recognises that healthy people and healthy environments are inextricably linked. However, in most African countries, there is still inadequate assessment and monitoring of the dynamics of human activities and their impact on local ecosystems and this paper notes that the degradation of ecosystem services constitutes an important barrier to achieving Millennium Development Goals. It urges governments to recognise the links between environment and health, from the perspective of the vital services that ecosystems provide to human health and wellbeing, and to promote integrated policies that value these services. Solutions require political commitment, concerted action and shared responsibility between different government sectors and the civil society. Countries should take steps to mitigate the underlying causes of ecosystem damage, while simultaneously improving human health. Intersectoral collaboration among government departments and the civil society, capacity-building, dissemination of knowledge and good practices, and integrated action for health and the environment are also critical.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Determining and addressing obstacles to the effective use of long-lasting insecticide-impregnated nets in rural Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Widmar M, Nagel CJ, Ho DY, Benziger PW and Hennig N: Malaria Journal 8(315), 31 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-8-315.pdf","body":"The objective of this project was to achieve high, sustainable levels of net coverage in a village in rural Tanzania by combining free distribution of long-lasting insecticide-impregnated nets (LLINs) with community-tailored education. Community leaders held an educational session for two members of every household addressing these practice and attitudes, demonstrating proper LLIN use, and emphasizing behaviour modification. Attendees received one or two LLINs per household. Baseline interviews and surveys revealed incorrect practices and attitudes regarding: use of nets in dry season, need to retreat LLINs, children napping under nets, need to repair nets and net procurement as a priority, with 53- 88.6% incorrect responses. A three-week follow-up demonstrated 83-95% correct responses. Results suggest that addressing community-specific practices and attitudes prior to LLIN distribution promotes consistent and correct use, and helps change attitudes towards bed nets as a preventative health measure. Future LLIN distributions can learn from the paradigm established in this project.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Discrimination against African gays fuels the HIV epidemic","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 19 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=87793","body":"More than two-thirds of African countries have laws criminalising homosexual acts and, despite accounting for a significant percentage of new infections in many countries, men who have sex with men tend to be left out of the HIV response. '[They] are going underground; they are hiding themselves and continuing to fuel the epidemic,' said UNAIDS executive director, Mich\u00e9l Sidib\u00e9. 'We need to make sure these vulnerable groups have the same rights everyone enjoys: access to information, care and prevention for them and their families.' Human rights violations against gays include a number of countries in east, southern and central Africa, such as Malawi, Uganda \u2013 which recently tabled the Anti-homosexuality Bill \u2013 and Tanzania, where more than 40 gay and lesbian activists in Tanzania were arrested in 2009. And in South Africa, in April 2008, Eudy Simelane, the openly gay star of South Africa's Banyana Banyana national female football squad, was found murdered in a park on the outskirts of Johannesburg. She had been gang-raped and brutally beaten before being stabbed to death. Since then there has been a spate of similar attacks on lesbians in the country, but few ever reach the courts and only one prosecution has been successful.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic and development dimensions of environmental risk factors to human health","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, United Nations Environment Programme and Republique Gabonaise: 19 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.unep.org/health-env/pdfs/TD-Economic-and-Development-Dimensions.pdf","body":"According to this paper, environmental risks arise largely from unsustainable development policies related to the use of water and land resources, transportation and energy. The health impacts of environmental pollution and ecosystem degradation disproportionately affect the disadvantaged and vulnerable socioeconomic groups, such as children, the rural and urban poor, and informal-sector workers. Economic, institutional, political and social factors present barriers to more sustainable environment and health policies, while macroeconomic considerations tend to be the major drivers of policy-making on the continent. Health ministry policies are generally focused on health care services and may not systematically address the related broader environment and development agendas. Environment ministries are often newer entities, and lack the power or resources to steer government investments towards sustainable development. African countries need to be able to monitor, prevent or mitigate risks that might develop into full-scale environmental and health crises.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Enhancing global control of alcohol to reduce unsafe sex and HIV in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Chersich MF, Rees HV, Scorgie F and Martin G: Globalization and Health 5(16), 17 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-5-16.pdf","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa carries a massive dual burden of HIV and alcohol disease, and these pandemics are inextricably linked, says this study. Conflation of HIV and alcohol disease in these setting is not surprising given patterns of heavy-episodic drinking and that drinking contexts are often coterminous with opportunities for sexual encounters. HIV and alcohol also share common ground with sexual violence. Both perpetrators and victims of sexual violence have a high likelihood of having drunk alcohol prior to the incident, as with most forms of violence and injury in sub-Saharan Africa. According to this study, reducing alcohol harms necessitates multi-level interventions and should be considered a key component of structural interventions to alleviate the burden of HIV and sexual violence. It recommends that brief interventions for people with problem drinking must incorporate specific discussion of links between alcohol and unsafe sex, and consequences thereof. Additionally, implementation of known effective interventions could alleviate a large portion of the alcohol-attributable burden of disease, including its effects on unsafe sex, unintended pregnancy and HIV transmission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org Website: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. \r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. \r\n\r\nPlease contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 108: Consolidating progress: what have we done to use the flexibilities in the TRIPS agreement won at Doha in 2001? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Finding middle ground: Making better use of the African private health sector through more effective regulations","field_subtitle":"Feeley R, O'Hanlon B, Stene A and Sezgin Y: PSP-One and Abt Associates, 2009","field_url":"http://www.hrhresourcecenter.org/node/2935","body":"This report highlights how changes in the legal and regulatory environment can facilitate expanded access to family planning and reproductive health services through Africa\u2019s private health sector. Using laws and regulations from three Africa countries - Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria - this report presents a road map on how to review the most important laws governing the private sector, as well as key issues to assess.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights 2010","field_subtitle":"8\u201315 February 2010: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia","field_url":"http://www.africasexuality.org/","body":"The Fourth Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights is part of a long-term process of building and fostering regional dialogue on sexual rights and health that leads to concrete action to influence policy particularly that of the African Union and its bodies. The purpose of the conference is to examine the interrelationship between sexuality and HIV and AIDS. In particular, it aims to open up discourse on sexuality in Africa and how this might lead to new insights in reducing the spread of HIV in Africa. The focus will be on identifying new and emerging vulnerabilities and vulnerable people using the concept of sexual rights and sexuality in the fight against HIV and AIDS. It will also explore how the application of human rights framework to sexuality might provide new insights in developing interventions to reduce the spread of HIV and map out new and innovative strategies, programming and funding best suited to deal with those most vulnerable to infection. The conference will provide a framework of how sexuality and the application of sexual rights may lead to openness, responsibility and choices for all people, particularly young people, on sex, sexuality and sexual behaviour.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Further benefits of early start of HIV treatment in low income countries: Survival estimates of early versus deferred antiretroviral therapy ","field_subtitle":"Johansson K, Robberstad B and Norheim O: AIDS Research and Therapy 7:3, 16 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.aidsrestherapy.com/content/pdf/1742-6405-7-3.pdf","body":"This study estimates mean life years gained using different treatment indications in low-income countries. It carried out a systematic search to identify relevant studies on the treatment effect of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and data was applied to a hypothetical Tanzanian HIV population. It found that providing HAART early when CD4 is 200-350 cells/&#956;l is likely to be the best outcome strategy with an expected net benefit of 14.5 life years per patient. The model predicts diminishing treatment benefits for patients starting treatment when CD4 counts are lower. Patients starting treatment at CD4 50-199 and ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health risks","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: December 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease /GlobalHealthRisks_report_full.pdf","body":"Global life expectancy could be increased by nearly five years by addressing five factors affecting health \u2013 childhood underweight, unsafe sex, alcohol use, lack of safe water, sanitation and hygiene, and high blood pressure, according to this report. These are responsible for one-quarter of the 60 million deaths estimated to occur annually. The report describes 24 factors affecting health, which are a mix of environmental, behavioural and physiological factors, such as air pollution, tobacco use and poor nutrition. More than a third of the global child deaths can be attributed to a few nutritional risk factors such as childhood underweight, inadequate breastfeeding and zinc deficiency. Eight risk factors alone account for over 75% of cases of coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death worldwide. These are alcohol consumption, high blood glucose, tobacco use, high blood pressure, high body mass index, high cholesterol, low fruit and vegetable intake and physical inactivity. Most of these deaths occur in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Workforce Alliance offers support to Task Force on the Private Sector","field_subtitle":"Global Health Workforce Alliance: 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/about/taskforces/private_sector/en/","body":"The private health sector in the developing world is poorly understood, best practices are not documented, promising initiatives are not scaled for broader application, and there is mistrust between the public and private sectors. Yet all acknowledge a comprehensive approach to the critical health worker shortage must involve the private sector. The private health sector in resource-poor settings relies on an enabling environment of civil society, financial and operational resources. How that interrelationship between society and the private sector operates and potentiates greater scaling of innovative responses to the HRH crisis is not understood. Scaling and implementation of innovative private sector responses will require greater understanding of this relationship. The Alliance has agreed to support the development of a Task Force on private sector involvement in human resources for health to ensure that identified innovative private sector models will gain broader attention and implementation and scaling up of these models into other locales can be facilitated. The overarching goal is to accelerate the scaling and cross-border movement of initiatives in the private health sector, which can increase the supply of new workers, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of existing health workers and reduce the attrition of health workers out of the field of practice or movement out of region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Grants for 'Supporting and Strengthening Local Authority Associations at ACP National and Regional Levels' (ARIAL) programme","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submission of proposals: 31 March 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yfjgvue","body":"The European Development Fund is offering grants for its ARIAL programme. The overall objective of the programme is to promote the political recognition and engagement of the local authorities (LAs) as important players and partners of development. The specific objective of the programme is to promote and strengthen the capacity of LAs in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. In particular it seeks to strengthen LA representative institutions from the national level up to the international level so that they will be able to take part in the implementation of development policies, in particular with the European Union, and play a political role as provided for by the Cotonou Agreement. The core target group will be existing national and regional local authority associations, which are still to be identified by the successful candidates. Applicants will explain the methodology with which they plan to select/or have already selected the associations who will receive their support. Any selection process should ensure the effective representation of all ACP regions, and, where possible, all ACP countries. The successful candidate will ensure that existing associations, who most effectively represent local authorities, will receive support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Greater aid transparency: Crucial for aid effectiveness","field_subtitle":"Moon S and Williamson T: Overseas Development Institute Briefing Paper 35, January 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yja2q4x","body":"This paper sets out and explores the link between donor aid and recipient country budgets, and the role greater transparency about aid can play in improving budget transparency, the quality of budgetary decisions, and accountability systems. The paper goes on to explore how current initiatives to improve aid transparency can best support better budgets and accountability in aid dependent countries. These efforts provide an important opportunity to enhance the effectiveness of both the recipient governments\u2019 own spending and the aid they receive from donors. It concludes that publishing better information on aid requires compatibility with recipients\u2019 budgeting and planning systems. The research findings suggest that recipient budgets bear many similarities, but this is not reflected in current formats for reporting aid. Finally, it concludes that the poorest countries will lose out if donors do not publish aid information that is easy to link with recipient government budget systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health impact assessment","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, United Nations Environment Programme and Republique Gabonaise: 19 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.unep.org/health-env/pdfs/TD-Health-Impact-Assessment.pdf","body":"According to this paper, health impact assessment (HIA) provides an important decision-making tool through which health issues can be addressed upstream in development planning and design. HIA proposes a systematic process to screen, scope, assess, appraise and formulate management plans to address key issues in development project implementation. While most African countries have a framework for environmental impact assessment (EIA), few have adequate capacity for HIA, which is still at a relatively early stage of development compared to other types of impact assessment globally. Partly because the importance of HIA is not yet well understood by policy makers in Africa, the tool has not been used to support development processes, including large-scale infrastructure projects. In addition to the lack of awareness of HIA, low technical competencies and inadequate institutional arrangements hinder the application of the process in Africa. The development of national HIA capacity building is the main means through which to respond to these challenges. This paper explains how to implement the HIA process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health in Africa Fund","field_subtitle":"African Development Bank Group: 2009","field_url":"http://www.afdb.org/en/topics-sectors/initiatives-partnerships/health-in-africa-fund/","body":"The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, the African Development Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the German development finance institution, Deutsche Investitions und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG), announced that it has created a new private equity fund that will invest in Africa\u2019s health sector. The Health in Africa Fund, managed by Aureos Capital, will invest in small- and medium-sized companies in sub-Saharan Africa with the goal of helping low-income Africans gain access to affordable, high-quality health services. The fund will be measured not only by fiscal performance but also by its ability to cultivate businesses serving the poor. It will target commitments between US$100 to 120 million over two closings. The fund will make long-term equity and quasi-equity investments in socially responsible and financially sustainable private health companies with the aim of scaling up successful businesses, taking proven business models into new regions, and identifying and investing in areas where there are critical gaps. It will invest in a wide range of companies that deliver, among others, health services (clinics, hospitals, diagnostic centres and laboratories); pharmaceutical and medical-related manufacturing companies; medical education; and providers of medical education.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthy students for a prosperous nation","field_subtitle":"Students and Youths Working on Reproductive Health Action Team (SAYWHAT): 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/SAYehs200101.pdf","body":"The Students and Youths Working on Reproductive Health Action Team (SAYWHAT) hosted 60 students from 30 tertiary institutions during its 4th National Students Conference from the 16th to the 18th of December 2009 under the theme 'Healthy Students for a Prosperous Nation' Through presentations, parallel sessions and group discussions, the conference covered major areas of sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) for young people. Among the key issues that came out was the need for a universal curriculum on SRHR for tertiary institutions. The delegates also reiterated that there is a need for clear monitoring and evaluation and coordination of SRHR programs within tertiary institutions. In light of the risk posed by multiple and concurrent partnerships, they called for behavioural change amongst all students and a focus on life skills and livelihoods training to sustain the change. Generally there was a call for commitment among all students, college authorities and SAYWHAT\u2019s membership for more effective responses that addresses the real health challenges in tertiary institutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV prevalence, risks for HIV infection, and human rights among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Malawi, Namibia and Botswana ","field_subtitle":"Baral S, Trapence G, Motimedi F, Umar E and Iipinge S: PLoS ONE 4(3), 26 March 2009","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004997","body":"In the generalised epidemics of HIV in southern Sub-Saharan Africa, men who have sex with men have been largely excluded from HIV surveillance and research. Epidemiologic data for MSM in southern Africa are among the sparsest globally, and HIV risk among these men has yet to be characterised in the majority of countries. A cross-sectional anonymous probe of 537 men recruited with non-probability sampling among men who reported ever having had sex with another man in Malawi, Namibia, and Botswana using a structured survey instrument and HIV screening with the OraQuick\u00a9 rapid test kit. The HIV prevalence among those between the ages of 18 and 23 was 8.3%; 20% among those 24\u201329; and 35.7% among those older than 30 for an overall prevalence of 17.4%. In multivariate logistic regressions, being older than 25 and not always wearing condoms during sex were significantly associated with being HIV-positive. Human rights abuses were prevalent, with 42.1% reporting at least one abuse. Concurrency of sexual partnerships with partners of both genders may play important roles in HIV spread in these populations. Further epidemiologic and evaluative research is needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV prevention responsibilities in HIV vaccine trials: Complexities facing South African researchers","field_subtitle":"Essack Zaynab, Slack Catherine, Koen Jennifer, Gray Glenda: South African Medical Journal 100(1): 45\u201348, January 2010","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/3440/2655","body":"Researchers should protect the welfare of research participants by providing methods to reduce their risk of acquiring HIV. This is especially important given that late-phase HIV vaccine trials enrol HIV-uninfected trial volunteers from high-risk populations. This study recommends that current normative guidance be systematically reviewed and actual practice at vaccine sites be documented. Adding new tools to the current package of prevention services will involve complex decision making with few set standards, and regulatory and scientific challenges. The paper recommends that stakeholders (including regulators) should convene to consider standards of evidence for new tools, and that decision-making processes be explicitly documented and researched. A further critical ethical task is exploring the threshold at which adding new tools will compromise the validity of trial results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Hospitalisation and mortality among primarily non-breastfed children during a large outbreak of diarrhoea and malnutrition in Botswana, 2006","field_subtitle":"Creek TL, Kim A, Lu L, Bowen A, Masunge J, Arvelo W, Smit M, Mach O, Legwaila K, Motswere C, Zaks L, Finkbeiner T, Povinelli L, Maruping M, Ngwaru G, Tebele G, Bopp C, Puhr N, Johnston SP, Dasilva AJ, Bern C, Beard RS, Davis MK: Journal of Acquired Immune","field_url":"http://journals.lww.com/jaids/Abstract/2010/01010/Hospitalization_and_Mortality_Among_Primarily.4.aspx","body":"In 2006, a paediatric diarrhoea outbreak occurred in Botswana, coinciding with heavy rains. Surveillance recorded a three-times increase in cases and a 25-fold increase in deaths between January and March. Botswana has high HIV prevalence among pregnant women (33.4% in 2005), and an estimated 35% of all infants under the age of six months are not breastfed. This study followed all children ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Huge medicines approval backlog in South Africa","field_subtitle":"McKune C: Independent Online, 29 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?fsetid=1&click_id=125&art_id=vn20091229041455320C886808","body":"South Africa's Medicines Control Council (MCC) is sitting on a seven-year backlog of nearly 3,000 medicines, which could take another two years to be registered for use in the country. The medicines include treatments for life-threatening conditions such as HIV and AIDS, cancer, tuberculosis and diabetes, as well as antibiotics for bacterial infections. Pharmaceutical companies need to have their drugs registered with the MCC after being licensed to produce them. Only then can they be sold in the country. A task team, put in place by former health minister Barbara Hogan late last year, is busy clearing the backlog and transforming the MCC, and has registered about 200 medicines so far. The team, led by Nicholas Crisp of Benguela Health, includes 12 technical assistants and 24 clerks and has already audited the entire backlog and clinically evaluated nearly 800 medicines. About R13.5 million has so far been spent on the backlog project. Pharmaceutical representatives said they welcomed the task team's work. 'We have seen an increase in the numbers of medicines corresponded to the MCC,' said Shivani Patel, a regulatory affairs pharmacist at Merck's. Part of the project was the development of a new public entity, the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority, although what its role would be was unclear.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Indigenous rights ignored in global intellectual property rights policy, says new UN report ","field_subtitle":"Cronin D: Intellectual Property Watch, 14 January 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2010/01/14/un-report-indigenous-rights-ignored-in-global-ip-policy/","body":"The cultures of indigenous peoples have frequently been ignored when global standards on intellectual property have been set, says a new United Nations report, The State of the World's Indigenous People. It notes that global intellectual property (IP) standards are mainly based on Western legal and economic principles that emphasise private ownership of knowledge and resources. Such principles, it says, 'stand in stark contrast to indigenous worldviews, whereby knowledge is created and owned collectively and the responsibility for the use and transfer of the knowledge is guided by traditional laws and customs.' As a result, IP rules leave 'most indigenous traditional knowledge and folklore vulnerable to appropriation, privatisation, monopolisation and even biopiracy by outsiders,' the report says. Some indigenous peoples believe, the report says, that the World Intellectual Property Organization is 'not an appropriate forum to set standards because it is limited by its mandate to promoting intellectual property rights as the only viable path to protecting traditional knowledge'.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"International legislative and regulatory frameworks","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, United Nations Environment Programme and Republique Gabonaise: 19 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.unep.org/health-env/pdfs/TD-International-legislative-frameworks.pdf","body":"Over the past two decades, legislative and regulatory frameworks have been developed that address links between the environment and health. However, the extent to which these instruments have been streamlined within existing national legislation has not been formally documented and, according to this paper, these instruments are not currently deployed or adequately equipped, notably in Africa. It reveals weaknesses in the international and national regulatory mechanisms and their implementation, and brings to light institutional and operational deficiencies and a dramatic lack of capacity to manage hazardous wastes in an environmentally sound manner. It points to the need for an integrated institutional framework addressing human health and the environment. The Revised International Health Regulations (2005), now being implemented in all African countries, should provide a more cohesive approach to health and environment risk management. Despite the many efforts undertaken by African countries, the level of awareness and understanding of these environmental agreements among country-level policy makers remains limited.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Is the scale up of malaria intervention coverage also achieving equity? ","field_subtitle":"Steketee RW and Eisele TP: PLoS ONE 4(12), 22 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0008409","body":"In this study, reports were reviewed from nationally representative surveys in African malaria-endemic countries from 2006 through 2008 to understand how reported intervention coverage rates reflect access by the most at-risk populations. These included 27 demographic and health surveys (DHSs), multiple indicator cluster Surveys (MICSs), and malaria indicator surveys (MISs) during this interval with data on household intervention coverage by urban or rural setting, wealth quintile, and sex. Household ownership of insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITNs) varied from 5% to greater than 60%, and was equitable by urban/rural and wealth quintile status among 13 (52%) of 25 countries. Malaria treatment rates for febrile children under five years of age varied from less than 10% to greater than 70%, and while equitable coverage was achieved in 8 (30%) of 27 countries, rates were generally higher in urban and richest quintile households. Recent efforts to scale up malaria intervention coverage have achieved equity in some countries (especially with ITNs), but delivery methods in other countries are not addressing the most at-risk populations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Kampala faces sanitation and water crisis","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 8 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=87677","body":"The lack of adequate sanitation facilities in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, has led to increased use of polythene bags \u2013 known as 'flying toilets' \u2013 for human waste disposal, local officials said. The situation is worse in slums where infrastructure is basic. The few private and public facilities that exist charge up to USh200 [US 10 cents] per use of a toilet. 'These areas are characterised by poor drainage systems and, in the rainy season, the problem becomes worse,' said Bernard Luyiga, a councillor in Kampala district. 'We have not invested enough in this area.' About 6.2% of households in the city have no toilet facilities at all. Most, according to chief health inspector Mohammed Kirumira, are in the slums. And only about 65% of Kampala\u2019s two million residents have access to clean water. The rest use water that is sometimes contaminated by pit latrines. According to Uganda's Lands, Housing and Urban Development Ministry, the high cost of piped water has forced some city dwellers to rely on springs and wells. 'Over 50% of household occupants in Kampala are hospitalised every three months due to malaria while contamination of water by prevalence of micro-organisms is evident in the water sources of the city,' it said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya launches special tribunal for HIV-related issues","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 21 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87829","body":"The Kenyan government has created the first ever tribunal to handle legal issues relating to HIV, including discrimination against people living with HIV and protecting the confidentiality of medical records. The new tribunal, under the office of the Attorney General, has the status of a subordinate court, with the right to summon witnesses and take evidence. It will handle issues relating to the transmission of HIV, confidentiality, testing, access to healthcare services, discriminatory acts and policies, and HIV-related research. Networks of people living with HIV have welcomed the formation of the new court. 'Setting up the tribunal is the clearest indication by the government that it is ready to entrench the rights of people living with HIV,' said Nelson Otuoma, chairperson of the Network Empowerment of People Living with AIDS. 'It is, however, important to let people know that the tribunal exists and further educate them on the roles and mandates of it.' Those living with HIV hope the tribunal will be an effective tool in ending discrimination, and groups like Otuoma's are already compiling lists of grievances to present to it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Leaked confidential documents from WHO Working Group raise concern about transparency","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 9 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/12/09/confidential-documents-released-from-who-rd-finance-group-pharmaceutical-industry/","body":"Confidential documents related to the World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Working Group on Innovative Financing for Research and Development have been leaked to the public, apparently revealing improper participation by the pharmaceutical industry in preparing WHO policy. The documents appear to have come from the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), and include draft reports on innovative financing mechanisms from the working group as well as an analysis by the IFPMA on the reports\u2019 contents. 'IFPMA was not supposed to have working drafts of the expert working group in their possession and they were not given these documents,' said Precious Matsoso, director of Public Health Innovation and Intellectual Property (PHI) at WHO, under whose auspices the expert working group falls. 'It was understood by the working group that its report is intended for the director general and WHO members [only],' she added. Public health advocates reacted strongly to the leaked documents, raising issues of public accountability and transparency in policymaking.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Letter to Kenyan Minister of Public Health and Sanitation concerning home-based HIV testing and counselling","field_subtitle":"Human Rights Watch: 14 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/12/14/letter-kenyan-minister-public-health-and-sanitation-concerning-home-based-hiv-testin","body":"In this letter to Kenya's minister for public health, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the Kenyan government to ensure that human rights are protected during the country's national door-to-door voluntary HIV testing and counselling drive. 'We... urge the inclusion of a strong human rights component into this ambitious testing programme. In particular, we are calling for clear attention to principles of counselling, consent and confidentiality,' it said. HRW noted that large-scale home-based testing would likely result in better access to testing and treatment and give a chance to those who could not afford the transport costs to health facilities or lacked information or the willingness to seek a test. But testing also reached into the family, where many abuses occurred, posing challenges for human rights protection, it added. 'Our research on access to testing and treatment in Kenya has shown that HIV-positive mothers and HIV-positive children frequently suffer stigma and abuse when their status becomes known,' the letter said. 'HIV-positive mothers \u2013 among them girls under the age of 18 \u2013 sometimes suffer violence, mistreatment, disinheritance and discrimination from their husbands, families-in-law or their own families.'","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Medinfo 13th World Congress on Medical and Health Informatics 2010","field_subtitle":"Deadline For Papers: 28 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.medinfo2010.org/index.php?option=com_content%20&view=article&id=48&Itemid=88","body":"Cape Town, South Africa will host the 13th International Congress on Medical Informatics from 12\u201315 September 2010. This is the first time the Congress will be held in Africa. It promises to boost exposure to grassroots healthcare delivery and the underpinning health information systems. This will open the door to new academic partnerships into the future and help to nurture a new breed of health informaticians. The theme is \u2018Partnerships for Effective e-Health Solutions\u2019, with a particular focus on how innovative collaborations can promote sustainable solutions to health challenges. It is well recognised that information and communication technologies have enormous potential for improving the health and lives of individuals. Innovative and effective change using such technologies is reliant upon people working together in partnerships to create innovative and effective solutions to problems with particular regard to contextual and environmental factors. The Congress seeks to bring together the health informatics community from across the globe to work together and share experiences and knowledge to promote sustainable solutions for health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Mobile phones to help Africa's health workers deliver","field_subtitle":"Ngandwe T: Science and Development Network: 15 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/en/news/mobile-phones-to-help-africas-health-workers-deli.html","body":"Mobile phone companies have announced a US$10 million initiative to help health workers in Africa deliver quality services to HIV and AIDS patients. The Phones for Health project will equip workers in remote areas of Rwanda with mobile phones and software for exchanging information on patients. Paul Meyer, chairman of US-based Voxiva who designed the software, said workers would also be able to order medicines, receive news alerts and download treatment guidelines and training materials. According to the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR), health workers in remote areas of the country rely on paper records \u2013 often out of date \u2013 to track diseases' spread and have no transport for gathering field data or collecting medicines. The project aims to make things easier. Workers in the field can use phones to record patient information and send it to a central database via a high-speed network or text message. The information is then made available to health officials via the internet and can be sent to field staff by text message. The initiative is a partnership between the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the Accenture Development Partnership, and mobile phone operators. If it is successful it will be extended to other countries in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mobilising cell phones to improve antiretroviral adherence and follow-up in Kenya ","field_subtitle":"Lester R and Kariri A: World Health Organization Essential Medicines Monitor 2: 1\u20133, November 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/medicines/publications/monitor/EMMArt1Issue22009.pdf","body":"This study strategised a way to integrate mobile telephony into the health management of subjects receiving anti-retroviral (ARV) medications. It took the form of a randomised controlled trial to assess health, social, and economic outcomes, involving two sub-studies in Nairobi, Kenya, and two surrounding districts. Significant time and cost are often incurred for patients to personally attend the clinics. However, the majority of subjects screened reported being comfortable with using cell phones for communicating their health issues. Note that the average travel cost to attend the clinic was US$3 (return). The current cost of an SMS is US$0.08 and a one-minute voice call is US$0.23. The most positive feedback from early enrollees in the SMS-protocol is that the participants feel 'like someone cares'. Many participants suggested that they would prefer more frequent SMS reminders. However the most common barrier to responding to the clinic SMS on time is lack of network credit at the time they are intended to respond. Overall, the once weekly protocol appears agreeable to most. Several instances of health problems have already been identified by the protocol and hence triaged by the nurse.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Networks of influence? Developing countries in a networked global order","field_subtitle":"Martinez-Diaz L and Woods N (eds)","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yeunvrw","body":"This book builds on eight case studies, all loosely involving financial networks such as the G20, several written by network insiders, to try and sort out whether networks are a blessing or a curse for developing countries. The contributors ask a number of questions: Are networks exciting new avenues for poor country governments and civil society to influence the big decisions, or sneaky ways to get round accountability and exclude the population through a 21st century version of invitation-only gentleman\u2019s clubs? Will they replace or strengthen formal international institutions like the United Nations or the International Monetary Fund? Are North-South networks different from South-South ones? (both are proliferating). The book sets out five functions of networks: agenda setting; consensus building; policy coordination; knowledge exchange and production and norm-setting and diffusion. It identifies two categories of network. Advocacy networks aim to mobilise support for a cause and concentrate on the agenda-setting, norm-setting and consensus-building functions, while \u2018self-help\u2019 or \u2018problem-sharing\u2019 networks focus on improving members\u2019 capacities through knowledge production and exchange and policy coordination.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"New and emerging environmental threats to human health","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, United Nations Environment Programme and Republique Gabonaise: 19 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.unep.org/health-env/pdfs/TD-New-and-emerging-threats.pdf","body":"Over the past ten years, frequent outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and mosquito-borne diseases have occurred in Africa. Electric and electronic waste (e-waste) is also a fast-growing concern. There have been significant radiation incidents reported, and new and more toxic substances (dioxins, furans and heavy metals) are creating environmental and health problems and new occupational risks in Africa. According to this paper, the management of hazardous wastes must focus on environmentally sound treatment and/or long-term storage. It notes that a renewed and stronger commitment to the implementation of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is needed. African governments may wish to consider including the following actions: monitoring of new and emerging environmental threats; reviewing their emergency preparedness plans; developing and implementing awareness-raising campaigns on the most important risks factors; and undertaking community sensitisation and education.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New intergovernmental meeting at WHO aims to solve intellectual property rights and influenza","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 20 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2010/01/20/new-intergovernmental-meeting-who-aims-to-solve-ip-rights-and-influenza/","body":"At an informal meeting between the World Health Organization and a number of countries, held on 20 January 2010, the importance of having a fully realised framework for handling pandemic influenza was discussed. The meeting made progress on virus and benefit sharing, but it needed to cover pandemic risk response as well as pandemic risk assessment, said the Indonesian delegate. There was also some discussion on the way to handle virus and benefit sharing. India wanted assurance that the WHO does not commit to terms and conditions that might get set as precedents and upset the balance between virus and benefit sharing. Japan said that the agreement should focus on voluntary, not mandatory, benefit sharing but that states should do more to contribute as much as they can in terms of financial and technical resources to countries that need them. Sangeeta Shashikant of the Third World Network said, 'the inequity of a system that delivers vaccines to developed countries but requires developing countries to rely on ad hoc measures such as donations is apparent.'","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"New strategy in Kenya targets most at-risk populations","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 13 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=87721","body":"Kenya has launched an ambitious strategy to fight HIV and AIDS that aims to reduce new infections by at least 50% over the next four years and focus more on most at-risk populations (MARPs). The third Kenya National AIDS Strategic Plan, which runs from 2009/2010 till 2012/2013 and was launched in the capital, Nairobi, on 12 January, also aims to reduce AIDS-related mortality by 25%. 'We cannot achieve our target unless we close new taps of HIV infections \u2013 this involves putting most at-risk populations at the centre of our HIV programmes and prevention strategies,' said Alloys Orago, director of the National AIDS Control Council. In Kenya, female and male sex workers, injecting/intravenous drug users, and men who have sex with men (MSM) are considered primary MARPs. Speaking at the launch, UNAIDS executive director Mich\u00e9l Sidib\u00e9 highlighted the paradox of the intention to increase HIV programming among MARPS while at the same time criminalising the activities that put them at an elevated risk of contracting and transmitting HIV. 'Criminalisation puts most at-risk populations, like commercial sex workers, injecting drug users and men who have sex with men, in the shadows,' he said. 'It is difficult to reach groups whose actions are deemed to be at odds with the law.' Sex work, homosexual acts and the use of illicit drugs are all outlawed in Kenya and are punishable by long terms in prison.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Pandemic influenza preparedness: Sharing of influenza viruses and access to vaccines and other benefits: Outcome of the resumed intergovernmental meeting","field_subtitle":"Chan M: World Health Organization, 18 May 2009","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/A62/A62_5Add1-en.pdf","body":"According to this report, timely sharing of surveillance information about highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses, as well as ensuring equitable access to effective vaccinations, medicines and related technology, are important ingredients of global readiness to respond to the influenza pandemic. The Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework is an international mechanism designed by the World Health Organization to implement a fairer, more transparent, equitable and efficient system to improve pandemic influenza preparedness and strengthen the protection against the spread of pandemic influenza. It is intended to result in sharing H5N1 and other influenza viruses with human pandemic potential and sharing the benefits arising from the use of H5N1 and other influenza viruses with human pandemic potential, including the generation of information, diagnostics, medicines vaccines and other technologies. In developing countries, critical success factors include support for national integrated human and animal influenza action plans and building national minimum core capacity for detection, risk assessment, laboratory confirmation and rapid containment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory methods for people centred health systems: Report of a regional review workshop","field_subtitle":"Training and Research Support Centre, Ifakara Health Institute in  EQUINET: September 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRA%20mtg%20rep%20Sep09.pdf","body":"The workshop on participatory approaches to people centred health systems was held on the 22nd of September 2009 in Munyonyo Uganda before the EQUINET regional Conference held at the same venue on 23rd -25th of September 2009. This gave participants from the workshop an opportunity to engage with the wider regional community working on health equity, but also to feed input from the participatory work into the conference process and resolutions. The regional review workshop gathered researchers from the PRA research programme since 2005. The workshop reviewed the learning from, policy issues and knowledge gaps from the research studies, to inform planning of future work on empowerment and health and on people centred health systems in the ESA region and to explore the role of PRA approaches and community photography in advancing health equity. The workshop gathered those who had led the studies, community photographers and others involved with work on empowerment and health. This report documents the proceedings of the meeting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Petition: No More Silence: Speak up for accountability","field_subtitle":"World Care Council: 5 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.worldcarecouncil.org/content/no-more-silence-speak-accountability","body":"A growing group of health advocates and activists are engaging to promote during 2010 issues relating to accountability and transparency, within a rights and responsibilities approach in health. In common cause, in a collective vow of non-silence, all agree to speak up and voice concerns of questionable practices by both authorities and civil society. According to a petition circulated by the group, they are calling for greater accountability and transparency from institutions, organisations, and individuals in public sector health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Plasmodium infection and its risk factors in eastern Uganda","field_subtitle":"Pullan RL, Bikirwa H, Staedke SG, Snow RW and Brooker S: Malaria Journal 9(2), 4 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-9-2.pdf","body":"This report presents results from a total population survey of malaria infection and intervention coverage in a rural area of eastern Uganda, with a specific focus on how risk factors differ between demographic groups in this population. In 2008, a cross-sectional survey was conducted in four contiguous villages in Mulanda, sub-county in Tororo district, eastern Uganda, to investigate the risk factors of Plasmodium species infection. All permanent residents were invited to participate, with blood smears collected from 1,844 individuals aged between six months and 88 years (representing 78% of the population). Overall, 709 individuals were infected with Plasmodium, with prevalence highest among 5-9 year olds (63.5%). In total, 68% of households owned at least one mosquito net, although only 27% of school-aged children reported sleeping under a net the previous night. These findings demonstrate that mosquito net usage remains inadequate and is strongly associated with risk of malaria among school-aged children. Infection risk amongst adults is influenced by proximity to potential mosquito breeding grounds. Taken together, these findings emphasise the importance of increasing net coverage, especially among school-aged children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy frameworks for addressing health and environmental challenges","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, United Nations Environment Programme and Republique Gabonaise: 19 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.unep.org/health-env/pdfs/TD-Policy-frameworks.pdf","body":"This paper discusses a number of important policy frameworks for addressing health and environmental challenges, such as the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro (also known as the Earth Summit), the Millennium Development Goals (Goals 4, 5 and 6), the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) and the New Partnership for Africa\u2019s Development (NEPAD)\u2019s Human Resources Development Initiative, which  urges the integration of health and environment policies. In many African countries, national health-sector policies have been developed separate from those on environment. Planning and service delivery also takes place without deliberate integration. For more effective responses to the health and environment challenges facing the continent, this paper urges governments in Africa to mainstream health and environment into national development agendas, and develop the human capacity for assessment, regular monitoring and evaluation of the process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health, innovation and intellectual property: Report of the Expert Working Group on Research and Development Financing","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 23 December 2009","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/EB126/B126_6Add1-en.pdf","body":"Having considered a wide range of options, the Expert Working Group put forward the following fundraising proposals based on the likelihood they can generate new funds for health research and development in a sustainable way: a new indirect tax (a consumer-based tax); voluntary business and consumer contributions; new donor funds for health research and development; and a new indirect tax. The High-Level Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems estimates that additional funding for health might grow to some US$7.4 billion per annum by 2015 from traditional donors (under optimistic assumptions and if donors meet their commitments to aid) and that developing country contributions might be in the range of US$9.5\u201312.1 billion per annum. However, there would be a gap in available additional funds until then, as additional resources rise from US$2.8 billion in 2009 to US$7.4 billion in 2015. The following five proposals should provide funding allocation across most research and development stages and developers in a manner that is best designed to maximise public health returns in the developing world: funding via product development partnerships; direct grants to small and medium-sized enterprises and grants for developing country trials; milestone prizes; end-prizes (cash); and purchase or procurement agreements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Quarterly report antiretroviral treatment programme in Malawi with results up to 30 September 2009","field_subtitle":"Malawi Department of Health: 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/MalHIV200110.pdf","body":"By the end of September 2009, there were 236 static ART clinics in Malawi in the public and private health sector; 22 of these static clinics provided ART at a total of 103 outreach or mobile sites, bringing the total to 339 ART service delivery points in Malawi in Q3 2009. In the third quarter of 2009 (July to September) a total of 18,292 new patients initiated ART and 3,030 ART patients transferred between clinics, resulting in a total of 21,322 ART clinic registrations (39% male, 61% female; 91% adults and 9% children). Improved integration of the supervision system for the public and private sector has led to a revision of previous M&E data in the private sector and patient outcomes in the private sector are similar to those in the public sector. The National programme has been affected by serious ARV drug supply shortage during Q3 due to the delayed release of funding and the ensuing logistical complications resulting in widespread drug re-allocations between sites. However a targeted survey revealed that patients were affected only in isolated cases, requiring regimen changes or short-term treatment interruption.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa pre-decision information kit","field_subtitle":"Public Services International: 14 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.world-psi.org/TemplateEn.cfm?Section=Migrant_workers2&CONTENTID=24302&TEMPLATE=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm","body":"The official launch of the pre-decision and information kit on migration and women health workers was held on the 9th of December, 2009, at the Parktonian Hotel in Johannesburg. The launch was attended by representatives from the National Department of Health (NDH), the International Labour Organization (ILO), Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) and affiliates of the Public Services International (PSI) in South Africa, including a number of trade unions. The pre-decision and information kit was prepared by the National Working Group (NWG), composed of representatives of PSI affiliates in South Africa. The objective of the pre-decision information kit was to provide as much information as possible to professional women health workers intending to leave or enter South Africa for work. It provides a wide range of information from cost of living comparisons, terms and conditions of employment, cultural and language dynamics, workers\u2019 rights and referral organisations to assist and guide health workers to make informed decisions or help them in cases of possible abuse. The launch of the toolkit came at an opportune time a few days before International Migrants Day, which is commemorated on the 18th of December each year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"South African medical staff banned from moonlighting","field_subtitle":"Newman L: Independent Online, 6 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=125&art_id=vn20100106042011261C955691","body":"The KwaZulu-Natal Health Department has banned nurses and doctors from moonlighting, saying the practice is being abused. Two major health workers' unions have rejected the move, saying their members in the public sector are poorly paid and rely on after-hours work to help them make ends meet. Department spokesman, Chris Maxon, said that it was policy that health workers could not engage in remunerative work while employed by the department. Exceptions had been made in the past with a number of stipulations, among them that extra work should not be undertaken during working hours and there should be no conflict of interests. Nurses' union, Denosa, said that although some staff members might have abused the system, the department should have investigated each case. 'There have been cases, for example, where staff use their days off for extra work and they are tired when they go back to work and book off sick,' Denosa said. 'But (abusing the system) should not be dealt with as a blanket ruling. This type of restriction is not fair. There is a reason why people do extra work and it is because they need to supplement their income.'","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"State of the world\u2019s indigenous peoples","field_subtitle":"United Nations: 2009","field_url":"http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/SOWIP_web.pdf","body":"This publication covers a number of areas relevant to indigenous people around the world. Chapter 5 deals specifically with health. It points out that the commitment of United Nations Member States to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is an important step forward in improving the health of millions of people who live in poverty around the world. However, by failing to ground the goals in an approach that upholds indigenous peoples\u2019 individual and collective rights, the MDGs fall short in addressing the health disparities that persist between indigenous peoples and other poor, marginalised groups. By advancing the dominant paradigms of health and development rather than an approach based on individual and collective human rights, the MDGs also promote projects that are potentially detrimental to indigenous peoples, and which violate their rights to their collective land, territories and natural resources. Moreover, because the cultures and worldviews of indigenous peoples are not taken into account in the formulation of the MDGs, the goals do not consider the indigenous concept of health, which extends beyond the physical and mental well-being of an individual to the spiritual balance and well-being of the community as a whole. To improve the health situation of indigenous peoples, this report notes that there must thus be a fundamental shift in the concept of health so that it incorporates the cultures and world views of indigenous peoples as central to the design and management of state health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Survey: Ethics and human rights in TB care","field_subtitle":"World Care Council: 10 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.worldcarecouncil.org/content/ethics-human-rights-tb-care","body":"With the recent establishment of two separate World Health Organization (WHO)/Stop TB task forces \u2013 one on ethics and the other on human rights \u2013 a number of issues have been raised that should have wider input. This survey is the first of a series of quick questionnaires to 'Take the Pulse' of the broad based tuberculosis (TB) community \u2013 patients, professionals, programmers and public in affected communities \u2013 on ethical and rights issues. The World Care Council invites individuals to fill in the questionnaire on the World Care Council website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Survey: Taking the pulse of global health","field_subtitle":"World Care Council: December 2009","field_url":"http://www.worldcarecouncil.org/content/taking-pulse-global-health","body":"On the 9th of September, with partners and peers around the world, the World Care Council began a year-long process of Taking the Pulse of Global Health. This series of 'Outreach for Input' actions aims to gather the views and opinions of thousands of people on the state of health care services in their communities, and what they think is needed in the future. Using online polls, telephone surveys, web-forums and physical meetings, a new system of public consultation is being launched. This process is to encourage the greater involvement of all individuals, as part of civil society, and their organisations, in decisions about health in their country. Broad participation in these actions will help advocates and activists to influence health policy 'at the top', and help to forge the tools for change to be held by many hands 'on the bottom'. Results and data will be published on the World Care Council website, and can provide both food for thought and fuel for action. The first Global Survey is now online. It takes about ten minutes to complete the 30 multiple choice questions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Taking forward the Equity Watch in east and southern Africa: Report of a regional methods workshop 30 November \u2013 2 December 2009, Cape Town South Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET: December 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EWmtg%20repNov09.pdf","body":"This regional methods workshop was held to gather potential lead institutions of country teams and resource personnel to build on existing work done on the Equity Watch to date and to develop the design and plan implementation of the Equity Watch work at country level in participating countries and at regional level. The workshop aimed to: review and agree on the purpose, intended targets, process and outcomes of an Equity Watch at country and regional level; discuss the questions about equity to be addressed, and the dimensions of equity to be included; review and agree on the parameters, indicators, targets/progress markers/stratifiers for the analysis and organisation of the analysis to address these questions/dimensions; review types, quality and sources of evidence for the analysis; and discuss and set the next steps and roles for the work at country and regional level, including mentoring and regional review.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Ten development predictions for 2010","field_subtitle":"Haddad L: Institute of Development Studies, 4 January 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/go/news/ten-predictions-for-2010?em=1001&tag=NE","body":"The author notes that, given the magnitude of Western debt and the need to reduce it at a rate that does not disrupt any signs of growth, 2010 may well be the most benign year for development between now and 2015. He believes that the big cuts will come in 2011 onwards and makes ten predictions that may help inform development decisions during 2010. 1. China's view will become the bellwether of all development agreements. 2. \u2018Minilateralism' is the wave of the future. 3. Copenhagen will energise, not demoralise, those fighting for climate issues to be higher up the agenda. 4. The Commonwealth will become more important in development. 5. USAID will become more relevant to international development. 6. Food and nutrition will slowly slip from the top table of the development agenda. 7. Africa will get back onto the international agenda, albeit briefly. 8. Economics will change, but only at the margins. 9. The UK Department for International Development (DFID) will undergo evolution not revolution. 10. People power in development will move into a new age.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Testing campaign in Kenya surpasses one million target","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 24 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=87551","body":"An ambitious, door-to-door voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) exercise launched in November 2009 has resulted in more than 1.5 million Kenyans being tested for HIV, according to a senior government official. 'Our preliminary data show that during the [first] three weeks\u2026 [] \u2026 we tested 1.5 million people and, as we continue putting our records together, we could go way above this number,' said Nicholas Muraguri, director of the National AIDS and Sexually transmitted infections Control Programme (NASCOP). 'Normally men do not come forward to be tested but this time round we are impressed... Our results show they formed 40% of the total number tested,' he added. 'Those above 50 also turned out in large numbers. Government research shows they are at risk because they too are sexually active.' He noted that the campaign reached out to most at-risk populations such as commercial sex workers through 'moonlight' VCT centres that opened out of regular business hours. The campaign was part of the government's initiative to have at least 80% of Kenyans tested for HIV by the end of 2010.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The ideal of equal health revisited: Definitions and measures of inequity in health should be better integrated with theories of distributive justice","field_subtitle":"Norheim OF and Asada Y: International Journal for Equity in Health 8(40), 18 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-8-40.pdf","body":"The authors of this paper propose a pluralist notion of fair distribution of health that is compatible with several theories of distributive justice. It consists of the weak principle of health equality and the principle of fair trade-offs. The weak principle of health equality offers an alternative definition of health equity to those proposed in the past. It maintains the all-encompassing nature of the popular Whitehead/Dahlgren definition of health equity, and at the same time offers a richer philosophical foundation. This principle states that every person or group should have equal health except when: health equality is only possible by making someone less healthy, or there are technological limitations on further health improvement. In short, health inequalities that are amenable to positive human intervention are unfair. The principle of fair trade-offs states that weak equality of health is morally objectionable if and only if: further reduction of weak inequality leads to unacceptable sacrifices of average or overall health of the population, or further reduction in weak health inequality would result in unacceptable sacrifices of other important goods, such as education, employment, and social security.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The MDGs and beyond: Pro-poor policy in a changing world","field_subtitle":"Sumner A and Melamed C (eds): Poverty in Focus 19, January 2010","field_url":"http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCPovertyInFocus19.pdf","body":"This issue of Poverty in Focus reviews the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to date and asks what can be done to accelerate MDG progress in the years 2010\u20132015 and beyond. There have been numerous calls for a new development narrative/paradigm from developing countries, international civil society organisations and development agencies. The contributing authors believe this changing context will affect the debate on the MDGs, past and future, in ways that perhaps only now are starting to become clear. They also believe that impact of the current financial crisis is likely to continue to frame debates over the next five years, and will be critical in determining the economic and social environment. Economic uncertainty in donor countries is also leading to declining public support for aid budgets. They predict the coming period is likely to be much less certain as developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, face several interconnected crises to which climate change is central, and which will change the context for achieving the MDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The triple crisis and the global aid architecture","field_subtitle":"Addison T, Arndt C and Tarp F: UNU-WIDER Working Paper 2010/01, January 2010","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/stc/repec/pdfs/wp2010/wp2010-01.pdf","body":"According to the authors of this study, the global economy is passing through a period of profound change. They identify three global crises. The immediate concern is with the financial crisis, originating in the North. The South is affected via reduced demand and lower prices for their exports, reduced private financial flows and falling remittances. This is the first crisis. Simultaneously, climate change remains unchecked, with the growth in greenhouse gas emissions exceeding previous estimates. This is the second crisis. Finally, malnutrition and hunger are on the rise, propelled by the recent inflation in global food prices. This constitutes the third crisis. These three crises interact to undermine the prosperity of present and future generations. Each has implications for international aid and underlines the need for concerted action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The use of mobile phones as a data collection tool: A report from a household survey in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Tomlinson M, Solomon W, Singh Y, Doherty T, Chopra M, Ijumba P, Tsai AC and Jackson D: BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 9(51), 23 December 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6947-9-51.pdf","body":"This paper sought to investigate the feasibility, the ease of implementation, and the extent to which community health workers with little experience of data collection could be trained and successfully supervised to collect data using mobile phones in a large baseline survey. A web-based system was developed to allow electronic surveys or questionnaires to be designed (on a word processor), sent to, and conducted on standard entry level mobile phones. The web-based interface permitted comprehensive daily real-time supervision of CHW performance, with no data loss. The system permitted the early detection of data errors in combination with real-time quality control and data collector supervision. In conclusion, the benefits of mobile technology, combined with the improvement that mobile phones offer over personal digital assistants (PDAs) \u2013 or palmtop computers \u2013 in terms of data loss and uploading difficulties, make mobile phones a feasible method of data collection that needs to be further explored.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Tools and approaches for policy making in environmental management and public health","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, United Nations Environment Programme and Republique Gabonaise: 19 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.unep.org/health-env/pdfs/TD-Tools-approaches-for-policy-making.pdf","body":"In this paper, the authors argue that the successful application of technologies for the management of environmental risks to human health relies on a country\u2019s capacity to assess risks and potential health impacts, as well as develop and implement appropriate policies, monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of these policies, and engage and communicate with stakeholders. The authors identify the main challenges to most African countries as lack of access to relevant tools and reduced the capacity to deliver vital evidence-based knowledge on the links between the environment and health. The translation of evidence into policies and programmes is often a complex issue, and legal and regulatory frameworks in Africa remain largely limited or ineffective. This paper describes useful tools for policy making and proposes that governments integrate health and environmental impact considerations into economic development processes, identify knowledge gaps, support local applied research to build technical capacity and strengthen cooperation among key actors to answer practical policy questions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Traditional and current environmental risks to human health","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, United Nations Environment Programme and Republique Gabonaise: 19 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.unep.org/health-env/pdfs/TD-Traditional-and-current-risks.pdf","body":"Unsafe water bodies, poor access to safe drinking water, indoor and outdoor air pollution, unhygienic or unsafe food, poor sanitation, inadequate waste disposal, absent or unsafe vector control, and exposure to chemicals and injuries have been identified as key environmental risks to human health in most countries in Africa. The underlining reasons for this situation include inadequate or flawed policies, weak institutional capacities, shortage of resources and low general awareness of links between the environment and health. This paper suggests that governments re-orient their national policies to foster a greater contribution of environmental management towards public health. Specifically, governments may consider creating national frameworks and mechanisms for inter-sectoral action to adequately address the links between health and the environment, invest in the required infrastructure related to health and environmental services, build from past and current experiences, revitalise expertise in environmental management for health, and increase communication and community education to raise awareness of how individual practices can impact upon human health and the environment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Traditional complementary and alternative medicine and antiretroviral treatment adherence among HIV patients in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Peltzer K, Friend-du Preez N, Ramlagan S, Fomundam H and Anderson J: African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines 7(2): 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ylrwr8a","body":"Adherence to antiretroviral medication in the treatment of HIV is critical, both to maximise efficacy and to minimise the emergence of drug resistance. The aim of this prospective study in three public hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, is to assess the use of traditional complementary and alternative medicine (TCAM) by HIV patients and its effect on antiretroviral (ARV) adherence 6 months after initiating ARVs. 735 (29.8% male and 70.2% female) patients who consecutively attended three HIV clinics completed assessments prior to ARV initiation and 519 after six months on antiretroviral therapy (ART) Results indicate that the use of herbal therapies for HIV declined significantly from 36.6% prior to antiretroviral treatment (ART) initiation to 7.9% after being on ARVs for six months. Faith healing methods, including spiritual practices and prayer for HIV declined from 35.8% to 22.1% and physical/body-mind therapy (exercise and massage) declined from 5.0% to 1.9%. In contrast, the use of micronutrients (vitamins, etc.) significantly increased from 42.6% to 87.4%. In multivariate regression analyses, ARV non-adherence (dose, schedule and food) was associated with the use of herbal treatment, not taking micronutrients and the use of over-the-counter drugs. The use of TCAM declined after initiating ARVs. As herbal treatment for HIV was associated with reduced ARV adherence, patients\u2019 use of TCAM should be considered in ARV adherence management.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Translating research into policy: Lessons learned from eclampsia treatment and malaria control in three southern African countries","field_subtitle":"Woelk G, Daniels K, Cliff J, Lewin S, Sevene E, Fernandes B, Mariano A, Matinhure S, Oxman AD, Lavis JN and Lundborg CS: Health Research Policy and Systems 7:31, 30 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-7-31.pdf","body":"This paper studied policymaking processes in Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe to understand the factors affecting the use of research evidence in national policy development, with a particular focus on the findings from randomised control trials. It used a qualitative case-study methodology to explore the policy-making process. It carried out key informants interviews with a range of research and policy stakeholders in each country, reviewed documents and developed timelines of key events. Prior experience of particular interventions, local champions, stakeholders and international networks, and the involvement of researchers in policy development were important in knowledge translation for both case studies. In contrast to treatment policies for eclampsia, a diverse group of stakeholders with varied interests, differing in their use and interpretation of evidence, was involved in malaria policy decisions in the three countries. The paper concluded that translating research knowledge into policy is a complex and context sensitive process. Researchers aiming to enhance knowledge translation need to be aware of factors influencing the demand for different types of research; interact and work closely with key policy stakeholders, networks and local champions; and acknowledge the roles of important interest groups.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Twenty-sixth International Pediatric Association (IPA) Congress of Pediatrics 2010","field_subtitle":"Registration Deadlines: 31 March and 22 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.ipa-world.org/IPAcongress/default.htm?ref3=db1%20IPA_reg%40kenes.com","body":"Three leading paediatric associations are uniting to host the 26th IPA Congress of Pediatrics in Johannesburg, South Africa from 4\u20139 August 2010. More than 5,000 participants are expected to attend this landmark event, the first IPA congress to be held in sub-Saharan Africa. It will unite paediatricians and health professionals working towards the target set by Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce child mortality by two thirds before 2015. The scientific programme is designed to meet the needs of general paediatricians from both the developed and the developing world. Plenary sessions will include: the MDGs and the current state of health of children in the world, and progress towards the MDGs; the state of the world\u2019s newborns, including major issues determining maternal and newborn health in developing and developed countries; the determinants of health, such as genetics, nutrition and the environment; disasters and trauma affecting child health, such as disasters, crises and the worldwide epidemic of trauma; and the global burden of infectious diseases affecting children and the challenge of emerging infections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Urban poverty and vulnerability in Kenya: The urgent need for co-ordinated action to reduce urban poverty","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: Oxfam GB Briefing Note, 10 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/conflict_disasters/downloads/bn_urban_poverty_kenya.pdf","body":"Even if, in terms of income, there are still today a higher number of poor people in the countryside than in Kenya\u2019s cities, poor urban-dwellers face an alarming (and growing) range of vulnerabilities. Oxfam GB Kenya\u2019s report highlights the mutually reinforcing dimensions of vulnerability in Nairobi\u2019s slums. It launched a new Urban Programme Strategy in 2009 that aims to build on the organisation\u2019s strategic comparative advantages, bringing its experience elsewhere into the urban sector in Kenya. These advantages include: coordinating partnerships with key stakeholders, bringing Oxfam GB\u2019s experience in peace and conflict transformation in other parts of rural Kenya into the urban arena; capitalising on its international status in terms of resource mobilisation; and utilising its expertise on water, sanitation and food security to support local organisations in delivering basic urban services. The strategy will be implemented on a phased basis over a fifteen-year period, and will focus on three strategic priority areas: urban governance, sustainable livelihoods, and disaster preparedness and risk reduction.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Utilisation and outcomes of cervical cancer prevention services among HIV-infected women in Cape Town","field_subtitle":"Batra P, Kuhn L, Denny L: South African Medical Journal 100(1): 39\u201344, January 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/3492/2654","body":"This study conducted an audit of outcomes of cervical cancer screening and prevention services for HIV-positive women in Cape Town, South Africa. It took the form of a retrospective review of clinic registers, patient records and pathology databases at three HIV primary health clinics and a tertiary colposcopy referral centre. The proportion of women undergoing at least one Pap smear at HIV primary health clinics after HIV diagnosis was low (13.1%). Women referred for colposcopy tended to be HIV-positive and over the age of 30 years, and in most (70.2%) cytological examination revealed high-grade cervical dysplasia. HIV-positive women treated with excision for precancerous lesions of the cervix were significantly more likely than their HIV-negative counterparts to undergo incomplete excision, experience persistent cervical disease after treatment, and be lost to follow-up. The study concludes that cervical cancer screening efforts must be scaled up for women with HIV. Treatment and surveillance guidelines for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia in HIV-positive women may need to be revised and new interventions developed to reduce incomplete treatment and patient default.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Vacancy: Consultancy on environmental impact assessment in the health sector","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 15 February 2010","field_url":"","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) is expanding its activities on environmental impact assessment in the health sector. WHO seeks an independent consultant to develop tools, guidance, and monitoring and reporting frameworks for use in assessing and managing environmental issues affected by health sector projects and activities. The scope of work for this consultancy consists of three tasks: design and implementation of customised environmental screening and impact assessment tools; development of environmental monitoring and reporting framework and related information management systems; and contribute to training materials to build capacity for the use of the above. The consultancy will be for six months and will start at the end of February 2010 (or as soon as reasonably possible). The consultant will be remunerated at a monthly rate that is commensurate with their experience and based on the United Nations common salary scale. Expression of interest must be emailed to Michaela Pfeiffer, Technical Officer, WHO, at the email address given, before the closing date.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Board to address research and development financing, influenza ","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 14 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2010/01/14/who-board-addresses-rd-financing-influenza-next-week/","body":"Finding financing to develop medicines for under-researched diseases, regulatory harmonisation and pandemic influenza preparedness topped the agenda at the World Health Organization's (WHO) Executive Board meeting, held from 18\u201323 January 2010. Its recommendations will be sent to the annual WHO member decision-making World Health Assembly, which meets in May 2010. Regulatory harmonisation, such as streamlining processes for ensuring drug safety, is one of the major recommendations of the Expert Working Group to increase efficiency in the research and development system. Strengthening regulation is also one of the activities the WHO secretariat has said it is undertaking as part of the implementation of its global strategy, which requires a 'strengthening of the WHO prequalification programme'. Drug regulation may become a key discussion point on public health and intellectual property this year, according to sources. And there is recent concern from several members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe that the threat of pandemics, specifically the flu epidemics, may have been exaggerated 'in order to promote \u2026 patented drugs and vaccines'.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Who goes where and why? Examining HIV counseling and testing services in the public and private sectors in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Ron I, Wang W and Magvanjav O: PSP-One, January 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.psp-one.com/content/resource/detail/5374/","body":"The main objectives of this study were to document the role of the private for-profit sector in voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) service delivery and to establish whether there are significant differences in the quality of VCT services, particularly in counseling and referral practices, between public, private for-profit, non-governmental (NGO) and mission health providers. Copperbelt and Luapula were selected, which are urban and rural provinces. HIV prevalence among adults is approximately 17% in Copperbelt and 13% in Luapula. Geographic proximity and the cost of transportation were found to be important factors for clients in selecting a facility, as well as the specialised reputations of NGOs. Clients were drawn to the private sector because of its ability to offer high-quality general health services, in comparison with other medical sectors. This finding suggests that the private sector may be uniquely positioned to pilot more extensive integrated HIV services. However, no one sector emerged as providing overwhelmingly higher quality services than another and, overall, rural sites performed on par in quality with the urban sites. However, the findings revealed less than optimal counseling practices across the sectors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa unveils new governance body","field_subtitle":"New website: African Governance Institute (AGI) ","field_url":"http://www.iag-agi.org/spip/index_en.html","body":"Africa has a new continental body, the African Governance Institute (AGI), based in Dakar, Senegal. AGI interim director, Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, explained that the main \u2018added-value\u2019 of the Institute is \u2018to institutionalise African reflection on governance in Africa [\u2026] because we think that it is important that the people who live the realities of African societies and African states are better placed to understand what is going on and to propose solutions for a better future.\u2019 He announced that AIG will convene a series of Conferences in 2010, including one with Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf on democracy and human rights \u2018...to make this added-value a reality.\u2019 The AGI\u2019s programme of action was formally launched at an inaugural workshop on 3-4 November in Dakar. On 24 November, the AGI and ECDPM signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a strategic partnership, which aims to enhance both organisations\u2019 work in supporting the African Governance Architecture and enhancing the dialogue strategies and development support of Africa\u2019s European partners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS vaccine programme comes home to Africa","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 15 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87439","body":"In what is being hailed as a boost for African involvement in AIDS research, Uganda has been selected to host the African AIDS Vaccine Programme (AAVP), formerly based in Geneva, Switzerland. The AAVP, a network of African HIV vaccine stakeholders whose mission is to promote HIV vaccine development for Africa, has operated under the stewardship of the World Health Organization's department of immunization vaccines and biologicals since its formation in 2000. The transition to a fully functional African programme began more than a year ago and will be completed in 2010. The Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI), a leading research institute based in Entebbe, will be its new headquarters.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"An assessment of current support strategies for patients with TB in KwaZulu-Natal","field_subtitle":"Lutge E, Ndlela Z and Friedman I: Health Systems Trust, November 2009","field_url":"http://hst.org.za/publications/863","body":"In order to ameliorate poverty among tuberculosis (TB) sufferers, a few initiatives to support patients with TB have been made in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, including free treatment at government hospitals and clinics, and nutritional supplementation and social grants. Although these programmes have been functioning for a number of years, they have never been formally assessed in terms of the costs involved, the effects on the target populations, and the responses of patients. A recent study in Brazil (Belo et al, 2006) investigated a range of support strategies for patients with TB that included material and financial assistance, improved health services support and better administrative organisation \u2013 from the patient's perspective. Such a study has not been undertaken in South Africa, however, and given the large amount of money spent on support to TB patients, this is necessary to better inform such programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"An economic framework for analysing the social determinants of health and health inequalities","field_subtitle":"Epstein D, Jim\u00e9nez-Rubio D, Smith PC and Suhrcke M: Centre for Health Economics Research Paper 52: October 2009","field_url":"http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/che/pdf/rp52.pdf","body":"The methodology of priority setting in health care has reached an advanced stage of development, but it is difficult to integrate public health and social interventions into the traditional cost effectiveness approach. Priority setting tends to be drawn towards cost-benefit rather than cost effectiveness analysis, a much more demanding methodology. Furthermore, analysis of equity requires modelling differential responses by subgroup, again increasing complexity. There has been some work by economists on how society values identical health gains for different population groups. In principle, this research can be used to adjust cost-effectiveness ratios for equity concerns. However, studies so far have been relatively small scale and tentative in their conclusions. Given the methodological challenges, policy makers (including the UK government) have developed a more pragmatic approach towards priority setting, in the form of descriptive health impact assessments. These are likely to be especially helpful when examining cross-departmental initiatives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Are vaccination programmes delivered by lay health workers cost-effective? A systematic review","field_subtitle":"Corluka A, Walker DG, Lewin S, Glenton C and Scheel IB: Human Resources for Health 2009, 7(81), 3 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-7-81.pdf","body":"This paper reviews the costs and cost-effectiveness of vaccination programme interventions involving lay or community health workers (LHWs). Articles were retrieved if the title, keywords or abstract included terms related to 'lay health workers', 'vaccination' and 'economics'. Reference lists of studies assessed for inclusion were also searched and attempts were made to contact authors of all studies included in the Cochrane review. Of the 2,616 records identified, only three studies fully met the inclusion criteria, while an additional 11 were retained as they included some cost data. There was insufficient data to allow any conclusions to be drawn regarding the cost-effectiveness of LHW interventions to promote vaccination uptake. Studies focused largely on health outcomes and did illustrate to some extent how the institutional characteristics of communities, such as governance and sources of financial support, influence sustainability. Further studies on the costs and cost-effectiveness of vaccination programmes involving LHWs should be conducted, and these studies should adopt a broader and more holistic approach.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing progress in Africa towards the Millennium Development Goals","field_subtitle":"Economic Commission for Africa and African Union: 2008","field_url":"http://www.uneca.org/eca_programmes/acgd/Publications/MDGR2009.pdf","body":"This report presents progress made since the last report in 2007, discusses how far the continent still needs to travel, at what speed, and what needs to be done further. It is an abridged version of a much more comprehensive joint Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), African Union Commission (AUC), and African Development Bank (AfDB) report to the July 2008 African Union Summit. The conditions for accelerating growth and development to meet the targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are largely in place. Since the last report, the number of African countries with MDGs-consistent poverty reduction strategies or national development plans has risen to about 41. Growth, fueled in large measure by appropriate policy reforms, favourable primary product prices and a marked improvement in peace and security, notably in the west and south central regions remains strong. In 2007, for example, more than 25 African countries achieved a real GDP growth rate of 5% or above while another 14 grew at between 3 and 5%. However, the continent\u2019s average annual growth rate of approximately 5.8% still remains significantly lower than the 7% annual growth rate required to reduce poverty by half by 2015. This growth is increasingly coming under threat from new developments. Rising food and oil prices, as well as climate change, pose significant risks to the preservation and acceleration of growth and to progress towards the targets of the MDGs in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing regional integration in Africa III","field_subtitle":"Economic Commission for Africa: 2009","field_url":"http://www.uneca.org/aria3/","body":"Macroeconomic stability, monetary and financial integration are crucial for successful regional cooperation and integration. Both processes make decisive contributions to the creation of a conducive environment for economic growth, promotion of trade and boosting of investor confidence, hence the importance of pursuing prudent fiscal, monetary, exchange rate and debt policies at the national level and of harmonising these policies at the subregional and regional levels. Arguably, these policies should be situated within the socio-political, technological and international development setting of the countries, and indeed of the continent at large. The strengthening and deepening of the financial sector, including the establishment of vibrant capital markets, will also greatly facilitate the flow of funds and help anchor macroeconomic policies. Moreover, strong national and subregional capital markets would play a catalytic role in attracting foreign direct investment and promoting cross-border investment flows. This report also provides a brief \u2018progress report\u2019 on the developments in Africa\u2019s regional integration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Twenty-sixth International Pediatric Association (IPA) Congress of Pediatrics 2010","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 10 February 2010","field_url":"http://www2.kenes.com/ipa/scientific/Pages/Call.aspx","body":"Abstract submission for IPA 2010 is still open. Participants wishing to propose papers for oral or poster presentations are invited to submit their abstracts via the Congress website address given here. Abstracts should be limited to 250 words. Topics include: child health and survival; Millennium Development Goals; neurology; cardiology; dermatology; endocrinology, diabetes, obesity and adolescent medicine; genetics, congenital anomalies; infectious diseases; allergy and immunology; development, neurodevelopmental disability and other long term outcome studies; pulmonology; nephrology; nutrition, gastroenterology and metabolism; pharmacology; neonatology; haematology and oncology; education and training; paediatric surgery and surgical sub-specialties; and miscellaneous topics. Only abstracts of authors who have paid their registration fees by 31 March 2010 will be scheduled and included in the final programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for concept notes: Radio, convergence and development in Africa","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 8 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.cmts-cmst.org/","body":"Carleton University\u2019s Centre for Media and Transitional Societies (CMTS), in collaboration with Canada\u2019s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), is launching a call for concept notes, in French or English, outlining proposed research examining the impact of convergence between traditional radio and new information and communications technologies (ICTs) in sub-Saharan Africa. Ultimately, the purpose of this competitive research project is both to generate important research and to support African researchers in their efforts to produce rigorous and analytical social science research findings on the ways that radio and the growth and penetration of new ICTs, such as mobile phones, the Internet and other digital technologies, have affected social, cultural, political and economic development. All interested applicants are required to submit a concept note outlining a synopsis of a proposed research idea. Based on the assessment of the concept notes, shortlisted applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal in early 2010.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Interest: Membership of the UNITAID - WHO Proposal Review Committee.","field_subtitle":"UNITAID","field_url":"http://www.unitaid.eu/en/Requests-for-proposals-RFP.html","body":"UNITAID is a global health initiative, established to provide sustainable, predictable and additional funding to significantly impact on market dynamics to reduce prices and increase the availability and supply of high quality medicines, diagnostics and related commodities for the treatment of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, primarily for populations in low-income and lower-middle income countries. This is a transparent \"call for interest\" from individuals wishing to apply for membership of their Proposal Review Committee (\"PRC\"); an independent, impartial team of experts tasked with providing technical expertise to UNITAID on proposals and related projects submitted to UNITAID for funding. Details of how to submit an application are at http://www.unitaid.eu/en/Requests-for-proposals-RFP.html with individual TORs and expertise criteria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers on universal access","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 26 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.heard.org.za/capacity-building/young-researchers-initiative","body":"HEARD at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa is offering to support up to 12 young researchers by linking you to an international academic mentor who will support your writing of an article for submission for publication. If you are a young researcher (35 or under on 1st January 2010), resident in the SADC and EAC region and have exciting and original research on universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support, now is your chance to submit an article to a reputable peer reviewed international journal. Submissions need to include the application form (available on the website address given below) and a 10,000-word paper on a topic engaging with universal access. Papers should be no longer than 10,000 words and must be written in English. All disciplines may submit papers on universal access but topics should focus on social science, humanities or economics issues. Bio-medical topics will not be considered for support. Based on regional priorities, particular attention will be given to papers on issues faced by women \u2013 including sexual and reproductive health and rights; prevention topics in general and topics of health and economics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for participants: MA Participation, Power and Social Change","field_subtitle":"Applications now open","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/go/teaching/postgraduate-programmes/ma-participation-power-and-social-change","body":"The MA or Masters in Participation, Power and Social Change (MAP), offered by the University of Sussex, United Kingdom, is an 18-month programme providing experienced development workers and social activists with the opportunity to critically reflect on their practice and develop their knowledge and skills while continuing to work or volunteer for most of this period. The MA combines academic study, practical experience and personal reflection. Students carry out an action research project related to their work, inquiring into the challenges of participation and power relations, reflecting on their actions and assumptions, and exploring what it means to facilitate change. Designed for development workers and social change activists, this course combines academic study, practical experience and personal reflection. Students are able to continue with their work or volunteering activities while pursuing an MA degree, which includes a 12-month period of work-based learning in which they carry out an inquiry into their own practice. IDS is seeking interested people with at least three to five years of experience to join the October 2010 intake.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Changes in utilization of health services among poor and rural residents in Uganda: Are reforms benefitting the poor?","field_subtitle":"Pariyo GW, Ekirapa-Kiracho E, Okui O, Rahman MH, Peterson S, Bishai DM, Lucas H and Peters DH: International Journal for Equity in Health 8(39), 12 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-8-39.pdf","body":"This paper describes the changes in utilisation of health services that occurred among the poor and those in rural areas in Uganda between 2002/3 and 2005/6 and associated factors. Secondary data analysis was done using the socio-economic component of the Uganda National Household Surveys 2002/03 and 2005/06. The poor were identified from wealth quintiles constructed using an asset-based index derived from principal components analysis (PCA). The study found that the rural population experienced a 43% reduction in the risk of not seeking care because of poor geographical access. The risk of not seeking care due to high costs did not change significantly. Poor people, females, rural residents and those from elderly headed households were more likely to use public facilities relative to private for-profit (PFP) providers. Although overall utilisation of public and private not-for-profit (PNFP) services by rural and poor populations had increased, PFP providers remained the major source of care. Policy makers should consider targeting subsidies to the poor and rural populations. Public-private partnerships should be broadened to increase access to health services among the vulnerable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Child disability screening, nutrition, and early learning in 18 countries with low and middle incomes: Data from the third round of UNICEF's Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (2005\u20132006)","field_subtitle":"Gottlieb CA, Maenner MJ, Cappa C and Durkin P: The Lancet 374(9704): 1831\u20131839, 28 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2961871-7/fulltext#article_upsell","body":"This study examined child disability screening and its association with nutrition and early learning in countries with low and middle incomes. Cross-sectional data for the percentage of children screening positive for or at risk of disability were obtained for 191,199 children aged 2\u20139 years old in 18 countries. Screening results were descriptively analysed according to social, demographic, nutritional, early-learning and schooling variables. A median 23% of children aged 2\u20139 years old screened positive for disability. For children aged 2\u20134, screening positive for disability was significantly more likely in children who were not breastfed and who did not receive vitamin A supplements. Children aged 6\u20139 who did not attend school screened positive for disability more often than did children attending school. These results draw attention to the need for improved global capacity to assess and provide services for children at risk of disability. Further research on childhood disabilities is needed in countries with low and middle incomes to understand and address the role of nutritional deficiencies and restricted access to learning opportunities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Child survival in sub-Saharan Africa: the role of CAPGAN and regional child health practitioners and scientists","field_subtitle":"Heikens GT, Manary M, Sandige H and Kalilani L: Malawi Medical Journal 21(3): 94\u201395, September 2009","field_url":"http://www.mmj.medcol.mw/issues/vol21_3survival.pdf","body":"In a statement, the Commonwealth Association of Paediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition (CAPGAN) calls for maternal, neonatal and child health to be more closely linked to improve child survival from HIV, diarrhoea and malnutrition. Colleges of Health Sciences, Nursing and Medicine should become important backbones of maternal and child health systems, through education and implementation research, and through training and retaining of their staff in HIV, diarrhoea and malnutrition in the widest sense. The statement presents that leadership, collaboration and country-capacity support, development of evidence-based guidelines and systems must be stimulated, to ensure coverage and monitoring of equity and progress in achieving Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Children and AIDS: Fourth stocktaking report 2009","field_subtitle":"United Nations International Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF): December 2009","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/Children_and_AIDS_Fourth_Stocktaking_Report_EN_120209.pdf","body":"This annual report examines evidence of progress in four key areas in 2008: prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT), paediatric HIV care and treatment, prevention of HIV among adolescents and young people, and protection and support for children affected by HIV and AIDS. The most significant progress was in PMTCT, with 45% of HIV-positive pregnant women globally receiving antiretroviral (ARV) treatment to prevent them passing HIV to their children; up from 24% in 2006. Several countries with high HIV prevalence expanded PMTCT coverage to most pregnant women needing treatment: 73% in South Africa, 91% in Namibia and 95% in Botswana. Other countries lagged behind: for example, in Nigeria only 10% of pregnant women with HIV were tested and treated to prevent transmission to their babies. The countries most successful at scaling up PMTCT incorporated their programmes into existing maternal and child health services, the report noted. The authors conclude that in the near future, it is not impossible to envisage a generation of children who are free of HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Collaborative push to address TB crisis on mines","field_subtitle":"Bateman C: South African Medical Journal 99(12): 852\u2013855, December 2009","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/3885/2617","body":"After a century of failed tuberculosis (TB) control strategies on South Africa\u2019s mines, and three major but ineffective enquiries and commissions, a government-led \u2018TB in Mines Task Team\u2019 is being set up to address the deepening HIV-driven crisis. The HIV-fuelled TB epidemic, compounded by rising drug resistance, is now estimated at 3,500 per 100,000 mine workers, with 40% of all autopsies on men who die working on the mines revealing they had TB. Worker migration from rural areas throughout southern Africa to Gauteng and surrounding industrial areas to work in the mining, building and other dominant sectors is a major driver of the rampant TB epidemic. National TB prevalence has increased nearly threefold in the past decade. South Africa was among the 10 worst performing countries on TB control, and Statistics SA had found that, for every 100 deaths in 2006, 13 were from TB, making it the leading cause of death. Less than 1% of all HIV-infected individuals in this country were accessing proven safe and effective Isoniazid Preventative TB Therapy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Conference report: Third EQUINET regional conference","field_subtitle":"EQUINET: December 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20Conf%20Report%20Sep%2009.pdf","body":"The third EQUINET regional conference was held in September 2009 and brought together parliamentarians, professionals, civil society members, policy makers, state officials, health workers and international agency personnel. It provided an opportunity to exchange across areas of work on different dimensions of health equity in east and southern Africa. The conference theme, \u2018Reclaiming the Resources for Health: Building Universal People Centred Health Systems in East and Southern Africa\u2019 was chosen to share experience and evidence on alternatives through which: poor people claim a fairer share of national resources to improve their health; a larger share of global and national resources are invested in redistributive health systems, to overcome the impoverishing effects of ill health; and countries in east and southern Africa (ESA) claim and obtain a more just return from the global economy, to increase the resources for health. The report follows the abstract book, also available on the EQUINET website, and provides the proceedings of the conference.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Consequences of less funding for AIDS ","field_subtitle":"Bodibe K: Health-e News, 19 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032576","body":"Thanks to the international recession, the author argues that external funders are either decreasing or opting not to increase their funding of AIDS treatment. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) recently reported that two key international programmes supporting AIDS treatment in the developing world are not increasing their grants: For two successive years the Global Fund Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has reduced funding for approved grants, while the American President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is now practicing what it calls \u2018flat-funding\u2019, which \u2018basically means that you can only recruit when someone dies, when someone empties a seat or a treatment slot\u2019, as explained by Dr Erci Goemaere, co-ordinator of MSF missions in South Africa and Lesotho. The authors warn that a funding crisis could lead to the reversal of gains made since the start of antiretroviral treatment in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Copenhagen Accord Draft Agreement","field_subtitle":"Delegates at United Nations Climate Change Conference: 19 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.montrealgazette.com/pdf/Copenhagen-accord-draft-agreement.pdf","body":"Leaders of the industrialised nations that attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December 2009 have produced a revised draft agreement, which they hope will break a deadlock between rich and developing countries that threatens to scuttle the talks. The new draft has stronger emission targets, more robust language supporting poverty eradication and clarifies the importance of the science of climate change in the accord. It also recognises the equal right of all nations to \u2018access to atmospheric space.\u2019 The accord states that only developing countries that accept financial support for their reduction projects have to accept international monitoring and verification of their reductions. In the draft, all nations would agree to cut emissions globally by 50% below 1990 levels as. Industrialised countries would agree to reduce their emissions \u2018individually or jointly\u2019 by 80% by 2050. The draft accord also commits developing countries to emission reductions, but only in the context of future development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Development effectiveness: Towards new understandings","field_subtitle":"Kindornay S and Morton B: North-South Institute, 2009","field_url":"http://www.nsi-ins.ca/english/pdf/Issues%20Brief%20Sept.pdf","body":"According to this brief, aid effectiveness refers to how effective aid is in achieving expected outputs and stated objectives of aid interventions. In contrast, the brief observes, aid actors are also interested in development effectiveness, a term which lacks clarity leaving it open to considerable scope for interpretation. The brief suggests four categories to help in understanding the term development effectiveness: as organisational effectiveness; as coherence or coordination; as the development outcomes from aid; and as overall development outcomes. The latter overlaps with other understandings of the term but is the most comprehensive approach of the four categories. Here, it is seen as a measure of the overall development process, and not just the outcomes from aid. The brief recommends that a successful agenda on development effectiveness should depend on concerted efforts between developing country governments and official aid funders basing on their willingness to reformulate the current effectiveness agenda, and that the creation of a development effectiveness agenda will require a level of agreement on the operational meaning of the term.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Directly observed antiretroviral therapy: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials","field_subtitle":"Ford N, Nachega JB, Engel ME and Mills EJ: The Lancet 373(9707): 2064\u20132071, 19 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2961671-8/fulltext#article_upsell","body":"This study took the form of a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised trials of directly observed versus self-administered antiretroviral treatment. Duplicate searches of databases were conducted, as well as searchable websites of major HIV conferences and lay publications and websites, to identify randomised trials assessing directly observed therapy to promote adherence to antiretroviral therapy in adults. Twelve studies met the inclusion criteria. Four of these were done in groups that were judged to be at high risk of poor adherence (drug users and homeless people). Ten studies reported on the primary outcome \u2013 the study calculated a pooled relative risk of 1.04, and noted moderate heterogeneity between the studies for directly observed versus self-administered treatment. The study found that directly observed antiretroviral therapy seems to offer no benefit over self-administered treatment, which calls into question the use of such an approach to support adherence in the general patient population.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic report on Africa 2009 ","field_subtitle":"Economic Commission for Africa: 2009","field_url":"http://www.uneca.org/era2009/","body":"The Economic Report on Africa 2009 is organized into two parts. Part I examines global economic developments and their implication for Africa, analyses recent economic and social trends and highlights emerging development challenges to the continent in 2008. Part II is devoted to the issue of regional value chain development and starts with a discussion in chapter 4 of the need to address challenges to developing African agriculture in the context of the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) of the African Union\u2019s New Partnership for Africa\u2019s Development (AU/NEPAD). The report focuses on the question of how to enhance structural transformation of African agriculture through systematic efforts to develop regionally integrated value chains and markets for selected strategic food and agricultural commodities. Finally, the report urges African governments to operationalise commitments to develop agriculture, and suggests strategies that promote viable value chains at the national and regional levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Enhancing global control of alcohol to reduce unsafe sex and HIV in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Chersich MF, Rees HV, Scorgie F and Martin G: Globalization and Health 5(16), 17 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-5-16.pdf","body":"Conflation of HIV and alcohol disease in African settings is not surprising given patterns of heavy-episodic drinking and that drinking contexts are often coterminous with opportunities for sexual encounters. HIV and alcohol also share common ground with sexual violence. Reducing alcohol harms necessitates multi-level interventions and should be considered a key component of structural interventions to alleviate the burden of HIV and sexual violence. Brief interventions for people with problem drinking must incorporate specific discussion of links between alcohol and unsafe sex, and consequences thereof. Interventions to reduce alcohol harm among HIV-infected persons are also an important element in positive-prevention initiatives. Most importantly, implementation of known effective interventions could alleviate a large portion of the alcohol-attributable burden of disease, including its effects on unsafe sex, unintended pregnancy and HIV transmission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Environmental issues in economic partnership agreements: Implications for developing countries","field_subtitle":"Dove-Edwin B: International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development Issue Paper 1, September 2009","field_url":"http://ictsd.org/downloads/2009/11/chaytor_web_final.pdf","body":"The aim of this paper is to enable African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries to understand how trade policy related to the environment has been introduced in economic partnership agreements (EPAs), and how those policies might impact sustainable development in ACP countries. Some of the issues for ACPs examined by the paper include a discussion of the dif&#64257;culties of managing and coordinating the various regional groupings in the negotiations, the potential complementarities and con&#64258;icts with other existing international agreements (multilateral environmental agreements and WTO agreements), the challenges related to the implementation of new environmental standards, and the settlement of disputes as well as the strengthening of environmental capacities. The main conclusion of the paper is that the incorporation of environmental provisions within the EPAs may present some bene&#64257;ts to ACP countries. However, ACP countries will need appropriate packages of technical assistance, capacity building, and environmental cooperation to meet this new environmental agenda in their trade agreements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 107: How can we fund universal health systems in Africa?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Ex-miners sue for contracting fatal disease ","field_subtitle":"Magamdela P: Health-e News, 21 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032579","body":"Twenty-four ex-miners are seeking compensation from Anglo-American after contracting silicosis, an incurable and fatal lung disease. In court papers, the 24 men allege that they contracted silicosis while in the employ of Anglo-American South Africa Ltd. The case is the first of its kind in South Africa. One of Britain\u2019s leading personal injury and human rights law firms, Leigh Day & Co, is consulting for the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), which is representing the plaintiffs. \u2018The litigation has two objectives. First, to compensate miners who contracted silicosis on the gold mines, and secondly, to deal with the problem of ex-miners whose health continues to be at risk of bouts of Tuberculosis,\u2019 said Richard Meeran, a lawyer from Leigh Day & Co.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Features associated with underlying HIV infection in severe acute childhood malnutrition: A cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Bunn J, Thindwa M and Kerac M: Malawi Medical Journal 21(3): 108\u2013112, September 2009","field_url":"http://www.mmj.medcol.mw/issues/vol21_3malnutrition.pdf","body":"Up to half of all children presenting to nutrition rehabilitation units (NRUs) in Malawi are infected with HIV. This study aimed to identify features suggestive of HIV in children with severe acute malnutrition (SAM). All 1,024 children admitted to the Blantyre NRU between July 2006 and March 2007 had demographic, anthropometric and clinical characteristics documented on admission. HIV status was known for 904 children, with 445 (43%) seropositive and 459 (45%) seronegative. Associations were found for the following signs: chronic ear discharge, lymphadenopathy, clubbing, marasmus, hepato-splenomegally and oral candida. Any one of these signs was present in 74% of the HIV seropositive and 38% of HIV-uninfected children. HIV-infected children were more stunted, wasted and anaemic than uninfected children. In conclusion, features commonly associated with HIV were often present in uninfected children with SAM, and HIV could neither be diagnosed nor excluded using these. The study recommends HIV testing be offered to all children with SAM where HIV is prevalent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights 2010","field_subtitle":"8\u201315 February 2010: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia","field_url":"http://www.africasexuality.org/","body":"The Fourth Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights is part of a long-term process of building and fostering regional dialogue on sexual rights and health that leads to concrete action to influence policy particularly that of the African Union and its bodies. The purpose of the conference is to examine the interrelationship between sexuality and HIV and AIDS. In particular, it aims to open up discourse on sexuality in Africa and how this might lead to new insights in reducing the spread of HIV in Africa. The focus will be on identifying new and emerging vulnerabilities and vulnerable people using the concept of sexual rights and sexuality in the fight against HIV and AIDS. It will also explore how the application of human rights framework to sexuality might provide new insights in developing interventions to reduce the spread of HIV and map out new and innovative strategies, programming and funding best suited to deal with those most vulnerable to infection. The conference will provide a framework of how sexuality and the application of sexual rights may lead to openness, responsibility and choices for all people, particularly young people, on sex, sexuality and sexual behaviour.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"From inception to large scale: The Gera\u00e7\u00e3o Biz Programme in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Pathfinder International and the World Health Organization: 2009","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2009/9789241598347_eng.pdf","body":"This case study describes a multisectoral adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) programme with three main components: clinical youth-friendly health services (YFHS), inschool interventions and community-based outreach. It has been written for programme and project managers at national, district and local levels interested in the implementation and scale-up of multisectoral programmes that encompass YFHS. It outlines the process used to design, implement, monitor and evaluate the Gera\u00e7\u00e3o Biz programme in Mozambique. The steps taken during the pilot phase and subsequent scale-up of the programme are described, as well as key lessons learned. This case study is intended to provide an example of how to design and implement a multisectoral programme that is intended to be scaled up from the beginning. Although other countries have different political, social and cultural contexts, the experience and lessons learned here could be adapted and applied to help other countries that wish to establish or scale up YFHS within multisectoral programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"From staff-mix to skill-mix and beyond: Towards a systemic approach to health workforce management","field_subtitle":"Dubois C and Singh D: Human Resources for Health 7(87), 19 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-7-87.pdf","body":"Throughout the world, countries are experiencing shortages of health care workers. Policy-makers and system managers have developed a range of methods and initiatives to optimise the available workforce and achieve the right number and mix of personnel needed to provide high-quality care. The literature review for this study found that such initiatives often focus more on staff types than on staff members' skills and the effective use of those skills. The study describes evidence about the benefits and pitfalls of current approaches to optimisal roles of health workers in health care. It concludes that health care organisations must consider a more systemic approach \u2013 one that accounts for factors beyond narrowly defined human resources management practices and includes organisational and institutional conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health risks","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: December 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/GlobalHealthRisks_report_full.pdf","body":"Global life expectancy could be increased by nearly five years by addressing five factors affecting health \u2013 childhood underweight, unsafe sex, alcohol use, lack of safe water, sanitation and hygiene, and high blood pressure, according to this report. These are responsible for one-quarter of the 60 million deaths estimated to occur annually. The report describes 24 factors affecting health, which are a mix of environmental, behavioural and physiological factors, such as air pollution, tobacco use and poor nutrition. More than a third of the global child deaths can be attributed to a few nutritional risk factors such as childhood underweight, inadequate breastfeeding and zinc deficiency. Eight risk factors alone account for over 75% of cases of coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death worldwide. These are alcohol consumption, high blood glucose, tobacco use, high blood pressure, high body mass index, high cholesterol, low fruit and vegetable intake and physical inactivity. Most of these deaths occur in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Government boost for PMTCT, paediatric services in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 1 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87269","body":"In a bid to reduce the rate of HIV transmission from mother to child, Uganda will now give all pregnant women highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Second deputy Prime Minister, Kirunda Kivejinja, said the government was committed to scaling up interventions that prevent HIV infections in children by improving prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) services. \u2018We shall also ensure scale-up of access to services for early infant HIV testing and treatment, and for care and support for all children that are affected by HIV,\u2019 he added. \u2019We have proven that when pregnant women receive HAART, the rate of transmission from mother to child is less than 2%; this should go full-scale in Uganda,\u2019 Addy Kekitiinwa, executive director of the Baylor Uganda Children's Foundation, said. A recent Ugandan study of 1,829 women found a 1.67% infection rate among infants born to mothers who received HAART during pregnancy, compared with an 11.75% infection rate among infants whose mothers received single-dose Nevirapine, and 3.73% and 5.02% of those who received two types of combination therapy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"High-Level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation highlights need for South-South partnerships","field_subtitle":"United Nations: 6 December 2009","field_url":"http://wwwupdate.un.org/News/Press/docs/2009/dev2781.doc.htm","body":"The High-Level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation, which was held from 1\u20133 December in Nairobi, Kenya, encouraged developing countries \u2013 with support from developed countries and international organisations \u2013 to take concrete steps to make their cooperative efforts work better in tackling the serious challenges they faced in achieving socio-economic advancement. The conference highlighted the growing political and economic ties within the developing world as countries of the global South assumed leading roles in handling global issues ranging from economic recovery to food security and climate change. By adopting the final text of the Conference \u2013 known formally as the Nairobi Outcome Document \u2013 the participants recognised the increasing power of South-South cooperation over the past few decades. The document urges United Nations funds, programmes and specialised agencies to take concrete measures to support South-South cooperation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"History of rotavirus research in children in Malawi: The pursuit of a killer","field_subtitle":"Cunliffe N, Witte D and Ngwira B: Malawi Medical Journal; 21(3):113\u2013115, September 2009","field_url":"http://www.mmj.medcol.mw/issues/vol21_3rota.pdf","body":"Rotavirus gastroenteritis is a major health problem among Malawian children. Studies spanning 20 years have described the importance, epidemiology and viral characteristics of rotavirus infections in the country. Despite a wide diversity of circulating rotavirus strains causing severe disease in young infants, a clinical trial of a human rotavirus vaccine clearly demonstrated the potential for rotavirus vaccination to greatly reduce the morbidity and mortality due to rotavirus diarrhoea in Malawi. This new enteric vaccine initiative represents a major opportunity to improve the health and survival of Malawian children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"How can we fund universal health systems in Africa?","field_subtitle":"Di McIntyre University of Cape Town Health Economics Unit ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nSince the 2005 World Health Assembly resolution calling for member states to pursue universal health systems, there has been growing interest in how this can be achieved in low- and middle-income countries. \r\n\r\nThe promotion of universal coverage means that health systems should seek to ensure that all citizens have access to adequate health care (adequately staffed with skilled and motivated health workers) and financial protection from the cost of using health care.  Universal coverage requires both income cross-subsidies (from the rich to the poor) and risk cross-subsidies (from the healthy to the ill) in the overall health system.  This stems from our understanding of equity, which requires that people should contribute to the funding of health services according to their ability to pay and benefit from health services according to their need for care.  Prior work in the fair financing theme in EQUINET indicates that there is still a heavy dependence on external funding in some east and southern African (ESA) countries and heavy burdens on poor people through high levels of out of pocket financing.\r\n\r\nA key impetus for the World Health Assembly resolution was the growing evidence on the extent to which households in many countries were being impoverished by having to pay for health care on an out-of-pocket (OOP) basis.  This has led to an international consensus that prepayment health care financing mechanisms (tax funding and health insurance) should be the preferred sources of funds and that reliance on OOP payments should be reduced, if not completely eliminated.  A number of ESA countries have removed user fees at some or all public sector facilities (e.g. South Africa, Uganda and Zambia).  While there have been positive effects, such as dramatic increases in the use of public facilities particularly by poorer groups, this has been hard to sustain where there is inadequate funding of public facilities from tax revenue and/or grants from overseas development aid.  This has meant that some facilities do not have medicines available and have too few staff to cope with the increased number of patients.  Where this has occurred, patients have had to increasingly rely on private health services, paid for on an OOP basis and again face the possibility of impoverishment if costs were high relative to their income levels.\r\n\r\nThis experience has demonstrated that while it is critical to reduce out-of-pocket payments for health care, it is equally important to improve public funding of health services. This is particularly so, if we are to progress toward universal health systems that provide financial protection and access to needed health care for all.  Although private health insurance is a form of prepayment financing, it does little to contribute to universal coverage in low- and middle-income countries. This is because very few people can afford the premiums for such insurance and only those who contribute benefit from the services funded by private insurance schemes.  Instead, what is required is the creation of as large a pool of funds as possible that can be used to fund health services that will benefit the entire population. This can be achieved through allocations to the health sector from tax funds, which can be supplemented by mandatory (i.e. compulsory) health insurance contributions by those with the financial means to contribute in this way. Development aid funds can also contribute to this integrated pool of funds, but given the unreliability of external funding and that this source is unlikely to be sustainable in the long term, it is critical that the emphasis increasingly is placed on domestic public funding for health services.\r\n\r\nFor many years, we have been told that this is simply not possible. The reality is that unless we take steps to make increased domestic public funding of health care possible, we will never achieve universal health systems in Africa. What steps are required? There is a need to increase tax revenue.  A number of African countries (including Kenya, South Africa and Uganda) have managed to dramatically increase tax revenue without increasing tax rates, through improved tax collection. Consideration is also being given by some countries to introduce new taxes whose burden falls on the wealthy (such as levies on foreign exchange transactions). Equally importantly, the allocations from tax revenue to the health sector should be increased.  Most ESA countries are very far from the Abuja target of devoting 15% of government funds to the health sector.  The ability of governments to allocate more funds to the health sector is enhanced greatly by debt relief.  Malawi is one country that has made progress towards the Abuja target.  This has occurred due to active lobbying by parliamentarians, who put forward a private members bill to secure a government commitment to move towards this target. From the Malawian experience, it is clear that it is important to emphasise that it was the Heads of State that signed the Abuja Declaration (rather than simply Ministers of Health).  Many parliamentarians and government officials are unaware or ill-informed about the Abuja target. In addition to improved general tax funding of health services, mandatory health insurance contributions (which are often very similar to a dedicated health tax) could be introduced. The key lesson from other low- and middle-income countries, particularly in Latin America, is that it is critical to integrate general tax allocations for health and mandatory insurance contributions in a single pool of funds to be used for the benefit of the entire population if universal coverage is to be achieved.\r\n\r\nWhile improved domestic public funding of health services will not happen overnight, we need to start moving in this direction as a matter of urgency. We need to understand better how countries have managed to improve their tax collection and how some have managed to successfully motivate for increased allocations to the health sector. We need to continue to mobilise for debt cancellation to free up limited domestic resources for funding social services. We need to protect our health systems from interventions promoted by international organisations that will take us further from achieving universal coverage (such as efforts to commercialise health care delivery and funding). We need to convince our policy-makers that universal health systems can only be achieved through improved domestic public funding of health services.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit the Health Economics Unit website at http://heu-uct.org.za/ and the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Hungry for change: An eight-step, costed plan of action to tackle global child hunger","field_subtitle":"Save the Children: 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.savethechildren.net/alliance/media/newsdesk/2009-11-16.html","body":"More than 178 million children are currently suffering from chronic malnutrition, which contributes to a third of all child deaths globally. According to this report, a total of \u00a3150 would give a hungry child the right kind of food and support to stop them from dying from malnutrition and protect their brains and bodies from being permanently damaged by hunger. Half of the world\u2019s hungry children live in just eight countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Sudan and Vietnam. The Hungry for Change report reveals that it would cost \u00a35.25 billion a year to combat child hunger in these countries and dramatically reduce the number of children who are stunted or malnourished.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"IAS 2009 impact report","field_subtitle":"International AIDS Society (IAS): December 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.iasociety.org/Web/WebContent/File/IAS%202009_impact_report.pdf","body":"New data presented at the IAS Conference for 2009 is already having an impact on HIV policy and practice on a global scale. Results of several basic research studies provided the field with a better understanding of the elevated HIV infection risk among African women due to chronically activated T-cells in genital tract mucosa, how complex genetic variables may affect HIV acquisition and disease progression, and how early antiretroviral therapy (ART) can substantially reduce the size of latent HIV reservoirs, a significant clinical issue in chronic HIV infection. Findings demonstrating that maternal triple-drug ART used throughout pregnancy and breastfeeding reduced vertical transmission to 1% are expected to inform revised World Health Organization (WHO) and South African national guidelines on antiretroviral prophylaxis. Also, research delineating the impact of antiretroviral therapy on reducing coincident tuberculosis and malaria epidemics in HIV-prevalent regions argued for wider and earlier access to treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the coverage of the PMTCT programme through a participatory quality improvement intervention in South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Doherty T, Chopra M, Nsibande D and Mngoma D: BMC Public Health 9:406, 5 November 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2777166/?tool=pubmed","body":"Despite several years of implementation, prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programmes in many resource poor settings are failing to reach the majority of HIV positive women. This study reports on a data-driven participatory quality improvement intervention implemented in a high HIV prevalence district in South Africa. The intervention consisted of an initial assessment undertaken by a team of district supervisors, workshops to assess results, identify weaknesses and set improvement targets and continuous monitoring to support changes. Routine data revealed poor coverage of all programme indicators except HIV testing. One year following the intervention, large improvements in programme indicators were observed. Coverage of CD4 testing increased from 40 to 97%, uptake of maternal nevirapine from 57 to 96%, uptake of infant nevirapine from 15 to 68% and six week polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing from 24 to 68%. It is estimated that these improvements in coverage could avert 580 new infant infections per year in this district.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"In action: Saving the lives of Africa's mothers, newborns and children ","field_subtitle":"African Science Academy Development Initiative (ASADI): December 2009","field_url":"http://www.nationalacademies.org/asadi/2009_Conference/PDFs/ScienceInActionFullReport.pdf","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa is off-track to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for maternal and child health by 2015. Each year 265,000 mothers die due to complications of pregnancy and childbirth, 1,243,000 babies die before they reach one month of age and a further 3,157,000 children die before their fifth birthday. Nevertheless, there is clear evidence demonstrating that progress can be achieved even in low-income countries. This evidence, together with the unprecedented new investments in maternal and child health from continental leaders and increasingly from development partners, offers new hope for the future. Improving health systems and promoting high impact interventions are crucial and require partnerships between scientists, health care providers with government, development partners, policy makers, civil society and communities. Four key actions include: further investment and tracking of resources; equitable implementation of programmes; innovation in research; and using evidence as a basis for health policy and resource allocation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"International flow of Zambian nurses","field_subtitle":"Hamada N, Maben J, McPake B and Hanson K: Human Resources for Health 7(83), 11 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-7-83.pdf","body":"This commentary paper highlights changing patterns of outward migration of Zambian nurses. The aim is to discuss these pattern changes in the light of policy developments in Zambia and in receiving countries. Prior to 2000, South Africa was the most important destination for Zambian registered nurses. In 2000, new destination countries, such as the United Kingdom, became available, resulting in a substantial increase in migration from Zambia. This is attributable to the policy of active recruitment by the United Kingdom's National Health Service and Zambia's policy of offering voluntary separation packages. The dramatic decline in migration to the United Kingdom since 2004 is likely to be due to increased difficulties in obtaining United Kingdom registration and work permits. Despite smaller numbers, enrolled nurses are also leaving Zambia for other destination countries, a significant new development. This paper stresses the need for nurse managers and policy-makers to pay more attention to these wider nurse migration trends in Zambia, and argues that the focus of any migration strategy should be on how to retain a motivated workforce through improving working conditions and policy initiatives to encourage nurses to stay within the public sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"International recruitment of health personnel: Draft global code of practice","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization (WHO): 3 December 2009","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/EB126/B126_8-en.pdf","body":"The WHO Secretariat has redrafted the code of practice in order to take into account, as requested, the views and comments expressed by members of the Board in January 2009 and the outcome of the subsequent sessions of the regional committees. Two core themes identified by the regional committees and incorporated in the revised draft code were that member states should strive to achieve a balance between the rights, obligations and expectations of source countries, destination countries and migrant health personnel, and that international health worker migration should have a net positive impact on the health system of developing countries and countries with economies in transition. The revised draft text emphasises that international health personnel should be recruited in a way that seeks to prevent a drain on valuable human resources for health. It also recommends that countries should abstain from active international recruitment of health personnel unless equitable bilateral, regional, or multilateral agreement(s) exist to support such recruitment activities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Is global interest in the Tobin tax genuine?","field_subtitle":"Guise A: EG4Health, 4 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.eg4health.org/","body":"The idea of a Tobin tax is suddenly popular amongst many who have long opposed it. The United Kingdom\u2019s Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has even come out in favour of the tax and the G20 have asked for further research to be done in this area. But this interest from the dominant institutions and governments running the global economy could act to prevent discussion on other much-needed reform. So what lies behind the interest in a Tobin tax? One response is that it is quite simply a good idea. It has the potential to raise billions of dollars and would help control a finance industry that has floated free of ideas of needing to benefit wider society. A second response then to what lies behind the talk of a Tobin tax is that while it would be a radical reform, it may be a politically handy \u2018trick\u2019 to cover the lack of even more radical reform. Institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Gordon Brown could see implementing the Tobin tax as a useful way of escaping a deeper scrutiny of the flaws in the global economy and how it is run. Meanwhile, the unequal system that perpetuates ill-health and poverty continues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"K4Health\u2019s new web portal","field_subtitle":"USAID\u2019s Office of Population and Reproductive Health and the Knowledge for Health (K4Health) Project: 2009","field_url":"http://www.k4health.org","body":"With the goal of improving health service delivery on a global scale, this new portal offers a one-stop-shop where users can efficiently search for, organise, adapt and use up-to-date, evidence-based health information. The portal features a search tool, powered by Google Search Appliance, that enables users to quickly find resources from select sources, including the K4Health site, a range of health databases, and top quality health web sites, in addition to the web. Toolkits are available to give users access to specialised collections of resources on family planning, reproductive health, and population and environment. A toolkit application has also been supplied that allows users to design, develop, and share their own toolkits. Discussion forums have been set up to provide users with access to a community of experts around the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya, Lesotho, Namibia, Tanzania and Uganda launch new project","field_subtitle":"New website: Africa4All","field_url":"http://www.africa4all-project.eu/","body":"The Africa4All project will provide the participating African countries of Kenya, Lesotho, Namibia, Tanzania and Uganda with an information and communication technologies (ICT) solutions that will enable citizens and politicians to better appreciate the impact of legislation, making the complex political debate meaningful and interesting for all citizens. The overall objective of the Africa4All project is to help African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) governments build sustainable capacity to adapt and implement international good practice in leveraging ICT in Parliaments of ACP States. The specific objectives of the project are to educate members of Parliament, Parliamentary ICT staff and citizens to leverage technology to support collaboration and active engagement in decision making processes in society, to identify the challenges and barriers from the introduction of ICT in everyday functioning of Parliaments and to contribute to the bridging the digital divide, enhancing the use of ICT as key enablers for poverty reduction.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of Oxford Expert Taskforce on Global Knowledge Governance","field_subtitle":"University of Oxford: 2009","field_url":"http://www.globaleconomicgovernance.org/project-ip","body":"The University of Oxford's Global Economic Governance Programme has launched an independent Expert Taskforce on Global Knowledge Governance to propose a set of principles and options for the future of global knowledge governance. The Taskforce's Honorary Advisors emphasised the scope of global knowledge governance challenges at hand. The Taskforce will be led by a small, core team of experts participating in a personal capacity, supported by several distinguished Honorary Advisors. The Taskforce will consult widely, interviewing a diversity of academics, policy experts, and stakeholder communities around the world. The report will be peer-reviewed by a group of leading international scholars working on the intersection of issues covered in the study. The findings of the Taskforce will be published in late 2010 and presented to governments, relevant international organisations, stakeholders and academics working to shape how the future of global knowledge governance unfolds.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Making migration work for development: Key findings in migration research","field_subtitle":"Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty, University of Sussex: 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.migrationdrc.org/publications/misc/Making_Migration_Work_for_Development.pdf","body":"This report is a summary of six years of investigation into migration policy and practice. Its findings indicate that, for migration to have its full developmental impact, the most beneficial policy change would be to reduce barriers to migration, at all levels and particularly for the poorest. This paper examines the changing dynamics of migration, impacts of migration on poverty and livelihoods, new initiatives in international migration, and how the findings in relation to the development of policy on migration. It found that poor people are more likely to move over shorter distances, either within or between poor countries, and where poor people have a greater choice in terms of migration destinations, the net effect on inequality is more likely to be positive. In addition, skilled migration is largely a symptom, not a cause, of underdevelopment. Diaspora engagement can contribute to the development of countries of origin, but this is a highly politicised arena.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Medinfo 13th World Congress on Medical and Health Informatics 2010","field_subtitle":"Deadline for papers: 28 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.medinfo2010.org/index.php?option=com_content%20&view=article&id=48&Itemid=88","body":"Cape Town, South Africa will host the 13th International Congress on Medical Informatics from 12\u201315 September 2010. This is the first time the Congress will be held in Africa. It promises to boost exposure to grassroots healthcare delivery and the underpinning health information systems. This will open the door to new academic partnerships into the future and help to nurture a new breed of health informaticians. The theme is \u2018Partnerships for Effective e-Health Solutions\u2019, with a particular focus on how innovative collaborations can promote sustainable solutions to health challenges. It is well recognised that information and communication technologies have enormous potential for improving the health and lives of individuals. Innovative and effective change using such technologies is reliant upon people working together in partnerships to create innovative and effective solutions to problems with particular regard to contextual and environmental factors. The Congress seeks to bring together the health informatics community from across the globe to work together and share experiences and knowledge to promote sustainable solutions for health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Meeting report: Regional meeting of parliamentary committees on health in eastern and southern Africa: Munyonyo, Kampala, Uganda, 21 September 2009","field_subtitle":"PPD ARO, EQUINET, APHRC and SEAPACOH: September 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/SEAPACOHRep%20Sep09.pdf","body":"The Regional Meeting of Parliamentary Committees on Health in Eastern and Southern Africa, held in Munyonyo, Kampala, Uganda, 21 September 2009, gathered members of Parliamentary Committees responsible for health from 12 countries and regional bodies in Eastern and Southern Africa, with technical government and civil society and regional partners to promote information exchange, facilitate policy dialogue and identify key areas of follow up action to advance health equity and sexual and reproductive health in the region. The meeting was held as a follow up to review progress on actions proposed at the September 2008 Regional Meeting of Parliamentary Committees on Health in Eastern and Southern Africa hosted by the same organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"New drive in Kenya aims to test one million in three weeks","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 25 November 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87192","body":"The Kenyan government has launched an ambitious HIV campaign to test at least one million people across the country over a three-week period. The programme is the first step in a national campaign that intends to test 10 million people by June 2010. According to the 2007 Kenya AIDS Indicator Survey, 80% of HIV-positive adults in the country do not know their status. The initiative, dubbed \u2018Jitambue leo, ni haki yako\u2019, Swahili for \u2018Know yourself today, it is your right\u2019, was launched on 23 November in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. \u2018We want to target everybody in our campaigns...no group is safe; the youth are becoming increasingly vulnerable, the old initially thought of as safe are equally at risk, and those in marriage account for 50% of new infections,\u2019 said Dr Nicholas Muraguri, head of the National AIDS and Sexually transmitted infection Control Programme. \u2018Infants and unborn children benefit too when their parents are tested.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Oesophageal corrosive injuries in children: A forgotten social and health challenge in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Contini S, Swarray-Deen A and Scarpignato C: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87: 950\u2013954, December 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/12/08-058065/en/index.html","body":"An unsafe environment is a risk factor for child injury and violence. Among those injuries that are caused by an unsafe environment, the accidental ingestion of corrosive substances is significant, especially in developing countries where it is generally underreported. By reviewing current literature and field trials from developing countries, the authors of this study developed a flowchart for management of this clinical condition. Timely admission was observed in 19.5% of 148 patients studied. A gastrostomy was performed on 62.1% of patients, 42.8% had recurrent strictures and 19% were still on a continuous dilatation programme. Perforation and death rate were respectively 5.6% and 4%. The majority of oesophageal caustic strictures in children are observed late, when dilatation procedures are likely to be more difficult and carry a significantly higher recurrence rate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Petition: No more silence: Speak up for accountability","field_subtitle":"World Care Council: 5 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.worldcarecouncil.org/content/no-more-silence-speak-accountability","body":"A growing group of health advocates and activists are engaging to promote during 2010 issues relating to accountability and transparency, within a rights and responsibilities approach in health. In common cause, in a collective vow of non-silence, all agree to speak up and voice concerns of questionable practices by both authorities and civil society. According to a petition circulated by the group, they are calling for greater accountability and transparency from institutions, organizations, and individuals in public sector health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevention and treatment of childhood malnutrition in rural Malawi: Lungwena nutrition studies","field_subtitle":"Thakwalakwa C, Phuka J, Flax V, Maleta K and Ashorn P: Malawi Medical Journal 21(3): 116\u2013119, September 2009","field_url":"http://www.mmj.medcol.mw/issues/vol21_3lungwena.pdf","body":"Eight nutrition studies from rural Malawi are discussed in this paper. Their aims were various, for example, to describe typical growth pattern of children, analyse occurrence and determinants of undernutrition and evaluate a community-based nutritional intervention for malnourished children in rural Malawi; to determine the timing of growth faltering among under three-year-old children; to characterise the timing and predictors of malnutrition; and to compare the effect of maize and soy flour with that of ready-to-use food in the home treatment of moderately malnourished children. Some of the findings of the studies included: growth of children under three years old followed an age-dependent seasonal pattern; intrauterine period and the first six months of life are critical for the development of stunting, whereas the subsequent year is more critical for the development of underweight and wasting; supplementation with 25 to 75 g/day of highly fortified spread (FS) is feasible and may promote growth and alleviate anaemia among moderately malnourished infants; and one-year-long complementary feeding with FS does not have a significantly larger effect than micronutrient-fortified maize\u2013soy flour on mean weight gain in all infants, but it is likely to boost linear growth in the most disadvantaged individuals and, hence, decrease the incidence of severe stunting. In a poor food-security setting, underweight infants and children receiving supplementary feeding for twelve weeks with ready-to-use FS or maize\u2013soy flour porridge show similar recovery from moderate wasting and underweight. Neither intervention, if limited to twelve-week duration, appears to have significant impact on the process of linear growth or stunting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Priority setting and health policy and systems research","field_subtitle":"Ranson MK and Bennett SC: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(27), 4 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-7-27.pdf","body":"This paper aims to assess current priority setting methods and the extent to which they adequately include health policy and systems research (HPSR) and to draw out lessons regarding how HPSR priority setting can be enhanced to promote relevant HPSR and to strengthen developing country leadership of research agendas. Priority setting processes can be distinguished by the level at which they occur, their degree of comprehensiveness in terms of the topic addressed, the balance between technical versus interpretive approaches and the stakeholders involved. When HPSR is considered through technical, disease-driven priority setting processes it is systematically under-valued. More successful approaches for considering HPSR are typically nationally driven, interpretive and engage a range of stakeholders. There is still a need however for better defined approaches to enable research funders to determine the relative weight to assign to disease specific research versus HPSR and other forms of cross-cutting health research. While country-level research priority setting is key, there is likely to be a continued need for the identification of global research priorities for HPSR. The paper argues that such global priorities can and should be driven by country level priorities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Public healthcare financing","field_subtitle":"SABC Channel Africa, EQUINET and Workers World Media Productions (WWMP): October 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/alrpfinoct2009.mp3","body":"The fifteen-minute pre-recorded show, \u2018Public healthcare financing\u2019, was produced by WWMP, in conjunction with labour journalists in east and southern Africa. The show examined the lack of public health care financing in Africa in the context of health worker shortages, poor working conditions for health workers, provision of medicine for tuberculosis and AIDS, and poor access to care for patients (long queues, poor facilities, lack of equipment etc), as well as the impact of the current global economic crisis and neo-liberal government policies. The show discussed the purpose of the Abuja 15% target agreed by African heads of state, and financing mechanisms (tax funding and health insurance) appropriate to funding public health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Quality of asthma care: Western Cape Province, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Mash B, Rhode H, Pather M, Ainslie G, Irusen E, Bheekie A and Mayers P: South African Medical Journal 99(12): 892\u2013896, December 2009","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/3177/2632","body":"Asthma is the eighth leading contributor to the burden of disease in South Africa, but has received less attention than other chronic diseases. This audit of asthma care targeted all primary care facilities that managed adult patients with chronic asthma within all six districts of the Western Cape Province. The usual steps in the quality improvement cycle were followed. Data was obtained from 957 patients from 46 primary care facilities. Only 80% of patients had a consistent diagnosis of asthma, 11.5% of visits assessed control and 23.2% recorded a peak expiratory flow (PEF), 14% of patients had their inhaler technique assessed and 11.2% a self-management plan. In conclusion, the availability of medication and prescription of inhaled steroids is reasonable and yet control is poor. Health workers do not adequately distinguish asthma from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, do not assess control by questions or PEF, do not adequately demonstrate or assess the inhaler technique and have no systematic approach to or resources for patient education. Ten recommendations are made to improve asthma care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Rates of virological failure in patients treated in a home-based versus a facility-based HIV-care model in Jinja, southeast Uganda: A cluster-randomised equivalence trial","field_subtitle":"Jaffar S, Amuron B, Foster S, Birungi J, Levin J, Namara G, Nabiryo C, Ndembi N, Kyomuhangi R, Opio A, Bunnell R, Tappero JW, Mermin J, Coutinho A and Grosskurth H: The Lancet 374(0707): 2080\u20132089, 19 December 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2961674-3/abstract","body":"This study assessed whether home-based HIV care was as effective as was facility-based care. It undertook a cluster-randomised equivalence trial in Jinja, Uganda. Forty-four geographical areas in nine strata, defined according to ratio of urban and rural participants and distance from the clinic, were randomised to home-based or facility-based care by drawing sealed cards from a box. The trial was integrated into normal service delivery. Of the total patients, 859 patients (22 clusters) were randomly assigned to home and 594 (22 clusters) to facility care. During the first year, 93 (11%) receiving home care and 66 (11%) receiving facility care died, 29 (3%) receiving home and 36 (6%) receiving facility care withdrew, and 8 (1%) receiving home and 9 (2%) receiving facility care were lost to follow-up. Mortality rates were similar between groups, and 97 of 857 (11%) patients in home and 75 of 592 (13%) in facility care were admitted at least once. In conclusion, this home-based HIV-care strategy is as effective as is a clinic-based strategy, and therefore could enable improved and equitable access to HIV treatment, especially in areas with poor infrastructure and access to clinic care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Reconsidering global targets for tuberculosis control","field_subtitle":"Marais BJ and van Helden PD: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87:A\u2013B, December 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/12/09-070169/en/index.html","body":"Performance targets for global TB control were first formulated in 1991 at the 44th World Health Assembly. National TB control programmes were encouraged to achieve CDRs of at least 70% and cure rates in excess of 85%. However, even in situations where both targets were reached and achievements sustained, incidence rates failed to decline as predicted. The vast differences that exist between endemic and non-endemic areas (in other words, case density) and the impact this has on transmission dynamics within communities are rarely appreciated. Most source cases have fairly fixed circles of social interaction. This implies that once the majority of close contacts have been infected, the risk of infecting new people may decline even though the source case remains highly infectious. This phenomenon is referred to as transmission saturation. There is a need to reconsider the accuracy and applicability of current mathematical models and to identify pragmatic ways of quantifying additional factors that may be at play in endemic areas. The incorporation of case density and transmission saturation in future mathematical models may assist.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Reversing the AIDS epidemic through third-generation health systems: A call to action","field_subtitle":"Management Sciences for Health Position Paper 9, November 2009","field_url":"http://www.msh.org/resource-center/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=44531","body":"The world needs a dramatic change in thinking \u2013 and action from external funders, policymakers, and programme managers in the public, private and nongovernmental (NGO) sectors \u2013 to focus on strengthening health systems in the countries most affected by HIV and AIDS. To meet the Millennium Development Goal of reversing the epidemic by 2015, stakeholders must change how services are designed and delivered. A lesson learned in the 1990s and 2000s was that a host of separate activities cannot be scaled up in a sustainable way and that strengthening health systems is essential for long-term sustainability. The time has come to take a systems approach to HIV & AIDS programming. This holistic approach will create a strong foundation by focusing all efforts on integration, effectiveness and sustainability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Scorecard on women 2009","field_subtitle":"AIDS Accountability: November 2009","field_url":"http://aidsaccountability.org/?page_id=920","body":"The Scorecard rates countries on their reporting of six key elements in an AIDS response tuned to the needs of women, including the collection of HIV data specific to women; progress in ensuring that women have equal access to HIV services; and the impact of national responses on reducing infections among women and facilitating their access to treatment. The overall score reflects the extent of data provided on each element. Countries with the highest HIV burdens were doing the best job of reporting data detailing their female-centred AIDS efforts, with 67% earning a high rating. However, the authors noted that a high score for reporting did not necessarily reflect good performance in delivering HIV services for women. Relatively good reporting by South Africa, for example, contrasted with a poor record in improving the maternal mortality of HIV-positive women, or curbing high rates of violence against women. There was also a disturbing lack of data on the situation of young girls, and what countries were doing to address their particular vulnerabilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa sees improvements in HIV policy, at last ","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 2 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=87298","body":"AIDS researchers, scientists and activists have welcomed the changes to South Africa's HIV and AIDS treatment policy, announced by President Jacob Zuma on World AIDS Day. The changes will mean antiretroviral (ARV) treatment can begin earlier for certain vulnerable groups, but stop short of raising the treatment threshold for all HIV-positive patients, as recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Zuma said that from April 2010, all HIV-positive children under the age of one would be eligible for treatment, regardless of their CD4 count. Pregnant women living with HIV, and patients co-infected with tuberculosis (TB), will qualify for ARVs if their CD4 count falls to 350 or less. Pregnant HIV-positive women with higher CD4 counts will be given treatment from the 14th week of pregnancy to prevent mother-to-child transmission. Currently, treatment is only given in the final trimester. Zuma also committed the government to ensuring that all health facilities in the country are equipped to offer HIV counselling, testing and treatment. At present only health facilities accredited as ARV sites by the health department can administer ARVs, which has created bottlenecks and long waiting lists at some hospitals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa\u2019s national health insurance will drive costs down, says Shisana","field_subtitle":"Bateman C: South African Medical Journal 99(12): 846\u2013850, December 2009","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/3884/2616","body":"The national health insurance (NHI) plan, due for legislation in June 2010, will be phased in one facility at a time over the next five years, costing higher income earners more (via a payroll tax) but in no way limiting their choice of provider. That was the assurance given by the chair of the NHI Ministerial Advisory Committee, Dr Olive Shisana, who said the incremental accreditation of healthcare facilities was to ensure the delivery of quality health care based on agreed standards. The Ministerial Advisory Committee of 24 experts drawn from the entire healthcare spectrum, is required to deliver draft proposals on NHI legislation to Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi by March 2010. Public input will happen as soon as cabinet approves the policy proposals, so that the ensuing and legally required three-month consultation process can be completed in time for Motsoaledi\u2019s review. That would leave just enough time for legal crafting for presentation to parliament by June 2010.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 10: Taking equity into consideration when assessing the findings of a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Oxman AD, Lavis JN, Lewin S and Fretheim A: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S10","body":"This article addresses considerations of equity. Policies or programmes that are effective can improve the overall health of a population. However, the impact of such policies and programmes on inequities may vary: they may have no impact on inequities, they may reduce inequities, or they may exacerbate them, regardless of their overall effects on population health. Four questions are proposed as useful to guide equity analysis: Which groups or settings are likely to be disadvantaged in relation to the option being considered? Are there plausible reasons for anticipating differences in the relative effectiveness of the option for disadvantaged groups or settings? Are there likely to be different baseline conditions across groups or settings such that that the absolute effectiveness of the option would be different, and the problem more or less important, for disadvantaged groups or settings? Are there important considerations that should be made when implementing the option in order to ensure that inequities are reduced, if possible, and that they are not increased?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 12: Finding and using research evidence about resource use and costs","field_subtitle":"Oxman AD, Fretheim A, Lavis JN and Lewin S: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S12","body":"This article addresses considerations about resource use and costs. The consequences of a policy or programme option for resource use differ from other impacts (both in terms of benefits and harms) in several ways. However, considerations of the consequences of options for resource use are similar to considerations related to other impacts in that policymakers and their staff need to identify important impacts on resource use, acquire and appraise the best available evidence regarding those impacts, and ensure that appropriate monetary values have been applied. The article suggests four questions that can be considered when assessing resource use and the cost consequences of an option: What are the most important impacts on resource use? What evidence is there for important impacts on resource use? How confident is it possible to be in the evidence for impacts on resource use? Have the impacts on resource use been valued appropriately in terms of their true costs?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 13: Preparing and using policy briefs to support evidence-informed policymaking","field_subtitle":"Lavis JN, Permanand G, Oxman AD, Lewin S and Fretheim A: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S13","body":"Policy briefs are a relatively new approach to packaging research evidence for policymakers. Drawing on available systematic reviews makes the process of mobilising evidence feasible in a way that would not otherwise be possible if individual relevant studies had to be identified and synthesised for every feature of the issue under consideration. This article suggests questions that can be used to guide those preparing and using policy briefs to support evidence-informed policymaking: Does the policy brief address a high-priority issue and describe the relevant context of the issue being addressed? Does the policy brief describe the problem, costs and consequences of options to address the problem, and the key implementation considerations? Does the policy brief employ systematic and transparent methods to identify, select, and assess synthesised research evidence? Does the policy brief take quality, local applicability, and equity considerations into account when discussing the synthesised research evidence? Does the policy brief employ a graded-entry format? Was the policy brief reviewed for both scientific quality and system relevance?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 14: Organising and using policy dialogues to support evidence-informed policymaking","field_subtitle":"Lavis JN, Boyko JA, Oxman AD, Lewin S and Fretheim A: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S14","body":"Increasing interest in the use of policy dialogues has been fuelled by a number of factors, such as recognition that: there is a need for locally contextualised 'decision support' for policymakers and other stakeholders; research evidence is only one input into the decision-making processes of policymakers and other stakeholders; having many stakeholders can add significant value to these processes; and many stakeholders can take action to address high-priority issues, and not just policymakers. This article suggests questions to guide those organising and using policy dialogues to support evidence-informed policymaking: Does the dialogue address a high-priority issue? Does the dialogue provide opportunities to discuss the problem, options to address the problem, and key implementation considerations? Is the dialogue informed by a pre-circulated policy brief and by a discussion about the full range of factors that can influence the policymaking process? Does the dialogue ensure fair representation among those who will be involved in, or affected by, future decisions related to the issue? Are outputs produced and follow-up activities undertaken to support action?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 15: Engaging the public in evidence-informed policymaking","field_subtitle":"Oxman AD, Lewin S, Lavis JN and Fretheim A: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S15","body":"This article addresses strategies to inform and engage the public in policy development and implementation. The importance of engaging the public (both patients and citizens) at all levels of health systems is widely recognised. They are the ultimate recipients of the desirable and undesirable impacts of public policies, and many governments and organisations have acknowledged the value of engaging them in evidence-informed policy development. The potential benefits of doing this include the establishment of policies that include their ideas and address their concerns, the improved implementation of policies, improved health services, and better health. Public engagement can also be viewed as a goal in itself by encouraging participative democracy, public accountability and transparency. The article suggests three questions that can be considered with regard to public participation strategies: What strategies can be used when working with the mass media to inform the public about policy development and implementation? What strategies can be used when working with civil society groups to inform and engage them in policy development and implementation? What methods can be used to involve consumers in policy development and implementation?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 16: Using research evidence in balancing the pros and cons of policies","field_subtitle":"Oxman AD, Lavis JN, Fretheim A and Lewin Simon: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S16","body":"This article addresses the use of evidence to inform judgements about the balance between the pros and cons of policy and programme options. It suggests five questions that can be considered when making these judgements: What are the options that are being compared? What are the most important potential outcomes of the options being compared? What is the best estimate of the impact of the options being compared for each important outcome? How confident can policymakers and others be in the estimated impacts? Is a formal economic model likely to facilitate decision making?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 17: Dealing with insufficient research evidence","field_subtitle":"Oxman AD, Lavis JN, Fretheim A and Lewin S: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S17","body":"This article addresses the issue of decision making in situations in which there is insufficient evidence at hand. Policymakers often have insufficient evidence to know with certainty what the impacts of a health policy or programme option will be, but they must still make decisions. The article suggests four questions that can be considered when there may be insufficient evidence to be confident about the impacts of implementing an option: Is there a systematic review of the impacts of the option? Has inconclusive evidence been misinterpreted as evidence of no effect? Is it possible to be confident about a decision despite a lack of evidence? Is the option potentially harmful, ineffective or not worth the cost?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 18: Planning monitoring and evaluation of policies","field_subtitle":"Fretheim A, Oxman AD, Lavis JN and Lewin S: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S18","body":"The term monitoring is commonly used to describe the process of systematically collecting data to inform policymakers, managers and other stakeholders whether a new policy or programme is being implemented in accordance with their expectations. Indicators are used for monitoring purposes to judge, for example, if objectives are being achieved, or if allocated funds are being spent appropriately. Sometimes the term evaluation is used interchangeably with the term monitoring, but the former usually suggests a stronger focus on the achievement of results. When the term impact evaluation is used, this usually implies that there is a specific attempt to try to determine whether the observed changes in outcomes can be attributed to a particular policy or programme. This article suggests four questions that can be used to guide the monitoring and evaluation of policy or programme options: Is monitoring necessary? What should be measured? Should an impact evaluation be conducted? How should the impact evaluation be done?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 1: What is evidence-informed policymaking?","field_subtitle":"Oxman AD, Lavis JN, Lewin S and Fretheim A: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S1","body":"This article discusses three questions: What is evidence? What is the role of research evidence in informing health policy decisions? What is evidence-informed policymaking? Evidence-informed health policymaking is an approach to policy decisions that aims to ensure that decision making is well-informed by the best available research evidence. It is characterised by the systematic and transparent access to, and appraisal of, evidence as an input into the policymaking process. The overall process of policymaking is not assumed to be systematic and transparent. However, within the overall process of policymaking, systematic processes are used to ensure that relevant research is identified, appraised and used appropriately. These processes are transparent in order to ensure that others can examine what research evidence was used to inform policy decisions, as well as the judgements made about the evidence and its implications. Evidence-informed policymaking helps policymakers gain an understanding of these processes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 2: Improving how your organisation supports the use of research evidence to inform policymaking","field_subtitle":"Oxman1 AD, Vandvik PO, Lavis JN, Fretheim A and Lewin S: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S2","body":"This article addresses ways of organising efforts to support evidence-informed health policymaking. Efforts to link research to action may include a range of activities related to the production of research that is both highly relevant to \u2013 and appropriately synthesised for \u2013 policymakers. Such activities may include a mix of efforts used to link research to action, as well as the evaluation of such efforts. The article suggests five questions that can help guide considerations of how to improve organisational arrangements to support the use of research evidence to inform health policy decision making: What is the capacity of your organisation to use research evidence to inform decision making? What strategies should be used to ensure collaboration between policymakers, researchers and stakeholders? What strategies should be used to ensure independence as well as the effective management of conflicts of interest? What strategies should be used to ensure the use of systematic and transparent methods for accessing, appraising and using research evidence? What strategies should be used to ensure adequate capacity to employ these methods?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 3: Setting priorities for supporting evidence-informed policymaking","field_subtitle":"Lavis JN, Oxman AD, Lewin S and Fretheim A: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S3","body":"Regardless of whether the support for evidence-informed policymaking is provided in-house or contracted out, or whether it is centralised or decentralised, resources always need to be used wisely in order to maximise their impact. Examples of undesirable practices in a priority-setting approach include timelines to support evidence-informed policymaking being negotiated on a case-by-case basis (instead of having clear norms about the level of support that can be provided for each timeline), implicit (rather than explicit) criteria for setting priorities, ad hoc (rather than systematic and explicit) priority-setting process, and the absence of both a communications plan and a monitoring and evaluation plan. This article suggests questions that can guide those setting priorities: Does the approach to prioritisation make clear the timelines that have been set for addressing high-priority issues in different ways? Does the approach incorporate explicit criteria for determining priorities? Does the approach incorporate an explicit process for determining priorities? Does the approach incorporate a communications strategy and a monitoring and evaluation plan?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 4: Using research evidence to clarify a problem","field_subtitle":"Lavis JN, Wilson MG, Oxman AD, Lewin S and Fretheim A: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S4","body":"Debates and struggles over how to define a problem are a critically important part of the policymaking process. The outcome of these debates and struggles will influence whether and, in part, how policymakers take action to address a problem. Efforts at problem clarification that are informed by an appreciation of concurrent developments are more likely to generate actions. These concurrent developments can relate to policy and programme options (e.g. the publication of a report demonstrating the effectiveness of a particular option) or to political events (e.g. the appointment of a new Minister of Health with a personal interest in a particular issue). This article suggests questions that can be used to guide those involved in identifying a problem and characterising its features: What is the problem? How did the problem come to attention and has this process influenced the prospect of it being addressed? What indicators can be used, or collected, to establish the magnitude of the problem and to measure progress in addressing it? How can the problem be framed (or described) in a way that will motivate different groups?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 5: Using research evidence to frame options to address a problem","field_subtitle":"Lavis JN, Wilson MG, Oxman AD, Grimshaw J, Lewin S and Fretheim A: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S5","body":"Policymakers and those supporting them may find themselves in a number of situations that will require them to characterise the costs and consequences of options to address a problem. For example, a decision may already have been taken and their role is to maximise the benefits of an option, minimise its harms, optimise the impacts achieved for the money spent, and (if there is substantial uncertainty about the likely costs and consequences of the option) to design a monitoring and evaluation plan. Research evidence, particularly about benefits, harms, and costs, can help to inform whether an option can be considered viable. This article offers questions that can be used to guide policymakers: Has an appropriate set of options been identified to address a problem? What benefits and harms are important to those who will be affected? What are the local costs of each option, including cost-effectiveness? What adaptations might be made? Which stakeholder views and experiences might influence an option's acceptability and its benefits, harms and costs?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 7: Finding systematic reviews","field_subtitle":"Lavis JN, Oxman AD, Grimshaw J, Johansen M, Boyko JA, Lewin S and Fretheim A: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S7","body":"A number of constraints have hindered the wider use of systematic reviews in policymaking, including a lack of awareness of their value and a mismatch between the terms employed by policymakers when attempting to retrieve systematic reviews, and the terms used by the original authors of those reviews. Mismatches between the types of information that policymakers are seeking, and the way in which authors fail to highlight (or make obvious) such information within systematic reviews have also proved problematic. This article suggests three questions that can be used to guide those searching for systematic reviews, particularly reviews about the impacts of options being considered: Is a systematic review really what is needed? What databases and search strategies can be used to find relevant systematic reviews? What alternatives are available when no relevant review can be found?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 8: Deciding how much confidence to place in a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Lewin S, Oxman AD, Lavis JN and Fretheim A: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S8","body":"The reliability of systematic reviews of the effects of health interventions is variable. Consequently, policymakers and others need to assess how much confidence can be placed in such evidence. The use of systematic and transparent processes to determine such decisions can help to prevent the introduction of errors and bias in these judgements. This article suggests five questions that can be considered when deciding how much confidence to place in the findings of a systematic review of the effects of an intervention: Did the review explicitly address an appropriate policy or management question? Were appropriate criteria used when considering studies for the review? Was the search for relevant studies detailed and reasonably comprehensive? Were assessments of the studies' relevance to the review topic and of their risk of bias reproducible? Were the results similar from study to study?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 9: Assessing the applicability of the findings of a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Lavis JN, Oxman AD, Souza NM, Lewin S, Gruen R and Fretheim A: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S9","body":"A key challenge that policymakers and those supporting them must face is the need to understand whether research evidence about an option can be applied to their setting. Systematic reviews make this task easier by summarising the evidence from studies conducted in a variety of different settings. Many systematic reviews, however, do not provide adequate descriptions of the features of the actual settings in which the original studies were conducted. This article suggests questions to guide those assessing the applicability of the findings of a systematic review to a specific setting: Were the studies included in a systematic review conducted in the same setting or were the findings consistent across settings or time periods? Are there important differences in on-the-ground realities and constraints that might substantially alter the feasibility and acceptability of an option? Are there important differences in health system arrangements that may mean an option could not work in the same way? Are there important differences in the baseline conditions that might yield different absolute effects even if the relative effectiveness was the same? What insights can be drawn about options, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed Policymaking in health 11: Finding and using evidence about local conditions","field_subtitle":"Lewin S, Oxman AD, Lavis JN, Fretheim A, Marti SG and Munabi-Babigumira S: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S11","body":"Evidence about local conditions is evidence that is available from the specific setting(s) in which a decision or action on a policy or programme option will be taken. Such evidence is always needed, together with other forms of evidence, in order to inform decisions about options. Global evidence is the best starting point for judgements about effects, factors that modify those effects, and insights into ways to approach and address problems. But local evidence is needed for most other judgements about what decisions and actions should be taken. This article suggests five questions that can help to identify and appraise the local evidence that is needed to inform a decision about policy or programme options: What local evidence is needed to inform a decision about options? How can the necessary local evidence be found? How should the quality of the available local evidence be assessed? Are there important variations in the availability, quality or results of local evidence? How should local evidence be incorporated with other information?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SUPPORT Tools for Evidence-informed policymaking in health 6: Using research evidence to address how an option will be implemented","field_subtitle":"Fretheim A, Munabi-Babigumira S, Oxman AD, Lavis JN and Lewin S: Health Research Policy and Systems 7(Suppl 1), 16 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/S1/S6","body":"After a policy decision has been made, the next key challenge is transforming this stated policy position into practical actions. What strategies, for instance, are available to facilitate effective implementation, and what is known about the effectiveness of such strategies? This article suggests five questions that can be considered by policymakers when implementing a health policy or programme: What are the potential barriers to the successful implementation of a new policy? What strategies should be considered in planning the implementation of a new policy in order to facilitate the necessary behavioural changes among healthcare recipients and citizens? What strategies should be considered in planning the implementation of a new policy in order to facilitate the necessary behavioural changes in healthcare professionals? What strategies should be considered in planning the implementation of a new policy in order to facilitate the necessary organisational changes? What strategies should be considered in planning the implementation of a new policy in order to facilitate the necessary systems changes?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Survey: ethics and human rights in TB care","field_subtitle":"World Care Council: 10 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.worldcarecouncil.org/content/ethics-human-rights-tb-care","body":"With the recent establishment of two separate World Health Organization (WHO)/Stop TB task forces \u2013 one on ethics and the other on human rights \u2013 a number of issues have been raised that should have wider input. This survey is the first of a series of quick questionnaires to 'Take the Pulse' of the broad based tuberculosis (TB) community \u2013 patients, professionals, programmers and public in affected communities \u2013 on ethical and rights issues. The World Care Council invites individuals to fill in the questionnaire on the World Care Council website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Survey: Taking the pulse of global health","field_subtitle":"World Care Council: December 2009","field_url":"http://www.worldcarecouncil.org/content/taking-pulse-global-health","body":"On the 9th of September, with partners and peers around the world, the World Care Council began a year-long process of Taking the Pulse of Global Health. This series of 'Outreach for Input' actions aims to gather the views and opinions of thousands of people on the state of health care services in their communities, and what they think is needed in the future. Using online polls, telephone surveys, web-forums and physical meetings, a new system of public consultation is being launched. This process is to encourage the greater involvement of all individuals, as part of civil society, and their organisations, in decisions about health in their country. Broad participation in these actions will help advocates and activists to influence health policy 'at the top', and help to forge the tools for change to be held by many hands 'on the bottom'. Results and data will be published on the World Care Council website, and can provide both food for thought and fuel for action. The first Global Survey is now online. It takes about ten minutes to complete the 30 multiple choice questions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Systems thinking for health systems strengthening","field_subtitle":"De Savigny D and Adam T (eds): Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research: November 2009","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2009/9789241563895_eng.pdf","body":"Many practitioners may dismiss systems thinking as too complicated or unsuited for any practical purpose or application. But many developing countries are looking to scale-up \u2018what works\u2019 through major systems strengthening investments. With leadership, conviction and commitment, systems thinking can accelerate the strengthening of systems better able to produce health with equity and deliver interventions to those in need. Systems thinking does not mean that resolving problems and weaknesses will come easily or naturally or without overcoming the inertia of the established way of doing things. But it will identify, with more precision, where some of the true blockages and challenges lie. It will help to: explore these problems from a systems perspective; show potentials of solutions that work across sub-systems; promote dynamic networks of diverse stakeholders; inspire learning; and foster more system-wide planning, evaluation and research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Taking forward the Equity Watch in east and southern Africa: Report of a regional methods workshop","field_subtitle":"Training and Research Support Centre, Healthnet Consult and EQUINET: 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EWmtg%20repNov09.pdf","body":"The EQUINET steering committee has proposed to take forward the production of an Equity Watch at country and regional level to gather evidence on, analyse and promote dialogue on equity in the context of country and regional opportunities and challenges. It held a regional methods workshop in September to gather potential lead institutions of country teams and resource personnel to build on existing work done on the equity watch to date to develop the design and plan implementation of the equity watch work at country level in participating countries and at regional level. The workshop aimed to: review and agree on the purpose, intended targets, process and outcomes of an equity watch at country and regional level; discuss the questions about equity to be addressed, and the dimensions of equity to be included; review and agree on the parameters, indicators, targets/progress markers/stratifiers for the analysis and organisation of the analysis to address these questions/ dimensions; review types, quality and sources of evidence for the analysis; and discuss and set the next steps and roles for the work at country and regional level, including mentoring and regional review.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Ten best resources on health workers in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Gr\u00e9pin KA and Savedoff WD: Health Policy and Planning 24(6): 479\u2013482, 2 September 2009","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/24/6/479","body":"This paper found that, until recently, researchers and policymakers paid little attention to the role of health workers in developing countries but a new generation of studies are providing a fuller understanding of these issues using more sophisticated data and research tools. Recent research highlights the value of viewing health workers as active agents in dynamic labour markets who are faced with many competing incentives and constraints. Newer studies have provided greater insights into human resource requirements in health, the motivations and behaviours of health workers, and health worker migration. The authors note that they are encouraged by the progress but believe there is a need for even more, and higher-quality, research on this topic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The ideal of equal health revisited: Definitions and measures of inequity in health should be better integrated with theories of distributive justice","field_subtitle":"Norheim OF and Asada Y: International Journal for Equity in Health 8(40), 18 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-8-40.pdf","body":"The most widely cited definition of health inequity is: \u2018Health inequalities that are avoidable, unnecessary, and unfair are unjust.\u2019 This paper argues that this definition is useful but in need of further clarification because it is not linked to broader theories of justice. It proposes an alternative, pluralist notion of fair distribution of health that is compatible with several theories of distributive justice, based on the principle of equality, which states that every person or group should have equal health except when health equality is only possible by making someone less healthy, or if there are technological limitations on further health improvement. In short, health inequalities that are amenable to positive human intervention are unfair. This principle is offset by the principle of fair trade-offs, which states that weak equality of health is morally objectionable if, and only if, further reduction of weak inequality leads to unacceptable sacrifices of average or overall health of the population, or if further reduction in weak health inequality would result in unacceptable sacrifices of other important goods, such as education, employment and social security.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The right to survive: The humanitarian challenge in the twenty-first century","field_subtitle":"Cross TS and Taylor BH: Oxfam, 2009","field_url":"http://publications.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam/display.asp?K=e2009041612234233","body":"This report aims to show that the humanitarian challenge of the twenty-first century demands a step-change in the quantity of resources devoted to saving lives in emergencies and in the quality and nature of humanitarian response. The report recommends that governments, external funders, the United Nations and humanitarian agencies must ensure that humanitarian needs are properly assessed, and that aid is implemented impartially, while donor governments must increase the volume of humanitarian assistance. Governments, international humanitarian agencies and local civil society must recognise the limitations of providing relief and address the underlying causes of human vulnerability. International humanitarian agencies must work much more consistently to build states' capacity to discharge their responsibilities towards their citizens as well as citizens' capacity to demand that their rights are respected. Governments, acting both bilaterally and through multilateral organisations, also have a clear duty to support other states to realise the right to life and security through exerting diplomatic pressure, as well as by offering financial aid and technical assistance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The state of the world\u2019s children 2009 ","field_subtitle":"United Nations International Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF): November 2009","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/rightsite/sowc/pdfs/SOWC_Spec%20Ed_CRC_Main%20Report_EN_090409.pdf","body":"The era of the Convention on the Rights of the Child has seen marked advances in child survival and development, expanded and consolidated efforts to protect children, and a growing recognition of the importance of empowering children to participate in their own development and protection. One of the most outstanding achievements in child survival and development has been the reduction in the annual number of under-five deaths, from 12.5 million in 1990 to less than 9 million in 2008. In particular, immunisation against major preventable diseases has been a life-saving intervention for millions of children in all regions of the world. However, Africa and Asia present the largest global challenges for child rights to survival, development and protection, with the regions of sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia well behind other regions on most indicators. Their progress in primary health care, education, and protection will be pivotal to accelerated progress on child rights and towards internationally agreed development goals for children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The US President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief five-year strategy ","field_subtitle":"US President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR): 2009","field_url":"http://www.pepfar.gov/documents/organization/133035.pdf","body":"The main aims of PEPFAR are presented for information.  PEPFAR seeks to ensure that HIV and AIDS programmes are sustainable, country-owned and country-driven. The programmes must address HIV/AIDS within a broader health and development context and must build on existing strengths and increase efficiencies. PEPFAR seeks to transit from an emergency response to promotion of sustainable country programmes, strengthening partner government capacity to lead the response to the epidemic and other health demands, expanding prevention, care and treatment in both concentrated and generalised epidemics, integrating and coordinating HIV and AIDS programmes with broader global health and development programmes to maximise impact on health systems, and investing in innovation and operations research to evaluate impact, improve service delivery and maximise outcomes. PEPFAR\u2019s targets for the fiscal period 2010\u20132014 focus on prevention, care, support, treatment and sustainability, including supporting the training and retention of more than 140,000 new health care workers to strengthen health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Time for human rights to enter into IP policy dialogue, says UN Task Force","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 23 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/11/23/time-for-human-rights-to-enter-into-ip-policy-dialogue-panel-says/","body":"Members of the United Nations (UN) High Level Task Force on the Right to Development, which is reviewing different development initiatives using a set of criteria it developed, have said that ensuring the right to development should become more integral to debates over intellectual property (IP) policy. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Development Agenda will play a crucial role in ensuring this integration if it happens, they added. It is \u2018ironic that there is this gap between the fora that discuss intellectual property rights and [those that discuss] right to development. They follow an overlapping agenda in terms of substance,\u2019 said Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, a member of the Task Force. \u2018The core essence that levels of development need to be taken into account is still new to IP policy discussions,\u2019 said Mohammed Gad, from the permanent mission of Egypt. WIPO should also pay more attention to its role as a UN agency, and therefore its responsibility to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), he said. In addition, WIPO should let the UN General Assembly, which is the guardian of the MDGs, know how the Development Agenda is progressing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards building equitable health systems in sub-Saharan Africa: Lessons from case studies on operational research","field_subtitle":"Theobald S, Taegtmeyer M, Squire SB, Crichton J, Simwaka BN, Thomson R, Makwiza I, Tolhurst R, Martineau T and Bates I: Health Research Policy and Systems 7:26, 25 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/1/26","body":"Using case studies, the authors of this study collated and analysed practical examples of operational research projects on health in sub-Saharan Africa that demonstrate how the links between research, policy and action can be strengthened to build effective and pro-poor health systems. Three operational research projects met the case study criteria: HIV counselling and testing services in Kenya; provision of TB services in grocery stores in Malawi; and community diagnostics for anaemia, TB and malaria in Nigeria. The authors found that building equitable health systems means considering equity at different stages of the research cycle. Partnerships for capacity building promotes demand, delivery and uptake of research. Links with those who use and benefit from research, such as communities, service providers and policy makers, contribute to the timeliness and relevance of the research agenda and a receptive research-policy-practice interface. The study highlights the need to advocate for a global research culture that values and funds these multiple levels of engagement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards spatial justice in urban health services planning : A spatial-analytic GIS-based approach using Dar es Salaam, Tanzania as a case study","field_subtitle":"Amer S: Utrecht University, 2007","field_url":"http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2007-0202-201526/index.htm","body":"The overarching aim of this study was to develop a GIS-based planning approach that contributes to equitable and efficient provision of urban health services in cities in sub-Saharan Africa. The broader context of the study is the 'urban health crisis'; a term that refers to the disparity between the increasing need for medical care in urban areas against the declining carrying capacity of existing public health systems. The analysis illustrates how more sophisticated GIS-based analytical techniques can be usefully applied in support of strategic spatial planning of urban health services delivery. The study offers two frameworks for analysis. Its evaluation framework appraises the performance of the existing Dar es Salaam governmental health delivery system on the basis of generic quantitative accessibility indicators, while its intervention framework explores how existing health needs can better be served by proposing alternative spatial arrangements of provision using scarce health resources. When used together, these two planning instruments offer a flexible framework with which health planners can formulate and evaluate alternative intervention scenarios and deal with the most important problems involved in the spatial planning of urban health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Twenty-sixth International Pediatric Association (IPA) Congress of Pediatrics 2010","field_subtitle":"Registration deadlines: 31 March and 22 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.ipa-world.org/IPAcongress/default.htm?ref3=db1%20%20IPA_reg%40kenes.com","body":"Three leading paediatric associations are uniting to host the 26th IPA Congress of Pediatrics in Johannesburg, South Africa from 4\u20139 August 2010. More than 5,000 participants are expected to attend this landmark event, the first IPA congress to be held in sub-Saharan Africa. It will unite paediatricians and health professionals working towards the target set by Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce child mortality by two thirds before 2015. The scientific programme is designed to meet the needs of general paediatricians from both the developed and the developing world. Plenary sessions will include: the MDGs and the current state of health of children in the world, and progress towards the MDGs; the state of the world\u2019s newborns, including major issues determining maternal and newborn health in developing and developed countries; the determinants of health, such as genetics, nutrition and the environment; disasters and trauma affecting child health, such as disasters, crises and the worldwide epidemic of trauma; and the global burden of infectious diseases affecting children and the challenge of emerging infections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda faces funding crisis for ART","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 1 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87271","body":"In early 2009, the Ugandan health ministry made an emergency appeal to the Global Fund for $8.9 million to purchase ARVs for three months as an advance on $70 million awarded in Round Seven of its grants, but the world body could only offer $4.25 million in June 2009. The Global Fund was forced to cut funding by 10% in 2008. A recent World Bank report advised nations heavily reliant on foreign aid to prepare for any impending cash and drug shortages by implementing early warning systems, and work to avoid treatment interruptions as far as possible. Health minister, Stephen Mallinga, said it would be virtually impossible to expand ARV programmes. \u2018We would rather sustain those that have started the treatment ... because the ramifications ... [of not accessing drugs] are grave, including resistance to drugs and therefore a requirement to change the combination ... which will lead to an increase in our treatment bill, which we cannot afford,\u2019 he said. AIDS activists are concerned that funding woes will make it impossible for Uganda to achieve universal access to treatment, in other words, giving drugs to at least 80% of people who need them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"UN biodiversity negotiators to work from single text on access, benefits ","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 24 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/11/24/un-biodiversity-negotiators-to-work-from-single-text-on-access-benefits/","body":"The recent successful renewal of the mandate of the World Intellectual Property Organization Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) has inspired attempts to push discussion on biodiversity out of other fora. The World Trade Organization TRIPS discussions and the November 2009 meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity specifically dedicated to traditional knowledge heard proposal that all legal issues related to traditional knowledge should be dealt with by the World Intellectual Property Organization. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Volunteering: The impact on civil society","field_subtitle":"Adebayo ST: Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Kabale University, 2009","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/media/volunteering-the-impact-on-civil-society-Tajudeen-Adebayo.pdf","body":"This essay begins by describing various areas of volunteering, such as volunteering to build social capital and skills-based volunteering, where volunteers offers specific skills, such as medical skills. It goes on to outline the benefits of volunteering. Volunteering contributes to the development agenda by strengthening the voice of civil society organisations so they can influence policy, both at local and national levels, for the promotion of sustainable development and the improvement of livelihood security. Volunteering also helps to support communities to participate in development at local and national levels, as well as support communities to gain access to resources for local development and the improvement of essential services and to respond effectively to the HIV pandemic through programmes of prevention, care and support. Volunteering can support communities to realise their human rights, especially those of women and children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Website on alternatives to privatisation of basic services ","field_subtitle":"Municipal Services Project: 2009","field_url":"http://www.municipalservicesproject.org","body":"Now in its third phase, the Municipal Services Project (MSP) is exploring and evaluating models of service delivery that are deemed to be successful alternatives to commercialisation, in an effort to understand the conditions required for their sustainability and reproducibility. The focus is on the water, electricity and primary health care sectors in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The project is composed of academic, labour, NGO and social movement partners from around the world.  The site features a diversity of publications and materials, from academic journal articles to video and audio documentaries. MSP is an inter-sectoral and inter-regional research project that systematically explores alternatives to the privatisation and commercialisation of service provision in the health, water, sanitation and electricity sectors.  Having spent the first two phases of the project (2000-2007) critiquing privatisation, this phase of the project (2008-2013) will analyse service delivery models that are successful alternatives to commercialisation in an effort to better understand the conditions required for their sustainability and reproducibility. The website for the project has been updated and provides new resources on this issue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Where did all the aid go? An in-depth analysis of increased health aid flows over the past ten years","field_subtitle":"Piva P and Dodd R: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87: 930\u2013939, December 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/12/08-058677/en/index.html","body":"This study set out to examine how health aid is spent and channelled, including the distribution of resources across countries and between subsectors. It aimed to complement the many qualitative critiques of health aid with a quantitative review and to provide insights on the level of development assistance available to recipient countries to address their health and health development needs. A quantitative analysis of data from the Aggregate Aid Statistics and Creditor Reporting System databases of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development was carried out. The analysis shows that while health official development assistance (ODA) is rising and capturing a larger share of total ODA, there are significant imbalances in the allocation of health aid, which run counter to internationally recognised principles of \u2018effective aid\u2019. Countries with comparable levels of poverty and health need receive remarkably different levels of aid. Although political momentum towards aid effectiveness is increasing at global level, some very real aid management challenges remain at country level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WWF disappointed over results of Copenhagen summit","field_subtitle":"Kuwait News Agency: 19 December 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2048352&Language=en","body":"The World Wide Fund (WWF) has expressed its disappointment over the results of the Copenhagen Climate Summit and considered its results as \u2018a gap between theory and application\u2019. In a statement, it said: \u2018The end of the summit does not mean the end, but fighting global warming requires political will to implement what was agreed upon\u2019. Leader of the WWF Global Climate Initiative, Kim Carstensen, said: \u2018They tell us it's over but it's not. The latest Copenhagen Accord draft mainly reproduced what leaders already promised before they arrived to the Danish capital. The biggest challenge, turning the political will into a legally binding agreement, after years of negotiations we now have a declaration of will which does not bind anyone and therefore fails to guarantee a safer future for next generations.\u2019 He added: \u2018A gap between the rhetoric and reality could cost millions of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars and a wealth of lost opportunities. We are disappointed but remain hopeful. Civil society will continue watching every step of further negotiations.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2010-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A hundred indicators of well-being?","field_subtitle":"Green D: Oxfam, 30 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=1236","body":"The author notes that the key debate over what indicators to use to measure progress seems to regarding complexity. Hundreds of different indicators are already being used to measure progress and hundreds more have been proposed. The Stiglitz Commission proposes \u2018dashboards\u2019 of indicators, allowing different people and institutions to combine them in different ways to measure and track the things that matter most to them (mental health, carbon emissions, citizen participation or whatever). But decision makers and ordinary people can only keep a limited number of indicators in their heads. Composite indicators could rapidly become a political football, as member states argue for the combination that puts their own performance in the best light, and each successive government changes them, meaning you lose comparability both between countries and across time. The answer is to combine the merits of simplicity and complexity by picking three to five standardised indicators, each of which would be at the centre of a cluster of disaggregated numbers allowing policy makers and researchers to drill down into the relationships between different aspects of people\u2019s lives (for example between income inequality and child well-being).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"A review of co-morbidity between infectious and chronic disease in sub-Saharan Africa: TB and diabetes mellitus, HIV and metabolic syndrome, and the impact of globalization","field_subtitle":"Young F, Critchley JA, Johnstone LK and Unwin NC: Globalization and Health 5(9), 14 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-5-9.pdf","body":"This review found that globalisation was clearly related to an increased risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease in sub-Saharan Africa. It may be exerting other negative and positive impacts upon infectious and chronic non-communicable disease associations but current reporting on these is sparse. The predicted impact of these co-morbidities in the region is likely to be large. An increasing prevalence of diabetes may hinder efforts at tuberculosis control, increasing the number of susceptible individuals in populations where tuberculosis is endemic, and making successful treatment harder. Roll out of anti-retroviral treatment within sub-Saharan Africa is an essential response to the HIV epidemic however it is likely to lead to a growing number of individuals suffering adverse metabolic consequences. One of the impacts of globalisation is to create environments that increase both diabetes and cardiovascular risk but further work is needed to elucidate other potential impacts. Research is also needed to develop effective approaches to reducing the frequency and health impact of the co-morbidities described here.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa needs $93 billion a year for infrastructure","field_subtitle":"Cropley E: Reuters Africa, 12 November 2009","field_url":"http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE5AB03C20091112","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa needs to double its infrastructure spending to US$93 billion a year, 15% of regional output, to drag its road, water and power networks into the 21st century. Research compiled by the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa (ICA) identified the continent's woeful electricity grids as its most pressing challenge, with 30 countries facing regular blackouts and high premiums for emergency power. Despite the gulf between its target figure and the $45 billion spent now, the report said governments could narrow the funding gap to $31 billion by making $17 billion in relatively simple efficiency gains, such as making more electricity users pay their bills. The report added that infrastructure improvements to date, mainly in telecommunications, had accounted for more than half of the rapid growth rates of recent years on the poorest continent. But frequent blackouts and poor roads still cause headaches and unnecessary costs for business and trade. In most African countries, particularly the lower-income countries, infrastructure emerges as a major constraint on doing business, depressing productivity by about 40%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"African debt crisis: A human rights perspective","field_subtitle":"Mutazu T: African Forum and Network on Debt and Development, 2009","field_url":"http://www.afrodad.org/downloads/Africa%20Debt%20crisis%20-%20Human%20rights%20perspective.pdf","body":"This study explores how globalisation is challenging activist groups that use a human rights framework that has traditionally been used to hold national governments accountable for human rights violations. In the absence of any positive movement towards unconditional debt cancellation, Africa continues to be burdened with an unmanageable debt overhang, which is hampering the continent's economic growth. Resource outflows, including debt service, are a drain on financial resources for development. With no convincing solutions offered by international creditors there is clearly a need for a continued focus on the debt problem. Various strategies need to be adopted by civil society organisations in the future, including strengthening the options for establishment of global governance structures such as the international arbitration court, finding channels and institutions to whom such issues as illegitimate debt, the plight of debtor countries in terms of debt repayment against access to health and education as a rights issue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"African health development and financing parliamentary policy and budget action plan","field_subtitle":"Network of African Parliamentarians for Health Development and Financing: 9 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/NETfin261109.pdf","body":"This report details a meeting by the Network of African Parliamentarians for Health Development and Financing held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 7\u20139 September 2009, which met to deliberate on: accelerating African domestic health financing; implementing health priorities in an integrated manner; strengthening collaboration; preparations for the July 2010 African Union Summit; and coordinating global and African resource mobilisation. They determined that, without delay, further meetings should take place at three levels in the 53 African Union member states: at pan-African Parliament level; at each Regional Economic Community Parliament; and at country level. These joint working meetings should consist of chairs and secretaries/rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Committees of: health; finance/budget; women/gender; social development and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and others, including children and youth; water resources; environment and sanitation; education; food and agriculture; labour and human resources; planning and economic development. They will assess the state of health-based and related MDGs at each level. These committees should form health and social development financing clusters in parliaments to facilitate coordination and accelerated action on health and development financing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa","field_subtitle":"African Union: 22 October 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4ae572d82.html","body":"This African international agreement has opened the door to a debate on the rights and protection of people displaced by natural disasters, with a nod to migration as a result of climate change. The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa, also known as the Kampala Convention, is a ground-breaking treaty adopted by the African Union (AU) that promises to protect and assist millions of Africans displaced within their own countries. Significantly, the treaty recognises natural disasters as well as conflict and generalised violence as key factors in uprooting people. In Africa, more people are likely to be displaced as the continent experiences more frequent droughts and floods brought about by climate change. The inclusion of displacement by natural disasters was informed by the global debate on the need to develop a framework for the rights of \u2018climate refugees\u2019 \u2013 people uprooted from their homes and crossing international borders \u2013 because the changing climate threatened their survival. The treaty also calls on governments to set up laws and find solutions to prevent displacement caused by natural disasters, with compensation for those who were displaced.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid and growth: Have we come full circle?","field_subtitle":"Arndt C, Jones S and Tarp F: World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER), 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yfasgh5","body":"Recent literature has been pessimistic about the ability of foreign aid to foster economic growth. This paper attempts to provide a balanced assessment of the recent aid-growth literature. It also delves into framing the aid-growth debate in terms of potential outcomes, drawing on the programme evaluation literature. Following its analysis, the paper concludes that aid has a positive and statistically significant causal effect on growth over the long run with point estimates at levels suggested by growth theory. The methodological advances highlight the serious challenges that must be surmounted in order to derive robust causal conclusions from observational data. The authors argue that the bleak pessimism of recent aid-growth literature is unjustified and the associated policy implications drawn from the literature is inappropriate and unhelpful.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"An overview of cardiovascular risk factor burden in sub-Saharan African countries: A socio-cultural perspective","field_subtitle":"BeLue R, Okoror TA, Iwelunmor J, Taylor KD, Degboe AN, Agyemang C and Ogedegbe G: Globalization and Health 5(10), 22 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-5-10.pdf","body":"The purpose of this paper is to explore the socio-cultural context of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk prevention and treatment in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It discusses risk factors specific to the SSA context, including poverty, urbanisation, developing healthcare systems, traditional healing, lifestyle and socio-cultural factors. It found that the epidemic of CVD in SSA is driven by multiple factors working collectively. Lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise and smoking contribute to the increasing rates of CVD in SSA. Some lifestyle factors are considered gendered in that some are salient for women and others for men. For instance, obesity is a predominant risk factor for women compared to men, but smoking still remains mostly a risk factor for men. Additionally, structural and system level issues such as lack of infrastructure for healthcare, urbanisation, poverty and lack of government programmes also drive this epidemic and hampers proper prevention, surveillance and treatment efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing the incremental effects of combining economic and health interventions: The IMAGE study in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Kim J, Ferrari G, Abramsky T, Watts C, Hargreaves J, Morison L, Phetla G, Porter J and Pronyk P: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(11): 824\u2013832, November 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/11/08-056580.pdf","body":"This paper set out to explore whether adding a gender and HIV training programme to microfinance initiatives can lead to health and social benefits beyond those achieved by microfinance alone. Cross-sectional data was derived from three randomly selected matched clusters in rural South Africa. A total of 1,409 participants were enrolled, all female, with a median age of 45. After two years, both the microfinance-only group and the IMAGE group showed economic improvements relative to the control group. However, only the IMAGE group demonstrated consistent associations across all domains with regard to women\u2019s empowerment, intimate partner violence and HIV risk behaviour. In conclusion, the addition of a training component to group-based microfinance programmes may be critical for achieving broader health benefits.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Back to basics: HIV/AIDS belongs with sexual and reproductive health","field_subtitle":"Germain A, Dixon-Mueller R and Sen G: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(11): 840\u2013845, November 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/11/09-065425.pdf","body":"The Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994 offers a comprehensive framework for achieving sexual and reproductive health and rights, including the prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS, and for advancing other development goals. However, combating HIV remains a separate project with malaria and tuberculosis. This paper presents a brief history of key decisions made by major international donors that have led to the separation of HIV and AIDS from its logical programmatic base in sexual and reproductive health and rights. In urging a return to the original ICPD construct as a framework for action, the paper calls for renewed leadership commitment, investment in health systems to deliver comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services, including HIV prevention and treatment, comprehensive youth programmes, streamlined country strategies and donor support. All investments in research, policies and programmes should build systematically on the natural synergies inherent in the ICPD model.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Barriers to accessing antiretroviral therapy in Kisesa, Tanzania: A qualitative study of early rural referrals to the national program","field_subtitle":"Mshana GH, Wamoyi J, Busza J, Zaba B, Changalucha J, Kaluvya S and Urassa M: AIDS Patient Care and STDS 20(9): 649\u2013657, September 2006 ","field_url":"http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/apc.2006.20.649?cookieSet=1","body":"This community-based, qualitative study conducted in rural Kisesa District, Tanzania, explores perceptions and experiences of barriers to accessing the national antiretroviral programme among self-identified HIV-positive persons. Part of wider operations research around local introduction of HIV therapy, the study involved consultation with villagers and documented early referrals' progress through clinical evaluation and, if eligible, further training and drug procurement. Data collection consisted of 16 participatory group discussions with community members and 18 in-depth interviews with treatment-seekers. While simple measures to reduce perceived barriers improved initial access to treatment and helped overcome anxiety among early referrals, pervasive stigma remains the most formidable barrier. Encouraging successful referrals to share their positive experiences and contribute to nascent community mobilisation could start to address this seemingly intractable problem.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Battle won for HIV-positive soldiers in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 11 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86974","body":"The South African cabinet has approved a new policy prohibiting discrimination against soldiers and would-be recruits on the basis of their HIV status. Previously, HIV-positive members of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) could be excluded from recruitment, international deployment and promotion, but a 2008 high court decision declared such policies unconstitutional and gave the SANDF six months to amend them. The AIDS Law Project (ALP) expressed disappointment about the length of time the SANDF took to comply with the court order and the persistence of unfair discrimination against HIV-positive soldiers and recruits, but in October one of the men, Sergeant Sipho Mthethwa, became the first known HIV-positive soldier to be deployed on international service. The SANDF had argued that people living with HIV were unfit to withstand the stress and physical demands of foreign deployments. An estimated 25% of SANDF employees are HIV positive, higher than the national adult prevalence of 18%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Beyond planning: Markets and networks for better aid","field_subtitle":"Barder O: Centre for Global Development Working Paper 185, 15 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1422971/","body":"The political economy of aid agencies is driven by incomplete information and multiple competing objectives and confounded by principal-agent and collective-action problems. Policies to improve aid rely too much on a planning paradigm that tries to ignore, rather than change, the political economy of aid. A considered combination of market mechanisms, networked collaboration and collective regulation would be more likely to lead to significant improvements. A \u2018collaborative market\u2019 for aid might include unbundling funding from aid management to create more explicit markets; better information gathered from the intended beneficiaries of aid; decentralised decision-making; a sharp increase in transparency and accountability of donor agencies; the publication of more information about results; pricing externalities; and new regulatory arrangements to make markets work. The aid system is in a political equilibrium, determined by deep characteristics of the aid relationship and the political economy of aid institutions. The priority should be on reforms that put pressure on the aid system to evolve in the right direction rather than on grand designs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Building future health systems to deliver primary health care","field_subtitle":"Eldis: 2009","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems/primary-health-care","body":"It is thirty years since the Alma Ata Declaration which outlined an international consensus on the need to provide universal access to primary health care (PHC). During the ensuing years some countries established and consolidated well-organised government health services in which PHC played an important role. Many others were less successful. Some countries have experienced major reversals in life expectancy after a long period of steady improvement and their health systems have deteriorated. There is a growing concern by national governments and the international community to expand access to PHC and they have committed a lot of money for this purpose. But there have been many major changes in these last three decades that pose big challenges for the future configurations of PHC. This key issues guide unpacks some of the challenges for the future of PHC and highlights promising models of health system arrangement and service delivery that are improving access for the poorest and most marginalised. It focuses on four main areas: the increasing marketisation of health and how governments respond; the challenge of responding to progressive and chronic illnesses; the emergence of new epidemics and the globalisation of public health responses; and the pressure to keep up with new treatments and technologies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals: Grants for developing country researchers studying poverty","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 6 January 2010","field_url":"http://www.pep-net.org","body":"The Poverty and Economic Poverty (PEP) Research Group is looking for proposals for 2010, valued up to Can$50,000 each. PEP provides financial and scientific support to teams of researchers in developing countries studying poverty issues. Its specific aims are to better understand the causes and consequences of poverty, propose pro-poor policies and programmes, improve the measurement and monitoring of poverty, strengthen local research capacity in poverty issues, develop new concepts and techniques for poverty analysis. To maximise capacity building, PEP favours teams consisting of at least one senior member supervising a gender-balanced group of junior researchers. All team members must originate from and reside in a developing country during the course of the project. Grants are awarded in four programmes: community-based monitoring systems; modeling and policy impact analysis; policy impact evaluation research initiative; and poverty monitoring, measurement and analysis.  Decisions will be communicated by 30 April 2010.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Proposals: United Nations Democracy Fund","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 31 December 2009","field_url":"http://www.internationalpeaceandconflict.org/forum/topic/show?id=780588%3ATopic%3A187073&xgs=1","body":"The United Nations Democracy Fund invites civil society organisations to apply for funding for projects to advance and support democracy. The thematic categories for applications are:  democratic dialogue and support for constitutional processes; civil society empowerment, including the empowerment of women; civic education and voter registration; citizen\u2019s access to information; participation rights and the rule of law in support of civil society; and transparency and integrity. The selection process is expected to be highly rigorous and competitive \u2013 last year, fewer than 70 project proposals were selected out of more than 2,100 received. UNDEF funding ranges from US $50,000 to US $500,000, with most projects in the mid-range. It is anticipated that the vast majority of applicants and short-listed project proposals will emanate from local civil society organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Child health now: Together we can end preventable deaths","field_subtitle":"World Vision: October 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/WORpov261109.pdf","body":"The epicentre of the child health emergency is sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia but, without a concerted and sustained effort in their countries, there\u2019s little prospect of Millennium Development Goal 4 being met at a global level. The causes of this emergency vary according to the local context, and will require tailored responses by governments, donors and international institutions. Examples of good leadership exist in countries like Liberia, where President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has used the peace dividend to triple health spending, withdraw user charges and focus on the prevention of malaria. The first tier of healthcare for children is the household level, and beyond that the immediate community. Yet relatively little attention is paid by most governments to low-cost and easy-to-deliver measures that can be taken at this level, which can have a decisive impact on child health, from hand washing and breastfeeding to early identification of pneumonia. World Vision estimates that a comprehensive package of family and community care alone could prevent 2.5 million child deaths each year. What\u2019s needed is a redefinition of health systems to incorporate family- and community-level care, in tandem with a fundamental rebalancing of public spending placing much greater emphasis on prevention. Safe water and sanitation and basic hygiene are necessary to achieve this aim \u2013 the World Health Organization estimates that they could together save US$7 billion in health care costs each year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"CIVICUS condemns Ugandan Anti-homosexuality Bill","field_subtitle":"e-Civicus: 17 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/press-release/1197","body":"CIVICUS, the World Alliance for Citizen Participation, condemns the introduction of the Anti-homosexuality Bill 2009 in the Uganda Parliament on 14 October 2009. The Bill seeks to roll back international human rights obligations undertaken by Uganda by declaring that the provisions of any international legal instrument contradictory to the spirit of the Bill shall be null and void. It seeks to criminalise the work of civil society organisations that promote the rights of lesbian, gay bisexual and transgendered persons through cancellation of registration and punishment of the head of the organisation with seven years imprisonment. Other provisions of the Bill identified as repugnant by Civicus include punishment by death for HIV infected persons if they have sexual relations with a person of the same gender; life imprisonment for attempting to contract a marriage with a person of the same gender; deportation from Uganda of citizens or permanent residents if they have sexual relations with a person of the same gender; and life imprisonment for sexual relations between people of the same gender. CIVICUS urges the Parliament and the Government of Uganda to respect the human rights of its people and uphold commitments to the International Bill of Rights and the Ugandan Constitution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Climate change and family planning: Least-developed countries define the agenda","field_subtitle":"Bryant L, Carver L, Butler CD and Anage A: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(11): 852\u2013857, November 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/11/08-062562.pdf","body":"In the current climate change debate, the perspective of the developing countries that will be worst affected has been almost completely ignored by the scientific literature. This deficit is addressed by this paper, which analyses the first 40 National Adaptation Programmes of Action reports submitted by governments of least-developed countries to the Global Environment Facility for funding. Of these documents, 93% identified at least one of three ways in which demographic trends interact with the effects of climate change: faster degradation of the sources of natural resources; increased demand for scarce resources; and heightened human vulnerability to extreme weather events. These findings suggest that voluntary access to family planning services should be made more available to poor communities in least-developed countries. The paper concludes by calling for increased support for rights-based family planning services, including those integrated with HIV and AIDS services, as an important complementary measure to climate change adaptation programmes in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Climate change, innovation and health equity: Innovation for climate change adaptation and mitigation","field_subtitle":"Walpole S, Teran-Reyes J, de Souza DK and Mantilla G: Global Forum for Health Research, November 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ylctltb","body":"This is one of the session reports from Forum 2009, convened by the Global Forum for Health Research on 17\u201320 November 2009. The issue was finding synergies in policy between environmental health and equity agendas. Climate change has had a negative effect on health equity since it affects the most vulnerable populations. However, climate adaptation policies can sometimes make the situation even worse. For example, biofuels policies were intended to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels. In the past few years though, farmers have abandoned crop production in favour of growing biofuel crops, exacerbating the food crisis. Understanding the geographical components of the link between climate change and health is crucial. Data from geographical information systems (GIS) should be integrated with health information systems to provide a cohesive look at changes in disease spread, for example. Health researchers who study the effects of climate change cannot be content with just understanding the changing epidemiology of disease \u2013 they need to stay familiar with the latest technologies of monitoring climate change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Commitments from the 2009 Regional Meeting of Parliamentary Committees on Health in Eastern and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"The Southern and East African Parliamentary Alliance of Committees on Health, PPD ARO, EQUINET, APHRC","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/RegParl%20mtg09%20res.pdf","body":"The Regional Meeting of Parliamentary Committees on Health in Eastern and Southern Africa, Munyonyo, Kampala, Uganda, 21 September 2009, gathered members of parliamentary committees responsible for health from twelve countries and from regional bodies in Eastern and Southern Africa, together with technical, government, civil society and regional partners, to promote information exchange, facilitate policy dialogue and identify key areas of follow up action to advance health equity and sexual and reproductive health in the region. The meeting was held as a follow up to review progress on actions proposed at the September 2008 Regional Meeting of Parliamentary Committees on Health in Eastern and Southern Africa hosted by the same organisations. This document outlines the commitments to follow up action made at the meeting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Control of sexually transmitted infections and prevention of HIV transmission: Mending a fractured paradigm","field_subtitle":"Steen R, Wi TE, Kamali A and Ndowa F: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(11): 858\u2013865, November 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/11/08-059212.pdf","body":"The control of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) is a public health outcome measured by reduced incidence and prevalence. The means to achieve this include: targeting and outreach to populations at greatest risk; promoting and providing condoms and other means of prevention; effective clinical interventions; an enabling environment; and reliable data. Clinical services alone are insufficient for control since many people with STIs do not attend clinics. Outreach and peer education have been effectively used to reach such populations. STI control requires effective interventions with core populations whose rates of partner change are high enough to sustain transmission. Effective, appropriate targeting is thus necessary and often sufficient to reduce prevalence in the general population. Such efforts are most effective when combined with structural interventions to ensure an enabling environment for prevention. Reliable surveillance and related data are critical for designing and evaluating interventions and for assessing control efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Copenhagen Climate Conference 2009","field_subtitle":"7\u201318 December 2009: Copenhagen, Denmark ","field_url":"http://en.cop15.dk/","body":"From 7\u201318 December, more than 15,000 people, including government officials and advisers from 192 nations, civil society and the media from nearly every country in the world, will come together in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, for the Copenhagen Climate Conference. The Conference will negotiate agreements for countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as their current commitments under the Kyoto Protocol expire in 2012. Two years ago, at a previous United Nations (UN) climate conference in Bali, all UN governments agreed on a timetable that would ensure a strong climate deal by the time of the Copenhagen conference. The implications of not achieving this goal are massive, and nearly unthinkable. The meeting \u2013 which should include major heads of state for the last three days \u2013 will attempt to reach a massively complex agreement on cutting carbon, providing finance for mitigation and adaptation, and supporting technology transfer from the North to the South.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Democracy in development: How can both processes mutually reinforce each other?","field_subtitle":"European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) Background Paper: 2009","field_url":"http://www.eudevdays.eu/docs/edd_bckgd_paper_demo_plena.pdf","body":"In varying degrees, most developing regions have formally embraced the democracy and development agenda and recognised the \u2018democratic advantage\u2019 in terms of delivering development. In Africa, a stream of policy declarations have been issued, pointing to the positive links between democracy and development. Both the NEPAD and the Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) are premised on this belief. This analysis confirms that there are few dissenting voices when it comes to formally recognising the potential added value of democracy for development. Yet do these high expectations resist the test of reality? How do democratic processes actually operate in third countries? Admittedly, the impact of democracy on development is not simple and straightforward. Challenges include the current trend for democracy to be on the defensive, doubts about the delivery capacity of democracy and the difficulty of initiating and continuing dialogue on democracy. This paper offers key insights on the link between democracy and development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Doubts, denial and divine intervention: Understanding delayed attendance and poor retention rates at a HIV treatment programme in rural Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Wringe A, Roura M, Urassa M, Busza J, Athanas V and Zaba B: AIDS Care 21(5): 632-637, May 2009","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez","body":"This study explored factors influencing attendance at HIV clinic appointments among patients in a rural ward in north-west Tanzania. Forty-two in-depth interviews (IDI) and four focus group discussions were conducted with HIV-infected persons who had been referred to a nearby antiretroviral therapy (ART) clinic, and IDI were undertaken with eleven healthcare workers involved in diagnosis, referral and care of HIV-positive patients. Barriers to clinic attendance frequently included health systems factors, while physical and social benefits encouraged regular clinic attendance. Self-confidence in being able to sustain clinic attendance was often determined by patients' expectations or experiences of family support. These findings suggest that multi-faceted interventions are required to promote regular HIV clinic attendance, including on-going education, counselling and support in both clinic and community settings. These interventions also need to recognise the evolving needs of patients that accompany changes in physical health, and should address local beliefs around HIV aetiology. Decentralisation of HIV services to rural communities should be considered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Early screening could reduce prostate cancer deaths","field_subtitle":"Langa L: Health-e News, 3 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/cancer/news/article.php?uid=20032546","body":"Over 4,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year in South Africa and more than half of them die, according to the Cancer Association of South Africa (CANSA). These numbers could be reduced if more men were screened. Vanitha Naidoo, head of health programmes at CANSA in KwaZulu Natal, explained that screening for prostate cancer was expensive, making it difficult for more men to access it. \u2018Unfortunately there is currently no institution that offers free screenings for prostate cancer to our knowledge, which means people have to go to private care to be screened and not everyone can afford that. Most people are dependent on public hospitals and clinics for their health needs,\u2019 she said. According to the National Cancer Registry (NCR) prostate cancer is the first of the five leading male cancers and it affects one in 23 men. \u2018If screening was applied to prostate cancer as it is with other cancers such as breast and cervical cancer there would be a greater chance of diagnosing more men and offering them treatment. If a day was set aside for men to get free screening at hospitals we could see a reduction in men who die from the condition,\u2019 said Dr Tjaart Fourie, head of Urology at the University of KwaZulu Natal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"East Africa agrees on common market","field_subtitle":"The New Times: 6 October 2009","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200910060058.html","body":"Starting July 2010, there will be free movement of people, labour and services across the East Africa Community (EAC). This follows the conclusion of the Common Market Protocol negotiations at the end of September. The heads of delegations of the five partner states signed the final draft protocol bringing to a close 18 months of intense haggling among the states. Each of the five states of Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi and Rwanda had to cede ground or compromise for a deal to be reached. One area of contention that was referred from the April meeting in Kampala was the issue on permanent residence. A main issue was how many years can elapse before someone is eligible to enjoy permanent residence in another country. This decision will now be based on national laws. The other unfinished business was on use of identity cards across member states, right of establishment and the movement of people and workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Enhancing global control of alcohol to reduce unsafe sex and HIV in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Chersich MF, Rees HV, Scorgie F and Martin G: Globalization and Health 5(16), 17 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-5-16.pdf","body":"More than 20 studies in Africa have reported higher occurrence of HIV among people with problem drinking; a finding strongly consistent across studies and similar among women and men. Conflation of HIV and alcohol disease in these setting is not surprising given patterns of heavy-episodic drinking and that drinking contexts are often coterminous with opportunities for sexual encounters. Both perpetrators and victims of sexual violence have a high likelihood of having drunk alcohol prior to the incident, as with most forms of violence and injury in sub-Saharan Africa. Reducing alcohol harms necessitates multi-level interventions and should be considered a key component of structural interventions to alleviate the burden of HIV and sexual violence. Brief interventions for people with problem drinking (an important component of primary health care) must discuss links between alcohol and unsafe sex, and consequences thereof. Interventions to reduce alcohol harm among HIV-infected persons are also an important element in positive-prevention initiatives. Most importantly, implementation of known effective interventions could alleviate alcohol\u2019s effects on unsafe sex, unintended pregnancy and HIV transmission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Environmental determinants of asthma among school children aged 13\u201314 in and around Polokwane, Limpopo Province, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Maluleke KR and Worku Z: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 6(9): 2354\u20132374, September 2009","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2760414/?tool=pubmed","body":"Asthma has been a public health issue since the 1960s. Factors associated with asthma are environmental and genetic. This study is based on a random sample of 742 students aged 13\u201314 attending various schools at Polokwane, in the province of Limpopo in South Africa. Survey logistic regression and multi-level analyses were used for data analysis. The study identifies three key determinants of asthma at the district, school and individual levels. The study shows that persistent cough, exposure to smoke at the household level and lack of access to flush toilets at the household level are key predictors of asthma in children. Variability at the level of districts accounts for 46% of total variance. Variability at the level of schools accounts for 33% of total variance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 106: We count too: Addressing the orientation and adequacy of health workers for mental health needs in Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EU member states failing to meet aid targets","field_subtitle":"Vogel T: European Voice, 12 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/member-states-failing-to-meet-aid-targets/66388.aspx","body":"Karel De Gucht, the European commissioner for development, has warned the ministers of European Union member states that just five of the 27 member states are on course to meet a self-imposed target of giving 0.56% of national income in aid to developing countries by 2010. That target was an interim benchmark on the way to a pledge agreed by the member states that they should give 0.7% of gross national income in aid by 2015. De Gucht has sent, to development ministers, papers that show projected assistance levels for 2009 and 2010 for each member state. So far, four countries \u2013 Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden \u2013 are above the 0.7% level and Ireland is above 0.56%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Exceptional epidemics: AIDS still deserves a global response","field_subtitle":"Whiteside A and Smith J: Globalization and Health 5(15): 14 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-5-15.pdf","body":"There has been a renewed debate over whether AIDS deserves an exceptional response because of the amount of funding targeted to the disease and the belief that AIDS activists prioritise it above other health issues. The strongest detractors of exceptionalism claim that the AIDS response has undermined health systems in developing countries. This paper argues that AIDS should be normalised in countries with mid-level prevalence, except when life-long treatment is dependent on outside resources \u2013 as is the case with most African countries \u2013 because treatment dependency creates unique sustainability challenges. And AIDS must always require an exceptional response in countries with high prevalence (over 10%). In these settings there is substantial morbidity, filling hospitals and increasing care burdens, and increased mortality, which most visibly reduces life expectancy. The idea that exceptionalism is somehow wrong is an oversimplification. The AIDS response must be based on human rights principles, and it must aim to improve health and well-being of societies as a whole.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Explanations for persistent nursing shortages","field_subtitle":"Long MC, Goldfarb MG and Goldfarb RS: Forum for Health Economics & Policy 11(2): Article 10, 2008","field_url":"http://www.bepress.com/fhep/11/2/10","body":" This paper contributes to the economics literature on nursing market shortages by putting forward two new models that suggest three new explanations for perceived nursing shortages. The first model focuses on hospitals hiring both permanent staff nurses and temporary contract nurses. It shows that hiring both classes of nurses can represent optimising behaviour, and that an interesting kind of perceived nursing shortage results from this dual hiring. The second model posits two classes of hospitals \u2013 premier and funds-constrained \u2013 and generates two distinct kinds of nursing shortages: economic shortages, involving unfilled, budgeted positions, and non-economic professional standards shortages. The paper argues that the perceived existence of professional standards shortages may be a significant explanation for the widespread impression of persistent shortages.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Fair financing for health: mobilising domestic resources and managing commercialisation of health systems: Regional Workshop Report ","field_subtitle":"HEU UCT, HNC, EQUINET 22 September 2009, Munyonyo, Uganda","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REPfinSEP09.pdf","body":"The promotion of universal coverage means that health systems should seek to ensure that all citizens have access to adequate health care (adequately staffed with skilled and motivated health workers) at an affordable cost and which improve both income cross-subsidies (from the rich to the poor) and risk cross-subsidies (from the healthy to the ill) in the overall health system. This stems from our understanding of equity, which requires that people should contribute to the funding of health services according to their ability to pay and benefit from health services according to their need for care. Prior work in the fair financing theme in the network indicates that there is still a heavy dependence on donor funding in some east and southern African (ESA) countries and heavy burdens on poor people through high levels of out of pocket financing. There have been efforts to increase domestic funding of health services, and a number of countries are increasing government funding of health services. The Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town and HealthNet  Consult Uganda used evidence from work done in the past 5 years on tax and mandatory health insurance sources of domestic resource mobilisation as inputs to a regional research and policy review meeting in September 2009. The meeting presented and reviewed research, implemented in and beyond the network, on domestic public resource mobilisation; examined policy options, and country experiences in and barriers to improving domestic public resource mobilisation, with a focus on \u2018success stories\u2019 where countries have been successful in motivating for greater allocation of public resources towards the health sector. The meeting was held in Uganda just prior to the EQUINET Regional conference to connect delegates to the conference and to input into the wider network of equity actors and debates at the conference. The meeting identified knowledge gaps for follow up research, including on gender dimensions. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights 2010","field_subtitle":"8\u201315 February 2010: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia","field_url":"http://www.africasexuality.org/","body":"The Fourth Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights is part of a long-term process of building and fostering regional dialogue on sexual rights and health that leads to concrete action to influence policy particularly that of the African Union and its bodies.  The purpose of the conference is to examine the interrelationship between sexuality and HIV and AIDS.  In particular, it aims to open up discourse on sexuality in Africa and how this might lead to new insights in reducing the spread of HIV in Africa. The focus will be on identifying new and emerging vulnerabilities and vulnerable people using the concept of sexual rights and sexuality in the fight against HIV and AIDS. It will also explore how the application of human rights framework to sexuality might provide new insights in developing interventions to reduce the spread of HIV and map out new and innovative strategies, programming and funding best suited to deal with those most vulnerable to infection. The conference will provide a framework of how sexuality and the application of sexual rights may lead to openness, responsibility and choices for all people, particularly young people, on sex, sexuality and sexual behaviour.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"From market access to accessing the market: Aid for trade and the program of the World Bank","field_subtitle":"Gamberoni E and Newfarmer R: Trade Negotiation Insights 8(9), November 2009","field_url":"http://ictsd.org/i/news/tni/59612/","body":"The World Bank Group has extensive programmes in aid for trade across the spectrum of concessional lending to low-income countries through the IDA, non-concessional lending to middle-income countries through the IBRD, and private investments through the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank\u2019s private sector arm. In 2008, resources transferred through these three channels amounted to some US$22 billion, more than double the annual average in 2002-2005. Increasingly, governments are requesting aid for trade from the World Bank-today nearly 70% of country programmes agreed with the governments have trade-related activities. These programmes focus predominantly on infrastructure and building productive capacity, but they also include trade facilitation and trade policy. Among low-income countries, Africa is the largest beneficiary. If aid for trade is to continue to grow, two issues are critical. First, the multilateral development banks-collectively the largest source of aid for trade-are bumping up against capital constraints and may soon see their lending effectively capped. Second, without the capital increase, countries wishing to invest more in infrastructure will be forced to reduce their borrowings for health, education or other sectors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health risks: Mortality and burden of disease attributable to selected major risks","field_subtitle":"Department of Health Statistics and Informatics, Information, Evidence and Research Cluster, World Health Organization: 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/entity/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/GlobalHealthRisks_report_full.pdf","body":"Five leading risk factors identified in this report (childhood underweight, unsafe sex, alcohol use, unsafe water and sanitation, and high blood pressure) are responsible for one quarter of all deaths in the world, and one fifth of all DALYs. Reducing exposure to these risk factors would increase global life expectancy by nearly five years. Eight risk factors (alcohol use, tobacco use, high blood pressure, high body mass index, high cholesterol, high blood glucose, low fruit and vegetable intake, and physical inactivity) account for 61% of cardiovascular deaths. Combined, these same risk factors account for over three quarters of ischaemic heart disease, the leading cause of death worldwide. Reducing exposure to these eight risk factors would increase global life expectancy by almost five years. Low- and middle-income countries now face a double burden of increasing chronic, non-communicable conditions, as well as the communicable diseases that traditionally affect the poor. Understanding the role of these risk factors is important for developing clear and effective strategies for improving global health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global immunization: Status, progress, challenges and future","field_subtitle":"Duclos P, Okwo-Bele J, Gacic-Dobo M and Cherian T: BMC International Health and Human Rights 9(Suppl 1):S2, 14 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/9/S1/S2","body":"This paper briefly reviews global progress and challenges with respect to public vaccination programmes. The most striking recent achievement has been that of reduction of global measles mortality from an estimated 750,000 deaths in 2000 down to 197,000 in 2007. Global vaccination coverage trends continued to be positive. In 2007 most regions reached more than 80% of their target populations with three doses of DPT containing vaccines. However, the coverage remains well short of the 2010 goal on 90% coverage, particularly in the WHO region of Africa, while had only 74% coverage. Remaining challenges include the need to: develop and implement strategies for reaching the difficult to reach; support evidence-based decisions to prioritise new vaccines for introduction; strengthening immunisation systems to deliver new vaccines; expand vaccination to include older age groups; scale up vaccine preventable disease surveillance; improve quality of immunisation coverage monitoring and use the data to improve programme performance; and explore financing options for reaching the GIVS goals, particularly in lower middle-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Has aid for AIDS raised all health funding boats?","field_subtitle":"Shiffman J, Berlan D and Hafner T: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 52: S45\u2013S48, November 2009","field_url":"http://journals.lww.com/jaids/Fulltext/2009/11011/Has_Aid_for_AIDS_Raised_All_Health_Funding_Boats_.13.aspx","body":"Global health analysts have debated whether donor prioritisation of HIV and AIDS control has lifted all boats, raising attention and funding levels for health issues aside from HIV and AIDS. This paper investigates this question, considering donor funding for four historically prominent health agendas: HIV and AIDS, health systems strengthening, population and reproductive health, and infectious disease control-over the decade 1998\u20132007. It employed funding data from the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which tracks donor aid. The data indicates that HIV and AIDS may have helped to increase funding for the control of other infectious diseases; however, there is no firm evidence that other health issues beyond the control of infectious diseases have benefited. Between 1998 and 2007, funding for HIV and AIDS control rose from just 5.5% to nearly half of all aid for health. Over the same period, funding for health systems strengthening declined from 62.3% to 23.9% of total health aid and that for population and reproductive health declined from 26.4% to 12.3%. Also, even as total aid for health tripled during this decade, aid for health systems strengthening largely stagnated. Overall, the data indicates little support for the contention that donor funding for HIV and AIDS has lifted all boats.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health policy analysis: Regional skills workshop report ","field_subtitle":"University of Cape Town, Centre for Health Policy and EQUINET: September 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REPpolicy220909.pdf","body":"Over the last five years the Regional Network For Equity In Health In East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) has generated a range of analyses of specific policy experiences in Southern and Eastern Africa and has developed the understanding and skills necessary to conduct this sort of work. Other work conducted by EQUINET, such as around governance and participation, is also relevant to understanding how to strengthen health system decision-making in ways that support health equity goals. It is time, now, to take stock of the range of health policy analysis work in Africa \u2013 and to draw out lessons from past experience, as well as identify new challenges for the years ahead. This workshop took place as part of the pre-conference activities of the EQUINET conference September 2009 on Reclaiming the Resources for Health. It was convened by Lucy Gilson, School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town and Ermin Erasmus, Centre for Health Policy, The University of the Witwatersrand. The workshop aimed to: reflect on health policy analysis and its role in health system development; share experience in the use of health policy analysis to support policy development and implementation; share experience in teaching health policy analysis (in short course, post-graduate programmes etc); and develop shared ideas of how to strengthen this field of work in Africa. It provided an opportunity to reflect on health policy analysis and its role in health system development. Participants shared experience in the use of health policy analysis to support policy development and implementation and on teaching health policy analysis. In the workshop participants shared ideas of how to strengthen this field of work in Africa. The workshop was held as a pre-conference workshop to the EQUINET Regional Conference and involved delegates drawn from the conference and thus the wider regional work on equity in health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Help for landmine victims hard to come by in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 5 November 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86892","body":"Landmines are the third leading cause of amputations in Mozambique, after diabetes and road accidents, and the threat they still pose \u2013 more than 17 years after peace came to the country following four decades of independence and civil wars \u2013 still looms large. There are no benefits for the survivors of landmine blasts, nor for those who died or their next of kin, so there is no incentive to report incidents of landmine accidents to the authorities. In one of the world's poorest nations, assistance for the disabled is often far down the list of priorities. There are government-run orthopaedic centres in the ten provincial capitals, except Manica Province, where it is situated in Chimoio, but essential equipment is faulty or lacking entirely. For example, in Inhambane (in central Mozambique, currently the most mined province) the orthopaedic centre is not open. In Beira, Mozambique's second-largest city, the oven to make prosthetics is broken and has not been replaced. The situation at orthopaedic centres in Mozambique does not meet minimum standards.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS and disability: Final report of the Fourth International Policy Dialogue","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://data.unaids.org/pub/Report/2009/20091111_hiv_and_disability_en.pdf","body":"International Affairs Directorate, Health Canada: March 2009\r\nThe United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) should be used as a tool to improve access to HIV services for disabled people, who are often marginalised in national HIV policies, according to this new report. People with disabilities (PWDs) experience all the risk factors associated with HIV, and are often at increased risk because of poverty, severely limited access to education and health care, lack of information and resources to facilitate 'safer sex', lack of legal protection, increased risk of violence and rape, vulnerability to substance abuse, and stigma. HIV and AIDS were implicitly included in the CRPD under article 25a, where \u2018State Parties shall provide PWDs with the same range, quality and standard of free, affordable health care and programmes as provided to other persons, including in the area of sexual and reproductive health and population-based public health programmes\u2019. It was also noted that disabled people could not claim their right to health services unless they were educated about these rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"How AIDS funding strengthens health systems: Progress in pharmaceutical management","field_subtitle":"Embrey M, Hoos D and Quick J: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 52: S34-S37, November 2009","field_url":"http://journals.lww.com/jaids/Fulltext/2009/11011/How_AIDS_Funding_Strengthens_Health_Systems_.11.aspx","body":"In recent years, new global initiatives responding to the AIDS crisis have dramatically affected how developing countries procure, distribute, and manage pharmaceuticals. A number of developments related to treatment scale-up, initially focused on AIDS-related products, have created frameworks for widening access to medicines for other diseases that disproportionally impact countries with limited resources and for strengthening health systems overall. Examples of such systems strengthening have come in the areas of drug development and pricing; policy and regulation; pharmaceutical procurement, distribution, and use; and management systems, such as for health information and human resources. For example, a hospital in South Africa developed new tools to decentralise provision of antiretroviral therapy to local clinics-bringing treatment closer to patients and shifting responsibility from scarce pharmacists to lower level pharmacy staff. Successful, the system was expanded to patients with other chronic conditions, such as mental illness. Health experts can likely take these achievements further to maximise their expansion into the wider health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Human papillomavirus and related cancers in Kenya","field_subtitle":"WHO/ICO Information Centre on HPV and Cervical Cancer (HPV Information Centre): 9 October 2009","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/hpvcentre/statistics/dynamic/ico/country_pdf/KEN.pdf","body":"Human papillovirus (HPV) types 16 and 18 are responsible for about 70% of all cervical cancer cases worldwide. This report provides key information for Kenya on cervical cancer, other anogenital cancers and head and neck cancers, HPV-related statistics, factors contributing to cervical cancer, cervical cancer screening practices, HPV vaccine introduction, and other relevant immunisation indicators. The report is intended to strengthen the guidance for health policy implementation of primary and secondary cervical cancer prevention strategies in the country. Kenya has a population of 10.32 million women aged 15 years and older who are at risk of developing cervical cancer. Current estimates indicate that, every year, 2,635 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 2,111 die from the disease. Cervical cancer ranks as the most frequent cancer among women in Kenya, and the second most frequent cancer among women between 15 and 44 years of age. About 38.8% of women in the general population are estimated to harbour cervical HPV infection at a given time, and 60.9% of invasive cervical cancers are attributed to HPVs 16 or 18.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving aid effectiveness: A review of recent initiatives for civil society organisations","field_subtitle":"Pratt B and Myhrman T: International NGO Training and Research Centre, May 2009","field_url":"http://www.intrac.org/data/files/resources/623/Improving-aid-effectiveness-A-review-of-recent-initiatives-for-CSOs.pdf","body":"This review seeks to detail recent initiatives by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations in improving development practice. There are several attempts to provide a \u2018civil society or NGO\u2019 parallel to the Paris Declaration. These initiatives seek some form of standardisation and evidence that NGOs are as effective as they claim to be, and to counter criticism that they have not been diligent in ensuring the quality of their delivery. However, seeking to justify oneself is not the best use of time and resources. Accountability needs to be improved. The survey indicated that many of the initiatives do not go far down the route of participation, despite a theoretical (rhetorical) commitment to beneficiary participation. Improved quality control is also required. Some of the models now available seek to improve the quality of delivery rather than the quality of impact. Thus an emphasis on things like complaints procedures, transparent, consistent and shared procedures, deal with how aid is delivered not what is delivered and whether it has any real impact. Regular assessments of efficiency, effectiveness and impact should be done. However, efficiency is not the same as effectiveness or impact. Improved efficiency does not automatically lead to more effective development or greater impact.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"International health financing and the response to AIDS","field_subtitle":"Lieberman S, Gottret P, Yeh E, de Beyer J, Oelrichs R and Zewdie D: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 52: S38\u2013S44, November 2009","field_url":"http://journals.lww.com/jaids/Fulltext/2009/11011/International_Health_Financing_and_the_Response_to.12.aspx","body":"Efforts to finance HIV responses have generated large increases in funding, catalysed activism and institutional innovation, and brought renewed attention to health issues and systems. The benefits go well beyond HIV programmes. The substantial increases in HIV funding are a tiny percentage of overall increases in health financing, with other areas also seeing large absolute increases. Data on health funding suggest an improved pro-poor distribution, with Africa benefiting relatively more from increased external flows. A literature review found few evidence-based analyses of the impact of AIDS programmes and funding on broader health financing. Conceptual frameworks that would facilitate such analysis are summarised.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Introduction to health systems: Online course ","field_subtitle":"Future Health Systems Research Programme Consortium: 2009","field_url":"http://www.futurehealthsystems.org/health%20systems%20course/hscindex.htm","body":"This is an online ten-unit short course on health systems and their functioning. Like organ systems, health systems break down in predictable patterns and lead to syndromes that can be diagnosed and addressed. Dysfunctional health systems are why thousands of effective low-cost health interventions remain on the shelves while people suffer and die.  Dysfunctional health systems leave people vulnerable to financial catastrophe.  Failure to manage health resources judiciously permits not just waste, but the delivery of inappropriate or harmful services.  While many lament how little research addresses the development of \u2018new cures\u2019 for the diseases of the poor, the inexcusable tragedy is the world\u2019s failure to deliver affordable and effective \u2018old cures\u2019 to treatable and preventable diseases.  Diarrhoea, pneumonia, tuberculosis and malaria are all easily and cheaply treatable. Their persistence around the world is a testament to failed health systems more so than a lack of scientific prowess.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"It\u2019s our money. Where\u2019s it gone?","field_subtitle":"International Budget Partnership (IBP): 26 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.internationalbudget.org/","body":"The International Budget Partnership (IBP) has released It's our money. Where's it gone?, a new documentary film on the work one of its partners, Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI), is doing to involve communities directly in monitoring the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) in Mombasa, Kenya. The CDF allocates approximately one million dollars annually to each member of Parliament to spend on development projects in his or her constituency but provides for no meaningful independent oversight. This is the story of ordinary Kenyans stepping in to do something about it. MUHURI uses social audits to involve communities in monitoring and holding their government accountable for managing the public's money and meeting the needs of its people, especially the poor and most vulnerable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya to implement new survey to inform HIV programming for MSM","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 9 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=86932","body":"A planned national survey of men who have sex with men (MSM) will be the first step in the government's plan to incorporate this high-risk group into the country's HIV programme, a senior government official has said. There have been few studies on HIV among MSM in Kenya. A survey of 285 men in Mombasa in 2007 found an HIV prevalence of 43% among men who had sex with men exclusively, compared with 12.3% among men who had sex with both men and women. Kenya's national HIV prevalence is 7.4%. The survey \u2013 due to start in December and last six months \u2013 will attempt to discover information such as the specific sexual health risks and needs of MSM, and identify MSM \u2018hot spots\u2019 around the country and the number of MSM-friendly health facilities available. It will use respondent-driven sampling, recruiting openly gay men to reach out to other MSM who may not be out of the closet, and using existing MSM-friendly facilities to help conduct the research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Key cold chain for medical research ","field_subtitle":"Bodibe K: Health-e News, 5 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032558","body":"South Africa\u2019s first bio-bank, a cold storage facility where samples from HIV clinical trials and other diseases can be stored for years to support future medical research, was launched in Johannesburg. Bio-banking is a novel concept on the African continent and South Africa is the first country to introduce it. \u2018Bio-banking ensures that the integrity of the samples is kept so that when you do run the test, you\u2019re able to get sense out of the result\u2019, explained Jessica Trusler, medical director of Bio-analytical Research Corporation (BRAC) South Africa. Peter Cole, chief executive officer of BRAC, noted: \u2018The ability to store samples long term, including the RNA and DNA of these infectious pathogens means that we can do things like look at resistance patterns to drugs, we can use the DNA in the future for vaccine development, we can store TB DNA looking at resistance patterns against the various drugs and the role of what we call MOTTS, the non-tuberculous organisms in the immuno-compromised patients. So, there\u2019s a lot of unique stuff that we can do here\u2019, he added.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Malnutrition: How much is being spent?","field_subtitle":"Medicins sans Frontiers: November 2009","field_url":"http://www.msf.org/source/malnutrition/2009/NutritionHowMuchIsBeingSpent.pdf","body":"Donors have spent very little on nutrition \u2013 barely 1.7% of development and emergency food aid between 2004 and 2007 actually addressed malnutrition, says this report. The analysis suggests that donors should maximise the value of funding by ceasing in-kind donations and provide cash instead, allowing aid agencies to source cheaper or more appropriate food in the region or beneficiary country. However, donor countries in the European Union (EU) and Canada, which had recently moved to provide cash, were not spending enough on nutrition. Malnutrition should in recent years have benefited both from the global renewed interest in the problem, and from the emergence of a broad consensus within the nutrition community enabling the scale up of activities in high-burden countries. Yet the analysis finds that funding has remained more or less flat, stuck at roughly the same level since 2000\u20132004. A tiny percentage (1.7%) of the interventions reported as \u2018development food aid-food security\u2019 and \u2018emergency food aid\u2019 in the OECD database actually address nutrition. The authors argue that if interventions such as these are to be considered as a means to address malnutrition, then food security and food assistance projects (namely food transfer, cash or voucher programmes) must be targeted more precisely on nutrition as a main objective and be designed accordingly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"MedInfo 13th World Congress on Medical and Health Informatics 2010","field_subtitle":"Deadline for papers: 28 February 2010","field_url":"http://www.medinfo2010.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=88","body":"Cape Town, South Africa will host the 13th International Congress on Medical Informatics from 12\u201315 September 2010. This is the first time the Congress will be held in Africa. It promises to boost exposure to grassroots healthcare delivery and the underpinning health information systems. This will open the door to new academic partnerships into the future and help to nurture a new breed of health informaticians. The theme is \u2018Partnerships for Effective e-Health Solutions\u2019, with a particular focus on how innovative collaborations can promote sustainable solutions to health challenges. It is well recognised that information and communication technologies have enormous potential for improving the health and lives of individuals. Innovative and effective change using such technologies is reliant upon people working together in partnerships to create innovative and effective solutions to problems with particular regard to contextual and environmental factors. The Congress seeks to bring together the health informatics community from across the globe to work together and share experiences and knowledge to promote sustainable solutions for health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Meeting of SADC Ministers of Health on HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"Southern African Development Community (SADC): 23 Nov 2009","field_url":"http://www.sadc.int/","body":"A two-day joint meeting of SADC Ministers of Health and Ministers responsible for HIV and AIDS was officially opened in Mbabane, Swaziland, on 12 November 2009, by the Right Honourable Sibusiso Dlamini, prime minister of Swaziland. In his address, the prime minister urged SADC member states to implement SADC policy documents on HIV and AIDS, TB and malaria.  The ministers approved a number of policy documents, including the Draft HIV and AIDS Strategic Framework 2010-2015. Ministers urged member states who are in the process of updating their frameworks to align them with the regional framework. The ministers also approved the SADC HIV and AIDS Business Plan and Budget, which emphasises multi-sector and inter-programme links reflecting the inter-relationships between HIV and AIDS, poverty, conflict, governance, socio-cultural and economic development and the SADC HIV and AIDS Fund. On the control of communicable diseases, HIV and AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the ministers approved the functions and minimum standards for national reference laboratories in the SADC region; functions and minimum standards for supranational reference laboratory and regional centres of excellence; and the proposed selection criteria for supranational reference laboratory and regional centres of excellence. The ministers further approved the regional minimum standards for HIV testing and counselling and urged member states to adhere to them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Mental health policy development and implementation in four African countries","field_subtitle":"Flisher AJ, Lund C, Funk M, Banda M, Bhana A, Doku V, Drew N, Kigozi FN, Knapp M, Omar M, Petersen I and Green A: Journal of Health Psychology 12(3): 505\u2013516, 2007","field_url":"http://hpq.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/12/3/505","body":"The purpose of the research programme introduced in this article is to provide new knowledge regarding comprehensive multisectoral approaches to breaking the negative cycle of poverty and mental ill-health. The programme undertakes an analysis of existing mental health policies in four African countries (Ghana, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia), and evaluates interventions to assist in the development and implementation of mental health policies in those countries, over a five-year period. The four countries in which the programme is being conducted represent a variety of scenarios in mental health policy development and implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Mental health policy in South Africa: Development process and content","field_subtitle":"Draper CE, Lund C, Kleintjes S, Funk M, Omar M, Flisher AJ and MHaPP Research Programme Consortium: Health Policy and Planning 24(5): 342\u2013356, 2009","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/czp027","body":"The aim of this analysis is to describe the content of mental health policy and the process of its development in South Africa. Quantitative data regarding SA's mental health system was gathered using the World Health Organization (WHO) Assessment Instrument for Mental Health Systems. Semi-structured interviews provided understanding of processes, underlying issues and interactions between key stakeholders in mental health policy development. The study found that the process of mental health policy implementation has been hindered by the low priority given to mental health, varying levels of seniority of provincial mental health coordinators, limited staff for policy and planning, varying technical capacity at provincial and national levels, and reluctance by some provincial authorities to accept responsibility for driving implementation. National leadership in the development of new mental health policy is required, with improved communication, provincial-level responsibility for implementation and commitment to capacity building.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Mental health research priorities in low- and middle-income countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean","field_subtitle":"Sharan P, Gallo C, Gureje O, Lamberte E, Mari JJ, Mazzotti G, Patel V, Swartz L, Olifson S, Levav I, de Francisco A, Saxena S and the Mental Health Research Mapping Project Group: British Journal of Psychiatry 195: 354\u2013363, 2009","field_url":"http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/195/4/354","body":"The aim of this study was to investigate research priorities in mental health among researchers and other stakeholders in low- and middle-income (LAMI) countries. A two-stage design was used that included identification, through literature searches and snowball technique, of researchers and stakeholders in 114 countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean; and a mail survey on priorities in research. The study identified broad agreement between researchers and stakeholders and across regions regarding research priorities. Epidemiology (burden and risk factors), health systems and social science ranked highest for type of research. Researchers\u2019 and stakeholders\u2019 priorities were consistent with burden of disease estimates. However, suicide was underprioritised, compared with its burden. Researchers\u2019 and stakeholders\u2019 priorities were also largely congruent with the researchers\u2019 projects. The results of this first-ever conducted survey of researchers and stakeholders regarding research priorities in mental health suggest that it should be possible to develop consensus at regional and international levels regarding the research agenda that is necessary to support health system objectives in LAMI countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Millions Fed: Proven Successes in Agricultural Development","field_subtitle":"Spielman DJ and Pandya-Lorch R (eds): International Food Policy Research Institute, 2009","field_url":"http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/oc64.pdf","body":"Humanity has made enormous progress in the past 50 years toward eliminating hunger and malnutrition. Some five billion people \u2013 more than 80% of the world's population \u2013 have enough food to live healthy, productive lives. Agricultural development has contributed significantly to these gains, while also fostering economic growth and poverty reduction in some of the world's poorest countries. This book examines how policies, programmes and investments in pro-poor agricultural development have helped to substantially reduce hunger across Africa, Asia and Latin America. The 20 success stories presented here provide both lessons and inspiration for continued efforts to eradicate hunger and malnutrition among the one billion people still facing this scourge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"National Health Insurance is a boost to health","field_subtitle":"Shisana O: Health-e News, 9 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032562","body":"The author argues that the accusation that those who developed the policy on National Health Insurance (NHI) will be depriving South Africans of choice is very much unfounded. The development of the NHI policy is evidence-based; in a national survey South Africans were asked if they would support a NHI scheme if it limited their choice of doctors or if waiting lists for non-emergency services were introduced and half of the respondents indicated that they would not support it. Those who prepared the policy on NHI took into account the sentiments of the public by recommending that individuals will choose a provider within their district, whether in the public or private health sector and register for service delivery. They also proposed that the benefits must be portable, meaning that patients are covered even when they are away from their usual place of health care. Long waiting lists for non-emergency care are largely due to a shortage of health workers, particularly doctors in some areas. For this reason, the ANC proposal recommends a set of actions to mitigate overcrowding, which will reduce waiting times; these are increase of doctors through retention, increased intake of students into medicine and importation of doctors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"New campaign to reduce paediatric HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"Bodibe K: Health-e News 29 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032542","body":"A campaign launched recently seeks to mobilise political will and financial resources to overcome the bottle-necks that hinder services for children who have HIV and to prevent HIV infection in children. The Campaign to End Paediatric HIV/AIDS (CEPA) will initially launch in six African countries: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Zambia and Mozambique. Its chairperson, Graca Machel, said CEPA seeks to address the bottlenecks encountered in delivering diagnostic, treatment and care services in these countries. \u2018In South Africa alone, 280,000 children are said to be having HIV. It is estimated that 1.8 million of the world\u2019s HIV-positive children are in Africa,\u2019 she said. One of CEPA\u2019s goals is to prevent HIV infection from parent to child. Openly HIV-positive TV host and head of Nigeria\u2019s Positive Action for Treatment Access Movement (PATAM), Rolake Odetoyinbo, knows that that can be achieved. The campaign, formed by the United States\u2019s Global AIDS Alliance, has set itself a bold target to increase prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission and paediatric treatment services from the current average of 30\u201340% to 80% in three years in the countries it\u2019s working in. A total budget of US$6 million has been set aside to benefit the six countries that are currently being targeted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New HIV infections on the rise in Zambia","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 9 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86946","body":"An estimated 82,700 Zambians will become newly infected with HIV in 2009, up from just over 70,000 in 2007, according to new figures from the National AIDS Council. As many as 71 out of every 100 new infections occur as a result of sex with a non-regular partner, while people who reported having only one sexual partner accounted for around 21% of new infections. Although Zambia has recorded successes in its prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programme, ensuring a safe blood supply, and behaviour-change communication campaigns, practices such as having multiple concurrent partners, transactional sex and inter-generational sex are still common. Multiple concurrent partnerships are the leading cause of HIV infection in Zambia. Within these relationships, correct and consistent use of condoms remains dismally low. However, the report revealed that the annual estimated requirement was 200 million male condoms and 2 million female condoms, yet only 96 million male and 500,000 female condoms were available.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New international study started on HIV \u2018elite controllers\u2019","field_subtitle":"Cullinan K: Health-e, 22 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032537","body":"Three South Africans are part of a special group of HIV positive people that may provide valuable clues to scientists searching for a vaccine. Scientists call them \u2018elite controllers\u2019, as they have virtually undetectable levels of HIV in their blood and normal immune systems (CD4 counts), despite the fact that some have been infected for a number of years. Harvard University\u2019s Professor Bruce Walker heads an international study of about 1,300 controllers that is trying to unravel how they control HIV so that this knowledge can be used to help boost the immunity of ordinary people. Over two-thirds of the controllers have a gene called B57 that is able to process antigens (foreign substances such as viruses that enter the body). A range of studies presented at the international AIDS Vaccine conference in Paris in October identified this gene as being able to protect against HIV. But not all controllers have B57. Another small clue is that the controllers\u2019 immune systems seem to target a particular HIV gene called Gag more than the other HIV proteins, when it enters their cells, indicating that Gag may be more dangerous than other viral genes. Finally, the elite controllers have abnormally active dendritic cells, which are the key cells that \u2018conduct\u2019 the body\u2019s immune response.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New malaria tests win Gates Foundation awards","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 29 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.grandchallenges.org/EXPLORATIONS/Pages/GrantsAwarded.aspx","body":"To detect malaria people might soon be able to chew a stick of gum and swipe it over a magnet or scan a finger with ultra-far infrared light. These are some of the winning proposals for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges awards, which invite researchers to find non-invasive diagnostic alternatives for priority global health conditions such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV. To date, all commercially available malaria tests require extracting blood, partly because up to now it has been more difficult to detect malaria in other body fluids. Andrew Fung, who is developing the chewing gum test, said: \u2018By working in a user's mouth this test will operate at a higher temperature, and millions of microscopic particles will be examined across a small surface area [the gum], increasing the test's sensitivity.\u2019 Winner Lu, from the University of Michigan, is pioneering the infrared option by tapping into body level vibrations rather than testing molecules, making this test highly sensitive too. To date one of the drawbacks of the 60 rapid diagnostic tests currently on the market has been that they are unregulated, so while some are quite sensitive and can provide 95\u2013100% accuracy, others provide far less accurate results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"New tools to improve access to healthcare services for Africa\u2019s worst-off","field_subtitle":"University of Montreal: 2009","field_url":"http://www.vesa-tc.umontreal.ca/access_en.htm","body":"What can be done to ensure that the poorest Africans have access to a healthcare system that charges user fees? A team of researchers from the University of Montreal has produced a thorough compilation of all existing knowledge on this subject in four bilingual policy briefs. The briefs present options that have been shown to promote access to care: abolition of user fees for healthcare services, case-by-case exemptions for the worst-off, health equity funds, and health insurance that includes coverage for the poor. The objective of this project was to give leaders a comprehensive overview of actions that have already been undertaken to evaluate what options are best suited to their context. With the assistance of an international NGO (HELP \u2013 Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe e.V.), consultations were carried out in Burkina Faso to strengthen the relevance of these policy briefs. Starting in November, these four documents will be distributed in Burkina Faso as part of a HELP project that will test a trial of user fees abolition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"NGOs welcome EU\u2019s vow not to push Africa into EPAs","field_subtitle":"Agazzi I: InterPress Service, 9 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=16046&lang=en","body":"Non-governmental organisations have expressed their satisfaction at the European Commission\u2019s (EC\u2019s) declaration that it would not put \u2018undue pressure\u2019 on African and other countries to conclude the controversial trade deals called economic partnership agreements (EPAs). \u2018We are very satisfied that the campaign has been able to convince many people that the EPAs don\u2019t lead to development and that the ACP countries have to be given time,\u2019 Marc Maes from 11.11.11, a coalition of Belgian non-governmental organisations, has said. \u2018But we have to be careful because rhetoric and practice are often very different.\u2019 David Hachfeld of Oxfam International said: \u2018If countries don\u2019t want an EPA on the basis of the Cotonou agreement, the EC should ensure that they are not worse off and offer them alternative agreements.\u2019 An alternative could be the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) offered by the EU to more-developed countries countries that grants them preferential market access for 66% of their products. Another option is the GSP Plus scheme, which gives them duty-free and quota-free market access for 88% of their products, provided they have ratified the relevant human rights and sustainable development conventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Pathways to success: Success stories in agricultural production and food security","field_subtitle":"United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization: 2009","field_url":"http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/newsroom/docs/pathways.pdf","body":"Dismal global figures hide the fact that the number of hungry people has been declining in 31 countries during the fifteen-year period from 1991 to 2005. This paper analyses four examples of countries that are on track to achieve 2015 food security targets: Armenia, Brazil, Nigeria and Vietnam. Based on these examples, it argues that success in the battle to halve hunger will usually be characterised by: creation of an enabling environment for economic growth and human wellbeing; outreach to the most vulnerable and investment in the rural poor; protection of gains; and planning for a sustainable future. Several developing countries have succeeded in transforming their agriculture sectors, turning them into important sources of growth and export earnings, and thus increasing their contribution to poverty and hunger reduction. The paper studies examples of countries that have transformed their sectors, concluding that supporting smallholder farmers is one of the best ways to fight hunger and poverty. It is estimated that 85% of the farms in the world measure less than two hectares, and that smallholder farmers and their families represent two billion people, or one-third of the world\u2019s population.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Perpetual protection of traditional knowledge not guaranteed by WIPO ","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 22 October 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yhx4bya","body":"Protection of traditional knowledge under intellectual property rights may have a time limit, though determining duration of protection measures will be more difficult than it is with Western scientific innovation, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Director General Francis Gurry has said. WIPO members, at their annual meeting earlier this month, agreed to negotiate a legal instrument on traditional knowledge protection in the next two years. Finding ways to accommodate traditional knowledge, and also to deal with misappropriations from the past, is \u2018the intellectual challenge\u2019. But the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) now has a \u2018clear mandate\u2019 to tackle this challenge. The IGC received its strongest mandate yet at the assemblies, and is now tasked with undertaking text-based negotiations towards an \u2018international legal instrument\u2019 for the effective protection of genetic resources, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Pirating African heritage: the pillaging continues","field_subtitle":"African Centre for Biosafety Briefing Paper: 2009","field_url":"http://www.biosafetyafrica.org.za/images/stories/dmdocuments/Pirating%20African%20Heritage%20Brief.pdf","body":"From the seven cases discussed in this paper, the authors observe that the patent systems in Europe and the United States are being used to promote the misappropriation of traditional knowledge and biological resources from the South. For example, the authors report that a German-based agriculture and healthcare giant corporate has staked a claim to the use of any extract from plants of the Vernonia genus in Madagascar for \u2018improving the skin status\u2019. The patent application appears to violate international law, as it duplicates traditional knowledge held by indigenous communities in Madagascar. Another firm is reported to have obtained a patent from the United States Patent Office that allows it to lay claim to extracts from the seeds of the Aframomum angustifolium, a native African plant, which it claims prevents ageing skin, and is the active ingredient in its highly profitable and costly beauty products. Some of the patent claimants say they intend to seek patents in South Africa and other African countries. The authors report that the study found little and, in some cases, no evidence of the existence of prior informed consent agreements for using the resources that form the subject matter of the patents, nor mutually agreed benefit sharing arrangements, as required by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Planning for district mental health services in South Africa: A situational analysis of a rural district site","field_subtitle":"Petersen I, Bhana A, Campbell-Hall V, Mjadu S, Lund C, Kleintjies S, Hosegood V, Flisher AJ and the Mental Health and Poverty Research Programme Consortium: Health Policy and Planning 24(2): 140\u2013150; 2009 ","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/24/2/140","body":"The shift in emphasis to universal primary health care in post-apartheid South Africa has been accompanied by a process of decentralisation of mental health services to district level, as set out in the new Mental Health Care Act, No. 17 of 2002, and the 1997 White Paper on the Transformation of the Health System. This study sought to assess progress in South Africa with respect to de-institutionalisation and the integration of mental health into primary health care, with a view to understanding the resource implications of these processes at district level. A situational analysis in one district site, typical of rural areas in South Africa, was conducted, based on qualitative interviews with key stakeholders and the World Health Organization's Assessment Instrument for Mental Health Systems (WHO-AIMS). The findings suggest that the decentralisation process remains largely limited to emergency management of psychiatric patients and ongoing psychopharmacological care of patients with stabilised chronic conditions. The paper recommends that, in a similar vein to other low- to middle-income countries, de-institutionalisation and comprehensive integrated mental health care in South Africa is hampered by a lack of resources for mental health care within the primary health care resource package, as well as the inefficient use of existing mental health resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Position paper on human resource for health fee hike","field_subtitle":"National Organisation of Nurses and Midwives of Malawi (NONM): 6 November 2009","field_url":"","body":"The National Organisation of Nurses and Midwives of Malawi\u2019s position paper is a response to the proposed introduction of fees for student nurses and midwives. It has been submitted to top leadership in government, parliament, civil society organisations, media, community and religious leaders, professional organisations, trade unions and other opinion leaders. The organisation asks for \u2018revision of government decision on payment of fees by students and parents towards training in nursing and midwifery. Specifically, the fees are very high costing over K1 million per student for a three-year course of study. This is prohibitive to selected candidates who aspire to study nursing/midwifery\u2026 [ ] \u2026 Existing and alternative funding options can be maximised to address funding for nurses and midwives\u2019 training.\u2019 It notes that civil society has a critical role in \u2018complementing government efforts to develop the country socio-economically, taking it from \u201cPoverty to Prosperity\u201d\u2019 and hopes to build on the economic prosperity achieved by Malawi in the past six years, referring to \u2018meaningful and sustainable funding\u2026 [ ] \u2026 for the training of nurses and midwives.\u2019","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/34456","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Priority setting for health policy and systems research","field_subtitle":"Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research Briefing Note 3: September 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/resources/AllianceHPSR_Brief_Note3_ENG.pdf","body":"The main pattern of research funding is driven by the interests of research funders, who are often external rather than domestic actors. When priority-setting processes do occur, they are typically disease-driven and without a broader, more integrated systems-level perspective (for example, determining how research might address one or more health-system building blocks). As a result, there is rarely consensus on national evidence needs, few national research priorities are set, and research in low- to middle-income countries (LMICs) continues to follow the fleeting and shifting priorities of global funders. This brief discusses the fundamental concepts of priority setting exercises; explores the priority-setting dynamic between the national and global levels; describes priority setting exercises specific to health policy and systems research; and details the work of the in driving global priorities based on the evidence needs of LMIC policy-makers through a three-step approach. It concludes with recommendations for how researchers, LMIC policy-makers and the global community might increasingly promote, fund and convene priority-setting exercises in health policy and systems research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Privatization revisited: Lessons from private sector participation in water supply and sanitation in developing countries: Is private sector participation the best measure? ","field_subtitle":"Gunatilake H and Carangal-San Jose MF (eds): Asian Development Bank, 2008","field_url":"http://www.adb.org/Documents/ERD/Working_Papers/WP115.pdf","body":"This paper examines the experiences of private sector participation (PSP) in the water supply and sanitation (WSS) sector. The paper argues that publicly owned water utilities have not always been successful in both developed and developing economies. However, non-market failures in supplying water are much more severe in developing economies. On grounds of efficiency, public WSS services have remained wanting. Large proportions of the population remain with little or no access to public services, and the quality of services for those who receive them are often poor, characterised by frequent breakdowns and unreliable supply. The author argues that while private sector participation has made more progress in high-income and middle-income countries, it has failed considerably in low-income developing countries. Success in wealthier countries is attributed to investment by private capital. The report concludes by recommending that private sector participation in the WSS sector in developing countries should not be introduced without rigorous prior assessment of its feasibility. When prevailing conditions are not suitable for introducing PSP, reforming the public utility should be given due consideration as a viable alternative.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Progress on scaling up integrated services for sexual and reproductive health and HIV","field_subtitle":"Dickinson C, Attawell K and Druce N: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(11): 846\u2013851, November 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/11/08-059279.pdf","body":"This paper considers new developments to strengthen sexual and reproductive health and HIV links and discusses factors that continue to impede progress. It is based on a previous review undertaken for the United Kingdom Department for International Development in 2006 that examined the constraints and opportunities to scaling up these links. It argues that, despite growing evidence that linking sexual and reproductive health and HIV is feasible and beneficial, few countries have achieved significant scale-up of integrated service provision. A lack of common understanding of terminology and clear technical operational guidance, and separate policy, institutional and financing processes continue to represent significant constraints. The paper draws on experience with tuberculosis and HIV integration to highlight some lessons. It concludes that there is little evidence to determine whether funding for health systems is strengthening links, and makes several recommendations to maximise opportunities represented by recent developments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Recommendations of the Third EU-Africa Business Forum","field_subtitle":"European Commission Development I-center, 28 September 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.euafrica-businessforum.org/en/3eabf-documents.html","body":"The Third EU-Africa Business Forum concluded its discussions in Nairobi, Kenya, (28-29 September 2009) with a consensus on the need for Africa to shift its policy objective from poverty reduction to the more dynamic goal of wealth creation. There was also broad agreement on the need for greater regional integration, increased investment and improved infrastructure. The EU has pledged some \u20ac5 billion in funding, 1.5 billion of which has been earmarked for the specific goal of promoting regional integration. Commenting on the Forum, Stefano Manservisi, the European Commission\u2019s Director-General for Development noted that now, more than ever, good policy must be in place along with a sound enabling framework allowing the private sector access to credit, knowledge and skills. [\u2026] European Union companies were encouraged to increase investment in Africa to take advantage of the huge opportunities that currently exist on the continent. Other delegates noted that the continent offers impressive returns on investment and immense potential, particularly in areas such as agro-pressing, industrial production, construction and the service sector. They also pointed to the paramount importance of infrastructure and energy which feature prominently on Africa's development agenda and where opportunities were noted to exist for joint ventures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Reproductive choices for women with HIV","field_subtitle":"Wilcher R and Cates W: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(11): 833\u2013839, November 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/11/08-059360.pdf","body":"Recent calls have been made by several international organisations for stronger links between sexual and reproductive health and HIV policies, programmes and services. However, implementers of PMTCT and other HIV programmes have been constrained in translating these goals into practice. The obstacles include: the narrow focus of current PMTCT programmes on treating HIV-positive women who are already pregnant; separate, parallel funding mechanisms for sexual and reproductive health and HIV programmes; political resistance from major HIV funders and policy-makers to include sexual and reproductive health as an important HIV programme component; and gaps in the evidence base regarding effective approaches for integrating sexual and reproductive health and HIV services. However, new opportunities exist to address these essential links. More supportive political views in the United States of America and the emergence of health systems strengthening as a priority global health initiative provide important springboards for advancing the agenda on links between sexual and reproductive health and HIV. There is need to tap into these platforms for advocating and continue to invest in research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Resolutions for Action: The Third EQUINET Regional Conference on Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"EQUINET: September 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/CONF%20Res%20Sep09%20for%20web.pdf","body":"Over 200 government officials, parliamentarians, civil society members, health workers, researchers, academics and policy makers, as well as personnel from United Nations, international and non-governmental organisations from East and Southern Africa and internationally met at the Third EQUINET Regional Conference on Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa, held 23\u201325 September 2009 in Munyonyo, Kampala. This document presents the resolutions of the conference for action on equity in health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Results of WHO product testing of RDTs: Round 1 (2008) ","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2009","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/bookorders/anglais/detart1.jsp?sesslan=1&codlan=1&codcol=93&codcch=226","body":"This book documents the largest-ever independent, laboratory-based evaluation of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for malaria. It shows that some tests on the market perform exceptionally well in tropical temperatures and can detect even low parasite densities in blood samples, while other tests were only able to detect the parasite at high parasite densities. Testing was performed at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Forty-one commercially available RDTs went through a blinded laboratory evaluation. The findings will serve as a tool for countries to make informed choices, from among the dozens of tests commercially available, on the purchase and use of rapid diagnostics that are best suited to local conditions. This performance evaluation will also inform procurement and prioritisation for diagnostic test entry into the World Health Organization (WHO) Prequalification Diagnostics Programme and WHO Procurement Schemes. Donor agencies also regularly refer to WHO recommendations on diagnostics when making their own purchases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Rethinking the conceptual terrain of AIDS scholarship: Lessons from comparing 27 years of AIDS and climate change research","field_subtitle":"Chazan May, Brklacich M and Whiteside A: Globalization and Health 5(12), 6 October 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-5-12.pdf","body":"In this conceptual article, the authors compare and contrast the evolution of climate change and AIDS research. They demonstrate how scholarship and response in these two seemingly disparate areas share certain important similarities, such as the \"globalisation\" of discourses and associated masking of uneven vulnerabilities, the tendency toward techno-fixes, and the polarisation of debates within these fields. They also examine key divergences, noting in particular that climate change research has tended to be more forward-looking and longer-term in focus than AIDS scholarship. Suggesting that AIDS scholars can learn from these key parallels and divergences, the paper offers four directions for advancing AIDS research: focusing more on the differentiation of risk and responsibility within and among AIDS epidemics; taking (back) on board social justice approaches; moving beyond polarised debates; and shifting focus from reactive to forward-looking and proactive approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2009","field_subtitle":"Brot f\u00fcr die Welt, Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO) and FIAN International: October 2009","field_url":"http://www.fian.org/resources/documents/rtfn-watch/right-to-food-and-nutrition-watch-2009","body":"The 2009 edition of the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch focuses on the question: \u2018Who controls the governance of the world food system?\u2019 For the first time in history, the number of undernourished people in the world has surpassed the tragic figure of one billion. The gap between promises and reality is increasing as the international community and national governments are far from realising the World Food Summit targets to halve the proportion of chronically hungry people in the world by the year 2015. It is clear that the global governance of the world food system needs to be remodelled in order to effectively overcome hunger and its causes. As an evidence-providing monitoring tool, this book pursues two aims: to put public pressure on policy makers at national and international levels to take the human right to food seriously and to provide a systematic compilation of best practices for the realisation of the right to food, while documenting where violations take place.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual and reproductive health in HIV-related proposals supported by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria","field_subtitle":"Lusti-Narasimhan M, Collin C and Mbizvo M: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(11): 816\u2013823, November 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/11/08-059147.pdf","body":"This paper examined the Global Fund database for elements and indicators of sexual and reproductive health in all approved HIV-related proposals (214) submitted by 134 countries, from rounds 1 to 7, and in an illustrative sample of 35 grant agreements. At least 70% of the HIV-related proposals included one or more of the four broad elements: sexual and reproductive health information, education and communication; condom promotion/distribution; diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted infections; and prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Between 20% and 30% included sexual health counselling, gender-based violence, and the linking of voluntary counselling and testing for HIV with sexual and reproductive health services. Less than 20% focused on adolescent sexual and reproductive health, the rights and needs of people living with HIV, or safe abortion services. Country coordinating mechanisms and national-level stakeholders see in funding for sexual and reproductive health a means to address the problem of HIV infection in their respective national settings. However, the paper highlights some missed opportunities for linking HIV and sexual and reproductive health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa Survey 2008/2009","field_subtitle":"South African Institute of Race Relations: 2009","field_url":"http://www.sairr.org.za/research-and-publications/south-africa-survey-2008-2009","body":"International comparisons show that the average South African will not live longer than 50 years. South Africa was one of only six out of a group of 37 developed and developing countries that had a decreasing life expectancy between 1990 and 2007. South Africa\u2019s life expectancy decreased from 62 years in 1990, to 50 years in 2007. Only Zimbabwe had a worse trend for life expectancy. The statistics in this report show that, in 2009, the average life expectancy at birth for South Africans was 51 years. Between 2001 and 2006 the life expectancy at birth was 51 years for males, and 55 years for females. This is expected to decrease between 2006 and 2011 to 48 years for males, and 51 years for females. KwaZulu-Natal had the lowest life expectancy at birth in 2009 at 43 years, followed by the Free State and Mpumalanga at 47 years each. These three provinces also had some of the highest HIV prevalence rates at 16%, 14%, and 14% respectively. International comparisons also show that in 2007, some 27% of males and 33% of females in South Africa would survive to age 65. Out of a comparison group of 37 developing and developed countries, only Mozambique and Zimbabwe had lower survival rates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Spurring local innovation in Africa by improving access to information ","field_subtitle":"Esalimba R and New W: Intellectual Property Watch 19 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/10/19/spurring-local-innovation-in-africa-by-improving-access-to-information/","body":"Researchers and innovators in developed countries seeking authoritative information on how to solve a particular technical problem or develop a new product generally turn either to scientific journals or patent information. However, patent information enjoys certain advantages over scientific journals, according to William Meredith, head of the World Intellectual Property Organization Patent Information and IP Statistics Section. Despite the stated benefits of patent disclosure, Gakuru Muchemi, a senior lecturer at the Department of Electrical and Information Engineering of the University of Nairobi, noted in an interview that \u2018the use of patent disclosure information either as a research tool or teaching aid in our institutions of learning and research still remains unused or underutilised.\u2019 On the other hand, Meredith added that, \u2018even where the innovators in developing countries may not be able to reproduce the latest cutting edge technology contained in patent documents, they may be still be able to use information contained in the specifications about the technology to adapt to local situations.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Students investigate intersection of poverty, climate change","field_subtitle":"United Nations Foundation: November 2009","field_url":"http://www.unfoundation.org/our-impact/engaging-youth/students-investigate-intersection-poverty-climate-change.html","body":"In 2009, students from more than 90 countries tackled the intersection of poverty and climate change. For the past two years, the Global Debates have focused on several climate change issues - water rights, carbon emissions, action plans, obligation of developed nations and more. However, these issues relate also to the impact that global warming has on international development and our ability to end extreme poverty. These facts are a part of the growing evidence that students will bring to Global Debate activities this year, through writing blogs on the UN\u2019s response to climate change and poverty, and collaborating with elected leaders on the importance of a comprehensive climate treaty in Copenhagen.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Swaziland has world's highest rates of HIV and TB","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 4 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=86879","body":"Swaziland not only has the world's highest HIV prevalence rate, it now also has the highest tuberculosis (TB) rate, but health officials warn that not enough is being done to integrate TB and HIV services. One in four adults is infected with HIV. By the end of 2007, an estimated 170,000 people were living with HIV, and every year an estimated 13,000 people develop TB, the primary opportunistic disease in HIV-positive people. Themba Dlamini, manager of Swaziland's National TB Control Programme, said 80% of Swaziland's TB cases were also HIV-positive. But with governments focused on HIV/AIDS, TB has not been getting enough attention. Swaziland's Health Minister, Benedict Xaba, said that, although the country provided free TB medicines, other costs, such as hospital fees and transport, made it difficult for many people to access health services. About 58% of TB patients completed their six-month course of treatment last year, falling far short of the 85% target recommended by the World Health Organization. International guidelines also set a 70% detection target for TB, but in Swaziland the case detection rate is below 60%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Systematic reviews in health policy and systems research","field_subtitle":"Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research Briefing Note 4: September 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/resources/AllianceHPSR_Brief_Note4_ENG.pdf","body":"Policy-makers and health system managers routinely face difficult decisions around improving health and promoting equity. They must consider complex, core questions about particular programmes to implement and effective strategies for organising the overall health system. For instance, does contracting out services to the private sector improve access to health care? How could the health system best retain trained health care providers in underserved areas? Do conditional cash transfers improve the uptake of health interventions? This brief provides essential background information to systematic reviews: how they are conducted, what they entail and their theoretical roots. It discusses tools like GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation) and organisations like the Cochrane Collaboration. The brief calls for increased funding to support systematic reviews, improved methodological development in the reviewing process, increased networking and the need to promote training of end-users. The use of knowledge translation is highlighted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The 2008\u20132009 financial crisis and the HIPCS: Another debt crisis?","field_subtitle":"Presbitero A: Money and Finance Research Group, 2009","field_url":"http://www.mofir.univpm.it/files/working%20paper/Mofir_29.pdf","body":"This paper states that heavily indebted and poor countries (HIPCs) have started accumulating external debt reaching extreme ratios of debt to GDP and exports. These HIPCs are facing a food crisis and a decline in exports and GDP exposing them to shock and leading them to more debt. The author asserts that HIPCs lack appropriate tools to deal with multiple external shocks and will be affected in the long run by the likely reduction in social spending. This will affect the Millennium Development Goals affecting indices like infant mortality thus lowering the economic growth rates. The paper uses available data to make projections and comparisons and highlight the bleak picture. The paper advises that the donors should provide financing for the most vulnerable countries to preserve their gains and prevent a humanitarian crisis. The rich world and the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) should reshape their policy agenda, focusing much more attention and providing more resources and assistance to low-income countries. The call for a temporary debt moratorium on all official debt of low-income countries by the IFIs is commendable but far from adequate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Deadly Ideas of Neoliberalism: How the IMF Has Undermined Public Health and the Fight Against HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Rowden R: Zed Books, 2009","field_url":"http://www.wisepress.com/cgi-bin/showgoods.cgi?gid=178924","body":"This book explores the history of and current collision between two of the major global phenomena that have characterized the last 30 years: the spread of HIV and AIDS and other diseases of poverty and the ascendancy of neoliberal economic ideas. The book explains not only how International Monetary Fund policies of restrictive spending have exacerbated public health problems in developing countries, in particular the HIV and AIDS crisis, but also how such issues cannot be resolved under these economic policies. It also suggests how mounting global frustration about this inability to adequately address HIV and AIDS will ultimately lead to challenges to the dominant neoliberal ideas, as other more effective economic ideas for increasing public spending are sought. In stark, powerful terms, Rowden offers a unique and in-depth critique of development economics, the political economy dynamics of global foreign aid and health institutions, and how these seemingly abstract factors play out in the real world - from the highest levels of global institutions to African finance and health ministries to rural health outposts in the countryside of developing nations, and back again.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The mental health of people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa: A systematic review","field_subtitle":"Brandt R: African Journal of AIDS Research 8(2): 123\u2013133, 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.cssr.uct.ac.za/publications/journal-article/2009/543","body":"This paper reviews published quantitative research on the mental health of HIV-infected adults in Africa. Twenty-seven articles published between 1994 and 2008 reported the results of 23 studies. Most studies found that about half of HIV-infected adults sampled had some form of psychiatric disorder, with depression the most common individual problem. People living with HIV or AIDS (PLHIV) tended to have more mental health problems than non-HIV-infected individuals, with those experiencing less problems less likely to be poor and more likely to be employed, educated and receiving antiretroviral treatment (ART). While some key findings emerged from the studies, the knowledge base was diverse and the methodological quality uneven, so studies lacked comparability and findings were not equally robust. Priorities for future research should include replicating findings regarding common mental health problems among PLHIV, important issues among HIV-infected women, and the longer-term mental health needs of those on ART. Research is also needed into predictors of mental health outcomes and factors associated with adherence to ART, which can be targeted in interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The production of consumption: Addressing the impact of mineral mining on tuberculosis in southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Basu S, Stuckler D, Gonsalves G and Lurie M: Globalization and Health 5(11), 29 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-5-11.pdf","body":"Migration to and from mines contributes to HIV risks and associated tuberculosis (TB) incidence. Health and safety conditions within mines also promote the risk of silicosis (a TB risk factor) and transmission of tuberculosis bacilli in close quarters. In the context of migration, current TB prevention and treatment strategies often fail to provide sufficient continuity of care to ensure appropriate TB detection and treatment. Reports from Lesotho and South Africa suggest that miners pose transmission risks to other household or community members as they travel home undetected or inadequately treated, particularly with drug-resistant forms of TB. Reducing risky exposures on the mines, enhancing the continuity of primary care services, and improving the enforcement of occupational health codes may mitigate the harmful association between mining activities and TB incidence among affected communities. A number of immediately available measures to improve continuity of care for miners, change recruitment and compensation practices, and reduce the primary risk of infection may help reduce South Africa\u2019s TB burden.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2009","field_subtitle":"United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization: 2009","field_url":"http://www.fao.org/icatalog/search/dett.asp?aries_id=110491","body":"This report presents the latest statistics on global undernourishment and concludes that structural problems of underinvestment have impeded progress toward the World Food Summit goal and the first Millennium Development Goal hunger reduction target. This disappointing state of affairs has been exacerbated by first the food crisis and now the global economic crisis that, together, have increased the number of undernourished people in the world to more that one billion for the first time since 1970. This crisis is different from those developing countries have experienced in the past, because it is affecting the entire world simultaneously and because developing countries today are more integrated into the global economy than in the past. In the context of the enormous financial pressures faced by governments, the twin-track approach remains an effective way to address growing levels of hunger in the world. Investments in the agriculture sector, especially for public goods, will be critical if hunger is to be eradicated.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Unheard Truth: Poverty and Human Rights","field_subtitle":"Khan I: Amnesty International, 2009","field_url":"http://www.theunheardtruth.org/","body":"Ending poverty is almost certainly doomed to fail if it is driven solely by the imperative of boosting economic growth through investment, trade, new technology or foreign aid, according to this book. Fighting poverty is about fighting deprivation, exclusion, insecurity and powerlessness. People living in poverty lack material resources but that more than that, they lack control over their own lives. To tackle global poverty, we need to focus on the human rights abuses that drive poverty and keep people poor. Giving people a say in their own future, and demanding that they be treated with dignity and respect for their rights is the way to make progress. Through personal reflection and case studies, Khan shows why poverty is first and foremost not a problem of economics but of human rights. As the numbers of people living in poverty swell to upwards of two billion, she argues that poverty is the world's worst human rights crisis. Slums are growing at an alarming rate condemning a billion people to live in dismal conditions. More than half a million women are dying every year due to complications related to pregnancy and childbirth, and 99% of these are in the developing world because of discrimination and denial of essential health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards good humanitarian government: The role of the affected state in disaster response","field_subtitle":"Harvey P: Humanitarian Policy Group Policy Brief 37, 2009","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/4196.pdf","body":"This brief asserts that research relating to humanitarian crises has largely focused on what international aid agencies and donor governments do in response to disasters. Instead, this paper focuses on the role of the affected state in responding to the needs of its own citizens. It found that one of the goals of international humanitarian actors should always be to encourage and support states to fulfil their responsibilities to assist and protect their own citizens in times of disaster. Too often, aid agencies have neglected the central role of the state, and neutrality and independence have been taken as shorthand for disengagement from state structures, rather than as necessitating principled engagement with them. States should invest their own resources in assisting and protecting their citizens in disasters, both because it is the humane thing to do and because it can be politically popular and economically effective. The roles and responsibilities of states in relation to humanitarian aid are four-fold: they are responsible for 'calling' a crisis and inviting international aid; they provide assistance and protection for themselves; they are responsible for monitoring and coordinating external assistance; and they set the regulatory and legal frameworks governing assistance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Twenty-sixth International Pediatric Association (IPA) Congress of Pediatrics 2010","field_subtitle":"Registration deadlines: 31 March and 22 July 2010","field_url":"http://www.ipa-world.org/IPAcongress/default.htm?ref3=db1","body":"Three leading paediatric associations are uniting to host the 26th IPA Congress of Pediatrics in Johannesburg, South Africa from 4\u20139 August 2010. More than 5,000 participants are expected to attend this landmark event, the first IPA congress to be held in sub-Saharan Africa. It will unite paediatricians and health professionals working towards the target set by Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce child mortality by two thirds before 2015. The scientific programme is designed to meet the needs of general paediatricians from both the developed and the developing world. Plenary sessions will include: the MDGs and the current state of health of children in the world, and progress towards the MDGs; the state of the world\u2019s newborns, including major issues determining maternal and newborn health in developing and developed countries; the determinants of health, such as genetics, nutrition and the environment; disasters and trauma affecting child health, such as disasters, crises and the worldwide epidemic of trauma; and the global burden of infectious diseases affecting children and the challenge of emerging infections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda\u2019s Counterfeits Bill threatens access to medicine","field_subtitle":"Wambi M: IPS News, 6 November 2009 ","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49163","body":"Uganda is considering an anti-counterfeit bill which analysts say will impair the country\u2019s ability to import and export cheap but effective generic medicines. Activists fear that the bill, once enacted, will deny Ugandans access to safe, effective, quality and affordable generic medication, which currently forms the bulk of Uganda\u2019s medicine imports. Edgar Tabaro, a Ugandan lawyer specialising in trade-related matters, questions the necessity of the bill, saying that whatever it ostensibly seeks to address is covered by different laws like the Trademarks Act, Copyright Act, the Patents Act and the Trade Secrets Act. Rosette Mutambi, executive director of the Coalition for Health Promotion and Social Development (HEPS-Uganda), regards the bill as a threat to the lives of many Ugandans who largely depend on generic anti-retroviral drugs and other medicine. She said only about 10% of the medicines used in Uganda are locally manufactured. And only about 5 to 7% of the imported medicines are original brands, meaning that about 93% of imported drugs are generics, mostly imported from India.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Updating economic partnership agreements to today\u2019s global challenges: Essays on the future of economic partnership agreements","field_subtitle":"Jones E and Marti DF: GMF Economic Policy Programme, 19 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.gmfus.org/template/download.cfm?document=/doc/GMF7257_Final_Ebook.pdf","body":"African and Pacific countries continue to negotiate the challenging Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the European Union. These new agreements have the potential to help African countries accelerate their economic growth and develop more resilient economies. However, the presence of negotiating deadlocks or a sense of fatigue as well as the lack of real appetite for these agreements among many African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) negotiators, raise legitimate questions regarding their structure and content, as well as their ability to constitute instruments to leverage economic growth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"We count too: Addressing the orientation and adequacy of health workers for mental health needs in Africa ","field_subtitle":"David Ndetei African Mental Health Foundation, Caleb Othieno, University of Nairobi","field_url":"","body":"Worldwide, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2001, mental and behavioural disorders affect 450 million people and account for 15% of the overall burden of diseases from all causes. Yet, nearly two-thirds of those affected do not receive adequate care due to stigma, discrimination, neglect and poverty. Mental health is an integral part of the whole health of a person. Even when physical illness predominates, the mental health status of the person can influence the course and outcome of physical illness.  While the prevalence and pattern of mental health disorders are similar in high and low income countries, for low income countries the challenges of providing mental health services are myriad. They range from mental health being given low priority by policy makers, to poor or unavailable services in terms of infrastructure and services, to inadequate health workers oriented to mental health care needs. \r\n\r\nHealth worker shortages have received increasing attention of late as one of the most critical gaps in the provision of services.  Too often, however, the critical gap in mental health personnel is overlooked. There is a particular shortage of mental health workers in low income countries. Estimates show that there is an average of one psychiatrist for two million people in low-income countries compared to one for every 10,000 people in the high-income countries. In Kenya for example, there is one psychiatrist per four million people and mental health services at the primary level are largely left to general nurses and clinical officers. Kiima and colleagues in 2004 found that these personnel readily recognise psychosis, but are less able to recognise learning disorders, emotional disorders and conduct disorders in children and adolescents. Primary care staff who feel uncertain of their skills in this area may not adequately diagnose mental health problems, or may refer cases to higher level facilities. Besides being expensive, this leaves a large number of mentally ill patients untreated.  The social and economic cost, as with other areas of unmet need, then falls on the individual, family and community. \r\n\r\nIt seems unlikely, in the foreseeable future, that we will achieve the psychiatrist: population ratio levels in developing countries that compare to what has been attained in developed countries.  This is especially so as internal and external migration draw specialized personnel out of our health systems and out of services in poorest communities where health needs are high.  How then can we meet the significant deficit in addressing a public health burden like mental health, at a time of  major shortfalls in our health systems?\r\n\r\nWHO has in recent years proposed task-shifting as one way of filling the gap in availability of health workers. This implies transferring skills to less academically qualified but more available personnel to provide key services. There are some emergent efforts in Kenya to replicate this for mental health services. The various mental health issues and service roles in different stages of the cycle of prevention, treatment and care are explored to assess where task-shifting provides a feasible possibility to reach the community and improve service provision. These efforts must still be shown to make a real difference in effective services for communities. They need to link skilled health personnel with those in frontline care through supervision and support so still demand these high skill personnel for leadership, and in research and higher training.  So task shifting makes it even more important to find effective options for retaining these high skill personnel in their own countries and to link their own desired career paths to the needs of the health system. Kenya has been notable in the region for its production and retention of psychiatrists and could make a very interesting case study on the success of national retention psychiatrists, even though these personnel may not be equitably distributed in the country.  \r\n\r\nThe task shifting debate also draws attention to wider, primary health care (PHC) oriented and innovative options that integrate mental health into other promotive, preventive and curative services at community level. A holistic approach is in accordance with the WHO definition of health, that encompasses physical, social and mental wellbeing. Wiley-Exley in 2007 in a 10-year review of community mental health care in low- and middle-income countries showed that community based care can provide improvements in mental health, even though more work is needed in specific areas such as services for children and adolescents. Preliminary work by Jenkins in Kenya shows that retraining of primary health workers in mental health can have an impact in the number of correctly diagnosed mental health cases and the quality of referrals.  Othieno and colleagues, with Department of psychiatry, University of Nairobi and with EQUINET support, have worked with community members in Kariobangi in the suburbs of Nairobi using participatory methods to recognize and find ways of dealing with cases of mental illness in their community. A similar approach has been used to encourage compliance among those with HIV infection who engage in harmful alcohol use. These case reports, both found in more detail on the EQUINET website,  suggest that participatory action research methods could be effective in detection and management of mental health issues at primary care services and in the community. More work is needed in this area and if replication in other parts of the country proves its efficacy, it could be included in the curriculum for the health workers at all levels.  As noted with the task shifting discussion, however these approaches should be complemented by developing referral and tertiary services, and skilled personnel. This is not only needed to support the implementation and supervision of PHC approaches to mental health, but also because as the needs are recognized, referrals from the primary care facilities are bound to increase. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit EQUINET: www.equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Women and health: Today's evidence tomorrow's agenda","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2009","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2009/9789241563857_eng.pdf","body":"Despite considerable progress in the past decades, societies continue to fail to meet the health care needs of women at key moments of their lives, particularly in their adolescent years and in older age. These are the key findings of this report. The World Health Organization (WHO) calls for urgent action both within the health sector and beyond to improve the health and lives of girls and women around the world, from birth to older age. The report provides the latest and most comprehensive evidence available to date on women's specific needs and health challenges over their entire life-course. It includes the latest global and regional figures on the health and leading causes of death in women from birth, through childhood, adolescence and adulthood, to older age.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Working with civil society in fragile states: How can civil society in fragile states be effectively supported?","field_subtitle":"Dowst M: International NGO Training and Research Centre, 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.intrac.org/data/files/resources/621/Briefing-Paper-23-Working-with-Civil-Society-in-Fragile-States.pdf","body":"This briefing paper aims to distil the core questions which the fragile states literature and experiences in fragile states present, with the aim of structuring space for discussion of these issues in non-governmental organisation (NGO) practice and exploring directions for further research. It found that networks are not guaranteed to work better solely by having increased resources and in many cases are not a genuine solution. NGOs must work in and strive to ameliorate the environment of mistrust through building trust and social cohesion at a community level. Underlying all fragile states discussion must be a thorough and continuous contextual analysis, as cases of fragility vary greatly and are individually extremely dynamic. There is clearly a need for civil society to innovate and pursue alternative solutions in fragile states where traditional methods do not seem to be working. The challenge for civil society is to engage more effectively in policy dialogue on fragile stages, building on their programmatic experience of working directly with poor communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Disasters Report 2009","field_subtitle":"Collins A, Maunde N and McNabb M: International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 2009","field_url":"http://www.ifrc.org/Docs/pubs/disasters/wdr2009/WDR2009-full.pdf","body":"This report focuses on two key aspects of disaster risk reduction: early warning and early action. Advances in science and technology, in forecasting techniques and the dissemination of information are major contributors to reducing mortality. However, the development of a more people-centred approach is also essential. The report gives a more comprehensive explanation about the different interventions in disaster management and risk reduction such as: an introduction to early warning systems for different hazards and early action; emphasising the link between early warnings and early actions; taking a people-centred approach by finding out how individuals and communities can understand the threats to their own survival and well-being, share that awareness with others and take actions to avoid or reduce disaster; and, in terms of food insecurity, knowing what actions should follow the early warning. A system of data collection to monitor peoples' access to food, in order to provide timely notice when a food crisis threatens and thus to elicit an appropriate response should be developed in order to mitigate the occurrence of the disaster.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Trade Report 2009","field_subtitle":"World Trade Organization: November 2009","field_url":"http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/anrep_e/world_trade_report09_e.pdf","body":"This report examines the range of contingency measures available in trade agreements and the role that these measures play. These measures allow governments a certain degree of flexibility within their trade commitments and can be used to address circumstances that could not have been foreseen when a trade commitment was made. The tension between credible commitments and flexibility is often close to the surface during trade negotiations. One of the main objectives of this report is to analyse whether the World Trade Organization (WTO) provisions provide a balance between supplying governments with necessary flexibility to face difficult economic situations and adequately defining them in a way that limits their use for protectionist purposes. The report also discusses alternative policy options, including the renegotiation of tariff commitments, the use of export taxes, and increases in tariffs up to their legal maximum ceiling or binding.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Writing skills for peer-reviewed journals: Regional skills workshop report ","field_subtitle":"Training and Research Support Centre and EQUINET: September 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REPwriting260909.pdf","body":"As part of its ongoing skills development programme, the Regional Network fort Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) has committed to developing the writing skills of health equity researchers in the region, particularly with regards to writing for peer-reviewed journals, as well as for improving writing skills on EQUINET discussion papers. This workshop took place as part of the post-conference activities of the EQUINET conference September 2009 on Reclaiming the Resources for Health. It was convened by Rebecca Pointer under the auspices of the Training and Research Support Centre. The workshop used the EQUINET writing skills raining manual found as its core resource material. It sought to equip researchers with a basic step-by-step approach to writing for peer-reviewed journals, and to approach scientific writing as a routine process. The participants were those working on publications in areas related to health equity from countries in east and southern Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Me-too' innovation in pharmaceutical markets","field_subtitle":"Jena AB, Calfee JE, Mansley EC and Philipson TJ: Forum for Health Economics & Policy 12(1): Article 5, 2009","field_url":"http://www.bepress.com/fhep/12/1/5","body":"Critics of 'me-too' innovation often argue that follow-on drugs offer little incremental clinical value over existing pioneer products, while at the same time increasing health care costs. This study examines whether consumers view follow-on and pioneer drugs as close substitutes or distinct clinical therapies. For five major classes of drugs, it found that large reductions in the price of pioneer molecules after patent expiration \u2013 which would typically lead to decreased consumption of strong substitutes \u2013 have no effect on the trend in demand for follow-on drugs. The findings are likely unaffected by health insurance, competitive pricing of me-toos, marketing, and switching costs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018The fewer the children the better the care\u2019","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 17 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87081","body":"Africa will fail to achieve most UN Millennium Development Goals unless countries adopt effective family planning programmes and control rapid population growth, said Khama Rogo, World Bank senior adviser, speaking at a three-day international conference on family planning, organised by the Gates Foundation and Johns Hopkins and Makerere universities and held (from 16\u201318 November) in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. More than 1,000 policy-makers, researchers, academics and health professionals from 59 countries attended the event. Various speakers warned that the rate of Africa's population increase was too rapid, with women in some countries having on average seven children each. \u2018Family planning improves maternal health, thereby increasing women's productivity and reducing dependency at both family and national levels,\u2019 said Chisale Mhango, director of reproductive health at Malawi's Health Ministry. \u2018Fewer children means manageable education targets; more children means that parents will mainly educate sons, which promotes gender inequality,\u2019 he added. \u2018The fewer the children the better the care, the more the food, the lower the child mortality and there will be savings for health provision.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"2008 National Antenatal HIV and Syphilis Prevalence Survey","field_subtitle":"South African Department of Health: 5 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/nassps-f.html","body":"This prevalence survey \u2013 based on blood samples from 34,000 pregnant women who attended antenatal clinics in 52 health districts in South Africa \u2013 measured HIV prevalence at 29.3%, compared to 29.4% in 2007 and 29% in 2006. Prevalence among women aged 15 to 40 declined slightly from 22.1% in 2007 to 21.7% in 2008, but the infection rate among women in the 30 to 34 age group rose from 39.6% in 2007 to 40.4% in 2008. Age was found to be the most important risk factor, with women of 22 years or older significantly more likely to be HIV-infected. In this age group, race was the next most important factor, with 37.6% of African women infected, compared to 6.8% of white, Asian and coloured (mixed race) women. The figures revealed wide variations between the country's nine provinces: as in previous years, KwaZulu-Natal Province recorded the highest prevalence (38.7%) and Western Cape the lowest (16.1%); at district level the disparities were even greater - in some the infection rate was as high as 45%, in others as low as 5%. The survey authors strongly recommended that the health department conduct more in-depth epidemiological surveys to investigate the causes of these wide disparities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"A doctor in your pocket","field_subtitle":"The Economist: 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/hiv-and-aids&id=44540&type=Document","body":"This special report on health care and technology describes how developing countries are using mobile phones to provides personalised medicine. Drawing from experiences of various countries, the authors demonstrate how new technologies help to tackle the health problems of the world\u2019s poorest. The authors argue that given their ubiquity, personal convenience and interactivity, mobile phones offer an innovative way to reach reticent HIV sufferers. With demonstrated success in the use of mobiles for health (mHealth) in the likes of Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Mexico, the authors recommend that the visible face of any mHealth or e-health scheme, regardless of where it operates, needs to be as simple and user-friendly as possible, whereas the hidden back end should use sophisticated software and hardware. The authors conclude that the poor clearly benefit from technical improvements that cut the cost of manufacturing medical devices, make drugs more effective, or eliminate the need for refrigerating vaccines, as well as through big technical breakthroughs that save many millions of lives. Mobile phones, as demonstrated from the examples in this report, can aid early detection, effective early responses, and remote medicine.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"A global fund for the health MDGs?","field_subtitle":"Global AIDS Alliance: The Lancet 373: 1500\u20131502, 2 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.globalaidsalliance.org/page/-/PDFs/Lancet_Global_Fund_Health_MDGs.pdf","body":"The world is not on track to achieve the health-related targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. As a solution, this article proposes a global fund for health Millenium Develelopment Goals, which will focus on measurable improvements in health outcomes, with a performance evaluation framework that looks at coverage with services relating to reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health, HIV, malaria and tuberculosis, other infectious and non-communicable chronic diseases, quality of care, and fairness of financial contribution to the health system. Clear mandate and funding criteria that address key bottlenecks in health systems (including long-term predictable support for recurrent costs) are needed. A rights-based approach to health is the ideal, supported by new model of globally shared financial sustainability. The fund should have the capacity to disburse resources beyond the public system and beyond health sector when this represents appropriate and cost-effective approach to improve health outcomes. Its governance and accountability structure will be open to civil society at global and country levels and will be flexible enough to provide support to public sector on-budget or off-budget, in form of grants and not loans, unconstrained by financial ceilings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"A step too far? Making health equity interventions in Namibia more sufficient","field_subtitle":"Low A, Ithindi T and Low A: International Journal for Equity in Health, 28 April 2003","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/2/1/5","body":"Concepts of fair distribution of health, such as equity of access to medical care, may not be sufficient to equalise health outcomes but, nevertheless, they may be more practical and effective in advancing health equity in developing countries. This study used a framework for relating health equity goals to development strategies allowing progressive redistribution of primary health care resources towards the more deprived communities is formulated. The framework is applied to the development of primary health care in post-independence Namibia. In Namibia health equity has been advanced through the progressive application of health equity goals of equal distribution of primary care resources per head, equality of access for equal met need and equality of utilisation for equal need. For practical and efficiency reasons it is unlikely that health equity would have been advanced further or more effectively by attempting to implement the goal of equality of health status. The goal of equality of health status may not be appropriate in many developing country situations; instead, a stepwise approach based on progressive redistribution of medical services and resources may be better.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to safe medicine a public health issue, not IP, says panel","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 4 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/10/04/access-to-safe-medicine-a-public-health-issue-not-ip-says-panel/","body":"Anti-counterfeiting initiatives might have a negative impact on access to medicines while not addressing the problem of fake medicines, particularly in developing countries, says a panel, which met on 25 September at the World Intellectual Property Organization General Assemblies. Confusion between legitimate generic medicines, poor quality medicines and those illegally copying the trademark of a brand-name product could have a devastating impact, and a precise definition and scope of counterfeiting is needed, they said. IP enforcement measures should only be used against drugs with trademark violations. Counterfeit medicines are products that are packaged to intentionally look like a legitimate product but are not. This is a trademark infringement. On the other hand, substandard medicine is a legitimately produced medicine that does not meet the standards set by the relevant drug regulatory authority. This is an issue of quality control. \u2018When we speak about anti-counterfeiting initiatives, we are basically referring to the global IP enforcement agenda,\u2019 Sangeeta Shashikant, senior legal advisor at the Third World Network, said at the meeting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"All for universal health coverage","field_subtitle":"Garrett L, Mushtaque A, Chowdhury R and Pablos-M\u00e9ndez Ariel: The Lancet 374(9697): 1294\u20131299, 10 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2961503-8/fulltext","body":"Debate has emerged that pits health-systems support against targeted health campaigns. In classical terms, the debate may be framed as the Bismarck model versus the Beveridge model, but this dichotomy is increasingly viewed as being as false as that which seeks to pit vertical schemes of health against horizontal. In truth, development of systems capable of delivering health, generally, or specifically targeted campaigns and health initiatives, all rely on the existence of health financing mechanisms that offer universal access to health. The specific nature of such financing schemes and service delivery models will vary between nations. To assume that universal health coverage necessarily requires a single-payer government mechanism would be a mistake, and adherents to that position doom the people of the poorest nations to generations of medical deficiency. Whether a nation chooses a mixed economy model of coverage, single-payer mode, donor-issued voucher mechanism, or other innovative models of universal financing is not the issue. Provision of universal health coverage is the issue facing the entire global health construct. Sadly, for most of the world's populations universal health coverage remains a mirage, blurred further out of focus by the present world financial crisis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing progress in Africa towards the Millennium Development Goals","field_subtitle":"Economic Commission for Africa and African Union: 2008","field_url":"http://www.uneca.org/eca_programmes/acgd/docs/Assessing%20MDGs_Report%202008.pdf","body":"This report presents a picture that is slightly at variance with many other reports on Africa\u2019s progress towards the targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It shows that progress is being made in a number of areas such as primary enrolment, gender parity in primary education, malaria deaths and representation of women in parliaments. There has also been a reinforcement of state capacity to deliver growth in many countries. If this rate of progress continues, the continent will be on course to meet a significant number of the MDGs by the target date (2015), but not all. A critical area for progress is the health-related MDGs, where progress is slowest. Interventions to accelerate progress on the health MDGs will yield significant dividend. In sum, the preconditions for accelerating progress to meet the targets of the MDGs are now largely in place, albeit constrained by inadequate resource flows and capacity in some critical areas like health capacity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing regional integration in Africa 3: Towards monetary and financial integration in Africa","field_subtitle":"Economic Commission for Africa: 2008","field_url":"http://www.uneca.org/aria3/","body":"From the 1960s to the present, many African integration groupings have emerged and faded away. Within the various integration groupings, the development of trade has been a major objective pursued through programmes aimed at achieving a free trade area, a customs union and a common market. But outcomes of decades of experimentation with integration in Africa have on balance remained modest. For instance, African trade statistics continue to paint a generally modest picture of trade between regional economic communities (RECs), as well as intra- African trade. The countries generally lack a strong industrial capacity to produce diversified manufactured goods for trade within regional markets. Many of the multiple national currencies in Africa lack convertibility and efforts towards monetary, financial and physical integration have not been very promising. The cost of doing business in the continent is generally high, due in part to infrastructure gaps, duplicative border procedures and cumbersome paper requirements. Paperless trade still remains a distant objective. The free movement of people and the right of establishment have progressed in some RECs, but remain a paper objective in many other African subregions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Aubrey Sheiham Scholarship: Call for applications","field_subtitle":"Application deadline: 31 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.cochrane.org/docs/Fellowshipsandscholarships.htm#ASPHPCS","body":"The Aubrey Sheiham Public Health and Primary Care Scholarship is a three-month scholarship offered annually by The Cochrane Collaboration to health workers, consumers and researchers living in developing countries. The aim of the scholarship is to enable the development of skills in preparing systematic reviews of healthcare interventions within the Cochrane Collaboration. It is awarded annually for work on a topic related to public health or primary health care. The Aubrey Sheiham Scholar spends the three-month scholarship period in Oxford. The scholar is based at the United Kingdom Cochrane Centre in Oxford for the duration of the Scholarship, and resides in free accommodation provided by the Cochrane Collaboration. They are expected to prepare a Cochrane review during the tenure of the scholarship and, upon returning home, to maintain the review and undertake to train other prospective review authors in Cochrane methods. Preferred recipients will have a good understanding of both spoken and written English, limited access to relevant training where they live and a review topic that is of significant importance to people living in middle- or low-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Audience segmentation as a social-marketing tool in health promotion: Use of the Risk Perception Attitude Framework in HIV prevention in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Rimal RN, Brown J, Mkandawire G, Folda L, B\u00f6se K and Creel AH: American Journal of Public Health 99(9), September 2009","field_url":"http://www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/AJPH.2008.155234v1","body":"This paper sought to determine whether individuals\u2019 risk perceptions and efficacy beliefs could be used to meaningfully segment audiences to assist interventions that seek to change HIV-related behaviours. A household-level survey of 968 individuals was conducted in four districts in Malawi. Cluster analysis was used to create four groups within the risk perception attitude framework: responsive, avoidant, proactive, and indifferent. The researchers ran analysis of covariance models (controlling for known predictors) to determine how membership in the risk perception attitude framework groups would affect three variables: knowledge about HIV, HIV-testing uptake and condom use. A significant association was found between membership in one or more of the four Risk Perception Attitude Framework groups and the three variables. In conclusion, the Risk Perception Attitude Framework can serve as a theoretically sound audience segmentation technique to determine whether messages should augment perceptions of risk, beliefs about personal efficacy or both.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Bacteraemia in Kenyan children with sickle-cell anaemia: A retrospective cohort and case-control study","field_subtitle":"Williams T, Uyoga S, Macharia A, Ndila C, McAuley CF, Opi DH, Mwarumba S, Makani J, Komba A, Ndiritu MN, Sharif SK, Marsh K, Berkley JA and Scott JAG: The Lancet 374(9698): 1364\u20131370, 17 October 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2961374-X/abstract","body":"In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 90% of children with sickle-cell anaemia die before the diagnosis can be made. The causes of death are poorly documented, but bacterial sepsis is probably important. This study examined the risk of invasive bacterial diseases in children with sickle-cell anaemia. It was undertaken in a rural area on the coast of Kenya, with a case-control approach. Blood cultures were undertaken on all children younger than 14 years who were admitted from within a defined study area to Kilifi District Hospital between 1 August 1998 and 31 March 2008 \u2013 those with bacteraemia were defined as cases. The study detected 2,157 episodes of bacteraemia in 38,441 admissions (6%). 1,749 of these children with bacteraemia (81%) were typed for sickle-cell anaemia, of whom 108 (6%) were positive as were 89 of 13,492 controls (1%). The study concludes that the organisms causing bacteraemia in African children with sickle-cell anaemia are the same as those in developed countries. Introduction of conjugate vaccines against S pneumoniae and H influenzae into the childhood immunisation schedules of African countries could substantially affect survival of children with sickle-cell anaemia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Geneva Health Forum: Toward Global Access to Health","field_subtitle":"Submission date: 30 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.ghf10.org/reports/150","body":"The Geneva Health Forum is a joint initiative launched by the Geneva University Hospitals and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva in partnership with the several international organisations active in health in Geneva and around the world. The Forum brings together a diverse range of actors involved in global health - from field workers to policy-makers. The GHF forms a developing global network for international and inter-sectoral dialogue, which has the vision of facilitating the strengthening of health systems and basic health services, striving to keep global access to health on the international agenda. The theme of next year\u2019s Forum is 'Globalisation, Crisis and Health Systems: Confronting Regional Perspectives'. It will take place from 19\u201321 April 2010 in Geneva, Switzerland. The opening date for registration online is 30 October 2009.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Twentieth IUHPE World Conference on Health Promotion: Health, Equity and Sustainable Development","field_subtitle":"Submission deadline: 30 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.iuhpeconference.net","body":"The 20th International Union for Health Promotion and Health Education (IUHPE) World Conference on Health Promotion will take place on 11\u201315 July 2010 in Geneva, Switzerland. The Conference is calling for abstracts. Submissions must cover core health promotion issues, as well as the crucial links between promoting health and the environmental, economic, urban, social and cultural changes that challenge people, societies and the planet. Abstracts for workshops, symposia, other innovative formats and oral presentations/posters can be submitted in English, French or Spanish. For further details and access to online abstract submission forms, please visit the IUHPE World Conference website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for nominations: British Medical Journal awards","field_subtitle":"Deadline for entries: 15 November 2009","field_url":"http://groupawards.bmj.com/","body":"The British Medical Journal (BMJ) would like to invite you to nominate yourself or someone whom you feel has made a significant impact on health care for the annual BMJ Group Awards, 2010. The BMJ Group Awards recognise pioneering individuals and organisations that have demonstrated outstanding and measurable contributions to health care. The range of categories reflects the values of the BMJ Group: Research Paper of the Year; Getting Research into Practice; Primary Care Team of the Year; Secondary Care Team of the Year; Junior Doctor of the Year; Excellence in Healthcare Education; Best Quality Improvement; Clinical Leadership; Corporate Social Responsibility; Health Communicator of the Year; and the BMJ Group Award for Lifetime Achievement. Be sure to visit the BMJ Group Awards website and submit your entry before 15 November 2009.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can private equity deliver on equity?","field_subtitle":"Cometto G and Brikci N: Bulletin of the World Health Organization: 87(10), October 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/10/09-069492/en/index.html","body":"In June 2009, a new Health in Africa Fund was launched by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the branch of the World Bank group mandated with supporting and expanding the private for-profit sector. This Fund will be managed by Aureos Capital, a private equity fund manager focusing on emerging markets. Through investment in small- and medium-sized private providers, the Fund will attempt to\u2019[help] low-income Africans gain access to affordable, high-quality health services.\u2019 The Fund targets initial commitments of US$ 100\u2013120 million and intends harnessing private capital and private sector providers to improve quality and coverage of health services. But it is unlikely to improve access or quality of care unless it is complemented by initiatives to strengthen the public sector capacity to regulate, train, oversee and sub-contract (where appropriate) private providers. In addition, the Fund would also require the development of risk-pooling and subsidy mechanisms, so that privately-provided services can be offered free at the point of delivery. If it fails to do so, there is a concrete risk that, contrary to its objectives, it will contribute to the entrenchment of two-tier health-care systems and to a further concentration of human and financial resources in services catering to affluent urban dwellers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Can WIPO \u2018move forward with the tide of history\u2019?","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch: 30 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/09/30/role-of-wipo-in-question/","body":"At the end of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) General Assemblies, held from 25\u201330 September 2009, frustration at the lack of consensus was palpable, especially among developing countries calling for a legally-binding international instrument. \u2018We believe our countries are being treated unfairly,\u2019 said a delegate from Burundi during the plenary session, in reference to the fact that there is as yet no international instrument to protect traditional knowledge and genetic resources. \u2018The [WIPO] Secretariat is an arbiter and should intervene,\u2019 he added. But others questioned the legally binding instrument as an outcome. Korea suggested in plenary that \u2018perhaps we can prevent misappropriation without proprietisation,\u201d and suggested looking at options to protect traditional knowledge and genetic resources within the existing system, and several developed countries said a renewed mandate should not commit to a specific outcome. Botswana and Zimbabwe mentioned efforts through the African Regional Intellectual Property Office (ARIPO) to create a regional instrument, while Ecuador spoke of creating a national biodiversity and traditional knowledge database that would include sui generis protection measures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Cataract surgery: Ensuring equal access for boys and girls","field_subtitle":"Bronsard A and Shirima S: Community Eye Health Journal 22(70): 28\u201329, 2009","field_url":"http://www.cehjournal.org/0953-6833/22/jceh_22_70_028.html","body":"Surgical intervention is necessary if children with cataract are to regain their sight. In many low- and middle-income countries, cataract is the leading cause of avoidable blindness among children. This article in considers the gender dimensions of surgery and the background to the situation in Tanzania where many children are not brought for surgery in a timely fashion and follow up is often poor. Girls have a significantly lower rate of surgery with only half as many girls receiving treatment as boys and tended to be bought for surgery much later than boys. In poor or struggling communities, sons are often seen as a source of income and financial security for parents when they get older, whereas girls are seen as a financial burden. Analysis showed that women\u2019s level of education, their socioeconomic status, and the decision-making power they had within their household and their community all played a major role in determining whether and when their children would receive cataract surgery and whether they would be taken for follow-up visits. A number of ways forward are discussed including mass media efforts which may provide the first opportunity for rural villagers to learn about the need for early referral of young children with vision loss.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Changes not for the fainthearted: Reorienting health care systems toward health equity through action on the social determinants of health ","field_subtitle":"Baum FE, B\u00e9gin M, Houweling TAJ and Taylor S: American Journal of Public Health 99(11): 1967\u20131974, November 2009","field_url":"http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/full/99/11/1967","body":"Entrenched poor health and health inequity are important public health problems. Conventionally, solutions to such problems originate from the health care sector, a conception reinforced by the dominant biomedical imagination of health. By contrast, attention to the social determinants of health has recently been given new force in the fight against health inequity. The health care sector is a vital determinant of health in itself and a key resource in improving health in an equitable manner. Actors in the health care sector must recognise and reverse the sector's propensity to generate health inequity. The sector must also strengthen its role in working with other sectors of government to act collectively on the deep-rooted causes of poor and inequitable health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Cholera forcing: The myth of the good epidemic and the coming of good water ","field_subtitle":"Hamlin C: American Journal of Public Health 99(11): 1946\u20131954, November 2009","field_url":"http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/full/99/11/1946","body":"It has been frequently claimed that cholera epidemics, both in the 19th century and today, were and can be the key stimulus for procurement of safe water and sanitation, an idea that the author calls \u2018cholera forcing\u2019. \u2018Technology forcing\u2019 refers to imposition of exogenous factors that suddenly make possible achievements that had not seemed so; cholera has been seen in this light. He argues that this view oversimplifies and under-represents the importance of industrialisation in securing water supplies. Careful study of the financial, political, and administrative foundations of such changes will be more fruitful.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Cholera in DRC kills at least 100 in east","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 25 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86297","body":"At least 100 people have died of cholera in parts of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since January. South Kivu Province is the worst affected, with at least 75 people dead and 6,392 infected. The South Kivu governor, Louis Leonce Muderwa, said the 10 worst-affected health zones in the province included Fizi in the region of Baraka, Nundu, Uvira, Kadutu, Ibanda, Bunyakiri, Katana, Minova, Nyantende and Kabare zones. Two deaths have been reported in Kadutu and one each in Ibanda and Katana. Muderwa declared a cholera epidemic there on 14 September. In neighbouring North Kivu Province, 48 deaths had been recorded and 4,609 people infected by 13 September. Other eastern regions have also recorded cases, with Katanga listing 199 new cases and two deaths. The North Kivu provincial medical inspector, Dominique Bahago, blamed the cholera outbreaks on poor hygiene. \u2018The majority of the population's supply of cooking and drinking water is from Lake Kivu where all kinds of waste is dumped; cholera is endemic in that zone,\u2019 said Bahago.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Church of Scotland Hospital a model for TB treatment","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 9 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=86520","body":"Three years ago, the Church of Scotland Hospital in the rural Umsinga area of South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal Province was the epicentre of a deadly outbreak of extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). It was reported that 52 of the 53 patients initially diagnosed died within a month of contracting this strain of TB, which is resistant to both of the first-line antibiotics used to treat the disease, as well as two classes of second-line drugs. At the peak of the epidemic in 2006, Umsinga was contributing more than two-thirds of the XDR-TB and multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) cases in the province, but Dr Tony Moll, Principal Medical Officer at the Church of Scotland Hospital, is credited with leading efforts to turn the tide against the deadly new TB strains. Since then, 488 cases of XDR-TB and 356 cases of MDR-TB have been diagnosed. \u2018The TB prevalence rate is still very high in the area,\u2019 Moll said. \u2018We get about 150 new TB cases every month.\u2019 In 2008, the hospital achieved a TB cure rate of 83%, compared to the national cure rate of about 60%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Cochrane Review Public Health Group","field_subtitle":"Call for peer reviewers","field_url":"http://www.cochrane.org/newslett/PHRGNewsletterSept2009.pdf","body":"Are you interested in helping to peer review a Cochrane Review in progress? The Cochrane Public Health Group\u2019s (PHRG) contact database now contains 500 potential contributors from 55 countries across six continents. Since last year, the PHRG has welcomed representatives from Afghanistan, Fiji Islands, Uruguay and Ghana, just to name a few. As part of the Cochrane Collaborations\u2019 systematic review process, each protocol and subsequent review requires a team of peer reviewers. Peer reviewers are responsible for assessing the relevance and usefulness of the review. This results in Cochrane Reviews that better meet the needs of end users. If you are interested in peer reviewing please contact Jodie. Please make sure you let Jodie know your areas of interest.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Conference: Alliances for Global Health Education presents 1st Latin American and Caribbean Conference on Global Health","field_subtitle":"9\u201311 April 2010: Mexico ","field_url":"http://globalhealthedu.org/events/alliances/Pages/default.aspx","body":"The programme of the conference analyses the differences between South/South collaborations and traditional North/South alliances, examines successes and obstacles to effective functioning of these partnerships and culls lessons that can be learned and adopted by the North.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Consultation on principles guiding joint programming and a funding platform for health system strengthening","field_subtitle":"Save the Children UK: 2009","field_url":"","body":"Recognising the limitations of disease-specific approaches and the shortcomings of a fragmented international architecture for health, Save the Children UK welcomes the process of harmonisation among the World Bank, the Global Fund and the GAVI Alliance of their support to health systems strengthening programmes and activities. Save the Children supports the establishment of a joint funding and programming platform for health system strengthening by the three financiers of international health in line with the principles of the International Health Partnership and related initiatives (IHP+). To make the new joint mechanism completely aligned to the IHP+ principles, Save the Children recommends that the new entity operates in full transparency and openness, with a governance structure open to civil society at both global and country level, and that, in addition to striving for harmonisation among funding agencies, the new platform explicitly adopts the objective of better alignment to national needs.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/34413","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Cost is killing patients: Subsidising effective antimalarials","field_subtitle":"Talisuna A, Grewal P, Rwakimari JB, Mukasa S, Jagoe G and Banerji J: The Lancet 374(9697): 1224\u20131226, 10 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2961767-0/fulltext","body":"The cost of artemisinin-based combination treatments (ACTs), the only truly effective antimalarials, is far beyond the reach of the average family in Africa, let alone poorer populations. The Affordable Medicines Facility for malaria (AMFm), an initiative of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, offers a radical solution: the possibility for countries to procure heavily subsidised ACTs that will reduce the price for patients so it is similar to that of chloroquine. One of the main reasons for mortality from malaria in Uganda is the exorbitant price of non-effective antimalarials and of ACTs in the private sector, which is the first port of call for more than 60% of Ugandans. A pilot study in Uganda, led by the Ministry of Health and Medicines for Malaria Venture, showed that availability of subsidised ACTs led to rapid growth of stocks of these drugs. Drug shops seemed to charge reasonable markups. Supportive interventions, such as communication and training, were essential to ensure accessibility and uptake of ACTs. Affordability of drugs rose in the private sector with a concomitant increase in uptake by children younger than five years. Augmented ACT uptake also eroded the market share of ineffective antimalarials such as chloroquine.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Counterfeit, substandard and generic drugs: Distinct definitions for distinctly different problems","field_subtitle":"Medicin Sans Frontiers: April 2009","field_url":"http://www.msfaccess.org/main/access-patents/counterfeit-substandard-and-generic-drugs/?no_cache=1&print=1","body":"Today there is a real attempt by certain actors to confuse the debate about substandard, counterfeit and generic drugs. Articles in the media often discuss counterfeit, substandard and generic medicines as if they are all one problem and the same solution can be used for all of them. This confusion can have a negative impact \u2013 because if the public believes that generic medicines are the same as counterfeit medicines, they will lose confidence in generic medicine. Another negative consequence of confusing counterfeit and generic drugs, is that this often leads to calls for stronger intellectual property enforcemement, which then creates access to medicines problems. Even at the level of policy makers, these confused messages can have a very negative effect. The World Health Organization (WHO) has a role to play in supporting national regulators to take measures against both counterfeit and substandard medicines. But, perhaps most importantly, WHO should shift its attention to substandard medicines, a much bigger problem.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Country Review Report 7: Republic of Uganda ","field_subtitle":"African Peer Review Mechanism: 21 August 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yzdafp6","body":"Since 1986, Uganda has made substantial progress in promoting good governance at the political and economic fronts. It recorded sustained economic growth averaging 6% over the last two decades, moving from recovery and reconstruction toward sustainable growth and poverty reduction. Macroeconomic stability remains a cornerstone of the country\u2019s reform efforts. According to Uganda Official Statistics, the proportion of people living in absolute poverty, declined from 56% to 35% between 1992 and 2005/06, although per capita income gains have been modest because of the country\u2019s high population. Nonetheless, significant challenges persist, and these include the fight against poverty and corruption, the resolution of the conflict in the North and other forces that hamper Uganda\u2019s democratisation and economic development process. They call for a concerted effort from all interested parties across the country. The major challenge ahead consists in sustaining the momentum of the peer review process through the successful implementation of the National Programme of Action (NPOA) emanating from the exercise. The Forum will receive Annual Progress Reports in this regard and maintain sustained interest in the implementation process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing standards for postpartum hemorrhage in a resource-limited country ","field_subtitle":"Kongnyuy EJ and van den Broek N: Health Care for Women International 30(11): 989\u20131002, November 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/ftinterface~content=a915680595~fulltext=713240928","body":"Traditionally, standards of care have been developed by a panel of experts and then implemented by a multidisciplinary team. This paper considered the feasibility of involving health professionals of all grades and policymakers in the establishment of standards for postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) in Malawi. The team established these standards using evidence from Malawi national guidelines and World Health Organization (WHO) manuals. They agreed on ten objectives and developed the structure, process, and outcome for each objective. The standards addressed different aspects of prevention, diagnosis and treatment. The involvement of both health professionals and policymakers might promote ownership, sustainability and allocation of resources for implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Diarrhoea: Why children are still dying and what can be done","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/child_adolescent_health/documents/9789241598415/en/index.html","body":"This report lays out a seven-point plan that includes a treatment package to reduce childhood diarrhoea deaths and a prevention strategy to ensure long-term results: fluid replacement to prevent dehydration; zinc treatment; rotavirus and measles vaccinations; promotion of early and exclusive breastfeeding and vitamin A supplementation; promotion of hand washing with soap; improved water supply quantity and quality, including treatment and safe storage of household water; and community-wide sanitation promotion. Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, said: \u2018We know where children are dying of diarrhoea. We know what must be done to prevent those deaths. We must work with governments and partners to put this seven-point plan into action.\u2019 Yet, despite the known benefits of improving water supply and sanitation, some 88% of diarrhoeal diseases worldwide are attributable to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene. As of 2006, an estimated 2.5 billion people were not using improved sanitation facilities, and nearly one in every four people in developing countries was practicing open defecation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 78: Policies and incentives for health worker retention in east and southern Africa: Learning from country research ","field_subtitle":"Iipinge S, Dambisya YM, Loewenson R, Chimbari M, Ndetei D, Munga M, Sibandze S and Lugina H: October 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DISS78HRHRET09.pdf","body":"This paper presents a summary of the regional programme on incentives for health worker retention in the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) in co-operation with the East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC). The studies sought to investigate the causes of migration of health professionals, the strategies used to retain health professionals, how they are being implemented, monitored and evaluated, as well as their impact, to make recommendations to enhance the monitoring, evaluation and management of non-financial incentives for health worker retention. They aimed to have some comparability in design to share learning. The findings revealed that all four countries studied (Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya) have put in place strategies to improve morale and retain staff in the public health sector. They were designed after some assessment of the drivers of attrition, often through prior surveys of push/pull factors. All the countries studied were applying a mix of non-financial incentives according to their strategies and plans, although implementation was not always uniform at all levels or for all cadres, or reached all those cadres intended. All implement non-financial incentives, together with some form of financial incentives. All studies indicated the presence of policies providing for non-financial incentives. The country studies observed that incentives were not uniformly applied to all health workers, and did not always reach all in the target category. The studies indicated a need to intensify focus on issues of operationalising and implementing non-financial incentives: moving from inserting incentives in policies and strategies to ensuring their application across all providers; moving from focused application for specific cadres of health workers to sector wide application of incentives for all health workers; and moving from experiments within the health sector to more sustained multi-sectoral policies that involve other sectors, including public service, finance, public works, education and housing. The results of the work were reviewed at a regional meeting to review the findings from this body of work and to explore the implications for policies and measures aimed at valuing and retaining health workers in ESA, develop proposals and guidelines for policy and action relevant to health worker deployment and retention, and identify knowledge gaps for follow up work. The recommendations from this meeting are presented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 79: Capital flows in the health care sector in Zimbabwe: Trends and implications for the health system ","field_subtitle":"Munyuki E and Jasi S: August 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS79pppMUNYUKI.pdf","body":"This review of the capital flows in the health sector in Zimbabwe was carried out in 2008 and draws from secondary evidence. It presents evidence on the current composition of the health sector, particularly showing the public-private mix; trends over time post-1995 in private capital flows to the health sector showing key entry points for capital and the impact on the health care sector of these flows. The paper explores arguments used to support private flows, the role of trade agreements, and the policy, regulatory, institutional and public responses to the capital flows. It comments on issues arising in relation to methods used to analyse capital flows and their impacts, including data availability and bias. The rapid liberalisation of the health sector in Zimbabwe in the late 1990s created opportunities for private capital. While this was a policy objective of the time, it coincided with cuts in public expenditure during the 1990s and an economic crisis post-2000 that meant that private sector growth was not matched with public sector growth. The marked decline in public health investment reversed the major gains made during the 1980s, and private for-profit health care investments were concentrated in a few urban areas serving a minority of the wealthier population. The absence of a national health insurance system resulted in the 90% uninsured population having difficulties in accessing health services. Private health services were concentrated in a few vertically linked operations, sparking fears of anti-competitive behaviour, especially in the retail pharmaceutical sectors. Incentives given to private-for-profit health care providers did not lever public health gains, and the cost of both public and private health care soared, undermining access. The paper highlights areas for increased policy attention: for government to significantly increase public investment in health and control out of pocket expenditure; for the establishment of social health insurance; for the Ministry of Health to use its powers to monitor and regulate the expansion of private capital so that it serves policy objectives of universal coverage and equity. With powerful national interests gaining from profits in the health sector, including in the medical profession, monitoring and advocacy by communities is essential to engage on policy measures that protect equity and access. The paper further notes the regulatory role of the Competition and Tariff Commission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Draft decision emerges from World Intellectual Property Organization General Assemblies","field_subtitle":"World Intellectual Property Organization General Assemblies: 1 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/wipo-ga-decision-on-tk-1-october-2009.pdf","body":"After a year of stalled deliberations on the issue of protecting traditional knowledge, genetic resources and traditional cultural expressions, delegates at the World Intellectual Property Organization General Assemblies on 1 October found a compromise text that gives the committee its strongest mandate yet. The new Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) agreement is to undertake text-based negotiations that will eventually become an \u2018international legal instrument (or instruments)\u2019 to \u2018ensure the effective protection of\u2019 traditional knowledge, genetic resources and traditional cultural expressions (folklore). It also lists three texts \u2013 containing language in the format of a possible draft instrument \u2013 that will form the basis of those negotiations, though it does not limit negotiations to just those texts. It also says there will be three inter-sessional working groups during the next biennium to accelerate the work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Effectiveness of community participation in tuberculosis control","field_subtitle":"Achoki TN, Beke A and Shilumani C: South African Medical Journal 99(10): 722\u2013723, October 2009","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/3159/2518","body":"This study sought to determine the best approach of integrating community interventions for TB control. It evaluated the records of 3,110 new TB patients registered in three Local Service Areas (LSAs), from quarter 1 2004 to quarter 4 2005. It found that bacteriological coverage, smear conversion and treatment success rates dropped in the interventional LSA, while the control LSAs remained consistent. The defaulter rates dropped in all LSAs, while the proportion of unevaluated cases increased in the interventional LSA. However, patients registered in the clinics had better chance of successful treatment outcome compared to their hospital counterparts. The study concluded that community participation by itself is not adequate to improve the performance of a TB control programme. Enhancement of the program\u2019s technical and organisational capacity is crucial, prior to engaging purely community interventions. Failure to observe this logical relationship would ultimately result in suboptimal performance. Therefore, the process of entrusting communities with more responsibility in TB control should be gradual and take cognisance of the various health system factors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 105: Parliamentarians are an important force for health in Eastern and Southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET PRA paper: Improving adherence to ante-retroviral treatment for people with harmful alcohol use in Kariobangi, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Othieno CJ, Obondo A, Mathai M and Loewenson R: October 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Nairobi%20PRA%20Rep%20Oct09.pdf","body":"This study aimed to explore the understanding of and factors in adherence to ARV treatment in people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) who are engaged in harmful alcohol use and to intervene on prioritised factors to improve adherence, using participatory research and action (PRA) methods. We sought to determine the perceptions of and understanding of alcohol abuse and ARV treatment among PLWHA, their peers, family members and health workers. We aimed to increase collaboration between the mental health workers from clinic and hospital level and the community to respond to identified barriers to improve adherence to ARV treatment in PLWHA who use alcohol in a socio-economically deprived urban area in Nairobi (Kariobangi). The work was implemented within an EQUINET programme that aimed to build capacities in participatory action research to explore dimensions of (and impediments to delivery of) Primary Health Care responses to HIV and AIDS. The majority of the PLWHA included in the study were socially disadvantaged, unemployed, and with low education. Social support was equally poor since a large number were widowed, separated or divorced. Most of the PLWHA who participated were single or divorced women, some of whom admitted that they sometimes engaged in commercial sex to cater for their basic needs. These factors, together with poor health, limited their economic opportunities and security. In this context, alcohol use, noted by PLWHA, community members and health workers to be prevalent in the community, is not only encouraged by poor living and social conditions, but also by cost (it is relatively cheap) and by the social pressure to use alcohol to escape the mental stress caused by poverty. This is exacerbated by social attitudes that do not discourage alcohol use, and misconceptions that in fact encourage alcohol use, such as that alcohol can kill the HIV virus. This study suggests that the problem of alcohol abuse is poorly recognised for both communities and health workers: It was generally under reported to services, with low numbers of people on ARVs reported to have alcohol related problems, so that health workers see only a small share of the problem. A survey of the local health centres providing ARVs showed that screening for alcohol use was not routinely done and protocols for managing alcohol related disorders were not available. For PLWHA on ARVs, there are already challenges in dealing with the timing, frequency of medication and appointments and the availability and cost of food to support treatment. For PLWHA who use alcohol these difficulties are compounded. There are a range of services in the community that could potentially address these barriers that are involved in nutrition, psychosocial, medical care, PHC, HIV prevention and treatment services, counselling, social, legal, information and referral support for PLWHA. However these do not explicitly deal with the treatment of alcohol and drug related problems in the community or the needs of PLWHA on ARVs who use alcohol, and their adherence to treatment. Reflecting on these problems, the participants implemented a programme of counselling and education. The health workers were taught how to use the AUDIT in identifying problem drinkers and how to recognise and manage alcohol related disorders such as withdrawal fits. The PLWHA and their family members were encouraged to support one another and to identify symptoms of harmful alcohol use among themselves. The process was perceived by those involved to have reduced the harmful use of alcohol in those involved; to have made some improvements in community and health service support; in management of mental health and communication with families and in reducing stigma around alcohol use and HIV. The scores of the PLWHA on the repeat AUDIT questionnaire were however significantly lower than the baseline level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity-Oriented Toolkit for Health Technology Assessment ","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: October 2009","field_url":"http://www.cgh.uottawa.ca/whocc/projects/eo_toolkit/index.htm","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Knowledge Translation and Health Technology Assessment in Health Equity is currently in the process of updating and expanding its Equity-Oriented Toolkit for Health Technology Assessment (HTA). The toolkit is based on a needs-based model of health technology assessment. It provides tools that explicitly consider health equity at each of the four steps of health technology assessment: burden of illness, community effectiveness, economic evaluation, and knowledge translation and implementation. The Centre has recently received seed funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to update the toolkit via a series of workshops targeting both academics and policy makers. This will allow a debate on the tools to be included \u2013 or not \u2013 at each step. The Centre is exploring the plausibility of incorporating health impact assessment within the toolkit.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Fifth Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA) Conference","field_subtitle":"19 October 2009: Albert Luthuli Convention Centre, Durban, South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal)","field_url":"http://www.phasa2009.org.za/","body":"The theme of this year\u2019s conference is \u2018Millennium Development Goals: Measuring progress in public health in South Africa\u2019. Assessment of progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) during 2008 (the midpoint) revealed a mixed picture: many health goals remain off target, and huge inequities remain between and within countries. Existing evidence suggests that very few, if any, of the MDGs will be achieved in sub-Saharan Africa. The 2009 PHASA Conference is therefore aptly focused on the MDGs and measuring their progress from a public health perspective. An exciting programme is being put together of local and international speakers, including policy makers, leading local and international academics and international organisations, such as the World Health Organisation (WHO).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Fifty quarantined in Tanzania as first H1N1 death reported","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 12 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=86551","body":"At least 50 people have been quarantined in Tanzania's northern district of Mbulu to curb the spread of influenza H1N1, a highly contagious viral disease that killed one person last week, say health officials. The death is the first in East Africa. \u2018We are struggling to control [the] further spread of the disease,\u2019 said Anael Pallangyo, Mbulu District Medical Officer. All 18 dispensaries in the district were now on alert and about 50 patients placed in isolation wards. Tanzanian health authorities have stepped up surveillance at all the country's entry points, where people with flu-related symptoms such as coughing, fever and sneezing are taken to hospital for screening and treatment. The ministry of health recently announced 172 confirmed cases of H1N1 at the end of September.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing Malawi\u2019s health service: A policy brief based on Malawi Health Equity Network\u2019s 2009/2010 Health budget analysis report","field_subtitle":"Malawi Health Equity Network: July 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ylzcept","body":"This budget analysis report focused on expenditure allocated to the health and HIV/AIDS sectors. While a promising increase in funding was achieved overall, questions remain about the allocation of funds. There is little regard of last year\u2019s budget analysis findings and the Malawi Health Equity Network (MHEN) urges government to more actively engage with civil society now, and in the future, to ensure that the people\u2019s voice is represented within the budget. In last year\u2019s analysis, the key issues raised were health service financing; drug availability; health worker incentives; human resource development and management; and the health service impact of HIV and AIDS. Unfortunately many of these issues have not received the desired attention within this budget. MHEN recommends keeping the Abuja Commitment, ensuring efficient and transparent implementation and reporting, building capacity and pro-poor funding to district assemblies, increasing drug allocation and mainstreaming gender and youth issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"G20: One voice for all?","field_subtitle":"Collodi J: 30 September 2009","field_url":"http://community.eldis.org/aidanddebt/Blog/G20--one-voice-for-all","body":"It caught observers and analysts by surprise. The Pittsburgh G20 summit witnessed the death-knell of the G8 as the sole arbiter of global economic policy and the transference of power to the G20 grouping. Officially this will take place at the G20 summit at the end of 2010 in South Korea, as Canada \u2013 in perhaps an unwelcome reminder of parochial G8 decision-making \u2013is keen to keep \u2018its\u2019 G8 event as relevant as possible. The author argues that the G8, after much debate over its futility as a global decision-making body, is consigned as a forum to consider security matters. But the G20 counts just one African nation as a member. Although developing countries such as India, Brazil and South Africa have more authority to speak on behalf of poorer nations, the voices of low-income countries themselves were not included or seemingly solicited. \u2018One of the most important successes of Pittsburgh is that that the G20 is the most qualified forum to deal with global issues,\u2019 African Development Bank president Donald Kaberuka said, speaking on the periphery of a conference. \u2018(However) (t)he way it is now structured...the low-income countries' priorities are still an appendix, a footnote.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender equity in health: The shifting frontiers of evidence and action","field_subtitle":"Sen G and \u00d6stlin P (eds): 29 September 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.routledgesociology.com/books/Gender-Equity-in-Health-isbn9780415801904","body":"This book brings together leading researchers from a variety of disciplines to examine three areas: health disparities and inequity due to gender, the specific problems women face in meeting the highest attainable standards of health, and the policies and actions that can address them. It also brings together experts from a variety of disciplines, such as medicine, biology, sociology, epidemiology, anthropology, economics and political science, who focus on three areas: health disparities and inequity due to gender; the specific problems women face in meeting the highest attainable standards of health; and the policies and actions that can address them. Highlighting the importance of intersecting social hierarchies (such as gender, class and ethnicity) for understanding health inequities and their implications for health policy, contributors detail and recommend policy approaches and agendas that incorporate, but go beyond commonly acknowledged issues relating to women\u2019s health and gender equity in health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Guidance on using the revised Logical Framework","field_subtitle":"UK Department for International Development: February 2009","field_url":"http://mande.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/logical-framework.pdf","body":"The UK Department for International Development (DFID) works with a wide range of partners from long-term arrangements with partner governments and multilateral organisations to short-term humanitarian aid projects funded through non-governmental organisations. DFID's interest is in ensuring that each is devised and delivered in the most efficient and effective way and links to identified objectives set out in a Divisional Performance Framework or Country/Regional Plan. This guide has been written for DFID project workers and DFID partners, and focuses on helping to make the best use of the Logical Framework (logframe) in designing and managing projects. The new designed format aims to address those weaknesses by encouraging the identification of objectives at the right level, more robust specification of indicators, increased coverage of baseline and target information and better quantification of results. The guide applies to any one involved in the design approval or active use of the logframe and all DFID projects of a value of one million pounds and above. Additional guidance in annexes has been provided to help the reader form a broader picture of what is involved in putting together a logframe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"H1N1 cases on the increase in East Africa","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 1 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86386","body":"There has been an increase in the number of pandemic HIN1 influenza cases being reported in the East African region, say medical officials. Some of the new cases have been recorded in schools. \u2018Some 350 H1N1 influenza cases have been confirmed in Kenya,\u2019 said Shahnaaz Sharif, the Director of Public Health, adding that the cases had been mild. \u2018There may be more cases out there.\u2019 So far, no deaths have been reported. Children, young adults and pregnant women, as well as those with pre-existing medical conditions, such as asthma, AIDS, diabetes, heart and blood diseases, are at increased risk of severe and sometimes fatal illness. Sharif said the affected schools in the Nairobi and Central regions had been provided with guidelines and other assistance on disease control. In Uganda, at least 33 H1N1 cases have been confirmed, mainly in the western district of Bushenyi. Health ministry spokesman, Paul Kagwa, said that nine seminarians at the Kitabi Catholic Seminary in Bushenyi had tested positive, while another 300 people were undergoing treatment for flu-related symptoms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Handbook on planning, monitoring and evaluating for development results","field_subtitle":"Kasturiaracchi A, Eriksson T, Rodriques S and Kubota A, UNDP: 2009","field_url":"http://stone.undp.org/undpweb/eo/evalnet/Handbook2/documents/english/pme-handbook.pdf","body":"While written with United Nations Development Programme staff, stakeholders and partners in mind, the handbook provides a useful overview of why and how to evaluate for development results which can be used in other contexts. This handbook concentrates on planning, monitoring and evaluating of results in development and is designed to be used as a reference throughout the programme cycle. The handbook covers the following areas: the integrated nature of planning, monitoring and evaluation, and describes the critical role they play in managing for development results; the conceptual foundations of planning and specific guidance on planning techniques and the preparation of results frameworks that guide monitoring and evaluation; how to plan for monitoring and evaluation before implementing a plan and issues related to monitoring, reporting and review; and an overview of the UNDP evaluation function and the policy framework, including key elements of evaluation design and tools and describe practical steps in managing the evaluation process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthcare and Trade Conference","field_subtitle":"10\u201311 December 2009: Rotterdam, Netherlands","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/events-and-announcements&id=43918&type=Item","body":"The International Conference on Healthcare and Trade, organised by the Erasmus Observatory on Health Law, will focus on the influence of the law of both the European Union and the World Trade Organization on trade in health services, health insurance services and health goods (pharmaceuticals). The application of the European Community Treaty, GATS and TRIPS to national regulation of health services, health insurance services and pharmaceuticals raises questions of applicability of, compatibility with and possible exceptions to the provisions of these instruments. In these areas, these questions have not yet been answered conclusively and further research and discussion in this area is ongoing. The conference aims to contribute to the discussion, attempting to formulate both legal and economic answers to these questions. Prepaid advanced registration must be electronically submitted, faxed or mailed no later than 1 December 2009. The conference fee is 250 Euros (concessions are available for students).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Herding in aid allocation","field_subtitle":"Frot E and Santiso J, OECD: 2009","field_url":"http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/17/11/43327627.pdf","body":"This paper attempts to measure herding behaviour in the allocation of foreign aid, proposing different indexes that try to capture the specific features of aid allocation. The authors chose to use two measures initially developed in finance and adapted them to the specifics of foreign aid. However, the different estimates all reject the hypothesis of no herding. They describe pure herding behaviour, which create pendulum swing effects comparable to those in financial markets, and identify different indexes for detecting donor herding - its exact size depending on the measure adopted. The preferred index, relying on three year disbursements which indicates a significant level of herding, is similar to that which is found on financial markets. There is no, or very limited, herding among multilateral donors, in contrast to bilateral donors, who are frequently subject to herding behaviour. Yet, observable determinants actually explain little of the herding levels, leaving a large part of herding unexplained. The paper concludes that more research is needed and that the preferred measure finds a herding level around 11%. In other words, in a world where 50% of all allocation changes are increases, the average recipient experiences 61% of its donors changing their allocation in the same direction.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Homosexuals face death penalty","field_subtitle":"Karugaba M and Bekunda C: New Vision, 14 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/697859","body":"Aggravated homosexuality will be punished by death, according to a new bill tabled in Parliament of Uganda on 13 October 2009. The private member\u2019s bill was tabled by Ndorwa West MP, David Bahati (NRM). A person commits aggravated homosexuality when the victim is a person with disability or below the age of 18, or when the offender is HIV-positive. The bill thus equates aggravated homosexuality to aggravated defilement among people of different sexes, which also carries the death sentence. The Bill, entitled the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, also states that anyone who commits the offence of homosexuality will be liable to life imprisonment. A person charged with the offence will have to undergo a mandatory medical examination to ascertain his or her HIV status. The bill further states that anybody who attempts to commit the offence is liable to imprisonment for seven years. The same applies to anybody who aids, abets, counsels or procures another to engage in acts of homosexuality or anybody who keeps a house or room for the purpose of homosexuality. The bill also proposes stiff sentences for people promoting homosexuality \u2013 a fine of 100 million Ugandan shillings or prison sentences of five to seven years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"How development leads to democracy","field_subtitle":"Inglehart R and Welzel C: Foreign Affairs, March/April 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d8pns9","body":"In the last several years, a democratic boom has given way to a democratic recession. Between 1985 and 1995, scores of countries made the transition to democracy, bringing widespread euphoria about democracy's future, but more recently, democracy has retreated in some. These developments, along with the growing power of China and Russia, have led many observers to argue that democracy has reached its high-water mark and is no longer on the rise. The authors argue that that conclusion is mistaken and that the underlying conditions of societies around the world point to a more complicated reality. They note that it is unrealistic to assume that democratic institutions can be set up easily, almost anywhere, at any time. The conditions conducive to democracy, it is argued, can and do emerge \u2013 and the process of \u2018modernisation\u2019 advances them. Once set in motion, it tends to penetrate all aspects of life, creating a self-reinforcing process that transforms social life and political institutions, bringing rising mass participation in politics and \u2013 in the long run \u2013 making the establishment of democratic political institutions increasingly likely.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of drainage networks on cholera outbreaks in Lusaka, Zambia ","field_subtitle":"Sasaki S, Suzuki H, Fujino Y, Kimura Y and Cheelo M: American Journal of Public Health 99(11): 1982\u20131987, November 2009","field_url":"http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/full/99/11/1982","body":"This study investigated the association between precipitation patterns and cholera outbreaks and the preventative roles of drainage networks against outbreaks in Lusaka, Zambia. Data was collected on 6,542 registered cholera patients in the 2003\u20132004 outbreak season and on 6,045 cholera patients in the 2005\u20132006 season. Correlations between monthly cholera incidences and amount of precipitation were examined. The distribution pattern of the disease was analysed by a kriging spatial analysis method. The association between drainage networks and cholera cases was analyzed with regression analysis. The study found that increased precipitation was associated with the occurrence of cholera outbreaks, and insufficient drainage networks were statistically associated with cholera incidences. Insufficient coverage of drainage networks elevated the risk of cholera outbreaks. Integrated development is required to upgrade high-risk areas with sufficient infrastructure for a long-term cholera prevention strategy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenyan court case holds up national ARV supply","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 12 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=86546","body":"Kenya is facing a nationwide shortage of anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs after a court case held up the purchase of the life-prolonging medication. The High Court in the capital, Nairobi, barred the Ministry of Health from procuring ARVs after a consortium of drug suppliers challenged the tender process earlier this month. According to James Ole Kiyapi, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Public Health, unless the court allows the government to purchase ARVs, there is a real risk that people who depend on government hospitals for their medication could go without. \u2018We have very little medicine left and there is nothing we can do to get the drugs because we have to abide by the court order; we can do very little at the moment unless the court reverses the order,\u2019 he said. Earlier this year, the Public Procurement Review Board (PPRB) \u2013 responsible for monitoring the government's purchases \u2013 issued an order forcing the Kenya Medical Supply Agency (KEMSA) to accept tender documents by an Indian company, Hetero Drugs Limited, and start the tender process afresh. KEMSA had rejected the company's tender documents because they allegedly did not comply with procurement rules. The consortium that originally won the controversial tenders has now gone to court to reverse the order of the PPRB.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of Budget and Expenditure Monitoring Forum (BEMF)","field_subtitle":"Aids Law Project: October 2009","field_url":"http://www.alp.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=92","body":"Several South African organisations have recently joined together to form the Budget and Expenditure Monitoring Forum (BEMF). The forum advocates for reasonable and sufficient funds to be allocated to health care based on the best evidence available, particularly for HIV programmes, and for those funds to be spent in a reasonable and constitutionally valid manner. It will work to ensure that there are no further treatment interruptions and moratoriums, that there is proper monitoring and evaluation of the highly active antiretroviral treatment (HAART) and prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programmes, and that the national departments of health and finance intervene in provinces not delivering these programmes adequately. In the last financial year several budgeting decisions were made which the member organisations of the BEMF believe violated the legal rights of individuals. The most visible was the moratorium on the initiation of patients onto HAART in the Free State from November 2008 through March 2009. The Southern African HIV Clinicians Society estimated that at least 30 lives a day were lost as a result this decision.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Millennium Villages: A new approach to fighting poverty","field_subtitle":"Earth Institute, Millennium Promise and UNDP: 2009","field_url":"http://www.millenniumvillages.org/aboutmv/mv_sauri.htm","body":"Five years ago, pregnant women in the village of Sauri, in western Kenya's Nyanza Province, had access to just one rundown and poorly staffed sub-district hospital. Few chose to use it, instead giving birth at home, risking complications during delivery and, for those living with HIV, passing it on to their child. Sauri is now part of the Millennium Villages Project, which, since December 2004, has established maternity wards in nine health facilities across Yala division. The village project, part of the United Nations (UN) Millennium Project, aims to lift communities out of extreme poverty through community-led initiatives to improve health, agriculture, education, gender equality and environmental sustainability. \u2018With the improvement of these health facilities through the provision of free maternal services, 64% of expectant women in Sauri now come to deliver in health centres,\u2019 said Patrick Mutuo, science coordinator and team leader of the Sauri cluster. \u2018Right now those mothers still delivering at home are doing so not because of cost or distance. It could be due to cultural beliefs or other reasons. We have also initiated door-to-door voluntary testing and counselling services and health education,\u2019 he added.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Motsoaledi unveils new plan for nurses ","field_subtitle":"Independent Online: 29 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/general/news/newsprint.php?art_id=nw20090929223050734C575748&sf","body":"A ten-point plan to improve the nursing profession through education and training was recently agreed upon by the national Health Ministry in South Africa. Health minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, said discussions were underway between the department of Higher Education and Training, his department, the Council on Higher Education and Umalusi on the role of new quality councils in quality assurance of the diversity of health science offerings. From this discussion, an agreement emerged between the Department of Health and the Department of Higher Education and Training on the need for a diversified nursing education and training system. The next step was to revitalise the nursing colleges sector. This followed a recognition that strengthening colleges would contribute to a vibrant nursing education and training system. \u2018What we need to do is work out how we can retain nurse educators, encourage nurse education as a critical career path and more generally attract young people into the profession,\u2019 Motsoaledi said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Need for timely paediatric HIV treatment within primary health care in rural South Africa","field_subtitle":"Cooke GS, Little KE, Bland RM, Thulare H, and Newell M: PLoS One 4(9): e7101, 22 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2742735/?tool=pubmed","body":"This paper explored the extent to which public sector roll-out has met the estimated need for paediatric treatment in a rural South African setting. Local facility and population-based data were used to compare the number of HIV infected children accessing HAART before 2008, with estimates of those in need of treatment from a deterministic modeling approach. The impact of programmatic improvements on estimated numbers of children in need of treatment was assessed in sensitivity analyses. It found that, if PMTCT uptake were extended to reach 100% coverage, the annual number of infected infants could be reduced by 49.2%. Despite progress in delivering decentralised HIV services to a rural sub-district in South Africa, substantial unmet need for treatment remains. In a local setting, very few children were initiated on treatment under one year of age and steps have now been taken to successfully improve early diagnosis and referral of infected infants.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"On the non-contractual nature of donor-recipient interaction in development assistance","field_subtitle":"Murshed M, Institute of Social Studies: 2009","field_url":"http://www.iss.nl/News/Article-by-Mansoob-Murshed-in-Review-of-Development-Economics","body":"This paper analyses the interaction between aid donors and recipients from various angles. It considers the fact that the effort associated with ensuring aid effectiveness concerns both principal and agent, which requires cooperative behaviour \u2013 something that is difficult to design and predict. The analysis comes up a number of conclusions. There is a possibility of intrinsic motivation on the part of the agent through deriving utility from poverty alleviation. The interaction between donor and recipient may be better described through simple non-cooperative games. In this context, if effort by both sides is important to achieving aid effectiveness, there could be a double moral hazard. Designing a mechanism aimed at ensuring commitment to optimal policies is problematic, although the paper suggests that there should be a single global agency to manage poverty reduction and the coordination of donor behaviour. Aid effectiveness requires a stronger commitment to rewarding credible (hence costly) signals of the recipient's commitment to change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Outcomes of the South African National Antiretroviral Treatment (ART) programme for children: The IeDEA Southern Africa Collaboration","field_subtitle":"Davies M, Keiser O, Technau K, Eley B, Rabie H, van Cutsem G, Giddy J, Wood R, Boulle A, Egger M and Moultrie Harry: South African Medical Journal 99(10): 730\u2013737, October 2009","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/3422/2527","body":"This study set out to assess paediatric antiretroviral treatment (ART) outcomes and their associations from a collaborative cohort representing 20% of the South African national treatment programme. It took the form of a multi-cohort study of 7 public sector paediatric ART programmes in Gauteng, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces. The subjects were ART-na\u00efve children (&#8804;16 years) who commenced treatment with &#8805;3 antiretroviral drugs before March 2008. The study found that the median (IQR) age of 6,078 children with 9,368 child-years of follow-up was 43 months, with 29% being ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development","field_subtitle":"UNDP: 5 October 2009 ","field_url":"http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2009/","body":"The findings in this report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) cast new light on some common misconceptions about migration. Most migrants do not cross national borders, but instead move within their own country: 740 million people are internal migrants, almost four times the number of international migrants. Among international migrants, less than 30% move from developing to developed countries. For example, only 3% of Africans live outside their country of birth. Contrary to commonly held beliefs, migrants typically boost economic output and give more than they take. Detailed investigations show that immigration generally increases employment in host communities, does not crowd out locals from the job market and improves rates of investment in new businesses and initiatives. Overall, the impact of migrants on public finances is relatively small, while there is ample evidence of gains in other areas such as social diversity and the capacity for innovation. The gains to people who move can be enormous. Research found that migrants from the poorest countries, on average, experienced a 15-fold increase in income, a doubling of school enrolment rates and a 16-fold reduction in child mortality after moving to a developed country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Parliamentarians are an important force for health in Eastern and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Nichole Zlatunich, Consultant, Partners in Population and Development Africa Regional Office ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn 2008, Members of Parliament from twelve countries in East and Southern Africa pledged to advance health equity and sexual and reproductive health in the region. How much progress had been made a year later? This was the question that was in focus in a follow up regional meeting in September 2009. \r\n\r\nAt a meeting in September 2008 hosted by Partners in Population and Development Africa Regional Office (PPD ARO), Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET), African Population Health Research Centre (APHRC) and Southern and East African Parliamentary Alliance of Committees of Health (SEAPACOH) with international partners, the members of parliamentary committees on health made commitments to promote primary health care, health equity and reproductive health. \r\n\r\nThese reflected the fact that parliaments can and do play a key role in promoting health and health equity through their representative, legislative and oversight roles, including budget oversight. EQUINET reports have documented examples of how these roles have been exercised in East and Southern Africa (ESA) to prioritise health in budgets, to monitor the performance of the executive, to strengthen laws protecting health and to keep the need to redress inequity in health and to promote sexual and reproductive health high on the public agenda. \r\n\r\nAs a unique measure to consolidate this, members of the health committees came together in the Southern and East African Parliamentary Alliance of Committees of Health (SEAPACOH) in 2005, to build a more consistent collaboration of the committees towards achieving individual and regional goals of health equity and effective responses to HIV and AIDS. The committee members carried out field visits to local governments at districts and lower levels to appraise themselves with the prevailing health needs, and mobilised and sensitised leaders at local government levels, in civil society and in communities on health and reproductive health issues. The parliamentary committees on health have met to review this work on health with EQUINET and various partners in 2003, 2005, 2008, and most recently in September 2009. In April 2009 with PPD support SEAPACOH developed and adopted a Strategic Plan for 2009 \u2013 2013. The three main areas of focus identified include: ensuring needs-based resourcing of the health sector; ensuring effective domestication, implementation and compliance with agreed upon commitments in the health sector by governments; and ensuring sustainability of the alliance.  \r\n\r\nThe follow up meeting in September 2009, hosted by the same organizations provided an opportunity to review progress, share experiences and lessons learnt over the past one year on the implementation of the resolutions of the September 2008 meeting. \r\n\r\nParliamentarians shared information on their progress, challenges, and on how to move commitments further forward. Progress had indeed been made since September 2008. For example:\r\n\u2022\tThe East Africa Legislative Assembly have developed model laws on HIV, AIDS and female genital mutilation and is working to develop pooled procurement of drug, medical supplies and medical equipment; to review health insurance schemes, and to explore options for contracting health workers.\r\n\u2022\tIn Kenya, the Parliament is scrutinizing the government budget through interrogating line ministries\u2019 budgets. They have promoted an economic stimulus package, which provides for model health centers to be set up across the country and for twenty nurses to be hired in each constituency. In Kenya, a parliamentary taskforce has been set up to monitor and oversee action on socio-economic inequalities, including inequality in health and access to health care. The health committee have sensitized fellow MPs and the Ministers of Health and Finance on health issues, leading to legal provisions for Health Committees to be  include in the budget process.\r\n\u2022\tIn Malawi, Parliamentarians have moved a motion to persuade government to draft legislation on research activities to prevent abuse of citizens in clinical research trials.\r\n\u2022\tNamibia\u2019s Committee on Human Resources, Social and Community Development were trained in gender based violence, reproductive health and HIV and AIDS in 2009. They  undertook field visits to assess the implementation of government policies and programmes with regard to health and education issues; and revised and costed the national roadmap that outlines strategies and guidelines for improving maternal and child health, as a contribution to reducing illness and mortality in 2009. \r\n\u2022\tThe Parliament of Swaziland reported implementing capacity building work on sexual and reproductive health for members. Members have also moved several motions, including on access to health services, and to promote investigation into the increase in abortions among young people and into the increase in maternal mortality. \r\n\u2022\tIn Uganda, Parliamentarians have engaged Ministries of Health and Finance and the media on the need to fund sexual and reproductive health issues and recommended policy changes in the management and administration of the budget for drugs, including for reproductive health commodities. The committee has with the executive allocated additional government resources for reproductive health and HIV and AIDS. The committee has  successfully advocated for a budget line of 200 million Uganda shillings (US$105 000) for activities to address female genital mutilation and prepared and presented a private member\u2019s bill entitled \u201cThe Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Bill, 2009.\r\n\u2022\tIn Zimbabwe, the Parliament has improved the allocation of resources to health in the budget. The committee on health has tabled a motion on the need to link sexual and reproductive health and HIV in programmes and policies that address vulnerabilities  of women and children, has lobbied for the provision of appropriate, affordable, accessible and friendly adolescent and reproductive health services and are currently crafting a policy on male circumcision as one of the added strategies to reduce HIV infection. This was supported by a number of research studies in areas of sexual and reproductive health.\r\n\r\nWith these areas of progress taking place, the need to network regionally to share progress and experience was evident. In agreeing on a way forward over the next year, the committees agreed to operationalize the SEAPACOH Strategic Plan, including strengthening their own networking and communication across the region. This will enable those making progress in key areas of health to share information on achievements, to exchange experiences in their oversight of regional commitments and international agreements and to support new and innovative programmes to enhance health, including reproductive health. The adoption of common platforms and a regional agenda can only make the work of the individual committees stronger.  \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed and the regional parliamentary meeting please visit the websites of  PPD ARO: www.ppdafrica.org; EQUINET: www.equinetafrica.org; and APHRC: www.aphrc.org. The SEAPACOH strategic plan is at http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/SEAPACOHstrategicplan09.pdf. The 2009 commitments are included in this newsletter and are also at http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/RegParl%20mtg09%20res.pdf. The resolutions and report of the 2008 meeting are at http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REPMET0908parl.pdf and http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/RESsep2008parl.pdf.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"PHM statement regarding the World Health Summit","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement: 26 Sep 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/node/2666","body":"The People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM), a world-wide civil society network, has a series of concerns about the World Health Summit (WHS), which is being planned as an annual event. Although the summit speaks of participation of nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), the costs ranging between 290\u2013490 Euro for NGOs will exclude those that could legitimately reflect the voices and needs of grassroots and marginalised communities. The summit is also by invitation only, which suggests that NGO participation will be hand-picked and limited. PHM believes that, rather than creating a parallel policy forum, efforts and resources should be spent strengthening the World Health Organization (WHO) as the international coordinating body for issues related to people's health. WHO is one of the United Nation organisations in which each country has a voice. WHO thus provides a reasonably democratic decision making process, despite mechanisms used by powerful member states to direct the decisions. We are concerned that the declaration of the World Health Summit is likely to preferentially represent the interests of the Global North, corporations and those who financially sponsor the Summit.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Pre-requisites for national health insurance in South Africa: Results of a national household survey","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D, Goudge J, Harris B, Nxumalo N and Nkosi M: South African Medical Journal 99(10): 725\u2013729, October 2009","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/3662/2519","body":"The objectives of this paper were to explore public perceptions on what changes in the public health system are necessary to ensure acceptability and sustainability of national health insurance (NHI), and whether or not South Africans are ready for a change in the health system. A cross-sectional nationally representative survey of 4,800 households was undertaken, using a structured questionnaire. It found dissatisfaction with both public and private sectors, suggesting South Africans are ready for health system change. Concerns about the quality of public sector services relate primarily to patient-provider engagements (empathic staff attitudes, communication and confidentiality issues), cleanliness of facilities and drug availability. There are concerns about the affordability of medical schemes and how the profit motive affects private providers\u2019 behaviour. South Africans do not appear to be well acquainted nor generally supportive of the notion of risk cross-subsidies. However, there is strong support for income cross-subsidies. Public engagement is essential to improve understanding of the core principles of universal pre-payment mechanisms and the rationale for the development of NHI. Importantly, public support for pre-payment is unlikely to be forthcoming unless there is confidence in the availability of quality health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Prominent South African researcher to head Global Forum for Health Research ","field_subtitle":"Global Forum for Health Research: 23 October 2009","field_url":"","body":"The Foundation Council of the Global Forum for Health Research today announced the appointment of Anthony Mbewu as its new Executive Director as of January 2010. Professor Mbewu is currently President of the Medical Research Council of South Africa (MRC). He is also Honorary Professor of Cardiology and Internal Medicine at the University of Cape Town and a Foreign Associate of the Institute of Medicine of the USA. Professor Mbewu trained in medicine at Oxford and London universities, qualifying in 1983. He subsequently trained as a specialist in cardiology and in general medicine at the University of Manchester while also conducting a research doctorate in preventive cardiology on lipoprotein in coronary heart disease. On returning to South Africa in 1994, he was appointed Consultant Cardiologist in the Cardiac Clinic of the Department of Medicine, University of Cape Town. In 1996 he became Executive Director for Research at the MRC and its President and Chief Executive Officer in 2005.  Internationally, Professor MBewu is known for his work as co-chair of the Inter-Academy Medical Panel (a body that represents 66 of the world\u2019s medical academies).","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/34480","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Public services: Transformation or stasis?","field_subtitle":"Ruiters G: Public Services Yearbook 2005/2006","field_url":"http://www.municipalservicesproject.org/sites/default/files/services.pdf","body":"Although the South African state has shifted away from uncritical promotion of neo-liberal public management, the government continues to mesh limited welfarism with market-driven reforms. It has tried to use service delivery to win political loyalty, but this strategy has largely backfired. There is growing public awareness that the current failures and inequities in access to public services can no longer be blamed on the legacy of apartheid. According to the free basic water policy applied since 2001, poor South Africans are entitled to 6,000 litres of free water per month. Yet, according to the Department of Finance\u2019s own numbers, most poor households use 25,000 of water per month. Consequently, most such households then fall into arrears. Free basic water, often seen as a big improvement, also has unintended effects. It is a way to increase state surveillance of citizens by requiring registration and its restrictive availability is used as a disincentive for poor people to use water. If poor people use more than their basic allocation, they are heavily penalised by higher tariffs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Putting faith in mid-level workers paying off","field_subtitle":"Thom A: Health-e, 5 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032522","body":"African countries, much poorer and less resourced than South Africa, are using trained mid-level health workers to perform tasks traditionally reserved for doctors, including surgery, and, in the process, are saving the lives. Presenters from Mozambique, Tanzania and Malawi at the 14th FIGO (International Federation of Gynecology & Obstetrics) World Congress of Gynecology and Obstetrics on 4 October shared details of how mid-level health workers are performing caesareans and other emergency surgical procedures in hospitals where there are simply no doctors and often no professional nurses. In Mozambique, 92% of all Caesarean sections at the district hospital level are carried out my mid-level providers \u2013 tecnicos de cirugia. In Tanzania the percentage is 84%. Studies in all three countries have shown that with the right training these mid-level providers \u2013 some trained straight after school while other have some experience of working in the health sector \u2013 have similar outcomes to doctors when providing life-saving emergency obstetric surgical care. Compared to doctors, their retention rates, especially in rural and district areas where the need is desperate, are excellent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Putting words into action in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Dickinson C and Collins T: Compass 9, October 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.hlsp.org/issueinsight/","body":"The Strengthening the AIDS Response Zambia (STARZ) programme marked a cutting edge multisectoral approach to HIV in the region. Non-governmental sectors (including civil society and the private sector) tend to be poorly organised, and authority tends to rest with government ministries. Not all sectors have incentives or welcome being coordinated, particularly by relatively young commissions claiming the mandate to do so. Coordination can also mean different things to different groups \u2013 for some it signifies regulation and control, while for others the emphasis is on participation and information exchange and even access to resources. The main aim of this project was to support the national AIDS commission, known locally as the National AIDS Council (NAC), in coordinating a multisectoral response to the epidemic. The report notes that coordination is improved when the roles and rules of engagement for key stakeholders are understood, and where accessible coordination structures are in place to enable public, civil society and private sector representatives to work effectively with the NAC. The STARZ programme has supported important processes that have focused on improved relationships between the NAC and the civil society and private sectors \u2013 including internal coordination.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Rethinking privatisation: Towards a critical theoretical perspective","field_subtitle":"McDonald DA and Ruiters G: Public Services Yearbook 2005/2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yffenc8","body":"The question of why privatisation and commercialisation of public services is taking place is a hotly contested one. Neoliberal analysts have argued that privatisation occurs because states fail: state officials are rent-seeking, inefficient, unaccountable, inflexible and unimaginative. Privatisation is seen as a rational and pro-poor policy choice, obvious to anyone willing to look at the track record of public versus private sector delivery: The authors here argue, by contrast, that the privatisation of public services has not happened because it has been inspired by some renewed sense of cultural enthusiasm for the market, but rather that it has become a necessity imposed on the state by economic circumstances: reduced public borrowing; cuts in state spending; liberalisation; and the opening up of new economic fields for intensified capital accumulation. Not surprisingly, some of the biggest boosters of privatisation are the private companies themselves, which have spent considerable time and effort trying to secure new market opportunities. They have actively sought contracts around the world, and consultancy firms, such as PriceWaterhouseCoopers and KPMG, have been actively promoting privatisation efforts and lobbying for the expansion and acceleration of the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Securing our future: Report of the Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa","field_subtitle":"Economic Commission for Africa: 2008","field_url":"http://www.uneca.org/chga/Report/index.htm","body":"HIV and AIDS will slow Africa\u2019s economic growth, but most important it will deplete human capital. Investment is declining as households, businesses and governments increase their recurrent expenditure to compensate for losses and disruptions because of sick or dead individuals. The health system \u2013 usually at the forefront in absorbing the impact of HIV and AIDS-related illnesses \u2013 is being eroded through the loss of many skilled personnel. Health staff are retiring, leaving for the private sector or other countries and succumbing to AIDS. In high-prevalence countries the epidemic is adversely affecting popular participation through attrition among the politically active age groups. The attrition among government officials and civil service personnel is compromising the state\u2019s ability to implement decisions and policies. The epidemic is also likely to affect popular political opinion and levels of activism by reshaping political priorities and loyalties. But these challenges can be met if governance continues to improve across Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Seventeenth International AIDS Conference: From Evidence to Action: Regional focus","field_subtitle":"Baijal P and Kort R: Journal of the International AIDS Society 2009 12(S1):S6, 6 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/12/S1/S6/?mkt","body":"This article summarises the challenges, opportunities and lessons learned from presentations, discussions and debates addressing major policy and programmatic responses to HIV in six geographical regions, including sub-Saharan Africa. It draws from AIDS 2008 Leadership and Community Programmes, particularly the six regional sessions, and Global Village activities. While the epidemiological, cultural and socio-economic contexts in these regions vary considerably, several common, overarching principles and themes emerged: advancing basic human rights, particularly for vulnerable and most at risk populations; ensuring the sustainability of the HIV response through long-term, predictable financing; strengthening health systems; investing in strategic health information; and improving accountability and the involvement of civil society in the response to AIDS. Equally important is the need to address political barriers to implementing evidence-based interventions such as opioid substitution therapy (OST), needle and syringe programmes (NSPs), comprehensive sexuality education for youth, and sexual and reproductive rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual violence and reproductive health outcomes among South African female youths: A contextual analysis ","field_subtitle":"Speizer IS, Pettifor A, Cummings S, MacPhail C, Kleinschmidt I and Rees HV: American Journal of Public Health 99(S2): S425-S431, October 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/full/99/S2/S425","body":"This study considered whether female youths from communities with higher sexual violence were at greater risk of negative reproductive health outcomes. It used data from a 2003 nationally representative household survey of youths aged 15\u201324 years in South Africa. The key independent variable was whether a woman had ever been threatened or forced to have sex. The variable was aggregated to the community level to determine, with control for individual-level experience with violence, whether the community-level prevalence of violence was associated with HIV status and adolescent pregnancy among female, sexually experienced, never-married youths. The study found that youths from communities with greater sexual violence were significantly more likely to have experienced an adolescent pregnancy or to be HIV-positive than were youths from communities experiencing lower sexual violence. Youths from communities with greater community-level violence were also less likely to have used a condom at their last sexual encounter. Individual-level violence was only associated with condom non-use. Programmes to reduce adolescent pregnancies and HIV risk in South Africa and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa must address sexual violence as part of effective prevention strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Short courses for 2010 at ITM-Antwerp","field_subtitle":"Health policy and strategic management","field_url":"http://internationalhealthpolicies.blogspot.com/2009/10/short-course-in-health-policy-march.html","body":"Are you interested in international health policies? If so, you might like to know about the Institute of Tropical Medicine\u2019s (ITM) short course on health policy and strategic management, which we take place for the fourth time in 2010 in Antwerp. The course lasts eight weeks from 1 March till 23 April 2010. The aim of this course is to empower participants to play an active role in the development of public health policies in developing countries. The target group for this course are professionals involved in policy formulation and implementation at regional, national or international level working in health care, supervising, regulating or advocacy organisations or institutions (government or non-governmental). A limited number of fellowships are still available. You can look at the brochure online by using the link provided here.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The global politics of pharmaceutical monopoly power","field_subtitle":"Hoen EFM, Medecins Sans Frontieres : 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.msfaccess.org/main/access-patents/the-global-politics-of-pharmaceutical-monopoly-power-by-ellen-t-hoen/","body":"Many countries have been able to use the TRIPS flexibilities to access lower-priced generic drugs. However, as pharmaceutical product patents start to be granted in producing countries, this situation will change. To resolve the problem of high drug prices caused by patent monopolies, this book recommends that developing countries should make full use of the provisions in the Doha Declaration. It introduces a re-conceptualised definition of innovation as encompassing discovery, development and delivery, thereby including access as an integral part of innovation. Equally important, the international community should consider supporting patent pools as a tool for improving the management of intellectual property for access and innovation. In this sense, the book suggests a new agreement on sharing the costs and benefits of medical research and development (R&D) for the sake of humankind. In like manner, the book underlines a proposition to change the way R&D is financed. At the core of this proposal is the elimination of the linkage between drug prices and drug discovery. It also highlights the importance of establishing a trade framework for R&D that focuses on equitable contribution to the cost of R&D through multiple means \u2013 not exclusively through the granting of patent monopoly rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of a community-based pilot health education intervention for older people as caregivers of orphaned and sick children as a result of HIV and AIDS in South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Boon H, Ruiter RAC, James S, van Den Borne Bart, Williams E and Reddy P: Journal of Cross-cultural Gerontology: 8 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.springerlink.com/content/bw28r43278q6n3p4/fulltext.pdf","body":"In this study, 202 isiXhosa speaking older caregivers from Motherwell in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa were trained to provide care for grandchildren and adult children living with HIV or AIDS. Based on a community needs assessment, a health education intervention comprising four modules was designed to improve skills and knowledge which would be used to assist older people in their care-giving tasks. Some topics were HIV and AIDS knowledge, effective intergenerational communication, providing home-based basic nursing care, accessing social services and grants, and relaxation techniques. Structured one-on-one interviews measured differences between pre-intervention and post-intervention scores among those who attended all four modules vs. those that missed one or more of the sessions. The results demonstrated that older people who participated in all four workshops perceived themselves more able and in control to provide nursing care. The participants also showed a more positive attitude towards people living with HIV or AIDS and reported an increased level of HIV and AIDS knowledge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The International Health Links manual: A guide to starting up and maintaining long-term international health partnerships","field_subtitle":"Gedde M: THET, 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.thet.org.uk/index.php?%2Fpage%2Findex%2Fdownloadablepublications.html","body":"Health Links partnerships have the capacity to make a significant contribution to health system strengthening but only if they are well planned, managed and aligned to needs. Governments and health managers in many countries, including the United Kingdom (UK), Uganda, Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania, are now beginning to look more actively at how these types of partnerships can contribute to health system development in their countries. This manual provides guidance, shares experiences and offers examples of good practice from those directly involved in Links. It aims to help both UK and developing country Link partners to think more strategically about their work. As a reference document for Link partnerships, this manual is aimed at those seeking to form a Link, or already involved in an established Link, such as health professionals, policy makers, health advisors, NGOs and others from the UK or a developing country interested in finding out more about what Links are and what they can offer.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The International Monetary Fund\u2019s effects on global health: Before and after the 2008 financial crisis","field_subtitle":"Stuckler D and Basu S: International Journal of Health Services 39(4): 771\u2013781, October 2009","field_url":"http://users.ox.ac.uk/~chri3110/details/Stuckler39_4.pdf","body":"In April 2009, the G20 countries committed US$750 billion to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has assumed a central role in global economic management. The IMF loans to financially ailing countries come with loan conditions that have been extremely controversial. In principle, they are designed to help countries balance their books. In practice, they often translate into reductions in social spending, including spending on public health and health care delivery. This article introduces a series in which contributors review the evidence on the relationship between the IMF and public health and discuss potential ways to improve the Fund\u2019s effects on health. While more evidence is needed for some regions, there is sufficient evidence to indicate that IMF programmes have been significantly associated with weakened health care systems, reduced effectiveness of health-focused development aid, and impeded efforts to control tobacco, infectious diseases, and child and maternal mortality. Reforms are urgently needed to ensure progress towards meeting the health Millennium Development Goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Municipal Service Project updated website","field_subtitle":"Municipal Service Project: October 2009","field_url":"http://www.municipalservicesproject.org/","body":"The Municipal Service Project (MSP) has just updated its website. MSP is an inter-disciplinary project made up of academics, labour unions, non-governmental organisations, social movements and activists from around the globe. The project is guided by a Steering Committee, made up of representatives from project partners and coordinated by the project co-directors, David McDonald (Queen\u2019s University, Canada) and Greg Ruiters (Rhodes University, South Africa). It is a five-year inter-sectoral and inter-regional research project that systematically explores alternatives to the privatisation and commercialisation of service provision in the health, water, sanitation and electricity sectors. Having spent the first two phases of the project (2000-2007) criticising privatisation, this phase of the project (2008-2013) will analyse service delivery models that are successful alternatives to commercialisation and to understand the conditions required for their sustainability and reproducibility.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The power to change: How to set up and run support groups for victims and survivors of domestic violence","field_subtitle":"Medina MM, Viegras P and Mimoso R, NANE Women's Rights Association, Associazione Artemisia, AMCV: 2009","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=44927&em=231009&sub=man","body":"This manual outlines some of the practical and organisational considerations required to set up support groups for survivors of domestic violence in a way that enhances their safety and self esteem. It also presents three possible models, any of which can be used as basis for running such groups. Two of these models are facilitated support group programmes and the third model is that of an un-facilitated self-help group. It looks at some of the practical and organisational considerations required to set up support groups, the roles and responsibilities of the facilitator and the co-facilitator skills, knowledge training and experience that are needed to run support groups for survivors of domestic violence, how to plan, promote develop and manage a support group, group policies and protocols and how these can contribute to maintaining the proper environment necessary for survivors of domestic violence. It provides \u2018how\u2013to\u2019 guides for running sessions for the two different facilitated models that are known to work effectively.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of nurses and midwives in polio eradication and measles control activities: A survey in Sudan and Zambia","field_subtitle":"Nkowane AM, Boualam L, Haithami S, El Sayed ETA and Mutambo H: Human Resources for Health, 8 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-7-78.pdf","body":"This survey was conducted among nurses and midwives working at district level in Sudan and Zambia to determine their roles and functions in polio eradication and measles elimination programmes. Nurses and midwives practising in four selected districts in Sudan and in Zambia completed a self-administered questionnaire on their roles and responsibilities, their routine activities and their functions during supplementary immunisation campaigns for polio and measles. The survey shows that nurses and midwives play an important role in implementing immunisation activities at the district level and that their roles can be maximised by creating opportunities that lead to their having more responsibilities in their work and in particular, their involvement in early phases of planning of priority health activities. This should be accompanied by written job descriptions, tasks and clear lines of authority as well as good supportive supervision. The lessons from supplementary immunisation activities, where the roles of nurses and midwives are maximised, can be easily adopted to benefit the rest of the health services provided at district level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Tobacco companies\u2019 use of developing countries\u2019 economic reliance on tobacco to lobby against global tobacco control: The case of Malawi ","field_subtitle":"Ota\u00f1ez MG, Mamudu HM and Glantz SA: American Journal of Public Health 99(10): 1759\u20131771, October 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/full/99/10/1759","body":"Transnational tobacco manufacturing and tobacco leaf companies engage in numerous efforts to oppose global tobacco control. One of their strategies is to stress the economic importance of tobacco to the developing countries that grow it. This study analyses tobacco industry documents and ethnographic data to show how tobacco companies used this argument in the case of Malawi, producing and disseminating reports promoting claims of losses of jobs and foreign earnings that would result from the impending passage of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). In addition, they influenced the government of Malawi to introduce resolutions or make amendments to tobacco-related resolutions in meetings of United Nations organisations, succeeding in temporarily displacing health as the focus in tobacco control policymaking. However, these efforts did not substantially weaken the FCTC.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Today\u2019s aid, tomorrow\u2019s problem","field_subtitle":"Pearson M: Compass 9, October 2009","field_url":"http://www.hlsp.org/institutelead/","body":"Donor support for the HIV response has increased dramatically in recent years. In parallel, the debate continues between those who argue that the money is still too little, and those who say there is too much emphasis on HIV. Often there is little relation between a country\u2019s total funding for HIV and the actual HIV burden. This is not necessarily a problem, and in fact the same is true for other diseases. Burden of disease is not the only basis for allocating resources; other criteria used to justify donor support include cost-effectiveness, aligning funding with stated country priorities, or equity. However, there is little to suggest that current donor practices on HIV funding can be justified on any of these grounds. The HLSP Institute\u2019s analysis also suggests that donor spending on HIV has, to some extent, crowded out other expenditure on health and population. Put simply, funding for health would have increased more rapidly had it not been for the large increase in support for HIV. If such programmes were to continue to expand (as they probably will) sustainability challenges would be even greater, and the potential for further misalignment of health sector funding would be likely to increase.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards spatial justice in urban health services planning: A spatial-analytic GIS-based approach using Dar es Salaam, Tanzania as a case study","field_subtitle":"Amer S: 2007","field_url":"http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2007-0202-201526/index.htm","body":"The overarching aim of this study is to develop a GIS-based planning approach that contributes to equitable and efficient provision of urban health services in cities in sub-Saharan Africa. The broader context of the study is the 'urban health crisis', namely the disparity between the increasing need for medical care in urban areas and declining carrying capacity of existing public health systems. The analysis proposes a 'what if' type of planning approach designed to evaluate and improve the spatial performance of the Dar es Salaam governmental health care system. It illustrates how more sophisticated GIS-based analytical techniques can be usefully applied to strategic spatial planning of urban health services delivery. Its evaluation framework appraises the performance of the existing Dar es Salaam governmental health delivery system on the basis of generic quantitative accessibility indicators, while its intervention framework explores how existing health needs can better be served by proposing alternative spatial arrangements of provision using scarce health resources. Health planners will be able to detect spatial deficiencies of a given delivery system, propose priority spatial planning interventions and estimate the expected impact of potential interventions on spatial performance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards universal access: Scaling up priority HIV/AIDS interventions in the health sector","field_subtitle":"WHO, UNICEF and UNAIDS: 30 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hiv/pub/2009progressreport/en/","body":"More than four million people in low- and middle-income countries were receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) at the close of 2008, representing a 36% increase in one year and a ten-fold increase over five years, according to this report. It highlights other gains, including expanded HIV testing and counselling and improved access to services to prevent HIV transmission from mother to child. Access to antiretroviral therapy continues to expand at a rapid rate. Of the estimated 9.5 million people in need of treatment in 2008 in low- and middle-income countries, 42% had access, up from 33% in 2007. The greatest progress was seen in sub-Saharan Africa, where two-thirds of all HIV infections occur. Prices of the most commonly used antiretroviral drugs have declined significantly in recent years, contributing to wider availability of treatment. The cost of most first-line regimens decreased by 10\u201340% between 2006 and 2008. However, second-line regimens continue to be expensive. Despite recent progress, access to treatment services is falling far short of need and the global economic crisis has raised concerns about their sustainability. Many patients are being diagnosed at a late stage of disease progression resulting in delayed initiation of ART and high rates of mortality in the first year of treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Ugandan MPs pressure government for more HIV and AIDS funding","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 29 September 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86336","body":"The Ugandan parliament's house Committee on HIV/AIDS and related matters has appealed to the government to increase its funding for HIV, especially as infection rates remain high and the country continues to experience frequent shortages of anti-retroviral medicines. \u2018As a committee we are advocating for the government to increase its funding on HIV/AIDS activities in the country to at least 15% [of the national budget],\u2019 said Beatrice Rwakimari, chair of the committee. Uganda's most recent budget allocated about US$30 million to the purchase of anti-retrovirals and anti-malaria medication, and gave the Uganda AIDS Commission about US$3 million to fight HIV, while US$500,000 was earmarked for prevention programmes. The total allocation to HIV programmes \u2013 which makes up 6% of the national budget \u2013marks an increase on previous years, but members of Parliament say it is still not nearly enough to roll back the effects of the pandemic. \u2018This funding is too little, as we continue to get new infections every year,\u2019 Rwakimari said. Uganda's HIV prevalence has risen marginally from a low of 6% in 2000 to 6.4%, according to the government.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Use of short message service (SMS) to improve malaria chemoprophylaxis compliance after returning from a malaria endemic area","field_subtitle":"Ollivier L, Romand O, Marimoutou C, Michel R, Pognant C, Todesco A, Migliani R, Baudon D and Boutin J : Malaria Journal: 23 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-8-236.pdf","body":"In 2007, a randomised controlled study was performed among a cohort of French soldiers returning from Cote d'Ivoire to assess the feasibility and acceptability of sending a daily short message service (SMS) reminder message via mobile device to remind soldiers to take their malaria chemoprophylaxis, and to assess the impact of the daily reminder SMS on chemoprophylaxis compliance. Among 424 volunteers randomised to the study, 47.6 % were assigned to the SMS group and 52.3 % to the control group. Approximately 90% of subjects assigned to the SMS group received a daily SMS at midday during the study. Persons of the SMS group agreed more frequently that SMS reminders were very useful and that the device was not annoying. Compliance did not vary significantly between groups across the compliance indicators. In conclusion, SMSes did not increase malaria chemoprophylaxis compliance above baseline, likely because the persons did not benefit from holidays after the return and stayed together. Another study should be done to confirm these results on soldiers or other types of individual travellers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Using participatory methods and GIS to prepare for an HIV community-based trial in Vulindlela, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Chirowodza A, van Rooyen H, Joseph P, Sikotoyi S, Richter L and Coates T: Journal of Community Psychology 37(1): 41\u201357, 21 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2747527/?tool=pubmed","body":"Recent attempts to integrate geographic information systems (GIS) and participatory techniques have given rise to terminologies such as participatory GIS and community-integrated GIS. Although GIS was initially developed for physical geographic application, it can be used for the management and analysis of health and health care data. Geographic information systems, combined with participatory methodology, have facilitated the analysis of access to health facilities and disease risk in different populations. Little has been published about the usefulness of combining participatory methodologies and GIS technology in an effort to understand and inform community-based intervention studies, especially in the context of HIV. This paper attempts to address this perceived gap in the literature. The authors describe the application of participatory research methods with GIS in the formative phase of a multisite community-based social mobilisation trial, using voluntary counselling and testing and post-test support as the intervention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Viability of commercially available bleach for water treatment in developing countries ","field_subtitle":"Lantagne DS: American Journal of Public Health 99(11): 1975\u20131978, November 2009","field_url":"http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/full/99/11/1975","body":"Treating household water with low-cost, widely available commercial bleach is recommended by some organisations to improve water quality and reduce disease in developing countries. This study analysed the chlorine concentration of 32 bleaches from twelve developing countries. The average error between advertised and measured concentration was 35% (range = -45%\u2013100%; standard deviation = 40%). Because of disparities between advertised and actual concentration, the use of commercial bleach for water treatment in developing countries is not recommended without ongoing quality control testing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Whither human rights in African international relations?","field_subtitle":"Mindzie MA: SAIIA Occasional Paper 39, August 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.saiia.org.za/images/stories/pubs/occasional_papers/saia_sop_39_mindzie_20090915_en.pdf","body":"Strict observance of state sovereignty, once a mainstay of international relations, has given way to a global concern to protect human rights wherever they are threatened. On paper, at least, Africa shares this international commitment in its establishment of monitoring bodies like the African Commission on Human and Peoples\u2019 Rights and the African Union\u2019s Peace and Security Council. But how central are human rights to the actual conduct of international relations by the continent? Are they merely a \u2018variable concern\u2019? There are no simplistic answers to this question. Africa has long been committed to supporting the rule of law, safeguarding refugees, protecting women and children, encouraging youth participation, and promoting democracy. But, as ever, national interest still plays an important role when it comes to defining how the continent relates to the world. The author argues that China\u2019s policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of its trading partners has the potential to foster corruption, fuel armed conflicts and encourage human rights violations. African governments, it is proposed,  should ensure that their emerging foreign policy solutions, whatever they are, do not compromise the commitment they have already made to foster human rights and good governance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Why are we addressing gender issues in vision loss?","field_subtitle":"Courtright P and Lewallen L: Community Eye Health Journal 22(70): 17\u201319, 2009","field_url":"http://www.cehjournal.org/0953-6833/22/jceh_22_70_017.html","body":"Increasingly it is evident that women are affected by blindness and visual impairment to a much greater degree than men. In 1980 a systematic review of global population-based blindness surveys carried out showed that blindness is about 40% more common in women compared to men. This short article explores the gender dimensions of vision loss. The document considers the different risk factors faced by men and women including social and cultural differences and biological. Issues concerning the limited access women have to services are examined and the implications of women usually having a longer life expectancy. Cataract and trachoma are considered in addition to childhood blindness and briefly glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy. The authors emphasis the importance of understanding these problems at community, country, and global level. Reports should be provided which are disaggregated by sex.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WIPO members step up to implement development agenda ","field_subtitle":"Mara K and New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 15 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/10/15/wipo-members-step-up-to-implement-development-agenda/","body":"World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) members are preparing to take the reins of the Development Agenda as it becomes clear that implementation success will depend on their actions. And their actions must not only be focused on specific projects such as patent databases but also on the broader spirit of the agenda for change at WIPO, key developing countries said. A range of stakeholders met at WIPO on 13\u201314 October at an \u2018open-ended forum on proposed Development Agenda projects\u2019. A number of officials said they were pleased with the secretariat\u2019s efforts on implementation and with it holding the event. But there are many problems with that assumption: patents leave out necessary information, some technologies require material transfer in order to be used, and availability of patent information does not equate to permission to use it, she said. In order to be relevant to developing country interests, said Shashikant, WIPO should undertake programmes to help developing countries use compulsory licences as needed to improve access to technology, to document and train in the use of patent oppositions, and to study the degree to which technology transfer is happening under World Trade Organization mechanisms so that WIPO programmes can learn from and improve on problems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"World Alzheimer Report 2009","field_subtitle":"Prince M and Jackson J (eds): 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.alz.co.uk/research/files/World%20Alzheimer%20Report.pdf","body":"This report gives an overview and analysis of the prevalence and impact of Alzheimer's disease, based on a systematic review identifying studies in 21 global burden of disease (GBD) world regions. The authors estimate 35.6 million people with dementia in 2010, with the numbers nearly doubling every 20 years, to 65.7 million in 2030 and 115.4 million in 2050. In low- and middle-income countries, especially, there is a general lack of awareness of Alzheimer\u2019s and other dementias as medical conditions. They are perceived as a normal part of ageing. This general lack of awareness has important consequences, such as a lack of training on dementia recognition and management at any level of the health service. The authors recommend that the World Health Organization (WHO) should declare dementia a world health priority. Low- and medium-income countries should create dementia strategies based first on enhancing primary healthcare and other community services. Collaborations should be created between governments, people with dementia, their carers and their Alzheimer associations, and other relevant non-governmental organisations and professional healthcare bodies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Statistics 2009","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: August 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/EN_WHS09_Full.pdf","body":"World Health Statistics 2009 contains the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO's) annual compilation of data from its 193 member states, and includes a summary of progress towards the health-related millennium development goals and targets. This edition also contains a new section on reported cases of selected infectious diseases. It provides a comprehensive summary of the current status of national health and health systems including; mortality and burden of disease, causes of death, reported infectious diseases, health service coverage, risk factors, health systems resources, health expenditures, inequities and demographic and socioeconomic statistics. The section on inequities presents statistics on the distribution of selected health outcomes and interventions within countries, disaggregated by sex, age, urban and rural settings, wealth and educational level. It is an integral part of WHO\u2019s ongoing effort to inform better measures of population health and national health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"WTO Forum: Bypassing international agreements may hamper medicines access","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 11 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/10/11/wto-forum-bypassing-international-agreements-may-hamper-medicines-access/","body":"Access to medicines in developing countries may be put at risk by European customs regulations and more broadly by trade provisions in most free trade agreements between developed and developing countries, said speakers at the recent World Trade Organization (WTO) Public Forum, held from 28\u201330 September. European Union (EU) regulation 1383/2003 concerning customs action against goods suspected of IP infringement is open to interpretation, said Sunjay Sudhir, counsellor at the Permanent Mission of India. There are fears that decisions taken under regulation 1383/2003 reflects a larger design for tougher enforcement of IP rights, part of which is a campaign of deliberately confusing quality concerns with IP rights in international organisations. The issue has arisen in the World Health Organization, and can be noticed in TRIPS-plus elements in bilateral free trade agreements, and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) under negotiation to the exclusion of many countries, including developing and least-developed countries, according to Sudhir. \u2018Regulation 1383/2003 should be reviewed and brought into line with TRIPS, GATT, and the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS agreement and public health,\u2019 he recommended.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe\u2019s adult HIV prevalence rate down","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 29 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86332","body":"Zimbabwe's adult HIV prevalence rate is continuing its downward trend, showing a drop from 14.1% in 2008 to 13.7% in 2009, according to new estimates released by the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare. The 2009 Antenatal Clinic (ANC) Surveillance Survey, based on blood specimens collected from 7,363 pregnant women anonymously screened at 19 clinic sites throughout the country, estimated that 1.1 million Zimbabweans in a probable population of around 11 million were living with HIV. The prevalence rate is expected to continue decreasing; investigations have shown that the decline \u2018most likely resulted from a combination of an increase in adult mortality and a decline in HIV incidence, resulting from adoption of safer sexual behaviours\u2019, said Douglas Mombeshora, Deputy Minister of Health and Child Welfare. \u2018When prevention programmes achieve heightened awareness, significant changes in behaviour will occur, and one of the main outcomes is the significant reduction in the need for PMTCT [prevention of mother-to-child transmission] services, as well as a reduced number of new HIV infections,\u2019 he noted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Just like fever\u2019: A qualitative study on the impact of antiretroviral provision on the normalisation of HIV in rural Tanzania and its implications for prevention","field_subtitle":"Roura M, Wringe A, Busza J, Nhandi B, Mbata D, Zaba B and Urassa M: International Health and Human Rights, 9 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698X-9-22.pdf","body":"As part of a broader initiative to monitor the implementation of the national antiretroviral therapy (ART) programme, this qualitative study investigated the impact of ART availability on perceptions of HIV in a rural ward of north Tanzania and its implications for prevention. A mix of qualitative methods was used including semi-structured interviews with 53 ART clinic clients and service providers. Four group activities were conducted with persons living with HIV. People on ART often reported feeling increasingly comfortable with their status reflecting a certain \u2018normalisation\u2019 of the disease. Overcoming internalised feelings of shame facilitated disclosure of HIV status, helped to sustain treatment, and stimulated VCT uptake. However \u2018blaming\u2019 stigma \u2013 where people living with HIV were considered responsible for acquiring a \u2018moral disease\u2019 \u2013 persisted in the community and anticipating it was a key barrier to disclosure and VCT uptake. As long as an HIV diagnosis continues to have moral connotations, a de-stigmatisation of HIV paralleling that occurring with diseases like cancer is unlikely to occur.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"2010 NGO Global Forum for Women: Beijing +15","field_subtitle":"Registration now open","field_url":"http://www.ngocsw.org/en/events/2010-forum","body":"The Forum will take place on 27 and 28 February 2010, immediately preceding the 54th session of the United Nations (UN) Commission on the Status of Women, which will also undertake a 15-year review and appraisal of the Beijing Platform for Action. Early registration (by 15 October) is recommended, as it is cheaper than late registration (after 15 January). 2010 marks the 15th anniversary of the Beijing World Conference on Women. In recognition of this anniversary, the Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) Committee on the Status of Women is organising an NGO Global Women\u2019s Forum to consider implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA). The Forum programme will include two full conference days commencing with an opening ceremony, and continuing with plenary sessions, panel discussions and workshops. The Forum is working closely with NGOs and UN partners to assure full and representative participation from all regions of the world, especially from developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A new species concealed by Anopheles funestus Giles, a major malaria vector in Africa","field_subtitle":"Spillings BL, Brooke BD, Koekemoer LL, Chiphwanya J, Coetzee M and Hunt RH: The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 81(3): 510\u2013515, 2009","field_url":"http://www.ajtmh.org/cgi/content/abstract/81/3/510","body":"A new species of mosquito has been discovered by South African researchers that might be a malaria vector. The authors of the report note that \u2018understanding the vectors is absolutely key; if we don't do anything about mosquitoes, we will never do anything about malaria.\u2019 The previously unknown species was discovered during field studies in and around rural villages in northern Malawi near the town of Karonga, on the western shore of Lake Malawi. The new species is related to the major African malarial vector, Anopheles funestus, but the \u2018jury is still out on ... whether it carries [the] malaria [parasite],\" Coetzee, one of the authors, said. The Anopheles funestus Giles group of mosquitoes has nine known African species, and \u2018although the members of the Anopheles funestus group may be similar in morphology [its form and structure], their efficiencies as malaria vectors vary greatly,\u2019 the report said. Coetzee said it was important to ascertain whether Anopheles funestus Giles was a malaria vector or not, but this could only be determined after further research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Achieving the health Millennium Development Goals for South Africa: Challenges and priorities","field_subtitle":"Chopra M, Lawn JE, Sanders D, Barron P, Karim SSA, Bradshaw D, Jewkes R, Karim QA, Flisher AJ, Mayosi BM, Tollman SM, Churchyard GJ and Coovadia H: The Lancet 374(9692): 1023\u20131031, 5 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2961122-3/abstract","body":"Fifteen years after liberation from apartheid, South Africans are facing new challenges for which the highest calibre of leadership, vision, and commitment is needed. The effect of the unprecedented HIV and AIDS epidemic has been immense. Substantial increases in mortality and morbidity are threatening to overwhelm the health system and undermine the potential of South Africa to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This paper has identified several examples of leadership and innovation that point towards a different future scenario. It discusses the type of vision, leadership and priority actions needed to achieve such a change. There is still time to change the health trajectory of the country, and even meet the MDGs. The new South African Government, installed in April 2009, has the mandate and potential to address the public health emergencies facing the country \u2013 will they do so or will another opportunity and many more lives be lost?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa must address cancer or face massive suffering, says Seffrin","field_subtitle":"Thom A: Health-e, 2 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032481","body":"This interview was conducted with Dr John Seffrin, CEO of the American Cancer Society (ACS), who spoke about the cancer challenges facing Africa. By next year cancer is set to become the biggest killer in the world, killing more people than HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria combined. In Africa, people are dying of cancers that are curable in the developed world. Cancer is a growing problem in Africa but is given little attention as the continent is overwhelmed by many other problems. There are relatively low cancer prevalence rates in Africa, but a high growth of the cancer burden. This is argued to call for health promotion for people who don\u2019t have cancer and palliative care for people who have late-stage disease. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Analysing and addressing governance in sector operations","field_subtitle":"Boesen N: 2008","field_url":"http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/infopoint/publications/europeaid/documents/149a_governance_layout_090306_en.pdf","body":"This guide, produced by the EuropeAid Co-operation Office, offers guidance to European Community (EC) sector specialists on how to analyse and address governance in sector operations in a more systemic and comprehensive way, without being a compulsory blueprint. It aims to strengthen understanding of governance issues at sector level. It is divided into four chapters, which provide a broad definition of governance and overall EC policy on governance, experiences in dealing with governance at sector level reasons for strengthening efforts, a focus on an overall approach in addressing sector governance, and a methodology that can guide the process of analysing governance at sector level. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Basic fund-raising for small NGOs/civil society in the developing world","field_subtitle":"Institute of Development Studies: 2009 ","field_url":"http://community.eldis.org/.59ca6717","body":"This manual is a free online guide that provides very basic guidelines for small non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the developing world regarding fund-raising, focusing on the importance of adhering to the basic principles of good governance. The first impulse of many such non-governmental organisation (NGO) seeking funding is to request the contact information for possible funders, and once such information is received, these NGOs often write immediately to the potential funder, stressing how desperately funds are needed. Sadly, this approach often harms the NGO, rather than garnering support. Not only does it rarely attract funding, it can turn funding sources against the NGO altogether. This manual intends to discourage that behaviour and, instead, encourage simple activities by small NGOs that help continually cultivate and attract support. It is, instead, a set of guidelines on how to prepare an organisation to be attractive to donors, how to search for potential donors that support organisations in the developing world and how to approach such potential donors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Budgeting for women\u2019s rights and monitoring government budget for compliance with CEDAW: A summary guide for policy-makers, gender equality and human rights advocates","field_subtitle":"Hukerby J, Kytola L and Alami N: 2008","field_url":"http://lyris.ids.ac.uk/t/2646593/761884/1587/0/","body":"More than 50 countries have engaged in Gender Budget Initiatives (GBI), but few of these initiatives articulate an explicit connection between budgets and the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). This booklet, produced by the United Nations Development Fund for Women, articulates what it means to take an explicitly rights-based approach to government budgets. It draws on the lessons of gender budgeting experiences from around the world. It poses three questions. How can the four main dimensions of budgets \u2013 revenue, expenditure, macro economics of the budgets and budget decision making processes \u2013 be linked to governments\u2019 commitments under CEDAW? Using these links, how can gender budget analysis then assist in monitoring a government\u2019s compliance with CEDAW? How can CEDAW be used to set equality-enhancing criteria in budget activities and guide GBIs and other initiatives towards achieving gender equality? The booklet is intended as an advocacy and action tool for key stakeholders in the area of government budgets and women\u2019s human rights including policy and law makers at the country level and gender human rights advocates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Twenty-sixth International Paediatrics Association Congress of Paediatrics","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submission: 10 February 2010","field_url":"http://www2.kenes.com/ipa/Pages/Call.aspx","body":"The Congress will be held in Africa for the first time, from 4\u20139 August 2010 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Participants who would like to present an oral or poster presentation must submit an abstract for consideration by the Scientific Committee. The abstracts should be submitted in English. The Scientific Committee will determine whether abstracts will be accepted as oral or poster presentations, with consideration to be given to the author\u2019s preference. The presenting author is required to ensure that all co-authors are aware of the content of the abstract before submission to the Secretariat. Only the abstracts of registered presenting authors will be included in the programme and book of abstracts. The Committee will review abstracts. Following this, information regarding acceptance, and scheduling will be sent to the abstract submitter. Instructions for preparation of posters will be sent together with the acceptance notification. Only abstracts of authors who have paid their registration fees by 2 December 2009 will be scheduled and included in the final programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Editors","field_subtitle":"Global Social Policy: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Public Policy and Social Development","field_url":"","body":"Global Social Policy is a fully peer-reviewed journal that advances the understanding of the impact of globalisation processes upon social policy and social development on the one hand, and the impact of social policy upon globalisation processes on the other hand. The journal analyses the contributions of a range of national and international actors, both governmental and non-governmental, to global social policy and social development discourse and practice. It has a clear focus on social\r\npolicies that have global and transnational reach and that have significant implications for the development of social policy worldwide.  The Journal publishes three issues a year. The journal is seeking new editors with vision, international standing in global social policy, knowledge and understanding of current trends in global social policy\r\nand closely related areas, journal editorial experience, proficiency in the use of information/communications technology and an ability to adhere to agreed work schedules and deadlines. Further information for interested applicants can be obtained from the email address below.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for programme officers on Sexual and Reproductive Health","field_subtitle":"Ford Foundation","field_url":"","body":"The Ford Foundation seeks two Program Officers to respectively focus on Addressing Social and Cultural Barriers to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in West Africa (targeting Nigeria and sub-regional initiatives); and Protecting the Rights of Women and Girls and Addressing Social and Cultural Barriers to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in East Africa.  The Foundation\u2019s Nairobi office seeks a dynamic individual to implement, monitor and coordinate grant making programs on Protecting the Rights of Women and Girls portfolio and the Sexuality and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) portfolio. For further information please contact the email address below before October 14, 2009.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/34364","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Child ARVs in Uganda could go to waste due to low demand","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 10 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86080","body":"A large supply of paediatric antiretroviral medication donated by the Clinton Foundation could expire in Ugandan medical stores because of low demand. \u2018There are few children who are receiving the drugs; they are going to expire by March [2010],\u2019 said Zainabu Akol, head of HIV programming in the Ministry of Health. Fewer than a quarter of the 125,000 Ugandan children who need life-prolonging anti-retroviral treatment (ART) have access to it, mainly because of stigma and inadequate education of parents, say specialists. \u2018Due to stigma, parents have failed to take their children for ART,\u2019 said Goretti Nakabugo, from a local non-governmental organisation, called Strengthening HIV/AIDS Counsellor Training. \u2018They believe if their children start ART, they will be shunned by the community and pupils at school. People don't yet believe that HIV/AIDS is not transmitted through casual contact; a child with rashes is always shunned,\u2019 she added. Many parents cannot face the idea of telling their children they have a potentially life-threatening illness and they live in denial.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Children are on the brink of death in northeast Kenya","field_subtitle":"AllAfrica.com: 23 September 2009","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200909240606.html","body":"The drought that has ravaged parts of northeastern Kenya, killing a large number of livestock, has affected the availability of milk, in turn undermining child nutrition, say officials. Most of the rural population in the areas where Save the Children is working is heavily dependent on relief food and many children are eating only one meal a day, of corn porridge. \u2018This poor diet means they are missing out on vital nutrients, which can mean they grow up stunted and their brains and bodies can suffer permanent damage,\u2019 the organisation said. Since July, the number of severely malnourished children seeking treatment at its northeastern emergency feeding centres has increased by 25%. \u2018The government and donors need to be aware of the changing climate now and in future, and shape their policies accordingly,\u2019 Philippa Crosland-Taylor, head of Oxfam in Kenya, said in August. \u2018Emergency aid is urgently needed now, but in the long term we need to rethink policies to focus on mitigating the risks of droughts before they occur, rather than rushing in food aid when it is too late.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society in 30 countries demand turnaround in EPA negotiations","field_subtitle":"EPA Watch: 25 September 2009","field_url":"http://epawatch.eu/","body":"On 25 September 2009, hundreds of farmers, traders, students, women groups and civil society from across Kenya congregated at Uhuru Park to proclaim their concerns about the economic partnership agreements (EPAs) currently under negotiation between the European Union (EU) and African countries. The protesters delivered a petition to the Ministry of Trade as well as Trade committee of the Kenyan parliament. Through a collective mass fax and e-mail action, more than 80 organisations in 30 countries across Europe, Africa and the Pacific have called on decision-makers to fundamentally change the course of the ongoing negotiations. The multiple messages are aimed at stressing the importance of bold committed African leadership displayed by only supporting trade and economic policies that lead to the development of their people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Clinical social franchising: An annual compendium of programmes, 2009","field_subtitle":"Global Health Group: 2009","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems/health-service-delivery&id=44491&type=Document","body":"Social franchising is argued to be a way of rapidly scaling up clinical health interventions in developing countries. Building upon existing expertise in poor and isolated communities, social franchising organisations engage private medical practitioners to add new services to the range of services they already offer. Specific examples are provided, such as the Confiance programme in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that provides a toll-free hotline for answering family planning-related questions and making referrals. It is reported to have been effective in addressing family planning concerns raised by men. This paper argues that standardisation, quality monitoring and scalability make social franchising one platform for the expansion and improvement of a wide range of medical services. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Commonwealth Health Ministers\u00b4 Update 2009","field_subtitle":"Sen P: August 2009","field_url":"http://publications.thecommonwealth.org/commonwealth-health-ministers--update-2009-717-p.aspx","body":"The Universal Periodic Review mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council, which came into effect in 2008, has established itself as a mechanism with huge potential and which promotes dialogue and a level playing field for all countries undergoing the review of their human rights record. Building on the Commonwealth Secretariat\u2019s observations and analysis of the process, and the seminars it has conducted with member states, Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights consolidates the lessons learned so far, speaking equally to the three major stakeholders in the process \u2013 to states, to national human rights institutions, and to civil society organisations. An effective UPR mechanism will enhance the promotion of human rights across the world. It is therefore essential for the key players to understand and advance the UPR process including at the implementation phase. This publication describes UPR, shares experiences and provides analysis of the Commonwealth countries that reported in the first year of the UPR process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Community Radio Performance Assessment System: Manual on indicators for community media","field_subtitle":"Nepali Community Radio Support Centre: 2009","field_url":"http://www.nefej.org/pdf/crpa_book.pdf","body":"Like many other developing countries with forbidding landscapes and isolated communities, radio is to be the most effective way of communication in Nepal, where the majority of population lives in villages and the half of it cannot read and write. This manual draws from both the grassroots experience of community media and from international broadcast practices. It considers the issues that are the real basis for the success of community media: public accountability, community representation, locally relevant programming, diverse funding and acknowledgement of staff, including volunteers. It covers in details many key success factors, such as participation and ownership, content, management, volunteerism and networking. It can be applied across a wide range of contexts, from policy issues to the assessment of a local station.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Context matters","field_subtitle":"Boesen N: Capacity,org 37, September 2009","field_url":"http://www.capacity.org/en/journal/guest_column/context_matters","body":"Context matters with regard to foreign aid. The implications are only slowly coming to the fore: external funders are realising that they will not find a magic wand or global prescription or best practice by which they can unleash the change that will reduce poverty on a significant and sustainable scale. Context \u2013 the institutional, social, political, cultural and economic fabric of society \u2013 matters, and its significance is much greater than that of aid from external partners. So, the problem for funders in dealing with context seems to be first and foremost dealing with their own context that forces them to try to do more than they objectively can. The challenge is to find ways to change the political and systemic factors that constrain the capacity and willingness of funders to act with modesty, realism and humility. This requires an environment in which their stakeholders are genuinely happy to be small contributors to processes that mainly depend on everything but funders and aid. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Continuing ARV crisis in Free State, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 28 August 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85906","body":"South Africa's Free State Province is again experiencing a crisis in the delivery of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, with understaffed clinics, erratic drug supplies and long waiting lists preventing many dangerously ill patients from accessing the life-prolonging drugs, according to AIDS activists. Runaway overspending by the provincial health department in 2008 led to a moratorium on new patients starting ARV treatment that lasted from November until February 2009. The Southern African HIV Clinicians Society estimated that 30 people a day died during this three-month period because they could not access treatment. Now, several reports from the Free State suggest that many of the factors leading to last year's moratorium have not been addressed, and patients are again suffering the consequences. Trudie Harrison, director of the Anglican Church's Mosamaria AIDS Ministry, said that the crisis was the result of drug shortages and a dearth of health workers. At one ARV site she recently visited, normally staffed by three doctors, about 200 patients were waiting to see just one doctor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Crisis an opportunity to find long-term solutions","field_subtitle":"Kanaga Raja: Third World Network, 15 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/wto.info/2009/twninfo20090910.htm","body":"On 14 September, the governing Trade and Development Board (TDB) of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) began its fifty-sixth session with UNCTAD Secretary-General Dr Supachai Panitchpakdi stressing that the global financial and economic crisis presents an opportunity to find long-term, multilateral solutions to the cycle of financial crisis and unsustainable global imbalances. Amongst others, this year's TDB session will also be holding a high-level discussion on the global economic crisis and the necessary policy response. The mega-stimulus packages introduced by many governments appear to have had a decisive impact in slowing the global economy's descent, but Dr Panitchpakdi nevertheless \u2018believes we must still continue to be cautious about the evidence for recovery, and in particular what this means for developing countries.\u2019 He also referred to the so-called 'shadow banking system', which at its peak, held assets in the US of approximately $16 trillion, the collapse of which kick-started the global economic crisis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Disaster risk reduction: A gender and livelihood perspective","field_subtitle":"Giuliani A, Wenger R and Wymann von Dach S: 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=44530&em=24%200909&sub=aid","body":"This paper highlights gender as a very important factor in determining vulnerability in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). The degree of vulnerability to disaster is determined by social variables like gender, age, health status, ethnicity, religion and socio-economic status and understanding these is necessary to identify the underlying causes of disasters and thus try to prevent them. In most countries, women are particularly at risk from disasters. Subsequently, understanding why women are often vulnerable and taking appropriate steps can make a huge difference on impact. The paper looks at DRR in relation to livelihoods. People, especially in developing countries are particularly vulnerable to disasters as they often live in high-risk areas, have lower coping capacities, and have no form of insurance or other safety nets. Furthermore, they are heavily dependent on climate-sensitive primary industries like agriculture and fishing. A disaster can eradicate livelihoods or years of local development efforts in a very short time.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Effect of human immunodeficiency virus treatment on maternal mortality at a tertiary center in South Africa: A five-year audit","field_subtitle":"Black V, Brooke S and Chersich M: Obstetrics and Gynecology 114(2 part 1): 292\u2013299, August 2009","field_url":"http://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/Abstract/2009/08000/Effect_of_Human_Immunodeficiency_Virus_Treatment.15.aspx","body":"This paper\u2019s aim is to review facility-based maternal deaths at a tertiary-level centre in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 2003 to 2007, and to investigate the proportion of deaths attributable to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the etiology of deaths, and the effects of antiretroviral treatment introduced in late 2004. Patient case files, birth registers, death certificates, and mortality summaries were reviewed. Cause of death was assigned through clinical case discussion. Annual maternal mortality ratios were calculated and disaggregated by HIV status. During the period reviewed, 106 maternal deaths occurred out of 36,708 births. In 72% of cases, HIV status was known, with the majority being HIV-infected (78%). Maternal mortality ratios in HIV-infected women were 95%, 6.2-fold higher than in HIV-negative women. Changes in mortality over time were not detected. Although HIV testing increased 1.4-fold each year and estimated coverage of antiretroviral treatment for pregnant women reached 59.2% in 2007, levels remain suboptimal. In Johannesburg, HIV remains the major cause of maternal mortality despite integration of antiretroviral treatment into prenatal services. Maternal health services should target barriers to uptake of HIV treatment and care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"EPA agreement can benefit Botswana, but needs caution","field_subtitle":"Kologwe O: Sunday Standard, 10 August 2009","field_url":"http://sundaystandard.info/news/news_item.php?NewsID=5518&GroupID=3","body":"Following the signing of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries to negotiate an economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the European Union, the Botswana government has been warned to exercise its rights in making sure that threats facing the private sector are taken into consideration. Dr Howard Sigwele, executive director of Delta Diaries, Botswana's first jointly owned citizen milk producing company, indicated that although there were benefits in the agreement in trying to enhance private sector participation in foreign markets, there were possible threats such as unregulated entry of goods and subsidised European Union imports into Botswana, undermining the performance of local business and lead to company closure. He warned about the possible entry of goods of inferior standard and possible importation of diseases and pests unless measures are taken to prevent this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 104: Reclaiming the Resources for Health: Resolutions for action from the Third EQUINET Regional Conference on Equity in Health in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Family planning and HIV services work well together in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 31 August 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=85937","body":"People living with HIV in Kenya do not have adequate access to family planning services, even though most HIV-infected women do not want children in the immediate future. A recent study by the reproductive health NGO, Family Health International (FHI), in the Nakuru district of Rift Valley Province, found that 80% of HIV-positive women had no intention of having a child in the next two years. However, according to the 2007 Kenya AIDS Indicator Survey, only half the HIV-positive people needing family planning services had access to them. \u2018Most prevention of mother-to-child transmission [PMTCT] programmes... looked at it only in the context of preventing transmission to an already conceived child, but meeting contraceptive needs of those living with HIV is a sure way of reducing transmission by avoiding unwanted pregnancies in the first place,\u2019 said Maurine Kuyo, a project director at FHI. About 56% of women in the FHI study mentioned a fear of vertical transmission of HIV to their children as one the reasons they would not want another pregnancy, while 50% mentioned the risk of lowered immunity during pregnancy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing South Africa's national health system through national health insurance: Possibilities and challenges","field_subtitle":"Botha Claire and Hendricks Michael (comp): Human Sciences Research Council Policy Analysis Unit Paper, 2008","field_url":"http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?cat=1&sort&sort_direction&page=2&newtitles=1&productid=2240","body":"Although much progress has been made towards the creation of a national health system which makes 'access to health for all' a reality, much remains to be done. These colloquium proceedings are an effort to initiate policy dialogue and critical discussion on how health services are accessed, provided and funded \u2013 and to formulate ideas, views and recommendations that could be presented to those involved in health policy development. The book is divided into three sections. Section A discusses the context for policy debates on health within a comprehensive system of social security. Section B synthesises the colloquium proceedings, beginning with a brief summary of inputs and discussions under the four key themes: the reform path since 1994; critical options for health within the context of a comprehensive system of social security; local and international evidence on health system models; and health systems reform and stakeholder engagement. Section C provides recommendations for improving implementation and taking the process of policy development forward.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"First positive results from an HIV vaccine","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 24 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86279","body":"A six-year clinical trial in Thailand has yielded the first ever evidence that an AIDS vaccine can provide some protection against HIV infection. The trial team in Bangkok, Thailand's capital announced on 24 September that rates of HIV infection were 31% lower in trial participants who got the vaccine than in those who received a placebo. \u2018These new findings represent an important step forward in HIV vaccine research,\u2019 said Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the main funder of the trial. The study began enrolling 16,000 HIV-negative men and women between the ages of 18 and 30 in October 2003. Half the volunteers received a placebo; the other half were given shots containing two different vaccines. The trial was designed to evaluate whether the combined vaccines (ALVAC-HIV and AIDSVAX) lowered HIV infection risk, and whether they had any impact on viral load [the amount of HIV circulating in the bloodstream] in the volunteers who became infected. Of 8,197 people given the vaccine regimen, 51 became infected, compared to 74 of the 8,198 volunteers who received the placebo.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Five US universities to provide central funding for open access publication fees","field_subtitle":"Compact for Open Access Publication Equity (COPE): September 2009","field_url":"http://www.oacompact.org/","body":"In a major step forward for the open access movement, universities at Berkeley, Cornell, Dartmouth and Harvard, as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have announced a joint commitment to provide their researchers with central financial assistance to cover open access publication fees, and encouraged other academic institutions to join them. The aim of the Compact for Open Access Publication Equity (COPE) is to create a level playing field between subscription-based journals (which institutions support centrally via library budgets) and open access journals (which often depend on publication fees). The Compact commits each university \u2018the timely establishment of durable mechanisms for underwriting reasonable publication charges for articles written by its faculty and published in fee-based open-access journals and for which other institutions would not be expected to provide funds.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Geneva Health Forum 2010: Final Date Abstract Submission 30October 2009","field_subtitle":"Geneva Health Forum Secretariat","field_url":"http://www.genevahealthforum.org","body":"The Geneva Health Forum 2010 \u2018Globalization, Crisis, and Health Systems: Confronting Regional Perspectives\u2019 is fast approaching. We would like to inform you that the Final Date for Abstract Submission is now set at 30 October 2009. The 2010 GHF themes are found at www.ghf10.org/reports/143. Abstract submision is at www.ghf10.org/reports/130. Participant registration opens 10 October 2009.  Specific information and updates on the 2010 edition of the Forum can be found on the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Giving young people the skills to say \u2018No\u2019","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 17 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86188","body":"Carrying placards that read, \u2018Huwezi Die Uki Abstain\u2019, Swahili slang for \u2018You won't die if you abstain [from sex]\u2019, more than 3,000 young people recently marched through Nairobi in an effort to re-energise the campaign to keep teens from having sex too early. But beyond the placard-waving and slogan-chanting, march organisers were also trying to give young people the skills to avoid being pushed into sex before they are ready. James Kabucho, programmes director at Life Skills Promoters, one of the non-governmental organisations that organised the march, explained that the campaign was teaching young people negotiation skills. By acting out real-life scenarios, writing essays, and engaging peer educators in question and answer sessions, young people were able to talk about their experiences and learn to say \u2018No\u2019 to unwanted sexual advances. Research shows that early sexual initiation is associated with increased risk of HIV infection, while adolescents who engage in sex at an early age are likely to have more sexual partners than those who delay their sexual debut. Girls who engage in sex in their teens may also face the challenges of teenage pregnancy, unsafe abortions and dropping out of high school.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Indigenous Health Research Symposium Report: Papers and Presentations: Directions and Themes in International Indigenous Health Research","field_subtitle":"Reading Jeff, Marsden Namaste, Link Rachel, Kurbanova Dinara and Kelly Miranda: 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/CAHRehs311009.pdf","body":"The goal of this book is to offer a glimpse in to the world of global health research through an indigenous peoples\u2019 population lens. The symposium began with a presentation on Bridging Indigenous and Global Health, and the opening presenter made a plea for research into healthy equity to take a new direction by including distal determinants in the analysis. She noted that \u2018it is the causes of the causes that have to be addressed\u2026 [ ] A distal determinant does not mean an unimportant determinant. This is where we have to head if we are truly going to address inequities\u2026 [ ] \u2026 because long-standing structures of disadvantage are at play in creating inequities.\u2019 Thereafter, a number of plenary sessions were held. Two sessions covered work of direct relevance to east, southern and central Africa, namely: Mental Health Research in Africa: Lessons Learned; and Tackling Inequities in Health: Lessons from the Work of the Regional Network on Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa. Climate change and its impact on developing nations was also discussed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Global prevalance of vitamin A deficiency in populations at risk, 1995\u20132005","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/nutrition/publications/micronutrients/vitamin_a_deficieny/9789241598019/en/index.html","body":"In 1987, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that vitamin A deficiency was endemic in 39 countries based on the ocular manifestations of xerophthalmia or deficient serum (plasma) retinol concentrations. In 1995, WHO updated these estimates and reported that vitamin A deficiency was of public health significance in 60 countries, and was likely to be a problem in an additional 13 countries. The current estimates reflect the time period between 1995 and 2005, and indicate that 45 and 122 countries have vitamin A deficiency of public health significance based on the prevalence of night blindness and biochemical vitamin A deficiency, respectively, in preschool-age children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Governance of dual-use research: An ethical dilemma","field_subtitle":"Selgelid MJ: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(9): 720\u2013723, September 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/9/08-051383/en/index.html","body":"Scenarios where the results of well-intentioned scientific research can be used for both good and harmful purposes give rise to what is now widely known as the \u2018dual-use dilemma\u2019. Four recent cases involving of dual-use discoveries have been particularly controversial: the development of a super strain of mouse pox, the synthesis of a polio virus from scratch, a case of genetically engineering a smallpox virus and the use of techniques of synthetic genomics (similar to those used in the polio study) to \u2018reconstruct\u2019 the Spanish flu virus, which killed between 20 and 100 million people in 1918\u20131919. Research may not only produce cures for modern diseases but may also be used to produce biological weapons. Though they understood the dangers, the scientists and editors involved defended their actions. It is questionable, however, whether reliance on voluntary self-governance of the scientific community in matters of censorship is advisable. Because scientists generally lack training in security studies, they may lack the expertise required for assessment of the security risks of publication in any given case.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Great leap forward on free healthcare","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 24 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86280","body":"Providing free healthcare to millions of women and children in some of the world's poorest countries has come a step closer, with the unveiling on 23 September of a US$5.3 billion financing package by British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. The funds, to be used to roll back user fees in six countries, including Malawi, would reportedly benefit 10 million people \u2013 mainly women and children \u2013 and help cut maternal mortality. In announcing the initiative, Brown said that charging the poor even a few cents for health services \u2018became a death sentence for millions\u2019. The funding commitment was the result of twelve months' work by a taskforce on International Innovative Finance for Health Systems, co-chaired by Brown and World Bank President Robert Zoellick, and is to include a pledge of US$3 billion from the online travel industry. The goal is to help developing countries meet their health millennium development goals by 2015, and the financing represents commitments rather than cash immediately available.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Handbook on planning, monitoring and evaluating for development results","field_subtitle":"Kasturiaracchi A, Eriksson T and Rodriques S: 2009","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=44658&em=240909&sub=man","body":"Planning, monitoring and evaluation in development requires a focus on nationally owned development priorities and results and should reflect the guiding principles of national ownership, capacity development human development. This handbook is aims to enhance the results-based culture within the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and improve the quality of planning, monitoring and evaluation. While written with UNDP staff, stakeholders and partners in mind, the handbook provides a useful overview of why and how to evaluate for results that can be used in other contexts. This handbook concentrates on planning, monitoring and evaluating of results in development and is designed to be used as a reference throughout the programme cycle. It deals with the integrated nature of planning, monitoring and evaluation, and describes the critical role they play in managing for development results, as well as the conceptual foundations of planning and specific guidance on planning techniques and the preparation of results frameworks that guide monitoring and evaluation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and Human Rights: Volume 2","field_subtitle":"Zesiger V, Mpinga EK, Klohn A and Chastonay P: September 2009","field_url":"http://www.amazon.fr/Sant%C3%A9-droits-humains-Apprendre-dapprentissage/dp/2880492688","body":"The second volume of Health and Human Rights brings one more piece to the set of educational materials available from multiple sources, mostly, although not exclusively, in the English language. Intended primarily for health practitioners, the book incorporates a succinct introduction laying out essential concepts, principles and mechanisms relevant to the congruence between public health and human rights. Ten case studies follow, each constructed around clearly set learning objectives, including questions to be addressed, highlights of the public health issue and references to specific human rights relevant to the case study, sources of pertinent information and bibliography. The case studies focus on major public health issues such as maternal mortality, female genital mutilation, access to medicine and prison health. They constitute a useful tool for classroom education as well as self-learning. As Internet access expands in low- and medium-income countries, the material presented could serve to structure a distance-learning facility (a field in which one of the co-authors specialises) with interactivity between learners and their mentors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health budget decisions may be violating Constitution","field_subtitle":"Thom A: Health-e, 21 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032515","body":"Several health-related budget decisions taken in the past financial year in South Africa are reported to have violated the Constitution, the National Health Act, the Public Finance Management Act and the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, according to a group of activists, researchers, unionists, health workers and academics, called the Budget and Expenditure Monitoring Forum (BEMF). The Forum has written to the ministers of health and finance, expressing concern over the effect of budgeting practices within the public health system on HIV and AIDS programmes, including on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and prevention of mother-to-child transmission programmes, citing the moratorium on starting new patients on ARVs in the Free State as one example of such a decision. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health care providers' attitudes towards termination of pregnancy: A qualitative study in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Harries J, Stinson K and Orner P: BMC Public Health, 18 August 2009","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/9/296","body":"This is the first known qualitative study undertaken in South Africa exploring providers' attitudes towards abortion. It used qualitative research methods to collect data. Thirty four in-depth interviews and one focus group discussion were conducted during 2006 and 2007 with health care providers who were involved in a range of abortion provision in the Western Cape Province, South Africa. Data were analysed using a thematic analysis approach. Complex patterns of service delivery were prevalent throughout many of the health care facilities and fragmented levels of service provision operated in order to accommodate health care providers' willingness to be involved in different aspects of abortion provision. Almost all providers were concerned about the numerous difficulties women faced in seeking an abortion and their general quality of care. An overriding concern was poor pre- and post-abortion counselling, including contraceptive counselling and provision. To sustain a pool of abortion providers, programmes that both attract prospective abortion providers and retain existing providers, need to be developed and financial compensation for abortion care providers needs to be considered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health officials confident of beating malaria in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 3 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85991","body":"Health officials in Tanzania are confident they are on track to eradicate malaria deaths by 2015, even if significant challenges stand in the way of the target. The National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP) says malaria is a leading killer in the East African country, infecting about 18 million people annually, and 30\u201340% of attendance at health centres and hospitals are related to malaria cases, burdening overstretched facilities. Malaria, according to the National Planning Commission (NPC) costs the country an estimated loss that is equivalent to 3.4% of gross domestic product. Alex Mwita, a senior NMCP official, said initiatives being implemented under the Roll Back Malaria programme, such as insecticide-treated bed nets and indoor residual spraying (IRS), had helped reduce malaria cases, along with deaths of children under five and infants (younger than one). \u2018Under-five deaths have dropped to 91 per 1,000 live births in 2008, down from 147 in 1999,\u2019 he said. Although the decline could not be attributed to a fall in malaria cases alone, research showed a decline in prevalence of the disease had a big impact on childhood and maternal mortality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health through people\u2019s empowerment: A rights-based approach to participation","field_subtitle":"De Vos P, de Ceukelaire W, Malaise G, P\u00e9rez D, Lef\u00e8vre P and van der Stuyft P: Health and Human Rights 11(1), 2009","field_url":"http://hhrjournal.org/index.php/hhr/article/view/126/202","body":"This paper focuses on three crucial issues when analysing human rights and health: the importance of social class in community participation, the pivotal role of power and empowerment, and the role of the state, which refers to the concepts of claim holders and duty bearers included in a rights-based approach to health. The concept of \u2018health through people's empowerment\u2019 is proposed to identify and describe the core aspects of participation and empowerment from a human rights perspective and to put forward common strategies. If marginalised groups and classes organise, they can influence power relations and pressure the state into action. Such popular pressure through organised communities and people's organizations can play an essential role in ensuring adequate government policies to address health inequities and in asserting the right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV infection and tuberculosis in South Africa: An urgent need to escalate the public health response","field_subtitle":"Karim SSA, Churchyard GJ, Karim QA and Lawn SD: The Lancet 374(9692): 921\u2013933, 5 September 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2960916-8/abstract","body":"In 2007, South Africa, with 0\u00b77% of the world's population, had 17% of the global burden of HIV infection, and one of the world's worst tuberculosis epidemics, compounded by rising drug resistance and HIV co-infection but, until recently, the government's response to these diseases has been marked by denial, lack of political will and poor implementation of policies and programmes. Nonetheless, there have been notable achievements in disease management, including substantial improvements in access to condoms, expansion of tuberculosis control efforts and scale-up of free antiretroviral therapy (ART). Using the framework of the Strategic Plans for South Africa for Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, this paper provides a prioritised four-step approaches for tuberculosis control, HIV prevention, and HIV treatment. Strong leadership, political will, social mobilisation, adequate human and financial resources, and sustainable development of health-care services are needed for successful implementation of these approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV Prevention and primary care for transgender women in a community-based clinic ","field_subtitle":"Melendez RM and Pinto RM: Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS care 20(5): 387\u2013397, September/October 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y9v7s7d","body":"Male-to-female transgender individuals, or transgender women (TW), are at high risk for HIV infection and face multiple barriers to HIV care. This article examines how a community-based clinic that offers free or low-cost care addresses the health care needs of TW. A total of twenty TW who attended a health care clinic dedicated to community-based health were interviewed regarding best practices for HIV prevention and primary care. In-depth interviews were conducted, transcribed, coded, and analysed. Factors reported to be effective for HIV prevention and primary care included access to health care in settings not dedicated to serving transgender and/or gay communities, a friendly atmosphere and staff sensitivity, and holistic care, including hormone therapy. Community-based health care settings can be ideal locales for HIV prevention and primary care for TW.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV-related public-private partnerships and health systems strengthening","field_subtitle":"Joint United Nations Programme On HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS): July 2009","field_url":"http://data.unaids.org/pub/Report/2009/jc1721_publicprivatepartnerships_en.pdf","body":"This report focuses on the contribution of AIDS-related public-private partnerships to the six building blocks of health systems: service delivery; human resources; information; medicines and technologies; financing; and leadership. A desk review and interviews were conducted with representatives of private and public organisation stakeholders, as well as development partners. Interviewees identified mutual understanding as an important precondition for the implementation of efficient and successful partnerships. The private sector at times lacks profound knowledge of the complex stakeholder landscape in the HIV response and health care provision. To develop flourishing partnerships, honest and wide-ranging dialogue to inform and secure agreement in joint planning is essential from the very earliest stages. Such planning will of course consider issue such as sustainability, follow-up, and monitoring, essential to flourishing partnerships. Health financing mechanisms, HIV and tuberculosis treatment and mobile health technology are areas which are of interest to the private sector and which require further technical expertise and promotion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS, growth and poverty in KwaZulu-Natal and South Africa: An integrated survey, demographic and economywide analysis","field_subtitle":"Thurlow J, Gow J and George G: Journal of the International AIDS Society, 16 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-12-18.pdf","body":"This paper estimates the economic impact of HIV and AIDS on the KwaZulu-Natal province and the rest of South Africa. It extended previous studies by employing: an integrated analytical framework that combined firm surveys of workers' HIV prevalence by sector and occupation; a demographic model that produced both population and workforce projections; and a regionalised economy-wide model linked to a survey-based micro-simulation module. Results indicate that HIV and AIDS greatly reduces annual economic growth, mainly by lowering the long-run rate of technical change. However, impacts on income poverty are small, and inequality is reduced by HIV and AIDS because high unemployment among low-income households minimises the economic costs of increased mortality. By contrast, slower economic growth hurts higher income households despite lower HIV prevalence. The increase in economic growth that results from addressing HIV and AIDS is sufficient to offset the population pressure placed on income poverty. Moreover, incentives to mitigate HIV and AIDS lie not only with poorer infected households, but also with uninfected higher income households. The findings confirm the need for policies to curb the economic costs of the pandemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving data to reduce the burden of disease: Lessons from the Western Cape","field_subtitle":"Naledi T, Househam KC, Groenewald P, Bradshaw D, Myers JE and Groenewald  P: South African Medical Journal 99(9): 641\u2013642, September 2009","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/3560/2479","body":"The Western Cape provincial government initiated the collaborative Burden of Disease (BOD) Reduction Project to reduce its burden of disease and promote equity in health. This shift in thinking from facilities to a population-based approach to health demonstrates increased awareness about the crucial role of upstream factors on population health. Several lessons may be learnt from the Western Cape experience with mortality surveillance. Identifying health priorities is important, like leading causes of premature mortality such as HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, homicides and road traffic injuries. Identifying inequities must be done in line with the recommendations of the World Health Organization Commission on Social Determinants of Health to monitor health inequities. Government also needs to start evaluating priority health programmes. Providing accessible information for policy makers is also crucial, as well as advocating for an intersectoral response, such as improving living conditions with the involvement from other sectors such as housing, water and sanitation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"India rejects more AIDS drugs patents ","field_subtitle":"Esalimba R: Intellectual Property Watch, 2 September 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yag4t5v","body":"Authorities in India, the leading producer of generics in the world, have rejected applications for patents on two AIDS drugs, opening the way for cheaper generic versions to be developed and marketed. In the Gleevec case, the Swiss drug company filed a special petition, seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. The petition was to be heard on 31 August but the matter was adjourned after the presiding judge recused himself. India\u2019s patent office has rejected the patents for tenofovir and darunavir, which are expensive but needed for AIDS patients failing on their existing treatments. Brand-name producer Gilead also previously failed to win a patent for tenofovir in Brazil, according to Medicin Sans Frontieres (MSF). The rejection of the patents has yet to be confirmed by official sources. MSF credited Indian Law Section 3(d) with preventing the evergreening of drug patents and opening the way for generics competitors to enter the market.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Injection drug use, unsafe medical injections, and HIV in Africa: A systematic review","field_subtitle":"Reid SR: Harm Reduction Journal, 28 August 2009","field_url":"http://www.harmreductionjournal.com/content/6/1/24","body":"The re-use of injecting equipment in clinical settings is well documented in Africa and appears to play a substantial role in generalised HIV epidemics. Several African governments have taken steps to control injecting equipment, including banning syringes that can be reused. However, injection drug use (IDU), of heroin and stimulants, is a growing risk factor for acquiring HIV in the region, having become increasingly common among young adults in sub-Saharan Africa and also associated with high-risk sex. Demand-reduction programmes based on effective substance use education and drug treatment services are very limited, and imprisonment is more common than access to drug treatment services. Drug policies are still very punitive and there is widespread misunderstanding of and hostility to harm-reduction programmes. These new injection risks will take on increased epidemiological significance over the coming decade and will require much more attention by African nations to the range of effective harm reduction tools now available in Europe, Asia and North America.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Intellectual property rights and wrongs","field_subtitle":"South Centre: 2009","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/wto.info/2009/twninfo20090912.htm","body":"The legitimacy of the intellectual property (IP) system depends on the correct balance between the public interest and the private privilege given to the IP holders. This balance has been disrupted by a one-size-fits-all global regime in the TRIPS agreement. Yet TRIPS has some flexibilities that can be used. Recently, developed countries have been promoting a TRIPS-Plus agenda that reduces or removes TRIPS flexibilities. Their IP enforcement programme has resulted in legitimate generic drugs of developing countries being seized in European ports while in transit to other developing countries. At the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), developing countries have not accepted the TRIPS-Plus proposals and are protesting against the actions on generic medicines. Issues covered here include the row over generic drug seizures, the recent controversies at the WIPO meeting on Patent Cooperation Treaty, the TRIPS-Plus enforcement agenda, and the move towards a \u2018global IP infrastructure\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Just another emperor? The myths and realities of philanthrocapitalism","field_subtitle":"Edwards M: 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=44203&em=24%200909&sub=aid","body":"This book is about a new form of philanthropy dubbed 'philanthrocapitalism'. Philanthrocapitalists believe that foundations and non-profit civil society organisations should operate like market-oriented businesses. They believe that success in the business model can be emulated to make a similar impact on social change. The author concedes that it should certainly help to extend access to useful goods and services, and it has a positive role to play in strengthening important areas of civil society capacity, but social transformation requires a great deal more. Philantrocapitalism is a sign of a severely disordered and inequitable world. The author asserts that there is need for public debate between philanthrocapitalists and their critics about the complexities involved in social transformation. The book suggests a number of commitments that should be made: commitments to transparency and accountability, to democracy, to modesty and to devolution by investing in civic capacity and voice, and promoting the long-term financial independence of civil society organisations through long-term support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of the Policy Action Network ","field_subtitle":" Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), South Africa","field_url":"http://www.pan.org.za","body":"The Policy Analysis and Capacity Enhancement Unit (PACE) website at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) has now been launched. A portal to serve the wider policy and development community in South Africa - civil society, government officials and academics - has been strongly endorsed and Phase 1 of the process has been concluded. Collections of policy-related information are being developed in the following thematic areas: the developmental state, gender, health, poverty, social & economic policy, social innovation and social protection. The portal aims to provide a platform for key issues being debated including national health insurance and poverty alleviation. In addition, the site is developing a collection of information on policy methods \u2013 the \u2018how-to\u2019 of policy \u2013 to support the work of different sectors. Sections of the site include - \r\nInformation on methodologies for getting research into policy, policy into action, and on monitoring and evaluation; Policy-related events and training; Journals  and listings of policy associations, centres and networks. The portal hosts invite feedback and submision of policy-related information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Low malnutrition but high mortality: Explaining the paradox of the Lake Victoria region","field_subtitle":"Priebe J and Grab J: 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.umb.no/statisk/ncde-2009/jan_priebe.pdf","body":"The combination of low levels of malnutrition together with dramatically high rates of mortality encountered in Kenya's Lake Victoria territory is unique for Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper points to a unique interplay of cultural, geographical and political factors in the region that are responsible for causing the described paradox. Moreover, it demonstrates that a salient disease environment is one of the key drivers of the massive under-5 mortality rates in the lake region. This environment is characterised by extremely high malaria prevalence, polluted water sources and high rates of infectious diseases like HIV. It also found that an ethnic specific effect remains even after controlling for mother's age at birth, birth spacing, birth order and HIV-status. Political discrimination seems also to be an important factor. The paper reveals that the HIV status of the mother and children's diarrhoea status explain the largest part in the variation of stunting outcomes between families. Educational attainment of the mother turns out to be the single most important source in explaining mortality differentials between families.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Meeting: The Challenge of Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5: Reducing Maternal and Newborn Mortality and Morbidity","field_subtitle":"4 October 2009: Cape Town, South Africa ","field_url":"http://www.rcog.org.uk/events/challenge-mdgs-4-and-5","body":"The Royal College of Gynecologists and Obstetricians is holding a meeting on 4 October, shortly before the FIGO World Congress, which offers to be an excellent opportunity to find out about the work that the LSTM/RCOG International Partnership is undertaking to improve women\u2019s healthcare and contributing to the challenges of Millennium Development Goals 4 \u2013 reducing child mortality \u2013 and 5 \u2013 reducing maternal mortality. It is an opportunity to harness information to better support all those concerned and discuss ways to work together using knowledge and experience for the greater good of newborn and maternal health in the future. This programme will be delivered by national and international experts in their fields. The day will highlight successes and look at areas where more work is needed to effect change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring the South African National Antiretroviral Treatment Programme, 2003\u20132007: The IeDEA Southern Africa collaboration","field_subtitle":"Cornell M, Technau K, Fairall L, Wood R, Moultrie H, van Gilles C, Giddy J, Mohapi L, Eley B, MacPhail P, Prozesky H, Rabie H, Davies M, Maxwell N, Boulle A: South African Medical Journal 99(9): 653\u2013660, September 2009","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/3437/2485","body":"This multi-cohort study of eleven anti-retroviral therapy (ART) programmes monitored the South African National Antiretroviral Treatment Programme, 2003\u20132007, in Gauteng, the Western Cape, Free State and KwaZulu-Natal. Subjects were all adults and children (","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Multiple partner study full of surprises","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 23 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86260","body":"Multiple partnerships may not be as common in South Africa as previously thought, according to a study presented at the recent AIDS Research Symposium at the University the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg. Saul Johnson, managing director of Health & Development Africa (HDA), a health consultancy which conducted the research, said findings from four sites across the country showed about 26% of men and 5% of women reported having had more than one partner in the past year. \u2018The perception out there is that [having multiple partners] is more common than it really is,\u2019 he said. The reason may be that men tend to inflate their partner counts. Johnson and his team found that when men were asked to write down a figure for the number of partners they had had in the last twelve months they exaggerated, but when asked to plot their sexual encounters in more detail, using a sexual partner calendar, they often revised the number down slightly. Women's responses were more likely to be consistent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Neither consolidating nor fully democratic: The evolution of African political regimes, 1999\u20132008 ","field_subtitle":"AfroBarometer: AfroBarometer Briefing Paper 67, May 2009","field_url":"http://www.afrobarometer.org/papers/AfrobriefNo67_19may09_final.pdf","body":"The twenty African countries included in the Afrobarometer include many of the most politically liberal countries on the continent, including seven countries ranked by Freedom House in 2008 as \u2018free\u2019. However, when one assesses the quality of these regimes based on popular attitudes and perceptions, one does not find any consolidated democracies among them (although Botswana comes close). In fact, some are consolidating as autocracies, but most countries are best understood as unconsolidated, hybrid regimes. They exhibit some key elements of democracy, such as regular elections and protection of core individual freedoms. But either the popular demand for democracy, or the perceived supply of democracy, or, in most cases, both, fall short of the standards of full democracy. But the trajectories of individual countries are extremely diverse, with some exhibiting sharp declines away from democratic consolidation, while others are steadily advancing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"NGOs in Zambia fear new law will hobble their activities","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 26 August 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85912","body":"Zambian civil society fears the imminent introduction of legislation designed to regulate non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that may compromise their independence and even result in a clampdown on their operations. The new 2009 NGO Bill calls for \u2018the registration and co-ordination of NGOs, to regulate the work, and the area of work, of NGOs operating in Zambia.\u2019 If the bill becomes law, a 16-member board will be established by the community development minister to \u2018receive, discuss and approve the code of conduct [of NGOs], and ... provide policy guidelines to NGOs for harmonising their activities to the national development plan of Zambia.\u2019 NGOs will be compelled to re-register every five years and submit annual information on their activities, funders, accounts and the personal wealth of their officials \u2013 failure to comply could result in the suspension or cancellation of registration. However, civil society leaders and human rights activists fear the proposed new law could be used by government to silence critics and erode civil society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Nineteenth FIGO World Congress of Gynecology and Obstetrics","field_subtitle":"4\u20139 October 2009: Cape Town, South Africa ","field_url":"http://www.figo2009.org.za/index.asp","body":"The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) has finalised the dates of the Nineteenth FIGO World Congress of Gynecology and Obstetrics. The event \u2013the largest gathering of obstetricians and gynecologists from around the world \u2013 will take place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre. We aim to build on the immense success of the event that took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2006 by offering delegates, their partners, sponsors and exhibitors an educational and cultural experience. The World Congress is the only event on this scale that brings together specialists in obstetrics and gynecology from all parts of the world. The 2006 event attracted over 6,000 delegates from in excess of 120 countries and territories, and numbers are expected to be higher in 2009.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Open access journal on AIDS Research calls for submissions","field_subtitle":"AIDS Research and Therapy: 2009","field_url":"http://www.aidsrestherapy.com/manuscript/","body":"AIDS Research and Therapy is covered by an open access license agreement which means that anyone with internet access can read, download, redistribute and reuse published articles. Submit your manuscript to AIDS Research and Therapy and reach a wide audience of academics, researchers, community activists and other health stakeholders. Your published article can then be posted on your personal or institutional homepage, e-mailed to friends and colleagues, printed, archived in a collection, distributed on CD-ROM, included in coursepacks, quoted in the press, translated and further distributed as often and widely as possible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Planning a governance assessment: A guide to approaches, costs and benefits ","field_subtitle":"United Nations Development Programme (UNDP): March 2009","field_url":"http://www.undp.org/oslocentre/docs09/UNDP_GA_Guide_070408_V4.pdf","body":"This guide examines the basic issues that a country or organisation should consider when developing and producing a governance assessment. It is by no means the \u2018last word\u2019, but should serve as a starting point and outline for those interested in conducting a country-led governance assessment. The paper explains the trade-offs of various approaches and methodologies in terms of quality and costs. At the same time, it provides some basic background on the technical aspects of conducting a governance assessment. The guide attempts to answer the rather complex question: how can country-led governance assessments be carried out with broad stakeholder participation at a reasonable cost, and at the same time produce meaningful results that can be used by civil society and governments alike?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Positive teens in South Africa overlooked","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 8 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86059","body":"In South Africa a generation of children who were born HIV-positive is reaching young adulthood, but they are not getting the type of message or psychosocial support they need from the public sector. \u2018These kids are getting older on treatment and surviving on treatment; they're becoming sexually active, they want to get married,\u2019 HIV paediatrician Dr Harry Moultrie told the annual University of the Witwatersrand AIDS Research Symposium in Johannesburg at the end of August. We\u2019re seeing a lot of teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and poor developmental outcomes.\u2019 Studies in the United States have shown that HIV-positive teens may be more likely to engage in risky behaviour. Similar studies have yet to be carried out in South Africa, but Moultrie noted that if the findings were similar, many doctors in South Africa would not be ready to deal with the challenge. Only 12 clinics in the country are offering specialised services to HIV-positive youth. Moultrie called on the government to re-examine the guidelines that sent children aged 14 years or older away from paediatric clinics and into adult facilities, which might not be able to offer them the services they needed. \u2018You have to realise that a lot of these children have gone through multiple childhood traumas, including multiple changes in caregivers,\u2019 he said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"PRA paper: Prevention of vertical HIV transmission in Kamwenge and Kiboga districts, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Muhinda A, Mulumba M, Mugarura J, Akankwasa P, Kabanda J: September 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/HEPS%20PRARep09.pdf","body":"This work sought to identify the barriers to delivery, coverage and uptake of Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) services at primary health care and community level and to generate improved demand for and utilization of PMTCT within Kamwenge sub-county in Kamwenge district and Mulagi subcounty in Kiboga district in Uganda. The work was implemented by HEPs Uganda within an EQUINET participatory action research programme and was mentored by Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) in co-operation with Ifakara Health Institute Tanzania. Participatory methods were used to explore the barriers to using services to prevent vertical transmission and to identify actions to improve uptake. The findings suggested a need to emphasise couple counselling and testing; encourage local leaders to mobilise communities for antenatal care, PMTCT and other primary health care services and to address cultural barriers like male dominance. The baseline survey indicated that even where services are provided, while health workers may be effective in referring those who attend services for testing, PMTCT and ANC, there is a gap in people actually getting to services which breaks this link. Weak links are also made with some other maternal health services. Communities need to be involved in designing interventions that encourage male participation in demand and utilisation of testing and PMTCT services. This would appear to be a core element of any PHC oriented AIDS programme to prevent vertical transmission, as essential as other more biomedical elements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Protecting health from climate change: Global research priorities","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2009","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2009/9789241598187_eng.pdf","body":"Weather and climate affect the key determinants of human health: air, food and water. They also influence the frequency of heatwaves, floods and storms as well as the transmission of infectious diseases. In addition, policies to mitigate climate change (for example in the energy, transport or urban planning sectors) have a direct and important influence on health, for example through effects on local air pollution, physical activity, or road traffic injuries. In order to guide research in this field, the World Health Organization (WHO) carried out a global consultation. Experts on climate change, health and related disciplines produced background reports covering each of the themes identified by the World Health Assembly Resolution, as well as an additional report on how to support research in this field. This was followed by an online consultation, and a three-day workshop attended by over 70 leading researchers, health practitioners, and representatives of funding bodies and other United Nations (UN) agencies. This report presents the conclusions and recommendations from this process, with the aim of improving the evidence base for policies to protect health from climate change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Protecting mothers, sisters and partners from HIV","field_subtitle":"Magamdela P: Health-e, 5 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032494","body":"Non-governmental organisations have raised concern over the lack of female condoms claiming that it undermines efforts to curb new infections. The health department is looking for donors to finance the procurement and distribution of female condoms, citing lack of funds. Meanwhile, a tender has been issued. Tian Johnson, Advocacy Officer of the Thohoyandou Victim Empowerment Programme (TVEP), raised concern over the awarding of the tender for the manufacture of female condoms. \u2018The current situation pertaining to the inadequate access to the female condom in South Africa today is a violation of the rights of women and men of this country. The tender for female condom supply has been awarded to a company called the Female Health Company. That means there are no options for competition, there are no options for bringing prices down. That enables us to use the excuse that we have been using for far too long, the excuse that female condoms are too expensive. It\u2019s an excuse with no basis and with no merit\u2019, he said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Re-energising Doha Round, but no movement on substance","field_subtitle":"Sharma S: Third World Network, 9 September 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/wto.info/2009/twninfo20090908.htm","body":"The two-day Mini-Ministerial meeting of 36 trade ministers hosted by India on 3\u20134 September appears to have concluded with a few proposals on a process to \u2018re-energise\u2019 the World Trade Organization Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, but with no movement on substance. Virtually all developing country groupings endorsed the multilateral approach of negotiations and cautioned against the attempt to subvert the process through bilateral or plurilateral negotiations. They also endorsed the December texts as the basis of negotiations rather than unravelling the texts. This is presumably because the US is demanding even more concessions than what is outlined in the December text. In the corridors on the last day of the meeting on 4 September, one negotiator from an invited country said: \u2018Not much has happened here but a discussion on process and reiteration of positions.\u2019 A delegate from a G20 country stated: \u2018The US came here, but is in no position to offer anything. They are demanding that we open the text and give more market access, but are not willing to offer anything in return.'","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Real-time evaluations of humanitarian action","field_subtitle":"Cosgrave J, Ramalingam B and Beck T: 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=44687&em=24%200909&sub=aid","body":"Real-time evaluations (RTE) is one of the most demanding types of evaluation practice. It requires wide range of skills from evaluators but also a tightly focused professional approach in order to meet the demands of an RTE. This pilot guide is intended to help both evaluation managers and team leaders in commissioning, overseeing and conducting real time evaluations (RTEs) of humanitarian operational responses. Drawing on practices, it is intended as a flexible resource that can be adopted to a variety of contexts. The guide concentrates on RTEs undertaken in first phase of an emergency response, where RTE fieldwork takes places within a few months of the start of the response. This is because these particular RTEs can post particular problems to both evaluation managers and evaluation teams.  The guide offers 25 tools and techniques designed to help both evaluation managers and teams working through their respective steps.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaiming the Resources for Health: Resolutions for action from the Third EQUINET Regional Conference on Equity in Health in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET),  Munyonyo, Uganda, September 23-29 2009","field_url":"","body":"The Third EQUINET Regional Conference on Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa, held 23 \u201325 September 2009 in Munyonyo, Kampala, Uganda  brought together over 200 government officials, parliamentarians, civil society members, health workers, researchers, academics and policy makers, as well as personnel from United Nations, international and non-governmental organisations from East and Southern Africa and internationally. \r\n\r\nConference delegates recognised the significant, growing, avoidable and unjust inequalities in health and in the resources for health in our countries, our region and our world.  The conference reiterated the findings of the World Health Organisation Commission on the Social Determinants of Health that this social injustice is killing people on a grand scale. \r\n\r\nWe note that we have the resources for health within our region; that many resources important for health, including health workers, flow out of Africa; that the remaining resources do not reach those with greatest health needs, and  that inequality blocks economic opportunities from reaching those who need them most.\r\n\r\nWe affirm that we stand for equity and social justice in health. We recognise that unless we address inequalities in health and in the resources for health, we will not achieve the policy goals set in the 1999 Southern African Development Community Protocol on Health, the resolutions of the Ministers of the East Central and Southern African Health Community, nor the United Nations Millennium Development Goals;\r\n\r\nWe affirm that it is imperative that we act to improve heath equity, and to reclaim the resources for health.\r\n\r\nOur deliberations indicated that health equity is advanced when:\r\n\u2022\thealth is integrated within national policies and goals,  \r\n\u2022\tequity in health is a political and social goal, advocated, planned for and monitored,  \r\n\u2022\tour health systems have strong public sectors, and redistribute resources towards those with highest health need, and \r\n\u2022\tthe role of people \u2013 communities and health workers- is valued, resourced and supported; \r\n\r\nTowards this, we call on all in the region, our international partners, and propose ourselves, to intensify efforts to:  \r\n\r\nAdvance equity in health as a political and social goal and in all policies:\r\n\u2022\tMonitor and ensure that the right to health is included in our constitutions, provided for in our laws and universally applied, especially for vulnerable groups; \r\n\u2022\tStrengthen community awareness and capacity to claim these entitlements; \r\n\u2022\tAdvocate for the promotion and protection of health in all policies, particularly those that provide for the social determinants of health, including education, safe water and sanitation; food sovereignty, energy and technology; \r\n\u2022\tOrganise evidence and raise awareness on health implications of trade and intellectual property regimes and  of new technologies and strengthen negotiating power to ensure that they protect health, particularly given the corporate control of resources;\r\n\r\nBuild universal, redistributive and people centred health systems:\r\n\u2022\tIdentify and advocate for clear, comprehensive and integrated health care entitlements that  secure universal coverage of health systems; \r\n\u2022\tIdentify and implement options to strengthen, resource and organise primary health care and inter-sectoral action for health as a priority in health systems; \r\n\u2022\tGenerate and share evidence on and implement options to close gaps in access to key services for priority health conditions, including for maternal, family and child health, for mental health and for improved nutrition;  \r\n\u2022\tOrganise the evidence, advocacy and political support to meet and go beyond the 2001 Abuja commitment of 15% government spending on health -  excluding external funding; and to promote increased per capita spending on health, supported by debt cancellation;\r\n\u2022\tMeet the \u201cpeople\u2019s Abuja\u201d of at least 25% of government spending in health allocated to the primary care and community level of the health system;.\r\n\u2022\tSupport plans and strategies for harmonising the various health financing schemes into one framework for universal coverage, reducing out of pocket payments, providing for cross subsidies and pooling resources from progressive tax funding and prepayment schemes;  \r\n\u2022\tSupport the removal of user fees through a sustainable, planned strategy that strengthens the health system; \r\n\u2022\tSupport the development and implementation of plans to deploy and retain health workers in decent working conditions and to ensure consistent availability of vital and essential drugs and supplies at primary and district levels of health systems;\r\n\u2022\tDraw on the growing body of evidence on the causes of health worker migration and measures for health worker retention, promote constructive engagement across health workers, trade unions and governments to ensure that country driven strategies for retention are negotiated, resourced, implemented and monitored; \r\n\u2022\tStrengthen public sector systems and capacities, including for financial management, to improve equity in the allocation of resources, and to absorb and effectively use the resources for health; \r\n\u2022\tThrough civil society and parliaments, monitor how funds are used and how services are provided; \r\n\u2022\tEnsure effective regulation of the private-for-profit sector so that it complements public sector provision and to prevent negative impacts on health equity; \r\n\u2022\tIdentify, make visible and overcome the barriers that disadvantaged and vulnerable communities face in accessing and using health and essential services; \r\n\u2022\tNoting that AIDS is one of  a number of disease burdens and that approaches to HIV and AIDS should integrate with programmes for all major health problems,  resource and strengthen rights based, holistic, integrated primary health care oriented approaches to prevention, treatment and care for HIV and AIDS, that recognize and act on the social barriers to access and uptake of services; that build links between communities and services; that recognize and train traditional healers, community health workers, peer support networks and non-medical health providers;  that provide prevention and treatment to health care workers; that strengthen local safety nets and that address disparities in access to services across gender, area and income and for children, commercial sex workers and other vulnerable groups.\r\n\r\nRecognise and support the central role of people \u2013 communities and health workers \u2013leadership and alliances in advancing health equity:\r\n\u2022\tRecognise and formally provide in laws, budgets, mechanisms and programmes for the central role of people in health systems; to build  informed empowered communities and health workers and participatory processes for community involvement in health; \r\n\u2022\tDemand and strengthen capable strategic leadership, stewardship and management in health systems;  who consult, engage with and harness the range of constituencies and resources needed to advance health equity; \r\n\u2022\tDevelop the communication, engagement, capacities and networking to strengthen government, civil society, health worker, parliament and researcher alliances to shape, advocate, implement and monitor the policies that promote health equity; \r\n\r\nMonitor and make visible progress and gaps in advancing health equity:\r\n\u2022\tMonitor and make visible the progress and gaps in advancing health equity through implementing an Equity Watch at country and regional level, in a manner that builds alliances across actors; that analyses health disparities, including gender differentials; that makes visible progress against benchmarks and drivers of health equity; that complements a core framework of parameters with deeper district and household level assessment and  that combines different forms of evidence, including from community level photography, to stimulate action on equity.\r\n\u2022\tDevelop and promote investment in and capacities for a research agenda on health equity, including on new challenges, such as how climate change and globalisation are affecting health;  on operational issues, such as how health systems are functioning after the removal of user fees; and to inform policy development, such as on the effects of the private-for-profit sector  and of commercialisation in health systems on health equity;\r\n\u2022\tBuild capacities amongst researchers to involve stakeholders from the earliest stages of research and to effectively communicate evidence. \r\n\r\nWe call for these efforts to be supported by wider levels of social justice globally and for a more just return for east and southern African countries from the global economy. The net outflow of resources from Africa must be reversed and the strategic resources of Africa used for the development and security of its populations. \r\n\r\nWe call on our international partners to advocate and engage with us to achieve: \r\n\u2022\tThe global commitment to and resourcing of the universal rights to health in the International Convention on Economic and Social Rights, the Convention on the Rights of Children and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, \r\n\u2022\tG8 targets of universal access to prevention, treatment and care for HIV and AIDS and the UN Millennium Development Goals; \r\n\u2022\tDebt cancellation, with the resources released channelled to human development;\r\n\u2022\tEconomic justice, fair trade,  and democracy in the governance of global financial institutions;\r\n\u2022\tBilateral and multilateral agreements that recognise and redress the resource outflows that affect African health and health systems, particularly from health worker migration.\r\n\u2022\tGenuine partnerships and external funding aligned to national priorities, that are developed through participatory and informed consultation with the people. \r\n\r\nWe will all take these commitments forward into our various organisations and forums. The conference has set a programme of work and action for all of us.  EQUINET, as a consortium of institutions from the region, is committed to take and support these actions to advance health equity, to produce and share evidence and good practice and to advocate and monitor equity and social justice, especially through the equity watch. EQUINET is committed to building the intergovernmental, parliamentary, civil society, health worker and academic forums in East and Southern Africa  to strengthen our values based leadership, democratic states and regional integration and co-operation in Africa, to reclaim the resources for health and advance health equity.  \r\n\r\nIn the face of injustice it is imperative that we act.  \r\n\r\nA note from the editor: This oped presents the resolutions made and adopted by delegates at the EQUINET Regional Conference September 2009. In future issues of the newsleter we will give profile to specific areas of and reflections from the conference, whose ideas, community and exchanges re-energised and informed our work, actions and interactions towards advancing health equity. The abstract book for the conference is available at http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20Conf%20Sep09%20abstract%20bk.pdf and the conference report will be available on the EQUINET website in November. Please contact the EQUINET secretariat  admin@equinetafrica.org for any queries or feedback on issues relating to the conference or resolutions. For further information on the conference, the papers presented or EQUINET work please visit the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Report on public meeting about South Africa\u2019s proposed NHI","field_subtitle":"Conference of the Democratic Left, Western Cape: 30 August 2009","field_url":"","body":"On 22 August, the Western Cape Interim Steering Committee of the Conference of the Democratic Left hosted a public meeting on South Africa\u2019s proposed national heath insurance (NHI). More than 100 activists from a wide range of communities and organisations attended the meeting. The Conference made several important decisions to further their campaign to mobilise popular (community and worker), progressive and left voices on the NHI by releasing and circulating widely all available documents on the NHI policy discussions, building the campaign from existing community and worker struggles on health issues, and ensuring the campaign is driven by community organisations, trade unions and shop-stewards organised around local health facilities, as well as ordinary people who use the public health system \u2013 their experiences, energies, interests and aspirations. As part of the campaign, a People\u2019s Conference on the NHI and the public health crisis is being planned.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/34294","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Saving the lives of South Africa's mothers, babies, and children: Can the health system deliver?","field_subtitle":"Chopra M, Daviaud E, Pattinson R, Fonn S and Lawn JE: The Lancet 374(9692): 835\u2013846, 5 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2961123-5/abstract","body":"Between a quarter and half of maternal, neonatal, and child deaths in South Africa\u2019s national audits have an avoidable health-system factor contributing to the death. Using the LiST model, the researchers estimate that 11,500 infants' lives could be saved by effective implementation of basic neonatal care at 95% coverage. Similar coverage of dual-therapy prevention of mother-to-child transmission with appropriate feeding choices could save 37,200 children's lives in South Africa per year in 2015 compared with 2008. These interventions would also avert many maternal deaths and stillbirths. The total cost of such a target package is US$1.5 billion per year, 24% of the public-sector health expenditure; the incremental cost is US$220 million per year. Such progress would put South Africa squarely on track to meet Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 and probably also MDG 5. The costs are affordable and the key gap is leadership and effective implementation at every level of the health system, including national and local accountability for service provision.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Second International Meeting on Innovations and Progress in Healthcare for Women: Prevention, Screening and Risk Prediction in Women's Health","field_subtitle":"9\u201311 November 2009: Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, London","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/events-and-announcements&id=42681&type=Item","body":"The second international meeting on Innovations and Progress in Healthcare for Women is being jointly held by the UCL Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Institute for Women's Health in collaboration with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG). The theme of the meeting will be \u2018Prevention, Screening and Risk Prediction in Women\u2019s Health\u2019 and each day will be dedicated to one specialty area. The three specialty areas are: obstetrics and neonatal; gynaecology and reproductive health; and gynaecology and cancer. In parallel to the main programme there will also be specialist workshops and seminars taking place. For more information and to access an online interest submission form, please go to the link provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Sex education effort raises storm clouds","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 4 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86013","body":"The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has drafted the 98-page International Guidelines on Sexuality Education. The guidelines are still being finalised but a draft version suggests key areas that a sex education curriculum should cover at four different age levels between five and 18. The topics include relationships, reproduction, gender inequality and various aspects of sexuality, but conservative groups in the United States have focused on a handful of suggested learning areas that they view as overly explicit and inappropriate for young children. Various critics have taken issue with suggestions that teachers discuss homosexuality, contraception, and gender-based violence. However, defenders of the guide assert that \u2018it's better they have the right information than the wrong information.\u2019 A report in the New York Times asserted that the controversy had caused the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), a key partner, to pull out of the project, but a UNFPA spokesperson refused to confirm this, saying only that the organisation was still in discussion with UNESCO about making the publication \u2018more context specific\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Social franchising to improve quality and access in private health care in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Bishai DM, Shah NM and Walker DG: 2009","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems/health-service-delivery&id=44493&type=Document","body":"This paper from the Harvard Health Policy Review examines the ways in which public and private sectors can cooperate to improve the quality and accessibility of primary health care (PHC) to the poor in developing countries. The authors argue that the promise of alternative business models lies in their ability to accomplish several important functions in PHC. Business-style contracts can organise small providers into units that are large enough to yield returns to scale in investments in physical capital, supply chains, and in worker training and supervision. In order to understand the problems that business models can help solve, this paper sets up a simple economic model of public private interests in health care. The model identifies two key social interests in health care markets: quality of service provision and access to care by disenfranchised groups. The authors finish with policy proposals for future consideration which include a recommendation that supporting the coordinating organizations through government revenue is only one option. A more creative approach to supporting the coordinating bodies would be to allow them to exploit their comparative advantage in obtaining capital.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Social franchising to increase access to and quality of health services in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Koehlmoos TP, Gazi R and Hossain SS: 2009","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems&id=44494&type=Document","body":"The concept of franchising for health services is similar to franchises in business. A franchiser develops a way to provide health services, and then other franchisees copy the model. Each franchisee has to follow the original model. There is usually specific training, protocols and standards to follow, monitoring, and a brand name or logo that identifies that the provider is part of a franchise. Early work reports that social franchising may improve the spread of health services across low- and middle income countries. The review does not find any rigorous evidence to demonstrate the effect of social franchising on access to and quality of care in low- and middle-income countries. Well designed studies are needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa must produce 8,000 doctors a year to meet shortfall","field_subtitle":"Mbonambi G: The Mercury, 14 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/general/news/newsprint.php?art_id=vn20090914040933124C666628&sf","body":"Health MEC, Sibongiseni Dhlomo, says that South Africa should produce about 8,000 doctors annually to meet the dire shortage at public hospitals. He referred to a programme to study medicine in Cuba, which targets students mainly from underprivileged areas who would otherwise not have had the financial means for the studies. Dhlomo said universities were not producing enough doctors, which was contributing to the discrepancies in the country's health care system. \u2018Producing 200 doctors per university per year is not good enough. We will be speaking to deans and pushing universities to produce at least 2,000 doctors annually, starting in the next year or two,\u2019 he said. Dhlomo said the country had a total of about 8,000 doctors employed by the Health Department. However, he said Limpopo would be able to meet its doctor-patient ratio if all 8,000 doctors were deployed in that province.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa-European Union Summit: Joint statement, 11 September 2009","field_subtitle":"Council of the European Union: 11 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.consilium.europa.eu//uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/er/110057.pdf","body":"The statement covers the cooperation in the Southern African Development Community-European Community (SADC-EC) economic partnership agreement, and the implications for regional integration in Southern Africa. The statement proposes support for regional integration and development in Southern Africa, based on the 1999 Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement (TDCA). The first Revision Agreement, which together with the Joint Action Plan for the SA-EU Strategic Partnership is argued to lay the ground for an enhanced and deepened relationship in existing and new areas of cooperation, including migration, health, space, energy, information and communication technologies (ICT) and maritime transport.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The anatomy of growth and development in sub-Saharan Africa: Developing a typology of countries in Africa","field_subtitle":"African Economic Research Consortium: April 2009","field_url":"http://www.aercafrica.org/publications/item.asp?itemid=566&category=","body":"The major objectives of this paper are to analyse the inter-relationship among economic growth, inequality and poverty and to propose a typology of countries within sub-Saharan Africa based on the different initial conditions they face and that can be used to derive appropriate development strategies. In particular, an attempt is made at deriving distinct strategies that embrace growth patterns that are likely to reduce poverty in each separate group of countries. The choice of the most appropriate development strategy is clearly context-specific and, ultimately, has to be shaped at the individual country level. Yet, the advantage of a typology is to highlight and emphasises the importance of those key and distinct conditions and features that influence the development paths of different categories of countries sharing relatively similar conditions. In order to understand better the anatomy of the development process, the changing structure of growth throughout this process has to be explored. In a continent where most countries are still at an early development stage and where the majority of the people reside in rural areas and are employed in agriculture, understanding the structural transformation process and the role of agriculture as a potential engine of growth is of fundamental importance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The burden of non-communicable diseases in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Mayosi BM, Flisher AJ, Lalloo UG, Sitas F, Tollman SM and Bradshaw D: The Lancet 374(9692): 934\u2013947, 5 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2961087-4/abstract","body":"South Africa\u2019s burden of non-communicable diseases will probably increase as the roll-out of antiretroviral therapy takes effect and reduces mortality from AIDS. The scale of the challenge posed by the combined and growing burden of HIV and AIDS and non-communicable diseases demands an extraordinary response that South Africa is well able to provide. Concerted action is needed to strengthen the district-based primary health-care system, to integrate the care of chronic diseases and management of risk factors, to develop a national surveillance system, and to apply interventions of proven cost-effectiveness in the primary and secondary prevention of such diseases within populations and health services. The researchers urge the launching of a national initiative to establish sites of service excellence in urban and rural settings throughout South Africa to trial, assess and implement integrated care interventions for chronic infectious and non-communicable diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The cost of antiretrovirals: Maximizing value for money ","field_subtitle":"Wirtz VJ, Forsythe SS, Valencia-Mendoza A, Bautista-Arredondo S, Santa Ana-T\u00e9llez Y: Aids2031 Working Paper 28, 2009","field_url":"http://www.aids2031.org/pdfs/the%20cost%20of%20antiretrovirals_28.pdf","body":"This paper set out to assess the long-term needs and consequences of ARV procurement and to identify policies and practices that could assure long-term sustainable access to ARVs. An analysis of ARV price variation between 2005 and 2008 was carried out using Global Price Reporting Mechanism (GPRM) from the World Health Organization (WHO). A selection of 12 ARVs was identified and price reductions were evaluated for both innovator and generic products. There was a large ARV price variation across countries, even for those countries with a similar socioeconomic status. The price reductions between 2005 and 2008 were greatest for those ARVs that had more providers. Three key factors appear to have an influence on a country\u2019s ARV prices: whether the product is generic or not; the socioeconomic status of the country; and whether the country is a member of the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI). Factors that did not influence procurement below the highest direct manufacturing cost (HDMC) were HIV prevalence, procurement volume, whether the country belongs to the least developed countries or a focus country of the United States President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The health and health system of South Africa: Historical roots of current public health challenges","field_subtitle":"Coovadia H, Jewkes R, Barron P, Sanders D and McIntyre D: The Lancet 374(9692): (no page no\u2019s), 5 September 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2960951-X/abstract","body":"In 1994, when apartheid ended, the health system faced massive challenges, many of which still persist. Macroeconomic policies, fostering growth rather than redistribution, contributed to the persistence of economic disparities between races despite a large expansion in social grants. The public health system has been transformed into an integrated, comprehensive national service, but failures in leadership and stewardship and weak management have led to inadequate implementation of what are often good policies. Pivotal facets of primary health care are not in place and there is a substantial human resources crisis facing the health sector. The HIV epidemic has contributed to and accelerated these challenges. All of these factors need to be addressed by the new government if health is to be improved and the Millennium Development Goals achieved in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The interim economic partnership agreements between the EU and African States: Contents, challenges and prospects","field_subtitle":"ECDPM and ODI: July 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yb6j3g8","body":"To date, claims about the likely development effects of economic partnership agreements (EPAs) have been speculative because the &#64257;nal details of the agreements were unknown. The conclusion of a full EPA with the CARIFORUM region and interim EPAs (IEPAs) with some African and Paci&#64257;c states makes it possible to analyse what has actually been agreed and to assess the potential development effects. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the African IEPAs as they stand in early 2009. It also establishes the negotiations that remain to be completed and the challenges facing Africa in implementation, some of which require support from Europe. It provides both a summary of the principle features of very complex documents and also the foundations for the many follow-up studies that will be needed to look in more detail at speci&#64257;c country, sectoral and other speci&#64257;c features of the IEPAs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The privatisation of global health","field_subtitle":"Basu S: 28 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/22145","body":"The author describes events in Lesotho and South Africa where public-private health partnerships have not produced the desired results and notes that these incidents are not isolated, but part of a wave of new privatisation initiatives that uses donor dollars for public health by shuttling them into private contractors in poor countries. Advocates of private-public partnerships are noted to cite selective data from specific privatisation schemes, ignoring the costs of contracting and the broader impact of their initiatives on communities. The author questions the idea that foreign health policy analysts know better than local providers and patients, and points to the irony of poorer performance in public health relative to resources in the United States, the country with the greatest number of health policy analysts per capita.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of nurses and midwives in polio eradication and measles control activities: A survey in Sudan and Zambia ","field_subtitle":"Nkowane AM, Boualam L, Haithami S, El Sayed A and Mutambo H: Human Resources for Health, 8 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-7-78.pdf","body":"The authors of this study conducted a survey among nurses and midwives working at district level in Sudan and Zambia to determine their roles and functions in polio eradication and measles elimination programmes. Nurses and midwives practising in four selected districts in Sudan and in Zambia completed a self-administered questionnaire on their roles and responsibilities, their routine activities and their functions during supplementary immunisation campaigns for polio and measles. This study shows that nurses and midwives play an important role in implementing immunisation activities at the district level and that their roles can be maximised by creating opportunities that lead to their having more responsibilities in their work and in particular, their involvement in early phases of planning of priority health activities. This should be accompanied by written job descriptions, tasks and clear lines of authority as well as good supportive supervision. The lessons from supplementary immunisation activities, where the roles of nurses and midwives are maximised, can be easily adopted to benefit the rest of the health services provided at district level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Training needs assessment for clinicians at antiretroviral therapy clinics: Evidence from a national survey in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Lutalo IM, Schneider G, Weaver MR, Oyugi JH, Sebuyira LM, Kaye R, Lule F, Namagala E, Scheld WM, McAdam KPWJ and Sande MA: Human Resources for Health, 23 August 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/7/1/76","body":"This study sought to identify task shifting that has already occurred and assess the antiretroviral therapy (ART) training needs among clinicians to whom tasks have shifted. It surveyed health professionals and heads of ART clinics at a stratified random sample of 44 health facilities accredited to provide this therapy. A sample of 265 doctors, clinical officers, nurses and midwives reported on tasks they performed. Thirty of 33 doctors (91%), 24 of 40 clinical officers (60%), 16 of 114 nurses (14%) and 13 of 54 midwives (24%) reported that they prescribed ART. Yet, 64% of the people who prescribed antiretroviral therapy were not doctors. Seven percent of doctors, 42% of clinical officers, 35% of nurses and 77% of midwives assessed that their overall knowledge of antiretroviral therapy was lower than good. The study concluded that training initiatives should be an integral part of the support for task shifting, while making sure that ART is used correctly and toxicity or drug resistance do not reverse accomplishments to date.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in tuberculosis incidence and their determinants in 134 countries","field_subtitle":"Dye C, L\u00f6nnroth K, Jaramillo E, Williams BG and Raviglione M: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(9): 683\u2013691, September 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/9/08-058453/en/index.html","body":"To investigate the effect of case management programmes on TB incidence, this paper carried out a comparative analysis of factors that could be key direct or indirect determinants of national TB incidence trends over 1997\u20132006. Cases of TB (in all its forms) reported annually to WHO were used to calculate trends in incidence rate, the latter expressed as the number of cases notified annually in a given country per 100 000 population. The striking observation in this study was that, more than a decade after directly observed therapy was first implemented, none of the seven direct measures of TB programme performance was associated with TB trends globally. National TB control programmes play a vital role in curing TB patients and preventing deaths, as the diagnosis and treatment of active TB have significantly reduced disease transmission and incidence in some countries. However, treatment programmes have not had a major, detectable effect on incidence on a large scale. The possible reasons are that: patients are not diagnosed and treated soon enough to significantly reduce transmission; case detection, cure and TB incidence trends cannot be measured accurately; there has been insufficient time to see the effects of reduced transmission; and any effects on transmission are offset by a growing risk of developing TB following infection.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda\u2019s new state-of-the-art lab to improve TB diagnosis and research","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 2 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85966","body":"A new laboratory in the College of Health Sciences at Uganda's Makerere University will conduct tuberculosis diagnosis and research to the highest international standards. \u2018The lab is built with world-class TB diagnostic capacity,\u2019 Moses Joloba, head of the department of microbiology at Makerere University's medical school, said at the opening ceremony on 28 August. \u2018Normally difficult-to-treat TB infection will be diagnosed here.\u2019 The new lab will be sued for clinical trials of a potential TB vaccine. The currently available TB vaccine, Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG), was developed nearly 90 years ago and provides some protection against serious forms of TB in children. However, it is not reliable against pulmonary TB, which accounts for much of the global disease burden. Uganda ranks 16th out of the 22 countries in the world with the highest TB burden. Insufficient resources, non-adherence to TB treatment, poor access to healthcare services and a limited number of skilled staff and diagnostic facilities all contribute to the country's TB epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"United Nations to establish single new agency to deal with rights of women","field_subtitle":"United Nations: 15 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=32066&Cr=women&Cr1","body":"Four United Nations agencies and offices will be amalgamated to create a new single entity within the organisation to promote the rights and well-being of women worldwide and to work towards gender equality. The UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for the Advancement of Women, the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW) will be merged. Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, said he was \u2018particularly gratified\u2019 that the Assembly had accepted his proposal for \u2018a more robust promotion\u2019 of women\u2019s rights under the new entity. Mr Ban said that he had appointed more women to senior posts than at any other time in the history of the UN, including nine women to the rank of under-secretary-general. The number of women in senior posts has increased by 40% under his tenure.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Vacancy: Grants manager ","field_subtitle":"Closing Date: 15 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041938","body":"The grants manager, who will serve on the Tuberculosis Alliance DOTS Support Alliance senior management team reporting to the Chief Executive Officer, is responsible for the agency\u2019s membership programme, grant development, donor fundraising and serves as the staff adviser to the Board of Directors on development and fundraising issues. The successful applicant will be able to use a strategic planning approach to identify opportunities for fundraising, and initiate, coordinate and evaluate fundraising activities from grant sponsors and donors. They will work closely with the chief executive officer, the fundraising committee and the Board of Directors to create and implement fundraising goals and solicit funds to meet these goals.  A Bachelor\u2019s degree required, with Master\u2019s degree preferred. Five or more years\u2019 broad-based fundraising experience in a grant-centred environment is required, as well as experience working with government agencies and international foundations is required. Competitive compensation, commensurate with experience. Email a cover letter and your curriculum vitae if you would like to apply.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Value for money in working with the non-state sector in health: What do we know from DFID experience?","field_subtitle":"Walford V: Department for International Development DFID Health Resource Centre 2009","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems&id=44489&type=Document","body":"This paper, by the Department for International Development DFID Health Resource Centre, looks at the extent of DFID\u2019s engagement with non-state actors (NSAs) in the health sector and what is known about the value for money of working with different types of NSAs in various ways. The paper details how DFID provides most of its support to health to the public sector. However there are cases where DFID provides funding directly to NSAs. In other cases, DFID support goes to the government, which then uses some of those funds to fund service delivery by NSAs. The author argues that, in addition to seeking value for money, it is important to consider equity. The evidence suggests that all income groups use non-state services but, as in most public sectors, there is higher use by the relatively better off. Whether working with the non-state sector provides better value for money will substantially depend on the quality of design and implementation. There is growing experience in contracting, social franchising, vouchers and performance incentives. The paper outlines various aspects which DFID might want to consider for the future including that in developing or reviewing health sector plans, they should consider opportunities to improve NSA efficiency and effectiveness and as a way to enhance access.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Violence and injuries in South Africa: Prioritising an agenda for prevention","field_subtitle":"Seedat M, van Niekerk A, Jewkes R, Suffla S and Ratele K: The Lancet 374(9692): 1011\u20131022, 5 September 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2960948-X/abstract","body":"Violence and injuries are the second leading cause of death and lost disability-adjusted life years in South Africa. With a focus on homicide, and violence against women and children, this paper reviews the magnitude, contexts of occurrence, and patterns of violence, and refer to traffic-related and other unintentional injuries. The social dynamics that support violence are widespread poverty, unemployment, and income inequality; patriarchal notions of masculinity that valourise toughness, risk-taking and defence of honour; exposure to abuse in childhood and weak parenting; access to firearms; widespread alcohol misuse; and weaknesses in the mechanisms of law enforcement. So far, there has been a conspicuous absence of government stewardship and leadership. Successful prevention of violence and injury is contingent on identification by the government of violence as a strategic priority and development of an intersectoral plan based on empirically driven programmes and policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Whither EC Aid? WECA Compendium","field_subtitle":"Corre G (ed) and European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM): 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yaq34jy","body":"In 2005, the Paris Declaration formulated a number of challenges facing development cooperation. While the principles of the Declaration were broadly accepted, there seemed to be a lack of shared understanding of key underlying issues shaping the debate of EU aid effectiveness. This publication archives all the outputs generated through Whither EC Aid (WECA), from the Initial Discussion Note to the reports of the dozen roundtables held and the thematic Briefing Notes. A year after the adoption of the Accra Agenda for Action, it looks back on the perceptions of various group of stakeholders about the aid effectiveness agenda, to see to what extent the different points of view shared during the WECA process find an echo today in the international agenda on aid. The WECA Compendium is the final stage of a joint ECDPM-Action Aid project initiated in mid-2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO supports fair access to influenza A (H1N1) vaccine ","field_subtitle":"Kieny M: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(9): no page no\u2019s, September 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/9/09-030909/en/index.html","body":"Some manufacturers announced in July that the H1N1 vaccine is available, but that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s ready for use, as it needs regulatory approval. Regulatory authorities are considering the best way to register these vaccines as quickly as possible. The consensus is that the first doses will be available to governments for use in September. The World Health Organization (WHO) has a cross-organisational operation that is in place to secure vaccines for developing countries, spearheaded by the Director-General\u2019s Office and the legal and vaccine departments. WHO is engaged in three types of activities. The first is to negotiate donations with manufacturers. Second, it is working with other manufacturers to reserve a portion of their vaccine production for WHO at a reduced price. Third, it is working with governments to raise funds to purchase vaccines, as well as with 11 vaccine manufacturers based in developing countries, providing them with seed financing and technical expertise to help them produce influenza vaccine domestically.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Wits launches Centre for Rural Health","field_subtitle":"Magamdela P: Health-e News: 28 August 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032473","body":"Health care in South Africa\u2019s rural areas is set to get a major boost, following the launch of the Centre for Rural Health by Wits University, in Johannesburg, recently. The centre\u2019s inaugural Director, Prof Ian Couper, said the centre\u2019s main focus is to \u2018recruit human resources for rural health. We can do everything in terms of providing facilities, we can make sure the drug supplies are there, but unless we have the health workers, all of that will mean nothing. The centre is trying to focus on multiple strategies: selecting students in rural areas and supporting them to study health sciences, developing post graduate programmes, researching issues around how we can improve resources for rural health and advocacy to bring these issues to the attention of policy makers, politicians and other stake-holders.\u2019 Deputy Health Minister, Dr Molefi Sefularo, expressed gratitude to the university for highlighting issues relating to rural health. \u2018We would like you to become a leading academic centre in the field of human resources for rural health\u2019, he said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Workers on Wednesday: Healthcare financing: The state of healthcare and the working class","field_subtitle":"Workers on Wednesday and EQUINET: September 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/audiodump.mp3","body":"Health care financing in South Africa is inadequate, and in recent years we have been moving away from achieving the Abuja target of 15% government funding for health care. This has resulted in numerous crises in the public health sector, and most South Africans (about 41 million) are unable to access decent, adequate health care, as enshrined in our constitution. South Africans that do access decent, adequate health care primarily do so through private funding (typically private health insurance schemes), but even in this sector, costs are spiralling and the package of benefits on offer is declining. To increase public health funding in South Africa, the government has proposed the introduction of a National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme. A recent national household survey found that 71% of medical scheme members were willing to join a publicly supported health insurance scheme if their monthly contribution was less than for current medical schemes. The NHI has been proposed to create a mechanism to level the playing field and create equitable distribution of resources resulting in high quality of health services for all the people. Universal access to a basic package of services for both the rich and poor will be achieved by the NHI and the costs of health care for poor and middle class South Africans will decrease. In-studio guests on a radio show discussing these issues were: Proffessor Di Mc Intyre, Health Economics Unit, UCT and EQUINET Fair Financing Theme Co-ordinator; Sheila Barsel, Policy Unit for the National Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU); and Dr Siva Pillay, Member of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee of Health in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"World Economic and Social Survey 2009: Promoting Development, Saving the Planet","field_subtitle":"United Nations: 2009","field_url":"http://www.un.org/esa/analysis/wess/","body":"According to this book, food production, access to clean water and health in Africa may be affected by climate change. In eastern Africa, rainfall is expected to increase in some parts of the region. In southern Africa, rains will be disrupted, bringing a notable drop in maize production. In contrast, growing seasons may lengthen in parts of Southern Africa, for example Mozambique, owing to a combination of increased temperature and higher rainfall. Yet net revenues from crops could shrink by up to 90% by 2100. There is likely to be a greater number of people living with water stress by 2055 as rainfall becomes more erratic or declines. The previously malaria-free highland areas of Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi could experience modest incursions of malaria by the 2050s, with conditions for transmission becoming highly suitable by 2080s. Rift Valley fever epidemics could become more frequent and widespread as El Ni\u00f1o events increase. In southern Africa, more areas are likely to become more suitable for malaria, with a southward expansion of the transmission zone into Zimbabwe and South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Intellectual Property Indicators, 2009","field_subtitle":"World Intellectual Property Organization: 2009","field_url":"http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/ipstats/en/statistics/patents/pdf/wipo_pub_941.pdf","body":"This report presents the latest trends in patents, trademarks and copyrights. Patents, which are of direct relevance to drug prices and procurement, showed a slowdown in growth rate, with fewer patent filings and grants. In 2007, patent filings increased 3.7%, compared to a 5.2% increase in the previous year. Despite this slowdown, around 1.85 million applications were filed across the world in 2007. The figures show the early effects of the global economic downturn on patent filings and the available data for 2008 point toward a further slowdown in patent filings. Patent filings and grants have also become more concentrated. In other words, the majority of patent filings are from residents of industrialised countries and there is a strong relationship between the volume of patent filings and the level of GDP and investment in research and development. Residents of Japan and the United States own approximately 47% of the 6.3 million patents in force across the world. Since the late 1990s, patent filings have grown at a faster rate than patent grants (or rejections) in most offices, most notably at the patent office of the US. As a result, the number of unexamined (pending) patent applications has increased.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Your money or your life","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: 14 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp-your-money-or-your-life.pdf","body":"Will leaders act now to save lives and make health care free in poor countries? On 23 September 2009 leaders met at the United Nations General Assembly in New York for a high-level event on health. On the table was a proposal to support at least seven developing countries to fully implement free care for women and children or to expand free health services to all, including Malawi and Mozambique. Oxfam recommends that governments of these countries make high-level commitments to introduce free health care for women and children and/or fully implement and expand free health care for all, as well as increase government spending on health to at least 15% of the national budget. The authors argue that the same commitments are required from rich country donors and multilateral aid agencies to provide additional long-term and predictable funding necessary to successfully implement free health care in all seven countries, and to officially extend the offer of financial and technical support for free health care to all poor countries who wish to remove fees and to make this event a global turning point in the fight to make health care free for all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"2009 Commonwealth People's Forum: 22\u201326 November 2009, Trinidad and Tobago ","field_subtitle":"Closing date for registration: 15 October","field_url":"http://www.commonwealthfoundation.com/governancedemocracy/CPF2009/Registration/","body":"Many delegates from across the Commonwealth are expected to attend the Commonwealth People's Forum (CPF), which has the theme 'Partnering for a more equitable and sustainable future.' Eight assemblies will form the core of the CPF programme. Topics of discussion will cover: human rights; financial crisis and economic development; environment and climate change; gender; health and HIV and AIDS; peace and conflict; deepening democracy and governance; and creativity and innovation. Cross-cutting areas include: youth, media, education, disability, gender and Millennium Development Goals. Make your voice heard at CHOGM by attending the Forum. Registration costs US$100 for delegates from outside of Trinidad and Tobago.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"2009 Global Development Awards and Medals Competition","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 30 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.gdnet.org/cms.php?id=2009awards","body":"The Global Development Network is now accepting submissions for its annual competition for development research proposals/papers and development projects. Researchers and non-governmental organisations from developing and transition countries are invited to participate in the competition. The competition is funded by the United Kingdom\u2019s Ministry of Finance, the government of Japan and other donors. It focuses on key issues such as globalisation, regional integration, climate change and international migration against the backdrop of the current global economic and financial crisis, the political and economic repercussions of which can already be felt across countries and regions. The impact of these crises on the architecture of developing countries cannot be understated. They have prompted many to challenge globalisation and they are also likely to hasten the structural shift in global economic power from Western countries to emerging markets.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"2009 Mine Safety Audit Report","field_subtitle":"Department of Minerals and Energy: 3 February 2009","field_url":"http://www.dme.gov.za/mhs/mine_safety.stm","body":"A mine safety audit report detailing the high number of injuries and fatalities in South Africa\u2019s mines each year has been released by the Department of Minerals and Energy, revealing serious gaps in the safety standards in the mining industry. In the past three years, unsafe working conditions have led to the death of 200 mine workers annually, in addition to the almost 5,000 people who are injured annually. Many of these injuries are so severe that limbs need to be amputated which leads to a significant reduction in standards of living and ability to earn an income. In terms of Occupational Health and Safety, the mining industry scored a dismal 59% compliance, while also scoring only 56% for health risk management, while public health and safety in mines received 65% compliance. Singling out particular mining sectors, the diamond sector scored a low 47% compliance with health risk management regulations. The gold industry also scored a dismal 53% compliance when it came to health risk management.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"A critical review of interventions to redress the inequitable distribution of healthcare professionals to rural and remote areas","field_subtitle":"Wilson NW, Couper ID, De Vries E, Reid S, Fish T and Marais BJ: Rural and Remote Health 9(online): 1060, 5 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.rrh.org.au/publishedarticles/article_print_1060.pdf","body":"This review provides a comprehensive overview of the most important studies addressing the recruitment and retention of doctors to rural and remote areas. A comprehensive search of the English literature was conducted, 1,261 references were identified and screened and 110 articles were included. The study argues for the formulation of universal definitions to assist study comparison and future collaborative research. Although coercive strategies address short-term recruitment needs, little evidence supports their long-term positive impact. Current evidence only supports the implementation of well-defined selection and education policies, although incentive and support schemes may have value. There remains an urgent need to evaluate the impact of untested interventions in a scientifically rigorous fashion in order to identify winning strategies for guiding future practice and policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A unified, equitable and integrated national health system that benefits all South Africans","field_subtitle":"African National Congress: July 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032427","body":"The African National Congress has released a rough outline of how it sees the proposed National Health Insurance scheme on its website. But the document is short on detail and has no timelines. The broad objective of the NHI is to put into place the necessary funding and health service delivery mechanisms, which will enable the creation of an efficient, equitable and sustainable health system in South Africa. It will be based on the principles of the right to health, social solidarity and universal coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"African leaders challenged to meet their commitments to health","field_subtitle":"ARASA: 27 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkWoKgLhDVs","body":"The AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), a Namibia-based partnership of health and human rights groups from the Southern African region, today launched a YouTube video clip entitled \u2018Lords of the Bling\u2019, linked to a public petition that presents a \u2018moral challenge\u2019 to African leaders regarding their commitments to funding health. The clip highlights the cost of lavish expenditure and corruption among various African leaders and calculates how many people could, for equivalent sums of money, have received life-saving treatment for HIV and TB, which jointly claim almost two million African lives every year. The video clip and petition are intended to serve as an awareness-raising campaign and a platform for solidarity on holding African governments accountable for their commitments to health. ARASA is seeking sign-ons from organisations and individuals, which will be presented to leaders on International Human Rights Day in December 2009. ARASA intends to mobilise civil society around this critical issue and claim the right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid coordination on the ground: Are joint country assistance strategies the answer? Aid harmonisation: are joint country assistance programmes the way forward? ","field_subtitle":"Linn JF: Wolfensohn Center For Development Working Paper 10, July 2009","field_url":"http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2009/07_aid_linn/07_aid_linn.pdf","body":"In response to the problem of aid fragmentation, joint country assistance strategies have emerged as a preferred method to coordinate and harmonise aid. This paper determines that, to date, donor teams and recipient governments have come together in at least twelve countries to prepare joint strategies. A number of lessons were learnt and conclusions drawn. Lack of communication between stakeholders was identified, especially regarding strategy processes. Poverty reduction strategy processes should ideally be separated from the joint country strategy process to reduce government workload. An inclusive, thorough and effectively managed process has a greater chance to create the trust, cooperative spirit and follow-through during the implementation phase than one that stresses the production of a quality report without adequate venting of differing views and interests. In countries where government lacks capacity or will, the donor community may wish to identify one agency as the presumptive leader among donors for aid coordination on the ground.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"BFTU policy position paper on globalisation: 2007","field_subtitle":"Botswana Federation of Trade Unions (BFTU): 2007","field_url":"http://www.fes.org.bw/Downloads/BFTU%20Globalization%202007.pdf","body":"This policy paper deals primarily with the effect of globalisation on Botswana\u2019s workforce and includes a discussion of occupational health and safety (OHS) within this framework. It notes that, in general, the effective monitoring of health standards is absent in Botswana. The Labour Inspectorate is a government unit under the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs. It operates under the Factories Act that came into force in 1979. However, there are only a handful and overburdened of labour inspectors carrying OHS inspections to verify compliance with the relevant law. In other cases, some international labour standards ratified have not been backed up by legislation. For example, despite being a heavily mining dependent country, the International Labour Organisation\u2019s convention 176, which deals with health and safety in the mines, has not been enacted at all, notwithstanding its ratification almost a decade ago. The government, like in many other cases continues to gloss over this very serious matter.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"BMA invites applicants for 2009 health education award ","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 14 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.bma.org.uk/health_promotion_ethics/health_developing_world/informationfund2009.jsp?page=1","body":"The British Medical Association's (BMA) International Department runs the BMA Information Fund, which helps to provide health information to organisations in developing countries. The Fund donates educational materials, such as books and DVDs, and is run in association with Teaching Aids at Low Cost (TALC). It is currently inviting applications for 2009 from health care institutions, health non-governmental organisations, medical school libraries and other related organisations. (Please note that it is unable to consider requests from individuals.) To submit an application, please download the application form and TALC book list from the Fund\u2019s website. Please note that the maximum award per application is \u00a32,000. Completed application forms and booklists should be sent to the email address provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Boost for AIDS research in South Africa","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 29 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=85483","body":"A new government initiative to boost local HIV and AIDS research has been launched. The South African HIV/AIDS Research (and Innovation) Platform (SHARP), with backing from the Department of Science and Technology (DST), will support the development of new treatment options and prevention approaches such as microbicides, vaccines, and the role of genetics in controlling HIV infection. \u2018The South African government had to revisit its expectations of HIV vaccine research in the light of growing national and international deliberations on the need to modify basic HIV/AIDS research and development strategies,\u2019 the DST noted. So far SHARP has committed R45 million (US$5.8 million) to fund nine research projects over the next three years. One of the projects will validate a method for testing resistance to antiretroviral drugs that is cheaper and more accurate than the current method; another will investigate the role of natural \u2018killer\u2019 cells that prevent HIV transmission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Building a bridge for research","field_subtitle":"Terry R: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(8): 636, August 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/8/09-069286/en/index.html","body":"So will open access build a bridge to reduce health inequity? The potential is certainly great but the digital divide remains large, with estimates that only 13% of the developing world uses the internet, often on slow and expensive connections. Therefore, the inequity in accessing information and communication technology infrastructure will need to improve to allow people to get a foot onto the information bridge. But even once they are there, they will still only be able to access information that has been paid for \u2013 even when that information was created using taxpayers\u2019 money. There is a role for more research funders and donors to support open access as an integral cost of undertaking the research itself to ensure public access. While the United Nations might be seen as having a \u2018slow bandwidth\u2019 approach to this issue, things are moving ahead with the work of the International Telecommunications Union on promoting greater access to information and communication technology worldwide and the newly developed World Health Organization strategy on research for health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Fourth Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights","field_subtitle":"Closing date: 30 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.africasexuality.org/download/Call%20for%20Abstracts.pdf","body":"All interested parties are invited to submit abstracts in the form of oral presentations and posters exploring the overall theme of the Conference \u2018Sexuality and HIV and AIDS in Africa\u2019. The theme may be explored through the following objectives and sub-themes: identifying new, emerging and existing vulnerabilities and vulnerable/marginalised people that are critical to sexual health and rights/HIV and AIDS interventions using a sexuality- and rights-based approach; exploring how the application of human rights framework to sexuality might provide new insights in developing interventions to reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS and provide a more comprehensive sexual health to all persons; and reviewing and mapping out new and existing innovative strategies, programming and funding that best addresses the links between sexuality, sexual health/rights and HIV and AIDS for future interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can lay counsellors fill the health worker gap?","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 12 August 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=85692","body":"Hundreds of lay health care workers are deployed in Kenyan communities to fill the gap caused by severe staff shortages in the health sector \u2013 but could they be doing more harm than good? Some lay health workers even dispense antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, but health experts have warned that using unqualified personnel to perform medical functions may not be such a good idea. Dr Andrew Suleh, chairman of the Kenya Medical Association, said lay counsellors should not become a long-term replacement for professional health workers. \u2018The government must be pressured to train, employ and retain health professionals to ease the disease burden exerted on the health care workers by the twin challenges of HIV and TB \u2013 the management and care of HIV and AIDS is very labour intensive,\u2019 he said. Most lay counsellors were volunteers employed by non-governmental organisations whose projects could end, leaving the country with even bigger shortages of health workers. \u2018You cannot base health management on volunteerism; it is not sustainable,\u2019 Suleh added.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Cervical cancer vaccines considered for public sector","field_subtitle":"Langa L: Health-e, 29 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032424","body":"African first ladies have vowed to raise awareness on cervical cancer, one of the leading causes of death among women on the continent. Taking the lead, Tobeka Madiba-Zuma, one of South Africa\u2019s first ladies appealed to everyone attending the third Stop Cervical Cancer in Africa conference in Cape Town to join her in paying tribute to millions of women who lost their lives to the illness. \u2018A healthy nation consist of a healthy working class and women are very important part our economy\u2019, she said. Madiba-Zuma said she hoped to use her position to advocate for more attention to be paid to breast and cervical cancer. The focus of this year\u2019s conference was on improving cervical cancer prevention through vaccination, pre-cancer screening and treatment. Delivering the keynote address at the conference, Molefi Sefularo, Deputy Minister of Health, revealed that the National Department of Health was considering making available two cervical cancer vaccines in the public sector. \u2018We still need to do a cost-benefit analysis and decide which of the two vaccines would be more beneficial to the country,\u2019 he added.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges for routine health system data management in a large public programme to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Mate KS, Bennett B, Mphatswe W, Barker P and Rollins N: PLoS ONE 4(5), 12 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0005483","body":"This study assessed the completeness and accuracy of routine prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) data submitted to the district health information system (DHIS) in three districts of Kwazulu-Natal province, South Africa, covering 316 clinics and hospitals. Data elements were reported only 50.3% of the time and were \u2018accurate\u2019 (within 10% of reconstructed values) 12.8% of the time. The data element \u2018Antenatal Clients Tested for HIV\u2019 was the most accurate element (consistent with the reconstructed value) 19.8% of the time, while \u2018HIV PCR testing of baby born to HIV positive mother\u2019 was the least accurate, with only 5.3% of clinics meeting the definition of accuracy. Data collected and reported in the public health system across three large, high HIV-prevalence districts was neither complete nor accurate enough to track process performance or outcomes for PMTCT care. Systematic data evaluation can determine the magnitude of the data reporting failure and guide site-specific improvements in data management. Solutions are currently being developed and tested to improve data quality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Circumcision in HIV-infected men and its effect on HIV transmission to female partners in Rakai, Uganda: A randomised controlled trial","field_subtitle":"Wawer MJ, Makumbi F, Kigozi G, Serwadda D, Watya S, Nalugoda F, Buwembo D, Ssempijja V, Kiwanuka N, Moulton LH, Sewankambo NK, Reynolds SJ, Quinn TC, Opendi P, Iga B, Ridzon R, Laeyendecker O and Gray RH: The Lancet 374(9685): 229\u201337, 18 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2960998-3/abstract","body":"Observational studies have reported an association between male circumcision and reduced risk of HIV infection in female partners. This study assessed whether circumcision in HIV-infected men would reduce transmission of the virus to female sexual partners. Nine-hundred and twenty-two uncircumcised, HIV-infected, asymptomatic men aged 15\u201349 years with CD4-cell counts 350 cells per &#956;L or more were enrolled in this unblinded, randomised controlled trial in Rakai District, Uganda. HIV-uninfected female partners of the randomised men were concurrently enrolled and followed up at 6, 12 and 24 months to assess HIV acquisition by male treatment assignment (primary outcome). The trial was stopped early because of futility. Seventeen (18%) women in the intervention group and eight (12%) women in the control group acquired HIV during follow-up. It appears circumcision of HIV-infected men did not reduce HIV transmission to female partners over 24 months \u2013 longer-term effects could not be assessed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Climate change and the threat to African food security: Adapting to the impact of climate change on African food security","field_subtitle":"Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN): 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/publications/JA/JotoAfrikaIssue1.pdf","body":"This collection of articles includes an article on food security in Kenya. Since 2006, the rains in Kenya\u2019s Central Highlands have become less reliable. The March and April rains regularly arrive late, and the season is much shorter. In 2008, there were only four days of rain. The seasonal rivers that provide water for irrigation, livestock and domestic uses have mostly dried up, leading to water and food shortages. These burgeoning problems are pointing in one direction \u2013 poverty, malnutrition and health problems for the nation\u2019s poor. Declining production, and the limited access and affordability of imported food, mean food security has declined, with many impacts. The government should store grain during bumper harvests to provide food in poor seasons; processing this surplus can also add value and avoid wastage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Clinical and financial burdens of secondary level care in a public sector antiretroviral roll-out setting","field_subtitle":"Kevany S, Meintjes G, Rebe K, Maartens G and Cleary S: South African Medical Journal 99(5): 320\u2013325, May 2009","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/2978/2350","body":"While efforts have been made to assess the costs of providing antiretroviral therapy (ART) via accredited service points, little information is available on its downstream costs, particularly in public secondary level hospitals. This paper aims to determine the cost of care for inpatients and outpatients at a dedicated antiretroviral referral unit, the GF Jooste Hospital, during March 2005. This prospective costing study on 48 outpatients and 25 inpatients was conducted from a health system perspective. Incremental cost per outpatient was found to be R1,280 and R5,802 per inpatient. Costs were dominated by medical staff costs (62% inpatient and 58% outpatient, respectively). As the costs of providing secondary level care for patients on or immediately preceding ART initiation can be significant, the study recommends that they should be included in the government\u2019s strategic planning so that the service can be expanded to meet current and future needs and to avoid crowding out other secondary level health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Coalition fights for stronger GI protection in Doha","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 30 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/07/30/proponents-fight-to-keep-ip-issues-at-high-level-at-wto/","body":"With governments looking to close the long-stalled Doha Round of trade liberalisation talks in 2010, what will happen to remaining disagreements on intellectual property issues is still unclear. A coalition of governments seeking IP amendments is determined to have some kind of result at the end the round. The coalition, a group of 110 countries, is often referred to as \u201cW/52\u201d supporters after a compromise document the group created uniting states who were fighting for disclosure of origin on genetic resources with states fighting for stronger genetic information (GI) protection. A great deal of hope is being placed in this informal process by the W/52 proponents, who seek changes they argue are critical to prevent the misappropriation of genetic resources and traditional knowledge, and to protect key agricultural products. But those who do not support W/52 say the connection between GI extension and the disclosure of origin amendment, which emerged from a mandate to examine the relationship between TRIPS and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, is not justified, as the issues are too different.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Commonwealth Local Government Handbook 2009","field_subtitle":"Commonwealth Local Government Forum: July 2009","field_url":"http://publications.thecommonwealth.org/commonwealth-local-government-handbook-2009-731-p.aspx","body":"This 2009 edition of the Commonwealth Local Government Handbook is a complete reference book to local government in the Commonwealth. Updated and revised, it details the systems of local government in the 53 countries of the Commonwealth, looking at how local government is structured, how elections take place, what services local government is responsible for, how local government is financed and what reforms are envisaged. The profiles are in a format that allows easy country-to-country comparison. The 2009 Handbook includes a preface by CLGF Secretary-General Carl Wright, a foreword by CLGF Chairperson Basil Morrison, and an introduction by Hubert Ingraham, Prime Minister of the Bahamas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Conference: Healthcare and Trade","field_subtitle":"10\u201311 December 2009: Rotterdam, Netherlands ","field_url":"http://www.erasmusobservatoryonhealthlaw.nl/eventss/","body":"The International Conference on Healthcare and Trade, organised by the Erasmus Observatory on Health Law, will focus on the influence of the law of both the European Union and the World Trade Organization on trade in health services, health insurance services and health goods (pharmaceuticals). The application of the EC Treaty, the GATS and the TRIPS to national regulation of health services, health insurance services and pharmaceuticals raises questions of applicability of, compatibility with and possible exceptions to the provisions of these instruments. In these areas, these questions have not yet been answered conclusively and further research and discussion in this area is ongoing. The conference aims to contribute to the discussion, attempting to formulate both legal and economic answers to these questions. Prepaid advanced registration must be electronically submitted, faxed or mailed no later than 1 December 2009. The conference fee is 250 euros (concessions are available for students).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Construction health and safety in South Africa: Status and recommendations","field_subtitle":"Construction Industry Development Board: June 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/mtwzex","body":"Construction health and safety has long been the focus of attention of many industry stakeholders and role-players in South Africa, and while it is acknowledged that many industry associations and professional societies, contracting organisations and others have made significant efforts to improve health and safety within the construction industry, overall, construction health and safety is not improving significantly. Notably, construction continues to contribute a disproportionate number of fatalities and injuries, and there continues to be a high level of non-compliance with the health and safety regulations in South Africa. Against this context, the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) has undertaken this report on the status of construction health and safety in South Africa, so as to provide a context for the efforts and actions of industry stakeholders and role-players in improving construction health and safety \u2013 including those of the CIDB.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Counselling for maternal and newborn health care: A handbook for building skills","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/making_pregnancy_safer/documents/9789241547628/en/index.html","body":"The main aim of this counselling handbook is to strengthen counselling and communication skills of health providers including skilled birth attendants, helping them to effectively discuss with women, their husbands/partners and families and communities the important issues surrounding pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, postnatal and post-abortion care. The handbook relies on a self-directed learning approach. Although it is designed to be used by groups of health workers with the help of a facilitator, it can also be used by an individual. All topical sessions contain specific aims and objectives, clearly outlining the skills that will be developed and corresponding learning outcomes. Practical activities have been designed to encourage reflection, provoke discussions, build skills and ensure the local relevance of information. There is a review at the end of each session to ensure that the learner has understood the key points before progressing to subsequent sessions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Database of civil society self-regulatory initiatives","field_subtitle":"One World Trust: 2009","field_url":"http://www.oneworldtrust.org/csoproject/","body":"Civil society organisations (CSOs) are facing increasing pressure to demonstrate their accountability, legitimacy and effectiveness. In response, a growing number are coming together at national, regional and international level, to define common standards and promote good practice through codes of conduct, certification schemes, reporting frameworks, directories and awards. This project provides the first comprehensive inventory of civil society self-regulatory initiatives worldwide. What does the database offer? The map and initiative search pages provide information on each initiative. Available information includes summaries, contact information, lists of participating organisations, full texts of initiatives, analysis of compliance mechanisms, similar initiatives, and assessments of the role of many initiatives within the CSO sector. Users can filter their search according to their particular needs, using criteria such as the location, type, and areas addressed of the initiative.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Designing financial-incentive programmes for return of medical service in underserved areas: Seven management functions","field_subtitle":"B\u00e4rnighausen T and Bloom DE: Human Resources for Health, 26 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/7/1/52","body":"This paper draws on studies of financial incentive programmes and other initiatives with similar objectives to discuss seven management functions that are essential for the long-term success of financial incentive programmes aimed at retaining staff in underserved areas: using innovative financing; promoting health as a career; introducing specific selection criteria to ensure programme success and achieve goals; ensuring correct placement of new employees; offering support by staying in close contact with participants throughout enrolment and assigning them mentors; enforcement (programmes may use community-based monitoring or outsource enforcement to existing institutions); and routine performance evaluation of programmes. To improve the strength of the evidence on the effectiveness of financial incentives, controlled experiments should be conducted where feasible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Determinants of knowledge of HIV status in South Africa: Results from a population-based HIV survey","field_subtitle":"Peltzer K, Matseke G, Mzolo T and Majaja M: BMC Public Health, 5 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-9-174.pdf","body":"This paper seeks to describe the associations between socio-demographic, behavioural and social characteristics and knowledge of HIV status among a nationally representative population in South Africa. A multistage, representative probability sample involving 16,395 male and female respondents, aged 15 years or older was selected. From the total sample 27.6% ever and 7.8% knew their HIV status in the past 12 months. In multivariate analyses, being female, the age group 25 to 34 years old, other than African Black population group (White, Coloured and Asian), higher educational level, being employed, urban residence, awareness of a place nearby where one could be tested for HIV, impact of HIV on the household and having had two of more sexual partners in the past year were associated with knowledge of HIV status. Education about HIV and AIDS and access to HIV counselling and testing in rural areas, in particular among the Black African population group needs to be improved, in order to enhance the uptake of HIV counselling and testing services, an essential step for the initiation of treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 76: Capital flows in the health sector in South Africa: Implications for equity and access to health care","field_subtitle":"Dambisya YM and Modipa SI, Health Systems Research Group, University of Limpopo: August 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS76pppDAMBISYA.pdf","body":"This paper was commissioned under the umbrella of the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET), led by the Institute of Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University (ISER) to map and review documented (secondary) evidence on capital flows in the health sector and their implications for equitable access to health care services between 1995 and 2007 in South Africa. The paper finds that private intermediaries channel more funds than the public ones, yet a significant proportion of the population meets health service costs through out-of-pocket payments, and for many this is catastrophic expenditure. There have been successful pro-equity measures to increase access to both public and private health care services e.g. through removal of barriers, such as user fees at primary health care (PHC) facilities, increased coverage of medical aid and through regulation of the private sector. However, inequities in access persist, as do geographical barriers to access. The period reviewed is one where expansion of both public and private sectors has taken place. The challenge remains to translate this into equitable use of available resources, or increased access to health services, especially for those with higher health need. Improved monitoring of health systems impacts of trends described in this paper is urged, given the significant share of private sector services in the public-private mix in health in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 77: Commercialisation of health and capital flows in east and southern Africa: Issues and implications","field_subtitle":"Ruiters, G and Scott B: August 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS77capflowRUITERS.pdf","body":"While there is much promotion of private capital flows into the health sector in Southern Africa in reality these flows have been minimal. Private health is the fifth most promoted sector in African after tourism, hotels and restaurants, energy, and computer services. To understand flows of private capital behind the growth of the for-profit health care sector in SADC, EQUINET working through Rhodes University Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) and other institutions in the region are examining health sector capital flows in ESA. Despite the minor movements of capital in the ESA health sector, Mauritius, South Africa, Botswana and Namibia appear as the growth points for big capital, with the rest of the region relegated to the margins in terms of large investments. Investment potential exists in the pharmaceutical, hospital and hospital services sectors, but most of new FDI in health is in the pharmaceutical sector often for the production of ARVs to absorb large donor funds. The pharmaceutical sector has also had the most significant amounts of overt privatisation of all health-related sectors, either through selling fixed assets or transfer of equity. The report argues that South Africa is likely to be the biggest destination for investment in health care, and the major regional source of private FDI flows to the health sector in ESA countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"District Health Barometer 2007/2008","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust: 2009","field_url":"http://www.healthlink.org.za/publications/850","body":"The quality of health care, including access to HIV prevention and testing services, depends to a large extent on which of South Africa's 52 districts you happen to live in. Major inequities were noted between urban and rural areas, as rural areas were usually underserved. Some of the inequities highlighted by the District Health Barometer (DHB) can be traced to differences in health spending, with different districts spending different amounts. The uneven distribution of HIV infection in South Africa also influenced ratings: higher rates of Caesareans were linked to higher HIV rates in pregnant women. Writing in the DHB, Dr Tanya Doherty attributed a lack of improvement in child and maternal mortality rates to the HIV epidemic \u2013 under-five mortality barely shifted from 60 per 1,000 births in 1990, to 59 in 2007, while maternal mortality actually increased. Prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) is vital to reducing maternal and child mortality and combating HIV, but health authorities have failed to properly monitor PMTCT interventions. \u2018This is indicative of management neglect of the programme from national to facility level,\u2019 she wrote.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Early vs. late in aid partnerships and implications for tackling aid fragmentation: Do donors give increased aid to old partnerships rather than to new recipients? ","field_subtitle":"Frot E (ed): 2009 ","field_url":"http://swopec.hhs.se/hasite/papers/hasite0001.pdf","body":"This paper looks at whether aid partnerships established early or late matter significantly for aid quantities, and how this in turn affects aid fragmentation. It also details how aid partnerships have evolved over time and how donors have, if at all, shifted priorities. Furthermore the authors seek to evaluate the effect of current aid reform on aid fragmentation. It found that donor countries allocate larger shares of their aid budgets to recipients that entered early in their portfolios, while they have allocated smaller aid quantities to new partnerships. This has direct consequences for aid fragmentation, with many donors disbursing small amounts to a recipient. Fragmentation appears to be a product of portfolio expansion and it increases direct transaction and indirect costs creating dysfunctional bureaucracy and political behaviours by lowering the level of bureaucratic quality. Aid is less efficient in countries when it is fragmented. Donors' decisions to give less aid to late recipients, coupled with the sheer expansion in the number of their partnerships, has direct consequences on aid fragmentation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"ECOSOC adopts resolutions on digital divide and HIV and AIDS but hurdles remain ","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 29 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/07/29/ecosoc-adopts-resolutions-on-digital-divide-hivaids-but-hurdles-remain/","body":"The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) has concluded a month-long coordinating body meeting in Geneva by adopting resolutions on a range of public policy issues such as internet connectivity, science and technology, and HIV/AIDS. However, the digital divide and the lack of global access to AIDS treatments seriously hinder developing countries\u2019 prospects for development, participants say. They underlined the importance of information and communications technologies (ICTs), as well as science and engineering, in the context of development and in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals. ECOSOC recommended mainstream ICTs to promote growth and sustainable development as it adopted, without a vote, a resolution on the assessment of the progress made in the implementation of the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society and its follow-up. The Council asked its stakeholders to assist developing countries to reduce the digital divide.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Ensuring workers\u2019 rights to health and safety in SADC","field_subtitle":"Work and Health in Southern Africa (WAHASA): September 2008","field_url":"http://www.wahsa.net/Uploads/Policy%20briefs/SADC%20OSH.pdf","body":"The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocols on Health (1999), and Mining (1997) requires member states to co-operate in delivering and improving occupational health in the region\u2019s mining sector. But the rights of mineworkers and other workers to health and safety have not been realised, according to this policy brief. Harmonisation of standards in the region, and monitoring of compliance with standards, is now more critical in the age of free trade agreements. These agreements should not impact negatively on workers\u2019 health, through the exporting of hazardous processes within the region to where regulation and enforcement is less stringent, as well as through pressure to reduce occupational health requirements to allow companies to become more competitive.  Stakeholders should hold SADC and member states to the realisation of workers\u2019 health and safety rights and take action when rights are not upheld and targets are not met. They can also identify issues and areas in which collaboration is necessary and ensure that resources and strategies are in place to deliver what is needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 103: Time to put occupational health in Southern Africa back into the health and economic justice agenda","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET PRA Paper: Access to HIV treatment and care amongst commercial sex workers in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Chikaphupha K, Nkhonjera P, Namakhoma I and Loewenson R: August 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRARep%20REACHCSW09.pdf","body":"Policies in Malawi explicitly mention the need for focus on services for commercial sex workers (CSWs) because of their susceptibility to HIV infection and the potential risk they have of spreading the virus. This study aimed to explore and address barriers to coverage and uptake of HIV prevention and treatment services among CSWs in Area 25 Lilongwe district, Malawi, using Participatory Reflection and Action (PRA) methods. The work was implemented within a programme of the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET co-ordinated by Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) in co-operation with Ifakara Health Institute Tanzania, REACH Trust Malawi and the Global Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS (GNPP+). An initial baseline survey in 20 health workers and 45 CSWs showed high knowledge but poor rating of access and uptake of HIV prevention, testing and treatment services, due to both barriers in the community and in the services themselves. A PRA process drew out further detail and experiences of the barriers faced, with priorities identified as: lack of early treatment seeking practices amongst CSWs; ill treatment of CSWs at health facilities by health practitioners; and lack of adherence to treatment by most of CSWs. The PRA process raised issues of the gender violence and abuse that CSWs face (including through attitudes and practices in health care services) that dehumanise them and perpetuate their own harmful behaviours. The group of CSWs and health workers as a whole identified interventions that were immediate and feasible to address the three barriers they prioritized. An intensive intervention, involving door to door counseling, engagement at places of work, formation of joint committees between CSWs and health workers and sensitization of health workers was implemented, steered and reviewed by the team with the CSWs and health workers themselves. Health workers and CSWs reported in a follow up survey improvements across all areas in the assessed baseline, except for quality of health services. Health workers reported improvements in the same areas noted by the CSWs, although their rating of improvements were generally a little more modest than the CSWs. We suggest that a public health PHC oriented approach to services for CSWs recognize, listen to, involve and build capacity in CSWs and ex-CSWs, and the civil society organisations that work with them, as a primary group for reaching and mobilizing uptake of services in CSWs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Estimates of health care professional shortages in sub-Saharan Africa by 2015","field_subtitle":"Scheffler RM, Mahoney CB, Fulton B, Dal Poz MR and Preker AS: Health Affairs 28(5): 849\u2013862, 6 August 2009","field_url":"http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.28.5.w849","body":"This paper uses a forecasting model to estimate the need for, supply of, and shortage of doctors, nurses, and midwives in thirty-nine African countries for 2015, the target date of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. It forecasts that thirty-one countries will experience needs-based shortages of doctors, nurses, and midwives, totalling approximately 800,000 health professionals. It further estimates the additional annual wage bill required to eliminate the shortage at about US$2.6 billion, more than 2.5 times current wage-bill projections for 2015. Additional funds would be required to hire health care support staff, train and support staff, and pay for expenses. Raising the money required to eliminate the shortfall would be difficult for the countries involved, even under the most optimistic assumptions regarding economic growth and governmental commitments to the health sector. Global aid can help but will still not provide enough resources, the researchers say. They call for changes in the skills mix, worker incentives and improvements in training for health care workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing of global health: Tracking development assistance for health from 1990 to 2007","field_subtitle":"Ravishankar N, Gubbins P, Cooley RJ, Leach-Kemon K, Michaud CM, Jamison DT, Murray CJL: The Lancet 373(9681): 2113\u20132124, 20 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2960881-3/fulltext","body":"This research shows that funding for health in developing countries has quadrupled over the past two decades \u2013 from US$5.6 billion in 1990 to US$21.8 billion in 2007. Private citizens, private foundations and non-governmental organisations are shifting the paradigm for global health aid away from governments and agencies like the World Bank and the United Nations and making up an increasingly large piece of the health assistance pie \u2013 30% in 2007. However, health aid does not always reach either the poorest or unhealthiest countries. Overall, poor countries receive more money than countries with more resources, but there are strong anomalies. Sub-Saharan Africa receives the highest concentration of funding, but some African countries receive less aid than South American countries with lower disease burdens \u2013 like Peru and Argentina. HIV and AIDS took the lion\u2019s share of funding, receiving at least 23 cents out of every dollar going into development assistance for health, while tuberculosis and malaria received less than a third of that.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing the response to AIDS in low- and middle-income countries: International assistance from the G8, European Commission and other donor governments in 2008","field_subtitle":"Kates J, Lief E and Avila C: UNAIDS and the Kaiser Family Foundation, July 2009","field_url":"http://data.unaids.org/pub/Presentation/2009/20090704_UNAIDS_KFF_G8_CHARTPACK_2009_en.pdf","body":"This report on international AIDS assistance provides data from 2008, the most recent year available. As such, it represents funding levels reflecting budgets largely set in place before the acceleration of the current global economic crisis. The analysis is based on data provided by donor countries. It found that international AIDS assistance from the G8, the European Community and other donor governments reached its highest level to date \u2013 new commitments totalled US$8.7 billion, of which US$6.7 billion was through bilateral channels. Disbursements have increased by more than six-fold. In 2008, the United States was the largest donor in the world, accounting for 51.3% of disbursements by governments. The United Kingdom accounted for the second largest share (12.6%), followed by the Netherlands (6.5%), France (6.4%) and Germany (6.2%). Still, there was a gap of US$6.5 billion between resources available from all sources and resources needed in 2008, as estimated by UNAIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Foreign assistance and political market imperfections in post-conflict countries: How should development assistance be tailored to post-conflict countries?","field_subtitle":"Keefer P (ed): Foresight 2(2), March 2009","field_url":"http://www.mcgill.ca/files/cdas/FORESIGHT.2.2.pdf","body":"This paper notes that post-conflict countries face enormous development challenges and substantive policy consequences. It calls for appropriate responses for conflict-affected nations such as financial assistance from donors, private investment and capacity building. Arguments given for resource transfers to post-conflict countries are that by increasing income, they reduce the risk of renewed conflict and also mitigate humanitarian crises left by the conflict. The second argument assumes that the humanitarian needs of conflict countries are due to conflict. The paper outlines the political market imperfections, which make post-conflict countries vulnerable \u2013 rendering political incentives to pursue long-run development and peace weak. These imperfections should shape the goals and modalities of foreign assistance to facilitate the delivery of social services, infrastructure, and capacity-building. To achieve development goals, government officials must have incentives to pursue the broad public interest in order to reduce political market imperfections that distort decision-making and deter accountability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Full impact of H1N1 in Africa \u2018yet to be seen\u2019","field_subtitle":"Magamdela P: Health-e, 15 August 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032453","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) says the full impact of the swine flu outbreak in Africa has yet to be seen. The African Region was the last to experience the pandemic amongst the six WHO regions, and concerns are mounting about its potential effect. \u2018What is of particular concern to us as Africans is that, although the pandemic has spread to our continent last, we may be more severely affected by it,\u2019 said South African health minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi. The concern is exacerbated by Africa\u2019s burden of disease. \u2018It is well known that this continent has always been worst affected by any outbreak of communicable diseases \u2013 whether it is HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, one or more of the haemorrhagic fevers. It is, therefore, essential for all countries within the continent to ensure that we are adequately prepared for all of these, but in the present context prepared to deal with the influenza pandemic\u2019, he added.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Fund for Gender Equality","field_subtitle":"Applications open September 2009","field_url":"http://www.unifem.org/partnerships/fund_for_gender_equality/","body":"The Fund for Gender Equality is a multi-donor initiative designed to advance high-impact gender equality programmes that focus on women\u2019s economic and/or political empowerment at local and national levels. It provides grants to civil society and governmental agencies in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, the Arab States, Latin America and the Caribbean, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Fund is unique in its focus on turning local and national laws and policies into tangible gains for women\u2019s rights. Potential grantees may apply for one of two types of grants. Implementation grants will range from US$2 million to US$5 million distributed over a period of two to four years. Catalytic grants will range from US$100,000 to US$500,000 distributed over a period of one to two years. Once a plan, policy or law is developed and endorsed, successful institutions will be eligible to apply in the future for a larger implementation grant.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global financial and economic crisis: Analysis of and implications for ACP-EU economic partnership agreements","field_subtitle":"Bilal S, Draper P and te Velde DW: ECDPM Discussion Paper 92: July 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/m2ojgw","body":"To contribute to regional objectives, the content and scope of the economic partnership agreements (EPAs) between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific nations should reflect the specific national and regional interests of countries concerned, and should not impose pressure on these countries to pursue pro-active and counter-cyclical development policies. In spite of the potential merits of regional integration and EPAs in the medium and long term, they offer little prospects to address the immediate consequences of the crisis. In the short run, special attention should thus be given to the scope of commitments and their sequencing to reflect the specific current conditions and development approaches of each country and region. Without such flexibility, EPAs may add to the pain of the crisis. The current crisis also calls for special effort to adequately address the short- and medium-term adjustment needs of ACP countries to bring about longer-term development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund grants Zimbabwe US$37.9 mill to fight AIDS","field_subtitle":"Reuters Africa: 7 Aug 2009","field_url":"http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE5760F320090807","body":"The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has granted Zimbabwe US$37.9 million, resuming support after getting assurances from the new unity government that the money would not be misused. The head of the Global Fund's Africa Unit, Fareed Abdullah, said the money, previously managed by the state-appointed National Aids Council, would now be overseen by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Zimbabwe. \u2018We're glad that today marks a turning point in the relationship between Zimbabwe and the Global Fund, after the troubled history of the past 18 months,\u2019 Abdullah said. Last year, the Fund alleged that Zimbabwe's central bank had confiscated US$7.3 million in 2007 meant for health programmes \u2013 the bank has returned the money since then. \u2018The reason behind getting the UNDP as the principal recipient is to do with that history, no doubt.\u2019 Apart from helping in the fight against HIV and AIDS, the money would also be committed to tuberculosis and malaria programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund uncovers flaws in malaria drug management","field_subtitle":"Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria: June 2009","field_url":"http://www.theglobalfund.org/documents/oig/Tanzania_Country_Audit_Final_Report.pdf","body":"Almost US$1 million worth of anti-malaria drugs are missing or have expired in Tanzania's medical warehouses, this audit has found. Artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) drugs worth US$819,000 are missing and stock worth US$130,000 has expired, highlighting problems with internal control mechanisms. In addition, glitches in the procurement process led to an oversupply and the consequent expiry of ACTs - which have a relatively short shelf-life - in warehouses around the country. The Global Fund has asked the Tanzanian office of international audit firm Price-Waterhouse-Coopers to investigate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Symposium 2009: \u2018Awakening Planetary Consciousness\u2019 ","field_subtitle":"11 \u201314 December, 2009: Lucknow, India","field_url":"http://www.wmgd.net/symposium","body":"The Global Symposium is an annual event that has developed a worldwide movement through a global partnership with civil society and educational organizations to establish sustainable development, world unity and world peace. This is an opportunity for many to meet some amazing people, aside from being able to directly help address major issues confronting the world today. The purpose of this international gathering is to strengthen cooperation among the civil society to unite their efforts in world interest and to act and achieve our common goals by laying a strong foundation of a nuclear-free, democratic, sustainable, just and peaceful world order and creating a widespread awareness about issues like scarcity of safe drinking water and more equitable distribution of resources. Register now. There is no registration or participation fee. All delegates from abroad will be provided with complimentary boarding and lodging (accommodation and meals) facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Government inquiry launched after ARV shortages blamed for deaths in Uganda","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 31 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=85526","body":"The Ugandan government is investigating whether a nationwide shortage of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs led to the reported deaths of HIV-positive people in northern Uganda in July. Health workers in Apac district reported that at least 17 people known to have been HIV-positive died over the past month after failing to receive their life-prolonging medication due to supply shortfalls. Health centres around the country are reporting out-of-stock ARVs, which the health ministry attributes to a lack of funding.  An estimated 170,000 people are enrolled in government ARV programmes. After a massive countrywide testing drive in January, 100,000 new HIV patients were registered, many of whom needed ARVs \u2013government and donor funding, however, had not increased correspondingly. According to officials at the health ministry, funding delays from donors, such as PEPFAR and the Global Fund, have also contributed to national ARV shortages.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Guidelines for occupational safety and health, including HIV in the health services sector","field_subtitle":"Uganda Ministry of Health: February 2008","field_url":"http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADN892.pdf","body":"These guidelines recognise that all types of work are hazardous and persons at work are exposed to situations that may result into injury, disease or even death. In Uganda, the authors argue that the health sector is loaded with a wide variety of situations where health and safety issues are crucial. Additionally, while the economic cost of occupational risks is high, public awareness of safety and health tends to be quite low. The Ugandan health sector requires a standardised framework for workplace safety and health, including responding specifically to HIV as a workplace hazard. The first chapter gives background information on occupational health and safety (OHS). The second addresses the basic OHS principles and interventions. The third deals with management of HIV and AIDS as a specific workplace hazard, while the fourth covers management of the other common hazards that exist at the health workplace. The final chapter deals with implementation of a workplace safety and health programme, including aspects of monitoring.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthy living, health work in the informal sector","field_subtitle":"Work and Health in Southern Africa (WAHASA): September 2008","field_url":"http://www.wahsa.net/Uploads/Policy%20brief/P9%20-%20Policy%20Brief%20ver2.pdf","body":"Africa\u2019s informal sector is still largely unknown. Some reports have suggested that approximately 60% of those employed in the Southern African Development Community region may be in the informal sector, while others report that up to 20% of all African workers were employed in this sector in 1992. Provision for occupational health and safety (OHS) in the sector is generally scanty, and non-existent in some countries, even if policies exist. This brief recommends that a systematic regional approach is needed to protect the health of workers in the informal sector, including collect basic data on the state of the informal sector, state support for infrastructure in developing the informal sector and insist that health and safety issues form part of business plans that are submitted for funding. Governments must play an active lead role and take responsibility for the provision of health and safety support to this sector, as well as ensure that basic health and safety training for employers and workers is provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV-related public-private partnerships and health systems strengthening","field_subtitle":"Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS): July 2009","field_url":"http://data.unaids.org/pub/Report/2009/jc1721_publicprivatepartnerships_en.pdf","body":"This report focuses on the contribution of AIDS-related public-private partnerships to the six building blocks of health systems: service delivery; human resources; information; medicines and technologies; financing; and leadership. A desk review and interviews were conducted with representatives of private and public organisation stakeholders, as well as development partners. Interviewees identified mutual understanding as an important precondition for the implementation of efficient and successful partnerships. The private sector at times lacks profound knowledge of the complex stakeholder landscape in the HIV response and health care provision. To develop flourishing partnerships, honest and wide-ranging dialogue to inform and secure agreement in joint planning is essential from the very earliest stages. Such planning will of course consider issue such as sustainability, follow-up, and monitoring, essential to flourishing partnerships. Health financing mechanisms, HIV and tuberculosis treatment and mobile health technology are areas which are of interest to the private sector and which require further technical expertise and promotion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Impacts of health worker migration on health systems in east and southern Africa: Report of a regional research methods meeting, 14-16 July 2009, Harare, Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"WHO (AFRO), EQUINET, ECSA-HC and SADC: August 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/HRHmigrationmtg%20repjul09.pdf","body":"A regional meeting was held to bring together the cross section of stakeholders from WHO/AFRO, SADC, ECSA-HC, EQUINET, government officials and researchers from the region to develop a harmonized approach for follow up research on health worker migration. The workshop report outlines the discussions and protocol developed to: highlight the key policy issues arising nationally, regionally and globally on the impacts of health worker migration on health systems; and identify key evidence gaps in negotiation of policy and agreements relating to protecting negative health systems impacts of health worker migration; review existing conceptual frameworks, parameters and indicators used for assessing health worker migration flows and for assessing dimensions of health systems; propose a conceptual framework and parameters for measuring impacts of health worker migration on health systems; review existing research initiatives on health worker migration in the region, the methodologies (design, tools) used, their limitations, and discuss and develop a shared standardised method for capturing evidence and analysing the impacts of health worker migration on health systems; and identify research capacities (research teams, funding, and political will) for the follow up work on health worker migration in the region, and a coordinated and harmonised approach to follow up research on health worker migration in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementing the Development Agenda","field_subtitle":"De Beer J (ed), International Development Research Centre: 2009","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-139311-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html","body":"This new book was launched on 10 July and has been called the \u2018most progressive agenda we\u2019ve ever had at the World Intellectual Property Organisation.\u2019 Implementation of the \u2018Development Agenda\u2019 will be complicated, however. First, there is a divergence at the national level between different stakeholders whose work touches on intellectual property (IP). There are \u2018very few delegations that can say there\u2019s a consensus domestically,\u2019 notes the author. And countries must also close the gap between what is said at the international level and what is done at home. A development agenda will \u2018never have legs on the ground unless member states go home and implement it.\u2019 But IP laws must also be sensitive to cultural norms and context, lest they alienate key stakeholders. Laws that have lost touch with reality are \u2018less likely\u2026 [to] be enforced,\u2019 he said. More moderate IP laws, with flexibilities, could increase enforcement. The author also affirms the need to develop good partnerships and good governance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving OHS information in Southern Africa: Why and how?","field_subtitle":"Work and Health in Southern Africa (WAHASA): 2009","field_url":"http://www.wahsa.net/Uploads/Policy%20briefs/wahsa1.pdf","body":"What is the current status of occupational health and safety (OHS) in southern African? Of an estimated 14 million injuries per year, a mere 93,000 injuries are reported. This brief notes that more data is needed, which should be analysed and reported regularly. In existing compensation systems, there is too much focus on financial governance and not on the production of information to prevent accidents and disease. It recommends that social security/compensation and reporting systems need to be introduced where these do not exist. Active surveillance methods need to be introduced through surveys already carried out by national statistical offices, or by adding occupational health components to future labour force or health and demographic surveys. In addition, targeted research needs to be funded and supported. It will take many years and a lot of resources for southern African countries to develop information systems as sophisticated as those in Western countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Indigenous health part 1: Determinants and disease patterns: 400 million indigenous people have low standards of health ","field_subtitle":"Gracey M and King M: The Lancet 374(9683): 65\u201375, 4 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2960914-4/fulltext#article_upsell","body":"This article notes that almost 400 million of the world's indigenous people have low standards of health. This poor health is associated with poverty, malnutrition, overcrowding, poor hygiene, environmental contamination, and prevalent infections. The authors argue that this precarious situation is aggravated by inadequate clinical care and health promotion, and poor disease prevention services. As indigenous groups move from traditional to transitional and modern lifestyles, they are rapidly acquiring lifestyle diseases, such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes, and physical, social, and mental disorders linked to misuse of alcohol and of other drugs. To correct these inequities, the authors recommend increased awareness, political commitment, and recognition rather than governmental denial and neglect of these serious and complex problems. Additionally, the authors recommend that indigenous people should be encouraged, trained, and enabled to become increasingly involved in overcoming these challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Indigenous health part 2: The underlying causes of the health gap: Causes of health disparities between indigenous and non-indigenous people","field_subtitle":"Gracey M and King M: The Lancet 374(9683): 76\u201385, 4 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2809%2960827-8/fulltext#article_upsell","body":"This second article on the health of indigenous people delves into the underlying causes of health disparities between indigenous and non-indigenous people, providing an indigenous perspective to understanding these inequalities. The authors present a snapshot of the many research publications about indigenous health, with the aim to provide clinicians with a framework to better understand such matters. By applying this lens, placed in context for each patient, the authors argue that more culturally appropriate ways to interact with, to assess, and to treat indigenous peoples shall be promoted. The topics covered in this article include indigenous notions of health and identity; mental health and addictions; urbanisation and environmental stresses; whole health and healing; and reconciliation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"International Aid Transparency Initiative","field_subtitle":"Development Initiatives: 2009","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=44204&em=03%200809&sub=aid","body":"Donors have many competing claims on scarce resources, and many statistics and reporting units are vastly under resourced. Much of the core project information required is already captured within donors' central management information/financial systems. For all donors, there will still be a significant amount of information that is required by users, but not currently captured in a systematic way. It is likely that to fully comply with IATI, many donors will need to consider an investment in improving their reporting systems. This scoping paper makes a few recommendations. Further analysis should be undertaken to better understand the costs and benefits to donors of complying with the potential IATI standards, and to understand what support they may require. Agreed mechanisms should be established for updating the common standards over time and arbitrating disputes. Detailed consultations with partner countries, civil society organisations and other key stakeholders should be done to determine their priorities in terms of aid information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Iron supplementation in early childhood: Health benefits and risks","field_subtitle":"Iannotti LL, Tielsch JM and Black MM: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 84(6): 1261\u20131276, 2009","field_url":"http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/84/6/1261","body":"This study reviewed 26 randomised controlled trials of preventive, oral iron supplementation in young children (aged 0\u201359 months) living in developing countries to ascertain the associated health benefits and risks. It found that among iron-deficient or anaemic children, haemoglobin concentrations were improved with iron supplementation. Reductions in cognitive and motor development deficits were observed in iron-deficient or anaemic children, particularly with longer-duration, lower-dose regimens. With iron supplementation, weight gains were adversely affected in iron deficient children; the effects on height were inconclusive. Most studies found no effect on morbidity, although few had sample sizes or study designs that were adequate for drawing conclusions. More research is needed in populations affected by HIV and tuberculosis. Iron supplementation in preventive programmes may need to be targeted through identification of iron-deficient children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Job satisfaction and morale in the Ugandan health workforce","field_subtitle":"Hagopian A, Zuyderduin A, Kyobutungi N, Yumkella F: Health Affairs 28(5): 863\u2013875, 6 August 2009","field_url":"http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.28.5.w849","body":"Ugandan health workers are dissatisfied with their jobs, especially their compensation and working conditions, says this study. It found a shocking statistic \u2013 about one in four health workers, which includes half of all physicians, would like to leave the country. What can be done about this medical brain drain? The researchers urge that strategies for strengthening the health care workforce in Uganda should focus on salary and benefits, especially health coverage. Poor working conditions and excessive workloads should also be dealt with. Facility infrastructure needs to be upgraded to provide a decent work environment, including the supply of water and electricity. Management needs to be improved, as well as workforce camaraderie.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of the Rural Health Advocacy Project","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust: 18 August 2009","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041928","body":"On 13 August 2009 the Rural Health Advocacy Project was launched at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, coinciding with the launch of the Wits Centre for Rural Health. A renewed focus on access to health care in rural areas is vital in a context of worsening key health indicators in South Africa, a 34% national vacancy rate for doctors and inequitable access to quality health care. The Advocacy Project aims to tackle these inequities by achieving measurable improvements in rural health services through: contributing towards policy development including human resources policies for rural health at provincial, national and international levels; advocating for improvements in rural health care in cooperation with rural communities and stakeholders such as government, academic institutions and the private sector; and highlighting challenges and achievements in rural health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Mainstreaming gender into Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programmes: A training manual for water professionals","field_subtitle":"Rwanda SNV, PROTOS and Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, Rwanda: 2009","field_url":"http://www.genderandwater.org/page/7316","body":"This training manual on mainstreaming gender into Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programmes is an integrated approach to both gender and WASH issues. It aims to provide participatory gender-sensitive training to water professionals at the policy, project and administrative levels through building their capacity for mainstreaming gender into WASH programmes. The authors hope this manual will be useful to other public, private and civil society training institutions and agencies, both in Rwanda (where this manual was written) and in other countries around the world. The manual aims to provide participatory gender-sensitive training to water professionals at the policy, project and administrative levels and promote an understanding of and commitment to the importance of participation of both women and men in sustainability of these programmes. It is divided into three modules, which cover WASH programmes, theoretical concepts of gender, gender mainstreaming and analysis tools, and gender-sensitive indicators and a log-frame for WASH programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Male partner HIV-1 testing and antenatal clinic attendance associated with reduced infant HIV-1 acquisition and mortality","field_subtitle":"Aluisio A: 2009","field_url":"http://www.ias2009.org/PAGMaterial/TUAC105_Aluisio_1.ppt","body":"This study in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, noted reduced HIV risk when the male partner of a pregnant woman attended antenatal clinic visits and was also tested for HIV. The study enrolled 532 HIV-positive pregnant women, 140 of whom were accompanied by their male partners on antenatal visits. Results showed that the one-year-old children of women whose partners had attended the clinics had an HIV-free survival rate 59% higher than those whose partners did not attend. These findings indicate that promotion of programmes aimed at increasing male attendance in antenatal care could function to reduce the risk of vertical transmission and infant mortality. About 80% of antenatal clinics in Kenya offer prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) services, but the uptake of counselling and testing is below 50%. The government is considering various incentives, such as waiving maternity fees for couples who attend PMTCT sessions together, to boost male participation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Managing type 2 diabetes in Soweto: The South African Chronic Disease Outreach Programme experience","field_subtitle":"Katz I, Schneider H, Shezi Z, Mdleleni G, Gerntholtz T, Butler O, Manderson L and Naicker S: Primary Care Diabetes (in press), 28 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/mwmw43","body":"A Chronic Disease Outreach Programme (CDOP), based on the chronic care model was used to follow patients with diabetes and hypertension, support primary health care nurses (PHCNs), and improve health systems for management in Soweto. A group of 257 diabetes patients and 186 PHCN were followed over two years, with the study including the evaluation of \u2018functional\u2019 and clinical outcomes, diary recordings outlining program challenges, and a questionnaire assessing PHCNs\u2019 knowledge and education support, and the value of CDOP. CDOP was successful in supporting PHCNs, detecting patients with advanced disease, and ensuring early referral to a specialist centre. It improved early detection and referral of high risk, poorly controlled patients and had an impact on PHCNs\u2019 knowledge. Its weaknesses include poor follow up due to poor existing health systems and the programme\u2019s inability to integrate into existing chronic disease services. The study also revealed an overworked, poorly supported, poorly educated and frustrated primary health care team.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Mozambique\u2019s community activists fight stigma and discrimination","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 13 August 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=85710","body":"In 2007 a group of HIV-positive people in Machaze founded Tchitenderano (\u2018accord\u2019 in the Ndau language) to campaign against stigma and discrimination in their district, where HIV prevalence is 16.7%, slightly higher than the national average of 16%. So far the group has helped more than 3,000 people. Tchitenderano has 25 activists who hold lectures at various public institutions to educate people about HIV and other sexual and reproductive health issues. They also visit health facilities to encourage patients to adhere to their antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, and provide home-based care. Samuel Doris Campira, president of the organisation, said they were slowly helping to free Machaze district of discrimination and stigma. \u2018There were people who would spit at us when they walked by where we were meeting, but today there are families with HIV-positive individuals at home who seek us out to become better informed,\u2019 he said. \u2018The stigma is still very strong, despite the legislation and the campaigns,\u2019 he noted, but with time, information and patience, he believed communities would eventually change their attitudes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"New push for better-quality laboratories","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 30 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=85510","body":"Several African governments have launched a drive to strengthen the continent's laboratories to a standard that will enable them to gain accreditation from the United Nations\u2019 World Health Organization (WHO). Only a few African laboratories have WHO accreditation. Experts at a launch of the initiative in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, said better-quality laboratory services would help lower the death toll from treatable diseases like HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which kill more than five million Africans annually. One of the reasons so few African laboratories have gained accreditation is the time-consuming nature of current procedures. The launch was attended by policy-makers and experts from Botswana, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Ghana, Uganda and Zambia. \u2018Stronger laboratories with better systems and practices in place will mean better patient care and treatment and, through the use of high-quality laboratories, can be swifter,\u2019 said a spokesperson.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"NGOs call for more social security","field_subtitle":"Phakamile Magamdela: Health-e, 27 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032423","body":"If the South African government wants to alleviate poverty, it should increase the number of people accessing social grants, according to recent submissions by a coalition of non-governmental organisations before the South African Human Rights Commission. The coalition, dubbed the National Working Group on Social Security, pointed out that President Jacob Zuma acknowledged that social grants remain the main effective form of poverty alleviation. However, they noted that no extension of the child support grant to children aged 15 to 18 has been announced, despite the importance of secondary school enrolment. Some people with HIV were alleged to be defaulting on their antiretroviral treatment to retain disability grants, because if they regain their health and their CD4 counts improve, social security stops issuing their HIV and AIDS grant. The Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics has called for a basic income grant and other poverty alleviation programmes that will include sex workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"NHI: The need for a value-driven, inclusive process","field_subtitle":"Momberg M: Health-e, 3 August 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032429","body":"The author observes that there are problems with the way in which discussions concerning South Africa\u2019s new national health insurance (NHI) are being conducted behind closed doors. A top-down management approach is seen to be not working, excluding consultation with stakeholders, especially civil society. The challenges government and civil society now face on the issue are related to leadership and accountability (visible leadership at the highest possible level and one single voice and proposal from government), positioning and values (to what extent should principles of solidarity be applied in the design of the new system), the process followed in developing the provisions (extensive and in-depth consultation and a clearly defined process with milestones and deadlines), as well as delivery (especially in administration and management to ensure sustainable benefits).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Nutrition in ART programmes","field_subtitle":"Reynolds L: HIV & AIDS Treatment in Practice 141: 2\u201311, 16 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/cms1325009.pdf","body":"The consequences of malnutrition for the efficacy of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) are poorly understood, and evidence regarding the impact of food supplementation on ART outcomes is still limited. The World Health Organization and World Food Programme have issued guidance on food support in ART programmes: every newly enrolled patient should have a nutritional assessment that includes measurement of weight and body mass index, along with nutritional counselling and monitoring. Promotion of activity that increases ability to maintain and expand food supplies, either through growing crops or trading (`livelihoods`) may be a more appropriate response to malnutrition in people with less-advanced HIV disease, with cash transfers also being used as a means of addressing food insecurity. Households affected by HIV often experience multiple threats to their livelihoods. All nutritional support programmes need realistic strategies to avoid dependency and promote long-term food security.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Occupational health and safety in the public sector","field_subtitle":"Work and Health in Southern Africa (WAHASA): September 2008","field_url":"http://www.wahsa.net/Uploads/Policy%20briefs/public%20sector.pdf","body":"Occupational health and safety (OHS) provision for public servants is southern Africa is poor. Many factors may contribute to this grave situation. Managers of government departments often lack knowledge of their responsibilities regarding occupational health and safety. Training in health and safety for managers and workers is limited by inadequate budgets, bureaucratic obstacles to procuring the training and lack of available approved trainers. Resources to improve the working conditions in the public sector are scarce. What is needed to ensure the health and safety of the public sector in Southern Africa are adequate policy and legislation, enforcement and monitoring of compliance in public service departments, OSH programmes in public sector workplaces, access to adequate treatment and rehabilitation for those affected by workplace hazards, and adequate social security for those disabled and the survivors of those who die on the job. Even if they are motivated to act against unsafe conditions, many categories of worker are precluded from the right to strike as they are considered providers of \u2018essential services\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Occupational injuries and fatalities in copper mining in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Michelo P, Br\u00e5tveit M and Moen BE: Occupational Medicine 2009 59(3):191\u2013194: March 2009","field_url":"http://occmed.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/59/3/191","body":"The metal mining industry employs about 15% of formally employed workers in Zambia, but there is little information about the magnitude of occupational injuries among the miners. This paper aimed to determine the frequency rates of occupational injuries and fatalities among copper miners in Zambia. A retrospective study of occupational injuries and fatalities at one of the largest copper mining companies in Zambia was undertaken for the period January 2005 to May 2007. In the selected period, 165 injuries and 20 fatalities were recorded. The most common cause of fatal injuries was fall of rock in the underground mines. The most frequent mechanism of injury was handling of tools and materials, and the most commonly injured body parts were the hands and fingers. The fatality rate is high compared to reported values from the metalliferous mining industry in developed countries, strongly suggesting that measures should be taken to reduce risks, particularly at underground sites.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Open access and improving world health","field_subtitle":"Swan A: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(8): 635, August 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/8/09-069237/en/index.html","body":"Impaired access to research information in health-related fields is not solely the preserve of developing countries but it is hugely exacerbated in poorer regions of the world. Why are such influential bodies as the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Centre for Disease Control and the National Institute of Health in the USA, the United Kingdom Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust promoting open access? Because it brings such benefits to health research including: increased visibility for research outputs; a concomitant increased usage and impact; an increase in the speed at which scientific research progresses; the facilitation of interdisciplinary research; and the enabling of new semantic computing tools to create new knowledge from existing knowledge. Open access is a key piece of the jigsaw for improving world health. All stakeholders in that vision should commit themselves to its implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Open access: A giant leap towards bridging health inequities","field_subtitle":"Chan L, Arunachalam S and Kirsop B: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(8): 631\u2013635, August 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/8/09-064659/en/index.html","body":"Access to health research publications is an essential requirement in securing the chain of communication from the researcher to the front-line health worker. As the diagram of the knowledge cycle from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research shows, health knowledge generated in the world\u2019s laboratories is passed down the information chain through publications, through its impact and application, its subsequent \u201ctranslation\u201d into appropriate contexts for different user communities, arriving finally with health workers and the general public. This article focuses on the first link in the chain, from research author to reader, and the free online access to peer-reviewed published articles that are the building blocks for future health innovation developments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Patient experiences and health system responsiveness in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Peltzer K: BMC Health Services Research 9(117), 14 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/9/117","body":"Using the data from the South African World Health Survey (WHS), this study aimed to evaluate the degree of health care service responsiveness (both out-patient and in-patient) and comparing experiences of individuals who used public and private services in South Africa. Data was used from a population-based survey of 2,352 male and female participants, which was conducted in South Africa in 2003. Major components identified for out-patient care responsiveness in this survey were highly correlated with health care access, communication and autonomy, secondarily to dignity, confidentiality and quality of basic amenities, and thirdly to health problem solution. The degree of responsiveness with publicly provided care was in this study significantly lower than in private health care \u201316.8% versus 3.2%. Health care access, communication, autonomy, and discriminatory experiences were identified as priority areas for actions to improve responsiveness of health care services in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Proper management of chemicals: A tool for improving environmental and occupational health in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Manyele S: 2004","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ncctjk","body":"This paper outlines the challenges facing environmental and occupational health and safety in Tanzania. It is mainly focused on challenges facing the growth of environmental and occupational health and safety based on chemicals\u2019 management. Environmental and occupational health and safety was found to be very weak, largely due to lack of awareness, high level of illiteracy, weakness in the enforcement of environmental laws, and lack of environmental departments in small and large-scale enterprises. Other challenges include misdistribution of worldwide collaborating centres for World Health Organization/International Labour Organization joint efforts and standards that are not focusing on the safety and health of workers. Recommended strategies include the provision and access to information on safe handling of chemicals, training programmes for environmental health and safety, hazard and accident prevention techniques, risk and safety assessments, and promoting cleaner technologies. There should be an emphasis on development of proper materials safety data sheets based on targeted audience, cost-benefit analysis and auditing of environmental and occupational health and safety.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Return of cholera expected soon in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"IRINNews: 19 August 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85774","body":"The return of cholera to Zimbabwe is not a matter of if, but when, said Rian van de Braak, head of mission of the medical non-governmental organisation, M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res. \u2018The threat is definitely not over. Everyone expects cholera to be back, at the latest with the next rainy season [in September or October], because the root causes of the outbreak [in 2008] have not been addressed adequately yet,\u2019 he said. The first case of the cholera epidemic that swept through Zimbabwe, killing more than 4,000 people and infecting close to 100,000 others, was reported in August 2008 and lasted almost a year until it was officially declared at en end in July 2009. Broken sanitation and water systems, the cause of Africa's worst outbreak of the waterborne disease in 15 years, are unlikely to be repaired in time. \u2018Several aid agencies are drilling new boreholes in cholera hotspots, which is an important contribution to safe drinking water. Dealing with those causes before the next rainy season is a race against the clock,\u2019 said van de Braak.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Risk and outbreak communication: lessons from alternative paradigms","field_subtitle":"Abraham T: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(8): 604\u2013607, August 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/8/08-058149/en/index.html","body":"Risk communication guidelines widely used in public health are based on the psychometric paradigm of risk, which focuses on risk perception at the level of individuals. However, infectious disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies are more than public health events and occur in a highly charged political, social and economic environment. This study examines other sociological and cultural approaches from scholars such as Ulrich Beck and Mary Douglas for insights on how to communicate in such environments. It recommends developing supplemental tools for outbreak communication to deal with issues such as questions of blame and fairness in risk distribution and audiences who do not accept biomedical explanations of disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Routine laboratory tests for HIV therapy unnecessary","field_subtitle":"Development of Anti-retroviral Therapy in Africa (DART): 21 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.ctu.mrc.ac.uk/dart/","body":"A large clinical trial of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) for people with HIV infection in Africa has found that regular laboratory tests offer little additional clinical benefit to populations when compared to careful clinical monitoring. The DART trial aimed to find out whether the lab-based strategies used to deliver ART to people with HIV infection in resource-rich countries were essential in Africa, where around four million people still need ART urgently and resources are limited. The trial was carried out in three locations: Entebbe and Kampala in Uganda, and Harare in Zimbabwe, from 2003 to 2008. The results suggest that many more people with HIV in Africa could be treated for the same amount of money as is currently spent if lab tests are not routinely used to monitor ART. ART can be delivered safely and effectively by trained and supervised health workers in remote communities where routine laboratory services are not available \u2013 good news for low-income or resource-poor countries that are prioritising ART access over investment in expensive laboratory facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"SAS2: A guide to collaborative inquiry and social engagement: Supporting the creation and mobilisation of practical knowledge for social change ","field_subtitle":"Chevalier JM and Buckles DJ, International Development Research Centre: 2008","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-130303-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html","body":"Social issues should be addressed socially and in multi-stakeholder mode, not by private interest and experts alone in processes of knowledge production, planning and decision-making. This guide is an important step in the creation and mobilisation of practical, authentic knowledge for social change. The guide has been divided into two parts. Part 1 outlines the concepts and skillful means needed to support multi-stakeholder dialogue. It also provides detailed instructions on how to integrate and ground collaborative inquiry in the projects, plans, evaluations and activities of multiple stakeholders. Part 2 highlights a selection of techniques and learning for collaborative inquiry and examples of real life applications in South Asia and Latin America. Examples focus on a range of issues including land tenure, local economic development, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and organisational development. Techniques include using Action Research Training (ART), problem tree, force fields, CLIP social analysis (collaboration, conflict, legitimacy, interests and power).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Saving HIV-positive babies in Namibia","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 3 August 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=85559","body":"While a number of countries in southern Africa have made great strides in improving access to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment for HIV-infected adults, progress in rolling out treatment for HIV-positive infants and children has lagged behind. Namibia is a notable exception. Over 7,600 children are receiving ARV treatment \u2013 100% of those estimated to be in need of the life-prolonging medicine. Mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) programmes are available at 202 health facilities. \u2018We are meeting targets for children on ARVs, but they are starting late,\u2019 said Dr Agostino Munyiri, chief of health and nutrition at the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund. Children born to HIV-positive mothers should ideally be tested when they are six weeks old, but the median age for testing is currently 17 weeks. \u2018Many present with malnutrition and only then are tested for HIV, and even then not all are tested,\u2019 Munyiri added. \u2018We know they come back for immunisation [against various diseases]; we need to catch them at that stage.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Saving Mothers 2005-2007: Fourth report on confidential enquiries into maternal deaths in South Africa","field_subtitle":"National Committee on Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths: July 2009","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/reports/2007/savingmothers.pdf","body":"South Africa witnessed a 20% increase in maternal deaths between 2005 and 2007, when compared to the previous three-year period, with HIV and AIDS accounting for 43.7% of all deaths. Almost four (38.4%) out of every 10 deaths were \u2018clearly avoidable within the health care system\u2019, according to researchers, which means they could have been prevented with proper care. The report recommends that the department of health addresses maternal deaths by: improving health care provider knowledge and skills in providing emergency care and ensuring adequate screening and treatment of the major causes of maternal death; improving the quality and coverage of reproductive health services, namely contraceptive and termination of pregnancy services; better management of staffing and equipment norms, transport and availability of blood for transfusion; and community involvement and empowerment regarding maternal, neonatal and reproductive health in general.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Second Access to Healthcare in Africa Conference ","field_subtitle":"15\u201316 September 2009: Gauteng, South Africa ","field_url":"http://www.aa4a.co.za/conference_information.htm","body":"The Second Access to Healthcare in Africa Conference will concentrate on challenges to quality, product availability, access and management in effective health care, with a focus on HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Participants will be able to share their experiences in health care management with their peers while tapping into the knowledge and insight of experts in this field. Topics include the current global recession, donor\u2019s responses and the challenge to make choices regarding accessibility, quality control, efficiency efficacy and health economics around health intervention programmes. These issues are not addressed properly at the global conferences but they are the difference between success and failure of the intervention at ground level. The Conference aims to put those topics on the table for discussion. Key international speakers will introduce each theme, followed by a high-level interactive panel and participant discussion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Sixteenth Canadian Conference on International Health (CCIH): Health Equity: Our Global Responsibility","field_subtitle":"Registration ends 10 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.csih.org/en/ccih/index.asp","body":"It's time to register for the 16th Canadian Conference on International Health (CCIH). This year's conference is being held on October 25\u201328, 2009 in Ottawa, Canada. The Conference convenes more than 500 participants from 44 countries. It also creates a unique networking forum for practitioners, researchers, educators, policy makers and community advocates working at the intersection of health and development within and outside Canada, to share knowledge, experience and promote innovation and collaborative action. It provides a peer review process for individuals and organisations involved in health development, building knowledge and strengthening programmes in international health. The themes of the Conference are: Pathways to Global Health Competence; An Ethical View of Health Equity: Trends and Challenges; Global Health Diplomacy: A Tool for Global Health and Justice; and Thinking Globally/Acting Locally: The Reality and Challenges for the Future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The 2009 Africa Research Conference in Applied Drama and Theatre","field_subtitle":"12\u201314 November 2009: Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.dramaforlife.co.za/index.php/conferences/","body":"The Division of Dramatic Art, in collaboration with Drama for Life, Wits School of the Arts, is organising the 2009 Africa Research Conference in Applied Drama and Theatre. This year's conference will aim to facilitate dialogue across disciplines concerning the role of drama and theatre in HIV/AIDS education, prevention and rehabilitation, with the theme, \u2018Interrogating drama and theatre research and aesthetics within an interdisciplinary context of HIV/AIDS\u2019. The conference seeks to offer an opportunity for in-depth research, innovative practice and network building for academics and practitioners working within applied drama and theatre, and associated fields of study. The conference conversation will centre on research paradigms, the aesthetics of the art form, and interfacing with other disciplines. The main topics are: interrogating research as practice and practice as research in applied drama and theatre in the context of HIV/AIDS, the aesthetics of drama and theatre within the context of interdisciplinary demands, and applied drama and theatre as an interdisciplinary field.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The hidden epidemic amongst former miners: Silicosis, tuberculosis and the Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act in the Eastern Cape, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Roberts J, Health Systems Trust: June 2009","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/855","body":"The aim of the research was to assess current and historical surveillance of the pneumoconioses in former miners, in particular silicosis, silico-tuberculosis and tuberculosis, and to assess the functioning of the Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act (ODMWA) surveillance and compensation system, which is a responsibility of the Department of Health. The research also aimed to assess the impact of the burden of lung disease and disability on the public health system and on the labour-sending communities from which the miners come and to which they return. The main objective was thus to investigate health systems surveillance of the pneumoconioses in former underground gold miners, and to assess diagnostic and compensation systems under the legal framework of the Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act 78 of 1973 as Amended (ODMWA). The main finding was that this is a historically neglected subject, under-researched and undocumented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The privatisation of global health","field_subtitle":"Basu S: 28 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/22145","body":"The author describes events in Lesotho and South Africa where public-private health partnerships have not produced the desired results and notes that these incidents are not isolated, but part of a wave of new privatisation initiatives that uses donor dollars for public health by shuttling them into private contractors in poor countries. Advocates of private-public partnerships are noted to cite selective data from specific privatisation schemes, ignoring the costs of contracting and the broader impact of their initiatives on communities. The author questions the idea that foreign health policy analysts know better than local providers and patients, and points to the irony of poorer performance in public health relative to resources in the United States, the country with the greatest number of health policy analysts per capita.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The quality of emergency obstetrical surgery by assistant medical officers in Tanzanian district hospitals ","field_subtitle":"McCord C, Mbaruku G, Pereira C, Nzabuhakwa C and Bergstrom S: Health Affairs 28(5): 876\u2013885, 6 August 2009","field_url":"http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.28.5.w876","body":"When considering the declining quality of emergency obstetrical surgery in Tanzania, lack of access to facilities, not a shortage of qualified staff, is the issue, argues this paper. Five countries in sub-Saharan Africa use non-physicians to perform major emergency obstetrical surgery. In Tanzania, assistant medical officers (AMOs) \u2013 secondary school graduates with several years of medical training \u2013 perform most of this type of surgery outside the cities. The researchers compared obstetrical surgery performed by Tanzanian AMOs with surgery performed by medical officers (MOs) \u2013 medical school graduates with at least one year of internship and a licence to practice medicine and surgery. They found no significant differences between AMOs and MOs in outcomes, risk indicators or quality of care indicators. With 1,300 AMOs now trained for this kind of surgery, there are enough surgeons to meet the need in Tanzania. But hospitals are widely spaced and transport is difficult, so that fewer than one-third of Tanzanian women in need of major obstetrical surgery make it to a hospital that can do the job.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of development cooperation and food aid in realising the right to adequate food: Moving from charity to obligation","field_subtitle":"De Schutte O: April 2009","field_url":"http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/49abc3392.html","body":"This report by the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter, examines the contribution of development cooperation and food aid to the realisation of the right to food. Interventions include both long-term support for food security and short-term answers to emergency situations. This report makes a number of suggestions on how to reorient both types interventions by better integrating a perspective grounded in the human right to adequate food at three levels: in the definition of the obligations of donor states; in the identification of the tools on which these policies rely; and in the evaluation of such policies, with a view to their continuous improvement. At its core, a human rights approach turns what has been a bilateral relationship between donor and partner, into a triangular relationship, in which the ultimate beneficiaries of these policies play an active role. Seeing the provision of foreign aid as a means to fulfil the human right to adequate food has concrete implications, which assume that donor and partner governments are duty-bearers, and beneficiaries are rights-holders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The Treatment Time Bomb","field_subtitle":"All Party Parliamentary Group on AIDS: July 2009","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/appg-policy-report.pdf","body":"By not preparing for the changing treatment needs of people living with HIV, the sustainability of treatment programmes in developing countries is doomed. Over the next decade, an increasing number of patients on inexpensive first-line antiretroviral (ARV) drugs in low-income countries will need second-line ARVs, which currently cost at least seven times more. Many patients will also need to be switched to newer, less toxic first-line drugs, which have fewer side-effects but are at least double the price. This report argues that action is needed now to bring down the price of second-line and less toxic first-line ARVs if a crisis is to be averted later. It supports an alternative approach that would see pharmaceutical companies putting their ARV patents into a single pool, from which manufacturers or researchers could draw in exchange for a royalty fee. Patent pools not only have the potential to reduce the price of existing ARVs, but can stimulate the production of urgently needed new medicines and formulations, such as paediatric ARVs and fixed-dose combinations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The whole is greater than the sum of the parts: Recognising missed opportunities for an optimal response to the rapidly maturing TB-HIV co-epidemic in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Perumal R, Padayatchi N and Stiefvater E: BMC Public Health 9(243): 16 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/9/243","body":"Despite widely acknowledged WHO guidelines for the integration of tuberculosis (TB) and HIV services, heavily burdened countries have been slow to implement these and thus significant missed opportunities have arisen. The individual-centred, rights-based paradigm of the national AIDS policy remains dissonant with the compelling public-health approach of TB control. The existence of independent and disconnected TB and HIV services wastes scarce health resources, increases burden on patients' time and finances, and ignores evidence of patients' preference for an integrated service, resulting in ongoing missed opportunities, such as failure to maximise collaborative disease surveillance, voluntary counselling and testing, adherence support, infection control, and positive prevention. The full potential of an integrated TB-HIV service has not been fully harvested. Missed opportunities discount existing efforts in both programmes, will perpetuate the burden of disease, and prevent major gains in future interventions. This paper outlines simple, readily implementable strategies to narrow the gap and reclaim existing missed opportunities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"THIS MONTH: EQUINET Regional Conference, Reclaiming the Resources for Health: Building Universal People-Centred Health Systems in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Kampala, Uganda: 23-25 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/programme.php","body":"A reminder to all who have registered that the third EQUINET Regional Conference on Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa is coming up next month! It provides a unique opportunity to hear original work and debate on the determinants of, challenges to and opportunities for equity in health in this region. The programme is broad and covers a range of topics including claiming rights to health, equitable health services, women\u2019s health and social empowerment in health systems. Other main topics include retaining health workers, primary health care, developing and using participatory approaches, resourcing health systems fairly, building parliamentary alliances and people's power in health, policy engagement for health equity, trade and health, access to health care and monitoring equity. We will also show how to build country alliances and conduct regional networking. A post-conference workshop will be held on BANG (bits, atoms, neurons and genes), billed the Next Technological Challenge to Africa\u2019s Health and Well-being. Further activities associated with the conference include photographic displays and skills meetings. Registration has closed, but the abstract book for the conference will be posted to the EQUINET website after the conference and a report will be produced from the conference that will also be on the site. Registered conference delegates should have received information on their delegate status, an information sheet on the conference arrangements and delegates sponsored for travel should have received their e tickets. Letters have been sent to those who need visas. For any queries around visa's or local arrangements please contact gloevents@infocom.co.ug. Speakers have been briefed by their session convenors. If you have not received relevant information above please contact admin@equinetafrica.org. To see the conference programme visit www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/programme.php.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Time to put occupational health in Southern Africa back into the health and economic justice agenda","field_subtitle":"Rajen N. Naidoo, co-Programme Manager, Fogarty International Centre; University of Michigan Southern African Programme for Research and Training in Occupational and Environmental Health","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThroughout Southern Africa, there are few programmes to protect the health of workers, or occupational health. Public funding in the region for occupational health services and the enforcement of occupational health laws generally comes from tax or social security funds.  However these funds are inadequate to do more than run basic systems. Programmes to develop personnel, do research or expand services into new areas such as for informal sector workers or for women, rural or other marginalised workers, often relies on aid from high income countries. \r\n\r\nThese areas are some of the more challenging areas of occupational health, and often those with greatest burdens to population health. They are thus important for workers, communities and countries. Yet as aid funded, the developmental objectives for such programmes are often set by funders, with little in-country stakeholder consultation, and with relatively unpredictable financing. \r\n\r\nTwo recent Southern African regional programmes have deviated from this. These are the Swedish International Development Agency funded Work and Health in Southern Africa (WAHSA) programme and the Fogarty International Centre funded University of Michigan Southern African programme in Occupational and Environmental Health. To their credit, and strongly contributing to positive features noted in the evaluation of these programmes, the international partners involved in both the WAHSA and Michigan programmes made efforts to consult with relevant stakeholders in the region. Nevertheless their objectives and support are still subject to the priorities of their funding agencies. \r\n\r\nThe \u201cParis Declaration on Aid Effectiveness\u201d (the \u201cParis Declaration\u201d) in 2005 established new ground rules. At the 2005 conference convened by the high income OECD countries, but also including developing country representation, a revised and co-ordinated approach to development aid was promised. The Paris Declaration aimed to better manage the process of providing aid; ensure alignment with national development strategies and encourage beneficiary control and leadership in development programmes. \r\n\r\nThere is already recognition of some gaps between the noble promises and the outcomes to date. A 2009 OECD report  commented on some fragmentation of effort, observing that \u2018\u2018the international development effort now adds up to less than the sum of its parts\u2019\u2019.  Sixteen Sub-Saharan countries were noted to have between 24 and 30 external funders, and eight of these to have between 15 and 20 external funders,  suggesting that the rationalisation intentions of the Paris Declaration have not been met. The north \u2013 south network \u2018Reality of Aid\u2019 (http://www.realityofaid.org/)  noted that there has been limited community participation in setting in-country agendas for aid. In their January 2007 newsletter, the network argue that the influence of external funders in recipient country policies has persisted through funder -imposed conditions on funding.  This was highly contentious during the discredited Structural Adjustment Programmes of the 1980\u2019s, and a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development report in 2000 identified eighty two governance-related conditions out of an average of one hundred and fourteen conditions for each IMF and World Bank agreement in Sub-Saharan Africa. \r\n\r\nDespite the promise of better co-ordination, the Paris Agenda has also left a significant gap in partnership on occupational health, despite recognition of the contribution of employment and workplace risks to health equity in the recent report of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. Funding for occupational health does not seem to be on the agenda of any major bilateral funder (excluding foundations such as the US Fogarty International Centre and the US National Institutes of Health). Given negative experiences of early termination of long term external funding support to occupational health in the region in the 1990s, the Paris Agenda offered optimism for sustained predictable support to this neglected area.  Instead, since 2005, two bi-regional externally funded programmes in Southern Africa (WAHSA) and in Central America (SALTRA) met early termination, as the funding agency realigned from regional to country support. \r\n\r\nAs the Paris Agenda discussions recognised, achieving meaningful impacts in health outcomes or in institutional policies, capacities and practices calls for long-term time frames and commitments to plans, backed by predictable resources and clear processes for monitoring, evaluation and reporting. Uncertain funding leads beneficiaries and funding partners alike to focus on quick returns, rather than deeper impacts. Funding agencies, partners and local recipients may thus set and focus on meeting targets that seem feasible in short term time frames to justify use or continuity of funding, while not adequately yielding the long term gains from these investments. So, for example, numbers trained may be given more attention as targets than longer term structural outcomes, such as the integration of trained personnel into positions in institutions where they are able to influence policy and practice.  \r\n\r\nPast experience with development aid in this area has raised more questions than answers. How do national and regional organisations involved in a neglected area like occupational health strengthen self determined planning, resourcing and negotiation of programmes and partnerships in conditions of volatile external aid? How can unpredictable, limited and often inadequate funding be organised to support longer term capacity development? How can just demands for accountability and effectiveness be aligned to equally just demands for predictability and recognition of complexity? How best can the self interests of different partners be made explicit, negotiated and factored into partnerships from the beginning? \r\n\r\nOne way of addressing national leadership must be for countries to improve their own resources for occupational health, not just to run the systems, but to enhance and improve them. If we pursue \u201cfair trade not aid\u201d, then occupational health could be funded in a sustainable manner from improving returns on economic activities and strategic resources in the region. During the structural adjustment era, occupational health responsibilities were deregulated and corporate obligations and taxes reduced to attract foreign investment (which often did not materialise). The public health costs of structural adjustment in Africa are now recognised through the Macroeconomic Commission on Health. Claims for improved public funding for the health sector have had greater recognition, such as in the 2001 Abuja commitment made by African heads of state. There has not been a similar recognition for improved regulation and funding for occupational health. Yet as production and financial activities are increasingly globalised, with recognition of the environmental, economic and social obligations this generates, so too should investment in occupational health be prioritised and located as a matter of international responsibility,  in line with fair trade, economic justice and rights to health. \r\n\r\nIt is time for a movement from within and beyond the trade unions, occupational health, economic and trade justice communities to link with the public health and health justice activists to raise occupational health within global, regional, national and local agendas. To support this with sustained and self determined action within the region, we need to strengthen regional organisation and networking to provide evidence for and engage with local and regional policy, including with intergovernmental forums such as SADC, to ensure sustainable domestic and regional resourcing of occupational health, and to advocate on the priorities for occupational health in the region within the international community. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat  admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on occupational health in the region visit the EQUINET website and the WAHSA website at www.wahsa.net ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Transparency during public health emergencies: From rhetoric to reality","field_subtitle":"P O\u2019Malley, J Rainford & A Thompson: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(8): 614\u2013618, August 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/8/08-056689/en/index.html","body":"Effective management of public health emergencies demands open and transparent public communication. The rationale for transparency has public health, strategic and ethical dimensions. Despite this, government authorities often fail to demonstrate transparency. A key step in bridging the gap between the rhetoric and reality is to define and codify transparency to put in place practical mechanisms to encourage open public health communication for emergencies. The authors demonstrate this approach using the example of the development and implementation process of a public health emergency information policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"United Nations Report on the Implementation of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ","field_subtitle":"UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: 8 June 2009","field_url":"http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N09/362/90/PDF/N0936290.pdf?OpenElement","body":"This report considers implementing and monitoring human rights with specific reference to economic, social and cultural rights. It addresses the specific challenges posed by the complex array of obligations that stem from economic, social and cultural rights, including progressive realisation and non-discrimination, outlines various ways of monitoring legislation and other normative measures, such as regulations, policies, plans and programs, and elaborates on monitoring the realisation of rights, paying particular attention to human rights impact assessments. Monitoring the realisation of economic, social and cultural rights can be achieved through assessing progress, stagnation or retrogression in the full enjoyment of those rights over time. The report also provides useful indicators and benchmarks for budget analysis and addresses the issue of monitoring violations of economic, social and cultural rights. Monitoring violations of these rights can be achieved through recording complaints filed before judicial and quasi-judicial mechanisms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights ","field_subtitle":"Dr Purna Sen: July 2009 ","field_url":"http://publications.thecommonwealth.org/universal-periodic-review-of-human-rights-718-p.aspx","body":"The Universal Periodic Review mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council, which came into effect in 2008, has established itself as a mechanism with huge potential and which promotes dialogue and a level playing field for all countries undergoing the review of their human rights record.  Building on the Commonwealth Secretariat\u2019s observations and analysis of the process, and the seminars it has conducted with member states, Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights consolidates the lessons learned so far, speaking equally to the three major stakeholders in the process \u2013 to states, to national human rights institutions, and to civil society organisations.  An effective UPR mechanism will enhance the promotion of human rights across the world. It is therefore essential for the key players to understand and advance the UPR process including at the implementation phase.  This publication describes UPR, shares experiences and provides analysis of the Commonwealth countries that reported in the first year of the UPR process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Guidelines for Pharmacological Management of Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Influenza and other Influenza Viruses","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 20 August 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/csr/resources/publications/swineflu/h1n1_use_antivirals_20090820/en/index.html","body":"This document provides advice to clinicians on the use of the currently available antivirals for patients presenting with illness due to influenza virus infection as well the potential use of the medicines for chemoprophylaxis. While the focus is on management of patients with pandemic influenza (H1N1) 2009 virus infection, the document includes guidance on the use of the antivirals for other seasonal influenza virus strains, and for infections due to novel influenza. WHO recommends that country and local public health authorities issue local guidance for clinicians from time to time that places these recommendations in the context of epidemiological and antiviral susceptibility data on the locally circulating influenza strains. It emphasises that healthy people, namely those without chronic or acute diseases, do not need the antivirals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"World HIV and AIDS conference ends in optimism","field_subtitle":"Thom A: Heath-e, 28 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032419","body":"The fifth International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention, held in mid-July, was attended by almost 6,000 mostly scientists and researchers eager to deliver their latest studies to a predominantly American and European audience. \u2018The gap between evidence and implementation is particularly apparent between North and South\u2019, said IAS president Dr Julio Montaner, referring to inequities in health services and availability of drugs. One of the most talked-about presentations was that of Robert Granich of the World Health Organisation, who claims that HIV could theoretically be eliminated if all people were tested each year and given antiretrovirals straight away if they tested positive, regardless of whether they were actually sick or not. His model predicted a reduction in HIV prevalence to less than 1% within 50 years based on the premise that, when placed on ARV treatment soon after infection, a person\u2019s chances of infecting their partners are reduced to almost zero.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A global subsidy: Key to affordable drugs for malaria?","field_subtitle":"Laxminarayan R and Gelband H: Health Affairs 28(4): 949\u2013961, 2009 ","field_url":"http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/28/4/949","body":"The global fight against malaria has been continually challenged by poor access to affordable, effective medicine. Growing resistance to chloroquine, the traditional treatment, has worsened the situation. Artemisinins, the successor therapy to chloroquine, are at least ten times more costly than the older drug. In developing countries, most malaria medicines are purchased in the private sector, where traditional aid mechanisms do not reach. So a new aid approach was needed. The Affordable Medicines Facility-malaria (AMFm) will efficiently supply publicly subsidised drugs to meet public- and private-sector demand in malaria-endemic countries. If artemisinins are priced more competitively, resistance to them will be delayed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa-EU Conference explores Cotonou scenarios and African integration","field_subtitle":"European Centre for Development Policy Management: Weekly Compass 3(10), 8 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/lwa95o","body":"At a panel discussion on Africa-EU relations organised by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation on 8 July 2009, participants discussed four scenarios for ongoing economic partnership agreements in West Africa, ranging from a full liberalisation agreement on all trade in goods and services, to no agreement whatsoever. While European Commission representatives favoured full liberalisation, regional stakeholders called for a partial, phased liberalisation, covering only trade in goods. This approach would provide greater flexibility for national and regional trade policy, protect local agricultural and industrial sectors, and facilitate regional integration. Participants also discussed the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) process. They noted that respect for JAES\u2019s fundamental principles such as \u2018treating Africa as one\u2019 and ensuring the \u2018harmonisation of existing policy frameworks\u2019 will be more effective than emphasising \u2018functional deliverables\u2019 only.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid for Trade at a glance in 2009: Maintaining momentum","field_subtitle":"World Trade Organization: 2009","field_url":"http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/aid4trade09_e.pdf","body":"Aid for Trade is an initiative that started in 2005 through the WTO framework in recognition of the fact that developing countries lack the basic infrastructure and capacity to take advantage of the market access opportunities resulting from trade negotiations \u2013 normal aid programmes have not been able to deal with these. This second global review aimed to evaluate the progress of the initiative and implemention on the ground. It says the initiative has achieved remarkable progress in a short time, as partner countries are mainstreaming trade in their development strategies and clarifying their needs and priorities, and donors are improving aid for trade delivery and scaling up resources. In 2007, aid for trade grew by more than 10% in real terms and total new commitments from bilateral and multilateral donors reached US$25.4 billion, with an additional US$27.3 billion in non-concessional trade-related financing. But maintaining the momentum will be difficult in this current economic recession, and that the quantity and the quality of aid, including aid for trade, are now more important than ever for economic growth and human welfare.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Amnesty International Report 2009","field_subtitle":"Amnesty International: 2009 ","field_url":"http://thereport.amnesty.org/sites/report2009.amnesty.org/files/documents/air09-en.pdf","body":"The Amnesty International Report 2009 is a record of the state of human rights during 2008 in 157 countries and territories around the world. It depicts the systemic discrimination and insecurity that hinders the application of the law, where states pick and choose the rights they are willing to uphold, and those they would rather suppress. The report presents five regional overviews highlighting the key events and trends that dominated the human rights agenda in each region in 2008. It further takes a country-by-country survey of human rights, summarising the human rights situation in each country. The regional overviews reveal that, in Africa, there is still an enormous gap between the rhetoric of African governments and the daily reality where human rights violations remain the norm: violent protests and poverty continued in many African countries, exacerbated by repressive attitudes of governments towards dissent and protest. Governments have failed to provide basic social services, like health services, address corruption and be accountable to their people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"AU Summit reaches hard-won consensus on a new African Union Authority","field_subtitle":"African Union: July 2009","field_url":"http://www.africa-union.org/root/AU/Conferences/2009/july/summit/13thsummit.html","body":"At their meeting in Sirte, Libya, held from 1\u20133 July, nearly half of the 53 African Union (AU) heads of state and government reached consensus to establish the African Union Authority to replace the African Union Commission. Libyan Leader Mouamar Kadhafi, supported by Senegal\u2019s President Abdoulaye Wade, argued to speed up continental integration but others, notably Nigeria and Tanzania, argued against it. Commenting on the consensus reached, Jean-Marie Ehouzou, the Benin Foreign Minister noted, \u2018African leaders are in agreement with ceding a little of their sovereignty to the AU Authority\u2019. To enter into force, the AU Authority must be approved by the Parliaments of all AU countries. African leaders also discussed the integration of the New Partnership for Africa\u2019s Development (NEPAD) into the organs of the AU and adopted a resolution ending cooperation with the International Criminal Court in the Hague. They also decided to reinforce agriculture and food security and to enlarge the powers of the AU Commission into foreign, trade and defence areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Breakdown on consensus on traditional knowledge at WIPO committee meeting","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 6 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/l9nt93","body":"The World Intellectual Property Organization\u2019s (WIPO) committee on the protection of indigenous knowledge, expressions and genetic resources failed to reach consensus on future work at their meeting held from 29 June to 3 July, effectively postponing the issue till the WIPO General Assemblies in September. The mandate of the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) expires this year and deciding the next mandate of the group was the key task at the meeting. Some countries wanted to see the text of a possible agreement before deciding what kind of form it might take (such as an instrument or a database), while others wanted to set a goal of a legally binding international instrument and then work on its text. Informal consultations are planned in the interim between now and the assemblies in late September, though details are unclear. Whether the committee still had a mandate after the meeting was a point of confusion, though it appears that the mandate may carry until the end of December.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Building blocks for facilitators designing gender training ","field_subtitle":"Wong FF, Hunter C and Mukhopadhyay M: 2009","field_url":"http://www.konsnet.dk/Default.aspx?ID=18173","body":"Originally developed for Gendernet, this online guide is intended to support the design and delivery of gender training. As a resource, the guide provides \u2018building blocks\u2019 that facilitators can use to design customised training workshops and has been designed with the assumption that potential learners have little or basic understanding of gender and development concepts. Training modules cover topics like gender inequity and poverty, gender analysis and planning, gender-aware designing, planning, monitoring and evaluation in terms of gender, gender mainstreaming and organisational change, including policy approaches to addressing gender and equality in development and developing advocacy strategies. Facilitators\u2019 tools include ice-breakers and energisers. There are also suggested workshop plans that provide ideas for how this guide can be used to design workshop outlines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Burnout and use of HIV services among health care workers in Lusaka District, Zambia: A cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Kruse GR, Chapula BT, Ikeda S, Nkhoma M, Quiterio N, Pankratz D, Mataka K, Chi BH, Bond V and Reid SE: Human Resources for Health, 13 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-7-55.pdf","body":" The successful continuation of existing HIV care and treatment programmes is threatened by health care worker burnout and HIV-related illness. This study, conducted between March to June 2007, looks at occupational burnout and utilisation of HIV services among health providers in the Lusaka public health sector. Providers from thirteen public clinics were given a 36-item, self-administered questionnaire and invited for focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Focus group participants described burnout as feeling overworked, stressed and tired. In the survey, 51% reported occupational burnout. Risk factors were having another job and knowing a co-worker who left in the last year. Both discussion groups and survey respondents identified confidentiality as the prime reason for not undergoing HIV testing. In Lusaka primary care clinics, overwork, illness and death were common reasons for attrition. Programmes to improve access, acceptability and confidentiality of health care services for clinical providers and to reduce workplace stress could substantially benefit workforce stability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: Health workforce retention in remote and rural areas","field_subtitle":"Submission date: 1 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/7/09-068494/en/index.html","body":"The World Health Organization is inviting authors to submit articles as a contribution to a special theme issue that will explore the challenges of health worker retention in remote and rural areas. Much is known already about the factors that influence health workers\u2019 choices of location and their decisions to go to, stay in or leave these areas. However, there is very little evidence on specific operational solutions and recommendations that countries can adapt to their specific context in responding to this challenge; in particular evidence is lacking on the design, implementation and evaluation of these strategies. Papers should aim at filling the gaps in the current knowledge on costs of implementing rural retention strategies and incentive schemes, and the extent to which context influences the design, implementation and the impact of various strategies. Innovative methodological papers that examine the monitoring and impact evaluation of various strategies are also encouraged, in particular with a view to understanding the long-term effects and sustainability of retention strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call to join Oxfam\u2019s Big Promise campaign","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: 23 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/en/campaigns/health-education/big-promise","body":"Poverty and inequality are getting worse in developing countries as a result of the global economic crisis. Poor families are eating less, being evicted from their homes, and having to pull children out of school. All of this is exacerbated by the effects of high food prices, the failure of rich countries to deliver on their aid promises, and the growing harmful impacts of climate change. Oxfam was at the G8 Summit in Italy lobbying to get rich country heads of state to boost development aid, tackle climate change, and invest in developing country agriculture so that poor countries are less reliant on food aid. Once again, the G8 leaders let down the world's poorest by reneging on the promises made at the previous Summit. Take action \u2013 join Oxfam's Big Promise and let's all show world leaders how to keep a promise!\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Condom stockouts in South Africa threaten prevention efforts","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 6 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85153","body":"AIDS activists have reported that public health facilities in South Africa's Free State Province are experiencing serious shortages of condoms, with some clinics reporting complete stockouts. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), an AIDS lobby group, contacted 41 clinics in the province: four reported shortages of condoms and eleven said they had none at all. One clinic in the provincial capital, Bloemfontein, said the depot that normally supplied them with condoms had run out. Free State attracted controversy in November 2008 after the provincial health budget had been overspent to such an extent that the authorities stopped initiating HIV-positive patients on antiretroviral treatment. The national department of health blamed a countrywide shortage in December 2008 on a delay in awarding a new tender. TAC speculated that the delay might still be affecting supply, as it used to receive about one million condoms a month from the health department for distribution, but could now only get hold of about half that quantity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Conference may boost WIPO mandate on public health and traditional knowledge","field_subtitle":"Mara K and New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 15 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/07/15/conference-may-boost-wipo-mandate-on-food-security-public-health/","body":"A conference at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), held on 13 and 14 July, explored and clarified the connection between its work and several major public policy issues, ending with a look at public health and food security. The meeting addressed the issue of traditional knowledge. The \u2018African renaissance can only be borne on the role of indigenous knowledge systems,\u2019 said Yonah Seleti, director general of South Africa\u2019s Department of Science and Technology. The current intellectual property system fails to protect the knowledge of indigenous people, he said, highlighting his office\u2019s \u2018farmer to pharma challenge\u2019, which is intended to unlock the value in biodiversity and traditional medicines. But this means that intellectual property (IP) must be seen as having environmental and social benefits, as well as economic ones. Collaborative research between traditional knowledge and modern medicine can yield great public health benefits, but IP agreements must find ways to protect traditional knowledge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Conflicting priorities: Evaluation of an intervention to improve nurse-parent relationships on a Tanzanian paediatric ward","field_subtitle":"Manongi RN, Nasuwa FR, Mwangi R, Reyburn H, Poulsen A and Chandler CIR: Human Resources for Health, 23 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-7-50.pdf","body":"Participatory research approaches such as the Health Workers for Change (HWC) initiative have been successful in improving provider-client relationships in various developing country settings, but have not yet been reported in the complex environment of hospital wards. This study evaluated the HWC approach for improving the relationship between nurses and parents on a paediatric ward in a busy regional hospital in Tanzania. Six workshops were held, attended by 29 of 31 trained nurses and nurse attendants working on the paediatric ward. Two focus-group discussions were held with the workshop participants six months after the intervention. Some improvement was reported in the responsiveness of nurses to client needs (41.2% of parents were satisfied, up from 38.9%). But nurses felt hindered by persisting problems in their working environment, including poor relationships with other staff and a lack of response from hospital administration to their needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Creating access to health technologies in poor countries","field_subtitle":"Frost LJ and Reich MR: Health Affairs 28(4): 962\u2013973, 2009","field_url":"http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/28/4/962","body":"Many people in developing countries lack access to health technologies. This paper presents seven findings about processes that shape access, based on analysis of six case histories: praziquantel to treat schistosomiasis (a parasitic worm disease), hepatitis B vaccine, the Norplant contraceptive, malaria rapid diagnostic tests, vaccine vial monitors and the female condom. Each case study is assessed with a comprehensive framework that examines the effects of architecture, availability, affordability and adoption on creating access. The analysis shows that access to health technology in poor countries is difficult to achieve because of multiple obstacles, but it can be created under certain conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Creative solutions needed for the global funding crunch ","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 1 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85078","body":"Koos Richelle, who heads the EuropeAid Cooperation Office, the principal aid agency of the European Commission, said that, while rich nations were not about to pull the plug on donations, they were more actively monitoring whether the funds were producing desired results. The 27-nation European Union remains committed to aid, he promised, although he warned that recipients would be treated as \u2018partners\u2019, obliged to provide key improvements in terms of achieving targets set under the Millennium Development Goals. Before the crisis, rich nations simply gave away funds without making clear what results they wanted, he said. But as western countries experience financial problems, the attitude has shifted and they now demand \u2018tangible results\u2019 from development partners. \u2018I see modern development cooperation not as a continuum of post-colonial hang-ups, or charity, but more as a contract. If you don't deliver, like in a normal contract, we are not supposed to pay. That is a more businesslike approach to development cooperation.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Delivering post-rape care services: Kenya\u2019s experience in developing integrated services","field_subtitle":"N Kilonzo, Theobald SJ, Nyamato E, Ajema C, Muchela H, Kibaru J, Rogena E and Taegtmeyer M: Bulletin of the world Health Organization 87(7): 555\u2013559, July 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/7/08-052340/en/index.html","body":"This paper, covering the period 2002\u20132008, describes how multisectoral teams at district level in Kenya have provided post-exposure prophylaxis, physical examination, sexually transmitted infection and pregnancy prevention services. These services were provided at casualty departments as well as through voluntary HIV counselling and testing sites. In 2003 there was a lack of policy, coordination and service delivery mechanisms for post-rape care services in Kenya. Post-exposure prophylaxis against HIV infection was not offered. The paper also found that, between early 2004 and the end of 2007, a total of 784 survivors were seen in the three centres at an average cost of US$27, with numbers increasing each year. Almost half (43%) of these were children younger than 15. The paper outlines how the lessons learned were translated into national policy and the scale-up of post-rape care services through the key involvement of the Division of Reproductive Health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Designing financial incentive programmes for return of medical service in underserved areas","field_subtitle":"B\u00e4rnighausen Till and Bloom DE: Human Resources for Health, 26 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-7-52.pdf","body":"Financial-incentive programmes for return of service, whereby participants receive payments in return for a commitment to practise for a period of time in a medically underserved area, can alleviate local and regional health worker shortages through a number of mechanisms. First, they can redirect the flow of those health workers who would have been educated without financial incentives from well-served to underserved areas. Second, they can add health workers to the pool of workers who would have been educated without financial incentives and place them in underserved areas. Third, financial-incentive programmes may improve the retention in underserved areas of those health workers who participate in a programme, but who would have worked in an underserved area without any financial incentives. Fourth, the programmes may increase the retention of all health workers in underserved areas by reducing the strength of some of the reasons why health workers leave such areas, including social isolation, lack of contact with colleagues, lack of support from medical specialists and heavy workload.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing nations respond to ECOSOC report","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 16 July 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/mdtmd6","body":"In response to the report by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on their high-level meeting held from 6\u20139 July in Geneva, Lumumba Di-Aping of Sudan, who spoke on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, said the international community should not let the patent holders deny the right to health. Patent holders should not \u2018seek to restrain and unreasonably impose measures that affect the supply chain of medicines and transfer of technology relating to health products.\u2019 Mike Boyd, acting director general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, asserted that pharmaceutical industry made a very significant contribution to helping achieve the health-related UN Millennium Development Goals. International cooperation should be improved in order to ensure access to affordable, good quality and effective medicines, said Maria Nazareth Farani Azevedo of Brazil. Intellectual property rights play a determinant role in the access, affordability, innovation, local production, and trade, she said, adding that member states should resolve the intellectual property agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"DFID White Paper: Building our common future ","field_subtitle":"Department for International Development, UK: 2009","field_url":"http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/whitepaper/building-our-common-future.pdf","body":"The Department for International Development\u2019s (DFID) new White Paper presents a shift in the way the United Kingdom (UK) delivers development aid, refocusing resources onto fragile countries and for the first time treating security and justice as a basic service alongside health, education, water and sanitation. Fifty percent of new bilateral funding will be committed to fragile countries. Key announcements include a renewed commitment to 0.7% of the UK Gross National Income (GNI) for international development (totalling \u00a39bn per year by 2013), measures to reduce maternal mortality rates to save the lives of six million mothers and babies by 2015 and doubling of funding to \u00a31bn for African infrastructure, including transport, energy and trade in the region. Regarding growth and trade, DFID proposes a quadrupling of funding to promote fair and ethical trade and a new International Growth Centre to offer world-class economic expertise and practical advice to poor countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Does funding from donors displace government spending for health in developing countries?","field_subtitle":"Farag M, Nandakumar AK, Wallack SS, Gaumer G and Hodgkin D: Health Affairs 28(4): 1045\u20131055, 2009","field_url":"http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/28/4/1045","body":"The notable increases in funding from various donors for health over the past several years have made examining the effectiveness of aid all the more important. This study examines the extent to which donor funding for health substitutes for \u2013 rather than complements \u2013 health financing by recipient governments. It found evidence of a strong substitution effect. In fact, the proportionate decrease in government spending associated with an increase in donor funding is largest in low-income countries. The results suggest that aid needs to be structured in a way that better aligns donors\u2019 and recipient governments\u2019 incentives, using innovative approaches such as performance-based aid financing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"EC consults civil society but no major change in democracy and human rights strategy","field_subtitle":"Commission of the European Community and EIDHR: 9 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/where/worldwide/eidhr/documents/aap_2009_en.pdf","body":"EuropeAid organised a consultation meeting in June on the second Strategy Paper of the 2007\u20132013 European Union (EU) programme, the European Partnership for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR). Currently in draft form, this paper will provide the basis for European Community (EC) multi-annual programming and annual action programmes for the period 2011\u20132013. The European Commission (EC) identified specific changes in the new strategy as including: a stronger emphasis on difficult countries as apposed to difficult situations; a higher number of countries eligible for increased support; greater decentralisation of decision-making to EC delegations; a greater focus on links between thematic and geographical instruments; and more clarity on EC human rights priorities and their link to political dialogue. The Commission noted, however, that it does not plan to provide details on the draft EIDHR strategy ahead of its publication and, while written civil society submissions are welcome, only minor changes would be made at this stage since the EC considered it premature to undertake an evaluation of the programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"ECOSOC adopts resolutions on HIV and AIDS and commits to its development agenda ","field_subtitle":"ECOSOC: 24 July 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/l6hhau","body":"The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) has adopted a number of resolutions, including a resolution urging the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and other relevant organisations and bodies of the United Nations system to intensify their support to governments in dealing with HIV and AIDS. It also reaffirmed its commitment to the implementation of the Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries for the Decade 2001\u20132010, which calls on the UN Secretary-General to step up appropriate measures for effective and timely implementation of the Programme in coordination with all relevant stakeholders, and submit an analytical and results-oriented annual progress report on the further implementation. The Council also recommended mainstreaming information and communication technologies in the economy as a driver of growth and sustainable development and encouraged all stakeholders to continue engaging in people-centred partnerships as an effective way forward.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Eldis Manuals and Toolkits CD-Rom available ","field_subtitle":"Eldis: July 2009","field_url":"http://community.eldis.org/eldisondisc","body":"The latest edition of Eldis OnDisc is out now and focuses on Manuals and Toolkits. It contains over 400 full-text publications from 150 development organisations. Eldis OnDisc is freely available to subscribers with poor internet connection who struggle to access the full Eldis online services. Designed with the busy development professional and researcher in mind, publications on this CD-Rom have been categorised into key subject and skills areas for quick reference. There is also an easy-to-use Search function, helping you get right to the publication you need and each publication is accompanied by a short abstract. To receive your copy of Eldis OnDisc Manuals and Toolkits edition, please complete the registration form at the website address given here. If you are experiencing problems with this form, you can request a Word version at the email address provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Empty promises: What happened to \u2018development\u2019 in the WTO\u2019s Doha Round?","field_subtitle":"Oxfam Briefing Paper 131: 16 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp131-empty-promises.pdf","body":"The World Trade Organization\u2019s (WTO) Doha Development Round was meant to rebalance decades of unfair rules in agriculture and address the needs of developing countries. Instead, the negotiations have betrayed this promise. It has become a \u2018market access\u2019 negotiation, in which developing countries are expected to give disproportionately more and will receive little but stale promises of the general benefits of liberalisation. In order to put the Doha Round back on the \u2018development\u2019 track, Oxfam recommends that WTO members take actions to: improve the process of negotiations to make them more transparent and inclusive; ensure special and differential treatment for developing countries; promote development by enabling the realization of rights, such as the right to food, ensuring that trade rules respond to the needs of the most vulnerable people first; and strengthen the WTO as an institution to build greater confidence in its ability to achieve fairer trade rules for developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 102: Global Health Initiatives as a catalyst for  Health Systems Strengthening? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET PRA paper: Intersectoral responses to nutritional needs of among people living with HIV in Kasipul","field_subtitle":"Ongala J; Otieno J; Awino M; Adhiambo B; Wambwaya G; Ongala E; Rajwayi J, RHE , KDHSG, TARSC: EQUINET","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRA%20Rep%20RHE%20Jul09.pdf","body":"This work was implemented in Kasipul Division, Rachuonyo District, Kenya, where high poverty levels lead to food insecurity exacerbated by rising food prices, by the consequences of two devastating tropical storms and soaring transportation costs. Few PLWHIV own farms, or produce a marketable surplus, and illness and malnutrition interact in a vicious cycle. KDHSG and RHE implemented a participatory action research programme, within EQUINET, to explore dimensions of (and impediments to delivery of) Primary Health Care responses to HIV and AIDS. It used a mix of PRA and quantitative approaches to; \u2022 Identify the nutritional needs, issues and responses for PLWHIV on treatment \u2022 Increase voice and participation of PLWHIV and communication with health workers on their nutritional needs in relation to treatment and on responses to these needs in the clinics and community \u2022 Increase the capacity of health workers and community to identify specific areas for engagement of partners outside the health sector on intersectoral responses to support nutritional inputs for PLWHIV on treatment. This work indicates that expanding access to treatment services needs to be embedded within a wider framework of wider health support, including the intersectoral action to address food needs, if availability is to translate into effective coverage. Nutrition support is a vital element of the chronic care and health management strategies needed for PHC responses to AIDS. This includes shifting perception of PLWHIV from that of disabled dependents of emergency support to people able to know and address their nutritional needs through local food resources. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EU Finds anti-competitive abuse of pharmaceutical patents and launches antitrust action ","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 8 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ml2q2s","body":"Pharmaceutical companies are manipulating the intellectual property rights system and are \u2018actively trying to delay the entry of generic medicines onto their markets,\u2019 a top EU official has said. As a result, there has been a decline in the number of innovative medicines getting to the market. The European Commissioner for Competition, Neelie Kroes, has announced that the first antitrust case resulting from the inquiry is now open. It alleges breaches of European rules on \u2018restrictive business practices\u2019 and \u2018abuse of a dominant market position,\u2019 and is filed against French company Les Laboratoires Servier and five generics with which it had made deals, according to a separate press release. The slowdown in novel medicines entering the market \u2013 27 annually since 2000 as compared to 40 annually between 1995 and 1999 \u2013 was a systemic problem and the causes need to be identified.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"European Centre for Development Policy Management contributes to EuropeAid\u2019s \u2018Capacity for Development\u2019 portal ","field_subtitle":"EuropAid: 2009","field_url":"http://capacity4dev.ec.europa.eu/topic/26/2025","body":"The new EU online platform, Capacity4Dev, is part of the European Commission\u2019s ambitious \u2018Backbone Strategy\u2019 to reform technical cooperation. The Commission envisions the new portal as an essential tool in reforming technical cooperation programmes that support capacity development, public sector reform and other themes. The site, which will be developed through 2009, provides a forum for all Commission staff, partner countries, other donors, academics and civil society representatives to share ideas and expertise. By joining Capacity4Dev, you get access to useful capacity development tools, feature articles on current topics of interest and academic papers. Registration is free.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"European Commission's humanitarian aid department releases annual report","field_subtitle":"ECHO: 1 July 2009","field_url":"http://ec.europa.eu/echo/files/funding/figures/financial_report2008.pdf","body":"According to the European Commission\u2019s annual report, overall spending in 2008 was 937 million euros (about US$1.302 billion) across 60 countries. Of that, about three-quarters went to the top 25 recipient non-profit agencies and an aviation contractor. United Nations (UN) agencies took 46% of the overall spend, while 44% went to non-governmental organisations (NGOs). NGOs from the UK, France and Germany account for over half of NGO funding. More than half was spent in Africa. The top five countries and territories receiving the most funding, including food aid, were (in millions of euros) Sudan (161.3), Occupied Palestinian Territories (75.1), Democratic Republic of Congo (53.9), Ethiopia (48.5) and Kenya (36.7). The top five organisational recipients were (in millions of euros) the UN World Food Programme (228), the International Committee of the Red Cross (78.9), the UN Refugee Agency (53.5), the UN Relief and Works Agency (38) and the UN Children\u2019s Fund, UNICEF (32.6).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Fight or flight: Survey shows mounting workplace challenges require attention to keep nurses from leaving","field_subtitle":"International Council of Nurses: May 2009","field_url":"http://www.icn.ch/Workplace/survey/index.html","body":"According to this survey, more than half of nurses (53%) in South Africa said their workload was worse today when compared to five years ago. Nurses in South Africa indicated that the least favourable aspects of their profession were overwhelming workloads (32%), insufficient pay and benefits (22%), lack of recognition (11%), budget cuts and inadequate health care systems (11%). In contrast, the most favourable aspect was patient contact (39%). In South Africa, as in other countries surveyed, most nurses (85%) said they faced time constraints that prevented them from spending as much time with individual patients as they thought necessary. Some 87% of the nurses surveyed in South Africa said spending more time with individual patients would have a significant impact on patient health. On the plus side, they saw their professional associations as effective in advancing their interests (86%) and supportive of their needs (87%), and 63% perceived the nation's health care system as better than it was five years ago.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing for HIV, AIDS, TB and malaria in Uganda: An equity analysis","field_subtitle":"Zikusooka, CM, Tumwine, M and Tutembe, P: July 2009","field_url":"http://equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS75finZikusooka.pdf","body":"This paper explores and presents the current patterns of AIDS, TB and Malaria (ATM) financing within the health sector, and investigates the extent to which GHI financing for ATM has influenced heath care financing reforms. We obtained information for this paper through key informant interviews and extensive literature review. There is fragmentation between government and donor project funding, and also within donor project funds, which negatively impacts on creation of larger pools. Donor funding channelled through projects and global health initiatives targeting specific diseases may undermine equity between geographic areas. The lack of effective coordination of donor project funds is a breeding ground for inefficiencies and inequity. We recommend that the Ministry of Health should double its efforts to improve co-ordination and harmonisation of all development aid, including support from global health initiatives (GHIs). Long term institutional arrangements are a starting point for this process, but more buy-in is required in order for it to be accepted by all stakeholders. Government should design mechanisms that will help integrate GHIs resources to allow for greater cross-subsidisation and to reduce overlaps and inefficiencies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Funding boost for local think tanks","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 2 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85101","body":"Under a new initiative, international donors are backing Africa-based policy research to improve local decision-making on complex global issues with potentially enormous humanitarian consequences like food security and climate change. Led by Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and funded by IDRC, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation, the Think Tank Initiative will provide core funding for 24 African think tanks over 10 years. About US$30 million has been made available for the initial five years. Retaining top quality staff is a challenge, according to Jean Mensa, executive director of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a Ghanaian think tank and a grant recipient. Many of the best and brightest researchers look for employment abroad or in international development projects that offer better conditions and more job security. But if African think tanks are to be effective, Mensa said, long-term investment is essential.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender and AIDS mainstreaming in Zambia: Opportunities for better synergies ","field_subtitle":"Halvorsen V, Hamuwele D and Skjelmerud A: 2009 ","field_url":"http://norad.no/en/_binary?download=true&id=42378","body":"The aim of this report is to see how gender and AIDS concerns could be better mainstreamed in Zambia\u2019s Norwegian Embassy portfolio. It indicates that gender inequalities exist at all levels in Zambia, and challenges remain critical and fundamental to the country\u2019s achievement of its vision and goal on gender. Four programmes were reviewed, and the researchers noted that good opportunities existed for better synergies and learning. They give four key recommendations. First, internal organisation is required at the Embassy \u2013 responsibility should be placed at management level, and gender and AIDS competence should be secured. Second, at programme level, selection and focus should be on only one or two gender and AIDS mainstreaming topics. Third, at programme level, the main focus should be on only one programme or sector (in addition to improved quality work on the others). And fourth, at policy level, further work is needed to integrate the gender and AIDS aspects in the political dialogue with the government of Zambia and key development partners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Geneva Health Forum: Abstract submission is open ","field_subtitle":"Geneva: 19\u201321 April 2010","field_url":"http://ghf10.org/reports/130","body":"The theme for the Geneva Health Forum 2010 is 'Globalisation, Crisis, and Health Systems: Confronting Regional Perspectives'. Abstract submission is now officially open. The list of abstract themes has been finalised: health threats and access to health at times of crisis, health governance and policies, healthcare delivery and access to medicines, mobility and migration, trade and health, and health information, training and technologies. For more information on the Geneva Health Forum in general, you can visit their website: www.genevahealthforum.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global crisis and migration","field_subtitle":"Jayati Ghosh: Daily Times, 17 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C07%5C17%5Cstory_17-7-2009_pg3_5","body":"Migration has been one of the more important means of greater global integration, and, as the economic crisis has gripped the developed world, many have worried about its impact on such integration, especially falling remittances. A closer examination of the nature of migrant workers' role in the economy suggests more complex outcomes, with somewhat less of an impact than feared. It is true that most of this migration has been driven by economic forces and has given rise to rapidly expanding remittance flows, which have become the most important source of foreign exchange for many developing countries. The International Monetary Fund estimated total remittance flows to developing countries to be nearly US$300 billion in 2009, significantly more than all forms of capital flows put together. In any case, one of the basic pull factors still remains significant: the demographic transition in the North that is increasing the share of the older population that requires more care from younger workers, who must therefore come from abroad. So the current crisis may temporarily slow down the ongoing process of international migration for work, but it is unlikely to reverse it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global crisis forces African governments to turn to IMF","field_subtitle":"Wroughton L: Reuters, I June 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ls88fl","body":"Years after graduating from dependence on the International Monetary Fund (IMF), many African countries are having to call upon the fund for assistance to cope with a global economic crisis that is not their fault. African economies are struggling against collapsing demand for their products, volatile commodity prices and falling foreign investment. Among countries seeking IMF aid are Kenya and Tanzania \u2013 two of Africa's biggest economic reformers. The IMF on Friday approved a total of US$545 million in emergency funding for the pair of East African countries. Meanwhile, Ghana and Mozambique are in talks with the fund to secure financing support. Other countries that have sought fresh help from the IMF in recent months include Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Sao Tome and Principe and Zambia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Initiatives as a catalyst for  Health Systems Strengthening?","field_subtitle":"David McCoy, University College London","field_url":"","body":"\r\nHealth systems throughout sub-Saharan Africa have been in a state of decline since the debt crisis of the 1980s and the subsequent effects of structural adjustment, chronic public under-investment and health sector reform. In this context, with the fragile health systems resulting, the proliferation of global health actors and initiatives (GHIs), that we have witnessed over the past decade, presents a risky strategy for catalyzing sustained and equitable improvements in health. \r\n\r\nVertical, selective GHIs could either establish a \u2018virtuous cycle\u2019 of positive synergies with health systems strengthening, or enter a \u2018vicious cycle\u2019, where they perpetuate or accentuate existing health system deficiencies, creating a greater dependence on vertical programmes for the rapid delivery of life-saving interventions. The publication in the Lancet this year (2009;  (Vol 373 pages 2137 \u2013 2169) of a review of the impact of GHIs on health systems by the World Health Organization\u2019s Maximizing Positive Synergies (WHO MPS) initiative has therefore attracted attention and controversy. \r\n\r\nThe review noted the positive association between GHIs and improved outcomes, particularly in terms of HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria and vaccine-preventable child deaths. However, it did not adequately answer the question of whether vertical and selective disease-based GHIs have had a positive or negative effect on health systems more broadly, nor whether they could have been better designed or implemented to optimize across-the-board health improvements.\r\n\r\nThis is because the review faced many methodological limitations. The first was a lack of good quality studies and evidence on the issue. This is a consequence of the minimal resources invested in establishing the monitoring systems needed to assess the effects of GHIs on health systems. Further, there is limited appreciation in the health community of the kinds of methods needed to study complex and large socially-mediated systems. \r\n\r\nA second limitation was the lack of quality control of the data used by the WHO MPS collaborative group. Good, moderate and poor quality data appear to have been treated equally, including potentially biased information provided by GHIs themselves. On top of this, most members of the writing group had a direct conflict of interest with the subject matter, so the conclusions and recommendations read as a result of political negotiation, rather than an independent synthesis of the available evidence.  \r\n\r\nAs a third limitation, the review only examined four actors: the Global Fund to Fight Against AIDS, TB and Malaria, GAVI, the World Bank\u2019s Multi-Country AIDS Programme (MAP), and the US President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).  It therefore didn\u2019t capture the effects of more than a hundred other global health actors and initiatives, despite the fact that one of the biggest problems for countries is the cumulative effect of numerous GHIs.  \r\n\r\nFinally, the conceptual framework of the review was designed to examine the effect of GHIs on health systems, but the conclusions of the review muddled the assessment of the impact of GHIs on health systems with impacts on health outcomes and outputs. Clearly, the Global Fund, GAVI, PEPFAR and MAP have had a positive impact on health outputs and outcomes. It would have been hard to avoid doing so considering the billions of dollars spent by these four GHIs, and the general four-fold increase in development assistance witnessed since 1990, described by Ravishankar and others in the same issue of the Lancet (2009, Vol 373, pages 2113 \u2013 2124).  \r\n\r\nThe question of whether vertical and selective disease and vaccine-based GHIs have had a positive or negative effect on health systems is perhaps academic. What is more important is that GHIs are henceforth able to maximize their positive synergies with broader health systems needs. \r\n\r\nIn this regard, in spite of its limitations, the WHO MPS initiative has been an important and valuable exercise. It has drawn attention to the need for further monitoring and assessment of the relationship between GHIs and health systems strengthening. This should include paying greater attention to the global health architecture as a whole, and efforts such as the International Health Partnership launched by some bilateral and multilateral health funding agencies to reduce the wasteful fragmentation, duplication, competition and conflicts amongst different actors and initiatives. Secondly, it has highlighted the need for GHIs to ensure that external development assistance for health is invested in a more coherent, equitable and comprehensive manner. \r\n\r\nHowever, for GHIs, health sector and civil society actors, including those in east and southern Africa, the challenge is in knowing how to move forward. For example, if GHIs are to pay more attention to health systems strengthening, who will coordinate this? As a follow-up to the work and deliberations of the High Level Taskforce on Innovative Financing for Health, the World Bank, the Global Fund and GAVI are now discussing how they can create a shared platform for financing and supporting health systems strengthening.\r\n\r\nBut what will this mean? Will the World Bank take the lead in defining the policy agenda, and if so, will it promote a conservative and neoliberal policy agenda? Or will an expanded and modified version of the Global Fund and GAVI take charge? What of the role of the WHO, the International Health Partnership and countries themselves? With a global health architecture that remains over-populated, disorganized and competitive, there is a danger that countries may experience a series of uncoordinated and selective health systems strengthening initiatives.  Agreeing to the fact that GHIs must pay more attention to health systems strengthening is only the start of a process. \r\n\r\nWhile there is welcome attention to how official aid can be better managed to support health systems strengthening, there has been little discussion about how private finance will be harnessed to support equitable health systems development.  The Gates Foundation, working with the International Finance Corporation, the African Development Bank and a German development finance institution have recently created a new private equity fund that will invest in small- and medium-sized private health companies in sub-Saharan Africa. Such an initiative runs contrary to the evidence that expanding commercialized health care will be harmful to equity and health systems strengthening.\r\n\r\nFurthermore, the attention placed on health systems strengthening does nothing to plug the existing resource gaps of many countries. How do we campaign for a comprehensive Primary Health Care agenda when there is are still too few health workers, or inadequate funds for medicines? With the economic recession and signs of some donors cutting back on development aid, the competition for scarce resources may get worse. \r\n\r\nThis situation calls for the global health community to develop a set of positions and campaign on three distinct, but inter-related issues: The first is the architecture of development assistance for health, to work towards a coherent system for funding equitable health systems development and on-going improvements in access to effective health care. The second is that of health systems policy itself, particularly in relation to the appropriateness and fairness of different health financing strategies, as well as the role of markets and the private sector. Finally, the third, resonating with the call to meet the full content of the 2001 Abuja commitment at national and international level,  is that of expanding both domestic and international resources for health in Africa. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat  admin@equinetafrica.org. For papers on health systems (fair financing, health worker retention) effects of GHIs visit the EQUINET website and the Economic Governance for Health network website at www.eg4health.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Global strategies to reduce the price of antiretroviral medicines: Evidence from transactional databases","field_subtitle":"Waning B, Kaplan W, King AC, Lawrence DA, Leufkens HG and Fox MP: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(7): 520\u2013528, July 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/7/08-058925/en/index.html","body":"In this study, the main objective was to estimate the impact of global strategies, such as pooled procurement arrangements, third-party price negotiation and differential pricing, on reducing the price of antiretrovirals (ARVs). Researchers estimated the impact of global strategies to reduce ARV prices using data on 7,253 procurement transactions from July 2002 to October 2007. They found that large purchase volumes did not necessarily result in lower ARV prices. Although current plans for pooled procurement will further increase purchase volumes, savings are uncertain and should be balanced against programmatic costs. Third-party negotiations by the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative resulted in lower generic ARV prices. Generics were less expensive than differentially priced branded ARVs, except where little generic competition exists. Alternative strategies for reducing ARV prices, such as streamlining financial management systems, improving demand forecasting and removing barriers to generics, should be explored.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Guidance on impact evaluation","field_subtitle":"Leeuw F, Vaessen J and Network of Networks on Impact Evaluation: 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/ieg/nonie/docs/Guidance_IE.pdf","body":"Many development interventions appear to leave no trace of sustained positive change after they have been terminated. This guidance document was developed by the Network of Networks on Impact Evaluation to support its focus on sharing methods and learning-by-doing to promote the practice of impact evaluation. It shows you how to identify the type and scope of the intervention by agreeing on the objectives of the intervention that are valued, articulating the theories linking interventions to outcomes, addressing the issue of attribution and building on existing knowledge relevant to the impact intervention. It also shows you how to manage impact evalulations by determining the feasibility of impact evaluation, gathering data and conducting front-end planning. It puts forward the idea that rigorous impact evaluation is not merely about specific methods and designs, but also about addressing the issues given above, in particular the core methodological and conceptual issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health problems emerge as thousands are displaced in ethnic clashes in southwestern Kenya","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 25 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85006","body":"At least 6,000 people have been displaced by inter-clan fighting in Kenya's southwestern district of Kuria East, on the Tanzania border, according to humanitarian officials. The Red Cross has provided emergency relief aid for the displaced. The worst affected areas include Wagirabosi/Targai location in Ntimaru Division, inhabited by the Buirege clan; and Girigiri sub-location, and the villages of Nguruna, Getongoroma and Kebaroti in Kegonga Division. The Kenyan Red Cross said there were reports of gunshots along the Nyabasi-Buirege border on 22 June and that attacks and counter-attacks since late May had resulted in the displacement of at least 6,290 people and the burning of 765 homes. According to the Red Cross, health services have taken a knock, as there is no ambulance in Kuria East to support referrals and patients, while water and sanitation facilities remain critical, especially in camps for internally displaced people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health workforce attrition in the public sector in Kenya: A look at the reasons","field_subtitle":"Chankova Slavea, Muchiri S and Kombe G: Human Resources for Health, 21 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-7-58.pdf","body":"This study analysed data from a human resources health facility survey conducted in 2005 in 52 health centres and 22 public hospitals (including all provincial hospitals) across all eight provinces in Kenya. The study looked into the status of attrition rates and the proportion of attrition due to retirement, resignation or death among doctors, clinical officers, nurses and laboratory and pharmacy specialists in surveyed facilities. Results showed that overall health workers attrition rates from 2004 to 2005 were similar across type of health facility: provincial hospitals lost on average 4% of their health workers, compared to 3% for district hospitals and 5% for health centres. The main reason for health worker attrition (all cadres combined) at each level of facility was retirement, followed by resignation and death. Appropriate policies to retain staff in the public health sector may need to be tailored for different cadres and level of health facility. Further studies, perhaps employing qualitative research, need to investigate the importance of different factors in the decision of health workers to resign.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"High HIV incidence during pregnancy: Compelling reason for repeat HIV testing","field_subtitle":"Moodley D, Esterhuizen TM, Pather T, Chetty V and Ngaleka L: AIDS Journal 23(10): 1187-1195, 19 June 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nme66u","body":"This study set out to determine the incidence of HIV during pregnancy as defined by seroconversion using a repeat HIV rapid testing strategy during late pregnancy. It adopted a cross-sectional design within a prevention of mother-to-child transmission programme. Pregnant women were retested between 36 and 40 weeks of gestation, provided that they had been tested HIV negative at least three months prior. Single women were at 2.5 times higher risk of seroconverting during pregnancy. In general, HIV incidence during pregnancy was four times higher than in the non-pregnant population. Public health programmes need to continue to reinforce prevention strategies and HIV retesting during pregnancy. The latter also offers an additional opportunity to prevent mother-to-child transmission and further horizontal transmission. Further research is required to understand the cause of primary HIV infection in pregnancy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Humanitarian aid survey: Contributions needed","field_subtitle":"Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP): July 2009","field_url":"http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/survey-intro.zgi?p=WEB229CU7Y4RJA","body":"If you are an aid worker and have an opinion on how poorly (or well-) funded your organisation is, how competent your fellow aid workers are or how well the international humanitarian system works with local authorities, the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP) is looking for your input in their new \u2018state of the humanitarian system\u2019 review. Despite various evaluations and analyses of the humanitarian system some \u2018very basic information\u2019 on its size, reach, scope of action and capability remains unknown, said Paul Harvey, a humanitarian aid expert leading the review for ALNAP. The report will provide a descriptive mapping, a general performance assessment, and an analysis of major new developments in the humanitarian aid sector over the past three years. Any contributions to the online survey are welcome.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"IDRC internship awards ","field_subtitle":"Deadline: September 12, 2009","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/awards/ev-84370-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html","body":"The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) internship awards provide exposure to research for international development through a program of training in research management and grant administration under the guidance of IDRC programme staff. The internships start in January 2010 and are designed to provide hands-on learning experiences in research program management in the creation, dissemination and utilisation of knowledge from an international perspective. The intern will undertake a program of research on the topic submitted when competing for the internship award, and will be trained in the techniques of research management through hands-on experience with the Centre's policies and practices for grant administration under the mentorship of a Programme Officer. IDRC\u2019s research activities focus on four programme areas: social and economic policy; environment and natural resource management; information and communication technologies for development; and innovation, policy and science.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving health R&D financing for developing countries: A menu of innovative policy options","field_subtitle":"Hecht R, Wilson P and Palriwala A: Health Affairs 28(4): 974\u2013985, 2009","field_url":"http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/28/4/974","body":"New drugs, vaccines and diagnostics for the diseases of the developing world could save millions of lives and prevent enormous suffering and economic loss. Despite substantial new funding from the Gates Foundation and other donors, financing for the research and development (R&D) of these new health technologies remains inadequate. New approaches are needed to generate more resources, make funding more stable and flexible, and further engage the expertise of the pharmaceutical industry. Several new financing mechanisms have been launched recently, and others are being proposed. This paper summarises some of the most promising new ideas and offers a framework for evaluating them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving international research contracting","field_subtitle":"Sack DA, Brooks V, Behan M, Cravioto A, Kennedy A, Ijsselmuiden C and Sewankambo N: Bulletin of the world Health Organization 87(7): 486, July 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/7/08-058099/en/index.html","body":"As long as standards and norms governing international research partnerships remain undefined in the legal environment, contractual matters will consume excessive energy, detract from the real work of health research professionals and set up collaborating institutions as potential adversaries rather than partners with a common research agenda. Agreed standards and norms for research contracting provide a framework for guidelines for equitable partnerships that can be put into practice in low- and middle-income countries to address the needs of local populations. The recently established International Collaboration on Equitable Research Contracts is conducting a global assessment of research contracting by developing and disseminating model contracts in which the rights, responsibilities and requirements of all partners are recognised. This evidence will inform the development of practical tools to achieve more equitable results in international research partnerships.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Increasing access to health services by poor people ","field_subtitle":"Bishai D: Eldis Health Systems Reporter, 26 June 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/mqonqc","body":"Increasing the accessibility of health services to poor people requires overcoming the well-known obstacles of travel time, convenient hours and trust. These obstacles differ in importance for urban and rural poor people. For example, spatial obstacles to care are less important for urban poor people, but convenient hours matter more. In rural areas, solutions to increased travel time bring tradeoffs between more clinics in more locations and better clinics in fewer places. There are no universal solutions, but there are universal ways of finding them. Tracking the socioeconomic status of clients served is needed to make poor people were more visible in health system data, contributing to an understanding of how poverty interacts with epidemiology in the course of disease, and also how treatment is sought and complied with. This raises the importance of making solid measurements in future research to show where poor people are and what their barriers to health care access are.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Is the G8 fit for purpose?","field_subtitle":"Editorial: Eldis Development Reporter, 16 July 2009","field_url":"http://community.eldis.org/aidanddebt/Blog/Is-the-G8-fit-for-purpose","body":"To compound the apparent inadequacy of the G8, the meeting in Italy got off to an inauspicious start. The Italian hosts were not only under fire for not preparing a constructive agenda, preferring the US to take the lead, but were threatened with expulsion from the G8 for unabashedly reneging on aid pledges to double aid to Africa made at the Gleneagles summit in 2005. According to ActionAid, Italy is US$1.037bn behind in aid arrears, France is further in arrears with US$1.249bn, Germany US$497m, the United States US$263m, Canada US$186m and Japan US$138m. Only Britain is on course to hit its target. This lack of spending is having a devastating effect on Africa\u2019s ability to reach its Millennium Development Goals\u2019 (MDGs) targets. As the new UN MDGs 2009 report states \u2018for many developing countries, lower levels of aid would not only impede further progress, but could reverse some of the gains already made.\u2019 Indeed, the proportion of undernourished per population is rising again in sub-Saharan Africa after concrete advances had been made.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya pressured to implement anti-counterfeit law despite access fears","field_subtitle":"Wadhams N: Intellectual Property Watch, 2 July 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/lzwuqf","body":"An influential manufacturers\u2019 lobbying group in Kenya is pushing the government to start enforcing an anti-counterfeiting law, despite fears from public health advocates that the new rules will impede access to generic drugs and set an unwanted precedent in East Africa. The Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) says it wants the Anti-Counterfeit Act to be implemented as soon as possible and has been in talks with the government to make sure that happens. The law was passed last year but has not yet taken effect because of budgeting and procedural delays. The association claims that counterfeits cost companies 50 billion shillings (US$650 million) and the government 19 billion shillings (US$250 million) in taxes in 2008. Yet public health advocates argue that the Act\u2019s definition of what constitutes a counterfeit product is too vague and could be used to block the import and local manufacture of generic drugs. Civil society organisations also want the two issues of counterfeiting and patent rights to remain separate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenyan AIDS patients seek to overturn anti-counterfeiting law as unconstitutional ","field_subtitle":"Wadhams N: Intellectual Property Watch, 7 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/lbxgf2","body":"Three HIV/AIDS patients in Kenya announced Tuesday they will petition the country\u2019s Constitutional Court to declare a new anti-counterfeiting act illegal because it could deny them access to generic medicines. The move, which has the support of public health groups across the country, seeks to have the 2008 Anti-Counterfeiting Act made unconstitutional on the grounds that it could rob them of their right to life. The anti-counterfeiting law\u2019s definition of counterfeits is so vague that it could include generic drugs and allow a pharmaceutical company to charge patent infringement in Kenya even if its patent is not registered there. International donors who fund much of the drug distribution, including the US President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, rely almost exclusively on generics manufacturers for their supply. The Kenyan act has gained widespread attention abroad because it is being used as a partial template for similar anti-counterfeiting bills in Uganda, Tanzania and other African nations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Late-disease stage at presentation to an HIV clinic in the era of free antiretroviral therapy in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Kigozi IM, Dobkin LM, Martin JN, Geng EH, Muyindike W, Emenyonu N, Bangsberg DR and Hahn JA: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, (published ahead-of-print) 10 June 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/kktwr5","body":"Little is known about the stage at which those infected with HIV present for treatment in sub-Saharan Africa. This study conducted a cross-sectional analysis of initial visits to the Immune Suppression Syndrome Clinic of the Mbarara University Teaching Hospital, Uganda, totalling 2,311 patients with an initial visit between February 2007 and February 2008. The median age of the patients was 33 years and 64% were female. More than one third (40%) were categorised as late presenters (stage three or four, according to the World Health Organization disease levels). Late presentation was associated with a lower education level, unemployment, living in a household with others or being unmarried, whereas being pregnant, having young children and consuming alcohol in the prior year were associated with early presentation. Targeted public health interventions to facilitate earlier entry into HIV care are needed, as well as additional study to determine whether late presentation is due to delays in testing vs. delays in accessing care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of Zambezi River Basin Initiative ","field_subtitle":"International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies: 2009","field_url":"http://www.ifrc.org/Docs/pubs/disasters/160400-Zambezi_River_Project_LR3.pdf","body":"The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has launched a US$ 8 million initiative to help build the disaster resilience of 600,000 people living along the Zambezi river in seven southern African countries. The Zambezi River Basin Initiative (ZRBI) is a response to \u2018a dramatic increase in the numbers of floods along the river basin\u2019, according to Farid Abdulkadir, IFRC disaster management coordinator for the southern Africa region. The focus of the ZRBI is on disaster preparedness rather than post emergency relief operations, as in the past. It is a joint programme between the Angolan, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe Red Cross Societies, combining risk reduction efforts with food security, health, HIV prevention and capacity building activities. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has already committed US$1 million to the project.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Maintain funding for HIV/AIDS prevention","field_subtitle":"Ncube N: IPS News, 20 July 2009","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47723","body":"Health experts and scientists have accused the world's wealthiest countries of abandoning the goal of universal access to HIV prevention, care and treatment by 2010. \u2018We must hold the G8 leaders accountable for their failure to deliver on their promises,\u2019 said Julio Montaner, president of the International Aids Society (IAS), on opening the Fifth IAS Conference on Pathogenesis, Diagnosis and Treatment in Cape Town on 19 July. Montaner, who is also director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, was sharply critical of the world's most powerful industrialised countries, who in 2005 committed to developing a comprehensive response to the AIDS pandemic that would achieve universal access to treatment by next year, yet have failed to renew these promises at the G8 summit held from 8\u201310 July. \u2018HIV/AIDS was indeed the elephant in the room,\u2019 he said. \u2018In 2009, the eight most powerful economies in the world left HIV off their priority agenda.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Major funding boost for paediatric ARVs","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 16 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85298","body":"Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has announced plans to invest up to US$97 million over 10 years in improving antiretroviral (ARV) treatment for children and adults in sub-Saharan Africa. The world's second largest drug manufacturer has already pledged US$16 million in seed funding to a public-private partnership that will develop new paediatric formulations of ARV drugs. Less than 10 percent of patients on ARVs in Africa are children and, although thirteen ARV formulations specifically for children are available, they are not adapted for use in resource-poor settings. Most are in liquid form, and come as three, often unpalatable, separate drugs that children find difficult to take. The company has also launched a new \u2018Positive Action for Children\u2019 fund of US$80 million over 10 years to help prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and to support orphans and vulnerable children. It made the announcement after activists and governments put pressure on drug companies to do more to make life-saving medicines available in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Making prevention work: Lessons from Zambia on reshaping the US response to the global HIV/AIDS epidemic","field_subtitle":"Graham AC: Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, June 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ndbu3a","body":"This study\u2019s main aim was to determine what US$577 million in funding from the US President\u2019s Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) between 2004 and 2008 has achieved in Zambia. Its findings are based on interviews with HIV and AIDS organisations, activists, medical professionals, community leaders, policymakers and programme participants. PEPFAR followed the ABC (abstain, be faithful and use a condom) approach to HIV prevention in Zambia but, according to this report, in 2008, US$20.5 million was channelled to programmes focused on abstinence and being faithful, compared to only US$12.4 million allocated to programmes promoting other approaches, including the use of condoms. Only four organisations received funding to promote condom use. \u2018The disproportionate emphasis on abstinence-until-marriage [...] has created a distinctly anti-condom atmosphere,\u2019 the authors noted. They recommended more extensive sex education programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Malaria misdiagnosis in Uganda: Implications for policy change","field_subtitle":"Nankabirwa J, Zurovac D and Njogu JN: Malaria Journal 8(66), June 2009","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/8/1/66","body":"This study examines the effectiveness of the current methods for the diagnosis of malaria in Uganda. Diagnosis has mainly been through presumptive management, namely diagnosis on the basis of episodes of fever. However, this paper argues that presumptive management has significantly contributed to the misdiagnosis of malaria. Interviews were conducted with patients at 188 facilities and laboratory samples were taken to assess the accuracy of existing diagnoses. Overall prevalence of malaria was around 24.2%, with a rate of 13.9% in adults and 50.5% for children under five, with 96.2 percent of patients with a positive diagnosis receiving treatment, as well as 47.6% of patients with a negative result. The study authors therefore argue for changes in existing public health policy to include the use of laboratory methods such as microscopy and the introduction of malaria rapid diagnostic tests.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Malnutrition crisis in northwest Kenya","field_subtitle":"IRINNews: 16 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=85306","body":"Poor rains have heightened food insecurity in Kenya's northwestern region of Turkana, where malnutrition rates in children under five have risen above the emergency threshold, according to humanitarian officials. About 74% of the population (550,000) already depends on food aid, according to the International Rescue Committee (IRC). It said at least half of child deaths in the region were due to malnutrition or had malnutrition as an underlying cause of death. \u2018In [the north-central] Samburu district, the percentage of children under-five considered at risk of malnutrition increased to 29.4% from 21.8% in June. In Moyale [in the northeast], the nutrition status of children below five years declined, with the percentage of children rated at risk of malnutrition rising to 35% in June from 30.6% in April.\u2019 The decline was attributed to higher food prices and reduced availability of food, with pneumonia, malaria and diarrhoea as the three main diseases responsible for deaths among under-fives in Turkana.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Moving beyond gender as usual","field_subtitle":"Ashburn K, Oomman N, Wendt D and Rosenzweig S: 29 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1422358/","body":"This study looks at how sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s three main HIV and AIDS donors have incorporated gender issues into their policies, and to what extent they have been put into practice and monitored. Although PEPFAR, the Global Fund and MAP have all made high-level commitments to address gender issues in their programming, these commitments have \u2018not yet produced concrete and systematic action on the ground\u2019. The study found 61% of people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are women, up from about 33% in the 1980s, and argues that gender inequality seriously undermines efforts to curb the epidemic and has actually fuelled the spread of HIV in the region, making women vulnerable to sexual violence, hindering their ability to have safe sex, and limiting their access to health, education and employment. It urges the three donors to collaborate on gender issues to make the most of their individual strengths and avoid duplication by helping countries establish gender-related goals in their HIV and AIDS responses, and sharing research and knowledge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"No money, no services in Malawi","field_subtitle":"PlusNews 1 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85090","body":"An inability to access adequate funding is crippling efforts by community-based organisations (CBOs) to help some of Malawi's most vulnerable children. For example, Monkey Bay, 125km east of the capital, Lilongwe, has some of the highest poverty and HIV-prevalence rates in the country, according to the government's National Statistics Office. Yet a recent report by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET), \u2018Promoting and protecting health of orphans and vulnerable children in Monkey Bay, Malawi\u2019, said many community-based organisations (CBOs) in the area could not access government funding to support interventions targeted at orphaned and vulnerable children. Donald Makwakwa, programme officer for the Malawi Network of AIDS Service Organisations (MANASO), which provides technical support to CBOs, explained that many grassroots bodies could access technical assistance, but faced periodic funding shortages due to late allotments by the National Aids Council.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Nurse-driven, community-supported HIV/AIDS treatment at the primary health care level in rural Lesotho: 2006-2008 programme report","field_subtitle":"M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/lq5s6f","body":"In an effort to tackle the challenges related to a severe shortage of human resources, and geographic and financial barriers, that prohibit patients from accessing care and treatment, a decision was taken to decentralise HIV and AIDS services in Lesotho to the primary health care level. This report outlines the community-based approach to the decentralisation of HIV and AIDS services. The Wellspring of Hope was the first programme in Lesotho to provide HIV and AIDS treatment and care through an entire health service area as a result of this initiative. The report discusses a range of topics: the delivery of HIV and AIDS services, specifically testing and counselling, prevention of mother-to-child transmission and antiretroviral therapy, a nurse-driven approach to the provision of antiretroviral therapy at the community level, and gives activities aimed at health systems strengthening challenges associated with the implementation of this model. This innovative approach has proven to be successful in delivering quality HIV and AIDS and TB services integrated into existing primary health care structures for a population living in remote, rural areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Nutrition and HIV/AIDS: A training manual for nurses and midwives","field_subtitle":"East, Central and Southern African Health Community (ECSA), Project of the Academy for Educational Development (AED) and LINKAGES Project of AED: 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.fantaproject.org/publications/nurses_midwives2008.shtml","body":"This training manual, published by the Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance II (FANTA-2) Project, recognises that nutrition interventions are an important component of comprehensive care and support for people living with HIV. They help to manage symptoms, promote response to treatment and improving functioning and quality of life. The authors argue that equipping nurses, who in many settings play a critical role in HIV care, with nutrition and HIV knowledge and skills enables them to provide effective nutrition care and support. The manual is organised into three parts: Part I includes introductory sessions with basic information about HIV, Part II aims to build technical knowledge and Part III provides guidance on nutrition care for different clients living with HIV. This training manual is designed to be used for pre-service training, but it can also be used or adapted for in-service training \u2013 an advantage considering the fact that nursing school curricula in the East, Central and Southern Africa region often includes little or no information on the subject.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Online film festival: New film on inequality and health issues","field_subtitle":"Imam P, f-20 Communications: July 2009","field_url":"http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/1983/Flight-208","body":"The short film, Flight 208, which deals with health and related issues of inequality, is participating in the Humanity Explored Film Festival 2009. This is an online film festival. The festival is unique in the sense that the films are judged on the basis of how the audience rates them. We will be hapy if you could watch and rate and popularise these films which are connected with all the issues we care for. The film is satirical and shot across the globe with more than 208 persons from across the world. The film idea was triggered while the director was in Ecuador to attend and document the second People\u2019s Health Assembly in 2005. It has already won awards and been screened at many prestigous film festivals. It\u2019s seven minutes long.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Open letter to Hon. Rupiah Banda, President of Zambia","field_subtitle":"Srinath I: e-CIVICUS 446, 13 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/n9rcux","body":"The author, on behalf of CIVICUS, expresses deep concerned about certain restrictive aspects of the Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) Bill of 2009, which the Zambian government is planning to introduce in Parliament. Some of the concerns raised by civil society in the 2007 version of the Bill have been addressed, but key provisions of the Bill restrict the independence of NGOs and subject them to excessive and unwarranted controls which serve to impede rather than enable the freedom of association guaranteed by the Constitution of Zambia, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the African Charter on Human and People\u2019s Rights, to which Zambia is a party. If passed in its present form, the Bill will seriously restrict the activities of NGOs. Key areas of concern include problematic registration procedures, excessive government control and unnecessary curbs on independence through forced self-regulation and peer monitoring.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Operations manual for delivery of HIV prevention, care and treatment at primary health centres in high-prevalence, resource-constrained settings ","field_subtitle":"Integrated Management of Adolescent and Adult Illness (IMAI) Team, HIV Department, World Health Organization: 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hiv/pub/imai/operations_manual/en/","body":"This operations manual provides guidance on planning and delivering HIV prevention, care and treatment services at health centres in countries with high HIV prevalence. It gives an operational framework to ensure that HIV services can be provided in an integrated, efficient and quality-assured manner. It is based on the decentralised public health approach to scaling up HIV services in resource-constrained settings, which includes simple, standardised regimens and formularies; standardised supervision and patient monitoring approaches; as well as integrated delivery of care at primary health centres within a district network. This manual is written as a learning aid and job aid for the health centre team, and in particular the health centre manager (often an in-charge nurse). The authors, however, contend that district management teams, which supervise and support health centre services, should also find this manual helpful, as should national Ministries of Health and other partners responsible for planning and supporting the decentralisation of HIV services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Outsourcing revenue collection to private agents: Experience from local authorities in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Fjeldstad O-H, Katera L and Ngalewa E: 2009","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=43743&em=090709&sub=gov","body":"Many local government authorities in Tanzania have reformed their tax collection systems in recent years in order to increase their revenue. This paper examines how systems of privatised tax collection performed with respect to revenue generation, administration and accountability, based on evidence from urban and rural councils in Tanzania. The paper concludes that outsourcing is not a \u201cquick fix\u201d for increasing local government revenues or reducing tax administration problems.The results showed a mixed outcome; while some councils increased their tax collections, others experienced problems of corruption. The process is susceptible to corruption since local councils have limited capacity to conduct analyses of the tax base and the amounts agents are expected to remit are much less than the revenues they actually collect. The paper suggests that where appropriately managed and monitored, outsourced revenue collection may provide a foundation for more efficient and effective local government revenue administration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Pathways of health technology diffusion: The United States and low-income countries","field_subtitle":"Nandakumar AK, Beswick J, Thomas CP, Wallack SS and Kress D: Health Affairs 28(4):  986\u2013995, 2009","field_url":"http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/28/4/986","body":"In the United States, the complex process of getting health care technologies into practice takes place in a competitive health system that is driven by technological innovation. Federal, state and local governments\u2019 roles in the diffusion process are limited. In low-income countries, where competitive markets are not as prominent, diffusing medical innovations requires an alternative understanding of how new technologies are adopted. This paper describes how, in low-income countries, the lack of functioning markets serves as a barrier to the transfer of necessary health technologies and why governments must act as stewards in promoting technologies there.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor management and inequitable spending to blame for District Health Barometer\u2019s findings","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust: July 2009","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/category/144","body":"The quality of health care, including access to HIV prevention and testing services, depends to a large extent on which of South Africa's 52 districts you happen to live in. Some of the inequities highlighted by the District Health Barometer can be traced to differences in health spending, with districts in Western Cape Province spending the most on primary health care and districts in Free State Province spending the least. In the report, Dr Tanya Doherty of South Africa's Medical Research Council attributed a lack of improvement in child and maternal mortality rates to the HIV epidemic \u2013 under-five mortality barely shifted from 60 per 1,000 births in 1990 to 59 in 2007, while maternal mortality actually increased. Prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) is vital to reducing maternal and child mortality and combating HIV, but health authorities have failed to properly monitor PMTCT interventions. \u2018This is indicative of management neglect of the programme from national to facility level,\u2019 Doherty wrote.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Preventing HIV transmission with antiretrovirals","field_subtitle":"De Cock KM, Crowley SP, Lo Y-R, Granich RM and Williams B: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(7): 488, July 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/7/09-067330/en/index.html","body":"Widespread early therapy for HIV is intellectually compelling because it targets viral load, the major biological risk factor for transmission and disease progression. Delaying treatment until HIV has inflicted severe damage on the immune system and further transmission occurs is a different practice to the approach of other infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. Earlier diagnosis and treatment offer opportunity for \u2018positive prevention\u2019, emphasising other health interventions, as well as enhancing the sexual and reproductive health and rights of persons living with HIV. Papers published in 2008 suggested anti-retroviral therapy (ART) may be considered a means of limiting HIV spread, as it reduces viral load. One paper reported that annual universal voluntary HIV testing followed by immediate ART could reduce HIV incidence by about 95% within a decade, with cost-saving over the medium term. Nonetheless, the world requires stronger evidence before policy development on ART for HIV prevention can be envisaged.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Proposed new NHI system in South Africa: Trust is key for success","field_subtitle":"Gilson L: Health-e News, 21 June 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/knl8o5","body":"The South African government has proposed a national health insurance (NHI) system, but it will face three key challenges as it seeks to re-build trust in the health system. First, discussions so far about NHI have been highly technical and held behind closed doors, will little civil contribution except for interest groups. Second, many public health workers are tired of frequent workplace changes and may view having to adapt to NHI systems as simply making their work more difficult, especially when employees note that their employees often fail to deliver on promises made: \u2018I don\u2019t trust them,\u2019 said one nurse. Third, implementing an NHI remains a complex exercise and cannot be achieved with just legislation. The steps of policy implementation must be laid out so that initial actions build the basis for success in subsequent actions. For NHI to succeed, we must strengthen the public health system by increased investment, despite the current global economic downturn.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Public engagement for better policy and services","field_subtitle":"Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development: June 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/l2mqn7","body":"Complex policy issues cannot be solved by government alone. Delivering high-quality public services at the least cost and achieving shared public policy goals requires innovative approaches and greater involvement of citizens. This book is a valuable source of information on government performance in fostering open and inclusive policy making in 25 countries. It offers rich insights into current practice through 14 in-depth country case studies and 18 opinion pieces from leading civil society and government practitioners. It includes 10 guiding principles to support open and inclusive policy making and service delivery in practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Re-launch of Taskforce website ","field_subtitle":"Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems: July 2009","field_url":"http://www.internationalhealthpartnership.net/en/taskforce","body":"The website for the Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems has re-launched with a new range of applications designed to improve the navigation and accessibility of information hosted on the site. The Taskforce report and Working Group reports are currently available to download in five languages: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, with other languages, including Chinese mandarin, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese due to be added in the forthcoming weeks. The website encourages interactivity with video footage of recent consultation events and speeches from Gordon Brown, Dr Margaret Chan and Glenys Kinnock. A blog page and feedback form have also been added to ensure that a constant stream of communication can be maintained between the Taskforce, civil society and other interested parties.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaiming the Resources for Health: Building Universal People-centred Health Systems in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Kampala, Uganda: September 23rd -25th 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/programme.php","body":"A reminder to all who have registered that the third EQUINET Regional Conference on Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa is coming up next month! It provides a unique opportunity to hear original work and debate on the determinants of, challenges to and opportunities for equity in health in this region. The programme is broad and covers a range of topics including claiming rights to health, equitable health services, women\u2019s health and social empowerment in health systems. Other main topics include retaining health workers, primary health care, developing and using participatory approaches, resourcing health systems fairly, building parliamentary alliances and people's power in health, policy engagement for health equity, trade and health, access to health care and monitoring equity. We will also show how to build country alliances and conduct regional networking. A post-conference workshop will be held on BANG (bits, atoms, neurons and genes), billed the Next Technological Challenge to Africa\u2019s Health and Well-being. Further activities associated with the conference include photographic displays and skills meetings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Report of discussions: G8 Intellectual Property Experts Group meeting","field_subtitle":"G8 IP Expert Group (IPEG): 9 July 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/l5hnw3","body":"Leaders at the G8 conference in Italy have made very cautious commitments with regard to the top issue, climate change, but views on intellectual property rights enforcement began to become clear on the second day. Leaders called for a firm push for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which is unchanged from the past. The G8 IP Expert Group (IPEG) reaffirmed the 2000 Okinawa Charter commitment on use of software in full compliance with intellectual property rights that addresses public authorities. It also called on all states to step up consideration about how to combat digital piracy on the internet, which the IPEG sees as growing problem. And it presented the \u2018G8 Model Arrangement on Bilateral Information Sharing for Fighting Counterfeiting and Piracy\u2019 to allow the exchange of information between national authorities. Leaders also urged completion of the round of negotiations at the World Trade Organization\u2019s meeting later this year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"River blindness drug trial launched","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 1 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=85093","body":"Researchers are launching a clinical trial with 1,500 people infected with onchocerciasis (river blindness) in Liberia, Ghana and the Democratic Republic of Congo to test a remedy that could help stop transmission. Onchocerciasis is one of the leading causes of blindness in Africa, according to World Health Organization (WHO), and more than 100 million people, mostly in Africa, are at risk of infection, according to WHO, which estimates that there are about half a million people, mostly in Africa, who are blind due to onchocerciasis. The primary prevention method is black fly control, while treatment has been through annual doses of ivermectin, which might successfully treat individuals, but it does not stop the infection from spreading. If adult worms are not killed they continue to lay eggs in the skin and the disease can be passed on.  The drug moxidectin is being studied for its potential to kill adult worms carrying the disease and to wipe out the disease in any high-risk area within six years. The upcoming clinical trials are expected to last two and a half years and will cost about US$6 million.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"SA unions put wage-hike demands to the state","field_subtitle":"Musgrave A: Business Day, 22 July 2009","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200907220695.html","body":"South African (SA) public servants, including doctors and nurses, are demanding a 15% wage increase across the board and want this year's pay talks to centre on the creation of \u2018decent work\u2019. Although SA is now under a new administration, one which is considered to be worker friendly, government spokesman Themba Maseko said after a Cabinet briefing earlier this month that the state would make its shrinking spending power known when the wage negotiations started. This year's wage negotiations are likely to be intense considering SA is in its first recession in seventeen years and that the state has still not made good on its occupation specific dispensation (OSD) offer on pay structures agreed to during the last talks in 2007. If the state spent all its money on wage increases, nothing would be left for essential services like textbooks and medical supplies, Maseko said. The state has not yet made known what increases it is willing to offer its employees and is expected to respond to their shortly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SAMEA pre-conference workshop for Africa-based facilitators","field_subtitle":"17\u201319 August 2009: Gauteng, South Africa ","field_url":"http://www.samea.org.za","body":"Registration is now open for the South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association (SAMEA) Conference Workshop. The programme consists of a number of workshops dealing with gender and rights-based participatory monitoring and evaluation (M&E), participatory outcome mapping, understanding project logic model as a tool for conducting clarificatory evaluation, theory-based impact evaluation, the dynamics in building M&E systems to enhance the utilisation of M&E practices and findings in programme development, management and implementation, and a systematic approach to evaluate M&E systems to enhance system strengthening for effective management and utilisation of information. The workshops have been developed to offer training opportunities to beginners as well as seasoned professionals who wish to sharpen their skills and are offered by competent and reputable trainers based locally and internationally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Sixth European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health: \u2018Equity, Human Rights and Access to Care\u2019 ","field_subtitle":"6\u201310 September 2009: Verona, Italy","field_url":"http://www.festmih.org/verona2009/","body":"The central focus of this conference, organised by the Federation of European Societies for Tropical Medicine and International Health (FESTMIH), will be \u2018Equity, Human Rights and Access to Care\u2019. This event aims to deal with the classical aspects of tropical medicine including basic science, diagnostics/therapeutics and disease control, and will include an emphasis on transferability of research results into actual practice. Discussions will also address the North-South gap in health research, in all main aspects, such as how much space is devoted to global health in medical journals, the role of researchers from the South in relevant publications, what share of research is actually devoted to priority areas, important gaps that remain to be filled in research in tropical medicine and international health, and difficulties experienced in financing health system research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Joint TB Review 2009","field_subtitle":"South African Department of Health and WHO Stop TB: July 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/l4w89r","body":"South Africa's management of tuberculosis (TB) has significantly improved compared to what it was in 2005, according to this joint review of the TB programme by the World Health Organisation (WHO), development partners and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Specifically, the TB defaulter rate has declined and cure rate has increased. The review included observations of provision of care in clinics and hospitals, and interviews with TB services managers and health workers. It found major improvements on quality and access to TB services (TB diagnosis and treatment available in all health facilities) resulting in increased case detection and treatment success. However, staffing levels were found to be sufficient in some provinces but insufficient in others and staff were very often not adequately trained in TB control, while drugs were generally available and in sufficient quantities. The Review recommended that infection control measures should be improved, as these was found to be weak.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategies for effective policy advocacy: Demanding good governance in Africa","field_subtitle":"Katito G and Aggad F: South African Institute of International Affairs Research Report 3, 26 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.saiia.org.za/images/stories/pubs/reports/saia_rpt_03_katito_aggad_20090618.pdf","body":"This study attempts to distil lessons learned by a handful of African civil society coalitions on the dynamics of demanding improved governance of governments that are often averse to governance reform. The project admittedly tackles an ambitiously formidable subject, largely due to the dearth of compelling, contemporary African examples of civil society leading noteworthy policy or social change. Governance and policy reform in several African countries continues to be driven by African governments, through initiatives such as the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), as the South African Institute of International Affairs\u2019 (SAIIA) six years of research into the APRM suggests. As such, the study broaches a subject starved of compelling material. However, it creates an accessible set of lessons from civil society activists, academics, diplomats, representatives of donor agencies and civil society experts that have played leading roles in a few \u2013 but notable \u2013 episodes of civil society-led policy reform.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Swine flu reaches Zimbabwe and Botswana","field_subtitle":"IRINNews: 10 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=85232","body":"Zimbabwe and Botswana have reported their first suspected cases of swine flu as the H1N1 virus begins to establish a foothold in southern Africa. Neighbouring South Africa has reported 54 laboratory confirmed cases of swine flu so far, 32 of which have been linked to a squash tournament at a university in Johannesburg. No deaths have been reported in the region as yet. Dr Lucille Blumberg, head of epidemiology at South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases, said that most cases of the illness were \u2018mild\u2019, and that it was too early to tell whether people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHAs) would be affected to a greater degree by the flu. Most PLWHAs are in southern Africa, where most countries also have severely stretched health services, and the effects of the virus on their populations remain uncertain. Blumberg said in other parts of the world swine flu had killed healthy people, as well as those suffering from underlying illnesses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Taskforce report calls on G8 to support its recommendations on innovative financing","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nftf5j","body":"Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems: 2009\r\nThe Taskforce's proposals aim to meet a US$10 billion funding gap through a number of means including the expansion of a mandatory solidarity levy on airline tickets, the increased use of the International Financing Facility for Immunisation and the strengthening in capacity of government in their health sector. Following the success of a series of meetings and consultations in Doha, London, Johannesburg, Abuja and Paris over the past seven months the Taskforce has finalised its recommendations on innovative international financing for health systems, which it calls on the participants of the G8 summit to support. The intention is spur world leaders on to strengthen the urgency for a combined effort to tackle the issue of providing adequate health systems for developing countries and increase vital aid flows. Strong political backing for each of the initiatives recommended is critically important. Successful implementation of these recommendations requires purposeful engagement with civil society, both in donor countries and recipient countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Taskforce Working Group 1 Technical Report: Constraints to scaling up and costs ","field_subtitle":"Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems, 5 June 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/myas8w","body":"This report calculates that, if financial commitments are met, there is on average, across all countries, no financing gap in 2015. However, donors and recipient governments are currently far from delivering on agreed targets, and the economic recession is making this more difficult. If current relationships of health spending to GDP remain unchanged, the financing gap is will be US$28\u201337 billion in 2015. If commitments are met, for sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), there will be a funding gap of US$3\u20135 billion. In the no-change scenario, the funding gap for SSA is predicted by 2015 is US$26\u201324 billion. Financing arrangements must ensure sustainable and equitable domestic financing structures, predictable external finance, improved risk pooling over time, and effective purchasing of priority services. Service delivery arrangements should reflect the most cost-effective ways of providing services that are accessible, responsive to users, and equitable, taking advantage of both public and private providers where appropriate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Taskforce Working Group 2 Technical Report: Raising and channeling funds ","field_subtitle":"Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems, 3 June 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/lpnc6e","body":"Depending on decisions taken by politicians and parliamentarians, a large part of the additional US$36\u201345 billion needed in 2015 could be available in an entirely predictable and sustained manner. Most of the gap will need to be filled by domestic resources contributed by national governments and citizens. But even if governments in low-income countries give more priority to health, they will still be unable to meet the required costs of scaling up health systems and providing free essential health services. If low-income countries are to reach the health millennium development goals, international funding will have to complement domestic health resources. Development partners are strongly urged to fulfil the commitments they have already made. Innovative development finance is the way forward, with non-traditional applications of official development assistance (ODA), joint public-private (or private) mechanisms and flows that support fund-raising, engage partners as stakeholders and deliver financial solutions to development problems on the ground.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"TB prevalence in South African prisons to be investigated","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 9 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=85210","body":"Poor ventilation, overcrowding and HIV co-infection make prison an ideal breeding-ground for tuberculosis (TB), but a new study will be among the first in South Africa to quantify TB among inmates and personnel. \u2018Herisa Rifuba\u2019, or \u2018Stop TB\u2019 in Setswana, will include about 3,500 prisoners and staff at the Johannesburg Central Prison, with around 12,000 existing inmates and about 500 new prisoners arriving daily. So far this year, the prison has recorded more than 100 cases of TB (an infection rate of about 10%). In 2006, Johannesburg Central became one of the first prisons accredited to offer antiretroviral (ARV) treatment on site. About 530 of were receiving treatment from the prison clinic, said Joyce Lethoba, a project manager at The Aurum Institute, which helped the prison obtain accreditation. If a prison does not have its own clinic, inmates on ARVs have to be transported to nearby state hospitals to fetch their medication, which carries a greater risk of escapes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The barefoot guide to working with organisations and social change: Learning about and facilitating organisational change","field_subtitle":"The Barefoot Collective: 2009","field_url":"http://www.barefootguide.org/download.php","body":"This is a practical, do-it-yourself guide for leaders and facilitators wanting to help organisations, such as social movements, function and develop in more healthy, human and effective ways. The guide, with its supporting website, includes tried and tested concepts, approaches, stories and activities, and was developed by a global team of collaborating practitioners and activists. It offers a perspective on why organisations exist and the real role they play, and the importance of supporting local sovereignty of local organisations and social movements for meaningful social change. It provides a range of approaches to self-understanding as well as understanding the role of leaders and facilitators aiming to facilitate change in organisations. It looks at the significance of relationships and power dynamics, including tracking how organisations move through various phases of development, how change can be facilitated and the challenges faced in implementing or sustaining change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The effect of educational attainment and other factors on HIV risk in South African women: Results from antenatal surveillance, 2000-2005","field_subtitle":"Johnson, LF, Dorrington RE, Bradshaw D, du Plessis H and Makubalo L: AIDS Journal 23(12): 1583-1588, 31 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nnsjtb","body":"This study set out to assess the effect of educational attainment and other factors on the risk of HIV in pregnant South African women. Repeated cross-sectional surveys were used. Pregnant women, who were attending public antenatal clinics were tested for HIV annually between 2000 and 2005, provided demographic information. Among women aged 15-24 years, HIV risk in those who had completed secondary education was significantly lower than in those who had only primary education \u2013 it increased by 8% per annum in those with no secondary education but did not increase those with secondary education. Together with other evidence, this study suggests that higher educational attainment did not protect against HIV in the early stages of the South African HIV/AIDS epidemic. But in recent years, the risk of HIV infection in young South African women with completed secondary education has reduced significantly relative to that in young women with primary education, suggesting that HIV prevention strategies may have been more effective in more educated women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of the AIDS pandemic on health services in Africa: Evidence from demographic and health surveys","field_subtitle":"Case A and Paxson C: 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.nber.org/papers/w15000","body":"This paper documents the impact of the AIDS crisis on non-AIDS related health services in 14 sub-Saharan African countries. The authors, using multiple waves of Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) for each country, examined antenatal care, birth deliveries, and rates of immunisation for children born between 1988 and 2005. They found deterioration in nearly all of the above dimensions of health care over this period. Using data collected on HIV prevalence in the most recent DHS survey for each country, they noted that erosion of health services is highly correlated with increases in AIDS prevalence. Consequently, regions of countries that have light AIDS burdens have witnessed small or no declines in health care, using the measures noted above, while those regions currently shouldering the heaviest burdens have seen the largest erosion in treatment for pregnant women and children. Finally, the authors estimate that the beginning of the divergence in health services between high- and low-HIV regions took place in the mid-1990s.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Pan African Health Expo and Conference 2009","field_subtitle":"17\u201319 September 2009: Gauteng, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.mbendi.com/a_sndmsg/sendfile.asp?LM=1&MT=1206","body":"The 2009 Pan African Health Expo and Conference will take place concurrently with the ACSA Disability and Special Needs Expo and Conference, and its main objective is promoting the medical industry, including medical technology and pharmaceuticals throughout Africa. The Pan African Health 2009 Healthcare Funding conference is a one day event and centres around how South Africa will fund it\u2019s hospitals and other medical needs with economists and government advising on how it will be achieved. Exhibitors at the show include healthcare solution providers, medical technology and equipment, diagnostics and medical supplies, disposables, pharmaceutical products, surgical products and devices, medical information technology and education, and medical service providers. The expo is aimed to attract visitors from various sectors like private clinics, government hospitals, government health officials, medical professionals, donor funding organisations, non-governmental organisations involved in healthcare and medical aids and administrators. Register at the website address provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The safety of candidate vaginal microbicides since nonoxynol-9: A systematic review of published studies","field_subtitle":"Poynten I Mary, Millwood IY, Falster MO, Law MG, Andresen DN, Van Damme L and Kaldor JM: AIDS Journal 23(10): 1245-1254, 19 June 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/kn5p6m","body":"The objective of this study was to gain a greater understanding of published safety data for candidate vaginal microbicides. It systematically reviewed twenty-one human safety trials in peer-reviewed journals, involving the use of 11 vaginal microbicides by a total of 1,465 women. There were few findings of significant difference between women in active and control arms of trials. Confidence intervals in the analyses were generally very wide, and most studies were unable to exclude differences of a substantial magnitude between treated and control women. Larger and longer safety studies are necessary to detect clinically important toxicities, including those that indicate a potential increase in HIV risk, before they are ready for large-scale effectiveness trials and use in the public sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Time to start doing more with less money","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 21 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85374","body":"While the worldwide AIDS community bemoans the global economic crisis and its impact on funding streams for the HIV and AIDS response, several speakers at the Fifth International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention, which took place in Cape Town, South Africa, from 19\u201322 July, called on implementers to start doing more with less. Dr Stefano Bertozzi of the National Institute for Public Health in Mexico said choosing interventions more strategically would help, he said, citing abstinence programmes as one example of an approach that lacked evidence to support it. Focused, well-managed programmes targeted at populations with the greatest need were the most cost-effective, as were programmes integrated with services for related health issues, such as tuberculosis. Programmes that worked towards long-term goals, such as training new doctors and nurses, empowering women, and changing social norms, were more efficient than those with short-term targets, which looked good on annual reports but did little to change the course of the epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding informal payments in health care: Motivation of health workers in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Stringhini S, Thomas S, Bidwell P, Mtui T and Mwisongo A: Human Resources for Health, 30 June 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-7-53.pdf","body":"This study attempts to assess if and how informal payments occur in Kibaha, Tanzania. Moreover, it aims to assess how informal earnings might help boost health worker motivation and retention. Nine focus groups were conducted in three health facilities of different levels in the health system. In total, 64 health workers participated in the focus group discussions (81% female, 19% male) and, where possible, focus groups were divided by cadre. Participants mentioned that they felt enslaved by patients as a result of being bribed and this resulted in loss of self-esteem, with fear of detection as a main demotivating factor. Informal payments were not found to be related to retention of health workers in the public health system. The findings suggest that the practice of informal payments contributes to the general demotivation of health workers and negatively affects access to health care services and quality of the health system. Policy action is needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Urban poverty and health in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Montgomery MR: Population Reference Bureau 6(2): 1\u201320, June 2009","field_url":"http://www.prb.org/pdf09/64.2urbanization.pdf","body":"This bulletin provides a sketch of urban health in developing countries, documenting the intra-urban differences in health for a number of countries and showing how the risks facing the urban poor compare with those facing rural villagers. It notes that, to better understand urban health in developing countries, the situations of the urban poor and near-poor must be distinguished from those of other city residents. Even among the urban poor, some live in communities of concentrated disadvantage (slums) where they are subjected to a daily barrage of health threats. The author recommends geographic targeting as an effective health strategy for reaching slum dwellers, though other approaches should be devised to meet the needs of the poor who live outside slums. Public health agencies need to work in tandem with other government agencies, and public health programmes should draw on the social capital that is embodied in the associations of the urban poor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"USDA\u2019s Food Security Assessment for 2008\u20132009","field_subtitle":"United States Department of Agriculture: June 2009","field_url":"http://preview.tinyurl.com/msxlm8","body":"The number of poor and food-insecure people in developing countries is increasing more quickly in urban areas than in rural areas, and could be dropping off the policy radar, according to new research by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). By 2030 the majority of people in all developing countries will live in urban areas, and UNFPA estimates that about 60 percent of the urban slum population will be under the age of 18. Sub-Saharan African countries have the world's highest rates of urban growth and highest levels of urban poverty \u2013 the slum population in these countries doubled from 1990 to 2005, when it reached 200 million. Health hazards emanating from food in urban areas are a critical concern: buying pre-cooked food from street vendors, close contact between humans and poultry and other domestic animals for slaughter, and generally unhygienic conditions in urban markets can have significant health consequences.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Using mobile phones in fundraising campaigns ","field_subtitle":"Stein M: 2007 ","field_url":"http://mobileactive.org/files/MobileActive3_0.pdf","body":"Mobile fundraising is emerging as a new tool for organisations to identify potential donors to raise money. Mobile phones are being used across the world to raise money for social causes such as disaster relief, poverty, cancer research, rescuing abandoned animals and supporting other human needs. This manual examines the effectiveness of non-profit and non-governmental organisations using mobile phones to build their constituent lists, influence political causes, support case studies and raise money. Areas covered include: mobile fundraising for humanitarian relief, partnerships between charities and commercial entities, harnessing media and the entertainment industry, the interplay between donors and activists, and calculating the return on your investment in mobile fundraising. It concludes with some examples of mobile fundraising and the lessons learnt.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Verdict on the G8 Summit: Cooking the books and cooking the planet","field_subtitle":"Oxfam: 10 July 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/m3rq6t","body":"In Oxfam's press release after the 35th G8 summit, held in Italy from 8\u201310 July 2009, Jeremy Hobbs, its executive director, noted: \u2018A stalemate persists because, in the past eight years, rich countries have used the talks to continue to push to open up new export markets. Developing countries have resisted, saying they were promised a deal that would give them space to protect their farmers and new industries, an end to rich country trade-distorting agricultural subsidies, and more access to rich markets for their farmers and industries. This summit has been a shambles, it did nothing for Africa, and the world is still being cooked. Canada 2010 is the end of the road for the G8 \u2013 all the promises they have made are due. They have 12 short months to avoid being remembered as the ones who let the poor and the planet die. Millions of children are out of school, millions more dying from curable diseases. This is shameful and the Canadians must move fast to fix it. There won\u2019t be any second chances.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO and UNICEF estimates of national infant immunisation coverage: Methods and processes","field_subtitle":"Burton A, Monasch R, Lautenbach B, Gacic-Dobo M, Neill M, Karimov R, Wolfson L, Jones G and Birmingham M: Bulletin of the world Health Organization 87(7): 535\u2013541, July 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/7/08-053819/en/index.html","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF) annually review data on immunisation coverage to estimate national coverage with routine service delivery of commonly used vaccines. The estimates are based on government reports submitted to WHO and UNICEF and are supplemented by survey results from the published and grey literature. Local experts are consulted for additional information on the performance of specific immunisation systems. Estimates are derived through a country-by-country review of available data informed and constrained by a set of heuristics \u2013 no statistical or mathematical models are used. Draft estimates are made, sent to national authorities for review and comment and modified in light of their feedback. While the final estimates may not differ from reported data, they constitute an independent technical assessment by WHO and UNICEF of the performance of national immunisation systems. These country-specific estimates, available from 1980 onward, are updated annually.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Why we need NHI now","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D: Health-e News, 17 June 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/mfpo2d","body":"The national health insurance (NHI) system that is envisaged for South Africa would be more akin to the excellent publicly funded health systems found in countries such as Costa Rica, where the NHI as a large, single purchaser of health services is able to improve resource use in the overall health system and to get \u2018value for money\u2019 for its citizens. However, services in South Africa\u2019s public health sector are of poor quality at present. Actions that would be required to improve quality include: addressing health worker conditions of service through implementing the long-awaited occupation specific dispensation (or OSD); increasing staffing levels by at least 80,000; funding the maintenance and repairs of buildings, equipment and other infrastructure; and granting greater management autonomy to public sector hospitals to reduce red tape. Strong political commitment and genuine civil society involvement are essential to successful implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Will donors deliver on aid commitments in the current global financial crisis?","field_subtitle":"Ndungane N: e-CIVICUS 446, 13 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/media/446-Will-Donors-deliver-Ndungane.pdf","body":"There is general agreement that donors made more progress in 2008 in terms of increasing aid to Sub-Saharan Africa than in 2006/7. While, in 2007, the G8 countries were significantly off track, the encouraging performance in 2008 demonstrates that if performance is maintained at the same level, most of the countries will meet the targets set for 2010, 2011 and 2013. But there are some, notably Italy and France, who will not deliver. Italy has so far delivered only about 3% of the US$8 billion it pledged in additional funding and may actually be planning cut, not increase, aid in the coming years. Developed countries can help by fast-tracking the process of debt relief under the Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative (HIPC) Initiative. Donors can ensure that African Diaspora is protected from attacks and discrimination. Trade should be further liberalised in favour of the products of poor countries so that there can be compensation for any loss of aid. And the available resources should be invested in the most productive sectors so as to gain the highest return.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Women take legal action over alleged sterilisations in Namibia","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 25 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85012","body":"Two HIV-positive Namibian women who allege they were sterilised against their will in public hospitals are seeking redress through the courts, the first of more than 20 known cases, according to the International Community for Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW).  The ICW raised the alarm over what it terms forced or coerced sterilisations among HIV-positive women more than a year ago, after hearing accounts of it through its regular forums for HIV-positive young women. Another six cases could potentially go to trial this year, and a further 20 are being looked into by the ICW. However, legal action has been hampered by difficulties in collecting evidence and statements from women involved, who are often reluctant to come forward due to fears that both their HIV status and their inability to bear children will be made public. The ICW believes informed consent was not sought, as the majority of these women are rural or illiterate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Women's rights and women's health during HIV/AIDS epidemics: The experience of women in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Dugassa BF: Health Care for Women International 30(8): 690\u2013706, August 2009","field_url":"http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a912882578~db=all~jumptype=rss","body":"It is becoming clear that HIV/AIDS spreads most rapidly among poor, marginalised, women, colonised and disempowered groups of people more than others. The HIV/AIDS epidemic is exacerbated by the social, economic, political, and cultural conditions of societies such as gender, racial, class, and other forms of inequalities. Sub-Saharan African countries are severely hit by HIV/AIDS. For these countries the pandemic of HIV/AIDS requires them to go the extra mile in their efforts. The objective of this paper is to promote the need to go beyond the biomedical model of \u2018technical fixes\u2019 and the traditional public health education tools, and come up with innovative ideas and strategic thinking to contain the epidemic. It argues that containing the HIV/AIDS epidemic and improving family and community health requires giving appropriate attention to the social illnesses that are responsible for exacerbating biological disorders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"World Bank health work flawed yet still pushing for privatisation of services","field_subtitle":"United Nations Development Programme: June 2009","field_url":"http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCWorkingPaper55.pdf","body":"This World Bank Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) report on almost $18 billion worth of health, nutrition and population work covered projects from 1997 to 2008 by the World Bank. It rated 220 projects according to how well they met stated objectives, regardless of how good those objectives were. Highly satisfactory outcomes were almost unheard of, and only about two-thirds of projects had moderately satisfactory outcomes or better. Projects in Africa were \u2018particularly weak\u2019, with only 27% achieving satisfactory outcomes. Overall only 29% of freestanding HIV projects had satisfactory outcomes, falling to 18% in Africa. Repeating a consistent criticism of past reports, the IEG found that monitoring and evaluation (M&E) \u2018remains weak\u2019, while \u2018evaluation is almost nonexistent\u2019. Only 27% of projects had \u2018substantial or high\u2019 M&E structures. This has led to \u2018irrelevant objectives, inappropriate project designs, unrealistic targets, inability to measure the effectiveness of interventions.\u2019 Even those projects that meet their objectives \u2018may be performing at substantially lower levels than their outcomes would suggest\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"2009 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction: Risk and poverty in a changing climate","field_subtitle":"PreventionWeb: 2009","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=43547","body":"This first edition of the biennial Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) aims to review and analyse the natural hazards threatening humanity and seeks to provide new evidence on how, where and why disaster risk is increasing globally. It found that economic development increases a country\u2019s exposure at the same time as it decreases its vulnerability, but this trend was more pronounced in low- and middle-income countries with rapidly growing economies. More than two thirds of the mortality and economic losses from internationally reported disasters were related to climate change and natural disasters. The translation of poverty into risk is conditioned by the capacity of urban and local governments to plan and regulate urban development, enable access to safe land and provide protection for poor households. Community- and local-level approaches can increase the relevance, effectiveness and sustainability of DRR across all practice areas, reduce costs and build social capital.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"A critical review of interventions to redress the inequitable distribution of healthcare professionals to rural and remote areas","field_subtitle":"Wilson NW, Couper ID, de Vries E, Reid S, Fish T and Marais BJ: Rural and Remote Health 9(1060), 5 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.rrh.org.au/publishedarticles/article_print_1060.pdf","body":"This review provides a comprehensive overview of the most important studies addressing the recruitment and retention of doctors in rural and remote areas. A comprehensive search identified 1,261 references and, of these, 110 articles were included. Available evidence was classified into five intervention categories: selection, education, coercion, incentives and support. The review argues for the formulation of universal definitions for the above categories to assist study comparison and future collaborative research. Although coercive strategies address short-term recruitment needs, little evidence supports their long-term positive impact. Current evidence only supports the implementation of well-defined selection and education policies, although incentive and support schemes may have value. There remains an urgent need to evaluate the impact of untested interventions in a scientifically rigorous fashion in order to identify winning strategies for guiding future practice and policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and free trade agreements have adverse impact on access to drugs","field_subtitle":"Raja K: Third World Network, 15 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/wto.info/2009/twninfo20090609.htm","body":"The World Trade Organization\u2019s TRIPS Agreement and the TRIPS-plus provisions in free trade agreements (FTAs) have had an adverse impact on prices and availability of medicines, making it difficult for developing countries (DCs) and least-developed countries (LDCs) to meet their obligations to fulfill the right to health, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Anand Grover, has said. Similarly, lack of capacity coupled with external pressures from developed countries has made it difficult for DCs and LDCs to use TRIPS flexibilities to promote access to medicines. He recommended that DCs and LDCs should not introduce TRIPS-plus standards in their national laws, nor should they enter into TRIPS-plus FTAs that may infringe upon the right to health. He recommended that they should review their laws and policies and consider whether they have made full use of TRIPS flexibilities or included TRIPS-plus measures and, if necessary, amend their laws and policies to make full use of the flexibilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS and global health","field_subtitle":"Gomes M: Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS, 15 June 2009","field_url":"","body":"A new report released before The High-Level Forum on Advancing Global Health in the Face of Crisis, which took place on 15 June 2009, suggests that the response to AIDS is an opportunity to improve health systems worldwide. Other areas that contribute to health solutions, such as human rights, the law and education, need to be embraced to maximise outcomes, and health equity must be addressed. The report argues that the main issues that need to be addressed are: the shortfall in health resources, despite increases in investment in global health; the need to strengthen community services, despite the beneficial effects from an increase in AIDS resources being spent on health and community systems; the need to link AIDS treatment and HIV prevention to other health issues, such as sexual reproductive health, tuberculosis and safe motherhood. A lesson learned is that social determinants, such as gender inequality, lack of education and poverty, must be addressed when addressing global health needs.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/34091","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"An assessment of interactions between global health initiatives and country health systems","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization Maximizing Positive Synergies Collaborative Group: The Lancet 373(9681):2137 - 2169, 20 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60919-3/fulltext","body":"Have disease-specific global health initiatives (GHIs) burdened health systems that are already fragile in poor countries or have they been undermined by weak health systems? This study reviews and analyses existing data and 15 new studies that were submitted to the World Health Organization for the purpose of writing this report. It makes some general recommendations and identifies a series of action points for international partners, governments, and other stakeholders that will help ensure that investments in GHIs and country health systems can fulfil their potential to produce comprehensive and lasting results in disease-specific work, and advance the general public health agenda. If adjustments to the interactions between GHIs and country health systems will improve efficiency, equity, value for money and outcomes in global public health, then these opportunities should not be missed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Apocalypse or redemption? Responding to extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis ","field_subtitle":"Upshur R, Singh J and Ford N: World Health Organization Bulletin, June 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/6/08-051698.pdf","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched an eight-point plan to respond to extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB): strengthen the quality of basic TB and HIV/AIDS control; scale up programmatic management of multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and XDR-TB; strengthen laboratory services; expand MDR-TB and XDR-TB surveillance; develop and implement infection control measures; strengthen advocacy, communication and social mobilization; pursue resource mobilisation at all levels; and promote research and development of new tools. Additional considerations included: conducting adherence research; building the evidence-base for infection control practices; supporting communities affected by TB; enhancing public health response, while addressing the social determinants of health; embracing palliative care; and advocacy for research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's grant-making programme for global health","field_subtitle":"McCoy D, Kembhavi G, Patel J and Luintel A: The Lancet 373(9675):1645\u20131653, 9 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60571-7/fulltext","body":"Although the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation\u2019s contribution to global health generally receives acclaim, fairly little is known about its grant-making programme. This paper is an analysis of 1,094 global health grants awarded between January 1998 and December 2007, totalling US$895 billion, of which $582 billion (65%) was shared by only 20 organisations. In total, $362 billion (40% of all funding) was given to supranational organisations such as the World Health Organization, the GAVI Alliance, the World Bank, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Of the remaining amount, 82% went to recipients based in the United States. Just over a third ($327 billion) of funding was allocated to research and development (mainly for vaccines and microbicides) or to basic science research. The findings of this report raise several questions about the foundation's global health grant-making programme, which needs further research and assessment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Bring South Africa\u2019s national health insurance debate into the public domain","field_subtitle":"Broomberg J: Health-e news, 2 June 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032322","body":"At this stage, very little is known about the details of the South African government\u2019s national health insurance (NHI) proposals, as all discussions are being held behind closed doors. However, key elements of the proposals are reported to include implementing a dedicated payroll tax for healthcare and establishing an administrative infrastructure to oversee these funds. The author, who is the head of strategy and risk management at Discovery Health (a private health services provider in South Africa) makes four proposals: transparent and vigorous public debate, based on hard evidence, is needed; healthcare reform, including NHI, must uplift the standards of public healthcare and improve the quality and accessibility of decent healthcare for all South Africans; healthcare reform must be rooted in South Africa\u2019s economic realities; and South Africa\u2019s private healthcare system should be seen as part of the solution, not part of the problem.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for contributions to debate on \u2018Health for All\u2019","field_subtitle":"The Broker: June 2009","field_url":"http://www.thebrokeronline.eu/en/Debate/Health-for-all","body":"The Broker is hosting the debate on 'Health for All' following up on the special report published in Issue 12, which argues that there is an urgent need to improve universal access to health care by means of a radical new approach to health. All contributions to this debate are now available online at the address given below. For those of you who didn't have time yet to respond, please feel free to join the discussion now. You can add comments directly to individual contributions online.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for feedback on the World Health Organization Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel: Background paper ","field_subtitle":"All contributions welcome","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/10/08-058578/en/index.html","body":"The draft code sets out guiding principles and voluntary international standards for recruitment of health workers, to increase the consistency of national policies and discourage unethical practices, while promoting an equitable balance of interests among health workers, source countries and destination countries. Consistent with contemporary international legal practice, the initial draft of the code also aims to establish an international procedural structure to foster national dialogue, commitment and action on health worker migration. It does not aim to comprehensively address and resolve all of the complex substantive issues raised by the international recruitment of health personnel. Rather, its goal is to provide a straightforward framework and platform on which to launch negotiations. World Health Organization member states may potentially consider and elaborate more detailed national and international commitments in the final version of the code or in future international instruments. Feedback comments are invited on the World Health Organization paper on the code. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Citizens must engage and respond to new global crises","field_subtitle":"United Nations Development Programme: 21 June 2009","field_url":"http://content.undp.org/go/newsroom/2009/june/citizens-must-engage-and-respond-to-new-global-crises.en","body":"Climate change and the current global economic crisis bring an unprecedented opportunity to transform global governance, which must start giving priority to human development and citizen engagement, civil society organisations said at the launch of Platform HD2010 in New York on 5 June, a partnership that will include civil society in addressing the current global crises in the poorest countries. The partnership\u2019s recommendations will contribute to the 20-year review of the United Nations Development Programme\u2019s (UNDP) Human Development Report. Civil society representatives have called on the UNDP to create and expand opportunities for citizen engagement in development initiatives and to work together in addressing the concerns of the poor, who have been the hardest hit by the current economic and climate crises. The partnership will also contribute to the ten-year review of the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals, both of which are taking place next year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Compensation for the brain drain from developing countries","field_subtitle":"Agwu K and Llewelyn M: The Lancet 373(9676):1665\u2013 1666, 16 May 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60927-2/fulltext","body":"In January, 2009, the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) Executive Board considered the adoption of a global code of practice to address the movement of health workers from developing countries, the \u2018WHO Draft Code of Practice for the International Recruitment of Health Workers\u2019. This attention to brain drain is welcome, but the initiative does not begin to adequately address the consequences or roots of health-worker migration from sub-Saharan Africa to the rich developed world, especially to the United Kingdom, United States and Canada. The movement of skilled health workers constitutes a major transfer of riches from poor societies to the affluent, and the only appropriate redress is a bilaterally managed scheme of direct reimbursement of the value lost, along the lines proposed by Mensah and colleagues in 2005.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Concerns voiced at Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Council over seizure of drugs","field_subtitle":"Shashikant S: Third World Network, 16 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/wto.info/2009/twninfo20090611.htm","body":"The repeated practice of European Community (EC) customs officials seizing shipments of medicines while in transit to developing countries on grounds of alleged intellectual property violations has once again come under sharp criticism in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Protest by developing countries came at a formal session of the TRIPS Council on 8 June. The developing countries expressed concern over the European Union's (EU) commitment to the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health and the flexibilities inscribed in the TRIPS Agreement. They said that the EU was confusing legitimate generic medicines with counterfeit fakes. Furthermore, the EU was also undermining poor countries' ability to obtain cheaper generic medicines. India called upon the EC to urgently review their legislation and the actions of their national authorities and bring them in conformity with the letter and spirit of the TRIPS Agreement, the rules-based WTO system and the Doha Ministerial Declaration on Public Health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Conference on Healthcare and Trade","field_subtitle":"10 \u201311 December 2009, Rotterdam, Netherlands","field_url":"","body":"The Erasmus Observatory on Health Law will be hosting the upcoming  International Conference on Healthcare and Trade on the 10th and 11th of December, 2009. The conference will focus on the influence of the law of both the European Union and the World Trade Organization on trade in health services, health insurance services and health goods (pharmaceuticals). The application of the European Community Treaty, the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to national regulation of health services, health insurance services and pharmaceuticals raises questions of applicability of, compatibility with and possible exceptions to the provisions of these instruments. Further research and discussion in this area is ongoing. The conference aims to contribute to the discussion, attempting to formulate both legal and economic answers. Please refer to the programme and the application form attached to this news item.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/34041","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Consensus is still missing","field_subtitle":"Villar E: The Broker, 7 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.thebrokeronline.eu/en/Debate/Health-for-all/Consensus-is-still-missing","body":"There is overall consensus that recent decades have seen an increase in inequities in general and in health in particular. Some less-developed countries are showing deteriorating health outcome averages (in some cases due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic), as a result of the widening gap between poor and rich. The epidemiological transition has been quoted as one contributing factor. What is missing is consensus around what the solutions are. There have been justified criticisms that private foundations \u2013 the big health spenders \u2013 are too technocratic and disease-specific to make an impact. The way forward is argued to need more comprehensive government leadership, acting beyond the health sector, through comprehensive approaches and processes that deal with diseases in an equitable and effective way.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Counterfeit medical products: Need for caution against co-opting public health concerns for intellectual property protection and enforcement","field_subtitle":"Center for International Environmental Law and South Centre: IP Quarterly Update, 1st Quarter, June 2009","field_url":"http://www.ciel.org/Publications/IP_Update_1Q09.pdf","body":"The World Health Organization\u2019s report and draft resolution, Principles and Elements of National Legislation against Counterfeit Medical Products, presented at their annual meeting in January emphasises counterfeit medical products as the central health problem pertaining to quality, safety and efficacy of medicines, while paying scant attention to equally significant public health problems of falsely labelled, spurious and substandard drugs. This article discusses the ramifications of the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT), which wrote the report and resolution, and concludes that all role players should consider the negative implications of anti-counterfeiting actions, such as how the seizure of suspected intellectual property-infringing medicines in transit will affect access to medicines and the right to health, plus anti-counterfeiting legislation in various countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Counterfeits left off World Health Assembly\u2019s agenda","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Third World Network, 4 June 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/2009/twnhealthinfo20090601.htm","body":"Counterfeit medicines were left off this year\u2019s World Health Assembly agenda in May, and some countries suggested that the World Health Organization (WHO) was overstepping its mandate into intellectual property enforcement rather than public health. \u2018WHO will not do the work of WIPO [World Intellectual Property Organization] or the WTO [World Trade Organization]\u2019, by becoming involved in IP, WHO\u2019s director general, Margaret Chan, has said. Nevertheless counterfeit medicines were felt by others to be an isssue, and appear in the medium-term strategic plan, which outlines WHO\u2019s expected activities for the years 2008\u20132013. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Cross-community comparability of attitude questions: An application of item response theory ","field_subtitle":"Tfaily R: International Journal of Social Research Methodology 1464(5300), 8 June 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/ftinterface~content=a912276283~fulltext=713240930","body":"The use of attitude questions is very common in comparative surveys as it allows researchers to gauge the perspectives of respondents toward social issues and explain cross-country differentials in attitudes. Comparative studies implicitly assume that equivalently worded items are measuring the same construct in different settings. However, the results of these studies might be questionable if the measurement invariant assumption is violated and different groups of respondents do not have a shared understanding of the attitude items. This paper uses item response theory to compare the measurement of items and to test whether equivalently worded attitude questions about family dissolution are understood in the same way across various communities in India, Malaysia, Pakistan and the Philippines. The paper also examines the interaction between the respondent's gender, the sex of the spouse leaving the marriage and the responses to the attitude questions about acceptability of family dissolution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Depoliticise the fight against HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"ActionAid: May 2009","field_url":"http://www.actionaid.org/main.aspx?PageID=1350","body":"A three-day summit on HIV and AIDS in May this year called on governments to depoliticise the fight against HIV and AIDS and take the lead in fighting the scourge rather than leave it to donors and lobbyist. the Global Citizens Summit held in Nairobi represented citizens from 32 nationals among them National AIDS Control Council representatives (commissioners) from seven countries in Africa and donors from Europe and the Americas. There were calls to ensure that citizens take their rightful place in the fight. Two recommendations that came from the meeting were: expand and diversify testing options (door to door, self testing and male-targeted testing) and make HIV testing a universal agenda. National governments must also provide incentives to promote care and support initiatives for citizens, such as tax exemptions for caregivers, social protection for caregivers and people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHAs), and micro-enterprise funds targeted at caregivers and PLWHAs. Nutrition should be made part of treatment \u2013 both national governments and donors should aim to promote food sovereignty at the household level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 74: Parliamentary committee experiences on promoting the right to health in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"London L, Mbombo N, Thomas J, Loewenson R, Mulumba M, Mukono A: School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town, TARSC, SEAPACOH, June 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DISS74parlrights09.pdf","body":"Parliaments can play a key role in promoting the right to health in east and southern Africa. To better understand and support the practical implementation of this role, this report presents the findings of a questionnaire administered to parliamentary committees on health from 12 countries in the region. Knowledge of international human rights and related laws pertaining to the right to health was found to be limited. Parliamentarians were more likely to be familiar with Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) applications and with the provisions of the Abuja Declaration than with rights agreements such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), its General Comment 14 or the African Charter on Peoples and Human Rights. Important gains could be made if parliamentarians were able to analyse, interpret and integrate these agreements into their work. \r\nThe main challenges facing parliamentarians appear to be: how to deal with policy choices under conditions of severe resource constraints and, particularly, the application of the concept of progressive realisation of the right to health; how to balance individualist concepts of rights with rights claims that benefit groups so that it is not simply a question of those who shout the loudest getting access to decision making processes; and how to structure engagement with civil society to preference groups who are most marginalised \u2013 a pro-poor application in human rights practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Does ratification of human-rights treaties have effects on population health?","field_subtitle":"Palmer A, Tomkinson J, Phung C, Ford N, Joffres M,  Fernandes K, Zeng L, Lima V,  Montaner J,  Guyatt G and Mills EJ: The Lancet: 373(9679):1987\u20131992, 6 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60231-2/fulltext","body":"This paper assesses whether ratification of human-rights treaties is associated with improved health and social indicators. Data for health (including HIV prevalence, and maternal, infant, and child [","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic crisis no excuse to cut funds, says United Nations secretary-general PlusNews: 17 June 2009","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=3929","body":"International donors must continue meeting their commitments to HIV/AIDS, even in the face of the economic downturn, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has urged. In 2006, the Assembly pledged to achieve universal access to comprehensive HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010. UNAIDS has said that achieving these targets in the timeframe would require an estimated US$25 billion. In 2008, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was forced to cut funding by 10% and the World Bank projects that the global recession could place the treatment of more than 1.7 million at risk by the end of 2009. \u2018I fear that many governments are resigned to reducing programmes and diminished expectations,\u2019 said Miguel D'Escoto, President of the UN General Assembly. \u2018But it is precisely when times are difficult that our true values and the sincerity of our commitment are most clearly evident. If we allow cuts now, we will face increased costs and great human suffering in the future.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Embezzlement of donor funding in health projects","field_subtitle":"Semrau K, Scott N and Vian T: Chr. Michelsen Institute U4 Brief 11, 2008","field_url":"http://www.cmi.no/publications/file/?3031=embezzlement-of-donor-funding-in-health-projects","body":"Donor funding has fuelled a vast increase in service delivery, medical research and clinical trials throughout the developing world, yet, with pressures to spend funds quickly and achieve results, projects may not pay sufficient attention to internal monitoring and security systems to protect against embezzlement. This U4 Brief analyses how this type of corruption occurred in a donor-funded project, and what can be done to minimise the risk. While not widely publicised, many organisations have dealt with the frustrations of financial mismanagement, embezzlement and theft. Recommendations include tighter financial controls, better management policies and channels for disclosure. For projects that are just beginning, establishing a sound financial system should be a priority. Changes in policies, procedures and reporting can help promote a culture of compliance and avoid corruption.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 101: Health equity: To the centre of the global health agenda? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET PRA paper: Acceptibility and accessibility of HIV testing and treatment services in Bembeyi, Bunia, North-eastern DR Congo","field_subtitle":"Baba A, Ulola M, Assea M, Ngule D, Azanda N: Institut Panafricain de Sant\u00e9 Communautaire (IPASC), DR Congo: June 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRA%20Rep%20IPASC%20May09.pdf","body":"In the DR Congo, where the national HIV prevalence is around 5%, testing and treatment services are more available in urban than rural areas, despite the latter being more affected by the epidemic. In Bunia and Aru, North eastern DRC, people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) cannot access testing or treatment services unless they travel to Bunia town, some distance away. Discrimination from community members towards PLWHA is further identified as a reason for people not coming for HIV testing, and for discouraging other prevention activities. The Pan African Institute of Community Health (IPASC) used a participatory reflection and action (PRA) approach with the concerned rural communities to examine and act on negative perceptions within the community around HIV testing and treatment, to support improved demand for and uptake of these services, to make more effective use of available resources and services.  The PRA work showed that a major lesson learned for Primary Health Care responses to AIDS is that communities are able to make significant changes in barriers to testing and treatment if organised to do so, particularly using participatory processes. Community based sensitisers are an important resource in the community to produce change in those attitudes that discourage early testing and treatment, supported by actions that address disabling conditions within the community and that build cohesion around addressing wider service problems. PHC interventions for AIDS that do not invest in these dimensions in an empowering way undermine the effective use of other resources and the necessary synergy between communities and health services needed to manage a chronic condition such as AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"European Court of Auditors: EU systematically neglects non-state actors in its development aid programmes","field_subtitle":"European Court of Auditors: 18 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.eepa.be/wcm/images/infonotereportECNSA.pdf","body":"Non-state actors (NSAs) are systematically neglected in European Union (EU) development assistance programmes, according to this report. It identifies EU practices that are violating its European Consensus on Development policy statement. It found that, despite the European Community\u2019s (EC\u2019s) attempts, NSAs' involvement has been limited and falls short of the sustained and structured dialogue envisaged by the EU legislation and the Commission\u2019s own guidelines. The EC often does not commit enough time and resources to ensure that its delegations involve relevant NSAs throughout the whole process. EC's development aid programmes are reported to often engage NSAs solely as service providers or short-term consultants, without the follow-up and impact needed for sustainability and effectiveness. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Failing women, failing children: HIV, vertical transmission and women\u2019s health: On-the-ground research in Argentina, Cambodia, Moldova, Morocco, Uganda and Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"International Treatment Preparedness Coalition: May 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/lbtjn3","body":"Research conducted by civil society activists in various countries, including Uganda and Zimbabwe, shows that efforts to prevent vertical transmission are failing to reach the very group they were designed for \u2013 HIV-positive pregnant women. One of the key reasons for this is that the national programmes have been narrowly focused on providing antiretroviral prophylaxis and not on the other essentials \u2013 prevention, counselling, care and treatment for women and children. \u2018On paper, the existing global programme is a model of sound design, human rights principles and a comprehensive approach\u2019, the researchers noted. \u2018In practice, it is a shameful demonstration of double standards and another instance of women's programming for which everyone and no one at the United Nations is in charge.\u2019 In every country, the researchers found rampant fear of stigma among women and discrimination by health care workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Fair tests of health-care policies and treatments: A request for help from readers","field_subtitle":"Bulletin of the World Health Organization, June 2009","field_url":"","body":"The Bulletin of the World Health Organization would appreciate assistance from Bulletin readers to address the question: What is a fair test of a health-care policy? There are three ways in which you can do this: provide examples of randomised evaluations of health-care policies, provide examples of compelling evidence from non-randomised evaluations of health-care policies and provide early examples of treatment evaluations If you are aware of examples relevant to any of the three categories described above, please send copies of them, identifying the key passages and providing a translation if the text is not in English, by post, facsimile or e-mail. Postal address: Bulletin of the World Health Organization Project, c/o James Lind Initiative, Summertown Pavilion, Middle Way, Oxford OX2 7LG, England. Fax: +44 1865 516 311. Your help will be acknowledged explicitly unless you instruct otherwise.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Fallout from economic partnership agreement negotiations: Africa on the brink of disintegration","field_subtitle":"Hormeku T: African Trade Agenda, Third World Network, 31 May 2009","field_url":"","body":"On June 4, in Brussels, the European Union (EU) signed an interim economic partnership agreement with Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland against the wishes of Angola, Namibia, and South Africa. This has made imminent an acrimonious break-up of Africa's oldest customs union, the Southern African Customs Union (SACU). Such an eventuality also raises doubts over the merger, scheduled for next year, of SACU and the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) into a single customs union under the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Signing any agreements that result in reductions in customs revenue could devastate the treasuries of the countries concerned. Lesotho earns about 60% of its state revenue through the SACU revenue-sharing arrangement, while Swaziland earns as much as 70%. Compensating for such loss through taxation could lead to a doubling of value-added tax rates and a tripling of corporate taxes.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/34076","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing of global health: tracking development assistance for health from 1990 to 2007","field_subtitle":"Ravishankar N, Gubbins P,  Cooley RJ, Leach-Kemon K,  Michaud CM, Jamison DT and  Murray CJL: The Lancet 373(9681):2113\u20132124, 20 June 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60881-3/fulltext","body":"This study aimed to provide a comprehensive assessment of development assistance for health (DAH) from 1990 to 2007. It used several data sources to measure the yearly volume of DAH in 2007 United States dollars, and created an integrated project database to examine the composition of this assistance by recipient country. It found that DAH grew from $5.6 billion in 1990 to $21.8 billion in 2007. DAH has risen sharply since 2002 because of increases in public funding, especially from the USA, and on the private side, from increased philanthropic donations and in-kind contributions from corporate donors. Although the rise in DAH has resulted in increased funds for HIV/AIDS, other areas of global health have also expanded. The influx of funds has been accompanied by major changes in the institutional landscape of global health, with global health initiatives such as the Global Fund and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization having a central role in mobilising and channelling global health funds.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"First research phase of \u2018Strengthening Institutions to Improve Public Expenditure Accountability' begins","field_subtitle":"Global Development Network: June 2009","field_url":"http://www.gdnet.org/cms.php?id=dfid_funded_project","body":"Thirty-two delegates participated in the global workshop that marked the first research phase of the Global Development Network\u2019s (GDN\u2019s) UK Department for International Development-funded project, \u2018Strengthening Institutions to Improve Public Expenditure Accountability\u2019, in Washington DC on 18\u201320 May. For the first year of the project, partners will conduct programme budget and benefit incidence analysis in the three programme sectors: education, health and water. Next year, partners will receive technical training on the subsequent programme analytical activity \u2013 cost effective analysis \u2013 and start implementing their communication plans in order to inform policymakers on their findings and budget reform proposals. Participating in the meeting were fifteen partner institutions, including from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"GDN-AERC workshop on institutional capacity strengthening","field_subtitle":"Kenya: September 2009","field_url":"http://www.gdnet.org/cms.php?id=undp-aerc","body":"The Global Development Network (GDN) and the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) jointly organised a workshop for their United Nations Development Programme-funded project in Cape Town, South Africa, on 7\u20138 May 2009: Institutional Capacity Strengthening of African Public Policy Institutes to Support Inclusive Growth and the Millennium Development Goals. This was the third event for the project, following the workshop in Kuwait (February 2009) and the initial planning meeting held in Accra (June 2008). The objective of the project is to provide support to enhance knowledge management capacity for African Policy Research Institutes and networks with a particular focus on tackling the issues of poverty and hunger within the global Millennium Development Goals framework. It will seek to strengthen multi-disciplinary research capacity on poverty analysis and contribute to bridging the gap between research and policy on poverty reduction and sustainable development. Papers from the workshop are expected to be finalised by the end of July 2009.  Policy briefs, based on the final papers, will be produced by the relevant institutions. The group also chalked out a dissemination strategy for the project. A concluding workshop has been scheduled for Kenya, in September 2009. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization and Gates Foundation deploy industry-favoured incentive for vaccines to poor countries ","field_subtitle":"New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 12 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/06/12/gavi-gates-deploy-industry-favoured-incentive-for-vaccines-to-poor-countries/","body":"Major public health funders have alighted upon an industry-favoured approach of guaranteeing certain prices to industry to make vaccines available to least-developed country markets. The pilot project, the AMC Approach, announced on 12 June, provides nearly US$3 billion to make (presumably patented) vaccines against pneumococcal disease available sooner to the world\u2019s poorest countries. There will be a commitment by industry to continue offering the vaccines at \u201clower and sustainable\u201d prices after the funding runs out, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) said. The current pneumococcal vaccine is sold for more US$70 per dose in industrialised countries, while the new project will make the \u2018long term\u2019 price for developing countries US$3.50, GAVI added. It hopes to assist up to 60 of the world\u2019s poorest countries to introduce these vaccines by 2015, well ahead of the time it might take without subsidising industry. A World Health Organization working group is set to discuss the issue from 29 June to 1 July.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Development Network\u2019s health project to disseminate results","field_subtitle":"Pretoria: 2\u20133 July; Accra: 6\u20137 July; Bangkok: 10\u201311 July; Delhi: 13\u201314 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.gdnet.org/cms.php?id=grp_details&amp%3Bgrp_id=4","body":"The Global Development Network (GDN) has undertaken a research project entitled \u2018Promoting Innovative Programs from the Developing World: Towards Realizing the Health Millennium Development Goals in Africa and Asia\u2019. The study involved 20 different health interventions in 20 emerging and developing countries. Each of the studies was carried out by local researchers mentored by an international team of 10 economists and 10 public health officials. The purpose was to use state-of-the-art technology to evaluate the impact of each of these interventions and, in particular, to determine how the more successful ones could be replicated or, scaled up. With the successful completion of the project, the research will be shared with a vast range of stakeholders in workshops around the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health actors claim to support health system strengthening: Is this reality or rhetoric?","field_subtitle":"Marchal B, Cavalli A, Kegels G: PLoS Med 6(4), 28 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000059","body":"The researchers in this paper identify a gap between what most international health organisations say they are doing to strengthen health systems, and the reality on the ground. Although global health actors claim to be strengthening health systems, the authors argue that they engage almost exclusively with activities that match their own specific aims; tend to concentrate on single diseases, and focus on strengthening elements of health systems essential to their own programmes. Part of the problem, say the researchers, is that the term 'health system strengthening' is being used for any capacity building. They call for a definition that is both shared and consistently applied.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Right to Health Care Campaign launched","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement: 11 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/cms/en/campaigns/145/page","body":"The People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM) has initiated a Global Right to Health Care (RTHC) Campaign to be developed in collaboration with various networks, coalitions and organisations sharing a similar perspective. This campaign will document violations of health rights, present country level assessments of the right to health care and advocate for fulfillment of commitments to the right to health care at the national, regional and global levels. The campaign has three phases of action: Phase 1 is concerned with the production of diagnostic assessment reports on the RTHC in more than 20 countries; Phase 2 is concerned with the development and interactions of regional assemblies to share results and enable a dialogue between PHM and partners; and Phase 3 looks to the issue of global expansion by implementing Phase 2 conclusions and recommendations and drafting and submitting time-bound resolutions on health rights. To get involved, contact Claudio Schuftan at the email address provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Governance and global institutions: Parliaments and governance in the developing world","field_subtitle":"Wilton Park Conference: 26\u201329 October 2009","field_url":"http://www.wiltonpark.org.uk/themes/governance/conference.aspx?confref=WP999","body":"This conference on strengthening parliaments and governance in the developing world is the third in a series of annual conferences organised in association with the Department for International Development (DFID), the World Bank Institute and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. The conference brings together ministers, senior parliamentarians, donors and experts to discuss topical issues affecting parliaments in the developing world. To find out more information, visit the website address provided here.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health equity: To the centre of the global health agenda?","field_subtitle":"Kumanan Rasanathan, Eugenio Villar Montesinos,  Department of Ethics, Equity, Trade and Human Rights, World Health Organization, Geneva","field_url":"","body":"\r\nA concern for health equity is not new in global health. Equity was central to the World Health Organization (WHO) 1946 constitution, and to the work that culminated in the Declaration of Alma Ata in 1978. Despite this, the health agenda has mostly focused on securing progress on priority challenges. This has contributed to substantial advances in average life expectancy in most parts of the world. Yet the global health community has often seemed unable to counter the widening inequities brought by uneven progress.\r\n\r\nThe recently completed World Health Assembly has the potential to be a turning point in addressing health inequities. Two resolutions were passed, fundamentally grounded in a concern for equity and social justice - one on 'primary health care, including health systems strengthening' (available at http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/A62/A62_R12-en.pdf) , and another on 'reducing health inequities through action on the social determinants of health' (available at http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/A62/A62_R14-en.pdf). \r\n\r\nAround 50 countries spoke in strong support of the resolution on primary health care, and almost 40 countries intervened in support of acting on the social determinants. There was a constructive consensus in favour of both texts, with discussion centred on the strength and tone of the resolutions. Throughout the Assembly, multiple references were made to the importance of social justice and fairness in the plenary and across the agenda items.\r\n\r\nThe events that sparked these resolutions from WHO - the convening of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health in 2005 and the groundswell of support from countries for the renewal of primary health care, leading to the 2008 World Health Report - reflect an increasing understanding and intolerance for widening health inequities in the modern era. There is increasing support for the idea that health equity should be seen as a key development goal and as a measure of the progress of the global community. \r\n\r\nSuch consensual support would have been unthinkable until relatively recently and has strongly built on the explosion in knowledge of health inequities, both within and between countries, in the last twenty years. The broad range of civil society and academia have made important contributions in terms of advocacy, the generation of knowledge and the demonstration of innovative strategies to address the social determinants. The Commission's damning diagnosis - 'social injustice is killing people on a grand scale' - owes much to this work.\r\n\r\nSo what now? The twin resolutions call for a broad range of actions based on the values of Alma Ata from the international community, member states and the WHO secretariat. The Assembly's understanding of both primary health care and addressing the social determinants of health emphasises the key role of multi-sectoral action, beyond the necessary but insufficient functioning of health systems, if health inequities are to be reduced. Achieving such action issues a difficult challenge to health leaders at global, national and local levels.\r\n\r\nAnyone who believes in health equity should be encouraged by these developments. Of course, the resolutions by themselves will not achieve health for all. But they provide a powerful endorsement of the report of the Commission and of the need for renewal of primary health care. The challenge in implementing these resolutions, to contribute towards improved health equity, is one to which civil society can continue to make a vital and essential contribution.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat  admin@equinetafrica.org. For further information on this issue please visit http://www.who.int/topics/primary_health_care/en/ for PHC and http://www.who.int/social_determinants/en/index.html for SDH.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV and AIDS prevention efforts and infection patterns in Africa mismatched","field_subtitle":"Colvin M, Gorgens-Albino M and Kasedde S: UNAIDS, May 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.unaidsrstesa.org/files/MoT_0.pdf","body":"Between 2007 and 2008, UNAIDS and the World Bank partnered with the national AIDS authorities of Kenya, Lesotho, Swaziland, Uganda and Mozambique to find out how and where most HIV infections were occurring in each country, and whether existing prevention efforts and expenditure matched these findings. The recently released reports reveal that few prevention programmes are based on existing evidence of what drives HIV and AIDS epidemics in the five countries surveyed. For example, in Mozambique, 19% of new HIV infections resulted from sex work, 3% from injecting drug use, and 5% from men who have sex with men (MSM), yet there are very few programmes targeting sex workers, and none aimed at drug users and MSM. The research also found that spending on HIV prevention was often simply too low: Lesotho spent just 13% of its national AIDS budget on prevention, whereas Uganda spent 34%, despite having an HIV infection rate of only 5.4%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Intellectual property issues from the 124th Session of the World Health Organization\u2019s Executive Board","field_subtitle":"Center for International Environmental Law and South Centre: IP Quarterly Update, 1st Quarter, June 2009","field_url":"http://www.ciel.org/Publications/IP_Update_1Q09.pdf","body":"Intellectual property (IP) issues were raised at the 124th Session of the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) Executive Board in January in respect of the following technical and health matters: pandemic influenza preparedness (sharing of influenza viruses, access to vaccines and other benefits); the role and responsibility of WHO in health research; counterfeit medical products; and a global strategy and plan of action for the Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and IP. A draft of the \u2018WHO Strategy on Research for Health\u2019 was presented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Japanese Award for Most Innovative Development Project (MIDP)","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 24 August 2009","field_url":"http://www.gdnet.org/cms.php?id=2009_awards_medals_announcement","body":"The Global Development Network (GDN) is now accepting submissions for the 2009 Annual Global Development Awards and Medals Competition for the Japanese Award for Most Innovative Development Project. A competitive grant programme administered by GDN, the competition provides an opportunity for organisations to expand their on-going field work in any development related project. Finalists are invited to attend the Annual Global Development Conference, held each year in a different country, to showcase their project proposals before an eminent jury for the final round. This year the Annual Conference will be held in Prague from January 16-18, 2010. The winning proposal will receive a cash award of US$30,000 and the runner-up organisation will receive US$5,000.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Lasting Benefits: The role of cash transfers in tackling child mortality ","field_subtitle":"Yablonski J and O\u2019Donnell M: Save the Children Fund, June 2009","field_url":"http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/docs/Lasting_Benefits.pdf","body":"Over the past decade, an increasing number of developing country governments, working with donors and NGOs, have been implementing cash transfer programmes \u2014 regular transfers of cash to individuals or households. These programmes are united by common assumptions: that income poverty has a highly damaging impact on people\u2019s health and nutrition, and that cash empowers poor individuals and households to make their own decisions on how to improve their lives. This report examines three key questions: What contribution can cash transfers make to reducing child mortality? What are the broader economic benefits of investing in cash transfers? How can child-focused cash transfers be affordable in developing countries? The report argues that cash transfers have a critical role to play in accelerating reductions in child mortality, as well as broader economic benefits. It estimates current costs and finds that child and maternity benefits are possible on a large scale, even in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Making sense of the Millennium Development Goals: Addressing inequality to achieving the Millennium Development Goals","field_subtitle":"Vandemoortele J: Society for International Development, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/mgxd2l","body":"Several misunderstandings have arisen about the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The biggest is that every country must achieve the same numerical targets (for example, halve poverty by 2015), which is incorrect because global performance is an average of all countries\u2019 performance, so some countries will perform above and below average in order to achieve them. A one-size-fits-all approach will not work, as different countries have followed different approaches and strategies for achieving social and economic progress, with varying costs. Unless disparities within countries are addressed, the MDGs will not be met by 2015. To formulate a homegrown MDG-based national development strategy to address inequality and to achieve the MDGs, the author proposes four practical steps: tailor the global targets to make them context-sensitive, set intermediate targets for political accountability, translate targets into specific programmes and policies, and cost programmatic and policy interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Managing the health effects of climate change","field_subtitle":"Costello A, Abbas M, Allen A, Ball S, Bell S, Bellamy R, Friel S, Groce N, Johnson A, Kett M, Lee M, Levy C, Maslin M, McCoy D, McGuire B, Montgomery H, Napier D, Pagel C, Patel J, de Oliveira JAP, Redclift N, Rees H, Rogger D, Scott J, Stephenson J, Twig","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60935-1/fulltext","body":"Effects of climate change on health will affect most populations in the next decades and put the lives and wellbeing of billions of people at increased risk. During this century, earth's average surface temperature rises are likely to exceed the safe threshold of 2\u00b0C above preindustrial average temperature. Rises will be greater at higher latitudes, with medium-risk scenarios predicting 2\u20133\u00b0C rises by 2090 and 4\u20135\u00b0C rises in northern Canada, Greenland, and Siberia. This report outlines the major threats \u2013 both direct and indirect \u2013 to global health from climate change through changing patterns of disease, water and food insecurity, vulnerable shelter and human settlements, extreme climatic events, and population growth and migration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Moving the fight from the boardroom to the ground ","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 28 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84601","body":"The war against HIV/AIDS, which has too often been fought in plush offices and conference centres, needs to be reclaimed by people in developing countries, who are most affected, or it will continue to be a losing battle. This was the message from the Global Citizens Summit in Nairobi, Kenya from 27-29 May 2009, organised by international anti-poverty agency ActionAid, and attended by a broad range of organisations in the field of HIV and AIDS to discuss using social mobilisation to \u2018repackage\u2019 the HIV response. \u2018The fight against HIV did not originate in boardrooms\u2019, said ActionAid. \u2018It was citizens rising up to make their voices heard and to put AIDS on the agenda. We need to go back there.\u2019 Participants pointed out that although community-based organisations did the lion's share of HIV-care work, they received only a fraction of global AIDS funding.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"National health insurance on the horizon for South Africa","field_subtitle":"Ncayiyana DL: South African Medical Journal 98(4) April 2009","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/1452/848","body":"According to the Human Sciences Research Council\u2019s (HSRC) Olive Shisana, \u2018The NHI [national health insurance] system presents itself as an ideal mechanism for achieving equitable access to quality health services in South Africa: firstly, because it satisfies the fundamental principles of a unitary health system enshrined in our constitution; secondly, because it promotes redistribution and sharing of health care resources between the public and private sectors thus meeting our transformation agenda; and thirdly, because research evidence suggests that South Africans are generally willing to contribute to a financing system that caters for them and those unable to contribute.\u2019 If NHI can overcome the inefficiencies of the private sector with its failing medical aid funding arrangement, and if it can address the quality-of-service issues of the public sector, it will indeed be a winning formula.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"National health insurance: Finding a model to suit South Africa","field_subtitle":"Kruger H: Board of Healthcare Funders: June 2009","field_url":"http://www.bhfglobal.com/national-health-insurance-%E2%80%93-finding-model-suit-south-africa","body":"The author of this paper argues that there are a number of critical aspects which must be considered when reflecting on a national health insurance (NHI) scheme in South Africa. The benefit package ideally should cover a comprehensive package of primary and preventative benefits, with the main aim of providing the most benefits for the most people, given the pool of funds available. Experts will have to cost this package, which will be challenging because using public sector data will be difficult because ICD 10 coding (diagnosis codes) are not routinely used and collected, and the tariff schedule used in the public sector is not reflective of the actual costs of providing the benefit as it does not take into account costs such as infrastructure. Another key aspect is revenue collection. Assuming that the costing had been accurately done, and that a reasonably comprehensive benefit package was affordable, the author suggests that an earmarked tax from payroll seems the most logical manner in which to collect these funds. Critical to this process will be buy-in from labour and employers alike.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Negotiation of a free trade agreement: European Union-India: Will India accept TRIPS-Plus protection?","field_subtitle":"Correa C: Oxfam Germany, June 2009","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.de/download/correa_eu_india_fta.pdf","body":"India\u2019s status as a top world supplier of generic medicines could be threatened by a free trade agreement its government is negotiating with the European Union (EU), according to this study. A draft of the proposed agreement put forward by EU officials recommends that it should incorporate a wide range of intellectual property issues. But at least two of the provisions in the draft could hamper access to affordable medicines for developing countries. One provision could require India to forbid the manufacture of generic versions of patented drugs for up to five years after the patents in question expire. Another provision would offer protection to test data submitted for the approval of branded medicines for a certain length of time (the precise duration has not yet been specified by EU officials). In effect, this would bar makers of generic drugs from using that data. The study notes that the EU recommendations go beyond the scope of the World Trade Organisation\u2019s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"One Million Campaign submits petition to World Health Assembly","field_subtitle":"One Million Campaign: June 2009","field_url":"http://onemillioncampaign.org/press-release1.aspx","body":"The International Baby Food Action Network, through its campaign called \u2018One Million Campaign: Support Women to Breastfeed\u2019, submitted a petition to the President of World Health Assembly, Mr. NS de Silva, which was signed by more than 45,000 people from 161 countries. The petition demanded concrete support systems for breastfeeding women and urged the Assembly to adopt a resolution in 2010 to deal with four key issues: to prepare a specific plan of action on infant feeding, which is budgeted and coordinated in the same way as action plans for immunisation; to ensure the end of promotion of baby milks and foods intended for children under two years old in a time-bound manner, that is, by 2015; to end partnerships in the area of infant and young child feeding and nutrition with commercial sector corporations that present conflicts of interests; and to create support and maternity entitlements for women both in the formal and informal sectors, so that mothers and babies can stay close to each other for six months at least.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Partners at risk: Motivations, strategies and challenges to HIV transmission risk reduction among HIV-infected men and women in Uganda ","field_subtitle":"Lifshay J, Nakayiwa S, King R, Reznick OG, Katuntu D, Batamwita R, Ezati E, Coutinho A, Kazibwe C and Bunnell R: AIDS Care 21(6):715\u2013724, June 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/kvyl9o","body":"Despite the estimated 22.4 million HIV-infected adults in Africa, culturally appropriate \u2018prevention with positives\u2019 guidelines have not been developed for this region. In order to inform these guidelines, the authors of this study conducted 37 interviews with purposefully selected HIV-infected individuals in care in Uganda. Participants reported increased condom use and reduced intercourse frequency and numbers of partners after testing HIV-positive. Motivations for behaviour change included concerns for personal health and the health of others, and decreased libido. Interventions addressing domestic violence, partner negotiation, use of lubricants and alternative sexual activities could increase condom use and/or decrease sexual activity and/or numbers of partners, thereby reducing HIV transmission risk.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"People\u2019s Health Movement\u2019s Guide for the Assessment of the Right to Health and Health Care","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement: June 2009","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/cms/","body":"This assessment guide leads you through a five-step process to document aspects of the denial of the right to health care in your country. It suggests how to lobby and set up activist strategies for addressing the violations you identify. The steps, in brief, aim to answer the following questions. Step 1: What are your government\u2019s commitments? Step 2: Are your government\u2019s policies appropriate to fulfill these obligations? Step 3: Is the health system of your country adequately implementing interventions to realize the right to health and health care for all? Step 4: Does the health status of different social groups and the population as a whole reflect a progression in their right to health and health care? Step 5: What does the denial or fulfillment of the right to health in your country mean in practice? In this final step, you should systematically contrast the obligations outlined in Step 1 with the realities documented in Steps 2, 3 and 4, and briefly highlight the main areas of denial of health rights in your country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Progress on health-related Millennium Development Goals mixed","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 21 May 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/2009/en/index.html","body":"Deaths of children aged under five years old have dropped by 27% globally since 1990, according to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) estimates. But, in WHO\u2019s first progress report on the health-related Millennium Development Goals, released in the World Health Statistics 2009, other results are mixed. Areas where there has been little or no movement are notably maternal and newborn health. In many African countries \u2013 and in low-income countries generally \u2013 progress has been insufficient to reach the Millennium Development Goal target that aims for a two-thirds reduction in child mortality by the year 2015. \u2018While data is patchy and incomplete, it appears that the regions with the least progress are those where levels of maternal mortality are the highest. The challenges ahead are those presented by weak health systems, those associated with noncommunicable chronic conditions and emerging health threats such as pandemics and climate change,\u2019 said WHO.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Protect the African child! Protect Africa's future!","field_subtitle":"Africa Public Health Alliance and 15%+ Campaign: 16 June 2009 ","field_url":"","body":"On the occasion of the Day of the African Child, 16 June 2009, the Africa Public Health Alliance and 15%+ Campaign called on African governments to end the \u20185 by 5 Tragedy\u2019 by stopping the estimated five million African children under the age of five from dying annually of preventable, manageable or treatable health causes. The campaign blames the existing situation on a failure of government policy on child health and protection in particular, and health development and financing in general. [To] meet the Millennium Development Goal 4 on reversing and ending child mortality, African governments are called on to meet their pledge to allocate 15% of national budgets to health, and significantly increase per capita investment in health. Strategic investment in vaccinations, health systems, human resources for health and social determinants of health, such as clean water, sanitation, food security and nutrition, must also be implemented.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/34078","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Putting child health first in Kenya","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 16 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84862","body":"As Africa marked the Day of the African Child on 16 June, the Kenyan government launched an eight-year strategy aimed at delivering efficient and effective health services to improve the lives of women and children.  \u2018It [the strategy] aims at contributing to the reduction in health inequalities and reversing the downward trend in health-related indicators with a focus on child survival and development,\u2019 Beth Mugo, the Minister for Public Health and Sanitation, said in Nairobi when she launched the \u2018Child Survival and Development Strategy 2008\u20132015\u2019. The ministry developed the strategy with other line ministries as well as representatives of civil society, academia, the donor community and general population. Kenya has one of the highest numbers of newborn deaths in Africa, with a neo-natal mortality rate of 33 per 1,000 live births \u2013 approximately 43,600 deaths every year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Radical or reminiscent? How to improve the current systems-approach to global health ","field_subtitle":"Stuckler D and Basu S: 6 May 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/njzdfs","body":"Recent claims have been made that system-wide approaches, and primary health care for all, are universally agreed-upon goals. So why haven\u2019t these goals been fulfilled? Certainly much of the problem has been lack of real commitment to a comprehensive approach to reducing health risks and improving primary care. The prevailing neoliberal economic model of development, the so-called 'Washington Consensus', which -emphasised liberalisation, privatisation and fiscal austerity, displaced \u2018Primary Health Care for All\u2019 with \u2018Primary Health Care for Some\u2019. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Reducing vertical HIV transmission in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo: trends in HIV prevalence and service delivery.","field_subtitle":"Behets F, Mutombo GM, Edmonds A, Dulli L, Belting MT, Kapinga M, Pantazis A, Tomlin H, Okitolonda E; PTME Group. AIDS Care. 2009 21(5):583-90.","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19444666?ordinalpos=3&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum","body":"Scale-up of vertical HIV transmission prevention has been too slow in sub-Saharan Africa. We describe approaches, challenges, and results obtained in Kinshasa. Staff members of 21 clinics managed by public servants or non-governmental organizations were trained in improved basic antenatal care (ANC) including nevirapine (NVP)-based HIV transmission prevention. Program initiation was supported on-site logistically and technically. Aggregate implementation data were collected and used for program monitoring. Contextual information was obtained through a survey. Among 45,262 women seeking ANC from June 2003 through July 2005, 90% accepted testing; 792 (1.9%) had HIV of whom 599 (76%) returned for their result. Among 414 HIV+ women who delivered in participating maternities, NVP coverage was 79%; 92% of newborns received NVP. Differences were noted by clinic management in program implementation and HIV prevalence (1.2 to 3.0%). Initiating vertical HIV transmission prevention embedded in improved antenatal services in a fragile, fragmented, severely resource-deprived health care system was possible and improved over time. Scope and quality of service coverage should further increase; strategies to decrease loss to follow-up of HIV+ women should be identified to improve program effectiveness. The observed differences in HIV prevalence highlight the importance of selecting representative sentinel surveillance centers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Report of a methods workshop: Integrating equity into resource allocation, 26\u201327 November 2008, Cape Town","field_subtitle":"The Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town and the Ministry of Health Mozambique","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REPMTG1108resall.pdf","body":"This workshop was designed to provide the Ministry of Health in Mozambique with support on practical approaches to achieving a more equitable distribution of public health sector resource allocation outlays. Based on communication with officials of the Mozambican Ministry of Health, there have been concerns around the inequitable distribution of public health care resources, with areas of higher socio-economic status and relatively lower levels of disease burden receiving higher health care allocations. The key problems for the Ministry of Health were: how to empirically show that the current resource allocation outlays are inequitable and how to design a formula that allows for the shift of resources to ensure a more equitable distribution. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Right to healthcare inseparable from right to life","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 3 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=84687","body":"African governments are failing to offer even the most basic healthcare that could save lives, speakers warned a civil society meeting in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Delegates spoke particularly of the failure to uphold women's right to sexual and reproductive health services, calling for a response that takes into consideration the need to empower women. They noted that there is often no access to medical screening and treatment services for illnesses like cervical cancer, which affect large numbers of women but are rarely offered free of charge in pubic health centres.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Routine offering of HIV testing to hospitalized pediatric patients at university teaching hospital, Lusaka, Zambia: acceptability and feasibility.","field_subtitle":"Kankasa C, Carter RJ, Briggs N, Bulterys M, Chama E, Cooper ER, Costa C, Spielman E, Katepa-Bwalya M, M'soka T, Ou CY, Abrams EJ. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2009 Jun 1;51(2):202-8","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19504732?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum","body":"The difficulties diagnosing infants and children with HIV infection have been cited as barriers to increasing the number of children receiving antiretroviral therapy worldwide. Design: We implemented routine HIV antibody counseling and testing for pediatric patients hospitalized at the University Teaching Hospital, a national reference center, in Lusaka, Zambia. We also introduced HIV DNA polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing for early infant diagnosis. METHODS: Caregivers/parents of children admitted to the hospital wards were routinely offered HIV counseling and testing for their children. HIV antibody positive (HIV+) children ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Searching for patients: Norwegian testing of pharmaceuticals and treatment methods in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Hagen E: NorWatch, 2009","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/hiv-and-aids&id=43493&type=Document","body":"Two Norwegian companies have tested their products in developing countries in the past decade: in Africa, A-Viral tested AIDS medications in 300 HIV-positive persons in Uganda in 1997\u20131998 and NorChip tested equipment for diagnosing cervical cancer in 340\u2013350 women in civil war-devastated Congo in 2003. This report presents the patients' stories and examines the ethics of the companies' practices. The patients NorWatch spoke with had a near-total lack of knowledge about what kind of project they had participated in. Also, they all said \u2013 independently of each other \u2013 that they did not receive a copy of the agreement they entered into with the pharmaceutical company. The company\u2019s briefing of the patients was condemned by Norway\u2019s National Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics (NEM). \u2018The patients\u2019 information is, in our judgment, too inadequate and would not have been recommended here,\u2019 it wrote in 2002.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Serious shortage in anti-retroviral funding in South Africa","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 19 June 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84916","body":"A one billion rand (US$123 million) shortfall in South Africa's public sector antiretroviral (ARV) programme could jeopardise treatment programmes as soon as September, a health expert has warned. Mark Heywood, deputy chairman of the South Africa National AIDS Council (SANAC), commented on the lack of funding at the relaunch of the National AIDS Charter on 18 June. Among the additions to the charter were an increased focus on vulnerable groups, and the inclusion of traditional leaders and their role in the epidemic. \u2018We've made major strides, and one of the strengths of the charter was that it guided our progress on the national strategic framework at a time when people were still stoned to death [...] when kids were still taken out of school and people were chased out of their homes for being HIV-positive,\u2019 Heywood said. \u2018But [\u2026] we don't actually have ARV treatment for most of the people who need it.\u2019 An estimated 700,000 people are on treatment in South Africa, but an estimated 1,000 die daily as a result of AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual violence and its health consequences for female children in Swaziland: A cluster survey study","field_subtitle":"Reza A,  Breiding MJ, Gulaid J, Mercy JA, Blanton C, Mthethwa Z, Bamrah S, Dahlberg LL and Anderson M: The Lancet 373(9679):1966\u20131972, 6 June 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60247-6/fulltext","body":"This study reports on the prevalence and circumstances of sexual violence in girls in Swaziland, and assesses the negative health consequences. It obtained data from a nationally representative sample of 1,244 girls and women aged 13\u201324 years from selected households in Swaziland between, with a two-stage cluster design. It found that 33.2% of respondents reported an incident of sexual violence before they reached 18 years of age, mostly by men or boys from the neighbourhood and boyfriends or husbands. Sexual violence was associated with reported lifetime experience of sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy complications or miscarriages, unwanted pregnancy and depression. Knowledge of the high prevalence of sexual violence against girls in Swaziland and its associated serious health-related conditions and behaviours should be used to develop effective HIV and sexually transmitted diseases prevention strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Statement from the Consultation of Regional Institutions and Networks on High Level Task Force on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems in Abuja, Nigeria","field_subtitle":"Participants at the Abuja Consultation: 26 May 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nftf5j","body":"Participants at the Abuja Consultation recommend that the High Level Task Force recognise the right of all people to essential health care, pursue policies that will reduce inequity and social disparities, promote democratic and pro-poor reforms to the governance of the global economy as a means of creating a long-term and sustainable foundation for health financing, and add (not substitute) \u2018innovative financing\u2019 to existing commitments of governments, which must be fulfilled. The Task Force should also improve the efficiency, impact and accountability of current development assistance for health and place transparency and accountability at the heart of all proposed solutions. The health financing agenda must be moved forward according to principles of progressive finance, optimal pooling of finance, equitable and needs-based budgeting and expenditure, accountable planning and financial management, and the full engagement of civil society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Statement to the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa Summit on the ESA-EC economic partnership agreements negotiations ","field_subtitle":"Southern and Eastern African Trade, Information and Negotiations Institute: June 2009 ","field_url":"","body":"The Southern and Eastern African Trade, Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI) has issued a statement in response to the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) meetings and the 13th Summit of Heads of State and Government held from 28 May to 8 June 2009. It recommends that a moratorium be put in place on economic partnership agreements (EPA) negotiations until east and southern African (ESA) countries have instituted adequate institutional mechanisms to deal with trade liberalisation. ESA countries should instead focus on developing their regional markets. In light of the current global recession, they must reverse most of the commitments they have agreed under the International Monetary Fund/World Bank structural adjustment policies, the World Trade Organisation and the so-called interim EPAs to allow them to implement favourable home-grown policies that are in tandem with their development priorities.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/34030","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Task-shifting HIV counselling and testing services in Zambia: The role of lay counsellors","field_subtitle":"Sanjana P, Torpey K, Schwarzwalder A, Simumba C, Kasonde P, Nyirenda L, Kapanda P, Kakungu-Simpungwe M, Kabaso M and Thompson C: Human Resources for Health 7, 2 March 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/7/1/44","body":"This study was conducted to review the effectiveness of lay counsellors in addressing staff shortages and the provision of HIV counselling and testing services. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected by means of semistructured interviews from all active lay counsellors in each of the facilities, including a facility manager or counselling supervisor, and through focus group discussions with health care workers at each facility. The study found that lay counsellors provide counselling and testing services of quality and relieve the workload of overstretched health care workers, providing up to 70% of counselling and testing services at health facilities. The data review revealed lower error rates for lay counsellors, compared to health care workers, in completing the counselling and testing registers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of conflict on women\u2019s education, employment and health care","field_subtitle":"McDevitt A: Governance and Social Development Resource Centre, 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health&id=43593&type=Document","body":"This paper suggests that the extent to which conflict restricts women\u2019s freedom of movement depends on a number of factors, including the stage of conflict, whether the women are displaced, whether they are directly or indirectly affected by the conflict and the cultural norms of the conflict-affected area. In times of political, economic and social uncertainty, there is a strong tendency to revert to traditional values, which appear to offer protection for women and girls, but which restrict their mobility. Some of the negative impacts of conflict on women\u2018s health and education include: lowered access to reproductive health care facilities; lack of access to education because of conflict, household and domestic tasks or cultural norms and higher teenage pregnancy rates. Girls who are disabled, disfigured or severely mentally affected by the crisis are also likely to be kept at home.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The missing link: Applied budget work as a tool to hold governments accountable for maternal mortality reduction commitments","field_subtitle":"Hofbauer H and Garza M: June 2009 ","field_url":"http://righttomaternalhealth.org/sites/iimmhr.civicactions.net/files/Missing%20Link%20WEB-1.pdf","body":"This brief explores the relevance of civil society budget analysis and advocacy and its potential as a tool to hold governments accountable for their maternal mortality reduction commitments. It discusses three recent examples of civil society groups engaged with budget analysis and advocacy, including Women\u2019s Dignity in Tanzania. Lack of real progress in reducing maternal mortality is unquestionably linked to the failure of governments to make maternal health a budgetary priority. Even though resources to address this issue exist, they are not necessarily being allocated correctly or spent effectively. Governments need to prioritise funding for family planning and prenatal care, skilled care during pregnancy and childbirth, and essential lifesaving interventions. In addition, citizens must actively monitor government spending on maternal health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Primary Health Care Package for South Africa \u2013 a set of norms and standards","field_subtitle":"Department of Health South Africa:  2000","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/policy/norms/full-norms.html#intro","body":"Primary health care is at the heart of the plans to transform the health services in South Africa. This document provides an integrated package of essential primary health care services available to the entire population will provide the solid foundations of a single, unified health system. It as the driving force in promoting equity in health care. The document sets out the norms and standards that are to be made available in the essential package of primary care services, for individuals to see what quality of primary care services they can expect to receive. It also acts as guidance for provincial and district health authorities to provide these services. The document contains norms and standards for clinic and community services. A noorm is defined as a statistical normative rate of provision or measurable target outcome over a specified period of time.\r\nA standard is defined as a statement about a desired and acceptable level of health care. Standard setting takes place within specific dimensions of quality -- acceptability, accessibility, appropriateness, continuity, effectiveness, efficiency, equity, interpersonal relations, technical competence and safety. The most important dimensions have been chosen for each service.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Trading away our jobs: How free trade threatens employment around the world","field_subtitle":"Hobbs G and Tucker D: War on Want, 2009","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=43346&em=110609&sub=trade","body":"This report provides impact assessments for the current round of world trade talks and the new wave of bilateral European Union trade deals. It shows how past trade liberalisations caused huge job losses in both Africa and Latin America, which continue to stifle hopes for sustainable development. Nevertheless, some politicians are still calling for the swift conclusion of the Doha round of negotiations at the World Trade Organization, although millions of jobs are at risk. The paper considers that free trade is no answer to the current economic crisis and rather undermines the possibility of decent work and of achieving sustainable development. It calls on states to retain the policy space and tools of control in order to govern markets, manage international trade and provide decent work for all. A new economic model should be made to prioritise the economic, social, political and health rights of people over the profits of transnational capital.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Translating statistical findings into plain English","field_subtitle":"Pocock SJ and Ware JH: The Lancet 373(9679):1926\u20131928, 6 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.lancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60499-2/fulltext","body":"Clinical trial reports usually give estimates of treatment effects, their confidence intervals and p values. But what do these terms mean? The statistical methods and their technical meaning are well established. However, there is less clarity about the concise interpretative wording that authors should use, especially in the abstract and conclusions and by others in commentaries. This article offers guidance and assumes that one short sentence needs to capture the essence of a trial's findings for the primary endpoint. It explains technical terms simply and aims to help researchers to achieve this objective in their writing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Tuberculosis vaccine trials for babies in South Africa","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 4 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=84693","body":"A new trial to test the efficacy of a tuberculosis (TB) booster shot for babies is about to start in South Africa. Almost 2,800 infants will participate in the two-year trial, in which researchers from the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI) hope to prove that a new vaccine can act as a booster shot to improve the efficacy of the only existing inoculation against TB, the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine, in use for nearly 90 years. An effective TB vaccine could help save some of the two million people who die annually from the disease, a quarter of whom are co-infected with HIV. The vaccine has been tested in HIV-infected adults in South Africa, the UK and Senegal, but because this will be the first test in infants, only HIV-negative infants will be enrolled. However, ethical issues have been raised by some about whether it is acceptable to test vaccines on poor African children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"What makes a structural intervention? Reducing vulnerability to HIV in community settings, with particular reference to sex work ","field_subtitle":"Evans C, Jana S and Lambert H: Global Public Health 1744(1706), 8 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/ftinterface~content=a912279071~fulltext=713240930","body":"Increasing emphasis is being placed on the need for 'structural interventions' (SIs) in HIV prevention internationally. There is great variation in how the concept of an SI is defined and operationalised, however, and this has potentially problematic implications for their likely success. This paper clarifies and elucidates what constitutes an SI, with particular reference to the structured distribution of power and to the role of communities. It summarises the background to the growing emphasis being placed on the concept of SIs in HIV prevention policy and illustrates the nature of HIV vulnerability and its implications for the design and targeting of successful SIs. The paper draws attention to the dual importance of: attending to local complexities in the micro and macro-level structures that produce vulnerability; and clarifying the meaning and role of communities within SIs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Who runs global health?","field_subtitle":"Editorial: The Lancet (373)9681, 20 Jun 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)61128-4/fulltext","body":"The past two decades have seen dramatic shifts in power among those who share responsibility for leading global health. In 1990, development assistance for health \u2013 a crude, but still valid, measure of influence \u2013 was dominated by the United Nations (UN) system (the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund and the United Nations Population Fund) and bilateral development agencies in donor countries. Today, while donor nations have maintained their relative importance, the UN system has been severely diluted. This marginalisation, combined with serious anxieties about the unanticipated adverse effects of new entrants into global health, should signal concern about the current and future stewardship of health policies and services for the least advantaged peoples of the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Beyond Aid\u2019 for sustainable development","field_subtitle":"Hudson A and Jonsson L: Overseas Development Institute, 2009","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=43421&em=110609&sub=trade","body":"This briefing proposes that while prospects for developing countries are often shaped by domestic and regional politics and aid, it is necessary to looks at beyond aid at issues like trade, migration, investment, environmental issues, security and technology. The authors explore the progress made towards policy coherence and conceptualise a three-phase cycle: phase 1 includes setting and prioritising objectives, which requires political commitment and policy statements; phase 2 looks at policy coordination and the implementation mechanisms by establishing formal mechanisms at inter-ministerial level for coordination and policy arbitration; and phase 3 is about effective systems of monitoring, analysis and reporting. The paper concludes by recommending that the Beyond Aid agenda could help drive faster progress towards partnerships for community development and policies that are more \u2018development-friendly\u2019, in practice as well as on paper.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Health for all' must be people- and community-centred","field_subtitle":"Carasso B and Balabanova D: The Broker, 6 May 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/oh9fnk","body":"How can the recent change in global health policy to provide \u2018health for all\u2019 be translated into action, in order to achieve some real and sustained impact on the ground and successfully reduce inequities in health? The authors have three suggestions. Ask what is needed: the answers to what is really needed cannot be found in Geneva or Washington, but ultimately lie with the people and communities themselves. Put the money where the needs are: if we know what people are suffering from and match available human and financial resources accordingly, even a little money can go a long way. Work together: initiatives like the recently launched International Health Partnership aim to strengthen health systems and to ensure that resources invested are spent in equitable and sustainable manner. This represents a shift from vertical, disease-specific models of funding, to horizontal system-building according to long-term strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Miracle tree\u2019 project reduces malnutrition and poverty in Limpopo, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Sa Lerato S: Southern Africa Trust, 22 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.southernafricatrust.org/changemakers/june2009/#sidelink5mor","body":"Sedikong, a women-led community organisation is spearheading an innovative nutritional programme that is already reducing malnutrition and poverty amongst rural communities. The Moringa tree (also known as the \u2018miracle tree\u2019) is an indigenous plant found throughout Africa, India and the Middle-East. For centuries, it has been used as a food source and also for medicinal purposes. The Southern Africa Trust has partnered with Sedikong to roll-out a US$20,000 project to plant Moringa trees in households and educate communities, small-scale farmers, traditional leaders, municipalities and government departments on the nutritional values of the tree, as it holds great promise as a sustainable crop that can overcome poverty and hunger. According to Mavis Mathabatha, founder of Sedikong, using the Moringa tree's products has already reduced malnutrition amongst the 350 orphaned and vulnerable children whom the organisation supports.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"8th International Conference on Urban Health (ICUH)","field_subtitle":"18\u201323 October 2009: Nairobi, Kenya","field_url":"http://www.icuh2009.org/","body":"The 2009 International Conference on Urban Health (ICUH) will bring together the leaders of urban health research, practice, side by side with community voices to frame these issues, provide clear insight, and offer direction and best practices toward healthy urbanisation. The Conference has three planned components. First, the Scientific Programme consists of eight broad tracks or themes in the field of health and urbanisation. Second, the Urban Health Champions Forum is intended for leaders of local and national governments and civil society and will review prevailing policies that affect investment in urban areas. Third, a Community Voices Forum will involve meetings in local informal settlements of Nairobi three weeks prior to the conference to obtain perspectives from the community on urban health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A basic package of health services for post-conflict countries: Implications for sexual and reproductive health services","field_subtitle":"Roberts B, Guy S, Sondorp E and Lee-Jones L: Reproductive Health Matters, 16(31):57\u201364, May 2008 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qrer3j","body":"Health systems in countries emerging from conflict are often characterised by damaged infrastructure, limited human resources, weak stewardship and a proliferation of non-governmental organisations, which all undermine health services. One response is to improve health service delivery in post-conflict countries by jointly contract non-governmental organisations to provide a Basic Package of Health Services for all the country's population. The approach is novel because it is intended as the only primary care service delivery mechanism throughout the country, with the available financial health resources primarily allocated to it. The aim is to scale up health services rapidly. This paper describes the Basic Package of Health Services contracting approach and discusses some of the potential challenges this approach may have for sexual and reproductive health services, particularly the challenges of availability and quality of services, and advocacy for these services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"A framework convention on global health: Good for health equity?","field_subtitle":"Leslie London, University of Cape Town Department of Family and Public Health","field_url":"","body":"\r\nFor the health sector, finding new ways of thinking about strategies to address health inequities is critical if achievement of the Millennium Development Goals is to be remotely possible. Over the past few years, the notion that a Framework Convention on Global Health could help to address some of the most fundamental inequities in health at global level, has been gaining ground. First proposed by Larry Gostin, a leading scholar in the field of health and human rights in 2007, the idea that a new model of global health governance could succeed where ethical exhortations and/or appeals to international legal norms have failed, is very attractive. Indeed, it is not only in health that increasing attention is being turned to these 'Framework Conventions'.  The Internet Governance Project (IGP), an alliance of academics that focuses on Internet policy and how information and communication technology affects the interests of civil society, also proposed in 2004 the idea of a Framework Convention as an institutional option for internet governance globally. \r\n\r\nIs a Framework Convention on Global Health the missing spark in our efforts to address the yawning and seemingly growing health inequalities around the world?  Is it possible that such a Framework Convention will provide answers hitherto lacking in the debates and strategies to strengthen equitable people-oriented health systems? To do so, it is first necessary to understand what is meant by a Framework Convention. \r\n\r\nTo date, there are approximately four existing framework conventions, two better known conventions under the UN machinery, namely, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and a convention on the Protection of the Ozone Layer, as well as a Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. A framework convention provides a mechanism for international consensus that avoids focus on details that may be contentious and contested and which may bog down negotiations. It  rather establishes principles and norms for international action, setting up a procedure for later negotiation of more detailed arrangements. This was evident in the early agreements needed to set up the Global Convention on Climate Change, which is now overseen by the Conference of States Parties to the convention, with subsequent rounds to establish targets globally.\r\n\r\nGostin argued in 2008 that a Framework Convention on Global Health could significantly improve global health governance and would, amongst other goals, \u201c...commit States to a set of targets, both economic and logistic, ...set achievable goals for global health spending as a proportion of Gross National Product,...build sustainable health systems; and create incentives for scientific innovation for affordable vaccines and essential medicines.\u201d  However, central to the purported benefits of  the Framework Convention  is the notion that \u201cgovernments should care about serious health threats outside their borders\u201d in that such threats pose direct health, economic and security risks.\r\n\r\nIs this likely to offer us more leverage than other forms of policy engagement, particularly those using existing international human rights mechanisms related to the right to health, such as, for example, holding governments accountable for core obligations regarding the right to health? The experience in relation to other Framework Agreements is perhaps salutary. Firstly, negotiations to provide teeth to the Framework Convention on Climate Change through the Kyoto protocol remain locked in dispute, despite the agreement on the basic principles in the Framework Convention. Indeed, the huge quantum of effort invested in lobbying, advocacy, research and policy work since adoption of the Convention to support stricter controls of greenhouse gas emissions has remarkably little to show for the years of investment. Secondly, the ability to strike a deal within the UN system relies on careful diplomacy usually guided by the lowest common denominator acceptable to a wide range of national players and networks, usually dominated by rich and powerful nations. The likelihood of the outcome of such a set of circumstances generating a Framework Convention that fundamentally challenges global power relations therefore seems low. Thirdly, whereas the Climate Change and Tobacco Control Framework Conventions challenged interests that were fundamentally corporate-driven, a Framework Convention on Global Health would be essentially directed at nation states. Such states may either be those actors who need to be convinced that their own interests lie in improving the health of populations outside their border, or states whose weak economies and subservient trade relationships undermine the extent of their sovereignty and ability to regulate independently to realise the right to health of their own peoples. In the latter case, the value of such a Framework Convention, which is likely to be replete with general provisions and non-binding targets, appears singularly weak.\r\n\r\nHowever, the most important consideration is really the extent to which a Framework Convention on Global Health is able to strengthen opportunities for civil society engagement and building agency on the part of those most adversely affected by global health inequalities. Inasmuch as Gostin suggests that a Framework Convention on Global Health \u201cwould stimulate creative public/private partnerships and actively engage civil society stakeholders,\u201d it is the extent to which such engagement offers meaningful mechanisms for preferentially strengthening the collective agency of the most marginalised groups, within and between countries that will be the test of whether the Framework Convention on Global Health really promotes equity and the right to health,  or whether, like much other international policy-making, it  proves a nice-sounding but ineffectual sump into which health equity activists invest endless amounts of energy, with not much to show for it. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat  admin@equinetafrica.org. For further information on this issue please visit the EQUINET website- www.equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"A new debt crisis? Assessing the impact of the financial crisis on developing countries","field_subtitle":"Edwards S: Jubilee Debt Campaign, 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/aid&id=43438&type=Document","body":"This paper details the extent of what it sees as a burgeoning \u2018debt crisis\u2019. With traditional sources of finance drying up, export markets collapsing and a range of other economic impacts, the threat of a renewed debt crisis is very real. Out of the 43 most vulnerable countries, 38 needed at least some debt cancellation to meet their people\u2019s basic needs. Governments with large debt burdens, which are usually denominated in foreign currencies such as the dollar, may struggle to meet the repayment requirements and even default on their debts. Private capital flows to developing countries could fall to around US$165 billion in 2009. The paper recommends canceling more debts, responsible finance and a debt tribunal. Current debt relief initiatives are inflexible, entirely creditor-controlled and wholly inadequate to meet the challenge of the continuing debt crisis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"African Labour Radio Project: Health Worker Retention and Migration","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, Workers World Media Productions and SABC Channel Africa: April 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ChannelAfrica_HCWretention042009.mp3","body":"The fifteen minute pre-recorded show, \u2018Health Worker Retention and Migration\u2019, was produced by WWMP, in conjunction with labour journalists in east and southern Africa. It provided an in-depth analysis of the situation for health workers in Africa, and discussed incentives for retaining health workers. In the pre-recorded show, a Khayelitsha nurse who used to work at Groote Schuur hospital in Cape Town and migrated to Saudi Arabia Mavis Mpangele, Bongani Lose from Democratic Nurses of South Africa (DENOSA), Kwabena Otoo from the Ghana Trade union Congress, Joel Odijie from Nigeria Trade Union Congress, Professor Yoswa Dambisya of the University of Limpopo Department of Pharmacy and EQUINET Steering Committee, Nyasha Muchichwa from the Labour and Economic Research Institute of Zimbabwe and Percy Mahlathi, the South African Director General of the Department of Health were interviewed. The feature covers the push factors and experiences from different African countries. The feature also explores government responses to the problem as well as African trade unions response. It rounds off with examples of success stories in Zambia and Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Agreements and disagreements with Oxfam ","field_subtitle":"Montagu D, Feachem R, Feachem NS, Koehlmoos TP, Kinlaw H, Smith R: 17 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/338/feb16_2/b667","body":"The point made by Oxfam\u2019s chief executive concerning failed states and the proliferation of private security firms is indicative of the ideological predisposition that impedes an open debate regarding healthcare delivery in developing countries. The view that healthcare is a fundamental responsibility of the State and must be largely provided by agencies of the State is not generally accepted outside of the UK, and is increasingly being challenged within the UK. British organisations tend to be skeptical of the private sector, but elsewhere the important role of the private sector in health systems, in countries both with and without well functioning state health programmes, is widely acknowledged. Public versus private provision is not a binary choice facing governments, donors, patients, and global policy makers \u2013 there is enough space for both to co-exist.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Bridging the divide: Global governance of trade and health","field_subtitle":"Lee K, Sridhar D and Patel M: The Lancet, 373(9661):416-22, 31 January 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/o8okea","body":"The main institutions responsible for governing international trade and health - the World Trade Organization (WTO), which replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1995, and WHO - were established after World War 2. For many decades the two institutions operated in isolation, with little cooperation between them. The growth and expansion of world trade over the past half century amid economic globalisation and the increased importance of health issues to the functioning of a more interconnected world, brings the two domains closer together on a broad range of issues. Foremost is the capacity of each to govern their respective domains, and their ability to cooperate in tackling issues that lie at the intersection of trade and health. This paper discusses how the governance of these two areas relate to one another, and how well existing institutions work together.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Broad plan on intellectual property and innovation in developing countries approved at WHO","field_subtitle":"New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 22 May 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/pc7j5k","body":"Applause broke out at the conclusion of the annual World Health Assembly as agreement was reached at the end of a five-year process to devise a plan for boosting research and development on and access to drugs needed by developing countries. Now with the full assembly\u2019s approval, the focus turns to five-year implementation and as-yet unclear ways to pay for it. \u2018This is a critical resolution, and we have come a long way to the place we are today,\u2019 committee meeting Chair Stephen McKernan said. The approved global strategy and plan of action on public health, innovation and intellectual property aims by 2015 to train over 500,000 research and development workers, improve research infrastructure, national capacity and technology transfer, and lead to numerous other outcomes such as creating 10 public access compound libraries and 35 new health products (vaccines, diagnostics and medicines).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts on health communication for a book chapter: 8th International Conference on Urban Health","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 1 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.icuh2009.org/","body":"You are invited to submit abstracts of chapters for a book titled Strategic Health Communication in Urban Contexts, which will be featured as part of the 8th International Conference on Urban Health later this year. The forthcoming book is designed to address issues of urbanization, local, national, regional, and global health, and strategic uses of communication in local urban contexts. The focus is on the triangular interplay among the three components of health, behaviour and strategic communication in urban contexts. Contributions can be based on research, theory, practice or experience. Send a 500-word abstract by 1 July 2009. Notifications of acceptance will be announced on July 15. Complete chapters of about 5,000 words, excluding references and tables, will be expected no later than 1 October 2009.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Expressions of Interest: Assessing efforts towards universal financial risk protection in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submission: June 30th, 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/AllianceHPSR_CallUniversalCoverage.pdf","body":"The Alliance HPSR and the Health Systems Financing Department (WHO) are launching a new programme of work that aims to explore and compare country-specific experiences in developing and implementing universal financial risk protection, with a focus on the factors that have helped or hindered the expansion of financial protection mechanisms.  We are interested in learning both from positive and negative experiences.  It is envisaged that the final product of this programme of country case-study work will be a book encompassing all of the case-studies, and highlighting cross-cutting policy lessons and issues that are applicable beyond the case-study countries. Research teams are encouraged to submit Expressions of Interest (EoI) by June 30th, 2009.  These EoI will be technically reviewed.  Research teams that submit the most promising EOI will be invited to a proposal development workshop, where applicants will work with technical advisers to develop proposals for 12 to 18 months of work.  Researchers in low and middle income countries are eligible to apply to this call for proposals. See the website for more information\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers on pricing, access to medicines and generic medicines","field_subtitle":"Final submission: 20 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.fmhs.auckland.ac.nz/sop/smr/_docs/instructiontoauthors.pdf","body":"Though studies related to pricing, access to medicines and generic medicines do appear in various journals, a special issue covering all these topics is much needed at this time and would be helpful to nurture pharmaceutical policy debate. Southern Medical Review, a journal with a development focus, is calling for contributions across the following areas: access to medicines and the role of different stakeholders, access to medicines models in the developed world and their relevance (if any) to developing countries, research papers and commentaries based on WHO/HAI medicine pricing surveys and Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and Access to Medicines, the promotion of generic drugs, the political economy of the pharmaceutical industry and access to medicines. For further information visit the website address.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for submissions: International Conference on Realising the Rights to Health and Development for All","field_subtitle":"Submissions due: 18 June 2009","field_url":"http://www.healthandrights.com","body":"This Conference, which will be held from 26\u201329 October 2009 in Hanoi, Vietnam, aims to further the understanding of the complex and powerful relationships between health, development and human rights and to propose practical ways that policies, strategies and research can optimally respond to these challenges. The themes of the Conference include: HIV/AIDS and other current and emerging public health threats; maternal and child health; climate change; and economic globalisation. The four-day International Conference will engage representatives of research institutes, universities, governmental and non-governmental organisations, as well as leading international and regional scholars, human rights practitioners, health professionals and members of civil society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Characteristics of households experiencing under- five deaths: A case of Tropical Institute of Community Health and Development (TICH) partnership districts","field_subtitle":"Oindo C, Otieno C, Okeyo N, Olayo R, Muga R and Kaseje C: African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development: 2009","field_url":"http://www.ajfand.net/Issue24/PDFs/Oindo3660.pdf","body":"In this paper, child mortality and its relationship to specific variables relating to background and proximate factors were considered. Between 2006 and 2007, proportions of households with child deaths declined in all the districts and the proportions of health facility deliveries decreased in households that experienced under-five deaths. Measles vaccination coverage was lower among households with child deaths and so was use of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs). Households living in poor conditions experienced the highest proportions of child mortality. Education of mothers remains a significant determinant of child mortality along with health facility delivery. No difference in child mortality was realized between mothers having primary education and those that had none. Better health-seeking behaviour should be encouraged to help stem the high child mortality rates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil Society representatives meet in Johannesburg May 2009","field_subtitle":"Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems, ","field_url":"http://www.internationalhealthpartnership.net/taskforce.html","body":"Following a meeting in London on March 5, civil society representatives from across Africa and Asia gathered in Johannesburg on 13 and 14 May. The purpose of the meeting was broadly the same as the earlier session held in London in April: to allow individuals and groups with first-hand experience of the challenges around healthcare provision and funding to feed their views into the Taskforce\u2019s deliberations. Delegates turned their attention to a series of key issues, including ways to bridge gaps in existing resources, provide more of those resources, and link such measures to existing international and national health system frameworks. \r\nThey also had the chance to quiz members of the Taskforce secretariat in plenary sessions, which provoked valuable debate on issues such as stakeholder participation in potential solutions and the way in which the Taskforce operates, as well as airing challenges to be overcome in individual countries. Mrs. Graca Machel, Taskforce member and President of the Foundation for Community Development in Mozambique, addressed delegates on both days of the meeting. In her opening remarks, Mrs. Machel seized on the \u2018monumental\u2019 nature of the challenge to meet the health-related MDGs by 2015. Existing crises in food and fuel had been compounded in 2008 by a financial crisis; left unaddressed, these combined crises will cause over 200,000 additional deaths. She called on delegates to consider, in their discussions, how solutions could be \u2018country-owned\u2019, but also internationally credible, with monitoring systems implemented which focus firmly on results. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Conceptions of mental health among Ugandan youth orphaned by AIDS","field_subtitle":"Harms S, Kizza R, Sebunnya J, Jack S: African Journal of AIDS Research  8(1):7\u201316, 2009","field_url":"http://ajol.info/index.php/ajar/article/view/42910","body":"A qualitative study was conducted to comprehensively describe the experience of orphanhood and its impact on mental health from the culturally specific perspective of Ugandan youths. The researchers conducted interviews with a purposeful sample of 13 youths (ages 12 to 18)  who had lost one or both parents to AIDS illness and who were supported by a non-governmental organisation. The orphaned youths experienced significant ongoing emotional difficulties following the death of their parent(s). The youths in this study were unfamiliar with the term \u2018mental health\u2019; however, they easily identified factors associated with good or poor mental health. The findings of this study suggest that Western terminologies and symptom constellations in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV may not be applicable in an African cultural context.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Critics say World Health Organization is slow on generics for swine flu ","field_subtitle":" Third World Network: 11 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/2009/twnhealthinfo20090502.htm","body":"As poor countries face a possible swine flu pandemic with only enough Tamiflu to treat a tiny fraction of their populations, some experts are calling for a simple but contentious solution: massive production of generics. Indian pharmaceuticals giant Cipla said it would charge about $12 per course of a generic Tamiflu. One course of Roche Tamiflu can sell for up to $100. That has led critics to question why the World Health Organization (WHO) hasn't ordered up batches of generic Tamiflu or encouraged poor countries to do so Some suspect WHO is reluctant to anger drug companies, which supply the agency with stockpiles of drugs, by encouraging the use of generics. Despite WTO rules, Western pharmaceuticals have long fought to keep generics out of the market in all circumstances. There needs to be a better system in place so that WHO does not have to rely on the goodwill and charity of drugmakers to get medicines for poor countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Critique of Oxfam paper inaccurate, unconstructive and ideologically biased","field_subtitle":"Stocking B: 7 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/338/feb16_2/b667","body":"A primary objective of Oxfam\u2019s new paper \u2018Blind optimism\u2019 is to encourage and advance an evidence-based debate on the appropriate role of the private sector in health care delivery in poor countries. Montagu\u2019s response detracts from this important debate by misrepresenting the paper. Oxfam advises against investing in risky and unproven private -sector approaches to expand health care in poor countries. It is not the same as advocating that all engagement with the private sector should cease. Unchallenged enthusiasm for private sector solutions is neither justified nor helpful. Based on the evidence available, there is an urgent need for more honesty about the significant risks to efficiency and equity associated with private sector growth in health care, and more openness about the paucity of comprehensive evaluations of private sector approaches and the lack of evidence that these approaches can be scaled up properly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Determinants of infant growth in Eastern Uganda: A community-based cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Engebretsen IM, Tyllesk\u00e4r T, Wamani H, Karamagi C and Tumwine JK: BMC Public Health, December 2008 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/psw8k3","body":"The aim of this study was to describe current infant growth patterns using World Health Organization Child Growth Standards and to determine the extent to which these patterns are associated with infant feeding practices, equity dimensions, morbidity and use of primary health care for the infants. A cross-sectional survey of infant feeding practices, socio-economic characteristics and anthropometric measurements was conducted in Mbale District, Eastern Uganda in 2003 with 723 mother-infant pairs. The prevalences of wasting and stunting were 4.2% and 16.7%, respectively. The adjusted analysis for stunting showed associations with age and gender \u2013 it was more prevalent among boys than girls (58.7% versus 41.3%). Sub-optimal infant feeding practices after birth, poor household wealth, age, gender and family size were associated with growth among Ugandan infants.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Disclosure of HIV status: Experiences of patients enrolled in an integrated TB and HAART pilot programme in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Gebrekristos HT, Lurie MN, Mthethwa N, Karim QA: African Journal of AIDS Research 8(1):1\u20136, 2009","field_url":"http://ajol.info/index.php/ajar/article/view/42907","body":"This study presents the experiences of a cohort of 17 patients enrolled in the first integrated TB and HIV treatment pilot programme, in Durban, South Africa, as a precursor to a pivotal trial to answer the question of when to start antiretroviral treatment (ART) in patients co-infected with HIV and TB. Individual interviews, focus group discussions, and observations were used to understand patients\u2019 experiences with integrated TB and HIV treatment. The patients described incorporating highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) into their daily routine as \u2018easy\u2019; however, they experienced difficulties with disclosing their HIV status. Being on TB treatment created a safe space for all patients to conceal their HIV status from those to whom they did not wish to disclose. Directly observed therapy for TB may have the added benefit of creating a safe space for introducing ART to patients who are not ready to disclose their HIV+ status.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Dossier: Health and Fragile States","field_subtitle":"Eldis Health Reporter: May 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/dossiers/health-and-fragile-states&em=210509&sub=wnew","body":"With some of the worst health indicators and the least adequate health services in the world, providing health services and rebuilding health systems in fragile states is a complex undertaking. This Health and Fragile States dossier highlights the challenges and approaches to delivering health services in fragile states. The dossier covers a number of issues and poses a number of questions. What are fragile states? How can the health-related Millennium Development Goals be met in these states? What are the best approaches for delivering health services in fragile states? How can the World Health Organization\u2019s six building blocks for health systems strengthening be used as a framework for planning and priority-setting in fragile states? What are the implications of the international aid effectiveness agenda for the building of resilient and responsive states to deliver basic services?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Ensuring development in the face of the financial crisis","field_subtitle":"Social Watch: 5 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.socialwatch.org/en/noticias/noticia_351.htm","body":"The United Nations is the only existing legitimate forum through which the financial crisis can be resolved. The Stiglitz Commission provides a good basis on which new models can be built. In the current financial context, any decrease in aid will push more people into poverty, in particular in the most vulnerable least-developed countries. The cutbacks of aid by some EU member states are already signs that this is happening. It is imperative, therefore, that the fundamental reform of the international financial system must take place in reference to the needs of developing countries. The world\u2019s richest Nations agreed a financial stimulus package amounting worth 832 billion Euros (1.1 trillion US dollars) yet barely one quarter will be given to developing countries. And the money destined for developing countries will be channelled through the IMF, whose loan conditionalities have been central in spreading misery around the developing world. Recent changes in IMFs policies have not resolved this problem.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Conference September 23-25 2009 - Registration Closing June 30 2009! ","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Regional Conference on Equity in Health in east and southern Africa,  Munyonyo, Uganda September 23rd -25th 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/index.php","body":"Registration for the EQUINET conference is nearly closing. We look forward to welcoming people from government, non state organisations, academic and research institutions, civil society, parliaments, regional and international organisations and other institutions promoting and working on equity in health in east and southern Africa! \r\nRegistration information is at register for the conference and the pre and post conference workshops. Visit the conference website for further information and to see the programme outline.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC). \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org Website: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 100: A framework convention on global health: Good for health equity?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET PRA Report: Acceptibility and accessibility of HIV testing and treatment services in Bembeyi, Bunia, North eastern DR Congo","field_subtitle":"Baba A, Ulola M, Assea M, Ngule, D, Azanda, N  IPASC, TARSC, EQUINET: May 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRA%20Rep%20IPASC%20May09.pdf","body":"In the DR Congo, where the national HIV prevalence is around 5%, testing and treatment services are more available in urban than rural areas, despite the latter being more affected by the epidemic. In Bunia and Aru, North eastern DRC, people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) cannot access testing or treatment services unless they travel to Bunia town, some distance away. Discrimination from community members towards PLWHA is further identified as a reason for people not coming for HIV testing, and for discouraging other prevention activities. The Pan African Institute of Community Health (IPASC) used a participatory reflection and action (PRA) approach with the concerned rural communities to examine and act on negative perceptions within the community around HIV testing and treatment, to support improved demand for and uptake of these services, to make more effective use of available resources and services. The process targeted male and female PLWHA aged 20-49 years, male and female adolescents 15-19 years, community and church leaders and community health workers because of their vulnerability and influence on attitudes towards HIV and AIDS.  Community level barriers (largely stigma)  interfaced with service level constraints to diminish testing and treatment coverage.  Both users and providers faced barriers. These related to resources (drugs, transport), while the lack of accessible services was a fundamental deterrent. Leaving treatment to late stages when people are ill made this worse, as people found it difficult to make the long journey at that stage. While service factors were not been dealt with in the short time of the intervention, there were improvements in social dialogue on treatment and mechanisms introduced to deal with the community level barriers to testing and treatment. Communities are able to make significant changes in barriers to testing and treatment if organised to do so using participatory processes. Community based sensitisers are an important resource in the community and can produce a measurable change in the attitudes that discourage early testing and treatment. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET PRA Report: Promoting and protecting health of orphans and vulnerable children in Monkey Bay, Malawi","field_subtitle":"Asibu W, Chingoni J, Majawa D, Jambo H, Kambewankako T, Namakhoma I and Loewenson R  CMPD, TARSC, REach Trust,  EQUINET: April 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/CMPD%20PRA%20Report%20May09.pdf","body":"This report presents the experiences and learning from participatory action research implemented by Country Minders for Peoples Development (CMPD), (a Malawi non government organization) on the co-ordination of support from service providers and community organisations for protection of sexual and reproductive health of orphans and vulnerable children in Monkey Bay, Malawi. The work was implemented within a Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) programme that aimed to explore, through participatory reflection and action (PRA) methods, dimensions of (and impediments to delivery of) Primary Health Care responses to HIV and AIDS. Through baseline and follow up surveys, key informant interviews, focus groups and participatory reflection and action (PRA) meetings the study team led by CMPD identified the health needs and coping strategies of orphans and vulnerable children and their consequent risk of health and SRH problems; mapped the services and resources available for orphans and vulnerable children, and their coverage of and gaps in meeting the identified needs; implemented and assessed the outcomes from actions by local services, community organisations and communities responding to problems prioritised by the community, and drew learning from this work on the factors affecting community level support for vulnerable children that would need to be included in comprehensive primary health care responses to AIDS. The findings suggest that a Primary Health Care approach to AIDS should be embedded within and reinforce a wider social protection strategy that addresses life course needs, such as those of vulnerable children. Significant attention and resource commitment has to be given to promoting outreach and uptake of services and to the intersectoral actions and community organisations that support this, if resources are to be accessed and used by vulnerable groups. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Forum on Private Sector Response for Reproductive Health and Family Planning","field_subtitle":"21\u201324 July 2009: Nairobi, Kenya","field_url":"http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/download.php?id=803","body":"The East, Central and Southern African Health Community, in collaboration with USAID-EA, are organising a Forum on Private Sector Response for Reproductive Health and Family Planning to be held in Nairobi, Kenya, July 21\u201324 2009. The broad objective of the forum is to strengthen the contribution of the private sector in reproductive health and family planning services, education and research. More specifically, it aims to explore ways of increasing the private sector contribution to public health agenda for reproductive health and family planning, build consensus on mechanisms and areas of public subsidy to the private sector to enhance reproductive health and family planning service provision, identify and discuss how to manage policy, technical and regulatory constraints to involving private sector in health initiatives, and share best practices in private sector response to reproductive health and family planning issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health partnerships in practice: Taking stock of the GAVI Alliance's new investment in health systems strengthening","field_subtitle":"Naimoli JF: International Journal of Health Planning Management 24(1):3-25, 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/oxo6b3","body":"This paper describes and analyses the GAVI Alliance's early experience with health systems strengthening (HSS) to improve immunisation coverage and other maternal-child health outcomes. The challenges have been forging a common vision and approach, governance, balancing pressure to move money with incremental learning, managing partner roles and relationships, managing the \u2018value for money\u2019 risk, and capacity building. This mid-point stock-taking makes recommendations for moving GAVI forward in a thoughtful manner. The findings should be of interest to other global health partnerships because of their larger significance. This is a story about how a successful alliance that decided to broaden its mandate has responded to the technical, organisational, and political complexities that challenge its traditional business model.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Grand challenges in global health governance","field_subtitle":"Gostin LO and Mok EA: British Medical Bulletin, 17 Apr 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ou2htu","body":"This review identifies an agenda for global health by highlighting the current 'grand challenges' related to governance. Sources included literature from the disciplines of health policy and medicine, conference presentations and documents, and materials from international agencies (such as the World Health Organization). The present approach to global health governance has proven to be inadequate and major changes are necessary. There are a number of areas of controversy. The source of problems behind the current global health governance challenges have not always been agreed upon, but this paper attempts to highlight the recurrent themes and topics of consensus that have emerged in recent years. Growing points and areas timely for developing research are identified. A solution to the 'grand challenges' in global health governance is urgently needed to serve as an area for developing research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health care practices influencing health promotion in urban black women in Tshwane, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Wright SC and Maree JE: Curationis 31(3):36\u201343, September 2008 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qqwaj3","body":"Understanding urban black women's health care practices will enable health promoters to develop interventions that are successful. The problem investigated here was to gain an understanding of the health care practices of urban black women that could influence health promotion activities. The design was qualitative and exploratory. The sampling method was convenient and purposive, and the sample size was determined by saturation of the data. Data was gathered through semi-structured interviews using six specific themes and the analysed using open coding. The results indicated that the social environment created by the registered nurses in the primary health influenced the health care practices of the women negatively. Practices regarding the seriousness of a health problem suggest a possible reason may exist for late admission of a person with a serious health problem.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV is not in recession! TB is not in recession!","field_subtitle":"Treatment Action Campaign: 6 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.tac.org.za/community/node/2545","body":"A coalition of health advocates from Sub-Saharan Africa has warned that the lives of millions of people in Sub-Saharan Africa are in jeopardy because of the lack of political will and investment to realise the right of access to life-saving treatment. \u2018If the current cost constraints faced by HIV treatment programmes are not addressed, while the demand for expensive second-line treatment increases, we will find ourselves in a situation similar to the \u201990s, where millions of lives were lost unnecessarily because people could not afford the treatment they needed to stay alive\u2019, they said. The coalition rejects pitting HIV against other diseases because they believe there is ample evidence that ARV roll-out has strengthened health systems, and the work done by AIDS service organisations has revolutionised healthcare in the developing world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS Implementers\u2019 Meeting","field_subtitle":"10\u201314 June 2009: Windhoek, Namibia ","field_url":"http://www.hivimplementers.org/","body":"This year\u2019s theme is Optimising the Response: Partnerships for Sustainability. The meeting gathers together programme implementers to share best practices and lessons learned in the fight against global HIV/AIDS. This year\u2019s meeting will focus on widely disseminating best practices and lessons learned during the implementation of multi-sectoral HIV/AIDS programmes. The meeting is being hosted by the Government of Namibia and co-sponsored by the U.S. President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; UNAIDS; UNICEF; the World Bank; the World Health Organization; and the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours among rural South African youth: Implications for health education","field_subtitle":"Peltzer K, Seoka P: African Journal of AIDS Research 8(1):28\u201332, 2009","field_url":"http://ajol.info/index.php/ajpherd/article/view/24612","body":"The aim of the study was to evaluate data on behavioural indicators in relation to HIV prevention and occurrence in a rural youth population in South Africa. A representative community sample of youth using a three-stage cluster sampling method was chosen for a household survey, and qualitative data were obtained from the youths using ten focus group discussions. Results indicated a moderately adequate knowledge of HIV. HIV/AIDS knowledge was associated with more consistent condom use, and with a more supportive attitude towards persons with HIV or AIDS. Among female youth, 15.2% reported to have become victims of forceful sex during the last 12 months. For youth the major reasons for not using a condom with a non-commercial partner were 'not available', followed by 'did not like them', 'did not think of it', 'other' (mainly trust in partner), and 'partner objected'.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS, conflict and security in Africa: Rethinking relationships","field_subtitle":"Becker JU, Theodosis C and Kulkarni R: World Hospital Health Services 44(4):36\u201341, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/pyp3vv","body":"Conflict has long been assumed to contribute significantly to the spread of HIV infection. However, new research is casting doubt on this assumption. Studies from Africa suggest that conflict does not necessarily predispose to HIV transmission and indeed, there is evidence to suggest that recovery in the \u2018post-conflict\u2019 state is potentially dangerous from the standpoint of HIV transmission. There has also been concern that high rates of HIV infection among many of the militaries of sub-Saharan Africa poses a threat to regional security. However, data is lacking on this. These issues are of vital importance for HIV programming and health sector development in conflict and \u2018post-conflict\u2019 societies and will constitute formidable challenges to the international community. Further research is required to better inform the discussion of HIV, conflict and security in sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How equitable is bed net ownership and utilisation in Tanzania? A practical application of the principles of horizontal and vertical equity","field_subtitle":"Matovu F, Goodman C, Wiseman V and Mwengee W: Malaria Journal, 21 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-8-109.pdf","body":"The objective of this paper was to measure the extent and causes of inequalities in the ownership and utilisation of bed nets (ITNs) across socioeconomic groups (SEGs) and age groups in Tanga District, north-eastern Tanzania. A questionnaire was administered to heads of 1,603 households from rural and urban areas and focus group discussions were used to explore community perspectives on the causes of inequalities. Use of ITNs remained appallingly low compared to the RBM target of 80% coverage. The results highlight the need for mass distribution of free ITNs, a community-wide programme to treat all untreated nets and to promote the use of long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) or longer-lasting treatment of nets, targeting the rural population and under-fives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention","field_subtitle":"19\u201322 July: Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.ias2009.org/","body":"The world\u2019s largest open scientific conference on HIV/AIDS is held every two years, and attracts about 5,000 delegates from all over the world. It is a unique opportunity for the world\u2019s leading scientists, clinicians, public health experts and community leaders to examine the latest developments in HIV-related research, and to explore how scientific advances can \u2013 in very practical ways \u2013 inform the global response to HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of the Kenya post-election crisis on clinic attendance and medication adherence for HIV-infected children in western Kenya","field_subtitle":"Vreeman RC, Nyandiko WM, Sang E, Musick BS, Braitstein P AND Wiehe SE: Conflict and Health, April 2009 ","field_url":"http://preview.tinyurl.com/poqjxm","body":"This paper describes the immediate impact of conflict following Kenya\u2019s presidential elections on 27 December 2007 with regard to clinic attendance and medication adherence for HIV-infected children cared for within the USAID-Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH) in western Kenya. The researchers conducted a mixed methods analysis that included a retrospective cohort analysis, as well as key informant interviews with pediatric healthcare providers. They found that, during this period of humanitarian crisis, the vulnerable, HIV-infected paediatric population had disruptions in clinical care and in medication adherence, putting children at risk for viral resistance and increased morbidity. However, unique programme strengths may have minimised these disruptions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving effectiveness and outcomes for the poor in health, nutrition and population","field_subtitle":"World Bank","field_url":"http://go.worldbank.org/U2T30HQKG0","body":"The World Bank Group\u2019s support for health, nutrition, and population (HNP) has been sustained since 1997\u2014totaling $17 billion in country-level support by the World Bank and $873 million in private health and pharmaceutical investments by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) through mid-2008. This report evaluates the efficacy of the Bank Group\u2019s direct support for HNP to developing countries since 1997 and draws lessons to help improve the effectiveness of this support. The report presents findings that The Bank Group now funds a smaller share of global support for health, nutrition, and population than it did a decade ago, but its support remains significant; About two-thirds of the Bank\u2019s HNP projects show satisfactory outcomes, but a third do not; the accountability of Bank Group investments for demonstrating results for the poor has been weak; the Bank Group has an important role in helping countries to improve the efficiency of health systems and the potential for improving HNP outcomes through actions by non-health sectors is great, but incentives to deliver them are weak. Adding HNP objectives to Bank projects in other sectors, such as water supply and sanitation, raises the incentive to deliver health benefits. For the Bank Group to achieve its objectives of improving health sector performance and HNP outcomes among the poor, the report indicates that it needs to act in five areas: Intensify efforts to improve the performance of the World Bank portfolio; Renew the commitment to delivering results for the poor, including greater attention to reducing high fertility and malnutrition; \r\nBuild its own capacity to help countries to make health systems more efficient; Enhance the contribution of other sectors to HNP outcomes; Boost evaluation to implement the results agenda and improve governance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge to policy: Making the most of development research","field_subtitle":"Carden F: International Development Research Centre (IDRC) 2009","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-135779-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html","body":"Does research influence public policy and decision-making and, if so, how? This book is the most recent to address this question, investigating the effects of research in the field of international development. It starts from a sophisticated understanding about how research influences public policy and decision-making. It shows how research can contribute to better governance in at least three ways: by encouraging open inquiry and debate, by empowering people with the knowledge to hold governments accountable, and by enlarging the array of policy options and solutions available to the policy process. Knowledge to Policy examines the consequences of 23 research projects funded by Canada\u2019s International Development Research Centre. Key findings and case studies from Asia, Africa, and Latin America are presented in a reader-friendly, journalistic style, giving the reader a deeper grasp and understanding of approaches, contexts, relationships and events.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Lessons learned from health sector reform: A four-country comparison","field_subtitle":"Talukder MN, Rob U and Mahabub-Ul-Anwar M: International Community Health Education 28(2):153\u2013164, 2007\u20132008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qkda5a","body":"This article discusses health sector reform experiences of four developing countries, including Tanzania, and identifies the lessons learned. Findings suggest that decentralisation works effectively while implementing primary and secondary health programmes. Decentralisation of power and authority to local authorities requires strengthening and supporting these units. Community participation facilitates recruitment and development of field workers, facility improvement and service delivery. For providing financial protection to the poor, there is a need to review user fees and develop affordable health insurance with an exemption mechanism. There is no uniform health sector reform approach for all countries \u2013 policy makers must examine the context and determine the reform measures that constitute the best means in terms of equity, efficiency and sustainability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Make change happen with a Sheila McKechnie International Young Campaigner Award","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 30 June, 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.sheilamckechnie.org.uk/showSubSub.php?id=88&page=3&last=117","body":"The International Young Campaigner Award recognises campaigners who are 24 or younger, who are based outside the UK, in many of the least developed countries of the global South. Eligible campaigners will be working to achieve social, economic or environmental justice in their home countries \u2013 and specifically on issues relevant to girls and young women. The young person who wins the award will benefit from mentoring, coaching and guidance from experienced campaigners to help them achieve results with their campaign. This award is sponsored by the Sheila McKechnie Foundation. It\u2019s award is an opportunity for campaigners working outside the UK in some of the world's poorest countries, to become involved in the awards support programme. The successful applicant will be supported both in their home country and in the UK to help them make best use of the resources available to them, build their networks and alliances in the international community, and develop a successful strategy to achieve change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Manual: Visualizing Information for Advocacy: An Introduction to Information Design","field_subtitle":"Tactical Technology Collective: 2009","field_url":"http://www.tacticaltech.org/infodesign","body":"Visualizing Information for Advocacy: An Introduction to Information Design is a manual aimed at helping NGOs and advocates strengthen their campaigns and projects through communicating vital information with greater impact. This project aims to raise awareness, introduce concepts, and promote good practice in information design \u2013 a powerful tool for advocacy, outreach, research, organisation and education. Effective communcation is essential for any organisation to operate properly, and the guide covers all aspects of business communication. It is part of a programme of work by Tactical Technology Collective to promote research, development and design in the public interest.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Message-in-a-Box: Media toolkit for non-governmental organisations","field_subtitle":"Tactical Technology Collective: 2009","field_url":"http://www.messageinabox.tacticaltech.org/","body":"Do you want to use multimedia, online or offline tools to advance your cause creatively and effectively? Would you like to reach the broadest possible audience? Do you want to create and distribute audio programmes, comic books, posters and newsletters? What about setting up a website or a blog to champion your issue? Message-in-a-Box can be used as a resource for any citizen-based journalism work. Combining tools and the tactics to use them is a great way to put technology in context. Tools are only effective if they are matched with effective planning and good strategies and when they are matched with skills and resources. Message-in-a-Box delivers information on doing all this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Multinational pharmaceutical companies oppose affordable patented drugs","field_subtitle":"Mukherjee R: Times of India, 27 Apr 2009","field_url":"http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/India-Business/MNCs-oppose-affordable-patented-drugs/articleshow/4452221.cms","body":"The Indian government's efforts to bring in affordable patented medicines for chronic and lifestyle ailments, may hit a roadblock with multinational companies trying to stall the move. The mechanism would have increased affordability of drugs like Tarceva, Herceptin, Pegasys and Januvia used for treatment of chronic ailments, which at present are exorbitantly priced. Government put forth a model to multinational pharmaceutical companies, which has not met with much enthusiasm from the industry. It asked them to ensure that patented drugs introduced in the country are priced cheapest here than anywhere in the world. Significantly, the recommendations say that patented block-buster drugs that have no substitute in the market and offer substantial therapeutic benefit should be offered at prices 40% to 70% cheaper than the maximum retail price through the public health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"New South African health minister aims to improve service delivery","field_subtitle":"Bodibe K: Health-e, 21 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032296","body":"New Health Minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has announced five key priorities for action, one of which is to strengthen the quality of care in the health service. To succeed in boosting service delivery, the new Health Minister identified four key areas he will be giving his immediate attention in the next few weeks: the official launch the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission acceleration plan, a new team that will deal with norms and standards between national, provincial and district health systems, a future meeting of provincial health MECs to come up with cost-containment measures or austerity measures to curb over-spending, and a consultation with his counterparts within the Inter-Ministerial Committee to speedily resolve the issues around the occupational-specific dispensation. But Motsoaledi was thin on detail about how he plans to address the issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"New workshop at the EQUINET conference: BANG \u2013 the Next Technological Challenge to Africa\u2019s Health and Well-being","field_subtitle":"ETC, September 26 2009, after the EQUINET Conference September 23-25 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/workshops.php","body":"Facing multiple global crises, governments and corporations are arguing that new technologies are the solution to fixing everything from climate chaos to hunger and health problems. What do these new technologies mean for African countries? In which contexts are they being developed? Who controls and who will benefit from them? Are they bringing new impacts to our health, environment and economies? The workshop will feature presentations from ETC group, an international civil society organization based in Canada, and African partners which will explain and introduce the issues, followed by questions and discussions with participants. \r\nVisit the conference website for more details and to register \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Opening speech of the 62nd session of the World Health Assembly","field_subtitle":"Chan M, Director-General of the World Health Organization: 18 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2009/62nd_assembly_address_20090518/en/index.html","body":"The current economic downturn will diminish wealth and health, but the impact will be greatest in the developing world. The world can be grateful that health officials are recommitting themselves to primary health care, the surest route to greater equity in access to health care. Much of the blame for the essentially unfair way our world works rests at the policy level. Time and time again, health is a peripheral issue when the policies that shape this world are set. When health policies clash with prospects for economic gain, economic interests trump health concerns. Time and time again, health bears the brunt of short-sighted, narrowly focused policies made in other sectors. Equity in health matters. It matters in life-and-death ways. The HIV/AIDS epidemic taught us this, in a most visible and measurable way. We see just how much equity matters when crises arise.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"People's Health Movement Secretariat moves to Cape Town, South Africa","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement: 23 May 2009","field_url":"http://phmovement.org/cms/en/node/2010","body":"From 1 June 2009, the PHM Global Secretariat will be hosted by PHM-South Africa in Cape Town, South Africa. Ms Bridget Lloyd has been appointed Global Co-ordinator. For the last three years, from June 2006 to June 2009, PHM\u2019s Global Secretariat has been based in Cairo at the Association of Health and Environment Development (AHED) and led by Dr Hani Serag with the support of the Global Secretariat Committee (Dr Jihad Marshal, Dr Alaa Shukrallah and Dr Ghassan Issa). Cape Town will be the fourth location of the PHM Global Secretariat. From January 2000 to December 2002, the Secretariat was hosted by Gonoshasthaya Kendra in Savar, Bangladesh and led by Dr Qasem Chowdhury) and then from January 2003 \u2013 May 2006 in Bangalore, India when it was hosted by the Community Health Cell and led by Dr Ravi Narayan.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Perceptions towards private medical practitioners' attachments for undergraduate medical students in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Matchaya M and Muula AS: Malawi Medical Journal 21(1):6-11, 2009","field_url":"http://ajol.info/index.php/mmj/article/view/10983","body":"This study aimed to describe perceptions of medical students, recent medical graduates, faculty of the College of Medicine, University of Malawi and private medical practitioners (PMPs) towards an attachment of undergraduate medical students in private medical doctors' offices. A qualitative cross-sectional study was conducted in Blantyre, Malawi in 2004 using in-depth key informant interviews and content analysis. In general, private medical practitioners were favourable to the idea of having medical students within their consulting offices while the majority of students, recent graduates and faculty opposed, fearing compromising teaching standards. Private medical practitioners (PMPs) were seen as outdated in skills and knowledge. Faculty, medical students and recent graduates of the Malawi College of Medicine do not perceive PMPs as a resource to be tapped for the training of medical students.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Planning for district mental health services in South Africa: A situational analysis of a rural district site","field_subtitle":"Petersen I, Bhana A, Campbell-Hall V, Mjadu S, Lund C, Kleintjies S, Hosegood V and Flisher AJ: Health Policy Planning 24(2):140\u201350, March 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/pob2g6","body":"This study sought to assess progress in South Africa with respect to deinstitutionalisation and the integration of mental health into primary health care, with a view to understanding the resource implications of these processes at district level. A situational analysis in one district site, typical of rural areas in South Africa, was conducted, based on qualitative interviews with key stakeholders and the World Health Organization's Assessment Instrument for Mental Health Systems (WHO-AIMS). The decentralisation process remains largely limited to emergency management of psychiatric patients and ongoing psychopharmacological care of patients with stabilised chronic conditions. Similar to other low- to middle-income countries, deinstitutionalisation and comprehensive integrated mental health care in South Africa is hampered by a lack of resources for mental health care within the primary health care resource package, as well as the inefficient use of existing mental health resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Polygyny and women's health in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Bove R and Valeggia C: Social Science and Medicine 68(1):21\u201329, January 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/pn6mqe","body":"This paper reviews the literature on the association between polygyny and women's health in sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that polygyny is an example of \u2018co-operative conflict\u2019 within households, with likely implications for the vulnerability of polygynous women to illness, and for their access to treatment. Polygyny is associated with an accelerated transmission of sexually transmitted infections, because it permits a multiplication of sexual partners and correlates with low rates of condom use, poor communication between spouses, and age and power imbalances, among other factors. The paper also examines areas that have so far received only cursory attention: mental health and a premature \u2018social\u2019 menopause. Although data is scarce, polygyny seems to be associated with higher levels of anxiety and depression. The examples reviewed here should help build a framework for mixed method quality research to inform policy makers better.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Progress on health-related Millennium Development Goals mixed, says World Health Organization","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 21 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2009/millennium_development_goals_20090521/en/index.html","body":"Deaths of children aged under five years have dropped by 27% globally since 1990, according to the latest WHO estimates. But in WHO\u2019s first progress report on the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) released today in the World Health Statistics 2009, other results are mixed. An estimated nine million children aged under five years died in 2007, significantly fewer than the 12.5 million estimated to have died in 1990. However, in many African countries and in low-income countries generally, progress has been insufficient to reach the MDG target, which aims for a two-thirds reduction in child mortality by the year 2015. \u2018The decline in the death toll of children under five illustrates what can be achieved by strengthening health systems and scaling up interventions,\u2019 said Dr Ties Boerma, Director of WHO\u2019s Department of Health Statistics and Informatics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Quick \u2018n Easy Guide to Online Advocacy","field_subtitle":"Tactical Technology Collective: 2009","field_url":"http://onlineadvocacy.tacticaltech.org/","body":"This guide presents advocates with a collection of popular online services that can be used for advocacy quickly with little to no technical support. There are services for publishing photographs and video, for setting up a campaign blog or for using mobiles to communicate in a group. An amazing amount of functionality and tools are available simply by connecting to the internet and opening up a web browser. You don't need to have a lot of technical expertise to try some of these. You also don't need much money, as these services are offered at low or no cost. They require a broadband connection and are not recommended for dial-up connections. Advocates can easily and quickly connect, gather information and distribute powerful messages by utilising these services, while the majority of technology is out of sight. This guide presents use of these services from a Northern perspective, though it has tried to present alternative services popular in different regions and languages.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reducing user fees for primary health care in Kenya: Policy on paper or policy in practice?","field_subtitle":"Chuma J, Musimbi J, Okungu V, Goodman C and Molyneux C: International Journal for Equity in Health: 8 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-8-15.pdf","body":"Whether or not the positive impacts of user fees removal policies are sustained has hardly been explored. This study documents the extent to which primary health care facilities in Kenya continue to adhere to a 'new' charging policy three years after its implementation. Data was collected in two districts, Kwale and Makueni, and focus group discussions and patient exit interviews were conducted. Adherence to the policy was poor in both districts, and drug shortages, declining revenue, poor policy design and implementation processes were the main reasons given for poor adherence to the policy. In conclusion, reducing user fees in primary health care in Kenya is a policy on paper that is yet to be implemented fully. Caution must be taken when deciding on how to reduce or abolish user fees and all potential consequences should be carefully considered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Ritual and the organisation of care in primary care clinics in Cape Town, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Lewin S and Green J: Social Science and Medicine 68(8):1464\u20131471, April 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/owh8md","body":"This paper explores the organisation of health care work in primary care clinics in Cape Town by analysing two elements of clinic organisation as rituals: a formal, policy-driven element of care \u2013 directly observed therapy for tuberculosis patients \u2013 and an informal ritual \u2013 morning prayers in the clinic. Seven clinics providing care to people with tuberculosis were sampled. Findings suggest that, rather than seeing the ritualised aspects of clinic activities as merely traditional elements of care that potentially interfere with the application of good practice, it is essential to understand their symbolic value if their contribution to health care organisation is to be recognised. These rituals embody the conflicting values of patients and staff in these clinics and reinforce asymmetrical relations of power between different constituencies, strengthening conventional modes of provider-patient interaction.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Sixty-second World Health Assembly proceedings","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, May 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/2009/wha62/en/index.html","body":"The 62nd session of the World Health Assembly took place in Geneva during 18-22 May 2009. At this session, the Health Assembly discussed a number of public health issues, including: pandemic influenza preparedness: sharing of influenza viruses and access to vaccines and other benefits; \r\nimplementation of the International Health Regulations; primary health care, including health system strengthening; social determinants of health; and monitoring the achievement of the health-related Millennium Development Goals. The Health Assembly also discussed the programme budget, administration and management matters of WHO. The proceeedings and resolutions can be found at the website provided. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Sixty-second World Health Assembly: Agenda for action","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/2009/wha62/en/index.html","body":"The 62nd session of the World Health Assembly took place in Geneva during 18-22 May 2009. At this session, the Health Assembly discussed a number of public health issues, including pandemic influenza preparedness: sharing of influenza viruses and access to vaccines and other benefits, implementation of the International Health Regulations, primary health care (including health system strengthening), the social determinants of health and monitoring the achievement of the health-related Millennium Development Goals. The Health Assembly also discussed the programme budget, administration and management matters of the World Health Organization.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Social determinants of health and health inequities in Nakuru, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Muchukuri E and Grenier FR: International Journal for Equity in Health, 14 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-8-16.pdf","body":"This paper examines the health status of residents in a major urban centre in Kenya and reviews the effects of selected social determinants on local health. Through field surveys, focus group discussions and a literature review, this study canvasses past and current initiatives and recommends priority actions. Areas identified that unevenly affect the health of the most vulnerable segments of the population were: water supply, sanitation, solid waste management, food environments, housing, the organisation of health care services and transportation. The use of a participatory method proved to be a useful approach that could benefit other urban centres in their analysis of social determinants of health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Social determinants of health in very poor ruralities","field_subtitle":"Bull T: Global Health Promotion 16(1):53-6, 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/r2u8t4","body":"Globally, research on social determinants of health has built a considerable knowledge base over the last decade. Still, not much of this research has been carried out in the extremely poor areas of the world, like for instance Africa south of the Sahara. In very poor ruralities, classic indicators of socioeconomic status are not well suited. Few people have any education, monetary income is not a good measure of material standing and people cannot be classified by occupation as they make their livelihood from a variety of activities. For efforts towards health equity to benefit the poorest of the poor, more suitable indicators of social health determinants must be identified. Health research might benefit from knowledge developed in neighbouring fields like development research, anthropology and sociology.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa reveals its Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Plan","field_subtitle":"Magamdela P: Health-e, 9 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032291","body":"Government has revealed its National Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Plan in the event of an outbreak of swine flu in the country. Dr. Frew Benson, the Chief Director of Communicable Diseases in the Department of Health, explained to the media how the team would respond after being alerted of a suspected case. \u2018They would go out to that particular case, investigate, take all the epidemiological data around this case, make certain that the case is isolated and trace all the contacts of this case. They will then make sure, if the case meets the criteria for treatment with anti-virals\u2019, he said. The department has assured the public that it has stockpiled more than enough batches of the anti-viral drug, Tamiflu, which has been found to be effective against swine flu. \u2018We\u2019ve got 100,000 doses (of Tamiflu) and more available if need be. We have more than 10 times more than was needed in the Mexican outbreak,\u2019 he added.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Statement of the participants of the SADC Parliamentary Forum Training on Intellectual Property, Trade and Access to Medicines","field_subtitle":"SADC Parliamentary Forum Training on Intellectual Property, Trade and Access to Medicines: 14 May 2009","field_url":"","body":"After their workshop, participants made a number of recommendations. They wanted governments to meet their obligations in the Abuja Declaration to spend at least 15% of its budget on the health sector, in addition to any donor aid the country may receive for the same purpose. A process should be initiated to review and amend all patent legislation, especially to ensure maximum use of TRIPS flexibilities that promote access to medicines. The implications of ratifying the 30 August 2003 decision on licenses for exports to countries with insufficient manufacturing capacity need to be considered. An improvement is required in the monitoring, transparency and participation of all interested stakeholders in the negotiation of free trade agreements and economic partnership agreements to ensure no eroding of flexibilities and no further enforcement processes to patents.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33959","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Surgeons and HIV: South African attitudes","field_subtitle":"Szabo CP, Dhai A, Veller M and Kleinsmidt A: South African Medical Journal 99(2):110-113, 2009","field_url":"http://ajol.info/index.php/samj/article/view/14021","body":"The HIV status of surgeons, in the context of the informed consent obtained from their patients, is a contentious matter. We surveyed the views of practising surgeons in South Africa regarding aspects of HIV and its impact on surgeons. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with surgeons who were members of the Association of Surgeons of South Africa to find out their attitudes to the preceding issues. The salient findings included the view that a patient-centred approach requiring HIV status disclosure to patients would be discriminatory to surgeons and provide no clear benefit to patients, and that HIV-positive surgeons should determine their own scope of practice. Patient-centred approaches and restrictive policies do not accord with clinicians\u2019 sentiments. In the absence of comparable local or international data, this study provides clinicians' views with implications for the development of locally relevant policies and guidelines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The feasibility of determining the impact of primary health care research projects using the Payback Framework","field_subtitle":"Kalucy EC, Jackson-Bowers E, McIntyre E and Reed R: Health Research Policy and Systems, 8 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/1/11","body":"This project explored the feasibility of using the Buxton and Hanney Payback Framework to determine the impact of a stratified random sample of competitively funded, primary health care research projects. The project conducted telephone interviews based on the Payback Framework with leaders of the research teams and nominated users of their research, used bibliometric methods for assessing impact through publication outputs and obtained documentary evidence of impact where possible. The framework provided rich information about the pathways to impact, better understanding of which may enhance impact. It is feasible to use the Buxton and Hanney Payback framework and logic model to determine the proximal impacts of primary health care research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The global financial crisis and its impact on developing countries","field_subtitle":"World Trade Organization: 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qtzwtz","body":"The World Trade Organization\u2019s 2009 Global Monitoring Report notes that the deepening global recession, rising unemployment, and volatile commodity prices in 2008 and 2009 are seriously affecting progress toward poverty reduction. The recent food crisis has thrown millions into extreme poverty. Deteriorating growth prospects in developing countries will further slow the pace of poverty reduction. Recovery prospects depend on effective policies that restore confidence in the financial system and counter falling global demand. While the responsibility for restoring global growth lies largely with rich countries, emerging and developing countries have a key role to play in improving the growth outlook, maintaining macroeconomic stability, and strengthening the international financial system. Financing the health sector may be negatively impacted by the recession.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The health worker shortage in Africa: Are enough physicians and nurses being trained?","field_subtitle":"Kinfu Y, Dal Poz MR, Mercer H and Evans DB: Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 87(3):225-30, March 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/r2oqba","body":"This paper set out to estimate systematically the inflow and outflow of health workers in Africa and examine whether current levels of pre-service training in the region suffice to address this serious problem. Most data came from the 2005 WHO health workforce and training institutions' surveys. The study was restricted to 12 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It found that the health workforce shortage in Africa is even more critical than previously estimated. In 10 of the 12 countries studied, current pre-service training is insufficient to maintain the existing density of health workers once all causes of attrition are taken into account - it would take 36 years for physicians and 29 years for nurses and midwives to reach WHO's recent target of 2.28 professionals per 1,000 population for the countries taken as a whole - and some countries would never reach it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The household costs of health care in rural South Africa with free public primary care and hospital exemptions for the poor","field_subtitle":"Goudge J, Gilson L, Russell S, Gumede T and Mills A: Tropical Medicine and International Health: 14(4):458\u2013467, April 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ryr94g","body":"The objective of this study was to measure the direct cost burdens (health care expenditure as a percentage of total household expenditure) for households in rural South Africa, and examine the expenditure and use patterns driving those burdens in a setting with free public primary health care and hospital exemptions for the poor. Data was drawn from a cross-sectional survey of 280 households. The low overall mean cost burden of 4.5% suggests that free primary care and hospital exemptions provided financial protection. However, transport costs, the difficulty of obtaining hospital exemptions, use of private providers, and complex treatment patterns undermined this. The significant non-use of care shows the need for other measures such as more outreach services and more exemptions in rural areas. Fee removal anywhere must be accompanied by wider measures to ensure improved access.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The place of aid in Africa\u2019s solutions to its problems","field_subtitle":"Ndungane N: African Monitor, 2009","field_url":"http://www.africanmonitor.org/Site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=118&Itemid=","body":"Should development aid be withdrawn because it does not work? No. Under present circumstances aid resources are vital for human survival and the development of many people in Africa. Despite receiving US$38 billion in aid flows in 2008, Africa still faces a serious resource gap to bring about economic and social development and the recent near-collapse of the global financial architecture provides vital evidence that well-targeted and properly administered aid resources are vital to poor people. Africa has recently experienced one of the longest consistent economic growth rates and it has started to make a dent in reducing poverty, which needs to be built on. The debate on the demise or ineffectiveness of aid provokes serious questions about who really holds the key to redressing the injustices that exist globally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The private sector does have a role to play in health service delivery","field_subtitle":"Over M: 13 March 2009","field_url":"http://blogs.cgdev.org/globalhealth/2009/03/public-delivery-of-aids-treatment-in-south-asia-a-timidly-heroic-assumption.php#more-694","body":"Oxfam\u2019s latest publication characterises as illogical and unethical the view that governments could serve their people by facilitating and regulating a private sector contribution to health care delivery. The author\u2019s research in South Asia shows that, at least for antiretroviral therapy (ART), there is a role for public as well as private provision in developing countries. In countries like India, the private health care sector is industrious, entrepreneurial and accounts for most health care delivery. However, its quality is extremely varied. This variability of quality is less of a problem when health care addresses non-infectious health problems, like broken arms or diabetes. For these problems, lower quality care may be better than no care at all. So even if the government were able to successfully ban all the lower quality health care providers, it may only end up making health care less accessible to the poorest.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Ugandan MPs recommend slashing ARV budget allocation","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 22 May 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84498","body":"Ugandan HIV activists have expressed concern over a recommendation by parliament's budget committee that the allocation for antiretroviral (ARV) drugs be cut. The national budget for 2008/09 allocated 76 billion shillings (US$38 million) to purchasing ARVs, the first such allocation in the country's history, but the house standing committee recommended that the amount be cut to 40 billion shillings in the 2009/2010 budget. \u2018We recognise that HIV is a serious disease but it is not the only disease affecting Ugandans,\u2019 said Rose Akol Okullo, chair of the committee. \u2018Cancer and diseases afflicting women need equal attention if we are to meet the Millennium Development Goal on health. More than 300,000 HIV-positive people in Uganda need ARVs. AIDS activists argue that the committee's recommendation will allow the government to shirk its responsibility to provide drugs to them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"US applies for United Nations Human Rights Council membership","field_subtitle":"VOA News: 4 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2009-05-04-voa8.cfm","body":"The United States has announced that it will seek a seat this year on the United Nations Human Rights Council. The decision to run reflects the US commitment to helping the Human Rights Council play its intended role as a balanced, credible, and effective forum for the advancement of human rights. Elections to the Human Rights Council are scheduled for 12 May in the UN General Assembly in New York. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the US decision to join the UN Human Rights Council saying, \u2018Full US engagement on human rights issues is an important step toward realising the goal of an inclusive and vibrant intergovernmental process to protect rights around the globe.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Use of task-shifting to rapidly scale-up HIV treatment services: Experiences from Lusaka, Zambia","field_subtitle":"Morris MB, Chapula BT, Chi BH, Mwango A, Chi HF, Mwanza J, Manda H, Bolton C, Pankratz DS, Stringer JS and Reid SE: BMC Health Services Research, January 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/r3hasf","body":"As part of ART services expansion in Lusaka, Zambia, this study implemented a comprehensive task-shifting programme among existing health providers and community-based workers. It provides on-going quality assessment using key indicators of clinical care quality at each site. Programme performance is reviewed with clinic-based staff quarterly. When problems are identified, clinic staff members design and implement specific interventions to address targeted areas. Ongoing quality assessment demonstrated improvement across clinical care quality indicators, despite rapidly growing patient volumes. The task-shifting strategy was designed to address current health care worker needs and to sustain ART scale-up activities. While this approach has been successful so far, long-term solutions to the human resource crisis are urgently needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Using maps for advocacy: A manual","field_subtitle":"Tactical Technology Collective: 2009","field_url":"http://www.tacticaltech.org/mapsforadvocacy","body":"This booklet is an effective guide to using maps in advocacy. The mapping process for advocacy is explained vividly through case studies, descriptions of procedures and methods, a review of data sources and a glossary of mapping terminology. Scattered through the booklet are links to websites that afford a glance at a few prolific mapping efforts. Hosting a map on your website can now become a reality as the guide takes you through the specifics of the process. Examples of valuable data sources, like youtube, facebook, flickr and socialight, have been cited, along with a brief outline of their mapping features. The fold-out offers an illustrative sketch of the inside story, while the fold-in explains a swift and easy method to create a map. The purpose of the booklet is to enable advocacy groups explore the potential of maps to effectively send out their message.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHA Resolution on Primary health care, including health systems strengthening","field_subtitle":"62nd World Health Assembly May 2009","field_url":"http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan034097.pdf","body":"The 62nd World Health Assembly in May 2009 adopted a resolution strongly reaffirming the values and principles of primary health care, including equity, solidarity, social justice, universal access to services, multisectoral action and community participation as the basis for strengthening health systems. It calls on WHO to reflect the values and principles of the Declaration of Alma-Ata in its work and that the overall organizational efforts across all levels contribute to the renewal of primary health care and to strengthen the Secretariat\u2019s capacities to support this. Full text is found at the website provided. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Assembly 2009: People\u2019s Health Movement\u2019s statements on key health issues","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement: 2009","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/cms/en/node/2020","body":"The People\u2019s Health Movement has warned that the current global economic recession is a threat to the world\u2019s health. It demands immediate measures by the international community and individual governments to ensure adequate resources to revitalise public health systems, pay urgent attention to the needs of the poor rather than reviving failed big commercial banks, allocate funds for the restoration of jobs and livelihood opportunities in low-income communities and strengthen social welfare programmes in developing countries. It urges those in power not to use the economic crisis downturn as an excuse to cut funds for welfare-related programmes and calls upon the World Health Assembly to adopt the final recommendations of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health immediately.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Assembly finds way forward on pandemic flu","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property  Watch, 22 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/05/22/world-health-assembly-finds-way-forward-on-pandemic-flu/","body":"Responsibility to take forward a still in-progress framework to cope with global influenza pandemics is now in the hands of the World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan. The framework is intended to set forth guidelines for the sharing of viruses, vaccines, and other benefits related to pandemic strains of influenza. This includes mechanisms for tracing and reporting outbreaks, as well as for capacity building, technology transfer, and stockpiles of vaccines. It also includes a model binding contract for entities sharing viruses with pandemic potential.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Conditional scholarships\u2019 for HIV/AIDS health workers: Educating and retaining the workforce to provide antiretroviral treatment in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"B\u00e4rnighausen T and Bloom DE: Social Sciences Medicine: 68(3):544-51, February 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19081662","body":"Researchers conducted a cost-benefit analysis of a health care education scholarship that is conditional on the recipient committing to work for several years after graduation delivering ART in sub-Saharan Africa. Such a scholarship could address two of the main reasons for the low numbers of health workers in sub-Saharan Africa: low education rates and high emigration rates. Conditional scholarships for a HAHW team sufficient to provide ART for 500 patients have an expected net present value (eNPV) of US$1.24 million per year. The eNPV of the education effect of the scholarships is larger than eNPV of the migration effect. Policy makers should consider implementing \u2018conditional scholarships\u2019 for HAHW, especially in countries where health worker education capacity is currently underutilised or needs to be rapidly expanded.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A call for structural, sustainable, gender equitable and rights based responses to the global financial and economic crisis","field_subtitle":"Women\u2019s Working Group on Financing for Development  April 27, 2009","field_url":"","body":"The Women\u2019s Working Group on Financing for Development (WWG on FfD), recognize that the financial and economic crisis represents a critical political opportunity to make significant structural changes in the global development macroeconomic and financial architecture that reflect rights-based and equitable principles. This statement reflects on the actions to respond to the current crisis with alternative policy approaches that harmonize with international standards and commitments to gender equality, women\u2019s rights and human rights and empowerment.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33939","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"African Ethics, Health Care Research and Community and Individual Participation","field_subtitle":"Jegede S  Journal of Asian and African Studies, Vol. 44, No. 2, 239-253 (2009)","field_url":"http://jas.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/44/2/239","body":"This article discusses the appropriateness of western bioethics in the African setting. It focuses on the decision-making process regarding participation in health research as a contested boundary in international bioethics discourse. An ethnomethodological approach is used to explain African ethics, and African ethic is applied to the decision-making process in the African community. An HIV/AIDS surveillance project is used as a case study to explore the concept of communitarianism. The article argues that what exists in Africa is communal or social autonomy as opposed to individual autonomy in the West. As a result, applying the western concept of autonomy to research involving human subjects in the African context without adequate consideration for the important role of the community is inappropriate. It concludes that lack of adequate consideration for community participation in health research involving human subjects in Africa will prevent proper management and lack truly informed consent. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"After Accra: Delivering on the Agenda for Action","field_subtitle":"Gutman J: World Bank, 2009","field_url":"http://www1.worldbank.org/devoutreach/articleid521.html#top","body":"Developing countries need to deepen their ownership of the development process by engaging local governments, civil society, and parliaments \u2013 what could be called 'the basic body of democratic responsibility'. If they identify areas where their capacity is weak, they can develop plans to address those areas. Leadership is required in managing the development process, working out a sensible division of labour among the donors that are active in their countries. They need to improve their ability to gather and use statistical information, so that they know \u2013 and can report to their citizens \u2013 what results they are achieving. Donors should also make sure that the aid they give is properly managed and that it reaches those who need it most, namely the poor and underserved.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Are doctors and nurses associated with coverage of essential health services in developing countries? A cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Kruk ME, Prescott MR, de Pinho H and Galea S: Human Resources for Health, March 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/7/1/27","body":"This study examined the relationship between doctor and nurse concentrations and utilisation rates of six essential health services in developing countries: antenatal care, attended delivery, caesarean section, measles immunisation, tuberculosis case diagnosis and care for acute respiratory infection. It found that nurses were associated with high levels of utilisation of skilled birth attendants and doctors were associated with high measles immunisation rates, but neither were associated with the remaining four services. It is plausible that other health workers, such as clinical officers and community health workers, may be providing a substantial proportion of these health services, which means that the human resources for health research agenda must be expanded to include these other workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Building capacity without disrupting health services: Public health education for Africa through distance learning","field_subtitle":"Alexander L, Igumbor EU and Sanders D: Human Resources for Health, 1 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-7-28.pdf","body":"Through distance education, the School of Public Health of the University of the Western Cape, South Africa has provided access to master's level public health education for health professionals from more than 20 African countries while they remain in post. Since 2000, interest has increased overwhelmingly to a point where four times more applications are received than can be accommodated. This brief paper describes the innovative aspects of the programme, offering some evaluative indications of its impact, and reviews how the delivery of text-led distance learning has helped realise the objectives of public health training. Strategies are proposed for scaling up such a programme to meet the growing need for health professional development in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for manuscripts on nondiscrimination and equality","field_subtitle":"Deadline extended to 15 May, 2009","field_url":"http://www.hhrjournal.org/index.php/hhr/about/submissions.","body":"Non-discrimination is perhaps the most fundamental principle underlying all of human rights. Yet, notions of equality and non-discrimination have yet to be fully developed as they apply to health policy and programming.  What does equality actually mean in rolling out or scaling up services, or determining resource allocations in health? What dimensions of inequality result in inequity?  What are the grounds for advancing substantive equality as it relates to preconditions for health and access to care?  How is the concept of non-discrimination related to but distinct from development concepts of social exclusion? A forthcoming issue of Health and Human Rights will cover these issues and is calling for submissions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: International assistance and cooperation","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 15 August 2009","field_url":"http://www.hhrjournal.org/index.php/hhr/about/submissions","body":"Health and Human Rights, an international journal, invites manuscript submissions for its next theme issue on international assistance and cooperation. The ability of poor countries to realize the right to health must be understood within the context of the global political economy. Donor countries assume human rights obligations both directly and as members of international organisations, such as the World Bank, IMF and regional development banks. UN and international agencies, as well as transnational corporations under certain circumstances, may also have human rights obligations relating to health. This issue will critically explore how these international obligations are being defined and discharged, and how to make stakeholders accountable for their human rights obligations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Capacity-building courses in health, HIV & AIDS, population and development","field_subtitle":"Centre for African Family Studies   Kenya","field_url":"http://www.cafs.org","body":"The Centre for African Family Studies (CAFS) is an African institution dedicated to strengthening the capacities of organisations and individuals working in the field of health, HIV & AIDS, population and development in order to contribute to improving the quality of life of families in sub-Saharan Africa. \r\nTo achieve its mission, CAFS conducts courses and provides research and consultancy services from strategically located bases in East and West Africa, with headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, and a regional office in Lom, Togo. Highly qualified professionals, who form a multi-disciplinary team within the fields of reproductive health, HIV & AIDS and population & development, provide its services. The list of courses is as follows: \r\no Resource Mobilization & Proposal Writing, 11 - 15 May 2009\r\no Advocacy for Reproductive Health and HIV & AIDS, 8 -19 June 2009\r\no Supervising HIV & AIDS Services, 6 - 17 July 2009\r\no Advances in Behavior Change Communication for HIV & AIDS, TB and Malaria Programmes, 20 - 31 July 2009\r\no Promoting Gender and Rights in Reproductive Health and HIV&AIDS, 27 July -14 August 2009\r\no Impact Measurement, Monitoring and Evaluation of HIV & AIDS Programmes, 10 - 21 August 2009\r\no Developing and Implementing an Effective Knowledge Management Strategy, 21 -25 September 2009\r\no Leadership and Management of Reproductive Health, and HIV & AIDS Programmes, 5 -16 October 2009\r\no Strengthening Multi-sectoral Prevention and Response Interventions to Sexual and Gender Based Violence, 9 -20 November 2009","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Caring for AIDS-orphaned children: A systematic review of studies on caregivers ","field_subtitle":"Maro CN, Roberts GC and S rensen M: Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies 4(1): 1\u201312, March 2009","field_url":"http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a909921074~db=all?jumptype=alert&alerttype=new_issue_alert%2Cemail","body":"This article presents the first known systematic review of the research literature on carers of AIDS-orphaned children. Twenty-nine studies of caregivers of AIDS-orphaned children were identified and assessed, mostly in the developing world. Most studies included identifying the individuals who were providing care, assessing the capacity of the extended family to care for AIDS orphans and exploring the process of care placement. Few examined the caregiving experience in any depth, including the challenges of caring for orphans or the effects of caring for these children on the caregivers' health and wellbeing. The article concludes with suggestions for future research to guide policy and programming efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Cholera infection continues to slow in southern Africa, UN says","field_subtitle":"United Nations: 22 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30558","body":"The cholera epidemic in southern Africa continues to abate, but international and local health authorities stress the need to remain vigilant, the United Nations has reported. There were a total of 4,579 new cases between 3 and 17 April in the nine countries \u2013 Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe \u2013 affected by the often fatal disease since August 2008. During the two weeks preceding 3 April, 6,460 new cases were reported. Authorities warn, however, that cholera could re-appear in the coming one to three weeks, when waters from flooding in the region, which has affected more than 1.2 million people, subside and become stagnant.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Community health workers for ART in sub-Saharan Africa: Learning from experience and capitalizing on new opportunities","field_subtitle":"Hermann K, van Damme W, Pariyo GW, Schouten E, Assefa Y, Cirera A and Massavon W: Human Resources for Health, 9 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/7/1/31","body":"This article investigates whether present community health worker programmes for antiretroviral treatment are taking into account the lessons learnt from past experiences with community health worker programmes in primary health care and to what extent they are seizing the new antiretroviral treatment-specific opportunities. It is based on a desk review of multi-purpose community health worker programmes for primary health care and of recent experiences with antiretroviral treatment-related community health workers. The renewed attention to community health workers is very welcome, but the scale-up of community health worker programmes runs a high risk of neglecting the necessary quality criteria if it is not aligned with broader health systems strengthening. To achieve universal access to antiretroviral treatment, this is of paramount importance and should receive urgent attention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Course Annoucement: Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation of HIV and AIDS Workplace Programmes","field_subtitle":"ZAMCOM Lodge, Lusaka Zambia  1st to 3rd June 2009.","field_url":"http://www.primaryhealthcaretrust.org","body":"This is a three days non residential course aimed at enhancing the reporting and management of workplace HIV and AIDS interventions. The course programme is anchored in three core modules: Introduction to M&E; Developing M&E work plans, collecting, analyzing and using monitoring & evaluation data for programme reporting and management. The course is designed for those that provide oversight and leadership of workplace interventions, Human Resource Managers, HIV and AIDS Workplace Focal Point Persons, Clinical officers, HIV and AIDS Programme Managers, Peer Educators, and including workplace Union and Labor Representatives. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Demand grows for international currency transaction levy ","field_subtitle":"The Times: 3 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.stampoutpoverty.org/?lid=11029","body":"Over 100 Civil Society Organisations worldwide are united in calling on G20 leaders to introduce a currency transaction levy (CLT). At a time when the financial crisis is endangering the lives of millions in the developing world additional finance is desperately needed to meet the Millennium Development Goals, particularly relating to health. In an open letter, addressed to Gordon Brown as Chair of the G20 and published in The Times newspaper, the message of this growing coalition of organisations is simple: implement a CTL now to meet the aid revenue shortfall and safeguard lives from the worst ravages of the economic storm.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 72: Protecting public health and equitable health services in the services negotiations of the EU-ESA Economic Partnership Agreements","field_subtitle":"Munyuki E, with SEATINI, TARSC:EQUINET","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS72EPAservices.pdf","body":"This paper aims to provide a detailed analysis of the options for protecting universal comprehensive and equitable health services within the framework of the EU-ESA EPA and other EPAs in the region through the services negotiations. The paper notes a number of commitments that the ESA-EU countries have already made in relation to public health. It proposes issues for negotiators in the services negotiations in the EPA to take into account to protect health in these agreements. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Does a code make a difference? Assessing the English code of practice on international recruitment","field_subtitle":"Buchan J, McPake B, Mensah K and Rae George: Human Resources for Health, 9 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-7-33.pdf","body":"The paper examines trends in inflow of health professionals to the United Kingdom from other countries, using professional registration data and data on applications for work permits. Available data show a considerable reduction in inflow of health professionals, from the peak years up to 2002 (for nurses) and 2004 (for doctors). There are multiple causes for this decline, including declining demand in the United Kingdom. Regulatory and education changes in the United Kingdom in recent years have also made international entry more difficult. Two lessons were learnt: comprehensive data is needed for proper monitoring of the impact of a code and countries with many independent, private-sector health care employers struggle to implement a code. the authors note therefore the significant challenges in implementing and monitoring a global code.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EG4Health Newsletter ","field_subtitle":"EG4Health Newsletter 1, 1 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.eg4health.org/","body":"The new movement, Economic Governance for Health (EG4Health) promises to be a useful resource for health activists. Its launch coincided with protests and campaigns across the world and involving hundreds of thousands of people angry at the evidence of global financial mismanagement, corruption and rising economic inequalities. A 'Put People First' march in London, host of the G20 meeting, was supported by over 150 civil society organisations. EG4Health presents a 12-point plan for democratic economic governance, as well as a more detailed policy paper, included in this edition of the EQUINET newsletter.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion Paper 73: Experiences of Parliamentary Committees on Health in promoting health equity in East and Southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R, London L, Thomas J, Mbombo N, Mulumba M, Kadungure A, Manga N and Mukono A: TARSC, UCT, SEAPACOH, March 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS73parlgen09.pdf","body":"Parliaments can play a key role in promoting health and health equity through their representative, legislative and oversight roles, including budget oversight.  To better understand and support the practical implementation of these roles, EQUINET (through University of Cape Town (UCT) and its secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) with SEAPACOH  implemented a questionnaire  survey in September 2008  to explore and document the work and experiences of parliamentary committees on health. This report presents the findings on the general progress on parliament work on health.  The survey highlighted a number of areas of current focus of parliament work in health, the potential and experience of positive outcomes, and the limits and constraints to address to support further work. In the budget process parliaments have generally played a role in advocating and engaging on the Abuja commitment, with increasing budget shares to health in a majority of countries, although the target has only been met in two of those included in the survey. Legislative activity is less common, and areas that  are of public health concern, such as incorporating TRIPS flexibilities or international commitments into national law are still not well known by parliaments or acted on.  Oversight and representative roles are the most frequently reported area of committee action, and parliaments have played an important role in raising debate on and profile of health issues.  It appears from the evidence that parliaments can support progress in health equity by enhancing funding for prioritised areas in the budget process, by raising awareness of health issues through parliament debates, by raising public attention to prioritised concerns through media liaison, by gathering evidence and views from communities and communicating issues to communities through constituency visits,  and by raising very specific questions to the executive to address.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 99: Putting the debate on user fees to rest: A call for focus on what needs to be done for equitable financing  for health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET PRA report: HIV testing and disclosure in women attending prevention, treatment and care clinics at Katutura hospital, Windhoek, Namibia","field_subtitle":"University of Namibia, TARSC; EQUINET, 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/NamAIDSPRArep09.pdf","body":"This study explored the challenges experienced by HIV infected pregnant women and the coping strategies used by those who disclose or do not disclose, to inform community and health workers roles in supporting pregnant women around disclosure. It aimed to explore dimensions of (and impediments to delivery of) Primary Health Care responses to HIV and AIDS in Namibia. The work was implemented at Katutura state hospital, an intermediate hospital in Windhoek, at the Centre for Disease Control, antenatal care and PMTCT services within the hospital complex. The work was done with a small sample (20) due to the criteria of voluntary participation and follow through of a more intensive longitudinal participatory process with the women. The use of participatory methods, while demanding, proved effective even over short time periods to build the empowerment and communication needed to for the changes found. Nursing students proposed that future PRA projects run throughout the year for effective learning and include more students. PHC responses to AIDS start and end in the community, involving households, networks of affected groups, educational, religious and social institutions and supported by primary care services. The study indicates features of this for testing and counselling. Namibia needs to provide high levels of knowledge of services for prevention, testing, health promotion in positive people, partner notification and treatment options to people in the community from an early age onwards. It can also create an enabling social environment encouraging support of PLWHA, openness and reinforcing information on the positive implications of testing and disclosure, including to partners and family members. Another factor is ensuring that testing, counselling and information supporting disclosure, including on positive prevention, is provided at every ANC and PMTCT contact. In addition, it's important to support health worker communication on testing and disclosure with inputs from support groups and expert patients at facilities, and build a health sector response that addresses community as well as health service dimensions of intervention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Evidence in the learning organization","field_subtitle":"Crites GE, McNamara MC, Akl EA, Richardson WS, Umscheid CA and Nishikawa J: Health Research Policy and Systems, March 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/7/1/4","body":"Three years ago, the Society of General Internal Medicine's Evidence-based Medicine Task Force began an inquiry to integrate evidence-based medicine (EBM) and the learning organization (LO), an approach to training from a systems-based perspective, into one model to address the knowing-doing gap problem. The authors of this study searched several databases for relevant LO frameworks and their related concepts by using a broad search strategy. They found seven LO frameworks particularly relevant to evidence-based practice innovations in organisations. These were integrated to form the new Evidence in the Learning Organization (ELO) model, which can be used by health organisations to identify their capacities to learn and share knowledge about evidence-based practice innovations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender and care cutting edge pack: Supporting care givers without reinforcing gender roles","field_subtitle":"Esplen E: 2009","field_url":"http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/reports_gend_CEP.html#Care","body":"This pack assesses how it might be possible to move towards a world that recognises and values the importance of different forms of care, but without reinforcing care work as something that only women can or should do. Drawing on diverse examples of initiatives taking place in countries across the world, it considers what strategies offer the best prospects for change. It recommends that donors should fund capacity building of grassroots care-givers, women\u2019s organisations and networks, and organisations and networks of people living with HIV and AIDS, to enable care givers to advocate for their rights and represent themselves in local, national and international decision-making forums. Governments should ensure that gender-sensitive care provision is an integral and budgeted aspect of HIV and AIDS policies and programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Genes from Africa: The colonisation of human DNA","field_subtitle":"Oakland Institute, 2009","field_url":"http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/voicesfromafrica/pdfs/genes_from_africa.pdf","body":"This report discusses the University of Pennsylvania African Human Genetic Diversity Project, and the filing of patent claims in October 2007 over genetic material collected from communities in Africa. It questions the staking of legal claims over the natural genetic resources of Africans. Such patents not only allow exclusive rights to such resources, but also enable profit from future medical applications. the report notes that the patent is possible, because US patent law extends patent protection to life forms. This new trend has enabled research institutions and corporations to secure patents for almost 5% of the entire human genome. The report seeks to contribute to stopping the exploitation of African genetic resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Global tuberculosis (TB) report: HIV-related TB deaths higher than past estimates","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, 24 March 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2009/tuberculosis_report_20090324/en/","body":"There were 1.37 million new TB cases in 2007 among HIV-infected people and 456,000 deaths, says a new global TB report by the World Health Organization. One out of four TB deaths is HIV-related, twice as many as previously recognised. Despite an improvement in the quality of the country data, which are now more representative and available from more countries than in previous years, these shocking findings point to an urgent need to find, prevent and treat tuberculosis in people living with HIV. According to Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, 'We need to test for HIV in all patients with TB in order to provide prevention, treatment and care. Countries can only do that through stronger collaborative programmes and stronger health systems that address both diseases,' she said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health care worker retention in east and southern Africa: Report of a Regional Meeting February 2009","field_subtitle":"EQUINET (University of Namibia, TARSC, University of Limpopo), ECSA HC","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REPMTG0209hcw.pdf","body":"A regional meeting was convened on 25-27 February 2009 in Windhoek Namibia by EQUINET and ECSA HC, hosted by the University of Namibia in co-operation with TARSC and University of Limpopo to: review the findings from this body of work and to explore the implications for policies and measures aimed at valuing and retaining health workers in ESA; develop proposals and guidelines for policy and action relevant to health worker deployment and retention; and identify knowledge gaps for follow up work. The meeting also reviewed work implemented within other EQUINET themes to explore the impact of migration on health systems in Kenya (carried out in co-operation with IOM and ECSA-HC), to explore the impact of AIDS financing on health worker retention (carried out in co-operation with WHO and ECSA-HC), and to examine the relationship between health workers and communities at primary care level (in a programme of work co-ordinated by TARSC and Ifakara Health Institute). The meeting, held at the Safari Hotel in Windhoek, brought together country partners, researchers, regional and national institutions involved with health workers. A set of recommendations were produced, particularly focusing on health worker retention. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Health facility-based active management of the third stage of labor: Findings from a national survey in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mfinanga GS, Kimaro GD, Ngadaya E, Massawe S, Mtandu R, Shayo EE, Kahwa A, Achola O, Mutungi A, Stanton C, Armbruster D, Kitua A, Sintasath D and Knight R: Health Research Policy and Systems, 16 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-7-6.pdf","body":"Haemorrhage is the leading causes of obstetric mortality. Studies show that active management of third stage of labour (AMTSL) reduces post partum haemorrhage. This study describes the practice of AMTSL and barriers to its effective use in Tanzania. Correct practice of AMTSL was observed in only 7% of 251 deliveries. Knowledge and practice of AMTSL is very low and STGs are not updated on correct AMTSL practice. The drugs for AMTSL are available and stored at the right conditions in nearly all facilities. All providers used ergometrine for AMTSL instead of oxytocin as recommended by ICM/FIGO. The study also observed harmful practices during delivery. These findings indicate that there is need for updating the STGs, curricula and training of health providers on AMTSL and monitoring its practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health in emergencies: Health workers on the frontline: A statement from the Global Health Workforce Alliance on the occasion of World Health Day 2009","field_subtitle":"Global Health Workforce Alliance, 7 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/media/news/2009/WHD2009_statement/en/index.html","body":"On the occasion of World Health Day 2009, the Global Health Workforce Alliance has underlined the important and critical role played by health workers at times of disaster and emergency. At the heart of making hospitals safer are the people responsible for saving lives - the health workers. And when an emergency strikes - health workers are on the frontline. Often 'first on scene', health workers are tragically also often the first casualties themselves - there are many examples around the work where health workers have been killed in large numbers in the early instances of disaster. Added to this, health workers - like all members of populations in crisis zones - lose family members, friends, colleagues and others close to them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS education in Tanzania: The experience of at-risk children in poorer communities","field_subtitle":"Maro CN, Roberts GC and S rensen M: Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies 4(1): 23\u201336, March 2009","field_url":"http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a909921370~db=all?jumptype=alert&alerttype=new_issue_alert%2Cemail","body":"This study has investigated human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) knowledge, attitudes and sexual at-risk behaviours of youths from disadvantaged communities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Participants were 800 youths aged 12-15 years from poorer communities. Participants showed low levels of HIV knowledge, little experience with condom use and low intention to use condoms. Contrary to expectations, there were no significant differences between those in-school and those out-of-school. Gender differences were apparent, in that girls scored consistently lower than boys on all variables. HIV and AIDS education within the schools of Tanzania needs to be re-evaluated and better educational strategies developed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How will the financial crisis affect health?","field_subtitle":"Marmot MG and Bell R: British Medical Journal, 1 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/338/apr01_3/b1314","body":"Is there a link between the financial crisis dominating the front pages of newspapers and the health stories on the inside? The Commission on Social Determinants of Health certainly believed so. Its starting point was that the economic and social features of society are closely linked to the distribution of health within and between countries. The social determinants of health are the conditions of daily life and its structural drivers will be influenced by the financial crisis. As social determinants are affected by the financial crunch, so will health outcomes be affected as well.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequalities in health and health care","field_subtitle":"June 8 to 12, 2009: University of Geneva, Switzerland","field_url":"http://www.hec.unil.ch/iems/Enseignement/contact/ssph_brochure_web.pdf","body":"This course is intended for PhD students and other researchers interested in the quantitative analysis of inequality and inequity in health and health care. The course consists of five days of lectures and tutorials on a number of topics related to the measurement and explanation of inequities/inequalities in health. Apart from providing a general introduction into the range of approaches available to researchers, it will also provide practical experience of computation using Stata. Illustrations will be based on real-world examples drawn from evidence in European and other OECD countries, as well as developing countries. The objectives are to review health economics approaches to the measurement of inequality and inequity, provide detailed guidance on computational procedures using Stata and provide hands-on experience with computation-based exercises.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"International Drug Price Indicator Guide, 2008","field_subtitle":"Management Sciences for Health, 2009","field_url":"http://erc.msh.org/mainpage.cfm?file=1.0.htm&module=DMP&language=English","body":"Management Sciences for Health (MSH) has published the International Drug Price Indicator Guide since 1986 and updates it annually. The guide contains a spectrum of prices from pharmaceutical suppliers, international development organisations and government agencies. It aims to make price information more widely available in order to improve procurement of medicines of assured quality for the lowest possible price. Comparative price information is important for getting the best price, and this is an essential reference for anyone involved in the procurement of pharmaceuticals. This 2008 version is their latest update and has just been released.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of Communities of Practice (COP) : Task Shifting","field_subtitle":"Global Health Worker Alliance","field_url":"http://my.ibpinitiative.org/public//global/HRHExchange","body":"The Global Health Workforce Alliance announces the launch of its Communities of Practice (CoPs),  entitled  - Human Resources for Health  (HRH ) Exchange.  The topic of the moderated on-line discussion will be Task Shifting.  This is the 1st  in a series of planned CoPs and forms part of our knowledge brokering effort.  It will be held from April 28 - May 8, 2009 and supported by facilitators who are expert in the field of Public Health and the issue of Task Shifting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Making health markets work for poor people","field_subtitle":"Editorial: Id21 insights 76, March 2009","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights76/art00.html","body":"People use a variety of market-based providers of health-related goods and services ranging from highly organised and regulated hospitals and specialist doctors to informal health workers and drug sellers operating outside the legal framework. Many encounters with health workers and suppliers of pharmaceuticals involve a cash payment. The boundary between public and private sectors is often very porous, with people either paying government health workers informally or consulting them outside their official hours. Unregulated markets, in particular, raise problems with safety, efficacy and cost. This editorial of id21 insights explores some of the responses to these problems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Malaria deaths in Zambia down by 66%","field_subtitle":"Afrique en ligne: 25 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.afriquejet.com/news/africa-news/zambia:-malaria-deaths-in-zambia-down-by-66%25-%E2%80%93-who-2009042426163.html","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Thursday that Zambia had achieved a major reduction in malaria mortality through accelerated malaria control activities. Malaria deaths reported from health facilities have declined by 66% in Zambia and this result, along with other data, indicates that Zambia has reached the 2010 Roll Back Malaria target of more than 50% reduction in malaria mortality compared to 2000. WHO said Zambia\u2019s efforts would be promoted as a model for other countries to follow. The decline in Zambia was especially steep after 3.6 million long-lasting insecticide nets were distributed between 2006 and 2008. During this period, malaria deaths declined by 47% and nationwide surveys showed that parasite prevalence declined by 53% from 21.8 to 10.2% and the percentage of children with severe anaemia declined by 68% from 13.3 to 4.3%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Migration as a form of workforce attrition: A nine-country study of pharmacists","field_subtitle":"Wuliji T, Carter S and Bates I: Human Resources for Health, 9 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-7-32.pdf","body":"This paper reports on the first international attempt to investigate the migration intentions of pharmacy students and identify migration factors and their relationships. Nine countries were surveyed, including Zimbabwe. Results showed a significant difference in attitudes towards the professional and sociopolitical environment of the home country and perceptions of opportunities abroad between those who have no intention of migrating and those who intend to migrate on a long-term basis. Given the influence of the country context and environment on migration intentions, research and policy should frame the issue of migration in the context of the wider human resource agenda, thus viewing migration as one form of attrition and a symptom of other root causes. Policy development must take into account both remuneration and professional development to encourage retention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Migration calls for cross-border health policies","field_subtitle":"Palitza Kristin: Inter Press Service News Agency, 31 March 2009","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=46330","body":"The mountain kingdom of Lesotho faces a number of unique hurdles with regard to HIV and AIDS. The country is landlocked within South Africa, the epicentre of the pandemic and, because of limited job opportunities and high unemployment rates within Lesotho, many of its citizens work as migrant labourers in South Africa. In addition, Lesotho has a particularly weak public health infrastructure due to rural isolation, lack of skilled health workers and high poverty rates. Migrant labourers, particularly all those working in South African mines, are a huge concern because they pose a high risk of having multiple concurrent partnerships and of taking HIV infections across the border. The health departments of Lesotho and South Africa should come up with cross-border health policies to deal with this public health problem.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Millennium Development Goals: Progress and prospects for meeting child survival targets in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Sanders D, Reynolds L, Westwood T, Eley B, Kroon M, Zar H, Davies M, Nongena P, van Heerden T and Swingler G: Critical Health Perspectives 1, 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/cms/files/CHP%202008%20No1%20Child%20Survival%20and%20MDGs_2_1.pdf","body":"This paper takes a critical look at South Africa's prospects for meeting the Millennium Development targets for child survival. It asks the question: is a return to comprehensive primary health care (PHC) needed right now, as many have been saying? The time is long overdue for energetically translating the rhetorically rich promises of the PHC approach to reality, turning dormant policies into action. The main actions should centre around the development of comprehensive, well-managed programmes involving the health sector, other sectors and communities. The process needs to be structured into functioning district systems. In most countries these need to be considerably strengthened, particularly at the household, community and primary care levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Moving Out of Poverty: Success from the bottom-up","field_subtitle":"World Bank, 2009","field_url":"http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTMOVOUTPOV/Resources/Overview.pdf","body":"The Moving Out of Poverty study, carried out in 15 countries, is one of the few large-scale comparative research attempts to analyse mobility out of poverty rather than poverty alone. This book is about local realities and the urgent need to develop poverty-reducing strategies informed by the lives and experiences of millions of poor people in communities around the world. The report notes the diversity of experience across households in their movement in and out of poverty within countries. It  points to the need to examine the local realities of communities rather than countries and to move beyond assumptions and beliefs about poor people to identify the underlying causes of poverty and to inform development plans, policies and actions that address poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy characteristics facilitating primary health care in Thailand: A pilot study in a transitional country","field_subtitle":"Pongpirul Krit, Starfield B, Srivanichakorn S and Pannarunothai S: International Journal for Equity in Health, March 2009","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/8/1/8","body":"This pilot study in Thailand assessed policies about primary health care (PHC), focusing on how equitably resources are distributed, the adequacy of resources, comprehensiveness of services and co-payment. A questionnaire survey was administered to five policymakers, five academicians and 77 primary care practitioners at a PHC workshop. Responses were consistent: financial resources should be allocated based on different health needs and special efforts must be made to assure PHC to underserved populations. The supply of essential drugs should be adequate, as well, with equitable distribution of services and low out-of-pocket payments. The questionnaire was robust across key stakeholders and feasible for use in transitional or less-developed countries, like those in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Put People First: Policy platform and recommendations to the United Kingdom's government","field_subtitle":"Griffiths J (co-ordinator): Put People First, 2009","field_url":"http://www.putpeoplefirst.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/pdf-policyplatform.pdf","body":"This paper is an unprecedented collaboration between a wide spectrum of civil society organisations in the United Kingdom (UK). the civil society organisations in the UK called on the UK government to initiate an economic system that that seeks to work for people and for the planet. The civil society statement makes recommendations to world leaders to chart a path out of recession in a way that builds an equitable global economy. It prioritises tax reforms to end poverty, accountable and transparent processes for the international finance system and calls for reforms to be implemented through the United Nations in consultation with governments, trade unions and civil society organisations. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Putting the debate on user fees to rest: A call for focus on what needs to be done for equitable financing  for health","field_subtitle":"Bona Chitah, Economics Department, University of Zambia","field_url":"","body":"The way we finance health and health care makes a significant difference to the coverage and accessibility of our health care systems. It has thus been an issue capturing increasing attention from the international community, including from United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF), the European Union, the High Level Taskforce on International Innovative Financing for Health Systems who have all held consultations on this in the first quarter of 2009.  The UNICEF meeting reviewed the evidence base on the imposition of a \u2018price\u2019 for use of health care services - user fees \u2013 and considered options and support for feasible health financing mechanisms. UNICEF itself was questioning the necessity and value of user fees in resource constrained settings, particularly given the opportunity costs, transaction costs and barriers posed to utilisation. The EU meeting sought input to its policy on health care financing for developing countries. The meeting reviewed a draft policy that was oriented towards support for general tax financing for public health care systems augmented by Social Health Insurance as a feasible next best alternative modality for long term sustainable health care financing.\r\n\r\nThere seems to be wide agreement on the question of maintaining tax revenue as the core of health financing, and on the introduction of SHI as the major source of additional domestic funds for health. The debates are more about how to implement these mechanisms in low resource settings. \r\n\r\nThe simplest mechanism is that of financing through tax revenue. There is evidence that systems that are more dependant on tax revenue have less inequality (measured through the Gini co-efficient) with regard to resource distribution and therefore a higher level of equity within the system. Recognition was made of the need to have with this a systematic resource allocation mechanism as well as a package of care that general tax revenue will purchase, to support a rationale priority setting process and to ensure fairness. It was noted that tax funded systems are more suited to achieving this. Yet increasing these tax revenues cannot simply depend on overall economic growth, as there appears to be little evidence so far that economic growth has translated into immediate gains for resourcing the health sector.  There is thus need for evidence and dialogue on the options for strengthening tax revenue sources, including the role of sector wide approaches, of budget support to the health sector and of overall budget support. \r\n\r\nAlthough Social Health Insurance (SHI) is often raised as an equitable option for financing universal coverage, there is limited or zero revenue generation from social security schemes in the African region. In countries such as Ghana, Tanzania and Rwanda, SHI schemes are substantially financed through taxation or support from external resources (such as the Global Fund). They therefore appear to be more hybrid tax based systems with additional transaction costs that may be generating inefficiencies in resource use and allocation. In the same countries coverage of social and private health insurance schemes  is extremely limited, raising serious concerns about equity in revenue generation and in service provision and consumption. In other countries, such as South Africa, where private health insurance exists along side some social security mechanisms, the private insurance is limited in terms of coverage and yet consumes a relatively high share of total health expenditures \u2013 demonstrating again potential inefficiencies and inequality. We thus need to further analyse and evaluate equity issues in the implementation of social health insurance to inform whether and how to implement these schemes. \r\n\r\nSo there are clear areas for further work to advance progressive, equitable health financing in Africa. \r\n\r\nIt is therefore worrying that we are still locked into endless debates on user fees.  These debates generate diverse opinion. In health systems in which user fees have been removed at a broad level (South Africa, Uganda, Zambia) as well as those where the user fee exemptions have been targeted at specific vulnerable groups such as child and pregnant women (in support of child, maternal and reproductive health) the evidence of increased utilisation is clear. The evidence also shows that the transaction costs of user fee administration negates any positive contribution of user fees themselves in additional revenue or value terms. The contribution of user fees to health revenues remains low. Some institutions and country representatives strongly support community financing, such as through mutual funds, as well as user fees in public sector facilities. Yet some institutions and country representatives strongly support community financing, such as through mutual funds, and user fees in public sector facilities.  \r\n\r\nThis draws attention from more substantial issues, such as the fact that government commitments to improved health sector funding remains low. Countries have been slow to increase their health sector budgets, let alone reach the 15%  of government budget for health set in the 2001 Abuja heads of state commitment and the Southern African Development Community commitments for the Maputo targets.  Making these promised increases to the health sector budget would exceed any resources that could be raised through user fees.\r\n\r\nOne problem is that the debate on health financing is fed by a mix of evidence, values and anecdotes.  Relevant evidence is not always available for health sector financing decisions, and ethical and value considerations affect the design of and preferences in health care financing. The case for user fees (alongside community financing initiatives) is often made without evidence and based on institutional interests, rather than on the basis of health system development and improvement of population health. Disappointingly at the UNICEF meeting earlier this year, no consensus was reached and further consultative processes were proposed.  \r\n\r\nGiven the weight of evidence showing the negative balance in the impact of user fees on health systems and population health, I would argue that there is, however, sufficient evidence to put this issue to rest. Rather than continuing the debate on user fees, we should shift to debates on more substantive approaches to resource mobilisation, including:\r\n* How to achieve increased health sector budgets\r\n* How to strengthen tax revenue sources and funding for sector wide and budget support\r\n* How to assess the equity issues in the implementation of social health insurance to inform policy decisions whether and how to introduce SHI\r\n* How to promote accountability and transparency in the way health systems use their funds\r\n\r\nMeanwhile as we need to move on in Africa to focus debates and build coherence on these wider financing policies, we also note the proliferation of different donor meetings on this issue. The situation is calling for a harmonised approach among donors and international agencies, if not in terms of harmonised funding, at least in terms of a common position that external funders can adopt on financing options that strengthen the health system. This would be in line with the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and Harmonisation, so perhaps the World Health Organisation should take some leadership in co-ordinating this?\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat  admin@equinetafrica.org. For further information on this issue and reports on health financing issues please visit the EQUINET website- www.equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Reality behind the hype of the G20 summit","field_subtitle":"Khor M: South Centre, 5 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.southcentre.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=991&Itemid=1","body":"The auhtor argues that there are several issues that the G20 Summit failed to resolve, besides the biggest omission \u2013 failure to reform IMF policies. First, it failed to produce anything tangible on a coordinated fiscal stimulus policy. Secondly, it did not come up with a plan of action to clean up the crisis-hit banking systems. Thirdly, there was no plan for regulating cross-border activities of financial institutions or cross-border financial flows, nor an acknowledgement that a framework should be created that facilitates developing countries\u2019 ability to regulate the flow of cross-border funds. Fourthly, there was no move to assist developing countries to avoid wrenching debt crises. Without this, they would be deprived of the kinds of schemes by which banks or companies in trouble pay back only a portion of their loans whose market values would have fallen.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Rebuilding global trade: Proposals for a fairer, more sustainable future","field_subtitle":"Birkbeck CD and Mel\u00e9ndez-Ortiz R: Global Economic Governance Programme (GEG), 2009","field_url":"http://ictsd.net/downloads/2009/03/g20-web.pdf","body":"This compilation consists of short essays from a broad range of experts to provide proposals on immediate trade priorities in the context of the economic crisis and provide a forward-looking agenda for global trade governance. The essays focus special attention on the needs of developing countries and sustainable development considerations. Some conclusions drawn from the compilation include the recommendation to establish a working group of experts to propose WTO reforms. Immediate action should be taken to implement those areas of the Doha Development Agenda where agreement exists. The World Trade Organisation's capacity needs to be expanded and a trade-and-development ombudsman should be appointed at the WTO to whom third-party complaints about trade impacts can be brought.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Redefining what it means to be a man: Rio Global Forum: Engaging Men and Boys in Achieving Gender Equality","field_subtitle":"UNFPA: 2009","field_url":"http://www.unfpa.org/public/cache/offonce/News/pid/2424;jsessionid=151CEE3C75823ACB7E846DAF7C2D6342","body":"Nearly 500 delegates from all over the world met at the Rio de Janeiro Global Forum to discuss how men can help improve gender equality, prevent domestic and sexual violence, and improve maternal and reproductive health for themselves and their partners. Gender roles play a major role because they can determine the extent of our vulnerability to the HIV infection. Research in nine Latin American countries found that young men, aged 10 to 24, were far more concerned with achieving and preserving their masculinity than with their health. Another study found that expectations about male behaviour may result in early sexual initiation and more sexual partners, less intimacy in relationships and reluctance to use condoms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Sanitation backlog to blame for high child mortality in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Kachingwe K: IPS News, 23 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=46604","body":"Dehydration caused by severe diarrhoea is a key cause of infant deaths in Zambia, a country with one of the highest child morality rates in the world, according to a new report by Zambia\u2019s health department. This will not change until government makes a major effort to improve access to clean water and sanitation throughout the country, health experts say. Diarrhoea accounts for one fifth of all deaths among children under five. The symptom makes children more susceptible to other illnesses, such as malnutrition and respiratory infections, which are also among the leading causes of child mortality in Zambia. Diarrhoea can easily be avoided or reduced by improved sanitation. But sanitation remains a major problem in Zambia. According to the Lusaka-based Central Statistical Office (CSO), less than 60% of the population have access to adequate sanitation and safe water.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Seizing the wheel, and crashing the car: Reflections on the G20 Draft Communique","field_subtitle":"Woodward D: Economic Governance for Health (EG4H), 1 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.ekosso.com/2009/04/the-g20-seizing-the-wheel-and-crashing-the-car.html","body":"The draft G20 Communiqu\u00e9 recognises explicitly in its opening paragraph, that 'a global crisis requires a global solution'. But at no point does it recognise any need for a global process to decide what that global solution should be. The G20 members appear determined that they, and they alone, should determine the future course of the global economy \u2013 and that it should be designed to protect their financial interests, with only token efforts to limit the damage to the rest of the world. They are trying to seize control of the global economy but, in doing so, the author argues that they are amply demonstrating why they must not be allowed to succeed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Situational Analysis of Children in South Africa 2007\u20132008  UNICEF: 17 April 2009 ","field_subtitle":"UNICEF: April 2009","field_url":"http://us-cdn.creamermedia.co.za/assets/articles/attachments/20875_orc.pdf","body":"A bleak picture has been painted in the Situational Analysis of Children in South Africa 2007\u20132008, a report compiled by the UN Children\u2019s Fund that looks at the standard of living of children in South Africa. It shows that poverty and crime continue to wreak havoc in the lives of this country\u2019s children. It confirmed the view that South Africa will most likely not reach its Global Millennium Goal of reducing child mortality by two-thirds by 2015. Of every 1,000 children born in KwaZulu-Natal, 99 die before they reach the age of five. Gauteng\u2019s mortality rate is still at about 63 deaths per 1,000 births; in Western Cape the ratio is 40 per 1,000. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Human Rights Commission blames government for inadequate healthcare provision","field_subtitle":"Mail and Guardian: 17 April 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.ansa-africa.net/index.php/views/news_view/sahrc_govt_failing_in_healthcare_provision/","body":"Government is responsible for the failures in South Africa's public healthcare system, and needs to address them so that every citizen's right to access healthcare services is realised, the South African Human Rights Commission has said. The Commission released its report on an inquiry into the country's public healthcare services, based on visits to about 100 facilities across the country and submissions from the public during May 2007. It identified poverty as a major barrier to accessing healthcare services in South Africa. As of 2007, 88% of South Africans are dependant on public healthcare services. The poor make up the majority of this figure, but the report found that their access to these services is severely constrained by transport costs and unacceptably long waiting times at clinics or hospitals. 'These constraints amount to a denial of the right to access healthcare,' said the Committee's deputy chairperson.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Swaziland's culture encourages HIV/AIDS ","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 15 April 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=83937","body":"Anecdotal evidence that entrenched cultural beliefs among Swazis actively encourage the spread of HIV/AIDS has been confirmed by a joint government and UN report. The study, called 'The State of the Swaziland Population', echoes warnings by local NGOs that 'AIDS cannot be stopped unless there is a change in people's sexual behaviour.' 'Swazis are very traditional people, and their sexual behaviour is inbred and totally against safe sexual practices, like condom use and monogamous relationships, that limit the spread of HIV,' noted an HIV testing counsellor in Manzini, the country's main commercial city. The report, based on focus groups and surveys, found that maintaining a centuries-old cultural belief in procreation to increase the population size, was having devastating consequences in the age of AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The G20 summit and Africa","field_subtitle":"Nabudere D: Pambazuka News 2 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55319","body":"The author argues for a new financial system that is transparent and accountable to all. The G20's task is to expose all that has gone wrong, including the role the African leaders have played in the crisis, through the externalisation of billions of pounds intended for the development of their countries. These activities, Nabudere notes, have helped position Africa as a net creditor to the world, with the external assets of 40 African countries outstripping their external liabilities over the period from 1970\u20132004. In other words, he says, despite the widely held view that Africa was 'decoupled' from the global economy, African leaders have contributed to the activities of \u2018shadow banks\u2019 being used to create \u2018toxic debt\u2019, their wealth contributing to the global economic turmoil.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) facilities and financing framework for low-income countries: The first stage of the IMF review of financing for low-income countries","field_subtitle":"International Monetary Fund, 2009","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/np/pp/eng/2009/022509.pdf","body":"This paper assesses the adequacy of the Fund\u2019s toolkit for low-income countries (LICs), with a view to ensuring that it keeps pace with a changing world, particularly as global economic conditions deteriorate and put pressure on countries. It seeks to answer the following key questions: What are the needs of LICs in relation to Fund financing and how have they changed? How have existing instruments met LIC needs, and are there gaps or overlaps? Could changes to access rules, financing terms, or conditionality help the Fund better support LICs? What is the available concessional resource envelope and how will the changing external environment affect possible financing needs through the medium term? What scope is there to make the concessional financing framework more flexible?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Millennium Development Goals Fail Poor Children: The Case for Equity-Adjusted Measures","field_subtitle":"Reidpath D, Morel C, Mecaskey J, Allotey P  PLoS Med 6(4): e1000062. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000062 - April 28, 2009","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000062","body":"The Millennium Declaration is a statement of principles about the kind of future that world governments seek; a future that they envisage to be more equitable and more responsive to the socially most vulnerable. The Millennium Development Goals represent the operational targets by which we may judge their actions. The reduction of the U5MR by two-thirds by 2015 is one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG4). The reduction in U5MR can, however, be achieved through a diversity of policy interventions, some of which could leave the children of the poor worse off. A celebrated MDG4 success can, thus, be a Millennium Declaration failure. Health policy informed by composite outcome measures that take account of both the U5MR and the distribution of the burden of mortality across social groups would help to overcome this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health: A guide for civil society","field_subtitle":"International Federation of Health and Human Rights Organisations: 7 April 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.ifhhro.org/files/guide_2009.pdf","body":"This guide is intended to aid civil society actors in becoming more involved in the work of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, with a specific focus on the valuable role that health workers can play. The appointment of the first Special Rapporteur on the right to health in 2002 and the resulting body of work on the right to health has proven to be a valuable catalyst for further action within the health and human rights movement. At the same time there remains much unawareness and misconception concerning the work of the Special Rapporteur and the ways in which civil society actors can be involved. The guide provides general information on the Special Rapporteur, and presents possibilities for contribution and follow-up to the three main areas of his work. It offers concrete assistance on how the annual reports, country missions, and the individual complaints mechanism of the Special Rapporteur can be used by civil society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The vital role of the private sector in reproductive health ","field_subtitle":"O'Hanlon B: PSP-One, April 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.psp-one.com/content/resource/detail/5260/","body":"While universal access to reproductive health care \u2013 including family planning, maternal health care, and prevention of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections \u2013 is critical to achieve the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals, it is far from becoming a reality. Governments are often major providers of reproductive health services, but inadequate funding greatly limits the availability and quality of the services. The private sector can help expand access to and quality of reproductive health services through its resources, expertise, and infrastructure. This brief provides an overview of the private sector, highlights the critical role it plays in delivering health services and products in developing countries, and explains how governments and donor agencies can engage this sector to achieve reproductive health goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Tuberculosis crisis looming in Swaziland","field_subtitle":"Phakathi M: IPS News, 23 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.ipsterraviva.net/europe/article.aspx?id=7289","body":"The Swazi government's slow response to a fast-growing tuberculosis epidemic has eroded the possibility of controlling it, says the National TB Control Programme manager. There has been a nearly ten-fold increase in the last 20 years from about 1,000 TB cases per year in 1987 to over 9,600 cases in 2007, exacerbated by the world's highest HIV prevalence rate \u2013 80% of the TB cases are also co-infected with HIV. The country is falling short of meeting the World Health Organisation's TB treatment rate of 85% with a treatment success rate of 42%. The report points to higher rates of default on treatment when patients feel the TB treatment takes long, when they are also taking antiretroviral drugs and when they take drugs on an empty stomach. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda embraces low-tech test for cervical cancer ","field_subtitle":"Harshbarger R: Women's News, 20 April 2009","field_url":"http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3986","body":"Normally, women have to wait a long time for the results of a pap smear. But, in Uganda, a fast, cheap diagnostic test based on vinegar is invigorating the battle against cervical cancer. Health activists are raising money to put it in a mobile clinic and health officials are eyeing a national rollout. A pilot project in Kampala has begun to demonstrate that cervical cancer screening is possible in small health centres. As part of that project, two clinics began screening women with a fast, innovative test that used acetic acid--or vinegar--as the primary active ingredient. The test, called visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) is reported to not require a pathologist, refrigeration of samples or a microscope. A nurse, midwife, or gynecologist swabs a patient's cervix with acetic acid and then inspects the tissue visually. The author reports that if the cervix has lesions, the tissue turns white.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"UK Prime Minister urged to fund World Social Bank with tax haven losses","field_subtitle":"Townsend S: Third World Network, 31 March 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/2009/twnhealthinfo20090306.htm","body":"Third World Network report a call for a World Social Bank funded by abolishing offshore tax havens. A letter from civil society, sent in advance of the April G20 summit, appeals to United Kingdom Prime Minster Gordon Brown and other world leaders to 'reform international finance in a way that provides a real boost to the growth of the third sector'. About \u00a3255bn is said to be lost each year to tax havens, and the funds couold be used for a World Social Bank that could stimulate social investment by developing the infrastructure for an international social investment market, working with private investors to grow this market and encouraging collaboration between different countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia's bishops say African Union protocol threatens life, marriage","field_subtitle":"Pintu M: Catholic News Service, 24 March 2009","field_url":"http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0901369.htm","body":"In a strongly worded letter to the president of Zambia, the country's Catholic bishops called on the government not to ratify an African Union protocol with articles that would threaten the sacredness of life and the sanctity of marriage. They demand amendments to Article 7 on separation, divorce and the annulment of marriage and to Article 14 on the protection of reproductive rights of women by authorising medical abortion in cases of assault, rape and incest. The bishops said the Catholic Church holds in high esteem the sanctity of marriage and the sacredness of human life from birth to death. 'It is in this light we find it immoral, unjust and out of context to sign this protocol without making changes to the two articles to agree with the divine and natural law,' they said. The government has not yet reacted to the bishops' appeal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"13th National Rural Health Conference 2009","field_subtitle":"27\u201329 August 2009, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"RuDASA invites all rural health practitioners to participate in the 13th National Rural Health Conference. The theme will be 'Tackling the Big 5: The Challenge of Chronic Diseases HIV-AIDS, TB, Diabetes, Hypertension and Mental Illness'.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A global assessment of the role of law in the HIV/AIDS pandemic","field_subtitle":"Gable L, Gostin L and Hodge JG: Public Health 123(3):260\u2013264, March 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d3bpqx","body":"This article examines the dynamic role of law as a tool, and potential barrier, to public health interventions designed to ameliorate the negative impacts of HIV and AIDS globally. Laws may empower public health authorities, reinforce the human rights of persons living with HIV or AIDS and protect them from social risks, stigma and other harms by respecting privacy and prohibiting unwarranted discrimination. However, laws can also create legal barriers by penalising HIV+ people through criminal sanctions or other policies. As a result, it is recommended globally that laws should facilitate the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS consistent with scientific and public health practices and with a human rights framework.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A spatial national health facility database for public health sector planning in Kenya in 2008","field_subtitle":"Noor AM, Alegana VA, Gething PW and Snow RW: International Journal of Health Geographics, 6 March 2009","field_url":"http://www.ij-healthgeographics.com/content/pdf/1476-072x-8-13.pdf","body":"A disparate series of contemporary lists of health service providers were used to update a public health facility database in Kenya, last compiled in 2003. These new lists were derived primarily through the national distribution of antimalarial and antiretroviral commodities since 2006. A combination of methods were used to map service providers and analyse disparity in geographic access to public health care. The update shows that, with concerted effort, a relatively complete inventory of mapped health services is possible, with enormous potential for improving planning. Expansion in public health care in Kenya has resulted in significant increases in geographic access, although several areas of the country need further improvements. This information will be key to future planning for Kenya\u2019s public health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"A taxonomy of dignity: A grounded theory study","field_subtitle":"Jacobson N: BMC International Health and Human Rights, 24 February 2009","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/9/3","body":"In this paper, grounded theory procedures were use to analyse literature pertaining to dignity and to conduct and analyse 64 semi-structured interviews with persons marginalised by their health or social status, individuals who provide health or social services to these populations, and people working in the field of health and human rights. The results showed that the taxonomy presented identifies two main forms of dignity \u2013 human dignity and social dignity \u2013 and describes several elements of these forms, including the social processes that violate or promote them, the conditions under which such violations and promotions occur, the objects of violation and promotion and the consequences of dignity violation. Together, these forms and elements point to a human rights-based theory of dignity that can be applied to the health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A2K and the WIPO development agenda: Time to list the public domain","field_subtitle":"Suthersanan U: UNCTAD-ICTSD Policy Brief 1, December 2008","field_url":"http://ictsd.net/downloads/2009/02/uma_final2.pdf","body":"In this policy brief, the author argues that the world Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) development agenda is a valuable opportunity to place the notion of the 'public domain' at the centre of the intellectual property debate. In this regard, she proposes the creation of an international register for public domain matters that countries, particularly developing countries and least developed countries (LDCs), should be able to rely on in order to boost their local innovation and creativity. The author recommends that governments and other stakeholders preserve the public domain and support norm-setting processes that promote a robust public domain, initiate discussions on how to further facilitate access to knowledge for developing countries and LDCs in order to foster creativity and innovation, and establish a forum for exchange of experiences on open collaborative projects such as the Human Genome Project.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Alarm escalates over delayed generic drug shipments to developing countries","field_subtitle":" New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 6 March 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d35b3v","body":"Oxfam International, Health Action International (HAI) and Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) have voiced their alarm over recent seizures by the Dutch government of shipments of legitimate generic pharmaceuticals passing through Europe on their way to developing countries. The recent seizure of legitimate generic antiretroviral medicines in transit from India to Nigeria by Dutch customs authorities could lead to HIV-positive Nigerian patients missing critical treatment. They have called on the European Union to review and modify its regulations on counterfeiting that are prompting the seizures. They also urged the EU to reconsider inclusion of its regulation in regional free trade agreement negotiations. If it does not, \u2018this could prove disastrous for access to medicines in some regions,\u2019 they said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Analysing the food crisis: Key ways of improving food security","field_subtitle":"Nellemann C, MacDevette M and Manders T: GRID Arendal, 2009","field_url":"http://www.grida.no/publications/rr/food-crisis/","body":"This report provides the first summary by the UN of how climate change, water stress, invasive pests and land degradation may impact world food security, food prices and how we may be able to feed the world in a more sustainable manner. It offers short-, mid- and long-term recommendations for improving food security, such as regulating food prices and providing safety nets for the impoverished by reorganising the food market infrastructure and institutions that regulate food prices and provide food safety nets, avoiding biofuels that compete for cropland and water resources, reallocating cereals used in animal feed to human consumption, supporting small-scale farmers, increasing trade and market access, limiting global warming by promoting climate-friendly agricultural production systems and land-use policies, and raising awareness of the ecological pressures of increasing population growth and consumption.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Are generic drug seizures to developing countries legal?","field_subtitle":" Mara K and New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 6 March 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/8k7djv","body":" Developing nations, led by Brazil and India, continue to press strong concern over seizures of legitimate shipments of generic pharmaceuticals destined for poor patients in the developing world. Brazilian Ambassador to the WTO, Roberto Azev\u00eado, told reporters that flexibilities developing countries have under WTO rules on intellectual property rights may be \u2018jeopardised\u2019 and that the possibility of a dispute settlement case was not ruled out. He said that as many as a dozen developing countries made statements in support of the concerns, and two of those countries spoke on behalf of the African Group and the Least Developed Countries group, each of which have dozens of members. However, the European Union denies any conflict with WTO rules in its efforts to catch shipments of counterfeits.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessment of human resources for health using cross-national comparison of facility surveys in six countries","field_subtitle":"Gupta Neeru and dal Poz MR: Human Resources for Health, March 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-7-22.pdf","body":"This is a series of facility-based surveys using a common approach in six countries, including Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The objectives were twofold: to inform the development and monitoring of human resources for health (HRH) policy within the countries; and to test and validate the use of standardised facility-based human resources assessment tools across different contexts. The findings revealed that, with increasing experience in health facility assessments for HRH monitoring comes greater need to establish and promote best practices regarding methods and tools for their implementation, as well as dissemination and use of the results for evidence-informed decision-making. The overall findings of multi-country facility-based survey should help countries and partners develop greater capacity to identify and measure indicators of HRH performance via this approach, and eventually contribute to better understanding of health workforce dynamics at the national and international levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: Measuring health workforce inequalities: Methods and applications ","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submission of abstracts: 13 April 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hrh/events/2009/inequalities/en/index.html","body":"The World Health Organization is soliciting high-quality submissions of original statistical research results and/or experience focusing on the topic, \u2018Measuring health workforce inequalities: Methods and applications\u2019. Selected papers will be presented at a special meeting in South Africa in August 2009. Submissions should focus on methodological developments and applications for measuring health workforce inequalities, with special attention to monitoring trends (over time and/or areas) and evaluating their impacts on health systems performance and population health outcomes. Priority will be given to researchers from low- and middle-income countries who do not receive financial support from an international source. Full papers must be submitted by 15 May 2009 according to the format prescribed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: Young Voices in Research for Health: Innovating for the health of all","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 3 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/shlinks/f2009.php","body":"The Global Forum and The Lancet invite young researchers and leaders of tomorrow to submit an essay to the popular competition, \u2018Young Voices in Research for Health\u2019. This year's competition theme is \u2018Innovating for the health of all\u2019. \u2018The concept of innovation encompasses the entire process from the generation of new ideas, to their transformation into something useful, to their implementation. Innovation for health includes the development of new and more cost-effective services, products, methods, management practices and policies to improve health outcomes. It involves both social and technological innovation. Young people are invited to submit their essays by 3 May 2009.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Conference: 12th World Congress on Public Health: Making a difference in global public health: Education, research and practice","field_subtitle":"27 April\u20131 May 2009, Istanbul, Turkey","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d2nfdo","body":"This year's World Congress will address the challenges and opportunities for public health organisations worldwide and be an opportunity for getting together with the various professionals and disciplines related to public health, at a national and international level. The event will provide an arena for the latest ideas and experiences in public health education, research and practice to be shared. Congress themes include Public Health Education for the 21st Century (six sub-themes), Public Health Research & Policy Development (19 sub-themes) and  Public Health Practices Around the Globe (21 sub-themes). For more details visit the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Conscientious objection: Protecting sexual and reproductive health rights","field_subtitle":"de Mesquita JB and Finer L: Essex University, 2009","field_url":"http://www2.essex.ac.uk/human_rights_centre/rth/docs/conscientious%20objection%20final.pdf","body":"Healthcare providers' conscientious objection to involvement in certain procedures is grounded in the right to freedom of religion, conscience and thought. However, such conscientious objection can have serious implications for the human rights of healthcare users, including their sexual and reproductive health rights. This briefing paper examines the implications of conscientious objection, by healthcare providers, for the protection of sexual and reproductive health rights, and concludes with a set of recommendations for States' policies and laws.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Diarrhoea kills two million children per year","field_subtitle":"health24: 23 March 2009","field_url":"http://www.health24.com/news/Malaria/1-925,50001.asp","body":"Research into childhood diarrhoea has declined since the 1980s, keeping pace with dwindling funds for a disease that nonetheless accounts for 20% of all child deaths, the WHO said. Funds available for research into diarrhoea are much lower than those devoted to other diseases that cause comparatively few deaths. Nearly two million children die of diarrhoea each year, even though treating the ailment is relatively simple. WHO estimates some 50 million children have been saved thanks to the Oral Rehydration Solution mixture  (salt, sugar, cleam water), which costs about (US)25c per child. The international Red Cross also warned that diarrhoeal diseases, such as cholera, are on the rise and increasingly a major cause of diseases and deaths throughout the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 98: No magic bullets: keeping our health workers calls for deeper, wider changes ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Existing capacity to manage pharmaceuticals and related commodities in east Africa: An assessment with specific reference to antiretroviral therapy","field_subtitle":"Waako PJ, Odoi-Adome R, Obua C, Owino E, Tumwikirize W, Ogwal-Okeng J, Anokbonggo WW, Matowe L and Aupont O: Human Resources for Health, 9 March 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-7-21.pdf","body":"Heads and implementing workers of fifty HIV and AIDS programs and institutions accredited to offer antiretroviral services in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda were key informants in face-to- face interviews guided by structured questionnaires. Inadequate human resource capacity including, inability to select, quantify and distribute ARVs and related commodities, and irrational prescribing and dispensing were some of the problems identified. A competence gap existed in all the four countries with a variety of healthcare professionals involved in the supply and distribution of ARVs. There is inadequate capacity for managing medicines and related commodities in East Africa. There is an urgent need for training in aspects of pharmaceutical management to different categories of health workers. Skills building activities that do not take healthcare workers from their places of work are preferred.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Female condom shortage in Kenya","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 9 March 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=83381","body":"A shortage of free female condoms in public hospitals in Kenya's Coast Province is compromising the ability of women to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Female condoms are available in private hospitals and pharmacies in the province, but at a cost of up to US$5 \u2013 five times the cost of a male condom \u2013 they are too expensive for most women, especially in a time of famine, where every penny goes towards food. Sex workers are among those affected most by the shortage. Some have reported that that the female condom was a key part of their business. If customers refuse to wear a condom, sex workers at least have the option of wearing a female condom to protect themselves against sexually transmitted diseases like HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Forum 2009: Innovating for the Health of All","field_subtitle":"16\u201320 November 2009: Havana, Cuba","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/","body":"Forum 2009: Innovating for the Health of All is this year\u2019s milestone event in research and innovation for health. Organised by the Global Forum for Health Research, it will take place on 16\u201320 November 2009 in Havana, Cuba, at the invitation of the Ministry of Public Health. What exactly is innovation? How can decision-makers and practitioners work together to foster innovation for health and health equity? What can we learn from innovation policies and initiatives around the world? These questions will be answered in Forum 2009\u2018s interwoven discussions of social innovation and technological innovation. This event will bring together some 800 leaders and experts from around the world to share ideas and forge new partnerships. It will include a unique mix of stakeholders from health and science ministries, research agencies and institutions, development agencies, foundations, non-governmental organisations, civil society, the private sector and media.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Framework for assessing governance of the health system in developing countries: Gateway to good governance ","field_subtitle":"Siddiqi S, Masud TI, Nishtar S, Peters DH, Sabri B, Bile KM and Jama MA : October 2008","field_url":"http://preview.tinyurl.com/cburwu","body":"The paper reports on a framework for health systems governance (HSG). Key issues considered included the role of the state vs. the market; role of the ministries of health vs. other state ministries; role of actors in governance; static vs. dynamic health systems; and health reform vs. human rights-based approach to health. The framework permits \u2018diagnoses of the ills\u2019 in HSG at the policy and operational levels and points to interventions for its improvement. The principles of the HSG framework are value driven and not normative and are to be seen in the social and political context. The framework relies on a qualitative approach and does not follow a scoring or ranking system. It does not directly address aid effectiveness but provides insight on the ability to utilise external resources and has the ability to include the effect of global health governance on national HSG.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"GAVI and the Global Fund explore expansion of their mandates","field_subtitle":"GAVI and the Global Fund: March 2009","field_url":"http://www.internationalhealthpartnership.net/pdf/IHP%20Update%2013/Taskforce/london%20meeting/new/GAVI%20and%20GFATM%20letter.pdf","body":"The heads of GAVI and the Global Fund have written a letter to Gordon Brown and World Bank head Robert Zoellick seeking an expansion of their mandates to cover all health MDGs. The letter was sent to the two co-Chairs of the High Level Taskforce on Innovative Finance and asks for GAVI and the Global Fund to 'refocus on all of the health-related MDGs as a renewed commitment to meeting the basic health service delivery needs in poor countries'. The letter goes on to state that both GAVI and the Global Fund are prepared to make this move promptly if they are given donor support. The letter has been posted on the web page of the High Level Taskforce on the IHP+ site.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender, race/ethnicity and social class in research reports on stigma in HIV-positive women ","field_subtitle":"Sandelowski M,  Barroso J and Voils C: Health Care for Women International 30(4), April 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cf4p3v","body":"The layering of HIV-related stigma with stigmas associated with gender, race, and class poses a methodological challenge to those seeking to understand and, thereby, to minimise its negative effects. In this meta-study of 32 reports of studies of stigma conducted with HIV-positive women, the researchers found that gender was hardly addressed despite the all-female composition of samples. Neither sexual orientation nor social class received much notice. Race was the dominant category addressed, most notably in reports featuring women in only one race/ethnic group. The relative absence of attention to these categories as cultural performances suggests the recurring assumption that sample inclusiveness automatically implies the inclusion of gender, race, and class, which is itself a cultural performance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Human Resources for Health Situation analysis in Seven ECSA Countries 2006","field_subtitle":"East, Central and Southern African Health Community ","field_url":"http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache%3AZInBmGEI42MJ%3Awww.phishare.org/files/5110_ECSA_HRH.pdf%20ECSA%20HC%20strategy&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk","body":"Human resources for health (HRH) is a critical component of health systems Many governments of our member states have expressed the need to determine the status HRH in relation to supply, utilization and management systems. The DJCC meeting of July 2003 recommended the establishment of the Human Resources for Health Technical Advisory Group to oversee the implementation ofthe many recommendations and the resolutions of health ministers at their 38thRegional Health Minister\u2019s Conference of November 2003, all aimed at addressing the HRH Crisis in ECSA. To address this resolution, ECSA Health Community has conducted a series ofrelated studies addressing the issue of HRH in the region. Three studies have been on the impact of HIV/AIDS on the health workforce and this study focused on establishing the situation of HRH in the region. The findings of this study will assist not only in identifying further areas of research in relation to HRH but aid in developing both regional and national level strategies on training, deployment and retention. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights guidelines for pharmaceutical companies in relation to access to medicines: The sexual and reproductive health context","field_subtitle":"Khosla R and Hunt P: University of Essex, 3 March 3, 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ckhzgv","body":"This briefing considers the responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies for enhancing access to medicines in the context of sexual and reproductive health. To provide some substance with which to shape the responsibilities of the pharmaceutical industry, the briefing first examines the issue of access to medicine in the context of both HIV/AIDS and the human papillomavirus (HPV). Various statistics are provided to convey the severity of the situation, and the intersection with the fundamental rights to sexual and reproductive health. Having provided this context, the authors outline the responsibilities of States to ensure that medicines are available, accessible, culturally acceptable, and of good quality. However, they stress that the pharmaceutical sector has an indispensable role to play in relation to the right to health and access to medicines; this is a shared responsibility.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of Stepping Stones on incidence of HIV and HSV-2 and sexual behaviour in rural South Africa: A cluster randomised controlled trial","field_subtitle":" Jewkes R, Nduna,M and Levin J: British Medical Journal, May 2008","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=41980&em%20=040309\u2282=partic","body":"Stepping Stones, a 50-hour programme, aims to improve sexual health by using participatory learning approaches to build knowledge, risk awareness, and communication skills and to stimulate critical reflection. This article details the results of a randomised trial to measure the impact of the programme on HIV and herpes rates in rural South Africa. The trial also measured unwanted pregnancy, reported sexual practices, depression, and substance misuse. The article shows how there was no evidence that Stepping Stones lowered the incidence of HIV. However, it significantly improved a number of reported risk behaviours in men, with a lower proportion of men acting violently towards their intimate partners and less transactional sex and drinking problems. In women, desired behaviour changes were not reported.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementation of integrated management of childhood illness in Tanzania: Success and challenges","field_subtitle":"Prosper H, Macha J and Borghi J: Consortium for Research on Equitable Health Systems, 2009","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health&id=42156&type=Document","body":"This research report analyses the integrated management of childhood illness (IMCI) policy in Tanzania. Two districts in North-Western Tanzania, Bunda and Tarime, in Mara region, were picked to examine the issues around introduction, planning and implementation by district health managers and at facility levels. The paper found that the percentage in health workers that are trained in IMCI case management varies between districts \u2013 Bunda at 44% and Tarime at only 5%. The relatively high levels of training in Bunda might be due to early sensitisation of key actors, a higher health budget per capita, local facilitators and strong external support. However, funding is low and IMCI suffers from poor visibility and challenges of monitoring impact compared to vertical programmes, reducing the potential for attracting donor investment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementing integrated management of childhood illness in Kenya: Challenges and recommendations","field_subtitle":"Mullei K, Wafula F and Goodman, C: Consortium for Research on Equitable Health Systems, October 2008","field_url":"http://www.crehs.lshtm.ac.uk/downloads/publications/IMCI_policybrief.pdf","body":"This policy brief looks at the challenges of implementing the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) strategy in Kenya. It shows that Kenya has made some progress in rolling out the IMCI strategy; however, implementation remains highly inadequate. The three main challenges to implementation are low training coverage, health workers not following guidelines and barriers to accessing services. These challenges reflect a range of IMCI-specific and broader health system constraints. The authors outline recommendations for increasing IMCI coverage and implementation. They argue that urgent action is needed to review pre-service training, scale up in-service training, address facility-level implementation challenges, improve IMCI supervision and build support for the strategy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"International assistance and cooperation in sexual and reproductive health: A human rights responsibility for donors","field_subtitle":"de Mesquita JB and Hunt P: Essex University, December 2008","field_url":"http://www2.essex.ac.uk/human_rights_centre/rth/docs/Final%20pdf%20for%20website.pdf","body":"States' obligations under some international treaties extend beyond their national borders to international assistance and cooperation for human rights, including the rights to sexual and reproductive health, in other countries. This paper focuses on what is expected of donors in the context of this responsibility. It shows how many donors are taking important steps towards fulfilling this duty through measures they are taking to integrate the rights to sexual and reproductive health into their policies and programmes, but also argues that many donors can also do more. The publication concludes with a set of recommendations addressed to donors and their developing country partner governments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Join the Stop Stock-outs Campaign","field_subtitle":"Protect access to essential medicines: 2009","field_url":"http://www.stopstockouts.org/","body":"Public health facilities in Africa currently stock only about half of a core set of essential medicines, such as those used to treat malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea, HIV, TB, diabetes and hypertension, which are among the highest causes of death in Africa. The Stop the Stock-outs Campaign is calling on governments and health departments to end stock-outs by providing financial and operational autonomy to the national medicines procurement and supply agency, giving representation of civil society on the board of the agency, ending corruption in the medicine supply chain to stop theft and diversion of essential medicines, providing a dedicated budget line for essential medicines, living up to commitments to spend 15% of national budgets on health care and providing free essential medicines at all public health institutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya joins in the launch of the Piga Debe Campaign on maternal mortality ","field_subtitle":"Kenya Times: January 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c7vmnr","body":"Kenyan anti-poverty campaigners have launched the Piga Debe for Women Rights Campaign at a well-attended concert held at the Carnivore grounds in Nairobi as part of mobilisation for International Women\u2019s Day. The Piga Debe concert was organised by the United Nations Millennium Campaign Africa Office, Kijiji Records and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (Kenya) and started a month-long awareness campaign seeking to draw attention of African governments to the outrageous fact that thousands of women continue to die needlessly during child birth. Millennium Development Goals will not be realised unless and until women\u2019s empowerment, rights and development are achieved. Addressing inequalities based on gender greatly reduces poverty and increases levels of well-being for the entire population.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Limitations of methods for measuring out-of-pocket and catastrophic private health expenditures","field_subtitle":"Lu C, Chin B, Lic G and Murray CJL: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(3), March 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/3/08-054379.pdf","body":"The objective of this paper was to investigate the effect of survey design, specifically the number of items and recall period, on estimates of household out-of-pocket and catastrophic expenditure on health. It used results from two surveys \u2013 the World Health Survey and the Living Standards Measurement Study \u2013 that asked the same respondents about health expenditures in different ways. In most countries, a lower level of disaggregation (i.e. fewer items) gave a lower estimate for average health spending, and a shorter recall period yielded a larger estimate. However, when the effects of aggregation and recall period are combined, it is difficult to predict which of the two has the greater influence. Therefore, it is crucial to establish a method to generate valid, reliable and comparable information on private health spending.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Making health markets work for poor people","field_subtitle":"Id21: March 2009","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights76/insights76.pdf","body":"In many countries people use a wide variety of market-based providers of health-related goods and services ranging from highly organised and regulated hospitals and specialist doctors to informal health workers and drug sellers operating outside the legal framework. The boundary between public and private sectors is often very porous, with people either paying government health workers informally or consulting them outside their official hours. Unregulated markets, in particular, raise problems in terms of safety, efficacy and cost. Understanding health markets and improving system performance is central to accelerating action to scale-up coverage and use of health services and deliver improved outcomes against the health-related MDGs and universal access commitments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"New global health initiative: Economic Governance for Health (EG4Health)","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eg4health.org","body":"We are falling behind in meeting the Millennium Development Goals. Answering this challenge, a new initiative, Economic Governance for Health (EG4Health), aims to harness the voice and public health mandate of the global health community. In partnership with other civil society groups, the initiative seeks fundamental reforms of the global economic system in favour of just, climate-friendly and pro-health development. At the root of EG4Health are three simple points: the global economy is critically important to health, especially in developing countries; if we hope to achieve global health equity, we must first restore democracy and fair play to global economic governance, free from the undue influence of wealth and power; and the voice of the global health community can and should help to inform, stimulate, and shape the required reforms to the governance of the global economy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"New post-conference workshop on communicating research evidence to influence policy at the EQUINET conference in September 2009","field_subtitle":"Date: 26 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/workshops.php","body":"This workshop will take place after the EQUINET Regional Conferebce September 23-25 2009. It will draw on the experiences of the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) to strengthen skills in effective and innovative strategies of communicating health research evidence to effect policy change. It will be an interactive workshop, and will address some major challenges in communicating health research in an accessible and compelling manner. The workshop will use evidence from APHRC's research in the area of sexual and reproductive health in the sub-Saharan Africa region. The workshop will be useful to people charged with communicating research in their organizations, researchers, advocates/activists, and anyone else who finds the issues above interesting.  Visit the conference website to register for the workshop and for the conference. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"New research project: Mobility of Health Professionals","field_subtitle":"Mobility of Health Professionals (MoHProf): March 2009","field_url":"http://www.mohprof.eu/","body":"Worldwide mobility of health professionals is a growing phenomenon, impacting the health systems of receiving, transit, and sending countries, so the need to develop European policies to adequately address these issues is urgent. At the same time, reliable and differentiated knowledge and findings as a basis for such policy are lacking. MoHProf will contribute to improving this knowledge base and facilitate European policy on human resource planning. The general objective of the project is to research current trends of mobility of health professionals to, from and within the EU. The project comprises four phases over a three-year period starting from November 2008. There will be four project meetings, starting with a kick-off meeting and project launch and concluding with an international conference, and roundtables as appropriate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New website: African Food Security Urban Network (AFSUN)","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.afsun.org/","body":"AFSUN was established in 2008 as a network of African and international universities, non-governmental and community organizations, and municipal governance networks. It aims to improve the knowledge base on urban food security in Africa; to build African human resource capacity and expertise in food security policy and management; to develop and advocate policy options to improve the environment within which households make decisions about food security; and to grow the capacity of community change agents to plan, implement and evaluate food security projects and programmes. AFSUN also recognises the critical importance of the global food system and the links between town and countryside in affecting the food security of urban populations in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"No magic bullets: keeping our health workers calls for deeper, wider changes ","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson, Yoswa Dambisya, Riaz Tayob, Scholastika Iipinge","field_url":"","body":"\r\nShe has walked for 10 kilometers now. She can hear the child on her back, the harsh crying of an hour ago fading to exhausted whimpering.  Her local clinic has not had a qualified nurse for some months, so she is walking the 20 kilometers to the nearest district hospital, hoping that by the time she gets there, the child will not have succumbed to the fever that she could not dampen with home treatment. \r\n\r\nFor this woman, as for many others in the region, the long walk to care is a consequence of inadequate numbers of critical and skilled health personnel, high levels of external and internal migration and poor distribution of staff in areas of high health need. Even where health workers are in place there is report of low staff morale.   In 2005 health ministers in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) identified the non availability of skilled health professionals as a key factor undermining achievement of health Millennium Development Goals.\r\n\r\nWith the reality of poor communities bearing the brunt of a yawning gap between need and supply of health workers, health ministers in the East, Central and Southern African Health Community (ECSA-HC) resolved in 2007 to have in place by 2008 national strategies to recruit, motivate and retain health workers,  using both financial and non-financial incentives. Since then both ECSA-HC and SADC have developed strategies for responding to the health worker crisis.  A number of countries in the region have also developed and began to implement strategies, adding new measures to existing incentives. In March 2009, the ECSA-HC Ministers met again in Swaziland to review how far these commitments had been addressed. \r\n\r\nTowards this, in February 2009,  EQUINET and the ECSA-HC held a regional meeting, hosted by University of Namibia,  to review evidence gathered from countries on how well incentives for health worker retention were working.  These incentives are not always cash payments. The studies showed that dealing with poor working conditions, poor communication, unsupportive management and inadequate recognition is also important to attract health workers and to motivate them to stay. \r\n\r\nAs Hon Petrina Haingura, Deputy Minister of Health and Social Services in Namibia  noted in opening the meeting, \u201cWe all know and understand that our governments are not in positions to provide huge salaries to our health workers but much more can be done within working environments. Health workers frequently complain and express dissatisfaction with management, poor leadership, lack of support and recognition; supervisors do not even know the word \u2018thank you\u2019 for good performance.\u201d \r\n\r\nThe studies carried out in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Swaziland and Zimbabwe gave evidence that the incentives most valued by workers were training and support for their career paths; improvements in services and working environments;  housing mortgages / loans; recognition and reward for  performance and accessible health care. Delegates at the meeting suggested that these be planned for and costed as a core set of strategies in health worker retention strategies in all countries in the region, even while further locally relevant strategies are considered. \r\n\r\nSome of these strategies are being applied, but on a targeted or piecemeal basis, for selected health workers, or in specific programmes. Leaving it to individual facilities to set and apply these incentives seemed to lead to a vicious cycle of poorly resourced facilities, with weak management, having the least ability to attract staff, despite greater need.  The evidence suggested that retention packages should preferably be health sector wide, with career path and training support based on analysis of  responsibilities and tasks. \r\n\r\nProf Yoswa Dambisya of University of Limpopo summarised the learning from the region: \u201cNon-financial incentives have been successful when they have been deliberately planned, with consultation across the board, as in Uganda; when they meet immediate needs through top-ups and allowances as in Malawi; when a combination of financial and non-financial incentives is used as in Zambia and Uganda; when incentives are used to attract health workers from private to public sector as in Uganda; when incentive programmes are integrated with SWAP or budgets as in Uganda and Malawi; and when national and donor funding were mobilised for an emergency human resource programmes in Malawi and Zambia\u201d.\r\n\r\nMoving from cash top-ups for selected personnel as an emergency response,  to supporting career paths, health services and long term housing as an investment for retention moves us, therefore,  from the realm of quick fixes to longer term change.  It calls for long term planning of needs and services, and the information to support this. It demands management capacities, tools and guidelines, delivered through procedures and processes that build trust and participation.  These features are often under-developed in health systems in the region, yet without them, even the best designed incentives remain largely on paper. Indeed one of the findings of the studies was that while many of the countries had made progress in setting policy measures for dealing with incentives for retention, delivery on the ground was still limited, in part due to gaps in these capacities. One sign of weak support for these capacities is the ironic exclusion from incentives schemes, training and professional exchanges of the very personnel who manage human resources for health. \r\n\r\nThese deeper, system wide changes are not just good for health worker retention, but for the quality and performance of services as a whole. But they do demand more than short term, ad hoc injections of project funds.  One requirement is that governments in the region should increase the budgets for health to meet the Abuja commitment of 15% government spending on health.  Analysis of experience with international and global funding suggests also that these funds are best pooled into sector wide funds,  if they are to support system wide incentive schemes for health workers, with plans for their use harmonized with national plans. \r\n\r\nThis raises issues of sustainability and of shared international and national responsibility that need to be addressed. When a draft code of practice on the International Recruitment of health personnel was tabled at the January World Health Organisation Executive Board, however, the debate reported on it suggested that there is some way to go in reaching a shared understanding of how international responsibilities should be managed.  In 2007,  African countries, many of whom are source countries for migrating health workers, had requested a code that was more than voluntary. The WHO secretariat chose instead to stick to international practice of a non-binding agreement and presented a voluntary draft code, with some high income countries receiving health workers echoing this choice.  African countries at the 2008 Executive Board thus again raised the need for an enforceable code, for the rights of communities in source countries to be considered and for a compensation mechanism to address losses.   So the code was referred for more consultation. \r\n\r\nAs we follow the woman  and her baby into the district hospital from the long walk, her hope is focused on the fact that she has come in time to save her baby. Our hope is that she will not need to make this walk again, and that African health systems provide the environments, task alignment, career paths and long term security to ensure that their health workers are found in the services where they are needed, backed by the wider economic improvements and political stability needed to keep them there. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat  admin@equinetafrica.org. For further information on this issue and reports on the health worker retention issues please visit the EQUINET website- www.equinetafrica.org. Information on the ECSA-HC resolutions and programme on health workers can be found at http://www.ecsahc.org/","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Nutrition, Food Security and HIV: A Compendium of Promising Practices","field_subtitle":"FANTA: 2009","field_url":"http://www.fantaproject.org/downloads/pdfs/fsHIV_compendium2008.pdf","body":"Increasingly, countries in east, central, and southern Africa are integrating nutrition and food security interventions into HIV services. As the number, variety and reach of these programmes expand, identification and documentation of promising practices become valuable in order to help understand what works, to replicate successful approaches and to incorporate lessons into programmes. The Regional Centre for Quality of Health Care (RCQHC) in Uganda and the FANTA Project organised extensive in-country reviews by local teams of nutrition, food security and HIV programmes in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Nutrition, Food Security and HIV: A Compendium of Promising Practices compiles, analyses and describes the promising practices identified through the reviews.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Participation and the right to the highest attainable standard of health","field_subtitle":"Potts H: Essex University, December 2008","field_url":"http://www2.essex.ac.uk/human_rights_centre/rth/docs/Participation.pdf","body":"Active and informed participation is an integral component of health systems, as well as the right to the highest attainable standard of health. Despite its critical importance, health and human rights have not given participation the attention it deserves. While some health researchers have made more headway than those working in human rights, neither community has a widely accepted understanding of what the process of participation means in practice. This monograph is an accessible, practical, timely and original introduction to the process of participation; the need for a variety of participatory mechanisms; the relationship between fairness and transparency of the process; the relationship between participation and accountability and participation in accountability. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Petition to promote breast feeding in developing nations","field_subtitle":"One Million Campaign: February 2008","field_url":"http://www.onemillioncampaign.org/en/Details_Petitions.aspx","body":"The One Million Campaign report that babies below 3 years were fed milk powder contaminated with melamine, an industrial chemical used in fertilisers and plastic production. If they had been fed on their mother\u2019s milk, they could have been saved from this unnecessary catastrophe. The One Million Campaign seeks signatories to support women to breastfeed and stop the push towards feeding babies with milk formula.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-private options for expanding access to human resources for HIV/AIDS in Botswana","field_subtitle":"Dreesch N et al., Human Resources for Health 2007, 5:25doi:10.1186/1478-4491-5-25","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/5/1/25","body":"In responding to the goal of rapidly increasing access to antiretroviral treatment (ART), the government of Botswana undertook a major review of its health systems options to increase access to human resources, one of the major bottlenecks preventing people from receiving treatment. In mid-2004, a team of government and World Health Organization (WHO) staff reviewed the situation and identified a number of public sector scale up options. The team also reviewed the capacity of private practitioners to participate in the provision of ART. Subsequently, the government created a mechanism to include private practitioners in rolling out ART. At the end of 2006, more than 4500 patients had been transferred to the private sector for routine follow up. It is estimated that the cooperation reduced the immediate need for recruiting up to 40 medically qualified staff into the public sector over the coming years, depending on the development of the national standard for the number and duration of patient visits to a doctor per year. Thus welcome relief was brought, while at the same time not exercising a pull factor on human resources for health in the sub-Saharan region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Recommendations from the regional meeting on health worker retention in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, ECSA HC February 27 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/RESfeb2009HCWmtg.pdf","body":"This document presents the recommendations of the  EQUINET\u2013ECSA HC regional meeting on health worker retention in east and southern Africa (ESA) was held in Windhoek, Namibia from 25-27 February 2009 hosted by University of Namibia, and involving delegates from government, academic and research institutions, health worker organisations, parliament and civil society from ten ESA countries and from regional organisations including SADC and WHO. The recommendations cover proposals for policy options, guidelines and further research on health worker retention, migration, on health worker orientation and roles in primary health care and task shifting. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Religion and HIV in Tanzania: Influence of religious beliefs on HIV stigma, disclosure, and treatment attitudes","field_subtitle":"Zou J, Yamanaka Y, John M, Watt M, Ostermann J and Thielman N: BMC Public Health, 4 March 2009","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/9/75","body":"A self-administered survey was distributed to a convenience sample of church-goers in both urban and rural areas, which included questions about religious beliefs, opinions about HIV, and knowledge and attitudes about anti-retrovirals (ARVs). Results indicated that shame-related HIV stigma is strongly associated with religious beliefs such as the belief that HIV is a punishment from God or that people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) have not followed the Word of God. Most participants said that they would disclose their HIV status to their pastor or congregation if they became infected. Although most respondents believed that prayer could cure HIV, almost all said that they would begin ARV treatment if they became HIV-infected. So, the decision to start treatment was hinged primarily on education level and knowledge about ARVs, rather than on religious beliefs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Report on IFHHRO Africa Regional Training on Monitoring the Right to Health","field_subtitle":"IFHHRO: January 2009","field_url":"http://www.ifhhro.org/files/IFHHRO_Kampala_training_2008_Report.pdf","body":"The IFHHRO Africa Regional Training on Monitoring the Right to Health took place in Kampala, Uganda, in December last year. It was organised by AGHA and IFHHRO's Africa Regional Focal Point. The objectives of the training were to bring health professionals and their organisations together to share experiences on monitoring the right to health, to develop an understanding of health related human rights, to make health professionals aware that they have responsibilities regarding the realisation of the right to health, particularly through monitoring, to show the practical meaning and significance of monitoring the right to health in the day-to-day work of health professionals and their organisations, and to develop practical action plans for the future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Researchers in Zimbabwe developing new ways to purify water","field_subtitle":"Bafana Band Kharsany Z: IPSNews, 25 March 2009","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46259","body":"Scientists at Bulawayo's National University of Science and Technology (NUST) have embarked on research to develop simple and affordable water purification methods, as more than a billion people live without safe drinking water in developing countries. They are currently investigating if a powder made from the seeds of a tree, Moringa oleifera, commonly known as the drumstick or horseradish tree, can be used as a filter to purify water. So far, the treatment of water with Moringa seed powder has proven to be an effective method of reducing water-borne diseases and correct pH. Test results also showed that household bleach is a very strong disinfectant and raised the levels of free and total chlorine in the water, while the simple filtration columns resulted in almost 85% reduction in total suspended solids. Further research is needed, however.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Share your thoughts about your health information needs and receive a free health book","field_subtitle":"Where There Is No Doctor","field_url":"http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=ZIbg_2bo3Zs4saLFqtRcNNmw_3d_3d","body":"Where There Is No Doctor is a health care manual for health workers, clinicians, and others involved in primary health care delivery and health promotion programmes around the world. An independent consulting team is conducting market research to develop a new version of the book to better meets the needs of health care workers around the world. Your feedback will help create the new version. You will be asked general questions about what kind of health information you need, where you look for health information, and your opinions of Where There Is No Doctor, if you have used the book in the past. We are interested in hearing from people who have used Where There Is No Doctor in the past and from people who have not used the book. The survey should take about 20 minutes to complete.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Slow to share: Social capital and its role in public HIV disclosure among public sector ART patients in the Free State province of South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Wouters E, Meulemans H and van Rensburg HCJ: AIDS Care, 6 March 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cgolb6","body":"HIV serostatus disclosure to community members has been shown to have potential public and personal health benefits. This study examined the impact of bonding and bridging social capital (i.e. close and distant ties) on public disclosure. Data was collected from a public sector ART programme in the Free State province in the form of semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with 268 patients. The study identified bonding social capital as a leverage to maximise potential benefits and minimise potential risks so as to shift the balance toward consistent public disclosure. Furthermore, the importance of bridging social capital initiatives is demonstrated, especially for the most vulnerable patients, namely those who cannot capitalise their bonding social capital by disclosing their HIV serostatus to family and friends at the start of treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Human Rights Commission will investigate the right to health","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: 12 May 2009","field_url":"http://www.ifhhro.org/main.php?op=news&id=294","body":"As part of a broader enquiry into the link between the Millennium Development Goals and economic and social rights in South Africa, the South African Human Rights Commission has announced that it will organize a public hearing on the Millennium Development Goals and the right to health in South Africa on 10 June 2009 in Johannesburg. The Commission calls for written submissions covering the period from April 2006 to March 2009 from relevant national and provincial government departments, the public and interested parties. The deadline for receipt of submissions is 12 May 2009. The Commission is attempting to apply a \u2018rights-based approach, where people become part of the process; they are active participants, and the process itself becomes a tool for empowerment\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Speaking out: How the voices of poor people are shaping the future","field_subtitle":"Blaiser C: Oxfam, 2009","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=41995&em%20=040309\u2282=partic","body":"This paper from Oxfam focuses on how the right-to-be-heard concept can strengthen public participation in policy making and accountability. Recommendations for those supporting poor and marginalised people to lobby for changes in their situation include recognising that change is long-term, understanding that attitudinal change is important, putting local priorities first, working at a number of levels and building alliances, bringing people face to face, taking different perspectives into account, recognising that international agencies can play an advocacy role, understanding that NGOs are important as role models of accountability and integrity. A number of case studies are used to illustrate these points including the fostering of local accountability in Malawi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Study shows 15% of South African school children would knowingly spread HIV","field_subtitle":"Mail and Guardian: 11 March 2009","field_url":"http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-03-11-study-15-of-sa-pupils-would-knowingly-spread-hiv","body":"Fifteen percent of South African school children between the ages of 12 and 17 years would knowingly spread HIV, the South African Broadcasting Corporation has reported. This was revealed in a study of more than 15 000 school children by an international group of epidemiologists based in Canada. The organisation's Nobantu Marokane said that most of the learners who said they would spread the virus had been abused. 'These learners were not tested so they did not know if they were HIV positive. In most cases, these learners have been exposed to some kind of abuse.'","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Summer school programme on health law","field_subtitle":"6\u201317 July 2009: Rotterdam, the Netherlands","field_url":"http://www.erasmusobservatoryonhealthlaw.nl/","body":"On 6\u201317 July, a school programme on health law will be held in Rotterdam for health professionals and practitioners, including intensive training in various aspects of health law and ethics over a two-week period, while absorbing the sights, sounds and culture unique to Rotterdam and the Netherlands. The Summer School offers a custom-developed course taught by leading academics in their field. The courses are designed to enhance the preparation of health professionals confronted with legal and ethical issues. The course focuses on both theoretical and practical aspects of health law and ethics. The following courses are given: Human Rights and Health, Sexual and Reproductive Health, Public Health, Bioethics and the Law, and Health Economics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"SVRI Forum 2009: Coordinated evidence-based responses to end sexual violence","field_subtitle":" 6\u20139 July 2009, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://svriforum2009.svri.org/abstractinformation.htm","body":"You are invited to submit your abstract for the 2009 conference, describing your research and advocacy efforts to address the many dimensions of sexual violence by 27 March 2009. Abstracts should be submitted according to the conference themes, namely sexual violence and HIV, sexual violence and mental health, sexual violence and conflict and emergency settings, sexual violence and prevention, and health sector responses to sexual violence. The call for abstracts welcomes multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural perspectives and preference will be given to efforts undertaken in, or focusing on low- and middle-income countries. There are four types of sessions that you can apply for: oral and posters presentations, round tables and seminar meetings. To submit an abstract, visit the forum website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Swiss court accepts that criminal HIV exposure is only 'hypothetical' on successful treatment, quashes conviction ","field_subtitle":" Bernard EJ: AIDS-Map, 25 February 2009","field_url":"http://aidsmap.com/en/news/CEFD90F2-34F1-4570-B9CF-1F0DB462AC9D.asp","body":"In the first ruling of its kind in the world, the Geneva Court of Justice has quashed an 18-month prison sentence given to a 34-year-old HIV-positive African migrant who was convicted of HIV exposure by a lower court in December 2008. This was done after accepting expert testimony from Professor Bernard Hirschel \u2013 one of the authors of the Swiss Federal Commission for HIV/AIDS Consensus Statement on the Effect of Treatment on Transmission \u2013 that the risk of sexual HIV transmission during unprotected sex on successful treatment is 1 in 100,000. The ruling suggests that, in Switzerland at least, effectively treated HIV-positive individuals should no longer be prosecuted for having unprotected sex. With advocates from around the world taking interest in the case, it is possible that this ruling will have consequences for other countries with HIV exposure laws.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Systematic reviews in public health: Old chestnuts and new challenges","field_subtitle":"Mark Petticrew: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(3), March 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/3/09-063719.pdf","body":"Current systematic reviews have a utilitarian bias \u2013 they tend to be concerned more with the effects on populations and average effects than with distributional effects and impacts in disadvantaged sub\u00acgroups. the author poses that systematic reviews should routinely consider the effects of interventions on health inequities. The Cochrane Health Equity Field was set up explicitly to further this agenda, to encourage systematic review authors to explicitly assess the effects of interventions not only on the whole population, but on the disadvantaged. Evidence on interventions to improve public health is in short supply, partic\u00acularly evidence on social determinants. Public health systematic reviewers need to continue to develop new methods and better frameworks to inform decision-making.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"TARSC, UZ DCM 2009 Winter School in public health: Applications now open","field_subtitle":"Harare, 6-11 July 2009","field_url":"http://www.tarsc.org","body":"The Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC), and University of Zimbabwe, Department of Community Medicine (UZ-DCM) invite applications for the 2009 Winter School Public Health short course-training programme to be held at UZ Health Sciences Building from the 6 to 11 July 2009. The programme is aimed at building capacities for people working particularly at district level in health-related work, but who may not have had the benefit of formal training in health. The course thus aims to include people in Zimbabwe from local government, from health related services and sectors working in areas related to health at district level, from civil society and from community leaders with roles in health. The course aims to build an understanding of public health and of health systems, particularly at district level. Contact the Programme Coordinator on the email address or visit the TARSC website for further details. Applications close April 17th 2009.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Vacancy: National consultants in Angola, Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Kenya and South Africa","field_subtitle":"Closing date for applications: April 2009","field_url":"http://www.mohprof.eu/","body":"The research project Mobility of Health Professionals (MoHProf) is a European Union funded project that aims to contribute to an improved knowledge base and to facilitate European policy on human resource planning. The general objective of the project is to investigate and analyse current trends of the mobility of health professionals (such as nurses and doctors) to, from and within the European Union, including return and circular migration. The Consultants will conduct empirical socio-scientific field studies on migration of health workers, each in one of the countrises listed, and participate in two meetings with the Regional Research Coordinator and other national consultants. For further information visit the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Vacancy: Technical officer, Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research","field_subtitle":"Deadline: 14 April 2009","field_url":"https://erecruit.who.int/public/hrd-cl-vac-view.asp?o_c=1000&jobinfo_uid_c=21065&vaclng=en","body":"The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, World Health Organization, is hiring a technical officer, P4, in the areas of pharmaceutical policy and use of evidence to inform policy making. Based in Geneva, the officer will lead a programme of work that engages research users to identify and build consensus around global research priorities in the access to medicines field; manage calls for proposals, administer and provide technical support to grants focused on synthesising and generating new knowledge on access to medicine issues; promote networking between research institutions working in the pharmaceutical policy field and help build capacity in the field through workshops and other interventions; monitor and support Alliance grants to country teams that aim to promote the use of evidence in policy making; and act as the point person for the Alliance on coordination with the EVIPNet (Evidence Informed Policy Networks).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Well-being: A new development concept","field_subtitle":"Vaitilingam R: The Broker, 30 January 2009","field_url":"http://www.thebrokeronline.eu/en/articles/Be-well","body":"Leading aid models focus on economic growth and poverty reduction, but the well-being approach aims for more comprehensive change, said a new group studying the problem. Well-being requires us to go beyond the macro statistics on growth, poverty and inequality and get a more fine-grained understanding of the distributions of resources and relationships that constitute the barriers to successful development in particular contexts. This is what development policy must engage in. The work of the group brought together four major bodies of thinking about development, each of which has been adopted with some success by developing countries and development agencies: theories of human need, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen\u2019s \u2018development as freedom\u2019, the \u2018participation\u2019 and \u2018livelihoods\u2019 frameworks, and the work of social psychology on subjective well-being.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"What essential medicines for children are on the shelf?","field_subtitle":"Robertson J, Forte G, Trapsidac, J and Hillbrand S: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 87(3), March 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/3/08-053645.pdf","body":"The objective of this paper was to document the inclusion of key medicines for children in national essential medicines lists (EMLs) and standard treatment guidelines, and to assess the availability and cost of these medicines in 14 countries in central Africa. Surveys were conducted in 12 public and private sector medicine outlets in each country\u2019s capital city. Data was collected on medicine availability on the survey day and on the cost to the patient of the lowest-priced medicine in stock. It found that there was considerable variation in prices, which tended to be higher in retail pharmacies, and the availability of key essential medicines for children was poor. Better understanding of the supply systems in the countries studied and of the pattern of demand for medicines is needed before improvements can be made.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO launches online hearing on innovative funding sources for research and development","field_subtitle":"New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 6 March 2009","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/03/06/who-launches-online-hearing-on-innovative-funding-sources-for-rd/","body":"The World Health Organization is soliciting new ideas for funding sources to stimulate research and development on diseases predominantly afflicting developing countries, with some in developed countries. The web-based public hearing, being held online from 7 March to 15 April 2009, will contribute to an intergovernmental mandate to come up with ways to address the shortage of research in this area. The expert group hopes to solicit additional ideas from member states and other stakeholders for its consideration. The final report will be presented at the May 2010 Health Assembly. The web-based public hearing is open to individuals, civil society groups, government institutions, academic and research institutions, the private sector and other interested parties. The link to the online public hearing is: http://www.who.int/phi/public_hearings/third/en/index.html","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Women need safer access to health care in war situations","field_subtitle":"International Committee of the Red Cross: 5 March 2009","field_url":"http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/women-news-050309!OpenDocument","body":"In the run-up to International Women's Day, 8 March, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned that the specific health-care needs of women are often ignored or insufficiently taken into account in war situations. \u2018People wounded in fighting are given priority for medical treatment, but women, even pregnant mothers, are often given scant attention despite their special needs,\u2019 said the ICRC's adviser on issues relating to women and war. In the world\u2019s least developed countries, many of which are at war, women are 300 times more likely to die in childbirth or from pregnancy-related complications than in developed countries, according to UNICEF. In war time, women are particularly at risk of rape and other forms of sexual violence and they have no means of transportation to reach a health-care facility so as to give birth safely.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Working with young women: Empowerment, rights and health","field_subtitle":"Ricardo C: Instituto PROMUNDO, 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/c3j4h3","body":"Although there has been a significant amount of work done to promote women\u2019s empowerment, most of it has been geared towards the experiences of adult women. This manual, part of an initiative called Program M, includes a series of group educational activities to promote young women\u2019s awareness about gender inequities, rights and health. It also seeks to develop their skills to feel more capable of acting in empowered ways in different spheres of their lives. All the activities draw on an experiential learning model in which young women are encouraged to question and analyse their own experiences and lives, in order to understand how gender can perpetuate unequal power in relationships, making young women and men vulnerable to sexual and reproductive health problems, including HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"'Rights' and wrongs: What utility for the right to health in reforming trade rules on medicines?","field_subtitle":"Forman L: Health and Human Rights 10(2), 2008","field_url":"http://www.hhrjournal.org/index.php/hhr/article/view/80/0","body":"This paper explores the legal and normative potential of the right to health to mitigate the restrictive impact of trade-related intellectual property rules on access to medicines, as evidenced by the global outcomes of the seminal pharmaceutical company litigation in South Africa in 2001. The author argues that the litigation and resulting public furor provoked a paradigm shift in global approaches to AIDS treatment in sub-Saharan Africa. She argues further that this outcome illustrates how human rights in concert with social action were able to effectively challenge dominant claims about the necessity of stringent trade-related intellectual property rights in poor countries, and ergo, to raise the priority of public health needs in related decision-making. The author explores the causal role of rights in achieving these outcomes through the analytical lens provided by international legal compliance theories, and in particular, the model of normative emergence proposed by Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink. She suggests that the AIDS medicines experience offers strategic guidance for realizing the right to health\u2019s transformative potential with regard to essential medicines more generally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A rethink on the use of aid mechanisms in health sector early recovery","field_subtitle":"Vergeer P, Canavan A and Rothman I: Royal Tropical Institute , 2009","field_url":"http://www.kit.nl/net/KIT_Publicaties_output/ShowFile2.aspx?e=1508","body":"States emerging from protracted crises struggle to provide basic services. This is no more crucial than in the health sector where vulnerable \u2018post-conflict\u2019 populations are frequently in dire need of care. However, development actors are frequently faced with difficult choices \u2013 particularly how much emphasis to place on \u2018humanitarian\u2019 emergency health relief in the face of a need for health systems building. Yet is it possible to simultaneously provide basic health services whilst also developing local health provision? This paper considers how aid mechanisms can engender a \u2018twin approach\u2019 and sustain a continuous flow of resources during the progression from humanitarian to development aid. A paradigm shift is required which allows for an integrated mix of modalities in early recovery settings. Better coordination of donor agencies at country level is also needed to determine the choice of aid instruments and their complementarity, in order to ensure that health service coverage for vulnerable populations is maintained while simultaneously (re)building the health system. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Africans\u2019 DNA could be abused","field_subtitle":" Jordan B: The Times, 14 February 2009","field_url":"http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=939479","body":"South African researchers and traditional leaders are reported to have raised concern that scientists could patent the genes of local ethnic groups who have donated blood samples as part of a worldwide genome-mapping project. Several lawyers, researchers and community leaders have denounced an American patent application for unique gene mutations found in DNA samples collected in Tanzania, Kenya and Sudan. The applicants from the University of Pennsylvania, are reported to have collected more than 2,000 samples in East Africa and to have a blood bank of more than 5,000 samples in total, taken from 80 African ethnic groups.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Blind optimism: Challenging the myths about private health care in poor countries","field_subtitle":" OXFAM briefing paper 125: February 2009","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/health/bp125_blind_optimism.html","body":"This paper shows there is an urgent need to reassess the arguments used in favor of scaling-up private-sector provision in poor countries. The evidence shows that prioritising this approach is extremely unlikely to deliver health for poor people. The paper recommends that donors should rapidly increase funding for the expansion of free universal public health-care provision in low-income countries, including through the International Health Partnership. Developing countries must resist donor pressure to implement unproven and unworkable market reforms to public health systems and an expansion of private-sector health-service delivery. Civil society must also act together to hold governments to account by engaging in policy development, monitoring health spending and service delivery, and exposing corruption.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Breast milk as the 'water that supports and preserves life'\u2014Socio-cultural constructions of breastfeeding and their implications for the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Hofmann J, De Allegri M, Sarker M, Sanon M and B\u00f6hler T: Health Policy 89(3), March 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bsfahh","body":"Complementary breastfeeding represents an important source of risk of HIV infection for infants born to HIV positive mothers. The World Health Organisation recommends that infants born to HIV positive mothers receive either replacement feeding or exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) followed by early weaning. Beyond the clinical and epidemiological debate, it remains unclear how acceptable and feasible the two options are for rural populations in sub-Saharan Africa. This qualitative study aims to fill this gap in knowledge by exploring both the socio-cultural construction and the practice of breastfeeding in the Nouna Health District, rural Burkina Faso. Information was collected through 32 individual interviews and 3 focus group discussions with women of all ages, and 6 interviews with local gu\u00e9risseurs. The findings highlight that breastfeeding is perceived as central to motherhood, but that women practice complementary, rather than exclusive, breastfeeding. Women are reported to recognise both the nutritional value of breast milk and its potential to act as a source of disease transmission. Given the socio-cultural importance attributed to breastfeeding and the prevailing poverty, the authors suggest that it may be more acceptable and more feasible to promote EBF followed by early weaning than replacement feeding. A set of operational strategies are proposed to favour the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV in the respect of the local socio-cultural setting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications for the Third African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE)","field_subtitle":"3\u201317 September 2009: Durban, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.ifas.org.za/aporde/","body":"The APORDE initiative is supported by The Department of Trade and Industry (the DTI) and the French Development Agency (AFD) with the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS) and will be held in Durban (South Africa) from 3\u201317 September 2009. They are seeking applications from talented African, Asian and Latin American economists, policy makers and civil society activists who, if selected, will be fully funded. For further information on the criteria required and your eligibility, visit the website address given below. Note that entry into this high-level programme has been very competitive in the past and only 26 applicants will be selected. The main body of participants will be drawn from Africa, but applications from Asians and Latin Americans who have research or work experience related to Africa are welcomed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for assistance for nurses in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Southern African Network of Nurses and Midwives: 29 January, 2009","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/sanaamco%40denosa.org.za","body":"The Southern African Network of Nurses and Midwives (SANNAM) is calling for suppport for Zimbabwean nurses at a critical time of deepening political and socio-economic crisis. SANNAM can provide further information on the network and the support it aims to mobilise. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: 16th Annual Canadian Conference on International Health","field_subtitle":" 25\u201328 October 2009: Ottawa, Canada","field_url":"http://www.csih.org/en/ccih/index.asp","body":"The theme of the conference this year is \u2018Health equity: Our global responsibility\u2019. The conference will examine inequities of health status, and the impact on the health of marginalised, vulnerable and indigenous populations of changing environments, whether these changes are due to climate, technology, the economy or threats to human security. Presentations exploring lessons learned and new ways of understanding health equity and social justice locally, nationally and globally are invited. Anticipated outcomes of the conference will be evidence of improvements in social determinants and their impacts on health and social outcomes, evidence of the impact of environmental technological and economic change on health equity, and consideration of the need for a paradigm shift in intersectoral policy and practice, locally, nationally and internationally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Cholera in a time of health system collapse: Violations of health rights and the cholera outbreak","field_subtitle":"Zimbabwean Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR)","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ZADehs020309.pdf","body":"Despite the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe continuing for more than six months, sanitation remains poor and lack of access to safe drinking water persists against the backdrop of a collapsed health system with degraded infrastructure and very few health workers. Health in Zimbabwe is presently largely unavailable, unacceptable, inaccessible and of poor quality. This report concludes that Zimbabwe will require long term commitment of the humanitarian and donor agencies working in the country with large scale, multi-faceted assistance to address the situation. It urges the government of Zimbabwe to formulate an emergency health response plan to restore the public health system must be produced and implemented. The authors argue that government should also ensure the supply of clean drinking water and adequate sanitation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Concern erupts over WTO system and medicines shipments: TRIPS talks rekindling","field_subtitle":" New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 2 March 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/dh3ezb","body":"The ambassadors to the World Trade Organization (WTO) from Brazil and India charged that other WTO members had no grounds to block legitimate shipping of generic medicines on the basis of potential intellectual property (IP) rights conflicts in the transit country and said recent cases of doing so in the Netherlands call into question WTO rules. The complaint was supported by seventeen other developing country governments at the recent WTO General Council meeting. The Brazilian ambassador was gravely concerned with the setting of a precedent for extraterritorial enforcement of IP rights. Attempts to extend the rights granted by patents beyond national borders have critical systemic implications, he said. Furthermore, extraterritorial enforcement of patent rights violates a nation\u2019s sovereign right to take measures to protect its public health, including access to medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Directory of Grants and Fellowships in the Global Health Sciences","field_subtitle":"Fogarty International Center for Advanced Study in Health Sciences","field_url":"http://www.fic.nih.gov/funding/directory_fellowships.htm","body":"This resource guide contains a comprehensive compilation of international funding opportunities in biomedical and behavioral research, separated by category.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 71: A review on the impact of HIV and AIDS programmes on health worker retention","field_subtitle":"Dambisya YM, Modipa SI, Nyazema NZ","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS71DambisyaHCWAIDS.pdf","body":"This study, commissioned by EQUINET, ECSA-HC and WHO, aimed to review and critically analyse the literature and secondary evidence on the impact of HIV and AIDS programmes on health care worker (HCW) retention in east and southern Africa. Early studies reported negative effects of HIV and AIDS and the delivery of HIV and AIDS services on HCW morale with stigma, burn-out, resignation and deaths due to HIV and AIDS, while more recent ones speak of hope, high prestige, high motivation and better retention of HCWs in HIV and AIDS programmes, largely due to effective antiretroviral therapy (ART) which has improved the prognosis of AIDS. Global Health Initiatives have contributed to the expansion of HCW numbers through training, higher salaries or salary supplements, such as better furnished facilities or appointment at higher levels, often to the exclusion of other HCWs. Selectively applied incentives tend to demoralise and discourage those who are excluded; as illustrated by examples from programmes in South Africa, Tanzania and Guyana. But well funded HIV and AIDS programmes are attractive to HCWs and may contribute to internal brain drain. In contrast, more inclusive approaches, such as in Malawi where MSF supplemented salaries of all health workers in the operational districts, and Namibia where the Ministry of Health and Social Services applied uniform terms and conditions of service for all HCWs, reportedly experienced no problems. Some countries have an \u2018emergency response\u2019 approach to HIV and AIDS; hence they accept any help, usually on the funders\u2019 terms, leading to fragmented vertical programmes. The lack of integration of HIV and AIDS services into other health programmes is a problem in many countries. Where successfully integrated programmes do exist - such as HIV and TB, HIV and sexual and reproductive health, and even those where HIV and AIDS services are fully integrated into the public health system - integrated programmes benefited the whole system. There have been fears that existing inequalities in health care may be intensified in scaling up HIV and AIDS services. There are, however, reports showing that a public health and equitable approach to the roll-out of ART is possible across all socio-economic groups with similar outcomes. HIV and AIDS programmes have the potential to benefit the health system by attracting and retaining HCWs in the health system; and indeed, innovations such as task shifting and the integrated management of adult and adolescent illness have been applied to more efficiently use available HCWs. Many vertical programmes recruit their own HCWs, especially counsellors and home-based caregivers. This can increase the pool of HCWs. By relying on the health system for the more skilled health professionals, however, HIV and AIDS programmes may also undermine other health programmes. We recommend that country-level case studies be undertaken to document the various approaches, such as engagement between countries and funding agencies, country perspective on NGO roles, the implementation of the \u2018Three Ones\u2019, SWAP and public health approach; and the impact of national and project specific initiatives on HCWs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Ditched female condom makes a comeback in Uganda","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 12 February 2009","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=82902","body":"The female condom is reported to have resurfaced in Uganda's prevention programme almost one and a half years after the government halted distribution of the prophylactic due to poor uptake by women. The Ministry of Health carried out a situation analysis to gauge the acceptability of the female condom by women across the country before it was reintroduced. It found that women wanted a method that would give them control in protecting themselves from sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancy. However, women in western Uganda felt it went against their culture. The Ministry is reported to have plans to embark on a sensitisation campaign to ensure the prophylactic is accepted in all parts of the country and to distribute one hundred thousand female condoms to target groups that have showed interest in them, mainly in the eastern and central parts of the country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Eighth International Conference on Urban Health (2009 ICUH)","field_subtitle":"19\u201323 October 2009: Nairobi, Kenya","field_url":"http://www.icuh2009.org/","body":"The 8th International Conference on Urban Health is being organised by the International Society for Urban Health (ISUH) in partnership with the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) and the Government of the Republic of Kenya. This will be the first time the Conference is held in Africa, and not North America or Europe! The annual ICUH meetings provide an international forum for knowledge exchange among urban health stakeholders. They address issues pertaining to urban health, with an emphasis on interventions that help to alleviate barriers to urban health care and to promote strategies and policies that enhance the health of urban populations. The ultimate goal of the ICUH is to mobilise and energise like-minded professionals addressing the effects of urbanisation and urban environments on the health of urban populations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Engaging policy makers in action on socially determined health inequities: Developing evidence-informed cameos","field_subtitle":"Priest N, Waters E, Valentine N, Armstrong R, Friel S, Prasad A and Solar O: Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice 5(1):53\u201370, January 2009","field_url":"http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/ep/2009/00000005/00000001/art00004","body":"This paper describes an innovative knowledge translation project involving researchers and key stakeholders commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH). The project aimed to develop 'cameo' reports of evidence-based policies and interventions addressing social determinants of health, intended for use by leaders and advocates, as well as policy and programme decision makers, to advance global action. The iterative process of developing the framework and content of the cameos, in the context of a limited evidence base, is described, and a number of issues related to the integration of multiple sources of evidence for knowledge translation action are identified.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 97: Not for sale! Keeping an eye on the health sector in the services negotiations under the EU \u2013 ESA Economic Partnership Agreements","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Final report: Malawi HIV and AIDS prevalence study","field_subtitle":"Weir S, Hoffman I, Muula A, Brown L, Jackson EF, Chirwa T, Zanera D, Kumwenda N, Kadzandira J, Slaymaker E and Zaba B: 30 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/WEIequ020309.pdf","body":"This report compared prevalence rates in Blantyre and Lilongwe, Malawi\u2019s two major cities. It found that the rates in Blantyre were higher than those in Lilongwe, but these differences could not easily be explained, even though other sources of data, namely 2004 DHS data and 2005 and 2006 screening data from ANC clinics, confirmed the findings. Although incidence studies among the general population have not been conducted, there is some evidence from available data that the difference is caused by a real difference in HIV incidence. In-migration may have diluted prevalence, but data is inadequate to assess this issue. Lack of male circumcision was ruled out as a contributing factor. Possible contributing factors include a younger age of sexual debut and a longer gap between first sex and first marriage, as well as sex with a non-cohabitating partner, which was more common in Blantyre. Marital stability was found to be protective for women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender equality linked to poverty reduction and economic growth","field_subtitle":" Commonwealth Secretariat, 12 February 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/dj3mnz","body":"Gender equality is essential for poverty reduction and sustained economic growth, yet lack of money remains one of the greatest impediments to achieving it. In a new compilation of essays from around the world, gender experts and development practitioners examine how to ensure that sufficient financial resources are available to make the changes that not only affect the lives of millions of women, but also impact on society as a whole. One of the biggest impediments to gender equality is lack of money. Although countries have signed up to the Monterrey Consensus and have developed plans of action for women, national and state budgets have not reflected the same priorities. The Monterrey Consensus is distinguished by its recognition of both the need for developing countries to take responsibility for their own poverty reduction and the necessity for rich nations to support this endeavour with more open trade and increased financial aid. Lack of access to land, credit, information, lack of participation in decision-making within the family and community and their reproductive role mean that women's capacity to take advantage of economic opportunities is inhibited. Although it has been recognised that these issues have serious costs to society, there has not been solid progress in formulating and implementing policies and programmes that are gender-sensitive. The paper calls for governments, bilateral and multilateral organisations to scale up their commitments to financing gender equality, making a real difference to the lives of women, reduce poverty and promote sustainable development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Generic medicines for developing countries face patent barrier","field_subtitle":"Mukherjee R: India Times, 11 February 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/azlyfy","body":"The generic industry is in trouble again, and the issue is now becoming a major non-tariff barrier against developing countries like India. Two large drug consignments of generic medicines were seized in Netherlands by its customs authorities recently. The drugs, while in transit to Peru, were held at Rotterdam port because they infringed patents in EU. Sources said that recently many essential drugs have been held at European ports on way to Africa or Latin America from India by EU customs for intellectual property infringement or by labelling them 'counterfeits'. India is a source of affordable life saving medicines for many African and developing countries, and companies use the established trading route passing through EU ports for supplying essential medicines to millions across the world, potentially jeopardising the lives of those needing drugs in those countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health before profits? Learning from Thailand's experience","field_subtitle":"Na Songkhla M: The Lancet 373(9662):441\u2013442, 7 February 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/dx4s5g","body":"With regard to The Lancet\u2019s series of articles on the inter-relations between the two policy spheres of trade and health, the author of this paper expresses his disappointment with the hazy direction and lack of leadership of the global governance in addressing inadequate access to essential medicines for the poorest population as a result of market exclusivity and patent protection, rendering statements and declarations made by heads of states and leaders of international organisations as rhetoric. The paper draws this conclusion from lessons learned from the experience of compulsory licensing in Thailand and the management of disptutes between Thailand and patent-holding companies and their parent-country governments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights guidelines for pharmaceutical companies in relation to access to medicines: The sexual and reproductive health context","field_subtitle":"Khosla R and Hunt P: Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, ","field_url":"http://www2.essex.ac.uk/human_rights_centre/rth/docs/Final%20pharma%20for%20website.pdf","body":"Access to medicines forms an indispensable part of the right to the highest attainable standard of health. Numerous court cases, as well as resolutions of the United Nations (UN) Commission on Human Rights, confirm that access to essential medicines is a fundamental element of the right to health. This briefing examines the issue of access to medicines in the context of sexual and reproductive health. Sexual and reproductive health are key elements of the right to the highest attainable standard of health. The briefing considers the responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies for enhancing access to medicines. The briefing also introduces the background and content of the Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies in Relation to Access to Medicines ('the Guidelines'). Based on the right to health responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies, the Guidelines provide a framework for enhancing access to medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementation of Integrated Management of Childhood Illness in Tanzania: success and challenges","field_subtitle":"Prosper H, Macha J and Borghi J:  Consortium for Research on Equitable Health Systems, 2009","field_url":"http://www.crehs.lshtm.ac.uk/downloads/publications/Implementation_of_IMCI_in_Tanzania.pdf","body":"This research report analyses the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) policy in Tanzania. Two districts in North-Western Tanzania, Bunda and Tarime, in Mara region, were picked to examine the issues around introduction, planning and implementation by district health managers and at facility levels. The authors found that the percentage in health workers trained in IMCI case management varies between districts, probably due to differing levels of early sensitisation of key actors, a higher health budget per capita, local facilitators and strong external support. However, the cost of case management training is high and it is difficult for districts to finance more than one training session per year. IMCI suffers from poor visibility and challenges of monitoring impact compared to vertical programmes, reducing the potential for attracting donor investment. Therefore, the status of IMCI vs other health programmes at district and national levels needs to be enhanced and key managers need to be equipped with better resources to monitor overall implementation. Strengthening health systems remains a pillar for success of IMCI. Without required drugs, effective supervision, sufficient numbers of health workers with appropriate skill-mix and geographical distribution, it will be difficult to effectively deliver IMCI. Communities need to participate to enable them to know what to expect from facilities and their role in completing IMCI.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Increasing capacity for knowledge translation: Understanding how some researchers engage policy makers","field_subtitle":"Kothari A, MacLean L and Edwards N: Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice: 5(1):33\u201351, January 2009","field_url":"http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/ep/2009/00000005/00000001/art00003","body":"The potential for research to influence policy, and for researchers to influence policy actors, is significant. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of health services researchers engaging in (or not able to engage in) policy-relevant research. Semistructured telephone interviews were completed with 23 experienced researchers. The results paint a complex and dynamic picture of the policy environment and the relationship between government officials and academic researchers. Elements of this complexity included diverse understandings of the nature of policy and how research relates to policy; dealing with multiple stakeholders in the policy-making process; and identifying strategies to manage the different cultures of government and academia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Invitation to Ivan Toms Annual Memorial Lecture","field_subtitle":"Faculty of Health Sciences, UCT Medical School","field_url":"","body":"The Ivan Toms Memorial Lecture will coincide with the week of Human Rights Day and thus call to attention Ivan's commitment to justice and humanity. Ivan was an exceptional South African and a true champion of primary health care and the right to health. From his role as a doctor in the SACLA clinic in Crossroads, through his management roles in the National Progressive Primary Health Care Network and SHAWCO, to that of his most recent post as Director of Health Services in the City of Cape Town, Ivan campaigned for many things: one of which was to secure the effective delivery of accessible health services to all based on the principles of primary health care. The lecture will take place on Wednesday, 18 March 2009 at 18h00\u201320h00, at the New Learning Centre Auditorium, Faculty of Health Sciences, UCT Medical School, Anzio Rd, Observatory. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge exchange strategies for interventions and policy in public health","field_subtitle":"Kouri D: Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice: 5(1):71\u201383, January 2009","field_url":"http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/ep/2009/00000005/00000001/art00005","body":"Promoting the use of research-based knowledge in public health becomes more complex when public health includes interventions on health determinants. This article examines strategies for knowledge synthesis, translation and exchange (KSTE) in the context of public health in Canada, making reference to the work of the recently established National Collaborating Centres for Public Health (NCCs). NCCs simultaneously pursue KSTE and study how KSTE strategies meet different needs. Because NCCs are focused on interventions and policies, they must address the relationship between knowledge and policy, and how amenable it is to change. KSTE can seek to respond to and inform an existing policy agenda, but it can also seek to shape, frame and change that agenda. The two paths might call for different approaches, and for expanding the boundaries of KSTE in health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Leading Change: Building Healthier Nations","field_subtitle":"International Council of Nurses 24th quadrennial congress, 27 June\u20134 July 2009 Durban, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.icn.ch/congress2009/info.htm","body":"The ICN 24th Quadrennial Congress, its first in Africa, will showcase the key role nursing plays in leading the way to healthier nations. The Congress will permit access to and dissemination of nursing knowledge and leadership across specialities, cultures and countries. The three ICN pillars - Professional Practice, Regulation and Socio-economic Welfare - will frame the Congress sessions and programmes. To share your ideas and expertise you are invited to submit an abstract for a concurrent session, a symposium or a poster. The submission guidelines and abstract form will be available on the Congress website http://www.icn.ch/congress2009/abstracts.htm as of Monday, 17 March 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Lessons from African experience with tackling chronic poverty and food insecurity","field_subtitle":"Development Gateway Communities, 26 February 2009","field_url":"http://poverty.developmentgateway.org/Content-item-view.10976+M5f1da725e7c.0.html","body":"Unlike the other developing regions of the world where poverty has been on the decline, the proportion of people living below the poverty line in Africa increased from 42.6 percent in 1980 to 44.1 percent in 1990 and 45.7 percent in 2003. Consequently, an increasing number of Africans have suffered from insufficient income and capacity to access food and other basic amenities such as potable water, minimum health care and education. The poor performance of the continent in achieving sustained economic growth and poverty reduction is also manifest in that, although most African economics remain essentially agrarian with about 60 percent of the total labor force being employed in agriculture, the continent has failed to feed its growing population. This paper attempts to understand how the African continent found itself into this loop of poverty. The author analyses the causes that have brought Africa to its present state of poverty and food insecurity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Maximising positive synergies between health systems and global health initiatives","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, May 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/WHOequ020309.pdf","body":"Growing awareness of the need for health systems and GHIs to operate in ways that are mutually supportive has prompted those who are responsible for health systems to actively adopt measures that can help integrate and maximise the impact of global health initiatives (GHIs). This report looks at a number of country-specific interventions. In sub-Saharan Africa, political commitment and creativity have helped Malawi to negotiate a successful collaboration with GHIs to strengthen and expand human resources for health \u2013 a key element of the health system. Faced with a severe HIV epidemic and crippling health workforce shortages, Malawi has collaborated with GHIs and other donors to overcome fiscal constraints and to implement an Emergency Human Resource Plan. Through task shifting, training and salary top-ups Malawi has been able to expand the health workforce to deliver HIV services and has also been able to meet new demand for a range of health services at the community level. There are widespread concerns around the effects of the proliferation of actors in global public health and the complexity of the channels and systems through which funds and commodities are now provided. The need for coordination, harmonisation and alignment is strongly felt. In particular, countries face the challenges of excessive reporting requirements, conflicting time frames in planning and funding cycles and parallel bureaucracies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Mid-level providers in emergency obstetric and newborn health care: factors affecting their performance and retention within the Malawian health system","field_subtitle":"Bradley S and McAuliffe E: Human Resources for Health 7(14), 19 February 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/7/1/14","body":"In Malawi, mid-level cadres of health workers provide the bulk of emergency obstetric and neonatal care. These cadres undertake roles and tasks that are more usually the province of internationally recognised cadres, such as doctors and nurses. While several studies address retention factors for doctors and registered nurses, data and studies addressing the perceptions of these mid-level cadres on the factors that influence their performance and retention within health care systems are scarce. This exploratory qualitative study undertook focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews at in four rural mission hospitals in Malawi among mid-level providers of emergency obstetric and neonatal care. Participants confirmed the difficulties of their working conditions and the clear commitment they have to serving the rural Malawian population. Although insufficient financial remuneration had a negative impact on retention and performance, the main factors identified were limited opportunities for career development and further education (particularly for clinical officers) and inadequate or non-existent human resources management systems. The lack of performance-related rewards and recognition were perceived to be particularly demotivating. For optimal performance and quality of care mid-level cadres need to be supported and properly motivated. A structured system of continuing professional development and functioning human resources management would show commitment to these cadres and support them as professionals. Action needs to be taken to prevent staff members from leaving the health sector for less stressful, more financially rewarding alternatives. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Not for sale! Keeping an eye on the health sector in the services negotiations under the EU\u2013ESA Economic Partnership Agreements","field_subtitle":"Munyuki E, Machemedze R, Mabika A, Loewenson R","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIt is increasingly clear that without accessible, equitable, quality health services we will continue to fall short on delivering on the health Millennium Development Goals or commitments made on access to treatment for AIDS and other major diseases. So the negotiations currently underway on services under the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union (EU) and East and Southern African (ESA) countries are a matter for wide public interest. In August last year we pointed to issues for concern in these negotiations. With the negotiations underway, these issues become an even greater matter for public and parliamentary concern: Will they bring new resources and partnerships in building our health services, or will they blow new holes in already fragile systems? \r\n\r\nThe EPAs were supposed to have been concluded in 2008, but when none of the African negotiating groups was able to reach a final agreement, most initialled Interim EPAs (IEPAs) with the EU to avoid trade disruption.  Many countries, the African Union and the Economic Commission for Africa observed that the EPAs needed to more explicitly put development at the centre, and civil society called for more explicit protection of public health.  The IEPA with SADC explicitly protected health by providing, in Article 3, that the application of the agreement should take into account the human, cultural, economic, social, health and environmental interests of the population and of future generations. The IEPA with other ESA countries did not.   So countries are going into negotiations on specific trade issues, including trade in services, with different levels of protection in their framework agreement. \r\n\r\nESA countries have already been very cautious about liberalising trade in health services, given the need for public sector health services to be delivered outside the market to populations living below the poverty line and the need for additional government measures and subsidies to staff, and provide these services.  Few ESA countries have thus committed their health services to liberalisation in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) GATS agreement, preferring to determine the pace and nature of any market opening within reversible domestic policies.  In ESA, only Malawi and Zambia have made GATS level commitments in the health sector. \r\n \r\nMeanwhile the EPA services negotiations are going on largely below the radar. While the umbrella Cotonou Agreement of June 2000 explicitly commits EU and ACP states to the development of the social sector, there are also strong signals that the liberalisation of all services will be actively promoted.\r\n\r\nSo it depends largely on what the negotiators agree in the coming months. ESA countries have no obligation to trade in health services and may elect, without prejudice, to explicitly exclude trade in health services. Under conditions of unequal access and differentials in coverage, ESA governments may justly feel that they cannot reduce government authorities to regulate providers, to compel cross subsidies, increase risk pools, manage health worker migration and other measures needed to ensure universal health care coverage. Hence the 2006 AU Conference of Ministers of Trade stated: \u201cWe shall not make services commitments in the EPAs that go beyond our WTO commitments and we urge our EU partners not to push our countries to do so.\u201d  \r\n\r\nThere are numerous arguments negotiators should be raising for excluding health services from EPA compelled trade liberalisation. \r\n\r\nBoth ESA and EU countries are signatory to international treaties, conventions and constitutional obligations to health and health care  that create obligations to be discharged by the State Parties.   Negotiators should be cautious about clauses in the services negotiations appear to undermine these commitments. Using the precautionary principle that applies in public health, those promoting clauses that appear to undermine these commitments should be asked to prove why they do not do so. \r\n\r\nAs raised in previous debates on trade and health, ESA countries need to protect the flexibilities already won under WTO agreements. the TRIPS agreement allows for government authorities to compulsory licensing and parallel importation. The GATS agreement provides for flexbility for governments to  follow \u201ca reasonable time-frame\u201d, to bar foreign services suppliers from operating at the same conditions with local providers where this is necessary to protect health, or to  grant more favourable treatment to service suppliers from regional bodies of only developing countries like SADC.  ESA negotiators should resist any liberalisation process which forces them to take on obligations or a faster pace of liberalisation than that which obtains currently under the WTO process.\r\n\r\nHowever we could go further. Protecting public health and access to health services demands more than a defensive posture in the negotiations.  ESA countries could use the services negotiations to more explicitly protect public health and recognize state obligations to protect universal and equitable access to health services. For example, negotiators could include clauses that \r\n&#61559;\tRecognize the priority for protection of public health as a guiding principle, as provided for in the EU-SADC IEPA.\r\n&#61559;\tCommit parties to allowing government authorities and availing specific resources to the public health sectors of the ESA countries as part of the development dimension of the EPA. \r\n&#61559;\tCommit the parties as in Article 25 of the Cotonou Agreement  to make available adequate funds for improving health systems and primary health care, including for regulating the operations of the private health sector.\r\n&#61559;\tCommit the parties to co-operation on ensuring ethical practice on the migration of health workers, including in terms of  making technical and resource investments to address the costs to ESA countries of permanent health worker migration to the EU;\r\n&#61559;\tCommit the parties to provide overseas development aid for health programmes in a manner that integrates with national financing arrangements and that avoid outflows of critical health personnel from public health services, in line with the principles of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.\r\n\r\nThe services negotiations are an opportunity to raise again that the health sector should be part of the development chapter of a comprehensive EPA,  as envisaged under article 34 of the Cotonou Agreement, and not simply a matter for market trading. Concluding the services negotiations before this is clarified would seem to be a case of the cart pulling the horse.  Even more importantly, the cart should not be pulled in the dead of night. Given the significant \u2018life or death\u2019 impact for millions of people in the region of any discussions that affect health services, the negotiators should bring such issues to public and parliamentary forums for debate and feedback,  before they conclude. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat  admin@equinetafrica.org. For further information on this issue and reports on the health issues in the EPA negotiations please visit the EQUINET website- www.equinetafrica.org. or SEATINI website (www.seatini.org)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy Brief 21: Protecting health and health services in the services of the ESA-EU EPA","field_subtitle":"Munyuki E, Machemedze R, Mabika A, Loewenson R","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20pol%20brief%2021%20EPA%20services.pdf","body":"Negotiations are underway on the services agreements towards concluding a full and comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between East and Southern African countries (ESA) and the European Union (EU). The services negotiations will impact on health services and access to health care. The brief outlines the issues affecting health services, and presents options for ESA negotiators to ensure that the negotiations meet international and African health and human rights commitments, use available trade flexibilities, promote public health and ensure adequate assessment and information to support the negotiations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Primary health care as a route to health security","field_subtitle":"Chan M: The Lancet, Early Online Publication, 15 January 2009","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60003-9/fulltext","body":"Health security must be addressed with great urgency, and health-system strengthening is one of the surest routes to health security. We are not secure when the difference in life expectancy between the poorest and the richest countries exceeds 40 years, or when annual governmental expenditure on health ranges from US$20 per person to well over $6000. We are not secure when more than 40% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa is living on less than a dollar a day.  Medicine has never before possessed such sophisticated treatments and procedures for curing disease and prolonging life. Yet, each year, nearly 10 million young children and pregnant women have their lives cut short, largely by preventable causes. Economic development will not automatically protect people who are poor or guarantee universal access to health care. Health systems will not automatically gravitate toward greater fairness and efficiency. International trade and economic agreements will not automatically consider effects on health. Deliberate policy decisions are needed in all these areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Provision and Use of Maternal Health Services among Urban Poor Women in Kenya: What Do We Know and What Can We Do?","field_subtitle":"FotsoJ-C, Ezeh A and Oronje R: Journal of Urban Health 85(3), May 2008","field_url":"http://www.springerlink.com/content/6587253l237k840t","body":"Despite the lack of reliable trend data on maternal mortality, some investigators now believe that progress in maternal health has been very slow in sub-Saharan Africa. This study uses a unique combination of health facility- and individual-level data collected in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya to: describe the provision of obstetric care in the Nairobi informal settlements; describe the patterns of antenatal and delivery care, notably in terms of timing, frequency, and quality of care; and draw policy implications aimed at improving maternal health among the rapidly growing urban poor populations. It shows that the study area is deprived of public health services and that despite the high prevalence of antenatal care (ANC), the proportion of women who made the recommended number of visits or who initiated the visit in the first trimester of pregnancy remains low. Household wealth, education, parity, and place of residence were closely associated with frequency and timing of ANC and with place of delivery. There is a strong link between use of antenatal care and place of delivery. The findings of this study call for urgent attention by Kenya\u2019s Ministry of Health and local authorities to the void of quality health services in poor urban communities and the need to provide focused and sustained health education geared towards promoting use of obstetric services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Reducing health inequities in a generation: A dream or reality?","field_subtitle":"Shankar P and Kumar R: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/2/08-062695.pdf","body":"Estimates suggest that achievement of the Millennium Development Goal targets would require Kenya, Lesotho and Zambia to spend more than 40% of their gross domestic product on health by 2015. This can only be achieved if donor countries honour their commitment to developmental assistance. But, by 2010, the G8 countries will have only delivered US$3 billion of the US$21.8 billion committed in 2005 for Africa. the authors assert that it is difficult to convince politicians and bureaucrats about the long-term benefits of social interventions when they are focused on biomedical interventions that impact their status in the short term. Africa. It is difficult to attribute causation to social interventions for long-term outcomes. It is also difficult to conduct randomized controlled trials of social interventions designed to reduce inequities, generalize findings from one research context to another, or generate evidence for the cost-effectiveness of the social interventions. Given the scarcity of resources, such evidence is sorely needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional Capacity Building Partners: Short courses for 2009","field_subtitle":"Regional Capacity Building Partners (RECABIP)","field_url":"http://www.recabip.com/courses.htm","body":"The Regional Capacity Building Partners (RECABIP) is a network of professional organisations and individuals who have combined their skills and experience to explore cost-effective ways of strengthening the response to HIV and AIDS, Climate Change, Governance and Leadership issues, among other development concerns. It does this through tailored capacity building workshops, seminars, symposia, conferences and consultancy services. Their professionals have an average of 15 years experience in designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating HIV and AIDS, Climate Change, Governance and Leadership programmes. For a programme of short courses offered by the network in 2009, visit their website. You also can register online on their website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional update 5: Cholera/Acute watery diarrhoea outbreaks in southern Africa","field_subtitle":"United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Concerns (OCHA): 9 February 2009","field_url":"http://ochaonline.un.org/OchaLinkClick.aspx?link=ocha&docId=1103437","body":"This report provides an update of the cholera situation in the region from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Concerns (OCHA). According to OCHA, cholera and acute watery diarrhea cases (AWD) increased by 23,485 cases and there have been 649 deaths (CFR 2.7%) reported since 23 January 2009. Zimbabwe and South Africa remain the most affected with more than 67,500 and 6,000 cases respectively. Concerns remain on under-reporting. An additional 24,202 cholera cases and 683 deaths (CFR 2.8%) were reported from 23 January to 5 February 2009. Of the nine countries affected by cholera, Malawi (49 additional cases), South Africa (1,343 additional cases) and Zimbabwe (19,322 additional cases) have reported a significant increase compared to the last OCHA report issued on 23 January 2009. Three countries reported an increase in the number of cholera related deaths; these include Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe. The total numbers of people affected by cholera in Botswana and Namibia are reported to be low.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Sixth Annual Scientific Conference of Tropical Institute of Community Health and Development (TICH): Revitalisation of primary health care towards Millenium Development Goals","field_subtitle":"29 April\u20132 May 2009: Kisumu, Kenya","field_url":"http://www.gluk.ac.ke","body":"All interested parties are invited to the 6th Annual Scientific Conference of TICH. The Conference theme is \u2018Revitalisation of primary health care towards Millenium Development Goals\u2019. The sub-themes are: \u2018Community strategy: Enhancing stewardship in health systems strengthening\u2019; \u2018Health systems financing: Reducing out of pocket expenditure in health\u2019; and \u2018Human resource for health: The role of community health workers in improving health outcomes\u2019. This conference will differ from the conventional paradigm of conferencing by: creating multi-voice sessions in order to capture experiences from different communities such as marginalised groups; addressing deficiencies in research to policy; and focusing on the quest for practical, proven and effective solutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa needs more nurses","field_subtitle":"Independent Online: 19 January 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/blpfl5","body":"South Africa is failing to produce more nurses to deal with its health demands, according to the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa). The closure of some nursing colleges by the government, citing 'funding' as a reason, did not assist in the production of nurses, it reported. Denosa called on government to re-open the training colleges that were closed, to accommodate those who were interested in pursuing this career. The union said one of the contributing factors to the shortage was that school-leavers lacked interest in becoming nurses because of the unsavoury working environments that nurses face daily. Poor salaries also drive nurses away from the profession and the country. Denosa called on the state to improve health services nationwide.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The right to health and the sustainability of healthcare: Why a new global health aid paradigm is needed","field_subtitle":"Ooms G: Doctoral thesis submitted to the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent University","field_url":"http://www.icrh.org/files/academia-doctoraat%20Gorik%20Ooms_0.pdf","body":"The author, working for the medical humanitarian organisation M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF), which uses the medical relief paradigm, has argued that the health development paradigm and its focus on sustainability \u2013 defined as the aim of replacing foreign assistance with domestic resources within a foreseeable future \u2013 is one of the main reasons we are not able to realise universal coverage. A new global health aid paradigm would aim for technical sustainability, as in the health development paradigm, but without aiming for financial sustainability. It would tolerate open-ended external financing, but without relying on external human resources for management and implementation. The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund)distinguishes between technical and financial sustainability: it has abandoned financial sustainability, not technical or \u2018programmatic\u2019 sustainability. When countries use their Global Fund grants wisely and effectively, they can count on continued support from the Global Fund. In adopting this approach, the Global Fund is \u2013 implicitly \u2013 using a human rights based approach. Foreign assistance, aimed at the realisation of essential human rights, is not a matter of charity; it is a matter of fulfilling international legal obligations. There is no reason to assume that global health aid will disappear (which is the underlying assumption of the aim of financial in-country sustainability). On the contrary there are many reasons to insist that global health aid should continue and increase.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Three case studies on civil society influence on national governance","field_subtitle":"Yemec E: Idasa, August 2007","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/YEMgov020309.pdf","body":"Malawi was the only sub-Saharan African country examined in these case studies. The Malawian presenter recommended follow-up programmes for monitoring political party manifestos vs their actual delivery in government, with independent budget analyses. Independent civil society budget research for evidence-based advocacy and continued strong advocacy around political and socio-economic developments in the country are also required. In conclusion, the author asserts that the greatest danger facing democracy is the exclusion of the people from real power. Citizens cannot wait passively for the government to educate them. They need to be active and critical: at a local level, organised community groups, with the help of civil society organisations, should engage in controlling local government decision making.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Trade, TRIPS, and pharmaceuticals ","field_subtitle":"Smith RD, Correa C and Oh C: The Lancet 373(9664): 684-691, 21 February 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/b5o8ms","body":"The World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) set global minimum standards for the protection of intellectual property, substantially increasing and expanding intellectual-property rights, and generated clear gains for the pharmaceutical industry and the developed world. The question of whether TRIPS generated gains for developing countries, in the form of increased exports, is addressed in this paper. The authors consider the importance of pharmaceuticals in health-care trade, outlining the essential requirements, implications, and issues related to TRIPS, and TRIPS-plus, in which increased restrictions are imposed as part of bilateral free-trade agreements. TRIPS has not generated substantial gains for developing countries, but has further increased pharmaceutical trade in developed countries. The unequal trade between developed and developing countries (ie, exporting and importing high-value patented drugs, respectively) raises the issue of access to medicines, which is exacerbated by TRIPS-plus provisions, although many countries have not even enacted provision for TRIPS flexibilities. The paper focuses on options that are available to the health community to advance negotiations to their advantage under TRIPS, and within the presence of TRIPS-plus.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Vaginal gel blocks HIV, but not enough to be scientific success","field_subtitle":"Cullinan K: Health-e, 10 February 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bejkp9","body":"Candidate microbicide PRO 2000 cuts HIV transmission by 30%, falling just short of the one-third required to be deemed a success. But scientists say this trial offers proof that the concept of a vaginal gel to block HIV is possible. The gel was tested on over 770 women in a huge three-year study involving over 3 000 women in southern Africa and the USA. Only 36 women using PRO 2000 became HIV positive in comparison with around 50 women in the other three groups, who were given either a gel called BufferGel, a water-based placebo gel or no gel at all. This translates into a success rate of 30% for PRO 2000 and a success rate of zero for the other microbicide candidate, BufferGel. Researchers are waiting for the results of another study involving PRO 2000, which will be released in December, and this may push up the success rate of PRO 2000.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"What does Access to Maternal Care Mean Among the Urban Poor? Factors Associated with Use of Appropriate Maternal Health Services in the Slum Settlements of Nairobi, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Fotso J-C, Ezeh A, Madise N, Ziraba A and Ogollah R: \tMaternal and Child Health Journal 13(1), January 2009","field_url":"http://www.springerlink.com/content/f2448k2k22p6023n/","body":"The study seeks to improve understanding of maternity health seeking behaviors in resource-deprived urban settings by identifying factors which influence the choice of place of delivery among the urban poor, with a distinction between sub-standard and \u201cappropriate\u201d health facilities. Methods The data are from a maternal health project carried out in two slums of Nairobi, Kenya. A total of 1,927 women were interviewed, and 25 health facilities where they delivered, were assessed. Facilities were classified as either \u201cinappropriate\u201d or \u201cappropriate\u201d. Although 70% of women reported that they delivered in a health facility, only 48% delivered in a facility with skilled attendant. Besides education and wealth, the main predictors of place of delivery included being advised during antenatal care to deliver at a health facility, pregnancy 'wantedness', and parity. The influence of health promotion (i.e., being advised during antenatal care visits) was significantly higher among the poorest women. Interventions to improve the health of urban poor women should include improvements in the provision of, and access to, quality obstetric health services. Women should be encouraged to attend antenatal care where they can be given advice on delivery care and other pregnancy-related issues. Target groups should include poorest, less educated and higher parity women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Puts Nearly $150 Billion Price Tag On Global R&D Strategy For Neglected Diseases","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization Executive Board, 21 January 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/EB124/B124_16Add2-en.pdf","body":"Estimated funding needs for the implementation of the World Health Organization strategy on global public health and intellectual property total more than US$2 billion for the years 2009 to 2015 in order to build capacity to innovate and to deliver health products, engage in technology transfer and in the application and management of intellectual property, promote new research and development and sustainable financing mechanisms for that research and development (R&D), and establish monitoring systems. It also budgets an additional US$147 billion for the actual cost of research, including education of researchers and infrastructure building, noting that this number is difficult to determine ahead of time.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO: Concerns voiced over IMPACT, Secretariat's role on \u2018counterfeits\u2019","field_subtitle":"Shashikant S: Third World Network, 28 January 2009","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/wto.info/2009/twninfo20090201.htm","body":"Developing countries have voiced concerns at a meeting of the Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) over the Secretariat using the term \u2018counterfeit\u2019 to describe problems relating to the quality, safety and efficacy of medical products, and addressing such problems through the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeit Taskforce (IMPACT). Some countries felt the WHO's anti-counterfeit taskforce, IMPACT, was unsuited to address the issue of quality, safety and efficacy (QSE) of medical products because it lacked a mandate from the WHO's governing bodies; and because of its emphasis on counterfeits; the involvement of the private sector in its activities raising issues of conflict of interest; and its lack of transparency.\u2019 ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe HIV and AIDS subaccounts 2005","field_subtitle":"Cambridge MA, Bethesda MD, Chicago IL, Durham NC, Hadley MA and Lexington MA: UNAIDS: 2005","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ABTaids020309.pdf","body":"Total HIV and AIDS expenditure in 2005 in Zimbabwe was around 20.9 trillion Zimbabwe dollars, an equivalent of US$209.4 million, which represents about US$150.50 per adult living with HIV, according to an assessment of HIV and AIDS spending. The largest contributors to this expenditure were donors at 49% of the total HIV and AIDS expenditures. This is similar to that found in studies undertaken in other countries prior to the surge of external targeted funds for HIV and AIDS, such as in Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia. From this analysis, it can be concluded that most of the funds from Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, local NGOs, UN agencies and international NGOs were used for the provision of prevention and public health programmes for HIV and AIDS,  whereas spending by people living with HIV went directly to health facilities for treatment and care of opportunistic infections. The Ministry of Health and Child Welfare and PLWHA through direct out-of-pocket payments were those principally responsible for paying for treatment and care of opportunistic infections. Donors, international NGOs and Local NGOs, on the other hand, were mainly responsible for the payment of provision and administration of prevention and public health programmes for HIV and AIDS and for Anteretroviral treatment in 2005.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A user's guide to measuring corruption ","field_subtitle":" June R, Laberge M and Nahem J: UNDP Oslo Governance Centre, September 2008","field_url":"http://www.undp.org/oslocentre/docs08/users_guide_measuring_corruption.pdf","body":"Over the past few years, a flood of new work has emerged challenging the validity of the traditional measurements of corruption and arguing for new and improved tools for national policy makers, civil society and donors alike. This guide suggests ways of measuring corruption promoting a multiple data sourcing approach and a focus on actionable measurements. It is aimed at national stakeholders, donors and international actors involved in corruption measurement and anti-corruption programming. This guide is based on more than thirty interviews with individuals from dozens of countries who are working on corruption and governance reforms. It explains the strengths and limitations of different measurement approaches, and provides practical guidance on how to use the indicators and data generated by corruption measurement tools to identify entry points for anti-corruption programming.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Adolescent and adult first time mothers' health seeking practices during pregnancy and early motherhood in Wakiso district, central Uganda","field_subtitle":" Atuyambe L, Mirembe F, Tumwesigye NM, Johansson A, Kirumira EK and Faxelid E: Reproductive Health, 30 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/pdf/1742-4755-5-13.pdf","body":"This paper reports on a cross-sectional study conducted between May and August,2007 in Wakiso district. A total of 762 women (442 adolescents and 320 adult)were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. The study calculated odds ratios with their 95% CI for antenatal and postnatal health care seeking, stigmatisation and violence experienced from parents comparing adolescents to adult first time mothers. It found that adolescent mothers showed poorer health care seeking behaviour for themselves and their children, and experienced increased community stigmatisation and violence, suggesting bigger challenges to the adolescent mothers in terms of social support. The authors propose that adolescent-friendly interventions such as pregnancy groups targeting to empower pregnant adolescents providing information on pregnancy, delivery and early childhood care need to be introduced and implemented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessment of awareness, attitudes and perceptions of students on HIV vaccine trials at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania ","field_subtitle":" Haraka F and Bakari M: Tanzania Medical Journal 23(2):5-8, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=309&id=45048","body":"The objective of this paper was to assess the awareness, attitude and perceptions on HIV AND AIDS vaccine trials among students at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. This was a descriptive cross-sectional study. A total of 384 students were recruited in the study. Out of these, 41.7% reported that HIV vaccine can not prevent the spread of HIV. One hundred-and-four (26.8%) were of the opinion that an HIV vaccine can cause infection to the person vaccinated. The perceptions and attitudes of University of Dar es Salaam students towards HIV vaccine trials were generally positive. However misconceptions were common. The community should be educated more on HIV vaccine trials, and more socio-behavioral studies need to be done among different social groups on HIV vaccine trials.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Blind Optimism: Challenging the myths about private health care in poor countries","field_subtitle":"Anna Marriott, Oxfam GB","field_url":"","body":"There is no question that a large-scale global expansion of health services is needed to reach the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals for health. But how this massive scale up is to be achieved is the subject of considerable debate. \r\n\r\nWhat exactly is the best way to reduce the number of women dying in pregnancy and childbirth and the number of children killed everyday by pneumonia and diarrhoea? How can we best ensure that, for those living with HIV and AIDS, anti-retroviral medicines are widely available?\r\n\r\nFor many international organisations and donors, an expansion of private sector health care delivery is considered the key to scaling up health care systems in poor countries. As a result, a growing number of influential organisations are pushing for increased funding of private sector health care, fostering the idea that those who can afford it should pay for their own private health care, and that governments should contract private providers to serve those who cannot. \r\n\r\nThe World Bank is one such body, advocating private sector involvement in health care while decrying the failure of public health systems in poor countries. \r\n\r\nBut are institutions that promote the increased role of the private sector in health using reliable evidence to inform their policy decisions? What does the evidence of other countries tell us; countries that have successfully managed to achieve universal access to health care? \r\n\r\nRecent research has found that worldwide, publicly financed and delivered services continue to dominate in higher performing and more redistributive health care systems. Studies suggest that no low or middle-income country in Asia has achieved universal or near-universal access to health care without relying solely or predominantly on tax-funded public delivery. \r\n\r\nThe country level evidence speaks for itself: in just ten years, Botswana, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Malaysia, Barbados, Costa Rica, Cuba and the India State of Kerala were all able to cut child deaths by between 40 and 70 per cent \u2013 thanks to committed action by governments in organising and providing health services. \r\n\r\nAt the same time, the evidence in favour of private sector solutions is far from strong. On the contrary, there is considerable and increasing evidence that there are serious failings inherent in private provision, which makes it a very risky and costly path to take.\r\n\r\nIn China the rapid proliferation in number of private health facilities since the 1980s has led to significant declines in productivity, rising prices and reduced utilisation. Lebanon has one of the most privatised health systems in the developing world, it spends more than twice as much as Sri Lanka on health care yet its infant and maternal mortality rates are two and a half and three times higher respectively. And due to wide scale private sector participation in Chile\u2019s health care system it has one of the world\u2019s highest rates of birth by Caesarean section \u2013 a more costly and profitable procedure than natural delivery and often unnecessary. \r\n\r\nSo why do so many influential institutions persist in pushing the role of the private sector? \r\n\r\nA major part of the answer lies in a number of common assumptions that are made in favour of for-profit private health-care provision, and which tend to persist unchallenged in the debate. \r\n \r\nFirstly many argue that the private sector is already the majority provider in poor countries and it is therefore \u2018common sense\u2019 to put it at the heart of scaling up health services. But closer analysis of the data in Africa reveals that nearly 40% of so-called \u2018private providers\u2019 are in fact unqualified shopkeepers selling drugs of unknown quality. The same data shows that across 15 sub-Saharan African countries only 3 per cent of the poorest fifth of the population who sought care when sick actually saw a private doctor. And even when the private sector is a significant provider it doesn\u2019t mean overall health care access has improved \u2013 over half of the poorest children in Africa have no health care at all. As a Senior Civil Servant from the Ministry of Health in Malawi has stated, \u2018When poor people cannot get free services they do not go to private clinics, they go to the bush first and look for herbs.\u2019\r\n\r\nAnother assumption is that the private sector can provide additional investment to public health systems that need it, but South Africa is one example that demonstrates that to attract private providers to low-income risky health markets significant public subsidy is often required, meaning governments have less money to spend on public health care. \r\n\r\nThirdly it is often claimed that the private sector can achieve better results at lower costs, yet private participation in health care is associated with higher, rather than lower, expenditure. The US commercialised health system costs 15.2 per cent of GDP, while across the border the Canadian national health system costs only 9.7 per cent of GDP. Canada has lower infant and child mortality rates and 46 million Americans have no health care at all.\r\n\r\nA fourth claim often made is that the private sector provides superior quality health care, yet the World Bank itself reports that the private sector generally performs worse on technical quality than the public sector. And poor quality in the unregulated informal private health care sector puts millions of lives at risk every day. \r\n\r\nA fifth argument made in favour of private sector health care is that it can help reduce inequity and reach the poor, but evidence finds this is not the case. For example market reforms of public health systems in both China and Viet Nam have coincided with a substantial increase in rural people reporting illness but not using any health services.\r\n\r\nThe last assumption is that the private sector can approve accountability, yet there is no evidence that private health care providers are any more responsive or any less corrupt than the public sector, and when the private sector provides health services on behalf of the state it can make it more difficult for citizens to hold their government to account.\r\n\r\nOxfam\u2019s new briefing paper, \u2018Blind Optimism: Challenging the myths about private health care in poor countries,\u2019 released on 11 February, examines these six arguments made in support of the private sector, and looks at the evidence, or lack of it, behind them. It demonstrates that there is an urgent need to reassess the arguments used in favour of scaling up private sector health care provision in poor countries, concluding that prioritising the private sector in health care delivery is extremely unlikely to deliver health for poor people. \r\n\r\nFurther information on Oxfam and the issues raised in this briefing please visit www.oxfam.org/en/campaigns/health-education/health and email \r\namarriott@oxfam.org.uk  or email the EQUINET secretariat at admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: International Society for Equity in Health (ISEqH) Fifth International Conference: Social and Societal Influences on Equity in Health","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submission: 28 February 2009","field_url":"http://www.iseqh-conference2009.com/","body":"The 5th International Conference of the International Society for Equity in Health will be hosted by the Greek School of Public Health in Crete. The meeting will bring together, researchers, policy-makers, practitioners and others concerned with equity in health to develop and international health agenda for governments, universities and organisations all over the world. The Conference will explore the theme \u2018Social and Societal Influences on Equity in Health\u2019 through a varied program of plenary sessions, forums, poster sessions and scientific sessions. You are invited to participate in the advancement of knowledge, exchange of experiences and promotion of equity in health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for contributions: Forum 2009: Innovating for the health of all","field_subtitle":"Havana, Cuba, 16-20 November 2009","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/more/001__Forum2009CContrib.php","body":"The Global Forum for Health Research invites all interested parties to contribute their ideas for presentations and also welcomes innovative ideas for discussion topics and for the format of sessions in Forum 2009 in three different categories. First, in \u2018Innovative presentations and discussion topics, \u00e7ontributors may be invited for oral or poster presentations or as a panellist in a discussion session. Second, in \u2018Innovative approaches to sessions\u2019, a diverse array of formats will be presented, including panel discussions, workshops and roundtables. These seek to engage the participants in constructive dialogue and debate to identify pathways to solutions for critical health problems. Third, in \u2018Other innovative proposals\u2019, proposals may include suggestions for executive meetings, prizes, declarations, action plans, networking events, launches of books and of innovative initiatives and partnerships, among others.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for contributions: International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics","field_subtitle":"Topic: Feminist disability studies and/or feminist bioethics","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/htttp%3A//www.ijfab.org","body":"The guest editor seeks contributions to the issue on any topic related to feminist disability studies and bioethics, including (but not limited to):critiques of bioethics by feminist disability theorists from within feminist bioethics, the relevance of feminist disability studies in developing countries, what\u2019s still missing from feminist arguments in the debates about stem cell research and other forms of biotechnology, the importance of perspectives of disabled embodiment in feminist bioethics, how the critiques of bioethics advanced in disability studies are gendered and the integration of political analyses of disability into feminist bioethics. All submissions should be prepared in accordance with the journal\u2019s style guidelines which are posted on the IJFAB website. The deadline for submissions is 30 April 2009.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Corruption and trust in political institutions in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":" Lavall\u00e9e E, Razafindrakoto M and Roubaud F:  Afro-Barometer, October 2008","field_url":"http://www.afrobarometer.org/papers/AfropaperNo102.pdf","body":"This paper analyses the impact of corruption on the extent of trust in political institutions using data from surveys conducted in eighteen sub-Saharan African countries. The authors test the \u2018efficient grease\u2019 hypothesis that corruption can strengthen citizens\u2019 trust since bribe paying and clientelism open the door to otherwise scarce and inaccessible services and subsidies, and that this increases institutional trust. The findings do not support this theoretical argument. The impact of corruption on institutional trust is never positive whatever the evaluation of public service quality. The study shows that the perceived level of corruption has a strong adverse effect on citizens\u2019 trust in political institutions and that the scope of its negative effect increases with the quality of public services, while, in contrast, the negative effect of experienced corruption decreases with the ease of access to public services. These findings call for more detailed and expanded studies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Determinants of infant growth in Eastern Uganda: A community-based cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Engebretsen IMS, Tylleskar T, Wamani H, Karamagi C and Tumwine JK: BMC Public Health 22 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-8-418.pdf","body":"The aim of this study was to describe current infant growth patterns using WHO Child Growth Standards and to determine the extent to which these patterns are associated with infant feeding practices, equity dimensions, morbidity and use of primary health care for the infants. A cross-sectional survey of infant feeding practices, socio-economic characteristics and anthropometric measurements was conducted in Mbale District, Eastern Uganda in 2003; 723 mother-infant (0-11 months) pairs were analysed. The adjusted analysis for stunting showed stunting was more prevalent among boys (58.7% versus 41.3%). Having brothers and/or sisters was a protective factor against stunting, but replacement or mixed feeding was not. Lowest household wealth was the most prominent factor associated with stunting with a more than three-fold increase in odds ratio. In conclusion, stunting is related to sub-optimal infant feeding practices after birth, poor household wealth, age, gender and family size.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Development and evaluation of a computer-based medical work assessment programme","field_subtitle":" Mache S, Scutaru C, Vitzthum K, Gerber A, Quarcoo D, Welte T, Bauer TT, Spallek M, Seidler A, Nienhaus A, Klapp BF and Groneberg DA: Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology, 18 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.occup-med.com/content/pdf/1745-6673-3-35.pdf","body":"The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the development process of a computer-based job task analysis instrument for real-time observations to quantify the job tasks performed by physicians working in different medical settings. First, lists comprising tasks performed by physicians in different care settings were classified. Then, content validity of task lists was proved. After establishing the final task categories, computer software was programmed and implemented in a mobile personal computer. Finally, inter-observer reliability was evaluated. Content validity of the task lists was confirmed by observations and experienced specialists of each medical area. Development process of the job task analysis instrument was completed successfully. Simultaneous records showed adequate interrater reliability. Based on results using this method, possible improvements for health professionals' work organisation can be identified.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Development of a quality assurance handbook to improve educational courses in Africa","field_subtitle":"Nabwera HM, Purnell S and Bates I: Human Resources for Health 6(28), 18 December 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/6/1/28","body":"The attainment of the Millennium Development Goals has been hampered by the lack of skilled and well-informed health care workers in many developing countries. The departure of health care workers from developing countries is one of the most important causes. This handbook is intended to enable institutions to adapt quality assurance principles in accordance with their local resource capacity. The handbook addresses six minimum requirements that a higher education course should incorporate to ensure that it meets internationally recognised standards: recruitment and admissions, course design and delivery, student assessments, approval and review processes, support for students and staff training and welfare. It is hoped that the handbook will contribute to providing a skilled and sustainable health care workforce that would reduce the need for health care workers to travel overseas in search of good higher-education courses. The principles outlined in the handbook should provide a sound regulatory framework for establishing local, quality higher education courses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 68: Retention strategies for Swaziland's health sector workforce: Assessing the impact of non-financial incentives","field_subtitle":"Masango S, Gathu K, Sibandze S, University of Swaziland, Swaziland Ministry of Health and Social Welfare","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS68masango.pdf","body":"Have non-financial incentives been successful in retaining health workers in Swaziland? This study reviewed health policy and programme documents in Swaziland relevant to health workers and found that only one that mentioned non-financial incentives, suggesting that the value of these incentives is under-rated in policy. In contrast, a field study interviewing health workers at different levels of the health system revealed that most workers in Swaziland consider non-financial incentives to be more important than salary in determining whether or not they will remain in their jobs or join the 'medical brain drain' overseas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Effective scale-up: Avoiding the same old traps","field_subtitle":"Gaye PA and Nelson D: Human Resources for Health, 14 January 2009","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-7-2.pdf","body":"Drawing on IntraHealth International's lessons learned in designing reproductive health and HIV/AIDS training and performance improvement programmes, this commentary discusses promising practices for strengthening human resources for health through more efficient and effective training and learning programmes that avoid the same old traps. These promising practices include the following: assessing performance gaps and opportunities before designing a training initiative; addressing performance factors other than skills and knowledge that health workers need to perform well; applying a \u2018learning for performance\u2019 approach; standardising curricula throughout a country; linking pre-service education, in-service training and professional associations; enhancing traditional education; strengthening human resources information systems to improve workforce planning, policies and management; and applying technology to meet training needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 96: Blind Optimism: Challenging the myths about private health care in poor countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes.\r\n\r\nIt includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place.\r\n\r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evidence-informed health policy 1: Synthesis of findings from a multi-method study of organisations that support the use of research evidence","field_subtitle":"Lavis JN, Oxman AD, Moynihan R and Paulsen EJ: Implementation Science, 17 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.implementationscience.com/content/pdf/1748-5908-3-53.pdf","body":"In Part 1 of this three-part study, the authors undertook a multi-method study in three phases \u2013 a survey, interviews and case descriptions that drew on site visits \u2013 and in each of the second and third phases they focused on a purposive sample of those involved in the previous phase. Seven recommendations emerged for those involved in establishing or leading organisations that support the use of research evidence in developing health policy: collaborate with other organisations; establish strong links with policymakers and involve stakeholders in the work; be independent and manage conflicts of interest among those involved in the work; build capacity among those working in the organisation; use good methods and be transparent in the work; start small, have a clear audience and scope, and address important questions; and be attentive to implementation considerations, even if implementation is not a remit.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Evidence-informed health policy 2: Survey of organisations that support the use of research evidence ","field_subtitle":" Lavis JN, Oxman AD, Moynihan R and Paulsen EJ: Implementation Science, 17 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.implementationscience.com/content/pdf/1748-5908-3-54.pdf","body":"In Part 2, the authors drew on many people and organisations around the world, including their project reference group, to generate a list of organisations to survey. They sent the questionnaire by email to 176 organisations and followed up periodically with non-responders by email and telephone. They received completed questionnaires from 152 (86%) organisations. More than one-half of the organisations (and particularly HTA agencies) reported that examples from other countries were helpful in establishing their organisation. The findings confirm that the principles of evidence-based medicine dominate current guideline programmes and underline the importance of collaborating with other organisations. The survey also provides a description of the history, structure, processes, outputs, and perceived strengths and weaknesses of existing organisations from which those establishing or leading similar organisations can draw.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Evidence-informed health policy 3: Interviews with the directors of organisations that support the use of research evidence","field_subtitle":"Lavis JN, Oxman AD, Moynihan R and Paulsen EJ: Implementation Science, 17 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.implementationscience.com/content/pdf/1748-5908-3-55.pdf","body":"In Part 3, the authors purposively sampled organisations from among those who completed a questionnaire in the first phase of the study, developed and piloted a semi-structured interview guide, and conducted the interviews by telephone, audio-taped them, and took notes simultaneously. They interviewed the director (or his or her nominee) in 25 organisations, of which 12 were GSUs. Using rigorous methods that are systematic and transparent (sometimes shortened to 'being evidence-based') was the most commonly cited strength among all organisations. GSUs more consistently described their close links with policymakers as a strength, whereas organisations producing CPGs, HTAs, or both had conflicting viewpoints about such close links. With few exceptions, all types of organisations tended to focus largely on weaknesses in implementation, rather than strengths.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Expression of interest: Equal treatment editor and co-ordinator","field_subtitle":"Treatment Action Campaign: 2009","field_url":"","body":"Equal Treatment, the magazine of the Treatment Action Campaign, is accepting CVs for the position of editor. It is used by communities throughout Southern Africa in treatment literacy and advocacy work. The key areas of responsibility include developing content for each issue of the magazine, liasing with partners to source and verify content, and aiding in the coordination of the magazine\u2019s production. Successful candidates should have a keen interest in working in community-based settings on HIV & TB prevention and care. Excellent writing skills and experience in training and editing are a necessity. A good knowledge of HIV, TB and related health is also required. The candidate must have excellent computer and communication skills and be fluent in English. Interested candidates are asked to email their CVs and a letter of interest.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"GAVI Alliance investing US$500 million in health systems strengthening ","field_subtitle":"Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, 2008","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/Available%20online%20at%3A%20http%3A//www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems%26id%3D40966%26type%3DDocument","body":"This report from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) Alliance looks at how failing or inadequate health systems are one of the main obstacles to scaling up effective distribution of life-saving interventions such as drugs, vaccines and other preventative treatments. The report describes health system strengthening (HSS) as improving governance and leadership, health financing, human resources management, information and knowledge strategies, service delivery and technology and infrastructure. All GAVI-eligible countries (those with a gross national income per capita of less than US$ 1000 in 2003) can apply for health system strengthening funds. Applications for these funds should be coordinated by the national health sector coordination committee (which should involve health sector stakeholders including civil society) and must be approved by ministries of health and finance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health initiatives and health systems strengthening: The challenge of providing technical support","field_subtitle":"Dickinson C, HLSP Institute: 2008","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems&id=40739&type=Document","body":"This paper discusses some of the approaches to technical support for health systems strengthening taken to date, and looks at problems and possible solutions. It finds that the growing resources available for health system strengthening are not accompanied by resources and commitment to providing technical support. Furthermore, the global market for technical support is complex: multiple agencies use different approaches for providing support, and a number of issues, including institutional roles, affect the supply and demand for high quality technical assistance. The paper concludes that the provision of technical support for health systems strengthening needs to be scaled up considerably, but in ways that best fit country realities on the ground. Technical support approaches need to take into account the complexity of a country\u2019s national health system and the context within which it operates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Research Initiative: New Research Grants Competition","field_subtitle":"Registration date: 13 March 2009","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-128769-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html ahsi-res@idrc.ca","body":"The Global Health Research Initiative (GHRI) is a partnership formed by five Canadian agencies - the Canadian Institutes of Health Research; the Canadian International Development Agency; Health Canada; the International Development Research Centre; and the Public Health Agency of Canada - to strengthen Canada\u2019s role on the global health research scene. The research component of the 'African Health System Initiative' (AHSI-RES) is a five-year research programme (2008-2013) that forms one component of the African Health System Initiative (AHSI) supported by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). This call for proposals invites teams of researchers and decision-makers to submit research proposals focusing on human resources for health (HRH) and/or health information systems (HIS). Equity is a cross-cutting theme. Registration is due on 13 March 2009. Full application is due on 22 April 2009.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health challenges in Africa and the way forward","field_subtitle":"Kirigia JM and Barry SP: International Archives of Medicine, 18 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.intarchmed.com/content/pdf/1755-7682-1-27.pdf","body":"Africa is confronted by a heavy burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases. Cost-effective interventions that can prevent the disease burden exist but coverage is too low due to health systems weaknesses. This editorial reviews the challenges related to leadership and governance; health workforce; medical products, vaccines and technologies; information; financing; and services delivery. It also provides an overview of the orientations provided by the WHO Regional Committee for Africa for overcoming those challenges. It cautions that it might not be possible to adequately implement those orientations without a concerted fight against corruption, sustained domestic and external investment in social sectors, and enabling macroeconomic and political (i.e. internally secure) environment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health in ruins: A man-made disaster in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Physicians for Human Rights: January 2009","field_url":"http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/documents/reports/2009-health-in-ruins-zim-full.pdf","body":"Zimbabwe is a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the African Charter on Human and Peoples\u2019 Rights. It has a legally binding obligation to respect, protect and fulfill these rights for all people within its jurisdiction. The report argues that a causal chain runs from Mugabe\u2019s economic policies, to Zimbabwe\u2019s economic collapse, food insecurity and malnutrition, and the current outbreaks of infectious disease. The determinants of health, such as broken sewerage systems, chronic food insecurity and widespread starvation, underlie disease epidemics such as cholera and anthrax and a deterioration of maternal health care. The authors recommend that the international community needs to resolve the political impasse, launch an emergency health response with services controlled by a United Nations-designated agency or consortium, refer the situation to the International Criminal Court for Crimes against Humanity, convene an emergency summit on HIV, AIDS and TB and prevent further deterioration of household food supply.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health systems and the right to health: An assessment of 194 countries","field_subtitle":"Backman G, Hunt P, Khosla R, Jaramillo-Strouss C,  Fikre BM, Rumble C, Pevalin D, P\u00e1ez DA,  Pineda MA, Frisancho A, Tarco D, Motlagh M, Farcasanu D and Vladescu C: 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(08)61781-X/fulltext","body":"In this paper, some of the right-to-health features of health systems are identified, such as a comprehensive national health plan, and 72 indicators are proposed that reflect some of these features. Globally processed data on these indicators was collected for 194 countries. Globally processed data was not available for 18 indicators for any country, suggesting that organisations that obtain such data give insufficient attention to the right-to-health features of health systems. Where available, indicators show where health systems need to be improved to better realise the right to health. The paper provides recommendations for governments, international bodies, civil-society organisations, and other institutions and suggests that these indicators and data, although not perfect, provide a basis for the monitoring of health systems and the progressive realisation of the right to health. Right-to-health features are obligations under human rights law.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health systems performance assessment in the WHO Bulletin","field_subtitle":"Boerma T, Chopra M and Evans D: WHO Bulletin 87, January 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/1/08-061945.pdf","body":"In 2000, WHO published its first attempt to assess the performance of the world\u2019s health systems in The World Health Report 2000. This report generated enormous interest but, in many ways, the scientific progress was overshadowed by the political debate related to the estimates of country-level performance and the associated league tables. Since then, the WHO European and Eastern Mediterranean Regional Offices have maintained health system observatories, with detailed descriptions of country systems. The considerable interest in measuring the performance of health systems worldwide is illustrated by the recent European Ministerial Conference on Health Systems, which culminated in the Tallinn Charter entitled Health systems for health and wealth. In developed countries, primary concerns include costs, quality of care, aging and chronic diseases. In developing countries, health system constraints have restricted progress towards the UN Millennium Development Goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of low nutrient intake on infant mortality rate in sub-Saharan Africa ","field_subtitle":"Ijaiya GT and Yahaya AA: AJFAND 8(4): 406-416, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=110&id=44914","body":"Using a cross-country data, drawn from sub-Saharan Africa and a multiple regression analysis, this paper examines the extent to which low nutrient intake has impacted on infant mortality rate in sub-Saharan Africa. The results indicate that low nutrient intake has a significant influence on infant mortality rate, thus fulfilling the a-priori expectation that the lower the nutrient intake, the higher the rate of infant mortality rate in sub-Saharan Africa. Given this, measures such as, increase in food availability, macro-economic stability (especially, a reduction in inflation rate and exchange rate stability), improved nutrition through micro-nutrients fortification and supplementation, ensuring good governance and combating ethnic/religious/ civil conflicts and HIV/AIDS are suggested as possible solutions to improving nutrient intake in sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementation of a national anti-tuberculosis drug resistance survey in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Chonde TM, Doulla B, van Leth F, Mfinanga SGM, Range N, Lwilla F, Mfaume SM, van Deun A, Zignol M, Cobelens FG and Egwaga SM: BMC Public Health, 30 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-8-427.pdf","body":"The aim of this study was to describe the implementation process of a national anti-tuberculosis drug resistance survey in Tanzania, in relation to the study protocol and standard operating procedures. Factors contributing positively to the implementation of the survey were a continuous commitment of the key stakeholders, the existence of a well-organised National Tuberculosis Programme, and a detailed design of cluster-specific arrangements for rapid sputum transportation. Factors contributing negatively to the implementation were a long delay between training and actual survey activities, limited monitoring of activities, and an unclear design of the data capture forms leading to difficulties in form-filling. Careful preparation of the survey, timing of planned activities, a strong emphasis on data capture tools and data management, and timely supervision are essential.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Individual, facility and policy level influences on national coverage estimates for intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Marchant T, Nathan R, Jones C, Mponda H, Bruce J, Sedekia Y, Schellenberg J, Mshinda H and Hanson K: Malaria Journal,  18 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/7/1/260","body":"Delivery of two doses of intermittent preventive treatment of malaria during pregnancy (IPTp) is a key strategy to reduce the burden of malaria in pregnancy in sub-Saharan Africa. This investigation measured coverage of IPTp at national level in Tanzania and examined the role of individual, facility, and policy level influences on achieved coverage. Three national household and linked reproductive and child health (RCH) facility surveys were conducted July-August 2005, 2006, and 2007 in 21 randomly selected districts. National IPTp coverage had declined over the survey period being 71% for first dose in 2005 falling to 65% in 2007 and 38% for second dose in 2005 but 30% in 2007. There is scope to improve IPTp first and second dose coverage at national scale within existing systems by improving stock at RCH, and by revising the existing guidelines to recommend delivery of IPTp after quickening, rather than at a pre-defined antenatal visit.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"International Health Partnership: 2008 external review","field_subtitle":" Conway S, Harmer A and Spicer N: 2008","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems&id=40973&type=Document","body":"This short-term review of the International Health Partnership (IHP+) was commissioned by the IHP+ Scaling-up Reference Group to assess whether programme partners are adhering to their commitments and to review what progress has been made in implementing an IHP+ interagency common work-plan. The review was undertaken between May and August 2008 and is based on the opinions of 100 key informants who represent a cross-section of partner agencies, civil society and national ministries of health in the initial IHP+ countries and at the international level. It found that the relevance of IHP+ is not widely understood, transparency is essential for ensuring accountability (which also depends on the availability of reliable information). If well designed, the planned annual external monitoring and evaluation review of the IHP+ could potentially function as the key global accountability mechanism and it is still too early to assess what impacts or external effects that can be attributed to the IHP+.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Is there a market for voluntary health insurance in developing countries?","field_subtitle":" Pauly M, Blavin F and Meghan S: National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 14095: June 2008","field_url":"http://www.nber.org/papers/w14095","body":"This study, from the National Bureau of Economic Research, examines the distribution of such spending according to income and type of health care in order to assess whether it would be possible to supply voluntary private health insurance to reduce variation in spending. Using data from the World Health Survey for 14 developing countries, the report finds that out variations in out-of-pocket spending depend on income. The authors use estimates of the variance of total spending, hospital spending, physician spending and outpatient drug spending tends to generate estimates of the amounts of money risk averse consumers might pay for insurance coverage. For hospital spending and total spending, these amounts are larger than the authors consider reasonable, suggesting that voluntary insurance might be feasible. However, the strong relationship between spending and income suggests that insurance markets may need to be segmented by income.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenyan cloud over India\u2019s pharma exports to Africa","field_subtitle":"Mathew JC: Business Standard (New Delhi), 11 January 2009","field_url":"http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/kenyan-cloud-over-india8217s-pharma-exports-to-africa/00/31/345803/","body":"Kenya, the third-biggest African market for Indian medicines, is planning a new legislation against \u2018counterfeiting\u2019 that could seriously jeopardise India\u2019s medicine exports to that country. Domestic industry fears that other African nations may follow suit. The Anti-Counterfeit Bill, 2008, placed before the Kenyan parliament recently, indicates that copies or generic versions of all products having patent protection in Kenya or elsewhere can be considered \u2018counterfeit\u2019 in case of an intellectual property dispute. Since a majority of medicines manufactured by Indian companies are under patent protection in some country or the other (though they do not enjoy patent protection in India or Kenya), the definition, in its current form, can be misused to delay or prevent supply of low-cost generic medicines to Kenya, industry experts fear.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Misfinancing global health: A case for transparency in disbursements and decision making","field_subtitle":"Sridhar D and Batniji R: The Lancet (372)9644: 1185-1191, 27 September 2008","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(08)61485-3/fulltext#article_upsell","body":"To address the gap between health investments and financial flows worldwide, the authors identified the patterns in allocation of funds by the four largest donors \u2014 i.e. the World Bank, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), the US Government, and the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria \u2014 in 2005. They created a disbursement database with information gathered from the annual reports and budgets. Funding per death varied widely according to type of disease. The World Bank, US Government, and Global Fund provided more than 98% of their funds to service delivery, whereas BMGF gave most of its funds to private research organisations, universities and civil societies in rich countries and the US Government and Global Fund primarily disbursed grants to sub-Saharan Africa. Continued attention is needed to develop country ownership, particularly in planning and priority setting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Missing the Target 6: The HIV/AIDS response and health systems","field_subtitle":" International Treatment Preparedness Coalition: July 2008","field_url":"http://www.aidstreatmentaccess.org/","body":"This study of six countries, including Zimbabwe, Kenya and Uganda, indicates that new investment in AIDS services has exposed existing fragilities in health systems. In some cases it has placed increasing burdens on these systems by expanding demand and stretchied already overextended human resources. The report, which provides some of the first on-the-ground research documenting the impacts of the AIDS service scale up, shows that the AIDS response has attracted the biggest share of health financing, increased the number of trained medical personnel, improved the management of people living with the virus, and supported the establishment of HIV clinics that treat TB and other opportunistic infections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"NGOs: The new colonial powers in Africa? ","field_subtitle":"Foreign Policy: 6 January 2009","field_url":"http://www.ansa-africa.net/index.php/views/news_view/ngos_the_new_colonial_powers_in_africa/","body":"In many countries, international NGOs have replaced traditional western donors and absentee states' influence by providing services that are traditionally the responsibility of the home governments. The growing trend is for international NGOs wield increasing power and resources in fragile states or so-called \u2018failed states\u2019. Western countries prefer to route donor funds through international NGOs rather than national governments, which are perceived as corrupt, bureaucratic or incompetent. The amount of aid flowing through NGOs in Africa rather than governments has more than tripled.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory approaches to strengthening youth and health worker relations: The \u2018Auntie Stella\u2019 Toolkit","field_subtitle":"Post conference workshop at the September 2009 EQUINET conference","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/index.php","body":"Training and Research Support Centre offer a one day workshop on September 26 2009 for 30 people at the EQUINET Conference in September 2009. The workshop draws on experiences from TARSC and other partners in the field of Youth Reproductive Health, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between youth and health workers. In exploring ways to strengthen the gap between the two, this workshop will offer insight and adaptable strategies that can be used to facilitate dialogue, using participatory approaches including use of the \u2018Auntie Stella\u2019 toolkit.  Deliberations will include:\r\n\u2022\tThe importance of health worker and youth relations in building a more people-centred health system\r\n\u2022\tA discussion on the barriers to youth-health worker relations\r\n\u2022\tHow these barriers can be overcome, with a particular focus on participatory approaches\r\n\u2022\tDiscussion on how the interactive toolkit, \u2018Auntie Stella\u2019: Teenagers talk about sex, life and relationships can be used and adapted to strengthen youth-health worker understanding and communication (See www.tarsc.org/auntiestella for more information about \u2018Auntie Stella\u2019.)\r\nThe workshop will be interactive and will introduce a number of participatory tools that participants can use in their work with youth. At the end of the workshop we will also share with the participants follow up activities To register fill in the registration form available  on the EQUINET conference site at www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/index.php giving the name of the workshop and email us on admin@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Performance accountability and combating corruption","field_subtitle":" Shah A: World Bank, 2008","field_url":"http://siteresources.worldbank.org/PSGLP/Resources/PerformanceAccountabilityandCombatingCorruption.pdf","body":"Shah\u2019s book presents the latest thinking of leading development scholars on operationalising a framework of governance to empower citizens to demand accountability from their governments. Focusing on the question of how to institutionalise performance-based accountability, especially in countries that lack good accountability systems, the essays in the book describe how institutions of accountability may be strengthened to combat corruption. In general, the essays in the book highlight the causes of corruption and the use of both internal and external accountability institutions and mechanisms to fight it. It provides advice on how to tailor anticorruption programs to individual country circumstances and how to sequence reform efforts to ensure sustainability. They offer insights into ways policy makers can initiate governance reforms that introduce performance-based accountability in the public sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"PHM's global right to health and health care campaign: Progress report January 2009","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Health Movement, 2009","field_url":"http://lists.kabissa.org/lists/archives/public/pha-exchange/msg04275.html","body":"The People\u2019s Health Movement ((PHM) has significantly advanced in the campaign's expansion since its last update in May 2008. India, Ecuador, Zimbabwe and South Africa are involved in the campaign without receiving funding.  New PHM circles have been formed in the last three months in Mali, Kenya, Morocco and Uganda and they will be submitting campaign proposals shortly. The countries that have almost completed the assessment are now eligible for a small additional funding to hold a national workshop in which to present the results to the government, UN agencies, international and national NGOs and the media. Any country not mentioned here is welcome to inquire with PHM how they can get a PHM circle going so as to launch the campaign.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Primary health care as a route to health security","field_subtitle":"Chan M: 15 January 2009","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60003-9/fulltext","body":"Health security must be addressed with great urgency, and health-system strengthening is one of the surest routes to health security. The world is not secure when the difference in life expectancy between the poorest and the richest countries exceeds 40 years, or when annual governmental expenditure on health ranges from US$20 per person to well over $6000. It is not secure when more than 40% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa is living on less than a dollar a day. We will not be able to reach the health-related MDGs unless we return to the values, principles, and approaches of primary health care. There are striking inequities in health outcomes, access to care, and what people pay for care. Many health systems have lost their focus on fair access to care, their ability to invest resources wisely, and their capacity to meet people's needs and expectations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Psychological distress and associated factors among the attendees of traditional healing practices in Jinja and Iganga districts, Eastern Uganda: A cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Abbo C, Ekblad S, Waako P, Okello E, Muhwezi W and Musisi S: International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 23 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.ijmhs.com/content/2/1/16","body":"This study aimed to determine the prevalence and associated factors of psychological distress among attendees of traditional healing practices in two districts in Uganda. Face-to-face interviews with the Lusoga version of the self-reporting questionnaire (SRQ-20) were carried out with 400 patients over the age of 18 years attending traditional healing in Iganga and Jinja districts in Eastern Uganda. Three hundred and eighty-seven questionnaire responses were analysed. The study found that a substantial proportion of attendees (61%) of traditional healing practices suffered from psychological distress. Among the socioeconomic indicators, lack of food and having debts were significantly associated with psychological distress. These findings may be useful for policy makers and biomedical health workers for engagement with traditional healers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Public and private sector partnerships in the AIDS response: An opportunity for innovation and leadership","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: 7 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/Resources/FeatureStories/archive/2008/20081207_ppp.asp","body":"The event \u2018Public private partnerships against HIV: How can we together turn the tide?\u2019 was organised by UNAIDS and explored the benefits and challenges of public-private partnerships in the global response to AIDS. Participants agreed that attention should be paid to ensure wide participation and representation across the private sector including from the labour unions, employers\u2019 federations, small and medium enterprises and the informal sector. There is still a lot to do to improve participation by small and medium enterprises and the informal sector which employ most of the labour force in Africa. The group identified four factors as critical in creating and sustaining successful PPPs: clear definition of partners\u2019 roles and responsibilities, transparency and respect for ethical standards, coordination between partners, and periodic assessments of the partnership.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional competitive intelligence: Benchmarking and policy-making","field_subtitle":"Huggins R: Regional Studies, 12 January 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/d52fxl","body":" Benchmarking exercises have become increasingly popular within the sphere of regional policy-making. This paper analyses the concept of regional benchmarking and its links with regional policy-making processes. It develops a typology of regional benchmarking exercises and benchmarkers, and critically reviews the literature. It is argued that critics of regional benchmarking fail to take account of the variety and development of regional benchmarking systems. It is suggested that while benchmarking exercises are informing policy adaptation and innovation, they have been constrained by political and financial factors. It is concluded that regional benchmarking is facilitating the heightened regional interaction necessitated by globalisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Research Matters knowledge translation toolkit","field_subtitle":" IDRC: 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/bn2kn9","body":"The Mexico City Ministerial Summit in 2004 made the problem of poor knowledge translation (KT) a priority, and a solution imperative. Summiteers called for the increased involvement of the demand side in the research process, emphasising knowledge brokering and other mechanisms for \u2018involving the potential users of research in setting research priorities\u2019. Though the declaration was made with enthusiasm \u2013 and echoed in many follow-up meetings and papers \u2013 there was little guidance on how to actually bring together research and research-users. This guide addresses that gap. It discusses three core KT principles: knowledge, which depends on a robust, accessible and contextualised knowledge base, regular dialogue between all stakeholders and strengthened capacity, where researchers, decision-makers and other research users require a strengthened skill-base to create and respond to KT opportunities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Reuse of single-dose nevirapine in subsequent pregnancies for the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission in Lusaka, Zambia: A cohort study","field_subtitle":"Walter J, Kuhn L, Kankasa C, Semrau K, Sinkala M, Thea DM and Aldrovandi GM: BMC Infectious Diseases, 30 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2334-8-172.pdf","body":"This study compared risks of perinatal HIV transmission between multiparous women who had previously received a dose of single-dose nevirapine (SDNVP) (exposed) and those that had not (unexposed) and who were given SDNVP for the index pregnancy within a prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) clinical study. We also compared transmission risks among exposed and unexposed women who had two consecutive pregnancies within the trial. Transmission risks did not differ between 59 SDNVP-exposed and 782 unexposed women in unadjusted analysis or after adjustment for viral load and disease stage. Transmission risks for women who had two consecutive pregnancies were 7% at both the first (unexposed) and second (exposed) delivery, suggesting that the efficacy of SDNVP may not be diminished when reused in subsequent pregnancies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Striving to make a difference: Health care worker experiences with intimate partner violence clients in Tanzania ","field_subtitle":"Laisser RM, Lugina H, Lindmark G, Nystrom L and Emmelin M: Health Care for Women International 30(1 & 2):64-78, January 2009 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/blacq8","body":"In this article, the authors describe health care workers (HCWs') experiences and perceptions of meeting clients exposed to intimate partner violence. Qualitative content analysis of in-depth interviews from 16 informants resulted in four main themes. The first, Internalising women's suffering and powerlessness\u2019, describes HCWs' perceptions of violence, relating it to gender relations. The second, \u2019Caught between encouraging disclosure and lack of support tools, refers to views on possibilities for transparency and openness. The third, \u2019Why bother? A struggle to manage with limited resources\u2019, illustrates the consequences of a heavy workload. Last, \u2018Striving to make a difference\u2019, emphasises a desire to improve abilities to support clients and advocate for prevention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Summary of the public hearing: International recruitment of health personnel: A draft code of practice ","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 11 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/EB124/B124_ID2-en.pdf","body":"The WHO Secretariat held a global, web-based public hearing between 1 September and 3 October 2008 to obtain inputs on the first draft of the WHO code of practice from as wide a group of stakeholders as possible. Member States, national institutions, health professional organisations, nongovernmental organisations, academic institutions, international organisations and other stakeholders submitted more than 90 contributions to the public hearings. Some expressed the view that Article 4 should be revised to provide greater emphasis on the legal responsibilities of health personnel to source and destination countries, such as those to protect the public health interest. Others felt that Article 4 should recommend that states prohibit all active recruitment of health personnel from countries experiencing a health workforce crisis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Financial Crisis and Global Health: Report of a High-Level Consultation","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, 19 January 2009","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/meetings/2009_financial_crisis_report_en_.pdf","body":"The objectives of this document were to: build awareness of the ways in which an economic downturn may affect health spending, health services, health-seeking behaviour and health outcomes; make the case for sustaining investments in health; and to identify actions \u2013 including monitoring of early warning signs \u2013 that can help to mitigate the negative impact of economic downturns. Leaders in health must be prepared to speak out \u2013 unequivocally and on the basis of sound evidence \u2013 to make the case for health at times of crisis. Country-specific analysis is essential to guide policy and assess the potential impact on different populations and institutions. Counter-cyclical public spending provides a means of reviving economies. Aid will play a key role in providing a boost that many low-income countries cannot finance alone. The challenge is to ensure that spending is genuinely pro-poor and that, where possible, it has a positive impact on health. Primary health care provides an overarching approach to policy at a time of financial crisis. Its continuing relevance lies in its value base \u2013 stressing the importance of equity, solidarity and gender; through inclusiveness \u2013 and the objective of working towards universal coverage and pooling of risk; through a multisectoral approach to achieving better outcomes; and through utilising the assets of all health actors in the private, voluntary and nongovernment sectors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Millennium Development Goals will not be achieved by 2015 at the present rate of progress","field_subtitle":"Social Watch Basic Capabilities Index, 2008","field_url":"http://www.socialwatch.org/en/avancesyRetrocesos/ICB_2008/index.htm","body":"Progress in basic social indicators slowed down last year all over the world. at the present rate it does not allow for the internationally agreed poverty reduction goals to be met by 2015, unless substantial changes occur, according to the 2008 Basic Capabilities Index (BCI), calculated by Social Watch. Out of 176 countries for which a BCI figure can be computed, only 21 register noticeable progress in social indicators relative to 2000. another 55 countries show some progress, but at a slow rate, while 77 countries showed stagnation or decline in social indicators. Information is insufficient to show trends for the remaining 23. As the impact of the food crisis that started in 2006 begins to be registered in the statistics coming in, indicators are likely to deteriorate in the coming months. Contrary to frequent claims that poverty is diminishing in the world, the index computed by Social Watch shows a persistent shortfall in basic needs even in conditions of economic growth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The need for a national cancer policy in Malawi ","field_subtitle":"  Mlombe Y, Othieno-Abinya N, Dzamalala C and Chrisi J: Malawi Medical Journal 20(4):124-127, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=64&id=44986","body":"Cancer is causing a lot of suffering and death in Africa but is not considered a major health problem in Africa. This needs to change. Cancer should be given equal emphasis to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. A national cancer policy is required in Malawi to develop and improve evidence-based cancer prevention, early diagnosis, curative and palliative therapy. A national cancer policy is crucial to ensure a priotised, clear, coordinated and sustained fight against cancer. When no policy exists, events are likely to be random, stakeholders and practitioners in the fight against cancer may not agree on how to proceed, may duplicate efforts or may neglect areas that would have greater nationwide impact resulting in poor quality activities and haphazard development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The primary care amplification model: Taking the best of primary care forward","field_subtitle":"Jackson CL, Askew DA, Nicholson C and Brooks PM: BMC Health Services Research, 21 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6963-8-268.pdf","body":"Primary care internationally is approaching a new paradigm. The change agenda implicit in this threatens to destabilise and challenge established general practice and primary care. The Primary Care Amplification Model offers a means to harness the change agenda by 'amplifying' the strengths of established general practices around a 'beacon' practice. This 'beacon' practices can provide a mustering point for an expanded scope of practice for primary care, by offering integrated primary/secondary service delivery, interprofessional learning, relevant local clinical research and a focus on local service innovation, enhancing rather than fragmenting the collective capacity of existing primary care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The symptom experience of people living with HIV and AIDS in the Eastern Cape, South Africa","field_subtitle":" Peltzer K and Phaswana-Mafuya N: Health Services Research, 22 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6963-8-271.pdf","body":"Limited information about symptom prevalence exists about HIV infected persons in South Africa, in particular in the context of antiretroviral treatment (ART). The aim of this study was to assess HIV symptoms and demographic, social and disease variables of people living with HIV in South Africa. In 2007, 607 people living with HIV or AIDS (PLWHAs), sampled by all districts in the Eastern Cape Province and recruited through convenience sampling, were interviewed by PLWHAs at health facilities, key informants in the community and support groups. Symptom assessment provided information that may be valuable in evaluating AIDS treatment regimens and defining strategies to improve quality of life. Because of the high levels of symptoms reported (26.1 symptoms out of a possible 64), the results imply an urgent need for effective health care, home- and community-based and self-care symptom management.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards food sovereignty: Reclaiming autonomous food systems","field_subtitle":"Pimbert M: 2008","field_url":"http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdfs/G02268.pdf","body":"Pimbert\u2019s book covers a range of topics related to food sovereignty. He looks at local food systems, livelihoods and environments, and the ecological basis of food systems before explaining how the current multiple crises in food, agriculture and environment arose, in terms of the social and environmental costs of modern food systems. The book concludes with the author\u2019s vision of a way forward: He presents food sovereignty as an alternative paradigm for food and agriculture and discusses how to promote national policies and legislation and global multilateralism and policies that promote food sovereignty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Training programme for nurses and other health professionals in rural-based settings on screening and clinical management of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections ","field_subtitle":"Lifson AR, Rybicki SL, Hadsall C, Dickinson S, van Zyl A and Carr P: Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care 20(1): 77-85, January 2009","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ckvzdq","body":"Populations at risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) include those living in rural areas. The authors describe a statewide training programme that targeted rural-based health professionals. This program focused on HIV, STIs, and viral hepatitis and was designed to enhance participants\u2019 ability to conduct sexual histories and risk assessments, educate clients about risk reduction and prevention, screen for and diagnose these infections, clinically manage clients with positive screening test results, access prevention and other educational materials, and conduct other clinical and public health activities. A total of 122 participants reflecting a wide variety of practice settings attended trainings at five sites throughout Minnesota; 74% of participants were nurses and 81% characterised employment settings as rural. Nurses and other health professionals in rural settings are an important training priority and can play an important role in education, prevention, screening, and clinical care for HIV and other STIs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Translating research into maternal health care policy: A qualitative case study of the use of evidence in policies for the treatment of eclampsia and pre-eclampsia in South Africa","field_subtitle":" Daniels K and Lewin S: Health Research Policy and Systems, 17 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-6-12.pdf","body":"Few empirical studies of research utilisation have been conducted in low- and middle-income countries. This paper explores how research information, in particular findings from randomised controlled trials and systematic reviews, informed policy making and clinical guideline development for the use of magnesium sulphate in the treatment of eclampsia and pre-eclampsia in South Africa. A qualitative case-study approach was used to examine the policy process, which included a literature review, a policy document review, a timeline of key events and the collection and analysis of 15 interviews with policy makers and academic clinicians The paper concludes that networks of researchers were important not only in using research information to shape policy but also in placing issues on the policy agenda. A policy context that creates a window of opportunity for new research-informed policy development is crucial.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Turning rhetoric into action: Building effective partnerships to combat extreme poverty and exclusion","field_subtitle":"Welford S, Nelson J and Viard T: CIVICUS World Alliance for Citizen Participation, January 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/media/e-CIVICUS411-toolkitroundtable.pdf","body":"This toolkit looks at elements necessary when creating conditions for the participation of people living in extreme poverty. These include: a lack of expectation of the contribution of people living in extreme poverty (the position of individuals and families living in extreme poverty is affected by the way society views them), reaching out, time and flexibility (people living in extreme poverty are often difficult to include in participatory projects), respecting and ensuring everyone's freedom by acknowledging that the very nature of such a project means that the different participants are from the beginning in a situation of inequality, a will to create equal partnerships and involvement at every stage - to succeed in achieving a truly participative approach, the participation of people living in poverty should be an integral part of the process rather than an add-on at any given stage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Vouchers for scaling up insecticide-treated nets in Tanzania: Methods for monitoring and evaluation of a national health system intervention","field_subtitle":"Hanson K, Nathan R, Marchant T, Mponda H, Jones C, Bruce J, Godlove Stephen, Mulligan J, Mshinda H and  Armstrong Schellenberg J: BMC Public Health 8(205), June 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2442068","body":"This study looked at the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) methods used to measure the equity, efficiency and sustainability of the Tanzania National Voucher Scheme (TNVS), which is used to deliver subsidised insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITNs) to pregnant women and infants in Tanzania. The M&E focused on five key domains: ITN ownership and use among target groups, provision and use of reproductive and child health services, \u201cleakage\u201d of vouchers (use of vouchers by people not meant to benefit from the programme or use of vouchers to buy other things), availability of nets in the commercial ITN market and cost and cost-effectiveness of the scheme. The authors identify several successful features of this approach, namely, independence, breadth of scope, timely reporting with regular feedback, and sustainability - monitoring outcomes over time helps to identify lasting change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO position paper on oral rehydration salts to reduce mortality from cholera","field_subtitle":" World Health Organization: December 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/cholera/technical/ORSRecommendationsForUseAtHomeDec2008.pdf","body":"Cholera can rapidly lead to severe dehydration and death if left untreated. Oral rehydration salts (ORS) can successfully treat 80% of cholera patients - both adults and children \u2013and should be given early at home to avert delays in rehydration and improve survival. WHO outlines in the report that it does not see any contradiction in making ORS packages available to households and non-medical personnel outside health care facilities. In contrast, making ORS available at household and community levels can avert unnecessary deaths and contributes to diminishing case fatality rates, particularly in resource-poor settings. Providing nutritious food as well as continuing breastfeeding for infants and young children should continue simultaneously with administering appropriate fluids or ORS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO regional director for Africa, Dr Luis Sambo, visits Zimbabwe to support cholera epidemic response","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 19 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/press/2008/pr20081219.html","body":"During his three-day visit from 16-19 December 2008, Dr Sambo held discussions with national authorities and partners on ways and means of bringing an end to the spread of the cholera epidemic. Dr Sambo advised that beyond cholera, other specific health problems may become worse if the key social and economic determinants of health are not urgently improved. He highlighted the importance of inter-sectoral approach in the prevention of cholera and reached agreement with the Minister of Health to establish the Cholera Command and Control Centre, jointly operated by WHO and the Ministry of Health of Zimbabwe, to coordinate and boost the country\u2019s capacity to manage the response particularly in the areas of disease surveillance, case management, water and sanitation, social mobilisation and logistics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Workshop on Health Policy analysis","field_subtitle":"University of Cape Town September 22 2009 ","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/index.php","body":"The University of Cape Town is offering a pre conference workshop on September 22 2009 at the EQUINET Conference September 2009 to:\r\n* Reflect on health policy analysis and its role in health system development\r\n* Share experience in the use of health policy analysis to support policy development and implementation\r\n* Share experience in teaching health policy analysis (in short course, post-graduate programmes etc)\r\n* Develop shared ideas of how to strengthen this field of work in Africa.\r\nThis workshop is relevant to you if you seek to influence and shape health policy agendas; analyse or support the processes of health policy-making and implementation at any level of the health system; work as a health leader and want to develop your ideas about how to strengthen the implementation of policy, or teach others about health policy analysis.\r\nThe workshop will be interactive and based on the experience that those attending it wish to share.  To register fill in the registration form available at http://www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/index.php giving the name of the workshop and email it to admin@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018SADC, put your money where your mouth is\u2019","field_subtitle":" SATAMo: December 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/cvh2py","body":"The Treatment Barometer, a survey by SATAMo on access to AIDS treatment within Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, calls on regional leaders to keep the promises they made towards the provision of HIV treatment by committing much-needed resources. It\u2019s the first regional treatment monitoring research to be carried out by community-based treatment activists, who noted that more than 80% of SADC governments have not honoured the Abuja Declaration more than seven years after the commitment, barriers to treatment still exist, reports of stigma and discrimination by health care workers remain high, stock-outs of drugs are common in more than 80% of the countries surveyed and most countries are struggling to provide first-line treatment to those who need it, with eight countries in SADC below 35% coverage and only two exceeding 75% coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"5 December: Great day for volunteers\u2019 unity","field_subtitle":"Yu J: e-Civicus, 5 December 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/content/e-CIVICUS418-Joyce-Yu-UNV.html","body":"Volunteers and volunteer-involving organisations around the world celebrated International Volunteer Day on 5 December in order to increase recognition of the contribution of volunteerism to peace and development. International Volunteer Day was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 17 December 1985. Since then volunteers and volunteer-involving organisations have joined with governments, NGOs, UN agencies and other partners to celebrate volunteerism and lay the ground for future activities. Yet volunteerism remains under-recognised and under-utilised as a resource for development, lamented the UN Secretary-General in his message this year. He urged all to continue to make every effort to raise awareness, measure impact and recognise that their efforts are making a positive difference.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"ABSTRACT SUBMISSION CLOSING JANUARY 30 2009! Regional conference on equity in health in east and southern Africa, Uganda 23-25 September 2009","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/index.php","body":"The closing date for abstract submission for EQUINET Regional Conference on Equity in Health in east and southern Africa is approaching. Please visit the  conference website to download the abstract form and the registration form for submission. Preference for sponsorship will be given to accepted abstracts. We look forward to welcoming people from government, non state organisations, academic and research institutions, civil society, parliaments, regional and international organisations and other institutions promoting and working on equity in health in east and southern Africa! For more information, please visit the conference website at http://www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/index.php or send queries to admin@equinetafrica.org, with EQUINET CONFERENCE in the subject line","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"An alternative proposal for enhancing developing country access to patented medicines","field_subtitle":"Sawahel  W: Intellectual Property Watch, 10 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1358","body":"An intellectual property (IP) model intended to preserve the structure of patent protection while adding balance for developing countries, has been proposed to provide incentives for innovators to contribute toward the alleviation of suffering in developing countries in dire need of patented medicines largely owned by rich countries. This IP model, which would increase the role of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the process, was presented recently by Amir Khoury, an intellectual property law and international trade specialist at the law faculty of Tel Aviv University. The proposal would put greater decision-making authority on the use of compulsory licensing to obtain cheaper versions of patented medicines in the hands of the WHO. Currently, that activity occurs under the World Trade Organization.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Appeal to the World Health Organisation on the health situation in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Community Working on Health: December 2008","field_url":"","body":"The Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) in Zimbabwe, with a membership of about 35 civil society organisations representing a wide range of constituent groups, has called on the World Health Organisation to address the severe decline in heath and in the health system in Zimbabwe. It recognises that the current health crisis does not emanate from the health sector but from wider economic collapse. The CWGH urges WHO and partners to more widely address what needs to be done and what resources and support are needed to rebuild health systems from primary health care level upwards, and to involve communities in deliberations and plans on the way forward. Zimbabweans, they indicate, are not numbers of cholera cases or fatalities but people who have responded to an increasingly difficult situation, who are entitled to health as a right and who should be central in any response and rehabilitation of the health system.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33701","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Author issues urgent call to action on global health","field_subtitle":" MacDonald T: Radcliffe Publishing, 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.radcliffe-oxford.com/books/bookdetail.aspx?ISBN=1846193087","body":"Th\u00e9odore MacDonald's latest book, \u2018Removing the Barriers to Global Health Equity\u2019, presents an urgent call to bolster international organisations and cooperation in healthcare. Its shocking findings demonstrate how profitable it has become for corporate interests to undermine the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this week celebrating its 60th anniversary. The book indicates steps which can be taken to avert disaster, involving a much higher level of international cooperation than the world has known before. The book provides a meticulously critical analysis of the written record and sharply probing interviews with key figures in UN agencies. It will be officially launched on 21 January.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Bamako Call to Action urges new approach to research for health ","field_subtitle":"Schneegans S: TropIKA.net, 22 Nov 2008","field_url":"http://www.tropika.net/svc/specials/bamako2008/analysis/Schneegans-analysis","body":"Adopted on 19 November \u2013 the final day of the Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health hosted by the government of Mali in Bamako \u2013 the Call to Action urges national governments to allocate at least 2% of budgets of ministries of health to research. In parallel, funders of research and innovation, together with international development agencies, are urged to invest at least 5% of development assistance funds earmarked for the health sector in research, according to recipient country-led research strategies, instead of allowing the current situation to continue, where donor countries push their own agendas, thus shaping the agenda on behalf of recipient countries. The signatories have called for greater equity by increasing spending on researching the health challenges that disproportionately affect the poor, marginalised and disadvantaged.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Bamako Call to Action: Research for health","field_subtitle":"The Lancet 372(editorial), 29 November 2008","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issue/current","body":"An important focus of the Bamako Call to Action was to ensure that research priorities were determined by countries, not global institutions. To this end, the multilateral contributors to Bamako \u2013 WHO, UNESCO and the World Bank \u2013 were asked to promote, expand and implement research strategies with an emphasis on listening to country agendas and responding to their priorities. The idea of 18 November as an annual World Day of Research for Health was proposed as one means to maintain attention on this lever for health improvement. The Call to Action will now go to WHO\u2019s Executive Board in January 2009, where they will do their utmost to ensure implementation of these urgent country requests. 2009 needs to be a year of action, not empty promises.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Bamako: An assessment of progress since Mexico 2004 ","field_subtitle":" Godlee F: BMJ Group, 20 November 2008 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6sy3oy","body":"Progress since the last WHO ministerial summit in Mexico in 2004 is not striking, though there is the clinical trials platform, as well as new initiatives for knowledge translation networks like EVIDnet, and other local and regional projects that have achieved fragmented success. The Mexico declaration called for health ministries to dedicate at least 2% of their budgets to research. For most developing countries this remains an aspiration, with most still well below 1%. The problem is that research is a hard thing to sell where resources are tight. Convincing the public that research is not a luxury can be difficult. Hopefully, by the next ministerial summit in 2012, the discussion will no longer be about research for the world\u2019s poorest nations but research by them for themselves. But, sadly, it seems all too possible that four years from now participants will be having exactly the same conversations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Bridging the information gap in philanthropy","field_subtitle":"William and Flora Hewlett Foundation: 25 November 2008","field_url":"http://www.givingmarketplaces.org","body":"This study looks at the enduring issue of how to strengthen the informational base on which funders make their social investment decisions. It asks two questions: How can we help donors make smart philanthropic decisions? How can we ensure that the strongest, most effective nonprofits get the resources they need? The report complements the recommendations in Keystone's report, Online Philanthropy Markets: From Feel-good Giving to Effective Social Investing, by enabling donors to think as social investors, providing comparative data on the performance and impact of social purpose organisations, and working towards a common reporting framework. However, unlike Keystone's report, this study puts the strategic focus on major donors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Fifth International Conference of the International Society for Equity in Health in Crete, Greece on 9-11 June 2009","field_subtitle":"Deadline for submissions: 30 January 2009","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/abstracts%40iseqh-conference2009.com","body":"The Fifth International Conference of the International Society for Equity in Health will be hosted by the Greek School of Public Health in Crete from 9-11 June 2009. It will bring together, researchers, policy-makers, practitioners and others concerned with equity in health to develop and international health agenda for governments, universities and organisations all over the world. The theme is \u2018Social and Societal Influences on Equity in Health\u2019. Abstracts should ideally reflect a multidisciplinary conceptualisation of health equity, analyse or compare (rather than just describe), address issues of generalisability of findings beyond the particular population studied, include and compare different age groups and both genders, and address access/utilisation/appropriateness of health services across populations.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33661","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for nominations: Canada Gairdner Global Health Award 2009","field_subtitle":" Closing date: 31 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.gairdner.org/awards/nominati/thegaird","body":"The Canada Gairdner Global Health Award is directed at health issues pertaining to developing countries. It recognises those who have made major scientific advances in basic science, clinical science, population health or environmental health. These advances must have, or have potential to make a significant impact on health outcomes in the developing world. Nominations for leadership and administration, however outstanding, do not fall within the parameters of this award. The long-term goal of this prize is to reward and stimulate members of the global scientific and medical community to undertake research that will lead to advances valuable to the health of nations. The Global Health Award consists of $100,000 (Canadian), a framed certificate with appropriate citation and a specially designed sculpture.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals: Strengthening the engagement of women and girls with the Global Fund in southern and east Africa","field_subtitle":" Deadline: 21 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/en/node/269745/ads","body":"The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), the Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA), and the Open Society Institute\u2019s (OSI) Public Health Programme are requesting proposals from coalitions of women\u2019s rights and HIV/AIDS organisations in southern Africa that wish to develop proposals for submission to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria addressing the specific vulnerabilities of women and girls. A detailed proposal must be submitted to the Global Fund that outlines and estimates costs for specific, evidence-based interventions to improve women's and girls' access to health treatment, educate them about HIV and AIDS, meet their sexual and reproductive health needs and promote their human rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Creating new financial and trade architecture is best opportunity to end poverty ","field_subtitle":"Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP): November 2008 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5nlcc6","body":"The Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) has urged every government attending Doha to reform the global economic system in more democratic forums so the people affected by poverty have a full and equal say. A new financial architecture must deal with global imbalances, the need for government regulation and interventions for each developing country. GCAP was represented at the Financing for Development meeting in Doha by members of the Feminist Taskforce and Arab region, African, Asian and European coalition members and co-chairs. The long-term solution to the financial crisis requires much more than re-establishing rich countries\u2019 economies and bailing out banks. The world needs solutions for a new financial and trade architecture that could provide for the poor and often voiceless people in the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing nations seek International Monetary Fund reform","field_subtitle":"Caliari A: Al Jazeera News, 30 Novemer 2008","field_url":"http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2008/11/2008112813739268445.html","body":"The top executives of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) \u2013 both Bretton Woods Institutions \u2013 have decided not to attend the much-vaunted UN-sponsored Doha conference on Financing for Development. The decision is all the more startling because there remains a clear need for a swift and broad-based response to the financial crisis. By failing to attend the summit, both institutions certainly undermine their claims to leadership. Some observers have interpreted this as a show of contempt for the issues the poorest countries \u2013 especially those who did not participate in the G20 Summit on November 15 \u2013 may raise about international financial reform. Their conspicuous absence is typical of an approach that favours elitism and \u2018club-based\u2019 decision-making over inclusive processes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Draft HIV bill's good intentions could backfire","field_subtitle":"Affiliated Network for Social Accountability Africa: 27 November 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.ansa-africa.net/index.php/views/news_view/draft_hiv_bills_good_intentions_could_backfire","body":"AIDS activists in Uganda have slammed a proposed new law that will force HIV-positive people to reveal their status to their sexual partners, and also allow medical personnel to reveal someone's status to their partner.  The HIV Prevention and Control Bill (2008) is intended to provide a legal framework for the national response to HIV, as well as protect the rights of individuals affected by HIV. The bill in its current form could worsen the difficulties many HIV-positive people experience. Certain sections of the bill needed to be revised, for instance, the provision that HIV status disclosure would be mandatory for couples planning to marry, which can only have serious repercussions in a male-dominated society; at least three women have been killed by their husbands this year because they were positive.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Early antiretroviral therapy and mortality among HIV-infected infants","field_subtitle":"Violari A, Cotton MF, Gibb DM, Babiker AG, Steyn J, Madhi SA, Patrick JP and McIntyre JA: New England Journal of Medicine (359)21, 2008","field_url":"http://content.nejm.org/cgi/reprint/359/21/2233.pdf","body":"This paper investigated antiretroviral-treatment strategies in the Children with HIV Early Antiretroviral Therapy (CHER) trial. HIV-infected infants 6 to 12 weeks of age with a CD4 percentage of 25% or more were randomly assigned to receive antiretroviral therapy until the CD4 percentage decreased to less than 20% (or 25% if the child was younger than 1 year), specific clinical criteria were met or the child needed to immediately start on limited antiretroviral therapy. The children were followed up after 40 weeks and, after a review by the data and safety monitoring board, some of the infants were reassessed for the initiation of antiretroviral therapy. The paper concluded that early HIV diagnosis and early antiretroviral therapy reduced early infant mortality by 76% and HIV progression by 75%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Conference Abstract submission CLOSING January 30 2009! ","field_subtitle":"Regional conference on equity in health in east and southern Africa, Uganda 23-25 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/index.php","body":"The closing date for abstract submission for EQUINET Regional Conference on Equity in Health in east and southern Africa is on January 30 2009. Please visit the conference website to download the abstract form and the registration form for submission. Preference for sponsorship will be given to accepted abstracts. We look forward to welcoming people from government, non state organisations, academic and research institutions, civil society, parliaments, regional and international organisations and other institutions promoting and working on equity in health in east and southern Africa! For more information, please visit the conference website at http://www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/index.php or send queries to admin@equinetafrica.org, with EQUINET CONFERENCE in the subject line.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion Paper 67: Evaluating the implementation of the Tanzanian National Voucher Scheme: A case study from the Ruvuma region, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"A Komba: December 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS67komba.pdf","body":"In 2004, the Tanzanian government launched its Tanzania National Voucher Scheme (TNVS). The scheme aimed to subsidise the cost of anti-malaria nets for pregnant women and children across the country. But has the implementation of the scheme so far been equitable? This study used a case study approach to analyse the power relations between key implementers of the scheme and the mothers served in four rural district health facilities in Namtumbo and Mbinga districts. The study found that despite the scheme\u2019s impact in reducing severe malaria cases, inadequate national prioritisation of malaria is affecting implementation, leading to inadequate funding, felt most severely at facility level. No resources were allocated specifically for voucher distribution, resulting in periodic shortages, while health workers involved in the scheme had other competing demands on their time.   A top-down managerial approach to implementation allowed health workers to exercise unfair power over mothers and pregnant women seeking nets and treatment and women were asked to pay for vouchers in some areas, when they are actually entitled to get them free.  The study, building on previous studies in Tanzania and elsewhere, demonstrated that a top-down approach to policy intervention is contributing to implementation gaps. The voucher scheme is not just a tool for ensuring access and equity in health care delivery \u2013 it must be carefully considered in the context of those entrusted with the task of overseeing its implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion Paper 69: How power relations affect the implementation of policy on equity in access to anti-retroviral therapy: The case of rural health centres in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Simwaka LK: December 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS69POLsimwaka.pdf","body":"The national ART scale-up plan contains several measures to promote equity, considering also that there are insufficient resources to cover everyone who is eligible. Thus study  focused on four of these covering ART enrolment on an open \u2018first-come, first-served\u2019 basis; targeted gender-sensitive health promotion of ART, measures to overcome specific geographical barriers to access for remote populations and prioritisation of  people already on ART, pregnant women and young children.  Using a case study approach the study analysed the power relations that influenced outcomes on these policy measures on four health facilities in Malawi.  The findings indicate that health workers commonly exercise power in relation to patients, and that patient acquiesce with health worker behaviours. In poorly performing facilities, implementation of policy measures is negatively affected by managerial practices that discourage teamwork and de-motivate health workers, while in the two better performing facilities, management practices had a more positive role in supporting positive health worker practices. The study findings highlight that  implementing equity policies needs to include measures to orient and involve staff, and address power and resource imbalances that can undermine access.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided.\r\n\r\nThe views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 95: The Bamako call to Action for Health Research: Features and reactions","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET PRA Report 10: Consolidating processes for community \u2013 health centre partnership and accountability in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Mbwili-Muleya C, Lungu M, Kabuba I,  Zulu Lishandu I, Loewenson R: December 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRAequitygauge2008.pdf","body":"This report has been produced within the capacity building programme on participatory research and action (PRA) for people centred health systems in EQUINET. It is part of a growing mentored network of PRA work and experience in east and southern Africa, aimed at strengthening people centred health systems and people\u2019s empowerment in health. The report presents the work and outcomes from the follow up action research building on a pilot in 2006 that aimed to strengthen community-health centre partnership and accountability in two districts in Zambia. The action research presented consolidated the participatory approaches initiated in 2006 to further enhance the community voice in planning, budgeting and implementation activities at HC and community level; extended the process to two new health centres in Lusaka, and built the capacity of the 2006 group to facilitate scale up of the work to other centres. It explored through this the possibilities for scaling up such processes at wider level. The project demonstrated that using participatory approaches can de-mystify and remove suspicions surrounding the district and health centre planning process, strengthen dialogue between communities and health workers, increase community involvement in planning and budget processes and resolve issues in the interface between health workers and communities. If the processes are to be institutionalized the lessons from the action research are that participatory processes take time to have impact, need continuous mentoring and resource support in the early stages, need to be integrated within routine work and supported by authorities, with orientation of new health workers. Not investing in scale up of the process, however, leads to persistence of disharmony between health workers and communities caused by lack of communication and information flow, undermining the functioning of health systems as envisaged in policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity Watch: Assessing progress towards equity in health in Zimbabwe, 2008","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R, Masotya M: November 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS71equityZIM.pdf","body":"This report assesses progress towards achieving equity in health in Zimbabwe, drawing on available indicators and peer review from stakeholders. Available evidence suggests a range of gaps to be addressed, including need and coverage in access to anti-retroviral treatment; to safe water and sanitation; and in food security;  the gap between \u201cfree care\u201d policies and the real formal charges and informal costs for health services that undermine use in poor households; between need and supply in drugs and skilled staff at the primary care level of the health system; between commitments and  spending by the international community and government in the health budget, with rising demand on households to meet the gap;  between the expectations and real working conditions and incomes of health workers;  and between the social capacities for promoting health within communities, and the legal and institutional recognition and support of these capacities. Many inputs to health, including primary education, now need to be revitalised as a means to building the universal, comprehensive systems that address these gaps. The report outlines priorities based on the findings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluation of community-based education and service courses for undergraduate radiography students at Makerere University, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Mubuuke AG, Kiguli-Malwadde E, Byanyima R and Businge F: Rural and Remote Health 8 (976), 8 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.rrh.org.au","body":"Ugandan radiography, medical, nursing, dentistry and pharmacy students are sent to community health facilities where they are expected to participate in community services and other primary healthcare activities for training (COBES). This study was designed to obtain the opinions of radiography teachers and students of the significance and relevance of this community-based training to radiography training. Both students and teachers (91.4%) affirmed the community training to be significant and relevant to radiography training. In total, 71.4% of the students had participated in X-ray services and 39.2% in ultrasound services during COBES; and 68.6% of the students reported the need to be better prepared for the COBES training. They confirmed community-based training to be relevant to Ugandan radiography training.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Financial crisis: The poor have their say\u2026","field_subtitle":" Barrat P: e-CIVICUS 417, 27 November 2008","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/content/e-CIVICUS417-Financial%20Crisis-PatriceBarrat.html","body":"The poor have not been consulted about the current global financial crisis. So far, all gatherings have been of the rich, from the World Economic Forum to the G8 Summit. At some point in the future, poor countries will merely be requested to endorse the decisions already taken by rich countries and to pick up the remaining crumbs. Ironically, the five powers that decide on war and peace within the UN Security Council are also the five biggest arms dealers of the planet (China, USA, Russian Federation, France and the UK). Rich countries are also the sole decision-makers in the reform of the Bretton Woods institutions (World Bank and International Monetary Fund) that take money from poor and indebted countries. It\u2019s time for poor countries to be given an opportunity to take part in these crucial decisions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Free State, South Africa, goes into crisis mode","field_subtitle":"Thom A: Health-e, 25 November 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5d6l2x","body":"The Free State health department has announced that its financial situation has reached \u2018dire proportions\u2019 forcing it to postpone all non-emergency surgery until January next year and stop all non-critical staff appointments. HIV clinics are coming under increasing threat of being closed down, as they are considered part of the outpatient services that are being stopped. The Treatment Action Campaign said it also continued to receive reports from doctors who are turning critically ill patients away from their clinics because of antiretroviral shortages. Doctors predict a large number of people are going to die over Christmas, notably poor people, because government won\u2019t commit money to solving the problem. The measures apply to all of its 31 health facilities, including hospitals and clinics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Gates Foundation gives millions for coverage of world health ","field_subtitle":" McNeil DG: New York Times, 8 December 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/health/09glob.html","body":"The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which spends billions on global health, is taking a direct route to ensuring global health coverage for all. NewsHour with Jim Lehrer in the United States received a Gates Foundation grant of US$3.5 million to help its correspondents produce 40 to 50 reports over three years on malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis, measles, neglected diseases and other global health issues. It came with \u2018no strings\u2019, reported the managing producer of NewsHour, which is seen on 315 PBS stations, noting that, if her reporters found a story critical of the Foundation\u2019s work and Mr Gates objected, she\u2019d let him defend it, of course, but was still determined to proceed with the story.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Hanson and colleagues' response to Smith and colleagues' viewpoint on private health sectors in low income countries","field_subtitle":" Hanson K, Gilson L, Goodman C and Mills A: PLoS Medicine, November 2008","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050233","body":"Richard Smith and colleagues are forceful advocates for a greater role for the private sector in the health systems of low-income countries. Unfortunately, as they also recognise, the evidence to support their position is limited. First, Smith and colleagues pay insufficient attention to the diversity of the private sector in developing countries. Second, they place considerable weight on the proportion of private spending in total health financing. However, this is an imperfect measure of the size of the private sector. Third, it is not true to say that governments and donors have completely ignored the private sector. What is needed is for the global public health community to commit to developing a strong evidence base on private sector engagement so that future debates can be grounded in better understanding.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Health system problems aggravate cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe:  WHO setting up a cholera control centre, seeking US$6 million in support","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: Press release, 10 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2008/pr49/en/print.html","body":"A widespread cholera outbreak, under-resourced and under-staffed health system, and inadequate access to safe drinking water and hygiene are threatening the wellbeing of thousands of Zimbabweans. As of 9 December, 16,141 suspected cases of cholera and 775 resultant deaths (case fatality rate of 4.8%) had been recorded since August in two-thirds of the country's 62 districts. WHO is establishing a cholera control and command centre, in conjunction with the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare (MoHCW) and other health partners, to respond in a coordinated manner to Zimbabwe's health challenges. WHO is seeking donor support for a US$6 million proposal for its cholera response plan. Approximately half of cholera cases have been recorded in Budiriro, a heavily populated suburb on the western outskirts of the capital, Harare. Other major concentrations of reported cases include Beitbridge, on the South African border, and Mudzi, on the border with Mozambique.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health systems and the right to health: an assessment of 194 countries","field_subtitle":"Backman G, Hunt P,   Khosla R, Jaramillo-Strouss C, Fikre BM, Rumble C, Pevalin D, P\u00e1ez DA, Pineda MA, Frisancho A, Tarco D, Motlagh M, Farcasanu D and Vladescu C: The Lancet, 2008","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/","body":"This paper identifies some of the right-to-health indicators of health systems, such as a comprehensive national health plan, and proposes 72 indicators that reflect some of these features. It collected data on these indicators for 194 countries. Data was not available for 18 indicators for any country, suggesting that organisations that obtain such data give insufficient attention to the right-to-health features of health systems. Where available, the indicators show where health systems need to be improved to better realise the right to health. Although not perfect, the indicators provide a basis for the monitoring of health systems and the progressive realisation of the right to health. The right to health is not just good management or justice, it is an obligation under human-rights law.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV is a virus, not a crime: 10 reasons against criminal statutes and criminal prosecutions ","field_subtitle":"Cameron E, Burris S and Clayton M: Journal of the International AIDS Society 11(7), 1 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-11-7.pdf","body":"The authors provide ten reasons why criminal laws and criminal prosecutions for people transmitting HIV to others are a bad strategy. First, criminalisation is ineffective. Second, what is really needed are measures that really protect those at risk of contracting HIV. Third, criminalisation victimises, oppresses and endangers women. Fourth, criminalisation is often unfairly and selectively enforced. Fifth, criminalisation places blame on one person instead of two. Sixth, these laws are difficult and degrading to apply. Seventh, many of these laws are extremely poorly drafted. Eighth, criminalisation increases stigma. Ninth, criminalisation is a blatant disinducement to testing. And tenth, criminalisation assumes the worst about people with HIV and, in doing so, it punishes vulnerability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights threatened by anti-HIV laws ","field_subtitle":"Affiliated Network for Social Accountability Africa: 3 December 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.ansa-africa.net/index.php/views/news_view/human_rights_threatened_by_anti_hiv_laws/","body":"More than 40 national, regional and international human rights, gender and HIV organisations convened in Cape Town on 27-28 November to discuss trends, implications and realities of HIV criminalisation. Recent global and regional legislative trends indicate a strong call for criminalisation of HIV transmission as one of the measures in response to the growing HIV and Aids pandemics. Whereas supporters of criminalisation reason that it is the only possible response to halt the HIV pandemic, since \u2018reckless\u2019 behaviour needs to be \u2018criminalised\u2019, opponents of these legislative changes are united in the view that any form of criminalising the transmission of HIV is a gross human rights violation. Moreover, the criminalisation of HIV transmission will further deter people, particularly from vulnerable and marginalised groups, from using HIV testing services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Hungry for a voice: The food crisis, the market and socio-economic inequality","field_subtitle":" Depelchin J: Pambazuka News, 4 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/52480","body":"In this article exploring the history of socio-economic inequality, the author calls for an interpretation of the current food crisis over the historical long term. As a direct consequence of an entrenched, centuries-old capitalist system, the market as a \u2018modernising\u2019 force has consistently enriched the lives of a few while impoverishing a poor majority. Understanding the food crisis rests first and foremost on re-considering humanity\u2019s relationship to nature and championing historical narratives true to the voices and experiences of the global poorest of the poor. Up till now, analysts have been discussing the current food crisis from the perspective of the last few decades, which is very short term, suggesting that the problem is momentary and conjunctural. It is neither and has been in the making for a very long time, as far back as 1491.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving motivation and retention of health professionals in developing countries: A systematic review ","field_subtitle":" Willis-Shattuck M, Bidwell P, Thomas S, Wyness L, Blaauw D and Ditlopo P: BMC Health Services Research (8)247, 4 December 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6963-8-247.pdf","body":"This study systematically reviewed and consolidated existing evidence of the impact of financial and non-financial incentives on the motivation and retention of health workers. Four literature databases were searched, as well as grey literature studies and informational papers. Twenty qualitative and quantitative studies were selected. There was some evidence to suggest that the use of initiatives to improve motivation had been effective in helping retention. While motivational factors are undoubtedly country specific, financial incentives, career development and management issues are core factors. Nevertheless, financial incentives alone are not enough to motivate health workers. Workplace recognition and adequate resources and infrastructure can also improve morale significantly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrating mental health into primary care: A global perspective","field_subtitle":" World Health Organization and World Organization of Family Doctors (Wonca) 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mental_health/policy/Mental%20health%20+%20primary%20care-%20final%20low-res%20140908.pdf","body":"Integrating mental health services into primary care is the most viable way of ensuring that people get the mental health care they need and primary care workers need adequate training and support for this. Integration is most successful when mental health is incorporated into health policy and legislative frameworks and supported by senior leadership, adequate resources and ongoing governance. To be fully effective and efficient, primary care for mental health must be coordinated with a network of services at different levels of care and complemented by broader health system development. Numerous low- and middle-income countries have successfully made the transition to integrated primary care for mental health. Mental health is central to the values and principles of the Alma Ata Declaration; holistic care will never be achieved until mental health is integrated into primary care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Keeping an eye on equity! Community visions of equity in health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET is supporting community level health activists in eight countries with skills to use photography to bring out and display images of health equity issues from a community lens under the theme \u201cKEEPING AN EYE ON EQUITY: Community visions of equity in health\u201d. We hope to use this process to strengthen capacities at community level in selected areas to use photo media to raise awareness and communicate voice on health issues. Images of health from a community lens will be displayed at the EQUINET conference in September 2009 and the photogaphers will be present to explain their work and actions to advancing health. If you are interested in this work or have experience to share, we'd love to hear from you! Please contact us at admin@equinetafrica.org with KEEPING AN EYE ON EQUITY in the subject line. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Letter to SADC on the health and water Ministers Meeting","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Steering Committee, 10 December 2008","field_url":"","body":"The EQUINET Steering Committee made a representation through the SADC Secretariat to the Health and Water Ministers meeting held in South Africa on 11 December 2008 on the cholera situation in the region, and particularly in Zimbabwe. The EQUINET Steering Committee called on SADC Ministers to strengthen the public health leadership of the response, supported by publicly reported and accurate information and effective communication on the epidemic from community to national level; and where necessary invoking public health laws to prioritise resources to prevent and manage the epidemic. The SC recognised the need for urgent measures to control and manage the epidemic, but also called for attention to longer term measures to address determinants of the epidemic. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33656","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Medicine prices, availability and affordability in 36 developing and middle-income countries: A secondary analysis","field_subtitle":" Cameron A, Ewen D, Ross-Degnan D, Ball D and Laing R: The Lancet, 1 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140- 6736(08)61762-6/fulltext#article_upsell","body":"Millions of people in low- and middle-income countries cannot afford or obtain the medicines they need, according to this study. It is based on findings from 45 surveys carried out since 2001 in 36 countries, using a standardised methodology developed by the Health Advance Institute (HAI) and World Health Organization (WHO). Across the surveys, public sector availability of generics averaged a disappointing 38%. Even in the private sector, the availability of generics was far from ideal and sometimes unaffordable to many, yet implementing policies that increase the use of low-priced quality generics would help significantly. Policies to ensure competition and incentives for pharmacies to dispense low-priced generics are needed. Governments could also review all policies affecting medicine prices and availability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"National workshop report: Managing the migration of human resources for health in Kenya, 11-13 November 2007, Lukenya Getaway, Athi River, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Kenya Technical Working Group on the Migration of Human Resources for Health, 2007","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REPMTG1107HRHkenya.pdf","body":"The meeting was held to discuss issues relating to the effective management of the mobility of health care workers and to shift the agenda from awareness to action. Preliminary findings from three national studies focusing on migration trends of health professionals were presented, providing an evidence base for discussion and a direction for further recommendations. As the realities of migration trends amongst skilled health professionals continue to impact the standards and accessibility of health services on the continent, Kenya has taken a lead in studying these developments at a national and regional level. It was strongly recommended that the National Steering Committee take up immediate action on: briefing of all stakeholders on progress made in implementation of the programme as to encourage wider government ownership; broaden the NSC membership to include key government agencies not presently included, mainly the Ministry of Planning and Ministry of Finance; take immediate steps for establishment of an integrated data management system for managing human resources for health, including a minimum data set on health worker mobility; take immediate steps to active implementation of existing policies and laws relevant to managing internal and external migration of human resources for health; and review and strengthen policies and incentives for recruitment and retention of health workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"No credit due: the World Bank and IMF in Africa: Promoting a new development model for Africa ","field_subtitle":"Edigheji O and Amuwo A: Institute for Global Dialogue Occasional Paper 60, November 2008","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/country-profiles&id=41265&type=Document","body":"This paper seeks to explain the policy-based lending progamme of the World Bank (WB), and the significance of its engagement with developing economies, Africa in particular. The authors find that the Bank, through its policy-based lending, dictates key policies to borrowing countries, thus eroding their autonomous police space and their ability to evolve economic policies best suited to their particular ecologies and peculiar circumstances. The risk of incurring the wrath of the Bank \u2013 which will make it to declare such a country non-creditworthy \u2013 is often too much for borrowing countries to bear. Clearly, a new model of development will have to emerge from popular political and class struggles at all levels of national and international communities, including the African Union (AU) and the enlarged G77.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"One-Million-to-Test Campaign logs first victory in Uganda","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 27 November 2008","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=81700","body":"Between 26 November and 1 December (World AIDS Day) the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), a US-based NGO, set a goal of testing one million people around the world. More than 1,000 people were tested for HIV at a busy marketplace in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, kicking off a nationwide drive that aims to help at least 20,000 people across the country know their status. HIV prevalence is around 6%, but only 21% of Ugandans know their HIV status. The large turnout for the testing event proved that many people wanted to know their status but hadn't had the opportunity to get tested. The campaign sees AHF partnering with 972 organisations in 72 countries around the world. A standard model is used at all sites, involving pre-test counselling, a one-minute test, post-test counselling and treatment referral.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Participation of traditional birth attendants in prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV services in two rural districts in Zimbabwe: A feasibility study","field_subtitle":" Perez F, Aung KD, Ndoro T, Engelsmann B and Dabis F: BMC Public Health 8(401), 5 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-8-401.pdf","body":"The main objective of this study was to evaluate acceptability and feasibility of reinforcing the role of traditional birth attendants (TBAs) in family and child health services through their participation in prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programmes in Zimbabwe. A community based cross-sectional survey was undertaken in two rural districts through interviews and focus group discussions among women who delivered at home with a TBA and who had an institutional delivery and TBAs. More than 85% of women agreed that TBAs could participate in all activities related to a PMTCT programme with the exception of performing a blood test for HIV. There is a need to reinforce the knowledge of TBAs on MTCT prevention measures and better integrate them into the health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory Impact Assessment: A guide for practitioners","field_subtitle":"Catley A, Burns J, Abebe D and Suji O: 2008","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=40706","body":"The ability to define and measure humanitarian impact is essential to providing operational agencies with the tools to systematically evaluate the relative efficacy of various types of interventions. This guide aims to provide practitioners with a broad framework for carrying out project-level Participatory Impact Assessments (PIA) of livelihoods interventions in the humanitarian sector. The PIA approach consists of a flexible methodology that can be adapted to local conditions. It also acknowledges local people, or project clients, as experts by emphasising the involvement of project participants and community members from the outset. The proposed framework provides an eight stage approach, and presents examples of tools which may be adapted to different contexts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Pharmaceutical sector inquiry: A preliminary report","field_subtitle":"European Union executive branch: December 2008","field_url":"http://ec.europa.eu/competition/sectors/pharmaceuticals/inquiry/preliminary_report.pdf","body":"In spring 2009, the EU\u2019s executive branch will present the findings of an investigation into the pharmaceutical sector. This is a preliminary report of this probe, launched in January this year, which found that leading pharmaceutical companies are using the patent system to delay the entry of generic medicines onto the market. Patent holders tend to embark on a long, legal battle to delay the release of a generic. Examining a sample worth about 10% of the Union\u2019s \u20ac150 billion-a-year prescription drugs market, the Commission estimated that \u20ac3 billion could have been saved to public health budgets if generic entry had taken place immediately once patents expired. This is based on data indicating that the price of a drug falls by about 20% after a year once it moves from being branded to generic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Progress on human rights requires stronger institutions ","field_subtitle":"Robinson M and Tutu D: e-CIVICUS 419, 10 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/content/e-CIVICUS419-Mary-Desmond-Progress-Human%20Rights.html","body":"Sixty years ago this week, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first international proclamation of the inherent dignity and equal rights of all people. Yet the Declaration\u2019s enlightened vision of individual freedom, social protection, economic opportunity and duty to community is still unfulfilled. Genocide, torture, domestic violence and discrimination in employment are a daily reality. Above all, poverty is our greatest shame. At least one billion very poor people, 20% of humanity, are daily denied basic rights to adequate food and clean water. As long as gross inequalities between rich and poor persist, it is not possible to claim to be making adequate progress toward fulfilling the ambitions set down 60 years ago. In marking this anniversary, the question raised is how to protect the dignity and equal rights of all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Providing reproductive health care to internally displaced persons: Barriers experienced by humanitarian agencies","field_subtitle":"Hakamies N, Geissler PW and Borchert M: Reproductive Health Matters 16(31):33\u201343, 2008 ","field_url":"http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0968-8080(08)31349-4","body":"Reproductive health care for internally displaced persons (IDPs) is a neglected area in humanitarian relief operations. Representatives of twelve relief and development agencies providing reproductive health care to IDPs were interviewed to identify barriers to access and strategies for overcoming these barriers. Although material and human resources were significant constraints, the main challenge ahead is to tackle ideological, managerial and policy barriers, and those related to donor influence. Considerable efforts are needed to close the gap between international commitments and their failure to help provide services in the field. The study strongly recommends developing a legal instrument, like an international convention, to protect the rights of IDPs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-private partnerships: Whose interests do they serve?","field_subtitle":"Babymilkaction.org: December 2008","field_url":"http://www.babymilkaction.org/update/update41b.html#02","body":"Danone, the world\u2019s second largest baby food company, now sits on the governing body of the Global Fund for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). But there is no mention of Danone\u2019s interest in baby foods on the GAIN website nor any mention that it is a systematic Code violator. GAIN claims to be working to improve nutrition by building markets for fortified foods in the developing world and has now launched a project on infant and young child nutrition. Concerned about this unacceptable conflict of interest, 53 experts from 24 countries, attending the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) workshop in October, have written to WHO and UNICEF calling on them to reconsider their partnership with GAIN. GAIN is bound to undermine breastfeeding and the use of indigenous, traditional and low-cost foods, they say.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Publish What You Fund: The Global Campaign for Aid Transparency","field_subtitle":" Publish What You Fund (PWYF) Campaign: 2008","field_url":"http://www.publishwhatyoufund.org/principles","body":"Publish What You Fund is a new initiative to promote transparency of international aid. It consists of civil society groups from around the world, including organisations working on aid effectiveness and groups working on access to government information. They believe that, for aid to be effective, accountable and participatory, it must be transparent. Information must be available to recipient governments, affected communities and other stakeholders, as well as the general public. The campaign has been busy drafting a first set of principles. These principles have had one round of consultation (between July and August 2008) and were presented at the Accra High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (Ghana, 2\u20134 September 2008). You can add your comments on their website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Rapid rise in African anti-counterfeiting efforts led by developed nations","field_subtitle":"New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 9 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1355","body":"Amid fears that huge quantities of counterfeit medicines and pesticides are pouring into Africa, the international law enforcement agency INTERPOL is leading the way to invest more effort and money to bring authorities up to speed on the threat faced by those who depend on the imports, from hospital patients to pharmacists to farmers. Among the first of the OASIS anti-counterfeiting moves was Operation Mamba, a police action in Uganda and Tanzania in September and October that led to the seizure of more than 100 kinds of medical products, including anti-malarial pills, multivitamins, skin medicines and heart drugs. Four pharmacies in Tanzania were shut down; in Uganda, police are investigating 38 shops on suspicion that they are working illegally. INTERPOL is investing more effort and attention to Africa as the staggering extent of the counterfeiting problem on the continent becomes clearer. While precise numbers are difficult to come by, the World Health Organization believes that 30 percent of drugs sold in developing countries are counterfeit; in some parts of Africa, that number could be as high as 90%. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaiming the Resources for Health: EQUINET book now available electronically","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQUINET%20Reclaiming%20the%20Resources%20for%20Health%20in%20ESA.pdf","body":"The EQUINET book 'Reclaiming the Resources for Health: A regional analysis of equity in health in East and Southern Africa'  published in late 2007 is now available as an electronic download on this site at http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQUINET%20Reclaiming%20the%20Resources%20for%20Health%20in%20ESA.pdf The book is a resource for researchers, policy makers and health activists and highlights challenges and opportunities for improving health equity in east and southern Africa,\r\n* for poor people to claim a fairer share of national resources for their health;\r\n* for a more just return for ESA countries from the global economy to increase the resources for health; and\r\n* for a larger share of global and national resources to be invested in redistributive health systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional review meeting on Health Worker Retention, Namibia, 25-27 February 2009","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET in co-operation with ECSA-HC have, with government and researchers in five countries, carried out review and field studies on the implementation of incentives for health worker retention and of their impact on the adequacy and distribution of health workers. A regional meeting will be held in February 2009 to review this work and other work on health worker migration and distribution in EQUINET in Windhoek Namibia, locally hosted by the University of Namibia. If you are interested in this meeting please contact us at admin@equinetafrica.org, using \"HCW Retention meeting\" in the subject line. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Report back from Global Health Workforce Alliance board meeting: 24\u201325 November 2008 ","field_subtitle":"Sheikh M: 10 December 2008","field_url":"","body":"Underlining the Alliance vision that 'All people everywhere will have access to a skilled, motivated and supported health worker, within a robust health system', the strategic directions and priorities 2009-2011 confirmed the two main objectives within which the Alliance operates: to enable country leadership in national planning and management to improve the human resources for health (HRH) situation and respond to shortages of skilled and motivated health workers; and to address global policy challenges through evidence-informed actions to tackle trans-national problems in areas such as insufficient and inefficient use of resources, fiscal restraints on health sector spending, migration, priority research and cooperation among all stakeholders.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33694","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Report of the discussion on the Zimbabwe equity analysis and the Zimbabwe launch of the Regional analysis of equity in health in east and southern Africa: Promoting health equity in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC),  Community Working Group on Health (CWGH), Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) (2008)","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REPmtgZIMEQUITY&REAlauch1008.pdf","body":"This meeting provided an opportunity for discussion of evidence in the draft Zimbabwe equity watch from the perspective of people from community and primary health care levels of the health system. Evidence in the Zimbabwe equity analysis provided input to civil society plans within the CWGH and to the resolutions from the CWGH meeting. The discussion on the Zimbabwe equity analysis was a build up to the launch of the book \u2018Reclaiming resources for health: A regional analysis for equity in Health in East and Southern Africa\u2019. The event was attended by more than hundred people from Parliament (MPs), Ministry of Health, Ministry of education, academics, representatives from the Health Service Board, private sector, civil society, health worker unions, labour movement, and delegates from the region (Uganda, Malawi, South Africa). ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Rights Not Rescue: A Report on Female, Trans, and Male Sex Workers\u2019 Human Rights in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa","field_subtitle":"Crago A and Arnott J: Open Society Institute\u2019s Sexual Health and Rights Project and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6b8598","body":"This publication is a situational assessment, carried out between May and June 2008, of the sexual health and rights of sex workers in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa, where sex work is illegal. It is based on interviews and focus groups with 87 female, transgender, and male sex workers, as well as 11 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the region that work with sex workers. Sex workers suffer unequal access to health care and social services, lack of access to reproductive health, including HIV prevention and treatment, and discrimination by health workers, police and communities. The report highlights opportunities for NGOs, governments, donors and UN agencies to expand rights-based approaches to sex work that will ultimately improve the health and well-being of sex workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Smith and colleagues' response to Hanson and colleagues' viewpoint on the private sector in low-income countries","field_subtitle":"Smith R, Feachem R, Feachem NS, Koehlmoos TP and Kinlaw H: PLoS Medicine, November 2008","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050233","body":"These two viewpoints agree much more than they disagree. Both agree that the public sector cannot be ignored and both agree that there is a role for the private sector in improving the health of the world's poorest. The disagreement is about emphasis. Smith et al believe that many countries will benefit more from harnessing the energy of the private sector rather than continuing to invest solely or mainly in the public sector. The public sector, growing evidence of the effectiveness of the private sector, and energetic non-state organisations, are already working to harness the power of the private sector to achieve better health care for all. Evaluation will be crucial, but the most important research question is not \u2018Can the private sector help?\u2019 but \u2018How can public\u2013private partnerships be made most effective and equitable?\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa flunks when it comes to AIDS spending","field_subtitle":"AIDS Accountability International: 2008","field_url":"http://aidsaccountability.org/","body":"South Africa has flunked with an E-symbol (0-20%) when it come to the amount of money spent on HIV/AIDS, but attained an overall B-symbol for its response to the epidemic on the AIDS Reporting Index, an AIDS Accountability International (AAI) scorecard. South Africa scored a D for data collection, which the AAI said was largely due to poor reporting, with no improvement since the last time the country was assessed. The country showed an improvement in antiretroviral coverage (2% in 2004 to 28% in 2008), but the AAI noted overall performance remained poor (D-symbol) with only just over a quarter of those needing treatment getting it. The overall low score is due to poor performance rather than poor reporting, it added.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Health MEC wants traditional medicine in hospice","field_subtitle":"Kerry Cullinan: Health-e, 23 November 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5wtsf2","body":"KwaZulu-Natal Health MEC, Peggy Nkonyeni, is attempting to introduce traditional medicine for AIDS patients at a hospice with the help of traditional healers. The Treatment Action Campaign said African traditional healers have a role in combating HIV but they are concerned that disreputable stakeholders are included, especially those who are not traditional healers and who have caused harm with so-called \u2018alternative\u2019 remedies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Health Review 2008","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust: 11 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041901","body":"The 13th edition of the SAHR focuses on primary health care (PHC) in South Africa, 30 years after the historic Alma Ata Declaration, which famously linked health and health status to broader social determinants of health. It includes a national and international perspective of PHC and focuses on areas such as policy and legislation, determinants of health, lifestyle, infectious diseases, mental health, maternal and child health, nutrition and environmental health. It also reviews issues around human resources, finance, and information and concludes with the \u2018Indicators\u2019 chapter, which presents a selection of the best available data on the functioning and performance of the South African health system. It also reflects on lessons and mistakes of the past to improve implementation in the future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"STAR: Special Terms for African Researchers","field_subtitle":"Free and reduced-rate online journal access","field_url":"http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/","body":"STAR is a scheme which makes scholarly publications more widely available to those who have difficulty affording them. It is aimed at Individual academics in sub-Saharan Africa who would like to gain access to cutting-edge research in a wide variety of subject areas. Benefits include FREE access to over 300 Taylor & Francis Group journals online, including all physical science and technology titles, reduced rate personal print subscriptions to over 100 Taylor & Francis journals, covering subjects from archaeology to women's studies, and ongoing special offers. If you register at the address above, you\u2019ll also receive regular news updates on the benefits available.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Target setting in a multi-agency environment","field_subtitle":" Association of Public Health Observatories Technical Briefing 4, 2008","field_url":"http://www.apho.org.uk/resource/view.aspx?RID=54328","body":"This is the fourth in a series of technical briefings, produced by the Association of Public Health Observatories (APHO), designed to support public health practitioners and analysts and to promote the use of public health intelligence in decision making. APHO Technical Briefings looks at key issues to consider when setting targets in a multi-agency environment, including the choice of appropriate methodologies, indicators and statistics, and consideration of the wider political and ethical context.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Bamako Call to Action for Health Research: Features and reactions","field_subtitle":"Training and Research Support Centre, EQUINET secretariat","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health was held In Bamako, Mali From 17-19 November 2008, significantly the first time in Africa. The 'Bamako Call to Action' declared at the end of the meeting is the outcome of four years of meetings, dialogue and survey of key stakeholders the three days of  the conference.  As many researchers from the region would not have been present in these processes, this editorial, drawn from various public sources, captures some key features of the Call to Action, and provides a \u201cfly on the wall\u201d snapshot of some of  the comments and reflections around it.  The call and editorials cited are provided in more detail in this newsletter.\r\n\r\nIn the opening statement to conference delivered by the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis Sambo,  WHO Director General Dr Chan underlined the key role of research in keeping health high on the political agenda  saying: \u201dWe must have evidence and  we need the right kind of evidence \u2026 because in most countries, an appeal to health equity will not be sufficient to gain high-level political commitment. It will not be enough  to persuade other sectors to take health impacts into account in all policies.\u201d \r\n\r\nThe Call to Action  recognises that \u201cResearch and innovation have been and will be increasingly essential to find solutions to health problems, address predictable and unpredictable threats to human security, alleviate poverty, and accelerate development;\u201d As one focus the call proposes establishing November 18 each year as a World Day of Research for Health.\r\n\r\nNational governments are called on to \r\n\u2022 give priority to the development of policies for research and innovation for health, especially related to primary health care, in order to secure ownership and control of their research for health agendas;\r\n\u2022 allocate at least 2% of budgets of ministries of health to research; \r\n\u2022 improve capacity in institutions, ministries, and throughout systems for the implementation of research policies; and to  \r\n\u2022 develop, set, and enforce standards, regulations, and best practices for fair, accountable, and transparent research processes.\r\nFurther recommendations are made to promote the translation and exchange of knowledge and the build research capacities,  including in young researchers. \r\n\r\nInstitutions at the regional level are encouraged to assist countries through international collaboration, where needed, to build and strengthen research for health capacity and to network researchers to promote the quality, ethics and sustainability of research. Meanwhile all stakeholders are called on to implement the recommendations from the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, especially those related to health equity, including to promote research on technologies addressing neglected and emerging diseases which disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries and to ensure civil society and community participation in the entire research process. \r\n\r\nTo support this, funders and international development agencies are called on to better align and harmonize their funding and programmes to country research and innovation for health plans and strategies, and the global health research architecture and its governance to improve coherence and impact, and to increase efficiencies and equity in research. At least 5% of development assistance funds it was felt should be earmarked for the health sector in research, including for support to knowledge translation and evaluation and for national research institutions, especially in low- and middle-income countries.\r\n\r\nFrom many quarters there has been a positive response to the call as a relevant step forward. The Lancet in its 29 November editorial declares that substantial advances have been made at Bamako on previous discussions,  and the journal calls for 2009 to be \u201cthe year when the promises of Bamako are acted upon\u201d. According to the Science and Development Network  of 20 November 2008,  the WHO has said that the Call to Action would be \"used as a blueprint for research development approaches, with commitments made to submit the communiqu\u00e9 to the 2009 World Health Assembly and to the UNESCO General Conference. Ok Pannenborg, a senior health advisor at the World Bank, said: \"The World Bank Group is extremely happy with the outcome, with its focus on research and innovation and research for health. This call will play a huge role in World Bank workings in the next four years\".\r\n\r\nThe process itself was already reported by some to have had an impact. Aissatou Tour\u00e9 from the Institute Pasteur Dakar in Senegal reported in the conference, for example, that after the Algiers meeting, a decision was made to create a commission for research in the country\u2019s health ministry, incorporating all the different actors involved in research for health to define the national research agenda for years to come.\r\n\r\nBut others were more critical: On SciDev.Net's blog on the conference one delegate asked \u201c\u201cWe\u2019re not saying anything new \u2013 what is the progress we\u2019ve made?\u201d\r\n\r\n\"There are no mechanisms in the call,\" said Damson Kathyola, director of research at the Malawian Ministry of Health, cited in the Science and Development Network review. \"The WHO should [now] create innovation mechanisms for the monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of the strategies in the call. \"We know that we need research to improve the health situation of our people in our countries. But there is a disconnect between policy and the implementers. Who's going to implement this?\"\r\n\r\nThe World Bank, WHO, UNESCO, the Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED) and the Global Forum for Health Research have committed to set up a multi-stakeholder governance mechanism for research for health, including civil society, as a platform to take Bamako beyond 2008. The intention is to better network and support existing organisations. Will this work, or will it add another player to the increasingly populated work of initiatives and alliances? And how long will this take to be felt by researchers, health workers and communities in the lowest income countries?\r\n\r\nThe need to move more rapidly to action was perhaps the most common of the frustrations voiced. On the blog site for  \u201cTropical Diseases Research to foster innovation and knowledge application (TropIKA ) \u201c,  Chris Bateman, News Editor of the South African Medical Journal is quoted as saying  \u201cLots of fine words have come out. But, as a wild thought, how would it be if each of the 42 ministers were to tell the conference what they intended to do in the next year in terms of applying research to service delivery and filling the gaps where the needs are? That to me would give the conference real bite.\u201d  Dr Lindiwe Makubalo, Ministry of Health, South Africa, added further that \u201c\u2026..it\u2019s really time to look at where the blockages are and try to move them\u201d.\r\n\r\nOne blockage observed was the relative inequality in power in research\u2013 between international funders and countries and between researchers and communities, affecting how time and resources are applied.   \u201cCould there have been more representation from the groups we (researchers + communicators about health research) claim to represent? It would have been good to know the views of such groups as well,\u201d asked one delegate. \r\n\r\nUnless these blockages to implementing practices that are increasingly called for in documents and conference rooms are honestly identified and addressed, then perhaps  BMJ Editor-in-Chief, Fiona Godlee, has basis for her more  skeptical fears that in four years time, delegates will be having the same conversations at the next conference.   Indeed, perhaps this caution, and concerns that resources now be directed to action, often at more local levels, lay behind the clause in the Bamako call to \u201cevaluate the effectiveness and value of the four-yearly ministerial fora prior to convening a further high-level inter-sectoral forum to discuss global research for health priorities\u201d. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The Bamako Call to Action on research for health: Strengthening research for health, development and equity","field_subtitle":"Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health: November 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/63gdqv","body":"Ministers and representatives of ministries of health, science and technology, education, foreign affairs, and international cooperation from 53 countries signed the Bamako Call to Action to promote health research in Africa. This document contains many references to improving the current state of affairs in Africa, where Africans are the objects of foreign research instead of conducting the research themselves. Efforts to build capacity, ensure equity, co-operate regionally, use knowledge translation, include all stakeholders and put appropriate legislation in place will be needed urgently if things are to change for Africa. The Call to Action pledges many grand promises for Africa\u2019s future and the scope of action is wide indeed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The Child Development Index 2008","field_subtitle":" Save the Children Fund: 2008","field_url":"http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/docs/child-development-index.pdf","body":"Overall, child well-being as improved by 34% since 1990, but progress is slow. Leaders must consider how children are doing and how their decisions impact them. Children are doing worse in sub-Saharan Africa than any other region. Africa scores 35 in the Index, reflecting the high level of deprivation in primary schooling, child health and child nutrition. It is also making the slowest progress, improving child well-being by only 20% over 1990-2006. However, progress has been very mixed; some countries in Africa have done incredibly well, while others did spectacularly badly. Countries like Malawi cut child deprivation in half, enrolling more than 90% of primary school children. Some of the poorest children in Africa live in countries suffering from conflict and poor governance, such as Zimbabwe, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Currency Transaction Tax: A bold solution to financing for development","field_subtitle":" North-South Institute: 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.nsi-ins.ca/english/pdf/CTT.pdf","body":"The Currency Transaction Tax (CTT) proposes a small levy on foreign exchange transactions and uses the money raised to finance development projects for the global public good. CTT is basically a tax on the benefits of globalisation. This study claims the tax would be easy to operate and difficult to evade since all foreign exchange transactions are completed in a few large centralised settlement structures. It estimated that a CTT of 0.005% on each transaction in major currencies would yield approximately US$ 33 billion. The money could be allocated for development and administered multilaterally. Critics say this tax will reduce foreign currency transactions and create inefficiencies in trading markets; however, it is specifically designed to raise money without disrupting the market.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Good Indicators Guide: Understanding how to use and choose indicators","field_subtitle":"Association of Public Health Observatories: 2008","field_url":"http://www.apho.org.uk/resource/item.aspx?RID=44584","body":"This guide is intended to be a short, practical resource for anyone in any health system who is responsible for using indicators to monitor and improve performance, systems or outcomes. After reading this guide, you should be able to assess the validity of the indicators you are working with, allowing you to exert more control over the way your organisation is properly judged, regulated and run. Underlining all this is the reality that anyone working in a health system is working in a complex and political environment. This guide aims to balance what is desirable, in terms of using indicators in the most correct and most rigorous way, with what is practical and achievable in such settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Implementation Game: The TRIPS Agreement and the Global Politics of Intellectual Property Reform in Developing Countries","field_subtitle":"Deere C: Oxford University Press, November 2008","field_url":"http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780199550616","body":"This new book provides extensive evidence and data in accessible format for researchers and policymakers in the field of intellectual property rights and gives background information on the origins of the TRIPS Agreement for readers new to the subject. For scholars of international political economy and law, it is the first detailed exploration of the links between global IP politics and the implementation of IP reforms. It exposes how power politics occur not just within global trade talks but afterwards when countries implement agreements. The Implementation Game will be of interest to all those engaged in debates on the global governance of trade and intellectual property.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The world needs to re-affirm the universality of human rights","field_subtitle":"Global Call to Action against Poverty Africa: December 2008","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/media/e-CIVICUS419-EveryHumanHasRights.pdf","body":"The Global Call to Action against Poverty Africa (GCAP Africa) secretariat celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 10 December. In partnership with the Every Human Has Rights campaign (EHHR) \u2013 spearheaded by the Elders, like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu \u2013 GCAP is calling for true reflection on the universality of these celebrated rights. It is calling on all humanity and even more so those in power to re-look their interactions and perceptions of those that are extremely marginalised and have absolutely no voice. Africans are well aware of the disparity in the application of all documents regarding human rights. The continued exodus of African people toward the West in search of \u2018better lives\u2019 is one clear manifestation of dissatisfaction in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"There is no alternative to strengthening the public role in the health system","field_subtitle":" Hanson K, Gilson L, Goodman C and Mills A: PLoS Medicine, November 2008","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050233","body":"Is private health care the answer for the world's poor? This article\u2019s starting point is that there are no strong grounds for assuming the superiority of either public or private health care. Theory dictates that it is not whether a health facility is publicly or privately owned that determines health provider performance. Instead, what influences performance is the nature of incentives that providers face and the quality of management and oversight. Theory does, however, suggest that the profit-making incentive dominant in much of the private sector is likely to be problematic for health care. Is there then scope for private providers to be paid through public financing? Past experiences all point to the significant transactions costs of such arrangements and the need for strong and capable contracting units within health ministries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"UN advisor shares her thoughts ahead of the Doha meeting on Financing for Development ","field_subtitle":"Herfkens E: 21 November 2008 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/66qavw","body":"Aid is ineffective and donors should raise the effectiveness of their aid by reducing the amount of \u2018aid\u2019 that is actually spent in donor countries themselves and by reducing the number of sectors and countries each donor tries to support. Thanks to today\u2019s financial crisis, global trade might contract for the first time in decades and demand for poor countries\u2019 exports will decline, while credit dries up, devastating poor producers\u2019 livelihoods. Rich countries should start by eliminating wasteful agricultural policies that only help their own farmers at the expense of poor people elsewhere. Limitations to market access for the poorest and most vulnerable economies must be lifted. Rich countries may promise to provide 100% free market access, but maintain restrictions that make a mockery of their commitments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal voluntary HIV testing with immediate antiretroviral therapy as a strategy for elimination of HIV transmission: A mathematical model ","field_subtitle":" Granich RM, Gilks CF, Dye C, de Cock KM and Williams BG: The Lancet, 26 November 2008","field_url":"http://press.thelancet.com/whohivmodelfinal.pdf","body":"This study investigated a theoretical strategy of universal voluntary HIV testing and immediate treatment with ART, and examined the conditions under which the HIV epidemic could be driven towards elimination. Data from South Africa was used as the test case for a generalised epidemic, and it was assumed that all HIV transmission was heterosexual. The study found that the strategy could greatly accelerate the transition from the present endemic phase, in which most adults living with HIV are not receiving ART, to an elimination phase, in which most are on ART, within five years. It could reduce HIV incidence and mortality to less than one case per 1,000 people per year by 2016. Universal voluntary HIV testing and immediate ART, combined with present prevention approaches, could have a major effect on severe generalised HIV/AIDS epidemics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Urgent need to get health workers back at their posts to tackle Zimbabwe cholera crisis","field_subtitle":"Zimbabwe Health Cluster Bulletin 1, 5 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hac/crises/zmb/sitreps/health_cluster_bulletin_5dec2008/en/index.html","body":"On 2 December, the first meeting of the enlarged Health Cluster was held at the WHO office in Harare. Afterwards, a working group met with the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare (MoHCW) to work out details of a plan to disburse a \u00a3500,000 grant from the UK Department for Development Funding DFID to attract health workers back to their posts. This money could be used to kick-start the planned incentive scheme for health workers to be launched in January 2009. Immediate aims include ensuring effective coordination among all health partners providing cholera-related interventions; increasing capacity to provide more clean drinking water in health facilities; strengthening disease reporting, monitoring and assessment under WHO leadership; and procuring more supplies. This will be followed by longer-term support for the health sector\u2019s revitalisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"US trade policy and HIV treatment: The struggle for treatment access","field_subtitle":"Petcheskey R: Id21 Insights 75, November 2008","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights75/art02.html","body":"The United States government policy has violated the human rights of people living with HIV and AIDS through its \u2018moral\u2019 restrictions prioritising abstinence-only sex education, restricting condom distribution and stigmatising sex workers. The government\u2019s close ties with pharmaceutical companies and manipulation of trade in medicines have also infringed on the human right to health by undermining international efforts to enshrine access to essential medicines as a human right. By sanitising and de-sexualising the politics of HIV and AIDS, and focusing on technocratic approaches such as biomedical quick fixes, like the recent emphasis on male circumcision, it ignores the deeply gendered, racial and sexual dimensions of the disease or its social, economic and cultural pathology.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"We must engage the private sector to improve health care in low-income countries","field_subtitle":"Smith R, Feachem R, Feachem NS, Koehlmoos TP and Kinlaw H: PLoS Medicine, November 2008","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050233","body":"This article argues that, with a complicated problem such as improving health care under constrained resources, two heads are better than one. The public and private sectors have different strengths and weaknesses, and a judicious blending of the two can produce optimal results. Indeed, there is no health system that is entirely public or private. The reality is that, in most low-income countries, most people receive most of their care from the broadly defined private sector. About 60% of the US$16.7 billion spent on health in sub-Saharan Africa in 2005 was private, most of it out-of-pocket spending by individuals, and about half of this went to private providers. Some countries are now exploring pluralistic models that partner with the private sector to serve public policy goals. These models should be encouraged and supported.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Weekly Situation Report on Cholera in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"OCHA Zimbabwe Issue number 6: 17 December 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6ag5fb","body":"The devastating cholera epidemic continues to spread, with a new outbreak in Chegutu Urban, recording more than 378 suspected cases and 121 deaths. As of 15 December, 9 out of 10 provinces (48 out of 62 districts) in the country are affected with a total count of 978 deaths and a Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of 5.3%. So far most cases have been reported in Harare / Budiriro (8,454 cases, 208 deaths and a CFR of 2.5%), followed by Beitbridge (3,456 cases, 91 deaths and a CFR of 2.6%), Mudzi (1,237 cases, 78 deaths and a CFR of 6.3%) and Chitungwiza (551 cases, 99 deaths and a CFR of 18 %). Higher CFRs have been found in other areas. Cholera continues to affect various parts of the Southern African region, with the Republic of South Africa reporting 859 cumulative cases, 11 deaths and a CFR of 1.2%, the bulk of the cases (731) reported in Limpopo province. Cases have also been reported in Botswana, Mozambique, and Zambia, albeit in much smaller numbers. According to the latest WHO figures, there have been 200 human cases of anthrax and 8 deaths reported since November with the consumption of contaminated meat identified as the most likely cause.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Who are the most vulnerable? Disaggregating orphan categories and identifying child outcome status in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Baar y J and Webb D: Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies 3(2):92\u2013101, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/59p48s","body":"This study analyses the report, Circumstances of Orphan and Non-orphan Children and their Care Providers in Mwanza, Tanzania, which sampled 1,960 children aged 6\u201319. It focuses on vulnerability indicators in children's living arrangements, education, paid work and psychosocial well-being, particularly girls, who are most vulnerable. Particular emphasis should be paid to girls within situation analyses. Vulnerabilities associated with widespread and chronic poverty underlie vulnerabilities related to demographic factors and household restructuring. Their complex interplay reiterates the need for AIDS impact mitigation measures to be built on a comprehensive and robust social protection programme that is driven by poverty reduction objectives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO calls on governments to prioritise research for health","field_subtitle":"WHO Afro, 17 November 2008","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/press/2008/pr20081117.html","body":"The World Health Organization has called on governments to prioritise health research and echoed a proposal by the Commission on Social Determinants of Health for the inclusion of health in the policies of all government ministries and departments. The call was made by WHO Director-General, Dr Margaret Chan, in a statement to the Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health Research in Bamako, Mali. Dr Chan underlined the key role of research in keeping health high on the political agenda  saying: 'We must have evidence and  we need the right kind of evidence \u2026 because in most countries, an appeal to health equity will not be sufficient to gain high-level political commitment. It will not be enough  to persuade other sectors to take health impacts into account in all policies. In matters of health, equitable access to care is a matter of life or death. When equity is at stake, the health sector must take on a proactive role, even if this means stepping into territories outside the usual domain of public health.'","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO members slow to bridge disagreements at pandemic flu meeting","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 11 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1362","body":"Four days into one-week 'critical' negotiations on pandemic influenza preparedness, World Health Organization members had yet to tackle areas of core disagreement and participants were expressing doubt as to whether consensus can be achieved before the end of the meeting. Details on the definition of 'Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (PIP) Biological Materials', on the content of a standard material transfer agreement for virus sharing and on the interconnection between a mechanism for virus-sharing and a mechanism for sharing of benefits from vaccine development have yet to be discussed or have been pushed until later in the meeting for more substantive discussion and hoped-for consensus. These interrelated topics represent core differences between member states and thus are likely to be most difficult to resolve at the WHO Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Intergovernmental Meeting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"World Social Forum 2009: It's time to build convergences ","field_subtitle":" World Social Forum: 1 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/download/2008-12-01-newsletter_EN.htm#1","body":"Registration for activities proposed for the World Social Forum (WSF) 2009 ended on 21 November and more than 2,400 activities were registered by organisations and movements from 60 countries. Now it's time to start convergences and merging among the participant organisations. The WSF is a space for exchange and strengthening of alternatives built by networks and movements from all over the world, so it's very important that all the initiatives and organisations try to build alliances. If you have registered for the Forum, it's strongly recommended that you check the list of activities proposed by other organisations before you confirm your activity (18 December) to try to establish contacts to unify activities or to build a common programme with similar initiatives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"WTO D-G challenges discontented WTO members to use TRIPS public health review","field_subtitle":"New W: Intellectual Property Watch: ","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1357","body":"Confronted with longstanding assertions that World Trade Organization rules intended to bring greater access to medicines to poor countries are not working, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy said discontented members should use the annual review of those rules if they have a complaint. In August 2003, the WTO General Council called for a resolution to the problem of countries lacking pharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities but who need to obtain cheaper medicines through a compulsory license. They created a waiver to the WTO rule that products manufactured under compulsory license must be substantially all for the domestic market. Only Rwanda has so far used the Paragraph 6 process and Lamy said no country had raised any significant concern in the annual review. But an official at the speech questioned the validity of the review process and suggested that no real review had taken place. Health activists have repeatedly said the waiver is too cumbersome to be useful and effective.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018I never had the money for blood testing\u2019: Caretakers' experiences of care-seeking for fatal childhood fevers in rural Uganda: A mixed methods study","field_subtitle":"Hildenwall H, Tomson G, Kaija J, Pariyo G and Peterson S: Health and Human Rights 8(12), 2 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698x-8-12.pdf","body":"This study explores caretakers' experiences of care-seeking for childhood febrile illness with fatal outcome in rural Uganda to elucidate the most influential barriers to adequate care. A mixed methods approach using structured Verbal/Social autopsy interviews and case narratives was employed with 26 caretakers living in the Iganga/Mayuge Demographic Surveillance Site who had lost a child 1\u201359 months old due to acute febrile illness between March and June 2006. The main barriers to care were misdiagnosis by the caregiver, gender and household financial constraints, and dissatisfaction with providers, reflecting inadequate levels of service. Poverty was identified as the underlying theme. Any improvements in basic health care for children suffering from acute febrile illness are likely to substantially reduce mortality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2009-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"African NGO forum passes resolution on the right to access to needed medicines","field_subtitle":" Human Rights and Access to Medicine Legal Education Initiative: November 2008","field_url":"http://wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/humanrights","body":"A resolution calling on the African Commission on Human and Peoples\u2019 Rights to recognise human rights to access needed medicines was passed at a meeting of African human rights organisations in Abuja, Nigeria. The NGO forum was composed of about 100 human rights organisations in Africa with observer status before the African Commission. The resolution calls on the Commission to recognise access to needed medicines as a fundamental component of the right to health and clarify the state obligations in this regard. It specifically calls on the Commission to fulfil its duty to respect, protect and enforce rights to access to medicines. This includes taking full advantage of all flexibilities in the WTO Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) that promote access to affordable medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Announcement of winners of the 2008 essay competition: Young Voices in Research for Health","field_subtitle":"Global Forum for Health Research: 18 November 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.thelancetglobalhealthnetwork.com/archives/487","body":"The Lancet, together with the Geneva-based Global Forum for Health Research, has announced the winners of the 2008 essay competition, Young Voices in Research for Health. The theme of this year\u2019s contest was research for climate change and health. Essayists were asked to devise research questions on the topic as it applies to vulnerable populations around the world. Almost 300 entries were submitted, from 66 countries. A shortlist of 42 was chosen by a team of judges from the Global Forum and The Lancet. Six winners were selected from the shortlist: Enrique Falceto de Barros (Brazil), Philippa Bird (UK), Lester Sam Geroy (Philippines), Rhona Mijumbi (Uganda), Marame Ndour (Senegal), and Charles Salmen (USA).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Are the MDGs priority in development strategies and aid programmes? ","field_subtitle":" Fukuda-Parr S: International Poverty Centre Working Paper 48, 2008","field_url":"http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/pub/IPCWorkingPaper48.pdf","body":"In this paper, the author argues that, contrary to popular belief, numerous Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and aid programmes do not adequately address the MDGs. The paper analyses the substance of 22 developing countries\u2019 PRSPs and the policy frameworks of 21 bilateral programmes. Major findings of the analysis include noting that economic growth for income poverty reduction and social sector investments (education, health and water) are important priorities in most of the PRSPs, yet decent work, hunger and nutrition, the environment and access to technology tend to be neglected. PRSPs also emphasise governance as an important means of achieving the MDGs, but they focus mostly on economic governance rather than on democratic (participatory and equitable) processes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"ART in the public and private sectors in Malawi: Results up to 30 June 2008","field_subtitle":"HIV Unit, Malawi Ministry of Health; MBCA; MSF; Area 18 Health Centre; QECH; KCH, Lilongwe; Lighthouse, Lilongwe; Mlambe Mission Hospital; SUCOMA Clinic","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/MOHaids221108.pdf","body":"This report presents data on anti-retroviral therapy (ART) in both the public and private sectors in Malawi. By the end of June 2008, there were 207 health facilities in Malawi in the public and private health sector delivering ART to HIV-positive eligible patients. In the second quarter of 2008 (April to June), there were 19,849 new patients registered on ART. Cumulative treatment outcomes by end of June were: 66% alive and on ART at the site of registration, 11% dead, 11% lost to follow-up, 12% transferred out to another facility (and were presumably alive) and ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Award: Call for nominations","field_subtitle":" British Medical Journal Group: November 2008","field_url":"http://group.bmj.com/group/events/bmj-awards/awards-form","body":"This award celebrates the work of an individual, organisation or initiative that has shown outstanding vision and impact in improving healthcare in the developing world. Only work that has been completed or published after 1 January 2007, may be entered. You are able to enter in more than one category. The closing date for entries is 12pm, Friday 19 December 2008. The expert panel of judges will be looking for the individual, organisation or initiative that has most demonstrated. To enter the Global Leadership award, you will need to complete an entry form at the above website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Back to Doha: Financing for development at stake","field_subtitle":" Valot H: e-CIVICUS 413, 31 October 2008","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/content/e-CIVICUS413-HenriValot-Back-Doha.html","body":"Doha is known for having its name attached to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Doha Development Round, the current trade-negotiation round of the World Trade Organisation which commenced in November 2001. As of 2008, talks have stalled over a divide on major issues, such as agriculture, industrial tariffs and non-tariff barriers, services, and trade remedies. Major negotiations are not expected to resume until 2009. Civil society organisations have pointed out a need for a strong regulatory framework to counter well-documented abuses, and ensure positive developmental impacts of foreign direct investment. They recommended specific mechanisms, such as country-by-country reporting to regulate transnational corporations, policies to harness the revenue from natural resource extraction and commitment to combat increasing trade and investment liberalisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Bed net usage increases, but 90 million African children still exposed to malaria","field_subtitle":"Kenya Medical Research Institute, Wellcome Trust (UK) and Oxford University: 18 November 2008","field_url":"http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/Media-office/Press-releases/2008/WTX051996.htm","body":"The use of insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) to protect children from malaria has risen six-fold in the past seven years, but 90 million children still do not have access to this simple protective tool, and remain at risk from the life-threatening disease. When African heads of state met in 2000, the Abuja Declaration stated that they would work towards protecting 60% of their vulnerable populations with insecticide treated nets. This study examines what has been achieved since. Data from 40 African countries which shows that at the time of the Abuja meeting in 2000 just over 3% of Africa\u2019s young children were protected by a treated mosquito net. Seven years later this increased to only 18.5%. The authors report that bed net use increases faster in countries that distribute them free of charge by an average of 25% compared to 4% when people have to pay for them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Beyond fragmentation and towards universal coverage: Insights from Ghana, South Africa and the United Republic of Tanzania","field_subtitle":" McIntyre D, Garshong B, Mtei G, Meheus F, Thiede M, Akazili J, Ally M, Aikins M, Mulligan J and Goudge J","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032112&PHPSESSID=71817f807209a237145b7ba70249bbce","body":"The aim of this analysis is to explore the extent of fragmentation (when a large number of separate funding mechanisms result in health inequities) and its effect on universal coverage in the health systems of three African countries: Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania. It draws on the results of the first phase of a three-year project analysing equity in the finance and delivery of health care in Ghana, South Africa and United Republic of Tanzania. The analysis presented indicates that South Africa has made the least progress in addressing fragmentation. It recommends that, to achieve universal coverage, the size of risk pools must be maximised, resource allocation mechanisms must be put in place and as much integration of financing mechanisms as possible must be done to promote universal cover with strong income and risk cross-subsidies in the overall health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Building capacity for antiretroviral delivery in South Africa: A qualitative evaluation of the PALSA PLUS nurse training programme ","field_subtitle":" Stein J, Lewin S, Fairall L, Mayers P, English R, Bheekie A, Bateman E and Zwarenstein M: BMC Health Services Research 8(24) 18 November 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6lkylm","body":"South Africa recently launched a national antiretroviral treatment programme. This has created an urgent need for nurse-training in antiretroviral treatment (ART) delivery. The PALSA PLUS programme provides guidelines and training for primary health care (PHC) nurses in the management of adult lung diseases and HIV/AIDS, including ART. A process evaluation was undertaken to document the training, explore perceptions regarding the value of the training. It found that nurse uptake of PALSA PLUS training was high. Ongoing on-site training of PHC nurses enhanced their experience of support for their work by allowing not only for ongoing experiential learning, supervision and emotional support, but also for the ongoing managerial review of all those infrastructural and system-level changes required to facilitate health provider behaviour change and guideline implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Can countries of the WHO African region \u2018wean themselves off\u2019 donor funding for health? ","field_subtitle":" Kirigia JM and Diarra-Nama AJ: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 86(11) November 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/11/08-054932/en/index.html","body":"In the debate surrounding aid effectiveness in Africa, some have suggested that these countries ought to \u2018wean themselves off\u2019 aid dependency. This paper provides five strategies that African countries can employ to eliminate the need for donor funding for health. First, they can reduce economic inefficiencies. Second, they should institutionalise economic efficiency monitoring within national health management information systems with a view to implementing appropriate policy interventions to reduce wastage of scarce health systems inputs. Third, they can reprioritise public expenditures by, for example, cutting back on military spending and raising additional tax revenues by increasing the tax share to at least 15% of gross domestic product (GDP). Fourth, more private sector involvement in health development is required and, last, the fight against corruption needs to be stepped up. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Child survival gains in Tanzania: Analysis of data from demographic and health surveys","field_subtitle":"Masanja H, de Savigny D and Smithson P: The Lancet, 2008","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems&id=40737&type=Document","body":"This report investigates the cause of a 24% drop in mortality in children under 5 years in Tanzania between 2000 and 2004. It investigated contextual factors that could have affected child mortality, in order to understand the likelihood of meeting the Millennium Development Goal for child survival (MDG 4). The observed reduction coincided with important improvements in Tanzania's health system, including a doubling of public expenditure on health, decentralisation and sector-wide basket funding, and increased coverage of key child-survival interventions, such as integrated management of childhood illness, insecticide-treated nets, vitamin A supplementation, immunisation and exclusive breastfeeding. The authors conclude that Tanzania could attain MDG 4 if this trend in improved child survival were to be sustained through increased investment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Cholera crosses the border from Zimbabwe to South Africa ","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 19 November 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81567","body":"Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic has crossed into South Africa, with four confirmed diagnoses in a total of 68 suspected cases in the border town of Musina, according to aid workers as of 19 November 2008. The cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe has flared up in several parts of the country, including the capital, Harare, and its satellite town of Chitungwiza, as a result of the collapse of water and sewerage services, worsened by uncollected refuse and the start of the rainy season. Humanitarian officials have reported that a total of 2,893 people were infected by the waterborne disease between the beginning of August and mid-November, with at least 115 deaths. The UN children's agency, UNICEF, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have also been assisting in the provision of drinking water. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society's open letter to the IMF and World Bank","field_subtitle":" Democracy in Action: 2008","field_url":"https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1678/images/GlobalLetterFINAL.pdf Civil society","body":"With many countries repaying their loans to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and not seeking new lines of credit, the institution\u2019s traditional means of generating income is dwindling. Facing a budget shortfall of US$400 million in 2010, in April, the IMF\u2019s Executive Board approved a proposal to sell some of its gold reserves. The revenue will be used to create an endowment whose earnings will assist in financing the institution\u2019s administrative budget. Civil society is writing to urge that before the Executive Board implements gold sales, it must insist on meaningful pro-development reforms in IMF policy in developing countries and attach conditions to how gold sales will occur. Over the last three decades, IMF policies have limited development, and denied opportunity and decent livelihoods to hundreds of millions of people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Coping with out-of-pocket health payments: Empirical evidence from 15 African countries ","field_subtitle":" Leive A, X: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 86(11) November 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/11/07-049403/en/index.html","body":"This paper explores the factors associated with household coping behaviours in the face of health expenditures and provides evidence for policy-makers in designing financial health-protection mechanisms. Data from the 2002\u20132003 World Health Survey was analysed. The paper found that many patients finance their health care by borrowing and selling assets, ranging from 23% of households in Zambia to 68% in Burkina Faso. High-income groups were less likely to borrow and sell assets, but coping mechanisms did not differ strongly among low-income quintiles. Households with higher inpatient expenses were significantly more likely to borrow or sell than those financing outpatient care or routine medical expenses, except in Burkina Faso, Namibia and Swaziland. In eight countries, the coefficient on the highest quintile of inpatient spending had a p-value below 0.01. In conclusion, the health financing systems of most African countries are too weak to protect households from health \u2018shocks\u2019, like unexpected health costs that require them to borrow or sell their assets. Formal prepayment schemes could benefit many households, and an overall social protection network could help to mitigate the long-term effects of ill health on household well-being and support poverty reduction.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Dangerous medicines: Unproven AIDS cures and counterfeit antiretroviral drugs","field_subtitle":"Amon JJ: Globalization and Health, 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health&id=38991&type=Document","body":"This paper looks at anecdotal evidence that unproven AIDS 'cures' are widely used, and promoted by some countries' governments, instead of evidence based antiretroviral therapy (ART). Ot focuses on reasons why these 'cures' are used, including the high cost of conventional medicine and stigma associated with accessing healthcare systems. The authors discuss case studies from Gambia, South Africa and Iran where governments have promoted unproven treatment creating confusion over the legitimacy of AIDS medicines. Governments appear reluctant to dismiss these 'cures' for fear of being seen to criticise traditional medicine. The authors conclude that the full extent of the availability and use of unproven 'cures' and counterfeit antiretrovirals (ARVs) has not been fully documented, and that more research, as well as scaling up of ARV programmes, is needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Diamond mining giant faces challenges to its voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) programme","field_subtitle":" PlusNews: 7 November 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=81343","body":"On paper, South Africa has some of the world's best HIV workplace programmes, but on the ground they just aren't adding up. Diamond mining giant De Beers has long boasted that 86% of employees at its six mines have been tested by its voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) programme. The company estimates that 10% of its workforce is HIV-positive, but markedly fewer access the antiretroviral (ARV) treatment programme. Workers' fears about confidentiality, a preference for traditional medicine and poor patient-doctor communication were all cited as challenges to raising treatment numbers, according to an ongoing study by De Beers. The research was presented by the company and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) on 6 November at the Private Sector Conference on HIV and AIDS, hosted by the South African Business Coalition on HIV and AIDS (SABCOHA). ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 66: Key issues in equitable health care financing in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D, Govender V, Buregyeya E, Chitama D, Kataika E, Kyomugisha E, Kyomuhangi R, Mbeeli T, Mpofu A, Nzenze S, Walimbwa A, Chitah B: Health Economics Unit (UCT) and EQUINET","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS66FINresmob.pdf","body":"This report provides an overview of the status of health care financing in seven East and Southern African (ESA) countries (Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe). It draws on country case-studies and a collaborative cross-country analysis undertaken at an EQUINET workshop. Health care financing issues are considered through an equity lens, with a focus on revenue collection, pooling of funds and purchasing. There remains a heavy dependency on donor funding in several countries. While debt relief initiatives are translating into increased government funding for health care in some countries, in other countries, the health sector has not benefited much from reduced debt servicing. Due to high levels of out-of-pocket payments in many ESA countries and a heavy emphasis in the tax system on VAT, individual households carry a heavy burden. Health insurance is growing in popularity, particularly community-based health insurance which has placed the financing burden on relatively poor rural communities and those living in informal urban areas. All the countries under review have poor fund pooling with little in the way of risk equalisation mechanisms, which severely limits the potential for income and risk cross-subsidies. To achieve equitable health care financing it is necessary to: eliminate, or at least reduce out-of-pocket payments; increase the funding of health services from tax revenue; and introduce mechanisms to integrate all forms of pre-payment (i.e. tax funding and health insurance).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Dispensary level pilot implementation of rapid diagnostic tests: An evaluation of RDT acceptance and usage by providers and patients in Tanzania, 2005","field_subtitle":"Williams HA, Causer L, Metta E, Malila A, O'Reilly T, Abdulla S, Kachur SP and Bloland PB: Malaria Journal 7(239) 19 November 2008\t","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6z9qgg","body":"The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) on prescribing behaviours, assess prescribers' and patients' perceptions, and identify operational issues during implementation. Baseline data was collected at six Tanzanian public dispensaries. RDTs were implemented for eight weeks and data collected on frequency of RDT use, results, malaria diagnoses and the prescription of antimalarials. The study found that overprescriptions decreased over the study period. There was a high degree of patient/caregiver and provider acceptance and satisfaction with RDTs. Implementation should include community education, sufficient levels of training and supervision and consideration of the need for additional staff.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Dynamic cost-effectiveness: A more efficient reimbursement criterion","field_subtitle":" Lundin D and Ramsberg J: Forum for Health Economics & Policy 11(2), 2008","field_url":"http://www.bepress.com/fhep/11/2/7/","body":"Basing drug reimbursement on cost-effectiveness provides too little incentives for research and development. The reason for this is that cost-effectiveness is concerned with immediate value for money. But since the price of a drug usually declines over time, the drug might well provide value for money as seen over its entire life cycle, even though its price during patent protection is too high to warrant reimbursement according to the cost-effectiveness decision rule. This paper shows in a theoretical model that welfare could be improved if decision-makers took a longer perspective and initially allowed higher prices than immediate value for money can motivate. It also discusses the real-world relevance of applying dynamic cost-effectiveness. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Eight more weeks for submission of abstracts for the EQUINET conference","field_subtitle":"Abstract submission closes January 30 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/abstract.php","body":"All abstracts for the EQUINET conference must be submitted on or before January 30 2009.  The Third EQUINET Regional Conference on Equity in Health in east and southern Africa will be held at Speke Conference Centre, Munyonyo, Kampala, Uganda  September 23rd -25th 2009. The conference theme is 'Reclaiming the Resources for Health: Building Universal People Centred Health Systems in East and Southern Africa'.  \r\nThe themes are listed in the EQUINEt website.  Sessions will be 2-3 hours in length and interactive in nature.  Presenters may be asked to present verbally, using Power-oint, or using a visual presentation of a paper using charts, photos, drawings and/or text mounted on a poster board. The sessions will include brief summary presentations of the accepted abstracts on the theme and aim to give adequate time for full facilitated discussions of work and the issues raised.  The Abstract submission form and registration form can be downloaded at the conference website. \r\nAbstracts are a maximum of 400 words and typed at MS Word documents in Arial 11pt font. The title should be no more than 50 characters including punctuation, but long enough to identify the nature of the study. Ensure the abstract provides information on the findings. Accepted abstracts will appear in print in a bound abstract book distributed at the conference, and may also be posted on the conference web site.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Ending the R&D crisis in public health: Promoting pro-poor medical innovation","field_subtitle":" Oxfam: Oxfam Briefing Paper 122, November 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6qytp4","body":"Diseases such as malaria and HIV that disproportionately affect the developing world cause immense suffering and ill health. Medical innovation has the potential to deliver new medicines, vaccines, and diagnostics to overcome these diseases, yet few treatments have emerged. Current efforts to resolve the crisis are inadequate: financing for research and development (R&D) is insufficient, uncoordinated, and mostly tied to the system of intellectual property rights. Delivering appropriate medicines and vaccines requires reforms to the existing R&D system and a willingness to invest in promising new approaches. Ultimately, it is a combined responsibility of all countries to find ways to ensure global R&D is organized to improve human health; inability to pay should not disenfranchise a large majority of the world\u2019s population from access to effective healthcare.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 94: Financial crisis, cholera crisis\u2026. A crisis of injustice ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Estimated HIV trends and programme effects in Botswana","field_subtitle":" Stover J, Fidzani B, Molomo BC, Moeti T and Musuka G:  PloSOne 3(11) November 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003729","body":"Data from sentinel surveillance at antenatal clinics and a national population survey were used to estimate the trend of adult HIV prevalence from 1980 to 2007 in Botswana. Prevalence has declined slowly in urban areas since 2000 and has remained stable in rural areas. The number of new adult infections has been stable for several years and number of new child infections has declined due to coverage of ART that reaches over 80% in need and nearly complete coverage of an effective program to prevent mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT). The need for ART will increase by 60% by 2016. Botswana's PMTCT and treatment programs have achieved significant results in preventing new child infections and deaths among adults and children. The number of new adult infections continues at a high level. More effective prevention efforts are urgently needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Estimating the lost benefits of antiretroviral drug use in South Africa","field_subtitle":" Chigwedere P, Seage GR, Gruskin S, Lee T and Essex M: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, 16 October 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5j6qw3","body":"The South African government\u2019s health department controversially declined to accept freely donated nevirapine and grants from the Global Fund, despite the fact that it is one of the countries most severely affected by HIV and AIDS, because they claimed antiretroviral (ARV) drugs were not useful for patients. This study aimed to assess the department\u2019s assertion. Using modeling, it compared the number of persons who received ARVs for treatment and prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission between 2000 and 2005 with an alternative of what was reasonably feasible in the country during that period. It calculated that more than 330,000 lives were lost because a feasible and timely ARV treatment programme was not implemented in South Africa. Thirty-five thousand babies were born with HIV, resulting in 1.6 million person-years lost by not implementing a mother-to-child transmission prophylaxis programme using nevirapine. The total lost benefits of ARVs are at least 3.8 million person-years for the period 2000\u20132005.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploring the features of universal coverage","field_subtitle":"Carrin G, Xu K and Evans DB: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 86(11) November 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/11/08-060137.pdf","body":"High levels of out-of-pocket payments have limited the ability of people to use services in poor countries. Evidence shows that removing or reducing user fees increases utilisation, at least in the short term, while out-of-pocket payments are often made by borrowing or by selling assets, putting people into debt and restricting their long-term economic survival. An important challenge therefore is to shift away from out-of-pocket payments through the development of prepayment schemes for universal coverage but, in resource-poor settings, additional funds will be critical. Some researchers claim that it is possible for developing countries to \u2018wean themselves off\u2019 international donor funding, essentially through the better use and management of domestic resources, but others believe it\u2019s impossible for them to finance universal access without donor funding.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Financial crisis, cholera crisis\u2026. A crisis of injustice ","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson, Training and Research Support Centre ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe word \u201ccrisis\u201d is becoming more common than water. Multiple crises are converging- economic, climate, energy, food and social. After a long period of speculative financial boom, media in the wealthy countries of North America and Europe are filled with apocalyptic stories of financial crisis, unnerving the people in these countries, who still collectively hold almost 90% of total world wealth. For the half of the world\u2019s adult population who own barely 1% of global wealth, however, the crisis has been going on for decades. \r\n\r\nThe chronic crisis for this significant majority of the world\u2019s people has been evident in more than a generation of unemployment, landlessness, loss of assets, and deprivation, that has further grown during the financial booms of the last decades. During a period characterised as  \u201ceconomic success\u201d in the highest income countries, malnutrition and food insecurity grew in the poorest countries in Africa, falling international prices reduced returns on production and a food supply chain increasingly controlled by a few  transnational corporations was able to further drive down producer prices, especially threatening women smallholder food producers. What was a boom for the import/ export firms, shipping companies, large-scale farm enterprises, financiers and officials who tapped into these commercial and financial circuits, was a deepening economic and social crisis for women and children.  \r\n\r\nIn 2008 attention began to be paid to this food crisis.  Like the financial crisis, the food crisis has been growing over decades of aggressive agribusiness. The scale and cost of this liberalized and speculative food production system is now, however, outstripping the possibilities of the usual emergency relief response. The alarming increase in child malnutrition in east and southern Africa post 1990 signals the failure of this model of agriculture for the populations of the region, even while it offered growing profits for largely foreign owned agribusiness. \r\n\r\nRepeated outbreaks of disease also signal that people, usually in poor communities, are bearing the brunt of failed policies. Cholera is an avoidable disease that is prevented through safe water and sanitation systems.  Zimbabwe has experienced a growing cholera crisis since August.  By the first of December the United Nations reported 11,735 confirmed cases of cholera and 484 deaths in Zimbabwe. With the decline in functioning of clean water supplies, people\u2019s mobility and a breakdown of the health sector\u2019s capacity to contain the disease, the cases and fatalities continue to rise. Notwithstanding the economic decline in the country, Zimbabwe has the national wealth to secure basic water supplies and health care.  The Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights correctly call the failure to do so a violation of human rights. \r\n\r\nThe globalization of media brings these crises to public attention with increasing speed. But does increasing awareness of such crises bring change? \r\nWhile change often emerges from crisis, the last three decades suggest that this is not inevitable, particularly if the response fails to challenge the causes of the crisis. \r\n\r\nThe current financial crisis is possibly the deepest in recent history, but not the first. When the long boom of post-war economic growth ground to a halt in the 1970s,  the response to financial decline was an aggressive  pursuit of  market policies, liberalisation and the opening of countries to transnational corporations. In the 1980s, after a spree of private bank lending, when heavily indebted countries were unable to pay back loans, the International Monetary Fund stepped into the financial crisis to bail out the Northern banks by offering loans to the indebted countries, restructuring their economies towards even greater liberalisation and market reform. These responses have generally served to protect existing wealth and the liberalised and speculative models of economic development that have both deepened inequality and that have been associated with the current crisis. \r\n\r\nThe response to the current financial crisis has starkly demonstrated the choices made over what merits protection.  We have for some time known from United Nations data that saving several million lives annually by bringing safe water and sanitation to all would cost $10 billion a year.  This money has never been found. Yet in October 2008, in one week, the US government provided a bail out package to the banks of $250 billion, 25 times this amount. \r\n\r\nWe are also seeing signs in the response of an efficient global machinery shifting the burdens of the financial and food crisis to the most vulnerable. According to the international non government organisation, GRAIN,  players in the finance market - investment, equity and other funds \u2013 are turning to land as a strategic investment asset and haven for investment funds, even while the food and fuel crisis are driving acquisition of land for wealthy populations food and fuel needs.  The organisation\u2019s website lists over 20 such large investments in African countries alone, and notes an escalating trend. This month the South Korean firm Daewoo unveiled plans to lease one million acres of land (a land area the size of Belgium) in Madagascar, to meet Korean food needs. While loss of faith in markets may be triggering business to seek these deals, and deepening financial insecurity may trigger governments in Africa to make such deals,  local farmers and communities  are least consulted, and from the evidence of trends to date, are most likely to lose control over land, food and economic security. \r\n\r\nSo while powerful interests are oddly comfortable today talking about financial, energy, food, climate and other crises, there is silence on the crisis of injustice.  \r\n\r\nThe increasing control of the world\u2019s wealth by a diminishing number of players in the face of wide deprivation of the majority of people is a crisis of injustice. The pursuit of private wealth through appropriating collective natural, social and economic resources in a manner that undermines long term survival is a crisis of injustice. The failure of governments, nationally and globally, to meet basic human rights and needs when the resources are there is a crisis of injustice. \r\n\r\nThe quest for justice thus becomes a focus of ordinary people\u2019s responses. There are many examples of this. In Zimbabwe this week, the Chitungwisa Residents and Rate Payers Association filed a lawsuit this month against the Zimbabwe National Water Authority for the lack of safe drinking water. While overshadowed by the scale of and necessary emergency responses to the cholera crisis, this action is nevertheless one by affected residents to call to account those in authority for how decisions are being made, how resources are being used and for whom power is being exercised.  In this newsletter there is similar report of health activists calling leaders of high income countries to account: \u201cFor the developed country governments now to use their dominant position in our current system of global economic governance to deal with their own (largely self-inflicted) problems, while ignoring the much greater and longer-standing grievances of the developing world and the profound and urgent global challenges of ill-health, poverty and climate change, would be a betrayal\u201d. As the legitimacy of current policies and institutions are being fundamentally challenged by the multiplicity of crises, more people are beginning to call it what it is- a crisis of injustice.  \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat, email admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Freeing up healthcare: A guide to removing user fees","field_subtitle":" Mc Pake B, Schmidt A and Araujo E: Save the Children Fund, 2008 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6nudmt","body":"This guide argues that it is both necessary and feasible to remove user fees in order to help poorer people access basic healthcare. It also looks in detail at the case of Uganda, which removed user fees (discontinuing the policy of cost-sharing) in 2001. Using data from a range of countries and worked examples, it demonstrates how to estimate the effect of removing fees on utilisation and the resulting resource requirements. It describes five steps to follow to successfully remove user fees and maximise utilisation of health services: Analyse your starting position, estimate how removing fees will affect service utilisation, estimate additional requirements for human resources and drugs, mobilise additional funding, communicate the policy change and carefully manage the communication process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"From Data to Impact: Using Health Data for Results Arusha, Tanzania January 28-29, 2009","field_subtitle":"Symposium Announcement & Call for Abstracts","field_url":"http://www.cpc.unc.edu/measure/training/workshops/country-level-workshops/tanzania","body":"Significant human and financial resources have been invested worldwide in the collection of population, facility and community-based data. However, this information is often not used by key stakeholders to effectively inform policy and programmatic decision-making. As a result, many health systems fail to fully link evidence to decisions and suffer from a decreased ability to respond to priority needs at all levels of the health system. In an effort to strengthen the links between data and decision making, MEASURE Evaluation, the Health Metrics Network, and the East, Central and Southern African Health Community (ECSA) are co-organizing a meeting January 28-29, 2009 in Arusha, Tanzania with the objectives of sharing successful experiences in using health data to improve programs and policies.  Proven approaches for improving the use of data, common challenges to data use and key priorities for creating a culture of evidence-based decision making will be shared in this two day, interactive meeting.  The meeting will include plenary presentation, group discussion and break-out learning sessions.  In addition to the symposium, a skills building session in approaches and tools to facilitate data use  will be held on January 30.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Good adherence to HAART and improved survival in a community HIV/AIDS treatment and care programme: The experience of the AIDS Support Organisation (TASO), Kampala, Uganda","field_subtitle":" Abaasa AM, Todd J, Ekoru K, Kalyango JN, Levin J, Odeke E and Karamagi CAS: BMC Health Services Research 8(241) 20 November 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6963-8-241.pdf","body":"This study assessed the effect of adherence to HAART on survival in The AIDS Support Organization (TASO) community HAART programme in Kampala, Uganda. It took the form of a retrospective cohort of 897 patients who initiated HAART at TASO clinic, Kampala, between May 2004 and December 2006. A total of 7,856 adherence assessments were performed on the data. The study study showed that good adherence and improved survival are feasible in community HIV/AIDS programmes such as that of TASO, Uganda. However, there is need to support community HAART programmes to overcome the challenges of funding to provide sustainable drug supplies, the provision of high quality clinical and laboratory support and achieving a balance between expansion and quality of services. Measures for the early identification and treatment of HIV infected people should be strengthened.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Health insurance in low-income countries: Where is the evidence that it works?","field_subtitle":" Berkhout E and Oostingh H: Oxfam, 2008 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6c85m6","body":"This report published by Oxfam examines the role of health insurance mechanisms will close health financing gaps and benefit poor people. The mechanisms discussed in this paper are private health insurance, private for-profit micro health insurance, community-based health insurance and social health insurance. It describes those mechanisms and their success or failure to deliver health rights particularly for people living in poverty. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health workers deliver petition on Zimbabwe\u2019s public health crisis ","field_subtitle":" Health workers of Parirenyatwa and Harare Central Hospital: 18 November 2008","field_url":"","body":"Health workers of Parirenyatwa and Harare Central Hospital have issued a petition for urgent action to address the prevailing crisis in Zimbabwe\u2019s public health system. Problems within public health institutions include a serious lack of medical supplies, functional equipment and drugs.  Since all hospitals and clinics are closed, Zimbabweans that fall ill have no access to health care, given the high cost of private health care. Problems facing health workers include poor salaries (which should be paid in foreign currency, not Zim dollars), rising transport costs and bad working conditions. The continued failure to address the above issues has resulted in lack of services in public health institutions and health workers failing to come to work. The workers call upon the responsible authorities to take urgent steps to remedy the situation above in consultation with the health workers concerned.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Impossible to \u2018wean\u2019 Africa off donor health funding when more aid is needed ","field_subtitle":"Ooms G and van Damme W: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 86(11) November 2008  ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/11/08-059485.pdf","body":"This paper tackles the paper by Kirigia and Diarra-Nama from the WHO Regional Office for Africa, which claims that countries in the WHO Africa Region need to \u2018wean themselves off\u2019 donor funding for health in order to meet the annual WHO target of US$40 per person required to provide universal coverage. The paper evaluated the five strategies that the Kirigia and Diarra-Nama paper proposed and dismissed all of them. It predicted their impact on eight countries and noted a reduction in military expenditure would not make a difference either, as expenditure in these countries is low. Six countries still face a huge gap between current total health expenditure and the revised target made by the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health and need more aid urgently. They can be helped through sustained international health aid, with health recognised as a human right. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Investing in sanitation is investing in human dignity, says UN expert ","field_subtitle":"United Nations: November 2008","field_url":"http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/EDE19327FC1CFB1EC125750500585054?opendocument","body":"Access to improved sanitation is a matter of human rights, says the UN. There is compelling evidence that sanitation brings the single greatest return on investment of any development intervention (roughly $9 for every $1 spent). Yet it remains the most neglected and most off-track of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets. Sanitation has been considered as the most important medical advance since 1840 \u2013 beating antibiotics, vaccines and anaesthesia. Access to sanitation is essential for people to live in dignity, yet 40% of the world still does not have basic sanitation. The scale of the crisis is enormous, according to the United Nations, which reports that 2.5 billion people do not have access to proper sanitation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenyan professionals launch e-based resource centre ","field_subtitle":" Affiliated Network for Social Accountability: 5 November 2008","field_url":"http://www.ansa-africa.net/index.php/views/news_view/kenyan_professionals_launch_e_based_resource_centre/","body":"Locally based Kenyan professionals and those in the Diaspora will now have the opportunity to exchange ideas and share knowledge following the launch of a Kenyan internet-based resource centre, the Kenya Knowledge Network (KNET). KNET will be an e-forum for debating major policy issues, where qualified subject matter specialists in the key areas of the Kenyan economy and its development management challenges can meet. The aim is to enable KNET to harness knowledge for development by establishing a community of practice, consisting of policy and research centres, professionals, policy makers and practitioners, and academics, who will participate in the formulation and management of development policies and programmes in Kenya. The website is not accessible to users just yet. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Ministers, stakeholders meet in Mali to strategise on health research systems","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 20 November 2008","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1325","body":"Ministers of health, science and technology, and social development have met with scientific researchers and representatives from foundations, the private sector and civil society at the Global Ministerial Forum on Research For Health, held in Bamako, Mali from 17\u201319 November, an event unique in bringing together high-level leadership in sectors of health research that do not always have the chance to interact. They discussed the future of research for health on diseases disproportionately affecting the developing world. The focus was on collecting and sharing accurate data to demonstrate the demography of disease and to measure the impact of programmes. With sound data, it is possible to convince people, for example, that malaria is a huge problem, and it is a problem which affects some parts of the globe more than others. The final call to action and communiqu\u00e9 are expected to be released shortly at bamako2008.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"More than 116 million people march as Stand Up Against Poverty shatters the world record for mass mobilisation  ","field_subtitle":"e-Civicus: 22 October 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/69k46e","body":"Citizens have demanded that world leaders keep promises to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and end inequality. More than 116 million people \u2013 nearly 2% of the world\u2019s population \u2013 mobilised at events in 131 countries on 17\u201319 October as part of the Stand Up and Take Action campaign. The mobilisation, which was ratified by the Guinness Book of Records as breaking the world record for the biggest mass mobilisation on a single issue, sends a clear message to world leaders that citizens want promises to end poverty to be fulfilled. At least five million additional people \u2013 many in Africa and Latin America \u2013 participated at events not submitted before the Guinness deadline. The United Nations Millennium Campaign has vowed not to stop mobilising and advocating for action until the Millennium Development Goals are achieved for the poorest people in the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Open letter to British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown","field_subtitle":" Participants of the Conference on the Social Determinants of Health: November 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/CONehs221108.pdf","body":"In this open letter, participants of the Conference on the Social Determinants of Health have called on the British Prime Minister to ensure that consideration at the forthcoming G20 meeting onthe financial crisis is not limited to the immediate problems of the banking and financial system.  Leaders should extend their review to the key global challenges of ill-health, poverty and climate change, and the anachronistic and undemocratic structure of global governance which underlies the failure of the global community to deal with these issues effectively. The letter calls for reform of the \u2018Bretton Woods\u2019 institutions to be fully inclusive of all countries, on an equal basis, and for the institurtions to reflect contemporary standards of democracy, transparency and accountability. It is only through such a system of global governance, placing fairness in health at the heart of the development agenda and genuine equality of influence at the heart of its decision-making, that coherent attention to global health equity is possible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclamando os recursos para Saude uma Analise regional da Equidade na Saude na Africa Oriental e Austral: Introducao & Sumario Executivo","field_subtitle":"A Rede de Actividade Regional para Equidade na Sa\u00fade na Africa Oriental e Austral (EQUINET): 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REA%20prelims%20PORT.pdf","body":"Temos o conhecimento, habilidade, e experi\u00eancia de superar desigualidades persistentes na sa\u00fade na Africa Oriental e Austral. Esta an\u00e1lise providencia uma mensagem inspiradora e emposada, explorando v\u00e1rios aspectos da sa\u00fade e sistemas da sa\u00fade e fornecendo muitos exemplos de boa pr\u00e1tica na regi\u00e3o. A evid\u00eancia dentro desta an\u00e1lise aponta para tr\u00eas formas em quais reclamando os recursos para a sa\u00fade pode melhorar a equidade da sa\u00fade. Estas s\u00e3o: para as pessoas pobres reclamar uma divis\u00e3o mais justa dos recursos nacionais a fim de melhorar a sua sa\u00fade; para um regresso mais justo para Africa Oriental e Austral da economia global a fim de aumentar os recursos para a sa\u00fade; e para uma divis\u00e3o mais ampla dos recursos nacionais e globais para serem investidos nos sistemas redistribuitivos da sa\u00fade a fim de superar os efeitos empobrecidos da m\u00e1-sa\u00fade. Embora a imagem de sa\u00fade da Africa Oriental e Austral est\u00e1 actualmente triste, com taxas altas de mortalidade, baixa esperan\u00e7a da vida e cargas altas de subalimenta\u00e7\u00e3o, HIV e SIDA, tuberculose (TB) e malaria, a mensagem que emerge deste livro \u00e9 uma de esperan\u00e7a e reconhecimento das nossas for\u00e7as e possibilidades para ac\u00e7\u00f5es.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Recommendations on the World Health Organisation Draft Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel ","field_subtitle":" Health Worker Migration Initiative: 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/HEAres221108.pdf","body":"Global Policy Advisory Council members have reviewed and responded to the WHO Draft Code of Practice and had a number of recommendations to make. They believe the Code needs to reflect further on World Health Assembly Resolutions 57.19 and 58.17 and to focus more strongly on mitigating the adverse effects of health personnel migration and its negative impact on health systems in developing countries. A strong preamble is needed to appropriately inform the rationale, context and vision underlying the accompanying articles. The current Code pays much attention to the role of member states generally, but the specific roles of source and destination countries, health workers, recruiters/ employers and other relevant stakeholders require further elaboration. There was wide, though not unanimous, agreement that the principle of shared responsibility is paramount: states that are global employers must help support their source countries\u2019 local health workforce. Clear implementation guidelines are lacking, specifically about how and what information must be collected. Developing countries will need technical and capacity-related assistance, otherwise they will not be able to pay the costs of implementing the Code.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional Meeting of Parliamentary Committees on Health in East and Southern Africa: Health Equity and Primary Health Care: Responding to the Challenges and Opportunities","field_subtitle":"PPD ARO, EQUINET,  APHRC, SEAPACOH, UNFPA, Venture strategies, DSW: 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REPMET0908parl.pdf","body":"This report presents the proceedings and debates at a meeting, held in Munyonyo Uganda September 16-18 2008, of parliamentary committees responsible for health from twelve countries in East and Southern Africa, with technical, government and civil society and regional partners. The meeting reviewed the health equity situation in the region in relation to regional goals (e.g. Maputo Plan of Action, Abuja Declaration) as well as international frameworks (e.g. ICPD PoA, and the MDGs). Various areas of parliamentary work were reviewed in relationto health equity and primary health care: from a budget and policy oversight lens, the meeting reviewed AIDS and sexual and reproductive health policies and commodity security, and the laws and budgets for this. The meeting explored options for fair and adequate health care financing and for promoting equitable resource allocation, particularly in relation to budget processes. The legal rolesof parliament were discussed in relation to the application of international and regional treaties and conventions on the right to health; and the measures to promote health in patenting laws and the EPA negotiations and more generally in trade agreements. the meeting also explored developments in primary health care and social empowerment in health. The report presents the resolutions of the meeting and and the proposals made to strengthen SEAPACOH regional networking and organisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Research and policies lack civil society input ","field_subtitle":"Inter Press Service: 20 November 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6dm4a4","body":"Health experts and activists have heavily criticised African governments for failing to collaborate with civil society organisations (CSOs) on health research and health policy development. Governments tend to perceive CSOs as a threat because they are independent, often critical of government and see their role as holding politicians accountable, health activists said during the World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Ministerial Forum for Health Research in Bamako, Mali. As a result, many governments ignore calls for public participation. Without inclusion of CSOs, African governments' efforts to create sustainable health systems would fail. With increased partnerships between researchers, governments and CSOs, the health agenda could be taken forward more efficiently and in a more equitable way.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Resolutions by the Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) from the 15th National Conference in Harare","field_subtitle":" Community Working Group on Health: 23 October 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/COMehs221108.pdf","body":"The CWGH made a number of resolutions after the 15th National Conference in Harare, including a demand that the right to health be included in the National Constitution. It committed itself to strengthening primary health care and district systems by lobbying for incentives and resources for community health workers from government, getting health institutions to remove high charge barriers and lobbying government for policies to retain health workers. It will also lobby the government to provide free access to safe water as a human right, as well as lobby the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on health for increased health funding and government for the fair allocation of resources at national level. Community participation should also be promoted. That CWGH will develop a proactive agenda on health issues and  forge and strengthen strategic partnership locally and regionally to take this forward, capacitate its districts to enable them to advance and monitor the implementation of these resolutions and ensure that the health delivery system is not used for partisan politics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Response to Ooms and van Damme ","field_subtitle":"Kirigia JM and Diarra-Nama AJ: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 86(11) November 2008  ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/11/08-060079/en/index.html","body":"This response to Kirigia and Diarra-Nama\u2019s paper points out that they do not propose alternative strategies to enable African countries to mobilise the funds without depending solely on donor funding. Kirigia and Diarra-Nama argue that eight countries whose current military spending is above the regional average of US$ 16 per person may have scope for savings. Thirteen countries whose tax share of GDP is less than 15% have scope for raising additional revenue by improving efficiency of their tax administration systems. The amounts, however small, are not insignificant in these countries where more than 60% of the population live below the international poverty line of US$1 per person per day. The effectiveness of international aid should also be judged on the extent to which it helps recipient countries to \u2018wean themselves off\u2019 external donor funding.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"S\u00e9ries Politicas 19:  Ser\u00e1 que estamos a fazer progressso em alocar  equitativamente os recursos da sa\u00fade do governo na Africa Oriental e Austral?","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D, Chitah M, Mabandi L, Masiye F, Mbeeli T, Shamu S: 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/POLBRIEF19FINportuguese.pdf","body":"Os diferentes distritos, regi\u00f5es e prov\u00edncias num pa\u00eds t\u00eam diferentes necessidades de sa\u00fade e recursos dispon\u00edveis dos cuidados da sa\u00fade. Os fundos do governo justamentamente distribu\u00eddos para a sa\u00fade assim chamam para uma formula que calcula a divis\u00e3o dos recursos totais para seremalocados para \u00e1reas baseadas sobre indicadores da necessidade relativa para cuidados da sa\u00fade naquela \u00e1rea. Muitos pa\u00edses na regi\u00e3o usam tais formul\u00e1rios. Eles usam diferentes indicadores da necessidade de sa\u00fade, incluindo a capacidade populacional e a sua composi\u00e7\u00e3o, os n\u00edveis da pobreza, doen\u00e7as espec\u00edficas e mortalidade. Revelando experi\u00eancia em certos pa\u00edses selecionadodentro da regi\u00e3o, esta breve pol\u00edtica sugere que os pa\u00edses podem fortalecer uma aloca\u00e7\u00e3o equitativa dos recursos para a sa\u00fade atrav\u00e9s de aumentar a cota global do financiamento do governo alocada ao sector da sa\u00fade, trazendo ajuda externa e o financiamento do governo num s\u00f3 conjunto de fundose aloca-los atraves dum mecanismo simples. Aloca\u00e7\u00e3o de recursos equitativos chama para os governos estabelecer alvos anuais para aloca\u00e7\u00e3o equitativa destes fundos p\u00fablicos, e colecionainforma\u00e7\u00e3o para monitorar e reportar sobre progresso em alcan\u00e7ar estes alvos, incluindo parliamentos e sociedade civil. Aloca\u00e7\u00e3o de recursos \u00e9 um processo politizado e requer umcuidadosa, incluindo, planificar, oraganizar e providencia de incentivos para a re-distribui\u00e7\u00e3o do pessoal de cuidados da sa\u00fade para \u00e1reas onde a necessidade da sa\u00fade \u00e9 alta.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"S\u00e9ries Politicas 20: Alcan\u00e7ando a a promess: O progresso sobre o compromisso da Abuja de 15% dos fundos do governo para a sa\u00fade","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D, Loewenson R, Govender V: 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/POLBRIEF20ABUJAportuguese.pdf","body":"No ano 2001, em Abuja na Nigeria, os Chefes dos estados membros da Uni\u00e3o Africana comprometeram para alocar ao menos 15% de or\u00e7amentos dos governos para seus sectores da sa\u00fade. Ao mesmo tempo chamaram os pa\u00edses doadores para complementar seus esfor\u00e7os a fim de mobilizar domesticamente os recursos atrav\u00e9s de cumprirem o seu compromisso de dedicar 0.7% do seu PBN como AOD para os pa\u00edses em via de desenvolvimento e cancelar a d\u00edvida externa da Afica em favor Do aumento de investimento no sector social. O alvo de Abuja, assim, consiste de tr\u00eas componentes; os pa\u00edses Africanos deveriam: mobilizar os recursos dom\u00e9sticos para a sa\u00fade (15% agora); estar n\u00e3o sobre-carregado pela presta\u00e7\u00e3o de contas do d\u00e9bito (Cancelamento de D\u00e9bito agora); e ser apoiada pela AOD (0.7% PBN agora).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Team of experts form WHO Working Group on Intellectual Property and Neglected Diseases","field_subtitle":" Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 19 November 2008","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1323","body":"The World Health Organization has released a long-awaited list of high-level experts tasked with finding innovative funding mechanisms for needed medical research on neglected diseases. The list largely contains governmental and intergovernmental representatives, and first reactions to it have been generally positive. The creation of this \u2018results-oriented and time-limited\u2019 expert group was a key outcome of the WHO\u2019s global strategy and plan of action on public health, innovation and intellectual property, approved at World Health Assembly in May. The 24-member body will look at the current financing and coordination of research and development, as well as proposals for new and innovative sources of funding to stimulate research and development in diseases which disproportionately effect developing countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The case for public intervention in financing health and medical services ","field_subtitle":" Mathonnat J: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 86(11) November 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/11/08-055707/en/index.html","body":"This article reviews Klarman\u2019s classic article \u2018The case for public intervention in financing health and medical services\u2019. Government intervention still plays an essential role in most public health actions but the links between public health expenditure and health improvement are tenuous and econometric analyses have yielded widely divergent results, leading us to the highly consensual formula that \u2018it is not enough merely to increase expenditure on health\u2019. Contemporary analyses agree that efforts to strengthen health systems or to control neglected diseases are underfunded. Increased expenditure on health will be a source of employment for the surplus workforce of the manufacturing sector and the health industry will be the driving force of tomorrow\u2019s economy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The CWGH @ 10: In Pursuit of Equity in Health through People Centred Health Systems","field_subtitle":"Itai Rusike, Community Working Group on Health ","field_url":"","body":"\r\n\u201cWe demand the inclusion of the Right to Health in the new Zimbabwe constitution!\u201d \r\n\r\nThis was the slogan at the Community Working Group on Health 15th national conference. The conference was held in October 2008 in Harare and coincided with the organisation\u2019s 10th anniversary celebrations. \r\n \r\nThe CWGH was born in early 1998, to lead and give visibility to community processes in health.  Ten years later over ninety participants attended the conference, including CWGH national members, partners, activists, health cadres and Health Literacy facilitators from 21 of the  25 CWGH districts. The conference reviewed the path that the CWGH has walked through the past ten years.  We noted that as much as the CWGH has over the years positioned itself as a voice in the health sector and built community power, still the health sector has continued to deteriorate. The current socio-economic and political environment has not only perpetuated the deterioration, but has also made it increasingly difficult for civil society to offer alternatives for health problems. It was thus noted that the network needed to not only strengthen the existing structures and processes in the network, but also to re-strategise on how best to use these to engage on and advance health under the prevailing harsh environment. \r\n \r\nAt the conference our health literacy facilitators from 21 districts reviewed the work they were doing to widen social awareness and action on health. Despite the political volatility, we heard from district after district that of actions being taken, including in engaging with the political leadership on health issues. The work of the facilitators has increased the involvement of communities in health actions within communities and around Primary Health care, whether within the community on environmental health, or mobilising resources to support health centres. These are being done through community level initiative with limited external support. It was clear to us that we need to strengthen the programme and these cadres, to cement the work we are doing at community level and translate information into action.\r\n\r\nOne of the clearest messages was to revive the Primary Health Centre (PHC) concept and comprehensive PHC , if there is hope for change in the health sector. Mary Sandasi, a CWGH national member pointed to the relevance of PHC even 30 years after the Alma Ata declaration to re-build the declining health sector, particularly as it puts the people at the centre of the health system. The CWGH will consistently engage with stakeholders and government to make PHC a more central policy principle, and we will strengthen community structures such as health centre committees and boards and committees at district and national level to organise public efforts to achieve this principle. \r\n\r\nAs the health sector deteriorates, the gap between rich and poor has continued to widen. Poor people struggle to access health,  and higher income groups claim a larger share of public health sector resources. We see  EQUINET\u2019s \u2018Reclaiming Resources for Health\u2019 book as a resource to inform how we can address unfair, avoidable differences in health. For example, the CWGH has over the past decade taken up equity issues with the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health (PPCH), the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare (MoHCW) and other stakeholders to push for resources to go to services that support poor communities.  We have for many years raised attention to the need for more resources to go to disease prevention, for example, and continue to see this as an issue, to ensure  that we have safe living environments and communities. \r\n\r\nWhile we commemorated our tenth anniversary, it was difficult to call it a celebration given the collapse of our  health care delivery system.  What we did celebrate was the dedication and commitment that people have put into the organisation and the struggle for health in the past ten years. The CWGH has grown to be a prominent voice in health, has won the hearts of many to champion peoples health issues and has given greater profile to the positive force that people provide in dealing with health problems. We have grown from strength to strength, but so too have the challenges we face!\r\n\r\nTo back our efforts to address these, the CWGH membership unanimously endorsed that the network champion the right to health, and push its inclusion in the production of a new Zimbabwe constitution. Taking the theme for the year; \u2018CWGH @ 10: In Pursuit of Equity in Health through People Centred Health Systems\u2019 we see that embedding the right to health in our constitution will give us the bottom line we need to make it clear that everyone has a claim to health and health care, no matter what the economic, socio-political, race, creed, gender or other feature.  It will be a right that we will fight to include, through social action, and that we will ensure is not left on paper, but protected and promoted, through social action. \r\n\r\nFurther information on Community Working Group on Health can be found at www.cwgh.org.zw.  Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat, email admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of aid in the long term ","field_subtitle":"Masiye F: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 86(11) November 2008  ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/11/08-058156/en/index.html","body":"There is no good reason why a country with an income of US$366 per capita cannot afford to increase its domestic health spending from US$20 to US$34. It is the value of forgone alternative benefits (as perceived through either collective decision making or unilateral decisions of political authority) that puts a limit on how much a society can spend on health, not some health expenditure-GDP ratio technical limit. Further, general lessons of experience from parts of east and south-east Asia and Latin America show that, as countries experience substantial broad-based economic and social progress, greater health funding becomes feasible. Such a situation requires time, but has been realised in these countries within about 20 to 40 years. The author believes it will take a long time to reduce the high dependency on donor aid, but Africa should aim to increase domestic resource mobilisation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of leadership in human resource development in challenging public health settings","field_subtitle":" Schiffbauer J, O'Brien J, Timmons BK and Kiarie WN","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6bbxyu","body":"This article profiles three leaders who have made a significance difference in the HR situation in their countries. By taking a comprehensive approach and working in partnership with stakeholders, these leaders demonstrate that strengthening health workforce planning, management, and training can have a positive effect on the performance of the health sector. Three profiles are presented, from Afghanistan, South Africa and southern Sudan, revealing common approaches and leadership traits while demonstrating the specificity of local contexts. In the South African profile, Dr. Mahlathi, Deputy Director General of Human Resources for South Africa's national Department of Health (DOH) is discussed. South Africa will need a multisectoral approach, with strong health management and leadership and additional human and financial resources to help meet the needs of its citizens.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health:Looking back and moving forward","field_subtitle":"International Federation of Health and Human Rights Organisations: September 2008","field_url":"http://www.humanrightsimpact.org/fileadmin/hria_resources/HeRWAI_Centre/Report_SRRH_Symposium_25-27_September_2008.pdf","body":"In the past six years the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Human Rights Centre have prepared an impressive body of reports offering detailed analyses on elements of the right to health. They have developed a framework for analysis of health-related issues that had so far not been studied from a human rights perspective. A September 2008 symposium reviewed these themes and strategies and made suggestions for further research and implementation. The meeting covered health systems and the right to the highest attainable standard of health, mainstreaming a human rights-based approach to health and the Special Rapporteur\u2019s missions and reports, such as those on community participation and HIV and AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda\u2019s draft HIV bill's good intentions could backfire ","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 24 November 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=81636","body":"AIDS activists in Uganda have criticised a proposed new law that will force HIV-positive people to reveal their status to their sexual partners, and also allow medical personnel to reveal someone's status to their partner. The HIV Prevention and Control Bill (2008) is intended to provide a legal framework for the national response to HIV, as well as protect the rights of individuals affected by HIV. While activists agree that Uganda needs legislation to guide its HIV policy, they are concerned that the bill in its current form could worsen the difficulties many HIV-positive people experience, such as stigmatisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal coverage of health services: Tailoring its implementation ","field_subtitle":" Carrin G, Mathauer I, Xu K and Evans DB: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 86(11) November 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/11/07-049387/en/index.html","body":"In 2005, the member states of WHO adopted a resolution to develop health financing systems to deliver universal coverage of health services by moving away from out-of-pocket payments and developing prepayment methods instead. This paper proposes a comprehensive framework, focusing on health financing rules and organisations, that countries can use to achieve universal coverage. For many countries, it will obviously take some years to achieve the goal and their responses will be determined partly by their own histories and the way their health financing systems have developed to date, as well as by social preferences relating to concepts of solidarity. The proposed framework considers fund collection, pooling and purchasing/provision separately, as well as the links between the three functions to indicate what rules need to be modified or developed and where organisational capacity should be strengthened.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO DG Remarks at the United Nations General Assembly: Panel discussion on globalisation and health ","field_subtitle":" Chan M: United Nations, 24 October 2008 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5m4wbh","body":"In her speech, World Health Organization General Secretar Dr Margaret Chan referred to the current global economic crisis and its consequences for the health sector. The health sector had no say when the policies responsible for these crises were made, yet it bears the brunt. The remarks point to the high level of preventable disease and lack of access to health care services, and to massive inequalities in resources for health. For 5.6 billion people in low- and middle-income countries, more than half of all health care expenditure is through out-of-pocket payments. With the costs of health care rising and systems for financial protection in disarray, personal expenditures on health now push more than 100 million people below the poverty line each year. Last week, WHO issued its annual World Health Report which documents a number of failures and shortcomings that have left the health status of different populations, both within and between countries, dangerously out of balance. The WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health report challenges governments to make equity an explicit policy objective in all government sectors. \"Equity in access to health care comes to the fore as a way of holding globalization accountable, of channelling globalization in ways that ensure a more fair distribution of benefits, a more balanced and healthy world\". ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Women-led NGOs make the difference","field_subtitle":" Maro I: Daily News, 4 November 2008 ","field_url":"http://dailynews.habarileo.co.tz/home/index.php?id=8232","body":"This article discusses the exemplary leadership women have displayed in organisations they lead in Tanzania, such as women-led organisations like the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP), Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (TAWLA), Women in Legal Aid Committee (WILAC), Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), Medical Women Association of Tanzania (MEWATA), Equal Opportunities Trust Fund (EOTF), Wanawake na Maendeleo (WAMA) and the Tanzania Media Women Association (TAMWA). All these organisations have well-established constitutions-legally-binding documents that guide their operations, permanent premises, dynamic organisational structures and transparency in their operations as well as clean certificates of books of accounts. The organisations\u2019 activities are generally recognised by the government, general public and the international community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Workshop report: Protecting health and equitable health services in the Economic Partnership Agreements in east and southern Africa, 18 and 18 September 2008, Munyonyo, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI); Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC), 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REPMTG0908EPA","body":"This workshop brought together civil society, parliamentarians, human rights commissions, trade and health ministries officials to review and deliberate on protection of health and access to health care services in the ongoing EPA negotiations, and particularly in the services negotiations. The meeting updated on current health and trade issues, including patenting laws and the EPA negotiations and more generally legal frameworks for ensuring protection of public health in trade agreements. Delegates reviewed a technical analysis report on the services negotiations in the Economic Partnership Agreements and developed positions to be advanced for the protection of public health in trade agreements and specifically negotiating positions on the services negotiations. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe Cholera and health situation - 1 December 2008","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hac/crises/zmb/appeal/who_response_and_needs_1dec2008/en/index.html","body":"Zimbabwe\u2019s overall health service has been steadily declining for the last five years. The Zimbabwean health service today is wracked by critical shortages of essential drugs and skilled and experienced personnel. Another challenge is there has been no comprehensive assessment of Zimbabwe\u2019s health system since 2006, making it difficult to assess its true state. Also, its disease surveillance and early warning system, which depends on a weekly epidemiological system, has been compromised in terms of timeliness and completeness of data, which is only around 30%. Universal access to basic health services is compromised due to deteriorating infrastructure, staffing and financial resources. Reactivating primary health care services should keep being addressed as a matter of emergency. Zimbabwean health facilities face a massive gap \u2013 estimated this year at 70% \u2013 in required medicines due to reduced local manufacturing capacity, which has been weakened by a lack of foreign currency. This is despite support received from different partners through UNICEF\u2019s procurement systems. A large cholera outbreak is affecting most regions of the country, with more than 11 700 cases and 473 deaths recorded between August and 30 November. This represents a case fatality rate (CFR) of 4.0% nationally, but reached 50% in some areas during the early stages of the outbreak. The CFR benchmark should be below 1%. Cholera outbreaks in Zimbabwe have occurred annually since 1998, but previous epidemics never reached today\u2019s proportions. The last large outbreak was in 1992 with 3000 cases recorded.  Cholera cases have also been reported either side of Zimbabwe\u2019s border with South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique, demonstrating the subregional extent of the outbreak. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"'Public-private partnerships fail to involve African researchers'","field_subtitle":"Tucker TJ and Makgoba MW: Science 320(5879):1016-1017, 23 May 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5b63vl","body":"Diseases that dominate the health of most African populations, such as AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, have always received a small proportion of the global financial support available for medical science and health interventions. Of the 1393 new drugs approved in the 25 years before 2000, only 13 were specifically indicated for tropical diseases. Health-related public-private partnership organisations have been supported for decades by the traditional public-sector research funding bodies. These major public-sector funding bodies are located in developed countries and, although the situation is changing, direct access to funding has historically been very difficult (or legally impossible) for researchers from developing countries. As a result, even where developing-country researchers have received research funds from such agencies, most of the funding has been channeled through host country institutions. This creates a dependency relationship, as well as multiple bureaucratic hierarchies in administering such grants.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"A focus on Primary Health Care ","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Steering Committee","field_url":"","body":"The last two issues of EQUINET news have given focus to Primary Health Care  (PHC), noting the thirty year anniversay of the Alma Ata declaration on PHC in 1978. The PHC philosophy recognises the need to tackle the broader social and political determinants of health, and involves wide-ranging action to promote health equity. It is focused on improving population health and generating health equity; on inter-sectoral action to address other social determinants of health and is based on social empowerment and comprehensive, integrated and appropriate health care, that emphasises health promotion and prevention and assures first contact care. EQUINET thus sees PHC oriented health systems as a basis for improving equity in health and in access to health services.  This month we are making available on our website in electronic form our book \"Reclaiming the Resources for Health\", a resource that gives the argument for people centred, PHC oriented health systems in east and southern Africa. We report on the resolutions of an important meeting of parliaments health in east and southern Africa held in September 2008 on health equity and PHC, and we present new evidence gathered and methods for advancing PHC oriented health systems. We also present two editorials from our joint issue with Pambazuka news on PHC: Thirty years on. We invite comment and input on PHC in east and southern Africa to admin@equinetafrica.org!","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid agencies say rich countries are blocking anti-poverty economic action","field_subtitle":" Ekklesia: 25 September 2008","field_url":"http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/7744","body":"While world leaders gathered in New York for a high-level meeting last month in New York on the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), international development agencies, including Britain's Christian Aid, warned that progress is being hampered by the activities of rich countries and big business. Christian Aid said that the problems were due to short-sighted trade liberalisation imposed on poor countries and the use of offshore havens by transnational corporations to reduce their tax liabilities in the developing world, grievously undermining international aid efforts. The aims of the MDGs were wholly desirable but rich countries were likely to argue about how much more aid they could afford, instead of addressing trade liberalisation and offshore havens. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research Newsletter 16","field_subtitle":"Alliance-HPSR, October 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/Alliance%20HPSR_Newsletter16_ENG.pdf","body":"This newsletter highlights areas of work for the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (Alliance-HPSR), including the Bamako Ministerial Forum on Research for Health; identifying priority research questions; enhancing policy maker capacity to use evidence; and the International Health Partnership and what it means for health systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Alma-Ata after 30 years: Still relevant for Africa?","field_subtitle":"Rotimi Sankore, Coordinator,  Africa Public Health Alliance & 15% Now Campaign","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn the context of Africa\u2019s present health crisis, only people suffering from policy blindness can fail to see that Africa\u2019s survival as a continent depends on going beyond merely declaring emergencies, and actually financing and implementing universal primary health care (PHC).\r\n\r\nIn September 1978, the International Conference on Primary Health Care was held in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, then part of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR). Led by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the conference produced the Alma-Ata Declaration, which underlined the need for governments to protect the health of all citizens and emphasised that health for all is both a socio-economic (or development issue), and also a human right. The conference also highlighted the inequalities between developed and developing countries, and between the elite and ordinary people within countries.\r\n\r\nOne of the most significant outcomes of the conference through the Alma-Ata Declaration identified primary health care as \u2018the most efficient and cost effective way to provide health care\u2019. This has been recently reemphasised by the current Director General of the WHO Dr Margaret Chan.\r\n\r\nGoing by its definition of \u2018essential health care based on practical, scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technology made universally accessible to individuals and families in the community through their full participation\u2019 and the principle that \u2018[h]ealth services must be shared equally by all people irrespective of their ability to pay and all (and rich or poor, urban or rural) must have access to health services\u2019, it was assumed at the time that with effective implementation PHC would lead to health for all by the magical year 2000.\r\n\r\nBased also on the understanding of health agencies, professionals and academic institutions that \u2018primary health care needs to be delivered close to the people\u2019 through \u2018maximum use of both lay and professional health care practitioners\u2019, experts have distilled down the basic principles of primary health care to several core factors, including: \u2022 Public education for the identification, prevention, and control of prevailing health challenges \u2022 Education on and provision of proper food supplies and nutrition, including adequate supply of safe water and basic sanitation \u2022 Provision of maternal and child care, including sexual and reproductive health education, and family planning \u2022 Immunisation and vaccinations against major infectious diseases. \u2022 Prevention and control of locally endemic diseases \u2022 Appropriate treatment of common diseases using the most up-to-date, cost effective and appropriate technology \u2022 Promotion of mental, emotional and spiritual health \u2022 Provision of essential drugs and commodities.\r\n\r\nIt cannot be emphasised enough that these primary health care principles can only be possible through long-term sustainable and combined financing of both health systems, and disease specific interventions. The phantom debate over \u2018health systems versus disease specific interventions\u2019 is a false one and a diversion equivalent to asking if food is more important than water to human life. It should be reasonably obvious that health systems without medicines and commodities are as useless as medicines and commodities without health systems. This applies to all health issues, whether malaria, TB or HIV/Aids.\r\n\r\nSustainable and long-term health financing must therefore mean identifying the specific challenges and obstacles to primary health care, and on the basis of costed plans work out clear and timely frameworks for resolving these obstacles. In addition to disease specific and wider health system challenges, this includes focusing on the resolution of key obstacles such as the lack of policies and financing sustainable plans for reproductive and sexual health, and resolving Africa\u2019s critical health workforce shortage.\r\n\r\nThis editorial comes from the joint EQUINET newsletter issue with Pambazuka for the thirty years of Primary Health Care.  The Africa Public Health Alliance & 15% Now Campaign  engages African governments, global and African and institutions on implementation of the AU Africa Health Strategy, Health MDGs and fulfilling the AU Abuja pledge to allocate 15% of domestic national resources to health. For further information on the issues raised contact admin@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Alternative world health report calls for radical change","field_subtitle":"Global Health Watch 2: launched 16th October","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/ghw2/ghw2_flyer_eng.pdf","body":"Civil society organizations and scientists from around the world are calling for 'a new development paradigm' to address the toxic combination of climate change, growing poverty and inequality and poor health. The new report, Global Health Watch 2, says that unfair social and economic policies combined with bad politics are to blame for the poor state of the health of millions of people in the world.  The report makes stinging criticisms of key global actors, and calls on governments to stop the Bank from meddling in health politics. Global Health Watch 2 provides examples of civil society mobilization across the world for more equitable health care and more health promotion, although more is needed to bring about significant improvements in health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"ART in the public and private sectors in Malawi: Results up to 31 March 2008","field_subtitle":"Ministry of Health Malawi","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ARTaids231008.pdf","body":"Anti-retroviral therapy (ART) scale up in Malawi continues to progress well. Sites are doing well, despite the increasing burden of work. The majority are taking the initiative of doing quarterly and cumulative cohort analysis, although nearly one third of sites are still not coming up with correct outcomes. This will require continued and regular vigilance and supervision. The treatment outcomes for ART are reasonable. Early death rates are still a problem, and defaults still constitute a significant proportion of the outcomes. ARV drug stocks were again assessed, and nationally drugs stocks are adequate. However, some sites are over-performing to a large extent and causing problems with drug stocks (both for starter packs and continuation packs). The quarterly drug stocktaking assists in the activity of re-distributing drugs from under- to over-performing sites. Some drugs for HIV-related diseases, particularly morphine and vincristine, are out of stock in most facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Bringing population health back into primary health care ","field_subtitle":"Chan Chee Khoon: Universiti Sains Malaysia","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn 1974, four years before the International Conference on Primary Health Care (PHC) was convened in Alma-Ata, USSR, the Canadian Ministry of National Health and Welfare published the Lalonde Report, named after the incumbent Liberal Party health minister Marc Lalonde. \r\n\r\nTaking its cue from Thomas McKeown\u2019s findings on the historical decline of tuberculosis mortality in England and Wales, the Lalonde Report challenged the presumption that improvements in human health by and large flowed from advances in (bio)medical knowledge, feeding through to professional practice and individual care.\r\n\r\nMcKeown\u2019s writings on the main drivers of population growth and mortality decline in the early industrializing countries spawned vigorous debates. In addition to economic growth and improvements in food intake and nutritional status which McKeown himself highlighted, others argued also for the population health impacts of birth spacing and family size, housing and sanitary reforms (sewage disposal), and clean water and safe milk supplies (pasteurisation and eradication of bovine TB from livestock herds).\r\n\r\nMortality from typhus fever, a major killer in the 19th century, had shown continuous decline over the ensuing decades in the UK, such that by 1906, three years before Charles Nicolle discovered that the body louse transmitted typhus, London County Council reported no more deaths from that disease. Typhus fever, closely associated with poverty, poor housing, overcrowding, and poor hygiene was much less common among the middle and upper classes in 19th century England. Its decline was arguably linked to the increased availability of public baths, wash-houses, and widening use of cotton clothing, particularly underwear, which allowed for improved personal cleanliness.\r\n\r\nSonja and John McKinlay similarly concluded from their historical analyses that the fall in infectious diseases between 1900-1973, which accounted for 69% of the overall decline in US mortality during that period, could only be explained to a very limited extent (about 3%) by medical intervention. \r\n\r\nIn retrospect, the Lalonde Report might perhaps be judged prophetic (or lucky), given the as yet limited evidence base which might have restrained a more cautious technocracy professing evidence-based policy and practice. In any case, the thesis was reinforced by subsequent findings from Sweden, France, Ireland, and Hungary, which supported the view that social and environmental changes were the key factors in their decline in infectious mortality.\r\n\r\nBy the time of the Alma-Ata declaration, these findings from medical history and population healh were resonating strongly with more contemporary experiences from community-based primary health care in China, Bangladesh, Kerala, and Cuba. Notably, both perspectives shared a similarly broad vision of disease causation, rooted in what might be called a social ecology of health and disease.\r\n\r\nPopulation health strategies in particular, according to the Canadian Advisory Committee on Population Health, address the entire range of factors that determine health, in contrast to traditional health care which focuses on risks and clinical factors related to particular diseases. Population health strategies furthermore are designed to affect the entire population, rather than individuals one at a time who already have a health problem or are at significant risk of developing one.\r\n\r\nBy the late 1980s, critics had highlighted weaknesses in the arguments of McKeown: the relative contributions of fertility and mortality changes to population growth during the period in question, the early conflation of TB mortality with pneumonia and bronchitis (affecting the timing of TB\u2019s decline), the under-emphasis of water supply and sanitary reforms from the 1870s on, and to a lesser extent, the contribution of isolation and quarantine to the control and reduction of infectious disease. The decline of child labor (and its associated early life effects on adult health) has been proposed more recently as a contributory factor from the 1850s onwards, but this too is contested.\r\n\r\nOn the limited contribution of medical interventions to population health however, there was much less disagreement. Simon Szreter, who had played a prominent role in the critical re-appraisal of McKeown\u2019s work, summed up the consensus thus: \u2018The medical profession\u2019s scientific leaders have, since McKeown\u2019s time, had to change their tack and concentrate on the future, rather than the past, as the field in which they can stake the claim that they can save humanity from all its ailments with science.\u2019\r\n\r\nIn less grandiose terms, the claim might be more plausible in the less developed countries, which still had (and for many still continue to have) large burdens of infectious disease in the mid-20th century, at a time when modern biomedical science in principle could have had a more significant impact on public health and in patient care (with vaccines, antimicrobials and control of disease transmitting organisms). \r\n\r\nThe availability of diagnostics and the ongoing campaigns for access to anti-retrovirals for instance testify to the potential impact of biomedical science for the public health control of the HIV pandemic. Access to lifesaving treatment for infected individuals is emphatically a moral and ethical imperative. But a public health approach to anti-retroviral treatment goes beyond an individual focus. Equally important, the availability of effective therapy may in some situations encourage those at high risk to come forward for voluntary testing, and hence reduce the pool of infected-but-unaware individuals who constitute one of the drivers of the pandemic. \r\n\r\nIt is nonetheless noteworthy that the population health perspectives pioneered and promoted by McKeown and Lalonde continue to be relevant to modern epidemics. The SARS epidemic outbreak of 2002-2003 subsided largely in the absence of reliable diagnostics, vaccines, or efficacious therapies, notwithstanding the rapid success in isolating and sequencing the SARS coronavirus. Its control was credited to established public health measures such as isolation, contact tracing, ring fencing, and quarantines, and the economic and financial stakes involved ensured that SARS would not be a \u2018neglected disease\u2019. \r\n\r\nLikewise, the Nipah outbreak in Malaysia (1998-1999) was rapidly brought under control without vaccines or efficacious therapies, once the modes of transmission were established. The knowledge that Nipah encephalitis was linked to a newly recognised paramyxovirus which could be transmitted through close proximity to live, infected pigs but not via insects, or suspended airborne particulates, or contact with raw or prepared meats (ascertained from virological studies, field epidemiology, and clinical medicine), allowed for its rapid control in humans, even as this control decimated the pig farming industry in parts of Southeast Asia. \r\n\r\nThese recent experiences, thirty years on, teach us that modern biomedical science has an important integral role to play in informing the social ecological perspective which undergirds PHC for the 21st century. \r\n\r\nIn appraising this contribution of modern biomedical science to disease control and population health, it is, however, useful to distinguish between its contribution to knowledge-based practices and coping responses, as opposed to an undue focus on commodifiable consumables. This distinction (neatly demonstrated by the Nipah example) is especially pertinent in ensuring that advances in biomedical science in support of PHC are not left the strategic priorities of market-driven research and product development, but are backed by publicly funded and rationally deployed needs-driven research in the biomedical sciences.\r\n\r\nThis editorial comes from the joint EQUINET newsletter issue with Pambazuka for the thirty years of Primary Health Care. For further information on the issues raised contact admin@equinetafrica.org or ckchan50@yahoo.com.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: International Health Economics Association meeting in Beijing: 12-15 July 2009","field_subtitle":"Alliance-HPSR Newsletter 16, October 2008","field_url":"http://www.healtheconomics.org/congress/2009/","body":"The Seventh World Congress on Health Economics will be taking place in Beijing 12-15th July 2009 on the theme 'Harmonizing Health and Economics'. Submission of abstracts and session proposals is open until 15 November 2008. This forum is accepting an increasing proportion of abstracts from low and middle income countries. More information about the topics and pre-congress symposiums is available on the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals: Enhancing capacity to apply research evidence in policy making","field_subtitle":"Alliance-HPSR Newsletter 16, October 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/callsforproposals/Alliance%20HPSR_Joint_Call_WellcomeTrust.pdf","body":"The Wellcome Trust and the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research recognise the importance of using health research evidence in policymaking. This joint call for proposals is focused on low income countries and intends to build much needed capacity to strengthen links between research and policy making. Proposals are invited from groups based in low income countries to: Develop and implement innovative interventions that enhance policy maker capacity and/or civil society capacity to employ health policy and systems research evidence in policy making and policy dialogue; and conduct rigorous evaluations of the strategies employed. All proposals must address both of these objectives. Brief expressions of interest should be submitted to the Alliance by 16 January 2009.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for submissions: The African Commission and access to medicines and human rights in Africa","field_subtitle":"Lyznik K: Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, September 15 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/humanrights","body":"The HIV Clinical Group at Pretoria University, in conjunction with PIJIP and WCL clinic students, is working to prepare and garner widespread NGO support for a submission before the African Commission during its meeting in Abuja, Nigeria from 10\u201324 November. This submission will call upon the African Commission to adopt an interpretation of the right to health under the African Charter, which mirrors the one provided by General Comment 14 to the ICESCR, specifically recognising that access to medicines is a crucial component to the right to health. Furthermore, upon recognising that the right to health includes the components of accessibility, availability, acceptability, and good quality of medicines, the submission will call upon the African Commission, in the future, to use these standards as a means to uniformly monitor state's compliance with the right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can EU funds be put to use to help food crisis?","field_subtitle":"EuropAfrica: September 2008","field_url":"http://europafrica.org/2008/09/09/can-eu-funds-be-put-to-use-to-help-food-crisis/","body":"A plan to boost food production in developing countries and provide urgent food aid was discussed by the Development Committee on 10 September 2008. The food price index rose by more than 40% last year, which has had catastrophic consequences for people in the developing world who are already suffering from malnutrition. It has been estimated that to deal with the problem in the medium term it would probably require an extra \u20ac18 billion. The EU has committed to finding \u20ac1.8 billion over the next two or three years from unspent agricultural money to be matched by money from the Member States. Some of this will be used for direct food support, given the massive fall in grain stocks. Most will be used for seeds, fertiliser and irrigation to help countries to develop and grow their own food.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community-based worker systems: Guidelines for practitioners","field_subtitle":"Mbullu, P: African Institute for Community-Driven Development (Khanya-AICDD), 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5phl9w","body":"These guidelines aim to assist practitioners and implementing partners to run community-based worker (CBW) systems more effectively, maximising impacts for clients of the service, empowering communities, empowering the CBWs themselves, and assisting governments to ensure that services are provided at scale to enhance livelihoods. They are aimed at practitioners in government, civil society or the private sector already involved or interested in the practical application of community-based worker models. Topics include the generic components of the CBW system, deciding where to use a CBW approach, preparing for implementation and operationalising the CBW system. Descriptions are provided for the different elements of the system, along with step-by-step guidance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Conceptual models, essential aspects and the perspective of collective health","field_subtitle":"Linares-P\u00e9reza N and L\u00f3pez-Arellano O: Social Medicine 3(3), 2008","field_url":"http://journals.sfu.ca/socialmedicine/index.php/socialmedicine/article/view/243/461","body":"This paper analyses the concept of health equity, drawing on ideas of social justice, of rights and values, and of the social and economic determinants which define living conditions and power relations among social groups. It adopts the viewpoint of collective health and outlines the elements which are essential to the understanding of inequity: the role of social, economic, political, cultural and ideological determinants on the equity of health outcomes, access to services and quality of care. It concludes that theoretical/conceptual frameworks must be formally spelled out before we can advance our understanding of health equity. From a collective health perspective, we need to move beyond traditional approaches, a challenge which will enable better understanding of the social dynamics which, when expressed as inequalities in health, constitute social inequity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Corruption nourishes poverty","field_subtitle":" Transparency International: 24 September 2008","field_url":"http://www.transparency.org/news_room/in_focus/2008/cpi2008#pr","body":"A new report by Transparency International (TI) has lashed out at some of the world's poorest countries for an \u2018ongoing humanitarian disaster\u2019, and deplored the wealthiest for not doing enough to help. At the launch of their 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) on 23 September in Berlin, TI said: \u2018In the poorest countries, corruption levels can mean the difference between life and death, when money for hospitals or clean water is in play, but even in more privileged countries, with enforcement disturbingly uneven, a tougher approach to tackling corruption is needed.\u2019 The 2008 CPI is a composite index, drawing on different expert and business surveys. It scores 180 countries (the same number as in 2007) on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (very clean). Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden share the highest score at 9.3, followed immediately by Singapore at 9.2. Bringing up the rear is Somalia at 1, slightly trailing Iraq and Burma at 1.3 and Haiti at 1.4.   ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Current climate and prospects in Africa for Private-Public Partnerships in Health","field_subtitle":"Kistnasamy B: Network for Africa: Public-Private Linkages for Health, 7-10 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.hrhresourcecenter.org/node/2149","body":"It is a myth that health in Africa is financed primarily by the public sector. About 36% of funding in Africa is from out-of-pocket payments, with 7% from other private sources and 27% from donors. Only 30% of African health care funding is public funding. In addition, 32% of healthcare access for rural Africans comes from the private sector, and 46% of doctors in sub-Saharan Africa work in the private sector. The for-profit private sector provides significant care for sub-Saharan Africans, across income groups, and this is expected to double by 2016. Since there are not enough resources in the public sector and governments cannot rely forever on development partners (donors) funds, Public/private partnership can help expand the pool of human resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 65: Retention incentives for health workers in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Chimbari MJ, Madhina D, Nyamangara F, Mtandwa H, Damba V, National University of Science and Technology","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS65HRchimbari.pdf","body":"This paper investigates the impact of the framework and strategies to retain critical health professionals (CHPs) that the Zimbabwean government has put in place, particularly regarding non-financial incentives, in the face of continuing high out-migration. The study investigated and reports on the causes of migration of health professionals; the strategies used to retain health professionals, how they are being implemented, monitored and evaluated and their impact, in order to make recommendations to enhance the monitoring, evaluation and management of non-financial incentives for health worker retention. The field survey results showed that Zimbabwe is losing experienced CHPs, but that even newly qualified staff aspire to migrate to gain experience. The major factor driving out-migration is the economic hardship that CHPs face due to deterioration in the country\u2019s economy. Other factors identified include poor remuneration, unattractive financial incentives and poor working conditions. The Zimbabwe Health Service Board (ZHSB) has implemented a retention package but constraints in its adequacy and coverage appear to have limited its impact, whilethe ZHSB itself has limited autonomy to decide on health worker incentives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Drop in tuberculosis funding could set back fight against AIDS","field_subtitle":"Engel M: Los Angeles Times, October 15 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-sci-tb15-2008oct15,0,7713869.story","body":"About 11 million of 33 million HIV-positive people have tuberculosis (TB) and, if financially troubled nations renege on aid pledges, it would deprive the poor of life-saving treatment. New Nobel laureate and HIV co-discoverer, Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, fears that the global economic crisis could cause nations to renege on commitments to fight tuberculosis and wipe out gains made against AIDS because so many people suffer from both diseases. The world is achieving success with antiretroviral treatment for HIV, but we have an epidemic of multi-resistance to tuberculosis treatment, which is really alarming. An estimated 33 million people worldwide are infected with HIV. About 11 million of them also have tuberculosis. By suppressing the immune system, HIV leaves people susceptible to other infections, especially TB.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"E-version of  \"Reclaiming the Resources for Health\"","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Steering Committee: A regional  analysis of Equity in health in east and southern Africa","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQUINET%20Reclaiming%20the%20Resources%20for%20Health%20in%20ESA.pdf","body":"The Regional analysis of Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa presents a synthesis of the evidence gathered from a range of sources: published literature on and from the region, reviews of current evidence, where available, data drawn primarily from government, intergovernmental, particularly Africa Union and UN sources and the less commonly documented and heard experience within the region, found in grey literature, in interviews and testimonials and gathered through participatory processes. The report is written for many audiences. For the diverse community involved in health equity within east and southern Africa, it provides a source book of evidence and analysis to support and advance work. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33560","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic slowdown to push 100 million into poverty","field_subtitle":" IRINnews: 20 October 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=80310","body":"The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, has warned in a new report that the gains made in reducing extreme poverty are under threat from the rise in global food and fuel prices and global economic slowdown. In the UN\u2019s Millennium Development Goals Report 2008, launched on 11 September, Ban wrote: \u2018The largely benign development environment that has prevailed since the early years of this decade, and that has contributed to the successes to date, is now threatened. The economic slowdown will diminish the incomes of the poor; the food crisis will raise the number of hungry people in the world and push millions more into poverty; climate change will have a disproportionate impact on the poor.\u2019 ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 93: Alma-Ata after 30 years still relevant for Africa?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EU's economic partnership agreements can spread conditions for finance crisis to South countries","field_subtitle":" Smith S: SUNS, 2 October 2008","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/intellectual_property/info.service/2008/twn.ipr.info.081006.htm","body":"Economic partnership agreements were one of the topics discussed at the 6th African, Caribbean and Pacific Summit of Heads of State and Government held in Accra, Ghana from 30 September to 3 October. African, Caribbean and Pacific countries decided whether to sign agreements that they have initialled, re-negotiate them or expand interim goods agreements further. Among the conclusions of the analysis of this topic are that the provisions on movement of capital and entry of EU providers of financial services may magnify the problem of instability that new financial services generate, and that the developing countries would have to undertake obligations in market access and rules in new areas (investment, government procurement, competition policy) that had been rejected as negotiating topics in the WTO. For example the right to regulate services has been narrowed further than GATS, universal service provision will be more limited.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors affecting antiretroviral drug adherence among HIV and AIDS adult patients attending an HIV and AIDS clinic at Moi Teaching And Referral Hospital, Eldoret, Kenya ","field_subtitle":"  Talam NC, Gatongi P, Rotich J and Kimaiyo S: East African Journal of Public Health 5(2)74\u201378, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=302&id=43103","body":"This study aimed to determine important factors that affect antiretroviral drug adherence among HIV and AIDS male and female adult patients in Kenya. A cross sectional study involving 384 adult patients on ARV drugs and attending Moi Hospital, Eldoret, was conducted. Sixty-eight percent of the respondents on ARVs were females aged between 18-63, of which 52.1% had secondary and post secondary education. Results showed that only 43.2% adhered to the prescribed time of taking drugs. Only 93.5% of the respondents kept clinic appointments. It recommends patients should be educated on the importance of strict adherence to the prescribed doses of ARVs as a suitable measure of intervention. Future research should explore multiple-target interventions to resolve barriers to adherence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing South Africa\u2019s National Health System through National Health Insurance","field_subtitle":"Botha C and Hendricks M (eds): HSRC Policy Analysis Unit","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/67x3vu","body":"The provision of universal access to healthcare, a right enshrined in the South African Constitution, is the responsibility of government. Although much progress has been made towards the creation of a national health system which makes \u2018access to health for all\u2019 a reality, much remains to be done. As a means to facilitate debate on the subject, the Policy Analysis Unit of the HSRC hosted a colloquium on \u2018Health within a comprehensive system of social security\u2019. The main purpose of the colloquium was to initiate policy dialogue and critical discussion on how health services are accessed, provided and funded \u2013 and to formulate ideas, views and recommendations that could be presented to those involved in health policy development. This publication contains the keynote addresses and a summary of deliberations that emerged from the colloquium.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Free reporting and writing toolkit for development professionals","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.reportingskills.org","body":"If you or your colleagues are facing difficulty in your project monitoring and evaluation reports, the Reporting Skills and Professional Writing Handbook (2nd Edition) is a self-study programme based on the best of ten years' experience running hundreds of training courses. There's a free download of the first module and you need to sign up to receive the remaining modules, free.  It is designed to save time and help your team turn out more effective progress and evaluation reports. The programme is also available on CDROM for convenient desktop study, and, for larger organisations, the Trainer Edition is supported by a complete Training Pack. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Free web portal for African civil society organisations","field_subtitle":"GuideStar International (GSI): September 2008","field_url":"http://www.guidestarinternational.org/","body":"GuideStar International (GSI) seeks to illuminate the work of civil society organisations (CSOs) around the world. It is based in the UK. Their new website, in co-operation with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), was started as a joint venture to develop a free web portal for African civil society, showcasing NGOs, charities, non-profit organisations and community-based organisations, ranging from the smallest to the largest. Utilising a shared internet platform, organisations will be able to display their vision and mission, objectives, activities, needs and finances to donors, researchers, policy makers and the general public.   ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"From Mexico to Mali: Taking stock of achievements in health policy and systems research","field_subtitle":"Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research; WHO; International Development Research Centre: 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ALLehs231008.pdf","body":"This is the final statement of a meeting held in Nyon, Switzerland, 25\u201327 May 2008 between the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, WHO and the International Development Research Centre, Canada. Considerable progress has been made in established health policy and systems research (HPSR) areas such as health financing, worker relations and the role of the non-state sector, though achievements in these areas vary substantially. In some, such as health financing, a large number of studies and recent reviews have began to synthesise findings; in others, such as HRH, relatively limited empirical work has been conducted and there is a need to intensify research efforts. There is an urgent need to move from research that is descriptive and identifies problems, to research that is action oriented and helps develop and evaluate potential solutions. Stronger links among researchers, policy makers and research and development funders are required to facilitate this. Despite interesting work in the field, HPSR continues to be perceived as the poor relation to more basic health sciences research. More must be done to highlight the positive contributions that HPSR can make to the big health issues of our time.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Future health systems: Why future? Why now?","field_subtitle":"Bloom G and Standing H: Science Direct (66)10 2067\u20132075, September 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6k3m3n","body":"Health policy has tended to export models of health systems from developed nations to low-income countries without questioning their appropriateness and adaptability. Debates about the roles of public and private providers are meaningless in poor countries that do not have the institutional framework to govern a market economy and where government has little capacity to regulate providers of health services. The lack of appropriately contextualised debate and language hampers national and international efforts to address major health challenges. Health systems, like other systems of producing social goods, are ways of producing and organising access to expert knowledge and the technologies that derive from it. Their failure, in many contexts, to serve the interests of the poor means we should also be exploring different ways of producing and delivering services rather than simply intensifying efforts to recreate existing ones.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Workforce Alliance welcomes health workforce commitments to reach Millennium Development Goals","field_subtitle":" Global Health Workforce Alliance: 26 September 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/news/mdghlm_commitments/en/index.html","body":"The Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA) has welcomed the pledges of commitment expressed at the United Nations High Level Meeting on the Millennium Development Goals and surrounding events that place resolving the health workforce crisis at the centre of ensuring progress on improving maternal and child health and addressing killer diseases such as malaria. Significant financial commitments were made to address the health workforce as part of the drive to move closer to the achievement of Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 on reducing maternal and child mortality. Commitments included a pledge of \u00a3450 million from the UK over the next three years to support national health plans, incorporating training more nurses, midwives and doctors in eight of the poorest countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Malaria Action Plan launched","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation: 25 September 2008","field_url":"http://www.rbm.who.int/gmap/","body":"Government, business and civil society leaders gathered at the United Nations to launch a global campaign to reduce malaria deaths, currently at more than 1 million each year, to near zero by 2015, with an initial commitment of nearly a $3 billion. The Global Malaria Action Plan (GMAP) aims to cuts deaths and illness by 2010 to half their 2000 levels by scaling up access to insecticide-treated bed nets, indoor spraying and treatment, and achieve the near-zero goal through sustained universal coverage. Ultimately it seeks to eradicate the disease completely with new tools and strategies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health worker shortages: Policy neglect equivalent to 'institutional manslaughter\u2019 ","field_subtitle":"Sankore R: Pambazuka News, 25 September 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/issue/398","body":"African leaders lack the foresight and political will required to ensure sustainable health development, financing and universal primary health care. By underlining the effects of institutional under-funding and the brain drain, the author contends that policy neglect is the equivalent of \u2018institutional manslaughter\u2019. Africa\u2019s critical health workforce shortage is arguably the most serious obstacle to implementing global and African health frameworks and universal primary health care across the continent and governments must improve health workforce working conditions. The proper, moral and sustainable solution is to ensure that more developed countries invest in training of adequate numbers of their own health workforce, and that less-developed countries demonstrate full political commitment to training and retaining their health workers \u2013with the support of more-developed countries, where necessary. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights and technology: A conflictual relationship? Assessing private research and the right to adequate food  ","field_subtitle":"Haugen HM: Journal of Human Rights 7(3) 224 \u2013 244, July 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a902499435~db=all?jumptype=alert&alerttype=new_issue_alert%2Cemail","body":"Human rights provisions addressing technology have been much ignored but are starting to receive renewed interest, mainly regarding patent disputes, stagnation in publicly funded research, and the role of technology in meeting the Millennium Development Goals. This study analyses articles 11.2(a) and 15.1(b) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), as well as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, neither of which assume any conflict between technology and the environment. International cooperation for the realisation of the right to food is widely acknowledged, including technological efforts to produce more high-yielding varieties. Human rights treaties, especially in the ICESCR, can help guide the formulation and implementation of technology policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Hypertension and diabetes: Poor care for patients at community health centres ","field_subtitle":"Steyn K, Levitt D, Patel M, Fourie JM, Gwebushe N, Lombard C and Everett K: South African Medical Journal 98(8) 618\u2013622, 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=42991","body":"This report aimed to identify health-care and provider-related determinants of diabetes and hypertension patients attending public sector community health centres (CHCs). A random sample of eighteen CHCs in the Cape Peninsula, South Africa, providing hypertension and diabetes care was selected. Twenty-five diabetes and 35 hypertension patients were selected per clinic and interviewed by trained fieldworkers and their medical records audited. Knowledge about their conditions was poor. Prescriptions for drugs were not recorded in medical records of 22.6% of the diabetes and 11.4% of the hypertension patients. Primary care for patients with hypertension and diabetes at public sector CHCs is suboptimal. This highlights the urgent need to improve health care for patients with these conditions in the public sector of the Cape Peninsula.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of climate change and bioenergy on nutrition  ","field_subtitle":"Cohen MJ, Tirado C, Aberman N and Thompson B: International Food Policy Research Institute, Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/59opdy","body":"Climate change may affect health outcomes and food utilisation, with additional malnutrition consequences. This paper argues that resources for nutrition, such as agriculture budgets, are inadequate. Appropriate policies should make bioenergy development more pro-poor and environmentally sustainable. Efforts to achieve food security and good nutrition should address the underlying social, economic, cultural and political causes of food insecurity and malnutrition. Some low-income governments are now cutting excessive military spending and allocating more money to the public sector. The paper supports the so-called \u2018twin-track approach\u2019 to combating hunger and poverty: strengthening the productivity and incomes of hungry and poor people, targeting rural areas, ensuring direct and immediate access to food by hungry people and putting social safety nets in place. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Integration of nutrition in the antiretroviral therapy scale up plan for Malawi ","field_subtitle":"Bisika T and Mandere G: Malawi Medical Journal 20(3) 93\u201398, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=64&id=43522","body":"Malawi is one of the countries experiencing an unprecedented HIV/AIDS epidemic in an environment where malnutrition is rampant. In 2001 Malawi started providing ARVs to HIV patients. This ARV programme is now being scaled up to cover the whole country. Since underlying malnutrition is associated with adverse ART outcomes, the Malawi government commissioned a study to design a programme for integrating nutrition in the ARV scale up plan. This study used a Participatory qualitative research methodology. The study recommends that nutritional support should include therapeutic feeding, food supplements and take home ration and proposes a clear enrolment and discharge criteria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"International initiative on maternal mortality and human rights ","field_subtitle":" Physicians for Human Rights: 19 October 2007","field_url":"http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/news-2007-10-19.html","body":"This initiative aims to reduce maternal mortality by holding governments accountable for implementing effective and equitable policies and programmes, securing increased resources at the global and national levels and promoting understanding among, and providing expertise to, key stakeholders on addressing maternal mortality as a human rights issue. It was founded by the AMDD program at Columbia University, CARE, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Family Care International, Physicians for Human Rights, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health, Paul Hunt. These diverse organisations with different perspectives have joined together to use human rights in the struggle against maternal mortality. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Less than half of EU aid tackles poverty","field_subtitle":"EuropAfrica: September 2008","field_url":"http://europafrica.org/2008/09/22/less-than-half-of-eu-aid-tackles-poverty/","body":"Less than half of development aid approved by the European Commission is explicitly linked to international objectives on reducing poverty, a new study has found. Health and education assume a central role in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which were approved by all of the UN\u2019s member countries in 2000. The eight objectives include targets to substantially reduce illiteracy, deaths of mothers during childbirth and of children before their fifth birthday, and the incidence of major diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria by 2010. Even though the European Union has undertaken to finance the attainment of these goals, its executive branch or commission appears to be attaching less importance to primary education in poor countries than it did at the start of this decade, according to Alliance 2015, a coalition of anti-poverty groups.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Millennium Campaign calls for coherent action on trade imbalances","field_subtitle":"Joy Online: 21 September 2008","field_url":"http://news.myjoyonline.com/business/200809/20813.asp","body":"The Executive Coordinator of the Millennium Campaign has called for coherent global collaborative action to effectively deal with trade imbalances suffered by developing countries. Addressing the inaugural Geneva Trade and Development Forum at Crans-Montana, she bemoaned the current situation where developing countries are left fragmented in negotiating processes: \u2018It is time to make trade policies part of the broader relationship, not just with other countries, but, more importantly part of the broader agenda of challenges of global poverty, the environment and security.\u2019 Included in the agenda should be the issues of public health, food security and nutrition, as well as the relationships among the three.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Millennium Development Goals still within reach but stronger focus on the most marginalised will be required","field_subtitle":" United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF): 23 September 2008","field_url":"http://www.ngocn.org/?uid-13701-action-viewspace-itemid-35818","body":"Significant progress towards reducing child and maternal mortality is being made, but to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4, 5 and 6, strategies aimed at reaching the world\u2019s most inaccessible, marginalised and vulnerable populations will be required, according to Ethiopia\u2019s Minister of Health and the heads of four leading global health organisations \u2013 the GAVI Alliance, UNAIDS, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and UNICEF. Many countries are committed to achieving the MDGs but rely largely on donor support for its national health plan to continue its progress.  Increased funding has seen improved immunisation rates, more programmes against malaria (by providing insecticide-treated bed nets) and the expansion of anti-retroviral access to two million in sub-Saharan Africa have contributed to an improving health picture for the continent, with reductions in mortality and morbidity rates.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New centre in Uganda to boost paediatric HIV care","field_subtitle":"PlusNews: 10 October 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=80860","body":"Children living with HIV in Uganda have been given greater access to treatment with a new paediatric HIV care centre opened at the main referral hospital in the capital, Kampala. More than 20,000 children are infected with HIV every year, and 50 percent of them die before their second birthday. There is still inadequate access to paediatric HIV care and treatment services in Uganda \u2013out of the 330 active antiretroviral therapy centres in Uganda, only 110 are able to provide paediatric HIV care services, and most of these are located in urban centres. The centre at Mulago Hospital is the first to provide a comprehensive package of HIV care and treatment services for children and adolescents infected or exposed to HIV, including testing, treatment, counselling of children and their families, and training healthcare professionals in the management of paediatric HIV. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New website on health equity and disabilities","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.includeeverybody.org","body":"To coincide with the high-level meeting last month in New York on the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), the International Disability and Development Consortium (IDDC) and the Millennium Campaign have launched a new web site on disabilities and the MDGs. The site aims to raise awareness among the general public, NGOs, donors and governments about the need for the MDGs and poverty reduction programmes to address disabilities. One in five of the world's poorest people are disabled, yet they are rarely considered in MDG health plans and programmes. With the recent report from the Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, this is a timely moment for the health community to consider disability as a barrier to accessing health services. The website is a work in progress and the IDDC wants to link it to other sites, sources and organisations. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New! Workshop opportunities at the EQUINET Conference 2009","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Steering committee","field_url":"http://ww.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/index.php","body":"New information can be found at the website for the EQUINET Conference September 2009 on pre and post conference workshops. Regional workshops will be held on issues covering health literacy, policy analysis, participatory methods, writing skillsand health financing. Visit the website  at ww.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/index.php for further information. Places are limited so we urge youto register early. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Patient satisfaction with antiretroviral services at primary health-care facilities in the Free State, South Africa: A two-year study using four waves of cross-sectional data","field_subtitle":" Wouters E, Heunis C, van Rensburg D and Meulemans H: BMC Health Services Research 8(21) 9 October  2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5u7jnp","body":"The study's first objective was to determine the levels of patient satisfaction with services at antiretroviral treatment (ART) assessment sites. Four cross-sectional waves of data were collected from a random sample of 975 patients enrolled in the Free State's public-sector ART programme. With respect to both general services and the services provided by nurses, results indicated high overall satisfaction among Free State patients receiving public-sector ART. However, the data presents a less positive picture of patient satisfaction with waiting times. Significant geographical and temporal differences were observed in these three aspects of patient satisfaction, according to the district surveyed. Patients attending facilities with high professional nurse vacancy rates reported significantly less satisfaction with nurses' services than did those attending facilities with fewer vacant nursing posts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Pharmaceutical pricing policies in a global market","field_subtitle":"OECD Health Policy Studies, Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs: September 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.oecd.org/document/36/0,3343,en_2649_33929_41000996_1_1_1_37407,00.html","body":"Pharmaceutical pricing policies are designed with national objectives in mind, but are the transnational implications always taken into account? This study notes that specific characteristics of the pharmaceutical market have given rise to current pharmaceutical prices. Market-based or \u2018free\u2019 pricing is common for products not subsidised by coverage schemes. Price regulation exists in most countries but does not necessarily result in lower prices because prices are determined by the respective market powers of the parties involved. Many other types of policies, other than those directly related to pricing, affect the pharmaceutical market and even if policy makers hold common objectives, they may weight them differently when trade-offs are required. More investment incentives for research and development are needed. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy Brief  21: Tackling implementation gaps through health policy analysis","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, Centre for Health Policy (WITS), Health Economics Unit (UCT)","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/POLBRF21policyanalysis.pdf","body":"Implementing any policy or intervention faces a range of challenges, especially for those seeking to benefit the poorest social groups. Much public health analysis focuses on the technical aspects of good policy design. However, experience shows that it can be more difficult to deal with the political and institutional barriers to implementation than to design new policies and programmes. Predicting and managing these political and institutional factors is essential to make the changes necessary to strengthen equitable health systems. This guidance brief outlines the frameworks and tools usedin health policy analysis for investigating and tackling these issues. It also presents a range of resources in Africa and elsewhere to support this key area of work in health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy brief 20: Meeting the promise: Progress on the Abuja commitment of 15% government funds to health","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, Health Economics Unit (UCT), Training and Research Support Centre","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/POLBRF20Abuja.pdf","body":"Devoting 15% of domestic public funds to the health sector is necessary - both to address the health and health care needs within east and southern Africa (ESA) and to ensure progress towards building a universal and comprehensive health system. The target of 15% is not unrealistic \u2013 it is very much in line with levels of public spending in other countries around the world. Achieving the 15% target demands that public funds not be consumed by debt servicing, so rapid implementation of debt cancellation is critical. The 15% is understood to mean domestic public spending on health, excluding external funding. This policy brief provides information on progress towards meeting the Abuja commitment in east and southern Africa, the obstacles and challengesto address,and the arguments for enhanced effort to prioritising health in national budgets. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Primary Health Care: Now more than ever","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, World Health Report 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/whr/2008/en/index.html","body":"Why a renewal of primary health care (PHC), and why now, more than ever? Globalization is putting the social cohesion of many countries under stress, and health systems are clearly not performing as well as they could and should. People are increasingly impatient with the inability of health services to deliver. Few would disagree that health systems need to respond better \u2013 and faster \u2013 to the challenges of a changing world. PHC can do that. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Policy and Franchising Reproductive Health: Current Evidence and Future Directions","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, USAID and PSP-One: 25 October 2007","field_url":"http://psp-one.com/content/resource/detail/4512/","body":"This Guidance Note is based on the proceedings of the meeting and offers policymakers and researchers the latest evidence on private-provider networks and franchises, lessons learned in the field, and policy recommendations on how to mobilise private-provider networks and health franchises to help address reproductive health care needs in developing countries. Recent evidence from sub-Saharan Africa indicates that about a third of all family planning methods are obtained through the private sector. For the poor, these expenses can be substantial, even catastrophic. Although specific public policy efforts regarding the private sector largely depend on individual country context, three broad approaches may be useful in guiding discussions: (i) Expanding healthcare access by engaging a range of private sector providers; (ii) Harnessing and organising existing private sector providers into a cohesive network to improve quality and ensure equity; (iii) Shifting the burden of public financing of private healthcare sector among those able to pay for its services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Recording patient responses in low-income countries: Does the tool make a difference?","field_subtitle":"Karen Cheng: WHO, September 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/10/08-054668/en/index.html","body":"The introduction of information and communications technology into a developing nation setting poses unique challenges. A recent randomised controlled trial done in Luanda, Angola, surveyed 231 people to assess their risk for HIV infection. In half of the surveys, the interviewers used a PDA to note participant responses. In the other half, the interviewers used paper and pencil. Other than the difference in these tools to record responses, the two groups were essentially the same. People in the PDA group gave, on average, 2.4 socially desirable responses (out of 9 possible), compared to 1.4 for participants in the paper-and-pencil group. That is, people seemed to exaggerate how safe their behaviours were when they were faced with an interviewer using a PDA. This finding suggests that the good intentions of introducing ICT into health-care settings in low-income countries may have unintended consequences if tests of its effects are not done beforehand. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Reflection on primary health care 30 years after Alma Ata and the challenges ahead ","field_subtitle":" Schuftan C: People\u2019s Health Movement, 16 Oct 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/cms/en/node/882","body":"The recently released World Health Report on PHC (WHO Oct 2008) is an attempt to bring PHC again to the forefront of our priorities in global health. But to go beyond well-meaning pronouncements, this will clearly need some internal reorganisation in this UN agency. The question is whether its leadership plans such a re-orientation? PHM does not shy away from a political approach to PHC and is not really fighting its opponents; it is rather bringing the level of the discussion to a higher level. PHM challenges the concept that good health is an imperative for increased economic productivity. Instead, it insists that health is an inalienable human right. Health is not either a technical or a political issue \u2013 it is both \u2013 and pro-poor health interventions mean nothing if not concomitantly accompanied by poverty reduction actions that are pro-health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Report from Round Table 6: The role of civil society in enhancing aid effectiveness ","field_subtitle":"Advisory Group on Civil Society and Aid Effectiveness: September 2008","field_url":"http://www.afrodad.org/downloads/Roundtable%206%20report.pdf","body":"The aim of the Round Table was to build upon the work of the Advisory Group on Civil Society and Aid Effectiveness (AG-CS). A first point of consensus to emerge from RT6 was recognition of the many roles of civil society, and of the importance and value of civil society organisations (CSOs) as development actors in their own right and as aid recipients, donors and partners. A way forward was proposed, involving donors, governments, and CSOs themselves, and shared leadership for different aspects of this work. It includes working together to provide a more enabling environment for CSOs, working on how CSOs can develop more effective partnerships with each other, including North- South, South-South, global networks and national umbrella organisations, offering support for the CSO-led Open Forum for CSO Development Effectiveness and preparing the ground for CSO engagement in the High-Level 4, ensuring that a multi- stakeholder perspective on CSO effectiveness is a major theme of HLF4. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Resolutions: Regional Meeting of Parliamentary Committees on Health in East and Southern Africa: Health Equity and Primary Health Care: Responding to the Challenges and Opportunities: Munyonyo, Uganda, 16-18 September 2008","field_subtitle":"Southern and East African Parliamentary Alliance of Committees on Health (SEAPACOH), PPD  ARO, EQUINET, APHRC, UNFPA, Venture Strategies for Health and Development, DSW","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/RESsep2008parl.pdf","body":"The Regional Meeting of Parliamentary Committees on Health in East and Southern Africa on Health Equity and Primary Health Care: Responding to the Challenges and Opportunities, Munyonyo Uganda September 16-18 2008, gathered members of parliamentary committees responsible for health from twelve countries in East and Southern Africa, with sixteen technical, government and civil society and regional partners to promote information exchange, facilitate policy dialogue and identify key areas of follow up action to advance health equity and sexual and reproductive health in the region. This document presents the resolutions of the meeting,and the immediate and long term commitments made by the parliamentarians and their partners towards advancing health equity and Primary Health Care in the region. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Watch releases 2008 Basic Capabilities Index ","field_subtitle":"Social Watch: September 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.socialwatch.org/en/avancesyRetrocesos/ICB_2008/index.htm","body":"According to the 2008 Basic Capabilities Index, the Millennium Development Goals will not be achieved by 2015 at the present rate of progress, unless substantial changes occur. Progress in basic social indicators slowed down last year all over the world. Out of 176 countries for which a BCI figure could be computed, only 21 registered noticeable progress in relation to their score in 2000. Another 55 countries showed some progress, but at a slow rate, while 77 countries stagnated or worsened. Information is insufficient to show trends for the remaining 23. As the impact of the food crisis that started in 2006 begins to be registered by the new statistics coming in, the situation is likely to get worse in the next months.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Supporting the delivery of cost-effective interventions in primary health-care systems in low-income and middle-income countries: An overview of systematic reviews ","field_subtitle":" Lewin S,   Lavis JN, Oxman A, Bast\u00edas G, Chopra M, Ciapponi A, Flottorp S, Mart\u00ed SG, Pantoja T, Rada G, Souza N, Treweek S, Wiysonge CS and Haines A: The Lancet 372:928\u2013939, 2008","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673608614038/abstract","body":"Strengthening health systems is a key challenge to improving the delivery of cost-effective interventions in primary health care (PHC) and achieving the vision of the Alma-Ata Declaration. This overview summarises the evidence from systematic reviews of health systems arrangements and implementation strategies, with a particular focus on evidence relevant to PHC in such settings. Although evidence is sparse, there are several promising health systems arrangements and implementation strategies for strengthening primary health care. However, their introduction must be accompanied by rigorous evaluations. The evidence base needs urgently to be strengthened, synthesised, and taken into account in policy and practice, particularly for the benefit of those who have been excluded from the health care advances of recent decades. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The extent of community and public support available to families caring for orphans in Malawi ","field_subtitle":"Kidman R and Heymann SJ: Institute for Health and Social Policy, McGill University, 10 October 2008 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5qvy4a","body":"Malawi is poised to drastically expand safety nets to orphans and their families, and this study will provide an important foundation for this process. The study analysed nationally representative data from 27,495 children in the 2004\u20132005 Malawi Integrated Household Survey. It found that friends and relatives provided assistance to over 75% of orphan households through private gifts, but organised responses to the orphan crisis were far less frequent. Over 40% of orphans lived in a community with support groups for the chronically ill and about a third of these communities provided services specifically for orphans and other vulnerable children. Public programmes, which form a final safety net for vulnerable households, were more widespread. Free/subsidised agricultural inputs and food were the most commonly used public safety nets by children's households in the past year and households with orphans were more likely to be beneficiaries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Millennium Development Goals Report 2008","field_subtitle":"Millennium Development Goals Indicators: September 2008","field_url":"http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Resources/Static/Products/Progress2008/MDG_Report_2008_En.pdf","body":"This report is based on a master set of data that has been compiled by an inter-agency and expert group on Millennium Development Goal (MDG) indicators, led by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, in response to the wishes of the General Assembly for periodic assessment of progress towards the MDGs. The group consists of representatives of the international organisations whose activities include the preparation of one or more of the series of statistical indicators that were identified as appropriate for monitoring progress towards the MDGs. This report summarises progress towards the Goals in each of the regions. However, any such synthesis inevitably masks the range and variety of development experiences in individual countries since the goals were adopted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The South strikes back against overreaching intellectual property enforcement","field_subtitle":" Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 17 September 2008","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1229","body":"Some developing nations nave accused developed nations of overreaching themselves in their push to escalate enforcement of intellectual property rights and want their efforts to be reined in and centralised in the World Intellectual Property Organisation. This especially applies to a secret negotiation led by the United States, Europe and Japan to create an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The ACTA might create trade barriers and harm consumers, domestically and outside the signatory nations. The agreement lacks \u2018democracy\u2019 and balance, as it relies heavily on industry groups and rights holders with no representation on behalf of consumers. And as the law enforcement side rises, individual legal rights may be diminished. Secrecy around the treaty negotiation has fuelled speculation that its terms will undermine vital consumer interests, including access to low-cost generic medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"UN-backed scheme aims to reduce maternal mortality by boosting health systems","field_subtitle":" United Nations: 25 September 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=28262&Cr=Maternal%20Health&Cr1","body":"The United Nations has teamed up with world leaders to launch a new initiative to strengthen health systems in an effort to reduce the number of women who die in pregnancy and childbirth, one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with a 2015 deadline. The task force on maternal mortality, which will be co-chaired by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and World Bank President Robert Zoellick, will focus on innovative financing to strengthen health care systems and pay for health care workers. The recommendations that will flow from the group, which will include UN World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan and several global leaders, will potentially save the lives of 10 million women and children by 2015. They will be presented to next year's meeting of the leaders of the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialised nations, to be held in Italy. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Unity in diversity: Governance adaptation in multilateral trade institutions through South-South coalition building","field_subtitle":" Yu VPB: South Centre, 2008","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=39707&em=190908\u2282=trade","body":"This paper from the South Centre is concerned with the widening development gap in the setting of new international policy regimes and a changing global economic environment. It discusses participation and developing country governance adaptation issues in the WTO and in the UN Conference on Trade and development (UNCTAD). It concludes that developing country group action should be an essential component in global trade governance. Inclusive governance will require clear policy issue and agenda articulation from shared understanding, institutionalised coordination and group leadership mechanisms, good working relationships between individual country delegates and other developing country delegates, and full and continuous institutional support of high professional quality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"USAID bans contraceptive supplies to leading family planning organisation","field_subtitle":"Planetwire: October 1, 2008","field_url":"http://www.planetwire.org/details/7829","body":"The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has instructed its staff to force governments in several African countries to discontinue the provision of US-funded contraceptive commodities to Marie Stopes International (MSI), one of the world\u2019s leading family planning organisations. USAID claims MSI works with the Chinese Government, whom the US State Department accuses of \u2018coercive abortion and involuntary sterilisations\u2019. MSI denied that MSI supports coercive abortion or involuntary sterilisation in China or elsewhere. It said the instruction will \u2018seriously disrupt\u2019 MSI\u2019s family planning programmes in at least six African countries \u2013 Ghana, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe - including one where the organisation delivers 25% of all family planning services nationally. Women in these countries will be left with few options other than unsafe abortions, resulting in death or disability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Use more modern malaria methods, urges Medecins Sans Frontieres ","field_subtitle":" Thom A, Health-e: 1 October 2008","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032093&PHPSESSID=eeb55f9ea71491ec9f95a9d230419fb2","body":"Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has made an urgent call for the wider implementation of the newer and more effective anti-malaria strategies in an effort to save lives. Malaria still kills a child every 30 seconds worldwide while nine out 10 of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, predominantly among young children. According to the World Health Organisation, one in every five childhood deaths is due to the effects of malaria. An MSF report released in Johannesburg on 31 September shows that unnecessary illness and death can be avoided with simple, affordable treatment and diagnostic tools that are currently available. The report follows the launch of an ambitious new Global Malaria Action Plan aimed at reducing the number of malaria deaths to near zero by 2015, with world leaders committing nearly US$3-billion to ensure it succeeds.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Who should control the Bank? Rich countries keep their thumbs on the scales","field_subtitle":" Heighwaybury R: Bretton Woods News, 29 September 2008","field_url":"http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art-562549","body":"Proposed reforms to the way the World Bank is governed tinker at the edges, promising only marginal improvements for developing countries; critics are stepping up the pressure for a fundamental rethink. The World Bank board will discuss a package of reforms to the way the Bank is governed at its annual meetings in October, hoping to agree a concrete set of actions by next spring. Despite calls from developing countries, civil society and others for root and branch change to address the Bank's gaping deficits in democracy, legitimacy and accountability, the proposals are uninspiring. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO tells governments to focus on basic health care ","field_subtitle":" MacInnis L: Reuters, 14 October 2008","field_url":"http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L7177447.htm","body":"Nearly 60 million women will give birth without any medical assistance this year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said in a report calling for an overhaul of how health care is financed and managed globally. The United Nations agency said in its annual World Health Report that the billions of aid dollars devoted to fight specific epidemics like AIDS had distracted attention from providing comprehensive care to mothers and children. The difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest countries still exceeds 40 years, said the report, whose launch coincided with a global financial crisis that could freeze aid flows and squeeze government budgets for health care. Increasingly specialised and technical medicine in wealthy nations has also excluded and impoverished millions of patients, exposing failures of \u2018laissez-faire\u2019 governance in health. WHO is encouraging countries to go \u2018back to the basics\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Workers on Wednesday: Healthworker retention in South Africa","field_subtitle":"SAFM, Workers World Media Productions, EQUINET","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/SAFM-EQUINET_HCWretention240908.mp3","body":"SAFM is the largest English language current affairs radio station in South Africa. In its 'Workers on Wednesday' slot the host, live studio guests and call-in audience discussed the reasons for migration of health workers - from rural to urban areas, from the public to the private sector, and from South Africa to other countries - and the effectiveness of incentives to retain health workers in the South African public sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"World Bank updates poverty estimates for the developing world","field_subtitle":"World Bank, September 2008 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5f4jv3","body":"New poverty estimates published by the World Bank reveal that 1.4 billion people in the developing world were living on less than US$1.25 a day in 2005, down from 1.9 billion in 1981. These revised numbers reflect improved household data from a greater number of countries. They are based the International Comparison Programme (ICP) and 675 household surveys covering 116 countries and spanning the period 1981 to 2005. The new numbers show that poverty has become more widespread across the developing world over the past 25 years than previously estimated, but also that there has been strong \u2013 if regionally uneven \u2013 progress toward reducing overall poverty. On the other hand, they also demonstrate that the developing world is still on track to meet the first Millennium Development Goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Social Forum 2009","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.fsm2009amazonia.org.br","body":"From 27 January to 1 February 2009, the city of Belem, Brazil will host the World Social Forum. Hundreds of self-managed activities \u2013 as campings, workshops, seminars, conferences, testimonies, marches, cultural and artistic activities, among others \u2013 during this six days will be spaces for exchange, reflection and building of proposals for another possible world. The registration to participate in WSF 2009 starts in October and can be made via the website address.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Zero Issue 2008: The World Food Crisis and the Right to Food","field_subtitle":" Bread for the World, ICCO and FIAN: October 2008","field_url":"http://www.fian.org/resources/documents/others/right-to-food-and-nutrition-watch-zero-issue/pdf","body":"The Right to Food and Nutrition Watch provides a systematic compilation of best practices for the realisation of the right to food and also documents where violations have been committed. The Zero Issue deals with the topic \u2018The World Food Crisis and the Human Right to Food\u2019 and gathers articles and country monitoring reports from different experts and regions (the Americas, Asia, Africa and India). The publication also discusses the most recent global trends affecting the right to food, such as the increased expansion of agrofuels, and sheds new light on practices that continue to impede the realisation of the right to food, such as mining and the mismanagement of social cash transfers. UN experts on human rights and the right to food also give their input on recent UN documents and sessions. The hard copy of the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch is accompanied by a CD-ROM that includes supporting documents and full reports of all content. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe activities: CWGH@10 and launch of the EQUINET book","field_subtitle":"TARSC, CWGH","field_url":"","body":"On October 23rd 2008 the Community Working group on Health (CWGH) held a national conference gathering district and national members, and an evening event in Harare, Zimbabwe to mark its tenth anniversary. Speakers from civil society, parliament, state and from the region reflected on the challenges to people centred health systems and the contribution of the CWGH. EQUINET joined in this event to present evidence on progress and challenges towards health equity in Zimbabwe and to launch the EQUINET book, \"Reclaiming the Resources for Health\". The delegates to the conference identified areas for follow up action to promote health equity, including advocating for the right to health to be included in the constitution, and a priority for resources to be directed to resotring the environments for health and to investments in primary health care. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018Antwerp in Geneva\u2019 workshop on the AIDS response and health systems strengthening in sub-Saharan Africa, 28 May 2008","field_subtitle":" Ford N, Ooms G, Laga M, Pirard M, van Damme W and Loewenson R","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/FORaids231008.pdf","body":"On 28 May 2008 the Institute of Tropical Medicine (Antwerp, Belgium) hosted a meeting at the World Health Organization (Geneva, Switzerland) to review the evidence on the effects of AIDS programmes on Health Systems, particularly in high HIV prevalence settings, and discuss the way forward. Over 30 participants attended from a range of backgrounds (implementers, activists, academics and funders) and HIV-affected countries. The report summarizes the main issues that were discussed at the workshop, including the harms and benefits of HIV programmes for health systems and primary health care, debates around continued AIDS exceptionalism, and considerations and policy options for HIV programmes\r\nto maximise their potential to contribute to health systems strengthening.\r\nThe report is organised around the major issues/debates that have been raised around AIDS programmes and health systems, particularly the financing, organisation and delivery of health systems. The discussions were informed by country experiences presented from a number of high-burden countries in sub-Saharan Africa and evidence and experience from\r\nmeeting delegates. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"2008 World Population Data Sheet: Global demographic divide widens","field_subtitle":"Population Reference Bureau, 2008","field_url":"http://www.prb.org","body":"The demographic divide - the inequality in the population and health profiles of rich and poor countries - is widening. Two sharply different patterns of population growth are evident: little growth (or even decline) in most wealthy countries and continued rapid population growth in the world's poorest countries. The Population Reference Bureau has released its 2008 World Population Data Sheet, which provides up-to-date demographic, health and environment data for all countries and major world regions. New on the Data Sheet this year is data on maternal mortality and the percentage of population who are undernourished.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A critical appraisal of the Paris Declaration","field_subtitle":" Mutasa C: e-CIVICUS 404, 29 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/content/e-CIVICUS404-Criticalappraisal-ParisDeclaration.html","body":"The Paris Declaration flags civil society organisations as potential participants in identifying priorities and monitoring development programmes. But it does not recognise them as development actors in their own right, with their own priorities, programmes and partnership arrangements and fails to take into account the rich diversity of social interveners in democratic societies. Human rights principles and standards should be upheld and promoted to achieve Paris Declaration targets and indicators, including scaling up aid, reorganisation of partner countries\u2019 institutions, procedures and national priorities, and meaningful and inclusive citizen-based ownership. As nationally determined priorities become the centerpiece of development assistance, it becomes critical to assess which processes are needed to negotiate them and how legitimate and transparent such processes need be. This requires a focus on the quality of relationships between citizens and states, and the associated processes and mechanisms fundamental to achieving meaningful and inclusive national ownership.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"AC3 NGO Conference 2008","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.compassproject.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=47&Itemid=143","body":"The 2008 AC3 Non-governmental Organisations\u2019 (NGO) Conference will be held on 23-October 2008 in Pretoria, South Africa. It will focus on building the organisational capacity of communities to respond effectively to their unique needs. The conference will assist organisations to: build organisational skills, identify other capacity building opportunities, provide learning opportunities to expand existing or new skills, provide an opportunity for organisations to share best practices and serve as a major annual networking opportunity for community-based organisations, non-governmental organisations and faith-based organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS Vaccine Conference 2008","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hivvaccineenterprise.org/conference/2008/","body":"This year\u2019s AIDS Vaccine Conference will be held on 13-16 October 2008 in Cape Town, South Africa. It\u2019s an annual event for the exchange of scientific information relating to HIV vaccine research and development. The annual conference is organised under the aegis of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise and contributes to the goals of the Enterprise by providing a venue for an international exchange of information in HIV vaccine research and development, cross-fertilising scientific areas of research, increasing coordination and communication among international groups and monitoring progress in the field.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"An evaluation of infant immunisation in Africa: Is a transformation in progress?","field_subtitle":"Arevshatian L, Clements CJ and Lwanga SK: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, International Journal of Public Health, 2007 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5oyglj","body":"This paper assesses the progress towards meeting the goals of the African Regional Strategic Plan of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation between 2001 and 2005. These goals include: to interrupt the circulation of wild polio virus in all countries; eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus in all high-risk districts; 80% of the countries to have reached at least 80% diphtheria-tetanus-pertissus-3 (DTP-3) coverage; and measles to be controlled and eliminated in Southern Africa. The paper finds that although more infants had been immunised by 2005, most of the targets had been missed by at least half of the region\u2019s countries. The authors estimate that DTP-3 coverage increased from 54% in 2000 to 69% in 2004, and as a result the number of non-immunised children declined from 1.4 million in 2002 to 900,000 in 2004. Reported measles cases dropped from 520,000 in 2000 to 316,000 in 2005 and mortality was reduced by approximately 60%. The paper concludes that the rates of immunisation coverage are improving dramatically in the WHO African region. The huge increases in spending on immunisation and the related improvements in programme performance are linked predominantly to increases in donor funding.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Anti-fakes bill threatens access to generics ","field_subtitle":" Kimani D: The East African, 8 September 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/-/2558/467794/-/s2fc86z/-/index.html","body":"Kenyan health activists last week slammed the country\u2019s proposed anti-counterfeiting law, saying that provisions had been slipped into it to prevent the importation of cheap generic medicines. They say the Kenya Anti-Counterfeit Bill 2008 does not distinguish between medicines and ordinary items such items as pens, DVDs and batteries, and also contravenes the provisions of the 2001 Industrial Property Act (IPA), which paved the way for the widespread use of generic ARVs to manage HIV/AIDS. The Bill contains various ambiguities, which, if misinterpreted or abused, would be detrimental to the government\u2019s ongoing efforts to ensure access to essential medicines for all Kenyans. These ambiguities should be addressed in order to ensure that interested parties, including the multinational pharmaceutical industry, do not misuse the Bill as a front to discriminate against more affordable generic competition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Antiretroviral therapy and early mortality in South Africa","field_subtitle":" Boulle A, Bock P, Osler M, Cohen K, Channing L, Hilderbrand K, Mothibi E, Zweigenthal V, Slingers N, Cloete K and Abdullah F: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 86, 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/9/07-045294.pdf","body":"This paper describes province-wide outcomes and temporal trends of the Western Cape Province antiretroviral treatment (ART) programme five years since inception, to demonstrate the utility of the WHO monitoring system for ART. Data on patients starting ART was prospectively captured into facility-based registers, from which monthly cross-sectional activity and quarterly cohort reports were aggregated. Retention in care, mortality, loss to follow-up and laboratory outcomes were calculated at six-monthly durations. By the end of March 2006, 16,234 patients were in care. Adults starting ART with CD4 counts less than 50 cells/&#956;l fell from 51.3% in 2001 to 21.5% in 2005, while mortality at six months fell from 12.7% to 6.6%, offset in part by an increase in loss to follow-up (reaching 4.7% at six months in 2005). Over 85% of adults tested had viral loads below 400 copies/ml at six-monthly durations until four years on ART. The paper concludes that the location of care in primary-care sites was associated with good retention in care, while scaling-up ART provision was associated with reduced early mortality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"ART in the public and private sectors in Malawi: Results up to 31st March 2008","field_subtitle":"HIV Unit, Malawi Ministry of Health; MBCA; MSF; Area 18 Health Centre; QECH; KCH, Lilongwe; Lighthouse, Lilongwe; Mlambe Mission Hospital; SUCOMA Clinic: 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/MOHaids22092008.pdf","body":"This report presents data on the number of patients accessing ART in both the public and private sectors in Malawi. By the end of March 2008, there were 157 free-standing facilities in Malawi in the public health sector delivering ART free of charge to HIV-positive eligible patients. In the first quarter of 2008 (January to March), there were 17,642 new patients started on ART (39% male, 61% female; 91% adults and 9% children. By the end of March 2008, there were 159,111 patients who had ever started on ART (39% male, 61% female; 92% adults and 8 % children). By the end of March 2008, there were 45 facilities in Malawi in the private health sector delivering ART at a subsidised rate to HIV-positive eligible patients. In the first quarter of 2008 (January to March), there were 669 new patients started on ART (44% male, 56% female, 95% adult, 5% children). By the end of March 2008, there were 6,076 patients who had ever started on ART (51% male, 49% female, 95% adults, 5% children).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Better Aid: Civil society position paper for the 2008 Accra High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness","field_subtitle":"International Civil Society Steering Group: e-CIVICUS 404, 29 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/media/BetterAiod-CivilSocietyPaper-Accra.pdf","body":"Civil society organisations (CSOs) were present in 2005 when the Paris Declaration (PD) on Aid Effectiveness was signed. Since then, diverse national and international CSOs have engaged in tracking this agreement, raised a range of issues and brought in different perspectives, to ensure the framework translates into effective and accountable development processes. In this paper, they argue that the only true measures of aid effectiveness are its contribution to the sustained reduction of poverty and inequality, and its support of human rights, democracy, environmental sustainability and gender equality. Ownership is essential, but must be democratic. They recommend putting an end to all donor-imposed policy conditionality. Donors and Southern governments must adhere to the highest standards of openness and transparency, and support reforms to make procurement systems more accountable, not more liberalised. Finally, the Accra Agenda for Action must recognise CSOs as development actors in their own right and acknowledge the conditions that enable them to play an effective role in development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Brazil rejects patent on an essential AIDS medicine: Precedent-setting move likely to increase access to important AIDS drug ","field_subtitle":" Brazilian Patent Office, 2008","field_url":"","body":"The Brazilian Patent Office has rejected a patent application by Gilead on the drug tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF), in a move that could increase access to a key HIV/AIDS medicine across the developing world. The decision means that the medicine can now be produced by Brazilian generic companies or imported from other generic sources from abroad. This is the first time that a patent related to an antiretroviral (ARV) medicine has been rejected as a result of a pre-grant opposition in Brazil. The patent office in Brazil rejected it on the grounds that it lacks inventiveness \u2013 one of the key requirements for a patent in Brazilian and international patent law. The consequences extend far beyond Brazil\u2019s borders and may set a precedent for other developing nations. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33508","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for all PHM networks to participate in launching the Global Health Watch 2","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Global Secretariat of the People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM), jointly with the Secretariat of the Global Health Watch 2 (GHW2), calls upon all PHM country circles and networks to participate in the launching of the GHW2. Global Health Watch is a collaboration of leading popular movements and non-governmental organisations consisting of civil society activists, community groups, health workers and academics. It has compiled the second edition of its alternative to World Health Organisation\u2019s (WHO) World Health Report \u2013 a hard-hitting, evidence-based analysis of the political economy of health and health care \u2013 as a challenge to major global bodies that influence health. Its monitoring of institutions including the World Bank, WHO and UNICEF reveals that, while some important initiatives are being taken, much more needs to be done to have any hope of meeting the UN\u2019s health-related Millennium Development Goals.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33513","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for support for the provision of essential medicines in Africa","field_subtitle":"Lyznik K: The African Commission on Access to Medicines and Human Rights in Africa, September 15 2008","field_url":"http://www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/humanrights","body":"Essential medicines must be physically accessible (available), economically accessible (affordable) and must be administered without discrimination. To help ensure this, the HIV Clinical Group at Pretoria University, in conjunction with PIJIP and WCL clinic students, is working to gather widespread NGO support for a submission before the African Commission during its meeting in Abuja, Nigeria from the 10th to the 24th of November. This submission will call upon the African Commission to adopt an interpretation of the right to health under the African Charter, which mirrors the one provided by General Comment 14 to the ICESCR, specifically recognising that access to medicines is a crucial component to the right to health. Furthermore, upon recognising that the right to health includes the components of accessibility, availability, acceptability, and good quality of medicines, the submission will call upon the African Commission, in the future, to use these standards as a means to uniformly monitor the state\u2019s compliance with the right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"China and India in Africa: Challenging the status quo?","field_subtitle":"Naidu S and Herman H: Pambazuka News, 3 September 2008","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/50252","body":"The behaviour of China and India as development partners is changing the global aid picture, most importantly in Africa. Welcomed by African governments as alternative sources of development finance to the West, they have modelled their development finance on a framework of concessional loans and aid for resource security and infrastructure reconstruction. But their development assistance remains negligible, compared to the DAC and multilateral donors, who remain Africa\u2019s main development partners. Until fairly recently, both countries have received large Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) disbursements. Conflicting definitions of aid as co-operation or ODA, offered by the Chinese government and well positioned academic sources, reflect a lack of clarity in Chinese foreign aid policy. Trying to pigeon hole or compartmentalise aid policies in each country into neatly defined boxes proves difficult, particularly as China and India\u2019s donor activities in Africa are often inextricably viewed together with commercial interests and investment projects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Churches call aid programmes to truly help poverty","field_subtitle":"Catholic Information Service for Africa, 3 September 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3vggye","body":"African church leaders have expressed fear that the interests of the poor are not reflected in draft documents produced for Accra High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness. Half of all aid comes in the form of expensive consultants responding to directives from donors. Local communities must have a greater role in making decisions that ultimately affect their lives the most. Imposed conditions of international donors continue to undermine democratic ownership of aid. Rich country governments are behaving shamefully in tying aid to promoting their own economic interests. Requiring food aid be supplied by Northern producers in the current food crisis is immoral. Aid should not benefit the rich while the poor go hungry. Churches and faith-based organisations are major providers of health, education and other social services in developing countries; as such they must be recognised as partners in delivering development aid.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Declining HIV prevalence among young pregnant women in Lusaka, Zambia","field_subtitle":" Stringer EM, Chintu NT, Levy JW, Sinkala M, Chi J, Muyanga BH, Bulterys M, Bweupe M, Megazzini K and Stringer JSA: WHO Bulletin 86, 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/9/07-045260/en/index.html","body":"HIV prevention has been ongoing in Lusaka for many years. Recent reports suggest a possible decline in HIV sero-incidence in Zambia and some neighbouring countries. This study aimed to examine trends in HIV seroprevalence among pregnant and parturient women between 2002 and 2006. It analysed HIV seroprevalence trends from two Lusaka sources: antenatal data from a city-wide programme to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission and delivery data from two anonymous unlinked cord-blood surveillances performed in 2003 and again in 2005\u20132006. For the antenatal data, the HIV seroprevalence among antenatal attendees who were tested declined steadily from 24.5% in the third quarter of 2002 to 21.4% in the last quarter of 2006. For the cord-blood surveillances, overall HIV seroprevalence declined from 25.7% in 2003 to 21.8% in 2005\u20132006. Among women &#8804; 17 years of age, seroprevalence declined from 12.1% to 7.7%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Delivering on the Global Partnership to achieve the Millennium Development Goals","field_subtitle":" MDG Gap Task Force, 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/medicines/mdg/MDG8EnglishWeb.pdf","body":"The UN Secretary-General\u2019s report \u2018Delivering on the Global Partnerships for Achieving the Millennium Development Goals\u2019 highlights large gaps in the availability of medicines in the public and private sectors, as well as a wide variation in prices which render essential medicines unaffordable to poor people. The report describes progress towards achieving MDG8 (develop a global partnership for development) and its related targets in the areas of essential medicines, official development assistance, trade, external debt and technology. In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, access to affordable essential medicines in developing countries was measured using nine indicators and data collected by WHO and its partners. The report found that, in the public sector, generic medicines are only available in 34.9% of facilities, at on average cost 250% more than the international reference price. In the private sector, those same medicines are available in 63.2% of facilities, but cost about 650% more than the international reference price. While policies that promote access such as generic substitution are in place in many countries, more national and international effort is needed to improve the availability and affordability of medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 61: Non-financial incentives and retention of health workers in Tanzania: Combined evidence from literature review and a focussed cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Munga MA and Mbilinyi DR, NIMRI Tanzania: June 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS61HRmunga.pdf","body":"The Tanzanian public health sector is losing workers to internal and external migration. This paper examines the implementation of policies to govern non-financial incentives to retain health workers. It examines a range of non-financial incentives, including training; leave; promotion; housing; and a safe and supportive working environment. It also examines the systems for managing personnel and the implementation of incentives as a factor in retention, including the participatory personnel appraisal system; worker participation in discussing their job requirements and welfare; supervision; recognition and respect. Drawing on a review of policy, published and grey literature and on a field stidy of seven districts, including five underserved districts, the paper finds that while a number of incentives exist in policy, their sustainability is eroded by the absence of special earmarked funding for their implementation. Decentralised districts also lack adequate powers and authority to manage health workers weakening their ability to implement non-financial incentives. There was general consensus from health workers and managers that interventions such as training and education, promotion and the provision of safe working and living environments, can be strong motivators if implemented in an effective and sustainable manner. In contrast, health workers interviewed pointed to the demotivating effect of poor implementation of available non-financial incentives. The management and resource barriers to implementing non financial retention incentives are further explored in the paper and recommendations made to strengthen the implementation of incentives. The authors conclude that analysis of issues driving retention needs to take into account both individual and structural factors that shape individual health workers' preference structures and the complex nature of the health care labour market. A trivialised pull and push factors framework in analysing complex problems like retention, will not guide sustainable solutions, which need to be based on an understanding of factors that not only guide the design of incentive regimes, but also the resources, management systems and other factors that enable their implementation in practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic slowdown to push 100 million into poverty","field_subtitle":"Plus News, 12 September 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80310","body":"The UN Secretary-General has warned in a new report that the gains made in reducing extreme poverty are under threat from the rise in global food and fuel prices and global economic slowdown. According to World Bank data, the number of extreme poor has fallen \u2013 from 1.8 billion to 1.4 billion \u2013 between 1990 and 2005, with the biggest gains made in eastern Asia, in particular, China. In sub-Saharan Africa and the Commonwealth of Independent States, however, the number of poor has increased in the same period. While these figures confirm that the global poverty rate is likely to be halved by 2015 \u2013 achieving the first MDG - the UN report indicates that the worldwide increases in food prices will push another 100 million people into absolute poverty. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ending aid dependence","field_subtitle":"Tandon Y: Fahamu and South Centre, September 2008","field_url":"http://www.fahamu.org/publications/item/ending_aid_dependence/","body":"Developing countries reliant on aid want to escape from this dependence, and yet they appear unable to do so. This book shows how developing countries can liberate themselves from aid that pretends to be developmental but is not. Exiting aid dependence should be at the top of the political agenda of all countries. The Third High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness was promoted as helping \u2018developing countries and marginalised people in their fight against poverty by making aid more transparent, accountable and results-oriented'. This book cautions developing countries against endorsing the agenda proposed at this meeting. If adopted, it would subject recipients to a discipline of collective control by the donors right up to the village level. This will especially affect present donor-dependent countries - particularly poorer countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided.\r\n\r\nThe views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles.\r\n\r\nPlease contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 92: Primary health care  and health for all: Can we align to achieve?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/ EQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"European Development Fund: The illusion of assistance ","field_subtitle":"Ndiaye ML: Pambazuka News, 3 September 2008","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/50253","body":"Africa\u2019s share of world trade declined from 5.5% in 1980 to 2% in 2003, with an overwhelming dependency on trade with the EU (European Union). Trade policies have a critical role to play in supporting economic development across Africa. These policies are increasingly set through agreements in international arenas. Whilst the World Trade Organisation has set trade rules that have implications for African countries, it is a new generation of bilateral/regional trade and investment agreements that will critically determine the types of trade and wider economic policies that governments can use to support development. There are widespread and justified fears that the configuration of the EPA negotiating blocs will undermine rather than promote aid effectiveness. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Free donor management toolkit","field_subtitle":"NPower Seattle, November 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/52kmvy","body":"This toolkit by NPower Seattle is for any non-profit employee or manager given the task of managing donors. Non-profit organisations regularly face the challenge of accomplishing a mission with limited resources and high accountability for expenditures regularly considered overhead expenses. Donation and grant-dependent funding often means that \u2018success\u2019 becomes the ability to tap into and grow these donor bases as efficiently and effectively as possible, but this is hard if you have limited in-house technology expertise and are tasked with maintaining and managing unusual and detailed data to support your services or have data that is stored in multiple locations that don\u2019t talk with one another. The donor management software in this kit will help you to manage relationships with active and prospective donors by tracking contact information, keeping records of correspondence and donations, managing grant deadlines and producing detailed reports.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Free human rights training manuals","field_subtitle":"IFHHRO, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ifhhro.org/main.php?op=text&id=24","body":"The International Federation of Health and Human Rights Organisations promotes the monitoring of health-related human rights, including the right to health. The Federation focuses on the role of health professionals in this regard. It also provides free training material in human rights issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender equality and aid effectiveness: The need to acknowledge marginalised groups","field_subtitle":" Craviotto N and Alemany C: e-CIVICUS 404, 29 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/content/e-CIVICUS-NereaCraviotto-CeciliaAlemany.html","body":"Adopted in 2005, the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness is the most recent framework on management of development aid assistance agreed by the donor community in the OECD, in partnership with some Southern governments. It aims to contribute to achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. There have been some improvements in recognising the importance of gender equality and women\u2019s rights, such as the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA), which emphasises their central place of poverty reduction and human rights in development policy. The AAA also recognises the need to improve access to sex-disaggregated data but fails to explicitly recognise the need for coherence with international agreements on human rights, gender equality, environmental sustainability and decent work as frameworks for aid relationships. Ultimately, there has been no significant change in direction since 2005.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Human resources for health: A gender analysis","field_subtitle":" George A: Women and Gender Equity Knowledge Network and the Health Systems Knowledge Network of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health, June 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4h7ex7","body":"This desk review notes a lack of sex-disaggregated data, which hides the presence of women in the health workforce or misrepresents their work. Gender also influences the structural location of women and men in health occupations, resulting in significant gender differences in terms of employment security, promotion, remuneration etc. These differences are neither static nor universal, so they need to be analysed and monitored in changing national contexts, specific health system circumstances and by other social determinants. Recommendations include monitoring delegation, implementing strategies to address gender inequalities (such as affirmative action and training), halting the gender bias that questions the personal and professional prestige of women health workers and recognising home-based care efforts, which are mostly shouldered by women. Source and recipient countries must do more to retain local nursing staff, and recognise violence in the health work place. Individual efforts by women and men must be constructively and collectively amplified through policy and programme efforts at higher and broader levels in health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Inaugural Conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA), Accra, Ghana","field_subtitle":"Dates revised: 10 to 12 March 2009","field_url":"http://afhea.org/","body":"The revised dates for the Conference have now been fixed for 10 to 12 March 2009 at the La Palm Beach Hotel in Accra. The theme of the conference is 'Priorities of Health Economics in Africa'. The conference will cover: User fees; Health insurance and equitable health care financing in Africa; New international health care financing mechanisms and initiatives; Human resources for health in Africa; Economic evaluation of health services in Africa; Measuring health and factors contributing to health; Microeconomic techniques and issues; Preferences and willingness to pay; Economics and financing of AIDS and malaria in Africa; and Health research priorities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Info-Activism Camp: Maximising your advocacy work","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.tacticaltech.org","body":"The Info-Activism Camp is organised by Tactical Tech and will be held in India in February 2009. Tactical Tech is an international NGO helping rights advocates use information, communications and digital technologies to maximise the impact of their advocacy work. They provide advocates with guides, tools, training and consultancy to help them develop the skills and tactics they need to increase the impact of their campaigning. The Info-Activism Camp will bring together 120 rights advocates from the global South with technologists, designers and activists for a week-long hands-on workshop to share skills, tools and tactics in digital advocacy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Intellectual property rights and traditional knowledge: Biopiracy or bioprospecting?  ","field_subtitle":"Krieger MJB: Berkeley Electronic Press, 2008","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=39064&em=050908&sub=trade","body":"This paper questions the right of corporations in developed countries to own biological samples of traditional medical knowledge in developing nations. This phenomenon has been referred to as biopiracy or as bioprospecting. Biopiracy is tackled in two international treaties - the Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). But these treaties have different goals: the CBD focuses on protecting biological diversity, while TRIPS promotes private ownership. This paper addresses friction about how to interpret international contracts with embedded biopiracy. It recommends collecting traditional knowledge on publicly accessible databases so that patent offices can determine the real source of knowledge. Patent applicants could also be required to disclose the source of biological material to prevent misappropriation of genetic material. Countries should also strike deals with corporations to obtain fair compensation for use of resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Investment in HIV/AIDS programmes: Does it help strengthen health systems in developing countries? ","field_subtitle":"Yu D, Souteyrand Y, Banda MA, Kaufman J and Perriens JH: Globalization and Health, 16 September 2008","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/pdf/1744-8603-4-8.pdf","body":"Is scaled-up investment in HIV/AIDS programmes strengthening or weakening fragile health systems of developing countries? Among the positive impacts are the increased awareness of and priority given to public health by governments, some primary health care services have been inmproved, services to people living with HIV/AIDS have rapidly expanded, and in many countries infrastructure and laboratories have been strengthened. The effect of AIDS on the health work force has been lessened by the provision of antiretroviral treatment to HIV-infected health care workers, by training, and task-shifting. However, there are concerns about a temporal association between increased AIDS funding and stagnant reproductive health funding, and accusations that scarce personnel are siphoned off from other health care services by offers of better-paying jobs in HIV/AIDS programmes - with limited hard evidence. Because service delivery for AIDS has not reached a level close to Universal Access, countries and development partners must maintain the momentum of investment in HIV/AIDS programmes. At the same time, global action for health is even more underfunded than the response to the HIV epidemic. The real issue is therefore not whether to fund AIDS or health systems, but how to increase funding for both.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Is it possible to identify patients' sex when reading blinded illness narratives? - An experimental study about gender bias","field_subtitle":"Andersson J, Salander P, Brandstetter-Hiltunen M, Knutsson E, Hamberg K: International Journal for Equity in Health 7(21) 18 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-7-21.pdf","body":"In the clinical situation it is difficult to know whether gender differences in management reflect physicians' gender bias or male and female patients' different needs or different ways of expressing their needs. To shed some light on these possibilities this study investigated to what extent it was possible to identify patients' sex when reading their blinded illness narratives, i.e., do male and female patients express themselves differently enough to be recognised as men and women without being categorised beforehand? Eighty-one authentic letters about being diseased by cancer were blinded regarding sex and read by 130 students of medicine and psychology. For each letter the participants were asked to give the author's sex and to explain their choice. The students' explanations for their choice of sex agreed with common gender stereotypes implying that such stereotypes correspond, at least on a group level, to differences in male and female patients' illness descriptions. However, it was also obvious that preconceptions about gender obstructed and biased the interpretations, a finding with implications for the understanding of gender bias in clinical practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Lost in a haystack: Gender equality in aid effectiveness","field_subtitle":"Etta FE: Pambazuka News, 3 September 2008","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/50181","body":"In September 2008 world leaders convened in Accra, Ghana for Third High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness to sign what is now popularly called the Triple A (the Accra Agenda for Action). It is actually a prepackaged condensation of evaluations of implementation of the Paris Declaration and consultations about them conducted between 2006 and 2008 in all the regions of the world. It charts the broad actions that will occupy many development actors between now and December 2011 when the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness takes place. This paper attempts to show how and why the text of the Triple A had to be different from the Paris Declaration and notes that gender is absent from the agenda. The custodians of the Paris declaration say the Triple A does not overtake, override nor overwrite the Paris Declaration. The former only reasserts the latter, which does not help gender issues. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Markets, information asymmetry and health care: Towards new social contracts","field_subtitle":"Bloom G, Standing H and Lloyd R: Social Science and Medicine 66(10):2076-87, May 2008","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18316147","body":"This paper explores the implications of the increasing role of informal as well as formal markets in the health systems of many low and middle-income countries. It focuses on institutional arrangements for making the benefits of expert medical knowledge widely available in the face of the information asymmetries that characterise health care. The paper argues that social arrangements can be understood as a social contract between actors, underpinned by shared behavioural norms, and embedded in a broader political economy. This contract is expressed through a variety of actors and institutions, not just through the formal personnel and arrangements of a health sector. Such an understanding implies that new institutional arrangements, such as the spread of reputation-based trust mechanisms can emerge or be adapted from other parts of the society and economy. The paper examines three relational aspects of health systems: the encounter between patient and provider; mechanisms for generating trust in goods and services in the context of highly marketised systems; and the establishment of socially legitimated regulatory regimes. This analysis is used to review experiences of health system innovation and change from a number of low income and transition countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mozambique\u2019s experience of aid effectiveness ","field_subtitle":"Cumbi M: Pambazuka News, 3 September 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/50182","body":"The performance of donors and recipient countries for delivery and use of aid undermine its potential to do good. Some conditionalities imposed to aid recipient countries, like Mozambique, reduce the extent to which it can contribute to poverty reduction and achieve the MDGs - by forcing governments to implement policies that lead to unemployment, declining public services and reduced capacity by citizens to access basic services. On the other hand, Mozambique still faces challenges in ensuring good governance, adequate institutional capacity and coordination of activities at different levels. Corruption practices without an appropriate mechanism for imputing responsibilities, lack of coordination across sectors and weak institutions and systems combined with the absence or weak donors\u2019 coordination and harmonisation practices undermine the full potential of aid. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Obstacles to prompt and effective malaria treatment lead to low community-coverage in two rural districts of Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Hetzel MW, Obrist B, Lengeler C, Msechu JJ, Nathan R, Dillip A, Makemba AM, Mshana C, Schulze A, and Mshinda H: BMC Public Health, 16 September 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3r3e7r","body":"This paper aimed to provide a better understanding of obstacles to accessing malaria treatment so as to develop practical and cost-effective interventions. After intensive health education, the biomedical concept of malaria has largely been adopted by the community. At last 80% of the fever cases in children and adults were treated with one of the recommended antimalarials. But only 22.5% of children and 10.5% of adults received prompt and appropriate antimalarial treatment. A clear preference for modern medicine was reflected in frequent use of antimalarials. Yet, case-management and functioning exemption mechanims were far from satisfactory for the main risk group. Private drug retailers played a central role in complementing existing formal health services. Health system factors like these must be tackled urgently to translate the high efficacy of artemisinin-based combination therapy into equitable community-effectiveness and health-impact.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Parliament briefing 3: Parliament roles in protecting rights to health in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, School of Public Health (University of Cape Town), Training and Research Support Centre, SEAPACOH: August 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ParlBrief3rightsINT%20COMMITMENTS.pdf","body":"Parliaments have a significant role to play in ensuring that people are able to access the right to health, that health rights are enshrined in national laws, and that national governments make proper provisions for implementing health rights. This brief sets out the international legal framework for the right to health and the responsibilities of national legislatures in making that right to health real. Parliaments and their committee structures play a key role in the oversight of international human rights commitments, passing and reviewing laws to implement these commitments, overseeing the executive and monitoring implementation of these laws, and in including civil society in such processes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Parliament briefing 4: Using health rights to promote equity oriented health budgets","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, School of Public Health (University of Cape Town), Training and Research Support Centre, SEAPACOH: August 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ParlBrief4rights&fin.pdf","body":"Public policy can make a difference to people\u2019s health. Health improves with increased wealth. But countries with low per capita national incomes have been able to achieve very high health outcomes when they have directed resources towards primary health care and district health services. Parliaments can contribute to these health outcomes in their debate on, review and approval of government budget allocations and oversight of public spending by the executive. This function is often seen as separate to the legislative role of parliament. But this leaflet argues that in fact, rights and their expression in law can be a powerful tool for parliamentarians when they are arguing the case for increased budget allocations, especially for health, and for these resources to be directed at the areas of health that matter most for equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy reform at the heart of sustainable aid effectiveness","field_subtitle":"Courteille C: e-CIVICUS 404, 29 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/content/e-CIVICUS404-DecentWork-Aid%20Effectiveness.html","body":"The Accra high-level meeting on aid effectiveness comes at a critical juncture for the international community, with the global economy beset by  the food and energy crises, and the financial market slowdown that threaten to set back hard-won gains in poverty alleviation. The 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness is a first step in establishing a framework for development cooperation, but its implementation is far behind expectations. Only a few genuine partnerships between donor and recipient countries have been created. With attention paid to national ownership and preservation of national policy space, multi- and bilateral donors should prioritise implementing national International Labour Organisation-supported decent-work strategies as part of development cooperation, and should maintain adequate and predictable budget levels for this purpose. Consulting trade unions and other  actors in donor and recipient countries is also important in governing aid effectiveness.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Preventing corruption in African procurement","field_subtitle":"Mawenya AS: South African Institute of International Affairs Paper 9, August 2008","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/media/SAIIAOccasionalPapersProcurement-Mawenya.pdf","body":"The author of this paper argues that corruption in public procurement is the chief cause of poverty in Africa. It is fostered by poor governance and weak legislation and may be costing the continent up to US$148-billion a year. Yet it can be countered if there is the will and skill to do so. Combatting corruption in public procurement is a multi-faceted problem, which requires a comprehensive package of measures to be implemented concurrently. The author presents proposals for this: The first line of defence is to ensure a sound legal framework that incorporates an anti-corruption law with real authority and effective sanctions. An explicit commitment to eradicate corruption in all forms must be made at the highest level of government. To keep clients and officials accountable, a comprehensive legal and regulatory framework governing public procurement must be implemented. There should be transparency and accountability for all in the bidding process, as well as public service reforms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Primary health care and health for all: Can we align to achieve?","field_subtitle":"Anthony Seddoh, WHO Africa Region Inter-country Support Team: Harare, Zimbabwe","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThirty years after the 1978 Declaration of Alma Ata, it seems the world is still at odds on how best to implement the principles of primary health care. The slow progress in improving health outcomes for all raises questions about the effectiveness of current ways of doing business. A concerted global alliance of global and country actors need to set positive and realistic paths to implement the intentions of Alma Ata. \r\n\r\nSixty years ago, the World Health Organisation (WHO) stated in its constitution that health is a \u201ca state of physical, mental and social wellbeing, not only the absence of disease or infirmity\u2019. Thirty years later, the Alma Ata declaration on Primary Health Care (PHC) among other things declared that \u201chealth is a fundamental right\u201d and set a thirteen point understanding to ensure this right. This understanding captured concepts of  essential care, universally accessible and affordable to individuals and families in the community through their full participation, in a spirit of  self determination. It located PHC as an integral part both of the country\u2019s health system, but involving all related sectors and aspects of national and community development. \r\n\r\nThe WHO constitution\u2019s definition of health and the Alma Ata declaration together prompt a diametrical but complementary state that need to be concurrently addressed if health is to be attained:  The first deals with the clinical determinants of health, pushing for the absence of disease in individuals.  The second addresses the determinants of health that predispose or prevent individuals from attaining a state of mental, physical and social wellbeing as a fundamental right. These include appropriate governance, the absence of war, economic and infrastructure development, adequate infrastructure and aid policies. A unique moment occurred in 1978 to bring these complementary understandings together. \r\n\r\nBefore the ink could dry on the Alma Ata declarations it had, however, already generated polarised antagonism. It was considered too socialist with an excessive preference of government providing state managed intervention. From a capitalist standpoint, it was a ridiculous proposition, too costly and defying economic reasoning. The conservative duo of JA Walsh and KS Warren launched the Selective PHC debate, arguing that it is probably more efficient to save children and limit population growth. The two main PHC proponents, WHO and UNICEF soon drifted apart, as UNICEF promoted a selective package of low cost interventions.  With resource flows following selective PHC,  Primary Health Care was translated in most countries to mean a basic package of services to be delivered at district and community levels based on a selected number of interventions with some outreach services, with a watered down district health strengthening based on this.\r\n\r\nWhy nobody asked at the time whether there was any moral significance to be attached to a person\u2019s life or pointed out that choices based on state preferences for total health gain can be justified over financial resource allocation efficiency is difficult to comprehend. Aside from efficiency based arguments being ridiculous propositions founded on utility based preference or embodying unattractive equity assumptions; the economic bargain in a healthy population should at least have also appealed to responsible international choice. \r\n\r\nAlot has since been achieved from the advance in technology in dealing with specific clinical determinants of specific diseases. It  could be argued that a saturation point has been reached, where increases in financial and human investments in existing technologies are yielding less than proportional gains.  Despite this the selective interventions approach continues to define health and health services delivery. It was given a new lease on life by the  World Bank through  its World Development Report 1993, \u2018Investing in Health\u2019. This report, which hardly acknowledged PHC, commoditised and delinked health from development and moved the world closer to the interventionist approach to health \u2013 intervening at a selective point in the epidemiology of a disease or health system. \r\n\r\nThis approach has since had wide global appeal. Currently there are over thirty WHO resolutions on AIDS, TB or Malaria alone, more than all other subjects. The health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have further entrenched this disease specific approach to resource mobilisation. There are over eighty major global health initiatives linked to the health MDGs, providing over US$ 100 million annually.  The Italian Global Health Watch reported in 2008 that the Global Fund has allocated approximately US$ 3.5 billion to countries for interventions on AIDS, TB and Malaria, mainly in Africa. Together, these initiatives have thrown billions of dollars at addressing diseases and improving clinical health conditions and made up a significant part of health sector budgets.\r\n\r\nPHC is hardly mentioned in these initiatives. Member States went to sleep on PHC except for anniversaries, and the occasional mention linked to district health system strengthening. For various reasons the world assumed an emergency mode to address what are considered new and urgent public health issues. Single disease interventions that lend themselves to easily recognisable financial accountability, quantitative monitoring and evaluation held greater appeal for funders, especially when twinned with arguments of weak domestic governance and public policy failures and capacity limitations.  \r\n\r\nWhile these initiatives on clinical determinants hummed with measurable outcomes on  specific diseases, the nexus of poverty and ill health was exacerbated.  As a result, inequalities in health have deepened to a significantly greater level than thirty years ago. There is a growing trend in urban slum development, a decline in state services, market failures in privatised economies, growing food insecurity and massive deprivation of rights to health care. \r\n\r\nHence while a lot has been done in the past thirty years to deal with disease in individuals, the unique opportunity provided by the Alma Ata Declaration to also address the determinants of health have largely been lost. Thirty years later we see the costs of this omission in a burden of poverty and disparity related ill health that ill matches the level of  knowledge or technological advance achieved globally. \r\n\r\nAs we approach another anniversary for PHC expectations are high. People expect that their physical and mental health will be promoted in a safe social, economic and political environment. They expect to have quality health systems that  provide preventive services, diagnose, treat and manage disease injury, and reduce the severity and repeated occurrence of disease. They do not expect to see wide social and economic disparities in these basic entitlements. In Africa, furthest from delivery on these expectations globally, the Ouagadougou declaration on Primary Health Care issued on April 30th 2008 called for a renewal of the Principles of Primary Health Care and its implementation in developing countries and by  the international community. \r\n\r\nSuch declarations are encouraging. However their implementation calls for resolution of the longstanding debate of the past thirty years.  These debates are not academic. They present in choices made over the policy measures, relative allocation of  institutional, social and financial resources and complementary systems for  dealing with the social determinants of health (mostly dealt with by actions outside the health sector) and those reducing the health, social and economic inequalities that arise due to the burden of disease (mostly dealt with within the health sector).  There are no clear answers for how a conceptual framework of Primary Health Care in 2008 will address this. \r\n\r\nAnd while there is a massive coalition of global initiatives dealing with diseases, there is no clear coalition of global institutions supporting or funding the determinants of health, the second factor in the PHC equation. At global level, Bretton Wood institutions and OECD initiatives for debt relief and poverty reduction have led in some African countries to short lived increases in spending on health and education,  no global initiatives so far adequately address the determinants of health.  \r\n\r\nThis leaves PHC as an orphan with no global home. WHO\u2019s attempt to foster parent PHC is inadequate given the pluralistic global environment. The state of poverty and the winds of change in international health resource priorities will make rational choices among the various dimensions impossible and predispose countries to the dictate of new interventions and their implementation.  While the  debates over the conceptual understanding of PHC will not end in 2008, at least 2008 could mark the turning point for a new institutional response, that builds a Global Alliance to generate the momentum and support for countries to implement PHC and that generates policy learning based on practice from the bottom up, reminiscent of another basis for the Alma Ata declaration.  \r\n\r\nA WHO or UN resolution creating such a global alliance would be a befitting PHC birthday gift for the millions of people seeking more than another conference. It will squarely put implementation right at the door step of a recognisable entity that can mobilise the needed funds and support countries with implementation.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat  admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health Toolkit","field_subtitle":"US Association of Schools of Public Health, 2008","field_url":"http://www.thisispublichealth.org/toolkit/","body":"As part of its \u2018This is Public Health\u2019 campaign, ASPH has developed the \u2018This is Public Health\u2019 toolkit to which will serve as a resource for anyone interested in educating others about public health issues or the field of public health. The materials in the toolkit are suggestions or templates, which can either be used as is, or tailored to suit your specific audiences. The toolkit also includes links for other sources that can increase knowledge of public health inside and outside classroom. The toolkit contains information on the 'This is Public Health' campaign and the field as a whole. Materials will be provided that target a range of individuals, accommodating varying age groups and differing levels of familiarity with the field of public health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Raising and empowering demand from communities:  The missing link in Primary Health Care in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Rosette Mutambi, Coalition for Health Promotion and Social Development, Uganda ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nStifled by perennial under-funding, inadequate health care workers and a critical shortage of infrastructure, Uganda\u2019s modest primary health care system has a more significant challenge to contend with \u2013 building effective demand among poor and vulnerable people. The Alma Ata declaration on Primary Health Care (PHC) declared health to be a fundamental right, but also observed that this called for full participation of communities in their health services. \r\n\r\nOfficial statistics show, however, that only a third of the population uses the government-supported health system in Uganda \u2013 both public and private-not-for-profit. This means that a large share of  poor and vulnerable people, including disabled people, families led by single mothers, orphans and internally displaced people,  are not reached by public investments in health. They may seek services in private clinics, or  buy medication from pharmacies or herbalists, but many poor people are likely to self-medicate at home, or hope for a natural healing process.\r\n\r\nThis still limited uptake of  public sector health services obviously has many roots. The Coalition for Health Promotion and Social Development (HEPS-Uganda), a local health rights civil society organisation, advocates for access to affordable health care and essential medicines, especially for disadvantaged people. The evidence HEPS-Uganda has gathered from the eight of the eighty five districts of the country where it operates suggests that  both service providers and users  lack awareness of their rights and responsibilities in health. The Uganda Human Rights Commission confirmed this picture in 2007, observing that health rights of many Ugandans are being violated, especially the right to information, dignity and access to essential medicines. This is surely one contributor to the poor use of services, and a barrier to effective organisation of the health system around PHC. \r\n\r\nThrough its Community Outreach and Health Complaints and Counselling (C&C) programmes, HEPS-Uganda has worked with communities and health providers in eight districts of Uganda to implement initiatives aimed at increasing public and community participation in planning and implementing primary health care, including in the rational use of medicines.\r\n\r\nThe results have been telling. When expectant mothers in Kamwenge District in western Uganda, in Kawempe Division of the capital Kampala, in the districts of Pallisa and Budaka in eastern Uganda, and in the Lira District in the North of the country have increased their understanding of their health rights and the services that meet them, their uptake of  antenatal services and their delivery at health centres under professional supervision has in some cases doubled over a year to eighteen months.\r\n\r\nThrough the C&C programme, HEPS-Uganda has established an independent feedback mechanism that receives complaints of health rights violations from health consumers, which it then tries to resolve through mediation with health providers and counselling. The process creates awareness of health rights and responsibilities in both sides, and has proved an effective way to identify and improve the whole system, within the community and within the local level health services.\r\n\r\nThe Uganda Human Rights Commission has observed that  the violation of health rights has not been given adequate attention in Uganda.  But programmes like HEPS-Uganda\u2019s C&C programme create confidence and hope:  Community members can approach health providers in an informed manner and demand the services they are entitled to. On the other side, health providers also recognize their duties and play their roles more effectively. The benefits are tangible for poor communities. In Pallisa and Budaka districts, community representation on health centre management committees is now more effective in the programme areas, and decisions are more responsive to community needs and preferences. Health centres have scrapped illegal charges that consumers have continued to incur across the country, despite government abolishing cost-sharing as far back as 2001.  The end result is a more people centred, friendlier health care environment for communities as well as health workers, and the initiative is successfully demonstrating the people\u2019s power in improving their health.\r\n\r\nIt is not that the country\u2019s policy makers do not appreciate the value of community empowerment in the effort to achieve \u201cHealth for All\u201d. Uganda is among the countries that adopted the Alma-Ata Declaration 30 years ago, committing itself among other things to a human rights approach to health in which \u201cthe people have the right and duty to participate individually and collectively in the planning and implementation of their health care.\u201d\r\n\r\nAt the country level, the national health policy commits the Government \u201cto ensure that communities are empowered to take responsibility for their own health and well being, and to participate actively in the management of their local health services.\u201d\r\n\r\nWith ill-health identified in official surveys as the leading cause of high levels of poverty, national development plans, including the Health Sector Strategic Plan and the Poverty Eradication Action Plan,  contain planned activities aimed at empowering communities for health.\r\n\r\nThere are numerous examples of  how communities are playing a role in efforts to create a community-based primary health care system. Community drug distributors dispense anti-malarial medicines door-to-door; village health teams mobilise communities for sanitation and  HIV prevention and treatment and community members are involved in implementing the \u201cdirectly-observed treatment\u201d strategy to manage tuberculosis (TB). There have also been policies to entrust management of lower level health units to local governments and to management committees with community representatives. \r\n\r\nHowever, with the exception of the TB management strategy, the performance of the rest of the initiatives still leaves alot to be desired. Other planned activities that would have empowered communities and consolidated the success of those already underway remain at the planning level, nearly a decade since the policy and other development plans were published.  For example, there has not been any national programme of  community capacity building \u201cfor effective participation of health problems, planning of health services, in resource mobilization and in the monitoring of health activities\u201d.\r\n\r\nUganda has made the important step of guaranteeing a minimum health care package, but with minimal resources. It is trying to attain universal access to primary health care, but with US$8 per person, instead of  the estimate of $34 made by the Macroeconomic Commission on Health. Without effective and collective demand from community level people will carry on \u2018making do\u2019 with poorly resourced health systems, and under-using the resources that are applied. \r\n\r\nEffective and collective demand calls, however, for a system that involves the intended beneficiaries in planning and implementation, and for an informed and empowered community, able to demand and use the services it needs. In a resource poor setting like Uganda, the case for community empowerment for health is even stronger. It is needed in setting priorities, deciding on resource allocation, monitoring the performance of service providers and in building health care seeking behaviours. Government will have to live to its commitment to empower communities health if it is to guarantee their right to quality health care.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat  admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Rapid urbanisation, employment crisis and poverty in African least developed countries: A new development strategy and aid policy","field_subtitle":"Herrmann M and Khan H: Munich Personal RePEc Archive Working Paper 9499, 8 July 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/68gccx","body":"This paper argues that it is necessary to reverse the trends in aid, and provide a much larger share of aid for productive sector development, including development of rural and urban areas, and the development of agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. Although urban centres mostly host non-agricultural industries, sustainable urbanisation also strongly depends on what happens in the agricultural sectors. Productive employment opportunities in rural areas are important to combat an unsustainable migration from rural areas to urban centres, and productive employment opportunities in urban centres are essential to absorb the rapidly increasing labour force in the non-agricultural sector. Successful urban development cannot be separated from successful rural development. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Research Fellowship in Global Health Policy and Health Financing","field_subtitle":"Nossal Institute for Global Health The University of Melbourne","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4zt4dd","body":"The University of Melbourne is offering an exciting opportunity for a developing academic leader in Health Financing and Policy to make a difference in poor countries. The Research Fellow will play a major role in establishing a Knowledge Hub in Health Finance and related health policy for low- and middle-income countries in the Asia-Pacific region. This new academic centre will bring together and develop expertise and knowledge on the financing of health services, identify research priorities and potential partner institutions, and link with other academic centres in Australia. The date for first review of applications was 31 August 2008, but late applications are accepted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Review of primary health care in the African region","field_subtitle":" Regional Office for Africa: World Health Organisation (WHO), 2008 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4ser35","body":"This WHO review examines the implementation of primary health care (PHC) in Africa and identifies strategic interventions needed to cope with challenges facing the health systems in the 21st century. It finds that PHC policy formation had been well articulated in the national health policies by most countries; however, the extent to which PHC policies encompassed equity, community participation, inter-sectoral collaboration and affordability is still questionable. Factors delaying PHC implementation include weak structures, inadequate attention to PHC principles, inadequate resource allocation and inadequate political will. Key recommendations include harmonising health sector reforms with PHC to ensure initiatives promote equity and quality in health services, improving the fairness of financing policies and strategies and service coverage for the poor, and supporting countries to address particular human resource needs through clear articulation of human resources policies, plans, development and strengthening of national management systems and employment policies, as well as to identify and put in place mechanisms for attracting and retaining health personnel.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Scaling-up antiretroviral treatment in southern African countries with human resource shortages: How will health systems adapt? ","field_subtitle":"van Damme W: Social Science &  Medicine 66(10): 2108-2121, 2008","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h5wvd1g1.html","body":"Current anti-retroviral therapy models are doctor-based and labour-intensive, requiring many qualified staff. Yet countries such as Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Rwanda and Tanzania lack sufficient skilled health workers to scale up ART according to these models. This paper considers the kind of model needed for effective scale up of ART programmes in countries which lack skilled health workers. They find that ART delivery involves several types of function requiring different approaches. Good organisation of logistics, supplies and distribution calls for a standardised, centrally controlled or bureaucratic approach. However, a more society-based approach is needed when providing community support to patients. The management of patients who do not fit standardised procedures requires a more professional approach. Finally, care of the individual patient requires a combination of the social and professional approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Protection: Opportunities for Africa","field_subtitle":"Adato M and Hoddinott J: International Food Policy Research Institute Policy Brief 005, September 2008","field_url":"http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/bp/bp005.asp","body":"Should social protection be universal (provided to everyone) or targeted (restricted to certain groups, like the poor)? Universal programmes reduce the likelihood of excluding those who need them. But programmes such as food subsidies are expensive, and a considerable share of their benefits tends to flow to people who do not need them. Evidence suggests that in terms of reaching the poor, targeted cash transfer programs tend to perform better than untargeted subsidies. But choosing to target requires deciding who should be targeted and how. Ways of doing this include 1) means testing, which has worked reasonably well in South Africa's cash transfer programs; 2) selection by community-based committees, which has worked well on a pilot basis in Zambia and Malawi; 3) targeting categorically by characteristics such as region or age - such as old-age pensions in South Africa that have been shown to improve children's education (increasing attendance by 20-25%) and nutrition (increasing child height-for-age by approximately 1-5 centimeters); and 4) self targeting, where anyone can participate but the poorest tend to self-select, which has worked well in public works programs in many countries. The optimal method depends on the programme objectives, administrative capacity, and social characteristics of communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Questions about new HIV prevalence survey","field_subtitle":"PlusNews, 9 September 2008","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=80248","body":"Several prominent demographers and scientists have vigorously refuted Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's claim that South Africa's HIV epidemic is declining and that the country 'may be making some real progress in its response to the HIV epidemic'. Tshabalala-Msimang's statement was based on a national survey of HIV prevalence among pregnant women, which researchers are describing as deeply flawed. The authors detected a problem when they noticed that changes in prevalence by age group did not tally with the change in overall prevalence, and that district figures were inconsistent with provincial estimates. They deduced that, in the 2006 survey, the results from district antenatal clinics were simply totalled to derive prevalence estimates for the country's nine provinces, but, in the 2007 survey, the health department began weighting provincial figures according to age groups, based on general population estimates for age distribution. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Synopsis of the Report of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"Woodward D: PHA-Exchange, September 2008","field_url":"","body":"In its report, the Commission calls for increased public finance for programmes and policies to support the social determinants of health, including child development, education, improved living and working conditions and health care, recognising the failure of markets to supply vital goods and services equitably. It also calls for progressive taxation at the national level, a major increase in aid, improved aid quality and greater debt cancellation. It sees an urgent need for a global economic system that supports renewed government leadership to balance public and private sector interests, and identifies quantifying the impact of supra-national political, economic, and social systems on health and health inequities within and between countries as an important research need. Stronger global management of integrated economic activity and social development is needed as a more coherent way to ensure fairer distribution of globalisation's costs and benefits. The entrenched interests of some social groups and countries are seen as \u2018barriers to common global flourishing\u2019, and transnational companies should become accountable to the public good, not just to private profit.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33484","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The 'diagonal' approach to Global Fund financing: A cure for the broader malaise of health systems?","field_subtitle":"Ooms G, van Damme W and Baker B: Globalization and Health, September 2008","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems&id=39509&type=Document","body":"This paper looks at the potentially destructive polarisation between 'vertical' financing (aiming for disease-specific results) and 'horizontal' financing (aiming for improved health systems) of health services in developing countries. The authors propose 'diagonal' financing, which aims for disease-specific results through improved health systems to prevent certain diseases from receiving disproportionate resources within a chronically under-funded health system. Rather, specific interventions should drive improvements in the health system, tackling the wide-reaching problems of human resource development, financing, facility planning, drug supply, rational prescription and quality assurance. This would involve the transformation of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria into a Global Health Fund, which requires substantial donor increases and should happen gradually and carefully, accompanied by measures to safeguard its exceptional features. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The health of nations: Conceptualising approaches to trade in health care","field_subtitle":"Davis Land Erixon F: European Centre for International Political Economy Policy Brief 4, 2008","field_url":"http://www.euractiv.com/29/images/Health%20of%20nations_tcm29-175510.pdf","body":"This policy brief assesses the current status of health and trade policies and analyses opposition to liberalizing trade in health care. It conceptualises and contrasts two international policy dialogues. One, typified by UN bodies such as the World Health Organisation, is skeptical - if not hostile - to increased trade in health care, particularly North-South integration. Its policy errs on the side of protectionism and favours an industrial policy approach. The other, operating under World Trade Organisation (WTO) discourse, has more of a free trade bent. And yet, in policy practice, few countries in the WTO trade in health care and trade agreements typically contain little to promote liberalisation. Examples in this study from those few (mainly developing) countries that have shown initiative towards trade in health care contradict this negative and apathetic approach. Countries as diverse as Brazil, China, Cuba, India and South Africa are already significant exporters of health care. Trade does hold some very tangible benefits for this sector, for North and South alike, and does not necessarily entail undermining government regulatory power. Further analysis of different health care systems\u2019 trade-compatibility is needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The health worker recruitment and deployment process in Kenya: An emergency hiring programme ","field_subtitle":" Adano U: Human Resources for Health, 16 September 2008","field_url":"http://preview.tinyurl.com/3r3e7r","body":"Despite a pool of unemployed health staff available in Kenya, staffing levels at most facilities are only 50% and maldistribution of staff has left many people without access to antiretroviral therapy (ART). It typically takes one to two years to fill vacant positions, even when funding is available, so an emergency approach was needed to fast-track hiring and deployment. A stakeholder group was formed to bring together leaders from several sectors to design and implement a fast-track hiring and deployment model to mobilise 830 more health workers. The recruitment process was shortened to less than three months. By providing job orientation and on-time pay checks, the programme increased employee retention and satisfaction. Most active roadblocks to changes in the health workforce policies and systems are 'human' - not technical - stemming from a lack of leadership, a problem-solving mindset and the alignment of stakeholders from several sectors. Strengthening appointment on merit is a powerful, yet simple way to improve the image and efficiency of the health sector and governments. The quality and integrity of the public health sector can be improved only through professionalising human resources (HR), reformulating and consolidating fragmented HR functions, and bringing all pieces together under the authority and influence of HR departments and units with expanded scopes. HR staff must be specialists with strategic HR functions and not generalists who are confined to playing a restricted and bureaucratic role. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The price of being well  ","field_subtitle":"The Economist, 28 August 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12009974","body":"This World Health Organisation report takes a broad look at inequality and health. The report issues a call to arms, stressing the need to tackle the inequitable distribution of power, money and resources through better governance, transparency, support for civil society and more equitable economic policies. Some claim the report offers a way out of the \u2018sterile debate\u2019 about whether poor health causes poverty, or vice versa. Critics point out that it downplays the link between income (as opposed to inequality) and health. One example of the correlation between money and health is from South Africa, where the health of older people improved after receiving pensions at the age of 65. But whether people are well or sick also depends on factors and policies that lie far beyond the remit of any health minister. For example, the Health Ministry may try to encourage handwashing, but it is unlikely to happen unless there is running water - which is beyond the Ministry\u2019s control.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The quality of medical advice in low-income countries","field_subtitle":"Das J, Hammer J and Leonard K: World Bank, 2008","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems&id=39552&type=Document","body":"This paper provides an overview of recent work on measuring the quality of medical care in four low- and middle-income countries: India, Indonesia, Tanzania, and Paraguay. The authors describe methods of testing and watching doctors that are relatively easy to implement and yield important insights about the nature of medical care in these countries. The paper discusses the properties of these measures and how they may be used to evaluate policy change. Finally, it outlines an agenda for further research and quality measurement tools. Researchers found the competence of doctors in low-income countries to be insufficient, quality of patient care is even worse than suggested by doctors' competence levels and the poor have access to worse quality care than the rich, in both public and private sectors. Standard measures of health care quality in low-income countries, which are based on an assessment of physical infrastructure, are inadequate. Further research with better methods of measuring of these aspects of quality is required.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The right to health and health workforce planning: A guide for government officials, NGOs, health workers and development partners","field_subtitle":"Physicians for Human Rights, 2008","field_url":"http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/documents/reports/the-right-to-health-and-health-workforce-planning.pdf","body":"The overriding message of this guide is that human rights are not merely add-ons or luxuries that only a few countries may be able to afford \u2013 they must be integral to developing health workforce strategies in all countries. Plans should be accountable to human rights obligations and other health goals and commitments. Broad participation in developing the plan will help ensure that it is accountable to those it serves. Planners may need to provide incentives for health workers to stay and should make sure their response to the health workforce crisis is comprehensive, covering aspects of the workforce such as numbers, distribution, quality of training, productivity, management, and information systems. Finally, health workforce strategies must be sustainable, so that countries provide their populations with ever-improving levels of health services, and maintain and enhance commitments to equality. This requires setting priorities that will ensure that essential health services, including those in underserved areas, can continue even if there are funding shortfalls beyond the country\u2019s control.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The rise of Africa's \u2018frontier markets\u2019: Africa's emerging markets","field_subtitle":"Nellor DCLL: International Monetary Fund, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4s74rb","body":"This article discusses African countries and the second generation of \u2018emerging market\u2019 countries. Eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been deemed to meet the \u2018emerging market\u2019 criteria by the International Finance Corporation: Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The rise of some African countries to emerging market status gives them great economic opportunity. The article looks at ways to determine a countries growth prospects, depending on whether a country is resource-rich or resource-scarce. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Voluntary Code of Ethical Conduct for the Recruitment of Foreign-Educated Nurses to the United States","field_subtitle":"Academy Health and the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, May 2008","field_url":"http://www.fairinternationalrecruitment.org/TheCode.pdf","body":"The Voluntary Code of Ethical Conduct for the Recruitment of Foreign-Educated Nurses to the United States reflects the mutual recognition of stakeholder interests relevant to the recruitment of foreign-educated nurses (FENs) to the United States. It is based on an acknowledgement of the rights of individuals to migrate, as well as an understanding that the legitimate interests and responsibilities of nurses, source countries, and employers in the destination country may conflict. It affirms that a careful balancing of those individual and collective interests offers the best course for maximising the benefits and reducing the potential harm to all parties. While it acknowledges the interests of these three primary stakeholder groups, its subscribers are the organisations that recruit and employ foreign educated nurses, namely, third party recruiting firms, staffing agencies, hospitals, long-term care organisations and health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda: Using mobile phones to fight HIV","field_subtitle":"PlusNews, 18 September 2008","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=80176","body":"Uganda's rising HIV prevalence is forcing policy makers to look for inventive ways of educating people about the virus. Their latest tool is mobile phone technology, whose rapid growth has provided an avenue that could potentially reach millions with messages. Text to Change (TTC) , an NGO that uses a bulk short message service (SMS) platform for HIV/AIDS education, recently partnered with the AIDS Information Centre in Uganda and Celtel, a local mobile phone network, to pilot a project in western Uganda aimed at communicating knowledge about the disease and encouraging subscribers to volunteer for HIV testing. The Uganda Communications Commission expects the number of mobile phone users to hit the six million mark by the end of 2008 \u2013 however, in urban areas, as many as 50% of people have mobile phones, compared to only 10% in rural areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"What makes for effective anti-corruption systems?","field_subtitle":" Camerer M: South African Institute of International Affairs Paper 10, August 2008","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/media/SAIIA-Occasional-Papers-AntiCorruption-Camerer.pdf","body":"Drawing on international best practice, this paper argues that a number of conditions are required to ensure that anti-corruption reforms in any context are effective, sustainable and not easily subverted. These conditions include having the necessary data to inform policy and strategy, comprehensive legal and institutional safeguards to prevent corruption and protect public interest, and the necessary political leadership and will to tackle corruption credibly and put in place long-term reforms. It is clear that to be effective, national anti-corruption/integrity systems require more than a single agency approach. Rather, they need to be supported by an institutional matrix of legal and oversight systems to ensure effective prosecution of offenders. Partnerships, including active engagement by civil society and the media, are also important. Above all, reforms need to be implemented by ethical leaders who scrupulously observe the rule of law.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Global Health Atlas","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/globalatlas/","body":"In a single electronic platform, the WHO\u2019s Communicable Disease Global Atlas brings together for analysis and comparison standardised data and statistics for infectious diseases at country, regional and global levels. The analysis and interpretation of data are further supported through information on demography, socioeconomic conditions and environmental factors. In so doing, the Atlas specifically acknowledges the broad range of determinants that influence patterns of infectious disease transmission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Why less could mean more for Africa","field_subtitle":"Glennie J: Zed Book, 15 October 2008","field_url":"http://www.zedbooks.co.uk/book.asp?bookdetail=4259","body":"The author of this book argues that, along with its many benefits, government aid to Africa has often meant more poverty, more hungry people, worse basic services and damage to already precarious democratic institutions. The author proposes that calls for more aid are drowning out pressure for action that would really make a difference for Africa\u2019s poor. Rather than doubling aid to Africa, it is suggested in the book that it is time to reduce the continent's aid dependency.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Why transparency is the key to Accra","field_subtitle":"Publish What You Fund: e-CIVICUS 404, 29 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/media/PublishWhatYouFund.pdf","body":"Publish What You Fund is the Global Campaign for Aid Transparency, which brings together leading NGOs and NGO coalitions to draft a first set of consultation materials \u2013 the Publish What You Fund principles, which were released in July 2008. These five principles are designed to be signed by all public and private bodies engaged in funding and delivering aid: 1. Information on aid should be published proactively. 2. Everyone can request and receive information on aid processes. 3. Information on aid should be timely and accessible. 4. Information on aid should be comparable. 5. The right of access to information about aid should be promoted. The principles will be reviewed in the run-up to the Accra High Level Forum, following an initial consultation period.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World's largest companies put through more robust accountability assessment","field_subtitle":"Gobena T: AccountAbility 15 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.accountability21.net/blogs.aspx?id=2940","body":"A broader and more robust approach to measuring companies\u2019 social and environmental impacts is now being used in this year\u2019s Accountability Rating of the world\u2019s largest companies, the so-called \u2018G100\u2019 companies. Last year, for the first time, the Accountability Rating included an assessment of companies\u2019 impacts, which was applied alongside the comprehensive evaluation of their strategy and systems that has been the basis of the Accountability Rating since its launch in 2004. After the scores for the G100 are finalised, they will be compared with data from Swiss investment research and information provider ASSET4. This will enable the Rating team to explore correlations and discrepancies between companies\u2019 Accountability Rating results and other areas of business performance. The results will be published in Fortune magazine in November and on the website www.accountabilityrating.com.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe\u2019s unsung heroes","field_subtitle":" British Medical Journal, editorial, 13 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/337/aug13_3/a1303","body":"From 29 March 2008, when Zimbabweans voted in the presidential and parliamentary elections, to 27 June when the presidential run-off election was held, Zimbabwe was hit by successive waves of gruesome political violence. The greatest intensity was in the rural provinces of east and central Mashonaland, but, as 27 June approached, violence engulfed urban areas and the numbers of victims of political violence increased. The world\u2019s attention was on the political nature of the violence, and little focus was given to medical professionals, who risked their lives to assist the victims of political violence. The latest political violence occurred when Zimbabwe was already in dire economic difficulties that had adversely affected the health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"2008 World Population Data Sheet","field_subtitle":"Population Reference Bureau, 19 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.prb.org/Publications/Datasheets/2008/2008wpds.aspx","body":"The demographic divide - inequality in the population and health profiles of rich and poor countries - is widening. Two sharply different patterns of population growth are evident: little growth or even decline in most wealthy countries and continued rapid population growth in the world\u2019s poorest countries. The 2008 World Population Data Sheet and its summary report offer detailed information about country, regional and global population patterns. It provides up-to-date demographic, health, and environment data for 209 countries and 25 regions of the world. It points up stark contrasts between developed and developing countries and predicts that the world population will soon have an urban majority. In 2008, for the first time, half of the world\u2019s population will live in urban areas. Despite some improvement, maternal mortality continues to be very high in developing countries. In the least-developed countries, 35% of the population consumes fewer than the minimum calories required to lead a healthy active life. That figure rises above 60% in several sub-Saharan countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"4th SA Aids Conference programme","field_subtitle":"Abstract submissions open","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5umfgm","body":"You are invited to submit an abstract for consideration by the Scientific Programme Committee for participation at the 4th SA Aids Conference programme. The conference is scheduled to place at Durban International Convention Centre from 31 March \u2013 3 April 2009. The theme of the conference is \u201c Scaling up for Success\u201d. Abstracts will be reviewed according to the following tracks: Basic Sciences; Clinical Sciences; Epidemiology, Prevention and Public Health; Social and Economical Sciences, Human rights and Ethics; Best Practices and Programmes; and Community Exchange Encounters. Abstracts can only be submitted electronically through the SA AIDS Conference website. Abstracts submitted to the conference secretariat directly through any other means will not be accepted for review. Please draft your abstract according to the headings listed below in no more than 300 words in total. You may draft your abstract in text format only using a word processing software i.e MS Word and then copy and paste the text in the abstract submission box.Note that no graphic images, tables, graphs or columns should be submitted with your abstract. Abstract submissions close on 31 December 2008","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Abrupt end to ministerial leaves questions on future of intellectual property issues at WTO","field_subtitle":"New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 31 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1184","body":"The World Trade Organisation Doha Round talks ended bitterly on 31 July, but negotiators left town with the general consensus that hard-earned work to date should not be lost and that there might be resumption of talks sometime in the future. The fate of intellectual property (IP) issues at the WTO remains vague and may not come clear for weeks or months, according to some sources, while others said it will be business as usual for international trade rules on IP. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS burden shows need for female-biased prevention ","field_subtitle":"Bodibe K: Living with AIDS 361, 7 August 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5g2emr","body":"A key feature of South Africa\u2019s HIV epidemic, where 5.7 million people are positive, is that among the 15-24 year olds infected, women and girls account for more than 90% of new infections. This needs a special focus on this group when designing prevention programmes, says UNAIDS. The HIV and AIDS epidemic in South Africa is stabilising, according to a report released last week by the Joint United Nations\u2019 Programme on HIV and AIDS. This means that there has not been a recognisable increase in the rate of new infections over the last few years. Instead, the infection rate has remained relatively constant. This, however, does not mean that the epidemic is declining, as the country still holds the unenviable world number one position in the stakes of the total number of people living with HIV. The fact that women and girls continue to be disproportionately infected points to a failure of HIV programmes in addressing the issues that place females at risk of HIV infection, says the United Nations\u2019 Special Envoy on AIDS in Africa, Elisabeth Mataka.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS conference defends spending","field_subtitle":"Cullinan K: Health-E, 3 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032035","body":"Over 22,000 of the world\u2019s key HIV and AIDS scientists, academics and activists attended 17th international AIDS conference in Mexico City. The HIV/AIDS sector has been under attack recently by some health practitioners who argue that too much money is being spent on HIV and AIDS to the detriment of other diseases. However, Craig McClure, the executive director of International AIDS Society (IAS) says it is unfortunate that the criticism that HIV is distorting health systems comes at a time \u2018when success is finally in our hands\u2019. \u2018There is no doubt that in order for us to achieve the 2010 Universal Access targets, health systems must be further strengthened,\u2019 said Cahn. \u2018This will require an increase in resources, including additional resources for commodities like drugs and diagnostic tools, basic health care infrastructure and the training and retaining of the health care workforce. With the life-long interventions brought by antiretroviral therapy, the success of HIV and AIDS programmes around the world is dependent on health systems strengthening.\u2019","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Anti-counterfeiting initiative aimed at protecting African medical industries","field_subtitle":"New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 8 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1194","body":"West African people should establish a medical anti-counterfeiting task force to promote local herbal medicines by protecting indigenous knowledge and genetic property. This is according to the communiqu\u00e9 from a workshop held in Accra, Ghana from 21-23 July 2008. A survey conducted by WHO between January 1999 and October 2000 found 60% of counterfeiting incidents occurred in developing countries and 40% in industrialised nations. To protect the local medical industries, the task force will prepare a mechanism for reporting counterfeit issues, including its harmful effect on local economy and health and launch awareness creation programmes as well as advising governments and local companies on ways to increase the use of security features on their products including medicines, cosmetics and medical devices. According to President Kufuor, this protection of intellectual property rights for local medical industries will sustain socioeconomic development that depends on investment and the growth of local industries, entrepreneurs and innovators who are willing to invest the capital needed to create brands and copyrights and to deploy money into research and development necessary to produce products which are accorded IP rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Are health professions an obstacle to future health systems in low-income countries?","field_subtitle":"Dussault G: Social Science and Medicine 66(10), May 2008","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18336977","body":"In most low-income countries, there is no tradition of labour market regulation, and the professions have little capacity to regulate members' provision of health services, which tends to be weak. The paper looks at the impact of professional monopolies on the performance of health services delivery systems, e.g. equity of access, effectiveness of services, efficiency in the use of scarce resources, responsiveness to users' needs, including protection against the financial impact of utilising health services. It identifies issues which policy-makers face in relation to opening the health labour market while guaranteeing the safety and security of services provided by professionals. A \"social contract\", granting privileges of practice in exchange of a commitment to actively maintain and enhance the quality of their services, may be a viable course of action. This would require that the actors in the policy process collaborate in strengthening the capacity of regulatory agencies to perform their role.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"As food prices increase, food aid hits a record low, says Food Aid Flows report, 2007","field_subtitle":"United Nations World Food Programme, 2008 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5zln3g","body":"The new edition of the annual Food Aid Flows report provides a comprehensive view of trends in global food aid, which include food aid deliveries by governments, non-governmental organisations and the World Food Programme. It shows that food aid deliveries continued to decline in 2007, reaching the lowest level since 1961. The report argues that there is an urgent need to reverse this trend. In particular, increased resources for food assistance are urgently needed to address the serious negative effects of the higher food prices on hunger and malnutrition across the world. The report provides data of food aid flows in 2007 by category, mode, channel, sale recipient, region and donor. Key trends identified in 2007 include: food aid deliveries reached a record low in 2007, with all three categories of food aid \u2013 emergency, project and programme \u2013 declining. The share of food aid that was channelled multilaterally continued to increase and reached 55%, the highest share ever. The share of food aid commodities procured in developing countries increased but there was a decline in direct transfers of wheat and maize, which can be partly explained by higher wheat and maize prices. Of 31 main government donors, 24 reduced their food aid donations in 2007 as all regions faced a decline in food aid deliveries in 2007, except Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa remained the largest recipient of food aid. Based on these findings, the report emphasises the need for increased food assistance, particularly in the context of recent food price rises. Given that food prices are expected to remain high during the next decade, it argues that, without additional interventions, higher food prices could jeopardise the prospects for the achievement of Millennium Development Goals and the fight against hunger and malnutrition. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Birth preparedness among antenatal clients","field_subtitle":"Mutiso SM, Qureshi Z and Kinuthia J: East African Medical Journal 85(6):275\u2013283, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=53&id=41966","body":"This paper set out to evaluate birth preparedness and complication readiness among antenatal care clients at Kenyatta National Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya. A total of 394 women attending antenatal care were systematically sampled to select every third interviewee for the study. The paper found that over 60% of the respondents were counselled by health workers on various elements of birth preparedness and many were aware of their expected date of delivery, had set aside funds for transport to hospital or for emergencies and knew at least one danger sign in pregnancy. Level of education positively influenced birth preparedness. However, education and counselling on different aspects of birth preparedness was not provided to all clients, especially about danger signs in pregnancy, birth preparedness and plans for emergencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Building social capital in healthcare organisations: Thinking ecologically for safer care","field_subtitle":"Hofmeyer A and Marck PB: Nursing Outlook 56(4), July 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/59ftyb","body":"Drawing from the fields of nursing, healthcare ethics, health systems management, and ecological restoration, the authors of this paper outline the role of social capital for organisational integrity, healthy workplace cultures, sustainable resource management, improved nurse retention, effective knowledge translation and safer patient care. Nursing leaders can use ecological thinking to build the vital resource of social capital by taking concrete steps to commit the necessary human and material resources to: forge relations to foster bonding, bridging and linking social capital; build solidarity and trust; foster collective action and cooperation; strengthen communication and knowledge exchange; and create capacity for social cohesion and inclusion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: The Botswana Review of Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Botswana Review of Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS (BRELA) is a journal published by the Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS (BONELA) based in Gaborone, Botswana. BRELA is a peer-reviewed journal intended to create a participatory forum for critical and analytical discussion of a broad range of multi-sectoral issues and debates surrounding HIV and AIDS. The journal is looking for submissions from researchers and writers. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33367","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can the feedback of patient assessments, brief training, or their combination, improve the interpersonal skills of primary care physicians? A systematic review","field_subtitle":"Cheraghi-Sohi S, Bower P: BMC Health Services Research 8(179), 21 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6963-8-179.pdf","body":"Improving quality of primary care is a key focus of international health policy. Two methods of improving the quality of interpersonal care in primary care have been proposed. One involves the feedback of patient assessments of interpersonal care to physicians, and the other involves brief training and education programmes. This study therefore reviewed the efficacy of (i) feedback of real patient assessments of interpersonal care skills, (ii) brief training focused on the improvement of interpersonal care and (iii) interventions combining both (i) and (ii). Nine studies were included (two patient based feedback studies and seven brief training studies). Of the two feedback studies, one reported a significant positive effect. The authors conclude that there is limited evidence concerning the effects of patient based feedback. There is reasonable evidence that brief training as currently delivered is not effective, although the evidence is not definitive, due to the small number of trials and the variation in the training methods and goals. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Causes of delay in diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis in patients attending a referral hospital in western Kenya","field_subtitle":"Ayuo PO, Diero LO, Owino-Ong\u2019or WD and Mwangi AW: East African Medical Journal 85(6):263\u2013268, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=53&id=41964","body":"This study\u2019s main objective was to determine the length of delays from onset of symptoms to initiation of treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB). A total of 230 patients aged between 12 and 80 years were included in the study. A cough was the commonest symptom, reported by 99% of the patients, followed by chest pain (80%). Factors like marital status, being knowledgeable about TB, distance to the clinic and where they sought help first had significant effect on how long it took a patient to seek treatment. TB control programmes in this region must emphasise patient education regarding symptoms of tuberculosis and timely health-seeking behaviour.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenging orthodoxies: The road ahead for health and human rights","field_subtitle":"Farmer P","field_url":"http://www.hhrjournal.org/index.php/hhr/article/view/33/100","body":"How are democracy, human rights, and a \u201cmarket economy\u201d linked together? Are they so linked for the poor in particular? This article acknowledges there is compelling evidence that genuinely democratic governance is associated with more development and less poverty, but there is no magic formula that leads from the \u201cshared tenets\u201d of \u201cmultiparty democracy, human rights and the market economy\u201d to a reduction in the appalling privations still faced by many Africans and by hundreds of millions elsewhere.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Change agents, substitutes or scapegoats for crumbling health services \u2013 What roles can communities health workers play?","field_subtitle":"Uta Lehmann, School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape","field_url":"","body":"\u201cI started volunteering [as a community health worker] in 1996. During that time, the most common disease in my village was tuberculosis (TB). We worked together and visited those who were infected with TB. We also went to fetch their pills from hospital and distributed them accordingly. We were to ask the sick people to cough out the sputum and save it inside specimen bottles that we took  to a certain sister at the hospital.\u201d   (Eastern Cape community health worker)\r\n\r\nCommunity members have been rendering certain basic health services to their communities for at least 50 years. All over the world, but particularly in countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America community or village health workers (CHWs) have been providing health education to their communities, helping pregnant mothers and new-born babies and treating basic illnesses. They are often mature women, with little formal education. The quotes from CHWs in Eastern  Cape South Africa highlight this experience. \r\n\r\n\u201cMy first encounter with the health programmes was in 1986. Our training was to help people who had been swept by the river waters and nearly drowned. \u2026.We went to all the homes teaching people about TB and how to avoid it. To those who had it already we continued to train them on how to take care of themselves and prevent further spreading of the disease. We encouraged people to have toilets, to build chicken runs and pig sties and avoid animals running loose all over the place to keep ourselves in good health.\u201d (Eastern Cape community health worker)\r\n\r\nSince the arrival of HIV, community health workers have also been counselling community members, providing peer support and home-based care and ensuring that people on antiretroviral therapy take their treatment. In some countries they have also been involved with HIV testing. \r\n\r\nIn the past CHWs have been seen as advocates for health in their communities and agents for social change. This made them central to comprehensive primary health care. In recent years a much more technical understanding has taken hold, which views CHW programmes as a strategy to address health worker shortages in most countries. This view is reflected in the 2006 World Health Report which advocates the delegation of tasks to lay health workers.\r\n\r\nThe renewed enthusiasm for community health workers presents great opportunities to seriously review how community health is organized and rendered and to empower communities. However, questions have to be asked about the rationale and intention of this enthusiasm:\r\n\u2022\tIs it realistic to expect commununity members from invariably impoverished communities to take responsibility for what in effect are essential health services, often with very little training and hardly any supervision? \r\n\u2022\tAre governments in fact not abdicating their responsibility for ensuring appropriate health care for their citizens, in particular the most vulnerable ones? \r\n\u2022\tUnder what circumstances are CHW programmes empowering communities and under what circumstances are they shifting the burden of health care to those most vulnerable in society?\r\n\u2022\tWhat roles can CHWs realistically play?\r\n\r\nThere is ample rigorous evidence from different parts of the world that CHWs can play a crucial role in broadening access and coverage of health services in remote areas and can undertake actions that lead to improved health outcomes in a range of areas, including child health, TB and HIV/AIDS care. CHW programmes hold the potential of enabling countries to build sustainable, cost-effective and equitable health care systems, thus contributing towards moving closer to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. However, the challenge of achieving success cannot be underestimated. Programmes need careful planning, secure funding and active government leadership and community support. To render their tasks successfully, CHWs need regular training and supervision and reliable logistical support. Importantly, governments have to retain their responsibility for essential health services at all levels, including for CHWs programmes. It is their responsibility to ensure that CHWs are, in fact, appropriately and adequately trained and supported by health service staff and communities and that their roles are clearly understood by all role players. This requires political leadership and substantial and consistent resourcing.\r\n\r\nGiven present pressures on health systems and their proven inability to respond adequately, the existing evidence strongly suggests that, particularly in poor countries, while CHW programmes are not easy, they are a good investment. This is particularly true given that the alternative in reality is NO care for the poor living in geographically peripheral areas. \r\nThey represent far more than improved service provision and access, however. \r\n\r\nThe continued testimony from the community health worker in South Africa\u2019s rural Eastern Cape province demonstrates the personal and social dimensions of health actions that CHWs bring:\r\n\u201cThen the disease called HIV/AIDS started attacking people till it came to my house and attacked my own son. I could not understand this disease which he came with from Cape Town, but I took him to hospital. I was very hurt and heartbroken to see how his whole body was covered with sores, from head to toe, even the softest parts. I took him to hospital. At the hospital I was not told that it was HIV/AIDS, I was told he had TB. After reading his forms carefully, because I could read a little, I discovered that they had diagnosed him with thing [HIV/AIDS]. My frustration worsened, and that is when I decided to give myself to the whole of the village to help other people, especially that I had this bad experience firsthand. I went up and down the ravines of the village working. Many more people were discovered to be infected till this day. I worked harder and harder though, unfortunately, some of those I tried to help could not make it, they died. Some had very bad sores and we frequently washed them. I would take a flask from home and boil water for my patients to keep in it so I could prepare something to eat for them before taking their medication. For some, I would get there and start making fire with wood as we normally do in the rural areas, and warm water to use for his bath. They looked very bad during those days but today you wouldn\u2019t think it\u2019s the same person that I had nursed to recovery\u201d (Eastern Cape community health worker).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society influence on national governance","field_subtitle":"Idasa, Economic Governance Programme, August 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/IDAgov23082008.pdf","body":"This report covers the Civicus Participatory Governance Programme: How can we build political for participatory governance, 17-18 June 2008. Although participatory governance offers important concrete benefits for citizens and state actors alike, there is often initial resistance from political actors and government offiicals who are unfamiliar with such approaches. This small working group session involved three case studies which describe and analyse Civil Society Organisation approaches to building political will for participatory governance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Clinical waste management in the context of the Kanye community home-based care programme, Botswana","field_subtitle":"Kang'ethe SM: African Journal of AIDS Research 7(2): 187\u2013194, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=46&id=41936","body":"This study examines clinical waste disposal and handling in the context of a community home-based care (CHBC) programme in Kanye, southern Botswana. This qualitative study involved 10 focus group discussions with a total of 82 AIDS primary caregivers in Kanye, one-to-one interviews with the five nurses supervising the programme, and participant observation. Numerous aspects of clinical or healthcare waste management were found to be hazardous and challenging to the home-based caregivers in the Kanye CHBC programme, namely: lack of any clear policies for clinical waste management; unhygienic waste handling and disposal by home-based caregivers, including burning and burying healthcare waste, and the absence of pre-treatment methods; inadequate transportation facilities to ferry the waste to clinics and then to appropriate disposal sites; stigma and discrimination associated with the physical removal of clinical waste from homes or clinics; poor storage of the healthcare waste at clinics; lack of incinerators for burning clinical waste; and a high risk of contagion to individuals and the environment at all stages of managing the clinical waste.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Closing the gap in a generation:  Health equity through action on the social determinants of health","field_subtitle":"Final Report of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health","field_url":"http://www.who.int/entity/social_determinants/final_report/csdh_finalreport_2008.pdf","body":"The Final Report of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health sets out key areas of daily living conditions and of the underlying structural drivers that influence them in which action is needed. It provides analysis of social determinants of health and concrete examples of types of action that have proven effective in improving health and health equity in countries at all levels of socioeconomic development. Part 1 sets the scene, laying out the rationale for a global movement to advance health equity through action on the social determinants of health. It illustrates the extent of the problem between and within countries, describes what the Commission believes the causes of health inequities are, and points to where solutions may lie.  Part 2 outlines the approach the Commission took to evidence, and to the indispensable value of acknowledging and using the rich diversity of different types of knowledge. Parts 3, 4, and 5 set out in more detail the Commission s findings and recommendations. The chapters in Part 3 deal with the conditions of daily living the more easily visible aspects of birth, growth, and education; of living and working; and of using health care. The chapters in Part 4 look at more structural conditions social and economic policies that shape growing, living, and working; the relative roles of state and market in providing for good and equitable health; and the wide international and global conditions that can help or hinder national and local action for health equity. Part 5 focuses on the critical importance of data not simply conventional research, but living evidence of progress or deterioration in the quality of people s lives and health that can only be attained through commitment to and capacity in health equity surveillance and monitoring. Part 6, finally, reprises the global networks the regional connections to civil society worldwide, the growing caucus of country partners taking the social determinants of health agenda forward, the vital research agendas, and the opportunities for change at the level of global governance and global institutions that the Commission has built and on which the future of a global movement for health equity will depend.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community approaches to preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission: Perspectives from rural Lesotho ","field_subtitle":"Towle M and Lende DH: African Journal of AIDS Research 7(2): 219\u2013228, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=46&id=41940","body":"This paper examines the cultural and structural difficulties surrounding effective prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) in rural Lesotho. It argues for three strategies to improve PMTCT interventions: community-based research and outreach, addressing cultural and structural dynamics, and working with the relevant social groups that impact on HIV prevention. These conclusions are based on interviews and participant observation conducted within the rural Mokhotlong district and capital city of Maseru, involving women and men of reproductive age, grandmothers serving as primary caretakers, HIV and AIDS programme staff and medical professionals. Qualitative analysis focused on rural women's socio-medical experience with the four measures of PMTCT (educational outreach, voluntary counselling and testing, antiretroviral interventions and safe infant feeding). Based on these results, the paper concludes that intervention models must move beyond a myopic biomedical \u2018best-practices' approach to address the social groups and contextual determinants impacting on vertical HIV transmission. Given the complexities of effective PMTCT, our results show that it is necessary to consider the biomedical system, women and children, and the community as valuable partners in achieving positive health outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Compensating clinical trial participants from limited-resource settings in internationally sponsored clinical trials: A proposal","field_subtitle":"Ndebele P, Mfutso-Bengo J and Mduluza T: Malawi Medical Journal 20(2):42\u201345, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=64&id=41991","body":"Trial participants from limited-resource settings often are given very little or nothing in terms of compensation for time, inconvenience and risks, as compared to their counterparts from developed countries. The reason most often cited by researchers, ethics committees and sponsors is the avoidance of undue inducements. This paper discusses the inherent conflict that may arise in trying to avoid undue inducement and in trying to minimise injustice in international research. It argues that research participants from both industrialised nations and limited-resource countries should be compensated equally since they suffer the same burdens and equally contribute towards the study by contributing the same product data. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Condom use as part of the wider HIV prevention strategy: Experiences from communities in the North West Province, South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Versteeg M and Murray M: SAHARA Journal 5(2): 83-93, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=197&id=41889","body":"Correct and consistent condom usage remains a pivotal strategy in reaching the target set by the South African government to reduce new HIV infections by 50% in the next 5 years. Studies have found that there has been an increase in condom usage by some categories of the population, but usage has not yet reached the desired levels in order to meet the target. This article reports on the findings of a study on condom usage in eight communities in the North West Province, which was part of a wider HIV and AIDS programme evaluation commissioned by the North West Provincial Department of Health. The main aim was to assess accessibility to condoms, and knowledge, attitudes and practices around condom use by four sampled communities in the North West Province. Eight focus group discussions were held and 50 households were interviewed. The study found positive results regarding accessibility and awareness of condoms. However, this often did not lead to the desired behavioural change of using condoms in risky sexual interactions. The majority of respondents still resisted condom usage, used condoms inconsistently, or were not in a position to negotiate protected sexual intercourse. The main reasons reported for this were: reduced pleasure, perceived and real physical side-effects, myths, lack of information, status, financial reasons, distrust in the efficacy of condoms, family planning, cultural reasons, gender-related reasons and trust. Many of the barriers to consistent condom use cannot be overcome by strategies that target the individual. Interventions need to address underlying developmental factors such as the non-biological factors that increase the susceptibility of women to HIV infection. As this falls outside of the scope of the mandate of the Department of Health, various partnerships with other key role players need to be established and/or strengthened, such as with local government, non-governmental organisations and faith-based organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing health systems research capacities through North-South partnership: An evaluation of collaboration with South Africa and Thailand","field_subtitle":"Mayhew SH, Doherty J and Pitayarangsarit S: Health Research Policy and Systems 6(8), 2008","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/6/1/8","body":"Over the past ten years calls to strengthen health systems research capacities in low- and middle-income countries have increased. One mechanism for capacity development is the partnering of northern and southern institutions; however, detailed case-studies of north-south partnerships, at least in the domain of health systems research, remain limited. This study aims to evaluate the partnerships developed between the Health Economics and Financing Programme of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and three research partners in South Africa and Thailand to strengthen health economics-related research capacity. Five years of formal partnership resulted in substantial strengthening of individual research skills and moderate institutionalised strengthening in southern partner institutions. Activities included joint proposals, research and articles, staff exchange and post-graduate training. In South Africa, local post-graduate teaching programs were strengthened, regular staff visits/exchanges initiated and maintained and funding secured for several large-scale, multi-partner projects. These activities could not have been achieved without good personal relationships between members of the partner institutions, built on trust developed over twenty years. In South Africa, a critical factor was the joint appointment of a London staff member on long-term secondment to one of the partner institutions. As partnerships mature the needs of partners change and new challenges emerge. Partners' differing research priorities need to be balanced and equitable funding mechanisms developed recognising the needs and constraints faced by both southern and northern partners. Institutionalising partnerships (through long-term development of trust, engagement of a broad range of staff in joint activities and joint-appointment of staff), and developing responsive mechanisms for governing these partnerships (through regular joint negotiation of research priorities and funding issues), can address these challenges in mutually acceptable ways. Most importantly, this study has shown that it is possible for long-term north-south partnership commitments to yield fruit and to strengthen the capacities of public health research and training institutions in less developed countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Development of a core competency model for the Master of Public Health degree ","field_subtitle":"Calhoun JG, Ramiah K, McGean Weist E and Shortell S: American Journal of Public Health 98(9):1598-1607, September 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/98/9/1598","body":"Core competencies have been used to redefine curricula across the major health professions in recent decades. In 2006, the Association of Schools of Public Health identified core competencies for the Master of Public Health degree in graduate schools and programmes of public health. The authors provide an overview of the model development process and a listing of twelve core domains and 119 competencies that can serve as a resource for faculty and students for enhancing the quality and accountability of graduate public health education and training. The primary vision for the initiative is the graduation of professionals who are more fully prepared for the many challenges and opportunities in public health in the forthcoming decade. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Dissatisfaction with the laboratory services in conducting HIV related testing among public and private medical personnel in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mfinanga SG, Kahwa A, Kimaro G,et al: BMC Health Services Research 8(171), 11 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6963-8-171.pdf","body":"A comprehensive care and treatment program requires a well functioning laboratory services. This study assessed satisfaction of medical personnel to the laboratory services to guide process of quality improvement of the services. A cross-sectional survey in 24 randomly selected health facilities in Mainland Tanzania was conducted to assess the satisfaction of the medical personnel with the laboratory services. About one quarter of medical personnel in sending or receiving laboratories were dissatisfied with the services. Comparing the personnel in public and private, the personnel in public laboratories were 4 times more dissatisfied with the timely test and correct results; and 5 times more dissatisfied with clear and complete test results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Donor AIDS money weakening health systems ","field_subtitle":"Oomman N, Bernstein M and Rosenzweig S: Centre for Global Development, 8 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/16459/","body":"More international aid has been dedicated to fighting HIV and AIDS than any other disease, but what impact have all those donor dollars had in countries where HIV and AIDS funding often exceeds total domestic health budgets? The three largest HIV and AIDS donors - the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the World Bank's Multi-Country AIDS Programme (MAP) - have spent US$20 billion on combating AIDS since 2000. This report, launched at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, suggests that AIDS donors may actually have weakened the health systems necessary for an effective AIDS response. Noting that \u2018the future of the global HIV/AIDS response cannot be considered independently from that of national health systems,\u2019 the study examined interactions between the three donors and health systems in three countries where they work: Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia. Focusing on three components of those health systems - health information systems, supply chains for essential drugs, and human resources - the researchers found that donors had developed AIDS-specific processes, often creating a drain on resources essential to the country's broader health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Emerging economies are forcing changes in WTO negotiations","field_subtitle":"Iorio M: IGTN, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6s585q","body":"This article suggests that the recent collapse of the WTO mini-ministerial, July 2008, reflects the new geopolitics of the global economy. The emerging economies are approaching trade issues and negotiations differently. Particularly they place more emphasis on supporting women employed in agriculture. There is new conviction among negotiators that poverty and livelihood issues cannot be left to the market to be regulated. These concerns contributed to the collapse alongside the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) issues. The paper emphasises that the political value of technical issues should not be ignored. Reasons for this and for why the SSM was not the only reason for the collapse include:import surges of subsidised products could displace millions of people, giving the SSM major political value; the G33, the G7 and the G20 could not find a common position in discussions on the SSM; cotton, a highly politically contentious issue, was due to be discussed after the SSM and was likely to have caused problems; and agricultural market access discussions reflected a political choice that links growth to market access and \u2018offensive interests\u2019. In conclusion the paper notes: the context of the Uruguay Round no longer exists as the emerging economies now have a voice; there may be increasing use of the Dispute Settlement Body. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Employment opportunities","field_subtitle":"CTS Global Inc, August 2008","field_url":"http://www.ctsglobalusa.com/empOpportunities.asp","body":"CTS Global is comprised of individuals with unique backgrounds and interests. Our team members are located domestically and around the world; profoundly impacting and adding value to every work assignment. The following positions are currently available with CTS Global: Clinical Laboratory Mentor; Infrastructure Projects Advisor;  Cooperative Ag. Program Specialist; IT Specialists; Epidemiologist; Laboratory Advisor; Health Information Systems Advisor; Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor; HIV/AIDS Medical Officer; TADR Project Advisor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC). Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 91: Change agents, substitutes or scapegoats for crumbling health services \u2013 What roles can communities health workers play?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Regional Conference on Equity in Health: Call for proposals for pre- and post- conference workshops","field_subtitle":"EQUINET SC, Kampala, Uganda, 23-25 September 2009","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/index.php","body":"The Third EQUINET Regional Conference on Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa will take place at the Speke Conference Centre, Munyonyo, Kampala, Uganda, 23-25 September 2009. This is a unique opportunity to hear original work and debate on the determinants and forces that are driving or impeding equity in health in east and southern Africa, including those at global level. Visit the conference website at http://www.equinetafrica.org/conference2009/index.php. The conference will have plenary and workshop/ parallel sessions on: * Health equity in east and southern Africa; * Protecting health in economic and trade policy; * Building universal, primary health care oriented health systems; * Equitable, health systems strengthening responses to HIV and AIDS Fair Financing of health systems, and reclaiming financial resources for public sector health services; * Valuing and retaining health workers; * Organising participatory, people centred health systems; Social empowerment and action for health; Understanding and managing equity oriented policy development and implementation; * Country experiences of advocacy and promotion of equity in health; and Monitoring progress through country and regional equity watches. A call is made for proposals for pre- and post-conference skills and theme workshops to be sent to the Conference Scientific Committee before 25 September 2008. Workshops are anticipated to be one day or half-day sessions and to include about 30 people. Accepted workshops will be listed in October 2008.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Establishing standards for obstructed labour in a low-income country","field_subtitle":"Kongnyuy EJ, Mlava G and van den Broek N: Rural and Remote Health 8 (online): 1022, 2008","field_url":"http://www.rrh.org.au/articles/subviewnew.asp?ArticleID=1022","body":"This preliminary report from Malawi describes a process of developing standards for maternity care together with a multidisciplinary team of health professionals.Conventionally standards for maternity care are developed by a panel of experts (usually obstetricians) and then implemented by a multidisciplinary team. The present study concerns the feasibility of involving health professionals of all grades in the establishment standards for obstructed labour in Malawi. Standards for obstructed labour were developed by a multidisciplinary team involving all cadres of health professionals working in maternity units, as well as hospital managers and policy makers, using evidence from Malawi national guidelines, World Health Organisation manuals and peer-reviewed journals. The standards addressed different aspects of the management of obstructed labour, namely early recognition of prolonged labour by labouring women and traditional birth attendants, early arrival of women to health facilities during labour, proper use of partograph by healthcare providers, proper management of prolonged labour, proper management of obstructed labour, appropriate management of uterine rupture and early delivery of the baby. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Establishing support groups for HIV-infected women: Using experiences to develop strategies","field_subtitle":"Visser MJ and Mundell JP: SAHARA Journal 5(2):65-73, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=197&id=41886","body":"HIV-infected women need support to deal with their diagnosis as well as with the stigma attached to HIV. As part of their practical training, Master's-level psychology students negotiated with the staff of four clinics in townships in Tshwane, South Africa, to establish support groups for HIV+ women and offered to assist them in facilitating the groups. This study aimed to understand why the implementation of groups was successful in one clinic and not other clinics. The student reports on their experiences, and interactions with clinic staff and clients were used as a source of data. Using qualitative data analysis, different dynamics and factors that could affect project implementation were identified in each clinic. Socio-ecological and systems theories were used to understand implementation processes and obstacles in implementation. Valuable lessons were learnt, resulting in the development of guiding principles for the implementation of support groups in community settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Ethical challenges in conducting research in humanitarian crisis situations","field_subtitle":"Mfutso-Bengo J, Masiye F and Muula A: Malawi Medical Journal 20(2):46\u201349, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=64&id=41992","body":"Although the ethical principles of justice, beneficence and respect for autonomy/persons should be upheld in research, their application in emergency situations may differ from non-emergency situations. Just like in non-emergency situations, research in emergency situations should be conducted in the best interest of the victims or future victims. The research should not unnecessarily expose human subjects and the researcher to careless harm, and should be of adequate scientific rigour. Victims of emergency situations are vulnerable populations that need special protection from exploitation. Researchers should conduct a fair risk-benefit assessment in order to come up with a risk management plan, and be culturally sensitive to the needs of the victims of the humanitarian crisis. In emergency situations, the roles of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) may have to be modified without compromising the ethical standards that health researchers have globally attempted to achieve.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Excluding the poor from accessing biomedical literature: A rights violation that impedes global health","field_subtitle":"Yamey G: Health and Human Rights 10(1), 2008","field_url":"http://www.hhrjournal.org/index.php/hhr/article/view/20/88","body":"In this article, the author takes a rights-based view of the current crisis of restricted access to the results of scientific and medical research. Such research is conducted in the interests of the public, and yet the results are largely kept out of the public domain by traditional corporate publishers who own them, subject them to extremely tight copyright restrictions and sell them in a market worth about US$5 billion annually. The results of biomedical research have unfortunately been privatised, monopolised, and concentrated in the hands of a tiny number of multinational corporations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Focusing collaborative efforts on research and innovation for the health of the poor","field_subtitle":"Matlin SA, Francisco A, Sundaram L: Global Forum for Health Research, 2008","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/filesupld/hpr/HealthPartnershipsReview_Full.pdf","body":"Data from every part of the world show that those that are least well off have shorter life expectancies and heavier burdens of disease than those that are relatively wealthy. Subsequently, public\u2013private partnerships (PPPs) have gained growing popularity as mechanisms for increasing access to essential drugs. This series of papers examines the characteristics of PPPs that aim to improve the health of the world\u2019s poorest people. The authors contribute to the debate about the future role of PPPs and provide pointers to key areas for urgent attention to sustain and increase the momentum to reach the goals towards which PPPs are striving. Issues highlighted include the roles of different actors in partnerships involving public sector and philanthropic donors, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, communities and researchers in developed and developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Food prices and the AIDS response: How they are linked and what can be done ","field_subtitle":"Gillespie S: International Food Policy Research Institute and RENEWAL, Brief 1, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6rkh97","body":"A combination of new and ongoing forces is driving global food prices up. Recent studies in Botswana, Swaziland, Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania have shown associations between acute food insecurity and unprotected transactional sex among poor women. Sudden increases in food insecurity often lead to \u2018distress migration\u2019 as people search for work and food. Mobility is a marker of enhanced risk of HIV exposure and food insecurity at the household level is likely to translate over time into higher rates of adult malnutrition with possible detrimental effects on immune status.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Food safety: Rigging the game","field_subtitle":"Biodiversity, Rights and Livelihood, 20-25 July 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.grain.org/seedling/?type=73","body":"As the push toward neoliberalism advances, and quantitative measures to protect local markets, such as tariffs and quotas, disappear, industrial powers are turning to qualitative measures such as food safety regulations to further skew trade in their favour. In the food safety arena, both the US and the EU are pressing their standards on other countries. For Washington, even though its own food safety system is widely criticised as too lax, this means getting countries to accept GMOs and US meat safety inspections. For Brussels, whose food safety standards have a much better reputation, it means imposing high standards on countries that cannot meet them. Bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) have become a tool of choice to push through the changes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Getting out of the food crisis","field_subtitle":"Biodiversity, Rights and Livelihood, 2-6 July 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.grain.org/seedling/?type=73","body":"While there has been widespread reporting of the riots that have broken out around the world as a result of the global food crisis, little attention has been paid to the way forward. The solution is a radical shift in power away from the international financial institutions and global development agencies, so that small-scale farmers, still responsible for most food consumed throughout the world, set agricultural policy. Three interrelated issues need to be tackled: land, markets and farming itself.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Governments and donors must do more to improve nutrition of women and children ","field_subtitle":"Woods T, Jones M and Mahendra S: Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, UK, 2008 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5mvv4p","body":"Current high world food prices serve as a reminder of the vulnerability of large parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to hunger and undernutrition. Good nutrition status for children and adolescent girls is fundamental to attaining many of the Millennium Development Goals. Despite this, donors and governments underinvest in interventions to improve nutrition. Underinvestment is due to a lack of incentives for donors; few take a strategic approach to investments that have the potential to improve nutrition and they have little idea whether current investments are making a difference. Furthermore, their \u2018critical friends\u2019 \u2013 research institutes and non-governmental organisations \u2013 lack the leadership to engage with donors strategically on this issue. The authors suggest that this desperate cycle can only be broken by a new alliance between donors, governments and critical friends. This will require new leaders to come forward and develop politically aware strategies that raise public consciousness and put human and financial resources, both public and private, to effective use. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Graca Machel Scholarships","field_subtitle":"Canon Collins Trust, August 2008","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/visit%3A%20%20http%3A//www.canoncollins.org.uk/scholarships/index.php","body":"Canon Collins Trust currently manages a scholarship programme on behalf of Mrs. Gra\u00e7a Machel.  The aim is to provide female students from Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, South Africa and Zambia with scholarships that will equip them to take up leadership roles for the benefit of their community, nation and region. One of the key concerns of Mrs Machel is giving a voice to rural women and the scholarship is therefore aimed at empowering rural women.  The Gra\u00e7a Machel scholarship is for women who have experienced significant struggle in their life and who have sought to overcome those barriers, be they related to gender, disability, poverty, age or racial discrimination.  Applicants will be expected to demonstrate clearly how their application fits within this vision of empowerment. All scholarships are for postgraduate study, for two years if based in South Africa. The scholarship includes payment of a maintenance allowance, travel, health insurance and tuition fees. Scholarships are awarded on a competitive basis to women on the basis of academic/professional merit, financial need, intended academic programme, leadership potential and commitment to work for constructive change in Africa.  Applicants must have at least two years relevant work experience. Subject Areas include: Health; Education; Science and Technology; Economics and Finance; and Development. The closing date for applications is 31st August 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Has the HIV epidemic peaked?","field_subtitle":"Bongaarts J, Buettner T, Heilig G and Pelletier F: Population and Development Review 34(2), June 2008","field_url":"http://www.popcouncil.org/publications/pdr/vol34_2.html","body":"The rate of new HIV infections, which has fuelled the global HIV/AIDS epidemic since the 1980s, has peaked throughout the world and is now declining. But population growth and the life-prolonging effects of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment mean that the total global number of HIV-infected people is likely to remain about the same for another two decades and will continue to increase in sub-Saharan Africa. Based on these findings the authors say it is time for the international community and governments to rethink their prioritisation of AIDS over other infectious diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Health facility and health worker readiness to deliver new national treatment policy for malaria in Kenya ","field_subtitle":"Njogu J, Akhwale W, Hamer DH, Zurovac D: East African Medical Journal 85(5):213-221, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=53&id=41956","body":"The study aimed to evaluate health facility and health worker readiness to deliver new artemetherlumefantrine (AL) treatment policy for uncomplicated malaria in Kenya, using a cross-sectional survey at health facilities in four sentinel districts in Kenya. All government facilities in study districts and all health workers performing outpatient consultations were involved in the study. The availability of any tablets of AL , sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine and amodiaquine was nearly universal on the survey day. However, only 61% of facilities stocked all four weight-specific packs of AL. In the past six months, 67% of facilities had stock-out of at least one AL tablet pack and 15% were out of stock for all four packs at the same time. Duration of stock-out was substantial for all AL packs (median range: 27-39% of time). During the same period, the stock-outs of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine and amodiaquine were rare. Only 19% of facilities had all AL wall charts displayed, AL in-service training was provided to 47% of health workers and 59% had access to the new guidelines. Health facility and health worker readiness to implement AL policy is not yet optimal. Continuous supply of all four AL pack sizes and removal of not-recommended antimalarials is needed. Further coordinated efforts through the routine programmatic activities are necessary to improve delivery of AL at the point of care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health-related quality of life in a sample of HIV-infected South Africans","field_subtitle":"Peltzer K and Phaswana-Mafuya N: African Journal of AIDS Research, 7(2): 209\u2013218, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=46&id=41938","body":"This study assessed the health-related quality of life and HIV symptoms of a sample of people living with HIV (PLHIV) in South Africa. The sample included 607 PLHIVs from all districts of the Eastern Cape Province, recruited either through a health facility, from the community through key informants, or through support groups. The findings indicate a low degree of overall quality of life, with spirituality, environment, psychological health and level of independence as predictors for overall quality of life. Among medical variables and HIV symptoms, CD4 cell count and having fewer HIV symptoms (but not an AIDS diagnosis) were identified as predictors for overall quality of life. Among socio-economic variables, having sufficient food and a higher educational level were identified as predictors. The results highlight the need for better access to psychosocial support and medical services for PLHIV in South Africa, as well as the need to consider a patient's general health perceptions during the course of ART.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"High-level Forum on Aid Effectiveness","field_subtitle":"Danish Institute for International Studies, August 2008 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6prome","body":"In September 2008, ministers from over 100 countries, heads of bilateral and multilateral development agencies, donor organisations, and civil society organisations from around the world will gather in Accra for the Third High-level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (2-4 September). Their common objective is to help developing countries and marginalised people in their fight against poverty by making aid more transparent, accountable and results-oriented. The Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (Third HLF) will review progress in improving aid effectiveness broaden the dialogue to newer actors and chart a course for continuing international action on aid effectiveness.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis trials: Socio-economic and ethical perspectives for sub-Saharan Africa ","field_subtitle":"Selemogo M: African Journal of AIDS Research 7(2): 243\u2013247, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=46&id=41951","body":"The advent of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) as a HIV-prevention strategy has received optimistic support among HIV researchers. However, discourse on PrEP trials has tended to be dominated by the disputes arising between some activist groups and researchers about the research methodologies. Instead, this paper discusses other issues oftentimes neglected in discussions relating to PrEP trials. Specifically, it focuses on the possible ethical implications and the potential impact of sub-Saharan Africa's socio-economic conditions on the promised benefits of PrEP trials for the region and the continent. We argue that the concept of PrEP as a affordable and practical HIV-prevention intervention presents challenges and questions that urgently need addressing as researchers await results from several ongoing trials. If research is undertaken with no plans on how the results of specific trials can render actual HIV-prevention-benefits \u2014 especially for the world's poor \u2014 then such endeavours risk being merely information-acquiring ventures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care in the health sector","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, September 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hiv/pub/priority_interventions_web.pdf","body":"This publication defines the essential interventions the health sector should deliver and provides key references as well as links to web-based resources. The document provides WHO\u2019s best attempt to assemble and package normative advice for the health sector concerning the essential response to HIV/AIDS. We hope it will prove useful for all those who work in the health sector, whatever their capacity, as they confront the realities of HIV/AIDS throughout the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS: The first 25 years: A view from Nairobi","field_subtitle":"Rees PH: East African Medical Journal 85(6):292\u2013300, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=53&id=41968","body":"This paper examines the history of HIV/AIDS in Kenya since it was first diagnosed in the country. The introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has dramatically improved the prognosis for individual patients with AIDS, but education and changing attitudes towards condoms have led to a progressive fall in incidence, so that the worst of the epidemic may now be over. Limited personal experience suggests that steroids may also have a role in salvaging critically ill AIDS patients, who need to be treated as emergencies. With an educated public and attention to alternative routes of infection such as blood transfusion, the epidemic should be increasingly contained during the next 25 years, and may even fizzle out.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How have global health initiatives impacted on health equity?","field_subtitle":"Hanefeld J:Promotion and Education 15(1): 19-23, 2008","field_url":"http://ped.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/15/1/19","body":"This review examines the impact of global health initiatives (GHIs) on health equity, focusing on low- and middle-income countries. It is a summary of a literature review commissioned by the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. GHIs have emerged during the past decade as a mechanism in development assistance for health. The review focuses on three GHIs: the US President\u2019s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the World Bank\u2019s Multi-country AIDS Programme (MAP) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"How to facilitate community-led total sanitation ","field_subtitle":"Kar K and Chambers R: Plan International, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6djymp","body":"Community-led total sanitation (CLTS) is a participatory process focused on promoting change in sanitation behaviour through social action - stimulated by facilitators from within or outside the community. Aimed at empowering local communities this handbook is a source of ideas and experiences to be used for CLTS orientation workshops, advocacy to stakeholders as well as for implementing CLTS activities. It is intended as a tool for field staff, facilitators and trainers to plan, implement and follow up on CLTS activities. A sequence of possible steps and tools, including do\u2019s and don\u2019ts, are provided to help trigger CLTS in a community. They include pre-triggering, selecting a community, introduction and building rapport, triggering participatory sanitation, profile analysis, ignition moment, post-triggering action, planning by the community, follow up, scaling up and going beyond CLTS. Users are encouraged to use and modify the processes outlined in this handbook as they see fit for their given context.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"India: Government to be country's sole buyer of patented drugs?","field_subtitle":"Pharma Times, 27 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.natap.org/2008/newsUpdates/072808_05.htm","body":"India's government could become the country's only purchaser of patented drugs and medical devices, under new proposals currently being discussed by ministers. While other nations operate central medicines buying for their public health care systems, this would be the first instance of a government also becoming the sole supplier for private health care providers, and could set a precedent for African countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Innovation for sustainable development: Local case studies from Africa Innovation in Africa: Addressing local sustainable development challenges ","field_subtitle":"United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5sf7dz","body":"This report aims to shed light on the way innovative solutions have arisen to address local sustainable development challenges, examining the determinants of success and the scope for replication. The report focuses on the African experience. The volume is composed of ten case studies, selected for their truly innovative nature, effective implementation, significant outputs and generation of real social welfare improvements, grouped under five headings: enhancement of agriculture and fisheries, protection of ecosystems, water management, health improvement and sustainable tourism. Practical conclusions drawn from the case studies include: sustainable projects need to link environmental goals to income generation, draw upon local knowledge and ideas, ensure effective buy-in from stakeholders through local community involvement in project design and implementation, and employ financially self-sustaining business models external forces which impact on a project and affect conditions for success, including international markets and national legislation. In some cases though, local success can provide arguments for more accommodating national policies to facilitate replication and scaling up simplicity in project design. Committed seed capital and integration of local traditions and cultural heritage appear to be important success factors for innovative local initiatives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Intensive Course on Health, Development and Human Rights ","field_subtitle":"University of New South Wales, 8-12 December 2008","field_url":"http://www.ihhr.unsw.edu.au/initiative/courses.html","body":"The IHHR is planning to host the next UNSW Intensive Course on Health, Development and Human Rights from 8th - 12th December 2008 on the Kensington Campus of the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. New opportunities and risks associated with human development, widening gaps between health needs of particularly vulnerable populations and responses to these needs, and widespread movements of people through labour and forced migration as a consequence of economic pressure, climate change, conflicts and natural disasters, are key issues for the new millennium.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge, attitudes and practices of women regarding the prevention of mother-to-child transmission programme at the Vanguard Community Health Centre, Western Cape: A pilot study","field_subtitle":"Petrie KE, Schmidt SD, Schwarz CE, Koornhof HE and Marais D: South African Journal of Clinical Nutrition 20(2)71\u201375","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=246&id=39305","body":"The aim of this study was to determine the knowledge, attitudes and practices of women regarding the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programme at a community health centre. Thirty-six educated women aged 18 - 39 years and attending the clinic took part, from informal settlements and mostly unemployed, receiving government grants. Most scored 80% or more with regard to general HIV knowledge. Attitudes were found to be positive with regard to both breastfeeding and formula feeding, but HIV status influenced it significantly. In conclusion, the women were knowledgeable about HIV transmission and mother-to-child transmission (MTCT), but an informed decision-making process was not followed, the sustainability of formula feeding after six months is a problem and health workers need to be trained about feeding options.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Linking nutritional support with treatment of people living with HIV: Lessons being learned in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Byron E, Gillespie S and Nangami M: International Food Policy Research Institute and RENEWAL, Brief 2, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5zspax","body":"While clinical care providers, programme managers and other stakeholders increasingly recognise the critical importance of nutrition for the treatment of HIV and AIDS, interventions that link nutritional support to treatment are relatively new. The Academic Model for Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS (AMPATH) initiated one such intervention in 2002 in western Kenya with a large-scale expansion currently underway with the support of World Food Programme commodity donations and fresh food grown on AMPATH production farms. The intervention is designed to bolster nutrition security of the most vulnerable patients on antiretroviral regimens over a short period of time by providing supplemental household food rations. Weaning or transitioning clients off food supplementation is the major programmatic challenge facing this and similar nutrition interventions - especially given its critical importance in sustaining nutritional, health and productivity gains. The growing global interest in linking nutrition care to ARV treatment must not overlook the parallel need for long-term strategies to ensure nutrition security. In resource-poor settings, a high proportion of people living with HIV will be chronically food-insecure.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Long road to successful PMTCT in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"PlusNews, Tuesday 19 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79827","body":"More and more HIV-positive pregnant women are testing for the virus and seeking out prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) services in Sofala Province, in central Mozambique, but local health officials say much work remains to be done. During the first three months of 2008, HIV tests were offered to 34,200 women during pre-natal checkups; of the 31,303 who agreed to be tested, 16% were HIV-positive, and 70% of these women were given nevirapine to prevent the virus being passed to their babies. During the same period in 2007, HIV tests were only offered to 60% of the women attending pre-natal clinics, and only 19% of them accepted. The increase in uptake of PMTCT is particularly significant in Sofala, which has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the country - 25% - compared to the national average of 16%.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Making those who transmit HIV into criminals doesn\u2019t protect people from the virus ","field_subtitle":"Cullinan K: Health News Service, 8 August 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/62tm4n","body":"All around the world, people with HIV are being charged for endangering the lives of others. But this doesn't stop the spread of HIV because most of those infected don't know they have the virus, argues Judge Edwin Cameron, addressing the World AIDS Conference. \u2018Criminalisation is warranted only in cases where someone sets out well-knowing he has HIV, to infect another person, and achieves this aim,\u2019 argued Cameron. In general, the laws would not protect people from HIV: \u2018In the majority of cases, the virus spreads when two people have consensual sex, neither of them knowing that one has HIV. That will continue to happen, no matter what criminal laws are enacted,\u2019 said Cameron. \u2018Criminalisation places blame on one person instead of responsibility on two,\u2019 said Cameron. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Markets, information asymmetry and health care: Towards new social contracts","field_subtitle":"Bloom G, Standing H and Lloyd R: Social Science and Medicine 66(10): 2076-2087, 2008","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h1gb1g9.html","body":"In many parts of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa there is a growing gap between official accounts of how health systems operate and realities on the ground. Researchers in this study looked at how to gain access to competent health care in environments where there are growing but unorganised markets in goods and services, blurred boundaries between the public and private health care sectors, and a lack of state regulation. The researchers used the frame of the \u2018social contract\u2019 (an implicit agreement among people that results in the organisation of society) and focused on the problem of information asymmetry (inequalities in access to information) and associated power relationships, in particular those between patient and health care provider. Their paper highlights the importance of trust to relationships at all levels of the health system. Findings show that different ways of generating trust in goods and services, and new forms of regulation have emerged. The researchers call for greater understanding of the institutional context in which health systems operate in developing countries. They also stress the need to avoid dictating policy according to the experiences of developed countries. Instead, future debates will need to focus on how governments can create regulatory partnerships and enable improved access to information, building on the new social contracts that are already emerging. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal mortality in South Africa in 2001: from demographic census to epidemiological investigation","field_subtitle":"Garenne M, McCaa R and Nacro K: Population Health Metrics 6(4), 21 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.pophealthmetrics.com/content/6/1/4/abstract","body":"Maternal mortality remains poorly researched in Africa, and is likely to worsen dramatically as a consequence of HIV/AIDS. The 2001 census of South Africa included a question on deaths in the previous 12 months, and two questions on external causes and maternal mortality, defined as \"pregnancy-related deaths\". A microdata sample from the census permits researchers to assess levels and differentials in maternal mortality, in a country severely affected by high death rates from HIV/AIDS and from external causes. After correcting for several minor biases, our estimate of the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) in 2001 was 542 per 100,000 live births. This level is much higher than previous estimates dating from pre-HIV/AIDS times. This high level occurred despite a relatively low proportion of maternal deaths (6.4%) among deaths of women aged 15-49 years, and was due to the astonishingly high level of adult mortality, some 4.7 times higher than expected from mortality below age 15 or above age 50. The main reasons for these excessive levels were HIV and AIDS and external causes of deaths. The differentials in MMR were considerable: 1 to 9.2 for population groups (race), 1 to 3.2 for provinces, and 1 to 2.4 for levels of education. Relationship with income and wealth were complex, with highest values for middle income and middle wealth index. Demographic census microdata offer the opportunity to conduct an epidemiologic analysis of maternal mortality. Indirect causes of maternal deaths appear much more important than direct obstetric causes. The MMR appears no longer to be a reliable measure of the quality of obstetric care or a measure of safe motherhood. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Microcredit for people affected by HIV and AIDS: Insights from Kenya ","field_subtitle":"Datta D and Njuguna D: SAHARA Journal 5(2): 94-102, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=197&id=41890","body":"The consequences of HIV and AIDS are exponential in Kenya, touching not only the health of those infected, but also depleting socioeconomic resources of entire families. Access to financial services is one of the important ways to protect and build economic resources. Unfortunately, the norm of financial viability discourages microfinance institutions from targeting people severely impacted by HIV and AIDS. Thus, HIV- and AIDS-service NGOs have been increasingly getting involved in microcredit activity in recent years for economic empowerment of their clients. Despite limited human resources and funding in the area of microcredit activity, these NGOs have demonstrated that nearly 50% of their microcredit beneficiaries invested money in income-generating activities, resulting in enhancement in their livelihood security. In the short term these NGOs need to improve their current practices. However, this does not mean launching microfinance initiatives within their AIDS-focused programmes, as financial services are best provided by specialised institutions. Longer-term cooperation between microfinance institutions and other HIV- and AIDS-service organisations and donors is necessary to muster appropriate and rapid responses in areas experiencing severe impacts of the disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Missing the Target 6: The HIV/AIDS response and health systems: Building on success to achieve health care for all","field_subtitle":"International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC), July 2008","field_url":"http://www.aidstreatmentaccess.org/mtt6_final.pdf","body":"Some voices in the health care debate are claiming that the response to HIV and AIDS is weakening primary care in many countries, diverting funding and health care personnel and distorting health systems. The new Missing the Target report provides some of the first research to inform this debate, with on the ground studies in Argentina, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The results were distinct in each country but point to several broad conclusions: the response to HIV and AIDS has had far-reaching positive impacts on health care in many settings: building infrastructure and systems, raising the bar on quality, extending the reach of health care to socially marginalised groups, and engaging consumers; significant new investments in HIV and AIDS services have revealed existing fragilities in health systems, and in some cases have placed increasing burdens on these systems by expanding demand and stretching already overextended human resources. The push for treatment access has not been just about the money although these efforts have brought considerable new financing. The mobilisation of activists and health care consumers themselves has also forced global and national leaders toward a more vigorous sense of accountability and urgency. If the UN\u2019s health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are to have any chance of being realised, we need to do for health systems what we have done for AIDS while increasing the momentum of AIDS service scale-up. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Neoliberalism, globalisation, and inequalities: Consequences for health and quality of life","field_subtitle":"Navarro V (ed): Baywood Publishing Company Inc., July 2007","field_url":"http://www.gbv.de/dms/zbw/524636613.pdf","body":"\u2018Neoliberalism\u2019, has guided the globalisation of economic activity and become the conventional wisdom in international agencies and institutions (such as the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organisation and the technical agencies of the United Nations, including the WHO). Reproduced in the \u2018Washington Consensus\u2019 in the United States and the \u2018Brussels Consensus\u2019 in the European Union, this ideology has guided policies widely accepted as the only ones possible and advisable. This book assembles a series of articles that challenge that ideology. Written by well-known scholars, these articles question each of the tenets of neoliberal doctrine, showing how the policies guided by this ideology have adversely affected human development in the countries where they have been implemented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"New UN scheme seeks to boost response of national health systems to HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"UN News Centre, 5 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27593&Cr=AIDS&Cr1=","body":"At the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City WHO unveiled a package of priority interventions designed to help low- and middle-income countries move towards universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support. The package includes everything from how to expand condom programming to the latest in treatment recommendations, guidelines and standards. The document is intended to help countries with limited resources meet the commitment made two years ago at the UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AIDS to provide universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New website: Health Information for All (HIFA) 2015","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hifa2015.org/","body":"HIFA2015 is a campaign and a knowledge network, building the HIFA2015 Knowledge Base, a picture of information needs and how to meet them. HIFA2015 involves more than 1,500 people from 110 countries worldwide. Members include health workers, publishers, librarians, information technologists, researchers, social scientists, journalists, policy-makers and others - all working together towards the HIFA2015 goal: by 2015, every person worldwide will have access to an informed healthcare provider. Membership is free and open to all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Non-financial incentives and retention of health workers in Tanzania: Combined evidence from literature review and a focused cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Munga MA, Mbilinyi DR, NIMRI","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS61HRmunga.pdf","body":"The Tanzanian public health sector is losing workers to internal and external migration.  This paper examines the implementation of policies to govern non-financial incentives to retain health workers. It outlines a range of non-financial incentives set in policy in Tanzania, including training; leave; promotion; housing; and a safe and supportive working environment. It also examines the systems for managing personnel and the implementation of incentives as a factor in retention, including the participatory personnel appraisal system; worker participation in discussing their job requirements and welfare; supervision; recognition and respect. Drawing on a review of policy, published and grey literature and on a field study of seven districts, including five underserved districts, the paper finds that while a number of incentives exist in policy, their sustainability is eroded by the absence of special earmarked funding for their implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Panel shows flaws in global intellectual property enforcement push, especially for developing countries ","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 31 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1182","body":"Intellectual property is the last real comparative advantage that rich countries have, said a panellist at a recent International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) and UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) joint event. This may explain an increasing global drive for enforcement of these rights, but does not mean that such enforcement is necessarily good for developing countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Perceptions of poverty","field_subtitle":"Witteveen A, Ludi E, Felber G: poverty-wellbeing.net, June 2008","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/what-s-new&id=39166&type=Document","body":"This document is the second of a series addressing issues surrounding poverty and poverty reduction. It explains perceptions of poverty of the poor, well off and development practitioners to give a more complete picture of poverty. The briefing emphasises the need for poor people\u2019s involvement in defining and exploring multiple dimensions of poverty. This points out the drawbacks of relying on understanding and interpretations of researchers and development practitioners. Providing examples from previous studies in Tanzania, Ghana, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, the document admits that understanding of poverty varied greatly. Therefore the process of arriving at a shared understanding of poverty can be challenging but important.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Programme on disease control","field_subtitle":"Jamison DT, Jha P and Bloom DE: Harvard University, Department of Disease Control Working Paper, June 2008","field_url":"http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/pgda/Working%20Papers/2008/PGDA_WP_35.pdf TMC278","body":"This paper identifies priorities for disease control as an input into the Copenhagen Consensus effort for 2008 (CC08). The analysis builds on the results of the Disease Control Priorities Project (DCPP). The DCPP engaged over 350 authors and among its outputs were estimates of the cost-effectiveness of 315 interventions. These estimates vary a good deal in their thoroughness and in the extent to which they provide region-specific estimates of both cost and effectiveness. Taken as a whole, however, they represent a comprehensive canvas of disease control opportunities. Some interventions are clearly low priority. Others are attractive and worth doing but either address only a small proportion of disease burden or are simply not quite as attractive as a few key interventions. This paper identifies seven priority interventions in terms of their cost-effectiveness, the size of the disease burden they address, and other criteria.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Project Coordinator - Participatory Governance Programme, Johannesburg","field_subtitle":"Civicus, World Alliance for Citizen Participation, 25 August 2008","field_url":"","body":"CIVICUS is recruiting for a Participatory Governance Project Coordinator to lead a multi-country project in Africa involving a range of country-level and international partners. The project seeks to enhance the capacity of citizens and their organisations to make use of evidence-based participatory approaches in engaging with governments to promote greater transparency, responsiveness and accountability. Besides contributing to project design and providing technical assistance in participatory governance to country-level partners, the incumbent will be responsible for project administration, including budget and reporting; supporting country-level partners in networking and institutional development, and organising regional and global learning events. Submit a cover letter, a detailed CV and the contact details of 3 referees to humanresources@civicus.org by Monday 15 September 2008.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33480","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Property rights, food security and child growth: Dynamics of insecurity in the Kafue Flats of Zambia","field_subtitle":"Merten S and Haller T: Food Policy 33(5): 434-443, October 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/59wbgd","body":"This paper provides arguments for discussions about the role of property rights for food security and child nutrition in rural Africa. The results are drawn from a case study in the Kafue Flats of Zambia. They show that unclear jurisdictional boundaries and weak authorities facilitated re-negotiations of property rights related to natural resources in the context of the Southern African food crisis of 2002\u20132003. Access to natural resources was skewed towards the more powerful. On average, food intake was temporarily 50% lower than the annual mean, compared to a less than 10% decrease in the lean season of 2003\u20132004. Large inequalities existed between different clusters of villages, according to the history of immigration and ethnicity. Yet variability was greatest within villages. Households which reported increasing difficulties with access to natural resources had less diversified income-generating activities, lower food intake and more children showing impaired growth. Discussions addressing the growing disparities in rural areas should focus on a realistic implementation and enforcement of property rights in the context of local power-relations and the harmonisation of different tenure systems related to natural resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health sector slammed","field_subtitle":"Ngcobo M: Health-E News, 4 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032037","body":"The public health sector in South Africa has come under criticism over poor services and the failure to implement government policies effectively. The past 14 years have seen a widening gap between the private and the public health care sectors with the latter struggling to provide quality service, thus making it difficult for most South Africans who don\u2019t belong to medical aid schemes to access quality health care. Advocate Khaya Zweni, a lawyer with the Human Rights Commission (HRC), says most are not happy with the service offered by public health care institutions. Following numerous complaints from the public, the Human Rights Commision conducted a survey in more than 90 public health institutions countrywide. Dr Anban Pillay, the Department of Health's cluster manager for health economics, believes that the problems in health delivery could be dealt with if the department is allocated a bigger budget by Treasury. \u2018The problem with the public sector relates to a lack of funding. That lack of funding needs to be corrected. We are currently at the 11% of government expenditure on health care. We need to get around 15%. That\u2019s what the government needs to do,\u2019 Pillay said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health toolkit","field_subtitle":"This is Public Health, 19 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.thisispublichealth.org/toolkit/","body":"As part of the \u2018This is Public Health\u2019campaign, ASPH has developed the This is Public Health toolkit which will serve as a resource for anyone who is interested in educating others about public health issues or the field of public health. The materials in the toolkit are suggestions or templates, which can either be used as is, or tailored to suit your specific audiences. The toolkit also includes links for other sources that can increase knowledge of public health both inside and outside the classroom. Materials will be provided that target a range of individuals, accommodating varying age groups and differing levels of familiarity with the field of public health. Organisations with communication or presentation tools to share with others on this site can email stickers@asph.org and ASPH to upload your suggestions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-private partnerships increasing access to essential drugs ","field_subtitle":"Matlin SA, de Francisco A and Sundaram L: Global Forum for Health Research and Health Partnerships Review, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5jw28k","body":"Data from every part of the world shows that those who are least well off have shorter life expectancies and heavier burdens of disease than those who are relatively wealthy. Subsequently, public-private partnerships (PPPs) have gained growing popularity as mechanisms for increasing access to essential drugs. This series of chapters examines the characteristics of PPPs that aim to improve the health of the world\u2019s poorest people. The authors contribute to the debate about the future role of PPPs and provide pointers to key areas for urgent attention to sustain and increase the momentum to reach the goals towards which PPPs are striving. Issues highlighted include the roles of different actors in partnerships involving public sector and philanthropic donors, the private sector, nongovernmental organisations, communities and researchers in developed and developing countries. The picture that emerges is multifaceted and complex. The PPP approach has evidently focused attention on some neglected areas and has galvanised action that is bringing new resources and innovative solutions to address some health problems. But many challenges remain if their promise is to be fulfilled, including greater and more sustainable financing over the longer term and better mechanisms for coordination. The authors highlight that the ethical imperative of reducing health inequities - closing the gap between the health of the poorest and those who are better off - demands the utmost collective effort. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Rapid diagnosis of MDR-TB","field_subtitle":"Medical Research Council, August 2008","field_url":"http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2008/august/tbdiagnosis.htm","body":"TB control is hampered by the dual HIV epidemic, and is one of the main reasons for the rapid increase in TB in South Africa, compounded by escalating rates of multidrug resistance (MDR) and the emergence of extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) in all nine provinces. Rapid diagnosis of drug-resistant TB has been identified as one of the key efforts to find a solution to the control of MDR-TB. A demonstration study under field conditions involving 20,000 TB patients at risk of MDR-TB was conducted in four provinces in South Africa, evaluating the effectiveness of a new molecular test for rapid diagnosis of MDR-TB. Outcomes of this study showed that the test has the potential to revolutionise the control of MDR-TB and its use in TB control programmes has been endorsed by the World Health Organisation. The study showed that the test is highly effective in diagnosing MDR-TB and can be used in laboratory settings in developing countries. Although specialised laboratory facilities and specially trained personnel are required, the test is easy to perform in the laboratory and results are accurate and reproducible. This is very likely one of few instances that global policy for poverty-related disease is driven by evidence generated by scientists and institutions from high-burden countries, such as South Africa, with full credit for the results. The test will be rolled out to all provinces in South Africa, following the acceptance of a new diagnostic algorithm by the National TB Control Programme. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Rapid urbanisation, employment crisis and poverty in African LDCs: A new development strategy and aid policy","field_subtitle":"Herrmann M and Khan H: Munich Personal RePEc Archive, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/68gccx","body":"Rapid urbanisation is a fact of life even in the least developed countries where the lion\u2019s share of the population presently lives in rural areas and will continue to do so for decades to come. This paper examines the causes, consequences and policy implications of ongoing urbanisation in Africa\u2019s less-developed countries (LDCs). The authors find that the employment opportunities in both the rural or urban sectors are not growing adequately. The emerging trends and patterns of urbanisation in the African LDCs are analysed, with a strong emphasis on rural-urban migration and the informal sectors. The paper argues that it is necessary to reverse the trends in aid and provide a much larger share of aid for productive sector development, including the development of rural and urban areas. Also the development of agricultural and non-agricultural sectors is needed, in line with the perspective of the dual-dual model. Although urban centres mostly host non-agricultural industries, sustainable urbanisation also strongly depends on what happens in the agricultural sectors. Productive employment opportunities in rural areas are important in order to combat an unsustainable migration from rural areas to urban centres, and productive employment opportunities in urban centres are essential to absorb the rapidly increasing labour force in the non-agricultural sector. Authors recommend building up productive capacities to create adequate employment and incomes for the rapidly growing population, particularly in the urban areas. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional Meeting of Parliamentarians on Health in east and Southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, PPD ARO, APHRC, SEAPACOH, September 16-18 2008, Munyonyo, Uganda","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/meetings.php","body":"Partners in Population and Development, Africa Regional Office (PPD ARO) the Regional network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET), African Population Health Research Centre (APHRC) and Alliance of parliamentary committees on Health in east and southern Africa (SEAPACOH) are jointly organizing a meeting in Kampala, Uganda on September 16-18 2008.  The meeting will invite MPs drawn from Parliamentary Committees responsible for health as well as technical, civil society and regional partners. The meeting will review the health equity situation assessment in the region, including in relation to regional and international goals; review and discuss sexual and reproductive health, HIV and AIDS, population policies, laws and budgets; discuss options for fair and adequate health care financing and for promoting equitable resource allocation, particularly in relation to budget processes; explore the application of international and regional treaties and conventions on the right to health; update on current health and trade issues and legal frameworks for ensuring protection of public health; discuss developments in primary health care and essential health care and review and make proposals to strengthen SEAPACOH and parliamentary committee regional networking. For more information on the meeting please contact us at admin@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Report on the use of country systems in public financial management: Assessing the achievements in aid effectiveness ","field_subtitle":"OECD Development Centre, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5buo2e","body":"A robust public financial management (PFM) system is vital to a country\u2019s development efforts and to the effectiveness of the aid funds that support those efforts. Three years ago, the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness gave new prominence to this idea, as partner countries committed to strengthen their PFM systems and donors committed to use those systems. Now, as the development community prepares for the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, this report takes stock of these achievements. The report finds that there has been progress: many countries and donors have taken positive action toward strengthening and using country PFM systems, and the Public. Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) partnership has developed a performance measurement framework that can help countries determine where they need to concentrate their efforts. At the same time, the aggregate numbers on donors\u2019 use of country systems have not changed much; it is clear that there is still much work to do. The report argues that many of the conditions on which that work must build are now in place, so there is good reason to expect that the Paris Declaration targets for 2010 can be achieved. The report makes important recommendations for this work: partner countries need to take an enhanced role, donors need to better equip themselves to carry out their commitments, external accountability bodies (such as parliaments and civil society organisations) need to increase their demand for implementation of the Paris Declaration, and planning, communication, dissemination and use of lessons learned are crucial. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Representations of HIV/AIDS management in South African newspapers ","field_subtitle":"Campbell C: African Journal of AIDS Research 7(2): 195\u2013208, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=46&id=41937","body":"In South Africa, numerous strong policy statements emphasise the importance of involving communities in HIV and AIDS management, yet in practice such involvement tends to be tokenistic and minimal. Social representations in the public sphere constitute the symbolic dimension within which responses to HIV and AIDS are conceptualised and transformed into action. Through an analysis of newspaper articles, the dominant representations of HIV and AIDS management circulating in the South African public sphere are examined to see how community engagement is depicted. Media representations reflect narrow understandings of HIV and AIDS as a predominantly medical problem, while depicting HIV and AIDS management as a top-down activity dominated by prominent individuals, such as national leaders, health professionals and philanthropists, thus marginalising the role played by communities, who are often depicted as passive recipients of interventions by active outsiders. These representations fail to reflect the key role played by members of grassroots communities in responding to the HIV epidemic. Such representations provide flawed conceptual tools for shaping responses to the epidemic, given that HIV-related programmes are unlikely to have optimal outcomes unless they resonate with the perceived needs and interests of their target communities. Effective HIV and AIDS management is best achieved through active participation by communities in HIV and AIDS management strategies. The paper also discusses the implications of a more \u2018civic-minded journalism'.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Review meeting on health issues in the services negotiations under EPAs ","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, SEATINI, September 18-19 2008, Uganda","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/meetings.php","body":"SEATINI / EQUINET are holding a workshop bringing together civil society, parliamentarians, human rights commissions, trade and health ministries officials to review and deliberate on protection of health and access to health care services in the ongoing EPA negotiations, and particularly in the services negotiations. The meeting will be held in Kampala Uganda September 18-19 2008. The meeting aims to: \r\n* Update on current health and trade issues, including patenting laws and the EPA negotiations and more generally legal frameworks for ensuring protection of public health in trade agreements.\r\n* Review the technical analysis report developed looking on the services negotiations in the Economic Partnership Agreements.\r\n* Review and develop key positions to be advanced for the protection of public health in trade agreements and strategies for advancing them.\r\n* Develop progress markers with regards to the EPA negotiations and protection of public health.\r\n* Develop a workshop declaration.\r\nFor any queries please email admin@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Round table on \u2018Conceptual and Operational Issues of Lender Responsibility for Sovereign Debt\u2019: Addressing odious and illegitimate debt and lending ","field_subtitle":"World Bank, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6k3b59","body":"The round table on \u2018Conceptual and Operational Issues of Lender Responsibility for Sovereign Debt\u2019 was hosted by the World Bank following the publication of a draft World Bank discussion paper entitled \u2018Odious debt: Some considerations\u2019 in September 2007. The event was organised in response to a request by a coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs) interested in discussing the findings of the bank\u2019s paper and the broader issues of odious/illegitimate debt and responsible lending. This outcome report captures some of the main points raised by panellists as well as the discussions with the meeting\u2019s participants which followed, namely, the concepts of odious and illegitimate debt, whether or not these can be considered well-established legal concepts, consideration of how feasibly these concepts could be applied in practice and practical approaches to addressing concerns on responsible lending and borrowing in the future. As follow-up some civil society organisations suggested that, if the World Bank was indeed serious about the importance of the odious debt issue, it should foster further discussions on the subject with legal experts to discuss different approaches to dealing with the problem. It was also proposed that the World Bank and a Southern CSO jointly appoint an independent auditor to examine selected credit according to mutually agreed indicators. Finally, CSOs called for the World Bank discussion paper and roundtable outcome report to be discussed by the bank\u2019s management and Board.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Ministerial task force meets on food prices","field_subtitle":"SADC Secretariat, 17 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.sadc.int/index/browse/page/93","body":"A SADC Task Force of Ministers of Trade, Finance and Agriculture met on 13 July 2008 in Lusaka, Zambia to discuss measures to mitigate currently increasing food prices, the impending food crisis and ways to improve the food security situation in the SADC region. The Ministerial Task Force noted that prices of food commodities worldwide have risen sharply over the past couple of years and even more sharply from January 2007 to date. There are a number of factors that are believed to contribute to the observed increase in world food prices. Key among them are the increasingly poor weather conditions, high energy prices, worldwide reduction in levels of food stocks, massive shift in crop cultivation towards bio-fuels, increased consumption of food in emerging economies such as India and China, commodity speculation, and inadequate investment in agriculture in recent decades. However, prices in the SADC region haven\u2019t risen quite as sharply as world prices, which provides for a window of opportunity for measures to be taken for minimising future rises in food prices. The Ministerial Task Force came up with several measures the Member States and the SADC Secretariat should take in order to reduce current and future food crises in the region. These include: increasing the levels of investment in agriculture, including aligning national budgets to the 10% of national budgets agreed to by SADC Heads of State and Government in May 2004; improving access to agricultural inputs especially fertiliser through the provision of temporary subsidies to smallholder farmers; expediting the harmonisation of Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary Standards measures and removal of non tariff barriers within the region; encouraging financial institutions and NGOs to prioritise agriculture and extend credit to small scale farmers especially women and vulnerable groups; introducing social security systems targeted at the vulnerable to cushion them from the impact of increased food prices; facilitating easy flow of information among Member States and with SADC Secretariat; facilitating the establishment of a Regional Food Reserve Facility; and creating appropriate incentives for private sector involvement in services related to agricultural and food security. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Pre-summit diplomats briefing","field_subtitle":"Salomao TA, SADC Executive Secretary: SADC, 5 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.sadc.int/index/browse/page/96","body":"One of the main agenda items of the 2008 SADC Summit is the launch of the Free Trade Area. Having completed the critical tasks of the SADC Trade Protocol, the SADC FTA was launched during the Summit on 17th August 2008 under the theme: \u201cSADC Free Trade Area for Growth, Development and Wealth Creation\u201d.  SADC attained the Free Trade Area as of January 2008, although three of its Member States, namely Angola, DRC and Malawi  are still addressing challenges facing them in the  implementing the Protocol on Trade. The region was also reported at the Summit to have recorded significant progress and positive developments in the core areas of social and human development. In the health sector, positive results were recorded in combating HIV and AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis. Measures were put in place to increase access to preventive and curative services. Consequently, prevalence and incidence rates for HIV and Malaria declined in certain population categories and some parts of the region, with a decline in both prevalence and incidence of HIV especially among the youth aged 15 to 24 years and pregnant women attending ante-natal clinics. A 90% reduction of malaria incidence was recorded in countries in the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative where malaria cross border control initiatives are being implemented. These emerging positive indicators are due to improvements and strengthening of health systems in Member States.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Sanitation: A Human Rights Imperative","field_subtitle":"COHRE, UN-HABITAT, SDC and WaterAid release, 12 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.cohre.org/store/attachments/sanitation%2Bcover_web_150808.pdf","body":"This booklet addresses the benefit of treating sanitation in human rights terms,the legal basis of the right to sanitation, state obligations and standards for differing environments, and priority actions for governments and other stakeholders. While there has been some progress on the recognition and implementation of the right to water, the same is not true of sanitation services. The current International Year of Sanitation presents an opportunity to address the lack of attention paid to sanitation and hygiene in human rights terms. This publication is a call to recognise sanitation as a crucial aspect of the right to an adequate standard of living, setting out the most important strategies and measures that stakeholders and decision-makers can prioritise in order to ensure that sanitation is accessible and affordable to all. It is an advocacy tool to encourage more funding for sanitation, more debate and more research into the barriers to accessing affordable sanitation and how to remove them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Senior research coordinator: Transparency in Service Delivery in Africa Programme","field_subtitle":"Transparency International Secretariat Berlin, Germany","field_url":"http://charityjob.co.uk/seekers/JobDetails.aspx?jobid=125709","body":"Transparency International (TI) is a global civil society organisation leading the fight against corruption. Through more than 90 chapters worldwide and an international secretariat in Berlin, Germany, TI raises awareness of the damaging effects of corruption and works with partners in government, business and civil society to develop and implement effective measures to tackle it. Transparency International is looking for a senior research coordinator to manage the research components of a three-year, eight-country programme on \u2018Transparency in Service Delivery in Africa\u2019 (TISDA). The programme seeks to improve delivery in basic services in three key sectors (education, health and water) by empowering civil society to advocate for improved transparency and accountability in the management of financial resources in these sectors. Working closely with TI\u2019s Africa and Middle East Department, participating TI national chapters and external (national and international) consultants, the senior research coordinator will be responsible for overseeing the design, implementation and analysis of public sector service delivery surveys on education, health and water in participating African countries (Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia). ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual behaviour and STI/HIV status among adolescents in rural Malawi: An evaluation of the effect of interview mode on reporting","field_subtitle":"Mensch BS, Hewett PC, Gregory R and Helleringer S: Poverty, Gender and Youth Working Paper 8, 2008","field_url":"http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/wp/pgy/008.pdf","body":"The dynamics of HIV transmission in developing countries is compromised by unreliable data concerning sexual behaviour. This paper represents an effort to investigate young people\u2019s reporting of sexual behaviour. It summarises the results from an interview-mode experiment conducted with unmarried young women aged 15\u201321 in rural southern Malawi in which respondents were randomly assigned to either an audio computer-assisted self-interview (ACASI) or a conventional face-to-face (FTF) interview. In addition, biomarkers were collected for HIV and three STIs: gonorrhea, chlamydia, and trichomoniasis. In both Kenya and Malawi, clear evidence indicates that the mode of interviewing and probing concerning various sexual partnerships affects respondents\u2019 reporting of their sexual activity. Yet the results are not always in accordance with expectations. Reporting for \u2018ever had sex\u2019 and \u2018sex with a boyfriend\u2019 is higher in the FTF mode. When asked about other partners as well as multiple lifetime partners, however, the reporting was consistently higher with ACASI, in many cases significantly so. As in Kenya, in Malawi the interview-administered mode produced more consistent reporting of sexual activity between the main interview and a subsequent interview. Finally, the association between infection status and reporting of sexual behaviour is stronger in the FTF mode, although, in both modes, some young women who denied ever having had sex tested positive for STIs/HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Symposium: Alma-Ata 30 years on: The future of primary health care","field_subtitle":"11-12 September 2008, London","field_url":"http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/events/particulars/2008/sept/alma-ataprogramme.pdf","body":"The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine are holding this event in recognition of the historical importance of the Alma-Ata declaration, and the continuing interest in primary health care from a range of stakeholders. The key objectives of the symposium are to highlight successes of failures of primary health care (PHC) in the last 30 years; discuss how to apply the lessons learned to strengthen health systems for future challenges; look at the threats / challenges to the PHC approach and how to combat them; outline the tensions between disease specific programmes and PHC approaches - how can they be addressed?; identify Alma-Ata values and how they can be translated into programmes; and consider the implications of PHC for decision makers( donors, governments, research funders, academic institutions) in the future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"TB failures threaten HIV treatment gains","field_subtitle":"IRIN PlusNews, 8 August 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79727","body":"Tuberculosis (TB) is the biggest killer of people living with HIV in Africa, but only 1% of HIV-positive people accessing treatment were screened for TB in 2006, an oversight that activists say threatens to roll back the gains made in placing more than three million people on life-prolonging anti-retroviral (ARVs) treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The Aged Family Uganda (TAFU) 2008: Case study of the older persons of Uganda ","field_subtitle":"Nyanzi F: Concept paper, August 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6xpb57","body":"There are over a million older persons in Uganda, many of whom lack food, money, clean water and medical support and have lost their children to war and AIDS. This paper, based on a survey of older persons and a follow-up conference, which analysed the results, collates the major issues facing many older persons in Uganda, the policy response so far and outlines priorities for action in the future. Despite the fact that in the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, there is a Minister of State for Elderly and Disability, there is in 2008 still no policy for older persons. Lack of a formal policy on ageing is harming the elderly in Uganda. The government needs to introduce specific programmes to support older persons who care for their orphaned grandchildren, start HIV and AIDS education and testing programmes for older persons, initiate geriatric medicine at hospitals and health centres and establish a National Council on Ageing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The converging impact of tuberculosis, AIDS and food insecurity in Zambia and South Africa","field_subtitle":"Bond V, Chileshe M, Magazi B and Sullivan C: International Food Policy Research Institute and RENEWAL, Brief 5, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5jwxcz","body":"While Zambia and South Africa are attempting to integrate public TB and HIV services to reach co-infected people, there is little evidence on how the synergy of co-infection with TB and HIV plays out for affected families in the context of poverty and overstretched public services. An anthropological study carried out in 2006/7 documented the social and economic impact of TB, HIV and food insecurity on poor households in rural Zambia and peri-urban SA. Anthropological research was conducted in 18 households affected by TB throughout the period of TB treatment and in 17 comparative non-affected households. Affected families suffered a double blow: they lost the productivity of an adult family member and at the same time needed to muster resources to seek treatment and adequately care for the patient. TB drugs are perceived as both causing hunger and demanding food intake. In South Africa and Zambia, inequities increased both vulnerability to infection and disease and likelihood of delayed diagnosis and delayed or interrupted treatment and care for TB and HIV. In Zambia, those in treatment for TB fell deeper into poverty and were in debt and short on food. In SA, affected households were kept buoyant by the disability grant and other welfare initiatives, but in the long-term most were unable to resume their previous livelihoods. This research recommends that, in the context of poverty, food aid and transport costs are made available to TB patients and PLWHs on ART.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The double burden of human resource and HIV crises: A case study of Malawi","field_subtitle":"McCoy D, McPake B and Mwapasa V: Human Resources for Health 6(16), 12 August 3008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/58m6qj","body":"Two crises dominate the health sectors of sub-Saharan African countries: those of human resources and of HIV. Nevertheless, there is considerable variation in the extent to which these two phenomena affect sub-Saharan countries, with a few facing extreme levels of both: Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, the Central African Republic and Malawi. This paper reviews the continent-wide situation with respect to this double burden before considering the case of Malawi in more detail. In Malawi, there has been significant concurrent investment in both an Emergency Human Resource Programme and an antiretroviral therapy programme which was treating 60,000 people by the end of 2006. Both synergy and conflict have arisen as the two programmes have been implemented. These highlight important issues for programme planners and managers, particularly that planning for the scale-up of antiretroviral therapy while simultaneously strengthening health systems and human resources requires prioritisation of support and time, and not just resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The effects of International Monetary Fund loans on tuberculosis health outcomes","field_subtitle":"Stuckler D,  King LP and Basu S: PLoS Medicine 5(7), July 2008","field_url":"http://www.plos.org/press/plme-05-07-stuckler.pdf","body":"A new study has shown a link between IMF loans to developing countries and increased levels of tuberculosis in the same countries. Researchers claimed a direct relationship could be seen - the start of the increases matched the starting point of IMF programmes, and continued rising as the programme continued. This meant at least a 16.6% increase in deaths across the 21 researched countries, they said. Without the IMF loans, rates would have fallen by up to 10%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Farmer Life School: Experience from an innovative approach to HIV education ","field_subtitle":"Swaans K, Broerse JE, Salomon M, Mudhara M, Mweli M and Bunders JF: SAHARA Journal 5(2): 56-64, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=197&id=41885","body":"The Farmer Life School (FLS) is an innovative approach to integrating HIV education into life skills and technical training for farmers. This study aims to gain insight into the strengths and weaknesses of this relatively new approach, through the implementation of an adapted version in South Africa. The results are presented of a pilot with three groups of community gardeners, predominantly women, attending weekly sessions. Impact was assessed in terms of three key elements: participation, learning and empowerment. Data was collected through extensive session reports, follow-up interviews and reflection exercises with facilitators, participating groups and individuals. The results suggest that a group-based discovery learning approach such as the FLS has great potential to improve food security and wellbeing, while allowing participants to explore issues around HIV/AIDS. However, the analysis also shows that HIV/AIDS-related illness and death, and the factors that drive the epidemic and its impact, undermine farmers' ability to participate, as well as the safety and trust required for learning and the empowerment process. Participatory approaches such as the FLS require a thorough understanding of and adaptation to the context in which they are to be used.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The feasibility of preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV using peer counselors in Zimbabwe ","field_subtitle":"Shetty A, Marangwanda C, Stranix-Chibanda L, Chandisarewa W, Chirapa E, Mahomva A, Miller A, Simoyi M and Maldonado Y: AIDS Research and Therapy 5(17), 1 August 2008","field_url":"http://www.aidsrestherapy.com/content/5/1/17/abstract","body":"Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) is a major public health challenge in Zimbabwe. Using trained peer counselors, a nevirapine (NVP)-based PMTCT programme was implemented as part of routine care in urban antenatal clinics. This paper documents the successes and challenges of the programme and concludes that peer counselors were a definite advantage in PMTCT.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The health professions and the performance of future health systems in low-income countries: Support or obstacle?","field_subtitle":"Dussault G: Social Science and Medicine 66(10):2088-95, May 2008","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18336977","body":"This paper discusses the present and future role of the health professions in health services delivery systems in low-income countries. Unlike richer countries, most low-income countries do not have a tradition of labour market regulation and the capacity of the professions themselves to regulate the provision of health services by their members tends to be weak. The paper looks at the impact of professional monopolies on the performance of health services delivery systems, e.g. equity of access, effectiveness of services, efficiency in the use of scarce resources and responsiveness to users' needs, including protection against the financial impact of utilising health services. It identifies issues which policy-makers face in relation to opening the health labour market while guaranteeing the safety and security of services provided by professionals. A \u2018social contract\u2019 - granting privileges of practice in exchange of a commitment to actively maintain and enhance the quality of their services - may be a viable course of action. This would require that the actors in the policy process collaborate in strengthening the capacity of regulatory agencies to perform their roles.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The reporting skills and professional writing handbook (a practical guide for development professionals): module one- professional writing and the writing process","field_subtitle":"Kendrick N: Education, Language & Development, 2008","field_url":"http://www.reportingskills.org/handbook.htm","body":"Professional writing can be a difficult process for development practioners, especially for those who do not have English as a first language. This module is part of the reporting skills and professional writing handbook comprised of eight easy to follow steps covering the entire writing process aimed at creating an understanding of what professional writing is and how to improve these writing skills.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Toolkit: disseminating research online","field_subtitle":"Fisher C: Global Development Network, 2008","field_url":"http://www.gdnet.org/middle.php?oid=373","body":"What are the benefits of disseminating research online? How would you go about it if you do not have your own website? This toolkit addresses these and other questions, providing broad tips and suggestions for communicating academic research using the internet. It draws on best practice for web strategies from the information and commercial worlds. The toolkit identifies and focuses on five key elements of the process, including the Global Development Network (GDN) approach to research communication including GDNet style guides and a downloadable power point presentation about communicating research online. The author stresses that this toolkit does not cover everything needed for a comprehensive research dissemination strategy for institutes. Such a strategy will involve other channels of communication (paper-based outputs, meetings, workshops etc) and will depend on target audiences, institutional set up and finances.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Training seminar on access to essential medicines, Nairobi, October 2008 ","field_subtitle":"Health Action International (HAI) Africa and the Southern African Treatment Access Movement (SATAMO)","field_url":"","body":"Health Action International (HAI) Africa and the Southern African Treatment Access Movement (SATAMO), with support from the Open Society Institute\u2019s Public Health Programme, will organise a seminar on access to essential medicines (AEM) in Nairobi in October 2008. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33365","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"UN calls for increased support for breastfeeding mothers","field_subtitle":"UNICEF, 31 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/index_44924.html","body":"The United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) is urging increased support for breastfeeding mothers since the practice has been shown to slash deaths by more than 10% in infants in developing countries. Despite advances in the past 15 years, only 38% of infants under six months of age in the poorer nations are exclusively breastfed, a practice which could curb infant mortality. Various studies have shown that the number of months which mothers breastfeed \u2013 especially exclusively \u2013 can be extended by education and support. The practice can reduce the number of deaths caused by acute respiratory infection and diarrhoea, as well as other infectious diseases. It also improves mothers\u2019 health and strengthens the bond between mother and child. \u2018There is a double message here: it is not enough to say that breastfeeding is an ideal source of nourishment for infants and young children; mothers also need support to make optimal breastfeeding practices a reality,\u2019 WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding diversity in impact and responses among HIV and AIDS-affected households: The case of Msinga, South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Swaans K, Broerse J, van Diepen I, Salomon M and Bunders J: African Journal of AIDS Research 7(2): 167\u2013178, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=46&id=41934","body":"To gain a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of HIV and AIDS on rural households in Msinga, South Africa, this paper adapted the sustainable livelihoods framework. An ethnographic perspective was employed to examine the impact of HIV/AIDS-related illnesses on people's mind and spirit (the internal environment) and the influence of institutional structures and processes (the external environment) to better understand the actions taken by individuals and households in response to HIV and AIDS. Members of three support groups at a local drop-in centre were consulted about the impact of HIV and AIDS on their lives through focus groups, a questionnaire and in-depth interviews. The study shows that the psychosocial impact and associated coping strategies, as well as prevailing gender-based power relations and exclusion from social-exchange networks (which are not readily available factors in the sustainable livelihoods framework), affect people's lives in different ways and depend on the specific situation of the individual or household concerned. The study confirms the need to restore a household's resource base and to address psychosocial issues. However, the variation in impact on different households requires a diversified and holistic programme of development interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Using human rights to improve maternal and neonatal health: History, connections and a proposed practical approach","field_subtitle":"Gruskin S, Cottingham J, Hilber AM, Kismodi E, Lincetto O and Roseman MJ: WHO Bulletin 86 (8), 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/8/07-050500.pdf","body":"This paper describes how maternal and neonatal mortality in the developing world came to be seen as a public-health concern, a human rights concern, and ultimately as both, leading to the development of approaches using human rights concepts and methods to advance maternal and neonatal health. It describes the different contributions of the international community, women's health advocates and human rights activists.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Village health workers: Essential for health, under-valued by planners","field_subtitle":"Rusike I and Chigariro T: Community Working Group on Health,  Zimbabwe ","field_url":"","body":"Village health workers (VHWs) were key to Zimbabwe`s successful expansion of primary health care (PHC) in the early 1980s. They played a central role in closing the gap between public health services and communities at local levels, bringing health services outreach to communities, and facilitating community roles in the health delivery system. For example, village health workers and community based distributors were instrumental in implementing the successful Zimbabwe Family Planning Programme, as they helped raise awareness on family planning methods such as condoms and combined oral contraceptives (commonly known as \u2018the Pill\u2019), as well as the advantages of child spacing. These efforts are reflected in the expansion of coverage of contraception and reported decrease in fertility rates in the country from 6.5 children per woman in the early 1980s to 4.3 children per woman in 2001.\r\n\r\nVHWs continue up to today to augment the work being done by the mainstream health sector: raising awareness, giving health advice, monitoring growth of children under five years, and mobilising communities during out-reach programmes and for immunisation. Mrs. Kaseke a VHW in Mwanza ward (Goromonzi district) echoes these sentiments. One of her roles as a VHW is to mobilise food for chronically ill and home based patients in her area. She also runs community-based growth monitoring clinics on Saturdays. \u2018I have a scale that was allocated to me by the clinic when I started as a VHW. Women from my area bring their babies to my homestead. I weigh the babies and record their weight on cards, as it is done at the clinic. I then use the weight records to check if the child is growing well; otherwise I refer the child to the clinic for further assessment\u2019.\r\n\r\nVHWs see an important role for themselves in bridging the gap between the community and the health services, as explained by another VHW from Gokwe South District, Musatyanika Wushe: \u2018We are the link between the community and the health department. We advise and refer the community to seek medical attention early, care for home-based ridden patients, and chronic and TB patients on DOTS\u2019. \r\n\r\nDespite these vital functions, the numbers of VHWs and the role played by VHWs has diminished over the past two decades in Zimbabwe. While communities cite low morale due to lack of incentives as the major setback, the VHWs and other health staff point to lack of incentives and supporting resources and protective equipment as a major barrier to their performance.\r\n\r\nIn their early years, VHWs benefited from incentives such as uniforms, bicycles and allowances, which were meant to enhance their work and motivate them. Bicycles were both a token of appreciation and a tool to enable these volunteers to take their services to a wider population. The allowances they received helped them to buy basic necessities such as soap, so that they could look presentable while they carried out their duties. These incentives are now a thing of the past; and the remaining cadres are at times compelled to use their own resources to ensure that they can continue to serve their communities.\r\n\r\nHighlighting the plight of VHWs, Mr. Wushe said, \u2018We, as village health workers, are surprised about how we are handled. The problem is, out of all these duties, our allowances are still as low as ZW$20,000 (about US$0.01) per month, which is received after 12 months. One may be surprised to hear that allowances for December 2006 were received on the 26 of November 2007! We are very much exposed to the world of infection because we do not have protective clothing to put on when attending to home-based patients, most of which may have open wounds. From 2002 up to now ,we have tried in vain to request this protective clothing from our district hospital but the response is disheartening\u2019.\r\n\r\nIn addition to the resource gaps for VHWs, there have also been some changes in roles and responsibilities that have affected their work on health. During the period 1988-1999, the government introduced a multi-purpose cadre, the \u2018village community worker\u2019 (VCW). They were introduced under the Ministry of Political Affairs to take up a number of roles, including taking over some roles previously implemented by VHWs. However, unlike the VHWs, VCWs were political appointees, appointed by the ruling party leadership and then employed and trained by the Ministry of Political Affairs. This reporting and accountability structure weakened the link between the community and the health authorities. After calls by communities for the re-introduction of VHWs, the Community Working Group on Health (CWGH), among other civil society groups, lobbied government through the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare to re-introduce this cadre. VHWs were subsequently re-introduced in Zimbabwe in 2001 and over 2,000 VHWs were trained across the nation. While this has been welcome, there is still need to address the barriers to their morale and functioning. \r\n\r\nVHWs have been proposed as one measure to deal with a gap in health worker numbers. While they cannot replace adequately trained staff at primary and district levels of health systems, they are a key cadre in the health system because they are aware of the health needs and aspirations of their communities. This makes them an invaluable asset in advancing community-orientated health delivery and they should be supported. Although the 2008 national health budget in Zimbabwe had a sizable allocation towards VHWs, meetings held in 25 districts where CWGH is operating suggested that this budget is yet to reach the cadres on the ground. The CWGH has thus urged government to work with other stakeholders to create a plan to fully revive the VHW programme, support their work and ensure that resources allocated in the budget for VHWs reach them. \r\n\r\nThis is not just a matter for government. As part of civil society, we see that the presence of VHWs in our communities is essential in our quest for equity in health and accessibility of health services. We too need to be part of this support. Towards this end, CWGH will be documenting the roles and impacts of VHWs in our communities to engage government and other stakeholders to value and resource these roles in the spirit of health for all. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat admin@equinetafrica.org. The CWGH is a network of membership based civic organisations focusing on advocacy, action and networking around health issues in Zimbabwe. www.cwgh.co.zw ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Why do individuals agree to enrol in clinical trials? A qualitative study of health research participation in Blantyre, Malawi","field_subtitle":"Mfutso-Bengo, J Ndebele, P Jumbe, V Mkunthi, M Masiye, F Molyneux S and Molyneux M: Malawi Medical Journal 20(2):37\u201341, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=64&id=24920","body":"Current literature suggests that therapeutic misconception \u2013 a belief by participants in a clinical trial that they are in fact simply being given clinical care \u2013 is common, especially among illiterate populations in developing countries. In this study, most participated in research for the sake of obtaining better quality treatment made available through the clinical trials as ancillary care. Their consent to participate was not due to a belief that the actual procedures of the trial would directly benefit their health but due to government hospitals being crowded and commonly lacking drugs. In this environment, people make rational decisions to participate in research. This paper questions whether the term \u2018therapeutic misconception' accurately describes participants' motivation under conditions of limited resources and discusses the issue of undue inducement in clinical trials.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Why do people refuse to take part in biomedical research studies? Evidence from a resource-poor area","field_subtitle":"Mfutso-Bengo J, Masiye F, Molyneux M, Ndebele P and Chilungo A: Malawi Medical Journal 20(2):57\u201363, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=64&id=41994","body":"Participants' refusal to take part in research is an unpleasant experience that investigators face. This paper highlights some of the reasons why people from resource-poor settings refuse to take part in health research, highlighting standards that investigators can adopt to avoid unnecessary refusals and at the same time ensure that individuals have the right to participate and freedom to refuse. The researchers conducted focus group discussions with people who had refused to take part in a number of biomedical research studies but agreed to be interviewed in this study. They found nine key factors that influence people to refuse to participate in biomedical research: failure to follow traditional customs, lack of study benefits, superstition, poor informed-consent procedures, ignorance of health research, fear of strangers, lack of cultural sensitivity, poor timing and previous bad research experiences. They recommend that researchers must embark on community engagement before implementing their studies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Why mothers choose to enrol their children in malaria clinical studies and the involvement of relatives in decision making: Evidence from Malawi","field_subtitle":"Masiye F, Kass N, Hyder A, Ndebele P and Mfutso-Bengo J: Malawi Medical Journal 20(2): 38\u201340, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=64&id=41993","body":"This study was aimed at researching the reasons why mothers enrol their children in malaria clinical research and how family members or relatives are involved in the decision-making process. Issues related to informed consent were also a particular focus of this study. A total of 81 participants took part in eight focus group discussions, all of whom were mothers whose children had participated or were participating in Intermittent Prevention Therapy post-discharge (IPTpd) malaria research. Most of the participants reported that they chose to participate in the IPTpd research as a way of accessing better quality medical care and to benefit from the material and monetary incentives that were being given to participants for their participation. There was also a sense of trust in health workers who asked the potential participants to join the research. Most participants decide to take part in malaria research because of better medical treatment. Partners and relatives played a very small role in their decision-making process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Will developing countries benefit from their participation in genetics research?","field_subtitle":"Ndebele P and Musesengwa R: Malawi Medical Journal 20(2):67\u201369, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=64&id=41996","body":"There is an increase in the amount of genetics research being conducted in both developed and limited-resource countries. Most of this research is sponsored by developed countries. There are concerns in limited-resource countries on how the benefits from this research are currently being shared or will be shared in the future. There is need for caution to ensure that populations from limited-resource countries are not exploited by being used as subjects in genetics research that is meant to benefit populations from developed countries. This paper addresses the issue of fairness in benefits sharing and argues for justice in the sharing of both burdens and benefits of genetics research. The paper responds to some of the issues and arguments in recent literature on the meaning and limits of the concept of benefit-sharing in human genetics research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Workload indicators of staffing need method in determining optimal staffing levels at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital","field_subtitle":"Musua P, Nyongesa P, Shikhule A, Birech E, Kirui D, Njenga M, Mbiti D, Bett A, Lagat L, Kiilu K: East African Medical Journal 85(5):232-239, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=53&id=41958","body":"This study aimed to highlight the experience and findings of an attempt at establishing the optimal staffing levels for a tertiary health institution using the Workload Indicators of Staffing Need (WISN) method popularised by the World Health Organisation (WHO), Geneva, Switzerland. The descriptive study captures the activities of a taskforce appointed to establish optimal staffing levels. The cadres of workers, working schedules, main activities, time taken to accomplish the activities, available working hours, category and individual allowances, annual workloads from the previous year's statistics and optimal departmental establishment of workers were examined. There was initial resentment to the exercise because of the notion that it was aimed at retrenching workers. The team was given autonomy by the hospital management to objectively establish the optimal staffing levels. Very few departments were optimally established with most either understaffed or overstaffed. There were intradepartmental discrepancies in optimal levels of cadres even though many of them had the right number of total workforce. The WISN method is a very objective way of establishing staffing levels but requires a dedicated team with adequate expertise to make the raw data meaningful for calculations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cCivil Society and the State in Africa\u201d: An International Web Course","field_subtitle":"York University and the Training and Research Support Centre, September 2008\u2013April 2009","field_url":"","body":"York University (Toronto) working with the Training and Research Support Centre  is running an internet-based course, \u201cCivil Society and the State in Africa\u201d, in September 2008 \u2013 April 2009.  Members of civil society organisations in East and Southern Africa are invited to apply for participation in the course, which is provided free-of-charge. The 12-unit course will take place over 26 weeks, and is designed for civil society practitioners and post-secondary students (see the Lecture Schedule and Topics at the end of this announcement). The course is intended to provide both a firm grounding in current research and debates on civil society interventions around issues of social and economic policy and to provide capacity building in analysis for research on civil society - state interactions in social policy. By the end of the course, students should have a strengthened background in theoretical, strategic and practical issues in and approaches to civil society- state interactions in policy development and implementation, and an improved capacity to locate relevant research sources and support mechanisms for future policy-oriented work.  York University will provide formal written acknowledgement of a student\u2019s successful completion of the course once all of the course requirements have been met. Please email your application BEFORE 30 AUGUST 2008 to the following address: rsaunder@yorku.ca and admin@tarsc.org.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33477","field_issue_date":"2008-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"13,915 reasons for equity in sexual offences legislation: a national school-based survey in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Andersson N and Foster AH: International Journal for Equity in Health 7(20), 29 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/7/1/20","body":"Prior to 2007, forced sex with male children in South Africa did not count as rape but as \"indecent assault\", a much less serious offence. This study sought to document prevalence of male sexual violence among school-going youth. Teams visited 5162 classes in 1191 schools, in October and November 2002. A total of 269,705 learners aged 10-19 years in grades 6-11. Of these, 126,696 were male. Schoolchildren answered questions about exposure in the last year to insults, beating, unwanted touching and forced sex. They indicated the sex of the perpetrator, and whether this was a family member, a fellow schoolchild, a teacher or another adult. Respondents also gave the age when they first suffered forced sex and when they first had consensual sex. Some 9% (weighted value based on 13915/127097) of male respondents aged 11-19 years reported forced sex in the last year. Of those aged 18 years at the time of the survey, 44% (weighted value of 5385/11450) said they had been forced to have sex in their lives and 50% reported consensual sex. Perpetrators were most frequently an adult not from their own family, followed closely in frequency by other schoolchildren. Some 32% said the perpetrator was male, 41% said she was female and 27% said they had been forced to have sex by both male and female perpetrators. Male abuse of schoolboys was more common in rural areas while female perpetration was more an urban phenomenon. This study uncovers endemic sexual abuse of male children that was suspected but hitherto only poorly documented. Legal recognition of the criminality of rape of male children is a first step. The next steps include serious investment in supporting male victims of abuse, and in prevention of all childhood sexual abuse.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS spending breaks records, but needs more focus ","field_subtitle":"PlusNews, 8 July 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79150","body":"HIV/AIDS funding to low- and middle-income countries reached a record level in 2007, according to a new report by UNAIDS. AIDS spending by the G8 group of wealthy nations, the European Commission and other donors hit US$ 6.6 billion last year, up from US$ 5.6 billion in 2006. However, despite the largesse, UNAIDS said a US$8.1 billion gap in funding for essential HIV/AIDS programmes remained. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS Vaccine 2008, National Institute for Communicable Diseases, ","field_subtitle":"13 - 16 October 2008 - Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.hivvaccineenterprise.org","body":"This annual event brings together scientists, public health experts, clinicians, epidemiologists and members of the corporate sector. The conference aims to encourage a strategic plan for HIV vaccine research, funding and greater collaboration in the field.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Asking the right questions: scoping studies in the commissioning of research on the organisation and delivery of health services","field_subtitle":"Anderson S, Allen P, Peckham S and Goodwin N: Health Research Policy and Systems 6(7), 9 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/6/1/7","body":"Scoping studies have been used across a range of disciplines for a wide variety of purposes. However, their value is increasingly limited by a lack of definition and clarity of purpose. The UK's Service Delivery and Organisation Research Programme (SDO) has extensive experience of commissioning and using such studies; twenty four have now been completed. This review article has four objectives; to describe the nature of the scoping studies that have been commissioned by the SDO Programme; to consider the impact of and uses made of such studies; to provide definitions for the different elements that may constitute a scoping study; and to describe the lessons learnt by the SDO Programme in commissioning scoping studies. Scoping studies are imprecisely defined but usually consist of one or more discrete components; most commonly they are non-systematic reviews of the literature, but other important elements are literature mapping, conceptual mapping and policy mapping. Some scoping studies also involve consultations with stakeholders including the end users of research. Scoping studies have been used for a wide variety of purposes, although a common feature is to identify questions and topics for future research. The reports of scoping studies often have an impact that extends beyond informing research commissioners about future research areas; some have been published in peer reviewed journals, and others have been published in research summaries aimed at a broader audience of health service managers and policymakers. Key lessons from the SDO experience are the need to relate scoping studies to a particular health service context; the need for scoping teams to be multi-disciplinary and to be given enough time to integrate diverse findings; and the need for the research commissioners to be explicit not only about the aims of scoping studies but also about their intended uses. This necessitates regular contact between researchers and commissioners. Scoping studies are an essential element in the portfolio of approaches to research, particularly as a mechanism for helping research commissioners and policy makers to ask the right questions. Their utility will be further enhanced by greater recognition of the individual components, definitions for which are provided. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"AU Africa Health Strategy ","field_subtitle":"African Union","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6qg5ar","body":"Two hundred-and-five African and global organisations and networks have called on the Assembly of Heads of State of the African Union to ensure the Implementation Plan of the AU Africa Health Strategy is urgently and adequately funded, and for the AU Abuja 15% Commitment to health to be implemented by all member states. The Implementation Plan was adopted by African Ministers of Health on the 17 May 2008 following presentation of the Health Strategy last year by the AU Commission Social Affairs Division. It provides guidelines for implementing various African health frameworks, health MDGs and global universal access targets including on TB, HIV and AIDS, malaria, child and maternal health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Beyond 2008: Global civil society tells UN to fix international drug policy","field_subtitle":"Drug War Chronicle 543, 18 July 2008","field_url":"http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/543/beyond_2008_ngos_united_nations_drug_resolution","body":"About 300 delegates representing organisations from across the drug policy spectrum met in Vienna for the Beyond 2008 NGO Forum, an effort to provide civil society input on global drug policy. Building on a series of regional meetings last year, the forum was part of an ongoing campaign to reshape the United Nations' drug policy agenda as the world organisation grapples with its next 10-year plan. The NGO meeting, which included drug treatment, prevention, education and policy reform groups, harm reduction groups and human rights groups from around the world, resulted in a resolution that will be presented to the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) at its meeting in March 2009. At that meeting, the CND will draft the next UN 10-year global drug strategy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Botswana HIV Conference, Botswana Branch of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society","field_subtitle":"17 - 20 September 2008 - Gaborone, Botswana","field_url":"http://www.botshiv.org.bw/","body":"Organised by the national branch of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, the conference will give new insights into HIV treatment regimens and initiatives to reduce HIV transmission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications: UPEACE-IDRC doctoral research award","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.upeace.org/news/index.cfm?id_activity=533&actual=2008","body":"The UPEACE Africa Programme has secured funding from the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC). This funding will be strictly allocated to African students studying at African institutions and, in particular, for those who are in the final stage of their PhD studies. The award is intended to support PhD candidates in their field research, data analysis, associated travel and production costs. In addition, part of the award may be used to access updated scholarly materials and disseminate research findings through publications and conference presentations. The maximum award is US$10,000 per eligible student. The deadline for applications is 12 September 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: Child poverty and disparities: Public policies for social justice ","field_subtitle":"Cairo, Egypt, January 2009.","field_url":"","body":"The conference is the first in a planned series of bi-annual conferences on child rights, social justice and equity that aims to: contribute to the attainment of child rights through sharing of ideas, research findings and good practices; strengthen the collaboration between researchers, practitioners and policy makers working on children's issues; and encourage innovative research in \"under-researched\" areas. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals on evidence-informed policy","field_subtitle":"Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/callsforproposals/Health%20Worker%20Incentives%20Underserved%20areas.pdf","body":"This call for \"Incentives to Attract and Retain Qualified Health Workers to Under-served areas within Low- and Middle-income Countries\" is issued in collaboration with the Human Resources for Health Department of WHO and is intended to support pragmatic and policy oriented research that either enhances understanding about factors that influence health workers choice of practice location, and/or the feasibility and effectiveness of practical measures to influence health worker location. A total of US$500,000 is also available to support proposals under this call. The closing date for the call is 12 September 2008. The call is only open to applicants in low- and middle-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals on incentives to attract health workers to underserved areas","field_subtitle":"Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/callsforproposals/Supporting%20National%20Processes%20Evidence%20for%20Ev%20Inform%20Policy.pdf","body":"This call for \"Supporting National Processes for Evidence-informed Policy in the Health Sector of Developing Countries\" is intended to promote a variety of possible strategies that strengthen evidence-to-policy links. A total of US$500,000 is available to support proposals under this call. The closing date for the call is 12 September 2008. All applicants must be based in low- or middle-income countries. Teams composed of different organisations and actors (such as policy-makers, research institutions, think tanks, civil society representatives and knowledge brokers) are particularly welcome to apply.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Changing gender profile of medical schools in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Breier M, Wildschut A: South African Medical Journal 98(7):557-560","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=41400","body":"Since 1994, higher education policy has been committed to equity of access for all, irrespective of race and gender. This study investigated progress towards these goals in the education of medical doctors, with an emphasis on gender. Databases from the Department of Education (DoE), Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) and University of Cape Town (UCT) Faculty of Health Sciences were used to explore undergraduate (MB ChB) trends at all eight medical schools and postgraduate (MMed) trends at UCT. Nationally women have outnumbered men in MBChB enrolments since 2000, figures ranging between 52% and 63% at seven of the eight medical schools in 2005. However,the rate of change in the medical profession lags behind and it will take more than two decades for female doctors to outnumber male doctors. A study of UCT postgraduate enrolments shows that females had increased to 42% of MMed enrolments in 2005. However, female postgraduate students were concentrated in disciplines such as paediatrics and psychiatry and comprised no more than 11% of enrolments in the surgical disciplines between 1999 and 2005. The study provides a basic quantitative overview of the changing profile of medical enrolments and raises questions about the career choices of women after they graduate and the social factors influencing these choices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Credibility crunch: Food, poverty and climate change: An agenda for rich-country leaders","field_subtitle":"Lawson M: Oxfam Briefing Paper 113, 2008","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/debt_aid/downloads/bp113_credibility_crunch.pdf","body":"The year 2008 is halfway to the deadline for reaching the Millennium Development Goals. Despite some progress, this article argues that they will not be achieved if current trends continue. Starting with the G8 meeting in Japan, rich countries must use a series of high-profile summits in 2008 to make sure the MDGs are met, and tackle both climate change and the current food crisis. Oxfam proposes an agenda into the G8 this year that includes action on specific areas: stop burning food and start supporting poor farmers; mend broken aid promises; support health, education, water and sanitation for all; and put women and girls first. The report points to a similar situation regarding climate change, where it argues that a lot of the money pledged to help poor communities to cope with the effects of changing weather patterns is simply being taken from existing aid budgets or being made into loans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 62: Incentives for health worker retention in Kenya: An assessment of current practice","field_subtitle":"Ndetei DM, Khasakhala L and Omolo JO","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS62HRndetei.pdf","body":"In Kenya, internal migration of workers, from rural/poor areas to urban/rich areas, is just as serious a problem as international migration. Shortages in the health workforce are aggravated by the unequal distribution of health workers as a result of economic, social, professional and security factors. This report is of a literature review and field research on strategies for the retention of health workers in Kenya. It examines trends in health worker recruitment and retention; existing policies, strategies and interventions to retain health workers; and assesses their implementation and the factors affecting this. The study data suggests that better organised facilities, often in higher-income areas, are more successful in providing incentives. Yet it is at the lower levels of the health system (in rural and poorer areas) where incentives are more urgently needed to counteract the strong push factors that force workers out of these areas. Recommendations are proposed for measures to retain health workers in rural areas, in lower-income districts and at lower levels of the health system to ensure that all areas reach minimum standards with regard to numbers of personnel per population. Such incentives are not only financial. A number of non-financial incentives are highly valued: improved working conditions; training and supervision; and good living conditions, communications, health care and educational opportunities for themselves and their families.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Editoriais do Boletim da \u201cEQUINET Newsletter\u201d, Janeiro 2007 \u2013 Maio 2008","field_subtitle":"EQUINET/TARSC","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20OPED%20Portuguese%20JAN07-MAY08.pdf","body":"This document compiles twenty one editorials of the newsletter of the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and southern Africa from January 2007 to April 2008 translated into Portuguese. The issues covered range from debates and policy positions on financing for health to the public health impacts of criminalising HIV transmission. The editorial content reflects a range of authors from academic, professional and civil society groups and not the views of the EQUINET steering committee.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Empowering primary care workers to improve health services: Results from Mozambique's leadership and management development programme","field_subtitle":"Perry C: Human Resources for Health 6(14), 23 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-6-14.pdf","body":"This article is the third in the Human Resources for Health journal's feature on the theme of leadership and management in public health leadership. It presents a successful application in Mozambique of a leadership development programme created by MSH, in which managers from 40 countries have learned to work in teams to identify their priority challenges and act to implement effective responses. From 2003 to 2004, 11 health units in Nampula Province participated in a leadership and management development programme called the Challenges Programme. The programme used several strategies that contributed to successful outcomes. It integrated leadership strengthening into the day-to-day challenges that staff were facing in the health units. Participatory teams were also created. After the programme, people no longer waited passively to be trained but instead proactively requested training in needed areas. Ministry of Health workers in Nampula reported that the programme's approach to improving management and leadership capacity at all levels promoted the efficient use of resources and empowered staff to make a difference.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 90: Health services in the Market Place: What will we get from negotiations on service agreements in the EU Economic Partnership Agreements?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place.\r\n\r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"First Inter-Ministerial Conference on Health and Environment in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unep.org/health-env/","body":"African health and environment ministers will gather for the first time from 26 to 29 August, 2008, in Libreville, Gabon to enhance political commitment and investments for reducing environmental threats to health. The First Inter-Ministerial Conference on Health and Environment in Africa will be hosted by the Government of Gabon, together with WHO and the United Nations Environment Programme. Participants will come from health and environment ministries, multilateral and bilateral agencies, media, non-governmental organizations and civil society. The conference will explore ways to address key priorities and links in line with its theme \u201cHealth security through healthy environments\u201d. It will review existing mechanisms and opportunities to address environmental challenges facing Africa. An agreement on specific actions required for changes in institutional arrangements and investment frameworks will be discussed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"From poverty to power: How active citizens and effective states can change the world","field_subtitle":"Green D: Oxfam International, 2008","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/downloads/FP2P/FP2P_BK_Whole.pdf","body":"From Poverty to Power, Oxfam International's new book, provides critical insights into the massive human and economic costs of inequality and poverty and proposes realistic solutions. It proposes that the best way to tackle them is through a combination of active citizens and effective nation states. Why active citizenship? Because people living in poverty must have a voice in deciding their own destiny, fighting for rights and justice in their own society, and holding states and the private sector to account. Why effective states? Because history shows that no country has prospered without a state structure than can actively manage the development process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"GHWA welcomes G8 commitment for action on chronic health worker shortages","field_subtitle":"Global Health Workforce Alliance, 9 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/news/g82008/en/","body":"The Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA) strongly welcomes G8 leaders\u2019 commitment, in Hokkaido, Japan, to actively address the critical shortages of health workers across the world. GHWA applauds Japan and the other G8 nations for recognizing that a competent, supported health workforce is fundamental to developing robust health systems and to reaching health and development goals. GHWA also welcomes the G8\u2019s noting of the importance of the Kampala Declaration and Agenda for Global Action to help guide the response to the health workforce crisis. While encouraged by the increased commitment shown by the G8, GHWA urges the leaders follow up with increased and new investment to ensure promises on the health workforce are turned into reality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Handbook on community-led total sanitation","field_subtitle":"Kar K, Chambers R: Plan International, 2008","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/manuals-and-toolkits&id=37507&type=Document&em=090708&sub=wnew","body":"Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is a participatory process focused on promoting change in sanitation behaviour through social action - stimulated by facilitators from within or outside the community. Aimed at empowering local communities this handbook is a source of ideas and experiences to be used for CLTS orientation workshops, advocacy to stakeholders as well as for implementing CLTS activities. It is intended as a tool for field staff, facilitators and trainers to plan, implement and follow up on CLTS activities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health services in the Market Place: What will we get from negotiations on service agreements in the EU Economic Partnership Agreements?","field_subtitle":"Aulline Mabika, SEATINI","field_url":"","body":"In the next six months countries in the east and southern African region will be negotiating the agreements on services in the European Union (EU) \u2013 East and Southern Africa (ESA) Economic Partnership Agreements.  These services negotiations are already halfway through and are expected to be complete by the end of 2008. The negotiations currently cover mainly financial and telecommunications services, and say little about protecting social services. Yet many countries in the region are facing pressures to privatise health services, even though the growth of a private sector in health services withdraws resource and staff to service a wealthier minority at the cost of universal access to health care services for the majority.\r\n\r\nProtecting the health of the populations in the sixteen eastern and southern Africa in the region is a  development priority. Twelve of them are least developed countries (LDCs) with the lowest human development indicators in the world. Almost all these countries experience negative economic growth and falling disposable incomes, one in six children dies before their fifth birthday and more than half the population is still living on less than US$1 a day. The EU on the other hand, with whom the agreements are being negotiated, consists mainly of developed economies, five of which are among the ten largest economies in the world and most of their people enjoy high standards of living. These negotiations are clearly taking place between unequal partners.\r\n\r\nCountries in ESA experienced a wave of liberalisation of health services under the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), with a fall in funding of and access  to services by the poorest communities. Further liberalisation is opening up services to commercial players whose aim is to generate profit. Trade in health services is argued to increase access to health care in remote and under-serviced areas; to generate foreign exchange; to provide new employment, give access to new technologies; and to reap economic gains from remittances of health workers who migrate. However,  these benefits are often only obtained in the private for profit health care sector, promoting internal migration from the public health sector to private health care, with unaffordable costs of care for poor and vulnerable members of society,  whose needs must be assured by governments. \r\n\r\nGovernments in the region have recognised the need for public sector led services for access to health care in poor populations, even while some have permitted the growth of private services. Universal access to basic health services is a stated development goal in many ESA countries.  Health is a human right enshrined in many national constitutions and various signed and ratified international legal instruments. \r\n\r\nYet there is little protection of the right to health or to health care in the interim EPA agreements initialled in 2007. When these were concluded, despite significant opposition from the region, their sections on development cooperation should have provided for protection of public health, but no such protection was included.\r\n\r\nThe SADC-EU EPA  Article 3 (2) provided that  \u2018The Parties understand this objective to apply in the case of the present Economic Partnership Agreement as a commitment that:(a)the application of this Agreement shall fully take into account the human, cultural, economic, social, health and environmental best interests of their respective population and of future generations (my emphasis)\u2019  This gives some basis for ensuring that the rest of the EPA negotiations protect health rights, and it will be important to keenly follow the SADC EPA negotiations to hold negotiators to the commitment to protect their people\u2019s best interests in health. Despite lobbying from civil society,  the ESA-EU EPA on the other hand does not contain any mention of protecting health except reaffirming the parties\u2019 commitments to the realisation of the millennium development goals in the preamble to the agreement. \r\n\r\nBoth interim EPAs however included a clause opening the way for further negotiations in areas relevant to health, such as services, intellectual property rights, and investment.  These further negotiations appear likely to motivate liberalisation of services.  This is promoted in the guidelines set out in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the EPA is modelled along GATS. It is likely to cover similar areas, including health and health related services, migration of health professionals, and health care financing. \r\n\r\nHow can ESA countries protect their health services in the negotiations? \r\n\r\nFirstly, as a minimum, it is important that the EPA negotiations do not  go beyond the framework agreed at the WTO in the GATS and do not include GATS-plus obligations. Negotiators should live up to the commitment of the 4th Ordinary Session of the AU Conference of Ministers of Trade in April 2006: \u2018We shall not make services commitments in the EPAs that go beyond our WTO commitments and we urge our EU partners not to push our countries to do so.\u2019\r\n\r\nHowever countries can go further. Under the terms of the interim EPAs, countries are free to exclude a wide range of sensitive goods and sectors from liberalisation. Our governments should take advantage of this flexibility to exclude health and related social services from liberalisation. For governments like Zambia and Malawi whose health service sectors are already open under GATS, they should not further entrench liberalisation under EPAs.\r\n\r\nNegotiators must protect government policy space to remain key providers of health services in the EPA negotiations. Negotiators need to ensure that governments have full authority to regulate and control private for profit provision and financing of health services. Governments should also do formal health impact assessments in any health-related sector where liberalisation is being proposed, whether under GATS or the EPA. Commitments should be explicitly made in the EPAs on ethical recruitment and treatment of health workers and on EU investment in public budgets to produce and retain health workers in source countries. \r\n\r\nESA negotiators cannot treat health and health care services as a market matter, divorced from social issues. What is discussed in these negotiations are not just a matter of people\u2019s survival, but also affect the cohesiveness and solidarity of societies and the support ESA countries are able to give to vulnerable communities. The negotiations on health services are thus a matter of public interest, and civil society should be involved. Public consultation on negotiations will surely strengthen the hand of negotiators by ensuring there is a strong public mandate to take firm positions on these vital health issues. Civil society should track the services negotiations, parliaments should ask questions about them, and we should continue to lobby for an EPA that respects the rights of the African people, especially the right to health. This means continuing to demand that ESA governments and the EU member states respect their obligations to international human rights instruments as they negotiate EPAs and that the people\u2019s welfare takes priority. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat  admin@equinetafrica.org. For further information on this issue or the full please visit SEATINI (www.seatini.org) or  EQUINET www.equinetafrica.org.\r\n\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthcare delivery outside the public sector","field_subtitle":"ID21 Health News, July 2008","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h1np2g4.html","body":"What role can non-state providers play in scaling up healthcare delivery to meet the Millennium Development Goals? A policy briefing paper for the UK Department for International Development addresses this question using case studies in Bangladesh, India, Malawi, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa. Non-state providers (NSPs) of healthcare, whether philanthropic or commercial, exist outside the public sector. Research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found evidence that NSPs provide the majority of primary contacts with the health system in all six countries, except possibly South Africa. This is true for poor and rich alike. Poorer households are likely to spend a higher proportion of their income on private sector care than the rich, while the rich tend to access higher quality services. For successful and sustainable collaboration between governments and NSPs, the author recommends that donors should: encourage trust between state and non-state sectors; enable smaller providers, which may have greatest coverage of the poor, to come together to interact with governments and donors; and invest resources and expertise to develop human, transport and technical monitoring capacity; support policy formulation, management and research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS and home-based health care","field_subtitle":"Opiyo PA, Yamano T; Jayne TS: International Journal for Equity in Health, 2008","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-7-8.pdf","body":"Public health services are becoming increasingly important in Kenya, where more than 2.5 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. This paper in the International Journal for Equity in Health highlights the socio-economic impacts of HIV/AIDS on women. Two separate data sets from Western Kenya, one being quantitative and another qualitative data have been used. The authors argue that the socio-cultural beliefs that value the male and female lives differently lead to differential access to health care services. The position of women is exacerbated by their low financial base especially in the rural community where their main source of livelihood, agricultural production does not pay much. But even their active involvement in agricultural production or any other income ventures is hindered when they have to give care to the sick and bedridden friends and relatives. This in itself is a threat to household food security.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV: Cheaper to treat","field_subtitle":"Sanne I: Mail & Guardian, 3 July, 2008","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041842","body":"Failure to properly manage HIV strategies for employees has led to some workplace programmes being closed down, as audits have revealed unacceptable costs. Individual companies, communities and the South African economy are under threat if companies do not initiate expertly managed, independent and outsourced HIV programmes for their employees. Failure to expertly manage programmes effectively means money spent on them is wasted, with consequent negative impacts on the individuals concerned, and workplace productivity and morale. Companies that try to cut corners are reported to be undermining themselves, as well as the entire local treatment initiative.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Homophobia fuelling the spread of HIV","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network,  23 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79397","body":"The persistent and increasing outbreaks of violence against members of the gay community in Africa are jeopardising efforts undertaken to combat HIV, both within this group and across the population as a whole, AIDS activists warned at a recent meeting in Limb\u00e9, Cameroon. The extreme vulnerability of members of the gay community to HIV on the continent was highlighted during a meeting initiated by the French non-governmental organisation, AIDES, and its partners, which took place at the beginning of July in the south west of Cameroon. The meeting brought together many AIDS activists from Francophone African countries. On average it is estimated that HIV infection rates amongst MSM (men who have sex with men) are four to five times higher than the population overall.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Human resource development and antiretroviral treatment in Free State province, South Africa","field_subtitle":"van Rensburg DHCJ, Steyn FF, Schneider HH and Loffstadt LL: Human Resources for Health 6(15), 28 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/6/1/15/","body":"In common with other developing countries, South Africa's public health system is characterised by human resource shortfalls. These are likely to be exacerbated by the escalating demand for HIV care and a large-scale antiretroviral therapy (ART) programme. Focusing on professional nurses, the main front-line providers of primary health care in South Africa, this study examines patterns of planning, recruitment, training and task allocation associated with an expanding ART programme in the districts of one province, the Free State. The researchers found that introduction of the ART programme has revealed both strengths and weaknesses of human resource development in one province of South Africa. Without concerted efforts to increase the supply of key health professionals, accompanied by changes in the deployment of health workers, the core goals of the ART programme - i.e. providing universal access to ART and strengthening the health system - will not be achieved. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the education response to HIV and AIDS: Lessons of partner efforts in coordination, harmonisation, alignment, information sharing and monitoring in Jamaica, Kenya, Thailand and Zambia","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS Inter-Agency Task Team on Education, 2008","field_url":"http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001586/158683E.pdf","body":"Education contributes toward the knowledge and personal skills essential for the prevention of HIV, and the mitigation of the impacts caused by AIDS. Produced by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)'s Inter-Agency Task Team (IATT) on Education, this report synthesises case study exercises undertaken to examine the quality, effectiveness, and coordination of the education sector's response to the HIV epidemic in 4 countries - Jamaica, Kenya, Thailand, and Zambia. In each country, stakeholders assessed: critical achievements and gaps in the education sector response to HIV and AIDS; the evolution and effectiveness of coordination mechanisms and structures; progress toward harmonisation and alignment; information-sharing on HIV & AIDS and education; key resources for the response; and monitoring and evaluation. This report presents the overall findings from the study and makes recommendations for the IATT on Education and its partners to improve coordination in support of country level and to facilitate global actions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the nutrition status of children and women ","field_subtitle":"id21 insights 73,  July 2008","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights73/index.html","body":"The high world food prices currently being experienced provide a chilling reminder of the vulnerability of large parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to hunger and undernutrition. Many children in these regions are vulnerable to poor growth, poor development and death. Topics covered in this paper include: child undernutrition in Africa; nutrition for mothers and children; the cost of hunger; why undernutrition is not a higher priority for donors; and public-private sector partnerships in responding to undernutrition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Impumelelo Innovations Award Trust - HIV/AIDS Workshop","field_subtitle":"11-12 September 2008. Cape Town International Convention Centre.","field_url":"","body":"This workshop aims to highlight and share best practice lessons that will improve policy, practice and implementation on HIV programmes. The workshop targets senior staff in organisations that operate in the AIDS sector. \r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33332","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya: Lack of facilities hampering bid to halt black fever outbreak","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network,  7 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79122","body":"A lack of laboratory facilities, transport and skilled medical workers is reported to be hampering efforts to tackle an outbreak of visceral leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease also known as kala azar or black fever, in northern Kenya\u2019s Isiolo and Wajir districts, officials said. According to public health officials in the district prevention and management of the disease is limited by the availability of trained personnel.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"KwaZulu Natal nurses overwhelmed","field_subtitle":"Mboto S: The Mercury, 30 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041858","body":"Health-care provision in KwaZulu-Natal is reported to be approaching crisis with understaffing. Chronic under-funding continues of the provincial health department is reported to have led to critical posts being frozen, with existing staff, especially nurses, carrying heavier loads. This was reported by senior department officials during a health portfolio committee meeting in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Long-term food security: Investing in people and livelihoods: Five-year strategic framework on food security for Africa 2008-2012","field_subtitle":"Red Cross and Red Crescent Centre on Climate Change and Disaster Preparedness, 2008","field_url":"http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/lib.nsf/db900sid/KHII-7DQ3VX/$file/IFRC_africa_5yr.pdf?openelement","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa is not on track to achieving a single Millennium Development Goal, and is the only region in the world where malnutrition, an outcome of food insecurity, is not declining. This paper presents the Red Cross Red Crescent five-year strategic framework on long-term food security for Africa. Guided by the 2000 Ouagadougou Declaration and the Algiers Plan of Action 2004, it aims to reduce food insecurity in communities vulnerable to disasters and/or affected by HIV/AIDS. The paper notes that interventions will be evidence-based and will be driven by good practice developed both internally and externally. Programmes will be developed with the full consultation and participation of vulnerable communities in order to ensure that programmes build on the existing assets, capabilities and priorities of the communities and are owned by them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Malaria programmes successful in Kwazulu-Natal","field_subtitle":"Padayachee K: The Mercury, 7 July, 2008","field_url":"","body":"KwaZulu-Natal seems to be winning the battle against malaria in the province, with only about 1,000 cases reported in the province in the past malarial season. According to Prof. Maureen Coetzee, an entomologist from the University of the Witwatersrand, in a paper presented to the International Congress of Entomology in Durban, the situation in the province and the country is favourable because of reduced rainfall and the changes made to malaria control programmes, with use of two insecticides to control mosquitoes and a change to the drug for treatment of the parasite. Similar control programmes have also been introduced in Mozambique. The use of fungi to kill mosquitoes is being tested and research at Wits University showed that mosquitoes exposed to\r\nfungi died within 12 to 14 days after exposure. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Medical aid coverage lowest among black South Africans","field_subtitle":"Mail & Guardian Online, 10 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041848","body":"Medical aid coverage is lowest among black South Africans, with only 7,4% of individuals covered, and highest in the white population, with a 66,5% coverage, Statistics SA said on Thursday. In the general population, 79,7% of those who were ill or injured consulted a health worker, according to the General Household Survey for 2007. The survey has been conducted annually since 2002. More individuals who used public-sector healthcare facilities were satisfied with the service they received in 2007 (87,6%) than in 2006 (84,2%) and in 2002 (81,6%). In the private sector, satisfaction levels increased slightly from 95,35% to 96,5% between 2002 and 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Member Nations Balk At World Customs Organization IP Enforcement Push","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 27 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1117","body":"Concerns ran high in some developing countries last week that their voices have been largely absent from a draft set of standards for heightened intellectual property enforcement advancing rapidly at the World Customs Organization. With the draft standards sent early - and, some say, without mandate - to decision-making bodies at the WCO, the organisation looks poised to become the next major platform for debate on global enforcement of intellectual property, as members discuss the possibility of incorporating IP protection into customs law.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Mind the gaps: AIDS treatment in the context of health care worker shortages","field_subtitle":"A M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res satellite meeting at the XVII International AIDS Conference, Mexico City 2008","field_url":"http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/events/symposiums/2008/aids/","body":"M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) invites all interested parties to attend a satellite meeting on the impact of the health care worker shortage on access to HIV/AIDS treatment and lessons learned from clinicians and advocates working on the ground to overcome this gap. Date: August 3, 2008, 9am - 1pm. Venue: Melia Reforma Hotel, Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City, Mexico.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"New Europeafrica.org website","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://europafrica.org/2008/07/09/new-website-3/","body":"The new Europafrica.org website has been launched. It presents news and resources on the Joint Africa-EU Strategy and its Action Plan.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New HIFA2015 website launched on 1 July 2008","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hifa2015.org","body":"The new HIFA2015 website was launched on the 1st July 2008 and addresses the knowledge gap in health provision in developing countries. The aim is to develop this site substantially over the coming months - especially the\r\nHIFA2015 Knowledge Base section. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New rapid tests for MDR-TB in developing countries","field_subtitle":"WHO: 30 June, 2008","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041843","body":"People in low-resource countries who are ill with multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) will get a faster diagnosis and a new treatment regime, thanks to two new initiatives unveiled by the World Health Orgqnisation, the Stop TB Partnership, UNITAID and the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND). On diagnosis, the method gives results in two days rather than the standard two to three months. At present it is estimated that only 2% of MDR-TB cases worldwide are being diagnosed and treated appropriately, mainly because of inadequate laboratory services. The initiatives should increase the proportion diagnosed and treated at least seven-fold over the next four years, to 15% or more. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Next round of  WTO negotiations\u200f","field_subtitle":"Evo Morales, 17 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18242","body":"In the WTO negotiations, there is a push towards the liberalisation of new services sectors by countries. However it is felt that basic services should be excluded, such as education, health, water, energy and telecommunications from the text of the WTO\u2019s General Agreement on Trade in Services. These services are human rights that cannot be objects of private commercial relations and of liberalisation rules that lead to privatisation. The deregulation and privatisation of financial services, among others, are the cause of the current global financial crisis. Further liberalisation of services will not bring about more development, but greater probabilities for a crisis and speculation on vital matters such as food. The intellectual property regime established by the WTO has most of all benefited transnational corporations that monopolise patents, thus making medicines and other vital products more expensive, promoting the privatisation and commercialisation of life itself, as evidenced by the various patents on plants, animals and even human genes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Nutrition for mothers and children","field_subtitle":"id21 Health News 131, July 2008","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights73/art06.html","body":"Article 25.2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes that motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. Yet maternal and child undernutrition are still highly prevalent in most developing countries. This article outlines the role of the World Food Programme (WFP) in tackling undernutrition. It concludes that WFP programmes can contribute to breaking traditional gender barriers, such as the view that caring for children is the sole responsibility of women. It can bring communities together around a common goal of improving maternal and child nutrition for the benefit of society. In communities where the WFP also operates School Feeding programmes, there are opportunities to link school feeding to wider nutrition issues and advocate the importance of nutrition throughout a person's lifecycle.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Oxfam: Two-hour round-table discussion on health insurance","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Oxfam is organising a two-hour round-table discussion for sharing thoughts and ideas and initiate a debate on health insurance, which gained significant importance on the political agenda recently as a way of financing health care. The workshop will call for the participation of different stakeholders among them are governments, international organisations and civil society organisations. The workshop will be organised at the XVII International Aids Conference in Mexico (date of discussion: 4th of August, 17.00-19.00). It is a good opportunity to share experiences and knowledge on health insurance as it is being implemented and promoted in several countries, as well as the risks that need to be taken into account with regard to the goal of achieving universal coverage, equity and access for all. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Patent pooling is next step For innovative drug purchasing agency","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 9 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1135","body":"At its eighth executive board meeting in Geneva on 2 and 3 July, market-oriented drug purchasing mechanism UNITAID agreed to the principle of establishing a patent pool - that is, a collection of intellectual property assets with the consent of their rights holders, for easier licensing to third party manufacture or researchers. This \u201clandmark\u201d decision for drug financing in poor and underserved areas agrees on the usefulness of sharing intellectual property rights to lower costs and increase quality of needed medicines. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Positive prevention: HIV prevention with people living with HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"The International HIV and AIDS Alliance, 2007","field_url":"http://www.aidsalliance.org/graphics/secretariat/publications/Positive_prevention.pdf","body":"The International AIDS Alliance has produced a resource to help service providers working across the spectrum of HIV prevention, treatment, care and support services to take steps towards integrating HIV prevention for, by and with people living with HIV (PLWHA). The guide does not discuss or review all HIV prevention strategies and focuses largely on the sexual transmission of HIV. It consists of 15 strategies arranged into four themes including individually focused health education and support; ensuring access, scaling up and improving service delivery; community mobilisation and advocacy and policy change. For each section the guide details issues to consider including the most sensitive ways of dealing with HIV status disclosure; how best to provide information about testing, counselling and treatmentand how to facilitate post test clubs and support groups.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevalence and pattern of HIV-related malnutrition among women in sub-Saharan Africa: A meta-analysis of demographic health surveys","field_subtitle":"Uthman OA: BMC Public Health 2008, 8:226","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/8/226/","body":"The world's highest HIV infection rates are found in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where adult prevalence in most countries exceeds 25%. Food shortages and malnutrition have combined with HIV/AIDS to bring some countries to the brink of crisis. The aim of this study was to describe prevalence of malnutrition among HIV-infected women and variations across socioeconomic status using data from 11 countries in SSA. Prevalence of HIV-related malnutrition among women varies by wealth status, education attainment, occupation, and type of residence (rural/urban). The observed socioeconomic disparities can help provide more information about population subgroups in particular need and high risk groups, which may in turn lead to the development and implementation of more effective intervention programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-Health and Individual Approaches to Antiretroviral Therapy: Township South Africa and Switzerland Compared","field_subtitle":"Keiser O, Orrell C, Egger M, Wood R, Brinkhof MWG, Furrer H, van Cutsem G, Ledergerber B, Boulle A: PLoS Med 5(7), 8 July 2008","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050148","body":"The provision of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in resource-limited settings follows a public health approach, which is characterised by a limited number of regimens and the standardisation of clinical and laboratory monitoring. In industrialised countries doctors prescribe from the full range of available antiretroviral drugs, supported by resistance testing and frequent laboratory monitoring. This study compared virologic response, changes to first-line regimens, and mortality in HIV-infected patients starting HAART in South Africa and Switzerland. The study team analysed data from the Swiss HIV Cohort Study and two HAART programmes in townships of Cape Town, South Africa. Compared to the highly individualised approach in Switzerland, programmatic HAART in South Africa resulted in similar virologic outcomes, with relatively few changes to initial regimens. Further innovation and resources are required in South Africa to both achieve more timely access to HAART and improve the prognosis of patients who start HAART with advanced disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional evidence-building agenda (REBA) thematic briefs","field_subtitle":"Devereux S, Ellis F, White P: Wahenga.net, 2008","field_url":"http://www.wahenga.net/index.php/views/in_focus_full/regional_evidence_building_agenda_reba_thematic_briefs","body":"This series of briefs provides a regional synthesis of findings of both the 12 thematic studies and the 20 individual case studies of social transfer schemes undertaken under the Regional Evidence Building Agenda (REBA). The themes explored in these briefs are the six addressed in the original REBA design: vulnerability, targeting, coordination and coverage, cost-effectiveness, markets, and asset protection and building. Each of these themes was covered by respective thematic studies in two of RHVP\u2019s six priority countries, and was illustrated in each of the 20 case studies. Also included in the series are briefs on two additional themes that have emerged during the implementation of the REBA work as being of particular interest and policy relevance: delivery mechanisms and social pensions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Rethinking the role of community health workers","field_subtitle":"ID21 Health News, July 2008","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h1hs1g3.html","body":"The shortage of health staff in developing countries has led to renewed interest in community-based health care workers. However, poor populations are increasingly accessing health services from a wide variety of providers operating as private or semi-private agents in unregulated markets. Community health workers with little formal training do have a future. However, they will need to adapt to an environment where they must compete with other providers and prove their competence. They need to establish legitimacy and trust, and this is more likely in larger community development programmes with regular monitoring. They also need a livelihood that can be sustained.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SA Health Minister explains thinking behind private sector regulation","field_subtitle":"Health-e, 15 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032020&PHPSESSID=c975ebe29a8839ab9ab364d19107634f","body":"Health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang speaking at the Board of Healthcare Funders' annual conference stated that the private health sector has seen an uncontrolled cost spiral since the 1980s and that it has become increasingly unaffordable for South Africans to belong to medical schemes. She identified the most important cost drivers as private hospitals, specialists and administrative costs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Saving lives now: female condoms and the role of US foreign aid","field_subtitle":"Saving Lives Now!: Center for Health and Gender Equity, 2008","field_url":"http://www.preventionnow.net/images/savinglivesnowfinal.pdf","body":"This report from the Centre for Health and Gender Equity outlines the importance of the female condom in preventing the spread of HIV. Female condoms are not readily accessible in most countries and significant investment is needed to overcome barriers to their use such as cost and difficulty of use, however the report finds that in the countries where they are accessible, there is a growing demand for them. The report concludes that high quality female condom programming is critical to increasing female condom demand and uptake. The role of the US government in these programmes is highlighted. The authors recommend policy changes that will promote the integration of female condoms into HIV prevention and family planning programmes within US funded development programs, including PEPFAR.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Scaling up kangaroo mother care in South Africa: 'on-site' versus 'off-site' educational facilitation","field_subtitle":"Bergh AM, Van Rooyen E, Pattinson RC: Human resources for health, 6:13, 23 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-6-13.pdf","body":"Scaling up the implementation of new health care interventions can be challenging and demand intensive training or retraining of health workers. This paper reports on the results of testing the effectiveness of two different kinds of face-to-face facilitation methods used in conjunction with a well-designed educational package in the scaling up of mother care. A previous trial illustrated that the implementation of a new health care intervention could be scaled up by using a carefully designed educational package, combined with face-to-face facilitation by respected resource persons. This study demonstrated that the site of facilitation, either on site or at a centre of excellence, does not affect implementation abilities at the hospital service level. The choice of outreach strategy should be guided by local circumstances, cost and the availability of skilled facilitators.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Setting priorities for the health care sector in Zimbabwe using cost-effectiveness analysis and estimates of the burden of disease","field_subtitle":"Hansen KS, Chapman G: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation  6(14), July 2008","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/pdf/1478-7547-6-14.pdf","body":"This study aimed at providing information for priority setting in the health care sector of Zimbabwe as well as assessing the efficiency of resource use. A general approach proposed by the World Bank involving the estimation of the burden of disease measured in Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) and calculation of cost-effectiveness ratios for a large number of health interventions was followed. Very cost-effective interventions were available for the major health problems. Using estimates of the burden of disease, the present paper developed packages of health interventions using the estimated cost-effectiveness ratios. These packages could avert a quarter of the burden of disease at total costs corresponding to one tenth of the public health budget in 1997. In general, the analyses suggested that there was substantial potential for improving the efficiency of resource use in the public health care sector. The present study showed that it was feasible to conduct cost-effectiveness analyses for a large number of health interventions in a developing country like Zimbabwe using a consistent methodology.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: New improved PMTCT brings challenges","field_subtitle":"PlusNews, 11 July 2008","field_url":"Http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79212","body":"Prince Mshiyeni Memorial Hospital, just outside the port city of Durban, in KwaZulu-Natal Province, has one of South Africa's busiest maternity wards. About 1,200 women a month give birth there, of which about 40% are HIV-positive, according to figures from the antenatal clinic. For staff working in the hospital's antenatal clinic and maternity ward, implementing the government's new guidelines for the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) has not been easy. HIV-positive mothers with CD4 counts over 200 should now receive zidovudine, also known as AZT, from their 28th week of pregnancy until labour, as well as a single dose of nevirapine during labour. Their infants should get a single dose of nevirapine, and then AZT for seven days (or four weeks if AZT was started late). The new drug regimen means extra work for the hospital staff, while the number of doctors, nurses and counsellors providing PMTCT services at the hospital has not increased. This article reports on the workload and facility issues that arise inimplementing the guidelines. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Strong public-private sector partnerships can help to reduce undernutrition","field_subtitle":"id21HealthNews No. 131, July 2008","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights73/art02.html","body":"Global progress towards reducing undernutrition has been made through enlightened public policies, targeted development assistance, private sector actions and commitments from civil society. Yet every year, the deaths of more than 3.5 million children under the age of 5 can be attributed to undernutrition. This article argues that strong public-private sector partnerships can help to reduce undernutrition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The Chronic Poverty Report 2008-2009 ","field_subtitle":"Chronic Poverty Research Centre CPRC - UK's Department for International Development (DFID)","field_url":"http://www.chronicpoverty.org/pubfiles/CPR2_whole_report.pdf","body":"Widespread chronic poverty occurs in a world that has the knowledge and resources to eradicate it. This report argues that tackling chronic poverty is the global priority for our generation. There are robust ethical grounds for arguing that chronically poor people merit the greatest international, national and personal attention and effort. Tackling chronic poverty is vital if our world is to achieve an acceptable level of justice and fairness. Currently, development research is mainly assessed in terms of its contribution to meeting the Millennium Development Goals, in particular MDG1: to halve absolute poverty by 2015. However, achieving the first MDG would still leave some 800 million people living in absolute poverty and deprivation \u2013 many of whom will be chronically poor. Their lives are extremely difficult and, being marginalised, their story is rarely told. This report tries to tell parts of their story. It does so through the lives of seven chronically poor people:Maymana, Mofizul, Bakyt, Vuyiswa, Txab, Moses and Angel. Chronic poverty is a varied and complex phenomenon, but at its root is powerlessness. Poor people expend enormous energy in trying to do better for themselves and for their children. But with few assets, little education, and chronic ill health, their struggle is often futile.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The ethics and implications of paying participants in qualitative research ","field_subtitle":"Head E: International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 11 July 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6ngkk5","body":"It appears that the practice of giving cash or gift vouchers to research participants is becoming increasingly common; however, this practice has received little attention from social researchers. Paying participants has implications in terms of the ethical requirement for consent and may have consequences in terms of recruitment for research projects and for the data collected. In this paper the author considers how these issues arose in a research project with lone mothers and the way in which offering payments might help with gaining access to participants. She argues that the possible impact of making payments to research participants should be considered in research accounts and the possible impacts of payments should be more widely debated. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The material and political bases of lived poverty in Africa: Insights from the Afrobarometer","field_subtitle":"Bratton M (editor): Afrobarometer 2008","field_url":"http://www.afrobarometer.org/papers/AfropaperNo98.pdf","body":"The Afrobarometer has developed an experiential measure of lived poverty called the Lived Poverty Index (LPI). It measures how frequently people go without basic necessities during the course of a year. This is a portion of the central core of the concept of poverty not captured by existing objective or subjective measures. The Lived Poverty Index is strongly related to the measurement of political freedoms, according to this study. It concludes that this measure does well at measuring the experiential core of poverty, and capturing it in a way that other widely used international development indicators do not.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The persistence of child malnutrition in Africa","field_subtitle":"id21HealthNews 131, July 2008","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights73/art05.html","body":"Malnutrition affects about 30% of children in Africa, caused by low birth weight and post-natal growth faltering. Child malnutrition is a persistent problem. The long term trend shows only slow improvement, and malnutrition rates worsen during droughts, economic crises, conflicts and displacement, and HIV.  Without greater attention to nutrition, increased child mortality, morbidity and impaired intellectual development are inevitable. Policies must tackle intermittent crises through emergency programmes and support sustained community-based programmes. Nutrition should be reinstated as a priority programme area alongside HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The price of hunger","field_subtitle":"id21 HealthNews 131, July 2008","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights73/art04.html","body":"The first Millennium Development Goal - to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger - reflects the fact that undernutrition is both a symptom and a cause of poverty. In some cases, income is the main constraint to good nutrition, in some education, and in some both. Simply trying to educate the poorest families about good nutrition \u2013 a popular approach with development agencies for a long time \u2013 will not work if families do not have the money to put this knowledge into practice. Putting cash into families' hands can help to improve their diet. Save the Children UK's projects in Ethiopia show that when families are given small sums of cash, they spend it on more food and a better variety of food. It is likely that the impacts of cash transfers could be further multiplied if combined with nutrition education.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of HIV/AIDS committees in effective workplace governance of HIV/AIDS in South African small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)","field_subtitle":"Vass JR: SAHARA Journal 5(1): 2-10 ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=197&id=40910","body":"The primary purpose of this study was to assess the role, status and scope of workplace HIV/AIDS committees as a means of effective workplace governance of the HIV/AIDS impact, and their role in extending social protective HIV/AIDS-related rights to employees. In-depth qualitative case studies were conducted in five South African small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that were actively implementing HIV/AIDS policies and programmes. Companies commonly implemented HIV/AIDS policies and programmes through a workplace committee dedicated to HIV/AIDS or a generic committee dealing with issues other than HIV/ AIDS. Management, through the human resources department and the occupational health practitioner often drove initial policy formulation, and had virtually sole control of the HIV/AIDS budget. Employee members of committees were mostly volunteers, and were often production or blue collar employees, while there was a notable lack of participation by white-collar employees, line management and trade unions. While the powers of workplace committees were largely consultative, employee committee members often managed in an indirect manner to secure and extend social protective rights on HIV/AIDS to employees, and monitor their effective implementation in practice. In the interim, workplace committees represented one of the best means to facilitate more effective workplace HIV/AIDS governance. However, the increased demands on collective bargaining as a result of an anticipated rises in AIDS-related morbidity and mortality might prove to be beyond the scope of such voluntary committees in the longer term.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The shrinking space for civil society and changing donor dynamics","field_subtitle":"Tiwana M: CIVICUS Civil Society Watch, 26 July 2008","field_url":"http://www.civicusbeta.org/content/ShrinkingSpace-CivilSociety-Changing-DonorDynamics.html","body":"A dominant theme at DENIVA\u2019S 4th International Conference on NGO Accountability, Self Regulation and the Law at Kampala was the shrinking space for civil society. This global trend is reported to be affirmed by the findings of the CIVICUS Civil Society Index, given the particular context of the global \u201cwar on terror\u201d. Sadly, even in well-entrenched democracies, where civil society space was hitherto considered safe, there are negative trends. In current circumstances, it is critical that the international community remains alive to the steady roll back on civil society space and hard fought civil liberties across the world. This imperative is underscored by the economic meltdown in \u2018western democracies\u2019 where much of the funding for democratic reform and civil society initiatives comes from. Ensuring the sustainability of civil society organisations working on the advancement of health, human and democratic rights is one such means.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Third EQUINET conference on equity in health, Uganda, September 23\u201325, 2009","field_subtitle":"EQUINET","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/meetings.php","body":"The Third EQUINET Regional Conference on Equity in Health in east and southern Africa will be held at Speke Conference Centre, Munyonyo, Kampala, Uganda September 23-25, 2009. People are welcome from government, non-state organisations, academic and research institutions, civil society, parliaments, regional and international organisations and other institutions promoting and working on equity in health in east and southern Africa! The conference theme is 'Reclaiming the Resources for Health: Building Universal People Centred Health Systems in East and Southern Africa' and it will highlight opportunities for improving health equity in east and southern Africa.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33322","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Training of HIV/AIDS committees at local government authorities","field_subtitle":"Tanzania Commission for AIDS ","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=37615&em=100708\u2282=partic","body":"Tanzania is one of the countries hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The Tanzania Commission for AIDS was established as part of the government response to the HIV epidemic. This manual is part of the Tanzania Commission for AIDS strategic plan to coordinate and strengthen the efforts of stakeholders involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS. It is intended as a training manual for local government authorities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Using Human Resource for Health Data: Health policy and program planning examples from four African countries","field_subtitle":"USAID, June 2008","field_url":"http://africahealth2010.aed.org/PDF/Using_Human_Resource_for_Health_Data.pdf","body":"Imbalances in quantity and quality of human resources for health (HRH) are increasingly recognised as perhaps the most critical impediment to achieving health outcome objectives in most African countries. However, reliable data on the HRH situation is not readily available. Some countries have hesitated to act in the absence of such data; other countries have not acted even when data are available while others have moved ahead in spite of the lack of reliable information. This paper addresses the issue of data use for HRH policy-making. It will provide valuable information to the body of literature available to policy-makers and their development partners as they grapple with the development and implementation of workable HRH policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Vacancy: HIV and AIDS advocacy adviser","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.progressio.org.uk","body":"Progressio is currently advertising a new vacancy based in Lilongwe, Malawi. The position of HIV and AIDS advocacy adviser (two-year placement) is available, where you will be working alongside the Malawi Interfaith AIDS Association (MIAA) and the Malawi Network of Religious Leaders living with or personally affected by HIV and AIDS. Contact Ricardo Tomaz, Recruitment, selection and training coordinator, at: Progressio, Unit 3, Canonbury Yard, 190a New North Road, London N1 7BJ, United Kingdom. Tel: (44) (0) 20 7354 0883 (switchboard) Fax: (44) (0) 20 7359 0017. Note that Progressio is the new name of the Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Vacancy: Social scientist/demographer/epidemiologist in rural Malawi","field_subtitle":"London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine","field_url":"","body":"A social scientist/demographer/epidemiologist is sought to play an important role in a large Wellcome Trust-supported research programme based in northern Malawi. The programme includes demographic surveillance in a population of 32,000, and an HIV and sexual behaviour survey. This represents an unusual opportunity for involvement in a major long-term programme. The closing date for applications is 27 August 2008.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33294","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"What can be done to accelerate progress against undernutrition?","field_subtitle":"id21HealthNews 73, July 2008","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights73/art08.html","body":"Many organisations work to eliminate undernutrition in children and pregnant and lactating women in developing countries. These organisations - international organisations, donors, academia, civil society and private sector - are loosely linked as an international nutrition system. However, this system is fragmented and dysfunctional. Individual organisations and the system as a whole must examine their strategies, resources and motivations. Organisations must significantly improve their links with national level processes, so that country level priorities are better reflected in international guidance, donor funding, research and training.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Why have donors committed so few direct investments to eliminate child undernutrition?","field_subtitle":"id21HealthNews 131, July 2008","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights73/art07.html","body":"The mandate of most international donors is to reduce poverty, suffering and inequity. Addressing child undernutrition falls within this. However, current donor investment to directly address undernutrition is estimated to be well under half of the resources required. Encouragingly, some new initiatives to increase investment and improve coordination are already underway. Several international agencies are working together to develop a Ten Year Strategy to reduce vitamin and mineral deficiencies. These include the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Academy for Educational Development and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). They have completed a technical situation analysis (published in the Food and Nutrition Bulletin) and formed working groups to better coordinate their actions, including monitoring and evaluation activities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Disasters Report 2008: Focus on HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"HealthLink Bulletin","field_url":"http://www.ifrc.org/publicat/wdr2008/index.asp","body":"The AIDS epidemic is a disaster on many levels. In the most affected countries in sub-Saharan Africa, where prevalence rates reach 20%, development gains are reversed and life expectancy may be halved. For specific groups of marginalized people injecting drug users, sex workers and men who have sex with men across the world, HIV rates are on the increase. Yet they often face stigma, criminalization and little, if any, access to HIV prevention and treatment services. As this report explains, HIV is a challenge to the humanitarian world whose task is to improve the lives of vulnerable people and to support them in strengthening their capacities and resilience. Disasters, man-made and \u2018natural\u2019, exacerbate other drivers of the epidemic and can also increase people\u2019s vulnerability to infection.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"'Primary health care remains the best tool to achieve health equity'","field_subtitle":"People's Health Movement, June 2008","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/cms/en/node/588","body":"This is the interim position paper of the People's Health Movement (PHM). The comprehensive Primary Health Care (PHC) approach articulated at Alma Ata remains as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. It was never really implemented to reflect its true spirit, i.e. the basic intent of the Alma Ata Declaration which highlighted the need for a new international economic order to ultimately solve inequities in health. A PHC policy for 2008 and beyond needs  renewed commitment, which, while affirming the fundamental positions of thirty years back, also takes into account the new realities of this age. In its renewed commitment to PHC in 2008, PHM vies to address the obstacles that have blocked PHC's implementation so far and is furthermore committed to incorporate into it the new challenges that have emerged since 1978. PHM is committed to promote the still unshaken basic principles of the Alma Ata Declaration - way beyond its original eight technical components. PHM insists that PHC is to be embedded in the social and political processes in each specific context where it is applied. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Acceptability of evidence-based neonatal care practices in rural Uganda: Implications for programming","field_subtitle":"Waiswa P, Kemigisa M, Kiguli J, Naikoba S, Pariyo GW and Peterson S: BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 8(21), 21 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/8/21/abstract","body":"Although evidence-based interventions to reach the Millennium Development Goals for Maternal and Neonatal mortality reduction exist, they have not yet been operationalised and scaled up in Sub-Saharan African cultural and health systems. A key concern is whether these internationally recommended practices are acceptable and will be demanded by the target community. The researchers explored the acceptability of these interventions in two rural districts of Uganda; conducted ten focus group discussions consisting of mothers, fathers, grand parents and child minders (older children who take care of other children); and ten key informant interviews with health workers and traditional birth attendants. Most maternal and newborn recommended practices are acceptable to both the community and to health service providers. However, health system and community barriers were prevalent and will need to be overcome for better neonatal outcomes. Pregnant women did not comprehend the importance of attending antenatal care early or more than once unless they felt ill. Women prefer to deliver in health facilities but most do not do so because they cannot afford the cost of drugs and supplies which are demanded in a situation of poverty and limited male support. Postnatal care is non-existent. For the newborn, delayed bathing and putting nothing on the umbilical cord were neither acceptable to parents nor to health providers, requiring negotiation of alternative practices. Communities associate the need for antenatal care attendance with feeling ill, and postnatal care is non-existent in this region. Health promotion programs to improve newborn care must prioritise postnatal care, and take into account the local socio-cultural situation and health systems barriers including the financial burden. Male involvement and promotion of waiting shelters at selected health units should be considered in order to increase access to supervised deliveries. Scale-up of the evidence based practices for maternal-neonatal health in Sub-Saharan Africa should follow rapid appraisal and adaptation of intervention packages to address the local health system and socio-cultural situation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"African Civil Society position paper on HIV and AIDS in Africa: Urgent need to meet the universal access targets","field_subtitle":"African Civil Society Coalition on HIV and AIDS, June 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/AFRaids190608.pdf","body":"In this position paper, the Coalition raises demands for the improvement of health care in African countries in terms of: improving political commitment and leadership; strengthening civil society to improve absorption of available resources; immediately delivering on the 15% Abuja commitment; scaling up investment in youth empowerment and education to enhance participation of young people in HIV/AIDS; ensuring sustainability of financing and programmes; fast tracking implementation of the global strategy and plan of action on public health, innovation and intellectual property; scaling up HIV prevention, treatment and care; dealing effectively with and invest in programmes for TB/HIV co-infection; addressing the needs of older people and empowering and engaging with PLWHAs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"An Autopsy Study of Maternal Mortality in Mozambique: The Contribution of Infectious Diseases","field_subtitle":"Men\u00e9ndez C, Romagosa C, Ismail MR, Carrilho C, Saute F, Osman N, Machungo F, Bardaji A, Quint\u00f3 L, Mayor A, Naniche D, Doba\u00f1o C, Alonso PL, Ordi J: PLoS Medicine 5(2), 19 February 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4w4zld","body":"Maternal mortality is a major health problem concentrated in resource-poor regions. Accurate data on its causes using rigorous methods is lacking, but is essential to guide policy-makers and health professionals to reduce this intolerable burden. The aim of this study was to accurately describe the causes of maternal death in order to contribute to its reduction, in one of the regions of the world with the highest maternal mortality ratios. The researchers conducted a prospective study between October 2002 and December 2004 on the causes of maternal death in a tertiary-level referral hospital in Maputo, Mozambique, using complete autopsies with histological examination. In this tertiary hospital in Mozambique, infectious diseases accounted for at least half of all maternal deaths, even though effective treatment is available for the four leading causes, HIV/AIDS, pyogenic bronchopneumonia, severe malaria, and pyogenic meningitis. These observations highlight the need to implement effective and available prevention tools, such as intermittent preventive treatment and insecticide-treated bed-nets for malaria, antiretroviral drugs for AIDS, or vaccines and effective antibiotics for pneumococcal and meningococcal diseases. Deaths due to obstetric causes represent a failure of health-care systems and require urgent improvement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Angola: Should intentional HIV/AIDS infection be a crime?","field_subtitle":"IRIN Africa, 30 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78484","body":"Proposed reforms to Angola's Penal Code have divided opinion in the country about whether HIV-positive people who intentionally infect others with the virus should be punished. The law under discussion calls for a sentence of between three and 10 years in prison for those who knowingly pass on infectious diseases, including HIV. Some argue that the law will act as a deterrent; others say it will bring more problems than benefits.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"AU Summit: 205 African & Global Organisations & Networks Call on African Leaders to Fund AU Africa Health Strategy","field_subtitle":"Egypt African Union Summit Media Statement, 28 June 2008","field_url":"","body":"Two hundred and five African and global organisations and networks have called on the Assembly of Heads of State of the African Union to ensure the Implementation Plan of the AU Africa Health Strategy is urgently and adequately funded, and for the AU Abuja 15% Commitment to health to be implemented by all member states. The Implementation Plan was adopted by African Ministers of Health on the 17th of May 2008 following presentation of the Health Strategy in 2007 by the AU Commission Social Affairs Division. It provides guidelines for implementing various African health frameworks, health MDGs and global Universal Access targets including on TB, HIV and AIDS, Malaria, Child and Maternal Health. The Health Strategy Implementation Plan will be presented for final approval to the Assembly of Heads of States meeting in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt on the 30 June and 1 July. In a statement on the eve of the Assembly, Rotimi Sankore Coordinator of the Africa Public Health 15% Now Campaign stated: \r\n\"The AU Africa Health Strategy is a landmark document. But without funding for its Implementation Plan from our Heads of State and Finance Ministers, it will be reduced to an empty gesture resulting in even more deaths than the current 8 million African lives lost annually to mainly five health conditions being TB, HIV and AIDS, Malaria, Child and Maternal Mortality.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33210","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Belem 2009 Consultation: Deadline extended","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.fsm2009amazonia.org.br","body":"In order to ensure a broader participation of social movements and organisations in the building of objectives for the World Social Forum 2009, the Belem's Organising Committee and the IC Methodology Commission has agreed to extend the consultation period to 25 June 2008. Civil society organisations and social movements are invited to visit the website and make their comments about the nine goals established for the 2007 WSF in Nairobi, as well as make suggestions of new objectives to the World Social Forum 2009.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Better access to effective antimalarials","field_subtitle":"ID21 Health News, June 2008","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights-h12/art04.html","body":"Malaria is one of the main reasons why people use health services in sub-Saharan Africa, placing a considerable burden on primary health care. The Affordable Medicines Facility-malaria (AMFm) is a supply-side intervention designed to reduce malaria mortality by improving the availability and affordability of effective treatment. It also aims to delay the development of drug resistance through the use of artemisinin, in combination with other medicines, rather than as a monotherapy. Access to artemisinin-based combination therapies by people living in poverty \u2013 those without public facilities and unable to afford artemisinin-based combination therapies at subsidised prices \u2013 is a concern. The AMFm will support an enhanced public sector and NGO distribution of artemisinin-based combination therapies, often without charge but supplementary initiatives at PHC level, such as home-based management of malaria, will still be needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for nominations of NGO delegate 2009-2010 for Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/Partnerships/Civil+society/csPCB.asp","body":"The NGO Delegation to the UNAIDS PCB has vacancies for two-year terms, beginning 1 January 2009 and ending 31 December 2010, for the position of Africa Alternate Delegate. This represents a unique opportunity for committed activists and HIV/AIDS advocates to make a difference to HIV/AIDS policy implementation in their regions. The position of NGO Delegates to the UNAIDS PCB is important to the effective inclusion of community voices in the key global forum for HIV/AIDS policy. NGO Delegates represent the perspectives of civil society, including people living with HIV, within UNAIDS policies and programming. The closing date is Tuesday, 31 August 2008.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33140","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals: International Women\u2019s Programme - Equality and justice under the rule of law","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.osisa.org/node/11081","body":"The mission of the International Women's Programme (IWP) of the Open Society Institute is to use grant-making and programmatic efforts to promote and protect the rights of women and girls in priority areas around the globe where the principles of good governance and respect for the rule of law are absent or destroyed because of conflict.  IWP seeks to promote the advancement of women\u2019s rights and gender equality in law and practice, and the empowerment of women to ensure participation in the democratic processes. Organisations can apply for one- to three-year grants, ranging from US$25,000 to US$200,000. The deadline for proposal submissions is 7 July 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals: Small research grants for patient safety","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/patientsafety/research/grants/","body":"The aim of this new initiative of the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety is to stimulate research in patient safety worldwide by providing funding for small research projects. It is envisaged that the initiative will also contribute to building local research capacity as well as help raise awareness about patient safety issues. Proposals to identify, develop and/or test local interventions for improving patient safety, as well as studies on the cost-effectiveness of risk-reducing strategies, are invited. Funding will be available to support up to 30 projects to begin in 2009. Grants of between US$10,000 and US$25,000 per project will be awarded on a competitive basis.         The grants will target well-defined research projects that can be completed within 12\u201318 months. Research in all methodological and clinical disciplines that address patient safety is encouraged. The proposed studies may be conducted in any health-care setting. Research to be conducted in developing countries and countries with economies in transition is particularly encouraged. The deadline for submissions is 30 September 2008.   ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Capacity of healthcare facilities in the implementation of Direct Observed Treatment strategy for tuberculosis in Arumeru and Karatu districts, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mfinanga GS, Ngadaya E, Kimaro G, Mtandu R, Lema LA, Basra D, Lwila F, Egwaga S, Kitau AY: Tanzania Journal of Health Research 10(2): 95-98, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=78&id=41067","body":"Directly Observed Treatment Short course strategy (DOTS) has proved to have potential improvement in tuberculosis (TB) control in Tanzania. The objective of this cross sectional study was to assess the capacity of health facilities in implementing DOTS, in Arumeru and Karatu districts, Tanzania. Information sought included the capacity to offer TB service and availability of qualified staff and equipment for TB diagnosis. Information on availability and utilization of TB registers and treatment outcome for the year 2004 were also collected. A total of 111 health facilities were surveyed, 86 (77.5%) in Arumeru and 25 (22.5%) in Karatu. Only 23.4% (26/111) facilities were offering TB treatment services in the two districts. Majority 17/26 (65.38%) of them were government owned. Thirty eight (44.7%) facilities were offering TB laboratory services. All facilities with TB services (TB laboratory investigation and treatment) had TB registers. Seventy two (85.0%) of health facilities which do not provide any TB services had qualified clinical officers and at least a microscopy. Of the 339 cases notified in Arumeru in 2004, 187 (60.7%) had treatment outcome available, 124 (66.3%) were cured and 55 (29.4%) completed treatment. In Karatu 638 cases were notified in 2004, 305 (47.8%) had treatment outcome available, 68 (22.3%) cured and 165 (54.1%) completed treatment. In conclusion, the overall capacity for implementing DOTS among the facilities surveyed is found only in about 20% and 30% for clinical and laboratory components of DOTS, respectively. The capacity to provide TB diagnosis and treatment in Karatu district was relatively lower than Arumeru. It is important that capacity of the facilities is strengthened concurrently with the planned introduction of community- based DOTS in Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges facing National Health Research Systems in the WHO African Region","field_subtitle":"Kirigia JM, Ovberedjo MO: African Journal of Health Sciences 14(3-4):  100-103, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=205&id=41048","body":"Many countries in the African region do not have functional national health research systems (NHRS) that generate, disseminate, uses, and archives health-related knowledge/ideas in published form (hard, electronic or audio forms). In such countries, death of each modern or traditional health practitioner constitutes a permanent loss of a library of knowledge, ideas, innovations and inventions. The WHO African Advisory Committee on Health Research and Development (AACHRD) has attributed the fragility of NHRS in the Region to poor environment for research, inadequate manpower, inadequate infrastructures and facilities, inaccessibility to modern technology, and lack of funds. The weak and uncoordinated NHRS partly explain the poor overall performance of majority of national health systems in the Region. Continued fragility of NHRS can be attributed to lack of implementation of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa and the World Health Assembly resolutions on health research. This paper urges African countries, to fully implement the contents of those resolutions, for substantive health research outputs to share with the rest of the world at the next Ministerial Summit on Research for Health, which will take place in the African Region in 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Citizen Participation in Budgeting: Prospects for Developing Countries","field_subtitle":"Moynihan DP: Participatory Budgeting, The World Bank, Washington DC: 55-87","field_url":"http://siteresources.worldbank.org/PSGLP/Resources/ParticipatoryBudgeting.pdf","body":"Participation is important in developing countries as a means of improving the performance and accountability of bureaucracies and improving social justice. There are two basic criteria for participation: it should be broadly representative of the population and should involve meaningful discourse that affects public decision-making. Reviews of participation in Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) processes show that these criteria have not been met in most cases. However citizen involvement in budgeting has been more successful. Citizen participation made local service delivery more efficient and effective in the country cases reviewed. In most of the case studies, NGOs analysed the budget and mobilised citizens. These NGOs seek to represent the poor and disseminate their views to the government. They do not offer direct citizen involvement, but without their involvement participation would be reduced.  Budget participation can influence governments even where they have not embraced direct involvement of citizens in decision-making. This depends on NGOs communicating analyses of spending choices, public service effectiveness, and budget execution to the public, media, and elected officials. A key policy implication for donors is therefore targeted support to civil society. However, donors and NGOs often overlook the importance of government administrations in implementing participation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society principles on the IHP+","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/CIVehs200608.pdf","body":"Civil society members and advocates for health care from all over the world met to discuss the International Health Partnership and Related Initiatives (IHP+) 'Scaling Up for Better Health Plan', aimed at strengthening primary health care to achieve the health-related MDGs for developing countries around the world, including Africa. In order to deliver on its stated goals, they believe the IHP+ must commit to a minimum set of guidelines. These civil society member and advocates stand united on three key principles that they consider non-negotiable: 1) Comprehensive primary health care must be provided for all. 2) Governments must pay their fair share. 3) The people\u2019s voices must be heard.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Closing the evidence gap for public health interventions in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Obermeyer Z: Young Voices in Research For Health, Global Health Research Forum, 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4oc8mm","body":"Public health programmes operate without uniform, empirical measures, a fact often forgotten amidst recent enthusiasm for modelling public health on the private sector, where the dollar dictates strategic and operational priorities. As a result, it is surprisingly difficult to determine whether or not public health interventions work and whether their benefits are equitably distributed. Certainly, the medical bases for most interventions are sound. There can be little doubt that standardised treatment regimens cure tuberculosis or that oral rehydration resuscitates children with diarrhoeal illnesses. History, however, shows that medical science is neither necessary nor sufficient for effectiveness. Public health interventions succeeded in controlling problems from scurvy to smallpox to cholera to puerperal fever decades before medical science identified causative agents or specific therapies. Proof that medical interventions work is generated in carefully controlled, highly resourced environments. The validity of this evidence must be re-evaluated after translation into policy, especially in the poor, chaotic conditions of the developing world. The same interventions are seldom evaluated in low-resource comparison groups and, indeed, the same measures of effectiveness \u2013 like CD4 count or ejection fraction \u2013 would be impractical. Such conditions pose enormous challenges to research and implementation alike. Resources are limited, data are scarce, bias is abundant and few validated techniques exist for analysis on a scale larger than the individual case study.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Compendium of key documents relating to human rights and HIV in Eastern and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Pretoria University Law Press, 2008","field_url":"http://www.pulp.up.ac.za/cat_2008_03.html","body":"The Compendium of key documents relating to human rights and HIV in Eastern and Southern Africa is a collection, in five parts, of global, regional, sub-regional and national human rights instruments, policies, legislation and case law that are relevant to HIV and AIDS. In most instances, only excerpts pertinent to HIV and AIDS are provided. When applicable, reference is made to a source where the full text may be accessed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Debt relief as if justiced mattered","field_subtitle":"Mandel S: New Economics Foundation, 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/NEFfin2100608.pdf","body":"This report is the last in a series from NEF designed to stimulate progress towards a comprehensive and fair treatment of the crisis of sovereign debt. With the end of an unprecedented period of low interest rates now in sight, such a goal is needed more than ever. Debt relief isn\u2019t working. Current approaches (HIPC and MDRI for poor countries and Paris and London Club renegotiations for middle-income countries) are not solving the problems of Third World indebtedness. HIPC and MDRI are indeed reducing debt burdens, but for a small range of countries, and at a high cost in terms of loss of policy space and after long delays, but non-HIPC poor countries also have major debt problems. Middle-income countries\u2019 indebtedness continues to grow. There is a clear need for a new approach to resolving sovereign debt problems that is comprehensive, systematic, fair and transparent and above all, just. Responses from the creditors so far to criticisms such as those in the previous paragraph have been grossly inadequate. There is as yet no consensus about the way forward. This report aims to stimulate debate and help find a just solution to the debt crisis. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Delayed care-seeking for fatal pneumonia in children aged under five years in Uganda: A case-series study","field_subtitle":"Kallander K, Hildenwall H, Waiswa P: World Health Bulletin 86(5), May 2008","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health&id=37001&type=Document&em=100608&sub=health","body":"This research paper reviews individual case histories of children who have died of pneumonia in rural Uganda and investigates why these children did not survive. The research was conducted in the Lganga/Mayuge region in Uganda, where 67,000 people were visited once every three months for population-based data. Children aged 1-59 months from November 2005 to August 2007 were included in the study. The paper finds that of the pneumonia deaths that were registered, half occurred in hospital and one-third at home. Median duration of pneumonia illness was seven days, and median time taken to seek care outside the home was two days. Most children first received drugs at home: 52% antimalarials and 27% antibiotics. The paper concludes that many children with fatal pneumonia experienced mistreatment with antimalarials, delays in seeking care and low quality of care. To improve access to and quality of care, the feasibility and effectiveness of training community health workers and drug vendors in pneumonia and malaria management with prepacked drugs should be tested.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 58: Assessment of equity in the uptake of anti-retrovirals in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Muula AS, Kataika E","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS58FINmuula.pdf","body":"This study aimed to assess equity in uptake of antiretroviral therapy in Malawi in 2005, especially according to age (children vs. adults), gender (men vs. women) and income. Particular reference is made to the scaling up of ART and the removal of fees for ART in 2004. Informal interviews were conducted with health sector antiretroviral programme implementers and key policy makers in the Ministry of Health. The researchers also searched both published and grey literature to collect information on the history and operations of the Malawi public sector-led ART programme. Retention rates remain high in Malawi's ART programmes (84%), which compare favourably with those elsewhere on the continent. Rates ranging from 44% to 85% of people remaining on treatment after 24 months of treatment have been reported in ART programmes throughout Africa (Rosen et al, 2007). While there were some reports from key informants that the change from fee-paying ART services to free systems may have improved patient adherence to treatment regimes, the research did not provide conclusive evidence of the impact of cost of patients' medications on their adherence to their treatment regimens. Different adherence rates in different areas and programmes suggest that other determinants may be affecting affect this outcome.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 59: Building strategies for sustainability and equity of prepayment schemes in Uganda: Bridging the gaps","field_subtitle":"Kyomugisha EL, Buregyeya E, Ekirapa E, Mugisha JF, Bazeyo W","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS59FINkyomugisha.pdf","body":"In Uganda, community-based health insurance started in 1995; however, the number of schemes has remained small with very low coverage levels. This study examines issues of equity and sustainability in these prepayment schemes; if they are to contribute significantly to health sector financing, the schemes must be equitable and sustainable. A descriptive cross-sectional study employing qualitative techniques was carried out. Key informant interviews, focus group discussions and documents review were used. Data was tape-recorded, transcribed, typed, manually analysed thematically using a master sheet. Abolition of user fees did not have a big effect on enrolment into the schemes. People went for higher quality services, which were perceived to be provided in private health facilities rather than government services. Schemes were perceived to directly contribute towards health financing by providing funds for the procurement of drugs and equipment, allowing people to contribute to their own health care. An indirect benefit is that they would ease the pressure on public facilities by diverting patients from the public health sector. Whereas some thought the contribution of CHI schemes was insignificant due to low enrolment, others felt the schemes needed to be strengthened to build confidence in social health insurance. The researchers recommend that government increase funding to maintain the improvement in quality of health care in public facilities. Future health policy needs to address whether or not CHI has a role to play in the Ugandan context and in institutionalising SHI.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 60: Progress towards the Abuja target for government spending on health care in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Govender V, McIntyre D, Loewenson R","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS60finABUJA.pdf","body":"African Heads of State committed themselves at a meeting in Abuja in 2001 to devoting a minimum of 15% of government funds to the health sector in order to address the massive burden of ill-health facing countries in Africa, particularly within the context of a growing burden of HIV, AIDS, TB and malaria, This report considers progress towards this target and is based on information provided by researchers in seven east and southern African countries. Of the countries reviewed, only Zambia and Malawi have made considerable progress towards the Abuja target, with the health sector\u2019s share of total government expenditure increasing consistently from 8% and 5% respectively in 1997 to nearly 11% and 7% in 2000 and almost 18% and 11% in 2003 (thus exceeding the Abuja target in the case of Zambia). Although Namibia has not achieved the Abuja target, it has made good progress from 10% in 1997 to nearly 14% in 2003. Kenya is the furthest from the Abuja target, with only 5% of government resources going to health services in 2006 and with no consistent increase in government spending. Some seven years after the Declaration, many countries are still lagging well behind the target, although there are promising signs of increases in allocations towards the health sector in some.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 63: A review of Kenyan, Ugandan and Tanzanian public health law relevant to equity in health","field_subtitle":"Kasimbazi E, Moses M, Loewenson R","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS63EAlaws.pdf","body":"This report presents a review of the public health laws in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania that impact on equity in health, to assess the extent to which the current legal framework addresses public health and health equity. Public health law has perhaps not had adequate profile in academic and professional practice, but is a critical area of work if countries in east and southern Africa are to protect public health and health equity in an environment increasingly influenced by global challenges and policies. Various areas of law are provided for in all countries, and it is more in their application that there may be deficits. Some areas of law are provided for in some laws but not in all relevant laws, or not in all countries. This calls for measures to harmonise the legal frameworks within countries to ensure consistency, and across the three countries to protect health across the region as a whole. In some cases there are policy commitments but omissions or gaps in law to reflect these policy commitments and ensure their application at national level across all sectors. The authors suggest that these areas be reviewed by health authorities, parliamentary committees, health professional associations and health civil society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 64: Exploring the concept of power in the implementation of South Africa's new community health worker policies: A case study from a rural sub-district","field_subtitle":"Lehmann U, Matwa P","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS64POLlehmann.pdf","body":"In the study, the researchers explore how policies are shaped and transformed in the process of implementation, using as a case study the implementation of two community health workers policies in a rural sub-district in South Africa. The researchers investigated how role players at different levels of the implementation process interacted with each other and the policy and how they used power at their disposal in this process. Rather than focusing on the gap between policy formation and policy outcome, with implementation being a mere administrative follow-on, the researchers took a 'bottom-up' perspective, which allows one to view implementation as an integral and continuing part of the policy process. Within this, the researchers particularly explored the use of discretionary power by front-line implementers, finding that selective communication and lack of information led to a 'thinning down' of a complex and comprehensive policy. While ftontline implementers did not have the power to change the rules that were set by the provincial actors, they used their knowledge of local conditions, control over local knowledge and distance from the provincial capital to shape implementation at the service level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Efficiency and equity through a sector-wide approach in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Ssengooba F: ID21 Health News, June 2008","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights-h12/art05.html","body":"Financing Uganda's health care services used to be based on a minimum package which cost more than the financial resources available. Donor aid contributed between 40-50% of these costs. Financial allocations were also biased towards national level hospitals and wages. For Uganda's health care system to become more efficient, reforms in the coordination and allocation of donor aid were essential. The findings show that efficiency gains can be made with a minimal budget increase and shifting of budget priorities. For these shifts to be feasible and sustainable, more donor aid needs to be channelled in a way that enables sector planners and government to implement reforms that affect broader health systems. The sector-wide approach (SWAp) in Uganda increased resources, allowed donor aid to be channelled through budget support arrangements, and gave the Ministry of Health (MOH) greater flexibility to implement reforms. However, the findings also show that increased efficiency cannot necessarily fill the resource gap. Although global financial initiatives can help to address this gap, they also need to strengthen SWAp arrangements, channel more funds through budget support and allow the MOH to adopt the long-term reforms needed for better health system developments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 89: The AIDS road to Comprehensive Primary Health Care for all?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC)\r\n(email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equitable access: good intentions are not enough","field_subtitle":"Wells R and Whitworth J: Global Forum Update on Research for Health 4: 152-153","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3vzgss","body":"Most countries do not have universal health insurance and for most people living in countries without universal access, particularly the poor, illness is a substantial financial burden, and indeed often a crippling burden. Paradoxically, a far greater proportion of out-of-pocket spending occurs in those countries least able to afford it. Inevitably, health care, far from being a basic human right, is simply beyond the reach of many. These problems are magnified in lower- and middle-income countries. For example, in Tanzania a 1997 scheme to implement evidence based health plans at an estimated cost of US$2 per capita was limited by inadequacy of infrastructure and capacity. These difficulties are particularly evident where there is increased spending on vertical programmes in areas of limited capacity and infrastructure, limiting resources available to the system as a whole. In light of this, this article highlights some key questions for tackling equity in health, including: 1) What do we mean by equity? Which aspect has primacy -dollars spent or health status or health outcomes? 2) How do we determine what is a reasonable amount to spend (or invest)? How can this best be contextualised and harmonised with other government priorities? 3) Would there be more equitable access to health services if governance and decision-making were more open to input by community stakeholders? 4) Given the resource and other infrastructure constraints, particularly in poorer countries, what are the most appropriate health care delivery models for a country to adopt?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equitable access: Research challenges for health in developing countries, A Report on Forum 11","field_subtitle":"Global Health Research Forum, 2008","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/filesupld/forum11/Forum11_Report.pdf","body":"The annual meetings of the Global Forum are premier international events for stakeholders in health research for development. This Forum 11 report provides an overview and synthesis of the key issues discussed and conclusions reached. These include: the need for additional research; better systems of organizing and funding research, for ensuring participation in the process by all the stakeholders and for facilitating research to ensure impact on the health of those in need. Other central themes include: expanding the use of evidence in policy- and decision-making; equity and human rights (access and inclusion); encouraging innovation in research; research priority setting; research capacity strengthening; possibilities with inter-sectoral collaboration; advocacy for more research and resources; and communication of research results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Feminist Perspectives on Globalisation","field_subtitle":"IDRC, Carleton University, University of Ottawa: 29 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.carleton.ca/womensstudies/","body":"This two-year (2008-2010) programme offers highly qualified researchers working on issues of globalisation from a feminist perspective, from developing countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and the South Pacific, the opportunity to spend a research term in Ottawa based at one of the two universities. The Visiting Scholar in Feminist Perspectives on Globalisation will contribute to gender and development research at both universities and provide a unique opportunity for collaboration between feminist scholars in Canada and the developing world and between North and South. The Pauline Jewett Institute of Women\u2019s and Gender Studies and the Institute of Women\u2019s Studies will alternate in welcoming one visiting scholar per year. However, both Institutes look forward to the opportunity of engaging with the Visiting Scholar. Applications are invited for the 2008-2009 Visiting Scholar in Feminist Perspectives on Globalisation to be based at the Pauline Jewett Institute of Women\u2019s and Gender Studies at Carleton  University. (In 2009-2010, the Visiting Scholar will be based at the University of Ottawa Institute of Women\u2019s Studies.) ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33209","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing primary health care","field_subtitle":"Editorial","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights-h12/art00.html","body":"Today, millions of people in low- and middle-income countries do not have access to basic, good-quality health services. The Alma Ata Declaration in 1978 defined primary health care as basic health care built on technically sound and socially adequate approaches, which is universally accessible and affordable to all individuals. This editorial provides insights into and explores the challenges facing donors and national governments in providing and financing primary health care for all.\r\n\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing primary health care","field_subtitle":"Oliveira-Cruz V: ID21 Health News, June 2008","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights-h12/index.html","body":"Today, millions of people in low- and middle-income countries do not have access to basic, good quality health services. The Alma Ata Declaration in 1978 defined primary health care as basic health care built on technically sound and socially adequate approaches, universally accessible and affordable to all individuals. This article explores the challenges facing donors and national governments in providing and financing primary health care for all. Given the high dependency of low income countries on aid, methods of aid delivery are central to the debate on how best to finance PHC. Sector-wide approaches (SWAps) and General Budget Support (GBS) emerged in the late 1980s to 1990s, in response to frustrations with the delivery of aid through 'vertical' projects. Such programmes were problematic because they were defined by donors giving little country ownership. Poor donor coordination lead to fragmentation and duplication of efforts, and governments were unable to respond effectively to different donor requirements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"From Mexico to Mali: Taking stock of achievements in health policy and systems","field_subtitle":"Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, WHO, and the International Development Research Centre, Canada: Nyon, Switzerland 25-27 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ALLrights210608.pdf","body":"In preparation for the forthcoming Ministerial Forum on Health Research, to be held in Bamako, Mali in November 2008, more than 40 researchers from 28 countries, both in the South and the North, who have a particular interest in health policy and systems research (HPSR) and the application of evidence to health policy, gathered in Nyon, Switzerland on 25-27th May to: critically assess developments in HPSR in low and middle income countries and its application to policy since the Mexico Summit, 2004; highlight current gaps, priorities and challenges in the HPSR field that need to be addressed; and discuss and agree how best to move forward the HPSR field. Meeting participants reviewed evidence about the evolution of the HPSR field and debated emerging needs, with a view to informing discussions at Bamako, and further action by the institutions sponsoring and participating in the meeting, as well as by other key stakeholders including national governments, researchers, research and development funders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund Board: Round 9 of Universal Access talks","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/media_center/press/pr_080604.asp","body":"The Global Fund Board just announced the launch of round 9 which will open on 1 October 2008. This is an additional round in order to accelerate progress towards Universal Access and will be followed by the next in March 2009. The opening date is 1st October 2008, the closing date (submission deadline) is not finalised yet and the round 9 grants are expected to be approved by May 2009. Round 9 will use the same proposal form and guidelines that were issued for round 8 - without changes. Round 9 is for new proposals, and it is also an opportunity for countries to resubmit proposals that were rejected in round 8, six months earlier than usual. CCMs will receive Technical Review Panel (TRP) reviews for round 8 one month earlier than usual, so that they have them in time for preparing the round 9 application if necessary. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Guidelines: Incentives for Health Professionals","field_subtitle":"International Council of Nurses, International Hospital Federation, International Pharmaceutical Federation, World Confederation for Physical Therapy, World Dental Federation, World Medical Association, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4ymy3t","body":"The growing gap between the supply of health care professionals and the demand for their services is recognised as a key issue for health and development worldwide. Policy-makers, planners and managers continue to seek effective means to recruit and retain staff. One way to achieve this is to develop and implement effective incentive schemes. The World Health Organization report Working together for health (2006a) estimated a global shortage of 4.3 million health workers, including 2.4 million physicians, nurses and midwives. Translated into access to care, the shortage means that over a billion people have no access to heath care. Many countries are affected by the shortage and 57 have been identified as \u2018in crisis\u2019. An effective workforce strategy will address the three core challenges of improving recruitment, improving the performance of the existing workforce, and slowing the rate at which workers leave the health workforce. Incentives can play a role in all these areas, providing a means by which health systems can attract and retain essential and highly sought-after health care professionals. Effective incentive schemes also help build a better motivated, more satisfied and better performing workforce.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and survival of young children in southern Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Armstrong RM, Schellenberg J, Mrisho M, Manzi F, Shirima K, Mbuya C, Mushi AK, Ketende SC, Alonso PL, Mshinda H, Tanner T,Schellenberg D: BMC Public Health 8(194), 3 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/8/194/abstract","body":"With a view to developing health systems strategies to improve reach to high-risk groups, this research has been conducted on health and survival from household and health facility perspectives in five districts of southern Tanzania. The researchers documented availability of health workers, vaccines, drugs, supplies and services essential for child health through a survey of all health facilities in the area. The researchers conclude that relatively short distances to health facilities, high antenatal and vaccine coverage show that peripheral health facilities have huge potential to make a difference to health and survival at household level in rural Tanzania, even with current human resources. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Helping editors, peer reviewers, and authors improve the clarity, completeness, and transparency of reporting health research","field_subtitle":"Moher D, Simera I, Schulz KF, Hoey J and Altman DG: BMC Medicine 6(13), 16 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/6/13/abstract","body":"Inadequate reporting is problematic for several reasons. If authors do not provide sufficient details concerning the conduct of their study, readers are left with an incomplete picture of what was done. As such, they are not able to judge the merits of the results and interpret them. The EQUATOR Network is a new initiative aimed at improving the clarity and transparency of reporting health research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Human resource leadership: the key to improved results in health","field_subtitle":"O'Neil ML: Human Resources for Health 6(10), 20 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/6/1/10","body":"This article describes the human resource challenges that managers around the world report and analyses why solutions often fail to be implemented. Despite rising attention to the acute shortage of health care workers, solutions to the human resource (HR) crisis are difficult to achieve, especially in the poorest countries. Although HR strategies have been developed around the issues, the problem is that some old systems of leading and managing human resources for health do not work in today's context. The Leadership Development Program (LDP) is grounded on the belief that good leadership and management can be learned and practiced at all levels. Case studies were chosen to illustrate results from using the LDP at different levels of the health sector. The LDP makes a profound difference in health managers' attitudes towards their work. Rather than feeling defeated by a workplace climate that lacks motivation, hope, and commitment to change, people report that they are mobilized to take action to change the status quo. The lesson is that without this capacity at all levels, global policy and national HR strategies will fail to make a difference.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"IMF 'can't bail out crisis countries'","field_subtitle":"King M: Bank of England, 20th Anniversary of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, 29 May 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/56fqcs","body":"The International Monetary Fund no longer has the financial clout to fulfil its traditional role of lending out money to save crisis-stricken countries, according to a Bank of England report. In all cases the analysis suggests the present IMF lending framework may no longer be appropriate. The working paper is unique because most critics of the Fund have instead focused on the shortcomings of its management structure or economic analysis. It said that the Fund \"is increasingly unlikely to provide financing on a sufficiently large scale to meet the demands of higher-risk members.\" The IEO report also urged the Fund to overhaul its governance structure, much of which is largely unchanged since the 1940s. Among its recommendations was a call to reform the selection process for managing director.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"IMF approves new poverty reduction plan for Zambia","field_subtitle":"People\u2019s Daily Online, 5 June 2008","field_url":"http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90855/6425007.html","body":"The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a three-year, US$79-million plan to support Zambia's efforts to alleviate poverty and sustain economic growth. The new Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) plan succeeds a previous arrangement successfully completed last year, the IMF said in a press release. The new PRGF arrangement will support the government's objectives of boosting economic growth and enhancing employment and income opportunities, especially for the poor, while maintaining macroeconomic stability. The PRGF is the IMF's concessional facility for low-income countries. PRGF loans carry an annual interest rate of 0.5 percent and are repayable over 10 years with a five-and-a-half-year grace period on principal payments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of HIV/AIDS mortality on South Africa's life expectancy and implications for the elderly population","field_subtitle":"Mba CJ: African Journal of Health Sciences14(3-4): 201-211, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=205&id=41061","body":"The study seeks to raise awareness and expand knowledge about the deleterious effect of HIV/AIDS mortality on South Africa's life expectancy, a country with a relatively high HIV/AIDS prevalence rate (19%). Using the multiple and associated single decrement life table techniques, the study estimates the total number of South Africans who would die from HIV/AIDS by the time they reach age 75 from a hypothetical cohort of 100,000 live births, assuming that the mortality conditions of 1996 for South Africa prevailed. The findings indicate that 5.7% of babies will eventually die of AIDS. Furthermore, 7.7% and 11.5% of those aged 60 years, and 75 years and above respectively will die of AIDS. Overwhelming majority of deaths will come from persons within the reproductive and productive age groups. A tremendous gain in life expectancy to the tune of about 26 years would result in the absence of HIV. The elderly persons, who are the grandmothers and grandfathers, are likely to manage family affairs following the death of their adult children. This condition is likely to impoverish the elderly population. Everything should be done to reduce AIDS mortality in order to increase life expectancy in the country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving retention and performance in civil society in Uganda","field_subtitle":"O'Neil ML and Paydos M: Human Resources for Health 6(11), 20 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/6/1/11/abstract","body":"This article describes the experience of the Family Life Education Programme (FLEP), a reproductive health program that provides community-based health services through 40 clinics in five districts of Uganda, in improving retention and performance by using the Management Sciences for Health (MSH) Human Resource Management Rapid Assessment Tool. A few years ago, the FLEP of Busoga Diocese began to see an increase in staff turnover and a decrease in overall organisational performance. An action plan to improve their human resource management (HRM) system was developed and implemented. By implementing the various recommended changes, FLEP established an improved, responsive HRM system. Increased employee satisfaction led to less staff turnover, better performance, and increased utilisation of health services. These benefits were achieved by cost-effective measures focused on professionalising the organisation's approach to HRM. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequalities in selected health-related Millennium Development Goals indicators in all WHO Member States","field_subtitle":"Kirigia DG and Kirigia JM: African Journal of Health Sciences 14(3-4):171-186, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=205&id=41058","body":"The objective of this study was to quantify inequalities in selected Millennium Development Goal (MDG) indicators in all the 192 WHO Member States using descriptive statistics, the Gini coefficient and the Theil coefficient. The data on all the indicators were obtained from The World Health Report 2004. The main findings were as follows: (i) generally, all the MDG indicators are significantly worse in low-income countries than in the other three income groupings; (ii) for all the MDG indicators, there are inequalities within individual countries, within the four income groups, and across income groups of countries; (iii) the inequalities in the MDG indicators are higher among the low-income countries than in high-income countries; and (iv) the ranking of income groups, by various indicators, is fairly stable whether one employs the Gini coefficient or Theil coefficient. Member States striving to expand the effective coverage of heatlh strategies and interventions need to do this in a manner that redresses the inequalities in various MDG indicators, and to monitor aggregate changes in MDG indicators and inequalities across the various income quintiles. The lessons learnt from the monitoring should inform the design and targeting of MDG-related policies, strategies and interventions to eradicate inequalities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"IPHU Porto Alegre, Brazil, 8-19 September, 2008","field_subtitle":"International People\u2019s Health University, June 2008","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/iphu/en/porto_applic_en","body":"IPHU and the People\u2019s Health Movement in association with the School of Public Health of Rio Grande do Sul are pleased to announced 'The Struggle for Health', a two week short course for health activists, scheduled for 8-19 September, 2008. The Porto Alegre IPHU will address all of the 'standard' objectives of other IPHU courses. Participants should come prepared: to describe in some detail an activist project or campaign or movement that they have been directly involved in; to describe in sufficient detail for the strategies, theories and skills of practice to be evident; and to provide an overall assessment of the health challenges in their country and the status and prospects for PHM. Students should also come prepared to comment on the implications for their own countries of the material covered in the different topics. For example: what is the extent of brain drain and what is being done about it; what is the role of the WB and IMF in health sector reform; what are the implications of the WTO (eg GATS); what is the role of the GFATM in own country; and access to medicines? The courses involve: lectures, small group discussions, debates, workshops and field trips and follow up study. Resource materials will take the form of hard copy readings, lecture notes and websites. Applications should be submitted on the internet.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Joint appeal by civil society in South Africa to the UN & UNHCR","field_subtitle":"Treatment Action Campaign, 3 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.tac.org.za/community/node/2332","body":"It is now more than 3 weeks since widespread xenophobic terror against foreign nationals has erupted in provinces across South Africa. To date, over 20,000 people in the Western Cape have been displaced, some are staying in community halls and local shelters, but many have been taken to refugee camps, some against their will. Across our country more than 50 000 people were displaced. The displaced peoples' calls for the UN including (UNHCR) intervention have only grown louder, and were the main demand at a rally and press conference held by them in Cape Town. The groups are concerned that the UN seems to publicly take a position that they cannot assist unless and until the South African government requests their intervention and are unsure when that is likely to happen. TAC observes that the humanitarian crisis in South Africa continues to deepen.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Macroeconomic Consequences of Remittances","field_subtitle":"Chami R, Barajas A, Cosimano T, Fullenkamp C, Gapen M and Montiel P: Occasional Paper 259, International Monetary Fund, Washington DC, 2008","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/op/259/op259.pdf","body":"Given the large size of aggregate remittance flows, they should be expected to have significant macroeconomic effects on the economies that receive them. In addition, remittances have been identified as a potential source of funding for economic development. Thus, two main issues are of interest to policymakers with regard to remittances: how to manage their macroeconomic effects; and how to harness their development potential. This paper directly addresses these two questions by reporting the results of the first global study of the comprehensive macroeconomic effects of remittances on the economies that receive them. The ultimate purpose of this endeavour is to draw summary policy implications for countries that receive significant flows of remittances. In broad terms, the findings of this paper tend to confirm the main benefit cited in the microeconomic literature: remittances improve households\u2019 welfare by lifting families out of poverty and insuring them against income shocks. However, the systematic macroeconomic analysis of remittances developed over important caveats and policy considerations that have largely been overlooked: measurement, fiscal policy, debt sustainability, fiscal discipline, economic growth, Dutch disease effects, governance and incentives and the role of international financial institutions. The main challenge for policymakers, stated in general terms, is to design policies that promote remittances and increase their benefits while mitigating adverse side effects. Getting these policy prescriptions correct early on is imperative. Globalization and the aging of developed economy populations will ensure that demand for migrant workers remains robust for years to come. Hence, the volume of remittances likely will continue to grow, and with it, the challenge of unlocking the maximum societal benefit from these transfers.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Malnutrition among women in sub-Saharan Africa: rural-urban disparity","field_subtitle":"Uthman OA, Aremu O: Rural and Remote Health 8(931), 2008","field_url":"http://www.rrh.org.au/articles/showarticlenew.asp?ArticleID=931","body":"Malnutrition is a serious public health problem, particularly in developing countries, linked to a substantial increase in the risk of mortality and morbidity. Women and young children are most often affected. Rural disadvantage is a known factor, but little attention has been paid to rural-urban disparity among women. To provide a reliable source of information for policy-makers, the current study used nationally representative data from 26 countries in sub-Saharan Africa to update knowledge about the prevalence malnutrition and its rural-urban disparities among women. The data sources were the demographic and health surveys of 26 countries conducted between 1995 and 2006.Overall, rural women were 68% more likely to be malnourished compared with their urban counterparts. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Medical Schemes amendment bill (draft)","field_subtitle":"Department of Health, Government of South Africa, 2 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.info.gov.za/view/DownloadFileAction?id=82585","body":"This bill is intended to amend the Medical Schemes Act, 1998, so as to provide for risk equalisation among medical schemes; to amend and insert certain definitions; to provide for the establishment of a risk equalisation fund; to extend the functions of the Council for Medical Schemes in relation to risk equalisation; to provide for the application of risk equalisation to medical schemes; to provide for the provision of information by medical schemes to the Council for Medical Schemes for purposes of risk equalisation; to provide for the methodology and procedures for risk equalisation; to amend the provisions relating to benefits and contributions provided by medical schemes; to amend the provisions relating to the composition of boards of trustees and eligibility of persons to serve as trustees or principal officers; to define the respective functions of boards of trustees and principal off key to specify the powers of the High Court in relation to election processes; to amend the provisions relating to disclosure of trustee remuneration; to provide for good corporate governance guidelines and associated disclosure requirements; to amend the provisions relating to the powers of the Minister to make regulations; to amend the provisions relating to offences; to rearrange some of  the existing sections; and to provide for matters in connection therewith.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Medicines and Related Substances Amendment Bill (draft)","field_subtitle":"Department of Health, Government of South Africa, 2 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.info.gov.za/view/DownloadFileAction?id=82586","body":"This bill is intended to amend the Medicines and Related Substances Act, 1965, so as to provide for the establishment of the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority; for the certification and registration of products which include medicines, medical devices and certain foodstuffs and cosmetics, for the control of scheduled substances; and matters incidental thereto.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Medicines without doctors: In Mozambique, salaries are not the biggest problem","field_subtitle":"de O\u00f1ate WA: PLoS Medicine 4(7): 1280-1281","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ONAehs30062008.pdf","body":"In the case of health workers in Mozambique, the brain drain is not the biggest problem, neither are the salaries. There is a pure lack of doctors, with only up to 60 doctors a year being trained at the University for a population of 18 million. The funds from international donors for the National AIDS Plan are not accessible to the Faculty of Medicine to support the basic education of doctors because of restructions placed by donors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Millennium Development Goals: Progress and prospects for meeting child survival targets in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Sanders D, Reynolds L, Westwood T, Eley B, Kroon M, Zar H, Davies M, Nongena P, van Heerden T, Swingler G: Critical Health Perspectives 1, 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/SANpov190608.pdf","body":"The under-five mortality (U5MR) rate in South Africa in 1990 was 60. South Africa needs to achieve an U5MR of 20 by 2015 to meet its Millenium Development Goal target. Yet, in contrast to most countries, the U5MR in South Africa is rising rather than declining. Based on current trends, unless urgent measures are taken to address the main causes of death, South Africa has little hope of reaching the MDG target. To inform intervention, this article undertakes a critical examination of the determinants of under-5 mortality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"More money needed for new cadre of healthcare workers","field_subtitle":"Thom A: Health-e News, 5 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20031980","body":"The South African health department has started the training a new category of healthcare worker, but will need more money from treasury if it is to become a sustainable intervention. The first intake of 23 students to be trained as clinical associates, health workers ranked between a nurse and doctor, started at Walter Sisulu University in January this year. It is hoped that the clinical associates will lessen the burden facing critically understaffed hospitals and clinics. The health department has secured funding from the World Health Organisation, the United States Centres for Disease Control, the British government and the European Union to train the 23 students. Another 76 students are expected to be enrolled at the universities of the Witwatersrand, Pretoria and Limpopo as soon as the health department has finalised funding.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"National Health amendment bill (draft)","field_subtitle":"Department of Health, Government of South Africa, 2 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.info.gov.za/view/DownloadFileAction?id=82586","body":"This bill is intended to amend the Medicines and Related Substances Act, 1965, so as to provide for the establishment of the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority; for the certification and registration of products which include medicines, medical devices and certain foodstuffs and cosmetics, for the control of scheduled substances; and matters incidental thereto.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Ouagadougou Declaration on Primary Health Care and Health Systems in Africa: Achieving better health care for all in the new millennium ","field_subtitle":"International Conference on Primary Health Care and Health Systems in Africa, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, 28-30 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/OUAval200608.pdf","body":"The International Conference on Primary Health Care and Health Systems in Africa, meeting in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, from 28 to 30 April 2008, reaffirms the principles of the Declaration of Alma-Ata of September 1978, particularly in regard to health as a fundamental human right and the responsibility that governments have for the health of their people. Having analysed the experience of Primary Health Care implementation in the countries of Africa in the last 30 years, the Conference expresses the need for accelerated action by African governments, partners and communities to improve health. The Conference also reaffirmed the importance of the involvement, participation and empowerment of communities in health development in order to improve their well-being, as well as the importance of a concerted partnership, in particular, between civil society, private sector and development partners, to translate commitments into action. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory budgeting in Africa: A training companion with cases from eastern and southern Africa - Volume II: Facilitation methods","field_subtitle":"Affiliated Network for Social Accountability","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=37112&em=030608\u2282=partic","body":"Participatory budgeting in Africa is part of an effort to build the capacity of local government officials and their partners for greater accountability and good governance. This toolkit is aimed at helping local governments and other stakeholders to prepare for, design, initiate and manage a participatory budgeting process, by training key actors who initiate the budgeting processes. This is the second of two volumes that provide users with information, tools, methodologies, case studies and tips on how participatory budgeting can be introduced and sustained. These resources have been collected from local governments where participatory budgeting is already being practised.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Perceptions of tuberculosis and treatment seeking behaviour in Ilala and Kinondoni Municipalities in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Kilale AM, Mushi AK, Lema LA, Kunda J, Mukasi CE, Mwaseba D, Range NS and Mfinanga GS: Tanzania Journal of Health Research 10(2): 89-94, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=78&id=37475","body":"This study was carried out in Ilala and Kinondoni Municipalities in Tanzania to explore the perceptions of Tuberculosis (TB), and treatment seeking behaviour, among patients attending healthcare facilities. The study was conducted in four randomly selected health facilities providing directly observed treatment (DOT). Exit interviews were administered to 69 randomly selected TB patients. Fifty-nine (84.1%) patients had good knowledge on the transmission of TB. The majority (75%) of the respondents were of the opinion that the incidence of TB was on the increase mainly due to the AIDS epidemic. All respondents knew that TB was a curable disease if one complies with the treatment. Sixty-four (60%) respondents had good knowledge on the correct duration of tuberculosis treatment. The median duration before seeking treatment from a health facility was 1.5 months. The majority of the patients 47 (68%) visited public health facilities for treatment as their first action. Overall, 83.8% respondents said females comply better with treatment than male patients. The majority of the respondents lived within a walking distance to a healthcare facility. Most of the respondents said they were well attended by service providers. Half and 59.3% of the males and females, respectively, mentioned good patient-service provider relationship as an important reason for satisfaction of the service. Twenty-nine respondents were of the opinion that female TB patients conformed better to treatment than males and a similar number thought that both of them equally conformed to treatment. Findings from this study indicate that a large population in urban settings are aware that health facilities play a major role in TB treatment. There is a need to further explore how this information could potentially be used to enhance early seeking of appropriate services among TB patients in the era of rapid urbanization. Strategies in the control of TB and other diseases should focus on advocacy in seeking appropriate care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"PhD position: School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape, South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The School of Public Health is one of the research partners in a four-year EU-funded research project (INCO-DEV) being implemented in three Southern African countries (Angola, Mozambique and South Africa). The study aims to understand how the rise of Global Health Initiatives (e.g. Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, PEPFAR etc) has impacted the architecture of development partnerships and country-level health systems\u2019 functions. They are calling for applications from South African junior researchers who will be part of a research team that has been put together to implement the GHIs project. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33235","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy Brief 20: Meeting the promise: Progress on the Abuja commitment of 15% government funds to health","field_subtitle":"D McIntyre, R Loewenson, V Govender  EQUINET, Health Economics Unit , UCT, TARSC","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/POLBRIEF20%20Abuja.pdf","body":"Very few east and southern African countries have health care spending levels anywhere near the 2001 WHO recommended US$80 per person per year. In 2001 in Abuja African heads of state committed to allocating 15% of government budgets to health -- the Abuja declaration. This brief shows that several countries (Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, Uganda) have made considerable progress in increasing domestic funding, towards the Abuja target. It outlines evidence to argue that devoting 15% of domestic public funds to the health sector is necessary \u2013 both to address the health and health care needs within east and southern Africa (ESA) and to ensure progress towards building a universal and comprehensive health system. The target of 15% is not unrealistic \u2013 it is very much in line with levels of public spending in other countries around the world Achieving the 15% target demands that public funds not be consumed by debt servicing, so rapid implementation of debt cancellation is critical. The 15% is understood to mean domestic public spending on health, excluding external funding. It  should be regularly monitored and publicly reported by governments. Even if countries achieve the 15% target, for many there will still be a substantial gap in funding for health services.  More resources flow out of Africa than into the continent, so sustainable health financing demands global solidarity.  External funding support is thus critical, based on OECD countries\u2019 commitment to contribute 0.7% of their GNP as official development assistance (ODA). Increased spending on health services should not be at the expense of spending on other social services, as this is fundamental to promoting human development, so that people benefit from and contribute to economic development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Primary health care in Mozambique: Service delivery in a complex hierarcy","field_subtitle":"Lindelow M, Ward P, Zorzi N: World Bank, Africa Region: Human Development Working paper series: 1-112, April 2004","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/LINehs30062008.pdf","body":"This report presents finding of a nationwide Expenditure Tracking and Service Delivery Survey in Mozambique from August to Ocotober 2002. The study focuses on the primary health care system, which is often the only source of health care for most Mozambicans. The data offers a unique perspective on interactions between different levels of the health system, particularly related to financing, allocation, distribution and use of resources. The report covers a broad set of issues including institutional context, budget managemet, cost recovery, drug allocation and distribution, human resources, infrastructure and equipment, and service outputs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Protest at Cape Town Civic Centre: TAC's Demands","field_subtitle":"Treatment Action Campaign, 12 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.tac.org.za/community/node/2344","body":"TAC presents demands to the Cape Town City Council about the treatment of foreigners after the xenophobic attacks in the city.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-private partnerships fail to involve African researchers","field_subtitle":"Tucker TJ and Makgoba MW: Science 320(1016), 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4h2v68","body":"Public-private partnership organisations (PPPOs) \u2014 which focus on African neglected diseases \u2014 have failed to change the imperialist research paradigm or involve African researchers on an equal basis. Every major PPPO is headquartered in Europe or the United States: \"Not one 'global' PPPO is led by a person who is a developing-country national, and not one resides within one of the developing countries severely affected by neglected infectious diseases.\" Senior staff and boards of directors show similar trends. And although disbursements to developing countries have been impressive, \"Africans are only able to access resources that (predominantly) non-Africans decide are appropriate.\" In addition, African states have not created career structures for clinicians and scientists, so there is relatively little capacity to build PPPOs in Africa, a situation which must be changed by African states investing in health-related PPPOs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Remarks at the UN on AIDS: A multigenerational approach","field_subtitle":"Gonsalves G: ARASA, June 2008","field_url":"","body":"There has been a great deal of progress over the past few years in AIDS. Despite the still staggering death toll and the wave of new infections, there are now, for instance, 3 million people on antiretroviral therapy, something that would have been unbelievable 10 years ago. This modest progress is in danger though. We've entered the era of the AIDS backlash - those who say AIDS gets too much money, from those who say AIDS programmes are distorting health systems. But the backlash takes more insidious forms. This discussion reports on the progress we've made with HIV/AIDS, the innovations that we've pioneered and the need to stop the backlash.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33217","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Risk factors for incomplete vaccination and missed opportunity for immunisation in rural Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Jani1 JV, De Schacht C, Jani IV, Bjune g: BMC Public Health 8(161), 16 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/8/161","body":"Inadequate levels of immunisation against childhood diseases remain a significant public health problem in resource-poor areas of the globe. Nonetheless, the reasons for incomplete vaccination and non-uptake of immunisation services are poorly understood. This study aimed at finding out the reasons for non-vaccination and the magnitude of missed opportunities for vaccination in children less than two years of age in a rural area in southern Mozambique. Mothers of children under two years of age (N = 668) were interviewed in a cross-sectional study. The Road-to-Health card was utilised to check for completeness and correctness of vaccination schedule as well as for identifying the appropriate use of all available opportunities for vaccination. The chi-square test and the logistic regression were used for statistical analysis. The researchers found that 28.2% of the children had not completed the vaccination program by two years of age, 25.7% had experienced a missed opportunity for vaccination and 14.9% were incorrectly vaccinated. Reasons for incomplete vaccination were associated with accessibility to the vaccination sites, no schooling of mothers and children born at home or outside Mozambique. Efforts to increase vaccination coverage should take into account factors that contribute to the incomplete vaccination status of children. Missed opportunities for vaccination and incorrect vaccination need to be avoided in order to increase the vaccine coverage for those clients that reach the health facility, specially in those countries where health services do not have 100% of coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Roll Back Malaria and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD): Is there potential for synergistic collaboration in partnerships?","field_subtitle":"Kamau EM: African Journal of Health Sciences 13(1-2):22-27, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=205&id=40920","body":"This paper highlights and promotes the enormous potential that exists between these two initiatives that seek to address closely related issues and targeting the same populations at risk within a fairly well defined geographical setting. It also attempts to argue that malaria control, just like HIV-Aids control be given high priority in the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) health agenda, as current statistics indicate that malaria is again on the rise. While much attention and billions of dollars have rightly been given to HIV and Aids research, treatment and prevention, malaria, and not Aids, is the region's leading cause of morbidity and mortality for children under the age of five years. This is the bad news. The good news is that unlike Aids, malaria treatment and prevention are relatively cheap. In addition, there is a payback to fighting malaria; support aimed directly at improving health, rather than poverty reduction, may be a more effective way of helping Africa to thrive. Robust and sustained growth may come to Africa through a mosquito net, Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies (ACTs) or a malaria vaccine, rather that a donor's cheque for economic development initiatives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"SA Health minister to assume more powers if new bills are passed","field_subtitle":"Thom A: Health-e News, 17 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20031994","body":"Two bills recently tabled in the South Africa Parliament are set to shake up the private hospital industry and centralise decision-making over hospital tariffs as well as the regulation of new medicines and scientific trials within the health minister\u2019s office. The National Health Amendment Bill (health bill) and the Medicines and Related Substances Amendment Bill (medicines bill) were both published in April and there is widespread agreement that they are the most important pieces of health legislation to be proposed in recent years. The article presents the changes and the debate around the bills.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Shortage of health workers in the Malawian public health services system: How do parliamentarians perceive the problem?","field_subtitle":"Muula A: African Journal of Health Sciences 13(1-2): 124-130 , 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=205&id=40936","body":"The quality and quantity of health care services delivered by the Malawi public health system is severely limited, due to, among other things the shortage of adequate numbers of trained health care workers. In order to suggest policy changes and implement corrective measures, there may be need to describe the perceptions of the legislature on how they perceive as the cause of the problem. Training more health workers, training new but lower cadres of health workers not marketable to the outside world, improving the working conditions and remuneration of health workers are suggested as some of the solutions. Even without the brain drain of health workers to other countries, Malawi's health sector personnel numbers are not adequate to serve the needs of the country. Relying on training more health workers in the numbers normally produced from the prevailing training institutions is unlikely to remove the shortages.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Current HIV treatment models not good enough","field_subtitle":"PlusNews, 3 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78545","body":"More than 400,000 HIV-positive South Africans have begun antiretroviral treatment (ART) since the government launched its programme in 2004. But this impressive-sounding figure still only represents one third of the estimated number of people in need of treatment, and that number is expanding by an additional half a million people every year. If South Africa is to achieve its ambitious goals for expanding treatment access, as well as the UN Millennium Development Goal of universal access, the current models for delivering treatment will need an overhaul. Despite the existence of national policies and guidelines for ARV treatment, implementation is strongly driven by what happens at provincial and district level. A comparison of 16 facilities providing treatment in the three provinces revealed wide variations in referral systems and staffing levels, but in all three provinces the researchers found a lack of integration of ARV services with other health services. Patients frequently had to go to other facilities for the treatment of TB, or for other opportunistic infections, or for antenatal care. The study also found that in many districts there were too few doctors and pharmacists providing ARV services, creating service bottlenecks. Systems for monitoring and evaluating patients on ARV treatment were also generally weak, and the use of data to improve services even weaker.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: How PPPS Drive Service Delivery","field_subtitle":"Macharia L: Business Day (Nairobi), 23 June 2008","field_url":"","body":"The Free State Province in South Africa, with the provincial capital at Bloemfontein, is home to 2.8 million people. But only 13 per cent have private health insurance with most relying on government-operated facilities for their healthcare needs. There are two academic public hospitals in Bloemfontein: Pelonomi and Universitas. In 1997, the government was unable to raise the estimated R825 million needed towards the major renovation of Pelonomi hospital and a partial upgrade of Universitas Hospital. The solution emerged through a public-private partnership between the Philippine national government and the private sector. The PPP was structured for the hospital redevelopment project between three partners.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33139","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Hospital reduces HIV transmission rate","field_subtitle":"Flanagan L: The Mercury, 13 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041820","body":"A Durban hospital has cut the transmission of HIV from pregnant mothers to their babies to less than 3% with dual therapy. The study started with all 2 624 pregnant women who attended McCord's antenatal clinic during the 18 months from March 2004 to August 2005. Of these, 338 women tested HIV-positive and 302 delivered at McCord. The study assessed these babies. During their pregnancies 44% of the HIV-positive women received highly active antiretroviral treatment. Of the 297 surviving babies, 290 (98%) received the antiretroviral drug nevirapine after birth and 224 (76%) also received the antiretroviral AZT. In six cases there was no record of the baby receiving any antiretroviral treatment. Six weeks later 239 (81%) of the babies were tested seven of these (2.9%) were HIV positive. The hospital used guidelines developed from international studies for its programme. The researchers said this showed that, despite resource constraints, a state-aided hospital could achieve results which compared favourably to those in developed countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening international health co-operation in Africa through the regional economic communities","field_subtitle":"Agu V, Correia AN, Behbehani L: African Journal of Health Sciences 14(3-4):104-113, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=205&id=41049","body":"The Regional Economic Communities (RECs) are the pillars of the African Union (AU), and have been recognised by the AU as the key vehicles for economic integration and cooperation in Africa. The 2003 Session of the AU Conference of African Ministers of Health (CAMH) considered and adopted, inter alia, recommendations on a proposal to establish Health and Social Affairs Desks within the RECs. The 2003 Maputo Session of the Assembly of AU Heads of State and Government duly endorsed the Report of the Ministers and their recommendations. This paper represents an attempt to assess the extent to which the 2003 decision of CAMH has been implemented. The researchers also argue that regional integration and cooperation should not be geared solely towards economic, trade or political purposes but to the social sector as well, and proposes a set of criteria as useful starting points for determining which social (i.e. health) activities can be undertaken at the regional and sub-regional levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Supporting HIV-positive teachers in east and southern Africa: Technical consultation report: 30 November-1 December 2006","field_subtitle":"UNESCO, September 2007","field_url":"http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001536/153603e.pdf","body":"East and southern Africa are the two regions in the world which are the most highly affected by HIV and AIDS. A significant number of people with HIV are educators, ranging from primary school teachers to head teachers and university lecturers. In response, UNESCO together with the three partners convened a consultation with HIV-positive teachers and other key stakeholders from Ministries of Education and teachers\u2019 unions from Kenya, Namibia, United Republic of Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. This report presents a summary of the key points, outcomes and recommendations emerging from the consultation which aimed to share experiences and articulate common, key elements of comprehensive responses for HIV-positive teachers. In order to provide a comprehensive response for HIV-positive teachers, the report argues that there needs to be support for HIV-positive teachers to continue teaching in a supportive environment free of stigma and discrimination. For this to be in place, a number of actions are recommended as necessary, including to: identify and address the varying needs of HIV-positive teachers; tackle stigma and discrimination; ensure access to prevention programmes, treatment, care and support; and build links between teacher\u2019s unions and networks of HIV-positive teachers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Tender notice: Review of the SADC HIV and AIDS strategic framework (2003-2007) and the instruments for its operationalisation","field_subtitle":"SADC Secretariat, June 2008","field_url":"http://www.sadc.int/downloads/HIVAIDS/TERMS%20OF%20REFERENCE%202008.pdf","body":"The SADC Secretariat is inviting tenders to review the SADC HIV and AIDS Strategic Framework (2003-2007) and the instruments for its operationalisation. The deadline for the bid is 7th July 2008 at 16.00hrs. Tenders should be admitted in two sealed separate envelopes clearly labeled Technical Proposal and Financial Proposal and both with the inscription: REVIEW OF THE SADC HIV AND AIDS STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK. The proposals should be addressed to: The Secretary, SADC Internal Tender Evaluation Committee (SITEC), SADC Secretariat, KHAMA CRESECENT, PRIVATE BAG 0095, BOTSWANA. Please note that faxed or emailed proposals will not be considered. The terms of reference are available at the link above.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The AIDS road to Comprehensive Primary Health Care for all?","field_subtitle":"Gorik Ooms, Wim Van Damme, Marie Laga, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp and Nathan Ford, University of Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"\r\nOn 28 May 2008, the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM, Antwerp) hosted a workshop at the World Health Organization (WHO, Geneva) to review the evidence on positive and negative impacts of the global AIDS response in low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa on general health systems and services. The workshop involved people working in AIDS and health services, in civil society and in academia with and from Sub-Saharan Africa. \r\n\r\nThe original question was simple and straightforward: what is the evidence to support or refute recent claims that global resources allocated to fight AIDS are over inflated and do little to support, and may even undermine, health systems?\r\n\r\nDiscussions quickly moved beyond this original question. The Alma Ata concept of Primary Health Care (PHC) \u2013 comprehensive PHC rather than selective PHC \u2013 proved to be a uniting concept. The real question became: how can the global AIDS response best contribute to the realisation of Comprehensive PHC? Most participants agreed that there are lessons to be learned \u2013 good and bad \u2013 from the global AIDS response, that will help us move closer towards Comprehensive PHC for all.\r\n\r\nThere is evidence of the global AIDS response strengthening general health systems and services, and there is also evidence of the global AIDS response weakening general health systems and services. \r\n\r\nThe most important point of stress identified related to the overall shortage of health workers. In some countries, the AIDS response was reported to have led to an \u2018internal brain drain\u2019, with health workers abandoning their previous occupations to work on AIDS programmes.  In other countries, the AIDS response enabled improved working conditions of health workers across the board, helping to attract and or retain more health workers.   \r\n\r\nWithout systematic reviews, or an agreed score card allowing us to add up the strengthening effects and to subtract the weakening, we cannot conclude if the overall result is predominantly negative or positive. However, the positive effects of strengthening general health systems and services seem be more likely where national public sector led strategies explicitly aimed for these positive synergies. This finding suggests that if recipient countries want AIDS funding to strengthen general health systems and services, they need to negotiate the needed flexibility from donors for this.\r\n\r\nTherefore, we felt it would be more productive to focus on what measures promote positive synergies and avoid negative synergies - to support this, rather than trying to make a conclusive statement on whether the balance is currently positive or negative.  \r\n\r\nOne key issue is the under-funding of health care in developing countries. Whether the objective is Comprehensive PHC for all, fulfilling the Right to Health obligation, or achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), neither national nor international funding of health care measures up.\r\n\r\nScarcity of human and financial resources was observed to drive competition and rivalry. At the same time, health funding should not only increase, but also become more reliable in the long run. For ministries of health to embark to an ambitious health workforce programme, for example, a long term financing perspective is needed. It doesn\u2019t make sense to increase training capacity today, if 10 years from now the additional health workers\u2019 salaries cannot be secured to employ trained personnel. A new concept of sustainability adopted for AIDS treatment \u2013 where sustainability is based on domestic resources and sustained international funding \u2013 should be expanded to health systems and services, including salaries of health workers.  \r\n\r\nMost participants to the meeting acknowledged that AIDS activists have been more successful than the proponents of PHC at getting their priority high on the political and funding agendas. However, within the spirit of Comprehensive PHC, they saw this could be an opportunity rather than a threat, if this is used to equally raise the profile on general health systems and services, not to depress the profile given to AIDS responses. \r\n\r\nDelegates felt the means to this was through renewed impetus for what is fundamentally a shared and uniting paradigm of Comprehensive PHC, including AIDS prevention and treatment, where:\r\n\u2022\tHealth (and health care) is a human right, and an entitlement \r\n\u2022\tProgramming and financing is adapted to needs and not to scarcity of human and financial resources \r\n\u2022\tMacroeconomic policies are adjusted to vital needs and not the other way around\r\n\u2022\tConcerns about the sustainability of health care is addressed as a shared global responsibility, depending as much on sustained national funding as on sustained international funding \r\n\u2022\tThe people whose health is at stake are involved in the decision-making process\r\nWhere the global AIDS response has made significant progress on these issues, the benefits of this progress must be extended to general health systems and services.\r\n\r\nTherefore:\r\n\u2022\tGovernments must live up to their promises: governments of low-income countries must allocate 15% of their domestic government revenue to health while governments of high-income countries must allocate the equivalent of 0.7% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to global solidarity, and 15% of that (0.1% of GDP) to health.\r\n\u2022\tThese commitments should be open-ended (as long as needed), without aiming for national financial resources to replace international financial resources as soon as possible, as this would undermine the crafting of ambitious health plans, including workforce plans.   \r\n\u2022\tCeilings on health expenditure (included in policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund) must not hamper the realisation of the right to health or Comprehensive PHC for all.\r\n\u2022\tThe people whose right to Comprehensive PHC is at stake have the right and the duty to be involved in critical decisions that affect their health.\r\n\u2022\tThe global aid architecture must be reorganised in such a manner that it supports Comprehensive PHC for all, not one part of Comprehensive PHC at the expense of another; andGeneral health systems and services not only need strengthening, but also transforming: involving and working with communities as participants of health systems and services, rather than merely \u2018clients\u2019 or passive recipients of health services.\r\n\r\nWe found that the global AIDS response created real challenges for health systems and services, but also that there are ways to tackle and minimise them. The global AIDS response also created real opportunities, which should be maximized.\r\n\r\nComprehensive PHC is a uniting goal for all constituencies. It demands a significant mobilisation of knowledge, experience and additional funding. We cannot afford to repeat the mistake of three decades ago, when the ideal of Comprehensive PHC was abandoned as unaffordable, leaving us with the present health and health systems deficit. \r\n\r\nThis oped is not intended to be an accurate record of the meeting referred to which can be obtained from the authors located at Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp [http://www.itg.be/itg/GeneralSite/Generalpage.asp].  EQUINET welcomes further opeds on the issues raised in this oped and on Comprehensive PHC, particularly from an equity perspective. Please send debate, comment or queries on the issues raised, or communications for oped authors to the EQUINET secretariat, email admin@equinetafrica.org.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The burden of disease profile of residents of Nairobi's slums: Results from a Demographic Surveillance System","field_subtitle":"Kyobutungi C, Ziraba AK, Ezeh A and Y\u00e9 Y: Population Health Metrics 6(1), 10 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.pophealthmetrics.com/content/6/1/1","body":"With increasing urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa and poor economic performance, the growth of slums is unavoidable. About 71% of urban residents in Kenya live in slums. Slums are characteristically unplanned, underserved by social services, and their residents are largely underemployed and poor. Recent research shows that the urban poor fare worse than their rural counterparts on most health indicators, yet much about the health of the urban poor remains unknown. This study aims to quantify the burden of mortality of the residents in two Nairobi slums, using a Burden of Disease approach and data generated from a Demographic Surveillance System. Data from the Nairobi Urban Health and Demographic Surveillance System (NUHDSS) collected between January 2003 and December 2005 were analysed. Core demographic events in the NUHDSS including deaths are updated three times a year; cause of death is ascertained by verbal autopsy and cause of death is assigned according to the ICD 10 classification. Years of Life Lost due to premature mortality (YLL) were calculated by multiplying deaths in each subcategory of sex, age group and cause of death, by the Global Burden of Disease standard life expectancy at that age. The overall mortality burden per capita was 205 YLL/1,000 person years. Children under the age of five years had more than four times the mortality burden of the rest of the population, mostly due to pneumonia and diarrhoeal diseases. Among the population aged five years and above, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis accounted for about 50% of the mortality burden. Slum residents in Nairobi have a high mortality burden from preventable and treatable conditions. It is necessary to focus on these vulnerable populations since their health outcomes are comparable to or even worse than the health outcomes of rural dwellers who are often the focus of most interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The changing conceptions and focus of health research in East Africa","field_subtitle":"Langat SK, Onyatta JP: African Journal of Health Sciences 13(1-2): 1-6, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=205&id=40917","body":"Perceptions in health research are a product of the circumstances within the society, where the research activities are situated. In East Africa there has been a change in conceptualisation over a period of time from an elitist de-linked status to the present, which has evolved to embrace the local community. In this paper, researchers trace the changes and highlight some occurrences that exerted the greatest influence in shaping the notions that currently dominate in research. They conclude that the paradigm shift is a positive development and that the present conception is suitable for heath research at this point in time.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Kates J and Wilson Leggoe A: HIV/ AIDS Policy Fact Sheet 7361: 1-2, Kaiser Family Foundation, October 2005","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/KATaids30062008.pdf","body":"Mozambique had 1.3 million people estimated to be living with HIV by end 2003. The epidemic poses significant development challenges to this low-income country. The Government of Mozambique formed a National AIDS Council (NAC) in 2000, and is currently operating its National Strategic Plan to Combat HIV/AIDS for 2005-2009.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The International NGO Code of Conduct for Health Systems Strengthening","field_subtitle":"23 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/NONgov200608.pdf","body":"This Code of Conduct for Health Systems Strengthening offers guidance on how international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can work in host countries in a way that respects and supports the primacy of the government\u2019s responsibility for organising health system delivery. The code is intended to be clear, direct, succinct and action-oriented. There are six areas where NGOs can do better: 1) hiring policies; 2) compensation schemes; 3) training and support; 4) minimising the management burden on government due to multiple NGO projects in their countries; 5) helping governments connect communities to the formal health systems; and 6) providing better support to government systems through policy advocacy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The material and political bases of lived poverty in Africa: Insights from the Afrobarometer","field_subtitle":"Bratton M (editor): Afrobarometer 98, May 2008","field_url":"http://www.afrobarometer.org/papers/AfropaperNo98.pdf","body":"The Afrobarometer has developed an experiential measure of lived poverty called the Lived Poverty Index (LPI). It measures how frequently people go without basic necessities during the course of a year. This is a portion of the central core of the concept of poverty not captured by existing objective or subjective measures. As an individual measure, the LPI is found to be valid and reliable. However, it exhibits only moderate external validity when compared with absolute measures of national wealth. Contrary to what appears to be the consensus among economists, GDP growth is accompanied by increases in lived poverty, and there is only a weak relationship between LPI and measures of human development or income poverty. At the same time, lived poverty is strongly related to country level measures of political freedom. This supports Sen's (1999) arguments about development as freedom and Halperin et al\u2019s (2005) arguments about the \u201cdemocracy advantage\u201d in development. This paper concludes that this measure does well at measuring the experiential core of poverty, and capturing it in a way that other widely used international development indicators do not.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Think Tank Initiative: Applications invited","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/thinktank","body":"The Think Tank Initiative invites applications from independent African organisations that are committed to using research to inform and influence social and economic policy. The Initiative will provide multi-year funding to promising think tanks, and will work with successful applicants to improve their organizational performance. The Think Tank Initiative is a new, multi-donor program dedicated to strengthening independent policy research institutions \u2013 or \u201cthink tanks\u201d \u2013 in developing countries, enabling them to better provide sound research that both informs and influences policy. The Initiative will focus its activities in East and West Africa, South Asia and Latin America. The deadline for submissions is 19 August 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding access to medicines: Consultation note for a global research network proposal","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.atmresearchnetworksurvey.co.uk/","body":"The UK Department for International development (DFID) is considering the establishment of a global Access to Medicines Research Network (ATM RN). Is it anticipated that this network will bring together research institutions from developed and developing countries to enhance the available evidence on how to make medicines affordable and accessible to the poorest populations. To inform the design of the ATM RN DFID is now holding an open consultation with interested parties. An online survey is available from 1-30 June. All are invited to send your views and comments to inform the establishment of the network (use the link provided).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Vacancy:  Regional campaign/advocacy manager of Soul City HIV and AIDS campaign","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A candidate is sought to manage the development and implementation of Soul City\u2019s 10-country Southern Africa regional HIV/AIDS prevention campaign (One Love Campaign). In addition, the job involves supporting the implementation of advocacy campaigns in four Southern African countries. The One Love Campaign rolls out across 10 southern African countries from October 2008 to October 2009. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33233","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Vouchers for scaling up insecticide-treated nets in Tanzania: Methods for monitoring and evaluation of a national health system intervention","field_subtitle":"Hanson K, Nathan R, Marchant T, Mponda H, Jones C, Bruce J, Stephen G, Mulligan J, Mshinda H and Armstrong Schellenberg J: BMC Public Health 8(205), 10 June 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/8/205/abstract","body":"The Tanzania National Voucher Scheme (TNVS) uses the public health system and the commercial sector to deliver subsidised insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) to pregnant women. The system began operation in October 2004 and by May 2006 was operating in all districts in the country. Evaluating complex public health interventions which operate at national level requires a multidisciplinary approach, novel methods, and collaboration with implementers to support the timely translation of findings into programme changes. This paper describes this novel approach to delivering ITNs and the design of the monitoring and evaluation (M&E). A comprehensive and multidisciplinary M&E design was developed collaboratively between researchers and the National Malaria Control Programme. Five main domains of investigation were identified: (1) ITN coverage among target groups, (2) provision and use of reproductive and child health services, (3) \"leakage\" of vouchers, (4) the commercial ITN market, and (5) cost and cost-effectiveness of the scheme. The evaluation plan combined quantitative (household and facility surveys, voucher tracking, retail census and cost analysis) and qualitative (focus groups and in-depth interviews) methods. This plan was defined in collaboration with implementing partners but undertaken independently. Findings were reported regularly to the national malaria control programme and partners, and used to modify the implementation strategy over time. The M&E of the TNVS is a potential model for generating information to guide national and international programmers about options for delivering priority interventions. It is independent, comprehensive, provides timely results, includes information on intermediate processes to allow implementation to be modified, measures leakage as well as coverage, and measures progress over time.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Website on human rights and HIV in southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.pulp.up.ac.za/catalog.html","body":"The Pretoria University Law Press (PULP) is based at the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, South Africa. PULP endeavours to publish and make available innovative, high-quality scholarly texts on law in Africa. PULP also publishes a series of collections of legal documents related to public law in Africa, as well as text books from African countries other than South Africa. On their website, they have interesting information on human rights and HIV and give case studies from southern African countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"What does Access to Maternal Care Mean Among the Urban Poor? Factors Associated with Use of Appropriate Maternal Health Services in the Slum Settlements of Nairobi, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Fotso JC, Ezeh A, Madise N, Ziraba A and Ogollah R: Journal\tMaternal and Child Health Journal, 23 February 2008","field_url":"http://www.springerlink.com/content/f2448k2k22p6023n/","body":"The study seeks to improve understanding of maternity health seeking behaviours in resource-deprived urban settings. The objective of this paper is to identify the factors which influence the choice of place of delivery among the urban poor, with a distinction between sub-standard and \u201cappropriate\u201d health facilities. The data are from a maternal health project carried out in two slums of Nairobi, Kenya. A total of 1,927 women were interviewed, and 25 health facilities where they delivered, were assessed. Facilities were classified as either \u201cinappropriate\u201d or \u201cappropriate\u201d. Place of delivery is the dependent variable. Ordered logit models were used to quantify the effects of covariates on the choice of place of delivery, defined as a three-category ordinal variable. Although 70% of women reported that they delivered in a health facility, only 48% delivered in a facility with skilled attendant. Besides education and wealth, the main predictors of place of delivery included being advised during antenatal care to deliver at a health facility, pregnancy \u201cwantedness\u201d, and parity. The influence of health promotion (i.e., being advised during antenatal care visits) was significantly higher among the poorest women. Interventions to improve the health of urban poor women should include improvements in the provision of, and access to, quality obstetric health services. Women should be encouraged to attend antenatal care where they can be given advice on delivery care and other pregnancy-related issues. Target groups should include poorest, less educated and higher parity women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO report says 9.7 million at risk of death from AIDS today; AHF renews call for US Congress to commit to scale up treatment to save seven million lives","field_subtitle":"AIDS Healthcare Foundation, 4 June 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6p9ak6","body":"This World Health Organisation/UNAIDS/UNICEF report documents appreciable global progress in the effort to deliver lifesaving antiretroviral treatment (ARVs) to people living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries; however, it also underscores the crucial need to maintain a focus on scaling up and providing lifesaving antiretroviral treatment in programs like PEPFAR (the President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) notes AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF). The report claimed that three million people were on treatment in 2007 (a goal that World Health Organization officials had initially hoped to reach in 2005 in its ambitious \u20183x5\u2019 treatment plan), but it also revealed a more ominous trend that AHF and other advocates believe calls for a renewed and stepped up commitment to delivering care and antiretroviral treatment\u2014more than 9.7 million people with HIV/AIDS around the world are in critical need of antiretroviral treatment (those who would otherwise die within two years) than at the end of 2006; 2.6 million more are in need today than one year ago.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Secretariat's publications policy questioned at board meeting","field_subtitle":"SUNS, 30 May 2008","field_url":"","body":"Among the questions raised at the WHO's 123rd Executive Board meeting were the need and rationale for the new publications policy, what the present policy is, and what will be the criteria for determining which issues have \"policy implications for the Organisation\" and which comprise \"controversial health related issues\" and thus have to go through additional clearance by the Director-General's Office. Other concerns raised included how the centralisation of the clearance process may remove the clearance authority of the WHO's regional directors, the broad definition of the term \"publications\" as it covers \"materials that are issued by WHO to the public in whatever format and through whatever channel\" including advocacy and training materials, how the policy will affect timely support by WHO to countries, and concerns about \"self-censorship\" as a result of the policy and transparency in the process.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33212","field_issue_date":"2008-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"61st World Health Assembly: Bold new platform for public health research","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 24 May 2004","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2008/wha02/en/index.html","body":"The 61st World Health Assembly, which comprised of a record 2704 participants from 190 nations, set WHO on a course to tackle longstanding, new and looming threats to global public health. Among its achievements, the Health Assembly provided a platform for removing barriers and using innovative methods to encourage research, development and access to medicines for the common diseases of the developing world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"61st World Health Assembly: Commission on Social Determinants of Health presents recommendations","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, 22 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/2008/wha61/journal3/en/index.html","body":"The conditions in which people live and work - the social determinants of health - help enhance or erode their health. At the direction of Health Assembly in 2005, the Commission on Social Determinants of Health has been examining these factors. The chair of the commission, Professor Sir Michael Marmot briefed delegates on the key recommendations of the commission's work. He said the commission's final report will pose recommendations under three action areas: the conditions of daily life; the structural drivers of those conditions; and the monitoring and training needed to measure progress. Concrete examples of implementing a social determinants approach to health were given from Brazil, Finland, India and Sri Lanka, as well as the International Organization of Migration. A common theme throughout the briefing was the need for more participation and representation from all stakeholder groups in these debates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"61st World Health Assembly: Health worker training falling far below needs","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, 22 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/2008/wha61/journal3/en/index.html","body":"The number of people currently being trained to become health workers falls far below the levels needed to ensure health goals are met, according to the Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA), a WHO partnership. The 2006 World Health Assembly Resolution (59.23) called on all Member States to help rapidly increase the number of health workers. In response, GHWA asked a group of experts to review and report on the experiences and research from around the world, and to draw up proposals on how to scale up the education and training of health workers. Drawing on case studies from 10 countries, the report details a set of recommendations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"61st World Health Assembly: Primary Health Care is essential","field_subtitle":"Mahler H: World Health Organisation, 21 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/2008/wha61/journal2/en/index.html","body":"Former Director General of WHO (1973-1988), Halfdan Mahler, said Primary Health Care is essential health care based on scientifically and socially sound methods and technologies that is made available to everyone. It was inspirational to an earlier generation but lost its primary place in public health when it was replaced by vertical programmes, like smallpox eradication, with their single goal, funding and response structure. He cautioned a room packed with hundreds of delegates that to make real progress we should stop seeing the world through medically-tinted glasses. Citing the 'transcended beauty of the Constitution of the WHO', he said that PHC aims to address inequity and social injustices that still plague countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"61st World Health Assembly: Progress on immunisation reported by many countries","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, 22 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/2008/wha61/journal3/en/index.html","body":"More than 40 delegations at the WHA described the status of immunization in their countries, their efforts, future plans and successes. The 68% reduction in measles deaths globally in just six years of accelerated activities points to the potential for such achievements in other areas of immunisation. Constraints raised by governments included financial support especially for new, more expensive life-saving vaccines and for low middle-income countries who are not eligible for support from the GAVI Alliance. The importance of high data quality and injection safety were also of concern to Member States.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"A Critical Review of Uganda\u2019s Draft Industrial Property Bill","field_subtitle":"Medicine Access Digest 4 (1), March 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/HEPaids17052008.pdf","body":"Most Ugandans are likely to go without essential medicines if the government does not take advantage of the flexibility provisions of the WTO\u2019s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in the process of enacting the national intellectual property (IP) law. HEPS-Uganda\u2019s review of the draft Industrial Property Bill 2007 established that while the draft bill attempts to incorporate the TRIPS flexibilities, some of them were drafted in a restrictive style such that Uganda may not derive maximum flexibility as envisaged by TRIPS Agreement, the Doha Declaration and other non-legally binding instruments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A PRA project report: Community action for health in \u2018Ontevrede\u2019 community","field_subtitle":"University of Namibia; Ontevrede community","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRA%20UNAM2008.pdf","body":"This report of the second phase of this project outlines the work by a working group from the community in an informal settlement in Namibia and from the University to take forward community identified priorities for environmental health improvements, particularly sanitation. The report describes the engagement with the local authorities in a community driven process, and the challenges in building community empowerment for health actions in informal settlement areas. Community members have weak access to decision making on their services and actions to implement even the most basic PHC interventions take time to build the co-operation and responses from necessary stakeholders. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Abstract book: Knowledge for action on equity in health in Uganda, Hotel Africana, Kampala, Uganda, 27-28 March 2008","field_subtitle":"HEPS-Uganda, Makerere University, Institute of Public Health, EQUINET","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ABSugandameeting270308.pdf","body":"Over the past fourteen years considerable effort has been made to restore the functional capacity of the health sector, reactivate disease control programmes and re-orient services to Primary Health Care in Uganda.   Ensuring that the resources for health fairly reach those with greatest need and that all have fair opportunities for health is a priority and not a matter for the Ministry of Health alone, but for all sectors whose activities affect health, and for all sections of society. As a part of this there is a body of work taking place in Uganda in government, academic and civil society institutions to explore, understand and propose options for reducing inequalities in health in Uganda. This abstract book presents the papers from a national meeting that aimed to assess the progress of equity in health in Uganda, review gaps and needs in the Ugandan health sector, to feed into and draw from experience in East and Southern Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Abstract call: 12th World Congress on Public Health, 27 April - 1 May 200, Istanbul, Turkey","field_subtitle":"World Federation of Public Health Associations","field_url":"http://wfpha.confex.com/wfpha/2009/cfp.cgi","body":"The 12th Triennial Congress will address the enormous challenges and opportunities for public health organizations worldwide to make a difference.\r\nThe World Federation of Public Health Associations and the Turkish Public Health Association invite local, national and international public health leaders, advocates and students to submit abstracts dealing with the major cross-cutting sub-themes: education, research, and practice. These abstracts should demonstrate the link between public health education, research, and practice and improved health outcomes. The abstracts should also showcase innovations, practices, tools and transferable lessons from across the globe that will help us make a decided difference in global public health. Submit abstracts in the following general topics: Education in Public Health for 21st Century; Global Public Health Workforce; Public Health & Health Services Research & Technology; Global Governance; Health and Development; Comparative Analysis of Health Systems; Strengthening Global Public Health Systems; Financing Global Public Health; Environmental Safety & Stewardship; Health, Geopolitics, & Public Diplomacy; Public Health, Political Will, & the Public Good. Abstract Submission Deadline is Saturday, 5 July 2008, Midnight Pacific Time.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to AIDS medicines stumbles on trade rules","field_subtitle":"Wise J: WHO Bulletin 84(5): 337-424, May 2006 ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/84/5/news10506/en/index.html","body":"Developing countries have several international trade law provisions at their disposal to help them buy life-saving medicines at affordable prices for public health needs, particularly HIV/AIDS. But only a few countries are using these because of red tape and political pressure. This article looks at what WHO is doing to support countries in using international trade law effectively to secure medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to information as a tool for socio-economic justice","field_subtitle":"Dimba M: Pambazuka News, 8 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/47179","body":"In countries plagued by socio-economic imbalances inherited from undemocratic systems of government, it is crucial that the products of democratic transition, such as freedom of information legislation, must be used to address imbalances. In the field of socio-economic rights, freedom of information creates a basis for contestation and justification of government decisions on resource allocation. It creates a basis for a fair and reasonable manner of decision-making.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Activists voice concern over WHO's publications policy","field_subtitle":"Afronets, 30 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041810","body":"Some thirty-five civil society organisations have voiced serious concerns over the World Health Organization's publications policy, arguing that the proposed policy, if implemented, will result in a tendency towards self-censorship by the WHO and its staff and HQ offices, to the detriment of the needs and interests of public health, especially in developing countries. They are also very concerned that this policy will hamper timely advice and support by WHO HQ and regional offices to member states over important issues such as application of intellectual property rights and the use of TRIPS flexibilities, other trade and health matters, reproductive health care and other critical issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Alma-Ata in 1978: Whither the Health for All Vision and Primary Health Care Strategy?","field_subtitle":"Dr Halfdan Mahler, Former Director-General of WHO: Recirculation of address to the 61st World Health Assembly","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/2008/wha61/hafdan_mahler_speech/en/index.html","body":"This editorial is drawn from a speech by Dr Halfdan Mahler to the World Health Assembly in May 2008. Dr Mahler was the Director General of WHO at the time of the 1978 Alma Ata declaration on Primary Health Care. He stated at the 2008 WHA:\r\n\r\nMilan Kundera wrote in one of his books: \"The struggle against human oppression is the struggle between memory and forgetfulness.\" So allow me to remind all of us today, of the transcendental beauty and significance of the definition of health in WHO's Constitution: \"Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.\"\r\n\r\nThis definition is immediately followed by: \"The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.\" Most importantly, the very first constitutional function of WHO reads: \"To act as the directing and coordinating authority on international health work.\" Please do note that the Constitution says \"the\" and not \"a\" directing and coordinating authority.\r\n\r\nSo please, allow this old man in front of you to insist that unless we all become partisans in renewed local and global battles for social and economic equity in the spirit of distributive justice, we shall indeed betray the future of our children and grandchildren.\r\n\r\nMy memory tells me that the World Health Assembly had this in mind when, in 1977, it decided that the main social target for governments and WHO in the coming decades should be the attainment of what is known as \"Health for All\".\r\n\r\nAnd, the Health Assembly described that as a level of health that will permit all the people of the world to lead socially and economically productive lives. The Health Assembly did not consider health as an end in itself, but rather as a means to an end.\r\n\r\nThat is, I believe as it should be.\r\n\r\nWhen people are mere pawns in an economic and profit growth game, that game is mostly lost for the underprivileged.\r\n\r\nLet me postulate that if we could imagine a tabula rasa in health without having to deal with the constraints - tyranny if you wish - of the existing medical consumer industry, we would hardly go about dealing with health as we do now in the beginning of the 21st century.\r\n\r\nTo make real progress we must, therefore, stop seeing the world through our medically tainted glasses. Discoveries on the multifactoral causation of disease, have for a long time, called attention to the association between health problems of great importance to man and social, economic and other environmental factors. Yet, considering the tremendous political, social, technical and economic implications of such a multidimensional awareness of health problems I still find most of today's so-called health professions very conventional, indeed.\r\n\r\nIt is, therefore, high time that we realize, in concept and in practice, that a knowledge of a strategy of initiating social change is as potent a tool in promoting health, as knowledge of medical technology.\r\n\r\nPrimary health care is indeed conditioned by its holistic framework and as such, may use different expressions. For example, in some countries health management has to be considered along with such things as producing more or better food, improving irrigation, marketing products, etc. It is not that people consider health services as unimportant, but there are things like getting food, or a piece of land, or house or an accessible source of water which are more of a life and death nature and must, in the wisdom of the people, come first to make other things meaningful. We have rarely considered these needs as falling within our expressed policies for health development and therefore, we risk being restricted, unilateral and ineffective in our action.\r\n\r\nAgain, I am afraid that conventional or medical wisdom has done very little to provide scientific and political credibility to the alleged importance of individual, family and community participation in health promotion.\r\n\r\nThese concerns, to which I have just alluded prompted an organizational study on \"Methods of promoting the development of basic health services\" by WHO's Executive Board in 1973 in which it is bluntly stated that:\r\n\r\n\"There appears to be widespread dissatisfaction of population about their health services for varying reasons. Such dissatisfaction occurs in the developed as well as in the Third World. The causes can be summarized as a failure to meet the expectations of the populations; an inability of the health services to deliver a level of national coverage adequate to meet the stated demands and the changing needs of different societies; a wide gap (which is not closing) in health status between countries, and between different groups within countries; rapidly rising costs without a visible and meaningful improvement in service; and a feeling of helplessness on the part of the consumer who feels (rightly or wrongly) that the health services and the personnel within them are progressing along an uncontrollable path of their own which may be satisfying to the health professionals but which is not what is most wanted by the consumer\".\r\n\r\nIt was this organizational study by WHO's Executive Board that led to the decision by WHO in co-sponsorship with UNICEF to convene \"The International Conference on Primary Health Care\" in the city of Alma-Ata in 1978.\r\n\r\nLet me then repeat with awe and admiration, the consensus concept of primary health care as contained in the Declaration of Alma-Ata 1978:\r\n\r\n\"Primary Health Care is essential health care based on practical, scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technology made universally accessible to individuals and families in the community through their full participation and at a cost that the community and the country can afford to maintain at every stage of their development in the spirit of self-reliance and self-determination. It forms an integral part, both of the country's health system, of which it is the central function and main focus, and of the overall social and economic development of the community.\r\n\r\n\"It is the first level of contact of individuals, the family and community with the national health system bringing health care as close as possible to where people live and work, and constitutes the first element of a continuing health care process.\"\r\n\r\nLet me also quote from the Declaration of Alma-Ata, that primary health care includes at least: education concerning prevailing health problems and the methods of preventing and controlling them; promotion of food supply and proper nutrition; an adequate supply of safe water and basic sanitation; maternal and child health care, including family planning; immunization against the major infectious diseases; prevention and control of locally endemic diseases; appropriate treatment of common diseases and injuries; and provision of essential drugs. In my opinion, an admirable summation of key priorities.\r\n\r\nAre you ready to address yourselves seriously to the existing gap between the health \"haves\" and the health \"have-nots\" and to adopt concrete measures to reduce it?\r\n\r\nAre you ready to ensure the proper planning and implementation of primary health care in coordinated efforts with other relevant sectors, in order to promote health as an indispensable contribution to the improvement of the quality of life of every individual, family and community as part of overall socio-economic development?\r\n\r\nAre you ready to make preferential allocations of health resources to the social periphery as an absolute priority?\r\n\r\nAre you ready to mobilize and enlighten individuals, families and communities in order to ensure their full identification with primary health care, their participation in its planning and management and their contribution to its application?\r\n\r\nAre you ready to introduce the reforms required to ensure the availability of relevant human resources and technology, sufficient to cover the whole country with primary health care within the next two decades at a cost you can afford?\r\n\r\nAre you ready to introduce, if necessary, radical changes in the existing health delivery system so that it properly supports primary health care as the overriding health priority?\r\n\r\nAre you ready to fight the political and technical battles required to overcome any social and economic obstacles and professional resistance to the universal introduction of primary health care?\r\n\r\nAre you ready to make unequivocal commitments to adopt primary health care and to mobilize international solidarity to attain the objective of health for all by the year 2000?\r\n\r\nAlma-Ata was, in my biased opinion, one of the rare occasions where a sublime consensus between the haves and the have-nots in local and global health emerged in the spirit of a famous definition of consensus: \"I am not trying to convince my adversaries that they are wrong, quite to the contrary, I am trying to unite with them, but at a higher level of insight.\"\r\n\r\nThe Alma-Ata primary health care consensus also reflects a famous truism: \"The Health Universe is only complete for those who see it in a complete light, it remains fragmented for those who see it in fragmented light!\"\r\n\r\nIn conclusion, my personal view is that the Alma-Ata primary health care consensus has had major inspirational and operational impacts in many countries having a critical mass of political and professional leadership combined with adequate human and financial resources to test its adaptability and applicability within the local realities through a heavy dose of systems and operations research.\r\n\r\nMind you, it is much easier to be rational, audacious and innovative when your are rich! But, please, let us not forget that the inspirational energies and the evidence base came from the developing countries themselves, be they governmental or non-governmental sources.\r\n\r\nFor a majority of these countries, financial support from so-called donors was essential to carry out a broad array of studies, in appropriate technology, human resources development, infrastructure development, social participation, financing etc. in order to integrate the Alma-Ata vision into heavily constrained local contexts.\r\n\r\nMost donors, after an initial outburst of enthusiasm quickly lost interest or distorted the very essence of the Alma-Ata Health for All Vision and Primary Health Care Strategy under the ominous name of selective primary health care which broadly reflected the biases of national and international donors and not the needs and demands of developing countries.\r\n\r\nBut in spite of these brutal impediments many developing countries have shown, before and after the Alma-Ata happening, courageous adhesion to its health message of equity in local and global health. Civil society movements have also been prime shakers and movers in these admirable efforts.\r\n\r\nAnd so, being an inveterate optimist I do believe that the struggle between memory and forgetfulness can be won in favour of the Alma-Ata Health for All Vision and its related Primary Health Care Strategy. Let us not forget that visionaries have been the realists in human progression.\r\n\r\nAnd so, distinguished audience, let us use the complete light generated by WHO's Constitution and the Alma-Ata Health for All Vision and Primary Health Care Strategy to guide us along the bumpy, local and global health development road.\r\nThank you.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Alternatives to the food crisis","field_subtitle":"Angus I: Pambazuka News, 15 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/48119","body":"The regressive food policies imposed on poor countries by the World Bank and IMF are codified and enforced by the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Agriculture (AoA). The AoA, as Afsar Jafri of Focus on the Global South writes, is \"biased in favour of capital-intensive, corporate agribusiness-driven and export-oriented agriculture.\" AoA should be abolished, and Third World countries should have the right to unilaterally cancel liberalization policies imposed through the World Bank, IMF, and WTO, as well as through bilateral free trade agreements such as NAFTA and CAFTA.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Archbishop Tutu, Africa Public Health 15% Now Campaign urge heads of state and governments to restate and implement AU Abuja April 2001 15% Commitment","field_subtitle":"Africa Public Health ","field_url":"http://www.africa15percentcampaign.org","body":"African heads of state and government must not revise or further delay implementation of AU Abuja April 2001 15% health commitment says Archbishop Desmond Tutu & 15% Now Campaign. One hundred and forty-one African and global organisations and networks call on African leaders and finance ministers to restate 15% commitment at next AU Summit in Egypt. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33137","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"ARVs reduce mortality in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Health-e, 9 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20031952","body":"In a rare study of mortality before and after ARVs, researchers have found a drop in deaths of 10 percent. Free antiretroviral therapy has significantly reduced mortality in rural Malawi. The researchers investigated the mortality in a population before and after the introduction of free ARVs, in turn measuring the effects of such programmes on survival rates in the population. Researchers measured the mortality in a population of 32,000 in northern Malawi, from August 2002 when free ARV therapy was not available in the district, until February 2006, eight months after an ARV clinic was opened. Comparisons revealed that overall mortality rates among adults had declined by 10 percent. This equalled nine deaths averted in an eight-month observation period after the introduction of ARVs. Mortality decreased by 35 percent in adults near the district\u2019s main road, where death rates before antiretroviral therapy were highest.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Asthma still a big killer","field_subtitle":"Thom A: Health-e, 6 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20031949","body":"Under-treatment, inappropriate treatment and lack of education for asthma patients in South Africa are contributing to still unacceptably high morbidity rates. The most recent figures reveal that at least 10 percent of South Africans have asthma with many still dying unnecessarily, especially people in poorer households. Asthma deaths are almost all preventable and a 2004 report by the Global Initiative for Asthma found that South Africa has the world's fourth highest asthma death rate among five- to 35-year-olds. Out of every 100 000 South Africans with asthma, 18,5 die of the illness. Asthma therapy is freely available in the government health service. The most effective means of controlling asthma is to use a preventer pump containing an anti-inflammatory. The most cost-effective way of relieving an attack is a pump with a bronchodilator. A study by the University of Pretoria to understand the impact (including the impact on health-related quality of life) of asthma on South African asthmatics found that patients were not accessing treatment or were being inappropriately treated.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for entries: South African Health Review Cover Student Photography Contest","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust, 30 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041800","body":"This photography contest has a total of R5 000 in prizes to be won and the winning photograph will appear on the cover of the 2008 South African Health Review (SAHR). Furthermore, the top 10 photographs will be showcased at the official launch of the SAHR in November 2008. The contest is open to students currently enrolled in a Photography, Arts or related area Department (i.e. tertiary institution) in South Africa. Entries must be accompanied by a copy of a valid student ID and by the name of your school and instructor. Photographs must be high-quality prints and can be colour or black and white. Photographs will become property of HST, which retains rights to publish photographs in future publications, and will not be returned. The deadline for submitting entries is 5 September 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Expression of Interest: Impact assessment of financial aid flows to civil society in southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Southern Africa Trust, 21 May 2008","field_url":"","body":"The Southern Africa Trust is seeking a consultancy to undertake an assessment of the impact of financial aid flows on the policy work of regional civil society in Southern Africa as part of its ongoing work to engage with donors on financial aid flows to Southern Africa but also as a way of strengthening its work around supporting increased aid flows to civil society for them to be able to effectively to influence policy to overcome poverty. Expressions of interest must be submitted by 28 May 2008, 15.00pm","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33178","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for participants: The Health Systems Action Network","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Action Network","field_url":"http://www.hsanet.org/modules/roster/user_add.aspx.","body":"The Health Systems Action Network (HSAN) invites you to apply to join its membership and become a part of a global voice for Health Systems Strengthening. HSAN is a volunteer grassroots-level global network of developing country professionals committed to strengthening health systems through effective involvement of diverse stakeholders, spreading of actionable knowledge, and better management of resources that is guided by evidence. HSAN\u00b4s emphasis is to increase access to information on effective strategies that work to strengthen health systems, and to avoid implementation of strategies that have been found to be less effective in strengthening health systems. HSAN aims to provide a platform for voices from developing countries, and fill the gaps that exist in effectively addressing HSS issues at the national, regional, and global levels by establishing partnerships at each level. If you have strong health systems experience, you are encouraged to apply and the selection committee will then invite those screened and accepted as full members.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can health evidence work to save lives?","field_subtitle":"Walgate R: Real Health News, 21 May 2008","field_url":"","body":"Writers and journalists are invited to submit articles for a 44-page magazine for the Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health in Bamako later this year, with support from IDRC (Canada), on the connection - or lack of connection - between research for health, health policy-making, and health action, mainly (but not entirely) in Africa. Article proposals should be submitted immediately and articles must be submitted by latest, end July 2008.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33099","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Child to Child Resource book","field_subtitle":"TALC, May 2008","field_url":"http://www.talcuk.org/books/child-to-child-a-resource-book-3rd-edition.htm","body":"This resource book is aimed at all who are interested in making Child-to-Child an integral part of their programmes. This revised edition of the widely used Child-to-Child Activity Sheets, includes changes based on WHOs Facts for Life. New activity sheets on bird flu, sexual health and safe motherhood and diabetes are included.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities","field_subtitle":"Human Rights Education Associates, 3 May 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4q93nn","body":"The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted by General Assembly resolution A/RES/61/611 in 2006 and entered into force on 3 May 2008. The purpose of the Convention is to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity. Persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Corporations Dominate Trade Panels that Set Global Health Policy: Public Health Groups Sue US Government for Fair and Democratic Representation","field_subtitle":"CPath, 17 May 2008","field_url":"","body":"At a hearing on 16 May 2008 in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, public health and health professionals will demand that corporate interests be balanced with public interest representation on US Industry Trade Advisory Committees (ITACs) that advise the US Trade Representative (USTR) on trade policies affecting public health. Non-profit and public interest organizations have been systematically denied posts on industry-dominated trade advisory committees that impact the health of millions of people around the world.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33149","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"CSOs express concern on WHO's publication policy","field_subtitle":"Third World Network Info Service on Intellectual Property Issues, 5 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/intellectual_property/info.service/2008/twn.ipr.info.080505.htm","body":"It is widely believed that the recent overhaul of WHO\u2019s publication policy is a response to recent pressures from some developed countries that were unhappy with some of its publications on the subject of IP and public health. There are serious concerns that the publications policy presented in the Secretariats Reports will result in 'self censorship' by WHO and its staff and will hamper timely advice and support by WHO HQ and regional offices to member states over important issues such as application of intellectual property rights and the use of TRIPS flexibilities, other trade and health matters, reproductive health care and other issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"CSOs rally for transparency in medicine procurement","field_subtitle":"HEPS Newsletter 4(1), March 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/HEPaids17052008.pdf","body":"The first African workshop on governance, transparency and accountability processes in access to medicine attracted delegates from 30 civil society organisations in Uganda, Kenya, Zambia and Ghana. The participants benefited from an eight-day training held at Windsor Hotel Entebbe from 17-24 February 2008, ahead of the launch of Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA) project in London in May. The MeTA project is a global initiative by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) aiming to use a multi-stakeholder approach towards increasing transparency around the regulation, selection, procurement, sale, distribution and use of medicines in developing countries, thereby strengthening governance, encouraging responsible business practices and ultimately improving access to medicines, especially for the poor. The MeTA project is being piloted in Ghana and discussions are going on for it to be launched in Uganda as well. Funded by DFID, the workshop was hosted by HEPS-Uganda, working in partnership with Health Research for Action (www.herabelgium.com) and Healthlink Worldwide (www.healthlink.org.uk).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 55:Migration of health workers in Kenya: The impact on health service delivery","field_subtitle":"Mwaniki DL and Dulo CO","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS55HRHdulo.pdf","body":"In this study, authors aimed to identify the impact of the migration of human resources for health on health services in Kenya. The World Health Organization (WHO) 2004 framework on health systems performance was used. The study concentrated on impacts on resource generation, stewardship and service provision and was limited to doctors and nurses. Despite data limitations, the study shows a general trend in migration both locally, from rural to urban areas and internationally, from Kenya to developed countries, with a high emigration rate of 51% for doctors and 71% of respondents indicating an intention to emigrate. From data collected, authors made a rough estimate of inward remittances of about US$90 million annually for nurses and doctors which, however, are not available to the health system and may not match outflows from the health system. In training doctors (schooling and university) alone, about US$95 million invested was lost in Kenya due to migration. Even if remittances were to be accounted for, there still appears to be a net outflow of capital from the country and its health system due to migration. This loss has negative impacts on workloads, especially at peripheral facilities and in some rural districts, which may impact on health service provision and on the referral chain. Increased workloads caused by understaffing result in stress, burn out and demotivation. These become push factors that lead remaining health workers to leave. There was some improvement in workloads in 2005/6 despite increases in service uptake, suggesting that there has been some policy response to the staff crisis in those facilities surveyed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 57: Removal of user fees at Primary Health Care facilities in Zambia: A study of the effects on utilisation and quality of care","field_subtitle":"Masiye F, Chitah BM, Chanda P, Simeo F","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Dis57FINchitah.pdf","body":"This study is a first attempt at gathering evidence on the effects of effects of user fee removal on aspects of utilisation and quality of services. The study was based on data collected from a sample of 23 districts in Zambia. The data included total utilisation, attendance levels at health centre outpatient and inpatient maternal and child health facilities, levels of respiratory infections, skin infections, diarrhoea and supervised deliveries, and the availability of drugs. Utilisation data is categorised by age (under-five years of age and over five years) and according to rural or urban districts. There was a substantial increase in total utilisation of public health services (50% increase in rural populations over 5) and an increase in drug consumption. Districts with a greater proportion of poor people recorded greater increases in utilisation of their facilities. Drug consumption in rural districts was estimated to have increased by about 40%. Staff workloads (calculated as the staff-to-patient ratio per day) in rural districts also showed a slight increase after user fees were removed. Based on patients' perceptions, there was no evidence of deterioration in the quality of care since user fees were removed. However, inadequate numbers of skilled health workers presents a major human resources threat to improving access by all. With sustained budget support from government to the DHMTs, the health system can continue to achieve its desired outcomes without relying on user fees.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Draft global strategy on public health, innovation and intellectual property","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, 3 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/phi/documents/IGWG_Outcome_document03Maypm.pdf","body":"The global strategy on public health, innovation and intellectual property aims to promote new thinking on innovation and access to medicines, as well as, provide a medium-term framework for securing an enhanced and sustainable basis for needs driven essential health research and development relevant to diseases which disproportionately affect developing countries, proposing clear objectives and priorities for Research and Development, and estimating funding needs in this area. In resolution WHA59.24 the Health Assembly recognised the growing burden of diseases and conditions that disproportionately affect developing countries, and particularly women and children. Reducing the very high incidence of communicable diseases in those countries is an overriding priority. At the same time, it is important for WHO Member States and the WHO Secretariat to recognise and better address the increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases in those countries. This document serves as the outcome-document of the agreements made on 3 May 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Egypt-African Union Statement","field_subtitle":"Media Statement: Africa 15% Now Campaign, 15 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=17978","body":"The loss of over 8 million lives a year to preventable, treatable, and manageable diseases and health conditions is not acceptable or unsustainable. The African Union's Public Health 15% Now Campaign has launched a 30 day countdown to the mid year African Union summit to be held in Egypt from the 24th of June. The 30 day countdown which starts from the 15th of May to the 15th of June is aimed at mobilising national level and continental support for a civil society message to urge African Heads of States to restate their commitment to and urgently implement the Abuja 2001 pledge by African Heads of State to allocate 15% of national budgets to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. \r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 88: Alma-Ata in 1978: Whither the Health for All Vision and Primary Health Care Strategy? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evidence of non-use of health management information systems data in Inbufumbira East Health Sub-district, Kisoro District, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Paschal N: Health Policy and Development 5(1): 1-10","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/66q9mj","body":"A goal of the health management information system (HMIS) is to provide reliable, comprehensive information about the health system to health managers, to enable them take decisions that will improve the services provided to the consumers. Whereas HMIS quality concerns like the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of reports have been more commonly assessed and reported about in a number of studies, relatively less documentation is found on the actual utilisation of the information generated from HMIS reports. Yet, the HMIS is not an end in itself but just a tool to inform managers and enable them take informed and timely decisions. This study assessed the utilisation of HMIS data for decision making at the grassroots level in Bufumbira East Health Sub-District (HSD) of Kisoro District. It was found that HMIS data were not used for decision making at the point of collection and that the HMIS was dogged by many problems like few dedicated staff. The staff lacked sensitization on the HMIS and were not trained in completing the reports and data analysis. Lower level units submitted their data directly to the district bypassing the HSD. The HMIS was not planned for and lacked funding and stationery. HMIS functioning was not a subject for support supervision and there was only verbal feedback from the district level. It was recommended that the normal flow of HMIS data through the HSD level be re-established and that support supervision on the HMIS be instituted. Planning for the improvement of the system would ultimately lead to its utilisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Food insecurity, poverty and the Malawian Starter Pack: Fresh start or false start?","field_subtitle":"Harrigan J: Food Policy 33(3):237-249, June 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5awqjc","body":"In the last decade a number of initiatives have been used in Malawi to tackle the issue of household food insecurity. One of the most controversial has been the Starter Pack programme launched in 1998. Initially consisting of a free handout of packs of improved maize seed, legumes and fertiliser to every small holder farm household in Malawi the scheme, under donor pressure, was subsequently scaled down to become a form of targeted social safety net programme. This paper analyses the strengths and weakness of both the original programme and its scaled down version.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"GATS Negotiations heat up - Human Rights input needed now","field_subtitle":"THREAD Action Alert, 1 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.3dthree.org/pdf_3D/ActionAlertGATS1.pdf","body":"This publication, on negotiations about trade in services indicates ways that human rights advocates can get involved to ensure their governments do not sign agreements that could have harmful human rights effects. Access to essential services, including water, education and health care are on the table as representatives at the WTO push for closure to trade talks in the coming months. Advocates must act now to ensure these agreements include full consideration of the potential human rights impacts of new policies. This Action Alert sets out actions and strategies for human rights advocates concerned about the issue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Insurance in low income countries: What evidence that it works?","field_subtitle":"Action for Global Health, 9 May 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5dnwey","body":"Some donors and governments propose that health insurance mechanisms can close health financing gaps and benefit poor people. Although beneficial for the people able to join, this method of financing health care has so far been unable to sufficiently fill financing gaps in health systems and improve access to quality health care for the poor. Donors and governments need to consider the evidence and scale up public resources for the health sector. Without adequate public funding and government stewardship, health insurance mechanisms pose a threat rather than an opportunity to the objectives of equity and universal access to health care. This study presents the evidence for and against different models of social health insurance for developing countries. It concluded that models should be assessed for whether they increase universal access including to poorest and most vulnerable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health research ethics review and needs of institutional ethics committees in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Ikingura JKB, Kruger M and Zeleke W: Tanzania Journal of Health Research 9(3):154-158","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/48j7zx","body":"This study was undertaken to describe the performance of health research ethics review procedures of six research centres in Tanzania. Data collection was done through a self-administered questionnaire and personal interviews. The results showed that there were on average 11 members (range= 8-14) in each Research Ethic Committee. However, female representation in the committees was low (15.2%). The largest proportion of the committee members was biomedical scientists (51.5%). Others included medical doctors (19.7%), social scientists (7.6%), laboratory technologists (10.6%), religious leaders (4.5%), statisticians (3.0%), teachers (1.5%) and lawyers (1.5). Committee members had different capacities to carry out review of research proposals. with the majority having moderate and good capacity. Only half of the respondents had prior ethics review training. Although the majority deemed that ethical guidelines were very important, there were challenges in the use of ethical guidelines which included lack of awareness on the national accreditation mechanisms for ethics committee. Adherence to ethical principles and regulations was influenced by being a scientist, being an employee of a professional organisation and having an interest in the use of ethical guidelines. These findings indicate the need for capacity strengthening (through training and resource support), inclusion of more female representation and other mandatory professions to the research ethics committees.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"High-Level Meeting on AIDS, United Nations  ","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS, May 2008","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/Conferences/2008HLM/default.asp","body":"The 2008 high-level meeting on AIDS will take place at the United Nations headquarters in New York on 10-11 June. It will review progress made in implementing the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS and the 2006 Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS. The high-level meeting will provide an important forum for various stakeholders, including government representatives and accredited civil society participants. Discussions are expected to focus on the progress made, challenges remaining and sustainable ways to overcome them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of school lunch programmes on nutritional status of children in Vihiga District, Western Kenya","field_subtitle":"Musamali B: African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development 7(6), 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/57dyn7","body":"The objectives of the study were: to compare the nutritional status of participants (children who participate in the school lunch) and non-participants (children who do not participate in the school lunch) and to assess the diet quality of the school and home lunch. It was hypothesized that the nutritional status of participants was better than that of the nonparticipants. Three hundred and twenty pupils (index children) and their parents were randomly selected for the purpose of the study. Anthropometric measurements, 24-hour recall, interview schedules and observed weighed technique were the instruments used in data collection. The results indicated a positive association between the school lunch and nutritional status. The diet quality of the school lunch and nutritional status of participants were significantly higher than that of the non-participants. More schools and parents in similar environments should therefore be encouraged to venture into the SLP because of their positive outcome on nutritional status as well as the diet quality of participating children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Intent to migrate among nursing students in Uganda: Measures of the brain drain in the next generation of health professionals","field_subtitle":"Nguyen L, Ropers S, Nderitu E, Zuyderduin A, Luboga S and Hagopian A: Human Resources for Health 6(5), 12 February 2008","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/6/1/5","body":"There is significant concern about the worldwide migration of nursing professionals from low-income countries to rich ones, as nurses are lured to fill the large number of vacancies in upper-income countries. This study explores the views of nursing students in Uganda to assess their views on practice options and their intentions to migrate. Most (70%) of the participants would like to work outside Uganda, and said it was likely that within five years they would be working in the US(59%) or the UK(49%). About a fourth (27%) said they could be working in another African country. Only eight percent of all students reported an unlikelihood to migrate within five years of training completion. Survey respondents were more dissatisfied with financial remuneration than with any other factor pushing them towards emigration. Those wanting to work in the settings of urban, private, or UK/US practices were less likely to express a sense of professional obligation and/or loyalty to the country. Those who have lived in rural areas were less likely to report wanting to emigrate. Students with a desire to work in urban areas or private practice were more likely to report an intention to emigrate for financial reasons or in pursuit of country stability, while students wanting to work in rural areas or public practice were less likely to want to emigrate overall.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Is poverty a driver for risky sexual behaviour? evidence from national surveys of adolescents in four African countries","field_subtitle":"Nadise N, Zulu E, Ciera J: African journal of Reproductive Health, 2007","field_url":"http://www.bioline.org.br/pdf?rh07036","body":"This article provides evidence on the link between poverty and risky sexual behaviour. It examines the effect of wealth status on age at first sex, condom use, and multiple partners using data from more than 19,000 adolescents from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi and Uganda. The results show that the wealthiest girls in Burkina Faso, Ghana and Malawi have later sexual debut compared with poorer adolescents, but this association was not significant in Uganda. Wealth status is weaker among males and significant only in Malawi, where those in the middle income group had earlier sexual debut. Wealthier adolescents were most likely to use condoms, but wealth status was not associated with the number of sexual partners. The authors conclude that understanding patterns and motivations of early sexual debut, non-use of condoms, and multiple partnerships is an important contribution to HIV prevention strategies. From this study poverty appears to influence early sexual debut, especially among females, and the poor are less likely to be using condoms. Therefore, poverty, by influencing sexual behaviour and access to services, can influence the transmission of HIV infection.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"It\u2019s evidence time for primary health care","field_subtitle":"Real Health News, 14 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.realhealthnews.net/article/its-evidence-time-for-primary-health-care","body":"WHO Assistant Director General for health systems, Carissa Etienne, stressed the need for evidence, information and research to make cost-effective health policies in developing countries. Specifically, she called for a systematic review of all research on primary health care since Alma Ata to provide real evidence on what works and fails, as well as for research on Community health workers \u2013 all against a measure of health outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge and healthcare seeking behaviour of pulmonary tuberculosis patients attending Ilala District Hospital, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Irani L, Kabalim TK, Kasesela S: Tanzania Journal of Health Research 9(3):169 - 173","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5m3jkj","body":"A cross-sectional study was conducted, based on systematic sampling of consecutive patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) symptoms and who attended the TB clinic for their medication at Ilala District Hospital, Tanzania. Over half the patients (54.3%) admitted that they openly speak about their illness to others but that only one-third (33.3%) of their friends and family responded in a considerate and sympathetic manner. One-third (36.6%) of the friends and relatives became less friendly and the remaining one-third openly portrayed fear and tried to discriminate the patient even after the commencement of medications. The patients' compliance rate was 100%. The counselling received from the health personnel along with the patients' own motivations to improve their health, was the main driving force in seeking treatment and taking daily medication. Discrimination against TB patients by relatives and friends is likely to hinder positive health seeking behaviour and thus impede control of this disease. This paper discusses identified areas where effort is needed to improve the early management of TB patient.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of first-ever guidelines on incentives for health professionals","field_subtitle":" \t Global Health Workforce Alliance, 20 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/news/incentives-guidelines/en/index.html","body":"The world's leading health and hospital professional associations have joined to produce the first-ever joint guidelines on incentives for the retention and recruitment of health professionals. Underlining both financial and non-financial incentives as critical to ensuring effective recruitment, retention and performance of health workers across the world, the Guidelines on Incentives describe different approaches taken by a number of countries. Examples of financial incentives cited include tax waivers, allowances (e.g. - housing, clothing, child care, remote location weighting etc.), insurance, and performance payments. Examples of non financial incentives include ensuring positive work environments, flexibility in employment arrangements and support for career development. The report underlines how incentives are important levers that organisations can use to attract, retain, motivate and improve the performance of their staff in all professions and walks of life. This is especially and urgently needed in the health care sector, where the growing gap between the supply of health care professionals and the demand for their services is reaching crisis levels in many countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Maintaining quality of health services after abolition of user fees: A Uganda case study","field_subtitle":"Nabyonga-Orem J, Karamagi H, Atuyambe L,  Bagenda F, Okuonzi SA, Walker O: BMC Health Services Research 8(102), 9 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/8/102/abstract","body":"It has been argued that quality improvements that result from user charges reduce their negative impact on utilisation especially of the poor. In Uganda, because there was no concrete evidence for improvements in quality of care following the introduction of user charges, the government abolished user fees in all public health units on 1 March 2001. Different quality variables assessed showed that interventions that were put in place were able to maintain, or improve the technical quality of services. There were significant increases in utilisation of services, average drug quantities and stock out days improved, and communities reported health workers to be hardworking, good and dedicated to their work. The levels of technical quality of care attained in a system with user fees can be maintained, or even improved without the fees through adoption of basic, sustainable system modifications that are within the reach of developing countries. However, a trade-off between residual perceptions of reduced service quality, and the welfare gains from removal of user fees should guide such a policy change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Medecins Sans Frontieres research accessible to health workers in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Medecins Sans Frontieres, 15 May 2008","field_url":"http://fieldresearch.msf.org/msf/","body":"Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has launched a website making its publications available. MSF research has frequently demonstrated pioneering approaches for tackling a broad range of diseases in many countries and, often, has influenced clinical practice. Well-known examples are MSFs pioneering work in treating populations with HIV using antiretroviral medications and malaria with artemisinin-containing treatment.  The site has over 350 articles on HIV care, malaria, tuberculosis, leishmaniasis and other diseases, as well as more general topics such as  medical care in emergencies, refugee health and health politics. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring effectiveness of programmes to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission in lower-income countries","field_subtitle":"Stringer EM, Chi BH, Chintu N, Creek TL, Ekouevi DK, Coetzee D, Tih P, Boulle A, Dabis F, Shaffer N, Wilfert CM, Stringer JSA: Bulletin of the World Health Orgaization 86(1), January 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/1/07-043117/en/index.html","body":"This article proposes a new method for evaluating prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) programmes. The authors suggest that HIV-free survival is the gold standard (or ideal measure) for settings with limited resources. It captures not only HIV infections, as well as deaths prevented, but also the benefits of survival for all children exposed to HIV including those that do not become infected. The authors also propose modifying regular country-wide Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) by including more detailed questions regarding maternal HIV history, PMTCT programme enrolment and interventions received, infant feeding practices and household child mortality. In sampled households, they advocate the addition of a \u2018heel stick\u2019 for dried blood spot collection among children less than two years of age. The authors conclude that modifying the DHS as they propose could provide a reliable method for assessing PMTCT effectiveness which could be used Africa-wide. It would also have the added advantage of including women who have not accessed institutional obstetric care and would otherwise have been excluded from most assessments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Motivation of health care workers in Tanzania: A case study of Muhimbili National Hospital ","field_subtitle":"Leshabari MT, Muhondwa EP, Mwangu MA and Mbembati NA:  East African Journal of Public Health 5 (1):32-37 ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=302&id=40267&layout=abstract","body":"This paper reports on a study into the delivery of services and care at the Muhimbili National Hospital, to measure the extent to which workers in the hospital were satisfied with the tasks they performed and to identify factors associated with low motivation in the workplace. Almost half of both doctors and nurses were not satisfied with their jobs, as was the case for 67% of auxiliary clinical staff and 39% of supporting staff. Among the contributing factors reported were low salary levels, the frequent unavailability of necessary equipment and consumables to ensure proper patient care, inadequate performance evaluation and feedback, poor communication channels in different organisational units and between workers and management, lack of participation in decision-making processes, and a general lack of concern for workers welfare by the hospital management. Based on the study findings, several recommendations were made, including setting defined job criteria and description of tasks for all staff, improving availability and quality of working gear for the hospital, the introduction of a reward system commensurate with performance, improved communication at all levels, and introduction of measures to demonstrate concern for the workers' welfare.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"MPs want Uganda out of EAC-EU trade deal ","field_subtitle":"Kazooba C","field_url":"http://www.nationmedia.com/eastafrican/current/News/news050520083.htm","body":"Parliamentarians are pressurising Uganda to revoke the interim trade agreement signed between the European Union and the East African Community. The Ugandan MPs claim the partial Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) signed at the close of last year entrenches 'unfair treatment' of the five-member bloc. The Parliamentary Committee on Trade, Industry and Tourism is presently evaluating the significance of the trade relationship with EU, following a petition from over a dozen civil society groups.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33133","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"National audit of critical care resources in South Africa \u2013 transfer of critically ill patients","field_subtitle":"Scribante J, Bhagwanjee S: South African Medical Journal 97(12): 1323-1326","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=37417","body":"This research sought to establish the efficacy of the current referral system of critical care patients: (i) from public hospitals with no ICU or HCU facilities to hospitals with appropriate facilities; and (ii) from public and private sector hospitals with ICU or HCU facilities to hospitals with appropriate facilities. A 100% sample was obtained; 77% of public and 16% of private hospitals have no IC/HC units. Spread of hospitals was disproportionate across provinces. There was considerable variation (less than 1 hour - 6 hours) in time to collect between provinces and between public hospitals that have or do not have ICU/HCU facilities. In the private hospitals, the mean time to collect was less than an hour. In public hospitals without an ICU, the distance to an ICU was 100 km or less for about 50% of hospitals, and less than 10% of these hospitals were more than 300 km away. For hospitals with units (public and private), the distance to an appropriate hospital was 100 km or less for about 60% of units while for 10% of hospitals the distance was greater than 300 km. For public hospitals without units most patients were transferred by non-ICU transport. In some instances both public and private hospitals transferred ICU patients from one ICU to another ICU in non-ICU transport. A combination of current resource constraints, the vast distances in some regions of the country and the historical disparities of health resource distribution represent a unique challenge which demands a novel approach to equitable health care appropriation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"National meeting report: Knowledge for action on equity in health in Uganda, Kampala, Uganda, 27-28 March 2008","field_subtitle":"HEPS-Uganda, Makerere University, Institute of Public Health, EQUINET","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REPMTG0308uganda.pdf","body":"To promote policies for equity in health HEPS-Uganda, Makerere University Institute of Public Health with EQUINET organised a National Meeting on equity in health in Uganda in March 2008. The meeting reviewed the body of work taking place in Uganda within government, academic and civil society institutions to explore, understand and propose options for reducing inequalities in health in Uganda. The meeting provided an opportunity to exchange evidence, strengthen networking in Uganda, and feed experience into regional networking. The report outlines the papers  nd the deliberations. The meeting set up a task force that would take the work forward within key areas of focus, including fair financing; trade and health; health rights and governance and protection of vulnerable groups. HEPS and Makarere University Institute of Public Health are co-ordinating the task force. It was proposed that a follow up national meeting be held in a year to review issues and work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"National Meeting Sets Action Priorities on Health Equity","field_subtitle":"Medicine Access Digest 4 (1), March 2008","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/HEPaids17052008.pdf","body":"The delegates to the recently concluded National Meeting to assess the progress of equity in health in Uganda identified six areas for follow up work on equity for health in Uganda. These areas include: resource mobilisation and allocation to the health sector; health needs of the vulnerable groups; trade and health; governance and health rights. The meeting was organised by HEPS-Uganda and Makerere University School of Public Health, in co-operation with Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET), March 27-28, 2008. The meeting was convened to, among other things, review the gaps and needs in the health sector in Uganda; and to develop ways to strengthen networking and communication between people and institutions working in areas relevant to health equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New  health equity network in Uganda to address disparities in health  ","field_subtitle":"Mulumba Moses, HEPS Uganda ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nUganda has implemented a number of reforms to its health sector to make services more accessible to poor communities, including  abolishing user fees, introducing public-private partnerships in service delivery, and decentralizing the management of health services to district and lower local government levels. Yet poor people  continue to face barriers to use of health services. Costs of health services are still cited by poor people as being a barrier to using services, as are long distances to health centers, particularly for  rural residents.  Access to health care is thus an important equity issue in Uganda: Poor and disadvantaged people experience a greater burden of disease - but have poorer access to health care than those who have higher incomes.\r\n\r\nThese were the challenges discussed at a recent national meeting on health equity in Uganda hosted by HEPS Uganda, Makerere University School of Public Health and EQUINET. The meeting included presentations of work on disparities in health and access to health care, from researchers from academic, government and non government organisations. While the presentations reported on a range of initiatives to improve health in the poorest communities, they also gave evidence of the continuing challenges the country faces. \r\n\r\nFor instance, one study reported by the Institute of Public Health at Makerere University found in three districts of Uganda that the poorest households were 2.4 times more likely to suffer ill health than the richest. Infant and child mortality among the poorest Ugandans are reported to be double that in the richest group. Such inequities are also common in vulnerable groups that have greater need for health care. Addressing the needs of the poorest communities can be overshadowed by deficits in access to care for a much wider group of people. For example, the meeting was informed that despite a significant  improvement in access to antiretroviral therapy (ART), demand for ART has continued to outstrip supply, and only about 60% of people who need ART can access it. Older persons were also described as having high health needs that may not be met due to wider poverty and isolation.\r\n\r\nNot surprisingly a number of papers in the meeting thus explored the way resources are allocated to address these challenges. The first issue that arose was the overall shortfalls in health financing. The US$14 per capita reported to be spent on health was noted to be about a third of  the resources needed for minimum health care services. While new resources have been mobilised nationally and internationally for AIDS, presenters reported that there is still a significant shortfall in funding for AIDS, especially at the district level.  It was reported that out-of-pocket payments continue to exceed public sector spending, even though most poor people use public services and through fees have been abolished in the public sector. This is a barrier to health care for poor communities, and the source of these charges needs to be better understood to address them.   The continued shortfall in overall financing also draws attention to whether budgets give special consideration to vulnerable groups. Concern was expressed in one presentation that district councils set budget priorities using a narrow definition of gender health needs within the community. Women have weak control over productive resources and household finances, and unless services give additional attention to this situation they will also lack command over the resources they need to protect their health.\r\n\r\nSuch disparities remain an issue to be addressed to promote health and access to health care in Uganda. There was wide agreement that such inequalities were avoidable and thus merited attention and action. Some actions were presented and discussed:  The experience of community health insurance schemes was reviewed as one option for supplementing health resources. A study was presented showing that 81% of households surveyed in one rural district expressed willingness to enroll in Community Heath Insurance schemes and were willing to contribute on average Ushs.5,977 (US$3.4) per person per year. Further work needs to be done on how equitable and sustainable these schemes are, especially for the poorest.  It was argued that strengthening decentralisation, through resource allocation that prioritises districts and community level, could also go a long way to strengthening the health care system used by low income groups, and thus addressing inequity.  Various examples were presented of  strategies to empower and mobilise communities to engage with their health services, including the Village Health Team Strategy and the use of media, drama and of participatory reflection and action methodologies.\r\n\r\nAcross these options it was agreed that ensuring fair opportunities for health should not be left only to the Ministry of Health, but should be a matter for all sectors. According to the Ministry of Health in Uganda, over the past fourteen years, considerable effort has been made to restore the functional capacity of the health sector, through increasing public health spending, reactivating disease control programmes and re-orienting services to primary health care in Uganda. However, the ministry observed in a 2007 report that there still remain significant challenges in matching need for health services with available resources, making equity or fairness an important issue for advancing national policies for the population as a whole (http://www.health.go.ug/policies.htm).\r\n\r\nThe people and organisations at the national meeting agreed to continue networking to advance health equity work, and formed a new Ugandan health equity network. This will create a platform and ignite further action for health equity at national level.  With leadership from different institutions working in these areas the network will  share evidence, knowledge and strengthen advocacy on areas of health equity that include: resource mobilisation and allocation to the health sector; addressing health needs of vulnerable groups; protecting health in trade policies and agreements; and advancing health rights, community empowerment and effective governance in health. While it was evident in the meeting that a lot of work is underway, it is not always shared and communicated within Uganda and in the East and Southern Africa region. The delegates thus agreed to strengthen and widen links between people and institutions working on  equity in health,  to promote research and practice in this vital area of  national health policy. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat, email admin@equinetafrica.org.   For more information on the health equity network in Uganda, contact HEPS Uganda at heps@utlonline.co.ug,  working with Makerere University School of Public Health. Further information on the issues raised and the report of the Uganda national meeting is also available at the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Nurses to accompany patients to Gauteng hospitals","field_subtitle":"Khumalo G: BuaNews, 29 May 2008","field_url":"","body":"The Klerksdorp/ Tshepong Hospital Complex have introduced an Escorting Project, which will allow nursing assistants to accompany referral patients to Johannesburg hospitals. The project aims to ensure that patients receive quality care and reduce waiting times. The hospital is the largest provincial hospital operating as the referral hospital for Dr K Kaunda District, Ruth Mopati District as well as tertiary services for the entire province. Hospital Chief Executive Officer, Kathy Randeree said that the hospital recently undertook a mini-survey to determine how best to assist patients who are accessing health services in Gauteng Hospitals. She said that the survey recommended the launch of the project with management resolving to have a pool of escorts for Klerksdorp/ Tshepong hospital so that referred patients are able to have the assistance of an allocated escort for the various hospitals and clinics in Gauteng.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33161","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Nutrition management in comprehensive care centres in Kenya: A trainer's manual","field_subtitle":"Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance Project, 2007","field_url":"http://www.fantaproject.org/publications/kenya_2007.shtml","body":"In support of the implementation of the Kenyan national guidelines on nutrition and HIV/AIDS\u009d, this training manual is designed for healthcare service providers working in comprehensive care centres. It aims to equip participants with the knowledge and skills necessary for managing the specific nutritional needs of people living with HIV/AIDS. The provision of methodology, suggested content, materials and further reading allow trainers to formulate a programme specific to their context. The manual includes a variety of tools such as a sample training programme, sample questionnaires, tips on evaluation, guidelines and a step-by-step process for the preparation of sessions, check lists, props and background information on the national guidelines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"One in three malaria drugs failing in Africa","field_subtitle":"Health-e, 6 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20031950","body":"Some 35% of antimalarial drugs sold in six major African cities failed basic quality tests. The cities were in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Artemisinin monotherapies, which the World Health Organisation explicitly rejects as substandard, remain common in Africa. Substandard antimalarial drugs cause an estimated 200,000 avoidable deaths each year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on Migration and development: opportunities and challenges","field_subtitle":"Official Journal of the European Union, 16 May 2008/C 120/18","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3z62ed","body":"The European Economic and Social Committee decided to draw up an opinion, under Rule 29(2) of its Rules of Procedure, on Migration and development: opportunities and challenges. It says the process of globalisation has led to the liberalised movement of capital, goods, and services. The movement of people, however, still remains globalisation's most restricted branch. In order to give less-developed economies a bigger share of the economic growth driven by globalisation, more attention should be given to the free movement of people. This opinion follows the school of thought that migration is a chance for developing countries to participate more equally in today's globalised economy and that migration has the potential to decrease inequality. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory budgeting in Africa: A training companion","field_subtitle":"United Nations Human Settlements Programme and Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ansa-africa.net/uploads/documents/publications/Participatory_budgeting_Africa_Vol2_2008.pdf","body":"This Training Companion is a result of interregional collaboration, based on concepts and illustrative examples from African cities that recently initiated participatory budgeting. The Companion provides visibility and resonance to the efforts that have been made by many anonymous women and men of Latin America to improve democracy and construct participatory governance in their own cities. The interregional collaboration in the preparation of this Companion has also generated a process of mutual learning across language groups and regions in Africa as well as in Latin America. The inputs of the various institutions, including sensitisation events and pilot workshops, underscore the multiple ownership of the publication.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Payment for antiretroviral drugs is associated with a higher rate of patients lost to follow-up than those offered free-of-charge therapy in Nairobi, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Zachariah R, Van Engelgem I, Massaquoi M, Kocholla L, Manzi M, Suleh A, Philips M, Borgdorff M: Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 102(3):288-93, March 2008","field_url":"http://fieldresearch.msf.org/msf/handle/10144/22934","body":"This retrospective analysis of routine programme data from Mbagathi District Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya shows the difference in rates of loss to follow-up between a cohort that paid 500 shillings/month (approximately US$7) for antiretroviral drugs (ART) and one that received medication free of charge. A total of 435 individuals (mean age 31.5 years, 65% female) was followed-up for 146 person-years: 265 were in the 'payment' cohort and 170 in the 'free' cohort. The incidence rate for loss to follow-up per 100 person-years was 47.2 and 20.5, respectively (adjusted hazard ratio 2.27, 95% CI 1.21-4.24, P=0.01). Overall risk reduction attributed to offering ART free of charge was 56.6% (95% CI 20.0-76.5). Five patients diluted their ART regimen to one tablet (instead of two tablets) twice daily in order to reduce the monthly cost of medication by half. All these patients were from the payment cohort. Payment for ART is associated with a significantly higher rate of loss to follow-up, as some patients might be unable to sustain payment over time. In resource-limited settings, ART should be offered free of charge in order to promote treatment compliance and prevent the emergence of drug resistance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Performance indicators for quality in surgical and laboratory services at Muhimbili National Hospital in Tanzania ","field_subtitle":"Mbembati NA, Mwangu M, Muhondwa EP and Leshabari MM: East African Journal of Public Health 5(1), 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=302&id=40264&layout=abstract","body":"Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH), a teaching and national referral hospital, is undergoing major reforms to improve the quality of health care. Researchers performed a retrospective descriptive study using a set of performance indicators for the surgical and laboratory services of MNH in years 2001 and 2002, to help monitor and evaluate the impact of reforms on the quality of health care during and after the reform process. In 2001, 23.5% of non-emergency operations were planned, while in 2002, 29% were postponed. The most common reasons for operation postponement were 'time-barred', interference by emergency operations, no show of patients and inoperable anaesthetic machines. Equipment problems and supply and staff shortages together accounted for one quarter of postponements. In the laboratory, a lack of equipment prevented some tests, but quality assurance was performed for most tests. Current surgical services at MNH were reported to be inadequate; operating theatres require modern, functioning equipment and adequate supplies of consumables to provide satisfactory care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Population-level effect of HIV on adult mortality and early evidence of reversal after introduction of antiretroviral therapy in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Jahn A, Floyd S, Crampin A, et al: The Lancet 371: 1603-1611, 2008","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673608606935/fulltext","body":"Malawi, which has about 80000 deaths from AIDS every year, made free antiretroviral therapy available to more than 80000 patients between 2004 and 2006. The authors aimed to investigate mortality in a population before and after the introduction of free antiretroviral therapy, and therefore to assess the effects of such programmes on survival at the population level. The study used a demographic surveillance system to measure mortality in a population of 32000 in northern Malawi, from August, 2002, when free antiretroviral therapy was not available in the study district, until February, 2006, 8 months after a clinic opened. The probability of dying between the ages of 15 and 60 years was 43% (39-49) for men and 43% (38-47) for women; 229 of 352 deaths (65.1%) were attributed to AIDS. Eight months after the clinic that provided antiretroviral therapy opened, 107 adults from the study population had accessed treatment, out of an estimated 334 in need of treatment. Overall mortality in adults had decreased by 10% from 10.2 to 8.7 deaths for 1000 person-years of observation (adjusted rate ratio 0.90, 95% CI 0.70-1.14). Mortality was reduced by 35% (adjusted rate ratio 0.65, 0.46-0.92) in adults near the main road, where mortality before antiretroviral therapy was highest (from 13.2 to 8.5 deaths per 1000 person-years of observation before and after antiretroviral therapy). Mortality in adults aged 60 years or older did not change. Findings of a reduction in mortality in adults aged between 15 and 59 years, with no change in those older than 60 years, suggest that deaths from AIDS were averted by the rapid scale-up of free antiretroviral therapy in rural Malawi, which led to a decline in adult mortality that was detectable at the population level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty pushes up SA's child mortality","field_subtitle":"Keyser A: International Labour Organization, 16 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041801","body":"Poverty is the underlying cause of child deaths in South Africa, according to a recent study released by the Medical Research Council. But other sub-Saharan African countries, with less money and fewer resources, have managed to cut their child mortality rates. A recent study in The Lancet reported that deaths in children under age five have been dropping in Tanzania, whereas between 2000 and 2004 child mortality dropped by 24 percent. During this period, the Tanzanian government increased the annual amount spent on healthcare per citizen from 4.70 to 11.70 (about R36 to R89,60). The money was also evenly distributed across the country, rather than favouring richer districts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty reduction for older people: The case of access to health services in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mongula B: Health Policy and Development 5(1):71-76","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5swlyy","body":"This paper explores the prospects of poverty reduction with particular reference to health services to older people in Tanzania. Tanzania\u2019s National Ageing Policy raises a number of questions on the health of older people some of which are answered by the country\u2019s National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty. This paper aims to analyse and establish the prospects of improvement of health services to older people in Tanzania, including: do the poverty reduction initiatives sufficiently address the obstacles of access to health services by older people; and does the fact that the poverty reduction initiatives are being pursued hand in hand with measures to overcome past failures of the state in planning such as decentralization and participatory strategic planning in the local areas make a difference? The researchers found that while the long term objective of government to make free health services available to older people is not in doubt, it is not yet clear how the objective will be achieved. It is still some way into the future that such bold policies will be translated into action backed by allocation of financial and human resources. Furthermore, the general national strategy for growth and reduction of poverty needs to be operationalised with sector and area specific programmes and plans, in this regard by Health ministry programmes and health plans of Local Governments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Pregnant women rejecting HIV test results","field_subtitle":"Medicine Access Digest 4(1), Mar 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/HEPaids17052008.pdf","body":"Something is definitely not quite right with the concept or delivery of Prevention of Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission (PMTCT) services. While uptake has been known to be poor, in spite of policy guidelines that require all expectant mothers seeking antenatal care to be counselled and offered an HIV test, it has now emerged that health workers are having to contend with a significant number of rural women who reject positive results. HEPS-Uganda has found worrying cases of expectant mothers who consent to an HIV test in Kamwenge in western Uganda turn around to decline positive tests. In a December 2007 project report, 'Community Empowerment and Participation in Maternal Health in Kamwenge District', HEPS-Uganda says that while its project resulted in more pregnant women seeking ANC services, a big proportion of them still refuse to consent to voluntary HIV counselling and testing (VCT) services and that some of the few who consent do not accept their results.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33158","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-Private Partnership: Funding Mechanisms for the 'private-not-for-profit' health training institutions in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Mugisha JF: Health Policy and Development 5(1): 35-47","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3pn92q","body":"The Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP) aims to ensure access to basic health care by the Ugandan population through the delivery of the National Minimum Health Care Package (NMHCP). This requires availability of well-trained health professionals. This study demonstrates that the Private-Not-For-Profit (PNFP) Health Training Institutions - the majority in Uganda - have remained grossly under-funded, which poses a threat to achievement of the HSSP. They are faced with decreasing income from fees, dwindling donor support and over-dependence on government grants which are both uncertain and erratic. Consequently, vital activities for students' training such as field trips, teaching and reading materials are left unsatisfied as a copying mechanism, but not without negative implications for quality. It is recommended that government increases and guarantees its support to these Health Training Institutions as a way of maintaining quality of health worker training. At the same time, the training institutions need to diversify their funding options to include designing short tailor-made courses, mobilising alumni contributions, research and consultancies, self-help projects like farming, canteens and stationeries as well as fund-raising activities as a way of bridging their funding gap. This should be coupled with more efficiency mechanisms and prudent management to avoid wastage of the already scarce financial resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-Private Partnerships for health in Uganda: Will the Health Sector Strategic Plan deliver on expectations","field_subtitle":"Tashobya CK, Musoba N, Lochoro P: Health Policy and Development 5(1):48-56","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3npepu","body":"This paper traces the history of the public-private partnership for health (PPPH) in Uganda, giving its justification and mandate. It also gives its current state of the art, outlining the successes scored, the challenges still faced in its implementation and current efforts being made to make it comprehensively institutionalised. The successes include the bilateral acceptance of the principle and need for partnership by both the public and private partners, the overt gestures by the public partner through direct funding of the private providers, the ceding of some responsibilities to private players, the acceptance by the private players to take on some public responsibilities using their own resources etc. The challenges include the slow formalisation of the partnership, scepticism about autonomy, the stagnation of government funding, the poor understanding of the partnership at sub-national levels and poor sharing of information, among others. These challenges are now further compounded by the recent introduction of new policy reforms like fiscal decentralisation to the same local officials who do not fully appreciate the partnership and are therefore not likely to support it. The paper concludes with some useful suggestions on how these challenges may be tackled.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Reasons for loss to follow-up among mothers registered in a prevention-of-mother-to-child transmission program in rural Malawi","field_subtitle":"Bwirire LD, Fitzgerald M, Zachariah R, Chikafa V, Massaquoi M, Moens M, Kamoto K, Schouten EJ: Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 16 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00359203","body":"This study was conducted to identify reasons for a high and progressive loss to follow-up among HIV-positive mothers within a prevention-of-mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) program in a rural district hospital in Malawi. Three focus group discussions were conducted among a total of 25 antenatal and post-natal mothers as well as nurse midwives (median age 39 years, range 22\u201355 years). The main reasons for loss to follow-up included: not being prepared for HIV testing and its implications before the antenatal clinic (ANC) visit; fear of stigma, discrimination, household conflict and even divorce on disclosure of HIV status; lack of support from husbands who do not want to undergo HIV testing; the feeling that one is obliged to rely on artificial feeding, which is associated with social and cultural taboos; long waiting times at the ANC; and inability to afford transport costs related to the long distances to the hospital. This study reveals a number of community- and provider-related operational and cultural barriers hindering the overall acceptability of PMTCT that need to be addressed urgently. Mothers attending antenatal services need to be better informed and supported, at both community and health-provider level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Referral pattern of patients received at the national referral hospital: Challenges in low-income countries ","field_subtitle":"Mbembati NAA, Museru LM, Lema LEK: East African Journal of Public Health 5(1), May 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=302&id=40262&layout=abstract","body":"The study aimed to examine the medical referral pattern of patients received at the Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) in Tanzania to inform the process of strengthening the referral system. This prospective study was conducted at MNH during a 10-week study period from January to March 2004. The study sample consisted of patients referred to MNH. Of the 11,412 patients seen, 72.5% were self-referrals. More than 70% of the patients seen required admission, though not necessarily at tertiary level. Only 0.8% came from outside the Dar es Salaam region. More than 70% of the patients seen required admission. Surgical services were required by 66.8% of patients, with obstetric conditions being most prominent (24.6% of all patients). For those who were formally referred from other health services, lack of expertise and equipment were the most common reasons given for referral (96.3%). Efforts to improve referral systems in low-income countries require that the primary and secondary level hospitals services be strengthened and increased to limit inappropriate use of national referral hospitals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Review of incorporation of essential nutrition actions into Public Health Programs in Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Jennings J, Hirbaye MB: FANTA, January 2008","field_url":"http://www.fantaproject.org/downloads/pdfs/FANTA_Review_of_Incorporation_of_ENA_FINAL.pdf","body":"The Essential Nutrition Actions package is an approach to expand the coverage of seven affordable and evidence-based actions to improve the nutritional status of women and children, especially those under two years of age. The Food and Nutrition Technical Assisstance Project (FANTA)'s Review of Incorporation of Essential Nutrition Actions into Public Health Programs in Ethiopia found that the approach has been incorporated into the Ethiopia Federal Ministry of Health system and multilateral and NGO programming, however, improved training and other steps are necessary to further institutionalise the approach. The review, requested by USAID/Ethiopia, examined a number of facilitating and inhibiting factors to ENA integration in the context of Ethiopia\u2019s health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Role of governmental and non-governmental organisations in mitigation of stigma and discrimination among Hiv/Aids persons In Kibera, Kenya ","field_subtitle":"Odindo MA, Mwanthi MA:  East African Journal of Public Health 5(1), 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=302&id=40261","body":"This study assessed the role of governmental and non-governmental organisations in mitigation of stigma and discrimination among people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS in informal settlements of Kibera. More than 61% of the respondents had patients in their households. Fifty-five percent (55%) of the households received assistance from governmental and non-governmental organisations in taking care of the sick. Services provided included awareness, outreach, counselling, testing, treatment, advocacy, home based care, assistance to the orphans and legal issues. About 90% of the respondents perceived health education, counselling services and formation of post counselling support groups to combat stigma and discrimination to be helpful. Stigma and discrimination affects the rights of People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs). Such stigmatisation and discrimination goes beyond and affects those who care for the PLWHAs, and remains the biggest impediment in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Kibera. Governmental and non-governmental organizations continue to provide key services in the mitigation of stigma and discrimination in Kibera. However, personal testimonies by PLWHAs showed that HIV positive persons still suffer from stigma and discrimination. About 43% of the study population experienced stigma and discrimination.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Should intentional infection be a crime?","field_subtitle":"PlusNews, 26 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78412","body":"Proposed reforms to Angola's Penal Code have divided opinion in the country about whether HIV-positive people who intentionally infect others with the virus should be punished.The law under discussion calls for a sentence of between three and 10 years in prison for those who knowingly pass on infectious diseases, including HIV. Some argue that the law will act as a deterrent; others say it will bring more problems than benefits. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Sound choices: Enhancing Capacity for Evidence-Informed Health Policy","field_subtitle":"Green A and Bennet S (eds): Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, World Health Organization","field_url":"http://www.who.int/entity/alliance-hpsr/resources/Alliance_BR.pdf","body":"This Review addresses a mismatch between what is known about how to respond to particular health problems in poor economies and what is actually done about them. It focuses on one cause of the problems that ensue from the mismatch \u2013 capacity constraints. Weak capacity at a number of levels in the institutions and interfaces between knowledge generation and use in policy-making has been identified by the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) as a key strategic issue in addressing health care in low-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Government urged to raise treatment standards","field_subtitle":"PlusNews, 06 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78075","body":"HIV/AIDS treatment guidelines for South Africa's public health sector are out of sync not only with those of many other countries in the region, but also with the latest research on how to most effectively treat people living with HIV. Various studies indicating that patients who start antiretroviral therapy (ART) earlier respond better to treatment and are less likely to develop AIDS-related illnesses have led the United States, the United Kingdom and a number of countries in Africa to change their treatment protocols. Deciding when to start a patient on life-long ARV drugs is usually based on a combination of CD4 cell count test results [which indicate the strength of the immune system] and HIV disease progression, which the World Health Organisation (WHO) has defined according to four clinical stages, with stage four being AIDS. The WHO revised its guidelines in 2003 to recommend that a patient who has reached stage three of the disease and has a CD4 count of less than 350 should begin treatment. Most countries in the region have revised their guidelines accordingly, but South Africa's national ART guidelines are still based on earlier WHO recommendations that ART be prescribed only for patients with stage four disease, or a CD4 count of less than 200. In April, the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society published guidelines in the Southern African Journal of HIV Medicine recommending that people living with HIV begin ART when their CD4 cell count drops below 350, regardless of disease progression. These guidelines are endorsed by the region's leading HIV specialists but have no direct influence on the South African government's ART programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The 'diagonal' approach to Global Fund financing: a cure for the broader malaise of health systems?","field_subtitle":"Ooms G, Van Damme W, Baker BK, Zeitz P, Schrecker T: Globalization and Health 4(6), 2008","field_url":"http://fieldresearch.msf.org/msf/handle/10144/26154","body":"The potentially destructive polarisation between 'vertical' financing (aiming for disease-specific results) and 'horizontal' financing (aiming for improved health systems) of health services in developing countries has found its way to the pages of Foreign Affairs and the Financial Times. The opportunity offered by 'diagonal' financing (aiming for disease-specific results through improved health systems) seems to be obscured in this polarisation.In April 2007, the board of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria agreed to consider comprehensive country health programmes for financing. The new International Health Partnership Plus, launched in September 2007, will help low-income countries to develop such programmes. The combination could lead the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to a much broader financing scope. This evolution might be critical for the future of AIDS treatment in low-income countries, yet it is proposed at a time when the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is starved for resources. It might be unable to meet the needs of much broader and more expensive proposals. Furthermore, it might lose some of its exceptional features in the process: its aim for international sustainability, rather than in-country sustainability, and its capacity to circumvent spending restrictions imposed by the International Monetary Fund. The authors believe that a transformation of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria into a Global Health Fund is feasible, but only if accompanied by a substantial increase of donor commitments to the Global Fund. The transformation of the Global Fund into a 'diagonal' and ultimately perhaps 'horizontal' financing approach should happen gradually and carefully, and be accompanied by measures to safeguard its exceptional features.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The challenge of delivering on the budget remains","field_subtitle":"Mwandingi CH","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/MwaFIN200508.pdf","body":"This is a short commentary on Namibia's 2008 Budget by a Namibian health professional with regard to the Millenium Development Goals. A deep look at the budget reveals some problematic areas, namely that the Minister of Health once more missed the opportunity to allocate adequate resources to health. She again missed the Abuja target by 5%, which by international consensus, considers a 15% government budget allocation to health as satisfactory. Although it was said that the health budget has been increased by 26%, the total health and social services allocation is still standing at 10.08% of the overall Government budget for the 2008-09 financial year. This is a missed opportunity, given that the Minister had enough cash for a fair distribution to national priorities, health included.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The experience of a village volunteer programme in Yumbe District, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Komakech I: Health Policy and Development 5(1): 21-27","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5yonpa","body":"In Yumbe District of north-western Uganda, Village Health Teams (VHT) have been established in line with the national strategy for community involvement in health. This paper reviews aspects of the programme outlining its successes and challenges. Its success has been mainly due to integration of pre-existing volunteer cadres, intersectoral approach to the monitoring of the teams and involvement of the community in the selection of the top-up team members. Its challenges include the relatively young age of most volunteers and the likely loss of financial support for the activities of the volunteers. The paper concludes that the VHT programme is a delicate venture requiring both programme support through intersectoral inputs to the Community Action Plans developed by communities and sociological approaches to educate the communities to support the VHT for its sustainability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of social cash transfers on children","field_subtitle":"Schubert B, Webb D, Temin D: Malawi Social Cash Transfer Pilot Scheme, 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5s5bzl","body":"This paper discusses the degree to which social cash transfer schemes that do not explicitly target HIV and AIDS affected persons or households reach HIV and AIDS affected households. By comparing different schemes in Zambia, Malawi and South Africa, the study identifies the main factors that determine both the share of HIV and AIDS affected households reached, and the impact achieved. The authors find that in terms of the share of HIV and AIDS affected households benefiting from the scheme, the Zambia and Malawi schemes seem to have the highest share of HIV and AIDS affected households as a percentage of all beneficiary households. About 70 per cent of the beneficiary households seem to be HIV and AIDS affected, even though they do not use HIV and AIDS as a targeting criterion. With regard to focusing on the ultra poor and neediest of the HIV and AIDS affected households the Zambia and Malawi schemes score high whereas the South African schemes score low. In the impact on children in HIV and AIDS affected households reached by the different schemes, the South African ones score highest. The generous amounts transferred by these schemes go some way to ensuring that the basic needs of children are met. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The slippery slope of negotiations at the IGWG on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property","field_subtitle":"Gupta AS, Gopakumar KM","field_url":"","body":"This is a short report on the negotiations at the Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property. Once again, negotiations were considered unsuccessful by the developing countries as developed countries sought to maintain the status quo, which gives them unfair advantages in intellectual property rights. Negotiations were replete with instances of chicanery and doublespeak on the part of most developed countries, led by the United States. The principal thrust of their strategy has been to obstruct any forward looking measure that would promote the basic objectives of the IGWG, objectives that were designed to find real mechanisms that can promote both innovation and access to medicines that are required for the poor in developing countries. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33136","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Turnover of health professionals in the West Nile region, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Onzubo P: Health Policy and Development 5(1): 28-34","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/44nu7k","body":"The imbalances in Human Resources for Health that result from health professionals crossing borders of districts, countries, and moving from private to public sectors and vice versa or leaving health services to join other non-health related business leads to inequity in delivery of health services, especially in the parts of the world that do not have sufficient incentives to attract these professionals. This study compared attrition rates in three Private-Not-For-Profit and three Government General Hospitals in West Nile Region over a period of five years. It also examined the destination to which the health professionals were lost, the source of the new staff that replaced those lost by the hospitals, the reasons for attrition as perceived by the existing staff in the hospitals, what kept some of the staff working for longer period than others who chose to leave, and the incentives in place for attraction and retention of health professionals in these hospitals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"UNAIDS calls on World Health Assembly to support the elimination of HIV-related travel restrictions and advance HIV prevention, treatment, care and support for migrants","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS, 22 May 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4nmxqd","body":"Since the beginning of the HIV epidemic, governments have prevented people living with HIV from entering or residing in their countries based solely on their HIV status. Such restrictions have stopped HIV positive people from travelling for business, family visits, or tourism; and from entering a country for study, labour migration, and political asylum. Seldom is HIV testing linked to any treatment, heath care, counselling or support, either in country of origin or destination. Nor are the results necessarily kept confidential. Though countries focus on excluding HIV positive migrants, little is done to protect migrants from HIV infection while in destination countries \u2013 and indeed some do get infected. There have also been reports of HIV-positive migrants dying for lack of treatment while abroad, including in immigration detention facilities pending deportation. HIV-travel restrictions are anachronisms that are inappropriate in the age of globalisation, increased travel, increased access to treatment for HIV, and national and international commitments to universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. They are also discriminatory and contribute to stigmatisation. No evidence suggests that HIV-related travel restrictions protect the public health, and they may in fact impede efforts to stop the epidemic. UNAIDS recognizes that States impose immigration and visa restrictions as a valid exercise of their national sovereignty. However, in imposing any restrictions on entry and stay relating to HIV or health, UNAIDS calls upon States to adopt non-discriminatory laws and regulations which rationally achieve valid objectives through the least restrictive means possible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"UNAIDS policy on HIV, food security and nutrition","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS, 21 May 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/66fopc","body":"UNAIDS, in collaboration the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO), has developed a policy brief on HIV, food security and nutrition. This policy provides guidance for governments, civil society and other partners on how to address food and nutrition concerns in the context of HIV, keeping in mind the commitment made by all UN member states through the Millennium Development Goals both to reduce chronic hunger and halt and reverse the spread of HIV by 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Used and abused - community volunteers need a policy","field_subtitle":"Real Health News, 28 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.realhealthnews.net/article/used-and-abused-community-volunteers-need-a-policy","body":"Multiple health programmes are using unpaid or low-paid community volunteers, and other sectors such as environment, water and agriculture are doing the same. A new study of reimbursement of health volunteers is revealing the need for an internationally agreed strategy. Community volunteers \u2013 unpaid or very poorly paid local workers from the villages and slums of developing countries \u2013 are proving increasingly valuable to many health, water and agricultural programmes. But as this gets more widely known, programmes using them are beginning to overlap, some in the same villages and some even with the same volunteers \u2013 while there is no coherent policy for how \u201cuse\u201d or to reward them. This is reported in the paper to be an unsustainable form of exploitation as demands and expectations of these people increase.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Vaccine fund spending US$500m on \u2018innovative\u2019 health systems","field_subtitle":"Real Health News, 14 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.realhealthnews.net/article/vaccine-fund-spending-us500m-on-innovative-health-systems","body":"The US$ multi-billion a year GAVI Alliance is spending a fraction of its budget to help its vaccines get to the end of the track, by strengthening health systems in a group of countries in central America, Africa and Asia. GAVI provides support directly to country governments, not through other agencies. Also its large budget and global nature encourages vaccine manufacturers to take a positive view of developing country markets \u2013 and thus add relevant, affordable products to their portfolios.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Website towards the World Social Forum 2009 in the Amazon","field_subtitle":"World Social Forum","field_url":"http://www.fsm2009amazonia.org.br/","body":"This website provides information on the World Social Forum 2009 in the Amazon. Organisations, networks and movements can obtain and exchange information and help building yet one more edition of the WSF. The website will be updated periodically with information on a set of themes linked to the participation on the 2009 event.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO strategy aims for leadership in health research","field_subtitle":"Real Health News, 28 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.realhealthnews.net/article/who-strategy-aims-for-leadership","body":"The WHO research strategy team has just finished its global consultations towards setting a new focus and role for WHO in health research: leadership and convening power to help other bodies set agendas, and an internal focus on \u2018making a difference\u2019 \u2013 getting care to where it\u2019s most needed. The strategy is reported to demand impact both internally, within WHO, and externally, to give WHO a global leadership role.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO urged to back radical changes in drug research and development","field_subtitle":"Universities Allied for Essential Medicines","field_url":"http://www.enn.com/health/article/36129","body":"An international group of prominent academics \u2014 including several Nobel prize winners \u2014 has urged WHO member states to support radically new ways to address the lack of research into diseases that affect the poor. In particular, they are seeking a sizeable increase in government support for research into these diseases through an international research and development fund, and alternatives to the financial incentives of patents.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33138","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Women, HIV and AIDS, and violence ","field_subtitle":"Minter W (Ed): Africafocus, 28 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/ai0804b.php","body":"Based on interviews in two South African provinces and extensive consultation with South African agencies involved with the issue, this report provides a detailed portrait of the situation of rural women, and the interaction among violence, poverty, and the risk of HIV/AIDS. The overview has a concise survey of the development of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa including the debates about government policy and the active role of civil society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Assembly Opens On Note Of Hope For Intellectual Property","field_subtitle":"Intellectual Property Watch, 20 May 2008","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1057","body":"WHO Director General Margaret Chan at the 61st World Health Assembly, raised intellectual property issues optimistically, as an opportunity for the organisation to make a difference. Chan highlighted a report due out later this year from the Commission on Social Determinants of Health, which she 'should help us address the root causes of inequities with greater precision'. She then commended members for the 'tremendous progress' made in meetings of the Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation, and Intellectual Property (IGWG).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Writing about equity in health in east and southern Africa: A writing skills manual","field_subtitle":"Pointer R, Norden P, Loewenson R","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQ%20Writskill%20man.pdf","body":"The manual is intended for use by researchers in preparing papers, in writer\u2019s training workshops; and will be updated in later editions with additional areas of writing skills. This edition of the manual is a guide to producing scientific reports, peer-reviewed articles, EQUINET policy and discussion papers, briefs and reports. It is intended for those involved in EQUINET and related research programmes to prepare papers for publication in reports, papers and in peer-reviewed, scientific journals; to communicate work on health equity; to understand and work with peer review processes; and to improve writing skills generally, including for meeting reports.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":" Africa insists trade and development are inseparable","field_subtitle":"Afriquenligne, 23 April 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3mncz2","body":"Demanding assurance that their countries would be better off agreeing to enter Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the European Union (EU), African finance and trade ministers have insisted that the development dimension must be comprehensively addressed in the deals. In a declaration on the negotiations, the ministers also urged the negotiators to ensure that EPAs take into consideration the coherence between trade and development dimensions as well as Africa's regional integration efforts. After a one-day joint meeting, convened by the African Union Commission (AUC) to give political guidance on pressing issues in the areas of trade and development in relation to the EPAs, the ministers noted that the interim deals with the European Commission (EC) were contentious on a number of issues, including the definition of substantially all trade, transitional periods, export taxes, free circulation of goods, national treatment, bilateral safeguards and the non-exclusion clause.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A comparison of the behavioral and emotional disorders of primary school-going orphans and non-orphans in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Musisi S, Kinyanda E, Nakasujja N, Nakigudde J: African Health Sciences 7(4): 202-213","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=45&id=39256","body":"The authors investigated the emotional and behavioral problems of orphans in Rakai District, Uganda and suggested interventions. Most lived in big poor families with few resources, faced stigma and were frequently relocated. Community resources were inadequate. Compared to non-orphans, more orphans exhibited common emotional and behavioral problems but no major psychiatric disorders. Orphans were more likely to be emotionally needy, insecure, poor, exploited, abused or neglected. Most lived in poverty with elderly widowed female caretakers. But they showed high resilience in coping. To comprehensively address these problems, we recommend setting up a National Policy and Support Services for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children and their families, a National Child Protection Agency for all Children, Child Guidance Counselors in those schools with many orphans and lastly social skills training for all children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"A Critical Approach to the Aid Effectiveness Agenda","field_subtitle":"Better Aid, 2008","field_url":"http://www.betteraid.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=88&Itemid=26","body":"Betteraid.org is a campaign website, published by the Civil Society International Steering Group (ISG) towards the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra in September 2008, reviewing the Paris Declaration. It aims to provide information and updates on aid effectiveness issues, especially related to the CSO parallel process towards the Third High Level Forum. The International Steering Group (ISG), initiated during the World Social Forum in Nairobi in January 2007, is actively voicing CSOs concerns and is preparing the CSO parallel Forum in Accra under the chairmanship of IBON Foundation and ISG active partners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A global dialogue on a global crisis","field_subtitle":"The Lancet 371(9619), 5 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673608604961/fulltext","body":"At the first Global Forum on Human Resources for Health in Kampala, Uganda, delegates endorsed a Global Agenda for Action on the alarming imbalances in the availability and distribution of health workers worldwide. One component of the Agenda was a pledge to \"accelerate negotiations for a code of practice on the international recruitment of health workers\". The first step was taken on March 31 with the launch of a 3-week online global dialogue convened by the Health Worker Migration Policy Initiative. The global dialogue provided a unique opportunity for anyone affected by the vast complexities of health-worker migration, in whatever capacity, to share experiences and knowledge on the realities of migration, on effective strategies to retain health workers where they are needed most, and on what the key principles of a global code of practice should be. The paper questions whether another code of practice really required.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A PRA project report: Promoting partnership between Communities and Frontline Health Workers: Strengthening Community Health Committees in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Community Development Unit, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRAcdu2008","body":"This work was implemented as part of a multi-country programme exploring different dimensions of participatory approaches to people centred health systems in east and southern Africa. The process included participatory workshops with twenty-four health workers to increase their understanding of Community Health Committees (CHCs) and to support the CHCs more effectively in future.  Three-day Participatory Reflection and Action (PRA) workshops with representatives from Community Health Committees and key stakeholders, and provided an opportunity for health workers to discuss the roles and mapping of neighbourhoods surrounding the health facilities provided an important opportunity for exploring the similarities and differences in the challenges and resources available to the local communities. The post-test survey showed that the community became aware of the important role and function that committees play but were less satisfied with the functioning of the CHCs based on new understanding from the PRA work, while health workers developed more awareness of the CHCs, their potential and limitations. This was agreed to be the start of a process.  While PRA supports communities to know and artculate their needs and actions for these, more needs to be done to ensure sustainability of the process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"A review of internal medicine re-admissions in a peri-urban South African hospital","field_subtitle":"Stanley A, Graham N, Parrish A: South African Medical Journal 98(4):291-294, 2008","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=39555","body":"The re-admission rate and the number of preventable re-admissions in a secondary-level South African hospital were measured to identify factors predictive of re-admission. The admission register for the medical wards at Cecilia Makiwane Hospital (CMH) was used to identify re-admitted patients, whose folders were then reviewed. A comparison group of patients who were not re-admitted was randomly generated from the same register. One in twelve general medical patients was readmitted. Chronic diseases and inadequate patient education and discharge planning accounted for the largest group of re-admissions in older patients. Re-admission of HIV/AIDS patients has generated a second peak in younger individuals, and the impact of the antiretroviral roll-out on admission rates warrants further scrutiny.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"A rights-based approach for advocacy on access to essential medicines","field_subtitle":"Cepuch, C","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/CepVAL220408.pdf","body":"In Kenya, access to essential medicines is ensured legislatively for HIV, TB and malaria specifically, but delivery is patchy. The situation is improving, but not universally, and there is a continued assault on the IP Act and generic procurements by those who want to profit from selling essential drugs for the poor. Access to medicines is an issue that needs a balance between political will and public involvement/civil society demands. Civil society can demand their rights are realised through campaigns to implement the WTO rules that were designed to protect peoples' access to essential medicines and by stopping the assaults on the procurement of generics, increasing the availability of essential medicines, funding research and development for the medicines we need and abolishing taxes on essential medicines. Providing free essential medicines is the only affordable option for most of the population. This report was presented at the Africa Regional Civil Society meeting on the IGWG on Public Health, Innovation and Access, in Nairobi, Kenya, 28\u201329 August, 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A tale of two voices: Avoiding mixed messages on commitments to health","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson, TARSC/EQUINET and Di McIntyre, UCT/ EQUINET","field_url":"","body":"\r\nTwo meetings took place in the last month.  \r\n\r\nOn 18-20 April, the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) held an international conference on poverty and development in Pailles, Mauritius. Background material for the conference prepared by SADC showed the threat posed by critical levels of HIV and AIDS, TB and Malaria to achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Countries were recommended to reprioritise their spending to curb the spread of diseases and other health problems impacting on development, including by meeting commitments to the 2001 Abuja Declaration commitment of 15% of national budgets on public health. \r\n\r\nThe AU Ministers of Finance and Planning and Economic Development meeting held in Addis Ababa- Ethiopia from 26 March to 2 April also noted with concern the necessity for long-term sustainable financing of and investment in health created by AIDS and other diseases. However, they were publicly silent on the commitment made by African heads of state in 2001 to allocate 15% of their annual national budget to health as a means towards this. Indeed, there are unconfirmed reports from people attending the meeting that some Ministers of Finance argued for the Abuja target adopted by their heads of state in 2001 to be abandoned. \r\n\r\nThat the region needs to increase its public sector investment in health is not in dispute. Poorer groups continue to have considerably worse health than the better off; economic growth and achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the region is seriously undermined by the prevalence of HIV and AIDS, TB, Malaria and other diseases. Eleven of the sixteen countries in east and southern Africa spend less in their public sectors than the US$34 needed for the most basic interventions for these conditions, let alone the US$60 or more needed for more comprehensive health services. So far, only three countries in the SADC Region have reached the Abuja target, although more are moving in a positive direction. Ten of the sixteen countries in the region would, if they met the Abuja target, increase their public financing to health above the basic level of US$34/capita needed for these basic health programmes.  \r\n\r\nThere is significant potential gain when such increased spending is directed towards primary health care and district services, providing improvements in early detection, access and treatment for disadvantaged groups and in under-served areas. Many of the actions that improve health in poor communities are indeed taken outside the health sector, to improve physical, economic and social environments. However, evidence and experience shows that levering such actions for health across a range of sectors still calls for strong public health leadership, with adequate resources and political support to encourage shared mandates and co-ordinated action for health across all sectors. \r\n\r\nThe SADC meeting documents made it clear that a public sector led response is vital: Governments have the primary and most important role, responsibility and means for implementing systemic changes and sustaining them in the long run. Government action to reprioritise spending on health and develop sustainable, progressive strategies for financing health care is thus essential to create a basis for complementary strategies and inputs from other sources. \r\n\r\nIn contrast, diluting or failing to meet commitments to public funding for health undermines the necessary response to a major development challenge with greatest cost to poor households. As the SADC conference on poverty and development was informed, SADC Member States account for 35% of the people living with HIV globally and there are over 5.2 million orphans in the region. The region has the world\u2019s worst TB infection rate and the rate has increased in the last 15 years, while the resources needed to cope with the epidemic have dwindled. New epidemics of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) pose grave and rising public health threats, particularly where health resources are limited. There are an estimated 30 million cases of malaria and 400 000 deaths from malaria in the region, with particular risk for children and pregnant women. \r\n\r\nSuch illness impacts on household income, diverting time and money for caring - sometimes at the expense of food consumption or school enrolment in children - with longer term consequences for poverty and production, especially for agricultural production and food security. Ill health places particular demands on women and children to provide or pay for care. As public funding for health has fallen, the region has also experienced rising charges and out-of-pocket payments for health care. When public services are under-funded or inaccessible and out-of-pocket payments for health increase, this has a particularly impoverishing effect on women, lower income and socially marginalised groups. \r\n\r\nSo meeting the heads of state commitment in Abuja is important to directly address significant and rising disease burdens; provide the necessary public and health sector leadership to lever other contributions to health; and protect against rising impoverishment and inequality resulting from unaffordable levels of household spending on health care in the lowest income households. \r\n\r\nThis is clearly not only a matter of increasing resources for health, but of redirecting resources towards greatest health needs. However review of experience in African countries shows that equitable allocation of public sector health care resources is more likely in a situation of increasing resources to health, backed by a policy commitment to equity and explicit mechanisms for achieving reasonable allocation targets. \r\n\r\nNot surprisingly therefore, the paper produced by the SADC secretariat for the conference on responses to the economic impact of the three communicable diseases  was clear and unequivocal: \u2018SADC Member States and governments have committed themselves to many declarations including Abuja 2001 on the three communicable diseases, the Maputo Declaration of 2005 on declaring TB an emergency and UNGASS to name a few. They need to fulfill these obligations and put a mechanism in place to monitor and evaluate them.\u2019 \r\n\r\nThe commitment made by the heads of state in Abuja 2001 towards allocating 15% of their national budgets for health was an important contribution to poverty reduction and equity, and a challenge to international partners to eliminate debt and meet their own commitments to overseas development aid. We would expect a similar level of explicit commitment to the goal from the Ministers of Finance in the region, and more than that delivery on the 15% government funding to health. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat, email admin@equinetafrica.org. EQUINET calls for \u201cAbuja plus\u201d i.e.  15% government spending to health, increased local and international per capita funding, debt cancellation, abolishing user fees, increasing the share of progressive tax funding, and 50% of government spending to district levels and primary health care. EQUINET work on fair financing in health is available at www.equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Accountability in Poverty Reduction Strategies: The Role of Empowerment and Participation","field_subtitle":"Eberlei W: Social Development Papers 104, Social Development Department of the Sustainable Development Network of the World Bank, May 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5b82mx","body":"The elaboration of Poverty Reduction Strategies has seen a promising amount of stakeholder participation in many PRS countries, even if considerable quality problems are recognisable, such as exclusion of marginalised groups, speed and depth and the ad hoc nature of participation events as well as macroeconomic and structural policies being off-limits. Most countries have started implementing their PRSP,with participation dwindling instead of being institutionalised. Some observers speak of a 'participation gap'. The situation seems to be slightly more promising for the issue of participation in monitoring and evaluation of PRS, as in many countries independent civil society monitoring or participatory monitoring arrangements are planned, although mostly not yet operational. Stakeholder participation in the revision process has been occurring in a number of countries, but not much is known about the way this is done. For most of these issues a systematic review of experience is not available at this stage. Work is planned to increase the current understanding of the status, practice and challenges of participation in PRS implementation (including monitoring, evaluation, revisions, policy reforms, and institutionalisation) and to make conceptual as well as 'good practice' contributions to the current discussion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Addressing the Human Resource Crisis in Malawi\u2019s health sector: Employment preferences of public sector registered nurses","field_subtitle":"Mangham, L: ESAU Working Paper 18, Overseas Development Institute, London, 4 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h1lm3g1.html","body":"Many developing countries suffer from critical shortages of trained health workers, but Malawi\u2019s shortage is severe even by African standards. Measures to recruit and retain more staff are urgently needed.This paper reports on the employment preferences of public sector registered nurses in Malawi to help design incentives to encourage them to remain in Malawi's public  health sector. Improved pay was the single most important attribute identified that might improve job satisfaction, followed by opportunities for further education and the provision of basic housing. Improvements in the quality of housing provided would have little impact on how nurses value their employment. Establishing the relationship between pay increases and retention of registered nurses would require additional research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Agriculture and the WTO in Africa: Understand to act","field_subtitle":"Lebret MC, Alpha A: Groupe de recherche et d'echanges technologiques, 2007","field_url":"http://www.gret.org/publications/ouvrages/infoomc/index_en.html","body":"African countries have always struggled to participate fully in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and to influence its decisions. In addition to under-representation at WTO headquarters, the complexity of WTO bodies, rules and procedures weakens inputs. This book provides guidance in understanding how international trade institutions and agreements operate. Its aim is to provide those in charge of civil society organisations in sub-Saharan Africa with tools and references to better understand the stakes behind, and means for, their participation in world trade. Organised around descriptive and factual texts, this work contains many definitions and is illustrated by concrete experiences that facilitate reading.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Agriculture in the time of HIV/AIDS: Examining the relationship between agriculture and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Bie, SW: Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, 2008","field_url":"http://www.umb.no/statisk/noragric/publications/reports/noragricrep42.pdf","body":"Few sub-Saharan African countries have substantial analyses of the rural and agricultural situations in their Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and the link between agriculture and HIV and AIDS is therefore missed. Rural poverty is at the root of risky behavior (sexual services for food, cash or other resources), which can often lead to an HIV infection, hence the rate of HIV transmission can only be effectively reduced by reducing rural poverty. The report recommends improvements in agriculture, food supply, local social security networks (which provide information and behavioural advice) and access to assets that can be mobilised as alternatives to transactional sex. Gender issues also need to be addressed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing the quality of data aggregated by antiretroviral treatment clinics in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Makombe SD, Hochgesang M, Jahn A, et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 86 (4):241-320, April 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/4/07-044685/en/index.html","body":"By 31 December 2006, Malawi had enrolled 82 000 patients in its free national antiretroviral treatment (ART) programme. Each quarter, data from all ART clinics are aggregated for national reporting on ART scale-up. This information is essential to monitoring site performance, guiding national planning and supporting sustained funding. Despite increasing reliance on sites to aggregate data, the completeness and accuracy of sites\u2019 reports was unknown. The authors therefore conducted an operational study during regular supervisory visits to assess the quality of data in the site reports. Specific objectives were to: i) determine the completeness and accuracy of key case registration and outcome data compiled by ART clinics, ii) compare national data summarized from site reports versus supervision reports, and iii) analyse characteristics associated with sites\u2019 capacity to compile quality data.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Baseline for the evaluation of a National Action Plan for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children using the UNAIDS core indicators: A case study in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Saito S, Monasch R, Keogh E, Dhlembeu N, Bergua J, Mafico M: Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies 2(3):198 - 214, December 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6g8orv","body":"This paper describes the experience of Zimbabwe in establishing a baseline for its National Action Plan for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children (NAP for OVC) using the 10 core indicators developed by the UNAIDS Global Monitoring and Evaluation Reference Group in 2004. Through a population-based household survey in rural and urban high-density areas and the OVC policy and planning effort index assessment tool, a baseline was established. The survey found that 43.6% of children under 18 years were orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. Half of all households with children care for one or more OVC. While the large majority of OVC continued to be cared for by the extended family, its capacity to care for these children appeared to be under pressure. OVC were less likely to have their basic minimum material needs met, more likely to be underweight, less likely to be taken to an appropriate health provider when sick and less likely to attend school. Medical support to households with OVC was found to be relatively high (26%). Other support, such as psychosocial support (2%) and school assistance (12%), was lower. The OVC Effort Index assessment indicates that serious efforts are being made. The increase in the effort index between 2001 and 2004 in the areas of consultative efforts, planning and coordinating mechanisms reflects the strengthened commitment. Monitoring and evaluation and legislative review are the weakest areas of the OVC response. The findings of the baseline exercise point to the need for continued and additional efforts and resources to implement the NAP for OVC, the priorities of which were confirmed by the survey as critical to improve the welfare of the OVC in Zimbabwe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Birth of the subject: the ethics of monitoring development programmes","field_subtitle":"George SK: Journal of Global Ethics 4(1):19-36, April 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4n3rj4","body":"NGO-based and rigorously monitored development programmes are bringing about important and positive socio-economic changes in the developing world. However, there are numerous instances of the employment of aggressive and grueling monitoring techniques which objectify the subject of development, the primary stakeholder, claiming development results as the successful achievement of goals of the donor or implementing organization. It is in this context that one can speak of an ethic of monitoring development programmes. The paper argues that such an ethic can be positively based on principles like empowering people through development work without hurting their sense of self-worth, the principle of trust and partnership and, negatively, never striving to objectify any person or people for the achievement of some objective, even if this objective is in itself honourable and desirable. The paper contends that if development is freeing the subject, the central player, to exercise their capability to live their life to the fullest, then development monitoring and development work in general has to enhance freedom, autonomy and openness.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Call to Action and Youth Statement","field_subtitle":"Third African Conference on sexuality health and rights, Abuja, Nigeria, 4-7 February 2008","field_url":"http://www.africasexuality.org/download/Call%20to%20Action%20and%20Youth%20Statement.pdf","body":"Participants at the Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights affirm that Sexual Rights are an integral and inalienable part of basic Human Rights.  This requires that African states be accountable to their citizens for their sexual health and rights. Participants also called for increased accountability across the African continent at all levels \u2013 governments, institutions, civil society, communities, families and individuals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges of Childhood TB/HIV Management in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Poerksen P, Kazembe PN, Graham SM: Malawi Medical Journal 19(4):142-148, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=64&id=39560","body":"The diagnosis and management of childhood tuberculosis (TB) are major challenges in countries such as Malawi with high incidence of TB and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Diagnosis of TB in children often relies only on clinical features but clinical overlap with the presentation of HIV and other HIV-related lung disease is common. The tuberculin skin test (TST), the standard marker of M. tuberculosis infection in immune competent children, has poor sensitivity in HIV-infected children and is not usually available in Malawi. HIV test should be routine in children with suspected TB as it improves clinical management. HIV-infected children are at increased risk of developing active disease following TB exposure which justifies the use of isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) once active disease has been excluded but this is difficult to implement and appropriate duration of IPT is unknown. HIV-infected children with active TB experience higher mortality and relapse rates on standard TB treatment compared to HIV-uninfected children, highlighting the need for further research to define optimal treatment regimens. HIV-infected children should also receive appropriate supportive care including co-trimoxazole prophylaxis and anti-retroviral treatment (ART) if indicated. There are concerns about concurrent use of some anti-TB drugs such as rifampicin with some ARTs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Changing gendered norms about women and girls at the level of household and community: a review of the evidence","field_subtitle":"Keleher H, Franklin L: Global Public Health 3(S1):42-57, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4h35ns","body":"Gendered norms are embedded in social structures, operating to restrict the rights, opportunities, and capabilities, of women and girls, causing significant burdens, discrimination, subordination, and exploitation. This review, developed for the Women and Gender Equity Knowledge Network of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, sought to identify the best available research evidence about programmatic interventions, at the level of household and community, that have been effective for changing gender norms to increase the status of women. The focus was on developing countries. Key themes were identified: education of women and girls; economic empowerment of women; violence against women, including female genital mutilation/cutting; and men and boys.  A key finding is, that targeting women and girls is a sound investment, but outcomes are dependent on integrated approaches and the protective umbrella of policy and legislative actions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"COMESA customs union: an assessment of progress and challenges for Eastern and Southern Africa's poor","field_subtitle":"Mambara JL, Trade and Development Studies Centre - Trust, Zimbabwe, 2007","field_url":"http://www.tradescentre.org.zw/download_documents/COMESA%20Customs%20Union%20final%20final--Mambara%20J.pdf","body":"COMESA's goal is the establishment of a free trade area, a customs union, a common market and ultimately an economic union. COMESA is home to 10 of the poorest countries in the world - Angola, Burundi, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Zaire and Zambia. This paper examines the impact of COMESA on the poor. The report finds that while COMESA has liberalised trade in goods and services generally, there is now an urgent need to liberalise intra-regional trade in services and improve relations among its members. Conflicts in COMESA are unsustainable and strong\r\nimplementation mechanisms are needed to address non-tariff barriers and other trade restrictions within the region, with decisions on how transfer of sovereignty in some areas of trade policy to regional institutions is done in relation to SADC and COMESA. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Commercialisation and Globalisation of Health Care: Lessons from UNRISD Research","field_subtitle":"United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Social Policy and Development, December 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4q5xcy","body":"Using market mechanisms in the provision of health services and seeing health care as a private good are approaches that have featured prominently in health sector reforms across the world. The UNRISD research on global and local experiences of health care commercialization challenges this framework. It calls for reclaiming public policies that promote the purposes that health systems are set up to serve: population health and the provision of care for all according to need.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Conducting a meta-ethnography of qualitative literature: Lessons learnt","field_subtitle":"Atkins S, Lewin S, Smith H et al: BMC Medical Research Methodology 8: 21, 16 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/8/21/abstract","body":"Qualitative synthesis has become more commonplace in recent years. Meta ethnography is one of several methods for synthesising qualitative research and is being used increasingly within health care research. However, many aspects of the steps in the process remain ill-defined. Meta-ethnography is a useful method for synthesising qualitative research and for developing models that interpret findings across multiple studies. Despite its growing use in health research, further research is needed to address the wide range of methodological and epistemological questions raised by the approach.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Considering domestic manufacturing issues","field_subtitle":"Wanyanga, WO","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/WanTRADE220408.pdf","body":"This report - presented at the African Civil Society Meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group on Intellectual Property, Innovation and Health in Nairobi, Kenya, 28-29 August 2007 - found that there are over 30 registered local manufacturers in Kenya and at least two others under construction (foreign investments). It also analysed seven private-private partnership (PPP) projects (six in Kenya & one in Tanzania). The first PPP project passed its first inspection in August 2007 and the others are due for inspection by the end of the project. The main outcome of the report was that intellectual property rights do not stimulate research and development for medicines for diseases prevalent in developing countries simply because the market in poor countries is considered to be too small or too uncertain.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Development and validation of the Measure of Indigenous Racism Experiences (MIRE)","field_subtitle":"Paradies YC, Cunningham J: International Journal for Equity in Health 7(9), 22 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/7/1/9","body":"In recent decades there has been increasing evidence of a relationship between self-reported racism and health. Although a plethora of instruments to measure racism have been developed, very few have been described conceptually or psychometrically. Furthermore, this research field has been limited by a dearth of instruments that examine reactions/responses to racism and by a restricted focus on African American populations. In response to these limitations, the 31-item Measure of Indigenous Racism Experiences (MIRE) was developed to assess self-reported racism for Indigenous Australians. This paper describes the development of the MIRE together with an opportunistic examination of its content, construct and convergent validity in a population health study involving 312 Indigenous Australians. The MIRE has considerable utility as an instrument that can assess multiple facets of racism together with responses/reactions to racism among indigenous populations and, potentially, among other ethnic/racial groups. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 56: National Health Financing in Zimbabwe 2005: Contribution of the National AIDS Levy to National Health Care Support","field_subtitle":"Mpofu A, Nyahoda P. National AIDS Council of Zimbabwe","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS54finMpofu.pdf","body":"The study reviewed existing literature, and held focus group discussions and interviews with key informants to examine the contribution of the AIDS levy in Zimbabwe to national health financing. Two provinces were randomly sampled for the in-depth assessment of spending on AIDS levy. The study revealed that the contribution of the AIDS levy has so far been relatively low and undermined by inflation, with inequities in the allocation of funds by province in relation to HIV prevalence. The  provincial and district levels, where most patient care takes place, are severely under-funded. If inflation is controlled for, the study concludes that the AIDS levy is a noble idea but that improvements are needed in the allocation of resources. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic evaluation of delivering Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine in routine immunisation services in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Akumu AO, English M, Anthony J: Scott G, Griffiths, UK: Bulletin of the World Health Organization (85)7:511-518, 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/85/7/06-034686.pdf","body":"In 2001, Kenya was one of nine countries to receive financial backing to introduce the Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccine. How cost-effective has it been? Recently the Kenyan government agreed to co-finance the costs of the vaccine from 2006 to 2011, gradually increasing its contributions. The study concluded that Hib vaccine is a highly cost-effective intervention in Kenya. Although the level of disease is relatively low, the investment required for disease prevention is also low.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic impact of the three communicable diseases: HIV and AIDS, TB and malaria on the SADC Region","field_subtitle":"SADC Secretariat: SADC International Conference on Poverty and Development, 18\u201320 April 2008, Pailles, Mauritius","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5kq7h5","body":"The region as a whole is not on track to meet the MDG targets owing to, among others, increased prevalence of communicable diseases. In this paper, authors discuss the Economic impact of the three communicable diseases: HIV and AIDS, TB and Malaria and demonstrate that these diseases negatively affect economic growth. The paper is based on literature review of studies done within and outside the SADC region on the impact of the three communicable diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Effects of a community-based delivery of intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy on treatment seeking for malaria at health units in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Mbonyea, AK; Schultz, K; Hansenb, K; Bygbjergc, IC; Magnussend, P: Department of Health Services Research, Institute of Public Health, University of Aarhus, Denmark","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5zel7v","body":"The impact of  intermittent preventive treatment (IPTp) on malaria in pregnancy is well known. However, in countries where this policy is implemented, poor access and low compliance have been widely reported. Novel approaches are needed to deliver this intervention. This paper assesses whether or not traditional birth attendants, drug-shop vendors, community reproductive health workers and adolescent peer mobilisers can administer IPTp with sulphadoxine\u2013pyrimethamine (SP) to pregnant women, reach those at greatest risk of malaria, and increase access and compliance with IPTp. The report found that the community approach was effective for the delivery of IPTp, although women still accessed and benefited from malaria treatment and other services at health units. However, the costs for accessing malaria treatment and other services are high and could be a limiting factor. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EPAs: The Way Forward for the ACP","field_subtitle":"Commonwealth and ACP Secretariat","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ComTRADE220408.pdf","body":"The High Level Technical Meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, 7-8 April, 2008 undertook a comprehensive stock taking of EPAs that have been concluded in order to provide countries with an objective and accurate assessment of the content, character and implications of the various agreements that will help guide and inform their policy choices. For example, specific studies on particular issues identified useful to assist in the negotiations should be conducted and the ACP Secretariat/Commonwealth Secretariat should assist in organising sensitisation seminars for government officials and Parliamentarians and other stakeholders on EPAs and related issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 87: A tale of two voices: Avoiding mixed messages on commitments to health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluation of prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission program in rural Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Hocque M, Van Den Heuvel M, Hocque E: Clinics in Mother and Child Health 4(2):753-762, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=265&id=39623","body":"In 2004, South Africa had one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world and the province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) reported the peak of 40.7% positivity among the antenatal population. The purpose of this study was to identify measures to improve the quality of an HIV prevention program targeted at reducing the rate of mother-to-child transmission of HIV infection (MTCT). A cross-sectional observational (non-experimental) study was conducted from Empangeni hospital (i) using antenatal clinic registers between May 2002 and April 2003 and (ii) applied a questionnaire survey to a randomly selected sample of 306 HIV infected women who delivered between April and June 2004. The results showed that among 3774 antenatal attendees, 2528 (67%) accepted pre-test counselling and 2390 (63%) HIV testing. Majority (95%) of those who had (2528) pre-test counselling accepted HIV testing, post test counselling and test results. The prevalence of HIV infection was 41% (980) (95% CI, 39%-43%). Among them (980 HIV positive), 73% (716) received nevirapine during the antenatal period yielding an overall antenatal nevirapine prophylaxis (uptake) rate of 46% (based on an estimate of 41% HIV prevalence rate for total antenatal population of 3774 during the study period). Between April to June 2004, 2393 women delivered at Empangeni hospital of which 39% (933) were HIV positive. The coverage of pretest counselling for HIV testing (67%) and nevirapine use (46%) was low. We found in the questionnaire survey that the participating women had adequate knowledge and compliance on the use of nevirapine. Strategies are needed to improve program uptake and effectiveness of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV infection (PMTCT) program in rural South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Few Countries on Track to Curb Maternal, Child Mortality Rates","field_subtitle":"US News and Report, 11 April 2008","field_url":"http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/healthday/080411/few-countries-on-track-to-curb-maternal-child-mortality-rates.htm","body":"Three-quarters of the 68 countries most in need of improving mother and child mortality rates have made little, if any, progress in meeting internationally set goals over the past three years, according to a series of new reports. The Countdown to 2015 for Maternal, Newborn and Child Survival, an international group that monitors these goals, still holds hope that progress can be made quickly in these underachieving nations, according to reports in a special edition of The Lancet. The medical journal looks at the group's efforts in 68 \"priority\" or \"countdown\" countries, where 97 percent of the maternal and child under-5 deaths occur worldwide. The group has set goals to reduce child mortality rate by two-thirds and maternal deaths by three-quarters by 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Fifth Course on Promoting Rational Medicines Use in the Community (PRMUC 2008): 29 June-11 July 2008","field_subtitle":"School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"This course was developed to meet requests from individuals and organisations, for more effective planning, research and implementation of rational medicines use activities in the community.  The objectives are: to study and remedy inappropriate medicines use in the community; to investigate and prioritize medicines use problems, and to develop effective strategies for change; and to address challenges in the use of medicines in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and chronic diseases; including issues on treatment literacy and adherence. This two week course is aimed at policy makers, management staff from Ministries of Health, ARV programme managers, NGO officials responsible for national and local programmes, development aid agencies, social scientists, pharmacists and other public health workers. The deadline for receipt of applications is 2 May 2008. The course flyer and application form can be printed out directly from the Medicines web page at http://mednet3.who.int/prduc or www.uwc.ac.za/comhealth/soph ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33079","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Food Insecurity, Vulnerability and Human Rights Failure ","field_subtitle":"Guha-Khasnobis B, Acharya SS, Davis B: United Nations University - Wider, October 2007","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/books-and-journals/2007/en_GB/food-insecurity-palgrave/","body":"This book analyses interactions between food insecurity, vulnerability and the right to food. The significance of a human rights approach, and the way in which it translates to gender considerations, with links to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, agricultural productivity and the environment, adds a new dimension to the problem of world hunger. By exploring these approaches to hunger this volume shifts away from research on macro food availability to more composite dimensions cutting across economics, sociology, law and politics. It includes a chapter on Food Security in the SADC Region: An Assessment of National Trade Strategy in the Context of the 2001-03 Food Crisis by A.Charman & J.Hodge and on Gender, HIV/AIDS and Rural Livelihoods: Micro-Level Investigations in Three African Countries by J.Curry, E.Wiegers, A.Garbero, S.Stokes & J.Hourihan. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Further Resolution Needed To Keep IP Issues In WTO Negotiations","field_subtitle":"Mara K: Intellectual Property Watch, 18 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1012","body":"Intellectual property rights issues on the table in the newly invigorated World Trade Organization negotiations are at risk if remaining deep differences cannot be further narrowed in the coming weeks, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy said. A significant majority of WTO members support either the proposed TRIPS amendment, or the Geographic Indications extension, and the negotiations on each have been linked by proponents in the consultations. But a smaller number of members do not agree to negotiate on the CBD amendment or GI extension, though they do not exclude further discussion, according to Lamy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender, health, and human rights in sites of political exclusion","field_subtitle":"Laurie M, Petchesky RP: Global Public Health 3(S1):25-41, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6qsc44","body":"In this paper, authors investigate the intersections of gender, health and human rights in sites of political exclusion. The paper presents how the recent 'war on terror' is driving health outcomes in refugee and Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. The evidence presented reveals a number of contradictions of refugee and IDP camps, further highlighting the need for a more rights based humanitarianism. The authors conclude that foregrounding states of exception, as a way of understanding current gender dynamics in the social determinants of health, is both epidemiologically necessary and conceptually useful. In these sites of exclusion, the indispensability of a human rights approach to gender and health equity issues is revealed most directly. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Global food crisis increases instability in world\u2019s poorest countries","field_subtitle":"LDC Watch, 20 April 2008","field_url":"","body":"The current global food crisis will impact most in the world\u2019s poorest countries civil society leaders said in Accra on the opening day of UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The meeting, organised with the collaboration of  UNCTAD and the UN\u2019s Office of the High Representative for LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS (UN-OHRILLS), was addressing the continued vulnerability of LDCs. Hosted by Ghana, the UNCTAD XII conference entitled \u201cMaking Globalisation Work for Development\u201d is seeking to identify opportunities of globalisation for developing countries. However as the civil society meeting heard current international policies are not addressing the systemic problems facing LDCs.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33075","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global tuberculosis control:  Surveillance, planning, financing: TB remains a major cause of illness and death worldwide","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/tb/publications/global_report/2008/pdf/fullreport.pdf","body":"This report on global tuberculosis (TB) control compiles data from over 200 countries to monitor the scale and direction of TB epidemics, implementation and the impact of the Stop TB Strategy. Whilst there has been progress in HIV testing among TB patients, implementation of interventions to reduce the burden of TB in HIV-positive people is far below the targets set in the Global plan in 2006. Overall, there are several signs that global progress in TB control is slowing and that there are parts of the world where much more needs to be done to achieve the global targets that have been set. The report recommends that renewed effort to increase the rate of progress in global TB control in line with the expectations of the Global Plan, backed up by intensified resource mobilisation from domestic and international donors, is required.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalisation - Poverty Channels and case studies from Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Nissanke N,  Thorbecke E (Guest Eds.), African Development Review, April 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/books-and-journals/2008/en_GB/AfDR20-1/","body":"This special issue explores how the forces of globalisation influence poverty; describes and discusses the main transmission channels and mechanisms; and analyses the impact of globalisation on Africa through six case studies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Guidelines and mindlines: Why do clinical staff over-diagnose malaria in Tanzania? A qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Chandler CIR, Jones C, Boniface G: Malaria Journal 7: 53, 2 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/7/1/53","body":"Malaria over-diagnosis in Africa is widespread and costly both financially and in terms of morbidity and mortality from missed diagnoses. An understanding of the reasons behind malaria over-diagnosis is urgently needed to inform strategies for better targeting of antimalarials. In an ethnographic study of clinical practice in two hospitals in Tanzania, 2,082 patient consultations with 34 clinicians were observed over a period of three months at each hospital. Clinicians were found to follow mindlines as well as or rather than guidelines, which incorporated multiple social influences operating in the immediate and the wider context of decision making. Interventions to move mindlines closer to guidelines need to take the variety of social influences into account.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health financing reform in Kenya \u2013 assessing the social health insurance proposal","field_subtitle":"Carrin G, James C, Adelhardt M, Doetinchem O, Eriki P, Hassan M, van den Hombergh H, Kirigia J, Koemm B, Korte R, Krech R, Lankers C, van Lente J, Maina T, Malonza K,  Mathauer I, Okeyo TM, Muchiri S et al: South African Medical Journal 97(2): 130-135, 2 ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=39605","body":"Kenya has had a history of health financing policy changes since its independence in 1963. Recently, significant preparatory work was done on a new Social Health Insurance Law that, if accepted, would lead to universal health coverage in Kenya after a transition period. Questions of economic feasibility and political acceptability continue to be discussed, with stakeholders voicing concerns on design features of the new proposal submitted to the Kenyan parliament in 2004. For economic, social, political and organisational reasons a transition period will be necessary, which is likely to last more than a decade. However, important objectives such as access to health care and avoiding impoverishment due to direct health care payments should be recognised from the start so that steady progress towards effective universal coverage can be planned and achieved.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV-TB co-infection: Meeting the challenge","field_subtitle":"The Forum for Collaborative HIV Research, 2007","field_url":"http://www.hivforum.org/uploads/TB/Final%20HIV-TB%20Report.pdf","body":"Ten per cent of individuals infected with TB develop the active disease but this is greatly increased in those whose immune systems have been weakened by HIV. This report from the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research highlights the difficulty in managing the co-epidemic of HIV and TB that is rapidly spreading in Sub-Saharan Africa. The report concludes that strategies for dealing with TB and HIV currently exist in isolation, often reinforced by vertical programme financing. Efforts must be made to integrate these disease treatment programmes that will involve stakeholders working together within an evidence-based collaborative framework. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How can southern research influence aid policy?","field_subtitle":"Burall S, Datta A, Forum on the Future of Aid, 2008","field_url":"http://www.futureofaid.net/files/Influencing%20Aid%20-%20Burall%20and%20Datta.pdf","body":"In light of increased access to policy dialogue about the reform of the international aid architecture, this paper explores ways in which southern researchers can maximise their input in to the debate. The authors argue that the current aid system is changing significantly, not only in terms of the increasing amounts of money which are likely to flow through the system, but also because of the range of new donors and funding vehicles which are joining it. This change is making the system more complex, and could potentially reduce the effectiveness of the aid that flows through it, but it also offers significant opportunities for reform. Specifically a number of decision-making fora have recently opened up which offer the chance for greater participation by southern organisations, particularly research institutes and think-tanks. To aid southern researchers\u2019 affect on the debate the authors propose that they: target the content of the research; ensure it is in an appropriate medium and tailor it to the policy-makers; identify which international aid policy fora are most likely to take up their research; and increase focus on effective communication \u2013 researchers need to prepare a communications strategy to help to target their limited resources and capacity more effectively. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementing primary health care in Africa: challenges and recommendations  ","field_subtitle":"Regional Office for Africa, World Health Organisation, 2008","field_url":"http://afro.who.int/phc_hs_2008/documents/En/review_pc_2003.pdf","body":"This World Health Organisation review examines the implementation of primary health care (PHC) in Africa and identifies the strategic interventions required to cope with the new challenges facing the health systems in the 21st century. The review addresses PHC policy formation and implementation, the resources that are available for PHC implementation, monitoring and review. PHC policy formation had been well articulated in the national health policies by most countries, however, the extent to which PHC policies encompassed equity, community participation, inter-sectoral collaboration and affordability is still questionable. Factors delaying PHC implementation include weak structures, inadequate attention to PHC principles, inadequate resource allocation and inadequate political will. The key recommendations of the review include to: harmonise health sector reforms with PHC to ensure that initiatives promote equity and quality in health services; improve the fairness of financing policies and strategies and service coverage for the poor; support countries to address their particular human resource needs through clear articulation of human resources policies, plans, development and strengthening of national management systems and employment policies; support countries to identify and put in place mechanisms for attracting and retaining health personnel.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Industry Losing Faith In WIPO; Debates US WTO Cases Against China","field_subtitle":"Viana LP: Intellectual Property Watch, 28 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=979","body":"The World Intellectual Property Organization is seen as in a state of tumult these days, as the global body searches for a new director general and tries to grapple with issues such as implementing a Development Agenda and further harmonising global patent regimes. And some industry observers think it is causing some to lose trust in the organisation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Innovative Partnership To Create Another Patent-Free Malaria Drug","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 17 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1011","body":"After an innovative partnership between a non-governmental group and a pharmaceutical company led to a new cheap non-patented drug against malaria being available in Africa in 2007, the model is being implemented again with another new non-patented anti-malarial drug being delivered to South American patients. Drug research and development being carried out under public funding is a new model that should lead the way, Ann-Marie Sevcsik, DNDi scientific communications manager, told Intellectual Property Watch. \u201cResearch and development should be \u2018needs-driven\u2019 instead of profit-driven, and not only for neglected diseases but for neglected patients, like cancer patients in the developing world,\u201d she said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Interim EPAs in Africa: What\u2019s in them? And what\u2019s next?","field_subtitle":"ODI and ECDPM: Trade Negotiation Insights 7(3), April 2008","field_url":"http://www.acp-eu-trade.org/library/files/TNI_EN_7-3.pdf","body":"By the end of 2007, only eighteen African states (including most non-LDCs and some LDCs) had initialled interim EPAs, as had two Pacific non-LDCs (Fiji and Papua New Guinea), while Caribbean countries went further and approved full EPAs. What have they agreed to? What are the main implementation challenges, some of which will require support from Europe? And for those that remain committed to this process, what are the options for the completion of negotiations towards full EPAs? The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) study attempts to analyse these questions as comprehensively as possible, with a focus on Africa. This article summarises some of the main findings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"International Politics of HIV/AIDS: Global Disease-Local Pain","field_subtitle":"Seckinelgin H: Routledge UK, 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6baxqr","body":"This book examines the global governance of the AIDS epidemic, interrogating the role of this international system and global discourse on interventions. The geographical focus is Sub-Saharan Africa since the region has been at the forefront of these interventions. There is a need to understand the relationship between the international political environment and the impact of resulting policies on HIV and AIDS in the context of people's lives. There is a certain disjuncture between this governance structures and the way people experience the disease in their everyday lives. Although the structure allows people to emerge as policy relevant target groups and beneficiaries, the articulation of needs and design of policy interventions tends to reflect international priorities rather than people's thinking on the problem and the nature of the system does not allow interventions to be far reaching and sustainable. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Joint tuberculosis/HIV services in Malawi: Progress, challenges and the way forward","field_subtitle":"Chimzizi R, Harries A: International Journal of Public Health, 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/85/5/06-036665/en/index.html","body":"This review of progress made on a three-year tuberculosis TB/HIV plan implemented in Malawi between 2003 and 2005 found that barriers to testing TB patients for HIV include: irregular supplies of HIV-testing reagents, staff forgetting to refer patients or patients themselves not undergoing HIV testing and counselling after being registered and placed on anti-TB treatment. The authors recommend that ways to improve HIV-testing uptake need to be found, including the integration of HIV testing with the TB registration process itself. The monitoring systems for HIV and TB need to explicitly include the relevant parameters, for example, TB monitoring tools which include data on numbers of TB patients who have been tested for HIV, who are HIV-positive, and who have started antiretroviral therapy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Key issues in clinic functioning \u2013 a case study of two clinics","field_subtitle":"Couper ID, Hugo FM, Tumbo JM, Harvey BM, Malete NH: South African Medical Journal 97(2): 124-129, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=39606","body":"The aim of this research was to understand key issues in the functioning of two different primary care clinics serving the same community, in order to learn more about clinic management. Data were collected in a government and an NGO clinic in the North West province of South Africa. Key findings included: (i) there are attitudinal differences between the staff at the two clinics; (ii) the patients appreciate the services of both clinics, though they view them differently; (iii) clinic A provides a wider range of services to more people more often; (iv) clinic B presents a picture of quality of care, related to the environment and approach of staff; (v) waiting time is not as important as how patients are treated; (vi) medications are a crucial factor, in the minds of staff and patients; and (vii) a supportive, empowering organisational culture is needed to encourage staff to deliver better care to their patients. The management of the clinic is part of this culture. A respectful and caring approach to patients, and an organisational culture which supports and enables staff, can achieve much of this without any additional resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Making full use of TRIPS flexibilities in patent laws: A critical review of Uganda\u2019s draft Industrial Property Bill","field_subtitle":"HEPS Uganda","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/HepTRADE220408.pdf","body":"Since 2000, the Uganda Law Reform Commission has been spearheading the process of reforming Uganda\u2019s patent legislation. The reform is taking place in the context of the Doha Development Agenda, a process for continued negotiations on areas of concern within the WTO agreements raised by developing countries during the Fourth Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar in November 2001. Although the country's draft bill has been improved in a number of aspects, there is still need for improvement on the drafting language to make use of the flexibilities in the widest allowable sense and capture the new thinking regarding these flexibilities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Mandelson rules out renegotiation of partnership accords","field_subtitle":"European Parliament, 18 April 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5ce3th","body":"Any renegotiation of the economic partnership agreements (EPAs) already initialled with the countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) would be a disaster, Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson told members of the EP International Trade Committee on Thursday. Referring to recurrent criticisms of the EPAs, Mr Mandelson ruled out \"any suggestion of renegotiating the agreements already initialled\".  Any renegotiation would constitute \"a new threat of legal uncertainty to the agreements but would also be a disaster for the ACP countries\", according to Mr Mandelson, who restated his goal of concluding \"full EPAs with comprehensive regional coverage\" in the six geographical regions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Microfinance and poverty reduction in the SADC Region","field_subtitle":"SADC Secretariat, SADC International Conference on Poverty and Development, 18\u201320 April 2008, Pailles, Mauritius","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6jrjkl","body":"Microfinance has been recognised, globally, as a viable and sustainable tool for poverty reduction and economic development through improving income generating activities and employment creation. Despite well documented evidence of the positive impact of promoting access to finance to under-served segments of the community, many poor people in the Africa, particularly in Southern African Development Community (SADC), still remain excluded from the mainstream financial system. Microfinance programmes are reported to stimulate the growth of the micro-enterprises and the SME sectors, assist in the formalization of the informal sector and integrate that sector into the mainstream economy, thus contributing to socio-economic development and to poverty reduction.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Microfinance in post-disaster and post-conflict situations: Turning victims into shareholders","field_subtitle":"Hudon M, Seibel HD: Institut d'Etudes Europeennes - Universite libre de Bruxelles, 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=36083","body":"This article examines the role of microfinance and member-owned institutions (MOI) such as local savings and credit associations both for the provision of reparations and for post-conflict and post-disaster reconstruction. It finds that microfinance could play a crucial role in reconstruction. However, microfinance is limited by: the lack of potential clients with business skills and their lack of assets; the breakdown of existing markets; physical insecurity. In the special case of human rights abuses, microfinance institutions might be instrumental as they: stregthen the self-financing capacity of the recipients of reparation payments; offer credit for investment and working capital to small and micro entrepreneurs; attract external finance. Member-owned organisations are particularly useful because, amongst other things, they can contribute to the establishment or reconstruction of civil institutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Mobilising external development support for the MDGs in SADC: Promises, progress and challenges","field_subtitle":"SADC Secretariat: SADC International Conference on Poverty and Development, 18\u201320 April 2008, Pailles, Mauritius","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/66aafy","body":"This paper focuses on the efforts to increase development aid. What were the decisions and promises made following the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals? What pledges and commitments did the traditional donor agencies and the developed countries make? What are the achievements? Did they deliver? The paper finds that the traditional donor countries \u2013 the G8 and the OECD countries - have delivered far less than promised and expected. The target of doubling aid flows to Africa in 2010 compared to 2004 is unlikely to be achieved. There have been significant increases in aid to Africa but most of the additional aid is provided for debt relief operations with only modest increases in aid for development programmes. In Southern Africa all increase is tied to debt relief operations (mainly for the DR Congo) with no additional aid provided for development programmes. Although not much additional development aid is forthcoming through these channels; it may have helped to shift priorities to accelerate achievement of some MDGs, such as child health. The emergence of China and other emerging powers in the south as development actors in Africa is of major significance. It creates both new opportunities and new challenges for development and poverty reduction. These countries are not primarily providers of development aid, but they are important in assisting development as investors, traders and providers of support for infrastructure development \u2013 and in potentially increasing the bargaining power of African states.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Mozambique: An Independent Analysis of Ownership and Accountability in the Development Aid System","field_subtitle":"IPAM, Better Aid, 28 March  2008","field_url":"http://betteraid.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=135&Itemid=1","body":"Mozambique is referred to as being a success story after seventeen years of civil war and economic and social decline. The country is highly dependent on external aid. Long before the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, the Government of Mozambique (GoM) and a group of donors made efforts to coordinate and harmonise external aid. Therefore, it is interesting to study the evolution of external aid mechanisms to the country. The general objective of the research is to contribute to the agenda, discussion and results of the Ghana High Level Forum on aid effectiveness, reporting on progress and concerns regarding the implementation of the Paris Declaration. In the specific case of Mozambique, the research aims to examine critically the aid system and the  mplications of the Paris Declaration, especially concerning ownership and accountability in the external  aid system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"National HIV incidence measures - new insights into the South African epidemic","field_subtitle":"Rehle T, Shisana O, Pillay V, Zuma K, Puren A, Parker W: South African Medical Journal 97(2):194-199, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=39608","body":"Currently South Africa does not have national HIV incidence data based on laboratory testing of blood specimens. The 2005 South African national HIV household survey was analysed to generate national incidence estimates stratified by age, sex, race, province and locality type, to compare the HIV incidence and HIV prevalence profiles by sex, and to examine the relationship between HIV prevalence, HIV incidence and associated risk factors. HIV incidence in the study population aged 2 years and older was 1.4% per year, with 571 000 new HIV infections estimated for 2005. An HIV incidence rate of 2.4% was recorded for the age group 15-49 years. The incidence of HIV among females peaked in the 20-29-year age group at 5.6%, more than six times the incidence found in 20-29-year-old males (0.9%). Among youth aged 15-24 years, females account for 90% of the recent HIV infections. Non-condom use among youth, current pregnancy and widowhood were the socio-behavioural factors associated with the highest HIV incidence rates. The HIV incidence estimates reflect the underlying transmission dynamics that are currently at work in South Africa. The findings suggest that the current prevention campaigns are not having the desired impact, particularly among young women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New survey finds highest rates of drug-resistant TB to date","field_subtitle":"WHO, 26 February 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2008/pr05/en/index.html","body":"Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) has been recorded at the highest rates ever, according to a new report published today. The report presents findings from the largest global survey to date on the scale of drug resistance in tuberculosis. The report also found a link between HIV infection and MDR-TB. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Northern Uganda and paradigms of HIV prevention: The need for social analysis","field_subtitle":"Westerhaus NJ, Finnegan AC, Zabulon Y, Mukherjee JS: Global Public Health 3(1):39-46, January 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5ew49g","body":"In settings of armed conflict, traditional HIV prevention programmes that promote risk avoidance via abstinence and fidelity and risk reduction via condom use and needle exchange are not viable. In such contexts, HIV risk depends less on personal choice than on exposure to physical, emotional and structural violence. War in northern Uganda has created three realities (internally displaced people's camps, night commuters and child abductions) which increase vulnerability to HIV transmission. Based upon this analysis of northern Uganda, we offer a conceptual framework for HIV transmission in conflict settings that recognizes the importance of local and global context in creating vulnerability to HIV infection. This framework is then used to delineate strategies for HIV prevention in northern Uganda, namely the provision of a safe physical environment and access to education, medical and psychological support, and the promotion of conflict resolution strategies and human rights law.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Nurses, community health workers, and home carers: gendered human resources compensating for skewed health systems","field_subtitle":"George A: Global Public Health 3(S1):75-89, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/45ecdx","body":"This review examines the experiences of nurses, community health workers, and home carers in health systems from a gender analysis. With respect to nursing, current discussions around delegation take place over layers of historical struggle that mark the evolution of nursing as a profession. Female community health workers also struggle to be recognized as skilled workers, in addition to defending at a personal level the legitimacy of their work, as it transgresses traditional norms proscribing morality and the place of women in society, at times with violent consequences. The review concludes by exploring the characteristics of, and challenges faced by, home carers, who fail to be recognized as workers at all. A key finding is that these mainly female frontline health workers compensate for the shortcomings of health systems through individual adjustments, at times to the detriment of their own health and livelihoods. So long as these shortcomings remain as private, individual concerns of women, rather than the collective responsibility of gender, requiring public acknowledgement and resolution, health systems will continue to function in a skewed manner, serving to replicate inequalities in the health labour force and in society more broadly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Nutrition and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Eldis Resource Guide","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5q3dzf","body":"The interaction between HIV and AIDS, and nutritional status has been a defining characteristic of the disease since the early years of the epidemic. HIV and AIDS are associated with poor nutritional status and weight loss, and weight loss is an important predictor of death from AIDS. These links suggest that nutrition may have an important role to play in slowing progression of the disease and in contributing to successful antiretroviral (ARV) therapy. HIV and AIDS can also inhibit a person\u2019s ability to secure adequate nutrition through inability to work, loss of appetite or increased need for nutrients as a result of the disease itself. Addressing impact on livelihoods and food security is therefore another important aspect of interventions for HIV and AIDS, and nutrition. This guide reviews the evidence base for current nutrition interventions for HIV and AIDS, and looks at the scientific background, trends and challenges in implementation, and implications for policy and planning.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"One step forward, two steps back \u2013 requiring ministerial approval for all \u2018non-therapeutic' health research involving minors","field_subtitle":"Strode AE, Slack CM, Wassenaar DR, Singh JA: South African Medical Journal 97(2): 200-202, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=39609","body":"The new South African National Health Act has clarified that children may take part in \u2018non-therapeutic' research (NTR) and the age at which they may provide independent consent to such research, viz. at legal majority. However, the Act will require consent from the Minister of Health for all research classed as NTR and involving minors regardless of the level of risk. This requirement is overly broad. It will require that low-risk research without direct benefits, which might be adequately reviewed by an accredited research ethics committee (REC), must also be reviewed by the Minister. As it currently stands this requirement is argued to serve no plausible ethical purpose, to cause delays and discourage essential research on the needs of children, and may inspire researchers and RECs alike to \u2018foil the system'. The authors argue that in the long term there should be comprehensive law reform for child research. However, in the short term, amendments should be made to the Act to narrow the scope of this provision.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Oral health status of school children in Mbarara, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Batwala, B; Mulogo, EM; Arubaku, W: African Health Sciences 7(4): 232-238 ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=45&id=39260","body":"Despite the need for oral health morbidity surveys to aid in reviewing of the oral health services, dental data of Ugandan children is scanty. This paper set out to describe the magnitude and distribution of selected oral health conditions among primary school children in Mbarara, Uganda. The oral hygiene of school children was poor, with high plaque prevalence demonstrating a lack of established oral hygiene practices. A comprehensive community-focused oral health care intervention that includes oral health education in homes and the strengthening of school health programme is needed to improve the oral health status of children in Mbarara.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Paris Declaration Undermines Policy Space through Aid","field_subtitle":"Tan C: Third World Network, 10 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/finance/twninfofinance20080403.htm","body":"The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness may have the effect of circumscribing national sovereignty and country autonomy over development policies contrary to its stated principles of country ownership and mutual accountability, research has shown. Two recent studies have highlighted the propensity of new modalities of aid and aid harmonisation processes under the Paris Declaration framework to increase rather than reduce donor interventions in aid recipient countries and exacerbating the imbalances of power between donor and recipient countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"PHM-SA Community Organiser","field_subtitle":"Liz Welsh: PHM, 24 April 2008","field_url":"","body":"PHM is seeking a Community Organiser for six months May-October 2008. This is a temporary post based at the Alternative Information Development Centre (AIDC). The successful applicant will have excellent communication and organisational skills and be an effective team player; have experience of working in/with Civil Society Organisations; computer literacy; own transport; Excellent written and spoken English, Xhosa and/or Afrikaans; a history of involvement in social movement activity in health or a related area will be an advantage. She/he will be responsible for working with communities on the Right to Health campaign. Applicants should e-mail their CV and letter of application together with the names and contact details of two referees to Liz@phmsouthafrica.org. The closing date for applications will be 8 May 2008. Please note that only short listed applicants will be contacted.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33096","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty in Focus: PSIA, Assessing Poverty Impacts","field_subtitle":"International Poverty Centre, 14 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/pub/IPCPovertyInFocus14.pdf","body":"Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) and Poverty Impact Assessment (PIA) are recently developed tools for analysing the distributional impact of policies, programmes and projects on the well-being of the population, with particular focus on the poor and vulnerable. Both approaches provide a comprehensive framework for analysis while drawing on a wide range of well-established approaches and tools covering economic, social, political and institutional issues. The International Poverty Centre (IPC) is administering a joint United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) / World Bank Project on PSIA. The overall objective is to promote capacities in developing countries for analytical work on the impact of national policies and to use these results to influence poverty reduction strategies. This involves adjusting policy design in light of the impact of policies on poor women and men, and providing evidence to inform national policy dialogue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevalence of HIV infection and median CD4 counts among health care workers in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Connelly D, Veriava Y, Roberts S, Tsotetsi J,  Jordan A, DeSilva E,  Rosen S, DeSilva MB: South African Medical Journal 97(2):115-120, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=39604","body":"A cross-sectional voluntary, anonymous, unlinked survey including an oral fluid or blood sample and a brief demographic questionnaire where undertaken in two public hospitals in Gauteng, South Africa to determine the prevalence of HIV infection and the extent of disease progression based on CD4 count in a public health system workforce in southern Africa. The overall prevalence of HIV was 11.5%. By occupation, prevalence was highest among student nurses (13.8%) and nurses (13.7%). The highest prevalence by age was in the 25-34-year group (15.9%). Nineteen per cent of HIV-positive participants who provided blood samples had CD4 counts less than or equal to 200 cells/&#956;l, 28% had counts 201-350 cells/&#956;l, 18% had counts 351-500 cells/&#956;l, and 35% had counts above 500 cells/&#956;l. One out of 7 nurses and nursing students in this public sector workforce was HIV-positive. A high proportion of health care workers had CD4 counts below 350 cells/&#956;l, and many were already eligible for antiretroviral therapy under South African treatment guidelines. Given the short supply of nurses in South Africa, knowledge of prevalence in this workforce and provision of effective AIDS treatment are crucial for meeting future staffing needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in a refugee camp setting in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Rutta E, Gongo R, Mwansasu A, Mutasingwa D, Rwegasira V, Kishumbu S, Tabayi J, Masini T, Ramadhani H: Global Public Health 3(1):62-76, January 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5szozj","body":"The objective of this article is to describe the results of a 2-year pilot programme implementing prevention of mother to child HIV transmission (PMTCT) in a refugee camp setting. Interventions used were: community sensitization, trainings of healthcare workers, voluntary counselling and HIV testing (VCT), infant feeding, counselling, and administration of Nevirapine. Main outcome measures include: HIV testing acceptance rates, percentage of women receiving post test counselling, Nevirapine uptake, and HIV prevalence among pregnant women and their infants. Ninety-two percent of women (n=9,346) attending antenatal clinics accepted VCT. All women who were tested for HIV received their results and posttest counselling. The HIV prevalence rate among the population was 3.2%. The overall Nevirapine uptake in the camp was 97%. Over a third of women were repatriated before receiving Nevirapine. Only 14% of male counterparts accepted VCT. Due to repatriation, parent's refusal, and deaths, HIV results were available for only 15% of infants born to HIV-infected mothers. The PMTCT programme was successfully integrated into existing antenatal care services and was acceptable to the majority of pregnant women. The major challenges encountered during the implementation of this programme were repatriation of refugees before administration of Nevirapine, which made it difficult to measure the impact of the PMTCT programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Process to date for WHO's Intergovenmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights: An African perspective","field_subtitle":"Misati, ME","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/MisTRADE220408.pdf","body":"This paper presented at the second regional meeting of the Africal Civil Society Coalition on the Intergovenmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights in Arusha, Tanzania, 3-4 April 2008 highlights the process in developing AFRO's approach to the negotiations, the common AFRO position(s), and achievements and challenges so far. A number of concerns have been incorporated in the Draft Strategy and Plan of Action progress report, while some interests are not yet realised because either the respective issues have not yet been negotiated or no consensus has yet been reached on them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Regulatory issues focus: Registration and artesunate amodiaquine","field_subtitle":"Amuasi, JH","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/AmuTRADE220408.pdf","body":"This presentation given at the second regional meeting of the African Civil Society Coalition on the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property in Arusha, Tanzania, 3-4 April 2008 provides an introduction to the workings of the IGWG and gives international context for its operations. Drug development and application processes are explained and much of the report is devoted to an evaluation of the IGWG's fixed-dose artsunate-based combination therapy (FACT) project for the treatment of malaria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Report Writing Toolkit for Development","field_subtitle":"ELD, April 2008","field_url":"http://www.reportingskills.org/synopsis.pdf","body":"The Reporting Skills and Professional Writing Handbook (2nd Edition) is a self-study programme based on the best of 10 years' experience working with INGOs, NGOs,GOs and IOs over hundreds of training courses. It's available on CDROM for convenient desktop study, and, for larger organisations, the Trainer Edition is supported by a complete Training Pack. For people working in international development, it can be accessed for free on sign-up.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Review of primary health care in the African region","field_subtitle":"Regional Office for Africa, World Health Organisation , 2008 ","field_url":"http://afro.who.int/phc_hs_2008/documents/En/review_pc_2003.pdf","body":"This World Health Organisation review examines the implementation of primary health care (PHC) in Africa and identifies strategic interventions required to cope with the new challenges facing the health systems in the 21st century. The review addresses PHC policy formation and implementation, the resources that are available for PHC implementation, monitoring and review. The review finds that PHC policy formation had been well articulated in the national health policies by most countries, however, the extent to which PHC policies encompassed equity, community participation, inter-sectoral collaboration and affordability is still questionable. Factors delaying PHC implementation include weak structures, inadequate attention to PHC principles, inadequate resource allocation and inadequate political will.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Socio-Demographic Variables Associated With Aids Epidemic: Evidence From The Organization For Economic Cooperation And Development And The African Countries","field_subtitle":"El-Asfahani AM, Girvan JT: African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development 8(1): 1-16, 2008 ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=110&id=39593","body":"This paper presents information on the association between socio-demographic variables and AIDS prevalence in some African and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Insignificant difference in the means of AIDS-rates between the OECD countries and the African group was found, but the difference was significant when the USA was excluded from the analysis. As initially expected, life expectancy in the OECD countries was significantly higher than that of the African group while the average rates of infant mortality, population growth, fertility, and death were significantly higher within the African group. Significant association between AIDS-rate and life expectancy was only found for African males, while association with fertility, infant mortality, population density, and calorie intakes was statistically insignificant. No clear difference between urban and rural areas with respect to AIDS-rates was discerned. Communities of Muslims were less subject to the AIDS problem. In conclusion, future studies should devote more attention toward impacts on HIV/AIDS prevalence of other equally important variables such as access to social and health care services, cultural norms, ethnic diversity, and educational facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Third District Health Barometer","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust, 18 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041761","body":"Primary health care (PHC) in South Africa forms an integral part of both the country's health policies and health system and has been prioritised as a major strategy in achieving health for all. On the eve of the 30th anniversary of the Alma Ata Declaration, PHC is once again in the spotlight. How far have we come in the last 30 years? How far in the last three? The third edition of the District Health Barometer, the 2006/07 report sheds some light by monitoring the trend of key health and financial indicators in PHC over the last three years by district and province.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Statement to the African member states of the World Health Organisation on the Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property","field_subtitle":"The African Civil Society Coalition on IGWG, 4 April 2008, Arusha","field_url":"","body":"The African Civil Society Coalition on IGWG statement reiterates commitment to the ongoing WHO initiative to develop a Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property. It reaffirms that there is an urgent need for action to improve access to medicines for people in developing countries. People cannot access the medicines they need; The economic, social and political determinants of illness are not being sufficiently addressed; The pharmaceutical market is not driven by public health interests, but by commercial interests; Patent protection and high prices are two of the barriers blocking poor people\u2019s access to medicines; Funding for research, development and access (RDA) to medicines is insufficient; There is a lack of innovation for medicines for many of the diseases prevalent in our countries; Health interests of poor people are neglected by the profit-driven pharmaceutical market. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33102","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Steps towards achieving skilled attendance at birth","field_subtitle":"Stanton C: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 86 (4): 241-320, April 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/4/08-052928/en/index.html","body":"Who should assist women in childbirth, what should these attendants do and not do under various circumstances, and where should births take place? Policies regarding these questions have been debated for hundreds of years. WHO\u2019s position on where and with whom women should deliver has evolved from emphasis on training of traditional birth attendants (TBAs) in developing countries in the late 1950s and 1960s, to a recommendation that TBAs work with the health-care system, to a recommendation that they be integrated into the health system via training, supervision and technical support, to today\u2019s position of promoting professionally skilled attendance at all births. The facts that a) this position was adopted in 1997 and that it took an additional two years to specify the criteria required to be a \u201cskilled attendant\u201d, and b) that the policy sidesteps the issue of where births should take place, suggests that substantial internal debate swirled around this stance, as well. Although the WHO skilled attendance at birth policy remains today, it has now been incorporated into a continuum of maternal and child health care policy, resulting from the formation of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health in 2005.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Streamlining tasks and roles to expand treatment and care for HIV: Randomised controlled trial protocol","field_subtitle":"Fairall LR, Bachmann MO, Zwarenstein MF, et al: Trials 9: 21, 23 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.trialsjournal.com/content/pdf/1745-6215-9-21.pdf","body":"This is a protocol for a pragmatic cluster randomised trial to evaluate the effectiveness of a complex intervention based on and supporting nurse led antiretroviral treatment (ART) for South African patients with HIV/AIDS, compared to current practice in which doctors are responsible for initiating ART and continuing prescribing. The trial will randomly allocate 31 primary care clinics in the Free State province to nurse-led or doctor-led ART. Two groups of patients aged 16 years and over will be included: a) 7400 registering with the programme with CD4 counts of 350 cells/mL or less (mainly to evaluate treatment initiation) and b) 4900 already receiving ART (to evaluate ongoing treatment and monitoring). The primary outcomes will be time to death (in the first group) and viral suppression (in the second group). Patients' survival, viral load and health status will be measured at least 6-monthly for at least one year and up to 2 years, using an existing province-wide clinical database linked to the national death register.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening accountability to citizens on gender and health","field_subtitle":"Murthy RK: Global Public Health 3(S1):104-120, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5s6ebg","body":"Accountability refers to the processes by which those with power in the health sector engage with, and are answerable to, those who make demands on it, and enforce disciplinary action on those in the health sector who do not perform effectively. This paper reviews the practice of accountability to citizens on gender and health, assesses gaps, and recommends strategies. Four kinds of accountability mechanisms have been used by citizens to press for accountability on gender and health. These include international human rights instruments, legislation, governance structures, and other tools, some of which are relevant to all public sector services, some to the health sector alone, some to gender issues alone, and some to gender-specific health concerns of women. However, there are few instances wherein private health sector and donors have been held accountable. Rarely have accountability processes reduced gender inequalities in health, or addressed 'low priority' gender-specific health needs of women. Accountability with respect to implementation and to marginalized groups has remained weak. This paper recommends that: (1) the four kinds of accountability mechanisms be extended to the private health sector and donors; (2) health accountability mechanisms be engendered, and gender accountability mechanisms be made health-specific; (3) resources be earmarked to enable government to respond to gender-specific health demands; (4) mechanisms for enforcement of such policies be improved; and (5) democratic spaces and participation of marginalised groups be strengthened.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ten reasons why the Rockefeller and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations\u2019 Alliance for another green revolution will not solve the problems of poverty and hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Holt-Gimenez E, Altieri M, Rosset P: Institute for Food and Development Policy, 2008","field_url":"http://www.foodfirst.org/files/pdf/policybriefs/pb12.pdf","body":"This article analyses the effectiveness of the investment that the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently announced - a joint \u2018Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa\u2019 (AGRA). The authors argue that, based on the first Green Revolution experience, this initiative will not succeed because: 1. The Green Revolution actually deepens the divide between rich and poor farmers; 2. Over time, Green Revolution technologies degrade tropical agro-ecosystems and increase environmental risk; 3. The Green Revolution leads to the loss of agro-biodiversity; 4. Hunger is not primarily due to a lack of food, but rather because the hungry are too poor to buy the food that is available;   5. Without addressing structural inequities in the market and political systems, approaches relying on high input technologies fail; 6. The private sector alone will not solve the problems; 7. Genetic engineering (GE) will make Sub-Saharan smallholder systems more environmentally vulnerable; 8. GE crops into smallholder agriculture will likely lead to farmer indebtedness;   9. The assertion that \u201cThere Is No Alternative\u201d (TINA) ignores the many successful agro-ecological and non-corporate approaches to agricultural development; 10. AGRA\u2019s \u201calliance\u201d does not allow peasant farmers to be the principal actors in agricultural improvement. The authors conclude that if the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations want to end hunger and poverty in rural Africa, then they should invest in the service of the struggle by peasant and farmer organisations and their allies to truly achieve food sovereignty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The EU\u2019s approach to Free Trade Agreements: Intellectual Property","field_subtitle":"ActionAid International, Christian Aid, Oxfam International: EU FTA manual, Briefing 8","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/trade/downloads/fta8_ip.pdf","body":"This paper forms part of a series of eight briefings on the European Union\u2019s approach to Free Trade Agreements. It aims to explain EU policies, procedures and practices to those interested in supporting developing countries. It is not intended to endorse any particular policy or position, rather to inform decisions and provide the means to better defend them. The views expressed in the briefings do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The intersections of gender and class in health status and health care","field_subtitle":"Iyer A, Sen G, \u00d6stlin P: Global Public Health 3(S1):13-24, 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3v5znw","body":"It is increasingly recognised that different axes of social power relations, such as gender and class, are interrelated, not as additive but as intersecting processes. This paper has reviewed existing research on the intersections between gender and class, and their impacts on health status and access to health care. The review suggests that intersecting stratification processes can significantly alter the impacts of any one dimension of inequality taken by itself. Studies confirm that socio-economic status measures cannot fully account for gender inequalities in health. A number of studies show that both gender and class affect the way in which risk factors are translated into health outcomes, but their intersections can be complex. Other studies indicate that responses to unaffordable health care often vary by the gender and class location of sick individuals and their households. They strongly suggest that economic class should not be analysed by itself, and that apparent class differences can be misinterpreted without gender analysis. Insufficient attention to intersectionality in much of the health literature has significant human costs, because those affected most negatively tend to be those who are poorest and most oppressed by gender and other forms of social inequality. The programme and policy costs are also likely to be high in terms of poorly functioning programmes, and ineffective poverty alleviation and social and health policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends in Life Expectancy and the Macroeconomy in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Matchaya GC: Malawi Medical Journal 19(4):154-158, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=64&id=39562","body":"In this paper, authors present the trends in life expectancy in Malawi since independence and offer possible explanations regarding inter-temporal variations. Descriptive analysis reveals that the life expectancy in Malawi has trailed below the Sub Saharan African average. From the 1960s through to the early 1980s life expectancy improved driven mainly by rising incomes and the absence of HIV/AIDS. In the mid 1980s life expectancy declined tremendously and never improved due to the spread of HIV/AIDS, the economic slump that followed the World Bank's Structural Adjustment programmes (SAP) and widespread corruption and poor governance in the era of democracy. At the turn of the new millennium, Malawians were no healthier than their ancestors at the dawn of independence though this improved after 2004. If Malawi is to meet its health Millennium Development Goals by 2015, good governance, improved agricultural performance and an increase in health expenditure should be at the heart of its development policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda: Civil Society Vows to Stop EPA","field_subtitle":"Olanyo J: The Monitor (Kampala), 28 March 2008","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200803281270.html","body":"As the recently initialled interim Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) continues to take centre stage, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Africa have vowed to step up their stop-EPA campaign saying the pact has contentious issues. CSO's converging in Kampala for a three-day eastern and southern Africa regional forum reported concern about some clauses in the agreement, which they contend are not developmental and should be rolled back. They cited clauses which call for free trade opening, non application of export taxes and the provision that once you sign an agreement it can't be open for negotiations. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"University partnership to address the shortage of healthcare professionals in Africa","field_subtitle":"Tach\u00e9 S, Kaaya E, Omer S, Mkony CA, Lyamuya E, Pallangyo K, Debas HT, MacFarlane SB: Global Public Health 3(2): 137 - 148, April 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6bd747","body":"The shortage of qualified health professionals is a major obstacle to achieving better health outcomes in many parts of the world, particularly in Africa. The role of health science universities in addressing this shortage is to provide quality education and continuing professional development opportunities for the healthcare workforce. Academic institutions in Africa, however, are also short of faculty and especially under-resourced. We describe the initial phase of an institutional partnership between the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) and the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) centred on promoting medical education at MUHAS. The challenges facing the development of the partnership include the need: (1) for new funding mechanisms to provide long-term support for institutional partnerships, and (2) for institutional change at UCSF and MUHAS to recognize and support faculty activities that are important to the partnership. The growing interest in global health worldwide offers opportunities to explore new academic partnerships. It is important that their development and implementation be documented and evaluated as well as for lessons to be shared.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"US Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria Act of 2008","field_subtitle":"Global Health Council, Public Policy Update, 2008","field_url":"http://www.globalhealth.org/view_top.php3?id=48#hr5501","body":"The US House of Representatives passed HR5501, the US Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act of 2008 on April 2 by a vote of 308-116. Amongst other things, the bill: authorises US$50billion for AIDS, TB, and malaria programs including US$9billion for TB and malaria; links AIDS, TB, and malaria programs to broader health and development programs; formalises activities currently operating under the President\u2019s Malaria Initiative which includes a five-year malaria strategy and a malaria coordinator; calls for enhanced coordination within US government agencies in planning and implementing all three disease areas and with other global health and development programs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Use of South African Health Care Services Double","field_subtitle":"KhumaloG: BuaNews, 18 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041796","body":"According the South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang the use of health care services has almost doubled over the past eight years with 101 million visits to clinics in the 2006/07 financial year. Addressing the opening of the National Consultative Health Forum (NCHF) recently, the minister said the increase was due to improved access as a result of building more than 1 600 clinics closer to the communities, improved package of care available at clinics and the removal of user fees. Efforts have also been made to decrease the inequalities in the funding amongst health districts and have led to significant improvement in service delivery and health outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO D-G focuses on impact of climate change on health on World Health Day","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 7 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2008/pr11/en/index.html","body":"Climate-sensitive impacts on human health are occurring today, attacking the pillars of public health and providing a glimpse of the challenges public health will have to confront on a large scale, WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan warned during World Health Day. She said although climate change is a global phenomenon, its consequences will not be evenly distributed. Climate change can affect problems that are already huge, largely concentrated in the developing world, and difficult to control.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property","field_subtitle":"Mubangizi, P","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/MubTRADE220408.pdf","body":"This presentation was given at the second meeting of the African Civil Society Coalition on the Intergovernmental Working Group in Arusha, Tanzania, 3-4 April 2008. It provides basic information on the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH), regarding its mandate and the implementation of its recommendations. One of these recommendations was to establish an intergovernmental working group (IGWG) to draw up a global strategy and plan of action in order to provide a medium-term framework based on the recommendations of the Commission. The aims of the strategy and plan of action are to secure an enhanced and financially sustainable basis for needs-driven, essential health research and development relevant to diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Who is accessing antiretroviral therapy in Malawi? Study in the Southern Region on the occupation category \u201cother\u201d","field_subtitle":"Teferra TB, Hochgesang M, Makombe SD, Kamoto K and Harries AD: Malawi Medical Journal 19(4):138-139, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=64&id=39558","body":"As part of quarterly national reports on the scale up of antiretroviral therapy (ART), demographic and clinical characteristics are recorded including data on occupation. The largest occupational category is that of \u201cother\u201d. As there is no information on the composition of the different occupations of patients placed in this category, a formal study was therefore conducted in six representative public sector facilities in the Southeastern Region of Malawi. Between January to June 2006, there were 126 adult patients recorded as \u201cother\u201d in the occupation column. A great variety of different occupations was recorded including no employment 30%, administration jobs 24%, general labourers 11%, builders 10%, tailors 9% and drivers 7%. A wide range of people with different jobs are accessing ART, and this should help in improving the economy of the patients as well as the country at large.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Workshops available: 4th Public Health Association of South Africa conference","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://phasa2008.mrc.ac.za","body":"This brief describes the workshops offered at the 4th Public Health Association of South Africa conference, to be held at the Holiday Inn, Strand Street in Cape Town from the 2nd-4th June. Registration details are available at http://phasa2008.mrc.ac.za","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33082","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"World public finances and global income inequality","field_subtitle":"Mestrum F,  Choike, 2008","field_url":"http://www.choike.org/documentos/Inequality.pdf","body":"This paper reviews theories and empirical findings on inequality and finds evidence for a liberal shift in international development. While the reduction of absolute poverty has become the centre of attention in international development any concern for inequalities and relative poverty has been excluded and(re)distribution of incomes has disappeared from the agenda. However, there are numerous economic and political reasons for which inequality should be seen as a more important and urgent problem, including the violation of social and economic rights due to inequality. These factors combined with the emergence of a global civil society and the dwindling legitimacy of the Bretton Woods institutions may open up a window of opportunity for putting inequality back at the heart of a UN led development cooperation. Authors argue that a 'Global Fund' for globalisation and/or development could play an important role in spreading the concept of world public finances, in proposing global taxes and in organising global redistribution, based on the idea of a global welfare state.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe: New food security tool first for the region","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 23 April 2008","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=77891","body":"Zimbabwe will be the first country in Southern Africa to adopt a new food security analysis tool, developed in Somalia in 2004. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Framework (IPC) categorises the severity of a situation using a five-phase scale ranging from 'generally food secure' to 'famine/humanitarian catastrophe', based on comprehensive data on the impact of a crisis on food security and nutrition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"10 Reasons Why Human Rights Should Occupy the Center of the Global AIDS Struggle","field_subtitle":"Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, November 2007","field_url":"http://www.gnpplus.net/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_download/gid,259/Itemid,53/","body":"At the 2006 United Nations High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS, world leaders reaffirmed that \u201cthe full realization of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all is an essential element in the global response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.\u201d Yet, 25 years into the AIDS epidemic, this \u201cessential element\u201d remains the missing piece in the fight against AIDS. Now more than ever, law and human rights should occupy the center of the global HIV/AIDS struggle. This booklet, published by OSI's Law and Health Initiative, presents 10 reasons why. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A PRA project report: Community participation in the management of mental disorders in Kariobangi, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Othieno CJ, Kitazi N, Mburu J, Obondo A, Mathai MA","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRAothieno2008.pdf","body":"This participatory action research project aimed to explore and strengthen the community\u2019s capacity to recognise and advocate for their mental health needs, to increase the awareness of mental health problems among the community and to increase collaboration between the mental health workers from clinic and hospital level and the community in the management of mental health problems in the community. Both health workers and community identified exclusion, isolation and poor control over life, associated with risks and a poor physical state, as features of mental ill health. The Kariobangi community was felt to experience high levels of mental ill health, with poverty a major contributing factor. The major mental disorders identified were depression, stress, poverty, lack of awareness, drugs/substance abuse, lack of essential services (mental health services), mental retardation and epilepsy. The intervention is still at an early stage, but the evidence suggests that the PRA approach has strengthened community roles and interaction with health workers in improving mental health care in an underserved community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"A PRA project report: Strengthening communication between people living with HIV and clinic health workers in Kaisipul Division, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Ongala J ","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRA%20KDHSG2007.pdf","body":"We used participatory approaches to facilitate a programme of work aimed at: * Improving communication and understanding between HIV positive clients and the HIV clinic personnel in HIV clinics; Raising HIV positive clients\u2019 voices and participation in improving the HIV clinic services in the division; Promoting networking to overcome isolation, increasing exchange and co-operation through conducting; Participatory approaches, while challenging and time intensive, were perceived by health workers, clients and the facilitators to be a powerful means to enhancing communication, overcoming power imbalances that are barriers to good health or effective use of services and to encouraging the sustainable, \u201cbottom up\u201d community involvement on health visioned in Kenya health policy documents. Real changes were made to make the services more client-friendly, including installed suggestion box, re-streamlined queuing and filling system, taking of vital signs, interpreter involvement, and ordering of bulk drug supply, while clients formed a network that would sustain the communication and reduce social isolation of PLWHIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"A systematic review of delay in the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis","field_subtitle":"Storla DG, Yimer S, Bjune GA: BMC Public Health, 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-8-15.pdf","body":"This paper reviews 58 studies that assess the delay in the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis (TB). Delay in diagnosis can affect disease prognosis at the individual level and enhance transmission of TB within the community. The paper identifies the main factors associated with diagnostic delay. These include HIV; coexistence of chronic cough and/or other lung diseases; geographical barriers; rural residence; poverty; old age; female sex; alcoholism and substance abuse; low educational level; low awareness of TB; and stigma. The paper concludes that the core problem in delay of diagnosis and treatment appears to be a vicious cycle of repeated visits at the same healthcare level, resulting in non-specific antibiotic treatment, incorrect diagnosis and failure to access specialised TB services. Three groups of healthcare providers were identified as sources of this vicious cycle: primary-level government health posts who have limited diagnostic facilities and poorly trained personnel; private practitioners with low awareness of TB and unqualified vendors and traditional practitioners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to and rational use of medicine","field_subtitle":"Health Action International and Ecumenical Pharmaceutical Network, 14 November 2007","field_url":"http://www.haiafrica.org/downloads/pan_africa_meeting.pdf","body":"The Pan African meeting on access to essential medicines (AEM) and rational use of medicines (RUM) was convened by Health Action International (HAI) Africa and the Ecumenical Pharmaceutical Network (EPN)2 on 14th and 15th November 2007 in Nairobi, Kenya. The meeting brought together African experts and stakeholders from the pharmaceutical sector, including civil society organizations (CSOs) and faith-based organizations (FBOs), to discuss issues around AEM and RUM.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Agriculture and the WTO in Africa:  Understand to Act","field_subtitle":" Marie-Christine Lebret and Arl\u00e8ne Alpha (GRET)","field_url":"http://www.gret.org/publications/ouvrages/infoomc/en/accueil_en.html","body":"The purpose of this book is to provide guidance in understanding how the WTO institutions and agreements that impact the agricultural sector operate. Its aim is to provide those in charge of civil society organisations in sub-Saharan Africa with tools and references to better understand the stakes behind, and means for, their participation in worl trade. Organised around descriptive and factual texts, this work contains many definitions and is illustrated by concrete experiences that facilitate reading.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid effectiveness: overview of the results 2006 survey on monitoring the Paris Declaration: How can donor countries fulfil the Paris Declaration commitments?  ","field_subtitle":"DAC-OECD Working Party on Aid Effectiveness and Donor Practices, 2007","field_url":"http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/58/28/39112140.pdf","body":"This document presents the first volume of results from a survey on the Paris Declaration. It provides an overview of the key findings across the 34 countries involved, as well as assessing the survey process and setting out key conclusions and recommendations. Key implications of the survey that are highlighted include higher expectation levels for reform, deeper ownership and more accountable institutions, and increasing aid efficiency together with donor harmonisation. The authors suggest that aid effectiveness issues and results need to be discussed more explicitly at country level, and credible monitoring mechanisms need to be developed. If countries and donors are to accelerate progress towards achieving the Paris Declaration commitments, it is recommended that: partner countries must deepen their ownership of the development process; donors need to support these efforts by making better use of partners' capacity; to further harmonisation, donors must work aggressively to reduce the transaction costs of delivering and managing aid; and to begin addressing mutual accountability commitments, countries and donors should clearly define a mutual action agenda. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS 2008 March Update","field_subtitle":"AIDS Update 5, March 2008","field_url":"http://www.aids2008.org","body":"As the conference draws near and many deadlines have already passed, we urge those wishing to attend AIDS 2008 - or submit a satellite, exhibition or affiliated event application - to be aware of the limited time left to do so. Please note that all deadlines from now refer to 24h00 in the country you are submitting from on the given date and that no applications and submissions for any part of the conference will be accepted after this time: 31 March 2008: Satellites applications close; 7 May 2008: Registration late surcharge ends (last minute surcharge begins 8 May), Deadline for registration cancellation (with 50% refund); 15 May 2008: Affiliated Events applications close; 20 May 2008: Late Breaker Abstract submissions open; 31 May 2008: Exhibitions applications close; 16 June 2008: Late Breaker Abstract submissions close.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33013","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS and home-based health care","field_subtitle":"Opiyo PA, Yamano T and Jayne TS: International Journal for Equity in Health 7(8), 18 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/7/1/8","body":"This paper highlights the socio-economic impacts of HIV on women. It argues that the socio-cultural beliefs that value the male and female lives differently lead to differential access to health care services. The position of women is exacerbated by their low financial base especially in the rural community where their main source of livelihood, agricultural production does not pay much. But even their active involvement in agricultural production or any other income ventures is hindered when they have to give care to the sick and bedridden friends and relatives. This in itself is a threat to household food security. The paper proposes that gender sensitive policies and programming of intervention at community level would lessen the burden on women who bear the brunt of AIDS as caregivers and livelihood generators at household level. Improvement of medical facilities and quality of services at local dispensaries is seen as feasible since they are in the rural areas. Other interventions should target freeing women's and girls' time for education and involvement in income generating ventures. Two separate data sets from Western Kenya, one being quantitative and another qualitative data have been used.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"An Agenda for Global Action","field_subtitle":"Global Health Workforce Alliance","field_url":"http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/forum/1_agenda4GAction_final.pdf","body":"This Agenda for Global Action will guide the initial steps in a coordinated global, regional and national response to the worldwide shortage and maldistribution of health workers, moving towards universal access to quality health care and improved health outcomes. It is meant to unite and intensify the political will and commitments necessary for significant and effective actions to resolve this crisis, and to align efforts of all stakeholders at all levels around solutions. It builds on commitments already made by high level policy makers in efforts designed to marshal the world\u2019s collective knowledge and resources to reverse this crisis. Everyone committed to this agenda shares the vision that \u2018all people, everywhere, shall have access to a skilled, motivated and facilitated health worker within a robust health system\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"An assessment of the Zimbabwe government strategy for retention of health professionals","field_subtitle":"Chimbari MJ, Madhina D, Nyamangara F, Mtandwa H, Damba V","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PosterHRChimbari0308.pdf","body":"This poster presentation at the Global Health Worker Alliance Conference, March 2008, is based on a study that aimed to determine and assess the impacts of incentives instituted by the Zimbabwe government and non-government sector to retain Critical Health Professionals. It found that the tendency of health professionals to migrate has increased, even among low levels of staff and the macro-economic environment is the main driver of megration. Sustaining the retention incentives in this environment seems unattainable and bonding is unpopular and further increases migration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Analysing Health Equity Using Household Survey Data","field_subtitle":"World Bank, Poverty and Health","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/g4wjl","body":"Progress in quantifying and understanding health equities would not have been possible without appropriate analytic techniques. These techniques are the subject of this book, which includes chapters dealing with data issues and the measurement of the key variables in health equity analysis, quantitative techniques for interpreting and presenting health equity data, and the application of these techniques in the analysis of equity in health care utilisation and health care spending. The aim of the book is to provide researchers and analysts with a step-by-step practical guide to the measurement of a variety of aspects of health equity, with worked examples and computer code, mostly for the computer program Stata. It is hoped that these step-by-step guides, and the easy-to-implement computer routines contained in them, will help stimulate yet more research in the field, especially policy-oriented health equity research that enables researchers to help policymakers develop and evaluate programs to reduce health inequities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Basis for treatment of tuberculosis among HIV-infected patients in Tanzania: the role of chest x-ray and sputum culture","field_subtitle":"Bakari M, Arbeit RD, Mtei L, Lyimo J, Waddell RD, Matee M, Cole BF, Tvaroha S, Horsburgh CR, Soini H, Pallangyo K and von Reyn CF: BMC Infectious Diseases 8(32), 6 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/8/32/abstract","body":"Active tuberculosis (TB) is common among HIV-infected persons living in tuberculosis endemic countries, and screening for tuberculosis (TB) is recommended routinely. The study sought to determine the role of chest x-ray and sputum culture in the decision to treat for presumptive TB using active case finding in a large cohort of HIV-infected patients. Many ambulatory HIV-infected patients with CD4 counts >200/mm3 are treated for presumptive TB. Data suggests that optimal detection requires comprehensive evaluation, including CXR and sputum culture on both symptomatic and asymptomatic subjects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Abstracts: 2008 Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health, Bamako International Conference Centre, Bamako, Mali, 17-19 November 2008","field_subtitle":"Global Forum for Health Research. 14 March 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3bpsyb","body":"The 2008 Global Ministerial Forum will assess progress over the last 20 years and commitments from earlier conferences. It subsumes the Global Forum's 2008 meeting, Forum 12. Bamako 2008 will look at current challenges and place health research and innovation within the wider context of research for development. While political momentum for strengthening research in and by low- and middle-income countries is growing, much remains to be done. The three key objectives of the Forum are to: Strengthen leadership for health, equity and development; Engage all relevant constituencies in research and innovation for health; and Increase accountability of research systems. The Forum aims to generate specific recommendations and commitments, culminating in an action plan to strengthen research for health, development and equity. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for submissions: Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health","field_subtitle":"Health Financing Task Force","field_url":"http://www.resultsfordevelopment.org/hftf_home.php","body":"The Ministerial Leadership Initiative (MLI) is soliciting submissions to participate in its program of support.  On a competitive basis, MLI will select four or five countries (or States or Provinces in big countries like India) to support with technical assistance and peer learning opportunities over a three year period.  The submissions need to show that the country/State is engaging in pro-poor financing reforms and/or in efforts to harmonise and align external assistance.  The submissions are short (max 5 pages) and they are due 25 April 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Communicating Scientific Research on HIV and AIDS to Policy Makers and Practitioners","field_subtitle":"The Centre for Applied Social Sciences (CASS), University of Zimbabwe","field_url":"","body":"The Centre for Applied Social Sciences (CASS), University of Zimbabwe with the support of the Biomedical Research and Training Institute\u2019s NIH funded International, Clinical, Operational, and Health Services Research Training Award (ICOHRTA) programme, is delighted to announce a short training course on \u2018Communicating Scientific Research on HIV and AIDS to Policy Makers and Practitioners.\u2019 There is no doubt that there is abundant research on HIV and AIDS. The biggest question is whether that research is translated into policy and action capable of improving the condition of those living with the disease. Something needs to be done if researchers must escape the charge of being irrelevant. The course is designed to assist researchers and students to better communicate research on HIV and AIDS to those with the capacity to develop policy and plans that can improve the condition of people affected and infected with HIV and AIDS.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32944","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Death penalty for knowingly spreading AIDS: Ugandan President","field_subtitle":"Musoke C: Sunday Vision, 20 March 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2tck5b","body":"PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has called for death penalty for people who knowingly spread HIV. He also called for the outlawing of primitive methods used by the Bagishu and Sebei in eastern Uganda of using knives for circumcision that are likely to spread the virus. Speaking at the commemoration of 25 years since the first case was identified at Kasensero landing site in Rakai District on Friday, the President lauded the parliamentary committee on HIV/AIDS for coming up with the draft Bill. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Effectiveness of training supervisors to improve reproductive health quality of care: a cluster-randomised trial in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Reynolds HW, Toroitich-Ruto C, Nasution M, Beaston-Blaakman A, Janowitz B: Health Policy and Planning 23: 56-66, 2008","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/1/56","body":"Health facility supervisors are in a position to increase motivation, manage resources, facilitate communication, increase accountability and conduct outreach. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a training intervention for on-site, in-charge reproductive health supervisors in Kenya using an experimental design with pre- and post-test measures in 60 health facilities. Cost information and data from supervisors, providers, clients and facilities were collected. Regression models with the generalized estimating equation approach were used to test differences between study groups and over time, accounting for clustering and matching. Total accounting costs per person trained were calculated. The intervention resulted in significant improvements in quality of care at the supervisor, provider and client\u2013provider interaction levels. Indicators of improvements in the facility environment and client satisfaction were not apparent. The costs of delivering the supervision training intervention totalled US$2113 per supervisor trained. In making decisions about whether to expand the intervention, the costs of this intervention should be compared with other interventions designed to improve quality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EPAs a threat to services and investment","field_subtitle":"Zwane, T: The Swazi Observer","field_url":"http://www.tralac.org/scripts/content.php?id=7438","body":"Although the Swazi government has reaffirmed its commitment to the second phase of negotiations towards a full EPA (economic partnership agreement) with the European Union (EU), which relates to trade in services and investment, economists continue to argue that it will be detrimental to the domestic industry. Economist Thembinkosi Dlamini stated: \u201cIf one looks at the EPA for what it really is, it is clear that it wants those things that are under the Doha Development Agenda, that is, trade in services and investment as well as government procurement.\u201d He said that Swaziland or the Southern African Development Community (SADC) would not be able to compete with a European company for trade in services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC). Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. \r\n\r\nThe views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 86: Fair allocation of government health resources in east and southern Africa- signs of progress","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"European Trade Deal Challenges Unity","field_subtitle":"Khumalo N, AllAfrica.com, 6 March 2008","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200803060029.html?viewall=1","body":"Trade talks between the European Union and southern African countries have opened up serious differences between Europe and South Africa, and between South Africa and her neighbours. At the heart of the difficulties are the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) which countries of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) grouping are negotiating to get preferential access to European markets. A number of southern African countries have just signed an Interim EPA (IEPA) with Europe but South Africa has baulked at signing, threatening the future of the Southern African Customs Union \u2013 the world's oldest.Resolving the difficulties will require a lot of political will and sensitivity from both South Africa and the EU, writes AllAfrica guest columnist Nkululeko Khumalo of the South African Institute of International Affairs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Examining the effects of debt on the provision of healthcare  ","field_subtitle":"Jubilee Debt Campaign, 2007","field_url":"http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/download.php?id=589","body":"Developing country governments will struggle to invest in decent public health facilities when valuable resources are needed to service debt. However, the evidence is that debt relief works to alleviate healthcare shortages - spending on health in countries that have received debt cancellation has risen by seventy percent. The report calls for urgent action to ensure developing countries\u2019 can provide adequate healthcare: rich countries, institutions and commercial creditors must cancel all illegitimate (i.e. due to \u2018unfair or irresponsible\u2019 lending) and unpayable debts being claimed from all poor countries, not just those eligible for the Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative; creditors should recognise debtor governments\u2019 accountability to their own citizens, and not impose economic policies through conditions on debt relief or loans. This includes conditions limiting public spending or specifying how healthcare should be delivered; and southern governments must abide by the demands of their citizens that funds from debt cancellation be used to improve essential public services \u2013 and the governments must be open and accountable to their people over the use and monitoring of these funds.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploring evidence-policy linkages in health research plans: a case study from six countries","field_subtitle":"Syed SB, Hyder AA, Bloom G, Sundaram S, Bhuiya A, Zhenzhong Z, Kanjilal B, Oladepo O, Pariyo G, Peters DH: Health Research Policy and Systems 6(4), 11 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/6/1/4","body":"The complex evidence-policy interface in low and middle income country settings is receiving increasing attention. Future Health Systems (FHS): Innovations for Equity, is a research consortium conducting health systems explorations in six Asian and African countries: Bangladesh, India, China, Afghanistan, Uganda, and Nigeria. Three key activities were undertaken during the initial phase of this five-year project: key considerations in strengthening evidence-policy linkages in health system research were developed through workshops and electronic communications; four considerations were applied to research proposals in each of the six countries to highlight features in the research plans that potentially strengthen the research-policy interface and opportunities for improvement; and utility of the approach for setting research priorities in health policy and systems research was reflected upon. Developmental consideration with four dimensions a poverty, vulnerabilities, capabilities, and health shocks a provides an entry point in examining research-policy interfaces in the six settings. Research plans focused upon on the ground realities in specific countries strengthens the interface. Focusing on research prioritised by decision-makers, within a politicised health arena, enhances chances of research influencing action. Early and continued engagement of multiple stakeholders, from local to national levels, is conducive to enhanced communication at the interface.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Fair allocation of government health resources in east and southern Africa - signs of progress","field_subtitle":"Di McIntyre, Bona Chitah, Lovemore Mabandi , Felix Masiye, Tomas Mbeeli, Shepherd Shamu, EQUINET Fair Financing Theme and University of Cape Town Health Economics Unit","field_url":"","body":"\r\nBeyond the call for governments to meet their commitment to spend 15% of their budgets on health, we are concerned to see that government spending reaches those with greatest health needs. So how well do governments perform in equitable allocation of their health spending? \r\n\r\nIn many African countries, health care spending levels are very different between different provinces, regions and districts.  This is largely a historical inheritance. Health services, particularly hospitals which consume the major share of health care resources, are heavily concentrated in the largest urban areas, and rural areas are relatively under-resourced.  Yet almost all countries in east and southern Africa have policy goals to provide equitable access to health care for their citizens.  This implies that health care resources (financial, human and facilities) should be fairly distributed between geographic areas on the basis of health needs.\r\n\r\nInternationally, it has been found that using a needs-based resource allocation formula is a helpful strategy for breaking the historical inertia in resource allocation patterns.  Such formulae are used to distribute public sector health care resources between geographic areas (such as provinces or regions and districts) according to the relative need for health services in each area.\r\n\r\nThe indicators commonly used to identify relative levels of need for health services, and thus applied in these resource allocation formulae internationally are:\r\n\u2022\tpopulation size;\r\n\u2022\tcomposition of the population, as young children, elderly people and women of childbearing age tend to have a greater need for health services;\r\n\u2022\tlevels of ill-health, with mortality rates usually being used as a proxy for illness levels; and \r\n\u2022\tsocio-economic status, given that there is a strong correlation between ill-health and low socio-economic status and that poor people rely most on publicly funded services.\r\n\r\nA growing number of African countries have also adopted such needs-based formulae to guide the allocation of health care resources, using a mix of these indicators. How well then are we doing in the region in matching government spending on health to health needs?  \r\n\r\nA questionnaire survey of researchers and senior government officials in selected countries in the region (Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe) carried out in the EQUINET work on fair financing showed that there has been progress in the equitable allocation of public sector health care resources over the past few years in the region.  However, the extent of progress and pace of change varies between countries. \r\n\r\nIn both Zambia and Namibia, the most under-resourced provinces and regions have seen increased allocations, while allocations to provinces whose share of resources is proportionately greater than their share of health needs have been gradually reduced.  Although South Africa has a different system where it allocates domestic public sector resources for health and other services as a \u2018block grant\u2019 to provinces, there has also been considerable progress towards equity in the distribution of health care resources in the past few years. In Zimbabwe, progress towards equity targets has been constrained by significant absolute shortfalls in health care resources, due to wider economic difficulties.  In the main, however,  the countries surveyed were generally making progress applying some form of needs based formulae in the region, with positive gains for districts with greater health needs.\r\n\r\nAchieving this progress is underpinned by an explicit policy commitment to equity and to redistribution of resources. For example, the Namibian 1998 health policy states that \u201cParticular emphasis shall be paid to resource distribution patterns in Namibia to identify and accelerate the correction of disparities\u201d. South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe have made similar declarations.\r\n\r\nExperience from countries in the region point to some of the actions countries need to take to overcome barriers in implementing equitable redistribution of their health care resources. \r\n\r\nCountries need to set explicit annual allocation targets to provide clear goals against which progress can be planned and monitored.  These targets need to set a reasonable pace of change for the relative redistribution of health care resources to facilitate appropriate planning and avoid unnecessary disruption to services. \r\n\r\nEven where these targets exist, countries may need to overcome further difficulties in successfully pursuing these targets. There may be a lack of senior staff at the national level to drive the process. Numerous vertical programs that protect allocations to specific services reduce the pool of general health sector funds available for equitable allocation between geographic areas. It is difficult to translate budget shifts into real changes in expenditure without achieving the more difficult task of also changing the distribution of staff, given their importance in the uptake of resources.  Strategies must thus be put in place to facilitate a relative redistribution of staff.  This may include negotiations with trade unions and initiatives such as offering additional allowances, preferential training opportunities and other incentives to attract health workers to rural areas.\r\n\r\nResource allocation is a highly politicised process and the resource allocation policy development and implementation process requires careful management in order for it to be successful. The progress reported from the countries surveyed is a sign that these issues can be addressed. \r\n\r\nIt is politically and technically easier to address these issues and redistribute health care resources when the overall health budget is increasing. Our still limited progress by 2008 towards achieving the Abuja target of devoting 15% of government funds to the health sector thus limits our progress towards more equitable resource allocation. Those countries that are  increasing the overall allocations to the health sector have more leeway to effectively redistribute health care resources.  All of the additional budget available annually can be allocated to the most under-resourced areas while keeping the budgets of relatively over-resourced areas static in real terms (only allowing a small increase to take account of inflation). It is also an issue for those advocating the Abuja target to monitor that these additional funds are allocated to these areas of greatest health need. \r\n\r\nThe progress made in the region needs to be protected and advanced: Governments need to engage with and involve key stakeholders, including parliamentarians to ensure their \u2018buy in\u2019 to and understanding of  the strategies for an equitable sharing of available resources.  We have an increasing number of champions for the Abuja commitment. We also need  \u2018policy champions\u2019 at senior level in Ministries of Health, civil society and parliament to  motivate for and monitor progress in making sure that these resources for health are equitably allocated to where they are needed most.. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat, email admin@equinetafrica.org. EQUINET work on fair financing in health is available at the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing Human Resources for Health: Five Questions for the International Community","field_subtitle":"Soucat A: World Bank; Global Health Workforce Alliance","field_url":"http://www.hrhresourcecenter.org/node/1880","body":"This presentation was given at the First Forum on Human Resources for Health in Kampala. It presents five questions on the financial concerns of scaling up the number of health workers to provide adequate health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"First Global Forum on Human Resources for Health","field_subtitle":"First Global Forum on Human Resources for Health, 2-7 March 2008, Kampala, Uganda","field_url":"http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/forum/en/index.html","body":"The first Global Forum on Human Resources for Health held in Kampala, Uganda from 2-7 March, 2008 called for immediate and sustained action to resolve the critical shortage of health workers around the world. Attendees at the Forum endorsed the Kampala Declaration and the Agenda for Global Action. This high profile event was attended by nearly 1500 participants, including donors, experts and ministers of health, education and finance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth Public Health Association of South African Conference, 2-4 June 2008","field_subtitle":"Public Health Association of South Africa","field_url":"http://phasa2008.mrc.ac.za/","body":"The 2008 Conference marks the thirtieth anniversary of the WHO/UNICEF Conference on Primary Health Care held in Alma Ata, USSR (now Kazakhstan). Primary Health Care remains the strategy of WHO for achieving Health for All and is the philosophy informing South Africa's health policies. There is currently renewed interest globally in Primary Health Care and the potential of this approach to address continuing health and health care challenges, not least in addressing the major problems of HIV, TB and malaria. PHASA is dedicating its 2008 Conference to PHC in recognition of the above and in the hope that research presented and ensuing discussions will assist in defining more precisely the role of Public Health in developing PHC to implement South Africa's bold health policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"From Paris 2005 to Accra 2008: will aid become more accountable and effective?: A critical approach to the aid effectiveness agenda","field_subtitle":"International Civil Society Steering Group for the Accra High Level Forum: CSO Parallel Process to the Ghana High Level Forum Network, 2007","field_url":"http://www.betteraid.org/downloads/draft_cso_policy_paper.pdf","body":"The paper argues that politics is central to aid effectiveness and the measures should be taken to ensure democratic ownership of citizens in recipient countries. It argues that aid must ensure mutual accountability between donors, government and citizens. Furthermore, donors need to ensure high standards of aid quality by fairly allocating aid toward poverty reduction, untying aid and limiting technical assistance, as well as ensuring predictability for recipient countries. The paper makes a number of recommendations ahead of the Accra High Level Forum on aid effectiveness, which include: donors should recognise the centrality of poverty reduction, equality and human rights; all donor-imposed policy conditionality should be ended; donors and Southern governments must adhere to the highest standards of openness and transparency; donors should recognise CSOs as development actors in their own right and acknowledge the conditions that enable them to play effective roles in development; an effective and relevant independent monitoring and evaluation system for the Paris Declaration and its impact on development outcomes should be developed; mutually agreed, transparent and binding contracts to govern aid relationships should be introduced; and new multi-stakeholder mechanisms for holding governments and donors to account should be created.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Global AIDS Week of Action 18-24 May, 2008","field_subtitle":"Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, 17 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.gnpplus.net/","body":"Is the world doing enough to stop AIDS? Take action in your country and show solidarity globally. Join a groundswell of civil society voices from across the world during the week of 18-24 May to demand urgency, accountability and more resources in the fight against HIV and AIDS. The severe impact of the AIDS pandemic on families, communities and economies is commonly acknowledged by scientists, the media and politicians the world over. However, more than 25 years later the losses remain stark: AIDS continues to kill almost 6000 people each day and more than 2 out of 3 HIV positive people still lack access to treatment. While women make up an increasing proportion of those living with HIV and bear a greater burden of care, current AIDS responses do not tackle the violation of women\u2019s rights \u2013 a key driver of the pandemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global consultation led by people living with HIV on sexual and reproductive health","field_subtitle":"Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, 14 March 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3d8ks7","body":"The first global consultation led by people living with HIV to address their sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and rights took place in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 5-7 December 2007. The international group of 65 HIV-positive women, men, young people, and transgender people articulated a vision statement to guide advocacy, policy, legal, programmatic and funding priorities that respect SRH and rights, and that underscores the need for health systems to do the same.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Global tuberculosis control - surveillance, planning, financing","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.who.int/tb/publications/global_report/2008/summary/en/index.html","body":"Tuberculosis (TB) is a major cause of illness and death worldwide, especially in Asia and Africa. Globally, 9.2 million new cases and 1.7 million deaths from TB occurred in 2006, of which 0.7 million cases and 0.2 million deaths were in HIV-positive people. Population growth has boosted these numbers compared with those reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) for previous years. More positively, and reinforcing a finding first reported in 2007, the number of new cases per capita appears to have been falling globally since 2003, and in all six WHO regions except the European Region where rates are approximately stable. If this trend is sustained, Millennium Development Goal 6, to have halted and begun to reverse the incidence of TB, will be achieved well before the target date of 2015. Four regions are also on track to halve prevalence and death rates by 2015 compared with 1990 levels, in line with targets set by the Stop TB Partnership. Africa and Europe are not on track to reach these targets, following large increases in the incidence of TB during the 1990s. At current rates of progress these regions will prevent the targets being achieved globally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Harmonisation for Health in Africa: An action framework","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/healthsystems/HSS_HIS_HHA_action_framework.pdf","body":"This paper sets out an initiative by African Development Bank, UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank that aims to tackle barriers to scaling up health in Africa. The \u2018Harmonisation for Health in Africa\u2019 initiative HHA is a regional mechanism through which collaborating partners agree to focus on providing support to the countries in the African region for reaching health MDGs. The HHA initiative aims to: support countries to identify, plan and address health systems constraints to improve health related outcomes; develop national capacity through training, planning, costing and budgeting, harmonisation and stimulating peer exchange; promote the generation and dissemination of knowledge, guidance and tools for specific technical areas including strengthening health service delivery and monitoring health systems performance; support countries to leverage predictable and sustained resources for the health sector; ensure accountability and assist in monitoring performance, of national health systems, aid effectiveness and the performance of the International Health Partnership; and enhance coordination to support nationally owned plans and implementation process, helping countries to address the country level bottlenecks arising from constraints within international agencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Has donor prioritisation of HIV displaced aid for other health issues?","field_subtitle":"Shiffman J: Health Policy and Planning 23(2):95-100, 2008","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/2/95","body":"Advocates for many developing-world health and population issues have expressed concern that the high level of donor attention to HIV/AIDS is displacing funding for their own concerns. Even organizations dedicated to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment have raised this issue. However, the issue of donor displacement has not been evaluated empirically. This paper attempts to do so by considering donor funding for four historically prominent health agendas\u2014HIV/AIDS, population, health sector development and infectious disease control\u2014over the years 1992 to 2005. The paper employs funding data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) Development Assistance Committee, supplemented by data from other sources. Several trends indicate possible displacement effects, including HIV/AIDS\u2019 rapidly growing share of total health aid, a concurrent global stagnation in population aid, the priority HIV/AIDS control receives in US funding, and HIV/AIDS aid levels in several sub-Saharan African states that approximate or exceed the entirety of their national health budgets. On the other hand, aggregate donor funding for health and population quadrupled between 1992 and 2005, allowing for funding growth for some health issues even as HIV/AIDS acquired an increasingly prominent place in donor health agendas. Overall, the evidence indicates that displacement is likely occurring, but that aggregate increases in global health aid may have mitigated some of the crowding-out effects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health insurance in sub-Saharan Africa: a call for subsidies","field_subtitle":"Kalk A: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 86, 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/3/07-042135/en/index.html","body":"If health insurance is to cover broader population strata in sub-Saharan Africa and to assure satisfactory health services, schemes will require continuous and long-term subsidies to bridge the gap between household capacity to contribute financially and the real costs of health care. The development of approaches addressing this dilemma should be considered as a research priority. They might include initiatives of north\u2013south risk pooling. This necessity is underpinned by the capacity of health insurance to formalise social protection and create a market between health service providers and their \u201ccustomers\u201d, simultaneously alleviating poverty and empowering communities. Yet, available evidence points out that to play these roles, health insurance needs subsidies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Workers for All and All for Health Workers","field_subtitle":"The Kampala Declaration and Agenda for Global Action, Global Health Workforce Alliance","field_url":"http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/forum/2_declaration_final.pdf","body":"The participants at the first Global Forum on Human Resources for Health in Kampala, 2-7 March 2008, representing a diverse group of governments, multilateral, bilateral and academic institutions, civil society, the private sector, and health workers' professional associations and unions called on governments to provide the stewardship to resolve the health worker crisis, involving all relevant stakeholders and providing political momentum to the process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Human Resources Retention Scheme: Qualitative and Quantitative Experience from Zambia","field_subtitle":"Mwale HF, Smith S: Health Services and Systems Program; Global Health Workforce Alliance","field_url":"http://www.hrhresourcecenter.org/node/1876","body":"This presentation was given at the First Forum on Human Resources for Health in Kampala. It discusses the Zambia Health Workers Retention Scheme, an incentive program targeting key health worker cadres primarily in rural district to decrease attrition rates of critical service providers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"International Conference on Primary Health Care and Health Systems in Africa, 28-30 April 2008","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ysmldq","body":"The WHO Regional Office for Africa is organising this conference in collaboration with UNICEF, UNFPA, UNAIDS, World Bank, African Development Bank and other development partners. Hosted by the government of Burkina Faso, the conference will be the first of its kind to take place in Africa. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Alma Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care. The conference will address a number of themes: governance of health systems;     equity in access to quality health services; resources (human resources, medicine, technology); health financing; health service delivery; multi-sectoral collaboration; community ownership and participation; and decentralisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Invitation to join global dialogue on 'Global Community of Practice on Health Worker Migration'","field_subtitle":"The Health Worker Migration Policy Initiative, 20 March 2008","field_url":"http://my.ibpinitiative.org/public/HWMigration/","body":"This call is for  people to add voice, experience, views, successes and challenges to the policy dialogue addressing the issue of Health Worker Migration and join the Global Dialogue and discuss: How can we best address the challenges raised by health worker migration? What are our shared responsibilities as individuals, countries and as a global community to support the Code of Practice? Chaired by the Honorable Mary Robinson, the Global Discussion starts on 31 of March 2008, at 15.00 GMT.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Is the declaration of Alma Ata still relevant to primary health care?","field_subtitle":"Gillam S: British Medical Journal 336:536-538, 8 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/336/7643/536","body":"After years of relative neglect, the World Health Organization has recently given strategic prominence to the development of primary health care. This year sees the 30th anniversary of the declaration of Alma Ata. Primary health care 'based on practical, scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technology made universally accessible through people\u2019s full participation and at a cost that the community and country can afford' was to be the key to delivering health for all by the year 2000. Primary health care in this context includes both primary medical care and activities tackling determinants of ill health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Member states divided on WHO D-G election process and health worker migration","field_subtitle":"Riaz K. Tayob, Researcher for Third World Network","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe World Health Organisation Director General (D-G) Margaret Chan described the recent WHO Executive Board meeting on 21-26 January 2008 as \u2018stimulating, constructive and instructive.\u2019 Chan challenged member states\u2019 to provide her with direction regarding the contentious issues facing the WHO but the meeting failed to break the deadlock on issues regarding  the selection criteria of the D-G  and on how to deal with the International Migration of Health Personnel. \r\n\r\nDeveloped countries opposed the inclusion of regional rotation in the selection criteria for the D-G, alleging that this may undermine the selection of competent candidates. However, many developing countries supported regional rotation as a selection criterion in order to promote balance amongst the regions who have had candidates as Directors-General, while not compromising on competence. The current selection process includes expensive campaign programmes that poor countries cannot afford to mount. Inclusion of the principle of rotation will go a long way to levelling the playing field.\r\n\r\nThe options presented in the Executive Board report on what the options were for addressing the proposed selection criteria changes were: (1) maintaining the status quo; (2) special consideration to candidates from certain regions; (3) and (4), two related options, considering geographical representation as the criterion for the establishment of the shortlist; (5) considering geographical representation as the criterion for the eligibility of candidates; and (6) using the same system of regional rotation as that applied to candidatures for elective office. \r\nBoard members supporting regional rotation of the post of D-G emphasised the need to ensure an equitable selection process and a level playing field among regions. They noted that no D-G had been appointed from three of the six WHO regions, even though qualified candidates from those regions had been proposed in past elections. Board members in favour of maintaining the current system said a pattern of regional rotation would necessarily restrict the choice of candidates, and would not therefore ensure that the most qualified person was elected. \r\n\r\nOne proposal was that  the D-G be elected for 5 years with contribution until all the regions have contributed a D-G. Then it will start again, with the exclusion of the region of the outgoing D-G. While some supported this proposal, others, particularly from high income countries did not. It was proposed that the matter be set aside for two years, to give regions a chance to discuss the issue and the board would decide on it in 2009.\r\n\r\nMember states were similarly divided on largely North-South lines on the issue of the international migration of health personal. Issues related to a global strategy, a code of practice, compensation mechanisms, a look into the failing training practices in the developed countries and better data for managing international health worker migration were raised in the discussions. \r\n\r\nThe developed countries position on WHO\u2019s role on international migration was mainly for collecting information and developing non-binding codes of practice. Many developing countries, on the other hand sought effective actions including a global strategy and compensation. Member states adopted polarised positions and decision making was again deferred, which effectively maintains the existing status quo. Countries in Europe and North America pointed out that migration can have positive effects, such as migrants returning home with useful experience. However it was noted by other states that only 23 percent of the 130,000 health worker personnel abroad came back. \r\n\r\nAttention was given to WHO work on the global code of practice, a matter seen to be a high priority for Africa. Without health workers, the Millennium Development Goals in Africa could not be achieved, and it was felt by some that the D-G should work with member states to come up with mechanisms for receiving countries to invest in training health workers in originating countries and assist with incentives.\r\n\r\nParticularly raised by low and middle income member states was the observation that  developed countries have failed in their own training policies and are now armed with ways of getting  health personal from lower income countries, handicapping national health plans and deeply weakening the health systems of these source countries . It was raised that financial, equipment and technical support should be given in compensation, that certain discriminatory policies should come to an end and migrant workers receive the same salaries and benefits as paid to nationals of host countries. Further, headway was urged in developing effective measures to manage migration. \r\n\r\nHowever, it was also noted that migration was a personal choice and that countries dealing with the impact of migration should create \u2018task shifting to broaden the types of health workers\u2019 who can provide care. Some members felt that a code of practice would not carry the weight of a \u2018soft law\u2019 as it was non-binding and not any kind of law, whether soft or otherwise. \r\n\r\nWhile the WHO Secretariat reported that it was now getting better data and dialogue in place on migration a consultative process should now take place at the Executive Board meeting in 2009.\r\n\r\nThe debate on these two widely different issues signal that there is yet weak consensus within the WHO Executive Board on key contentious issues facing the WHO. There appears to be agreement on the need to act on such issues, but not yet on the direction of action. A division on \u201cnorth-south\u201d lines has maintained a  deadlock on issues regarding  the selection criteria of the D-G  and on how to deal with the migration of health personnel.  Their deferral for further consultation and review in 2009 contradicts the need for clear leadership on action, with action on health worker migration and retention particularly essential and urgent for developing countries affected.  \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat, email admin@equinetafrica.org. EQUINET work on health worker migration is available at the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"NEHAWU codemns private health owners' greed","field_subtitle":"NEHAWU, 3 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.nehawu.org.za/news/articles.asp?ID=291","body":"The owners of for-profit private hospitals have voted themselves to maintain high-cost-high profits health care system, in defiance of the modest call by the Minister to act in favour of health before profits. NEHAWU alleges that the refusal by private hospital companies to reduce the tariff increases, at least to the CPIX level, demonstrates once again why profit maximization in health care is incompatible with the needs of society as a whole.  The organisatiion further observes in their report that much of the healthcare costs in the private health sector have nothing to do with provision of quality care, but spending on unnecessary and expensive equipment, hospital and office infrastructure and profits for their shareholders. NEHAWU does not believe however that the solution lies in another effort at regulation and calls for fundamental transformation of the sector, especially in the medical schemes and for-profit private hospital sector which command huge resources required for re-distribution in favour of the majority not the minority.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Our money, Our Responsibility: A citizens' guide to monitoring government expenditures  ","field_subtitle":"Ramkumar V: International Budget Project  ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2mqlkk","body":"This Guide documents pioneering methodologies used by civil society organizations around the developing world to hold their governments to account for the use of public resources. Specific methodologies examined by the Guide include social audits, citizen report cards, public expenditure tracking surveys, procurement monitoring tools, and participatory auditing tools. These methodologies are considered in detailed case studies presenting the work of 17 organizations from 12 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The Guide will enable readers to gain familiarity with the typical processes followed by national-level governments during the execution of budgets, management of procurements, measurement of impact achieved by expenditures, and oversight of budget expenditures through audits and legislative supervision. For each of these processes, the Guide provides practical tools and techniques that readers can use to monitor the results achieved by government expenditures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Panel Sees Tension Between Intellectual Property And Human Rights","field_subtitle":"Saez C: Intellectual Property Watch, 20 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=975","body":"Intellectual property rights are affecting human rights in several areas such as public health, access to knowledge and agriculture, and human rights advocates have a decisive role to play to reverse the trend, according to members of a recent panel discussion on the negative impacts of intellectual property systems. The event organised on 13 March by the International Environmental Law Research Centre (IELRC) and 3D -> Trade - Human Rights - Equitable Economy in cooperation with the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, brought together speakers whose primary aim was to provide entry points and opportunities for human rights advocates to challenge the current trend in intellectual property policy-making. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"PEPFAR bill passes Senate committee","field_subtitle":"Wills A: Essential Medicines News, 16 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.emednews.org/2008/03/16/pepfar-bill-passes-senate-committee/","body":"The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to reauthorize the President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief at a cost of $50 billion over the next five years. No amendments were considered presently for the senate bill introduced by Sen. Biden of Delaware. Of the $50 billion, $4 billion would be allocated to tuberculosis programs and another $5 billion for malaria programs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Predictors of mortality in patients initiating antiretroviral therapy in Durban, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Ojikutu BO, Zheng H, Walensky RP, Lu Z, Losina E, Giddy J and Freedburg KA: South African Medical Journal 98 (3): 204-208","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=38818","body":"Researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study analysing data on patients who presented to McCord Hospital, Durban, and started ART between 1 January 1999 and 29 February 2004. Univariate and multivariate analysis were performed and Kaplan-Meier curves were created to assess predictors. Simple clinical and laboratory data independently predict mortality and allow for risk stratification in patients initiating ART in South Africa. Interventions enabling patients to be identified before they develop these clinical markers and earlier initiation of ART will help to ensure maximum benefits of therapy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health Services and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis","field_subtitle":"Banta HD and \u00adde Wit GA: Annual Review of Public Health 29: 383-397, 3 January 2008","field_url":"http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.29.020907.090808","body":"Cost-effectiveness analysis as an aid to decision making has been increasingly publicized and discussed during the past two to three decades. However, the total body of cost-effectiveness analyses in health care is actually rather small, and high-quality studies are rather rare. Furthermore, the applications of economic analysis to health policy have been hampered by a number of problems, including those that are methodological and contextual. We consider a number of areas of public health policy but pay special attention to a growing area of inquiry and application: the overall coverage of health services. Cost-effectiveness analysis has played a relatively small role in general coverage decisions, but in recent years, it has been applied increasingly to decisions concerning pharmaceutical coverage. We speculate on concerning reasons for this particular focus in cost-effectiveness analysis. Future progress will depend heavily on discussion and consensus building.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Recruitment and Placement of Foreign Health Care Professionals to Work in the Public Sector Health Care in South Africa: Assessment","field_subtitle":"Matsuyama R: International Organization for Migration; Global Health Workforce Alliance","field_url":"http://www.hrhresourcecenter.org/node/1873","body":"This presentation was given at the First Forum on Human Resources for Health in Kampala. It details a study done to assess the feasibility and interest among stakeholders in the Netherlands, UK and US in facilitating recruitment and placement of foreign health care professionals to work in public sector health care in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reducing Prevalence of HIV: The African and Asian Scenario","field_subtitle":"Osborne K: RITES Journal 10 (1), January 2008","field_url":"http://www.ippf.org/en/Resources/Articles/Reducing+Prevalence+of+HIVThe+African+and+Asian+Scenario.htm","body":"There are the four pillars that will ensure that Africa and Asia are both able to respond to the challenges of HIV and also apply the painful lessons learned from this epidemic in cultures and societies that may \u2013 at first glance \u2013 seem so different. These are: Visionary leadership; people-centred policies; innovative evidence-informed programmes and passionate participation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Relentless Increase in African Maternal Death Could Be Equated To Genocide By Inaction","field_subtitle":"Africa Public Health Rights Alliance","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/APHRehs31032008.pdf","body":"The latest global maternal death statistics indicate that of the 536,000 women that died in 2005 of childbirth related complications, about half or 261,000 were African women. The recently released 2005 figures also indicate that Africa is the only region where maternal deaths have increased since 1990 up from 205,000. Maternal deaths dropped in every other continent over the same period. In Europe from 4,800 to 2,900, and in the America\u2019s from 21,000 to 16,000. The prevalent maternal death risk also reflects a much bleaker picture of overall reproductive health in Africa. The Africa Public Health Rights Alliance \u201c15% Now!\u201d Campaign has developed a scorecard based on the 2005 figures and available comparable global health financing and health systems data. The scorecard shows that in the bottom 10 countries globally - all of which are African except Afghanistan, maternal death risk is between 1 in 7 (Niger) and 1 in 15 (Mali). In the top 10 the risk is between 1 in 47,600 (Ireland) and 1 in 13,800 (Switzerland). Possibly every family in the bottom 10 countries will suffer 1 maternal death. Overall 1 in 23 African women have a lifetime risk of maternal death compared with 1 in 2,300 in Europe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Report cards detail plans to strengthen HIV prevention strategies in 23 countries","field_subtitle":"International Planned Parenthood Federation , 2008","field_url":"http://www.ippf.org/en/Resources/Guides-toolkits/HIV+Prevention+Report+Cards.htm","body":"Under the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS (GCWA), the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), together with the United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA) and Young Positives are developing 23 country Report Cards with the aim to strengthen HIV Prevention strategies for girls and young women. Each Report Card provides a country profile, information on HIV prevention from the legal, policy, service availability and accessibility, rights and participation perspectives and includes quotes and issues raised by young women and girls of the country. They also discuss key social and cultural issues, including the role of men and boys in HIV prevention. These form the basis for a series of recommendations aimed at increasing and improving the programmatic, policy and funding actions taken on HIV prevention for young women and girls, targeting national, regional and international decision makers. Follow- up work from these report cards has also shown that facilitating dialogue between young women and girls and national stakeholders in an open forum, can have a direct and positive influence on both policy and programmes. It also helps to develop the leadership skills of the young women so that they can take their future into their own hands.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Reproductive health issues in rural Western Kenya","field_subtitle":"van Eijk AM, Lindblade KA, Odhiambo F, Peterson E, Sikuku E, Ayisi JG, Ouma P, Rosen DH and Slutsker L: Reproductive Health 5(1), 18 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.reproductive-health-journal.com/content/5/1/1","body":"In this community-based cross-sectional survey among rural pregnant women in western Kenya, a medical, obstetric and reproductive history was obtained. Blood was obtained for a malaria smear and haemoglobin level, and stool was examined for geohelminths. Height and weight were measured. In this rural area with a high HIV prevalence, the reported use of condoms before pregnancy was extremely low. Pregnancy health was not optimal with a high prevalence of malaria, geohelminth infections, anaemia and underweight. Chances of losing a child after birth were high. Multiple interventions are needed to improve reproductive health in this area","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Review of corruption in the health sector: theory, methods and interventions","field_subtitle":"Vian T: Health Policy and Planning 23(2):83-94, 21 November 2007","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/2/83","body":"There is increasing interest among health policymakers, planners and donors in how corruption affects health care access and outcomes, and what can be done to combat corruption in the health sector. Efforts to explain the risk of abuse of entrusted power for private gain have examined the links between corruption and various aspects of management, financing and governance. Behavioural scientists and anthropologists also point to individual and social characteristics which influence the behaviour of government agents and clients. This article presents a comprehensive framework and a set of methodologies for describing and measuring how opportunities, pressures and rationalizations influence corruption in the health sector. The article discusses implications for intervention, and presents examples of how theory has been applied in research and practice. Challenges of tailoring anti-corruption strategies to particular contexts, and future directions for research, are addressed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Revitalising Health for All - A Call for Expressions of Interest","field_subtitle":"Anna Dion, International Development Research Centre, 29 March 2008","field_url":"","body":"With funding support from the Canadian Global Health Research Initiative and its \u2018Teasdale-Corti\u2019 Research Program, our project goals are to: a. systematically review recent past experiences of comprehensive primary health care from different regions of the world to determine what we know about how it works, what it needs to work and what it has accomplished; b. train up to 20 early career primary health care researchers in undertaking new or augmenting existing CPHC research studies, in teams with \u2018research users\u2019 (health policy or program planners) and research mentors (experienced CPHC researchers); c. provide financial support to these research teams to undertake their proposed studies; d. support the building of regional networks of researchers and research users (including civil society groups) to advance comprehensive primary health care as the basis for health system reform in their own countries; e. create a rigorously sound knowledge base on the role of comprehensive primary health care in improving health equity that can be used in the advocacy work of these regional networks. The project is now seeking applications (\u2018Expressions of Interest\u2019) from research teams committed to developing important new knowledge and action on comprehensive primary health care. These research teams will come from one of four different areas/regions in which are focusing our overall project work: Region 1: India and South Asia; Region 2: Africa; Region 3: Latin America; Region 4: Indigenous/Aboriginal peoples in Canada and Australia. The deadline for expressions of interest is 31 March 2008.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/33014","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Rural women the losers in HIV response","field_subtitle":"Amnesty International, 18 March 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2h34h4","body":"Rural women living with HIV in circumstances of poverty in South Africa face discrimination in relationships and in communities because of their gender, HIV status and economic marginalisation. A new Amnesty International report based on interviews with rural women, the majority of them living with HIV, exposes the overwhelming challenges they face in the midst of the severe HIV epidemic affecting the country. Despite gradual improvements in the government's response to the HIV epidemic and the adoption of a widely-welcomed five-year plan, five and a half million South Africans are HIV-infected \u2013 one of the highest numbers in any country in the world. Fifty-five percent of them are women. South African women under 25 are between three and four times more likely to be HIV-infected than men in the same age group.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"SA Trade Negotiators Play Hardball With EU","field_subtitle":"The Namibian, 5 March 2008","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200803050175.html","body":"EU trade chief Peter Mandelson dangled a carrot in front of SA's negotiators at the weekend, hinting at greater access to European markets in exchange for SA returning to the negotiating table to resolve a standoff over a stalled regional trade deal with the EU. But his promises may not be enough to persuade SA. SA's chief trade negotiator, Xavier Carim, said that improved market access - evidently offered on agriculture, fisheries and industrial goods - did not ease concern that EU demands would limit SA's policy options.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Saving newborn lives in Asia and Africa: cost and impact of phased scale-up of interventions within the continuum of care  ","field_subtitle":"Darmstadt GL, Walker N, Lawn JE, Bhutta ZA, Haws RA, Cousens S: Health Policy and Planning 23(2):101-117, 2008","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/2/101","body":"Policy makers and programme managers require more detailed information on the cost and impact of packages of evidenced-based interventions to save newborn lives, particularly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where most of the world's 4 million newborn deaths occur. This study estimated the newborn deaths that could be averted by scaling up 16 interventions in 60 countries. We bundled the interventions in a variety of existing maternal and child health packages according to time period of delivery and service delivery mode, and calculated the additional running costs of implementing these interventions at scale (90% coverage) in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The phased introduction and expansion of interventions was modelled to represent incremental strategies for scaling up neonatal care in developing country health systems. Low-cost, effective newborn health interventions can save millions of lives, primarily in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Modelling costs and impact of intervention packages scaled up incrementally as health systems capacity increases can assist programme planning and help policy makers and donors identify stepwise targets for investments in newborn health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Seeking Executive Director ","field_subtitle":"Women's Dignity Project, Tanzania","field_url":"http://www.womensdignity.org","body":"Women\u2019s Dignity promotes citizen engagement to enable all Tanzanians - particularly marginalised girls and women \u2013 to realise their basic right to health. We hold a particular commitment to enhancing the rights of girls and women living with obstetric fistula. We support citizens to access and use information to promote their health rights, and seek to ensure policies, programs and services that promote the dignity and rights of the poor. The current and founding executive director will be stepping down on 30 June 2008. Women\u2019s Dignity is looking for a committed, competent, and creative person to lead the organisation. We seek innovation, bold vision, strong management and keen leadership. The organization is in a strong financial position, permitting the new executive director to focus on providing vision and leadership. This is a senior level position requiring an experienced person. WDP offers competitive remuneration in a setting that promotes learning, social justice, team-work and high ethical standards.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32942","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Marketing for Malaria Prevention: Increasing Insecticide Treated Net Coverage","field_subtitle":"The World Bank","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/27xlvz","body":"The principal challenge to achieving the Abuja Declaration goal was to develop an efficient, equitable and sustainable mechanism to deliver insecticide treated nets to the poor and most vulnerable segments of the population. One method\u2014social marketing, employs the principles and practices of commercial marketing techniques to deliver socially beneficial goods at affordable, and often, at subsidized prices to particular groups. Social marketing of insecticide treated nets, through a public-private partnership and meaningful community participation in Tanzania, has successfully and quickly increased the distribution of mosquito nets among the poorest populations, particularly children and pregnantwomen. This program has resulted in improved health outcomes with respect to morbidity and mortality impact of Malaria on the population of children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Health Review 2007 - The Role of the Private Sector within the South African Health System","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust, 7 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041715","body":"The South African Health Review (SAHR) is an annual publication of the Health Systems Trust (HST), which has been published since 1995. The SAHR seeks to provide a South African perspective on prevailing international public health issues, to stimulate debate and critical dialogue and to provide a platform for assessing progress in the health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Statement by SA Minister of Health to Parliament on Private Health Sector costs","field_subtitle":"Department of Health, South Africa, 12 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/sp/sp0312-f.html","body":"The private sector provides care for about 7 million people or close to 15% of all South Africans but consumes more than the total expenditure by the public health sector. The per capita expenditure in the private health sector is about 8 times more than that in the public health sector. Put another way, the public health sector spends about R1000 per patient per year whilst the private sector spends about R8000. The private sector spends an estimated 5.5% of gross domestic product. In addition, this sector employs more doctors, pharmacists and dentists than the public health sector. Clearly, this level of inequity cannot be left unchallenged.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening Health Leadership and Management: the WHO Framework","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization; Global Health Workforce Alliance","field_url":"http://www.hrhresourcecenter.org/node/1886","body":"This presentation was given at the First Forum on Human Resources for Health in Kampala. It defines health leadership and management, why strengthening it is important, the lessons learned so far, and the main components and uses of the WHO framework.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Systematic synthesis of community-based rehabilitation (CBR) project evaluation reports for evidence-based policy: a proof-of-concept study","field_subtitle":"Kuipers P, Wirz S and Hartley S: BMC International Health and Human Rights, 8:3, 6 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/8/3/abstract","body":"This paper presents the methodology and findings from a proof-of-concept study undertaken to explore the viability of conducting a systematic, largely qualitative synthesis of evaluation reports emanating from Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) projects in developing countries. Computer assisted thematic qualitative analysis was conducted on recommendation sections from 37 evaluation reports, arising from 36 disability and development projects in 22 countries. Quantitative overviews and qualitative summaries of the data were developed. The application of the synthesis methodology utilised in this proof-of-concept study was found to be potentially very beneficial for future research in CBR, and indeed in any area within health services or international development in which evaluation reports rather than formal research evidence is the primary source material. The proof-of-concept study identified a number of limitations which are outlined. Based on the conclusions of 37 evaluation reports, future policy frameworks and implementation strategies in CBR should include a stronger emphasis on technical, organisational, administrative and personnel aspects of management and strategic leadership. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Ten facts on health workforce crisis","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 3 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/health_workforce/en/index.html","body":"WHO estimates the global health worker shortfall to be over 4.2 million. That shortage is impairing provision of essential, life-saving interventions such as childhood immunizations, safe pregnancy and childbirth services for mothers, and access to treatment for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. As a result, people are suffering and dying needlessly. Without prompt action, the shortage will worsen and health systems will be weakened further. As populations continue to grow in developing countries and grow older in the developed countries, health demand is on the rise virtually everywhere.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The burden of disease profile of residents of Nairobi's slums: Results from a Demographic Surveillance System","field_subtitle":"Kyobutungi C, Ziraba AK, Ezeh A and Ye Y: Population Health Metrics 6(1), 10 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.pophealthmetrics.com/content/6/1/1","body":"With increasing urbanisation in sub-Saharan Africa and poor economic performance, the growth of slums is unavoidable. About 71% of urban residents in Kenya live in slums. Recent research shows that the urban poor fare worse than their rural counterparts on most health indicators, yet much about the health of the urban poor remains unknown. This study aims to quantify the burden of mortality of the residents in two Nairobi slums, using a Burden of Disease approach and data generated from a Demographic Surveillance System. Slum residents in Nairobi have a high mortality burden from preventable and treatable conditions. It is necessary to focus on these vulnerable populations since their health outcomes are comparable to or even worse than the health outcomes of rural dwellers who are often the focus of most interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The crisis in human resources for health care and the potential of a \u2018retired\u2019 workforce: case study of the independent midwifery sector in Tanzania  ","field_subtitle":"Rolfe B, Leshabari S, Rutta F, Murray SF: Health Policy and Planning 23(2):137-149, 2008","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/2/137","body":"The human resource crisis in health care is an important obstacle to attainment of the health-related targets for the Millennium Development Goals. One suggested strategy to alleviate the strain upon government services is to encourage new forms of non-government provision. Detail on implementation and consequences is often lacking, however. This article examines one new element of non-government provision in Tanzania: small-scale independent midwifery practices. A multiple case study analysis over nine districts explored their characteristics, and the drivers and inhibitors acting upon their development since permitted by legislative change. Because of their location and emphasis on personalized care, small-scale independent practices run by retired midwives could potentially increase rates of skilled attendance at delivery at peripheral level. The model also extends the working life of members of a professional group at a time of shortage. However, the potential remains unrealized. Successful multiplication of this model in resource-poor communities requires more than just deregulation of private ownership. Prohibitive start-up expenses need to be reduced by less emphasis on facility-based provision. On-going financing arrangements such as micro-credit, contracting, vouchers and franchising models require consideration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The effectiveness of contracting-out primary health care services in developing countries: a review of the evidence","field_subtitle":"Liu X, Hotchkiss DR, Bose S: Health Policy Plan 23: 1-13, 2008","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/1/1","body":"The purpose of this study is to review the research literature on the effectiveness of contracting-out of primary health care services and its impact on both programme and health systems performance in low- and middle-income countries. Due to the heightened interest in improving accountability relationships in the health sector and in rapidly scaling up priority interventions, there is an increasing amount of interest in and experimentation with contracting-out. Overall, while the review of the selected studies suggests that contracting-out has in many cases improved access to services, the effects on other performance dimensions such as equity, quality and efficiency are often unknown. Moreover, little is known about the system-wide effects of contracting-out, which could be either positive or negative. Although the study results leave open the question of how contracting-out can be used as a policy tool to improve overall health system performance, the results indicate that the context in which contracting-out is implemented and the design features of the interventions are likely to greatly influence the chances for success.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The Impact of Health Insurance on Health","field_subtitle":"Levy H and \u00ad Meltzer D: Annual Review of Public Health 29: 399-409, 21 November 2007","field_url":"http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.28.021406.144042","body":"How does health insurance affect health? After reviewing the evidence on this question, we reach three conclusions. First, many of the studies claiming to show a causal effect of health insurance on health do not do so convincingly because the observed correlation between insurance and good health may be driven by other, unobservable factors. Second, convincing evidence demonstrates that health insurance can improve health measures of some population subgroups, some of which, although not all, are the same subgroups that would be the likely targets of coverage expansion policies. Third, for policy purposes we need to know whether the results of these studies generalize. Solid answers to the multitude of important questions about how specific health insurance policy options may affect health seem likely to be forthcoming only with investment of substantial resources in social experiments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The NGO Code of Conduct for Health Systems Strengthening","field_subtitle":"Health Alliance International, 28 November 2007","field_url":"http://ngocodeofconduct.org/","body":"The Code of Conduct for Health Systems Strengthening is a response to the recent growth in the number of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) associated with increase in aid flows to the health sector. It is intended as a tool for service organizations \u2013 and eventually, funders and host governments. The code serves as a guide to encourage NGO practices which contribute to building public health systems and discourage those which are harmful. The working document was drafted by a coalition of activist or service delivery organizations, including Health Alliance International, Partners in Health, Health GAP, and Action Aid International. EQUINET also contributed to the consultations on the code. It will be revised in a series of consultations over 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of community-based organisations in household ability to pay for health care in Kilifi District, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Molyneux C, Hutchison B, Chuma J, Gilson L: Health Policy and Planning 22: 381-392","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/22/6/381","body":"There is growing concern that health policies and programmes may be contributing to disparities in health and wealth between and within households in low-income settings. However, there is disagreement concerning which combination of health and non-health sector interventions might best protect the poor. Potentially promising interventions include those that build on the social resources that have been found to be particularly critical for the poor in preventing and coping with illness costs. In this paper we present data on the role of one form of social resource\u2014 community-based organisations (CBOs)\u2014in household ability to pay for health care on the Kenyan coast. Data were gathered from a rural and an urban setting using individual interviews (n = 24), focus group discussions (n = 18 in each setting) and cross-sectional surveys (n = 294 rural and n = 576 urban households). We describe the complex hierarchy of CBOs operating at the strategic, intermediate and local level in both settings, and comment on the potential of working through these organisations to reach and protect the poor. We highlight the challenges around several interventions that are of particular international interest at present: community-based health insurance schemes; micro-finance initiatives; and the removal of primary care user fees. We argue the importance of identifying and building upon organizations with a strong trust base in efforts to assist households to meet treatment costs, and emphasize the necessity of reducing the costs of services themselves for the poorest households.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Value and Challenges of Participatory Research: Strengthening Its Practice","field_subtitle":"Cargo M and \u00adMercer SL: Annual Review of Public Health 29: 325-350, 3 January 2008","field_url":"http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.29.091307.083824","body":"The increasing use of participatory research (PR) approaches to address pressing public health issues reflects PR's potential for bridging gaps between research and practice, addressing social and environmental justice and enabling people to gain control over determinants of their health. This critical review of the PR literature culminates in the development of an integrative practice framework that features five essential domains and provides a structured process for developing and maintaining PR partnerships, designing and implementing PR efforts, and evaluating the intermediate and long-term outcomes of descriptive, etiological, and intervention PR studies. the paper reviews the empirical and nonempirical literature in the context of this practice framework to distill the key challenges and added value of PR. Advances to the practice of PR over the next decade will require establishing the effectiveness of PR in achieving health outcomes and linking PR practices, processes, and core elements to health outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Third District Health Barometer","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust, 7 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041761","body":"Primary health care (PHC) in South Africa forms an integral part of both the country's health policies and health system and has been prioritised as a major strategy in achieving health for all. On the eve of the 30th anniversary of the Alma Ata Declaration, PHC is once again in the spotlight. How far have we come in the last 30 years? How far in the last three? The third edition of the District Health Barometer, the 2006/07 report sheds some light by monitoring the trend of key health and financial indicators in PHC over the last three years by district and province.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Tiered pricing of pharmaceuticals","field_subtitle":"Wills A: Essential Medicines News, 19 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.emednews.org/2008/03/19/tiered-pricing-of-pharmaceuticals/","body":"GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has begun a scheme of tiered pricing of its medicines in low- and middle-income countries. The policy is being tested in India, South Africa and Morocco, to ensure the greatest availability of their products, while still recovering R&D costs from those who are able to pay.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Training workshop on Participatory methods for a people centred health system: Strengthening community focused, primary health care orientated responses to prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS, Bagamoyo Tanzania, 27 February to 1 March 2008","field_subtitle":"TARSC, Ifakara, REACH Trust,  Global Network of People living with HIV/AIDS","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REPMTG0208pra.pdf","body":"The workshop is the third in a series run by TARSC and Ifakara on participatory reflection and action (PRA) methods in health, using a toolkit developed by TARSC and Ifakara in EQUINET, with support from IDRC and SIDA and peer review by CHESSORE Zambia. The PRA training focus in 2008 was on strengthening equitable primary health care responses to HIV and AIDS. The 2008 training aimed to build understanding of PRA approaches and their use in strengthening people centred health systems, particularly community focused and PHC oriented HIV and AIDS interventions. The workshop aimed to draw on experiences in the east and southern African region for strengthening community focused and PHC oriented HIV and AIDS interventions; work through practical examples of PRA approaches and their application in areas of work that participants are practically involved with at community level; provide initial mentoring and support to development of research and training proposals for EQUINET support on equitable, community driven responses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda Health Workforce Study: Satisfaction and Intent to Stay Among Health Workers in Public and PNFP Facilities","field_subtitle":"McQuide P, Kiwanuka-Mukiibi P, Zuyerduin A, Isabirye C: Capacity Project; Global Health Workforce Alliance","field_url":"http://www.hrhresourcecenter.org/node/1878","body":"This presentation was given at the First Forum on Human Resources for Health in Kampala. It describes a study to identify the level of satisfaction and intent to stay among health workers, to inform strategies to improve retention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"UNAIDS starts Task Team on HIV related travel restrictions","field_subtitle":"Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, 11 March 2008","field_url":"http://www.gnpplus.net/content/view/1373/91/","body":"Since the beginning of the HIV epidemic, governments and the private sector have implemented travel restrictions with regard to HIV positive people wishing to enter or remain in a country for a short stay (e.g. business, personal visits, tourism) or for longer periods (e.g. asylum, employment, immigration, refugee resettlement, or study). UNAIDS has set up an international task team to heighten attention to the issue of HIV-related travel restrictions (both short-term and long-term) on international and national agendas and move towards their elimination. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Women and the Right to Food: International Law and State Practice","field_subtitle":"Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2008","field_url":"http://www.fao.org/righttofood/publi08/01_GENDERpublication.pdf","body":"In the light of Millennium Development Goals No.1 \u2013 to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger \u2013 and No.3 \u2013 to promote gender equality and empower women \u2013 the present study provides a cross-cutting analysis of the right to food from a gender perspective, examining relevant international instruments as well as State practice. The analysis of these documents will give an idea of what is today\u2019s level of awareness of women\u2019s right to food and related issues, how much is covered by law and how much is missing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Day 2008: protecting health from climate change","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.who.int/world-health-day/en/index.html","body":"World Health Day, on 7 April, marks the founding of the World Health Organization and is an opportunity to draw worldwide attention to a subject of major importance to global health each year. In 2008, World Health Day focuses on the need to protect health from the adverse effects of climate change. The theme \u201cprotecting health from climate change\u201d puts health at the centre of the global dialogue about climate change. WHO selected this theme in recognition that climate change is posing ever growing threats to global public health security. Through increased collaboration, the global community will be better prepared to cope with climate-related health challenges worldwide. Examples of such collaborative actions are: strengthening surveillance and control of infectious diseases, ensuring safer use of diminishing water supplies, and coordinating health action in emergencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018What if they ask how I got it?\u2019 Dilemmas of disclosing parental HIV status and testing children for HIV in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Rwemisisi J, Wolff B, Coutinho A, Grosskurth H, Whitworth J: Health Policy and Planning 23: 36-42, 2008","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/1/36","body":"Limited research has been conducted outside Western settings on how HIV-positive parents decide to test and disclose their own HIV status to children. This qualitative study was conducted in 2001 and 2005 to assess parent attitudes and current counselling policy and practice regarding child testing and parental disclosure in Uganda prior to the roll-out of antiretroviral therapy. Concerns over disclosure to children of parent's HIV status and testing children for HIV represent a major psychological burden for HIV-positive parents. Further research is reported to be needed, but current counselling practice could be improved now by adapting lessons learned from existing research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":" Inequality and Poverty in Africa in an Era of Globalisation: Looking Beyond Income to Health and Education","field_subtitle":"Sahn DE and Younger SD: UNU-WIDER, November 2007","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/working-papers/research-papers/2007/en_GB/rp2007-74/","body":"This paper describes changes over the past 15-20 years in non-income measures of wellbeing\u2014education and health\u2014in Africa. Results indicate that in the area of health, little progress is being made in terms of reducing pre-school age stunting, a clear manifestation of poor overall health. Likewise, our health inequality measure showed that while there were a few instances of reduced inequality along this dimension, there was, on balance, little evidence of success in improving equality of outcomes. Similar results were found in our examination of underweight women as an indicator of general current health status of adults. The overall picture gives little cause for complacency or optimism that Africa has reaped, or will soon reap the potential benefits of the process of globalisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":" Living with AIDS in Uganda:  Impacts on banana-farming households in two districts","field_subtitle":"Beraho MK: Wageningen Academic Publishers","field_url":"http://www.wageningenacademic.com/AWLAE6","body":"The research in this book was carried out among banana-farming households in the districts of Masaka and Kabarole in Uganda. A gendered livelihood approach was used. The research focused on the identification of critical factors that need to be taken into consideration in the development of relevant policies for HIV/AIDS-affected agriculture-based households or those that are at risk. The book shows that HIV/AIDS causes significant negative effects on the lives of those affected. Their resources are affected due to HIV/AIDS-related labour loss and asset-eroding effects and disinvestment in production and child education. While in the overwhelming majority of the affected cases the effects of AIDS are negative and lead to increased impoverishment and vulnerability, for some households HIV/AIDS-related effects are manageable. It is concluded that a household's socio-economic status and demographic characteristics influence the magnitude of HIV/AIDS-related impacts experienced and capacity to cope. The book also highlights some historically specific social practices, policies, and ideologies that continue to maintain or reproduce distinct forms of inequality, with certain social groups being marginalized and others being privileged. Unless these are redressed, they will continue to aggravate people's vulnerability regardless of the type of shock that they are exposed to or experience.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"2007 Victories: Fewer Deaths, more compulsory licenses","field_subtitle":"Baker B: Health GAP, 11 December 2007","field_url":"http://www.healthgap.org/documents/2007PatentandCLVictories.doc","body":"Given India's victory against Novartis in the drug company's challenge to section 3d of the India Patent Act and given Thailand's highly publicised campaign to issue compulsory licenses on both AIDS and heart disease medicines, we are now seeing a new wave of patent withdrawals and a growing wave of compulsory licenses.  This reciprocal wave action creates a wider opening for continuing access to newer and lower costs medicines.  But the promise of this opening will only be realized if more countries amend their patent acts to take advantage of the TRIPS-compliant, definitional flexibilities that India has enacted and if more countries use the TRIPS compliant flexibilities for issuing compulsory licenses for generic medicines that Thailand has used.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A PRA project report: Community empowerment and participation in maternal health in Kamwenge District, Uganda","field_subtitle":"Muhinda A, Mutumba A, Mugarura J HEPS Uganda","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRAheps2008.pdf","body":"The Kamwenge Community Empowerment and Participation in Maternal Health Project aimed to contribute to the improvement of the health of expectant mothers in Kamwenge Sub-county, Kamwenge District. We aimed, through the use of PRA approaches, to increase demand for, access to and utilisation of maternal health services by expectant mothers. Using various PRA tools the project team worked with the community to prioritise, act and follow up on the most critical barriers to maternal health at the three levels \u2013 health service, community and household. While a comparison of questionnaires before and after the intervention suggested that maternal health problems remained high and many barriers to access services persisted, positive change was perceived in ease of access to and affordability of services, in communication between community and health workers and the respect shown by health workers, in the support given by health workers and families, and in awareness and action on maternal health in the community. The strongest positive changes were noted in the communication between health workers and pregnant women, and this seemed to be the area of greatest impact of the intervention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"A PRA project report: Community participation in the management of mental disorders in Kariobangi, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Othieno CJ, Kitazi N, Mburu J, Obondo A, Mathai MA","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRAothieno2008.pdf","body":"This participatory action research project aimed to explore and strengthen the community\u2019s capacity to recognise and advocate for their mental health needs, to increase the awareness of mental health problems among the community and to increase collaboration between the mental health workers from clinic and hospital level and the community in the management of mental health problems in the community. Both health workers and community identified exclusion, isolation and poor control over life, associated with risks and a poor physical state, as features of mental ill health. The Kariobangi community was felt to experience high levels of mental ill health, with poverty a major contributing factor. The major mental disorders identified were depression, stress, poverty, lack of awareness, drugs/substance abuse, lack of essential services (mental health services), mental retardation and epilepsy. The intervention is still at an early stage, but the evidence suggests that the PRA approach has strengthened community roles and interaction with health workers in improving mental health care in an underserved community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"A PRA project report: Strengthening communication between people living with HIV and clinic health workers in Kaisipul Division, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Ongala J","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRA%20KDHSG2007.pdf","body":"Participatory approaches were used to facilitate a programme of work aimed at: improving communication and understanding between HIV positive clients and the HIV clinic personnel in HIV clinics; raising HIV positive clients\u2019 voices and participation in improving the HIV clinic services in the division; and promoting networking to overcome isolation, increasing exchange and co-operation through conducting. Participatory approaches, while challenging and time intensive, were perceived by health workers, clients and the facilitators to be a powerful means to enhancing communication, overcoming power imbalances that are barriers to good health or effective use of services and to encouraging the sustainable, \u201cbottom up\u201d community involvement on health visioned in Kenya health policy documents. Real changes were made to make the services more client-friendly, including installed suggestion box, re-streamlined queuing and filling system, taking of vital signs, interpreter involvement, and ordering of bulk drug supply, while clients formed a network that would sustain the communication and reduce social isolation of PLWHIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa needs access to affordable medicine","field_subtitle":"Mbola B: BuaNews, 21 February 2008","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041765","body":" Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has called on the continent's health industry to improve access to affordable medicine. Access to healthcare is a constitutional right for all citizens of this continent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"African Union Technical Committee meeting on Local Production on Pharmaceuticals Johannesburg, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, MP Minister of Health of South Africa and Chairperson of the Bureau of the Third Session of the African Union Conference of Ministers of Health, 18 February 2008","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/sp/sp0218a-f.html","body":"As the World celebrates 30 years of the Alma Ata Declaration that launched the Primary Health as the Pillar of Quality services, there is greater need for all of us to improve access to affordable medicines. Even in rich countries, access to affordable medicines cannot be guaranteed. Of course, the problems are much greater in many developing countries, with insufficient or no manufacturing capacities in the pharmaceutical sector. In Africa we are too reliant on other countries to provide essential medicines for us. This is not strategic and correct, as we cannot guarantee availability of appropriate technologies that truly respond to our current and emerging needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Announcing the African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship Program","field_subtitle":"African Population and Health Research Center","field_url":"http://www.aphrc.org/subsection.asp?ID=65","body":"The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), in partnership with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Ford Foundation, is pleased to announce the African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowships (ADDRF), a new fellowship program to support doctoral students at African universities whose theses address issues relating to heath systems strengthening in Africa. One of these fellowships will support doctoral research that focuses on the broad field of sexuality research. The deadline for applications is March 29, 2008. The ADDRF will award a maximum of 16 fellowships in the first year. These fellowships will be awarded to advanced doctoral students who are within two years of completing their doctoral thesis at an African university. Dissertation topics addressing health systems-related issues or sexuality from any disciplinary perspective are eligible for consideration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"AU takes decision on EPAs","field_subtitle":"AFROL News, 29 January 2008","field_url":"http://www.afrol.com/articles/27837","body":"The Executive Council of the African Union was reported in January to have resolved that no African region should be allowed to sign the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the European Union \"as long as the draft agreement is not submitted and discussed at the continental level\". The council believed that the signing of any interim or complete EPAs will affect other regions in Africa, recommended \"the need for a political intervention at the highest level to protect the interest of African countries.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Barriers to condom access: Setting an advocacy agenda ","field_subtitle":"Drazin J, Torres MA, Daly K: International Council of AIDS Services Organsiations , 2007 ","field_url":"http://www.icaso.org/publications/condom_access2007_eng.pdf","body":"The failure to remove barriers that determine whether a person can access and use a condom is one of the biggest impediments to preventing millions more HIV infections. This advocacy briefing from International Council of AIDS Service Organisations (ICASO) examines some of these barriers and addresses what can be done to overcome them. Information was sourced from a community-led monitoring project in 14 countries undertaken in 2005 and 2006 which collected and analysed data and information on the broad response to HIV and AIDS. The report states that to overcome prominent barriers, governments and donors around the world need to commit new resources and enact and reform legislation, policy and programming that will ensure condom access and availability. It argues that a mobilised community sector that can forcefully advocate for condom access is needed now more than ever.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Decentralisation and gender: A study on coordination and cooperation in local government for maternal health","field_subtitle":"Lange S, Schanke S: Chr. Michelsen Institute, p.77, 2007","field_url":"http://www.cmi.no/publications/publication/?2803=decentralisation-and-gender","body":"Tanzania initiated the Local Government Reform Programme in 1996. The objective of the reform is decentralisation by devolution, and to strengthen local authorities' ability to deliver quality and accessible services in cooperation with local communities, civil society organisations, the private sector, and other development actors. This report describes various forms of coordination and cooperation in four districts, using maternal health as an entry point and example. Four districts with relatively low maternal mortality rates were selected: Ileje, Misungwi, Serengeti, and Moshi rural. The objective of the study is to identify if, and in what ways, these districts perform better than others when it comes to cooperation on maternal health, and to identify best practices and disseminate the practices to other districts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Depoliticising Development and Democratising Politics in Tanzania: Parallel structures as obstacles to delivering services to the poor","field_subtitle":"Lange S: Journal of Development Studies (forthcoming), 2008","field_url":"http://www.cmi.no/publications/publication/?2538=the-depoliticisation-of-development-and-the","body":"Local democracy and the involvement of local communities in the provision of social services are central issues in the local government reforms that are presently being implemented in many developing countries. At the same time, institutions that run parallel to local authorities, such as social funds and various user-committees, are established to improve accountability and participation. By focusing on actual political processes rather than administrative, legal, and fiscal aspects of decentralisation, this article traces the breakdown of two development projects in Tanzania to the existence of parallel structures, and suggests that user-committees and social funds should be integrated in local authority structures to avoid fragmentation of participation and to enhance local democracy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"District health barometer","field_subtitle":"Health System Trust, 21 February 2008","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041761","body":"Primary health care (PHC) in South Africa forms an integral part of both the country's health policies and health system and has been prioritised as a major strategy in achieving health for all. On the eve of the 30th anniversary of the Alma Ata Declaration, PHC is once again in the spotlight. How far have we come in the last 30 years? How far in the last three? The third edition of the District Health Barometer, the 2006/07 report sheds some light by monitoring the trend of key health and financial indicators in PHC over the last three years by district and province.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Do international health research programmes do enough to develop research systems and skills in low and middle income countries?","field_subtitle":"Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED), 2007","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/COHfinanc240208.pdf","body":"Research plays a crucial role in developing solutions to the health problems suffered by the populations of low and middle income countries. Most health research for and in low and middle income countries is funded from external sources. And most of this externally funded research takes the form of 'vertical' - condition-specific - programmes. This paper begins by highlighting four important problems that result from reliance on this type of funding; including an unduly narrow focus of research on conditions for which international funding is available (mostly HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria); lack of interest in leaving behind sustainable capacity in research after the research projects have ended; and loss of interest in the local programme at the time when research findings should be translated into action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"EPA Negotiations: Where do we stand?","field_subtitle":"European Centre for Development Policy Management, 31 January 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3754os","body":"A brief look at each of the six negotiation regions gives a more detailed picture of the current state of play on the EPA negotiations. While all parties remain committed to concluding comprehensive EPAs, as confirmed in the joint review endorsed in May 2007, progress in the negotiations has been slower than expected. By October 2007, it became apparent that EPAs would not be concluded by the target date of 31 December 2007, set by the expiry of the WTO waiver covering the current preferential trade regime of Cotonou. In reaction to this, the European Commission issued a communication on 23 October 2007, which outlines a pragmatic approach to safeguard preferential market access for non-LDC countries from 1 January 20081. The communication aims at concluding WTO-compatible goods market access arrangements to be in order to extend the negotiation time towards complete EPAs while avoiding adisruption in trade. In line with this approach, a number of interim agreements were concluded over the last weeks of 2007 between the EU and ACP regions, subregions and individual countries. Trade in goods is the only key area that needs to be covered by an agreement to comply with WTO rules. Other areas, on which agreement has been found, are included in most interim agreements. The interim agreements contain rendezvous clauses to continue negotiations in 2008 towards full EPAs. A brief look in this report at each of the six negotiation regions gives a more detailed picture of the current state of play on the EPA negotiations. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Equal opportunities for health action for development","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.mediciconlafrica.org/globalhealth/home.asp","body":"Equal opportunities for health action for development is a project implemented by 29 European partners and associates from the health community with the aim to mobilise public support in Europe for Global Health and Health Equity as a strategy and policy for more equitable North-South relations and poverty reduction in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC). Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. \r\n\r\nThe views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 85: Sound policy or attack on health rights: Are laws criminalising deliberate HIV transmission good for public health? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET) \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/ \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place.\r\n\r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Ethical issues in Health Research in Africa","field_subtitle":"The Biomedical Research and Training Institute (BRTI) ","field_url":"","body":"This course is intended to equip Clinical and Medical Scientists, including Postgraduate Students involved in the Management of Research with Guidelines on Ethical Issues in Health Research. Topics include: The Meaning of Ethics; Ethics and Science; Informed Consent; Ethical Issues in Public Health Research, The Laboratory, Publication and the Pharmaceutical Industry; Risks, Harms and Benefits; Gender Issues in Research; Publication Ethics; and Research in Developing Countries. The Closing Date for applications is 7 March 2008. The course runs from 17 to 20 March 2008. Contact Rita Pike on cell number: (Zimbabwe) 011 608849.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32931","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"European development policy: Aid effectiveness and key priorities","field_subtitle":"The European Centre for Development Policy Management, The Department for International Development","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3yhbu9","body":"Policymakers from the EU and developing countries, together with non governmental organisations and academics, met from 21-24 January at Wilton Park for a strategic and creative dialogue on the effectiveness of European development policy. With input from the Department for International Development and the European Centre for Development Policy Management, the group discussed Europe's development agenda and potential reforms. The group considered ways to improve aid effectiveness in preparation for the Paris commitment review meeting in Accra in September: the closing session was led by the Ghanaian Finance Minister.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Family caregivers' perspectives on providing care","field_subtitle":"Hunter N: School of Development Studies, University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa, 2007","field_url":"http://sds.ukzn.ac.za/files/WP44%20-%20web.pdf","body":"This paper based on findings from the KwaZulu-Natal Income Dynamics Study (KIDS) describes caregivers\u2019 perspectives on providing care for HIV positive family members. The paper focuses on understanding what care provision means to family caregivers and in turn why they provide care. More centrally it highlights various aspects of the experience of providing care and the effects of care on caregivers\u2019 lives. Caregiver\u2019s reported that caring is stressful and physically, emotionally and socially taxing. Moreover, in households in which care takes place there is in most cases a lack of resources to provide appropriate care. Almost all caregivers indicate that they do not always know what to do to provide care. The report recommends increased support for caregivers, namely training in how to provide the highest quality care possible such as delivering palliative care. This should be provided by home-based care organisations and health workers such as community health workers and nurses through home visits.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Gates Foundation\u2019s Influence Criticized","field_subtitle":"McNeil DG: The New York Times, 16 February 2008","field_url":"http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/science/16malaria.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=kochi&st=nyt&oref=slogin","body":" The chief of malaria for the World Health Organization has complained that the growing dominance of malaria research by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation risks stifling a diversity of views among scientists and wiping out the world health agency\u2019s policy-making function. In a memorandum, the malaria chief, Dr. Arata Kochi, complained to his boss, Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the W.H.O., that the foundation\u2019s money, while crucial, could have \u201cfar-reaching, largely unintended consequences.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Care Waste Management in Public Clinics in the Ilembe District: A Situational Analysis and Intervention Strategy ","field_subtitle":" Gabela SD: Health Systems Trust","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/715","body":"All waste generated at health care facilities in the past was regarded as hazardous and was incinerated before disposal. Today however, waste generated at health facilities is separated out and disposed of according to the risks it poses. The purpose of this study was to investigate health care waste (HCW) management practices used in public health clinics in the iLembe Health District, with a view to developing a HCW management intervention strategy. The management of health care waste is of great concern. There is need to develop a health care waste management intervention strategy to be implemented consistently and universally in the district.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health GAP Internship Announcements: Grassroots Intern and Development Intern","field_subtitle":"Health GAP","field_url":"","body":"Are you interested in fighting for access to treatment, prevention and care for people living with and at risk for HIV worldwide? Do you want to be an active part of winning big campaigns to treat millions of people with HIV and prevention millions more HIV infections? Then you should apply for Health GAP\u2019s Grassroots Internship. Health Global Access Project (Health GAP) is an action-oriented advocacy group created in early 1999 by US-based AIDS and human rights activists, public health experts, fair trade advocates, and concerned individuals dedicated to expanding equitable access to treatment and care for people living with AIDS worldwide. Health GAP is hiring a Grassroots Intern for the remainder of the school year (May '08), starting as soon as possible. The position would be for 10 hours per week, and is unpaid (we will cover internship-related mobile phone and travel expenses).","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32894","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"IDRC: African Tobacco Situational Analyses - Call for letters of intent","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-119375-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html","body":"Research for International Tobacco Control (RITC) of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is pleased to announce a Call for Letters of Intent for the African Tobacco Situational Analyses (ATSA). This competition is a joint initiative of RITC/IDRC and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The competition is administered by RITC/IDRC. The Call is available in English and French. A Portuguese translation will also be available shortly. The deadline for receipt of Letters of Intent is March 17, 2008 and will be accepted in English and French. Support for document translation from Portuguese to English or French will also be available.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementation of the Mental Health Care Act (2002) at district hospitals in South Africa: Translating principles into practice","field_subtitle":"Burns JK:  South African Medical Journal 98 (1): 46-49","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=37768","body":"In line with international developments in mental health legislation, the Mental Health Care Act (2002) was promulgated in South Africa. Its core principles \u2013 human rights for users; decentralisation and integration of mental health care at primary, secondary and tertiary levels of care; and a focus on care, treatment and rehabilitation \u2013 are progressive and laudable. However, the task of implementing the requirements of the Act at community and district hospital levels is fraught with problems. Lack of infrastructure, inadequate skills and poor support and training undermine its successful implementation. Health workers already burdened with enormous workloads and inadequate resources struggle to manage mentally ill patients at district hospitals. The 72-hour observation is a particular area of difficulty throughout the country. This paper outlines the rationale and sense behind this legislation, discusses the problems encountered at the \u2018rock face', and offers solutions to the problem of translating principles into practice. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Informal payments and the quality of health care in Tanzania: Results from qualitative research","field_subtitle":"Maestad O, Mwisongo A: CMI Working Paper 5, 2007","field_url":"http://www.cmi.no/publications/publication/?2918=informal-payments-and-the-quality-of-health-care","body":"Informal payments for health services are common in many countries, especially in transitional and developing countries. As part of a larger study focusing on health worker performance in Tanzania, one objective was to investigate the nature of informal payments in the health sector, and to identify mechanisms through which informal payments are affecting the quality of health services. A more profound understanding of these mechanisms is of interest because it may improve knowledge of how quality may be enhanced within a system where informal payments are common practice. The findings reveal a variety of positive and negative mechanisms through which informal payments may impact on the quality of health care. Furthermore, they show that informal payments add to health workers' incomes, thus contributing to the retention of workers in the health sector and to avoiding a further escalation of the current health worker shortage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrating tuberculosis and HIV services for people living with HIV: Costs of the Zambian ProTEST Initiative","field_subtitle":"Terris-Prestholt F, Kumaranayake L, Ginwalla R, et al:  Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation, 6: 2, 23 January 2008","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/pdf/1478-7547-6-2.pdf","body":"In the face of the dual TB/HIV epidemic, the ProTEST Initiative was one of the first to demonstrate the feasibility of providing collaborative TB/HIV care for people living with HIV (PLWH) in poor settings. The ProTEST Initiative facilitated collaboration between service providers. Voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) acted as the entry point for services including TB screening and preventive therapy, clinical treatment for HIV-related disease, and home-based care (HBC), and a hospice. This paper estimates the costs of the ProTEST Initiative in two sites in urban Zambia, prior to the introduction of anti-retroviral therapy. This study shows that coordinating an integrated and comprehensive package of services for PLWH is relatively inexpensive. The lessons learnt in this study are still applicable today in the era of ART, as these services must still be provided as part of the continuum of care for people living with HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Intent to migrate among nursing students in Uganda: measures of the brain drain in the next generation of health professionals","field_subtitle":"Nguyen L, Ropers S, Nderitu E, Zuyderduin A, Luboga S and Hagopian S: Human Resources for Health 6(5), 12 February 2008","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/6/1/5","body":"There is significant concern about the worldwide migration of nursing professionals from low-income countries to rich ones, as nurses are lured to fill the large number of vacancies in upper-income countries. This study explores the views of nursing students in Uganda to assess their views on practice options and their intentions to migrate. Improving remuneration for nurses is the top priority policy change sought by nursing students in this study. Nursing schools may want to recruit students desiring work in rural areas or public practice to lead to a more stable workforce in Uganda. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Is the Western Cape at risk for an outbreak of preventable childhood diseases? Lessons from an evaluation of routine immunisation coverage","field_subtitle":"Corrigall J, Coetzee S, Cameron N: South African Medical Journal  98 (1): 41-45 ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=37767","body":"This study in Western Cape South Africa shows that while immunisation coverage indicates that a lot of good work is being done, the coverage is insufficient to prevent outbreaks of measles and other common childhood conditions including polio. The coverage is too low to consider not running periodic mass campaigns for measles and polio. The coverage will need to be sustainably improved before introducing rubella vaccine as part of the EPI schedule. The reasons given by caregivers for their children not being immunised are valuable pointers as to where interventions should be focussed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge about HIV/AIDS and policy in a South African state hospital","field_subtitle":"Dijkstra A, Kangawaza E, Martens C: Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS Research Alliance , 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2eawve","body":"This research was undertaken to investigate what level of HIV knowledge medical staff have in a state hospital in South Africa. In particular it looks at their knowledge about and practical use of current HIV policy and counselling programmes within their hospital. The conclusions are applicable to other hospitals in South Africa. The report highlights several areas of poor knowledge. Education of medical staff may be insufficient due to several factors including lack of access to information, lack of training and counselling, and lack of knowledge about HIV policy. The authors recommend the effectiveness of current counseling services is evaluated and that hospital HIV policy and counselling programmes are developed in co- operation with community based organisations and all disciplines in the hospital, especially nurses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Mama Health Rights Project kicks off in Pallisa, Budaka","field_subtitle":"Medicine Access Digest 3 (1), June 2007","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/MUTgov240208.pdf","body":"Expectant mothers in Pallisa and Budaka districts have moved closer to realising their right to adequate reproductive health services, following the launch of HEPS Uganda's Community Empowerment and Participation on Maternal Health Project. The Project, falling within the empowerment, lobbying and advocacy themes of the EU's DSCBP, specifically targets expectant mothers, health care providers, district health officials and other local government leaders as well as community opinion leaders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Managerial competencies of hospital managers in South Africa: a survey of managers in the public and private sectors","field_subtitle":"Pillay R: Human Resources for Health 6(4), 8 February 2008","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/6/1/4","body":"South Africa has large public and private sectors and there is a common perception that public sector hospitals are inefficient and ineffective while the privately owned and managed hospitals provide superior care and are more sustainable. The underlying assumption is that there is a potential gap in management capacity between the two sectors. This study aims to ascertain the skills and competency levels of hospital managers in South Africa and to determine whether there are any significant differences in competency levels between managers in the different sectors. The findings confirm the supposition that there is a lack of management capacity within the public sector in South Africa and that there is a significant gap between private and public sectors. It provides evidence that there is a great need for further development of managers, especially those in the public sector. The onus is therefore on administrators and those responsible for management education and training to identify managers in need of development and to make available training that is contextually relevant in terms of design and delivery. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Manto targets private health care","field_subtitle":"Fin24, 14 February 2008","field_url":"http://www.fin24.com/articles/default/display_article.aspx?Nav=ns&ArticleID=1518-1786_2270769","body":"Private health care has been specifically targeted for interventions by the health department in the coming year, according to South Africa Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. She said the government was paying particular attention to 'improving accessibility and affordability of private health care.' The minister said that private hospitals were also agreeing to comply with the single exit price legislation with regard to the billing for anaesthetic gases which were previously overcharged. She said that the department was building on the progress made in regulating medicine prices to develop regulations that would allow the whole private health sector to be regulated. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring and Evaluating Poverty Reduction Policies in Mozambique, Study 1","field_subtitle":"Paulo M, Ros\u00e1rio C, Tvedten I: CMI Brief 7 (2), 2008","field_url":"http://www.cmi.no/publications/publication/?2939=social-relations-of-rural-poverty","body":"From the vantage point of a rural district in northern Mozambique, the development efforts by government and donors are visible through the enhanced capacity of the local administration and investments in education and health, but not where it really matters for poor people: employment creation and reasonable returns from their agricultural production, which currently are adversely affected by an absent or exploitative private sector. The very poorest are marginalised or excluded from social relationships with the extended family, traditional institutions as well as the state, underlining the need to give special attention to the chronically poor and destitute in rural areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring and Evaluating Poverty Reduction Policies in Mozambique, Study 2","field_subtitle":"Paulo M, Ros\u00e1rio C, Tvedten I: CMI Brief 7 (3), 2008","field_url":"http://www.cmi.no/publications/publication/?2940=social-relations-of-urban-poverty","body":"Issues of urban poverty have received little attention in Mozambique, even though the urban poverty rate is high and urban inequality is on the rise. In the bairros of Maputo, unemployment, crime and the high costs of food, housing and land inhibit the poor from converting progress in education and health into increased income and consumption. In a context where money is an integral part of most social relationships, the most destitute become marginalised with no one to turn to. Rising poverty and inequality in Maputo also have an adverse impact on vital urban-rural relationships, and may jeopardise political stability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"New improved PMTCT on the way","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 29 January 2008","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76478","body":"The long wait is over. South Africa's HIV-positive pregnant women will now have access to medication that could further reduce the risk of passing the virus to their babies after the health department released guidelines for administering more effective dual therapy instead of single antiretroviral (ARV) treatment. The challenge now is to make sure that healthcare workers at public health facilities receive the guidelines and the medicines so that new mothers and babies will benefit as soon as possible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy Brief 19: Are we making progress in allocating government health resources equitably in east and southern Africa?","field_subtitle":" \tHealth Economics Unit, University of Cape Town; EQUINET","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/POLBRIEF19fin.pdf","body":"Reviewing experience in selected countries in the region, this policy brief suggests that countries can strengthen equitable allocation of resources for health by increasing the overall share of government funding allocated to the health sector, bringing external aid and government funding into one pooled fund and allocating it through a single mechanism. Equitable resource allocation calls for governments to establish annual targets for equitable allocation of these public funds, and to collect information to monitor and report on progress in meeting these targets, including to parliaments and civil society. Resource allocation is a politicised process and requires careful management, including to plan, organise and provide incentives for redistributing health care staff to areas where health need is higher.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor tracking means patients lose out","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 15 February 2008","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76777","body":"Inadequate patient tracking at one of South Africa's largest antiretroviral (ARV) distribution sites, has led to many patients disappearing from the clinic before treatment starts, a new report has found. The report by the Reproductive Health & HIV Research Unit (RHRU) of the University of the Witwatersrand, based on a 2006 review of patient files at the Tshepong Wellness Clinic, about 120km southwest of Johannesburg, shows that a standard percentage - about 14 percent - stop taking treatment, but more than 20 percent of patients never get to the treatment stage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Research to action to address inequities: the experience of the Cape Town Equity Gauge","field_subtitle":"Scott V, Stern R, Sanders D, Reagon G and Mathews V: International Journal for Equity in Health 7(6), 4 February 2008","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/7/1/6","body":"While the importance of promoting equity to achieve health is now recognised, the health gap continues to increase globally between and within countries. The description in this study looks at how the Cape Town Equity Gauge initiative, part of the Global Equity Gauge Alliance (GEGA) is endeavouring to tackle this problem. In two very different, but connected projects, the authors demonstrate the value of adopting the GEGA approach, and the importance of involvement of all stakeholders at all stages. The studies also illustrate the potential of a research institution as informed 'outsiders', in influencing policy and practice. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Right to Health through litigation?","field_subtitle":"Gloppen S, Gargarella R, Maestad O, et al: Chr. Michelsen Institute","field_url":"http://www.cmi.no/file/?245","body":"Can court enforced health rights improve health policy and priority setting in poor countries? This multidisciplinary project aims to systematically investigate whether litigation can make health policies and -systems in poor countries more equitable by forcing policy-makers and administrators to take seriously their human rights obligations. Most of the world's governments are obliged through international treaties or national constitutions, or both, to respect, protect, promote and fulfill the human right to health. In most cases, this has not been an enforceable legal right. However, cases regarding the right to health care are increasingly brought before the courts. In a number of low- and middle-income countries - first in Latin America, later in Africa and Asia, court decisions have granted access to certain forms of medical treatment. These are decisions with potentially great implications for how health sector resources are prioritised and allocated, but so far there is little systematic knowledge of the actual effect of such cases on health policy formation, implementation and spending. Do they have a significant effect in practice? And, if so, do they contribute to more - or less - justice in health service delivery?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"SA Health Minister's meeting with Private Hospital Industry & Medical Schemes","field_subtitle":"SA Department of Health, 28 February 2008","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/pr/pr0228a-f.html","body":"The South Africa Minister of Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang held separate follow-up meetings with representatives of the private hospital industry and medical schemes in Cape Town to discuss the challenge of increasing private health care costs. The Minister welcomed the efforts that have been made by some of the private hospital groups to adjust the tariff increases for 2008 towards the CPIX. However, there were concerns from schemes that adjustments announced have not translated to any savings that can be passed on to the consumer. The schemes reported on the efforts that have been made to reduce non-health costs in the medical schemes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Scholar Rescue Fund: Fellowships for Threatened Academics","field_subtitle":"Institute for International Education","field_url":"","body":"The Institute of International Education's Scholar Rescue Fund (SRF) provides fellowships for established scholars whose lives and work are threatened in their home countries. These fellowships permit professors, researchers and other senior academics to find temporary refuge at universities and colleges anywhere in the world, enabling them to pursue their academic work and to continue to share their knowledge with students, colleagues, and the community at large. When conditions improve, these scholars will return home to help rebuild universities and societies ravaged by fear, conflict and repression.  During the fellowship, conditions in a scholar's home country may improve, permitting safe return; if safe return is not possible, the scholar may use the fellowship period to identify a longer-term opportunity.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32892","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Indicators - A case study from South Africa","field_subtitle":"UNGASS draft report, February 2008","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/719","body":"A workshop was held in July 2007 hosted by MOSAIC at which the participating South African organisations reviewed goals set by UNGASs on reproductive health rights, discussed identified indicators, refined these and shared research and findings. In South Africa in 2007 Government in collaboration with many stakeholders (civil society, the private sector) launched the HIV and AIDS and STI National Strategic Plan 2007 \u2013 2011. While there is substantive discussion noting key areas of gender and gender based violence, cultural attitudes and practices, sexual concurrency and sex workers, there is no overall conceptual lens unpacking sexual and reproductive health and rights. Currently reproductive health is not on the essential health priority list. This leaves gaps in terms of the continuum of care and there is a lack of integration, for example, HIV positive women\u2019s sexual and reproductive intentions are not provided for, abortion services are not regulated\r\nwithin HIV care, sexual violence is not part of the STI syndromic approach.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Should active recruitment of health workers from sub-Saharan Africa be viewed as a crime?","field_subtitle":"Mills EJ, Schabas WA, Volmink J, Walker R, Ford N, Katabira E, Anema A, Joffres M, Cahn P: The Lancet Volume 371(9613): 685-688, 23 February 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/39p2o8","body":"Rich countries are poaching so many African health workers that the practice should be viewed as a crime, a team of international disease experts said. If one of these countries that is being systematically poached were to pursue it as a crime, contributing to unrest they would have some leg to stand on.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Sound policy or attack on health rights: Are laws criminalising deliberate HIV transmission good for public health? ","field_subtitle":"Mulumba Moses, Health Rights Lawyer, Uganda","field_url":"","body":"Can criminalising deliberate HIV infections curb the HIV transmission rate, and so be good for public health? Or would such legislation negatively impact on voluntary counselling and testing (VCT), and therefore be bad for public health? With many countries in east and southern Africa either enacting or amending legislation to criminalise deliberate HIV infections, there has been mixed response to these questions and mixed reaction to such law reform. \r\n\r\nKenya, Tanzania and Uganda are currently introducing or amending laws to criminalise wilful HIV transmission as they view such laws as an effective tool to curb behaviour that carries the risk of HIV transmission and a legal contribution to the supportive environment for behavior change. These laws generally provide for sanctions when an individual who knows their HIV status knowingly and wilfully infects another individual with HIV.   They are proposed as a measure to protect people with less power. By providing sanctions against wilful transmission of HIV, such laws are argued to protect the more vulnerable groups, usually women and young girls, in their sexual relations with those who are more powerful - usually men and wealthy people. They intend to reduce the impunity with which the powerful coerce others into sex, through acts such as rape and defilement, or into practicing unsafe sex (for example through commercial sex work), and so act as a deterrent against these practices. \r\n\r\nHowever, a range of stakeholders involved in HIV related work, from legal, health rights and public health backgrounds, argue that ordinary criminal law provides sufficient legal mechanisms to hold someone accountable for wanton and deliberate infection of sexual partners. A special law to mandate criminalisation of HIV transmission could be bad for public health, harming initiatives such as voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) by deterring individuals engaged in high-risk or criminal sexual behavior from finding out their HIV status, in order to avoid prosecution under this law. Knowledge of HIV status is an entry point to many public health interventions to both prevent HIV and manage AIDS. With women commonly tested for HIV status through antenatal programmes, such laws may increase women\u2019s vulnerability. Laws criminalising deliberate HIV infections could increase stigma, and violate the rights of persons living with HIV to life, health, treatment and freedom from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment if effective care is lacking, or discontinued, through imprisonment. Emmanuel Mziray, GIPA Adviser to  UNAIDS in Tanzania, observes that: \u2018prohibiting alcohol and other drugs, consensual sex, or prostitution has never succeeded in preventing these behaviors\u2019.\r\n\r\nCriminalising deliberate HIV infections also raises a number of issues relevant to application of the law. It raises questions, for example, about the whether people living with HIV have a legal duty to disclose their HIV status before engaging in sexual activities that can lead to transmission of the virus? If so, then how do you prove in court that the person breached this legal duty? Further there are difficulties in proving the link between the sexual activity and the HIV transmission. \r\n\r\nIn a bid to address these concerns, USAID recently produced a policy options paper (See: http://data.unaids.org/Publications/IRC-pub02/JC733CriminalLaw_en.pdf) proposing some principles to guide thinking about, and development of, law and policy on the question of criminal law and HIV/AIDS. The paper identifies a number of public policy considerations that countries should consider when making decisions about using criminal law to tackle deliberate HIV infections. It warns that government officials and the judiciary involved in the development and implementation of such policies should be knowledgeable of the best available scientific evidence regarding modes of HIV transmission. Risk levels should form the basis for rationally determining if, and when, conduct should attract criminal liability. This is very challenging in settings where the judiciary may not be familiar with latest scientific evidence regarding on HIV transmission, particularly where there may be debate about levels of risk.\r\n\r\nUSAID propose that any legal or policy responses to HIV, particularly  through the coercive use of state power, should not only be pragmatic in the overall pursuit of public health, but should also conform to international human rights norms, particularly the principles of non-discrimination and due process. State action which infringes on human rights must be adequately justified and policy-makers should always assess the impact of law or policy on human rights, choosing the \u2018least intrusive\u2019 measures possible to achieve the demonstrably justified objective of preventing disease transmission.  As pointed out by  Shanaaz Mathews in the April 2006 edition of the South African Medical Journal,  international guidelines on HIV and human rights developed by UNAIDS and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) point out that criminal or public health legislation should not include specific offences against deliberate transmission of HIV, but that the latter should be tried under general criminal law, a position endorsed by the South African Law Commission (SALC) in 2001. \r\n\r\nThe development of such laws in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, amongst other ESA countries, suggest that these guidelines are not being followed. In Tanzania the proposed law is under debate, and article 47 of the HIV and AIDS (Prevention and Control) Bill, 2007 provides: \u2018Any person who willfully and intentionally transmits HIV to another person commits an offence, and on conviction shall be liable to life imprisonment\u2019. In Kenya, section 26 of the Sexual Offences Act, 2006 makes it an offence for any person who with actual knowledge that he or she is infected with HIV or any other life threatening sexually transmitted disease intentionally, knowingly and willfully infects another person. Though Uganda has not enacted specific legislation criminalising deliberate HIV infections, it has amended its Penal Code Act to create the offence of aggravated defilement and aggravated rape where the offender was infected with HIV.\r\n\r\nThese laws do not appear to have addressed the human rights or public health concerns raised above, and assign the matter to courts who may have weak expertise in assessing the public health evidence.  More generally, the public health impact of these measures are not monitored, neither the costs nor the potential benefits raised above.  It is thus difficult to argue that they have been adequately justified, or that they are the \u2018least intrusive\u2019 measures possible to achieve their intention. The argument that the issue should be tried under general criminal law perhaps provides a legal remedy for clear violations of rights, without the negative consequences of a specific provision. \r\n\r\nPolicy and legal reforms are important in tackling the HIV epidemic. If human rights and public health issues are to be respected then it is vital that professionals and activists working on AIDS and people living with HIV be involved in and debate the legal reform processes in this area.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat admin@equinetafrica.org. Further information on health rights and AIDS can be found on the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening management in low-income countries: Lessons from Uganda","field_subtitle":"Egger D, Ollier E, Tumusiime P: World Health Organization , 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/management/workingpaper11.pdf","body":"This World Health Organization background paper reviews and summarises service delivery management at the district level in Uganda. Specifically, it looks at health sector management development approaches that have been recently implemented, changes in the management capacity and performance and links between management development and health service delivery outputs. The paper finds that significant effort has gone into developing managers using long and short courses and placing \"technical advisers\" with District Health Management Teams. The paper concludes that whilst opportunities exist for managers to develop skills, courses need to be better designed to produce the essential competencies needed. A health sector competency framework for managers will provide common performance objectives and standards in the sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Stronger together: Supporting the vital role played by older people in the fight against the HIV and AIDS pandemic","field_subtitle":"HelpAge International, 2008","field_url":"http://www.aidsportal.org/repos/HelpAgeStrongerTogether07.pdf","body":"In the HIV/AIDS pandemic, it is older people, particularly grandmothers, who are shouldering most of the emotional and financial burden as carers. Yet their vital role is going unrecognised. This report calls for a major shift in the response to HIV/AIDS. Some of the recommendations include: public recognition of the value, contribution and rights of older women carers to reduce stigma and discrimination against them more sophisticated analysis and understanding of the role of older women and men in caring for adults and children living with HIV, so that urgent; support can be targeted at these older carers; better support to access existing services home-based care policies and programmes that address the specific economic, health and psychosocial needs of older women carers and support them in their care giving roles.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The African Population and Health Research Center","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aphrc.org/default.asp","body":"APHRC\u2019s research focuses on improving understanding of population and health issues through development and implementation of innovative, policy-oriented research programs to address the region\u2019s key population and health challenges. APHRC\u2019s research focus is organized into four themes: Urbanization and wellbeing; Population and Reproductive Health; Health Challenges and Systems; and Education. These research priorities have been selected to respond to needs identified by African governments and by multinational bodies and frameworks including the MDGs, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), the Economic Commission for Africa, the African Union, and the World Health Organization, among others. Within each theme, we particularly focus on areas where there are considerable knowledge gaps and where building on our past investments and current strengths holds the greatest potential to improve the wellbeing of Africans. Our methods include primary research projects where we collect new data; secondary analysis of existing data; synthesis of evidence; scenario building; and monitoring and evaluation of interventions. We also seek to develop and use new methodologies, partnering with other institutions as needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The state of the worlds children 2008: Child survival","field_subtitle":"United Nations [UN] Children's Fund , 2008","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/sowc08/docs/sowc08.pdf","body":"The State of the World's Children 2008 provides a wide-ranging assessment of the current state of child survival and primary health care for mothers, newborns and children. The report argues that these issues serve as sensitive barometers of a country's development and wellbeing and as evidence of its priorities and values, and states that investing in the health of children and their mothers is a human rights imperative and one of the surest ways for a country to set its course towards a better future. The report identifies six pivotal actions at the macro level that urgently require unified engagement to intensify efforts for maternal, newborn and child survival and fulfil the right of women and children to health and well-being.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards wellbeing in forest communities: A sourcebook for local government","field_subtitle":"Albornoz MA, Becker M, Cahyat A: Center for International Forestry Research, 2008","field_url":"http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/publications/pdf_files/Books/BAlbornoz0701.pdf","body":"Local governments have an important role to play in enhancing the wellbeing of forest communities, yet often lack the capacity to understand and address local needs. This source book provides a useful resource for local governments, local communities, development practitioners and civil society organisations interested in reducing poverty through more participatory approaches with forest communities. They offer a positive concept of sustained human wellbeing and security that extends beyond sufficiency of income and food, and emphasises the potential role of forests in enhancing community wellbeing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Training: HIV Positive Living Train the Trainer, 24-28 March 2008","field_subtitle":"SAFAM Training Academy, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/hiv-and-aids/hiv-events-and-opportunities&id=35455&type=Item","body":"The Positive Living training based upon the book Positive Health is regarded as the bench-mark for interventions aimed at empowering people living with HIV or AIDS to take positive actions to maintain their health. The training targets Peer educators - Medical practitioners - Community workers \u2013 Wellness coordinators - EAP counsellors, HIV Champions; Health and Safety, VCT staff; CSI implementers; HR practitioners; as well as implementers for NGOs, VSOs, ASOs and FBOs. This training has formed the basis for corporate and government programs in 17 countries in Africa. The methods have been assessed by medical experts and were found to have solid credentials and cost-effectiveness.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS","field_url":"http://www.un-ngls.org/unaids/en/","body":"The UN General Assembly has called for a high-level meeting on 10-11 June 2008, to undertake a comprehensive review of the progress achieved in realizing the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS and the 2006 Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS , as well as to promote the continued engagement of leaders in a comprehensive global response to AIDS. The high-level meeting will comprise plenary meetings, five thematic panel discussions and an informal interactive hearing with civil society. The outcome of the high-level meeting will be a Summary of the President of the General Assembly, reflecting the views expressed during the discussions. To facilitate civil society involvement in the high-level meeting and ensure an open, transparent and participatory process, the President of the General Assembly in partnership with UNAIDS will establish a Civil Society Task Force comprising representatives from civil society, the private sector and relevant UN focal points. The Task Force will, among other things, help identify participants for the civil society hearing and help determine the format, theme and programme. In addition, UNAIDS is working closely with a coalition of civil society organizations to provide support to civil society and community groups in maximizing the impact of the 2008 UN General Assembly high-level meeting on AIDS. Submit your application to attend the meeting at: http://www.un-ngls.org/unaids/en/application.php","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Utilisation Survey on the District Health Barometer","field_subtitle":" Monticelli F: Health System Trust, 21 February 2008","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/718","body":"This report and summary deals with the findings of the survey that deal with the District Health Barometer (DHB) publication. The DHB aims at improving the quality of and access to primary health care through monitoring important aspects of the health system at a district level by analysing and comparing a carefully selected range of health indicators.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"What if we decided to take care of everyone who needed treatment? Workforce planning in Mozambique using simulation of demand for HIV/AIDS care","field_subtitle":"Hagopian A, Micek MA, Vio F, Gimbel-Sherr K and Montoyo P: Human Resources for Health 6(3), 7 February 2008","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/6/1/3","body":"The growing AIDS epidemic in southern Africa is placing an increased strain on health systems, which are experiencing rising steadily patient loads. Health care systems are tackling the barriers to serving large populations in scaled-up operations. One of the most significant challenges in this effort is securing the health care workforce to deliver care in settings where the manpower is already in short supply. A demand-driven staffing model is presented in this study using simple spreadsheet technology, based on treatment protocols for HIV-positive patients that adhere to Mozambican guidelines. The model can be adjusted for the volumes of patients at differing stages of their disease, varying provider productivity, proportion who are pregnant, attrition rates, and other variables. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health: Final reports of the Knowledge Networks","field_subtitle":"WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH)","field_url":"http://www.who.int/social_determinants/knowledge_networks/final_reports/en/index.html","body":"The Knowledge Networks of the Commission in different regions have completed their reports. These reports will inform the Commission's interim statement to be published later this year for broader consultation.  They are available on the Commission website and cover areas of Early childhood development; Globalisation; Health Systems; Employment; Women and Gender equity; Urban Settings and Measurement and Evidence. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Workforce analysis using data mining and linear regression to understand HIV/AIDS prevalence patterns","field_subtitle":"Madigan E, Curet OL and Zrinyi M: Human Resources for Health 6(2), 31 January 2008","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/6/1/2","body":"The achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) depends on sufficient supply of health workforce in each country. Although country-level data support this contention, it has been difficult to evaluate health workforce supply and MDG outcomes at the country level. The purpose of the study was to examine the association between the health workforce, particularly the nursing workforce, and the achievement of the MDGs, taking into account other factors known to influence health status, such as socioeconomic indicators. The main factors in understanding HIV prevalence rates are physician density followed by female literacy rates and nursing density in the country. Using general linear model approaches, increased physician and nurse density (number of physicians or nurses per population) was associated with lower adult HIV prevalence rate, even when controlling for socioeconomic indicators. Increased nurse and physician density are associated with improved health outcomes, suggesting that countries aiming to attain the MDGs related to HIV would do well to invest in their health workforce. Implications for international and country level policy are discussed. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":" 'I believe that the staff have reduced their closeness to patients': An exploratory study on the impact of HIV/AIDS on staff in four rural hospitals in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Dieleman N, Bwete V, Maniple E, Bakker M, Namaganda G, Odaga J and van der Wilt GJ: BMC Health Services Research 7(205), 18 December 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/7/205/abstract","body":"Staff shortages could harm the provision and quality of health care in Uganda, so staff retention and motivation are crucial. Understanding the impact of HIV/AIDS on staff contributes to designing appropriate retention and motivation strategies. This research aimed 'to identify the influence of HIV/AIDS on staff working in general hospitals at district level in rural areas and to explore support required and offered to deal with HIV/AIDS in the workplace'. Its results were to inform strategies to mitigate the impact of HIV on hospital staff. Organisational responses should be integrated into responses to other problematic working conditions and adapted to the local context. Opportunities already exist, such as better use of supervision, educational sessions and staff meetings. However, exchanges on interventions to improve staff motivation and address HIV in the health sector are urgently required, including information on results and details of the context and implementation process. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":" Call for Applications: Gender, Mental Health and Addictions","field_subtitle":"Research Net","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2xjgv7","body":"CIHR's Institute of Gender and Health (IGH) and the Institute of Neurosciences Mental and Addictions (INMHA) are committed to improving mental health, a priority, according to leading national and international experts and policy-makers, for Canadians and the international community. The purpose of this funding opportunity is to address this major gap in knowledge through the launch of CIHR Centres for Research Development in Gender, Mental Health and Addictions. This initiative will provide interdisciplinary teams of researchers and their stakeholders with core infrastructure support to develop integrated programs of research and knowledge translation that examine the influence of gender and sex on mental health and on policies and programs that affect mental health, and design and test new interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"5th Summer Institute (SI-5) for New Global Health Researchers","field_subtitle":"The Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research","field_url":"http://www.ccghr.ca/dev/default.cfm?content=si5&lang=e&subnav=si5","body":"The Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research (CCGHR) is pleased to announce the 5th annual Summer Institute (SI-5) for researchers who are new to the field of global health research. By \u201cnew\u201d they mean researchers who have become involved in this important area within the past five years. By \u201cglobal health research\u201d they mean research concerning the problems borne by societies in low and middle income countries (LMICs).The 5th Summer Institute for New Global Health Researchers, to be held in partnership with Network Environments for Aboriginal Research BC of the University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.  The Summer Institute will be held at the Quw'utsun' Cultural and Conference Centre located in the Cowichan Valley, in the southeast corner of Vancouver Island from July 16-23, 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A call for expressions of interest to participate in new research and research training in Comprehensive Primary Health Care","field_subtitle":"People's Health Movement","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/iphu/files/Call for Expressions of Interest CPHC.pdf","body":"In 2007, an international network of researchers and people involved in building comprehensive primary health care (CPHC) received funding to support research and research capacity-building. This network, associated with the People's Health Movement, includes individuals in India , Africa, Latin America, Europe, Canada and Australia. The ideals of comprehensive primary health care were first launched internationally by the 1978 Alma-Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care. This Declaration was partly based on earlier primary health care successes in significantly lowering infant, childhood and maternal mortality rates and creating over all population health improvements in many parts of the developing world. Since the Alma-Ata Declaration, however, most health systems reform in much of the world has been driven by 'selective' (single-disease or intervention focused) primary health care, and by increased marketization of health care services ( e.g. user fees, privatization). This has led to increasingly complex, inefficient and inequitable health systems driven by an ever larger number of special 'global health initiatives.'This document outlines how this project will set out to change this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A comprehensive programme addressing HIV/AIDS and gender based violence","field_subtitle":"Janse van Rensburg MS: SAHARA Journal 4 (3): 695-706, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=197&id=37395","body":"A survey was administered to 304 respondents participating from three areas near Welkom, South Africa. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with women from randomly selected households to evaluate the impact of a service provision programme targeting women living with HIV/AIDS and gender based violence. Gender based violence (GBV) awareness and knowledge was high. Respondents had high perceived levels of risk.  The key findings of this study support the notion of using a holistic approach, targeting more than one issue. There is lower stigma levels associated with combined conditions, which might allow easier access to vulnerable groups. Coordination and collaboration of services are however needed to enable this benefit.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa\u2019s leaders must fulfill pledge to children","field_subtitle":"Save the Children, 6 December 2007","field_url":"http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/41_4012.htm","body":"Save the Children called on African leaders to fulfil their promises made in Abuja in 2001 to spend at least 15% of their annual budgets on health. In the briefing \u2018Not another one, not another day\u2019 they look at how African governments, despite commitments in 2001 and 2005, still aren\u2019t spending enough on health. It also shows that the EU is failing to support the development of health systems in Africa, with most member states still falling short of their commitment to spend 0.7% of their gross national income on aid. It includes a list of recommendations to get the AU and EU back on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Analysing Health Equity Using Household Survey Data: A Guide to techniques and their implementation","field_subtitle":"O'Donnell O, van Doorslaer E, Wagstaff A, Lindelow M: The World Bank","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/g4wjl","body":"Health equity has become an increasingly popular research topic during the course of the past 25 years. Many factors explain this trend, including a growing demand from policymakers, better and more plentiful household data, and increased computer power. But progress in quantifying and understanding health equities would not have been possible without appropriate analytic techniques. These techniques can provide researchers and analysts with a step-by-step practical guide to the measurement of a variety of aspects of health equity, with worked examples and computer code, mostly for the computer program Stata.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing the promise of user involvement in health service development: Ethnographic study","field_subtitle":"Fudge N, Wolfe CDA, Mckevitt C: British Medical Journal, 29 January 2008","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/bmj.39456.552257.BEv1","body":"This study set out to understand how the policy of user involvement is interpreted in health service organisations and to identify factors that influence how user involvement is put into practice. The design was that of an ethnographic study using participant observation, interviews, and collection of documentary evidence. Set in a multiagency modernisation programme to improve stroke services in two London boroughs, participants comprised of service users, National Health Service managers, and clinicians. Author conclusions include that user involvement may not automatically lead to improved service quality. Healthcare professionals and service users understand and practise user involvement in different ways according to individual ideologies, circumstances, and needs. Given the resource implications of undertaking user involvement in service development there is a need for critical debate on the purpose of such involvement as well as better evidence of the benefits claimed for it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Botswana confirms first case of XDR-TB","field_subtitle":"Motseta S, Nullis C: Mail and Guardian Online, 17 January 2008","field_url":"http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/&articleid=329886","body":"Health authorities reported the first known cases of virtually untreatable tuberculosis in Botswana, following fears that the highly contagious strain has spread beyond South Africa. For the past few months, health professionals have warned that XDR-TB, although only confirmed in South Africa, had spread to other Southern African nations like Swaziland and Lesotho hard hit by the AIDS pandemic, but hadn't been diagnosed because of lack of laboratory facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Building bridges out of poverty","field_subtitle":"Policy Brief (2), January 2008","field_url":"http://www.southernafricatrust.org/Publications.html","body":"With less than seven years to go before the attainment of the universal millennium development goals (MDGs), the southern Africa region is still battling with infrastructure issues which might stifle the region\u2019s progression towards the achievement of the goals. In its January policy briefing Building Bridges Out of Poverty, the Southern Africa Trust examines how transport, energy and water infrastructure in the region can facilitate intra-regional trade and investment as well as sound management and development of water resources. This article discusses how infrastructure development can strengthen regional integration to overcome poverty in southern Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Databases as policy instruments: About extending networks as evidence-based policy","field_subtitle":"de Bont A, Stoevelaar H and Bal R: BMC Health Services Research 7(200), 7 December 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/7/200/abstract","body":"This article seeks to identify the role of databases in health policy. Access to information and communication technologies has changed traditional relationships between the state and professionals, creating new systems of surveillance and control. As a result, databases may have a profound effect on controlling clinical practice. Three case studies were undertaken to reconstruct the development and use of databases as policy instruments. Our results demonstrate that policy makers hardly used the databases, neither for cost control nor for quality assurance. Further analysis revealed that these databases facilitated self-regulation and quality assurance by (national) bodies of professionals, resulting in restrictive prescription behavior amongst physicians. The databases fulfill control functions that were formerly located within the policy realm. The databases facilitate collaboration between policy makers and physicians, since they enable quality assurance by professionals. Delegating regulatory authority downwards into a network of physicians who control the use of pharmaceuticals seems to be a good alternative for centralized control on the basis of monitoring data.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"DelPHE launches call for applications","field_subtitle":"The British Council","field_url":"http://www.britishcouncil.org/delphe-application-submitting-an-application.htm","body":"The ACU's Development Partnerships in Higher Education (DelPHE) programme launched it's Third Call for Applications. DelPHE is led by the British Council with the support of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU). DelPHE is designed to support university collaborations which address Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in any of 25 focus countries across Africa and Asia (details available on the web site). Deadlines for applications will vary by country, as applications must be submitted to the local British Council office in the country of the lead applicant. Each of these offices determine a local deadline, before shortlisted applications are forwarded to the United Kingdom for final evaluation. Local deadlines range between 20 January 2008 and 1 March 2008, with details available on the web site.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 53: Private medical pre-payment and insurance schemes in Uganda: What can the proposed SHI policy learn from them?","field_subtitle":"Zikusooka CM, Kyomuhangi R","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS53finZikusooka.pdf","body":"Over the last two decades there has been growing interest in the potential of social health insurance (SHI) as a health financing mechanism in low and middle-income countries. However, few countries in Africa have implemented SHI. Uganda is currently designing its own SHI scheme, in preparation for its imminent implementation. It is hoped that SHI will bring additional resources for the Ugandan health sector and that its introduction will improve equity in access. Very little was known about the Insurance market in Uganda before this study was undertaken, so one of our main objectives was to provide quantitative and qualitative data that could be used by the Ugandan Ministry of Health as a basis for designing this scheme and for future SHI policy-making.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 54: Equity in Health in Tanzania: Translating national goals to district realities","field_subtitle":"Mbuyita S, Makemba A","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS54tanzaniaDEA.pdf","body":"Drawing on the analytic framework of the regional analysis, an analysis of equity in health at district level was implemented in Tanzania, through secondary review and field work. We found a clear policy commitment to equity, the administrative means to implement it and a political stability that enables this. A number of features of Tanzania\u2019s context and health system make reducing differentials in health and access to health care possible, including the investment of debt relief resources in health and education, increased public spending in health, methods for managing external funds that pool resources for wider reallocation to areas of need and a resource allocation formula that considers access, poverty and disease burden in the allocation of resources and provides guidelines for spending to protect areas of equity oriented spending.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Distribution matters: Equity considerations among health planners in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Ottersen T, Mbilinyi D, M\u00e6stada O, Norheim OF: Health Policy 85(2):218-227, February 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2fmvra","body":"Maximising health as the guiding principle for resource allocation in health has been challenged by concerns about the distribution of health outcomes. There are few empirical studies that consider these potentially divergent objectives in settings of extreme resource scarcity. The aim of this study is to help fill this knowledge gap by exploring distributional preferences among health planners in Tanzania. Distribution of health outcomes, in terms of life-years, matters. Specifically, the lower the initial life expectancy of the target group, the more important the programme is considered. Such preferences are compatible, within the sphere of health, with what ethicists call \u201cprioritarianism\u201d. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"DSS and DHS: longitudinal and cross-sectional viewpoints on child and adolescent mortality in Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Byass P, Worku A, Emmelin A and Berhane Y: Population Health Metrics 5(12), 27 December 2007","field_url":"http://www.pophealthmetrics.com/content/5/1/12","body":"In countries where routine vital registration data are scarce, Demographic Surveillance Sites (DSS: locally defined populations under longitudinal surveillance for vital events and other characteristics) and Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS: periodic national cluster samples responding to cross-sectional surveys) have become standard approaches for gathering at least some data. This paper aims to compare DSS and DHS approaches, seeing how they complement each other in the specific instance of child and adolescent mortality in Ethiopia. Data from the Butajira DSS 1987-2004 and the Ethiopia DHS rounds for 2000 and 2005 formed the basis of comparative analyses of mortality rates among those aged under 20 years, using Poisson regression models for adjusted rate ratios. Patterns of mortality over time were broadly comparable using DSS and DHS approaches. DSS data were more susceptible to local epidemic variations, while DHS data tended to smooth out local variation, and be more subject to recall bias. Both DSS and DHS approaches to mortality surveillance gave similar overall results, but both showed method-dependent advantages and disadvantages. In many settings, this kind of joint-source data analysis could offer significant added value to results. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Early child development: strategies to ensure children achieve their potential","field_subtitle":"Engle PL: The Lancet 369 (9557): 229-242, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ecdgroup.com/docs/lib_003503959.pdf","body":"Over 200 million children under five years old in developing countries do not reach their development potential. Whilst risks such as stunting, iodine-deficiency, anaemia and inadequate cognitive stimulation are known, evidence suggests that maternal depression, exposure to violence, environmental contamination and malaria are further potential risk factors. The researchers identify factors that are consistently associated with effective programmes and identify a need to establish globally accepted monitoring indicators for child development and for more evaluation. Despite the evidence that comprehensive early development programmes are effective in increasing disadvantaged children\u2019s chances of success, government investment remains low.  At the current rate of progress, the disparity between rich and poor countries in pre-school attendance will increase.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided.\r\n\r\nThe views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 84: How healthy for Africans is the Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (AGRA)?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/ \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place.\r\n\r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Estimated financial and human resources requirements for the treatment of malaria in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Muula AS, Rudatsikira E, Siziya S and Mataya RH: Malaria Journal 6(168), 19 December 2007","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/6/1/168","body":"Malaria fever is a common medical presentation and diagnosis in Malawi. The national malaria policy supports self-diagnosis and self-medication for uncomplicated malaria with first line anti-malaria drugs. While a qualitative appreciation of the burden of malaria on the health system is recognised, there is limited quantitative estimation of the burden malaria exacts on the health system, especially with regard to human resources and financial burden on Malawi. The burden of malaria was assessed based on estimated incidence rates for a high endemic country of which Malawi is one. Data on the available human resources and financial resources committed towards malaria from official Malawi government documents and programme reports were obtained. Malaria exacts a heavy toll on the health system in Malawi. The national recommendation of self-medication with first-line drug for uncomplicated malaria is justified as there are not enough clinicians to provide clinical care for all cases. The Malawi Ministry of Healthas promotion of malaria drug prescription including other lower cadre health workers may be justified. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EU backtracks, says Government","field_subtitle":"Kakololo E: New Era, 16 December 2007","field_url":"http://www.newera.com.na/archives.php?id=18653","body":"The European Commission\u2019s demand for Most Favoured Nation (MFN) treatment for European Union in all future free trade agreements (FTAs) between SADC EPA countries and any third parties are among the main reasons why Namibia failed to initiate the Interim Economic Partnership Agreement (IEPA) with EU. Acceptance of such an offer, Minister of Trade and Industry, Immanuel Ngatjizeko said at a press briefing in mid-December 2007, would pre-empt Southern African Development Community (SADC) EPA countries\u2019 negotiating space as EPA-plus preferential treatment would be accorded to the EU without any further concession from the EU side.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"From chloroquine to artemether-lumefantrine: The process of drug policy change in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Sipilanyambe N, Simon JL, Chanda P, et al: Malaria Journal 7(25), 29 January 2008","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/7/1/25","body":"Following the recognition that morbidity and mortality due to malaria had dramatically increased in the last three decades, in 2002 the government of Zambia reviewed its efforts to prevent and treat malaria. Convincing evidence of the failing efficacy of chloroquine resulted in the initiation of a process that eventually led to the development and implementation of a new national drug policy based on artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT). All published and unpublished documented evidence dealing with the antimalarial drug policy change was reviewed. These data were supplemented by the authors observations of the policy change process. Study results suggest that drug policy changes are not without difficulties and demand a sustained international financing strategy for them to succeed. The Zambian experience demonstrates the need for a harmonized national consensus among many stakeholders and a political commitment to ensure that new policies are translated into practice quickly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Fund launched for poor countries struggling with high food prices","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 14 January 2008","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76225","body":"The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has launched a multi million dollar fund for import-dependent poor countries to help adapt their farming industries quickly to cope with galloping global food prices. Concern is mounting at the FAO that poor countries\u2019 food needs will not be met by outside production this year as prices for basic commodities such as wheat are rising and supply is limited, FAO director general Jacques Diouf said in the Burkina Faso capital Ouagadougou on 12 January.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Geneva Health Forum, 2008 Edition: Strengthening Health Systems and the Global Health Workforce","field_subtitle":"Geneva Health Forum","field_url":"http://genevahealthforum.hug-ge.ch/conference_overiew/2008_edition.html","body":"The Geneva Forum: Towards Global Access to Health brings together on an equal basis all actors involved in access to health \u2013 including international, national and local organizations; government agencies; the private sector; hospitals; universities; civil society; and most importantly those who need care. It provides an interactive and dynamic platform for critical reflexion on the complexity of global access to health. Under the flags of equity, partnership, and capacity building, it strives to link policies and guidelines to actual practice in the field. The Geneva Health Forum 2008 will maintain the broad range of themes considered as priorities: access to health systems; health and inequities; access to drugs, vaccines and diagnosis; civil society and social issues in health; and capacity building and partnerships. The Geneva Health Forum 2008 places special emphasis on the strengthening and integration of health systems and the importance of the global health workforce. Health systems cannot be addressed without a critical look at the current crisis of the global health workforce. The Forum will focus on key initiatives and best practices that address issues such as motivation, working environment, migration, and gaps in competencies. The role that universities, hospitals, and training institutions can play in this domain will be reviewed in light of innovative partnerships and programmes. The conference site provides all relevant details on deadlines for abtract submission and registration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Grand Challenges in Global Health: Community Engagement in Research in Developing Countries","field_subtitle":"Tindana PO, Singh JA, Tracy CS, Upshur REG, Daar AS, et al.: PLoS Med 4(9)","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2n4pto","body":"There is no standard definition of a community. The term \u201ccommunity\u201d has been used to describe interactions among people in primarily geographic terms. But it is now accepted that people who live in close proximity to one another do not necessarily constitute a community, since they may differ with respect to value systems and other cultural characteristics that are more relevant to the social concept of community. Some have argued that the defining feature of a community is the common identity shared by its members. Thus, a single individual may belong simultaneously to different religious, vocational, or ethnic communities, or communities with distinct values and aspirations may inhabit a single geographic area. Even though community is determined largely by shared traditions and values, communities are not static and may accommodate multiple and even conflicting interpretations of their own traditions and values. Outsiders may also define community differently from insiders. The extent to which a community reflects these features is a measure of its cohesiveness. The authors argue that different levels of community cohesiveness or specific features may warrant different research protections. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health, development, and equity \u2014 Call for papers ","field_subtitle":"Hornton R, Pang T: The Lancet,  Volume 371, (9607), 12 January 2008","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673608600860/fulltext","body":"Research can lead to more cost-effective interventions, better delivery strategies, improved management practices, rational health-system policies, and optimum ways to increase health-seeking behaviour. Research is essential to ensure that new strategies are adapted to fit local political, cultural, and economic contexts. Ultimately, the only truly sustainable way to improve health outcomes is to build local research and innovation capacity so that developing countries can continually improve the effectiveness, equity, and efficiency of their own health systems. To address these issues, a Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health will be held in Bamako, Mali, Nov 17\u201319, 2008, that will convene ministers of health, science, and technology, to discuss research and innovation with leading experts and stakeholders in the research process from around the world. The Lancet plans to produce a theme issue on research for health, development, and equity, and is inviting papers that address the core themes of the conference. The deadline for submission of articles is 2 June 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS prevention through peer education and support in secondary schools in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Visser MJ: SAHARA Journal 4 (3): 678-694, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=197&id=37394","body":"The implementation and evaluation of a peer education and support programme in secondary schools to prevent and reduce high-risk sexual behaviour amongst adolescents is discussed. The aims of the programme were to provide accurate information about HIV, discuss and reconsider peer group norms, and establish support for learners. In the programme that was implemented in 13 secondary schools in Tshwane, South Africa, peer educators were identified, trained and supported to implement the programme in their schools with the assistance of a teacher and postgraduate students as facilitators. The results showed that the percentage of learners in the experimental group who were sexually experienced remained unchanged over the time period of 18 months. In contrast, a significantly increased percentage of learners in the control group were sexually experienced after the same time period. The control group also perceived more of their friends to be sexually experienced. No differences were reported in condom use in either of the groups. The findings of this study suggest that peer education can contribute to a delayed onset of sexual activity, and can therefore contribute to the prevention of HIV amongst adolescents.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS triggers rise in TB infections in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 30 January 2008","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76359","body":"Tuberculosis infection rates in Uganda have increased due to the AIDS epidemic in the country, but the scarcity of health centres and over-crowding in camps for the displaced are also to blame, officials said.  \"The rise in the infection rate is mainly because of HIV. In many countries with a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS, TB cases have gone up because HIV has attacked and weakened the body\u2019s defence systems, which would keep at bay widespread TB infections,\u201d Joseph Imoko, the World Health Organisation (WHO) national professional officer for TB in Uganda said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How healthy for Africans is the Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (AGRA)?","field_subtitle":"Professor Carol B.Thompson, Political Economy, Northern Arizona University, USA","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe Gates and Rockefeller Foundations propose to increase food production on the African continent, \u201celiminating hunger for 30-40 million people and sustainably moving 15-20 million people out of poverty,\u201d through their initiative of an Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa  (www.agra.com).\r\n\r\nWe all share in the goal of eliminating hunger on the African continent. However, we are also aware of the risks to health and nutrition posed by the previous green revolution in Asia and Latin America.  As farmers dedicated more and more land to growing new varieties of wheat, rice, and maize,  less land was available to women to grow vegetables (vitamins, minerals), and the commercial production of pulses (protein) stagnated.  How will this proposed \u201cgreen revolution\u201d affect production, food security and human health in Africa?\r\n\r\nSimilar to the green revolution of the 1960-70s, increasing yields of a few crops to provide food for the hungry remains the central justification for this proposed African green revolution.  The 1960s varieties of seed required fertilisers, pesticides, and water at very specific times or the yield was worse than traditional varieties. Indian farmers, for example, did increase production of wheat ten-fold and of rice three-fold.  Learning from this experience,  the current AGRA initiative also includes training African scientists, setting up marketing networks of small seed companies, and credit schemes. Other major differences are that the seeds will be genetically modified (GMOs) and patented, in the 1960s in India, they remained in the public domain.\r\n\r\nThe benefit of increased yields, however, came with many environmental, economic and social costs in the green revolution on the 1960-70\u2019s.. The massive increases in the use of fertilisers and pesticides contaminated the water and soil.  Small-scale farmers could not sustain the purchase of all the inputs and had to sell their land. Studies in India show that only farmers with at least 6-8 hectares of land could afford the high-tech agricultural production.  Inequality within villages increased, with many moving to the cities.  As Secretary General U Thant summarised in 1970, \u201cThere is already a growing a body of relevant literature on the experience in various regions and localities which strongly suggests that the prosperity resulting from the Green Revolution is shared by a relatively few.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe economic and social dangers of a \u201cgreen revolution\u201d for Africa are similar to those related to the commercialisation of health care: 1) piracy of both indigenous knowledge and plants (used for medicine and/or food); 2)  privatisation of bioresources necessary for human health through patenting of plants; 3)  privatisation of research which directs priorities and agendas. Rather than reducing hunger, these adverse outcomes could  in fact reduce the food security of Africans, increase undernutrition  and thus reduce immunity against disease.\r\n\r\nIncreased yields of one or two strains of one or two crops (\u201cmonoculture within monoculture,\u201d as stated by a Tanzanian botanist) will not provide the basis for food security to support nutritional needs. The key to ending hunger is sustaining Africa\u2019s food biodiversity, not reducing it to industrial monoculture. Currently, food for African consumption comes from about 2,000 different plants; in contrast, the US food base derives mainly from 12 plants.  Narrowing plant diversity of food increases vulnerability for all because it a) reduces the variety of nutrients needed for human health, b) increases crop susceptibility to pathogens, and c) minimises the parent genetic material available for future breeding.\r\n\r\nManufacturing plants for food is very similar to manufacturing them for medicine. Indigenous knowledge designates a plant as important for nutrition or for medicinal purposes. But often, corporations simply take both the plants and the knowledge with no recognition, monetary or otherwise, to the original breeders of new medicine and foods. This biopiracy of food and medicinal plants is made legal by the patenting of living organisms, through international trade agreements.\r\n\r\nBecause African farmers will have to buy the new seeds, and the pesticides and fertilisers they require for increased yields, this green revolution initiative becomes a privatisation offensive against small-scale farmers who still retain control over their seeds.  Of the seeds used for food crops in Africa, 80 percent is seed saved by the farmer herself or locally exchanged with family and neighbours. Farmers do not have to buy seed every season, with cash they do not have, for they possess a greater wealth in their indigenous seeds, freely shared and developed over centuries. The very best food seed breeders in Africa, the \u201ckeepers of seed,\u201d are women who often farm less than one hectare of land. Across Africa, women are also the food producers, tending \u201cgardens\u201d full of diverse crops for local consumption, while the men concentrate on cash crop production.  Even when the cash crop fails, food will most likely be available for the family, for those plots are intensively farmed and carefully watered.\r\n\r\nThe proposed green revolution would shift the food base away from this treasure of seed. Instead, African farmers would have to purchase patented seeds each season, thus putting cash into the hands of the corporations providing the seed, much as already has happened with plants used in medicinal compounds. Loss of control over seed reduces the control women farmers have over production, with risks to food security and nutrition. For AGRA, the seeds will not only be patented, but new varieties will undoubtedly be genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The perils of GMOs to environmental sustainability are well documented. Most African governments have ratified the biosafety protocol which allows them to deter research and production of GM food crops until sufficient data is available about its impact on human health and the environment, but AGRA is lobbying for governments to \u201cfast track\u201d approval for new varieties to be planted.\r\n\r\nResearch on African food crops certainly needs financing.  The US National Research Council concluded in 19996 that a major African food crop, sorghum \u201cis a relatively undeveloped crop with a truly remarkable array of grain types, plant types, and adaptability\u2026.most of its genetic wealth is so far untapped and even unsorted. Indeed, sorghum probably has more undeveloped genetic potential than any other major food crop in the world.\u201d\r\n\r\nAs nutritious as maize is for carbohydrates, vitamin B6, and food energy, sorghum is even more nutritious in a range of essential nutrients for health. One of the most versatile foods in the world, sorghum can be boiled like rice, cracked like oats for porridge, baked like wheat into flatbreads, popped like popcorn for snacks, or brewed for nutritious beer. Because sorghum can tolerate dry areas and poor soil better than maize, it can provide nutritious food security in semi-arid regions and therefore, should become even more important under conditions of global warming.\r\n\r\nEngaging African scientists to discover the potential genetic wealth of sorghum would assist African food security. In a first glimpse of foundation expenditures, however, we see funds directed to the Wambugu Consortium (founded by Pioneer Hi-Breed, part of DuPont) for experiments in genetically modified sorghum. By adding a gene, rather than mining the genetic wealth already there, the consortium can patent and sell the \u201cnew\u201d sorghum at a premium price for DuPont.\r\n\r\nPrivate expenditure on research and marketing of a few crops directs attention to crops that are profitable. Similar to health care, International Monetary Fund requirements for structural adjustment programs, supported by all donor governments, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank, have been removing African government expenditures on agricultural research and extension. Governments had to spend less on agriculture in order to repay their debts. Now, more two decades later, the private foundations step in to \u201csave\u201d food-deficit Africa.\r\n\r\nHigh-tech answers to Africa\u2019s food crises are no answers at all if they undermine human nutrition, privatise both indigenous knowledge and bioresources through patenting of plants, and transform the genetic wealth of the continent into cash profits for a few corporations. Public policy choices around the AGRA proposals have not yet been made within Africa.  There is thus still an opportunity to call for assessment and debate on the health and nutrition impacts of these proposals, including by civil society working in health, and by parliaments, and by UN agencies. We need to openly challenge its goals, motives and methodologies before Africa\u2019s political leaders accept them, and before universities and research centres divert their agendas away from other applied research that may offer a more sustainable and nutritious future for African food production.  The future of African health depends on it.\r\n\r\nFor references used in this editorial and a more detailed analysis of how Africa\u2019s food biodiversity provides alternatives to chemical industrial agriculture,  see Andrew Mushita and Carol B. Thompson, Biopiracy of Biodiversity (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2007), carol.thompson@nau.edu. Further information on nutrition and health issues can be found on the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org or contact admin@equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"HRET Disparities Toolkit: A toolkit for collecting race, ethnicity, and primary language information from patients","field_subtitle":"Health Research and Educational Trust","field_url":"http://www.hretdisparities.org/","body":"The updated HRET Disparities Toolkit gives hospitals, health systems, clinics, and health plans the information and resources needed for collecting race, ethnicity, and primary language data from patients. In order to make this invaluable Toolkit more accessible to all health care providers, the Toolkit is now available free of charge. HRET\u2019s Disparities Toolkit helps clinicians and administrators at all levels learn the why and how of collecting race, ethnicity, and primary language data from patients. The Toolkit is useful for educating and informing hospital staff about the importance of data collection, how to implement a framework to collect the data, and how to use these data to improve quality of care for all populations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Human resources requirements for highly active antiretroviral therapy scale-up in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Muula AS, Chipeta J, Siziya S, Rudatsikira E, Mataya RH and Kataika E: BMC Health Services Research 7(208), 19 December 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/7/208/abstract","body":"Twelve percent of the adult population in Malawi is estimated to be HIV infected. The country has a public sector-led antiretroviral treatment program both in the private and public health sectors. Estimation of the clinical human resources needs is required to inform the planning and distribution of health professionals. HAART provision is a labour intensive exercise. Although data in this paper is insufficient to determine whether HAART scale-up has resulted in the weakening or strengthening of the health systems in Malawi, the human resources requirements for HAART scale-up are significant. Malawi is using far less human resources than would be estimated based on the literature from other settings. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"IFC to push private health care in Africa","field_subtitle":"Bank Information Center, 18 January 2008","field_url":"http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.3653.aspx","body":"The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank, announced last month that it would coordinate some $1 billion in equity investments and loans to finance private sector health provision in sub-Saharan Africa. The program was explicitly linked to the results of an IFC study, financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which found that the private sector already provides about half of the health care in the region, and that impoverished people are just as likely as the better-off to use private providers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"International Engagement Awards: Engaging with global health","field_subtitle":"Wellcome Trust","field_url":"http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTX036603.html","body":"Announcing a new international funding scheme from the Wellcome Trust. To add value to its wide range of international scientific activities, the Wellcome Trust is now providing support for public engagement with health research in developing countries. The International Engagement Awards aim to strengthen the capacity of researchers and communicators in developing countries to facilitate public engagement with health research. From debate about access to treatment to concern around informed consent, health research raises big questions on local, national and global levels. The scheme is open to a wide range of applicants including media professionals, educators, science communicators, health professionals and researchers in bioscience, health, bioethics and history. Partnership projects are also welcomed. Most project activity is expected to take place in developing countries, although partnerships can include individuals based in the UK working with partners based in developing countries. The first deadline for applications is 25 April 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"ITPC HIV Collaborative Fund Project Manager for African regions","field_subtitle":"HIV Collaborative Fund ","field_url":"","body":"The HIV Collaborative Fund - a partnership of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) and Tides Center - is seeking applicants to serve as Project Manager for the four funding regions in Africa.  The Project Manager provider guidance and oversight to the ITPC/Collaborative Fund Regional Coordinators. This position would be a full-time one. Because of difficulties in putting someone on staff from Africa at US-based Tides Center, this position will either be created as a consultancy or through a contract at an existing organisation in Africa at which the Project Manager would be based. The location of the position would depend on the needs of the person hired and/or the organisation at which the position is based. However, because the job requires significant amounts of travel throughout the continent, the position will most likely be based in either Nairobi or Johannesburg. People living with HIV are encouraged to apply.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32806","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Lessons from the Green Revolution: Effects on human nutrition","field_subtitle":"Kerr RB","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-84827-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html","body":"Current debates about the potential positive and negative implications of agricultural biotechnology for human nutrition do not seem to be well informed by lessons learned from the Green Revolution. This paper will examine the following question: what was learned from the Green Revolution concerning its effects on food consumption and/or nutrition? 2) In what respects is the agricultural biotechnology issue similar to the Green Revolution? 3) In what respects is it different? 4) Under what circumstances (if any) do you think it would be appropriate to introduce genetically engineered crops into the farming systems of developing countries? 5) What are the pros and cons of the preceding recommendation?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Major surgery delegation to mid-level health practitioners in Mozambique: health professionals' perceptions","field_subtitle":"Cumbi A, Pereira C, Malalane R, et al: Human Resources for Health 5(27), 2007","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/5/1/27","body":"This study examines the opinions of health professionals about the capacity and performance of the 'tecnico de cirurgia', a surgically trained assistant medical officer in the Mozambican health system. Particular attention is paid to the views of medical doctors and maternal and child health nurses. Health workers at all levels voiced satisfaction with the work of the \"tecnicos de cirurgia\". They stressed the life saving skills of these cadres, the advantages resulting from a reduction in the need for patient referrals and the considerable cost reduction for patients and their families. Important problems in the professional status and remuneration of \"tecnicos de cirurgia\" were identified. This study, the first one to scrutinise the judgements and attitudes of health workers towards the \"tecnico de cirurgia\", showed that this cadre is highly appreciated and that the health delivery system does not recognise and motivate them enough. The findings of this study can be used to direct efforts to improve motivation of health workers in general and of tecnicos de cirurgia in particular.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Make medicines child size","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.who.int/childmedicines/en/","body":"Launched on 6 December 2007, 'make medicines child size' is a global campaign spearheaded by WHO to raise awareness and accelerate action to address the need for improved availability and access to safe child specific medicines for all children under 15. To achieve this goal, more research is needed, more medicines need to be developed, and improved access measures are essential. At present, many medicines are not developed for children or available in suitable dosages or formats; and when they are they are not reaching the children who need them most. The 'make medicines child size' campaign is an effort to change that reality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Malaria risk and access to prevention and treatment in the paddies of the Kilombero Valley, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Hetzel MW, Alba S, Fankhauser M, Mayumana I, Lengeler C, Obrist B, Nathan R, Makemba AM, Mshana C, Schulze A and Mshinda H: Malaria Journal 7(7), 9 January 2008","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/7/1/7","body":"A longitudinal study followed approximately 100 randomly selected farming households over six months in Kilombero Valley, Tanzania. Every household was visited monthly and whereabouts of household members, activities in the fields, fever cases and treatment seeking for recent fever episodes were recorded. Fever incidence rates were lower in the shamba compared to the villages and moving to the shamba did not increase the risk of having a fever episode. Children aged 1-4 years, who usually spend a considerable amount of time in the shamba with their caretakers, were more likely to have a fever than adults. Despite the long distances to health services, 55.8% (37.9-72.8) of the fever episodes were treated at a health facility, while home-management was less common (37%, 17.4-50.5). Living in the shamba does not appear to result in a higher fever-risk. Mosquito nets usage and treatment of fever in health facilities reflect awareness of malaria. Inability to obtain drugs in the fields may contribute to less irrational use of drugs but may pose an additional burden on poor farming households. A comprehensive approach is needed to improve access to treatment while at the same time assuring rational use of medicines and protecting fragile livelihoods. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Managing the health Millennium Development Goals - the challenge of management strengthening: lessons from three countries","field_subtitle":"Egger D, Ollier E: World Health Organization , 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/entity/management/WP8.pdf","body":"This World Health Organization study describes various activities aimed towards strengthening the management of health service delivery in three countries: South Africa, Togo and Uganda. The paper considers factors that affect management capacity: the number of managers at all levels; opportunities for building existing managers\u2019 own competences; improving management support systems; and creating a more supportive work environment. It also identifies several ways to help managers do their jobs better. These include clarity about their responsibilities; practical reference handbooks; and a regular forum for managers to identify their needs, discuss problems and share ideas. On-the-job support is perceived by many managers as key to improving their performance \u2013 this can include technical assistance, mentoring, coaching and learning networks. In terms of management strengthening activities, the study reveals that a range of approaches have been used in recent years, but countries and external development agencies have concentrated mainly on training and some management systems (planning and monitoring) to the detriment of other key conditions for facilitating good management. Medium- to long-term sector-wide budgets and plans for management strengthening are required if good management is to play its appropriate role in scaling up health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal and child undernutrition: consequences for adult health and human capital","field_subtitle":"Victora CG, Adair L, Fall C, Hallal PC, Martorell R, Richter L, Sachdev HS: The Lancet 371(9609): 340-357, 26 January 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2mcb6m","body":"In this paper we review the associations between maternal and child undernutrition with human capital and risk of adult diseases in low-income and middle-income countries. We analysed data from five long-standing prospective cohort studies from Brazil, Guatemala, India, the Philippines, and South Africa. We conclude that damage suffered in early life leads to permanent impairment, and might also affect future generations. Its prevention will probably bring about important health, educational, and economic benefits. Chronic diseases are especially common in undernourished children who experience rapid weight gain after infancy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal and child undernutrition: global and regional exposures and health consequences","field_subtitle":"Black RE, Allen LH, Bhutta ZA, Caulfield LE, de Onis M, Ezzati M, Mathers C, Rivera J: The Lancet 371(9608): 243-260, 19 January 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/293rld","body":"Maternal and child undernutrition is highly prevalent in low-income and middle-income countries, resulting in substantial increases in mortality and overall disease burden. This paper presents new analyses to estimate the effects of the risks related to measures of undernutrition, as well as to suboptimum breastfeeding practices on mortality and disease. The high mortality and disease burden resulting from these nutrition-related factors make a compelling case for the urgent implementation of interventions to reduce their occurrence or ameliorate their consequences. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"National audit of critical care resources in South Africa \u2013 nursing profile","field_subtitle":"Scribante J, Bhagwanjee S: South African Medical Journal Vol. 97 (12): 1315-1318, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=37414","body":"A descriptive, non-interventive, observational study design was used to audit of all public and private sector ICU and HCUs in South Africa to determine the profile and number of nurses working in South African intensive care units (ICUs) and high care units (HCUs); (ii) to determine the number of beds in ICU and HCUs in South Africa; and (iii) to determine the ratio of nurses to ICU/HC beds.This study demonstrates that ICU nursing in South Africa faces the challenge of an acute shortage of trained and experienced nurses. Nurses are tired, often not healthy, and are plagued by discontent and low morale.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"National audit of critical care resources in South Africa \u2013 open versus closed intensive and high care units","field_subtitle":"Scribante J, Bhagwanjee S: South African Medical Journal Vol. 97 (12): 1323-1326, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=37415","body":"A descriptive, non-interventive, observational study design was used to audit all public and private sector ICUs and HCUs in South Africa to evaluate the distribution and functioning of South African intensive care units (ICUs) and high care units (HCUs), in particular the extent to which units were \u2018closed units'. In the face of already limited resources (financial and human) and given the emphasis on primary care medicine (with consequent limited capacity for further ICU development), it is crucial that existing facilities are maximally utilised. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"National audit of critical care resources in South Africa \u2013 research methodology","field_subtitle":"Scribante J, Bhagwanjee S: South African Medical Journal Vol. 97 (12): 1308-1310, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=37413","body":"This article provides an in-depth description of the methodology that was followed and the quality control measures that were implemented during the audit of national critical care resources in South Africa.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"National audit of critical care resources in South Africa \u2013 transfer of critically ill patients","field_subtitle":"Scribante J, Bhagwanjee S: South African Medical Journal Vol. 97 (12): 1323-1326, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=37416","body":"A descriptive, non-interventive, observational study design was used to audit all public and private sector ICUs and HCUs in South Africa to establish the efficacy of the current system of referral of critical care patients: (i) from public hospitals with no ICU or HCU facilities to hospitals with appropriate facilities; and (ii) from public and private sector hospitals with ICU or HCU facilities to hospitals with appropriate facilities. There was considerable variation (less than 1 hour - 6 hours) in time to collect between provinces and between public hospitals that have or do not have ICU/HCU facilities. A combination of current resource constraints, the vast distances in some regions of the country and the historical disparities of health resource distribution represent a unique challenge which demands a novel approach to equitable health care appropriation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"National audit of critical care resources in South Africa \u2013 unit and bed distribution","field_subtitle":"Scribante J, Bhagwanjee S: South African Medical Journal Vol. 97 (12): 1311-1314, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=37418","body":"A descriptive, non-interventive, observational study design was used to audit of all public and private sector ICU and high care units in South Africa to determine the national distribution of intensive care unit (ICU)/high care (HC) units and beds. The most compelling conclusion from this study is the need for regionalisation of ICU services in SA.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"New data on African Health Professionals Abroad","field_subtitle":"Clemens MA, Pettersson G: Human Resources for Health 6(1), 2008","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/6/1/1","body":"The migration of doctors and nurses from Africa to developed countries has raised fears of an African medical brain drain. But empirical research on the causes and effects of the phenomenon has been hampered by a lack of systematic data on the extent of African health workers' international movements. This study uses destination-country census data to estimate the number of African-born doctors and professional nurses working abroad in a developed country circa 2000, and compares this to the stocks of these workers in each country of origin. About 65 000 African-born physicians and 70 000 African-born professional nurses were working overseas in a developed country in the year 2000. This represents about one fifth of African-born physicians in the world, and about one tenth of African-born professional nurses. The fraction of health professionals abroad varies enormously across African countries, from 1% to over 70% according to the occupation and country. The authors conclude that these numbers are the first standardised, systematic, occupation-specific measure of skilled professionals working in developed countries and born in a large number of developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Nile perch and the hungry of Lake Victoria: Gender, status and food in an East African fishery","field_subtitle":"Geheb K, Kalloch S, Medard M, Nyapendi A-T, Lwenya C and Kyangwad M: Food Policy 33(1): 85-98, February 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yw2rwd","body":"Lake Victoria supports Africa\u2019s largest inland fishery, and its most valuable product is the Nile perch, much of which is exported. This has given rise to arguments claiming a direct linear relationship between perch exports and disturbingly high rates of malnutrition along the lake\u2019s shores. In this paper, we argue that this argument is seriously flawed for it is unable to explain how it is that the income from the Nile perch fishery fails to translate into a well-fed riparian population. We draw on field work carried out in 2001 that (a) set out to establish exactly how much malnutrition there was on the lake\u2019s shores; and (b) sought to identify what happened to the income the fishery generates. We argue that because men control much of the fishery, and women are held responsible for the upkeep of their families, little of this income makes its way back into the households of the region, giving rise to the levels of malnutrition we observed. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Non-physician clinicians in 47 sub-Saharan African countries","field_subtitle":"Mullan F and Frehywot S: The Lancet 370(9605): 2158-2163, 22 December 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/37d497","body":"Many countries have health-care providers who are not trained as physicians but who take on many of the diagnostic and clinical functions of medical doctors. We identified non-physician clinicians (NPCs) in 25 of 47 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, although their roles varied widely between countries. In nine countries, numbers of NPCs equalled or exceeded numbers of physicians. In general NPCs were trained with less cost than were physicians, and for only 3\u20134 years after secondary school. All NPCs did basic diagnosis and medical treatment, but some were trained in specialty activities such as caesarean section, ophthalmology, and anaesthesia. Many NPCs were recruited from rural and poor areas, and worked in these same regions. Low training costs, reduced training duration, and success in rural placements suggest that NPCs could have substantial roles in the scale-up of health workforces in sub-Saharan African countries, including for the planned expansion of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Nutrition:The forgotten MDG","field_subtitle":"The World Bank, 28 January 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2n6uex","body":"The new Lancet series on nutrition, co-authored and co-financed by the World Bank, depicts the lamentable state of under-nutrition worldwide, and a corresponding negligence on the part of the development community to meet the challenge decisively. Under-nutrition represents the non-income face of poverty. And the world is off track on meeting this goal. Countries with 'higher overall logistics costs are more likely to miss the opportunities of globalization,' say the study\u2019s lead authors Jean Francois Arvis and Monica Alina Mustra of the Bank\u2019s Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM) group.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Participation in Different Fields of Practice: Using Social Theory to Understand Participation in Community Health Promotion","field_subtitle":"Stephens C: Journal of Health Psychology 12(6):949-960, November 2007","field_url":"http://hpq.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/12/6/949","body":"`Participation' by community members in health-related programmes is an appealing concept that has not always been easy to achieve. Such programmes are often directed towards communities defined on the basis of neighbourhood or group identity. This article aims to develop an account of participation and identity by drawing on Bourdieu's theory of practice to understand participation as the practice of social identities structured by habitus, capital and field. Examples from interviews with members of one deprived neighbourhood illustrate the theory by showing that people may identify with their neighbourhood for certain social purposes, but have different identity practices in different fields of practice. Implications for community-based health programmes are briefly outlined.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy brief 18: Trade and health in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R, Tayob R, Wadee H, Makombe P, Mabika A","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/POLBRIEF18%20trade.pdf","body":"The growth of international trade has significant consequences for public health. The relationship between trade and health is not simple, nor is it unidirectional. In this brief we raise why trade issues need to be understood and managed to promote health and we highlight the main concerns arising from free trade agreements for public health. We draw attention to measures that governments and civil society in the region can take to achieve greater coherence between trade and health policies, so that international trade and trade rules maximize health benefits and minimize health risks, especially for poor and vulnerable populations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Presentations from side-events to summit","field_subtitle":"EuropAfrica","field_url":"http://europafrica.org/2007/01/10/presentations-from-side-events-to-summit/","body":"In the morning of the second day of the EU-Africa Summit representatives from the side-events got the opportunity to present their views to the Heads of States and Governments. Civil Society Organisations, Youth, Trade Unions and the Private Sector got three minutes respectively. Alpha Omar Konar\u00e9, president of the African Commission expressed that he was very happy with the fact that there were \u2018many voices\u2019 of civil representation - entrepreneurs, the youth and various associations - that are involved in the partnership between the two continents and ready to collaborate so that this cooperation between Europe and Africa can develop in a positive way for all parties. He also quoted the Civil Society Declaration, mentioning the lack of power equilibrium between both Continents.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Reducing child deaths: the contribution of community health workers","field_subtitle":"Haines A: ID21 Health News, ","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h9ah3g1.html","body":"Insufficient progress is being made towards the Millennium Development Goals, including those dealing with child and maternal mortality. At the current rate of progress in sub-Saharan Africa, the target of a two-thirds reduction in child mortality by 2015 will only be reached in 2165. Renewed interest in the potential contribution of community health workers may be timely. This study reviews the literature for evidence of whether community health workers are capable of carrying out the tasks required of them as part of a sustainable workforce. The study concluded that several factors influence programme impact and sustainability and determine whether child death reductions can be realised on a national scale: national socio-economic and political factors, community factors, health system factors and international factors. For instance, particularly if the political context is not a participatory democracy, support within the community for community health workers may be undermined by social class and caste divisions. Moreover, the success of a community health worker programme depends to a considerable extent on a successful interaction with the formal health services sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Refugees\u2019 perceptions of their health status and quality of health care services in Durban, South Africa: a community based survey","field_subtitle":"Apalata T, Kibiribiri ET, Knight S, Lutge E: Health Systems Trust, 2007","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/uploads/files/refugees.pdf","body":"There is some evidence from refugees that health care services in South Africa are not responsive to their perceived needs. Using quantitative and qualitative approaches to evaluate the perceptions and opinions of refugees about health care services in South Africa, the authors find that major issues affecting refugees include: discrimination and xenophobic attitudes of health service providers; language barriers leading to inappropriate treatments due to misunderstanding; exclusion from public hospitals due to lack of valid permits or delay in the delivery of such permits. Based on these findings, the authors suggest that refugees should have at least a baseline health related interview and check-up preferably done in a primary health care (PHC) centre dedicated to refugees. Refugee support systems should be established and health care workers should be informed about issues such as refugee permits and policies regarding referral systems. Also, public hospitals should employ qualified translators to help in cases that are referred from PHC centres for refugees.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Rehabilitating Health Systems in Post-Conflict Situations","field_subtitle":"Waters H, Garrett B, Burnham G: UNU-WIDER Research Paper No. 2007/06, United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research, 2007","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/rps/rps2007/rp2007-06.pdf","body":"The researchers analysed the experiences of different countries affected by conflict, including Afghanistan, Cambodia, East Timor, Kosovo, Uganda and Mozambique. They began by looking at the impacts of conflict on public health. They then presented a framework for understanding how programmes for rehabilitating health systems might work in post-conflict countries. The authors suggest three interrelated approaches to health sector rehabilitation: an initial response to immediate health needs (through humanitarian assistance and relief); restoration or establishment of a package of essential health services including immunisation and obstetric care; and restoration of the health system itself. The authors highlight the lack of co-ordination between donor organisations, whose competing needs and projects distract health officials. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) may also delay progress by continuing to focus on relief when the country has moved on to the next stage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"REMINDER: Outcome Mapping for Programme and Project Planning","field_subtitle":"Overseas Development Institute","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/events/om_workshop_feb08/workshop.html","body":"Following a very high demand for the workshop run in October 2007, the overseas Development Institute is pleased to announce the 2nd UK workshop on Outcome Mapping (OM) in London in February 2008. Being a 3-day introduction to the basic principles of Outcome Mapping, the emphasis lies in their application to the planning phase of development projects and programmes. It also includes a 1-day OM Surgery to explore ways in which OM concepts and tools can be practically applied within the participants' ongoing projects and programmes. The course fee is \u00a3600; which includes lunches and refreshments during the course. To maximize participation and instructional quality, the limit to the number of participants is 24 per workshop. We do this on a first come, first served basis so, to avoid disappointment, register early.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"SACP Statement on plans by private hospitals to increase fees","field_subtitle":"SACP, 6 January 2008","field_url":"http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?include=docs/pr/2008/pr0106a.html","body":"The SACP is outraged at the plans by some of the big private hospital groups, including the National Hospital Network and Netcare, to hike fees by as much as up to 33% as from this year. The private health care sector is already consuming a much bigger slice of our health resources and is also making huge profits for itself at the direct expense of the majority of the people of our country, feeding like parasites on workers\u2019 already overstretched medical aid schemes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Effective Delivery of Public Services","field_subtitle":"AfriMAP, 29 November 2007","field_url":"http://www.afrimap.org/english/images/report/AfriMAP_SA_PublicServices.pdf","body":"This report uses the examples of the health and education sectors to consider South Africa's compliance with the various standards and best practices laid down in relation to the functioning of the public service -- including the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption, and the Charter for the Public Service in Africa. While South Africa has many examples of best practice on paper, it is struggling to ensure that these policies are fulfilled in practice: this report offers analysis and suggestions on critical problems for attention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Government under pressure to introduce new PMTCT regimen","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 24 January 2008","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76394","body":"South African AIDS activists have called on doctors and nurses to act in the best interests of HIV-positive pregnant women and their unborn children by not waiting any longer for an official directive to switch from single antiretroviral (ARV) treatment to more effective dual treatment for the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT). At a meeting of the South African National AIDS Council in November 2007 South Africa\u2019s Deputy President and the Director-General of Health announced that public health facilities would abandon the regimen of administering nevirapine only in favour of a short course of two antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for pregnant HIV-positive women. Nearly two months later, the new PMTCT guidelines have yet to be published and disseminated to health workers at state facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategies to Achieve Universal Coverage: Are there Lessons from Middle Income Countries?","field_subtitle":"Mills A: WHO Health Systems Knowledge Network, 2007","field_url":"http://www.wits.ac.za/chp/kn/Mills%202007%20Universal%20coverage.pdf","body":"This study assesses the evidence regarding strategies used to attain universal coverage and draws out a list of lessons for policy makers, donors and civil society groups. It focuses mainly on middle-income countries that have recently gained, or are close to gaining, universal coverage. It looks at the extent to which various strategies promote equity in terms of financing, access to and use of services. Key financing priorities are to gradually increase risk pooling arrangements over time, and to focus on protecting the poorest and most socially disadvantaged against the costs of health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Systematic review of effectiveness of school-based sexual health interventions in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Paul-Ebhohimhen VA, Poobalan A and van Teijlingen ER: BMC Public Health 8(4); 7 January 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/8/4/abstract","body":"The AIDS epidemic remains of global significance and there is a need to target (a) the adolescent age-groups in which most new infections occur; and (b) sub-Saharan Africa where the greatest burden of the epidemic lies. A focused systematic review of school-based sexual health interventions in sub-Saharan Africa to prevent HIV and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) in this age group was therefore conducted. Some 1,020 possible titles and abstracts were found, 23 full text articles were critically appraised, and 12 articles (10 studies) reviewed, reflecting the paucity of published studies conducted relative to the magnitude of the HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. Knowledge and attitude-related outcomes were the most associated with statistically significant change. Behavioural intentions were more difficult to change and actual behaviour change was least likely to occur. Behaviour change in favour of abstinence and condom use appeared to be greatly influenced by pre-intervention sexual history. There is a great need in sub-Saharan Africa for well-evaluated and effective school-based sexual health interventions. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The business of health in Africa: Partnering with the private sector to improve people's lives  ","field_subtitle":"International Finance Corporation, January 2008","field_url":"http://www.ansa-africa.net/index.php/views/pub_view/the_business_of_health_in_africa_partnering_with_the_private_sector_to_impr/","body":"This report describes opportunities for engaging and supporting a well managed and effectively regulated private sector to improve the region\u2019s health and complementary to traditional public sector approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The macroeconomic framework and the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa: the cases of Ghana and Malawi","field_subtitle":"African Forum and Network on Debt and Development , 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/hiv-and-aids&id=34558&type=Document","body":"Have traditional restrictive macroeconomic policies and budget ceilings limited some governments from giving HIV/AIDS the attention it deserves? This paper analyses the links between macroeconomic frameworks provided by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and HIV social spending in Ghana and Malawi. It reviews major channels through which fiscal and monetary policies impact on public expenditure frameworks and how this, in turn, affects the ability of the countries to design and implement public programmes for those living with and affected by AIDS. Authors stress the need for a fundamental shift in the design and execution of the macroeconomic framework. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Malawi National Tuberculosis programme: an equity analysis","field_subtitle":"Simwaka B, Bello G, Banda H, Chimzizi R, Squire BSB and Theobald SJ: International Journal for Equity and Health 6(24), 31 December 2007 ","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/6/1/24","body":"This article synthesises what is known on equity and tuberculosis (TB) in Malawi and highlights areas for further action and advocacy. Based on a range of published and unpublished reports and analysis of routine data on access to TB services, the authors find that TB cases have increased rapidly from 5,334 in 1985 to 28,000 in 2006. This increase has been attributed to HIV/AIDS; 77 per cent of TB patients are HIV positive. Poor people\u2019s ability to access TB diagnosis services is reduced by the need for repeated visits, long queues and delays in sending results. The costs of seeking care for these people can be up to 240 per cent of monthly income. The paper concludes that the government\u2019s policies to address TB, which are being delivered through the Sector Wide Approach, provide a good opportunity to enhance equity and pro-poor health services. The major challenge is to increase case detection especially amongst poor people. In addition, the Programme needs a prevalence survey which will enable equity monitoring and the development of responsive interventions to promote service access to people with undiagnosed TB.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The three domains of public health: An internationally relevant basis for public health education\ufffd","field_subtitle":"Thorpe A, Griffiths S, Jewell T and Adshead F: Public Health 122(2): 201-210, February 2008","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/32fhsa","body":"By focusing on the Masters of Public Health course, this study took a pragmatic approach to exploring the interface between public health education and public health practice. The commonly utilized \u2018three domains of practice\u2019 framework could provide a robust and explicit link between educational provision and practice for public health. This model provides the workforce, the university, the students and the potential funders of the course with an easily comprehensible framework for understanding how the modules of an MSc can support the development of competency within the context of practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Theorising inequalities in the experience and management of chronic illness: Bringing social networks and social capital back in (critically)","field_subtitle":"Sanders C and Rogers A: Research in the Sociology of Health Care 25: 15-42, 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2ebvwh","body":"Social networks have been a central focus of sociological research on inequalities but less has focused specifically on chronic illness and disability despite a policy emphasis on resources necessary to support self-management. The study sought to unpack overlaps and distinctions between social network approaches and research on the experience and management of chronic illness. We outline four main areas viewed as central in articulating the potential for future work consistent with a critical realist perspective: (1) body\u2013society connections and realist/relativist tensions; (2) the controversy of \u2018variables\u2019 and accounting for social and cultural context in studying networks for chronic illness support; (3) conceptualising social support, network ties and the significance of organisations and technology; and (4) translating theory into method.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Trade justice: Turning words into action - A campaign guide","field_subtitle":"Christian Aid, 2007","field_url":"http://www.christianaid.org.uk/Images/campaign_guide_tcm15-20946.pdf","body":"Trade justice is about giving poor people and countries the chance to work their own way out of poverty; giving farmers the chance to earn enough to feed their families and to send their children to school; allowing industries to develop, creating jobs and opportunities. But instead of trade justice, free trade is being forced on developing countries. It is hurting poor people, not helping them. And it is undermining democracy by denying poor people a greater say in the decisions that affect their lives. In 2005, unprecedented numbers of people campaigned for trade justice as part of the Make Poverty History campaign. With the UK government starting to question the wisdom of\r\nforcing free trade and liberalisation on developing countries, we are making progress. But there\u2019s still some way to go before trade justice becomes a reality for millions of poor people worldwide. This guide addresses what is meant by trade justice, what needs to change, and how the campaign will help make poverty history.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Traditional values of virginity and sexual behaviour in rural Ethiopian youth: results from a cross-sectional study","field_subtitle":"Molla M, Berhane Y and Lindtjorn B: BMC Public Health 8(9), 9 January 2008","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/8/9/abstract","body":"Delaying sexual initiation has been promoted as one of the methods of decreasing risks of HIV among young people. In traditional countries, such as Ethiopia, retaining virginity until marriage is the norm. However, no one has examined the impact of this traditional norm on sexual behaviour and risk of HIV in marriage. This study examined the effect of virginity norm on having sex before marriage and sexual behaviour after marriage among rural Ethiopian youth. Maintaining virginity is still a way of securing marriage for girls, especially in rural areas; the odds of belief and intention to marry a virgin among boys was 3-4 times higher among rural young males. As age increased, the likelihood of remaining a virgin decreased. There was no significant difference between married and unmarried young people in terms of number of partners and visiting commercial sex workers. Married men were twice more likely to have multiple sexual partners than their female counterparts. Although virginity norms help delay age at sexual debut among rural Ethiopian youth, and thus reduces vulnerability to sexually transmitted infections and HIV infection, vulnerability among females may increase after marriage due to unprotected multiple risky sexual behaviours by spouses. The use of preventive services, such as VCT before marriage and condom use in marriage should be part of the HIV prevention and control strategies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Using VCT statistics from Kenya in understanding the association between gender and HIV","field_subtitle":"Otwombe KN, Ndindi PN, Ajema C, Wanyungu J: SAHARA Journal 4 (3): 707-710, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=197&id=37396","body":"This paper demonstrates the importance of utilising official statistics from the voluntary counselling and testing centres (VCT) to determine the association between gender and HIV infection rates in Kenya.The study design adopted was a record based survey of data collected from VCT sites in Kenya between the second quarter of 2001 and the second quarter of 2004. Of those who were tested, significantly more females tested positive (P","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Web site sheds light on research methods for evaluating health care cost, quality and access","field_subtitle":"Rosengren K: AcademyHealth, 10 January 2008","field_url":"","body":"AcademyHealth launched a new online resource that provides researchers collaborating across disciplines with an easy-to-use tool for understanding health services research methods. The site includes an overview of the language, training resources, and analytic techniques used by researchers from different academic backgrounds and provides a forum for discussing methods used in the published literature. The site is designed as a launching pad for future methods training to improve understanding of HSR across disciplines and support ongoing development and refinement of HSR methods in general.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32829","field_issue_date":"2008-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"2007 AIDS epidemic update: New methodology shows revised numbers of people living with HIV and AIDS ","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS and WHO, 2007","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/en/HIV_data/2007EpiUpdate/default.asp","body":"This report from the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS contains revised estimates of the number of people with HIV globally.  Estimates of the total number of people infected with HIV fell from 39.5m in 2006 to 33.2m in 2007, a reduction of 16 percent.  This reduction was mainly due to a change in the method used to measure the size of the epidemic, rather than trends in prevalence or incidence. The biggest drop came from a reassessment of India\u2019s epidemic, with other important revisions being made in Angola, Mozambique, Nigeria, Kenya and Zimbabwe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A synthesis of institutional arrangements of National AIDS Commissions in seven African countries","field_subtitle":"Dickinson C, Mundy J, Jones JW: HLSP, 2007","field_url":"http://www.hlspinstitute.org/files/project/177782/NACs_review1_aug07.pdf","body":"This paper presents a synthesis of institutional arrangements and issues currently facing National AIDS Commissions (NACs) in 2007. The paper is a work in progress and is based on a literature review and informant interviews with agency-based and NAC staff and independent consultants familiar with NAC issues. It reviews the common features and emerging themes on the following topics: the background to the establishment of NACs, their governance, structure and function, financing arrangements and their role in harmonising and aligning country responses to HIV. To date, many African countries with NACs have experienced significantly improved access to, and coordination of, financial and other resources, and there is a growing diversity of funding mechanisms and a substantial increase in funding.The authors conclude that the increased pressure placed on NACs means that clarity in roles and relationships, and enabling political, legislative, policy and institutional environments are more important than ever.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS Experts reaffirm need for $55+ billion for PEPFAR reauthorization","field_subtitle":"Krauss K: Physicians for Human Rights, 30 November 2007","field_url":"http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/news-2007-11-30-aids-letter.html","body":"This article expresses concern about whether a reauthorised PEPFAR would ramp up prevention efforts. President Bush's target of preventing 12 million new HIV infections means lowered sights in the second five years, as PEPFAR's original goal had been to prevent 7 million new infections in five years. Advocates are now campaigning for the increase to $55 to $60 billion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Boundaries of care: the role of the school in supporting vulnerable children in the context of HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"Hoadley U: African Journal of AIDS Research 6(3): 251\u2013259","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=46&id=36608","body":"This paper is a response to a growing vision of schools as sites of care and support for vulnerable children in the context of HIV and AIDS.  The paper is based on a desk review of projects working in schools on HIV and AIDS and document review of a project in a province of South Africa. The authors outline education policies in South Africa related to the care and support of vulnerable children in the context of HIV and AIDS. The misalignment between the policies around schools and vulnerable children, the resourcing of these policies, and their contexts of implementation is brought into relief, as well as the implications for thinking about expanded roles for schools and teachers. The paper offers possible ways forward in considering the role of schools in the context of HIV and AIDS. These include new ways of thinking about resourcing, proper monitoring and evaluation of projects, and a focus on quality teaching and learning.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Biennial ECSACON Scientific","field_subtitle":"East Central and Southern Africa (ECSA) Health Community","field_url":"http://www.crhcs.or.tz","body":"The East, Central and Southern African College of Nursing invites you to submit abstract for consideration to be presented at the Biennial scientific Conference to be held in Zimbabwe from 11th to 13th August 2008. The main theme is: \u201cTransforming Nursing and Midwifery in ECSA: Visions for the Future\u201d; with a number of interesting sub-themes. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 31 March 2008.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32737","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Civil Society engagement in Global Fund","field_subtitle":"Moyo M: PATAM, 17 December 2007","field_url":"","body":"The Treatment Monitoring & Advocacy Project (TMAP) is seeking applications for country teams to participate in a research project on civil society engagement in Global Fund Country Coordinating Mechanisms (CCMs).  The project is funded by the Open Society Institute, Aids Fonds, and ICASO. Applications are DUE BY 14 JANUARY,  2008 and should be emailed to matilda.moyo@gmail.com and ChrisCSF@aol.com.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32785","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: First Global Forum on Human Resources for Health","field_subtitle":"Global Health Workforce Alliance","field_url":"http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/forum/GHWA_Forum_Call_For_Papers/en/index.html","body":"A call is now made for submission of abstracts for presentation during the First Global Forum on Human Resources for Health. The abstracts should present experiences, lessons learnt and/or other intriguing new information that contribute to the achievement of the forum objectives and should be developed under any of the following Forum Themes: Leadership; Education, Training and Skill mix; Migration and Retention; Financing; Management; Partnerships and linking up for action. Abstracts should be submitted to the Forum Organizing Committee (FOC) via email by 31 December 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Proposals for the Eastern Africa Treatment Access Movement together with the Collaborative Fund for HIV/AIDS Treatment Preparedness 2007","field_subtitle":"The Collaborative Fund for HIV Treatment Preparedness","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2yx5lg","body":"Eastern Africa Treatment Access Movement (EATAM) in collaboration with the Collaborative Fund for HIV/AIDS Treatment Preparedness calls for submission of proposals from organizations seeking funding for community-based HIV treatments preparedness programs. Grants will be allocated to successful applications for a period of up to one year to a maximum amount of 10, 000 US dollars per application. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for registration for and abstracts of research and practice","field_subtitle":"National Meeting on Equity in Health in Uganda, March 27 - 28, 2008 Kampala, Uganda","field_url":"","body":"Call for registration for and abstracts of research and practice by January 29 2008.  \r\nThe first National meeting on Equity in Health in Uganda will be hosted by the HEPS Uganda \u2013 Coalition for Health Promotion and Social Development and Makerere University in co-operation with Regional Network on Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET). The meeting will bring together researchers, policy-makers, practitioners and others concerned with equity in health to exchange information and develop an agenda of follow up work to support health equity in Uganda. People interested in attending the Conference are invited to notify the organizing Committee and submit an abstract by January 29th preferably by email to heps@utlonline.co.ug and copy to admin@equinetafrica.org or to HEPS-Uganda P.o Box 2426, Kampala. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32784","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil Society Skills Building Workshop, Uganda, 17-23 February 2008","field_subtitle":"Chetley A: Healthlink Worldwide, 17 December 2007","field_url":"","body":"Interested in access to medicines? Interested in governance, transparency and accountability processes? If the answer to either of those questions is yes, and you are working in a civil society organisation in Ghana, Uganda or Tanzania, an upcoming workshop in Entebbe, Uganda in February 2008 may be of interest. The workshop is the first step in a two-year programme of civil society capacity strengthening as part of the work of the international Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA). MeTA aims to use a multi-stakeholder approach towards increasing transparency around the regulation, selection, procurement, sale, distribution and use of medicines in developing countries, thereby strengthening governance, encouraging responsible business practices and ultimately improving access to medicines, especially for the poor. Send the completed form and motivational letter to metacso@healthlink.org.uk by 17.00 GMT on 15 January 2008.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32792","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Community health workers: a review of concepts, practice and policy concerns","field_subtitle":"Prasad BM and Muraleedharan VR: Consortium for Research on Equitable Health Systems, 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems&id=34470&type=Document","body":"This paper, prepared for the International Consortium for Research on Equitable Health Systems, provides an overview of the concepts and practice of Community Health Workers (CHWs) in several developing and developed countries. In doing so it identifies critical factors that influence the overall performance of CHWs including gender, the nature of employment, career prospects and incentives, educational status and training. It finds that the selection of CHWs from the communities that they serve, population coverage and the range of services offered at the community levels are vital in the design of effective CHW schemes. The smaller the population coverage, the more integrated and intensive the service offered by CHWs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Community-based care of children with HIV in Potchefstroom, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Van Graan A, Van der Walt E, Watson M: African Journal of AIDS Research 6(3): 305\u2013313","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=46&id=36613","body":"Children contract HIV infection largely through vertical transmission and are vulnerable to AIDS illness due to an immature immune system. In South Africa, hospitals are often overburdened and thus children with HIV may be directed to the community for care. As a result, non-professional caregivers are a predominant source of care for children living with HIV. Various authors, including the Department of Health, have stipulated the importance of establishing the knowledge and needs of non-professional caregivers of children with HIV. Our research has investigated the extent of non-professional caregivers' knowledge and needs, specifically those within the Potchefstroom district of the North-West Province. The objectives included formulating guidelines for a training programme that can enhance relevant knowledge and skills among these caregivers. Quantitative data were gathered using a questionnaire, which was developed following a literature study. The 109 non-professional caregivers who responded to the questionnaire displayed some knowledge and skills concerning specifically the care of children with HIV or AIDS, although gaps existed concerning their knowledge of community-based referral, caring needs specific to children, and precautionary measures to prevent HIV transmission. Recommendations are made with specific reference to a training programme. We surmise that non-professional caregivers play a pivotal role in the care of children with HIV in the Potchefstroom district \u2014 a service that is sometimes rendered in perilous conditions. This study improves our understanding of the support and training needed for non-professional caregivers in their pursuit to care for children with HIV in resource-limited communities, and thus it contributes to the field of nursing science. The findings may generate ideas for future research on this important topic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Competing or co-existing? Representations of HIV/AIDS by white women teachers in post-apartheid South Africa","field_subtitle":"de Kock L: African Journal of AIDS Research 6(3): 229\u2013237 ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=46&id=36606","body":"This study explores the social representations of HIV and AIDS that circulate among white women teachers in South Africa, a group whose personal risk of the disease is low but who have a major role to play in shaping attitudes to HIV/AIDS among children and young people. The study examines how white women talk about the origin and causes of the spread of HIV in South Africa and their personal and community risk. This was explored through 25 semi-structured interviews and two focus groups with white female teachers in Johannesburg. A thematic analysis of the in-depth interviews revealed a shared private understanding of the disease, wherein the women distanced themselves by anchoring it in the context of racist cultural stereotypes of black sexuality and vulnerability. In contrast, the focus group discussions revealed a type of public talk in which HIV/AIDS is anchored in the contemporary cultural images of the new South Africa and the spirit of ubuntu or togetherness. These contradictory views reflect the racial tensions and social contexts of South Africa and which shape HIV/AIDS discourses. The findings suggest that more needs to be done to create a genuine understanding of HIV and AIDS within contemporary South African contexts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Conditional cash transfers for improving uptake of health interventions in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Lagarde M, Haines A, Palmer N: Journal of the American Medical Association 298:1900-1910","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems&id=34480&type=Document","body":"This article assesses the effectiveness of conditional cash transfers in improving access to and use of health services, as well as improving health outcomes, in low- and middle-income countries. The article provides a description of interventions in Mexico, Nicaragua, Columbia, Honduras, Brazil and Malawi. It finds that overall conditional cash transfer programmes are effective in increasing the use of preventive services. Their effect on health status is less clear as the supply of adequate and effective health services is also an important factor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Contextual factors associated with treatment-seeking and higher-risk sexual behaviour in Botswana among men with symptoms of sexually transmitted infections","field_subtitle":"Langeni T: African Journal of AIDS Research 6(3): 261\u2013269","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=46&id=36609","body":"This study investigates contextual factors associated with treatment-seeking behaviour and higher-risk sexual conduct of men symptomatic of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in Botswana.  At the heart of Botswana's epidemic lies men's reluctance to seek medical treatment, engaging in unprotected sex, and having sex with multiple partners while symptomatic of an STI. The odds of engaging in unprotected sex while symptomatic of an STI were significantly higher among teenage males,  males in urban households,  where age differences between partners was higher, in married men and men with more than one sexual partner.  Having sought medical treatment from hospitals, clinics and health workers, as opposed to consulting traditional healers, significantly reduced the odds of having had unprotected sex while infected with an STI. The results indicate the need to encourage men to utilise public healthcare services. The public health sector in Botswana needs to provide healthcare services that are user-friendly for men.  Special attention needs to be paid to boys' socialisation towards gender norms, and men are to be encouraged to play a responsible role in HIV prevention. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Databases as policy instruments: About extending networks as evidence-based policy","field_subtitle":"de Bont A, Stoevelaar H and Bal R: BMC Health Services Research 7:200, 7 December 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/7/200/abstract","body":"This article seeks to identify the role of databases in health policy. Access to information and communication technologies has changed traditional relationships between the state and professionals, creating new systems of surveillance and control. As a result,databases may have a profound effect on controlling clinical practice. The results demonstrate that policy makers hardly used the databases, neither for cost control nor for quality assurance. Further analysis revealed that these databases facilitated self-regulation and quality assurance by (national) bodies of professionals, resulting in restrictive prescription behavior amongst physicians.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing countries and neglected diseases: challenges and perspectives","field_subtitle":"Boutayeb A: International Journal for Equity in Health 6(20), 26 November 2007","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/6/1/20","body":"It is now commonly admitted that the so-called (most) neglected tropical diseases have been given little attention. According to World Health Organization, neglected diseases are hidden diseases as they affect almost exclusively extremely poor populations living in remote areas beyond the reach of health service. The European Parliament recognised that Neglected Diseases have not received the attention they deserve from EU actions or in the Millennium Development Goals. Investing in drugs for these diseases is thought to be not marketable or profitable. However, despite their low mortality, neglected diseases are causing severe and permanent disabilities and deformities affecting approximately 1 billion people in the world, yielding more than 20 millions of Disability Adjusted Life Years (56.6 million according to Lancet's revised estimates) and important socio-economic losses. Urgent pragmatic and efficient measures are needed both at international and national levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 51: Deprivation-based resource allocation criteria in the Zambian health service: A review of the implementation process","field_subtitle":"Chitah BM, Masiye F, University of Zambia","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS51finCHITAH.pdf","body":"This study reviews the Zambian deprivation-based health resource allocation formula and assesses how such a formula has been implemented in terms of achieving the initial desired goals of resource \u2013 re-distribution. It further considers the extent of converge or divergence in the equity goals relating to resource re-distribution through the allocation of funding to the districts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 52: Progress towards equitable health care resource allocation in east and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D, Chitah B, Mabandi L, Masiye F, Mbeeli T, Shamu S","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss52RAfin07.pdf","body":"There are large disparities in the health care resources available to different districts, regions and provinces within individual countries. Using a resource allocation formula, that is based on indicators of the relative need for health care within each geographic area, has been found to be helpful in overcoming historical allocation patterns. This report, implemented under the fair financing theme in the Regional network for equity in health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) assesses whether there has been progress towards equitable resource allocation in four Southern African countries which have adopted such formulae (Namibia, South Africa, Zamibia and Zimbabwe). Researchers in Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe provided information on implementation progress in their countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Early child development: strategies to ensure children achieve their potential","field_subtitle":"Engle PL et al: The Lancet 369 (9557): 229-242","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h9pe2g1.html","body":"This paper assesses strategies to promote child development and to prevent or limit the loss of development potential. The programmes reviewed have been implemented in developing countries since 1990.  Thirty-five such studies were identified of which 20 met the researchers\u2019 criteria. They fell into three groups: centre-based early learning, parenting and parent-child programmes, and comprehensive programmes that include health and nutrition interventions. The researchers identify factors that are consistently associated with effective programmes   and identify a need to establish globally accepted monitoring indicators for child development and for more evaluation. They conclude with a discussion of priorities and crucial issues for future programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Effects of insurance status on children's access to specialty care: a systematic review of the literature","field_subtitle":"Skinner AC and Mayer ML: BMC Health Services Research 7(194), 27 November 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/7/194/abstract","body":"The current climate of rising health care costs has led many health insurance programs to limit benefits, which may be problematic for children needing specialty care. Findings from pediatric primary care may not transfer to pediatric specialty care because pediatric specialists are often located in academic medical centers where institutional rules determine accepted insurance. Furthermore, coverage for pediatric specialty care may vary more widely due to systematic differences in inclusion on preferred provider lists, lack of availability in staff model HMOs, and requirements for referral. Insurance coverage is clearly an important factor in children's access to specialty care. However, we cannot determine the structure of insurance that leads to the best use of appropriate, quality care by children. Research about specific characteristics of health plans and effects on health outcomes is needed to determine a structure of insurance coverage that provides optimal access to specialty care for children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Ending famine, simply by ignoring the experts","field_subtitle":"Dugger CW: The New York Times Company, 1 December 2007","field_url":"http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/01/africa/02malawi.php?WT.mc_id=rssfrontpage","body":"Malawi hovered for years at the brink of famine. After a disastrous corn harvest in 2005, almost five million of its 13 million people needed emergency food aid. But this year, a nation that has perennially extended a begging bowl to the world is instead feeding its hungry neighbors. It is selling more corn to the World Food Program of the United Nations than any other country in southern Africa and is exporting hundreds of thousands of tons of corn to Zimbabwe. In Malawi itself, the prevalence of acute child hunger has fallen sharply.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 83: Talking development and walking trade \u2013 the health consequences of policy conflict in the \u201cEconomic Partnership Agreements\u201d ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/ \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place.\r\n\r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing public health care: insurance, user fees or taxes? Welfare comparisons in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mushi DP: Research on Poverty Alleviation, Tanzania, 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems&id=34635&type=Document","body":"This paper compares the welfare effects of a community based insurance scheme - the Community Health Fund (CHF) - and user fees for public health care in Tanzania. Under the CHF, households pay a predetermined fixed annual premium for free access to public health facilities. The paper summarises the controversies and achievements of user fees in poor countries and Tanzania in particular. The discussion focuses on two issues: whether user fees are better than insurance schemes in public health care financing, and whether it is possible to charge for public health services and at the same time achieve universal access to these services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Geographical information system and access to HIV testing, treatment and prevention of mother-to-child transmission in conflict affected Northern Uganda","field_subtitle":"Chamla DD, Olu O, Wanyana J, Natseri N, Mukooyo E, Okware S, Alisalad A and George M: Conflict and Health 1:12, 3 December 2007","field_url":"http://www.conflictandhealth.com/content/1/1/12","body":"Researchers used Geographical Information System (GIS) as a tool to determine access to and gaps in providing HIV counselling and testing (VCT), treatment (ART) and mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) services in conflict affected northern Uganda. Access to VCT, PMTCT and ART services was geographically limited due to inadequacy and heterogeneous dispersion of these services among districts and camps. GIS mapping can be effective in identifying service delivery gaps and presenting complex data into simplistic results hence can be recommended in need assessments in conflict settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and Human Rights: A resource guide","field_subtitle":"Open Society Institute and Soros Network, June 2007","field_url":"http://www.osf.org.za/File_Uploads/docs/File_Download.asp?ThisFile=HealthHumanRightsguide.pdf","body":"This Resource Guide brings together two of the Open Society Institute\u2019s largest priorities: public health and numerous law and human rights initiatives. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Research Web","field_subtitle":"Council on Health Research for Development","field_url":"http://www.cohred.org/HealthResearchWeb/default.htm#1","body":"Health Research Web provides easily accessible information that will:\r\n* facilitate discussions among stakeholders at country level on strengthening their national health research systems;\r\n* enable donors to better align their efforts to national research priorities\r\n* increase accountability of researchers to national health priorities;\r\n* form of a \u2018portal\u2019 for health research systems information in low and middle income countries allowing northern institutions and interested donors to find partners in the South.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS messages in Malawi and their implications for effective responses","field_subtitle":"Houston V and Hovorka A: African Journal of AIDS Research 6(3): 205\u2013214","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=46&id=36603","body":"This paper explores the nature of HIV/AIDS education and information networks in Malawi, with a focus on Dedza district. We consider the role of institutional and personal actors involved in Malawi's recently instated and decentralised behaviour-change intervention strategy, as well as the form and function of interpersonal social networks that mediate this information. The research reveals that the organisational capacity of actors and the conflicting messages regarding promotion of condom use may prevent Malawi from achieving a coordinated and effective decentralised response to the HIV epidemic. The research shows that individuals draw on complex interpersonal social networks, often processing mixed messages regarding HIV prevention strategies and receiving negative messages regarding condom use. The paper discusses the implications of such inconsistencies and conflicts with actors, interpersonal social networks and the nature of the messages themselves for HIV/AIDS education in Malawi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Human Rights and HIV/AIDS: Now More Than Ever","field_subtitle":"J\u00fcrgens R and Cohen J: Public Health Program, Open Society Foundation, September 2007","field_url":"http://www.osf.org.za/File_Uploads/docs/File_Download.asp?ThisFile=HIV_Humanrights.pdf","body":"This publication covers ten reasons why human rights should occupy the centre of the global AIDS struggle. This declaration, endorsed by 24 nongovernmental organisations and networks around the world, affirms that, now more than ever, human rights should occupy the center of the global struggle against HIV and AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Information for decision making from imperfect national data: tracking major changes in health care use in Kenya using geostatistics","field_subtitle":"Gething PW, Noor AM, Goodman CA, Gikandi PW, Hay SI, Sharif SK, Atkinson PM and Snow RW: BMC Medicine 5:37, 11 December 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/5/37/abstract","body":"Most Ministries of Health across Africa invest substantial resources in some form of health management information system (HMIS) to coordinate the routine acquisition and compilation of monthly treatment and attendance records from health facilities nationwide. Despite the expense of these systems, poor data coverage means they are rarely, if ever, used to generate reliable evidence for decision makers. One critical weakness across Africa is the current lack of capacity to monitor effectively patterns of service use through time so that the impacts of changes in policy or service delivery can be evaluated. Here we present a new approach that, for the first time, allows national changes in health service use during a time of major health policy change to be tracked reliably using imperfect data from a national HMIS. The methodological approach presented can compensate for missing records in health information systems to provide robust estimates of national patterns of outpatient service use. This represents the first such use of HMIS data and contributes to the resurrection of these hugely expensive but underused systems as national monitoring tools. Applying this approach to Kenya has yielded output with immediate potential to enhance the capacity of decision makers in monitoring nationwide patterns of service use and assessing the impact of changes in health policy and service delivery.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Investing for life: meeting poor people\u2019s needs for access to medicines through responsible business practices","field_subtitle":"Oxfam, 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems&id=34474&type=Document","body":"The paper argues that there is potential for pharmaceutical companies to contribute more substantially and effectively towards increasing access to medicines for poor people in developing countries. This is yet to be achieved because their approaches have been ad-hoc, and they have failed to deliver sustainable solutions or adopt appropriate strategies. Oxfam recommends that the industry must put access to medicines at the health of its decision-making and practices. This is both a more sustainable long-term business strategy and would allow the industry to better play its role in achieving the universal right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"IP Provisions in EU Trade Agreements: Implications for Developing Countries","field_subtitle":"Santa Cruz MS: ICTSD Programme on IPRs and Sustainable Development Issue Paper 20, June 2007","field_url":"http://www.iprsonline.org/resources/docs/Santa-Cruz%20Blue20.pdf","body":"This study is one further contribution of the ICTSD Programme on Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs)and Sustainable Development to a better understanding of the proper role of intellectual property in a knowledge-based economy. The objective of the study is to generate and expand understanding of the policy of the EU regarding IPRs in bilateral and regional trade agreements. Additionally, it attempts to evaluate the impact of IP provisions proposed by the EU at a critical phase of EPA negotiations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Key determinants of AIDS impact in Southern sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Shandera WX: African Journal of AIDS Research 6(3): 271\u2013286","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=46&id=36610","body":"This narrative review evaluates: 1) viral factors, in particular the aggregation of subtype-C HIV infections in Southern sub-Saharan Africa; 2) host factors, including unique behaviour patterns, concomitant high prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases, circumcision patterns, average age at first marriage and immunogenetic determinants; and, 3) transmission and societal factors, including levels of poverty, degrees of literacy, migrations of people, extent of political corruption, and the usage of contaminated injecting needles in community settings. HIV prevalence data and published indices on wealth, fertility, and governmental corruption were correlated using statistical software. The high prevalence of HIV in Southern sub-Saharan Africa is not explained by the unusual prevalence of subtype-C HIV infection. Many host factors contribute to HIV prevalence, including frequency of genital ulcerating sexually transmitted infections, absence of circumcision and immunogenetic loci, but no factor alone explains the high prevalence of HIV in the region. Among transmission and societal factors, the wealthiest, most literate and most educated, but also the most income-disparate, nations of sub-Saharan Africa show the highest HIV prevalence. HIV prevalence is also highest within societies experiencing significant migration and conflict as well as in those with government systems experiencing a high degree of corruption. The interactions between poverty and HIV transmission are complex. Epidemiologic studies currently do not suggest a strong role for the community usage of contaminated injecting needles. Areas meriting additional study include clade type, host immunogenetic determinants, the complex interrelationship of HIV with poverty, and the community usage of contaminated injecting needles.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Major surgery delegation to mid-level health practitioners in Mozambique: health professionals' perceptions","field_subtitle":"Cumbi A, Pereira C, Malalane R, Vaz F, McCord C, Bacci A and Bergstrom S: Human Resources for Health 5:27, 6 December 2007","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/5/1/27","body":"This study examines the opinions of health professionals about the capacity and performance of the 'tecnico de cirurgia', a surgically trained assistant medical officer in the Mozambican health system. Particular attention is paid to the views of medical doctors and maternal and child health nurses. Health workers at all levels voiced satisfaction with the work of the \"tecnicos de cirurgia\". They stressed the life-saving skills of these cadres, the advantages resulting from a reduction in the need for patient referrals and the considerable cost reduction for patients and their families. Important problems in the professional status and remuneration of \"tecnicos de cirurgia\" were identified. This study, the first one to scrutinize the judgements and attitudes of health workers towards the \"tecnico de cirurgia\", showed that, despite some shortcomings, this cadre is highly appreciated and that the health delivery system does not recognize and motivate them enough. The findings of this study can be used to direct efforts to improve motivation of health workers in general and of tecnicos de cirurgia in particular.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Malaria control in Malawi: are the poor being served?","field_subtitle":"Mathanga DP and  Bowie C: International Journal for Equity in Health 6:22, 2 December 2007","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/6/1/22","body":"In Africa, national governments and international organizations are focusing on rapidly \"scaling up\" malaria control interventions to at least 60 percent of vulnerable populations. The potential health and economic benefits of \"scaling up\" will depend on the equitable access to malaria control measures by the poor. This paper analyses the present inequalities in access to malaria interventions in Malawi. The present distribution strategies for ITNs are not addressing the needs of the vulnerable groups, especially the poor. Increasing access to ITNs by the poor will require innovative distribution models which deliberately target the poorest of the poor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Meeting the health-related needs of the very poor","field_subtitle":"Eldis","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/index.cfm?objectId=D64A7EBC-0A6F-BD19-8733B1B3215DC2AD","body":"There is a growing concern within the international development community that policies aimed at reducing the number of people living below the poverty line could leave the most disadvantaged groups behind. In line with these concerns, this dossier looks at different strategies for reaching the very poor within the health sector, and at the institutional challenges associated with scaling up health-related interventions to cover broader segments of the population. It also highlights the fact that there are ways outside the health sector to improve health or reduce the impoverishing impact of disease, and that in some contexts these may benefit the poor most. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Migrant remittances","field_subtitle":"Eldis","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/migration/key-issues/migrant-remittances","body":"The movement of people across and within borders has characterised the development of most global regions, resulting in a rich intermingling of cultures. Such movement is often motivated by the desire for a better life, whether this entails finding new land to cultivate or money making opportunities. In recent years, the process of movement has itself been simplified, opportunities for work in services and industry have boomed and globally, numbers of migrants have increased dramatically . In response, an increasing number of studies are emphasising the impacts of migration, particularly for developing countries, in the form of remittances  - money sent by migrant workers back to communities and households. This key issues page looks at some of these perceived impacts, and provides recommendations for further reading on the subject of migration and remittances. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Million Book Collection","field_subtitle":"The Universal Digital Library","field_url":"http://www.ulib.org/","body":"For the first time in history, all the significant literary, artistic, and scientific works of mankind can be digitally preserved and made freely available, in every corner of the world, for our education, study, and appreciation and that of all our future generations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring Child Well-Being: A South African rights-based approach","field_subtitle":"Dawes A, Bray R, van der Merwe A (eds): HSRC Press, 2007","field_url":"http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?productid=2200","body":"This volume provides an evidence and rights-based approach to monitoring the well-being of children and adolescents in South Africa. Drawing on international precedents, and extensive peer review processes, experts in various fields have developed this holistic set of indicators to enhance the monitoring of the status of children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"New website: Health Services Research in Progress","field_subtitle":"Academy Health, HSRProj","field_url":"http://www.academyhealth.org/hsrproj/","body":"HSRProj a free database coordinated by the National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR) for the National Library of Medicine. It carries evidence and expert testimony, links to research partners, and listings on current research projects.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Non-physician clinicians in 47 sub-Saharan African countries","field_subtitle":"Mullan F and Frehywot S: The Lancet 370 (9605): 2158-2163, 22 December 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2q4bb7","body":"Many countries have health-care providers who are not trained as physicians but who take on many of the diagnostic and clinical functions of medical doctors. We identified non-physician clinicians (NPCs) in 25 of 47 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, although their roles varied widely between countries. In nine countries, numbers of NPCs equalled or exceeded numbers of physicians. In general NPCs were trained with less cost than were physicians, and for only 3\u20134 years after secondary school. All NPCs did basic diagnosis and medical treatment, but some were trained in specialty activities such as caesarean section, ophthalmology, and anaesthesia. Many NPCs were recruited from rural and poor areas, and worked in these same regions. Low training costs, reduced training duration, and success in rural placements suggest that NPCs could have substantial roles in the scale-up of health workforces in sub-Saharan African countries, including for the planned expansion of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Optimal health insurance for prevention and treatment","field_subtitle":"Ellis RP and Manning WG: Journal of Health Economics 26(6): 128-1150, 1 December 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3yl2ms","body":"This paper re-examines the efficiency-based arguments for optimal health insurance, extending the classic analysis to consider optimal coverage for prevention and treatment separately. The paper considers the tradeoff between individuals\u2019 risk reduction on the one hand, and both ex ante and ex post moral hazard on the other. The authors demonstrate that it is always desirable to offer at least some insurance coverage for preventive care if individual consumers ignore the impact of their preventive care on the health premium. Using a utility-based framework, they reconfirm the conventional tradeoff between risk avoidance (by risk sharing) and moral hazard for insuring treatment goods. Uncompensated losses that reduce effective income provide a new efficiency-based argument for more generous insurance coverage for prevention and treatment of health conditions. The optimal coinsurance rates for prevention and for treatment are not identical.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Promotion of couples voluntary counselling and testing for HIV through influential networks in two African capital cities","field_subtitle":"Karita E, Chomba E, Roth DL, Telfair J, Zulu I, Clark L, Kancheya N, Conkling M, Stephenson R, Bekan B, Kimbrell K, Dunham S, Henderson F, Sinkala M, Carael M, Haworth A and Allen S: BMC Public Health 7:349, 11 December 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/349/abstract","body":"Most new HIV infections in Africa are acquired from cohabiting heterosexual partners. Couples Voluntary Counselling and Testing (CVCT) is an effective prevention strategy for this group. This paper presents experience with a community-based program for the promotion of CVCT in Kigali, Rwanda and Lusaka, Zambia. Predictors of successful CVCT promotion included strategies that can be easily implemented in Africa. As new resources become available for Africans with HIV, CVCT should be broadly implemented as a point of entry for prevention, care and support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Policy and Franchising Reproductive Health: Current Evidence and Future Directions","field_subtitle":"Huntington D, Sulzbach S, O\u2019Hanlon B: WHO, 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/reproductive-health/publications/publicpolicy_franchising/publicpolicy_franchising.pdf","body":"The rapid growth of the private health sector in low-resource countries is widely recognized. Private providers commonly deliver a substantial proportion of health services in most settings, particularly outpatient primary care, that include reproductive health services. Whether the reason is convenience,proximity or the perceived higher quality and confidential nature of private healthcare providers, the fact remains that a considerable number of women turn to the private sector for their reproductive health needs. This Guidance Note is based on the proceedings of the meeting and offers policymakers and researchers the latest evidence on private-provider networks and franchises, lessons learned in the field, and policy recommendations on how to mobilize private-provider networks and health franchises to help address reproductive health care needs in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Reducing child deaths: the contribution of community health workers","field_subtitle":"Haines A et al: The Lancet 369 (9579): 2121-2131","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h9ah3g1.html","body":"Insufficient progress is being made towards the Millennium Development Goals, including those dealing with child and maternal mortality. At the current rate of progress in sub-Saharan Africa, the target of a two-thirds reduction in child mortality by 2015 will only be reached in 2165. Renewed interest in the potential contribution of community health workers may be timely. Evidence suggests that over sixty percent of deaths in children under-five years could be prevented by interventions already in existence. Studies show that 41\u201372 percent of deaths in newborns are preventable using available interventions if there is high coverage, and about half of this reduction may be possible using community-based interventions. This study reviews the literature for evidence of whether community health workers are capable of carrying out the tasks required of them as part of a sustainable workforce. It concluded that several factors influence programme impact and sustainability and determine whether child death reductions can be realised on a national scale: national socio-economic and political factors, community factors, health system factors and international factors. For instance, particularly if the political context is not a participatory democracy, support within the community for community health workers may be undermined by social class and caste divisions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reminder: First Global Forum on Human Resources for Health","field_subtitle":"Global Health Workforce Alliance","field_url":"http://www.ghwa.org/","body":"The Global Health Workforce Alliance is to convene the first ever Global Forum on Human Resources for Health in Kampala, Uganda from 2-7 March, 2008. The Forum will be attended by up to 1000 participants, including government leaders, eminent health, development, civil society, academic and health professional leaders from around the world. This Forum will provide an extraordinary platform for sharing and exploring solutions, consensus and capacity building, and will further galvanise a global movement that is emerging as a response to the increasingly pertinent human resources for health (HRH) crisis. The deadline for registration is 31 January 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Responses to VCT for HIV among young people in Kampala, Uganda","field_subtitle":"R\u00e5ssj\u00f6 EB, Darj E, Konde-Lule J: African Journal of AIDS Research 6(3): 215\u2013222 ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=46&id=36604","body":"Attitudes to voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) for HIV among young men and women in a slum area of Kampala, Uganda, were studied through 22 individual semi-structured interviews and 5 focus group discussions. Attitudes to VCT ranged from having no problem with the procedure to being very reluctant. Despite fear of stigma, the participants perceived \u2018positive living' after HIV testing as realistic. VCT was regarded as an important step to avoid HIV infection, but informants expressed the need for the service to be more accessible in terms of cost, time and quality of pre- and post-test counselling. We argue that counselling without HIV testing should be available for those who are reluctant to test. Poverty and gender power imbalances appeared to limit youths' possibility of making rational decisions about sexual behaviour and accessing VCT. The importance of considering the context in which such issues are being negotiated and decided is highlighted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Review of Public Health Laws in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania ","field_subtitle":"Call for literature ","field_url":"","body":"The Law of Faculty, Makerere University in EQUINET and are carrying out a commissioned review of the Public Health Laws in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania in relation to policy areas relevant to equity in health. This study will  outline for  the three countries coverage and gaps to be addressed in law and where relevant, in the enforcement mechanisms; and identify areas for follow up stakeholder consultation and research.  The researchers are requesting for published or grey literature on this area of focus. Please contact the principal researcher Mulumba Moses, mulumba_moses@yahoo.com  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Save the Children: \u2018Africa\u2019s leaders must fulfil pledge to children\u2019 ","field_subtitle":"ECDPM, 9 December 2007","field_url":"http://europafrica.org/2007/12/09/save-the-children-africas-leaders-must-fulfil-pledge-to-children/","body":"Save the Children called on African leaders to fulfil their promises made in Abuja in 2001 to spend at least 15% of their annual budgets on health. In the briefing \u2018Not another one, not another day\u2019 they look at how African governments, despite commitments in 2001 and 2005, still aren\u2019t spending enough on health. It also shows that the EU is failing to support the development of health systems in Africa, with most member states still falling short of their commitment to spend 0.7% of their gross national income on aid. It includes a list of recommendations to get the AU and EU back on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Short-term effects of a peer group intervention for HIV prevention among trainee teachers in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Norr KF, Norr JL, Kaponda CPN, Kachingwe SI, Mbweza EMD:  African Journal of AIDS Research 6(3): 239\u2013249 ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=46&id=36607","body":"This report describes the implementation and short-term results of a peer group intervention for HIV prevention on the HIV-related attitudes, knowledge and behaviours of primary school teachers in Malawi. The intervention, based on the social-cognitive learning model, took place in 2000 at two teacher training colleges with a distance-learning programme. Primary school teachers attending a final six-week training session before certification volunteered to participate. The 286 trainee teachers largely reported positive changes in their HIV-prevention-related knowledge, attitudes, self-efficacy, behaviour change and condom-use intentions. However, at post-test immediately after the intervention they did not show a higher level of perceived-risk, a greater hope that people could change their high-risk sexual behaviour, or greater agreement that persons infected with HIV should be allowed in public places. This research demonstrates the feasibility of an HIV-prevention intervention for primary school teachers during their training. The Malawi Ministry of Education has since made the programme available to over 90 per cent of all trainee teachers through an NGO.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Show us the money: is violence against women on the HIV and AIDS donor agenda?","field_subtitle":"Fried S: Women Won't Wait, 2007","field_url":"http://www.womenwontwait.org/images/stories/Show%20Us%20The%20Money%20Full%20Report.pdf","body":"This research report highlights the lack of priority given to tackling gender-based violence against women by the major international HIV funding organisations. The research found that the funding bodies continue to treat violence against women as a supplementary issue rather than as something integral to all aspects of their work on HIV. Funding for programmes which combat gender-based violence is a separate stream and these initiatives have not benefited from the increase in funding for HIV programmes in the last number of years. It is very difficult to track the exact amount of money the major funding bodies are devoting to these initiatives and difficult to hold them accountable on this issue. The report recommends that these institutions develop a clear policy framework that gives priority to violence against women and girls, and the link with HIV. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Sound Choices at the Global Forum for Health Research, Beijing, October 2007","field_subtitle":"Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, December 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/resources/Alliance_BR.pdf","body":"While health systems constraints are increasingly recognized as primary barriers to the scaling up of health services and achievement of health goals, knowledge regarding how to improve health systems is often weak and frequently not well-utilised in policy-making. This Review addresses a mismatch between what is known about how to respond to particular health problems in poor economies and what is actually done about them. It focuses on one cause of the problems that ensue from the mismatch \u2013 capacity constraints.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Talking development and walking trade \u2013 the health consequences of policy conflict in the \u201cEconomic Partnership Agreements\u201d ","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson, TARSC; Aulline Mabika, SEATINI, Ezekiel Mpapale, Gender Sensitive Initiatives  ","field_url":"","body":"One by one in December, African countries in east and southern Africa signed interim Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA\u2019s) with the European Union (EU).  In a massive fragmentation of regional integration, first these agreements were negotiated in configurations that undermined African regional trading blocks (See EQUINET newsletter editorial May 2007). In November the fragmentation deepened as the east African countries broke from the ESA block to sign interim EU-EPA\u2019s, as did Mauritius, Seychelles, Botswana, Swaziland, Mozambique, Madagascar, Zimbabwe and Namibia, individually. At the same time at the EU \u2013 Africa summit in Lisbon in December President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal said \"We are not talking any more about EPAs, we've rejected them\", while countries like Namibia signed, but signalled intention to keep negotiating  on protections for fledgling industries.\r\n\r\nIts not only from Africa that conflicting signals are being sent. From the EU there is stated commitment to the two central goals of the 2000 \"Cotonou Agreement\": to eradicate poverty and to enhance the gradual integration of African, Caribbean and Pacific countries into the global economy. The EU has signed on to numerous UN and G8 commitments, including those on the Millennium Development Goals, and its own Treaty of Amsterdam. These commit the EU to policy coherence between development objectives and impacts and its policies in other areas, including trade. At the same time the interim EPAs being concluded are clearly focused on establishing free trade agreements strictly compatible with World Trade Organisation (WTO) requirements. While there is some reference to development issues, this is secondary and largely deferred to later dialogue. \r\n\r\nTake for example the protection and promotion of public health as a fundamental issue not only for the MDGs, but in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESR) (1976) and particularly Article 12.  All parties to the agreement have ratified this convention. The  EU  founding document, the Treaty of Amsterdam commits that \u201cA high level of human health protection shall be ensured in the definition and implementation of all Community policies and activities\u201d. The African Charter on Human and Peoples\u2019 Rights (1986) in Article 16, obliges ESA countries to take the necessary measures to protect the health of their people. \r\n\r\nDespite this the Interim EPA texts made available in the region:\r\n\u2022\tMake no mention, as WTO agreements do, of the fact that clauses should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of countries\u2019 right to protect public health.   \r\n\u2022\tMake no provisions for ESA countries to protect their infant industries, especially in small enterprises and in the small scale farming sector that underpins household food security and child nutrition in Africa.\r\n\u2022\tMake no exceptions to the elimination of  import or export prohibitions or trade restrictions in areas such as trade in health workers, health services, essential services and other areas where governmental authorities and restrictions on trade are necessary to regulate provisioning or redistribute resources to meet social development goals, or to protect public health. \r\n\u2022\tMake no exceptions in clauses relating to internal taxes or charges in the interests of public health. \r\n\u2022\tMake no reference to \u201chuman development\u201d or \u201csocial development\u201d in the objectives of the section on economic and development co-operation\r\n\u2022\tSet no obligations for administrative arrangements or resources to assess or manage the public health implications of the liberalised trade measures proposed, including of obligations to carry out prior health impact assessments of specific areas of trade where there is a likelihood of risk to public health. \r\n\r\nSuch failure to address human development issues has led to criticism that the current EPA texts do not align with the 2006 adopted European Consensus on Development (2006/C 46/01) or the 2005 adopted EU measures to accelerate the progress towards attaining the MDGs [COM(2005) 132/final 2, COM(2005) 133/ final 2 and COM(2005) 134 final].\r\n\r\nWhile there is pressure to secure WTO compatible agreements, the detailed tariff reduction commitments in the interim EPAs are argued to go beyond the strict demands of multilateral rules for the WTO-compatibility of free trade agreements, with costs to ESA countries. Gains from greater exports to the EU could be overshadowed by the damage done by the largely reciprocal market openings that ACP countries would have to undertake. The interim agreement accessed provides for 80% liberalisation in a period of 15 years.  This would allow subsidised European food products, with which local producers would be in no position to compete, to effectively swamp ESA markets. Under the interim deals with East Africa, for example, taxes on two-thirds of imports from the EU would be eliminated with negative consequences for government revenue.\r\n\r\nSuch agreements are being signed at a time when the Doha Round on development is not yet concluded at the WTO, with Article 24 of GATT still being negotiated. Signing an interim EPA may pre-empt, or worse still weaken these WTO level negotiations.  Reminiscent of the days of Structural Adjustment,  it  has been said that \u201cthere is no alternative\u201d to the current trade focused EPAs. But trade experts indicate that alternatives do exist. Beyond significantly greater protection of human development issues in the EPAs\u2019  as exemplified for health above,  trade experts suggest that the EU could also have offered alternative trading arrangements under its Generalised System of Preferences  (GSP+), particularly given the level of economic poverty and vulnerability in most ESA countries. It was possible for the EU to seek an extension of the waiver at the WTO, particularly given the delay in resolving the  Doha round on development, given its significance for Africa. These options were not pursued, suggesting, as noted in an October 2007 analysis by the NordikAfrica Institute, that the primary EU goal for the EPAs was to secure free trade agreements within a strict interpretation of WTO rules.  \r\n\r\nThe interim EPAs send signal an understanding of development and poverty reduction as being essentially driven by trade liberalisation, with development aid as a means of coping with the temporary, negative impacts of this agenda. It suggests that development will follow trade liberalisation and thus that other aspects of development should adjust to the terms of this free trade focused interim EPA. \r\n\r\nThe singular prioritisation of  trade liberalisation, even while argued as \u201cinterim\u201d  fails to adequately protect basic social rights, such as the rights to health noted earlier. It also fails to adequately meet the EU\u2019s own commitments and treaties and to draw on the EU\u2019s own development experience, and the regulation and subsidies used in the EU to promote industrial and social development and services. \r\n\r\nIt also contradicts analysis and experience in ESA.  After two decades of trade liberalisation policies, Africa Union and UN Economic commission for Africa reports in 2007 highlight uneven growth and growth with poor returns to human development and poverty reduction.  Rapid, wide trade liberalisation policies have been associated with falling public revenues, increasing dependency on food imports, increased chronic undernutrition, reduced coverage and quality of and access to essential services, including health care services. In the health care sector, trade liberalization increases growth in formal and informal for profit health care services, with negative impacts on access, quality and segmentation in services, and increased fee barriers to care.   Even the World Bank in a 2002 working paper concluded that rapid trade-related integration in Africa had caused or exacerbated social inequality and that those who benefited most were the import/ export firms, transport and shipping companies, large-scale commercial farmers, and financiers and the politicians and bureaucrats who are tapped into these commercial and financial circuits.  \r\n\r\nA model of development that is driven first through trade liberalization, with later \u201cdevelopment\u201d adjustments, negates the lived and historical experience, documented evidence and policy demands of Africa and of many development actors in the EU.  Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said at a speech to the Civil society Dialogue Group in January 2005, \u201c\u2026 I intend this to be a new start for the EPAs \u2013 to give the negotiations a new impetus \u2013 and to ensure that from now on, until the final implementation of what we will negotiate by 2008, development concerns have pride of place\u201d . It appears his  \u201cpride of place\u201d  was the same marginalized exclusion the majority of disadvantaged communities in Africa occupy.  \r\n\r\nThe process is not yet over. Some countries have yet to sign. For others, the interim agreements signed in 2007 still need to be ratified and deemed domestically operational, a process that will take to July 1 2008. Ratification in many ESA countries requires parliamentary endorsement. Could the parliaments in Africa and in the EU bring new \u201cpeople\u2019s\u201d voice to this process and to future negotiations on the EPAs,  and with it new attention to the health and development concerns?\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat  admin@equinetafrica.org. For further information on this issue please visit EQUINET www.equinetafrica.org. or SEATINI (www.seatini.org) ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The Africa-EU Strategic Partnership","field_subtitle":"AU Commission/NEPAD, African States; European Commission, EU Member States","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2umm3u","body":"This Joint Strategy, which will provide an overarching long-term framework for Africa-EU relations, will be implemented through successive short-term Action Plans and enhanced political dialogue at all levels, resulting in concrete and measurable outcomes in all areas of the partnership. The purpose of this Joint Strategy is to take the Africa-EU relationship to a new, strategic level with a strengthened political partnership and enhanced cooperation at all levels. The partnership will be based on a Euro-African consensus on values, common interests and common strategic objectives. This partnership should strive to bridge the development divide between Africa and Europe through the strengthening of economic cooperation and the promotion of sustainable development in both continents, living side by side in peace, security, prosperity, solidarity and human dignity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Charter of the Public and Private Health Sectors of The Republic Of South Africa","field_subtitle":"Department of Health, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/misc/healthcharter.pdf","body":"Access to health care is a complex issue of constitutional significance. There are significant numbers of people in South Africa who do not have adequate access to health services due to geographical, financial, physical, communication, sociological (such as unfair discrimination and stigmatisation)and other barriers. Access to medical schemes is diminishing in real terms. Medical schemes provide financing for almost 7 million people but over the years membership figures have declined as a percentage of the general population. This is due in part to major increases in non-health expenditure by medical schemes on items such as administration and brokers fees. This Charter commits to move towards a coherent, unified health system offering financial protection for all the population in accessing a nationally affordable package of health care at the time of need and to improve access to health care services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The Development Dimension or Disillusion?: The EU\u2019s Development Policy Goals and the Economic Partnership Agreements","field_subtitle":"Stocchetti M: The Nordic Africa Institute, Policy Notes Trade 1, October 2007","field_url":"http://www.nai.uu.se/publications/books/book.xml?id=25254","body":"The EU and the ACP countries aim to conclude the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) by the end of December 2007. All parties agree that these trading arrangements are meant to be first and foremost \u201cdevelopment instruments\u201d. However, their positions differ greatly on how the EPAs will impact on the ultimate goal of poverty reduction. In this policy note Marikki\r\nStocchetti addresses the key issues of this disagreement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The enemy within: southern African militaries\u2019 quarter-century battle with HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"Institute for Security Studies, South Africa, 2007","field_url":"http://www.iss.co.za/index.php?link_id=27&slink_id=3689&link_type=12&slink_type=12&tmpl_id=3","body":"This report looks at the armies of Botswana, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe in the context of the HIV and AIDS epidemic. These armies report HIV rates between 20 to 40 percent, with some sections having a rate between 50 to 60 percent. The report explores approaches to reduce HIV rates among soldiers and recognises that the inherent structure and discipline of armies and their ability to follow set regimes, means that they can become change agents in their societies in the fight against HIV and AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of unconditional cash transfers on nutrition: the South African Child Support Grant","field_subtitle":"Aguero N, Carter MR, Woolard I: UNDP International Poverty Centre , 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems&id=34095&type=Document","body":"This paper estimates the impact of South Africa\u2019s Child Support Grant (CSG) on child nutrition as measured by child height-for-age. It finds that large dosages of CSG treatment early in life significantly boosts child height. While income transfers such as those of the CSG should help immediately to redress poverty, the question remains whether they help facilitate a longer-term pathway from poverty. One way that they might contribute to this goal is by enhancing the durable human capital stock of the next generation. These estimated height gains observed in the case of South Africa suggest large adult earnings increases for treated children and a discounted rate of return on CSG payments of between 160-230 per cent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The interesting cross-paths of HIV/AIDS and water in Southern Africa with special reference to South Africa","field_subtitle":"Obi CL, Onabolu B, Momba MNB, Ramalivahna J, Bessong PO, van Rensburg EJ, Lukoto M, Green E, Mulaudzi TB: Water SA 32(3):323-343","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=28&id=36545","body":"HIV/AIDS and water-borne diseases account for a substantial degree of morbidity and mortality in different age groups across the globe, but their ripple effects are more devastating in developing countries. Estimates of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa vary but attest to a mature and generalised epidemic. In rural areas, devoid of electricity and potable water, the impact is more profound because of the role of water in cooking, drinking, consumption of anti-retrovirals and in the preparation of milk supplements for infants. Improving water quality will lead to a decline in child and adult mortality as well as diarrhoeal diseases in people living with HIV and AIDS. The cross-paths between HIV/AIDS and water have long-term implications for effective water resource management and the provision of wholesome water to communities. Such implications include faltering payment for water supply because HIV and AIDS are financially dis-empowering, erosion of social capital and waning productivity. Mainstreaming of HIV and AIDS in the water sector is of utmost importance, including development of work-place policies, adaptation and reorganisation of workload, development of strategies for reserve staff, adjustment of performance appraisal systems, pro-poor financing with a focus on water for health and economic benefit and integration of HIV and AIDS into training activities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The macroeconomic framework and the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa: the cases of Ghana and Malawi","field_subtitle":"African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD), 2007","field_url":"http://www.afrodad.org/downloads/HIV%20Policy%20Brief%202007.pdf","body":"Have traditional restrictive macroeconomic policies and budget ceilings limited some governments from giving HIV and AIDS the attention it deserves? This paper analyses the links between macroeconomic frameworks provided by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and HIV/AIDS social spending in Ghana and Malawi. Authors stress the need for a fundamental shift in the design and execution of the macroeconomic framework and propose policy recommendations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Role of the Private Sector within the South African Health System","field_subtitle":"HST, 2007","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041715","body":"The 2007 edition of the South African Health Review focuses on broad areas with respect to the role of the private health sector i.e. oversight, pooling of resources and purchasing of health care, delivery of health care services and health and related indicators.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Theorising inequalities in the experience and management of chronic illness: Bringing social networks and social capital back in (critically)","field_subtitle":"Sanders C and Rogers A: Research in the Sociology of Health Care  25: 15-24, 15 December 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ynux43","body":"Social networks have been a central focus of sociological research on inequalities but less has focused specifically on chronic illness and disability despite a policy emphasis on resources necessary to support self-management. This seeks to unpack overlaps and distinctions between social network approaches and research on the experience and management of chronic illness. It outlines four main areas viewed as central in articulating the potential for future work consistent with a critical realist perspective: (1) body\u2013society connections and realist/relativist tensions; (2) the controversy of \u2018variables\u2019 and accounting for social and cultural context in studying networks for chronic illness support; (3) conceptualising social support, network ties and the significance of organizations and technology; and (4) translating theory into method.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Third Africa Conference on sexual and health rights: Sexuality, poverty and accountability in Africa","field_subtitle":"African Federation for Sexual Health and Rights","field_url":"http://www.africasexuality.org/","body":"Action Health Incorporated, under the auspices of the African Federation for Sexual Health and Rights, is pleased to announce the third regional conference on Sexual Health and Rights, 4-7 February 2008.  The conference seeks to bring together key actors in the field of Sexual Health and Rights to explore how sexuality has affected and can improve development in Africa, especially when working with women and youth. Participants, speakers, and sponsors are expected from the media, academia, civil society organizations, government agencies, development partners, faith based organizations, regional and sub-regional bodies in Africa and international agencies. The goal of the conference is to examine the interrelationships between poverty and sexuality and also how the issue of accountability affects sexual health and social well-being in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Transforming civil society and community roles in responses to HIV and AIDS in Africa","field_subtitle":"Johann Barnard, Sizo Majola, Ifor nternational HIV/AIDS Alliance","field_url":"","body":"\r\nCivil society and communities should have a far greater direct involvement in the implementation of HIV and AIDS programmes for them to have a meaningful impact.  This calls for an effective mechanism to channel funding to support and strengthen the capacity of civil society organisations. This was the resounding consensus at the Civil Society, HIV/AIDS and Africa: capacity, sustainability, partnerships conference being held in Johannesburg, South Africa from December 5 to 7. The meeting was co-hosted by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and the UK Government's Department for International Development, and co-organised by UNAIDS and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.\r\n\r\n\u2018We need a shift in the way civil society relates to universal access and away from a lesser role to being an equal partner in the implementation of national strategies,\u2019 Mark Stirling, UNAIDS' director for the regional support team for Eastern and Southern Africa, said at the opening ceremony of the conference. Stirling said Southern Africa in particular was hamstrung by bottlenecks that currently translated into an average of more than 80% of interventions falling behind targets to achieve universal access by 2010. There therefore needed to be a properly planned response to significantly ramp up the capacity and participation of civil society organisations to fill this gap.\r\n\r\n\u2018We need funding models to move away from the status quo, and need a quantum shift for an effective response,\u2019 Stirling said. The Chair of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance's Board of Trustees, Callisto Madavo, noted that good models exist for channelling money to support community-based responses, and these need to be expanded: \u2018We have many examples of successful models and it is imperative that these experiences are shared so that we can accelerate our responses.\u2019\r\n\r\nMadavo said that \u2018the most successful responses to HIV and other development challenges are built on local leadership, commitment and responsibility\u2019. As communities are closest to people affected by HIV and often make the first response in addressing HIV, \u2018without the active and influential participation of communities there is a real danger that the increased funding now available for HIV could not be well spent and not reach those most in need\u2019. He said this could only be overcome through changes in policies and approaches that incorporated the experience over the past two years.\r\n\r\nOne of the major funders of HIV and AIDS programmes, the Global Fund, wants to encourage more civil society organisations to be amongst the principal recipients of their funding. Principal recipients are local stakeholder institutions (and there can be more than one in a country) who co-ordinate partnership, provide technical leadership, manage funds and monitor, evaluate and report on programmes. Christopher Benn, the Global Fund's executive director of external relations indicated that change was needed to \u2018make sure that civil society is a principal recipient in more countries\u2019. He added that the perception that funds for HIV programmes was drying up was unfounded and that \u2018unprecedented\u2019 resources were available. He said that $10-billion had been pledged for the Fund, while PEPFAR was expected to announce the extension of its mandate, to the tune of $30-billion over the next two to five years. Therefore, he said, the availability of resources was not the most critical issue, instead \u2018capacity building for scaling up responses is the most critical, and we need to scale up dramatically.\u2019\r\n\r\nAlthough the Global Fund recently approved a budget of US$1,1 billion in Round 7 of funding proposals, only 50% of proposals had been approved and there were concerns about implementation capacity: \u2018I hope we don't find ourselves in a position where we had the resources, but could not implement them,\u2019 Benn said.\r\n\r\nWhile the conference provided success stories of civil society roles in effectively reaching communities, both funding organisations and civil society need to take on the challenges of channelling resources to community level on a vastly increased scale.  As Madavo indicated, \u2018A consensus seems to be emerging on a new paradigm for effective capacity development centred on building effective states and forging engaged societies. The challenge is to unleash, nurture, and retain capacity. That requires a political environment that encourages participation, excellence, learning, and innovation. The new paradigm for capacity development emphasises the dual objectives of building effective states and forging engaged societies.\u2019  And the conference also had a resounding consensus on the test for how successful new approaches are \u2013 that they effectively channel resources to communities, where they are most needed for the response to HIV.  \r\n\r\nThe International HIV/AIDS Alliance, established in 1993, is a global partnership of nationally-based organisations working to support community action on AIDS, support south-south co-operation, and undertake operations research, training and good practice development and policy analysis and advocacy. They can be contacted via their website at http://www.aidsalliance.org/. Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat admin@equinetafrica.org.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Transgender bodies, identities, and healthcare: Effects of perceived and actual violence and abuse","field_subtitle":"Witten  TM: Research in the Sociology of Health Care  25: 225-249, 15 December 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3yzma7","body":"\u201cDisparity\u201d implies the existence of a \u201cmarkedly distinct in quality or character,\u201d difference between one group and another. Some groups, due to elevated stigma associated with group membership, are invisible as a disparate minority and therefore, while there may be a great inequity in healthcare between that group and the normative population, the invisible minority is ignored. This chapter addresses the issue of healthcare for the transgender-identified population. It addresses how the normative viewpoint of mental illness and unacceptable religious status, along with lifelong perceived and actual abuse and violence, creates a socially sanctioned inequality in healthcare for this population.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding and challenging HIV stigma: Toolkit for action","field_subtitle":"Clay S, Chiiya C, Chonta M: International HIV / AIDS Alliance, 2007","field_url":"http://www.pacttz.org/downloads/anti-stigma/6_Stigma_and%20children.pdf","body":"What is the impact of stigma on children? This toolkit aims to help explore and understand the different ways in which children are stigmatised, and to look at strategies to change attitudes and experiences. It provides guidance to help trainers plan educational sessions with community leaders, or to organise groups to raise awareness and promote practical action to challenge HIV stigma and discrimination.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Using hospital discharge data for determining neonatal morbidity and mortality: a validation study","field_subtitle":"Ford JB, Roberts CL, Algert CS, Bowen JR, Bajuk B and Henderson-Smart DJ: BMC Health Services Research 7(188), 20 November 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/7/188/abstract","body":"Despite widespread use of neonatal hospital discharge data, there are few published reports on the accuracy of population health data with neonatal diagnostic or procedure codes. The aim of this study was to assess the accuracy of using routinely collected hospital discharge data in identifying neonatal morbidity during the birth admission compared with data from a statewide audit of selected neonatal intensive care (NICU) admissions. Although under-ascertained, routinely collected hospital discharge data had high PPVs for most validated items and would be suitable for risk factor analyses of neonatal morbidity. Procedures tended to be more accurately recorded than diagnoses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Using participatory design to develop (public) health decision support systems through GIS","field_subtitle":"Driedger SM, Kothari A, Morrison J, Sawada M, Crighton EJ and Graham ID: International Journal of Health Geographics 6(53), 27 November 2007","field_url":"http://www.ij-healthgeographics.com/content/6/1/53","body":"Organizations that collect substantial data for decision-making purposes are often characterised as being data rich but information poor. Maps and mapping tools can be very useful for research transfer in converting locally collected data into information. Challenges involved in incorporating GIS applications into the decision-making process within the non-profit (public) health sector include a lack of financial resources for software acquisition and training for non-specialists to use such tools. This on-going project has two primary phases. This paper critically reflects on phase 1: the participatory design (PD) process of developing a collaborative web-based GIS tool.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Vulnerability to HIV infection among Luo female adolescent orphans in Western Kenya","field_subtitle":"Nyambedha EO: African Journal of AIDS Research 6(3): 287\u2013295 ","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=46&id=36611","body":"Large-scale surveys have reported that about 55% of orphans worldwide are adolescents. In Kenya, the majority of HIV-infected adolescents are females. The current study used the anthropological methods of in-depth case studies to analyse how migratory life situations of individual female adolescent orphans in the Luo community of Western Kenya may increase their exposure to HIV. The study shows that the ability of the female adolescent orphans to adopt risk-preventive behaviour in relation to HIV is determined by a range of factors beyond their control of individual sexual behaviour. Although analysis of a single case study limits generalisation of the findings, the results provide insights into the reason for sex differentials in HIV infection rates among adolescents as reported in some large-scale surveys. The paper recommends that HIV prevention strategies for adolescents should examine the specific life situations of female orphans by focusing on the impacts of HIV and AIDS and poverty on the protective role of the family. It also recommends that keeping female adolescent orphans in school or in vocational training can be an effective HIV prevention strategy for them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Young Malawians on the interaction between mental health and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Wright J, Lubben F, Mkandawire M: African Journal of AIDS Research 6(3): 297\u2013304","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=46&id=36612","body":"Previous research has identified high levels of mental health problems among people affected by HIV. This study surveys specifically adolescents in southern Malawi on their experience of the impacts of living with HIV or AIDS on one's mental health. At the same time, the study explores the link between mental health problems and subsequent HIV-risk behaviour. Short texts relating everyday scenarios that depicted symptoms of three mental health problems (i.e. depression, anxiety and HIV-related brain impairment) formed the basis of in-depth discussions in 12 existing groups of secondary school students, orphans and vulnerable children, teenage mothers, and out-of-school youths, in both rural and urban settings. The responses show that these young people recognised the mental health sequelae of HIV/AIDS as impacting upon many aspects of one's life. The young people traced these \u2018interruptions' and \u2018disruptions' through deteriorating psychological and socio-economic conditions. They showed awareness of a two-way interaction between HIV/AIDS and mental illness, indicating that the latter can increase thoughts of suicide and HIV risk-taking behaviour. More importantly, they identified a number of locally derived community interventions, which if supported by statutory health and education services, can significantly ameliorate their situations. The findings provide avenues for practical integration of mental health provision within HIV prevention, education and care initiatives. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2008-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"   Improve our conditions to attract the young - Midwives   ","field_subtitle":"Daily Graphic, 15 November 2007","field_url":"http://www.myjoyonline.com/health/200711/10467.asp","body":"Speakers at a two-day international conference in Africa on midwifery have called for more incentives to attract young people into the midwifery profession. They said the midwives of today were fast ageing and that unless immediate measures were put in place to attract more young ones into the profession, the fight for the reduction in maternal and infant mortality and morbidity would be a mirage. The speakers made the call at a two-day international conference of midwives on the theme, \"African Midwives: Uniting to address the reduction of maternal and infant mortality and morbidity\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":" Governments (Still) Pondering How to Make Drugs Accessible","field_subtitle":"Cronin D: IPS News, 30 October 2007","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39850","body":"The struggle to make medicines affordable to the world\u2019s poor, especially in Africa, is raging on at the highest levels. Last week the European Commission took a landmark decision on generic drugs and next week a high-level intergovernmental meeting will look at ways to prevent patents from blocking access to drugs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":" Not enough research to treat TB-HIV properly","field_subtitle":"Thom A: Health-e, 2 November 2007","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20031801","body":"Health systems cannot properly diagnose, treat, or contain the co-epidemic of HIV and tuberculosis (TB) because not enough is known about how the two diseases interact. A report by leading global health experts  warned that the largely \u201cunnoticed collision\u201d of the global epidemics of HIV and TB has exploded to create a deadly co-epidemic that is rapidly spreading in sub-Saharan Africa. About one-third of the world\u2019s 40 million people with HIV/AIDS are co-infected with TB, and the mortality rate for HIV-TB co-infection is five-fold higher than that for tuberculosis alone.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"3rd National Conference on Peer Education, HIV and AIDS, Nairobi, Kenya","field_subtitle":"The National Organisation of Peer Educators","field_url":"http://www.nope.or.ke/V2/index.php?pagetype=dyninfo&name=events","body":"The theme of the third national conference of peer education, HIV and AIDS, is 'Stigma, lets act now'. The conference will bring together participants from diverse peer education groups in Kenya and the region, and organisations implementing different aspects of HIV and AIDS, treatment, care and support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A Survey of Prescribing Practices of Health Care Workers in Kibaha District in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Massele AY, Nsimba SE, Fulgence J: Tanzania Medical Journal  22 (1): 31-33, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=309&id=36227","body":"Previous studies in the public sector in Tanzania, have demonstrated major prescribing problems due to poly-pharmacy and irrational use of antibiotics and injections. Little is understood about prescribing in the private sector. This paper measures and compares prescribing practices in public and private dispensaries in Kibaha District Tanzania. Prescribing of antibiotic and injections was significantly higher in private than in public dispensaries (P","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to medicines divides rich and poor at WHO","field_subtitle":"Moreira A: Valor Economico, 6 November 2007","field_url":"","body":"Two proposals to change the current patent system are causing a new diplomatic battle at the World Health Organisation in November. One concerns the launch of new medicines and the other seeks to make existing drugs available at low prices in developing countries. A coalition of developing countries, amongst them Brazil, and non-governmental organisations are defending a \u201cpatent pool\u201d to combine intellectual property rights on existing medicines, and a \u201cprize fund\u201d to reward and stimulate discovery of new medicines for so-called neglected diseases. The two initiatives are receiving strong opposition from some rich countries and the pharmaceutical industry. They have also caused a split between the two major Latin American countries. Mexico is moving away from Brazil\u2019s position and is making alliance with the US, alleging that it has commitments in the trade agreement with Washington.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32614","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"ACP Ministers clarify their EPA principles and options","field_subtitle":"Khor M: SUNS (6365), 11 November 2007","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/wto.info/twninfo110722.htm","body":"The Ministers of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries have issued their most comprehensive policy statement on the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) at the end of a meeting they held in Brussels on 8-9 November. From the \"Conclusions of the meeting\" that they issued, it is clear that the Ministers recognised that the six ACP regional groupings are at different stages of negotiations with the European Commission on their respective EPAs, and that there are also differences between the regions on the issues that the EPAs would cover and on whether the negotiations will end by the official 31 December deadline. The Ministers welcomed the results obtained and stressed the need to do everything possible to ensure that the list submitted by the ACP Group regarding the preference erosion is rationalised to render it more credible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Public Health Rights Alliance 15% now campaign","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://web.mac.com/africa15percent/Site/Homepage.html","body":"Member states of the African Union pledged at the 2001 Abuja summit to commit at least 15% of national budgets to healthcare but 6 years later have largely failed to do so. This failure amongst others has resulted in the annual loss of an estimated 8 million African lives to preventable, treatable and manageable diseases and health conditions. In other words Africa has lost a staggering estimated 40 million lives since 2001 due to a failure to develop, implement and fund comprehensive Public Health policies alone. African governments are not yet all working collectively or quickly enough to analyse and resolve the long term big picture and real scale of Africa\u2019s health catastrophe.  Many appear to be relying mainly on international efforts from wealthy philanthropists, donor countries and facilities such as the Global Fund to resolve Africa\u2019s accumulated Public Health problems.  Some are also still focusing on only some specific diseases without long-term perspectives to ensure that Public Health is comprehensively promoted to resolve what are essentially interlinked symptoms of one problem \u2013 the lack of a comprehensive long term Public Health policy and planning across Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Analysing equity using household survey data","field_subtitle":"O\u2019Donnell O, van Doorslaer E, Wagstaff A, Lindelow M: World Bank","field_url":"http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPAH/Resources/Publications/459843-1195594469249/HealthEquityFINAL.pdf","body":"This volume aims to provide researchers and analysts with a step-by-step practical guide to the measurement of a variety of aspects of health equity. Each chapter includes worked examples and computer code. This is intended to help build more comprehensive monitoring of trends in health equity, a better understanding of the causes of these inequities, more extensive evaluation of the impacts of development programs on health equity, and more effective policies and programs to reduce inequities in the health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Barriers to prevention of HIV transmission from mother to child (PMTCT) in a resource poor setting in the Eastern Cape","field_subtitle":"Peltzer K, Mosala T, Shisana O, Nqueko A, Mngqundaniso N: Women's Health and Action Research Centre, 2007","field_url":"http://www.bioline.org.br/request?rh07006","body":"The aim of this study was to investigate knowledge of prevention of mother to child HIV transmission (PMTCT) programmes and to describe potential barriers that might affect their acceptability in a resource poor setting in South Africa. Based on interviews with over 1500 pregnant women, their families and five communities around the PMTCT clinic areas, the authors found that there are several major potential barriers in implementing PMTCT programmes in a resource poor setting. The authors suggest that increased access to HIV testing and counselling would be one of the most effective ways of reducing perinatal transmission. They state that this can be achieved by ensuring that expectant mothers receive antenatal care from trained staff throughout their pregnancy and have a skilled professional childbirth attendant.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"CALL CLOSES DECEMBER 7: Third regional training Workshop on Participatory methods for research and training: Strengthening community focused, primary health care orientated responses to prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"TARSC, IHRDC in co-operation with REACH Trust in EQUINET and GNP+ ","field_url":"","body":"Call Closes On December 7, 2007!\r\nThis call invites applicants to participate and share experiences in a Regional Training Workshop for east and southern African countries on Participatory Methods for research and training for a people centred health system being held on February 27 to March 1st 2008. \r\nThe training aims to support work at national, district and local level with health systems and communities in health, with a major focus on the interactions at primary health care level. The 2008 training will focus on overcoming community and health systems barriers in accessing comprehensive prevention and treatment for HIV and AIDS and strengthening equitable primary health care responses to HIV and AIDS. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32613","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Cancer care in sub-Saharan Africa \u2013 urgent need for population-based cancer registries","field_subtitle":"Okobia MN: Ethiopian Journal of Health Development, 2007","field_url":"http://www.cih.uib.no/journals/EJHD/ejhdv17-no2/ejhdv17n2-page89.pdf","body":"This article reviews literature on cancer statistics in sub-Saharan Africa, and assesses the need for population-based cancer registries to enhance cancer care and prevention within the region. The article finds that there are few cancer registries in sub-Saharan Africa and most of these are hospital based. This is partly because in many countries cancer is a low priority as more emphasis is placed on the control of communicable diseases and improving environmental sanitation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges Facing Community Home Based Care Programmes in Botswana","field_subtitle":"Odek AW, Oloo JA: East African Social Science Research Review  23 (2): 1-18, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=131&id=36234","body":"This study examines the role of Community Home-Based Care in Botswana for people with HIV/AIDS and those with other terminal illnesses. Kerkhoven and Jackson (1995) attribute the popularity of Community Home-Based Care (CHBC) programmes in the developing countries to high rates of HIV/AIDS. Botswana has adult HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of 37 per cent and over 350,000 people living with HIV/AIDS. Rapid rise in incidences of HIV/AIDS has hence resulted in increasing need for CHBC and thus many CHBC services have been established through disorganized and fragmented manners. This paper is an extended literature review. It identifies and discusses challenges facing CHBC programmes in Botswana. The findings indicate that poverty, high cost of community care, inadequate medical facilities, poor infrastructures and socio-cultural issues have threatened the sustainability of CHBC programmes in Botswana. Recommendations and policy options are discussed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society report to the WHO Commision on the Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"Draft report, June 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/social_determinants/resources/cs_rep_2_7.pdf","body":"Civil Society Organisations, especially those actively engaged with the health sector, have been largely of the opinion that the Commission constitutes a major opportunity to address key issues in the health sector. This is especially so as the Commission is seen to be engaged in examining and taking forward some of the key fundamentals of the Alma Ata declaration \u2013 viz. a Health Systems approach that foregrounds Primary Health Care and locating health in a larger social, economic and political context.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Committing to results: Improving the effectiveness of HIV/AIDS assistance","field_subtitle":"World Bank, 2007","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/ieg/aids/docs/report/hiv_complete_report.pdf","body":"This evaluation report from the World Bank\u2019s Operation Evaluation Department (OED) assesses the development effectiveness of the Bank\u2019s country-level HIVand AIDS assistance. The report concludes that Bank assistance has persuaded governments to act earlier or in a more focused and cost-effective way. It also finds that whist Bank assistance has helped raise political commitment, these pledges have sometimes been overestimated and need to be constantly addressed in the country context. The authors recommend that the Bank, in order to have a sustainable impact on the HIV/AIDS epidemic, should help governments use human and financial resources more efficiently and effectively. They also recognise the need to strengthen local monitoring and evaluation practices and help improve the local evidence base for making decisions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Comparative health systems research in a context of HIV/AIDS: Lessons from a multi-country study in South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia","field_subtitle":"Dawad S and Veenstra N: Health Research Policy and Systems 5(13), 30 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/5/1/13","body":"Comparative, multi-country research has been underutilised as a means to inform health system development. South-south collaboration has been particularly poor, even though there have been clearly identified benefits of such endeavours. This commentary argues that in a context of HIV/AIDS, the need for regional learning has become even greater. This is because of the regional nature of the problem and the unique challenges that it creates for health systems. We draw on the experience of doing comparative research in South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia, to demonstrate that it can be useful for determining preconditions for the success of health care reforms, for affirming common issues faced by countries in the region, and for developing research capacity. Furthermore, these benefits can be derived by all countries participating in such research, irrespective of differences in capacity or socio-economic development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Controlling cancer in developing countries: prevention and treatment strategies merit further study","field_subtitle":"Disease Control Priorities Project, 2007","field_url":"http://www.dcp2.org/file/79/DCPP-Cancer.pdf","body":"This paper discusses the burden of cancer in developing countries and examines which types of cancers can be prevented and treated affordably in low-resource settings and which interventions can be used to control them. The paper concludes that to guide policymakers on the most effective cancer control strategies in developing countries, more work is needed in: clinical evaluations of cancer control interventions, health services research, and country specific economic evaluations. It recommends that since current knowledge about cancer control is incomplete, developing countries should start in small areas and gain knowledge from well-documented pilot programmes. Starting small might entail focusing on individuals with certain high-risk characteristics or in a limited geographic area, and scaling up should occur only after pilot programmes have been shown to perform well.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing a Nutrition and Health Education Program for Primary Schools in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Sherman J and Muehlhoff E: Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 39(6): 335-342, November 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3c8j6l","body":"School-based health and nutrition interventions in developing countries aim at improving children\u2019s nutrition and learning ability. In addition to the food and health inputs, children need access to education that is relevant to their lives, of good quality, and effective in its approach. Based on evidence from the Zambia Nutrition Education in Basic Schools (NEBS) project, this article examines whether and to what extent school-based health and nutrition education can contribute directly to improving the health and nutrition behaviors of school children. Initial results suggest that gains in awareness, knowledge and behavior can be achieved among children and their families with an actively implemented classroom program backed by teacher training and parent involvement, even in the absence of school-based nutrition and health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 51: Deprivation-based resource allocation criteria in the Zambian health service: A review of the implementation process","field_subtitle":"Chitah BM and Masiye F (2007)","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS51finCHITAH.pdf","body":"This study reviews the Zambian deprivation-based health resource allocation formula and assesses how the deprivation-based resource allocation formula has been implemented in terms of achieving the initial desired goals of resource \u2013 re-distribution. It further considers the extent of converge or divergence in the equity goals relating to resource re-distribution through the allocation of funding to the districts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Employment conditions and health inequalities","field_subtitle":"Benach J, Muntaner C, Santana V: Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, 20 September 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/social_determinants/resources/articles/emconet_who_report.pdf","body":"The aim of this Report is to provide a rigorous analysis on how employment relations affect different population groups, and how this knowledge may help identify and promote worldwide effective policies and institutional changes to reduce health inequalities derived from these employment relations. Consequently, the report incorporates the political, cultural, and economic context to provide a comprehensive account of the current international situation of labour markets and types of employment conditions. Thus, through regulating employment relations, main political actors can not only redistribute resources affecting social stratification, but also have an impact on the life experiences of different social groups including opportunities for well-being, exposure to hazards leading to disease, and access to health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EPA interim agreement - A dangerous Trojan horse!!!","field_subtitle":"Southern African civil society organisations: Eppmwengo, Novemeber 2007","field_url":"","body":"The Southern African civil society organisations campaigning on the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), met in Gaborone, Botswana, from 20-22 November 2007, to review the EPA negotiations. This here forms a statement compiled by these organisations to re-affirm their opposition to these self-serving Free Trade Agreements that the European Union (EU) seeks to impose on African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. The respective civil society organisations condemned the interim arrangement put in place to address market access to the EU at the expiration of the Cotonou preferences on December 31, and describe the treacherous framework as designed for bulldozing Africa into signing a comprehensive EPA/FTA.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32734","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EPA Negotiations: 4th ESA-EC Ministerial meeting Brussels 12 November 2007","field_subtitle":"Thompson P: EPA Flash News, 12 November 2007","field_url":"http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2007/november/tradoc_136705.pdf","body":"Ministers from the Eastern and Southern Africa region (ESA) and Commissioners from the European Union met in Brussels on 12 November 2007. The ESA delegation was led by Honourable Felix Mutati, Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry of Zambia, and included Ministers from countries in the region. The main purpose of the meeting was to take stock of EPA negotiations in view of impending expiry of the trade regime set out in the Cotonou Partnership Agreement and to provide political guidance for the next steps in the negotiation process. The Parties reaffirmed their commitment to conclude a comprehensive EPA as tool for sustainable development and the promotion of regional integration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Epidemic Update Global HIV prevalence levels off, still leading cause of death globally","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS/ WHO, 20 November 2007","field_url":"http://data.unaids.org/pub/EPISlides/2007/2007_epiupdate_en.pdf","body":"The new Epidemic Updates reflects improved and expanded epidemiological data and analyses that present a better understanding of the global epidemic. These new data and advances in methodology have resulted in substantial revisions from previous estimates. While the global prevalence of HIV infection\u2014the percentage of people infected with HIV \u2014 has levelled off, the total number of people living with HIV is increasing because of ongoing acquisition of HIV infection, combined with longer survival times, in a continuously growing\r\ngeneral population. Global HIV incidence \u2014 the number of new HIV infections per year \u2014 is now estimated to have peaked in the late 1990s at over 3 million [2.4 \u2013 5.1 million] new infections per year, and is estimated in 2007 to be 2.5 million [1.8 \u2013 4.1 million] new infections, an average of more than 6 800 new infections each day. This reflects natural trends in the epidemic, as well as the result of HIV prevention efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC). Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided.\r\n\r\nThe views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 82: What do we need to do to keep health workers in Africa?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes.\r\n\r\nIt includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place.\r\n\r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in access to ARV drugs in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Ntata PR: SAHARA Journal 4 (1): 564-574, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=197&id=36025","body":"This paper discusses the issue of equity in the distribution of ARV drugs in the Malawi health system. Malawi is one of the countries most severely affected by HIV/AIDS in southern Africa. It is also one of the poorest countries in the world.ARV drugs are expensive.The Malawi government, with assistance from the Global Fund on Tuberculosis, Malaria and HIV/AIDS, started providing free ARV drugs to eligible HIV-infected people in September 2004.The provision of free drugs brought the hope that everyone who was eligible would access them. Based on data collected through a qualitative research methodology, it was found that achieving equity in provision would face several challenges including policy, operational and socio-economic considerations. Specifically, the existing policy framework, shortage of medical personnel, access to information and inadequacy of effective community support groups are some of the key issues affecting equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"EU \u2018Firm\u2019 on EPA Deadline","field_subtitle":"Sasman C: bilaterals.org","field_url":"http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=10363","body":"Following a meeting with trade ministers from the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries with the European Union (EU) in Brussels Wednesday, the European Commission said existing modalities supporting trade preferences would no longer be in force from January 1, 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Examining the actions of faith-based organizations and their influence on HIV/AIDS-related stigma: A case study of Uganda","field_subtitle":"Otolok-Tanga E, Atuyambe L, Murphey CK,  Ringheim KE and Woldehanna S: African Health Sciences 7(1): 55-60, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=45&id=35846","body":"This study aimed to explore perceptions of Uganda-based key decision-makers about the past, present and optimal future roles of FBOs in HIV/AIDS work, including actions to promote or dissuade stigma and discrimination. Uganda's program continues to face challenges, including perceptions among the general population that HIV/AIDS is a cause for secrecy. By virtue of their networks and influence, respondents believe that FBOs are well-positioned to contribute to breaking the silence about HIV/AIDS which undermines prevention, care and treatment efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Experiences of orphan care in Amach, Uganda: Assessing policy implications","field_subtitle":"Oleke C, Blystad A, Rekdal OB, Moland KM: SAHARA Journal 4 (1): 532-543, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=197&id=36024","body":"This paper presents findings from a study on the experiences of orphan care among Langi people of Amach sub-county in Lira District, northern Uganda, and discusses their policy implications.The findings revealed that the Langi people have an inherently problematic orphan concept, which contribute toward discriminatory attitudes and practices against orphans.The clan based decision-making to care for orphans, the category of kin a particular orphan ends up living with, the sex and age of the orphan, as well as the cessation of the \u2018widow-inheritance' custom emerged as prominent factors which impact on orphan care.Thus there is the need to draw upon such local knowledge in policy making and intervention planning for orphans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"First Global Forum on Human Resources for Health","field_subtitle":"Global Health Forum Alliance","field_url":"http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/forum/en/index.html","body":"A short video is now available on the website of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Health Workforce Alliance. In it, Dr Omaswa refers to the first Global Forum on Human Resources for Health, to be held in Kampala , Uganda , on 2-7 March 2008. This conference is a remarkable and unique opportunity to bring together all those who are working to meet the needs of health workers in developing countries - whether our focus is on Skills, Equipment, Information, Structural support, Medicines, Incentives, and/or Communication facilities. Together participants can \"plan and build a global movement to ensure that every person in every village everywhere has access to a skilled, motivated and supported health worker\". The Forum meshes well with current movements to revitalize primary health care on the 60th anniversary of WHO, 30 years after Alma Ata. It promises to be an exciting and critical next step for achieving global goals and re-energising the global movement for better health in the 21st century. It is also an opportunity for HIFA2015 and CHILD2015 members to meet up.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Following the funding for HIV/AIDS: a comparative analysis of the funding practices of PEPFAR, the Global Fund and World Bank MAP in Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia","field_subtitle":"Oomman N, Bernstein M, Rosenzweig S: ","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/files/14569_file_FollowingFunding.pdf","body":"Donor funding for HIV/AIDS has skyrocketed in the last decade: from US$ 300 million in 1996 to US$ 8.9 billion in 2006; yet, little is understood about how these resources are being spent. This paper analyses the policies and practices of the world\u2019s largest AIDS donors as they are applied in Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia. The report offers a number of recommendations for how donors can improve their programmes to increase the effectiveness of aid. Recommendations for all three donors include: jointly coordinate and plan activities to support the National AIDS Plan, assist the government in tracking total national AIDS funds, focus on building and measuring capacity, and develop strategies with host governments and other donors to ensure financial sustainability.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Course: Accelerating Progress Towards the Health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other Health Outcomes","field_subtitle":"World Bank Institute Human Development (WBIHD), ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3xybca","body":"This new program approaches health outcomes from the demand side through a multisectoral perspective, looking into mechanisms such as Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), and Sector Wide Approaches (SWAPs). The course underscores the different roles necessary at each different sector for a multisectoral approach, the need for coordination at the central level, and also alignment of donors with national processes - especially budgets - to ensure harmonization. This course will build capacity for developing multisectoral health outcome strategies, emphasizing that better effective interventions, actions and policies exist and that adaptation to the country situation is critical. The application deadline is 22 February 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund approves US$1.1  billion in new grants","field_subtitle":"The Global Fund, 12 November 2007","field_url":"http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/media_center/press/pr_071112.asp","body":"The Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria today approved 73 new grants worth more than US$ 1.1 billion over two years. The Board has also approved US$ 130 million for renewal of five grants that have reached the end of their five year life. More than 80 percent of the approved Round 7 grants are for low-income countries, with the majority of resources (66 percent) for Africa. Asia and the Western Pacific will receive 13 percent of the newly approved funding, Latin America and the Caribbean five percent, Eastern Europe three percent, and the Middle East 13 percent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"High level consultative meeting on the Health Workforce: Scaling up education and training","field_subtitle":"Hon Dr ME Tshabalala-Msimang, Minister of Health of South Africa: AU Conference Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 16 November 2007","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/sp/sp1116-f.html","body":"Dr Tshabala-Msimang said for Africa to scale up health work-force training, there is a need to mobilise adequate resources. She appealed to the developed world which has largely benefited from this exodus of health workers, to consider financially supporting Africa to train more health workers. Additional resources will also be required to rebuild the health infrastructure in some instances as well as training our lecturers, tutors and researchers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV-TB co-infection: meeting the challenge","field_subtitle":"Forum for Collaborative HIV Research","field_url":"http://www.hivforum.org/uploads/TB/Final%20HIV-TB%20Report.pdf","body":"Ten per cent of individuals infected with TB develop the active disease but this is greatly increased in those whose immune systems have been weakened by HIV. This report highlights the difficulty in managing the co-epidemic of HIV and TB and identifies priority areas in need of further research: better population-based data on the incidence of drug-resistant TB is required, increased laboratory capacity is needed to make the currently difficult diagnosis of co-infection of HIV-TB accessible to a larger proportion of Africans, more child-specific research is needed especially on paediatric drug formulations. The low uptake of drugs that treat co-infection remains a real problem, with concerns over drug efficacy and the creation of drug resistant strains of TB cited as the main reasons. The report concludes that strategies for dealing with TB and HIV currently exist in isolation, often reinforced by vertical programme financing. Efforts must be made to integrate these disease treatment programmes which will involve stakeholders working together within an evidence based collaborative framework.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Household Storage of Pharmaceuticals, Sources and Dispensing Practices in Drug Stores and Ordinary Retail Shops in Rural Areas of Kibaha District, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Nsimba SE and Jande MB: The East and Central African Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences 9 (3): 74-80","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=54&id=35995","body":"A cross sectional study was conducted in rural areas of Kibaha district within the Coastal region of Tanzania to assess knowledge on dosage, storage, expiry and dispensing practices of antimalarial drugs among households, drug stores and ordinary shops. The majority of drug store (53 %) and ordinary retail shop (75 %) sellers did not dispense correct doses of antimalarials due to low literacy and lack of dosage guidelines or package inserts. In order to reduce incidences of drug poisoning due to over-dosage or drug resistance due to under dosage, there is need to educate both consumers and dispensers on correct dosage regimens through mass media such as radio, health education programs, television, posters, leaflets and newspapers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Income redistribution is not enough: income inequality, social welfare programs, and achieving equity in health","field_subtitle":"Starfield B, Birn AE: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 61:1038-1041, 2007","field_url":"http://jech.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/61/12/1038","body":"Income inequality is widely assumed to be a major contributor to poorer health at national and subnational levels. According to this assumption, the most appropriate policy strategy to improve equity in health is income redistribution. This paper considers reasons why tackling income inequality alone could be an inadequate approach to reducing differences in health across social classes and other population subgroups, and makes the case that universal social programs are critical to reducing inequities in health. A health system oriented around a strong primary care base is an example of such a strategy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Interim measures for meeting needs for health sector data: births, deaths, and causes of death","field_subtitle":"Hill K, Lopez AD, Shibuya K, Prabhat P: The Lancet Volume 370(9600): 1726-1735, November 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2f76sb","body":"Most developing countries do not have fully effective civil registration systems to provide necessary information about population health. Interim approaches\u2014both innovative strategies for collection of data, and methods of assessment or estimation of these data\u2014to fill the resulting information gaps have been developed and refined over the past four decades. To respond to the needs for data for births, deaths, and causes of death, data collection systems such as population censuses, sample vital registration systems, demographic surveillance sites, and internationally-coordinated sample survey programmes in combination with enhanced methods of assessment and analysis have been successfully implemented to complement civil registration systems. Methods of assessment and analysis of incomplete information or indirect indicators have also been improved, as have approaches to ascertainment of cause of death by verbal autopsy, disease modelling, and other strategies. Our knowledge of demography and descriptive epidemiology of populations in developing countries has been greatly increased by the widespread use of these interim approaches; although gaps remain, particularly for adult mortality. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Is malaria eradication possible?","field_subtitle":"The Lancet Editorial 370 (9597): 1459, 27 October 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3a7jhd","body":"Malaria remains a leading global health problem that requires the improved use of existing interventions and the accelerated development of new control methods. In this editorial we reflect on the possibility of eradicating malaria in infants in Africa with the introduction of the malaria vaccine RTS,S/AS02D.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya: Basic Paediatric Protocols","field_subtitle":"Government of Kenya, Ministry of Health","field_url":"http://www.health.go.ke/Pandpromotive/Paediatric%20Protocols%20Kenya.pdf","body":"These guidelines focus on the inpatient management of the major causes of childhood mortality such as pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, severe malnutrition, meningitis, HIV, neonatal and related conditions. The basis of these guidelines is the WHO IMCI Manual, \u201cThe Management of the Child with a Serious Illness or Severe Malnutrition.\u201d This booklet is a result of a workshop in Machakos in February 2004 drawing together experienced paediatricians from the Ministry of Health, Kenyatta National Hospital, KEMRI and the University of Nairobi. It deals with the management of seriously ill children in the first 48 hours.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenyan National Guidelines on Nutrition and HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"Republic of Kenya, Ministry of Health, April 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3atscj","body":"Successful nutritional care and support of PLWHA requires an inferred partnership between those affected and different levels of care providers. A coordinated effort is required from people in many disciplines. The wide dissemination and use of these Guidelines, as well as supportive policies and services to implement the recommendations herein, will help all stakeholders to improve the quality of life of people living with HIV and AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"London Declaration on Cancer Control in Africa","field_subtitle":"Programme of Action for Cancer Therapy, 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2gg4wv","body":"The purpose of this declaration is to raise awareness of the magnitude of the cancer burden in Africa and to call for immediate action to bring comprehensive care to African countries. The establishment of cancer care programmes in African countries requires the integration of clinical and public health systems. A comprehensive cancer control strategy must bring together prevention, early detection and diagnosis, treatment and palliative care. More investment is needed to deliver these services in terms of trained staff, equipment, relevant drugs and information systems, as well as public education.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi Essential Health Package","field_subtitle":"Government of Malawi, 2002","field_url":"http://www.malawi.gov.mw/publications/EHPMay2002.zip","body":"This report presents a draft of the proposed Essential Heath Package (EHP) and its costing for Malawi.  It is intended to stimulate comment and debate, and to move the process to a final stage whereby the contents can be incorporated into a broader implementation plan for the Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP) and partners.  By MOHP, we mean the various departments at headquarters, the technical programmes, and the districts who will ultimately deliver the EHP services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi Health Equity Network National Health Forum","field_subtitle":"MHEN, 22-23 November 2007","field_url":"","body":"MHEN held a National Forum on 22nd and 23rd November 2007 at Lilongwe Hotel. It brought together a network of policy makers and practitioners who work in the field of health services delivery. The forum explored the challenges in health services delivery in a non-industrialised country with limited resources.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32725","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Meeting report: Regional training workshop on writing skills, Lilongwe, Malawi, 20-24 October 2007","field_subtitle":"TARSC; REACH Trust in EQUINET (2007)","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REPMTG1007writingskills.pdf","body":"The workshop took participants through the writing process from developing a key message, planning the structure of writing, to writing the specific sections of scientific papers such as the title, abstract, keywords, executive summary, introduction, methodology, results and discussion, conclusions and references; on various aspects of peer-reviewed publishing and on issues of authorship, copyright and plagiarism.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"National Guidelines for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of malaria for health workers in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Government of Kenya, Ministry of Health, January 2006","field_url":"http://www.health.go.ke/Pandpromotive/Malaria%20treatment%20guidelines.pdf","body":"Based on this scientific information and WHO recommendations of changing to combination therapy, the Ministry of Health has adopted the use of Artemesinin based Combination Therapy (ACT) as 1st line treatment of uncomplicated malaria. There is therefore need to implement a new antimalarial treatment policy using ACTs. The Ministry of Health has developed these guidelines for malaria diagnosis, treatment and prevention with an aim of improving malaria case management by health workers and having a harmonized approach in efforts aimed at the reduction of morbidity and mortality due to malaria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"NGO Statement on EPAs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This statement on EPAs was compiled by the Platform of Central African Non State Actors (PANEAC) representing the following countries: Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, Gabon, Central Africa Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Chad.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32620","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Our cities, our health, our future: Acting on social determinants for health equity in urban settings","field_subtitle":"Kjellstrom T: Report to the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health from the Knowledge Network on Urban Settings","field_url":"http://www.who.int/social_determinants/resources/knus_report_16jul07.pdf","body":"Urbanisation can and should be beneficial for health. In general, nations that have high life expectancies and low infant mortality rates are also those where city government leaders and policies address the key social determinants of health. Within developing countries, the best local governance can help produce 75 years or more of life expectancy; with bad urban governance, life expectancy can be as low as 35 years. Better housing and living conditions, access to safe water and good sanitation, efficient waste management systems, safer working environments and neighborhoods, food security, and access to services like education, health, welfare, public transportation and child care are examples of social determinants of health that can be addressed through good urban governance. Failure of governance in today\u2019s cities has resulted in the growth of informal settlements and slums that constitute an unhealthy living and working environment for a billion people. National government institutions need to equip local governments with the mandate, powers, jurisdiction, responsibilities, resources and capacity to undertake \u201chealthy urban governance\u201d. A credible health agenda is one that benefits all people in cities, especially the urban poor who live in informal settlements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy on quality health care for South Africa","field_subtitle":"Department of Health, 2007","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/policy/quality_healthcare.pdf","body":"This abbreviated version of the Policy on Quality in Health Care for South Africa follows on the original that became national policy in 2001. It comes at a time when the public health care system is in dire need of again refocusing its collective efforts towards improving the quality of care provided in public health facilities and communities. Knowing that quality is never an accident, always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skilfull execution, and that it represents the wise choice of many alternatives, this abbreviated version attempts to provide to all public health officials in a nutshell and in a more reader friendly language, the strategic direction health facilities and officials need to follow to assure quality in health care and continuous improvement in the care that is being provided. Health care personnel are encouraged to use this copy of the Policy to focus their intentions and guide their efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Primary school children's perspectives on common diseases and medicines used: implications for school healthcare programmes and priority setting in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Akello G, Reis R, Ovuga E, Rwabukwali CB, Kabonesa C, Richters A: African Health Sciences  7 (2): 73-79, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=45&id=35850","body":"Existing school health programmes in Uganda target children above five years for de-worming, oral hygiene and frequent vaccination of girls of reproductive age. This study assessed primary school children's perspectives on common diseases they experience and medicines used in order to suggest reforms for school healthcare programmes and priority setting. Children named and ranked malaria as the most severe and frequently experienced disease. Other diseases mentioned included diarrhoea, skin fungal infections, flu, and typhoid.The symptoms children recognised in case of illness were high body temperature, vomiting, headache, weakness, appetite loss and diarrhoea. Children were either given medicines by the school nurse or they selfmedicated using pharmaceuticals including chloroquine, panadol, flagyl, fansidar, quinine injections, capsules (amoxicillin and ampicillin) obtained from the clinics, drug shops, pharmacies,and other unspecified indigenous medicines from their home and markets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health decision making: The way forward","field_subtitle":"AbouZahr C, Cleland J, Coullare F, Macfarlane SB, Notzon FC, Setel P, Szreter S: The Lancet 370(9601): 1791-1799, November 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2qmprv","body":"Good public-health decisionmaking is dependent on reliable and timely statistics on births and deaths (including the medical causes of death). All high-income countries, without exception, have national civil registration systems that record these events and generate regular, frequent, and timely vital statistics. By contrast, these statistics are not available in many low-income and lower-middle-income countries, even though it is in such settings that premature mortality is most severe and the need for robust evidence to back decisionmaking most critical. Civil registration also has a range of benefits for individuals in terms of legal status, and the protection of economic, social, and human rights. However, over the past 30 years, the global health and development community has failed to provide the needed technical and financial support to countries to develop civil registration systems. There is no single blueprint for establishing and maintaining such systems and ensuring the availability of sound vital statistics. Each country faces a different set of challenges, and strategies must be tailored accordingly. There are steps that can be taken, however, and we propose an approach that couples the application of methods to generate better vital statistics in the short term with capacity-building for comprehensive civil registration systems in the long run.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-private options for expanding access to human resources for HIV/AIDS in Botswana","field_subtitle":"Dreesch N, Nyoni J, Mokopakgosi O, Seipone K, Kalilani JA, Kaluwa O and Musowe V: Human Resources for Health 5(25), 19 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/5/1/25","body":"In responding to the goal of rapidly increasing access to antiretroviral treatment (ART), the government of Botswana undertook a major review of its health systems options to increase access to human resources, one of the major bottlenecks preventing people from receiving treatment. In mid-2004, a team of government and World Health Organization (WHO) staff reviewed the situation and identified a number of public sector scale up options. The team also reviewed the capacity of private practitioners to participate in the provision of ART. Subsequently, the government created a mechanism to include private practitioners in rolling out ART. At the end of 2006, more than 4500 patients had been transferred to the private sector for routine follow up. It is estimated that the cooperation reduced the immediate need for recruiting up to 40 medically qualified staff into the public sector over the coming years, depending on the development of the national standard for the number and duration of patient visits to a doctor per year. Thus welcome relief was brought, while at the same time not exercising a pull factor on human resources for health in the sub-Saharan region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Report and policy brief from the 4th Africa Conference on Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS Research","field_subtitle":"Setswe G, Peltzer K, Banyini M, Skinner D, Seager J, Maile S, Sedumedi S, Gomis D and van der Linde I: SAHARA Journal 4 (2): 640-651, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=197&id=36030","body":"This report and policy brief summarises the key findings and suggested policy options that emerged from rapporteur reports of conference proceedings including the following themes: (1) Orphans and vulnerable children, (2) Treatment, (3) Prevention, (4) Gender and male involvement, (5) Male circumcision, (6) People living with HIV and AIDS, (7) Food and nutrition, (8) Socioeconomics, and (9) Politics/policy. Policy frameworks which are likely to succeed in combating HIV and AIDS need to be updated to cover issues of access, testing, disclosure and stigma.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Report of the Global Task Team independent assessment","field_subtitle":"Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS , 2007","field_url":"http://data.unaids.org/pub/Report/2007/report_of_the_global_task_team_independent_assessment_item4_3_en.pdf","body":"This report from UNAIDS assesses the implementation of the Global Task Team (GTT) recommendations in two key areas: technical support provision to the national AIDS response as brokered by the UN system; and harmonisation and alignment of international partners. In the area of technical support, the report concludes that the UN has made significant progress in establishing joint teams on AIDS and recognises that they are beginning to enable the UN to speak and act as \u201cone\u201d on HIV/AIDS issues. However differences in commitment to joint working and in skills and capacity between agencies combined with high work loads are putting pressures on these teams. The harmonisation and alignment agenda needs strong leadership from headquarters about the importance of joint working.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Reviewing \u2018Emergencies\u2019 for Swaziland: Shifting the Paradigm in a New Era","field_subtitle":"Whiteside A and Whalley A: National Emergency Response Council on HIV/AIDS (NERCHA)/ Health Economics & HIV/AIDS Research Division (HEARD)","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2r7tt7","body":"The situation in Swaziland has deteriorated since the beginning of the\r\n1990\u2019s.While HIV/AIDS is not solely to blame for the reduction in living standards and life expectancy, it has compounded the effects of other events such as drought and falling foreign direct investment (FDI). Swazi society is in distress - overwhelming sickness, an increasing dependency ratio and thousands of OVC are placing households and communities under extreme duress. In Swaziland, HIV amd AIDS is creating a chronic emergency that is permanently altering development. This demonstrates a \u2018new\u2019 disaster that exceeds emergency thresholds and requires a new style of holistic response. While the traditional threshold approach to identifying emergencies remains useful for classifying \u2018traditional\u2019 disasters, a new framework of analysis is needed for HIV/AIDS. This could take the form of an index system or a series of thresholds. Within this it is crucial that the indicators measured are considered over time, with a sustained fall being the prime indication of an emergency. The element of \u2018time\u2019 has been missing from the debate surrounding humanitarian response.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Rwanda and Canada: Leading implementation of August 2003 decision for import/export of medicines produced under compulsory license","field_subtitle":"Intellectual Property Quarterly Update: Third Quarter 2007","field_url":"http://www.southcentre.org/info/sccielipquarterly/ipdev2007q3.pdf","body":"This article provides a detailed analysis of the Rwanda-Canada use of the system created under the August 2003 Decision for the import/export of pharmaceutical products manufactured under compulsory license. It will describe the various procedures that the importing country, the generic pharmaceutical company and the exporting country have to go through, identifying lessons from the experience. The precedent that may be established is critical to the continued utility and functionality of the system under the August 2003 Decision.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Shaping the world to illustrate inequalities in health","field_subtitle":"Dorling D, Barford A: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 85(11): 821-900, November 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/85/11/07-044131/en/index.html","body":"Visualizing inequalities in health at the world scale is not easily achieved from tables of mortality rates. Maps that show rates using a colour scale often are less informative than many map-readers realize. For instance, a country with a very small land area receives less attention, whereas a large, sparsely populated area on a map is more obvious. Furthermore, unlike our visual ability to compare the lengths of bars in a chart, we do not have a natural aptitude for translating different colours or shades to the magnitudes they represent. Here we introduce another approach to mapping the world that can be useful for illustrating inequalities in health. This article looks at various ways of mapping and visualising global health statistics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Some Intellectual Property Issues Related to H5N1 Influenza Viruses, Research and Vaccines ","field_subtitle":"Hammond E: The Sunshine Project/ Third World Network, July 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2hswvn","body":"A dramatic rise in international patent applications related to influenza is underway. This includes patent applications covering the virus itself, vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics. As recently as 1993, years passed with little or no such patent activity.  In 2006, however, more than 30 international (Patent Cooperation Treaty) patent applications were filed on influenza vaccines alone, making it the largest year on record - but not for long. World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) data indicates that during the first half of 2007 as many influenza vaccine patent claims have been filed as in the entirety of 2006, meaning that this year is on track to at least double the record set in 2006. Together, these developments are resulting in a much more complex and limiting field of intellectual property claims than has ever before existed for influenza vaccine. And it is going to get worse.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Health Strategic Plan 2007/08 - 2009/10","field_subtitle":"Department of Health, 2007","field_url":"http://70.84.171.10/~etools/doh/stratplan/1_9.pdf","body":"This document describes the priorities for the National Health Department.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Medical Schemes Act 131 of 1998","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/legislation/acts/1998/act98-131.html","body":"The act is intended to consolidate the laws relating to registered medical schemes; to provide for the establishment of the Council for Medical Schemes as a juristic person; to provide for the appointment of the Registrar of Medical Schemes; to make provision for the registration and control of certain activities of medical schemes; to protect the interests of members of medical schemes; to provide for measures for the coordination of medical schemes; and to provide for incidental matters.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: National Health Act 61 of 2003","field_subtitle":"Government Gazette 469, July 2004","field_url":"http://www.info.gov.za/gazette/acts/2003/a61-03.pdf","body":"The Act is  intended to provide a framework for a structured uniform health system within the Republic, taking into account the obligations imposed by the Constitution and other laws on the national, provincial and local governments with regard to health services; and to provide for matters connected therewith","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Strategic priorities for the National Health System 2004-2009","field_subtitle":"Department of Health, 2004","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/index.html","body":"The Department of Health conducted a review of the period 1999-2004 to determine what work is outstanding and what new work is needed to provide the necessary stewardship of the South African health system.This process has resulted in the adoption of a new set of priorities described in this document.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: The National Infection Prevention and Control Policy & Strategy","field_subtitle":"Department of Health, 2007","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/policy/ipc/index.html","body":"In the quest to improve the safety of health services and thus align ourselves in part with the international challenges set by the World Health Organisation Global Patient Safety drive, a National Infection Prevention Strategy and Control Policy and accompanying strategy have been developed and presented to all health care personnel in the country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: The National Infection Prevention and Control Policy for TB, MDRTB and XDRTB","field_subtitle":"Department of Health, 2007","field_url":"http://www.doh.gov.za/docs/index.html","body":"The goal of this policy is to help management and staff minimize the risk of TB transmission in health care facilities and other facilities where the risk of transmission of TB may be high due to high prevalence of both diagnosed and undiagnosed TB such as prisons.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"South Innovation Perspectives Series Seminars","field_subtitle":"South Centre","field_url":"http://www.southcentre.org/Events/SouthInnovationPerspectives_seminars.htm","body":"The seminar series aims to provide a forum where cutting-edge research and ideas on innovation, access to knowledge and intellectual property, from a development perspective, are presented and debated. Speakers are researchers and policy analysts especially from the South who focus their work on key issues for developing countries and the international community more generally. The seminar series plays an important role in linking local/national circumstances and challenges, and the norm-setting activities in various international institutions and process. By engaging negotiators and key players in international processes, the seminars will also contribute to promoting evidence-based norm-setting in key institutions such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), among other organisations and processes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Squaring the Circle: AIDS, Poverty, and Human Development","field_subtitle":"Piot P, Greener R, Russell S: PLoS Med 4(10), 23 October 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2ekomn","body":"The relationship between AIDS and poverty has more to do with inequality than poverty per se. The relationship between socioeconomic status and HIV varies considerably from country to country, reflecting differences in culture and traditions. Effective actions to tackle AIDS must directly address these specific factors\u2014the inequalities\u2014that drive HIV transmission in different contexts, and must overcome the obstacles to accessing treatment in different groups. It is crucial to place AIDS squarely at the centre of all socio-economic development, and provide long-term, high-level domestic and international investment in HIV prevention and treatment in the world's poorest countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania National HIV/AIDS Policy","field_subtitle":"Government of Tanzania, 2001","field_url":"http://www.tanzania.go.tz/healthf.html","body":"The overall goal of the National Policy on HIV/AIDS is to provide for a framework for leadership and coordination of the National multisectoral response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This includes formulation, by all sectors, of appropriate interventions which will be effective in preventing transmission of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, protecting and supporting vulnerable groups, mitigating the social and economic impact of HIV/AIDS. It also provides for the framework for strengthening the capacity of institutions, communities and individuals in all sectors to arrest the spread of the epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania National Multi-sectoral Strategic framework on HIV and AIDS 2003-2007","field_subtitle":"Tanzania Commission for HIV and AIDS, January 2003","field_url":"http://www.tanzania.go.tz/healthf.html","body":"The Strategic Framework is intended to operationalise the National Policy on HIV/AIDS. It provides strategic guidance for developing and implementing HIV/AIDS interventions by various partners. It identifies priority logical set of goals, principles, objectives and strategies to guide multisectoral responses to ensure a strengthened, effective and coordinated national response to the epidemic. It puts strong emphasis on community-based response, that communities are fully empowered and involved in formulating and implementing own responses. It is closely linked with other national development initiatives including Vision 2025, Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) and Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Teachers' and Students' Perceptions of the Learning Environment in Clinical Departments at the School of Medicine, MuhimbilI University College of Health Sciences","field_subtitle":"Mkony C, Mbenbati N: Tanzania Medical Journal  22 (1): 9-11, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=309&id=36219","body":"The School of Medicine at Muhimbili is the main doctor-training institution in the country. It runs a five-year MD programme taking 200 students annually. As for many schools in low-income countries, the majority of teachers have no formal training in educational theory. The learning environment at the school has some strengths that should to be amplified, and numerous weaknesses that need to be corrected in order to make the environment more conducive to teaching and learning.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Technical efficiency, efficiency change, technical progress and productivity growth in the national health systems of continental African countries","field_subtitle":"Kirigia JM, Zere E, Greene AW, Emrouznejad A: East African Social Science Research Review 23 (2): 19-40, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=131&id=36235","body":"In May 2006, the Ministers of Health of all African countries, at a special session of the African Union, undertook to institutionalise efficiency monitoring within their respective national health information management systems. The specific objectives of this study were: (i) to assess the technical efficiency of National Health Systems (NHSs) of African countries for measuring male and female life expectancies, and (ii) to assess changes in health productivity over time with a view to analysing changes in efficiency and changes in technology. The analysis was based on a five-year panel data (1999-2003) from all 53 countries. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) &#8722; a non-parametric linear programming approach &#8722; was employed to assess the technical efficiency. Malmquist Total Factor Productivity (MTFP) was used to analyse efficiency and productivity change over time among the 53 countries' national health systems. The data consisted of two outputs (male and female life expectancies) and two inputs (per capital total health expenditure and adult literacy). All the 53 countries' national health systems registered improvements in total factor productivity, attributable mainly to technical progress. Over half of the countries' national health systems had a pure efficiency index of less than one, signifying that those countries' NHSs pure efficiency contributed negatively to productivity change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The Macroeconomic Framework and the fight against HIV and AIDS in Africa","field_subtitle":"Policy Brief 3, The African Forum and Network on Debt and Development","field_url":"http://www.afrodad.org/downloads/HIV%20Policy%20Brief%202007.pdf","body":"In recent years, there have been increasing concerns about macroeconomic policy constraints interfering with the ability of many African governments to increase health sector spending and getting access to urgently needed funds for HIV/AIDS human resource development. The International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and, in particular, the IMF have been accused of undermining health care systems in many developing countries through conditionalities that favour budgetary ceilings as a panacea for macroeconomic stability. The economic policies sometimes affect overall spending, resulting in caps on the health sector, salary and recruitment of health workers and the acceptance of large amounts of financial assistance. AFRODAD has conducted a two country study aimed at looking at the links between macroeconomic frameworks provided by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and the social spending, and in particular, the fight against HIV/AIDS in Ghana and Malawi. This study reviewed the major channels through which fiscal and monetary policies impact on public expenditure frameworks and how this, in turn, affects the ability of the countries under study to design and implement public programmes concerning those living with and affected by HIV/AIDS and assessing the debt positions of the case studies to see how the HIV/AIDS has impacted on their financial portfolios and planning abilities or vice-versa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The social determinants of health: Developing an evidence base for political action","field_subtitle":"Kelly MP, Morgan A, Bonnefoy J, Butt J, Bergman V: Measurement and Evidence Knowledge Network, WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health","field_url":"http://www.who.int/social_determinants/resources/mekn_report_10oct07.pdf","body":"This report begins by identifying six problems which make developing the evidence base on the social determinants of health potentially difficult. In order to overcome these difficulties a number of principles are described which help move the measurement of the social determinants forward. The report proceeds by describing in detail what the evidence based approach entails including reference to equity proofing. The implications of methodological diversity are also explored. A framework for developing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating policy is outlined. At the centre of the framework is the policy-making process which is described beginning with a consideration of the challenges of policies relating to the social determinants.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The viability of local pharmaceutical production in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Losse K, Schneider E: Deutsche Gessellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit , 2007","field_url":"http://www2.gtz.de/dokumente/bib/07-0300.pdf","body":"This study analyses the economic potential of pharmaceutical production of Anti Retroviral Drugs (ARVs) in Tanzania. This includes an analysis of the pharmaceutical sector in the country and the potential to export ARVs to the region. The study shows that production of pharmaceutical products in Tanzania is on the rise and can become viable in the long term. Even though the overall drug market is rather small, public health related drugs have a significant, largely donor based, market.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Vacancy: Research Fellow \u2013 Innovation, Public Health and Intellectual Property","field_subtitle":"South Centre","field_url":"http://www.southcentre.org/WorkOpportunities/Vacany_Research_Fellow_Public_Health.pdf","body":"The Innovation and Access to Knowledge Programme (IAKP) of the South Centre seeks applicants for a 12 month Research Fellowship in Innovation, Public Health and Intellectual Property. Applicants should send their applications indicating their interest and highlighting their relevant qualifications and experience as well as detailed CVs, letter of interest, references, preferably by email, by 18h00 Central European Time (CET) on 14 December 2007 to: Ms. Caroline Ngome Eneme, Administrative Assistant, Innovation and Access to Knowledge Programme, South Centre, Chemin du Champ D\u2019Anier 17, P.O.B. 228, 1211 Genev","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"What do we need to do to keep health workers in Africa? ","field_subtitle":"Yoswa Dambisya, University of Limpopo","field_url":"","body":"\r\nRecognition of the health worker crisis in Africa has stimulated debate on what works to deploy and retain health workers in critical levels of African health systems. Most east and southern African (ESA) countries suffer a critical shortage of health workers with fewer than 2.5 skilled health workers per 1000 population, less than the level needed for the most necessary health interventions. The shortfall contributes to the persistence of high disease burdens and poorly developed health systems. These factors together with poor management systems and lack of appreciation of health workers drive further losses of health workers in a vicious cycle. With a Malawian woman having a probability of dying during childbirth that is 130 times greater than that of her American counterpart and faltering progress towards achieving millennium development goals in the region, acting on this health worker crisis has become a matter of global concern. While many policies and strategies  are being proposed, answering the question what makes health workers stay in African health systems provides one direction for action. \r\n\r\nMany factors responsible for health worker shortages, especially those related to global migration of health workers, are beyond the control of individual countries in ESA and call for wider international action. However there are important ways in which ESA countries can act to deploy and retain health workers in the health systems in the region, and there is learning to exchange from the combination of financial and non-financial incentives being used with varying degrees of success to retain available staff. \r\n\r\nAs an immediate measure many countries are using financial incentives like salary increases and allowances to send an early signal to attract or stem losses of health workers. To stabilize and sustain these, including in more inflationary environments,  a range of non-financial incentives are also being used, such as training and career path-related opportunities, housing, transport, childcare facilities, free food, employee support centres, improvements in working conditions, better facilities and workplace security and improvements in management and human resource information systems. \r\n\r\nRecognising the specific contexts affecting the approaches used in countries, there is scope for learning from the impact of measures being used in the region.\r\n\r\nThe Malawian health worker retention strategy, for example, is a combination of financial and non-financial incentives through a six-year, $272 million emergency human resources programme with budget support from the Government of Malawi, the Department for International Development (DFID) and The Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Blending these significant sources of budget support, the measures have (at least in the short term) managed to overcome the massive absolute shortfall across the system as a whole and to attract and retain health workers in Malawi. Some incentives address the factors that push workers out of the health system more directly. Swaziland responded for example to the high HIV and AIDS burden among the health workforce through the establishment of a wellness centre for health workers in collaboration with the Swaziland Nursing Association and the International Council of Nurses (ICN). Some countries have reduced the bureaucracy slowing the recruitment of health workers. Tanzania and Kenya have for example involved partners from the private sector to implement more easily administered emergency hiring plans for hard-to-staff areas.\r\n\r\nMany countries face issues of internal migration and use incentives to more effectively retain workers in remote or underserved areas. Zambia, has for example, been able to attract staff to rural areas using a comprehensive package of financial and non-financial incentives, originally for doctors but currently extended to other health workers. Uganda made government service more attractive than the private sector through salary enhancement and non-financial incentives like training opportunities, support for research and a Yellow Star Award programme that recognises facilities that have consistently excellent performance. South Africa has used financial incentives in the form of rural and scarce skills allowances for under-served areas, in addition to compulsory community service. \r\n\r\nImplementing these incentives and monitoring their impact calls for improved strategic management skills with greater flexibility to respond to rapidly changing conditions. A number of countries have set up autonomous health service boards and commissions to address health worker needs independently of the public service commissions to provide flexibility. This has had mixed results, depending on the resources and power that these boards have. The Zambian Health Service Board had a difficult beginning largely because most of the powers remained with the central public service commission. The Uganda Health Service Commission and the Health Board in Zimbabwe have been reported to function more effectively although their impact on health worker outcomes are not yet well assessed. Approaches that have evolved through consultation with all stakeholders, including the health workers and development partners, that are linked to strategic plans and funded from national budget or pooled funds, instead of vertical schemes, have tended to be more successful. Vertical schemes have suffered from lack of continuity and sustainability. \r\n\r\nWhile experience is growing in the region around incentives for retention, assessing and sharing what works and what doesn\u2019t work is constrained by lack of systematic documentation and limited monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. Success stories and success factors are thus not always well recognized locally or accessible to other countries. Weaknesses in monitoring and review systems also slow the response to unanticipated negative outcomes of schemes. For instance, in both Uganda and Tanzania, introduction of better pay for public sector health workers was accompanied by a net movement of health workers from faith-based facilities to government services, leaving many areas where only faith-based services were available to poor communities underserved.  Recognising this, national and regional organizations in EQUINET are documenting experience and impacts in selected countries in the region. \r\n\r\nThere are good reasons for investing in retention incentives and for more effectively managing this aspect of health systems.  Firstly, training health workers is costly and takes long; and without measures for retention there is no guarantee that the trainees will stay after completion of their studies. The loss of public sector training investments is an area of high cost of outmigration to the public health systems of Africa. Secondly, failure to retain staff has direct and knock-on costs, such loss of institutional memory, loss of morale and increased workload for the remaining workers and higher costs to the community to seek care at higher levels. In contrast retention strategies send an affirmative message to health workers that they are valued and this sends positive signals to attract more health workers. Further, measures for retention of health workers have positive implications for equity as they direct resources towards hard-to-staff facilities in rural, remote areas or those serving poor populations who have limited capacity to pay for private health care.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat  admin@equinetafrica.org. EQUINET Theme work on health worker retention is co-ordinated at Unversity of  Namibia and is being implemented in co-operation with the ECSA Health Community. For further information and publications on this issue please visit  www.equinetafrica.org.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO seeks affordable medicine for poor, without stifling drug companies","field_subtitle":"International Herald Tribune, 5 November 2007","field_url":"http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/05/news/UN-MED-UN-Drugs-and-Patents.php","body":"The UN health chief urged countries to come up with new ways to make medicine for HIV/AIDS and other diseases more affordable in the world's poorest countries, without stifling innovation among pharmaceutical companies. WHO's 193 member states are looking to forge a global strategy on the highly divisive issues of drug development, patenting and pricing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO's Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG)","field_subtitle":"Tayob RK: SUNS (6364), 13 November 2007","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/wto.info/twninfo110723.htm","body":"Member governments of the World Health Organisation (WHO) ended a week of intensive negotiations on a global strategy and plan of action to improve access to health care in developing countries, in particular, health research and development on diseases disproportionately affecting developing countries. The negotiations at the WHO Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights, chaired by Peter Oldham of Canada, were suspended on 10 November evening to resume again at a meeting tentatively set for 28 April to 3 May 2008. At the six-day talks, the negotiators are reported to have made some progress in a few areas, but with considerable and difficult negotiations ahead to agree and draw up \"a global strategy and plan of action\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"$42 billion needed to achieve universal access by 2010, says UNAIDS","field_subtitle":"Alcorn K: Aidsmap, 26 September 2007","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.co.uk/en/news/31817866-FDD8-4E99-BADE-1FA917A7781A.asp","body":"Up to $42 billion will need to be found by 2010 if universal access to HIV treatment, prevention and care is to be achieved in line with the 2005 commitment by G8 governments, UNAIDS said today. UNAIDS\u2019 estimate has been developed ahead of an international meeting to win increased donor commitments to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria which started on 26 September 2007 in Berlin. The Fund currently accounts for one-quarter of all international donor expenditure on AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A review of codes and protocols for the migration of health workers","field_subtitle":"C Pagett , A Padarath: Health Systems Trust, ECSA-HC, EQUINET Discussion paper 50","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Dis50HRpagett.pdf","body":"The Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) commissioned this review of current multi-lateral agreements, codes of practice, bi-lateral agreements, regional agreements, and strategies and position statements that govern the migration of health workers from ESA (East and Southern African) countries. The paper provides an overview of the current situation in ESA, and the strengths and weakness of current codes in application in the region. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"A scandal of invisibility: making everyone count by counting everyone","field_subtitle":"Setel PW, Macfarlane SB, Szreter S, Mikkelsen L, Prabhat P, Stout S, AbouZahr C: The Lancet 370(9598): 1569-1577, 29 October 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yqsbjk","body":"Most people in Africa and Asia are born and die without leaving a trace in any legal record or official statistic. Absence of reliable data for births, deaths, and causes of death are at the root of this scandal of invisibility, which renders most of the world's poor as unseen, uncountable, and hence uncounted. This situation has arisen because, in some countries, civil registration systems that log crucial statistics have stagnated over the past 30 years. Sound recording of vital statistics and cause of death data are public goods that enable progress towards Millennium Development Goals and other development objectives that need to be measured, not only modelled. Vital statistics are most effectively generated by comprehensive civil registration. Now is the time to make the long-term goal of comprehensive civil registration in developing countries the expectation rather than the exception. The international health community can assist by sharing information and methods to ensure both the quality of vital statistics and cause of death data, and the appropriate use of complementary and interim registration systems and sources of such data. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa faces cancer \u2018catastrophy\u2019","field_subtitle":"Thom A: Health-e, 26 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20031793","body":"Experts warn of impending crisis in health systems geared towards epidemics not chronic diseases such as cancer. Unless urgent attention is paid to decreasing the burden of cancer, there are going to be catastrophic results especially in Africa and parts of Asia, experts warned at a gathering in Cape Town in October 2007. Thirty countries in Africa and Asia had no access whatsoever to radiotherapy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa staffs the West","field_subtitle":"Macfarlane D: Mail and Guardian, 28 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.mg.co.za/printPage.aspx?area=/insight/insight__africa/&articleId=323224","body":"Africa is losing its brightest to the First World. Less than 10% of doctors trained in Zambia since its independence in 1964 are still in the country: the other 90% have migrated, mainly to Europe and the United States. No less staggeringly, there are more Sierra Leonean-trained doctors in Chicago alone than in the country itself. These medical examples are merely one facet of the massive loss of skills Africa as a whole continues to suffer. In effect, one-third of the continent\u2019s university resources are serving the manpower needs of Western nations and not those of Africa itself. United Nations estimates suggest that Africa is spending a staggering $4-billion a year training professionals for developed countries. Why this is happening, and what African universities need to do to counter the problem, came under the spotlight in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, which hosted the Association of African Universities\u2019 (AAU) two-yearly conference of rectors, vice-chancellors and university presidents.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Africans call for greater voice in IMF","field_subtitle":"South North Development Network, 24 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/imf/2006/imfreform.pdf","body":"African countries have called for greater voice in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), including not only an increase in formal voting power and representation at its decision-making bodies but also in the diversity of its staff members, to better represent their interests at the institution. In statements during the IMF\u2019s Annual Meetings, African finance ministers and central bank governors have reiterated their calls for at least a tripling of basic votes as an outcome of the current quota and voice reform process to protect the voting shares of low-income countries. They also called for a meaningful and expeditious increase in their representation at the Executive Board, including an amendment to the Fund\u2019s Articles of Agreement to enable Executive Directors representing large constituencies to appoint more than one Alternate Executive Directors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Better breast cancer services urgently needed","field_subtitle":"Health-e, 31 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20031797","body":"At the close of breast cancer awareness month, cancer organisations say proper testing and treatment services for breat cancer are completely inadequate. Breast cancer organisations are concerned that early detection and treatment services are severely lacking in South Africa where over 3 000 women die from this disease annually. The Breast Cancer Advocacy Coalition have sent a memorandum to the South African health department asking it to improve services. The coalition calls for a comprehensive breast health service that is equitable, available, affordable and accessible to all women in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: Geneva Forum towards global access to health, 25-28 May 2008","field_subtitle":"Geneva Health Forum, 2007","field_url":"http://genevahealthforum.hug-ge.ch/abstract_themes.html","body":"Participants are encouraged to submit abstracts that present concrete and innovative projects, case studies, and direct field/personal experiences relevant to the improvement of global access to health, and more specifically the 2008 theme: \u2018Strengthening of Health Systems and the Global Health Workforce\u2019. Preference will be given to abstracts that promote systemic approaches to the problems posed. Abstracts must fall under one of the following categories: Health Services Delivery   Equity and Social Issues   Patient- and People-Centred Initiatives  The Global Health Workforce and Migration  Health Research and Policy  Health Financing  The Role of Universities, Hospitals, and Training Institutions  Health Technologies, Health Information, and Biotech Medicines, Vaccines, and Diagnosis. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 15 January 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for comments: Human Rights Guidelines for pharmaceutical companies in relation to access to medicines","field_subtitle":"Hunt P and Health Action International (HAI), 19 September 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2vgmgz","body":"This analysis has been developed keeping in mind the responsibilities of States, many of its elements are also instructive in relation to the responsibilities of non-State actors, including pharmaceutical companies. The draft Guidelines are grouped into overlapping categories; at the beginning of each group, there is a brief italicised commentary signalling some of the elements of the right-to health analysis that are especially relevant to that category. Importantly, the present Guidelines remain a draft. Comments on this draft are invited and should be sent as soon as possible - and before 31 December 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers on Human Resources for Health","field_subtitle":"Global Health Workforce Alliance, 30 October 2007 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/39pfmv","body":"A call is now made for submission of abstracts for presentation during the First Global Forum on Human Resources for Health. The abstracts should present experiences, lessons learnt and/or other intriguing new information that contribute to the achievement of the forum objectives and should be developed under any of the following Forum Themes: Leadership Education, Training and Skill mix, Migration and Retention, Financing, Management, Partnerships and linking up for action. Abstracts should be submitted to the Forum Organizing Committee (FOC)via email by 31 December 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: Intellectual property and access to medicines","field_subtitle":"Sur Journal, 2007","field_url":"http://www.surjournal.org/eng/call6.php","body":"Sur Journal welcomes contributions to be published in a Special Issue of Sur \u2013 International Journal on Human Rights on Intellectual Property and access to medicine. The Journal aims at disseminating a Global Southern perspective on human rights and to facilitate exchange among professors and activists from the Global South without disregarding contributions from other regions. For the next issue, they will prioritize articles which, preferentially but not exclusively, address the following topics related to the debate of intellectual property and access to medicine: Alternative models to stimulate innovation; The impact of Intellectual Property on medicines for neglected diseases; Implications of the adoption of compulsory licenses; Best practices on guaranteeing access to medicine; The Judiciary role in the promotion of access to medicine. Closing date for submissions is 3 December 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS: Third regional training Workshop on Participatory methods for Strengthening community focused, primary health care orientated responses to prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"TARSC, Ifakara, REACH Trust, EQUINET  and Global Network of People living with HIV and AIDS","field_url":"","body":"Call Closes On December 7, 2007!\r\nThis call invites applicants to participate and share experiences in a Regional Training Workshop for east and southern African countries on Participatory Methods for research and training for a people centred health system being held on February 27 to March 1st 2008.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32647","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Child Nutritional Status And Household Patterns In South Africa","field_subtitle":"Bomela N: African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development 7(5): 1684-5374, 2007","field_url":"http://www.bioline.org.br/abstract?id=nd07040&lang=en","body":"The influence of person-related and household related characteristics on the nutritional status of children were assessed, taking into account variables such as, gender of household head, de jure and de facto household head, relationship of child to household head, size of household, type of toilet facility and type of dwelling. Chronic malnutrition and underweight were significantly pronounced in children from households with de jure household heads.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Closing the gap: from implementing to publishing research in Africa","field_subtitle":"Rebecca Pointer, Rene Loewenson, Training and Research Support Centre ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThis past week the Global Forum for Health Research (GFHR) has held its 11th annual Forum in Beijing, attracting hundreds of people from across the world. The GFHR advocates for greater equity in health research, noting that while developing countries that carry the heaviest health burdens; they command only a fraction of global health research funding. Under the theme of \u201cEquitable Access: Research challenges for health in developing countries\u201d, Forum 11  heard that global commitments to improving health will not be reached without significantly greater investments in the health sectors of low income countries. According to Stephen Matlin, the forum's executive director, globally, about $125 billion a year is being spent on health research, a four-fold increase over the past 20 years, \"In spite of that increase, a relatively small fraction of the total is devoted to health problems of the poor and to people living in developing countries\".\r\n\r\nNew resources for health are being made available, drawing attention to who influences their use? To what extent will communities in low income countries influence new investments, particularly towards their health needs? How far will new spending be influenced by knowledge generated from within these countries?  In a world of competing approaches, how accessible and prominent is local knowledge within policy forums?  \r\n\r\nThere is cause for concern when evidence suggests that the problem of inequitable research funding is compounded by similar inequalities in the publication of research. A recent review of research publication by Smith Esseh (2007) of the \u201cStrengthening African Research Culture and Capacities Project\u201d found that dissemination of developing country research findings is declining. \u2018Africa is the second-largest continent, and has over 900 million people, and therefore should be a world leader in global scholarship. In 1960-1979, scholarly publishing began to rise in Africa, a result of gains in social and political independence. However, in 1980-1985 scholarly publishing plateaued. From 1986 to now, scholarly publishing in Africa has been declining steadily.\u2019  (http://scholarlypublishing.blogspot.com/2007/07/strengthening-african-research-culture.html;   http://ocs.sfu.ca/pkp2007/viewabstract.php?id=83). The inequalities are not only north-south: they also exist within Africa. Scholarly publishing in Africa was found to be concentrated in only seven countries, accounting for 75% of scholarly publishing in the continent, while the other forty-five countries account for only 25%.\r\n\r\nFor east and southern Africa, it would be important to follow up whether such a finding also holds for scholarly publishing in health. Publication is vital for research findings to reach wider audiences, for peer review and to build an accessible body of local and regional knowledge to inform policy. The links are not always direct, but it is clear that unpublished work remains hidden from policy processes. \r\n\r\nIn his opening address to the 22nd Annual Joint Scienti&#64257;c Conference of the National Institute for Medical Research in Arusha, Tanzania on 7 March 2007, Tanzanian Minister for Health and Social Welfare David Mwakyusa described the problem: \u2018Researchers must know that if they cannot efficiently and effectively deliver to the stakeholders their research &#64257;ndings, then they have failed to accomplish their mandate. In fact, un-disseminated research &#64257;ndings do not only become useless but also make for multiple losses to the nation; a waste of precious time, a loss of funds invested in the work and human power, a loss of productivity and a loss to people\u2019s welfare.\u2019\r\n\r\nEnsuring effective dissemination of research and knowledge is thus even more important in Africa, where research resources are inadequate relative to health burdens. Yet the major global progress made in access to information over the last decade remains elusive to many health professionals, especially those working in rural district and primary health care services, who still struggle to access or disseminate information. According to Couper and Worley (2007), \u2018The unequal distribution of health care between developed and developing worlds is matched by a similar unequal distribution of health information [and yet] the health problems of Africa are most likely to be solved by people in and from Africa, who know the right questions to ask to get practical solutions and can then access the necessary information.\u2019  (http://www.rrh.org.au/articles/subviewafro.asp?ArticleID=644)\r\n\r\nAfrican scholarly works are poorly distributed, barely marketed, and hardly accessed. Poor access to information has been found to be one factor driving skilled health workers out of service in remote areas. Researchers struggle to access scientific literature. The circulation numbers for African journals are often low. Smith Esseh (2007) reports for example that African universities have very low budgets for journal access and publication, ranging from a budget of 50 cents per student (Ghana) to $2.66 per student (Cape Coast) to the high of $9.00 per student (Dar es Salaam).  Lack of access to journals has a two way effect, limiting access to international research in Africa and limiting dissemination of work from Africa. African researchers have raised in EQUINET forums the many other challenges they face in getting their research published, including language barriers, lack of confidence and mentorship in publication, lack of exposure to journals and writing skills. Recognising this, EQUINET has increased its investment in support for publication of research produced in the network and capacity building of writing skills within and across its research networks. A recent EQUINET Writing Workshop for Scientific Publication in Lilongwe, Malawi in October 2007 highlighted the importance of researchers identifying dissemination goals at an early stage of research, and of strengthening capabilities for dissemination within all research programmes. \r\n\r\nHowever the barriers we describe go beyond the capabilities of individual researchers. They also arise in the opportunities available for accessing and disseminating information. Global developments do give some cause for optimism. The massive increase in internet use in Africa, by 625% in the past seven years, suggests new options for accessing and disseminating research. Online journal publishing and open access publication has grown in health, offering new channels for publication and new opportunities for African researchers to obtain information. The growing list of African health journals found at African Journals Online (http://www.ajol.info/) (92 under health and medicine) suggest that the old barriers posed by print production will be less of a limiting factor than they have been in the past.  \r\n\r\nThis raises new questions of how to avoid differentials in access to internet becoming a basis for social differentials in influence over health policies. At the same time as the GHRF researchers were meeting in Beijing, a summit of African politicians, international lenders and leaders of the IT industry met in Kigali, Rwanda on October 31st 2007. They noted that fewer than 4% of Africans currently have an Internet connection. A goal was set at this meeting for interconnection with broadband lines of the capitals of all African states by 2012. As with other resources for health, equitable access to this vital information link across the health research community in Africa, including those in low income rural settings, will depend on public policy and investment to make it more widely accessible within and beyond these capital cities, and specific measures to stimulate its uptake and effective use amongst those currently marginalised. \r\n\r\nTARSC is the secretariat for EQUINET. Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing or any follow up queries on EQUINET activities to support writing skills to admin@equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Controlling extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis","field_subtitle":"Porco TC, Getz WM: The Lancet ; 370, (9597), 1464-1465, 27 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673607616146/fulltext","body":"Nosocomial transmission of XDR strains seems to have contributed to a major outbreak in HIV-positive individuals in Tugela Ferry, South Africa. To better understand how to control XDR tuberculosis, this issue of the Lancet presents a report of a new mathematical model, developed by Sanjay Basu and colleagues, of the transmission of tuberculosis in this region. Their model builds on previous tuberculosis models, and was corroborated by independently collected epidemiological data for the area. Such mathematical models of tuberculosis can be useful instruments for policymaking because they incorporate a representation of the natural history and transmission of infection and disease, and are the only way to rigorously explore the effects of policies before they are field-tested.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Count down to the conclusion of Economic Partnership Agreements negotiations: Case for SADC and ESA","field_subtitle":"Trade and Development Studies Centre, 9 October 2007","field_url":"","body":"The representatives of governments within the region, regional trade related organisations, ESA and SADC, parliamentarians, academia, the business sector, SMEs, labour met in Harare on 3-4 October 2007 to assess the readiness of ESA and SADC EPA configurations to sign an EPA; to take stock of the outstanding issues in the negotiations to date and; and to discuss measures to put in place in the event that the EPA is not  signed by December 2007. On the basis of close analysis of the sate of EPA negotiations so far, new proposals and the issues arising, the hurdles met thus far, the challenges that lay ahead and the incisive presentations during the two days, further discussions were held.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32628","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Credit squeeze and criticisms deepen crisis: IMF Fails to make progress on Reforms","field_subtitle":"Giles C, Callan E: Financial Times (UK), 21 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e2d8b350-7f8d-11dc-acce-0000779fd2ac.html","body":"Rodrigo Rato bowed out as managing director of the International Monetary Fund with effusive plaudits from world financial leaders in public but sharp criticism of his role and the Fund's relevance from the same people when talking outside official news conferences. The emerging consensus among rich and poor countries alike was that the reform process of the IMF had moved backward. Worse, they added that acrimony over the Fund's role in assessing the economic policies of its members, their effects on other countries threatened to create just the disorder in the global economy it is intended to prevent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Doubt over EU development credentials","field_subtitle":"Financial Times (Europe), 17 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/91e054e8-7d13-11dc-aee2-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1","body":"This letter to the editor in the Financial Times expresses concern over Economic Partnership Agreements being negotiated between the EU and its African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) trading partners. The group of writers claim that the Commission is incorrect to claim that it has no legal choice but to raise tariffs in January 2008, and further recommend that instead of making threats, the Commission should focus on creating accords with the ACP that would genuinely support development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET book launch: Reclaiming the Resources for Health","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Secretariat, TARSC","field_url":"","body":"\r\n*Why is life expectancy in some countries in our region 40 years longer then others?\r\n*How well are we meeting commitments made by leaders to spend 15% of government budgets on health?\r\n*What can we do about the loss of health workers due to migration?\r\n\r\nThese issues are discussed in the new book published by EQUINET \u201cReclaiming The Resources For Health: A Regional analysis of equity in health in east and southern Africa\u201d   launched in the region in Lilongwe Malawi on October 23rd 2007,  at an event  locally hosted by  REACH Trust Malawi and Malawi Health Equity Network, two EQUINET steering committee member institutions. The book was officially launched by the Principal Secretary for Health, Mr Chris Kang\u2019ombe, with the Chair of the Parliamentary Committee for Health, Honourable Austin Mtukula and speakers from the region, followed by dance and drama presenting health challenges in communities. Hastings Banda from REACH Trust chaired the session, attended by people working in health in Malawi and delegates from seven of the 16 countries in east and southern Africa. \r\n\r\nAfter a welcome by Bertha Simwaka, Acting Executive Director of REACH Trust, and an EQUINET presentation by Rene Loewenson outlining the scope of the book, three speakers from the region explored further the issues raised.  \r\n\r\nMoses Mulumba, a lawyer with the Law Faculty, Makerere University Uganda outlined how rights to health are often not respected in economic and trade policies. This has led to explicit efforts in Uganda to influence negotiations on trade agreements like the Economic Partnership Agreements, sensitise trade officials, and set human rights guidelines for areas of trade, such as the practices of pharmaceutical companies in relation to access to medicines and to advocate for assessment of the health impact of agreements before signing them.\r\n\r\nBona Chitah from the University of Zambia described Zambia\u2019s attempts to achieve a \u201cdream and up our standards for the good of the people\u201d. Recognising that Zambians have a right to better health, he described the efforts to redistribute health resources, improve access to health services and ensure a holistic, horizontally integrated health system. Recent reviews of cost sharing policies showed how they raised barriers and costs for poor people, leading Zambia to abolish user fees and seek increased financial resources from international sources for health. He pointed to a number of challenges still to address in achieving fair financing for health: \u201cWe are awakening to the reality that we are in it for the long haul ... to build the bridge between the current and the dream ...\u201d\r\n\r\nKathne Hofnie-Hoebes from University of Namibia highlighted the necessity of tapping the potential for health action that exists within communities. Drawing on experiences of a marginalised community in an informal settlement in Namibia, she described how using participatory reflection and action approaches builds respect between communities and health workers and builds the confidence of communities to act. \r\n\r\nExperiences were also presented from Malawi. Hon Austin Mtuluka, MP and Chair of the Malawi Parliamentary Committee on Health, described the advocacy by parliamentarians for health equity in budget and legal processes. This has yielded gains: Malawi has made progress towards meeting the Abuja target in 2007, with a rise from 8% of the total budget to 14% of the total for 2007/8.  Parliamentarians were also involved in drafting a new law on HIV and AIDS, drawing experience from the region. He commented that the exchange of information between parliamentarians across the region has been useful in strengthening parliamentary roles and capacities for tackling health inequity. \r\n\r\nFinally the Permanent Secretary for Health from the Ministry of Health Malawi, Mr Chris Kang\u2019ombe officially launched the book. He recognised the significant challenges to achieving global Millennium Development Goals in Africa, and the importance of networking researchers, policy makers, officials and civil society members towards promoting health equity and regional co-operation. He observed, \u201cThe perspective that guides the report being launched today is based on shared values of equity and social justice in health and a spirit of self determination.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe pointed to the book as a relevant source of evidence and analysis, and made links between the themes in the book and the focus areas for development set out in the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy, whose overall theme is \u2018From poverty to prosperity. The book draws from regional experience: Strategies applied in Malawi, such as the provision of the essential heaIth package are discussed, together with insights and options for improving equity in access to these services. In his words, \r\n\u201cI would like to encourage and urge each and every one of us working in the health sector and beyond to make sure that we have a copy of this report\u2026 Let us participate in implementing the activities and recommendations set out in this report to reduce the health inequalities which currently exist in Malawi and in the east and southern Africa region.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe tempo after the launch was raised with drumming, singing and dancing marking the entry of the Paradiso Home Based Care dance group. The group\u2019s songs reinforced messages around advancing people\u2019s health, with many joining in dancing. The Tipya Drama Group, a community group in Lilongwe, performed a play about poor communities expectations of their community care, and the need for communities, health workers and planners to have dialogue in addressing these needs. The drama group interpreted messages from the book in their own context, with some local twists! \r\n\r\nThe launch in Malawi was the regional \u2018launchpad\u2019 to disseminating the evidence and experience on health equity from and about the region contained in the book. The health equity challenges in Malawi, as in other countries in the region, are significant. The launch sent clear signals, however, of the affirmative intention, options and social resources to act on these challenges from within the region. \r\n\r\nInformation on where to obtain a copy of \u201cReclaiming the resources for Health\u201d can be found on the EQUINET website (www.equinetafrica.org) or send queries to admin@equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) through technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC). Contact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles.\r\n\r\nPlease contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 81: Closing the gap: from implementing to publishing research in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in health and healthcare in Malawi: Analysis of trends","field_subtitle":"Zere E, Moeti M, Kirigia J, et al: BMC Public Health; 7,78, 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/78","body":"Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals is likely to be compromised if inequities in health/ healthcare are not properly addressed. This study attempts to assess trends in inequities in selected indicators of health status and health service utilisation in Malawi using data from the Demographic and Health Surveys of 1992, 2000 and 2004. The widening trend in inequities, in particular healthcare utilisation for proven cost-effective interventions is likely to jeopardize the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and other national and regional targets. To counteract the inequities it is recommended that coverage in poor communities be increased through appropriate targeting mechanisms and effective service delivery strategies. There is also a need for studies to identify which service delivery mechanisms are effective in the Malawian context.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"European parliament ratifies TRIPS Amendment","field_subtitle":"BRIDGES 11 (36), 24 October  2007","field_url":"http://www.ictsd.com/weekly/07-10-24/story2.htm","body":"The European Parliament on 24 October endorsed an amendment to WTO intellectual property rules aimed at easing poor countries' access to essential medicines, after the EU's 27 member governments promised to help developing nations manufacture and import affordable drugs. Legislators from across the political spectrum had thrice postponed voting on the amendment, pending additional pledges of monetary and political support for developing country public health programmes from EU member states and the European Commission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Fighting HIV and AIDS with the law","field_subtitle":"Priti Patel, Southern Africa Litigation Centre","field_url":"","body":"\r\nMark your calendars.  On December 1, the globe will celebrate World AIDS Day.  The theme, as it has been for the last two years, is \"Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise.\"  This is to serve as a reminder to the world community of its promise to among other things provide universal access to treatment, reduce prevalence rates, and implement effective prevention programs. As the prevalence rate of those living with HIV continues to climb in most countries in southern Africa, it is clear that we are far from fulfilling this promise by 2010, the campaign\u2019s target year.\r\n\r\nAlmost a third of those living with HIV live in southern Africa. Despite the infusion of funding and the attention of national governments and international bodies, the prevalence rate in the region (surprisingly, apart from Zimbabwe) is continuing to rise. In Botswana, Swaziland, and Lesotho over one-fifth of the population is infected with HIV. The high prevalence rate fails to be matched by adequate access to treatment.  Access to anti-retroviral therapy in sub-Saharan Africa has increased in the last year but remains at a miserable 28%.\r\n\r\nAs anyone living in southern Africa knows, the tentacles of the virus reach across all sectors of the community, but they tend to prey more on those who are the most removed from access to and the protection of the law\u2014among them, women, children, prisoners, and those living in poverty.  \r\n\r\nDespite this or maybe because of this, the law remains an underused weapon in the fight against the effects of HIV and AIDS in the southern Africa region. Apart from South Africa\u2014where the galvanizing work of the Treatment Action Campaign, AIDS Law Project, and others supported by a robust Constitution and judiciary has resulted in significant legal successes\u2014there have been few cases brought on behalf of those infected and affected by HIVand AIDS in the region. In Namibia, the AIDS Law Unit of the Legal Assistance Centre successfully brought a case challenging the Namibian military\u2019s denial of employment to an HIV positive individual who was otherwise physically fit.\r\n\r\nIn Botswana, the courts have issued decisions on a handful of cases involving the privacy rights of HIV positive individuals. In the rest of the countries in the region, courts have yet to issue a single significant legal decision on an HIVand AIDS related case. \r\nIn recognition of the underutilization of the law and litigation in southern Africa, the Southern Africa Litigation Centre established a new HIV and AIDS programme focusing on providing resources, support, and training to lawyers and advocates in the region to bring cases supporting the rights of those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS in national and regional courts. The programme does not intend to duplicate the groundbreaking work already being done by local, national, and regional organizations on these issues, but will aim to bolster the work of local and other regional actors to increase the use of the law and litigation to advocate for the rights of those living with HIV, and those rendered vulnerable by the pandemic.\r\n \r\nAccessing the law through litigation can be a powerful tool for changing policy and social attitudes. Litigation can also provide a public platform on which the voices of those generally silenced can not only be heard but magnified. In South Africa, the role of lawyers and litigation in exposing the hypocrisy of the apartheid state and ultimately contributing to its demise is undeniable. More recently, a Constitutional Court decision, Minister of Health and others v Treatment Action Campaign and others, requiring the South African government to make nevirapine, a drug known to significantly reduce the likelihood of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, available in all public hospitals and clinics resulted in the drastic reduction of mother-to-child transmission.\r\n\r\nThis is not to say that the law and courts alone can stem the devastating impact of HIV and AIDS, or that litigation is the appropriate strategy all of the time. The use of the law must be pursued in tandem with other advocacy tools, including public education and campaigning.  In addition, legal victories have little meaning without the close involvement of local community-based organizations, and networks of people living with HIV, who can ensure the translation of a successful court decision into concrete change in the reality of people\u2019s lives. \r\n\r\nI am not na\u00efve. I do not think the use of courts and the law will miraculously change the progression of the pandemic.  But if we are to have any chance of turning the tide we need to use all of the tools available to us in fighting this epidemic.\r\n \r\nPriti Patel is Project Lawyer for the Southern Africa Litigation Centre\u2019s (SALC) new HIV/Aids Litigation Programme; she can be contacted via the SALC website at http://www.southernafricalitigationcentre.org/salc/. Visit the EQUINET website www.equinetafrica.org for further information on rights as a tool for equity and health systems responses to HIV and AIDS. Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat admin@equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Food Insufficiency Is Associated with High-Risk Sexual Behavior among Women in Botswana and Swaziland","field_subtitle":"Weiser SD, Leiter K, Bangsberg DR, Butler LM, Percy-de KorteF, Hlanze Z, Phaladze N, Lacopino V, Heisler M: PLoS Medicine","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040260&ct=1","body":"This paper reports the association between food insufficiency (not having enough food to eat over the previous 12 months) and inconsistent condom use, sex exchange, and other measures of risky sex in a cross-sectional population-based study of 1,255 adults in Botswana and 796 adults in Swaziland using a stratified two-stage probability design. Associations were examined using multivariable logistic regression analyses, clustered by country and stratified by gender. Food insufficiency was reported by 32% of women and 22% of men over the previous 12 months. Among 1,050 women in both countries, after controlling for respondent characteristics including income and education, HIV knowledge, and alcohol use, food insufficiency was signficcantly associated with inconsistent condom use with a nonprimary partner, sex exchange, intergenerational sexual relationships and lack of control in sexual relationships. Associations between food insufficiency and risky sex were much attenuated among men.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender And HIV/AIDS  In A Ugandan Context :A Participatory Action Inquiry","field_subtitle":"Munyonyo R: Health Policy and Development 5(1): 65-70, 2007","field_url":"http://www.bioline.org.br/abstract?id=hp07008&lang=en","body":"The article argues that people and communities perceive and deal with HIV and AIDS as only one of the many problems and tensions they experience as affecting their well being. It is also noted that the discussion of the issues related to HIV and AIDS and sexuality is blocked by deeply held views that men have about women and sex. This is the reason why the issue of gender is central when discussing with people to determine the health they want and how to manage AIDS. The study team brought together rural youth of 13-25 years and men and women of 26-45 years and used participatory action research methodologies to reflect and exchange information, knowledge and skills on the issues related to gender and HIV/AIDS. This empowering knowledge was useful for launching advocacy for attitude and behaviour change toward risky sexual behaviours and for supporting communities in developing visions of healthy communities the people truly cherish. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender inequity in health: why it exists and how we can change it","field_subtitle":"Sen G, Ostlin P, George A: Women and Gender Equity Knowledge Network, 2007","field_url":"http://www.siyanda.org/docs/WGEKN_sen_ostlin_george.pdf","body":"Gender differentials in health related risks and outcomes are partly determined by biological sex differences. Yet they are also the result of how societies socialise women and men into gender roles. The paper draws together evidence that identifies and explains what gender inequality and inequity mean in terms of differential exposures and vulnerabilities for women versus men, and also how health care systems and health research reproduce these inequalities and inequities instead of resolving them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global public-private health partnerships: tackling seven poor habits ","field_subtitle":"Buse K and Harmer AM: ODI Briefing Paper 15, 13 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/briefing/bp_jan07_global_health.pdf","body":"Global public-private health partnerships, as a means of global health\r\ngovernance, have become increasingly common. Initially, much was\r\nexpected of them but enthusiasm has now waned, with concern raised over\r\ncosts and unanticipated consequences. What bad habits impact negatively\r\non their performance and what actions could make them more effective?\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Governments (still) pondering how to make drugs accessible","field_subtitle":"Cronin D: Inter Press Service News Agency, 30 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=39850","body":"The struggle to make medicines affordable to the world\u2019s poor, especially in Africa, is raging on at the highest levels. In the last week of October the European Commission took a landmark decision on generic drugs and next week a high-level intergovernmental meeting will look at ways to prevent patents from blocking access to drugs. In an agreement announced on October 23, European Union (EU) governments were told that they are free to make available generic versions of patented drugs for export to poor countries which lack their own manufacturing facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Governments fail to invest adequately in basic health systems, declares WHO Director General ","field_subtitle":"Global Forum for Health Research, 29 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/filesupld/press%20releases/Forum11/F11PressRelease1.pdf","body":"The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr Margaret Chan,\r\non Monday pointed to the failure of governments around the world to invest adequately in basic health systems that make a life-and-death difference to millions of people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"GROUP PREMIUMS IN MICRO HEALTH INSURANCE EXPERIENCES FROM TANZANIA","field_subtitle":"Kiwara AD: East African Journal of Public Health 4(1): 28-32, 2007","field_url":"http://www.bioline.org.br/abstract?id=lp07006&lang=en","body":"A comparative approach was adopted to study four groups of informal economy operators (cobblers, welders, carpenters, small scale market retailers) focusing on a method of prepayment which could help them access health care services. Two groups with a total of 714 operators were organized to prepay for health care services through a group premium, while the other two groups with a total of 702 operators prepaid through individual premium, each operator paying from his or her sources. Data collected showed that the four groups were similar in many respects. These similarities included levels of education, housing, and social services such as water supplies, health problems, family size and health seeking behaviour. At the end of a period of three years 76% of the members from the two groups who chose group premium payment were still members of the prepayment health scheme and were receiving health care. For the two groups which opted for individual premium payment only 15% of their members were still receiving health care services at the end of three years. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Half of all new HIV infections could be averted if proven prevention efforts expanded ","field_subtitle":"Carter M: Aidsmap, 29 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.co.uk/en/news/C2E16D36-CECE-4B70-8E03-5FC04D2B146D.asp","body":"A new report suggests that 50% of projected HIV infections by 2015 could be prevented if governments and donors increase their HIV expenditure to UNAIDS target levels and implement prevention programmes that have been proven to work. The Global HIV Prevention Working Group\u2019s report, Bringing HIV Prevention to Scale: An Urgent Global Priority, shows that prevention efforts are not keeping pace with expanding access to antiretroviral therapy. For every person who started effective anti-HIV treatment in 2006, six become newly infected with the virus. It is estimated that there will be 60 million new HIV infections by 2015, but the report suggests that 30 million of these could be avoided if scientifically proven methods of HIV prevention were implemented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV and development challenges for Africa","field_subtitle":"Hankins C: UNAIDS, 17 September 2007","field_url":"http://data.unaids.org/pub/Presentation/2007/warwick_hankins_web_en.pdf","body":"This presentation was made at the 10th Anniversary of the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation Centre at Warwick University; specifically in the session called Challenges of globalisation, regional integration and development of Africa. The presentation systematically dissected the following four key issues surrounding HIV and development challenges for Africa: the absence of one African epidemic (emphasis for each country/region to know epidemic and act on it); upstream effects (adressing structural drivers in Africa, poverty versus income equality, which might be more powerful?); downstream impact (specifically long wave impacts on poverty, GDP, human capital, social capital); and, finally, responding to the interaction between HIV and poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights and other provisions in the revised International Health Regulations (2005)","field_subtitle":"Public Health 121(11): 840-845, November 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3atksf","body":"In May 2005, the World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted the revised International Health Regulations (2005), which have now entered into force for WHO Member States across the globe. These Regulations contain a broad range of binding provisions to address the risks of international disease spread in international travel, trade and transportation. Important elements include multiple provisions, whether denominated in terms of human rights or other terminology, that are protective of interests of individuals who may be subject to public health measures in this international context. With the vast (and increasing) numbers of persons undertaking international voyages and the global coverage of these revised Regulations, they are an important development in this area. This article describes a number of these key provisions and some of the related issues they present.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving Child Survival Through Environmental and Nutritional Interventions","field_subtitle":"Gakidou E, Oza SB, Fuertes CV, Li AY, Lee DK, Sousa A, Hogan MC, van der Hoorn S, Ezzati M: Journal of the American Medical Association 298(16), 24/31 October 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3yu5s6","body":"This paper estimates the reduction in child mortality as a result of interventions related to the environmental and nutritional MDGs (improving child nutrition and providing clean water, sanitation, and fuels) and to estimate how the magnitude and distribution of the effects of interventions vary based on the economic status of intervention recipients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Job posting: Program Manager - ACACIA and Connectivity Africa Initiative","field_subtitle":"International Development Research Centre (IDRC)","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/careers/ev-116465-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html","body":"The Acacia and Connectivity Africa Initiative goals are to empower sub Saharan communities with the capacity to apply information and communication technologies to their own social and economic development and to improve access to information and communication technologies in Africa, particularly in the sectors of education, health, agriculture and community development. This initiative is designed as an integrated program of research and development with demonstration projects that address issues of applications, technology, infrastructure, policy, and governance. Based at the IDRC head office in Ottawa, Canada, the Program Manager directs the overall development and implementation of its strategic and operating plans and establishes contact with national and international agencies and governments to: develop new partnerships and strengthen existing ones; strengthen and increase fundraising and donor support; and to work towards the achievement of the CCA\u2019s programmatic objectives. The closing date for applications is 18 November 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya Probes Official Link Into Bid To Strip Government Of compulsory licensing Powers","field_subtitle":"Garwood P: Intellectual Property Watch, 28 September 2007","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=759&res=1024_ff&print=0","body":"Kenyan authorities are probing who in government may have been \u201ccompromised\u201d by the pharmaceutical industry to try strip the African country of its right to produce medicines without patent-holder approval. There have been repeated efforts to delete parts of Section 80 of the Industrial Property Act, which was enacted in 2001. It enabled the government to issue compulsory licenses to local manufacturers to produce generic versions of pharmaceuticals, such as antiretrovirals for HIV/AIDS patients, without seeking approval from the drug company that holds the patent rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya: Legal obstacles emerge over Free Trade deal with Europe","field_subtitle":"Muriuki A, Odhiambo A:  Buisness Daily Africa, 24 October 2007","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200710241090.html","body":"A landmark case has entered the Kenyan corridors of justice as a group of farmers and a human rights watchdog move to challenge the State over ongoing negotiations for a new trade agreement with Europe. Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), a non-governmental organisation, and small-scale growers contend that though the process of the negotiations for a new Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between Kenya and its key trade partner is of national concern, the State has failed to exhaustively involve all those who stand to be adversely affected by the pact.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of  'Sound Choices: Enhancing Capacity for Evidence-Informed Health Policy'","field_subtitle":"Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, 30 Ocotber 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/alliance-hpsr/en/","body":"While health systems constraints are increasingly recognized as primary barriers to the scaling up of health services and achievement of health goals, knowledge regarding how to improve health systems is often weak and frequently not well-utilized in policy-making. 'Sound Choices' seeks to better understand and address the capacity constraints in the field of health policy and systems research. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Law as a tool in promoting and protecting public health: Always in our best interests?","field_subtitle":"Martin R: Public Health 121(11): 846:853, November 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/24mp5f","body":"The organized efforts of the state to protect its citizens from threats to the public's health presuppose some commonality of health beliefs and behaviors, and legislation underpinning public health interventions is premised on the beliefs and behaviors of the population majority. To what extent, in a public health emergency, can members of a cultural or religious minority use human rights arguments to justify exemption from public health measures on the basis of offensiveness of those measures to cultural or religious beliefs? Any such challenge cannot rely on arguments based on autonomy of the individual. The person objecting to the public health measure will need to establish that the burden of compliance will be significantly greater because of offensiveness of that measure to belief, so as to impose on the individual a burden disproportionate to the risk to health of the public as a whole.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Lost to follow up \u2013 Contributing factors and challenges in South African patients on antiretroviral therapy","field_subtitle":"Maskew M, MacPhail P, Menezez C, D Rubel D: South African Medical Journal 97 (9) : 853-857, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=35670&layout=abstract","body":"This study highlighted financial difficulty as the major obstacle to obtaining treatment in one province of South Africa. There is evidence in support of providing ARV treatment free of charge to HIV positive patients who qualify, as occurs in other provinces in South Africa. It is also suggested that providing ARV therapy at more local clinics in the community would make treatment more accessible. Provision of several months' supply of medicines per visit would help to reduce transport costs and minimise patient expenditure. These interventions may reduce the incidence of patients lost to follow-up in this community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Malaria control among children under five in sub-Saharan Africa: the role of empowerment and parents' participation besides the clinical strategies","field_subtitle":"Houeto D, D'Hoore W, Ouendo E, Charlier D, Deccache A: Rural and Remote Health, 31 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.rrh.org.au/articles/showarticlenew.asp?ArticleID=840","body":"Despite acknowledged curative and preventive measures, child malaria remains a concern in many countries. Does parental empowerment and participation in control efforts offer a way forward? This review of recent literature suggests a unique approach. Successful interventions met the health promotion strategies wholly or partly. Although these interventions were sometimes incomplete, the development took into account people\u2019s perceptions and representations. The authors acted on the belief that empowerment of parents and their participation in the development of interventions to control child malaria, is likely to yield better results and assist in reducing the prevalence of malaria morbidity and mortality in children under 5 years.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring global health inequity","field_subtitle":"Reidpath DD and Allotey P: International Journal for Equity in Health 6(16), 30 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/6/1/16","body":"Notions of equity are fundamental to, and drive much of the current thinking about global health. Health inequity, however, is usually measured using health inequality as a proxy - implicitly conflating equity and equality. Unfortunately measures of global health inequality do not take account of the health inequity associated with the additional, and unfair, encumbrances that poor health status confers on economically deprived populations. Using global health data from the World Health Organization's 14 mortality sub-regions, a measure of global health inequality (based on a decomposition of the Pietra Ratio) is contrasted with a new measure of global health inequity. The inequity measure weights the inequality data by regional economic capacity (GNP per capita). The least healthy global sub-region is shown to be around four times worse off under a health inequity analysis than would be revealed under a straight health inequality analysis. In contrast the healthiest sub-region is shown to be about four times better off. The inequity of poor health experienced by poorer regions around the world is significantly worse than a simple analysis of health inequality reveals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health Crisis in South Africa is more than just TB and HIV","field_subtitle":"Pienaar D: Critical Health Perspectives, 3, 2007","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PIEaids1Nov2007.pdf","body":"South Africa's public health crisis is deep-rooted in systemic problems. Progress will require far-sighted, sustainable solutions. This requires a massive change in national consciousness. The authors suggest that one of the better measures of the state of a nation is its burden of disease. Health statistics are never just reflections of physical health alone. Instead, they also reflect, often quite precisely, issues like regional poverty, national inequity, unsound governmental policies, the fair distribution of resources, the quality of our leadership and the state of health services, amongst other things.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Public is as private does: The confused case of Rand Water","field_subtitle":"McDonald D (Ed.), Ruiters G (Ed.), Van Rooyen C, Hall D: Municipal Services Project, Occasional Paper (15), August 2007","field_url":"http://www.queensu.ca/msp/pages/Project_Publications/Series/PapersNo15.pdf","body":"This paper explodes Rand Water\u2019s rhetoric about itself as a promoter of \u201cpublic\u201d services.The paper discusses the context of changes in public sector management and in the water sector. Rand Water (RW), the biggest public water utility in Africa entering the market on the continent engage in other activities that are beyond its core function of providing bulk potable water to local government in the industrial heartland of South Africa. This report examines the expansion of RW into non-core activities in the period 1994-2006, the rationales offered by RW for that expansion, and deliberates on this expansion in the context of similar activities by other public sector operations both in South Africa and in other countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Private Partnership For Health In Uganda: Will HSSP II Deliver On The Expectations?","field_subtitle":"Tashobya CK,Musoba N and Lochoro P: Health Policy and Development 5(1): 48-56, 2007","field_url":"http://www.bioline.org.br/abstract?id=hp07006&lang=en","body":"At the inception of Uganda's second 5-year Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP II), this paper traces the history of the public - private partnership for health (PPPH) in Uganda, giving its justification and mandate. It also gives its current state of the art, outlining the successes scored, the challenges still faced in its implementation and current efforts being made to make it comprehensively institutionalized. The successes include the bilateral acceptance of the principle and need for partnership by both the public and private partners, the overt gestures by the public partner through direct funding of the private providers, the ceding of some responsibilities to private players and the acceptance by the private players to take on some public responsibilities using their own resources. The challenges include the slow formalization of the partnership, skepticism about autonomy, the stagnation of government funding, the poor understanding of the partnership at sub-national levels and poor sharing of information, among others. These challenges are now further compounded by the recent introduction of new policy reforms like fiscal decentralisation to the same local officials who do not fully appreciate the partnership and are therefore not likely to support it. The paper concludes with some useful suggestions on how these challenges may be tackled.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP- FUNDING MECHANISMS FOR THE 'PRIVATE-NOT-FOR-PROFIT' HEALTH TRAINING INSTITUTIONS IN UGANDA","field_subtitle":"Mugisha JF: Health Policy and Development 5(1):35-47, 2007","field_url":"http://www.bioline.org.br/abstract?id=hp07005&lang=en","body":"The Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP) aims to ensure access to basic health care by the Ugandan population through the delivery of the National Minimum Health Care Package (NMHCP). This requires availability of well-trained health professionals. This study demonstrates that the Private-Not-For-Profit (PNFP) Health Training Institutions - the majority in Uganda - have remained grossly under-funded, which poses a threat to achievement of the HSSP. They are faced with decreasing income from fees, dwindling donor support and over-dependence on government grants which are both uncertain and erratic. Consequently, vital activities for students' training such as field trips, teaching and reading materials are left unsatisfied as a copying mechanism, but not without negative implications for quality. It is recommended that government increases and guarantees its support to these Health Training Institutions as a way of maintaining quality of health worker training. At the same time, the training institutions need to diversify their funding options to include designing short tailor-made courses, mobilizing alumni contributions, research and consultancies, self-help projects like farming, canteens and stationeries as well as fund-raising activities as a way of bridging their funding gap. This should be coupled with more efficiency mechanisms and prudent management to avoid wastage of the already scarce financial resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-private options for expanding access to human resources for HIV/AIDS in Botswana","field_subtitle":"Dreesch N, Nyoni J, Mokopakgosi O, Seipone K, Kalilani JA, Kaluwa O and Musowe V: Human Resources for Health 5(25), 19 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/5/1/25","body":"In responding to the goal of rapidly increasing access to antiretroviral treatment (ART), the government of Botswana undertook a major review of its health systems options to increase access to human resources, one of the major bottlenecks preventing people from receiving treatment. In mid-2004, a team of government and World Health Organization (WHO) staff reviewed the situation and identified a number of public sector scale up options. The team also reviewed the capacity of private practitioners to participate in the provision of ART. Subsequently, the government created a mechanism to include private practitioners in rolling out ART. At the end of 2006, more than 4500 patients had been transferred to the private sector for routine follow up. It is estimated that the cooperation reduced the immediate need for recruiting up to 40 medically qualified staff into the public sector over the coming years, depending on the development of the national standard for the number and duration of patient visits to a doctor per year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Research on Determinants of Health Equity","field_subtitle":"Global Forum for Health Research, 1 November 2007","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/filesupld/press%20releases/Forum11/F11PressRelease4.pdf","body":"The health disparities between rich and poor in the developing world are so stark that reforms premised on \"equal access\" are inadequate, declared Werner Christie, Counsellor, Science and Technology, Norwegian Embassy, People's Republic of China and former minister of health of Norway. To be most effective, policies should be based on \"disparate access,\" said Christie, speaking at Forum 11, the annual meeting of the Global Forum for Health Research, which this year focuses on equitable access. Such an approach would grant priority to the disadvantaged people who need help most, he said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Executive Secretary on the Communications Strategy and Plan of Action for the SADC Free Trade Area (FTA)","field_subtitle":"Were S: Southern African Development Community (SADC) News, 10 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.sadc.int/news/news_details.php?news_id=1082","body":"The author begins by presenting a brief background on the SADC Regional Economic Integration Agenda and the pertinent decisions made by the Heads of State and Government in this regard, and reminds us of the purpose of the workdhop in preparing for the launching of the FTA in 2008. The author insists the need to create awareness in this process cannot be over emphasised, and elaborates that the process of creating awareness on the SADC Free Trade Area (FTA) would require a meaningful and effective involvement by all the stakeholders. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"SALC Establishes HIV and Aids Programme","field_subtitle":"Southern Africa Litigation Centre: 16 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.southernafricalawcenter.org/salc/newsroom/newsdetail.aspx?id=341457605","body":"SALC announces the establishment of an HIV/Aids Programme under the direction of Project Lawyer, Priti Patel. The effect of HIV/Aids in the southern Africa region has been catastrophic.  As of 2006, more than 30% of all people living with HIV resided in Southern Africa. The promotion and protection of fundamental human rights is critical to stemming the spread and impact of HIV/Aids on individuals and communities.  The failure to comply with human rights standards aids in the spreading of HIV and magnifies the negative impact of the disease on communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Sharp decline in HIV prevalence reported in pregnant women in rural Northern Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Thaczuk D, Carter M: Aidsmap, 20 September 2007","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.co.uk/en/news/23146FB9-0AD5-411A-9DE9-64BA597C52C5.asp","body":"A dramatic 41% decline in HIV prevalence has been reported in pregnant women in Zimbabwe, according to the latest survey done in this population. The results were reported in a poster presentation at the 47th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in Chicago this week. Previous studies have suggested that HIV prevalence is on the decline among adults in Zimbabwe. This study only looked at pregnant women presenting to the Salvation Army Howard Hospital in the Mazowe district of rural northern Zimbabwe, but dramatically confirmed this decline in prevalence among these women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"THE EXPERIENCE OFA VILLAGE VOLUNTEER PROGRAMME IN YUMBE DISTRICT,UGANDA","field_subtitle":"Innocent K: Health Policy and Development 5(1): 21-27, 2007","field_url":"http://www.bioline.org.br/abstract?id=hp07003&lang=en","body":"Community participation in health has been an elusive concept since the days of the Alma Ata Declaration. Many faltering steps have been taken towards genuine community participation only to be retraced because the programmes were either ill-conceived or derailed by the loss of the spirit of voluntarism. In Yumbe District of north-western Uganda, Village Health Teams (VHT) have been established in line with the national strategy for community involvement in health. The Yumbe VHT programme has won an award for innovative support to strengthening decentralisation. This paper reviews aspects of the programme outlining its successes and challenges. Its success has been mainly due to integration of pre-existing volunteer cadres, intersectoral approach to the monitoring of the teams and involvement of the community in the selection of the top-up team members. Its challenges include the relatively young age of the majority of the volunteers and the likely loss of financial support for the activities of the volunteers. The paper concludes that the VHT programme is a delicate venture requiring both programme support through intersectoral inputs to the Community Action Plans developed by communities and sociological approaches to educate the communities to support the VHT for its sustainability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of health research institution in social development in Africa","field_subtitle":"Mwakusya DA: Tanzania Health Research Bulletin 9(2): 140-143, 2007","field_url":"http://www.bioline.org.br/request?th07024","body":"This article covers the opening address of the Tanzanian Minister of Health and Social Welfare at the 22nd Annual Joint Scienti&#64257;c Conference of the National Institute for Medical Research, Arusha Tanzania, 7 March 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Too Poor to Leave, Too Rich to Stay: Developmental and Global Health Correlates of Physician Migration to the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom","field_subtitle":"Arah OA, Ogbu UC, Okeke CE: American Journal of Public Health, 22 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/AJPH.2006.095844v1","body":"This paper analyses the relationship between physician migration from developing source countries to more developed host countries (brain drain) and the developmental and global health profiles of source countries. Source countries with better human resources for health, more economic and developmental progress, and better health status appear to lose proportionately more physicians than the more disadvantaged countries. Higher physician migration density is associated with higher current physician  and public health  workforce densities and more medical schools. Policymakers should realize that physician migration is positively related to better health systems and development in source countries. In view of the \"train, retain, and sustain\" perspective of public health workforce policies, physician retention should become even more important to countries growing richer, whereas poorer countries must invest more in training policies.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Traditional health practitioner and the scientist: bridging the gap in contemporary health research in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mbwambo ZH, Mahunnah RLH, Kayombo EJ: Tanzania Health Research Bulletin 9(2): 115-120, 2007","field_url":"http://www.bioline.org.br/abstract?id=th07019&lang=en","body":"Traditional health practitioners (THPs) and their role in traditional medicine health care system are worldwide acknowledged. Trend in the use of Traditional medicine (TRM) and Alternative or Complementary medicine (CAM) is increasing due to epidemics like HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases like cancer. Despite the wide use of TRM, genuine concern from the public and scientists/biomedical heath practitioners (BHP) on ef&#64257;cacy, safety and quality of TRM has been raised. While appreciating and promoting the use of TRM, the World Health Organization (WHO), and WHO/Afro, in response to the registered challenges has worked modalities to be adopted by Member States as a way to addressing these concerns. Gradually, through the WHO strategy, TRM policy and legal framework has been adopted in most of the Member States in order to accommodate sustainable collaboration between THPs and the scientist/BHP. Research protocols on how to evaluate traditional medicines for safety and ef&#64257;cacy for priority diseases in Africa have been formulated. Creation of close working relationship between practitioners of both health care systems is strongly recommended so as to revamp trust among each other and help to access information and knowledge from both sides through appropriate modalities. In Tanzania, gaps that exist between THPs and scientists/BHP in health research have been addressed through recognition of THPs among stakeholders in the country's health sector as stipulated in the National Health Policy, the Policy and Act of TRM and CAM. Parallel to that, several research institutions in TRM collaborating with THPs are operating. Various programmed research projects in TRM that has involved THPs and other stakeholders are ongoing, aiming at complementing the two health care systems. This paper discusses global, regional and national perspectives of TRM development and efforts that have so far been directed towards bridging the gap between THPs and scientist/BHP in contemporary health research in Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Transport, (im)mobility and spatial poverty traps: issues for rural women and girl children in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Porter G: Overseas Development Institute, London, 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/35lm5h","body":"This paper produced for a conference at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) reflects on the experiences of women and girls with poor accessibility to services and markets, and inadequate transport in rural sub-Saharan Africa. It uses examples from field research to look at the impact of these factors on girl\u2019s education before going to examine access to health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"UN poverty goals on health out of reach, WHO says","field_subtitle":"The World Health Organisation (WHO), 29 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2007/20071029_beijing/en/index.html","body":"The world is likely to fail to meet the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals related to health, the head of the World Health Organization said on Monday at a global forum on health research for poor nations. A rise in funding for research into communicable diseases has not been matched by the power of health systems to deliver, in part because of the failure of governments to invest in the sector, said Margaret Chan.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"UNAIDS head puts the spotlight on children and teens","field_subtitle":"Appel A: Inter Press Service News Agency, 30 September 2007","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=39469","body":"The executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) urged action on the transmission of HIV to children through sexual abuse, incest and early teenage sex. Many outreach programmes target HIV-positive pregnant women and young children, and progress is being made in this arena, Peter Piot told IPS during a recent conference at Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Using relative and absolute measures for monitoring health inequalities: experiences from cross-national analyses on maternal and child health","field_subtitle":"Houweling TAJ, Kunst AE, Huisman M and Mackenbach JP: International Journal for Equity in Health 6(15), 29 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/6/1/15","body":"As reducing socio-economic inequalities in health is an important public health objective, monitoring of these inequalities is an important public health task. The specific inequality measure used can influence the conclusions drawn, and there is no consensus on which measure is most meaningful. The key issue raising most debate is whether to use relative or absolute inequality measures. Our paper aims to inform this debate and develop recommendations for monitoring health inequalities on the basis of empirical analyses for a broad range of developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO publishes new standard for documenting the health of children and youth","field_subtitle":"The World Health Organisation (WHO), 30 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2007/pr59/en/index.html","body":"WHO publishes the first internationally agreed upon classification code for assessing the health of children and youth in the context of their stages of development and the environments in which they live. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health for Children and Youth (ICF\u2013CY) confirms the importance of precise descriptions of children's health status through a methodology that has long been standard for adults. Viewing children and youth within the context of their environment and development continuum, the ICF\u2013CY applies classification codes to hundreds of bodily functions and structures, activities and participation, and various environmental factors that restrict or allow young people to function in an array of every day activities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"World City Syndrome: Neoliberalism and inequality in Cape Town","field_subtitle":"McDonald DA:   Routledge, New York, 2008","field_url":"","body":"The literature on world cities has had an enormous influence on urban theory and practice, with academics and policy makers attempting to understand, and often strive for, world city status.  In this groundbreaking new work, David A McDonald explores Cape Town\u2019s position in this network of global cities and critically investigates the conceptual value of the world city hypothesis. Drawing on more than a dozen years of fieldwork, McDonald provides a comprehensive overview of the city\u2019s institutional and structural reforms, examining fiscal imbalances, political marginalization, (de)racialization, privatization and other neoliberal changes. The book concludes with thoughts on alternative development trajectories.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32611","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"World Medical Association resolution on health and human rights in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"World Medical Association, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ifhhro.org/main.php?op=news&id=146","body":"At the 2007 World Medical Association (WMA) General Assembly meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark (October 3-6), the WMA adopted a resolution with regards to health and human rights in Zimbabwe. It was prepared by the South African Medical Association. The resolution urges the Zimbabwean Medical Association (ZiMA) to address the violations of health rights in the country and stimulates national medical associations of other countries to offer ZiMA their assistance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":" Mental illness sufferers shunned and isolated","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 7 September 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74180","body":"Rising rates of mental and emotional illness in Zambia are being met with growing levels of stigma and discrimination, with sufferers often isolated by their communities. Nora Mweemba, a health information promotion officer for the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Zambia, told IRIN, \"Mental health problems are on the increase among the population in Zambia, mostly because of the socio-economic difficulties that exist in this country - HIV/AIDS, poverty, joblessness - they all precipitate mental problems.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa: Food production to halve by 2020","field_subtitle":"Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), September 2007","field_url":"http://www.ipcc-wg2.org/","body":"Food security in Africa is likely to be \"severely compromised\" by climate change, with production expected to halve by 2020, according to climate change experts. The projections in a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said about 25 percent of Africa's population - nearly 200 million people - do not have easy access to water; that figure is expected to jump by another 50 million by 2020 and more than double by the 2050s, according to the report. This year drought-affected parts of southern Africa - Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Lesotho - experienced a 40 percent to 60 percent reduction in maize production, for which global warming was partly to blame, noted the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). But the IPCC report was more cautious. \"The contribution of climate to food insecurity in Africa is still not fully understood, particularly the role of other multiple stresses that enhance impacts of droughts and floods and possible future climate change\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"African health care worker shortage:  Forum on private sector responses","field_subtitle":"Duke University","field_url":"http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/programs/health/conferences/afhcconf/index.html","body":"About 2.4 million doctors, nurses, and midwives are needed in fifty-seven countries with critical health care shortages. The challenge is greatest in sub-Saharan Africa which has only three percent of the world\u2019s health workers and twenty-four percent of the global burden of disease. There is an increasing recognition that the private sector can strengthen public health systems by offering resources, knowledge, and skills. Duke University will host a conference on November 29-December 1 2007 in Durham , North Carolina , USA , to identify successful and emerging private sector responses to the health care worker shortage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid for trade and financial assistance to implement the EPAs","field_subtitle":"South Centre Fact Sheet 6, May 2007","field_url":"http://www.southcentre.org/publications/AnalyticalNotes/Other/2007May_EPA_Fact_Sheet_No6.pdf","body":"This Analytical Note is part of a series of Fact Sheets designed to overview and assess the development implications of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), which the EU is currently negotiating with 76 countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP). The purpose of these Fact Sheets is to examine the existing material on EPAs and to provide an analysis of their potential impact on ACP countries. The Fact Sheets seek to increase the understanding of the substantive issues at stake in the negotiations, thereby enabling policy-makers, lobbyists and campaigners to make informed decisions about how to engage with EPAs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"An analytical framework for trade in health services","field_subtitle":"Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Working Paper No. 441 ","field_url":"http://www.ifw-kiel.de/asp/aspwp/2007/aspwp441.pdf","body":"The paper delivers an analytical framework for the assessments of this new sector of international trade which takes into account both the \u2018general welfare aspects\u2019 and the effects for the achievement of general \u2018health system goals\u2019. Trade in Health Services is split up according to the four modes of service supply introduced by the General Agreement of Trade in Services (GATS). For each mode examples are enclosed and the current level of trade is analysed. It is also examined what are the major obstacles for trade in these modes and what liberalization perspectives are given. The subsequent discussion and plausibility considerations of how each mode may contribute to improve efficiency as well as equity in national health systems is a systematic starting point for further research. It provides a first insight in how trade in Health Services could help to overcome resource constraints in national health systems as well as allude to the potential risks of which sight shouldn\u2019t be lost.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Announcing SEMCA Community of Practice: Sustainability, Education and the Management of Change in Africa","field_subtitle":"SEMCA, September 2007","field_url":"","body":"This is to announce: Sustainability, Education and the Management of Change in Africa SEMCA; a Community of Practice linking those involved in capacity development SEMCA is dedicated to the transformation of Higher Education in Africa for a new generation of graduates working closely with rural communities to research and produce innovative, sustainable development options and implement changes. This Community of Practice is supported by UNDP. SEMCA is a new community of practice that has been established to assist in linking higher education networks, universities, faculties, graduates, students as well as research, policy, development and other agencies all with an interest in capacity development - making research and education more relevant to both smallholders and to the modern, gobalised, knowledge economy.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32570","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for letters of intent. The Economic Globalisation, Growth and HIV/AIDS Initiative: Research grants","field_subtitle":"The Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division (HEARD)","field_url":"http://www.heard.org.za/research/IDRC/","body":"The Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division (HEARD) based at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) based in Canada, invite letters of intent from teams led or co-led by researchers from low- and middle income countries interested in conducting innovative projects exploring the linkages among economic globalisation, growth and HIV/AIDS along two themes: Exploring how HIV/AIDS interacts with efforts to facilitate inclusive or pro-poor growth strategies; and exploring the impacts of economic globalisation and growth on vulnerability and resilience to HIV/AIDS. The initial funding round will support up to five grants at a maximum of Canadian$100,000 (approximately US$90,000) each for one- to two-year projects. The application process is in two stages: letters of intent and then full proposals. Letters of intent will undergo competitive peer review, and successful applicants will be provided with Canadian$2,000 to support development of the full proposal. Full proposals will undergo competitive peer review. The deadline for application is 1 November 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Contaminated, fake AIDS drugs flood black market in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Advocate, 11 September 2007","field_url":"http://advocate.com/news_detail_ektid48743.asp","body":"AIDS drugs, some of them contaminated, diluted, or faked, are being sold at flea markets and hairdressing salons in the face of growing shortages in clinics linked to Zimbabwe's economic crisis, the health ministry said. State media quoted Minister of Health David Parirenyatwa on Monday appealing to people living with HIV or AIDS to buy their medicines from registered pharmacies, clinics, and hospitals only. \"These fake drugs increase chances of one becoming resistant to treatment, and it becomes even more expensive for that person to remain on treatment,\" he was quoted as saying by the official Herald newspaper, which said that the \"prohibitive\" cost of antiretroviral drugs at private pharmacies had fueled the illegal market.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Current macroeconomic frameworks, challenges and alternatives to attain Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)","field_subtitle":"Chipika J: Southern African Regional Poverty Network, June 2007","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org/documents/d0002654/Macro_ecn_MDG_Chipika_Jun2007.pdf","body":"This paper discusses policies that have inhibited the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) regions. Specifically, the paper argues that neo-liberal structural adjustment policies (SAPs) have exacerbated poverty in the region and that there is a need to balance the role of the private and public sector if the MDGs are to be achieved. The paper points to a number of negative experience and outcomes of structural adjustment in the 1980s. It describes that economic growth is stagnant or declining in many countries and poverty is increasing the context of rising inflation and unemployment. In addition, food shortages have increased particularly in Southern Africa, due to the combination of natural and policy related factors, and HIV and AIDS has ravaged the sub-continent. The paper outlines a number of economic alternatives to structural adjustment which have emerged in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 49: The costs and benefits of health worker migration from East and Southern Africa (ESA): A literature review","field_subtitle":"Robinson, R","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS49HRrobinson.pdf","body":"This report commissioned by EQUINET / HST in co-operation with the ECSA-HC presents a review of literature on the methods for analysis costs and benefits of the migration of health workers from East and Southern African (ESA) countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Draft human rights guidelines for pharmaceutical companies launched","field_subtitle":"19 September 2007","field_url":"http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/497E81A16B31B9C8C125735B0059D7B0?opendocument","body":"The UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Paul Hunt, today launched for public consultation a draft 'Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies in relation to Access to Medicines'. Access to medicines is a central feature of the right to the highest attainable standard of health. States have primary responsibility for enhancing access to medicines, as set out in the expert's report to the UN General Assembly last year (13 September 2006, A/61/338). The Special Rapporteur routinely questions Governments about their national medicines policies and implementation plans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 80: Reclaiming the Resources for Health: Launch of the EQUINET Regional equity analysis","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place.\r\n\r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in health and health care in Malawi: analysis and trends","field_subtitle":"Zere E, Moeti M, Jirigia J: BMC Public Health, 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/78/abstract","body":"This article in BMC public health assesses trends in inequities in health and health service utilisation in Malawi using data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) of 1992, 2000, and 2004. The paper finds that there has been an increase in the levels of pro-rich inequity in infant and under-five mortality rates. This implies that the burden of infant and under-five mortality is getting disproportionately higher among children from the poor than the non-poor households. Inequalities are also observed in the use of interventions including treatment of diarrhoea. In addition, the paper finds that the publicly provided services for some of the selected interventions including child delivery, benefit the non-poor more than the poor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender Protocol Alliance dismayed by leader\u2019s inaction","field_subtitle":"Southern African People\u2019s Solidarity Network, 18 August 2007","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0002779/index.php","body":"The Southern African Gender Protocol Alliance[2] has expressed disappointment that SADC leaders failed to sign the Protocol on Gender and Development at the August 2007 summit in Lusaka. Representatives of sixteen regional and national NGOs working to promote the rights of women in the region said they were at a loss as to why heads of state failed to seize the moment of the 2007 summit after the draft had successfully passed through all the preparatory stages. This included endorsement by ministers of gender; justice ministers and the Council of Ministers that generally comprises finance ministers from the region. From their perspective the targets in the Protocol for the achievement of equality between women and men are non-negotiable. The failure this year will only increase their pressure for implementation when the Protocol is finally signed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Getting the Regime Right \u2014 Brief on Canada\u2019s Access to Medicines Regime","field_subtitle":"Elliott R: Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network","field_url":"http://www.aidslaw.ca/publications/publicationsdocEN.php?ref=705","body":"Canada\u2019s Access to Medicines Regime is not delivering on the country\u2019s pledge to help developing countries get affordable medicines. The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network recommends a number of changes that will help fix the current, flawed Regime.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Human resources for health: a gender analysis","field_subtitle":"George A: Women and Gender Equity Knowledge Network, 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems&id=32946&type=Document","body":"This paper discusses gender issues manifested within health occupations and across them. It examines gender dynamics in medicine, nursing, community health workers and home carers and explores from a gender perspective issues concerning delegation, migration and violence, which cut across these categories of health workers. Gender plays a critical role in determining the structural location of women and men in the health labour force and their subjective experience of that location. The paper shows that woman are overrepresented in caring, informal, part-time, unskilled and unpaid work and within occupations there are significant gender differences in terms of employment security, promotion, remuneration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Informal settlements as spaces of health inequality: The changing economic and spatial roots of the aids pandemic, from Apartheid to neoliberalism","field_subtitle":"Hunter M: Centre for Civil Society Research Report 44: 1-24","field_url":"http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs/files/RREPORT_VOL106_HUNTER.pdf","body":"Between 1990 and 2005, HIV prevalence rates in South Africa jumped from less than 1% to around 29%. Combining ethnographic, demographic and historical insights, this article addresses the important question posed recently by prominent South Africanist scholars: Was Aids in South Africa \u2018an epidemic waiting to happen?\u2019 To date, important responses to this question have forefronted the legacy of colonialism and apartheid in order to challenge cultural models that reify an \u2018African system of sexuality\u2019 supposedly characterised by sexual permissiveness (for instance as contained in Caldwell, Caldwell and Quiggin, 1989, for a direct critique see Heald, 1995). In particular, the work of social historians has brought to attention the ways in which racial segregation and male migration fuelled an earlier epidemic of syphilis only partially quelled by the introduction of penicillin in the 1950s; moreover, they note how the forces of urbanisation, industrialisation, and Christianisation have long been argued to have destabilised African family structures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Initial community perspectives on the Health Service Extension Programme in Welkait, Ethiopia","field_subtitle":"Human Resources for Health, 5: 21","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/5/1/21","body":"The Health Service Extension Programme (HSEP) is an innovative approach to addressing the shortfall in health human resources in Ethiopia. It has developed a new cadre of Health Extension Workers (HEWs), who are charged with providing the health and hygiene promotion and some treatment services, which together constitute the bedrock of Ethiopia's community health system. This study seeks to explore the experience of the HSEP from the perspective of the community who received the service. A random sample of 60 female heads-of-household in a remote area of Tigray participated in a structured interview survey. While the introduction of HEWs has been a positive experience for women living at the study site, the frequency of visits, extent of effectively imparted health knowledge and affects of HEWs on other health providers needs to be further explored.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"International Health Partnership launched in UK","field_subtitle":"Department for International Development (DFID): 5 September, 2007","field_url":"http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:21461390~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html","body":"Seven \u2018first wave\u2019 countries in Africa and Asia will join the new International Health Partnership which is supported by donor governments and agencies. The partnership was launched formally at an event at 10 Downing Street, London. The Prime Minister said: \"There is no greater cause than that every man, woman and child in the world should be able to able to benefit from the best medicine and healthcare.  And our vision today is that we can triumph over ancient scourges and for the first time in history conquer polio, TB, measles and then with further advances and initiatives, go on to address pneumoccal pneumonia, malaria and eventually HIV/ AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"International Health Partnership: A welcome initiative","field_subtitle":"Editorial: The Lancet, 370 : 801 (9590), 8 September 2007","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673607613877/fulltext","body":"On Sept 5, the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown launched the International Health Partnership \u2014a global \"compact\" for achieving the Health Millennium Development Goals\u2014at a prestigious gathering at number 10 Downing Street. The support for this initiative is impressive. But what does the International Health Partnership (IHP) mean for people living in poorer countries? The IHP is an agreement between donors and developing countries. Global and country level partnerships will set out a process of mutual responsibility and accountability for the development and implementation of the national health plans of developing countries. The overall aim of the IHP is to improve the coverage and use of health services\u2014whether through public or private channels, or through non governmental organisations\u2014in order to deliver improved health outcomes, especially for the health-related MDGs, and other international commitments such as universal access to antiretroviral therapy. The IHP does not provide any new funding.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenyan hip-hop artists rap against Europe's unfair trade proposals","field_subtitle":"Nairobi Now (Arts and Culture Events): 12 September 2007","field_url":"http://nairobinow.wordpress.com/2007/09/12/hip-hop-musical-festival-september-15th-university-of-nairobi/","body":"A group of university students under the group The Journey and Haven Entertainment organised a conscious hip hop festival to oppose the proposed Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union and Africa. This effort is part of a wider campaign by citizens, farmers' unions, civil society, and religious groups to stop the government from signing the proposed agreement which, according to economists and experts in international trade, are potentially detrimental to the development agenda and may exacerbate poverty in Kenya and other developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Lesotho \u2013 The First Public-Private Partnership for a Major Hospital in an African IDA Country: How Does It Work?","field_subtitle":"Ramatlapeng MK: HNP Learning Program","field_url":"http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/0,,contentMDK:21480224~menuPK:258649~pagePK:64002643~piPK:64002619~theSitePK:258644,00.html","body":"The Government of Lesotho, with assistance from the World Bank Group and other development partners, is undertaking a long-term health sector reform program. Replacing the collapsing and only national referral hospital is a major challenge facing the country. To maximize the use of the limited available resources, the Government decided to adopt a PPP model to finance and manage a new replacement hospital. The intention is that partners from the private sector will build, equip and subsequently operate the new hospital before it is eventually turned over to the Government. This initiative, the first of its kind in IDA Sub-Saharan Africa in the public health sector, will have a profound impact on Lesotho\u2019s health sector and its reform program. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Lost to follow up \u2013 contributing factors and challenges in South African patients on antiretroviral therapy","field_subtitle":"Maskew M, MacPhail M, Menezes C, Rubel D: South Africa Medical Journal 97(9), September 2007","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/524/87","body":"Patients who do not return for follow-up at clinics providing comprehensive HIV/AIDS care require special attention. This is particularly true where resources are limited and clinic loads are high. Data on a sample of patients who failed to return for follow-up were analysed to identify the causes and to plan strategies to overcome the problem.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Medical schemes council is aware of flaws in equalisation fund data","field_subtitle":"du Preez L: Personal Finance, 8 September 2007","field_url":"http://www.bhfglobal.com/mcleods-resignation/medical-schemes-council-is-aware-of-flaws-in-equalisation-fund-data","body":"A number of different methodologies will be tested as part of the Risk Equalisation Fund (REF) shadow process in South Africa, according to the Registrar of Medical Schemes Patrick Masobe, under whose control the shadow process falls. The REF is being set up to make sure that all medical scheme members, regardless of their age or state of health, pay the same to access certain basic healthcare benefits. Medical schemes that have a large number of younger and healthier members will have to pay into the REF, while schemes with many older and sicker members will receive payments from the fund.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Mental illness and exclusion: Putting mental health on the development agenda in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Ssanyu R: Chronic Poverty Research Centre, UK, 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health&id=33250&type=Document","body":"This policy brief by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, examines the link between mental health and chronic poverty in Uganda. It outlines challenges to implementing effective services for people affected by mental disorders and actions that are needed to promote mental health in the country. The paper shows that mental health and chronic poverty are linked in a vicious cycle of exclusion, poor access to services, low productivity, diminished livelihoods and assets depletion. People with mental disorders in Uganda also experience some of the worst forms of stigma and discrimination linked to lack of awareness, misinformation and stereotyping about their condition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Methods for analysing cost effectiveness data from cluster randomised trials","field_subtitle":"Bachmann MO, Fairall L, Clark A, et al: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation, 5: 12, 6 September 2007","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/pdf/1478-7547-5-12.pdf","body":"Measurement of individuals' costs and outcomes in randomised trials allow uncertainty about cost effectiveness to be quantified. Uncertainty is expressed as probabilities that an intervention is cost effective, and confidence intervals of incremental cost effectiveness ratios. Randomising clusters instead of individuals tends to increase uncertainty but such data are often analysed incorrectly in published studies. The authors used data from a cluster randomized trial to demonstrate five appropriate analytic methods: 1) joint modeling of costs and effects with two-stage non-parametric bootstrap sampling of clusters then individuals, 2) joint modeling of costs and effects with Bayesian hierarchical models and 3) linear regression of net benefits at different willingness to pay levels using a) least squares regression with Huber-White robust adjustment of errors, b) a least squares hierarchical model and c) a Bayesian hierarchical model. All five methods produced similar results, with greater uncertainty than if cluster randomisation was not accounted for. Cost effectiveness analyses alongside cluster randomised trials need to account for study design. Several theoretically coherent methods can be implemented with common statistical software.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Migrant remittances","field_subtitle":"Eldis","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/index.cfm?objectId=6868A9EF-A5F0-7659-D7EA526897556CF2","body":"This key issues page looks at some of these perceived impacts, and provides recommendations for further reading on the subject of migration and remittances.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Missing the Target : A report from HIV  and Aids treatment access from the frontlines","field_subtitle":"AIDS Treatment Access, 19 September 2007","field_url":"http://www.aidstreatmentaccess.org/itpcfinal.pdf","body":"The latest version of the Missing the Target report on AIDS treatment scale up offers a \"no spin\" assessment on treatment access -- the successes, challenges, and what needs to change at the national and global levels. The report points out that AIDS treatment delivery represents the best hope to build broader health systems -- but that we are in a new phase of treatment scale up where critical issues beyond simple delivery of ARVs require urgent attention.  Governments and global institutions must act on the recommendations in our report to accelerate treatment delivery and address critical challenges in scale up.  Without improved efforts, the world will fall short of new G8 AIDS commitments to deliver lifesaving HIV treatment and prevention services. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Models for funding and coordinating community-level responses to HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Birdsall K, Ntlabati P, Kelly K, Banati P: Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation, South Africa, 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/hiv-and-aids&id=32687&type=Document","body":"This research report examines how community organisations responding to HIV can be effectively supported. The report uses case studies to illustrate seven different models for supporting community organisations through a combination of funding, capacity building and networking. These models show the importance of tailoring funding and support according to an organisation\u2019s needs, size and stage of development. These case studies also highlight the importance of providing multi-year funding to allow organisations to grow and the usefulness of horizontal learning and networking. Each of the models have the potential to be replicated or scaled-up.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Nurses will be paid more","field_subtitle":"IOL, 14 September 2007","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/general/news/newsprint.php?art_id=nw20070914182250584C553654&sf=","body":"Nurses in the public health sector would receive increases of between 20 percent and 88 percent on their starting salaries, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said. The increases, which would be retrospectively introduced from July this year, comes as part of the occupational specific dispensation which would see substantial improvements in the salaries of professionals in the health department and the rest of the civil service over the next few years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Parched city braces for disease outbreak","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), 19 September 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74386","body":"Desperate measures being taken by residents of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, to cushion the effects of acute water shortages are aggravating the health problems of its 1.5 million residents. Stringent water rationing has been introduced in a bid to make the contents of fast dwindling dams last until the onset of the expected rains in November, but the municipal council acknowledges that the poor inflows of water into the southern city's reservoirs has led to an increase in waterborne diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty Reduction Budget Support (PRBS) in Zambia Joint Annual Review 2007: Learning assessment","field_subtitle":"Gerster R, Chikwekwe M: Southern African Regional Poverty Network (SARPN), 13 July 2007 ","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0002787/index.php","body":"Mandated jointly by the Government of the Republic of Zambia (GRZ) and the Cooperating Partners (CPs) committed to Poverty Reduction Budget Support (PRBS), the learning assessment (LA), integrated into the Joint Annual Review (JAR) 2007 process, pursued the overall objective of developing practical recommendations on strengthening the effectiveness and efficiency of PRBS-supported programme implementation. The recommendations are based on PRBS experience in general and the 2007 JAR process in particular. The quality of dialogue, performance and accountability was to be specifically assessed. Methodologically, the LA made use of good practices developed elsewhere, observations of JAR sessions, interviews, and written feedback.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Private hospitals driving healthcare inflation","field_subtitle":"Board of Healthcare Funders of Southern Africa, 2007","field_url":"http://www.bhfglobal.com/private-hospitals","body":"Private hospitals are currently not participating in any processes which require the disclosure of the cost to themselves of providing health care services. For this reason, BHF and its members believe that it is necessary and appropriate to call for greater transparency in the area of hospital costs and the setting of hospital fees and prices of medical materials used by hospitals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Progress towards the child mortality millennium development goal in urban sub-Saharan Africa: the dynamics of population growth, immunization, and access to clean water","field_subtitle":"Fotso JC, Ezeh AC, Madise NJ, Ciera J: BMC Public Health, 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health&id=33241&type=Document","body":"This paper, published in BMC Public Health, highlights the effects of urban population growth and access to health and social services on progress in achieving Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4 \u2013 to reduce child mortality by two thirds by 2015. The paper examines trends in childhood mortality in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in relation to urban population growth, vaccination coverage and access to safe drinking water.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaiming SADC for peoples solidarity and development: Let the people speak","field_subtitle":"Southern African People\u2019s Solidarity Network (SAPSN), 16 August 2007","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0002798/index.php","body":"Members of Civil Society Organisations, trade unions, faith based organizations, student bodies and economic justice networks from the SADC region met in Lusaka, Zambia on August 15-16, under the auspices of the Southern Africa Peoples' Solidarity Network (SAPSN), to constitute the SADC People's Summit held parallel to the 27th Heads of State Summit. This document serves as the statement given on their regional theme with respect to civil society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaiming the resources for health ","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Steering committee","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe global attention to equity and to Africa has grown.  The 2006 United Nations Human Development Report, the 2005 UN Report on the World Social Situation and the 2006 World Bank World Development Review focused on inequalities and equity, while  a WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health will report in 2008 on a global inquiry into options to improve health equity through action on the social determinants of health. Africa has been the focus of Commissions and special programmes. In 2007, the World Health Organisation Director General stated that improved health in Africa was one of the organisations\u2019 top priorities. \r\n\r\nWithin Africa, millions of people experience deprivation of the most basic rights to water, shelter and food,  millions of children have lost parents due to early adult death, a majority do not have secure incomes and many live in situations of conflict and social disruption. Also within the continent, health workers, teachers and others provide valuable services, state officials and university staff take on intense workloads with limited resources, and civil society and community organisations implement innovative local ways of improving life. \r\n\r\nAn enormous gap continues to exist between global attention and local reality.  \r\n\r\nOn October 23 2007, EQUINET is launching a new publication- an analysis of equity in health in east and southern Africa. The book, \u201cReclaiming the resources for health: A Regional analysis of equity in health in east and southern Africa\u201d explores the challenges and options for overcoming persistent inequalities in health in east and southern Africa (ESA). It is written by the EQUINET steering committee and jointly published by EQUINET with three African publishers, Weaver Press Zimbabwe, Fountain Publishers Uganda and Jacana publishers, South Africa. \r\n\r\nThe book presents a synthesis of the evidence gathered from a range of sources, including eight years of work in EQUINET,  published literature on and from the region, data drawn primarily from government, intergovernmental, particularly Africa Union and UN sources and the less commonly documented and heard experience within the region, found in grey literature, in interviews and testimonials and gathered through participatory processes.  In the analysis, we do not seek to simply describe our situation, but to understand it in ways that generate and inform affirmative action from within the region.  \r\n\r\nThe evidence in the analysis points to three ways in which \u201creclaiming\u201d the resources for health can improve health equity: \r\n\u2022\tfor poor people to claim a fairer share of national resources to improve their health;\r\n\u2022\tfor a more just return for ESA countries from the global economy to increase the resources for health; and \r\n\u2022\tfor a larger share of global and national resources to be invested in redistributive health systems to overcome the impoverishing effects of ill health.  \r\n\r\nThe region has the economic and social potential to address its major health needs. Yet improved growth has often occurred with falling human development indicators and increased poverty. In many ESA countries, widening national inequalities in wealth block poor households from the benefits of growth, while substantial resources flow outwards from Africa, leaving most of its people in poverty, and depleting the resources for health. The analysis adds evidence to the growing call for a more fair form of globalisation, and a more just return to Africa from the global economy. The report maps the trade, investment and production policies and measures that have strong public health impact, the options to address outflows, and to promote access to food, health care and medicines within economic and trade policies. National measures that redistribute these resources for wider economic and social gain provide clear pathways for equitable use of funds released from debt cancellation, improved terms of trade, increased external funding and other global measures. \r\n\r\nWhile many of these actions lie outside the health sector, the analysis argues that health systems can make a difference, by providing leadership, shaping wider social norms and values, demonstrating health impacts and promoting work across sectors. \r\n\r\nDrawing on a diversity of evidence and experience from the region, the analysis describes the comprehensive, primary health care oriented, people-centred and publicly led health systems that have been found to improve health, particularly for the most disadvantaged people with greatest health needs. While resource scarcities and selective approaches weakened these universal systems in recent decades, the lessons presented from the roll out of prevention and treatment for HIV and AIDS continue to demonstrate their relevance, particularly at district level. \r\n\r\nThe persistence of disadvantage in access to health care in those with highest health needs is thus of concern. The analysis explores the reasons for this, within the way health systems are funded and organised, and the barriers that disadvantaged people face in using health services. \r\n\r\nAddressing these problems demands a strengthened public sector in health. Current average spending on health systems in the region is below the basic costs for a functional health system, or even for the most basic interventions for major public health burdens. Therefore one priority is for governments to meet the as yet largely unmet commitment made in Abuja to 15% of government  spending on health, excluding external financing. We argue, however, for \u201cAbuja PLUS\u201d - for international delivery on debt cancellation and for a significantly greater share of this government spending to be allocated to district health systems. \r\n\r\nThe analysis presents progressive options for mobilising these additional domestic resources for health systems without burdening poor households, and for increasing spending on district and primary health care systems. One of the areas of increased spending is on health workers. Without health workers there is no health system. In the face of massive shortfalls and significant outflows of health workers, the analysis explores incentives countries in the region are using to train, retain and ensure effective and motivated work of health workers, and the strategic capacities and role of health workers in designing and implementing these plans. \r\n\r\nThese approaches are not without challenge, whether from local elites, competing approaches or global trade pressures. Yet health is a universal human right, and international and regional conventions call for a \u2018bottom line\u2019 of rights and obligations to protect people\u2019s health. One basis for the positive potential for achieving equity in health in the region is in the significant social pressure for these goals, and the social resources, networks and capabilities that exist to achieve them. The analysis points to the many ways health systems can act to empower people, stimulate social action and create powerful constituencies to advance public interests in health. Tapping these potentials calls for a robust, systematic form of participatory democracy and a more collectively organised and informed society. \r\n\r\nTo champion these values, policies and measures, to monitor progress and enhance accountability, the analysis proposes a set of targets and indicators that signal progress in key dimensions of health equity, and towards meeting regional and global commitments. EQUINET, as a network of institutions in the region, is committed to implementing and supporting the building of knowledge, skills and learning to meet these goals. \r\n\r\nThe analysis is presented as resource for the people, institutions and alliances working in and beyond the region towards goals of improved health and social justice. EQUINET, as a network of institutions within the region, itself remains committed to generating knowledge, facilitating dialogue and analysis, and supporting practice to deliver on these goals within the region. \r\n\r\nThe book\u201d Reclaiming the Resources for Health\u201d will be available after its launch on 23rd October from EQUINET (admin@equinetafrica.org)or from the publishers in the region (Weaver Press, Fountain Publishers and Jacana). See EQUINET Updates below for contact information.  For feedback on this brief  please contact the EQUINET secretariat at admin@equinetafrica.org.  For further information on the issues raised in this brief please also visit the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaiming The Resources For Health: A Regional Analysis Of Equity In Health In East And Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET steering Committee","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REA%20flyer2.pdf","body":"In October 2007 EQUINET has produced a regional equity analysis that offers a comprehensive, yet accessible, resource presented through text, tables, figures, case studies, quotes and images. The evidence in this analysis points to three ways in which \u2018reclaiming\u2019 the resources for health can improve health equity:\r\n\u2022 for poor people to claim a fairer share of national resources to improve their health;\r\n\u2022 for a more just return for east and southernAfrican countries from the global economy to increase the resources for health; and\r\n\u2022 for a larger share of global and national resources to be invested in redistributive health systems to overcome the impoverishing effects of ill health.\r\nThe book can be obtained from EQUINET  by contacting admin@equinetafrica.org or through the publishers in the region, that  is Weaver Press weaver@mweb.co.zw; Fountain Publishers (for East African region) sales@fountainpublishers.co.ug and Jacana  (for South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland) sales@jacana.co.za. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional Meeting report: Training for advocacy on Trade and Health in east and southern Africa, Bagamoyo Tanzania, 31 August-1 September 2007","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, SEATINI, TARSC","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REPMTG0807trade.pdf","body":"This report is of the proceedings of a training workshop on policy engagement and advocacy to promote health in trade agreements held in Bagamayo, Tanzania, August 31 and Sep 1 2007. The workshop covered general issues of trade and health, and a deeper review of TRIPS and use of TRIPS flexibilities, the EU-ESA EPA, and health services liberalisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape posts advertised","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape has an international reputation as a leading research and teaching institution. It provides health and welfare personnel from developing countries with the opportunity to enhance their capacity to build and strengthen the health sector in their countries. Its open learning postgraduate programme, offering multiple entry and exit points, is unique in Southern Africa. Its educational and research activities focus on the implementation of district health systems. The posts advertised are for a Senior Lecturer and for a Lecturer. The closing date for applications is 30 September 2007.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32559","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Science at WHO and UNICEF: The corrosion of trust","field_subtitle":"Editorial: Lancet 370 (9592), 22 September 2007.","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673607614512/fulltext","body":"This issue of the Lancet publishes two papers of critical interest to child survival. Unfortunately, both have stirred concerns about misuse of data by UN agencies. Here, they review the allegations and try to draw lessons about the place of independent scientific inquiry in the arena of global health policymaking. Greg Fegan and colleagues report the success of an expanded insecticide-treated bednet programme in Kenya . The full paper reveals the strengths and limitations of the study, and provides important estimates of uncertainty. No such statistical caution was expressed in the WHO statement about these data, released on Aug 16. Indeed, WHO claimed that this finding \"ends the debate about how to deliver long-lasting insecticidal nets\". Yet communications between the Kenyan research team and WHO suggest an ill-considered rush by WHO against the advice of wiser scientific minds.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"South African babies infected with HIV in public hospitals","field_subtitle":"Agence France Presse,  17 September 2007","field_url":"http://www.cdcnpin.org/scripts/display/NewsDisplay.asp?NewsNbr=49127","body":"South African medical experts and activists on Monday warned that poor infection controls in public hospitals have caused dozens of babies to become infected with HIV. Treatment Action Campaign spokesperson Mark Heywood said he was aware of more than 40 such infections. 'The overall lack of inspection control policies, procedures, and budget means that the problem is probably more widespread,' he said. Shaheen Mehtar, head of infection prevention and control at Cape Town's Tygerberg Academic Hospital, said she personally knows of 24 infections in newborns. According to a report in the Cape Times daily newspaper, doctors blame the infections on HIV-tainted expressed breast milk being given to hospitalized babies, the re-use of syringes, and poor sterilization.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The Interim Statement of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/social_determinants/en/","body":"The Interim Statement sets out the Commission\u2019s vision and goals, the problems it seeks to ameliorate, and the intellectual foundation for a social determinants approach. In doing so, the Interim Statement is a resource for stakeholders concerned with social determinants of health and health equity, as they build towards a global movement. Recommendations for action, based on the evidence gathered across all the Commission\u2019s work streams, will be made in the Final Report in May 2008.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The macroeconomic consequences of financing health insurance","field_subtitle":"Deloach DB, Platania JM: Social Science Research Network (SSRN), 23 August 2007","field_url":"http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1013451","body":"Employer-financed health insurance systems, like those used in the United States, distort firms labor demand and adversely affect the economy. Since such costs vary with employment rather than hours worked, firms have an incentive to increase output by increasing worker hours rather than employment. This paper constructs a heterogeneous agent general equilibrium model where individuals differ with respect to their productivity and employment opportunities. The authors generate steady state results for several alternative models for financing health insurance: one in which health insurance is financed primarily through employer contributions that vary with employment; a second where insurance is funded through a non distortionary, lump-sum tax; and a third where insurance is funded by a payroll tax. They further measure the effects of each of the alternatives on output, employment, hours worked and inequality. These findings can be compared with East and Southern African communities that employ such employer-financed health insurance systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of communication in sustainable development","field_subtitle":"The Drum Beat: The Communication Initiative, (410), 3 September 2007","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/drum_beat_410.html","body":"This Drum Beat is one of a series of commentary and analysis pieces. Getting communication included is an integral element in development programmes, for example improving maternal health. Addressing this challenge needs actions at many levels, all of which entail particular types of communication.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards universal access: scaling up priority HIV/AIDS interventions in the health sector","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS, UNICEF: World Health Organization, 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hiv/mediacentre/univeral_access_progress_report_en.pdf","body":"This progress report from the World Health Organisation (WHO) shows a steady increase in the global levels of access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) for people living with HIV. However, it shows less improvement in other priority areas of HIV treatment. The coverage rate for access to prophylactic ART by pregnant women, to prevent mother to child transmission of the virus, continues to be low. Similarly, the coverage of HIV counselling services and of interventions directed at intravenous drug users (IDUs) also remain at a low level. The report shows some improvement in the effective monitoring of HIV prevalence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Tradition a force against HIV/AIDS?","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 14 September 2007","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=74305","body":"Circumstance, rather than planning, has placed the battle against HIV/AIDS firmly in the hands of Swaziland's 355 chiefdoms. The decentralisation strategy has evolved from government's failure to command the fight against the disease, or even deliver healthcare at its urban hospitals, and much less so in rural areas, where four out of five Swazis live. Swaziland, ruled by sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, King Mswati III, has a well-established traditional hierarchy, and the use of it to coordinate efforts against HIV/AIDS is being seen as a grassroots-driven solution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda Mental Treatment Act from a human rights and public health perspective: An Analysis","field_subtitle":"Mulumba M: Social Science Research Network (SSRN), August 2007","field_url":"http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1006230","body":"Mental disorders affect one person in four in their lifetime, and can be found in 10 per cent of the adult population. It has been estimated that mental disorders and problems will increase by 50 per cent by the year 2020. Yet, according to the WHO: \"All countries have to work with limited resources. Too often, prejudice and stigma hamper the development of mental health policies, and are reflected in poor services, low status for care providers and a lack of human rights for mentally ill people.\" This essay examines the elements of international human rights law directly linked to persons with mental disabilities that are crucial in National mental health legislations. It critically considers the Uganda Mental Health Treatment Act as an example subjecting it to the test of human rights standards as spelled out in the United Nations Human Rights Instruments. The further examines the provisions of this Act from a public health perspective and concludes with recommendations on how the Act can be made better in light of human rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"UN-backed global drive to slash maternal and child deaths kicks off","field_subtitle":"United Nations, World Health Organisation: 28 September 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/pmnch/events/2007/delivernowpr.pdf","body":"From public rallies in various locations in New York to a meeting of women leaders at the United Nations, Governments and organisations are uniting to launch a new global and unprecedented drive today to slash maternal and child deaths. The \"Deliver Now for Women + Children\" initiative is a direct response to warnings by the UN that the world is lagging behind in achieving the Millennium Development Goals to cut maternal and child deaths by 2015.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Unequal, unfair, ineffective and inefficient gender Inequity in health: Why it exists and how we can change it - Final Report to the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"Sen G, \u00d6stlin P: Women and Gender Equity Knowledge Network, September 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/social_determinants/resources/csdh_media/wgekn_final_report_07.pdf","body":"The authors describe how gender inequality damages the physical and mental health of millions of girls and women across the globe, and also of boys and men despite the many tangible benefits it gives men through resources, power, authority and control. Because of the numbers of people involved and the magnitude of the problems, taking action to improve gender equity in health and to address women\u2019s rights to health is one of the most direct and potent ways to reduce health inequities and ensure effective use of health resources. The authors emphasise that deepening and consistently implementing human rights instruments can be a powerful mechanism to motivate and mobilize governments, people and especially women themselves.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Vacancy: HIV/TB programme training and advocacy officer","field_subtitle":"AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA)","field_url":"http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/res.nsf/db900sid/OCHA-7787X4?OpenDocument","body":"Established in 2002, the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) is a regional partnership of non-governmental organisations working together to promote a human rights based response to HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) in Southern Africa through capacity building and advocacy. The Regional Secretariat of ARASA is located in Windhoek, Namibia. ARASA seeks to appoint an experienced networker, trainer, advocate and activist with a track record in capacity building and facilitating the involvement of people with HIV/AIDS and TB in advocacy work to assume the position of HIV/TB Programme Training and Advocacy Officer. This position will report to the Co-ordinator of ARASA's Treatment and Prevention Literacy and Advocacy Programme, who is based in Cape Town. Access to good international communications and a willingness to travel extensively are essential. The deadline for applications is 19 October 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"We want birth control: reproductive health findings in Northern Uganda","field_subtitle":"Krause S: Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, 2007","field_url":"http://www.womenscommission.org/pdf/ug_rh.pdf","body":"What does the reproductive health (RH) situation among the conflict-affected populations of northern Uganda look like? The Women\u2019s Commission for Refugee Women and Children and the United Nations Population Fund assessed this question in February 2007 and visited the districts of Kitgum and Pader and also a youth center and clinic in Gulu.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Women's Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.wlppfp.org/lawa/","body":"The Leadership and Advocacy for Women in Africa (LAWA) Fellowship Program was founded in 1993 at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., in order to train women's human rights lawyers from Africa committed to returning home to their countries to advance the status of women and girls throughout their careers. The LAWA programme is inviting applications for July 2008- August 2009 LAWA Fellowship Program; the deadline for submissions is November 30, 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Statistics 2007","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization , 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat2007/en/index.html","body":"World health statistics 2007, published by the World Health Organization (WHO), presents the most recent health statistics for WHO\u2019s 193 Member States. The core set of indicators was selected on the basis of their relevance to global health, the availability and quality of the data, and the accuracy and comparability of estimates. The core indicators do not aim to capture all relevant aspects of health but to provide a comprehensive summary of the current status of a population\u2019s health and the health system at country level. These indicators include: mortality outcomes, morbidity outcomes, risk factors, coverage of selected health interventions, health systems, inequalities in health, and demographic and socioeconomic statistics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Advancing public health calls for wider public health skills ","field_subtitle":"K  Tibazarwa","field_url":"","body":"\r\nWith the major public health challenges that are found in Africa, making progress in public health clearly demands a significant spread of public health skills. While health workers are making tireless efforts to address preventable diseases across the continent, and many successful experiences exist, revitalizing primary health care oriented systems calls for revitalized public health leadership and skills. \r\n\r\nPart of the challenge is filling the gaps created by out-migration. At a conference held in mid-June 2007 on 'Sustaining Africa\u2019s Development through Public Health Education', hosted by the University of Pretoria School of Health Systems and Public Health, Professor Erich Buch, health advisor to NEPAD, depicted the prevailing health worker situation in Africa, including the extensive brain drain, low funding and insufficient, often inadequately compensated, staff. He emphasised the need to shift focus from the current responses taking place country-by-country to building wider continental responses, informed by vision, leadership, and energy. This leadership demands public health skills, and Professor Buch asserted that building 'centres of excellence and networks in Africa are key \u2026 to strengthen[ing] public health capacity at public health schools and institutions across the continent'.\r\n\r\nThe meeting discussed options for how to achieve this. With limited financial and institutional resources, governments and institutions can best maximise what is available by sharing existing African expertise across organisations and countries, and strengthening formal mentorship programmes for public health practitioners. This needs to be backed by investments in user-friendly technology to support the communication, collaboration and networking between research institutions, and to stimulate collaborative research and discussion forums and strong alumni systems.\r\n\r\nNetworking between institutions and professionals in Africa is sometimes weaker than between Africans and colleagues in the developed world. Building African networks needs active support and investment. One key area of concerned raised in the NEPAD strategy is establishing and maintaining an inventory of public health education capacity in Africa, enabling standardisation and accreditation of training institutions and encouraging innovative methods of training and the use of technology supported learning. As Professor Buch stated \u201cWe need to \u2026 build more cost-effective capacity on the continent'.\r\n\r\nIn line with these goals, the AfriHealth Project at the University of Pretoria recently completed a three-year mapping project of public health education and training institutions in South Africa. The project has developed a database of public health workers and educators to inform collaborations in Africa. While the mapping focused on South Africa, the information would be useful to strengthen the networking of institutions and individuals in Africa and to share these institutional resources. The AfriHealth Project seeks to secure a Pan-African Public Health body that is effective, inclusive, scientifically and politically supported, and well-resourced. The project has identified the strategic importance of developing a continental approach to improving public health in line with new socio-political realities, strengthening public health capacity by networking institutions, programmes and individuals, and promoting technology-supported learning and communication.\r\n\r\nThese initiatives do not see current skills scarcities as being an insurmountable block to development of new skills. Mentors can be drawn from existing academic institutions. But public health education must also move beyond universities, to provide other skills not always available from university education, such as for cultural sensitivity in health practice, or for strategic management. Short courses for public health practitioners can also bridge the gap between  different entry levels and Masters' degrees in public health. Public health educators and researchers must also bridge the gap in research to reduce the drop out rate in Masters' courses. \r\n\r\nThere are new and emerging challenges to public health in the rapidly changing global environment. The content of public health training needs to match the new needs and opportunities for action in public health. \r\n\r\nGender issues have a major impact on health in the continent, and  institutions should include gender in public health curricula. Improving women\u2019s rights, eliminating violence against women and advancing health rights more generally calls for recognition of the central role played by women in providing health care. This doesn\u2019t only mean looking at women's roles. As Dr Alena Petrakova from WHO (Geneva) noted at the conference, mainstreaming gender in public health curriculum design and development also means involving men and examining their impact on health. A recently-formed African Network for Public Health Educators on Gender (ANPHEG) is taking the issue of how gender is mainstreamed in the public health curricula on a sustainable basis.\r\n\r\nAchieving the commitments set out in the continent and those set globally, like the Millennium Development Goals, calls for clear skills to best protect, use and advance the health resources in the region. Much focus has rightly been placed on retaining and valuing health workers. Beyond this, equal concern is now being voiced in the continent that those who do work in African health systems are adequately equipped at all levels with the knowledge and skills to lead effective and innovative responses to the continent's public health challenges. \r\n\r\nK  Tibazarwa is a masters' student, School of Public Health at the University of Cape Town. Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat admin@equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: SADC Drama for Life Programme","field_subtitle":"Ndebe W: The University of the Witwatersrand","field_url":"http://web.wits.ac.za/NewsRoom/NewsItems/DramaForLife.htm","body":"The University of the Witwatersrand's School of Art wishes to announce the launching of the SADC Drama for Life Programme. To begin they offer 28 full scholarships (tuition, residence, medical aid, permits, insurance) at Wits University for outstanding performers/director s and teachers or facilitators in the field of Applied Drama and Theatre. Applications are now open, and details on the university website can be found in English, Portuguese and French. The SADC Drama for Life Programme is about supporting all existing NGOs, theatre groups and ministries of health and education. It is about building capacity, and providing support for quality of life work in all 14 SADC countries. They look forward to forming partnerships with organisations throughout the region, and seek to build a vision of hope.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: Gender democracy and development: African feminist struggles in the context of globalization, 11-14 September 2007","field_subtitle":"Tanzania Gender Network Programme","field_url":"http://www.tgnp.org/0gf.htm","body":"The next Gender Festival on \u2018African Feminist Struggles in the Context of Globalization\u2019 will take place at TGNP\u2019s Gender Resource Centre, Mabibo Dar es Salaam Tanzania from 11th to 14th September 2007. The 2007 Gender Festival is an open space to bring together feminist and gender-focused groups, other civil society organisations, institutions, activists and other development actors working at various levels to meet, reflect and strategise on the progress made in feminist struggles for gender equity, social transformation and participatory democracy in Tanzania. Participants are invited to make submissions for this festival, taking account of issues such as the present context of corporate-led globalisation and \u2018free market\u2019 ideology, their impact on development and democracy in Africa and the world over, and examining alternative frameworks and strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for participation: Regional training workshop on writing skills for scientific papers and peer-reviewed journals","field_subtitle":"TARSC/EQUINE, August 2007","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=43_0_1_0_M2","body":"The EQUINET Secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre with local hosts,  REACH Trust (Malawi), invite personnel working on health equity in east and southern Africa to apply for participation  for a capacity building workshop on \u201cWriting scientific papers and peer reviewed journals\u201d  to be held in Lilongwe, Malawi from 20-24 October 2007. This workshop is designed to support capabilities for effective dissemination of  research on health equity. The call closes on 3 September 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals: Accessing patented knowledge for innovation","field_subtitle":"International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Canada","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-112535-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html","body":"As many technologies and much knowledge are proprietary in nature and form the subject matter of patents owned by foreign entities, a key national policy instrument is the intellectual property rights regime.  How it reflects and balances relevant international commitments with the goal of advancing the economic and social rights of its citizens is crucial in promoting their best interests. This is a Call for Proposals on how developing countries can access technologies and information contained in existing patents to enhance innovative research at the national level. This call for proposals is limited to developing country institutions. Six grants of approximately $75,000 Canadian will be made after the close of the competition on November 30, 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Crossing sectors - Experiences in intersectoral action, public policy and health","field_subtitle":"Public Health Agency of Canada/Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH)/EQUINET Africa, 2007","field_url":"http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/2007/cro-sec/pdf/cro-sec_e.pdf","body":"This paper represents the first phase of a Canadian initiative on intersectoral action for health and provides an overview of approaches to intersectoral action at the global, sub-regional, national, sub-national, and community levels. It is intended to contribute to the World Health Organisation\u2019s Commission on Social Determinants of Health (SDH) and is the result of collaboration between EQUINET, the Health Systems Knowledge Network of the Commission on SDH and the Public Health Agency of Canada. Experiences documented by academics, policy-makers and practitioners in more than 15 countries are examined in an attempt to improve understanding of questions relating to: the types of problems addressed through intersectoral action (IA); the conditions that shape horizontal and interjurisdictional collaboration; tools, mechanisms and approaches to support IA; and roles played by the health sector and other actors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing and scaling up African led solutions to the human resources crisis ","field_subtitle":"Hall S: African Medical and Research Foundation , 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems&id=32809&type=Document","body":"This briefing paper explores different ways of addressing the health worker crisis in Africa. It addresses problems of poor training, motivation and retention of health workers, the lack of skilled health workers in remote and hard to reach areas, and poor community engagement with health systems. The authors argue that to tackle the immediate health worker crisis it is important to find models which can quickly deploy and retain workers and ensure they get appropriate training and support. Responses need to expand the cadres of workers with basic clinical and community health competencies, such as enrolled nurses, clinical officers and community health workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Emergency plans needed to bridge health financing gap","field_subtitle":"Richards T: World AIDS Campaign, 12 July 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yvu7hc","body":"The World Health Assembly has in the past three years passed several resolutions on health financing and health worker shortages - yet there has been an overall increase in annual African deaths resulting from lack of sustainable health finance and health worker shortages. The worlds Health Ministers must now move from passing resolutions to effecting resolutions and emergency action to end the deaths of over 8 million Africans a year from preventable and treatable diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org This newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'.\r\n\r\nWe strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles.\r\n\r\nPlease contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 79: Advancing public health calls for wider public health skills","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/ \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in health care in Namibia: Developing a needs-based resource allocation formula using principal components analysis","field_subtitle":"Zere E, Mandlhate C, Mbeeli T , et  al,  International Journal for Equity in Health 2007, 6:3, 29 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/6/1/3","body":"The pace of redressing inequities in the distribution of scarce health care resources in Namibia has been slow. This is due primarily to adherence to the historical incrementalist type of budgeting that has been used to allocate resources. Those regions with high levels of deprivation and relatively greater need for health care resources have been getting less than their fair share. To rectify this situation, which was inherited from the apartheid system, there is a need to develop a needs-based resource allocation mechanism. Principal components analysis was employed to compute asset indices from asset based and health-related variables, using data from the Namibia demographic and health survey of 2000. The asset indices then formed the basis of proposals for regional weights for establishing a needs-based resource allocation formula.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity promoting health care policies in South Africa: A literature review commissioned by the Health Systems Knowledge Network","field_subtitle":"Chetty K: WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH), 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/social_determinants/resources/csdh_media/chetty_equity_2007_en.pdf","body":"South Africa is one of the youngest democracies in the world, with twelve years of a democratically elected government. Prior to the democratic elections, it was a country marked by oppression and extreme inequality. The democratic government has introduced a range of pro poor and pro equity policies. This paper reviews the system that was inherited by the democratic government, the equity promoting policies of the new government and the strategies adopted to implement these policies. It further analyses if the policy objectives have been met and the challenges that need to be addressed to reach these objectives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Falling HIV rates tell complex story","field_subtitle":"PlusNews, 2 August 2007","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73541","body":"When it comes to sub-Saharan Africa's devastating AIDS crisis, there is an understandable tendency to latch onto any scrap of good news. Figures suggesting the epidemic is waning in some countries are being trumpeted by governments and international donor agencies as evidence that their prevention efforts are succeeding. But the real story behind increases and decreases in HIV prevalence is far less clear. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Geographical disparities in core population coverage indicators for roll back malaria in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Kazembe LN,  Appleton CC, Kleinschmidt I: International Journal for Equity in Health, 2007, 6 : 5, 4 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/6/1/5","body":"Implementation of known effective interventions would necessitate the reduction of malaria burden by half by the year 2010. Identifying geographical disparities of coverage of these interventions at small area level is useful to inform where greatest scaling-up efforts should be concentrated. They also provide baseline data against which future scaling-up of interventions can be compared. However, population data are not always available at local level. This study applied spatial smoothing methods to generate maps at subdistrict level in Malawi to serve such purposes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Watch: Chapter Reviewers needed","field_subtitle":"Global Health Watch","field_url":"","body":"The Global Health Watch (GHW) are still looking for reviewers for a number of chapters and would like suggestions. As with the first edition of GHW, they want to make sure that the Watch reflects issues from regions around the globe. Each chapter is written collaboratively, and the review process is intended as a further opportunity to ensure that each regions issues are reflected in this next edition of the Watch. Suggestions are needed as soon as possible.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32540","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS and democratic governance in Africa: Illustrating the impact on electoral processes","field_subtitle":"Chirambo K, IDASA, 22 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org/documents/d0002733/index.php","body":"The research presented in this paper responds to years of academic speculation and subsequent policy concerns about the possible collapse of Africa\u2019s democratic project under the complex waves of impacts introduced by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It is the result of three years of exploratory studies in seven countries: Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, Tanzania, South Africa, Senegal and Zambia. Anecdotes of Lesotho and Zimbabwe have also been highlighted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"IDRC and SSHRC : Social science and humanities expertise to be harnessed for international impact","field_subtitle":"International Development Research Centre,  Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council","field_url":"http://www.sshrc.ca/web/whatsnew/press_releases/2007/idrc_cura_e.asp","body":"Canada \u2019s IDRC and the SSHRC have signed an agreement to invest up to $6.27 million over the next six years to support international research alliances. This partnership will engage teams from Canada and developing countries in comparing and collaborating on their research, while working with people in communities that will directly benefit from the research. This partnership is a practical expression of the idea that new knowledge, generated through research, is key for people to improve their futures. The joint program will encourage strategic research in four areas: environment and natural resource management; information and communication technologies for development; the impact of science, technology and innovation policies on development; social and economic policy related to poverty reduction, growth, health and human rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the health of mothers and babies: Breaking through health system constraints","field_subtitle":"Matthews Z: ID21Health News, August 2007","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights-h11/pdf.html","body":"Improving maternal health remains the most elusive of the Millennium Development Goals. Every minute, at least one woman dies from pregnancy-related causes: 99 percent of these are in developing countries. The majority of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, and are avoidable through using standard interventions and health care which all pregnant women and their newborns need.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"In the wake of the LRA: HIV in Uganda and Sudan","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 27 August 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73960","body":"In Uganda, the areas worst affected by the violence were close to the border with Sudan, far from the urban centres around which most camps for internally displaced persons (IDP) grew. It is the urban areas, such as Gulu in northern Uganda and Yei in southern Sudan, which have the highest HIV prevalence rates. Years of encampment and dependency on relief handouts have had a profound effect on the traditionally conservative Acholi. Alcoholism and sexual violence have become particular problems, and the heavy presence of soldiers, with money in their pockets, has also helped give rise to a sex industry. Many areas of southern Sudan and northern Uganda are rapidly opening up to trade, and health workers are worried that unless information about HIV reaches these populations early enough, they will be unprepared for the possibility of a rapid spread of HIV. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Innovative fish farming project for HIV-affected families doubles incomes and boosts household nutrition","field_subtitle":"WorldFish Center, 21 August 2007","field_url":"http://www.worldfishcenter.org/resource_centre/WorldFish%20Press%20Release_FINAL.pdf","body":"Scientists at The WorldFish Center reported today that an innovative project to encourage fish farming among families affected by HIV/AIDS in Malawi has doubled the income for 1,200 households and greatly increased fish and vegetable consumption among rural communities. The findings were released in a review of a multi-year initiative by the Malaysia-based WorldFish Center, one of 15 centers supported by the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and World Vision, an international humanitarian aid organization, to promote aquaculture among \u201cvulnerable populations\u201d in Malawi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"International Health Partnership","field_subtitle":"Affiliated Network for Social Accountability, 22 August 2007","field_url":"http://www.ansa-africa.net/index.php/views/feature_view/international_health_partnership/","body":"The UK Prime Minister and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have released a joint statement on a new International Health Partnership, which will bring together major donor countries, including Britain and Germany, and key international agencies such as the World Bank and the World Health Organisation. The agreement was developed with bilateral, international health and funding agencies, developing countries, and foundations; it commits all artners to: working with country owned plans; creating a mechanism to agree donor support to national plans; coordinating their efforts on the ground; and focussing on the creation of sustainable health systems which deliver improved outcomes. Partners will work together to ensure that health plans are well designed, well supported and well implemented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"International spread of disease threatens public health security: The World Health Report 2007 and a safer future","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation (WHO), 23 August 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2007/pr44/en/index.html","body":"More than at any previous time in history, global public health security depends on international cooperation and the willingness of all countries to act effectively in tackling new and emerging threats. That is the clear message of this year's World health report entitled A safer future: global public health security in the 21st century, which concludes with six key recommendations to secure the highest level of global public health security.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Invitation to apply: Oxford Internet Institute - Civil Society Practitioners Programme","field_subtitle":"The Oxford Internet Institute","field_url":"http://www.oii. ox.ac.uk/ people/CSPP_ Application_ Information. pdf","body":"The Oxford Internet Institute ( University of Oxford ) invites applications from the global South to fill two places in its Civil Society Practitioners Programme. This visitor programme is intended for Civil Society Practitioners of distinction or outstanding promise who wish to visit the Institute for a period of six weeks between February and December 2008, to undertake research concerning the social impact of the Internet and related ICTs. Visitors are expected to reside in Oxford during their stay, and to participate fully in the intellectual life of the Institute. Applications will ideally be submitted by Civil Society Practitioners in or from the global South, active in the areas of freedom of expression, media reform, media justice, and communications and information policy in the globalized context of the Internet. The application deadline 26 September 2007 Final notification of an award will occur in November 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Key district health indicators","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust, 24 August 2007","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041660","body":" There are currently a large number of indicators being collected and used in the health system, however there are certain problems associated with facility-based indicators. In an attempt to demystify the indicators and to make them more accessible to managers of facilities and to those at higher levels of the system who support facility managers, this booklet has taken the top ten key indicators based on routine facility information and has unpacked them. It is hoped that this publication will make these indicators more easily understandable, will promote greater use of these indicators and will therefore ultimately play a role in improving their quality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Literature review on gender issues amongst health care workers","field_subtitle":"George A: Women and Gender Equity Knowledge Network, 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health-systems&id=32946&type=Document","body":"This paper discusses gender issues manifested within health occupations and across them. It examines gender dynamics in medicine, nursing, community health workers and home carers and explores from a gender perspective issues concerning delegation, migration and violence, which cut across these categories of health workers. Gender plays a critical role in determining the structural location of women and men in the health labour force and their subjective experience of that location. The paper shows that woman are overrepresented in caring, informal, part-time, unskilled and unpaid work and within occupations there are significant gender differences in terms of employment security, promotion, remuneration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal health workforce crisis","field_subtitle":"Mridha MK and Koblinsky M: ID21 Health News, August 2007","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights-h11/art04.html","body":"Providing maternal care requires a viable and effective health workforce. In many countries, and certainly in all countries where maternal mortality is high, the size, skills and infrastructure of the workforce is inadequate. The most visible features of the maternal health workforce crisis are the staggering shortages and imbalances in the distribution of health workers. With insufficient production, downsizing and caps on recruitment under structural adjustment and with frozen salaries and losses to the private sector, migration and HIV and AIDS, filling the supply gap will remain a major challenge for years to come. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Modelling synergy and partnership to tackle regional health issues","field_subtitle":"ECSACON, 9 August 2007","field_url":"http://www.crhcs.or.tz/modules.php?op=modload&name=UpDownload&file=index&req=viewdownloaddetails&lid=285&ttitle=ECSACON_Model","body":"The East, central and Southern African Health Community College of Nursing (ECSACON) has released a report documenting how health professionals can take the initiative to come together to address regional issues of concern. Documenting the process of developing the ECSACON model also demonstrates how acting together in synergy and partnership can expand the impact of similar networks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Neglected diseases: a human rights analysis","field_subtitle":"Hunt P:World Health Organization , 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/tdr/publications/publications/pdf/seb_topic6.pdf","body":"This report by the World Health Organisation, examines the relationship between neglected diseases and human rights. It argues that neglected diseases are both a cause and consequence of human rights violations, and the failure to respect certain human rights, such as the rights to water, adequate housing, education and participation, increases the vulnerability of individuals and communities to neglected diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Neoliberalism, Globalization, and Inequalities: Consequences for Health and Quality of Life","field_subtitle":"Navarro V: Baywood Publishing","field_url":"http://www.baywood.com/books/previewbook.asp?id=978-0-89503-338-3","body":"This book critically analyses the conventional wisdom in the political, economic, and academic establishments of neoliberalism and globalisation as good for people's health and quality of life.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"New Law to Stem Worrying Brain Drain","field_subtitle":"Gaomas S: New Era, 1 August 2007","field_url":"http://www.newera.com.na/archives.php?id=16955&date=2007-08-01","body":"The Namibian Minister of Health and Social Services, Dr Richard Kamwi, will urgently seek Cabinet approval of an agreement that would oblige doctors at State hospitals to be contracted for a stipulated period of time before going solo. The move is intended to stem the current tide where public sector doctors take advantage of existing loopholes tp migrate out or set up private medical practices while working for the State. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New Zambian SADC leadership must make 15% health pledge priority","field_subtitle":"Africa15percentcampaign, 21 August 2007","field_url":"http://web.mac.com/africa15percent/_Africa_%2215_Now%21%22_Campaign/SADC_07-Zambia_President.html","body":"The Africa Public Health Rights Alliance \u201c15% Now!\u201d Campaign has called on the new Chair of SADC President Levy Patrick Mwanawasa to make it a priority of his term of office to ensure that alongside upholding Democracy and Good Governance, all SADC countries emulate the leadership of Botswana and meet the Abuja African Union pledge to allocate at least 15% of national budgets to health. President Mwanawasa assumed SADC leadership at the end of the last summit that ended on the 17th of August. In a statement issued in Lusaka, the Campaigns coordinator Rotimi Sankore stated:\u201cSADC leaders must realise that they have no choice but to follow the lead of Botswana in meeting the Abuja 15% pledge. Its really a choice between meeting the 15% commitment now, or presiding over mass burials of citizens between now and 2015 when they should have met the health based Millennium Development Goals\u201d.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty, mental health and municipal services in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Swartz L, Breen A, Fisher A, Joska J, Corrigall J, Plaatjies L and McDonald DA: Municipal Services Project, Occasional Paper 12","field_url":"http://www.queensu.ca/msp/pages/Project_Publications/Series/PapersNo12.pdf","body":"There have been dramatic changes to municipal services such as water and electricity since the end of apartheid in South Africa, with considerable research having gone into the impacts of commercialisation and cost recovery on low-income households. The research has revealed complex and often negative relationships between the marketisation of services and access and affordability for the poor. It has also been shown to have direct and very negative public health implications, most acutely in low-income township and rural areas.Less obvious, and much less researched, have been the impacts of changes in service delivery on the mental health of low-income residents and household members. What, then, might be the links between poverty, mental health and the shift towards market-oriented reforms in basic services? This paper explores the relationship in the South African context with a detailed, ethnographic case study of ten low-income families in Cape Town coping with a serious mental disorder (schizophrenia).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public perceptions on national health insurance: Moving towards universal health coverage in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Shisana O, Rehle T, Louw J, Dirwayi NZ, Dana P, Rispel L: South African Medical Journal 96(9) 2006","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=1&id=28008","body":"Since 1994, considerable progress has been made in transforming the South African health care system, implementing programmes that improve the health of the population, and improving access to health care services. However, amid escalating health care costs disparities continue to exist between the public and private health sectors. The implementation of a national or social health insurance remains elusive despite three government-appointed committees on the matter.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"SA Health Minister in meeting with private healthcare providers","field_subtitle":"Minister of Health Dr Tshabalala-Msimang: Polity.org.za, 8 August 2007","field_url":"http://www.polity.org.za/article.php?a_id=114369","body":"In a recent meeting with private health care providers and insurers, Health Mininster Dr Tshabalala-Msimang criticised private providers for placing a large burden on health consumers, with out-of-pocket expenditures pushing patients further and further into poverty. She emphasised that a national health system cares for all and urged private providers to work with government to secure a decent national health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Policy and the Quest for Inclusive Development: Research findings from Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Adesina JO: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 1 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BCCF9/(LookupAllDocumentsByUNID)/4B70757049D381F9C1257324002FBE53?OpenDocument","body":"This paper provides a reflective overview of the eight studies commissioned under the UNRISD project on 'Social Policy in Late Industrializers: Sub-Saharan Africa and the Challenge of Social Policy'. The studies involved subregional and thematic social policy concerns. Within this framework, one study was concerned with overall conceptual issues and macroeconomic policy directions, focusing on the dominant or ruling ideas on development that shaped each phase of sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s post-colonial history, and how these ruling ideas shaped economic and social policies. A second set of studies focused on health, water and sanitation dimensions of social policy, while a third examined education and labour market policies. Using comparative techniques, these studies examined clusters of countries in East Africa, Southern Africa and West Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Stop the EPA's offensive by the EU against the Southern African Development Community!","field_subtitle":"People's Summit, Southern Africa","field_url":"http://www.zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=2778&cat=2","body":"Hundreds of representatives of social and labour organisations, faith based, community-based and health networks, small farmers, traders, women and youth organisations, and developmental, human rights and environmental NGOs from across the whole of the Southern African region gathered in a Peoples Summit in Lusaka, Zambia, 15-16 August 2007, parallel to the SADC Heads of State summit. They discussed many issues of common concern and agreed that there is now an urgent generalised threat hanging over the whole future of SADC. This arises from the insistence of the European Union (EU) that SADC, like other regional groupings in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (the ACP countries) must sign a far-reaching trade liberalisation agreement with the EU. Participants claim this has been misleadingly entitled an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), despite already witnessing the damaging effects of trade liberalisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening health systems in southern Africa \u2013 Celebrating 15 years","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust, 24 August 2007","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041613","body":" The Health Systems Trust will be holding a conference with key stakeholders on 10 and 11 October 2007 in Johannesburg, Gauteng, to celebrate 15 years of work in strengthening health systems in southern Africa. A panel of external experts will be invited to formally review recent HST programmes of work during this conference. Participation in the conference is by invitation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Tackling, developing and sustaining stewardship and health system management for health equity","field_subtitle":"Gilson L: Commission on the Social Determinants of Health (CSDH), June 2007","field_url":"http://www.wits.ac.za/chp/kn/Gilson.pdf","body":"This paper argues that stronger and values-based public sector management and leadership is essential in building health systems that better address health inequities. By considering evidence on existing weaknesses in health system action to redress inequity, it identifies a complex and inter-locking set of problems involving individuals, organisational culture and the ways in which wider political, economic and socio-cultural forces influence public sector organisations. It then examines the particular features of organisational culture in organisations judged to be better performing, and considers how change in organisational culture can be brought about. It also identifies the particular competencies of public sector managers and reviews evidence on how these competencies can be developed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The contribution of primary health care to the Millennium Development Goals","field_subtitle":"Chan M: The World Health Organisation, 16 August 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2007/20070816_argentina/en/index.html","body":"The Director-General of the World Health Organisation in an opening address at the International Conference on Health for Development in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 16 June 2007 argued that to realize the great potential of health to drive human development, we must reach the poor with appropriate, high-quality care. The speech explores challenges in the role that primary health care can play in this and how to overcome major barriers, such as weak health systems, inadequate numbers of health care staff, and the challenge of financing care for impoverished people. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of maternal health on poverty","field_subtitle":"Falkingham J: ID21 Research Highlight, 2 August 2007","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/InsightsHealth11art3.html","body":"The links between poverty and poor maternal health are well established. Poorer countries experience the highest rates of maternal mortality, whilst maternal death and life-threatening and debilitating illness are higher amongst women from poorer households. However, there is now growing evidence that poor maternal health can also exacerbate poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Problem of Handwashing and Paying for Water in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Haffajee F, Chopra M, Sanders D: Municipal Services Project, Occasional Paper 13","field_url":"http://www.queensu.ca/msp/pages/Project_Publications/Series/PapersNo13.pdf","body":"Water-related diseases are widely recognised as a major threat to public health, especially in the developing world. An estimated 19% of all infectious diseases are related to water, sanitation and hygiene risk factors. In South Africa the provision of basic infrastructure such as water and sanitation has been an important part of the social contract between the government and its constituencies. In 2001 the government became a partner in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for All (WASH) campaign, which was designed to attract resources to address the situation of millions of people without access to adequate water supply and sanitation. In Johannesburg, a privately managed parastatal was contracted to deliver water and associated services in the city. As part of their water service delivery and improvement of services, the company opted to deliver services using prepaid water meters and yard taps. But do households respond differently to hygiene and handwashing interventions such as WASH depending on which water and payment systems they have? This paper explores that question.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The reporting skills and professional writing handbook: A self study","field_subtitle":"Kendrick N: Education, Language and Development Training Programmes (UK), 2007","field_url":"http://www.reportingskills.org/","body":"Field workers, managers and consultants working with development projects of all sectors will benefit from this new resource launched by Education, Language and Development Training Programmes (ELD). A UK charity working since 2000 conducting hundreds of training courses for NGOs in Asia, ELD brings a wealth of experience and guidance on what really works in his step-by-step, practical and clearly explained handbook. Reports are an essential project management tool. Effective reporting helps to compare the reality in the field with the plan, aids management thinking and increases transparency. This is not a \u2018book about reporting skills\u2019. The Handbook looks at the entire reporting process from setting objectives, through data gathering and analysis tools, to planning, drafting, editing and designing the report. The programme is full of clear explanations and examples, frequent practical exercises, and an extended case study to fully apply all the tools presented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The rise and predictable fall of globalized industrial agriculture: A report from the international forum on globalization","field_subtitle":"Barker D: International Forum on Globalization (IFG), 2007","field_url":"http://www.ifg.org/pdf/ag%20report.pdf","body":"Few people are aware how much national and regional food systems are impacted by international policies and trade rules is on national and regional food systems\u2014this report makes these links and offers alternative responses. It also addresses agriculture and global warming, how to move organic and local food models forward, and discusses other emerging issues as well. The International Forum on Globalization (IFG) is a research and educational institution comprised of leading scholars, economists, researchers, and activists from around the globe.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The utilisation of public-private partnerships: Fiscal responsibility and options to develop intervention strategies for HIV and AIDS in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Schoeman L: University of Pretoria, April 2007","field_url":"http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-06262007-184020/unrestricted/00front.pdf","body":"This study aimed to put forward value-creating strategies and develop a best practice model that strengthened government capacity to provide efficient, effective, economical and equitable health care and thereby impact on plans for HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment roll-out.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"UN agencies unveil initiative to reduce female genital mutilation","field_subtitle":"United Nations News Service, 9 August 2007","field_url":"http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=23469&Cr=genital&Cr1=mutilation","body":"Two United Nations agencies have launched a $44 million programme to reduce female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) by 40 per cent by 2015 and to end the harmful traditional practice within a generation. Launched by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UN Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF), the initiative will encourage communities in 16 African countries with high prevalence to abandon the practice, which has serious physical and psychological effects. Partnering with the agencies will be Governments, religious leaders, reproductive health providers, media and civil society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO releases new guidance on insecticide-treated mosquito nets","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 16 August 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2007/pr43/en/index.html","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) today issued new global guidance for the use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets to protect people from malaria. For the first time, WHO recommends that insecticidal nets be long-lasting, and distributed either free or highly subsidized and used by all community members. Impressive results in Kenya, achieved by means of the new WHO-recommended strategy, show that free mass distribution of long-lasting insecticidal nets is a powerful way to quickly and dramatically increase coverage, particularly among the poorest people. This is the first demonstration of the impact of large-scale distribution of insecticide treated mosquito nets under programme conditions, rather than in research settings, where, in different parts of Africa, reduction observed in overall mortality has ranged from 14 % up to 60 %.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":" Following the Money: Toward Better Tracking of Global Health Resources","field_subtitle":"Global Health Indicators Working Group: Center for Global Development, May 2007","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/content/general/detail/13711","body":"This report calls for a move from tracking expenditures on specific health programs in an uncoordinated way to coherent and long-term support to improve government budgetary and financial systems in the developing world; to institutionalizing standard approaches to documenting and analyzing health sector expenditures; and to providing more timely, predictable and forward&#8209;looking data on external assistance to the health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":" WTO Offers New Proposal to Break Deadlock","field_subtitle":"Mekay E: IPS News, 17 July 2007","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38577","body":"The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has proposed a new plan to unlock global trade talks that have stalled over farm subsidies in rich countries and reluctance by poor nations to further open their markets for Western goods and services without reciprocation from industrialised nations. But analysts who studied the new text warned that it still leaves rich countries' trade protections largely intact, while giving poor nations little in return.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"$363 million Poverty Reduction Grant signed to improve healthcare systems, water resources, and private sector investment","field_subtitle":"Millenium Challenge Corporation, 23 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.mcc.gov/press/releases/2007/release-072307-lesothosigning.php","body":"The five-year Millennium Challenge Compact with Lesotho aims to increase water supplies for industrial and domestic use, to mitigate the devastating affects of poor maternal health, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other diseases, and to remove barriers to foreign and local private sector investment.  By 2013, the Compact will benefit the majority of the population of 1.8 million due to its broad geographic scope and focus on sectors that impact most Basotho such as health and the provision of potable water.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS drugs need for children","field_subtitle":"South-North Development Monitor (SUNS) 6299, 27 July 2007.","field_url":"http://www.sunsonline.org/contents.php?num=6302","body":"The 4th International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention concluded on 27 July 2007 with a call for anti retroviral drugs developed specifically for HIV-infected children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Antiretroviral durability and tolerability in HIV-infected adults living in urban Kenya","field_subtitle":"Hawkins C, Achenbach C, Fryda W, Ngare D, Murphy R:  Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome 45: 304-310, 1 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=17414931","body":"Frequent antiretroviral therapy (ART) switches in HIV-infected Kenyan urban adults might limit the efficacy of ART. The authors sound the alarm that this is a potentially serious threat to the sustainability of HIV treatment programmes in Kenya and other developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing outcomes of health and medical research: do we measure what counts or count what we can measure?","field_subtitle":"Wells R  and Whitworth JA: Australia and New Zealand Health Policy 4:14, 28 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.anzhealthpolicy.com/content/4/1/14","body":"Governments world wide are increasingly demanding outcome measures to evaluate research investment. Health and medical research outputs can be considered as gains in knowledge, wealth and health. Measurement of the impacts of research on health are difficult, particularly within the time frames of granting bodies. Thus evaluations often measure what can be measured, rather than what should be measured. Traditional academic metrics are insufficient to demonstrate societal benefit from public investment in health research. New approaches that consider all the benefits of research are needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Avoiding slippery slope of drug-rationing debate ","field_subtitle":"Butler A: BuisnessDay, 27 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/article.aspx?ID=BD4A525720","body":"International medical and public health journals contain a growing body of writing on the practical and ethical implications of the rationing of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment around the world. The brief title of one important article neatly encapsulates the dilemma facing health professionals: \u201cWhich patients first?\u201d Medics in most developing countries talk about \u201ctargeting priority patients\u201d in order to emphasise that universal access to ARVs is their ultimate ambition. Campaign groups also avoid the language of rationing because they believe it undercuts their campaigns for ARVs and allows governments to retreat from universal treatment commitments.The truth, however, is that only a small proportion of those who could benefit from ARVs around the world are receiving them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Board of Directors for MCC approves Poverty Reduction Grants for Lesotho and Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Millenium Challenge Corporation, 27 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.mcc.gov/press/releases/2007/release-062707-boardapprovescompacts.php","body":"The five-year $362.6 million grant to Lesotho seeks to increase water supplies for industrial and domestic use, to mitigate the devastating affects of poor maternal health, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other diseases by substantially strengthening the country\u2019s health care infrastructure and human resources for health capacity, and to remove barriers to foreign and local private sector investment. Mozambique\u2019s five-year $506.9 million Millennium Challenge Compact aims to reduce poverty levels through increased incomes and employment by improving water, sanitation, roads, land tenure, and agriculture. This program is expected to benefit about five million Mozambicans by 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: 6th Biennial International Scientific Conference, Nairobi 5-9 November 2007","field_subtitle":"Africa Midwives Research Network (AMRN)","field_url":"","body":"Africa Midwives Research Network invites abstracts for presentation at the 6th Biennial Scientific Conference to be held at Safari Park Hotel in Nairobi , Kenya from 5 th to 9th November 2007. The main theme is \"Strengthening research capacity among nurses and midwives: Challenges in utilizing evidence based cost effective interventions in promoting maternal and child health\". Sub-themes include 'Health workforce intelligence for maternal and child health policy formulation and program implementation', 'Resource mobilization and equitable allocation for quality maternal and child health care', 'Social determinants of maternal and child survival' and lastly 'Malaria, Tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS in reproductive and child health'. The deadline for submission of abstracts will be 1st August 2007.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32429","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Comment on the Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Lesotho compact  funding lack of focus on human resource capacity and health systems","field_subtitle":"Lynch S: Medecins Sans Frantiers (Lesotho)","field_url":"http://www.mcc.gov/documents/factsheet-062707-lesotho.pdfs","body":"Medicins Sans Frontiers comment on limitations in the Millenium Challenge Corporation funding of poverty reduction programmes. They note that the allocation of funding almost entirely to capital costs with no resources for recurrent costs, such as salaries, will constrain implementation in low income countries. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32453","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Diminished mental and physical function and lack of social support are associated with shorter survival in community dwelling older persons of Botswana","field_subtitle":"Clausen T, Wilson AO, Molebatsi RM, Holmboe-Ottesen G: BMC Public Health 7:144, 5 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/144/abstract","body":"Mortality rates for older persons in Botswana have been unavailable and little is known of predictors of mortality in old age. This study may serve as a precursor for more detailed assessments. The objective was to assess diminished function and lack of social support as indicators of short term risk of death. Older community dwelling persons with diminished cognitive or physical function, solitary daily meals and living in a small household have a significantly increased risk of rapid deterioration and death. Health policy should include measures to strengthen informal support and expand formal service provisions to older persons with poor function and limited social networks in order to prevent premature deaths.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 48: A review of nutrition and food security approaches in HIV and AIDS programmes in Eastern and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Panagides, D; Graciano, R; Atekyereza, P; Gerberg, L; Chopra, M (2007)","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS48nutHIVESA.pdf","body":"The purpose of this paper is to explore the interface between HIV and AIDS and food and nutrition security, and the policy and programme implications for a comprehensive strategy to address these issues synergistically. Specifically, this paper examines and compares the policies and programmes related to HIV and AIDS and food and nutrition security that are currently in place in three Eastern Africa countries (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) and three Southern Africa countries (Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe) and concludes with elements of a comprehensive approach. This paper is based on a desk review of exisiting policies and programs in each of the six study countries. In addition, key informat interviews were conducted with persons from various government departments, United Nations (UN) agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Does the TRIPS agreement strike the right balance?","field_subtitle":"Charveriat C, Bale H: WTO Forum Video Debate","field_url":"http://www.wto.org/english/forums_e/debates_e/debate2_e.htm","body":"This video debate asks: 'Does the TRIPS agreement strike the right balance between the rights of governments and the rights of patent holders?'","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Early treatment of HIV-infected infants with ART significantly reduces mortality","field_subtitle":"Violari A, Cotton M, Gibb D, Babiker A, Steyn J, Jean-Phillip P, McIntyre J: International Aids Society Conference, 25 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.ias2007.org/pag/Abstracts.aspx?SID=150&AID=5557","body":"Treating HIV-infected infants with antiretroviral therapy (ART) as early as possible, within the first six to 12 weeks of life \u2014 rather than waiting until they show signs of immunological or clinical deterioration \u2014 dramatically decreases their risk of early death, according to findings from the Children with HIV Early Antiretroviral Therapy (CHER) trial, a South African study presented today at the 4th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Treatment and Pathogenesis in Sydney.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic impact of abortion related morbidity and mortality: modelling worldwide estimates","field_subtitle":"Vlassof M: Eldis Health Resource Guide, 2006","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health&id=32275&type=Document","body":"This paper estimates the monetary costs of the 19 million unsafe abortions that take place every year around the world. This includes the direct costs of treatment related morbidity and mortality to health systems, and indirect costs to the national economy and households \u2013 the cost to women when they suffer from abortion complications whilst they receive treatment and recuperate from such treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org This newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'.\r\n\r\nWe strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles.\r\n\r\nPlease contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 78: New reports suggest IMF policies undermine efforts on AIDS, health and education","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET) \r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/ \r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place.\r\n\r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET: Networking for equity in health in eastern and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R: Promotion and Education XIV(2): 105-106, 2007","field_url":"http://www.iuhpe.org/upload/File/PE_2_07a.pdf","body":"This short paper outlines the perspectives and motivations for the work of the Regional Network for Equity in Health in Eastern and Southern Africa (EQUINET). It presents key areas of work on health equity being implemented to strengthen the state and public sector in health; organised around the active participation and involvement of communities. This includes work on strengthening people's power for health, on increased fair financing, on retaining health workers and challenging trade policies that encroach on health. Such work faces challenges that can be met through increased regional networking to exchange experience, information and expertise, particularly given the demand for learning by doing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"EU confronts its unhealthy policy","field_subtitle":"South-North Development Monitor (SUNS) 6299, 24 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.sunsonline.org/contents.php?num=6302","body":"The European Union's only directly elected institution is at loggerheads with the bloc's 27 governments over a measure officially designed to ensure that poor countries have access to affordable medicines. In 2003, the EU helped broker a temporary waiver to the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) agreement on intellectual property rights, which is known by the acronym TRIPS. Meeting on July 17, however, the European Parliament's committee on international trade decided to delay giving its assent to ratification because it is not satisfied that the EU is doing enough to boost the supply of vital drugs to the needy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Final  announcement  for  CAFS Course on Supervising HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"Centre for African Family Studies (CAFS)","field_url":"http://www.cafs.org/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=153&bid=29&btitle=&meid=38#Supervising_HIV_&_AIDS_Services","body":"The Centre for African Family Studies (CAFS) is pleased to announce its course, \"Supervising HIV and AIDS Services\" to be held from 20 to 31 August 2007 in Nairobi, Kenya. The purpose of this course is to assist the HIV & AIDS supervisor in using a performance and quality improvement approach to guide, assist, train, and encourage staff to improve their performance and provide high quality health services. It is organised around a step-by-step process, useful for all supervisors, particularly the new supervisor. The process can be used to solve specific performance-related gaps in  delivery of HIV & AIDS prevention, treatment care and support services and thereby improve health services. It can also be used to plan and initiate new HIV & AIDS services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Focus on drug access at HIV/AIDS meet","field_subtitle":"South-North Development Monitor (SUNS) #6299, 22 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.sunsonline.org/contents.php?num=6299","body":"Delegates at a major international conference on HIV and AIDS urged developed countries to help guarantee the supply of affordable drugs to combat the virus and the syndrome. Over 5,000 delegates from 130 countries were in Sydney to attend the Fourth International AIDS Society (IAS 2007) conference featuring the latest developments in HIV biology, pathogenesis, treatment and prevention science. It explored how the gap between research and practice can be bridged, particularly in developing countries that bear the brunt of the HIV pandemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Generating political priority for global health initiatives: A framework and case study of maternal mortality","field_subtitle":"Shiffman J: Global Center for Development, July 2007","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/doc/events/7.19.07/CGD_seminar_on_global_political_priority.pdf","body":"The author developed this framework while conducting an in-depth case study of the safe motherhood initiative and supplemented the findings with research done on AIDS, reproductive health, and other health initiatives. At its core, the framework posits eleven factors under four key categories (actor capability, framing, political opportunities, and issue characteristics) driving the success or failure of health initiatives (i.e. polio eradication, the AIDS movement, etc).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Geographical disparities in core population coverage indicators for Roll Back Malaria in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Kazembe LN, Appleton  CC, Kleinschmidt I: International Journal for Equity in Health 6:5, 4 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/6/1/5","body":"Implementation of known effective interventions could reduce the malaria burden by half by the year 2010. Identifying geographical disparities of coverage of these interventions at small area level is useful to inform where greatest scale-up efforts should be concentrated. They also provide baseline data against which to compare future scale-up of interventions. However, population data are not always available at local level. This study applied spatial smoothing methods to generate maps at subdistrict level in Malawi to serve such purposes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Equity Gauge Alliance","field_subtitle":"Ntuli A: Promotion and Education XIV (2): 107-108, 2007","field_url":"http://www.iuhpe.org/upload/File/PE_2_07a.pdf","body":"The lack of attention to equity in health, health care and determinants of health is a burden to the attainment of good health in many countries. With this underlying problem as a basis, a series of meetings took place between 1999 and 2000, culminating in the creation of the Global Equity Gauge Alliance (GEGA). GEGA is an international network of groups in developing countries, mainly Asia, AFrica, and Latin America, which develop projects designed to confront and mitigate inequities in health, known as Equity Gauges. Equity Gauges aim to contribute towards the sustained decline in inequities in both the broad sociopolitical determinants of health, as well as inequities in health system. Their approach is based on three broad spheres of action, known as \"pillars\". Through a series of examples from local or national level gauges, this paper showcases their work promoting the interaction between research and evidence-based policy formulation and implementation, and the interaction between the community and policy makers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global tuberculosis control: surveillance, planning, financing","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/tb/publications/global_report/2007/pdf/full.pdf","body":"This eleventh annual WHO report on Tuberculosis (TB) assesses whether national TB control programmes (NTP) around the world met the 2005 targets of 70 per cent case detection and 85 per cent cure, and examines the effectiveness of the Stop TB strategy. The paper finds that TB is still a major cause of death worldwide, but the global epidemic is on the threshold of decline \u2013 in 2005 the TB incidence rate was stable or in decline in all six WHO regions, and had reached a peak worldwide. Most government health services now recognise that TB control must go beyond DOTS (the recommended strategy for controlling TB), however, the broader Stop TB Strategy is not yet fully operational in most countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalization and social determinants of health: Introduction and methodological background (part 1 of 3)","field_subtitle":"Labont\u00e9  R and Schrecker T: Globalization and Health 3:5, 19 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/3/1/5","body":"Globalisation is a key context for the study of social determinants of health (SDH). Broadly stated, SDH are the conditions in which people live and work, and that affect their opportunities to lead healthy lives. This first article of a three-part series, describes the origins of the series in work conducted for the Globalization Knowledge Network of the World Health Organization's Commission on Social Determinants of Health and in the Commission's specific concern with health equity. This paper explains the rationale for defining globalisation with reference to the emergence of a global marketplace, and the economic and political choices that have facilitated that emergence. It identifies a number of conceptual milestones in studying the relation between globalisation and SDH over the period 1987\u20132005, and shows that because globalisation comprises multiple, interacting policy dynamics, reliance on evidence from multiple disciplines (transdisciplinarity) and research methodologies is required. So, too, is explicit recognition of the uncertainties associated with linking globalisation \u2013 the quintessential \"upstream\" variable \u2013 with changes in SDH and in health outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalization and social determinants of health: Promoting health equity in global governance (part 3 of 3)","field_subtitle":"Labont\u00e9  R and Schrecker T: Globalization and Health 3:5, 19 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/3/1/7","body":"This article is the third in a three-part review of research on globalisation and the social determinants of health (SDH). The third article of the series discusses how interventions to reduce health inequities by way of SDH are inextricably linked with social protection, economic management and development strategy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalization and social determinants of health: The role of the global marketplace (part 2 of 3)","field_subtitle":"Labont\u00e9  R and Schrecker T: Globalization and Health 3:5, 19 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/3/1/6","body":"This second article of the series identifies and describes several, often interacting clusters of pathways leading from globalisation to changes in SDH that are relevant to health equity. These involve: trade liberalization; the global reorganization of production and labour markets; debt crises and economic restructuring; financial liberalization; urban settings; influences that operate by way of the physical environment; and health systems changed by the global marketplace.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV and infant feeding counselling: challenges faced by nurse-counsellors in northern Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Leshabari SC, Blystad A, de Paoli  M, Moland KM: Human Resources for Health 5:18, 24 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/5/1/18","body":"Infant feeding is a subject of worry in prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) programmes in settings where breastfeeding is normative. Nurse-counsellors, expected to counsel HIV-positive women on safer infant feeding methods as defined in national/international guidelines, are faced with a number of challenges. This study aims to explore the experiences and situated concerns of nurses working as infant feeding counsellors to HIV-positive mothers enrolled in PMTCT programmes in the Kilimanjaro region, northern Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV and TB in the context of universal access: what is working and what is not?","field_subtitle":"International HIV/AID consultative meeting report: Stop TB Partnership, 2007","field_url":"http://www.stoptb.org/wg/tb_hiv/assets/documents/Meeting%20report%20TBHIV_Toronto_2.pdf","body":"This paper reports on a meeting co-organised by the World Health Organization, UNAIDS and international organisations, to accelerate an effective and joint response to the epidemic of HIV-related tuberculosis (TB). The paper highlights the achievements of the global TB/HIV working group from the Stop TB Partnership, and discusses the concept of universal access to HIV services and its importance and contribution to TB prevention, diagnosis and treatment services. It also highlights some critical issues that have been neglected in the global response to HIV-related TB, including the optimal treatment regimens to use when treating TB and HIV at the same time.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"How can we make aid to civil society more effective in overcoming poverty?","field_subtitle":"Southern Africa Trust: Policy Brief 1, June 2007","field_url":"http://www.southernafricatrust.org/docs/Policy_Treands.pdf","body":"About one-third of foreign aid from developed countries is now channelled through or directly to civil society in developing countries. There is a significant change in the way donors give support to civil society, including pooling donor support through national and regional intermediaries; multiple funding agencies and adoption of a variety of support models. Based on a detailed analysis of seven country case studies (Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe), the findings challenge the conventional wisdom and advance the civil society agenda in certain key ways.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"How public private partnership will work in Africa","field_subtitle":"Anyanwu-Ikimba A, 19 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.businessdayonline.com/?c=75&a=14832","body":"The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was founded on the principle of public-private partnership. It was created with the belief that without the combined efforts of government, civil society and the private sector, the world could not hope to halt the spread of the world's infectious disease. This speech examines some of the contributions made by the private sector in this regard.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Insurance for the poor?","field_subtitle":"Dercon S,  Bold T,  Calvo C: Global Poverty Research Group","field_url":"http://www.gprg.org/pubs/workingpapers/pdfs/gprg-wps-073.pdf","body":"Uninsured risk has substantial welfare costs, not just in the short run, but also in terms of perpetuating poverty. This paper discusses the scope for extending insurance to the poor, drawing mainly on examples from Latin American and Caribbean countries. It is argued that insurance provision to the poor could play an important role in a comprehensive system of protection against risk, including other ex-ante measures such as promoting credit and savings as insurance, as well as a credible overall ex-post safety net. Insurance provision is best promoted via a partner-agent model, in which a local finance institution with close links to relatively poor communities teams up with an established insurer to deliver low-cost, tailored products, such as life, health, property and weather insurance.The paper also argues for the involvement of local indigenous risk-sharing and finance institutions as intermediaries to maximise the ability to reach the poor and the overall welfare benefits.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Is it worth it for Tanzania to invest in community midwives?","field_subtitle":"White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood , August 2006","field_url":"http://www.mobilityandhealth.org/ed/uploads/WRATZ%20DebateForumCommunityMidwivesTanzaniaReportnopictures.pdf","body":"This report by the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood in Tanzania, summarises the key points discussed at a forum exploring the issues impacting on the maternal health crisis in Tanzania. Specifically, the forum looked at the current role and feasibility of promoting the use of community midwives to provide support and guidance for women through all stages of pregnancy, to coordinate services between the facility and community, and to manage the basic health of a community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Joining hands: Integrating gender and HIV/AIDS in Angola, Tanzania and Uganda","field_subtitle":"Hadjipateras A,  Akullu H, Owero J: Agency for Research and Cooperation in Development  (ACORD), July 2006","field_url":"http://www.acord.org.uk/joining_hands_1_.pdf","body":"ACORD, an Africa-led international alliance working for social justice and equality, aims to prevent the further spread and mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS through community-based research and advocacy and working in alliance and partnership with others. This publication is documents and disseminates the lessons from research carried out by ACORD in Angola, Uganda and Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Joint tuberculosis/HIV services in Malawi: progress, challenges and the way forward","field_subtitle":"Chimzizia R, Harries A: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 85 (5), May 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/85/5/06-036665/en/index.html","body":"This article reviews the progress made on a three-year tuberculosis (TB)/HIV plan implemented in Malawi between 2003 and 2005. The objectives of the plan were to scale up HIV testing among TB patients and, for HIV-positive TB patients, to provide cotrimoxazole preventive therapy (which provides protection against bacterial infections including pneumonia) and facilitate access to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment. The paper finds that the proportion of TB patients tested for HIV increased from 15 per cent in 2003 to 47 per cent in 2005. During this time, most HIV-positive TB patients started cotrimoxazole preventative therapy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya: World Bank approves US$80 million HIV/AIDS program","field_subtitle":"Warutere P, Auma A: The World Bank, 26 June 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ysto5f","body":"The World Bank approved a credit of US$80 million for Kenya to expand the coverage of targeted HIV and AIDS interventions to prevent and mitigate the impact of the disease. The Total War Against HIV and AIDS (TOWA) Project will assist Kenya to further reduce the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, which dropped from over 13 percent in 2001 to about 6 percent in 2005, by further strengthening the governance of the National AIDS Control Council (NACC)\u2014 the lead agency for designing strategies and overseeing the implementation of programmes to control the pandemic. The programmes include use of grant funds by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which will be subjected to rigorous and transparent processes of selection, implementation monitoring and performance.  This approach includes greater community oversight and blacklisting of NGOs that do not perform.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Key district health indicators","field_subtitle":"Barron P: Health Systems Trust, 30 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/710","body":"There are currently a large number of indicators being collected and used in the health system. Currently there are a number of problems associated with facility-based indicators. In an attempt to demystify the indicators and to make them more accessible to managers of facilities and to those at higher levels of the system who support facility managers, this booklet has taken the top ten key indicators based on routine facility information and has unpacked them. It is hoped that this publication will make these indicators more easily understandable, will promote greater use of these indicators and will therefore ultimately play a role in improving their quality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Kofi Annan focuses on developing Africa in annual lecture","field_subtitle":"The Nelson Mandela Foundation, 22 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/news/article/the_fifth_nelson_mandela_annual_lecture_address/","body":"Kofi Annan focused on the progress of Africa in the 5th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in Johannesburg, saying it needed to be balanced on three pillars: security, development and human rights. The past secretary-general of the United Nations, said significant progress had been made in Africa in relation to all three of these pillars, yet much still needed to be done. He noted, that more than 300-million people in sub-Saharan Africa live on less than $1 a day, and are \u201cstarved not only for food, but for opportunity and hope\u201d. Mr Annan was critical of the imbalances of globalisation, and said the world\u2019s rich needed to help the poor, because \u201cIf some of us are poor, we are all poorer.\u201d He further pointed out: \u201cWe live in an era of inter dependence \u2026 [which] in some ways is more obvious in Africa than anywhere else,\u201d he said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Making aid accountable and effective: The challenge for the Third High Level Forum on aid effectiveness","field_subtitle":"Action Aid International, 10 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.whiteband.org/Action/making_aid_accountable_and_effective.pdf","body":"The report sets out a Ten Point Plan for achieving the necessary reform of Overseas development aid. It calls on donors and southern governments to make vital changes to improve aid so it can effectively play its role in helping to make poverty history.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Mapping multilateral development banks\u2019 reproductive health and HIV/AIDS spending","field_subtitle":"Dennis S, Zuckerman E: Gender Action, 2007","field_url":"http://www.genderaction.org/images/Gender%20Action%20MDBs%20RH-AIDS.pdf","body":"This Gender Action report reviews the Multilateral Development Banks (MDB) - World Bank, African Development Bank (AfDB), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) - commitment to promoting reproductive health, preventing HIV and treating AIDS. It analyses the quantity and quality of funding for these issues during 2003-2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Missing the target: Time is Running Out to End AIDS","field_subtitle":" International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC), 18 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.aidstreatmentaccess.org/itpc4thfinal.pdf","body":"Global AIDS treatment efforts will fall far short of the G8 goal to reach five million Africans and provide global universal access to AIDS drugs in the next few years unless the pace of treatment scale up accelerates and the effort expands to address key barriers, according to this report. The report provides a 17-country overview of AIDS treatment successes and setbacks and offers an in-depth review of treatment delivery in six countries not covered in the group\u2019s previous reports \u2013 Cambodia, China, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New HIV/AIDS drugs 500% more costly, says MSF","field_subtitle":"Raja K: South-North Development Monitor (SUNS) 6299, 24 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.sunsonline.org/contents.php?num=6299","body":"The new HIV/AIDS drugs recommended by WHO raises the cost for patients by nearly 500%, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres. This could affect the availability of these drugs in developing countries. This finding by MSF was in the latest edition of its report \"Untangling the Web of Price Reductions\" released at the fourth International AIDS Society Conference, in Sydney, Australia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New reports suggest IMF policies undermine efforts on AIDS, health and education","field_subtitle":"Rick Rowden, Senior Policy Analyst, ActionAid International USA","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIMF policies are blocking the scale of public spending and hiring of doctors, nurses and teachers African countries need to meet health and development goals. Three  recent reports respectively by the IMF\u2019s Independent Evaluation Office (IEO), the Center for Global Development (CGD) and ActionAid International\u2019s Education Team suggest that IMF policies place unreasonable limits to spending of available aid and to scaling-up public spending through overly austere policies that  lack empirical justification.\r\n\r\nThe IMF's mission is to keep inflation under control and promote \u201cmacroeconomic stability\u201d. Country access to World Bank aid and other bilateral foreign assistance is contingent upon \u201cthumbs-up\u201d approval from the IMF on macroeconomic policies. The multiplier benefits of major investments in public health and education can take 15 to 20 years to appear in the form of higher GDP growth and productivity rates. Each macroeconomic policy option has its own short-term and long-terms costs and benefits, but because the IMF is always demanding short-term fiscal solvency at any given time, many reasonable alternative macroeconomic policy options for hiring more doctors, nurses and teachers or making long-term investments in the health or education systems are not even being allowed for consideration or debate. So are IMF demands blocking the scale-up of public spending needed to fight AIDS and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)? The three reports examine these issues.\r\n \r\nThe IEO report \u201cThe IMF and Aid to Sub-Saharan Africa,\u201d available at http://www.ieo-imf.org/eval/complete/pdf/03122007/report.pdf, examined IMF loan programs to 29 Sub-Saharan African countries from 1999-2005 and found significant percentages of foreign aid were not programmed to be spent because:\r\n*\tabout 37 percent of all annual aid increases were diverted into building international currency reserve levels. Even in countries with sufficient currency reserves, only about $3 of every $10 in annual aid increases was programmed to be spent; the IMF redirected or diverted the remaining $7 out of every $10 into paying domestic debt, building international currency reserves, or both. Having so much new aid not being spent was certainly not the intention of the donors, or citizens in donor countries. \r\n*\taid spending was curtailed due to the IMF\u2019s insistence on very low inflation levels. Countries that failed to achieve to 5-7 percent inflation a year were only allowed to spend 15 percent, or just $1.50 of every $10 of their annual aid increases. At a seminar in London in April 2007, Joanne Salop, lead author of the report, said the IEO report team recommended that as the 5-7 percent threshold was the operative IMF policy, it should be publicly stated and clarified - but the IMF Executive Board and management rejected the recommendation.\r\n \r\nThe IEO report found the IMF Executive Board and senior management were not enthusiastic about donors' emphasis on \u201cpoverty reduction\u201d or new efforts to scale-up aid and spending for the MDGs. Without strong leadership directing real policy changes in this regard, the report found, staff simply reverted to prioritising macroeconomic stability over other goals. Yet IMF leadership is overly cautious about deficit spending \u201ccrowding out\u201d available credit for the private sector, despite mounting evidence for the reverse, as noted by IMF\u2019s Sanjeev Gupta in a 2006 IMF report (\u201cMacroeconomic challenges of scaling up aid to Africa: a checklist for practitioners,\u201d IMF, 2006. p.26). \r\n\r\nThe CGD report \u201cDoes the IMF Constrain Health Spending in Poor Countries? Evidence and an Agenda for Action,\u201d available at http://www.cgdev.org/doc/IMF/IMF_Report.pdf further explores the implications of this IMF austerity. Produced by fifteen experts from policy-making positions in developing countries, academia, civil society, and multilateral organisations, it reviews experience from Mozambique, Rwanda and Zambia. The report found that: \u201cIMF-supported fiscal programs have often been too conservative or risk-averse\u201d, and have led to underspending of development aid, as they have \u201cnot done enough to explore more expansionary, but still feasible, options for higher public spending.\u201d The report calls on the IMF to \u201cexplore a broader range of feasible options,\u201d with \u201cless emphasis on negotiating short-term program conditionality.\u201d\r\n \r\nThe ActionAid International Education Team report \u201cConfronting the Contradictions: The IMF, wage bill caps and the case for teachers,\u201d (http://www.actionaidusa.org/imf_africa.php), found that IMF policies - by varying degrees of influence in setting the level of funds available public sector employees' wages or \u201cwage bill ceilings\" - require many poor countries to freeze or curtail teacher recruitment. This leads to persisting chronic and severe teacher shortages. In all three countries studied, inflation-reduction and deficit reduction targets and the wage bill ceiling is too low to allow governments to hire enough teachers to achieve the 40:1 pupil-teacher recommended by the Education for All-Fast-Track Initiative, thereby compromising the quality of education in these countries.\r\n\r\nFor health and education advocates who are trying desperately to maximize budgets, wages and get every last doctor, nurse and teacher hired, such empirically unfounded economic policy-making is totally unacceptable.  An array of reasonable alternative policy options for increasing public spending is being unnecessarily omitted from consideration.\r\n\r\nThe ActionAid report calls for IMF advice to provide a range of policy options so that governments and other stakeholders \u2013 including parliaments and civil society \u2013can make informed choices about macroeconomic policies, wage bills and the level of social spending. \r\n\r\nThe report also highlights the growing policy contradiction in the foreign aid system: as the richest donor countries try to scale-up spending and foreign aid, they also block the ability of many poor countries to spend that aid because of the IMF loan programs they have approved. A July 4, 2005 New York Times editorial appropriately summarized this current contradiction in donor policies: \u201cThere is a desperate need for greater policy coherence in a period when many national governments, including Washington, are sensibly exhorting African governments to spend more on primary health care and education,  while international financial institutions largely controlled by those same Western governments have been pressing African countries to shrink their government payrolls, including teachers and health care workers.\u201d\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat admin@equinetafrica.org. For further information on this issue please visit www.actionaidusa.org.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy brief 17: Protecting health in the proposed Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between East and Southern African (ESA) countries and the European Union","field_subtitle":"EQUINET; SEATINI, TARSC (2007)","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/POLBRIEF17trade.pdf","body":"An Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) is being negotiated between east and southern African countries (ESA) and the European Union (EU). The final agreement is due to be signed in December 2007. The EPA is likely to impact on health, on public revenues for health and health care, including access to medicines, and to affect other inputs to health such as food security. Without a proper health impact assessment these impacts are not easily quantified and ESA countries are urged to take a precautionary approach and safeguard health in the EPA. This policy brief outlines the ways in which the EPA may affect health and the measures that ESA can take to protect health within the EPA. While it is focused on the EU-ESA EPA, these impacts and measures have wider general relevance to trade.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Proposed food labelling laws to promote healthy choices","field_subtitle":"Appel M, Govender S: BuaNews Online, 27 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.buanews.gov.za/view.php?ID=07072710151002&coll=buanew07","body":"Proposed food labelling regulations which aim to help consumers make healthier choices, are set to revolutionise the eating habits of South Africans. The new draft Regulations Relating to the Labelling and Advertising of Foodstuffs, have been published in the Government Gazette by the Department of Health in terms of the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act. They focus on a number of strategies to improve public health, through promoting healthy food choices and improved nutrition by having products which are sold nationally, being labelled with more specifics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Protective effect of measles vaccine is short-lived in HIV-infected Zambian children","field_subtitle":"Moss WJ, Scott S, Mugala N, Ndhlovu Z, Beeler JA, Audet SA, Ngala M, Mwangala S, Nkonga-Mwangilwa C, Ryon JJ, Monze M, Kasolo F, Quinn TC, Cousens S, Griffin DE, Cutts FT: The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 196:347\u2013355, 2007","field_url":"http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi%3A10.1086/519169&erFrom=6609567396948206326Guest","body":"The level and longevity of protective antibodies elicited by a measles vaccine is significantly shortened by HIV infection in Zambian children. Measles still remains a significant cause of childhood mortality in sub-Saharan Africa despite the availability of a vaccine. Barriers to successful measles control by vaccination include poor logistics and insufficient resources, lack of political will, and HIV/AIDS. Successful measles control in southern Africa with a high HIV prevalence suggests that the HIV epidemic is not a bottleneck to control. The determinants of this success must be identified so that it is replicated in other regions. Specifically, how can a high population immunity be achieved in regions with high HIV prevalence so that measles can be eliminated? ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Reducing social inequalities in health: Public health, community health or health promotion?","field_subtitle":"Ridde V: 63-67","field_url":"http://www.iuhpe.org/upload/File/PE_2_07a.pdf","body":"While the Consortium on \u2019Community Health Promotion\u2019 is suggesting a definition of this new concept to qualify health practices, this article questions the relevance of introducing such a concept since no one has yet succeeded in really differentiating the three existing processes: public health, community health, and health promotion. Based on a literature review and an analysis of the range of practices, these three concepts can be distinguished in terms of their processes and their goals. Public health and community health share a common objective, to improve the health of the population. In order to achieve this objective, public health uses a technocratic process whereas community health uses a participatory one. Health promotion, on the other hand, aims to reduce social inequalities in health through an empowerment process, which is argued to be more effective. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Response rates for providing a blood specimen for HIV testing in a population-based survey of young adults in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"McNaghten AD, Herold JM, Dube HM, St. Louis ME: BMC Public Health 7:145, 5 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/145/abstract","body":"To determine differences among persons who provided blood specimens for HIV testing compared with those who did not among those interviewed for the population-based Zimbabwe Young Adult Survey (YAS). When comparing persons who provided specimens for HIV testing with those who did not, few significant differences were found. If those who did not provide specimens had prevalence rates twice that of those who did, overall prevalence would not be substantially affected. Refusal to provide blood specimens does not appear to have contributed to an underestimation of HIV prevalence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Rwanda: Country notifies WTO of plan to import cheap, generic Aids drugs","field_subtitle":"Rwanda News Agency, 21 July 2007","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200707231394.html","body":"Rwanda plans to import a generic HIV/AIDS medicine made in Canada, making it the first country to test a WTO waiver on drug patents. In a submission to the WTO, the country said it expects over the next two years to buy 260,000 packs of TriAvir, a fixed-dose combination of widely used anti-AIDS drugs lamivudine, zidovudine and nevirapine. The generic product is manufactured in Canada by Apotex Inc. This essentially means Rwanda has invoked a never-before-used August 2003 waiver to WTO's intellectual property rules, meant to allow poor countries with public health problems to import generics when they cannot manufacture the drugs themselves.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania: World Bank approves additional funds for health development","field_subtitle":"Shalita S, Maro-Mzobora I: The World Bank, 5 July 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2c8heh","body":"On 5 July 2007, the World Bank Board of Executive Directors approved an additional International Development Association (IDA) credit of US$60 million for the Government of Tanzania to support the second phase of the Health Sector Development Project. The additional funds will support Tanzania\u2019s Second Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP) for an additional two years: 2007-2009. Through this project there will be increased funds for more efficient delivery of essential health services and staffing at district level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Africa Multi-Country AIDS Program 2000\u20132006: Results of the World Bank's response to a development crisis","field_subtitle":"The World Bank, 14 June 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/26xmmm","body":"A new World Bank report on HIV/AIDS launched in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, says the mobilization of empowered 'grassroots' communities, along with delivering condoms and life-saving treatments, are beginning to slow the pace of the continent's epidemic, which last year killed more than 2 million African adults and children, and left another 24.7 million Africans struggling to live with its deadly effects. According to the new report, ultimate success in defeating HIV/AIDS will depend on marshalling effective prevention, care, and treatment, measures to boost 'social immune systems' in African countries\u2014changing their beliefs, perceptions, and social and individual behaviors around the disease so that eventually they can reverse the advance of HIV and stop the damage done by AIDS. The report says these changes are taking place as the epidemic shows signs of slowing in Uganda, Kenya, and Zimbabwe, and in urban Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, and Zambia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The benefits of participatory methodologies to develop effective community dialogue in the context of a microbicide trial feasibility study in Mwanza, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Vallely A, Shagi C, Kasindi S, Desmond N, Lees S, Chiduo B, Hayes R,  Allen C, Ross D: BMC Public Health 7:133, 2 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/133/abstract","body":"During a microbicide trial feasibility study among women at high-risk of HIV and sexually transmitted infections in Mwanza, northern Tanzania the researchers used participatory research tools to facilitate open dialogue and partnership between researchers and study participants. Participatory techniques were instrumental in promoting meaningful dialogue between the research team, study participants and community representatives in Mwanza, allowing researchers and community representatives to gain a shared understanding of project-related priority areas for intervention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The contribution of international health volunteers to the health workforce in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Laleman G, Kegels G, Marchal B, Van der Roost D, Bogaert  I, Van Damme W: Human Resources for Health 5:19, 31 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/5/1/19","body":"This paper aims to quantify the contribution of international health volunteers (IHVs) to the health workforce in sub-Saharan Africa and to explore the perceptions of health service managers regarding these volunteers. The paper found that international health volunteers contribute relatively small numbers to the health workforce in sub-Saharan Africa, and it seems unlikely that they will do more in the future. In areas where they play a role, their contribution to service delivery can be significant.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards a stronger response to HIV and AIDS: Challenging stigma","field_subtitle":"Nyblade L, Carr D: International Center for Research on Women (ICRW)","field_url":"http://www.aidsportal.org/repos/DFID_HIVstigma_paperrev.pdf","body":"This DFID paper looks at information and evidence for the global prevalence of HIV stigma and how it damages people living with HIV and AIDS and their families, especially women. It provides information and evidence on: HIV stigma is globally prevalent and damaging\u2014affecting people living or associated with HIV and AIDS on a daily basis\u2014and is especially severe for women; HIV stigma compromises effective responses to AIDS (by lowering uptake of preventive services and testing, delays disclosure, decreases care seeking and undermines treatment; effective strategies for tackling stigma exist, and action is possible; and DFID is well placed to help scale-up efforts and play a leading role in the international arena.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"TRIPS, the Doha declaration and paragraph 6 decision: what are the remaining steps for protecting access to medicines?","field_subtitle":"Bradford Kerry V and Lee K: Globalization and Health 3:3, 24 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/3/1/3","body":"The World Trade Organisation's Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health (known as the Doha Declaration) of 2001, and subsequent Decision on the Interpretation of Paragraph 6 reached in 2003, affirmed the flexibilities available under the Agreement on Trade Related Property Rights (TRIPS) to member states seeking to protect public health. Despite these important clarifications, the actual implementation of these measures to improve access to medicines remains uncertain. There are also concerns that so-called TRIPS-plus measures within many regional and bilateral trade agreements are further undermining the capacity of the poor to access affordable medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Tuberculosis in sub-Saharan Africa: opportunities, challenges, and change in the era of antiretroviral treatment","field_subtitle":"Corbett EL, Marston B, Churchyard GJ: The Lancet, 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health&id=32283&type=Document","body":"This article reviews how commitments to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment affect tuberculosis (TB) control and sets out the changes needed to address HIV and TB in a coordinated manner. The article examines the burden of HIV and TB in Africa and how the HIV epidemic has challenged the Directly Observed Treatment Strategy (DOTS) as a way of controlling tuberculosis. The authors argue that collaboration between TB and HIV/AIDS treatment programmes is needed, along with a unified public-health vision towards the prevention and treatment of these interacting diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding and improving access to prompt and effective malaria treatment and care in rural Tanzania: the ACCESS Programme","field_subtitle":"Hetzel MW, Iteba N, Makemba A, Mshana C, Lengeler C, Obrist B, Schulze A, Nathan R, Dillip D, Alba S, Mayumana I, Khatib RA, Njau JD, Mshinda H: Malaria Journal 6:83, 29 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/6/1/83","body":"Prompt access to effective treatment is central in the fight against malaria. However, a variety of interlinked factors at household and health system level influence access to timely and appropriate treatment and care. Furthermore, access may be influenced by global and national health policies. As a consequence, many malaria episodes in highly endemic countries are not treated appropriately. The ACCESS Programme is a combination of multiple complementary interventions with a strong evaluation component. With this approach, ACCESS aims to contribute to the development of a more comprehensive access framework and to inform and support public health professionals and policy-makers in the delivery of improved health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding the Impact of Decentralisation on Reproductive Health Services in Africa (RHD) - South Africa","field_subtitle":"Hall W: Health System Trust, November 2006","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/uploads/files/rhd_sa07.pdf","body":"The provision of appropriate reproductive health care remains one of the main health care challenges in developing countries. The delivery of reproductive health services is continually confronted by challenges from the changing environment, as health sector reforms are implemented, and particularly by decentralisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO studying possibilities for bird flu vaccine insurance policy","field_subtitle":"Wakabayashi D: Reuters, 13 June 2007","field_url":"http://blogs.cgdev.org/globalhealth/2007/06/","body":"The World Health Organization made a unique proposition: what if big donors pooled resources to take out private insurance to pay for vaccines in the case of a bird flu pandemic? WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan said WHO had been given more preparation time than it could have hoped for ahead of an influenza pandemic. WHO is using that time to study various financing options to allow low income countries to access vaccines and prevent a pandemic catastrophe that could kill millions of people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"World Bank approves fifteen million dollars to fight cross-border-HIV/AIDS in Africa","field_subtitle":"Auma B: The World Bank, 6 July 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ynna85","body":"The Horn of Africa is one of the regions most prominently impacted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. However, the Horn of Africa is also where there is hope that something can be done to bring about change. Recognising the movement of vulnerable populations is a major challenge in the region, on 28 June 2007 the World Bank and IGAD signed a $15 million grant to support the IGAD Regional HIV/AIDS Partnership Program (IRHAPP). The program seeks to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS among cross-border and mobile populations in IGAD\u2019s member states: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. The four-year project, aims to reduce the vulnerability of these mobile populations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe's children enter new phase of hardship","field_subtitle":"Schlein L: Voice of America News, 18 July 2007","field_url":"http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-07-16-voa43.cfm","body":"The UN Children's Fund says the children of Zimbabwe have entered a new phase of hardship. UNICEF says millions of children are missing out on their most basic needs because of a severe drought and the dramatic deterioration of Zimbabwe's economy. The unprecedented hardship facing Zimbabwe is biting particularly hard among children and quality health care in the country's schools has all but collapsed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"2nd SADC People's Summit to be held in Lusaka, Zambia: 15 and 16 August 2007","field_subtitle":"Southern African Peoples\u2019 Solidarity Network (SAPSN), 2007","field_url":"","body":"The 2007 SADC Peoples\u2019  Summit will be held parallel to the SADC Heads of State Summit in Lusaka, Zambia. Following the successful hosting of the SADC Peoples\u2019 Summit in Maseru in August 2006 - the Southern African Peoples\u2019 Solidarity Network in collaboration with network members and other social movements and people based organizations in the SADC region will be holding a 'People\u2019s Summit' on 15 and 16 August under the Banner 'Reclaiming SADC For Peoples\u2019 Development and Solidarity: Let the People Speak!!!'. The Peoples\u2019 Summit will offer CSO\u2019s and Social Movements and opportunity to consolidate the outcomes of the process launched in 2006.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32379","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa and the Millenium Development Goals: 2007 update","field_subtitle":"United Nations","field_url":"http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/docs/MDGafrica07.pdf","body":"At the midway point between their adoption in 2000 and the 2015 target date for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, sub-Saharan Africa is not on track to achieve any of the Goals. Although there have been major gains in several areas and the Goals remain achievable in most African nations, even the best governed countries on the continent have not been able to make sufficient progress in reducing extreme poverty in its many forms. This UN report outlines the current indicators and gives some success stories. It observes that existing commitments made and reaffirmed by world leaders at the G8 Summit in Gleneagles and the 2005 World Summit are sufficient to meet the Goals. At the midway point of 2007, these commitments must be urgently translated into practical plans with systematic follow-through.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Announcing CAFS course on Resource Mobilisation: 3-7 December 2007","field_subtitle":"The Centre for African Family Studies (CAFS)","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ysef79","body":"The Centre for African Family Studies (CAFS) presents the \"Resource Mobilisation\" training course scheduled to take place in Nairobi, Kenya from 3 to 7 December 2007. This one-week course provides skills for designing, implementing and evaluating an efficient resource mobilisation campaign. With the advent of globalisation and the changing HIV & AIDS paradigm, managers find themselves in a far more competitive environment within which they must secure resources for the growth and sustainability of their organisations and programmes.CAFS invites you and members of your staff, grantees or collaborating partners to apply for admission to this course.  The tuition fee for this course is US$1,000, which covers tuition, training materials, supplies and certification awards.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessment implementation of the Uganda Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria","field_subtitle":"Uganda Coalition for Access to Essential Medicines","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/MUTfinanc26062007.pdf","body":"This report is from a study carried out by the Uganda Coalition for Access to Essential Medicines (UCAEM), to assess the implementation of the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB in Uganda. The study was specifically designed to offer an analysis of the implementation process and activities of the UGFATMP with the aim of establishing the involvement of key stakeholders particularly CSOs, identify the challenges, document beneficiary perspectives and make recommendations on key CSOs concerns about the process. Despite successes around the world this report reveals that there are still concerns at the country level in Uganda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessment of a national monitoring and evaluation system for rapid expansion of antiretroviral treatment in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Lowrance D, Filler S, Makombe S, Harries A, Aberle-Grasse J, Hochgesang M, Libamba E: Tropical Medicine & International Health 12 (3): 377-381, March 2007","field_url":"http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-3156.2006.01800.x","body":"Monitoring and evaluation of national antiretroviral therapy (ART) programs is vital, but routine, standardized assessment of national ART patient monitoring systems has not been established. Malawi has undertaken an ambitious ART scale-up effort, with over 57 000 patients initiated on ART by June 2006. This paper reports on an assessment of the national ART monitoring and evaluation system in Malawi to ensure that the response to the epidemic was being monitored efficiently and effectively, and that data collected were useful. It propoises that assessment of ART monitoring and evaluation systems can optimize the effectiveness of national ART programs, and should be considered in other resource-constrained countries rapidly scaling up ART.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Balancing intellectual monopoly privileges and the need for essential medicines","field_subtitle":"Martin G, Sorenson  C, Faunce T: Globalization and Health 3:4, 12 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/3/1/4","body":"This issue of Globalization and Health presents a paper by Kerry and Lee that considers the TRIPS agreement and the recent policy debate regarding the protection of public health interest, particularly as they pertain to the Doha Declaration. This editorial considers the debate, examines issues of enacting, implementing and monitoring TRIPS provisions and identifies questions that should be considered by key stakeholders in ongoing discussions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Training and advocacy on trade and health **Call Closes 3 July**","field_subtitle":"SEATINI, TARSC in EQUINET","field_url":"http://www.seatini.org/trade%20and%20health%20call%20sep.pdf","body":"SEATINI with TARSC under the EQUINET umbrella are carrying out work on the health and trade theme. This work involves skills building, research and information exchange on the effects of trade agreements on health. Within this programme SEATINI / TARSC in EQUINET  will host a training workshop on policy engagement and advocacy to promote health in trade agreements in Bagamayo, Tanzania, 31 August 31 and 1 September 2007. The workshop will cover general issues of trade and health, and a deeper review of TRIPS and use of TRIPS flexibilities, the EU-ESA EPA, and health services liberalisation. It will include 2 people from each of the following countries: Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, one each from health and trade backgrounds. Interested applicants from Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda are asked to send in by July 3 2007 to the EQUINET secretariat admin@equinetafrica.org and copy to  percy@seatini.org. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32366","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Expressions of Interest for Baseline Study on Managing the Migration of Human Resources for Health in Kenya: the Impact on Health Service Delivery","field_subtitle":"EQUINET and INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION ON MIGRATION (IOM) with ECSA-HC  **Call Closes on 27 July, 2007**","field_url":"","body":"The International Organization for Migration (IOM)  and the Regional Network on Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET), in co-operation with the East, Central and Southern African Health Community (ECSA-HC) are calling for expressions of interest from researchers in Kenya to undertake a baseline study entitled Managing the Migration of Human Resources for Health in Kenya: the Impact on Health Service Delivery. This will be a detailed review and critical analysis on the impact of the migration of health workers on health service delivery. Further details are available on the EQUINET website.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32420","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Papers. Gender Festival 2007: African Feminist Struggles in the Context of Globalisation","field_subtitle":"Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP)","field_url":"http://www.tgnp.org/0gfadvert.htm","body":"TGNP are pleased to announce that the next Gender Festival on 'African Feminist Struggles in the Context of Globalization' will take place at TGNP's Gender Resource Centre, Mabibo Dar es Salaam Tanzania from 11 to 14 September 2007. Discussions will take into account the present context of corporate-led globalisation and 'free market' ideology, and their impact on development and democracy in Africa and the world over, and examine alternative frameworks and strategies. The deadline for abstracts is 30 June, 2007 and for the final papers is 10 August 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CIHR: Partnerships for Health System Improvement (PH SI) competition","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"CIHR and its partners are pleased to announce that the 4th annual Partnerships for Health System Improvement (PHSI) competition will be launched mid-July. The PHSI initiative supports teams of researchers and decision makers interested in conducting applied health research useful to health system managers and/or policy makers. Successful teams conduct projects of up to three years duration in high priority thematic areas within health services, health systems and policy research (including public health).","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32367","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Collaborative Fund for Women and Families","field_subtitle":"The Collaborative Fund for HIV/AIDS Women and Families","field_url":"","body":"The Collaborative Fund for HIV/AIDS Women and Families in Sub-Saharan Africa calls for submissions of proposals from groups of women groups (non governmental and community based organisations) seeking funding support for Treatment Literacy & Preparedness. The overall objective of this grant is to support initiatives of women-led and/or women PLWHA led organisations especially those that represent specific interests of women living with HIV/AIDS.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32376","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Commonwealth debates why AIDS wears 'the Face of a Woman'","field_subtitle":"Mulama J: Inter Press Service, 14 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=38172","body":"The issue of women continuing to be at higher risk of HIV infection than men has received considerable attention at a gathering of women's affairs ministers from Commonwealth countries underway in Uganda's capital, Kampala. Of the 53 Commonwealth member states, 38 are represented at the '8th Triennial Commonwealth Women's Affairs Ministers Meeting' (8WAMM), being held under the theme 'Financing Gender Equality for Development and Democracy'. United Nations statistics indicate that women and girls in Commonwealth countries make up a third of all HIV infections. In addition, women between the ages of 15 and 24 in sub-Saharan Africa - the region most prominently represented in the Commonwealth - are two and a half times more likely to be infected than men of the same age.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Community involvement in youth reproductive health and HIV prevention","field_subtitle":"Tipton P, Finger W, Shears KH: Family Health International , 2007","field_url":"http://www.fhi.org/NR/rdonlyres/eich24skeeqa3cqbx6bv7y4n6cihowu2iu6fisi4i5krag36bzz5rl47qtwfr4om37vex4wot7avmn/YL19e1.pdf","body":"Are reproductive health and HIV prevention outcomes for young people better when a project makes an explicit effort to involve community members? This briefing paper summarises the findings of a range of studies that have sought to investigate this question. Most evaluations reviewed identify positive effects including empowerment of participants, increased sustainability, greater acceptance of the initiative, and improved knowledge and attitudes. However, while studies that compared programmes that involved communities with standard programmes found these positive effects, some noted little or no differences in young people\u2019s behaviour. The paper also provides references and links to resources on community involvement and youth reproductive health and HIV prevention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community mental health care in Botswana: approaches and opportunities","field_subtitle":"Seloilwe ES, Thupayagale-Tshweneagae G: International Nursing Review 54 (2): 173-178, June 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2dljyz","body":"Care of the mentally ill in Botswana is provided at different levels of coverage and sophistication. There is a single mental hospital in the country. Attached to the district hospitals are psychiatric outpatient clinics run by psychiatric nurses and a psychiatrist who visits them on monthly basis. Mental health care in Botswana has gone through a paradigm shift, from the prepenal years, penal years and institutional to community based care, which reflects a philosophy of citizen involvement and collaboration. The purpose of this article is to provide an insight into the developmental trends in community mental health care in Botswana. Different approaches are discussed and the opportunities that have emanated from them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community views on routine HIV testing and antiretroviral treatment in Botswana","field_subtitle":"Cockcroft A, Andersson N, Milne D, Mokoena  T, Masisi M: BMC International Health and Human Rights 7:5, 8 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/7/5/abstract","body":"The Botswana government began providing free antiretroviral therapy (ART) in 2002 and in 2004 introduced routine HIV testing (RHT) in government health facilities, aiming to increase HIV testing and uptake of ART. This paper reports a household survey of 1536 people in Botswana, asking about use and experience of government health services, views about RHT, views about ART, and testing for HIV in the last 12 months. Public awareness and approval of RHT was very high. The high rate of RHT has contributed to the overall high rate of HIV testing. The government's programme to increase HIV testing and uptake of ART is apparently working well. However, turning the tide of the epidemic will also require further concerted efforts to reduce the rate of new HIV infections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Community-based management of severe acute malnutrition","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations (UN), May 2007","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org/documents/d0002620/index.php","body":"Severe acute malnutrition remains a major killer of children under five years of age. Until recently, treatment has been restricted to facility based approaches, greatly limiting its coverage and impact. New evidence suggests, however, that large numbers of children with severe acute malnutrition can be treated in their communities without being admitted to a health facility or a therapeutic feeding centre.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Conceptual model of HIV/AIDS stigma from five African countries","field_subtitle":"Holzemer WL, Uys L, Makoae L, Stewart A, Phetlhu R, Dlamini PS, Greeff M, Kohi TW, Chirwa M, Cuca Y, Naidoo J: Journal of Advanced Nursing 58 (6): 541-551, June 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2gdaxy","body":"This paper is a report on the development of a conceptual model delineating contexts and processes of HIV/AIDS stigma as reported by persons living with HIV/AIDS and nurses from African countries. It is part of a larger study to increase understanding of HIV/AIDS stigma.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Deficient supplies of drugs for life threatening diseases in an African community","field_subtitle":"Lufesi NN, Andrew  M, Aursnes I: BMC Health Services Research 7:86, 15 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/7/86/abstract","body":"In Malawi essential drugs are provided free of charge to patients at all public health facilities in order to ensure equitable access to health care. The country thereby spends about 30% of the national health budget on drugs. In order to investigate the level of drug shortages and eventually find the reasons for the drugs shortages in Malawi, we studied the management of the drug supplies for common and life threatening diseases such as pneumonia and malaria in a random selection of health centres.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing a Nursing Database System in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Riley PL, Vindigni SM, Arudo J, Waudo AN, Kamenju A, Ngoya J, Oywer EO, Rakuom CP, Salmon ME, Kelley M, Rogers M, St. Louis ME, Marum LH: Health Services Research 42 (3): 1389-1405, June 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2d7elh","body":"Creating a national electronic nursing workforce database provides more reliable information on nurse demographics, migration patterns, and workforce capacity. Data analyses are most useful for human resources for health (HRH) planning when workforce capacity data can be linked to worksite staffing requirements. As a result of establishing this database, the Kenya Ministry of Health has improved capability to assess its nursing workforce and document important workforce trends, such as out-migration. Current data identify the United States as the leading recipient country of Kenyan nurses. The overwhelming majority of Kenyan nurses who elect to out-migrate are among Kenya's most qualified.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Donor leverage: Towards more equitable access to essential medicines?","field_subtitle":"Chan CK, de Wildt C: In Press","field_url":"http://www.usm.my/kanita/downloads/publications/donor_leverage_9june2007.pdf","body":"In early 2007, the Indonesian government decided to withhold its bird flu virus samples from WHO\u2019s collaborating centers pending a new global mechanism for virus sharing that had better terms for developing countries. The 60th World Health Assembly subsequently resolved to establish an international stockpile of avian flu vaccines, and mandated WHO to formulate mechanisms and guidelines for equitable access to these vaccines. Are there analogous opportunities for study volunteers or donors of biological materials in clinical trials or other research settings to exercise corresponding leverage to advance health equity? This paper will appear in Development in Practice 18(1), February 2008 and also shortly as a UN-DESA working paper.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Engaging the private sector for tuberculosis control: much advocacy on a meagre evidence base","field_subtitle":"Mahendradhata Y, Lambert M-L, Boelaert M, Van der Stuyft P: Tropical Medicine & International Health 12(3): 315-316, March 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ytqc5y","body":"Advocacy on engaging the private sector in tuberculosis (TB) control is mounting. In the newly launched six-point Stop TB Strategy, WHO makes an urgent appeal to engage private care providers. Even more recently, this was supplanted by a guide on how to involve all care providers in TB control through different Public-Private Mix (PPM) approaches. At the same time the body of evidence on the effectiveness of such approaches, although growing, remains rather weak.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Environmental Burden of Disease: New Country profiles","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 13 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/quantifying_ehimpacts/countryprofiles/en/index.html","body":"WHO presents country data on the burden of disease preventable through healthier environments. These estimates provide the stepping stone for informed policy making in disease prevention. The country profiles provide an overview of summary information on selected parameters that describe the environmental health situation of a country, as well as a preliminary estimate of health impacts caused by environmental risks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free.\r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles.\r\n\r\nPlease contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 77: No! to the united graves of Africa: Unity of the living and healthy, not a unity of the diseased, dying and dead ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place.\r\n\r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Establishing a malaria diagnostics centre of excellence in Kisumu, Kenya","field_subtitle":"Ohrt , Obare P, Nanakorn A, Adhiambo C, Awuondo K, Prudhomme O'Meara W, Remich S, Martin K, Cook E, Chretien J-P, Lucas C, Osoga J, McEvoy P, Owaga ML, Sande Odera  J, Ogutu B: Malaria Journal 6:79, 12 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/6/1/79","body":"Malaria microscopy, while the gold standard for malaria diagnosis, has limitations. Efficacy estimates in drug and vaccine malaria trials are very sensitive to small errors in microscopy endpoints. This fact led to the establishment of a Malaria Diagnostics Centre of Excellence in Kisumu, Kenya. The primary objective was to ensure valid clinical trial and diagnostic test evaluations. Key secondary objectives were technology transfer to host countries, establishment of partnerships, and training of clinical microscopists.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Ethical and regulatory issues surrounding  African traditional medicine in the context of HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"Nyika A: Developing World Bioethics 7(1): 25-34, April 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ysyfef","body":"It has been estimated that more than 80% of people in Africa use traditional medicine (TM). With the HIV/AIDS epidemic claiming many lives in Africa, the majority of people affected rely on TM mainly because it is relatively affordable and available to the poor populations who cannot afford orthodox medicine. Whereas orthodox medicine is practiced under stringent regulations and ethical guidelines emanating from The Nuremburg Code,1 African TM seems to be exempt from such scrutiny. Although recently there have been calls for TM to be incorporated into the health care system, less emphasis has been placed on ethical and regulatory issues. In this paper, an overview of the use of African TM in general, and for HIV/AIDS in particular, is given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Even more children are dying in Botswana","field_subtitle":"Inter Press Service, 18 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=38214","body":"While Botswana has succeeded in decreasing its poverty rate, it is unlikely that the country will achieve the United Nations' fourth Millennium Development Goal of decreasing child mortality rates by two thirds by 2015. Figures have shown an increase in child mortality between the 1990s and the 2000s. A 2001 report by the government's Central Statistics Office (CSO) on population and housing indicates that in 1991, infant mortality in Botswana stood at 48 deaths per 1,000 live births. This figure increased to 56 deaths per 1,000 live births by 2001. Over the same period, under-five mortality increased from 63 to 74 deaths per 1,000 live births. The United Nations Children's Fund's figures for the under-five mortality rate in Botswana are worse than the Botswana government's official figures, rising from 58 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 116 in 2004. The high prevalence of HIV/AIDS is one of the factors behind this phenomenon.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploratory study of factors that affect the performance and use of rapid diagnostic tests for malaria in the Limpopo Province, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Moonasar D, Ebrahim Goga A, Frean J, Kruger P, Chandramohan D: Malaria Journal 6:74, 2 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/6/1/74","body":"Malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) are relatively simple to perform and provide results quickly for making treatment decisions. However, the accuracy and application of RDT results depends on several factors such as quality of the RDT, storage, transport and end user performance. A cross sectional survey to explore factors that affect the performance and use of RDTs was conducted in the primary care facilities in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund welcomes G8 recommitment","field_subtitle":"Angola Press, 26 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.angolapress-angop.ao/noticia-e.asp?ID=537479","body":"The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has welcomed the latest \"endorsement by the G8 leaders of US$6 billion to US$8 billion per year for the Global Fund, a three-fold increase from the current level,\" as \"a strong agreement that makes it possible to defeat\" the pandemics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalization and social determinants of health: The role of the global marketplace (part 2 of 3)","field_subtitle":"Labonte  R, Schrecker T: Globalization and Health 3:6, 19 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/3/1/6","body":"Globalization is a key context for the study of social determinants of health (SDH): broadly stated, SDH are the conditions in which people live and work, and that affect their opportunities to lead healthy lives. In the first article in this three part series, we described the origins of the series in work conducted for the Globalization Knowledge Network of the World Health Organizations Commission on Social Determinants of Health and in the Commissions specific concern with health equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health sector reforms and human resources for health in Uganda and Bangladesh: mechanisms of effect","field_subtitle":"Ssengooba F, Rahman SA, Hongoro C, Rutebemberwa E, Mustafa A, Kielmann T, McPake B: Human Resources for Health 5:3, 1 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/5/1/3","body":"Despite the expanding literature on how reforms may affect health workers and which reactions they may provoke, little research has been conducted on the mechanisms of effect through which health sector reforms either promote or discourage health worker performance. This paper seeks to trace these mechanisms and examines the contextual framework of reform objectives in Uganda and Bangladesh, and health workers' responses to the changes in their working environments by taking a 'realistic evaluation' approach.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Worker Shortage Limits Access To HIV/AIDS Treatment In Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Medicens Sans Frontiers, 30 May 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2br7n4","body":"A shortage of health care workers is paralysing the health system in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique and South Africa, and threatens the lives of millions, particularly in rural areas, warns Medecins Sans Frontieres. A new report by the organisation, launched in Johannesburg, shows that only South Africa has met the World Health Organisation (WHO) target for an adequate supply of health care workers: 74.3 doctors, 393 nurses and 468 health providers per 100,000 people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthcare in South Africa 2007","field_subtitle":"Still L, Profile Media","field_url":"http://www.profile.co.za/products/books/hcsa.htm","body":"This publication is presented as a valuable tool for all health care professionals and anyone who needs to evaluate health care options either for their own families or on behalf of their staff, clients or patients. The first part of the book deals with the size and shape of private and public healthcare services, unfolding health care regulations and a description of how all the participants in the industry fit together. It also offers readers a guide to checking on the health of different medical schemes, as well as understanding the details of benefits and options.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthcare utilisation of patients accessing an African national treatment program","field_subtitle":"Harling G, Orrell  C, Wood R: BMC Health Services Research 7:80, 7 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/7/80/abstract","body":"The roll-out of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Africa will have significant resource implications arising from its impact on demand for healthcare services. Existing studies of healthcare utilisation on HAART have been conducted in the developed world, where HAART is commenced when HIV illness is less advanced. This paper describes healthcare utilization from program entry by treatment-na\u00efve patients in a peri-urban settlement in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How far will we need to go to reach HIV-infected people in rural South Africa?","field_subtitle":"Wilson  DC, Blower SM: BMC Medicine 5:16, 19 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/5/16/abstract","body":"The South African Government has outlined detailed plans for antiretroviral (ART) rollout in KwaZulu-Natal Province, but has not created a plan to address treatment accessibility in rural areas in KwaZulu-Natal. This paper calculates the distance that People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in rural areas in KwaZulu-Natal would have to travel to receive ART in rural KwaZulu-Natal. The results show that many PLWHA in rural KwaZulu-Natal are unlikely to have access to ART, and that the impact of an additional 37 HCFs on treatment accessibility in rural areas would be less substantial than might be expected. There is a great length to go to reach many PLWHA in rural areas in South Africa, and specifically in KwaZulu-Natal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Hunger exacerbating child mortality","field_subtitle":"Banda I: Inter Press News, 24 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=37878","body":"The fourth of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) seeks a two-third reduction in the deaths of children under five by 2015. But the issues related to the first MDG, the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, will push the reduction of child mortality in Zimbabwe beyond the target date of 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"In defense of national interest: Uganda's reform process for Industrial Property Legislation","field_subtitle":"Mpeirwe A: Coalition for Health Promotion and Social Development (HEPS Uganda) and Panos Eastern Africa, 2003","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/MPEtrade26062007.pdf","body":"Uganda is currently preoccupied with reforms for its commercial laws. The\r\npatent law is one of the laws under reform. A draft bill known as the Industrial Property bill is pending submission to cabinet at the time of writing. This report explains the process of reform of the patent law and traces the genesis of the process, stakeholders involvement, as well as the driving force for the reforms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Infant feeding counselling for HIV-infected and uninfected women: Appropriateness of choice and practice","field_subtitle":"Bland RM, Rollins RC, Coovadia HM: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 85: 289-296 , April 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/85/4/06-032441.pdf","body":"This article examines infant feeding intentions of HIV-infected and uninfected women in South Africa, and the appropriateness of their choices according to their home resources. The paper concludes that most HIV infected women did not have the resources for safe replacement feeding, and appropriately chose instead to exclusively breastfeed. Significantly more intending to exclusively breastfeed, rather than replacement feed, adhered to their intention in week one.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"International experiences in removing user fees for health services; Implications for Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Yates R: DFID Health Resource Centre, 2006","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/YATfinanc26062007.pdf","body":"Whether Governments should charge patients fees to use public health services has become one of the most contentious social policy issues worldwide. Sadly for policy makers, in recent years, the quality of debate in this area has often been poor, with opposing camps usually resorting to unproven theory and emotive rhetoric. Perhaps a new perspective should be brought to this debate. How would the world of business deal with this problem; which in effect, is an issue of what (if any) price one should charge for health services?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Longitudinal analysis of community health workers\u2019 adherence to treatment guidelines, Siaya, Kenya, 1997\u20132002","field_subtitle":"Rowe SY, Olewe MA, Kleinbaum DG,  McGowan Jr JE, McFarland DA, Rochat R, Deming MS: Tropical Medicine & International Health 12(5): 651-663, May 2007","field_url":"http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-3156.2007.01824.x","body":"This report investigated community health workers\u2019 (CHW) adherence over time to guidelines for treating ill children and to assess the effect of refresher training on adherence. The average adherence score was 79.4%. Multivariable analyses indicate that immediately after the first refresher training, the mean adherence level improved for patients with a severe illness, but worsened for patients without severe illness. Adherence scores declined rapidly during the 6 months after the second refresher training.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Medicines without Doctors: why the Global Fund must fund salaries of health workers to expand AIDS treatment","field_subtitle":"Ooms G, Van Damme W, Temmerman M: Public Library of Science Medicine , 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health&id=31505&type=Document","body":"The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was created to fight three of the world\u2019s most devastating diseases. Recent internal comments from the Global Fund suggest an intention to focus more on these diseases, and to leave the strengthening of health systems and support for the health workforce to others. This article, in PLoS Med, examines the implications of this strategy, and suggests that it could create a \u2018Medicines without Doctors\u2019 situation in which the medicines to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria are available, but not the doctors or the nurses to prescribe those medicines adequately.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Migration of Nurses from Sub-Saharan Africa: A Review of Issues and Challenges","field_subtitle":"Dovlo D: Health Services Research 42 (3): 1373-1388, June 2007","field_url":"http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1475-6773.2007.00712.x?prevSearch=allfield%3A%28Africa%20Health%29%20AND%20journalpublicationyearfield%3A%282007%29","body":"The state of nursing practice in SSA appears to have been impacted negatively by migration. Available (though inadequate) quantitative data on stocks and flows, qualitative information on migration issues and trends, and on the main strategies being employed in both source and recipient countries indicate that the problem is likely to grow over the next 5\u201310 years. the paper reports that multiple actions are needed at various policy levels in both source and receiving countries to moderate negative effects of nurse emigration in developing countries in Africa; however, critically, source countries must establish more effective policies and strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"More non-physician clinicians will boost African healthcare workforce","field_subtitle":"Mullah F, Frehywot S: The Lancet,  Early Online Publication, 14 June 2007","field_url":"http://download.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/0140-6736/PIIS0140673607607855.pdf","body":"Many countries have health-care providers who are not trained as physicians but who take on many of the diagnostic and clinical functions of medical doctors. These non-physician clinicians (NPCs) were found in 25 of 47 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, although their roles varied widely between countries. In nine countries, numbers of NPCs equalled or exceeded numbers of physicians. In general NPCs were trained with less cost than were physicians, and for only 3\u20134 years after secondary school. All NPCs did basic diagnosis and medical treatment, but some were trained in specialty activities such as caesarean section, ophthalmology and anaesthesia. Many NPCs were recruited from rural and poor areas, and worked in these same regions. Low training costs, reduced training duration, and success in rural placements suggest that NPCs could have substantial roles in the scale-up of health workforces in sub-Saharan African countries, including for the planned expansion of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Multi-Country AIDS Program 2000\u20132006: Results of the World Bank\u2019s response to a development crisis","field_subtitle":"World Bank, 14 June 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/26xmmm","body":"A new World Bank report on HIV/AIDS launched in June says the mobilisation of empowered 'grassroots' communities, along with delivering condoms and life-saving treatments, are beginning to slow the pace of the continent's epidemic. According to the new report ultimate success in defeating HIV/AIDS will depend on marshalling effective prevention, care, and treatment, measures to boost 'social immune systems' in African countries - changing beliefs, perceptions, and social and individual behaviors around the disease to reverse the advance of HIV and stop the damage done by AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New strategy adopted on diseases of poverty: WHO-based tropical disease research programme to focus on emerging diseases","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 22 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2007/pr33/en/index.html","body":"The WHO based Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) has adopted a new strategy for strengthening and expanding research to prevent and control 'infectious diseases of poverty'. The strategy builds on the programme\u2019s 30-year record of developing new drugs, delivery strategies and enhancing research capacity in countries where parasitic tropical diseases are endemic. The new plan addresses some of the emerging disease challenges facing developing countries, such as TB-HIV co-infection.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"No! to the united graves of Africa: Unity of the living and healthy, not a unity of the diseased, dying and dead","field_subtitle":"Rotimi Sankore, Coordinator, Africa Public Health Rights Alliance and \u201c15% Now!\u201d Campaign","field_url":"","body":"\r\nFrom the 1-3 July 2007, African leaders will meet in Accra, Ghana at the 9th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union. The major agenda item is the proposal and plans for the United States of Africa. Africa\u2019s Under-development as manifested in its public health catastrophe is not on the AU summit agenda. This raises the crucial question of the kind of unity African leaders wish to achieve. Significantly the debate about the proposed union has revolved mainly around political issues without commensurate attention to the development issues which were no less important to the founders of the Pan African movement.\r\n\r\nIt is now six years since Heads of State of African Union member states pledged in Abuja in 2001 to commit at least 15% of national budgets to health. To say it is tragic that in 2007 only two out of fifty three AU member countries (Botswana and Seychelles) have clearly met that pledge does not even begin to describe the situation. It is beyond tragedy.\r\n\r\nIn these past few weeks, all roads led to the G8 Summit in Germany. In what has become an annual ritual since the turn of the century, international campaigners Bono, Bob Geldof and an impressive assortment of Development and AIDS related organisations led the calls for more aid to Africa, and for Africa not to be forgotten in the clamour over climate change. As usual, selected African leaders turned up with begging bowls and for photo calls. Leading international campaigners have since described the aid pledged by the G8 this month as 'a farce' and 'grossly inadequate'.\r\n\r\nWe know that many of the more developed countries have played historical roles in under developing Africa. 400 years of industrial scale slavery, in addition to colonialism, ruthless exploitation of Africa\u2019s resources, cynical \u2018interventions\u2019 and the debt burden have cost Africa dearly. The \u2018foreign\u2019 aid to Africa is a percentage of what has been taken out in human and natural resources, and is but a small step towards repairing the damage done to Africa.\r\n\r\nBut we also know that African leaders cannot seriously expect other countries to commit to, or meet pledges to \u2018save\u2019 Africa when they themselves appear indifferent to Africa\u2019s future. To be going forward with plans for African unity without simultaneously meeting the most fundamental commitment to African development \u2013 that of health - is misguided to say the least.\r\n\r\nIt is comical for us to be calling on the G8 countries to meet the recent Gleneagles pledges when the vast majority of AU member states have not met their own Abuja 2001 pledge. This is not a pledge we can afford to pass unfulfilled. The Africa Public Health Rights Alliance (APHRA) and its '15% Now!' Campaign revealed on Human Rights Day (December 10) 2006 that by crossing continental, sub regional, country, health, disease specific and development information from a wide range of agencies and institutions we computed that an estimated 8,000,000 Africans are dying annually from preventable, treatable and manageable diseases and health conditions \u2013 mainly Malaria, TB, HIV, child and maternal mortality. This figure does not include organ related disease (heart, liver, kidney and lung diseases), an assortment of cancers, vaccine preventable diseases and so forth which could very easily add another million \u2013 or more. The consistency of these figures over the past six years alone means that Africa has suffered an estimated 48,000,000 preventable deaths since 2001.\r\n\r\nBy coincidence, the dream of the United States of Africa is planned to be actualised by 2015, the same year the Millennium Development Goals are to be met. If Africa\u2019s health catastrophe continues unabated we could loose another 72,000,000 lives by then. This is the equivalent of whole nations dying out within a year or a decade. Many African countries (such as Botswana, Burundi, Eritrea, Gambia, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Namibia and\r\nSwaziland) have populations of between 1-8,00,000. Most of the island countries have populations of less than a million. Even Africa\u2019s most populous countries (DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Sudan - with the exception of Nigeria at 130,000,000) all have populations of between 30-80,000,000. \r\n\r\nIt would therefore not be an exaggeration to describe over 120 million preventable deaths between 2001 and 2015 as genocide \u2013 by inaction. In this case and for every life lost, government indifference to Public Health is the equivalent of an Interehamwe machete or Nazi gas chamber. If we were set up memorials to the preventable deaths from one year alone, we would need 100 stadiums in Africa with the capacity to each host 80,000 skulls \u2013 each a stadium of shameful silence, and a monument to government without responsibility.\r\n\r\nAfrica Must Unite! But for it to be a meaningful unity it must not be a unity of the dead. It must not be unity as a continental graveyard.\r\n\r\nMeeting the 15% pledge will be a significant indication that African leaders care for their countries and are prepared to live up to their primary responsibility of keeping their citizens alive and healthy. No meaningful and sustainable development of Africa can happen without sustainable financing for health care. Indeed the status of public health is the most significant indicator of social and economic development. This is why the Right to Health is the most crucial Right of all \u2013 we all have to be alive and well to exercise any other Rights. The dead have no Rights \u2013 except perhaps the \u2018Right to a decent burial\u2019.\r\n\r\nTo postpone the meeting of the 15% pledge to the future is to accelerate the death of Africa. We call on the African Union to place the 2001 15% pledge on the July 2007 summit agenda and at the very least to introduce it as urgent business [under item vii, AOB]. We further call on them to make it a major agenda item of the next summit or to call a special summit dedicated to meeting the 15% pledge. This should be preceded by a special summit of Finance and Economic Development Ministers\r\n\r\nTo further illustrate the full scale of Africa\u2019s health disaster, it is not enough to demonstrate only the unprecedented scale of preventable death. It is also crucial to demonstrate the scale of Africa\u2019s impotence and one example will suffice.\r\n\r\nWithout health workers, no amount of free medicines can be delivered to citizens, and all \u2018foreign\u2019 AID is meaningless. Yet many African governments have no clue how close to death their countries are due to shortage of health workers of all categories.\r\n\r\nThe DRC with a population of 57 million, roughly equivalent to the populations of UK, France and Italy has only 5,827 doctors compared to the\r\nFrance\u2019s 203,000, Italy\u2019s 241,000 and the UK\u2019s 160,000. But it is not just a case of the most developed countries being able to train more health workers, or to poach from Africa to make up their shortfalls. Cuba with a population of about 11 million has roughly the same population as Malawi, Zambia or Zimbabwe. But Cuba has 66,567 Doctors compared with Malawi\u2019s 266, Zambia\u2019s 1,264 and Zimbabwe\u2019s 2,086. Not surprisingly, Cuba has roughly the same life expectancy (77 years) as the G8 Countries, the Scandinavian and other developed countries while the average life expectancy for African countries compared to it here is 37 to 40 years. The success of Cuba in the areas of health care and education demonstrates it can be done. Despite issues with the Castro government, western countries have visited Cuba to study how they have achieved their health success. To come anywhere near meeting the World Health Organisation recommended health worker\u2019s to patient ratio or meeting the health based MDG\u2019s these African countries compared to Cuba will need to train and retain roughly 59,000 Doctors each in 8 years. The DRC will need to train and retain at least 150,000. The numbers for nurses, pharmacists and most categories of health workers are comparable across board. This should be Africa\u2019s priority.\r\n\r\nIn other words, there is no alternative to long term in country sustainable financing to rebuild Africa\u2019s Public Health systems including health workers and improved working conditions and remuneration for them, adequately equipped clinics and hospitals, improved sanitation and environmental health, clean drinking water and so forth. Without these Africa may achieve its dream of continental unity, but it will be a fools paradise.\r\n\r\nWe are for a United Africa. But it must be a unity of the living, and of a healthy African people \u2013 able to enjoy full civil, social, economic and political Rights - not a unity of the diseased, dead and dying. \r\n\r\nSuccessfully unity can only be based on successful development of which health is the corner stone.\r\n\r\nThe Africa Public Health Rights Alliance and its 15% Now campaign call on you to join the undersigned below in signing the petition calling\r\non AU member countries to fulfil their 15% Abuja pledge as the first genuine step towards a healthy United States of Africa.\r\n\r\nYou can sign by sending your name, position, organisation and country to\r\nafrica_15percentnowcampaign@yahoo.com - Also stating if signing in a personal or organisational capacity.\r\n\r\n *Signatories to the petition do not necessarily endorse the views expressed in this article.\r\n\r\nArticle originally published by Pambazuka News, 21 June 2007: http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/42108\r\n\r\nEQUINET calls for Abuja PLUS! EQUINET advocates for governments to meet their Abuja commitment to 15% government spending on health, excluding external funding, PLUS debt cancellation and international support to meet at least US$60 per capita on health systems. Information and publication on EQUINET work on health financing is available at the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Non-communicable diseases and global health governance: enhancing global processes to improve health development","field_subtitle":"Magnusson R: Globalization and Health, 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health&id=31656&type=Document","body":"This paper in Globalisation and Health assesses progress in the development of a global framework for responding to non-communicable diseases, as reflected in the policies and initiatives of the World Health Organization (WHO), World Bank and the UN. Responding to the global burden of chronic disease requires an assessment of the global processes that are likely to be most effective in generating commitment to policy change at country level. The paper assesses the merits of the Millennium Development Goals and the WHO framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), and considers that lessons might be learned for enhancing the implementation of the Global Strategy on Diet.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Nurses' experiences of recruitment and migration from developing countries: a phenomenological approach","field_subtitle":"Troy PH, Wyness LA, McAuliffe E: Human Resources for Health 5:15: 7 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/5/1/15","body":"There is growing concern globally at the current flows of nurse migration, particularly from low-income to middle and high-income countries. Recruitment practices of many countries such as Ireland are thought to be fuelling this rate of migration. This paper aims to establish the perceptions and opinions of those involved in the recruitment process on their role in recruitment and the effects recruitment has on both source and destination countries. A purposive sample of 12 directors of nursing, from major academic teaching hospitals in Dublin and hospitals in South Africa and the Philippines were recruited.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Pain relieving drugs in 12 African countries: Mapping providers, identifying challenges and enabling expansion of pain control provision in HIV and AIDS management","field_subtitle":"Harding R, Powell RA, Kiyange F: African Palliative Care Association, 2007","field_url":"http://www.apca.co.ug/publications/PainRelief.pdf","body":"This report from the African Palliative Care Association (APCA) identifies a number of problems with the delivery of pain-relief drugs to people with HIV and AIDS. The survey found that the key problems were inadequate and unreliable supplies of drugs, restrictive legislation, poor levels of education and training about prescribing such drugs among clinical staff, and practical problems such as high costs and inadequate storage facilities. The key challenges to overcoming these problems were identified as a lack of political will, the need for education and cultural change among medical practitioners and a lack of resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Poorer health and nutritional outcomes in orphans and vulnerable young children not explained by greater exposure to extreme poverty in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Watts H, Gregson S, Saito S, Lopman B, Beasley M, Monasch R: Tropical Medicine & International Health 12 (5): 584-593, May 2007","field_url":"http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-3156.2007.01832.x","body":"This paper describes patterns of association between different groups of young orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) and their nutritional and health outcomes; and develops a theoretical framework to analyse the determinants of child malnutrition and ill-health, and identify the different mechanisms which contribute to these outcomes in such children.\r\nIt is based on statistical analysis of data on 31 672 children aged 0\u201317 years (6753 aged under 5 years) selected from the Zimbabwe OVC Baseline Survey 2004. Differences in exposure to extreme poverty among young children by OVC status were relatively small and did not explain the greater malnutrition and ill-health seen in OVC.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Postoperative outcome of caesarean sections and other major emergency obstetric surgery by clinical officers and medical officers in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Chilopora G, Pereira C, Kamwendo F, Chimbiri A, Malunga  E, Bergstrom S: Human Resources for Health 5:17, 14 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/5/1/17","body":"Clinical officers perform much of major emergency surgery in Malawi, in the absence of medical officers. The aim of this study was to validate the advantages and disadvantages of delegation of major obstetric surgery to non-doctors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Progress in the first year of 'Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS'","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS , 2007","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/ChildrenanAIDSAStocktakingLoResPDF_EN_USLetter_15012007.pdf","body":"This briefing paper provides an overview of the achievements of the 'Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS initiative' in improving prevention of and treatment for HIV and AIDS among children. The report concludes that, while some progress has been made, many children and mothers are not receiving the services and treatments they require. To redress this, significantly more resources are needed, together with policy changes in affected countries. Appendices to the report provide data on all countries\u2019 HIV infection rates and access to services and medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Progress towards gender equity in SADC - The draft SADC Protocol on Gender and Development","field_subtitle":"Phiri P, 2007","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org/documents/d0002610/index.php","body":"Governments in southern Africa are moving with zeal to address social challenges faced by women. The SADC member states view education for women and girls as a sticking point for achieving this cause. For this reason, an ambitious leap to put together the SADC gender protocol is on course. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Enquiry into the Right to have Access to Healthcare Services, 1 June 2007","field_subtitle":"South African Human Rights Commission, June 2007","field_url":"http://www.sahrc.org.za/sahrc_cms/publish/cat_index_22.shtml","body":"The South African Human Rights Commission's public inquiry into health care services concluded the open hearings phase on 1 June 2007. The Commission put together a programme that created space for all who needed to be heard, on the right of everyone to access health care services as provided for in the Bill of Rights. Several organisations made submissions","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional workshop on Strengthening responses to the Triple Threat in Southern Africa - Learning from field programmes","field_subtitle":"Southern African Regional Poverty Network (SARPN), 2 Jul 2007","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org/documents/d0002616/index.php","body":"A study identifying how project activities have responded to long-term livelihood insecurity and short-term acute need will be discussed at a SARPN, CW and OI two-day experience-sharing workshop to be held in Maputo, Mozambique on 1-2 July 2007. The workshop is targeted at policy makers and influencers, practitioners and researchers from national, regional and international government and non-governmental organisations from the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Request for comments, views and information on the Gates Foundation","field_subtitle":"Global Health Watch, 2007","field_url":"","body":"The Global Health Watch is an alternative world health report produced every two and a half years. The aim is to critique and assess the state of global health governance and action with a strong equity lens and with an explicit political and economic critique. One of the forthcoming chapters in the next Watch will be on the Gates Foundation and we are looking for informants, particularly from low and middle income countries, who have any considered views and observations on the Gates Foundation.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32373","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Request for proposals: Vaccine-Preventable diseases","field_subtitle":"The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation","field_url":"http://www.gatesfoundation.org/nr/downloads/globalhealth/Grantseekers/RFPs/GH-GHS-2007-01.doc","body":"The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is inviting letters of inquiry (LOIs) from qualified applicants to assist 12 GAVI-eligible countries establish external advisory groups and manage related grants. While this RFP will ultimately yield full proposals, the immediate request is for Letters of Inquiry from qualified applicants with the capability of managing an overall effort to strengthen national decision-making processes in up to 12 countries. On the basis of review of the LOIs, up to three organisations will be invited to begin preparation for submission of a full proposal. Submission of a full proposal will be by invitation only. Deadline for submission is 6 July 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Synthesis report on the right to have access to healthcare services","field_subtitle":"Ntuli A, South African Human Rights Commission, June 2007","field_url":"http://www.ifhhro.org/main.php?op=news&id=120","body":"The SAHRC embarked upon provincial assessments in all nine provinces in preparation for a national enquiry into the right to have access to health care. This report provides a synthesis of the findings and main themes emerging from those assessments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"State of the Nation, South Africa 2007: The Promise and the Practice of Transformation: the state of South Africas health system","field_subtitle":"Fonn S, Schneider H, Barron P: Human Sciences Research Council, 2007","field_url":"http://www.hsrcpress.co.za/full_title_info.asp?id=2183","body":"This chapter provides an overview of developments in South Africas health system over the past 12 years, using the WHOs assessment framework. While this framework has good health is an obvious goal, broader social objectives such as responsiveness to the needs of citizens and promotion of equity are also measured. Despite the largely successful efforts to shrug off the legacy of a racially divided health system and to generate numerous transformation initiatives, the reality is that the current system is as problematic as it was 12 years ago.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"State of the World\u2019s Mothers Report","field_subtitle":"Save the Children Fund , 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/health&id=31500&type=Document","body":"The report includes a Mothers\u2019 Index, which identifies the best and worst countries to be a mother and child-based on a comprehensive look at child and maternal well-being in 140 countries. To succeed in saving the lives of children under 5, Save the Children recommends that countries: ensure the well-being of mothers; invest in basic, low-cost solutions to save children\u2019s lives; make health care available to the poorest and most vulnerable mothers and children; increase funding and improve strategies to provide basic, effective, lifesaving services to those who most need it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Submission on the national health reference price list","field_subtitle":"AIDS Law Project, 27 February 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/3cmnsz","body":"This paper by the AIDS Law Project calls for measures to address inequity in access to private health care services and to regulate costs in the private sector. For this reason regular and accurate information about health financing, service prices and business practices in the private sector is essential in determining both health policy as well as a fair and reasonable price for services and products. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Substance Abuse and HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"African Journal of Drug and Alcohol Studies 5 (2), 2006","field_url":"http://www.sahealthinfo.org/admodule/journal52006.htm","body":"The African Journal of Drug and Alcohol Studies has posted online a issue, providing a compilation of the peer-reviewed literature documenting the existence of injection and non-injection drug use, and the misuse and abuse of alcohol, and their links to HIV transmission in the region. The papers report and review the findings of research from seven countries \u2014 Kenya , Mauritius , Nigeria , Rwanda , South Africa , Tanzania , and Zambia \u2014 and document the proceedings of two meetings on alcohol and HIV risk behaviors recently held in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The exodus of health professionals from sub-Saharan Africa: balancing human rights and societal needs in the twenty-first century","field_subtitle":"Ogilvie L, Mill JE, Astle B, Fanning A, Opare M: Nursing Inquiry 14 (2): 114-124, June 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/27gxf2","body":"Increased international migration of health professionals is weakening healthcare systems in low-income countries, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa. The migration of nurses, physicians and other health professionals from countries in sub-Saharan Africa poses a major threat to the achievement of health equity in this region. As nurses form the backbone of healthcare systems in many of the affected countries, it is the accelerating migration of nurses that will be most critical over the next few years. In this paper we present a comprehensive analysis of the literature and argue that, from a human rights perspective, there are competing rights in the international migration of health professionals: the right to leave one's country to seek a better life; the right to health of populations in the source and destination countries; labour rights; the right to education; and the right to nondiscrimination and equality. Creative policy approaches are required to balance these rights and to ensure that the individual rights of health professionals do not compromise the societal right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Right to Health: Part of a series of the Human Rights Programme of the CETIM","field_subtitle":"Centre Europe-Tiers Monde (CETIM)","field_url":"http://www.cetim.ch/en/documents/bro4-sante-A4-an.pdf","body":"An international order responsible for widespread inequalities and poverty prevents the realisation of the right to health. The affirmation of health as a human right and the definition of its relation to other human rights are essential to clarify the obligations of those involved in its realisation. This brochure discusses: the right to health and its implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The use of personal digital assistants for data entry at the point of collection in a large household survey in southern Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Shirima K, Mukasa O, Armstrong Schellenberg J, Manzi F, John D, Mushi A, Mrisho M, Tanner M, Mshinda H, Schellenberg D: Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 4:5, 1 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.ete-online.com/content/4/1/5","body":"Survey data are traditionally collected using pen-and-paper, with double data entry, comparison of entries and reconciliation of discrepancies before data cleaning can commence. We used Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) for data entry at the point of collection, to save time and enhance the quality of data in a survey of over 21,000 scattered rural households in southern Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Too few African governments have had the guts to say 'No'","field_subtitle":"Interview with Eveline Herfkens: Inter Press News, 22 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=38277","body":"This article is an interview with Eveline Herfkens, executive coordinator of the Millennium Campaign, about the plight of Africa and the role of African governments in recreating poverty.She argues that too few governments in Africa have taken responsibility for themselves, for their future, and that donors have operated in a way that undermined accountability and responsibility, making African countries look more at what their donors want than what their own people want. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Treatment-seeking behaviour, cost burdens and coping strategies among rural and urban households in Coastal Kenya: an equity analysis","field_subtitle":"Chuma J, Gilson L, Molyneux C: Tropical Medicine & International Health 12(5): 673-686, May 2007","field_url":"http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-3156.2007.01825.x","body":"This study investigated socio-economic inequities in self-reported illnesses, treatment-seeking behaviour, cost burdens and coping strategies in a rural and urban setting along the Kenyan coast. Key findings were significantly higher levels of reported chronic and acute conditions in the rural setting, differences in treatment-seeking patterns by socio-economic status (SES) and by setting, and regressive cost burdens in both areas. These data suggest the need for greater governmental and non-governmental efforts towards protecting the poor from catastrophic illness cost burdens. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"TRIPs and Public Health: The Doha Declaration and Africa","field_subtitle":"Haakonsson SJ, Richey LA: Development Policy Review 25(1): 71-90, January 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2yxdsu","body":"The Doha Declaration on the TRIPs Agreement and Public Health (2001), aimed at improving access to medicines, especially for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in developing and least developed countries, has not yet been used for compulsory licences to import generic medicines or for expanding production for export to poor countries. By analysing HIV/AIDS treatment in Uganda, this article discusses the variety of TRIPs-related channels for ensuring drugs for domestic treatment, and argues that emphasising the restrictive nature of TRIPs provisions fails to grasp the scale of the obstacles involved. Lack of domestic resources leaves African countries dependent on donor financing, which in turn constrains their ability to exploit international trade provisions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO, Stop TB Partnership release two-year response plan","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 22 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2007/pr32/en/index.html","body":"Hundreds of thousands of cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) can be prevented and as many as 134 000 lives saved through the implementation of a two-year response plan, published/launched by WHO and Stop TB Partnership. The Global MDR-TB and XDR-TB Response Plan 2007-2008 sets out measures needed now to prevent, treat and control extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) and multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB). The plan also sets in motion actions to reach a 2015 goal of providing access to drugs and diagnostic tests to all MDR-TB and XDR-TB patients, saving the lives of up to 1.2 million patients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Working together for better health","field_subtitle":"Department for International Development, 5 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.dfid.gov.uk/news/files/health-strategy07.asp","body":"Hilary Benn of DFId calls for the global community to deliver better health for poorer people around the world. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe fighting the spread of Polio - Again","field_subtitle":"Kwidini T: Inter Press Service, 25 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38299","body":"The Zimbabwe government and the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF) conducted a countrywide immunisation programme aimed at eliminating polio and other diseases to prevent children from having the same experience as Chirewa and others. It is a continuation of similar efforts over the past few years. The programme has seen many mothers across the country taking their children to centres around the country for immunisation. About two million children were vaccinated during the week-long programme,  not only immunised against polio but also against diseases such as tuberculosis, measles, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and hepatitis B. They also received vitamin A supplements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":" \tFood Security Information Systems and Networks","field_subtitle":"Resources for Trainers, Food Security Information for Action: 2007","field_url":"http://www.foodsecinfoaction.org/News/tr_res_02.htm","body":"This course introduces and provides guidance in assessing different kinds of information systems related to food security analysis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"3rd session of the African Union Conference of Ministers of Health, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_subtitle":"African Union, 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yo5x7t","body":"The theme for this conference was: \u201cStrengthening of Health Systems for Equity and Development in Africa\u201d, with emphasis on the Africa Health Strategy 2007-2015. Africa has made significant strides in certain areas of social and economic development but has the potential to achieve even more if it can overcome the large burden of disease which continues to be a barrier to faster development. This has prompted the African Union Ministers of Health to harmonise all existing health strategies by drawing this Africa Health Strategy which Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and other regional entities and Member States can use to enrich their strategies, depending on their peculiar challenges. The Strategy neither competes with nor negates other health strategies but seeks to complement other specific and detailed strategies by adding value from the unique perspective of the African Union. It provides a strategic direction to Africa\u2019s efforts in creating better health for all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"3rd South African AIDS Conference: 5-8 June 2007, Durban, South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sa-aidsconference.com/","body":"\"Building Consensus on prevention, treatment and care\", the conference aims to serve as a platform for deliberations on the key contentious issues relating to prevention, treatment and care. In particular, the conference will highlight state-of-the-art developments in prevention technologies; new approaches to prevention; the long-term impact of highly active antiretroviral therapy on incidence, prevalence, morbidity and mortality; the role of nutrition in HIV/AIDS; and the role of research into the use of complimentary and traditional medicines in HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"60th World Health Assembly: Prevent maternaL and child deaths","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 15 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/pmnch/events/en/index.html","body":"Health ministers at the 60th World Health Assembly were urged to focus on reducing maternal, newborn and young child deaths. A Global Business Plan for the partnership for maternal, newborn and child health was outlined, aiming to spearhead political impetus at the highest level to save lives and achieve MDGs 4 &5. The plan is being developed with The Partnership and other partners, including Chancellor Gordon Brown, UK, the Gates Foundation, Tanzania, Indonesia and Mozambique.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"8th meeting of the Africa Partnership Forum (APF)","field_subtitle":"Humphries R: Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), May  2007","field_url":"","body":"The 8th meeting of the Africa Partnership Forum (APF) took place from 22-23 May 2007 in Berlin, just two weeks before the G8 Heiligendamm summit.  Participants included Personal Representatives for the G8-Africa Process coming from G8 and OECD countries and from African member states of the NEPAD steering committee. Participants discussed four key areas affecting Africa: investment, gender, climate change, and peace and security. Through the intensive dialogue between the G8 Africa Personal Representatives and the African partners in preparing the APF, this year\u2019s APF developed substantive recommendations for the G8 summit as well as for the AU summit, thus following up the joint work on the G8 Africa Action Plan adopted in Kananaskis in 2002.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32329","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A call to the 2007 G8 Summit to support African national health plans and comprehensive health workforce strategies","field_subtitle":"African Council for Sustainable Health Development (ACOSHED), African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF)","field_url":"","body":"The full call and signatories are found here to this call from African organisations to the G8 presented in the editorial section of the newsletter.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32346","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A call to the 2007 G8 Summit to support African national health plans and comprehensive health workforce strategies","field_subtitle":"African Council for Sustainable Health Development (ACOSHED), African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF)","field_url":"","body":"\r\nWe are African organisations deeply committed to improving the health of the people of our continent.  Yet we are deeply concerned about the lack of progress, and in some countries reversal of progress, resulting in millions of preventable deaths that continue to burden our countries each year.  It is clear that as long as our health systems remain weak in many dimensions and our countries face a health workforce crisis, the current unacceptable trends will persist.\r\n\r\nIn spite of this slow progress, we remain optimistic.  We have observed progress in some regions and countries, and identify with the deepening commitment to the health of many of our Government and institutions.  Our Regional Economic Communities have assumed an important leadership role within the continent in catalyzing actions required to strengthen health systems and achieve health MDGs.  We are convinced that the engagement of our partners locally and globally can translate into the political will, resources, and efficiency required to transform health on our continent.   With so many lives at stake, our neighbors, our children, and ourselves, we must succeed.\r\n\r\nCognizant of the continuing intolerable burden of disease, African Union ministers of health have developed an Africa Health Strategy 2007-2015 that seeks to \u201cprovides a strategic direction to Africa\u2019s efforts in creating better health for all.\u201d  At the core of the Africa Health Strategy is the strengthening of health systems based on carefully costed National Health Plans that incorporate the commitments made by African governments, including achieving the Millennium Development Goals and universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment, care, prevention, and support by 2010.  \r\n\r\nThe chief responsibility for the success of these plans lies with our own governments.  We will hold our governments accountable.  We will insist \u2013 and are demanding \u2013 that they take the necessary steps to achieve the promises of good health, a foundation of healthy societies.  Collectively, we will hold our governments accountable to increasing health sector investments to at least 15% of the national budget, improving the efficiency in allocation and application of these resources, and the implementation of health workforce and systems strengthening strategies capable of providing quality health care to all people.  We further commit to work with our governments to identify sustainable financing strategies that can replace point-of-service payments (i.e., user fees) for essential health services and to meet their other commitments and responsibilities including as part of the human right to health.  \r\n\r\nHowever, the successful implementation of the National Health Plans requires support from Africa\u2019s development partners, especially from the nations that comprise the G8.  Even if African governments significantly increase their own funding for National Health Plans, these plans will have significant financing gaps.  Many of the actions required for these plans to succeed will require solutions and expertise that crosses national and even continental boundaries.Building health systems must include building partnerships between health care providers and the communities that use those services. It requires donors to listen to African communities to find out what their needs and concerns are, so that services are tailored to those needs, as opposed to imposing systems that may be effective elsewhere but not in Africa.  It is about using the opportunities that exist within communities to advance health care, by harnessing the knowledge, resources, and energy in the community and applying it to work together with the formal health system. \r\nWe call upon the upcoming G8 summit in Germany to recognize the Africa Health Strategy developed by our health ministers and to engage in substantive dialogue with communities, civil society, governments, regional economic communities, and the African Union.  \r\n\r\nThis dialogue should be backed by firm commitments about steps that we know will be required of wealthy countries if African National Health Plans are to succeed. We call upon the G8 countries to fulfill existing pledges, including the commitment of 0.7 per cent of their own Gross National Income (GNI) to Official Development Assistance (ODA), the doubling of aid to Africa by 2010, and to adhere to the commitments of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, including those that relate to alignment and harmonization of aid investments with country plans and leadership.\r\n\r\nWe ask that this G8 summit also make the following commitments, which are required for African National Health Plans to succeed: \r\n\r\nFiscal Space\r\n1.\tProvide long-term, predictable funding to cover financing gaps identified in National Health Plans and plans for universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment, care, prevention, and support, and harmonize health assistance with country-driven National Health Plans.\r\n2.\tWork with International Financial Institutions and developing country governments and civil society to ensure that fiscal and monetary policies are aligned with the best estimates of the fiscal space required to achieve the MDGs and other human development goals and commitments.\r\n3.\tAccelerate debt cancellation and ensure that debt cancellation supplements rather than displaces aid. \r\n4.\tProvide the needed financial and technical support to developing countries to design and implement sustainable financing schemes that can support the elimination of point-of-service payments (user fees) for essential health services and that are designed to enable all people, including the poor, access to quality health services.\r\n\r\nHealth Systems and Workforce\r\n5.\tWork with the AU and other continental partners to identify a basic package of health systems interventions, implemented at the community and district levels, that can provide the backbone for the delivery of health service packages required to achieve the MDGs and universal access to the best attainable health care.\r\n6.\tSupport the development and implementation of inter-sectoral and comprehensive health workforce strategies that are integrated with a broader health sector response and public service reforms to address numbers of health workers as well as other variables such as internal distribution, skills mix, work environments, productivity, and management capacity.\r\n7.\tEngage developing countries to formulate a comprehensive strategy to address health worker migration that emphasizes co-development, including by adopting policies to develop self-sustainable workforces within OECD countries and to follow ethical recruitment practices.\r\n8.\tIncrease support to developing countries to fully utilize TRIPS flexibilities to improve access to medicine, including by helping build capacity to utilize these flexibilities and by avoiding any restrictions to such flexibilities \u2013 or any other provisions that may be detrimental to health \u2013 in trade agreements. \r\n\r\nMutual Accountability\r\n9.\tSupport initiatives and programs that promote peer and independent mechanisms to track the progress of our governments and their partners to the commitments and declarations made at global, continental, and regional fora.  \r\n10.\tThrough diplomatic levers, technical assistance, and other strategies, support African civil society efforts to hold our own governments accountable to their commitments and responsibilities.\r\n\r\nSigned by 82 organisations and individuals.\r\n\r\nThe views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET.  Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised to the EQUINET secretariat admin@equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"A pro-poor critique of pre-payment water meters in South Africa - The Phiri story","field_subtitle":"Dugard J: Critical Health Perspectives 2 (2), 2007","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PHApov020607.pdf","body":"Responding to the multiple violations posed by prepaid meters (PPMs) in Phiri, in July 2006 an application was launched in the Johannesburg High Court by five applicants, on behalf of themselves, their households and all residents of Phiri who are in a similar position to the applicants, as well as everyone in the public interest. The application, supported by the Coalition Against Water Privatisation and defended by the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), seeks to have PPMs declared unlawful and it asks the Court to order Johannesburg Water to provide everyone in Phiri with a FBW supply of 50lcd and the option of a conventional meter at the cost of the City of Johannesburg.  The applicants and their supporting organisations believe that the case will be critical to securing the constitutionally- guaranteed rights of poor people to dignity, healthcare and sufficient water.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) Internship","field_subtitle":"The Communication Initiative, 5 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/funding2007/internships2007/funding-121.html","body":"The African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) is offering an internship as part of their capacity building programme. It is open to female students (both local and international) and to those who have just completed their studies and are looking for experience and mentorship in the area of African women's human rights, gender mainstreaming, African feminist movements and communications.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"An exploratory study of community factors relevant for participatory malaria control on Rusinga Island, Western Kenya","field_subtitle":"Opiyo P, Mukabana RW, Kiche I, et al: Malaria Journal 6 :48, 2007","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/6/1/48","body":"Capacity strengthening of rural communities, and the actors that support them, is needed to enable them to lead their own malaria control programmes. The existing capacity of a rural community in western Kenya was evaluated in preparation for a larger intervention. The study shows that culturally sensitive but evidence-based education interventions, utilising participatory tools, are urgently required which consider traditional beliefs and enable understanding of causal connections between mosquito ecology, parasite transmission and the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Botswana: Stigma deprives orphans of aid ","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 29 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72433","body":"The stigma of being labelled poor is inhibiting struggling foster families in Botswana, who are looking after already vulnerable children, from accessing welfare, a new study has found. The study, which focused on the plight of orphans and vulnerable children in Palapye, one of the largest villages in Botswana, located 275km north of the capital, Gaborone, found government assistance was \"crippled\" by the reluctance of families to register children for state aid. It cited an official as saying, \"Some parents do not want to show they have orphans\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Brazil breaks Merck Drug Patent in major victory for AIDS activism","field_subtitle":"AIDS Healthcare Foundation, 4 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.aidshealth.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1029&Itemid=193","body":"Amid news that the President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, today will announce Brazil\u2019s intention to issue a compulsory license for Merck\u2019s HIV/AIDS drug Efavirenz, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest US provider of HIV/AIDS healthcare, education and prevention and operator of free AIDS treatment clinics in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean and Asia, hailed the move as a victory for global AIDS activism and AIDS patients worldwide.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Country health fact sheet system 2006:  South Africa","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/home/countries/fact_sheets /southafrica.pdf","body":"The AFRO\u2019s Global Health Atlas brings together for analysis and comparison standardised data and statistics for diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The Atlas acknowledges the broad range of determinants that influence patterns of infectious disease transmission. Country fact sheets are available for South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Country health fact sheet system 2006:  Swaziland","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/home/countries/fact_sheets /swaziland.pdf","body":"The AFRO\u2019s Global Health Atlas brings together for analysis and comparison standardised data and statistics for diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The Atlas acknowledges the broad range of determinants that influence patterns of infectious disease transmission. Country fact sheets are available for Swaziland.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Country health fact sheet system 2006:  Tanzania","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/home/countries/fact_sheets /tanzania.pdf","body":"The AFRO\u2019s Global Health Atlas brings together for analysis and comparison standardised data and statistics for diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The Atlas acknowledges the broad range of determinants that influence patterns of infectious disease transmission. Country fact sheets are available for Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Country health fact sheet system 2006:  Uganda","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/home/countries/fact_sheets /uganda.pdf","body":"The AFRO\u2019s Global Health Atlas brings together for analysis and comparison standardised data and statistics for diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The Atlas acknowledges the broad range of determinants that influence patterns of infectious disease transmission. Country fact sheets are available for Uganda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Country health fact sheet system 2006:  Zambia","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/home/countries/fact_sheets /zambia.pdf","body":"The AFRO\u2019s Global Health Atlas brings together for analysis and comparison standardised data and statistics for diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The Atlas acknowledges the broad range of determinants that influence patterns of infectious disease transmission. Country fact sheets are available for Zambia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Country health fact sheet system 2006:  Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/home/countries/fact_sheets /zimbabwe.pdf","body":"The AFRO\u2019s Global Health Atlas brings together for analysis and comparison standardised data and statistics for diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The Atlas acknowledges the broad range of determinants that influence patterns of infectious disease transmission. Country fact sheets are available for Zimbabwe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Country health fact sheet system 2006: Angola","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/home/countries/fact_sheets/angola.pdf","body":"The AFRO\u2019s Global Health Atlas brings together for analysis and comparison standardised data and statistics for diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The Atlas acknowledges the broad range of determinants that influence patterns of infectious disease transmission. Country fact sheets are available for Angola.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Country health fact sheet system 2006: Botswana","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/home/countries/fact_sheets /botswana.pdf","body":"The AFRO\u2019s Global Health Atlas brings together for analysis and comparison standardised data and statistics for diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The Atlas acknowledges the broad range of determinants that influence patterns of infectious disease transmission. Country fact sheets are available for Botswana.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Country health fact sheet system 2006: Kenya","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/home/countries/fact_sheets /kenya.pdf","body":"The AFRO\u2019s Global Health Atlas brings together for analysis and comparison standardised data and statistics for diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The Atlas acknowledges the broad range of determinants that influence patterns of infectious disease transmission. Country fact sheets are available for Kenya.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Country health fact sheet system 2006: Lesotho","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/home/countries/fact_sheets /lesotho.pdf","body":"The AFRO\u2019s Global Health Atlas brings together for analysis and comparison standardised data and statistics for diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The Atlas acknowledges the broad range of determinants that influence patterns of infectious disease transmission. Country fact sheets are available for Lesotho.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Country health fact sheet system 2006: Madagascar","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/home/countries/fact_sheets /madagascar.pdf","body":"The AFRO\u2019s Global Health Atlas brings together for analysis and comparison standardised data and statistics for diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The Atlas acknowledges the broad range of determinants that influence patterns of infectious disease transmission. Country fact sheets are available for Madagascar:","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Country health fact sheet system 2006: Malawi","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/home/countries/fact_sheets /malawi.pdf","body":"The AFRO\u2019s Global Health Atlas brings together for analysis and comparison standardised data and statistics for diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The Atlas acknowledges the broad range of determinants that influence patterns of infectious disease transmission. Country fact sheets are available for Malawi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Country health fact sheet system 2006: Mauritius","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/home/countries/fact_sheets /mauritius.pdf","body":"The AFRO\u2019s Global Health Atlas brings together for analysis and comparison standardised data and statistics for diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The Atlas acknowledges the broad range of determinants that influence patterns of infectious disease transmission. Country fact sheets are available for Mauritius.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Country health fact sheet system 2006: Mozambique","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/home/countries/fact_sheets /mozambique.pdf","body":"The AFRO\u2019s Global Health Atlas brings together for analysis and comparison standardised data and statistics for diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The Atlas acknowledges the broad range of determinants that influence patterns of infectious disease transmission. Country fact sheets are available for Mozambique.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Country health fact sheet system 2006: Namibia","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/home/countries/fact_sheets /namibia.pdf","body":"The AFRO\u2019s Global Health Atlas brings together for analysis and comparison standardised data and statistics for diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The Atlas acknowledges the broad range of determinants that influence patterns of infectious disease transmission. Country fact sheets are available for Namibia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Designing and implementing social transfer, Cape Town, 22 July to 4 August 2007","field_subtitle":"The Economic Policy Research Institute","field_url":"http://www.epri.org.za/promo/eprib.htm","body":"The Economic Policy Research Institute, the Institute for Development Studies (Sussex ), Maastricht University and the University of Cape Town is offering a two-week course on the design and implementation of social transfer programmes. The course will run in Cape Town from July 22 to August 4 and is aimed at government officials, donor agency representatives and others involves in national social protection initiatives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Development and Intellectual Property under the EPA Negotiations","field_subtitle":"South Centre Policy Brief 6, March 2007","field_url":"http://www.southcentre.org/info/policybrief/06Dev_IP_EPA_Negotiations.pdf","body":"The negotiations for Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) between the EU and the African Caribbean and Pacific Countries are likely to result in additional layers of intellectual property right protection, at least in the case of the agreement with Cariforum countries. A review of the ongoing negotiations and various draft texts and papers demonstrates an inadequate focus on the need for technological development, promotion of public health, protection of genetic resources and traditional knowledge as well as for ensuring access to knowledge. Considering the level of economic development in ACP countries, the negotiations should not include IP rights as part of the partnership agreement. Instead they should focus on industrial and technological development and aim to address the longstanding issues on various EU policies that have impeded participation of the ACP countries in the value-chain of products, protection of biodiversity and traditional knowledge and the use of TRIPS flexibilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Developmental potential in the first 5 years for children in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Grantham-McGregor S, Cheung YB, Cueto S, Glewwe P, Richter L, Strupp B, International Child Development Steering Group: The Lancet 369: 60\u201370, 2007","field_url":"http://www.ich.ucl.ac.uk/website/ich/academicunits/cihd/NewsandEvents/Sally_Lancet_1.pdf","body":"Many children younger than 5 years in developing countries are exposed to multiple risks, including poverty, malnutrition, poor health, and unstimulating home environments, which detrimentally affect their cognitive, motor, and social-emotional development. There are few national statistics on the development of young children in developing countries. We therefore identified two factors with available worldwide data\u2014the prevalence of early childhood stunting and the number of people living in absolute poverty\u2014to use as indicators of poor development. We show that both indicators are closely associated with poor cognitive and educational performance in children and use them to estimate that over 200 million children under 5 years are not fulfilling their developmental potential. Most of these children live in south\r\nAsia and sub-Saharan Africa. These disadvantaged children are likely to do poorly in school and subsequently have low incomes, high fertility, and provide poor care for their children, thus contributing to the intergenerational transmission of poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 44: A review of non-financial incentives for health worker retention in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Dambisya YM","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS44HRdambisya.pdf","body":"The paper reviewed evidence from published and grey (English language) literature on the use of non-financial incentives for health worker retention in sixteen countries in east and southern Africa (ESA): Angola, Botswana, DRC, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. There is a growing body of evidence on health worker issues in ESA countries, but few studies on the use of incentives for retention, especially in under-served areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 46: School feeding in east and southern Africa: Improving food sovereignty or photo opportunity","field_subtitle":"Tomlinson M","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS46nutTOMLINSON.pdf","body":"This report examines two case studies of school feeding schemes in South Africa and Malawi, viz the Primary School Nutrition Programme (PSNP) established in South Africa in 1994 and the World Feeding Program (WFP) feeding schemes in Malawi, in the context of policy outlined by the New Partnership for Africa\u2019s Development (NEPAD). The report notes that school feeding programmes largely take the form of a vertical intervention programme, rather than a comprehensive nutritional programme, weakening their likely sustained impact on children's nutritional status. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 47: Food sovereignty and nutrition in east and southern Africa: A synthesis of case study evidence","field_subtitle":"Chopra M, Tomlinson M","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS47nutCHOPRA.pdf","body":"In 2006, the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) and the Health Systems Research Unit of the Medical Research Council (MRC) of South Africa commissioned a series of country case studies on existing food security and nutrition programmes in East and Southern Africa that promote food sovereignty and equity. This paper gives an overview of the findings from the case studies on three important nutrition responses in ESA:\r\n\u2022 food aid in Malawi;\r\n\u2022 HIV/AIDS-related nutrition interventions in ESA; and\r\n\u2022 School feeding programmes in Malawi and South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Draft implementation plan for achieving universal access to HIV and AIDS, TB and malaria services, 2007-2010","field_subtitle":"African Union, 10-13 April 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2au63f","body":"This document presents the AU Implementation Plan on Universal Access to HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria services in Africa by 2010 from the Abuja, Nigeria Special Summit on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, 2-4 May 2006. The theme of the Special Summit was \u201cUniversal Access to HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Services by 2010\u201d. The purpose of the plan is to guide the role of Member States, the African Union Commission (AUC), Regional Economic Communities (RECs), Development Partners (bilateral and multilateral organizations), and Civil Society and the Private Sector in translating the decisions of the Heads of State at the Abuja 2006 Special Summit into action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Enrolling adolescents in HIV vaccine trials: reflections on legal complexities from South Africa","field_subtitle":"Slack c , Strode A, Fleischer T, Gray G, Ranchod C: BMC Medical Ethics 8:5, 13 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6939/8/5/abstract","body":"South Africa is likely to be the first country in the world to host an adolescent HIV vaccine trial. Adolescents may be enrolled in late 2007. In the development and review of adolescent HIV vaccine trial protocols there are many complexities to consider, and much work to be done if these important trials are to become a reality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles.Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 76: A call to the 2007 G8 Summit to support African national health plans and comprehensive health workforce strategies","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place.\r\n\r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in health and healthcare in Malawi: analysis of trends","field_subtitle":"Zere E, Moeti M, Kirigia J, Mwase T, Kataika E: BMC Public Health 7:78, 15 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/78/abstract","body":"Growing scientific evidence points to the pervasiveness of inequities in health and health care and the persistence of the inverse care law, that is the availability of good quality healthcare seems to be inversely related to the need for it in developing countries. Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals is likely to be compromised if inequities in health/healthcare are not properly addressed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"ESA CSO Statement to the 11th Regional Negotiating forum for EPAs","field_subtitle":"SEATINI","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ESAtrade020607.pdf","body":"This statement was compiled to prepare a position to feed into the 11th Regional Negotiating Forum for EPAs 14-16 May (SEATINI representatives attended this meeting which was the official meeting of ESA governments). The statement that is attached is from the meeting that was attended with other CSOs from Malawi, Zambia, Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Essential Medicines Grant Competition","field_subtitle":"Open Society Institute","field_url":"","body":"In an effort to build local capacity surrounding access to medicines issues, OSI's Public Health Program is issuing a request for proposals. Grants for up to $75,000, renewable for up to three years, will be awarded to local NGOs with a mandate and demonstrated capacity to advance policy and civil society engagement related to access to medicines in Brazil, India, Kenya, Malaysia, South Africa, and Thailand. Interested organisations should submit an application no later than Monday 16 July 2007.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32335","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Estimated global resources needed to attain universal coverage of maternal and newborn health services","field_subtitle":"Johns B, Sigurbj\u00f6rnsd\u00f3ttir K, Fogstad H, Zupan J, Mathaid M, Tan-Torres Edejer T: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 85 (4): 257-263, April 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/85/4/06-032037.pdf","body":"A minimum yearly average increase in resources of US$ 3.9 billion is needed to scale up maternal and newborn health services within the context of the Millennium Development Goals, although annual costs increase over the time period of the model. When more rapid rates of scale-up are assumed, this minimum figure may be as high as US$ 5.6 billion per year. The 10-year estimated incremental costs range from US$ 39.3 billion for a moderate scale-up scenario to US$ 55.7 billion for the rapid scale-up scenario. These projections of future financial costs may be used as a starting point for mobilizing global resources. Countries will have to further refine these estimates, but these figures may serve as goals towards which donors can direct their plans. Further research is needed to measure the costs of health system reforms, such as recruiting, training and retaining a sufficient number of personnel.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Ethiopia: New programme boosts village health service delivery","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), 29 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72371","body":"Asmera Getachew had completed a teacher training course when she saw an advert inviting applications from those interested in joining the government Health Service Extension Programme (HSEP). The advert posted on a wall, changed her life. After a one-year training course, she was assigned to Tensyie, a rural village of 5,092 people in North Gonder Zone of Amhara Regional State, to work as a health extension worker. One of 2,800 graduates from 14 HSEP training centres in Ethiopia, quickly settled in to implement a three month plan focusing on health education, environmental health, family health and disease prevention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"For public service or money: understanding geographical imbalances in the health workforce","field_subtitle":"Serneels P, Lindelow M, Montalvo JG: Health Policy and Planning 22(3): 128-138, May 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/26bgo7","body":"Geographical imbalances in the health workforce are a consistent feature of nearly all health systems, especially in developing countries. This paper investigates the willingness to work in a rural area among final year nursing and medical students in Ethiopia. Analysing data obtained from contingent valuation questions for final year students from three medical schools and eight nursing schools, we find that there is substantial heterogeneity in the willingness to serve in rural areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"GATS dispute settlement cases: Practical implications for developing countries","field_subtitle":"South Centre Analytical Note: South Centre, February 2007","field_url":"http://www.southcentre.org/publications/AnalyticalNotes/Services/2007Feb_GATS_DisputeSettlementCases.pdf","body":"Developing countries should be aware of the implications of the WTO dispute\r\nsettlement reports on US \u2013 Gambling and Mexico \u2013 Telecommunications as they continue participating in the WTO negotiations. The findings in the reports have set precedents on the interpretation of various GATS articles and concepts, including: necessity tests; Article XIV on General Exception; Article IV on Increasing Participation of Developing Countries; and scheduling\r\nguidelines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender distribution of adult patients on highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in Southern Africa: a systematic review","field_subtitle":"Muula AS, Ngulube TJ, Siziya S, Makupe CM, Umar E, Prozesky HW, Wiysonge CS, Mataya RH: BMC Public Health 7:63, 25 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/63/abstract","body":"HIV and AIDS are significant and growing public health concerns in southern Africa. The majority of countries in the region have national adult HIV prevalence estimates exceeding 10 percent. The increasing availability of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has potential to mitigate the situation. There is however concern that women may experience more barriers in accessing treatment programs than men.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Health worker shortage limits access to HIV/AIDS treatment in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Medecins Sans Frontiers, 24 May 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ynwhn2","body":"Severe shortages of health staff are compromising the quality and availability of HIV/AIDS care across southern Africa. There is wide acknowledgement of the human resource crisis, but little action on the ground. MSF is urging governments to develop and implement emergency plans to retain and recruit health care workers that include measures to raise pay and improve working conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How much political commitment is there to effectively respond to HIV and AIDS in SADC? ","field_subtitle":"Michaela Clayton, Director AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) and Gregg Gonsalves, Co-ordinator of the ARASA Treatment Literacy and Advocacy Programme","field_url":"","body":"\"Universal access to antiretroviral treatment in SADC remains elusive... Of the 13 SADC states for which information is available, only two countries, Botswana and Namibia, had achieved antiretroviral treatment coverage of more than 70% of those who needed it by December 2005.\"\r\n\r\nEvidence of commitment and action, but also lack of progress on universal access to AIDS treatment, care and prevention, and thus on realising the right to health for people living with AIDS and vulnerable communities. These were key findings of an ARASA report released in April 2007 entitled: 'HIV/AIDS and Human Rights in SADC: An evaluation of the steps taken by countries within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to implement the International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights'.\r\n\r\nThis ground breaking report is the first in the region to attempt to measure the successes and failures of SADC countries in responding to HIV in a human rights based framework. Given that sub-Saharan Africa has just over 10% of the world\u2019s population but is home to more than 60% of all people living with HIV, HIV and AIDS is a key human rights issue with tremendous civil, political and socio-economic implications. \r\n\r\nMany countries in the region have risen to the challenge of responding to the HIV epidemic but are confronted with financial, structural and political barriers to the implementation of law and policy reforms and the establishment and scale-up of programmes to effectively address the epidemic. \r\n\r\nAlthough respondents interviewed in thirteen of the fourteen SADC countries felt that there was political commitment to addressing HIV and AIDS (evidenced by the declaration of HIV and AIDS as a national emergency or by politicians being open about their status) only six countries passed muster in terms of translating commitment into action, particularly in the area of human rights, civil and political rights, and social and economic rights.\r\n\r\nOne overarching problem identified was lack of commitment to implementation. Although Swaziland, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Zambia declared HIV and AIDS a national disaster, they were reported to have made little significant progress in the review or reform of laws to ensure the protection of basic human rights so critical to the success of national responses to HIV and AIDS. But even if laws and policies exist, alone they do not solve the problem: 50% of SADC countries have less than 15% antiretroviral treatment coverage and similarly dismal figures for coverage of mother-to-child-transmission treatment and other key HIV and AIDS interventions.\r\n\r\nTherefore, resources are needed to implement existing laws and policies if people are to be enabled to enjoy their right to the highest attainable standard of health. Access to resources at individual, community and national levels poses a barrier to access to prevention, treatment and care programmes and requires urgent attention at government, regional and international levels.\r\n\r\nAlthough eleven SADC countries have laws or policies prohibiting unfair discrimination on the basis of HIV status, human rights abuses hamper the implementation and utilisation of existing prevention, treatment and care programmes for people living with HIV and AIDS. The prevalence of gender-based violence and inferior treatment of women and children continues to fuel the epidemic. Much of this can be ascribed to individual attitudes and beliefs, which laws and policies alone cannot change. Changing these social norms is made even more difficult when political commitment is superficial.\r\n\r\nIf we are to make progress on HIV and human rights, on HIV treatment and prevention, tokenistic commitment must be replaced with true leadership - leadership not only within governments but at every level of civil society as well. This requires the engagement of our leaders, from the village chiefs up to the offices of presidents and prime ministers. Political rhetoric is no substitute for leadership that translates into action.\r\n\r\nThe views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET. Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this editorial to the EQUINET secretariat admin@equinetafrica.org. For further information on the issues raised or to access the full report referred to, please visit ARASA www.arasa.info or EQUINET www.equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"HSRC embarks on Youth Policy Initiative to fuse research and policy","field_subtitle":"Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), 18 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.hsrc.ac.za/Media_Release-324.phtml","body":"In the next 10 years South Africa is expected to experience a \u2018demographic dividend\u2019 where the youthful population will peak, bringing a unique opportunity for rapid human capital development and economic growth, according to the World Bank\u2019s 2007 World Development Report. This is a compelling argument for urgent investment in young people in Africa. The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) Youth Policy Initiative is working to ensure that the country is prepared to make the most of this \u2018youth bulge\u2019. The initiative will bring together experts from the policy, programme and research environments as well as young people in a series of six roundtable meetings to interrogate the key questions of youth development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Human Resource for Health Research Conference","field_subtitle":"Ministry of Health, Zambia","field_url":"http://www.moh.gov.zm/JM%20Rese/HRH%20abstracts%20call.htm","body":"The Ministry of Health, Zambia is organizing a \u201cHuman Resource for Health (HRH) Research Conference\u201d on 7-8 June 2007. The goal of the conference is to review evidence (current knowledge, experiences and lessons), discuss how evidence can effectively be translated into HRH policy and make specific recommendations to effectively respond to the HRH crisis in Zambia. The Theme of the Conference is \u201cTransforming Research into Action: Providing Evidence for HRH Policy development, Program Design and Implementation\u201d.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of packaged interventions on neonatal health: A review of evidence","field_subtitle":"Haws RA, Thomas AL, Bhutta ZA, et al: Health Policy and Planning, Advance Access published, 25 May 2007","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/czm009v1","body":"A disproportionate burden of infant and under-five childhood mortality occurs during the neonatal period, usually within a few days of birth and against a backdrop of socio-economic deprivation in developing countries. To guide programmes aimed at averting these 4 million annual deaths, recent reviews evaluated the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of individual interventions. However, no systematic review of the empirical data on packages of interventions, including consideration of community based intervention packages, has yet been performed. To address this gap, we reviewed peer-reviewed journals and grey literature to evaluate the content, impact, efficacy (implementation under ideal circumstances), effectiveness (implementation within health systems), type of provider, and cost of packages of interventions reporting neonatal health outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"International Women's Summit : Women's leadership on HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.worldywca.info/index.php/ywca/world_council_07/iws_women_s_summit","body":"The World Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), in partnership with the International Community of Women Living with HIV and AIDS (ICW), and other international organisations, will host the first ever global conference on women and AIDS.  The summit will bring together 1500 women and men to develop strategies, skills and partnerships in response to the impact of AIDS on women. The conference will be from 4-7 July 2007, Nairobi , Kenya.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"International Worker's Day call for fair globalisation","field_subtitle":"Public Services International, 1 May 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/282gbr","body":"On International Workers\u2019 Day PSI called for a fair globalisation and the defence of quality public services. Fair globalisation means committed and adequate investment in vital public services such as health, water, sanitation, electricity and education, where the contributions of workers are properly recognised and recompensed. It is through the proper funding and provision of these services that we will achieve more just and inclusive societies. Policies which drive countries, particularly developing countries, to restructure, outsource and privatise their public services only serve to perpetuate poverty and underline inequalities\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Interventions recommended to improve maternal and newborn health","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, May 2007","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2007/WHO_MPS_07.05_eng.pdf","body":"This report outlines key interventions for maternal and newborn health care programmes to improve maternal and newborn health and survival. These should be delivered by the health services, family, and the community to the mother during pregnancy, childbirth and in the postpartum period, and to the newborn soon after birth. They include important preventive, curative and health promotional activities for the\r\npresent as well as the future. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Investigating health system performance: An application of data envelopment analysis to Zambian hospitals","field_subtitle":"Masiye F: BMC Health Services Research 7:58, 25 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/7/58/abstract","body":"Zambia has recently articulated an ambitious national health program designed to meeting health-related MDGs. Public expectations are high and Zambia continues to receive significant resources from global and bilateral donors to support its health agenda. Although the lack of adequate resources presents the most important constraint, the efficiency with which available resources are being utilised is another challenge that cannot be overlooked. Inefficiency in producing health care undermines the service coverage potential of the health system. This paper estimates the technical efficiency of a sample of hospitals in Zambia. This study demonstrates that inefficiency of resource use in hospitals is significant. Policy attention is drawn to unsuitable hospital scale of operation and low productivity of some inputs as factors that reinforce each other to make Zambian hospitals technically inefficient at producing and delivering services. It is argued that such evidence of substantial inefficiency would undermine Zambia's prospects of achieving its health goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge about safe motherhood and HIV/AIDS among school pupils in a rural area in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mushi DL, Mpembeni RM, Jahn A: BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 7:5, 24 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/7/5/abstract","body":"The majority of adolescents in Africa experience pregnancy, childbirth and enter motherhood without adequate information about maternal health issues. Information about these issues could help them reduce their pregnancy related health risks. Existing studies have concentrated on adolescents' knowledge of other areas of reproductive health, but little is known about their awareness and knowledge of safe motherhood issues. We sought to bridge this gap by assessing the knowledge of school pupils regarding safe motherhood in Mtwara Region, Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Labour of love: celebrating 'International Day of Midwives'","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, May 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/making_pregnancy_safer/news/international_midwives_day_2007/en/index.html","body":"As one of the oldest and most respected professions in the world, the work of midwives is celebrated annually on 5 May. To mark the occasion, the International Day of Midwives will be celebrated at WHO Headquarters on Friday 4 May. WHO staff will gather to show their support for the essential role of midwives in saving the lives of pregnant women who might otherwise die from malnourishment or lack of skilled care during pregnancy and childbirth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Lessons learned from bednet distribution in Central Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Brentlinger PE, Correia MAC, Chinhacata FS, et al: Health Policy and Planning 22(2) :103-110, 2007","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/22/2/103","body":"In this study commercial shopkeepers and groups of community leaders were trained to promote and sell ITNs in 19 sites in central Mozambique between 2000 and 2004. Pregnant women and children under 5 years of age comprised the target population. Sales records, household survey results and project experiences were examined to derive \u2018lessons learned\u2019. The authors conclude that this project failed to achieve adequate or equitable levels of ITN coverage in a timely manner in the programme sites. Its findings helped support a subsequent Mozambican decision to conduct targeted distribution of long-lasting nets to the neediest populations in the provinces where the project was conducted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Mozambique govt considers legalising abortion to stem maternal deaths","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), 29 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72421","body":"Citing a high rate of maternal deaths due to illegal, unsafe abortions, Mozambique policymakers are considering legalising the procedure. The country may eventually become one of only a handful in Africa where abortion is available on demand. The push for the new legislation, officially introduced earlier this year, has come from the Mozambican health ministry, arguing that unsafe abortion is the third leading cause of death among pregnant women in the country. Mozambique has one of the highest maternal death rates in the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"New $30 Billion US AIDS money will mean life for millions Worldwide ","field_subtitle":"PRNewswire, 30 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/05-30-2007/0004598489&EDATE=","body":"AIDS Healthcare Foundation endorsed President Bush's efforts to support cost-effective and sustainable programs that provide life-saving Anti-retroviral HIV and AIDS treatment and care globally. The Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is a $15 billion dollar, five-year global AIDS treatment plan the President first proposed in 2003.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Perceptions of the impact of HIV/AIDS on health workers in two districts in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Dieleman M, Biemba G, Mphuka S: Health Policy  and Planning 22(3): 139-148","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/22/3/139","body":"In countries with a high AIDS prevalence, the health workforce is affected by AIDS in several ways. In Zambia, which has a 16.5% prevalence rate, a 2004 study aimed to: explore the impact of HIV/AIDS on health workers, describe their coping mechanisms and recommend supportive measures. Interviews revealed that counsellors and nurses were especially at risk for emotional exhaustion. AIDS complicates the already difficult work environment. In addition to health workers, management also needs support in dealing with AIDS at the workplace.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor access to health services: Ways Ethiopia is overcoming it","field_subtitle":"Chaya N: Population Action International Research Commentaries 2(2), 23 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.populationaction.org/Publications/Research_Commentaries/Access_to_Health_Services_in_Ethiopia/Summary.shtml","body":"Weak infrastructure and limited distribution systems in low-income countries complicate access to health services, especially in rural areas. Government health outlets may be relatively few and widely dispersed, and private-sector sources often favor wealthier urban areas, resulting in uneven service availability within a country. In the absence of a solid heath infrastructure, strengthening primary health care and innovative community-based health service delivery systems help provide more equitable access to health services. Some programs are underway in Ethiopia whose successes do not depend on the availability of a strong infrastructure.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-Private Mix for DOTS Expansion (PPM DOTS)","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.who.int/tb/dots/ppm/article/en/index.html","body":"In many countries, private health care providers are the gateway to health services for people with symptoms of TB. The types of private providers and their roles in TB management, however, vary greatly across and within countries. The traditional healers in Malawi, unqualified practitioners in India or hospital-based chest physicians in Indonesia are all, for example, private health care providers in their respective settings with current and potential roles in TB control.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-private partnerships to build human capacity in low income countries: findings from the Pfizer program","field_subtitle":"Vian T, Richards SC, McCoy K, Connelly P,  Feeley F: Human Resources for Health 5:8, 2 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/5/1/8","body":"The ability of health organizations in developing countries to expand access to quality services depends in large part on organisational and human capacity. Capacity building includes professional development of staff, as well as efforts to create working environments conducive to high levels of performance. The current study evaluated an approach to public-private partnership where corporate volunteers give technical assistance to improve organizational and staff performance. From 2003 to 2005, the Pfizer Global Health Fellows program sent 72 employees to work with organizations in 19 countries. This evaluation was designed to assess program impact.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"RAINBO grants for African organisations working against female circumcision","field_subtitle":"The Communicative Initiative","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/funding2007/grants2007/funding-103.html","body":"Research Action and Information Network for Bodily Integrity of Women (RAINBO) started this Small Grants Project in 1995 in order to provide modest funds and technical assistance to African non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that might not otherwise have access to mainstream sources of funding. The main objectives of the project are: to support effective and innovative projects that combat Female Circumcision (FC)/Female Genital Mutilation (FGM); to strengthen the institutional capacity of African NGOs working on the FC/FGM issue as part of advancing the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls; and to expand collaborative relationships among NGOs, activists, academics and researchers in Africa. The deadline is rolling.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional Meeting report: Health worker retention and migration in east and southern Africa, Arusha, Tanzania, 17-19 March 2007","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, The East, Central and Southern Africa  Health Community (ECSA-HC)","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REPMTG0307HRH.pdf","body":"The EQUINET-ECSA-HC programme in 2007-8 is supporting research and dialogue on strategies for managing health worker migration and for use of incentives for health worker retention in east and southern Africa (ESA). This work is being co-ordinated by University of Namibia, Health Systems Trust South Africa with the EQUINET Secretariat at TARSC and the ECSA HC Secretariat and Technical Working Group on Human Resources for Health. This report outlines the proceedings of a regional meeting of the programme held in March 2007 in Arusha Tanzania to review the aims and protocols for the programme of work. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Review of implementation of the AU plan  on traditional medicine (2001-2010)","field_subtitle":"Afriican Union, 9-13 April 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2g9p4a","body":"South Africa was asked to review the progress made by Africa on the implementation of the Plan of Action on the African Union (AU) Decade of Traditional Medicine (2001-2010). The challenge was noted of getting as broad a representation and information from all regions, to foster collaboration among countries and regions as well as to promote information sharing on how best to put African Traditional Medicine in its rightful place.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Scaling up priority health interventions in Tanzania: The human resources challenge","field_subtitle":"Kurowski C, Wyss K, Abdulla S, Mills A: Health Policy and Planning 22(3):113-127, 2007","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/22/3/113","body":"Effective and often cheap interventions exist to achieve the MDGs by 2015. In Tanzania, one of the poorest countries of the world, we explored the human resources challenges of expanding the coverage of such priority interventions.  Even in an optimistic scenario, human resource availability will limit the extent to which priority interventions can be expanded in Tanzania, and the government will not be able to avoid adjusting the globally set targets for service coverage and health outcomes to local realities and priorities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Signing away the future: How trade and investment agreements between rich and poor countries undermine development","field_subtitle":"Oxfam Briefing Paper 101, 20 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/trade/downloads/bp101_ftas.pdf","body":"The quiet advance of trade and investment agreements between rich and poor countries threatens to deny developing countries a favourable foothold in the global economy. Driven by the USA and the European Union, these agreements impose far-reaching rules that place severe restrictions on the very policies developing countries need in order to fight poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Swaziland: New HIV and AIDS support programme unveiled for truckers","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), 1 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72503","body":"Swaziland's truck drivers are twice as likely to be HIV-positive than other citizens and are finally to get the programmes required to provide them with treatment and support, a conference was told this week. At the Federation of Swaziland Employers (FSE) conference held in Manzini, 35km east of the capital, Mbabane, it was announced that a comprehensive set of initiatives were to be put in place to test, counsel and treat HIV-positive transportation workers after studies showed \"truckers as a group have an HIV infection rate double that of the general population,\" Khosi Hlatshwayo, coordinator of the FSE\u2019s Business Council HIV/AIDS initiative, said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Symposium edition on Reproductive and Sexual Health","field_subtitle":"American Journal of Public Health","field_url":"http://www.ajph.org/misc/ifora.shtml","body":"The American Journal of Public Health is calling for submissions to this symposium edition. The Symposium edition has no limits on submissions within the area of reproductive and sexual health, and no preferred topics or disciplinary background. The target date for submissions is 17 September 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzanian NGO perceptions of their relationships with government and donors' role in poverty reduction and development","field_subtitle":"Research on Poverty Alleviation (REPOA), 2007","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC24247","body":"This paper presents findings from a survey of a section of Tanzanian NGOs on their perceptions of their relationships with the government and donors, and their views on their roles and impacts on poverty reduction and development. Key findings of the study indicate that the relationship between NGOs and the government of Tanzania is expanding and improving, characterised by increased communication, interaction and trust. NGOs' relations with donors are seen by respondents as cordial and smooth, but with further probing, numerous frustrations were evident. NGOs view donors as more powerful than the government and the government often sees civil society as a competitor for resources. Despite many barriers, most NGOs felt their organisations have a largely positive impact on policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzanian Prime Minister calls on regional leaders to increase health spending to 15% of national budgets","field_subtitle":"The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health: 17 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/pmnch/events/2007/pr160407.pdf","body":"More than 300 delegates gathered at the first-ever assembly of The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. Hosted by the Government of Tanzania, the Partner's Forum (17-20 April 2007) declared that action is urgently required, if high rates of unjust deaths of mothers, babies and children in poor countries are to be reversed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The case for social health insurance","field_subtitle":"Balfour-Kaipa T: Comment, Mail&Guardian, 4 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=303715&area=/insight/insight__comment_and_analysis/","body":"Social health insurance is critical for improving equity in our health system, which is characterised by tremendous disparities between public and private care. As much as there have been increases in real terms in the budgets for public health services, more funding is still required, especially in light of additional demands posed by HIV and Aids.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The exodus of health professionals from sub-Saharan Africa: Balancing human rights and societal needs in the 21st century","field_subtitle":"Ogilvie L, Mill JE,  Astle B, et al: Nursing Inquiry 14(2): 114\u2013124, 2007","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/OGIhres020607.pdf","body":"Increased international migration of health professionals is weakening healthcare systems in low-income countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. As nurses form the backbone of healthcare systems in many of the affected countries, accelerating migration of nurses is most critical. In this paper we present a comprehensive analysis of the literature and argue that, from a human rights perspective, there are competing rights in the international migration of health professionals: the right to leave one\u2019s country to seek a better life; the right to health of populations in the source and destination countries; labour rights; the right to education; and the right to nondiscrimination and equality. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The metrics and correlates of physician migration from Africa","field_subtitle":"Arah OA: BMC Public Health 7:83, 17 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/83/abstract","body":"Physician migration from poor to rich countries is considered an important contributor to the growing health workforce crisis in the developing world. This is particularly true for Africa. The perceived magnitude of such migration for each source country might, however, depend on the choice of metrics used in the analysis. This study examined the influence of choice of migration metrics on the rankings of African countries that suffered the most physician migration, and investigated the correlates of physician migration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Political Economy of Health: Is neoliberalism bad for our health?","field_subtitle":"Curtin University of Technology","field_url":"","body":"This workshop, sponsored and organised by Curtin University of Technology, the Danish Institute for Health Services Research, and the University of Cape Town will explore a number of the ideological and political issues surrounding health and health care in the 21st century. In particular, speakers will look at the links between neo liberalism and both health and health care in a global context. Plenty space will be allowed for comments from the floor. The workshop will be held on Sunday 8 July 2007, 9.00am-4.00pm.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32304","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"UN Secretary General Appoints Elizabeth Mataka of Botswana as special envoy for AIDS in Africa ","field_subtitle":"UN 21 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/sga1068.doc.htm","body":"United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today appointed Elizabeth Mataka, a national of Botswana and a resident of Zambia, as his Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa.  Ms. Mataka, a social worker by training, has been working in the field of HIV/AIDS for the past 16 years.  She has been involved in many different aspects of responding to the AIDS epidemic, including programmes on HIV prevention, clinical treatment for opportunistic infections, care and support at community and national levels.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32300","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Use of over-the-counter malaria medicines in children and adults in three districts in Kenya: implications for private medicine retailer interventions","field_subtitle":"Abuya TO , Mutemi W, Karisa B, Ochola SA, Fegan G, Marsh V: Malaria Journal 6:57, 10 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/6/1/57","body":"Global malaria control strategies highlight the need to increase early uptake of effective antimalarials for childhood fevers in endemic settings, based on a presumptive diagnosis of malaria in this age group. Many control programmes identify private medicine sellers as important targets to promote effective early treatment, based on reported widespread inadequate childhood fever treatment practices involving the retail sector. Data on adult use of over-the-counter (OTC) medicines is limited. This study aimed to assess childhood and adult patterns of OTC medicine use to inform national medicine retailer programmes in Kenya and other similar settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"WHA closes: Agreement reached on influenza virus sharing, intellectual property","field_subtitle":"noticias.info: 23 May 2007, Geneva","field_url":"http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspcomunicados.asp?nid=288137","body":"The World Health Assembly (WHA), the supreme decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO), wrapped-up its sixtieth session today, reaching last-minute agreement on two key resolutions on Pandemic influenza preparedness and Public health, innovation and intellectual property. More than 2400 people from WHO's 193 Member States, nongovernmental organizations and other observers attended the meeting which took place from 14-23 May.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHA must draw up emergency plans to bridge health financing and health worker gaps in Africa","field_subtitle":"Richards T: World AIDS Campaign, 15 May 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/yvu7hc","body":"In a statement ahead of the WHA meetings, APHRA coordinator Rotimi Sankore stated: \u201cThe World Health Assembly has in the past three years passed several resolutions on health financing and health worker shortages - yet there has been an overall increase in annual African deaths resulting from lack of sustainable health finance and health worker shortages. The worlds Health Ministers must now move from passing resolutions to effecting resolutions and emergency action to end the deaths of over 8 million Africans a year to preventable, treatable and manageable diseases, caused mainly by maternal mortality, child mortality, HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO admits patents taken on avian flu virus","field_subtitle":"Khor M: Third World Network, 16 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/twninfohealth090.htm","body":"At the World Health Assembly\u2019s discussions on the patenting of viruses by drug companies, WHO admitted patents have been taken on the avian flu virus, and WHO collaborating centres have entered into Material Transfer Agreements with vaccine manufacturers. Various countries responded to the non compliance of the WHO\u2019s 2005 Guidance on sharing viruses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO and UNAIDS issue new guidance on HIV testing and counselling in health facilities","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation and UNAIDS, 30 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2007/pr24/en/index.html","body":"WHO and UNAIDS have issued new guidance on informed, voluntary HIV testing and counselling in the world's health facilities, with a view to significantly increasing access to HIV treatment, care, support and prevention services. The new guidance focuses on provider-initiated HIV testing and counselling (recommended by health care providers in health facilities), essential to promoting earlier diagnosis of HIV infection, which in turn can maximize the potential benefits of life-extending treatment and care, and allow people with HIV to receive information and tools to prevent HIV transmission to others.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Call for papers on human resources","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation (WHO)","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hrh/call_papers/en/index.html","body":"WHO and the journals Education for Health and Human Resources for Health are now accepting papers for joint special issues addressing the critical need for a skilled, sustainable health workforce in the developing world. Submitted articles must fall under the broad theme: 'Towards a scaling-up of training and education for health workers'. Proposals for manuscripts are due by 31 July 2007 and final manuscripts are due by 30 October 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO shaken up by delegates' criticisms on IPR issues","field_subtitle":"Khor M: Third World Network, 19 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/twninfohealth091.htm","body":"WHO\u2019s handling of issues at the 2007 World Health Assembly, has received sharp criticism from both member states and NGOs for its bias and neglect of traditional priority issues. This article highlights the complaints of developing country members.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO/UNAIDS: Expanded Testing Guidelines should recognise reality","field_subtitle":"Human Rights Watch, 30 May 2007","field_url":"http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/05/30/global16020_txt.htm","body":"Expanding access to HIV testing is critical in the fight against AIDS, but new WHO/UNAIDS guidelines pay only lip service to the conditions that will make testing successful, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch was responding to the release of new WHO/UNAIDS guidelines on provider-initiated HIV testing and counseling. The guidelines appropriately rule out mandatory or coercive testing and call for expanded, health facility-based testing in countries with an \u201cenabling environment\u201d in place and with \u201cadequate resources\u201d available for HIV prevention, treatment and care. But Human Rights Watch warned that few of the most affected countries have such resources and environments in place.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"World AIDS Day 2007","field_subtitle":"World AIDS Campaign","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2zof34","body":"\"Leadership\u201d will be the theme for the 2007/2008 World AIDS Day, the World AIDS Campaign announced. Promoted with the slogan, \u201cStop AIDS: Keep the Promise,\u201d (the World AIDS Campaign emphasis from 2005-2010) \u201cleadership\u201d will build on the 2006 World AIDS Day focus on accountability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Assembly Agrees On IP And Innovation; US Abstains","field_subtitle":"Gerhardsen TIS, Intellectual Property Watch, 23 May 2007","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=630&res=1024_ff&print=0","body":"After much discussion and hard-won willingness to shift positions on what a chair referred to as a \u201cdifficult resolution,\u201d member states concluded the 2007 World Health Assembly on 23 May with the adoption of an agreement on innovation of medicines and intellectual property. But it was done without support from the United States, the biggest medicines innovator. The resolution requests the World Health Organization (WHO) to get more involved in supporting member states using trade law to improve access to treatments, and to encourage discussion of new incentive mechanisms for research and development (R&D), such as addressing the link between the cost of R&D and the price of medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A Row to Hoe: The Gender Impact of Trade Liberalization on our Food System, Agricultural Markets and Women\u2018s Human Rights","field_subtitle":"Spieldoch A: IATP and the International Gender and Trade Network, 2007","field_url":"http://www.tradeobservatory.org/library.cfm?refID=96833","body":"This research paper draws together analysis of recent trends in food and agriculture from a gender perspective within an analysis of how trade and investment have affected food security and agricultural development. Although a number of case studies exist exploring how women have been affected by changes in global and local food systems, few have situated these case studies and their findings in the more global context of international trade and investment. This paper explores these linkages, pointing to the connections as well as to the need for further research to deepen our understanding of why women, who aremore than half the world\u2019s population and overwhelmingly responsible for child nutrition, must be involved in policy decisions that affect agriculture and food security.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Access and quality education to improve lives","field_subtitle":"Dlamini N: BuaNews, 26 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.buanews.gov.za/view.php?ID=07042612151002&coll=buanew07","body":"Improvements in both the quality of South Africa's education system and students'access to it, would contribute to improving people's lives, says Deputy President Mlambo-Ngcuka. \"It is required for the shared, sustainable and accelerated growth that we need to eradicate poverty and improve the livelihoods of our people,\" the deputy president said Wednesday, unveiling the Bokamoso Barona Investment Trust in Johannesburg. The entire investment trust initiative, speaks of the necessity of the strategic partnership required between the public and private sectors to maximise resources to overcome poverty, unemployment and the social ills that afflict South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Adherence to TB treatment in Ethiopia: Why do patients default?","field_subtitle":" Tesfaye H: PLoS Med 4 (4): e165, 24 April 2007","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040165","body":"This paper outlines the main findings on reasons for adherence to TB treatment in Ethiopia, including physical lack of access to the treatment centre as the main cause of failure to adherence to therapy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa must face the challenge of urban malaria","field_subtitle":"id21 Health News, December 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h4ek2g1.html","body":"As more Africans move from rural areas to the cities the risk of urban malaria increases. City health services need to focus on poor people who are most at risk from the disease. Malaria programmes should operate on a district by district basis as levels of malaria can vary dramatically throughout the city.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa: Unfair Trade a Hurdle to War against Aids","field_subtitle":"Wasai JN: The East African Standard, 13 March 2007","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200703121406.html","body":"The ability of African countries to respond to HIV and AIDS is dependent on their ability to control the terms of trade, elicit more favourable patent policies on medication and climb out of poverty - all linked to globalisation. While globalisation has brought some benefits to the urban elite in Africa - information, communication and technology - the outcomes have not reached the urban poor and rural folk who form more than 80 per cent of African populations. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"An EPA secures a predictable trade regime in Ugandan export market","field_subtitle":"Nahamya SG:  EPA Flash News","field_url":"","body":"This paper argues that Uganda needs a secure and predictable trading regime with their main export market in the EU. This makes an EPA essential. The possible shocks that normally come with any change have been well anticipated and safeguards built into the negotiations and ultimately the EPA. Safeguards include for example designation of certain products as sensitive and therefore not eligible for tariff reduction (liberalization) when imported into Uganda, longer (up to twenty five years) tariff phase-down/reduction periods for products where tariffs may be reduced, and reservation of the right to restrict imports should they threaten to cause injury to domestic industry.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32257","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"ARASA Regional HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Report","field_subtitle":"ARASA","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ARAaids30042007.pdf","body":"2006 marks the tenth anniversary of the development of the International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights. To celebrate this occasion, the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) has conducted research to evaluate the extent to which the International Guidelines have been used and implemented in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. This report details the findings of that research. It focuses on the guidelines dealing with: \u2022 Structures and partnerships to support a multi-sectoral response; \u2022 A protective legal and policy framework; \u2022 Access to treatment; and \u2022 Access to legal services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"ART alone cannot halt the AIDS epidemic in Africa","field_subtitle":"id21 Health, October 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h5rb6g1.html","body":"It has been hoped that antiretroviral therapy (ART) could be used to combat AIDS on a wide-scale in developing countries. However as treatment allows patients to live longer, healthier lives, they are likely to be sexually active for longer. This could allow the disease to spread more rapidly unless communities receive counselling and practise safe sex. ART has been very effective treatment in the developed world. The drugs not only improve health and prolong the life, but patients are also less likely to infect other people because the drugs decrease their viral load. If ART can prevent the transmission of AIDS it could be a useful tool for fighting the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Imperial College London, UK, carried out a study, using mathematical modelling, to determine the effect widespread ART could have in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"AU and World Food Programme strengthen partnership","field_subtitle":"BuaNews, 27 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.buanews.gov.za/view.php?ID=07042709451003&coll=buanew07","body":"The African Union (AU) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have renewed their strategic partnership to fight hunger and enhance food security, education and emergency response across Africa. The agreement has been signed for humanitarian and development co-operation in the hope that the strategic partnership would serve as an important element in the shared commitment to meet the Millennium Development Goal of cutting global hunger by half by 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Botswana: HIV/AIDS, gender issues get low media coverage","field_subtitle":"Mmegi/The Reporter, 12 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.mmegi.bw/2007/March/Monday12/217.php","body":"A Gender Baseline Study has revealed that gender is not well integrated into HIV/AIDS coverage. Speaking at the launch of the HIV/AIDS and Gender Baseline Study findings and Media Action Plan (MAP) at the Maharaja Conference Centre in Gaborone last week, Communications, Science and Technology minister, Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi, noted that cross generational sex, gender- based violence and gender power relations, which are significant drivers of the epidemic, received less than six percent each of the total coverage while cultural practices received no coverage during the study's monitoring period.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Breast has finally topped bottle-feeding \u2013 even for babies born to HIV positive mothers","field_subtitle":"Cullinan K: Health-e, 2 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20031635","body":"For years, there has been a battle over the best way to protect babies born to HIV positive mothers living in poor areas from getting the virus which has essentially boiled down to a battle between those who advocate breast feeding and those who advocate bottle-feeding with milk formula. As breastmilk can transmit HIV, global policy was weighted in favour of bottle feeding and HIV positive mothers were discouraged from breastfeeding. But a big study from KwaZulu-Natal led by Professors Jerry Coovadia and Nigel Rollins and published on Friday (30 March) seems to have finally settled the debate in favour of the breast. They found that babies who were exclusively breastfed by their HIV positive mothers were at substantially less risk of becoming infected than babies given both breastmilk and formula milk or solids.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for case studies and human interest stories on food and globalisation","field_subtitle":"The Global Health Watch (GHW)","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/call_case_studies.php","body":"Participate in the second Global Health Watch, by submitting human interest stories and case studies. GHW are calling on activists, health workers and academics from around the world to submit case studies and testimonies or stories based on individual or group experiences to supplement the second edition of the report and reinforce its main themes. While guides to the various themes can be found at the GHW parent website, the \"Food and Globalisation\" chapter framework summary can be found at the weblink below.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32224","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for interest: Monitoring of budgets and tracking expenditure for health and HIV and AIDS in Africa","field_subtitle":"Affiliated Network for Social Accountability (ANSA Africa)","field_url":"http://www.ansa-africa.net/index.php/views/events_view/monitoring_of_budgets_and_tracking_expenditure_for_health_and_hiv_aids_in_a/","body":"The Centre for Economic Governance and AIDS in Africa (CEGAA) and the International Budget Project (IBP), kindly sponsored by the FORD Foundation, is offering a two-week training to civil society organizations/research agencies in: \"Monitoring of budgets and tracking expenditure for health and HIV/AIDS\". The training is to take place from the 18th to the 30th June 2007, venue still to be confirmed. After the training, CEGAA will provide technical support to participating organizations, so as to ensure the fruitful outcome of the research and advocacy projects. More details can be found on the weblink below.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers for the Inaugural Conference of IESE","field_subtitle":"Institute for Social and Economic Studies","field_url":"http://www.ideaswebsite.org/events/apr2007/ea18_IESE.htm","body":"CIESE, an independent research organisation which is in the process of being created, is calling for proposals for papers for its inaugural Conference which will take place in September 2007 in Maputo. IESE's central objective is to promote research from an interdisciplinary and heterodox perspective, bringing together different approaches and research groups in a process of mutual reinforcement. The focus of IESE's research is the analysis and development of public policy. All interested parties are invited to submit, by 15 May 2007, a two-page summary of the paper, clearly indicating the theme, sources of information, the research central questions and the methodology, as well as information on their institutional position and contacts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil conflict and sleeping sickness in Africa in general and Uganda in particular","field_subtitle":"Berrang Ford L: Conflict and Health 1:6, 29 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.conflictandhealth.com/content/1/1/6","body":"Conflict and war have long been recognized as determinants of infectious disease risk. Re-emergence of epidemic sleeping sickness in sub-Saharan Africa since the 1970s has coincided with extensive civil conflict in affected regions. Sleeping sickness incidence has placed increasing pressure on the health resources of countries already burdened by malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis. In areas of Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Angola, sleeping sickness occurs in epidemic proportions, and is the first or second greatest cause of mortality in some areas, ahead of HIV/AIDS. In Uganda, there is evidence of increasing spread and establishment of new foci in central districts. Conflict is an important determinant of sleeping sickness outbreaks, and has contributed to disease resurgence. This paper presents a review and characterization of the processes by which conflict has contributed to the occurrence of sleeping sickness in Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Conference Resolutions of the 44th Regional Health Ministers' Conference in east, central and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"ECSA: Arusha Tanzania, 12-16 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ECSfin30042007.pdf","body":"The 44th Health Ministers' Conference meeting was attended by Hon Ministers of Health and senior officials from member states in east, central and southern Africa, health experts, and collaborating partners. The theme of the conference was \u201cScaling up cost effective interventions to attain the Millennium Development Goals\u201d. The conference approved and adopted resolutions based on the sub themes of the conference that are presented in this document.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Counting the cost of changing malaria drug policy in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"id21 Health News, 3 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h4jam1g1.html","body":"In 2001, the Tanzanian government changed their malaria treatment policy from chloroquine (CQ) to sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) as the first-line drug. How much did this policy change cost? Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, assess the costs and make recommendations for other countries undertaking treatment policy change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Critical Health Perspectives - Call for papers","field_subtitle":"People's Health Movement","field_url":"","body":"The People's Health Movement invites readers to consider writing for Critical Health Perspectives (CHP); either by writing something new, adapt something already written, or comment on a report or paper. Guidelines for submissions can be found at the weblink below and at the People's Health Movement website. CHP is a publication of the People's Health Movement, South Africa (South Africa). It is produced with the aim of offering an alternative, \"peoples health\" perspective and stimulating debate on critical issues related to health and health care in South Africa and elsewhere.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32177","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Critical Health Perspectives - District Health Barometers: What does it say about promises and practice of PHC?","field_subtitle":"Myburgh N, Solanki G: People's Health Movement, 28 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PHMehs30042007.pdf","body":"The Health Systems Trust recently published the second South African District Health Barometer (DHB II). The report compares the performance on key health indicators for all 53 South African health districts. While the study suffers some limitations of data quality, it nevertheless provides a useful snapshot of health care across the country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"CSOs role indispensable for meeting MDGs","field_subtitle":"The Ethiopian Herald, 30 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.ansa-africa.net/index.php/views/news_view/csos_role_indispensable_for_meeting_mdgs/","body":"President of the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CONGO) Renate Bloem said that without the active engagement of civil society organizations (CSOs) the chances of African countries to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is minimal. Addressing the African Civil Society Forum 2007 held at the United Nations Conference Centre under the theme \"Democratizing Governance at Regional and Global Level to meet the Millennium Development Goals\" yesterday, she said that civil societies need to give their unconditional support to sustainable development with a view to exerting maximum effort to achieve MDGs by 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Diagnosis and treatment of malaria in peripheral health facilities in Uganda: findings from an area of low transmission in south-western Uganda","field_subtitle":"Ndyomugyenyi R, Magnussen P, Clarke S: Malaria Journal 6:39, April 2007","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/6/1/39","body":"Early recognition of symptoms and signs perceived as malaria are important for effective case management, as few laboratories are available at peripheral health facilities. The validity and reliability of clinical signs and symptoms used by health workers to diagnose malaria were assessed in an area of low transmission in south-western Uganda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Discount price offered for Kaletra/Aluvia - What Abbott must do next ","field_subtitle":"Medicins Sans Frontiers, 11 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.eatg.org/news/newsitem.php?id=1463","body":"Oxfam and M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) welcome Abbott\u2019s decision to offer developing countries a further 55% reduction of its price for Kaletra/Aluvia, a key HIV medicine. However, Oxfam and MSF will continue to support the Thailand government in maintaining its compulsory licenses as an alternative channel for accessing affordable life-saving medicines. As a next step Abbott should publish a comprehensive list of all countries eligible for the price cut.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 45: The impact of food aid on food markets and food security in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Jere, Paul, Malawi","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS45nutJERE.pdf","body":"This paper is part of a series exploring the role of health systems in promoting food sovereignty in Africa being implemented in EQUINET through Health Science Research Council, South Africa. The paper explores the effect of food aid on Malawi\u2019s food security and on the domestic market for food. The paper highlights the impact of food aid interventions on domestic food markets and argues for food aid interventions to be designed and implemented in a way that takes domestic market operations into account. This needs a supportive policy framework, a social protection programme that responds to both transitory and chronic food insecurity, functional markets that support household food production and strengthened rols of national vulnerability assessment committees to support evidence based identifcication of vulnerable groups. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"East Africa: Participatory budgeting: Way to go","field_subtitle":"The Herald (Harare), 15 March 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2vgzub","body":"Mayors from eastern and southern Africa who met in Harare recently have recommended that municipalities should work with ratepayers to develop participatory budgets. The concept of participatory budgeting is an annual process of democratic decision-making in which ordinary city residents and other stakeholders decide how to allocate part of a municipal budget.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Eastern Cape Health dept certifies 36 \"baby friendly\" hospitals","field_subtitle":"Mbola B: BuaNews, 26 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.buanews.gov.za/view.php?ID=07042613451002&coll=buanew07","body":"The Eastern Cape Department of Health has certified 36 hospitals under the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI). The assessment of hospitals started in 1999 in the province when one hospital received \"baby friendly\" status. The BFHI is a global strategy implemented by healthcare facilities that render care to both mothers and children worldwide. It aims to increase awareness of the critical role of health services in the romotion of breastfeeding and to give guidelines for appropriate information and support to mothers. It also focuses on maternity care services which involves the holistic care of mother and baby both within the facility.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic Partnership Agreements: negotiators must not compromise on health","field_subtitle":"Aulline Mabika, Percy Makombe, Ludwig Chizarura, SEATINI, Rene Loewenson, TARSC","field_url":"","body":"\r\nAmekwi Lokana, a mother of six from Kenya, said some years ago 'These days, if you are without money, they leave you to die. If my children are ill, and I have money from selling sisal and firewood, I take them to the nearest town. If there's no money, I use herbs \u2026 if God takes them, we have done our best.'\r\n \r\nIt should never be the case that those without money cannot access health care. The most basic obligations that governments have are to respect and protect the survival and health rights of citizens. For governments in east and southern Africa, this is done in a context of the greatest intensity of AIDS globally, high levels of poverty and many other health challenges. \r\n\r\nMeeting this obligation is not simply a matter for Ministries of Health. Increasingly finance and trade sectors are having a powerful bearing on health through the agreements they make. Most recently this issue has emerged in the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) currently being negotiated between east and southern Africa (ESA) and the European Union (EU), with the aim of signing a final agreement in December 2007. \r\n\r\nThe \"Cotonou Agreement\", signed between the EU and African and Caribbean countries in June 2000 makes clear the two central objectives of EPAs: to eradicate poverty and to enhance global integration. The challenge ESA countries face however is that the \u201cglobal integration\u201d pursued is through liberalisation and commercialisation measures that threaten poor communities' access to the goods and services essential for their health. In past experience this has increased - not reduced - poverty and poor health outcomes, particularly in an international trading system heavily stacked against African countries.\r\n\r\nAn EQUINET / SEATINI report released earlier this year points to a number of areas in which the EPA currently under negotiation can affect health and health care, unless specifically dealt with. \r\n\r\nFirstly the EPA can affect access to essential medicines. It does not yet clearly make a commitment to give ESA countries rights to make maximum use of flexibilities in the WTO TRIPS agreement. These are essential to ensure access to medicines and medical technologies. Although this commitment has been verbally stated by the EU, it is not yet reflected in the EPA. Prior experience of EU free trade agreement (FTAs) with South Africa on this issue suggests that ESA countries and their parliaments and civil societies need be vigilant. The draft text put forward by ESA countries to provide full TRIPS flexibilities and capacity support for their implementation needs to be written into the EPA before it is concluded. \r\n\r\nThe EPA has not yet specified provisions for trade in health related services. Although most EU countries rightly protect their own public sector as the major provider of health services, there is pressure for service liberalisation in the EPA. ESA countries may thus be put be under pressure to make commitments to liberalise their health services. However for countries in the region to ensure that the poorest draw an equitable share of resources to meet health needs, governments need to regulate health service provisioning and to redistribute funds for health through public sector services. This contradicts commitments to liberalisation of health services. The EPA should exclude any such commitments to liberalise health care services, and should further include health impact assessments in other sectors prior to commitments being made, where these may have an impact on health.  \r\n\r\nThe EPA promotes market access and reduced tariffs and subsidies in agriculture. In a region where undernutrition is high and increasing, all trade policies in agriculture need to be scrutinised for their health impact. In the context of the extreme and longstanding inequalities between EU and ESA agricultural production systems, it is likely that local and smallholder producers will not benefit from the current proposed measures, unless they are deliberately recognised and invested in under the EPA. Until all subsidies on agriculture in the EU are removed, it would not make sense for African countries to lift their own protective subsidies, particularly if this will lead to a further increase in food imports, further undermine local producers and further increase undernutrition. \r\n\r\nThe EPA raises a more fundamental issue. In the trade agreement, health and health care are put in the context of tradeable goods and services and treated under the aim of enhancing global integration, rather than as key contributors to the stated priority of poverty eradication. We argue that:\r\n\u2022\tthe health implications of the EPAs need to be explicitly recognised\r\n\u2022\thealth officials should be included in negotiations\r\n\u2022\thealth impact assessments should be carried out where relevant, such as in any areas where service liberalisation may impact on health; and\r\n\u2022\tEU and ESA countries ensure that the EPA is fully compliant with all regional and international health protocols and conventions before it is concluded. \r\n\r\nThese calls were also made by Zimbabwe civil society in April this year as part of a wider process of Africa and Europe wide activities on the EPAs on April 19. One recurring point of these events was that EPAs as currently constituted would disadvantage developing countries.  The EU negotiates as a bloc, with a powerful functioning bureaucracy and a team of skilled negotiators who will speed the pace of the negotiations. However at stake for ESA countries is a deeper bottom line \u2013 the health and survival of their people. ESA states thus have an obligation to apply the \u201cprecautionary principle\u201d in the EPA negotiations where potential health impacts exist: countries need to be satisfied through evidence produced that the measure negotiated provides greatest possibility, authority and policy flexibility for protecting health and access to health services, and does not lead to negative health outcomes. \r\n\r\nAddressing these issues will surely begin to meet the stated joint commitment to poverty eradication. Alternatively, with people's health at stake, the precautionary rule surely applies: No deal is better than a bad deal!\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat admin@equinetafrica.org. For further information on this issue or the full report referred to please visit SEATINI (www.seatini.org) or EQUINET www.equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"EPA low down","field_subtitle":"Traidcraft 7, January to March 2007","field_url":"","body":"This newsletter looks at the current state of play on EPAs and the global campaign for fair trade.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32216","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\nTo subscribe, visit: http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\nPlease send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org\r\nPlease forward this to others.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 75:  Economic Partnership Agreements: Negotiators must not compromise on health ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place.\r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in health care in Namibia: developing a needs-based resource allocation formula using principal components analysis","field_subtitle":"Zere E, Mandlhate C, Mbeeli T, Shangula K, Mutirua K, Kapenambili W","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/6/1/3","body":"The pace of redressing inequities in the distribution of scarce health care resources in Namibia has been slow. This is due primarily to adherence to the historical incrementalist type of budgeting that has been used to allocate resources. Those regions with high levels of deprivation and relatively greater need for health care resources have been getting less than their fair share. To rectify this situation, which was inherited from the apartheid system, there is a need to develop a needs-based resource allocation mechanism.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Forward with the Struggle to Stop EPAs","field_subtitle":"A declaration of  the  9th Annual Meeting of the Africa Trade Network: SEATINI Bulletin 10 (3), 30 March 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/233zms","body":"African Trade Network which brings together Civil Society Organisation dealing with trade in Africa expressed their concern that while there is wide-spread recognition of the dangers posed by EPAs to the economies and peoples of the ACP countries, this has not yet led to fundamental changes in the design of the EPAs and the process of negotiations. Instead the EC simply adopted new rhetoric to continue to impose its parameters, agenda and momentum on African and other ACP groups. It is against this background that this statement of theirs was issued.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"From \"Marvelous Momentum\" to Health Care for All","field_subtitle":"Farmer P: Foreign Affairs, 2007","field_url":"http://www.foreignaffairs.org/special/global_health/farmer","body":"The last quarter of the twentieth century saw little investment in international health or in the health problems of the world's poor. Over the past few years, as Laurie Garrett notes, \"driven by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, a marvelous momentum for health assistance has been built and shows no signs of abating.\" But after this upbeat introduction, Garrett proceeds to lay out the perils associated with this new momentum, chief among them that an influx of AIDS money has drawn attention away from other health problems of the poor, weakened public health systems, contributed to brain drain, and failed to reach those most in need.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender inequity is a crisis, envoy says","field_subtitle":"The Capital Times, 13 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.ansa-africa.net/index.php/views/news_view/gender_inequity_is_a_crisis_envoy_says/","body":"Gender inequality is killing the women of Africa, a diplomat and international AIDS expert told a Madison audience Monday night. \"I have come to the conclusion that the single most important struggle on the face of the planet is the struggle for gender equality,\" Stephen Lewis said to an audience of about 400 during his UW-Madison Distinguished Lecture Series talk in the Union Theater. He received a rare standing ovation after an impassioned speech. In Africa and in other parts of the developing world, gender inequality needs to be addressed, Lewis said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender is an economic issue","field_subtitle":"Hindustan Times, 26 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.ansa-africa.net/index.php/views/news_view/gender_is_an_economic_issue/","body":"This interview report on the launch of the report of the UN Economic and Social Survey of Asia and Pacific makes the more generally relevabnt point that gender related interventions have been regarded as \"social\" and given little attention until economic numbers have been put to the interventions. Calling for wider gender budget analysis, the report notes that the promotion of breastfeeding, for example, saves lives and saves million dollars on import of baby milk. Economic and social arguments should be used in advancing gender health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Guide on incorporating Health System Strengthening in Global Fund Round 7 Proposals","field_subtitle":"Physicians for Human Rights","field_url":"http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/report-2007-03-17.html","body":"Physicians for Human Rights has released a Guide to Using Round 7 of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to Support Health Systems Strengthening. This is an extensively revised update to a health systems strengthening guide for Round 6. The Guide points out that successful proposals in earlier rounds have included a wide variety of systems investments cri tical to the fight against the three diseases, such as supporting salaries and expanded training capacity as part of an emergency human resources program, increasing access for the poor to health services, and strengthening primary level health infrastructure. The Guide also provides information on several technical partners who may be able to assist in developing health systems strengthening-related proposals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Guidelines on integrating Sexual and Reproductive Health Services into Global Fund Round 7 Proposals","field_subtitle":"Physicians for Human Rights","field_url":"http://www.globalaidsalliance.org/docs/SRH-HIV_Proposal_Guidelines.cfm","body":"A group of NGOs has published guidelines on integrating the provision of sexual and reproductive health services into Global Fund Round 7 HIV/AIDS proposals. The Global Fund has thus far made few grants that deal with sexual and reproductive health (SRH). The guidelines state, however, that the Fund supports SRH-HIV/AIDS integration efforts and has indicated that SRH-based proposals would be acceptable as long as the impact on HIV and AIDS is clearly demonstrated. Seven priority areas are identified in the guidelines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health strategy rejected","field_subtitle":"Powell J 23 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.worldbankpresident.org/archives/000492.php","body":"European executive directors and alternates have written a letter to staff in the World Bank human development network to explain their rejection of the draft health, nutrition and population strategy. Gender and reproductive health groups have been bombarding the directors with complaints over the alleged watering down of the strategy. In their letter, the directors raise concern that the strategy makes virtually no reference to sexual and reproductive health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV antiretroviral therapy: can franchising expand coverage?","field_subtitle":"id21 Health News, 20 October 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h5re1g2.html","body":"Between 6.5 and 11 million people are in need of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in developing countries.  Only 1.3 million are receiving it. With the public sector struggling to expand coverage, how can the private sector play a more significant role?  This paper reviews the experiences of franchising and its potential for HIV and AIDS services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV Manual: The PIH Guide to the Community-Based Treatment of HIV in Resource-Poor Settings","field_subtitle":"Partners In Health ","field_url":"http://model.pih.org/","body":"Partners In Health has recently converted the 2006 edition of 'The Partners In Health Guide to Community-Based Treatment of HIV in Resource-Poor Settings' into an interactive, online version. The new website allows visitors to share insights about the manual and experiences in the field, to ask questions of each other, to answer others\u2019 concerns and to foster a community of care. This interactive manual is distinctly a work in progress. Their long-term goal is to build an online knowledge community, a community where people working to ensure quality health care and social justice for the poor can exchange, comments, questions, lessons and examples drawn from their own experience, both with Partners In Health and with each other. Parners In Health expect this exchange to enrich all of their work, as well as future editions of The HIV Manual.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"ILRIG Globalisation School 2007 - 23 to 28 September in Cape Town - Alternatives to Globalisation","field_subtitle":"International Labour Research and Information Group (ILRIG)","field_url":"http://www.ilrigsa.org.za/","body":"Activists from all over Southern Africa are invited to apply. Since 2002 the ILRIG annual Globalisation Schools have brought together trade unions and social movement activists from different parts of Africa to engage in education and debate around the many aspects of capitalist globalisation.  This year our theme will be Alternatives to Globalisation. All participants are charged a registration fee of R250. This includes materials, accommodation and all meals. ILRIG will not cover travel costs. Space will be allocated on first-come-first-serve basis and ILRIG will ensure a gender balance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Institute for Health and Social Justice launches campaign on hunger and health","field_subtitle":"Partners In Health, March 2007","field_url":"http://www.pih.org/inforesources/news/IHSJ_seminars.html","body":"The Institute for Health and Social Justice (IHSJ) \u2013 the research, education and advocacy arm of PIH \u2013 has launched a campaign to galvanize knowledge, awareness, and action to combat pandemic coinfections of hunger, malnutrition and disease. The first round of activity in this campaign is a series of seminars to be held in the Boston area, organized jointly with the Friedman School of Nutrition at Tufts University and the Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya Medicine Price Monitor","field_subtitle":"Ministry of Health, Government of Kenya: January 2007","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/KENfin30042007.pdf","body":"Price continues to be a major barrier to reliable access to medicines in Kenya. To help address this issue, the MOH conducts surveys on a quarterly basis to monitor medicine prices. Information is collected and widely disseminated on availability, affordability, and price variation of a basket of medicines in the public, private and mission sectors. This report highlights the findings of the survey, based on data collected in January 2007. Comparisons are also highlighted between data for January 2007 and previous months (April, July and October 2006) for some key findings of the survey.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Key elements of a regulatory framework in support of in-country implementation of \"task shifting\"","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation; UN Office of the US Global AIDS (OGAC), February 2007","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/OGAhres270307.pdf","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Office of the US Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC) convened representatives from HIV Programmes and Human Resources for Health Departments from Ministries of Health, Professional Associations, Academic Institutions and representatives from workers associations in Geneva for a two day technical consultation about the need for a regulatory framework in support of Task Shifting. The meeting signaled the beginning of a new expert partnership for driving forward the Task Shifting Project in the context of the wider HIV/AIDS and health workforce plan \u201cTreat, Train, Retain\u201d.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"KZN Health budgets about R506 million for TB","field_subtitle":"BuaNews, 26 Apr 2007","field_url":"http://www.buanews.gov.za/view.php?ID=07042609451002&coll=buanew07","body":"As part of government's initiatives to help manage the severe tuberculosis strains identified in KwaZulu-Natal, the provincial Health Department has set aside about R506 million writes Nozipho Dlamini. The extremely drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) strain resists all first level drugs (ordinary treatment given to TB patients) and two of the five major classes of the second-level drugs used to treat patients with multi-drug resistant TB (MDR TB). \"For the MDR and XDR TB strains specifically, we are allocating R80 million, which forms part of our TB Crises management Plan,\" MEC Peggy Nkonyeni said, tabling her department's budget for this financial year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Many obstacles to healthcare for rape survivors","field_subtitle":"Cullinan K: Health-e, 28 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20031644","body":"Rape survivors are not getting the healthcare they need. Teenage girls who are raped are often scolded or branded liars by healthworkers attending to them, while men, gays and lesbians and sex workers who have been raped are also discriminated against. Other problems facing rape survivors include the denial of healthcare to those who have not reported the rape to police, the lack of privacy for examinations and staff ignorance of basic treatment procedures. This is according to the South African National Working Group on Sexual Offences, a group of 25 organisations including Childline, the Teddy Bear Clinic, People Opposing Women Abuse and the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Medicines without doctors: Why the Global Fund must fund salaries of Health Workers to expand AIDS treatment","field_subtitle":"Ooms G, Van damme W, Temmerman M: Plos Medicine, 17 April 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2uy4cr","body":"Recent comments from the inside of the Global Fund suggest an intention to focus more on the three diseases, and to leave the strengthening of health systems and the support to the health workforce to others. This might create \"Medicines Without Doctors\" situations: situations in which the medicines to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria are available, but not the doctors or the nurses to prescribe those medicines adequately.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Meeting report: Participatory methods for a people centred health system: Training workshop","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, TARSC,  IHRDC: Bagamoyo Tanzania, 14-17 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REP022007pra.pdf","body":"The second regional training workshop on participatory methods for a people centred health system was hosted by the regional network for equity in health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) , TARSC and Ifakara HRDC in Bagamoyo Tanzania from February 14-17 2007. It involved 35 delegates from in east and southern Africa and built skills, share experiences and strengthen work on participatory methods for people centred health systems, and particularly for strengthening the relationship between between communities and health workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"New project in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Partners In Health, March 2007","field_url":"http://www.pih.org/inforesources/news/Malawi_launch.html","body":"In January, PIH launched its newest project, located in Neno, Malawi \u2013 an impoverished rural area in one of Africa\u2019s poorest and most densely populated countries, with an HIV infection rate among adults of more than 14 percent. By mid-February, PIH doctors were working with Malawian nurses who had staffed the hospital prior to our arrival to provide care for more than 100 patients a day and treat 129 HIV patients with antiretroviral therapy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Open letter to WHO D-G on Universal Access","field_subtitle":"Public Health Exchange (PHA), April 2007","field_url":"","body":"This letter adresses the World Health Organisation's Director General's meeting with representatives of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) in March 2007. The letter, written by various representatives of the ITPC, expresses their concern that the world has lost the momentum of the 3 by 5 campaign and that WHO is on the brink of squandering its legacy of leadership role in the battle to bring universal treatment access to people living with HIV/AIDS. In this letter they outline five reasons for concern, make six specific demands to be met before the end of 2007 and give four commitments that ITPC will fulfill to do their part in this most critical global effort.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32222","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Over diagnosis and treatment of malaria in Kenya","field_subtitle":"id21 Health News, 21 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h4dz1g2.html","body":"Clinicians often diagnose and treat patients for malaria in Africa when they do not have the disease. Over diagnosis and treatment may be acceptable when the drugs are cheap and safe. However, new more expensive drugs whose side effects are less well known are now being used. Over diagnosis in these circumstances would not be appropriate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Patents, Parallel Importation and Compulsory Licensing of HIV/AIDS Drugs: The Experience of Kenya","field_subtitle":"Sihanya B: Managing the challenges of WTO participation: Case Study 19","field_url":"http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/casestudies_e/case19_e.htm","body":"Patents, the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and Kenya\u2019s Industrial Property Act, 2001 have been blamed as scapegoats in the problem of accessing AIDS drugs in Kenya. This paper presents the steps taken and limits encoiuntered in the response to AIDS. It proposes that Kenya invest in research and development, strengthen its national health law and policy and patent law, all of which have affected AIDS research and development, to improve care and support. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Powerful research on the benefits of breastfeeding changes government policy","field_subtitle":"Cullinan K: Healthe-e, 2 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20031634","body":"Food parcels are finally being offered to HIV positive mothers in KwaZulu Natal who want to exclusively breastfeed their babies as part of a new government policy. In the past, positive mothers were advised to either exclusively formula feed or, in cases where there was no supply of clean water, to exclusively breastfeed to protect their babies from getting HIV. But while free formula milk was dished out, no practical support was offered to those who wanted to breastfeed. The mothers, particularly those who were poor, tended to see the formula milk as an incentive. They then tended to opt to get the formula milk and feed their babies both breast and formula milk \u2013 the most risky feeding choice for passing on HIV. An exuberant Professor Nigel Rollins, head of the Centre for Maternal and Child Health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said he was \u201cdelighted\u201d that government had chosen to help HIV positive breastfeeding women meet their increased nutritional needs (of breastfeeding) by offering six months\u2019 worth of food parcels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Raising Our Voice, Breaking Our Silence: Health Workers\u2019 Experiences and Needs around Occupational Health Services in Cape Town, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Industrial Health Research Group (IHRG), A PRA Poster","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRA2006%20poster.pdf","body":"This poster highlights the main findings from a PRA project report. It explains that Health workers are not recognised as a community that requires health care. The link between the health and well being of health workers and the quality of health care that they are able to provide to the community needs to be recognised and positively developed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Reversing the trend of weak policy implementation in the Kenyan health sector? \u2013 a study of budget allocation and spending of health resources versus set priorities","field_subtitle":"Glenng\u00e5rd AH, Maina TM: Health Research Policy and Systems 5:3, 29 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/5/1/3","body":"Policy implementation in the context of health systems is generally difficult and the Kenyan health sector situation is not an exception. In 2005, a new health sector strategic plan that outlines the vision and the policy direction of the health sector was launched and during the same year the health sector was allocated a substantial budget increment. On basis of these indications of a willingness to improve the health care system among policy makers, the objective of this study was to assess whether there was a change in policy implementation during 2005 in Kenya.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC: Advantages of draft regional gender protocol","field_subtitle":"Mmegi, 20 April 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2lqskb","body":"The proposed SADC Protocol on Gender and Development will enhance existing commitments to gender equality by providing accountability and monitoring mechanisms in the region, Assistant Minister for Labour and Home Affairs Gaotlhaetse Matlhabaphiri said on Monday. He told a SADC Stakeholders Consultative Conference that that the draft Protocol on Gender and Development would bring a legally binding regional instrument and address emerging gender issues and concerns. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Activists welcome ambitious new AIDS plan","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), 15 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.ansa-africa.net/index.php/views/news_view/south_africa_activists_welcome_ambitious_new_aids_plan/","body":"South Africa's new five-year AIDS battle plan entered the final stage of a lengthy drafting and consultative process. Government officials and representatives from various sectors met in Johannesburg to debate a draft version of the National Strategic HIV and AIDS Plan for 2007 to 2011, with the goal of hammering out a final version by the end of March. South Africa's HIV/AIDS epidemic is one of the worst in the world and continues to grow by an estimated 1,500 new infections a day, according to a report published this week by the Human Sciences Research Council. Government's past efforts to address the problem have been criticised for lacking the necessary urgency.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Training shopkeepers to improve malaria home management in rural Kenya","field_subtitle":"id21 Health News, 15 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h4cg2g3.html","body":"In rural Kenya, where qualified pharmacists are rare, many people buy medicines from general shops to treat themselves at home. Often they receive incorrect medication or doses. Would the training of shopkeepers, who help treat the majority of children with fevers, be cost-effective in improving malaria treatment in young children?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"What the rest of Africa could learn about AIDS","field_subtitle":"Reaves J: Chicago Tribune, 22 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0704210035apr22,1,3345595.story?ctrack=1&cset=true","body":"The infection rate in Senegal is 0.9 percent; similar to the rate in the U.S. (0.6 percent), and far lower than the soaring tolls in African countries such as Namibia (19.6 percent), South Africa (18.8 percent) and Botswana (24.1 percent). What is Senegal doing right, and can those practices be replicated in other countries?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO D-G: Shortage of health workers in developing countries undermines essential services, including treatments for HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria","field_subtitle":"Kaiser Network, 5 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=44073","body":"Thousands of health care professionals have left their homes in developing nations in search of higher paying jobs in wealthier countries, Reuters reports. According to WHO's World Health Report 2006, there is a shortage of more than four million health care workers in 57 developing countries. The report said one-quarter of physicians and one in 20 nurses trained in Africa currently work in 30 industrialized countries included in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Sub-Saharan Africa has 24% of the global disease burden but only 3% of the health care workforce worldwide and accounts for less than 1% of global health care spending, the report said. The Americas have 10% of the global disease burden, 37% of the health care workforce and account for more than half of global health care spending, the report found.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Women call for a partnership to defeat poverty","field_subtitle":"Segalwe O: Bua News, 26 April 2007","field_url":"http://www.buanews.gov.za/view.php?ID=07042609451001&coll=buanew07","body":"Governments, civil society and the private sector have been urged to partner with rural women's organisations in order to help the women participate meaningfully in the economy. In a declaration following the 4th World Congress of Rural Women (WCRW), rural women said this partnership was critical for addressing unemployment and hunger as a central focus on development. They said the partnership was also important to undertake the necessary measures to give them full and equal access to productive resources, including ownership of land and other property. The issues of access to credit, start-up capital for emerging businesses, skills development and access to markets for emerging businesses also came across as urgent matters of concern in the declaration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Assembly \u2013 health or business first?","field_subtitle":"Riaz K. Tayob ","field_url":"","body":"\r\nWhat can Africans expect from the World Health Assembly (WHA) on 14 May 2007? Judging from past experience, the Assembly will be a forum where African countries will find issues critical to public health being raised, but not resolved without a struggle.\r\n\r\nKenya, supported by other African countries, proposed in a resolution on Malaria that, countries\u2019 provide legislation to use \u201cto the full\u201d the flexibilities allowed under World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements to increase access to anti-malarial medicines, diagnostics and technologies for prevention. The US has strongly opposed this. The WHO Executive Board therefore decided in January 2007 to send the draft resolution to the WHA with both the alternate US and Kenya proposals in bracketed text, indicating a lack of consensus. Inexplicably, the draft resolution posted on the WHO website did not reflect the Kenyan proposal and it took many days before it reflected the decision of the Board. The Kenya proposal needs to be supported to protect the legitimate legal rights that countries have under WTO.\r\n\r\nDespite the negative US position, at the 2006 WHA many countries recognised that the current intellectual property rights system does not adequately provide for research and innovation on treatments for diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries. To address this, an Inter-Governmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property was established to prepare a global strategy and plan of action. This Working Group will table a report at the WHA.\r\n\r\nA resolution will also be tabled on the rational use of medicines, in light of a finding of irrational drug use in over 50% of medicines in developing countries, with weak application of essential medicines, particularly in the private sector. African countries could potentially treat double the number of people within the same budget if this were addressed. The issue of rational use of medicines has been discussed at the WHA since 1985, and countries have urged greater leadership, evidence based advocacy and support from WHO to advance implementation of rational drug use.\r\n\r\nWhile these issues are on the WHA agenda, there is concern about what is happening in practice on intellectual property rights and health. In research on the small pox vaccine, WHO\u2019s relatively open approach to  ownership of the research outcomes has enabled private companies to derive exclusive patent rights from such research, such as the US patents have been registered on treatments by the University of California in April 2004 and April 2006.  Such patenting could hamper access to vaccines for many countries in the future. \r\n\r\nWhile small pox was eradicated in 1977, many countries still hold unofficial stockpiles of the small pox virus, with only the US and Russia holding official stockpiles. Backed by recommendations of the Committee on Orthopoxvirus Infections, in 1996 African countries pushed strongly for the destruction of the remaining stocks of the virus, given that the risk posed by deliberate or accidental release outweighed any benefits from retention. In a counter initiative, several developed countries including the US and Canada, drawing on recommendations from a new and differently constituted Advisory Committee on Variola Virus Research, are seeking to block the destruction dates so as to retain the right to seek approval for \"scientifically interesting\" research, including genetic modification of small pox.\r\n\r\nWHO is now applying the same open approach to the Avian Flu virus, i.e. sharing specimens without ensuring provider and other countries have adequate access to treatments and vaccines. Countries like Indonesia, who share viruses, have found that they either cannot afford or cannot secure access to the vaccines because of limited production capacity, leaving their citizens vulnerable to infection. The WHO Guidelines (March 2005, listed but not available on the website) state that WHO Collaborating or Reference laboratories will neither share viruses or specimens, nor publish research results without permission from the originating country. Yet the sharing of specimens has not followed these guidelines, allowing private appropriation of the research outcomes.\r\n\r\nIndonesia stopped sharing its viruses with WHO in 2007 even though sharing facilitates research into treatments and vaccines. Indonesia took action, not for commercial interest, but because it could not secure adequate access to vaccines for its people, who were offered vaccines at a prohibitively expensive US$20 per dose.  Indonesia did say it was willing to share the viruses on more equitable terms, but WHO has thus far not been able to create equitable conditions for either virus sharing or access to Avian Flu treatments for countries in need (in Africa, Nigeria, Djibouti and Egypt have reportedly experienced Avian Flu). These cost barriers to access vaccines or treatment carry massive risk for the countries concerned: according to the US Centre for Disease Control (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/gen-info/facts.htm) the Avian Flu mortality rate can reach 90 to 100% in 48 hours. In 2005, Indonesia experienced this problem when Roche refused to supply Tamiflu because of advance orders from other countries intent on stockpiling, even while Asian countries were experiencing an outbreak. Roche has sought to remain the sole producer of Tamiflu, despite donating some medicine to WHO.\r\n\r\nAccess to vaccines by developing countries may be further compromised by the limited global vaccine production capacity. Vaccine producers have taken advance purchase orders for vaccines. The resolution on Avian Flu to be considered by the WHA provides an opportunity for countries in Africa and elsewhere to ensure that access to vaccines is not a privilege primarily for wealthy countries, and that WHO facilitates wide access in response to need.\r\n\r\nThese upcoming issues at the WHA signal both the continued importance of international collaboration on health issues, as signified in the WHO constitution, as well as the need for constant pressure for and vigilance over its practice.\r\n\r\nThis editorial reflects the author's individual views. Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat at admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe CSOs against Europe's unfair trade deals","field_subtitle":"Eppmwengo, 19 April 2007","field_url":"","body":"Members of civil society organizations in Zimbabwe have expressed concern that the on going negotiations on Economic Partnership Agreement (EPAs) are complex without clear outcomes and are between two unequal parties. they have outlined in a position paper areas of concern relating to trade imbalances, agriculture, health service liberalisation and intellectual property rights. the organisations thus call for EU member states to listen to and act upon the concerns of ACP countries, and for African governments to put the needs of the people above those of the markets. \r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32225","field_issue_date":"2007-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":" Children and AIDS: A stocktaking report ","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS, Unicef, World Health Organization (WHO): January 2007","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0002296/index.php","body":"This report seeks to identify discernible trends through the measurement of new and existing data against a baseline used here for the first time in the areas of preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV, providing paediatric treatment, preventing infection among adolescents and young people, and protecting and supporting children affected by HIV/AIDS \u2013 the \u2018Four Ps\u2019. Further, this report reviews progress towards support strategies identified as critical elements of a child-focused response. It seeks to illuminate some of the ways in which Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS has shown relevance and promise, as well as some of the ways it has failed to spur the global, regional and country mobilization required to address the problems facing children affected by AIDS. It will explore how Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS needs to move forward in the next year to achieve its ambitious goals.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":" Fostering political will for food security ","field_subtitle":"Le Vall\u00e9e JC, Development Gateway, 3 October 2006","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0002192/index.php","body":"The paper reviews: a) recent developments in global and national political relations, thinking, and related institutional changes, b) the effect of such developments on the incidence of hunger, c) the ability and willingness of governments to eradicate hunger, and d) the efforts to foster greater political will for food security.These four points are central to the argument presented here and appear across the subsequent sub-sections. They are intertwined and only offer a complete picture in combination. The paper starts with a short statement to set the context for a national perspective on political will. It then reviews and appraises examples where political will has either frustrated attempts to address food insecurity and examples where political will has been formulated into a cohesive set of policies and programs to address food insecurity. These case studies then set the foundation for articulating the key constructs to focus political will in a way conducive to reducing food and nutrition insecurity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":" Monetary policies for an MDG-related scaling up of ODA to combat HIV/AIDS ","field_subtitle":"Vernengo M, March 2007","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0002448/index.php","body":"This paper discusses the best monetary policy to manage the macroeconomic effects of an MDG-related scaling up of aid inflows to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Many economists have expressed concern that a substantial scaling up of aid inflows would lead to greater inflation and real exchange rate overvaluation. Thus, in such a context, they often advocate that central banks adopt restrictive monetary policies. However, such policies often make overvaluation worse by driving up the interest rate and reducing domestic liquidity. This paper suggests that the evidence on the overvaluation effects of aid inflows is thin, at best. Instead of advocating restrictive policies, this paper maintains that monetary policies should maintain low rates of interest, increase overall liquidity in the economy and maintain a relatively depreciated currency. Such policies will help support the expansion of fiscal space that will be necessary for reaching the MDG target of halting and reversing the HIV/AIDS pandemic. A substantial increase in ODA directed towards combating HIV/AIDS will lead to an expansion of government spending on domestic goods and services. But the impact of such spending will not necessarily be inflationary in economies, such as those of many low-income countries, which have significant excess capacity, i.e., underemployed labour and other productive factors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":" Privatising basic utilities in Sub-Saharan Africa: The MDG impact","field_subtitle":"Bayliss K, McKinley T: International Poverty Centre (IPC), January 2007","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0002366/index.php","body":"This policy research brief draws on the findings of a UNDP-supported book, Privatization and Alternative Public Sector Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa (Bayliss and Fine, forthcoming), to analyse the effects of privatisation on the delivery of water and electricity. Its chief conclusion? Privatisation has been a widespread failure. This has hampered progress on the MDGs for both water and sanitation, and on many other MDGs dependent on energy. Privatisation has failed on several counts. Contrary to expectations, private investors have shied away from investing in such utilities in the region. So it has been costly for governments to motivate them to invest. Moreover, the focus of investors on cost recovery has not promoted social objectives, such as reducing poverty and promoting equity. Thus, current realities dictate refocusing on building up the capacity of the public sector. It continues to dominate the provision of water and electricity, and will do so for the foreseeable future. But a dramatic scaling up of both external and domestic resources will be needed to finance more extensive public investment in these sectors. This approach is consistent with the current priority of adopting more ambitious MDG-based development strategies in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":" Tanzania: Status Report 2006 ","field_subtitle":"SARPN","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0002436/index.php","body":"The Status Report for 2006 is produced in accordance with the MKUKUTA Monitoring Master Plan which calls for a short report on the status of growth and poverty in Tanzania in those years in which a full Poverty and Human Development Report (PHDR) is not produced. It provides an overview of the most recent data on indicators of progress towards the goals and targets of MKUKUTA\u2019s three major clusters of desired outcomes for poverty reduction: growth and reduction of income poverty; improvement of quality of life and social well-being; and governance and accountability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":" Why not \u2018front-load\u2019 ODA for HIV/AIDS? ","field_subtitle":"Serieux J, McKinley T: UNDP, February 2007","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0002365/index.php","body":"Global funds available to combat HIV/AIDS are estimated to reach about US$ 9 billion in 2007. Although this amount will be only about half of what is needed, it is, nevertheless, substantial. Used effectively, such donor financing could help stem the pandemic\u2019s spread and mitigate its effects. In fact, disbursing the balance of such financing early on - \u2018front-loading\u2019 it - should be a priority. But there is considerable resistance to doing so. Why is this the case?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A new low in the Pharma Drug Wars - Abbott withdraws seven medicines in Thailand","field_subtitle":"Baker BK: Health GAP, 14 March 2007","field_url":"","body":"Abbott's abrupt decision to withdraw seven pending registration applications, including one for a new heat-stable form of Kaletra, and its threat to make Thailand a no-drug zone for all new Abbott medicines is a truly appalling example of corporate hubris. After touting itself to the be the engine of new life-saving discoveries, Abbott is now willing to withhold medicines altogether in order to extract even greater intellectual property concessions from developing countries.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32159","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Advancing women's leadership and advocacy for AIDS action","field_subtitle":"Pan African Treatment Action Movement  (PATAM)","field_url":"http://www.cedpa.org/section/training/aids_leadership","body":"PATAM would like to invite applications to the Global Women's Leadership in HIV/AIDS Workshop to be held July 16 \u2013 August 10 in Washington, DC. It is the first in a series of international, regional and country-level workshops under the new Advancing Women's Leadership and Advocacy for AIDS Action initiative. Funded by the Ford Foundation, partners include CEDPA, the UNAIDS/Global Coalition on Women and AIDS, International Center for Research on Women, International Community of Women Living with HIV and AIDS, and the National Minority AIDS Council.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Advocates on International Women's day highlight discrimination, need to end impunity for sexual violence","field_subtitle":"Nichols: Reuters, 11 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.news-medical.net/?id=22518","body":"Advocates worldwide on International Women's Day on Thursday highlighted issues such as gender equality, discrimination and the need for justice for survivors of sexual violence, Reuters reports. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday said that although world leaders reaffirmed the importance of gender equality in \"almost all countries, women continue to be under-represented in decision-making positions.\" He also said that the majority of the more than 100 million children who are not in school are girls and that women's \"work continues to be undervalued, underpaid or not paid at all.\" In addition, violence against women continues \"in every continent, country and culture\" because it is concealed or condoned, Ban said. UNICEF director added that \"No one, including the UN itself, is doing enough to end this terrible situation. We fail to treat it as a crime\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa health trends: A 21st century imperative","field_subtitle":"Barbiero VK, November 2006","field_url":"http://www.wilsoncenter.org/events/docs/Barbiero.pdf","body":"This paper made publicly available by the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars describes trends in Africa in terms of African demographics; the unfinished agenda for maternal and child health; the widespread threat of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria; the burden of natural disasters and conflict; system vulnerabilities; and, the demographic, epidemiologic, urban and nutrition transitions that will influence the health and health service delivery in Africa throughout the 21st century. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of these trends and catalyze action to mitigate their adverse consequences.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS drug access alert: Abbott denies new drugs to Thai people","field_subtitle":"AIDS Healthcare Foundation, 14 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.aidshealth.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=996&Itemid=193","body":"US drug giant Abbott Laboratories has banned its new drugs in Thailand in response to the Thai government's decision to protect the health of its citizens by issuing a compulsory license on Abbott's AIDS drug Kaletra. Abbott's decision could potentially deny access to lifesaving drugs to the more than 500,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in Thailand, as well as to others with serious health conditions. The company's move has sparked outrage throughout the global health community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Bipartisan group of senators introduce the African Health Capacity Investment Act of 2007","field_subtitle":"United States Senator Dick Durban, 7 March 2007","field_url":"http://durbin.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=270265","body":"A bipartisan group of Senators today introduced the African Health Capacity Investment Act of 2007, a comprehensive bill to help sub-Saharan African nations confront the alarming shortage of health workers; thirteen countries on the continent have fewer than 5 physicians per 100,000 people. The United States has 549 physicians per 100,000 people. \"Increased funding from governments and private donors to expand health services holds the promise of saving millions of lives in Africa. But, a severe shortage of health workers on the ground represents a tight bottleneck slowing the flow of resources to patients who need them,\" said Dr Paul Farmer, medical anthropologist and a founder of Partners In Health. \"Sub-Saharan Africa faces a shortage of more than 800,000 doctors, nurses, and midwives and an overall shortage of 1.5 million healthcare workers. The bill introduced, particularly with its focus on harnessing the power of paid community health workers, is a much needed step toward closing this gap.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for case studies and human interest stories on urbanisation","field_subtitle":"Global Health Watch","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/call_case_studies.php","body":"The Global Health Watch would like to ensure that people's health issues and indigenous health issues are reflected within the second edition of Global Health Watch, and would like assistance and input in writing and sourcing human interest stories written in a simple narrative style. Where it is not possible to integrate stories submitted within chapters, they will put them on the web site. They would like both positive and negative stories, successes and failures, etc.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: International conference on researching work and learning (RWL5)","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://rwl5.uwc.ac.za/index.php?module=conferenceprelogin&action=viewcontent&sectionid=5","body":"The Researching Work and Learning Conference (RWL5) will be held in Cape Town, South Africa from 2 \u2013 5 December 2007. The aim of the RWL5 conference will be to promote a truly global conversation about researching work and learning which enables us to rethink the `centre` and rethink the `margins` from a variety of countries and perspectives. At the same time the conference will strive to inject local southern African research issues and debates into the discussions, not in order to be parochial, but to deepen and enrich our understandings about `work` and `learning` globally. The deadline for the submission of abstracts is 15 May 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CBIS and ICCR urge Abbott Labs to Keep HIV/AIDS drug on the shelf in Thailand","field_subtitle":"Christian Brothers Investment Services, 22 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.cbisonline.com/page.asp?id=865","body":"Christian Brothers Investment Services, Inc. (CBIS) and 15 other faith-based institutional investors with approximately $35 million in Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) holdings responded today to the pharmaceutical company's decision to withdraw new drug applications from Thailand with a request that Abbott immediately reverse its decision. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Day of Action to reclaim rights, including to health care and AIDS treatment","field_subtitle":"Social Movements Indaba, 20 March 2007","field_url":"","body":"Social Movements and Human Rights Organisations marched from the Library Gardens to the Constitutional Court in Braamfontein. Formed in 2002, the Social Movements Indaba (SMI) and its affiliates have been at the center of struggle for reclaiming human rights as entrenched in the constitution of the country. The SMI and other organisations affiliated took part in a nation-wide protest in support of the demands for housing, land, water, electricity, HIV treatment and health care, jobs and a positive contribution to the human rights of people suffering in neighbouring countries and around the world.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32187","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 41: Health implications of proposed Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between east and southern African countries and the European Union","field_subtitle":"Mabika AH, Makombe PF, Chizarura L, Loewenson R","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS41tradeESA.pdf","body":"A proposed Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the eastern and southern African countries (ESA) and the European Union (EU) is currently under negotiation. The final agreement to be signed in December 2007 could have a profound impact on areas of health and health services. Recognising this, in this report we examine the health implications of this proposed EPA between the ESA and the EU. The report aims to inform government, civil society, parliaments and professionals working in health and in trade. It examines: \u2022 the key areas of the EPA; \u2022 the health implications of the EPA, specifically in terms of health inputs (examining food security) and health services (examining organisation of health services, health workers, and access to medicines); \u2022 the options that countries have to protect health in the current EPA; and \u2022 general issues and principles for protecting health in negotiating the EPA.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Ensuring a food secure future: Ingredients for change","field_subtitle":"Panos Media Toolkit on Communicating Research (3), 2007","field_url":"http://www.panos.org.uk/PDF/reports/relaytoolkit3.pdf","body":"Hunger makes the international news during times of famine, yet chronic food shortages are a feature of everyday life for millions of people in Africa and Asia. What can be done to change this and what role can journalists play? This paper looks at the issues around food security and factors involved in making it worse, such as ill-advised and inadequate policy decisions, conflict and HIV/AIDS. Suggestions are given on ways in which food security can be improved. The article finishes by discussing the role the media could play in highlighting the food security issue by spotting trends and alerting both farmers and governments to potential problems. It also suggests questions journalists can ask with regard to the related issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\nWebsite design: Fahamu\r\nTo subscribe, visit: http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\nPlease send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 74: Where are the health workers?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place.\r\n\r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity, by what measure?","field_subtitle":"Houston S: Health Promotion Journal of Australia 17:206-10, 2006","field_url":"http://www.healthpromotion.org.au/journal/articles/article7.php?PHPSESSID=11e751a2ecfc1e0e480bd9e08b52f7e0","body":"Equity has in many instances been framed around the notion of fairness. But the metric used to determine what is fair leaves some people at a disadvantage because the things that they value are not always taken properly into account. The debate about judging equity \u2013 about measuring fairness \u2013 needs to find the conceptual and methodological space to allow the voices and claims of the other to be heard.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Essay competition: Young voices in research for health","field_subtitle":"Global Forum for Health Research and The Lancet","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/Site/004__Annual%20meeting/001__Forum%2011/005__Essay%20competition.php","body":"The Global Forum for Health Research and The Lancet are sponsoring their second joint essay competition on the occasion of Forum 11, the 2007 annual meeting of the Global Forum for Health Research in Beijing, People's Republic of China, 29 October to 2 November 2007. Entries relating to some aspect of the overall theme of Forum 11: Equitable access, research challenges for health in developing countries are invited from young professionals working in or interested in the broad spectrum of health research for development. The deadline for submissions is 20 April 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploring equity and inclusion in the responses to AIDS","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R:  AIDS Care 19 (S1): 2-11, 2007","field_url":"http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content?content=10.1080/09540120601114790","body":"The HIV and AIDS epidemic feeds on, and worsens, unacceptable situations of poverty, gender inequity, social insecurity, limited access to healthcare and education, war, debt and macroeconomic and social instability. This paper introduces a series of eight papers from a programme of work reported in this supplement of AIDS Care with an analysis of background evidence of community responses to HIV and AIDS. It explores how interventions from state institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) support and interact with these household, family and community responses. Through review of literature, this background paper sets out the questions that the studies reported in this supplement have, in various settings, sought to explore more deeply.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Factors influencing implementation of the Community Health Fund in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Gilson L, Kamuzora P. Health Policy and Plannng 22 :95-102","field_url":"","body":"Although prepayment schemes are being hailed internationally as part of a solution to health care financing problems in low-income countries, literature has raised problems with such schemes. This paper reports the findings of a study that examined the factors influencing low enrolment in Tanzania\u2019s health prepayment schemes (Community Health Fund). The paper argues that district managers had a direct influence over the factors explaining low enrolment and identified in other studies (inability to pay membership contributions, low quality of care, lack of trust in scheme managers and failure to see the rationale to insure). District managers\u2019 actions appeared, in turn, to be at least partly a response to the manner of this policy\u2019s implementation. In order better to achieve the objectives of prepayment schemes, it is important to focus attention on policy implementers, who are capable of re-shaping policy during its implementation, with consequences for policy outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Global AIDS Week of Action 20-26 May 2007: One week, one voice","field_subtitle":"Joint Call to Action","field_url":"http://www.gnpplus.net/cms/article.php/20070316130402248","body":"Do you think the world is doing enough to stop AIDS? Join a groundswell of civil society voices from across the world during the week of 20-26 May to demand a stronger response, greater accountability and more resources in the fight against HIV/AIDS. WHY: Last year, activists from 30 countries took coordinated action during the first ever Global AIDS Week of Action. It was the defining mobilisation before world leaders reported back to the UN on the progress they had made to meet their 2001 commitment on HIV/AIDS. So while in New York our governments boasted of the small gains made, in cities from Abuja to Phnom Penh and Delhi to Lilongwe citizens reminded them of the big losses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global tuberculosis epidemic levelling off","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 22 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2007/pr08/en/index.html","body":"The global tuberculosis (TB) epidemic has levelled off for the first time since WHO declared TB a public health emergency in 1993. The Global Tuberculosis Control Report released today by WHO finds that the percentage of the world's population struck by TB peaked in 2004 and then held steady in 2005. \"We are currently seeing both the fruits of global action to control TB and the lethal nature of the disease\u2019s ongoing burden,\" said United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. \"Almost 60 per cent of TB cases worldwide are now detected, and out of those, the vast majority are cured. Over the past decade, 26 million patients have been placed on effective TB treatment thanks to the efforts of governments and a wide range of partners. But the disease still kills 4400 people every day.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Guide to using round 7 of the Global Fund to Support Health Systems strengthening","field_subtitle":"Physicians Forum for Human Rights","field_url":"http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/report-2007-03-17.html","body":"This Guide was produced to assist members of Country Coordinating Mechanisms and other individuals and organizations involved in preparing proposals for Round 7 of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which launched March 1, 2007. While the primary purpose of this Guide is to serve as a technical guide in thinking about and developing proposals that include health system strengthening activities, we also hope that it can help motivate countries to use the Global Fund to support such activities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health care in Africa: Challenges, opportunities and an emerging model for improvement","field_subtitle":"Kaseje D, November 2006","field_url":"http://www.wilsoncenter.org/events/docs/Kaseje.pdf","body":"This paper suggests a model for sustainable improvement of health system performance which takes into consideration historical lessons, and current opportunities and challenges facing Africans. The essential elements of the suggested model include decentralized governing structures linking the health system to communities; identification of an essential care package for health (ECPH) based on peoples\u2019 priorities; an improved information system to provide evidence of improvement in service access, delivery, and outcomes; and regular dialogue among stakeholders to enhance informed demand, responsibility, and accountability. The model attempts to pay due regard to the people's own beliefs, knowledge, customs, experiences, practices, systems, and structures that give meaning to the ECPH and mitigate the discontinuity between people\u2019s perceptions and the health intervention package through regular dialogue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Health handbook for women with disabilities","field_subtitle":"Hesperian Foundation","field_url":"http://www.hesperian.org/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=HB&Product_Code=B150&Category_Code=ENG","body":"Women with disabilities often discover that the social stigma of disability and inadequate care are greater barriers to health than the disabilities themselves. A Health Handbook for Women with Disabilities will help women with disabilities overcome these barriers and improve their general health, self-esteem, and abilities to care for themselves and participate in their communities. This groundbreaking handbook was developed with the help and experience of women with disabilities in 42 countries-women with various disabilities. The book is full of useful advice on organising for disability-friendly health care, caring for daily needs with limited access to equipment, having healthy and safe sexual relationships, choosing family planning methods that work best with specific disabilities, preparing for pregnancy and childbirth, and defending against violence or abuse.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV program fails to decrease incidence of HIV-1 in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":" Gregson S, Adamson S, Papaya S, et al: PLoS Medicine; 2 (5), e147, 27 March 2007","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020037","body":"A trial in Zimbabwe has shown that a programme of integrated peer education, condom distribution, and management of sexually transmitted infections did not reduce the overall incidence of HIV-1. The study, published in PLoS Medicine, by Simon Gregson and colleagues from Imperial College London, randomised different communities in eastern Zimbabwe over a 3 year period. Six pairs of communities in Eastern Zimbabwe were compared, each of which had its own health center. Control communities received the standard government services for preventing HIV. According to the author, the results are disappointing given the urgent need for control measures for HIV-1 in sub-Saharan Africa. The authors conclude that they \u201cemphasise the need for alternative strategies of behaviour change promotion.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights and AIDS organisations condemn rise of HIV denialism and quack cures in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Clayton M, Gonsalves G: AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), 7 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.arasa.info/news.php?article=40","body":"The AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), a partnership of human rights and HIV/AIDS organisations in the 14 countries of Southern Africa, denounced American charlatan, Boyd E. Graves, for peddling false AIDS cures in Zamiba, where his claims to be able to treat HIV infection are creating mass confusion across the country among people living with HIV/AIDS. \"We are hearing reports from our partner organisations that people are stopping their AIDS medications now that they are being led to falsely believe that a cure for AIDS has been found,\" said Michaela Clayton, the Director of ARASA. The article claims that in fact, the Treatment Advocacy and Literacy Campaign in Zamiba is reporting that individuals are being told by agents of Mr Graves to stop taking their antiretroviral drugs, stop using condoms and stop immunizing their children against infectious diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"International action needed to increase health workforce","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 13 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2007/pr05/en/index.html","body":"A new international Task Force was launched and met for the first time in March to tackle the global shortage of health workers. With a shortfall of 4.3 million health workers worldwide, including more than 1 million in Africa alone, there is an urgent need to increase the number of doctors, nurses, health managers and other health care workers needed to face immediate health crises. The new global Task Force is co-chaired by Bience Gawanas, the African Union Commissioner for Social Affairs, and includes African Ministers of Health from Uganda and Malawi, as well as senior health policy makers from across the globe, from the public and private sectors, and both developing and developed countries. Together these leaders in health and education will champion the need for significantly increased investment in the education and training of health workers in developing countries, and will build international commitment to practical action.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Introduction to DevInfo","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.devinfo.org/index.htm?IDX=1","body":"DevInfo is a database system that harnesses the power of advanced information technology to compile and disseminate data on human development. In particular, the system has been endorsed by the UN Development Group (UNDG) to assist countries in monitoring achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It facilitates data sharing at the country level across government departments, UN agencies and development partners by providing methods to organise, store and display data in a uniform way. By the end of 2006, more than 90 national, regional and global DevInfo adaptations had been developed around the world. DevInfo has been adapted by several UN agencies for the dissemination of regional and global databases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Issues of equity are also issues of rights: Lessons from experiences in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"London, L. BMC Public Health 7 :4 pp 1-10","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DISlondonVAL.pdf","body":"Human rights approaches to health have been criticized as antithetical to equity, principally because they are seen to prioritise rights of individuals at the expense of the interests of groups, a core tenet of public health. The objective of this study was to identify how human rights approaches can promote health equity. The paper argues that Where it is clear that rights approaches are predicated upon understanding the need to prioritize vulnerable groups and where the way rights are operationalised recognizes the role of agency on the part of those most affected in realising their socio-economic rights, human rights\r\napproaches appear to offer powerful tools to support social justice and health equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya Medicine Price Monitor","field_subtitle":"Ministry of Health, Republic of Kenya, 2006","field_url":"http://www.haiafrica.org/images/stories/mpmoct2006.pdf","body":"Price is one of the major barriers to reliable access to medicines while availability of medicines is also a major determinant of access. The Ministry of Health of Kenya and conducts surveys on a quarterly basis to monitor medicine prices in the countries. In these surveys information is collected on availability, affordability and price variation on a basket of medicines in the public private and mission sectors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya: Flood-related diseases, HIV/AIDS reverse rainfall gains","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Networks, 26 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70932","body":"Adequate rainfall in the last three months of 2006 improved food security in the parts of Kenya affected by the severe drought that hit the Horn of Africa last year, a famine warning agency reported. However, in some areas, outbreaks of diseases related to floods, as well as high HIV/AIDS prevalence, reversed the gains of a good harvest and pasture regeneration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya: Study says drugs availability low","field_subtitle":"Ndegwa A: The East African Standard, March 2006","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200703121365.html","body":"The availability of drugs to treat two leading killer diseases in the country's public health facilities still falls below the internationally recommended benchmark, a survey shows. On average, the availability of two anti-retrovirals meant to treat HIV/Aids and that of the newly launched anti-malarial drug fell at least 10 marks below the recommended 75 per cent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge and attitudes of intern doctors at rural and urban hospitals in Uganda regarding the migration of health workers","field_subtitle":"Lwamafa DK, Nabitaka MV, Opio KC","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/CBP15HRlwamafa%20paper.pdf","body":"This student capacity building project aimed at comparing information on the knowledge and attitudes of intern doctors at two urban hospitals and three rural hospitals in Uganda regarding international migration. The key informant interviews suggested that the search for better pay is the most significant push factor for migration; while the most significant retention factor is feeling indebted to the government and family who sponsor their education. The respondents from both settings think that the workload and working conditions will affect their eventual specialty and location of practice. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Learning from diverse contexts: Equity and inclusion in the responses to AIDS","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R: AIDS Care 19 (S1): 83-90, 2007 ","field_url":"http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content?content=10.1080/09540120601114733","body":"This paper situates the findings of the diverse studies reported in this journal supplement in a global context that both fuels the epidemic through inequality and poverty and also provides new opportunities for global commitments, solidarity and resources. The studies in this issue signal that, while information and awareness about HIV and AIDS is now high, there is still poor access to services for people to know their own risk and a deeper need to address the asymmetries of power and access to resources that influence the control people have over their sexual relationships and lives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Limitations to practising holistically in the public sector in a rural sub-district in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Gaede B, Mahlobo S, Shabalala K, et al: Rural and Remote Health 6 (online) 607, 2006","field_url":"http://www.rrh.org.au/articles/subviewafro.asp?ArticleID=607","body":"The healthcare system in South Africa is based on the district health system through a primary healthcare approach. Although many vision and mission statements in the public healthcare sector in South Africa state that the service aspires to be holistic, it is at times unclear what exactly is meant by such an aspiration. The term \u2018holism\u2019 was coined in the 1920s and describes the phenomenon of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. Over the past two decades the term has entered into many academic disciplines as well as popular culture. As part of a larger research study, the limitations to working holistically in the public sector in a rural sub-district in South Africa were explored. This study used a participatory action research design that allowed participants a large degree of influence over the direction of the study. The close relationship between difficulty in providing a holistic healthcare service and burnout was an important finding that deserves further exploration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi: New moves to meet MDGs for maternal and infant care","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Networks, 14 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70699","body":"Malawi has launched a pilot project to investigate ways of reducing the number of mothers and children who die every year to help it reach its millennium development goals (MDGs) by 2015. Hudson Kubwalo, Health Information and Promotion Officer in the Malawi office of the UN's World Health Organisation (WHO), said a needs assessment had found that the unavailability of basic healthcare was one of the major causes of the high infant and maternal mortality in the three districts. Poor roads, a lack of transport to reach the nearest healthcare facility and a high illiteracy rate - around 58 percent among women - were other reasons given for the high level of maternal deaths. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Namibia: Partners working hard to maintain treatment success","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Networks, 12 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70656","body":"Namibia is hailed as one of the front-runners in AIDS treatment rollout, yet there is growing fear that this success might be short-lived if services do not reach rural communities. The government has increased the number of sites offering antiretroviral (ARV) treatment from seven three years ago to 34 at present, but most of the clinics were set up in the densely populated northern regions, far from people living on farms and in rural villages.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Parliamentarians and activists from across the world gather to combat maternal and newborn deaths","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 13 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2007/pr06/en/index.html","body":"Influential women from all over the globe have come together in London to urge the world to redouble efforts and boost investments to reduce the global burden of maternal and newborn death. The policy makers and parliamentarians from developing and developed countries are meeting to mark UK Mother's Day on 18 March 2007. Key participants include Cherie Blair, wife of the UK Prime Minister and international lawyer, Hilary Benn, MP, Secretary of State, Department for International Development, UK, Liya Kebede, Supermodel and World Health Organization Goodwill Ambassador for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, and the First Lady of Lesotho, Mrs Mathato S. Mosisilli. A Global Plan of Action agreed at the meeting calls for a universal right to health for mothers and their babies by ensuring equitable skilled care. The plan calls on governments to take the lead in fighting maternal and newborn illness and death.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Patents versus patients in the fight against AIDS","field_subtitle":"Thangsing C, Abraham KK: AIDS Healthcare Foundation, March 2007","field_url":"","body":"The global community has no hope of ending the AIDS pandemic as long as the interests of drug companies are rated higher than the lives of people in low- and middle-income countries. The innovations of the pharmaceutical industry have transformed AIDS, at least in the western world, from a virtual death sentence into a chronic, treatable disease. Our aim is not to destroy the geese that lay the golden eggs. However, a balance must\u2014and can\u2014 be struck between protecting profits and protecting people\u2019s lives. Drug companies are in the business of protecting profits. It is incumbent upon the citizens of the global community to protect people\u2019s lives.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32151","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"PHM Right to Health and Health Care Campaign update","field_subtitle":"People's Health Movement","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/campaigns/righttohealth","body":"PHM is embarking upon a global Right to Health and Healthcare campaign which involves coordinated national and international level action. The overall idea of the campaign is to change the international approach to health and development, and, via a \u2018Global Action Plan on the Right to Health Care,\u2019 convincingly show how quality essential health care services could be made available NOW to every human being on earth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-private partnerships to build human capacity in low income countries: findings from the Pfizer program","field_subtitle":"Vian T, Richards SC, McCoy K, Connelly P, Feeley F: Human Resources for Health 5:8","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/5/1/8","body":"The ability of health organizations in developing countries to expand access to quality services depends in large part on organizational and human capacity. Capacity building includes professional development of staff, as well as efforts to create working environments conducive to high levels of performance. The current study evaluated an approach to public-private partnership where corporate volunteers give technical assistance to improve organizational and staff performance. From 2003 to 2005, the Pfizer Global Health Fellows program sent 72 employees to work with organizations in 19 countries. This evaluation was designed to assess program impact.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Short report: OGAC/WHO meeting on Community Health Workers (CHWs)","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 12-13 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/OGAhres270307.pdf","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Office of the US Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC) convened representatives from HIV Programmes and Human Resources for Health Departments from Ministries of Health, Professional Associations, Academic Institutions and representatives from workers associations in Geneva for a two day technical consultation about the need for a regulatory framework in support of Task Shifting. The meeting signaled the beginning of a new expert partnership for driving forward the Task Shifting Project in the context of the wider HIV/AIDS and health workforce plan \u201cTreat, Train, Retain\u201d.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Social determinants of health and health inequalities: what role for general practice?","field_subtitle":"Furler J: Health Promotion Journal of Australia 17:264-5, 2006","field_url":"http://www.healthpromotion.org.au/journal/articles/article16.php?PHPSESSID=11e751a2ecfc1e0e480bd9e08b52f7e0","body":"This paper argues that general practice is potentially an important social determinant of health and health inequalities. The way it is influential is consistent with models of causal pathways in the way social and societal factors influence health. General practice clinical care can be thought of as a material resource. Evidence exists at many levels that this resource is inequitably distributed. But encounters in general practice are profoundly social processes, embedded in wider society. Debating and reflecting on the values underpinning relations between GP and patient may help challenge and illuminate wider inequitable processes in society that sustain inequalities in health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Social determinants, political contexts and civil society action: a historical perspective on the Commission on Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"Solar O, Irwin A: Health Promotion Journal of Australia 17: 180-15, 2006","field_url":"http://www.healthpromotion.org.au/journal/articles/article2.php?PHPSESSID=11e751a2ecfc1e0e480bd9e08b52f7e0","body":"This article evaluats opportunities for action on social determinants of health (SDH) requires a historical perspective. Plans for addressing SDH should be developed with an awareness of past similar efforts and factors that contributed to their success or failure. The study was a review of published historical literature on analysis and action on SDH, in particular from the Latin American social medicine movement. Concluding comments state that opportunities exist today for significant progress in addressing SDH through national action and global mechanisms such as the Commission on Social Determinants of Health. Historical analysis suggests that civil society participation will be crucial for the success of these efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening the Role of the Private Sector in Expanding Health Coverage in Africa","field_subtitle":"Osewe P, World Bank, November 2006","field_url":"http://www.wilsoncenter.org/events/docs/Osewe.pdf","body":"This paper describes the context of health care provision in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), analyses current mechanisms for public-private partnerships (PPP), and discusses emerging issues in strengthening partnerships to expand health coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania: Rising TB cases linked to HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Networks, 22 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70865","body":"The number of tuberculosis cases in Tanzania has risen from 39,000 a decade ago to 64,200 in 2005, a trend blamed on high HIV/AIDS prevalence, the Health Minister, David Mwakyusa, said on Thursday. \"Research conducted in many parts of the country by the Ministry of Health between 2003 and 2004 established that HIV/AIDS contributes to increased TB cases by about 60 percent,\" the minister said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"TB control programmes in East Africa inadequate according to WHO report","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Networks, 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70897","body":"Several countries in eastern Africa have a high incidence of tuberculosis but have yet to develop effective national strategies to curtail the disease, the United Nations World Health Organization said in its 2007 global TB report, \u2018Global tuberculosis control - surveillance, planning, financing\u2019. Citing Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Tanzania as among the 22 countries with a high tuberculosis burden, WHO said their national plans were not effective enough to combat it. Nigeria and Mozambique are the other African countries on the list. While noting the provision of free TB the report cites constraints in plans for human resource development made by national TB control programmes, inadequate screening of HIV-positive people for TB, and limited facilities for diagnoses and treatment of multi-drug resistant TB.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The Forum on the Future of Aid (FFA)","field_subtitle":"Forum on the Future of Aid","field_url":"http://www.futureofaid.net/","body":"The Forum on the Future of Aid (FFA) website has recently been re launched. The FFA can make it easier for you to voice your opinions in the international aid debate. By accessing and contributing to the FFA website, you and others can share and generate new ideas, and help promote collective action for genuine reform of the international aid system. The website primarily provides exposure to work from developing countries (Africa, Asia and Latin America). For example, the FFA website includes research written by the Community Development Resource Network (CDRN) in Uganda, the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) in Bangladesh and the Centre for Development Studies and Promotion (CDSP) in Peru.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of health promotion: Between global thinking and local action","field_subtitle":"King L: Health Promotion Journal of Australia 17:196-9, 2006","field_url":"http://www.healthpromotion.org.au/journal/articles/article5.php?PHPSESSID=11e751a2ecfc1e0e480bd9e08b52f7e0","body":"The persistence of health inequities provides an ongoing challenge for health promotion. The dictum 'think globally, act locally' fails to recognise the significance of infrastructure and policy in linking global issues and local practices as a means of addressing health inequities. This article is in the form of a commentary and opinion, and final comments include that Health promotion needs to beg, borrow and build political and media advocacy skills if it is to go beyond local demonstration projects and have the capacity to promote population health and address health inequities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of the People's Health Movement in putting the social determinants of health on the global agenda","field_subtitle":"Narayan R: Health Promotion Journal of Australia 17 (3), 186-8, 2006","field_url":"http://www.healthpromotion.org.au/journal/articles/article3.php?PHPSESSID=11e751a2ecfc1e0e480bd9e08b52f7e0","body":"The People's Health Movement (PHM) is a global network of people oriented health professionals and activists, academcis and researchers, campaigners and people organizations that have actively promoted the re endorsement of the 'Health for All' principles of the Alma Ata Declaration and the importance of social determinants of health and health care. The paper outlines a series of ongoing advocacy initiatives through a PHM - WHO advocacy circle that has consistently since 2001 nudged WHO to reaffirm the Alma Ata principles and focus on the social determinants of health. This has led to an evolving dialogue with PHM and the setting up of the WHO commission on social determiants of health, in which the PHM, is actively engaged.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ugandan medicine price monitor","field_subtitle":"Ministry of Health, Uganda","field_url":"http://www.haiafrica.org/downloads/uganda_mpm.pdf","body":"Most Ugandans cannot readily access the medicines they need due to the high prices charged. To understand more about what people pay for medicines in Uganda, the Ministry of Health in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and Health Action International (HAI) Africa conducted a countrywide survey on medicine prices in 2004, and recommended a medicine price monitoring system for surveys to be conducted quarterly. This is the first price monitoring report, presenting the survey results for the October-December 2006 quarter.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities","field_subtitle":"United Nations General Assembly","field_url":"http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/rights/convtexte.htm","body":"The purpose of the Convention is to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity. Persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Unconventional gathering: The Nyeleni 2007 Forum for Food Sovereignty in Mali","field_subtitle":"Bangkokpost, 18 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.acciontierra.org/spip/spip.php?article44","body":"The Nyeleni 2007 Forum for Food Sovereignty in Mali was not your usual global conference of diplomats and policy makers; the six-day programme initiated by and for the underprivileged worldwide was marked by a spirit of international solidarity. The shabby conditions, however, seemed a perfect fit for the theme of the Nyeleni 2007 Forum for Food Sovereignty. The six-day programme was initiated by and for the underprivileged worldwide, whose major concern may be their next meal. Among the five hundred-plus in attendance were small-scale farmers and fishermen, indigenous peoples, landless migrant workers, pastoralists, and NGOs who have been working with the rural and urban poor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Use of DevInfo at the national level : Country example (Tanzania)","field_subtitle":"DevInfo","field_url":"http://www.tsed.org/","body":"DevInfo is often used by UN Country Teams as an umbrella data system for creating a UN Common Database for the CCA-UNDAF, and further to help governments in the collation and dissemination of human development data. As a common data repository containing baseline and other information, the DevInfo database facilitates monitoring change and progress over time towards achieving the MDGs and other objectives in the UNDAF or other national plans. Following the need to have a common database in the country which would enhance accessibility of existing data, especially those related to sustainable human development issues, and facilitate wider use of newly collected data, the National Bureau of Statistics in Tanzania adapted DevInfo to develop the Tanzania Socio Economic Database (TSED). The database is very user-friendly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Where are the health workers?","field_subtitle":"Sharonann Lynch, M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (Lesotho)","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThere is a dire shortage of professional health care workers to deliver essential health services in sub-Saharan Africa, including life-saving antiretrovirals (ARVs) for people living with HIV and AIDS.  Donor support for disease-specific interventions for AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria has increased markedly in recent years. However, funding for recurrent costs for these interventions, such as increasing salaries and creating new posts, has remained taboo.\r\n\r\nThe Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM) was created largely due to pressure from activists and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who fought to have a global financing facility that would pay for ARVs \u2013 something that was considered off-limits to donors before 2002.  In 2005, a specific \"window\" of funding was created to support health systems, including human resource costs.  Since then the option has been integrated within specific disease components.\r\n\r\nAlthough there is some degree of uncertainty about the scope of GFATM support for human resource costs in future rounds, country applicants have an opportunity to request such support in Round 7.  The GFATM should provide unambiguous and continued support for funding salaries and other \"recurrent\" human resource costs.  Bilateral donors should follow suit.\r\n\r\nLesotho is a case in point. The country has the third highest HIV prevalence in the world after Swaziland and Botswana \u2013 and is the poorest of the three. It is struggling with a catastrophic health worker situation that threatens to make it impossible for the country to scale-up and sustain HIV care and treatment for the more than 270 000 Basotho presently living with HIV and AIDS.\r\n\r\nIn January 2006, Doctors Without Borders/M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF), an international medical humanitarian organisation, launched a programme in Lesotho in Scott Hospital Health Service Area (HSA), a rural health district with a catchment population of 220 000. The programme provides decentralised HIV care and treatment, including ART, integrated into existing primary health care services. In the first year, more than 3 500 people were enrolled in HIV care and over 1 000 had initiated ART at Scott Hospital and 14 rural health centres. \r\n\r\nScott Hospital HSA has a higher than average health worker coverage rate. Still, according to an assessment of workloads in Scott Hospital HSA carried out by MSF in August 2006, there are up to 45 consultations per nurse per day not including HIV-related consultations. With the introduction of dedicated HIV services, the workload in the past year has increased dramatically. The World Health Organisation recommends that nurses should conduct no more than 20 consultations per day.  \r\n\r\nBetween January and July 2006, at least 18 nurses left the HSA for \"greener pastures\".  Ten new nurses were hired after July 2006, but six additional nurses left, leaving more than a quarter of nursing posts vacant. \r\n\r\nWith more than 35 000 people estimated to be living with HIV and AIDS in Scott Hospital HSA alone, at least 5 000 of whom are in urgent clinical need of ART, the needs far outstrip the capacity of health facilities and health workers. MSF has employed several strategies to cope with these shortages \u2013 from providing mobile MSF medical teams to bring \"in-service\" support to nurses to task-shifting to new cadres of community health workers to introducing measures to improve staff retention.  \r\n\r\nUltimately, however, immediate measures will need to be put in place at the national level to recruit and retain skilled nurses and other professional health care workers, including as a necessary first step, increasing their salaries. Without major investments in retention of skilled staff, ART programmes \u2013 including the MSF-supported programme \u2013 are vulnerable to collapse.\r\n\r\nThe GFATM, bilateral donors, and all other relevant actors, must clearly state, with money on the table, their support for funding salaries and other interventions to support human resources for health. Affected-country governments must then meet this commitment with emergency plans to address the human resource crisis.\r\n\r\nAs for Lesotho, an emergency human resource plan needs to be developed and donors need to step up to the plate. The US Millennium Challenge Account is committing an unprecedented US $140 million for health infrastructure. \"Brick and mortar\" projects are welcome, but without support for health care workers, this construction/renovation programme will be tantamount to supplying computer hardware without software to run programmes.\r\n\r\nFunding salaries on a recurrent basis and supporting other initiatives to stem the loss of health workers and bring relief to overburdened staff and the thousands of patients they serve is a critical requirement in order to expand and sustain HIV/AIDS care and treatment.  \r\n\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat,  admin@equinetafrica.org. Further information on MSF and its programmes can be found  at www.msf.org and on EQUINET work on AIDS and health systems www.equinetafrica.org.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO D-G highlights women's health needs on  International Women's Day","field_subtitle":"Chan M: World Health Organisation, 7 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2007/s05/en/","body":"This year's International Women's Day was devoted to ending impunity for violence against women and girls. The Director General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Chan, began her speech with a reminder that women have particular needs and face specific health issues but, how the health needs of women are given neither the attention nor the prominence they deserve. Each year, for example, more than half a million women die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth alone - a number that has hardly changed in 20 years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO-led anti-counterfeiting coalition examines technologies to prevent fake drugs","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 13 March 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2007/pr07/en/index.html","body":"More than twenty technology companies are responding to a call to support the fight against counterfeit medicines spearheaded by the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT) set up by the World Health Organization (WHO) and partners. They were to join the IMPACT Working Group on Technology for a one-day meeting in Prague to assess technologies which could improve the global prevention, tracking and detection of counterfeit medicines. \"In the case of anti counterfeiting, the challenges we face are finding technologies that cannot themselves be counterfeited and transferring them to resource poor settings at an affordable cost. While technology alone cannot solve the problem, some of these solutions could greatly enhance the ability to detect and deter the distribution of counterfeit medicines.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Workshop: The political economy of health, Copenhangen, 8 July 2007","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This is to provide advance notification that there will be an exciting workshop on the political economy of health on 8 July 2007 just before the iHEA conference in Copenhagen.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32166","field_issue_date":"2007-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":" AIDS Treatment and Intrahousehold Resource Allocations: Children's Nutrition and Schooling in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Thirumurthy H, Zivin JG, Goldstein M: Center for Global Development Working Paper 105, 22 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/12218","body":"The provision of life-saving antiretroviral (ARV) treatment has emerged as a key component of the global response to HIV/AIDS, yet little is known about the impact of this intervention on the welfare of children whose parents receive treatment. In this working paper CGD post-doctoral fellow Harsha Thirumurthy and his co-authors use longitudinal household survey data collected in collaboration with a treatment program in western Kenya to provide the first estimate of the impact of ARV treatment on children\u2019s schooling and nutrition. They find that children's weekly hours of school attendance increase by over 20 percent within six months after treatment is initiated for the adult household member. Young children's short-term nutritional status also improves dramatically. Since the improvements in children\u2019s schooling and nutrition at these critical early ages will affect their socio-economic outcomes in adulthood, the authors argue that the widespread provision of ARV treatment is also likely to generate significant long-run macroeconomic benefits.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":" New data on African health professionals abroad","field_subtitle":"Center for Global Development Working Paper 95, 8 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/9267","body":"The migration of doctors and nurses from Africa to developed countries has raised fears of an African medical brain drain. But empirical research on the causes and effects of the phenomenon has been hampered by a lack of systematic data on the extent of African health workers\u2019 international movements. We use destination-country census data to estimate the number of African-born doctors and professional nurses working abroad in a developed country circa 2000, and compare this to the stocks of these workers in each country of origin. Approximately 65,000 African-born physicians and 70,000 African-born professional nurses were working overseas in a developed country in the year 2000. This represents about one fifth of African-born physicians in the world, and about one tenth of African-born professional nurses. The fraction of health professionals abroad varies enormously across African countries, from 1% to over 70% according to the occupation and country. These numbers are the first standardized, systematic, occupation-specific measure of skilled professionals working in developed countries and born in a large number of developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"10 000 abortions done in South Africa per week","field_subtitle":"The Argus, 3 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.ippf.org/NR/exeres/AC472D3D-F9C9-4961-8CC3-D31D9C6DF9C6.htm","body":"For South Africa's anti-abortion campaigners, 1 February 2007 is a day of sadness and mourning. But for the government and women's rights groups, it was a day for victory and celebration. Ten years ago, on 1 February 1997, the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act came into effect, becoming one of the most liberal abortion laws in the world. Records show a steady access to services nationally and progress towards greater service provision. A 1998-2001 mortality study by the Medical Research Council (MRC) found there was a reduction of up to 91 percent in deaths from unsafe abortions. But detractors such as Doctors for Life and the Christian Action Network continue to decry its existence and have mounted one legal challenge after the next to have it scrapped.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"4th International Gender Conference: Sexual and gender-based violence, a social nightmare provoking action","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The theme for this conference has been chosen because Sexual and Gender Based Violence is a major Public Health and Human Rights problem throughout the world. There is the call on Governments and all other Stakeholders to take concerted action and make recommendations for the Health, Education and Criminal Justice sectors of society to take the problem seriously. The organisers believe that no positive and sustainable change can occur unless the problems of Gender Equity are analysed within the framework of Public Health, Human Rights and Human Security. It is only when all aspects of society have equal rights and mutual recognition of these rights, that there can be an all encompassing and equitable development for all.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32102","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A lens on the World Social Forum","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET newsletter","field_url":"","body":"In the February newsletter we carried stories of the World Social Forum held in January 2007 and called for comment and report from those who attended. In this issue we carry three of the responses, that give a different set of lenses on and expectations of the WSF. They signal aspirations and contradictions that seemed to resonate across the WSF. The WSF offered all the potential of an agenda of social justice, international solidarity, gender equality, peace and defence of the of the environment. This made reports of big business sales of food, corporate signs and overshadowing of local people by international organisations harsh and visible contradictions. But the WSF also  gave visibility and support to struggles for health and an opportunity to amplify the call on African Union member states to meet their commitments in health, like the pledge to spend 15% of  government spending on health. If the \u201cbattle for ideas\u201d is central to the building of alternatives, the WSF taught that it is not only the content of the ideas that count, but who owns and voices them. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa's nurses: Unwitting tuberculosis carriers","field_subtitle":"Du L, Scott C, Harvey E: Medicine Online, 2007","field_url":"http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2007/february/tbnurses.htm","body":"More than half of all healthcare workers in the developing world, including Africa, are unknowingly infected with latent tuberculosis, according to a report available on the open-access Science and Development Network website. The study, published in the online journal Medicine by the open-source Public Library of Science, highlights the risk of tuberculosis transmission from patients to healthcare workers - and onward into the general community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Aids, TB and malaria: Africa declares commitment","field_subtitle":"Ogbonnaya R: This Day (Lagos), 18 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.rwandagateway.org/article.php3?id_article=4364","body":"Friends of the Global Fund Africa popularly referred to as Friends Africa, a new pan-African advocacy organisation, chose Kigali as the venue for the inauguration of its board and first board meeting to chart the way forward in the fight against HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, the three diseases it claimed have been dealing a great blow to African continent. In Kigali , Friends Africa brought together some of the most committed, credible and influential voices of Africa as an indication of African leaderships' determination to lead the fight against the three diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Amplifying the African voice in treatment advocacy","field_subtitle":"Pan African Treatement Access Movement (PATAM) Strategic Planning Workshop Report, 15-18 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/MARaids01022007.pdf","body":"The Pan African Treatment Access Movement (PATAM) is a social movement comprised of individuals and organizations dedicated to mobilising communities, political leaders, and all sectors of society to ensure access to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, as a fundamental part of comprehensive care for all people with HIV/AIDS in Africa. However, the year 2005 saw some changes that affected the movement\u2019s effectiveness and threatened its survival. These made it necessary for the PATAM leadership to convene a strategic planning workshop and make decisions concerning the movement\u2019s future. The workshop, which was hosted by the ALCS and funded by ActionAid, was divided into two parts. This document provides a detailed report of the workshop highlights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Are TRIPS protectionism at their worst?","field_subtitle":"Editorial: The Lancet 9555(369): 2, 2007","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673607600038/fulltext","body":"The article describes international campaigns that are trying to defend the access of poor people in the world to pharmaceuticals. Both campaigns are calling for the rules of a World Trade Organization agreement called Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property to be upheld. The pharmaceutical company Novartis is bringing the government of India to court for not granting a patent to the company for the cancer drug imatinib mesylate. India only grants patents for medicines that are new and innovative. The Government Pharmaceutical Organization of Thailand wishes to make a generic version of the drug efavirenz. The US government and the pharmaceutical company Merck believe that the Thai government should have asked Merck's permission first before developing the drug.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Better pay in store for health workers","field_subtitle":"Mail & Guardian (South Africa), 21 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=299850&area=/budget07_home/budget07_news/","body":"Eextra money budgeted for the Health Department means better salaries for health workers -- particularly nurses, it said on Wednesday after Finance Minister Trevor Manuel's Budget speech. The additional R5,3-billion allocated for human resources was in response to the department's proposals, said spokesperson Sibani Mngadi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Building equitable, people-centred national health systems: The role of parliament and parliamentary committees on health in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Musuka G, Chingombe I","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/KNparlMUSUKA130207.pdf","body":"The Health Systems Knowledge Network of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health in co-operation with the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) commissioned a desk review of the role of parliaments and parliamentary portfolio committees on health in building equitable and people centered national health systems. This review presents evidence from published literature, and other secondary evidence in the east and southern African regions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Bursary Competition 2007: Queen Margaret University, Edinburough","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.qmuc.ac.uk/research_knowledge/bursarycomp07.htm#topics","body":"Applications are now invited for the Bursary Competition 2007. These are the only funded studentships QMU offers. Research at Queen Margaret University (QMU) awards two higher degrees by research, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) and Master of Philosophy (MPhil). Research methods training is offered in the first semester but after that there are no taught elements as such - students are expected to manage their own research project, with guidance from a supervisor. Bursaries cover all tuition fees and provide help with living costs for three years (the prescribed period of study for a PhD). Bursaries are only available for PhD study based at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. The closing date for applications is 26 March 2007. No applications will be accepted after that date.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call to Action: Health System Strengthening through the Global Fund","field_subtitle":"The Global Fund","field_url":"","body":"Round 7 of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which launches March 1, 2007, offers an important opportunity to fund health system strengthening, including the health workforce. To prepare for Round 7, health workers, ministry of health officials, and other individuals and institutions that have an interest in their countries' health systems are strongly encouraged to consider utilizing this opportunity for strengthening health systems.  If interested, you should immediately contact members of your country's Country Coordinating Mechanism to discuss this potential, as well as the national process and timeline for developing these proposals.  The proposals are expected to be due to the Global Fund in early July 2007.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32113","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Claiming our space: Using TRIPS flexibilities to protect access to medicines","field_subtitle":"Aulline H. Mabika, Percy F. Makombe, SEATINI","field_url":"","body":"\r\nIn February this year the WHO Director General, Margaret Chan caused a storm when she was quoted in Thailand saying that the country should negotiate with pharmaceutical companies before issuing a compulsory license. She encouraged the nation\u2019s public health ministry to improve its relationship with drug companies to strike the right balance in accessing drugs. Chan\u2019s statement created the impression that there was something wrong with compulsory licensing that needed to be corrected through negotiating with pharmaceutical companies.   \r\n\r\nIf the comments were meant to shock and awe, they achieved exactly that! Shocked treatment access advocates sought clarification from the DG herself on the alleged statements. Five days after the comments appeared in the Bangkok Post of February 2, civil society received information that a letter was dispatched to Thai\u2019s Minister of Health, Mongkol Na Songkhla. There had been a misunderstanding, the Director General said. She regretted that her comments \u201cwere misrepresented in the media, and may have caused embarrassment to the government of Thailand. They should not be taken as criticism of the decision of the Royal Thai government to issue compulsory licences which is entirely the prerogative of the government, fully in line with the TRIPS agreement.\u201d\r\n\r\nFor the avoidance of doubt, the Director General went on to say the following:\r\n\"WHO unequivocally supports the use by developing countries of the flexibilities within the TRIPS agreement that ensure access to affordable, high quality drugs. This includes the use of compulsory licensing, as described in paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health. The decision whether to issue a compulsory license for a pharmaceutical product is a national one. There is no requirement for countries to negotiate with patent holders before issuing a compulsory licence.\"\r\n \r\nThis statement helped to clarify an impression that pharmaceutical companies have higher priority than people\u2019s lives. For Africa this is particularly important, with Southern Africa the epicentre of the global HIV epidemic with 34 % of global AIDS deaths occurring in the region.  While AIDS places a heavy burden on households and health systems generally, the cost of treatment for AIDS continues to be disproportionate to the incomes of affected families and of governments.\r\n\r\nAccording to Oxfam reports, prices of some treatment regimens for AIDS are on the rise. This is saddening evidence coming six years after the historic signing of the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health in 2001. Fierce generic competition has helped prices for first-line AIDS drug regimen to fall by 99% from $10,000 to roughly $130 per patient per year since 2000. However prices for second-line drugs remain high due to increased patent barriers in key generics producing countries like India.   Patients who develop resistance to first line regimens need these second line drugs, and the number is likely to grow over time, as will the unaffordable cost to health systems. \r\n\r\nAs outlined in the EQUINET / SEATINI  leaflet on using TRIPS flexibilities (at www.equinetafrica.org)  countries have full authority under TRIPS to use compulsory licensing or parallel importation of drugs if their laws provide for this and they need them for public health., Most (but not all) countries in the region have now passed the relevant laws for this. But the political and diplomatic pressure to dissuade governments from using these TRIPS flexibilities keeps mounting. A case in point is the legal action against the Indian government by a pharmaceutical company, Novartis. Novartis is challenging a section of India's Patents Act that aims to restrict certain kinds of patents. Novartis brought a civil lawsuit against the Indian government after the country rejected in January 2006  the company's attempt to patent a new version of its leukaemia drug, Gleevec,  on the basis that the drug is a new formulation of an existing drug. If  Novartis wins the case it could potentially set a precedent for other pharmaceutical companies seeking patent protection for formulations of drugs made before 1995, including antiretrovirals.\r\n\r\nAs institutions involved in health in Africa, we expect no ambiguity on this from WHO. Governments should be encouraged to use the flexibilities provided to them in the WTO TRIPS Agreement, including issuing compulsory licenses,  to access generic drugs. With the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria and UNAIDS, still more needs to be done to bring down the cost of these drugs, particularly of the second line regimens, and to make them affordable on a long term basis.\r\n\r\nFor our part, we expect our governments and parliaments to ensure that our national laws incorporate TRIPs flexibilities, that our authorities are organised to implement them and that our populations are organised to protect their use. We expect our governments to reject clauses in bilateral trade agreements that attempt to remove authority to use these flexibilities.  We have regional intergovernmental organisations such as COMESA and SADC to share information, resources and expertise and to harmonise legislation. \r\n\r\nWe can also stimulate the production and marketing of generic drugs, increasing returns to producers and access for people who need them. We can work through these same regional organisations to collectively issue compulsory licenses for common public health problems. In Latin America, for example, ten countries joined efforts to get agreements from generic manufacturers and originators on generic drug production. If ESA countries use regional frameworks to collectively issue compulsory licenses for the same drug, this builds a large enough market to encourage producers to invest in producing cheaper, generic versions of these drugs.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC, email admin@equinetafrica.org and please visit the SEATINI website at www.seatini.org. EQUINET work on health equity in economic and trade policy and further information on TRIPS flexibilities is available at the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Compulsory Licences statement slated by NGOs","field_subtitle":"Khor M","field_url":"","body":"A controversy has emerged in the last few days on statements made by the new World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Dr Margaret Chan on the compulsory licenses issued by the Thai government for the production of three patented drugs. Dr Chan was in Bangok to attend the Prince Mahidol Award Conference 2007 held on 1-2 February 2007. Witnesses noted quite a shocking series of events linked to the event.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32089","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation","field_subtitle":"Piller C, Sanders E, Dixon R: L A Times, 7 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14309","body":"In a contradiction between its grants and its endowment holdings, Corporate Watch reports that Gates Foundation provides 5% of its worth annually as grants for health initiatives, public education and social welfare and invests the other 95% of its worth. The investigation found investments in companies that have failed tests of social responsibility because of environmental lapses, employment discrimination, disregard for worker rights, or unethical practices. Corporate Watch outlines those investments that appear to contradict the foundations grant support goals and the feedback obtained from the Gates Foundation on the findings. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Development of AMSTAR: a measurement tool to assess the methodological quality of systematic reviews","field_subtitle":"Shea  BJ, Grimshaw JM, Wells GA, Boers M, Andersson N, Hamel C, Porter AC, Tugwell P, Moher  D, Bouter LM: BMC Medical Research Methodology 7:10, 15 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/7/10/abstract","body":"A measurement tool for the assessment of multiple systematic reviews (AMSTAR) was developed. The tool consists of 11 items and has good face and content validity for measuring the methodological quality of systematic reviews. Additional studies are needed with a focus on the reproducibility and construct validity of AMSTAR, before strong recommendations on its use can be made.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Dialogue between Africans and Asians at the World Social Forum: \u201cStruggles in the South are changing the World!\u201d ","field_subtitle":"Mwajuma Masaiganah, Tanzania","field_url":"","body":"Prior to the World Social Forum in Nairobi, as people from African and Asian countries in \u201cthe South\u201d we met and discussed over two days our conditions, our experience and how we can work to construct an Africa and an Asia where we can control our resources and make decisions in the interests of ordinary people.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32104","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"District health barometer","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust, 22 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041533","body":"The highest per capita primary health care expenditure in the public sector by a district in South Africa during 2005/06 was R416 per person in Bophirima district in the North West province. This is in stark contrast to the lowest rate of R115 per person spent in Greater Sekhukhune, a relatively deprived district in Limpopo province. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Does living in an urban environment confer advantages for childhood nutritional status? Analysis of disparities in nutritional status by wealth and residence in Angola, Central African Republic and Senegal","field_subtitle":"Kennedy G, Nantel G, Brouwer ID, Kok FJ: Public Health and Nutrition 9(2):187-93, April 2006","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16571172&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum","body":"The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between childhood undernutrition and poverty in urban and rural areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\nWebsite design: Fahamu\r\nTo subscribe, visit: http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\nPlease send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org\r\nPlease forward this to others.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 73: Claiming our space: Using TRIPS flexibilities to protect access to medicines ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place.\r\n\r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Experience of initiating collaboration of traditional healers in managing HIV and AIDS in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Kayombo EJ, Uiso FC, Mbwambo ZH, Mahunnah RL, Moshi MJ, Mgonda YH: Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 3:6, 26 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.ethnobiomed.com/content/3/1/6","body":"Collaboration between traditional healers and biomedical practitioners is now being accepted by many African countries south of the Sahara because of the increasing problem of HIV/AIDS. The key problem, however, is how to initiate collaboration between two health systems which differ in theory of disease causation and management. This paper presents findings on experience learned by initiation of collaboration between traditional healers and the Institute of Traditional Medicine in Arusha and Dar-es-Salaam Municipalities, Tanzania where 132 and 60 traditional healers respectively were interviewed. Of these 110 traditional healers claimed to be treating HIV/AIDS. The objective of the study was to initiate sustainable collaboration with traditional healers in managing HIV/AIDS. Consultative meetings with leaders of traditional healers' associations and government officials were held, followed by surveys at respective traditional healers' \"vilinge\" (traditional clinics). The findings were analysed using both qualitative and quantitative methods.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Generic drugs stand by WHO Chief slammed","field_subtitle":"Macan-Markar M: Inter Press Service News, 2 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36420","body":"Civil society and humanitarian groups slammed the new head of the World Health Organisation (WHO), on the sidelines of a meeting here, after she appeared to favour the interests of pharmaceutical giants over the plight of the sick and the poor in the developing world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Generic medicines defended by Malaysian Attorney-General","field_subtitle":"3D Information Note 6, 5 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.3dthree.org/pdf_3D/3Dnote6_Malaysia2007.pdf","body":"Malaysia's Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani has publicly stated his country's stand \"that generic drugs should not be restricted in any manner,\" as generics are cheaper than patented medicines. He made this statement before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), whose session concluded in Geneva last week. He was speaking in response to pointed questions from the Committee?s Chair, Jacob E. Doek, who asked Malaysian governmental representatives how they can ensure that trade agreements do not affect provision of generic medicines, particularly for the treatment of HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Generics License statement regretable says WHO Director General","field_subtitle":"Khor M: Third World Network, 15 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/wto.info/twninfo503.htm","body":"The WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan, has sent a letter to Thailand's Health Minister expressing regret for the embarrassment caused to his government by remarks she was reported to have made in Bangkok that were critical of the compulsory licenses granted by the government for three medicines. The letter follows the deep offence that Dr. Chan's comments had caused the government and particularly the Minister of Public Health. Dr. Chan's reported comments had also caused outrage among international health NGOs and grassroots health movements worldwide, especially groups representing people living with HIV-AIDS. More than 400 groups and individuals have sent her a protest letter asking her to change her views.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Groups urge Novartis to drop patent case against India","field_subtitle":"Raja K: Third World Network, 30 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/twninfohealth073.htm","body":"Nearly a quarter of a million persons from more than 150 countries have voiced concerns over the negative impact that a legal challenge brought by the multinational pharmaceutical company Novartis against India's patent law could have on access to medicines in developing countries. The legal challenge brought by the Swiss-based Novartis against the government of India began to be heard in the Chennai High Court on Monday - despite an international petition launched by the international medical humanitarian organization Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) last December to put pressure on the company to drop its patent case against India.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and democracy: A guide to human rights, health law and policy in post apartheid South Africa","field_subtitle":"Hassim A, Heywood M, Berger J: Siber Ink Publishers","field_url":"http://www.siberink.co.za/book.php?id_book=47","body":"This book highlights the key issues that constitute and affect health law in post apartheid South Africa. It is a constructive, precise and detailed book that has innovative ideas on how the law can be used to protect and serve its people more effectively. It examines the South African health system from a rights perspective and makes recommendations for future policy and legislative development. It draws attention to many complex issues linked to health care and goes on to challenge health personnel, policy makers and users of the health system to defend the human right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health insurance for the informal sector in Tanzania: Social security for the excluded majority","field_subtitle":"Kiwara, A: International Labour Organisation (ILO)","field_url":"http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/socsec/pol/publ/discus5e.htm#ch5","body":"For the past two decades the informal sector has grown very rapidly in Tanzania. In the early 1990s it was estimated to be contributing about 60% of the country's GDP. Some authorities even believe that this figure is an underestimate. This sector provides a \"safety net\" to many women and youth in the country. Its role in providing for livelihood is becoming more important as the formal sector shrinks due to retrenchment. This feasibility study aimed at assessing how and under what conditions the outputs produced and the activities deployed by the ILO project on social security for the informal sector will contribute to the establishment of a social security system in the two areas. The main emphasis for this study was the establishment of health insurance schemes in the identified areas, i.e., Mbeya and Arusha.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health sector reforms and human resources for health in Uganda and Bangladesh: mechanisms of effect","field_subtitle":"Ssengooba F, Rahman SA, Hongoro C, Rutebemberwa E, Mustafa A, Kielmann T, McPake, B: Human Resources for Health 5:3, 1 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/5/1/3","body":"Despite the expanding literature on how reforms may affect health workers and which reactions they may provoke, little research has been conducted on the mechanisms of effect through which health sector reforms either promote or discourage health worker performance. This paper seeks to trace these mechanisms and examines the contextual framework of reform objectives in Uganda and Bangladesh, and health workers' responses to the changes in their working environments by taking a 'realistic evaluation' approach.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS Civic Society Organisations and movements working on access address WHO DG","field_subtitle":"5 February 2007","field_url":"","body":"This letter represents people living with HIV/AIDS and their advocates around the world who are fighting for access to affordable treatment for HIV, writing to request that the Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) reconsider her comments regarding the Thai government\u2019s decision to issue a compulsory license for the production or importation of three drugs, two for treating HIV/AIDS. They state that she has been entrusted, in your position as director general of WHO, to work for \u201cthe attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health\u201d, and their belief that her comments last week do not reflect this mission, and in fact work against it.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32109","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Home-based management of fever in rural Uganda: community perceptions and provider opinions","field_subtitle":"Nsabagasani X,  Sabiiti JN, K\u00e4llander K, Peterson S, Pariyo G, Tomson G: Malaria Journal 6:11, 26 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/6/1/11","body":"Uganda was the first country to scale up Home Based Management of Fever/ Malaria (HBM) in 2002. Under HBM pre-packaged unit doses with a combination Sulphadoxine/Pyrimethamin (SP) and Chloroquine (CQ) called \"HOMAPAK\" are administered to all febrile children by community selected voluntary drug distributors (DDs). In this study, community perceptions, health worker and drug provider opinions about the community based distribution of HOMAPAK and its effect on the use of other antimalarials were assessed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Increasing public health spending in the South","field_subtitle":"ActionAid International USA ","field_url":"http://ifiwatchnet.org/calendar/item.shtml?x=55444","body":"ActionAid International USA presents an introductory exploration of alternative macroeconomic policies for beginners from tuesday 13 March 2007 to 15 March 2007. This economic literacy training is designed to introduce US-based international advocacy organisations working on health, education, HIV/AIDS and women's rights to the issues and debates about how to increase public spending in poor countries throughout the Global South. This training is designed to provide a simple and clear introductory overview of the key issues for NGOs and non-economists, and will include several presentations by professional economists to explain the current policies and introduce possible alternatives that would enable countries to hire more doctors, nurses and teachers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"International Women's Day 2007","field_subtitle":"IWD, February 2007","field_url":"http://www.internationalwomensday.com/news.asp","body":"Organisations, companies, governments and media all around the world are busy planning exciting and meaningful International Women's Day activities for 8 March 2007. The UN theme for International Women's Day is \"Ending Impunity for Violence against Women and Girls\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Linking Migration, HIV/AIDS and Urban Food Security in Southern and Eastern Africa","field_subtitle":"Southern African Mobility Project (SAMP)","field_url":"http://www.ifpri.org/renewal/pdf/UrbanRural.pdf","body":"Mobility is the means by which many individuals and households seek security of income and livelihood: traders move between sources and markets, migrant workers go to mines, factories, towns and farms. Looking specifically at the experiences of women, both as street traders and domestic workers, the authors find that mobility is that is essential to securing these women's individual and household livelihoods increases their vulnerability to HIV. Research found that lack of information on HIV was one of the main factors in making them more vulnerable highlighting the need for HIV education initiatives targeted at specific migrant communities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Nominations for the CORE and SUPPORT delegation","field_subtitle":"The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria","field_url":"http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/files/partners/civil_society/meetings/Nominations_Core_Support.pdf","body":"Communities living with HIV, TB and affected by Malaria Delegation Global Fund to fight HIV, TB and Malaria for the AIDS Alliance are soliciting nominations for CORE delegation members for the Global Fund Board delegation of the Communities Living with HIV, TB and affected by Malaria. They are also soliciting nominations for SUPPORT delegation members for the Global Fund Board delegation of the Communities Living with HIV, TB and affected by Malaria. The closing date for all nominations is Monday 5 March 2007 at 17h00 GMT.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"People\u2019s Health Movement South Africa Coordination: Part-time one year contract position with a possibility of renewal","field_subtitle":"People's Health Movement, 2007","field_url":"","body":"The Peoples Health Movement (PHM) is a large global civil society network of health activists supportive of the WHO policy of Health for All and organised to combat the economic and political causes of deepening inequalities in health worldwide and revitalise the implementation of WHO\u2019s strategy of Primary Health Care. PHM in South Africa (PHM-SA) is currently most active in Cape Town, but we aim to extend our activities throughout South Africa. They are looking for a dynamic and well organized person to co-ordinate the PHM-SA activities in consultation with the Cape Town-based Steering Committee. The closing date is Friday 2 March 2007.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32103","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"PEPFAR: Helping or hindering the workforce planning of health systems in poor countries? A call for evidence, case studies and stories","field_subtitle":"Physicians for Human Rights","field_url":"","body":"Physicians for Human Rights and the Global Health Watch are calling for evidence, case studies and anecdotal reports of PEPFAR\u2019s impact on health workforce planning in order to provide members of the US Congress and other officials who are seeking to improve the effectiveness of PEPFAR. Please submit or inform them of any evidence, reports, case studies or stories that can help answer the following questions. There are two deadlines by which we seek this information. \u2022 As soon as possible, not later than February 23rd \u2013 to inform Congress in time for them to be able to influence PEPFAR\u2019s operational plans for FY 08 and \u2022 June 15th \u2013 to allow information to be incorporated into the next alternative world health report, as well as to help inform the reauthorization of PEPFAR.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32115","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Projections of global mortality and burden of disease from 2002 to 2030.","field_subtitle":"Mathers CD, Loncar,D:  Plos Medicine 3(11): e442-e442","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/archive/1549-1676/3/11/pdf/10.1371_journal.pmed.0030442-S.pdf","body":"Global and regional projections of mortality and burden of disease by cause for the years 2000, 2010, and 2030 were published by Murray and Lopez in 1996 as part of the Global Burden of Disease project. To address the widespread demand for information on likely future trends in global health, and thereby to support international health policy and priority setting, the authors have prepared new projections of mortality and burden of disease to 2030 starting from World Health Organization estimates of mortality and burden of disease for 2002. This paper describes the methods, assumptions, input data and results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Prominent figures call on Novartis called to drop its case in India","field_subtitle":"Raja K: Third World Network, 17 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/twninfohealth077.htm","body":"More prominent figures have joined the chorus of over 300,000 people worldwide voicing concerns about Novartis\u2019 legal challenge against the Indian government and its impact on access to essential medicines across the globe. They include the former Swiss President, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Stephen Lewis former UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, and Dr. Michel Kazatchkine, the head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Record linkage research and informed consent: who consents?","field_subtitle":"Huang N, Shih SF  , Chang HY, Chou YJ: BMC Health Services Research 7:18, 12 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/7/18/abstract","body":"Linking computerized health insurance records with routinely collected survey data is becoming increasingly popular in health services research. However, if consent is not universal, the requirement of written informed consent may introduce a number of research biases. The participants of a national health survey in Taiwan were asked to have their questionnaire results linked to their national health insurance records. This study compares those who consented with those who refused.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Regulating private health insurance to serve the public interest: policy issues for developing countries","field_subtitle":"Sekhri N, Savedoff W: The International journal of health planning and management 21(4): 357-392","field_url":"http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/113444159/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0","body":"Private health insurance plays a large and increasing role around the world. This paper reviews international experiences and shows that private health insurance is significant in countries with widely different income levels and health system structures. It contrasts trends in private health insurance expansion across regions and highlights countries with particularly important experiences of private coverage. It then discusses the regulatory approaches and policies that can structure private health insurance markets in ways that mobilize resources for health care, promote financial risk protection, protect consumers and reduce inequities. The paper argues that policy makers need to confront the role that private health insurance will play in their health systems and regulate the sector appropriately so that it serves public goals of universal coverage and equity. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Report hits Global Fund expenses: donations used for meals, limos","field_subtitle":"Donnely J: The Boston Globe, 5 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2007/02/05/disease_fighting_funds_expenses_hit/","body":"The executive director of a $7 billion fund to fight deadly diseases in the world's poorest countries has made extensive use of a little-known private bank account, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on limousines, expensive meals, boat cruises, and other expenses, according to an internal investigation. While not disputing 37 specific limousine charges in cities across Europe and the United States, dozens of entertainment and meals expenses, among other expenditures the inspector general deemed excessive, the Global Fund spokesman disputed the context, tone, and several facts in the inspector general's report. A separate investigation, overseen by the World Health Organization, also raised concerns about the use of the private bank account.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Sharing the burden of TB/HIV? Costs and financing of public\u2013private partnerships for tuberculosis treatment in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Sinanovic E, Kumaranayake L: Tropical Medicine & International Health 11(9): 1466-1474","field_url":"http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-3156.2006.01686.x","body":"The objective of this study was to explore the economic costs and sources of financing for different public\u2013private partnership (PPP) arrangements to tuberculosis (TB) provision involving both workplace and non-profit private providers in South Africa. The financing required for the different models from the perspective of the provincial TB programme, provider, and the patient are considered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTH AFRICAN HEALTH REVIEW 2006 - Maternal, Womens and Child Health - the unfinished agenda","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust, 22 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20041496","body":"Great strides have been made in improving maternal care in South Africa over the last decade. A record high of ninety percent of pregnant women attend antenatal care and 92% of deliveries of babies are conducted by skilled health workers. Despite such achievements in access to care, maternal deaths are on the increase, mostly fuelled the HIV and TB epidemics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Steep HIV prevalence declines among young people in selected Zambian communities: population-based observations (1995\u20132003)","field_subtitle":"Michelo C, Sand\u00f8y IF, Dzekedzeke K, Siziya S, Fylkesnes K: BMC Public Health 6:279, 10 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/6/279","body":"Understanding the epidemiological HIV context is critical in building effective setting-specific preventive strategies. We examined HIV prevalence patterns in selected communities of men and women aged 15\u201359 years in Zambia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Streamlining ARV provision for refugees","field_subtitle":"Science in Africa, February 2007","field_url":"http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2007/february/hivrefugee.htm","body":"The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, has launched a new policy to ensure that HIV-positive refugees and other displaced people around the world have access to life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) medication. The policy, designed to offer guidance to UNHCR and its partners as well as host governments, aims to integrate ARV provision as part of a comprehensive HIV/AIDS programme for refugees that includes prevention, care and support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Tackling Malawi's human resources crisis","field_subtitle":"Palmer D: Reproductive Health Matters: 14 (27): 27-39, 2006","field_url":"http://www.medscape.com/medline/publicationbrowser/11759/14_27/dt_05012006/limit_0","body":"In sub-Saharan Africa, health systems are fragile and staffing is grossly inadequate to meet rising health needs. Despite growing international attention, donors have been reluctant to undertake the significant investments required to address the human resources problem comprehensively, given social and political sensitivities, and concerns regarding sustainability of interventions and risks of rising donor dependency. In Malawi in 2004 the government launched a new health initiative to deliver an Essential Health Package, including a major scale-up of HIV and AIDS related services. Improving staffing levels is the single biggest challenge to implementing this approach. Registration (free of charge) with medscape is required to view the article.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The BIAS FREE Framework: A practical tool for identifying and eliminating social biases in health research","field_subtitle":"Burke MA, Eichler M: Global Forum for Health Research","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/filesupld/Bias%20free/Testimonials.pdf","body":"The BIAS FREE Framework is a new, rights-based tool for identifying and eliminating biases deriving from social hierarchies in research, legislation, policies, programs, service delivery and practices. We know that you will find the BIAS FREE Framework of interest. See www.globalforumhealth.org to order hard copies or to download a pdf version.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32118","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The cost of uncomplicated childhood fevers to Kenyan households: implications for reaching international access targets","field_subtitle":"Larson BA, Amin AA, Noor AM, Zurovac D, Snow RW: BMC Public Health 6:314, 29 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/6/314","body":"We assemble data developed between 2001 and 2002 in Kenya to describe treatment choices made by rural households to treat a child's fever and the related costs to households. Using a cost-of-illness approach, we estimate the expected cost of a childhood fever to Kenyan households in 2002. We develop two scenarios to explore how expected costs to households would change if more children were treated at a health care facility with an effective antimalarial within 48 hours of fever onset.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The cost-effectiveness of Antiretroviral Treatment in Khayelitsha, South Africa \u2013 a primary data analysis","field_subtitle":"Cleary SM, McIntyre D, Boulle AM: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 4:20, 6 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/4/1/20","body":"Given the size of the HIV epidemic in South Africa and other developing countries, scaling up antiretroviral treatment (ART) represents one of the key public health challenges of the next decade. Appropriate priority setting and budgeting can be assisted by economic data on the costs and cost-effectiveness of ART. The objectives of this research were therefore to estimate HIV healthcare utilisation, the unit costs of HIV services and the cost per life year (LY) and quality adjusted life year (QALY) gained of HIV treatment interventions from a provider's perspective.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The dispossession of African wealth at the cost of African health","field_subtitle":"Bond P","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DISbondTRADE.pdf","body":"This article synthesises data reported in EQUINET discussion paper 30 about the outflow of Africa\u2019s wealth, to reveal structural factors behind the continent\u2019s ongoing underdevelopment. The flow of wealth out of sub-Saharan Africa to the North occurs primarily through exploitative debt and finance, phantom aid, capital flight, unfair trade, and distorted investment. Although the resource drain from Africa dates back many centuries\u2014beginning with unfair terms of trade, amplified through slavery, colonialism, and neocolonialism\u2014today, neoliberal (free market) policies are the most direct causes of inequality and poverty. They tend to amplify preexisting class, race, gender, and regional disparities and to exacerbate ecological degradation. Reversing this outflow is just one challenge in the struggle for policy measures to establish a stronger funding base for the health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of academics at the WSF","field_subtitle":"Fred Mugisha, Kenya","field_url":"","body":"I'm apprehensive- what can I, an academic, write about the World Social Forum (WSF) January 2007? This WSF in Nairobi was the first I had attended. I was invited by the Eastern Africa Coalition on Economic social and cultural rights under the Human rights caucus to discuss how evidence from research supports civil society efforts. I met several groups of people from all walks of life, and from all over the world \u2013 farmers, people living in slums, refugees, gay people, those fighting for the rights of the poor, and others. After my talk, a Civil Society Organization (CSO) leader came to me and said: \u201cMugisha, thank for your talk. We in civil society have the guns, but we lack bullets\u201d. For a moment, I did not understand. Was he talking about a guerilla war?  Later I understood him to mean that civil society have the platform, but lack the evidence to inform and sharpen their messages for maximum impact.\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32120","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The state of the world's children","field_subtitle":"UNICEF, 2007","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/sowc07/docs/sowc07.pdf","body":"The State of the World\u2019s Children 2007 examines the discrimination and disempowerment women face throughout their lives \u2013 and outlines what must be done to eliminate gender discrimination and empower women and girls. It looks at the status of women today, discusses how gender equality will move all the Millennium Development Goals forward, and shows how investment in women\u2019s rights will ultimately produce a double dividend: advancing the rights of both women and children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Toward Food and Nutrition Security in Africa","field_subtitle":"International Food Policy Research Institute, January 2007","field_url":"http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/books/gi20.asp","body":"Several major initiatives in the past few years have brought renewed attention and commitment to economic development and food and nutrition security in Africa. The recent economic recovery and the new commitment to change among African leaders and development partners indicate for the first time after decades that Africa is poised to achieve real progress toward food and nutrition security. Sustaining and accelerating growth to reach the poverty reduction and nutrition Millennium Development Goals will require clear strategies to guide future policy and investment decisions. Furthermore, these goals seek to only halve the number of poor and malnourished in the next 10 years, something a number of African countries will fail to do. Progress toward food and nutrition security in Africa, therefore, calls for more than growth and requires a greater focus on human welfare improvement supported by adequate investments in health and nutrition safety nets to protect vulnerable segments of the population.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Executive Board unable to move IP Group process","field_subtitle":"Hong E: Third World Network, 2 February 2007","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/twninfohealth071.htm","body":"Several developing-country members of the Executive Board of the World Health Organisation have expressed concern and frustration at the lack of progress and direction of a WHO group tasked with charting the organisation's future action on intellectual property, innovation and health. These concerns were voiced at the WHO's Executive Board meeting being held on 22-30 January. At the end of the discussion on the item, the frustration was even more palpable because the Board itself could not seem to make any progress on the issue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"World Social Forum: Demand political liberation of communities to take control of right to health","field_subtitle":"Thomas Deve, Zimbabwe","field_url":"","body":"Kasarani, an otherwise sleepy stadium in Nairobi, Kenya was a beehive of activity in January.  Thousands of activists from all corners of the world thronged the stadium for the World Social Forum in search of a path to sustainable development, social and economic justice, continuing a tradition that started with the first the WSF, organized in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001. For all of us present, we realise that building another world is possible, but through alternative models for people-centred and self-reliant progress, and not the current neo-liberal globalization. Those who work on health had a clear message on what that means for health. \u201cHealth is a fundamental right. The time has come work for the right to health, to put in place universal, comprehensive and equitable health systems and social security.\u201d","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32121","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Social Forum: Trade fair to Left politics?","field_subtitle":"Bond P: Pambazuka News 289, February 2007","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/issue/289","body":"In this article Patrick Bond assesses the aftermath of the World Social Forum (WSF), held from January 20-25 in Nairobi. It documents that there were some triumphs for social justice, but also some worrying trends that emerged from the forum. Bond examines what it means for the future of the WSF concept. It describes how a mixed message - combining celebration and autocritique - is in order, in the wake of the Nairobi World Social Forum. From January 20-25, the 60,000 registered participants heard the triumph of radical rhetoric and yet, too, witnessed persistent defeats for social justice causes - especially within the WSF's own processes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WSF007? Loved it!!!","field_subtitle":"Kachingwe N: AGP Global Action News, February 2007","field_url":"http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/wsf/nairobi2007/loved_it.html","body":"This author introduces themselves as an overtly vocal critic. She reports being most disheartened about the avalanche of negative writing that has thundered from on high on the WSF and discusses ways in which the 2007 World Social Forum (WSF-Africa)produced failures and achievements. She ends on a high note \"From the bottom of my heart to all those people who came to WSF, who organised their workshops, seminars, tribunals and marches, who set up their tents and sat through hours of discussion, who travelled for 3 days on the bus, who got grey hairs being in the organising committees or dealing with the organising committees, whose possessions were stolen or burnt, who lost luggage, who were denied visas, who monopolised communication services, who catered, who invaded the caterers, who brought partners, ex-presidents and Nobel prize winners, who played drums and rapped and sang and danced, who spoke for an hour rather than 10 minutes, who shared their personal experiences, who wrote all manner of nasty articles, who ripped us off in taxis, who cleaned the portable toilets for little thanks, who printed not so practical programmes .... everyone, everyone, everyone, everyone ... till we meet again ... ASANTE SANA! VIVA!\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia: HIV/AIDS service provision assessment survey 2005","field_subtitle":"Ministry of Health (Zambia), Central Statistical Office (Zambia), ORC Macro: 2006","field_url":"http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADH774.pdf","body":"This report summarises the findings of the 2005 Zambia HIV/AIDS Service Provision Assessment (Zambia HIV/AIDS SPA) Survey carried out by the Zambia Ministry of Health and the Zambia Central Statistical Office. ORC Macro provided technical assistance and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided funding.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"4th Summer Institute for New Global Health Researchers: 13-20 August 2007","field_subtitle":"Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research","field_url":"http://www.ccghr.ca/default.cfm?content=si4&lang=e&subnav=summer_institute","body":"The Canadian Coalition calls for applications for the 4th Summer Institute for New Global Health Researchers, to be held in partnership with the Centre for Development Studies in Trivandrum, Kerala, India from August 13-20, 2007. By \u201cglobal health research\u201d we mean research concerning the problems borne by societies in low and middle income countries (LMICs). A limited number of spaces are available for this training opportunity for \u201cdyads\u201d - that is, pairs of researchers with one participant from a low- or middle-income country and one from Canada, who are members of the same project or program team. The deadline for receipt of applications is 1 March 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A call for reflections on health at the World Social Forum Nairobi ","field_subtitle":"We would like to hear from you!","field_url":"","body":"Hopes, experiences, optimism, evidence, critique, challenge and expectation- we present in this section reports from those at the World Social Forum held in Nairobi in January 2007. We welcome opinion pieces, reports on sessions relating to health issues, position papers or comments on the WSF and would like to hear your experiences and impressions of the sessions that had relevance to health. Please write to us at admin@equinetafrica.org and we will include inputs in our next newsletter. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A critical review of the World Social Forum","field_subtitle":"Rasheed KJ: Phambazuka News 288, 17 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/39218","body":"The World Social Forum first met in 2001 in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, as a challenge to the World Economic Forum (WEF) and 'claimed to organize an alternative to capitalist neo-liberal globalisation. The author further describes their experience as they scoured for analysis of the World Social Forum, and came across critiques accusing the WSF of being a glorified discussion group for the emerging class of career activists and NGOs, to an incubator for the domestication of possibly explosive actors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Addressing the human resources crisis: a case study of the Namibian health service","field_subtitle":"McCourt W, Awases M: Human Resources for Health 5(1), 15 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/5/1/1","body":"This paper addresses an important practical challenge to staff management. In 2000 the United Nations committed themselves to the ambitious targets embodied in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Only five years later, it was clear that poor countries were not on track to achieve them. It was also clear that achieving the three out of the eight MDGs that concern health would only be possible if the appropriate human resources (HR) were in place.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Beyond Toronto: Prospects for universal access to HIV/AIDS care","field_subtitle":"Foster JW: The North-South Institute 2006 Winter Review, January 2007","field_url":"http://www.nsi-ins.ca/english/pdf/Review_FallWinter_2006.pdf","body":"\"We have the goal: universal access to prevention, care,treatment and support by 2010. We have the means: the United Nations review session on HIV/AIDS in June declared that the drugs and the resources exist. Do we have the will? The 16th International Conference on AIDS in Toronto, August 13\u201318, was a testing ground and the jury is very definitely still out. The Toronto conference was the largest and perhaps the best publicized of its kind. It had significant African, HIV-positive and youth participation, but remained predominantly Northern (and North American), professional and male. It needed much more extensive representation from countries facing growing threats in Eastern Europe, Central, Eastern and Southern Asia.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Closing the gap on gender-based violence","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 19 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57122&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa%2C","body":"In a country long sickened by the frighteningly high level of sexual violence, one of the greatest challenges facing South Africa is closing the gap between the rhetoric of gender equality and the reality on the ground. The prevalence of gender-based violence is reflected in stark statistics: between April 2004 and March 2005, 55,114 cases of rape were reported to the police. The number of actual cases was likely much higher, considering only an estimated one in nine women report cases of sexual assault, according to the Medical Research Council (MRC). The MRC also estimates that a woman is killed by her intimate partner every six hours.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Core competencies in human rights for health professionals","field_subtitle":"The University of Cape Town, School of Public Health and Family Medicine, Health and Human Rights Programme","field_url":"http://www.hhr.uct.ac.za/conferences/conferences.php","body":"The Health and Human Rights Programme at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, in conjunction with the Health Professions Council of South Africa, the South African Nursing Coulncil, the South African Medical Association and the Democratic Nurses Organisation, hosted a conference exploring what are Core Competencies in Human Rights for graduates in the health professions. The conference aimed to provide guidance to those bodies setting standards for our graduates as to what kinds of competencies and skills should be expected of doctors, nurses and other health professionals once they graduate from our training institutions. The conference took place from Wednesday 5th to Friday 7th July and helped to develop recommendations for curriculum standards for graduates in the health professions in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Country health equity analysis: Malawi","field_subtitle":"Banda HTR, Bongololo G, Ng'ombe J, Makwiza I (2007)","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REQMalawi06.pdf","body":"This report explores the health equity issues in Malawi, as a country equity analysis and contribution to the regional picture. It explores the current equity situation in Malawi through a review of literature and a meeting of local institutions, and proposes areas of focus for future work. It addresses the potential to promote equity in health through a strong network of equity actors whose voice would advocate for equitable access to basic quality health care in Malawi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Declaration of the Abuja Food Security Summit","field_subtitle":"African Union: Summit on Food Security in Africa, Abuja Nigeria, 4-7 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.africa-union.org/root/au/Conferences/Past/2006/December/REA/summit/doc/Abuja_Decl_Final_Eng.doc","body":"Despite a wealth of stakeholder consultations, plans, recommendations, commitments and declarations, food insecurity in Africa remains at unacceptably high levels (27%). There is general concern that the implementation of Maputo and Sirte summit decisions is not moving at the right pace to make a significant contribution to the attainment of MDGs by 2015. In line with the NEPAD philosophy of increasing reliance on Africa's own resources, the challenge facing the 2006 Abuja Food Security Summit is to accelerate reduction of food and nutrition insecurity through fostering mind-set change in mobilisation and utilisation of African resources to implement a few quick wins at national, RECs and continental levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Development Tanzania: Sachs Says it is possible to meet MDGs","field_subtitle":"Nieuwoudt S: Inter Press Service News Agency, 22 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=36253","body":"World renowned economist and director of the United Nations (UN) Millennium Project, Jeffrey Sachs, is a harbinger of good news. During his visit to Nairobi in mid-January he emphasised that it was still possible to meet the MDGs before 2015. \u2018\u2018We can still achieve the Millennium Development Goals if proper use is made of the powerful tools at our disposal. But two things are necessary: sustained partnerships between governments and civil society and sustained donor resource input\u2019\u2019. UN secretary general Kofi Annan commissioned the Millennium Project to develop an action plan against poverty under Sachs\u2019 leadership.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion Paper 34: Distribution of public sector health workers in Zimbabwe: A challenge for equity in health","field_subtitle":"Mudyarabikwa O, Mbengwa A","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Diss34hresZim.pdf","body":"Zimbabwe, like many other countries in the region, is badly affected by a shortage of health workers. Many of the health indicator improvements achieved during the first ten years of independence are on the decline and a major reason for this is shortage of skilled and experienced health workers at a time when demand for services is increasing due to a growing population and the challenges posed by HIV and AIDS. The public sector provides as much as 65% of health care services in the country, so a shortage of public sector health workers affects the majority of the population. Against a background of increasing shortages, the report argues for improved management practices and better distribution of human resources in health care systems. This study presents evidence on the distribution of public sector health workers in Zimbabwe and the impacts on equity objectives in health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 40: A literature review of district health systems in east and southern Africa: Facilitators and barriers to participation in health","field_subtitle":"Lopez-Levers L, Magweva FI, Mpofu E","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS40ehsLOPEZ.pdf","body":"This study reviewed the available published and grey literature, with a focus on primary health care and the district health systems in sub-Saharan Africa, in order to explore the facilitators and barriers to community participation. Six African countries were selected for deeper review and analysis: Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Rwanda, Swaziland and Tanzania. The work signals a need for more culturally informed interventions that draw from indigenous knowledge bases, with evidence-based data that is culturally relevant, and that contextualises poverty, health risks and systems in sub-Saharan Africa. The review identifies a number of challenges, not the least of which is the prevailing perspective of the citizen as an object of health rather than as an active subject. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 43: Zimbabwe National Health Sector Budget Analysis and Equity Issues","field_subtitle":"Zimbabwe Economic Policy Analysis and Research Unit (ZEPARU), Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC)","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS43finZeparu.pdf","body":"This study was implemented to identify trends in the health budget in Zimbabwe 2001-2006, assess the equity oriented nature of these trends and make recommendations to strengthen pro-equity dimensions of the health budget. The review examines the budget in three major respects: how far the opportunities for equity in revenue mobilization are being tapped; how far the allocation and expenditure patterns are promoting policy targets, particularly equity; and how far incentives and investments are levering health promoting investments (and penalizing those that undermine health). The study drew evidence from secondary data and national surveys, from reported Ministry of Finance estimates and from the reported budget allocations provided by government, with a focus on the years 2000-2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"End to HIV/AIDS a tall order in face of violence","field_subtitle":"Mulama J: Inter Press Service News Agency, 24 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=36294","body":"The issue of violence exacerbating the spread of HIV/AIDS, particularly in women, has remained a hot one at the World Social Forum (WSF). From Africa to Asia, activists are reiterating that violence against women remains a threat to the HIV/AIDS fight, and that without governments addressing the matter, winning the war against the disease will be an uphill task. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter Web design by Fahamu. To subscribe, visit: http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\nPlease send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org\r\nPlease forward this to others.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 72: Microcredit evangelism or universal health policy? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equitable Access: Research challenges for health in developing countries, Beijing, 29 October-2 November 2007","field_subtitle":"Global Forum for Health","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/Site/004__Annual%20meeting/001__Forum%2011/002__Call%20for%20abstracts.php","body":"The Global Forum for Health Research invites you to submit an abstract for Forum 11 in any area of health research relevant to the overarching theme of Equitable Access: Research challenges for health in developing countries. Equitable access, the overarching theme of the Forum, begins with the recognition that all people are entitled \u2013 by virtue of their inviolable human rights \u2013 to have the opportunity to share in societal resources, to be treated with quality, dignity and respect, to actively participate in decision-making that affects them and to be fully included as active participants in society. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 31 January 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Extreme altruism: No substitute for equitable economic policies and self-help","field_subtitle":"Culpeper R: The North-South Institute 2006 Winter Review, 2007","field_url":"http://www.nsi-ins.ca/english/pdf/Review_FallWinter_2006.pdf","body":"Warren Buffett\u2019s donation in early July of $31 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has fed many hopes and expectations. How are we to regard the creation by these extremely rich families of the world\u2019s largest foundation, with resources of over $62 billion at their disposal? On one level, their philanthropy must of course be warmly welcomed. [Yet] this display of unprecedented generosity raises some serious questions about the way we think nowadays about issues such as altruism versus public action, and charity versus human rights. First, private altruism by the rich does not get governments off the hook. Second, in any case, for the poorest countries and the poorest people in any country, escaping poverty is not a matter for charity and altruism. It is an issue of social justice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Fight for your rights, despite globalisation, women urged","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 22 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57152&SelectRegion=East_Africa%2C","body":"Women, especially in the developing world, who continue to bear the burden of the negative impact of globalisation, must fight for their rights, a Kenyan civil rights activist said on Monday at the World Social Forum (WSF). Anna Tibaijuka, the executive director of UN Habitat, said globalisation had contributed to the suffering of women as they continued to bear the burden of its negative impact. Participants spoke against violence, saying they wanted the world to continue to hear their voice. A woman from Bangalore, India, who asked to be referred to as Shokun, said violence was a major cause of death for women in India. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health organisation prepares to name leader","field_subtitle":"Donnely J: The Boston Globe, 9 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2007/01/09/global_health_organization_prepares_to_name_leader/","body":"The next leader of a global organisation that fights  major infectious diseases, including AIDS, may come from a group that includes the former health minister of Mexico, France's AIDS ambassador, the former leader of UNICEF, and several leaders of the World Health Organization, according to a list of names obtained by the Globe. The board overseeing the organization, Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, failed to select a new executive director last November and now hopes to name one at a meeting in Geneva early next month.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Global public health leader joins Rockefeller Foundation","field_subtitle":"Rockefeller Foundation News Inquiry, 18 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.rockfound.org/about_us/press_releases/2007/Pablos-Mendez_pr.pdf","body":"Rockefeller Foundation president Judith Rodin announced today that Dr Ariel Pablos-M\u00e9ndez is joining the Foundation as a new Managing Director. Ariel Pablos-M\u00e9ndez, 45, a physician and epidemiologist, is Director of Knowledge Management & Sharing at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva. He is also an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and Public Health at Columbia University. He will assume his new position at the Rockefeller Foundation in April, 2007. Dr Pablos-M\u00e9ndez, who joined WHO in 2004, has been working there on establishing the principles and practice of knowledge management as a core competence of public health to help bridge the gap between research and implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Has globalisation passed its peak?","field_subtitle":"Abdelal R, Segal A: Foreign Affairs, January 2007","field_url":"http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070101faessay86108/rawi-abdelal-adam-segal/has-globalization-passed-its-peak.html","body":"Not long ago, the expansion of free trade worldwide seemed inevitable. Over the last few years, however, economic barriers have started to rise once more. The forecast for the future looks mixed: some integration will probably continue even as a new economic nationalism takes hold. Although globalisation as a process will continue to sputter along, the idea of unrestrained globalisation will wane in force. Managing this new, muddled world will take deft handling, in Washington, Brussels, and Beijing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Budget - 15 Percent Now!","field_subtitle":"Wangui J: Pambazuka News 288, 26 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/39451","body":"Health campaigners and activists led by 2004 Nobel Laureate Prof Wangari Mathai have petitioned the African Union member states for failing to honour their 15 per cent pledge of their annual budgets on health care. This fact became public knowledge as the World Social Forum (WSF) entered the third day. The petition comes ahead of the forthcoming AU Heads of State and Government summit in Addis Ababa. The petition by South African Nobel Laureate Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu, but signed on his behalf by Prof Mathai calls for Africa leaders to act fast and implement their pledges in a bid to reverse the ugly trends of treatable diseases in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Hear our voices","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 25 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57201&SelectRegion=East_Africa%2C%20&SelectCountry=Kenya","body":"Duncan Otieno, 22, lives in Huruma, one of four main slums in Kenya's capital, Nairobi. Otieno has lived there since coming to the city in 2003 after finishing school in Kisumu, in the west of the country. Otieno attended the last day of the World Social Forum. He expressed hope that the gathering will achieve outcomes on issues affecting ordinary people, including access to water, high rentals and insecure jobs. \"However, if the forum is just a matter of people talking, just for the sake of gathering, then it will be of no use.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Implications of the GATS and TRIPS agreements for the Right to Health in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Mabika AH, London L (2007)","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/CBP13tradeMALAWI.pdf","body":"This report prepared under a capacity building programme analyses the relevant provisions of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) and the General Agreement of Trade in Services (GATS) agreements with respect to the provision and accessibility of health services in Malawi. The paper explores the manner in which Malawi's legal and institutional systems are able to ensure access to essential medicines under TRIPS and the implications of GATS for essential health care services and for meeting health obligations.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequalities between woman and men drive the HIV/AIDS pandemic","field_subtitle":"Willan S: The North-South Institute 2006 Winter Review, 2007","field_url":"http://www.nsi-ins.ca/english/pdf/Review_FallWinter_2006.pdf","body":"It is the inequalities between women and men that are driving the global HIV/AIDS pandemic and in turn this pandemic is exacerbating existing gender inequalities. However, it is the women of Africa who are particularly vulnerable and bearing the burden of this pandemic. As Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, so often illustrates, HIV/AIDS in Africa has a female face, and this female face will be eradicated from Africa if we do not respond adequately. As a direct result of these gender inequalities, women and girls are the most vulnerable to infection \u2014 57 per cent of persons who are HIV positive in sub-Saharan Africa are female, according to the AIDS Epidemic Update 2005 \u2014 and at the same time it is women and girls who carry the burden of caring for the sick and dying.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya Medical Association\u2019s (KMA) position on medical officers interns employment","field_subtitle":"Ochiel S, Ndege S: Kenyan Medical Association","field_url":"","body":"The Kenya Medical Association (KMA) received a copy of a petition to the Minister for Health from its members who have been on internship. The immediate consequence to this is that the concerned doctors will have their salaries stopped and asked to vacate their stations as they wait for the positions of medical officers to be advertised. This letter states expands on how and why KMA fully support the petition by the medical officer interns.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32042","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya: Cholera outbreak in Mandera","field_subtitle":"Mwai E: The East African Standard, 26 January","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200701270031.html","body":"Miriam Ahmed's face contorts in pain as her frail and bony fingers clutch her stomach. A sweat breaks on her head as she writhes in pain on her bed. The 16-year-old girl is the latest patient to be admitted to Mandera District Hospital following an outbreak of cholera in the area. The District Medical Officer of Health, Dr Boniface Musila, says the situation is under control. But Mandera District Hospital Medical Superintendent, Dr Muktar Omar, said there was a shortage of nurses at the facility.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Local Primary Health Care Committees and community-based health care workers in Mkuranga District, Tanzania: Does the public recognise and appreciate them?","field_subtitle":"Mubyazi GM, Mushi AK, Shayo E, et al: Ethno Medicine 8","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/MUBgov29012007.pdf","body":"A study was conducted to explore the views of villagers on the existence and functioning of local primary health-care (PHC) committees, village health workers (VHWs), skilled staff at government health facilities and their responsiveness to community health needs in Mkuranga district, Tanzania. Information was collected through separate group discussions with some members of households, local PHC committees and district health managers and semistructured interviews with individual household members, clinical and nursing staff at peripheral government facilities, and indepth interviews with officers in central and local government departments at district level. See the full report.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Madagascar: Children go hungry after floods, drought and Cyclone Bondo","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 27 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56853&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=MADAGASCAR","body":"Madagascar has called for international aid to help stem a nutritional emergency that has left thousands of children malnourished in the vulnerable south. \"Madagascar has sent a message, through the president [recently re-elected Marc Ravalomanana], and called on the international community to help us,\" Anbinintsoa Raveloharison, Director of the National Nutrition Office (ONN) of the Ministry of Health and Family Planning, told IRIN.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Madagascar: The future At stake","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 26 January 2007","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200701260774.html","body":"The island nation of Madagascar, off the coast of Southern Africa, has so far been spared an HIV/AIDS epidemic, unlike its continental neighbours, but health officials have warned that the country cannot afford to be complacent. The next decade presents a window of opportunity; a chance for the government to take action to prevent HIV prevalence from climbing. Madagascar's National Committee for the Fight Against AIDS (CNLS) has estimated that the country rate in 2005 was 0.95 percent, considerably lower than other countries in the region, where rates hover around 20 percent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Making the world GM-free and sustainable","field_subtitle":"Ho MW, Institute of Science in Society, Press Release, 5 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Making-the-World-GM-Free-and-Sustainable.php","body":"Severe stunting, deaths and sterility in the progeny of rats fed GM soya, the latest in a long line of evidence indicating that GM food and feed may be inherently hazardous to health. GM crops are a recipe for global bio-devastation and famine and a dangerous diversion from the urgent need to address the global food and energy crises. The world needs the widespread implementation of the \u2018Dream Farm 2' model that maximises renewable energies and turns wastes into food and energy resources, phasing out the use of all fossil fuels and significantly mitigating global warming.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Microcredit evangelism or universal health policy? ","field_subtitle":"by Patrick Bond, University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"\r\nAre institutions that tap poor people\u2019s desire for credit, shrinking Third World states\u2019 already beleaguered welfare policies? The role of microfinance in poverty reduction, reducing risk environments for HIV and promoting private health insurance has attracted high profile interest since Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize last December. \r\n\r\nYunus\u2019s Grameen Bank battled backward Bangladeshi patriarchal and religious attitudes to extend credit to millions of people. Poor women were typically arranged in groups of five: two got the first tranche of credit, leaving the other three as \u2018chasers\u2019 to pressure repayment, so they could in turn get the next loans. But a decade ago (at a time of lower foundation subsidies, new competitors, adverse weather conditions and a backlash by borrowers who used collective power of nonpayment), Grameen imposed dramatic price increases on loan repayments and resorted to extreme pressure techniques, including removing tin roofs from delinquent women\u2019s houses. This reduced Grameen Bank\u2019s main philosophical position - \u2018We consider credit as a human right\u2019 - to merely an argument for access, not affordability. This distinguishes Yunus from all rights-based social movements demanding \u2018rights\u2019 to free lifeline access to healthcare, AIDS medicines, education, housing, land, water, electricity, etc.\r\n\r\nAccording to Munir Quddus, chair of the Department of Economics and Finance, University of Southern Indiana, the model needs more investigation: \u2018The very nature of setting up groups leaves out the very poor who would be perceived by fellow members to have no ability to generate income and therefore high risk \u2026 microcredit simply deepens the exploitation of the women since the rates of interest charged by the bank in real [after inflation] terms are quite high; consequently, credit often worsens the debt situation and gives the husbands even more leverage.\u2019 \r\n\r\nEvidence on South Asian microcredit and major credit programs suggest that credit does not necessarily have a positive impact on social relations. Many loans targeted at women are appropriated by male family members, leaving women as buffers between their spouses and lending institutions, with often stressful and violent results. Even where women\u2019s incomes have increased, research found women\u2019s work and debt loads also increased. Women\u2019s access to credit does not guarantee improved confidence, mobility, control over assets, or freedom from violence. Therefore, microcredit must be interrogated to determine if it is really about poor people gaining control, or if it leaves structural and often global causes of poverty unaddressed. \r\n\r\nFor example, in 1998, when an emerging market crisis led to rising interest rates across the Third World, South African microlenders and borrowers were driven into bankruptcy by a 7% increase imposed over two weeks as the local currency crashed. In Zimbabwe, a 1980s US$66 million flood of World Bank financing revitalised the rural microfinance sector (initiated under 1940s Rhodesian rule) and reached 94,000 households. But within a decade, the peasant default rate was 80% - with repayment affordability being a huge factor (a typical lender\u2019s overhead and collection costs on a small loan were 15-22% (including incorporation of a 4% default rate)). Michael Drinkwater\u2019s (1991) detailed study of central Zimbabwe showed peasant farmers faced serious difficulties in servicing loans of just a few hundred US dollars, since average net crop profit was just $0.15/hour of labour, according to a 1989 Agriculture Ministry survey. This was compounded by \u2018an overzealous launching of a group credit scheme\u2019 and the \u2018doubtful viability of high cost fertiliser packages\u2019, inappropriate for the erratic climate. \u2018The increase in credit use means farmers have to market more to stay solvent ... At the household level it is commonly debts not profits that are on the rise.\u2019\r\n\r\nThis raises the question: \u2018Is credit the most useful input for African peasants\u2019 economic and social wellbeing, especially women?\u2019 According to Mohindra and Haddad (2005), women\u2019s health capabilities (opportunities to achieve good health) and health functionings (e.g. being healthy), \u2018can be expanded via key determinants of population health, such as access to resources and autonomy\u2019, with microcredit as a primary tool. But is microcredit really a tool for expanding access to health inputs when the structural disempowerment and malfunctioning markets that bedevil credit systems are added to the overall retreat of the Third World welfare state?\r\n\r\nThe question is important as Grameen-style microcredit is increasingly linked to health services ranging from education to insurance, including: the Niger CARE \u2018Microcredit and Health Education for HIV/AIDS-Affected Women and Children in the Valley of the Widows\u2019; the Philippine NGO Innovations for Poverty Action and the Green Bank marketing of health insurance and preventative care through 2000 microentrepreneurs; or\r\nthe International Medical Corps microcredit project to support local health programs in Eritrea. The Microcredit Campaign Summit pointed to many new opportunities to substitute microcredit for state or donor assistance in reproductive health education. But such schemes need to be questioned on: whether they deliver on resources and autonomy, how they change local power relations; and their record on arrears, social conflict and defaults. \r\n\r\nFew rigorous studies document the relationships between financial vulnerability and health burdens. A study of a Dominican microcredit program, which made small loans to individuals to start or expand small businesses, included three communities: one with health promotion alone; one with microcredit alone; and one with both. The community with parallel microcredit and health promotion programs had the largest changes for ten of eleven health indicators. However, the study also traced health gains to improved ability to purchase commercial water supplies, making a link between microcredit and the demand on poor people to pay for commercial and privatised water. As the UNDP Human Development Report (2006) noted, microcredit is explicitly used to promote the market in essential services and enable poor households to meet the financing requirements.\r\n\r\nWhile not denying the prospect that some microcredit schemes are worthy and effective, the criticisms raised offer warning. Claims made about microcredit as an overarching strategy to end poverty, change power relations, attack structures of inequality or improve vulnerable population\u2019s health education should be treated with caution. Certainly, microcredit cannot stand in for decent social policy when it acts as a safety net, co-existing with and not transforming entrenched structures that generate poverty . In the worst case, microcredit can become an ideology explicitly hostile to state support for healthcare. \r\n\r\n\u2018I believe that \u201cgovernment\u201d, as we know it today, should pull out of most things except for law enforcement and justice, national defense and foreign policy, and let the private sector, a \u201cGrameenized private sector\u201d, a social-consciousness-driven private sector, take over their other functions.\u2019 \r\n\r\nTo illustrate the dangers ahead, those were words uttered in the 1998 autobiography of Nobel Peace Prize winner Yunus.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC, email admin@equinetafrica.org. A more detailed analysis of the issues raised in this editorial can be found in Microcredit Evangelism, Health and Social Policy by Patrick Bond, Forthcoming in the International Journal of Health Services, June 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"More children with HIV but more getting treatment","field_subtitle":"Sandrasagra M: Inter Press Service News Agency, 17 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36208","body":"Worldwide some 15.2 million children under 18 have lost one or both parents to AIDS. By 2010, more than 20 million children will have been orphaned by AIDS. The figures reflect the \u2018tragically insufficient\u2019 global response to protect and support HIV-infected and AIDS-affected children. However, this is set to change according to a report by UNICEF, the UN children\u2019s agency.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"More Zimbabwe government workers join strike over poor pay","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 23 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57164&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa%2C","body":"More disgruntled Zimbabwean government employees have joined striking doctors and nurses to demand higher salaries as the economy continues to rumble. Lecturers at the country's eight state-owned educational institutions have become the third group of employees - after doctors and power utility workers - to take industrial action this year. Government awarded civil servants across the board a 300 percent salary increase, but this was rejected as too low.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mozambique: HIV/AIDS carers to be taught ARV management","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 16 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57084&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=MOZAMBIQUE","body":"The Mozambican Red Cross will begin training hundreds of volunteer workers to manage antiretroviral therapy (ART) for people in their care living with HIV/AIDS. \"This training is extremely important and will improve the work of our carers,\" Paula Macava, the Red Cross Mozambique coordinator of the HIV/AIDS programme, told IRIN. \"We have now finalised an eight-module training package on antiretroviral therapy management, specifically designed for carers.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Political economy from a clinical perspective","field_subtitle":"Hart JT: Policy Press, 2007","field_url":"http://www.juliantudorhart.org/","body":"Hart describes the background of the creation of NHS and its history. Although NHS was relatively under-funded in the 1960s and 1970s, it was still extremely efficient: The UK was under a long period of time the OECD country with the lowest government allocation for health. Despite this, the outcome was impressive: Equal health care for all, evenly distributed throughout the country. The cost for administration was unbeatable: Initially it was 2%, but increased to 6% when the conservative government introduced the principles of \u201dNew Public Management\u201d. Since NHS became subject to privatisation and the introduction of internal markets, the administration cost has risen to 12%. One of Hart\u2019s points is that public health care is cheap, partly because the administration cost is low. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Professor/Associate Professor (Health Systems and Health Policy) ","field_subtitle":"Oliver Tambo Fellowship (OTF) Programme  UCT Graduate School of Business and Faculty of Health Sciences","field_url":"http://www.health.uct.ac.za","body":"The Faculty of Health Sciences seeks to recruit an internationally respected academic with a background in health systems and/or health policy research at level of Professor or Associate Professor to lead the OTF Programme as Convenor. In collaboration with the GSB, the incumbent will provide overall academic leadership of a refurbished OTF Programme. He/she will engage with senior officials in national, provincial and local Departments of Health to identify skills development needs in high level management training and will lead curricular development reflecting international best practice.  Experience in working with senior health officials and policy makers, and familiarity with the South African health system will therefore be advantageous.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32039","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Reminder: Announcing CAFS course on 'Managing Reproductive Health Programmes'","field_subtitle":"The Centre for African Family Studies","field_url":"http://www.cafs.org/index.php?newlang=eng","body":"The Centre for African Family Studies (CAFS) is pleased to announce its course on 'Managing Reproductive Health Programmes', to be held from 12 to 30 March 2007 in Nairobi, Kenya. This course provides state of the art guidance to Reproductive Health Programme Managers and enhances their capacity to achieve organisational success through modern management techniques. Participants will gain a wide range of management skills and principles including management process and principles, leadership, team building, programme design, proposal writing, participatory facilitative programme supervision, monitoring and evaluation, strategic planning, human resource management, learning organisations, building coalitions and alliances and facilitation skills.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Report by the WHO Director-General to the Executive Board at its 120th session","field_subtitle":"Chan M, 23 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/EB120/b120_2-en.pdf","body":"The WHO Director General, Mr Chan, said in taking WHO forward in the next two years, it was extremely important to pay particular attention to the rights and needs of especially women and the people of Africa, who faced multiple threats in their access to health care. He reiterated the importance of the Millenium Development Goals, and made a strong link between poverty and health: \"Poor health anchors large populations in poverty.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Scrooge and intellectual property rights","field_subtitle":"Stiglitz JE: British Medical Journal 333: 1279-1280, 23 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/333/7582/1279","body":"At Christmas, we traditionally retell Dickens's story of Scrooge, who cared more for money than for his fellow human beings. What would we think of a Scrooge who could cure diseases that blighted thousands of people's lives but did not do so? Clearly, we would be horrified. But this has increasingly been happening in the name of economics, under the innocent sounding guise of \"intellectual property rights.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The 7th edition of the World Social Forum","field_subtitle":"World Social Forum","field_url":"http://www.wsf2007.org/","body":"The World Social Forum On Health Policital Agenda was held in Nairobi, Kenya on 21-23 January 2007. The theme for the 7th edition of the World Social Forum is \u201cPeople\u2019s Struggles, People\u2019s Alternatives\u201d. The 7th edition of the World Social Forum brings the world to Africa as activists, social movements, networks, coalitions and other progressive forces from Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Europe and all corners of the African continent converge in Nairobi, Kenya.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Health Watch and Indigenous Health 2007","field_subtitle":"People's Health Movement","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/htdocs/english/docs/Shaping%20Global%20Health%20Watch2complete.doc","body":"The first edition of Global Health Watch (GHW) was launched last year, and the Global Health Watch 2007/8 will be published late in 2007 or early 2008. The full edition of GHW and a shorter advocacy document Global Health Action can be downloaded from the GHW website. People's Health Movement (PHM) would like to ensure that indigenous health issues are highlighted in relation to all the areas that will be covered in the second edition of Global Health Watch, and request your assistance and input in this regard. They would like to provide chapter co-ordinating authors with information on indigenous health issues that can be integrated within the various chapters.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Right to Health","field_subtitle":"The North-South Institute: Canadian Development Report, 2007","field_url":"http://www.nsi-ins.ca/english/publications/cdr/default.asp","body":"The ninth edition of The North-South Institute\u2019s flagship publication explores the right to health, why it is important to development and how it might best be achieved. The volume investigates public health care\u2019s role in advancing development and also examines the role Canada is playing and might well play in achieving the global right to health. The CDR 2007 also includes up-to-date statistics and analysis related to social and economic indicators of developing countries, along with statistics regarding the Canadian government\u2019s involvement with such countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of Public Sector Reforms on Public Sector Workers","field_subtitle":"Lethbridge J: Public Services International Research Unit, 2006","field_url":"http://www.psiru.org/reports/2006-04-H-ILOresearch.doc","body":"This paper presents some initial findings from a survey of public sector workers, in a number of countries in Europe, Africa, North America, Latin America and Asia, and how they have been affected by policies of liberalisation in relation to wages, working conditions and other forms of socio-economic security.  This survey was a joint initiative between the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Public Services International (PSI), an international trade union.  The aim of the survey was to explore three themes: workers\u2019 socio-economic security; quality and accessibility of public services; and relations between government, foreign and domestic capital, trade unions and civil society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The new famines: Why famines persist in an era of globalisation","field_subtitle":"Devereux S: Routledge, 2007","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/36yt8y","body":"Contemporary famines are either deliberately created or allowed to happen. This new book collection argues for a conceptual shift in famine analysis: from understanding famines as failures of food availability or access, to understanding famines as failures of response. New concepts introduced in this collection include \u2018famine intensity and magnitude scales\u2019, \u2018pre-modern, modern, and post-modern\u2019 famines, \u2018hidden famines\u2019, and \u2018priority regimes\u2019. Case studies include famines that have occurred since the 1980s in Ethiopia, Sudan, Malawi, Madagascar, Iraq and North Korea, and a \u2018near-famine\u2019 in Bosnia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The spirit of those early hours: From Mathare to the world","field_subtitle":"Ong'injo JA: World Social Forum 2007","field_url":"http://wsf2007.org/wsf07%20newsletter2.pdf","body":"The author describes a personal experience in the days of preparation for the World Social Forum 2007. After spending a few days in the company of young people like me from Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe and many other African Countries, I discovered that same early spirit of my community. To me the WSF is beginning to be and will be a deeply emotional experience. It\u2019s emotional because we have been working very hard to make this day happen.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Trade Unions and reform of public utilities: International perspective","field_subtitle":"Lobina E, Hall D: Public Services International Research Unit, 2006","field_url":"http://www.psiru.org/reports/2006-11-Russia-Intoverview-DH.doc","body":"Privatisation has been promoted throughout the world for the last 20 years. The advantages are supposed to be increased efficiency, lower prices, greater investment, and greater dynamism than public ownership. It has been seen as a central policy element in transforming former communist states into market economies. It has been promoted wordwide by international institutions including the IMF, the World Bank and the OECD, and by multinational companies.  The EU is in principle neutral on privatisation, but in practice encourages PPPs. Privatisation has been made especially attractive because of economic policies aimed at reducing the borrowing of governments at national and municipal level. This dociment discusses futher the impact of reform on industry, workers in health and trade unions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Tutu warns ahead of World Social Forum, war on terror cannot ignore poverty","field_subtitle":"Nzwili F: Ecumenical News International, 19 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_81306_ENG_HTM.htm","body":"Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, has warned it is not possible to win the war on terror as long as conditions that drive people to desperation continue to persist. \"There is no way anybody is going to win the war on terror as long as there are conditions in so many parts of the world that drive people to acts of desperation because of poverty, disease and ignorance,\" said Tutu. Some people attending the forum in the past have questioned whether it has made a difference, but church leaders say it has brought the concerns of poor communities onto the global agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda: Drastic drop in measles deaths","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 24 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57176&SelectRegion=East_Africa%2C","body":"Aggressive immunisation campaigns in Uganda have cut the numbers of children dying of measles from 6,000 to 300 annually over the past 10 years, a Ministry of Health official said. The director of health services, Sam Okware, said on Tuesday the ministry used to record up to 60,000 cases, with 6,000 deaths, 10 years ago, \"but now the cases have reduced by 10 times and last year we recorded about 300 deaths, which is a great achievement\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Vote buying in the UN Security Council","field_subtitle":"Woodward D: The Lancet 369: 12-13, 6 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.jubileeresearch.org/news/LancetCmtFinal.doc","body":"In an increasingly globalised world, health is ever more affected by international institutions. Over the past 25 years, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have increasingly dominated policymaking in developing countries, leading to substantial effects on health. Furthermore, global threats to health, such as HIV/AIDS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, avian influenza, and climate change, need eff ective collective action at the international level. Therefore the system of global governance is of central, and growing, importance to health. However, global governance is becoming increasingly controversial, particularly in the case of global economic institutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Whistling in the dark: Why the World Bank's Latest Poverty projections are meaningless","field_subtitle":"Woodward D: Jubilee Research, January 2007","field_url":"http://www.jubileeresearch.org/news/Comment%20on%20Global%20Ec%20Prospects%202007.pdf","body":"Last month saw the publication of the World Bank\u2019s latest annual Global Economic Prospects report, setting out the Bank\u2019s vision of the global economy until 2030, including its latest projections for poverty. The breathless excitement with which the Bank presents this flight of fancy is quite extraordinary. This document provides an assessment of the latest much-hyped poverty projections from the World Bank.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Board urged to act on worrying smallpox research trends","field_subtitle":"Ching LL: Third World Network, 22 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/twninfohealth068.htm","body":"Disturbing indications that the US is expanding or intending to expand research with smallpox virus outside of WHO control and that WHO may be back-pedalling on some of its previous decisions, have led NGOs to call for a strong resolution on smallpox on the part of the Who Executive Board which meets this week in Geneva.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"WIDER Conference Call for Papers: Fragile States \u2013 Fragile Groups, Tackling Economic and Social Vulnerability","field_subtitle":"Helsinki, Finland, 15-16 June 2007","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu","body":"This conference will bring together researchers and practitioners to discuss different concepts and measures of fragility and vulnerability, to analyse causes and consequences of vulnerability, to consider appropriate policy options, and to identify future research directions. Conference topics will include: fragility concepts and measures; trade and financial shocks; weather and other environmental shocks; state failure and governance in fragile states; household vulnerability and fragile groups; poverty dynamics and economic insecurity; strategies for dealing with economic and social vulnerability; linking aid, debt relief, and fragility; and fragility and MDG implementation. Details of how to submit a paper for the conference can be found at the website listed above. The deadline for submissions is 16 March 2007. Final copies of accepted papers are required by 18 May 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"World Conference on Children without Parental Care","field_subtitle":"World Initiative for Orphans","field_url":"http://www.iachildren.com/world-conference-2007/program-agenda.php","body":"World Initiative for Orphans (WIO), a worldwide independent, non-profit human rights organisation for orphaned and abandoned children, organises the World Conference on Children without Parental Care from 21-24 May 2007 in The Hague/Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This international conference, meant for Government Decision-makers, relevant NGO's and Researchers, will provide an open forum for communication and will identify new approaches and model practical solutions. The four-day event will host up to 100 countries, represented by officials, NGOs and scientists. A wide range of distinguished speakers, children's advocates and experts in various fields will discuss the long needed reforms in Child Welfare Policies. This event will also be the official launch of the WIO World Council, the new and very unique practical partnership between UN-Governments, NGO's and the Academical world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"World Social Forum: just another NGO fair?","field_subtitle":"Manji F: Pambazuka News 288, 26 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/39464","body":"The World Social Forum, which took place in Nairobi, Kenya for the first time in Africa, was supposed to be a forum for the voices of the grassroots. But Firoze Manji writes that, despite the diversity of voices at the event, not everyone was equally represented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Social Forum: Small ways to solve big problems","field_subtitle":"Mulama J: OneWorldSouth, 22 January 2007","field_url":"http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/145218/1/1893","body":"According to global anti-debt organisations, African countries spend about 15 billion dollars per year repaying debts, in a continent where more than half of the population lives on less than a dollar a day. The continent also has been dogged with the highest rates of HIV/AIDS and illiteracy. Analysts argue that this situation could be reversed if governments spent more money on health care, education and other public service sectors, rather than on debt repayment. The issue of HIV/AIDS dominated the addresses at Uhuru Park, as speakers reiterated that it remained the greatest challenge African countries, and offered suggestions for countering the challenge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia: Shielding children from their HIV status does more harm than good","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 25 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57198&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=ZAMBIA","body":"Zambia's attempts to promote paediatric antiretroviral (ARV) drug adherence are being undermined by families and communities who shield children in their care from knowing their HIV/AIDS status, health experts say. \"Disclosing their status to an HIV-positive child is a difficult process and it requires specialised skills in paediatric counselling but, unfortunately, many affected communities and families are lacking such counsellors and skills,\" Canisius Banda, a spokesperson in the Zambian Ministry of Health told IRIN.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia: The right to health and international trade agreements","field_subtitle":"Mabika AH, London L","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/CBP14tradeZAMBIA.pdf","body":"This report prepared in capacity building programme analyses the relevant provisions of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) and the General Agreement of Trade in Services (GATS) agreements with respect to the provision and accessibility of health services and essential medicines in Zambia. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Zanzibar redoubles efforts to combat cholera","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 24 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57181&SelectRegion=East_Africa%2C%20&SelectCountry=Tanzania","body":"Cholera outbreaks in Tanzania's semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar have continued due to poor hygiene standards, health officials said on Wednesday, while announcing renewed efforts to raise public awareness. \"We need to double our efforts of awareness; we also need to strengthen by-laws to make sure that the islands are kept clean,\" Dr Omar Suleiman, an officer in the Ministry of Health, said in Stone Town, capital of Zanzibar.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe: Costs of ARVs spiral ","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Network, 25 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57199&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=ZIMBABWE","body":"A rise of more than 100 percent in the price of antiretroviral drugs is likely to put the life-prolonging medication beyond the reach of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans living with HIV. Pharmacists in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo increased the price of a monthly course of ARVs from an average of Z$30,000 (US$120 at the official exchange rate) to between Z$80,000 (US$320) and Z$100,000 (US$400), telling IRIN the price hike was an inevitable response to the country's economic woes, which has seen inflation surge to 1,281 percent, and foreign currency become a scarce item.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"400 new Kenyan doctors to be sent home","field_subtitle":"Mwaniki M, Siringi S: Nation Media","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200612200041.html","body":"Some 400 newly qualified doctors in public hospitals are reported to be facing dismissal in December.  This media report outlines the proposed measure which ends the automatic employment of interns due to budgetary retraints, to make way for incoming interns. While a share of these doctors may be rehired in the annual advertisement of positions this is reported to no longer be automatic. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32016","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A call for Expressions of Interest : Country research grants on  costs and benefits of  health worker migration in east and southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, ECSA, HST Call closes 1 February 2007","field_url":"","body":"The Regional network for equity in health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) is calling for expressions of interest from researchers based in countries within East and Southern Africa (ESA) to undertake country level research into distribution of the costs and benefits of health worker migration. The country research will be implemented between April 2007 and April 2008 and aims to inform policy negotiation, design and evaluation on  managing health worker migration within ESA.  Applications should be sent by February 1st 2007","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32019","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"A Public-Private Partnership for Sustainable Malaria Prevention","field_subtitle":"USAID, 14 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.sdp.gov/sdp/initiative/nmp/","body":"In 1999, the U.S. Agency for International Development launched the NetMark, in partnership with the Academy for Educational Development, to reduce the human cost caused by malaria. Since its launch, NetMark has developed partnerships with 37 African and 9 international commercial partners. NetMark's mission is to reduce malaria cases and deaths in Africa by increasing the availability, affordability and use of insecticide-treated bednets (ITN) through partnerships with commercial net and insecticide manufacturers, their African distributors, ministries of health, and NGOs. To accomplish this goal, NetMark works through public-private partnership to achieve both short and long-term public health impact. NetMark's model, based on efficient and effective delivery of ITNs, could easily be applied to other areas of malaria prevention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Abuja and more: Securing the resources for health ","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson,  TARSC/ EQUINET","field_url":"","body":"On December 10 the Africa Public Health Rights Alliance launched an important \u201c15% now!\u201d campaign. We carry information on the campaign  in this newsletter, and its call for African heads of state to allocate 15% on government spending to health,  as promised at the African Union (AU) summit in Abuja, in 2001.  \r\n\r\nThere is clear  evidence of the pressing demand for significantly improved resources for health in east and southern Africa (ESA): We see it in high levels of poverty and deprivation, persistently high HIV, AIDS and other preventable diseases, high rates of child and early adult mortality,  inadequately staffed and resourced public health services and massive inequalities in health outcomes between sub-Saharan Africa and other regions. The EQUINET newsletters in 2006 have presented different facets of this evidence. Health is determined by the conditions in which people live, work and interact, and depends on policies and spending beyond the health sector. The investments in the health sector are, however, critical, especially in the context of high levels of inequality and poverty. These investments can prevent avoidable illness and mortality, redistribute social resources to deprived households, protect against the impoverishing effects of ill health and demonstrate our values and commitment  as a society to human security.  As our May newsletter editorial suggests, health sector investments have greatest impact on low income communities when they are made in public sector primary health care and district health systems. \r\n\r\nThe World Health Organisation estimated in 2000 that  an expenditure of US$60 per capita  is the minimum level of health expenditure needed for a health system to function well.  The Macroeconomic Commission on Health estimated in 2003 that a minimally adequate set of interventions to meet the basic health needs of poor communities is between US$34 and US$38 per person per year, not including some of the wider systems demands for a functional health system.  However African health systems and communities face challenges that call for additional resources: The World Bank estimated in 2002 that Africa would need an additional US$4.2 billion to meet the costs of  HIV prevention and AIDS Care, given the scale of the epidemic. Meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adds to this cost. This makes an expenditure of US$60 per person per year a not unreasonable estimate, and one that would need to be made largely in the public sector if the benefits are to reach poor households. \r\n\r\nYet many public health sectors in ESA are trying to deliver health systems, pay health workers and respond to health challenges on less than $15 per person per year, and some on less than US$10 per year.  Overall per capita expenditures on health in the region, public and private combined, average less than US$30 per person per year, while government spending on health  is less than 10% total government spending for the majority of countries in the region. \r\n\r\nIncreasing to 15% of Government spending on health is an important and necessary sign of  government commitment to health,  even while it would not on its own for most countries in ESA provide adequate per capita resources for health. The call for \u201c15% now!\u201d justifiably calls for implementation of this commitment.  If the 15% target is met  through increased donor resources and not through increased application of domestic revenue,  it is not a clear test of that commitment and is vulnerable to donor withdrawal. The \u201c15%  now\u201d should thus be understood to exclude donor resources.  \r\n\r\nHowever, many countries in the  region need more than the 15% government spending.  Additional resources must be applied. \r\n\r\nOne of the sources for this must be debt cancellation.   With over US$ 100 billion external debt in ESA in 2003 and even more paid out over three decades to service the debt,  current debt relief measures are inadequate to overcome \u201cdebt domination\u201d.  Applied over many decades, with relatively small reductions in annual debt, they still leave African countries with significant debt burdens and deplete domestic resources for heath. As in last year\u2019s call by  civil society organisations and governments in the South-North consultation on alternatives to debt domination,  the a call for \u201c15% now!\u201d must go together with a call for   \u201cDebt cancellation now!\u201d.   \r\n\r\nDebt servicing is only one of the many ways resources  are flowing out of our region. As demonstrated in the April EQUINET newsletter editorial, unfair and unequal terms of trade, outflows of private finance, shifts to speculative foreign investment, phantom aid, a massive outflows of health workers and global exploitation  of non renewable African resources represent some of the vast and ongoing outflows of the continent\u2019s existing and potential wealth.  A recently released UN WIDER report included in this newsletter observes that inequalities in wealth have widened, with the richest  2% of adults in the world owning  more than half of global household wealth, while the bottom half of the world adult population \u2013a large share in Africa - own barely 1% of global wealth.  Net outflows of African wealth represent a perverse flow of resources for health from those with greatest health needs in the poorest regions, to those with least health needs in the wealthiest regions. \r\n\r\nThis calls for a global response.  An increase in predictable long term overseas development aid would provide one means of  addressing this situation, and could be applied to increase the per capita spending on health to more meaningful levels, over and above the \u201c15% now\u201d. Efforts by some G8 countries to explore new sources of tax funding for global transfers are important steps towards this. So while African governments must be accountable for their 15% to health, so too wealthy countries must honour their commitment to \u201c0.7% GDP to ODA now!\u201d\r\n\r\nBut achieving global commitments to health in ESA calls for more than increased aid. Global commitments to universal access to antiretroviral treatment discussed in our June newsletter editorial, or the social development goals set at the 1995 World Summit for Social Development (WSSD), discussed in our November editorial, call for enabling, accessible, responsive and accountable states committed to mobilize the resources for health (15% now!), unencumbered by excessive debt servicing (Debt cancellation now!)  and supported by ODA  (0.7% GDP to ODA now!)  Yet this can leave governments and people in ESA heavily reliant on external aid for their health, while wealthy groups in high income countries and corporates continue to benefit from trade, finance and resource outflows from the region.  Levering increased investments in heath must be backed by challenge to these resource outflows and to the trade and macroeconomic policies that intensify inequities in control over the resources for health.  \u201cReclaim African wealth for African health...now!\u201d. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this editorial to the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC, email admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Accessing and understanding the evidence","field_subtitle":"Duke T, Campbell H, Ayieko P: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 84(12), 922-A, December 2006","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/84/12/06-037515.pdf","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) regularly gathers, evaluates, and cites evidence to support its recommendations. How this is done varies between departments, but highly centralised processes, complex methods and expert consultations are often used. WHO guidelines are distributed to health workers and policy-makers in developing countries, but few of these people have the opportunity to be involved in the process of choosing and weighing the evidence to formulate the guidelines that are ostensibly designed for their use. Such incomplete engagement may impede ownership of WHO recommendations, and thus be an obstacle to full implementation. This editorial describes how WHO gathers, evaluates, and cites evidence to support its recommendations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS drugs for Africa deal is off as pharma giants pull out","field_subtitle":"Townsend A: The Independent, 3 December 2006","field_url":"http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article2034768.ece","body":"Some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, including FTSE 100 giant GlaxoSmithKline, are reported to have failed to sign a formal agreement that would ensure HIV and AIDS patients in poor nations receive vital drugs. The agreement was drawn up during three years of talks between companies and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which has 20 million members and 400 affiliated unions worldwide.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"An untapped supply of HIV/AIDS treatment","field_subtitle":"The Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), 11 December 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y5kxjn","body":"Thousands of people living with AIDS in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are going without treatment while the production line at a modern antiretroviral (ARV) factory in the east of the country lies largely idle. Pharmakina has produced generic ARVs since April 2005 in the eastern province of Bukavu, the first pharmaceutical firm to do so in central Africa, but it is now forced to await approval from the World Health Organization (WHO).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Angola: Enthusiastic caregivers and silent sufferers","field_subtitle":"The Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), 13 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56709&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=ANGOLA","body":"Fear of stigmatisation in Angola is keeping people living with HIV/AIDS in hiding. Caregivers are more than willing to help but are having a hard time finding patients to take care of. \"People prefer to keep silent and to die in silence,\" Ambr\u00f3sio Cabral, coordinator of Angola's Red Cross HIV/AIDS programme, told IRIN/PlusNews.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Announcing CAFS course on 'Managing Reproductive Health Programmes'","field_subtitle":"The Centre for African Family Studies","field_url":"http://www.cafs.org/index.php?newlang=eng","body":"The Centre for African Family Studies (CAFS) is pleased to announce its course on 'Managing Reproductive Health Programmes', to be held from 12 to 30 March 2007 in Nairobi, Kenya. This course provides state of the art guidance to Reproductive Health Programme Managers and enhances their capacity to achieve organisational success through modern management techniques. Participants will gain a wide range of management skills and principles including management process and principles, leadership, team building, programme design, proposal writing, participatory facilitative programme supervision, monitoring and evaluation, strategic planning, human resource management, learning organisations, building coalitions and alliances and facilitation skills.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Areas of investigation for the Health Systems Knowledge Network: An initial scoping of the literature","field_subtitle":"Gilson L, Doherty J, TARSC, for the The Health Systems Knowledge Network Hub","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DISdohertyEHS.pdf","body":"This review was prepared as an outline for the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health for a knowledge network exploring the role of health systems  in health equity and the social determinants of health. It presents data showing that health services tend to be used proportionately more by richer than poorer social groups. It analyses the social factors affecting access to, and uptake of, health services and shows how these interact with inequitable features of the health care system. Overall, the review argues that the interaction between household health-seeking behaviour and experience of the health system generates differential health and economic consequences across social groups. The long-term costs of seeking care often impoverish poorer households, reinforcing pre-existing social stratification. These are costs that can be addressed by deliberate aspects of health system design. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Awareness raising on HIV/AIDS and human rights","field_subtitle":"SAHRiNGON and Arasa, 28 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.arasa.info/files/ARASA%20Workshop%20Report-Haiderly%20Plaza-Pdf%20format.pdf","body":"This draft meeting report is the result of a resolution taken by the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA). ARASA was tasked with drawing up a code that is similar to the SADC code on HIV and Employment, but focussed specifically on gender related issues within the Aids epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals: Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research grants","field_subtitle":"Alliance for Health Policy and Systems","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y7mscu","body":"The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, in collaboration with the Oslo Satellite of the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organization of Care (EPOC) Group, the EPPI-Centre, Institute of Education, London, and the Effective Health Care Research Programme Consortium, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, wishes to award grants to four institutions in low and middle income countries in order to: develop capacity in low and middle income countries (LMICs) for the conduct and packaging of systematic reviews of health policy and systems research relevant to these countries; conduct reviews within three main thematic areas; further develop methodologies relevant to systematic reviews of health policy and systems research in LMICs. The closing date for applications is 19 January 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Changes in sexual behaviours to prevent HIV","field_subtitle":"de Irala J, Alonso A: Lancet 368 (9549), 1749-1750, 18-24 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673606697122/fulltext","body":"This article refers to that by John Cleland and Mohamed Ali in the same issue of the Lancet. The authors offer interesting results on behaviours about HIV sexual transmission in women from different African countries. Cleland and Ali use information from all countries in sub-Saharan Africa that have had two or more Demographic and Health Surveys since 1990 to estimate behaviour trends.Their study is valuable for epidemiologists and public-health practitioners, and has important strengths.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Community and faith-based groups lend a hand","field_subtitle":"id21 Insights 64, November 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights64/art09.html","body":"Several households falling into poverty as a result of HIV/AIDS desperately need support systems. African communities have modified existing safety net mechanisms and pioneered new responses such as home based care programmes, support groups and orphans and vulnerable children initiatives. Safety nets protect people from the worst effects of poverty. They prevent poor households from making hasty decisions to sell productive assets and increase their chances of escaping destitution. But how long can self-resourced initiatives continue to function?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Conference Report: Human resources for health research: An African perspective","field_subtitle":"African Health Research Forum; Global Forum for Health Research; IDRC; COHRED; EQUINET; AMREF; ACOSHED, July 2006","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REP062006hres.pdf","body":"The World Health Organization\u2019s 2006 World Health Report \u201cWorking Together for Health\u201d highlights the urgent need to improve human resources (HR) in the health sector in developing countries (HRH). the report does not address the shortfall specifically in the persdonnel for health research, nor the skills and human resources needed by developing countries to improve health research. A conference on Human Resources for Health Research (HR-HR) was held on July 2-5, 2006 on this issue. The conference opened discussion on the health research environment; the role of research networks and of communities in health research and skills to improve health research communication.  This is the final report and record of the HR-HR expert meeting in Nairobi. Two further products\r\nare under preparation: A short synthesis report of key messages from the conference; and a publication featuring reviewed papers produced by each HR-HR theme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Dealing with HIV and AIDS: Solutions in ordinary people's actions ","field_subtitle":"id21 insights 64, November 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights64/art00.html","body":"Twenty-five years of knowingly living with HIV, the global community is still falling behind the virus in its alarming, complex and often hidden progress. Despite many diverse and creative successes in committed peoples' responses and many lessons drawn along the way, few have been widely adopted. Civil society groups have often led the way. A passionate - sometimes desperate - drive to respond to HIV and AIDS, and their own diversity unites them. This issue of id21 insights features examples of such real-life responses and asks: how can we move forward to catch up with the virus?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Drug prescribing habits in private surgeries and public hospitals in South Africa","field_subtitle":"HSRC Review 4 (4), November 2006","field_url":"http://www.hsrc.ac.za/about/HSRCReview/Vol4No4/5.html","body":"This study looks specifically at prescribing habits in South Africa and examines the following questions: what impact the national drug policy (NDP) has on pharmaceutical use in the public sector; whether the NDP achieved rational prescribing and dispensing of drugs by medical, paramedical and pharmaceutical personnel; whether the essential drugs list is used effectively; and what the level of generic prescribing is.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Effect of a structural intervention for the prevention of intimate-partner violence and HIV in rural South Africa: A cluster randomised trial","field_subtitle":"Pronyk PM, Hargreaves JR, Kim JC: The Lancet 368:1973-1983, 2 Decemer 2006","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673606697444/fulltext","body":"A research article highlights how the combination of a microfinance initiative and an educational programme can empower women and reduce the incidence of intimate partner violence in rural South African communities. The study showed no effect, however, in reducing HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Effect of the HIV epidemic on infant feeding in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Doherty T, Chopra M, Nkonki L: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 84 (2), 2006","field_url":"http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0042-96862006000200008&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en","body":"This article, published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, explores how the HIV epidemic has affected the infant feeding experiences of HIV-positive mothers in South Africa. The paper finds that the HIV epidemic has changed the context in which infant-feeding choices are made and implemented. HIV positive mothers are struggling to protect their decision-making autonomy; uncertainty about the safety of breastfeeding has increased the power and influence of health workers who act as gatekeepers to knowledge and resources such as formula milk. Women who chose to exclusively formula feed experience difficulties accessing formula milk because of inflexible policies and a lack of supplies at clinics. Limited support for mothers with newborn babies can result in social isolation and mothers doubting their ability to care for their children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Eight million dying annually: Launch of the \"15% Now\" Campaign","field_subtitle":"Africa Public Health Rights Alliance","field_url":"http://www.geocities.com/africa_15percentnowcampaign/petition.html","body":"On the occasion of Human Rights Day 2006, the African Public Health Rights Alliance launches the \"15% Now!\" Campaign and opens for signature the global petition calling on African leaders to without further delay implement their 2001 Abuja AU Summit pledge to commit fifteen percent of annual national budgets to health in order to end the tragic loss of an estimated 8 million lives annually to preventable, treatable and manageable diseases, illnesses and maladies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org \r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\nWeb design by Fahamu. \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit: http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\nPlease send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 71: Abuja and more: Securing the resources for health  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place.\r\n\r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Expanding access to priority health interventions: The human resources challenge","field_subtitle":"Kurowski C, Wyss K, Abdulla S, Y\u00e9madji ND: Health Economics and Finance Programme, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine","field_url":"http://www.hefp.lshtm.ac.uk/publications/downloads/newsletters/28.pdf","body":"Endorsing the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the international community committed itself to significant improvements in the health of the poor and set ambitious targets. Achieving the MDG will depend on improving access to priority health interventions, which requires significant supply and demand side constraints to be overcome. The study investigated the human resource implications of expanding the coverage of priority health interventions in Tanzania and Chad. The authors conclude that the health workforce in Tanzania and Chad, and probably in many other SSA countries, is grossly insufficient for the expansion of priority interventions envisaged in current international dialogue. An immediate response at the national and international level is required to ensure progress towards the MDG.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Family planning: The unfinished agenda","field_subtitle":"Cleland J, Bernstein S, Ezeh A, et al: The Lancet 368 (9549), 1810-1827, 18 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673606694804/fulltext","body":"Promotion of family planning in countries with high birth rates has the potential to reduce poverty and hunger and avert 32% of all maternal deaths and nearly 10% of childhood deaths. It would also contribute substantially to women's empowerment, achievement of universal primary schooling, and long-term environmental sustainability. However, in half the 75 larger low-income and lower-middle income countries (mainly in Africa), contraceptive practice remains low and fertility, population growth, and unmet need for family planning are high. The author discusses in detail how a revitalisation of the agenda is urgently needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Future Health Systems Research Programme Consortium website","field_subtitle":"DFID, November 2006","field_url":"http://www.futurehealthsystems.org/","body":"The main purpose of the Future Health Systems Research ProgrammeConsortium's (RPC) is to generate knowledge that shapes health systems to benefit the world's poor. Through research and partnership we want to inform and influence the health systems of the future in Nigeria, India, Uganda, Bangladesh, China and Afghanistan.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender and sexuality overview report","field_subtitle":"Ilkkaracan P, Jolly S: Bridge Development and Gender","field_url":"http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/reports/CEP-Sexuality-OR.pdf","body":"Have development interventions promoted only negative messages in relation to sexuality, ignoring poor people's rights to pleasure, affirmation and joy through sex and sexuality? This Cutting Edge Pack hopes to inspire thinking on this question - with an Overview Report outlining key issues on gender, sexuality and sexual rights in the current climate, a Supporting Resources Collection providing summaries of key texts, tools, case studies and contacts of organisations in this field, and a Gender and Development In Brief newsletter with three short articles on the theme. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund round 6 grants to the Alliance of up to $83m will enable much needed work with those most vulnerable to HIV","field_subtitle":"International HIV/AIDS Alliance, 27 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/inthivalli/116464086161.htm","body":"Organisations in the International HIV/AIDS Alliance have been awarded up to $83 million in the sixth round of grants from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Proposals have been successful in Alliance countries including India, Morocco, Senegal and Ukraine, with Global Fund grants for these countries totalling $480 million.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Heads, tails or equality? Men, women and reproductive health in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Centre for African Family Studies ","field_url":"http://www.cafs.org/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&btitle=CE&mid=&ceid=23#top","body":"This report is on male participation in sexual and reproductive health (SRH) examined within a wider context of gender relations and the family. It is the result of two collaborative surveys, one quantitative and one qualitative, which were conducted in rural and urban areas of the Copperbelt Province in Zambia. During the quantitative survey data was collected from men and their partners. The qualitative survey collected data through focus group discussions, in-depth interviews and two small community workshops.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Hitting malaria where it hurts: Household and community responses in Africa","field_subtitle":"id21 9, August 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights-h09/art00.html","body":"Preventing and treating malaria are now firmly on the international public health and global poverty agendas. However, despite a considerable increase in funds over recent years the malaria burden in much of sub-Saharan Africa shows little sign of decreasing. This report outlines issues on managing malaria in communities, and explores social roles. It notes that research has been largely concerned either with individual perceptions about the causes and symptoms of the disease or with the implementation of specific interventions. It fails to provide essential information on the context in which communities and households cope with their day-to-day problems, including malaria.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV incidence among women of reproductive age in Malawi and Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Kumwenda N, Hoffman I , Chirenje M, et al: Sexually Transmitted Diseases 33 (11), 646-651, 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y6keha","body":"The article examines the incidence of HIV infection among women of reproductive age in Malawi and Zimbabwe. Of the 2,016 women who participated in the study, 1,679 were tested for HIV during follow up and 113 seroconverted resulting in an overall HIV incidence rate of 4.7 per 100 women. HIV incidence continues to be high among women in both countries despite counselling and condom promotion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV positive men as responsible citizens and patients","field_subtitle":"id21 Insights 64, November 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights64/art06.html","body":"South Africa's national anti-retroviral therapy programme and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) have been at the forefront in fighting HIV/AIDS. Rolling out anti-retrovirals nationally and ensuring treatment adherence is far from easy, however. HIV positive people can help themselves and others by being responsible citizens.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Hospital admissions resulting from unsafe abortion: Estimates from 13 developing countries","field_subtitle":"Singh S: The Lancet, 369 (9550), 25 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS014067360669778X/fulltext","body":"Complications from unsafe abortion are believed to account for the largest proportion of hospital admissions for gynaecological services in developing countries. The WHO estimates that one in eight pregnancy related deaths result from unsafe abortions. The social stigma and legal restrictions associated with abortion in many countries means that data on the magnitude of this problem are scarce; this article estimates the rate and numbers of hospital admissions resulting from unsafe abortions in developing countries to help quantify the problem.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights search engine","field_subtitle":"HuriSearch","field_url":"http://www.hurisearch.org/","body":"HuriSearch is a very useful resource for human rights researchers and advocates, academic staff and students, journalists, diplomats and staff of international organisations. HuriSearch searches the content of over 3000 human rights websites, with a total of more than 2.6 million pages. HuriSearch makes it possible to focus searches on information published in a particular country, by a particular type of organisation, a specific organisation, or in a specific language. The HuriSearch website is available in seven languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Arabic, and Chinese. HuriSearch allows searching information in 77 languages.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 10. Integrating values and consumer involvement","field_subtitle":"Fretheim A , Sch\u00fcnemann A, Oxman AD: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:22, 5 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/4/1/22/abstract/","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the 10th of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this.It explores options for integrating values and consumer involvement in research. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 11. Incorporating considerations of cost-effectiveness, affordability and resource implications","field_subtitle":"Tan-Torres Edejer T: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:23, 5 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/4/1/23","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the 11th of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this. Objectives We reviewed the literature on incorporating considerations of cost-effectiveness, affordability and resource implications in guidelines and recommendations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 12. Incorporating considerations of equity","field_subtitle":"Fretheim A , Sch\u00fcnemann A, Oxman AD: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:24, 5 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/4/1/24","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the 12th of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 13. Applicability, transferability and adaptation","field_subtitle":"Fretheim A , Sch\u00fcnemann A, Oxman AD: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:25, 8 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/4/1/25/abstract/","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the 12th of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 14. Reporting guidelines","field_subtitle":"Fretheim A , Sch\u00fcnemann A, Oxman AD: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:26, 8 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/4/1/26/abstract/","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the 14th of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 15. Disseminating and implementing guidelines","field_subtitle":"Fretheim A , Sch\u00fcnemann A, Oxman AD: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:27, 8 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/4/1/27","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the 15th of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 16. Evaluation","field_subtitle":"Oxman AD, Schunemann HJ , Fretheim A: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:28, 8 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/4/1/28","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the last of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this. The authors reviewed the literature on evaluating guidelines and recommendations, including their quality, whether they are likely to be up-to-date, and their implementation. They also considered the role of guideline developers in undertaking evaluations that are needed to inform recommendations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 4. Managing conflicts of interests","field_subtitle":"Boyd EA, Bero LA: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:16, 1 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/4/1/16/abstract/","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the fourth of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 5. Group processes","field_subtitle":"Fretheim A, Sch\u00fcnemann A, Oxman AD: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:17, 1 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/4/1/17/abstract/","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the fifth of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 6. Determining which outcomes are important","field_subtitle":"Fretheim A , Sch\u00fcnemann A, Oxman AD: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:18, 1 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/4/1/18/abstract/","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the sixth of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 7. Deciding what evidence to include","field_subtitle":"Fretheim A , Sch\u00fcnemann A, Oxman AD: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:19, 1 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/4/1/19/abstract/","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the seventh of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 8. Synthesis and presentation of evidence","field_subtitle":"Fretheim A , Sch\u00fcnemann A, Oxman AD: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:20, 1 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/4/1/20/abstract/","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the eighth of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the use of research evidence in guideline development: 9. Grading evidence and recommendations","field_subtitle":"Fretheim A , Sch\u00fcnemann A, Oxman AD: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:21, 5 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/4/1/21/abstract/","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO), like many other organisations around the world, has recognised the need to use more rigorous processes to ensure that health care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence. This is the ninth of a series of 16 reviews that have been prepared as background for advice from the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research to WHO on how to achieve this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"International Campaigners Award","field_subtitle":"Sheila McKechnie Foundation: Applications Deadline 16 January 2007","field_url":"http://www.sheilamckechnie.org.uk/showSub.php?id=70&page=3","body":"The Sheila McKechnie Foundation is a charity that supports campaigners and gives them the skills they need to make a greater impact. The winner will receive a package of free support including: one to one coaching on campaign tactics and other areas that will help that person's campaign; advice from a senior UK-based campaigner with knowledge of their policy area; the opportunity to spend a day with a decision maker; and participation in a skills development weekend in the UK with other campaigners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Lessons Learned from a Study of the Impact on Health Services of Public-Private Partnership for Transport in the Eastern Cape","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Trust, 6 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/698","body":"Adequate and appropriate vehicles are essential for health service delivery. These are required for transport and transfer of patients from community to health facilities and between levels of health care delivery of essential equipment, medicines and other supplies to point of service delivery transport of health workers for supervisory visits, to attend meetings and training sessions and for administrative purposes. A transport management system that is efficiently and cost effectively run is essential to ensure availability of vehicles for health service delivery when required.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Levels and trends of demographic indices in southern rural Mozambique: evidence from demographic surveillance in Manhi\u00e7a district","field_subtitle":"Nhacolo AQ, Nhalungo DA, Sacoor CN, Aponte JJ, Thompson R, Alonso P: BMC Public Health 6: 291, 30 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/6/291/abstract","body":"In Mozambique most of demographic data are obtained using census or sample survey including indirect estimations. A method of collecting longitudinal demographic data was introduced in southern Mozambique since 1996 (DSS -Demographic Surveillance System in Manhi\u00e7a district, Maputo province), but the extent to which it yields demographic measures that are typical of southern rural Mozambique has not been evaluated yet.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Management of expatriate medical assistance in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Vio F: Human Resources for Health 4:26, 2 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/4/1/26","body":"This paper discusses how Mozambique coped with the health system needs in terms of specialised doctors since independence, in a troubled context of war, lack of financial resources and modifying settings of foreign aid. Different scenarios, partnerships and contract schemes that have evolved since independence are briefly described, as well as self-reliance option possibility and implications. Lessons learned about donor initiatives aimed at contracting specialists from other developing countries are singled out. The issue of obtaining expertise and knowledge in the global market as cheap as possible is stressed, and realistic figures of cost planning are highlighted, as determined by the overall health system necessities and budget limitations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Microfinance and HIV prevention: Emerging lessons from rural South Africa","field_subtitle":"Pronyk PM, Kim JC, Hargreaves JR, Makhubele MB, Morison LA, Watts C, PorterJDH: Rural AIDS and Development Action Research Programme (RADAR), School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y738f2","body":"Do the gains in confidence and economic well being that can come from participation in a microfinance programme reduce clients\u2019 vulnerability to HIV infection? Until now practical experience and an evidence base relating to such activities have been limited. This article reviews the evidence supporting an enhanced role for microfinance in HIV prevention activities. It describes the Intervention with Microfinance for AIDS and Gender Equity (IMAGE) \u2013 a South African case study that has been specifically designed to explore these relationships. The paper discusses the operational integration of microfinance and HIV prevention \u2013 highlighting challenges, emerging lessons and limitations in the light of international best practice and several years of field experience.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Microfinance, intimate-partner violence and HIV","field_subtitle":"Editorial: The Lancet, 368 (9551), 2 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673606697821/fulltext","body":"The Lancet's current Sexual and Reproductive Health Series encompasses the annual 16 days of campaigning against gender violence that began on November 25, International Day Against Violence Against Women. The emphasis is on the connection between violence to women and HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Opportunities for Africa's newborns: Practical data, policy and programmatic support for newborn care in Africa","field_subtitle":"The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH), 2006","field_url":"http://www.who.int/pmnch/media/publications/oanfullreport.pdf","body":"This report provides an overview of the continuum of care for maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) in Africa. The report investigates the prevalence and causes of neonatal deaths and highlights the gaps in coverage of care through the pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, childbirth and postnatal period. It also discusses how to integrate care with key programmes aimed at preventing mother to child transmission of HIV, controlling malaria, and immunisation. The report presents case studies of six African countries which have progressively reduced newborn death rates despite low gross national income. The authors find that two thirds of the 1.6 million newborn deaths in sub-Saharan Africa could be avoided if essential interventions already in policy reached 90 per cent of African mothers and newborns.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy Brief 16: Claiming our space: Using the flexibilities in the TRIPS agreement to protect access to medicines","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, SEATINI, November 2006","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/POLBRF16trade.pdf","body":"In 2001 the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health provided a landmark political commitment reaffirming the option for World Trade Organisation (WTO) member states to use all flexibilities provided in the TRIPS Agreement to ensure access to affordable medicines, and to prevent patent monopolies stopping access to medicines where they are needed for public health. By 2006, many of these flexibilities are not yet exploited in Africa, despite the massive demand for cheap medicines. This brief outlines the opportunities that African countries have to use these flexibilities and the legal and other changes needed for this. It also outlines the challenges that we may face and the measures to respond to them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Problems in providing universal access to services highlighted at UNCTAD meeting","field_subtitle":"Tayob R: Third World Network, 21 November 2006","field_url":"http://twnside.org.sg/title2/twninfo484.htm","body":"A recent United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) expert meeting discussed how developing countries face challenges and problems in providing universal access to services to their people. The meeting comprised panels looking at general issues as well as various sectors, including water, health, education and telecommunication services. It also had a session on the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Among the problems highlighted were the adverse effects of user fees, with the imposition of charges and fees to citizens in exchange for public services, introduced in many countries as part of World Bank-IMF programmes, the effects of privatisation of services, and the negative effects of patents and bilateral free trade agreements on access to medicines and health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Promoting self-testing for HIV in developing countries: Potential benefits and pitfalls","field_subtitle":"Kachroo S: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 84 (12), 999-1000, December 2006","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/84/12/06-032656.pdf","body":"This article preventive measures for reducing the prevalence and incidence of HIV by weighing the potential benefits of promoting self testing for HIV in developing countries and the concerns that need to be raised.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Public, Private Sector Leaders to Energise Anti-Malaria Efforts","field_subtitle":"McConnell K: USInfo, 12 December 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/vl7ub","body":"When leaders of governments, international organisations, corporations, nongovernmental organisations and faith-based groups came together on 14 December 14 in Washington, they jump started an ambitious public-private effort to save lives from the preventable and treatable mosquito-borne disease of malaria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Reducing maternal mortality stymied by lack of funds and absence of national laws","field_subtitle":"Macan-Markar M: Third World Network, 7 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/twninfohealth056.htm","body":"Among all reproductive health indicators, the least progress has been made in reducing maternal mortality. This means that the fifth Millennium Development Goal to reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio, given that over half a million women die every year during pregnancy or childbirth \u2013 will not be reached in many countries. Lack of funds and the slow progress to implement laws that protect maternal healthcare and reproductive health rights are undermining this goal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Refugees discuss pros and cons of health services in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Rutta E, et al: id21 Global Issues, 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/society/s10aer1g1.html","body":"A participatory assessment has revealed the strengths and gaps of health services in Tanzania \u2013 from the perspectives of Burundian and Rwandan refugees. Refugees benefit from employment in hospitals, feeding programmes, drugs, HIV and AIDS education and so on. But lack of food, fear of rape and \u2018voluntary repatriation\u2019, and preferential treatment by health staff are a problem.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Repositioning Nutrition as Central to Development","field_subtitle":"World Bank, 2006","field_url":"http://siteresources.worldbank.org/NUTRITION/Resources/281846-1131636806329/NutritionStrategy.pdf","body":"Two developments have led to this report. The first is the growing international awareness that many MDGs will not be reached unless malnutrition is tackled, and that this continued failure of the development community to tackle malnutrition may derail other international efforts in health and in poverty reduction. The second development is the now unequivocal evidence that there are workable solutions to the malnutrition problem and that they are excellent economic investments. The May 2004 Copenhagen Consensus of eminent economists (including several Nobel laureates) concluded that the returns of investing in micronutrient programs are second only to the returns of fighting HIV/AIDS among a lengthy list of ways to meet the world\u2019s development challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Research for future health systems","field_subtitle":"Peters DH, Bloom G, Rahman MH, et al: Global Forum Update on Research for Health 3, 133-137","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/filesupld/global_update3/5_Addressing%20global%20challenges.pdf","body":"This document contains several different articles by various authors on adressing the global challenges to more equitable health systems. health systems. This article briefly reviews the types of constraints faced by health systems in developing countries, and points to the types of information and research needed by decisionmakers to address these constraints. Future health systems in developing countries will need to understand the increasingly complex and unpredictable interactions of local, national and international actors and trends. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Rising to the challenges of human resources for health in Kenya: Developing empirical evidence for policy making","field_subtitle":"Chankova S, Kombe G, Muchiri S, et al: United States Agency for International Development (USAID), July 2006","field_url":"http://www.phrplus.org/Pubs/Tech101_fin.pdf","body":"This report presents a comprehensive analysis of the human resources for health (HRH) currently available and required to reach the targets set by the President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in both the public sector and the faith-based organisations (FBOs) in Kenya. A stratified convenience sample of health facilities at all levels of care in each of the eight provinces was selected for the assessment. A sample of Ministry of Health and FBO health facilities at all levels of service in each of the eight provinces was selected for the assessment. Conclusions include that the geographical distribution of skilled HRH in Kenya is heavily skewed towards urban areas; and substantial annual growth rates (across all staff categories) are needed to meet the future requirements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC failing in AIDS fight  says Cameron","field_subtitle":"iafrica, 5 December 2006","field_url":"http://iafrica.com/news/sa/499519.htm","body":"Good governance in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) was the key to dealing with HIV/AIDS, Judge Edwin Cameron said. \"Where there are human rights abuse, we cannot deal properly with Aids,\" Cameron said in Johannesburg at the launch of the AIDS Rights Alliance for Southern Africa's (Arasa's) report on HIV/AIDS and human rights in the SADC region. The report is an evaluation of the steps taken by countries in the SADC region to implement international guidelines on HIV/AIDS and human rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual abstinence, contraception, and condom use by young African women: A secondary analysis of survey data","field_subtitle":"Cleland J, Ali MM: Lancet 368(9549), 1788-93, 2006","field_url":"","body":"Drug therapy for people with AIDS is a humanitarian priority but prevention of HIV infection remains essential. Focusing on young single African women, the authors aimed to assess trends in a set of behaviours sexual abstinence, contraceptive use, and condom use-that are known to affect the rates of HIV transmission. Methods involved secondary analysis of public-access data sets in 18 African countries (132800 women), calculating changes in a set of behavioural indicators over time. Condom promotion campaigns in sub-Saharan Africa were found to have affected the behaviour of young single women; the pace of change having matched the rise in contraceptive use by married couples in developing countries over recent decades.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Shaping the health information supply: Improving media coverage of health issues in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Nolen LB, Volmink J: Center for the Advancement of Health, October 2006","field_url":"http://www.cfah.org/pdfs/CFAHReport-Shaping-10-2006.pdf","body":"The importance of media reporting on health issues in sub-Saharan Africa has gained significant attention over the past several years from media outlets, health development organisations and donors. Although reporting on health issues has increased and improved in recent years, stories with little informational content or based on faulty information still surface far too frequently. Using a combination of interviews, document analysis and Internet research, this report describes some of the challenges in increasing the use of high quality scientific information in health coverage, some of the current efforts to make improvements and where the gaps to success lay.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africans hope for a new era in HIV/AIDS policies","field_subtitle":"Kapp C: The Lancet 368(9549), 1759-1760, 18-24 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673606697171/fulltext","body":"The article focuses on a new era of unity and action on HIV/AIDS education and prevention in South Africa which has come about in part due to the influence of deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ncguka and Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge on the country's AIDS policy. A discussion of the changes the two have recommended and implemented for AIDS education and prevention is presented. South Africa's plans to unveil a new strategic 5-year plan for the prevention, treatment, and care of people with HIV/AIDS on World Health Day, 1 December 2006 are discussed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Study reveals extent of rape in spread of HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Baleta A: The Lancet Infectious Diseases 6 (12), December 2006","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473309906706429/fulltext","body":"The article begins by describing a pupil's description of a gang rape, dubbed \u201cstreamlining\u201d, which is the predominant form of sexual violence perpetrated against women in rural Eastern Cape in South Africa. The high school student was part of a South African Medical Research Council study of 1370 men which aimed to find out why South African men rape, the risk factors and patterns involved, and why rape is so prevalent. Alarming findings included that that one in five men between the ages of 15 and 26 years had raped a woman at least once in their lives (most of them having done so for the first time at 17 years of age); and thatthe more advantaged the men, as defined through maternal education, earning power or wealth, the more likely they were to rape.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Swaziland nurses flee the HIV/AIDS frontline","field_subtitle":"The Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), 11 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56698&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa","body":"\"Swaziland is dying. Will the last nurse on duty please turn off the lights?\" reads a handwritten note at a clinic in Manzini, the country's AIDS-hit commercial centre, 35km southeast of the capital, Mbabane. The wry note disguises the pain of Swaziland's diminishing number of nurses and hints at the reason why their colleagues have fled the country to offer their services elsewhere.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Talking freely about sexuality in Zambia","field_subtitle":"id21 Insights, November 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights64/art01.html","body":"Various factors make young people vulnerable to HIV/AIDS: earlier puberty and later marriage, sexual and gender norms, sexual abuse, poverty, mixed messages about sexual behaviour and lack of condoms. Schools and communities in Zambia work together to build knowledge, values and skills and create positive peer pressure to help young people. The International HIV/AIDS Alliance supports 'Young, Happy, Healthy and Safe' (YHHS), a Zambian non-governmental organisation, to implement a pilot project for improving young people's sexual and reproductive health and preventing HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The cost-effectiveness of Antiretroviral Treatment in Khayelitsha, South Africa - A primary data analysis","field_subtitle":"Cleary SM, McIntyre D, Boulle AM: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 2006, 4:20, 6 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/4/1/20","body":"Given the size of the HIV epidemic in South Africa and other developing countries, scaling up antiretroviral treatment (ART) represents one of the key public health challenges of the next decade. Appropriate priority setting and budgeting can be assisted by economic data on the costs and cost-effectiveness of ART. The objectives of this research were therefore to estimate HIV healthcare utilisation, the unit costs of HIV services and the cost per life year (LY) and quality adjusted life year (QALY) gained of HIV treatment interventions from a provider's perspective. This article presents baseline cost-effectiveness data from one of the longest running public healthcare antiretroviral treatment programmes in Africa that could assist in enhancing efficient resource allocation and equitable access to HIV treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of micro health insurance on Rwandan health centre costs","field_subtitle":"Schneider P, Hanson K: Health Policy and Planning (Online), 8 December 2006 ","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/czl030v1","body":"This study exploits the opportunities created by a pilot study of micro health insurance with capitation in Rwanda to address this issue. Using cross-sectional data collected in 52 health centres, the paper employs an econometric cost function with payer-specific outputs to assess the cost impact of two provider payment mechanisms: (1) user fees for care paid by the uninsured, and (2) capitation payment paid by informal insurance schemes for the insured. Findings point to significant differences in cost between the two payment forms. For both payment types there are important short-run economies of scale, which could be exploited through more intensive use of idle resources in health centres.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The meaning and measurement of acute malnutrition in emergencies","field_subtitle":"Humanitarian Practice Network Paper 56, November 2006","field_url":"http://www.odihpn.org/documents/networkpaper056.pdf","body":"The recent humanitarian reform agenda, which aims to make the humanitarian system more accountable, has led to a surge in interest in acute malnutrition as an indicator of humanitarian crisis. WHO and UNICEF, as UN cluster leads in health and nutrition, have put forward a proposal for a \u2018Humanitarian Health and Nutrition Tracking Service\u2019to help track humanitarian outcomes and performance on request from the Inter-Agency Standing Committee. This is not only a technical challenge, but also an institutional one, as it is often institutional constraints that hamper the implementation of, and response to, nutrition surveys. This paper seeks to link the technical issues with a more pragmatic understanding of the institutional constraints to collecting and using information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The Private Sector and Development in Africa \u2013 Challenges and Opportunities","field_subtitle":"Janneh A: UN Under Secretary General, November 2006","field_url":"http://www.uneca.org/eca_resources/Speeches/Janneh/2006/111606_lecture.htm","body":"According to the UN Under-Secretary General, the private sector in Africa, although still in its infancy and not as organised as in other parts of the world, is expanding at a very fast rate, is contributing to growth and poverty reduction and that the state, by expanding economic space, has been central to this development. However, there is much that remains to be done both by the state and the private sector to realise the full possibilities of the sector\u2019s contribution to African development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The State of the World\u2019s Children 2007","field_subtitle":"UNICEF, December 2006","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/sowc07/report/full_report.php","body":"This report examines the discrimination and disempowerment women face throughout their lives \u2013 and outlines what must be done to eliminate gender discrimination and empower women and girls. It looks at the status of women today, discusses how gender equality will move all the Millennium Development Goals forward, and shows how investment in women\u2019s rights will ultimately produce a double dividend: advancing the rights of both women and children. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Distribution of Household Wealth ","field_subtitle":"World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER)","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/","body":"A new study on The World Distribution of Household Wealth by the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER) launched on Tuesday 5 December 2006. The most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken also reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. In contrast, the bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tools for newborn health","field_subtitle":"Boggs MK, Bradley III PM, Storti CZ: Save the Children, UNICEF, 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y9sefy","body":"The purpose of this guide is to describe how to design and carry out a social mobilization program to create demand and increase participation during immunisation campaigns and routine immunisations, and thereby improve the health of communities in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Training course in health policy analysis February 2007","field_subtitle":"EQUINET / Centre for Health Policy, University of Witwatersrand","field_url":"","body":"In 2007 EQUINET with Centre for Health Policy University of the Witwatersrand is implementing a programme that aims to build capacity in health policy analysis in east and southern Africa. The participants will meet for the first time in February 2007 in Johannesburg to attend a policy analysis course, after which they will spend a further week developing their study protocols. The research will be conducted between March and September 2007, with all the participants meeting again in October 2007 for a workshop that will support data analysis and report writing.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/32021","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"UN adopts convention on rights of people with disabilities","field_subtitle":"UN Secretary General, 13 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sgsm10797.doc.htm","body":"This Convention is a remarkable and forward-looking document.  While it focuses on the rights and development of people with disabilities, it also speaks about our societies as a whole -- and about the need to enable every person to contribute to the best of their abilities and potential.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO needs to get serious about high cost of new AIDS drugs","field_subtitle":"Raja K: Third World Network Info Service on Health Issues, 30 November  2006","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/health.info/twninfohealth055.htm","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) needs to get serious about high cost of new AIDS drugs. AIDS  treatment will not be sustainable unless international institutions get serious about the high cost of newer medicines. This warning comes from Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) the medical humanitarian organisation. MSF says that the WHO has failed to outline a strategy to help countries access these drugs which remain largely inaccessible in developing countries. Thailand uses compulsory licence for cheaper AIDS drug. Thailand, however, has for the first time announced it will issue a compulsory licence for the domestic manufacture of a key AIDS drug. The following articles report on both these issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Women facing mental-health problems in Darfur","field_subtitle":"The Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), 15 December 2006","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56755&SelectRegion=East_Africa&SelectCountry=SUDAN","body":"A significant number of displaced women in South Darfur, western Sudan, suffer from depression and experience suicidal thoughts because of largely unaddressed mental-health problems, according to a study by the International Medical Corps (IMC).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World AIDS Day: Medical professionals speak out for their colleagues in Africa","field_subtitle":"Physicians for Human Rights","field_url":"http://www.phrusa.org/campaigns/aids/pdf/letter_healthworkershortage.pdf","body":"On World AIDS Day, Physicians for Human Rights sent a letter to President Bush urging the US government to address the massive health worker shortage in Africa. An estimated one million additional health workers are needed in sub-Saharan Africa alone to fight AIDS and other diseases. The letter was signed by over 100 prominent US health professionals, including 33 deans of medical, nursing, and public health schools, representing some of the country's most influential health leaders. Many of these health experts have seen first-hand the devastation caused by the lack of health workers, medicines, and supplies in many African countries struggling with the AIDS pandemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe's sick economy fuels growth of fake drug market","field_subtitle":"The Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), 11 December 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/wqhn2","body":"Zimbabwe's deteriorating health services have made room for a thriving parallel market for drugs, many of them counterfeit, warn concerned health professionals. The sale of genuine as well as fake medicines on the streets was \"big, booming business,\" said Dr Paul Chimedza, the president of the Zimbabwe Medical Association (ZIMA). \"The health system has been adversely affected by the poorly performing economy. There is a general shortage of drugs within the country and unscrupulous dealers are capitalising on the situation by selling medical drugs on the streets.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2007-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"21st Plenary Assembly of SADC Parliamentary Forum held at Mogale City, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Southern African Development Community (SADC) Parliamentary Forum, 10-16th November 2006","field_url":"http://www.sadcpf.org/documents/Final%20Communique%2021st%20PA-english.doc","body":"The 21st Plenary Assembly of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Parliamentary Forum was held at Misty Hills Country Hotel, Mogale City, South Africa under the theme: Enhancing the Role of Parliaments in Governance and Development at Regional Level: Trade and Development Issues Relating to the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP)/European Union (EU) Negotiations. This document highlights the key points raised at the assembly. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A longer interval between first sex and first marriage is correlated with a higher rate of HIV","field_subtitle":"Bongaarts J: Population Council, 2006","field_url":"http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/wp/216.pdf","body":"One of the most puzzling features of the HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan frica is the large variation in its size among countries. For example, the proportion of adults infected ranges from 33% in Swaziland to less than 1% in Mauritania, Madagascar and Senegal. This study investigates the possibility that late age at first marriage, and a long period of premarital sexual activity, may be risk factors for HIV infection. The relationship between marital status and the prevalence and incidence of HIV is examined.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Accountability for reasonableness framework could improve transparency and effectiveness of Global Fund projects","field_subtitle":"Kapiriri L, Martin D: Bulletin of the World Health Organization (WHO): the International Journal of Public Health, 2006","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/84/7/576.pdf","body":"This article argues that the suspension of funding to Uganda from the Global Fund could have been avoided. The article outlines how the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) suspended five grants to Uganda following an audit report that exposed gross mismanagement in the Project Management Unit. The authors argue that this could have been avoided if a legitimate and fair decision-making process was used and that this lesson should be applied to other countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Achieving the Millennium Development Goals: Does Mental Health Play a Role?","field_subtitle":"Miranda JJ, Patel V: PLoS Med 2 (10), October 2005","field_url":"http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1201694","body":"There is compelling evidence that in developing countries mental disorders are amongst the most important causes of sickness, disability, and, in certain age groups, premature mortality. Mental health\u2013related conditions, including depressive and anxiety disorders, alcohol and drug abuse, and schizophrenia, contribute to a significant proportion of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and years lived with disability (YLDs), even in poor countries. Apart from causing suffering, mental illness is closely associated with social determinants, notably poverty and gender disadvantage, and with poor physical health, including having HIV/AIDS and poor maternal and child health. Yet mental health remains a largely ignored issue in global health, and its complete absence from the MDGs reinforces the position that mental health has little role to play in major development-related health agendas. This article seeks to question this assumption. Using evidence on mental health in developing countries, it argues that addressing mental health problems is an integral part of health system interventions aimed at achieving some of the key MDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Africities Summit: Report of special session on HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"United Nations Alliance of Mayors and Municipal Leaders (AMICALL) on HIV/AIDS in Africa, September 2006","field_url":"http://www.amicaall.org/publications/Africities2006/africitiesreport06_Eng_final.doc","body":"The fourth Africities Summit was held in Nairobi , Kenya from 18-22 September 2006. The theme for the Summit was \u201cBuilding Local Coalitions for the Implementation of the Millenium Development Goals in African Local Governments\u201d. During the Africities Summit 2006 a series of special and thematic sessions were organisedto provide an opportunity for stakeholders to share information, experiences, good practices, achievements and constraints towards attaining the MDGs and to also table recommendations on ways forward.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Bed/population ratios in South African public sector mental health services ","field_subtitle":"Crick Lund, Alan J. Flisher, Kim Porteus, Tennyson Lee Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology Volume 37, Number 7  July, 2002","field_url":"http://www.springerlink.com/content/8qa7heah4x005a89/","body":"Mental health service planners face critical decisions regarding appropriate and affordable inpatient care. Before a fashion of deinstitutionalisation is followed, effective community services should be in place and sufficient psychiatric beds should remain in hospitals for those who cannot be catered for in the community. In order to maintain the delicate balance between hospital and community-based services, it is essential that useful indicators of inpatient care are established. This study documents current bed/population ratios per 100 000 population in public sector mental health services in South Africa. It found low levels of inpatient service provision in South Africa, and considerable variability between provinces. This study gives further support to the need to develop acute inpatient psychiatric services, reduce levels of chronic care where appropriate, and redirect resources towards the development of community-level residential and day-care services. It is crucial to develop accurate indicators to monitor this process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Behind closed doors: Secrecy at the International Financial Institutions","field_subtitle":"Musuva C: IFI Transparency, 2006","field_url":"http://ifitransparency.org/doc/behindcloseddoors_secrecyinifis.pdf","body":"This study involved making freedom of information requests for information on IFIs in five different countries: Bulgaria; Mexico; Slovakia; South Africa and Argentina. The study found that information was difficult to obtain and there were varying degrees of disclosure across countries, with only 22 per cent of the 120 requests resulting in full disclosure and a number of requests being totally ignored by the IFIs. The Charter is the GTI's flagship statement of the standards to which IFI information disclosure policies should conform and a key advocacy tool for the promotion of more progressive policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges and solutions to fight disease and improve health in Africa","field_subtitle":"Regional Office for Africa, World Health Organisation (WHO AFRO), 2006 ","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/afro/2006/9290231033_eng.pdf","body":"This World Health Organisation report focuses on the health of the 738 million people living in Africa. It provides a comprehensive analysis of key public health issues and progress made on them in the Africa region. The report finds that whilst AIDS continues to devastate the region, the number of HIV-positive people on antiretroviral medicines increased eight fold from December 2003 to December 2005. Also, most countries are making good progress on preventable childhood illness: polio is close to eradication and 37 countries are reaching 60 per cent or more of their children with measles immunisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges to HIV prevention in psychiatric settings: Perceptions of South African mental health care providers","field_subtitle":"Collins PY: Soc Sci Med 63 (4): 979-90, August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/y2satz","body":"Mental health services in South Africa increasingly feel the brunt of the AIDS epidemic. Despite the high prevalence of infection in the psychiatric setting, HIV risk reduction interventions targeting South Africans with psychiatric illness remain few and far between. The attitudes of mental health care providers about sexual relations and HIV among people with mental illness continue to influence the extent to which these issues are addressed in care settings. This study examines these attitudes through the use of a semi-structured interview administered to 46 mental health care providers in four provinces of South Africa. I found that personal, contextual and political factors in the clinic and the hospital create barriers to integrating prevention activities. In particular, providers face at least three challenges to intervening in the epidemic among their patients: their own views of psychiatric illness, the transitions occurring in the mental health care system, and shifting social attitudes toward sexuality. Barriers operate at the individual level, the institutional level, and the societal level. At the individual level providers' perceptions of psychiatric symptoms shape their outlook on intervention with psychiatric patients. At the institutional level disruptive transitions in service delivery relegate HIV services to lesser importance. At the societal level, personal beliefs about sexuality and mental illness have remained slow to change despite major political changes. Minimizing barriers to implementing HIV prevention services requires institutional and health care policies that ensure adequate resources for treating people with mental illness and for staff development and support.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Child Mental Health Services in the New South Africa","field_subtitle":"Milne M, Robertson B: Child Psychology and Psychiatry Review 3: 128-134","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/tx6j2","body":"Health departments in the new South Africa are undergoing major restructuring and, in some cases, severe financial cutbacks as new policies attempt to redress the inequities of the past. A district system is being phased in, with a shift in funding from academic hospitals to secondary and primary level care. The process is being undermined by the current recession, which also affects Welfare and Education facilities, and by widespread poverty, violence, and other adverse conditions. Child mental health services are discussed in the light of current human resources, epidemiological data, the effects of violence and cultural issues, together with some reflections on their future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil Society campaign against gender violence","field_subtitle":"Longwe SH: E-Civicus, 20 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/new/content/deskofthesecretarygeneral47.htm","body":"The International Day of No Violence Against Women Campaign does not only concern those sections of civil society dealing feminist issues. Not true. Instead the campaign illustrates the need for all sections of civil society to unite around fundamental issues of human rights, democracy and good governance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society excluded from the G20 business meeting","field_subtitle":"Melbourne IndyMedia, November 2006","field_url":"http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/11/131655.php","body":"The G20 is a private meeting, hence organisations such as corporations, aid agencies, consumer organisations and other non-government organisations (NGOs) are not eligible to attend as delegates. This report critiques the selective participation of business in the meeting, with some of the world\u2019s largest energy and mining companies reported to have full access to all the delegates at a working lunch. The report noted the cincidental holding of the inaugural meeting of the Energy and Minerals Business Council in the same hotel and dates as the formal meeting of the G20.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society misled on uranium mining in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Chimwaga J: Nation Online, 21 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.nationmalawi.com/articles.asp?articleID=19648","body":"Civil society organisations accused government Monday of misleading President Bingu wa Mutharika and the nation in its dealings on a prospective multi-billion kwacha uranium mining project at Kayelekera in Karonga for the impact it will will have on people\u2019s lives.  Civil society questions the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for its lack of independence, participation, inclusiveness, cultural sensitivity and equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Dealing with HIV and AIDS: Solutions in ordinary people's actions","field_subtitle":"id21 Insights 64, 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights64/index.html","body":"Over the past several years, the HIV virus has spread in an alarming, complex and often hidden manner. Ordinary people, local and global communities and various organisations have responded to the epidemic in various ways. They offer many lessons but few have been widely adopted. The latest issue of id21 insights asks: \u201cWhat can we learn from this diversity of response? Can we find better ways to help scale up the coverage, quality and impact of civil society action?\" Guest editor Jerker Edstrom from the Institute of Development Studies says that it is important for health systems to involve clients, communities and affected groups in planning and negotiating HIV testing, treatment, care and social protection arrangements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Diabetes care in Africa","field_subtitle":"Mbanya JC, Kengne AP, Assah F: The Lancet 368 (9548) 1628-1629, 2006","field_url":"http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=12%20&sid=a2ac7e89-3769-4ccd-83b9-820bc1055554%40sessionmgr8","body":"Diabetes is a growing problem in Africa and will continue to be so, as a high risk of diabetes is tied to highly active retroviral therapy for AIDS. Data for diabetes in Africa is small, as the subject has received little attention, and many of the African studies have not been published in Western, peer-reviewed journals. This paper highlights many of the issues surrounding diabetes treatment in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Dr Margaret Chan to be WHO's next Director-General","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 9 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr66/en/index.html","body":"Dr Margaret Chan of China will be the next Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO). After her appointment, she told the World Health Assembly she wanted to be judged by the impact WHO's work has on the people of Africa and on women across the globe. In her acceptance speech, Dr Chan said: \"what matters most to me is people. And two specific groups of people in particular. I want us to be judged by the impact we have on the health of the people of Africa, and the health of women. Improvements in the health of the people of Africa and the health of women are key indicators of the performance of WHO.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\nWeb design from Fahamu\r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.\r\nTo subscribe, visit: http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nPlease send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 70: How depressing: Poverty, mental health and municipal services in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/ \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place.\r\n\r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Ethiopia: Shortage of vaccines for meningitis","field_subtitle":"IRIN News, 20 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56439&SelectRegion=Horn_of_Africa&SelectCountry=ETHIOPIA","body":"The Ethiopian health ministry is short of vaccines to contain the spread of meningitis that has so far claimed 10 lives in the Southern Nations Nationalities and People\u2019s Region (SNNPR) and infected 612 more, a health update said. A meningitis outbreak has been reported in Derashe and Selamago areas of Mursi in the SNNPR region. An earlier outbreak in Wolayita zone of the same region was contained due to the quick response of health ministry and humanitarian partners, according to the update by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploring the impacts of HIV/AIDS on patient and carer well-being in the Caprivi Region, Namibia","field_subtitle":"Thomas, F: Social Science & Medicine, 63(12), 3174-3187, 2006","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/ev_en.php?ID=106173_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC","body":"It is generally assumed that caring is a substantial burden upon households afflicted by HIV/AIDS. However, as a \u2018private\u2019 household responsibility, little is known about the experiences of either those who provide the care, or those receiving care, despite the fact that the process may extend over several years and may have a greater impact upon the livelihood security and well-being of the household than the actual death of the ill person. Drawing upon data collected through solicited diaries, this paper explores how illness and the daily and long-term duties of caring amongst a sample of households in the Caprivi Region of Namibia impacts upon the physical and psychological well-being of ill people and their carers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Final announcement: Second regional training Workshop on Participatory methods for for research and training in health Feburary 20007","field_subtitle":"Call Closes On December 15, 2006","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=49_0_1_0_M2","body":"This call invites applicants to participate and share experiences in a Regional Training Workshop for east and southern African countries on Participatory Methods for research and training for a people centred health system being held on February 14-17 2007. The 2007 training will focus on using participatory methods in strenghtening the relations between communities and frontline health workers. Interested applicants should submit a 1-2 page expression of interest that outlines the research or training work that they are doing or proposing to do on in this area, a personal CV and information on their institution by 15th December 2006 to the EQUINET secretariat. Further information is available at http://www.equinetafrica.org/. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Funeral associations - for the living as well as the dead","field_subtitle":"IRIN News, 22 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56466&SelectRegion=Horn_of_Africa&SelectCountry=ETHIOPIA","body":"Support for Ethiopian families affected by the AIDS pandemic has come from an unexpected source - local funeral associations, known as edirs. An edir is a traditional 'burial society' to which members make monthly contributions and receive a payment to help cover funeral expenses in return. Nearly every modern Ethiopian is thought to be a member of at least one edir, either a neighbourhood association, one based at work, or operating along age or gender lines. Now one edir changed its constitution to allow members to draw a quarter of their 2,000 birr (US$238) funeral payout before death, and permit a small extra fee to be levied to pay for additional social support from Tesfa, an organisation providing help, particularly in the area of HIV, to 26 affiliated edirs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund: Civil society's triumph over Minister Muhwezi and Company","field_subtitle":"Medicine Access Digest 2 (2) June 2006","field_url":"http://www.heps.org/documents/Drug%20Digest%20June%202006.pdf","body":"The June newsletter of HEPS Uganda outlines civil society poitions on HIV and AIDS fundings, on health rights and on public health policy regarding counterfeit medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health inequalities: An international comparison","field_subtitle":"Ruger JP, Kim H: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 60 (11) 928-936, 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ymw962","body":"The objective of this study was to study cross-national inequalities in mortality of adults and of children aged 4 times the rate in countries with low mortality. For child mortality, the worse-off group made slower progress in reducing ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Have pro-poor health policies improved the targeting of spending and the effective delivery of health care in South Africa?","field_subtitle":"Burget R, Swanepoel C: United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, October 2006","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/BURfinanc.pdf","body":"South Africa\u2019s apartheid health system was grossly ineffective. Private and public health spending combined was among the highest in the world at 8.4% of GDP, yet inequalities in provision, poor efficiency of spending and other factors impacting on health status meant that the country was not among the top 60 in terms of health status indicators (Goudge, 1999). In an attempt to remove obstacles to access to health services, the government introduced free primary health care in 1996.  The paper attempts to gauge the impact of these changes. The focus falls on changes in the incidence of South African public health spending.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health consequences of child marriage in Africa","field_subtitle":"Nour NM: Emerging infectious diseases 12 (11) 1644-1649, 2006","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/ev_en.php?ID=106178_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC","body":"Despite international agreements and national laws, marriage of girls  under 18 years of age is common worldwide and affects millions. Child marriage is a human rights violation that prevents girls from obtaining an education, enjoying optimal health, bonding with others their own age, maturing, and ultimately choosing their own life partners. Child marriage is driven by poverty and has many effects on girls' health: increased risk for sexually transmitted diseases, cervical cancer, malaria, death during childbirth, and obstetric fistulas. To stop child marriage, policies and programs must educate communities, raise awareness, engage local and religious leaders, involve parents, and empower girls through education and employment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Hear our voices: How climate change is hurting Africa","field_subtitle":"IRIN News, 22 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56464&SelectRegion=East_Africa&SelectCountry=KENYA-TANZANIA","body":"The United Nations global climate change conference in Nairobi agreed that African countries remain the most vulnerable to climate change, whose effects are manifested in extreme weather conditions, ranging from prolonged drought to massive flooding. These changes have consequences for food production and for the spread of infectious diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"How depressing: Poverty, mental health and municipal services in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Leslie Swartz, Alison Breen, Alan Flisher, John Joska, Joanne Corrigall, Lindelwa Plaatjies and David A McDonald: Municipal Services Project","field_url":"","body":"There have been dramatic changes to municipal services such as water and electricity since the end of apartheid in South Africa, with considerable research having gone into the impacts of commercialisation and cost recovery on low-income households. The research has revealed a complex and often negative relationship between the marketisation of these services and access and affordability for the poor. It has also been shown to have direct and very negative public health implications, most acutely in low-income township and rural areas.\r\n\r\nLess obvious, and much less researched, have been the impacts of changes in service delivery on the mental health of low-income residents and household members. The fact that there is a relationship between poor mental health and poverty in general has now been well established. Common mental disorders (notably, anxiety and depression), while once thought to be the preserve of the rich who could afford the \u2018luxury\u2019 of worrying about emotional issues, have in fact been shown to have higher prevalence in low-income households. It has also been suggested that there is a cycle of vulnerability between poverty and marginalization, physical ill health, emotional distress, and mental disorder.\r\n\r\nWhat, then, might be the links between poverty, mental health and the shift towards market-oriented reforms in basic services? A preliminary detailed ethnographic study of ten low-income families coping with a serious mental disorder (schizophrenia) in Cape Town pointed to several problems including:\r\n\u2022 Health and safety problems. Household members have difficulties in ensuring appropriate use of medication (due to lack of water), practicing adequate hygiene, growing their own food, and with general comfort (such as being warm and dry). There are also concerns about being forced to use open fires, candles and paraffin stoves for cooking and warmth, leading to additional health and safety worries such as poisoning, fires, and respiratory infections. \r\n\u2022 Time and energy. Considerable time and energy are spent searching for alternative sources of water and electricity and having to live with limited supplies of both. \r\n\u2022 Social tensions. Respondents expressed concern with having to borrow money or water from neighbours and family members, leading to additional stresses in the lives of \r\nhousehold members and often to tensions within families and neighbourhoods, exacerbating the stigmas typically attached to mental disorders.\r\n\u2022 Social activities. Reducing service consumption has implications for people\u2019s social lives and household entertainment. Most of the households interviewed owned a television or radio, for example, but were reluctant to use them due to electricity costs. One family member reported being bored at home and therefore spending time with peers who encouraged him to use drugs. This has important implications for health, as co-morbid substance abuse has been shown to play a role in relapse of schizophrenia as well as being implicated in the onset of psychosis.\r\n\u2022 Relapse. The stress of not being able to afford adequate services, or having these services cut off or restricted, would appear to add considerable stress to the person with the mental disorder, possibly contributing to a worsening of the disorder and/or a relapse.\r\n\u2022 Impact on care-giving environment. Inadequate services would appear to increase levels of stress and burden for the caregiver(s), with implications for their own mental health. This then impacts on the family member with the mental disorder as well as the household as a whole, as the caregiver\u2019s ability to care for the family may be compromised. Women appear to be the most affected by this as the primary caregivers. \r\n\r\nHouseholds experienced considerable financial hardship as a result of cost recovery strategies on basic services, with 29% of household income being spent on water and electricity on average, and arrears on water and electricity bills as high as R18 200. This situation caused anxiety and added considerably to overall family stress. \r\n\r\nWhile households used a range of strategies to minimise water usage, the need to save water was a further source of anxiety and conflict. Similarly, concerns were raised about electricity usage and cut-offs, with disability grants being used to pay for fuel and basic services in many households.\r\n\r\nWhile direct links between experiences of service delivery difficulties and the onset or relapse of mental disorder cannot be drawn, but it is clear that uncertainty about services in the context of poverty add to overall stress levels. Much remains to be done in terms of realising the rights of people with mental disorders (and their families) in South Africa. Without considering the broader context of poverty and service delivery it will not be possible for them to adequately improve their lives. \r\n\r\nEditors comment: This issue of the newsletter presents material on mental health and equity, and we note the limited publication found in this area. EQUINET invites further contributions on mental health in Africa, and particularly in relation to equity issues.  Please send contributions,  feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat, email admin@equinetafrica.org. Further information on issues raided in the briefing or the Municipal Services Project see http://www.queensu.ca/msp/ Greg Ruiters, Institute for Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University Grahamstown. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Invitation for public comment on draft WHO/UNAIDS guidance on provider-initiated HIV testing and counselling","field_subtitle":"WHO, 28 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/vct/publicreview/en/","body":"Since June of this year, the World Health Organization and the UNAIDS Secretariat have been coordinating a consultative process to develop guidance on provider-initiated HIV testing and counselling in health care settings. The latest draft of the guidance document in English is now available. An Executive Summary of the document is available in French, and will soon be available in Spanish. The full text of the document in these languages should be available on the same website by December 18. WHO are now seeking broad public comment on this document. If you wish to provide comments, please follow the instructions that appear on the website and send in your comments according to the following schedule:\r\no English comments by 5 January, 2007; and\r\no French and Spanish comments by 19 January, 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi: Health worker shortage a challenge to AIDS treatment","field_subtitle":"IRIN News, 17 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56421&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa","body":"The shortage of healthcare workers is a global crisis, but developed countries can afford to throw money at the problem, attracting nurses and doctors from developing countries with vastly better salaries and working conditions. In Malawi, the fourth poorest country in the world, where UNAIDS has put HIV prevalence at 14 percent, the health worker shortage is so acute that the ministry of health and international donors are now treating it as an emergency.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi: Limping PMTCT programme failing infants","field_subtitle":"IRIN News, 21 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56458&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=MALAWI","body":"Despite being largely preventable, mother-to-child transmission of HIV accounts for 30% of all new infections in Malawi and is the second major mode of transmission after unprotected sex. Every year, an estimated 30,000 babies are born HIV positive. Relatively simple interventions to lower the risk of infection are available to only a small number of women and lag far behind the country's antiretroviral (ARV) treatment programme, which now reaches 70,000 HIV-infected people, or about 40 percent of those who need them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Mental Health and Poverty in Africa","field_subtitle":"European Foundation Centre, 20 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.efc.be/agenda/event.asp?EventID=4365","body":"World Health Organisation (WHO) together with other key partners have joined forces to develop a new Project \"Mental Health and Poverty Project: Improving Mental Health, Reducing Poverty (MHaPP)\". The project will undertake an analysis of existing mental health policies in poor countries, provide interventions to assist in the development and implementation of mental health policies in those countries, and evaluate the policy implementation in order to provide new knowledge regarding comprehensive multi-sectoral approaches to breaking the negative cycle of poverty and mental ill-health. The project will be conducted in four African countries: Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mental health in Africa: The role of the WPA","field_subtitle":"Okasha A, World Psychiatry 1 (1) 32\u201335","field_url":"http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1489826","body":"The World Psychiatry Association program seeks to initiate mental health policies and their integration in primary health care, to promote adoption of mental health legislation, equity in the provision of mental health services and adequate funding of those services. In the early 1990s, only 23% of member states of the African Region of WHO were reported to have a mental health legislation. Mental health legislation in Africa needs to be updated to secure the rights of mentally ill people, and support to their families. An integrated mental health policy reduces morbidity and burden by emphasising primary and secondary prevention and all forms of mental rehabilitative care of the more severely ill. Policy goals may include bringing families with mentally ill members together, encouraging the creation of common interest groups, and developing broader views of rehabilitation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Muslim clerics hold meeting on gender violence, HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"IRIN News, 14 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56361&SelectRegion=East_Africa%2C%20Great_Lakes","body":"Muslim clerics from 25 African countries held a five-day population and development meeting in Tanzania's semiautonomous island of Zanzibar, focusing on issues such as HIV/AIDS and gender violence from an Islamic point of view. The participants, from member countries of the Network of African Islamic Faith-based Organisations, are also focusing on social and development problems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"New Investigators in Global Health (NIGH) Program: 2007 call for abstracts","field_subtitle":"2 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.globalhealth.org/conference/view_top.php3?id=643","body":"The NIGH program is a competitive abstract submission and selection program designed to highlight exemplary research, policy and advocacy initiatives of new and future leaders in global health and empower participants with global health advocacy skills. The NIGH Program is open to all students currently enrolled in a degree-seeking program in a health related field OR new professionals within two years of achieving their terminal degree in a health-related field. Winners will receive a scholarship to help facilitate their attendance at the Global Health Council's International Conference on Global Health. The deadline for applications is 1 December 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Patents versus patients: Five years after the Doha declaration","field_subtitle":"Oxfam International, November 2006","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/en/files/bp95_patentsvspatients_061114/download","body":"This Oxfam briefing paper discusses the actions that countries have taken towards meeting their obligations made at the Doha Declaration on the TRIPs (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement and Public health in November 2001. The Declaration says that developing countries can enforce public health safeguards to enable price reductions on medicines, and that countries with insufficient drug manufacturing capacity can access generic medicines (medicines produced in developing countries which are cheaper than brand name drugs). The paper finds that although public health safeguards have been weakened or eliminated through bilateral and regional free trade agreements, many developing countries are still managing to enforce them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Public sector nurses in Swaziland: Can the downturn be reversed?","field_subtitle":"Kober K, Van Damme W: Human Resources for Health 4:13 , 2006","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/4/1/13","body":"This paper describes the current situation of the health workforce in the public sector in Swaziland. Swaziland, like most other countries in southern Africa, is facing a human resources crisis that is exacerbated by the impact of HIV and AIDS. The paper identifies the major factors that contribute to losses in the health workforce as emigration and attrition due to AIDS. It describes the initiatives that the government has undertaken to tackle the crisis. These include retention strategies such as increased salaries to retain staff, and scaling up anti retroviral therapy (ART) for health-care workers to reduce attrition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Socioeconomic differentials in caesarean rates in developing countries: A retrospective analysis","field_subtitle":"Ronsmans C, Holtz S, Stanton C: The Lancet 368 (9546) 1516-1523, 2006","field_url":"http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=5&sid=95a4558a-cb16-41eb-8f06-ce3012c7e0c3%40sessionmgr8","body":"Little is known about socioeconomic differences in access to life-saving obstetric surgery, yet access to a caesarean for women is essential to achieve low levels of maternal mortality. The study examined population based caesarean rates by socioeconomic groups in various developing countries. In the poorest countries-mostly in sub-Saharan Africa-large segments of the population have almost no access to potentially life saving caesareans, whereas in some mid-income countries more than half the population has rates in excess of medical need. These data deserve the attention of policymakers at national and international levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: New social grants plan cautiously welcomed","field_subtitle":"IRIN Plus News, 23 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56497&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=SOUTH_AFRICA","body":"South Africa's Department of Health confirmed on Thursday that a new social grant system was on the cards for chronically ill people, including those living with HIV/AIDS. At present, government policy stipulates that HIV positive grant recipients be deregistered once antiretroviral (ARV) treatment restores them to good health and they are able to start seeking work. However, local AIDS activists charged that with national unemployment estimated at around 35 percent, most beneficiaries were usually jobless and too ill to work before they started receiving the monthly stipend. The article describes these issues raised.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Special series of reviews: 'Improving the Use of Research Evidence in Guideline Development'","field_subtitle":"Health Research Policy and Systems: November 2006","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/","body":"Health Research Policy and Systems anounced through BioMed Central the publication of a special series of reviews 'Improving the Use of Research Evidence in Guideline Development', available from the journal website. The reviews were commissioned by the World Health Organisation (WHO)\u2019s Advisory Committee on Health Research (ACHR). The series examines the methods used by WHO and other organisations to formulate recommendations about health, and is part of the documentation produced to inform ACHR\u2019s advice to WHO in making health decisions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Statement on the creation of a new international agency for women","field_subtitle":"Office of the UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, 9 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.stephenlewisfoundation.org/news_item.cfm?news=1588","body":"A giant step towards equality for women was recently taken at the United Nations when a High-Level Panel on UN reform recommended to the Secretary General the creation of the world body\u2019s first full-fledged agency for women. The panel, appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan earlier this year, recommends \u201can enhanced and independent\u201d policy, advocacy and operational agency for women\u2019s empowerment and gender equality, to be headed by an Under Secretary-General; and is an inspired and entirely welcome remedy. If implemented and funded as recommended, the new organization will begin to correct over six decades of UN neglect and indifference toward women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Support for advocacy work: International Campaigners Award","field_subtitle":"Sheila McKechnie Foundation, 2006","field_url":"http://www.sheilamckechnie.org.uk","body":"This new International Award gives advice, support and skills development for the award winner in the areas that are specific to their campaign. For example, the winner might need to develop an understanding of how to communicate in the media or to build alliances with other organisations. In this sense, were an HIV-AIDS campaigner to win it would be ensured that they received skills and advice related to how to influence this policy field. The winner would receive a package of free support including: one to one coaching on campaign tactics and other areas that will help that person's campaign, advice from a senior UK-based campaigner with knowledge of their policy area, the opportunity to spend a day with a decision maker, participation in a skills development weekend in the UK with other campaigners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania: Control cholera outbreak in two weeks or lose jobs, Prime Minister says","field_subtitle":"IRIN News, 22 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56472&SelectRegion=East_Africa%2C%20Great_Lakes&SelectCountry=TANZANIA","body":"Tanzanian Prime Minister Edward Lowassa has given Dar es Salaam regional administrative officials two weeks to eradicate cholera or lose their jobs. \"I give you up to December 3,\" he told the officials on Monday during a brief health inspection of the city's cholera-infected neighbourhoods of Temeke, Buguruni and Mburahati. Over the past 12 months, the disease has killed 117 people in the city, the nation's commercial capital.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"The Centre for African Family Studies (CAFS) Proposal Writing training","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Centre for African Family Studies (CAFS) presents the Proposal Writing training course scheduled to take place in Nairobi, Kenya from 5 to 9 March 2007.  This is an intensive one-week learning opportunity for board members, managers and program staff who wish to diversify funding and resources for their organizations. This one-week course is designed to equip the participants with skills to develop a proposal using logical framework approach.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31894","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The cost of health professionals' brain drain in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Kirigia JM, Gbary AR, Muthuri LK, et al: BioMed Central, 17 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/6/89","body":"Past attempts to estimate the cost of migration were limited to education costs only and did not include the lost returns from investment. The objectives of this study were: (i) to estimate the financial cost of emigration of Kenyan doctors to the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA); (ii) to estimate the financial cost of emigration of nurses to seven OECD countries; and (iii) to describe other losses from brain drain. Results showed that Developed countries continue to deprive Kenya of millions of dollars worth of investments embodied in her human resources for health. If the current trend of poaching of scarce human resources for health (and other professionals) from Kenya is not curtailed, the chances of achieving the Millennium Development Goals would remain bleak.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The financial losses from the migration of nurses from Malawi","field_subtitle":"Muula, AS; Panulo Jr, B; Maseko, FC: BioMed Central Nursing 5, November 2006","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PANhres.pdf","body":"The migration of health professionals trained in Africa to developed nations has compromised health systems in the African region. The financial losses from the investment in training due to the migration from the developing nations are hardly known. The cost of training a health professional was estimated by including fees for primary, secondary and tertiary education. Accepted derivation of formula as used in economic analysis was used to estimate the lost investment. Developing countries are losing significant amounts of money through lost investment of health care professionals who emigrate. This paper quantifies the amount of remittances that developing nations get in return from those who migrate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of conflict on HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Mills EJ, Singh S, Nelson BD, Nachega JB: International Journal of STD and AIDS 17 (11) 713-717, 2006","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/ev_en.php?ID=106186_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa disproportionately represents the largest incidence of both HIV/AIDS and internal conflicts. The impact of conflict on HIV incidence is largely unknown. Current epidemiological evidence paradoxically suggests that in most populations affected by conflict, HIV prevalence is lower than surrounding communities. Together, these dimensions of conflict create a complex and challenging situation for prevention of HIV/AIDS and delivery of care to conflict-affected populations. The authors examine the complexity of monitoring HIV/AIDS in conflict settings, and argue that increased efforts are needed to protect vulnerable populations and design health-delivery systems that are sustainable in settings of conflict.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The Millennium Villages Project: A new approach to ending rural poverty in Africa?","field_subtitle":"Cabral L, Farrington J, Ludi L: Overseas Development Institute","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/nrp/nrp101_web.pdf#search=%22odi%20millenium%20villages%22","body":"The Millennium Villages Project (MVP), an initiative of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is an attempt at an integrated and bottom-up approach to getting African villages out of the poverty trap. It involves massive injections of capital targeted at, presently, a handful of villages, combining agricultural support with health, infrastructure and education interventions. Taking a critical stance, this paper finds that although these aims are admirable, significant questions remain with regard to scalability and long-term sustainability of the MVP.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The potential impact of ART on fertility in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Kaida A, Andia I, Maier M et al: Current HIV/AIDS Reports 3 (4) 187-194, 2006","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/ev_en.php?ID=106192_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC&PHPSESSID=751c2d565c5683c751097d74fc3e0006","body":"Women with HIV infection have between 25% and 40% lower fertility than non-infected women. As antiretroviral therapy (ART) becomes increasingly accessible in sub-Saharan Africa, it is important to understand whether and how the associated clinical improvements correspond with changes in the incidence of pregnancy and fertility. Accordingly, this paper reviews the literature on the potential impact of ART on the fertility of women with HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa. The authors use Bongaarts' proximate determinants of fertility framework (adapted for conditions of a generalised HIV epidemic) to examine the underlying mechanisms through which use of ART may impact the fertility of women with HIV infection.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of health care in the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa: Evidence from Kenya","field_subtitle":"Deuchert E, Brody S: International Journal of STD & AIDS 17 (11) 749-752, 2006","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/ev_en.php?ID=106193_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC&PHPSESSID=751c2d565c5683c751097d74fc3e0006","body":"It is commonly asserted that the sub-Saharan African HIV/AIDS epidemic is predominantly due to heterosexual transmission. However, recent re examination of the available evidence strongly suggests that unsafe health care is the more likely vector. The present report adds to the evidence for health-care transmission by showing that Kenyan women who received prophylactic tetanus toxoid injections during pregnancy are 1.89 times (95% confidence interval [CI]:1.03-3.47) more likely to be HIV-1 seropositive than women who did not receive this vaccination. In contrast, recent sexual behaviour (condom use, number of partners) was not related to HIV status. The results are consistent with health care being a very important vector for HIV in sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The United Nations Process Indicators for emergency obstetric care","field_subtitle":"Paxton A, Bailey P, Lobis S: International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics 95 (2) 192-208, 2006","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/ev_en.php?ID=106177_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC","body":"The paper reviews the experience with the emergency obstetric care (EmOC) process indicators, and evaluates whether the indicators serve the purposes for which they were originally created \u2013 to gather and interpret relatively accessible data to design and implement EmOC service programs. The authors conclude that The EmOC process indicators have been used successfully in a wide variety of settings. They describe vital elements of the health system and how well that system is functioning for women at risk of dying from major obstetric complications.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Tuberculosis diagnosis and drug sensitivity testing: An overview of the current diagnostic pipeline","field_subtitle":"Guillerm M, Usdin M, Arkinstall J: Medecins Sans Frantiers, October 2006","field_url":"http://www.accessmed-msf.org/documents/Diagnostics%20Pipeline%20Report.pdf","body":"Tuberculosis (TB) remains the leading cause of death from a curable infectious disease, despite the availability of short-course therapy that can be both inexpensive and effective. New diagnostic tests that are simple and robust enough to be used in the field, accurate enough to diagnose all infected individuals, and able to identify drug resistance are desperately needed, and represent an essential complement to new drug development efforts and to effective control and treatment programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"What breakthrough is needed to combat HIV/AIDS?","field_subtitle":"Maoulidi S, Phambuzuka News 280","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/issue/current/#cat_3","body":"For an HIV/AIDS breakthrough to happen in Tanzania, a radical approach to tackling HIV/AIDS and its impact is needed, writes Salma Maoulidi, who asks \u201cHow can any progress be made in the HIV/AIDS battle if current strategies are superficial and isolated?\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Why understanding of social relations matters more for policy on chronic poverty than measurement","field_subtitle":"Harriss J: Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC), 2006","field_url":"http://www.chronicpoverty.org/pdfs/2006ConceptsConferencePapers/Harriss-CPRC2006-Draft.pdf","body":"The political foundations of poverty are all too often ignored by poverty analysts. This paper presents, from a political-economy perspective, a critique of mainstream poverty analysis. The author argues that the way mainstream research considers poverty separates it from the social processes of the accumulation and distribution of wealth. This serves to depoliticise poverty, as it becomes a kind of a social abnormality, rather than the reality of modern state and market society functions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia: More than 10 girls raped every week","field_subtitle":"IRIN News, 27 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56528&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=ZAMBIA","body":"A Zambian nongovernmental organisation (NGO) revealed this week that it records eight cases of rape of young girls every week at its centre in the capital, Lusaka. The statistics were released by the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) of Zambia to mark the start of the global campaign, '16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence', which runs from 25 November - International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women - until International Human Rights Day on 10 December.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"17 job openings at the Clinton Foundation","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.clintonfoundation.org/jobs.htm","body":"Due to the rapid expansion of Clinton Foundation a number of key positions have emerged. Their programs are focused on four main areas of work: Health Security, Economic Empowerment, Leadership Development and Citizen Service, and Racial, Ethnic and Religious Reconciliation. The Clinton Foundation offers limited employment opportunities from time-to-time to exceptional candidates with experience and education directly related to our programs. We also offer opportunities in administration, information technology, communications, and operations. Currently seventeen posts are being advertised under the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative. For more information see the weblink above.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"2006 WHO Regional Committee for Africa adopts seven resolutions","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation Regional Committee for Africa, 1 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/press/2006/regionalcommittee/pr20060901.html","body":"The fifty-sixth session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia ended with the adoption of seven resolutions aimed at scaling up action in critical areas that are key to improving the health and socio-economic situation in Africa. Three of the resolutions endorsed three health strategy documents developed by the Brazzaville-based WHO Africa Regional Office on health financing, the renewal and acceleration of HIV prevention, and the optimal survival, growth and development of African children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A health systems development agenda for developing countries: Time to be clear and visionary","field_subtitle":"Global Health Watch","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/GLOrights.pdf","body":"This discussion paper argues for the development of an advocacy agenda to promote comprehensive health systems development in developing countries. It aims to promote discussion amongst health policy experts and civil society organisations (CSOs) about the need for and content of a health systems advocacy agenda. This document is intended to stimulate discussion and is accompanied by a pro-forma document to facilitate your comments, opinions and recommendations in shaping the content of a health systems development agenda and the way forward for appropriate health care systems development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Achieving and sustaining universal ART access in rural areas: The PHC approach to HIV services in Lusikisiki, Eastern Cape","field_subtitle":"Medecins Sans Frontiers, October 2006","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/MEDaids.pdf","body":"The chronic shortage of health care workers is recognised as a major bottleneck to scaling up antiretroviral therapy (ART) , and this has the biggest impact in rural areas where the human resource crisis is most acute. There is a need to develop innovative, effective delivery models, particularly for rural areas with weak health systems. This document reports how the HIV/AIDS programme in Lusikisiki, a partnership between M\u00e9decins sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) and the Department of Health of the Eastern Cape, has managed to achieve universal ART access in one of the most under-resourced and disadvantaged areas of South Africa without compromising on quality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Health Workforce Observatory Meeting","field_subtitle":"Commonwealth Regional Health Community for East, Central and Southern Africa","field_url":"http://www.crhcs.or.tz/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=58&","body":"Absence of current reliable human resources data for health workers at the country level limits the ability to monitor and improve HRH leadership, management, policy and planning. Responding to this health workforce crisis, about 90 participants from fifteen African countries and international organizations have joined forces for the African Health Workforce Observatory. The East, Central and Southern African Health Community (ECSA), the World Health Organisation, World Bank and USAID/Capacity Project have partnered to accelerate the establishment of Africa Health Workforce Observatory. This three-day meeting focussed on developing mechanisms to create up-to-date reliable information that enables evidence-based decision making for human resources for health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Applying Q2 methods to understand poverty dynamics: A focus on ill health and HIV/AIDS in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Lawson D, Hulme D: World Institute for Development Research (WIDER), 2006","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/conference/conference-2006-2/conference-2006-2.htm","body":"This research we combine the strengths of quantitative analysis (representativeness, confidence levels, understanding of correlates and characteristics) and life history analysis (the elaboration of processes that underpin correlations, the understandings that poor people have of their poverty and the critical events that have caused deprivation), to make a genuine attempt at providing thorough insights in to poverty dynamics. Given the relative infancy of applying \u2018Q2\u2019 to poverty research, in this way, the paper adopts a joint methodological/themed approach i.e. we explain through the use of examples how the methods were combined to further our knowledge of poverty dynamics before then providing explicit examples of key findings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Brochures on critical analysis of right to health","field_subtitle":"People\\'s Health Association (PHA)","field_url":"http://www.cetim.ch/en/publications_sante-bro4.php/","body":"The CETIM (Europe-Third World Centre) has just published the fourth number of its series of didactic brochures and critical analysis about the Right to Health. This brochure is available for free in French, English and Spanish and can be downloaded/printed from the CETIM website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Burden of disease analyses in developing countries: Implications for health system policy, planning and management","field_subtitle":"Global Health Forum for Health Research","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/tqzbs","body":"Methods to measure the burden of disease (BOD) on populations have been applied for decades, but have only received increasing attention in the past twenty years. During this period of time, a number of concerns have been raised with the use of summary measures of population health. This report summarises the lessons learned from seven BOD studies funded by the Global Forum for Health Research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications International Human Rights Training Programme","field_subtitle":"E-Civicus, 16 October 2006","field_url":"http://www.equitas.org/english/programs/IHRTP.php","body":"The goal of the Annual International Human Rights Training Programme (IHRTP) is to strengthen the capacity of human rights organisations to undertake educational efforts aimed at building a global culture of human rights. Participants will be asked to develop an individual plan for putting their learning into action as part of the training. Internationally recognised human rights experts are also invited to give presentations and participate in panel discussions throughout the three week session. Candidates from qualifying organisations must be active members of their organisation for at least two years and be proficient in either English or French. The application deadline is 1 December 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for CIVICUS World Assembly Workshop Proposals","field_subtitle":"E-Civicus, 20 October 2006","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/new/media/CallforProposals2007WAEng.PDF","body":"The overall theme for the 2007 CIVICUS World Assembly is 'Acting Together for a Just World', focussing on 'Accountability: Delivering Results'. CIVICUS recognises that transparency and accountability are essential to good governance and the achievement of a just world. At the 2007 CIVICUS World Assembly in May, CIVICUS will convene representatives of civil society organisations, government and international government organisations, media, business and donors to discuss and debate how to assist each other to be more accountable, and will encourage better engagement across sectors to achieve accountability. Application deadline: 20 December 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for expressions of interest:  Work and skills development in health policy analysis","field_subtitle":"Call closes 24 November 2006 ","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET and the Centre for Health Policy is inviting expressions of interest of work from individuals or organizations based in east and southern Africa who wish to become involved in a programme of capacity development of capacity in health policy analysis within the region, involving a programme of mentoring support for small scale research studies. Applicants should be able to demonstrate previous experience of health sector analysis or policy analysis, some experience of qualitative research and an enthusiasm for better understanding the forces shaping policy responses to equity concerns in the health sector. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31887","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: Infrastructures to support integrated care: connecting across institutional and professional boundaries","field_subtitle":"International Journal of Integrated Care, Vol.6 2006","field_url":"http://www.ijic.org/call_for_papers_July2006.html","body":"The International Journal of Integrated Care (IJIC) wishes to receive submissions that examine and assess the development of infrastructural arrangements to support integrated care working. Infrastructures for consideration might include the development of new forms of inter organisational partnership (such as networks, associations or joint ventures) or the development of support mechanisms within such partnerships such as new socio-technical assemblages, electronic information systems, and other systems designed to link together organizational and individual activities towards the goal of integrated care. The deadline for submissions for this Special Issue is 15 November 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for participants: Second regional training Workshop on participatory methods for research and training for a people centred health system","field_subtitle":"The call closes on 15 December 2006.","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/meetings.php","body":"This call invites applicants to participate and share experiences in a Regional Training Workshop for east and southern African countries on Participatory Methods for research and training for a people centred health system being held on 14-17 February 2007. TARSC and IHRDC under the EQUINET umbrella and with support from  CHESSORE are carrying out capacity building on participatory reflection and action (PRA) methods for research and training for a people centred health system. The training aims to support work at national, district and local level with health systems and communities in health, with a major focus on the interactions at primary health care level. The 2007 training will focus on the relations between communities and frontline health workers. It will thus be targeted at researchers, health workers, academics, civil society organisations, NGOs,  community leaders and workers and others who are involved in work with communities and health workers who are doing or involved in work on strengthening positive community - health worker interaction.   Please see www.equinetafrica.org/meetings.php or send queries through admin@equinetafrica.org.   \r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31839","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals: Promoting Innovative Programs from the Developing World:  Towards Realising the Health MDGs in Africa and Asia","field_subtitle":"Global Development Network","field_url":"http://www.gdnet.org/middle.php?oid=1095","body":"This is a 3 year USD 5.9 million project which involves conducting extensive international standard impact evaluations and cost-effectiveness analyses of both about-to-be-launched and ongoing health and health-related programs from the developing and transition world. Project participants will receive funds (ranging from US $75,000 to US $250,000) for conducting an international standard impact evaluation research project and will benefit from high-quality mentoring and interaction with international experts, networking with researchers from around the world, and development of program evaluation skills and expertise in best-practice impact evaluation techniques. The last date for submissions is November 17, 2006. The detailed call for proposals and guidelines for submission are available on: http://www.gdnet.org/middle.php?oid=1095","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals: Southern African Development Community\u2019s (SADC) Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP)","field_subtitle":"Southern Africa Trust","field_url":"","body":"The Southern Africa Trust invites submission of concept notes from eligible organisations for work that addresses the RISDP and strengthens SADC national committees, in application for grants. Through this call the Trust aims to promote greater awareness of the RISDP and encourage analysis and action that strengthens its regional ownership and effectiveness.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31884","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can working with the private sector improve access of the poor to quality health services?","field_subtitle":"Hanson K: World Institute for Development Research (WIDER), 2006","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/conference/conference-2006-2/conference-2006-2.htm","body":"In recent years there has been increasing interest in the role played by the private sector in providing health services in low- and middle-income countries. Many countries have a vibrant and growing private sector, which is perceived by some to respond to the failures of the public sector to provide affordable, accessible, convenient and high quality services. There has been little investigation, however, of the extent to which interventions can be successful in expanding access to those who are difficult to reach and to provide services that are 'genuinely pro-poor'. This chapter offers a systematic review of the literature on the equity impact of private sector interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Candidates for the post of Director-General","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.who.int/governance/election/en/index.html","body":"The list of names, in English alphabetical order, and titles of the persons proposed by Member States for nomination by the Executive Board for the post of Director-General can be found at the above website. The Board will meet from 6 to 8 November 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Compass - HLSP newsletter","field_subtitle":"HLSP, October 2006","field_url":"http://www.hlsp.org/compass/","body":"HLSP is a professional services firm specialising in the health sector both in the UK and globally. Compass newsletter aims to promote debate in the development world and to keep our staff, colleagues and clients in touch with changes and advances in HLSP\u2019s work. The latest edition includes articles on rights based approaches to Maternal Health, the official launch of HLSP\u2019s Kenya office, the case for Sector Wide Approaches, and an interview with HLSP Institute director Dr Ken Grant.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Culture fights poverty","field_subtitle":"Kateta M: Southern Africa Social Forum, 15 October 2006","field_url":"http://www.oneworldafrica.org/sasf/newsdetails.php?news_id=00000061","body":"Imbawula Trust, a Johannesburg based cultural association says culture has a great role to play in the fight of Africa\u2019s poverty. They said the African continent had great potential to develop if citizens were inspired by their cultural and social customs which are 'vital in the development of peoples mental and social stability'.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Delivering on the MDGs: Equity and maternal health in Ghana, Ethiopia and Kenya","field_subtitle":"Wirth M, Delamonica E, Sacks E, et al: World Institute  for Development Research (WIDER), 2006","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/conference/conference-2006-2/conference-2006-2.htm","body":"The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have put maternal health in the mainstream, but there is a need to go beyond the MDGs to address equity within countries. Maternal health indicators from three countries in sub-Saharan Africa show the continent is lagging far behind other regions on health indicators. In the past decade, maternal mortality has increased in some countries, in large part due to health system collapse, increasing poverty among women, lack of access to skilled care for delivery, weak national human resource management and lack of resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Demand for health care services in Uganda: Implications for poverty reduction","field_subtitle":"Sewanyana S, Nabyonga JO, Kasirye I, Lawson D: World Institute for Development Research (WIDER), 2006","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/conference/conference-2006-2/conference-2006-2.htm","body":"Using the 2002/3 Uganda National Household Survey data, this study examines the nature and determinants of individuals' decisions to seek care on condition of reporting illness. A nested logit model, which captures correlations among health care provider alternatives, is used to estimate a behavioural model for health care demand. The three options in the model are: no-care, and formal care (public or private health care).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Disintegrated care: The Achilles heel of international health policies in low and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Unger J-P, De Paepe P, Ghilbert P, et al: Journal of Integrated Care 6, 2006","field_url":"http://www.ijic.org/","body":"Current international aid policy is largely neoliberal in its promotion of commoditization and privatisation. This paper reviews this policy's responsibility for the lack of effectiveness in disease control and poor access to care in low and middle-income countries. The paper documents how health care privatisation has led to the pool of patients being cut off from public disease control interventions\u2014causing health care disintegration\u2014which in turn resulted in substandard performance of disease control. Privatisation of health care also resulted in poor access. Our analysis consists of three steps. Pilot local contracting-out experiments are scrutinized; national health care records of Colombia and Chile, two countries having adopted contracting-out as a basis for health care delivery, are critically examined against Costa Rica; and specific failure mechanisms of the policy in low and middle-income countries are explored. The paper concludes by arguing that the negative impact of neoliberal health policy on disease control and health care in low and middle-income countries justifies an alternative aid policy to improve both disease control and health care. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Dr Pascoal Manuel Mocumbi's answers to PHM's on the position of the WHO Director General","field_subtitle":"People\\'s Health Movement, 11 October 2006","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/node/274","body":"As the People's Health Movement monitors the election of the organization's new Director General, all candidates have been sent a set of questions on key health issues. Dr Pascoal Manuel Mocumbi answers to the inquiries from the People\u2019s Health Movement to the Candidates for the position of WHO\u2019s Director General.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Efforts of Iran, Sudan and Uganda global rights defenders recognised","field_subtitle":"Human Rights Watch, 19 October 2006","field_url":"http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/10/19/uk14422.htm","body":"Human Rights Watch will present its highest honors, the Human Rights Defender Awards, to three courageous human rights activists from Iran, Sudan and Uganda on November 7. This year\u2019s three honorees challenged the limits of freedom of expression in the Middle East, the massive 'ethnic cleansing' and injustice in Darfur, Sudan, and the treatment of HIV/AIDS affected women in Africa. Human Rights Watch staff work closely with the Human Rights Defenders as part of our human rights investigations in more than 70 countries around the world. The 2006 Human Rights Watch Annual Dinners where the defenders will be honored will take place in London, Munich, Zurich and Geneva.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Election of a new World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General","field_subtitle":"People\\'s Health Movement, ","field_url":"http://phmovement.org/","body":"As the UN's specialist health agency, the World Health Organization remains the most important international public health institute. The People's Health Movement is therefore monitoring the election of the organization's new Director General. All candidates have been sent a set of questions on key health issues and their answers will be posted on the website to complement their background profiles.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC).\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org \r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\nWeb design from Fahamu\r\nPlease forward this to others.\r\nTo subscribe, visit: http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nPlease send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 69: What\u2019s new in the Arusha statement on New Frontiers of Social Policy?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET) \r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/ \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. \r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Essential Health Services workshop in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Oxfam International, August-September 2006","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/OXFehs.doc","body":"This two-day gathering begun with participants noting their concerns and expectations about the state of essential services in general, as well as the workshop itself. Oxfam said the purpose of the workshop was to welcome participants\u2019 input in shaping Oxfam\u2019s thinking on essential services, and though Oxfam chose to focus on health, education and water internationally, participants should point the report in the right direction.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Essential services: HIV, health  services and gender in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Motala M, Noel T: Oxfam International, 1 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/MOTehs.doc","body":"Much has been achieved in just over a decade of democracy in South Africa by facilitating access of the poor to health and other services. However much more needs to be done if the constitutional rights of citizens to dignity is to become universal. Under the strain of an HIV onslaught the health systems serving the poor are being incredibly strained. Women in poor communities are having to fill the gap through self-devised  homedbased care as the public health care system that most South Africans rely on is unable to cope.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Evolution and determinants of non-monetary indicators of poverty in Kenya: Children's nutritional status 1998-2003","field_subtitle":"Kabubo-Mariara J, Ndenge GK, Mwabu DK: World Institute for Development Economic Research (WIDER)","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/conference/conference-2006-2/conference-2006-2.htm","body":"This paper uses Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data to analyse the evolution and determinants of children\u2019s nutritional status in Kenya using descriptive and econometric methods. Our findings suggest that if Kenya is to reduce the current high rates of malnutrition as stipulated in the strategic health objectives and the millennium development goals, policies and strategies for poverty alleviation, promotion of post secondary education for women and provision of basic preventive health care are critical issues which need to be pursued because they have a big impact on children\u2019s nutritional status. Decomposition results indicate that there are significant unexplained differentials in chronic malnutrition between the two years. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalisation and social determinants of health: A diagnostic overview and agenda for innovation","field_subtitle":"Schrecker T, Labonte R: World Institute for Development Research (WIDER), 2006","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/conference/conference-2006-2/conference-2006-2.htm","body":"This paper describes research strategies to address the relation between globalisation and social determinants of health through an equity lens, and invites dialogue and debate about preliminary findings. The first part of the paper identifies and defends a definition of globalisation and describes key strategic and methodological issues. The second part describes a number of key \u2018clusters\u2019 of pathways leading from globalisation to equity-relevant changes in SDH. The third part provides a generic inventory of potential interventions, based in part on an ongoing program of research on how policies pursued by the G7/G8 countries affect population health outside their borders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Hospitals' response to increasing autonomy and market forces: Evidence from four countries","field_subtitle":"McPake B, Hanson K: World Institute for Development Research (WIDER), 2006","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/conference/conference-2006-2/conference-2006-2.htm","body":"The policy of hospital autonomy is contingent on the idea that market forces can discipline hospitals and so improve their performance. This article contests that idea from two perspectives. There is scarce evidence to assess the validity of the market forces model or of either conflicting model. The operation of health sector reform is multi-faceted, time lagged and beset by inter-relationships between multiple variables. Research funding is usually small scale and haphazard. This paper seeks to draw together evidence across four countries (the UK, Zambia, Indonesia and Colombia) where evidence of hospital performance in the wake of reform is relatively robust, in an attempt to identify patterns of response to reform.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Human resources for health situation analysis in seven ECSA countries","field_subtitle":"East Central and Southern African Health Community, 27 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.crhcs.or.tz/modules.php?op=modload&name=UpDownload&file=index&req=viewsdownload&sid=5","body":"Human resources for health (HRH) is a critical component of health systems. Many governments of our member states have expressed the need to determine the status of HRH in relation to supply, utilisation and management systems. This study focused on establishing the situation of HRH in the region. The findings of this study will assist not only in identifying further areas of research in relation to HRH but aid in developing both regional and national level strategies on training, deployment and retention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Human trafficking on the rise","field_subtitle":"Msosa PS: Southern Africa Social Forum, 15 October 2006","field_url":"http://www.oneworldafrica.org/sasf/newsdetails.php?news_id=00000063","body":"A Malawian human rights organization has disclosed that human trafficking has drastically increased following high demand of prostitutes in European countries. Radek Malonwski, project officer for Centre for Social Concern said the recent estimates indicate that four million people are being traficked from Africa to Europe annually on pretext that they would find them jobs by the foreigners, describing the figure as worse than the times of slavery. The article further describes human rights violations in the handling of these individuals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"IEA international course on epidemiological methods","field_subtitle":"The International Epidemiological  Association (IEA)","field_url":"http://www.ieaweb.org/","body":"This is an introductory level course, but participants will gain the maximum benefit from the course if they already have some experience of epidemiology and have already completed some form of introductory course. It will include lectures, computer-based analyses, exercises, discussion sessions, and practical experience in the design of a research proposal. The course will be of interest to epidemiologists, public health professionals, statisticians, and clinicians. The course is free to members of the International Epidemiology Association; non-members will be required to join the IEA before commencing the course. The deadline for sending applications is 30 November 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"In the public interest: Health, education, and water and sanitation for all","field_subtitle":"Oxfam International, 1 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/en/policy/briefingpapers/bp_public_internest","body":"This report shows that developing countries will only achieve healthy and educated populations if their governments take responsibility for providing essential services. Civil society organisations and private companies can make important contributions, but they must be properly regulated and integrated into strong public systems, and not seen as substitutes for them. Only governments can reach the scale necessary to provide universal access to services that are free or heavily subsidised for poor people and geared to the needs of all citizens \u2013 including women and girls, minorities, and the very poorest. But while some governments have made great strides, too many lack the cash, the capacity, or the commitment to act.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Lifelong consequences of early childhood undernutrition: Illustrations of impact on human capital formation in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Alderman H, Hoddinott J, Kinsey B: World Institute  for Development Research (WIDER), 2006","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/conference/conference-2006-2/conference-2006-2.htm","body":"This paper examines the impact of undernutrition among preschool children on subsequent human capital formation in rural Zimbabwe. We use a maternal fixed effects \u2013 instrumental variables (MFE-IV) estimator with a long-term panel data set. Representations of civil war and drought 'shocks' are used to identify differences in preschool nutritional status across siblings. Improvements in height-for-age in preschoolers are associated with increased height as young adults and the number of grades of schooling completed. Had the median pre-school child in this sample had the stature of a median child in a developed country, by adolescence, s/he would be 3.4 centimeters taller, had completed an additional 0.85 grades of schooling and would have commenced school six months earlier.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Measurement and explanation of inequality in health and health care in low-income settings","field_subtitle":"Van Doorslaer E, O\\\\\\'Donnell O: World Institute for Development Economic Research (WIDER)","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/conference/conference-2006-2/conference-2006-2.htm","body":"This paper describes approaches to the measurement and explanation of income-related inequality and inequity in health care financing, health care utilisation and health and considers the applicability and the feasibility of these methods in low income countries. Results from a comparative study of fourteen Asian countries are used to illustrate the main issues. The empirical analyses demonstrate that, in low-income countries, the better-off tend to pay more for health care, both absolutely and in relative terms. But they also consume more health care. Assessing the distributional performance of health systems in low income settings therefore requires examination of finance and utilisation simultaneously.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring health inequality and health opportunity","field_subtitle":"Zheng B: World Institute for Development Economic Research (WIDER)","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/conference/conference-2006-2/conference-2006-2.htm","body":"The paper considers the measurement of health inequality and health opportunity with categorical data of health status. A society\u2019s health opportunity is represented by an income-health matrix that relates socioeconomic class with health status; each row of the matrix corresponds to a socioeconomic class and contains the respective probability distribution of health. The income-health matrix resembles the transition matrix used in measuring income mobility and, hence, approaches developed there can be adapted to measuring health opportunity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Oxfam warns proposed new EU trade policy is 'development blind'","field_subtitle":"Oxfam International, 4 October 2006 ","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/en/news/pressreleases2006/pr061004_trade","body":"The European Union's new external trade plans presented by Peter Mandelson in Brussels will pose a serious threat to poor countries' development if implemented, said international agency Oxfam. The EU is pushing an aggressive liberalisation agenda in developing countries and trying to impose rules on competition, investment and government procurement that won't help development.Demands for stronger intellectual property rules and enforcement, which threaten to limit access to vital medicines for people in developing countries as well as depriving farmers of the right to ownership of seeds.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Oxfam Welcomes German G8 agenda on Africa","field_subtitle":"Oxfam International, 18 October 2006","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/en/news/pressreleases2006/pr061018_german_action","body":"Oxfam welcomes the German cabinet\u2019s announcement that it will use its G8 presidency in 2007 to continue the fight against poverty in Africa. Under Chancellor Angela Merkel\u2019s leadership, the cabinet released an ambitious agenda to focus the world\u2019s wealthiest nations on delivering plans that work for the world\u2019s poor. 'Within a generation, for the first time in history, every child in the world could be in school, every woman could give birth with proper health care, everyone could drink clean, safe water, and millions of new health workers and teachers could be saving lives and shaping minds. We should accept nothing less from the G8 leaders than concrete plans towards these goals,' said Kalinski.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Parliament briefing 1: Equity in access to AIDS treatment through stronger health systems","field_subtitle":"EQUINET; REACH Trust (Malawi); TARSC (Zimbabwe); the Association of Parliamentary Committees on Health in east and southern Africa (SEAPACOH)","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Parlbrief1AIDS.pdf","body":"Parliaments play an important role in health. Generally and through their specialised committees they can scrutinise public spending to ensure that it meets national policy goals, debate and pass laws that institutionalise social goals and provide leadership, representation and space for public participation in health. Parliaments can also provide oversight of the executive in terms of how this arm of government is implementing national policy. This brief is the first in a series jointly produced be EQUINET and SEAPACOH with institutions in the EQUINET network. This brief explores how these parliamentary roles can be applied to strengthen equitable health systems responses to AIDS.  Copies of the leaflet and a feedback form on it can be obtained from the EQUINET secretariat at admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Parliament briefing 2: Fair financing for health","field_subtitle":"EQUINET; Health Economics Unit (UCT); Centre for Health Policy (Wits); Association of Parliamentary Committes in east and southern Africa (SEAPACOH)","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Parlbrief2FIN.pdf","body":"Parliaments play an important role in health. Generally and through their specialised committees, they can scrutinise and ensure that national budgets meet national policy goals, debate and pass laws that institutionalise social goals and provide leadership, representation and space for public participation in health. Parliaments can also provide oversight of the executive in terms of how this arm of government is implementing national policy. This brief is the second in a series jointly produced be EQUINET and SEAPACOH with institutions in the EQUINET network. It explores how these parliamentary roles can be applied to strengthen the fair financing of health systems. Copies of the leaflet and a feedback form on it can be obtained from the EQUINET secretariat at admin@equinetafrica.org.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"PRA project report: Reproductive health challenges of students, lecturers, administration and college communities in the agricultural training institutions in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Students and Youths Working on Reproductive Health Action Team (SAYWHAT)","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRAsaywhat.pdf","body":"In Zimbabwe, there are four categories of state owned tertiary institutions: universities, teachers colleges, polytechnic colleges and agricultural colleges. All institutions are either in urban or semi-urban areas, except for agricultural colleges, which are mostly located in farming communities due to the nature of their studies and are governed by the Ministry of Lands and Agriculture instead of the traditional Ministry of Tertiary and Higher Education. Such discrepancies have led to the \u2018isolation\u2019 of the students attending these institutions especially in matters concerning the students\u2019 health. In particular there has been inadequate effort to address the reproductive health challenges of the students in these institutions despite their sexually active and high risk age group, including for risk of HIV infection. Students and Youths Working on Reproductive Health Action Team (SAYWHAT) a civil society organization in Zimbabwe, used the Participatory Reflective and Action (PRA) methodology as the starting point to involve the agricultural colleges in addressing reproductive health challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"PRA project report: Strengthening community\u2013Health Centre partnership and accountability in Zambia","field_subtitle":"Equity Guage (Zambia)","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRAzambia.pdf","body":"The Zambia Participatory Reflection and Action (PRA) project was implemented to strengthen communication between primary care level health workers and communities in one urban and one rural area of Zambia. It was implemented following PRA training in EQUINET as a pilot of the PRA method. The work has has shown that the PRA method is useful to strengthen health worker - community interactions in health planning and is replicable in other health centres of Zambia operating under district health management teams. The PRA method was found through pre- and post intervention assessment to improve communication and interaction between community members and health providers in attaining a people-centred health system in resource limited settings such as Zambia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Proposal on southern African social movements and civil society participation in the Nairobi 2007 World Social Forum","field_subtitle":"Southern Africa Social Forum, 14 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.oneworldafrica.org/sasf/eventsdetails.php?event_id=00000012","body":"Civil society strengthening and movement building is not only an important element of democracy and democratisation; it is also a guarantee of the depth and effectiveness of democracy in our societies. One of the most high-profiled movements of this kind has been the World Social Forum (WSF). In 2007 the WSF will be hosted in Africa (Nairobi) for the first time in its history. This event gives African civil society organisations and social movements an opportunity to take stock of the process of solidarity and movement building on the continent and in its various regions. The Nairobi WSF also provides African civil society with the opportunity to exchange ideas on new ways of building solidarity and of strengthening civil society in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Qualitative Research Methods","field_subtitle":"University of Cape Town School of Public Health and Family Medicine","field_url":"","body":"The nature and role of qualitative research in public health\u2014and the health sciences more broadly\u2014has been, and continues to be, the subject of intense debate. This course provides a practical introduction to qualitative research and addresses these questions both through the development in groups of a detailed qualitative research protocol and through the close examination of published qualitative research in public health. Interested candidates may contact the convener, Christopher Colvin, for more information about the course, costs, credits, etc.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31830","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Regaining control: Realising women's rights to control their own sexuality, well-being and reproductive health in Africa","field_subtitle":"Houghton I: Oxfam GB Background Policy Briefing for the Special Session of the Conference of African Ministers of Health, 18-22 September 2006, Maputo, Mozambique","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/HOUrights.pdf","body":"Since 2001, Africa\u2019s leaders have committed the African Union and their Governments to promote and protect the right to health in a series of international and continental legal protocols and declarations. Thes commitments provide a comprehensive package for addressing the challenges of maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS, violence and disease. However, the urgent action needed to address what African Governments have described as a 'continental state of emergency' can only be achieved by ensuring firm policy and programme linkages between Sexual and Reproductive Health, HIV/AIDS and Gender Based Violence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Seasonal changes in intrahousehold health inequality in rural Kenya","field_subtitle":"Ndirangu L, Burger K, Moll H, Kuyvenhoven A: World Institute for Development Research (WIDER), 2006","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/conference/conference-2006-2/conference-2006-2.htm","body":"This paper attempts to contribute to the debate surrounding the causal relationship between health and income. The direction of causality has different implications for policy \u2014 whether to follow a wealthier-is healthier or healthier-is-wealthier policy. The paper examines movement in health differences among pairs of individuals within a household, with an objective of finding whether households endeavour to reduce health inequality between members. Findings include that while equality incentives dominate, productivity considerations also matter for some health levels.  The results also reveal gender inequalities in favour of men, and not surprisingly, HIV/AIDS is inequality enhancing. The study concludes that the broader policy should be wealth creation given the predominance of equality incentives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"The 2007 Global Development Marketplace","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/GLOpov.pdf","body":"The 2007 Global Development Marketplace (DM2007) is a joint effort between the Development Marketplace team and the World Bank's Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) team. The World Bank is soliciting proposals on \"improving results in health, nutrition and population for the poor\". It is designed to support \"creative, small-scale development projects that deliver results and have the potential to be expanded or scaled up.\" The deadline for applications is 17 November 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The Biasfree Framework: A practical tool for identifying and eliminating social biases in health research","field_subtitle":"Global Forum for Health Research, 2006","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/hide/common/forms/orderpub/orderform.php","body":"The BIAS FREE Framework provides a useful tool for the identification and elimination of bias in health research. The utility of The BIAS FREE Framework goes beyond the specific context of health research and extends to human subject research generally and to the policy and law reform contexts as well. The BIAS FREE Framework is posited on the equal entitlement of all people to be treated with dignity and respect and on the inviolability of human rights and it uses a rights-based model of health and well being.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of sickness on the Determinants of Labour market participation in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Bridges S, Lawson D: World Institute  for Development Research (WIDER), 2006","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/conference/conference-2006-2/conference-2006-2.htm","body":"The paucity of non-agricultural paid employment in Uganda and other Sub Saharan African (SSA) countries is often seen to be the next major obstacle to further poverty reduction and development in the region.  By using nationally representative household data from Uganda this paper identifies some of the key supply side determinants of participation, and finds that ill health has a negative effect on labour market participation among working age adults, but the effect is particularly strong for women. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of social health protection on access to health care, health expenditure and impoverishment: A comparative analysis of three African countries","field_subtitle":"Jutting J, Scheil-Adlung X: World Institute for Development Research (WIDER), 2006","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/conference/conference-2006-2/conference-2006-2.htm","body":"Recently, there has been an increasing focus on social health protection through health insurance as a potentially promising way to better deal with health risks in developing countries. However, the empirical basis for a profound analysis of the effects of health insurance is still very weak. This paper summarises the results of three individual research projects measuring the impact of membership in a health insurance scheme in three African countries: Kenya, Senegal and South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The political economy of health care finance","field_subtitle":"Moreno-Ternero JD, Roemer JE: World Institute for Development Research (WIDER), 2006","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/conference/conference-2006-2/conference-2006-2.htm","body":"The authors present a model of political competition, in a multi-dimensional policy space and with policy-oriented candidates, to analyse the problem of health care finance. In this model, health care is either financed publicly (by means of general taxation) or privately (by means of a co-payment). The extent of these two components (as well as the overall tax schedule in the country) is the outcome of the process of political competition. The model shows that, in equilibrium, parties propose policies that implement the latest (and most expensive) medical techniques available.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Toolkit : Proposal writing and fundraising","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.gdnet.org/middle.php?oid=363","body":"This toolkit provides tips and practical suggestions for applying for funding and proposal writing. It is based on interviews with experienced research fundraisers. Obtaining funding for your research is a difficult achievement, so we hope this guide will help give your proposal the best possible chance of success.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Toolkits from the Alliance to mobilise communities for HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"International HIV/AIDS Alliance, 2006","field_url":"http://www.aidsalliance.org/sw36326.asp","body":"\u201dTools Together Now!\u201d is a toolkit of 100 Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) tools to help facilitate community mobilisation. \u201cTools Together Now!\u201d is designed to help put \u201cAll Together Now! - Community mobilisation for HIV/AIDS,\u201d into practice. Used together, these two resources will provide a powerful way for organisations and communities to work more effectively together to address HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Unequal partners: How EU\u2013ACP Economic Partnership Agreements could harm the world\u2019s poorest countries","field_subtitle":"Oxfam International: Oxfam Briefing note, 27 September 2006 ","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/en/files/bn0609_unequal_partners_epas/download","body":"The Doha \u2018Development\u2019 Round of trade talks has stalled, but the world\u2019s poorest countries remain under pressure to open up their markets with potentially disastrous consequences. The EU wants to forge new free trade agreements with 74 of its former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific (ACP). These imbalanced negotiations of \u2018Economic Partnership Agreements\u2019 (EPAs) between the two regions, pit some of the world\u2019s most advanced industrial economies against some of the poorest nations on earth. The EU has an opportunity to develop fairer trading relations with ACP countries, but such extreme disparities in negotiating power could all too easily produce unfair results. The proposed EPAs are a serious threat to the future development prospects of ACP countries, and the forthcoming review of the EPA negotiations must be used to force a radical rethink.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Update on the programme of work on health worker migration and retention in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/EQUhres.doc","body":"EQUINET through  Health Systems Trust, University of Namibia and its secretariat at  Training and Research Support Centre, in co-operation with the Regional Health Secretariat for east, central and southern Africa, is implementing in east and southern Africa research, capacity building and programme support for the retention of health workers and for management of out- migration  of health personnel. The programme will support empirical research on the costs and benefits of health worker migration within and beyond east and southern Africa (ESA); and will support evaluation of the effectiveness of current policies and agreements to manage these costs and benefits. The University of Namibia is now co-ordinating the work on HRH retention and Health Systems Trust the work on HRH migration, in co-operation with EQUINET Secretariat (TARSC) and ECSA Regional Health Secretariat. For further information on the programme please contact EQUINET (admin@equinetafrica.org) and ECSA (regsec@crhcs.or.tz).","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31840","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"US free trade agreements block access to medicines","field_subtitle":"Oxfam International: 16 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/en/news/pressreleases2006/pr060816_aids","body":"At the International AIDS Conference in Toronto,  US efforts to introduce stronger intellectual property rules in bilateral trade agreements were noted to undermine the fight against AIDS by limiting ability of developing countries to access affordable medicines. 'Under the name of free trade, the US is pushing for monopoly on new medicines, thus driving up the cost for some of the world\u2019s poorest people,' said Rohit Malpani, policy advisor for Oxfam International. 'Neither patients nor governments will be able to afford the new antiretroviral medicines essential to address the pandemic.'","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"What\u2019s new in the Arusha statement on New Frontiers of Social Policy?","field_subtitle":"Chan Chee Khoon, Universiti Sains Malaysia","field_url":"","body":"Editors Comment: In mid-December of 2005, the World Bank hosted a gathering of academics, policy analysts, policy makers and development practitioners at Arusha, Tanzania on the theme of New Frontiers of Social Policy. The meeting reviewed progress on commitments made at the 1995 World Summit for Social Development (WSSD).  The Arusha  meeting proposed a number of new frontiers for social policy: First  the transformation of subjects and beneficiaries into citizens\u201d, recognizing their rights and strengthening  their capacity to claim these rights, including through alliances between the poor and other segments of society.  The second new frontier of social policy was identified as fostering an enabling, accessible, responsive and accountable state, with institutional mechanisms that offer redress against power inequities.  The third new frontier was identified as strengthening the capacity of states to mobilize revenue from their citizens, with enabling international support, diminishing reliance on external aid. The meeting called for greater emphasis on equity outcomes in social policy.  Chan Chee Khoon, Professor of Health and Social Policy at Universiti Sains Malaysia comments on these meeting outcomes. An extended version of this paper has been accepted for publication in Global Social Policy and will be published by SAGE Publications in Global Social Policy 6(3) December 2006 - \u00a9 SAGE Publications 2006. This shorter version has been produced for the EQUINET newsletter with permission from the author and Sage Publications\r\n\r\n\r\nNotwithstanding the language and imagery of pioneering intellectual endeavor, my first (Anglophone) reaction to the Arusha statement was, d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu again?  Just as Jeffrey Sachs and the WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health recycled human capital theory, so are we now revisiting Dudley Seers (The Meaning of Development), redistribution-with-growth, basic (human) needs, and other 1960s vintage wisdom recast in 21st century guise? What precisely is novel in the statement? \r\n\r\nNovelty aside, three important points are noteworthy in the Arusha statement:\r\n\r\nFirstly, it prominently endorsed a rights perspective, going beyond human needs. A rights perspective, it should be noted, can be accommodated or co-opted within a market-oriented approach.  So for instance, Tony Blair and New Labor can declare that the de facto right-to-health of UK citizens is still intact even as German medical teams are brought in to attend to NHS patient backlogs, NHS patients are sent to France or India for treatment, NHS support services are outsourced to Kaiser Permanente, etc.  In effect, this transforms the debate over state versus market, into a comparative assessment of the performance efficiencies of service providers, whether public, private, voluntary, for-profit, or some hybrid of these. Oddly, these debates often seem oblivious to parallel trends in fiscal reforms and the declining fiscal capacity of states, which the Arusha statement attempts to address through domestic mobilization of revenues.\r\n\r\nSecondly, the Arusha statement endorsed a more embedded analysis of institutions, states, and other actors, in order to elucidate the success and failures of international development approaches to poverty reduction.  \r\n\r\nThis is appropriate, indeed overdue.  Going beyond states, it should also be extended to international organizations including the Bretton Woods institutions (BWIs).  For instance, the World Bank has itself been subject to forces pushing for privatization (divesting its development lending role to private capital markets), much in the way that welfarist states are urged to selectively offload their more profitable (or commercially viable) social services to the private sector.   \r\n\r\nChallenged by the 2000 Meltzer Commission recommendations to cease lending to \u2018credit worthy\u2019 middle-income countries\u2019(i.e. to stop competing with private lenders), the World Bank seems to have re-positioned itself as an even more influential promoter of the interests of private capital, even as it tries to harmonize this with \u201cpoverty reduction\u201d (trickle down theory, a rising tide lifts all boats, what\u2019s next? a sideways lurch towards horizontal equity?). We see, for instance, expanded roles for the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) within the World Bank Group, with IFC and MIGA commitments to private sector borrowers rising from 3.3% of World Bank loans in 1980 to 25% in 2000. The World Bank Private Sector Development Strategy, 2002, (para. 87) emphasized the lead role of the Bank in insuring and catalyzing  private investment in \u2018more risky environments\u2019 and in supporting \u2018the development of cross-border private investment\u2019 , crowding in (sic) \u2018private investment rather than crowding it out\u2019.  \r\n\r\nDavid de Ferranti, who retired in 2005 as World Bank vice-president for the Latin America and Caribbean department, found it necessary to reiterate that \u201cmuch of what the World Bank actually does directly helps to improve the climate for private investment:  implementing trade reforms and removing restrictive regulations on foreign direct investment; expanding private provision of utilities and infrastructure; strengthening essential legal and judicial infrastructure for private markets;  freeing business from harmful and superfluous regulations\u201d  (cited in de Ferranti 2006. The World Bank and the Middle Income Countries, in Rescuing the World Bank ed. Nancy Birdsall Wash. DC,:  Center for Global Development).\r\n\r\nThirdly, the Arusha statement quite rightly cautions against a targeted approach as an undiscriminating policy response to demonstrable social inequities in development. Thandika Mkandawire, UNRISD director, has recently authored an insightful review of universalism versus selectivity through targeting in social policy and development practice (Targeting and Universalism in Poverty Reduction. UNRISD Programme Paper Number 23.   Geneva: 2005). He examines the circumstances and the forces behind the shift from universalism toward selectivity in social policy discourses addressing poverty in the developing countries.  He then reviews the lessons learnt from such policy approaches and related practices:  the administrative difficulties and transactional costs of targeting in the poor countries, the political economy bases of policy choices and program preferences, and the contingent and sometimes unpredictable effects of policy choices on individual incentive.  In particular, he pays special attention to the cost-effectiveness argument which the advocates of selectivity deploy as a major consideration in its favour. \r\n\r\nOne aspect he does not dwell upon though is that targeting as a policy choice is eminently compatible with the concerns of influential sectors, including entrepreneurs and investors, seeking profitable opportunities in service sectors which thus far have been the domain of the public sector.  The modern welfarist state acts importantly as a risk pooler in coping with uncertainty, whether arising from social, natural, or created environments.  Publicly provided (or publicly financed) social services often entail cross-subsidies and risk pooling (in effect, an implicit social contract rooted in solidarity) to ensure a more equitable access to essential services than would be the case with purely market-driven production and distributional systems.   With the devolution of social services to private enterprise, entrepreneurs in search of investment prospects would be primarily interested in the \u201cmarket-capable\u201d segments of society (if the state demurs from extending this effective demand, through public financing, to those without the disposable incomes).\r\n\r\nNot surprisingly, as the flipside of privatization, voluntarism has emerged as a popular slogan, in rhetoric if not in substance, along with an ascendant neo-liberalism (George Bush Sr\u2019s thousand points of lights, Mahathir\u2019s caring society as counterpoint to Malaysia, Inc., etc).  Social capital and civic society likewise are appealing to the World Bank as private capital proceeds to undermine a sense of community worldwide.\r\n\r\nSeen in that light, targeting is also the persuasive face and generic template for the privatization of essential social services, persuasive because it draws upon considerable intuitive appeal.  The intuitive appeal is not without reason, and targeting can in fact achieve quite positive results under certain favorable circumstances, e.g. when targeting is used to direct and to fine-tune extra benefits to low-income groups within the context of what are fundamentally universalist policies (targeting within universalism).  As distinct from this however, targeting versus universalism has remained as the preferred policy axis for much of the international development establishment, prompting Thandika Mkandawire to observe that \u201cone remarkable feature of the debate on universalism and targeting is the disjuncture between an unrelenting argumentation for targeting, and a stubborn slew of empirical evidence suggesting that targeting is not effective in addressing issues of poverty (as broadly understood)\u201d.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat, email admin@equinetafrica.org. Further information and publication on EQUINET work on public health policy is available at the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Organisation (WHO) General Candidate Survey","field_subtitle":"The Framework Convention Alliance for Tobacco Control (FCTC)","field_url":"http://fctc.org/DG/Questionnaire.doc","body":"The Framework Convention Alliance is a coalition of over 250 groups from more than 90 countries dedicated to support the ratification and implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. As a candidate for the post of Director General of the World Health Organization, the FCTC wrote and sent out questionnaires to solicit various participants' views on tobacco control by asking them to respond to the survey. The questionnaire used can be found at the weblink above.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A PRA project report: Raising our voice, breaking our silence: Health workers\u2019 experiences and needs around Occupational Health Services in Cape Town, South Africa","field_subtitle":"Industrial Health Research Group (IHRG), June 2006","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRAihrg.pdf","body":"This Participatory, Reflection, and Action (PRA) project on occupational health services offered an opportunity for IHRG and a group of unionised health workers to use innovative learning and research methodologies as a means to investigate and intervene in their experiences of workplace injury and illness. Following IHRG\u2019s participation in a regional training workshop hosted by EQUINET with TARSC and Ifakara, IHRG used selected PRA tools in a participatory action research programme. The project consisted of three workshops, workplace-based investigations, and the dissemination of networking resources among the participants. The combination of workplace-based case investigations and the process of critically reflecting on these interventions provided a very powerful action-learning experience. Processes of change were evident even in this short term project. Participants\u2019 workplace investigations uncovered real cases of workplace injury and illness that have been buried under a culture of ignorance, neglect, silence, and denial of workers\u2019 health and safety rights. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to Health and Public-Private Partnerships","field_subtitle":"Krebs V: Geneva Health Forum, 30 August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/pg5pg","body":"As a medical doctor, working in the field of maternal and neonatal health, Dr. Imtiaz Jehan sees public-private partnerships and the challenges related to access to health from a Southern perspective. She shares with us how she believes progress can be made for the public and the private sectors to working together.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to health for people with disability: A right or a favour?","field_subtitle":"Berry S: Geneva Health Forum, 1 September 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/mzw96","body":"Although the estimated 600 million people with disabilities have formally been recognized, in reality they are still often being overlooked and by no means enjoy the same rights as the rest of the world's population. The goal is to ensure that all people, disabled and able bodied alike, have the same access to all kinds of services in society, in particular health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to health: A global problem in need of a global solution","field_subtitle":"Poirier J: Geneva Health Forum, 30 August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/n3hgs","body":"To achieve global access to health care requires the participation of a range of actors including patients, well-organized NGOs and governments that are held accountable. This specific symposium covered a range of issues that are critical to providing access to health care for all. It also outlined the civil and social roles, such as that of the People's Health Movement (PHM).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to vaccines: Obstacles and solutions","field_subtitle":"Arnodei I: Geneva Health Forum, 31 August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/h72r2","body":"More than 2,600,000 deaths have been prevented in 2003 thanks to the Hepatitis B vaccine currently available. This is only one impressive example of the benefits of good vaccination and immunisation programmes. Although vaccination programmes are very cost-efficient, costing as less than 1,000 USD per life saved, the world still faces over 100,000 neonatal tetanus deaths and over 400,000 deaths from measles per year. The international community has a very ambitious plan: to completely eradicate diseases which are preventable by global vaccine coverage. How can such a goal be accomplished?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa to get free technical ability to manufacture HIV generic medicine","field_subtitle":"Kuwait News Agency, 22 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.kuna.net.kw/Home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=907412","body":"The Swiss-based Basel giant pharmmaceutical company, Roche, said that it would supply free-of-charge three companies in Africa, with the technical ability to manufacture generic medicine for HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS. In an announcement on 22 September, Roche added that Aspen Pharmacare in South Africa and Cosmos Limited and Universal Corporation Limited in Kenya will receive the necessary technical expertise. The Basel based firm said another 25 companies from 14 countries, including Ghana, Zimbabwe and Nigeria were interested in the initiative. The agreements are the first in a series of planned technology transfers for sub-Saharan Africa and the world's Least Developed Countries, which were announced in January 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"African brain drain","field_subtitle":"Hooper-Box C: Kubatana, 1 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.kubatana.net/html/archive/opin/060901chb.asp?sector=OPIN","body":"Southern Africa\u2019s public health services are in a state of emergency. Bad pay and working conditions, plus the impact of HIV/Aids, are bleeding the system of its most valuable resource: people. With the cost of training a general practice doctor estimated to be $60 000, and that of training a medical auxiliary at $12 000, the African Union estimates that low income countries subsidise high income countries to the tune of $500-million a year through the loss of their health workers. The article touches on the experience in several eastern and southern African countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"After the political declaration - Where to from here? Views of an activist living with HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Mthati S: The Sixteenth International AIDS Conference, August 2006","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/hcast_index.cfm?display=detail&hc=1784","body":"This video clip from the Sixteenth International AIDS Conference held in Toronto in August 2006 shows an AIDS activist living with HIV presenting her views on the UNGASS political declaration. The video clip is found among others presented at that conference session.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Asian Peoples\u2019 Tribunal on Poverty and Debt","field_subtitle":"International People\\'s Forum versus the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)","field_url":"http://ipf.homeip.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=39","body":"This petition was prepared in time for the annual meeting of the IMF-World Bank, 19-20 September in Singapore. The Tribunal received a petition from peoples\u2019 organisations, citizens groups, social movements and NGOs from various countries in Asia seeking justice for the impact of debt on the lives, livelihood and well-being, human rights of the peoples of Asia, on the environment, ecological systems, economies and political affairs of many countries in the region. The same petition charges the IMF, World Bank (WB) and ADB of responsibility for the intensification of poverty and deprivation, violation of basic human rights, in addtion to other faults. By so doing, signataries hope that they will be compelled to review their actions and calculate and quantify the damages wrought by their policies or people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Breathing life into DRC's sick hospital","field_subtitle":"Winter J: BBC News International, 8 August 2006","field_url":"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5253238.stm","body":"This story describes the experience of Professor Stanis Wembonyama as director of the main hospital in Democratic Republic of Congo's second city, Lubumbashi, last year. Gecamines, the state-owned mining monopoly used to be in charge - theoretically - of the Jason Sendwe Hospital, but the institution had been left to rot. Most of the beds had been either stolen or stripped down and sold as scrap metal. Doctors and nurses had not been paid their salaries for five years and so they earned their living by demanding cash before treating their patients. The story outlines the steps to clean up the hospital and instil management discipline.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Building public services for poverty reduction","field_subtitle":"Emmett B, Green D, Laws M, et al: Oxfam , 2006","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/debt_aid/downloads/public_interest.pdf","body":"This report highlights how building strong public services is key to transforming the lives of people living in poverty. The authors show that developing countries will only achieve healthy and educated populations if their governments take responsibility for providing essential services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Burundi: Hospital officials detain hundreds of insolvent patients","field_subtitle":"Human Rights Watch, 7 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/09/07/burund14126.htm","body":"Burundian state hospitals are reported to routinely detain patients who are unable to pay their hospital bills, the Human Rights Watch and the Burundian Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Detained Persons said in a report released in September. The patients can be detained for weeks or even months in abysmal conditions. This practice is reported to highlight broader problems of the health system in Burundi, where patients have to pay for their own treatment. The organisations called on the Burundian government to end the practice and to make access to health care for all Burundians a central part of its new Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: Mobilising partners for social change","field_subtitle":"Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH)","field_url":"http://www.ccph.info/","body":"CCPH invites you to share your knowledge, experience and lessons learned with hundreds of colleagues who - like you are passionate about the power of partnerships to transform communities and academe. The deadline for proposal submission is 6 October 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for student posters on 'Public health and human rights'","field_subtitle":"American Public Health Association (APHA) and International Human Rights Committee (IHRC)","field_url":"","body":"The mission of the APHA International Human Rights Committee is to develop research, education, and policy toward eliminating international human rights violations which relate to public health. IHRC seeks abstracts from students in public health or related fields on topics addressing the intersection between health and human rights. Abstracts related to the 2006 Annual Meeting theme \"Public Health and Human Rights\" are encouraged.  Student papers must reflect work, issues, or activities undertaken while in school, either undergraduate or graduate programs. Poster sessions allow participants to view presentations at will and interact with poster session authors. Complete and submit attached form by email (in Word format) or mail no later than October 10, 2006, 5:00pm (ET).","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31816","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Causing hunger: An overview of the food crisis in Africa","field_subtitle":"Oxfam Briefing Paper 91, July 2006","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/en/files/bp91_africa_food_crisis.pdf/download","body":"For people to be hungry in Africa in the 21st century is neither inevitable nor morally acceptable. The world\u2019s emergency response requires an overhaul so that it delivers prompt, equitable, and effective assistance to people suffering from lack of food. More fundamentally, governments need to tackle the root causes of hunger, which include poverty, agricultural mismanagement, conflict, unfair trade rules, and the unprecedented problems of HIV/AIDS and climate change. The promised joint effort of African governments and donors to eradicate poverty must deliver pro-poor rural policies that prioritise the needs of marginalised rural groups such as small-holders, pastoralists, and women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Child health inequities in developing countries: Differences across urban and rural areas","field_subtitle":"Fotso JC: International Journal for Equity in Health 5:9, 11 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/5/1/9/abstract/","body":"Across countries in sub-Saharan Africa, though socioeconomic inequalities in stunting do exist in both urban and rural areas, they are significantly larger in urban areas. Intra-urban differences in child malnutrition are larger than overall urban-rural differentials in child malnutrition, and there seem to be no visible relationships between within-urban inequities in child health on the one hand, and urban population growth, urban malnutrition, or overall rural-urban differentials in malnutrition, on the other","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil Society and Social Issues in Health: Community in Action for Health","field_subtitle":"Berry S: Geneva Health Forum, 31 August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jvj8a","body":"The traditional top-down approach to development is widely criticised as being inappropriate to meet the needs of local populations, especially the very poor. In order to improve this situation, some development organisations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) favour approaches that integrate local communities in policy formation and implementation. Health, an important aspect of development, necessitates active involvement of the local population. The community remains the key actor in improving its own health standards and communicating its requirements to governments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society engagement with African governments","field_subtitle":"E-Civicus, 9 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.un.org/africa/osaa/ngodirectory/index.htm","body":"The Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (OSAA) supports the work of civil society organisations in Africa through the publication of a number of reports highlighting their contributions to addressing threats to peace and security as well as development in Africa . OSAA seeks to strengthen African civil society organisations through the annual publication of this NGO directory.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Cost-effectiveness analysis of HIV chemoprophylaxis","field_subtitle":"Grant R, Lama J, Goicochea P, et al: The Sixteenth International AIDS Conference, August 2006","field_url":"http://www.aids2006.org/PAG/Abstracts.aspx?AID=51363","body":"Ethical guidelines require that research on effectiveness of HIV chemoprophylaxis be performed in populations where the intervention would be feasible if the trials demonstrate efficacy with acceptable safety. Population effects and cost effectiveness were simulated using a mathematical model that considers heterosexual and homosexual transmission, higher infectiousness in early and late infection, age and sex effects on susceptibility, risk behavior variation, condom replacement, known age-sex partner preferences, and primary and secondary drug resistance. The article describes the findings and relevant conclusions drawn.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Critical view on the role of hospitals in increasing access to health","field_subtitle":"Krebs V: Geneva Health Forum, 1 September 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/zznry","body":"Hospitals have always played a pivotal role in the global healthcare system. They have power, authority and professional competences in both the rich and poor worlds. But what if we all begin to re-think the mission of hospital care and re-design the way we deliver it in order to increase access to health? The moment has arrived for reform in order to achieve optimal care, to learn from examples of real innovation and disseminate this knowledge, sharing ideas as well as best practices. For example one speaker at this session of the August 2006 Geneva Health Forum noted that the mission of hospitals has shifted from delivering specialized care to our patients; to responsibility for the care in our region; to promoting health to all our citizens.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"CSO capacity for policy engagement: Lessons learned from the CSPP consultations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America","field_subtitle":"Chowdhury N, Finlay-Notman C, Hovland I: Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Working Paper 272, August 2006","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/RAPID/Publications/Documents/WP272.pdf","body":"The nature of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in development work is changing, but how successfully \u2013 and leading where? Surprisingly, there is very little systematic research on how CSOs all over the world are influencing policy processes, especially from the point of view of those actually involved in the policymaking process in the South. This paper was written as part of the Civil Society Partnerships Programme (CSPP) to improve the capacity of Southern CSOs to influence pro-poor policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Database of experts on  HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"SAfAIDS","field_url":"","body":"SAfAIDS is developing a database of experts on various issues on HIV and AIDS. The experts may be called upon to undertake work on behalf of SAfAIDS from time to time for a fee. Established in 1994, SAfAIDS is a regional HIV/AIDS organisation based in Harare, Zimbabwe. Its goal is to disseminate HIV/AIDS information to promote, inform and support appropriate responses to the epidemic. Interested individuals should submit detailed CVs to SAfAIDS at the email adress below.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 39: Community voice and role in district health systems in east and southern Africa: A literature review","field_subtitle":"B\u00e1ez C, Barron P: EQUINET","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS39GOVbaez.pdf","body":"This study is a review of the literature and secondary evidence on community participation in central, eastern and southern Africa. It focuses in particular on South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia and Kenya, and presents and analyses evidence of the current situation with regard to the role of districts in promoting community participation and articulating community voice. This includes looking at how: \u2022 community voice and roles at district level are structured and integrated into planning; \u2022 the way districts carry out their functions enables or blocks participation; \u2022 districts articulate and represent community interests at national level; and \u2022 wider contexts and processes at national and district levels influence and explain these outcomes. The purpose of the review is to identify examples of enabling and blocking mechanisms for community participation at district level and to provide pointers for further research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Disease control programmes: Undermining comprehensive care?","field_subtitle":"Krebs V: Geneva Health Forum, 1 September 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hf9kq","body":"What is the best way to address the health care needs of an underserved population? Is it through disease prevention or is it through a more comprehensive and coordinated approach? According to a session of the August 2006 Geneva Health Forum integration of the two approaches is the key to a successful health care delivery system, providing wider access to a greater number of the population. The vertical approach is disease-centred, while the horizontal approach is patient-centred. The use of resources in a vertical approach is dictated by a centralized authority, while the horizontal approach encompasses area-wide planning at the centre with final decision-making devolved to the local or district level. Experiences reported from Uganda and Tanzania indicated limitations of the vertical approach and the better results provided by the adoption of a horizontal approach. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Drug purchase facility as shining example of innovative funding","field_subtitle":"United Nations Secretary-General SG/SM/10645 (AIDS/128), 19 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sgsm10645.doc.htm","body":"This excerpt contains the text of United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Kofi Annan\u2019s remarks at the official launch of UNITAID, the International Drug Purchase Facility, in New York today, 19 September. The Secretary General began by acknowledging this international facility for the purchase of drugs as a shining example of an innovative source of funding that can help us reach the Millennium Development Goals. The full speech can be found at the weblink above.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Ensuring access to health care for migrants","field_subtitle":"Berry S: Geneva Health Forum, 31 August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hfom9","body":"The fifth largest nation in the world does not have sufficient access to health. Indeed if migrants were seen as a country, they would represent a significant nation in terms of population. How can we explain that so many people do not have access to health care? The focus of this symposium, chaired by Angela Davies from the International Organization of Migration (IOM) and Sandro Cattacin from the University of Geneva, was on the unequal provision of health services for migrants.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC). \r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org \r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter Web design from Fahamu \r\nPlease forward this to others. \r\nTo subscribe, visit: http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\nPlease send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 68: Human rights and public health: More than just about civil liberties","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET) \r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/ \r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. \r\nFurther information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in access to health: Dream or reality?","field_subtitle":"Hery-Jaona J: Geneva Health Forum, 31 August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/om93t","body":"This session of the August 2006 Geneva Forum on health explored equity in health, including equity of access to essential drugs. Speakers identified constraints to equity, and suggested that equitable access to health care can only be achieved through reformation of the health sector. Measures proposed included a focus on poor geographic areas; the indirect measurement of the recipient's economic status; payments to poor service recipients; mass campaigns; contracting with NGOs and the active involvement of the poor. Inequity is not only due to social determinants and also demands scaling up financing of health systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in access: Interview with Eritrean Health Minister","field_subtitle":"Krebs V: Geneva Health Forum, 2 September 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ztltm","body":"Hon Minister Salih Meky, Minister of Health of Eritrea, spoke with interviewers at the August 2006 Geneva Forum for Health about achievements and challenges in the field of health in Eritrea and in Africa more generally. In Eritrea, health care is free of charge at point of care. The country has managed to keep under control a number of infectious diseases, but faces the increasing challenge of chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, hypertension and cancer. Hospital costs are a major issue. Minister Meky questioned whether there was a simple solution to the brain drain, and urged that it be addressed by the South and by the wealthy countries in the North. He observed that one priority was to improve living conditions and opportunities in the south and another for developed countries to help to train people. He felt that while there ought to be free movement of people, the brain-drain must be solved. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Fellowships in International Health","field_subtitle":"Harvard School of Public Health. Takemi Programme","field_url":"http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/takemi/","body":"Possible fields of study for the fellowship include mobilisation, allocation, and management of scarce resources to improve health; and creation of sound strategies for disease control and health promotion. The purpose of the fellowship is to investigate how resources are allocated and used for health purposes and to develop methods for making such policy choices more rational and equitable, especially in developing countries. The duration of fellowship is ten months. The deadline for application is 1 February 2007.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Fighting AIDS with ingenuity","field_subtitle":"Goar C:  The Toronto Star, 16 August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/h3d9d","body":"What happens when there aren't enough doctors to administer treatments? What happens when patients sell their medications to buy food? What happens when people are afraid to get tested for a disease?  The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) working with South African researchers are developing techniques to manage AIDS in resource constrained settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing mental health services in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Dixon A, McDaid D, Knapp M, Curran C:  Health Policy and Planning 21 (3), March 2006","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/21/3/171","body":"Mental disorders account for a significant and growing proportion of the global burden of disease and yet remain a low priority for public financing in health systems globally. In many low-income countries, formal mental health services are paid for directly by patients out-of-pocket and in middle-income countries undergoing transition there has been a decline in coverage. The paper explores the impact of health care financing arrangements on the efficient and equitable utilization of mental health services. Through a review of the literature and a number of country case studies, the paper examines the impact of financing mental health services from out-of-pocket payments, private health insurance, social health insurance and taxation. The implications for the development of financing systems in low- and middle-income countries are discussed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"GAPMINDER website","field_subtitle":"Professor Hans Rosling: International Health (Karolinska Institutet), 2006","field_url":"http://www.gapminder.org/","body":"Gapminder is a non-profit venture for development and provision of free software that visualise human development. This is done in collaboration with universities, United Nations (UN) organisations, public agencies and non-governmental organisations. Google Subscribed Links makes it possible to search deep into Gapminder's moving graphs visualizing world development. Important document series available at this site include 'Human Development; Data Animation'and 'The World Chart'- developed in collaboration between WHO and Swedish institutions with the aim of  visualising world health development, thereby enable better use of international health data for learning, advocacy and hypothesis generation. Others include a paper on 'Free software for a world in motion', focusing the need for new educational software environments for exploration of global statistics; and World Development Indicators (WDI, a publication of the World Bank's annual compilation of data about development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global rights for disabled close","field_subtitle":"Murray H: Monsters and Critics, 28 August 2006","field_url":"http://news.monstersandcritics.com/northamerica/article_1195519.php/Analysis_Global_rights_for_disabled_close","body":"For 650 million people with disabilities - roughly 10 percent of the world\u2019s population - a new UN treaty which would extend international human rights to this traditionally marginalised sector of society is finally within reach. After four years and eight sessions of negotiations, the United Nations\u2018 Convention to Protect the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was recently finalised by the UN General Assembly\u2019s Ad Hoc Committee. The UN disability convention guarantees persons with disabilities non-discrimination and equal recognition before the law; security, mobility and accessibility; the right to health, work and education; and participation in political and cultural life.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Grants for international AIDS research","field_subtitle":"Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF)","field_url":"http://www.ddcf.org/page.asp?pageId=301","body":"The Medical Research Program seeks to improve the care and treatment of AIDS patients in Africa by supporting clinical research and related capacity-building projects that fill critical gaps. DDCF funds have supported competitive grant programs as well as individual grants. The Duke Foundation gives about 5% of its funding in response to unsolicited applications. Financial provisionsa are up to US$100 000 per year, for duration of two years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health budget should meet Abuja Declaration","field_subtitle":"The Daily Mirror Reporter (Zimbabwe), 20 September 2006","field_url":"","body":"In a presentation before the parliamentary portfolio committee on health and child welfare yesterday, the health ministry said its budgetary allocation for next year should conform to the declaration. This article presents its argument that in Zimbabwe, the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare budget should at least meet the Abuja Declaration target of a minimum of 15% of the government budget going to Ministry of Health.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31771","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health budgets in Africa","field_subtitle":"Wemos","field_url":"http://www.wemos.nl/en-GB/Content.aspx?type=news&id=2483","body":"In 2005, Wemos together with several Southern organizations conducted case studies in Ghana, Zambia, Kenya and Uganda on the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in determining budgets for health, particularly for health workers' salaries. Achieving the health related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) requires a substantial financial injection in the health sectors of low-income countries. Public expenditure, however, is restricted by IMF macroeconomic policies and conditions, through ceilings on the public sector wage bill. The report describes the findings and conclusions of the four case studies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health insurance: Is it globally relevant","field_subtitle":"Berset P: Geneva Health Forum, 31 August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qgu3c","body":"Financing of health systems is well known for raising controversial ideas and provoking stormy debate. Should a prepayment system be applied to deficient health systems in under-developed countries? Different judgements on the global relevance of insurance are presented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health worker motivation in Africa: The role of non-financial incentives and human resource management tools","field_subtitle":"Mathauer  I, Imhoff I: Human Resources for Health 4:24, 29 August 2006     ","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-4-24.pdf","body":"There is a serious human resource crisis in the health sector in developing countries, particularly in Africa. One of the challenges is the low motivation of health workers. Experience and the evidence suggest that any comprehensive strategy to maximize health worker motivation in a developing country context has to involve a mix of financial and non financial incentives. This study assesses the role of non-financial incentives for motivation in Benin and Kenya.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health worker shortage is major obstacle to universal treatment","field_subtitle":"Oxfam press release, 15 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/press/releases/health_150806.htm","body":"Representatives of Oxfam International, Physicians for Human Rights and Health GAP today called the critical shortage of health workers in developing countries \"a major challenge to meeting the promise of universal access to treatment.\" They demanded massive new investment from government to train and retain health workers. \"Campaigns to fulfill the right to health have brought anti-retroviral medicines to hundreds of thousands of people. But without the health workers and health systems to administer these medicines, that right remains unrealized for millions more,\" said Leonard Rubenstein, JD, Executive Director of Physicians for Human Rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Hitting malaria where it hurts: Household and community responses in Africa","field_subtitle":"Jones C: ID21 Insights Health 9, August 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights-h09/art00.html","body":"In many communities the symptoms of malaria are widely recognised. Decisions about choice and order of treatment are often based on people's experience of the effectiveness of particular treatments and the availability and cost of medication.  Research on managing malaria in communities has been largely concerned either with individual perceptions about the causes and symptoms of the disease or with the implementation of specific interventions. It fails to provide essential information on the context in which communities and households cope with their day-to-day problems, including malaria. Further research needs to: * focus on the 'normality' of malaria and the social and political environments that influence how interventions are chosen and how they are used; and * increase understanding of the social, economic, political and historical contexts that shape household and community beliefs and behaviours.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV rates no longer falling in Uganda: Evidence from rural population cohort 1989-2005 and ANC surveillance","field_subtitle":"Shafer LA, Biraro S, Kamali A, et al: The Sixteenth International AIDS Conference, August 2006","field_url":"http://www.aids2006.org/Web/THLB0108.ppt","body":"Throughout the 1990s, Uganda has successfully controlled its HIV epidemic, with falling prevalence and incidence rates. Recent evidence, however, indicates that this decline may not be continuing. Factors influencing recent epidemiological trends are still unclear, but may include increased risk behaviour, the natural epidemiologic cycle and others. To solidify Uganda\u2019s success, the ongoing efforts in HIV prevention need to be re-emphasised.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How to move forward on governance and corruption","field_subtitle":"Fritz V: Overseas Development Institute Opinion (72) 1-2, July 2006","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/opinions/72_governance_corruption.pdf","body":"Corruption holds development back.  The author proposes that the aid community needs to be more open-minded and to think harder about what works to deal with corruption, rather than prescribing standard formulas. The author reviews of the things we understand and the things we don\u2019t and thence suggests five ways of moving forward.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights and public health: More than just about civil liberties","field_subtitle":"Leslie London, School of Public Health, University of Cape Town","field_url":"","body":"Recent media attention in South Africa has drawn attention to an outbreak of Extreme Drug Resistant (XDR) TB and the need to contain infectious diseases such as XDR TB by extraordinary methods such as quarantine. Such measures, typical of the public health approach to community health problems, involve the limitation of individual rights in the interests of the public good. In this case, the need to contain a costly, highly dangerous and virtually untreatable form of TB by forcibly quarantining patients with this form of TB, were said to outweigh the rights of the patient to autonomy and freedom of movement. Rightly, discussions in South Africa focused on whether the restrictions of the rights of the individual in the interests of the greater good could be justified. \r\n\r\nAt one level, this is an important debate because it is typical of many other public health conflicts (e.g. in relation to HIV or claims on scarce resources), where individual rights run into conflict with interests that represent a collective or social benefit. Resolving such conflicts in ways that retain respect for human rights whilst advancing public health is important for public health planners, and methods to do so have increasingly emerged in the human rights and public health literature that help public health practitioners negotiate these difficult trade-offs. Thus, in considering whether a limitation on individual autonomy could be justified in the public interest, one would expect that:\r\n-\tthe objective of the policy, such as quarantine, has an objective of legitimate interest and is provided for in terms of a due legal process;\r\n-\tthe policy will be effective in realising that objective;\r\n-\tthe policy is strictly necessary in a democratic society to achieve that objective;\r\n-\tthere are no less intrusive means available to achieve the same objective; and\r\n-\tthe policy\u2019s application is not arbitrary, discriminatory or unreasonable.\r\n\r\nOften many public health measures are applied routinely without careful reflection as to whether these criteria are met.  Calls for HIV notification, for example, are often made without clear policy objectives, or, where objectives are intended, without any evidence that notification will meet these objectives better than any other methods that are less restrictive of individual autonomy. \r\n\r\nHowever, it is the case that, under certain circumstances, and given certain requirements being met, limiting rights for the public interest can well be justified in terms of international human rights law. Indeed, the limitation of rights may well be viewed differently when one realises that states have obligations imposed by international human rights law to positively realise various obligations to control the spread of infectious diseases (ICESCR, article 12) and to meet requirements for general welfare (ICCPR, article 4).\r\n\r\nHowever, on another level, the public health objective itself is often the expression of a rights obligation of government to realise, for example, an environment not harmful to health (Section 24 of South Africa\u2019s Bill of Rights), or the right of access to health care. Such socio-economic rights obligations are themselves necessarily collective in nature, and the trade off is not so much between individual civil liberties and public health objectives, but between different kinds of rights, such as individualist rights to autonomy, and social rights such as the those relating to health care access or a safe environment, both of which are needed to realise health.  Protecting individual autonomy is important for the effectiveness of treatment programmes to ensure patient adherence and build trust in the health service, as much as social measures being required to control the spread of infectious diseases.\r\n\r\nPopular misconceptions of rights as being solely or predominantly about civil liberties and formal parliamentary democracy have been fostered by a combination of the ascendance of neo-liberal economic policies in international policy making, as well as the unopposed exercise of power by the USA and its allies in the post-Cold War period in ways that entrench narrow individualist views of rights. Indeed, recognition of the indivisibility of rights and the equal importance of socio-economic entitlements and equity run counter to market-oriented development policies fostered by international development agencies.\r\n\r\nThirdly, human rights are not just about limits to state power but also speak to realising human potential in ways that confer agency. \r\n\r\nWhen faced with public outcry or a health emergency, public health responses frequently fall back on traditional population interventions that obviate any role for individual and community action. The resort to autocratic traditions of central command and control has a strong anti-democratic history in public health and is based on a deep suspicion that humans can be trusted to make decisions in their own collective interest. It is not surprising, therefore, that many of the pioneering anti-smoking public health measures originated in the health programmes of Germany\u2019s Nazi government and were entirely compatible with the ferociously anti-democratic and inhumane ideology of the Nazi regime. What a human rights approach brings to public health, therefore, is to ensure that social justice is a counterbalance to unchallenged utilitarianism, and that checks on power serve to protect the vulnerable, in ways that confer agency on communities to determine the policies and programmes that affect their health. \r\n\r\nIncreasingly, human rights advocates are realising that the sources of power in society who must be held accountable are not just states, but non-state actors, including multilateral agencies and multinational corporations whose de facto control of resources determines access to the conditions required for health to a far greater extent than does that of many states. International human rights law is increasingly providing \u201csoft\u201d law guidance through issuing of codes of conduct, norms and standards to ensure non-state actor accountability for human rights. Given that human rights are a product of developmental struggles, these frameworks will only be translated into meaningful instruments for accountability through strong civil society pressure on governments to turn such codes and standards into law. \r\n\r\nRights are not just about empowering vulnerable groups, but are themselves the products of contestation of power, at local, national and international level. And where power is contested, we should expect that the products of this contestation will reflect the relative balance of forces of different actors. For this reason, the exclusive emphasis on good governance, parliamentary democracy and civil liberties that has emerged as the dominant paradigm in some development discourses driven by Western governments has ironically contributed to a depoliticisation of rights and of development, because it strips struggles for health of any dimensions that challenge power imbalances \u2013 at local, regional and international levels. Yet power imbalances are what underlie health inequalities. This has led many to question \u201cWhy rights, why rights now?\u201d since when the language of rights becomes denuded of power, it is turned into a technical exercise of compliance with norms. \r\n\r\nUnchallenged, therefore, we should not be so na\u00efve as to imagine that human rights will of necessity benefit poor people, poor communities or poor countries. Rather, by using and shaping rights towards pro-poor choices, human rights become transformative rather than simply easing human suffering. When human rights discourses, for example, begin to challenge and overturn obstacles posed by trade commitments to the realisation of the right to health, then the transformative nature of human rights emerges. \r\n\r\nIn this paradigm, the role of civil society organisation (CSOs) is absolutely central to realizing the agency that makes human rights approaches transformative. Yet many CSOs undertaking work in the health sector may 'do' human rights work, but are often not aware of the rights implications of their work on the ground. Is 'doing' human rights enhanced by 'acting' (i.e. conscious awareness of) human rights as well? Pilot research in the Western Cape with three health CSOs points to the multiplicative effect that a rights paradigm adds to their impact. By framing (health) needs as rights to which duty-bearers can be held accountable, not only is the demand for pro-poor services strengthened but beneficiaries of these services are enabled to be active agents in securing the conditions for their health, rather than passive recipients of state or NGO services. Moreover, placing demands in a right framework challenges service providers to see their role as realising states\u2019 human rights obligations rather than simply delivering services. It is particularly in the field of socio-economic rights that the duality of service provision as fulfillment of human rights is evident and where it is clearest that human rights are more than just civil liberties. \r\n\r\nCSOs engaging with rights approaches can build much stronger advocacy through sharing experiences and learning best practice. EQUINET, through its health rights theme, plans to explore the establishment of a learning network for CSOs in the region using rights approaches as a mechanism for enhancing civil society participation in the development of national health systems that are comprehensive, people-led and people-centred. We invite participation from CSOs and activists throughout the region in developing this network and look forward to your input and contribution to this debate.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat, email admin@equinetafrica.org for attention to School of Public Health, University of Cape Town, Leslie London. Further information and publication on EQUINET work on health rights as a tool for health equity is available at the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"IDeA knowledge capacity building toolkit","field_subtitle":"IDeA Knowledge","field_url":"http://www.idea-knowledge.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=1358919","body":"This toolkit has been developed to help civil society to increase local authorities\u2019 capacity to deliver change. It\u2019s response to the demand from local authorities for supporting development skills required for managing and delivering successful organisational change. The tools and information on this website include guidance, case studies and methodologies. These tools are coordinated and managed as a unit so that they achieve the intended outcomes and realise benefits. It breaks down into manageable chunks with monitoring and review points for assessing progress and performance in a long-term focus.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"IFPRI Global e-Learning Program ","field_subtitle":"International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)","field_url":"http://learning.ifpri.org/","body":"IFPRI Global e-Learning Program the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is launching a Global e-Learning Program designed to provide free e-learning opportunities for professionals around the world. The Global e-Learning Program will initially comprise two separate e-learning courses on 'How to Write a Convincing Proposal' and 'How to Communicate Scientific Research'. The methods and materials for both courses were developed by experienced international specialists and were tested extensively in two successful pilot e-learning programmes carried out in 2005. Both courses will be online for four months during 2006. Participants can choose to take either or both of the courses. For further information and registration for the courses, please visit IFPRI at the weblink above.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact assessment: How do we know we are making a difference?","field_subtitle":"The Communication Initiative,  25-26 October 2007","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/events_calendar/2006-events/events-4451.html","body":"The profile of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) has increased together with the need for them to assess the long-term impact of their work. In three fruitful days you will explore the current state of the debate about impact assessment and review current methodologies. This workshop will review the developments in the methodologies for assessing the impact of the types of Social Development work undertaken by NGOs. It will analyse the emergence of Impact Assessment as a separate discipline. It will also explore the areas of overlap between evaluations, and impact assessment which aims to identify the longer-term changes associated with Social Development work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving health, connecting people: The role of ICTs in the health sector of developing countries","field_subtitle":"Chetley A: InfoDev, 31 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.asksource.info/pdf/framework2.pdf","body":"This framework paper is aimed at policy makers who are involved in the development or management of programmes in the health sector in developing countries. It provides a \u2018snapshot\u2019 of the type of information and communication technology (ICT) interventions that are being used in the health sector, and the policy debates around ICTs and health. It draws from the experience of use in both the North and South, but with a focus on applicability in the South to identify the most effective and relevant uses of ICTs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving HIV surveillance and prevention among armed forces in Central Africa","field_subtitle":"Alberga J, Ubald T, Mpoudi E, et al: The Sixteenth International AIDS Conference, August 2006","field_url":"http://www.aids2006.org/Web/THLB0105.ppt","body":"The prevention of HIV/AIDS in the Armed Forces is a critical task in Central Africa. Since 2002 the US Department of Defense HIV/AIDS Prevention Program has been providing support through the Johns Hopkins Cameroon Program to assist these countries to improve surveillance and prevention of HIV/AIDS in Cameroon, Chad, Congo Brazzaville, Congo Kinshasa, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Sao Tome. The study describes interventions whose innovative effort in the Armed Forces in Central Africa is the first integrated HIV/AIDS prevention program in this region and will allow effective implementation of long-term strategies to fight the disease in this population.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Inernational mobility of health professionals","field_subtitle":"Bach S: United Nations University Wider Research Paper 82, August 2006","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/rps/rps2006/rp2006-82.pdf","body":"The consequences of health professional mobility have become a prominent public policy concern. This paper considers trends in mobility amongst doctors and nurses and the consequences for health systems. Policy responses are shifting from a reactive agenda that focuses on stemming migration towards a more active agenda of managed migration that benefits source and destination countries. Improved working conditions and effective human resource practice are required to encourage retention of health professionals in both source and destination countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya: Better care could be taken of AIDS orphans","field_subtitle":"IRIN Plusnews, 21 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6405&SelectRegion=East_Africa&SelectCountry=KENYA","body":"Being an orphan is tough enough at the best of times, but in the working class district of Dagoretti Corner in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, it often means going without food as well as love. Felista Kibe tries to make sure that doesn't happen. She and a handful of volunteers have been providing food and comfort to children orphaned by AIDS in Dagoretti since 1996. Eighty kids depend on her for a daily meal, 30 of whom are HIV positive, but when word gets out that a donation has been received as many as 200 children can show up.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Managing International Mobility of Health Professionals","field_subtitle":"Bonnefin M: Geneva Health Forum, 1 September 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/q8885","body":"The global phenomena of massive migration of health professionals and the advent of e-Health solutions are evidence of the fact that significant trends in health are no longer regional. Worldwide, doctors, nurses and ancillary staff are increasingly seeking better prospects for themselves, not only in the northern economic powerhouses but also in developing countries. However, a severe lack of knowledge-sharing mechanisms and appropriate funding has meant that patients and health professionals in poor countries are still denied the opportunity to benefit from pioneering e-Health programmes now being developed in countries such as the UK and Canada.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mozambique: Recognising the reality of HIV/AIDS in prisons saves lives","field_subtitle":"IRIN Plusnews, 21 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6403&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=MOZAMBIQUE","body":"In Mozambique's Machava Central Prison, the largest jail in the country, sex between prisoners is an unavoidable reality, but little is being done to prevent it, according to inmates and medical staff. Overcrowding, violence and high-risk behaviour, such as sharing drug-use equipment and unprotected sex increase risk of HIV transmission in prisons. Lack of information on HIV and AIDS and inadequate health facilities also contribute to the spread of the disease. This article explores the limits to prevention activities such as condom distribution given the taboo on homosexuality in Mozambique.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New website: Governance, conflict and social development","field_subtitle":"The International Development Department- Governance Resource Centre (GSDRC)","field_url":"http://www.idd.bham.ac.uk/gsdrc/index_gsdrc.htm","body":"This new site provides access to the best thinking on governance, conflict and social development. The GSDRC supports the knowledge needs of DFID and the wider development community in relation to governance, conflict and social development. The resource centre provides high quality, timely information to support project and programme planning, policy-making, and other activities in the field. A range of services are available to DFID and the public by visiting the links provided at the site printed above.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Oxfam urges massive investment in health systems","field_subtitle":"Oxfam press release, 14 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/press/releases/health_140806.htm","body":"Oxfam International today urged donor nations and developing country governments to scale up their investment in health systems to address the critical shortage of health workers and crumbling infrastructure. \"For the first time in human history, we have the resources to stop HIV/AIDS from killing millions of people. What we do not know is whether our leaders will muster the generosity to save these lives,\" said Dr, Mohga Kamal Yanni, senior health and HIV policy advisor for Oxfam International.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Press statement by the organisers of the International Peoples Forum versus IMF-WB","field_subtitle":"The International People\\'s Forum (IPF), 18 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/INTtrade.doc","body":"International People's Forum organizers issued this press startement to celebrate a successful forum and share plans for ways forward. On 18 September the IPF concluded the International Peoples Forum vs. the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (IPF), which was convened in Batam from September 15th to17th. Over 500 Indonesians participated in the Forum as did around 200 individuals from 25 countries representing at least 100 organisations. Amongst several other urgent requests made was that for stopping the imposition of policy conditions that undermine economic sovereignty  and exacerbate crises in health and education. The statement ends with a call on the governments that are members of the World Bank and IMF Boards of Directors to keep these institutions fully accountable for their impacts on human rights, equity, and the sustainability of development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Priority setting of health interventions: The need for multi-criteria decision analysis","field_subtitle":"Baltussen R, Niessen L: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 4:14, 21 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/4/1/14/abstract/","body":"Priority setting of health interventions is often ad-hoc and resources are not used to an optimal extent. Underlying problem is that multiple criteria play a role and decisions are complex. Interventions may be chosen to maximize general population health, to reduce health inequalities of disadvantaged or vulnerable groups, ad/or to respond to life-threatening situations, all with respect to practical and budgetary constraints. This is the type of problem that policy makers are typically bad at solving rationally, unaided. Therefore, the development of a multi-criteria approach to priority setting is necessary, and this has indeed recently been identified as one of the most important issues in health system research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Private sector 'not the answer to poverty'","field_subtitle":"Thornton P: Common Dreams Newscenter, 1 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0901-04.htm","body":"Rich countries must deliver more money directly to poor nations to avert a growing health and sanitation crisis spreading across the southern hemisphere, according to Oxfam. The global charity said investment in health care, water, sanitation and education must be delivered by governments rather than the private sector. The report condemned the World Bank for forcing privatisation or inappropriate private sector projects on developing countries, and criticised Western governments for signing up to the so-called Washington agenda.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Public not private: Key to ending global poverty","field_subtitle":"Oxfam / WaterAid Press Release, 1 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/press/releases/public_interest010906.htm","body":"Classrooms with teachers, clinics with nurses, running taps and working toilets: these basic public services are key to ending global poverty, according to a new report from Oxfam and WaterAid. And, the agencies say, only governments are in a position to deliver them on the scale needed to transform the lives of millions living in poverty. The report, \u201cIn the Public Interest\u201d, calls on developing country governments to devote a greater proportion of their budgets to building these vital services for their citizens - and for rich countries to support their plans with increased, long-term aid commitment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-Private Partnerships: Beneficial or undermining?","field_subtitle":"Menichini M: Geneva Health Forum, 30 August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hcpt4","body":"What conditions lead to efficient PPP's? Should we reject PPP's all together? Should governments do more in terms of Research and Development (R&D)? There are no straightforward answers but the speakers at this symposium offered convincing and interesting solutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Recruitment campaign","field_subtitle":"United Nations Centre for Economic Reform and Development (UNCERD)","field_url":"http://uncerd.org.istemp.com/MONITORING%20AND%20EVALUATION%20SPECIALIST.htm","body":"UNCERD is currently looking for dynamic, creative, dedicated and results-oriented senior managers, financial experts, health specialists, environmental experts, agricultural scientists and other related professionals with outstanding leadership qualities, a track record of succeeding in a multi-cultural environment, the capacity to bring together and respond to work place challenges in our various work area and other partner organisations in creating opportunities and solutions for sustainable socio-economic development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Regaining control: Realising women\u2019s rights to control thier own sexuality, well-being and reproductive health in Africa","field_subtitle":"Oxfam GB background policy briefing for the Special Session of the conference of African Ministers of Health, 18-22 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/HOUrights.pdf","body":"Since 2001, Africa\u2019s leaders have committed the African Union and their Governments to promote and protect the right to health in a series of international and continental legal protocols and declarations. These commitments provide a comprehensive package for addressing the challenges of maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS, violence and disease. However, the urgent action needed to address what African Governments have described as a \u201ccontinental state of emergency\u201d can only be achieved by ensuring firm policy and programme linkages between Sexual and Reproductive Health, HIV/AIDS and Gender Based Violence. The article encourages African Health Experts and Ministers of Health meeting in Maputo to ensure that the draft Action Plan contains targets and indicators that enshrine on key components of the Abuja Declaration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Report reveals global slum crisis","field_subtitle":"BBC News International, 16 June 2006","field_url":"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/5078654.stm","body":"Slum-dwellers who make up a third of the world's urban population often live no better, if not worse, than rural people, a United Nations report says. Anna Tibaijuka, head of the UN Habitat agency, urged governments and donors to take more seriously the problems of at least a billion people. The report provides an overview of different countries across the world, and highlights the relevance of this growing problem; for example, with respect to the health of these communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Rethinking the economic costs of malaria at the household level: Evidence from applying a new analytical framework in rural Kenya","field_subtitle":"Chuma JM, Thiede M, Molyneux CS: Malaria Journal 5:76, 31 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/5/1/76/abstract/","body":"Malaria imposes significant costs on households and the poor are disproportionately affected. However, cost data are often from quantitative surveys with a fixed recall period. They do not capture costs that unfold slowly over time, or seasonal variations. Few studies investigate the different pathways through which malaria contributes towards poverty. In this paper, a framework indicating the complex links between malaria, poverty and vulnerability at the household level is developed and applied using data from rural Kenya.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC and HIV/AIDS: Countries should utilise TRIPS flexibilities","field_subtitle":"Mabika AH: Southern and Eastern African Trade, Information and Negotiations  Institute (SEATINI) Bulletin 9 (4), 28 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.seatini.org/bulletins/latest.php#sadc","body":"The TRIPS plus provisions called for by the United States are worrisome in as far as access to HIV/AIDS life saving drugs, and SADC leaders should be ary of these provisions. SADC member countries should amend their current legislation to take advantage of the regulatory flexibility permitted by TRIPS before making any Intellectual Property-related commitments. SADC should reject any TRIPS-plus proposals and ensure that the standards of Intellectual Property protection in TRIPS remain the minimum standards.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Scaling up health interventions in resource-poor countries: What role does research in stated-preference framework play?","field_subtitle":"Pokhrel S: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:4, 30 March 2006","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/4/1/4","body":"Despite improved supply of health care services in low-income countries in the recent past, their uptake continues to be lower than anticipated. This has made it difficult to scale-up those interventions which are not only cost-effective from supply perspectives but that might have substantial impacts on improving the health status of these countries. Understanding demand-side barriers is therefore critically important.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Single public service legislation in the pipeline","field_subtitle":"South African Local Government Briefing, August 2006","field_url":"","body":"Draft legislation to create a single public service for national, provincial and local government will be presented to the cabinet by November, says the Director-General of the Department of Public Service and Administration, Richard Levin. The proposed legislation would establish a framework for a single public service and would regulate organisational and human resource matters in all spheres of government. It would deal with conditions of service, labour relations, corruption and service delivery; including health services. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31747","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Situation analysis report on the plight of orphans and vulnerable children in Palapye and Letlhakeng, Botswana","field_subtitle":"Tsheko GN, Segwabe M, Odirile LW, Tlou SD:  Social Aspects of HIV/AIDs Research Alliance (SAHARA), 5 August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hbk34","body":"The traditional role of care giving and support provided to orphans by paternal and maternal grandparents, uncles and aunts is slowly being eroded. More and more households are becoming nuclear family centred. Challenges facing Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) include serious shortages of housing and exposure to abuse (including ill-treatment and sexual abuse). This study collected information on conditions of OVC in Kweneng West and Serowe/Palapye districts, Botswana, and the services in place that cater for OVC needs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Solving the health equation: Improving public and private contributions to bridge the gap between rich and poor countries","field_subtitle":"Krebs V: Geneva Health Forum, 3 September 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ljk2p","body":"Whether via international bodies or by means of bilateral agreements, nationally or in PPPs, the public sector would continue to play the key role in terms of setting strategy and providing funds for access to health. With a view to ensuring that a larger percentage of public funds actually reach their intended beneficiaries, Dr Gwatkin of the World Bank urged NGOs to undertake monitoring of government and donor programmes in individual countries, stressing that together, \"civil society and the public sector comprise a powerful force for change\". He also mentioned that he would like to see efforts by international bodies, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) (www.who.int), to make their health and funding statistics more user-friendly as a means of improving grassroots use of them to increase global access to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Alarming AIDS figures reported in new study","field_subtitle":"IRINnews, 19 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6390&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=SOUTH_AFRICA","body":"HIV/AIDS is sweeping through parts of South Africa's east-coast province of KwaZulu-Natal, where researchers are finding alarming HIV prevalence levels among women. 'The study might be considered somewhat biased, as only women were tested, but the figures do suggest a worrying upward trend which could be part of a bigger problem,' Medical Research Council (MRC) researcher Professor Gita Ramjee told PlusNews.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Stand Up Against Poverty Toolkit","field_subtitle":"Oxfam Global Month of Action, 14 September-17 October 2006","field_url":"http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/action/oxfampoverty.pdf","body":"This Oxfam 'toolkit' suggests ways to participate in the 'Global Month of Action.' Oxfam describes the goals of poverty reduction and ways to contribute to the global efforts to reduce poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania: Early marriage puts girls at risk of HIV","field_subtitle":"IRIN news, 19 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6389&SelectRegion=East_Africa&SelectCountry=TANZANIA","body":"Data collected by the Tanzania Media Women Association (TAMWA) shows a strong correlation between HIV infection and early school exit, teenage marriage and pregnancy. Tanzanian law is reported in this report to allow girls aged as young as 15 to get married with parental consent. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania: New roads expose remote areas to HIV - Report","field_subtitle":"IRIN PLUSnews, 20 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6400&SelectRegion=East_Africa&SelectCountry=TANZANIA","body":"Rural road construction in Tanzania is opening new markets and providing greater economic opportunities, but can also increase the risk of HIV transmission. \"When roads and bridges are built they link low- and high-prevalence areas, such as villages where risk is lower and cities where the prevalence is higher,\" said a new report by the Tanzania Civil Engineering Contractors Association (TACECA) and the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation two-year international scholar award","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.pedaids.org/GrantsandAwards/Awards/Two-Year%20International%20Award.aspx","body":"Through its grant awards, the Foundation seeks to advance and recognise the work of outstanding professionals committed to eradicating pediatric AIDS.This program is for individuals from, and working in, developing countries. The Foundation is especially interested in projects that allow scholars to gain developing country experience while increasing the research capacity of the in-country location. The Foundation is now offering a postdoctoral fellowship for clinicians/scientists from developing countries. The program is aimed at healthcare professionals who have specific training or experience with HIV/AIDS and hold an MD or PhD.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The GATS and South Africa\u2019s National Health Act: A cautionary tale","field_subtitle":"Sinclair S: Municipal Services Project, Occasional Papers 11, June 2006","field_url":"http://www.queensu.ca/msp/","body":"This research shows not only how GATS conflicts with the National Health Act, but also how General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) threatens national sovereignty and impedes the achievement of our constitution\u2019s socio-economic rights. South African trade officials have repeatedly denied that GATS covers South African health services, but this study reveals that it covers almost all health services delivered outside of hospitals. South Africa\u2019s dilemma should serve as a warning that health policy-makers, governments and citizens need to be more attentive to GATS negotiations currently underway in Geneva. Instead of the current negotiations to broaden and deepen GATS coverage, there needs to be an assessment of the treaty\u2019s defects and joint international action to create more democratic international governance frameworks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The global health governance of antimicrobial effectiveness","field_subtitle":"Martin G: Globalization and Health 2:7, 25 April 2006","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/2/1/7/abstract/","body":"Antimicrobial resistance is a growing threat to public health the world over. Global health governance strategies need to address the erosion of antimicrobial effectiveness on three levels. Firstly, mechanisms to provide incentives for the pharmaceutical industry to develop antimicrobials for diseases threatening the developing world need to be sought out. Secondly, responsible use of antimicrobials by both clinicians and the animal food growing industry needs to be encouraged and managed globally. And lastly, in-country and international monitoring of changes in antimicrobial effectiveness needs to be stepped up in the context of a global health governance strategy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The human right to food in Malawi: Report of an international fact-finding mission","field_subtitle":"Rights and Democracy in collaboration with Foodfirst Information and Action Network, 2006","field_url":"http://www.dd-rd.ca/site/_PDF/publications/globalization/food/food_malawi.pdf","body":"The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has in 2004 developed guidelines as a practical tool to assist States to both understand and fulfill their obligations on the right to food. The guidelines were adopted in September 2004. This report and fact-finding mission by Rights and Democracy in collaboration with Foodfirst Information and Action Network in 2006 is an effort to apply the FAO Guidelines in a practical context in Malawi and in doing so, to illustrate the distinct advantages a human rights framework provides for policy and program development in relation to food security. The report identifies a number of legal, policy, institutional and economic constraints to the right to food and makes recommendations to address these.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The state of international collaboration for health systems research: What do publications tell?","field_subtitle":"Gonz\u00e1lez Block MA: Health Research Policy and Systems 4:7, 23 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/4/1/7/abstract/","body":"International collaboration for health system development has been identified as a critical input to meet pressing global health needs. North-South collaboration has the potential to benefit both parties, while South-South collaboration offers promise to strengthen capacity rapidly and efficiently across developing countries. There is an emerging trend to analyze the fruits of such collaboration. This paper builds on this trend by applying an innovative concept-based bibliometric method to identify the international scope of collaboration within the field of health policy and systems research. Two key questions are addressed: to what extent are papers comparing developing countries as against reporting on single country studies? To what extent are papers in either case being produced by researchers within their respective countries or through North-South or South-South collaboration?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The UN Millennium Development Goals Report 2006","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Resources/Static/Products/Progress2006/MDGReport2006.pdf","body":"Six years ago, leaders from every country agreed on a vision for the future - a world with less poverty, hunger and disease, greater survival prospects for mothers and their infants, better educated children, equal opportunities for women, and a healthier environment; a world in which developed and developing countries work in partnership for the betterment of all. This report shows where we stand in 2006 toward achieving these goals. The challenges involved in reaching the MDGs are staggering, but there are clear signs of hope.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Time to listen to Lesotho! The World Bank's new anti-corruption agenda","field_subtitle":"Van Vuuren H: Bretton Woods Project, 11 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B126%5D=i-126-9471e2c636c9ecc3eeeb19362ce2686d","body":"The World Bank and the home countries of corporations implicated in corruption in the Lesotho Highlands Water Scheme have many reasons to be shame-faced for the lack of support that Lesotho has been shown in its tenacious efforts to tackle corruption. At the very least the epitaph on the corruption and bribery trials needs to read that the conduct of international finance institutions and corporations in Lesotho must not be allowed to be repeated elsewhere.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards global access to health: Interview with Mary Robinson","field_subtitle":"Krebs V: Geneva Health Forum, 3 September 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/hvlrn","body":"Mary Robinson, the first woman President of Ireland (1990-1997) and more recently United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-2002) shared with the conference team some of the main challenges at hand when it comes to access to health for all: accountability, financing, the brain drain and the responsibility of those who have the means to make a difference, such as the private sector. She pointed out that the high turnout at the Forum was an indicator of the need for it and the urgency of discussing access to health. Access for all is the concern of all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda: Outrage as ARVs expire in government stores","field_subtitle":"IRIN Plusnews, 14 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6375&SelectRegion=East_Africa&SelectCountry=UGANDA","body":"Ugandan AIDS activists were outraged after antiretroviral (ARV) drugs worth an estimated US$500,000 were reported to have expired in government stores. \"For drugs to expire in stores when we have only 80,000 HIV-positive Ugandans enrolled on ARVs is inexcusable,\" Beatrice Were, of the anti-poverty group, ActionAid International, told IRIN/PlusNews. Between 150,000 and 200,000 Ugandans are reported to need the life-prolonging medication.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Ugandan government gets strict on wilful infection ","field_subtitle":"IRIN Plusnews, 5 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6120&SelectRegion=East_Africa&SelectCountry=UGANDA","body":"A Bill is to be introduced in the Ugandan parliament with a maximum penalty of death for HIV-positive people who wilfully infect minors. According to Doctor Elioda Tumwesigye, a member of parliament, the proposed bill seeks to amend the 'Penal Code Amendment Bill of 2004', and was to be introduced in parliament for a first reading in July 2006. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"UN calls rape 'a cancer' in DRC","field_subtitle":"BBC News Interntional","field_url":"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5351012.stm?ls","body":"UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland has called sexual abuse in the Democratic Republic of Congo a cancer \"that seems to be out of control\". Delivering a report to the UN Security Council, he called on the Congolese authorities to act more firmly to end violence against civilians. Mr Egeland was speaking after visits DR Congo and Uganda last week. He said the situation in northern Uganda was now more promising than it had been in years. However, Mr Egeland said the challenges facing DR Congo were enormous.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"UNGASS reporting and implementation on national monitoring and evaluation systems: Lessons from 4 countries","field_subtitle":"Kusek JZ, Delay P, Rao KS, Osindo B: The Sixteenth International AIDS Conference, August 2006","field_url":"http://www.aids2006.org/PAG/PSession.aspx?s=828","body":"As clearly shown in the 2005 UNGASS Country Progress Reports, AIDS resources have grown rapidly in recent years from US$300 million in 1996 to US$8 billion in 2005. One critical need is to ensure that available resources are used effectively, which requires that countries must invest in a sound monitoring and evaluation system to help provide feedback on whether projects, programs, and policies are achieving (or not) their expected results. A major emphasis has been put on integrating the various M&E efforts in support of the three ones principle of \u201cOne National Monitoring and Evaluation System\u201d. Four countries were invited to participate in a feedback session, including Botswana of Southern Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Using Geographic Information System applications to improve coverage, access and targeting of HIV/AIDS interventions","field_subtitle":"Taruberekera N, Chieza F, Madan Y: The Sixteenth International AIDS Conference, August 2006","field_url":"http://www.aids2006.org/Web/THLB0106.ppt","body":"Zimbabwe is in the mature stage of a generalised HIV/AIDS epidemic. However, HIV prevalence is unevenly distributed with respect to age, gender and locality. The objective of the mapping exercise was to focus limited project resources for improving linkages and ensuring maximum impact of prevention interventions. Use of GIS systems helped improve linkages between communication activities and product delivery to create informed demand and improve off-take of male and female condoms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"'Gilead\u2019s plan to cut AIDS drug prices in middle-income countries by two-thirds precedent-setting'","field_subtitle":"AIDS Healthcare Foundation, 13 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.aidshealth.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=702&Itemid=193","body":"In mid-July 2006, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) the largest US-based AIDS organisation with free AIDS treatment clinics in the US, Africa, Asia and Latin America/Caribbean, applauded Gilead Sciences, Inc for its recent decision to cut the prices for its lifesaving antiretroviral AIDS drugs by almost two-thirds in middle-income countries such as Mexico and India.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to treatment associated with declining stigma in Botswana","field_subtitle":"Smart T: AIDSmap, 18 August 2006","field_url":"http://aidsmap.com/en/news/4112593B-475C-4C48-AF5C-757009D96741.asp","body":"Over the last few years, since the roll-out of antiretroviral therapy (ART), there has been a substantial decrease in HIV-related stigma in Botswana, according to a population-based study presented on Monday at the Sixteenth International AIDS Conference in Toronto. Although there could be several possible explanations for this (including anti-stigma campaigns, the higher visibility of people living with HIV and AIDS and routine HIV testing), survey participants who knew that ART was accessible in Botswana were the least likely to stigmatise people with HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Addressing the health workforce crisis: Towards a common approach","field_subtitle":"Dal Poz MR, Quain EE, O\\\\\\'Neil M, McCaffery J, Elzinga G, Martineau T: Human Resources for Health 4:21, 3 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/4/1/21","body":"The challenges in the health workforce are well known and clearly documented. What is not so clearly understood is how to address these issues in a comprehensive and integrated manner that will lead to solutions. This editorial presents \u2013 and invites comments on \u2013 a technical framework intended to raise awareness among donors and multisector organisations outside ministries of health and to guide planning and strategy development at the country level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa: Ask the women ","field_subtitle":"Daniel P: Opendemocracy, 3 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-africa_democracy/africa_panel_3790.jsp","body":"To address Africa's deep-rooted problems, it's time to reject the superficial male charisma embodied by the likes of Tony Blair and Bob Geldof and instead mobilise the dynamic energies of African and Africa engaged women. The author discusses how Africa at its simplest already has a handful of problems, including, amongst others, HIV/AIDS and gender inequality. For example, the attempt to strengthen national systems in Africa continues to be thwarted by the high incidence of HIV/AIDS which is thinning out cohort after cohort of dynamic young professionals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Band aid for southern African medical  brain drain?","field_subtitle":"Integrated Regional Information Networks, 16 August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/kokte","body":"New laws introduced by the British government in mid-August 2006 are unwittingly giving the southern African region a temporary reprieve from the brain drain of medical staff. The new laws stipulate that employers in Britain will only be granted work permits for foreign nurses if they can prove that no suitable British or European Union candidate can be found.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Botswana\u2019s adult HIV mortality rate falls since the free ART rollout","field_subtitle":"Smart T: AIDSmap, 22 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/FA96D301-87C5-43E5-BB63-6F6921A12F7A.asp","body":"Since the launch of Botswana\u2019s national antiretroviral therapy (ART) programme, there was a decline in the country\u2019s adult mortality rate between 2003 and 2005 according to a report presented on Thursday 17 August 2006 at the Sixteenth International AIDS Conference in Toronto. The declining mortality rate was most pronounced in the districts of the country where ART first became available and where ART coverage is the most extensive.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications for practitioner fellowships","field_subtitle":"Application Deadline 25 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/NGPA/fellowships.htm","body":"The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Non-Governmental Public Action Programme is calling for applications for practitioner fellowships. These fellowships are aimed at members or representatives of practitioners groups (including developmental NGOs, global coalitions, voluntary sector groups, cooperatives, human rights groups, etc.) that are not directly funded by specific research projects in the programme. The fellow will be based with one of the NGPA project teams (each of which is attached to a different UK university department or research centre/institute) or with the programme director at the London School of Economics for up to three months.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications: Career awards","field_subtitle":"South African Medical Research Council","field_url":"","body":"The South African Medical Research Council (MRC) invites applications for Research Fellowships in Health Research.  This Career Development Programme is a partnership between the MRC and the tertiary education sector.  The purpose of the Research Fellowship is to build research capacity and scientific leadership by creating new positions for senior post-doctoral scientists that have demonstrated a potential to become established researchers. Applications should be received by no later than the 8 September 2006 for internal processes.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31654","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for entries for the SACOD Forum","field_subtitle":"Southern African Communications for Development (SACOD)","field_url":"http://www.biz-community.com/Event/196/15/3754.html","body":"The 10th SACOD Forum 2006 will take place from 10 - 14 October 2006 in Swaziland. This is a call for entries for completed films and videos, of any length and of any genre produced after 1 January 2005 that contribute to democracy, peace, popular participation, gender equality, development, environment, human rights and cultural identity. The SACOD Forum is a meeting place where filmmakers, distributors, and related organisations, gather to screen and debate selected film and video productions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for focus and urgency on universal access to treatment ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/TEIaids.doc","body":"Dr Paulo Teixeira Senior Adviser of the S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s STD/AIDS State Program argues the importance of the adoption of clear targets as one of the main factors that accounted for a dramatic change in access to treatment under the 3x5 program. He argues that access to ARV treatment has become an international consensus but that extreme measures still have to be taken to make this process irreversible and universal in the next few years. Some of these measures are technical support, the provision of international funds, the reduction in the prices of second line medications, and the inclusion of the most vulnerable groups like MSM, IDU, SW and inmates. He expressed concern at a weakening of measures towards addressing universal access to prevention and treatment.\r\n \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Canada's access to medicines regime","field_subtitle":"Canadian Government","field_url":"http://camr-rcam.hc-sc.gc.ca/index_e.html","body":"Canada's Access to Medicines Regime provides a way for the world's developing and least-developed countries to import high-quality drugs and medical devices at a lower cost to treat the diseases that bring suffering to their citizens. It is one part of the Government of Canada's broader strategy to assist countries in their struggle against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases. This website has all of the information that developing and least-developed countries, non governmental organisations and pharmaceutical companies need to take advantage of the regime.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Closing remarks by Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, at the  XVI International AIDS Conference, Toronto, Canada","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/LEWaids.doc","body":"In Stephen Lewis's last speech as UN Envoy for HIV and AIDS to the International HIV/AIDS conference in Toronto in August 2006 he comments on areas that have previously been of political controversy in the approach to the prevention of HIV/AIDS, including abstinence-only programmes, harm reduction programmes, circumcision, microbicides and  nutrition and to the South African response to AIDS. He gives particular emphasis on gender and child inequalities in the acquisition and management of HIV/AIDS. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Creating windows of opportunity for policy change: Incorporating evidence into decentralized planning in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Ashford LS, Smith RR, De Souza RM, Fikree FF, Yinger NV: WHO Bulletin 84, August 2006","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/84/8/06-030593.pdf","body":"Because researchers and policy-makers work in different spheres, policy decisions in the health arena are often not based on available scientific evidence.This paper describes a model that illustrates the policy process and how to work strategically to translate knowledge into policy actions. Activities were undertaken as part of the Kenyan Ministry of Health\u2019s new decentralised planning-process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"DSA Annual Conference 11 November 2006: The private sector, poverty reduction and international development","field_subtitle":"Development Studies Association","field_url":"http://www.devstud.org.uk/conference.htm","body":"The Development Studies Association (DSA) one-day conference titled The Private Sector, Poverty Reduction and International Development will take place on November 11th 2006 at the University of Reading. Health-related topics under one of three main conference themes \"Business and Finance and Poverty Reduction\" include \"HIV and Aids: Technical and policy issues for the private sector\" and \"Government attitudes to the private sector as an engine of growth: policy issues and debate\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC). \r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org \r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org \r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter Web design from Fahamu Please forward this to others. \r\nTo subscribe, visit: http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\nPlease send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 67: Still Paying the Price: Revisiting the Cholera Epidemic of 2000\u20132001 in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET) \r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/ \r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Establishing human resource systems for health during post-conflict reconstruction","field_subtitle":"Smith J, Kolehmainen-Aitken R-L: Management Sciences for Health Occasional Papers (3) 2006","field_url":"http://www.msh.org/resources/publications/pdf/HRH_Postconflict.pdf","body":"This paper outlines the Human Resources for Health (HRH) issues during the period of reconstruction in post-conflict countries, drawing examples from Afghanistan and Cambodia. It explores issues of restoring a health workforce and outlines key HRH actions for workforce reconstruction, including: identifying available staff; developing HRH management structures, systems and capacity; clarifying HRH roles and responsibilities; establishing health worker equivalencies and upgrading skills; supporting civil service reconstruction; and widely disseminating HRH information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Extensively drug-resistant TB rapidly fatal in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Alcorn K: AIDSmap, 23 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/330FCA76-1264-4589-83B8-EC9416830BB5.asp","body":"Tuberculosis (TB) that is resistant to practically every medication that can be used to treat it is alarmingly common in South Africa, and proved uniformly and rapidly fatal in one outbreak in rural South Africa, warned Dr Neel Gandhi, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, at the Sixteenth International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Glossary on the World Trade Organisation and public health: Part 2","field_subtitle":"Labonte R, Sanger M: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 60: 738-744, 2006","field_url":"http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/60/9/738","body":"Part 1 of this glossary introduced different health and trade arguments, overviewed the history of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), defined key \"trade talk\" terms, and reviewed three WTO treaties concerned with trade in goods (GATT 1994, the Agreement on Agriculture, and the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures). Part 2 reviews five more agreements and the growing number of bilateral and regional trade agreements, and concludes with a commentary on different strategies proposed to ensure that health is not compromised by trade liberalisation treaties.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health disparities and the body politic: A series of international symposia","field_subtitle":"Harvard School of Public Health","field_url":"http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/disparities/book/index.html","body":"What we today term \"health disparities\" launched the modern public health movement in the nineteenth century. Yet only in the past two decades have governments begun to focus explicitly on the deep-rooted social determinants of health and disease. What are governments' responsibilities to reduce these disparities? The last of the three symposia included input from a southern African country in examining how official statistics can shed light on modern health inequities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/HCV coinfected patients more prone to end-stage liver disease without treatment","field_subtitle":"Highleyman L: AIDSmap, 22 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/F64B87B6-E73A-47E9-B437-765A953DCF37.asp","body":"Individuals coinfected with HIV and hepatitis C virus are more likely to develop end-stage liver disease (ESLD) compared to patients with hepatitis C virus, alone, according to a study presented at the Sixteenth International AIDS Conference in Toronto on August 15th. However, the investigators found that coinfected patients who achieved a sustained response to hepatitis C therapy were no more likely to progress to end stage liver disease than their hepatitis C monoinfected peers. This could have important implications for prioritising recipients of hepatitis C therapy in resource-poor settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Home-based HIV counselling and testing in camps for internally displaced","field_subtitle":"Plusnews, 21 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6280&SelectRegion=East_Africa","body":"The International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Northern Uganda has begun operating home-based HIV counselling and testing in ten camps for internally displaced persons in the Kitgum region. The IRC intends to reach about 100,000 camp residents in their homes. HIV has spread rapidly in the region because the situation in the camps has adversely changed the way people behave.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How are health professionals earning their living in Malawi?","field_subtitle":"Muula AS, Maseko FC: BMC Health Services Research 6:97, 9 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/6/97/abstract","body":"Many health professionals in Malawi experience overly challenging environments. In order to survive some are involved in ethically and legally questionable activities such as receiving gifts from patients and pilfering drugs. The efforts by the Malawi government and the international community to retain health workers in Malawi are recognised. There is however need to evaluate of these human resources-retaining measures are having the desired effects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"How can food security interventions be improved to protect livelihoods in the Greater Horn of Africa?","field_subtitle":"Humanitarian Policy Group, ODI: Eldis , 2006 ","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC22530&Resource=f1aid","body":"This Briefing Note reviews the extent of emergency livelihoods responses during the most recent drought and resulting food crisis in the Horn of Africa. Drawing on secondary data and interviews with national and international actors in affected areas, it asks why accurate and timely early warning did not lead to a rapid and appropriate response to mitigate the drought\u2019s effects, and highlights how inadequate contingency planning, limited capacity in livelihoods programming and inflexible funding mechanisms resulted in delays and deficiencies in livelihoods interventions, and the predominance of food assistance in the emergency response.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"How do intellectual property law and international trade agreements affect access to ART?","field_subtitle":"Westerhaus M, Castro A: Plos Medicine, 3(8), 8 August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/om3m4","body":"This paper examines the key areas of concern regarding access to antiretroviral treatment (ART) related to US-negotiated bilateral, regional, and multilateral trade agreements. It examines developments in IP law in the wake of WTO's  Doha Declaration, which affirmed the priority of public health over the protection of patents. It looks specifically at those developments with particular salience for health related issues and link this history with the current context of access to antiretrovirals (ARVs) worldwide. It further suggests policy and advocacy strategies to ensure and promote access to ART.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementing a sector wide approach in health: The case of Mozambique","field_subtitle":"Martinez J: HLSP Institute, 2006","field_url":"http://www.hlspinstitute.org/files/project/100615/Mozambique_SWAP.pdf","body":"The strengths and weaknesses of the sector wide approach (SWAP) have been extensively analysed, but much less has been written on country experience to inform good practice elsewhere. This technical paper draws some lessons from SWAP in health in Mozambique. SWAP is not a panacea for donor coordination, and cannot address deep-rooted constraints typical of a young national health system. This paper explores how the key elements of the SWAP have been developed, how processes and mechanisms are working now, and studies some of its successes and challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Investing in health for development: Experiences from national follow-up to the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health","field_subtitle":"Spinaci S, Currat L, Shetty P, Crowell V, Kehler J","field_url":"http://www.who.int/macrohealth/documents/report_and_cover.pdf","body":"This report presents country experiences in developing and shaping work to address long-term planning for the health sector. It identifies areas of action to which the national commissions have contributed, from mobilising political will and building much-needed evidence, to strengthening national planning processes. These lay the groundwork for sustainable improvements in health for the world\u2019s poor people. The report clarifies the most intractable challenges that have impeded faster health progress, and gives concrete examples of how countries have started to address them through an integrated approach to health sector development and financing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Is Uganda's HIV prevention success story 'unravelling'?","field_subtitle":"Marco M, Bernard EJ: AIDSmap, 22 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/E7A3F648-945A-405D-BF00-89BA7E7FDCDF.asp","body":"Warning signs that Uganda's HIV prevalence may be on the rise again were presented to the Sixteenth International AIDS Conference in Toronto. Data on both HIV prevalence and incidence show rising trends since 2000, which the investigators attribute to increased sexual risk behaviour, the natural epidemiological cycle, and \"other factors\". These may include a chronic condom shortage and the hotly debated 'ABC' policy which appears to focus on abstinence and faithfulness rather than condom use.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"It is not all about salaries: Nurses in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Minnaar A, Selebi C: University of the Witwatersrand, August 2006","field_url":"http://hermes.wits.ac.za/wcs/display_article.asp?id=572","body":"A study conducted by the Department of Nursing at the University of the Witwatersrand has revealed the top 10 reasons for dissatisfaction in the nursing profession. The study was administered over a period of two years (2003- 2005) in a public hospital in Johannesburg. Dr Ansie Minnaar, lead researcher in the study says \u201cgenerally all the nurses interviewed experienced low satisfaction. Our findings show that it is not only salaries that are a factor in the nursing profession. Other factors are career prospects, policy implementation, the behaviour of supervisors, and relationships with other nurses and patient.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Making the links: sexuality, rights and development","field_subtitle":"Expert Group on Development Issues, June 2006","field_url":"http://www.egdi.gov.se/pdf/Report%20from%20EGDI%20conference%206%20april.pdf","body":"This is the report from a ground-breaking workshop on sexual rights held in Sweden. Some of the key issues discussed included who defines a right and how they are defined, going beyond identity politics sexuality and morality regarding women, men and transgendered people who sell sex for money. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Managing health professional migration from sub-Saharan Africa to Canada: A stakeholder inquiry into policy options","field_subtitle":"Labonte R, Packer  C, Klassen N: Human Resources for Health 4:22, 14 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/4/1/22","body":"Canada is a major recipient of foreign-trained health professionals, notably physicians from South Africa and other sub-Saharan African countries. Nurse migration from these countries, while comparatively small, is rising. African countries, meanwhile, have a critical shortage of professionals and a disproportionate burden of disease. What policy options could Canada pursue that balanced the right to health of Africans losing their health workers with the right of these workers to seek migration to countries such as Canada?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Medical bills push people deeper into poverty","field_subtitle":"McIntyre D, Thiede M, Dahlgren D, Whitehead M: ID21 Health, 28 July 2005","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h1dm1g4.html","body":"In some developing countries public health clinics charge patients for medical consultations. These medical fees, together with a loss of earnings due to ill health, have catastrophic consequences for families already living in poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"New website for human rights","field_subtitle":"Human Rights Tools","field_url":"http://www.humanrightstools.org/","body":"A new website for human rights professionals called Human Rights Tools offers four main services: a library of carefully selected and commented resources; key resources for country analysis to rapidly establish the human rights profile of a particular country and to facilitate analysis and follow-up of developments; daily updated human rights headlines; and free newsletter.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"People's Health Movement: One year after the Cuenca Declaration","field_subtitle":"People\\'s Health Movement Global Secretariat, 22 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/node/247","body":"PHM has released its yearly update one year after PHA II, held in Ecuador a year ago where the Cuenca Declaration was approved unanimously by 1,400 participants. This update discusses progress in the five year plan adopted in the Cuenca Declaration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor company: The impact of British business on poor people","field_subtitle":"Curtis M, July 2006","field_url":"http://www.cmyk.info/markcurtis/PoorCompany_briefing.pdf","body":"The British Parliament is currently examining changes to company law in what some commentators have billed as potentially the largest shakeup in business law for 150 years. This report observes however that the law protects corporations from serious accountability for their activities, especially where their impact is harshest - on poor people overseas. This report brings evidence together on selected British company activities internationally summarising research by various NGOs, campaign groups and\r\nothers. It focuses on a select number of British companies and alleges a range of practices harmful to worker and community health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Private sector development","field_subtitle":"International Development Committee, 17 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/icd-psdreport.pdf","body":"This audit report examines the Department for International Development (DFID)'s approach, policies and financing mechanisms in support of private sector development (PSD). Some of the issues covered in the report include understanding private development, enabling investment climates, financing private sector development: public private partnerships, and how the private sector is contributing to development and how donors can support this work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Questionnaire for educational needs assessment for ECSACON in member countries","field_subtitle":"Commonwealth Regional Health Community for east, central and southern Africa","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/eluaw","body":"The East, Central and Southern Africa College of Nursing (ECSACON) is an institution invested with the responsibility of improving the quality of health of the communities in the ECSA region through strengthening the contribution of nursing and midwifery services. ECSACON is conducting a needs assessment for its work and has disseminated a questionnaire for those in Authority at the Ministry of Health (MOH) or those in Nursing Regulatory bodies to complete. They ask that the questionniare found at the url given be completed and returned to ECSACON. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reaching the poor with health, nutrition and population services:  What works, what doesn't and why?","field_subtitle":"Gwatkin D, Wagstaff A, Yazbeck A: The World Bank, December 2005","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/gdlcl","body":"This 350-page volume features eleven of the \"Reaching the Poor Programme\"-commissioned studies, along with introductory chapters explaining why the studies were undertaken, how they were done, and what they found. The book marshals the available evidence about pro-poor strategies that have proven to be effective and that can help in the development of programs to better assist disadvantaged groups. In doing so, it can serve as a resource for policy makers, development practitioners, and policy analysts concerned with health conditions among the poor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaiming SADC for people's solidarity and development cooperation: Sechaba se ea bolaoa!","field_subtitle":"Southern African Peoples Solidarity Network (SAPSN). ","field_url":"http://www.osisa.org/node/3717","body":"The representatives of many economic justice networks, social development movements, women\u2019s, workers, youth and small-scale farmers, human rights, educational and environmental organisations, and many others, from across the Southern African region gathered in Maseru, Lesotho under the auspices of the Southern African Peoples Solidarity Network (SAPSN). They held a People\u2019s Summit to review their situation and share views on the state of regional development and cooperation, and so present their views to the Summit of the Heads of State and government ministers\u2019 meeting in Maseru, 16-18 August 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Reminder: Call for case studies and testimonies","field_subtitle":"Global Health Watch","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/call_case_studies.php","body":"Participate in the second Global Health Watch, by submitting case studies. Global Health Watch are calling activists, health workers and academics from around the world to submit case studies and testimonies based on individual or group experiences to supplement the second edition of the report and reinforce its main themes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Report of a research workshop: The role of health systems in food sovereignty and nutrition","field_subtitle":"EQUINET, Medical Research Council, University of the Western Cape: 2006","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REP052006pov.pdf","body":"The EQUINET and MRC meeting on Food Security and Nutrition in east and southern Africa sought to bring together case study writers and expert facilitators that have been working on nutrition initiatives, policies, and to update them on the prevailing situation, current interventions, equity and policies on food security. The meeting took a focus on how health systems can advance and encourage food sovereignty, including community control and enhanced gender equity in food production. The meeting established the framework for a series of case studies that demonstrate and examine health system approaches to food sovereignty that will be implemented in 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"SA dismisses harsh AIDS policy criticism","field_subtitle":"Quinn A: The Zimbabwe Standard, August 2006","field_url":"http://www.thezimbabwestandard.com/viewinfo.cfm?linkid=15&id=4575&siteid=1","body":"South Africa's Health Ministry spokesman Sibani Mngadi dismissed harsh criticism of its AIDS policy by a top UN official \"with contempt\" and said he was no Messiah for Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis. UN special envoy on AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis closed a global conference with probably the most blistering attack ever on South Africa's \"lunatic fringe\" approach to AIDS, calling it immoral and ineffective.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC study urges new 'DRC' model to fight HIV","field_subtitle":"Plusnews, 14 August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qcwhk","body":"In the fight against HIV/AIDS, think 'DRC' and not 'ABC', a new Southern African Development Community (SADC) report says. The report said the old model of controlling the lethal virus through a programme of ABC (Abstinence, Being faithful and Condom use) should be replaced by 'DRC' - Delaying sex, Reducing partners and continued Condom use.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Single-dose nevirapine not jeopardising mother's treatment, large Zambian study reports","field_subtitle":"Marco M: AIDSmap, 17 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/1B9E4C7E-3EC9-42CA-B534-A8139A332C3D.asp","body":"Single-dose nevirapine used for prevention of mother-to-child transmission does not appear to be jeopardising the future treatment responses of mothers who take it, researchers from Zambia reported this week at the Sixteenth International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada. Their study is the largest investigation to date of the effects of single-dose nevirapine on subsequent maternal treatment response.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Still Paying the Price: Revisiting the Cholera Epidemic of 2000\u20132001 in South Africa","field_subtitle":"David Hemson for the Municipal Services Project","field_url":"","body":"In 2000/1 South Africa endured a cholera epidemic that spread throughout the eastern coastal region and to other provinces. It resulted in 265 deaths in five provinces and 117,147 people, mostly in the KwaZulu-Natal province, were infected. The epidemic was, according to the World Health Organization, the biggest such outbreak in Africa for the reporting period. \r\n\r\nAccording to rural development researchers and the South African government, the policies of cost recovery had disadvantaged those for whom even a small charge of about R20 a month was too much. At its epicentre, those who could not afford new charges implemented in August 2000 were returning to traditional and untreated water sources and were falling victim to the disease.\r\n\r\nThe government declared the cholera epidemic an emergency and promised to provide a free six kilolitres of water to every household every month. A Municipal Services Project Occasional Paper 10, \u201cStill Paying the Price: Revisiting the Cholera Epidemic of 2000\u20132001 in South Africa\u201d examined the extent to which the response to the epidemic has led to sustained provision of safe water and improved sanitation to the poor. The evidence presented in the report suggests that there is a clear relationship between cost recovery for water, indifferent management leading to interruptions in supply, and vandalism.\r\n\r\nIn two communities - one at Nqutshini, a small settlement near the town of Empangeni on the banks of the Mhlatuzi River; and the other at Nkobongo, a developing low-cost housing area with continued informal settlements near Ballito, 40km north of Durban - there was some concealment and denial of the disease because of the stigma it carries.\r\n\r\nIn a number of cases where people fell ill, the family members were uncertain how to respond. Often the cholera victim tried to conceal and deny the disease, and this led to significant delays in seeking treatment. In one instance, a young girl died after hiding her symptoms for some time; in another, an older man had to be heavily persuaded before going to the hospital. The stigma associated with cholera complicated the acceptance of the need to avoid using river water, to treat this water, and, if sick, to seek medical assistance.\r\n\r\nThere were varying responses to the messages put out by the authorities on radio and television and carried by the Community Health Workers. Many in Nqutshini found it difficult to acknowledge that the river, from which they had always collected water, should be the carrier of disease. Some accepted that the water they were collecting from the river may be contaminated and need treatment, but others did not. Some saw the warnings against using river water as a way of forcing people to pay the monthly charges. It appears that for a period water was treated with Jik (bleach) by many, but this dropped off rapidly when the bleach was no longer available for free.\r\n\r\nScepticism about the official view was also associated with ideas reflecting a view of hostile external forces aiming to undermine the community, e.g. the belief by some that whites were spreading the disease through low-flying aeroplanes. In all cases, the MSP report on the epidemic presents vivid personal recollections of those who were afflicted, the dread it evoked, and the speed at which people\u2019s health declined.\r\n\r\nComparisons between conditions during the epidemic in 2000/1 and at the time of fieldwork in 2003 revealed a number of improvements: Most people now accessed piped water closer to their residence or through yard connections and most used Ventilated Improved Privies (VIPs). Most people at the time of the survey felt their water to be safe to drink and did not treat the water.\r\n\r\nHowever, there were ongoing complaints of frequent interruptions in the water supply through vandalism, burst pipes and for non-payment. In the two communities, the state was not providing Free Basic Water as promised, although the communities are both poor and thus generally vulnerable to cholera. At Nqutshini piped water was not flowing at all. Partly because of the dysfunctional water supplies, there was increased water storage by community members - an additional factor associated with cholera.\r\n\r\nThe incidence of diarrhoea among children in the household was found to be associated with extreme poverty, as were problems with accessing sufficient water, the ability to pay for water and the household having prior experience of cholera. All these factors - in particular the continued cycle of water-related disease in households over time - point to poor health conditions and continued vulnerability to disease among those living in extreme poverty.\r\n\r\nThe government\u2019s policy of Free Basic Water has been unevenly implemented and greater attention needs to be given to meeting the needs of the rural poor and those in poor peri-urban communities who would most benefit from its provision. Poor communities need a reliable water service, which requires better municipal management. Interruptions lead to long storage of water, which poses a health risk to those who consume this water. Communities and households with a prior experience of water related diseases seem most vulnerable to recurrence. Health and municipal authorities should give priority to those communities with a history of water-related disease to end the cycle of disease.\r\n\r\nThe Municipal Services Project is a multipartner research, policy and educational initiative examining the restructuring of municipal sservices in southern Africa. See http://www.queensu.ca/msp/  to contact the project at Rhodes University South Africa to obtain copies of the full report.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Swaziland: AIDS activists say sexual offences bill criminalises victims","field_subtitle":"Plusnews, 3 August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qnxh9","body":"Groups representing Swaziland's HIV-positive population are angry at a proposed Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Act mandating life prison terms for rapists who infect their victims with HIV, claiming that the law will criminalise the victim. \"Negative and positive persons must be accorded equal rights. But what are we criminalising here? Sleeping with someone without his or her consent, in other words rape, or HIV?\" said Thembi Nkambule, National coordinator of the Swaziland National Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS (SWANNEPHA).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The downside of $billions","field_subtitle":"Birn AE: Toronto Star, 16 Aug 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/gp58t","body":"Without taking social and political realities into account, the Gates Foundation patronage of even the most powerful medications cannot meet the goal of reducing global inequities. Recently Warren Buffett has received near-universal praise for his $31 billion donation to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation has likewise enjoyed wide acclaim for its global health and educational programs, with Buffett's gift the highest tribute of all. So what could possibly be wrong with Gates-Buffett philanthropy, aimed at improving global well-being? Five such issues are highlighted, warranting pause to the all-around backslapping.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Fund Secretariat\u2019s suspension of funding to Uganda: How could this have been avoided?","field_subtitle":"Kapiriri L, Martin DK: WHO Bulletin 84, August 2006","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/84/7/576.pdf","body":"In August 2005, the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Secretariat suspended its five grants to Uganda following an audit report that exposed gross mismanagement in the Project Management Unit. How could this have been avoided? How can other countries avoid a similar pitfall? We argue that if a legitimate and fair decision-making process were used, the suspension of funding to Uganda could have been avoided, and that this lesson should be applied to other countries. The \u201caccountability for reasonableness\u201d framework of relevance, publicity, revisions and enforcement would help in implementing legitimate and fair decision-making processes, which would improve effectiveness, accountability and transparency in the implementation of Global Fund programmes, preventing future suspension of funding to any Global Fund projects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The human rights-based approach: A distilled inventory of its essential attributes","field_subtitle":"Schuftan C: People\\'s Health Exchange, 15 August 2006","field_url":"","body":"The document recaps what it means to apply a holistic rights-based lens in development practice, be it in health, in education or in any other sector. It directs us to the corresponding behaviors one would expect to see enacted in health, education or any other development work when applying such an optic. The points within the document present when and under what conditions the adoption of an explicit rights-based approach is more likely to make a lasting difference to equity.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31689","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The importance of human resources management in health care: A global context","field_subtitle":"Kabene SM, Orchard C, Howard JM , Soriano MA, Leduc R: Human Resources for Health 4:20, 20 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/4/1/20","body":"This paper addresses the health care system from a global perspective and the importance of human resources management (HRM) in improving overall patient health outcomes and delivery of health care services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The SADC people\u2019s summit: Reclaiming SADC for peoples development","field_subtitle":"Mambeva R: Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development Newsletter 2 (1), 14-18 August 2006","field_url":"","body":"Twenty-six years after the formation of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), it is estimated that 80% of the people in the region are living below the poverty datum line. What is the level of commitment within SADC towards improving the people\u2019s livelihoods? Is SADC a true representation of African solidarity? Has SADC pursued a neoliberal agenda to the cost of people's wellbeing? As the SADC heads of State met on 14 to 18 August 2006, in Maseru, Lesotho the poor peoples of the region gathered at the Cooperative College in Maseru in order to seek answers to the above questions; as well as to examine the impact of privatisation, market reforms and debt on peoples access to health services, education and other social amenities.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31686","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Toronto AIDS conference focuses on prevention","field_subtitle":"Plusnews, 22 August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/q6jtr","body":"At the close of the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada,  the pervading mood was one of guarded optimism. The conference theme, 'Time To Deliver', set the tone for a week of reflection on lessons learned from the past 25 years of the AIDS epidemic. UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis used it as a rallying call in his closing speech to define the needs of the next 25 years, with a special focus on prevention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda: Foreign envoys demand action against Global Fund culprits","field_subtitle":"Plusnews, 23 August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/nhnwc","body":"European envoys in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, have asked the government to take \"expeditious\" action against individuals, including senior politicians, accused of mismanaging HIV/AIDS grants. The diplomats were further concerned at the slow implementation of the judicial commission of inquiry report.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Using knowledge brokering to promote evidence-based policy-making: The need for support structures","field_subtitle":"van Kammen J, de Savigny D, Sewankambo N: WHO Bulletin 84, August 2006","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/84/8/05-028308.pdf","body":"Knowledge brokering is a promising strategy to close the \u201cknow\u2013do gap\u201d and foster greater use of research findings and evidence in policy-making. It focuses on organising the interactive process between the producers and users of knowledge so that they can co-produce feasible and research-informed policy options. This paper describes a recent successful experience with this novel approach in the Netherlands and also discusses the potential of this approach to assist health policy development in low-income countries based on the experience of developing the Regional East-African Health (REACH)- Policy Initiative.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"When putting AIDS in the crosshairs, set targets","field_subtitle":"Palitza K: Inter Press Service News Agency, 25 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=34099","body":"Civil society organisations in South Africa are preparing to push government to meet its commitment for setting national targets on HIV/AIDS, made at the recent United Nations General Assembly Special Sessions on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS). South African officials at UNGASS promised to set national HIV/AIDS targets by the end of the year (2006), however, a pledge that civil society organisations now want to ensure they keep; claiming government's current approach to HIV/AIDS is not delivering the goods.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Where the poor are?: An atlas of poverty","field_subtitle":"Global Distribution of Poverty","field_url":"http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/povmap/atlas.html","body":"This document brings together a diverse collection of maps from different continents and countries, depicting small area estimates of vital development indicators, including health indicators such as infant mortality rate, at unprecedented levels of spatial detail. The atlas of 21 full-page poverty maps reveals possible causal patterns and provides practical examples of how the data and tools have been used, and may be used, in applied decisions and poverty interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO and UNICEF tackle problem of lack of essential medicines for children","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 14 August 2006","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr42/en/index.html","body":"The first \"International Expert Consultation on Paediatric Essential Medicines\", jointly held by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nation\u2019s Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF), has delivered a plan to boost access to essential medicines for children. During two days of intensive discussion held 9-10 August at WHO's headquarters in Geneva, a mix of more than twenty developed and developing countries, non-governmental organizations including M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, regulatory agencies, UNICEF and WHO staff prioritised a long-needed approach to overall paediatric care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Working with OHCHR: A handbook for NGOs","field_subtitle":"Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)","field_url":"http://www.ohchr.org/english/about/ngohandbook.htm","body":"The Handbook aims to provide NGOs with a comprehensive and user-friendly guide to the work of OHCHR, including key information on human rights mechanisms, entry points for NGOs and contact details with a view to assisting NGOs in identifying areas of possible cooperation and partnership with OHCHR; it also anticipates the changes of the current United Nations reform process. The Handbook is up to date as of June 2006, and is currently available in electronic format and in the English language only. Efforts are underway to secure its translation in other UN languages in the next few months.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"XVI International AIDS Conference: Time to deliver on human rights and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Amnesty International Canada, 18 August 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/jtnco","body":"As the XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto came to an end, Amnesty International issued an urgent call to governments and to the international community to place human rights at the centre of responses to HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A costing analysis of community-based programs for children affected by HIV/AIDS: Results from Zambia and Rwanda","field_subtitle":"Dougherty L, Forsythe S, Winfrey W: Eldis, 5 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC21170","body":"This paper analyses the programmatic costs of CARE Rwanda's and Bwafwano Zambia's two community-based programmes for children affected by HIV/AIDS in Rwanda and Zambia in order to provide information on the current costs of the two programmes. The paper also discusses additional costs related to scaling up the existing programmes and outlines issues relating to long term sustainability of programmes for children affected by HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"A PRA research report: Creating nurse student awareness on community knowledge on health in \u201cOntevrede\u201d (unsatisfied) informal settlement, Namibia","field_subtitle":"University of Namibia, Ontevrede Community","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/PRAhofne.pdf","body":"The nursing curriculum of the University of Namibia is based on Primary health care approach. However nursing students do not have the skills for a participatory approach to communities and perceive that communities do not know or need to be consulted on their health needs. Communication breakdown between communities and nurses is not in the interest of either. This study aimed to create awareness among the student nurses to help them view the communities as partners in health, and at the same time to empower the communities to be more responsible for own health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS treatment now: Time to deliver: March and rally 13 August 2006","field_subtitle":"International AIDS Conference, Toronto 2006","field_url":"http://ga1.org/campaign/AHFToronto06/ike5xd84zjn3wm5?%3E","body":"The theme of the upcoming International AIDS Conference in Toronto is TIME TO DELIVER. Toronto can be an innovative, problem-solving gathering that generates action - or - it can be another expensive conference that generates little action or sustainable benefit. Let's make it about ACTION! Together, as a community, let's set the tone of the Toronto conference: AIDS Treatment Now - Time To Deliver! We ask you to please join in sending a clear message to the politicians, policy makers, funders, drug companies, activists and NGOs attending Toronto - and to the world watching: It's TIME TO DELIVER.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Annan praises pharmaceutical companies for extending HIV commitments","field_subtitle":"UN News Centre, 24 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=19292&Cr=AIDS&Cr1=","body":"Secretary-General Kofi Annan praised some of the world\u2019s leading pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies for their commitments to expand access to HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention after meeting with their top executives at United Nations Headquarters on Monday 24 July 2006. He said that the companies have committed individually to continue to review their product offerings and the prices of their existing and new HIV medications and diagnostics, especially for children, to make them more affordable, accessible and appropriate for use in low- and middle-income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Building a new public-private partnership for paediatric AIDS treatment","field_subtitle":"The US President\\'s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, March 2006","field_url":"http://www.data.org/pdf/Pediatric%20Fact%20Sheet%20Final%203.10.06.pdf","body":"Earlier this year, the US Government, through President Bush\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, announced an unprecedented public-private partnership to promote scientific and technical discussions on solutions for pediatric HIV treatment, formulations and access. These partnerships seek to capitalise on the current strengths and resources of both innovator and generic pharmaceutical companies, the US Government, as well as multilateral organisations to facilitate the process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for case studies and testimonies: Global Health Watch 2007-2008","field_subtitle":"Global Health Watch","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/call_case_studies.php","body":"The Global Health Watch (GHW) is a non-government initiative aimed at supporting civil society to more effectively campaign and lobby for 'health for all' and equitable access to health care. Participate in the second Global Health Watch, by submitting case studies. GHW are calling activists, health workers and academics from around the world to submit case studies and testimonies based on individual or group experiences to supplement the second edition of the report and reinforce its main themes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can biomedical and traditional health care providers work together? Zambian practitioners' experiences and attitudes","field_subtitle":"Kaboru BB, Falkenberg T, Ndubani P, et al: Human Resources for Health 4 (16), July 2006","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/4/1/16","body":"An appropriate and effective response to the HIV/AIDS crisis requires reconsideration of the collaboration between traditional and biomedical health providers (THPs and BHPs). The aim of this paper is to explore biomedical and traditional health practitioners experiences of and attitudes towards collaboration and to identify obstacles and potential opportunities for them to collaborate regarding care for patients with sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Can working with the private sector increase ART coverage?","field_subtitle":"England R: DFID Health Resource Centre/ Eldis, 7 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC22340&Resource=f1hiv","body":"This paper reviews the experiences of franchising and discusses the opportunities and implications for governments and donors of franchising for HIV and AIDS services. The author details how the private sector can offer huge potential to extend and maintain anti-retroviral therapy (ART) coverage. The author outlines how franchising may offer a way of meeting known challenges and thus, increasing the prospects for universal access to HIV and AIDS services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Child health inequities in developing countries: differences across urban and rural areas","field_subtitle":"Fotso J-C: International Journal for Equity in Health 5 (9), 11 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/5/1/9/abstract","body":"Using the most recent data sets available from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) of 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), this paper concludes that to successfully monitor the gaps between urban poor and non-poor, existing data collection programs such as the DHS and other nationally representative surveys should be re-designed to capture the changing patterns of the spatial distribution of population.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Combating childhood malnutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Mickey Chopra: Medical Research Council, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world where the absolute number and proportion of under-nourished children has increased in the last decade. East Africa is the sub-region experiencing the largest increases in numbers of underweight children \u2013projected to increase by 36% from 1990 to 2005. Findings for stunting (chronic under-nutrition) and wasting (acute under-nutrition) are similar. Under-nutrition is the underlying cause of over half of child deaths. Even mild to moderate malnutrition can lead to significant deficits in cognitive and physical development. \r\n\r\nOne reason for the dismal nutritional status of children in Africa is the continual lack of food for many in the region. In less than four decades, Sub-Saharan Africa has been transformed from a continent that was a net exporter of food to one that is now heavily dependent on food imports. According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation, Africa\u2019s food imports have risen from 8% in 1985 to 18% of world imports in 2001. A decline in agricultural and rural investment in Africa has led to a 12% decline in agricultural productivity for the workers in the region in the 1990s. Any growth in agricultural output has thus been achieved mostly from expanding the area under cultivation. \r\n\r\nThe United Nations Millenium Development Goals Hunger Task Team in 2004 summarised the consequences of this path to meeting food needs: \r\n\t\u201cExpanding the area under food production is inherently unsustainable, as the supply of new lands in densely populated areas of Africa is largely exhausted or must be maintained as natural systems for biodiversity conservation and other ecological services. The first effect in Africa and elsewhere in the tropics has been to expand into land that was previously available for fallows. Leaving land fallow allows land under cultivation the necessary time to recover from the effects of the crops taking nutrients from the soil. As a result of the reduction or elimination of fallows, soil fertility has fallen dramatically in many places, and yields are reducing with time. As the land becomes exhausted, there develops a serious tendency to continually sub-divide land among family members, which leads to smallholdings that are too small to produce a family\u2019s food\u201d. \r\n\r\nSignificantly, the yields of most important food grains, tubers and legumes (maize, millet, sorghum, yams, cassava and groundnuts) in most African countries are no higher today than in 1980. The environmental impacts of deforestation and drought, floods and the loss of topsoil are being compounded by the lack of investment. Only about 4% of land under cultivation in Africa is irrigated. This compares with 14% in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region with similar population densities and resource endowments. Fertilizer application is 15% lower today than in 1980. The number of tractors per worker is 25% lower than in 1980 and the lowest in the world. Africa\u2019s share of total world agricultural trade fell from 8% in 1965 to 3% in 1996.\r\n\r\nHowever, poor food security or poverty alone is not the whole story. Otherwise how does one explain the experience of many countries and populations that managed to achieve significant reductions in malnutrition before similar reductions in poverty? How does one explain the presence of malnutrition in situations where food is widely available? If one compares, for example, the experience in one region of Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, in the 1980s and 1990s, Sri Lanka and Thailand showed rapid improvement in nutrition, Indonesia showed slower but consistent improvement, and the Philippines little progress. Malnutrition in Latin America decreased from about 21% in 1970 to 7.2% in 1997, while income poverty decreased by only about 1% over the same time period. \r\n\r\nClearly reducing malnutrition is not solely dependent on increases in income. Gains in Latin America are attributed to good care practices (such as improved complementary feeding) access to basic health services, including family planning, safe water and sanitation and to women\u2019s education and the cash resources they control.\r\n\r\nPolicies providing for female education, social safety nets, affordable food and public health services have contributed to improvements in nutrition even with minimal changes in poverty levels. In Sri Lanka, high levels of female education have been linked to improved child nutrition and child survival. Sri Lanka\u2019s impressive performance in nutrition is also attributed to the establishment of social safety nets, especially the free or heavily subsidised distribution of rice, providing a minimum consumption floor. More recently,  Save the Children UK  in 2004 pointed to the universal, equitable and efficient public health system in Sri Lanka as an important reason for the low levels of maternal and child mortality in the country. Thailand incorporated nutrition as an important part of its National Economic and Social Development Plan (NESDP). This led to the establishment of an extensive community-based network of village health communicators and volunteers with existing village committees and leaders. These groups focus in communities on the fulfilment of basic needs such as optimal nutrition, provide education for this and monitor progress this through community-based growth monitoring.\r\n\r\nA similar mobilisation of communities, health systems and national resources is required if we are to make a start in combating childhood malnutrition in Africa. This is an essential step if there is to be sustainable development in the region. Co-ordinated by the Health Science Research Council, EQUINET has embarked on a programme in east and southern Africa to collect and share information on case studies of how health systems address the wider social and economic factors affecting nutrition and lever action on these factors.\r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat email admin@equinetafrica.org. EQUINET work on food security and nutrition is available at the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org. Work by the Medical Research Council of South Africa (MRC)  is available at www.mrc.ac.za. \r\n\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) 13th National Conference resolutions","field_subtitle":"CWGH National Conference, Cresta Oasis Hotel, Harare, 5-6 July 2006","field_url":"","body":"Delegates attending the Community Working Group on Health (CWGH) 13th National Conference in Harare from 5\u20136 July 2006 compiled this statement to highlight the key points raised and important conclusions. It covers existing positions on the conditions regarding human resources in health, as well as a number of conditions and policy suggestions to improve both community participation in health and public health performance overall.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31663","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 38: Potential constraints to equitable service delivery in Cape Town in 2003","field_subtitle":"Scott, V; Mathews, V","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS38POLscott.pdf","body":"The research was located in Cape Town, South Africa where the need for equity policies to be implemented is great. However ongoing restructuring and change lead to fatigue in the management and staff of the primary health services. Their resistance could block the implementation of equitable staffing plans. It is necessary to understand the management and workplace factors leading to potential resistance of equitable staffing plans and thus these were explored. A policy analysis approach using a case study analysis was sought to provide understandings, approaches and tools to illuminate the processes involved in health policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC). \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org To post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org Website: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\nWeb design from Fahamu \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others. To subscribe, visit: http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 66: Combatting childhood malnutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/ EQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing and cost-effectiveness analysis of public-private partnerships: Provision of TB treatment in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Sinanovic E, Kumaranayake L: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 4 (11), June 2006","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/4/1/11","body":"Public-private partnerships (PPP) could be effective in scaling up services. The study estimated cost and cost-effectiveness of different PPP arrangements in the provision of tuberculosis (TB) treatment, and the financing required for the different models from the perspective of the provincial TB programme, provider, and the patient. Where PPPs are tailored to target groups and supported by the public sector, scaling up of effective services could occur at much lower cost than solely relying on public sector models.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"G8 leaders call for more AIDS funding","field_subtitle":"Associated Press, 16 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.forbes.com/business/services/feeds/ap/2006/07/16/ap2881589.html","body":"In mid July 2006 Group of Eight leaders called for more AIDS funding to improve monitoring and to give more people access to treatment. However, Eric Friedman, policy adviser for Physicians for Human Rights, raised practical concerns, including the need to double the existing number of health care workers to improve the AIDS situation worldwide. The G8 agreement calls for \"building the capacity of health care systems in poor countries through recruitment, training and deployment of public and private health workers,\" but Friedman said the statement does not say how those goals will be achieved.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"G8 must engage China to tackle Africa's poverty","field_subtitle":"Darlington R, Mepham D: Institute for Public Policy Research, 3 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.ippr.org/pressreleases/?id=2202","body":"In advance of the anniversary of the G8 summit in Gleneagles (6-8 July), the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) is urging G8 countries to rethink their development strategies for Africa in the light of China's growing role. David Mepham, head of ippr's International Programme, said: \"...Managed well, China's economic presence could bring real benefits to Africa, with cheaper goods for African consumers and new sources of investment and aid. But managed badly, China's role in Africa could be damaging for development and worsen standards of governance and human rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Hitting malaria where it hurts: Household and community responses in Africa","field_subtitle":"Jones C: ID21 health, 18 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/InsightsHealth9editorial.html","body":"Each year at least 300 million cases of malaria result in more than a million deaths worldwide. Ninety percent of these deaths are in sub-Saharan Africa and most are children under five years old. Preventing and treating malaria are now firmly on the international public health and global poverty agendas. However, despite a considerable increase in funds over recent years the malaria burden in much of sub-Saharan Africa shows little sign of decreasing. Over recent years there has been emphasis on the idea that improving knowledge about malaria in communities will lead to better use of interventions. Research on managing malaria in communities has been largely concerned either with individual perceptions about the causes and symptoms of the disease or with the implementation of specific interventions. It fails to provide essential information on the context in which communities and households cope with their day-to-day problems, including malaria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS and the women left behind","field_subtitle":"Erdman J, Kelly L: Toronto Star, 19 July 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/m3nz3","body":"At present, no UN agency is dedicated exclusively to women's human rights and development needs. A set of under-resourced entities are expected to address the concerns of half the world's population.  Nearing the end of his term, the UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis  proposed the creation of an independent multilateral agency with the stature and resources necessary to meaningfully improve the lives of women. It is argued that the UN's failure to dedicate the necessary resources to ensure women's systemic equality indicates more than neglect or indifference. It sends a powerful message that women are not worthy of expenditure. It implies that women's lives are not as valuable as the lives of others.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How much time do health services spend on antenatal care: Implications for the introduction of the focused antenatal care model in Tanzania ","field_subtitle":"von Both C, Fle\u00dfa S, Makuwani A, Mpembeni R, Jahn A: BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 6 (22), 23 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2393-6-22.pdf","body":"Antenatal care (ANC) is a widely used strategy to improve the health of pregnant women and to encourage skilled care during childbirth. In 2002, the Ministry of Health of the United Republic of Tanzania developed a national adaptation plan based on the new model of the World Health Organisation (WHO). This study assesses the time health workers currently spent on providing ANC services and compare it to the requirements anticipated for the new ANC model in order to identify the implications of Focused ANC on health care providers\u2019 workload.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"ISEqH 4th Biennial International Conference: Creating healthy societies through inclusion and equity: Adelaide, Australia","field_subtitle":"Inernational Society for Equity in Health, 11-13 September 2006 ","field_url":"http://www.iseqh.org/","body":"The overarching theme for the ISEqH 4th International Conference reflects the central role of social, political, and economic determinants in creating health. The International Society for Equity in Health have over 100 presentations scheduled from various regions of the world plus our keynote address by Dr Shane Houston, special plenaries and workshops. The conference will be held at Adelaide University in the Union House Complex from 11-13 Sept ember 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Lack of resources affects all children, not only those with heart disease","field_subtitle":"Reynolds L, Sanders D: The Sunday Independent, 18 June 2006","field_url":"","body":"We share the distress of our colleagues at the large numbers of children in South Africa who suffer and die from surgically correctable heart disease because there are insufficient human and other resources to provide them with the operations they need. But the plight of children with heart disease only gives us a small glimpse into children's health in South Africa generally and into the crisis affecting the public health sector. Our government and health service administrators must provide more explicit policies and frameworks that guide the allocation of health resources according to agreed priorities.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31622","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Market forces promote inequitable health care","field_subtitle":"Sanders D, Reynolds L: The Sunday Independent, 16 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.sundayindependent.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3340574","body":"We are pleased that a paediatrician of the stature of Professor Oliver Ransome supports the argument in our letter that equitable distribution of health care is necessary for child health. But Professor Ransome also suggests that equitable distribution of health care can somehow be achieved without impinging on the freedom of those who can afford to choose private care. We challenge the view that such a market-based approach can promote equity in health care in South Africa today.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"No bright future: Government failures, human rights Abuses and Squandered Progress in the fight against AIDS in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Human Rights Watch, July 2006","field_url":"http://hrw.org/reports/2006/zimbabwe0706/zimbabwe0706web.pdf","body":"Zimbabwe has been widely hailed as a success story in the fight against AIDS since reporting in October 2005 a decline in HIV prevalence among adults from 25% in 2001 to 20% in 2004. In the face of the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS on the country, a declining economy, growing international isolation, decreased funding from international donors for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, and a disintegrating public health sector, Zimbabwe\u2019s achievement was indeed significant. Despite the positive news, however, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Zimbabwe remains a serious crisis with some three hundred and fifty thousand of the 1.6 million people carrying the virus in immediate need of life-saving antiretroviral (ARV) drugs and another six hundred thousand in need of care and support. The paper argues that the progress gained so far could be undermined by policies and practices that violate the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and those most at risk of infection. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor communities need better municipal management - HSRC review","field_subtitle":"South Africa Local Government briefing, July 2006","field_url":"","body":"The free basic water policy is being unevenly implemented and greater attention needs to be given to meeting the needs of the rural poor and those in poor peri-urban communities who would most benefit from its provision, concludes an HSRC report which examines the extent to which the response to the cholera epidemic of 2000/1 has led to sustained provision of safe water and improved sanitation to the poor. The original report suggests there is a clear relationship between cost recovery, indifferent municipal management leading to interruptions in supply, and vandalism.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31664","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty dynamics, violent conflict and convergence in Rwanda","field_subtitle":"Justino P, Verwimp P: Households in Conflict Network, The Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, 5 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC22285","body":"This study examines the impact of the civil war and genocide in 1990s Rwanda on household income and poverty dynamics, particularly the transitory nature of poverty. Main findings of the study include previously land-rich, income non-poor households have fared badly over the decade spanning the conflict - the economic wellbeing and welfare of the surviving household members has deteriorated, and female-headed households have been trapped in poverty - they are more likely to be poor and when poor are less likely to move out of poverty, therefore they should be the prime beneficiaries of development aid.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Private sector participation deals: Evidence from the water and sanitation sector in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Jensen O, Blanc-Brude F: London School of Economics, June 2006","field_url":"http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2006/06/02/000016406_20060602090120/Rendered/PDF/wps3937.pdf","body":"The study uses a negative binomial regression model to investigate the factors influencing the number of PSP projects in a sample of 60 developing countries with 460 PSP projects. The regression results provide support for the hypotheses that PSP is greater in larger markets where the ability to pay is higher and where governments are fiscally constrained. Several indicators of institutional quality are tested; these are found to be generally significant in determining the number of projects signed per country. Measures of the protection of property rights and the quality of the bureaucracy emerge as the most important institutions that encourage PSP. Rule of law and the control of corruption are significant, albeit at a lower level, while the quality of contract law and political stability are not robustly significant.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Promoting private investment for development: The role of Official Development Assistance","field_subtitle":"Development Co-operation Directorate, 12 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/23/40/36566902.pdf","body":"More private investment and improvements in productivity will be needed if many developing countries are to reach the Millennium Development Goals. But how can developing countries mobilise more domestic investment and attract more foreign investment? How can the impact of this investment on poverty reduction be increased? The objective of this Policy Guidance is to help Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members use their Official Development Assistance (ODA) more effectively to mobilise private investment for development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Protecting children from sexual exploitation and sexual violence in disaster and emergency situations","field_subtitle":"Delaney S: Eldis, 5 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC22287","body":"This practical manual outlines how to protect children from sexual violence and sexual exploitation, specifically in disaster and emergency situations. The aim is to provide fundamental information to assist personnel working in emergency situations in responding to protect children: before disaster strikes; in the immediate aftermath; and in the longer term reconstruction phase. The report also includes recommended actions and key considerations to be taken into account in the event of sexual violence or sexual exploitation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Report on a training workshop: Promoting health in trade agreements, 12 to 13 June 2006, Lilongwe, Malawi","field_subtitle":"Malawi Health Equity Network, Centre for Health Policy, SEATINI, EQUINET","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REP0606tradeMal.pdf","body":"The workshop on Protecting Health in Trade Agreements held in Malawi in June 2006 aimed to build capacities in state, legislative and civil society institutions to understand, analyse and promote public sector equity-oriented health systems within trade and investment policies and agreements. The course aim to enable participants to carry out assessments nationally of the key trade and investment agreements that impact on health and to identify options for promoting public sector equity-oriented health systems within current trade and investment policies and agreements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Role of traditional healers in the management of severe malaria among children below five years of age: The case of Kilosa and Handeni Districts, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Makundi EA, Malebo HM, Mhame P, Kitua AY,Warsame M: Malaria Journal 5 (58), 18 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/content/pdf/1475-2875-5-58.pdf","body":"The current malaria control strategy of WHO centres on early diagnosis and prompt treatment using  effective  drugs. Children with  severe malaria  are often  brought late to health  facilities and traditional health practitioners  are said to be the main cause of  treatment  delay. In the context of the Rectal Artesunate Project in Tanzania, the role of traditional healers in the management of severe malaria in children was studied. Traditional health care  is not necessarily a significant impediment or a delaying factor in the treatment of severe malaria. There is  a need to foster training on the management of severe cases, periodically involving both traditional health practitioners and health workers to identify modalities of better collaboration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Seeking treatment for childhood fevers in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Kamat VR: id21 Research Highlight, 18 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/InsightsHealth9art4.html","body":"In Tanzania, parents seeking treatment for children with severe, often malaria-related, fever vary in their choice of care. Their choice is influenced by a range of social and cultural factors that need to be better understood if children are to be successfully treated. In urban and peri-urban areas of Tanzania, many parents would prefer to take their children to a biomedical facility. However, opening and closing times are not always convenient. Consequently, parents often have no choice but to seek out a traditional healer who can provide treatment and comfort at more convenient hours.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Setting the stage for equity-sensitive monitoring of the maternal and child health MDGs","field_subtitle":"e-Civicus, 7 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/84/7/519.pdf","body":"This analysis seeks to set the stage for equity-sensitive monitoring of the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs and other development initiatives must become more comprehensive and explicit in their analysis and tracking of inequities, and the design of policies to narrow health gaps must take into account country-specific inequities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Shaping the future of social protection: Access, financing and solidarity","field_subtitle":"Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC): Eldis, 6 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC21501","body":"The starting point for this study is the principle that a rights-based approach should be used in framing public policy. The study therefore seeks to address the challenge of combining the ethical aspect of social rights with viable ways of strengthening citizens' entitlement to such rights in highly inequitable and relatively poor societies. It includes an analysis of various aspects of social protection systems (health care, social security and poverty reduction) and their potential to guarantee social rights in structurally heterogeneous societies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Social protection: The role of cash transfers","field_subtitle":"McKinley T (ed.): Poverty in focus, June 2006","field_url":"http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/newsletters/Poverty_in_Focus_June_06.pdf","body":"Poverty reduction is the result of several interacting factors, including importantly: redistribution of incomes, assets, and opportunities; pro poor economic growth; and social provision and protection. This issue of IPC's journal Poverty in Focus highlights the importance of social protection in the struggle against global poverty. For South Africa, the implications of income grants are analysed, including both poverty reduction outcomes and the macro-economic feasibility; while cash transfers in Zambia and social protection for pro-poor growth are just some of other areas covered relevant to Southern Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The cost of health professionals brain drain in Kenya","field_subtitle":"Kirigia JM, Gbary AR, Muthuri LK, Nyoni J, Seddoh A: BMC Health Services Research 6 (89), 17 July 1006","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6963-6-89.pdf","body":"Past attempts to estimate the cost of migration were limited to education costs only and did not include the lost returns from investment. The objectives of this study were: (i) to estimate the financial cost of emigration of Kenyan doctors to the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA); (ii) to estimate the financial cost of emigration of nurses to seven OECD countries (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Portugal, UK, USA); and (iii)to describe other losses from brain drain. Developed countries continue to deprive Kenya of millions of dollars worth of investments embodied in her human resources for health. If the current trend of poaching of scarce human resources for health (and other professionals) from Kenya is not curtailed, the chances of achieving the Millennium Development Goals would remain bleak. Such continued plunder of investments embodied in human resources contributes to further underdevelopment of Kenya and to keeping a majority of her people in the vicious circle of ill-health and poverty. Therefore, both developed and developing countries need to urgently develop and implement strategies for addressing the health human resource crisis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The importance of human resources management in health care: A global context","field_subtitle":"Kabene SM, Orchard C, Howard JM, et al: Human Resources for Health 4 (20), July 2006","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/4/1/20","body":"This paper addresses the health care system from a global perspective and the importance of human resources management (HRM) in improving overall patient health outcomes and delivery of health care services. This paper will reveal how human resources management is essential to any health care system and how it can improve health care models.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The political management of HIV and AIDS in South Africa: One burden too many?","field_subtitle":"Fourie P: Palgrave, July 2006","field_url":"http://www.palgrave.com/products/Catalogue.aspx?is=0230006671","body":"This book analyzes successive governments' management (and mismanagement) of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa. The book covers the years 1982-2005, using expert thinking regarding public policy making to identify gaps in the public sector's handling of the epidemic. The book highlights critical lessons for policy makers and other public health managers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The Southern Africa people's solidarity network people's summit, Maseru, Lesotho 14-17 August 2006","field_subtitle":"rasa FM news, 13 July 2006","field_url":"http://rasa.m2014.net/spip/breve.php3?id_breve=26","body":"The SADC Heads of State Summit will be held on 17 and 18 August 2006 in Maseru, Lesotho.  Preceding the Heads of State Summit will be meetings for the Technical Experts from 11-13th August followed by the Ministerial Meeting from 14th \u2013 16th August 2006. The Southern African Peoples\u2019 Solidarity Network in collaboration with network members and other social movements and people based organizations in the SADC region will be holding a 'People\u2019s Summit' on 15th and 16th August under the Banner  'Reclaiming SADC For Peoples\u2019 Development: Assessing the Impact of Neo-liberal Policies on the Peoples\u2019 Livelihoods' in Maseru  Lesotho.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The world's youth 2006 data sheet","field_subtitle":"Ashford L, Clifton D, Kaneda T: Eldis, 5 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC22317","body":"This statistical chart covers the most important issues in the lives of adolescents including gender disparities, child labour, health, and education. Conclusions include the gap between boys' and girls' school enrollments having narrowed in the last decade as girls' enrollments have risen throughout the developing world. But girls still face disadvantages in parts of South Asia, western Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. Surveys in developing countries reveal that less than half of young people can correctly identify two ways to avoid getting HIV/AIDS and reject common myths about the virus. Young women generally have less knowledge than young men.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Top level push to tackle priorities in sexual and reproductive health","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation/ United Nations Population Fund, 20 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr34/en/","body":"Globally, inadequate sexual and reproductive health services have resulted in maternal deaths and rising numbers of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), particularly in developing countries. Leaders of the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, are coordinating action to reverse the global trend of deteriorating levels of sexual and reproductive health and reduce the adverse impact on mothers, babies and young people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Training and HIV-treatment scale-up: Establishing an implementation research agenda","field_subtitle":"McCarthy EA, O\u2019Brien ME, Rodriguez WR: PLOS Medicine 3 (7), July 2006","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/archive/1549-1676/3/7/pdf/10.1371_journal.pmed.0030304-p-L.pdf","body":"The provision of HIV treatment and care in resource-limited settings is expanding rapidly. Health-worker training is one of many factors critical to the rapid scale-up of high-quality care. Large numbers of health workers require HIV training; yet, few countries have a comprehensive training plan, a clear assessment of ongoing training needs, a plan to operationalize training on a large scale, or adequate funds budgeted for training. In this setting, an extensive variety of HIV-related training programs have sprung up over the past few years. Unfortunately, there are limited data measuring their effectiveness, and there is no consensus about what constitutes effective training.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding the links between agriculture and health","field_subtitle":"Hawkes C, Ruel MT: 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture and the Environment 13 (1), May 2006","field_url":"http://www.ifpri.org/2020/focus/focus13/focus13.pdf","body":"Policymaking initiatives in agriculture and public health are often pursued in a parallel and unconnected fashion. Yet coherent, joint action in agriculture and health could have large potential benefits and substantially reduce risks for the poor. Among development professionals there is growing recognition that agriculture influences health, and health influences agriculture, and that both in turn have profound implications for poverty reduction. This recognition suggests that opportunities exist for agriculture to contribute to better health, and for health to contribute to agricultural productivity. The policy briefs presented here draw on a wide body of research conducted within and outside the CGIAR. They provide a historical context to the links between agriculture and health, deal with specific health conditions and agricultural systems, and examine the challenges to linking agriculture and health in policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"When will we ever learn? Improving lives through impact evaluation","field_subtitle":"Evaluation Gap Working Group/ Eldis, 30 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC22301","body":"This report provides a strategic solution to the evidence gap in development programming. The report argues that by bringing vital knowledge into the service of policymaking and programme design, it is possible to improve the effectiveness of domestic spending and development assistance. The group was asked to investigate why rigorous impact evaluations of social development programmes, whether financed directly by developing country governments or supported by international aid, are relatively rare; as well as ways to improve on this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"World leaders must deliver on AIDS promises","field_subtitle":"Dillon J: Toronto Star, 14 July 2006","field_url":"http://www.kairoscanada.org/e/media/press/opedAidsPromise.asp","body":"Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy on AIDS in Africa, calls the failure of the G8 to live up to their promises a \"scandalous betrayal\". The triumphalism of Gleneagles has given way to shattered dreams and broken promises. At Gleneagles, the G8 promised to cancel the debt of some poor countries and to double development assistance to Africa by 2010. Both initiatives would provide resources for treating people with AIDS. Tragically, too little was promised at Gleneagles; even less has been delivered. By the time G8 leaders reconvened at St Petersburg this month, another 3 million people had perished from AIDS-related diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A flagging commitment on AIDS","field_subtitle":"The New York Times, 1 June 2006 ","field_url":"http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30613FC3D550C728CDDAF0894DE404482","body":"In early June 2006, United Nations members are meeting in a  follow-up to the successful UN special session in 2001, which pushed the  world to take AIDS more seriously.The nations now are supposed to be reporting on whether their targets are  being met, and devising a plan of action for the next few years. Instead,  they are watering down the original plan.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A free for all? Removing health user fees in Africa","field_subtitle":"Gilson L, McIntyre D: id21 Health Systems, 31 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=0&i=h1lg1g8&u=44a25b0e","body":"Charging patients for basic health care hits the poorest members of society the hardest. Many fall into debt or simply do not seek care from public health services. The Commission for Africa has called for basic health care to be free for everyone. How would this impact on already under resourced health services?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"A new initiative at the WHO: Prizes rather than prices","field_subtitle":"Love J: Le Monde Diplomatique, 30 May 2006","field_url":"http://mondediplo.com/2006/06/20wha","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) has taken an important step to reform the global system for supporting medical research and development (R&D). The organisation\u2019s governing body has just passed a new \u2014 hotly-debated \u2014 resolution to set up a new intergovernmental working group that will immediately start work to \"draw up a global strategy and plan of action.\" This will include a new framework to support sustainable, needs-driven, essential R&D work on diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"A price to pay? Increasing insecticide-treated net coverage in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Stevens W,  Wiseman V, Ortiz J: id21Health, 31 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h4ws1g1.html","body":"Nets treated with insecticide have proved to be an effective method of reducing malaria. Before increasing the scale of this intervention, however, policymakers need to be fully informed of the costs involved and the effect that the scaling-up will have. Cost-effectiveness has been measured in trials, but what does the intervention cost in practice?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"African civil society denounces political declaration on AIDS","field_subtitle":"Bradford McIntyre, 2 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.positivelypositive.ca/articles/aids-declaration.html","body":"African civil society organisations have denounced a political declaration adopted today by world leaders attending a United Nations AIDS meeting in New York. At the High Level Review Meeting of the UN General Assembly, which closed on 2 June 2006, member-states negotiated a political declaration, which African activists have described as 'utterly retrogressive' and 'a sham.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"African negotiators lobby in bad faith at UN  meeting","field_subtitle":"African Civil Society Coalition on AIDS, 1 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.planetwire.org/details/6272","body":"Three weeks after the African Union - the highest decision-making regional authority in Africa  - endorsed a Common Position on HIV and  AIDS, African delegates in New York are reneging on the strong commitments  they made to providing access to services for HIV prevention, care and treatment to all those who need them in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS vaccine clearing house","field_subtitle":"AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition","field_url":"http://www.aidsvaccineclearinghouse.org/","body":"The AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC) has launched the AIDS Vaccine Clearinghouse, a comprehensive and interactive source of AIDS vaccine information on the internet. The website provides a gateway to information and a link to people and organizations interested in AIDS vaccine advocacy, research and global delivery.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"AIHR seeks Health Economist and Junior Health Economist","field_subtitle":"Aurum Institute for Health Research","field_url":"","body":"A vacancy for a Health Economist has arisen for the expanding health economics and systems programme, based at the offices of AIHR in Johannesburg. This position will focus on a programme of work evaluating the impact of HIV/AIDS to private businesses in Southern Africa, including the costs and benefits of providing antiretroviral therapy (ART).","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31592","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"An \u2018exceptional\u2019 World Health Assembly","field_subtitle":"Khor M: Third World Network, 17 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/twninfohealth028.htm","body":"This year\u2019s World Health Assembly began and closed rather dramatically. This article describes the highlights of the meeting and the decisions made on various health issues which include the selection of the next WHO Director General, a global strategy on IPRs and health research, the medical brain drain and the prevention of STIs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Anti-malarial treatment in Tanzania: Differences in willingness to pay","field_subtitle":"Wiseman V, Onwujekwe O, Matovu F: ID21 Health, 31 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h4vw1g1.html","body":"The appearance and rapid spread of resistance to anti-malarial drugs has created a crisis for effective treatment in Africa. Consensus is growing that the only realistic treatment option will be a move away from treatment with one drug (monotherapy) to the more expensive combination therapies, particularly artemisinin-based combinations. However, a potential obstacle to the introduction of this new type of treatment is that it costs up to ten times more than monotherapy. There is concern that if poor patients\u2019 families have to bear the cost of the drug combinations, they might delay treatment or avoid it altogether.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Are global initiatives serving your health system strengthening needs?","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Action Network, 15 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.hsanet.org/torontomeeting.html","body":"Strengthening health systems to improve public health results is finally on the agenda of many global and bilateral players. We would like feedback from developing country stakeholders from all sectors and regions of the world about whether your needs are being addressed by these initiatives and what are the gaps. Your input will help shape the future of the Health Systems Action Network (HSAN). The 30 people submitting the most relevant and constructive ideas will be invited to participate in a 2-day meeting in Toronto, August 18-19 (all expenses paid).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Botswana's President discusses breaking the cycle of HIV infection for sustainable AIDS responses","field_subtitle":"Tautona Times","field_url":"","body":"The following is a statement by his excellency, Mr. Festus G. Mogae, President of the Republic of Botswana, at a panel discussion on \"Breaking the cycle of HIV infection for sustainable AIDS responses\". The statement was made at the United Nations General Assembly High Level Session on HIV/AIDS in New York.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31580","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Bringing change: Communicating to communities on sensitive themes like sexuality and domestic violence ","field_subtitle":"Italian Association Amici (AIFO)","field_url":"http://www.aifo.it/english/resources/online/books/other/communication/index.htm","body":"A new document has been published by the name of \"Bringing a Change: Communicating to Communities on Sensitive Themes like Sexuality and Domestic Violence\". This document is based on an international workshop organised by AIFO/Italy in October 2005.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Carmageddon: The hidden war between motor cars and people","field_subtitle":"Reynolds L: Critical Health Perspectives 3, June 2006 ","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/files/CHP_2006_No3_Carmageddon.pdf","body":"There is a silent, ongoing, global war between motor cars and people. It is silent because, though it kills many times more people than armed conflicts and terrorist acts combined, it seldom hits the headlines in the way they do. It is global because, though it started in the rich world just over a century ago, it has spread throughout the world and is now spreading like wildfire through poor countries;or poor communities within rich countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society groups unhappy with AIDS Summit outcome","field_subtitle":"Deen T: Third World Network, 13 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/twninfohealth027.htm","body":"At the recent UN meeting on AIDS, international organisations were disappointed that the declaration adopted by governments was weak on commitments to fight the disease, and that vulnerable groups have been left out in the document. The article outlines some of the concerns expressed by the participants.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Communities provide HIV and tuberculosis care in Malawi","field_subtitle":"Zachariah R, Teck R, Buhendwa L: id21 Infectious Diseases, 16 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=0&i=h5rz1g2&u=449b2164","body":"Malawi\u2019s health service is struggling under the burden of HIV and AIDS and tuberculosis (TB). Its health workforce has only limited capacity to cope due to severe staff shortages, poor salaries and working conditions, high levels of HIV and AIDS-related deaths and chronic absenteeism due to illness among staff. Without a strong health workforce, community members may have an important role to play in providing HIV and TB care. M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res describes an example of community involvement in district level HIV and TB care. The study focuses on Thyolo district, a rural region of southern Malawi with 458,976 inhabitants, of which an estimated 41,000 are living with HIV. It covers a two-year period from January 2003 to December 2004.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Community-based surveillance of malaria vector larval habitats: a baseline study in urban Dar es Salaam, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Vanek MJ, Shoo B, Mtasiwa D, Kiama M, Lindsay SW, Fillinger U, Kannady K, Tanner  M, Killeen GF: BMC Public Health 6:154, 15 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/6/154/abstract","body":"As the population of Africa rapidly urbanizes it may be possible to protect large populations from malaria by controlling aquatic stages of mosquitoes. This report presents a baseline evaluation of the ability of community members to detect mosquito larval habitats with minimal training and supervision in the first weeks of an operational urban malaria control program.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Conference celebrating a decade of health promoting schools: Strengthening whole school development","field_subtitle":"University of the Western Cape","field_url":"http://www.healthpromotingschools.co.za/conference","body":"On the 10th anniversary of the Health Promoting Schools Conference, which was first held at UWC in 1996, the UWC Health Promoting Schools Project is to host a national Health Promoting Schools Conference at the University of the Western Cape. It will draw together academics and researchers from universities and research councils in South Africa; stakeholders from the Departments of Health, Education and Social Development; the Western Cape Reference Group for Health Promoting Schools; and relevant non governmental organizations. You are cordially invited to submit abstracts of papers and posters related to health promoting schools. Deadlines: for abstract submissions 28 June 2006, for early registration 12 July 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Constructing an international poverty assessment tool: A methodological note with illustrations","field_subtitle":"Grootaert C, Leegwater A: The IRIS Centre, 25 April 2006","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC21975","body":"The IRIS/USAID project on developing poverty assessment tools has collected data on the poverty status of 12 low-income countries, adapting measurement tools for country-specific use. This paper proposes a methodology to construct an international poverty tool, or set of tools, that are easily applicable to a range of political economies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Crunch time in Geneva: Pressure tactics in the GATS negotiations","field_subtitle":"Sinclair S: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 21 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.policyalternatives.ca/Reports/2006/06/CrunchTimeGeneva/index.cfm","body":"At the December 2005 Hong Kong ministerial meeting, developed countries forced through a controversial set of services demands thay prepared the ground for a final push to expand the GATS. This new paper analyses benchmarks, plurilateral request-offer, domestic regulation and other pressure tactics so that non-governmental organizations, elected representatives, developing countries and ordinary citizens can intervene to counter them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing countries propose new TRIPS clause to avoid bio-piracy","field_subtitle":"Shashikant S: Third World Network, 8 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/twninfo420.htm","body":"A long-standing fight by several developing countries to amend the WTO's TRIPS Agreement to oblige members to get patent applicants to disclose the source of origin of biological resources and associated traditional knowledge took a step forward in early June when six countries proposed the text of new provisions to be added to the TRIPS Agreement. The paper takes forward in a text for amending the TRIPS agreement what several developing countries had for several years been arguing for in various fora within the WTO (as well as outside the WTO (for example, in the Convention on Biological Diversity and the World Intellectual Property Organisation).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing country trade and health issues demand attention at 59th World Health Assembly ","field_subtitle":"Riaz K. Tayob, SEATINI","field_url":"","body":"Developing countries took several initiatives at the World Health Organisation's (WHO's) 59th World Health Assembly (WHA) in May 2006 to raise the need for WHO more strongly assert its global role in protecting health in the global economy. \r\n\r\nA resolution was passed to increase coordination between WHO and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on Trade and Health. It mandated the WHO to assist countries that are negotiating trade agreements that have an impact on their health sectors. Ministers at the East, Central and Southern African Health Community 42nd Regional Health Minister\u2019s Conference in February 2006 called for such training for government and civil society to facilitate better understanding of the TRIPs agreement. Towards this EQUINET has developed a training toolkit on trade and health and carried out pilot workshops in Malawi, Zimbabwe and Tanzania. These confirm the call for greater support to country teams in negotiating new issues on trade and health.  Countries are currently dealing with the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the implementation of flexibilities under the WTO's Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement. TRIPs flexibilities relate to access to patented medicines or legally produced generics. The GATS deals with the liberalisation of health and health related services and has implications for cost recovery, cross subsidisation, health insurance, the regulation of commercial or competitive health services and indirectly related sectors like distribution.  \r\n\r\nCritics of the GATS have, for example, pointed out that it can and has limited the ability of governments to regulate health services towards the necessary cross subsidies and equity measures needed to promote universal access. EQUINET has resolved in its past forums that in a situation of high inequality in access to services, governments should enjoy full flexibility to regulate their health sectors in the public interest, unconstrained by WTO disciplines. The WTO Secretariat countered such criticisms in a publication \u201cGATS - Fact and Fiction\u201d, responding that countries were free to make commitments only in sectors they choose and could therefore limit liberalisation. This poses a problem for countries like Zambia who have already committed their health services in GATS, and may now want to regulate areas of health service provision. A ruling in April 2004 of the WTO's dispute settlement body in a case between the US and Mexico raises even greater concerns for countries like Zambia, as the dispute settlement body decided that the right of a country to promote development was not as important as its commitments to trade in services under the GATS. \r\n\r\nIn the TRIPs negotiations, flexibilities for developing countries for local production or import of pharmaceuticals under compulsory licenses have also led to relatively stiff resistance to proposals for improved flexibilities. Countries have also had to deal with bilateral trade agreements that erode these flexibilities. Some Latin American ministers at the WHA made a separate statement saying that TRIPs obligations should not be increased under bilateral/regional agreements. At the same time, the ECSA Regional Health Ministers noted that countries in the region still need to fully utilize these flexibilities and embed them in their national laws. \r\n\r\nWHO clearly has significant challenges to address to promote health under WTO agreements. The mandate of the Trade and Health resolution is broad and will need to be closely monitored to ensure that the co-ordination promotes public health priorities and challenges the WTO's stronghold in health, particularly for developing countries. \r\n\r\nOne area of ground work for this has been in the WHO Commission for Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation in Public Health. The commission report was tabled at the WHA and made a number of recommendations on the IPR system for health, including that needs-driven health research should follow public health and development priorities; and promote innovation to develop solutions to health problems.\r\n\r\nParallel to this report an Intergovernmental Working Group was established by a resolution of the WHA, proposed by Kenya and Brazil. The proposal responded to the limitations of the current risk-reward innovation system of IPRs. This profit driven model fails to provide incentives for research into diseases affecting developing countries. Because the expectation of profit is limited in these \u201cneglected diseases,\u201d drugs are not researched and developed. The Working Group was mandated to produce a strategy and action plan on ways of promoting research for the prevention and management of these diseases and to examine the impact of this research on public health. This too will be an area where inputs from Africa will be important, given the extreme inequities that exist between public health burden and access to the technologies, diagnostics and drugs to prevent and manage disease.  \r\n\r\nAfrican countries again raised the issue of the \u201cbrain drain\u201d at the WHA, and the effect it has on their ability to cope with health demands. They requested compensation and ethical recruitment practices in sometimes tense debates. The African proposals were contested by the some developed countries, including those recruiting and receiving health personnel from Africa. The debates were not resolved, and the WHA resolution adopted committed rich countries to increase funding for health worker education in developing countries, inadequately addressing the wider demand for mechanisms that fairly and sustainably address perverse subsidies and enable African health sectors to value and retain their own health workers. At the same time, countries in the region need to be aware of the implications of the commitments they make under the GATS agreement on the movement of persons. Countries that make commitments that include liberalising the movement of people in the health sector may weaken their claims to compensation for that movement. Given the significant impact the shortfall in health workers is having in access to health care in east and southern Africa, we need bolder, more challenging global arrangements to manage issues of migration and resource transfers than have been the case to date. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC, email admin@equinetafrica.org and to SEATINI (www.seatini.org). EQUINET work on health equity in economic and trade policy is available at the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 29: Planning and budgeting for Primary Health Care in Zambia: A policy process analysis of experiences and outcomes (1995-2004)","field_subtitle":"Ngulube TJ, Mdhluli LQ, Gondwe K","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS29ngulube.pdf","body":"The work presented in this policy brief was prompted by a request from the Zambian parliamentary committee on Health, Community Welfare and Social Development. The parliamentarians had wanted to know why despite all the funding to the health sector, there were no \u2018visible\u2019 gains to speak of from the on-going health reforms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussion paper 35: Perceptions of health workers about conditions of service: A Namibian case study","field_subtitle":"Iipinge S, Hofnie K, van der Westhuizen L, Pendukeni M: May 2006","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS35HRiipinge.pdf","body":"Human resources for health have become a topical issue at local, regional and global levels. In Namibia health worker mobility remains a concern for those in human resources planning. Achieving equity in this area needs a concerted effort from all sectors involved. However little is understood about the role that conditions of service play in influencing health professional mobility in Namibia. The study set out to explore and describe the influence of conditions of service on the movement and retention of the health professionals in Namibia. It is a qualitative study targeting mainly professional nurses, doctors, social workers and health inspectors at both operational and managerial levels, in public and private sectors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Drivers of change award 2006","field_subtitle":"Siziba S","field_url":"","body":"The Southern Africa Trust, in partnership with the Mail & Guardian newspaper, announces the establishment of the DRIVERS OF CHANGE award. The DRIVERS OF CHANGE award has been established to hold up living examples of innovative practices, inclusive attitudes, and effective processes that build social trust and create the best conditions to make a real and lasting difference in the lives of people living in poverty. The closing date for entries is Friday 25 August 2006.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31579","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Discussion paper 36: Issues facing primary care health workers in delivering HIV and AIDS related treatment and care","field_subtitle":"South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU), School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape, April 2006","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Dis36HRsamwu.pdf","body":"his study explored the possibility of joint health worker and community activism at a primary care level in South Africa, and the human resource requirements needed for the effective treatment and care of HIV/AIDS within the public health service. The study used participatory approaches and involved five SAMWU shop stewards in the design, data collection and analysis of the research. The study was implemented between October and November 2005 in five primary health care (PHC) clinics in the Western Cape, Free State and KwaZulu Natal. Twenty-four health workers (fifteen of which were interviewed in depth) and eighteen health committee members were interviewed across the five different sites using a semi-structured interview guide.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) with technical support from Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC). \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org To post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org Website: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\nWeb design from Fahamu \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others. To subscribe, visit: http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 65: Developing country trade and health issues demand attention at 59th World Health Assembly ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/ EQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluation of WHO's contribution to '3 by 5'","field_subtitle":"WHO, 15 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/me/3by5evaluationreport.pdf","body":"This report examines the administrative, technical, managerial guidance and strategic leadership that WHO provided during the initiative and includes evaluations of three levels of WHO: headquarters, regional offices and country offices. The report identifies future collaboration opportunities between WHO and partners and gives recommendations for the \"way forward\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Foreign Direct Investment, development and gender equity: A review of research and policy","field_subtitle":"Braunstein E: Eldis, 2 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC21992","body":"This paper provides a summary of the empirical and policy-related literature on the multifaceted relationships between gender inequalities and foreign direct investment (FDI). It reviews the research on the impact of FDI on investment, productivity, trade, employment, wages and working conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"From funding to action: Strengthening healthcare systems in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"World Economic Forum: AllAfrica.com, 1 June 2006","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/sustainable/resources/view/00010824.pdf","body":"In the first ever project of its kind, the World Economic Forum\u2019s Global Health Initiative has brought together a range of stakeholders to identify how business could partner with the public sector to improve healthcare systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. The resulting White Paper for consultation collects the views of diverse stakeholders on the barriers to effective healthcare systems in the region, and identifies opportunities for business to use its knowledge and skills to help tackle the problems through new public private partnerships. If turned into action some of the strategic interventions identified in this paper could contribute to improving access to health for millions of Africans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender and social security in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Lund F: Eldis, 8 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC22050","body":"This paper attempts to lay the basis for a gendered analysis of the scope, coverage and impact of the main components of social assistance in South Africa. This gendered approach draws attention to the serious gaps in knowledge about the scope of the social assistance system and its socio economic effects. More work is needed on the welfare system as a provider of employment, on the effects of the balance of public-versus private sector provision on gendered patterns on employment, on the dynamics of the care economy, and on the interaction between these.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Initiative of the World Economic Forum calls on business to partner with public sector to improve healthcare systems in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"World Economic Forum, 1 June 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/h66kx","body":"Business is being urged to use its resources and expertise in partnership with the public sector to improve sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s weak healthcare systems in a White Paper, From Funding to Action: Strengthening Healthcare Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, launched today by the Global Health Initiative at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Guide to using the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria to support health systems strengthening in round 6","field_subtitle":"Physicians for Human Rights, May 2006","field_url":"http://www.phrusa.org/campaigns/aids/pdf/guide_fund_round6.pdf","body":"Physicians for Human Rights has complete a Guide to Using the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to Support Health System Strengthening in Round 6. Round 6 has great potential for advancing health system strengthening efforts in many countries, and we strongly encourage applicants to take advantage of this potential. It is especially useful for those involved in preparing Global Fund proposals, or who have the capacity to influence (or interest in influencing) these proposals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Research Profile to assess the capacity of low and middle income countries for equity-oriented research","field_subtitle":"Tugwell P, Sitthi-Amorn C, Hatcher-Roberts J, Neufeld V, Makara P, Munoz F, Czerny P, Robinson V, Nuyens Y, Okello D: BioMed Central Public Health, 12 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-6-151.pdf","body":"The Commission on Health Research for Development concluded that \u201cfor the most vulnerable people, the benefits of research offer a potential for change that has gone largely untapped.\u201d This project was designed to assess low and middle income country capacity and commitment for equity-oriented research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV-Positive people in Kenya selling antiretroviral drugs to buy food","field_subtitle":"Inter Press Service, 7 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=37742","body":"Some HIV-positive people in Kenya are selling their antiretroviral drugs to buy food. Some people register at more than one treatment site so they can obtain extra drugs, which they then sell, Patricia Asero, a member of the Kenya Treatment Access Movement, said. She added that some HIV-positive people who get their antiretroviral drugs from a single treatment site sometimes sell their medications to buy food. These trends have raised concerns about drug-resistant strains of the virus developing in Kenya.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Holding second jobs: Regulation in the public health sector","field_subtitle":"Jan S, Bian Y, Jumpa M, et al: id21 Health, 9 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h1sj1g1.html","body":"Medical professionals working in the public sector often supplement their salaries through second jobs in the private sector. Their dual job activities have both positive and negative implications for the public health sector. What policy options exist for regulating dual job holding and what is their likely effect?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"How decentralisation, insurance schemes, privatisation and priority setting in health can affect gender equity","field_subtitle":"\u00d6stlin P: Health Evidence Network","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC21570&Resource=healthsystems","body":"This review article, published by the World Health Organization, assesses the impact of four key health care reforms \u2013 decentralisation, financing, privatisation and priority setting \u2013 on gender equity in health. It reports that, in many low income countries, rapid decentralisation has led to difficulties in providing affordable, accessible and equitable health services, and may also inadvertently support a more conservative reproductive health agenda. Other findings include that: taxes and social insurance schemes provide the most equitable basis for health care financing; privatisation may worsen gender equity; and some priority setting methods incorporate gender biases, and so underestimate the burden of disease on women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"How much time do health services spend on antenatal care? Implications for the introduction of the focused antenatal care model in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"von Both C, Flessa S, Makuwani A, Mpembeni  R, Jahn A: BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 6:22, 23 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/6/22/abstract","body":"Antenatal care (ANC) is a widely used strategy to improve the health of pregnant women and to encourage skilled care during childbirth. In 2002, the Ministry of Health of the United Republic of Tanzania developed a national adaptation plan based on the new model of the World Health Organisation (WHO). In this study we assess the time health workers currently spent on providing ANC services and compare it to the requirements anticipated for the new ANC model in order to identify the implications of Focused ANC on health care providers workload.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Human Resources for Health (HRH) tool Compendium","field_subtitle":"HRH Global Resource Center","field_url":"http://www.hrhresourcecenter.org/node/479","body":"This Compendium is to help you find HR tools appropriate for your work. The tools and resource documents included in the Compendium have been reviewed by two or more people with HR expertise and have selected based on usefulness and easy availability. Most of the tools are available free electronically.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights and the establishment of a WIPO Development Agenda","field_subtitle":"3D: June 2006","field_url":"http://www.3dthree.org/pdf_3D/3Dnote5_WIPO_June06.pdf","body":"Over the past two years, discussions on a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Development Agenda have provided a forum for Member States to challenge the current trends in intellectual property (IP) policy-making and work towards a system that is more consistent with development commitments and needs. The second session of the Provisional Committee on Proposals for a WIPO Development Agenda (PCDA), from 26 to 30 June 2006, will provide an opportunity for Member States to consider proposals in clusters of issues2 and submit a decision for a WIPO Development Agenda to the WIPO General Assembly in September 2006 that will dictate the future of these discussions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Internationally recruited nurses in London: A survey of career paths and plans","field_subtitle":"Buchan J, Jobanputra  R, Gough  P, Hutt  R: Human Resources for Health 4:14, 26 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/4/1/14","body":"The paper reports on a survey of recently arrived international nurses working in London, to assess their demographic profile, motivations, experiences and career plans. The Philippines, Nigeria and South Africa were the three most commonly reported countries of training (in total, more than 30 countries of training were reported). Sixty per cent of the nurses from sub-Saharan Africa and more than 40% from South Africa and India/Pakistan/Mauritius were aged 40 or older; the youngest age profile was reported by the Australia/New Zealand/USA nurses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Just listen: Research and activism can walk hand-in-hand","field_subtitle":"Real Health News, 17 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/node/193","body":"Activist researcher Ravi Narayan, a member of the Foundation Council of the Global Forum, speaks of the necessity for all groups working towards people\u2019s health, including researchers, to listen to each other. Hard evidence is essential for progress he says \u2013 especially evidience collected and analysed by researchers in least developed countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring inequality: Tools and an illustration","field_subtitle":"Williams RFG, Doessel DP: International Journal for Equity in Health 5: 5, 22 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/5/1/5","body":"This paper examines an aspect of the problem of measuring inequality in health services. The measures that are commonly applied can be misleading because such measures obscure the difficulty in obtaining a complete ranking of distributions. The nature of the social welfare function underlying these measures is important. The overall object is to demonstrate that varying implications for the welfare of society result from inequality measures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Negotiating sexual and reproductive health","field_subtitle":"Molesworth K: Bulletin of Medicus Mundi Switzerland 100, April 2006","field_url":"http://www.medicusmundi.ch/mms/services/bulletin/bulletin200602/kap1/01Molesworth.html","body":"he United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and other organisations working to achieve the goal of universal access to reproductive health have to negotiate highly sensitive and embedded beliefs and practices. In certain contexts challenging female genital cutting, child marriage and instituting gender equity, access to contraception, sexual and reproductive health and information are highly contentious issues. Rather than perceiving cultural perspectives to constrain positive social change, UNFPA\u2019s Culture Matters approach illustrates how development actors might work sensitively with the dynamics of culture to enhance the achievement of development objectives and human rights within a variety of social, cultural and spiritual settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Nine years, eight goals, no time to waste","field_subtitle":"Sandrasagra MJ: Inter Press Service News Agency, 12 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33583","body":"In September 2000, world leaders gathered at the United Nations for the Millennium Assembly promised to halve extreme hunger and poverty, halt the spread of HIV/AIDS and provide universal primary education, all by 2015. The series of targets, known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), also include promoting gender equality, reducing child and maternal mortality, ensuring environmental sustainability and building a global partnership for development. Salil Shetty spoke to IPS about the current status of the MDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Parliamentary oversight, HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"IDASA, February 2006","field_url":"http://www.idasa.org.za/gbOutputFiles.asp?WriteContent=Y&RID=1513","body":"From 22\u201324 February 2006 MPs from Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe met in Johannesburg and deliberations at the meeting centred around three major themes related to parliamentary oversight of HIV and AIDS: the challenges and opportunities relating to the parliamentary structures and the environment within which MPs operate; the extra parliamentary partnerships that could strengthen parliamentary oversight of HIV and AIDS such as partnerships with civil society and the media; and the benefits of and practical suggestions for a network of African MPs at regional and Pan African level. These themes are discussed in this report.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Positions remain unchanged in TRIPS/CBD consultations","field_subtitle":"Raja K: Third World Network, 16 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/twninfo423.htm","body":"A consultation held on 6 June at the WTO on the relationship between the TRIPS Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) ended with positions among members remaining unchanged on the issue of disclosure of the source of origin of biological resources and associated traditional knowledge. A paper was presented by Brazil, India, Pakistan, Peru, Thailand and Tanzania (joined by China and Cuba). But the US, Australia and others said that negotiation based on any text is premature, as there were differences in views.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Postgraduate training fellowships for women scientists in Sub-Saharan Africa or Least Developed Countries (LDC) at centres of excellence in the South","field_subtitle":"Third World Organisation for Women in Science: DEADLINE EXTENDED","field_url":"http://www.twows.org/postgrad.html","body":"This fellowship programme is for female students in Sub-Saharan Africa or Least Developed Countries (LDCs) who wish to pursue postgraduate training leading to a doctorate degree at a centre of excellence in the South outside their own country. For 2006, the deadline for receipt of applications has been extended to 31 July 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Preserving disorder: IMF policies and Kenya\\\\'s health care crisis","field_subtitle":"Soren Ambrose , Solidarity Africa Network, Nairobi. This editorial was originally published in Pambazuka News 257.","field_url":"","body":"Compared to 20 years ago in Kenya, people live for ten years less on average, more children die in infancy and a greater proportion of those who survive face stunting. Why? Soren Ambrose makes a case for holding the International Monetary Fund (IMF) responsible, arguing that the institution's obsession with low inflation rates - one of the foundations of trade liberalization - starves economies and hurts the poor.\r\n\r\nOn March 6, Kenya's Assistant Minister for Health, Enock Kibunguchy, told the press that Kenya urgently needs to hire 10,000 additional professionals in the public health sector, blurting out: \u201cWe have to put our foot down and employ. We can tell the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to go to hell.\u201d\r\n\r\nThese are strong words for a high-ranking government official to put on record regarding the most powerful international financial institutions (IFIs), and in particular the IMF, a body whose power extends to being able to call for the withdrawal of virtually all external assistance to a country.\r\n\r\nMinister of Health Charity Ngilu had in fact been rumored to have made similar accusations in meetings with IMF officials and civil society representatives; since Kibunguchy's declaration she has confirmed she shares his view. Similar allegations have also been made by several civil society organizations focused on the IMF and on health rights. Indeed, in the last two years a number of organizations have identified IMF restrictions as a serious disincentive to hiring desperately-needed health professionals not only in Kenya, but in many other African and Global South countries as well.\r\n\r\nSpecific IMF policies, in particular the low ceilings it sets for inflation rates and wage expenditures in borrowing countries, are demonstrably illogical and detrimental. Together with the dubious defense the IMF mounts for maintaining such restrictions, cases like Kenya's provide a strong argument that those controlling the IMF should re-examine the restrictions it places on borrowing governments. The logic of demanding continual decreases in public wage bills is likewise suspect, as are the IMF's routine inflation targets. With increased funding from new sources, improved standards of living are within reach of even the most impoverished countries, if only the IMF would allow it.\r\n\r\nThe Health Care Crisis\r\nKenya's health care crisis has been 20 years in the making. Its dimensions are spelled out in the 2004 Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) - a government document written in consultation with the IMF and World Bank and approved by both bodies' boards. Life expectancy declined from 57 in 1986 to 47 in 2000; infant mortality increased from 62 per thousand in 1993 to 78 per thousand in 2003; and under-five mortality rose from 96 per thousand births to 114 per thousand in the same period. The percentage of children with stunted growth increased from 29% in 1993 to 31% in 2003, and the percentage of Kenya's children who are fully-vaccinated dropped from 79% in 1993 to 52% in 2003.\r\n\r\nWhy this deterioration? As in most African countries, Kenya's health care system was hit hard by the \u201cstructural adjustment\u201d policies imposed by the IMF and World Bank as conditions on loans and as prerequisites for getting IFI approval of the country's economic policies. Those policies were introduced in the 1980s, and have left a lasting mark on Kenya's health. As usual with such programs, the emphasis was on cutting budget expenditures. As a result, local health clinics and dispensaries had fewer supplies and medicines, and user fees became more common. The public hospitals saw their standard of care deteriorate, increasing pressure on the largest public facility, Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi. As a consequence, that hospital, once the leading health facility in East Africa, began, like so many other African hospitals, to ask patients' families to provide outside food, medicine, and medical supplies. Most beds at Kenyatta and the regional and local hospitals accommodated two patients. Professional staff have taken jobs - some part-time, some full-time, at private healthcare facilities, or migrated to Europe or North America in search of better pay.\r\n\r\nAn October 2005 communication from an NGO coalition to the November 2005 \u201cHigh Level Forum on Health MDGs (Millennium Development Goals)\u201d notes that \u201cbetween 1991 and 2003, the [Kenyan] government reduced its work force by 30%\u201d - cuts that hit the health sector particularly hard.[3] For the period between 2000 and 2002 alone, the government was scheduled to lay off 5,300 health staff.\r\n\r\nThose requirements were externally imposed. A World Bank Group document from November 2003, written to justify waiving a loan condition calling for a workforce reduction, notes: \u201cThis condition required retrenching 32,000 personnel from civil service over a period of two years. In practice, 23,448 civil servants were retrenched in 2000/01 before the program was interrupted by lawsuits. A specific commitment in the updated [agreement] is to reduce the size of the civil service by 5,000 per year through natural attrition.\u201d The very same document supports Assistant Minister Kibunguchy's assessment of the sector's current needs - \u201cthe health sector currently experiences a staff shortage of about 10,000 health workers.\u201d The document, however, draws no connection between the shortage and the insistence on cutting more workers.\r\n\r\nThe impact of the layoffs and budget slashing in the health sector over the last 15 years was cited recently by Member of Parliament Alfred Nderitu as the primary motivation for his motion of censure against the IMF and World Bank in the Kenyan Parliament. His initiative would insist that any future loans from the institutions get Parliamentary approval.\r\n\r\nClinics Without Nurses\r\nMany African countries have shortages of medical staff because of lack of training capacity; in Kenya this is not the case. Thousands are unemployed or underemployed, eager to take up full time positions.\r\n\r\nBoth the Kenyan government and the IFIs regularly announce that health spending will increase substantially. With all these promises of increased resources for health care, with the World Bank's acknowledgement of a staff shortage, and with all those unemployed nurses, one might expect that the government would waste no time in hiring the thousands of nurses Kenya so desperately needs. And indeed, frequent promises are made by government officials to that effect. But the promises are almost never kept.\r\n\r\nAccording to the Chief Economist in the Ministry of Health, S.N. Muchiri, the reason is that while the IFIs support increased expenditures on health, they forbid spending that money to pay staff wages. This is accomplished through insisting on a ceiling on wage expenditures; in Kenya, the targets are 8.5% of GDP in 2006 and 7.2% by 2008. The IMF doesn't specify that hiring in the health sector specifically must be limited, but when the entire wage bill must be suppressed, the chances of hiring the personnel needed are slim indeed.\r\n\r\nSo when IFI staffers call for more funding for clinics, as they do in their critique of the government's draft PRSP, they mean buildings, equipment, and medicine. Unfortunately, personnel are required to run the clinics. It is the choice by those institutions to prioritize targets for reduced spending on public salaries and on inflation, says Muchiri, that prevents Kenya from hiring health workers.\r\n\r\nMuchiri provides valuable \u201cinside\u201d confirmation of charges made with increasing intensity by civil society organizations over the last two years. Advocates point out that while recent funding initiatives like the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria and PEPFAR have made stemming the most critical health crises in Africa more possible, the IMF's power over borrowers' economic policy and its narrow focus on keeping inflation and payrolls as low as possible is actively discouraging governments from putting the available funds to use.\r\n\r\nNumbers, Not People\r\nOn one level, it seems like commonsense for an organization like the IMF to seek out ways in which governments can reduce the amount spent on salaries, especially in countries like Kenya, which have had troubles with \u201cghost employees\u201d on public payrolls in the past. But the self-defeating nature of this quest quickly becomes apparent. If the government were simply expected to identify and eliminate ghost employees, that would obviously lighten the government's burden and enable it to target its resources more wisely.\r\n\r\nBut the IMF's conditions deal with bottom-line expenditures, not with going to the root of the problem. Kenya's PRSP spells out the implications: \u201c\u2026achieving the 8.5 percent target by 2005/06 will require that any awards to be provided to the civil servants or any additional awards will be matched by a proportionate downsizing of the civil service.\u201d Any hiring of nurses, for example, would require that some other public employees be eliminated - regardless of how much the nurses may be needed, or how vital the other positions may be. Indiscriminate targeting like this only demonstrates the prioritizing of abstract economic statistical standards over real-life outcomes, including those most likely to have a positive material impact on poverty and on contributing to the overall health of both Kenya's population and the economy.\r\n\r\nSo if the health budget is to rise - as both the IFIs and the government repeat often - then the PRSP must remind us that: \u201cThe fiscal strategy assumes that these health expenditures will be focused on non-wage non-transfer expenditures and will thus enable the rapid increase in basic health services.\u201d Indeed, Muchiri reports that funds are often available for facilities or supplies, but not for staff. The result is that more people may seek out health services, but the ministry will actually be less able to provide them because of lack of personnel to administer the drugs or operate the machinery.\r\n\r\nInflation, Inflation, Inflation\r\nBut why does the IMF, with its power to exclude a country from the global economy by declaring it \u201coff-track,\u201d insist on reducing government payrolls? Adding employees to the government payroll, especially if accomplished with aid money, is considered by orthodox economists like those at the IMF to increase inflationary pressures in a developing country. And an increase in inflation is anathema to the IMF.\r\n\r\nThe IMF quite openly prioritizes inflation targeting over almost any other factor in the countries where it works. Pressed on the question, as they have been in the debate over health spending, its officials will invariably respond that inflation is a \u201ctax\u201d that hits the poor the hardest.\r\n\r\nBut is that true? Anis Chowdhury points out that:\r\n\u201cThe poor have very limited financial assets; they are largely net financial debtors. Thus inflation can benefit the poor by reducing the real value of their financial debt. Meanwhile, the IMF's cure for inflation - raising interest rates - can actually harm the poor because this increases the servicing costs of their current debts. The poor fare worse when unemployment rises and persists, especially when there is no adequate safety net or social security system. At the same time, the real value of their household debt rises with falling inflation rates. Hence the poor have more reason to be averse to unemployment and less averse to inflation than the elite in society.\"\r\n\r\nAfter this seemingly obvious point is made, it seems only too easy to point out that those who stand to lose the most from inflation are those who hold large amounts of money - financiers, investors, bankers. Yes, there are risks to the poor in high and/or persistent inflation, but increases in inflation below a certain point are far more likely to cause pain to those whose incomes depend on relatively minor fluctuations in currency values. For the impoverished, as Chowdhury explains, such increases in inflation are likely to be more beneficial than harmful.\r\n\r\nAs is so often the case, it is easiest to discern the interests of policy-makers not from their rhetoric, but from whose interests are most vigorously protected by their policies - by who \u201cwins\u201d as a result. The IMF's longtime prioritization of inflation over all else lends weight to those who accuse it of using its powers to protect the interests of the wealthy over those of the impoverished, regardless of their rhetoric that maintains the reverse.\r\n\r\nIMF official Andy Berg recently admitted as much: \u201cHigher inflation tax[es] people who hold cash or whose nominal incomes are fixed.\u201d But Berg's next sentence restores IMF ideology, and at the same time exposes its flimsiness: \u201cAnd this tax discourages private investment and tends to fall on those least able to adapt - in other words the poor.\u201d Berg relocates the pain from the rich to the poor, but offers no logic for that move.\r\n\r\nDrawing a Reasonable Line on Inflation\r\nTo challenge the IMF, the question must be where to draw the line - at what point, to use Berg's phrase, is \u201cinflation out of control,\u201d or at risk of spinning out of control? Berg says \u201cin poor countries the danger point is somewhere between 5 and 10 percent.\u201d The good news is that this figure is actually less conservative than the standard used in most IMF programs. In most countries with IMF loans, the conditions call for inflation to decline and stay below five percent.\r\n\r\nFew economists outside the IMF opt for a level as low even as 10% in defining a healthy rate of inflation for a growing economy in a developing country. Terry McKinley, an economist with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), declares: \u201cAs long as current revenue covers current expenditures, governments can usefully borrow to finance [social] investment. [\u2026] Fiscal deficits should remain sustainable as ensuing growth boosts revenue collection. The resultant growth of productive capacities will keep inflation moderate - namely, within a 15 percent rate per year.\u201d\r\n\r\nThere is no room for neutrality in this debate. Adhering to IMF standards in order to avoid trouble will, according to McKinley, likely sabotage any hope of genuine development:\r\n\r\n\u201cModerate inflation can, in fact, be compatible with growth. But low inflation can be as harmful as high inflation. When low-inflation policies keep the economy mired in stagnation or drive it into recession, the poor lose out, often for years thereafter, as their meager stocks of wealth are wiped out or their human capabilities seriously impaired. [\u2026] Without jobs and income, people cannot benefit from price stability.\u201d\r\n\r\nTactfully avoiding mentioning the IMF by name, McKinley argues: \u201cThe new 'politically correct' justification for minimizing inflation is that it hurts the poor. However, this misreads the facts: very high, destabilizing inflation (above 40 per cent) definitely hurts the poor; and very low inflation (below 5 per cent) can also harm their interests when it impedes growth and employment.\u201d\r\n\r\nRick Rowden points out that Latin American countries and \u201cEast Asian tigers\u201d like South Korea grew rapidly despite inflation rates of around 20%. But that was before the IMF moved into the development world in the 1980s, and re-wrote the rules - without any definitive evidence to support their claim that doing so was advantageous to the poor.\r\n\r\nThe IMF appears to be caught in a classic case of \u201cfighting the last battle.\u201d When the IMF started lending to developing countries in the early 1980s, they were afflicted with astronomical, runaway inflation. It still apparently believes that hyperinflation is the most dangerous threat. But hyperinflation has been eliminated almost everywhere (apart from crisis or pariah countries like Zimbabwe); indeed most developing countries now have inflation rates well below 10%, and many below 5%. This is largely as a result of the IMF's hyper-vigilance over the last 25 years. The problem today is not hyperinflation, but IMF-induced stagnation.\r\n\r\nMore and more economists - outside the IMF - are taking a more complex view of growth and inflation. Rather than insisting that a country have a demonstrated \u201cabsorptive capacity\u201d before increasing the flow of revenues, they look at the likely impact of increased flows. In the case of increased spending on health care, not only is employment created (if wage ceilings are set aside), but the population's overall economic capacity improves, and private-sector activity, rather than being discouraged by public funds, is spurred by the increasing availability of resources.\r\n\r\nMuchiri, in Kenya's Health Ministry, concurs with McKinley's positions on inflation targeting, and with the view that public spending, especially on healthcare, will encourage growth. He acknowledges that his government has committed to a low inflation target - its \u201cLetter of Intent\u201d to the IMF states: \u201cThe monetary program for 2004/05 is designed to reduce underlying inflation to 3.5 percent.\u201d And thus far Kenya seems to be meeting that goal.\r\n\r\nBut, says Muchiri: \u201c3.5 percent is too low for an economy that is supposed to grow by 5 percent. A certain level of inflation is healthy - you can't grow otherwise.\u201d This recognition moves Muchiri to criticize officials of a nearby country who have told him they must limit expenditures on health care - even refusing funds from the GFTAM - in order to prevent any risk of inflation rising. That line of thinking is clearly reflected in the recent statements by Kibunguchy and Ngilu.\r\n\r\nBut Finance Ministers who have committed to the IMF's inflation targets, and in many cases made those targets the centerpiece of their macroeconomic policy, are deeply reluctant to do anything that might raise that rate. Not only would doing so risk IMF disapproval and blacklisting, but it would also be seen as reversing a position they have publicly, and politically, committed to. Until this logjam is broken, a higher quality of life - even life itself - will continue to elude many thousands.\r\n\r\nMuchiri counts as a significant victory the recent concession made by the IMF, after substantial negotiations, that Kenya could hire more health professionals if it could find donors willing to provide extra funds who themselves were comfortable with the impacts - economic and otherwise - that hiring additional health staff might have. It is this concession that recently allowed Kenya to announce that it will use funds from the Clinton Foundation, PEPFAR, and the GFATM to hire upwards of two thousand new nurses and other health professionals. Unlike with previous pledges, advertisements for the positions are now appearing in newspapers.\r\n\r\nBut the very existence of these policies, and the fact that he must invest so much in winning exceptions to them, cause Muchiri to reflect on his experiences of watching mothers and children die in hospitals for lack of surgeons or a lack of capacity to offer preventive care, and speculate that the IMF and World Bank could reasonably be charged with genocide. \u201cThe only difference from what happened in Rwanda is they don't use pangas [machetes]. They use policies.\u201d\r\n\r\n\r\nReproduced with permission from the author from Pambazuka news 1 June 2006.  http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/34800  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Public sector nurses in Swaziland: Can the downturn be reversed?","field_subtitle":"Kober K, Van Damme W: Human Resources for Health 4:13, 31 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/4/1/13","body":"The lack of Human Resources for Health (HRH) is increasingly being recognised as a major bottleneck for scaling-up anti-retroviral treatment (ART), particularly in sub-Saharan Africa whose societies and health systems are hardest hit by HIV/AIDS. This country case study of Swaziland describes the current HRH situation in the public sector and identifies major factors that contribute to the crisis, describe policy initiatives to tackle it and base on these a number of projections for the future. It also suggests some areas for further research that may contribute to tackling the HRH crisis in Swaziland.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Push for new tactics as war on malaria falters","field_subtitle":"Furrer M: New York Times, 28 June 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ncfn8","body":"An emerging consensus on solutions, combined with fresh scrutiny and a windfall of new financing, are prompting major donors to revamp years of failed efforts to stem malaria's mortal toll. The growing support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, enriched this week by a $31 billion gift from Warren E. Buffett, will provide still more impetus for change. US A.I.D. is reported to be shifting its focus from mainly backing the sale of subsidized mosquito nets in Africa to giving more of them away to poor people; to providing combination drugs given the growth of resistance to older, cheaper medicines and to supporting large-scale programs to spray insecticides, including DDT. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Putting women at the centre of water supply, sanitation and hygiene","field_subtitle":"Gender and Economic Reforms in Africa Programme, May 2006","field_url":"http://wash-cc.org/pdf/publication/FOR_HER_ITs_THE_BIG_ISSUE_Evidence_Report-en.pdf","body":"This is a report from the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council and the Water Engineering and Development Centre. According to the report it is crucial to put women at the centre of water supply, sanitation and hygiene activities. Taking women's needs and preferences into account has resulted in a decrease in drop-out rates from school of young women, reductions in child mortality and maternal morbidity, and improved health for women and girls.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual and reproductive health and rights","field_subtitle":"Eldis Health Resources Guide","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/health/srhr/index.htm","body":"This key issues guide reviews current policy issues relating to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), examining questions of definition and exploring key debates. The guide also highlights current and future challenges for attaining greater levels of sexual and reproductive well-being, and considers the role of innovative technologies and approaches in achieving sexual and reproductive health and rights for all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexually transmitted infections among adolescents: The need for adequate health services","field_subtitle":"Riedner G, Dehne GL: WHO","field_url":"http://www.who.int/reproductive-health/publications/stis_among_adolescents/stis_among_adolescents_adequate_health_services.pdf","body":"Attempts to date to promote the sexual health of young people have tended to focus on prevention, education and counselling for those who are not yet sexually active, while the provision of health services to those who have already engaged in unprotected sexual activity and faced the consequences, including pregnancy, STIs or sexual violence, has lagged behind. This document presents a review of the literature documenting existing experience with the provision of services for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) to adolescents.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Skilled migration: Healthcare policy options","field_subtitle":"Gent S, Skeldon R: Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty Policy Briefing 6, March 2006","field_url":"http://www.migrationdrc.org/publications/briefing_papers/BP6.pdf","body":"This article describes how the association between the presence or absence of health personnel and the health status of a population tends to be seen as simplistic, and proceeds to address a range of other factors. The Briefing examines the case for a two-tiered health training system, one for global markets and the other for local markets. It also examines options for outsourcing healthcare to regional centres in poorer countries as a way to assist with retention and return.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Stigma, discrimination and human rights","field_subtitle":"Wood k, Aggleton P: Thomas Coram Research Unit","field_url":"http://www.safepassages.soton.ac.uk/pdfs/Stigma.pdf","body":"All over the world, young people are stigmatised and discriminated against in relation to their sexual and reproductive health. Stigma, discrimination and the violation of human rights are intimately connected, reinforcing and\r\nlegitimising each other. Their manifestations are varied, occurring in families and communities, in health services, at places of work, and in schools.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Targeting the very poor","field_subtitle":"Eldis Health Systems Resource Guide","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/healthsystems/vp/targeting.htm","body":"A number of studies have looked at who benefits from public sector funding of health services. Different conclusions are drawn about the best way to reach the very poor, depending on the health system in question, the broader social, economic and political context, and the conceptual and ideological approaches underpinning the studies. A key area of debate concerns the respective benefits of non-targeted strategies, such as provision of universal free health care services, versus specific, targeted strategies for reaching the very poor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The G8's response to Africa: Is it making a difference?","field_subtitle":"Intellectual Program Series","field_url":"http://www.gsc.upenn.edu/programs/ip.php#g8*","body":"A year after the G8 agreements were reached, the question remains: Has anything changed? What has been done thus far? What action has been taken to implement change and how? What do these plans hold for Africa? Will they alleviate the developmental pressures that the African governments and the African people face? Or will they simply diversify the already-apparent symptoms of poverty? This conference proposed to investigate the complex issues surrounding poverty, debt relief, healthcare, and other related matters in Africa in a cross-disciplinary setting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The view from the Summit: Gleneagles G8 one year on","field_subtitle":"Global Policy Forum, 9 June 2006","field_url":"http://globalpolicy.igc.org/socecon/bwi-wto/g7-8/2006/0906oxfamg8.pdf","body":"The July 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles delivered promises on debt, aid, trade, security and climate change. This report examines progress one year later. Debt cancellation has resulted in extra spending on health and education in poor countries, but is not reaching enough of the world's poor. Aid figures show huge increases but include large debt write-offs for Iraq and Nigeria. Oxfam is concerned that the growth in aid in key G8 nations is not enough to meet the promises made at Gleneagles.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Mortality Report 2005","field_subtitle":"United Nations, 2006","field_url":"http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/worldmortality/WMR2005.pdf","body":"The World Mortality Report 2005 provides a broad overview of mortality changes in all countries of the world during the latter half of the 20th century. The main objective of this report is to compile and summarise available information about levels and trends of mortality and life expectancy for national populations; allowing a comparison of mortality data from different sources, and permitting an assessment of gaps in information, as well as insight on performance with respect to Millenium Development Goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"UN taking stock of AIDS","field_subtitle":"Deef T: Third World Network, 13 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/twninfohealth026.htm","body":"International organisations working on AIDS gave their assessment of the worldwide response to the disease, which is increasingly afflicting women and girls. This happened in advance of a UN special session on AIDS that took place on May 31-June 2. Despite the failures so far, there were important lessons that could be learnt.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"WHA forms working group on IPRs and health R&D","field_subtitle":"Third World Network, 17 June 2006","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/twninfohealth029.htm","body":"After a negotiating process that lasted many days and that was closely watched by dozens of health and development NGOs, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution on 27 May that established a working group to come up with a global strategy on intellectual property, health research and development, and new medicines for diseases that especially affect developing countries. The resolution was seen by many as the biggest achievement of this year's WHA, and was hailed by many public interest groups that had supported the developing countries, led by Kenya and Brazil, that had first advocated the resolution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO alliance aims to tackle the world's lack of health workers","field_subtitle":"Rehwagen C: British Medical Journal 332:1294, 3 June 2006","field_url":"","body":"A new global partnership that aims to improve the world's shortage of doctors, nurses, midwives, and other health workers was launched at last week's World Health Assembly in Geneva. The announcement came six weeks after the World Health Organization made the issue a priority in its annual report, in which it called for a global action plan to tackle the shortage of an estimated 4.2 million health workers.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31583","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO paves way for medicines for the poor","field_subtitle":"Capdevila G: Inter Press Service News Agency, 29 May 2006","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33413","body":"The World Health Assembly concluded its annual session at the end of May with the adoption of a resolution that could change the concept of drug research and development, and open the door to a system that gives the world's poor greater access to medicines. The resolution approved by the Assembly, the supreme decision-making body of the World Health Organisation (WHO), urges the 192 member states to make the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals a strategic sector, thus committing themselves to making the research and development of medicines consistent with public interest needs a priority.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Why do research findings fail to change health policy?","field_subtitle":"Aaserud M, Lewin S, Innvaer S: id21, 31 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=0&i=h8ma6g1&u=44a268ec","body":"Research on reproductive health in developing countries has produced a growing evidence base. But translating this evidence into appropriate health policy remains a slow process. What factors influence the use of evidence by clinicians and policymakers? And what enables or prevents them from putting research findings into practice?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Winners or losers? Liberalising public services","field_subtitle":"Rosskam E: International Labour Office, 2006","field_url":"","body":"Public services are being liberalized world wide, opened to foreign service providers, often turned into private services through privatization, commercialization, marketization, and deregulation. Yet the privatization of public services means that many, many people can no longer benefit from such services because they cannot pay, or because they do not belong to the social class for whom the private services are intended. The document discusses how little is known about the changes taking place in services long-considered to be a public \"right\", or about the widening social disparities that result from liberalization.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31604","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Assembly adopts resolution tying public health to trade policy","field_subtitle":"Intellectual Property Watch, 27 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=319&res=1024_ff&print=0","body":"The World Health Assembly adopted a resolution that urges member states to improve coordination at the national level between international trade and public health, requesting the World Health Organization (WHO) to help its member states to do this. The resolution calls for governments to promote a better dialogue on trade and health, and gives health ministries a place at the table with other government agencies involved in trade issues, establishing mechanisms to enable this.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":" 'Medical scheme hinders freedom of choice'","field_subtitle":"SAPA, 23 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=125&art_id=vn20060523015644741C202851","body":"The Public Servants' Association (PSA) in South Africa has voiced concern over restrictions imposed by the Government Employees Medical Aid Scheme (Gems). It welcomed the restructuring current medical aid assistance to make medical cover more affordable, but questioned the compulsory membership of Gems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":" A burden that will only become heavier","field_subtitle":"IPS, 28 May 2006: Palitza, K","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33396","body":"Researchers say they are bracing for a sharp rise in the cost of public health services in South Africa within the next few years, due to HIV/AIDS. And, they warn that the country's health department might not be able to cope with its ever-growing responsibilities if government fails to increase the department's budget substantially. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":" New dispensing structure 'needs attention'","field_subtitle":"IOL, 16 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=125&art_id=qw1147798081724B243","body":"Aspects of the proposed new dispensing-fee structure for pharmacists need more attention, the Pharmaceutical Stakeholders Forum (PSF) said on Tuesday. These included the recent impact analysis of the proposed dispensing fee on community pharmacies, said PSF coordinator Ivan Kotze. The PSF made the comment in a submission on Monday to the Pricing Committee - appointed by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang under the Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act to help bring about a more transparent pricing system for medicines in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"2006 comprehensive review and high-level meeting on HIV/AIDS: New York, 31 May\u20132 June 2006","field_subtitle":"HIV/AIDS UNGASS review 3","field_url":"http://www.iwhc.org/docUploads/HIV%20and%20AIDS%20E%2DBulletin%20May8.pdf","body":"The first draft of the political declaration was released on April 26, and is based on the outcomes of the regional consultations on Scaling Up for Universal Access. Amongst other important strengths, the draft declaration has quite a strong focus on women and girls, committing governments to increase women\u2019s and girls\u2019 capacity to protect themselves from the risk of HIV infection, to take measures that will promote women\u2019s empowerment and to protect and promote women\u2019s human rights. The text also calls for stronger policy and program linkages between sexual and reproductive health and HIV and AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"59th World Health Assembly","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 22-27 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/2006/wha59/en/index.html","body":"The World Health Assembly is the supreme decision-making body for WHO. It generally meets in Geneva in May each year, and is attended by delegations from all 192 member states. The main function of the World Health Assembly is to determine the policies of the Organization. This year, issues discussed included: strengthening pandemic-influenza preparedness and response; infant/child nutrition; HIV/AIDS; polio eradication; sickle-cell anaemia; smallpox eradication and the destruction of variola virus stocks; prevention of avoidable blindness; international trade and health; tobacco control; and intellectual property rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A plague of inequality","field_subtitle":"Mail and Guardian, 19 May 2006: Marais H","field_url":"http://www.mg.co.za/articledirect.aspx?articleid=272190&area=/insight/insight_","body":"The mainstays of South Africa\u2019s efforts to fend off the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic are anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy provision and home based care. While vitally important, each in current form also expresses the kinds of prevailing inequalities that warp society. Today, of the estimated one million South Africans in need of ARVs, only about 200 000 are receiving such therapy -- half of them through the private health sector, which is accessible to a small minority of South Africans. This crisis demands nothing less than a new strategy (and struggle)for realising social rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A tribute to Dr LEE Jong-wook, Director-General of WHO","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Steering Committee","field_url":"","body":"Dr LEE Jong-wook, Director-General of the World Health Organization, died on 22 May 2006 following a short illness.  EQUINET joins the many who have paid tribute to Dr Lee for his contribution to global public health,  and send deep condolences to his family and colleagues.\r\n\r\nDr Lee was a national of the Republic of Korea and a world leader in public health. His contribution to global health has been commended from a wide spectrum of the global community: Treatment and health activists have recognized his decisive and bold leadership in declaring AIDS a global emergency in 2003 and in mobilising WHO organizational resources to deliver  on the global commitment to provide 3 million people with Ante-retroviral treatment by 2005. While many challenges remain in this, the over 700% increase in the number of people in Sub-Saharan Africa on treatment between 2003 and 2005 is testimony to this leadership.\r\n\r\nAccording to the WHO website (http://www.who.int/dg/lee/tribute/en/), Dr Lee, in  explaining his vision of \"universal access\" to staff  a few days before his death,  indicated that there could be no 'comfort level' in the fight against HIV, and that the commitment to universal access to treatment by 2010 would be measured by an outcome in 2010 that no-one dies because they can't get drugs.  In another editorial in this issue we explore some of the issues this poses globally, and for the region.\r\n\r\nThe United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared \" The world has lost a great man today. LEE Jong-wook was a man of conviction and passion. He was a strong voice for the right of every man, woman and child to health prevention and care, and advocated on behalf of the very poorest people.\"\r\n\r\nIn his very first speech to WHO staff as Director-General, Dr Lee vowed that WHO would do the right things, in the right places. The WHO tribute makes clear that to him, the right places were the countries that most needed WHO's support. He considered WHO's job as one of huge responsibility to its 192 Member States, and the health needs of their people. This country focus sharply raised a glaring issue: that of equity and the inequalities within and across countries in health and health care. In his address to the Fifty Seventh World Health Assembly in 2004 Dr Lee noted \u201cWe have yet to get to grips with the links between health, equity and development. The underlying theme of my first year as Director-General is equity and social justice\u201d.\r\n\r\nTo support work in this area, WHO set up a Commission on the Social Determinants of Health to gather evidence on the social and environmental causes of health inequities, and how to overcome them.  EQUINET values the focus that Dr Lee gave to these inequities in health and health care, and the wider responsibility he articulated for action on the conditions and policies causing them within the whole global community. As he noted in 2004: \u201cHopes of peace and security in the world fade where these inequities prevail\u201d. We pay tribute to Dr Lee for his championing, at the helm of the WHO, these values and goals of equity and social justice. They are deeply shared by EQUINET.\r\n\r\nUnder the Rules of Procedure of the World Health Assembly, and in accordance with the decision of the Director-General, WHO has indicated that Dr Anders Nordstr\u00f6m - currently Assistant Director-General for General Management - will serve as Acting Director-General.\r\n\r\nFor information on the institutions in the EQUINET Steering Committee see www.equinetafrica.org or contact EQUINET through admin@equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Abuja AIDS Summit - promises, promises?","field_subtitle":"IRIN PlusNews","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5937&SelectRegion=Africa&SelectCountry=AFRICA","body":"African leaders meeting at a special summit on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, threw down a challenge to their governments by setting bold new targets to be achieved by 2010. At the end of the gathering to review progress in implementing the 2001 Abuja Declaration on AIDS, TB and Malaria, a major resolution was passed, declaring that at least 80 percent of those in need, especially women and children, should have access to HIV/AIDS treatment, including antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, care and support. Civil society organisations welcomed the ambitious continental targets, but it remains to be seen whether these will be met, particularly when considering how little progress has been made in implementing goals set in 2001. Of particular concern is that leaders reiterated their commitment to devote 15 percent of their national budgets to improving the health sector, while the African Union (AU) found that Nigeria, Burundi and Ethiopia scored worst in this respect, having set aside only four, three and two percent of their annual budgets respectively for health. Only a third of African countries spend 10 percent of their budget or more on health. African countries also pledged that at least 80 percent of pregnant women would have access to medication for preventing mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) by 2010, and at least 80 percent of target populations would have access to voluntary testing and counselling services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"African Civil Society position paper on HIV and AIDS in Africa: Moving to action","field_subtitle":"World AIDS Campaign, 1 May 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/mfcwt","body":"Civil society groups from across African met in Abuja, Nigeria on April 10 to 12 2006 to develop a consolidated position for use during the review processes of the Abuja Declaration and Framework Plan for action, and the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on AIDS (UNGASS) Declaration of Commitment (DoC), and to chart a way forward regarding access for all people requiring information and services related to HIV prevention, care, support and treatment. This statement reflects the outcomes of these deliberations, as well as the sentiments of the undersigned African Civil Society Organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"African workers and scholars unite","field_subtitle":"Bond P","field_url":"","body":"At Workers University in Cairo, a mid-May gathering of 100 trade union leaders and intellectuals from across Africa adopted surprisingly common radical language, exhibiting a pent-up desire to jointly fight global neoliberalism. The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (Codesria) has been an extraordinary network for 5000 members who are the continent's core of progressive academics. The article provides a detailed recount and discussion of the various arguments and perspectives presented.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31531","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa\u2019s three major killers in spotlight at AU health summit","field_subtitle":"AFP/SAPA, 4 May 2006: Awoniyi O ","field_url":"http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A194508","body":"African leaders met in Abuja, Nigeria, in May to discuss the battle against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, the continent\u2019s top three killers, at a summit organised by the African Union (AU). The pan-African body\u2019s gathering would be attended by attended by senior government figures from at least 18 African countries including SA. Health ministers from 24 countries and finance ministers from about 10 countries had confirmed their attendance; the central theme being universal access to care for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria across Africa by 2010.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Agreement Reached On IP And Public Health Resolution At WHO","field_subtitle":"Intellectual Property Watch,  27 May 2006: Gerhardsen, TIR","field_url":"http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=318&res=1024_ff&print=0","body":"A technical group at the World Health Assembly in May agreed on a\r\nresolution that will increase the worldwide research and development\r\nfocus on diseases that disproportionately affect developing\r\ncountries. Brazil and Kenya, which have been driving the issue,\r\nwelcomed the resolution, \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Antenatal HIV testing in rural eastern Uganda in 2003: Incomplete rollout of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV programme?","field_subtitle":"BMC International Health and Human Rights 6(6), 3 May 2006: Karamagi CAS , Tumwine JK, Tylleskar  T and Heggenhougen KH","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/6/6/abstract","body":"Uganda began to implement the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV programme in 2000, and by the end of 2003 it had expanded to cover 38 of 56 districts including Mbale District. However, reports from Mbale Hospital showed that less than 10% of pregnant women accepted antenatal HIV testing. We therefore conducted a study to determine the proportion of pregnant women who tested for HIV and the gaps and barriers in PMTCT implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Benn challenges west to fund African NHS  ","field_subtitle":"Guardian Unlimited: Mulholland H","field_url":"http://politics.guardian.co.uk/development/story/0,,1711023,00.html","body":"Rich countries should back their poorer neighbours in setting up free universal healthcare to help save thousands of lives, Hilary Benn, the minister for international development, will told public service workers in the UK in May.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Breaking the ties that bind us: A call for action against women\u2019s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"People\\'s Health Movement, 20 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/node/196","body":"There are 17.5 million women living with HIV in the world, a majority of them in developing countries. Over 13 million women are living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, and almost two million in South and South East Asia. This article explains the people's health movement's positions on why action needs to be taken now.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Bridging the 'know-do' gap: knowledge translation in health meeting","field_subtitle":"WHO Knowledge Management and Sharing, WHO Research Policy and Cooperation","field_url":"http://www.who.int/kms/WHO_EIP_KMS_2006_2.pdf","body":"Bridging the \"know-do\" gap poses the greatest opportunity for\r\nstrengthening health systems and ultimately achieving equity in global\r\nhealth. This report comes from a meeting on \"Knowledge Translation for\r\nGlobal Health\" convened by the WHO.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Bridging the gap between biomedicine and traditional healing","field_subtitle":"Buisnessinafrica, 17 April 2006: Etkind J","field_url":"http://www.businessinafrica.net/health/176209.htm","body":"Nearly 18 months ago, South Africa\u2019s Traditional Health Practitioners Bill made a triumphal passage through parliament, raising hopes in the hearts of the 300 000 or so practising traditional healers in South Africa that they might at last begin to ply their trade on an equal footing with their biomedical counterparts. The legislation included allowing traditional healers\u2019 patients to claim through medical aid schemes, giving them access to government hospitals and clinics and demanding the same respect and courtesy accorded to general practitioners, surgeons and other biomedical professionals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Brief Review of the World Health Assembly","field_subtitle":"Third World Network Info Service on Health Issues, 30 May 2006: Khor, M","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg","body":"Last week\u2019s annual meeting of Health Ministers at the World Health Assembly of the WHO started with the shocking news of the sudden death of its Director General, and went on to review global health problems, including avian flu, the effects of patents on health care, and the drain of doctors from poorer to rich countries.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31496","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Children who live in communities affected by AIDS","field_subtitle":"The Lancet 367 (9511), 25 February 2006: Foster G","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC21239","body":"This short article examines the impacts that HIV and AIDS in a community has on children living in that community. The author reviews the different impacts that these situations have on children. The author also discusses Article 26 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), in the context of children indirectly affected by HIV and AIDS, which states that children have a right to benefit from state-provided social security. Registration required (free).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Christopher Reeve Foundation: Quality of life grants program","field_subtitle":"Sangonet: Chapel & York Email Information Service, 1 February 2006","field_url":"http://sangonet.org.za/portal/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2953&Itemid=118","body":"The Christopher Reeve Foundation is looking for applications for its Quality of Life Grants Program from non-profit organisations working to address the needs of those living with paralysis (particularly spinal-cord injury), their families, and caregivers. Awards are up to $25,000 per grant. The closing date is 1 March and 1 September (annually).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"COSATU memorandum on WTO handed to US embassy: Our World is Not For Sale","field_subtitle":"Congress of South African Trade Unions, 12 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.ourworldisnotforsale.org/showarticle.asp?search=1526","body":"The following memorandum was handed to His Excellency, Mr Donald Teitelbaum, Charg\u00e9 d\u2019Affaires, United States of America, on 10 May 2006, by COSATU Gauteng Provincial Secretary, Siphiwe Mgcina, at a picket of the embassy by COSATU members as part of the Jobs and Poverty Campaign. COSATU writes to bring to the reader's attention the potentially detrimental consequences of the memorandum to be faced by the various sectors in South Africa, and the rest of the countries in the South or the developing nations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"East Africa: Food for thought","field_subtitle":"World Vision","field_url":"http://www.worldvision.org/about_us.nsf/child/eNews_africa_041806?OpenDocument&lpos=rightnav&lid=africa","body":"As the Horn of Africa risks facing a famine not seen since the mid-1980s, World Vision Africa Senior Advisor Nigel Marsh says all hope is not lost. The people of Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Burundi are at the mercy of three giants that are difficult to wish away: namely the weather, poverty, and HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ensuring universal access to AIDS treatment through strengthened health systems","field_subtitle":"Rebecca Pointer, Rene Loewenson EQUINET, Gregg Gonsalves, Gay Men\u2019s Health Crisis","field_url":"","body":"When the United Nations General Assembly meets in June to review progress in tackling the AIDS epidemic it will be reminded by civil society globally of the commitment made to ensure universal access to treatment for AIDS by 2010. This commitment has greatest resonance in sub-Saharan Africa where AIDS related mortality is highest.   Two years ago, in June 2004 the regional EQUINET conference of civil society, state, academic and parliamentary delegates resolved that the health challenges in east and southern Africa demanded health systems that are universal, comprehensive, equitable, participatory and publicly funded.  This also has urgency in a region where poverty is undermining progress in meeting the most basic Millennium Development Goals. \r\n\r\nHow do these two sets of imperatives relate to each other?  Do they reinforce each other or are they competing for policy attention and resources? Does giving urgency to addressing the right to treatment for AIDS boost or weaken efforts to rebuild fragile health systems? This was the focus of debate at a meeting in Cape Town in early May this year that gathered international AIDS activists, people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) and health activists. The meeting was organised by Gay Men\u2019s Health Crisis with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, and focused on \u201cIdentifying public policies for scaling up antiretroviral therapy (ART) and strengthening health systems in developing countries\u201d\r\n\r\nThe gathering of AIDS and health systems activists itself signals a widening social debate on health and health systems, raising the social, economic and political  profile of health after decades of market reforms that have undermined  equity and solidarity in health and that have weakened public health systems.  It builds on new and increased resources that AIDS brings to health systems, and a growth in social movements for health that can strengthen relationships between health services and communities. \r\n\r\nDelegates recognised that access to treatment for AIDS is a right, and so too is access to essential health care.  An advocacy and public policy agenda that recognises both of these rights of necessity calls for health-systems friendly, people (especially PLWHA) driven approaches to the establishment, scale-up and long-term sustainability of AIDS treatment programs. There has been past debate on whether the speed of responding to treatment rights compromises this goal of building sustainable systems. The AIDS epidemic is an emergency, and the level of avoidable infection and death calls for measures to bring HIV prevention and AIDS treatment services rapidly to community levels. At the same time it is a chronic long term issue that calls for sustainable systems and measures beyond emergency responses. \r\n\r\nHow can this be achieved?  The meeting reinforced the more general call within the region for people centred health systems. The role people play in decision making in the health sector is important, and often weakly recognised.  Specific measures were called for to remedy this. \r\n\r\nFor example it was proposed that decision making structures and processes include the active participation of PLWHAs, their communities, health care workers and other stakeholders from civil society.  However, the governance of the health sector is weak in many countries and the acceptance of the role of civil society is contentious for many governments, thus making real participation a challenge in most settings.   In order to pave the way for greater involvement, this participation needs to be backed by regulatory frameworks, guidelines, clear policy messages from governments and effective mechanisms and processes to manage this engagement, including for transparently managing conflicts in the interests and priorities of different groups. \r\n\r\nDelegates agreed that involvement in decision making and delivery raises a corresponding obligation of PLWHAs and communities to be literate on both HIV prevention and AIDS treatment and on how health systems work.  Building on community-based AIDS treatment literacy, health systems literacy is needed to build community knowledge on public health, and the health systems through which prevention and treatment are delivered. Just as AIDS treatment literacy has become a vehicle for mobilising communities around rights of access to ART, so health systems literacy should be a tool to mobilise communities around their collective rights to health and health care.\r\n\r\nThe desire to move at \u2018AIDS speed\u2019 has led to vertical programming to meet short term demands and delegates at the meeting agreed that some verticality is needed in the short term in response to the epidemic. However vertical programmes can only sustain the long term, lifetime delivery of ART if they are integrated within the wider health system. The issue of vertical programming and the integration in health systems is not unique to AIDS, and affects many other disease based programmes. The resources flowing to AIDS programmes gives it specific prominence, however, as the positive and negative systems effects can be pronounced. This issue naturally arose in the dialogue: delegates at the meeting recommended that plans for AIDS treatment programs need to assess which components can be immediately integrated into general health systems and which require vertical implementation in the short- to medium-term. Delegates also raised the need for plans to be set up front for how all vertical components will be integrated into the health system in the medium- and long-term. Whether initial decisions are made to vertically implement certain components of AIDS treatment programmes or to immediately integrate these components into general health systems, delegates raised the need to recognise, monitor and address problems that might arise from whatever approach is adopted.  As the meeting noted, this calls for national information systems and research that is able to identify these effects. It also calls for policy processes that are responsive to this information and flexible enough to rapidly correct problems.\r\n\r\nEQUINET has raised that fair financing and valuing of health workers is central to rebuilding national health systems in the region.  These issues were also central in the dialogue at the meeting. \r\n\r\nThe absolute shortage of trained health care workers, at crisis levels in some African countries, is now a major impediment to treatment access, and needs short-term action linked to long-term measures. Health systems and AIDS activists agreed on this.  Efforts by some governments in east and southern Africa to tackle this issue were noted, and need to be supported, spread, and backed by consultation with health workers. This calls for targets for training and employing health workers, new resources to employ and pay incentives to retain health workers and removal of any international finance institution conditions or fiscal restraints that undermine the application of these measures. The meeting delegates expressed frustration at the slow pace of global discussions and measures to cancel debt, mobilise aid and lift fiscal restraints to support these health system measures, relative to the speed with which these resources are needed.  \r\n\r\nThe meeting agreed that a point of synthesis of all these points is that of support  for  bottom-up district level planning as this brings communities and health service providers together around priority health needs, including AIDS treatment.  A number of key features were raised, for example: \r\n\u2022\tbottom-up level district planning that involves communities in a substantive way; \r\n\u2022\trespect for district planning by governments, international agencies, non government organisations and donors;\r\n\u2022\tensuring free access to AIDS treatment (and primary health care services) at point of service and addressing other barriers to accessing care, such as transport to health services; \r\n\u2022\tresource allocation systems that are responsive to district planning.\r\n \r\nTo this we may add ensuring that health workers at district and primary health care levels are adequate, valued and retained, including ensuring their own access to AIDS treatment, strengthening district level health information and planning systems and  revitalising and resourcing the community health worker and primary health care approaches that strengthened the interface between communities and health services. \r\n\r\nFinally, the stewardship of global public health, AIDS programs and health systems, needs independent and rigorous external monitoring.  The promises made at the 2001 UNGASS were largely promises broken and the new promises made at the 2006 UNGASS in New York need to be held open to greater scrutiny in the years ahead.  Stronger mechanisms for monitoring of good practices and stewardship in health at global, regional and country level must be established and led by institutions from developing countries.\r\n\r\nThe dialogue at the meeting in Cape Town in May provided a useful opportunity to identify shared goals and paths to strengthening health systems and ensuring universal access to AIDS treatment. It now provides a useful \u2018watching brief\u2019 for health systems activists and AIDS activists to see how far the dialogue at UNGASS addresses our shared expectations. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing  to the EQUINET secretariat, email admin@equinetafrica.org . EQUINET work on equity and health systems strengthening in health sector responses to AIDS is available at the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org .  Information on Gay Men\u2019s Health Crisis can be found at http://www.gmhc.org/\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) by \r\n\r\nTraining and Research Support Centre (TARSC) with web support from Fahamu\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 64: Ensuring universal access to AIDS treatment through strengthened health systems","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activites is available from the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Every day 10 children die in SA","field_subtitle":"IOL, 29 May 2006: Hall K , Leatt A","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=125&art_id=vn20060529013249792C157273","body":"The death of a child is always tragic, and in South Africa it is not an unusual occurrence. Every hour, 10 children under five years of age die. Almost one in 10 children will not survive to see their fifth birthday. The majority of these deaths are entirely avoidable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Fellowships for HIV/AIDS and Public health policy research in Africa","field_subtitle":"Social Science Research Council","field_url":"http://www.ssrc.org/programs/HIV/fellowships/","body":"The Social Science Research Council is pleased to announce the 2006-2007 Fellowship for HIV/AIDS and Public Health Policy Research in Africa. The program is open to African researchers, policy analysts, program planners and practitioners to support research on health and social policy in Eastern and Southern Africa relating to (1) political economy of care giving and HIV/AIDS with particular emphasis on gender analysis; or (2) sexual violence and HIV/AIDS. Two senior fellowships of up to $25,000 and six associate fellowships of up to $10,000 will be awarded. The deadline for applications is 12:00 noon on July 15, 2006 (GMT).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Forum 10 essay competition ","field_subtitle":"Global Forum for Health Research website: March 13 2006.","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/awards2006/awards2006/awards-1365.html","body":"The Global Forum for Health Research and The Lancet are sponsoring a joint essay competition on the occasion of Forum 10, the 2006 annual meeting of the Global Forum for Health Research (Cairo, Egypt, October 29 to November 2 2006). Young professionals working in or interested in the broad spectrum of health research on some aspect of the overall theme of Forum 10: 'Combating Disease and Promoting Health,' are invited to submit essays for consideration to the competition. Deadline for submission: June 1 2006.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Forum 10: Cairo, 29 October-2 November 2006","field_subtitle":"Global Forum for Health Research","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/Site/004__Annual%20meeting/001__Forum%2010/001__Home.php","body":"Forum 10, the 2006 annual meeting of the Global Forum for Health Research, will take place in Cairo, Egypt, from 29 October to 2 November at the invitation of the Minister of Health and Population of Egypt. This year's theme is Combating Disease and Promoting Health. Additional details on the programme and practical information on travel, hotels and visas can be found on our website www.globalforumhealth.org where the Forum 10 section will be updated on a regular basis. Registration for Forum 10 is open online.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Gates turns attention to fighting TB","field_subtitle":"Ireland online, 25 May 2006","field_url":"http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=183772506&p=y83773zyz","body":"The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has announced that it would give $104m to a non-profit organisation that fights tuberculosis (TB), a scourge in the developing world. The money will be doled out over five years to the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development to develop new drugs to combat a disease that kills nearly two million people a year. The four available drugs currently used to treat the disease are all more than 40 years old and take six months to work, while many patients have tuberculosis strains that are resistant to existing treatments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender and trade cutting edge pack","field_subtitle":"BRIDGE","field_url":"http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/reports_gend_CEP.html","body":"A pack by Bridge, a division of IDS, aims to support trade specialists in bringing a gender perspective into their work, and to help gender specialists to understand the broad implications of trade policy and practice. Some of the main questions this pack seeks to address are, in what ways can trade advance or impede gender equality? What practical ways can policy-makers and practitioners promote gender equality in work on trade?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Governments must move forward with Global R&D Framework at World Health Assembly","field_subtitle":"People\\'s Health Movement, 18 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/node/198","body":"As health ministers meet in Geneva at the World Health Assembly (WHA) next week, the medical humanitarian organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is calling on governments to overhaul the way medical research and development (R&D) is prioritised and financed, and support a resolution proposed by Kenya and Brazil for a \"global framework on essential health R&D.\" Despite gathering increasing support from many governments, this resolution has faced consistent obstruction on the part of the WHO Secretariat.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Systems Knowledge Network of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET is part of a consortium that was appointed in September 2005 to co-ordinate the Health Systems Knowledge Network of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health.  The Centre for Health Policy in South Africa has been appointed as the hub of the Knowledge Network on Health systems. The Commission is a global strategic mechanism to improve equity in health through action on the social determinants of health at global, regional and country level. This outline briefly describes the function and key areas of work of the Health Systems Knowledge Network, exploring the important role that health systems can play in reducing social differentials in health. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31530","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Holding second jobs: Regulation in the public health sector ","field_subtitle":"id21 Health, 9 May 2006: Jan S, Bian Y, Jumpa M","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=3&i=h1sj1g1&u=447a0444","body":"Medical professionals working in the public sector often supplement their salaries through second jobs in the private sector. Their dual job activities have both positive and negative implications for the public health sector. What policy options exist for regulating dual job holding and what is their likely effect?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Intellectual property rules suit the wealthy","field_subtitle":"People\\'s Health Movement, 14 May 2006: Ashton G","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/node/192","body":"Recent media focus on intellectual property rules has led many to believe that the entire debate centers around the issues of piracy of films, videos and DVDs. There is a constant refrain that a watertight regime of intellectual property rules is essential to protect the rights of those who devised, developed and produced innovative goods, be it art or health cures. Under GATT and the WTO, the latter created in 1995, the rules protecting and harmonising intellectual property have been enhanced to principally benefit corporate and neo-colonial interests, under the Trade Related Intellectual Property (TRIPS) regime. TRIPS is extremely controversial in its failure to recognise traditional and communal knowledge systems and rights while at the same time insisting on strong protection, enforcement and regulation of corporate aligned intellectual property rules.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Lilly loses patent case that could shake up drug makers","field_subtitle":"The New York Times, 5 May 2006: Pollack A","field_url":"http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/05/business/Lilly.php","body":"In a verdict that could ripple across the pharmaceutical industry, a U.S. jury in a federal lawsuit has ruled that Eli Lilly infringed a patent covering drugs that work through one of the body's basic biological pathways.  The patent, issued in 2002, is claimed to cover any drug that works by influencing the action of an important protein in the body. Some critics have said that patents covering an entire pathway in the body, as opposed to a particular drug, could hinder drug development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Little done to counter rising abuse of schoolgirls","field_subtitle":"IRIN News","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53408&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=SOUTHERN_AFRICA","body":"Violence against girls in Southern African schools is steadily rising, but not enough is being done to prevent and censure abuse in educational institutions. The incidence seems high because more girls are reporting cases of abuse in schools, founder and director of the Girl Child Network (GCN), a Zimbabwean rights NGO. But there are other reasons as well, such as the increasing incidence of poverty: girls from poor homes are lured by teachers with promises of cash. Even the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS is another reason - the myth that sex with a virgin can cure the disease is still very prevalent, and desperate men will do anything. One of the sobering realities highlighted at the gathering, organised jointly by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa and ActionAid International to focus on the problem, was that girls in African schools are repirted to be three times more likely to be abused than boys.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Mainstreaming child rights in the UN system: What will it take for NGO child rights coalitions?","field_subtitle":"Eldis: Allen D","field_url":"http://www.crin.org/docs/NGO_Group_Mainstreaming.pdf","body":"This report presents the results and analysis of a survey conducted to develop understanding of what NGOs and child rights coalitions would need in order to mainstream children's rights into the UN treaty body system. The survey found that NGO and child rights coalitions that report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child have not, for the most part, made purposeful ventures into the reporting processes of other treaty bodies. The research also illustrates that mainstreaming means different things in different contexts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"New global alliance seeks to address worldwide shortage of doctors, nurses and other health workers","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation, 25 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr26/en/index.html","body":"A new global partnership that will strive to address the worldwide shortage of nurses, doctors, midwives and other health workers was launched today. The Global Health Workforce Alliance will draw together and mobilize key stakeholders engaged in global health to help countries improve the way they plan for, educate and employ health workers. The Alliance will seek practical approaches to urgent problems, and will also serve as an international information hub and monitoring body.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New key issues guide on Market Development Approaches","field_subtitle":"Eldis Health Systems Reporter, 18 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/healthsystems/mda/","body":"This new key issues guide, from the Health Systems Resource Guide, is a tool for donors, governments and implementers to learn about MDAs for reproductive health and begin thinking of options and issues to encourage, design, implement, manage and evaluate MDAs. Content includes MDA tools, examples of MDAs and country case studies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New paper available: Survival and retention strategies for Malawian health professionals","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Discussion paper series 32: Muula AS, Maseko FC","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DIS32HRmuula.pdf","body":"Malawi, like many southern African countries, is facing a critical human resources for health (HRH) crisis, preventing it from delivering acceptable quality health care services to its population. The reasons underlying the shortage of health professionals are multiple and include limited output from training institutions, high attrition rates resulting from migration and disease, and increased workloads because of HIV and AIDS. Despite the increasing levels of migration of health professionals from Malawi which have caught international attention, many continue to serve their country. The challenges encountered by these health workers (which may eventually become push factors), and the coping or survival strategies that they utilise deserve attention if any meaningful solutions to retain health professionals in Malawi are to be developed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"New paper available: The distribution of pharmacists trained at the University of the North, South Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Discussion paper 31: Dambisya YM, Modipa IS, Legodi M","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Dis31HRdambisya.pdf","body":"The study was part of a cluster of countries studies on distribution and retention of human resources for health in the EQUINET/ Health Systemns Trust theme work on Human Resourdces for Health. The paper explored factors in the retention of pharmacists in South Africa. The key findings are:\r\n\u2022 Most pharmacists trained at the University of the North are within South Africa.\r\n\u2022 Of 121 respondents, 46% work in rural areas, and 63% in the public sector. Pharmacists of rural origin are more likely to work in rural areas and in the public sector than their counterparts coming from urban areas.\r\n\u2022 In the reasons given for choosing the current job, opportunities for further professional development and the desire to serve the community were more commonly cited factors than pay. However, many said they would change jobs for better pay.\r\n\u2022 Respondents perceived that the profession was not adequately recognised or valued within the health sector nor by clients. \r\nThese and other study findings reported suggest that a mix of financial and non-financial incentives are needed to address the scarcity of pharmacists in the public sector and in rural areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Not enough there, too many here: understanding geographical imbalances in the distribution of the health workforce","field_subtitle":"Human Resources for Health 4(12), 26 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/4/1/12","body":"Access to good-quality health services is crucial for the improvement of many health outcomes, such as those targeted by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the international community in 2000. The health-related MDGs cannot be achieved if vulnerable populations do not have access to skilled personnel and to other necessary inputs. This paper focuses on the geographical dimension of access and on one of its critical determinants: the availability of qualified personnel.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Passing the test: Allocating antiretroviral therapy in Malawi","field_subtitle":"ID21 Health News, 30 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h5rz1g1.html","body":"How can expensive antiretroviral therapy be best prioritised in under-resourced health systems? In Malawi, targeting laboratory-based tests that measure the progress of the disease may offer one solution to help target those most in need.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Peace through health travelling studentships","field_subtitle":"The Communicative Initiative: June 20, 2005","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/funding2006/scholarships2005/awards-1195.html","body":"Population Health Research Institute is offering a paid studentship for up to two students to undertake a research project in Peace through Health. One of these studentships will be available to Canadian students, and the other to students from other countries, to pursue a project in Peace through Health. The amount available for each studentship is up to CDN $2,500. This amount could be used to support travel or living expenses when the student is away or can be used towards the costs of the project. Deadline: July 1 - annually.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Promoting mutual accountability in aid relationships","field_subtitle":"Oversees Development Institute, April 2006: de Renzio P, Mulley S","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC21876","body":"This document argues that by enhancing mutual accountability the aid community and recipient governments can begin to address the power imbalances intrinsic in aid relationships focus aid resources on commonly defined objectives allow recipient governments to influence donor behaviour makes aid more responsive to local needs and priorities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-private partnerships reducing malaria in Africa: Partnership for a better life","field_subtitle":"International Information Programs, 3 May 2006","field_url":"http://usinfo.state.gov/special/Archive/2006/May/04-30236.html","body":"In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 2 million people die each year as a result of malaria; most victims are pregnant women and children under the age of 5. In Mali, malaria is the Number 1 killer of young children.Insecticide-treated mosquito nets are one of the most effective methods for preventing malaria. Studies conducted since the early 1990s show that their use has decreased severe malaria by 45 percent, premature births by 42 percent and all causes of child mortality by 20 percent. The NetMark Alliance represents a time-limited investment by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to reduce the burden of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa by increasing the commercial supply of insecticide-treated nets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Right to health campaign in South Africa","field_subtitle":"People\\'s Health Movement, 14 May 2006: Reynolds L, London L, Sanders D","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/node/116","body":"PHM would like to invite civil society organizations, interested individuals and groups to participate in discussing the possibility of hosting such a campaign in South Africa. It would also contribute to building civil society for the Third People\u2019s Health Assembly, planned for 2010 at an African venue (to be determined). This edition of Critical Health Perspectives sketches the background to the campaign and some of the thinking behind it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Skilled migration: healthcare policy options","field_subtitle":"Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty, University of Sussex: Gent S, Skeldon, R","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC21796","body":"This policy brief examines the case for a two-tiered health training system. Within this system, doctors and nurses are trained to international standards, while many others are trained to more basic levels of health care, enabling them to meet the basic needs of the people in rural areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Commission on Social Determinants of Health: Tackling the social roots of health inequities","field_subtitle":"PLoS Medicine 3(6), June 2006: Irwin A, Valentine N, Brown C, Loewenson R; Solar O, Brown H, Koller T, Vega J","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0030106","body":"The greatest share of health problems is attributable to the social conditions in which people live and work, referred to as the social determinants of health (SDH). Good medical care is vital to the well-being of populations, but improved clinical care is not enough to meet today's major health challenges and overcome health inequities. Without action on social determinants, those countries in greatest need will neither meet the health-related Millennium Development Goals nor achieve global targets for reducing chronic diseases. The article discusses the conceptual and operational challenges thus faced by the commission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The ethics of cherry picking: The dilemma of where you live, work and play!!!","field_subtitle":"e-CIVICUS: 22 May 2006, Naidoo K","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/new/content/deskofthesecretarygeneral32.htm","body":"A recent conference entitled \"Immigration Futures\", organised by the Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movements. One panel focused on outward migration which looks at the \u201cbrain drain\u201d problem facing many predominantly poor countries since some of their most skilled citizens choose to live and work in predominantly rich countries. Manchester in England, UK for example, has more Malawian doctors than the entire Malawian health system!","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of free trade agreements on intellectual property standards in a post-TRIPS world","field_subtitle":"Bilaterals.org, 4 April 2006: Pastor R","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC21609","body":"This discussion paper seeks to determine the impact that bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) have both internationally and domestically on intellectual property regimes. In particular the paper looks at the impact this will have in countries that are net- importers of products related to IPR. It also highlights strategic approaches that different countries have used when tackling this problematic matter.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The public-private mix and reproductive health in Africa","field_subtitle":"Women\u2019s Health Project, University of the Witwatersrand: Moorman J","field_url":"http://www.wits.ac.za/whp/rightsandreforms/docs/PublicPrivatemixafrica.pdf","body":"Health sector reforms usually involve changes in the organisation and management of health care systems, including a re-examination of the roles of the public and private sectors in the delivery of health care. From a gender perspective there is silence about the unpaid provision of health services in which women in the household and community are the main providers. This silence pervades most of the literature on privatisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The right reforms? Health sector reforms and sexual and reproductive health","field_subtitle":"Eldis: Sundari RavindranTK, de Pinho H","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC21720","body":"This publication pulls together available information on how health sector reform (HSR) has impacted on sexual and reproductive health services (SRH), and identifies information gaps and advocacy issues. The findings comes from the work of three research teams from Africa, Asia and Latin America who carried out systematic research on six elements on HSR. These elements include: financing, public-private interaction, priority-setting, decentralisation, integration of services and accountability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"This year's Olle Hansson award to Dr K Bala","field_subtitle":"PHA Exchange, 22 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/en/node/199","body":"The Olle Hansson Award recognises the work of individuals from developing countries who have contributed most to promoting the concepts of essential drugs and their rational use and increasing the awareness among consumers of the dangers of irrational and hazardous drugs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Treating diseases of poverty: Creating markets for advance drug purchasing ","field_subtitle":"id21 Health, May 2006: Towse A, Kettler H","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=1&i=h1at2g1&u=447a0444","body":"While new drugs and vaccines are needed to treat diseases of poverty, not enough is being invested in developing these products because of the lack of a demand or market for them. Advance price or purchase commitments potentially offer a solution, yet a number of structure and design issues first need to be resolved.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"UN hosts major review of global response to AIDS","field_subtitle":"UNGASS","field_url":"http://www.un.org/ga/aidsmeeting2006","body":"More than a dozen Heads of State and Government, over 100 Ministers, as well as more than a thousand representatives of civil society and the private sector gathered at United Nations Headquarters in New York in early June for a major review of international efforts to fight AIDS in what officials at the world body said would be marked by unprecedented\r\naction.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"US plan to lure nurses may hurt poor nations","field_subtitle":"The New York Times, 24 May 2006: Dugger CW","field_url":"http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/world/americas/24nurses.html?_r=1&oref=slogin","body":"As the United States runs short of nurses, senators are looking abroad. A little-noticed provision in their immigration bill would throw open the gate to nurses and, some fear, drain them from the world's developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"W Cape health MEC takes aim at HIV shortage","field_subtitle":"IOL, 26 May 2006: Kassiem A","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=125&art_id=vn20060526022552249C832693","body":"In a health budget that has received a R600-million boost, the Western Cape's drastic nursing shortage, HIV and Aids and tuberculosis are top of the list for the financial year, says Western Cape Health MEC Pierre Uys.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO called to return to Alma-Ata Declaration","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.who.int/social_determinants/links/events/wha2006/en/index.html","body":"At the 59th World Health Assembly, Dr Serag challenged WHO to return to the principles of the Alma Ata Declaration in \"Managing the Politics of Equity and Social Determinants of Health\". The briefing drew sharper focus on the necessity of major health stakeholders to step up action on the social causes of ill-health. High-level policy makers, civil society members and WHO staff attended the briefing, proclaimed as a \"historical moment\" by a floor delegate. Among the attendees was Dr Halfdan Mahler considered to be the father of the Alma Ata Declaration and former WHO Director-General from 1973 to 1988.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World of children awards","field_subtitle":"The Communication Initiative, 15 May 2006","field_url":"http://sangonet.org.za/portal/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4012&Itemid=116","body":"World of Children Awards recognises ordinary people worldwide whose lives are dedicated to doing extraordinary work on behalf of children in three categories: World of Children Health Award; World of Children Humanitarian Award; and the Founder's Award. The first two award winners will receive US$50,000 Awards; the winner of the Founder's Award will receive US$15,000. the closing date is 9 June 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"'Second line' ARVs too costly for patients, warns MSF","field_subtitle":"TRALAC: Kimani D (Nationmedia.com)","field_url":"http://www.tralac.org/scripts/content.php?id=4402","body":"HIV-positive East Africans \u2013 and other people in the developing world on life-saving antiretrovirals may find themselves without effective medicines unless measures are taken to lower the cost of second-generation drugs, Aids activists have warned. According to the international humanitarian organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), a growing number of HIV patients on first-line ARVs will inevitably have to move to second-line drugs, which are more expensive and therefore harder to access.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A compact to end HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Eldis/International Women\\'s Health Coalition (IWHC)","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC21518&Resource=f1health","body":"This compact argues that sexual and reproductive rights are a pivotal but neglected priority in HIV and AIDS policy, programming and resource allocation. It claims that universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and education, and the protection of sexual and reproductive rights, are essential to ending it. The compact draws on issues in equity in health by calling on HIV and AIDS decision makers to redefine 'high risk' by recognising that women and girls are at serious risk and have the right to all services related to the prevention, treatment, care and support as part of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa 'not prepared' for bird flu","field_subtitle":"TRALAC-News","field_url":"http://www.tralac.org/scripts/content.php?id=4760","body":"Africa needs the capacity and donor aid to react swiftly to deal with a potentially large-scale outbreak of bird flu, a conference of experts from 19 African countries heard yesterday. \"Africa needs a rapid response to the disease and must draw up practical measures to control and prevent the disease,\" Malawi's Agriculture Minister, Uladi Mussa, said on the opening day of the conference in the capital, Lilongwe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa malaria day: Action or bombast?","field_subtitle":"The American Daily: Innis R","field_url":"http://americandaily.com/article/13075","body":"Parents and children will continue dying from malaria, until Europe rejects its colonialist past. But every year calls for action turn out to be mere bombast, as healthcare agencies refuse to go beyond bed nets and capacity building, radical greens continue to obstruct proven strategies, and disease and death rates climb. This year, however, things may be different. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, and hundreds of physicians, clergy and human rights advocates have joined in demanding that DDT be put back into the malaria control arsenal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa must find new ways to fund Aids fight ","field_subtitle":"East African Standard: Gichinga Ndirangu ","field_url":"http://www.nationmedia.com/eastafrican/current/Opinion/Opinion010520061.htm","body":"African heads of state meet this week in Abuja, Nigeria, to review progress made in reversing the spread of HIV/Aids, malaria, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Amendment to the TRIPs Agreement: The issue of universal access","field_subtitle":"TRALAC Discussions: Kruger P","field_url":"http://www.tralac.org/scripts/content.php?id=4681","body":"On the 6th of December 2006 the WTO General Counsel agreed to amend the TRIPs Agreement by permanently incorporating an earlier waiver. Paul Kruger, a TRALAC researcher, comments on the decision to \"Amendment to the TRIPs Agreement: The issue of universal access\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Behind the global numbers: The real costs of research for health","field_subtitle":"Global Forum for Health Research","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/filesupld/monitoring_financial_flows_05/mff05_press_release.pdf","body":"The Executive Director of the GFHR says: \"One of the important aspects of our work is that we have been tracking global resources for health research. For example, we found that in 2001 the world spent nearly US$106 billion, with 44% of this total coming from the public sector, 48.3% from the private for-profit sector and 7.6% from private not-for-profit organizations like the Gates and Rockefeller foundations.\" This article sheds further light on the real picture.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Bottleneck of generic drug applications giving branded drugs more time on the market without competition?","field_subtitle":"CNN.Money.com: Smith A","field_url":"http://money.cnn.com/2006/04/10/news/companies/fda_backlog/?cnn=3Dyes","body":"Big Pharma could land billions of dollars in annual sales that it would have lost to generic competitors thanks to a Food and Drug Administration backlog of applications for generic drugs. The article dissects the potential advantages and disadvantages, including it being bad news for generic drug makers like the industry leader Teva Pharmaceuticals, but great news for Big Pharma companies which can continue to sell their branded drugs after their patents have expired without any generic competition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Buckling: A challenging new analysis of the impact of AIDS in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Centre for the Study of AIDS, University of Pretoria: Marais H","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0001789/index.php","body":"An AIDS epidemic as severe as the one plowing through South Africa will change society, with currently predicted scenarios tending to be roughly hewn and formulaic; fixating on the impact on productive and governance capacities. But exactly how and along what lines? Buckling: The impact of AIDS in South Africa, a new publication by South African writer and journalist Hein Marais, tackles the question in distinctive and critical-minded fashion-and arrives at disquieting conclusions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for input into Global Health Watch 2007-2008","field_subtitle":"GHWatch newsletter","field_url":"","body":"We had a good response to our call for input into Global Health Watch 2007-2008. The steering committee met in March to finalise the broad framework for the next edition. We would like to have more writers from developing countries in this edition of the Watch. Please let us know if you are interested. We aim to get the first drafts of the chapters back by the end of November 2006.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31484","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CSOs press for greater involvement against HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"e-CIVICUS 288","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/new/media/CSOspress-greater-involvement-against-HIV.doc","body":"African Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have accused heads of governments in the continent of \u2018tactfully shutting\u2019 them out of the fight against the HIV and AIDS pandemic. The CSOs made the accusation in Abuja where they attended a three-day consultative meeting to review the 2001 Abuja Declaration and Framework of Action on HIV and AIDS, Tuberculosis and other related infectious diseases. In a statement they said that \u2018without a massive and sustained effort to meaningfully involve CSOs, the global difficulties in reaching three million people with treatment will also be encountered in extending Universal Access to treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Dead mothers don't talk","field_subtitle":"Inter Press Service News Agency: Sandrasagra MJ","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32812","body":"\"Access to services is limited by inequity and poverty,\" Arletty Pinel, chief of the Reproductive Health Branch of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), told IPS. The current crisis of skilled healthcare workers could deal a fatal blow to the global anti-poverty campaign agreed to by world leaders six years ago, UN experts warned on World Health Day. \"Without a dramatic increase in capacity, paediatric immunisations will not be administered; infectious outbreaks will not be contained; curable diseases will remain untreated; and women will keep dying needlessly in childbirth,\" Annan said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Dr Lieve Fransen elected Vice Chair of the Board - Global Fund","field_subtitle":"The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis, and Malaria","field_url":"http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/media_center/press/an_060413.asp","body":"A unanimous Board in Geneva met on 23 March 2006 and elected Dr Lieve Fransen Vice Chair of the Board after Prof Michel Kazatchkine, France's Ambassador on HIV/AIDS and Transmissible Diseases announced his resignation in January.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Effectively linking MDGs and human rights in development work?","field_subtitle":"e-CIVICUS 288","field_url":"http://www.undg.org/documents/7719-e-Discussion_MDGs_and_HR_Webpage_Resource_Corner.doc","body":"The link between Human Rights and the MDGs is embodied in the Millennium Declaration. Through the Millennium Declaration, governments commit to the core values of freedom, equality, solidarity, peace, security and the rule of law. The MDGs, which serve as outcome indicators for the Declaration, are about realising human rights within a broader development framework. An e-discussion on these issues is now open and contributions are encouraged.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) by \r\n\r\nTraining and Research Support Centre (TARSC) with web support from Fahamu\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 63: Rebuilding African health systems through equitable health financing","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activites is available from the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Fever treatment and household wealth: the challenge posed for rolling out combination therapy for malaria","field_subtitle":"Tropical Medicine and International Health 11 (3): 299\u2013313: Njau JD, Goodman C, Kachur SP","field_url":"http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-3156.2006.01569.x","body":"In mid-2001 a large rural household survey was conducted in Tanzania to investigate the variation in malaria parasitaemia, reported fever, care seeking, antimalarials obtained and household expenditure by socio-economic status (SES), and to assess the implications for ensuring equitable and appropriate use of antimalarial combination therapy. Findings reflected greater use of non-governmental organisation (NGO) facilities, which were the most expensive source of care, and higher expenditure at NGO facilities and drug stores. Also, poorest groups  benefited least from these new and highly effective antimalarials. The report was presented at the EQUIWRITE Workshop in Durban, South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Focus on human resources for health in scaling up ART Delivery","field_subtitle":"Eldis Health Systems Reporter - HIV/AIDS Feature","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/healthsystems/dossiers/hr/index.htm","body":"With a shortage of health care workers and increasing demand to provide ART, existing ART delivery models may not be adequate and many have argued the need to rethink standard delivery models. Researchers and practitioners have argued that we should consider context-specific delivery models that rely much less on medical doctors in situations where they are in short supply. This feature discusess this matter in detail.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Focus on the global South: Lamy intends to ram through modalities at mini ministerial","field_subtitle":"Kwa A","field_url":"","body":"In a green room WTO meeting of some Ambassadors convened on Monday 3 April, Pascal Lamy informed the group that he will indeed convene a mini ministerial. He has told a small group of Ambassadors to let their Ministers know that they should be in Geneva by 29/30 April to 3/4 May. (Another Ambassador gave another set of dates - 27 April - 5 May). It will be a invitation only Ministerial of about 20-30 Ministers. Ministers from Africa are likely to include Kenya, Mauritius, Zambia, Benin, Senegal, Egypt, South Africa, possibly Nigeria. Agriculture and NAMA week is taking place starting 17 April. Read more at the link below.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31494","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"From local to global: Action science in Nairobi ","field_subtitle":"Global Forum for Health Research - Real Health News","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/realhealthnews/interviews/mar06_action%20science%20in%20nairobi.php","body":"Research bringing intimate knowledge of clients and their care in HIV/AIDS clinics, and of the bureacracy, politics and needs of national and international health government \u2013 is making Liverpool VCT and Care a scientific force to be reckoned with, Nduku Kilonzo explains. Kilonzo\u2019s speciality is gaining evidence on the role of gender and rape in the AIDS pandemic \u2013 and even more powerfully, changing health policy and actions in response to her results. But how do she and Liverpool VCT do it? This interview demonstrates how her various strategies have allowed this public-private partnership to bear fruit.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"GAO report shows president's Global AIDS strategy undermines effective HIV prevention efforts","field_subtitle":"Center for Health and Gender Equity","field_url":"","body":"The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) have released a long-awaited report analyzing the effects of the abstinence-until-marriage earmark in the US Global Leadership on HIV, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003, also known as the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR.  In theory, the law supports a comprehensive approach often described as ABC or Abstain, Be Faithful, Use Condoms, and argues that prevention programs should be designed to meet local needs and realities. In practice, the law requires that, as of FY 2006, at least 33 percent of prevention funding be set aside for so-called \"abstinence-until-marriage\" programs. Key findings in the GAO report are reported to indicate that PEPFAR prevention programs have responded in design more to the agenda of the Bush Administration and Congress than to local prevention needs, epidemiological needs and cultural realities. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31396","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Government Accountability Office  report on PEPFAR","field_subtitle":"Genderhealth.org","field_url":"http://www.genderhealth.org/pubs/GAO%20PEPFAR%20Report4-06.pdf","body":"This report looks at the reasons behind the GAO study, the findings of the study, and relevant recommendations that emerged from the study. It describes the challenges posed by spending requirements in allocating prevention funding under the President's Emergency Funding for Aids Relief (PEPFAR).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Grants for resource allocation and resource mobilisation","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Over the last couple of years EQUINET, through the Health Economics Unit University of Cape Town and the Centre for Health Policy at the University of the Witswaterand, have been running a program of work on Fair Financing in the health sector. Two calls for proposals sent out this year in line with this program of work are in resource allocation and resource mobilisation. The deadline for the proposals is 19 May 2006, with work expected to begin on 1 July 2006 and completed on 28 February 2007.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31406","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Health-care workers must be given a fairer deal","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.wpro.who.int/media_centre/press_releases/pr_20060406.htm","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that failure to address problems confronting health workers may push some health systems to the brink of collapse. It describes the grave implications of neglecting health workers' rights in terms of remuneration and working conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"How human rights can support proposals for a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) development agenda","field_subtitle":"3-D","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC18606","body":"Aimed at policy makers and advocates this briefing examines proposals for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Development Agenda from a human rights perspective. Drawing on the Friends of Development and Africa Group's original submissions it makes recommendations in 6 key areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Human resources for health: A global crisis","field_subtitle":"IDS Health and Development Information: Young I","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/healthsystems/dossiers/hr/index.htm","body":"The IDS Health and Development Information Team has produced a range of resources which explore critical issues in human resources for health: Human resources for health dossier. This dossier is an information resource on the importance of human resources in improving health service delivery for poor people, developed in collaboration with the DFID Health Resource Centre. The dossier offers practical, up to date information with recommended readings, summarised documents and link to other resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving hormonal contraceptive supply: the potential of generic and biosimilar drugs","field_subtitle":"Eldis Health Systems/ Private Sector Partnerships-One: Armand F","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC21044&Resource=healthsystems","body":"Research and development (R&D) companies dominate both the public- and private-sector markets in developing countries, despite the growing number of manufacturers able to produce low-cost generic and biosimilar products around the world. This paper describes the different types of hormonal contraceptive manufacturers and opportunities for increased competition from generic and biosimilar suppliers in the procurement field and the commercial sector, as well as barriers faced in the industry.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET)","field_subtitle":"IDRC: Sarah Earl","field_url":"http://www.ipdet.org/appForm.aspx","body":"The International Program Development Evaluation Training (IPDET) is offered by Carleton University and the World Bank in Ottawa, Canada, June 12-July 7th, 2006. It will bring together Southern and Northern evaluators, professionals in multilateral and bilateral agencies, governmental officials, and managers from nongovernmental organizations who are responsible for conducting and managing evaluations of development interventions. The Evaluation Unit has made scholarships open to any Southern-based researcher or evaluator currently involved with an IDRC-supported project. Candidates can be recommended by management, PIs, Secretariats, or Corporate Projects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Keeping children safe: A toolkit for child protection","field_subtitle":"Eldis","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC21477&Resource=f1children","body":"This child protection toolkit aims to support agencies at international, national and local levels to put child protection standards into practice. The toolkit has a total of five components, three of which are online documents and include the following: standards for child protection, how to implement the standards training for child protection. The full document can be found at the link provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenyan civil society encourages government to name NGOs that mismanaged funds","field_subtitle":"e-CIVICUS 288","field_url":"http://www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news.php?articleid=1143951184","body":"Civil society organisations have asked the Kenyan government to name the non-governmental organisations that have mismanaged funds meant to fight HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria and, consequently, delayed the disbursement of further money from the Global Fund for HIV/Aids. \u2018Civil society organisations have their own disciplinary measures against corruption through the various NGO-member consortiums,\u2019 the CSOs said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Medical brain drain puts Southern Africa in a quandary","field_subtitle":"Inter Press Service News Agency: Nduru M","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32808","body":"The figures tell it all. In South Africa, 37 percent of the country's doctors and seven percent of its nurses have migrated to Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Portugal, Britain and the United States. These statistics, compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), reflect the magnitude of the health worker \"brain drain\" in Southern Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring financial flows for health research","field_subtitle":"Global Forum for Health Research","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/Site/002__What%20we%20do/005__Publications/004__Resource%20flows.php","body":"As part of its contribution to closing the \u201810/90 gap\u2019, the GFHR conducts studies of the flows of financial resources for health research and the extent to which these address the health needs of the poor and marginalized. This new volume of Monitoring Financial Flows for Health Research looks behind the global totals and examines several facets of the overall picture. The report highlights the revolution of a much broader and more holistic definition of health and the need for a wider and more multisectoral approach to understanding the determinants of health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Nurses leave, health care in Africa suffers","field_subtitle":"The Philadelphia Inquirer: Bengali S","field_url":"http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/14382322.htm","body":"The promise of higher salaries and better working conditions lures about 20,000 African nurses and other health-care workers annually to richer countries. The brain drain makes it even harder for African countries to treat diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which kill millions each year, experts say. But with the United States facing its own nursing shortage, some on Capitol Hill want to make it easier for foreign nurses to immigrate to America. The article describes policies that have facilitated this change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Patterns of sexually transmitted infections in adolescents and youths in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Muhimbili University Health Exchange Forum: Chalamilla C, Mbwana J, Mhalu F, et al","field_url":"http://www.muhef.or.tz/news.cfm?artid=article001","body":"This study set out to investigate the relationship between the syndromic management of STI, specific aetiology diagnosis and its relationship with HIV infection and health seeking behaviour among youth attending a reproductive health clinic in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Findings reflected that the burden of STIs in this youth population is large indicating that youth are at increased risk of STIs and will certainly require youth friendly clinics, and the need to refine the current syndromic management guidelines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Postgraduate training fellowships for women scientists in Sub-Saharan Africa or Least Developed Countries (LDC) at centres of excellence in the South","field_subtitle":"National Research Foundation: Deadline for applications: 30 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.twows.org/","body":"The Third World Organization for Women in Science (TWOWS), with funds generously provided by the Department for Research Cooperation (SAREC) of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), has instituted a fellowship programme for female students from Sub-Saharan Africa and Least Developed Countries (LDCs), who wish to pursue postgraduate training leading to a Ph.D., at centres of excellence in the South (developing countries), outside their own country. This fellowship programme is for female students in Sub-Saharan Africa or Least Developed Countries (LDCs) who wish to pursue postgraduate training leading to a doctorate degree at a centre of excellence in the South outside their own country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Rebuilding African health systems through equitable health care financing","field_subtitle":"Di McIntyre, Lucy Gilson, Vimbayi Mutyambizi, Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town and Centre for Health Policy, University of the Witwatersrand","field_url":"","body":"The issue of appropriate health care financing mechanisms is once again high on the policy agenda of African governments. Not only have a number of governments (including South Africa, Uganda and Zambia) abolished some or all fees at public health facilities, which looks set to have ripple effects around the continent, but international organisations are placing considerable importance on health care financing in their engagements with African governments.\r\n\r\nThis is occurring in a context where:\r\n\u2022 funding of health services from government tax revenue is very low, with about 60% of African countries devoting less than 10% of government expenditure to health care, despite the commitment by African Heads of State in Abuja in 2001 to commit 15% of their funds to the health sector;\r\n\u2022 there is a heavy reliance on donor funding, with donors accounting for over a quarter of total health care financing in about 35% of African countries;\r\n\u2022 there is very limited health insurance coverage; and\r\n\u2022 the single largest source of health care finance is in most cases out-of-pocket payments \u2013 more than half of all health care expenditure is financed in this way in 40% of African countries.\r\n\r\nIt is critical that African governments are empowered to make their own decisions on appropriate ways of financing health services in their specific context. This is necessary to avoid the devastating consequences of financing policies imposed on Africa by international organisations over the past two decades. The most striking example is the World Bank and IMF requirement that governments reduce their funding of health services and increasingly rely on user fees as part of their Structural Adjustment Programs. This has not only contributed to the systematic devastation of public health systems but has impoverished households through the costs of illness. International organisations are already fighting for the hearts and minds of African policy makers. Some like Save the Children and the British agency DfID are pushing for rapid removal of user fees but with insufficient consideration of the need for wider action to develop the locally sustainable financing systems necessary to reconstruct national health systems. Others, specifically the World Bank, are pushing for private insurance for those working in the formal sector, with no acknowledgement of the equity problems of such financing mechanisms. The 2005 World Health Assembly adopted a resolution encouraging member states to pursue social and other forms of health insurance. WHO-AFRO is currently preparing a resolution on health care financing for review by African Ministers of Health. There is thus an urgent need for greater awareness of health care financing issues to promote locally relevant and equitable financing options.\r\n\r\nIt is particularly important that a set of equity principles are adopted at an early stage, against which alternative financing mechanisms can be evaluated within individual country contexts and which can be used to counter the arguments of international organisations and others attempting to impose inappropriate mechanisms. These include:\r\n\u2022 The mechanism(s) should provide financial protection. No one who needs health services should be denied access due to inability to pay and payment for health care should happen before rather than at the time of use of services, such as through tax and/or health insurance.\r\n\u2022 Contributions to health care should be based on ability-to-pay. Those with greater ability-to-pay should contribute a higher proportion of their income than those with lower incomes.\r\n\u2022 Cross-subsidies (from the healthy to the ill and from the wealthy to the poor) in the overall health system should be promoted. This implies that there should be cross-subsidies across different financing mechanisms.\r\n\u2022 Financial resources should translate into universal access to health services. All individuals should be entitled to benefit from health services via one of the funding mechanisms in place, and the package of benefits to which they are entitled should be clear, known and accessible. There should not be substantial differences in the range and quality of health services that different groups have access to. \r\n\r\nOn the basis of these principles, and an extensive review of health care financing options (outlined in EQUINET discussion paper 27) we recommend that in Africa: \r\n\u2022 Governments make explicit commitments to move away from out-of-pocket funding of public sector health services and pursue alternative financing approaches. \r\n\u2022 We increase tax revenue for health through improved tax collection and more appropriate corporate and wealth taxation strategies.\r\n\u2022 We increase the health sector\u2019s share of government resources in line with the existing commitment of African Heads of States, made in Abuja in 2001, to a 15% share for health.\r\n\u2022 There be unconditional cancellation of African governments\u2019 external debt, so that debt servicing can be redirected to health care.\r\n\u2022 We introduce or expand health insurance schemes as part of an overall financing system that allows for cross-subsidy and closely monitor their equity impacts.\r\n\u2022 We exercise caution in relation to private insurance for formal sector workers, which has undermined system-wide cross-subsidies in countries such as South Africa and Zimbabwe.\r\n\u2022 Ministries of Health lead and control decisions on the use of donor funds to ensure that they contribute to achieving national health priorities.\r\n\u2022 We implement effective mechanisms for identifying and protecting the poor and other vulnerable groups, such as by ensuring that they are subsidised as members of health insurance and do access decent health services.\r\n\u2022 We equitably allocate the funds for health to ensure universal access to services \r\n\u2022 We carefully plan any new financing policy developments, to take into account the views of beneficiaries, gain support from the health staff responsible for their implementation and identify any other strategic action required to generate adequate political and popular support to sustain policy change. It is particularly important to recognise that health workers are often caught in the middle of these policy changes, managing patients without the resources to meet their needs and expectations.\r\n\u2022 We monitor progress and build \u2018early learning\u2019 mechanisms to review and adapt policies as implementation proceeds.\r\n\r\nThese principles and recommendations are a signal of our recognition of a bottom line: no matter what our policy aspirations, the way we finance our health systems will fundamentally determine the way our health systems reflect our social goals and meet our social needs. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC, email admin@equinetafrica.org. EQUINET work on fair financing is available at the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org. Discussion paper 27 on health care financing in Africa can be found at http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/equinetpub.php \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Report of regional planning meeting: Retention and migration of health personnel in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET; TARSC; Health Systems Trust; University of Namibia and ECSA with support from SIDA","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REP042006hres.pdf","body":"The meeting briefly:\r\n* reviewed evidence, current programmes and priority areas for future work to support retention and manage migration of HRH from national and regional level;\r\n* planned a regional programme of work to support national HRH planning, monitoring and evaluation; and\r\n* discussed institutional mechanisms for guidance and review of the follow up work programme.\r\nAn exploratory discussion was also held to map priority areas of work to gather, analyse and review evidence on costs and benefits of HRH migration out of east and southern Africa, and to assess and support policy measures aimed at managing HRH migration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Residents of cholera-hit areas unhappy about water supply","field_subtitle":"Allafrica.com","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200604170603.html","body":"Residents of Angolan capital city Luanda's compounds hit by cholera voiced dissatisfaction at the local Government's distribution of treated water as a measure to arrest the spread of the disease. Since the epidemics was declared in Luanda on 13 February, some areas most affected by the disease, have been supplied with water by the Luanda Government (GPL). In order to overcome the poor supply of water to the populations at a time cholera is severely hitting the capital, GPL decided to supply twice a week.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Retaining health workers in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights","field_url":"","body":"The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) statement on World Health Day  recognized that realization of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health remains a daily struggle for all health workers in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean health delivery sector is presently in a severe state with a massive exodus of qualified health workers, resulting from many factors, amongst them poor remuneration and lack of basic medical equipment necessary for health workers to satisfactorily carry out their work.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31476","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SA's medical brain drain at crisis point","field_subtitle":"Cape Argus/IOL: Govender S","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=14&click_id=125&art_id=vn20060408095826617C683254","body":"Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang early in April began World Health Day celebrations with the launch of the new Human Resources (HR) Health Plan, which is meant to help combat the rapidly increasing migration of doctors. The section in the HR plan for health dealing with the migration of health personnel showed that 23 407 South African-born health professionals were now working in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States alone.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Scaling up health interventions in resource-poor countries: What role for research in stated-preference frameworks?","field_subtitle":"Health Research Policy and Systems 4 (4): Pokhrel S","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/4/1/4","body":"Despite improved supply of health care services in low-income countries in the recent past, their uptake continues to be lower than anticipated. This has made it difficult to scale-up those interventions which are not only cost-effective from supply perspectives but that might have substantial impacts on improving the health status of these countries. Understanding demand-side barriers is therefore critically important. This commentary argues that more research on demand-side barriers needs to be carried out and that the stated-preference (SP) approach to such research might be helpful.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Segmentation and a total market approach","field_subtitle":"Population Services International: Chapman S, Collumbien M, Karlyn A","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC21330&Resource=healthsystems","body":"This paper from Population Services International (PSI) outlines a method for segmenting populations as part of a Total Market approach to designing, managing and evaluating reproductive and sexual health interventions in developing countries. The approach is demonstrated using data from South Africa. Until now market segmentation analysis has mainly focused on people\u2019s ability to pay. However, this approach applies the Making Market Systems Work Better for the Poor (M4P) concept and identifies five issues which effect people\u2019s take-up of reproductive health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Social capital and health: Does egalitarianism matter?","field_subtitle":"International Journal for Equity in Health 5:3: Islam MK,  Merlo J, Kawachi L, et al","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/pdf/1475-9276-5-3.pdf","body":"The aim of the paper is to critically review the notion of social capital and review empirical literature on the association between social capital and health across countries. Findings of this literature review led to the tentative conclusion that an association between social capital and health at the individual level is robust with respect to the degree of egalitarianism within a country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South African government launches health resources plan","field_subtitle":"I-Africa","field_url":"http://iafrica.com/news/sa/188526.htm","body":"Proposals on increasing the number of health workers in South Africa and new rules on the hiring of foreign workers in this field form part of the National Human Resource Plan for Health launched early in April on World Health Day. According to the plan, on the Department of Health's website, proposed staff increases include increasing the current newly-qualified 1200 medical practitioners per year to 2400 by 2014, staff nurses from 5000 to 8000 by 2008 and pharmacists from 400 to 600.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"South African government plan promises quality healthcare system","field_subtitle":"BuaNews: Dlamini N","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200604070405.html","body":"On World Health Day, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang announced the launch of a government strategy to ensure that the public health sector has essential human capital to deliver quality care. The National Human Resource Plan for Health is one of the health department's strategies to deal with the critical shortage and migration of health workers from the country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern Africa: Working together for health","field_subtitle":"Pambazuka News","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/33661","body":"It is ironic to be talking of working together for health in southern Africa - a region faced with chronic shortages of health workers as a result of massive brain drain, inadequate drugs, inadequate and chronic shortage of infrastructure and equipment. Working together for health was this year\u2019s theme for World Health Day, commemorated on the 7th of April. Yet the authors further discuss the disheartening fact that  little was said in southern Africa for World Health Day.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern African leaders commit to stepping up HIV/AIDS prevention","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation Mozambique E-News","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5858","body":"An initiative by African governments to step up the pace of HIV prevention was launched at four simultaneous events across the continent. African health ministers designated 2006 as the Year for Accelerating Access to HIV Prevention at a meeting in Maputo last August. The purpose of the campaign is to ensure that prevention reassumes its rightful position as the mainstay of the global response to HIV and AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Spotlighting equity in health policy and practice in Malawi","field_subtitle":"REACH Trust, Malawi and the Equity and Access Sub Group, Malawi.","field_url":"","body":"The forthcoming June (volume 16 (1)) issue of the Malawi Medical Journal is a special issue focussing on equity. This special edition of the Malawi Medical Journal attempts to capture, synthesise and present debates and action around \u2018how to\u2019 deliver on equitable health service delivery in Malawi. The papers are organised into four sections. \r\n\r\nThe journal isssue explores the research and advocacy partnerships needed to promote equity in health in Malawi. It presents various equity studies on how the health sector can reach poor women, men, girls and boys. These studies were commissioned  by the Equity and Access Sub Group to inform the equity monitoring of the Essential Health Package (EHP). Although each paper deals with a different health issue, cross-comparison of the papers allows system-wide analysis. The studies point to the need to bring essential services much closer to the poor\u2013 not only in terms of geographical proximity, but also in terms of affordability, cultural acceptability, and epidemiological relevance.   This recommendation is closely in line with Government policy to implement the EHP of basic services. Thus, the recommendation is not to change policy, but rather to ensure its\u2019 more energetic and effective implementation  The EHP \u2013 free basic services at the point of delivery \u2013 lays a strong foundation for equitable health service provision. More energetic delivery then means improving access, strengthening human resources in Malawi at community level (including investing in Health Surveillance Assistants) and addressing stock outs of essential drugs. \r\n\r\nThe journal captures different viewpoints and perspectives on equity. The \r\nsix articles in this section highlight the importance of viewing equity with a holistic lens. The articles clearly illustrate the need for insights on equity drawn through various methods that capture the perspectives of different players - health workers as well as community members for example. They also demonstrate that many disciplines and approaches need to collaborate to understand, document and take action on the different factors that shape equity or inequity in health services.\r\n\r\nThe journal gives information on staying up to date and presenting information on equity in different ways.  This section contains policy briefings, themed abstracts and details of useful websites on equity and health, which readers can use to stay current with equity and health debates and priorities at a regional and global level. The policy briefings and abstracts produced by REACH Trust are included in this journal for dissemination purposes. They cover issues such as linking research policy and practice to improve equity in health care in Malawi and promoting poor women and men\u2019s access to health services through developing partnerships with community groups in Lilongwe. The abstracts provide snapshots of research findings across a number of thematic sub-headings, including equity and gender perspectives on TB and HIV in Malawi, equity monitoring, equity perspectives on TB diagnosis and an equity lens on pathways to care for TB and HIV care and treatment.\r\n\r\nFor more information on this journal issue contract REACH trust Malawi directly or through admin@equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Targeting services towards the poor: A review of targeting mechanisms and their effectiveness","field_subtitle":"Eldis Health Systems/ Health Systems Resource Guide: Hanson K, Worrall E, Wiseman V","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC21312&Resource=healthsystems","body":"This chapter analyses the alternative approaches to targeting the poor that have been used in healthcare delivery and draws together evidence from a range of countries about their effectiveness. The authors emphasise the importance of programme design and implementation issues and argue that successful programmes will need to identify these issues and devote adequate resources to overcoming them. The authors propose a conceptual framework for understanding the key elements of targeting policies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The eForum: Open space for Global Fund stakeholders","field_subtitle":"The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria - Newsletter","field_url":"http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/media_center/newsletter/","body":"In the first half of 2006, in the lead-up to the second Partnership Forum (Durban, South Africa, 3-4 July 2006), the Global Fund is opening up its website to all stakeholders, inviting them to actively participate in its strategic thinking and to help improve the way it supports its national partners in their fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. This eForum is an online meeting place where everyone can share ideas, suggestions and comments on the Global Fund's performance and future direction.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The global migration of nurses: importing skills, exporting shortages","field_subtitle":"id21health","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h1jb6g1.html","body":"Research by the World Health Organisation explores the international migration of nurses and the implications for five countries: Australia, Ireland, Norway, the UK and the USA. The flow of nurses to these countries has risen during the 1990s, and, in some cases, recruitment is from developing countries.  In this article the researchers propose a number of policy options to manage nurse migration and make a number of recommendations for improving workforce data systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The great betrayal \u2013 Aids funding drying up, warns ActionAid","field_subtitle":"Action Aid International","field_url":"http://www.actionaid.org/index.asp?page_id=979","body":"This weekend, six million people in urgent need of essential Aids drugs face betrayal by world leaders. The Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria starts two days of meetings in Geneva today, and ActionAid can reveal it is not getting the heavyweight political support it needs. So far, the UK government is the only major donor to declare its support. Without commitment from other countries, the Fund is unlikely to announce any new grants to fight HIV/Aids in 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The international treatment preparedness coalition","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This letter was written by and to represent the various groups of people living with HIV/AIDS across the world. Adressed to the Director General of the WHO, Dr Lee, the letter begins by thanking Dr Lee for the truly visionary leadership in launching WHO\u2019s 3x5 campaign in 2003. However, the letter proceeds to express concern that the new Universal Access initiative may lack the specificity of WHO's 3x5 campaign and is not accompanied by any clear and concrete operational goals.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31481","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The scandal of poor peoples diseases","field_subtitle":"Pambazuka News","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/33250","body":"People with AIDS all over the world are fortunate to have fellow sufferers in America and Europe, says this New York Times article. \"In poor countries as well, it helps that AIDS strikes all social classes. Brazil would never have become the first poor country to guarantee free AIDS treatment to all who need it without the activism of its many homosexual organizations. For every AIDS victim, though, there are many more suffering from diseases that lack this kind of constituency. Today, contracting a serious disease that affects only poor people is the worst luck of all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tragic death of the chair of the Kenya parliamentary committee on health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Hon Guracha Galgalo, Chairman of the Parliamentary committee on Health, Housing and Social Services in the Kenya National Assembly was tragically killed in an accident that killed fourteen people after a Kenya Airforce  plane crashed into a hill in Marsabit on 10 April 2006. Among those on board the plane were Assistant Ministers Mirugi  Kariuki and Titus Nguyoni  and MPs  Bonaya  Godana, Abdi Sasura and Guracha Galgalo. Hon Guracha Galgalo as Chairman of the Parliamentary committee on Health, Housing and Social Services worked with the Nairobi Equity Gauge, GEGA and EQUINET in building parliamenary work to promote equity in health in Kenya and in east and southern Africa.  EQUINET has expressed deepest sympathy and heartfelt condolences to Hom Galgalos family, to the members of the Committee and the Kenyan National Assembly as a whole. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31423","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Transparency International's new website on corruption and health","field_subtitle":"Transparancy International","field_url":"http://www.transparency.org./global_priorities/health","body":"Transparency International has put together a website of resources on corruption and health. You may well see your own work reflected in the further reading lists. The idea for the website is to draw attention to some of the research contained in the TI Global Corruption Report 2006, but also to provide links to more detailed analyses and country studies. The website also provides information about the work TI National Chapters have been doing on the topic. Transparency International welcomes information about other resources you think we should include, or organisations working on corruption in health with which they could link.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"UK and Global Fund in Mozambique sign partnership agreement ","field_subtitle":"The Global Fund to Fight  AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria","field_url":"http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/media_center/press/pr_060403a.asp","body":"The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the UK Department of International Development have agreed to appoint a Health and HIV/AIDS Adviser to step up advice, monitoring and liaison between DFID, the Global Fund and Mozambican health authorities. The collaboration will ensure that the Global Fund, as a major financier of the health sector of Mozambique, is kept informed and can provide policy inputs whilst having no staff of its own present in the country. The article describes the work up to and components of the agreement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO's 2006 World health report a disappointment","field_subtitle":"Lancet: Samarasekera, U","field_url":"http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=41209","body":"While the World Health Organization's focus on human resources for health in its 2006 World Health Report (WHR) is welcome, the lack of detailed data in the report is disappointing, states an editorial in this week's issue of The Lancet. The author explains how \".....[it] shows just how much of a gap exists between current knowledge and what is necessary to inform policymaking.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO/WFME strategic partnership to improve medical education","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hrh/links/partnership/en/index.html","body":"WHO and the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME) propose a strategic partnership to pursue a long-term work plan - open to participation by all medical schools and other educational providers - intended to have a decisive impact on medical education in particular and ultimately on health professions education in general. The WHO/WFME work plan will benefit from the accumulated experience and assets of each partner.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Womens rights and HIV/AIDS ","field_subtitle":"Agenda Feminist Media Project ","field_url":"http://www.agenda.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1337&Itemid=147","body":"Fifty four women from 21 African countries representing 41 national, regional and international women\u2019s organizations in Africa; comprising of HIV and AIDS organizations, feminist associations and human rights institutions, meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa between April 6 and 7, 2006 to formulate advocacy positions on women\u2019s rights in the context of HIV and AIDS expressed outrage at the conduct of the defence lawyers, the media, the courts and the police in the rape trial of the deputy President of the African National Congress, ANC, Jacob Zuma; concern at the twin epidemics of Violence Against Women and HIV and AIDS; and solidarity with Khwezi for bravely reporting her experience; and for showing respect for the mechanisms that exist in South Africa to report and resolve crimes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"World Bank accused of deception over malaria funding","field_subtitle":"The Guardian Unlimited (UK): Boseley S","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1760764,00.html","body":"The World Bank, a leader in the global effort to control malaria, has been accused of deception and medical malpractice by a group of public health doctors for failing to carry out its funding promises and wrongly claiming its programmes have been successful at cutting the death toll from the disease. The serious charges are levelled by Amir Attaran, a professor at the Institute of Population Health and faculty of law of Ottawa University, and colleagues from around the world. Writing in an online publication for the Lancet medical journal, they say the World Bank is unfit to lead global efforts to control the disease, which kills around 1 million people a year - most of them small children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Day: Chronic deficit of health workers","field_subtitle":"Inter Press Service News Agency: Capdevila G","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32799","body":"There is a critical shortage of health workers - doctors, nurses and lab technicians - in poor countries, which most desperately need them. This was the warning given by the World Health Organisation warned in its annual report on global health problems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Day: Kenyan medics deplore low pay, scarce incentives","field_subtitle":"IPS News Agency: Mulama J","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32785","body":"As the international community prepared to commemorate this year\u2019s World Health Day on April 7, the issue of poor remuneration for health workers in Kenya were being debated. The pay for doctors and other health care givers in the public service is so low that many of these people could not devote their full time to public service. This forms the basis of the argument for improving remuneration packages for Kenyan doctors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Day: Mozambican nurses to the fore with ARV distribution","field_subtitle":"Inter Press Service News Agency: Ayisi RA. 3 April 2006","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32753","body":"As World Health Day (Apr. 7) was rapidly approaching, public attention that week was being directed to the widespread shortage of health workers. The theme for World Health Day 2006, 'Working together for health', was chosen to add momentum to efforts at resolving the crisis -- something that is nowhere more evident than in Mozambique.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"World Water Day: Water activists turn on the taps and turn up the pressure","field_subtitle":"Pambazuka News Feature: Bond P","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/32963","body":"Water, the most precious global resource, was the subject of World Water Day on March 22. This was preceded by the World Water Forum, held between 16-22 March, where officials from 140 countries met to discuss how to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015. Patrick Bond discusses the \u201cwater wars\u201d \u2013 the battle by activists against the global trend that seeks to turn the delivery of water into a commercial enterprise.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia introduces free health care","field_subtitle":"Shapi Shacinda","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=68&art_id=qw1143973800171B243&set_id=","body":"Zambia scrapped health fees on Saturday, one of the first benefits to flow from debt relief granted to African countries last year by the G8 group of wealthy nations. Many poor people across Zambia often die because they cannot afford health care and are forced to resort to ineffectual traditional remedies. This narrative depicts the impact of this abolition of user fees in the eyes of a Zambian man.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":" New pricing model has pharmacists worried","field_subtitle":"Business Day (Johannesburg), 11 March 2006","field_url":"http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/TarkArticle.aspx?ID=1936886","body":"Having endured months of uncertainty in the wake of protracted legal wrangling over government\u2019s initial proposals on dispensing fees, introduced in April 2004, pharmacists say they are uneasy about the latest model unveiled by the health department on Thursday.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"13 countries join forces on air ticket tax for poor","field_subtitle":"USAToday/ Reuters: 1 March 2006","field_url":"http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2006-03-01-airline-tax_x.htm","body":"Thirteen countries joined forces Wednesday to adopt a tax on plane tickets to raise money to fight Aids and other killer diseases, Reuters reported, despite resistance from airlines. Brazil, Britain, Chile, Congo, Cyprus, France, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mauritius, Nicaragua, and Norway have now agreed to raise or started raising a sum from air tickets to help the poor, they said in a closing statement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa vows to resist after GM ruling","field_subtitle":"Business Report (South Africa) via Tralac","field_url":"http://www.tralac.org/scripts/content.php?id=4520","body":"The US may push Africa to accept genetically modified (GM) food now that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has ruled the EU broke rules by barring GM foods and seeds, however, Africans vowed yesterday to resist.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa: Migration of health workers","field_subtitle":"Eldis dossier","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/healthsystems/dossiers/hr/africa/migration.htm","body":"Migration of health workers is a hotly debated issue. It has contributed to shortages of medical staff in many regions of Africa, causing additional strain on already overstretched health systems. This article adresses the issue by discussing key arguments presented in several different published papers on the topic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Applying clinical epidemiological methods to health equity: the equity effectiveness loop","field_subtitle":"Tugwell P, deSavigny D, Hawker G: British Medical Journal 2006, 332:358-361","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/332/7537/358","body":"We propose the \"equity effectiveness loop\" framework (fig 1) to highlight equity issues inherent in assessing health needs, effectiveness, and cost effectiveness of interventions, and the development and evaluation of evidence based health policy.  This framework provides a method to calculate the \"equity effectiveness ratio,\" which assesses the impact of various factors on the gap in the effectiveness of interventions across socioeconomic gradients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing health systems for type 1 diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa: developing a 'Rapid Assessment Protocol for Insulin Access'","field_subtitle":"Beran D, Yudkin JS, de Courten M: BioMed Central Health Services Research 2006; 6: 17","field_url":"http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=16504123","body":"In order to improve the health of people with Type 1 diabetes in developing countries, a clear analysis of the constraints to insulin access and diabetes care is needed. We developed a Rapid Assessment Protocol for Insulin Access, comprising a series of questionnaires as well as a protocol for the gathering of other data through site visits, discussions, and document reviews. The Protocol was piloted in Mozambique then refined and had two further iterations in Zambia and Mali.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Bush USTR head Bob Portman violates executive order that protects Africa from trade pressures on medicine patents","field_subtitle":"The Huffington Post: Love J: 1 March 2006","field_url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/bush-ustr-head-bob-portma_b_16574.html","body":"James Love, describes his \"discussion with trade officials and public health groups from Southern Africa about the most recent round of negotiations involving the United States Trade Representative (USTR). Rob Portman, the head of the USTR, is violating a May 10, 2000 Presidential Executive Order, which prohibits the USTR from pressuring countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to have rules for intellectual property rights on medicines that exceed the norms set out in the World Trade Organization (WTO).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants for country level research grants for grants on resource mobilisation for equity in health","field_subtitle":"Call Closes On May 5 2006","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET through the Health Economics Unit University of Cape Town, Cape Town South Africa invites applicants for medium scale research grants (of up to \u00a39000 each) for experienced individuals working in the field of health care financing in East and Southern Africa. Interested participants are encouraged to submit proposals for the development of country level case studies and to undertake research on a particular area of resource mobilisation or mechanisms for strengthening cross-subsidies in the overall health system.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31427","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants for two small  country level research grants on resource allocation for equity in health","field_subtitle":"Call Closes On 21 April 2006","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET through the Health Economics Unit University of Cape Town, Cape Town South Africa invites applicants for two small research grants (of \u00a31500 each) to undertake small-scale country level case studies on the implementation of equitable resource allocation.  Applicants should come from countries that are currently implementing health care resource allocation based on a needs-based resource allocation formula or similar approach.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31428","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers WIDER Conference:  Advancing health equity","field_subtitle":"Helsinki, Finland, 29-30 September 2006","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/conference/conference-2006-2/conference-2006-2-announcement.htm","body":"This conference will bring together researchers and practitioners, from both developed and developing countries, to analyze the causes and consequences of health deprivation and inequality, to examine patterns and trends in these outcomes, to evaluate alternative policy options, and to identify future research directions. All applications must be received by 15 May 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for writers: What does an affordable and sustainable 21st-century African health system look like?","field_subtitle":"Research Matters in Governance","field_url":"","body":"Research Matters in Governance, Equity and Health is proud to launch this Call for Writers: a search designed to deepen the ongoing investigation into health systems and health systems research. Research Matters is currently seeking several writers interested in writing on the topic: \"What does an affordable and sustainable 21st-century African health system look like?\" The final paper should be submitted no later than 20 May 2006.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31455","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CIVICUS MDG administrative officer","field_subtitle":"CIVICUS : World Alliance for Citizen Participation","field_url":"","body":"CIVICUS is recruiting an MDG Administrative Officer who will report directly to the MDG Campaign Manager, and liaising closely with other Campaign staff. The MDG Administrative Officer is responsible for providing high-quality overall administrative and logistical support to the work of the MDG Department. The closing date for applications is April 7, 2006. For more information click on the weblink.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31450","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Community referral in home management of malaria in western Uganda: A case series study","field_subtitle":"Kallander K, Tomson G, Nsungwa-Sabiiti J, Senyonjo Y, Pariyo G, Peterson S: BioMed Central International Health and Human Rights 2006, 6:2","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/6/2/abstract","body":"Home Based Management of fever (HBM) was introduced as a national policy in Uganda to increase access to prompt presumptive treatment of malaria. Pre-packed Chloroquine/Fansidar combination is distributed to febrile children under-five years in the community. Persisting fever or 'danger signs' are referred to the health centre. Functioning referral to health centres is a critical assumption in HBM. We assessed overall referral rate, causes of referral, referral completion and reasons for non-completion under the HBM strategy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Cost and cost-effectiveness of community based and health facility based directly observed treatment of tuberculosis in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Wandwalo E, Robberstad B, Morkve O: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 2005, 3:6","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/3/1/6","body":"Identifying new approaches to tuberculosis treatment that are effective and put less demand to meagre health resources is important. One such approach is community based direct observed treatment (DOT). The purpose of the study was to determine the cost and cost effectiveness of health facility and community based directly observed treatment of tuberculosis in an urban setting in Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Defining and measuring gender: A social determinant of health whose time has come","field_subtitle":"Phillips SP: International Journal for Equity in Health 2005, 4:11","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/4/1/11","body":"This paper contributes to a nascent scholarly discussion of sex and gender as determinants of health. Health is a composite of biological makeup and socioeconomic circumstances. Differences in health and illness patterns of men and women are attributable both to sex, or biology, and to gender, that is, social factors such as powerlessness, access to resources, and constrained roles. Using examples such as the greater life expectancy of women in most of the world, despite their relative social disadvantage, and the disproportionate risk of myocardial infarction amongst men, but death from MI amongst women, the independent and combined associations of sex and gender on health are explored. A model for incorporating gender into epidemiologic analyses is proposed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Engaging local NGOs in the response to HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Procaare: Pact\\'s Community REACH program ","field_url":"http://www.pactworld.com/reach/documents/engaging.pdf","body":"Local non-governmental organizations (NGOs), faith-based organization(FBOs), and community-based organizations (CBOs) have always been and continue to be a driving force in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In many countries, they have been responsible for the majority of the resources reaching individuals and have played a leading role in developing and implementing sustainable strategies to mitigate and prevent HIV/AIDS. In December 2005, Pact's Community REACH program released this important document entitled \"Engaging Local NGOs in the Response to HIV/AIDS\", highlighting their essential role in the fight against HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Ensuring an infectious disease workforce: Education and training needs for the 21st century","field_subtitle":"Board on Global Health, Institute of Medicine of the National Academies","field_url":"http://darwin.nap.edu/books/0309100100/html/R1.html","body":"In recognition of the microbial and societal complexities underlying infectious disease control, this report emphasizes that mounting an effective response to infectious disease threats will require multidisciplinary efforts involving all sectors of the clinical medicine, public health, and veterinary medicine communities. Such a multidisciplinary approach must rest squarely on a well-prepared work-force within each of these communities. However, \"the number of qualified individuals in the workforce required for microbial threat preparedness is dangerously low....\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) by \r\n\r\nTraining and Research Support Centre (TARSC) www.tarsc.org with support from Fahamu http://www.fahamu.org\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 62: Stopping the drain of Africa\u2019s wealth a bottom line for Africa\u2019s health  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Fellowship opportunities 2007 : Five college  African scholars program","field_subtitle":"Amherst, Massachusettes, USA","field_url":"http://www.fivecolleges.edu/sites/asp","body":"The Five College African Scholars Program invites applications for competitive residency fellowships for 2007 from junior and mid-level teaching staff employed full-time in African universities. There are two residency periods: mid-January to May 2007 OR mid-August to December 2007. Proposals for the January residency are invited on the topic of Globalization & Development, while the August residency is open to all applicants with projects relevant to the study of Africa in the humanities and social sciences. The deadline for applications is May 1, 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Firms fail on pledge to deliver life-saving drugs","field_subtitle":"Mail & Guardian (South Africa): 13 March 2006","field_url":"http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/&articleid=266492","body":"Major drug companies are still not making life-saving drugs available to millions of people with HIV/AIDS in the developing world, according to the charity M\u00e9d\u00e9cins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF). Basic three-drug cocktails in a single pill are being slowly rolled out to some who need them, but doctors fear many of those people will die within a few years if they cannot get hold of alternative drugs that are widely available in Western countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Focus on education, gender, HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"Eldis HIV and AIDS Reporter","field_url":"http://hivaidsclearinghouse.unesco.org/ev_en.php?ID=1680_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC","body":"There is growing evidence that education improves the chances of girls to build a better future for themselves and their families. The Global Coalition on Women and AIDS argues that abolishing school fees, providing cash grants and introducing flexible schooling are all ways to help increase girls' enrolment in school. Policies and interventions must also take the needs of HIV positive girls into consideration. The International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS calls for continued access to education for HIV positive girls, as well as systems to fight discrimination against HIV positive girls.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Free trade and AIDS drugs","field_subtitle":"New York Times Editorial, 28 March 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/fsygg","body":"Southern African governments have a special need to make or buy low-cost generic drugs to save their citizens. World trade rules are amenable, containing safeguards that allow countries to use generics to preserve public health. But the Bush administration is now negotiating a free trade agreement with the Southern African Customs Union. This article further discusses its implications ; that the United States should not, in the process, restrict the ability of poor people to get generic drugs in these countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Watch and Global Health Action","field_subtitle":"GEGA","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/","body":"The Global Health Watch for 2005-2006 looks at some of the most important problems, suggests solutions, and monitors the efforts of institutions and governments concerned with promoting health world-wide. This report arises out of many civil society and professional campaigns and struggles for better health, and has been released to coincide with the Second People's Health Assembly, held in Cuenca, Ecuador, at which two thousand people from across the world have gathered to discuss and debate strategies to overcome the political, economic and social barriers to better and fairer health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global inequality of life expectancy due to AIDS ","field_subtitle":"Dorling D, Shaw M, Smith  GD: British Medical Journal, March 2006, 332:662-664 ","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/332/7542/662","body":"Recent political events such as the Make Poverty History campaign, the Live8 concerts, the G8 summit in Scotland, the World Trade talks in Hong Kong, and the broader background of \"globalisation\" have turned attention towards the global picture concerning inequalities in health. In this article we ask two questions: what is the state of inequality in health and wealth across the globe? and, is inequality increasing or decreasing over time?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Worker migration","field_subtitle":"MedAct Reports","field_url":"http://www.medact.org/article_health.php?articleID=337","body":"Last year, Medact launched two new papers on the 'skills drain' of health professionals from the developing world, examining the economic, governance and human rights issues that surround this controversial issue. It proposes restitution as a solution and undertakes a comprehensive human rights check.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health workers sceptical of human resources plan","field_subtitle":"Radebe H, Business Day, 22 March 2006","field_url":"http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/national.aspx?ID=BD4A173439","body":"Pharmacists in hospitals and institutions have dismissed as inaccurate and lacking in detail measures proposed to improve working conditions and stop medical staff quitting SA.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV prevalence rate in corporate South Africa has increased to 19.4%, study says","field_subtitle":"Kaisernetwork 15 September 2005","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?hint=1&DR_ID=32516","body":"An Old Mututal Survey of 100 South African companies found that most companies were unaware of the number of HIV-positive people in their workplaces, noting that 25 companies had conducted prior prevalence testing. Compared with a few years ago, companies are more conscious of the risk HIV/AIDS poses to their business, according to the survey. While all employees polled had access to antiretroviral drugs,only a minority of companies had established disease management programs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS mitigation strategies and the State in sub-Saharan Africa \u2013 the missing link?","field_subtitle":"Mohiddin A, Johnston D: Globalization and Health 2006, 2:1","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/2/1/1","body":"The HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa is widely recognised as a development disaster threatening poverty reduction, economic growth and not merely a health issue. Its mitigation includes the societal-wide adoption and implementation of specific health technologies, many of which depend on functional institutions and State. For international public health policies to be effective, they must consider a country tailored approach, one that advocates a coordinated strategy designed and led by the State with involvement of wider society specific to each country's particular history, culture, and level of development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Ichweiss nicht was soll es bedeuten: Language matters in medicine","field_subtitle":"Via PAHO : PLoS Medicine Editors- 2006 (February) : 3 (2): e122","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0030122","body":"It is now nearly impossible to be a successful medical or life scientist without basic skills to read and communicate in English. There are, however, many other potential consumers of medical and scientific research results-health-care professionals, educators, and the general public-for whom proficiency in English is a luxury that only some can afford. While basic translation services can help the reader to decide whether to invest the effort and obtain a better translation, proprietary machine translation packages can do quite a bit better.One example relevant to medical content is the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) machine translation system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Ignore the World Bank on health, says minister","field_subtitle":"Mwai E, The Standard - Kenya","field_url":"http://www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news.php?articleid=37494","body":"Kenya should ignore donor restrictions and employ health workers needed urgently countrywide, an assistant minister has said. The country needs 10,000 health workers to offer improved services, Health assistant minister Enock Kibunguchy said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving motivation among primary health care workers in Tanzania: a health worker perspective","field_subtitle":"Manongi RN, Marchant  TC, Bygbjerg CI: Human Resources for Health 2006, 4:6","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/4/1/6","body":"In Tanzania access to urban and rural primary health care is relatively widespread, yet there is evidence of considerable bypassing of services; questions have been raised about how to improve functionality. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of health workers working in the primary health care facilities in Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania, in terms of their motivation to work, satisfaction and frustration, and to identify areas for sustainable improvement to the services they provide. The primary issues arising pertain to complexities of multitasking in an environment of staff shortages, a desire for more structured and supportive supervision from managers, and improved transparency in career development opportunities. Further, suggestions were made for inter-facility exchanges, particularly on commonly referred cases. The discussion highlights the context of some of the problems identified in the results and suggests that some of the preferences presented by the health workers be discussed at policy level with a view to adding value to most services with minimum additional resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Indian hero's new mission: to bring cheap drug for bird flu to millions","field_subtitle":"Binyon M: The Times (London): 6 March 2006","field_url":"http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,16614-2071659,00.html","body":"Yusuf Hamied, head of Cipla, India's huge generic drugs company, has stirred global controversy by promising to supply Aids drugs for less than $1 a day. Now he has announced that he is ready to take on bird flu. At issue, again, is the whole question of generic versus proprietary drugs, an issue that has pitted Western capitalism against Third World campaigners and, perhaps more than any other dispute, cast moral opprobrium on multinationals attempting to protect the fruits of their expensive research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Indigenous and tribal peoples: an ethnic audit of selected Poverty Reduction Strategy papers","field_subtitle":"Tomei M: International Labour Office 2005","field_url":"http://www.ilo.org/dyn/declaris/DECLARATIONWEB.DOWNLOAD_BLOB?Var_DocumentID=5776","body":"The incidence of extreme poverty is higher among Indigenous and tribal peoples than among other social groups and they generally benefit much less than others from overall declines in poverty. The audit of 14 countries include: Bangladesh, Bolivia, Cambodia, Guyana, Honduras, Kenya, Lao PRD, Nepal, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Viet Nam and Zambia. The ethnic audit shows that there are significant differences between regions and, within regions, between countries in terms of whether and how indigenous questions are addressed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Introducing the Southern Africa Trust","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.southernafricatrust.org/","body":"After a long formation process, we are pleased to introduce to you the Southern Africa Trust, an independent, southern African regional non-profit agency established to support organisations in the region to participate more effectively in policy dialogue so that policies and strategies across the region work better to overcome poverty. While the Trust will be formally launched in May 2006, we wanted to inform you now that we are already operational.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya: KNH workers to receive 15pc salary hike","field_subtitle":"Mwai E: The East African Standard (Nairobi): 7 March 2006","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200603061260.html","body":"Kenyatta National Hospital, which has over the years solely depended on government budgetary allocations, is now making a huge effort to be self-sufficient. At the same time, KNH chairman, Prof Alfred Mutema, disclosed that the board plans to raise the annual basic salaries for its workers by 15 per cent subject to approval by the Government.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya: Workplace AIDS cover in the offing","field_subtitle":"Ng\\\\\\'aru I, The Nation (Nairobi), 21 March 2006","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200603201267.html","body":"For businesses, the daily cost of managing HIV/Aids can be a bitter pill to swallow. Statistics reveal an alarming situation: the pressure on business is considerable and costs ballooning. If no action is taken to manage the epidemic, profitability will be affected adversely. This article discusses this impact of HIV/Aids on the workplace.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Methodological and data challenges to identifying the impacts of globalisation and liberalisation on inequality","field_subtitle":"Berry A: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), 2005","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/ed9d3","body":"Globalisation and liberalisation (G&L) are two of the defining features of the last couple of decades. Both have given rise to contentious debate, with views ranging from the most optimistic to the most sceptical. This paper reviews the evidence on how the two trends have affected inequality - and thus poverty - at both the global and domestic levels. The absence of consensus on these effects reflects both the dearth of adequate quantitative information and the lack of and difficulty in the analysis of the causal links among the issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Modeling the cost effectiveness of injury interventions in lower and middle income countries: opportunities and challenges","field_subtitle":"Bishai DM, Hyder AA: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 2006, 4:2","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/4/1/2","body":"This paper estimates the cost-effectiveness of five interventions that could counter injuries in lower and middle income countries(LMICs): better traffic enforcement, erecting speed bumps, promoting helmets for bicycles, and promoting helmets for motorcycles in China, and storing kerosene in child proof containers in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Namibia: No rest - and limited government support - for the aged","field_subtitle":"Sasman C: Inter Press Service (Johannesburg), 20 March 2006","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200603200897.html","body":"The sight of an elderly person caring for children with AIDS-related illnesses (and grandchildren who may have been orphaned by the pandemic) has become a common one in Namibia, and the Southern African region as a whole. Have policies in Namibia kept pace with the extent to which the aged are taking on responsibility for sick children, and orphaned grandchildren?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"NEPAD and the World Trade Organisation - the close link","field_subtitle":"Mare J: NEPAD Secretariat Weekly Newsletter: 10 March 2006","field_url":"http://www.isa-africa.com/english/nepad/2006/news100306.htm","body":"The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has as its primary goal the liberalisation of world trade. Given the expected accompanying expansion of trade and the enormous potential of such improved trade and investment flows for stimulating economic growth and development, it becomes clear that the activities of the WTO are of central relevance to the implementation of the goals of NEPAD.Recent events in both NEPAD programmes and WTO activities give particular cause to focus on the close linkages between the WTO and NEPAD.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"No magic bullets  to end poverty: Q&A With Jeffrey Sachs","field_subtitle":"UN Integrated Regional Information Networks : 20 March 2006","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/q4g9t","body":"In 2005 economist Jeffrey Sachs presented an action plan to meet the UN's poverty-slashing Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, which included practical and affordable interventions such as bed-nets to fight malaria, vaccinations to combat infectious diseases, the provision of anti-AIDS drugs, fertilisers to improve crop yields and drilling wells to provide safe drinking water. In this wide-ranging interview with IRIN, Sachs defended his plan and provided some details on how the project is going to help poor countries help themselves.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Priorities for resarch to take forward the health equity policy agenda","field_subtitle":"WHO Task Force on Research Priorities for Equity in Health and the WHO Equity Team: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation; December 2005, 83 (12)","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/12/948.pdf","body":"Despite impressive improvements in aggregate indicators of health globally over the past few decades, health inequities between and within countries have persisted, and in many regions and countries are widening. Our recommendations regarding research priorities for health equity are based on an assessment of what information is required to gain an understanding of how to make substantial reductions in health inequities. We recommend that highest priority be given to research in five general areas; described in detail in this article.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31457","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Research governance: ethical issues","field_subtitle":"Slowther A, Boynton P, Shaw S: J R Soc Med 2006; 99:65-72","field_url":"http://www.jrsm.org/cgi/content/abstract/99/2/65","body":"Healthcare research is haunted by a history of unethical studies in which profound harm was caused to vulnerable individuals. Official systems for gaining ethical approval for research, designed to prevent a repetition of these shameful examples, can prove bureaucratic and inflexible in practice. The core ethical principles of respect for autonomy, prevention of harm, promotion of benefit, and justice (which form the basis of professional codes of research conduct) must be applied flexibly to take account of contextual, methodological, personal and practical considerations. Ensuring that the design and conduct of all research is ethically sound is the responsibility of all involved\u2014including researchers, research institutions, ethics review committees and regulatory bodies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Resolutions of the 42nd regional health minister\u2019s conference","field_subtitle":"East, Central and Southern African (ECSA) Health Community","field_url":"","body":"The 42nd Regional Health Ministers' Conference with the theme \u201cScaling up Best Practices in health care in East, Central and Southern Africa\u201d took place at the Sun n Sand Hotel in Mombasa, Kenya from the 6th to the 11th of February, 2006. The conference was ttended by Health Ministers from the ECSA Region, representatives of regional and international organizations as well as developmental agencies. Resolutions were passed at the conference in twelve major areas of health in the region.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31448","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Protocol on Health","field_subtitle":"Tralac","field_url":"http://www.tralac.org/scripts/content.php?id=450","body":"This site lists and bears the various health protocols formulated by the SADC member states.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: More health staff to be recruited","field_subtitle":"BuaNews (Tshwane), 10 March 2006","field_url":"http://www.buanews.gov.za/view.php?ID=06031012151002&coll=buanew06","body":"Gauteng Health MEC, Dr Gwen Ramokgopa, has outlined plans to improve the working conditions of health professionals in the province. Presenting the plan to the finance committee of the Gauteng Legislature, Dr Ramokgopa said the department would undertake a series of measures to recruit and retain health professionals in the public health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: State plans more health workers","field_subtitle":"Khan, T: Business Day (Johannesburg), 10 March 2006","field_url":"http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/TarkArticle.aspx?ID=1935444","body":"In a bid to overcome the crippling staff shortages facing public hospitals, the health department has proposed doubling the annual supply of doctors, and increasing the yearly supply of new nurses and pharmacists 50%. The proposals are contained in the health department's latest draft of its National Human Resources Plan, released recently by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"South African child guage 2005 ","field_subtitle":"Eldis news: Jacobs M, Shung-King M, Smith C","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC21290&resource=f1","body":"This publication examines the links between the practical situation of children in South Africa, South Africa\u2019s commitments to child rights, and society\u2019s progress in this regard. The document discusses the country\u2019s response to different aspects of the challenge of realising children\u2019s rights, and presents a set of broad-based indicators aimed at gauging improvements in the situation of children over time. This issue focuses on children and policy; HIV and AIDS and children, and the number of children with access to social assistance and basic services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Status of national research bioethics committees in the WHO African region","field_subtitle":"Kirigia JM, Wambebe C, Baba-Moussa A: BMC Medical Ethics 2005, 6:10","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6939/6/10","body":"The Regional Committee for Africa of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2001 expressed concern that some health-related studies undertaken in the Region were not subjected to any form of ethics review. In 2003, the study reported in this paper was conducted to determine which Member country did not have a national research ethics committee (REC) with a view to guiding the WHO Regional Office in developing practical strategies for supporting those countries. In the current era of globalized biomedical research, good ethics stewardship demands that every country, irrespective of its level of economic development, should have in place a functional research ethics review system in order to protect the dignity, integrity and safety of its citizens who participate in research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Stopping the drain of Africa\u2019s wealth a bottom line for Africa\u2019s health ","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Steering Committee, April 2007","field_url":"","body":"At this year\u2019s World Health Day  the WHO will be launching its annual report which focuses on human resources for health. In Africa, as we have raised in previous  editorials in this newsletter,  we are experiencing a \u2018global  conveyor belt\u2019  of  health workers flowing from rural, primary health care level in the public sector to urban, private care; from poor to rich areas and countries in the region and from the continent, with its high health needs and under-resourced health services to developed, high income countries such as USA, Canada, UK and Australia. The loss of public investment and social resources in this outflow is significant and outweighs any returns in remittances or aid for education.\r\n\r\nHowever health workers will certainly continue to go to where they can work in adequately resourced health services, in decent jobs and where they can secure their own family needs.  This draws attention to the much wider question of how in Africa we secure the resources to retain and value our health workers, and more widely to meet our population health needs. The latest EQUINET discussion paper, written by Patrick Bond and produced jointly by EQUINET with the Centre for Economic Justice in southern Africa points to a South-North drain of African wealth that undermines the resources for health and development, and that increases our dependency on the global North, and our loss of health workers.\r\n\r\nThe 2005 Commission for Africa report leaves the impression of a continent receiving a vast inflow of aid, with rising foreign investment, sustainable debt payments and adequate remittances from the African diaspora to fund development. Our discussion paper tells a different story: of significant and dramatically rising flows of resources out of Africa northwards, draining the continent of the important resources needed to address its own development, including in health. The paper synthesizes data about the outflow of Africa\u2019s wealth, to reveal factors behind the continent\u2019s ongoing underdevelopment, as the basis for proposing policy measures to reverse these flows.\r\n\r\nThe statistics speak loudly of a continent being progressively dispossessed of its wealth, and thus the resources it needs to improve health and human development: \r\n\r\n*\tA debt crisis with repayments in the 1980s and 1990s that were 4.2 times the original 1980 debt levels, and annual debt repayments equivalent to three times the inflow in loans and, in most African countries, far exceeding export earnings, leaving a net flow deficit of  by 2000 of $6.2 billion.  \r\n*\tUnequal exchange in trade and trade liberalisation policies that have lowered rather than increased Africa\u2019s industrial potential and exacted an estimated toll in sub-Saharan Africa of $272 billion over the past 20 years. \r\n*\tFlows of private African finance that have shifted from a net inflow during the 1970s, to gradual outflows during the 1980s, to substantial outflows during the 1990s.  \r\n*\tFalling foreign direct investment (FDI)  from roughly one third of FDI to third world countries in the 1970s to less than 5% by the 1990s, and a shift to highly risky speculative investment in stock and currency markets \u2013 with erratic and overall negative effects on African currencies and economies.\r\n\r\nAfrica is commonly and mistakenly represented as the (unworthy) recipient of a vast aid inflow. Aid flows in fact dropped 40% during the 1990s, and  the phantom aid that flows back to the source countries in technical and administrative costs was estimated in one study to be $42 billion of  the 2003 total official aid of $69 billion, leaving  just $27 billion in \u2018real\u2019 aid to poor people. \r\n\r\nThere is also a perverse subsidy in the extent to which industrialised countries exploit the global stock of non renewable natural resources . This takes place  through the extraction of  minerals and natural resources from Africa  by Northern investors with little investment in return and few royalties provided. It also takes place through use of global goods like the earth\u2019s clean air.  Forests in the South absorbing carbon from the atmosphere are estimated for example to provide Northern polluters an annual subsidy of $75 billion. A  method for measuring resource depletion used  by the World Bank suggests that a country\u2019s potential GDP falls by 9% for every percentage point increase in a country\u2019s dependency on resource extraction. This implies, for example, that Gabon\u2019s people lost $2,241 each in 2000, based on oil company extraction of oil resources, \r\n\r\nThese outflows deplete the resources available for productive and human development.  They are felt most heavily by women and poor communities, and undermine progress towards the achievement of human security for the majority of African people. \r\n\r\nThey imply that the first step to effect genuine growth and to deliver welfare and basic infrastructure is for African societies and policymakers to identify and prevent the vast and ongoing outflows of the continent\u2019s existing and potential wealth. \r\n\r\nCurrent global reform agendas do not address these outflows. While they point to debt and unfair trade, they do not seek to reverse the outflow of African wealth. \r\n\r\nCampaigns to reverse resource flows and challenge perverse subsidies are emerging from grassroots struggles and progressive social movements, such as those in Africa  that are resisting privatisation and commodification of basic services, pressuring for rights to generic anti-retroviral medicines and resisting encroachments on human development  through trade and macroeconomic policies that intensify inequities. \r\n\r\nThese grassroots struggles can be consolidated by national governments and regional co-operation to  improve disclosure of financial flows and apply policies within Africa to prevent the outflows and encourage the \u2018stay\u2019 of domestic investment resources.  The paper points to some options - systemic default on debt repayments, strategies to enforce domestic reinvestment of pension, insurance and other institutional funds; national-scale regulation of financial transfers from offshore tax havens; clearer identification and renegotiation of tied or phantom aid;  and improved calculation and negotiation around of the costs of FDI (not simply the benefits), including natural resource depletion, transfer pricing and profit/dividend outflows. \r\n\r\nEQUINET welcomes the focus on this year\u2019s World Health Day on one area through which Africa is bleeding- its loss of human resources. We would however urge that to deal with this effectively in the continent, and address the inequity globally in the resources needed for health and human development goals, we need to deepen  the debate. In 1998  EQUINET highlighted that a critical dimension of equity is the power and ability people  have to make choices over health inputs and their capacity to use these choices towards health. For Africa this must surely include bringing control over the resources for health and development back within the continent. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing  to the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC, email admin@equinetafrica.org . EQUINET work on economic policy and health is available at the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania MPs concerned about junk goods flooding local markets","field_subtitle":"IPPMEDIA: Via Tralac","field_url":"http://www.tralac.org/scripts/content.php?id=4655","body":"Tanzanian Members of Parliament have expressed disappointment with the influx of substandard and low quality foodstuffs into the country. This brief article voices concern for consequent adverse health outcomes. Sources said that some of the \"dumped\" foodstuffs were harmful to human life.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Technical efficiency of district hospitals: Evidence from Namibia using Data Envelopment Analysis","field_subtitle":"Zere E, Mbeeli T, Shangula K, Mandlhate C, Mutirua  K, Tjivambi  B and Kapenambili W: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 2006, 4:5 ","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/4/1/5","body":"In most countries of the sub-Saharan Africa, health care needs have been increasing due to emerging and re-emerging health problems. However, the supply of health care resources to address the problems has been continuously declining, thus jeopardizing the progress towards achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals. Namibia is no exception to this. It is therefore necessary to quantify the level of technical inefficiency in the countries so as to alert policy makers of the potential resource gains to the health system if the hospitals that absorb a lion's share of the available resources are technically efficient.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The costs of reducing loss to follow-up in South African cervical cancer screening","field_subtitle":"Goldhaber-Fiebert J, Denny LE, De Souza M: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 2005, 3:11","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/3/1/11","body":"This article describes the methods and findings of a study designed to quantify the resources used in reestablishing contact with women who missed their scheduled cervical cancer screening visits and to assess the success of this effort in reducing loss to follow-up in a developing country setting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The developing world in The New England Journal of Medicine","field_subtitle":"Lown BB, Banerjee AA: Globalization and Health 2006, 2:3","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/2/1/3","body":"Rampant disease in poor countries impedes development and contributes to growing North-South disparities; however, leading international medical journals underreport on health research priorities for developing countries. The medical information gap between rich and poor countries as judged by publications in the NEJM appears to be larger than the gap in the funding for research. Under-representation of developing world health issues in the medical literature is a global phenomenon. International medical journals cannot rectify global inequities, but they have an important role in educating their constituencies about the global divide.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The experience of health workers in Tanzania\u2019s primary healthcare services","field_subtitle":"Human Resources for Health ; Via Eldis","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC21412&Resource=healthsystems","body":"This article from Human Resources for Health outlines the findings of a report on motivation among primary healthcare workers in Tanzania. Despite widespread access to primary healthcare facilities in rural and urban Tanzania there is considerable bypassing of the service. This research looked at the experience of those working in this field to assess how their working conditions could be improved, which would in turn improve the quality of the service for users.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The pattern of symptoms in patients receiving home based care in Bangwe, Malawi : a descriptive study","field_subtitle":"Bowie C, Kalilane L, Cleary P, Bowie C: BioMed Central Palliative Care. 2006; 5: 1","field_url":"http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=16472392","body":"Home based care of HIV/AIDS patients is a health need recommended but not often available in Africa. Population based assessment helps to identify unmet health needs to plan services. Careful assessment and follow up of patients receiving home based care in a defined population of Bangwe, Malawi provides details of the frequency and severity of common symptoms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The world health report 2006 - working together for health","field_subtitle":" World Health Organization \u2013 April 2006","field_url":"http://www.who.int/whr/2006/en/index.html","body":"The World Health Report 2006 - Working together for health contains an expert assessment of the current crisis in the global health workforce and ambitious proposals to tackle it over the next ten years, starting immediately.  The report reveals an estimated shortage of almost 4.3 million doctors, midwives, nurses and support workers worldwide. The shortage is most severe in the poorest countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where health workers are most needed. Focusing on all stages of the health workers' career lifespan from entry to health training, to job recruitment through to retirement, the report lays out a ten-year action plan in which countries can build their health workforces, with the support of global partners.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31419","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Toward a treaty on safety and cost-effectiveness of pharmaceuticals and medical devices: enhancing an endangered global public good","field_subtitle":"Faunce TA: Globalization and Health 2006, 2:5","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/2/1/5","body":"Expert evaluations of the safety, efficacy and cost-effectiveness of pharmaceutical and medical devices, prior to marketing approval or reimbursement listing, collectively represent a globally important public good. The scientific processes involved play a major role in protecting the public from product risks such as unintended or adverse events, sub-standard production and unnecessary burdens on individual and governmental healthcare budgets. Most States now have an increasing policy interest in this area, though institutional arrangements, particularly in the area of cost-effectiveness analysis of medical devices, are not uniformly advanced and are fragile in the face of opposing multinational industry pressure to recoup investment and maintain profit margins. This paper examines the possibility, in this context, of States commencing negotiations toward bilateral trade agreement provisions, and ultimately perhaps a multilateral Treaty, on safety, efficacy and cost-effectiveness analysis of pharmaceuticals and medical devices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Uganda: Companies scale-up Aids campaigns","field_subtitle":"Mukombozi R, The Monitor (Kampala), 21 March 2006","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200603201059.html","body":"Through the theme: \"Saving lives, Saving money,\" Ugandan businesses are being sponsored with modules designed to prevent the spread of HIV/Aids through training programmes and awareness campaigns on better access to ARVs. This presents a detailed argument for the care of employees with HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"UNGASS media grants","field_subtitle":"The Panos Global AIDS Programme","field_url":"http://www.panosaids.org/news/psaf_fellowships.htm","body":"The Panos Global AIDS Programme invites print journalists from Eastern Africa; Western Africa; the Caribbean; South Asia to participate in a small grants programme aimed at raising debate at country level on the progress made by their countries in the attainment of the goals of the Declaration of Commitment agreed upon during the United Nations General Assembly Special Sessions (UNGASS) on HIV/AIDS held in June 2001. Panos will be giving out UNGASS Monitoring grants to one journalist each from Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Botswana and South Africa. To apply, CVs and samples of related published work may be sent not later than 8 April 2006 to the relevant contact for that part of the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Validating a work group climate assessment tool for improving the performance of public health organizations","field_subtitle":"Perry C, LeMay N, Rodway G, Tracy A, Galer J: Human Resources for Health 2005, 3:10","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/3/1/10","body":"This article describes the validation of an instrument to measure work group climate in public health organizations in developing countries. The instrument, the Work Group Climate Assessment Tool (WCA), was applied in Brazil, Mozambique, and Guinea to assess the intermediate outcomes of a program to develop leadership for performance improvement. Findings discussed include how the WCA is useful for comparing the climates of different work groups, tracking the changes in climate in a single work group over time, or examining differences among individuals' perceptions of their work group climate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"We cannot fight AIDS unless we do much more to fight TB","field_subtitle":"SAfAIDS\\' statement on World TB Day : Nelson Mandela. International AIDS Conference. Bangkok 2004","field_url":"","body":"Tuberculosis (TB) is a curable and preventable disease, yet it is still infecting and killing millions of people throughout the world. This article discusses  how more efforts are needed to address the increasing incidence of TB and HIV in many southern African countries. Advocacy efforts need to encourage governments and international funding agencies to develop appropriate responses to urgently address the co-pandemics.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31363","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"What evidence is there about the effects of health care reforms on gender equity, particularly in health?","field_subtitle":"\u00d6stlin P: Health Evidence Network, World Health Organization","field_url":"http://www.euro.who.int/HEN/Syntheses/genderEquity/20051027_1","body":"In the last two decades, powerful international trends in health care reform have been observed around the world. Although health care reform is a global phenomenon driven by common financial and political actors, adopted reforms vary by country and region. Albeit from a European perspective, this article discusses how, regardless of the national and regional contexts in which health care reforms are implemented, the changes have fundamental consequences for many people's day-to-day lives and well-being.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"What Grace did next","field_subtitle":"Boseley S: Epidemic Report and World AIDS Day 2005, The Guardian (UK), 24 November 2005","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/christmasappeal2005/story/0,,1649100,00.html","body":"Three years ago the Guardian published an award-winning supplement featuring the story of Grace Mathanga, an ordinary African woman with HIV. To launch this year's Christmas appeal, which focuses on Aids in Africa, Sarah Boseley returns to Malawi to find out how Grace is doing now, and what her life can tell us about the future of the continent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"What is the evidence on effectiveness of empowerment to improve health?","field_subtitle":"Wallerstein N, Health Evidence Network","field_url":"http://www.who.dk/eprise/main/WHO/Progs/HEN/Syntheses/empowerment/20060119_10","body":"A new report from the Health Evidence Network shows that empowering socially excluded populations is a viable strategy for improving health. While participatory processes make up the base of empowerment, strategies must also build community organizations and individuals capacity to participate in decision-making and advocacy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO plea to drugs companies","field_subtitle":"Boseley S: The Guardian, 4 April 2006","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1746355,00.html","body":"Drug companies should not take out patents on their new medicines or enforce patents in poor countries if that is likely to prevent patients from getting them, an influential commission set up by the World Health Organisation said yesterday.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe Aids council says only one in 12 patients getting anti-retroviral drugs ","field_subtitle":"SAFAIDS, 29 March 2006","field_url":"http://www.zimonline.co.za/printme.asp?ID=11880","body":"Zimbabwe's National Aids Council (NAC) on Tuesday said it was only ableto provide anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs to one in every 12 HIV/AIDS patients because there is no money to buy adequate supplies. Being the result of funds raised through an aids tax on workers having to be spread out to cover other social sectors requiring support leaving little money to pay for drugs or HIV/AIDS prevention programmes, the article further describes the impact of this news.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":" Understaffing hampers hospital operations","field_subtitle":"Mmegi","field_url":"http://www.mmegi.bw/2005/November/Thursday24/8149385661244.html","body":"Botswana: The departure of Cuban volunteer doctors and a shortage of health personnel have seriously affected operations at Maun General Hospital. Patients now wait long hours in queues at the hospital and the situation has been made worse by a faulty computer network and an overburdened laboratory, North West District Council (NWDC) chairman John Benn has said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A global campaign for the right to health","field_subtitle":"People\\'s Health Movement, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org","body":"The People's Health Movement (PHM) would like to invite civil society organizations, interested individuals and groups to participate in discussing the possibility of hosting such a campaign in South Africa. It would also contribute to building civil society for the Third People\u2019s Health Assembly, planned for 2010 at an African venue (to be determined). This edition of Critical Health Perspectives sketches the background to the campaign and some of the thinking behind it. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa lacking the financial support it says it needs to fight the spread of bird flu","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51648","body":"Lacking the financial support it says it needs to fight the spread of bird flu, Africa has not received any of the money it was promised at the international bird flu conference in Beijing last month. With news of the spread of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in northern Nigeria, these funds are now urgently needed to update laboratories, improve diagnostic services on a regional level, and provide the capacity to purchase animal vaccines. Some of the money intended for Africa was also meant to help governments compensate their citizens for any domestic birds that needed to be culled, and to step up information campaigns in rural areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Buckling: A challenging new analysis of the impact of AIDS in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Hein Marais, Centre for the Study of AIDS, South Africa  ","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0001789/index.php","body":"An AIDS epidemic as severe as the one plowing through South Africa will change society. But how and along what lines? \"Buckling: The impact of AIDS in South Africa\", a new publication by South African writer and journalist Hein Marais, tackles the question in distinctive and critical-minded fashion-and arrives at disquieting conclusions and proposes a minimum package of social adjustments that could reduce the damage.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31257","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Applicants: Country studies on food security and nutrition programmes in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Call closes April 3 2006","field_url":"","body":"The Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) and the Health Systems Research Unit of Medical Research Council (MRC), South Africa invite interested individuals/groups to apply for grants to prepare commissioned country case studies on existing food security and nutrition programmes in the region that demonstrate good practice in health systems promotion of food sovereignty and equity.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31302","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Review of  district health systems facilitators and barriers to participation in health","field_subtitle":"Call closes March 20 2006","field_url":"","body":"The Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) EQUINET is inviting interested people to apply for a grant to prepare a commissioned  paper on district health systems facilitators and barriers to community participation in health. The commissioned author will review and analyse literature and secondary evidence to present evidence and analysis of the current situation with regard to  community voice and roles at district level;  how district planning, decision making, financing and budgeting, resource allocation, programme implementation enable or block such participation, and how districts articulate and represent community interests at national level. It is hoped that the paper will  present positive case studies of community representation and district facilitation of community voice at national level.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31312","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Applicants: Student Research Grants on Equity in Health ","field_subtitle":"Grant application date extended","field_url":"","body":"Call Closes On March 20 2006\r\nThe Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) promotes policies for equity in health across a range of priority theme areas (See www.equinetafrica.org). EQUINET invites applicants for small research grants for post graduate and undergraduate students in East and Southern Africa.  Students are encouraged to submit  focused proposals that look at a specific issue and either organise secondary evidence or gather empirical evidence in one of the priority areas of EQUINET work listed below.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31301","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Papers: Canadian Association of African Studies","field_subtitle":"Health, Poverty and Development with special thematic sessions on HIV/Aids sponsored by CCASLS","field_url":"http://caas.concordia.ca","body":"April 21-24, 2006\r\nMarriott Chateau Champlain, Montreal, Quebec Canada\r\nPapers are sought that reflect a wide range of approaches Africa's health issues,from historical to current perspectives, and from all related disciplines. Papers that do not conform to the Conference's overall theme will also be welcome; CAAS' mandate is to promote research and enquiry into all aspects of African studies. Please send all abstracts to CAAS , including those for the CCASLS workshop on HIV/Aids:Submission Deadline: March 15th,  2006. Please visit the CAAS website for all information and Submission forms.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31354","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Citizen consumers? Using public services is not like shopping","field_subtitle":"Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/p8oey","body":"A new British white paper on health suggests that patients should be offered more choice. However, visiting the doctor or phoning the police is simply not like shopping, according to people questioned for a new study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), which found that most of us reject the trend towards treating everyone as 'consumers'.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation: Project Co-ordinator ","field_subtitle":"Civil Society Networks","field_url":"","body":"CIVICUS is recruiting a Project Coordinator to initiate and coordinate CIVICUS\u2019 involvement in various international networks. Besides managing the key activities of those networks, which are led by CIVICUS, the incumbent would also research potential further networking opportunities, monitor the development of civil society networks globally as well as design appropriate initiatives. The tasks involved under this job are managerial, conceptual as well as administrative.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31352","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Counterfeit medicines: the silent epidemic","field_subtitle":"WHO News Release","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr09/en/index.html","body":"WHO is calling for immediate action to combat the growing trade in counterfeit medicines, which now forms 10% of the global market for medicines. WHO aims to create a global task force to focus on legislation and law enforcement, trade, risk communications and innovative technology solutions, including public-private initiatives for applying new technologies to the detection of counterfeits and technology transfer to developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"DATAD - Database of African theses & dissertations","field_subtitle":"The Association of African Universities (AAU)","field_url":"http://www.aau.org/datad","body":"A project of the Association of African Universities (AAU) since 2000, DATAD aims to develop an electronic index of all African theses and dissertations past and present - using a common format - and to disseminate this index as widely as possible via Internet and CD-ROM for the purpose of promoting and exchanging knowledge. DATAD also aims to increase universities' capacity to respond to requests for data based on the index, to encourage institutions to make entire theses and dissertations - as opposed to abstracts - available on-line, and to encourage the publication of peer-reviewed articles based on African thesis and dissertation research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing a human rights-based approach to addressing maternal mortality","field_subtitle":"WHO (Mozambique)","field_url":"http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/maternal-desk.pdf","body":"This paper looks at how approaches based on human rights could accelerate a reduction in maternal mortality, drawing on evidence from case studies. It argues that, despite fifteen years of the global Safe Motherhood Initiative, maternal mortality rates are still high, and attributes this to the status of women, the systematic violation of women's human rights, and failing health systems. A rights-based approach could help policymakers to focus on the economic, social, cultural and political forces that make it harder for poor women to access maternal health care, and especially emergency obstetric care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Donor Concern over IMF cap on aid increases ","field_subtitle":"Joseph Hanlon","field_url":"http://www.open.ac.uk/technology/mozambique/pics/d53720.pdf","body":"In a repeat of a crisis a decade ago, donors now fear that the IMF is blocking aid increases to Mozambique. With public pressure in several European countries for increased aid, and with problems in Ethiopia and Uganda tainting these former donor darlings, donors are anxious to pump more money into Mozambique -- especially as budget support. But the IMF says no -- it will not allow Mozambique to accept more budget support. Instead, it wants donors to fund more projects outside the state budget -- which goes directly against the policy of many donors.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31341","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EcoHealth One Conference","field_subtitle":"Forging Collaboration Between Health and Ecology","field_url":"http: / /www.ecohealth.net/conference/site","body":"The First Biennial Conference of the International EcoHealth Association:\r\nOctober 7th-10th 2006 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison\r\nMeeting Theme: Promoting Global Health - Sustaining Natural Resources\r\nThe EcoHealth ONE conference will represent a reformulation of the EcoHealth Network as the International Eco-Health Association.Abstracts to be submitted by April 15th 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET) by \r\n\r\nTraining and Research Support Centre (TARSC) www.tarsc.org with support from Fahamu http://www.fahamu.org\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 61: Women\u2019s concerns in access to care, treatment and support","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Focus on Human Resources for Health in Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/healthsystems/dossiers/hr/africa/","body":"Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in sub-Saharan Africa is slow. There is a growing consensus that human resources are a vital part of improving African health systems and making progress towards the MDGs. Reasons for human resource problems in African health systems are complex. Moreover, they vary greatly between and within countries. This means that solutions will be complex and are dependent on the political, economic, historic and social context of each country. Of particular concern are issues such as capacity and training of health workers, migration of skilled workers out of the region, the impact of HIV and AIDS, as well as the need for massive scale-up of ART\r\n(anti-retroviral therapy) services. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Forcing patients to pay for AIDS care undermines treatment success","field_subtitle":"MSF ; via Procaare","field_url":"http://www.procaare.org/archive/procaare/200512/msg00014.php","body":"Having to pay for HIV/AIDS care increases the risk of treatment failure, according to new research from Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) presented this week at the International Conference on AIDS and Sexually transmitted infections in Africa (ICASA), in Abuja, Nigeria. The research revealed that in Lagos, Nigeria, among patients who had to pay for their own AIDS care, 44% had multiple treatment interruptions or took insufficient dosages due to lack of funds. The medical effects of this are extremely worrying.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Funding Road Map: Users' Guide to Navigating Canada's Large Granting Agencies","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ccghr.ca/default.cfm?content=funding_roadmap&lang=e&subnav=roadmap","body":"Global health research can often fall within the scope of more broad fields. Consequently, this roadmap includes funding sources that support specifically global health research, as well as those that support global research projects that involve health elements and global health projects that involve research elements. Similarly, training opportunities may be for specifically global health research projects, or opportunities that involve health or research components.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Geographic aspects of poverty and health in Tanzania: does living in a poor area matter?","field_subtitle":"Mahmud Khan et al, Health Policy and Planning 2006; 21: 110-122. ","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/21/2/110","body":"Previous studies have consistently found an inverse relationship between household-level poverty and health status. However, what is not well understood is whether and how the average economic status at the community level plays a role in the poverty\u2013health relationship. The study investigated the concentration of poverty at the community level in Tanzania and its association with the availability and quality of primary health care services, the utilization of services, and health outcomes among household categories defined by wealth scores.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and wellbeing in Udaipur and South Africa","field_subtitle":"PAHO","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/okljk","body":"This paper presents a descriptive account of health and economic status in India and South Africa \u2013 countries in very different positions in the international hierarchy of life expectancy and income. It analyses the correlates of health and wellbeing in our sites.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Disparities And Health Equity: Concepts and Measurement","field_subtitle":"Annual Review of Public Health","field_url":"http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.27.021405.102103","body":"There is little consensus about the meaning of the terms \"health disparities,\" \"health inequalities,\" or \"health equity.\" The definitions can have important practical consequences, determining the measurements that are monitored by governments and international agencies and the activities given resource-support to address health disparities/inequalities or health equity. This paper aims to clarify the concepts of health disparities/inequalities and health equity, focusing on the implications of different definitions for measurement and hence for accountability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health literacy as a public health goal: a challenge for contemporary health education and communication strategies into the 21st century","field_subtitle":"Nutbeam in Health Promotion. International..2000; 15: 259-267","field_url":"http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/15/3/259","body":"Health literacy is a composite term to describe a range of outcomes to health education and communication activities. This paper identifies the failings of past educational programs to address social and economic determinants of health, and traces the subsequent reduction in the role of health education in contemporary health promotion. A \u2018health outcome model\u2019 is presented, which highlights health literacy as a key outcome from health education. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"HealthCast 2020: Creating a Sustainable Future","field_subtitle":"PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2006","field_url":"http://healthcare.pwc.com/hc2020.html","body":"The health systems of nations around the world may be unsustainable if unchanged over the next 15 years. Globally, healthcare is threatened by a confluence of powerful trends -- increasing demand, rising costs, uneven quality, misaligned incentives. If ignored, these trends will overwhelm health systems, creating massive financial burdens as well as health problems for current and future generations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Highlights of the first tobacco treaty conference of the parties","field_subtitle":"WHO","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2006/np03/en/index.html","body":"On February 17th, 2006, the first Conference of the Parties (COP) to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in Geneva adopted 4 major decisions,  including:\r\n* establishing the permanent secretariat of the Treaty within the World Health Organization (located in Geneva);\r\n* creating working groups that will begin development of protocols (legally binding instruments) in the areas of cross-border advertising and illicit trade;\r\n* allowing the Conference of the Parties to assess progress made by countries in implementing the measures required by the Treaty; and establishing an ad-hoc group of experts that will study economically viable alternatives to tobacco growing and production.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"How-To-Guide. MDG-based national development strategies","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://mdg-guide.undp.org/","body":"This \"how-to\" guide consolidates the efforts of UN Country Teams (UNCTs) by presenting a step-by-step approach to support country counterparts in MDG-based national development strategies. It recognizes the extensive contributions of all development partners to achieving MDG outcomes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Human Resources Crisis in the Zambian Health System: A call for urgent action","field_subtitle":"Partners for Health Reformplus (PHRplus)","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC20465","body":"This paper, from PHRplus, examines the state of human resources for health in Zambia. Findings show that the Zambian public health sector has reach a point of crisis and is unable to provide basic health services. This is due to: losing health workers because of better prospects elsewhere; the limited capacity of Zambian medical and professional schools to train additional staff; and the impact of HIV and AIDS. Specific findings include: attrition rates of all health staff have increased dramatically compared to historical trends; looking only at national human resources can obscure trends taking place within the country; and facilities will soon experience severe constrains in expanding their HIV and AIDS services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Ignore the World Bank on health, says minister","field_subtitle":"The Standard, Kenya","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/l67br","body":"Kenya should ignore donor restrictions and employ health workers needed urgently countrywide, an assistant minister has said. The country needs 10,000 health workers to offer improved services, Health assistant minister Enock Kibunguchy said. He said about 130,000 infants born yearly to HIV-positive mothers were not being cared for effectively for lack of medical staff. He said the scaling up of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV could only be achieved if there was adequate personnel and infrastructure. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"IMF study says big aid increases are OK ","field_subtitle":"The Macroeconomics of Managing Increased Aid Inflows: Experiences of Low-Income Countries and Policy Implications","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/np/pp/eng/2005/080805a.pdf","body":"An IMF study released last August says that, contrary to IMF assumptions, low income African countries, including Mozambique, are able to manage significant increases in aid. A big increase in aid to Mozambique did lead to an increase in inflation, but this was brought back to a reasonable level, the study found, both by Bank of Mozambique actions and because fiscal expansion brought rapid GDP growth. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31308","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Income inequality and population health: A review and explanation of the evidence","field_subtitle":"Social Science & Medicine","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qqxaa","body":"Whether or not the scale of a society's income inequality is a determinant of population health is still regarded as a controversial issue. We decided to review the evidence and see if we could find a consistent interpretation of both the positive and negative findings. We identified 168 analyses in 155 papers reporting research findings on the association between income distribution and population health, and classified them according to how far their findings supported the hypothesis that greater income differences are associated with lower standards of population health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrating gender, rights, and sexuality into sexual and reproductive health systems: A quality improvement approach","field_subtitle":"Eldis health policy reporter. Via WHO (Mozambique)","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/fulltext/GRS-Integration-Tools-Jan2006.pdf","body":"This document contains guidelines for assessing the integration of gender, rights and sexuality (GRS) issues into sexual and reproductive health services. The guidelines include a self-assessment GRS questionnaire designed to guide discussions among staff with the aim of producing concrete solutions to improve the integration of GRS issues. The questionnaire is divided into two sections: the needs of staff providers and the needs of clients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"International Womens Day: Womens Global Health Imperative","field_subtitle":"Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa","field_url":"","body":"We are disappointed and frankly outraged that gender equality and strengthening the women's machineries within the UN system are barely noted, and are not addressed as a central part of the reform agenda. Again we must ask how it can be that more than ten years after the commitment to gender parity at the Beijing Conference, the UN is still offering only token representation of women on critical committees, high level expert panels and in senior positions within the organization?","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31306","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"ISEqH Fourth International Conference","field_subtitle":"September 11 to September 13, 2006","field_url":"http://www.iseqh.org/conf2006_en.htm","body":"The International Society for Equity in Health, ISEqH, welcomes those interested in promoting equity in health to share experience and expertise at its Fourth International Conference in Adelaide, Australia. The overarching theme for the ISEQH's Fourth International Conference, Creating Healthy Societies through Inclusion and Equity, reflects the central role of social, political, and economic determinants in creating health. We encourage you to submit your abstract for oral or poster presentation. This conference offers a unique opportunity for those with a common interest in equity and health. ISEqH is particularly keen to encourage researchers from the southern hemisphere to participate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Learning to live with Health Economics","field_subtitle":"WHO Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen","field_url":"http://www.euro.who.int/futuresfora/publications/20050421_1","body":"This set of health economics learning materials has been prepared by the WHO Regional Office for Europe to assist health policy decision-makers, advisers, planners, managers, practitioners and other concerned groups. Health policy and practice is a large and complex area. It can benefit from a range of perspectives, including that of economics. Economics is particularly useful for decision-makers, since resource limitations and financial constraints apply in all health systems and at all levels. There are always more useful activities competing for priority than can be resourced; and this has significant implications for resource allocation decisions, health outcomes and equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Modelling PRSP II & poverty reduction in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0001860/PR_Mozambique_UN-UNDP_Nov2005.pdf","body":"This paper outlines the regression analysis addressed to determine variables and factors influencing poverty alleviation in Mozambique and estimate their magnitude; its aim being to support the careful interpretation of poverty estimates and to emphasise the need for policy makers to account for poverty measurement in their work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Must Aid hinder attempts to reach the Millennium Development Goals?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673606682391/fulltext","body":"Donor aid creates inflated salary scales and benefits: a driver for a US bilateral agency in Addis Ababa might be paid more than a professor in the medical faculty, and a public-health specialist 4\u20135 times the government salary on joining an international non-governmental organisation. In certain regions of Ethiopia and Mozambique, the budget of a single large non-governmental organisation may exceed that of the government. The projected budget for vertical programmes in HIV/AIDS for 2006 in Ethiopia is US$100 million, or around a third of the annual health budget for the entire country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Natural Health Products in Clinical Practice","field_subtitle":"Scientific Research Symposium","field_url":"http://www.imconsortium-conference2006.com","body":"May 24, 2006 -- Edmonton, Alberta\r\nThe Natural Health Product Research Society of Canada (NHPRS) is hosting a special research symposium on Natural Health Products in Clinical Practice. The NHPRS has invited the world\u2019s leading experts to share their research results that cover the spectrum of healing modalities germane to clinical practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Newly formed Civil Society Coalition on HIV/AIDS UNGASS","field_subtitle":"ICASO","field_url":"","body":"Following the recent announcement about the newly formed Civil Society (which is the transformation of the UNGASS Civil Society Steering Committee), this announcement provides readers with more information about the work of the Coalition, about options for getting involved, and who to contact to do so.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31298","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Oxfam warns of poor donor response for East Africa","field_subtitle":"SARPN","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/newsflash.php","body":"This newsflash from Nairobi this week emphasises how \"..a searing drought that has put at least 11-million people across East Africa on the brink of starvation risks turning into a catastrophe if donors fail to respond quickly to the situation, an aid agency warned on Thursday\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Pan African Health 2006 Congress explores accessing and managing funding for health care in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.panafricanhealth.com","body":"Pan African Health 2006 (Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, 29-31 August 2006) considers the theme \u2018Accessing and managing funding for healthcare initiatives in Africa\u2019. This will include sharing information and experiences, reinforcing existing relationships and staying abreast of developments in the healthcare and healthcare funding arenas. To exhibit, register as a conference delegate or to nominate an African initiative for the Healthcare Award for Excellence and Innovation please contact Jenny Wong on: Tel: + 27 11 465 8871.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"PHASA: Third Public Health Conference","field_subtitle":"Call for abstracts and notice of conference : Preconference workshop 15 May 2006","field_url":"http://www.wits.ac.za/phasa","body":"The Public Health Association of Southern Africa (PHASA) announced its Third Public Health Conference to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 15-17 May 2006. This conference brings together professionals working in all disciplines of public health to share research findings pertinent to population health in the Southern African Region. This year's core theme is: \"Making health systems work.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Placing Health workers at the center of health services delivery in Africa","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation - Regional Office for Africa ","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC20606","body":"This brochure, published by the WHO Africa Regional Office, aims to raise awareness of human resources for health in Africa. It argues that health workers are central to making the best possible use of other resources and investments in the health sector, yet their importance has not been widely recognised. Declining staff salaries have contributed to a brain drain from the public to the private sector and from developing to more developed countries, and few countries have made systematic efforts to ensure that health professionals return home after training abroad. Training in Africa has tended to mimic developed countries, producing highly trained, expensive, elite and hospital-focused professionals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy Brief on WIPO development agenda and human rights, 3D","field_subtitle":"3D  : Trade - Human Rights - Equitable Economy","field_url":"http://www.3dthree.org/en/page.php?IDpage=27","body":"A 3D Policy Brief has been released on \"Intellectual Property, Development and Human Rights: How Human Rights Can Support Proposals for a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Development Agenda.\" It encourages advocates, policy-makers and WIPO Member States to elaborate an actionable, pro-development WIPO intellectual property agenda consistent with States' development commitments and human rights obligations. The Policy Brief is available in English, French and Spanish.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty, Equity & Health Research","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/filesupld/forum9/report/Rap_Forum9.pdf","body":"The report stresses that reducing inequities in health requires political will, increased resources and enhanced effort to organize and deliver health products and services effectively. It also needs research \u2013 whether biomedical research to create the needed drugs, vaccines, diagnostics and medical appliances; health policy and systems research to understand and improve the organization and functioning of the health sector; social sciences and behavioural research to increase understanding of the factors that determine health and affect health-seeking behaviour; or operational research to examine how effectively systems and interventions are working on the ground and how they can be improved.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Projecting OECD health and long-term care expenditures: What are the main drivers?","field_subtitle":"Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development","field_url":"http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/57/7/36085940.pdf","body":"This paper proposes a comprehensive framework for projecting public heath and long-term care expenditures. Notably, it considers the impact of demographic and non-demographic effects for both health and long-term care. Compared with other studies, the paper extends the demographic drivers by incorporating death-related costs and the health status of the population.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-private partnerships. Partnerships for public health","field_subtitle":"Multi Stakeholder Processes","field_url":"http://europa.eu.int/comm/e...al/soc-dial/csr/last_forum_complete2.pdf","body":"Public-private partnerships are becoming a popular mode of tackling large, complicated, and expensive public health problems. The idea of partnerships for public health has emerged in national and international policy discussions, in both rich and poor countries. Yet we are still learning about how best to manage these new partnerships, as is discussed in this book.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Putting it together: AIDS and the Millennium Development Goals","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iavi.org/file.cfm?fid=33078","body":"The paper describes the effects of HIV and AIDS on each of the MDGs in turn. This approach does not attempt to capture all the interactions among these development outcome measures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Retention of Health Care Workers in Low-Resource Settings: Challenges and Responses","field_subtitle":"The Capacity Project","field_url":"http://www.capacityproject.org/images/stories/files/technical_brief_no1_retention.pdf","body":"The number of health workers employed is an indicator of a country\u2019s ability to meet the health care needs of its people, specially the poorest and most vulnerable. Resource-constrained countries committed to the Millennium Development Goals are facing up to the reality that shortages and uneven distribution of health workers threaten their capacity to tackle the HIV/AIDS pandemic, as well as the resurgence of tuberculosis and malaria. Worker shortages are linked to three factors: 1) decreasing student enrollment in health training institutions, 2) delays or freezes in the hiring of qualified professionals and 3) high turnover among those already employed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SA must push rich nations","field_subtitle":"Buisness Day","field_url":"http://www.suntimes.co.za/zones/sundaytimesNEW/business/business1139892323.aspx","body":"The European Union's (EU's) commissioner of trade called on SA in early February 2006 to use its considerable influence among developing countries to facilitate concessions in services and industrial goods in world trade talks. In a veiled threat, commissioner Peter Mandelson warned that developing countries should make concessions quickly or risk losing the gains made in the Doha round of negotiations to date.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC pushes for affirmative action to accelerate gender equality","field_subtitle":"SARDC","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/newsflash.php","body":"The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is pressing for affirmative action to speed up progress towards substantive equality between women and men at all levels of decision-making. 'To realise full implementation of this decision, member states must endeavour to adopt affirmative action to protect women and enshrine it in national constitutions,' said Mathiba-Madibela at a media briefing prior to the Council of Ministers that takes place in Gaborone this week.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Scholarship Programmes for the International AIDS Conference in Toronto, August 2006","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aids2006.org","body":"International AIDS Conferences bring together 20,000 people from around the world to create important capacity-building opportunities for researchers and communities. This event showcases local lessons and achievements from around the world and provides the opportunity for dialogue and partnership building between science and the global community of persons living with HIV/AIDS.\r\nThe Canadian Scholarship Programme aims to support Canadian residents who would not otherwise be able to attend the Conference.  The International Scholarship Programme is open to international residents including Canadians working abroad.  The CIHR Institute of Infection and Immunity (CIHR-III), through the Federal Initiative to Address HIV/AIDS in Canada, intends to support Canadian researchers and trainees through these scholarship programs that have a conference abstract accepted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Seeking equity in maternal health","field_subtitle":"The Lancet","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/qfdb7","body":"Inequity in reproductive health between and within countries is well documented, and even where indicators improve, disparities between rich and poor are as likely to be increasing as decreasing. In addition to improving access, it must also be ensured that services are widely used. Because advantaged groups are known to be more apt at using preventive services, the disparity in outcome measures between rich and poor is likely to increase.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Social determinants of health inequalities ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol365/iss9464/full/llan.365.9464.review_and_opinion.32545.1","body":"This paper studies the key issues underlying inequalities in health between and within countries as well as poverty and inequality. These include social determinants (poverty, inequality, and the causes of the causes). The paper emphasises that action is not only possible but also necessary. It further highlights the importance of meeting human needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern Africa assessment: food security and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Institute for Security Studies (ISS), South Africa (2005)","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC20563","body":"This publication identifies HIV/AIDS and food insecurity- particularly in the rural areas- as the two most severe and interrelated humanitarian issues currently facing southern Africa. It is argued that the current situation must be contextualised as an \"entangling crisis\" of climatic factors, chronic poverty, the failure of economic and political governance, and the impact of HIV/AIDS on the ability of individuals to respond independently.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Staff training and ambulatory tuberculosis treatment outcomes: a cluster randomized controlled trial in South Africa","field_subtitle":" S. Lewin, J.Dick, M. Zwarenstein, C. Lombard, Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 83(4): 250-259","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h4sl2g1.html","body":"DOTS, the internationally-recommended control strategy for tuberculosis (TB), has been applied in South Africa since 1996. But TB cure rates remain at 65 percent - not high enough to control or reverse the epidemic. Could training clinic staff on patient-centred care, critical reflection on practice and quality enhancement improve treatment success? The rates of successful treatment and bacteriological cure for TB improved marginally in the clinics that received the training, compared with the controls. The differences were not statistically significant. The training was well accepted by staff who became more aware of the need to improve provider-patient relations and made some changes to the organisation of care. These changes in attitudes and practices often did not translate into improved provider-patient relations. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Stakeholders: Goverment-NGO partnerships for international development","field_subtitle":"Source : Multi Stakeholder Processes","field_url":"http://portals.wdi.wur.nl/msp/index.php?Articles_%26_Books","body":"This book talks about the changing relations between and roles of development NGOs and donor governmental agencies, based on case studies of 22 western countries, EU and the World Bank.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Stigma and global health: developing a research agenda","field_subtitle":"The Lancet, Volume 367, Number 9509","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS014067360668183X/fulltext","body":"Stigma is a pervasive influence on disease and responses of nations, communities, families, and individuals to illness. Too little research has been done in recent years to better understand the pathogenesis and implications of stigma, how beliefs are generated, perpetuated, and translated into behaviours, and the cost of stigma to individuals, families, communities, and nations. The sense that legislation and education against stigma is sufficient may explain the shortage of interest in research in this field.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Stigma and its public health implications","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673606681841/fulltext","body":"Stigma processes have a dramatic and probably under-recognised effect on the distribution of life chances such as employment opportunities, housing, and access to medical care. We believe that under-recognition occurs because attempts to measure the impact of stigma have generally restricted analysis to one circumstance (eg, AIDS, obesity, race, or mental illness) and examined only one outcome (eg, earnings, self esteem, housing, or social interactions). If all stigmatised conditions were considered together and all outcomes examined we believe that stigma would be shown to have an enormous impact on people's lives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Thai solidarity","field_subtitle":"PHA-Exchange","field_url":"http://lists.kabissa.org/lists/archives/public/pha-exchange/msg02524.html","body":"Thai AIDS activists and their international allies sought suspension of scheduled trade talks that threaten to undermine Thailand\u2019s lawful ability to produce, import/export, and market low-cost generic versions of life-saving medicines. In January, in Chiang Mai, the United States and Thailand were scheduled to start the Sixth Round of negotiations on a proposed Free Trade Agreement, and were for the first time to hold discussions on a U.S. proposal to dramatically increase intellectual property protections for pharmaceutical products.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The great global vitamins conspiracy: Sanctions and deterrence","field_subtitle":"AAI Working Paper No. 06-02","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/www.antitrustinstitute.org.","body":"A comprehensive examination of the global bulk vitamins cartels of the 1990s exposes 16 interrelated cartels with the largest discovered international price-fixing schemes of the late 20th century in terms of affected commerce and direct overcharges. The convicted members of the vitamins cartels were in absolute monetary terms the most heavily sanctioned defendants in the history of antitrust law. Yet, the impressive corporate monetary sanctions imposed worldwide were inadequate to deter recidivism.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Health Sector Human Resource crisis in Africa: An issues paper ","field_subtitle":"Support for Analysis and Research in Africa (SARA), USAID","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC19095","body":"This paper outlines the severity and complexity of the Human Resources (HR) crisis in sub-Saharan Africa and criticises donor neglect of the issues. The document was prepared as a background document for a World Bank/World Health Organization meeting on Building Strategic Partnership in Education in Health in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Trade Organisation and sustainable development: a guide to the debate","field_subtitle":"Royal Institute of International Affairs","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC20316","body":"The paper concludes that there is no doubt that international trade can play a vital role in promoting sustainable development across the world even though its inter-relationship with the different pillars of sustainable development - economic, environmental and social - is both complex and different in each case. There is equally little doubt that current trade rules need to be reformed to better support environmental and developmental objectives. But whether the Doha 'Development Round' will do this remains an open question. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Training in Health  Insurance, South Africa, April 2006","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Health Economics Unit at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, is running a 5-day short course addressing the changing role of health insurance in low- and middle-income countries. The course will run from the 3 - 7 April 2006. The course focuses on the financial management of risk pools in diverse settings covering a broad spectrum of insurance arrangements including community-based health insurance, private voluntary insurance for the formal sector and social or national health insurance.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31316","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"TRIPS agreement and access to drugs in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Sur - International Journal on Human Rights","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC20118","body":"This article examines the progress made in the process to lend more flexibility to the TRIPS Agreement for medical drugs, and shows how the Doha Declaration and the 2003 Decision of the TRIPS Board on the implementation of its paragraph 6 are insufficient to ensure a reduction in prices and the negotiation of voluntary licenses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Week of Action on Trade Justice:  April 16 \u2013 23","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/jkurz%40interaction.org.","body":"Join NGOs across the U.S. for a week of education, mobilization and advocacy on a variety of trade justice issues.  The week is timed to lead into an important WTO negotiating deadline as well as spring meetings of the World Bank and IMF where trade-related loans, grants, conditionalities and facilities will be discussed. For more information contact Jennifer Cruz at jkurz@interaction.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"WFP bought R600m food from Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/newsflash.php","body":"The United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) in Southern Africa on Tuesday announced that it spent nearly R600-million ($100-million) in 2005, double the amount in 2004, buying more than half a million tonnes of food in the region to support vulnerable people across Africa. About 337 000 tonnes of food, worth R372-million ($62-million) was purchased in South Africa by WFP's regional headquarters in Johannesburg.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"What are the economic consequences for households of illness and of paying for health care in low- and middle-income country contexts?","field_subtitle":"D McIntyre, M Thiede, G Dahlgren, M Whitehead   Social Science & Medicine, 62, 4 February 2006, 858-865 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/s5c9z","body":"This paper presents the findings of a critical review of studies carried out in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) focusing on the economic consequences for households of illness and health care use. These include household level impacts of direct costs (medical treatment and related financial costs), indirect costs (productive time losses resulting from illness) and subsequent household responses. It highlights that health care financing strategies that place considerable emphasis on out-of-pocket payments can impoverish households.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"What is the evidence on effectiveness of empowerment to improve health?","field_subtitle":"WHO Regional Office for Europe -Health Evidence Network Report","field_url":"http://www.who.dk/Document/E88086.pdf","body":"A new report from the Health Evidence Network shows that empowering socially excluded populations is a viable strategy for improving health. While participatory processes make up the base of empowerment, strategies must also build community organizations and individuals capacity to participate in decision-making and advocacy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Board adopts decision on trade and health","field_subtitle":"Third World Network","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg","body":"As countries rush to conclude bilateral and regional free trade agreements, there are growing concerns that these trade agreements could adversely affect the health policies of the developing countries. Against this backdrop, the WHO Executive Board has recommended that the next World Health assembly in May adopt a resolution on trade and health. Member States are asked to include health ministries in negotiations on trade agreements and the WHO Secretariat has been tasked to assist in this process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Women\u2019s concerns in access to care, treatment and support","field_subtitle":"by Emma Bell, The International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW)","field_url":"","body":"\r\nResearch has consistently shown that gender inequalities and gender stereotypes restrict people\u2019s access to health services. The same is true of treatment for HIV and related problems. Testimonies from women gathered by the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW) shows the many ways in which this continues to take place, even as access to treatment expands. \r\n\r\nHIV-related stigma and discrimination and gender inequalities are rife and when, for example, a woman has to ask relatives for permission to access services her safety and confidentiality are jeopardised. Violence and sexual coercion in the first place put women at risk from HIV infection. An HIV positive diagnosis can lead to increased levels of abuse, violence and abandonment and also lead to a further lack of self-confidence all of which undermine women\u2019s ability to look after their health and assert their rights. When services are centrally located in major urban areas or when they charge fees for service, women are even less likely to access them. In fact even when ART is free women have found that costs associated with travel and treatment for related health problems puts the chance of leading a healthy life with HIV out of their reach.  \r\n\r\nA further concern arises when women access ARVs and their families do not. This may happen either due to a lack of  ART provision for families or a reluctance on the part of family members to be tested. This puts the women who are being treated  under severe pressure, through coercion or guilt, to share their treatment. \"Most of us as women living with HIV and who are using ARVs we face a common problem that our husbands or partners tend to force us to give them our ARVs dose while he has not tested for HIV and doesn\u2019t know his CD4 counts. They do not want to go for testing while they show all HIV symptoms. Even if you refuse he will find where you keep your medicine and steal them.\" (ICW members, Tanzania, 2005). Further, if family members are not accessing treatment then the burden to care for them as their health worsens generally falls on women.\r\n\r\nGender and HIV-related stigma and discrimination are also reflected in the health services. Our members have reported that health care workers: \r\n\u2022\tare often indiscreet and disrespectful; \r\n\u2022\tput conditionalties on treatment access, for example, making women go on contraceptives;\r\n\u2022\tfail to understand the context within which women have to put into action advice and treatments given, for example, advice against breast-feeding maybe ignored because of the associated stigma;\r\n\u2022\tlack specialist knowledge and services about treatment issues for women; and\r\n\u2022\tdo not provide suitable monitoring and follow-up care of treatment and side-effects. \r\nThese latter two conditions are worsened in resource poor settings.  Women report that they feel better able to deal with a positive diagnosis when health care workers are respectful of women and their rights, refer them to sources of care and support and understand the specific problems they face in terms health; and how they can act on the advice and treatment given them. \r\n\r\n\"We have been having some changes and interruptions in our treatment regimes because  many times when we go for ARVs clinic we are being asked for some money so we tend to miss the dose even for a week or month till we get some money to pay for that service. Another regime is lack of enough food especially to us women who are under treatment. The consequences were; not finishing my dose which caused infections, staying without a dose till the clinic day and lie to the service provider that I have finished my dose, fighting with my husband or even chasing me out of the house when I refuse giving him my dose.\"\r\n(ICW members, Tanzania, 2005)\r\n\r\nToo often information is not tailored to cover the range of concerns that HIV positive have regarding care, treatment and support. Information given may be pushing a government or company line, be written in English and not local languages or may use medical language and dense text.  The information may only be available in health centres and not distributed to places where women can access it during their daily routines. It may only be available in written form causing problems for women that are not literacte. The scarcity of relevant information is made worse by the lack of research on the gender-related impact of treatment for AIDS, or on related issues like its interaction with social and clinical factors such as hormonal contraceptives and violence in the family.\r\n\r\nThat is why ICW calls for knowledge and information tailored to the specific needs of women, delivered in a way that understands that women may not chance upon it on a table in a waiting room at the hospital. Support groups are already doing a wonderful job in this regard. We also call for women-specific clinical and social research that does not just treat participants as research subjects from which information can be extracted, but empowers them to participate in research in ways that enable them to gain skills and to use the information to advocate for change in their communities and countries. \r\n\r\nFinally, there are a growing number of HIV positive women who are treatment activists. We feel frustrated when we constantly hear policy-makers tell us that we, as women treatment activists, we do not have the skills to engage with them. We would rather ask whether those in policy positions have the skills to engage with us in a way that is respectful and meaningful. With the challenges we face in reaching universal access, surely it is  time that we all challenged our notions of where true expertise lies?\r\n\r\nThe International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW), set up in 1992, is an international network with over 5000 HIV positive women members worldwide. This article is based on their testimonies.   \u201cACTS\u201d refers to HIV positive women's ability to gain consistent access to all available care, treatment and support services. \r\n\r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to ICW http://www.icw.org/tiki-view_articles.php   or to the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC, email admin@equinetafrica.org . EQUINET work on access to treatment is available at the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":" Exchange on HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":" ","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC20607","body":"The first issue of Exchange, previously Sexual Health Exchange, is produced in collaboration with the Royal Tropical Institute of the Netherlands and Novib (Oxfam Netherlands). The main focus of this edition is mainstreaming HIV and AIDS in civil society organisations (CSOs). The magazine also examines issues such as: lack of access to prevention and treatment for mobile population groups; the consequences of abstinence-only programmes for sexual minorities; and youth and the media in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Advocating a public health approach to palliative care","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=2&i=InsightsHealth8art5&u=43e71a2f","body":"National programmes for palliative care offer the most effective means of improving the quality of life for the greatest number of patients and families, even where resources are severely constrained. Palliative care, however, is low on the list of under-resourced governments' health care priorities. What part can advocacy play in raising its profile and promoting its value? According to the World Health Organisation, a public health approach to palliative care has three foundations: Governmental policy: adoption of a national palliative care strategy; Education: training of health care professionals and creating awareness among the general public; Drug availability: assuring the availability of drugs for pain control and symptom management.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Changing Paths: International Development and the New Politics of Inclusion","field_subtitle":"Edited by Peter P. Houtzager and Mick Moore","field_url":"http://www.ntd.co.uk/idsbookshop/details.asp?id=793","body":"After two decades of marketizing, an array of national and international actors have become concerned with growing global inequality, the failure to reduce the numbers of very poor people in the world, and a perceived global backlash against international economic institutions. The essays in this volume explore what forms a new politics of inclusion can take in low- and middle-income countries. The contributors favor a polity-centered approach that focuses on the political capacities of social and state actors to negotiate large-scale collective solutions and that highlights various possible strategies to lift large numbers of people out of poverty and political subordination.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Concerns for equity and the optimal co-payments for publicly provided health care","field_subtitle":"Social Science Research Network","field_url":"http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=875569","body":"In countries where health care is publicly provided and where equity considerations play an important role in policy decisions, it is often argued that an increase in co-payments is unacceptable as it will be particularly harmful to the less well-off in society. The present paper derives socially optimal co-payments in a simple model of health care where people differ in income and in severity of illness. Increased concern for equity may increase optimal co-payments for illnesses with homogeneous severity across the population. For illnesses where the severity varies strongly across the population, optimal co-payments go down as a response to increased concern for equity, provided income differences in the society are sufficiently small.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Cost effectiveness analysis of strategies to combat malaria in developing countries","field_subtitle":"BMJ  2005;331:1299 (3 December)","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/331/7528/1299","body":"A much larger infusion of resources than those currently available is needed to make headway in the fight to roll back malaria. On cost effectiveness grounds, in most areas in sub-Saharan Africa greater coverage with highly effective combination treatments should be the cornerstone of malaria control. However, treatment alone can achieve less than half the total benefit obtainable through a combination of interventions - scaling up the use of impregnated mosquito nets or indoor spraying with insecticides is also critical. Intermittent presumptive treatment of pregnant women can bring a small but important additional health gain at relatively low cost.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Effectiveness of primary health care evaluated by a longitudinal ecological approach ","field_subtitle":"Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2006","field_url":"http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/60/1/3","body":"Brazil is the country with the third worst income distribution in the world and, as a consequence of the unequal distribution of its main determining factors (income, education, living conditions, sanitation, and health service), the health indicators also present broad inequalities by regions and social classes. The expansion of primary health care in Brazil has been thought to be shaping the agenda for health care policy in the Latin American region. This editorial discusses the importance of a study which performed a longitudinal evaluation, at a national level, of a broad primary health care strategy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa by \r\n\r\nFahamu - Networks for Social Justice http://www.fahamu.org/  \r\nand TARSC  \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter 60: From 3 by 5 to universal access to treatment: opportunities for equity?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity enhances the power of growth to reduce poverty: World Development Report 2006","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://econ.worldbank.org/wdr/wdr2006/","body":"Equity, defined primarily as equality of opportunities among people, should be an integral part of a successful poverty reduction strategy anywhere in the developing world, says the World Bank's annual 2006 World Development Report.  Equity and Development, produced by an eight-member team of authors led by economists Francisco Ferreira and Michael Walton, makes the case for equity, not just as an end in itself, but because it often stimulates greater and more productive investment, which leads to faster growth. The report shows how wide gulfs of inequality in wealth and opportunity, both within and among nations, contribute to the persistence of extreme deprivation, often for a large proportion of the population. This wastes human potential and, in many cases, can slow the pace of sustained economic growth. More information on the report is available at: http://econ.worldbank.org/wdr/wdr2006/\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31288","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Estimating health workforce needs for antiretroviral therapy in resource-limited settings","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/4/1/1","body":"Efforts to increase access to life-saving treatment, including antiretroviral therapy (ART), for people living with HIV/AIDS in resource-limited settings has been the growing focus of international efforts. One of the greatest challenges to scaling up will be the limited supply of adequately trained human resources for health, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other skilled providers. As national treatment programmes are planned, better estimates of human resource needs and improved approaches to assessing the impact of different staffing models are critically needed. However there have been few systematic assessments of staffing patterns in existing programmes or of the estimates being used in planning larger programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Expanding access to HIV prevention","field_subtitle":"AIDS Research and Therapy 2006","field_url":"http://www.aidsrestherapy.com/content/pdf/1742-6405-3-2.pdf","body":"The expanding HIV/AIDS epidemic represents one of the greatest threats to human health and international development today, and strengthening the global response is imperative. Despite recent progress in expanding access to HIV/AIDS treatment, the world continues to severely under-invest in efforts to fight HIV/AIDS, missing a tremendous opportunity to change the course of the epidemic by bringing proven treatment and prevention interventions to scale. Nowhere is the need for an expanded response more apparent \u2013 and the potential impact greater \u2013 than in efforts to prevent the spread of new infections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Food Security and HIV/AIDS: An Integrated Response to the Dual Epidemics of Hunger and HIV/AIDS in Africa","field_subtitle":"May 8-12, 2006, Lusaka, Zambia","field_url":"http://www.projectconcern.org/site/c.fhKOI1PGIoE/b.1172969/k.412F/Food_Security_and_HIVAIDS_Forum.htm","body":"The objectives are to enhance learning and information sharing between program implementers on best practices and lessons learned through presentations, workshops, hands-on training and site visits; Identify gaps in the \"value chain\" where information on best practices is lacking and\r\nBuild and strengthen partnerships for continued learning.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"From 3 by 5 to universal access to treatment: opportunities for equity?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Sally Theobald, Ireen Makwiza  REACH Trust, Malawi; Erik Schouten, Ministry of Health, Malawi and Management Sciences for Health; Andrew Agabu, Andrina Mwansambo,  National AIDS Commission, Malawi. \r\n\r\nWhy the move to universal access when we haven\u2019t yet met the 3 by 5 target? What does universal access actually mean? Does this new focus on universal access offer an opportunity for advocacy for equity? \r\n\r\nThe focus on universal access has its roots in the Special Session of the UN General Assembly (UNGASS) declaration in 2001 and was further reinforced by discussion at the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok in 2004 and the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, 2005. The onus is for countries to define \u2013 through consultative processes \u2013 what \u2018universal\u2019 access means rather than working to global targets and put together plans and processes to meet universal access. These country consultative processes should in theory feed into regional consultation processes. For southern and east Africa, these will be held in Zimbabwe from 7-10 March, 2006 and will, in turn, shape the Africa Wide consultation 4-6 May, 2006 and the Global Steering Committee. \r\n\r\nWhile there are sceptics, this may be seen as an opportunity to raise the profile of equity concerns. EQUINET\u2019s work on antiretroviral therapy (ART) in the context of health systems reported on the EQUINET website (www.equinetafrica.org) raises two overarching and inter-related equity challenges: \r\n\r\n1.\tHow can we address barriers to access to quality treatment and care \u2013 by gender, age, socio-economic status and geographical coverage?\r\n\r\n2.\tHow can we ensure that ART delivery strengthens rather than undermines the broader public health system?\r\n\r\nCountries have been asked to consider main barriers to scaling up which will be fed to the Global Steering Committee for action. In Malawi, for example, initial barriers highlighted include:\r\n\r\n* Constraints to ensuring adequate sustained financing, and therefore to planning ahead, for scaled up AIDS responses: \r\nThis calls for sustainable and responsive funding for the provision of ART and for the strengthening of public health systems. This is critical to ensure that we continue to be able to provide ART to those in need. The current Global Fund for AIDS TB and Malaria process of proposal writing for 5 year programmes and resubmitting after 2 years is problematic, as it can result in decision making delays and risks of interrupted supplies of ART, HIV test kits and other supplies.  \r\n\r\n* Too few trained human resources, and health and social systems constraints: \r\nWe need to build and sustain a healthy and motivated workforce to provide ART and to meet the broader health needs of our citizens. This means investing in training and developing supportive working environments to retain our workers and address the brain drain. However, despite our best efforts the numbers of professional cadres will not be adequate by 2010. We also need to think creatively about who constitutes \u2018human resources for health\u2019, and how to deliver services through building partnerships with lay health workers, NGOs, private sector providers and community based organisations. Such partnerships and decentralisation of health provision will enhance the access of poor women and men to HIV and AIDS Treatment and Care. \r\n\r\n* Barriers to reliable access to commodities and low-cost technologies (e.g. condoms, injecting equipment, medicines and diagnostics): \r\nThere is need for use of TRIPs flexibilities, and for pharmaceutical companies to not only reduce the cost of drugs but also ensure long-term fair access to patient-friendly ART regimens for adults and children. Diagnosis and treatment of paediatric AIDS is made difficult due to the unavailability of simple and affordable technology for diagnosing HIV in children, and the lack of paediatric formula. The current first line regimen for adults is based on fixed dose combinations (FDCs) and with the advantage that patients only have to take 2 tablets a day.  Scaling up programmes in resource poor environments relies heavily on these simplified regimens which ease the supply chain and instructions to patients on adherence. If the next generation of regimens is not available as FDCs (our current second line regimen consists of 7 tablets per day) the scale up of ART will be heavily compromised. \r\n\r\n* Stigma and discrimination, inequity, gender discrimination and insufficient promotion of HIV-related human rights:  \r\nWe need to be active in addressing stigma and ensuring that gender equity and rights based approaches underpin action. In Malawi we have a policy on equity and ART. The focus on universal access provides an opportunity to advocate to implement this and monitor progress. \r\n\r\nThese challenges to universal access resonate clearly with EQUINET\u2019s equity focus and work. Make sure your voice is heard in these consultation processes at country, regional and global level. You can also join an e-mail based consultation with civil society organisations and networks to provide direct input into a Global Steering Committee on Universal Access which is currently being hosted by ICASO. Send your feedback to: universalaccess@icaso.org The ICASO press release for more information on the consultation process is available at: \r\nhttp://www.healthdev.org/eforums/cms/showMessage.asp?msgid=9701  \r\n \r\nPlease send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this editorial or requests for further information on EQUINET and REACH Trust\u2019s work on equity and health systems strengthening in ART outreach to admin@equinetafrica.org \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Governance and corruption in public health care systems ","field_subtitle":"Equidad listserv : PAHO","field_url":"http://cgdev.org/files/5967_file_WP_78.pdf","body":"\"What factors affect health care delivery in the developing world? Anecdotal evidence of lives cut tragically short and the loss of productivity due to avoidable diseases is an area of salient concern in global health and international development. This working paper looks at factual evidence to describe the main challenges facing health care delivery in developing countries, including absenteeism, corruption, informal payments, and mismanagement. The author concludes that good governance is important in ensuring effective health care delivery, and that returns to investments in health are low where governance issues are not addressed.\" (Author's abstract)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Harare Recruits 100 Nurses ","field_subtitle":"The Herald, Harare","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200601310534.html","body":"Harare City Council has recruited 100 nurses to beef up its depleted nursing staff following the departure of several health personnel for greener pastures within the region and overseas. According to the latest full commission minutes, the nurses filled in all the vacant positions for State Registered Nurses. Harare has been losing nurses on a monthly basis to other more paying institutions outside the country. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS advocacy guide","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ippfwhr.org/publications/download/monographs/HIV_Guide_e.pdf","body":"By the end of 2000, over 36 million men, women and children around the world were living with HIV or AIDS and nearly 22 million had died from the disease. The same year saw an estimated 5.3 million new infections globally and 3 million deaths, the highest annual total of AIDS deaths ever. Currently, there are 15,000 new infections every day. AIDS is now the number one killer in Africa. This Guide, which is intended to supplement IPPF\u2019s Advocacy Guide, describes what advocacy can do, often at little cost, in the prevention of HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Home Based Carers Get Training in Namibia","field_subtitle":"New Era, Windhoek","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200602010363.html","body":"Close to 30 Home Based Carers from the Andara community in the north are undergoing a four-week training of trainers course being held by the Johanniter-Hilfswerk in Namibia. More than 16 000 Namibians have succumbed to HIV-related complications since the first case was detected in the country in 1986. With over 250 000 people infected with the virus, it is clear that HIV/Aids is the leading cause of death in Namibia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrating migration and development policies - challenges for ACP-EU cooperation","field_subtitle":"European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) (2005)","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC20875","body":"This paper examines the role of migration in economic, social and political development in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP). Following the inclusion of a migration clause (article 13) in the political dimensions chapter of the Cotonou Agreement, migration issues have come onto the EU's development agenda. However, there has been debate as to whether migration is a \"development issue\" and if it should be addressed through development cooperation. This paper argues that migration is an important aspect of economic and social development and needs to be addressed as a development issue and needs to be addressed from an ACP as well as an EU standpoint.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31291","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Is There any Solution to the \"Brain Drain\" of Health Professionals and Knowledge from Africa? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cmj.hr/2005/46/1/15726672.pdf","body":"African public health care systems suffer from significant \"brain drain\" of its health care professionals and knowledge as health workers migrate to wealthier countries such as Australia, Canada, USA, and the United Kingdom. Knowledge generated on the continent is not readily accessible to potential users on the continent. Advocates are increasingly discussing not just the pull factors but also the \"grab\" factors emanating from the developed nations. In order to control or manage the outflow of vital human resources from the developing nations to the developed ones, various possible solutions have been discussed. The moral regard to this issue cannot be under-recognized. However, the dilemma is how to balance personal autonomy, right to economic prosperity, right to personal professional development, and the expectations of the public in relation to adequate public health care services in the developing nations. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"ISEqH Fourth International Conference","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iseqh.org/","body":"The International Society for Equity in Health, ISEqH, welcomes those interested in promoting equity in health to share experience and expertise at its Fourth International Conference in Adelaide, Australia. The overarching theme for the ISEQH's Fourth International Conference, Creating Healthy Societies through Inclusion and Equity, reflects the central role of social, political, and economic determinants in creating health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Mobilising the resources in the Diaspora","field_subtitle":"21st and 22nd March 2006, London, United Kingdom","field_url":"","body":"Mobilising the resources in the Diaspora (African's based outside their country of origin) in a constructive and structured manner will result in innovative and practical solutions that will be of added value to Africa\u2019s Healthcare enabling Africa to address its capacity to meet the related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). For African's in the United Kingdom, United States and other parts of the world, it is important to register online even if you don't plan to attend the event.  This is because, the greater the percentage of healthcare professionals in Diaspora who are registered, will ensure that key decision makers are monitoring the event, as well as policy makers involved in these programmes, will have confidence in developing partnerships with African Diaspora to add value to the many ongoing efforts.  This will provide an avenue for those of us not yet actively involved to participate in Africa\u2019s healthcare development. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31273","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"New Doctors Coming ","field_subtitle":"New Era, Windhoek","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200601310470.html","body":"Ten newly graduated Namibian medical doctors will this week be commissioned into service by the Ministry of Health and Social Services, the Health Minister Richard Kamwi said at a recent meeting with the community here. At times, the Government had to rely on friendly countries such as Cuba and others for medical personnel. He urged parents to encourage their children to take subjects such as mathematics and science in order to qualify for medical training. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"On a never-ending waiting list: Toward equitable access to anti-retroviral treatment? Experiences from Zambia","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/JONrights.pdf","body":"Universal access to anti-retroviral (ARV) medication for HIV/AIDS is the clarion call of the WHO/UNAIDS 3 by 5 Initiative. Treatment coverage, however, remains highly uneven. This sharpens the question of who exactly is accessing ARVs and whether access is challenging inequality or reinforcing it. Issues of distributive justice have long been debated in health policy, but the practical challenges of ARV distribution are relatively new. In exploring what a more equitable process of ARV distribution could involve, this article draws on a human rights framework using case study material from Zambia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Private sector options to increase access to medicines for child health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC20602&Resource=healthsystems","body":"This report, from Rational Pharmaceutical Management (RPM) Plus, examines a number of innovative field interventions to increase access to medicines for child health through the private sector in Tanzania. The first part of the report details a number of programmes and interventions that are currently in operation in Tanzania. These include projects on: shopkeeper interventions; low-interest loans to Accredited Drug Dispensing Outlets (ADDOs); voucher schemes; and microfinance schemes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Reaching the poor with health services","field_subtitle":"World Bank publication","field_url":"http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPAH/Resources/Reaching-the-Poor/complete.pdf","body":"The poor suffer from far higher levels of ill health, mortality, and malnutrition than do the better-off; and their inadequate health is one of the factors keeping them poor or for their being poor in the first place. The health of the poor must thus be a matter of major concern for everyone committed to equitable development, from policy makers to service providers. Health services can make an important contribution to improved health conditions among disadvantaged groups. Yet as the contents of this volume make clear, the health services supported by governments and by agencies like ours too often fail to reach these people who need them most.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Request for information about impact of liberalisation of services in Sub Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The EPA negotiations in different regions will, or are likely to, include liberalisation of trade and investment in services. Liberalisation of services can have far reaching consequences. Since Article 5 in the GATS requires that regional agreements have to have \"substantial sectoral coverage\" and eliminate \"substantially all discrimination\", many services sectors will be included in EPAs that liberalise services, even if Art.5 allows developing countries to liberalise less than developed countries in a free trade agreement. As this is done at the end of the EPA negotiation period, this is a dangerous process because experience has shown that if liberalisation of services is done too swiftly without the necessary assessments and regulations, there might be many negative consequences.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31268","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Scaling-up ART and the health system in southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC20705&Resource=healthsystems","body":"This note, prepared for a UNAIDS workshop on Vulnerability and AIDS, provides a number of observations and opinions on the feasibility of scaling up anti-retroviral treatment (ART) in sub-Saharan Africa. The document reviews lessons learned from various hospitals and health centres delivering ART in southern Africa, and highlights considerable human resource constraints. For instance, in South Africa, it is estimated that for every 500 ART patients, they need as many as 10 permanent staff. Other pilots have similar staff/patient ratios.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual and reproductive health and rights","field_subtitle":"Eldis health key issues","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/health/SRHR.htm","body":"Aimed at policymakers, donors and practitioners working in health and beyond, this Eldis Health key issues guide reviews current policy issues and explores cutting-edge debates relating to sexual and reproductive health and rights. It also highlights current and future challenges for attaining greater levels of sexual and reproductive well-being, and considers the role of innovative technologies and approaches in achieving sexual and reproductive health and rights for all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Student research grants on equity in health","field_subtitle":"Call for Participants","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET invites applicants for small research grants for post graduate and undergraduate students in East and Southern Africa.  Students are encouraged to submit  focused proposals that look at a specific issue and either organise secondary evidence or gather empirical evidence in one of the priority areas of EQUINET work.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31267","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Synergising HIV/AIDS and Sexual and Reproductive Rights","field_subtitle":"A Manual for NGOs","field_url":"http://topics.developmentgateway.org/population/rc/ItemDetail.do~1054785?intcmp=700&itemId=1054785","body":"The 28 short chapters of this manual for NGOs illustrate how work on HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and other public health issues can be integrated. It emphasises important societal aspects and the most important health system factors. The manual is meant to be a practical tool for NGOs and therefore provides \"entry points\" for NGOs as well as annotated resources. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Health Rights of Women Assessment Instrument (HeRWAI)","field_subtitle":"Source : PHA-Exchange","field_url":"http://www.hom.nl/publicaties/HeRWAI%20def05%20totaal.pdf","body":"The Health Rights of Women Assessment Instrument (HeRWAI) is a strategic tool to enhance lobbying activities for better implementation of women's health rights. It can be used as a tool to analyse a wide range of policies, including those impacting but not directly addressing health issues. A HeRWAI analysis links what actually happens with what should happen according to the human rights obligations of a country. It examines local, national and international influences. The HeRWAI analysis consists of six steps, which analyse a policy that influences women's health rights. Each step consists of information and questions to guide the analysis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The quality of migration services delivery in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Southern African Migration Project (SAMP)","field_url":"http://www.queensu.ca/samp/sampresources/samppublications/policyseries/Acrobat41.pdf","body":"The South African Department of Home Affairs (DHA) is responsible for the implementation and management of migration policy and legislation, as well as the registration of births, marriages and deaths and the issuing of identity documents and passports. It is often criticised in the media and in private conversation for being administratively inefficient, cumbersome and unwieldy. The Southern African Migration Project (SAMP) therefore proposed to test current perceptions of the Department through a study.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Supply of Physician Services in OECD Countries","field_subtitle":"Equidad listserv : PAHO","field_url":"http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/27/22/35987490.pdf","body":"The delivery of an appropriate quantity and quality of health care in an efficient way requires, among other things, matching the supply with the demand for the services of physicians, over time. Such matching has led to very different levels of physicians per million population across OECD countries ; because of variations, among other things, in: morbidity and mortality, health expenditure as a share of GDP and the design of health systems. Most OECD countries experience inequities in the geographical distribution of their physician workforce. This article discusses how, to tackle this difficulty, a mix of educational policies, regulatory policies and financial policies has been used with some success in a number of countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Union newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The e-newsletter of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) is a free monthly newsletter designed to provide news about the activities of The Union, as well as information and resources related to the prevention and control of tuberculosis and lung disease. Please feel free to pass it on to your friends and colleagues.  To subscribe, go to our website at www.iuatld.org or send an email to communications@iuatld.org. To unsubscribe, click on the REMOVE link at the bottom of the page. \r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31258","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Training health professionals in palliative care","field_subtitle":"Lessons from South Africa","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights-h08/art03.html","body":"Palliative care should be an integral part of every health care professional's role. A key aspect of palliative care training involves raising the awareness of health care professionals, service providers and users. Palliative care should not just be seen as the compassionate care of dying patients but as an active discipline including assessing and treating pain and other problems. Health care workers need specific training to be able to offer quality palliative care to their patients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Training Workshop on Participatory methods for research and training for a people centred health system","field_subtitle":"Contact us if you are interested in such training","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET will be holding a Workshop on Participatory Methods for for research and training for a people centred health system in Bagamoyo, Tanzania, March 1-4, 2006. TARSC and IHRDC under the EQUINET umbrella and with support from  CHESSORE have developed a toolkit of materials on participatory reflection and action (PRA) methods for research and training for a people centred health system. The materials provide information on areas for strengthening community voice and roles in health systems and introduce and provide examples of participatory approaches for training and research that supports this.  EQUINEt will also be providing some small grants to support research and training using PRA methods for those who have completed the course. \r\n\r\nThose interested in this area of training please contact us at admin@equinetafrica.org ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31256","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"TRIPS, the Doha Declaration and increasing access to medicines","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/1/1/17/abstract","body":"There are acute disparities in pharmaceutical access between developing and industrialized countries. Developing countries make up approximately 80% of the world's population but only represent approximately 20% of global pharmaceutical consumption. Among the many barriers to drug access are the potential consequences of the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. Many developing countries have recently modified their patent laws to conform to the TRIPS standards, given the 2005 deadline for developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding press coverage of cross border migration in Southern Africa since 2000","field_subtitle":"Southern African Migration Project (SAMP) ","field_url":"http://www.queensu.ca/samp/sampresources/samppublications/policyseries/Acrobat37.pdf","body":"Xenophobia is a distinctive and widespread phenomenon in South and Southern Africa. The print media, in particular, has been accused of exacerbating xenophobic attitudes. This paper discusses press coverage of cross-border migration in Southern Africa from 2000-2003, with a focus on xenophobia. The study revisits research conducted in South Africa by the Southern African Migration Project (SAMP) in the 1990s to \r\ndetermine what, if any, changes have occurred in that country\u2019s press coverage of the issue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"User fees for health","field_subtitle":"An Eldis issues guide","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/healthsystems/userfees/","body":"User fees for health care, also referred to as cost sharing, cost recovery or co-payment, are widespread around the developing world, despite mounting opposition to them. Many studies have found them to be among the barriers to the use of health services, and have shown that they affect poor people more than others. Such concerns have led many researchers, advisers, and policy makers to question whether user fees should be applied, especially among poor and vulnerable groups. In particular, there is concern that user fees will hinder access to essential social services and so prevent the Millennium Development Goals from being met.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Why New TRIPS Amendment is a Bad Deal for Poor Countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.haiafrica.org","body":"Headlining this quarter's HAI Africa network newsletter is a fact sheet about the recent World Trade Organization (WTO) amendment to the TRIPS agreement. WTO member states last year agreed to permanently adopt the \"30 August 2003 Decision\" as an amendment to TRIPS. This Amendment outlines the circumstances and procedures necessary for compulsory licensing in countries that do not have the capacity for pharmaceutical production. Access to medicines campaigners are denouncing the Amendment as an extraordinarily bad deal for poor countries, but representatives from the US, EU and pharmaceutical industry are, not surprisingly, welcoming it. This fact sheet gives an overview of the Amendment and why it is controversial. It's available on the HAI Africa web site.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"World Malaria Report 2005 ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://rbm.who.int/wmr2005/","body":"The World Malaria Report 2005 is the first comprehensive effort by the Roll Back Malaria Partnership to take stock of where the world stands in relation to one of its most devastating diseases. It reveals that the tide may be beginning to turn against malaria as control and prevention programmes start to take effect.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"'Schizophrenic' rich nations slammed on TRIPS","field_subtitle":"Panos Online Feature","field_url":"http://www.panos.org.uk/global/tradingplaces_feature15.asp","body":"International health and AIDS activists are up in arms over the World Trade Organisation\u2019s (WTO) pre-Hong Kong approval of a controversial amendment to its intellectual property agreement, saying it will limit access to affordable medicines for the neediest countries - those that have little or no pharmaceutical production base.  Activists say the amendment, approved on 6 December, is proof that the WTO has ignored those with expertise on public health and intellectual property, and buckled under the pressure of big pharmaceutical companies, who supported the amendment. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A call for your input! Concerted action for health equity in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Steering Committee, Regional Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (EQUINET)","field_url":"","body":"How can we attract health workers to stay within our public health services? \r\n\r\nHow many countries in our region meet the Abuja target of 15% of government spending on health? \r\n\r\nWhat does an African debt burden of $8.6 billion a year mean for health services? \r\n\r\nHow many countries in our region include the right health in the constitution? \r\n\r\nHow can the cost of health for the poorest communities be reduced? \r\n\r\nWhat does it mean to have a \u2018people centred\u2019 health system?\r\n\r\nThe EQUINET newsletter is over five years old and has in its lifetime covered a spectrum of issues affecting health equity in our region, and raised some of the questions above. In 2005 our editorials ranged from access to treatment to the outflow of resources from Africa. The spectrum of challenges to health equity are clearly wide, and involve many different people, communities, disciplines and actors. We hope that the newsletter has been informative and useful and will continue to be so.  We\u2019d greatly welcome your ideas and information on how to improve it. \r\n\r\nIn 2006 we are also asking for you to play a more active role! EQUINET will,  with your support,  be carrying out a regional equity analysis in 2006, to profile the issues, evidence, experiences and  options for action to strengthen health equity, through a regional equity analysis. The adoption in 2005 of the SADC Health protocol gives us a policy framework for this. Within this context, we will over the course of 2006 draw together YOUR perspectives, evidence, experiences, and views on how to advance health equity at local, national and regional level.  \r\n\r\nFrom the work we have done in EQUINET, including the values and perspectives communicated through the last five years of this newsletter, we have identified some priority areas that we will focus on.  People in the region have major health concerns relating to access to incomes, food, employment, healthy living conditions and community environments.  These require action from all sectors, and not just the health sector. There is a common concern that to advance health across all sectors and all social groups, we also need to revitalize and build comprehensive, universal and integrated national health systems that address these concerns and that provide access to health care for all.  While many features of health systems have been raised, there are some that have been most commonly identified as a priority for health equity that we will give more focus to in 2006. \r\n\r\nThese are  \r\ni.\tbuilding people-centred health systems that organise, empower, value and entitle communities; \r\nii.\tpromoting increased fair, sustainable and equitable financing for health at national, regional and global level;\r\niii.\tensuring adequate, well-trained, equitably distributed and motivated health workers; and  \r\niv.\tbacking national policies with fair global policy, including just trade, reversing unfair flows of resources and having the national and regional policy flexibility to exercise policies that improve health.\r\n\r\nWhat policies, programmes and obstacles exist in these areas in our region? \r\n\r\nWhich have been more successful in overcoming differences in health across social groups and ensuring access to health care for all?\r\n\r\nWhat opportunities and challenges do we face in implementing these policies and programmes? \r\n\r\nWe invite you to contribute to the dialogue, learning and analysis that we will build in these areas, through your expertise and experience,   positive examples and case studies, evidence and data, and photographs. Email us on admin@equinetafrica.org  with any information, published papers or pictures of the work you or others are doing in these priority areas.   Through the newsletter we will share this information more widely. We will also feed it into the regional equity analysis. \r\n\r\nWe also invite you to be involved in the research, student grants, training, dialogue forums, exchange visits and other areas of work that we will be carrying out with you in 2006 to inform  and strengthen learning and action on health equity. Our website (www.equinetafrica.org)  provides up to date information on these activities.  \r\n\r\nWe look forward to working with you in 2006! ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"A facilitators\u2019 guide to participatory workshops with NGOs/CBOs responding to HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsalliance.org/graphics/secretariat/publications/fge1101_facilitators_guide_eng.pdf","body":"This guide aims to support people who facilitate participatory workshops with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and community-based organisations (CBOs) responding to HIV/AIDS in developing countries. It is based on the practical experiences of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance (the Alliance). The Alliance is an international NGO that supports communities in developing countries to prevent the spread of HIV, support and care for those infected and ease the impact of HIV on families and communities.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A guide to sexual and reproductive health rights","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC18619","body":"This guide, published by the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU), provides a comprehensive introduction to the political debate surrounding sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). It discusses the changes in the approach to population issues that emerged from the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, emphasising the conference's explicit recognition of reproductive rights as human rights. Countries pledged to reduce maternal mortality, fight HIV and AIDS, and improve people's sexual and reproductive health and rights. The guide discusses the controversy over the goals that were adopted and the reservations expressed by many countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Bringing them on board: putting health policy into practice in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h1lw1g1.html","body":"The successful implementation of health policy requires the backing of health care practitioners, managers, and patients. In South Africa, the introduction of free health care, although supported in principal by nurses and health facility managers, faced resistance as workloads increased and staff felt excluded from a centrally prescribed policy. Proponents of a 'street-level bureaucracy' approach to policy implementation acknowledge the day-to-day methods to cope with pressures that are adopted by frontline health care providers in the face of high demand for their services.  It is these mechanisms, they argue, that effectively become public policy, rather than the decisions taken by central government. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers for new peer-reviewed journal on Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR)","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute in conjunction with the WK Kellogg Foundation announce the launch of a national peer- reviewed journal dedicated to community health partnerships. Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action addresses topics focusing on the growing field of community-based participatory research (CBPR) while promoting further collaboration and elevating the visibility and stature of CBPR as a means toward eliminating health disparities. The first issue is expected in Spring/Summer 2006. For more information, including how to subscribe and how to submit papers, visit the Journal's web site at: http://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/pchp\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Cholera outbreak claims six lives in Zambia","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50863","body":"Heavy rains have exacerbated a cholera outbreak in Zambia, where at least six people have died and more than a thousand cases have been recorded. Zambia's ministry of health confirmed   that 1,144 cases of cholera have been reported since the outbreak began in August.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Cost effectiveness analysis of strategies for tuberculosis control in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Rob Baltussen, health economist, Katherine Floyd, health economist, Christopher Dye, coordinator","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/331/7529/1364?etoc","body":"The objectives of this study are to assess the costs and health effects of tuberculosis control interventions in Africa and South East Asia in the context of the millennium development goals. The conclusions are that DOTS treatment of new smear-positive cases is the first priority in tuberculosis control, including in countries with high HIV prevalence. DOTS treatment of smear-negative and extra-pulmonary cases and DOTS-Plus treatment of multidrug resistant cases are also highly cost effective. To achieve the millennium development goal for tuberculosis control, substantial extra investment is needed to increase case finding and implement interventions on a wider scale.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Deprivation and the equitable allocation of health care resources to decentralised districts in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Equinet discussion paper","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=648","body":"There is a marked variation in deprivation between various districts in Tanzania. Tanzania recently adopted a needs-based formula, which includes a poverty measure, to allocate resources to districts. This paper presents an analysis of the allocation of health care resources in Tanzania. This paper analyses equity in current resource allocation in Tanzania, and compares these allocations to equity target allocations, using an index of deprivation. The results revealed that districts currently receiving relatively high allocations according the current poverty-based formula would receive slightly lower budgets if the deprivation index was used in the resource allocation formula. Those with very low allocations would receive slightly more if the deprivation index was used to guide resource allocation. However, the resource allocation differences between the poverty-based and deprivation-based formulae were small. This suggests that Tanzania has already made good progress in addressing equity in resource allocation between districts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"End human rights violations against people with mental health disorders","field_subtitle":"WHO media release","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr68/en/index.html","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) dedicated International Human Rights Day, 10 December, to people with mental disorders and the all-too-prevalent violations of their basic human rights. People with mental disorders face an alarming range of human rights abuses in countries throughout the world, yet there are proven ways to dramatically improve the situation. Misunderstanding and stigma surrounding mental ill health are widespread. Despite the existence of effective treatments for mental disorders, there is a belief that they are untreatable or that people with mental disorders are difficult, not intelligent, or incapable of making decisions.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by \r\n\r\nFahamu - Networks for Social Justice\r\nhttp://www.fahamu.org/  \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter 59: January 2006 edition","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Fellowship in cardiovascular disease in the developing world","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Lown Fellowship in Cardiovascular Disease in the Developing World offers training in non-invasive and preventive cardiology, public health, and research methodology for physicians from developing countries. The program's goal is to train physicians from the developing world as preventive cardiovascular specialists in order to address the mounting epidemic of CVD facing their countries. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31244","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund withdraws support for loveLife in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5558","body":"The Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has pulled the plug on financing loveLife, a controversial South African youth-targeted HIV/AIDS campaign. In a statement the Global Fund board said it had found that loveLife \"was deemed to not have sufficiently addressed weaknesses in its implementation\". Global Fund spokesman Jon Liden said it had become difficult to measure how the prevention campaign was contributing to the reduction of HIV/AIDS among young people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Global or local: what factors most affect health policy in South Africa?","field_subtitle":"University of the Witwatersrand, Oxford University","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h1tg1g1.html","body":"The emergence of an increasingly global economy suggests that the ability of individual countries to shape their own destinies is becoming more difficult.  International trends and pressures now influence national, and even local, health care policy making. Researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, together with Oxford University, looked at the effect of globalisation on health issues in South Africa and assessed its influence compared to national and local forces.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Public Goods for Health","field_subtitle":"Smith R., Beaglehole R., Woodward D., Drager N. (ed.) Global Public Goods for Health: health economics and public health perspectives. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003. 320 p.","field_url":"http://www.who.int/trade/resource/GPGH/en/index.html","body":"Global Public Goods for Health addresses the growing globalization of health from the unique perspective of the economic concept of public goods. This concept identifies where a \u2018good\u2019 or service (such as knowledge of an infectious disease outbreak) which would be of benefit globally will not be produced or disseminated if left to \u2018the market\u2019, because of a lack of incentive: no-one can be excluded from accessing the good, no charge can be levied for use and no costs recouped. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalization, Skilled Migration and Poverty Alleviation: Brain Drains in Context","field_subtitle":"Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty, University of Sussex","field_url":"http://www.migrationdrc.org/publications/working_papers/WP-T15.pdf","body":"The debate on the 'brain drain', or the emigration of skilled workers, is not new but it has taken on greater urgency in the context of a globalizing economy and ageing societies. Today, the developed world is perceived as poaching the best and the brightest from the developing world, thus prejudicing those countries of their chance of development. This paper starts with two guarded caveats: first, that any brain drain is as much internal within any country as it is among countries and, second, that the skilled migration system should not be seen in isolation from other types of migration. The paper reviews the data available for the analysis of skilled migration and identifies the main global trends. It goes on to examine the globalization of education and of health as reflected in the movement of students and health personnel.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hinari/en/","body":"The HINARI program, set up by WHO together with major publishers, enables developing countries to gain access to one of the world's largest collections of biomedical and health literature. Over 3090 journal titles are now available to health institutions in 113 countries, benefiting many thousands of health workers and researchers, and in turn, contributing to improved world health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Hong Kong outcomes anything but development for Africa","field_subtitle":"Press Statement By The Africa Trade Network","field_url":"http://www.twnafrica.org/news_detail.asp?twnID%20=871","body":"\"Rather than being an important milestone towards the achievement of the much touted development round, Hong Kong has ended as a platform for anti-development outcomes. The declaration from the Hong Kong WTO Ministerial is a loss for African countries. They have been forced to concede on most of the positions with which they came to Hong Kong. And whatever comfort exists in the other areas is ambiguous at best, illusory at worst.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrated HIV/AIDS prevention care and treatment course","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.amref.org/index.asp?PageID=340","body":"The course is designed for a multi-disciplinary team of healthcare workers who play an important role in the comprehensive care of HIV infected person(s). These include doctors, nurses, counsellors, pharmacists, clinical officers, laboratory technicians, community health workers etc.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrating Equity into Health Information Systems: A Human Rights Approach to Health and Information","field_subtitle":"Bambas L (2005) Integrating Equity into Health Information Systems: A Human Rights Approach to Health and Information. PLoS Med 2(4): e102","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020102","body":"One of the most fundamental human rights is the assumption that each person matters, and everyone deserves to be treated with dignity\u2014this is the tenet from which all other human rights flow. Another is that those who are most vulnerable deserve special protection. However, in many developing countries, vast numbers of children are born but never counted, and their health and welfare throughout their lives remains unknown. And because single-mean measures of population health mask inequalities among the best-off and worst-off, the health of vulnerable populations is not effectively documented and acknowledged. Health information systems can play an important role in supporting these rights by documenting and tracking health and health inequities, and by creating a platform for action and accountability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"International Health Conference at Yale University in April 2006","field_subtitle":"\\\"Empowering Communities to Bridge Health Divides\\\"","field_url":"","body":"When: April 1-2, 2006\r\nWhere: Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut\r\nTheme: \"Empowering Communities to Bridge Health Divides\"\r\nWho should attend?  Anyone interested in children's health,  medicine, health education, health promotion, public health, international health, international service, eye care, nonprofits, or microenterprise\r\nConference Goal: To empower conference attendees to identify health needs and to develop solutions to improve access to care for the medically underserved.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31226","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"International Trade in Health Services and the GATS: current issues and debates","field_subtitle":"Joint World Bank and WHO publication","field_url":"http://www.who.int/trade/resource/ITHS/en/","body":"Health ministries around the world face a new challenge: to assess the risks and respond to the opportunities of the increasing openness in health services under the World Trade Organization's (WTO) General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). International Trade in Health Services and the GATS addresses this challenge head-on by providing analytical tools to policymakers in health and trade ministries alike who are involved in the liberalization agenda and, specifically, in the GATS negotiations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Is There any Solution to the \u201cBrain Drain\u201d of Health Professionals and Knowledge from Africa?","field_subtitle":"Department of Community Health, University of Malawi College of Medicine, Blantyre, Malawi","field_url":"http://www.cmj.hr/2005/46/1/15726672.pdf","body":"African public health care systems suffer from significant \"brain drain\" of its health care professionals and knowledge as health workers migrate to wealthier countries such as Australia, Canada, USA, and the United Kingdom. Knowledge generated on the continent is not readily accessible to potential users on the continent. In this paper, the brain drain is defined as both a loss of health workers (hard brain drain) and unavailability of research results to users in Africa (soft brain drain). The \"pull\" factors of \"hard brain drain\" include better remuneration and working conditions, possible job satisfaction, and prospects for further education, whereas the \"push\" factors include a lack of better working conditions including promotion opportunities and career advancement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Job: Network Director","field_subtitle":"African Malaria Network Trust","field_url":"http://www.amanet-trust.org/ext/news/jobND.htm","body":"The African Malaria Network Trust (AMANET) is a pan-African, non-profit, non-governmental organization whose mission is to promote capacity strengthening, performance and impact of African malaria R & D institutions.  AMANET wishes to recruit on contract terms a very senior research scientist to occupy the position of Network Director, which is now vacant. S/He will be based at the AMANET Secretariat in Dar-es Salaam, Tanzania. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi: Interview with WHO representative Dr Matshidiso Moeti","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50944","body":"The government of President Bingu wa Mutharika has made strides in improving Malawi's health care system. IRIN spoke to World Health Organisation (WHO) representative Matshidiso Moeti about the remaining challenges.\r\n\r\nQUESTION: What is your general impression of the health system in Malawi?\r\n\r\nANSWER: The health system in Malawi is in a very dynamic process of improvement right now. But I know there are a number of challenges: these ... include shortage of staff, and there is need to recruit more to meet these challenges; the other challenge facing the health system is the supply and management of drugs.\r\n\r\n* Click on the link for the full interview.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring the public-health potential of new treatments for malaria in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473309905703261/fulltext","body":"Poverty is a major factor in the continuing burden of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. The gross national product (GNP) per capita is around US$306, or less than $1 per day. On average, these countries spend less than $20 per head of population per year on health care. Patients urgently need new therapies to combat malaria. However, malaria is not an economically viable disease for drug developers and new antimalarials are therefore usually developed within public\u2013private partnerships.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"New drugs urgently needed in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5550","body":"The lack of newer AIDS drugs in Africa could jeopardise the lives of people already receiving the treatment, medical humanitarian organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has warned. With many countries on the continent embarking on national programmes to provide antiretrovirals (ARVs), the first-line drug regimen has become cheaper and widely available. But as resistance to the basic drugs inevitably builds up, there will be a need for a second generation of drugs within a few years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Pathways from poverty: Evaluating long-term strategies","field_subtitle":"John Hoddinott, Agnes Quisumbing, Alain de Janvry, and Tassew Woldehanna","field_url":"http://pdf.dec.org/pdf_docs/PNADE657.pdf","body":"The Millennium Declaration of the United Nations committed the global community to halving, by 2015, the proportion of the world's population who live in poverty and suffer from hunger. Attaining the United Nations' goal requires good governance, a genuine political commitment by both developed and developing countries, and increased resources. Yet, reducing global poverty also requires a clear understanding of the factors that predict whether an individual or household will become less poor or more poor over time. Intervention programs often are evaluated on a short time frame, even though such interventions may have long-term effects.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Political support is crucial for health policy reform in South Africa","field_subtitle":"University of Cape Town, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h1st2g1.html","body":"Debates about the best way to fund South Africa's health system have run for over a decade. Plans for social health insurance have not received enough support to become law. In contrast reform of private health insurance regulations have been passed. Why has the pace of reform between the private and public sectors differed? The University of Cape Town, together with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, compared reforms to private and social health insurance to see why their success has varied.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health approach is key to scaling up HIV treatment, says WHO HIV/AIDS director","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hiv/mediacentre/news56/en/index.html","body":"Speaking in December at the 14th International Conference on HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA), in Abuja, Nigeria, Jim Yong Kim, Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) HIV/AIDS Department, emphasized the importance of a public health approach in promoting long-term sustainability and equity of HIV treatment access programmes in resource-limited settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional meeting on Promoting Health in Trade agreements, 29 October 2005","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org","body":"The workshop on Protecting health in Trade agreements held in Johannesburg in October 2005 was held within an EQUINET programme with Centre for Health Policy South Africa and SEATINI Zimbabwe that aims to build capacities in state, legislative and civil society institutions to know, understand, analyse and promote public sector equity oriented health systems within trade and investment policies and agreements. The workshop reviewed the work and research papers of the capacity building programme implemented in Tanzania and Zimbabwe to date. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"SA, Mozambique sign health care agreement","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sabcnews.com/africa/southern_africa/0,2172,118866,00.html","body":"Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the South African health minister, and Paulo Ivo Garrido, the Mozambican health minister, have signed an agreement ensuring co-operation in tackling health issues affecting the two countries. South African citizens and their Mozambican counterparts will from now on have easier access to health care at both countries' public hospitals.  The agreement was signed at Tonga Hospital in Mpumalanga, an area plagued by malaria. To prevent the spread of the disease, local households were sprayed with insecticides. South Africa has also donated ten tons of DDT, an anti malaria insecticide, to Mozambique.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexuality and the \u201cCultural\u201d War on Human Rights","field_subtitle":"Human Rights Watch 2005","field_url":"http://www.hrw.org/wr2k5/anatomy/anatomy.pdf","body":"A spectre is stalking the arenas where human rights activists work. Its avatars range from politicians in Zimbabwe to policymakers in the United States. It might be called an alliance of fundamentalisms, though not all its agents embrace the term. The forces in question define themselves most often by what they claim to defend\u2014and that shifts from time to time and territory to territory: \"culture,\" \"tradition,\" \"values,\" or \"religion.\" What they share is a common target: sexual rights and sexual freedoms. These are most often represented by women's reproductive rights, the assault on which continues. The most vividly drawn and violently reviled enemy typically is homosexuality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: The impact of AIDS - new report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"An AIDS epidemic as severe as the one plowing through South Africa will change society. But how and along what lines? Buckling: The impact of AIDS in South Africa, a new publication by Hein Marais, tackles the question in distinctive and critical-minded fashion \u2013 and arrives at disquieting and surprising conclusions. A detailed, multidisciplinary review of research evidence, this short book adopts a unique perspective which reveals more clearly the contingency and complexity of the epidemic's effects. It shows how conventional conceptions of AIDS impact (and programme responses) tend to reflect dominant ideological fixations \u2013 particularly the overriding emphasis on productive processes and economic growth, governance and security \u2013 and how the wellbeing of humans typically is refracted through those preoccupations. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31245","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Steady progress as ARV rollout gathers momentum in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5565","body":"When Maria (last name withheld), 35 years old and HIV-positive, reflects on the past year she gives an answer that a growing number of Mozambicans living with HIV/AIDS would probably echo. \"The year 2005 has been good for my health. It has got so much better because this year I started taking ARVs (antiretroviral drugs),\" she told PlusNews. Maria is one of 17,000 people now accessing ARVs of a national target to treat 20,000 people by the end of 2005.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The 'We All Have Aids Campaign'","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.weallhaveaids.com/mission/default.asp","body":"The WE ALL HAVE AIDS Campaign is a show of solidarity among, and an acknowledgment of, many of the world's most accomplished, devoted and inspiring AIDS activists and scientists of the last 20 years. Barefoot and determined, each participant has left a meaningful mark in cement, but more importantly in the fight against HIV/AIDS and the destructive STIGMA associated with this devastating disease. Visit the website to find out more.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Training Workshop on Participatory methods","field_subtitle":"Call Closes January 23, 2006!","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=49_0_1_0_M6","body":"Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC), the Ifakara Health Research and Development Centre (IHRDC) with The Southern African Regional Network on Equity in Health (EQUINET) and CHESSORE Zambia invites applicants to participate and share experiences in a Workshop on Participatory Methods for research and training for a people centred health system being held in Bagamoyo, Tanzania, March 1-4, 2006.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO '3 by 5' target missed in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5563","body":"Zimbabwe has failed to meet the World Health Organization (WHO) target of providing anti-AIDS drugs to at least 120,000 HIV-positive people by the end of 2005, local newspaper The Daily Mirror reported on Tuesday. The lack of adequate foreign currency to purchase medicines and the low numbers of people being tested for the virus prevented the country from even reaching its own target of 55,000 people receiving the life-prolonging medication by the end of 2005.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2006-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A Human Rights Approach to Health and Information","field_subtitle":"Bambas L (2005) Integrating Equity into Health Information Systems: A Human Rights Approach to Health and Information. PLoS Med 2(4): e102","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020102","body":"One of the most fundamental human rights is the assumption that each person matters, and everyone deserves to be treated with dignity\u2014this is the tenet from which all other human rights flow. Another is that those who are most vulnerable deserve special protection. However, in many developing countries, vast numbers of children are born but never counted, and their health and welfare throughout their lives remains unknown. And because single-mean measures of population health mask inequalities among the best-off and worst-off, the health of vulnerable populations is not effectively documented and acknowledged. Health information systems can play an important role in supporting these rights by documenting and tracking health and health inequities, and by creating a platform for action and accountability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa's Push for Reproductive Rights Fund Rubs U.S. the Wrong Way","field_subtitle":"Africa Women and Child Feature Service via allafrica.com","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200511230743.html","body":"A number of African gender advocates in both government and civil society have put up spirited fight to have the United Nations create a Fund to address millennium development goal issues of reproductive health and gender empowerment. To be known as the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Fund, resources channelled to this Fund are to be used to lower the high maternal and child mortality rates in sub-Saharan Africa and ensure gender empowerment and environmental goals are implemented with speed. But the United States, especially the Bush Administration and other pro-life advocates, are said not to be warming up to the idea, which they see as coded attempts to fund abortion related issues and increase procurement of condoms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa: Beyond ABC - The challenge of prevention","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5481","body":"In theory, preventing HIV/AIDS seems simple enough: give people information on how the disease is spread, and the desire for self-preservation will, naturally, make them adopt safer sexual behaviour. The reality has proved much more complex. Almost 30 years after it was first diagnosed, ignorance about HIV/AIDS still persists. According to the UNAIDS Epidemic Update for 2005, [www.unaids.org] \"there is new evidence that prevention programmes initiated some time ago are currently helping to bring down HIV prevalence in Kenya and Zimbabwe\" but, overall, prevention efforts have a poor track record, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, which is home to two-thirds of all people living with HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa: Global ARV Needs Far Short of Targets","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200511230741.html","body":"The world's need for antiretroviral drug (ARV) access is \"far from met\" due to funding shortfalls, Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund, has said following the release of a UNAIDS epidemic update. Stressing that the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was still in need of US $3.3 billion to meet its 2006 and 2007 goals, Feachem said the UNAIDS report was an affirmation that global investments and commitment could have an impact on the devastation of the pandemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"An approach to estimating human resource requirements for the MDGs","field_subtitle":"Health Policy and Planning 2005 20(5):267-276","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/20/5/267?etoc","body":"In the context of the Millennium Development Goals, human resources represent the most critical constraint in achieving the targets. Therefore, it is important for health planners and decision-makers to identify what are the human resources required to meet those targets. Planning the human resources for health is a complex process. It needs to consider both the technical aspects related to estimating the number, skills and distribution of health personnel for meeting population health needs, and the political implications, values and choices that health policy- and decision-makers need to make within given resources limitations.\r\n\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"AU Health Ministers Meeting speaks out on TRIPS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/ip-health/2005-October/008440.html","body":"An AU Health Ministers meeting was held in Gaborone, Botswana 13-14 October 2005. On TRIPS, the final statement of the meeting said:\r\n- UNDERTAKE to pursue, with the support of our partners, the local production of generic medicines on the continent and to making full use of the flexibilities in the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) and the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health;\r\n- CALL UPON our Ministers of Trade to seek a more appropriate permanent solution at the WTO that revises the TRIPS agreement and removes all constraints, including procedural requirements, relating to the export and import of generic medicines;\r\n- CALL UPON Member States and Regional Economic Communities to ensure that TRIPS plus provisions which go beyond TRIPS obligations are not introduced in bilateral / regional trade agreements or in economic partnership agreements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Breaking the link between poverty and illness","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=1&i=h1gb1g8&u=43940105","body":"Cutting poverty and reducing the burden of disease are major global development goals. Can strategies tackle these tasks in parallel, by focusing on very poor people? The health sector can borrow strategies from welfare services to reduce the risk of health-related shocks, ease their impact and break the vicious cycle of poverty and ill-health. Poor people often have higher risks of adverse events and fewer means to cope with them than wealthier groups. A paper produced for a UK Department for International Development workshop analyses health-related shocks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Campaigning Toolkit for Civil Society Organisations engaged in the MDGs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.civicus.org/mdg/1-1.htm","body":"This manual aims to assist civil society organisation in campaigning for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Millennium Development Goals form an ambitious agenda for reducing poverty and improving lives. World leaders formulated the MDGs at the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000. Each goal contains one or more targets to be reached by 2015, and each country has to set realistic, time-bound and measurable national development goals in line with these targets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Changing the face of violence prevention","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/features/2005/violence/en/index.html","body":"Each year, over 1.6 million people worldwide die as a result of violence. Violence is among the leading causes of death for people aged 15-44 years, accounting for 14% of deaths among men and 7% of deaths among women worldwide. For every person who dies, many more are injured and suffer from a range of physical, sexual, reproductive and mental health problems. Violence can be prevented. Through the Global Campaign for Violence Prevention, WHO and its many partners are contributing to a new way of thinking about violence prevention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Disillusion in southern Africa ahead of trade summit","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/newsflash.php#4095","body":"Campaigners from Southern Africa are bracing for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks to be held in Hong Kong later this month. Some plan to send representatives to the meeting, to protest against unfair trade legislation \u2013 particularly as this relates to agriculture. These representatives will include two cotton farmers from Zimbabwe, says Ntando Ndlovu of the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in the capital, Harare.\r\n\r\n\"The two farmers will be in Hong Kong and make noise using anything, including the beating of drums,\" she told a gathering of Southern African activists this week at a conference held in the South African commercial hub of Johannesburg. Ndlovu also urged Mozambique and South Africa to send cotton farmers in support of their Zimbabwean counterparts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Dysentery spreads in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30532","body":"Four people died of dysentery last month in northern Zimbabwe in what appears to be the first outbreak of the disease outside the capital, reports said. An outbreak of the highly contagious diarrhoeal disease was reported earlier this month in Harare and its satellite town of Chitungwiza. Two hundred people were taken to hospital.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"End State Sanctioned Denial in South Africa","field_subtitle":"A TAC briefing on why TAC and SAMA are taking the Minister of Health to court","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30656","body":"The Treatment Action Campaign and the South African Medical Association (SAMA) have filed court papers against the Minister of Health, the Medicines Control Council (MCC), the Western Cape MEC for Health, as well as pharmaceutical proprietor Matthias Rath and several of his employees and associates, including AIDS denialists Anthony Brink, David Rasnick and Sam Mhlongo (Professor of Family Medicine, MEDUNSA). This briefing explains why.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by \r\n\r\nFahamu - Networks for Social Justice\r\nhttp://www.fahamu.org/  \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter 58: Health on the road to the WTO's Hong Kong Ministerial Conference","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET regional review meeting: A common agenda for equity in health in east and southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Harare, 10-12 October 2005","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=635","body":"The regional review meeting brought together steering committee members; theme, process and country co-ordinators; colleagues working in key areas of work central to EQUINET\u2019s agenda; and civil society colleagues. The meeting reviewed EQUINET current work to shape and critically debate the form and content for the annual equity analysis at regional (and country) level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Good economics: implementing cost-effective strategies against malaria","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h4kh1g3.html","body":"Many governments in affected countries have failed to introduce cost-effective approaches to tackle malaria. Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine reviewed the literature on malaria control and used economic analysis to assess demand for and supply of malaria control methods. The authors make recommendations for improving both the prevention and treatment of this major public health problem. Governments need to play a role in ensuring access to cost-effective interventions for malaria treatment and prevention. Often such preventions are beyond the means of individuals, and the high costs of treating severe malaria can drive households into poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health civil society issues statement on the struggle for health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\"Health civil society groups in Zimbabwe and east and southern Africa, recognising the initiative of health civil society in the region met in Harare on the 13th of October 2005 to discuss our struggles for health. We agreed on the following resolutions.\r\n\r\nWe are united, together with health civil society in the region, around the core principles and values of: \r\n- the fundamental right to health and life\r\n- equity and social justice\r\n- people-led and people-centred health systems\r\n- public over commercial interests in health (health before profits)\r\n- people-led and grassroots-driven regional integration.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31174","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health on the road to the WTO's Hong Kong Ministerial Conference: Deception and exploitation and leading the fight against improved public health","field_subtitle":"Riaz Tayob","field_url":"","body":"The current WTO negotiations, headed for the next trade ministers meeting in Hong Kong in December, look set for more protection of corporate rights and a further erosion of health rights in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPs). Outcomes in these discussions depend on a breakthrough in the agricultural negotiations.\r\n\r\nWhile health is a basic human right, the protection of this right still has little recognition in the global trade agenda. The formal recognition of public health interests is in fact subjugated to the interests of corporate profit, with the protection of these corporate interests by rich countries. \r\n\r\nWhile the TRIPs agreement allows violations of patent rights for public non-commercial use, compulsory licensing and parallel importation, these rights are not exercised because political pressure is brought to bear on countries that try to use them.  TRIPs are creating a false scarcity of access to pharmaceutical drugs. Developing country governments and civil society campaigned at the 2001 Doha, Qatar World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Conference to improve access to drugs. This ended with a statement of ministers (restating the rights contained in the 1995 agreement) allowing countries to use flexibilities in the agreement to legally bypass patent rights.\r\n\r\nSince achieving this confirmation of rights, global public health has suffered a series of defeats. Flexibilities are still not being used because unseen threats are made against countries that try to use their rights. The practical import of these deceptively generous rights in TRIPS is nullified, while rich countries are still able to exercise them (such as when the US accessed patented drugs to cope with the threat of a terrorist anthrax attack).\r\n\r\nEven when flexibilities are exercised, African countries still have a problem that compulsory licensing under TRIPs can be used to produce mainly for local consumption. Countries with low or no local production capacity, cannot access branded drugs because of price. They cannot import generic drugs produced under compulsory licenses in other countries because other countries must comply with the local consumption regulations where up to 49% of production can be exported. Before the 2003 Cancun Ministerial, a settlement was reached allowing countries with limited local production capacity a waiver to import these drugs, but the waiver agreement is so onerous as to be useless. It has not been used once since coming into effect \u2013 not even by developed countries who can also take advantage of this flexibility to export drugs to poorer parts of the world.\r\n\r\nThe WTO Secretariat - supposedly merely international civil servants - also changed the signed text of the waiver, by including a footnote and asterisk after the signature. (The footnote refers to a document that was not part of the agreement, called the Chairman's text, which carries language about sustainable development and the fundamental rights to food, productive assets, development, health, education, economic, social and cultural autonomy, and self-determination but insists that signatories must resort to market mechanisms to claim these rights.) The US insists this footnote should guide the interpretation of the waiver, while developing countries regard it as irrelevant. The WTO Secretariat has refused to remove the asterisk and the footnote, despite the millions of lives affected by its addition. \r\n\r\nAfrica is pushing for a useable settlement in current negotiations, seeking to amend the TRIPs agreement and remove the onerous conditions in the waiver \u2013 so they can access low cost drugs. This has been summarily rejected by the US which wishes to retain current arrangements to protect profits and divert cheaper drugs into their markets. The EU is playing a brokering role, with the same ends as the US, but minimising the ambitions of the Africans in a more diplomatic way.\r\n\r\nAnd with no progress on TRIPs, rich countries are making more demands on developing countries. The draft text on services for the Hong Kong Ministerial negotiations disregards developing countries submissions on domestic regulation and reflects the rich country proposals. It promotes the \u201clist it or lose it\u201d approach to regulations, requiring countries to list restrictive regulations or face losing them if challenged at the WTO. Developing countries have opposed the deception that the draft text reflects a possible consensus position: these objections have been \u201cnoted\u201d, but not reflected in the text.\r\n\r\nRegulatory measures are major impediments to international services trade. The GATS agreement \u2013 which regulates professional health services, health care services and health insurance \u2013 places disciplines on the state\u2019s ability to regulate the service sector. Only \u201cnecessary\u201d regulations can be validly imposed, with GATS demanding that \u2018necessity\u2019 be determined by the WTO and not by nations themselves \u2013 effectively outsourcing government regulatory power to the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body in Geneva.  Therefore, GATS will seriously limit the ability of states to manage destructive competition and create adequate economies of scale. They will undermine the flexibility to use subsidies to the poor and cross-subsidisation. For poor countries, these commitments are effectively permanent because reversing commitments requires the payment of compensation that poor countries can ill-afford.\r\n \r\nTo add insult to injury, the EU demands countries in the south liberalise service sectors while giving European civil society \u201cassurance\u201d that their public services will not be put on the table. The EU says there is a crisis in the services talks with too few offers of liberalisation on the table from developing countries. Developing countries contend that offers from the rich countries do not match their export interests, so they cannot take the blame for the lack of progress in negotiations. To improve the liberalisation offers on the table, the EU proposes changes in the GATS negotiations process. Instead of countries volunteering a list of sectors the EU is demanding that target benchmarks be set for liberalisation of sub-sectors.  Qualitatively, the EU wants: limits removed with respect to consumption of services abroad; increased access to cross border trade and commercial presence; removal of foreign equity ownership; and the reduction of discriminatory economic needs tests.  Developing countries have rejected this aggressive pursuit of GATS. \r\n\r\nThe most important matter in the WTO remains agriculture, which could unblock all the other negotiations. Rich country subsidies allow produce to be sold at prices below the cost of production. These subsidies (to the tune of US$ 1 billion per day) play havoc with international commodity prices and undermine the export market interests of developing countries. Compounding this are demands for reduced import tariffs in developing countries.  The subsidy cuts offered by the EU and US will have little or no impact and leave us far from an international trading system that promotes the type of food sovereignty needed for improved food security and nutrition outlined in earlier EQUINET newsletters. \r\n\r\nThe current WTO negotiations expose the extent to which proposals from the rich countries will seriously undermine advances in public health. The trade, political and other pressures brought to bear indicate that below a veneer of  \u2018democratic functioning\u2019 the discussion on global trade continues to be held within institutional arrangements and processes that protect excesses of wealth and hide the exploitation of the poorest nations in the world. \r\n\r\n* Riaz Tayob is from SEATINI and represents EQUINET's theme work on trade and health.\r\n\r\n* Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to SEATINI at www.seatini.org  or to the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC, email admin@equinetafrica.org EQUINET work on trade and health is available at the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV transmission still on the up, says UN report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/epi2005/doc/report_pdf.html","body":"There is new evidence that adult HIV infection rates have decreased in certain countries and that changes in behaviour to prevent infection - such as increased use of condoms, delay of first sexual experience and fewer sexual partners - have played a key part in these declines. A new UN report  - Aids Epidemic Update - also indicates, however, that overall trends in HIV transmission are still increasing, and that far greater HIV prevention efforts are needed to slow the epidemic. Kenya, Zimbabwe and some countries in the Caribbean region all show declines in HIV prevalence over the past few years with overall adult infection rates decreasing in Kenya from a peak of 10% in the late 1990s to 7% in 2003 and evidence of drops in HIV rates among pregnant women in Zimbabwe from 26% in 2003 to 21% in 2004. In urban areas of Burkina Faso prevalence among young pregnant women declined from around 4% in 2001 to just under 2% in 2003.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS and the World Bank","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30491","body":"The World Bank states that as of the end of 2004, 39 million people worldwide were living with HIV/AIDS, of which more than 95 per cent were in low- and middle-income countries. Nearly two-thirds are in sub-Saharan Africa, and nearly one in five in South or Southeast Asia. The World Bank has been carrying out efforts to prevent HIV/AIDS and mitigate its impact since the late 1980s. Most efforts have been over the last decade: only 9 free-standing AIDS projects and 22 with AIDS components of at least $1 million have been completed. Nearly two thirds of its global projects and commitments have been launched since 2000, the majority of which are accounted for in the Africa Multi-Country AIDs Programme (MAP).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Human resources for health in Africa","field_subtitle":"BMJ  2005;331:1037-1038 ","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/extract/331/7524/1037","body":"African countries have a very low density health workforce, compounded by poor skill mix and inadequate investment. Yet trained healthcare staff continue to migrate from Africa to more developed countries. The World Health Organization has estimated that, to meet the ambitious targets of the millennium development goals, African health services will need to train and retain an extra one million health workers by 2010.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Impasse on TRIPS talks and the Health permanent solution","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/twninfohealth015.htm","body":"The World Trade Organisation was supposed to conclude a \u2018permanent solution\u2019 to the problem facing countries that have no or inadequate drug manufacturing capacity so that they can have access to affordable medicines. The impasse that has taken place in the recent negotiations brings into focus the importance of the issue to the developing countries in the light of the global avian flu threat and the shortage of the anti viral drug to treat bird flu. This Third World Network web page includes a  background note on the issue by Sangeetha Shashikant and the report on the talks by Martin Khor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Lack of Coordination, Leadership Led To Missed 3 by 5 Target, Treatment Advocacy Coalition Report Says","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30658","body":"The World Health Organization will miss its 3 by 5 Initiative target of treating three million HIV-positive people in developing countries with antiretroviral drugs by the end of this year because of a lack of cooperation and coordination internationally and a lack of national leadership, according to a report released by a coalition of HIV/AIDS treatment advocates, the New York Times reports. The International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, a group of 600 treatment advocates from more than 100 countries, produced the report, titled \"Missing the Target -- A Report on HIV/AIDS Treatment Access from the Frontlines,\" which aims to identify challenges to treatment access and provide solutions to overcome them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Listening and learning are crucial in the response to HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/viewpoints/AIDSIngridDec05.html","body":"Is high level HIV and AIDS policy cut off from the reality on the ground? Ingrid Young, editor of the Eldis HIV and AIDS Resource Guide, argues that policymakers need to listen to and learn from each other as well as from communities who are experiencing and responding to the crisis. \"The development community needs to focus on what communities and organisations are already doing, not only in their response to HIV and AIDS, but also in terms of how they share their information and experiences and how they collectively identify challenges and solutions,\" she writes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Medical costs push millions of people into poverty across the globe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr65/en/index.html","body":"Each year 100 million people slide into poverty as a result of medical care payments. Another 150 million people are forced to spend nearly half their incomes on medical expenses. That is because in many countries people have no access to social health protection - affordable health insurance or government-funded health services. Paradoxically, people in the world\u2019s poorest countries contribute relatively more for health care than those in wealthy industrialized nations. In Germany, for example, where the average GDP per capita is US$ 32 860 and almost everyone has social health protection, 10% of all medical expenses nationwide are borne by households.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"New health information gateway","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Alma Mata is a new UK-based information gateway and network for professionals and students interested in careers, training, research and campaigns in international health. You can find us at www.almamata.net.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"No consensus on solution to brain drain","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nationmalawi.com/articles.asp?articleID=13621","body":"International and local delegates to the Scotland-Malawi conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland recently were alarmed with the shortage of health workers in the country which they said has worsened due to brain drain. But the conference failed to reach a consensus to curb the problem. Some delegates suggested that an immediate deportation of the health workers from the United Kingdom while others proposed that the UK should pay back.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"No development without research: A challenge for capacity strengthening","field_subtitle":"Global Forum for Health Research, August 2005","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/filesupld/RCS/RCS_Nuyens.pdf","body":"Health research is indispensable for improving health and health equity and contributing to overall development. Many developing countries have made substantial investments in building and enhancing their capacities for research in health and related fields, and these efforts have been supported and extended by programmes of development agencies and research institutions located in high-income countries. Despite decades of such efforts, and notwithstanding some notable examples of success, the overall picture of progress is a mixed one.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"PlusNews treatment map","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/aids/treatment.asp","body":"At the end of 2004, PlusNews introduced a periodically updated Treatment Map to monitor the rollout of antiretroviral treatment in Africa, providing data for each country on the total number of people on treatment, the drug regimens used, and latest funding provided by the Global Fund, World Bank and PEPFAR. PlusNews is pleased to announce updated data for the following countries: Kenya, Cote d'Ivoire, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda, Madagascar, South Africa, Ghana, Botswana, Namibia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Priorities for research to take forward the health equity policy agenda","field_subtitle":"WHO Task Force on Research Priorities for Equity in Health","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/12/948.pdf","body":"Despite impressive improvements in aggregate indicators of health globally over the past few decades, health inequities between and within countries have persisted, and in many regions and countries are widening. We recommend that highest priority be given to research in five general areas: (1) global factors and processes that affect health equity and/or constrain what countries can do to address health inequities within their own borders; (2) societal and political structures and relationships that differentially affect people's chances of being healthy within a given society; (3) interrelationships between factors at the individual level and within the social context that increase or decrease the likelihood of achieving and maintaining good health; (4) characteristics of the health care system that influence health equity and (5) effective policy interventions to reduce health inequity in the first four areas.\r\n\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Promoting equitable health care financing in the African context: Current challenges and future prospects","field_subtitle":"Equinet discussion paper","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=636","body":"The issue of appropriate mechanisms for mobilising health care financing resources is once again high on the policy agenda of African governments. The objectives of this paper are to critically evaluate how health services are currently funded, explore recent trends in health care financing and identify lessons from the health care financing experience of African countries. It also considers the implications of this review for policy, advocacy and future research needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health care under pressure in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Health Policy. 2005 ","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15694503&dopt=Citation","body":"Taking as point of departure the need for a strong public health care sector in developing countries the article firstly outlines how in sub-Saharan Africa enhanced scarcity has characterized the content and quality of health care in the public sector. This has eroded the trust among the public in the government as provider of health care and guardian of public health. Secondly, it describes how workers in the public health domain have dealt with the implications of scarcity by etching out a \"puvate\" zone in health care provision and how these informal activities need to be interpreted as \"muddling through\". ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-private mix for DOTS: towards scaling up","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC20233&Resource=f1health","body":"This report from the World Health Organization summarises proceedings from an international working group meeting on public-private sector mix (PPM) programmes for expanding DOTS (directly observed treatment, short-course), the internationally recognised TB control strategy. The meeting stressed that effective scale-up of PPM DOTS must ensure access to TB care for all population groups. Key barriers to scaling up PPM DOTS included lack of capacity for technical support at national, regional and global levels, and weak advocacy and promotion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Radio Broadcasting for Health","field_subtitle":"DFID / Department for International Development (DFID), UK, 2004","field_url":"http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/icdradioshealthbrochure.pdf","body":"This paper provides an overview of the role radio broadcasting can play in promoting better health for poor people. It has been conceptualised within the context of global efforts to reduce the burden of disease and ill health on poor people and advocates a people-centred and rights-based approach to health communications that emphasises: working with poor communities to gain an understanding of the full range of epidemiological, behavioural and risk taking factors that drive disease and ill health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Report of the regional review meeting: Promoting health in trade agreements","field_subtitle":"Johannesburg, 29 October 2005","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=646","body":"The workshop aimed to review the work and research papers of the capacity building programme implemented in Tanzania and Zimbabwe to date. The purpose of the workshop was thus to review the training, findings and programme in order to identify issues arising for policy support, future capacity building, extension to other countries in the region and to strengthen linkages with other work on trade and health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Research fellows","field_subtitle":"The Institute of Development Studies","field_url":"","body":"IDS is one of the world's leading organisations for research, teaching and communications on international development. The Institute works with a network of global partners to generate cutting edge knowledge as a basis for bringing alternative ideas and fresh solutions to the real world challenges of development policy and practice. Research at IDS is grouped around five key themes \u2013 governance, participation, competing in the global economy, governing science and technology, and managing risk and vulnerability. Much of the work at IDS is multidisciplinary in nature, and most is carried out in collaboration with partners from around the world. The research community at IDS consists of approximately 50 Fellows and 40 other researchers and academic support staff, and is enhanced by Visiting Fellows from many countries.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31169","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Reviewing  national priorities for child health research in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Health Research Policy and Systems 2005, 3:7","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/3/1/7/abstract","body":"There are few systematically developed national research priorities for child health that exist in sub-Saharan Africa. Children's interests may be distorted in prioritisation processes that combine all age groups. Future development of priorities requires a common reporting framework and specific consideration of childhood priorities, according to a review of national priorities for child health research published in Health Research Policy and Systems 2005. The research reviewed existing national child health research priorities in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the processes used to determine them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Statement by Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa,  on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2005 ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"There are many occasions during the course of the year to pronounce about the pandemic. On the occasion of this World AIDS Day, I\u2019d like to resist the temptation to run with hyperbole. Rather, I\u2019d like to put two specific proposals which may seem obvious, but which speak, I believe, to the heart of the struggle against the virus.\r\n\r\nThe first involves dollars. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria --- the best financial vehicle by far to help break the back of the pandemic --- is in terrible trouble. It is over three billion dollars short for 2006 and 2007, and that shortfall will doom millions to death in the following years unless something drastic is done, and fast.\r\n\r\nWhat has happened was completely unexpected. The G8 leaders met at Gleneagles in July, and emerged with ringing promises of financial assistance for Africa. The first test of those promises came just eight weeks later, in early September, at the replenishment conference for the Global Fund. The G8 flunked the test. The assumption was that the Global Fund would go right over the top given the rhetoric of the Gleneagles Summit, but instead, having requested $7.1 billion, the Global Fund fell billions short.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s fair to say that everyone was stunned. It took only eight short weeks for the G8\u2019s signed agreement to fall apart.\r\n\r\nI\u2019ve just spent the last three days in Rwanda at the regional conference of the Global Fund for East Africa and the Indian Ocean. It\u2019s absolutely astonishing to see how determined the countries are to achieve the goal of universal treatment by 2010, but they\u2019re frightened by the prospect of not having sustainable resources. They know they can\u2019t interrupt treatment once it\u2019s started, but what guarantee do they have, under present circumstances, that the G8 will be by their side as promised?\r\n\r\nAll they can count on, for certain, is betrayal.\r\n \r\nThat must somehow be reversed. The year 2005 showed that treatment is possible in great numbers, and there is a strong sense that if the momentum can be sustained, the back of the pandemic can be broken. But that will depend on a continuing, reliable flow of resources. It depends on the commitments of the G8 being honoured. With the loss of honour goes the loss of life.\r\n\r\nHowever, in addition to keeping the pressure on governments, we need a new source of dollars. That source must be the private sector. It was always hoped -- indeed, even expected -- that private sector money from major multinational corporations would help to keep the Global Fund going. It hasn\u2019t happened. The contributions are negligible. It\u2019s as though most of the private sector doesn\u2019t know the Global Fund exists.\r\n\r\nI want to suggest that companies contribute 0.7% of pre-tax profits annually to the Global Fund. To maintain the symmetry with governments and the Millennium Development Goals, they should phase the money in and reach the full target by 2015. Which corporations? Pretty obviously, I think, the big multinational corporations that have exacted such huge wealth from Africa\u2019s mineral, diamond, oil and other resources over the decades, and certainly the pharmaceutical industry, which resisted the lowering of drug prices for an unconscionable length of time. \r\n\r\nBut there may be an even better and fairer way to select the corporate contributors. The Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS has a membership of some two hundred multinational corporations.  Many of these corporations deal admirably with their workforces, providing antiretroviral drugs to their workers where necessary, and sometimes to the workers\u2019 partners and children. Others of these corporations make in-kind contributions, or investments in research and training centres. But the true expression of corporate social responsibility would be a 0.7% contribution to the Global Fund. If the principle spread, the dollars would mount unto the billions.\r\n\r\nThere\u2019s no reason to feel cynical about such a proposition. People mocked when Gordon Brown talked of his International Finance Facility, but now it\u2019s well and truly launched. People mocked when France advanced the idea of a tax on airline travel to fund development, but now President Chirac seems determined to proceed. There\u2019s room for every genuine initiative.\r\n\r\nThis effort would show the world that the pandemic can be beaten. \r\n\r\nNow allow me to switch gears and deal with a particular aspect of children and AIDS which reveals an appalling double standard, and must be dealt with. In fact, it should have been dealt with several years ago.\r\n\r\nThe overwhelming majority of HIV-positive children are infected by the virus during and following the birthing process. Children infected in early infancy usually die before the age of two. There are more than half a million deaths of children from AIDS every year.  \r\n\r\nIn many countries, primarily in Africa, there are programs in place called PMTCT, Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission. Unfortunately, most of these are merely pilot programs: fewer than ten per cent of HIV- positive pregnant women have access to PMTCT. That, in itself, is scandalous.\r\n\r\nIn most countries the PMTCT program uses what is called single-dose nevirapine \u2026 one tablet of that drug to the mother during labour and a liquid equivalent of the drug for the child within 48 hours of birth. Incredibly enough, the transmission is cut by close to 50 per cent! Half the babies who would otherwise be born positive are born negative.\r\n\r\nThat, of course, is wonderful. But compare it with North America (or anywhere in the western world). North American hospitals do not use the drug nevirapine; they use full antiretroviral triple-dose combination therapy from approximately 28 weeks through to the  end of the pregnancy. The result? The transmission rate drops to between one and two per cent!! \r\n\r\n \r\nWhy do we tolerate one regimen for Africa (second-rate) and another for the rich nations (first rate)? Why do we tolerate the carnage of African children, and save the life of every western child? Is it possible to do full therapy in Africa rather than single dose nevirapine? Of course it is. Doctors Without Borders does it in Uganda; Partners in Health does it in Rwanda; Saint Egidio does it in Mozambique. In fact, Rwanda is introducing a formal protocol to make sure that full therapy is provided in every setting where PMTCT is available. They are the first country to do so.\r\n\r\nIt leaves the mind reeling to think of the millions of children who should be alive and aren\u2019t alive, simply because the world imposes such an obscene division between rich and poor. That\u2019s about to change, but why does it always come after an horrific toll is taken?\r\n\r\nThere is another aspect of saving children\u2019s lives that is much neglected and much rationalized. Even when transmission is prevented during pregnancy and birth, the virus can still be passed through breast milk. Therefore, we require safe solutions to infant feeding, including secure supplies of formula where feasible, with careful instruction about clean bottles and preparation, and all of it provided free: there\u2019s just no possibility of rural village women in Africa being able to pay for breast milk substitutes. \r\n\r\nResearch available so far indicates that that, too, must become public policy wherever possible. And where it\u2019s not possible or safe, exclusive breast-feeding for six months is undoubtedly the best course. It\u2019s worth noting that it took almost a decade to finally develop antiretroviral drug preparations for children with AIDS. The time has come to reduce, dramatically, the numbers of children who begin their lives infected.\r\n\r\nOn this World AIDS Day, 2005, I have the deep impression that if only we could galvanize the world, we\u2019d subdue this pandemic. We\u2019re terrific when it comes to studies and documentation. Reports like the Epidemic Update issued by UNAIDS last week are models of statistical compilation, containing pockets of fascinating material. But the report itself acknowledges that real progress against the pandemic is hard to find.\r\n\r\nWe need a superhuman effort from every corner of the international community. We\u2019re not getting it. At the present rate, we\u2019ll have a cumulative total of one hundred million deaths and infections by the year 2012. We call ourselves an advanced civilization. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The GATS and South Africa's National Health Act","field_subtitle":"Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives","field_url":"http://www.policyalternatives.ca/Reports/2005/11/ReportsStudies1244/index.cfm?pa=BB736455","body":"This new study shows how South Africa's flagship health legislation conflicts with binding commitments the former apartheid regime negotiated under the World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).\u00a0 This trade treaty conflict threatens to undermine the much-needed legislation and, if left unresolved, would make meeting the health needs of the majority of the population far more difficult.\u00a0 The study explores several options that South Africa has for resolving this conflict in favour of its health policy imperatives, but each entails risk.\u00a0 South Africa's dilemma should serve as a world-wide warning that health policy-makers, governments and citizens need to be far more attentive to negotiations that are now underway in Geneva to expand the reach of the GATS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Forum for Health Research announces a call for abstracts of presentations for its 2006 annual meeting","field_subtitle":"Forum 10, Cairo, Egypt, from 29 October to 2 November 2006","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/Site/004__Annual%20meeting/002__Forum%2010/002__Call%20for%20abstracts.php","body":"The Global Forum for Health Research invites you to submit an abstract for Forum 10 in any area of health research relevant to promoting health, combating diseases and improving global health in general and the health of poor and marginalized populations in particular. Papers addressing these areas from a national, sub-national or regional perspective are particularly invited. The Global Forum welcomes submissions from all parts of the world and encourages participation from lower income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The pharmaceutical industry and access to ARVs in Africa","field_subtitle":"Health Action International Briefing Paper","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30648","body":"\"The private pharmaceutical industry remains the most important source for the global supply of ARVs today. While the research-based pharmaceutical companies have been responsible for development of many of the medicines used to treat HIV/AIDS, the generic industry for its part has contributed enormously to making widespread treatment possible in the developing world, because of their innovative fixed dose combination tablets (FDCs) and their more affordable prices relative to their brand-name equivalents. FDCs mean that all the required medicines can be combined into one pill which often patients take just once or twice a day.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The social and economic impact of South Africa\u2019s social security system","field_subtitle":"Economic Policy Research Institute (EPRI), South Africa , 2004","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC19845&resource=f1","body":"Social grants play a critical role in reducing poverty and promoting development in South Africa. This study evaluates the socio-economic impact of various social grants including child support grants, disability grants and state pensions. The paper further examines their effects on the household, the labour market and the economy. The paper begins by assessing the impact of social assistance on poverty reduction. To evaluate the level of poverty, the authors use different methodological approaches including absolute and relative measures. The second section investigates the effects of social grants on households\u2019 access to health care, schooling, housing, water and electricity. The third section examines the impact of social security on employment and productivity. Finally the paper analyses the impact of this public expenditure on macro-economic indicators including national savings and consumption.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Training Workshop on Participatory methods for research and training for a people centred health system","field_subtitle":"Call for Participants","field_url":"","body":"This call invites applicants to participate and share experiences in a Workshop on Participatory Methods for for research and training for a people centred health system being held in Bagamoyo, Tanzania, March 1-4, 2006. TARSC and IHRDC under the EQUINET umbrella and with support from  CHESSORE have developed a toolkit of materials on participatory reflection and action (PRA) methods for research and training for a people centred health system. The materials provide information on areas for strengthening community voice and roles in health systems and introduce and provide examples of participatory approaches for training and research that supports this.  The toolkit provides practical examples that can be used in field work, but also builds broader understanding of the elements of participatory methodologies for health. It aims to support work at national, district and local level with health systems and communities in health, with a major focus on the interactions at primary health care level. \r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31197","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"What is the impact of IMF, WB and WTO liberalization and privatization of the water service sector on the poor?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.servicesforall.org/","body":"Is the water privatization heavily promoted by the International Financial Institutions, a good thing for the poorest in the developing countries? A new report by Nancy Alexander of the Citizen's network on essential services takes a skeptical view. A UN report, \"Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Liberalization of Trade in Services and Human Rights\" claimed that increased foreign private investment in public services can upgrade national infrastructure, introduce new technology and provide employment. However, the report also argues that it can lead to negative impacts to the poorest.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Women Who Suffer Domestic Violence Experience Long-Lasting Health Problems, Report Says","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30605","body":"Women who suffer physical abuse from intimate partners - the most common form of violence perpetrated against women worldwide - experience serious health consequences, according to a report released in November by the World Health Organization, the AP/Boston Globe reports. The survey of 24,000 women in 10 countries found that women who suffer domestic abuse were twice as likely as other women to suffer health problems, including pain, dizziness, gynecological and mental health problems, which persist after the abuse has stopped, the report says.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A Call to Action: PHR Asks African Health Ministers to Link Long-term Health Plans to the Millennium Development Goals","field_subtitle":"Physicians for Human Rights statement","field_url":"http://www.phrusa.org/campaigns/aids/news_2005-10-06.html","body":"Many African health ministries face insufficient and unpredictable funding from development partners and others, and have limited resources to devote to even important tasks such as long-term planning in developing their health work forces. PHR is calling on African Union ministers of health, who meet in Botswana in mid-October, to commit to developing targets, plans, and budgets for health workforces and systems to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, as well as other health aims. The challenges to developing these plans are real, but the potential benefits to them are immense.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to medicines in under-served markets","field_subtitle":"DFID Health Systems Resources Paper","field_url":"http://www.dfidhealthrc.org/shared/publications/Issues_papers/ATM/DFID_synthesis_aw.pdf","body":"\"Major changes in international trade, intellectual property (IP) protections and drug registration requirements are substantially affecting pharmaceutical markets, with significant implications for access to medicines by poor people. Within this framework, and drawing on legal, regulatory, economic and pharmaceutical industry expertise, the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) has commissioned a series of seven studies. The studies, summarised in this paper, examine the policy implications of these trends for emerging producers of generic medicines such as India and China, and for poor people in developing countries.A key question is how strengthened intellectual property protections and heightened registration standards may or may not improve access to medicines in these currently under-served markets.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa faces bitter harvest as WTO subsidy talks stall","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.tradeobservatory.org/index.cfm?RefID%20=77183","body":"Tony Blair is running out of time on achieving the third and most controversial part of the 'Marshall Plan for Africa' he promised earlier this year: trade justice. With just weeks to go before critical World Trade Organisation talks in Hong Kong, Europe and the US are in deadlock over how far they should open up their markets to farmers from poor countries - and what they will demand from the rest of the world in return.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"An action plan to prevent brain drain: Building Equitable Health","field_subtitle":"A report by Physicians for Human Rights","field_url":"http://www.phrusa.org/campaigns/aids/pdf/braindrain.pdf","body":"\"The nations of the world are setting ambitious health and development goals, including the World Health Organization (WHO) target of providing AIDS treatment to 3 million people by 2005 and health-related UN Millennium Development Goals. Unless greater attention by donors and governments is given to developing human resources, these goals almost certainly will not be met. Many of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the region that will be the focus of this report, are experiencing severe shortages of skilled health care workers. There are multiple causes, the significance of which varies by country, but one of the most important factors is brain drain.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Applying policy analysis in tackling implementation gaps","field_subtitle":"Paper Presented to Forum 9, Global Forum for Health Research, Mumbai, September 12-16th, 2005 pp 1-16","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=623","body":"Ultimately any policy or health system change, whether generated from within or outside national environments, has to work through those responsible for service delivery, and their interactions with the intended beneficiaries of those changes. Yet we continue to know too little about the experiences of these groups, including how their words, actions and beliefs shape the practice of implementation. This paper used policy analysis to understand these implementation gaps.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Letters of Intent - New Initiative","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Global Health Research Initiative (GHRI), a partnership among the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Health Canada (HC) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), invites letters of intent from teams composed of Canadian and low and middle-income country (LMIC) researchers and research users (e.g. policy makers, practitioners, civil society organizations and community members), interested in developing innovative multi-year programs that combine applied research, knowledge translation and capacity building to solve pressing health problems in LMICs. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31149","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Papers: Knowledge Management for Development Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Knowledge Management for Development (KM4Dev) community of practice (www.km4dev.org) publishes a peer-reviewed, open access e-journal in the field of knowledge sharing for development, the 'Knowledge Management for Development Journal' (KM4D Journal) at www.km4dev.org/journal The first issue of the second volume (2006) will deal with 'Effective knowledge sharing for development in Africa.' Guest editors comprise Dina El Halaby, Reine Djuidje Kouam, Kingo Mchombu and Alice Mungwa, working with Chief Editor, Julie Ferguson.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31147","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Cash plea to fight Africa's forgotten diseases that kill 500,000 a year ","field_subtitle":"The Guardian UK news report","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1589272,00.html","body":"Scientists have called for a more balanced approach in distributing the billions of pounds available for controlling tropical diseases. In a paper published recently, they said that a focus by governments and charities on the big three tropical diseases - HIV, malaria and tuberculosis - had left millions of the poorest people in Africa without treatment for a range of illnesses.\r\nThe neglected diseases, which include schistosomiasis, river blindness, ascariasis, elephantiasis and trachoma, affect more than 750 million people and kill at least 500,000 every year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Draft Charter on Private and Public Health Care in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Critical Health Perspectives","field_url":"","body":"The Department of Health\u2019s recently released Draft Charter of the Public and Private Health Sectors (CPPHS) aims to address the legacy of apartheid restraint on access to health care for all South Africans. It commits public and private sectors to create \u201ca health care system that is coherent, cost-effective and quality driven \u2026 for the benefit of the entire population\u201d and to work together \u201cto improve the scope, accessibility and quality of care at all levels\u201d. For these laudable goals we give our wholehearted support.  The CPPHS specifies four \u201ckey areas\u201d of transformation: access to health services, equity in health services, quality of health services, and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). The first three \u2013 access to, equity in, and quality of health care services, are essential (though not enough) to meet the goal of health for all South Africans. The fourth area is problematic. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31148","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Elusive trail of AIDS funds to NGOs in Africa","field_subtitle":"Reuters news report","field_url":"http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L13224875.htm","body":"Where have the billions of dollars poured into Africa to fight AIDS gone? A lot of this money is channelled through non-governmental organisations (NGOs) mainly to pay for life-prolonging drugs and education campaigns on a continent where many national healthcare systems are broke and in tatters. Donors increasingly prefer to fund NGOs rather than African governments, many of which are seen as corrupt. But because the NGOs number in the thousands, it is unclear how much money they have received or how it was used.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by \r\n\r\nFahamu - Networks for Social Justice\r\nhttp://www.fahamu.org/  \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter 57: Equity in the Distribution of Health Personnel in southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equitable health care financing and poverty challenges in the African context","field_subtitle":"Paper Presented to Forum 9, Global Forum for Health Research, Mumbai, September 12-16th, 2005 pp 1-10","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=624","body":"This paper is based on a detailed and critical review of the literature relating to health care financing in the African context. The objectives are to: * Provide an overview of the equity challenges, particularly in relation to poverty concerns, of current health care financing mechanisms in Africa; * Provide a brief critical review of major recent developments in health care financing in Africa; and * Identify key issues in promoting equitable and poverty-reducing health care financing options in the African context. It is important to stress that health care financing mechanisms differ in each African country and that there are no \u2018one-size-fits-all\u2019 solutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in the distribution of health personnel in southern Africa: Report of regional meeting, 18-20 August 2005, Johannesburg","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The EQUINET regional meeting on Human Resources for Health August 19-20 2005 in Johannesburg South Africa discussed and debated Human Resources for Health (HRH) research and policy with a view to improving the equitable distribution of HRH within southern Africa. By the end of the deliberations, the delegates from government, non government, health worker, national, regional and international level at the meeting highlighted key areas of shared perspective on HRH.\r\n\r\nThe delegates noted an HRH crisis in east and southern Africa that has become more marked with the inadequate resourcing of the health sectors under economic reforms. The migration of HRH from the region to high income countries and the outflows of health workers from primary and district levels of health systems and from the public to private sectors leaves many low income communities with high health need with inadequate personnel for their health care services. This is a perverse outflow of public resources that undermines equity and the health system response to the major public health challenges in the region. \r\n\r\nThe multisectoral nature of policy implementation on HRH within government, and the international pull factors for migration of HRH were noted. Following the example of some countries in the region it was proposed that HRH be taken up as an issue for government as a whole and not just for the health sector, led by the highest level of government. At the same time Ministries of Health need the institutional latitude to facilitate training and strengthen retention of health workers. Constructing an appropriate policy framework given diverse contextual imperatives implies building a portfolio of policy measures and building policy implementation capacities.\r\n\r\nActing on HRH requires new resources, and, as raised by the African Ministers at the World Health Assembly in 2004 and again in 2005, delegates proposed international action and global transfers to address migration of and reinvestment in HRH. \r\n\r\nIt was proposed that HRH issues be addressed within the context of building and strengthening the public health sectors in the region. Towards this three areas of focus were identified for action: \r\n\r\n- Valuing health workers so that they are retained within national health systems. This includes reviewing and implementing policies on non-financial incentives for HRH such as career paths, housing, working conditions, management systems and communication. To support this delegates proposed greater investment in training in HRH supervision, in management and communication systems, HIS and HRH, and measures to support health workers own health.\r\n\r\n- Promoting relevant production of HRH, particularly in terms of the health personnel for district and primary care levels, and drawing on experience in the region on training of auxiliaries. For equitable distribution and retention the delegates noted the importance of appropriate selection of students and the need to locate training within career paths and incentives that recognise the HRH trained within the public health sector.\r\n\r\n- Responding to migration, which requires closing the evidence gap with respect to migration (levels, flows and causes), financial flows, costs (benefits, losses) and return intentions and mapping the effectiveness of current policies. Delegates noted that migration represents a perverse subsidy calling for international policy responses that provide for reparation.\r\n\r\n* This is the consensus statement from a report of a regional meeting on 'Equity in the Distribution of Health Personnel in southern Africa', held 18 to 20  August 2005,  Johannesburg, South Africa. For the full report please visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REP082005hres.pdf ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in the distribution of health personnel in southern Africa: Report of regional meeting, 18-20 August 2005, Johannesburg","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=628","body":"The EQUINET regional meeting on Human Resources for Health August 19-20 2005 in Johannesburg South Africa discussed and debated Human Resources for Health (HRH) research and policy with a view to improving the equitable distribution of HRH within southern Africa. By the end of the deliberations, the delegates from government, non government, health worker, national, regional and international level at the meeting highlighted key areas of shared perspective on HRH.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Food and nutrition implications of antiretroviral therapy in resource limited settings","field_subtitle":"Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance Project (FANTA)","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC12273&Resource=f1health","body":"This technical note from the Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance (FANTA) Project provides information and guidance about the food and nutrition implications of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in resource limited settings. It discusses the effects of food on medication efficacy, the effects of medication on nutrient utilisation, the effects of medication side effects on food consumption, and unhealthy side effects caused by medication and certain foods. It also outlines ways to manage the effects of these drug-food interactions, with a particular focus on food security constraints in resource limited settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Getting workers\u2019 interests on the WTO agenda: an action guide for trade unionists","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC19462&Resource=f1glob","body":"In the run up to the WTO\u2019s 6th Ministerial Conference in December 2005 in Hong Kong, this trade union action guide provides background information as well as a number of tools with which to exert pressure on national governments and trade negotiators to ensure that the concerns trade unionists share globally about the latest round of negotiations are dealt with. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Grading evidence and recommendations for public health interventions","field_subtitle":"Report by the Health Development Agency, London","field_url":"http://www.publichealth.nice.org.uk/page.aspx?o=503421","body":"This provisional framework provides a practical and transparent method for deriving grades of recommendation for public health interventions, based on a synthesis of all relevant supporting evidence from research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health, Human Rights and Health Professionals","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.qu4rad.net/details.php?qu4RADweb=3a3d3991f1d2216bd10d461dc330aee1&articleid=757","body":"\"We would like to invite you to participate at the e-conference to be hosted by the Quality Network for Rational Drug Management, or QU4RAD Network, at www.qu4rad.net on 28 October to 5 November 2005. Entitled \u201cHealth, Human Rights and Health Professionals -What is the role of health professionals in promoting the peoples\u2019 rights to adequate, affordable and effective treatment of illnesses?\".\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Hunger crisis: learning from southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Id21 Research Highlight","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=1&i=s2ajc1g1&u=4367aa65","body":"How is the HIV/AIDS pandemic affecting food security in Lesotho, Malawi and Mozambique? How can humanitarian agencies speed up their response to hunger crisis in Africa? These are just two of many questions emerging from an independent evaluation of the 2002-2003 Disasters Emergency Committee Southern Africa Crisis Appeal. In 2001, abnormal rains led to flooding and water logging, substantially reducing maize production. Unable to store maize, farmers were forced to sell at low prices early in the season, and buy back at inflated prices later. The food crisis situation in Malawi - combined with chronic poverty, HIV/AIDS, poor governance, political instability, and misguided market reforms of neighboring countries \u2013 led to catastrophe throughout the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Immunization maintains strong performance made in last quarter century","field_subtitle":"Press Release","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr48/en/index.html","body":"Immunization at the global level has progressed very well during the past 25 years, but further increases in coverage would save the lives of millions more who do not yet benefit from this protection, said a group of immunization partners at the World Vaccine Congress in Lyon, France. This conclusion was drawn after an analysis of the latest immunization global data. The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, with financial support from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, conduct world-wide monitoring and work closely with Ministries of Health to produce estimates of immunization coverage each year. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Meeting report: Monitoring equity in ART provision in the context of health systems, Lilongwe, Malawi, 29-30 August 2005","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=634","body":"A regional meeting (hosted by EQUINET/Oxfam working with SADC in February 2004) identified the need to monitor equity in access and health systems issues as critical to supporting visibility, policy dialogue and programme planning on these issues of equity and health system strengthening. EQUINET, through Training and Research Support Centre, carried out work to assess the existing monitoring taking place in relation to expanding ART coverage and contracted the Equi-TB Knowledge Programme \u2013 now REACH Trust - Malawi, to write a paper on the area of monitoring equity and health systems impacts of ART expansion at subnational and national level, with recommendations for regional level monitoring.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Meeting the health-related needs of the very poor","field_subtitle":"Eldis Dossier","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/healthsystems/dossiers/v_poor","body":"There is a growing concern within the international development community that policies aimed at reducing the number of people living below the poverty line could leave the most disadvantaged groups behind. In line with these concerns, this Eldis dossier looks at different strategies for reaching the very poor within the health sector, and at the institutional challenges associated with scaling up health-related interventions to cover broader segments of the population.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mobilising Civil Society around an Alternative World Health Report","field_subtitle":"Global Health Watch Update","field_url":"","body":"Plans for the Global Health Watch 2007-2008 (GHW2) are underway which include a move of the secretariat to the Global Equity Gauge Alliance (GEGA) office at the Health Systems Trust in South Africa in October. The secretariat will be led by Antionette Ntuli and Bridget Lloyd of GEGA with the support of David Sanders from the University of the Western Cape. Thanks to Medact for hosting the GHW1 secretariat for the last two years. The GHW2 will be coordinated by a coalition of GEGA, Medact and the People's Health Movement (PHM) together with a new partner - the Health Research and Consultancy Centre (CEAS) based in Quito, Ecuador. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31139","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"New TB and Malaria News Summary Report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"GlobalHealthReporting.org helps journalists, researchers, policy makers and NGOs efficiently sort through the latest and most accurate information on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31131","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Perceptions of medical students, faculty and private GPs towards the utilization of private GPs in the teaching of undergraduate medical students in Malawi: a qualitative study","field_subtitle":"Produced under the EQUINET Student Grant Scheme","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=629","body":"A qualitative study was conducted in Malawi to describe the perceptions of medical students, recent medical graduates, faculty members of the Malawi College of Medicine and private general practitioners (GPs) towards a proposed utilization of GPs in the teaching of undergraduate medical students. General Practitioners welcomed these proposed changes whilst the majority of students, recent graduates and faculty were opposed to this idea. General practitioners were perceived not to be able to adapt to the culture of public teaching hospitals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Resolutions of the Health Civil Society in Southern and East Africa meeting, 13 October 2005","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=633","body":"Health civil society groups in Zimbabwe and east and southern Africa, met on 13 October 2005 to discuss struggles for health and agreed on the resolutions available through clicking on the web link provided, to be presented at the Southern African Social Forum on 14 October 2005.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC meeting on traditional medicine","field_subtitle":"Press statement","field_url":"","body":"The SADC Ministerial Sub-Committee on Traditional Medicine met at  Sheraton Hotel in Harare on 16 September 2005. With regard to legislation the Ministers agreed to encourage member states to start with the development of appropriate legislation on Traditional Medicine and that the legislation will cover amongst others, establishment of councils for Traditional Medicine, protection of practitioners and consumers including the issue of licensing Traditional Medical Practitioners.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31130","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual and reproductive health and rights: a cornerstone of development","field_subtitle":"Sida/Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), 2005","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC19698&Resource=f1health","body":"In this paper, the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (Sida) sets out its policy on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). It argues that violations of the right to sexual and reproductive health both cause and are caused by poverty. Therefore, realising SRHR is not only a goal in itself, but a means to fight poverty, underpinning all the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The paper considers sexual and reproductive health from the perspective of human rights and of the poor, emphasising the need to address power structures and their impacts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern African countries must prepare for bird flu","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49823","body":"The H5N1 strain of avian influenza, or bird flu, remains a global threat, but while Southern Africa should prepare for its emergence, the region needed to bear in mind that the disease has yet to mutate into a deadly human strain, a World Health Organisation (WHO) expert told IRIN. News reports suggesting that least one case of bird flu in humans had been identified in the Indian Ocean island of Reunion raised concern this week, but these reports proved inaccurate after medical tests were conducted by French authorities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Stephen Lewis: An Envoy on the Brink of No Return","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/stop-imf/2005q4/001143.html","body":"UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis on Sunday criticized rich nations for failing to deliver adequate aid to Africa, CBC News reports. Lewis also recently launched a book titled \"Race Against Time.\" In the book, Lewis criticizes musician Bob Geldof for using the \"hype\" surrounding the Live 8 concerts in July to allow the leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations to promote a \"wholly inadequate\" aid package for Africa as a \"major triumph of international consensus and generosity,\" the Ottawa Citizen reports.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The equality predicament: report on the world social situation 2005","field_subtitle":"United Nations 2005","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpcgi.exe?AC=GET_RECORD&XC=/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpcgi.exe&BU=http%3A//www.eldis.org/search.htm&TN=a1&SN=AUTO21893&SE=164&RN=1&MR=20&RF=s1glob&DF=f1glob&RL=0&DL=0&NP=3&ID=&MF=eldismsg.ini&MQ=&TI=0","body":"This report traces the trends and patterns in economic and non-economic aspects of inequality and examines their causes and consequences across and within regions and countries. It focuses on the gaps between the formal and informal economies and between skilled and unskilled workers, the growing disparities in health, education and opportunities for social, economic and political participation as well as analysing the impact of structural adjustment, market reforms, globalisation and privatisation on economic and social indicators.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Impact of Privatization on developing countries","field_subtitle":"John Nellis and Nancy Birdsall, eds.","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/4520","body":"\"The privatization of state-owned enterprises has been among the most controversial of market reforms. This new edited volume brings together a comprehensive set of country studies on the effects of privatization on people-and answers the overarching question: who are the winners and losers of the wave of privatizations that swept across the developing world in the 1980s and 1990s? The studies are sophisticated and careful, and address the big questions: Are the poorest households paying more for water, power, and other basic services? Did those who lost jobs suffer permanent declines in income? Were state assets sold at prices that were too low, and who benefited from the resulting windfalls? Was the process, in laypersons' terms, fair?\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The Metrics of the Physician Brain Drain","field_subtitle":"The New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 353:1810-1818\t\t, October 27, 2005, \t\tNumber 17","field_url":"http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/353/17/1810?query=TOC","body":"\"There has been substantial immigration of physicians to developed countries, much of it coming from lower-income countries...International medical graduates constitute between 23 and 28 percent of physicians in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, and lower-income countries supply between 40 and 75 percent of these international medical graduates. The United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia draw a substantial number of physicians from South Africa, and the United States draws very heavily from the Philippines. Nine of the 20 countries with the highest emigration factors are in sub-Saharan Africa or the Caribbean.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Promise of Equality","field_subtitle":"UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, October 2005","field_url":"http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2005/presskit/summary.htm","body":"The report, 'The Promise of Equality: Gender Equity, Reproductive Health and the Millennium Development Goals', explores the degree to which the global community has fulfilled pledges made to the world\u2019s most impoverished and marginalized peoples. It tracks progress, exposes shortfalls and examines the links between poverty, gender equality, human rights, reproductive health, conflict and violence against women and girls. It also examines the relationship between gender discrimination and the scourge of HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding African migration for pro-poor policymaking","field_subtitle":"id21 Research Highlight","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=3&i=s7crb1g1&u=4367b032","body":"Migration has long been an important part of labour markets and livelihoods across Africa. It is estimated that there are between 20 and 50 million African migrants today. Migration flows have implications for meeting the Millennium Development Goals, but their effects are poorly understood. Most African governments, however, are concerned with the migration of educated professionals abroad, or the 'brain drain'. It is estimated that US$4 billion is spent on replacing African professionals with expatriates, mostly through aid programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"World Development Report 2006: Equity and Development","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/news/EybenWDR.html","body":"The World Bank's annual World Development Report this year focuses on equity, arguing that inequality of opportunity is holding back prosperity and economic growth. This article from the Institute for Development Studies argues that the report fails to get to grips with what inequality really means: \"The World Development Report for 2006 on Equity and Development (WDR 2006) has been described by Sanjay Reddy from Columbia University as reflecting the most progressive face of the World Bank. This is because it argues strongly on ethical and efficiency grounds for the need to tackle the gross disparities in opportunity for children born in different parts of the world. Reddy also finds that the theoretical construction of the report is 'rather clunky and appears to be the product of political compromise\u2026but is workable'.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"A short course in Private Health and Social Health Insurance, 10 \u2013 14 October 2005","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=48_0_1_0_M2","body":"The Health Economics Unit at the University of Cape Town is offering a 5-day short course addressing the changing role of health insurance in low- and middle-income countries. The course focuses on the financial management of risk pools in diverse settings covering a broad spectrum of insurance arrangements including community-based health insurance, private voluntary insurance for the formal sector and social or national health insurance. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Action: Case Studies - Using the Law to Implement the Right to Health","field_subtitle":"Deadline: October 15, 2005","field_url":"","body":"The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) is pleased to invite colleagues to submit relevant case studies from different countries and regions in Africa that document attempts to use the law to push states to implement policies relating to the provision of HIV/AIDS and health-related services. While HIV/AIDS is the focus of the project, case studies documenting attempts (successful or otherwise) in addressing other public health challenges are welcomed.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31090","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Applying policy analysis in tackling implementation gaps","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/results.php?keywords=0","body":"Ultimately any policy or health system change, whether generated from within or outside national environments, has to work through those responsible for service delivery, and their interactions with the intended beneficiaries of those changes. Yet we continue to know too little about the experiences of these groups, including how their words, actions and beliefs shape the practice of implementation. This paper used policy analysis to understand these implementation gaps.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals: R & D: HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The European Commission now calls for proposals for clinical research projects to address the three diseases - HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB. Their focus is on developing new effective interventions against three diseases from early discovery through pre-clinical testing and up to early human trials.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31095","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Claiming the right to health","field_subtitle":"The Lancet 2005","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS014067360567465X/fulltext","body":"Recently, the contested relation between health and human rights has drawn increasing attention. Human rights experts are taking on such issues as HIV/AIDS, abortion, family planning, and sexual violence. Perspectives on Health and Human Rights contains 30 essays that attempt to create a framework for thinking about this complex field. It is a valuable book, for the guidance it provides and for the questions it raises. (Requires free registration)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Discussing the theory of human rights","field_subtitle":"Philosophy & Public Affairs, Volume 32 Issue 4","field_url":"http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1088-4963.2004.00017.x/full","body":"\"Few concepts are as frequently invoked in contemporary political discussions as human rights. There is something deeply attractive in the idea that every person anywhere in the world, irrespective of citizenship or territorial legislation, has some basic rights, which others should respect. The moral appeal of human rights has been used for a variety of purposes, from resisting torture and arbitrary incarceration to demanding the end of hunger and of medical neglect. At the same time, the central idea of human rights as something that people have, and have even without any specific legislation, is seen by many as foundationally dubious and lacking in cogency.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by \r\n\r\nFahamu - Networks for Social Justice\r\nhttp://www.fahamu.org/  \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter 56: The Global Forum for Health Research Conference: \u201cPoverty, equity and health research\u201d","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET presentations to the Global Health Research Forum, Sep 2005","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Network for Equity in Health in east and southern Africa (Equinet) participated in a number of sessions at Forum 9 of the Global Health Research Forum in Mumbai, India, 12-16 September 2005. The theme of the meeting this year was Poverty, equity and health research. The Global Forum\u2019s annual meeting provides the opportunity for presentations and exchange of views on key issues on the global health agenda.  Participants from a broad range of constituencies were present: health and development ministries, multilateral and bilateral agencies, research-oriented bodies and universities, NGOs and civil society, the private sector, the media. EQUINET  has a substantial programme of research work on equity in health and reported on some of this at the Forum.  Papers were presented by  Grace Bongololo and Lot Nyirenda on theme work on gender equity in Antiretroviral therapy access; by Di McIntyre  and Lucy Gilson on equitable health care financing;  Rene Loewenson, Itai Rusike and Memory Zulu on The Impact Of Health Centre Committees On Health outcomes in Zimbabwe and Lucy Gilson, Ermin Erasmus; Peter Kamuzora; TJ Ngulube; Verona Phillips and Vera Scott on applying policy analysis in tackling implementation gaps. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31105","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Student Grant Awards - Final deadline October 7","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=49_0_1_0_M6","body":"EQUINET will award a number of small grants to post graduate students and undergraduate students in East and Southern Africa for research proposals in the areas of\r\n1. Revitalising and building national peoples\u2019 health systems\r\n2. Organising people\u2019s power for health\r\n3. Ensuring fair financing of an equitable health system\r\n4. Ensuring the human resources for health \r\n5. Challenging trade liberalization and encroachment on health\r\nThe final date for applications is October 7 2005.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Equitable health care financing and poverty challenges in the African context","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=624","body":"This paper is based on a detailed and critical review of the literature relating to health care financing in the African context. The objectives are to: \r\n* Provide an overview of the equity challenges, particularly in relation to poverty concerns, of current health care financing mechanisms in Africa; \r\n* Provide a brief critical review of major recent developments in health care financing in Africa; and \r\n* Identify key issues in promoting equitable and poverty-reducing health care financing options in the African context. \r\nIt is important to stress that health care financing mechanisms differ in each African country and that there are no \u2018one-size-fits-all\u2019 solutions. This paper attempts to identify some common trends and challenges, illustrate important issues in relation to particular health care financing options through reference to specific country experience and propose principles and possible actions that require further consideration within each country-specific context.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity  in Health Care in Namibia report launched","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Ministry of Health and Social  Services (MoHSS) on Tuesday, 13  September, launched a study report  on Equity in Health Care in  Namibia, which is aimed at  generating evidence needed to  enhance the health ministry\u2019  endeavors to redressing inequities in  resource allocation in the country.   The study specifically purports to  develop a needs-based allocation  formula that will assist the MoHSS to shift its resource allocation  mechanism away from the historical incrementalist type. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31104","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Have pharmaceutical companies come to the party in Africa? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20031304","body":"Bowing to huge international pressure, major pharmaceutical companies have made significant efforts to make their patented antiretroviral drugs available in Africa while ensuring that they \u2013 not generic manufacturers \u2013 maintain market control in the continent.  Globally, the ARV market accounts for less than 3% of pharmaceutical sales worldwide and Africa\u2019s portion of this has been negligible. However, with the World Health Organisation\u2019s campaign to get three million people on ARV treatment by the end of this year (the 3-by-5 campaign), there has been a scramble to ensure improved supplies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and the millennium development goals","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC19564","body":"This report from the World Health Organization (WHO) asserts that if trends established in the 1990s continue, the majority of developing countries will not achieve the health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. None of the poorest regions of the developing world is on track to meet the child mortality target, while maternal mortality has only declined in countries where levels were already relatively low. Targets for reversing HIV and AIDS and reducing incidence of malaria, tuberculosis and other communicable diseases, remain a huge challenge in sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health information generation and utilization for informed decision-making in equitable health service management","field_subtitle":"International Journal for Equity in Health 2005","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/4/1/8/abstract","body":"The Kenya Partnership for Health (KPH) program began in 1999, and is currently one of the 12 field projects participating in the WHO's 'Towards Unity for Health initiative' implemented to develop partnership synergies in support of the Primary Health Care (PHC) approach. This paper illustrates how Program-linked Information Management by Integrative-participatory Research Approach (PIMIRA) as practised under KPH has been implemented within Trans-Nzoia District, Kenya to enhance community-based health initiatives. It shows how this model is strategically being scaled-up from one community to another in the management of political, social, cultural and economic determinants (barriers and enhancers) of health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV Research Trust scholarship","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A new scholarship programme is being run by the International AIDS Society on behalf of the HIV Research Trust. The Scholarship scheme aims to support a broad mix of disciplines while enabling physicians, nurses, scientists, and other health care professionals in resource poor settings to acquire skills relevant to treatment-related research; in order to develop their careers and increase the capacity of their units to carry out research related to treatment and prevention.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31125","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS and rural livelihoods \u2013 communicating  NGO good practice","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=2&i=r1jw1g1&u=43421fed","body":"The HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa is deeply affecting rural livelihoods. The loss of adults of a working age means lower agricultural production, more households being headed by elderly people or children, and a breakdown in transmission of agricultural skills. The innovative experiences of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in responding to these needs have rarely been documented or disseminated.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS eroding region's development, says UN report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5212","body":"HIV/AIDS has accounted for huge reversals in human development in Southern Africa, which could impact on the region meeting some of the UN's poverty-slashing Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to a new report.  The UN's '2005 Human Development Report' released on Wednesday noted that 12 of the 18 countries that have suffered development reversals between 1990 and 2003 were in sub-Saharan Africa, with Southern Africa \"hit hardest\". ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"ILRIG website","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ilrigsa.org.za/","body":"ILRIG is an NGO providing education, publications and research for the labour and social movements in South and Southern Africa. ILRIG have a new and informative website that contains news about events, publications and articles.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"International migration and the MDGs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unfpa.org/upload/lib_pub_file/487_filename_migration_report_2005.pdf","body":"The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) hosted an Expert Group Meeting on International Migration and the Millennium Development Goals in Marrakech, Morocco on 11-12 May 2005. Invited experts were requested to speak on a number of topics relating to migration and development, including: poverty reduction, health, gender, environment, and global partnerships for development with a view towards exploring migration as both a facilitating and constraining factor in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This report is a compilation of selected papers presented at the meeting together with a synopsis of the discussion highlighting some of the more salient points raised by the experts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Is poverty or wealth at the root of HIV?","field_subtitle":"The Lancet 2005","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673605674016/fulltext","body":"\"Poverty and lack of economic opportunity are commonly cited as important contributors to the AIDS epidemic. Thus recent findings from the Tanzania 2003\u201304 HIV/AIDS indicator survey may come as a surprise. The evidence is just the opposite. This nationally representative survey measured wealth in terms of physical characteristics of the household and household possessions. Household wealth is strongly positively related to HIV prevalence.\" (Requires registration)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Is the water and sanitation MDG achievable?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/society/r4jmp1g1.html","body":"The seventh Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) commits the international community to halving, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water. The baseline set for most of the MDG targets, including that on water and sanitation, is 1990. As 2002 is the last year for which comprehensive data is available it can be considered the halfway mark towards achieving the 2015 MDG deadline. Based on 2002 data, is the world on course for achieving this goal? A report prepared by the World Health Organization/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) presents a report on progress made towards fulfilling the MDG commitment. Encouragingly, with 83 percent coverage, the world is set to meet the drinking water MDG. This progress is tempered, however, by slow progress in sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Maintaining health worker performance in resource-poor settings","field_subtitle":"The Lancet 2005","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673605670286/abstract","body":"\"In low and middle income countries, health workers are essential for the delivery of health interventions. However, inadequate health-worker performance is a very widespread problem. We present an overview of issues and evidence about the determinants of performance and strategies for improving it. Health-worker practices are complex behaviours that have many potential influences. Reviews of intervention studies in low and middle income countries suggest that the simple dissemination of written guidelines is often ineffective, that supervision and audit with feedback is generally effective, and that multifaceted interventions might be more effective than single interventions.\" (Requires registration)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Network Creates Opportunities for Knowledge Exchange in the Area of TB and Poverty","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In 2004 the STOP-TB Partnership invited proposals to host the Secretariat for the Network for Action in TB and Poverty. The Malawi National TB Programme, in partnership with the REACH Trust won this proposal.\r\n\r\nThe purpose of the Secretariat for the Network for Action on TB and Poverty is to support best practice in DOTS and TB control programmes. This initiative supports the overall goal of promoting access to DOTS and TB control programmes for poor and vulnerable populations. In its first year, the secretariat is engaging key stakeholders to promote action on TB and poverty in the WHO AFRO region. Coinciding with this active engagement, the global network will be promoted through the creation of a website, quarterly electronic newsletters, and through Working Groups of the STOP-TB Partnership and the annual conference on TB and Poverty. \r\n\r\nThe Network hopes to encourage discussion on best practice and be a conduit between policy makers and on-the ground workers with respect to TB and poverty. Anyone wishing to be a part of the network, or if you know of an individual or organization that would benefit from being a part of the network, please sign up on the Network website www.tb-poverty.org or email mwayi@equi-tb-malawi.org. \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor funding hampers AIDS vaccine research, says Lewis","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5210","body":"The global pursuit of a vaccine against HIV/AIDS is failing due to a lack of funds and commitment, a delegation of researchers heard on Tuesday. Addressing the '2005 AIDS Vaccine International Conference' in Montreal, Canada, Stephen Lewis the UN Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa urged scientists to emerge from their laboratories to become champions for the cause. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Promoting health in trade agreements: Brief on a research and training workshop, 15-17 August 2005","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=627","body":"The training course aimed to enable participants to be able to carry out assessments nationally of the key trade and investment agreements that impact on health and identify options for promoting public sector equity oriented health systems within current trade and investment policies and agreements. The workshop aimed to cover \r\n\u2022 An introduction to trade and health that outlines major issues affecting the region \r\n\u2022 An outline of health systems, their major components of health systems and the challenges posed by commercialisation. \r\n\u2022 An introduction to outline of the global major trade systems and the World Trade Organisation and how it agreements that impacts on health, and the options for protecting and promoting health within these trade agreements \r\n\u2022 An outline of two major trade agreements - TRIPS and GATS - that impact on health, and the options for protecting and promoting health within these trade agreements \r\n\u2022 A guideline for audit of the impact of trade agreements on health systems \r\n\u2022 An introduction to analyzing and understanding the health systems context in which policy is developed, designed and implemented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Public/Private partnerships and mobilising resources","field_subtitle":"World Economic Forum","field_url":"http://www.weforum.org/pdf/un_exec_summary.pdf","body":"The United Nations-sponsored Financing for Development conference in Monterrey in 2002 concluded that greater cooperation between public and private actors will be required to overcome the inadequacies of development finance and achieve internationally agreed development goals. As a follow-up to this conference, the World Economic Forum's Global Institute for Partnership and Governance in cooperation with the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) convened a series of nine separate practitioner-driven, multistakeholder roundtable discussions during the period 2004-05. These two day expert roundtables, supplemented by individual meetings and other research, sought to identify where the greatest opportunities and obstacles lay.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Rationing Antiretroviral Therapy for HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/archive/1549-1676/2/11/pdf/10.1371_journal.pmed.0020303-p-L.pdf","body":"In the past three years, expanding access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV/AIDS has become a global objective and a national priority for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Large-scale treatment programs have been launched in countries spanning the continent from Lesotho to Ghana, paid for by domestic funds mobilized by African governments and by international donor contributions. While these funds, which reach into the billions of dollars, will pay for ART for many thousands of HIV-positive Africans, there is almost no chance that African countries will have the human, infrastructural, or financial resources to treat everyone who is in need. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Relating mortality rates to the poverty trap","field_subtitle":"National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), 2005","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC19798&Resource=f1age","body":"The authors of this paper present the argument that development occurs only if people make provision for the future. If they see no future, there is no growth. Using development indicators as their data for their research, they examine a basic determinant affecting decision horizons: the risk of premature death. The paper suggests that the causal relationship between mortality and poverty is bi-directional:\r\n- on the one hand, in a poor country, unable to afford sanitation and medical care, people die young;\r\n- on the other hand, where people have a short time horizon because they expect to die young, they have less reason to save and the economy fails to grow.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Removing user fees for primary care in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/extract/331/7519/762","body":"User fees are once again a topic of hot policy debate in Africa. They were introduced relatively recently in many countries, but the current call is for their removal, particularly at primary care level. As analysts who have consistently argued against user fees, we broadly support this call. However, we recognise that this action cannot be introduced overnight and, if weakly implemented, may exacerbate the problems facing African health systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual and reproductive health: call for papers","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673605673540/fulltext","body":"The Lancet has issued a call for papers on sexual and reproductive health. \"The last International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994 marked the beginning of a new era for sexual and reproductive health. There was widespread acceptance of a broad definition of sexual and reproductive health that extended beyond the absence of disease and recognised the rights of women and men of all ages to enjoy a healthy sex life and the freedom to decide if, when, and how often to reproduce. Although there has been some progress since 1994 - a gradual integration of services for family planning and those for the management of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and the recognition of the need for information and services for adolescents, for example - sexual and reproductive ill-health still accounts for almost 20% of the burden of ill-health for women and 14% for men.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Study attributes AIDS to food insecurity in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5207","body":"Mozambique's Food and Nutritional Security Technical Secretariat (SETSAN) says the country could face severe food insecurity as a result of HIV/AIDS. In a report released on Monday in the capital Maputo, at a symposium on the relation between hunger and absolute poverty, SETSAN warned that the agricultural sector might lose 20 percent of its workforce to AIDS-related illnesses by 2010.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Forum for Health Research Conference: \u201cPoverty, equity and health research\u201d ","field_subtitle":"Di McIntyre","field_url":"","body":"Introduction\r\n\r\nThe Global Forum\u2019s annual conference was held in Mumbai, India from 12-16 September 2005, and focused on \u201cpoverty, equity and health research\u201d.  EQUINET was extremely well represented, with four papers presented, three in full plenary sessions, on EQUINET research in the area of: participation and health, ART, fair financing and policy analysis.  The papers presented by the EQUINET conference participants can be found on the Equinet website.\r\n\r\nForum 9 was attended by delegates from around the globe; one of the great attractions of the Global Forum conferences is that it includes participants from a wide range of research disciplines, policy-makers and civil society organisations.  The conference had seven main themes: poverty; equity; innovation; neglected diseases and conditions; policies, systems and priorities; research capacity strengthening; and reproduction and human development.  Some of the issues discussed and conclusions arising from the two core themes of poverty and equity are summarised below.\r\n\r\nPoverty theme\r\n\r\nThe key role of poverty in contributing to ill health, and the lack of access to health services for the poorest were highlighted in a number of presentations.  There was also an emphasis on how out-of-pocket payments for health care leads to further impoverishment for vulnerable households.\r\n\r\nOne of the most interesting \u2018debates\u2019 at the conference related to whether or not the Mexican PROGRESA (now called Opportunades) program has been successful or not.  This program involves monthly payments to poor households on condition that the household attempts to improve their education, health and nutritional status.  \r\n\r\nFor example, a household will receive up to US$28 per month per child if the child attends 85% or more of classes, and up to US$12 per month per family in \u2018food transfers\u2019 if each child receives 2-4 health checkups per year, each adult receives one health checkup per year and pregnant women receive seven pre-and post-natal checkups.  \r\n\r\nFindings from evaluations of this program, undertaken in two different sets of villages, were presented in two different sessions and contained divergent results.  The one study, undertaken by the World Bank and IMF, claimed very positive results of the program with a very high proportion of beneficiaries being in the poorest section of the population and improvements in health status and educational enrolment, as well as poverty reduction, being attributed to the program.  \r\n\r\nThe other study, undertaken by a team of local researchers in one of the poorest areas of Mexico, found less positive outcomes. In particular, they highlighted that although the program was targeted at the poor, many poor households were not being reached.  Very importantly, the program appears to be creating conflicts and \u201cdestroying the social fabric\u201d of communities.  There appear to be conflicts between those who are benefiting from the program and those who are not, despite being \u201cequally poor\u201d, and there is resentment at the paternalistic monitoring of family education and health choices.  Unfortunately, no opportunity was presented to debate these studies or the PROGRESA program in detail.  Nevertheless, these presentations highlighted the need to carefully monitor poverty reduction programs and to identify unexpected negative impacts.\r\n\r\nOne of the key recommendations arising from this theme was that mechanisms of accurately and comprehensively identifying and protecting the poor are urgently needed.\r\n\r\nEquity theme\r\n\r\nMuch of the research presented at the conference again highlighted the extent of inequities at household, community, national and global levels and the effects of inequities on vulnerability and risk of infection, disease and injury; access to care, treatment interventions and health outcomes.  Unlike many other conferences which focus almost exclusively on inequities on the basis of socio-economic status, considerable emphasis was placed on gender inequities and inequities related to disability at Forum 9.  While this was very positive, it was noticeable that the gender and disability sessions were more poorly attended and it was noted that inequities related to \u2018race\u2019, ethnicity, age, language and cultural affiliation received very little attention.  There was also quite limited discussion on how to successfully address inequities.\r\n\r\nOne of the particularly interesting series of papers presented at the conference, which might provide insights on fair financing approaches to be considered in the African context, related to the EQUITAP project.  This project has undertaken an extensive analysis of equity in health care financing in a large number of Asian countries.  The results very clearly demonstrate that countries, such as Hong Kong, Malaysia and Sri Lanka, which have strong public health systems with general tax revenue being the major source of finance in the health sector are the most equitable.  Health systems that have universal health insurance systems, such as Thailand, also fare quite well.  The EQUITAP project has also analysed the level of catastrophic out-of-pocket payments in Asian countries.  The findings from the EQUITAP and other research projects all highlighted the need to move away from out-of-pocket payments as a health care financing mechanism and to increase tax and insurance funding for health services.\r\n\r\nOther observations\r\n\r\nIn the closing plenary, there was a general sense that many interesting issues had been raised and that there had been valuable engagements between participants.  A number of suggestions were made on how to improve on these engagements in future, including:\r\n\r\n- Greater care should be taken in the language that we use, to enable communication between different researchers and between researchers and policy-makers.  Sometimes unnecessary jargon is used, but more concerning is that certain terms (e.g. equity) are commonly used but may have a number of different interpretations depending on the underlying ideological perspective.  In order to ensure effective communication, it is important that everyone clarify their specific definition or interpretation of key terms.\r\n- It is critical to pay greater attention to the context within which particular research has been undertaken, both in interpreting the findings but also in assessing the generalisability of findings.\r\n- Forums such as this should create opportunities for more deliberately structured and challenging debate.  Many participants regarded the lack of explicit debate on contradictory research findings, as highlighted above in the case of the PROGRESA program, in order to better understand what works and what does not, and why, as a missed opportunity.\r\n- There was a perceived need to invest more energy in trying to consolidate and synthesise existing knowledge to a greater extent.  In particular, there is a need to disseminate information on positive experiences and success stories.\r\n\r\nThe next Global Forum conference will be held in Cairo, Egypt from 29 October to 2 November 2006 and will focus on \u201cCombating disease and promoting health\u201d.\r\n\r\n* Di McIntyre is with the Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town.\r\n\r\n* Please send comments to admin@equinetafrica.org\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The health impacts of globalisation","field_subtitle":"Globalization and Health 2005","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/1/1/14","body":"\"This paper describes a conceptual framework for the health implications of globalisation. The framework is developed by first identifying the main determinants of population health and the main features of the globalisation process. The resulting conceptual model explicitly visualises that globalisation affects the institutional, economic, social-cultural and ecological determinants of population health, and that the globalisation process mainly operates at the contextual level, while influencing health through its more distal and proximal determinants. The developed framework provides valuable insights in how to organise the complexity involved in studying the health effects resulting from globalisation.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Initiative for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Health Sector Reforms ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Initiative for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Health Sector Reforms is an international research, capacity building and advocacy project (also known as the Rights and Reforms Initiative). It aims to promote health sector reforms that are conducive to implementing the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development's (ICPD) Programme of Action, are driven by in-country actors, and are responsive to the needs of the people of the country, especially poor women. The main purpose of the Initiative is to strengthen understanding amongst activists and decision-makers of the role of global social and economic changes and specifically of health sector reforms (HSR) in facilitating or undermining efforts to achieve sexual and reproductive rights in health policies and programmes. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31102","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The Power Of Growth To Reduce Poverty: World Development Report 2006","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:20653001~pagePK:64257043~piPK:437376~theSitePK:4607,00.html","body":"Equity, defined primarily as equality of opportunities among people, should be an integral part of a successful poverty reduction strategy anywhere in the developing world, says the World Bank's annual 2006 World Development Report. \"Equity is complementary to the pursuit of long-term prosperity,\" said Fran\u00e7ois Bourguignon, the Bank's Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics, who guided the team that produced the report. \"Greater equity is doubly good for poverty reduction. It tends to favor sustained overall development, and it delivers increased opportunities to the poorest groups in a society.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Treating severe malnutrition: implementing clinical guidelines in South African hospitals","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h9aa4g1.html","body":"According to the World Health Organisation malnutrition is associated with about 60 percent of deaths in children under five years old in the developing world.  The WHO has developed guidelines to improve the quality of hospital care for malnourished children in order to reduce deaths.  The guidelines suggest ten steps for routine management of severe malnourishment.  These will require most hospitals to make substantial changes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"UN summit gridlocks","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673605673977/fulltext","body":"The 2005 World Summit, a \u201chigh-level plenary meeting of the 60th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations\u201d, was the grand title of a dreary and lacklustre meeting held in New York on Sept 14\u201316, reports the 24 September issue of The Lancet. The summit has been widely derided, mainly for its watered-down outcome document, which was painfully agreed on the eve of the summit.    For those most concerned about the fate of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with their aim to halve world poverty by 2015, there were one or two potentially bright spots. UN delegates committed an additional US$50 billion to the MDGs over the next 5 years, with every developing country agreeing to create a national plan by the end of 2006 for achieving the MDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Using research to promote gender and equity in the provision of anti-retroviral therapy in Malawi","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=626","body":"This paper explores the importance of using research to promote gender and equity in the provision of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) in Malawi. The purpose of the paper is to highlight the importance of operational research in advocating for programmes that are gender sensitive and can contribute to overall national economic growth and poverty reduction. The paper uses a synthesis of the findings of research in Malawi on how gender roles and relations affect access and adherence to anti-retroviral therapy and to illustrate how these can be used to advocate for more equitable policy and practice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Wastage in the health workforce: the experience of African countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/3/1/6/abstract","body":"\"Sub-Saharan Africa faces a human resources crisis in the health sector. Over the past two decades its population has increased substantially, with a significant rise in the disease burden due to HIV/AIDS and recurrent communicable diseases and an increased incidence of noncommunicable diseases. This increased demand for health services is met with a rather low supply of health workers, but this notwithstanding, sub-Saharan African countries also experience significant wastage of their human resources stock.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A short course in Private Health and Social Health Insurance","field_subtitle":" 10 \u2013 14 October 2005","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=48_0_1_0_M4","body":"The Health Economics Unit at the University of Cape Town is offering a 5-day short course addressing the changing role of health insurance in low- and middle-income countries. The course focuses on the financial management of risk pools in diverse settings covering a broad spectrum of insurance arrangements including community-based health insurance, private voluntary insurance for the formal sector and social or national health insurance. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa anti-AIDS drug price-cut announced","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5192","body":"Developing countries will be paying less for two anti-AIDS drugs produced by multinational pharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences. In a statement Gilead said it had dropped the cost of Viread by 31 percent and that of Truvada by 12 percent. Both medications are already sold at no-profit prices in 97 developing countries around the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"An approach to estimating human resource requirements to achieve the MDGs","field_subtitle":"Health Policy and Planning 2005 20(5):267-276","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/20/5/267?etoc","body":"\u201cIn the context of the Millennium Development Goals, human resources represent the most critical constraint in achieving the targets. Therefore, it is important for health planners and decision-makers to identify what are the human resources required to meet those targets. Planning the human resources for health is a complex process. It needs to consider both the technical aspects related to estimating the number, skills and distribution of health personnel for meeting population health needs, and the political implications, values and choices that health policy- and decision-makers need to make within given resources limitations.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"An overview of the 2005 MDG summit","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.un.org/ga/documents/overview2005summit.pdf","body":"The World Summit \u00a0is expected to bring together more than 170 Heads of State and Government: the largest gathering of world leaders in history. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to take bold decisions in the areas of development, security, human rights and reform of the United Nations. Proposals in the area of development call for breakthroughs in debt relief and trade liberalization, and increases in aid to revitalize infrastructure and improve health and education services, in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including cutting extreme poverty in half by 2015 (www.un.org/millenniumgoals ).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Anti-AIDS medication still too expensive, says MSF report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5089","body":"As the prices of first-line anti-AIDS medication continue to fall, newer antiretrovirals (ARVs) can cost up to 12 times more in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a report by Medecines Sans Frontieres (MSF). Paediatric formulations were also more expensive than adult ARV drugs: treating a child for one year could be as much as US $816, while the same triple-drug regimen for adults was only $182.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants for student research grants on equity in health","field_subtitle":"Call Closes On September 31 2005","field_url":"","body":"This briefing describes the programme of student research grants in EQUINET and invites applicants for the third round of grants. The Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) promotes policies for equity in health across a range of priority theme areas (See www.equinetafrica.org) EQUINET has over the years, organized its work in various theme areas, including: economic and trade policy and health; human rights, governance and participation, equity in health sector responses to HIV/AIDS, human resources for health; monitoring and surveillance and others. Within these areas of work EQUINET aims to identify, recruit and build capacity and analysis. After a successful pilot initiative in 2003 in co-operation with the Malawi Health Equity Network member in the EQUINET steering committee, EQUINET has now launched a programme of student research support that provides small research grants for students at college or university in various programmes in east and southern Africa. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31075","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Community based organisations and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sidaction.org/accescommun/pdf/community_access.pdf","body":"The crucial role played by Community Based Organisations (CBOs) in the fight against HIV/AIDS is far from being recognized, says a report from SIDACTION. Until now, there was neither a record of what these organizations were doing nor any formalized description of the different kinds of activities which help facilitate access to treatment, so as to demonstrate the potential they might represent in terms of ARV access. SIDACTION sent out a concise questionnaire to more than a thousand organizations. Within a few weeks we received more than 300 responses from organizations expressing an interest in HIV care, treatment and support. There were many contrasts among the responses to the Community Access study conducted by SIDACTION: Uganda, Nigeria and Kenya accounted for 60 of the 300 continent-wide organizations that stated that they provide HIV care services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Community-based counsellors in Zimbabwe make a difference","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5181","body":"In an attempt to reduce the psychosocial impact of the AIDS epidemic, Zimbabwean communities have started an innovative community-based counselling initiative across the country. Until recently it was inconceivable for 48 year-old Mildred Mutumwapavi of Zaka District to talk openly about the HIV/AIDS in the community, let alone to regularly visit and counsel people living with and affected by the disease. But her attitude has changed: not only is she a trained community counsellor, she is also active in Zaka district, some 370 km southeast of the capital, Harare.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Contracting for health service delivery in developing countries","field_subtitle":"The Lancet, Volume 366, Number 9486, 20 August 2005","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673605671401/fulltext","body":"To achieve the health-related Millennium Development Goals, the delivery of health services will need to improve. Contracting with non-state entities, including non-governmental organisations (NGOs), has been proposed as a means for improving health care delivery, and the global experience with such contracts is reviewed here, in this Lancet article. The ten investigated examples indicate that contracting for the delivery of primary care can be very effective and that improvements can be rapid. (requires registration)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Delivering Antiretroviral Therapy in Resource-Constrained Settings: Lessons from Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.fhi.org/en/HIVAIDS/pub/Delivering+ART.htm","body":"In 2003, Family Health International (FHI) and its donor and country partners launched antiretroviral therapy (ART) \"learning sites\" in Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda, hoping to demonstrate that ART services could be provided safely and effectively in resource-constrained settings. At each site, ART was introduced as an integral component of comprehensive care and support for HIV-infected patients and their families. The sites are part of closely linked referral networks within defined geographic areas, such as districts or municipalities. In the two years since the initial sites were launched, FHI and its partners have learned valuable lessons that can guide development and expansion of ART services in Africa and other regions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by \r\n\r\nFahamu - Networks for Social Justice\r\nhttp://www.fahamu.org/  \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter 55 (September 2005): Supporting the Retention of HRH: SADC Policy Context","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and the MDGs","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mdg/publications/MDG_Report_08_2005.pdf","body":"The report, Health and the Millennium Development Goals, presents data on progress on the health goals and targets and looks beyond the numbers to analyse why improvements in health have been slow and to suggest what must be done to change this. The report points to weak and inequitable health systems as a key obstacle, including particularly a crisis in health personnel and the urgent need for sustainable health financing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health systems and achieving the MDGs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.palgrave-journals.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/development/journal/v48/n1/full/1100107a.html&filetype=pdf","body":"Lynn Freedman argues in the journal Development that achieving the MDGs will require massive new investment in the health sector but also notes that success is not only about money but also the way in which the connection between health and development is constructed. She writes: \"This is the hidden opportunity of the MDGs: With health recognized as a central part of a wider development agenda, we have a chance to push past the conventional target-based public health approach and to re-ground health policy in the most critical debates of the day, including globalization, human security, equity, human rights, and poverty reduction.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"How much would poor people gain from faster progress towards the Millennium Development Goals for health?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC18130&resource=healthsystems","body":"This article, published in The Lancet, explores what further progress towards the health objectives set out in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will mean for the poor. The author notes that, unlike the MDGs overall, these health objectives do not focus specifically on poor people. \u201cRather, they call for improvements in national averages that can be achieved through gains in both advantaged and disadvantaged groups. As a result, any reduction in society-wide average rates of death or illness can provide a wide range of outcomes for poor people.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights and global health","field_subtitle":"Pogge, Thomas W.  (2005), Metaphilosophy\u00a036\u00a0(1-2),\u00a0182-209","field_url":"http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9973.2005.00362.x/abs/","body":"\"One-third of all human lives end in early death from poverty-related causes. Most of these premature deaths are avoidable through global institutional reforms that would eradicate extreme poverty...The rules should be redesigned so that the development of any new drug is rewarded in proportion to its impact on the global disease burden...The existing medical-patent regime (trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights - TRIPS - as supplemented by bilateral agreements) is severely unjust - and its imposition a human-rights violation on account of the avoidable mortality and morbidity it foreseeably produces.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequalities in health in developing countries: Challenges for public health research","field_subtitle":"Critical Public Health,  Volume 15, Number 1 / March 2005","field_url":"http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?wasp=e82666e03f9c4a319a055c4e79dab664&referrer=parent&backto=issue%2C3%2C9%3Bjournal%2C2%2C22%3Blinkingpublicationresults%2C1%3A104565%2C1","body":"\"Inequalities in health are important for overall well-being even in developing countries. But research into this area has lagged behind developed countries partly because of the lack of routine and longitudinal data. Insights from developed countries have highlighted how risk factors are clustered around poor people and the ways in which pathways of poverty and poor health are formed during their lives. This is being overlaid by the process of globalization that seems to be accentuating these processes. The paucity of reliable routine data should encourage public health researchers in developing countries to stretch their methodological imagination to include qualitative insights in order to facilitate a more probing investigation that moves beyond describing inequalities but begins to describe how they are produced and reproduced.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Introducing substitute health workers in Africa","field_subtitle":"id21 Insights","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/InsightsHealth7art3.html","body":"Massive shortages in trained health care professionals in sub-Saharan Africa have led to an examination of substitute health workers as an immediate response to the workforce crisis. For many countries these substitute health workers (SHWs) are not new. They already play various minor roles in health services, especially in rural and deprived areas. In Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique, assistant medical officers are used as substitutes for doctors. They perform surgery and a variety of other tasks. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"ISEqH Fourth International Conference","field_subtitle":"September 11 to September 13, 2006","field_url":"http://www.iseqh.org/","body":"The International Society for Equity in Health, ISEqH, welcomes those interested in promoting equity in health to share experience and expertise at its Fourth International Conference in Adelaide, Australia. The overarching theme for the ISEQH's Fourth International Conference, Creating Healthy Societies through Inclusion and Equity, reflects the central role of social, political, and economic determinants in creating health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"LLM in Human Rights Specialising in Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Centre for Human Rights Studies in the Faculty of Law, University of the Free State, South Africa, invites applications for admission to study for a Masters Degree (LLM) in Human Rights specialising in Reproductive and Sexual Rights. The LLM in Human Rights specialising in Reproductive and Sexual Rights is the first of its kind on the African continent. The LLM was launched in 2005. It is an international programme that is aimed at equipping committed lawyers from the African continent with academic and practical skills for securing the realisation of reproductive and sexual rights at a domestic as well as an international level. The LLM programme is financially supported by the Ford Foundation.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31053","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Meeting of WHO regional committee adopts six resolutions","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/press/2005/regionalcommittee/pr10_20050826.html","body":"The fifty-fifth session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa ended August 26 in Maputo, Mozambique, with the adoption of six resolutions, including one declaring tuberculosis (TB) a \u201cregional emergency\u201d and the other, proclaiming 2006 as the \u201cYear for Acceleration of HIV Prevention.\u201d The resolution declaring TB a regional emergency called on Member States to undertake \u201curgent, extraordinary and intensified actions\u201d to bring the epidemic under control.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mozambique/South Africa sign health deal","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5110","body":"Mozambique and South Africa are to sign a health cooperation agreement, allowing the exchange of knowledge on diseases such as HIV/AIDS. Mozambican Health Minister Ivo Garrido and his South African counterpart, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, met in the Mozambican capital, Maputo, to finalise details of the agreement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New Bangkok charter for health promotion adopted","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr34/en/index.html","body":"A new Bangkok Charter for Health Promotion has been adopted by participants at the 6th Global Conference on Health Promotion, co-hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Public Health of Thailand. It identifies major challenges, actions and commitments needed to address the determinants of health in a globalized world by engaging the many actors and stakeholders critical to achieving health for all. The Charter highlights the changing context of global health and the challenges faced in achieving its aims, including the growing double burden of communicable and chronic diseases which include heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Pathways to \u201cEvidence-Informed\u201d Policy and Practice: A Framework for Action","field_subtitle":"Plos medicine, Volume 2, Issue 7, July 2005 ","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020166","body":"The contemporary public health effort sees much debate about the concepts of \u201cevidence\u201d and \u201cthe evidence base\u201d, and the usefulness and relevance of such terms to both policymaking and practice. A key challenge to public health is to better contextualize evidence for more effective policymaking and practice. Theory on the translation of research findings into policy and practice, and on knowledge utilization, offers only part of the solution to this complex task. The policymaking context is highly political and rapidly changing, and depends on a variety of factors, inputs, and relationships.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"People's Health Movement: The Cuenca Declaration","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\"We deplore the worsening conditions of health experienced by many of the world's people and we denounce their cause - neo- liberalism. Neo-liberal polices imposed by the G8, transfer wealth from the South to the North, from the poor to the rich, and from the public to the private sector. Corporate profits increase while poor people, indigenous peoples and the victims of war and occupation, suffer. Economically and politically generated health inequalities have increased, yet these root causes of avoidable disease and death are not effectively addressed by current policies or programs.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31077","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"PHA presentations available","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://phmovement.org/pha2/papers/papers.php","body":"Presentations from the People's Health Assembly 2, held in Ecuador in July, are now available on a central website. Africa-related presentations include 'Improving Care And Implementing Intersectoral Action Through Participatory Research And Advocacy :\u00a0An Example From Rural South Africa' by David Sanders, from the School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape and ' The war of the transnational\u00a0 oil companies against the people' by Nnimmo Bassey from Nigeria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Popular Participation and primary health care in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Development Policy Review, Volume 23\u00a0Issue 2\u00a0Page 165, March 2005","field_url":"http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1467-7679.2005.00281.x/abs/","body":"\"Advocates of participatory approaches to service delivery see devolution as key to empowering people to take charge of their own affairs. Participation is portrayed as guaranteeing the delivery of services that are in line with user preferences. It is assumed that people are keen to participate in public affairs, that they possess the capacity to do so, and that all they need is opportunities. Using evidence from ethnographic research in Uganda, this article questions these views. It shows that, to succeed in the long term, devolution and participation must take place in the context of a strong state, able to ensure consistent regulation, and a well-informed public backed up by a participatory political culture.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public- public partnerships in health and essential services","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=554","body":"The paper first discusses the concept of PuPs and proposes a two-dimensional typology for categorising the various forms of partnership so described. The range of types of PuPs is then discussed with reference to specific sectors (water and healthcare), international associations, and six case studies. The final section draws general conclusions and makes recommendations for future research into the subject.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Responding to the health workforce crisis","field_subtitle":"id21 Insights","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/InsightsHealth7editorial.html","body":"The shortage of health workers with the right expertise and experience has reached crisis levels in many developing countries. The human resources (HR) crisis in the health sectors of many developing countries is now firmly on the international policy agenda. The work of the Joint Learning Initiative (JLI) and the High Level Forum on Health has described the magnitude of the HR challenge, identified the key contributory factors, and defined some of the potential solutions. \r\n* Relating Link\r\nThe Joint Learning Initiative Report: overcoming the crisis\r\nhttp://www.id21.org/health/InsightsHealth7art6.html","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Plans Integrated Strategy Against Malaria","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200508020827.html","body":"The member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are to adopt an integrated strategy to fight against malaria. For this the organization counts on the financial support of 30 million US dollars, granted by the African Development Bank (ADB), which will also be used in cross-border interventions for other communicable diseases, including HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Supporting the Retention of HRH: SADC Policy Context","field_subtitle":"Lucy Gilson and Ermin Erasmus","field_url":"","body":"An EQUINET partner, the Centre for Health Policy at Wits University, has released a report examining policies in the SADC region on the retention of human resources for health. This report has been prepared for the Health Systems Trust (HST), South Africa and the Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET). It presents a review of issues in the regional policy context that are of relevance to the retention of human resources for the health sector (HRH) within the region, based on a rapid appraisal in selected countries and at regional level.  \r\n\r\nThis work specifically focussed on the actions needed to stem the flow of international migration by encouraging the retention of health staff within countries. A particular concern raised across countries is staff retention in the public and rural services that preferentially serve the poorest populations. Importantly, policy documents and national respondents see the problems of retaining staff in these locations (the push factors underlying migration) as linked to the factors that undermine motivation and productivity. Policies to address retention issues (and so encourage health workers to stick and stay in country settings) are, thus, also likely to address poor motivation and weak productivity. In addition, these three sets of problems often go hand in hand with poor health worker attitudes and behaviours towards patients. So tackling these problems may have double benefits for health system performance \u2013 contributing to adequate availability of competent staff, as well as enhanced staff responsiveness to patients.\r\n\r\nThe report presents the findings of this work in sections 3-5 covering:\r\n\r\n- Review of current international and regional HRH policy initiatives of relevance to the Eastern and Southern Africa region;\r\n\r\n- Review of national level policy environments, with specific consideration of Malawi, South Africa and Tanzania;\r\n\r\n- Implications for the future role of EQUINET in supporting implementation of HRH policy initiatives within the region.\r\n\r\nIn summary, the report notes that:\r\n\r\n- encouraging HRH retention requires a complex package of actions/ /working through different entry points, rather than single policy actions;\r\n\r\n- implementation of any HRH retention policy package is challenging because of the need to coordinate efforts across a wide range of governmental actors as well as get the support of a range of external actors;\r\n\r\n- regional co-operation to support country level action to encourage retention appears to be, as yet, little developed, although recent discussions within the African Union and SADC, provide possible bases for such co-operation;\r\n\r\n- current international initiatives may provide regional opportunities for addressing HRH problems (as a core constraint on health system development), but also hold the danger of over-burdening health systems, and in particular leadership and management within them.\r\n\r\nIn supporting initiatives to promote HRH retention within the region we suggest that EQUINET could, in broad terms, engage with others in providing a focal point for regional networking in support of HRH policy action. Such networking could, more specifically, focus on two sets of activities (see section 5 for details).\r\n\r\nFirst, analytical work could fill current gaps by supporting cross-country analysis of the implementation of financial incentives, developing ideas and proposals around how to strengthen non-financial incentives and monitoring the impact at country level of externally driven initiatives on HR issues or initiatives (such as those for HIV/AIDS) likely to have impact on HR.\r\n\r\nSecond, dialogue and engagement with key actors (such as parliamentarians, senior health and other civil servants, professional groupings) could be supported by the development of policy briefs on key issues and collaboration with WHO AFRO, SADC, NEPAD and the AU.\r\n\r\n* The report, which is available from http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=594, was presented at a \"Policy and research meeting on equity in the distribution of health personnel in southern Africa\" in August. The meeting:\r\n\r\n- provided an update and recap on major policy issues and positions on HRH in east and southern Africa at the country and regional level; \r\n- presented brief summaries of the work that has been done under auspices of EQUINET; \r\n- identified policy positions and issues that require further research; \r\n- explored capacity building and policy intervention within the region; \r\n- identified priority issues in order to deliver clear agendas for action; and\r\n- identified some key collaborations to assist in taking the work forward effectively.\r\n\r\nThe meeting report will be available on the EQUINET website at the end of September.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The case for abolition of user fees for primary health services","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC19199&resource=healthsystems","body":"This issues paper, published by the DFID Health Systems Resource Centre (HSRC), was one of several feeding into Department for International Development (DFID) policy discussions in mid-2004. It examines evidence on the impacts of user fees for primary health care, evaluates the cost implications of abolishing user fees, and considers what line donors should take on the issue. The paper argues that the case for abolishing user fees is strong: they raise little money, rarely meet their stated efficiency and equity goals. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and poor people's right to water","field_subtitle":"Natural Resources Forum, Volume 29\u00a0Issue 2\u00a0Page 154, May 2005","field_url":"http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1477-8947.2005.00124.x","body":"\"The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) seeks to expand international trade in a wide range of services ranging from tourism to telecommunications and education. In recent years, it has come under attack from civil society organizations in both the North and the South for having a detrimental impact on poor people's right to basic services. This article explores some of these controversies, using the example of water services. It focuses specifically on the impact of the GATS on poor people's right to water and national governments' ability to safeguard the interests of poor people through regulation.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of community based research in unravelling HIV stigma","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC19390","body":"This Agency for Co-operation and Research in Development (Acord) report features two country case studies (Uganda and Burundi) which explored the role of community-based research in responding to HIV stigma and discrimination. The research found that issues of stigma and discrimination reached all spheres of life, including the home, family, the workplace, school, health settings and the larger community. It also identified a number of key factors that contribute to stigma and discrimination. These include ignorance and fear, cultural norms and values, some religious teachings, the lack of legal sanctions, lack of rights awareness, the design of government and other programmes, and inaccurate or irresponsible media coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Untangling the web of ARV price reductions","field_subtitle":"M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res","field_url":"http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/publications/reports/2005/untanglingthewebv8.pdf","body":"This is the eighth edition of \u2018Untangling the web of price reductions: a pricing guide for the purchase of ARVs for developing countries\u2019. The report was first published by M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) in October 2001 in response to the lack of transparent and reliable information about prices of pharmaceutical products on the international market, a factor which significantly hampers access to essential medicines in developing countries. The situation is particularly complex in the case of antiretrovirals (ARVs). The purpose of this document is to provide information on prices and suppliers that will help purchasers make informed decisions when buying ARVs. Since the first edition of \u2018Untangling\u2019, prices of some first-line ARVs have fallen significantly due to competition between multiple producers. However, not all countries are able to benefit from these lower prices because of patent barriers to accessing generic versions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"What's New in the Synergy Resource Center?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Synergy HIV/AIDS http://www.synergyaids.com/resources.asp Online Resource Center contains 3,824 searchable online documents relevant to HIV/AIDS project management, research, and reproductive health issues. Please click on the links, where available, to view the latest additions to the Synergy Resource Center. For questions or inquiries, please mail SynergyInfo@s-3.com","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambian civic groups call on MPs to be more proactive in HIV/AIDS fight","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=5191","body":"Zambia's civil society groups are targeting parliamentarians, urging them to step up efforts to curb the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Advocacy groups point out that members of parliament (MPs) are in an ideal position to help eradicate stigma and discrimination, as they could influence their constituents.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"\"Learning by doing\" is key to achieving universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, says WHO","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2005/np18/en/index.html","body":"To achieve universal access to HIV prevention and treatment, the scientific and public health community must respond quickly to developments on the ground to narrow the gap between discovery and intervention. Dr Charlie Gilks, head of treatment, prevention and scale up at the World Health Organization's (WHO) HIV/AIDS Department, stressed the need to \"learn by doing\" at the 3rd International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment, a biennial scientific meeting, in Rio de Jeneiro, Brazil. Gilks emphasized the importance of research on HIV prevention in addition to more effective ways to deliver treatment. \"While we work to keep people alive and healthy with the tools we have now, we also need to ensure that future generations will have access to better prevention technologies,\" said Gilks, referring to the importance of vaccine and microbicide research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS: Africa's doctors","field_subtitle":"International Herald Tribune","field_url":"http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/07/news/edntaba.php","body":"\"Here in my country, ten people die of AIDS every hour. About one million people are infected with HIV out of a population of some 12 million. Our government is working hard to try to slow down this epidemic: We have an extensive voluntary counseling and testing program and hope to treat as many as 80,000 people with antiretroviral drugs by the end of the year. Unfortunately, there is only so much we can do. One of our biggest obstacles, which many nations on our continent share, is a shortage of health care workers. Simply put, Africa cannot fight poverty and disease without more doctors and nurses.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Alternative world health report launched in Cuenca and London","field_subtitle":"David McCoy and Mike Rowson","field_url":"","body":"The conception and birth of the Global Health Watch\r\n\r\nFive years ago, about 1500 people from 80 countries met in Bangladesh at the first Peoples Health Assembly. The Assembly was organised as a counter-balance to the official World Health Assembly convened every year by World Health Organisation, and represented a protest against the failure to achieve health for all by the year 2000. \r\n\r\nThe Assembly gave renewed expression to social objectives such as fairness and the universal right to health care, as well as to the public health principle that in addition to providing health care, health systems and health professionals must act to abolish poverty and work towards people having access to education, nutrition, water, sanitation and peace. \r\n\r\nIt also gave birth to the Peoples Health Movement \u2013 a network of individuals and organisations from all regions of the world, formed with the understanding that the principles of the Charter would only be achieved through social mobilisation and political engagement. The Global Health Watch, an alternative world health report from the perspective of civil society, was designed as an instrument to support advocacy and mobilisation. Amongst its aims is to provide a platform that will embrace the science and politics of development, and thereby, simultaneously involve academics, health practitioners, parliamentarians, journalists and civil society in improving health and equity. \r\n\r\nMore than 120 people \u2013 researchers, health workers, non-government policy analysts and campaigners - and 70 non-government organisations contributed to the report. The connection of the Watch to the Peoples Health Movement and a wide range of NGOs will hopefully ensure that it doesn\u2019t end up as another report gathering dust \u2013 disengaged from the vehicles that can help translate analysis and recommendations into actual action. Already a number of NGOs have volunteered to host launches of the Watch in other countries, including Malaysia, South Africa, Ireland, Egypt, Germany, Holland, and the US.\r\n\r\nWatching\r\n\r\nThe Watch is not designed to report on the state of health and poverty \u2013 it is not about the size of the HIV pandemic, or the number of children who die every second; or the declining life expectancy in Africa. The aim is to provide a report on what is being done about improving health by reporting on the actions, policies and programmes of organisations charged with improving health. This idea of \u201cwatching\u201d the performance of key institutions can also be viewed as a contribution to democratic deficits that exist at many levels of decision-making and the erosion of public accountability that has accompanied globalisation and the concentration of wealth and power.\r\n\r\nGlobal political and economic institutions\r\n\r\nAccording to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, people do not just have a right to an adequate standard of living and medical care \u2013 they also have a right to live in a social and international order in which the rights to medical care can be realised. However, this right is continually violated. According to the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation, \u201cnone of the existing global institutions provide adequate democratic oversight of global markets, or redress basic inequalities between countries\u201d. \r\n\r\nThe Watch questions the success story painted by proponents of the current form of globalization, pointing to increases in poverty in Africa, eastern Europe, central Asia and Latin America. Producers in developing countries have often been undermined by increased global competition from powerful nations after trade liberalisation. In Mexico, for example, the liberalisation of the corn sector under the North American Free Trade Agreement, led to a flood of imports from the United States, where agribusiness is massively subsidised. Mexican corn production stagnated whilst prices declined. Small farmers became much poorer and some 700,000 agricultural jobs disappeared over the same period. Rural poverty rates rose to over 70%, the minimum wage lost over 75% of its purchasing power, and infant mortality rates amongst the poor increased.\r\n\r\nTo change this will require a shift away from the dominant human rights discourse which focuses on the obligations of national governments towards their own citizens, towards more of a focus on a) the obligations of governments to the citizens of other countries; and b) the obligations of non-government actors, as well as the rules by which the world economy is controlled and governed. Furthermore, whilst some countries have social contracts, progressive taxation systems and laws and regulations to manage the human consequences of market failures at the national level, there is no \u2018global social contract\u2019 to manage the failures of globalization.\r\n\r\nWorld Health Organisation (WHO)\r\n\r\nA key chapter in the report is dedicated to WHO. The report argues that WHO is insufficiently resourced, inadequately empowered, undermined by national political agendas and handicapped by internal management problems. WHO does many things well and repeatedly demonstrates the need for a multilateral agency charged with protecting and promoting health, but the Watch calls for better funding and improvements in WHO\u2019s operating environment. The report also notes that the proliferation of public private initiatives, vertical programmes and the insidious influence of the World Bank has resulted in WHO being further undermined as the leading global health agency.\r\n\r\nBut we need, for example, a WHO that can challenge and aspire to block trade and economic agreements that threaten to harm health and human rights. As a starting point, the Watch calls upon WHO to convene a delegation of public health and trade experts to attend the trade talks in Hong Kong this year, mandated with the role of providing public health advice to Ministries of trade and finance. But this simple request is unlikely to be granted without public lobbying. At the most recent Executive Board meeting of WHO, a mild resolution put forward by developing countries requesting WHO to conduct a more active analysis on the impact of trade on health was blocked by the US and other countries \u2013 illustrating the impotence of WHO in tackling the more fundamental determinants of health.\r\n\r\nOther recommendations aimed at WHO include:\r\n\r\nSteering the global health ship\r\n\r\n- Substantially increase funding for WHO with more proportionately devoted to its core budget with fewer strings attached;\r\n- Open a debate on WHO\u2019s key roles to avoid mission-creep and to develop consensus within and beyond the organization;\r\n- Strengthen WHO\u2019s role at country level and give it a mandate to help governments co-ordinate global, bilateral and international NGO initiatives to improve health.\r\n\r\nAn organization of the people not just of governments\r\n- Expand current efforts to reach out to civil society, especially in the developing world;\r\n- Ensure that public-interest civil society organizations are differentiated from those acting as a front for commercial interests;\r\n- Improve the nature of the WHO leadership elections \u2013 possible solutions include a wider franchise, perhaps of international public health experts and civil society organizations. Candidates should be required to publish a manifesto and debate their vision for the organization publicly. \r\n\r\nImprove the management of the organization\r\n- Improve the mix of the professional staff, ensuring that there are more social scientists, economists, public policy specialists, lawyers and pharmacists. More representation from developing countries should be coupled with stronger regional offices run by experienced professionals.\r\n\r\nThe corporate sector \r\n\r\nOf the 100 largest economic entities in the world, 51 are businesses; and the combined sales of the top 20 businesses are 18 times the combined income of the poorest 25% of the world\u2019s population. Transnational corporations wield immense power through their wealth, control of resources and influence on governments and key decision-making bodies, with profound consequences for health and development. \r\n\r\nThe price of medicines and the radical changes to the way we construct patents; the resistance to making the required changes to address climate change; widespread labour exploitation and occupational health hazards; the dumping of cheap, subsidised food in Africa; the corrupt trade in weapons; the unchecked pollution of many extractive industries; and the unhealthy changes in food eating practices are just some examples described in the report, of the causal relationships that exist between profit-seeking corporate activity and the state of global health.\r\n\r\nWhile commercial activity and free enterprise in themselves should not come under attack, the deterioration of democratic control and oversight over corporate actions and power must be highlighted. The imbalance between corporate freedom and social obligations is unhealthy, and health professionals need to assert their public health authority to limit the negative consequences of corporate actions, and ensure proper regulatory frameworks.\r\n\r\nThe attention paid to the corporate sector also leads us to shift thinking away from an exclusive focus on poverty towards an equally necessary focus on wealth, and in particular one what many would call obscene wealth. One of the demands we make is for the establishment of an international tax authority to help recover the conservatively estimated US$255 billion that is lost annually through tax avoidance. \r\n\r\nThis is an amount of money, in spite of the low tax rates, that would fund comprehensive and functional health care systems in every poor country. Public-private partnerships and corporate social responsibility programmes are great, but the Watch calls for the greater use of legitimate, fair and non-punitive instruments of public policy to ensure the universal provision of health care and social security, and the redistribution that is required to reverse the politically unsustainable deepening of global disparities. \r\n\r\nHealth systems\r\n\r\nThe chapter on health systems sets a very different agenda from the one currently popular with donors, where the emphasis is on fragmented, vertical health programmes usually focussed on one or two diseases, or on particular selected interventions. The Watch describes how Ministries of Health in poor countries operate in a policy circus, pulled in a hundred different directions by different programmes, donors and agencies, undermining coherent and integrated health systems development. In many instances, these agencies also contribute to an internal \u2018brain drain\u2019 \u2013 sucking many of the most skilled professionals out of public health care systems.  \r\n\r\nIn the poorer countries, this has come on top of economic crises, structural adjustment programmes and neoliberal reforms that have decimated public health care systems and extended the commercialisation of health care to the detriment of equity, accessibility and efficiency. \r\n\r\nThe Watch presents new evidence which suggests that higher levels of private finance and provision lead to worse health outcomes, and explains how private financing and provision leads to a commercialisation of health care systems which widens health care inequities, lowers access to care for the poor, causes inefficiencies and deteriorates levels of trust and ethics. \r\n\r\nUnless a common vision of health care systems development is established, we will not achieve the health-related Millennium Development Goals. The Watch therefore calls for the adoption of a 10-point agenda to repair and develop health care systems (more detail on the recommendations is available from both the Watch itself and the accompanying advocacy document, Global Health Action): \r\n\r\n1.\tProvide adequate funding for health care systems;\r\n2.\tTake better care of public sector workers;\r\n3.\tEnsure that public financing and provision underpin health care systems;\r\n4.\tAbolish user fees that push people into poverty;\r\n5.\tAdopt new health systems indicators and targets that incentivize countries to improve the health system rather than simply tackle specific diseases;\r\n6.\tReverse the commercialization of health care systems by using regulatory and legislative instruments; and search for ways in which the private sector\u2019s resources can be harnessed for the public good;\r\n7.\tStrengthen health management and adopt the District Health System as the model for organising health care systems;\r\n8.\tImprove donor assistance within the health sector;\r\n9.\tPromote community empowerment to improve the accountability of the health system;\r\n10.\tPromote trust and ethical behaviour to combat the corrosive effects of commercialization.\r\n\r\nAt the moment international health agencies consistently stress the importance of strengthening health care systems \u2013 but with little debate or discussion as to what this actually means. This is one area where WHO can really play a positive role and demonstrate health sector leadership. \r\n\r\nGlobal Health Watch 2\r\n\r\nPlanning for the second edition of the Watch has begun. But between now and then, the challenge will be to actively mobilise the broader health community around the Watch and the advocacy agenda that accompanies it.\r\n\r\nAt the launch of the report in London, NHS organisations and professional associations were asked to think of institutional responses to the global health crises by:\r\n- Developing long-term \u2018partnerships\u2019 with counterparts in poor countries - involving support, the transfer of material resources, skills and technology \u2013 and also providing a mechanism by which health workers in the NHS can learn and understand the impact of UK actions and policies on global health); \r\n- Daring to put aside a proportion of money to promote global health until such time that we have a mechanism to recompense poor countries for training so many of our health workers; \r\n- Implementing fair trade and ethical purchasing policies within our own organizations; and\r\n- Campaigning for change. Medact, which was established specifically as a membership organization for health workers to promote global health, provide one concrete vehicle by which individual health workers can work together to lever change. \r\n\r\nIn southern Africa, the health and development community should consider ways in which the Watch can be used as a tool to strengthen and develop a progressive global public health movement and greater public accountability.\r\n\r\n* David McCoy and Mike Rowson are managing editors of GHW\r\n\r\n* Please send comments to admin@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Cost and cost-effectiveness of community based DOTS in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 2005","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/3/1/6","body":"Identifying new approaches to tuberculosis treatment that are effective and put less demand to meagre health resources is important. One such approach is community based direct observed treatment (DOT). The purpose of the study was to determine the cost and cost effectiveness of health facility and community based directly observed treatment of tuberculosis in an urban setting in Tanzania. The conclusion is that community based DOT presents an economically attractive option to complement health facility based DOT. This is particularly important in settings where TB clinics are working beyond capacity under limited resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Critical Health Perspectives - Call for Papers","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"CHP is a publication of the People's Health Movement, South Africa (South Africa). It is produced with the aim of offering an alternative, \"peoples health\" perspective and stimulating debate on critical issues related to health and health care in South Africa and elsewhere. CHP is produced once a month and distributed electronically with a distribution list of around 500 people. It is also distributed to a number of email lists. The distribution list consist of professionals interested in health care issues, staff in NGO's, trade union membership, media, government officials, activists.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31025","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Does AIDS threaten the right to land?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/r1ma1g1.html","body":"There are between 500 and 700 AIDS-related deaths in Kenya every day. Beyond this tragedy, the HIV/AIDS epidemic creates problems in many aspects of social and economic life. One such problem is decreased security of land tenure. There are dramatic accounts of AIDS widows and orphans being chased from their land and many more that tell of an increased sense of tenure insecurity due to HIV/AIDS. Is this the whole story of the relationship between HIV/AIDS and land rights? Research sponsored by the Department for International Development (UK) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations examines the relationship between HIV/AIDS and land rights in three Kenyan districts. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by \r\n\r\nFahamu - Networks for Social Justice\r\nhttp://www.fahamu.org/  \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter 54: Alternative world health report launched in Cuenca and London","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Equinet Newsletter 54 (August 2005): Alternative world health report launched in Cuenca and London\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet student research grants: Call for applicants","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This briefing describes the programme of student research grants in EQUINET and invites applicants for the third round of grants. The Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) promotes policies for equity in health across a range of priority theme areas (See www.equinetafrica.org) EQUINET has over the years, organized its work in various theme areas, including: economic and trade policy and health; human rights, governance and participation, equity in health sector responses to HIV/AIDS, human resources for health; monitoring and surveillance and others. Within these areas of work EQUINET aims to identify, recruit and build capacity and analysis. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31041","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Free downloads from Intrac","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The following notes are now available to download for free from the Praxis area of INTRAC's website:\r\n* 'Building Capacity to Mainstream HIV/AIDS Internally: Reflecting on CABUNGO's Experience with NGOs in Malawi', by Rick James and CABUNGO, July 2005\r\n* 'Robbed of Dorothy! The Painful Realities of HIV/AIDS in an Organisation', by Betsy Mboizi and Rick James, June 2005\r\n* 'Capacity Building in an AIDS-Affected Health Care Institution: Mulanje Mission Hospital, Malawi', by Hans Rode, April 2005\r\n* 'The Crushing Impact of HIV/AIDS on Leadership in Malawi', by Rick James, April 2005\r\nwww.intrac.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"G8 2005: a missed opportunity for global health","field_subtitle":"The Lancet 2005","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673605668808/fulltext","body":"This year people in bars and at football matches were asking about the Group of 8 (G8) nations summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. Such unprecedented popular interest was prompted by Bob Geldof's Live 8 concerts and the Make Poverty History campaign. These initiatives were organised to raise awareness about African poverty and to pressure politicians into tackling the preventable global burden of disease afflicting billions of people living in low-income settings. When asked if his lobbying had paid off, Geldof said, \u201cA great justice has been done\u201d. He should have said \u201cNo\u201d. (requires registration)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health watch released","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ghwatch.org/about_ghw.php","body":"At the World Health Assembly in May 2003, the People's Health Movement, together with GEGA and Medact discussed the need for civil society to produce its own alternative World Health Report. It was felt that the WHO reports were inadequate; that there was no report that monitored the performance of global health institutions; and, that the dominant neo-liberal discourse in public health policy also needed to be challenged by a more people-centred approach that highlights social justice. The idea of an alternative World Health Report since developed into an initiative called the 'Global Health Watch' the first of which was launched on July 20, 2005.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global right to health campaign launched","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/331/7511/252-a?rss","body":"The People's Health Movement, an international organisation of health activists, launched a new global campaign on the right to health at its second assembly in Cuenca, Ecuador, held from 18 to 23 July. Assembly delegates from many countries attested to the campaign's importance. Increasing erosion in access to universal health care, growth of unregulated private providers, and declines in public funding are leaving millions of people without insured services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalisation bad for health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=29594","body":"Alternative reports on global health, presented at the second People's Health Assembly in Ecuador this week, question the free-market, neoliberal economic model and view it as the cause of many of the health problems facing humanity today.  These include the indiscriminate use of toxic products in agriculture, pollution caused by the oil industry, the consumption of transgenic crops, the destruction of the urban environment by pollution, and the commercialisation of health services.  The reports by the Global Health Watch and the Observatorio Latinoamericano de Salud see a healthy life as a fundamental human right, the enjoyment of which depends on economic, political and social factors. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Good governance and good health: The role of societal structures","field_subtitle":"BMC International Health and Human Rights 2005","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter/admin/admin.php?action=insert&list_all=&sort=","body":"Only governments sensitive to the demands of their citizens appropriately respond to needs of their nation. HIV prevalence is significantly associated with poor governance. International public health programs need to address societal structures in order to create strong foundations upon which effective healthcare interventions can be implemented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How nurses in Cape Town clinics experience the HIV epidemic","field_subtitle":"Uta Lehmann and Jabu Zulu, School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape","field_url":"","body":"HIV/AIDS care encompasses a range of different programmes, including voluntary counselling and testing (VCT), prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT), health education, nutrition and psycho-social support, treatment of opportunistic infections and staging. Yet, since government\u2019s decision to introduce anti-retroviral therapy in public health facilities, research and debate has focused almost exclusively on the delivery of ARVs.  Most of these essential HIV/AIDS services are rendered or supported by nurses at primary care facilities (clinics or community health centres). Yet primary care nursing is in danger of being seriously undermined in South Africa (and elsewhere in Africa) by an accelerating brain drain of nurses, decreasing productivity, lack of skills, and overwhelming anecdotal evidence of burnout and low morale amongst nursing staff. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31024","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Human resources for emergency obstetric care in northern Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Human Resources for Health 2005","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/3/1/5","body":"\"Health care agencies report that the major limiting factor for implementing effective health policies and reforms worldwide is a lack of qualified human resources. Although many agencies have adopted policy development and clinical practice guidelines, the human resources necessary to carry out these policies towards actual reform are not yet in place. The goal of this article is to evaluate the current status of human resources quality, availability and distribution in Northern Tanzania in order to provide emergency obstetric care services to specific districts in this area. The article also discusses the usefulness of distribution indicators for describing equity in the decision-making process.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of Adjustment Policies on Vulnerability of Women and Children to HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"Roberto De Vogli and Gretchen L. Birbeck","field_url":"","body":"The social and economic impact of the adjustment programmes of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in developing countries has been a source of heated debate over the last two decades. Research on the effects of these policies has led to contradictory conclusions.\r\n\r\nA number of World Bank evaluations indicate that 'adjuster countries' generally succeed in improving health, education, and social welfare programmes compared to 'non adjusters' (1-3). Based on such studies, the World Bank concludes that adjustment programmes do not necessarily adversely affect vulnerable populations. Furthermore, the World Bank believes that reforms that include these reforms are necessary for poverty eradication in developing countries.\r\n\r\nOn the other hand, publications from UNICEF and from representatives of academic institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) indicate that adjustment policies may be particularly harmful for the most vulnerable populations. In \"Adjustment with a human face\", UNICEF reports studies from several developing countries which indicate that adjustment policies have negatively affected the health status of women and children (4).\r\n\r\nEvidence suggests that the adjustment programmes may also create conditions favouring societal vulnerability to HIV/AIDS (5). Unfortunately, no study, to date, has systematically evaluated the relationship between IMF/World Bank economic reforms and the vulnerability of women and children to HIV/AIDS.\r\n\r\nThis paper reviews what is known regarding the social and economic consequences of adjustment policies on maternal and child welfare and explores the potential impact such consequences may have on the vulnerability of women and children to HIV/AIDS. We approach the impact of macroeconomic adjustment policies from a conceptual perspective. Our theoretical framework illustrates how adjustment policies may influence the predisposing factors for impoverishment of women and exposure of children to HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.\r\n\r\nThe underlying assumption is not that adjustment is the only cause of vulnerability of women and children to HIV/AIDS. Antecedent predisposing factors, such as poverty and inequality, are responsible for the vulnerability of women and children to HIV/AIDS in the first place. However, adjustment policies may further contribute to a socioeconomic environment that facilitates the exposure of women and children to HIV/AIDS, especially when their implementation is not accompanied by specific measures protecting the most vulnerable populations.\r\n\r\nAIDS in sub-Saharan Africa directly and indirectly devastates the lives of millions of women and children. According to the joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization, 19.2 million women and 3.2 million children aged less than 15 years are living with HIV/AIDS in the world. Almost two-thirds of them reside in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2003, over one million women and approximately 610,000 children died from AIDS.\r\n\r\nSocioeconomic conditions of women and children are determined by a series of hierarchical factors that interact with one another at different levels of their ecosystem. These factors correspond to the household level (i.e. income of the family), the meso level (i.e. food prices, real wages, employment opportunities), and the macro level (i.e. economic policies, health policies, social welfare systems). The latter level is particularly important: macroeconomic changes modify the meso-economic conditions that, in turn, are transmitted down to the household level. Macroeconomic measures, such as adjustment policies, may have an impact not only on macroeconomic indicators, such as gross domestic product (GDP) growth and the external debt rate, but also on social indicators, such as access of women and children to shelter, food, healthcare, and education. Since poor access to basic human needs may facilitate the exposure of children to HIV/AIDS, economic policies at the macro level may ultimately be related to the socioeconomic conditions that reduce or facilitate the spread of HIV/ AIDS among infants and youths.\r\n\r\nEconomic reforms that decrease access to basic needs for poor households will eventually result in increased exposure of women and children to HIV/AIDS. Conversely, economic growth that leads to increased access to basic goods and services for the most vulnerable families may significantly reduce their exposure to the infection.\r\n\r\nSince 1980, most sub-Saharan African countries entered into one or more adjustment programme(s) of the IMF/ World Bank. Many of these programmes have not been implemented as prescribed by the World Bank and IMF, but as implemented, these policies have not produced the expected results in terms of economic growth and reduction of unsustainable debt. A World Bank study of 26 African countries that implemented adjustment policies concluded that six countries had a large improvement in macroeconomic indicators, nine had a small improvement, and 11 had a deterioration (3). Moreover, Africa's external debt increased from US$ 120 billion in 1980 to US$ 340 billion in 1995 (14).\r\n\r\nAdjustment policies mainly consist of currency devaluation and financial liberalization; privatization of government corporations; trade liberalization (including import liberalization and export promotion); elimination or reduction of subsidies for agriculture and food staples; and reductions in government spending (including expenditure for health, education, and social services).\r\n\r\nAnalyses of the effects of currency devaluation on prices for basic items, such as food, housing, and transportation, lead to controversial conclusions. Prices for basic commodities rise after the adoption of the adjustment policies because currency devaluation increases the cost of imports. In Zambia, devaluation increased the cost of bread from 12 kwacha a loaf in 1990 to 350 kwacha in 1993 (21). In Senegal, after currency devaluation, inflation rates dramatically increased especially for daily food and health products (22). In Kenya, the real price for maize rose by 29% between 1982 and 1983 (23). In Tanzania, commodity prices skyrocketed as a result of devaluation (24).\r\n\r\nDespite these results, there is also evidence that currency devaluation may be an appropriate solution to prevent a further collapse of a failing economy (13). A study conducted in cocoa-growing areas of Ghana concluded that even the poorest smallholders benefited from the improved producer prices resulting from devaluation (25).\r\n\r\nIf currency devaluation produces mixed effects, removal of food subsidies has a more direct impact on access to food and basic commodities, especially among low income groups. In Zambia, after the removal of subsidies in 1985, the price of maize meal rose by 50% (26). In Zimbabwe, after eliminating food subsidies, the cost of living for lower-income urban families rose by 45% between mid-1991 and mid-1992. The increased cost of food items results in a sharp reduction of low-income household expenditure on other basic commodities.\r\n\r\nSharp increases in the cost of living and impoverishment of women not only increase the vulnerability of infants to HIV/AIDS, but also have a negative impact on vulnerable young people. Children of poor mothers are more likely to be exposed to predisposing factors for HIV (10). Socioeconomic constraints force these children to leave school and search work to support their families. Children may also be abandoned. Youths and children living in impoverished families are more likely to live and work on the street, where they may be forced into prostitution to exchange sex for money, goods, food, or shelter (31).\r\n\r\nPrivatization results in significant job losses in the public sector without necessarily increasing employment in the private sector (34-36). To improve efficiency and keep production costs low, public enterprises reduce costs of labour by freezing wages and reducing employment.\r\n\r\nThis results in a decline of real wages or an increase in unemployment, especially among low-income workers. During the 1980s, average real wages declined in 26 of 28 African countries (34). In Ghana, between 1984 and 1991, after privatization of the 42 largest state enterprises, more than 150,000 workers lost their jobs (31).\r\n\r\nThese cutbacks in public-sector employment disproportionately affect women (4,37,38) who traditionally hold positions, such as clerical workers, cleaners, nurses, or teachers. In Ghana, the least skilled women working in the public sector lost job protection, security, and benefits as a consequence of policies aimed at increasing efficiency, while others lost employment altogether (39). Privatization not only affects women in urban areas, but also impacts those in rural areas since informal land privatization is linked to a reduction in access of women to subsistence food production (40).\r\n\r\nUnemployment, low wages, and job insecurity caused by privatization not only increase women's adoption of survival strategies, including prostitution, but also modify existing gender-related relationships. Employed women tend to be more empowered by having more opportunities for education, more experience in public life, more self-confidence and self-esteem, all basic prerequisites for negotiating safe sex with male partners (41). Conversely, unemployment, job insecurity, and reduced purchasing power increase the exposure of women to sexual harassment and sexual abuse, especially among those working in low-earning jobs (42).\r\n\r\nReduced employment opportunities resulting from privatization may also increase the proportion of African children forced to live on the street or work to support their families (43). In Zambia, due to privatization and retrenchment of government employees, 72,000 people lost their jobs and child labour increased nine folds among females aged 12-14-years (44).\r\n\r\nIn regions where a significant proportion of population live in miserable conditions, indiscriminate cost-recovery measures disproportionately affect those who cannot afford to pay user-charges. The World Bank and other organizations which support the implementation of user-fees for health services insist that even poor households are willing to pay for higher quality, more reliable health services. In a household survey conducted in Rwanda, most respondents, regardless of income, indicated a preference for higher fees to assure the availability of medications (59).\r\n\r\nHowever, populations living on less than a dollar per day can rarely afford to pay user-fees and their inability to pay may negate their 'willingness' to pay (60). The literature repeatedly shows that introducing user-charges at STI clinics result in a dramatic drop in women's use of services (61-64). Access to free STI treatment and condoms increase their use (65-66), and the introduction of user-charges creates an obstacle to HIV-preventive behavioural practices among women. Women and youth without access to AIDS education, HIV screening, STI treatment, and reproductive health services have little control over their AIDS-related risk factors. Untreated STIs increase the risks of HIV transmission (67) as shown in Uganda where over 90% of new HIV infections were attributable to other STIs (68). The introduction of user fees for health clinics is likely to increase the number of untreated STIs consequently producing high HIV susceptibility in women (66). These HIV-infected women infect their children through vertical transmission of the virus.\r\n\r\nFollowing the prescriptions for structural adjustment and stabilization policies, many sub-Saharan African countries reduced public expenditure on education and introduced school fees limiting access to education, especially among those children who cannot afford to pay such charges (4,36). The introduction of school fees causes a dramatic fall in primary school enrollment rates and increases the number of children who drop out of school. Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest primary school enrollment ratio in the world. This ratio fell from 77.1% in 1980 to an estimated 66.7% in 1990 (69).\r\n\r\nCertain components of adjustment reforms, such as currency devaluation and trade liberalization, may produce mixed effects on the vulnerability of women and children to HIV/AIDS. Other reforms, such as financial liberalization, removal of food subsidies, and introduction of user fees for healthcare and education have a negative impact on the spread of the epidemic among poor women and children. In most cases, adjustment policies create synergies making it extremely difficult to identify their net social effects. Clearly, there is, currently, no single study capable of demonstrating a causal link between adjustment policies and the exposure of women and children to HIV/AIDS. However, this analysis provides some evidence that adjustment policies may inadvertently facilitate societal conditions that increase the vulnerability of women and children to HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.\r\n\r\nIt must also be acknowledged that the World Bank is, at present, the largest single investor in health in sub- Saharan Africa. Such investment may reduce the HIV epidemic through some mechanisms. However, the unintended consequences of adjustment policies may have greater negative effects on the same health outcome.\r\n\r\nGiven the potential for adjustment policies to exacerbate the AIDS pandemic among women and children, there is an urgent need to either demonstrate that such measures are not harmful to maternal and child welfare or to modify policies. The present buffering mechanisms designed to protect the most vulnerable segments of the population during macroeconomic stabilization and structural adjustment are not sufficient. The IMF and the World Bank need to provide adequate scientific evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of their policies. Failure to do so may undermine their international credibility and further exacerbate the already tragic social conditions of marginalized women and children at risk of HIV/AIDS in the developing world.\r\n\r\n* This article is composed of extracts from the original review paper, done with permission of the author. For the full paper and list of references visit http://www.phishare.org/documents/icddrb/3205/\r\n\r\n* Roberto De Vogli is with the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College of London. Gretchen L. Birbeck is with the African Studies Center and Departments of Neurology and Epidemiology, Michigan State University.\r\n\r\n* Please send comments to admin@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Mapping global health partnerships: what they are, what they do and where they operate","field_subtitle":"Department for International Development Health Systems Resource Centre (DFID HSRC), 2004","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC18941&resource=healthsystems","body":"This paper, from the DFID Health Resource Centre (HRC) aims to provide a common understanding of what Global Health Partnerships (GHPs) are, how they might be classified and how they operate. The document reviews definitions of GHPs, outlines a classification system used in the Resource Centre\u2019s broader GHP project, describes the key findings, and provides a detailed list of GHPs with their missions, aims and/or objectives. It also details a global GHP mapping exercise, which examined prevalence or cases of specific diseases of interest to target GHPs, poverty, and political and health systems characteristics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Medicines and vaccines for the world's poorest: Is there any prospect for public-private cooperation?","field_subtitle":"Globalization and Health 2005","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/1/1/10","body":"\"This paper reviews the current status of the global pharmaceutical industry and its research and development focus in the context of the health care needs of the developing world. It will consider the attempts to improve access to critical drugs and vaccines, and increase the research effort directed at key public health priorities in the developing world. In particular, it will consider prospects for public-private collaboration. The challenges and opportunities in such public-private partnerships will be discussed briefly along with a look at factors that may be key to success. Much of the focus is on HIV/AIDS where the debate on the optimal balance between intellectual property rights (IPR) and human rights to life and health has been very public and emotive.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Millions face food shortages in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=27369","body":"More than 10 million people will need humanitarian assistance in six countries across southern Africa over the coming year following yet another year of poor agricultural production caused by erratic weather together with late, and in some cases unaffordable inputs, such as fertilizer and seeds, two UN agencies and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) have warned. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New HIV/AIDS Dossier from scidev.net","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/dossiers","body":"Scidev.net have just launched a range of new in-depth materials on the latest scientific and technological advances to combat HIV/AIDS in developing countries. Articles include perspectives from the South, with an overview of HIV research in Brazil and microbicides research in South Africa forming two of the new opinion pieces.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Non-communicable diseases, injuries and mental health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Chronic, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), mental disorders, and injuries and violence are major public health problems in developing countries. Together, they account for over 40 per cent of the disease burden in high mortality developing countries, and over 75 per cent in lower mortality developing countries. So why are they so often overlooked by policymakers? The HRC/Eldis Health Resource Guide has launched a topic guide to NCDs, injuries and mental health. Produced in collaboration with subject experts, it provides a synthesis of the latest thinking and research on these issues, with summaries of key readings and links to further resources.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31037","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"PHA calls for end to patent regime","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Delegates attending the second people\u2019s health assembly called for the total abolition of patents on essential medicines. \u201cPatents are shortening the lives of people and is a curse for poor people,\u201d said Dr. Eduardo Espinoza, the former dean of University of El Salvador. \u201cThere are two serious concerns about essential medicines. Firstly, it is about their availability. Secondly its affordability,\u201d said Mr. Amitava Guha, a trade union leader from India. \u201cThe manifestations of the unfair patent regime are taking a heavy toll on poor people, especially those who are infected and affected with HIV / AIDS,\u201d said Mr. Guha, who currently heads the Federation of Medical Representatives Association of India.\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31030","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Social contracts and private health sector performance","field_subtitle":"Health Systems Resource Centre 2004","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=2&i=h1gb1g7&u=42edfa26","body":"Debates about the roles of public and private healthcare sectors reflect the experiences of advanced market economies. But in many developing countries, the boundaries between public and private sectors are blurred. Strategies towards private providers must address the context of local relationships between the state, market and civil society. A paper from the UK Department for International Development's Health Systems Resource Centre aims to help the development of a common understanding of the reality of countries where most poor people live and of practical strategies for meeting their needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Source website","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.asksource.info/","body":"Source is an international information support centre designed to strengthen the management, use and impact of information on health and disability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of HIV/AIDS on rural livelihoods","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/r1tb2g1.html","body":"The HIV/AIDS epidemic has a dramatic impact on agricultural production, rural livelihoods and food security in many countries. Labour-saving crops and improved agricultural techniques will be a valuable support measure for communities to increase agricultural output and food production.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The politics of staying poor: exploring the political space for poverty reduction in Uganda","field_subtitle":"World Development, Volume 33, Issue 6","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VC6-4G3KC10-1&_user=3824252&_handle=V-WA-A-W-AV-MsSAYWA-UUA-U-AAWVCAYBYE-AAWWUEEAYE-WBECUWYBD-AV-U&_fmt=summary&_coverDate=06/30/2005&_rdoc=12&_orig=browse&_srch=%23toc%235946%232005%239996699","body":"Despite claims that Uganda\u2019s recent success in poverty reduction has been significantly related to \u201cgetting the politics right,\u201d there are concerns that the poorest may not have benefited from this form of poverty reduction or the types of politics that have helped shape it. Employing the analytical framework of political space reveals that although some of the poorest groups are represented within the political system, political discourse reveals a strong bias toward the \u201ceconomically active,\u201d leaving the poorest excluded from poverty programs. Significantly, there is an increasing divergence between the regime\u2019s political project of \u201cmodernization\u201d and the international poverty agenda, with important implications for the poorest.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding the linkages between HIV/AIDS and agriculture","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/r2tj1g1.html","body":"In the agricultural sector of parts of eastern and southern Africa, HIV/AIDS has contributed to a loss of assets and land, and, in some cases, labour shortages. As a result, crop production has declined for many farm households and rural inequality appears to have increased. Agricultural growth built on policies sensitive to the impacts of HIV/AIDS is essential.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Which Patients First? Setting Priorities for Antiretroviral Therapy Where Resources Are Limited","field_subtitle":"July 2005, Vol 95, No. 7, American Journal of Public Health ","field_url":"http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/95/7/1173","body":"The availability of limited funds from international agencies for the purchase of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment in developing countries presents challenges, especially in prioritizing who should receive therapy. Public input and the protection of human rights are crucial in making treatment programs equitable and accountable. By examining historical precedents of resource allocation, we aim to provoke and inform debate about current ARV programs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO praises G8 on health","field_subtitle":"Statement by Dr LEE Jong-wook, Director-General, World Health Organization","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2005/s06/en/index.html","body":"\"Today the G8 has made an unprecedented commitment to health which has the potential to forever change the lives of millions of people in Africa. Disease kills 3.5 million African children under five every year. HIV/AIDS affects more than 25 million African people. Tuberculosis kills 1500 each day. A woman living in sub-Saharan Africa has a 1 in 16 chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth. I welcome the G8's pledge to turn these trends around. The aim of providing near-universal access to AIDS treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS by 2010, combined with prevention and care, has the potential to turn the tide on this epidemic. We already know that treatment can turn a fatal disease into a chronic condition and we have demonstrated that this works in resource-poor countries.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Report 2005 policy brief two: rehabilitating the workforce","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization (WHO), 2005","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC18945&resource=healthsystems","body":"This policy brief from the World Health Report argues that it will not be possible to effectively scale up Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) care without confronting the global health workforce crisis. It argues that the low number of health professionals is one of the main factors in the exclusion from care and high mortality rates for mothers and newborns. It highlights how lack of managerial autonomy, gender discrimination and violence in the workplace, dwindling salaries, poor working conditions and some donor interventions have all contributed to a lack of productivity, as well as the rural to urban, public to private and poor to rich country brain drain and migration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia National Health Accounts 2002: main findings","field_subtitle":"Partners for Health Reformplus (PHRplus), 2004","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC18759&resource=healthsystems","body":"This document, by the Zambian Ministry of Health and PHRplus, summarises how the National Health Accounts (NHA) system was used to assess both general health and HIV and AIDS-specific spending in Zambia in 2002. The document also reviews health care use and borrowing patterns for people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA). Findings show that the private sector, including households, finance 15.3 per cent of HIV and AIDS spending, whereas the public sector finances 7.2 per cent. Findings also reveal that PLWHA spend 12 times more on health care than those who are not infected. Traditional healers were also found to play a major role as providers of health care for people living with HIV and AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"2 billion more people need access to basic sanitation by 2015","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr23/en/index.html","body":"Basic sanitation must reach 138 million more people every year through 2015 \u2013 close to 2 billion in total - to bring the world on track to halve the proportion of people living without safe water and basic sanitation, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF warn in a new report. Meeting this Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target would cost US $11.3 billion per year, a minimal investment compared with the potential to reduce human illnesses and death and invigorate economies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"3 by 5 and the momentum towards universal treatment","field_subtitle":"Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, speaks to a meeting of civil society organizations on the WHO Report on Access to Treatment for AIDS: Nairobi, Kenya, Wednesday, June 29, 2005","field_url":"","body":"\r\nThe report launched today, by WHO and UNAIDS, as a status update on where the world stands in the provision of treatment for AIDS is a predictably fascinating document.\r\n\r\nThere will be comments aplenty. I have five.\r\n\r\nFirst, the 3 by 5 initiative seems to me to be entirely vindicated. Mind you, I can even now hear the curmudgeonly bleats of the detractors, whining that we will fall short of the target of three million in treatment by the end of this year. Tell that to the million people who are now on treatment and who would otherwise be dead. The truth is that the 3 by 5 initiative --- which, I predict, will be seen one day as one of the UN\u2019s finest hours --- has unleashed an irreversible momentum for treatment. I see it everywhere as I travel through Africa. Governments are moving heaven and earth to keep their people alive, and nothing will stop that driving impulse. It is surely noteworthy that 3 by 5 has ushered the phrase \u201cuniversal treatment\u201d into the language of the pandemic, meaning that we\u2019re now all fixated on getting everyone who needs treatment, into treatment, as fast as possible. It is, I readily admit, both painful and horrifying to see the numbers who are dying as they wait for treatment to be rolled out, but at least there is hope amidst the despair.\r\n\r\nSecond, it becomes irrefutably clear that treatment has been a boon to prevention. I can recall from many quarters all the caterwauling about the neglect of prevention as the world began to focus on treatment. But the detractors were wrong again. Not only do we continue to emphasize prevention and reinforce it at country level, but the provision of treatment significantly accelerates testing and counseling, one of the primary ingredients of prevention. Buried in the report, is the astonishing statistic from a study of a district in Uganda, showing a 27-fold increase in counseling and testing as a result of the introduction of treatment!\r\n\r\nThird, the G8 certainly has its work cut out for it. What this report appears to do is to throw many of the financial estimates of resource needs for Africa into a cocked hat. WHO and UNAIDS categorically assert that we will need an additional $18 billion dollars, over present commitments, for the three years 2005-2007. We know from the recent UNAIDS estimates for 2008, that we will require $22 billion annually, minimum, from that year forward. In the face of these resource imperatives, the idea of doubling foreign aid for Africa by 2010, which would represent another $25 billion per year, is clearly inadequate, some might say paltry. The $25 billion is supposed to address all of the Millennium Development Goals; it will barely address the one goal of defeating communicable diseases. Unless the G8 can do a lot better than the present calculus, Gleneagles will be much like all the G7/G8 summits before it: a rhetorical triumph, a pragmatic illusion.\r\n\r\nFourth: the report has one particularly evocative diagram. It\u2019s a world map portraying the twenty countries with the highest unmet treatment needs \u2026 twenty countries where the estimated number of people in treatment is pathetically low. Six of those countries --- South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ethiopia and India --- represent fully half of the unmet treatment needs. Five of them are in Africa. South Africa alone has the largest shortfall in the world, some 866,000 people who should at this very moment be in treatment. The country appears to have something slightly in excess of 100,000 people in treatment, but that represents only 10% to 14% of those who are desperately in need. The numbers for the other African countries, while smaller, are proportionately even more grim. This is where the international community must rally urgent support.\r\n\r\nFifth, the report says, without caveat, that treatment should be provided free at the point where it is given. Finally, we\u2019re building a new consensus around the destructive nature of \u2018user fees\u2019, particularly as they prejudice the poor. User fees are a sordid relic of the old economic conditionalities: it will be excellent to see the end of them.\r\n\r\nIt was a good and illuminating report that was released today. It identifies many of the obstacles and bottlenecks, and with spirited intelligence suggests, in each case, a way around them. It\u2019s a first-rate blueprint at this point in time.\r\n\r\n* Click on http://www.who.int/3by5/progressreportJune2005/en/ to read the press release about the report and for a link to the full report,","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Abolishing user fees for child health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC18584&Resource=f1health","body":"This Save the Children brief shows that abolishing user fees and covering the relatively small cost of abolition would immediately save nearly a quarter of a million children under five. It argues that user fees for basic healthcare, paid in the poorest countries around the world, are in reality \"killer bills\". Children and their families either don\u2019t go to the health clinic when they are sick or when they do, and have to pay, they are forced further into poverty and sometimes have to go without food. Some families remove children from school in order to pay for health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Africans should not be silent about unethical trials","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/Opinions/index.cfm?fuseaction=readOpinions&itemid=402&language=1","body":"A quarter of all clinical trials are now done in the developing world, but often the research lacks a rigorous ethical framework. Western researchers or funders tend to shoulder the blame for trials that the international scientific community deems unethical, says Gilbert Dechambenoit in this editorial in the African Journal of Neurological Sciences. But, he argues, African scientists should bear just as much responsibility for unethical scientific practices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS in Uganda: the human-rights dimension","field_subtitle":"The Lancet 2005; 365:2075-2076","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673605667165/fulltext","body":"\"It is time to shift the debate over HIV prevention in Uganda. Rather than focusing on the precise combination of A, B, and C that contributed to the country's HIV decline, researchers should condemn censorship of life-saving HIV/AIDS information and discrimination against vulnerable populations such as lesbians and gays. It is bad enough that the USA is exporting ignorance and prejudice to countries already devastated by HIV. Researchers should not ignore these human-rights violations by focusing on the wrong issue.\" (requires registration)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Antiretroviral Therapy in Resource-Poor Countries: Illusions and Realities","field_subtitle":"American Journal of Public Health","field_url":"http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/AJPH.2003.034249v1","body":"The landscape for antiretroviral (ARV) therapy in resource-poor settings has recently changed considerably with the availability of generic drugs, the drastic price reduction of brand drugs, and the simplification of treatment. However, such cost reductions, while allowing the implementation of large-scale donor programs, have yet to render treatment accessible and possible in the general population. Addressing the problem of HIV treatment in high prevalence/high caseload countries may require redefining the problem as a public health mass therapy program rather than a multiplication of clinical situations. (abstract only)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Brazil and Access to HIV/AIDS Drugs: A Question of Human Rights and Public Health","field_subtitle":"American Journal of Public Health","field_url":"http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/AJPH.2004.044313v1","body":"This article explores the relationship between public health and human rights using as an example the Brazilian policy on free and universal access to antiretroviral medicines for people living with HIV/AIDS. The Brazilian response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which arose from initiatives in both civil society and the governmental sector, followed the process of the democratization of the country. If the Brazilian experience may not be easily transferred to other realities, the model of the Brazilian response may nonetheless serve as an inspiration to finding appropriate and life-saving solutions in other national contexts. (abstract only)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Proposals for the Collaborative Fund for HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Collaborative Fund for HIV/AIDS Treatment Preparedness in Southern Africa calls for submissions from organisations seeking funding for community-based HIV treatments advocacy and education programs. Grants will be allocated to successful applications for a period of up to one year to a maximum amount of 10,000 US dollars per application.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30986","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenging stigma by living positively with HIV in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4950","body":"In the face of widespread stigma around HIV/AIDS, few people have the courage to go public about their status, but one such person is Mampho Leoma, 28, a mother of two from Mapetla, in the Johannesburg township of Soweto. Leoma recalled the day she found out she was HIV-positive: \"It was the 26th of January last year; I was four months pregnant ... It was very sad - I didn't expect the result. At the time I was not going with anyone else but my husband, and I didn't think he was going out with other girls either.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Cost valuation in resource-poor settings","field_subtitle":"Health Policy and Planning 2005","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/20/4/252","body":"Methods of cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) have largely been developed for application in Western country settings. Little attention has been paid to the methodological issues in cost valuation in resource-poor settings, where failing exchange rates and severe market distortions require further clarifications of appropriate valuation methods. This paper links insights from social cost-benefit analysis with the current CEA guidelines to develop a more apt approach to cost valuation in resource-poor settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Defend people's right to water!","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Please join the People's Health Movement and other organizations in working toward a water-secure future by signing the People's Statement on the Right to Water. Your organization's endorsement will help demonstrate support to establish access to safe, sufficient and affordable water as an international human right. It will also show the breadth of opposition to the commodification of water.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30988","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by \r\n\r\nFahamu - Networks for Social Justice\r\nhttp://www.fahamu.org/  \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter 53: 3 by 5 and the momentum towards universal treatment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Equinet Newsletter 53 (July 2005): 3 by 5 and the momentum towards universal treatment\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet student grant awards: Next call in July 2005","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=49_0_1_0_M6","body":"EQUINET will place its next call for student grants in July 2005 so watch this space! EQUINET will be calling for students in undergraduate and postgraduate study to apply for grants in work on health and health systems that reflect EQUINET values of equity, social justice and the right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Free ARVs for 100,000 by 2006, Tanzanian prime minister says","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/cd2d9cb40f9d17213704b967c5ab59b1.htm","body":"At least 100,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in Tanzania will receive anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) free of charge by the end of 2006, Prime Minister Frederick Sumaye announced last month. \"The target is to ensure at least 400,000 people are on free ARV treatment within the next five years,\" he said in a speech before parliament in Tanzania's administrative capital, Dodoma.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"G8 should focus on HIV, women's empowerment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/newsflash.php#3141","body":"When the leaders of the world's largest industrial nations meet in Scotland, they will debate how to address the HIV/Aids crisis and whether to significantly increase assistance to Africa. But for the summit to have a real impact on the Aids pandemic, the G8 will have to do more than increase funding; they will have to address the economic and social realities that make women and girls a special, high-risk group. Evidence from Africa shows the importance and cost-effectiveness of this strategy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"G8: How the rich world short-changes Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/632/632p16.htm","body":"The mass media hype about \u201ca new deal between rich and poor\u201d, in response to the powerful Group of Eight industrialised countries\u2019 plan to cancel multilateral debts owed by 18 mainly African countries, has led many people to believe that a new era of international social justice has dawned. The deal is expected to be ratified by G8 leaders in Scotland on July 6-8. The uncritical endorsement of the plan by large international aid agencies like Oxfam, the driving force behind the Make Poverty History (MPH) coalition of non-government organisations, and big-name celebrities like Bob Geldof and Bono, has reinforced this hope. Unfortunately, celebrations to mark what British deputy PM Gordon Brown described as \u201cthe intention of world leaders to forge a new and better relationship between the rich and poor countries of the world\u201d are premature.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Forum Releases New Report on Forum 8, Mexico, November ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The first report published by the Global Forum on an annual meeting, Health Research for the Millennium Development Goals, summarizes the main themes of Forum 8 from plenary presentations and includes a CD-ROM with all the presentations, media and final documentation of the meeting. The report clearly demonstrates that a great deal is known about the kinds of research that are urgently required to accelerate and intensify the efforts necessary to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Global Forum for Health Research is an independent international foundation based in Geneva. The report and CD-ROM can be ordered or downloaded from the organization's website: http://www.globalforumhealth.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Trade and Public Health","field_subtitle":"American Journal of Public Health 2005","field_url":"http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/95/1/23","body":"Global trade and international trade agreements have transformed the capacity of governments to monitor and to protect public health, to regulate occupational and environmental health conditions and food products, and to ensure affordable access to medications. Proposals under negotiation for the World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the regional Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreement cover a wide range of health services. Public health professionals and organizations rarely participate in trade negotiations or in resolution of trade disputes. The linkages among global trade, international trade agreements, and public health deserve more attention than they have received to date. (abstract only)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalization and Health - a new journal","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"An international network of public health practitioners and policy-makers have come together to launch the new journal Globalization and Health. The journal will be an Open Access (i.e. free to the end user), peer-reviewed, online journal providing a forum for debate and discussion on the topic of globalization and its impact on public health. This will be the first journal to deal exclusively with the subject, and aims to draw on a global resource base, producing content which is accessible and relevant to a truly global audience.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30979","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Human resources for health exist in communities","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://synkronweb.aidsalliance.org/graphics/secretariat/publications/Human_resources.pdf","body":"This paper responds to some central assertions in the paper Country Action Alliances to drive the HRH agenda (circulated as background reading for the Oslo consultation on Human Resources for Health, 24-25 February 2005), which describes the diverse nature of partnerships required to enhance global and country level commitments to expanding human resources for health. In response, this paper describes three examples of human resource development in community-driven HIV/AIDS programmes. The basic proposition is that acknowledgement, inclusion of and support for community based health initiatives is necessary to understand fully where health action is occurring and where potential for expansion lies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights and Health Equity","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=556","body":"This bibliography pulls together recent articles that speak to the relationship between human rights and health, particularly focused on health equity, poverty and community agency. The bibliography was prepared for the EQUINET Health Rights theme and the articles described in the bibliography have informed much of the conceptual approaches developed in EQUINET to harnessing rights approaches to build health equity. The bibliography overlaps to some extent with other bibliographies held by EQUINET on health equity themes. It should prove useful for researchers exploring issues of human rights in relation to equity. The intention is to keep this bibliography updated in future, to support EQUINET\u2019s activities in this area.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights commitments relevant to heath made by states in Southern Africa: Implications for health equity","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=557","body":"The audit aims to 1. conduct a review of the regional and international human rights instruments relevant to health; and 2. review the national commitments that have been made under these human rights instruments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Implications of the G8 debt deal for Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eurodad.org/uploadstore/cms/docs/Overview_G7_debt_deal.pdf","body":"Debt campaigners need to be very clear about what the recent debt deal actually represents and its serious limitations, says a briefing paper from Eurodad. \"There is broad agreement among civil society organisations that the deal doesn't go nearly as far as the overblown rhetoric which accompanied its release. And that it has some worrying strings attached.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya and Tanzania to start producing anti-malaria drug","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47556","body":"A company involved in the production of artemisinine, an anti-malaria drug, is due to set up extraction plants in Kenya and Tanzania to make the drug easily and cheaply available to patients, an official for the company said. The factories would be established in East Africa because of the potential in the region for cultivating artemisia-annua, the plant from which the anti-malaria drug is extracted, the managing director of African Artemisia Limited, Geoff Burrell, said at a conference convened by the UN World Health Organization (WHO) in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Life and Death in the Age of HIV/AIDS: Southern Africa's Epidemic in Comparative Perspective","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Southern African Research Centre (SARC) at Queen's University and the Department of History and the Library at the University of South Africa (UNISA) are planning two conferences on this subject during 2006. The first will take place at SARC in Kingston, Canada on May 7-10, with a focus on 'Public Health and the Representation of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic'. The UNISA gathering at the University's Sunnyside campus in Pretoria on August 14-16 will address a related but distinct set of issues: 'HIV/AIDS in Social Context: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives'.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/31014","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"MDGs to be missed in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/extract/330/7504/1350-b","body":"The United Nations Human Development Report Office released preliminary figures from the 2005 human development report projecting that the UN\u2019s millennium development goals will be missed by a wide margin in Africa, reports the British Medical Journal. The UN undertook in 2000 to halve the number of people living on less than a dollar a day, to cut infant mortality by two thirds, and to give every child primary education by 2015. Ten African countries have worse infant mortality rates now than in 2000.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Microbicides - A potential new tool to prevent sexual transmission of HIV","field_subtitle":"New on the HRC/Eldis HIV and AIDS Resource Guide","field_url":"","body":"Microbicides are products such as gels or creams which could help prevent the sexual transmission of HIV. They are currently being developed and could join the field of HIV prevention methods within the next five to ten years. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30981","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Modern food biotechnology, human health and development","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/biotech/biotech_en.pdf","body":"This report presents the potential benefits and risks associated with GM foods. It finds that GM foods can increase crop yield, food quality and the diversity of foods which can be grown in a given area. This in turn can lead to better health and nutrition, which can then help to raise health and living standards. The report also recommends that in future, evaluations of GM foods should be widened to include social, cultural and ethical considerations, to help ensure there is no \"genetic divide\" between groups of countries which do and do not allow the growth, cultivation and marketing of GM products.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring equity and health systems in the provision of Anti-retroviral Therapy","field_subtitle":"Malawi Country report","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=555","body":"The report uses pre-existing information and indicators from different stakeholders, analysis of sentinel data from Thyolo district, consultations with key informants, participation in meetings and insights from qualitative studies at the Lighthouse (a high burden ART service provision site in the capital Lilongwe) and in Thyolo district.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring Financial Flows for Health Research","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/site/002__What%20we%20do/005__Publications/004__Resource%20flows.php","body":"This second Global Forum assessment responds to widespread interest on the part of those who fund research, manage and set priorities in different institutions and use our results to try to improve the health of populations around the world. The study presents a new estimate of global spending on health R&D for 2001 but also exposes major gaps in the availability of good quality data from all sectors, disease-specific information and the measure of complex determinants such as poverty, inequity, and gender.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"MSF urges UN and G8 AIDS drug action","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4988","body":"The international medical NGO, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), is urging G8 nations and the UN to push for speedy delivery of the cheapest and latest anti-AIDS drugs to developing countries. MSF stressed that this was vital to head off a looming supply and cost crisis, because \"access to newer drugs is increasingly critical, as the growing number of people with HIV/AIDS currently on treatment will inevitably develop resistance to first-line treatments\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"People's Health Assembly 2","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/events/8344","body":"Together, let us build a healthy world! The Second Peoples Health Assembly will be the culmination of a process of local and national reflections, discussions and debates, and of the exchange of experiences of communities and networks the world over. National and regional conferences and workshops centered around all aspects that influence the health and well being of the marginalized will be held in preparation of PHA 2. At the same time, there will be a mobilization of campaigns to help join together organizations and groups of people around the call for Health for All Now, No to War and no to the WTO. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Private Health Insurance and Social Health Insurance","field_subtitle":"An international short course","field_url":"","body":"The World Health Organization in December 2004 urged all member countries to consider mechanisms for pooling financing for healthcare, including Social Health Insurance, in order to achieve universal coverage. The Health Economics Unit at the University of Cape Town offers a 5-day short course addressing the changing role of health insurance in low and middle income countries. The course focuses on the financial management of risk pools in diverse settings covering a broad spectrum of insurance arrangements including community-based health insurance, private voluntary insurance for the formal sector and social or national health insurance.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30989","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional meeting of parliamentary committees on health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=52_0_1_0_M2","body":"As a follow up to the EQUINET, GEGA and SADC PF August 2003 meeting on \u201cParliamentary Alliances for Equity in Health\u201d held in Johannesburg, and the June 2004 EQUINET Conference, members of various Parliamentary portfolio committees on Health in southern Africa held a meeting in Zambia to strengthen the networking, work and capacities of parliamentary committees on health to promote SADC objectives in health and to build co-operation with organisations with shared goals. The meeting was hosted by EQUINET, GEGA, SADC PF and IDASA and local hosts CHESSORE.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategic Research Grants, Third Round 2005","field_subtitle":"Effects of Global Health Initiatives on Health Systems Development","field_url":"http://www.alliance-hpsr.org/jahia/Jahia/pid/151?language=","body":"The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research is collaborating with the Systemwide Effects of the Fund (SWEF) Research Network in a process based on a competitive Call for Proposals to support research to assess the effects of global health initiatives on the health systems in recipient countries.  This collaboration aims to support research to measure the systemwide effects of global health initiatives - such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GF), the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the World Bank Multi-Country AIDS Program (MAP), and others - on broader health systems in low-income countries in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, and Eastern Europe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Tackling child malnutrition","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/opinions/39_malnutrition_may05.pdf","body":"Malnutrition can be dealt with, for less than $US 20 per child per year. This has always seemed like quite a lot of money, but the comparison with HIV/AIDS should inspire us to be more ambitious. Children have a right not to be brain damaged by malnutrition. But, in addition, not tackling malnutrition makes achieving the MDGs simply impossible: malnutrition is an indicator for the poverty MDG, but improving nutrition status is also an absolute requirement if the health and education MDGs are to be met.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania: Head of Project HIV/AIDS Campaign","field_subtitle":"BBC World Service Trust","field_url":"http://216.197.119.113/jobman/publish/article_8968.shtml","body":"The Head of Project will assume overall responsibility for delivering a major mass media project to address HIV/AIDS in Tanzania. The project will meet agreed targets and objectives, and be delivered on time and on budget. The role will include management of an in-country production team and project office, ensuring the quality and cohesion of media outputs, establishing and managing effective partnerships with local media, government, NGOs and other key stakeholders.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The case of Kenya Partnership for Health program","field_subtitle":"International Journal for Equity in Health 2005","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/4/1/8/abstract","body":"The Kenya Partnership for Health (KPH) program began in 1999, and is currently one of the 12 field projects participating in the WHO's 'Towards Unity for Health initiative' implemented to develop partnership synergies in support of the Primary Health Care (PHC) approach. This paper illustrates how Program-linked Information Management by Integrative-participatory Research Approach (PIMIRA) as practised under KPH has been implemented within Trans-Nzoia District, Kenya to enhance community-based health initiatives. It shows how this model is strategically being scaled-up from one community to another in the management of political, social, cultural and economic determinants (barriers and enhancers) of health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of HIV/AIDS on rural livelihoods","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/r1tb2g1.html","body":"Whilst the HIV/AIDS epidemic is affecting people all over the world, it affects young and middle-aged adults most seriously. This is the most economically active age group, meaning the disease has a dramatic impact on agricultural production, rural livelihoods and food security in many countries. Labour-saving crops and improved agricultural techniques will be a valuable support measure for such communities to increase agricultural output and food production.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of the UK in the loss of health professionals","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673605666238/fulltext","body":"The already inadequate health systems of sub-Saharan Africa have been badly damaged by the emigration of their health professionals, a process in which the UK has played a prominent part. In 2005, there are special opportunities for the UK to take the lead in addressing that damage, and in focusing the attention of the G8 on the wider problems of health-professional migration from poor to rich countries. This article from The Lancet suggests some practical measures to these ends. (requires registration)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The \u2018Skills Drain\u2019 of health professionals from the developing world","field_subtitle":"Medact paper","field_url":"http://www.medact.org/content/Skills%20drain/Mensah%20et%20al.%202005.pdf","body":"\"This paper examines policy towards health professionals' migration from economic and governance perspectives. Our aims are conceptual and agenda-setting. In essence, we argue that current policy responses to migration of health professionals from low income developing countries underestimate the pressures and mis-identify the reasons for rising migration, overestimate the impact of recruitment policies on migration flows while ignoring unintended side effects, and mis-specify the ethical dilemmas involved.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Trade and health training workshop","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=53_0_1_0_M6","body":"The Southern and East African Trade information Institute, (SEATINI) and the Centre for Health Policy (CHP) Wits University and Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) with the Regional network on Equity in Health in southern Africa (EQUINET) will be hosting a technical meeting on promoting health in trade agreements in east and southern Africa on Tuesday 28 to Thursday 30 June 2005 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Understanding the linkages between HIV/AIDS and agriculture","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/r2tj1g1.html","body":"The agricultural sector has been seriously affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis. In parts of eastern and southern Africa, HIV prevalence rates exceed 15 percent. The disease has contributed to a loss of assets, loss of land, and, in some cases, labour shortages. As a result, crop production has declined for many farm households and rural inequality appears to have increased. Agricultural policies need to take account of these changes. Agricultural growth built on policies sensitive to the impacts of HIV/AIDS is essential if poverty caused by the disease is to be reduced.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"User fees in private non-for-profit hospitals in Uganda: a survey and intervention for equity","field_subtitle":"International Journal for Equity in Health 2005","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/4/1/6/abstract","body":"\"...user fees represent an unfair mechanism of financing for health services because they exclude the poor and the sick. To mitigate this effect, flat rates and lower fees for the most vulnerable users were introduced to replace the fee-for-service system in some hospitals after the survey. The results are encouraging: hospital use, especially for pregnancy, childbirth and childhood illness, increased immediately, with no detrimental effect on overall revenues. A more equitable user fees system is possible.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cOrganising People\u2019s Power for Health\u201d","field_subtitle":"Community Working Group on Health statement","field_url":"","body":"The Community Working Group on Health will this year commemorate June 6th National Health and Safety day under the theme \u201cOrganising People\u2019s power for health\u201d, we do this in solidarity with the Trade Unions of Zimbabwe. The Community Working Group on Health is a network of 30 membership based civic/community based organisations that aim to collectively enhance health and community participation in health in Zimbabwe. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30980","field_issue_date":"2005-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"An assessment of community- based health financing activities in Uganda","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC18483&resource=healthsystems","body":"This report, from Partners of Health Reformplus, is an assessment of community-based health financing (CBHF) schemes in Uganda. The aim of the assessment is to identify good practices and key obstacles to sustainability in terms of: governance and management, financial management and viability, risk management, marketing and membership incentives, community buy-in, and impact on quality of life of members. Findings reveal that membership of a CBHF scheme improved overall quality of life. However, community participation and management practices need to be strengthened to improve scheme sustainability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Antioxidants for children with kwashiorkor","field_subtitle":"BMJ  2005;330:1095-1096 (14 May)","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/extract/330/7500/1095","body":"Protein energy malnutrition is the most deadly form of malnutrition. It is the primary or associated cause of around half of the nearly 11 million annual deaths among children under five, 30 000 each day. The reasons for this tragedy are quite clearly poverty, underdevelopment, and inequality, yet knowing this does not translate into finding correspondingly obvious or immediate solutions. The rest of this article is available at the British Medical Journal website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Are We In It for the Long Haul?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.gmhc.org/health/treatment/ti/ti1934.html#4","body":"Many AIDS activists have been enraged by the export abroad of conservative American morality on sex, drugs and prostitution through HIV/AIDS programs funded by the U.S. government. Particularly galling is that it replaces accepted, evidence-based public health policies with ideology. But if there is one thing this U.S. government hates more than fags, junkies, hookers, condoms and clean needles, it's socialized medicine. Quietly, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and other bilateral initiatives are exporting the HMO-ization of AIDS in Africa and elsewhere on the planet, in which a network of private institutions are being built up to provide antiretroviral therapy (ART) to the millions who need it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"ARV delays could derail national rollout plan in Malawi","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47267","body":"A year after the Malawian government launched its HIV/AIDS treatment programme, the numbers of people awaiting treatment are stretching hospitals to their limits. In May 2004 the government began providing free antiretroviral (ARV) medication at public health facilities, hoping to reach 44,000 people living with the virus by June 2005.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges in Reforming the Health Sector in Africa: Reforming Health Systems Under Economic Siege - The Zimbabwean Experience","field_subtitle":"Paulinus Lingani Ncube Sikosana","field_url":"http://www.trafford.com/robots/04-0515.html","body":"The book provides an insight and descriptive analyses of health sector reforms that are being implemented in African countries, with particular application to Zimbabwe. In some cases the Zimbabwean experience is blended with those of other countries in Africa. The book elaborates on the various elements of health sector reforms which include; health financing options, organizational restructuring, core health service packages, the introduction of market forces, hospital autonomy and the Sector Wide Approach to health development. These reform elements are described from a theoretical perspective; the rationale, implications, implementation modalities, their potential impact which the author provocatively links to the practical experiences of the selected country. The book highlights the fact that reforms in African countries have a different thrust to those in developing countries, though in both cases the ultimate objectives are the same.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by \r\n\r\nFahamu - Networks for Social Justice\r\nhttp://www.fahamu.org/  \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter 52: Will we have more control over the resources we need for health?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Equinet Newsletter 52 (June 2005): Will we have more control over the resources we need for health?\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"G8 told to wake up over human resources for health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A message from health workers, NGOs, and governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean to Heads of Government and State of the Group of 8 on supporting human resources for health to achieve the Millennium Development Goals\r\n\r\n\"We are nurses and doctors, pharmacists and laboratory technicians, medical assistants and community health workers.  We are non-governmental organizations.  We are [members of] government[s].  We are people with HIV/AIDS.  Some of us sit in government ministries, some of us work in rural health facilities, and some of us work wherever it is we find people in need.  We share in common a deep concern for the health and well-being of the members of our communities and citizens of our countries.  Yet despite our best efforts, health systems throughout our lands are in crisis, and millions of people are dying and becoming seriously ill whose lives we could save and whose health we could preserve.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30945","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalization and Health: A new, critical view","field_subtitle":"Ronald Labonte And Ted Schrecker","field_url":"","body":"In Zambia, a woman named Chileshe is dying of AIDS. She was infected by her now dead husband, who once worked in a textile plant along with thousands of others but lost his job when Zambia opened its borders to cheap, second-hand clothing. Resorting to work as a street vendor, he would get drunk and trade money for sex - often with women whose own husbands were somewhere else working, or dead, and who desperately needed money for their children. Desperation, she thought, is what makes this disease move so swiftly; she recalls that a woman from the former Zaire passing through her village once said that the true meaning of SIDA, the French acronym for AIDS, was \"Salaire Insuffisant Depuis des Ann\u00e9es\" (Schoepf, 1998).\r\n\r\nChileshe's is one of four stories we used in a report that has just been published by Canada's Centre for Social Justice (Labonte, Schrecker & Sen Gupta, 2005b) to dramatize the health impacts of transnational economic integration ('globalization'). It is a composite, like the stories used in the World Bank's 1995 'World Development Report'. The Centre for Social Justice report, which grew out of a contribution to the first 'Global Health Watch Report' (forthcoming in July at http://www.ghwatch.org), directly challenges the elite religion of neoliberal, market-oriented economic policy, as promoted by agencies like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Drawing on an extensive research base, we describe the causal pathways that link globalization to unequal and deteriorating health outcomes by way of increasing inequalities in access to the social determinants of health, and policies that tilt the economic playing field even more steeply toward the rich countries.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30966","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health policy and systems research agendas in developing countries","field_subtitle":"Health Research Policy and Systems 2004, 2:6","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/2/1/6","body":"Health policy and systems research (HPSR) is an international public good with potential to orient investments and performance at national level. Identifying research trends and priorities at international level is therefore important. This paper offers a conceptual framework and defines the HPSR portfolio as a set of research projects under implementation. The research portfolio is influenced by factors external to the research system as well as internal to it. These last include the capacity of research institutions, the momentum of research programs, funding opportunities and the influence of stakeholder priorities and public opinion. These dimensions can vary in their degree of coordination, leading to a complementary or a fragmented research portfolio.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS and Trade Unions: A Mozambican Perspective","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/strategicthinking/st2004/thinking-926.html","body":"This paper was prepared for distribution at an interdisciplinary research symposium on HIV/AIDS in the workplace, held from June 29-30 2004 at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. It provides an overview of current union activities focusing on HIV in Mozambique, based on discussion with Mozambican unionists working as HIV activists and on the work of CUSO-Mozambique's Linkage Program with a group of six women's committees from six different trade unions. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Africa: From Knowledge Sharing to Implementation","field_subtitle":"3 - 5 October 2005, Durban, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.mrc.ac.za/conference/edctp/","body":"The European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) conference is an annual forum aimed at fostering closer collaboration and networking between European and sub-Saharan African partners involved in health research and capacity building in Africa, especially in HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria clinical trials. The Forum also provides a platform for feedback on new developments in research in these fields, and several recognised international experts will deliver state-of-the-art presentations and facilitate workshops.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"How can developing countries access HIV/AIDS drugs?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=0&i=s5aks1g1&u=429b0aa1","body":"It is estimated that only seven percent of those with HIV/AIDS in developing countries receive any anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy. Guaranteed long-term access to affordable medicines, along with investment in public health infrastructure, is essential to tackle the pandemic. How can developing countries overcome the barriers to accessing HIV/AIDS drugs? Developing countries are currently stuck in a \u2018price-infrastructure trap\u2019: high prices for HIV/AIDS drugs reduce the possibility of extending treatment programmes and decrease government motivation to invest in much-needed public health infrastructure for HIV/AIDS. The generally limited response of these countries to the HIV/AIDS pandemic is largely due to the problem of stability of access to affordable medications.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Involving young people in the care and support of people living with HIV/AIDS in Zambia","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/9tx2g","body":"This study, from the Horizons programme, examines the potential of trained members of anti-AIDS clubs to contribute to care, support and stigma-reduction activities and attempts to determine the impact of their involvement in these activities on HIV-related beliefs and behaviours. The findings suggest that youth can be empowered to confront the realities of HIV in their own lives and communities and to confront the barriers of stigma, denial and ignorance, while serving as a resource to people in their communities. The study also demonstrates that organisations and youth clubs working in isolated rural and semi-urban areas can achieve high levels of participation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Land tenure, poverty and food security","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.uneca.org/eca_resources/Publications/sdd/Land_Tenure_systems.pdf","body":"Concerns over the food security situation in sub-Saharan Africa are reflected in the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to reduce the number of food insecure by half by 2015. Given that land plays an important role in the livelihoods of the majority of Africans, food security and poverty reduction cannot be achieved unless issues of access to land, security of tenure and the capacity to use land productively and in a sustainable manner are addressed. Recognizing the importance of a better understanding of these linkages, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) undertook a study in 2002/2003 on the Impacts of Land Tenure on Food Security and Sustainable Development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Listing of useful publications and websites","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"1. Useful Publications\r\n\r\nCommission for Africa: Our Common Interest: Report Of The Commission For Africa. Report issued March 05 by Commission (Commission Chair: Tony Blair). Aims to address, respond to, and outline recommendations for, Africa's development needs. The elimination of preventable diseases, and responses to HIV/AIDS, are integral to the context considered by the report (Chapter 6: Leaving no-one out: investing in people). Recommended practical actions include 'strengthening health systems in Africa so all can obtain basic health care' (http://commissionforafrica.org)\r\n\r\nUN Millennium Development Project: Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The final report of the UN Millennium Project released January 2005 suggests how we might achieve the Millennium Development Goals which include reduction of child mortality, improvement of maternal health, and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases by 2015. It outlines practical investment strategies and possible approaches to their financing. Specific sections in the published report relevant to public health issues include 'Health systems: ensuring universal access to essential health sciences' (Chapter 5: Public investments to empower poor people) and the summaries of the Development Goals by area and target (Appendices 1 & 2). Both the full report and an overview are available on the Millennium Project site (www.unmillenniumproject.org/reports/index.htm) In addition a book by Jeffrey Sachs (UN Millennium Project Director) entitled[The End of Poverty: How We Can Make It Happen in Our Lifetime by (0141018666) was also recently published (April 05) by Penguin (www.penguin.co.uk)]\r\n\r\nWorld Bank: World Development Indicators 2005 Report (0-8213-6071-X) released by World Bank April 05, with national and regional development statistics. Data covers 'Health: expenditure, services, and use' and 'Disease prevention: coverage and quality' (www.worldbank.org/data/wdi2005) (http://devdata.worldbank.org/wdi2005)\r\n\r\nGlobal Monitoring Report 2005: From Census To Momentum (0-8213-6077-9) published by World Bank with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) April 05. Chapter 2 ('Scaling up service delivery') reviews the progress to MDG's, including those in child/maternal health and disease (www.worldbank.org)\r\n\r\nWorld Health Organisation: World Health Report 2005: Make Every Mother and Child Count, published by the WHO. This is an annual report, with the 2005 edition focusing on the need, and possible strategies, for the improvement of maternal/child health. 'Calls for greater access to life-saving interventions and a 'continuum of care' approach to start before pregnancy and extend into the baby's childhood'. Detailed statistical annexes are included. Issued to coincide with World Health Day (www.who.int/whr/en)\r\n\r\nAlso useful in the context of these reports is an earlier study, published last year (2004). The second assessment report prepared by the Global Forum for Health Research, 'Monitoring Financial Flows for Health Research' (ISBN 2-940286-27-2), is available in full on the Global Forum's website. In analysing funding levels and priorities it could be an additional source of information on the cost, value, coherence and impact of recent health research internationally (www.globalforumhealth.org)\r\n\r\nINASP Newsletter (November 2004), which focused on the 'Global Review on Access to Health Information in Developing Countries'. Please see www.inasp.info/newslet/nov04.html.\r\n\r\n2. Useful websites\r\n\r\n- Useful summary of Wellcome Trust's 'major overseas programmes', currently including research based in Kenya and in Malawi is accessible at www.wellcome.ac.uk/node4240.html\r\n\r\n- Overseas Development Institute Humanitarian Practice Network http://www.odihpn.org/ A useful site for those working in development, particularly Health and Education, with information regarding current and past projects, publication and events\r\n\r\n- London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine - Press releases on latest research involving LSHTM can be found at http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/news/2005/","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Minister urges WHA to stem migration and poaching","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-e.co.za/news/article.php?uid=20031246","body":"African Ministers of Health currently attending the World Health Assembly (WHA), have all joined South African health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang in expressing their concerns about the continued migration and recruitment of health personnel from developing to developed countries. The resolution also calls upon the Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to ensure that the previous decision of the WHA aimed at addressing this matter is fully implemented. This includes strengthening of the Human Resources for Health division in the WHO by allocating adequate financial and resources to enable the division to effectively execute the necessary actions aimed at addressing this matter.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New Issue of e-TALC","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.e-talc.org","body":"Issue seven of the e-TALC Health Development CD-ROM (red disk) is now available from TALC. e-TALC is a unique CD-ROM resource which aims to provide a regular source of reliable health information free to health care workers in developing countries. As of April 2005, over 50,000 copies of e-TALC have been distributed to over 4,000 recipients across the developing world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Planning for Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health Programmes","field_subtitle":"1 - 26 August 2005, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"Programme Planning for Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health focuses on building sound interventions for adolescent sexual and reproductive health designed to strengthen institutional capacity to effectively monitor programme operations and evaluate performance. The nuts and bolts of programme planning are fused with adolescent-centered SRH concerns through an array of provocative and interactive sessions.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30943","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Political support is crucial for health policy reform in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=1&i=h1st2g1&u=429b0aa1","body":"Debates about the best way to fund South Africa's health system have run for over a decade. Plans for social health insurance have not received enough support to become law. In contrast reform of private health insurance regulations have been passed. Why has the pace of reform between the private and public sectors differed? The University of Cape Town, together with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, compared reforms to private and social health insurance see why their success has varied.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Private sector, human resources and health franchising in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC18487&resource=healthsystems","body":"This article, from the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, outlines the available evidence on which sections of society benefit from publicly provided care and which sections use private health care. The authors assess use of public and private health services, as well as the use of franchise networks which supplement government programmes in the delivery of public health services. Examples from health franchises in Africa and Asia are provided to demonstrate the potential for franchise systems to increase services available to the public.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Research shows EPAs will damage regional trade between developing countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/news/EPAPressRelease.pdf","body":"Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) are likely to harm regional integration between developing countries, without achieving significant liberalisation of trade between the EU and ACP countries, according to new research by Christopher Stevens and Jane Kennan at the Institute of Development Studies. EPAs are new trade agreements being negotiated by the European Union to regulate trade between the EU and the ACP (Africa, Caribbean and Pacific) group of developing countries. Following the recent publication of the Commission for Africa report, the UK Government argued that EPAs should not be used to force open ACP markets. New IDS research indicates that it will be feasible to achieve this aim, without falling foul of the WTO, if the EU sticks to its recent practice in negotiations with other countries. The evidence from examining the detailed situation of ACP states suggests that most of them can avoid rapid or substantial liberalisation, thereby protecting fledgling domestic industries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"SA holds key to 3x5 success, says Lancet","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-e.co.za/news/article.php?uid=20031221","body":"Lack of financial resources, staff, and commitment from key countries, including South Africa, may hamper the World Health Organisation's goal to provide life-long antiretroviral therapy to 3 million people with HIV/AIDS in developing countries by the end of 2005. An Editorial in this week's issue of the The Lancet states that though progress has been made with 720 000 people in developing countries receiving antiretroviral treatment and three times the target number of outlets providing anti-retrovirals, the financial resources allocated to 3 by 5 are below what are needed (US$ 163 million vs 174 million), and the number of WHO staff deployed to the initiative is well below what it should be (112 vs 400).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Determinants of Health: The Solid Facts","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation","field_url":"http://www.who.dk/document/E81384.pdf","body":"Even in the most affluent countries, people who are less well off have substantially shorter life expectancies and more illnesses than the rich. Not only are these differences in health an important social injustice, they have also drawn scientific attention to some of the most powerful determinants of health standards in modern societies. They have led in particular to a growing understanding of the remarkable sensitivity of health to the social environment and to what have become known as the social determinants of health. This publication outlines the most important parts of this new knowledge as it relates to areas of public policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The link between unhealthy people and unhealthy soils","field_subtitle":"Pedro A Sanchez, M S Swaminathan, Lancet 2005; 365: 442\u201344","field_url":"http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/documents/TheLancetHunger.pdf","body":"\"Malnutrition is the biggest risk factor for illness worldwide. Various dimensions of malnutrition (eg, underweight, zinc deficiency, iron deficiency, vitamin A deficiency) account for seven of the 13 leading risk factors associated with the global burden of diseases. For both children and adults, malnutrition reduces the body's natural defences against a vast range of diseases. The death rate from diseases such as lower respiratory infection, malaria, and measles, which account for a large proportion of children's deaths, are much higher in children who are underweight or have specific nutrient deficiencies than in those who are not. Undernourished people infected with HIV/AIDS develop the full symptoms of the disease more quickly than people who are well fed. Yet one of the earliest side-effects of AIDS is reduced consumption of food in affected households.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"UK demand for overseas health professionals severely affecting sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"The Lancet 2005; 365:1893-1900","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673605666238/fulltext","body":"\"The already inadequate health systems of sub-Saharan Africa have been badly damaged by the emigration of their health professionals, a process in which the UK has played a prominent part. In 2005, there are special opportunities for the UK to take the lead in addressing that damage, and in focusing the attention of the G8 on the wider problems of health-professional migration from poor to rich countries. We suggest some practical measures to these ends. These include action the UK could take on its own, with the African countries most affected, and with other developed countries and WHO.\" (requires registration)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Unions to protest over alleged rights abuses in Botswana","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47222","body":"The Botswana Federation of Trade Unions (BFTU) and the Public Service Workers Association (PWSA) are to embark on a series of demonstrations this weekend to press the government for labour legislation to protect workers from general victimisation, unfair dismissals and discrimination on the grounds of their HIV/AIDS status. According to the unions, the demonstrations will begin on Saturday and end on 4 June, when a petition will be handed over to President Festus Mogae.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"What is the Rights Based Approach all about?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ntd.co.uk/idsbookshop/details.asp?id=847","body":"In the last few years, there has been growing talk amongst development actors and agencies about a \u201crights-based approach\u201d to development. Yet what exactly this consists of remains unclear. For some, its grounding in human rights legislation makes such an approach distinctive, lending it the promise of re-politicising areas of development work that have become domesticated as they have been \u201cmainstreamed\u201d by powerful institutions like the World Bank. Others complain that like other fashions it has become the latest designer item to be seen to be wearing and has been used to dress up the same old development. This paper from the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) seeks to unravel some of the tangled threads of contemporary rights talk.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Global InfoBase","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/ncd_surveillance/infobase/web/en/","body":"The WHO Global InfoBase has, for the first time, assembled in one place, country level risk factor data stratified by age and sex, with complete source and survey information. The current version of the InfoBase contains over 45,000 data points from more than 2,000 sources. The NCD InfoBase contains data for 170 out of 192 WHO Member States. A unique feature is that each record can be linked back to all its survey information, including the primary source. This is important when the collection of such data involves so many different protocols and definitions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Will we have more control over the resources we need for health?","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson, EQUINET Secretariat, June 2005","field_url":"","body":"The massive inequalities in the distribution of resources for health globally will be brought increasingly into focus in the coming months, with the upcoming G8 meeting and the UN review of the Millenium development goals. With it will grow debates on the interpretation of the causes of and remedies for these inequalities, particularly for Africa. If we are to apply values of fairness and equity to this situation there is no doubt that global funds for health must flow southwards to African communities and public sector health services. As the editorial below by Vandana Shiva indicates, the situation calls for more however - it calls for social and economic justice. We must confront the deliberate policies that lead to net resource outflows from poor communities, underfunded public sector services and countries in Africa. EQUINET training, meetings and research in the coming months will focus on options for confronting these outflows in relation to health workers, health finances and trade policies. Please contact us at admin@equinetafrica.org if you would like to know more about any of these areas of work or visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org.\r\n\r\nEQUINET in 1998 identified, as part of the understanding of equity in health, the importance of the relative control and authority that different people, communities and countries have over how the resources for health are distributed. At the end of the year, after the G8, after the UN Summit and after the WTO Hong Kong Ministerial, we will be asking ourselves - are African households, African public health planners and African countries more or less in control of the resources for health, including those we produce, but no longer consume, in Africa?\r\n\r\nHow To End Poverty: Making Poverty History And The History Of Poverty \r\nVandana Shiva\r\nSource: www.zmag.org\r\nhttp://www.zmag.org/Sustainers/Content/2005-05/11shiva.cfm\r\n\r\nThe cover story of the Time Magazine of March 14, 2005 was dedicated to the theme, \"How to End Poverty\". It was based on an essay by Jeffrey Sachs \"The End of Poverty\", from his book with the same title. The photos accompanying the essay are homeless children, scavengers in garbage dumps, heroin addicts. These are images of disposable people, people whose lives, resources, livelihoods have been snatched from them by a brutal, unjust, excluding process which generates poverty for the majority and prosperity for a few.\r\n\r\nGarbage is the waste of a throwaway society - ecological societies have never had garbage. Homeless children are the consequences of impoverishment of communities and families who have lost their resources and livelihoods. These are images of the perversion and externalities of a non-sustainable, unjust, inequitable economic growth model.\r\n\r\nIn \"Staying Alive, I had referred to a book entitled \"Poverty: the Wealth of the People\" in which an African writer draws a distinction between poverty as subsistence, and misery as deprivation. It is useful to separate a cultural conception of simple, sustainable living as poverty from the material experience of poverty that is a result of dispossession and deprivation.\r\n\r\nCulturally perceived poverty need not be real material poverty: sustenance economies, which satisfy basic needs through self-provisioning, are not poor in the sense of being deprived. Yet the ideology of development declares them so because they do not participate overwhelmingly in the market economy, and do not consume commodities produced for and distributed through the market even though they might be satisfying those needs through self-provisioning mechanisms.\r\n\r\nPeople are perceived as poor if they eat millets (grown by women) rather than commercially produced and distributed processed junk foods sold by global agri-business. They are seen as poor if they live in self-built housing made form ecologically adapted natural material like bamboo and mud rather than in cement houses. They are seen as poor if they wear handmade garments of natural fibre rather than synthetics.\r\n\r\nSustenance, as culturally perceived poverty, does not necessarily imply a low physical quality of life. On the contrary, because sustenance economies contribute to the growth of nature's economy and the social economy, they ensure a high quality of life measure in terms of right to food and water, sustainability of livelihoods, and robust social and cultural identity and meaning.\r\n\r\nOn the other hand, the poverty of the 1 billion hungry and the 1 billion malnutritioned people who are victims of obesity suffer from both cultural and material poverty. A system that creates denial and disease, while accumulating trillions of dollars of super profits for agribusiness, is a system for creating poverty for people. Poverty is a final state, not an initial state of an economic paradigm, which destroys ecological and social systems for maintaining life, health and sustenance of the planet and people.\r\n\r\nAnd economic poverty is only one form of poverty. Cultural poverty, social poverty, ethical poverty, ecological poverty, spiritual poverty are other forms of poverty more prevalent in the so called rich North than in the so called poor South. And those other poverties cannot be overcome by dollars. They need compassion and justice, caring and sharing.\r\n\r\nEnding poverty requires knowing how poverty is created. However, Jeffrey Sachs views poverty as the original sin. As he declares:\r\n\r\nA few generations ago, almost everybody was poor. The Industrial Revolution led to new riches, but much of the world was left far behind.\r\n\r\nThis is totally false history of poverty, and cannot be the basis of making poverty history. Jeffrey Sachs has got it wrong. The poor are not those who were left behind, they are the ones who were pushed out and excluded from access to their own wealth and resources.\r\n\r\nThe \"poor are not poor because they are lazy or their governments are corrupt\". They are poor because their wealth has been appropriated and wealth creating capacity destroyed. The riches accumulated by Europe were based on riches appropriated from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Without the destruction of India's rich textile industry, without the take over of the spice trade, without the genocide of the native American tribes, without the Africa's slavery, the industrial revolution would not have led to new riches for Europe or the U.S. It was the violent take over of Third World resources and Third World markets that created wealth in the North - but it simultaneously created poverty in the South.\r\n\r\nTwo economic myths facilitate a separation between two intimately linked processes: the growth of affluence and the growth of poverty. Firstly, growth is viewed only as growth of capital. What goes unperceived is the destruction in nature and in people's sustenance economy that this growth creates. The two simultaneously created 'externalities' of growth - environmental destruction and poverty creation - are then casually linked, not to the processes of growth, but to each other. Poverty, it is stated, causes environmental destruction. The disease is then offered as a cure: growth will solve the problems of poverty and environmental crisis it has given rise to in the first place. This is the message of Jeffrey Sachs analysis.\r\n\r\nThe second myth that separates affluence from poverty, is the assumption that if you produce what you consume, you do not produce. This is the basis on which the production boundary is drawn for national accounting that measures economic growth. Both myths contribute to the mystification of growth and consumerism, but they also hide the real processes that create poverty.\r\n\r\nFirst, the market economy dominated by capital is not the only economy, development has, however, been based on the growth of the market economy. The invisible costs of development have been the destruction of two other economies: nature's processes and people's survival. The ignorance or neglect of these two vital economies is the reason why development has posed a threat of ecological destruction and a threat to human survival, both of which, however, have remained 'hidden negative externalities' of the development process.\r\n\r\nInstead of being seen as results of exclusion, they are presented as \"those left behind\". Instead of being viewed as those who suffer the worst burden of unjust growth in the form of poverty, they are false presented as those not touched by growth. This false separation of processes that create affluence from those that create poverty is at the core of Jeffrey Sachs analysis. His recipes will therefore aggravated and deepen poverty instead of ending it.\r\n\r\nTrade and exchange of goods and services have always existed in human societies, but these were subjected to nature's and people's economies. The elevation of the domain of the market and man-made capital to the position of the highest organizing principle for societies has led to the neglect and destruction of the other two organizing principles - ecology and survival - which maintain and sustain life in nature and society.\r\n\r\nModern economies and concepts of development cover only a negligible part of the history of human interaction with nature. For centuries, principles of sustenance have given human societies the material basis of survival by deriving livelihoods directly from nature through self-provisioning mechanisms. Limits in nature have been respected and have guided the limits of human consumption. In most countries of the South large numbers of people continue to derive their sustenance in the survival economy which remains invisible to market-oriented development.\r\n\r\nAll people in all societies depend on nature's economy for survival. When the organizing principle for society's relationship with nature is sustenance, nature exists as a commons. It becomes a resource when profits and accumulation become the organizing principle for society's relationship with nature is sustenance, nature exists as a commons. It becomes a resource when profits and accumulation become the organizing principles and create an imperative for the exploitation of resources for the market.\r\n\r\nWithout clean water, fertile soils and crop and plant genetic diversity, human survival is not possible. These commons have been destroyed by economic development, resulting in the creation of a new contradiction between the economy of natural processes and the survival economy, because those people deprived of their traditional land and means of survival by development are forced to survive on an increasingly eroded nature.\r\n\r\nPeople do not die for lack of incomes. They die for lack of access to resources. Here too Jeffrey Sacks is wrong when he says, \"In a world of plenty, 1 billion people are so poor, their lives are in danger\". The indigenous people in the Amazon, the mountain communities in the Himalaya, peasants whose land has not been appropriated and whose water and biodiversity has not been destroyed by debt creating industrial agriculture are ecologically rich, even though they do not earn a dollar a day.\r\n\r\nOn the other hand, even at five dollars a day, people are poor if they have to buy their basic needs at high prices. Indian peasants who have been made poor and pushed into debt over the past decade to create markets for costly seeds and agrichemicals through economic globalisation are ending their lives in thousands.\r\n\r\nWhen seeds are patented and peasants will pay $1 trillion in royalties, they will be $1 trillion poorer. Patents on medicines increase costs of AIDS drugs from $200 to $20,000, and Cancer drugs from $2,400 to $36,000 for a year's treatment. When water is privatized, and global corporations make $1 trillion from commodification of water, the poor are poorer by $1 trillion.\r\n\r\nThe movements against economic globalisation and maldevelopment are movements to end poverty by ending the exclusions, injustices and ecological non-sustainability that are the root causes of poverty.\r\n\r\nThe $50 billion of \"aid\" North to South is a tenth of $500 billion flow South to North as interest payments and other unjust mechanisms in the global economy imposed by World Bank, IMF. With privatization of essential services and an unfair globalisation imposed through W.T.O, the poor are being made poorer.\r\n\r\nIndian peasants are loosing $26 billion annually just in falling farm prices because of dumping and trade liberalization. As a result of unfair, unjust globalisation, which is leading to corporate, take over of food and water. More than $5 trillion will be transferred from poor people to rich countries just for food and water. The poor are financing the rich. If we are serious about ending poverty, we have to be serious about ending the unjust and violent systems for wealth creation which create poverty by robbing the poor of their resources, livelihoods and incomes.\r\n\r\nJeffrey Sachs deliberately ignores this \"taking\", and only addresses \"giving\", which is a mere 0.1% of the \"taking\" by the North. Ending poverty is more a matter of taking less than giving an insignificant amount more. Making poverty history needs getting the history of poverty right And Sachs has got it completely wrong.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"World Bank and IMF hampering Aids funding","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-e.co.za/news/article.php?uid=20031240","body":"The World Bank and International Monetary Fund, both financial organizations that aim to reduce poverty, are preventing foreign aid from reaching HIV/AIDS programs in developing countries, claims an article in this week\u2019s issue of The Lancet. Ted Schrecker of the University of Ottawa and Gorik Ooms of M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res in Brussels, write expenditure ceilings for public health, created by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), stop countries from benefiting from outside investment in their health programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"World Development Report 2006 on Equity and Development","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/wdr2006","body":"The World Development Report (WDR) 2006 explores the role of equity in development. Inequalities in incomes, in health and in educational outcomes have long been a stark fact of life in many developing countries. These are often accompanied by profound differences in influence, power and social status, whether at the level of individuals or groups.\u00a0 High inequalities matter for development and need to be addressed by domestic and international policies and institutions. The report will be published in September 2005 and a draft is now available.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Assembly concludes: adopts key resolutions affecting global public health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr_wha06/en/index.html","body":"The World Health Assembly, the supreme decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO), wrapped-up its fifty-eighth session last month. More than 2200 people from WHO's 192 Member States, nongovernmental organizations and other observers attended the meeting which took place between 16-25 May. The Assembly reviewed progress made so far in polio eradication and identified what needs to be done to interrupt the final chains of wild-type poliovirus transmission worldwide by the end of this year. The Assembly also noted the progress made in scaling-up treatment and care within a coordinated and comprehensive response to HIV/AIDS and discussed smallpox vaccine reserves and research on the smallpox virus.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"ARV fact sheet: HIV/AIDS and treatment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC18348","body":"This International HIV/AIDS Alliance fact sheet provides an introduction to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment for HIV and AIDS. The fact sheet is meant to be used as a participatory tool to support community engagement in ARV treatment. It aims to provide non-governmental and community-based organisation (NGO/CBO) staff with tools and information to support people living with HIV and AIDS (PLHA) and their communities. The fact sheet initially describes HIV and AIDS, including how it is transmitted, initial signs and symptoms and the potential health risks. It then outlines what a person living with HIV needs and details what treatment options are available.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"ARVs in resource-poor settings: public health research priorities","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1365-3156.2005.01390.x/abs/","body":"Many countries in Africa are planning to provide highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) to millions of people with acquired immune deficiency syndrome. This will be a highly complex therapy programme. Physician-based models of care adapted from industrialized countries will not succeed in providing treatment to the majority of those who need it in resource-constrained settings. Many current ART support programmes are making little or no investment in research, but answering important questions on delivery of HAART will be essential if HAART programmes are to be successful in African nations with a high burden of human immunodeficiency virus infection.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing Costs and Benefits of Sexual and Reproductive Health Interventions","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2004/12/20/or11.pdf","body":"In this current climate of financial constraints coupled with competing priorities among developmental goals, it becomes ever more critical for policymakers and others responsible for allocating resources to have firstrate tools available as a guide for effective decision making. The overall aim of this report is to inform such decision makers about the key findings of existing studies about the costs and benefits of investments in sexual and reproductive health, to identify what factors the studies encompass and what they leave out, and to provide a complete picture of what the costs and benefits would look like, including benefits that are hard to measure.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Association for Health and Environmental Development (AHED) \u2013 Egypt fifth conference","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The \"Association for Health and Environmental Development (AHED) \u2013 Egypt\" in the collaboration with \"People's Health Movement (PHM)\" has the pleasure to announce its fifth general conference that will be held on May 14th and 15th, 2005. The conference under the title \" PEOPLE'S HEALTH: DETERMINANTS, CURRENT CHALLENGES, AND OPPORTUNITIES\" aims at identifying the current challenges facing people's health, determinants of ill health as well as identifying alternative strategies for better health. You can access the conference announcement and application form at AHED's website, www.ahedegypt.org, where you can also find the Arabic versions of both the announcement and the application form. You may apply online via through AHED's website from this link http://www.ahedegypt.org/application.htm.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Better-funded, More Equitable Health Care Could Save Millions of Women and Children, Experts Say","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unfpa.org/news/news.cfm?ID=606","body":"The lives of 7 million women, newborns and children could be saved each year if health programmes were refocused to overcome inequality and scaled up to provide wider access to proven, cost-effective measures, experts agreed at a recent conference. Health officials, medical professionals, and advocates from around the world took part in \"Lives in the Balance: The Partnership Meeting on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health\". ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing locally relevant health information","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020046","body":"It is an ongoing challenge to share health information with resource-poor communities that is locally relevant and owned by the communities themselves. When health information from outside the community goes against deeply held beliefs and attitudes about personal and sexual matters, this challenge becomes still greater. As positive a step as open discussion is, unless poor people can access and accept the information they need, they will not be able to make informed decisions regarding their lives and future, according to this article on the website of the Public Library of Science.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic justice festival calls for action on cotton subsidies","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\"We cotton farmers, people living with HIV/AIDS, youth, women, cross border traders and economic justice activists participating in the Global Week of Action Economic Justice Festival in the Harare Gardens, Zimbabwe, 13 April 2005 note with great concern testimonies given by cotton farmers. The peasant farmers have lamented the grand robbery that has pushed their households into abject poverty. The enemy is known. It is the unfair low prices that cotton is fetching in the current marketing season. It is the unfair world trading system. It is the failure of global institutions such as the WTO to deliver social justice to the poor and downtrodden producers of this earth.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30924","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by \r\n\r\nFahamu - Networks for Social Justice\r\nhttp://www.fahamu.org/  \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter 51: Women and HIV/AIDS in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Equinet Newsletter 51 (May 2005): Women and HIV/AIDS in Africa\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Fighting malaria in Africa by linking with other disease initiatives","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h4dm5g1.html","body":"The global community is committed to cutting by half the number of deaths worldwide from malaria by 2010. In Africa, progress has been slow towards achieving the objectives set by the continent's leaders in April 2000 to help reach this goal. Programmes to reduce malaria could be far more effective if they are linked to existing initiatives to prevent other diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Food security and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC18272","body":"Poverty and hunger continue to characterise life for most Africans who are denied agency over their livelihoods as a result of a complex mix of reinforcing structural, political and environmental factors. This article identifies HIV and AIDS and food insecurity (particularly in rural areas) as the two most severe and interrelated humanitarian issues currently facing southern Africa. It argues that the current situation must be seen as an entangling crisis of climatic factors, chronic poverty, the failure of economic and political governance, and the impact of HIV and AIDS on the ability of individuals to respond independently.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ford Foundation/SAHARA Doctoral Scholarships","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The SAHARA Network seeks to promote outstanding research in the Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS in Africa, and to foster a fruitful dialogue between scholars and policymakers in all sectors. The Network is committed to supporting work of academic excellence that helps to promote public discussion on AIDS issues in Africa and the rest of the developing world. The SAHARA Network is pleased to announce the call for nominations for the Ford Foundation/SAHARA Doctoral Scholarships of Senior Research Fellows. The SAHARA Network, coordinated by the Human Sciences Research Council, must nominate four candidates for these awards, each valued at US$ 44,000 each year up for a 3-year tenure.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30902","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health - a priority of the wealthy?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/content/1/1/6/abstract","body":"Health has gained importance on the global agenda. It has become recognized in forums where it was once not addressed. In this article three issues are considered: global health policy actors, global health priorities and the means of addressing the identified health priorities. The arenas for global health policy-making have shifted from the public spheres towards arenas that include the transnational for-profit sector. Global health policy has become increasingly fragmented and verticalized. Infectious diseases have gained ground as global health priorities, while non-communicable diseases and the broader issues of health systems development have been neglected. Approaches to tackling the health problems are increasingly influenced by trade and industrial interests with the emphasis on technological solutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health activists set up 'Unicef Watch'","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The newly appointed chief of UNICEF has come under heavy criticism from health activists worldwide. People's Health Movement, a global coalition of grass roots activists and academics, is launching a \"UNICEF WATCH\" to monitor the new director's 'anti-children' activities and thus defend UNICEF and the rights of children. Ms. Ann Veneman, former US Secretary of Agriculture, is set to begin a 5-year term as the Executive Director of UNICEF on May 2, 2005. \"We will be monitoring her every move\" said Todd Jailer, a spokesperson for the UNICEF WATCH. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30929","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and Human Rights: Train-the-Trainers course","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Training in human rights for health professionals has increasingly been identified as a critical need for the health sector. This is particularly the case in light of the findings of the Truth Commission that highlighted the role played by training institutions in human rights abuses under apartheid. The course is aimed at teaching staff in institutions training health professionals -Universities, Technicons, Nursing Colleges and other Training Facilities. Participants should ideally be teachers active in undergraduate or postgraduate teaching in a position to introduce or facilitate ongoing sustainability of training initiatives beyond the course.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30913","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health workforce to be the theme of World Health Report 2006","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In response to World Health Assembly resolution WHA57.19, the Director-General has declared the health workforce to be the theme of the World health report 2006. And for the first time, WHO is offering open consultation on the World health report via the World Wide Web and electronic mail. Broad participation is encouraged \u2013 from schools for the health professions to national and international financing institutions to the ultimate beneficiaries of health services, the general public. Load https://extranet.who.int/datacol/survey.asp?survey_id=153 and log on using the details Username: whr2006, Password: outline. The page that loads will enable you to make a contribution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS and the health workforce crisis: What are the next steps?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1365-3156.2005.01397.x/abs/","body":"In scaling up antiretroviral treatment (ART), financing is fast becoming less of a constraint than the human resources to ensure the implementation of the programmes. In the countries hardest affected by the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) pandemic, AIDS increases workloads, professional frustration and burn-out. It affects health workers also directly, contributing to rising sick leave and attrition rates. This burden is shouldered by a health workforce weakened already by chronic deficiencies in training, distribution and retention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Human Resources for Health and the Global HIV/AIDS Pandemic","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.phrusa.org/campaigns/aids/pdf/testimony_human-resources.pdf","body":"While the dearth of health workers is undermining the huge scale up of HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and treatment that Africa needs so desperately, conversely the emphasis on HIV/AIDS services is drawing resources away from other vital health services that are also in short supply, according to testimony by Holly J. Burkhalter of Physicians for Human Rights to the US House International Relations Committee. \"For example, at the 970-bed the Lilongwe Central Hospital in Malawi, only 169 nurses were practicing in mid-2004, compared to the 520 nurses whom the hospital was authorized to employ. The hospital's former staff of 38 laboratory technicians had fallen to only six. The nurses and laboratory technicians were moving to HIV/AIDS programs sponsored by NGOs and overseas universities, precipitating a staffing crisis at this major national referral hospital.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights readers online","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.humaninfo.org/aviva/","body":"Claudio Schuftan's Human Rights Readers, familiar to any subscriber to health e-lists like afro-nets and PHA-Exchange, are now available in a central location. One hundred of the readers, which deal with different aspects of human rights work, are available at the website URL provided (use the table of contents bar and click on No. 69) and are intended as an eye-opener and as a mobilizer of its readers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Improved government capacity needed for effective public-private partnerships","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC18227&resource=healthsystems","body":"This document, from the Institute for Health Sector Development, examines a range of approaches to strengthening public-private sector partnerships in order to scale up affordable and quality-assured health services. The document summarises and assesses the evidence base for the impact of private sector interventions on the health of the poor and on the wider health systems. This includes both the supply side (contracting, social franchising and social marketing) and the demand side (vouchers, micro-credit and insurance schemes). This resource also includes four case studies involving Nicaragua, Cambodia, Pakistan and Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"International Health Policy Researcher","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The applicant will mainly be working with Wim Van Damme, professor in public health in a research project on the big players in international health policies, with a particular focus on the role of public - private partnerships (PPPs), especially the Global Fund. Our aim is to understand and document the effects of PPPs and other funding initiatives on the health systems of low-income countries, especially on those hardest hit by HIV/AIDS.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30921","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenya promises promises expansion of free ARVs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4762","body":"Kenya's government has promised to make antiretroviral (ARVs) drugs freely available to its HIV-positive citizens, many of whom cannot afford the current subsidised medication. Of the 200,000 people in need of treatment in the country, only 35,000 are receiving the life-prolonging drugs. With more than 60 percent of the population living on a dollar a day, HIV-positive Kenyans can expect to pay about KShs500 (US $6.5) per month for ARVs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"LLM in Human Rights Specialising in Reproductive and Sexual Rights","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Centre for Human Rights Studies in the Faculty of Law, University of the Free State, South Africa, invites applications for admission to study for a Masters Degree (LLM) in Human Rights specialising in Reproductive and Sexual Rights. The LLM in Human Rights specialising in Reproductive and Sexual Rights is the first of its kind on the African continent. It is running for the first time in 2005. It is an international programme that is aimed at equipping committed lawyers from the African continent with academic and practical skills for securing the realisation of reproductive and sexual rights at a domestic as well as an international level.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30919","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Low marks on report card for global HIV/AIDS commitments","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4761","body":"Four years after world leaders at the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on AIDS pledged to scale up their fight against the disease, many countries are falling short of their targets, a new report has found. Under the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS of July 2001, UN member governments set time-bound goals for reversing the spread of the pandemic by scaling up treatment, prevention and care in their countries. Much still has to be done before the people directly affected realise the benefits of these commitments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Mozambique: Unions Concentrate On HIV/Aids for May Day","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200504251236.html","body":"Mozambique's main trade union federation, the OTM, launched  a week of activities leading up to International Workers Day, 1 May, under the theme \"Mozambican workers in the fight against HIV/AIDS.\" The OTM general secretary, Joaquim Fanheiro, said at a Maputo press conference that this theme was chosen taking into account the realisation that workers should be in the forefront of this fight, because it is workers who fall ill and die of AIDS, it is their children who become orphans, and it is their families who suffer.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New thinking needed to counter AIDS in rural communities","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4717","body":"The link between HIV/AIDS and hunger in rural communities has received a great deal of attention over the past few years - particularly in Southern Africa, where HIV/AIDS has added a new dimension to the recent food crisis. But research emerging from the recent international conference on 'HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security' in Durban, South Africa, showed that very little is know about the actual impact of the pandemic on rural communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New Web Site Highlights Reproductive and Child Health Project in West Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"On the occasion of World Health Day 2005, the Action for West Africa Region Reproductive Health and Child Survival Project (AWARE-RH) launches its new Web site, http://www.aware-rh.org. Echoing the World Health Day 2005 theme of \"Make every mother and child count,\" the Web site supports AWARE-RH's aim to improve reproductive and maternal and child health services across 18 countries in West Africa.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30910","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Number of work-related accidents and illnesses continues to increase","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr18/en/index.html","body":"Faced with a rising toll of occupational-related death, injury and sickness, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Office (ILO) marked the World Day for Safety and Health at Work by highlighting the need for a preventative safety culture worldwide. According to new estimates by the ILO, the number of job-related accidents and illnesses, which annually claim more than two million lives, appears to be rising because of rapid industrialization in some developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Research Methodology Training Course in the Field of HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Graduate School, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand is delighted to announce a Research Methodology Training Course in the Field of HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. This research training course is designed to prepare researchers and postgraduate students with requisite knowledge for formulating sound projects to meet the requirements of postgraduate training of the University of the Witwatersrand and other universities.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30911","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Resource guide on Marburg fever","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Visit http://www.datelinehealth-africa.net/betav1.0/infocus/detailinfocus.asp?infocus_id=164 for a fact sheet on the Marburg haemorrhagic fever.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Seeking care for life threatening malaria in southern Tanzania ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h4ds1g1.html","body":"Prompt treatment with relatively cheap and effective drugs can prevent deaths from malaria. So why does this disease still cause more deaths than any other throughout Tanzania? The growth in the use of modern medicines has reduced the delaying impact of traditional remedies. The introduction of the 'integrated management of childhood illness' approach, which focuses on the overall wellbeing of a child, is crucial in reducing malaria deaths.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Senior Program Officer/Specialist, Governance, Equity and Health","field_subtitle":"IDRC","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-73371-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html","body":"IDRC's Governance, Equity and Health programme initiative supports research in developing countries to promote equitable provision of public health and health care services. Our programme includes research on financing, delivery, access and governance challenges across a number of themes and regions.  We are looking for a dynamic, self-motivated colleague to complement our team's strong public health, governance and social science capacity with knowledge in health or social sector financing and economics. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategic research on the effects of global health initiatives on health systems development","field_subtitle":"Call for Proposals","field_url":"","body":"The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research was established in November 1999 as an initiative sponsored by the Global Forum for Health Research in collaboration with the World Health Organization. The Alliance aims to promote the generation, dissemination and use of knowledge for enhancing health system performance. One of its objectives is to stimulate the generation and synthesis of knowledge, encompassing evidence, tools and methods. To achieve this objective the Alliance has been undertaking strategic research to develop international knowledge in high priority but neglected or innovative areas, encouraging new policy thinking.\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30933","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The consequences of the new Indian Patents Act","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.msf.org/countries/page.cfm?articleid=395741BC-9F38-4934-9D86A003FE6D927A","body":"The Indian Patents Act of 1970 has been amended to allow for the granting of pharmaceutical product patents. India was obliged to make these changes to comply with the WTO TRIPS Agreement as of January 1st 2005.  The new Patents Act will mean that over time the source of affordable generics may dry up. The law will only affect medicines that have come onto the market since 1995. However, the amendments made by the Indian parliament have some very important provisions for access in the short term, says Medicines Sans Frontieres.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria ","field_subtitle":"Call for Proposals","field_url":"","body":"The Global Fund is calling for proposals for its Fifth Round of financing.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30923","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The link between good governance and good health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/5/4/abstract","body":"HIV prevalence is significantly associated with poor governance. International public health programs need to address societal structures in order to create strong foundations upon which effective healthcare interventions can be implemented, according to a recent study in the journal International Health and Human Rights. Only governments sensitive to the demands of their citizens appropriately respond to needs of their nation. Based on Professor Amartya Sen's analysis of the link between famine and democracy, the study tested the null hypothesis: \"Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) prevalence is not associated with governance\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"User fees in private non-for-profit hospitals in Uganda","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/4/1/6","body":"A recent study in the International Journal for Equity in Health states that user fees represent an unfair mechanism of financing for health services because they exclude the poor and the sick. To mitigate this effect, flat rates and lower fees for the most vulnerable users were introduced to replace the fee-for-service system in some hospitals after the survey. The results are encouraging: hospital use, especially for pregnancy, childbirth and childhood illness, increased immediately, with no detrimental effect on overall revenues. A more equitable user fees system is possible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Women and HIV/AIDS in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"* Text of a speech by Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, delivered at the University of Pennsylvania's Summit on Global Issues in Women's Health, Philadelphia, April 26, 2005\r\n\r\nI well realize that this is a conference on women's global health, and everything I'm about to say will apply to that generic definition. But the more I thought of the subject matter, the more I want to use HIV/AIDS in Africa as a surrogate for every international issue of women's health, partly because it's what I know best; partly because it's an accurate reflection of reality.\r\n\r\nI've been in the Envoy role for four years. Things are changing in an incremental, if painfully glacial way. It's now possible to feel merely catastrophic rather than apocalyptic. Initiatives on treatment, resources, training, capacity, infrastructure and prevention are underway. But one factor is largely impervious to change: the situation of women. On the ground, where it counts, where the wily words confront reality, the lives of women are as mercilessly desperate as they have always been in the last twenty plus years of the pandemic.\r\n\r\nJust a few weeks ago, I was in Zambia, visiting a district well outside of Lusaka. We were taken to a rural village to see an \"income generating project\" run by a group of Women Living With AIDS. They were gathered under a large banner proclaiming their identity, some fifteen or twenty women, all living with the virus, all looking after orphans. They were standing proudly beside the income generating project ... a bountiful cabbage patch. After they had spoken volubly and eloquently about their needs and the needs of their children (as always, hunger led the litany), I asked about the cabbages. I assumed it supplemented their diet? Yes, they chorused. And you sell the surplus at market? An energetic nodding of heads. And I take it you make a profit? Yes again. What do you do with the profit? And this time there was an almost quizzical response as if to say what kind of ridiculous question is that ... surely you knew the answer before you asked: \"We buy coffins of course; we never have enough coffins\".\r\n\r\nIt's at moments like that when I feel the world has gone mad. That's no existential spasm on my part. I simply don't know how otherwise to characterize what we're doing to half of humankind.\r\n\r\nI want to remind you that it took until the Bangkok AIDS conference in 2004 - more than twenty years into the pandemic - before the definitive report from UNAIDS disaggregated the statistics and commented, extensively, upon the devastating vulnerability of women. The phrase \"AIDS has a woman's face\" actually gained currency at the AIDS conference in Barcelona two years earlier, in 2002, and even then it was years late. Perhaps we should stop using it now as though it has a revelatory dimension. The women of Africa have always known whose face it is that's withered and aching from the virus.\r\n\r\nI want to remind you that when the Millennium Development Goals were launched, there was no goal on sexual and reproductive health. How was that possible? Everyone is now scrambling to find a way to make sexual and reproductive health fit comfortably into HIV/AIDS or women's empowerment or maternal mortality. But it surely should have had a category, a goal, of its own. Interestingly, the primacy of women is rescued (albeit there's still no goal) in the Millennium Project document, authored by Jeffrey Sachs.\r\n\r\nAnd while mentioning maternal mortality, allow me to point out that this issue has been haunting the lives of women for generations. I can remember back in the late 90s, when I was overseeing the publication of State of the World's Children for UNICEF, and we did a major piece on maternal mortality and realized that the same number of annual deaths - between 500 and 600 hundred thousand -  had not changed for twenty years. And now it's thirty years. You can bet that if there was something called paternal mortality, the numbers wouldn't be frozen in time for three decades.\r\n\r\nI want to remind you that within the UN system, there's something called the Task Force on Women and AIDS in Southern Africa. Permit me to tell you how it came about, and where it appears to be headed ... and I beg you to see this as descriptive rather than self-indulgent.\r\n\r\nIn January of 2003, I traveled with the Executive Director of the World Food Programme, James Morris, to four African countries beset by a combination of famine and AIDS: Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Lesotho. We had surmised, at the outset, that we would be dealing primarily with drought and erratic rainfall, but in the field it became apparent that to a devastating extent, agricultural productivity and household food security were being clobbered by AIDS. We were shocked by the human toll, the numbers of orphans, and the pervasive death amongst the female population. In fact, so distressed were we about the decimation of women, that we appealed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations to personally intervene.\r\n\r\nAnd he did. He summoned a high level meeting on the 38th floor of the UN Secretariat, with TV conferencing outreach to James Morris in Rome and to the various UN agencies in Geneva, and after several agitated interventions, the Secretary-General struck a Task Force on Gender and AIDS in Southern Africa, to be chaired by Carol Bellamy of UNICEF.\r\n\r\nIf memory serves me, Carol Bellamy determined to focus on seven of the highest prevalence rate countries: studies were done, recommendations were made, costs of implementation were estimated, monographs were published. And here's what festers in the craw: the funding for implementation is not yet available. The needs and rights of women never command singular urgency.\r\n\r\nThere's an odd footnote to this. Within the last two months, a number of senior students at the University of Toronto Law School, compiled papers dealing with potential legal interventions on a number of issues related to HIV/AIDS in Africa. One of the issues was, predictably, gender. Not a single student, over the course of several weeks, whether on the internet or wider personal reading, came across the Secretary-General's Task Force (although one student said that she had a vague recollection that such a thing existed). The Task Force findings are clearly not something the UN promotes with messianic fervour.\r\n\r\nI want to remind you that as recently as March, there was tabled, internationally, the Commission on Africa, chaired by Prime Minister Tony Blair ... indeed established by Tony Blair. It has received nothing but accolades, particularly for the analysis and recommendations on Official Development Assistance, on trade and on debt. The tributes are deserved. The document goes further down a progressive road than any other contemporary international compilation.\r\n\r\nWith one exception. I want it to be known - because it's not known - that the one aspect of this prestigious report which fails, lamentably, is the way in which it deals with women. There is the occasional obligatory paragraph which signals that the Commission recognizes that there are two sexes in the world, but by and large, given that women are absolutely central to the very integrity and survival of the African continent, they are dealt with as they are always dealt with in these auspicious studies: at the margins, in passing, pro forma. And it's not just HIV/AIDS; it's everything, from trade to agriculture to conflict to peace-building.\r\n\r\nMaybe we should have guessed what was coming when there were only three women appointed out of seventeen commissioners. They had the whole world to choose from, and they could find only three women ... it doesn't even begin to meet the Beijing minimum target of thirty percent. We're not just climbing uphill; we might as well be facing the Himalayas.\r\n\r\nI want to remind you, finally, of the arrangements we've made within the United Nations itself. HIV/AIDS is the worst plague this world is facing; it wrecks havoc on women and girls, and within the multilateral system, best-placed to confront the pandemic, we have absolutely no agency of power to promote women's development, to offer advice and technical assistance to governments on their behalf, and to oversee programmes, as well as representing the rights of women. We have no agency of authority to intervene on behalf of half the human race. Despite the mantra of 'Women's Rights are Human Rights', intoned at the International Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993; despite the pugnacious assertion of the rights of women advanced at the Cairo International conference in 1994; despite the Beijing Conference on women in 1995; despite the existence of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, now ratified by over 150 countries; we have only UNIFEM, the UN Development Fund for Women, with an annual core budget in the vicinity of $20 million dollars, to represent the women of the world. There are several UNICEF offices in individual developing countries where the annual budget is greater than that of UNIFEM.\r\n\r\nMore, UNIFEM isn't even a free-standing entity. It's a department of the UNDP (the United Nations Development Programme). Its Executive Director ranks lower in grade than over a dozen of her colleagues within UNDP, and lower in rank than the vast majority of the Secretary-General's Special Representatives.\r\n\r\nMore still, because UNIFEM is so marginalized, there's nobody to represent women adequately on the group of co-sponsors convened by UNAIDS. You see, UNAIDS is a coordinating body: it coordinates the AIDS activities of UNICEF, UNDP, the World Bank, UNESCO, UNFPA, WHO, UNDCP (the Drug Agency), ILO and WFP. UNIFEM asked to be a co-sponsor, but it was denied that privilege.\r\n\r\nSo who, I ask, speaks for women at the heart of the pandemic? Well, UNFPA in part. And UNICEF, in part (a smaller part). And ostensibly UNDP (although from my observations in the field, \"ostensible\" is the operative word).\r\n\r\nLet me be clear: what we have here is the most ferocious assault ever made by a communicable disease on women's health, and there is just no concerted coalition of forces to go to the barricades on women's behalf. We do have the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS, launched almost by way of desperation, by some international women leaders ... like Mary Robinson, like Geeta Rao Gupta, but they're struggling for significant sustainable funding, and their presence on the ground is inevitably peripheral.\r\n\r\nI was listening to the presentations at the dinner last night, and thinking to myself, when in heaven's name does it end? Obstetric fistula causes such awful misery, and isn't it symptomatic that one of the largest - perhaps the largest -contributions to addressing this appalling condition has come not from a government but from Oprah Winfrey?\r\n\r\nI was noting, just in the last 48 hours, that Save the Children in the UK has released a report pointing out that fully half of the three hundred thousand child soldiers in the world are girls. And if that isn't a maiming of health - in this case emotional and psychological health - then I don't know what is. And perhaps you notice the rancid irony: women have achieved parity on the receiving end of conflict and AIDS, but nowhere else.\r\n\r\nFemale genital mutilation, the contagion of violence against women, sexual violence in particular, rape as a weapon of war - Rwanda, Darfur, Northern Uganda, Eastern Congo - marital rape, child defilement, as it is called in Zambia, sexual trafficking, maternal mortality, early marriage ... I pause to point out that studies now show that in parts of Africa, the prevalence rates of HIV in marriage are often higher than they are for sexually active single women in the surrounding community; who would have thought that possible? ...\r\n\r\nThe overall subject matters you're tackling at this conference strike to the heart of the human condition. All my adult life I have accepted the feminist analysis of male power and authority. But perhaps because of an acute naivet\u00e9, I never imagined that the analysis would be overwhelmed by the objective historical realities. Of course the women's movement has had great successes, but the contemporary global struggle to secure women's health seems to me to be a challenge of almost insuperable dimension.\r\n\r\nAnd because I believe that, and because I see the evidence month after month, week after week, day after day, in the unremitting carnage of women and AIDS - God it tears the heart from the body ... I just don't know how to convey it ... these young young women, who crave so desperately to live, who suddenly face a pox, a scourge which tears their life from them before they have a life ... who can't even get treatment because the men are first in line, or the treatment rolls out at such a paralytic snail's pace ... who are part of the 90% of pregnant women who have no access to the prevention of Mother to Child Transmission and so their infants are born positive ... who carry the entire burden of care even while they're sick, tending to the family, carrying the water, tilling the fields, looking after the orphans .... the women who lose their property, and have no inheritance rights, and no legal or jurisprudential infrastructure which will guarantee those rights .... no criminal code which will stop the violence ... because I have observed all of that, and have observed it for four years, and am driven to distraction by the recognition that it will continue, I want a kind of revolution in the world's response, not another stab at institutional reform, but a virtual revolution.\r\n\r\nLet me, therefore, put before the conference, two quite pragmatic responses which will make a world of difference to women, and then a much more fundamental proposal.\r\n\r\nMany at the conference will not know this, but the Kingdom of Swaziland recently made history when it received from the Global Fund on AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, money to pay a stipend - modest of course, but of huge impact - to ten thousand caregivers, looking after orphans, the vast majority being women. The Swaziland National AIDS Commission (that may not be the precise name), reeling from the exploding orphan population, made the proposal for payment to the Global Fund, and it swept through the review process with nary a word. The amount is roughly $30/month, or a dollar a day .... not a lot to be sure, but clearly enough to make a great difference.\r\n\r\nMy recommendation is that this conference orchestrate the writing of a letter, to be signed by people like Mary Robinson, Geeta Rao Gupta, and prominent women from academia, and have that letter sent to every African Head of State and Minister of Health, urging them to ask for compensation for caregivers, using the Swaziland precedent.\r\n\r\nAnd the second pragmatic proposal? I would recommend, with every fibre of persuasion at my command, that the conference collaborate directly with the International Partnership on Microbicides, whose remarkably effective Executive Director, Dr. Zeda Rosenberg, will be here on campus on Thursday. She will tell you what she needs and how to go about getting it. The prospect of a microbicide, in the form of a gel or cream or ring, which will prevent infection, while permitting conception - the partner need not even know of its presence - can save the lives of millions of women. The head of UNAIDS, Dr. Peter Piot, who will be known to many of you, recently suggested that the discovery of a microbicide may be only three to four years off. That's almost miraculous: short of a vaccine - and we must never stop the indefatigable hunt for a vaccine - a microbicide can transform the lives of women, and dramatically reduce their disproportionate vulnerability. What's needed is science and money. You can help with both.\r\n\r\nOn the more fundamental front, I want to suggest that the process of UN reform, now urgently underway, be confronted with arguments that spare no impatience.\r\n\r\nI have heard the President of Botswana use the word extermination when he described what the country is battling. I have heard the Prime Minister of Lesotho use the word annihilation when he described what the country is battling. I sat with the President of Zambia and members of his cabinet not long ago, when he used the word holocaust to describe what the country is battling.\r\n\r\nThe words are true; there's no hyperbole. The words apply, overwhelmingly, to women. That being the case, there has to be a proportionate response. It seems to me that the response should proceed on two simultaneous fronts.\r\n\r\nFirst, let me say that I was thrilled by the suggestion from Mary Robinson, and others, that Penn State act as a kind of coordinator for the surprising numbers of initiatives, unrelated one to the other, occurring under the auspices of many universities. The practice of twinning, the practice of using various Faculties as training centres, the practice of American and Canadian universities bridging the gap in capacity until the developing country can take over ... all of that is to the good, and it needs coordination. But there's more, I would submit, for you to do. Within multilateralism, that is within the UN system, wherein lies the best hope for leadership, there must be a change in the representation of women. There must emerge, for Women's Global Health, and certainly for HIV/AIDS, an agency, an organization, a powerful Think Tank, whatever the entity --- it can start on the outside, and then claim equal presence amongst the co-sponsors of UNAIDS, and thrust its advocacy upon the Secretariat, the Agencies, the member states, in unprecedented volume and urgency. Nor does this entity confine itself solely to women's global health, although that is the entry point. It insists on the 50% rule ... just start your evidence-gathering by identifying the numbers of senior women, agency by agency, secretariat department by secretariat department, diplomatic mission by diplomatic mission, and when you've recovered from the shock of learning that the multilateral citadel knows nothing of affirmative action, then begin your unrelenting advocacy. This must become a movement for social change. It needs leadership. Why not this University, why not this conference? And let me emphasize; there's nothing limiting about this concept. We're looking towards the day when governments are finally made to understand that women constitute half of everything that affects humankind, and must therefore be engaged in absolutely everything. Why would it not be possible to build a movement, committed to the rights of women, in the first instance amongst nursing and medical faculties across the world, and take the world by storm? You have resources, knowledge and influence available to no others. The terrible problem is that you've never marshalled your collective capacities.\r\n\r\nSecond, a similar movement must be directed, I would submit, to Africa itself. I'm hesitant here, because there are enough neo-colonial impulses around without my being presumptuous in making recommendations for Africa, and indeed for women. But I must bring myself to say what I know to be true: the African leadership, at the highest level, is not engaged when it comes to women's health. There's so much lip service; there's so much patronizing gobble-de-gook. The political leadership of Africa has to be lobbied with an almost maniacal intensity on the issues of this conference, or nothing will change for women.\r\n\r\nThat, too, will take a monumental effort. In my fantasies, I see a group of African women, moving country to country, President to President, identifying violations of women's health specific to that country, and demanding a change so profound that it shakes to the root the gender relationships of the society. I know that African women leaders like Wangari Matthai and Gra\u00e7a Machel and many prominent cabinet ministers, committed activists and professionals think in those terms; what is needed is a massive outpouring of international support from their sisters and brothers on the planet.\r\n\r\nI'm 67 years old. I'm a man. I've spent time in politics, diplomacy and multilateralism. I know a little of how this man's world works, but I still find much of it inexplicable. I don't really care anymore about whom I might offend or what line I cross: that's what's useful about inching into one's dotage.\r\n\r\nI know only that this world is off its rocker when it comes to women. I must admit that I live in such a state of perpetual rage at what I see happening to women in the pandemic, that I would like to throttle those responsible, those who've waited so unendurably long to act, those who can find infinite resources for war but never sufficient resources to ameliorate the human condition.\r\n\r\nI'm excited of course about the Millennium Development Goals, and I'm equally excited that with the leadership of the British, this next G8 Summit in the summer might just possibly spawn a breakthrough. And there are countless numbers of people working to that end.\r\n\r\nBut I have to say that I can't get the images of women I've met, unbearably ill, out of my mind. And I don't have it in me either to forgive or to forget. I have it in me only to join with all of you in the greatest liberation struggle there is: the struggle on behalf of the women of the world.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Report 2005 Online","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/whr/2005/en/index.html","body":"The World Health Report 2005 \u2013 Make Every Mother and Child Count, says that this year almost 11 million children under five years of age will die from causes that are largely preventable. Among them are 4 million babies who will not survive the first month of life. Read the report by clicking on the URL provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A Proposal for an Essential Health R&D Treaty","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020014","body":"Biomedical science and technology are developing at a more rapid pace than ever. Investments in health research and development (R&D) have never been higher\u2014global spending on health research increased from US$30 billion in 1990 to US$105.9 billion in 2001. But despite advances in technology and unparalleled research spending, the medical needs of many of the world's population go unmet. For example, only 1% of new drugs approved between 1975 and 1999 were specifically developed for tropical diseases and tuberculosis\u2014diseases that account for over 10% of the global disease burden. There is a growing demand from many quarters for a new international policy framework. A new international treaty on essential health R&D could provide a binding framework to redirect today's knowledge and scientific expertise to priority health needs. The treaty could help to cement new political commitments and coordinate complementary partnerships aimed at generating and rewarding health innovation as a global public good. This is according to a paper produced by the The Neglected Diseases Group.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Abolition of cost-sharing is pro-poor: evidence from Uganda","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://heapol.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/20/2/100?etoc","body":"A study conducted by the WHO Uganda Office suggests that there is a financial barrier created by cost-sharing that decreases access to services, especially among the poor in Uganda. The study found that there was a marked increase in utilization of health services after the abolition of user fees in all population groups that was fluctuating in nature. The increase in utilization varied from 26% in public referral facilities in 2001, rising to 55% in 2002 compared with 2000. The corresponding figures for the lower level facilities were 44% and 77%, respectively. Increase in utilization among the poor was more than for other socio-economic categories. Women utilized health services more than men both before and after cost-sharing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to continued professional education among health workers in Blantyre, Malawi","field_subtitle":"Equinet Publication","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=550","body":"The objective of this study was to describe the current status of continued professional development (CPD) of healthcare personnel within the Ministry of Health (MoH) health centres in Blantyre, Malawi. It concludes that  healthcare professionals in Blantyre's DHO zone are using mostly clinical hand-over meetings, seminars and workshops for their CPD. There is need to improve access to relevant professional journals. The regulatory or licensing boards for healthcare professional in Malawi should seriously consider mandatory CPD credits for re-registration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"ARVs in resource-constrained settings","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020050","body":"Recently, a global commitment has been made to expand access to antiretrovirals (ARVs) in the developing world. However, in many resource-constrained countries the number of individuals infected with HIV in need of treatment will far exceed the supply of ARVs, and only a limited number of health-care facilities (HCFs) will be available for ARV distribution. Deciding how to allocate the limited supply of ARVs among HCFs will be extremely difficult. Resource allocation decisions can be made on the basis of many epidemiological, ethical, or preferential treatment priority criteria, says this research article in PLOS medicine.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Assuring food security in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC17457","body":"Food and nutrition security remain Africa's most fundamental challenges. The number of Africans who are undernourished has been on the rise for decades and now stands at about 200 million people. However, a new commitment to change is emerging both among African leaders and in the international community. Africa may at last be poised to make real progress on achieving food and nutrition security. This book, \u20182020 Vision for Food, Agriculture and the Environment\u2019 by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), introduces a variety of presentations and deliberations that took place at a conference hosted by the International Food Policy Research Institute, held in Kampala, Uganda, April 2004.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Blair report says donors not doing enough to fight HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=28600","body":"British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Commission for Africa released its report, which criticized international donors for \"not paying what they promised\" to fight HIV/AIDS, the Financial Times reports. The 460-page report calls for a doubling of international aid to Africa to $50 billion annually, the removal of trade barriers, debt forgiveness and increased efforts to address poor governance, corruption and war throughout the continent. The report also calls for annual funding for HIV/AIDS to be increased to $10 billion annually within the next five years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Applications, Health & Society Resident Fellowships, 2006","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Five College African Scholars Program invites applications for competitive residency fellowships from junior and mid-level teaching staff employed full-time in African universities. There are two residency periods: mid-January to May 2006 OR mid-August to December 2006.\u00a0 Proposals should be based on the applicant's current research, which can be completed and prepared for publication during the residency. Three to four candidates will be chosen for each term.\u00a0 Scholars will receive a stipend of $3,000 per month, roundtrip airfare, laptop computer, housing, health insurance, and a modest research allowance.\u00a0\u00a0","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30867","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: BMJ theme issue on Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.afronets.org/archive/200503/msg00121.php","body":"\"The BMJ plans a theme issue for September 2005 \"by, for, and about\" Africa, to deal exclusively with the region's problems and, more importantly, offer solutions. We will discuss a wide range of health challenges such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, violence against women, and maternal and child health, as well as emerging challenges such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Descriptive study of debates on health equity matters in the Zimbabwean National Legislative Assembly","field_subtitle":"Equinet Publication","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=551","body":"A descriptive study of debates on health and health equity matters in the Zimbabwean National Assembly was conducted to identify key issues raised, the positions taken within the key areas of parliamentary functions, legislative, budgetary oversight, policy oversight and representation. The work also tracked how issues were responded to in parliament, and how they were followed through by parliament. The research drew information from recordings of parliament in the Hansards. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by \r\n\r\nFahamu - Networks for Social Justice\r\nhttp://www.fahamu.org/  \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter 50: Equity in Health Research and the \u201c10/90 Gap\u201d in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Equinet Newsletter 50 (April 2005): Equity in Health Research and the \u201c10/90 Gap\u201d in Africa\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet workshop on health sensitive trade policy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=48_0_1_0_M6","body":"Following the call to middle to senior policymakers, academics and civil society members working in areas of trade and / or health from countries in East and Southern Africa to participate in a capacity building and research programme on trade and health, EQUINET will in co-operation with SEATINI and the Centre for Hea;th Policy be running a series of country-level training workshops on trade and health. These workshops will be held between May and June 2005 and will be followed by support to country level teams, to undertake and report on national assessments of trade and health. \r\n\r\nThanks to those who applied- they will now be directly contacted by the convenors to indicate proposed dates of the country meetings. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in Health Research and the \u201c10/90 Gap\u201d in Africa: The role of The African Health Research Forum","field_subtitle":"William M Macharia","field_url":"","body":"Before the Commission on Health Research for Development report (1990) was the International Health meeting at Alma-Ata in 1978 when the existence of major health inequalities experienced by populations living in the developing world were exposed. It was in Alma-Ata where the concept of Primary Health Care for developing countries was proposed as a means of delivering health to all by the year 2000 \u2013 now long past. \r\n\r\nTo give credit where it is due, there were some tangible gains over the years that followed, as demonstrated by improved child and infant mortality rates, higher primary immunization rates, better education of the girl child and higher life expectancy. But poverty levels escalated over the years while the effects of HIV/AIDS turned into a third world health nightmare even as health sector structural adjustment programs ensured access to health care was virtually denied to the most poor thereby reversing the earlier positive trends. \r\n\r\nIn its landmark report of 1990,  \u201cHealth Research: Essential Link to Equity in Development\u201d, the Commission on Health Research for Development revealed the major discrepancies that existed in the global distribution of financial resources for health research. An estimated 80% of the global population living in the developing world were found to shoulder 95% of the global disease burden using only 5% of global investments for health research. At the national level, the health sector remained a low priority area to which only 0.1-3% of the GDP was allocated in the annual budgets. Health research was ranked even lower with less than 0.5% of the budget, if any. As a result, about 90% of all national health research funds were from development partners who ended up dictating research agendas in recipient countries. This health and research resources allocation imbalance at national and global levels has not changed much over the years with less than 10% of global spending on health research today still being devoted to diseases or conditions that account for 90% of the global disease burden \u2013 the 10/90 Gap (10/90 report 2001/02). \r\n\r\nGiven this scenario, it was no wonder that the health research agenda in nearly all developing countries, Africa included, was found to be dictated by development partners \u2013 \u201che who pays the piper calls the tune\u201d. In order to positively influence their relationship with development partners, as correctly recommended by the CHRD, developing countries were requested to direct more of their resources into both health and research. The Commission then called on countries to allocate a minimum of 2% of their national health expenditures to research and for all internationally funded health programs to earmark 5% of budgets for health research support.\r\n\r\nCredited to the CHRD report, a number of important global initiatives have been put in place since its release. The Commission for Health research and Development (COHRED) was, for example, established in 1993 to promote the concept of Essential National Health Research (ENHR). Also, implementation of the recommendations of an Ad-Hoc committee on health research which were published in 1996 led to the establishment of the Global Forum for Health Research in 1998 with the mandate of monitoring progress of health research in developing countries as well as tracking financial flows to redress existing disparities. \r\n\r\nFollowing its establishment, the Forum has hosted regular annual Global Forum meetings and sustained release of widely disseminated update reports, \u201cThe 10/90 Report on Health Research\u201d.  The best remembered of all the Forum meetings is probably the International Conference 2000 (IC2000) held at the Shangli-La Hotel in Bangkok. It was at this conference that nations undertook to \u201ctake stock\u201d of their accomplishments since the release of the CHRD report a decade earlier. \r\n\r\nFindings of an African consultative process that involved 300 key informants from 110 institutions in 18 African countries that took place in preparation of the IC 2000 meeting were disheartening. With very few exceptions like South Africa, health research financing in Africa continued to be characterized by low global expeditures and insignificant national investments. Many countries had still not adopted the concept of Essential National Health Research (ENHR) though promising trends were evident where the concept had been grasped and implemented. In such countries, a \u201cbottom-up\u201d consultative process had been adopted by stakeholders in prioritization of national health problems thus creating a better sense of problem ownership by communities. \r\n\r\nSuccess was however curtailed by inadequate program funding and poor national health research systems. It was also obvious from these consultations that health research was far from being recognized as an effective tool for health action, partly because quality research output and utilization remained low. Collaboration among various stakeholders like researchers, research institutions, institutions of higher learning, service delivery organizations, policy makers and external development partners remained below expectation in nearly all countries visited.\r\n\r\nDespite the importance of equity in health care provision and research featuring prominently in both the Alma-Ata and CHRD recommendations, hardly any gains were evident on the ground. Encouragingly however, a number of countries were found to have policies or plans to put some in place. Major disparities in access to health care remain between the rich and the poor, urban and rural, between genders, along age ranges and ethnic lines. \r\n\r\nSubsidies allocated to the poor, for example, continued to benefit the rich while marginalized populations were further relegated to the periphery of health care provision. Research on equity in health remained extremely low though necessary for igniting debates on the need for equitable distribution of resources for health. Among other recommendations, participants in the Africa consultative process strongly recommended \u201cthat equity be brought to the surface and that research guides the process of not only identifying the disparities but also proposes appropriate responses and helps to monitor progress towards equity\u201d\r\n\r\nThe Bangkok IC 2000 meeting identified three key challenges for Africa: building appropriate capacities to undertake research, development of effective national research systems and creation of research enabling environments. Establishment of an African Forum to advocate for more attention to research as an essential tool for development was  highly recommended as an important point of starting to address the challenges. Besides articulating the African voice on research, it would also catalyze building of coalitions, South-South and North-South linkages, effective regional and global networking as well as acting as a broker for resources for health research.\r\n \r\nThe African Health Research Forum was launched in November, 2002 at the Global Health Research Forum meeting in Arusha, Tanzania as the result of efforts of a regional steering committee appointed at the IC 2000 meeting. Over the last three years, the Forum has undertaken a regional survey on health research networks, hosted consensus building meetings with representatives of 15 key research networks and other major stakeholders and participated in discussions hosted by WHO/AFRO, NEPAD, and Private-Public Partnership Initiatives among others. The Forum has also been invited to sit in the WHO/AFRO and East Africa Health Research Advisory Council and hopes to continue seeking invitations to other similar regional and sub-regional health research committees in furtherance of the execution of its mandate.\r\n\r\nAmong other initiatives so far undertaken by the Forum is a Health Research Leadership Training program being pilot-tested with two Anglophone and two Francophone countries. Like the establishment of a regional forum, nurturing of leadership in health research was identified as another crucial tool for advancing health knowledge production and utilization in Africa. This IDRC funded initiative is a collaboration between African Health Research Forum (AfHRF) and the Canadian Global Coalition for Health Research which targets training of mid-career level epidemiologists, social scientists, policy makers and community health care workers using a \u201cteam-training\u201d concept. The teams would then be expected to act as national focal points in the advocacy for generation and use of research knowledge for improvement of their people\u2019s health. Although the training is primarily through individual and group learning, two week \u201cinstitutes\u201d are organized once a year to expose the groups to prominent regional health research leaders and other resource persons as part of the learning process. \r\n\r\nLearning emphasis for the teams focuses on the importance of equity, ethics, methodology, team play, management and governance in research. AfHRF is therefore in a unique position not only to advocate for more attention on the hitherto forgotten important area of equity in health research but to also bargain for more national, regional and global health resources to be directed to benefit the more disadvantaged in society. An example of such avenues was the release and dissemination of an AfHRF and the WHO Africa Advisory Committee on Health Research (AACHR) crafted \u201cVoice on Health Research\u201d at the Mexico Health Ministers Summit and the 2004 Global Forum Meeting. Given the emerging important roles that NEPAD initiatives and the United Nations Millennium Health Development Goals are likely to play in the future in Africa, AfHRF will aspire to maintain close links with them with a view to advancing the shared visions of health research stakeholders in Africa.\r\n\r\n* Prof William M Macharia (MBChB.,MMed,MSc) is with the  African Health Research Forum.\r\n\r\n* Please send comments to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"European Commission drops health from services proposal  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/extract/330/7491/560-a","body":"The health sector is to be excluded from draft European legislation designed to open up the market for services throughout the European Union\u2019s 25 member states. The European Commission in Brussels has decided to radically overhaul its original proposal because of wide ranging opposition to the plans it tabled last year to abolish national restrictions on service providers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and the Commission for Africa report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/journal.isa","body":"Improving health in Africa must be acknowledged as essential both for the continent's attainment of the MDGs and for effective development strategies both regional and national, says this article in The Lancet, which reviews the Commission for Africa report in the light of Africa's complex health crisis. \"We must hope that the report can deliver so that the Commission and the UK Government do not perpetuate the \"fatal indifference\" to Africa's complex health and development needs that has for too long characterised the policies of many developed nations.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health civil society in east and southern africa: Towards a unified agenda","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=51_0_1_0_M2","body":"EQUINET, PHM, CWGH, TAC, SATUCC, Southern African Social Forum, SEATINI, PATAM and HAI convened a regional meeting of health civil society on February 17-19 2005 in Zambia, with local hosts CHESSORE. \r\n\r\n The meeting resolved to build a united health civil society campaign for a national peoples health system. The meeting identified that to build this the region needs to address pressing issues of:\r\n - Investing in adequate, well trained, appropriate, equitably distributed and motivated health workers; \r\n - Ensuring sustained increased fair financing of the universal right to health, through rising investment in the public health sector; \r\n - Building a critical mass of conscious and organised people, with rights to meaningfully participate in their health systems, \r\n - Resisting privatisation and promoting public interests and national authority in trade agreements in the health sector. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Ministers Pledge On Reproductive Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200502280945.html","body":"Ministers of Health of the Southern Africa sub region have committed themselves to working with other sub regions on the continent to integrate sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHH) goals and targets into the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) framework. They also reaffirmed their commitment to taking the necessary action to speed up the development of relevant policies and to secure the resources for implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health, human rights and mobilization of resources for health","field_subtitle":"BMC International Health and Human Rights 2004","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/4/4","body":"This paper argues that the human rights framework does provide us with an appropriate understanding of what values should guide a nation's health policy, and a potentially powerful means of moving the health agenda forward. It also, however, argues that appeals to human rights may not necessarily be effective at mobilizing resources for specific health problems one might want to do something about. Specifically, it is not possible to argue that a particular allocation of scarce health care resources should be changed to a different allocation, benefiting other groups. Lack of access to health care services by some people only shows that something has to be done, but not what should be done.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"How can the real scale of the HIV/AIDS pandemic be measured?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=1&i=h5nw2g1&u=425106fc","body":"Since 1997, The Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have provided estimates for the number of people living with HIV in different countries every two years.  As new methods are developed for calculating existing and future trends in the disease, figures can be startlingly different.  How can accurate decisions be made on health spending if policy-makers are unclear about how many people are HIV positive? Researchers review the process, methods and procedures that have been used in the past and current round of estimates of HIV/AIDS burden.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How equitable is the scaling up of HIV service provision in South Africa?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=19696&layout=abstract","body":"A University of the Western Cape School of Public Health and Health Systems Trust study to assess the extent of inequalities in availability and utilisation of HIV services across South Africa found marked inequalities in service delivery between the three sites sampled. \"Compared with two poorer sites, clinics at the urban site had greater availability of HIV services, including voluntary counselling and testing , better uptake of this service and greater distribution of condoms. Extra counsellors had also been employed at the urban site in contrast to the other 2 sites.\" The study concludes that the process of scaling up of HIV services seems to be accentuating inequalities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the quality of primary health care: public and private provision","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/news/20040610","body":"The quality of primary health care (PHC) delivered to people in developing countries is often poor and coverage is not yet universal. This is despite a focus on the public delivery of comprehensive PHC over the past 20 years. People frequently consult private providers including qualified medical professionals and unqualified health practitioners. A better use of private care providers, therefore, might be a potential solution, including contracting them to provide services on behalf of the public sector. Research from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the University of Witwatersrand and the University of Cape Town examines the performance of various models of PHC provision in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Indian patent law 'will signal end of cheap HIV drugs'","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=readnews&itemid=2007&language=1","body":"Controversial legislation approved by the lower house of India's parliament on 22 March could drastically increase the cost of cheap HIV drugs and other medicines the country produces, according to international humanitarian organisations.The law threatens to affect the provision of healthcare to hundreds of thousands of patients, many of them in Africa, for whom low-cost Indian drugs are the only affordable means of treating AIDS. The new patents bill is intended to bring India's patent regime into line with the World Trade Organization's (WTO) agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (known as TRIPS), one of the conditions of India's membership of the WTO.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Insitute on Health, Politics And Society in Africa ","field_subtitle":"Access and Equity in African Health Systems, Call for Application, 2005","field_url":"","body":"As part of on-going programme innovation and expansion, CODESRIA  in 2004 launched an institute on Health, Politics and Society in Africa in a bid to promote an enhanced interest in multidisciplinary health research among African scholars. The initiative flows from the current CODESRIA strategic plan which has placed a considerable emphasis on the promotion of social science approaches to health studies in Africa and a structured dialogue between the Social Sciences and the Health/Biomedical Sciences. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30878","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Introducing the Commission on Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol365/iss9464/full/llan.365.9464.talking_points.32571.3","body":"Many gross health inequalities that exist between and within countries have social factors at the root. This Lancet article introduces the independent Commission on Social Determinants of Health, set up by WHO, and consisting of prominent figures in politics, research, and social action. Within 3 years the Commission aims to understand the societal factors that influence health and use this knowledge to develop policies to improve health. In a comment paper, Lee Jong-wook argues that public health begins with the recognition of the need for favourable social conditions, and that neglect of such factors undermines health efforts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Investment in child health 'inadequate'","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC18135&Resource=f1health","body":"This commentary from the Lancet argues that investment in maternal, newborn and child health remains seriously inadequate, despite its crucial importance not only for saving lives but also for achieving poverty reduction, equity and other human development goals. The authors point out that the most effective package of interventions for reducing mortality in both women and newborns \u2013 female education, family planning, community-based maternity care, and referral services for women with obstetric complications \u2013 has received little attention from policymakers. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Job advert: International Health Policy Researcher","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The applicant will mainly be working with Wim Van Damme, professor in public health in a research project on the big players in international health policies, with a particular focus on the role of public - private partnerships (PPPs), especially the Global Fund. Our aim is to understand and document the effects of PPPs and other funding initiatives on the health systems of low-income countries, especially on those hardest hit by HIV/AIDS. The recent research has mainly focussed on Human Resources for Health (HRH) as a major bottleneck for scaling up ART in Southern Africa.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30896","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Malaria Prevention, Control and Management Course","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The AMREF Directorate of Learning Systems is pleased to announce the Malaria Prevention, Control and Management Course. The main objective of this course is to provide an up-date in clinical management, prevention and control of Malaria through the acquisition of knowledge and practical skills.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30862","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Measles deaths worldwide drop by nearly 40% over five years","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr11/en/index.html","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) have announced that countries are on target to halve deaths from measles, a leading vaccine-preventable killer, by the end of this year. Global measles deaths have plummeted by 39%, from 873 000 in 1999 to an estimated 530 000 in 2003. The largest reduction occurred in Africa, the region with the highest burden of the disease, where estimated measles deaths decreased by 46%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New E-Forum Sponsored by Health Communication Partnership","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Health Communication Partnership (HCP) has launched a new interactive E-Forum based on HCP's Partners in Action, a series of case studies about HCP's country-based partners. Partners in Action documents how those partners became successful and sustainable organizations, as well as the role that health communication played in their success. Those interested in participating in this new electronic community can log on through HCP's website or visit http://www.hcpartnership.org/pia/blog/","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New web feature on TB","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Management Sciences for Health (MSH) has announced the launch of a new Tuberculosis (TB) section on their website (www.msh.org/). The \"Focus On\" http://www.msh.org/ Tuberculosis section of the MSH website provides information on their work in TB control related to health systems, medicines, laboratories and TB/HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Panos/Stop TB Media Fellowships","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Panos Global AIDS Programme and Stop TB Partnership invite print and photo journalists from India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, Zambia, Ethiopia, Malawi and Haiti to apply for a fellowship to write/photograph issues around TB, and TB & HIV/AIDS. Fellowships will run from June to October 2005. Each fellowship will involve working closely with the Panos Global AIDS Programme, the Stop TB Partnership and a panel of experts on TB and communication in TB and/or HIV/AIDS in the countries specified. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30859","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy analysis capacity building workshop","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=53_0_1_0_M6","body":"On behalf of EQUINET, and as part of the EQUINET capacity building programme, the Centre for Health Policy, University of Witwatersrand, will host the third and final workshop in the current phase of the Policy Analysis Capacity Building Programme from March 30 to April 2nd in Johannesburg, South Africa. This programme was initiated in late 2003 with support from IDRC (Canada) and Rockefeller Foundation. \r\n\r\n The objectives of this programme are :\r\n * To promote investigation of health equity-related topics using policy analysis frameworks; \r\n * To better understand the forces constraining decision-making on equity issues and shaping the achievement of equity goals in the health sector; \r\n * To identify levers for equity-oriented advocacy and policy change within the health sector at national/regional/international levels;\r\n * To build capacity in conducting health policy analyses; \r\n * To strengthen the networks between those involved in this area of work. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Preparing a Health Care Workforce for the 21st Century","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/chronic_conditions/workforce_report/en/","body":"This publication from the WHO calls for the transformation of healthcare workforce training to better meet the needs of caring for patients with chronic conditions, predicated upon the rapid escalation in chronic health problems around the world. To provide effective care for chronic conditions, the skills of health professionals must be expanded to meet these new complexities. The report presents a new, expanded training model, based on a set of core competencies that apply to all members of the workforce. This model has been endorsed by the World Medical Association (WMA), International Council of Nurses (ICN), International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), European Respiratory Society (ERS), International Alliance of Patients' Organizations (IAPO) and others.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Public sector reform and demand for human resources for health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC17959&resource=healthsystems","body":"This article, from Human Resources for Health, considers the effect of fiscal reform and the introduction of decentralisation and market mechanisms on human resources in the health sector. Findings show that these reforms often result in 'corporatised' institutions, with reductions in the workforce as health services are contracted out, or increased short-term and temporary employment contracts. Increased private sector provision leads health workers to move to the private sector. This often leaves worsening working conditions, lack of employment security and dismantling of collective bargaining agreements for those who remain in the public sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional meeting of parliamentary committees on health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=52_0_1_0_M2","body":"As a follow up to the 2003 meeting on \u201cParliamentary Alliances for Equity in Health\u201d held in Johannesburg, and the June 2004 EQUINET Conference, members of various parliamentary portfolio committees on health in southern Africa held a meeting in Zambia to strengthen the networking, work and capacities of parliamentary committees on health to promote SADC objectives in health and to build co-operation with organisations with shared goals. The meeting was hosted by EQUINET, GEGA, SADC PF and IDASA and local hosts CHESSORE.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Overtime contracts and salaries: a personal view","field_subtitle":"Critical Health Perspectives Update","field_url":"","body":" \"The Friday ward round starts, like any other weekday round, at 7:30 and continues till 11:30. It involves a multidisciplinary team of specialists, therapists and nurses. The children are critically ill. We review each patient and plan management for the day. Our tools include mechanical devices and powerful drugs that support vital functions, and antibiotics. Our decisions have life-changing implications. The potential to do harm is enormous, the responsibility overwhelming. The buck stops with me.\r\n\r\n After the round, team members implement the decisions, continuously monitoring changes in the patients\u2019 conditions. Meanwhile new admissions arrive: children who have had major operations, critically ill children with medical conditions.\r\n\r\n The afternoon round starts routinely at 4:30. On this Friday night it ended after 7 pm. I went home at 8:57 pm after updating my notes and discussing a child\u2019s condition with her family, leaving two registrars to cover the night. Later, during the night I had 6 phone calls from the registrars to discuss patients.\" The latest issue of Critical Health Perspectives, produced by the People's Health Movement, examines the issue of the overtime contracts and salaries of health workers.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30884","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening Africa's role in health research","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.afhrf.org/newindex.php","body":"The African Health Research Forum (AfHRF), an organization which proposes to put African health research higher up on the continent's agenda, was launched at the November 2002 annual meeting of the Global Forum for Health Research held in Arusha, Tanzania, the first time this Forum was held in Africa. AfHRF's overall objective is to promote health research for development in Africa and strengthen the African voice in setting and implementing the global research agenda, according to their website. The AfHRF is in the early stages of encouraging the convergence of national, regional and global efforts in health research toward the goal of creating \"a research agenda developed and owned by Africa\" and to \"strengthen the African voice in setting and implementing the global research agenda\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Talks On TRIPS and Health Stall As Deadline Nears","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.undp.org.vn/mlist/health/032005/post104.htm","body":"Negotiations to expand the availability of medicines under a World Trade Organisation agreement on intellectual property rights by 31 March broke down after informal consultations showed no compromise forthcoming, according to diplomatic sources in Geneva. At issue is an amendment of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to allow countries producing generic pharmaceuticals under compulsory license to export those products to other countries in need. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"TB control and the health workforce","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/3/1/2/abstract","body":"The performance of health care systems is closely related to the numbers, distribution, knowledge, skills and motivation of its workforce, particularly of those individuals delivering the services, says an article in the journal Human Resources for Health. \"Improvements in global health are greatly dependent on how well health systems can meet the demands placed on them by governments, programmes, communities and ultimately individuals. Human resources for health (HRH)... constitute a sine qua non of health systems. Therefore, developing HRH and fostering appropriate HR management are crucial steps towards achieving and sustaining improved and equitable health.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Tenofovir trials to start soon in Botswana - despite controversy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4648","body":"Botswana will soon be embarking on the clinical trials of the anti-AIDS drug, tenofovir, despite concerns over how the tests were conducted in Cameroon, Nigeria and Cambodia. The antiretroviral drug, manufactured by US pharmaceutical company Gilead and sold under the brand name, 'Viread', will be tested as a possible prophylactic to prevent people becoming infected with the HI virus.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of NGOs in global health research","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/3/1/3","body":"Global health research is essential for development. A major issue is the inequitable distribution of research efforts and funds directed towards populations suffering the world's greatest health problems. This imbalance is fostering major attempts at redirecting research to the health problems of low and middle income countries. This article concludes that there is a need to more effectively include NGOs in all aspects of health research in order to maximize the potential benefits of research. NGOs, moreover, can and should play an instrumental role in coalitions for global health research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards a unified agenda and action for people\u2019s health, equity and justice","field_subtitle":"Report of a Regional Meeting: Health civil society in east and southern Africa","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=548","body":"This report, of a Regional Meeting of Health civil society in east and southern Africa: 'Towards a unified agenda and action for people's health, equity and justice' held in Lusaka 17-19 February 2005 outlines the proceedings of the meeting and the resolutions and plans for future work made by the health civil society groups at the meeting. The meeting was hosted by CHESSORE, the theme co-ordinator in EQUINET on participation in health, with support from TARSC.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"TRIPS, 2005 and access to essential medicines","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/publications/other/2005/briefing_trips.pdf","body":"Following the full implementation of the TRIPS Agreement in 2005 in India and the few other developing countries not yet granting pharmaceutical patents, access to new drugs may be expected to become more difficult, states this briefing paper from Doctors without Borders. \"All new drugs may be subject to at least 20 years of patent protection in all but the least developed countries and the occasional non-WTO country such as Somalia, Palestine, and Macedonia. As this will affect producers in key manufacturing countries, such as India, and other countries that are dependent on India for raw materials, it will keep prices up and will likely make new medicines inaccessible for the majority of the population in developing and least developed countries. Generic producers will also be blocked from developing fixed-dose combinations until the relevant patents on the individual components of the combinations expire.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO submission to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hhr/information/en/Written%20submission%202005_61st%20session.pdf","body":"\"In recent years, WHO has strengthened its work on health and human rights. In 2005-2006, WHO is focusing on the process of developing an organization-wide health and human rights strategy, which will serve as a policy platform for WHO and ensure that human rights become further \"institutionalized\" in our everyday work. WHO is actively working to increase awareness and understanding of the scope, content and application of the right to health (shorthand for \"the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health\"). Training for WHO staff on health and human rights was initiated in 2002 and has continued in 2003 and 2004. Recently, consultations on health and human rights took place between WHO headquarters, regional and country offices.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"World TB Day 2005: Development of diagnostic tools key for fighting TB","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/MSFIntl/11115882419.htm","body":"Without a simple, rapid test for detecting tuberculosis, care providers in developing countries will continue to miss about half of all the people who need TB treatment. Efforts to control TB globally will be undermined, said the medical humanitarian organisation M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res. \"I am sick and tired of watching TB kill my patients,\" said Dr Martha Bedelu, an MSF physician working in South Africa. It often feels as though I practice medicine with my hands tied behind my back. Since I have to use a 19th-century diagnostic tool that is wrong more times than not, it is like being blindfolded as well.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World TB Day: Special Edition of HealthNet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In observance of World Tuberculosis Day, SATELLIFE has produced a Special Edition of HealthNet News on tuberculosis and HIV treatment and care. Click on the link below for more information.\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30861","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia looks to SA for cheap AIDS drugs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSReport.ASP?ReportID=4645","body":"Zambian Health Minister Brian Chituwo has lamented India's decision to stop manufacturing cheap anti-AIDS drugs, noting that the medicines were his country's \"lifeline\" against the HI virus. However, in an interview with the local 'Post' newspaper, Chituwo said Zambia was busy exploring ways of procuring affordable antiretrovirals from South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"A human rights analysis of health worker migration","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.medact.org/content/Skills%20drain/Bueno%20de%20Mesquita%20and%20Gordon.pdf","body":"\"The international migration of health workers away from underserved areas in low income countries is increasingly recognised as one of the most profound problems facing health systems, and the safeguarding of health, in these countries. The problem is particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa where the burdens of poverty and underresourcing, infectious disease and, worthy of distinct mention, HIV/AIDS which has infected up to a quarter of the population in some countries, are causing public health systems to break down...The language of human rights is commonly used when describing the motivations of health workers to migrate to seek a better life and to further their careers. But human rights are less commonly invoked to articulate the consequences of their migration, which may include most notably the impact on the right to health of health system users in the country of origin,\" says the abstract of this paper commissioned by health charity Medact as part of its programme of work on health, poverty and development.\r\n* Read the related paper 'The \u2018Skills Drain\u2019 of Health Professionals from the Developing World'\r\nhttp://www.medact.org/content/Skills%20drain/Mensah%20et%20al.%202005.pdf","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A library in your letterbox","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.gdnet.org/online_services/journals/journal_services/document_delivery/","body":"Accessing relevant development knowledge is a key challenge for many researchers in developing and transition countries. The Global Development Network (GDN) and the British Library of Development Studies (BLDS) have teamed up to address this issue with a new Document Delivery Service. The service will provide research institutes in the South with access to Europe's largest research collection on economic and social change in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Abuja 2005 - Civil society demands on health and the decisions taken by the AU","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Equinet Newsletter 49: March 2005: Abuja 2005 - Civil society demands on health and the decisions taken be the AU\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Abuja 2005: Civil society demands on health and the decisions taken be the AU","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"1. AFRICA MUST ACT WITH GREATER URGENCY ON HIV/AIDS AND THE RIGHT TO HEALTH\r\n\r\nStatement by CSOs at the Fourth Ordinary African Union Summit of the Heads of States, 24-31st January 2005, Abuja, Nigeria\r\n\r\nSigned by the African Network for the Campaign on Education for All (ANCEFA), African Womens Development and Communications Network (FEMNET), African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ACDHR), Center for Democracy and Development (CDD), \r\nPan African Movement (PAM), Pan African Development Education and Advocacy Programme(PADEAP), West African Students Union (WASU), Womens Rights Advancement and Protection Alternatives (WRAPA), Development Network of Indigenous Voluntary Agencies (DENIVA), Fahamu, ActionAid International, Oxfam GB \r\n\r\nSummary\r\n\r\nThe fourth Ordinary African Union Summit of the Heads of States takes place at a time when the consequences of poorly financed and collapsing public health services across the continent can only be described as a public health emergency. Returning to Abuja where four years ago they committed themselves to accelerate the fight against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and other related infectious diseases, it is clear that key obstacles continue to prevent hundreds of millions of Africans from realising the right to health. African Governments and the African Union must reinvigorate the fight against the violation of HIV/AIDS and health related rights. \r\n\r\nRecommendations\r\n\r\n- African Governments must commit to increasing GDP allocation for health by three per cent each year in order to reach the 2001 Abuja Summit commitments of 15%.\r\n- African government should ensure that treatment of AIDS and infectious diseases is provided free, reaches vulnerable groups and in an accountable manner. \r\n- African Governments, who have to yet ratify the AU Protocol on the Rights of Women, must do so. It is a major instrument in securing the right to health for Africa\u2019s women and girls.\r\n- The African Union Commission must lead on lobbying the G8 in 2005 for debt cancellation and measures from industrialised countries to compensate for the brain drain of African health workers.\r\n- The African Union Commission must lead on lobbying the G8 in 2005 for debt cancellation and securing measures from industrialised countries to compensate for the brain drain of African health workers.\r\n- African Governments must mandate the African Union Commission to champion for enabling laws and policies in member states and a coordinated global advocacy approach towards the WTO Hong Kong Inter-ministerial in December 2005. \r\n\r\nSituational analysis\r\n\r\nAcross our continent the health status of women remains precarious and in many instances, worsening, not only because of HIV but also because of the many unacceptable inequalities that exist in women\u2019s health, the limited choices that are made available to women and finally, the lack of accountability for their health.\r\n- Pascal Mocumbi, Prime Minister, Mozambique, 2003.\r\n\r\nThe majority of Africa\u2019s 800 million citizens continue to remain locked out of health facilities across the continent. By the time the Summit opens, Africa will have lost 20 million people to the plague of AIDS. Behind them, they would have left 12 million orphans to fend for themselves. While our leaders meet, outside the doors of the Abuja International Conference Centre, 80% of the 40 million people currently living with HIV/AIDs across the world will be struggling to fight a debilitating disease that in some parts of the industrialised world is no longer a killer disease. 55% of these will be women. \r\n\r\nBy the time the Summit opens on the 24th January, 90 million African women and girls will have been forcibly circumcised or had their genitals mutilated. Between the opening and the closing Summit ceremonies, 77,000 women and girls will have undergone unsafe abortions in countries where restrictive abortion policies ensure that no standards can be maintained or monitored. As a result of this and other factors, a staggering 47/48 sub-Saharan African countries will not meet the goal of reducing maternal mortality and one in ten babies will not survive child birth due to poor and inadequate health infrastructure in Africa.\r\n\r\nYet, this is sadly no longer news in a continent numbed by the domestic stories of neglect, blocked access to life-saving drugs and poverty. What could be news is the scaling up of international and African public resources into expanding access to health-care services.\r\n\r\nExpand public financing for health and education\r\n\r\nWhen African Heads of States met in Abuja in April 2001, they correctly declared HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB), and other related infectious diseases (ORID) as a state of emergency. Recalling and reaffirming their commitment to all relevant decisions, declarations and resolutions in the area of health and development and on HIV/AIDS, particularly the \"Lom\u00e9 Declaration on HIV/AIDS in Africa\" (July 2000) and the \"Decision on the adoption of the International Partnership against HIV/AIDS\" (Algiers 1999) they stated; \r\n\u201cWE COMMIT OURSELVES to take all necessary measures to ensure that the needed resources are made available from all sources and that they are efficiently and effectively utilized. In addition, WE PLEDGE to set a target of allocating at least 15% of our annual budget to the improvement of the health sector.\u201d\r\n\r\nNow known as the \u201cAbuja 15% commitment\u201d this target was seen as a critical contribution to the fight against HIVAIDS and other diseases. Shockingly, despite this public commitment, four years on many countries continue to spend less than 10% of the revenue on health. African Governments must commit in this Summit to increasing GDP allocation for health by three per cent each year in order to reach the 2001 Abuja Summit commitments of 15%.\r\n\r\nNew research published by the Global Campaign for Education and endorsed by UNAIDS, shows that a complete primary education makes a strong and direct impact on HIV infection rates, especially among young women. Girls with a complete primary education are 2.2 times less likely to contract HIV than those with some or no primary education. Education equips young people to understand and apply facts and gives them the status, clout and confidence to avoid unsafe and exploitative relationships. Investing in free primary education for everyone but especially for girls, is one of the most effective and urgently needed measures to fight the epidemic. Investing in secondary education would bring additional benefits. Consequently, the AU needs to give priority to free, universal and compulsory basic education with gender equity, both in its own strategies for development and poverty reduction, as well as in its dialogue with forums such as the G8.\r\n\r\nDebt cancellation is pre-requisite for progress\r\n\r\nThe heavy external debt burden \u2026continues to mortgage African economies and cast a shadow over our People\u2019s\u2019 future. To date, the proposed remedies are ad hoc.\r\n- Secretary General of the Organisation of African Unity, July 2002\r\n\r\nA comprehensive AIDS plan for Africa would cost US$10 billion per year, yet African nations spend one and a half times this amount in debt servicing. In many countries, more is spent on debt servicing than on education and health or is received in aid grants and foreign direct investment. For the same money, the global fund against HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis could stop these diseases and provide Anti-Retrovirals (ARVs) for the three million people living with HIV in all developing countries not just Africa.\r\n\r\nThis absurdity can only be seen from the experience of one country. Tanzania for instance, currently pays US$39 million dollars per annum in debt servicing while receiving only US$27 million in aid. It is revealing to recall that after the second world war, Germany was considered to be harshly penalised for having reparations set at 7% of its exports, yet in 2005 Tanzania is supposed to \u201cadjust\u201d and grow with debt servicing set at 60% of its exports. \r\n\r\nYet, this Summit occurs at a time when momentum has built once more around the necessity for debt cancellation. Several G8 countries have bi-laterally cancelled debts owed by African countries. In February 2005, the G7 Finance Ministers will consider proposals to underwrite debt cancellation by committing additional bi-lateral financing or by re-valuing IMF gold reserves. The benefits of this would be immense. Debt cancellation would enable countries like Ethiopia to expand access by doubling its expenditure on health and thus reaching beyond the 60% who are currently reached by health services. \r\n\r\nThere is precedence in Africa for successful re-channeling of debt relief into basic social services. At least six countries in Africa offer insight into the possibilities debt cancellation could create. In Benin for example, 54% of HIPIC relief monies was channeled into improving health programmes by recruiting health staff for rural clinics, implementing HIV/AIDS and anti-malarial programmes and improving access to safe water and increasing immunisation. Malawi has been able to allocate a 30% cut in debt servicing per year to enhance their HIV/AIDs health care system. US$1.3 million of debt relief money has been critical to resourcing Uganda\u2019s National HIV/AIDS plan. Cameroon was able to launch a comprehensive national HIV/AIDS strategic plan funded to the tune of US$114 million with help from debt savings. In Niger, a special programme that focuses on rural education, health, food security and water systems has been fully financed through HIPC. This has mainly been used so far in building classrooms and rural clinics. In Burkina Faso, HIPC relief has been spent on health (33%), education (39%) and rural roads (28%).\r\n\r\nAs Jubilee Zambia coordinator Teza Nchinga notes, \"Respect for the basic human rights (food, health care and education) of millions of Zambians should take priority over repayment of debts to comparatively wealthy creditors especially when capital on these debts has already been paid a number of times over.\" The African Union Commission must lead on behalf of African countries by aggressively demanding debt cancellation from the G8 in 2005. African Governments on the other hand, must follow the example of these six countries who have had re-channeled monies freed up from debt relief into strengthening health systems including the retention of health workers.\r\n\r\nIndustrialised countries must deliver on their aid commitments\r\n\r\nCurrently, despite the increases pledged in the UN Financing For Development Conference in Monterrey, rich countries spend half of the foreign assistance they did in 1960. If they were to meet the OECD targets of 0.7% of their GNP this would increase aid levels from US$70 billion to US$190 billion dollars. Yet, only the UK and Spain have set dates to meet these targets. 12 other countries are far from this and do not seem to be in a hurry. \r\n\r\nCompared to expenditure on defense or domestic agricultural subsidies, this would be a very small amount. Looked at in terms of the cost to individual taxpayers, it would cost an additional US$80 dollars per person per year or put more simply, the average price of one cup of coffee a week.\r\n\r\nG8 countries continue to prioritise aid to countries where they have geo-political interests rather than fighting poverty. Over 2004, America set aside US$ 65 billion dollars for fighting the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. This could have financed the exact annual budget deficit for the entire continent of Africa. Put another way, six months of US funding for the war in Iraq (US$ four billion) could have met the annual budget deficit for the global fund against HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis. Yet increasing aid is only one measure, improving its quality is another. For instance, nearly 30% of aid is tied to goods and services from donor countries. In the case of the US, this figure is as high as 70%. \r\n\r\nThe quality of foreign assistance also continues to be undermined by IMF and World Bank fiscal and macro-economic models, which act to constrain expenditure on basic social services. In a study of twenty Poverty Reduction Strategies, sixteen were found to contain fiscal targets for inflation and the budgetary envelope that had not been subjected to public discussion. They were targets that had been established by the World Bank or the IMF. Last year for instance, Ethiopian and Tanzanian Governments will have to meet 85 and 78 policy conditions respectively.\r\n\r\nThe AU clearly sees itself providing leadership, monitoring states performance and accountability, advocacy with states and beyond, setting up standards, harnessing new continental initiatives, and as a knowledge hub. This clear emphasis on harmonising the plethora of new initiatives and monies that are offered for flooding Africa and which are, in many cases, confusing national plans and programmes, is welcome. \r\n\r\nTo this end, the AU must challenge the proliferation of uncoordinated initiatives such as the US PEPFAR Presidential Initiative. Bilateral initiatives such as PEPFAR may reinforce donor-driven approaches, increase the administrative burdens of recipient countries and drain resources away from existing, experienced, multilateral initiatives. Such initiatives create parallel systems where the national government using inexpensive generic fixed dose combinations and that of PEPFAR using expensive brand names. This leads to confusion of both patients and health providers.\r\n\r\nThe African Union must take a more vigorous lead in engaging the international community to deliver the Monterrey promises and improve the volume and quality of foreign assistance to Africa. It is vital that donors\u2019 initiatives and programmes should implement nationally defined policies especially regarding access to medicines.\r\n\r\nImproving Access to Care and Support\r\n\r\nThe major challenge facing the people living with AIDS and people affected by AIDS is the issue of access to treatment and care. The World Health Organization (WHO) in December 2003 came up with an initiative to treat three million people by 2005. This is believed to be approximately half of the estimated six million people in dire need of antiretroviral therapy. This is the popular 3 by 5. \r\n\r\nDespite the fact that some African governments have subsidized distribution programmes, less than 1% of Africans in need of ARV treatment had access to ARVs, compared to 85% in developed countries in 2004. South Africa has committed to providing free treatment to 53,000 people by March 2004. This is a fraction of South Africa's HIV positive population, estimated to be over five million. The Nigerian government began a treatment programme to provide ARVs for 10,000 people in November 2002. At a conservatively estimated number of 3 million people living with HIV&AIDS in Nigeria in 2004, this is quite clearly inadequate.\r\n\r\nAccess to ARVs is also determined by power within and between households. Findings from CSO participatory research studies in Zambia and Nigeria suggest that intra-household power relations conspire to constrain women\u2019s access to ARVs. Women in Zambia have a disproportionate access to ARVs (30%) despite comprising of 50% of the population. In January 2004, less than 30% of people who had access to ARVs were women in Zambia. In many families who cannot afford to have more than one person on ARV, it is the male head of household that is chosen. At another level, scanty or total ignorance of prevalent diseases, the weak bargaining position of women and the pervasive cultural endorsement of male liberty to have free and multiple sexual relationships (in and out of marriage) has escalated the distributive impact of STDs and led to the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS across communities all over Africa. \r\n\r\nIn many countries across Africa the right to health is not enshrined in either the constitution or laws. It is in this context that the African Union Protocol on Women\u2019s Rights and in particular the provisions in articles 14 and 15 significantly contribute to grounding the obligations of Governments. Yet, despite encouragement by the African Union Commission under the leadership of President Konare and civil society campaigning, only seven Governments have ratified the Protocol, a further 33 have signed but not ratified. To this end, African Governments who have not yet done so must re-commit to ratify with urgency, the AU Protocol on the Rights of Women, as a major instrument in securing the right to health for Africa\u2019s women and girls.\r\n\r\nClass equities also affect the distribution of ARVs. Interviewed recently, a 29 year old father of three kids in Nigeria said;\r\n\r\n\u201cThe ARV that come to the center are not given to those of us who have come out to declare our status, but to those BIG men who bribe their way through and we are left to suffer and scout round for the drug. \u201c\r\n\r\nAttempts to bring down the costs of ARVs are obviously the way forward. In Nigeria, Malawi and Zimbabwe, tariffs on essential drugs have been removed. The Governments of Zambia and Mozambique have issued compulsory licensing for ARVs for their treatment programmes. Zimbabwe has also allocated precious foreign currency to a local company to manufacture generic ARVs, and is currently running trials on AZT at two of its largest hospitals. However, Zimbabwe\u2019s lack of foreign currency has made it difficult to secure an adequate supply of drugs. In Kenya and Malawi also many public hospitals have no drugs for treatment of HIV/AIDS-related infections. \r\n\r\nAccess to essential medicines rests on African countries being able to domestically produce or source cheap drugs from southern based generic drugs industries. The AU should consider initiating dialogue with WHO, UNCTAD and the EC to explore the feasibility of establishing African centers of excellence in the producing of high quality local production of medicine especially ARVs. African states should be encouraged to influence both public and private health service providers to dispel misinformation about generic drugs being inferior to brand products, eliminate the costs of ARVs to users and actively target the rural poor with special emphasis on gender equity. Key to this will be the replication of policies that cut taxes and tariffs and promote price regulation to countries that have not already done so.\r\n\r\nWe welcome existing plans for a continental conference on the rights of people with HIV/AIDS to raise the profile of rights abuses and to chart a new chapter in the evolution of national laws and standards consistent with the spirit of the African Charter of Human and Peoples Rights. We call on the AU Commission to extend an invitation to People with AIDS organizations and networks across the continent to help design this process.\r\n\r\nAfrican Governments must mandate the African Union Commission to champion for enabling laws and policies in member states and a coordinated global advocacy approach towards the WTO Hong Kong Inter-ministerial in December 2005. The AU must ensure that new trade agreements especially Trade Related Aspects on Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), bilateral and regional trade agreements do not undermine access to medicines in Africa.\r\n\r\nThe absence of effective conditions to fight HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and polio conditions and poor remuneration of African health workers has led to an exodus of trained health personnel. Calculating the cost of training, every doctor that leaves the continent costs Africa US$60,000. This results in a staggering subsidy to G8 countries of US$500 million every year just for health personnel.\r\n\r\nTo increase access to medicines African governments should redirect aid and debt money towards investing in basic health services including retention of health workers. Donors\u2019 initiatives should follow national medicines policies especially using inexpensive generic fixed dose combinations. The AU should advocate with states, donors and the pharmaceutical industry to decrease the prices of second line treatment for HIV.\r\n\r\nConclusions\r\n\r\nAs African Governments meet once again in Abuja, they must embrace the opportunity of an invigorated African Union Commission to turn words into further deeds and directly confront the state of emergency. The temptation to simply re-affirm the 2001 Abuja Declaration must be avoided in order for the costs of this Summit to be justified. Increasing domestic resourcing, improving the quality of health programmes particularly to rural communities and delivery on debt cancellation are key to preventing hundreds of millions of Africans from being denied the right to health. \r\n\r\nRecommendations\r\n\r\n- African Governments must commit to increasing GDP allocation for health by three per cent each year in order to reach the 2001 Abuja Summit commitments of 15%.\r\n- African government should ensure that treatment of AIDS and infectious diseases is provided free, reaches vulnerable groups and in an accountable manner. \r\n- African Governments, who have yet to ratify the AU Protocol on the Rights of Women, must do so. It is a major instrument in securing the right to health for Africa\u2019s women and girls.\r\n- The African Union Commission must lead on lobbying the G8 in 2005 for debt cancellation and measures from industrialised countries to compensate for the brain drain of African health workers and stop recruiting more workers.\r\n- African Governments must prioritise monies saved by debt relief for strengthening health systems that ensure the retention of health workers.\r\n- African Governments must mandate the African Union Commission to champion for enabling laws and policies in member states and a coordinated global advocacy approach towards the WTO Hong Kong Inter-ministerial in December 2005. \r\n\r\n* Useful Reading Materials\r\n- African Union, Report of the African Summit on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and other related infectious diseases. Abuja Nigeria, April 2004\r\n- African Union, HIV/AIDS Strategy 2005-2007\r\n- ActionAid International, Responding to HIV/AIDS in Africa, a comparative analysis of responses to the Abuja Declaration in Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria & Zimbabwe, June 2004\r\n- ActionAid International, 3 by 5: Ensuring HIV/AIDS Care for All. June 2004\r\n- Fahamu/SOAWR, Pambazuka News 190: Special Issue on the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa: A pre-condition for health & food security, January 2005\r\n- Oxfam International, Paying the Price, January 2005\r\n\r\n2. SUMMARY OF DECISIONS OF THE AFRICAN UNION FOURTH ORDINARY SUMMIT, ABUJA, NIGERIA JANUARY 2005\r\nCompiled By: Eve Odete, Pan Africa Policy Officer, Oxfam GB\r\nSummary of Decisions of the African Union Fourth Ordinary Summit, Abuja, Nigeria Jan 2005\r\n\r\nKey Meetings\r\n\r\nAssembly of the African Union, Fourth Ordinary Session\r\n30-31 January 2005\r\nAssembly /AU/Dec.55-72 (IV)\r\nAssembly/ AU/ Dec. 1-2 (IV)\r\nDecisions and Declarations\r\n\r\nExecutive Council\r\nSixth Ordinary Session, 24-28 January 2005\r\nEX. CL/Dec. 165-191 (VI)\r\nDecisions\r\nEX. CL//Rapt/ Rpt (VI)\r\nRapporteur\u2019s Report of the Sixth Ordinary Session \r\nOf the Executive Council\r\n\r\nPermanent Representatives Committee\r\nNinth Ordinary Session\r\n\r\nPRC/Rpt (1X)\r\nReport of the Ninth Ordinary Session of the Permanent Representatives\u2019 Committee\r\n\r\nRationale for this compilation and the policy cycle it documents\r\n\r\nThis summary has been prepared for policy analysts working for Oxfam, international, continental and regional networks and allies to inform us on the key deliberations and decisions of the most important decision-making organ of the African Union. It captures key decisions, upcoming dates and opportunities for continental policy development. \r\n\r\nThe sequence of the Summits is as follows; one week of intense meetings starting with the Permanent Representatives Council (Addis based Ambassadors), Council of Ministers (National Ministers) and the Assembly itself (Heads of States). While the Assembly is the supreme decision making body, the discussions from Ambassador level are important to understand the issues being prioritized and deliberated. Opportunities for policy influencing decrease as the meetings go on. Indeed, even lobbying space becomes more difficult to secure particularly with the Commissioners. \r\n\r\n1. Health and HIV/AIDS\r\n\r\nPermanent Representatives Committee\r\nNinth Ordinary Session\r\nPRC/Rpt (1X)\r\n\r\nOn HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other related infectious diseases, the PRC observed; \r\n\r\nThe need for Africa to take the lead in Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) negotiations to promote access to affordable generic drugs - Africa has to plan properly for dialogue at TRIPs negotiations and other fora;\r\n\r\nAssembly of the Africa Union\r\nFourth Ordinary Session\r\nDecisions and Declarations\r\n\r\nAssembly/ AU /Dec. 55 (1V) \r\n\r\nCALLS UPON the international community, especially the rich industrialized countries, \r\nto fully fund the Global Fund in line with previous commitments made in this regard, and taking into account the magnitude of the health emergency presented by these diseases in Africa; \r\n\r\nURGES Member States to: \r\nTake the lead in TRIPs negotiations and in implementing measures identified for promoting access to affordable generic drugs;\r\nEnsure that every child receives polio immunization in 2005;\r\nPrepare inter-ministerial costed development and deployment plans to address the Human Resources for Health crisis;\r\nPrepare health literacy strategies to achieve an energized continent-wide health promotion endeavour;\r\n\r\nURGES Member States to intensify efforts towards more effective and well-coordinated implementation of national programmes to promote health systems development as well as improve access to prevention, treatment, care and support; along the \u201cThree ones initiative\u201d; the \u201c3 by 5 Strategy\u201d and Global \u201cChild Survival Partnership\u201d;\r\n\r\nRESOLVES to take all the necessary measures to produce with the support of the international community, quality generic drugs in Africa, supporting industrial development and making full use of the flexibility in international trade law and; REQUESTS the AU Commission within the framework of NEPAD to lead the development of a Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan for Africa;\r\n\r\nCALLS UPON the International Community to match the US$19 billion gap in health financing which the WHO has determined that Africa is not in a position to self finance;\r\n\r\n2. Trade\r\n\r\nPermanent Representatives Committee \r\nNinth Ordinary Session\r\nPRC/Rpt (1X)\r\n\r\nOn on-going WTO negotiations the Commissioner for Trade and Industry \r\n\r\nhighlighted the need for Africa to send a strong political message to the international community to find a solution to the cotton initiative which affects more than 10 million African producers living below the poverty line. She further pointed out the issue of the unfair behaviour of the Northern countries with regard to agricultural subsidies and the need to lay emphasis in the political message on the importance for Africa to meet food security objectives, rural development and poverty reduction. In conclusion, she stressed the need for the African Group to maintain solidarity and unity with the G90 on issues of substance within the WTO.\r\n\r\nThe PRC recognized the importance of the WTO negotiations for the socio-economic development of Africa and emphasized the need for capacity building in Member States and RECs and for better coordination of efforts among New York, Geneva, Brussels, African Groups and the AU Commission in Addis Ababa. It agreed with the recommendation for a fast-track approach to the cotton issue while emphasizing the need to come up with a common position on cotton, springing from the outcome of the recently held Bamako meeting. It further called for the document to be enriched with more information on the roadmaps finalized in Geneva and the reaction of the RECs on the issue as well as with the outcome of the Bamako meeting on cotton. It highlighted the importance of coming out with concrete proposals on the issue of Special and Differential Treatment; on the possibility for African countries to have access to required drugs for public health inclusion in national legislations as decided by the WTO Council. The PRC also emphasized the need to pursue the proposal for support to cotton producers in their exports and for the creation of a fund to compensate losses. In this regard, the PRC also called for other commodities to be part of the list of tradable goods for negotiations at the WTO.\r\nIt also called for a meeting on services in order to deal with African concerns in that sector. It recommended that, in addition to other partners, the expertise of ECA should be tapped for capacity building purposes. The PRC recommended that the AU Commission take the necessary measures to implement the proposal to send a strong political message to the international community to fast track negotiations on the cotton issue.\r\n\r\nOn Negotiations of the Economic Partnership Agreements:\r\n\r\nThe Commissioner recalled the provisions of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CPA) which aim at making EPAs, instruments for the promotion of rapid and sustainable development, the eradication of poverty and the smooth and gradual integration of Africa into the global economy. She quoted in particular Article 37.3 which provides for the strengthening of capacity in the public and private sector during the preparatory phase through measures that increase competitiveness and support regional integration initiatives such as assistance to budgetary adjustment and reform, infrastructure development and investment promotion. She added that the first phase of negotiations was not sanctioned by a formal agreement and that all 48 ACP African countries had embarked on the second phase within four groupings without any country expressing desire to remain outside the process. She then drew the attention of the Committee on the major challenges involved in the negotiations for African countries as raised by the RECs during the first meeting of the coordination mechanism between the AU and the RECs. These are: (i) geographical configuration of the EPAs, (ii) the issue of compatibility between WTO and EPA Rules; (iii) the reciprocal relationship between the EU and ACP countries given the gap between their levels of development, (iv) the imbalance in the present multilateral trading system, (v) the heavy procedures of access to EDF resources and additional resources to African countries to face direct and indirect adjustment costs.\r\n\r\nShe stressed the fact that, although EPAs were about to enter into force in three years\u2019 time, the provisions of Article 37.3 were still not implemented. In this regard, she highlighted the need for RECs to remain united and proposed that Council calls on the EU to allow the AU Commission as an integration Organisation to access EDF resources for the implementation of the NEPAD programme.\r\n\r\nThe PRC expressed concern about the geographical configuration for the negotiation of EPAs which does not coincide with the RECs as organised within the AU. It called for the AU to develop capacity for the coordination of EPA negotiations to ensure that Africa speaks with one voice although EPAs divide Africa into RECs/negotiating groups and that the North African countries are part of the Barcelona process.\r\n\r\nOn the issue of resources, the PRC pointed out that EU resources were categorised into programmable and non-programmable resources and that the AU not being a party to the CPA was not eligible under the first category but should be able to access the non-programmable resources. In conclusion, the PRC stressed the need for African countries to build capacity not only for market access but above all in order to face supply-side constraints so that they can make good use of whatever agreement they will enter into in 2007.\r\n\r\nThe Executive Council\r\nSixth Ordinary Session\r\nDecisions \r\n\r\nDoc. EX.CL/151 (VI)\r\n\r\nDecision on WTO negotiations\r\n\r\nRECALLS the Doha Ministerial Declaration in which the international community undertook to place the needs and interests of developing countries at the heart of the WTO Work Programme;\r\n\r\nCOMMENDS the African Group for its efforts aimed at bringing to the Doha Work Programme back on track and for remaining engaged in the WTO negotiations in accordance with the technical guidance and policy framework provided under the Kigali Declaration and Consensus on the post-Cancun Doha Work Programme ;\r\n\r\nRECALLS ALSO the outcome of the Special WTO General Council session held in Geneva from 27 July to 1 August 2004;\r\n\r\nTAKES NOTE of the July Package adopted by the WTO General Council on 1st August 2001;\r\n\r\nRECOMMENDS the speedy adoption of an approach to resolve the cotton issue based on the results of the meeting held in Bamako from 12 to 13 January 2005;\r\n\r\nALSO RECOMMENDS the early consideration of the issue of agricultural subsidies and the adoption of an Africa Common Position on commodities in general;\r\n\r\nCALLS UPON the African Group in Geneva to continue to engage fully and actively in the negotiations with a view to achieving a pro-development outcome from the Doha Round;\r\n\r\nALSO CALLS UPON the same to finalise the Tunis roadmap and Work Plan in order to engage collaborative research and capacity building efforts from regional and international organizations on specific areas to enable Africa to positively contribute to the modalities stage of the negotiations leading up to the 6th Session of the WTO Ministerial Conference;\r\n\r\nURGES Member States to continue to coordinate efforts both at the technical and political levels with like-minded groups, in particular, the G90;\r\n\r\nWELCOMES Egypt\u2019s invitation for a meeting to be held in Cairo, in May 2005, to discuss ways to deal with the challenges facing cotton producing countries in Africa;\r\n\r\nREQUESTS the Commission to convene a Ministers of Trade meeting to chart the way forward as far as Africa\u2019s Agenda is concerned.\r\n\r\nFURTHER REQUESTS the Commission to report on progress to the 7th Ordinary Session of Council.\r\n\r\nExecutive Council-Rapporteur\u2019s Report\r\n\r\nWith regard to the on-going WTO negotiations, Council recommended that special attention should be given by the AU to the crucial issues of agricultural subsidies and commodities, particularly cotton.\r\n\r\nDecision on the negotiations of ACP-EU economic Partnership Agreements\r\n\r\nCOMMENDS the Commission and the RECs for concluding the establishment of an informal Coordination and Information Exchange Mechanism on EPA Negotiations with the European Union (EU) for which the Commission has been entrusted the coordinating role and also for holding the first meeting of the mechanism successfully;\r\n\r\nENDORSES the recommendations of the Commission/RECs meeting and URGES the Commission to:\r\n\r\nDevelop institutional capacity building programmes for the Commission and the RECs so as to make work synergies viable and reliable and accelerate the integration process in Africa;\r\n\r\nPrepare, in close collaboration with the RECs, requests to the European Union and other development partners for financing of projects that will enhance continental integration; \r\n\r\nIdentify thecommon supporting programmes relative to implementation of EPAs at the level of the RECs;\r\n\r\nMobilize African research institutes, including the ECA, to appraise the adjustment and other costs of EPAs on African economies.\r\n\r\nSTRONGLY RECOMMENDS that efforts between the Commission and the RECs be further strengthened and coordinated in the second phase of negotiations, especially with regard to priorities and roadmaps set for negotiations so as to ensure that the process of continental integration in Africa is deepened in accordance with the Constitutive Act of the African Union;\r\n\r\nWELCOMES the establishment of the Joint AU-EU Monitoring Mechanism whose objective is to ensure, through exchange of information and discussion of key issues, the consistency and coherence of the EPA process with Africa\u2019s plans and aspirations for regional and continental integration and the establishment of a Pan-African Market and the promotion of synergies between the EPA process and ACP-EU cooperation, notably in the context of regional indicative programmes;\r\n\r\nURGES the Commission and the EU to operationalise the mechanism in an effective manner so as to ensure that EPAs indeed enhance the regional integration process and development in Africa as well as the building of regional markets through the effective removal of production, supply and trade constraints;\r\n\r\nALSO URGES the EU to grant access to the Commission as an integration organization to EDF resources for projects of a continental nature;\r\n\r\nREQUESTS the Commission to report on progress made on the EPA negotiations to the 7th Ordinary Session of Council in July 2005.\r\n\r\nENDORSES\r\nCandidature of Hon. Jaya Krishna Cuttaree, Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Regional Co-operation of Mauritius, to the post of Director General of the World Trade Organization, at elections scheduled to be held in 2005.\r\n\r\n3. Food Security\r\n\r\nPermanent Representatives Committee \r\nNinth Ordinary Session\r\nReport (1X)\r\n\r\nFollow-up on Maputo, Sirte and Ouagadogou Declarations on Food Security:\r\n\r\nThe Commissioner concluded by proposing the creation of an African Food Security Committee to serve as a platform of exchange on matters of food security in the continent, and the establishment of an African Union representational office in Rome to coordinate Africa\u2019s food security matters with relevant world bodies mandated with the issue.\r\n\r\nExecutive Council\r\nSixth Ordinary Session\r\nRapporteur\u2019s Report\r\n\r\nFollow-up of Maputo, Sirte and Ouagadogou Declarations on Food Security\r\n\r\nOn the status of food security in Africa, the following observations were made:\r\n\r\nA reliable early warning system be established as it constitutes the preferential tool for combating food insecurity \u2013 the early warning system should be capable of anticipating the emergence of food crises, taking stock of production and available resources, and monitoring phenomena such as natural disasters (floods; droughts; invasion or outbreak of endemic diseases affecting animals, crops and plants);\r\n\r\nOnce established, the early warning system together with continued monitoring should be relied on to generate a steady flow of situation reports as this would facilitate the generation and communication of relevant information to Member States and all stakeholders in time for them to take appropriate measures;\r\n\r\nSpecial attention should be given to the Southern Sahelian region as this area constitutes the main locust corridor between the Sahara and the countries further north;\r\n\r\nRegional strategic desert control measures should be implemented by the concerned Member states;\r\n\r\nThere was need to strengthen the capacity of Member States in the area of fighting migratory pests and animal diseases that pose a threat to food security, and in so doing \r\nto make use of recent technological methods in veterinary science and pest control.\r\nDakar-Agricultural Initiative\r\n\r\nThe Senegalese delegation informed Council of the holding in Dakar, Senegal from 4 to 5 February 2005, of the Dakar-Agricultural Initiative which would be a Forum at which agricultural issues would be discussed. It indicated that various key figures from Africa and the rest of the world would be taking part in this meeting and, in this regard, invited all countries of the African Union to participate in this Forum.\r\n\r\nMeeting of Ministers of Agriculture\r\nThe Egyptian delegation highlighted the importance of agriculture for African economies and underscored the need for Africa to meet to discuss strategic issues such as cotton. It informed Council that Egypt was organizing in May 2005 a meeting of African Ministers of Agriculture with the participation of UNCTAD and other institutions to examine the situation and come up with a Common Position for the defence of African agricultural products.\r\n\r\nAssembly of the Africa Union: Decisions and Declarations\r\n\r\nAssembly /AU/Dec.59 (IV)\r\n\r\nNOTES WITH GRAVE CONCERN the serious economic and social impacts of the 2004 desert locust invasion of the Northern, Western and Eastern regions of Africa;\r\n\r\nREQUESTS the Commission and Member States to take all necessary measures to implement the Maputo, Sirte and Ouagadougou Declarations and their relevant Plans of Action;\r\n\r\nAgriculture\r\n\r\nDecision on allocation of 10% national budgetary resources to agriculture and rural development over the next 5 years \r\n\r\nREQUESTS the Chairperson of the Commission to define, in collaboration with Member States and the NEPAD Secretariat, the core areas of agriculture and rural development relevant to the 10% allocation adopted in the Maputo Declarations;\r\n\r\nCALLS UPON Member States to implement the present Decision in order to improve the financing of agriculture.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing the impact of health centre committees on health system performance and health resource allocation","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=486","body":"This study sought to analyse and better understand the relationship between health centre committees in Zimbabwe as a mechanism of participation and specific health system outcomes, including: Improved representation of community interests in health planning and management at health centre level; Improved allocation of resources to health centre level, to community health activities and to preventive health services; Improved community access to and coverage by selected priority promotive and preventive health interventions; Enhanced community capabilities for health (through improved health knowledge and health seeking behaviour, appropriate early use of services); Improved quality of health care as perceived both by providers and users of services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Brain Drain Creating Problems in SADC","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.idasa.org.za/index.asp?page=output_details.asp%3FRID%3D673%26OTID%3D4%26PID%3D2","body":"\"The loss of professionals and other skilled people from the SADC region is fast\u00a0assuming the dimensions of a major crisis,\" says this article on the website of Idasa. \"The countries of southern Africa pour vast resources into training to ensure that future skills needs are met.\u00a0 But is all this investment in human resource development really going to benefit the countries concerned?\u00a0 Or are they, in effect, simply providing students with \"skill passports\" so that they can relocate to other parts of the world?\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers","field_subtitle":"Are you interested in conducting Participatory Action Research (PAR)?","field_url":"","body":"SOMA-Net with support from Sida/SAREC has an ongoing project focusing on the social cultural aspects of HIV/Aids and the youth. This is part of a long term research based in Kenya and Uganda.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30814","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Determinants of health insurance ownership among South African women","field_subtitle":"BMC Health Services Research 2005,  5:17\u00a0","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/5/17/abstract","body":"\"Studies conducted in developed countries using economic models show that individual- and household- level variables are important determinants of health insurance ownership. There is however a dearth of such studies in sub-Saharan Africa. The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between health insurance ownership and the demographic, economic and educational characteristics of South African women...(It concluded that) Poverty reduction programmes aimed at increasing women's incomes in poor provinces; improving living environment (e.g. potable water supplies, sanitation, electricity and housing) for women in urban informal settlements; enhancing women's access to education; reducing unemployment among women; and increasing effective coverage of family planning services, will empower South African women to reach a higher standard of living and in doing so increase their economic access to health insurance policies and the associated health services.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Double burden of disease threatens the world\u2019s poorest people","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC17919&Resource=f1health","body":"This article from the Bulletin of the World Health Organization highlights the association between poverty and major risk factors for ill-health. Research was focused on people in low and middle income countries within each of the World Health Organization (WHO) sub-regions. Findings showed that in each sub-region, poverty was strongly associated with increased malnutrition among children, having access only to unsafe water and poor sanitation, and exposure to indoor air pollution. The authors suggest that halving the number of people who live on less than a dollar a day would still fail to reduce the prevalence of these health risks by the 50 per cent needed to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ensuring equitable access to ARV treatment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC17611","body":"This joint policy brief from the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS identifies key actions needed to address the gender dimensions of equity in access to antiretroviral therapy (ART). Gender-based inequalities put women and girls at increased risk of HIV infection. These inequalities also affect women's access to and interaction with health services, including HIV prevention and AIDS care. The brief argues that to address these inequalities in HIV treatment, care and prevention, it is essential to consider the different needs and constraints of women and men in different settings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet call for participants and abstracts","field_subtitle":"Regional Meeting on Strategies for Equitable Allocation of Health Care Resources, \r\nJohannesburg, 18-20 April 2005","field_url":"","body":"This call invites applicants to participate in and present work at the EQUINET regional meeting on \u201cStrategies for Equitable Allocation of health care Resources,\u201d  being held in co-operation with the Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town (HEU) and the Centre for Health Policy, University of the Witwatersrand (CHP) in Johannesburg, South Africa, 18-20 April 2005. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30829","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by Fahamu - learning for change \r\n\r\nhttp://www.fahamu.org/  \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Expanding Access to Antiretroviral Therapy in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"January 2005, Vol 95, No. 1, American Journal of Public Health 18-2","field_url":"http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/95/1/18","body":"\"We describe a number of pitfalls that may occur with the push to rapidly expand access to antiretroviral therapy in sub-Saharan Africa. These include undesirable opportunity costs, the fragmentation of health systems, worsening health care inequities, and poor and unsustained treatment outcomes. On the other hand, AIDS \"treatment activism\" provides an opportunity to catalyze comprehensive health systems development and reduce health care inequities. However, these positive benefits will only happen if we explicitly set out to achieve them. We call for a greater commitment toward health activism that tackles the broader political and economic constraints to human and health systems development in Africa, as well as toward the resuscitation of inclusive and equitable public health systems.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Experts meet on reproductive health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45739","body":"Experts from southern Africa have gathered in Namibia to discuss critical reproductive health challenges in the sub-region and formulate strategies to address them. About 200 delegates will carve out a comprehensive reproductive health component, to be incorporated into the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) framework on related health issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global and local factors in health equity","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h1tg1g1.html","body":"The emergence of an increasingly global economy suggests that the ability of individual countries to shape their own destinies is becoming more difficult. International trends and pressures now influence national, and even local, health care policy making. Researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, together with Oxford University, looked at the effect of globalisation on health issues in South Africa and assessed its influence compared to national and local forces. Political and economic developments in the international arena will inevitably influence health issues in South Africa. Institutions such as the WHO and the World Bank, together with international events such as the spread of AIDS, affect health care in the country. However local forces also play a large part in shaping the future of the South African health service.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Campaign Against Indian Patent Amendment","field_subtitle":"Press release","field_url":"","body":"\"February 26, 2005 has been named a day of international protest against the actions of the Government of India. People around the world are calling to question the humaneness of a patent modification that permits the private sector to profit from public health. The Indian Patent Ordinance prescribes \u201cTRIPS-PLUS\u201d standards, which takes the country beyond the commitments agreed to under the TRIPS agreement. The Patent act has fostered the pharmaceutical industry in India, provided affordable medication to millions within India and the rest of the developing world. As of December 26, 2005, by Presidential Ordinance, the patent Act has been modified; we now face Product Patent protection for pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals in India.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30834","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Watch 2005 set for release","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Under-nutrition seems to be inexplicable in a world where the food market ascends to the 11% of the global trade and food prices have declined over the last years. Nevertheless it is one of the most important causes of illness and death globally as well as a key factor in poverty reproduction. This is according to a chapter in the Global Health Watch 2005 report. The chapter looks at the underlying causes of under and over nourishment both in developing and developed countries as directly related to the globalisation and liberalisation processes that have been taken place in the last decades. You can read the newsletter of the Global Health Watch and find out how to subscribe through the link below.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30840","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalisation and poverty","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC16628","body":"This paper from World Institute for Development Economics Research looks at the impact of globalisation on rural poverty, in both the agricultural and non-agricultural sector. The paper analyses the processes through which globalisation, in terms of openness to foreign trade and long- term capital flows, affects the lives of the rural poor. The author believes that globalisation can cause many hardships for the poor but it also opens up opportunities which some countries utilise and others do not. This largely depends on their domestic political and economic institutions and policies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Harare central hospital in need of care","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45367","body":"Lack of finance has left the Harare Central hospital, one of Zimbabwe's major referral centres, on the verge of collapse. The superintendent of the 1,428-bed hospital, Chris Tapfumaneyi, told IRIN, \"Most of our machines are obsolete and cannot be repaired - some of them have been like this for the past 10 years\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"How important is the recent HIV resistance scare?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/F8E9CB59-B7B6-4144-B676-44CE7BF81CE7.asp?hp=1","body":"Near hysterical media reports last week reported on a strain of HIV resistant to drugs from three main classes of antiretrovirals. But this article from HIV information site www.aidsmap.com says that perhaps the reason for the reaction to the case- reported in New York - and its reporting lies not in its medical significance, but in its importance to current US debates on comprehensive or abstinence-only HIV prevention. Visit the site to read the full article.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights: does mental health care measure up? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/InsightsHealth6art6.html","body":"Are people living with mental illness guaranteed the best available mental health care? Evidence suggests that they do not enjoy the same rights, in terms of self-determination and protection from exploitation and discrimination, as do people who do not suffer from mental illness. Some ethical codes do relate specifically to mental health - yet the transition from rhetoric to reality has so far been limited.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving Impacts of Research Partnerships","field_subtitle":"Swiss Commission for Research Partnerships with Developing Countries","field_url":"http://www.kfpe.ch/download/KFPE_ImpactStudy-final.pdf","body":"\"Research is a widely applied instrument for harnessing knowledge and providing insight into complex development issues. It helps in generating options for policy, management and action, and in empowering people and organizations in developing and transition countries, as well as industrialised countries. Ultimately this should make it easier to cope with the challenges of sustainable development under increasingly difficult circumstances. Research for development is therefore frequently placed in an application oriented context, in which concepts like inter and transdisciplinary research, equity, ownership, participation, etc. are widely accepted, but are not always put into practice. Research partnerships of various types and intensities, involving research institutions in industrialised and developing or transition countries, are important means for contributing to knowledge generation and capacity building.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Local response to HIV in Zambia","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC17601","body":"The Synergy Project documents a successful model for facilitating a strong community response to HIV and AIDS. The model was used in the Salvation Army Change programme in the Ndola and Choma districts of Zambia. It aims to build on local strengths and resources which enable ordinary people to address barriers to using HIV and AIDS information and services. The basis of this approach is that the demand for and use of voluntary counselling and testing (VCT), prevention of mother-to-child transmission and antiretroviral therapy services will only increase by addressing risk, stigma and the potential for personal change.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Moving from information transfer to information exchange in health and health care","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/strategicthinking/st2004/thinking-596.html","body":"This article is an examination and sustained critique of current approaches to communication and information provision within health settings. The authors argue that current practices are based in a one-way model of information transfer that is characterised by a focus on individual behaviour and responsibility, and which is rooted in power relations that are derived from an expert-oriented, unidirectional pattern of speech. They support their criticisms with evidence from a series of qualitative interviews with different populations being addressed, focusing on different subject areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"New journal tackles global public health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/17441692.asp","body":"Global Public Health is a new peer review journal that will engage with key public health issues in the global context - mounting inequalities between rich and poor; the globalisation of trade; new patterns of travel and migration; epidemics of newly-emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases; the increase in chronic illnesses; escalating pressure on public health infrastructures around the world; and the growing range of conflict situations and environmental threats.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Nutrition Key for Success in Anti-Retroviral Therapy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200502100283.html","body":"The Mozambican Association of Doctors in the Fight Against AIDS (MCS) has warned that the poor quality of the diet of many HIV-positive people, who are receiving anti-retroviral drugs, is a motive for serious concern. The MCS warns that poor nutrition risks undermining anti- retroviral treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Reproductive Health resources from RHRC Consortium","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Reproductive Health Response in Conflict (RHRC) Consortium is pleased to announce the publication of two new resources, HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control: A Short Course for Humanitarian Workers Facilitator\u2019s Manual and Guidelines for the Care of Sexually Transmitted Infections in Conflict-affected Settings.\u00a0 Developed by the Women\u2019s Commission for Refugee Women and Children on behalf of the RHRC Consortium, these resources aim to assist field-based clinical care staff and humanitarian workers in the prevention, care, and control of HIV/AIDS and STIs in conflict and post-conflict settings.\u00a0","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30831","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Researcher/Associate Researcher","field_subtitle":"Aids Law Project","field_url":"","body":"The AIDS Law Project, a grant funded unit at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, has contract posts for up to two years for a researcher (based in Johannesburg) and a researcher/associate researcher (based in Cape Town) in its Law & Treatment Access Unit (LTAU) from 1 April 2005 or as soon as possible thereafter.\u00a0 These are challenging positions and the successful applicants must be able to work quickly, under pressure and as part of a team.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30830","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"SA aids stats controversy rages on","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Between 1997 and 2002, according to a new report from Stats SA, South Africa's official statistics agency, the number of recorded deaths in the age group from 20 to 45 more than doubled, from a little over 100,000 to more than 200,000. Although most deaths likely to be linked to AIDS are officially recorded as due to associated diseases such as TB and pneumonia, the age and disease pattern provides strong evidence of the growing impact of AIDS. Other previous studies, such as those from South Africa's Medical Research Council, have provided similar indications. But the issue is still contentious, as AIDS denialists have used the relatively low numbers attributed directly to AIDS to claim that researchers are exaggerating the problem. The latest issue of the AfricaFocus Bulletin contains postings that examine the issues in detail.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30842","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern African Regional Gender Mainstreaming Symposium","field_subtitle":"5 - 7 April 2005, Orion Hotel \u2013 Mbabane, Swaziland: Call for Resource Persons/Facilitators","field_url":"","body":"Why is it that almost a decade after ratifying and acceding the Beijing and Dakar Platforms for Action, after the Convention of Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, engendering processes of the Millennium Development Goals, Maputo Declaration on Gender Mainstreaming , SADC Declaration on Gender and Development and various other treaties and conventions, southern African countries continue to battle with: gender power imbalances, gender based violence, gender based stigma and discrimination, feminization of poverty and ultimately feminization of the HIV/AIDS epidemic? SAfAIDS is hosting a southern African Regional Gender Mainstreaming Symposium in Swaziland from 5 - 7 April 2005. The link below also includes a call for participants.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30851","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Stemming the brain drain","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/2/en/news.pdf","body":"February's WHO Bulletin looks at the migration of skilled professionals to industrialized countries as one of the factors behind the chronic shortage of health workers in many developing countries. \"\u2026.International recognition that the growing shortage of health workers poses a major threat to fighting diseases such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis has prompted a flurry of measures to stem the exodus of health professionals from developing countries.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening community health and agency","field_subtitle":"Report of the Regional Meeting January 26th to 28th 2005Kafue Gorge, Zambia","field_url":"http://equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/REP26012005gov.pdf","body":"The Regional Network on Equity and Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) (www.equinetafrica.org) has noted that equity related work needs to define and build a more active role for important stakeholders in health. This means incorporating the power and ability that people (and social groups) have to make choices over health inputs and their capacity to use these choices to improve health. To do this requires a clearer analysis of the social dimensions of health and their role in health equity, i.e. the role of social networking and exclusion, of the forms and levels of participation and of how governance systems distribute power and authority over the resources needed for health. To understand these factors, EQUINET has been carrying out research work to evaluate the current and desired forms of participation within health systems in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania amongst other Southern African countries.\r\n* Abstract Book\r\nhttp://equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ABS012005gov.pdf","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Structured discussion on HIV/AIDS and Mobile Populations in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The overall aims of this discussion are to share our experiences and raise awareness about the issues of mobile populations and HIV/AIDS, particularly in the Southern African region. The discussion will explore the specific factors that increase HIV/AIDS vulnerability for mobile populations as well as examine how HIV/AIDS affects migration patterns. It will also focus on the particular challenges raised by dwindling human resources in the healthcare sector and its links to HIV/AIDS.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30827","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The economic burden of illness for households","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.fic.nih.gov/dcpp/wps/wp15.pdf","body":"\"Ill-health and the household costs of illness can undermine livelihoods and contribute to impoverishment, processes that have been brought into sharper focus by the social and economic impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Concerns about the links between ill-health and impoverishment have placed health at the centre of development agencies' poverty reduction targets and strategies and increased the weight of arguments for substantial health sector investments to improve access for the world's poorest people (WHO 2001).\" The aim of this paper from the School of Development Studies at the University of East Anglia in the UK is to review and summarise studies that have measured the economic costs and consequences of illness for patients and their families, focusing on malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Equity implications of health sector user fees in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=535","body":"Research for Poverty Alleviation (REPOA) commissioned ETC Crystal to examine the equity implications of health sector user fees in Tanzania, with particular reference to proposed and actual charges at dispensary and health centre level. This year, Tanzania will review its Poverty Reduction Strategy. With the findings of the user fee study, REPOA aims at making a valuable contribution to the review process and provide country-specific insight into one of the most debated issues in health financing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The health workforce crisis in TB control","field_subtitle":"Human Resources for Health 2005,  3:2\u00a0","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/3/1/2/abstract","body":"\"Human resources (HR) constraints have been reported as one of the main barriers to achieving the 2005 global tuberculosis (TB) control targets in 18 of the 22 TB high-burden countries (HBCs); consequently we try to assess the current HR available for TB control in HBCs...(The study concluded that) There were few readily available data on HR for TB control in HBCs, particularly in the larger ones. The great variations in staff numbers and the poor association between information on workforce, proportion of trained staff, and length and quality of courses suggested a lack of valid information and/or poor data reliability. There is urgent need to support HBCs to develop a comprehensive HR strategy involving short-term and long-term HR development plans and strengthening their HR planning and management capabilities.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The synergy online library","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.synergyaids.com/resources.asp","body":"The Synergy HIV/AIDS Online Library contains 3,666 searchable online documents relevant to HIV/AIDS project management, research, and reproductive health issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards a unified agenda for people's health, equity and justice","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=51_0_1_0_M2","body":"EQUINET, PHM, CWGH, TAC, SATUCC, Southern African Social Forum, SEATINI, PATAM and HAI convened a regional meeting of health civil society on February 17-19 2005 in Zambia, with local hosts CHESSORE. \r\n The meeting resolved to build a united health civil society campaign for a national peoples health system. The meeting identified that to build this the region needs to address pressing issues of: \r\n - investing in adequate, well trained, appropriate, equitably distributed and motivated health workers; \r\n - ensuring sustained increased fair financing of the universal right to health, through rising investment in the public health sector; \r\n - building a critical mass of conscious and organised people, with rights to meaningfully participate in their health systems, \r\n - resisting privatisation and promoting public interests and national authority in trade agreements in the health sector. \r\n\r\n The meeting agreed that health civil society is unified by common values and pursuit of the fundamental right to health and to life, of equity and social justice and of people led and people centred health systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Treating severe malnutrition: implementing clinical guidelines in South African hospitals","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=2&i=h9aa4g1&u=42246ccc","body":"According to the World Health Organisation malnutrition is associated with about 60 percent of deaths in children under five years old in the developing world.\u00a0 The WHO has developed guidelines to improve the quality of hospital care for malnourished children in order to reduce deaths.\u00a0 The guidelines suggest ten steps for routine management of severe malnourishment.\u00a0 These will require most hospitals to make substantial changes. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, together with the University of the Western Cape, and the Health Systems Trust, South Africa conducted a study in two hospitals - Mary Theresa and Sipetu - in rural Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. The study was designed to assess the extent to which the guidelines have been implemented and whether they have reduced fatality rates among children diagnosed with severe malnutrition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"UN highlights importance of MDGs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4525","body":"The UN has warned that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by governments to curb poverty and promote gender equality by 2015 could fail unless developing countries make HIV/AIDS a priority. A new report, 'Hope: Building Capacity: Least Developed Countries Meet the HIV/AIDS Challenge', said priorities must include the aggressive pursuit of policies that promote women's empowerment and the eradication of AIDS-related discrimination.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Using mid-level cadres as substitutes for health professionals","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC17391&resource=healthsystems","body":"This article, from Human Resources for Health, examines the experiences of using substitute health workers (SHW) in Africa. The review focuses mainly on physicians and reviews data from Tanzania, Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Ghana. Findings demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of using SHWs and higher rates of retention within countries and in rural communities. However, problems are also identified, including the potential among SHWs for poor clinical decision making and lack of adherence to clinical regulations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"What can human rights do for health and health equity in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"As South Africa enters its second decade of democracy, we find that health gains anticipated in 1994 remain unrealized for the majority of our people, particularly the poorest in society. Why is it that, despite a Constitution hailed as the most progressive in the world, a victorious liberation movement and a set of governmental and non-governmental institutions designed to promote human rights in our society, we have failed to translate the provisions of our Bill of Rights into reality? To understand this contradiction, we need to understand, firstly, what are human rights; secondly, the relationship between health and human rights; and, thirdly, how human rights commitments can be translated into health-generating conditions and material gains in health for those who need it most. There are potential contradictions between a human rights approach and broad strategies for Primary Health Care, but these arise because of an incomplete or selective understanding of human rights, sometimes deliberately so, intended to further neo-liberal or imperialist political agendas.\r\n\r\nWhat are human rights?\r\n\r\nHuman rights can be described as claims (material or social) that individuals make on society that are essential for their dignity and well-being. Rights are usually incorporated in national and international law (although Apartheid South Africa flouted this). The impetus for developing a human rights infrastructure was the revelation of the atrocities committed by the Nazis in World War II. As a result, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) based on the idea that \"all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.\" Unlike principles of medical ethics, once a treaty is ratified by a state, it becomes law and binds its conduct.\r\n\r\nA human rights approach implies the use of rights as a set of standards to develop policy; or to monitor and analyse policy to hold governments accountable; or as a lobbying and advocacy tool to mobilise civil society.\r\n\r\nHowever, human rights are not a uniformly understood set of concepts and principles and there is much dispute about rights. Two broad categories of rights emerged following the UDHR, civil and political rights (like traditional freedoms of speech, movement, the vote etc) and socio-economic rights (to housing, water, health, education etc). Driven primarily by Cold War political agendas this is a false dichotomy, since rights are indivisible. One cannot enjoy civil and political rights unless socio-economic conditions are such that you are adequately clothed, educated, fed and healthy enough to exercise civil and political rights. \r\n\r\nAnother criticism is that rights are generally framed as belonging to individuals, who are seen to exist in isolation, a typical Western philosophical tradition. In contrast, traditional societies are constructed on a web of relations - social, economic, cultural and political - in which humans exist as social beings and where social interactions, clashes and conflicts, form the basis of social relations. This has given rise to some suspicion of rights as a culturally imposed practice. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30820","field_issue_date":"2005-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"700 000 people living with AIDS in developing countries now receiving treatment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr07/en/index.html","body":"By the end of 2004, 700 000 people living with AIDS in developing countries were receiving antiretroviral (ART) treatment thanks to the efforts of national governments, donors and other partners. This is an increase of approximately 75% in the total number receiving treatment from a year ago, and is up from 440 000 in July 2004. At a joint press conference at the World Economic Forum\u2019s Annual Meeting, Switzerland, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the United States Government and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria revealed the results of their joint efforts to increase the availability of ART in poor countries. However all the organizations warned that major, continued efforts are needed in countries and internationally to continue working towards the goal of access to treatment for all who need it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to Condoms and HIV/AIDS Information","field_subtitle":"Human Rights Watch: December 2004","field_url":"http://hrw.org/backgrounder/hivaids/condoms1204/condoms1204.pdf","body":"HIV/AIDS is a preventable disease, yet approximately 5 million people were newly infected with HIV in 2003, the majority of them through sex. Many of these cases could have been avoided, but for state-imposed restrictions on proven and effective HIV prevention strategies, such as latex condoms. Condoms provide an essentially impermeable barrier to HIV pathogens. According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), scientific data \"overwhelmingly confirm that male latex condoms are highly effective in preventing sexual HIV transmission.\" However, many governments around the world either fail to guarantee access to condoms or impose needless restrictions on access to condoms and related HIV/AIDS information. Such restrictions interfere with public health as well as set back internationally recognized human rights - the right to the highest attainable standard of health, the right to information, and the right to life.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICA MUST ACT WITH GREATER URGENCY ON HIV/AIDS AND THE RIGHT TO HEALTH","field_subtitle":"Statement by CSOs at the Fourth Ordinary African Union Summit of the Heads of States, 24-31st January 2005, Abuja, Nigeria","field_url":"","body":"Signed by the African Network for the Campaign on Education for All (ANCEFA), African Womens Development and Communications Network (FEMNET), African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ACDHR), Center for Democracy and Development (CDD), Pan African Movement (PAM), Pan African Development Education and Advocacy Programme(PADEAP), West African Students Union (WASU), Womens Rights Advancement and Protection Alternatives (WRAPA), Development Network of Indigenous Voluntary Agencies (DENIVA), Fahamu, ActionAid International, Oxfam GB\r\n\r\nSummary\r\n\r\nThe fourth Ordinary African Union Summit of the Heads of States takes place at a time when the consequences of poorly financed and collapsing public health services across the continent can only be described as a public health emergency. Returning to Abuja where four years ago they committed themselves to accelerate the fight against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and other related infectious diseases, it is clear that key obstacles continue to prevent hundreds of millions of Africans from realising the right to health. African Governments and the African Union must reinvigorate the fight against the violation of HIV/AIDS and health related rights.\r\n\r\nRecommendations\r\n\r\n- African Governments must commit to increasing GDP allocation for health by three per cent each year in order to reach the 2001 Abuja Summit commitments of 15%. - African government should ensure that treatment of AIDS and infectious diseases is provided free, reaches vulnerable groups and in an accountable manner. - African Governments, who have to yet ratify the AU Protocol on the Rights of Women, must do so. It is a major instrument in securing the right to health for Africa's women and girls. - The African Union Commission must lead on lobbying the G8 in 2005 for debt cancellation and measures from industrialised countries to compensate for the brain drain of African health workers. - The African Union Commission must lead on lobbying the G8 in 2005 for debt cancellation and securing measures from industrialised countries to compensate for the brain drain of African health workers. - African Governments must mandate the African Union Commission to champion for enabling laws and policies in member states and a coordinated global advocacy approach towards the WTO Hong Kong Inter-ministerial in December 2005.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30812","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS activism \u2013 new opportunities for citizenship in South Africa?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/s8bsr2g1.html","body":"Post-apartheid South Africa has witnessed the growth of social movements using on-the-ground and network-based modes of organisation that operate at the same time in local, national and global political environments. Networks across countries and grassroots mobilisation have allowed HIV/AIDS activists to use tactics confronting the state while supporting it to be more inclusive. Research from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa explores the organisational practices and strategies of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a Cape Town-based social movement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Alarm at flight of health workers","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45253","body":"Wealthy countries \"deliberately\" enlist doctors and nurses from poor nations, costing developing states US $500 million a year in lost training, Ndioro Ndiaye, deputy director-general of the International Organisation for Migration, said. According to Ndiaye, the UK drafted more than 8,000 nurses and midwives from outside of Europe in the year 2000. This was in addition to the 30,000 hired over previous years. Some 21,000 Nigerian doctors were working in the US the same year, while there were more doctors from Benin working in France than in their own country, she said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Amref training programme available","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.amref.org/shortcourses.htm","body":"The AMREF training programme is available for the year 2005. On offer are a series of short courses and the one-year Diploma in Community Health. The short courses are designed for middle and senior management personnel working in public and private sectors including NGOs, CBOs, religious organizations, donor agencies and government ministries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Articles criticising nevirapine may endanger babies' lives","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/330\r\n/7482/61-a","body":"Three articles published by the Associated Press in mid-December criticising the conduct of a trial of the antiretroviral drug nevirapine in Uganda are threatening to undermine its use in newborn babies in developing countries, according to South African experts. A single dose of the drug given to mothers while in labour and to their babies at the time of birth is known to greatly reduce transmission of HIV from mother to child. The articles, which appeared in newspapers and were broadcast on radio stations in the United States, Britain, South Africa, and many other countries, made allegations about a trial that was conducted from 1997 to 1999 in Uganda by researchers from Johns Hopkins University and Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, and subsequently published.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Health sensitive trade policy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=48_0_1_0_M6","body":"EQUINET invites middle to senior policymakers, academics and civil society members working in areas of trade and / or health from countries in East and Southern Africa to participate in a capacity building and research programme on trade and health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by Fahamu - learning for change \r\n\r\nhttp://www.fahamu.org/  \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Fixing health systems in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"International Development Research Centre (IDRC) , 2004","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC17016&resource=healthsystems","body":"This book from the International Development and Research Centre presents the Tanzania Essential Health Interventions Project (TEHIP). The premise of this project is that health reforms should be based not just on increased funding but on more strategic investments in health. The first section outlines the TEHIP idea, while the second section details the implementation of TEHIP in two districts in Tanzania. The remaining sections outline the results of the project, current efforts to extend the impact of TEHIP innovations, and the critical lessons learned from the TEHIP experience.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Food security, rural development and health equity in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Executive Summary: Equinet Discussion Paper Number 22, produced by Dr Mickey Chopra, University of the Western Cape, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"Up to two-thirds of all Africans in east and southern Africa (ESA) live in rural areas, three-quarters of them living below the poverty line. Agriculture contributes 35% to the southern African regional GDP and 13% of total export earnings. In addition, about 70% of the population of the region depends on agriculture for food, income and employment. The recent widespread food crisis in the region that pushed more than sixteen million people into severe food shortage is further evidence that agriculture and food security still play a fundamental role in determining the development and health of the poorest in the region.\r\n\r\nThe Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) recognising the importance of food security in health equity, commissioned a paper that explores equity concerns around food security and nutrition within the SADC and East Africa region, drawing information from available secondary data. The paper aims to analyse the current food security and nutrition situation in the region and the health and equity issues and policy concerns arising. EQUINET has commissioned this analysis of the determinants of the current situation, and the policy influences that enhance or undermine equity in food security and nutrition, to propose areas for policy and programme engagement and for research and debate by EQUINET.\r\n\r\nThis paper argues that there are at least five good reasons why food security and nutrition should be given high priority in actions to improve health equity and socio-economic development across the region:\r\n\r\n1.\tPoverty, hunger and under-nutrition are getting worse in ESA, even though they are improving in almost every other region. This undermines the achievement of UN Millenium Development Goals in this region. \r\n2.\tInstead of the potential virtuous cycle that could be created between improved nutrition and improved economic wellbeing, ESA is currently caught in a vicious cycle of worsening poverty, hunger and under-nutrition accentuating income and health inequalities and increasing vulnerability. \r\n3.\tProven effective interventions indicate that public policy can make a difference, that nutritional improvements can be effected, even under conditions of poverty, and that these can have positive impacts on economic wellbeing. \r\n4.\tImplementing public policies that address food security provides an opportunity to deal with the demands of AIDS, the challenges of the competing signals from global trade to health and development and the challenges to equitable public policy in the current governance of the food supply system. \r\n5.\tConfronting hunger and nutrition provides one further area where alternatives can be built that promote policy objectives of justice and equity. This calls for interventions that build a multi-disciplinary and integrated response to food security and nutrition, especially focused upon gender inequalities, community control over productive resources and fair trade - ie one that is shaped on food sovereignty.\r\n\r\nThis analysis suggests that equity in health will be difficult to achieve in this region unless there more explicit attention is paid to the underlying nutrition and food security determinants. These in turn are being shaped by larger forces such as trade rules, corporatisation of the food supply chain, HIV/AIDS, gender inequalities etc. However we can start to identify areas of common action that would strengthen equity in food security, nutrition and health outcomes.\r\n\r\nAt a minimum an equity programme should focus on:\r\n\r\n- Building civil - state alliances around a programme of action that links a food sovereignty perspective with the equitable public policy that supports this.\r\n- Promoting further assessment of the links between trade and health in the region to feed into advocacy for trade policies and agreements that strengthen public health.\r\n- Supporting, informing and evaluating policies and initiatives that provide safety nets to those most affected by negative effects of trade and agricultural policies and of HIV and AIDS.\r\n- Continuing to identify how gender inequalities exacerbate the impact of globalisation and HIV and AIDS on the poorest families and decrease the efficiency of policy responses and propose programme and policy responses for these problems.\r\n\r\n* The full article is available at http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/equinetpub.php\r\n\r\n* Please send comments to admin@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Food security, rural development and health equity in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Equinet Newsletter 48: February 2005: Food security, rural development and health equity in southern Africa\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Generic AIDS drug manufacturer gets approval","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4407","body":"South African generic AIDS drug manufacturer, Aspen Pharmacare, has become the first African firm to win approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its production plant. The FDA conducted a pre-operational review and close inspection to ascertain good manufacturing practice at Aspen's Port Elizabeth facility in September last year. As a result of this approval, funds from the US President's Emergency Plans for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) can be used to purchase Aspen-manufactured drugs for use in countries where the local drug regulatory agency has approved them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Global and local factors in South African health policy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h1tg1g1.html","body":"The emergence of an increasingly global economy suggests that the ability of individual countries to shape their own destinies is becoming more difficult.  International trends and pressures now influence national, and even local, health care policy making. Researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, together with Oxford University, looked at the effect of globalisation on health issues in South Africa and assessed its influence compared to national and local forces. Political and economic developments in the international arena will inevitably influence health issues in South Africa.  Institutions such as the WHO and the World Bank, together with international events such as the spread of AIDS, affect health care in the country.  However local forces also play a large part in shaping the future of the South African health service.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and International Trade Agreements","field_subtitle":"International Journal of Health Services, 34(3) 467-481","field_url":"http://web.idrc.ca/en/ev-64370-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html","body":"Since the 1980s, neoliberal policies have prescribed reducing the role of governments, relying on market forces to organize and provide health care and other vital human services. In this context, international trade agreements increasingly serve as mechanisms to enforce the privatization, deregulation, and decentralization of health care and other services, with important implications for democracy as well as for health. Critics contend that social austerity and \"free\" trade agreements contribute to the rise in global poverty and economic inequality and instability, and therefore to increased preventable illness and death. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Human resources for health: overcoming the crisis","field_subtitle":"Joint learning initiative / Global Health Trust , 2004","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC16701&resource=healthsystems","body":"This report presents the findings and recommendations of the Joint Learning Initiative (JLI). The report highlights major global challenges in human resources for health. These include: global shortages of skilled workers; skill imbalances in existing workers; poor distribution of services worsened by increased migration; poor work environments; and a weak knowledge base. The findings show that effective workforce strategies, including community action and country leadership, enhance the performance of health systems even under difficult circumstances. The authors call for immediate action to harness the power of health workers, which must be country based and led.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the impact of health services research","field_subtitle":"BMC Health Services Research 2005,  5:1\u00a0","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/5/1","body":"\"While significant strides have been made in health research, the incorporation of research evidence into healthcare decision-making has been marginal. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of how the utility of health services research can be improved through the use of theory. Integrating theory into health services research can improve research methodology and encourage stronger collaboration with decision-makers. Recognizing the importance of theory calls for new expectations in the practice of health services research. These include: the formation of interdisciplinary research teams; broadening the training for those who will practice health services research; and supportive organizational conditions that promote collaboration between researchers and decision makers. Further, funding bodies can provide a significant role in guiding and supporting the use of theory in the practice of health services research.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the quality of primary health care: public and private provision","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/s5aam1g1.html","body":"The quality of primary health care (PHC) delivered to people in developing countries is often poor and coverage is not yet universal. This is despite a focus on the public delivery of comprehensive PHC over the past 20 years. People frequently consult private providers including qualified medical professionals and unqualified health practitioners. \u00a0A better use of private care providers, therefore, might be a potential solution, including contracting them to provide services on behalf of the public sector. Research from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the University of Witwatersrand and the University of Cape Town examines the performance of various models of PHC provision in South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Journal of the American Medical Association","field_subtitle":"Call for papers: Violence and human rights","field_url":"","body":"Five million deaths from violence and injuries are estimated to account for 9% of global mortality, with violence leading the causes of death among people aged 15 to 44 years. Violence affects many more survivors of all ages, who often live with disabling physical conditions and mental health symptoms. Despite the magnitude of this burden, as well as the known consequences of exposure to violence among survivors, research on violence prevention remains underfunded, understudied, and a neglected public health concern.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30779","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi aims to triple ARV treatment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=27568","body":"Malawi aims to more than triple the number of HIV-positive people in the country who are receiving antiretroviral drugs at no cost by July with the help of a $14 million grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a Malawian health official said on Monday, AFP/Independent Online reports. Malawi in May 2004 began a five-year, $196 million nationwide program to provide antiretroviral drugs to HIV-positive people at no cost. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi's maternal mortality goes from bad to worse","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC16693&resource=healthsystems","body":"This paper, from the Health Systems Trust, is an analysis of the clinical, health systems and underlying reasons for the drastic deterioration in maternal health in Malawi. It finds that the high maternal mortality rates are a result of poor health care, health systems deficiencies, limited access to care and harmful \u2018patient-related behaviour.\u2019 The paper argues that there are three ways of improving maternal health: through an integrated health systems approach, through improvements within maternal health programmes, and by equitably addressing poverty and social inequalities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Malnutrition expected to rise in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=44986","body":"Malnutrition and related diseases are expected to rise in Zimbabwe, peaking in the January to March 2005 period, according to a new report by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). While staple cereals are increasingly unavailable in rural areas, maize prices on the parallel market continue to climb, limiting the ability of households to buy enough food to satisfy their needs, said both FEWS NET and the World Food Programme (WFP) in separate surveys.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mauritius Institute of Health 2005 Course announcement","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Regional Training Programme for Reproductive Health with special emphasis on Family Planning is supported by the Government of Mauritius, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other international agencies. Its objectives are to contribute to the health and socio-economic development in Africa and the region by improving the Reproductive Health (RH) status of the population through the provision of Training of Trainers programmes for Reproductive Health.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30792","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"New Indian Patents Law Threatens AIDS Treatment Access in India and Worldwide","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"International AIDS activists working for access to affordable AIDS treatment called on the Indian Government to repeal the law that introduced product patent protection on medicines through an Ordinance, promulgated December 26, 2004. \"India should be proud to be producing and exporting cheap, generic AIDS drugs for people in need. The changes to the patent law will increase the price of new drugs, as well as some AIDS medicines that are already produced and exported in generic form,\" said Rolake Nwagwu of Positive Action for Treatment (PATA), Nigeria. \"Rising treatment costs will spell disaster for people with HIV in India and around the world.\" 8,500 people with HIV die daily worldwide due to lack of access to treatment. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30795","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"PATAM December 2004 newsletter available","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.patam.org/","body":"PATAM is a social movement comprised of individuals and organisations dedicated to mobilizing communities, political leaders, and all sectors of society to ensure access to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, as a fundamental part of comprehensive care for all people with HIV/AIDS in Africa.  This movement was inaugurated on August 22nd 2002. The movement's co-founders are two of the world's leading AIDS activists, Zackie Achmat of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in South Africa and Milly Katana, lobbying and advocacy officer of the Health Rights Action Group in Uganda and member of Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria. PATAM's December 2004 newsletter is now available from their website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty in post-apartheid South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC17367","body":"This survey by the Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU) at the University of Cape Town of poverty in post-apartheid South Africa defines and examines poverty in the South African context. The aim of the report is to provide a picture of asset and services deprivation, economic activity, and health and safety. The report also examines the changes in these indicators from 1996 to 2001.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"PRSPs have not improved health care for the poor","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC15330&resource=healthsystems","body":"Has health benefited from the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) process launched in 1999 by the international community? The first part of the paper examines the macro-economic constraints on health care financing and considers whether enhanced debt reduction, flexibility on fiscal deficits and the potential for increased aid would alleviate these constraints. The authors conclude that the PRSP process has not lived up to the expectations it has generated.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health in Complex Emergencies Training Program","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Public Health in Complex Emergencies (PHCE) training program is available. The dates for all of the courses in 2005 are available through the link below.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30796","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Public private partnerships in health: a global call to action","field_subtitle":"Health Research Policy and Systems , 2004","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC17018&resource=healthsystems","body":"This paper, produced by Health Research Policy and Systems, outlines key challenges in public-private arrangements in health care and makes a Global Call to Action to address these challenges. The author establishes several ethical challenges in public-private partnerships. These include: a lack of global norms and principals, threatened impartiality of health care due to poorly designed partnerships, the risk of abandoning social safety nets for vulnerable groups, and conflict of interest due to \u2018for-profit\u2019 demands of the private sector. Other ethical issues consist of redirecting national health policies, fragmentation of the health system, contribution to common goals and objectives, and lack of contributions to improvements in quality and efficiency.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-private partnerships and access to drugs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC15344&resource=healthsystems","body":"This Initiative on Public-Private Partnerships for Health report provides an overview from a series of studies of drug access programmes in Uganda, Botswana, Sri Lanka and Zambia. The report draws out three broad conclusions from the studies. Firstly, it highlights a fragmentation of initiatives, funding and conditionalities. Secondly, it points to a lack of understanding of the range of options regarding access to medicines, as well as a lack of capacity to compare and contrast alternatives best suited to national needs. Finally, the authors find that the decision to exclude the private sector from most initiatives lacked grounding in the reality of health service delivery in sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"rationing antiretroviral therapy for HIV/AIDS in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://image.thelancet.com/extras/04art3077web.pdf","body":"As the world intensifies its fight against the global AIDS epidemic, African countries have begun to develop largescale prevention and treatment programmes. A combination of funds from African governments and international donors are paying for drugs, diagnostics, clinic and laboratory infrastructure, and medical personnel. Although these funds, which reach into the billions of dollars, will pay for antiretroviral therapy for many thousands of HIV-positive Africans, there is almost no chance that African countries will have the human, infrastructural, or financial resources to treat everyone who is in need, at least in the early years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Rethink urged over TB treatment in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=44898","body":"In the crowded wards of African hospitals, coughs and bony bodies tell the story of a deadly return. Tuberculosis (TB), supposedly defeated 40 years ago, is back, riding on the AIDS epidemic, and the world is ill-prepared, says the relief agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). In its study 'Running out of Breath? TB Care in the 21st Century', MSF's Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines urges a radical rethink of the global approach to the disease.  TB kills two million people every year, nearly all in developing countries. Yet TB, if detected early and treated, is curable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SHARing Point Server","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://sharingpoint.shared-global.org/","body":"At the SHARing Point Server you can find people and their activities like projects, journal articles, abstracts, realtime health news and mailing list postings from Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Student grant awards: Call for proposals extended","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=36_0_1_0_M6","body":"EQUINET will award a number of small grants to post graduate students and undergraduate students in East and Southern Africa for research proposals in the areas of:\r\n- Equity in Human Resources for Health \r\n- Equity issues in food security and nutrition\r\n- Equity in health sector responses to HIV/AIDS and treatment access\r\n- Using health rights as a tool for equity in health \r\n- Health equity in economic and trade policies \r\n- Fair financing in health \r\n- Governance and community participation in health \r\n- Understanding and analyzing policy processes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"UN envoy battling AIDS in Africa finds infected children lack key treatment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/ttp%3A//www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=13073&Cr=hiv&Cr1=aids","body":"Although 2.2 million children are living with AIDS, at least two-thirds of them in Africa, anti-retroviral formulations for children are not available and the youngsters are just being left to die, a United Nations special envoy battling HIV/AIDS on the continent said. \"In the instance of anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy, the scenario for children is quite simply, doomsday,\" Stephen Lewis, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, told a news conference. \"Incredibly enough, we don't even have paediatric formulations. When treatment takes place - a rarity among rarities - doctors and nurses fumble over breaking capsules into several pieces to estimate the dosage for a child, or scramble around to find a syrup solution. It's bizarre.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO highlights health in the 2015 development blueprint","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr06/en/index.html","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) has underlined the need to urgently tackle the health issues highlighted in the Millennium Project's \"Investing in Development\" report. The report provides detailed recommendations on how the world must immediately and massively increase the investment in health programmes to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This includes programmes to deliver AIDS treatment, to improve maternal and child health, to control and treat tuberculosis and malaria, and to make more medicines affordable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Whose rights count?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/news/Whoserightscount.html","body":"Enthusiasm for \u201crights-based approaches\u201d to development has grown during the past decade. Rights now have diverse meanings within the policies and actions of development agencies, governments and civil society organisations. This \u201crise of rights\u201d has sparked critical reflection about the origins of rights-based approaches to development and what they mean in policy and practice. One of the key concerns, as with all development fashions, is \u201cwhat is really different this time?\u201d Can this emerging focus on rights help to bring about real changes in favour of poor and marginalised people? How do we know that \u201crights-based development\u201d is not just putting new labels on old wine? This is the issue explored by the 'IDS Bulletin' from the Institute of Development Studies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Will 2005 be a year of action on HIV/AIDS?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=26367","body":"Commentators are beginning to raise other fundamental questions about the Tsunami disaster, reports the latest edition of the Africa Focus Bulletin. \"Most significantly, can the response to the tsunami be carried over to even more devastating crises that are less photogenic, such as AIDS, global health, conflict, and poverty? Or will the effect be to reduce resources for implementing programs that have not been scaled up for lack of political will and resources? \" Despite significant expansion of programs in the last two years, only four percent of the estimated 3.8 million people in need of such treatment in Africa now have access. Global spending on HIV/AIDS in low and middle-income countries was estimated at $6.1 billion in 2004, with the need projected at $12 billion for 2005.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"20 year patents threaten to end AIDS drugs for developing countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7478/1308-c","body":"Efforts to bring antiretroviral treatment to AIDS patients in developing countries are threatened by the looming implementation of new World Trade Organisation patent rules, the charity M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res warned in December. The organisation\u2019s TRIPS (trade related aspects of intellectual property rights) agreement comes into force for most signatories on 1 January 2005. It requires the organisation\u2019s members to grant 20-year patents to new pharmaceutical products. Only the least developed countries can postpone implementation until 2016. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"2005 AIDS IMPACT conference ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The 2005 AIDS IMPACT conference held in Cape Town, South Africa will be a partnership between AIDS Impact and the South African HSRC with Dr Olive Shisana (HSRC)and Bridgette Prince ( Nelson Mandela Foundation) and their South African team. The conference has been in existence as an international gathering since the early 1990s.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30754","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to Medicines: Drug Pricing and Patents","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"WHO estimates that currently one third of the world's population lacks access to essential drugs. Over fifty percent of people in the developing world especially in Africa and Asia do not have access to even the most basic essential drugs. There are many factors which influence and maintain the higher and unaffordable prices of drugs, however, lack of price control measures and the pricing policies of multinational pharmaceutical companies are considered the most important contributing factors. This paper presents an overview on Globalization, Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and Patents, which have taken a new turn with the introduction of the Agreement on Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs Agreement).","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30764","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Aids epidemic update 2004","field_subtitle":"Joint United Nations Programme on HIV","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC16886","body":"This joint UNAIDS/WHO report outlines the most recent trends in the global AIDS epidemic.  Women are increasingly affected by HIV and make up nearly half of the 37.2 million living with HIV world wide.  In sub-Saharan Africa, almost 60 percent of adults living with HIV are women.  The report identifies Southern Africa as the worst-hit region with HIV prevalence rates surpassing 25 percent.  Although global AIDS spending has tripled since 2001 and access to services has improved significantly, the epidemic is still spreading.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS Groups Worried About Backlash Against Nevirapine","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=27338","body":"Some HIV/AIDS treatment groups have expressed \"alarm\" about a possible backlash against the use of the antiretroviral drug nevirapine among pregnant women to reduce the risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission because of a recent series of Associated Press articles concerning clinical trials of the drug, the New York Times reports.  The articles concerned NIH's research on the use of nevirapine in single doses among HIV-positive pregnant women in Uganda to determine the drug's ability to reduce the risk of vertical HIV transmission.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Barriers to care of HIV/AIDS patients in developing countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC16885","body":"This British Medical Journal article examines the challenges faced in the World Health Organization's (WHO) '3 by 5' initiative, which aims to deliver anti-retrovirals (ARVs) to 3 million people by 2005.  It highlights that the focus on delivering ARVs distracts resources and attention from a broader model of health care.  They argue that the initiative must develop a chronic disease model of care through a strengthened public health infrastructure.  The authors also point out the exclusionary power of stigma and outline the need for training programmes for health care workers on medical ethics and human rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Health Sensitive Trade Policy","field_subtitle":"Call Closes On January 15 2005","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=48_0_1_0_M6","body":"EQUINET invites middle to senior policymakers, academics and civil society members working in areas of trade and / or health from countries in East and Southern Africa to participate in a capacity building and research programme on trade and health, i.e. to\r\n* Participate in country-level training on trade and health to be held between January and March 2005\r\n* In country level teams, to undertake and report on national assessments of trade and health, supported by technical and financial resources, between March and June 2005\r\n* Review the country level assessments at a regional meeting in mid 2005 \r\n* Make recommendations on follow up of the programme","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Committed to health for all? How the G7/G8 rate","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC17189&Resource=f1health","body":"This article, published in Social Science and Medicine, reports on progress towards the goal of health for all, with specific reference to international development commitments made by the G7/G8 nations at the 1999, 2000 and 2001 summits.  It argues that the limited progress toward achieving health for all derives largely from the failure of G8 nations to fulfil their development commitments.  In particular, efforts to reduce poverty and economic security have been insufficient; and national governments have not been enabled to make basic investments in health systems, education and nutrition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Cycle of poverty leads to recurring crises","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4221","body":"Considering the high levels of chronic poverty in the Southern Africa region, and the ongoing impact of HIV/AIDS, safety net programmes will be required to support the poorest in the community over the long term. Cash-based transfers to supplement income are likely to be the most efficient and appropriate means of doing this, though in-kind safety nets, such as vouchers for education or health costs, or for subsidised agricultural inputs, will also be suitable in some circumstances.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Does contracting-out improve health services?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC17191&Resource=f1health","body":"This paper, produced by Partnerships for Health Sector Reform/plus, discusses the effectiveness of contracting out primary care services as a tool for health reform.  The paper provides a short history of contracting out, a discussion of its advantages and disadvantages, and a review of the available literature on the impact of contracting out.  The authors note that there is a lack of evaluation research on the success of contracting-out, and a lack of conclusive evidence that contracting out improves overall health sector efficiency.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Donor Fatigue Leaves 2.8m People Hungrier in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=26792","body":"2004 ended on a grim note for many in Southern Africa, where emergency food supplies cannot meet their needs.  The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced that it had been cutting rations to more than 2.8 million people over the past six months, as it lacked the funding to purchase additional food supplies.  \"There will be serious health and nutritional repercussions if people have to accept a further reduction in their meagre rations,\" said Mike Sackett, WFP Regional Director for Southern Africa, in a press release issued December  22.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Eldis/HRC Health Resource Guide","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/health/","body":"The Eldis/HRC Health Resource Guide has been re-launched with a new look and expanded subject coverage.  There are new sections on maternal and newborn health, child health, sexual and reproductive health, tuberculosis and malaria. Key readings on each topic have been chosen and prepared in collaboration with technical experts.  Each section covers statistical trends and indicators, programme approaches, access to services and information, health systems, and rights and advocacy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by Fahamu - learning for change \r\n\r\nhttp://www.fahamu.org/  \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter 47: January 2005: Who cares for health care workers?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Equinet Newsletter 47: January 2005: Who cares for health care workers? \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"European Parliament resolution on World AIDS Day ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\"The European Parliament ...Calls on the EU to continue to prioritise sexual and reproductive health issues through funding programmes on family planning, and in particular to influence sexual behaviour through risk-reduction strategies, to educate young people, and especially girls and young women, about STIs and HIV, and to encourage condom usage in combination with other contraceptive methods and combat any misinformation spread on the effectiveness of condoms...\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30736","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalization and Health","field_subtitle":"Edited by Richard Harris and Melinda Seid","field_url":"","body":"From a public health perspective, globalization appears to be a mixed blessing.  This international collection of essays on globalization and health examines the global health issues associated with the economic, technological, political, social, cultural and environmental effects of globalization-the increasing movement of capital, people, technology, goods, information, environmental pollution, and disease around the globe. Contact elich@brill.nl for more information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Guidelines for health workers involved in relief efforts","field_subtitle":"Asian Tsunami Disaster","field_url":"","body":"Health workers and others involved in relief efforts will find links to treatment guidelines and other medical and public health references for the prevention and treatment of diseases prevalent in the aftermath of floods and other disasters on our website www.healthnet.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health in the developing world: achieving the Millennium Development Goals","field_subtitle":"Bulletin of the World Health Organization (BLT), Volume 82, Number 12, December 2004, 891-970","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/82/12/en/947.pdf","body":"\"The Millennium Development Goals depend critically on scaling up public health investments in developing countries. As a matter of urgency, developing-country governments must present detailed investment plans that are sufficiently ambitious to meet the goals, and the plans must be inserted into existing donor processes. Donor countries must keep the promises they have often reiterated of increased assistance, which they can easily afford, to help improve health in the developing countries and ensure stability for the whole world.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health research equity in global health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC17024","body":"This statement, published by the Global Forum for Health Research, reports on its eighth annual meeting, held in Mexico City from 16-20 November 2004, which considered how health research could be used to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  Key points outlined in the statement include: (1) a call for renewed effort to close the 10/90 gap in health research by focusing on the diseases that affect the world's poor, essential for achieving the MDG poverty target; (2) the need to address more comprehensively the determinants of health, encompassing health policy and systems research, and the cross-cutting issues of poverty and equity; (3) the requirement to give more prominence to sexual and reproductive health and rights as central to the achievement of the MDGs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV-positive and pregnant in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4300","body":"As anti-AIDS drugs become available to more South Africans, a growing number of HIV-positive women are choosing to become pregnant in spite of their status. Although it is generally accepted that all women have the right to bear children, society finds it harder to accept when women living with the virus exercise that choice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving access to health information","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.inasp.info/health/globalreview","body":"A special issue of the INASP Newsletter is dedicated to the \"Global Review on Access to Health Information in Developing Countries\", a major initiative proposed by representatives of 20 leading health organisations worldwide.  The Review aims to assess progress over the last 10 years, lessons learned and ways forward to improve access to relevant healthcare information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of global database on health and human rights","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hhr/databases/actors/en/","body":"As part of basic building-blocks to develop a solid foundation for WHO's emerging work on health and human rights, a Global Database on Health and Human Rights Actors has just been launched on WHO Health and Human Rights website.  This database contains information gathered from a survey of organizations concerning their structures and programs.  It is searchable by country (where the organization is located) or by specific health issue. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi NGO breaks silence around HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4325","body":"In a small village in Kaswela in Karonga district in the northern region of Malawi, 35-year-old Lucy Banda has been critically ill for a year, and her neighbours suspect she is HIV-positive.  Despite numerous visits to the hospital, Banda shows no signs of improvement and spends most of her time lying on her mat, unable to talk or eat properly.  A community based NGO in the district, Chipulikano Orphan Care (COC), is trying to address the problem of caring for orphans and vulnerable children, as well as raising awareness about AIDS within families - traditionally a taboo subject.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Measures of the African brain drain","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-2-17.pdf","body":"Physician migration from poor countries to rich ones contributes to worldwide health workforce imbalances that may be detrimental to the health systems of source countries.  The migration of over 5000 doctors from sub-Saharan Africa to the USA has had a significantly negative effect on the doctor-to-population ratio of Africa.  The finding that the bulk of migration occurs from only a few countries and medical schools suggests policy interventions in only a few locations could be effective in stemming the brain drain.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Medical Database free to developing countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.tripdatabase.com/","body":"The TRIP Database allows users to rapidly and easily identify high quality medical literature from a wide range of sources.  The content of the TRIP Database is separated into a number of categories.  Content includes systematic reviews, CATs, and journal clubs.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Millions Saved: Proven Successes in Global Health","field_subtitle":"Center for Global Development","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/publications/MillionsSaved/","body":"A new book from the Center for Global Development documents the success of 17 large-scale efforts to improve health in developing countries, and highlights their lessons for today\u2019s global health challenges. From the eradication of polio in Latin America, to the elimination of measles in southern Africa, to HIV prevention in Thailand, this work provides clear evidence that large-scale success in health is possible. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Mozambique National AIDS council spent less than 40 percent of budget","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4307","body":"Mozambique's National Council for the Fight Against AIDS (CNCS) has spent less than 40 percent of the funds allocated to HIV/AIDS activities in the country in 2004. According to the local news agency, AIM, the CNCS had planned programmes costing US $17.7 million, but only $6.5 million was disbursed and used, leaving projects planned by civil society and the public sector in the lurch.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Organisations involved in Tsunami relief efforts","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"World Health Organization / Pan American Health and Education Foundation   \r\nwww.paho.org\r\n* Action Aid   \r\nwww.actionaid.org\r\n* American Friends Service Committee (AFSC Crisis Fund) \r\nwww.afsc.org\r\n* Care International \r\nwww.care.org\r\n* Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors Without Borders \r\nwww.msf.org  /   www.doctorswithoutborders.org\r\n* Red Cross and Red Crescent \r\nwww.ifrc.org \r\n* Salvation Army \r\nwww.salvationarmy.org\r\n* Save the Children   \r\nwww.savethechildren.org\r\n* Oxfam   \r\nwww.oxfam.org \r\n* United Nations Children's Fund, Unicef    \r\nwww.unicef.org\r\n* United Nations World Food Programme   \r\nwww.wfp.org\r\n* UN refugee agency, UNHCR   \r\nwww.unhcr.ch","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Overcoming the human resources crisis","field_subtitle":"Human Resources for Health 2004","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthtrust.org/report/Human_Resources_for_Health.pdf","body":"This report presents the findings and recommendations of the Joint Learning Initiative (JLI), an enterprise engaging more than 100 global health leaders in landscaping human resources for health and in identifying strategies to strengthen the workforce of health systems. The JLI was launched because the most critical factor driving health system performance, the health worker, was neglected and overlooked. At a time of opportunity to redress outstanding health challenges, there is a growing awareness that human resources rank consistently among the most important system barriers to progress. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Peoples\u2019 Health Assembly II and the Global Health Watch","field_subtitle":"Joint Call for Case Studies and Testimonies","field_url":"","body":"\"We are calling individuals and organisations \u2013 activists, communities, health workers and academics \u2013 from around the world to submit case studies and testimonies to be part of the process of the second Peoples\u2019 Health Assembly and the Global Health Watch report 2005. See below for more.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30755","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Potential for public-private drug research 'untapped'","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/dossiers/index.cfm?fuseaction=dossierreaditem&dossier=8&type=1&itemid=1798&language=1","body":"Wealthy governments trying to help develop drugs for poor counties have been slow to recognise the potential for public-private partnerships, according to the UK-based Pharmaceutical R&D Policy Group (PRPG). Since May 2004, the PRPG has been assessing different ways of funding drug development for 'neglected diseases' - such as malaria and sleeping sickness - that affect many people in poor countries but receive little attention from the global research community.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health, Ethics, and Equity","field_subtitle":"Sudhir Anand, Fabienne Peter, and Amartya Sen (eds.) ","field_url":"http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-927636-6","body":"This volume examines the foundations of health equity.  With contributions from philosophers, anthropologists, economists, and public-health specialists, it centers on five major themes: what is health equity?; health equity and its relation to social justice; health inequalities and responsibilities for health; ethical issues in health evaluation and prioritization; and anthropological perspectives on health equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Pushing the international health research agenda towards equity and effectiveness","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://lists.kabissa.org/lists/archives/public/pha-exchange/msg01793.html","body":"Despite substantial sums of money being devoted to health research, most of it does not benefit the health of poor people living in developing countries, a matter of concern to civil society networks, such as the People's Health Movement. Health research should play a more influential part in improving the health of poor people, not only through the distribution of knowledge, but also by answering questions, such as why health and healthcare inequities continue to grow despite greatly increased global wealth, enhanced knowledge, and more effective technologies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional meeting on community voice and agency","field_subtitle":"Call now closed","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=47_0_1_0_M6","body":"The EQUINET regional meeting on 'Community Voice and Agency in Health' is being held in co-operation with Centre for Health and Social Science Research (CHESSORE) Zambia and Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) Zimbabwe in Lusaka, Zambia, January 26-28 2005. \r\nThe meeting will involve researchers and practitioners working on community participation and involvement in health. The regional meeting will \r\n* Discuss and exchange evidence and experience on the impacts of community participation and joint community- health service structures on the performance of health systems \r\n* Identify areas for follow up research, training and policy review to strengthen mechanisms for effective community involvement in health systems and for increased responsiveness of health services to community priorities and needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Rich country tsunami response 'pathetic'","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=368","body":"The initial response by the world's richest countries to the earthquake and tidal wave disaster in Southern Asia has been pathetic.  While many of these countries have poured billions into invading and bringing misery to the people of Iraq, they cannot seem to find anywhere near enough money to seriously help the mainly poor people who have been made destitute by this natural disaster, according to this article on the website of the Socialist Alliance.\r\nRelated Link:\r\n* Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Nuclear Testing\r\nhttp://www.counterpunch.org/rajiva12302004.html","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Rising child deaths illustrate Southern Africa health crisis","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=44834","body":"When Dr Keith Bolton treated children in the 1990s, the death of a patient was still relatively infrequent. As head of child health at South Africa's Coronation Hospital in Johannesburg, Bolton saw an average of one child die each week.  Now, Bolton and his colleagues see one child die every day. \"In the past, death was an uncommon event in children, especially after the newborn period,\" said Bolton. \"Now we've seen a complete reversal of the gains we made in the 1960s, '70s and '80s.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SA NGO launches countrywide monitoring of ARV rollout","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4320","body":"A new project by the South African NGO, Health Systems Trust (HST), will enable communities across the country to provide feedback on progress in the rollout of free anti-AIDS medication. HST, based in the east-coast city of Durban, is developing a monitoring and evaluation tool to screen communities' access to free antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, and will also provide technical assistance in lobbying provincial and national government. The national treatment programme has come under fire from activists over the slow pace of delivery and problems with the procurement of ARVs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Scaling up ARV treatment in Malawi","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC16638","body":"This International Food Policy Research Institute (IPFRI) discussion paper examines the scaling-up of the STEPS initiative (Scaling Up HIV/AIDS Interventions Through Expanded Partnerships) in Malawi, and the factors which interfere with this process.  Topics explored in this paper include: Malawi's national response to HIV/AIDS; the pilot project and the development of the community mobilisation model (formerly known as COPE); the scaling up and progress of STEPS; and factors that effect the scaling up process, including the catalysts, institutional arrangements, and organisational capacities.  The paper also looks at community-level factors and financing, as well as threats to scaling up, including HIV/AIDS and the ongoing food crisis in the context of widespread and deep poverty, and underdevelopment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Scaling up ARV treatment: A toolkit","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC16956","body":"This toolkit from the World Health Organisation addresses the fact that lack of access to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment has perpetuated HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination in many countries. Increasing the availability and accessibility of ARV treatment will significantly reduce stigma and discrimination against HIV/AIDS patients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern Africa must prepare for recurring drought, report says","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=44828","body":"Southern Africa should prepare itself for recurring drought, likely to strike at least twice every decade, says a new report. The report, 'Anticipating and Responding to Drought and Emergencies in Southern Africa', was prepared for the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and noted that the region could experience a recurrence of the devastating drought of 2002/03, which resulted in a food deficit of 3.3 million mt. While the general regional situation shows some hopeful signs, the report noted the concerns of some policy experts that many households have become more vulnerable to shocks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tools for researchers engaged in policy impact","field_subtitle":"Research and Policy in Development (RAPID) Programme, Overseas Development Institute 2004","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/RAPID/Publications/Documents/Tools_handbook_final_web.pdf","body":"\u201c\u2026.The number of think tanks worldwide has expanded rapidly over the last two decades as government becomes more receptive to evidence-based policy solutions and seeks new solutions in rapidly changing political environments.  What they all have in common is a wish to capture the political imagination; they aim to use their insight to have political impact.  This handbook addresses various factors that need to be considered in this process, and provides a comprehensive selection of tools that can be used when attempting to turn research into policy influence\u2026\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Underpaid African Health Workers Flee the Frontline","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200412010552.html","body":"Small antiretroviral drug programmes are beginning to take shape in some of the worst affected countries in Africa. But as the drugs flow in, the medical personnel needed to administer them are being lured away by the rich countries that talk loudly about finding a solution to Africa's AIDS crisis and whose companies provided the drugs. WHO estimates that only 750000 health workers are available to care for 682-million people in sub-Saharan Africa, which has more than 25-million people infected with HIV, or 60% of the global total. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Call for Expressions of Interest: Monitoring and Evaluation","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In order to contribute to improved global treatment preparedness in countries and communities, WHO has established the Preparing for Treatment Program (PTP), based in the Department of HIV/AIDS at WHO headquarters in Geneva. To the extent possible, resources available through the PTP will be provided to partner organizations that have expertise and are currently engaged in or have capacity to undertake treatment preparedness activities.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30753","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Who cares for Health Care Workers?","field_subtitle":"South African Municipal Workers Union, Municipal Services Project and Industrial Health Research Group","field_url":"","body":"Following the 1994 elections in South Africa, the new ANC government committed itself to the development of a District Health System that would meet the health needs of local communities and allow for grassroots input into the management of primary health care. Ten years later, there is still indecision and confusion surrounding the governance and financing of primary health care delivery and it is not clear which authorities will take leading responsibility for administering the district health services. \r\n\r\nMunicipal health workers together with their provincial counterparts and community health workers stand in the front line of delivering primary health care to the majority of South Africans. The  SAMWU/MSP/IHRG National Survey into the State of Occupational Health and Safety in the Municipal Health Clinics asks \u201cWho cares for health care workers?\u201d While the health care profession embraces important ethics of service and sacrifice in meeting the health needs of the public, our research points to neglect of the health and well-being of health care workers themselves. \r\n\r\nWe found little taking place to identify hazards, evaluate risks, prevent workplace injury and illness and ensure that the conditions in which health workers care for others allows them to care also for themselves. Even where measures are provided, there is little employee involvement in shaping these health and safety practices.\r\n\r\nWe found that probably the biggest health and safety hazard facing health care workers in the public health sector in South Africa is the shortage of staff. Growing queues of patients lead to stress, burnout and increase the risk of accidental injury. Lack of facilities, equipment, and medicines further frustrate clinic staff and add to tensions between staff and the communities. \r\n\r\nThis situation is not simply a management problem- it is also reinforced and reproduced by health workers themselves.  The inclination of the majority of health workers to accept appalling working conditions, to isolate themselves, and to individualise their workplace traumas, stress and exhaustion, presents an enormous challenge to SAMWU and other unions organising in the public health sector.\r\n\r\nWe intend to shape an alternative to that neglect. As activist investigators, we are challenging the silence and neglect that characterises work in the health sector.  This starts with our research activity  - asking questions; identifying workplace hazards; documenting case studies of workplace injury and illness; interviewing management and workers in the clinics; sharing stories of needle-prick incidents; interrogating policy and protocols; challenging employers\u2019 non-compliance; discovering rights and responsibilities; and examining the extent of effective representation and functioning of health and safety committees.   \r\n\r\n* This briefing is edited by the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC. Please send  feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing  to Nick Henwood, IHRG at  ihnick@ihrg.uct.ac.za or to the EQUINET secretariat email admin@equinetafrica.org . \r\n\r\n* The research report cited will be available  in late January as a downloadable pdf file from the Municipal Services Project website (http://www.queensu.ca/msp/) or from the EQUINET  website at www.equinetafrica.org   ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2005-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"**Call for participants and abstracts","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Equinet Regional Meeting On Participation And Governance In Health, Zambia, January 26-28 2004: Call Closes On December 5 2004 \r\n\r\nThis call invites applicants to participate in and present work at the EQUINET regional meeting on participation and Governance in Health being held in co-operation with Centre for Health and Social Science Research (CHESSORE) Zambia and Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) Zimbabwe in Lusaka, Zambia, January 26-28 2004.\r\n\r\nThe call:\r\n\r\nEQUINET invites researchers and practitioners working on community participation and governance in health to participate in a regional meeting to\r\n- Discuss and exchange evidence and experience on the impacts of community participation and joint community- health service structures on the performance of health systems\r\n- Identify areas for follow up research, training and policy review to strengthen mechanisms for effective community involvement in health systems and for increased responsiveness of health services to community priorities and needs.\r\n\r\nWe invite interested organisations and individuals to submit an application to participate with information on their work and role in this area (see below).  Applicants can also apply for EQUINET sponsorship to the meeting (see below).  Applications need to be sent to the EQUINET secretariat by December 5 2004.\r\n\r\nThe programme:\r\n\r\nThe Regional Network on Equity and Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) (www.equinetafrica.org) has noted that equity related work needs to define and build a more active role for important stakeholders in health, and to incorporate the power and ability people (and social groups) have to make choices over health inputs and their capacity to use these choices towards health.  To do this requires a clearer analysis of the social dimensions of health and their role in health equity, i.e.  the role of social networking and exclusion, of the forms and levels of participation and of how governance systems distribute power and authority over the resources needed for health.  To understand these factors, EQUINET has been carrying out research work to evaluate the current and desired forms of participation within health systems in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania amongst other Southern African countries.  This work has been co-ordinated by CHESSORE Zambia and TARSC Zimbabwe.\r\n\r\nThe multicountry programme explored the functioning of district and clinic level structures (neighbourhood and health centre committees and district health boards) for community participation in terms of whether they i.  represent the interests of communities ii.  have any role in health system performance and resource allocation iii.  include community preferences in health planning and resource allocation iv.  improve equity in resource allocation v.  improve health system performance, especially in relation to equity The field studies and literature review in this programme explored outcomes in these areas, and how these outcomes were influenced by the functioning of these joint community- health service structures and deeper underlying determinants, including their legal status, authority and mandate.\r\n\r\nThe regional meeting:\r\n\r\nThe EQUINET/ CHESSORE/ TARSC regional meeting will be held in Lusaka, Zambia 26-28 January 2005 and will review the results of the multicountry programme and of other experiences in the region of joint health service and community structures for community participation in health, particularly in terms of their effectiveness representing community interests, and in improving the equity, relevance and quality of health systems.  The meeting aims to share experience over a 3 day period from individuals and organisations working in east and southern Africa, and to use this to identify a follow-up programme of training, research and policy review in the region.  EQUINET also propose to produce a book on participation, governance, equity and health in 2005 and will invite submissions from presentations to the regional meeting.\r\n\r\nCall for participation and applications:\r\n\r\nInterested applicants should submit a 1-2 page \u2018expression of interest\u2019 that outlines\r\n- a title that summarises their work in this area\r\n- an abstract of the research question, methods and key findings in this area OR a summary of the work they are doing in this area, that they would want to present at the meeting\r\n- a personal CV,\r\n- brief information on the institution that they work in, and\r\n- a sample document written by the applicant on any relevant theme.\r\n- An indication of whether they are self sponsored or whether they need sponsorship for travel, or accommodation,.  or both \r\n\r\nApplicants should submit this information by 5th December 2004 to the EQUINET secretariat admin@equinetafrica.org / Fax 263-4-737 220 and copy it to rene@tarsc.org and chessore@zamnet.zm \r\n\r\nApplicants will be informed by 17th December 2004 on the outcome of their submission, including sponsorship and of the logistic details for the meeting.  Participants of existing EQUINET programmes are welcome to apply.\r\n\r\nFocal points for queries on this programme are Dr TJ Ngulube at the Centre for Health and Social Science Research Zambia and Dr R Loewenson (TARSC).  Please send queries through admin@equinetafrica.org)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"A report card on sexual health and rights","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC16402","body":"This report from Population Action International examines progress made towards achieving the goal of reproductive health and rights for all by 2015, agreed at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). Key achievements include a significant increase in contraceptive use, and higher secondary school enrolment rates among girls. However, significant challenges remain, notably: high unmet need for effective contraception and protection from HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs); continuing high levels of maternal mortality; high rates of unsafe abortion; and an acute and growing resource shortfall, with many clinics experiencing stockouts (zero supplies) of contraceptives, safe motherhood kits and other reproductive health essentials.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Aids epidemic update 2004","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/wad2004/EPIupdate2004_html_en/epi04_00_en.htm","body":"The annual AIDS epidemic update reports on the latest developments in the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. With maps and regional summaries, the 2004 edition provides the most recent estimates of the epidemic\u2019s scope and human toll, explores new trends in the epidemic\u2019s evolution, and features a special section on women and AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Analysing TB and poverty","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC16756&Resource=f1health","body":"While tuberculosis (TB) is not exclusively a disease of the poor, the association between poverty and TB is well established and widespread.  Globally, the highest burden of TB is found in poor countries.  Seventeen of the 22 countries that account for 80 per cent of the world\u2019s TB burden are classified as low income and within countries the prevalence of TB is higher among the poor.  This paper, produced by the EQUI-TB Knowledge Programme, analyses the existing evidence that TB causes or worsens poverty and that TB control (or elements of TB control) benefits the poor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Barriers to better care for people with AIDS in developing countries ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/extract/329/7477/1281","body":"Access to good quality antiretroviral treatment has transformed the prognosis for people with AIDS in the developed world.  Although it is feasible and desirable to deliver antiretroviral drugs in resource poor settings, few of the 95% of people with HIV and AIDS who live in developing countries receive them.  The World Health Organization has launched a programme to deliver antiretroviral drugs to three million people with AIDS in the developing world by 2005, the \"3 by 5\" initiative.  This article identifies some of the challenges faced by the initiative, focusing on delivery of care. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Book to mobilise politicians to fight HIV/AIDS in Lesotho","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4190","body":"In an effort to mobilise leaders to fight HIV/AIDS, the parliament of Lesotho and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) have launched a publication called \"What Parliamentarians can do about HIV/AIDS Action for Children and Young People\". The publication provides parliamentarians with guidelines for responding to the challenge of protecting children and young people through laws, policies, advocacy, education and providing these vulnerable groups with tools to empower them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Building capacities and knowledge for health sensitive trade policy in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Call Closes On January 7 2005\r\n\r\nThis call invites applicants to participate in the EQUINET programme on trade and health being held in co-operation with the Southern and East African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute  (SEATINI) and with the EQUINET Secretariat  (Training and Research Support Centre)\r\n\r\nThe call:\r\n\r\nEQUINET invites middle to senior policymakers, academics and civil society members working in areas of trade and / or health from countries in East and Southern Africa to participate in a capacity building and research programme on trade and health, i.e. to\r\n-\tParticipate in country-level training on trade and health to be held between January and March 2005\r\n-\tIn country level teams, to undertake and report on national assessments of trade and health, supported by technical and financial resources, between March and June 2005\r\n-\tReview the country level assessments at a regional meeting in mid 2005 \r\n-\tMake recommendations on follow up of the programme \r\n\r\nInitial countries will be selected on the basis of a critical mass of interested people from across both trade and health disciplines and from state, academia and civil society.  \r\n\r\nThe programme \r\n\r\nSouthern African countries developing equity-oriented policies face significant external pressures. Globalisation has deepened the liberalisation trends initiated by the structural adjustment programmes, while WTO agreements have   extended trade liberalisation to significant new areas, including trade in services, trade related investments and intellectual property rights. As a result of these intrusions, governments enjoy less policy flexibility to pursue pro-equity goals and to regulate in the public interest.  Commercialisation of health systems, exacerbated under the WTO TRIPS and GATS agreements undermines: access to care; access to essential drugs and medical technology; cross-subsidy from the wealthy to the poor; cost-containment measures in both the public sector and to users; retention of skilled health workers in public facilities and; the regulation of the private sector to promote equity.  Instead of the health system becoming a vehicle for social cohesion, solidarity and equity, it runs the risk of reinforcing existing social, economic and health inequalities.\r\n\r\nNew agreements such as the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) do provide limited space for countries to act in interests such as public health. They demand significant institutional resources and capabilities to identify and take advantage of those spaces. These resources are not always available to individual countries in the south. Regional co-operation, such as at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) level, is important for responding to these global pressures. It offers a strategic platform for countries to reinforce their bargaining power, co-ordinate their efforts and provide regional solutions to challenges faced. \r\n\r\nTo support regional responses, EQUINET aims to build proactive capacity in the region to understand, assess the health consequences of and respond to these agreements.  EQUINET has with its partners in the region proposed options for using TRIPS flexibilities, for protecting national authorities and public health systems under and from the GATS and for resisting the commercialisation of health services.   EQUINET advocates for government authority to regulate trade in areas where this is needed to deliver on obligations to protect the right to health and for the protection of public over commercial interests in health.   \r\n\r\nWith support from IDRC and SIDA and through the Centre for Health Policy (Wits University) and SEATINI, EQUINET is implementing a programme of work and capacity development in the field of trade and health that seeks to:\r\n-\tPilot a training programme and materials on trade and health systems for countries in Southern and East Africa\r\n-\tProvide technical and resource support for country level teams to carry out national assessments, identify options for promoting health systems and equity goals within current trade and investment policies and agreements and identify areas for follow up work, policy review and negotiation. \r\n\r\nThe programme will \r\n-\tCarry out country-level training workshops on trade and health between February and March 2005\r\n-\tSupport country level teams to undertake and report on national assessments of trade and health with mentoring from SEATINI and CHP between March and June 2005\r\n-\tReview the country level assessments at a regional meeting of the country teams to be held in mid 2005 to identify options for promoting health systems and equity goals within current trade and investment policies and agreements and identify areas for follow up work, policy review and negotiation, together with relevant stakeholders and expertise. \r\n-\tMake recommendations on follow up training, on widening the programme and on specific areas for research and follow up work.  \r\n\r\nCall for participation and applications:\r\n\r\nInterested applicants should submit a 1-2 page \u2018expression of interest\u2019 that provides \r\n-\ta personal CV,  \r\n-\tbrief information on the institution that they work in, and their position in the institution. \r\n\r\nPlease send applications to the EQUINET secretariat (admin@equinetafrica.org)/ Fax 263-4-737 220) and the programme co-ordinators (riazt@iafrica.com and haroon.wadee@nhls.ac.za)  by January 7th 2005.\r\n\r\nApplicants will be informed by mid-January 2005 on the outcome of their submission, including sponsorship and of the logistic follow up.  Participants of existing EQUINET programmes are welcome to apply. \r\n\r\nThe focal points for queries on this programme are Riaz Tayob,  SEATINI (riazt@iafrica.com) and  Haroon Wadee, Centre for Health Policy, Wits University   (haroon.wadee@nhls.ac.za or haroonwadee@hotmail.com). ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Call to initiate HIV/AIDS worker protection plans","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4162","body":"Unless sub-Saharan African countries initiate workplace anti-AIDS programmes, the pandemic will decimate the region's human resource capacity, experts warned in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, in November. \"African companies already find it difficult to compete in global markets,\" Ghana's presidential advisor on HIV/AIDS, Professor Fred Sai, told the fourth interactive meeting of the UN Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa (CHGA).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Cheaper Medicines for AIDS Welcomed","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26090","body":"A leading development group has welcomed EU proposals to allow export of cheap medicines to poor countries fighting HIV/AIDS and other killer diseases. Under a system to be known as 'compulsory licensing', poor countries facing public health crises will be able to override patents on expensive drugs and order cheaper copies from generic manufacturers in other countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Child AIDS research 'critical' for regional development in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4193","body":"The South African social services and population development minister, Zola Skweyiya, has said research into the effect of HIV/AIDS on children is critical for the region's future development. Skweyiya told his southern African counterparts at a recent meeting in Cape Town that the virus was devastating communities and families, and aggravating poverty by killing society's most productive members. According to the South African Press association, he urged that the pandemic be tackled \"more vigorously, in an integrated manner\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Classifying human resources constraints to attaining health-related Millennium Development Goals","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC16048&resource=healthsystems","body":"This study explores the constraints related to human resources in the health (HRH) sector to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in low-income countries. The author finds that, at an individual level, the decision to enter, remain and serve in the health sector workforce is influenced by a series of social, economic, cultural and gender-related determinants. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Effectiveness of District Health Boards in interceding for the community","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=513","body":"The overall objective of the study was to assess the effectiveness of health governance structures in enhancing equity of access and community participation in the delivery of health care services in Zambia.  The specific objectives were to: (i) describe the status of health governance structures in Zambia; (ii) examine the linkages between the health governance structures and community; (iii) asses how the health governance structures represent and respond to community inters and needs; (iv) determine the extent to which the community is involved in the planning of health care services and resource allocation and (v) propose option for enhancing equity of access and community participation in the delivery of health care services.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by Fahamu - learning for change \r\n\r\nhttp://www.fahamu.org/  \r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa \r\n\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\nWebsite: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  \r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.  \r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\nor send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter 46: December 2004: Building capacities and knowledge for health sensitive trade policy in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Equinet Newsletter 46: December 2004: Building capacities and knowledge for health sensitive trade policy in Southern Africa\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  \r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/  \r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity and access to HIV/AIDS treatment: getting the balance right in southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h5dm4g1.html","body":"All people with HIV/AIDS should have equal opportunity to access effective and appropriate treatment.  However, in the context of existing social and health inequities, widespread poverty, high rates of new HIV infections, famine and budgetary constraints, increasing access to HIV care and treatment must be organised in a manner that balances HIV prevention and treatment efforts; HIV interventions and the broader strengthening of the health system as a whole; and HIV care and treatment with other public health and social needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Fighting HIV/AIDS in Namibia","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4179","body":"A giant bright yellow condom was the centre of attraction in Namibia's capital, Windhoek, in November. Namibian civil society organisations - united in the fight against HIV/AIDS - had kicked off a series of activities in the run-up to World AIDS Day on 1 December. \"By December 2003 over 100,000 HIV/AIDS cases were [officially] reported in Namibia,\" deputy health minister Dr Richard Kamwi told the crowd assembled around the condom. \"Although these figures are extreme, it should be noted that it is only the tip of the iceberg.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health-related public-private partnerships and the United Nations","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC16730&resource=healthsystems","body":"This brief examines the policy implications of increased activity between the UN and the corporate sector, specifically focusing on the increased collaboration between the corporate sector and the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and UNFPA.  The brief also explores the major global health-related public-private partnerships (GHPPPs) which operate primarily outside the UN, such as the Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunisation (GAVI).  The brief concludes that, although guidelines and procedures to address public-private interactions (PPIs) have been developed within UN agencies, they are inadequate to ensure UN integrity.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalization and Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/","body":"Globalization and Health is an Open Access, peer-reviewed, online journal soon to be launched by BioMed Central.  Globalization and Health will encompass all aspects of globalization and its effects on public health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health worker scarcity in AIDS-ridden countries highlighted","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=4181","body":"A new study to be published in the Lancet has, for the first time, quantified the dangerous scarcity of healthcare workers in countries with climbing rates of HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. The report, 'Human Resources for Health: Overcoming the Crisis', says health workers from developing countries are lured by better salaries and safer working conditions in urban areas or richer countries, creating the so-called \"brain-drain\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Learning from failed health reform in Uganda","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7475/1173","body":"Health reforms based on market principles have been introduced widely in both developed and developing countries over the past 20 years.  In developing countries, international donors have insisted on health reform as a precondition of providing external aid.  The reform packages that have been introduced have been strikingly similar across countries as wide apart as Uganda, Bolivia, and Russia.  Uganda embarked on market based health reforms in 1994.  These reforms have not only failed to improve health services and the health of the population but have arguably been the key factor behind their deterioration.  What can we learn from Uganda's experience?  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Malaria and the cost effectiveness of intervention","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ajtmh.org/cgi/content/full/71/2_suppl/136","body":"Attempts to quantify the epidemiologic and economic burden of malaria have so far neglected to specifically address the burden of epidemic malaria.  Moreover, the data on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of interventions in epidemics is extremely limited.  Using the limited data available, we estimate that in Africa, there are more than 12 million malaria episodes and 155,000\u2013310,000 malaria deaths per year.  The possible economic impact of malaria epidemics is described in this paper and the limited evidence on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of interventions in areas of low or seasonal transmission is reviewed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring equity and health systems in Aids treatment rollout","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=46_0_1_0_M6","body":"In October 2004, EQUINET and the Equi-TB programme Malawi hosted a regional meeting in Lilongwe Malawi to review options for monitoring equity and health systems issues in the current programmes to expand treatment access in the region. The meeting gathered government, academic, civil society, international and UN agencies and regional organisations from the SADC region. It aimed to propose a framework and follow up work to strengthen the monitoring of equity and health system issues in ART rollout at national and regional level. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring Financial Flows for Health Research","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/pages/index.asp","body":"Annual global spending on health research has more than tripled in a period of 10 years rising to just under US$106 billion from US$30 billion.  Despite this sharp growth, the \"10/90 gap\" persists.  This study of financial flows for Health Research by the Global Forum for Health Research is presented as a contribution to answering the questions on how the world's health research resources are being used.  Important gaps will be exposed and action galvanized to close them - namely, by leveraging global health research in a way that genuinely improves global health, i.e.  the health of the many - the 90 per cent - not just the few.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring the response to antiretroviral therapy in resource-poor settings","field_subtitle":"The Malawi model ","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B75GP-4DDR70X-5/2/1820dd65932494c7b6d0caf16204b208","body":"With assistance from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), Malawi is scaling-up the delivery of antiretroviral (ARV) therapy to HIV-positive eligible patients.  The country has developed National ARV Treatment Guidelines, which emphasize a structured and standardized approach for all aspects of ARV delivery, including monitoring and evaluation.  This paper describes the standardized ARV treatment regimens and the treatment outcomes to assess the impact of treatment, the registration and monitoring systems and how the cohort analyses are carried out.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Multi-drug resistant malaria swiftly on the rise ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h4at1g1.html","body":"Africa is facing a public health disaster in the form of multi-drug resistant malaria. People infected with malaria in eastern, central and southern Africa are rapidly becoming resistant to one of the most affordable and commonly used anti-malaria drugs, sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP). Previously, a number of safe and cheap drugs including SP have kept down the number of deaths and people suffering from severe ill health caused by malaria. But there are ominous predictions that disaster looms \u2013 unless governments are willing to reconsider their treatment regime.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New faculty staff required","field_subtitle":"Department of International Health at Boston University ","field_url":"","body":"The Department of International Health at Boston University is looking for new faculty with expertise in the following areas:\r\n1.  Practical experience with clinical and management issues at the primary care/district level of the health care system in developing countries.\r\n2.  Health finance, management and economics.\r\n3 .Screening and treatment of non-communicable diseases in low resource settings.\r\n4.  Pharmaceutical management and policy.\r\n5.  Health policy, including the identification and analysis of policy options and the development of support for new policies.  Health planning (including manpower) could be the focus of the policy person.\r\n6.  Experience with health reform especially if the person had a focus in the Former Soviet Union and/or Eastern Europe.  A speaking knowledge of Russian would be helpful.\r\nAnyone interested in further information or in applying should contact John Douglas at johnd@bu.edu or \r\nSusan Foster at sfoster@bu.edu \r\n\r\nhttp://www.bumc.bu.edu/ih","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"New publication on health policy and systems research","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, an initiative of the Global Forum for Health Research in collaboration with the World Health Organization, has just published its first biennial review of the emerging field of health policy and systems research. The central concern of this book is how knowledge of health systems can be significantly increased and effectively applied to improve the health of the worst-off of the world's population. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30704","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"New WHO report calls for a new and innovative approach to health systems research","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2004/pr78/en/","body":"Health systems research has the potential to produce dramatic improvements in health worldwide and to meet some of the major development challenges in the new millennium.  Effective research could prevent half of the world's deaths with simple and cost-effective interventions, the World Health Organization (WHO) says in a new World Report on global health research. The WHO World Report on Knowledge for Better Health: Strengthening Health Systems highlights aspects of health research that, if managed more effectively, could produce even more benefits for public health in future.  It sets out the strategies that are needed to reduce global disparities in health by strengthening health systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor Nations Falling Short of UN Health Goals, World Bank Says ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=aIDFOakptgBU&refer=latin_america","body":"Developing countries are falling short of a United Nations goal of reducing child mortality rates by 2015 because of doctor shortages, failure to improve health- care services, and inconsistent funding, the World Bank said. No country in sub-Saharan Africa has made progress in cutting the number of deaths of children under the age of five from preventable illness since the UN issued its 2002 mandate to reduce mortality by two-thirds. More than 11 million young children died that year, with 42 percent in sub-Saharan Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty and social factors in relation to malaria, TB and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC16751&Resource=f1health","body":"This review assesses the various factors that affect vulnerability to malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS infection and disease at the individual and household levels. Produced by The Lancet, it examines in particular the influence that age, sex, and genetics have on the biological response to the three diseases and looks at what effect the three illnesses have on each other. In addition, it explores the impact of poverty, livelihoods, gender discrepancies and education on all three infections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public sector reform and demand for human resources for health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/2/1/15/abstract","body":"This article from the journal Human Resources for Health considers some of the effects of health sector reform on human resources for health (HRH) in developing countries and countries in transition by examining the effect of fiscal reform and the introduction of decentralisation and market mechanisms to the health sector.  The introduction of market mechanisms often involves the formation of an internal market within the health sector and market testing of different functions with the private sector.  This has immediate implications for the employment of health workers in the public sector, because the public sector may reduce its workforce if services are purchased from other sectors or may introduce more short-term and temporary employment contracts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Rural and remote health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://rrh.deakin.edu.au/home/defaultnew.asp","body":"Rural and Remote Health, the international, electronic Journal of Rural and Remote Health education, practice and policy is an initiative of the Greater Green Triangle University Department of Rural Health, located in south-eastern Australia.  The Journal's aim is to provide an easily accessible, peer-reviewed, international evidence-base to inform improvement in health service delivery and health status in rural communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategic Communication in the HIV/AIDS Epidemic","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sagepub.com/book.aspx?pid=10046","body":"This book promotes the use of strategic communication to fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Focusing on strategic communication for positive and measurable behaviour change, the authors elaborate on a wide range of issues including: the importance of advocacy and community mobilization; comprehensive approaches to prevention and the use of communication in reducing stigma; communication programmes for a wide range of specific groups including intravenous drug users and refugees; the role of communication in support of clinical and social services; the care and support of vulnerable children; and selected communication approaches such as entertainment-education, telephone hotlines and digital communication.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The case for a broad social movement for peoples health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Along with millions of others, health workers celebrated South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994 as the first step in rolling back the devastating inequity of an apartheid era health system.  At last the health needs of the whole population would be addressed with the advent of representative government and the anticipated \u201cpeoples\u201d health system.  An impressive array of health policies and plans were designed to reduce inequities and improve the health of all South Africans.  Health activists and struggle veterans were in consensus that a single, unified National Health Service based on a comprehensive Primary Health Care approach would be the key to this transformation.  Despite one of the most progressive constitutions on the planet and a strong rhetorical commitment to addressing the health needs of the poor, implementation has been slow.  The huge effort put into reshaping the \u201carchitecture\u201d of the health system has not translated into real health gain for all South Africans.  Many of the poorest still find themselves marginalized and neglected, just as they were in pre-democratic South Africa.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30700","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The potential impact of US-SACU FTA negotiations on public health in southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.tralac.org/scripts/content.php?id=3114","body":"This Working Paper was written by Tenu Avafia, a tralac researcher, and examines the potential impact of the proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between SACU and the United States from the perspective of public health.  Avafia examines the ongoing negotiations and expresses concerns about the possible impact of the FTA on public health in the SACU region, particularly, the impact that the proposed FTA is likely to have on the ability of SACU countries to source the most affordable essential medicines required to address urgent public health concerns.  Avafia goes on to say that it would be imprudent to enter into a bilateral agreement that contains less favourable provisions on essential medicines than those found in the multilateral arena such as the Doha Declaration on TRIPs and Public Health and the WTO General Council Decision of 30 August 2003.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Using Human Rights to Combat the HIV/AIDS Pandemic","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.abanet.org/irr/hr/fall04/pandemic.htm","body":"The HIV/AIDS pandemic presents a stark example of the nexus between human rights and health. This first became evident when government responses to HIV/AIDS subjected people living with the disease to violations of their rights to liberty, privacy, freedom of association, nondiscrimination, and equality before the law. As the pandemic has progressed, it has become apparent that human rights law is relevant not only to the treatment of infected individuals but also to wider policies that influence vulnerability to HIV/AIDS, as populations that are discriminated against, marginalized, and stigmatized are at a greater risk of contracting the disease. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"We the Peoples 2005 Survey","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://websurveyor.net/wsb.dll/18424/nsi.htm?renderlang=eng","body":"\"We invite your collaboration in the We the Peoples 2005 Survey.  We the Peoples is an annual survey which analyses and reports on civil society activities, achievements and views regarding the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). 2005 promises to be a year of opportunity.  In September, a summit-session of the United Nations General Assembly will review progress since the Millennium Declaration of 2000.  In July, the G-7 will meet in the UK.  Around the world national coalitions are seeking to hold their governments to account for promises made.  An international \"Call to Action\" Campaign is mobilizing civil society to press for accountability and significant progress on aid, debt cancellation and trade justice.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"World Aids Day: The clock is still ticking","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"AIDS. It killed roughly 3 million people last year, most of them poor, and most of them in Africa. Between 34 and 42 million people are living with HIV. Absent antiretroviral therapies, AIDS will have killed the vast majority of them by 2015. In such a world, time can seem a luxury, and the rigours of critical enquiry an indulgence. We need things done now, yesterday, last year. Indeed, an overdue sense of urgency has taken hold in the past five years - much of it thanks to relentless AIDS advocacy efforts. Along with sets of received wisdoms, a more or less standardized framework for understanding the epidemic and its effects has evolved, and a lexicon for expressing this knowledge has been established. All this has helped put and keep AIDS in the spotlight. It has popularized knowledge of the epidemic, countered the earlier sense of paralysis or denial, helped marshal billions of dollars in funding and goad dozens of foot-dragging countries into action. It has worked wonders. But alongside these achievements are some troubling trends.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30728","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"World Report on Knowledge for Better Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/rpc/meetings/pub1/en/","body":"The Report focuses on bridging of the \"know do\" gap, the gulf between what we know and what we do in practice, between scientific potential and health realization.  The bridging of this gap is central to achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDG\u2019s) by 2015.  The gap exists for each of the MDG\u2019s and represents a fundamental and pragmatic knowledge translation challenge that must be addressed to strengthen health systems performance towards achieving the MDG\u2019s.  The Report will expound the message that we must turn scientific knowledge into actions, which improves people\u2019s health, and that health improvement through knowledge applications is a critical factor in human development and alleviation of ill-health and poverty worldwide.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"**Call for participants and abstracts","field_subtitle":"Equinet Regional Meeting on Participation and Governance in Health, Zambia, January 26-28 2004: Call Closes On December 5 2004","field_url":"","body":"This call invites applicants to participate in and present work at the EQUINET regional meeting on participation and Governance in Health being held in co-operation with Centre for Health and Social Science Research (CHESSORE) Zambia and Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) Zimbabwe in Lusaka, Zambia, January 26-28 2004. \r\n\r\nThe call:\r\n\r\nEQUINET invites researchers and practitioners  working on community participation and governance in health to participate in a regional meeting to \r\n-\tDiscuss and exchange evidence and experience on the impacts of community participation and joint community- health service structures on the performance of health systems \r\n-\tIdentify areas for follow up research, training and policy review to strengthen mechanisms for effective community involvement in health systems and for increased responsiveness of health services to community priorities and needs. \r\n\r\nWe invite interested organisations and individuals to submit an application to participate with information on their work and role in this area (see below). Applicants can also apply for EQUINET sponsorship to the meeting (see below).  Applications need to be sent to the EQUINET secretariat by December 5 2004. \r\n\r\nThe programme:\r\n\r\nThe Regional Network on Equity and Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) (www.equinetafrica.org) has noted that equity related work needs to define and build a more active role for important stakeholders in health, and to incorporate the power and ability people (and social groups) have to make choices over health inputs and their capacity to use these choices towards health. To do this requires a clearer analysis of the social dimensions of health and their role in health equity, i.e. the role of social networking and exclusion, of the forms and levels of participation and of how governance systems distribute power and authority over the resources needed for health. To understand these factors, EQUINET has been carrying out research work to evaluate the current and desired forms of participation within health systems in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania amongst other Southern African countries.  This work has been co-ordinated by CHESSORE Zambia and TARSC Zimbabwe. \r\n\r\nThe multicountry programme explored the functioning of district and clinic level structures (neighbourhood and health centre committees and district health boards) for community participation in terms of whether they  \r\ni.\trepresent the interests of communities \r\nii.\thave any role in health system performance and resource allocation\r\niii.\tinclude community preferences in health planning and resource allocation\r\niv.\timprove equity in resource allocation\r\nv.\timprove health system performance, especially in relation to equity \r\n\r\nThe field studies and literature review in this programme explored outcomes in these areas, and how these outcomes were influenced by the functioning of these joint  community- health service structures and deeper underlying determinants, including their legal status, authority and mandate.  \r\n\r\nThe regional meeting:\r\n \r\nThe EQUINET/ CHESSORE/ TARSC regional meeting will be held in Lusaka,  Zambia 26-28 January 2005 and will review the results of the multicountry programme and of other experiences in the region of  joint health service and community structures for community participation in health,  particularly in  terms of their effectiveness representing  community interests,  and in improving the equity, relevance and quality of  health systems.    The meeting aims to share experience over a 3 day period from individuals and organisations working in east and southern Africa, and to use this to identify a follow-up programme of training, research and policy review in the region. EQUINET also propose to produce a book on participation, governance, equity and health in 2005 and will invite submissions from presentations to the regional meeting. \r\n\r\nCall for participation and applications:\r\n\r\nInterested applicants should submit a 1-2 page \u2018expression of interest\u2019 that outlines \r\n-\ta title that summarises their work in this area \r\n-\tan abstract of the research question, methods and key findings in this area OR a summary of the work they are doing in this area, that they would want to present at the meeting\r\n-\ta personal CV,  \r\n-\tbrief information on the institution that they work in, and \r\n-\ta sample document written by the applicant on any relevant theme. \r\n-\tAn indication of whether they are self sponsored or whether they need sponsorship for travel, or accommodation,. or both\r\n\r\nApplicants should submit this information by 5th December 2004  to the EQUINET secretariat admin@equinetafrica.org / Fax 263-4-737 220 and copy it to rene@tarsc.org and chessore@zamnet.zm \r\n\r\nApplicants will be informed by 17th December 2004 on the outcome of their submission, including sponsorship and of the logistic details for the meeting.  Participants of existing EQUINET programmes are welcome to apply. \r\n\r\nFocal points for queries on this programme are Dr TJ Ngulube at  the Centre for Health and Social Science Research Zambia and Dr R Loewenson (TARSC). Please send queries through admin@equinetafrica.org) ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"**Investing in our health workers: approaches to the scarcity and loss of health personnel in southern Africa","field_subtitle":"EQUINET  briefing  November 2004 ","field_url":"","body":"Antoinette Ntuli, Health systems Trust South Africa, Co-ordinator EQUINET HRH theme network \r\n\r\nAfter decades of neglect, Human Resources for Health (HRH) has in the past few years moved to centre stage of both international and regional debates. Within southern Africa health personnel continue to be scarce in services where they are most needed, are a critical bottleneck to the uptake of new resources from global funds and the region is suffering from escalating out migration of health workers.  \r\n\r\nDealing with this impact of the migration of health personnel raises debates about effective and just strategies. Those that restrict health worker rights of movement often don\u2019t work and punish individuals. \u2018Ethical human resource\u2019 policies and codes appear to have made little difference to practice on the ground, especially when movement is driven by pull and push factors in both sending and receiving countries. So what comprehensive measures will secure the human resources that southern Africa needs for its health services? \r\n\r\nEQUINET is addressing this through a network of institutions from government and non government sectors in southern Africa and working with institutional hubs in Canada, Australia and the UK (given their role as countries absorbing significant numbers of the regions health workers). The network aims to collaborate on research and use the evidence to harmonise policy engagement and advocacy.\r\n\r\nAt a meeting in April this year the network of researchers developed the analytical framework to guide this work. This framework takes the policy interest of the country planners and authorities in the region as the starting point, and includes four major components:  \r\n\r\n1. Equitable human resource policies- what will encourage health workers to work in areas of greatest need?   This work is looking at what positively and negatively affects the internal distribution of health personnel, including both traditional and allopathic practitioners.  In Zimbabwe, Oliver Mudyarabikwa at the UZ Medical School is identifying the factors that cause a maldistribution of public sector health workers. Yoswa Dambisya of the University of the North in South Africa is following up on the distribution of pharmacists who trained at the University of the North, to understand what drives their choices of both sector and location of work. Steve Reid of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa is exploring what educational factors influence the choice of rural or urban sites of practice of health professionals.\r\n\r\n2. Ethical Human Resource Policies- how to respond to international migration of health workers?. Given the work already taking place on codes of practice, and reasons for health workers leaving EQUINET is focusing its work on identifying \u201cwhat makes health personnel stay\u201d. If the retention factors are known then ethical policies in other countries should reinforce and not undermine these factors and should contribute resources towards their achievement. Scholastika Lipinge of the University of Namibia is exploring how health professionals perceive their conditions of service, and the extent to which this acts as a factor keeping them in the country and the public sector. In Malawi, Adamson Muula from the College of Medicine in the University of Malawi is exploring the coping mechanisms of health workers who stay in the Malawi health sector  to identify possible strategies to  support these mechanisms and reinforce health worker retention.  \r\n\r\n3. How are the HIV and AIDS epidemic and the resources for AIDS affecting the distribution of health personnel?  The network has built links through its work on HIV and AIDS and its networks with Municipal Services Unions to understand the impact of HIV and AIDS on health workers, and to explore how new resources for treatment are being used in relation to improving (or undermining) the availability, conditions and retention factors of health workers, especially within district health systems. \r\n\r\n4. What can we learn as a region and where do we need to act regionally? Country level evidence will be shared regionally, recognising the gain for exchange of experience, policies and interventions across countries in the region. This is also a regional issue, both in terms of the flow of health personnel across national boundaries and the need for a regional policy response to  international factors. Common evidence from all countries in the region, and more detailed evidence from Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Malawi will be used to build a more detailed regional picture of the distribution and flows of personnel and the factors affecting this.  We will also carry out in early 2005 an analysis of the policy environment, in terms of the priorities, actors and forces in this area and the options this raises for national and regional authorities.\r\n\r\nEQUINET and HST are aware of the significant volume of work taking place in different institutions and countries on this issue. We have a database on human resources for health on our website at www.equinetafrica.org  through which we hope to share materials and information that we access and encourage people to use and contribute to it. \r\n\r\nWhen the African Ministers of Health raised issues of health personnel migration at the 2004 World Health Assembly they were profiling a situation that calls for policy recognition, such as through protocols and codes, but also for wider strategies and interventions. Those strategies should as first call  reinforce the health workers who stay in the system, particularly those who work at primary care and district level, and strengthen the environments that encourage health workers to do this.  \r\n\r\n* EQUINET briefings are edited by R Loewenson, EQUINET secretariat, Training and Research Support Centre.  Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the secretariat email admin@equinetafrica.org . Reports cited are available as a downloadable pdf file from our website at www.equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"A civil society perspective on health research","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/82/10/sanders1004abstract/en/","body":"Complex global public health challenges such as the rapidly widening health inequalities, and unprecedented emergencies such as the pandemic of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) demand a reappraisal of existing priorities in health policies, expenditure and research.  Research can assist in mounting an effective response, but will require increased emphasis on health determinants at both the national and global levels, as well as health systems research and broad-based and effective public health initiatives.  Civil society organizations (CSOs) are already at the forefront of such research.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Advocacy Skills Course","field_subtitle":"25th - 29th October 2004, AMREF International Training Centre, Nairobi - Kenya","field_url":"","body":"This course is for senior and mid-level programme/projects managers, medical and health personnel and government officers. The purpose of this course is to empower the participants with advocacy and lobbying skills in order to advocate for health and health related issues.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30658","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa's Food and Nutrition Security Situation","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ifpri.org/2020/dp/dp37/2020dp37.pdf","body":"An estimated 200 million people on the continent are undernourished, and their numbers have increased by almost 20 percent since the early 1990s. The result is that more than a third of African children are stunted in their growth and must face a range of physical and cognitive challenges not faced by their better-fed peers. Undernutrition is the major risk factor underlying over 28 percent of all deaths in Africa (some 2.9 million deaths annually). The continuing human costs of inadequate food and nutrition are enormous, and the aggregate costs of food and nutrition insecurity at the national level impose a heavy burden on efforts to foster sustained economic growth and improved general welfare.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Aids policy in Lesotho","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC15640","body":"By the end of 2001, the number of HIV/AIDS infected adults stood at 180,000, while children orphaned by the death of their AIDS-infected parents numbered around 73,000.  With a total population of just under two million, the situation in Lesotho is clearly severe.  Added to this pandemic is a poorly performing economy, unable to generate the necessary finances to implement a comprehensive strategy to tackle this disease.  This paper looks at Lesotho's policy response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and looks at the capacity the country has for meeting the challenges posed by the disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Aids: A moral issue for as long as it is defined by inequalities","field_subtitle":"Sanjay Basu","field_url":"","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) recently released the first set of comprehensive data comparing the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in poor countries with the rates of antiretroviral (anti-HIV) drug access in those nations.  The data are striking and disheartening, yet have received little press coverage.  Indeed, at the time of their release, some American newspapers ran editorials indicating that antiretroviral access has received \"too much attention\".\r\n\r\nTwo problems are implicit in such a contention.  The first is political.  AIDS is very much a symptom - albeit the most extreme symptom - of the large diseases of inequality and poverty that result not only in HIV, but also in hunger, hemorrhagic fever and housing problems.  The same credit and political obstacles that have led to gender discrimination in housing and employment have led women into prostitution and relationships based on sexual dominance [1, 2].  The same structural adjustment programs and neoliberal economic policies that have crashed farming sectors and forced thousands into migration are the same policies that have led migrants to the barracks of minefields to live with depression, alcoholism and the subsequent solicitation of prostitutes [3-5].  And so to address AIDS appropriately would be to appreciate that it does not simply receive \"too much attention\", but that the attention it receives should be drawn towards its base - and this includes the inequalities in healthcare access that are symbolized by antiretroviral access disputes.\r\n\r\nThe second problem with the new popular line of thought on antiretrovirals is a statistical problem.  The recently-released WHO data are striking but perhaps not surprising.  If \"too much attention\" has been focused on drug access, then why are only six-tenths of a percent of the 1.6 million infected people in Tanzania able to access antiretroviral medications?  Why are only 1.5% of the 2.4 million in Mozambique and the Congo able to gain such access?  In a country like Zimbabwe, where one of every four adults is infected, only one of every fifth can access an antiretroviral medication.  As one scrolls through the WHO's data, the numbers of infected persons continue to be expressed in seven digits, while the percent of those gaining access to antiretrovirals continues into smaller and smaller decimal ranges.\r\n\r\n* Please click on the link to read the full article. \r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30690","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS: In search of a social solution","field_subtitle":"Publishers: TWN, Peoples\\' Health Movement","field_url":"","body":"Two decades after HIV/AIDS was discovered, it continues to spread across continents, infecting and killing millions and destroying entire communities.  Sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for 11 percent of the total world population, has 70 percent of all HIV/AIDS infections in the world, making it the worst-affected continent. Although one may dispute the alarming figures, the fact remains that HIV/AIDS has had devastating consequences for countries, societies, families and individuals.  It is a global crisis and the outlook is worsening, with India, China and Russia projected to be the next centres of the pandemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing the impact of health centre committees","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=486","body":"This study sought to analyse and better understand the relationship between health centre committees in Zimbabwe as a mechanism of participation and specific health system outcomes, including: Improved representation of community interests in health planning and management at health centre level; Improved allocation of resources to health centre level, to community health activities and to preventive health services o improved community access to and coverage by selected priority promotive and preventive health interventions; Enhanced community capabilities for health (through improved health knowledge and health seeking behaviour; Appropriate early use of services); Improved quality of health care as perceived both by providers and users of services. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Between the dream and the reality: social health insurance in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h1dm1g3.html","body":"How can developing countries implement health systems that are both equitable and sustainable?  Is social health insurance (SHI) a valid healthcare finance mechanism for these countries?  This article examines the lessons that can be drawn from the South African experience of adapting and implementing SHI.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Botswana AIDS drug roll out bearing fruit","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSReport.ASP?ReportID=4064","body":"Health experts have attributed fewer AIDS-related deaths in Botswana to the government's steadily progressing rollout of anti-AIDS drugs. In a new report Botswana's health ministry and the World Health Organisation said the overall mortality of patients on treatment was less than 10 percent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Bridging the human resources gap","field_subtitle":"London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15488222&dopt=Abstract","body":"Human resources are the crucial core of a health system, but they have been a neglected component of health-system development. The demands on health systems have escalated in low income countries, in the form of the Millennium Development Goals and new targets for more access to HIV/AIDS treatment. Human resources are in very short supply in health systems in low and middle income countries compared with high income countries or with the skill requirements of a minimum package of health interventions. Equally serious concerns exist about the quality and productivity of the health workforce in low income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants for student research grants on equity in health, November 2004","field_subtitle":"Equinet Secretariat Briefing November 2004: Call Closes On November 31 2004","field_url":"","body":"This call invites applicants for the second round of  student research grants. \r\n\r\nThe Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET)  promotes policies for equity in health across a range of priority theme areas (See www.equinetafrica.org)  EQUINET has over the years, organized its work in various theme areas,  including: economic and trade policy and health; human rights, governance and participation, equity in health sector responses to HIV/AIDS, human resources for health; monitoring and surveillance and others. Within these areas of work EQUINET aims to identify,  recruit and build capacity and analysis. EQUINET is now implementing a programme of student research support that provides small research grants for students at college or university in various programmes in east and southern Africa. The programme will support student research applicants who propose projects in areas of research relevant to EQUINETs priority areas of theme work, and who provide evidence of supervision from expertise in these areas.  \r\n\r\nThis second round of the EQUINET student research grant programme (SRGP) is being implemented in November 2004.  EQUINET will award a number of small grants to post graduate students and undergraduate students in East and Southern Africa for research proposals in the areas of \r\n-\tEquity in Human Resources for Health \r\n-\tEquity issues in food security and nutrition\r\n-\tEquity in health sector responses to HIV/AIDS and treatment access\r\n-\tUsing health rights as a tool for equity in health \r\n-\tHealth equity in economic and trade policies \r\n-\tFair financing in health \r\n-\tGovernance and community participation in health \r\n-\tUnderstanding and analyzing policy processes \r\n\r\nThe grants are for students to carry out supervised, small research projects in the course of their studies and are set at a maximum of $750. Applicants are requested to provide brief information in 2-3 pages on \r\n\r\n-\tThe name, institution, course and year of study  of the student\r\n-\tThe name, department and institution and contact email/fax for the proposed supervisor for the study  \r\n-\tThe theme area of the proposal\r\n-\tThe hypothesis, research question or research objective(s)\r\n-\tThe methods to be used, and indicators / (quantitative, qualitative information) to be collected and the intended analyses to be carried out \r\n-\tThe time frames and budget \r\n\r\nThe application should be supported by a letter of commitment from a supervisor who is a professional working in the relevant area of the study in an institution in east and southern Africa. Preference will be given to supervisors who have worked in EQUINET programmes and activities so this should be made note of in the letter.  The grants will be open to all EQUINET members,  undergraduate and postgraduate students, students from all disciplines. Applications should be submitted to admin@equinetafrica.org  with STUDENT GRANTS in the subject line or by fax to 263-4-737220 by November 31 2004. \r\n\r\nThe selection of grants will be made on the basis of relevance of subject area and quality of proposal but with some attention to ensuring equity in the distribution of grants across countries in the region. Applications in French or Portuguese  will be considered. \r\n\r\nEQUINET web based resources, newsletter and expertise in the theme areas will be available to the students.  The reports of the research projects will be made available on the EQUINET website. Publication from the research is encouraged, with acknowledgement of the  support from EQUINET. EQUINET will also have the right to use the research in its theme work and will encourage the students participation in future EQUINET activities and information exchange. \r\n\r\nFocal points for queries on this programme are Dr R Loewenson and G Musuka at the EQUINET Secretariat (TARSC) and Dr A Muula at  the Malawi College of Medicine/ Malawi Health Equity Network. Please send queries through admin@equinetafrica.org) ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Countries urged to allocate more resources to reproductive health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/press/2004/pr20041005.html","body":"The third meeting of the African Reproductive Health Task Force was opened in Harare, Zimbabwe, with a call on African countries and the international community at large to allocate more resources to reproductive health programmes with a view to stemming the tide of maternal and child deaths. \"African health policies, including global health policies, have for a long time overlooked the need to allocate adequate resources to reproductive health programmes\u2026and this has contributed to the massive numbers of maternal and newborn deaths\", Zimbabwe's Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Dr David Parirenyatwa, told the meeting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet June conference resolutions available in Swahili, French, Portugese","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=45_0_1_0_M6","body":"The EQUINET June conference resolutions Reclaiming the State:Advancing Peoples Health, challenging Injustice are now available in Swahili, French, Portuguese and English.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by Fahamu - learning for change http://www.fahamu.org/  Contact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org  EQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa To post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org  Website: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter  Please forward this to others.  To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter/subscribe.php or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org  * Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter 45: November 2004: Scarcity and loss of health personnel","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  http://www.equinetafrica.org/  EQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter 45: November 2004: Scarcity and loss of health personnel","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)  http://www.equinetafrica.org/  EQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender and poverty issues in health research","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC16026","body":"This article from the Bulletin of the World Health Organization highlights health inequities both between and within countries, and how this is reflected in research, focusing on poverty and gender.  The authors argue that there has been little research into the social causes of ill-health among groups, or factors affecting health inequity that are beyond the control of the individual.  They highlight the publication bias in medical journals, where research into diseases that most affect the poorest people is often less likely to be published.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Greater commitment, more funding urged for HIV/AIDS treatment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43289","body":"Despite a broad commitment to combating the spread of HIV/AIDS on the continent, African governments spend far too little of their own funds on intervention programmes, a new study has found. A review of national budgets included in 'Funding the Fight: Budgeting for HIV/AIDS in Developing Countries' showed that while many had developed strategic plans to tackle the virus, these were \"poorly costed and budgeted\". Sub-Saharan Africa remains by far the region worst affected by the AIDS epidemic - it has just over 10 percent of the world's population, but is home to two-thirds of all people living with HIV, according to UNAIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health financing to promote access in low income settings","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://lists.kabissa.org/lists/archives/public/pha-exchange/msg01671.html","body":"\"In this article we outline research since 1995 on the impact of various financing strategies on access to health services or health outcomes in low income countries.  The limited evidence available suggests, in general, that user fees deterred utilisation.  Prepayment or insurance schemes offered potential for improving access, but are very limited in scope.  Conditional cash payments showed promise for improving uptake of interventions, but could also create a perverse incentive.  The largely African origin of the reports of user fees, and the evidence from Latin America on conditional cash transfers, demonstrate the importance of the context in which studies are done.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health, human rights and mobilization of resources for health ","field_subtitle":"BMC International Health and Human Rights 2004","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-698x-4-4.pdf","body":"This paper argues that the human rights framework does provide us with an appropriate understanding of what values should guide a nation's health policy, and a potentially powerful means of moving the health agenda forward. It also, however, argues that appeals to human rights may not necessarily be effective at mobilizing resources for specific health problems one might want to do something about. Specifically, it is not possible to argue that a particular allocation of scarce health care resources should be changed to a different allocation, benefiting other groups. Lack of access to health care services by some people only shows that something has to be done, but not what should be done.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"ICT's and health communication","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC15730&resource=f1health&n=1","body":"Published by the Center for Communication Programs (CCP), this report is the first in a new series entitled \u201cHealth and Communication Insights\u201d.  The author suggests that the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and e-health (electronic health) applications, such as interactive websites, can be effective in helping people manage diseases, access health services and obtain assistance with behaviour change.  Acknowledging the rich-poor digital divide, he notes that access to new technologies is increasing rapidly in developing countries.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Linking maternal death with poverty","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC15346","body":"This paper finds that there is a clear association between the risk of maternal death and a variety of poverty-related characteristics. Moreover there is an indication that maternal mortality is a sensitive marker of disadvantage, since non-maternal deaths did not exhibit such extreme clustering in the poorest groups. The authors demonstrate the magnitude of the poor-rich gap in maternal mortality, and should be a stimulus to setting and monitoring poverty-relevant development goals. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Making health systems more equitable ","field_subtitle":"Lancet 2004; 364: 1273-80","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol364/iss9441/full/llan.364.9441.review_and_opinion.30888.1#publicandprivatecomponentsofhealthsystems","body":"If access to health services were distributed according to need, the poor would come first.  But they do not.  Within developing countries disparities are less pronounced, and they vary greatly from place to place and from sector to sector within the health system.  However, these disparities are almost always regressive, or pro-rich.  This fact can be seen from the information available about the public and private components of health systems, and about specific services that health systems deliver.  (requires registration)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Making health systems more equitable","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol364/iss9441/full/llan.364.9441.review_and_opinion.30888.1","body":"Health systems are consistently inequitable, providing more and higher quality services to the well-off who need them less than the poor who are unable to obtain them. In the absence of a concerted effort to ensure that health systems reach disadvantaged groups more effectively, such inequities are likely to continue. Yet these inequities need not be accepted as inevitable, for there are many promising measures that can be pursued, says this Lancet article.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring equity and health systems in Aids treatment rollout","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=46_0_1_0_M6","body":"In October 2004, EQUINET and the Equi-TB programme Malawi hosted a regional meeting in Lilongwe Malawi to review options for monitoring equity and health systems issues in the current programmes to expand treatment access in the region. The meeting gathered government, academic, civil society, international and UN agencies and regional organisations from the SADC region. It aimed to propose a framework and follow up work to strengthen the monitoring of equity and health system issues in ART rollout at national and regional level. The meeting proposed that existing monitoring integrate key policy issues, three core indicators and thirteen shortlist indicators at local, national, regional and global level to track priority health systems and equity concerns. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Newsletter of the Council on Health Research for Development","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cohred.ch/documents_COHREDweb/Newsletters/SpecialEdition.pdf","body":"The Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED) is an international non-governmental organisation that works towards enabling countries to set up and use health research to foster health, equity in health, and development.  A special edition of the COHRED newsletter looks at COHRED's impact on health research for development since it was established in 1993.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Peoples\u2019 Health Assembly II and the Global Health Watch","field_subtitle":"Joint Call for Case Studies and Testimonies","field_url":"","body":"A call has been made for individuals and organisations \u2013 activists, communities, health workers and academics \u2013 from around the world to submit case studies and testimonies to be part of the process of the second Peoples\u2019 Health Assembly and the Global Health Watch report 2005. Click on the link for more information.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30657","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Sant'Egidio ARV programme in Mozambique records success","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=3937","body":"Mozambique plans to have 8,000 people living with AIDS on free triple-therapy antiretroviral (ARV) treatment through its public health system by the end of the year. Although this is only a small proportion of the estimated 200,000 people in need of treatment, it is seen as a breakthrough for one of the world's poorest countries, where in the past ARVs were regarded as a luxury for Western countries only.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: A health system under pressure","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=43334","body":"As South Africa rolls out its national treatment programme, the country continues to lose skilled healthcare professionals to wealthier nations abroad, leaving severe shortages in an already over-stretched public health system. On a Tuesday morning earlier this month at Johannesburg General Hospital's medical wards, an exhausted-looking Dr Candace Latilla was about to go off duty. But, as the only doctor on call that night, she would be back in a couple of hours. Latilla has been working at the hospital as an intern doctor for the past nine months. With a staff component of 470 doctors and 1,300 nurses, Johannesburg General handles more than 1.5 million patient visits a year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"South African AIDS group continues legal battle with government","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSReport.ASP?ReportID=4065","body":"South African AIDS NGO, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), has dismissed claims that its dropped legal action against the health department. The department said that TAC had decided to withdraw its action for the provision of certain annexes to the government's Comprehensive Plan for Management, Care and Treatment of HIV/AIDS. TAC spokesman Mark Heywood said on Monday the group's action remained as the health department was legally bound to have an AIDS implementation plan and to make it public.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The Cairo consensus at 10: Population, Reproductive Health and ending poverty","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC15728","body":"This report from UNFPA focuses on world population, reproductive health and poverty ten years after the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action was agreed in Cairo.  The report finds that many developing countries have made substantial progress in implementing the ICPD's recommendations.  However, resources remain inadequate and the needs of the poorest populations are still not being met.  Key challenges include the continued spread of HIV/AIDS, especially among the young, unmet need for family planning, and high rates of maternal mortality in the least-developed countries.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The IMF, Africa and the fight against AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.actionaidusa.org/blockingprogress.pdf","body":"This briefing explores the logic of International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan conditions to developing countries and why the IMF insists that keeping inflation low is more important than increasing public spending to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. In 2003, funding levels for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment are estimated to have reached almost $5 billion; meanwhile financing needs will rise to $12 billion in 2005 and $20 billion by 2007. But if these large increases in foreign aid become available, will lowincome countries be able to accept them? Despite the fact that the global community stands ready to significantly scale-up levels of foreign aid to help poorer countries finance greater public spending to fight HIV/AIDS, many countries may be deterred from doing so due to either direct or indirect pressure from the IMF.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The Link: HIV/AIDS communication","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.healthlink.org.uk/about/news08.html","body":"The first issue of the Healthlink Worldwide newsletter, 'The Link', looks at the efficacy and appropriateness of HIV/AIDS communication - which become ever more critical as the epidemic's complexity and spread continue to grow.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"US fails to sign population agreement","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=26228","body":"Eighty-five countries last month signed a statement reaffirming commitment to reproductive health- and HIV/AIDS-related population and health goals agreed to 10 years ago at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt, the AP/Philadelphia Inquirer reports.  More than 250 world leaders - including presidents, prime ministers and Nobel Prize winners - endorsed the goals of ensuring a woman's right to education, health care and reproductive choices.  Despite endorsement by the entire European Union, China, Japan, Indonesia, Pakistan and more than 12 African nations, the Bush administration refused to support the statement because it mentioned upholding \"sexual rights\" - a term that the administration says has no \"agreed definition\" in the international community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Victims of HIV/AIDS Should Not Suffer From Trade Rules","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Botswana was warned last month by a UN Committee that trade agreements should not undermine Botswana\u2019s ability to ensure access to affordable treatment for children or other people with HIV/AIDS. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, in a document made public, strongly recommended that Botswana ensure that \u201cregional and other free trade agreements do not have a negative impact on the implementation of children\u2019s rights.\u201d Most importantly, it warned Botswana that trade agreements should not \u201caffect the possibility of providing children and other victims of HIV/AIDS with effective medicines for free or at the lowest price possible.\u201d ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30677","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia: HIV funds from USAids, condoms banned in school","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=26461","body":"The U.S. Agency for International Development plans to give Zambia $24 million to combat AIDS and malaria and improve the quality of drinking water, the U.S. embassy in Lusaka, Zambia, said last Tuesday in a statement, the Associated Press reports. The money will be used to fund health education programs - coordinated by the government and the Society for Family Health - over the next six years.  Zambia on Tuesday banned free condom distribution in schools just as USAID announced its funding for HIV/AIDS programs, with condom distribution a \"key part of the strategy,\" Reuters reports.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Addressing the needs of orphans in the context of HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC15573","body":"This report, commissioned by the South African National Department of Health, aims to inform a co-ordinated response to the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in the context of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa.  Divided into two parts, the first details findings from research conducted across five South African provinces and the second offers a set of recommendations.  One of the study's objectives was to develop an understanding of the health and social needs of orphans and children at risk, with specific emphasis on access to health, social development and education.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Attaining the MDGs: towards an international cooperative agenda for health-systems research ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/journal.isa","body":"Health systems constraints are impeding the implementation of major global initiatives for health and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Research could contribute to overcoming these barriers. An independent task force has been convened by WHO to suggest areas where international collaborative research could help to generate the knowledge necessary to improve health systems. Suggested topics encompass financial and human resources, organisation and delivery of health services, governance, stewardship, knowledge management, and global influences. This article from The Lancet medical journal is part of a wide-ranging consultation and comment is invited. (Registration is required to access this article.)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Can we achieve health information for all by 2015?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC15182&resource=healthsystems","body":"This Lancet article calls on the WHO to take the lead in championing the goal of \u201cUniversal access to essential health-care information by 2015\u201d or \u201cHealth Information for All\u201d. Published to coincide with the launch of the Global Review of Access to Health Information in Developing Countries, the paper argues that access to information is key to meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). While many initiatives have improved access over the past ten years, there is still much to be done. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Can we better support parliaments to turn protocols into practice for equity in health in southern Africa? ","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Secretariat, TARSC","field_url":"","body":"The SADC Health Protocol came into force at the  2004 SADC Mauritius Summit and now applies across the region.  It outlines the priorities and mechanisms for regional co-operation in health.  We look forward to the protocol being  raised and discussed within the parliaments of the region to see how far we are making progress in the regional priorities and approaches signed on to by the heads of state in Mauritius. \r\n\r\nWhy should parliaments  be important to struggles for equity in health? Parliaments are a watchdog of public policy and consolidate this policy in law. In their  legislative role they are able to transform social norms and values into binding legal entitlements.  Their oversight role on the budget and on the actions of the executive provides an important opportunity to ensure that these legal entitlements are realized in practice.  For example parliaments are an important watchdog of the government Abuja summit commitment that at least 15% of government budgets are invested in the public health sector.  They can give voice through various processes of debate, inquiry, public hearings and consultation to public views, including the views of those areas and groups where such voice may be weaker or less articulate. \r\n\r\nIn an EQUINET, GEGA and SADC Parliamentary Forum regional meeting  in South Africa in August 2003, it was recognized that parliaments are uniquely placed to build alliances with the Executive branch of government, across political parties, between different portfolio committees and with civil society, health sector and other agencies at national and regional level in support of health equity. (The report of this meeting is found at www.equinetafrica.org)  The parliamentary reforms taking place in the region provide an enabling environment for this. At the August 2003 regional conference,  delegates agreed that the establishment of parliamentary committees on health provided a forum for deeper review, policy monitoring  and analysis, and noted that a range of  health related activities were already taking place.  These committees have held public hearings on laws and policies, visited and investigated conditions in the health system,  held  systematic hearings on the national budget and its consistency with national health policies and promoted public awareness on key areas of social norms and action in health,  such as HIV and AIDS.  In Zambia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, for example,  with support from institutions in EQUINET and GEGA, parliamentary committees on health have analysed and made input on equity issues in the health budget and have visited districts to follow up on the equity issues raised. In Tanzania the parliament has established a parliamentary forum on AIDS at which key issues such as equity in access to Antiretroviral treatment have been debated. In Malawi parliaments have raised and promoted debate on issues of migration of health personnel and on the quality of health services at the district level. \r\n\r\nIn June 2004, during the EQUINET  regional conference on equity in health, parliamentary committees and organisations working on health  equity agreed that these critical areas of work needed more consistent regional exchange of information and good practice, support and  activity. They would also benefit from longer term co-operation with state, academic and civil society institutions working on health equity. How can this be achieved? Is a more regular forum of health committees needed, within the SADC framework? How can the current work and institutional partnerships with parliaments be better networked and more consistently supported to ensure greater exchange of information, learning  and good practice?  These issues were raised as matters of concern to organisations like EQUINET working with parliaments and we invite readers and institutions working with parliaments to give feedback to these queries. What experiences exist in the region of work with parliamentarians on equity in health? How can we better strengthen and support such parliamentary roles, particularly if we are to achieve our goals of equity and social justice in health, and the policy commitments expressed in the SADC Health Protocol? \r\n\r\nThis briefing is produced by the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC. Please send  feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing  to the EQUINET secretariat email admin@equinetafrica.org . Reports cited are available  as a downloadable pdf file from our website at www.equinetafrica.org   ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Doctors and nurses with HIV and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7466/584","body":"Much has been written about the impact of the HIV and AIDS pandemic on the healthcare delivery systems and resources in central and southern Africa.  The unremitting pressure on hospitals and other healthcare facilities, and the disproportionate use of healthcare resources by the ever increasing numbers of patients, are threatening to undermine the capacity of countries such as South Africa to provide a comprehensive health safety net for the rest of the population, says an article in the British Medical Journal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Earmarked donor funding and resource allocation","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/82/9/en/703.pdf","body":"It should not be assumed that earmarked donor funding automatically increases the allocation of developing-country resources towards programmes that yield the greatest health benefits.  Sometimes it does, sometimes it does not - how the funding is designed can influence this.  This is true particularly in the longer term, once the earmarked funding has ended.  This is according to an article in Volume 82, Number 9, of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Ensuring access to treatment for children","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC15537","body":"Women and children must be prioritised for treatment for HIV/AIDS, appropriate treatment for children must be developed and healthcare infrastructure must be developed as a matter of urgency.  This is according to a report from the Save the Children Fund that aims to examine the implications of expanded access to HIV/AIDS treatment, as exemplified by the 3 by 5 initiative, for prevention of HIV in children and young people, and expanding support and care for orphans and other children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Ensuring universal treatment access through sustainable public health systems","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=347","body":"The Regional meeting on Health systems strengthening for treatment access produced a set of guiding principles to inform approaches to treatment access. These are posted on the Equinet site as a discussion document for your comments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by\r\nFahamu - learning for change http://www.fahamu.org/\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite:  http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.\r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter/subscribe.php or send an email\r\nto info@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter 44: October 2004: Turning protocols into practice","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity and access to HIV/AIDS treatment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=1&i=h5dm4g1&u=414edef4","body":"All people with HIV/AIDS should have equal opportunity to access effective and appropriate treatment. However, in the context of existing social and health inequities, widespread poverty, high rates of new HIV infections, famine and budgetary constraints, increasing access to HIV care and treatment must be organised in a manner that balances HIV prevention and treatment efforts; HIV interventions and the broader strengthening of the health system as a whole; and HIV care and treatment with other public health and social needs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in the Distribution of Health Personnel","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=430","body":"Since 2003, EQUINET and the Health Systems Trust (HST) have implemented a longer term programme of work that has carried out a wider review of the literature on the distribution and migration of health personnel in the region and a regional research programme aimed at building analytic capacity, evidence and policy engagement around the issue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Extending antiretroviral therapy to resource-poor settings: implications for drug resistance","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15322484&dopt=Abstract","body":"The emergence of drug resistance in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) may limit the clinical benefits of antiretroviral therapy.  There is no objective evidence that the risk of drug resistance is greater in resource-limited settings than in the developed world.  Treatment programmes will be most successful at preventing the spread of drug resistance if they provide healthcare infrastructures to maximize the effectiveness of antiretroviral therapy through the use of potent and convenient combination regimens that achieve durable suppression of HIV-1 replication.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Facing the future together","field_subtitle":"Report of the Secretary-General\\'s Task Force on Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC15572&resource=f1hiv","body":"This UNAIDS report, from the Secretary-General\u2019s Task Force on Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa, presents empirical data on the scale and character of the pandemic in nine countries in Southern Africa with the highest HIV prevalence rates. As the majority of young people aged 15-24 living with AIDS in these countries are women, the report calls for an end to gender inequality, which is key to the spread of HIV among women.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Food security, livelihoods and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000898/index.php","body":"This paper is intended both for managers and technical staff working either in food security and livelihoods or in HIV/AIDS and reproductive health who require an introduction to the linkages between the two areas, and as a guide to the many issues that need to be considered when carrying out assessments (or reviewing others\u2019 assessments) and when planning interventions. The focus is specifically on economic impacts of AIDS, and does not address important emotional, psychological and social impacts. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health professionals and migration","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0042-96862004000800002&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en","body":"Migrant health workers are faced with a set of options that are a combination of economic, social and psychological factors and family choices.  They trade decisions related to their career opportunities - and to financial security for their families - against the psychological and social costs of leaving their country, family and friends.  The comments of health workers themselves reflect the \"push and pull\" nature of the choices underpinning these \"journeys of hope\".  Demotivating working conditions, coupled with low salaries, are set against the likelihood of prosperity for themselves and their families (by remittances), work in well-equipped hospitals, and the opportunity for professional development.  An article in the WHO Bulletin points out that young, well-educated individuals are most likely to migrate, especially in pursuit of higher education.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health systems approaches to treatment access in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=353","body":"The meeting was focused on ensuring universal treatment access through sustainable public health systems.  The goal of the meeting was to develop resolutions on the principles for strengthening health systems for treatment access, and to develop potential areas for work for EQUINET related to EQUINET\u2019s programme of work areas.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Humanitarian crisis crippling public health sector in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=3896","body":"As a rising number of HIV/AIDS patients turn to already over-stretched public sector facilities, the ongoing humanitarian crisis is undermining the quality of care in Southern Africa's health system. Two years after committing themselves to respond to the humanitarian emergency, health ministers from the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) are now faced with \"vicious and destructive spirals\" of rising HIV/AIDS deaths and deepening poverty, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for Africa said in a statement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Imbalance in the health workforce","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/2/1/13/abstract","body":"Imbalance in the health workforce is a major concern in both developed and developing countries. It is a complex issue that encompasses a wide range of possible situations. This paper aims to contribute not only to a better understanding of the issues related to imbalance through a critical review of its definition and nature, but also to the development of an analytical framework. The framework emphasizes the number and types of factors affecting health workforce imbalances, and facilitates the development of policy tools and their assessment. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Manufacture of anti-AIDS drugs set to begin in Zambia","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=3903","body":"A Zambian government initiative to begin the local manufacture of cheap generic antiretroviral (ARV) drugs has been welcomed by AIDS activists. \"We have been lobbying for affordable drugs for 10 years. This is a dream come true,\" said coordinator of the Network of Zambian People Living with HIV/AIDS (NZP+), Clement Mfuzi. \"As NZP+, our hope has not only been accessibility, but also affordable drugs. We also hope the supply will be sustainable, because once you take these drugs, it is for life.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Medical Research Council of Zimbabwe web page","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Medical Research Council of Zimbabwe web page http://www.afronets.org/mrcz.php has just been updated.  You may visit this page if you require information on conducting health research in Zimbabwe.  Ethics Committee application forms can also be downloaded from our page.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring and Evaluation for Sexual and Reproductive Health","field_subtitle":"01 - 12 November, 2004, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"Monitoring and Evaluation for Sexual and Reproductive Health examines the underlying principles of monitoring and evaluation for programme managers.  Participants explore the steps in establishing effective monitoring and evaluation systems and are guided in how to integrate gender analysis into their monitoring and evaluation plans.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30619","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"New AIFO webpage ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aifo.it/english/index.htm","body":"Among the new additions are online books, documents and reports related to leprosy, disability, primary health; etc, some online learning courses and online exhibitions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New protocol for malnutrition management to save lives in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7466/584","body":"Improved measures to tackle acute malnutrition in Mozambique are expected to save the lives of thousands of children and adults. During a five-day workshop supported by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) last week, about 100 health workers in the capital, Maputo, adopted a protocol outlining step-by-step guidelines for the management of acute malnutrition in children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"NGO study examines state budgets for HIV/AIDS in African and Latin American countries","field_subtitle":"Alison Hickey, AIDS Budget Unit, IDASA, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"A new report on the funding by nine African and Latin American countries on HIV/AIDS has found that countries must do more to ensure a comprehensive response to the epidemic\u2014incorporating prevention, treatment, care and support. The study, undertaken by NGO research institutes in each country, was jointly coordinated by Idasa in South Africa and Fundar in Mexico.  \r\n\r\nThe study, entitled Funding the Fight: Budgeting for HIV/AIDS in Developing Countries will be discussed by researchers during a one-day meeting taking place in Johannesburg this week. This research project makes a remarkable contribution to the field of HIV/AIDS resource-tracking, in that comparable budget analysis studies were undertaken by civil society organisations.\r\n\r\nThe study found that while many countries have developed national strategic plans and programmes, these were poorly costed and budgeted. It also found that the tracking of resources allocated towards HIV/AIDS in national budgets was hindered by weak or absent links between allocations and their intended objectives and outputs. Governments have inadequate systems in place to track the allocation of resources for HIV/AIDS. \r\n\r\nYet the research yielded a number of important findings. In Africa most countries, until recently, have focused on prevention more than treatment. This despite the fact that WHO/UNAIDS estimates that 3.8 million Africans are in need of treatment, while only 150 000 people are currently receiving the life-prolonging drugs. The study notes the boost to HIV/AIDS spending following the recent announcement and launch of ARV treatment programmes in South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya and Namibia. However the researchers caution that even though governments may increase their allocations to provide treatment, this programme may be undermined if more money is not made available to strengthen the health system overall. \r\n\r\nIn the Latin American countries, where HIV/AIDS prevalence is below 1%, the bulk of government spending on HIV/AIDS is earmarked for providing antiretroviral treatment. In Argentina 90%, in Chile 80%, Ecuador 74% and Nicaragua 54% of the national AIDS budget is committed to providing treatment and care and support, with less resources available for prevention. The researchers warn that treatment alone may not be enough to curb the epidemic and that the governments of Latin America need to increase their allocations and commitment to prevention.\r\n\r\nThe Report points out that all the African countries are falling below the 15% target agreed upon by Governments at an OAU Summit in Abuja in 2001. Amongst the African countries, the health allocations as a share of total government expenditure range from 6% in Kenya to approximately 15% in Mozambique. South Africa\u2019s allocation is estimated to be just under 12%.  Health budgets in the Latin American countries, with the exception of Nicaragua, were primarily financed through state revenue, whereas in the African countries, except South Africa, they tend to rely primarily on donor funds.\r\n\r\nWhile it is difficult to isolate specific HIV/AIDS allocations from the overall health budget, the report finds HIV/AIDS earmarked funds consume less then 4% of health budgets in the Latin American countries included in the study, ranging in 2002, from under 1% in Chile to 3.5% in Argentina. In Africa, the priority accorded to HIV/AIDS programmes in health budgets varied significantly\u2014from 1.6% in Mozambique, to 11.4% in Kenya in 2002. In South Africa the HIV/AIDS allocations have climbed steadily from 0.67% of the consolidated national and provincial health budget in 2000/1, to 3.86% in 2004/5. HIV/AIDS-specific allocations made up 0.49% of South Africa\u2019s overall national budget in 2004/5. \r\n\r\nAn important finding from the Report is that the increasing allocations being made to HIV/AIDS may be squeezing out other health priorities. In all countries the researchers observed that while HIV/AIDS allocations have been increasing, this has not been matched by a commensurate increase in allocations to the health sector overall. Without adequate attention to strengthen and support overall health infrastructure, facilities and medical personnel, HIV/AIDS programmes will be undermined, and simultaneously the health care delivery will strain under the burden of HIV/AIDS.\r\n\r\nThe report urges African countries to increase their own financial commitments to HIV/AIDS interventions. It points out that with the exception of South Africa, most African countries rely to a great extent on donor funding. Greater commitment of state funds is essential to the longevity of scaled-up programmes, particularly treatment. \r\n\r\nThe report has been able to yield very valuable findings, and the researchers are calling for budget reforms and greater transparency of government allocations for, and actual spending on, HIV/AIDS. This information will enable civil society and citizens to better understand and monitor how much is being spent on HIV/AIDS, for what programmes, and in what regions and provinces. Effective government responses to AIDS require us to know where the money is coming from, where it is going, and how well it is being spent.  \r\n\r\nFor more information contact: Alison Hickey, Manager, AIDS Budget Unit, Idasa. Cell: 083 280 2759; Teresa Guthrie, Project Co-ordinator, AIDS Budget Unit, Idasa. Cell: 082 872 4694. To order a hard copy of the report, contact: nomzi@idasact.org.za A full electronic version will be available October 2004: www.idasa.org.za \r\n\r\nEQUINET is currently carrying out work in line with the SADC Business Plan on HIV and AIDS on monitoring, protomting good practice, supporting research and sharing information on health systems and equity issues in treatment access. More information on this programme is available from the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC, email admin@equinetafrica.org.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Participation of HIV positive women in policy making","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC15649&Resource=f1par","body":"This International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW) vision paper argues that, when HIV positive people are involved at all levels of decision-making, an organisation is better able to respond to the concerns of people living with HIV/AIDS.  HIV positive women in particular need to be taken seriously by policy makers in order to tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic effectively.  Involvement in national policy making and in regional and local structures is one arena of policy making highlighted.  However, ICW argues that other arenas also need to be more open to the views and involvement of HIV positive women.  These include faith-based institutions, the private sector, trade unions, women\u2019s organisations, mainstream AIDS organisations, employers\u2019 organisations, political parties, nongovernmental and international organisations and educational institutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Pharmatalk - Creating communities","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.pharmatalk.co.tz/forum/","body":"Pharmatalk.co.tz will feature a variety of discussion groups and you can post and receive messages online as well as create your own groups as you go along.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor Countries Footing Reproductive Health Bill","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200409150791.html","body":"Developed countries are failing to live up to their commitments to fund sexual and reproductive health care leaving poorer countries to pick up the bill, says a new UN report. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report titled 'The Cairo Consensus at Ten: Population, Reproductive Health and the Global Effort to End Poverty' says poor countries themselves are providing around 40 percent of the money spent on reproductive health programmes and HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers and health: not living up to expectations ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A new report by Medact and Wemos highlights some of the issues that need to be taken into account in order to make the PRSP process work for health. 'Pushing the boundaries: health and the next round of PRSPs' draws on case studies in seven countries: Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nicaragua and Uganda. Till now, the PRSP process has failed to make significant improvements to health. But in some areas and in some countries there are positive developments. Ghana's health budget has risen and user fees are abolished in Uganda and Ghana as a result of increased policy attention for the poor. But there is a long way to go. Pushing the boundaries calls for health organisations, ministries of health, donors and international agencies to use the PRSP process to establish equitable and comprehensive health systems. Download the report from either\r\nhttp://www.wemos.nl/prs or http://www.medact.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Providing Antiretroviral Treatment in Southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/608","body":"This report from the Health Systems Trust outlines experience with Antiretroviral Treatment (ART) in a number of sub-Saharan countries.  ART is provided through a number of different avenues, which include the public sector, the non-profit sector, the corporate sector and the private sector.  ART programmes may involve collaboration between two or more sectors with such partnerships being encouraged in recognition that the magnitude of the task may exceed the capacity of any one sector.  Particular attention is paid to Botswana, the first sub-Saharan country to provide ART on a wide-scale through the public sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Putting reproductive health back on the agenda ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=0&i=s6ahs1g1&u=414edef4","body":"The Cairo Agenda \u2013 a set of international agreements \u2013 which came out of the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, shifted policy focus away from population control. Access to good quality reproductive health care for both women and men was promoted as a right. The more recently agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) however, narrowed the focus down to maternal mortality. While it is crucial to address maternal mortality, it is important to bring reproductive health back into the picture as without this the MDGs will not be met.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Reproductive health and human rights: integrating medicine, ethics and law","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0042-96862004000700014&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en","body":"An adolescent woman requests a contraceptive method from a health provider in a country where access for under-aged users is restricted; a couple denounces an involuntary sterilization to a local nongovernmental organization; a woman requests a legal abortion in a context where termination of pregnancy is highly stigmatized and access to safe services is denied her. These are just examples of terribly unfortunate but common features in developing countries, where women, particularly poor women, lack the necessary power to successfully fight for their needs and rights. A meaningful and appropriate response to these complex situations requires a comprehensive approach. As acknowledged by the authors of \u2018Reproductive health and human rights: integrating medicine, ethics and law\u2019, no single discipline or perspective will resolve the many dilemmas involved in protecting reproductive and sexual health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Resource tracking estimates for HIV/AIDS expenditure in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC15220&Resource=f1hiv","body":"This UNAIDS report summarises the most recent data available on spending from all sources of AIDS programmes in low- and middle-income countries. Its purpose is to identify the magnitude of global resources available relative to the estimated resource needs. The report also reviews and compares the methodological approaches used to track HIV/AIDS expenditure at global and national levels, and identify gaps in HIV/AIDS financial information and present ways they can be addressed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Reviewing efforts to control TB","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5989331/","body":"Global efforts to control rising levels of tuberculosis are not working and more needs to be done to reduce infections from the deadly airborne disease, public health experts said on Tuesday.  The World Health Organization (WHO) introduced a strategy in 1993 aimed at halving deaths over the next decade from the contagious illness that kills about 2 million people each year.  But researchers at Harvard University in the United States said a decade after the DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment, Short-course) plan was introduced, the global burden of TB continues to rise.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Sambo nominated as WHO regional director","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2004","body":"Dr Luis Gomes Sambo was nominated by the WHO Regional Committee for Africa for the post of WHO Regional Director for Africa. Dr Sambo, 52, of Angolan nationality, is currently the Director of Programme Management at the WHO Regional Office for Africa (AFRO), where he is responsible for the management and operation of the programmes of WHO in the African region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Challenge of Achieving Health Equity in Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2004/june/equity.htm","body":"What does equity in health and health care mean?  Equality?  A basic minimum standard of service?  A system of entitlements?Global health professionals have struggled with a definition for some time.  Dr Rene Loewenson, a Zimbabwean epidemiologist, presents a Southern African view: equity in health implies addressing differences in health status that are unnecessary, avoidable, and unfair, she says.  This also means understanding and influencing, not only the way society allocates health resources, but the power relations involved.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Prevention of Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission - Costing the service in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/622","body":"The maturity of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa has brought competing agendas for prevention and impact mitigation to the table.  Given the resource constraints it is imperative that any interventions are thoroughly assessed for their efficacy, costs and benefits.  The challenge to succeed with primary prevention of new infections remains the key long-term solution to the epidemic.  Ensuring the availability of resources for delivering this intervention in a cost-effective and sustained manner remains a challenge.  This report contributes to this by providing an assessment of the cost side of this equation.  This research is part of a larger evaluation of the pilot PMTCT programme in South Africa, and has been commissioned by the Health Systems Trust on behalf of the Department of Health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The world's poor since the 1980s","field_subtitle":"Development Research Group Paper, World Bank","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/research/povmonitor/MartinPapers/How_have_the_poorest_fared_since_the_early_1980s.pdf","body":"\"The composition of world poverty has changed noticeably.  Numbers of poor have fallen in Asia, but risen elsewhere.  The share of the world\u2019s poor living in Africa has risen dramatically.  Not only has Africa emerged in the 1990s as the region with the highest incidence of poverty, the depth of poverty is also markedly higher than that found in other regions - suggesting that without lower inequality economic growth in Africa will have a harder time reducing poverty in the future than elsewhere. Looking forward, if the rates of progress against poverty that we have found for the last two decades of the twentieth century are maintained then we expect that the poverty rate for the developing world as a whole will fall to 15% by 2015, just short of the Millennium Development Goal of halving the 1990 poverty rate.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Unhealthy Health Policy: A Critical Anthropological Examination ","field_subtitle":"Edited by Arachu Castro and Merrill Singer ","field_url":"http://www.altamirapress.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=%5EDB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0759105111","body":"This new collection turns a critical anthropological eye on the nature of health policy internationally.  The authors reveal that in light of prevailing social inequalities, health policies may intend to protect public health, but in fact they often represent significant structural threats to the health and well being of the poor, ethnic minorities, women, and other subordinate groups.  The volume focuses on the \"anthropology of policy,\" which is concerned with the process of decision-making, the influences on decision-makers, and the impact of policy on human lives.  This collaboration will be a critical resource for researchers and practitioners in medical anthropology, applied anthropology, medical sociology, minority issues, public policy, and health care issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Vacancy: Public health coordinator ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In the context of a joint collaboration between the Zimbabwean Ministry of Health, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) and the Institute of Public Health, Epidemiology and Development (ISPED) of the University Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2, a two-year prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) programme will be initiated at the end of 2004 in three rural districts of Zimbabwe.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30614","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"What factors most affect health policy in South Africa? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=7&i=h1tg1g1&u=414edef4","body":"The emergence of an increasingly global economy suggests that the ability of individual countries to shape their own destinies is becoming more difficult.  International trends and pressures now influence national, and even local, health care policy making. Researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, together with Oxford University, looked at the effect of globalisation on health issues in South Africa and assessed its influence compared to national and local forces.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Who should pay for debt cancellation?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/develop/debt","body":"Proposals by the US government to re-divert aid funding to pay for the debt cancellation for the world's poorest countries have been criticized by the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD).  It is understood that the US Treasury Department is going to call for 100% debt cancellation for highly indebted poor countries.  However the American proposal calls for the debt relief to be offset against new aid funding for the poverty-stricken countries.  Henry Northover, Public Policy Analyst, CAFOD, said: \"It's not so much a 100% debt cancellation as a 100% debt makeover.  Debt cancellation for the worlds poorest must be paid for by the world's richest.\" ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to essential medicines","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/documents/tf05atemapr18.pdf","body":"\"The fact that a very large part of the world\u2019s population has inadequate access or none to essential and often life-saving medicines is of grave concern. It results in a vast loss of life and much suffering, more particularly among the poor and underprivileged. It is in blatant contradiction to the fundamental principles of human rights. And, even if one were to set humanitarian considerations side, it results in serious damage to the economy and to the functioning of society.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Achieving Food Security in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/2004/odi-souafr-5apr.pdf","body":"In 2001\u20133 in many countries in Southern Africa national grain stocks had been run down and grain imports were slow to arrive, so that localised harvest shortfalls quickly resulted in three- and four-fold increases in food prices which, for the large number of vulnerable people in the region, spelled crisis.  In the end, the donor and government response but equally importantly the response of the commercial sector and people\u2019s own \u2018coping\u2019 strategies meant that large-scale famine-related deaths were avoided in 2002 and 2003 but unacceptable levels of chronic food insecurity remain.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa and the MDG's","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC15334","body":"This article, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), focuses on health as central to the achievement of all the millennium development goals (MDGs).  Key challenges for health improvement include reversing the global HIV/AIDS epidemic and reducing child and maternal mortality.  The authors acknowledge the need for more aid but argue that this is only part of the picture.  To effectively absorb increases in aid, poor countries need strong, equitable health systems and institutions.  They also need the capacity to deliver services, which includes having enough skilled staff.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Budgeting for HIV/AIDS in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC15286","body":"This report from the South African Budget Information Service (IDASA) analyses budget allocations and funding flows from the national fiscus for HIV/AIDS interventions.  It investigates the best way to deliver funds to the provinces of South Africa to tackle HIV/AIDS.  Analysis of official budget documents and interviews with national and provincial social service and treasury officials reveals that provinces are generally improving their spending on the HIV/AIDS conditional grants and beginning to allocate significant funds from provincial budgets to tackling HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Building Blocks","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsalliance.org/building_blocks.htm","body":"Building Blocks: Africa-wide briefing notes is a set of six locally adaptable resources to help communities and local organisations in Africa support children orphaned and made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS. These resources are based on the experience of the Aids Alliance, its partners and other organisations and have been produced in English, French and Portuguese. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for articles from African NGO's involved in health care","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"AIFO/Italy and People's Health Movement Africa invite articles in English, French, Portuguese and Italian from activists, non-governmental organisations and grass-roots organisations based in Africa related to experiences of innovative approaches linked to promotion of any aspect of better health for different community groups. Articles selected by an international jury will be part of a book to be released and distributed at the Second People's Health Assembly (PHA-II) in Ecuador in 2005 and will also be made available on the AIFO website. Three best articles will receive a cash prize of 500 Euros each. Last date for sending entries is 15 October 2004. It is possible that some selected partners from this initiative will be sponsored by AIFO to participate in the PHA-II. A decision regarding this will be taken before the end of 2004. In addition, authors of the three prize winning entries may also be invited to an award ceremony in Italy. For more details write to: sunil.deepak@aifo.it ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30594","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Cash released for free anti-AIDS treatment in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSReport.ASP?ReportID=3813","body":"People living with HIV/AIDS in Tanzania will soon have access to free antiretroviral drugs under the government's four-year treatment programme. More than US $1.8 million was recently released by the Treasury Department for the Ministry of Health to purchase anti-AIDS drugs, a local newspaper, The Guardian, reported.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Diagnosing TB in Africa: the quest for cheaper methods ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=1&i=h4nb2g1&u=412b5c87","body":"The number of people infected with tuberculosis in sub-Saharan Africa has risen dramatically in the past 15 years, largely due to HIV infection.  Bloodstream infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (mycobacteraemia) is a common cause of fever in sub-Saharan Africa, but diagnosis requires the help of specialists and a lengthy incubation period.  Cheap and practical tests for eye disease such as the examination of the back of the eyeball (ophthalmoscopy) for choroidal granulomas could be an efficient alternative in the diagnosis of mycobacteraemia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic pathways for Malawi's rural households ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000904/index.php","body":"The recent food crisis has drawn attention to the fact that Malawi's poverty is deep-rooted and structural. Provision of temporary humanitarian relief and sustained safety net provision may alleviate the symptoms of chronic poverty but such interventions are not adequate as ends in themselves: they will not prevent similar crises occurring in the future, or develop the kind of resilience that households and communities need to be able to cope with crises. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by\r\nFahamu - learning for change http://www.fahamu.org/\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite:  http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.\r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter/subscribe.php or send an email\r\nto info@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter September 2004: Support 100% Multilateral Debt Cancellation","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in the Distribution of Health Personnel","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=430","body":"Since 2003, EQUINET and HST have implemented a longer term programme of work that has carried out a wider review of the literature on the distribution and migration of health personnel in the region and a regional research programme aimed at building analytic capacity, evidence and policy engagement around the issue.  EQUINET and HST collaborated with a consortium of institutions in southern Africa and internationally, known as the Human Resources for Health (HRH) Network, in order to link this southern African programme of work with wider international work on the equitable distribution of health personnel in southern Africa.  In January 2004 a call for research proposals was made within a framework set out from the literature and policy review.  The proposals were reviewed and a number of these selected for participation in a regional meeting.  Between 15 and 17 April 2004, the Health Systems Trust and EQUINET organised the regional meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, bringing together researchers and stakeholders from southern and western African, Canada, the UK, USA and Australia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluating economic change","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.amacad.org/publications/summer2004/stiglitz.pdf","body":"In recent years there have been enormous changes in our technology, our economy, and our society.  But has there been progress?  asks economist Joseph Stiglitz.  In the countries that have been less successful, globalization is often viewed with suspicion.  \"As I have argued elsewhere, there is a great deal of validity to the complaints of those who are discontent.  In much of the world, there has been in recent years a slowing of growth, an increase in poverty, a degradation of the environment, and a deterioration of national cultures and of a sense of cultural identity.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care in Low- and Middle-Income Countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/InSite?page=pa-rr-03#S1X","body":"In the past two years, the political commitment to respond to the HIV/AIDS pandemic has increased substantially.  In this policy environment, the importance of information on resources allocated to HIV/AIDS prevention and care has increased.  In order to avoid resource misallocation, policy makers need information on the level and flow of current resource allocations to HIV/AIDS.  They need to know where money for HIV/AIDS prevention and care is coming from, the services and commodities that are purchased with these funds, and the population coverage of the implemented interventions.  At the same time, to identify needs and plan strategically, policy-makers require information on the scale of resources required to prevent the further spread of HIV and to provide adequate care for those people living with HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Food security, livelihoods and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000898/index.php","body":"This paper is intended both for managers and technical staff working either in food security and livelihoods or in HIV/AIDS and reproductive health who require an introduction to the linkages between the two areas, and as a guide to the many issues that need to be considered when carrying out assessments (or reviewing others\u2019 assessments) and when planning interventions. The focus is specifically on economic impacts of AIDS, and does not address important emotional, psychological and social impacts. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Watch","field_subtitle":"Mobilising Civil Society around an Alternative World Health Report","field_url":"","body":"The GHW is putting out a call for the submission of country or region-specific case studies.  These case studies will form part of the electronic accompaniment to the alternative World Health Report to be launched in July 2005 at the Peoples health Assembly in Ecuador.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30578","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health in an Age of Globalization ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.wws.princeton.edu/%7Erpds/downloads/deaton_healthglobalage.pdf","body":"Disease has travelled with goods and people since the earliest times. Armed globalization spread disease, to the extent of eliminating entire populations. The geography of disease shaped patterns of colonization and industrialization throughout the now poor world. Many see related threats to public health from current globalization. Multilateral and bilateral trade agreements do not always adequately represent the interests of poor countries, the General Agreement on Trade in Services may restrict the freedom of signatories to shape their own health delivery systems, and it remains unclear whether current arrangements for intellectual property rights are in the interests of citizens of poor countries with HIV/AIDS. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In response to an overwhelming appeal for access to health information from researchers and scientists in the developing world, the Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) was launched in January 2002. HINARI is a partnership between the World Health Organization (WHO) and major international publishing companies and offers access to academic institutions, which currently provides free or low-cost access to over 2400 online biomedical and social science journals for eligible institutions in 103 countries. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30573","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Leadership Service (HLS) Initiative ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Through the Health Leadership Service, the World Health Organization (WHO) has begun recruiting young health professionals to a two-year work and training program, specifically aimed at strengthening the knowledge and skills essential for leadership roles in public health at all levels -national, regional and global.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30607","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Policy and Planning - New issue alert","field_subtitle":"September 2004; Vol. 19, No. 5","field_url":"http://heapol.oupjournals.org/content/vol19/issue5/index.shtml?etoc","body":"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health promotion through self-care and community participation","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-4-11.pdf","body":"This paper proposes a broad outline for designing health promotion programmes in developing countries, based on the Ottawa Charter for health promotion and principles of self-care and community participation.  There is now a window of opportunity for promoting self-care and community participation for health promotion in developing countries.  It recommends that supportive policies are framed, with self-care clearinghouses set up at provincial level to co-ordinate the programme activities in consultation with district and national teams.  Self-care should be promoted in schools and workplaces.  For developing individual skills, self-care information, generated through a participatory process, should be disseminated using a wide range of print and audio-visual tools and information technology based tools.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIPC sunset clause - Haven't we been there before?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eurodad.org/articles/default.aspx?id=546","body":"The World Bank and IMF have produced a paper entitled \"Enhanced HIPC Initiative - Possible Options Regarding the Sunset Clause\", dealing with the sunset clause of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC). The paper provides a brief background to the sunset clause and discusses the implications of its expiry at the end of the year before going on to discuss four possible policy options and concluding remarks. Eurodad, the European Network on Debt and Development, comments that any extension would: \"...embarrassingly for the WB and IMF, represent the fourth extension to the initiative. We argue that this demonstrates the severe technical shortcomings (and therefore credibility) of the initiative.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS threatening subsistence agriculture in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSReport.ASP?ReportID=3804","body":"HIV/AIDS is threatening subsistence agriculture in Mozambique, with \"ominous implications\" for the country's food supply, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned. By 2020 the country will have lost over 20 percent of its agricultural labour force to HIV/AIDS, according to FAO.  Mozambique and Namibia feature among the nine hardest-hit African countries, all in southern and eastern Africa, where FAO predicts a loss of agricultural labour to the disease.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Masters Degree Fellowships: HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria Research and Training","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Graduate School, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand is dedicated to building health research capacity in South Africa and the SADC region.  The School is inviting applications for fellowships (sponsored by the Belgian Embassy) to enable trainees to undertake full time master's level training in the Faculty of Health Sciences.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30567","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Meeting the MDG drinking-water and sanitation target","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/monitoring/jmp2004/en/","body":"The combination of safe drinking water and hygienic sanitation facilities is a precondition for health and for success in the fight against poverty, hunger, child deaths and gender inequality. It is also central to the human rights and personal dignity of every woman, man and child on earth. Yet 2.6 billion people \u2013 half the developing world \u2013 lack even a simple \u2018improved\u2019 latrine. One person in six \u2013 more than 1 billion of our fellow human beings \u2013 has little choice but to use potentially harmful sources of water. The consequences of our collective failure to tackle this problem are dimmed prospects for the billions of people locked in a cycle of poverty and disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New Publication: HIV/AIDS and agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This publication is the first in a three part series on HIV/AIDS and agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa with the overall objective of providing a resource base on issues of rural development in a broad sense in the times of HIV/AIDS. This first book discusses the impact of the epidemic as it has emerged over the last decades at different levels of the agricultural sector, namely the farming system level, the livelihood level, and the household level. In a further step, impact on the agricultural estate sector as well as pastoralism is discussed.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30572","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Nursing crisis cripples Malawi","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3590764.stm","body":"Malawi is facing a health crisis as trained nurses leave to seek better wages abroad.  More than half come to Britain to work for the NHS and private hospitals.  Last year over 12,000 nurses from outside the European Union registered to work in the UK.  In contrast Malawi, one of the world's poorest countries, trains around 60 nurses each year.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Parliamentary functions and reforms and their application in promoting health equity in southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/DISSPAPER16MATAURE.pdf","body":"This paper aims to provide insight into the practical challenges faced by parliaments and parliamentarians in addressing the issues of equity in health. It goes on to describe the attempts that have been made to address those challenges in southern Africa. A number of opportunities for parliaments to promote health equity are identified. Firstly, parliaments are in charge of their rules, which they can revise to become more efficient and effective when they commit themselves to reforms. Secondly, in the region there is a vibrant civil society that raises questions and compels parliaments to address issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor countries need to tackle the health brain drain ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7463/419-a","body":"With the United Kingdom needing 10 000 more doctors, and with more than 7000 nurses from the Philippines alone currently registered in the United Kingdom, compared with just 52 in 1999, a new report says that the countries providing the workers, as well as those that hire them, need to look for solutions.  The report says that many African doctors also migrate within the continent, mostly to southern African states where salaries are often higher: for instance, $1242 a month in South Africa, compared with $50 in Sierra Leone.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Pressure mounts on private health care in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200408161080.html","body":"With the dust not yet settled on the health department's bid to regulate medicine prices, another messy conflict over state regulation of private health care looms large.  A decade-long attempt to provide a unified health system that includes both public and private sector providers took concrete form on Friday, when President Thabo Mbeki signed the long awaited National Health Bill into law.  The move is set to spark loud protest from doctors and private hospital groups, anxious about clauses in the legislation designed to regulate their services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"PRSP's - What significance for health?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2004/WHO_HDP_PRSP_04.1.pdf","body":"In the main, Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) do not systematically identify those health issues which are the biggest contributors to poverty or the greatest brake on economic growth. Nor do they look systematically at the health situation of the poor \u2013 beyond noting that they tend to have the worst health outcomes and are unable to afford health care fees. A further important point is that PRSPs do not deliver on their potential to stimulate cross-sectoral action for health. This is according to a second synthesis report from the World Health Organisation, 'PRSP's - Their significance for health'.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public \u2013 private 'partnerships' in health \u2013 a global call to action","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-2-5.pdf","body":"The need for public-private partnerships arose against the backdrop of inadequacies on the part of the public sector to provide public good on their own, in an efficient and effective manner, owing to lack of resources and management issues.  Though such partnerships create a powerful mechanism for addressing difficult problems by leveraging on the strengths of different partners, they also package complex ethical and process-related challenges. Participation of international agencies warrants that they be set within a comprehensive policy and operational framework within the organizational mandate and involvement of countries requires legislative authorization, within the framework of which, procedural and process related guidelines need to be developed.  This paper outlines key ethical and procedural issues inherent to different types of public-private arrangements and issues a Global Call to Action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Pushing the boundaries: health and the next round of PRSPs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.wemos.nl/prs/library/healthandprs/pushing_the_boundaries.pdf","body":"Wemos and Medact have prepared this report to fuel the discussion on how PRSPs can be used to improve the health of the poor.  The report builds on the materials from seven country studies, prepared by NGOs to gain insight into the possible added value of PRSPs for health in their countries.  Based on these and other sources, the report highlights a number of issues that in our view are crucial for achieving equitable health systems and which should receive much more attention in PRS processes than they do so far.  These include the coordination of development aid and international health initiatives, the debt burden and other macroeconomic constraints to increased health spending, and policy initiatives to make health care markets more socially-inclusive in low-income countries.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Removing user fees for primary care","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Responses to \"Removing user fees for primary care\", featured as an editorial in the August edition of Equinet News.  These responses were posted to the AFRO-NETS mailing list:\r\nafro-nets@healthnet.org \r\nhttp://list.healthnet.org/mailman/listinfo/afro-nets \r\n\r\n1. Removing user fees for primary care \r\nEmmanuel Otolorin \r\nAfrica is never short of excellent policy documents and guidelines which ordinarily should translate into quality health care for all.  After reading your article, my first reaction was to agree that the removal of user fees should \"under normal circumstances\" lead to increased utilization of health services and an improvement in the health of the people.  But then numerous flashes from my temporal hard disk cautioned me.  Not withstanding your well-thought out recommendations for managing the removal of user fees, experience has shown that policies like this hardly ever translate into reality.\r\n\r\n2. Removing user fees for primary care \r\nPeter Burgess \r\nThe expectation that \"government\" or \"donors\" or \"philanthropists (like Bill Gates)\" will fund everything the poor needs is a big problem.  Certainly people have \"rights\", but rights can only have any meaning when there is a functional economy. In the past thirty years or more, the economy of the SOUTH has become more and more dysfunctional and there are no useful resources for the poor, and the governments are essentially bankrupt.  This is a terrible state of affairs and leadership in both the NORTH and in the SOUTH is largely to blame.  But also so are we all.  We are following (blindly it seems) easy words that cannot end up doing any good.\r\n\r\n>>>>>Please click on the link below to read the full responses.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30605","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Resolutions of the June Equinet conference","field_subtitle":"Third Southern African conference on Equity in Health","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/","body":"Noting: \r\nThe 1997 Kasane meeting on Equity in Health that confirmed the commitment to equity in health at all levels in southern Africa; the 1999 Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Health, the 2003 Maseru Declaration on HIV and AIDS and the resolutions of the SADC Heads of States Summit on food security held in Tanzania, 2004... To read more, please visit the Equinet website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual and reproductive health and rights","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC15313&resource=f1health&n=1","body":"In this paper, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) sets out its position on sexual and reproductive health and rights, reaffirming its commitment to realising the goals of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). New challenges are highlighted, including the HIV/AIDS pandemic; threats to international consensus; increasing demand for reproductive health services; and weak or failing health systems, alongside a shortage of skilled health workers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa AIDS drug giant tackled over high prices","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSReport.ASP?ReportID=3800","body":"The US-based NGO, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), has lodged a complaint with South Africa's Competition Tribunal against leading anti-AIDS drug producer, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), saying Glaxo's high drug prices are preventing the treatment of more HIV-positive South Africans. A local newspaper, Business Day, quoted AHF president Michael Weinstein as saying: \"We have had to turn people away from our clinic because we simply don't have the funds to treat all the people who need treatment. If the price of GSK's AIDS drugs had been lower, we might have been able to save their lives.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"strategic approaches to health care migration management","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/82/8/en/595.pdf","body":"Medical practitioners and nurses represent a small proportion of the highly skilled workers who migrate, but the loss for developing countries of human resources in the health sector may mean that the capacity of the health system to deliver health care equitably is significantly compromised.  It is unlikely that migration will stop given the advances in global communications and the development of global labour markets in some fields, which now include nursing.  The aim of this paper is to examine some key issues related to the international migration of health workers and to discuss strategic approaches to managing migration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Support 100% Multilateral Debt Cancellation","field_subtitle":"A sign-on letter and action alert from Physicians for Human Rights","field_url":"","body":"The debt relief movement is poised for a historic day this October 1st when G-7 finance ministers discuss 100% multilateral debt cancellation for impoverished countries.  Debt cancellation would free up significant funds for development, including fighting AIDS and strengthening health systems.  You can help make this happen.\r\n\r\nIf you are a health professional, please lend your name to an international health professional sign on letter that will reach all G-7 finance ministers and presidents/prime ministers before this important meeting.  This letter is copied below.  If you would like to add your name, please respond by September 20th to aidsact@phrusa.org with your full name, degree, affiliation, and state/country.\r\n\r\nInternational Health Professional Sign-on Letter \r\n\r\nSeptember, 2004 \r\n\r\nDear G-7 Presidents and Prime Ministers:\r\n\r\nWe write to you as health professionals from diverse countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, Europe, and Australia who strongly support debt cancellation for poor countries.  Debt cancellation is a prescription urgently needed to help heal seriously ailing health systems \u2013 some of which cannot even provide minimal care \u2013 in many of the countries in which we live and work.\r\n\r\nDebt cancellation would free large sums of money, funds that should be used to build stronger and more equitable health systems, which are desperately needed if the fight against AIDS and other killer diseases is ever to be won.  Right now we are losing that fight.  AIDS alone kills about 3 million people per year, as another 5 million people becoming infected with HIV annually.  At the end of June 2004, fewer than 10% of people in developing countries in urgent need of AIDS treatment were receiving it.  In light of the health crises that many of our countries face, debt cancellation is necessary on human rights and humanitarian grounds.  We therefore urge you to endorse 100% multilateral debt cancellation for impoverished countries when the issue is discussed at the meeting of G-7 finance ministers this October 1.\r\n\r\nWe know that poor countries need this debt relief urgently.  African countries alone are collectively spending about $15 billion per year servicing their debts to wealthy creditors, including multilateral institutions.  The fifteen focus countries of the U.S.  President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief spent $10.3 billion servicing their debts in 2001; this is more than the $9 billion these countries are scheduled to receive over the Emergency Plan\u2019s entire five years.  The World Bank, IMF, and regional development banks are typically the largest creditors of the most impoverished nations.\r\n\r\nRelief from debt could be instrumental in enabling countries to meet AIDS treatment targets, as well as other health goals.  Your governments all support the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO\u2019s) 3 by 5 initiative, which aims to get 3 million people in developing and middle-income countries on AIDS treatment by the end of 2005.  Yet treatment goals cannot be achieved without health workers.  And as so many of us know through our own experiences, many countries, particularly in Africa, have nowhere near the necessary numbers of health personnel.  For example, WHO and the World Bank have reported that Tanzania and Chad, both countries that would benefit greatly from debt cancellation, require their health workforces to triple and quadruple in size, respectively, to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.\r\n\r\nThe connection between suffering health systems and the debt payments that limit funds available to them is palpable.  To a significant degree, the severe shortage of health workers in Africa is a symptom of acute underinvestment in health systems, many of which suffer from too few staff, too few supplies, and too few drugs.  This underinvestment is a central cause of the migration of health professionals to wealthy nations, where health systems are stronger and pay is better.  Creating the conditions that will enable health professionals to remain in their home countries and allow them to provide the best care possible for their patients will cost money.  Health care workers will continue to leave if they are unable to meet the charge of our professions: serving our patients.  Our colleagues will continue to emigrate so long as they do not have medicines for their patients, or functioning equipment, or proper supervision.  And they will continue to leave so long as they cannot support their families or be confident of their own safety.  They need fair salaries, equipment to protect themselves from occupational infections of HIV and other diseases, and psychosocial support to help cope with the constant death and stressors they face.\r\n\r\nFull multilateral debt cancellation for impoverished nations could go a long way towards meeting people\u2019s right to the highest attainable standard of health.  Indeed, debt relief that countries have received under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative has already begun to do so.  In Malawi, savings from debt relief have paid for extra staff and support in primary health centres, nurse training, and improving the supply of essential drugs in health facilities.  In Mozambique, debt relief funds helped increase the number of children receiving immunizations for tetanus, whooping cough, and diphtheria.  Debt relief savings have also helped fund primary health care in Uganda, including salaries of health care workers, while countries including Uganda and Cameroon have used debt relief savings to help finance HIV/AIDS programs.\r\n\r\nDebt cancellation is an excellent investment not only in people\u2019s health, but also in countries\u2019 economic well-being.  Increased spending by impoverished countries in health, education, and other fields that promote human development, which will result from debt cancellation, goes hand-in-hand with economic growth.  As WHO\u2019s Commission on Macroeconomics and Health has highlighted, investments in health will increase worker productivity, creating economic gains that would far exceed the initial cost to creditors of debt relief.  Debt cancellation will help put countries that are economically marginalized and heavily dependent on foreign aid onto paths towards economic autonomy and integration in the world economy.  By contrast, without debt cancellation and other investments to reverse the spread of and treat people with HIV/AIDS, decreased worker productivity will make countries increasingly dependent on foreign assistance and unable to participate in the global economy.\r\n\r\nWe therefore urge you to support 100% multilateral debt cancellation for impoverished countries, including HIPC countries and as well as non-HIPC countries that are in need of this relief.  We hope that your finance ministers will announce your governments\u2019 support for such an initiative at their October 1 meeting.  And we encourage you to work with countries whose debts are cancelled to ensure that their savings from debt payments are used on poverty reduction and human development.  Countries can establish mechanisms to ensure that savings from debt services payments are used to reduce poverty and to promote human development.  Uganda has established a Poverty Action Fund into which savings from debt relief are channelled, and which includes a series of procedures to ensure that the debt relief savings are well spent.  Other countries, including Tanzania and Malawi, have established similar mechanisms.\r\n\r\nWe also encourage you to work towards a permanent solution to the debt of impoverished countries \u2013 including for countries that do not receive 100% multilateral debt cancellation and for any new debt assumed by those countries whose debts are cancelled \u2013 by creating a new understanding of what level of debt countries are expected to repay.  In particular, we urge you to announce that from this time forward, countries will be neither obliged nor expected to make debt payments that would compromise their ability to meet their people\u2019s basic needs or otherwise fulfill their people\u2019s human rights.\r\n\r\nWe are health professionals.  Our job is to heal.  So it pains us to see debt payments siphoning away funds that could go far towards enabling our colleagues and ourselves do our jobs and meet the needs of the patients we serve.  We fervently hope that you will help enable us to be the healers that we were trained to be.\r\n\r\nSincerely,\r\n[If you would like to add your name, please respond by September 20th to aidsact@phrusa.org with your full name, degree, affiliation, and state/country.]","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The Zambian HIV/AIDS workforce study","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC15431","body":"Anticipating significant scale-up of its current HIV/AIDS services, the Zambian Central Board of Health commissioned this study of the human resource implications.  The study collected data at 16 government, NGO, and private for-profit sites across Zambia that currently provide VCT, P-MTCT, and ART services.  It analyses the time taken to carry out the prescribed tasks involved in each of the services, describes the present workforce involved in providing these services and the extent to which services are currently following national service delivery standards, and projects the human resource requirements and costs associated with scaling up services to planned levels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Training Manual for Health and Social Workers in Sub-Saharan Africa: Implementation of the Essential Nutrition Actions","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.basics.org/publications/abs/abs_ena_trainingmanualAfrica.html","body":"Health care workers are an invaluable resource for improving maternal and child nutrition in developing countries.  Recognizing the need to reinforce the capacity of health care workers in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Support for Analysis and Research in Africa (SARA) and BASICS II projects developed a comprehensive training manual on implementation of Essential Nutrition Actions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Translating Research into Practice","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cmwf.org/programs/elders/bradley_translating_research_724.pdf","body":"\"In today's cost-conscious health care environment, translating evidence-based quality innovations into clinical practice is a challenge. Limited resources mean providers and health systems must follow proven methods for diffusing and adopting effective interventions.\u201d For this study, the authors conducted case studies of four varied clinical programs to learn key factors influencing the diffusion and adoption of evidence-based innovations in health care. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO defends itself against Lancet article","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/press/2004/pr20040811.html","body":"An editorial in the August 7 issue of The Lancet painted a bleak picture of the work of WHO in the African Region, giving the impression that WHO is not recording any successes there.  In fact, despite the challenges of poverty and ongoing instability, the opposite is true.  For example, in spite of recent political difficulties, the number of polio-endemic countries in the African Region has fallen from 20 in 1999 to just two today.  Huge efforts are underway to eliminate the disease completely.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Development Report 2006","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWDR2006/Resources/WDR_on_Equity_FinalOutline_July_public.pdf","body":"The average level of real income in the richest countries is 50 times that of the poorest. The richest tenth of the South African population enjoy levels of consumption per person almost 70 times those of the poorest tenth. Citizens of the world also experience profound differences in influence, access to legal systems, power and social status, whether at the level of individuals, between men and women, or between groups. Acute inequality in incomes, in health status, in educational outcomes and in other dimensions of welfare is a stark fact of life. The 2006 World Development Report will explore the relationship between equity and development strategy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambians urged to use free AIDS drugs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSReport.ASP?ReportID=3821","body":"Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has urged people living with HIV/AIDS to make use of anti-AIDS drugs, which are freely available at healthcare sites throughout the country. Mwanawasa was quoted by a local newspaper, The Times of Zambia, as saying: \"The answer does not lie in sitting back with your disease but in presenting your case to authorities ... so that you can get treatment.\" He noted that antiretroviral treatment would improve their health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Zima Resolves to Lobby HIV/Aids Global Fund","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200408240924.html","body":"Doctors have resolved to lobby the Global Fund to give Zimbabwe funds for use in HIV/Aids initiatives. At the Zimbabwe Medical Association congress, which took place in Victoria Falls from August 19 to 22 under the theme \"New Horizons in the Health Sector\", the doctors said it was grossly irresponsible and a violation of human rights for Zimbabwe to be denied money from the fund. Zima secretary-general Dr Paul Chimedza said doctors suspected that the reason the country was denied the money was political.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Abortion and Human Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ipas.org/publications/en/initiatives_in_reproductive_health_policy/volume3_number2.pdf","body":"Tradition and culture, the determination and ingenuity of women, and the concern and commitment of health care providers often circumvent the law to find expression.  For example, though legal reform is not yet feasible in Mozambique, three large public hospitals have begun to provide elective abortions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Abstract Book Available: Reclaiming the state: Advancing people\u2019s health, challenging injustice","field_subtitle":"Regional Conference on Equity in Health in Southern Africa","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=416","body":"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Aids conference: 'Virus' of free trade fatal for those with HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The rapidly spreading virus of free trade has proved as fatal to those living with HIV/AIDS as the disease itself according to Health NOW!, a global alliance of activist groups fighting the patenting of life-saving medicine by drug multinationals.  Speaking at the XV international AIDS conference in Bangkok a Health NOW!  spokesperson argued that millions of lives could be saved if developing world nations were not forced to sign unfair trade agreements by developed countries.  Multilateral as well as bilateral free trade pacts he said were devastating the lives of the poor, contributing to the spread of HIV/AIDS and compounding the devastation caused by the pandemic.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30520","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Aids Conference: 3 by 5 goals can be met, says report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=24672","body":"Although the objective of the World Health Organization's 3 by 5 Initiative - treating three million people with antiretroviral drugs by 2005 - is behind schedule, it is still possible, according to the first progress report for the initiative. The report - released in advance of the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand - estimates that 440,000 people currently are receiving treatment under the program. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Aids conference: Access for all includes access by civil society to global bodies","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In an unprecedented gesture, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan invited 11 HIV/AIDS activists from diverse civil society organizations for a frank dialogue about the UN and international response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.  Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS, facilitated the meeting.  The 11 civil society organizations reached quick consensus on four key issues that need to be addressed immediately, by the Secretary General and UN bodies, in order to enhance and sustain comprehensive response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30528","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Aids conference: Bangkok - What did we learn?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20031066","body":"The 15th international AIDS conference has come and gone, but what will we have hoped to achieve when the world meets again in Toronto in two years time?  Unlike the international AIDS conference in Vancouver 1996 when Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) broke new scientific ground and Durban 2000 when equal access to medicines made centre-stage, Bangkok 2004 presented no revolutionary science, no dramatic breakthroughs.  But it did get back to basics and the need for an holistic approach.  There is no single strategy to address HIV/AIDS.  It requires prevention and treatment, activist pressure and government commitment, advanced scientific research and community involvement, and above all, a human rights-based approach designed to support vulnerable individuals and groups.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Aids conference: Controversy over Nevirapine at Aids conference","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hdnet.org/aids2004/AIDS%20Newspaper%20Issue%2004.pdf","body":"Conference delegates at the recent International Aids Conference in Thailand witnessed top South African government officials facing off with leading civil society activists over the use of the antiretroviral drug Nevirapine for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. The session eventually brought about a better understanding of this issue. The controversy followed a comment made by South African Health Minister, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, at the opening of the South African stand at the Conference on Sunday. The Minister said that recent studies did not support the use of single-dose Nevirapine for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT).\r\n\r\n>>> Visit the website of the Health and Development Network (http://www.hdnet.org/home2.htm) and read The Correspondent, a daily newspaper produced at the International AIDS conference, for detailed news.\r\n\r\n>>> Kaisernetwork.org conference page:\r\nhttp://www.kaisernetwork.org/aids2004/kffsyndication.asp?show=portal.html\r\n\r\n>>> XV International AIDS Conference\r\nhttp://www.ias.se/aids2004/\r\n \r\n>>> WHO site\r\nhttp://www.who.int/3by5/bangkok/en/","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Aids conference: Scaling up access to care in resource constrained settings: What is needed?","field_subtitle":"Address by Jim Yong Kim, Director, Department of HIV/AIDS, WHO,  XV International AIDS Conference, Bangkok Plenary Address, 13 July 2004","field_url":"http://www.who.int/3by5/plenaryspeech/en/","body":"\"As we have learned from this epidemic, silence cannot be an option. \"3 by 5\" is our best chance to use time creatively and effectively to fight this epidemic. Those of us with power and responsibility are called to do everything possible over the next 18 months to make a difference, to finally dance with this epidemic at its own pace. For the activists, you must hold all of our collective feet to the hottest possible fire because large organizations and the powerful have a way of finding reasons to not take action. If you don\u2019t continue to push us, we will falter. Bold and ambitious goals for AIDS prevention and care - and action to match \u2013 are our only options. Anything less is to miss the warning of Martin Luther King and to be guilty of an appalling and deadly silence.\"\r\n* Interview with Jim Yong Kim\r\nhttp://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/82/6/en/feature.pdf","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Aids conference: US aids plan at odds with treatment for all","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"As 15,000 scientists, policy-makers, advocates and People Living with HIV/AIDS gathered in Bangkok for the 15th International AIDS Conference, a rising chorus of critics were challenging the strategy of President Bush\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Randall Tobias, US Global AIDS Coordinator, and other US officials in Bangkok faced daily protests in Bangkok on issues ranging from the purchase of generic drugs through the President\u2019s AIDS Plan to its highly controversial focus on abstinence-based prevention programs. \"The international community has come to Bangkok under the banner of \u2018Access for All\u2019, but all too often the Administration\u2019s AIDS plan is undermining this critical goal,\" said Salih Booker, Executive Director of Africa Action.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30523","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing the quality of evidence in evidence-based policy: why, how and when?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/methods/publications/Pawson.pdf","body":"This paper examines some recent yardsticks used to sort the evidential sheep from the research goats by questioning why, how and when such research standards should be brought to bear. It concludes that the drive to cast standards as formal checklists of quality indicators is premature, and that appraising quality is not and cannot be a technical preliminary to research synthesis. Open and critical debate on the interpretation of research findings remains the surest way to establish and maintain investigatory standards.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Chronic Poverty Report 2004-2005","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.chronicpoverty.org/cprcaboutCPR.htm","body":"The Chronic Poverty Research Center's latest report examines what chronic poverty is and why it matters, who the chronically poor are, where they live, what causes poverty to be persistent and what should be done.  A section of regional perspectives looks at the experience of chronic poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, transitional countries and China.  The report argues that the chronically poor need targeted support, social assistance and social protection.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community effort in Zambia brings access to health care","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=42163","body":"Since the Kyafukuma Rural Health Clinic (RHC) in northwestern Zambia closed its doors in 2000 after the old building collapsed, villagers have had to make do with a cramped inadequate clinic.  Now, growing frustration over the lack of satisfactory medical care has led to a community-driven initiative that promises improved access to health care.  After years of waiting for the reopening of the RHC, a joint project by the state-sponsored Zambia Social Investment Fund (Zamsif) and local people is expected to hasten completion of a new RHC, including the construction and rehabilitation of quarters for five staff members.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Contracting out: the case of primary care in South Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=8&i=h1np2g2&u=41060b59","body":"Contracts can be used to govern the relationship between the public and the private sectors where the private sector delivers services on behalf of the state. On occasion, this allows the state to offer services such as basic medical provision where public sector provision does not reach. Researchers examine the case of primary care in South Africa where such contracts are being utilised. They argue that understanding the relationship between client and contractor requires a thorough understanding of some of the factors that govern the relationship, such as the role played by individual motivation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Declaration on treatment access for HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\"We, economists, public health experts and policy makers involved in the fight against AIDS are committed to scaling up access to health care including ARVs for HIV positive people. We consider it a rational economic decision and an absolute priority. The goal set by WHO is to have 3 million people on treatment by the end of 2005. What it will cost, who will do it and how it will be done is still being debated and we have much to learn. There are, of course, major concerns around the scaling up of access to treatment; how can these programs improve the uptake? How can they reach the most vulnerable and poor populations? How can they achieve a high level of adherence to ARV treatments in order to avoid the spread of resistance? This declaration sets out a principle we all should subscribe to and apply: the principle of a comprehensive minimum package of treatment provided for free to all the people living with HIV / AIDS.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30550","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Doha round must be about development","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In the last two months we have seen concerted attempts at reviving global trade talks which collapsed in Cancun, Mexico last year. This article from the SEATINI bulletin argues that the Doha round cannot be about anything other than development. At any rate, the Marrakesh Agreement which established the WTO speaks of a \u201cneed for positive efforts designed to ensure that developing countries and especially the least developed countries among them secure a share in growth in international trade commensurate with the needs of their economic development.\u201d The outcome of any negotiations cannot be considered legitimate if they trash the concerns of the poor countries.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30544","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":" Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by\r\n Fahamu - learning for change http://www.fahamu.org/\r\n\r\n Contact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\n EQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa\r\n To post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\n Website:  http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\n Please forward this to others.\r\n\r\n To subscribe, visit\r\n http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter/subscribe.php or send an email\r\n to info@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\n * Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter August 2004: Removing user fees for primary care: necessary but not enough by itself ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. The newsletter also includes news about Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Extreme Poverty Spreading In Sub-Saharan Africa, says UN","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,date:07-20-2004~menuPK:34461~pagePK:34392~piPK:34427~theSitePK:4607,00.html#Story2","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world where the proportion of people living in extreme poverty has continued to grow for 20 years, Reuters reports. In its annual Industrial Development Report released on Tuesday, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) described the region as \"the last frontier in the fight against abject poverty\" and said the international community and the countries concerned needed to step up efforts to promote economic growth there. The rate of absolute poverty - people living on one dollar a day or less - in Sub-Saharan Africa is nearing 50 percent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"From charity to rights: proposal for five action areas of global health ","field_subtitle":"Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2004;58:630-631","field_url":"http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/58/8/630","body":"\"I believe that we are at a turning point for public health - and that our choices are stark: either we reorient and strengthen public health within both modern and developing societies and institute a resilient system of global governance for health or we will face dire consequences in terms of human, social, and economic development.  At present, it is the poorest countries that are paying the price for this negligence - but we have mounting signals that a new health divide is in the making as a large global underclass spreads out around the globe and defies the old definitions of vulnerable groups.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Growing inequality in access to health services","field_subtitle":"People\\'s  Health Movement Statement","field_url":"","body":"\"On 2 - 4 July 2004, more than 530 delegates - including more than 80 health workers and representing over 60 organisations and institutions - met at the first People's Health Summit (PHS) to discuss the crisis and inequity in the health system and the roll-out of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment. While recognising the impact of the legacy of injustice and inequality of apartheid on the health service of our country and our people, delegates to the PHS expressed grave concern that in spite of many good policies, laws and programmes, the public health service is in crisis and the quality of many services is in decline.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30549","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Informatics for Southern Africa conference","field_subtitle":"6th - 8th October 2004, Kimberley, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.hisa.co.za","body":"Organised by the South African Health Informatics Association, in conjunction with the Computer Society of Southern Africa, the theme of the conference is: \"Health Informatics - Southern Africa\" Tracks within the conference include discussions on open source initiatives, monitoring of ARV rollout, standards and electronic interchange.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact, regulation and health policy implications of physician migration","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-2-12.pdf","body":"Although the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries generally favour long-term policies of national self-sufficiency to sustain their medical workforce, such policies usually co-exist with short-term or medium-term policies to attract foreign physicians. As this is likely to continue, there is a need to create a global framework that enforces physician migration policies that confer benefits on home and host countries. In the long-term, OECD member countries need to put in place appropriate education and training policies rather than rely on physician migration to address their future needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"International Comparisons in Policy Making ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.policyhub.gov.uk/bpmaking/icpm_toolkit/beyond_the_horizon_ICPM_home.asp","body":"The use of international comparisons is an essential element of modern, professional policy making. Looking abroad to see what other governments have done can point us towards a new understanding of shared problems; towards new solutions to those problems; or to new mechanisms for implementing policy and improving the delivery of public services. This toolkit pack is intended to provide help and guidance in the use of international comparisons in policy making. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"International Online Health Economics","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This is an established course directed by Professor Gavin Mooney, a leading international educator in health economics and designed for health care professionals seeking a professional edge. It is open to fee paying international and Australian students.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30537","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Lancet goes mobile","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"You can now download selected content from the latest issue of The Lancet to read at your leisure on your mobile device - PDA, wireless PDA or smartphone.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30529","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Learning from the private sector: lessons for public health policy from South Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=7&i=h1np2g1&u=41060b59","body":"The market for primary health care in South Africa represents a growing opportunity for private providers targeting lower income employed workers, who often prefer not to use the public sector. A new model of service provision is emerging in the form of private companies providing fixed price primary care services in urban areas. Whilst the range of services delivered was quite limited compared to the public sector, apparently effective delivery, clearly better patient experiences, and a similar cost to the public sector, all suggest that the public sector can learn about some aspects of service delivery from these companies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring access to basic health services","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/616","body":"The second Equity Gauge seeks to place the goal of equitable health care within a broader framework that links socio-economic disparities with health outcomes.  This publication highlights the fact that people do not get sick at random and that health is intimately tied up with living and working conditions.  In focusing on this interdependence of socio-economic determinants with health outcomes, the document also points to the relationship between health status and geographical, racial and gender-related issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"More AIDS Drug Price Cuts Needed, says MSF","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=5643086&src=eDialog/GetContent&section=news","body":"AIDS drugs can dramatically increase survival for patients in poor countries but further drug price cuts are needed for patients who develop a resistance to the initial therapy, Medecins Sans Frontieres says. The independent humanitarian relief organization treats 13,000 patients in 25 countries. It says patients receiving antiretroviral (ARV) drugs have an 85 percent chance of being alive two years later. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"New journal for Southern AIDS research","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews&itemid=1478&language=1","body":"AIDS researchers from institutes in developing countries now have a new peer-reviewed outlet in which to publish their findings, with this week's launch (7 July) of the e-Journal of the International AIDS Society (eJIAS).  eJIAS is the collaborative joint product of the International AIDS Society (IAS) and Medscape, an online provider of medical news.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"New Medical Journal from PLoS (Public Library of Science)","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plosmedicine.org","body":"PLoS Medicine, is a new journal from the Public Library of Science (PLoS).  As an open access journal, articles in PLoS Medicine will be immediately and always freely available online from our website and from PubMed Central.  Publication is monthly, with a first issue in Autumn, 2004, and submissions are now being accepted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory approaches in the health sector","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpcgi.exe?AC=GET_RECORD&XC=/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpcgi.exe&BU=http%3A//www.eldis.org/healthsystems/index.htm&TN=a3&SN=AUTO11280&SE=1608&RN=0&MR=30&RF=s1hsrc&DF=f1hsrc&RL=0&DL=0&NP=3&ID=&MF=hsrcmsg.ini&MQ=&TI=0","body":"Communities are no longer seen as passive recipients of healthcare. But what does this shift in emphasis mean? What kind of relationship between communities, service providers and managers is best? A workshop held at the Institute of Development Studies in 1999 asked three questions: What does accountability mean? How can health service providers be accountable to their users? What sorts of partnership will improve accountability and effectiveness? Studies from eleven countries illustrated experiences with participatory approaches and partnerships in enhancing accountability in the health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Preventing the brain drain through equitable health systems","field_subtitle":"Physicians for Human Rights report","field_url":"http://www.phrusa.org/campaigns/aids/pdf/braindrain.pdf","body":"\"The nations of the world are setting ambitious health and development goals, including the World Health Organization (WHO) target of providing AIDS treatment to 3 million people by 2005 and health-related UN Millennium Development Goals.  Unless greater attention by donors and governments is given to developing human resources, these goals almost certainly will not be met. Many of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the region that will be the focus of this report, are experiencing severe shortages of skilled health care workers.  There are multiple causes, the significance of which varies by country, but one of the most important factors is brain drain.  Brain drain is defined in this report as the exodus of health care workers from developing nations to the wealthier countries of the North.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Principles, Issues and options for strengthening health systems for treatment access","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=364","body":"This summary document presents: The principles for ensuring universal treatment access through sustainable public health systems; The major findings and issues from the work carried out in southern Africa on equity in health sector responses to HIV and AIDS, particularly in terms of access to antiretroviral treatment; The key challenges for follow up work identified at the southern African regional meeting on Strengthening Health Systems for treatment access and equitable responses to HIV/AIDS, in Harare, Zimbabwe, February 2004.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaiming the state: Advancing people\u2019s health, challenging injustice","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=387","body":"It is six years since EQUINET was formed to support the Southern African Development community (SADC) in its commitment to secure equity in health.  In those six years many challenges have been faced, much has been achieved and much remains to be done. This report from the EQUINET steering committee faces the future squarely in the eye.  It details the opportunities for equity that lie in the region and highlights the obstacles to equity that we must confront.  It offers a vision of health systems that serve equity.  It presents a rallying call for those striving to work for justice hand in hand with the poor and marginalised.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Removing user fees for primary care: necessary but not enough by itself ","field_subtitle":"Lucy Gilson and Di McIntyre, EQUINET Theme co-ordinators, Fair Financing","field_url":"","body":"User fees are once again a hot topic of policy debate.  This time the question is whether to remove primary care fees.  At its conference in June this year, EQUINET took a clear position on the issue.  We called for these fees to be removed.  But we also stated that this action is not a cure-all for the problems facing health systems in Africa.  User fee removal must be accompanied by actions that increase overall national resources for public sector health services and that deal with international conditions and policies that undermine this.  \r\n\r\nThe two reasons why primary care fees must go are that:\r\n- They contribute to the unaffordable cost burdens imposed on poor households;\r\n- They signal to poor households that society does not care about them.  \r\n\r\nFees at primary care are relatively low.  Even so, there is widespread evidence to show that fees encourage self-treatment (using herbs or poor quality medicine bought in unregulated market places), deter people from taking full doses (so increasing the chances of drug resistance), and act as a barrier to early, or even any, use of health facilities.  In these ways the small level of fees can increase the costs poor people bear when ill.  So even though fees represent a smaller proportion of the total costs of accessing health care than transport or lost income, they contribute to levels of cost burden that can, in some instances, impoverish poor households.  At one level, impoverishment results from selling key assets, cutting down on other necessary expenditures, or borrowing, often at exorbitant interest rates, to pay for health care.  At another level, charging fees adds cost to the other immense barriers of accessing care, such as distance and abusive treatment.  It signals to poor people that they are not valued or cared for by society.  \r\n\r\nHowever, removing primary care fees is not enough by itself to tackle the range of existing health care challenges in Africa.  Other actions are also required.  \r\n\r\nFirst, the levels of funding available for health care must be increased.  At least 15% of government budgets should be invested in the public health sector, as committed by African governments in Abuja.  Only one country in southern Africa, Mozambique, is currently reported to be achieving this. This will support the sustained quality increases necessary to improve health system performance, as well as allowing the system to respond effectively to the utilization increases likely to result from fee removal. \r\n\r\nLinked to this African country debt should be cancelled.  The EQUINET June 2004 Conference called for international action to remove the debt burdens imposed on African countries, and for national action to increase the level of government funding to health systems.  These changes in financing also need to be underpinned by changes in terms of trade for African countries that result in huge resource outflows from Africa, including market barriers in industrialized countries to trade in food products and the poaching of health personnel.  \r\n\r\nSecond, the removal of fees must be undertaken in a way that actively strengthens the health system.  \r\n\r\nIn particular, the responses of health workers and managers must be deliberately managed to avoid negative impacts on morale and performance.  As front-line providers and managers are the point at which patients meet the health system, their morale and performance has a direct influence over how patients experience health care, and how policies are implemented.  In South Africa, while the removal of fees had a powerful positive effect on health outcomes, health workers said they were not adequately informed or involved, and were thus unprepared for the resulting increases in utilization.  This can lead to unnecessary tensions at primary care level, and patients complaining that health workers treat them badly.  In countries where fees have been retained, they have allowed managers and local communities some control over the decision of how to use the revenue.  In others they have been used to fund agreed incentives for staff.  These issues need to be managed and alternative ways found of providing for local resource control and staff incentives to avoid demoralisation.  \r\n\r\nExperience from a wide range of policy actions indicates that managing this policy change must involve:\r\n\r\n1.  Giving a specific government unit the task of implementing fee removal in ways that strengthen the health system; \r\n2.  An effective public relations campaign to communicate the change with the general public, and to signal that removal of fees is about valuing patients and providers;\r\n3.  Ensuring that the policy goals are clearly explained to managers and health workers to promote support for the policy at all levels of the health system;\r\n4.  Preparatory planning to ensure adequate levels of drug and staff availability to cope with the likelihood of initial utilization increases -\r\nand longer-term planning for how to tackle wider drug and staffing, including motivation, problems;\r\n5.  Establishing new, manager-controlled funds at local level that allow management freedom on small-scale spending decisions;\r\n6.  Clear communication with health workers and managers about what and when actions will be taken - through meetings, supervision visits, special information letters;\r\n7.  Expect that there will be unanticipated problems with implementation, and so set up monitoring systems that provide a basis for identifying what other actions need to be taken: monitoring utilization trends, including the relative use of preventive versus curative care, and giving health workers and managers opportunities to feed back on health facility experiences.  \r\n\r\nTackling the human resource barriers to effective fee removal will inevitably require the wider action that is necessary to address the overall human resource crisis in Africa.  On this issue EQUINET has called for human resource policies and measures at national, regional and international level that promote the retention and improved working conditions of health personnel in public sector health systems, backed by compensation for regressive south-north subsidies incurred through health personnel migration.  An editorial later this year will provide more detail on this.  \r\n\r\nUser fee removal clearly provides an opportunity to begin to address the needs of poor people.  However, their removal is not enough by itself. EQUINET calls for this to be backed at national level by increased public financing for health and at international level by a cancellation of debt. In addition, user fee removal must be implemented in ways that strengthen the health system.  User fees were actively promoted internationally during periods of efficiency and market led health sector reforms that produced a huge cost to equity in health in southern Africa.  User fee removal must be underpinned by actions at international and national levels that provide for the resources to achieve human rights to health and health equity goals.\r\n\r\n* Information on EQUINET work on fair financing is available on the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org EQUINET welcomes feedback to its editorials, suggestions, information and follow up enquiries to the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC, email admin@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"SA nevirapine rollout sluggish, says report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20031038","body":"Political prevarication and weak management has hampered the implementation of the Operational Plan for Comprehensive HIV and AIDS Care, Management and Treatment for South Africa a new report has found. The preliminary report is the first in a series that will monitor the implementation of the Operational Plan. The report, researched and produced by the AIDS Law Project and the Treatment Action Campaign, deals with the first seven months since the Department of Health\u2019s announcement of the Operational plan in November 2003.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Scaling up access to antiretroviral treatment in southern Africa: who will do the job?","field_subtitle":"Lancet. 2004 Jul 3;364(9428):103-7","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15234864","body":"\"Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, and South Africa have some of the highest HIV/AIDS burdens in the world. All four countries have ambitious plans for scaling-up antiretroviral treatment for the millions of HIV-positive people in the region. In January 2004, we visited these countries with the intention of directly observing the effect of AIDS, especially on health systems, to talk with policy makers and field workers about their concerns and perspectives regarding the epidemic, and to investigate the main issues related to scaling up antiretroviral treatment. We found that financial resources are not regarded as the main immediate constraint anymore, but that the lack of human resources for health is deplored as the single most serious obstacle for implementing the national treatment plans.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"SciDev.net Spotlights on HIV/AIDS: Vaccines and Microbicides","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net) has launched two new online 'spotlights' on the science of HIV/AIDS, dealing specifically with the topics of microbicides and vaccines.  The spotlights provide an overview of the issues in relation to developing countries through the latest news, summaries of key reports and links.\r\n* Vaccines:\r\nhttp://www.scidev.net/hiv/vaccines\r\n* Microbicides \r\nhttp://www.scidev.net/hiv/microbicides","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern African households burdened by an increasing number of AIDS orphans","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=42161","body":"By 2010 more than one in five children in Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Zimbabwe will be orphaned by AIDS, a joint UN and US report warned. \"Children on the Brink 2004\" is the fourth edition of this biennial report, based on surveys conducted by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the UNAIDS and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Alarmingly, the studies found that 20 percent of households with children in Southern Africa were taking care of one or more AIDS orphans.\r\n* Children on the Brink report\r\nhttp://www.unicef.org/publications/index_22212.html","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ten Years On - Have we got what we ordered?","field_subtitle":"South African Health Review","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/publications/423","body":"The promotion of equity in health is one of the basic ideologies underlying South African health policy. Therefore, it is befitting after ten years of democracy to gauge how far the health system has moved towards providing equitable health services to all citizens is concerned. This 2003/04 South African Health Review, the 9th edition, consists of an overview and 24 chapters, each describing a key health concern. Unlike many of the previous Reviews, this year's is data driven. It uses different sources of information to measure and assess the health and well-being of South Africans quantitatively. An overview of the key achievements and challenges is given in the chapter Ten years on have we got what we ordered?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The International Reproductive Health Medical Education Listserv","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://lists.infoforhealth.org/mailman/listinfo/irhmeded","body":"IRHMedEd is a new forum for people actively working in preservice medical and health education in international reproductive health (IRH).  IRHMedEd aims to strengthen the growing community of experts in this field by facilitating a global dialogue and creating an environment for exchanging lessons learned, sharing resources and ideas, solving individual and common problems, and advancing the field of IRH Medical Education.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The TAC and the future","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?2%2C40%2C5%2C435","body":"In late 2003, largely as a result of pressure exerted by TAC, the government formally committed itself to rolling out HIV treatment. This policy shift has posed several questions related to TAC\u2019s interim and long term political future, given the reality of the roll-out. Will the \u2018centre fail to hold\u2019 as factions emerged in the politically \u2018broad umbrella\u2019 social movement that is TAC? Will it simply become a service-delivery focused NGO working for the Department of Health? Will the government\u2019s commitment to HIV treatment policy reform lead to TAC\u2019s co-option? Will it render itself obsolete through its own success lobbying for wider HIV treatment access? ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The way forward: prioritising district health care services in developing countries ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=9&i=h1ms1g7&u=41060b59","body":"The growing movement in favour of the privatisation of public services and the reliance on market forces in many developing countries suggests that the critical role of the district health system needs to be restated.  Research by the Institute of Development Studies, UK, indicates that district health services are the best means of delivering primary health care and basic hospital care and should be made a priority for public funding. The most important task is to develop a special programme of rehabilitation for a demoralised workforce, including improved management of staff mix and distribution, incentives for good performance, support and training as well as better pay.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Tracking resource flows for HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC15102","body":"This PRHPlus article outlines the key advantages of using the National Health Accounts (NHA) Subanalysis to track resource flows for HIV/AIDS.  In light of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, many countries are facing increased pressure to expand health care resources with limited and unreliable public funding.  While global initiatives have responded in part to these concerns, there is growing need to use available funds efficiently, and to track resources which promote transparency and accountability.  The authors maintain that financial indicators to track resource use, which link to health outcomes, are an integral part of the monitoring and evaluation strategy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Trade policy and civil society participation","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://server.ntd.co.uk/ids/bookshop/details.asp?id=805","body":"This paper examines the way that a range of development actors view and engage with the arena of trade policy, focusing in particular on the challenges encountered by civil society actors participating in that arena. The dynamics of civil society participation in the trade arena \u2013 what might be achieved, and how \u2013 are very different from those that shape civil society participation in processes labelled poverty reduction; this paper explores the differences. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Training health service staff in developing countries ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h1ps3g1.html","body":"The quality of health care is hugely dependent on the skills of health professionals.  Clinical skills centres are neutral and protected settings in which a variety of skills and techniques can be taught.  In developing countries, resource constraints and pressure to direct skilled staff away from teaching to working in health service facilities can limit the opportunities for developing and implementing an effective training curriculum.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"U.N. Adviser Says Africa Should Refuse To Pay Debts","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unwire.org/News/328_426_25553.asp","body":"Jeffrey Sachs, special adviser to U.N.  Secretary General Kofi Annan on anti-poverty targets, said Africa's heavy debt burden was untenable and urged the continent not to pay its debts if rich countries refused to cancel them.  The U.S.  economist, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, spoke at a conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on hunger on the eve of a summit of the heads of state of the African Union, which estimates sub-Saharan Africa's foreign debt at $201 billion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Walking on the Edge of a Chasm: The youth of Africa","field_subtitle":"Statement by Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, released at a satellite session: \\\"Africa-Asia Interaction, Lessons to Be Learned\\\" at the XV International AIDS Conference, Bangkok, Monday, 12 July 2004 ","field_url":"","body":"\"Yesterday, July 11th, at the opening of the Conference, UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, used the words \"a terrifying pattern\" to describe the toll that the pandemic has taken on the women of the world, and the women of Africa in particular.  He was both scathing and unsparing in his characterization of male behaviour which has led to the carnage.  In the process of his remarks, he talked particularly of the vulnerability of young women and girls in Africa, the 15-24 year-old age group, and then noted that on a world-wide basis, the numbers of women and girls in that age group represented nearly two-thirds of the total infected.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30562","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"What positive outcomes for the poor in Bangkok?","field_subtitle":"Sanjay Basu ","field_url":"","body":"Ongoing coverage of the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok is bewildering to those who are familiar with the current political battles in the HIV/AIDS arena, and no doubt disheartening or annoying to those reading from a distance.  The AIDS industry is in full swing: government forces delivering glittering generalities; actors and ex-presidents discussing their \"outrage\" while eating five-course dinners in Bangkok hotel penthouses.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30515","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Health Leadership Service (HLS) opportunity","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The World Health Organization is recruiting young health professionals to a two-year work and training programme, specifically aimed at strengthening the knowledge and skills essential for leadership roles in public health at all levels - international, national and local.  The global effort to combat poverty, inequities, disease and epidemics calls for dynamic and capable leaders.  These future leaders need to start their careers today, and they need continually to build their competences as their responsibilities increase.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30565","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe health sector on brink of collapse","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200407190620.html","body":"The health delivery capacity of public health institutions has been adversely affected by the poor economic environment and some clinics and hospitals are now operating without essential drugs and medical supplies. Zimbabwe's public health sector - once the best in sub-Saharan Africa - is now reeling as a result of neglect and inadequate funding by the government.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":" EQUINET NEWSLETTER 41: 1 JULY 2004: ACCESS TO FOOD: A FUNDAMENTAL BASIS FOR HEALTH ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a   newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on   EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to essential medicines as a human right","field_subtitle":"Essential Drugs Monitor, Issue No. 33, 2003","field_url":"http://www.who.int/medicines/library/monitor/33/EDM33_25-26_Access_e.pdf","body":"The right to health facilities, goods and services specifically includes the provision of essential medicines as defined by WHO. The Human Rights Approach should be incorporated in all national medicine policies and programmes, the selection of medicines for essential public health functions should be further refined, States parties\u2019 international reporting obligations on access to essential medicines should be strengthened, and national NGOs should be empowered to put pressure on governments to fulfil their commitments and obligations under the international and national human rights instruments they have signed and ratified.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to Food: a fundamental basis for health  ","field_subtitle":"Editorial  by the EQUINET steering committee and secretariat ","field_url":"","body":"Cereal production in Southern Africa has remained stagnant for over a decade since 1990 at 22 million MT,  despite a growth in population of 60 million in the period.  This fact highlighted at the SADC Heads of state summit on food security  brought sharp attention to unacceptable and mounting shortfalls in food security in the region.  Rates of childhood stunting in Africa are predicted to increase to above 25 percent by 2015, more than double the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for that year.  Only 3 out 10 African countries have experienced an improved maternal nutritional status in the last decade.  \r\n\r\nThe EQUINET steering committee highlighted at the June 2004 regional conference its agreement with SADC heads of state that food security and food sovereignty  are now an important focus to achieve wider goals of health equity and social justice in the region.  The gross statistics were further debated as they mask the fact that it is the lowest income rural and urban communities, women and children who are most at risk of food insecurity and its consequences.  \r\n\r\nMary Materu, from the Centre for Counselling, Nutrition and Health Care (COUNSENUTH), Tanzania highlighted the massive inequity of the fact that  \u201cwhen the world is producing enough food to feed everybody, more than 800 million people, most in developing countries, do not have enough food to cover their nutritional needs.\u201d \r\n\r\nMickey Chopra, from the University of the Western Cape School of Public Health, highlighted the wider fallout from this deprivation of the right to food:  \u201cAdequate food and nutrition is a basic right.  The deprivation of this right has immense consequences for addressing inequities across the region.  Poor nutritional status stunts educational development as well as increasing the risk of acquiring, and the severity of, infectious diseases (including HIV/AIDS).  The lack of household food security has led to increased vulnerability, especially of women, to diseases such as HIV.  If the huge cost of burden of disease suffered by the poorest is to be tackled addressing lack of household food security and malnutrition is essential.\u201d \r\n\r\nThis deprivation arises from a combination of increasing food prices and falling food production.  These immediate causes are driven by macro level factors such as trade relations, domestic food and agricultural polices and micro level factors such as intrahousehold food distribution, gender roles and caring practices.\r\n\r\nThe EQUINET steering committee noted that the current food insecurity cannot be traced purely to drought or to AIDS. \u201cThe 2002/3 food crisis in Southern Africa was more widespread and impacted much more severely on households than could be predicted from rainfall patterns. The destructive effect of AIDS on household labour and incomes clearly compounded other threats to food security, such as inequities in access to productive resources and to market access, particularly for women.\u201d\r\n\r\nCurrent trade policies were identified as having a profound and negative impact on food security in Africa. Chopra highlighted how OECD subsidies to agriculture between 2000 and 2002 of  about US$250billion placed protectionist barriers against food imports  from Africa, undermining returns from production and thus effectively suppressing production. Kenya, for example, more than doubled production of processed milk between 1980 and 1990. When subsidised milk powder imports could be sold more cheaply than Kenyan processed milk, imports soared, increasing from 48 tonnes in 1990 to 2 500 tonnes in 1998 and domestic production of processed milk plummeted by almost 70 percent.  Kenya's ability as a nation to diversify into processing was undermined. More importantly  small producers bore the brunt of this decline in demand for local milk.  At national level production for export has led to decreasing land areas planted with food crops for domestic consumption. Domestic food production has also been weakened by  falling investment in agricultural research.  \r\n\r\nThese trade and economic barriers, harming small producers and thus women farmers,  worsen the impacts of HIV/AIDS on household-level labour, assets and skills, on burdens of care and household productive capacities that  have set up a vicious interaction between malnutrition and HIV. Mary Materu of COUNSENUTH  further highlighted the need for improved nutrition to be supported by access to education, water and sanitation.\r\n\r\nThis understanding of the immediate and underlying factors driving food insecurity and malnutrition underlined the view at the  EQUINET conference that addressing food security and nutrition called for action across a wide range of sectors. At global level it was clear that Millennium Development Goals that call for improved nutrition cannot co-exist with trade policies that undermine the production basis for achieving the goals in the most vulnerable regions of the world.  At regional and national level Chopra presented evidence to show that improved food security calls for more equitable access to land, improved investment in small holder farming, and increased access by women farmers to production inputs. \r\n\r\nDr Erika Malekia of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) echoed this call  for \u201can integrated plan of action, focused on addressing inequalities in areas such as land distribution, gender equity.\u201d   \r\n\r\nThe conference delegates resolved  to advocate for trade and agricultural policies that ensure food sovereignty and household food security through land redistribution and investment in small holder farming in ways that promote gender equity and sustainable food production. EQUINET will be following up on this resolution in a more focused future programme of work on food security and health equity. The conference suggested that EQUINET support for SADC regional strategies for food security should include two critical components, particularly if equity issues are to be addressed. The first is to strengthen and inform from a health perspective the challenges to trade policies that undermine national food production. The second is  to inform and strengthen the health dimensions of policies and programmes that support land redistribution, smallholder production and increased access by women smallholder farmers to production inputs.  \r\n\r\nThe EQUINET Conference abstract book and resolutions are available on the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org and the conference report will be posted on this site in the coming month. EQUINET welcomes feedback to its editorials, suggestions, information and follow up enquiries to the EQUINET secretariat at  TARSC, email admin@equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Advanced Learning in International Health Research Ethics","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The South African Research Ethics Training Initiative, SARETI, is a joint project by the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the University of Pretoria, faculty from Johns Hopkins University, and the Fogarty International Center of the US National Institutes of Health to offer advanced learning in bioethics and health research ethics.  The programme is aimed at scientists, health professionals, members of ethics review committees, public health personnel, social scientists, philosophers, ethicists, health journalists, lawyers, and other professionals whose work impacts on health.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30479","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Proposals: Strategic Research on Governance, Equity and Health for Eastern and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research is issuing a competitive Call for Proposals (in collaboration with The International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada) to strengthen health systems, promote civic engagement, and make research matter.  This collaboration aims to support the integration of political, economic, social and policy analysis into research on public health and health care systems and policies in Eastern and Southern Africa.  Only proposals focusing on this region will be considered.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30489","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Cheap multivitamin slows time to AIDS and death in African women","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/news/newsdisplay2.asp?newsId=2787","body":"Multivitamins costing $15 per person per year significantly reduced the risk of HIV disease progression and death in HIV-positive pregnant women in Tanzania, according to a study published in the July 1st edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.  The investigators conclude that multivitamins would be a cheap, simple, and effective means of delaying the need for antiretroviral therapy in HIV-positive pregnant women in resource limited settings.  An accompanying editorial praises the rigour of the investigators study, and although it calls for further studies into the benefits of multivitamins involving large populations it says that treatment programmes and doctors would be justified in offering multivitamins.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society contributions to pro-poor, health equity policies","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.tarsc.org/WHOCSI/propoor.php#1","body":"CSOs at national and grassroots level, are involved in mutual support, building citizen capacities, advocating public interests and rights, meeting social needs, providing services and advocating accountability within private and public health services.  What is the impact of this input on health gains and informed health action within poor communities and on equity in health?  This review of the literature explores whether civil society contributes to improved provision, coverage of and access to health services in low-income communities.  The paper further examines whether civil society promotes improved responsiveness of health services, or enhances advocacy for and development of policies that are pro-poor and that enhance health equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Co-ordinator: Global Equity Gauge Alliance","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Are you committed to equity in health and health care?  Do you believe in the importance of translating research into action for greater equity?  Would you like to work with skilled and committed individuals in developing countries around the world?  Are you willing to travel?  This is an exciting opportunity for a committed, enthusiastic, and hard working public health professional to work with world-renowned researchers, advocates and policy-makers focused on cutting-edge public health work.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30476","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Community Assessment of Food Security and the Social Situation in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=374","body":"This report is the third of a broader monitoring of food security and social welfare at community level by the Civic Monitoring Programme. Monthly monitoring will be complemented by quarterly monitoring of specific areas of social welfare.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Decentralisation and poverty reduction: the reality in Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/society/s8brc1g2.html","body":"Although decentralisation is often heralded as a means to promote democracy and poverty reduction, there is little reliable evidence to prove these claims.  In fact, ruling parties and ethnic elites in Africa have used decentralisation to further strengthen their own power and influence at a local level.  New research argues that on its own, decentralization will not reduce poverty.  Just as important are an ideological commitment to the poor and democratic accountability.  Research from the Institute of Development Studies looks at the politics of local-central relations in a selected number of African states which have adopted decentralisation.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Education and healthcare quality effect pregnancy outcomes in Malawi","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h8nb1g1.html","body":"Of 585 000 maternal deaths worldwide each year, 99% are in developing countries.  What factors underlie this striking imbalance?  Research involving the Malawi College of Medicine and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine studied this issue in a rural community in southern Malawi.  Maternal education and access to healthcare facilities influence pregnancy outcomes, it showed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Embodying Inequality: Epidemiologic Perspectives","field_subtitle":"Edited by Nancy Krieger, Policy, Politics, Health and Medicine Series","field_url":"http://baywood.com/books/tableofcontents.asp?id=0-89503-294-5#stay","body":"'To advance the epidemiological analysis of social inequalities in health, and of the ways in which population distributions of disease, disability, and death reflect embodied expressions of social inequality, this volume draws on articles published in the International Journal of Health Services between 1990 and 2000.  Framed by ecosocial theory, it employs ecosocial constructs of \"embodiment,\" \"pathways of embodiment,\" \"cumulative interplay of exposure, susceptibility, and resistance across the lifecourse,\" and \"accountability and agency\" to address the question; who and what drives current and changing patterns of social inequalities in health?' For ordering information visit the URL provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Enhancing the evidence base for health impact assessment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/58/7/546","body":"Health impact assessment differs from other purposes for which evidence is collated in a number of ways.  This has implications for commissioning and conducting reviews.  Methods must be developed to: facilitate comprehensive searching across a broad range of disciplines and information sources; collate appropriate quality criteria to assess a range of study designs; synthesise different kinds of evidence; and facilitate timely stakeholder involvement.  Good practice standards for reviews are needed to reduce the risk of poor quality recommendations.  Advice to decision makers must make explicit limitations resulting from absent, conflicting, or poor quality evidence.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":" Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by\r\n Fahamu - learning for change http://www.fahamu.org/\r\n\r\n Contact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\n EQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa\r\n To post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\n Website:  http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\n Please forward this to others.\r\n\r\n To subscribe, visit\r\n http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter/subscribe.php or send an email\r\n to info@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\n * Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"Equiwrite programme launched","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=29_0_1_0_M6","body":"Following a successful Capacity Building Workshop On Writing For Peer Reviewed Journals in Durban, South Africa, June 4-7 2004 EQUINET is launching the EQUIWRITE programme.  EQUIWRITE aims to build skills for effective publication and dissemination of information on equity in health.  We are designing this programme based on the needs of researchers, government, civil society and others to support writing for scientific peer reviewed, policy, advocacy and other publications.  Email us at admin@equinetafrica.org and let us know your views on the support you need for effective dissemination and publication of your work in equity in health.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Estimating Resource Needs for HIV/AIDS Health Care Services in Low-Income and Middle-Income Countries ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15212866","body":"This paper presents a model for estimating HIV/AIDS health care resource needs in low- and middle-income countries. The model presented was the basis for the United Nations' call for US$9.2 billion to address HIV/AIDS in developing countries by 2005 with US$4.4 billion to address HIV/AIDS health care and the rest to deal with HIV/AIDS prevention. The model has since been updated and extended to produce estimates for 2007. This paper details the methods and assumptions used to estimate HIV/AIDS health care financial needs and it discusses the limitations and data needs for this model.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Free ARV's for Uganda","field_subtitle":"Statement by Ugandan health minister at the launch of free ARV programme","field_url":"","body":"\"The introduction of antiretroviral drugs will bring with it new challenges because this treatment is different from that for opportunistic infections, palliative care, home based care and cotrimoxasol prophylaxis which we have been providing and will continue to provide.  It is different in the sense that these drugs are delicate, have a variety of side effects and have to be taken regularly and correctly for life.  However, I am confident that Uganda will succeed to roll out this treatment to our people.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30491","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Free medical care in Kenyan public health centres","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=41792","body":"In a bid to improve access to medical care for millions of poor Kenyans, the government announced it would provide free health services in state-run dispensaries and health centres. \"With effect from 1 July, 2004, all charges for prevention services, treatment, diagnosis in public dispensaries and health centres must stop,\" Health Minister Charity Ngilu told a news conference in the capital, Nairobi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health watch newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Global Health Watch (GHW) is a new project which articulates civil society's vision for global health.  It is a platform for the strengthening of advocacy and campaigns to promote equitable health for all.  The global community has failed to achieve 'Health for All by the Year 2000'.  New targets such as the Millennium Development goals look increasingly unachievable.  Questions need to be asked about whether current policies in global health are working.  The Global Health Watch for 2005 will not only look at some of the most important problems such as commercialisation of health and access to medicines, but also suggest solutions and monitor the efforts of institutions and governments concerned with promoting health world-wide.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30480","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Care Reform and the Crisis of HIV and AIDS in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/351/1/81","body":"South Africa's transition to a democracy - characterized by a liberal constitution, a bill of rights, and attempts to pursue reconciliation rather than revenge - has been widely admired as a paradigm shift in human relationships from seemingly inevitable conflict to a negotiated peace.  The challenge of narrowing racial disparities in health care is a formidable one for the new government.  The high rates of infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and full-blown AIDS add another layer of complexity.  This review evaluates health care reform and responses to the pandemic of HIV and AIDS during the first decade of the new democracy.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS Conference: Useful URL's ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The URL for the unofficial \"wiki\" for the International HIV/AIDS conference taking place in Bangkok, Thailand, from July\r\n11th-16th, is at http://www.aids2004wiki.org.  It will allow posting of notes, comments, introductions, information about sessions, event and presentation listings.  For more on the conference itself, which is expected to draw between 11,000 and 15,000 delegates - and whose theme is \"Access for All\" - please see http://www.aids2004.org.  To contact someone about the wiki, please write to Jim Cashel at mailto:cashel@ForumOne.com.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS, democracy and governance in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.justiceafrica.org/gain_issues_brief.html","body":"The GAIN Issues Brief is being launched in response to a perceived gap in current news analysis on the issues of HIV/AIDS, its implications for democracy and governance in Africa, and the challenges of ensuring that the response to HIV/AIDS is consonant with democratic principles.  This Issues Brief is a product of the African Civil Society Governance and AIDS Initiative (GAIN), launched in October 2003.  The aim of this Issues Brief is to provide civil society activists, journalists and policymakers with a concise analytical digest of developments in the field of HIV/AIDS, governance and democracy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"International recruitment of health workers to the UK","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.dfidhealthrc.org/Shared/publications/reports/int_rec/int-rec-main.pdf","body":"The UK is currently prominent as an active recruiter of health workers, most notably doctors and nurses.  This is unlikely to change in the short term.  The demographics in many developed countries such as the UK- a growing, ageing population and an ageing nursing workforce- make it likely that many of these countries will be actively encouraging inflow of health workers.  Stopping migration is unlikely to be a viable option -which essentially leaves two other policy stances - non intervention, or some level of intervention to attempt to manage the migration process so that it is nearer \u201cwin \u2013win\u201d, or at least is not exclusively \u201cwin- lose\u201d, with the countries that can least afford to lose being the biggest losers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge Sharing for Health Systems in Developing Countries ","field_subtitle":"New Evidence Base and Resources ","field_url":"","body":"The Alliance on Health Policy and Systems Research Alliance aims to promote the generation, dissemination and use of knowledge for enhancing health system performance.  The new Evidence Base aims to broker knowledge between researcher and policy and programme analysts focusing on developing countries.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30501","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawian student wins Equinet grant","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/more.php?id=36_0_1_0_M6","body":"Zindaba Yiwombe of the Malawi Health Equity Network is the winner of the award for the best EQUINET student grant proposal. Zindaba, who is studying journalism, presented a proposal to do a content analysis of debates on health in the Malawi National Assembly. The proposal by Zindaba aims to identify the extent to which debates in parliament take up health equity issues, the key areas debated and the trends in such debates. The work is relevant to EQUINET work with GEGA in the region on strengthening and supporting parliamentary oversight, legislative, representation and budget roles in promoting health equity. Malawi Health Equity Network has built close links with the Malawi Parliamentary committee on health in promoting health equity. The award was presented to Zindaba at the EQUINET June Conference. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Nevirapine continues to be dispensed in SA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=3581","body":"South Africa's department of health will continue to dispense Nevirapine until further research into the reliability of the drug in preventing HIV transmission from mother to child is conducted. Concerns about the safety of Nevirapine surfaced after collaborative research conducted by the Medicines Control Council (MCC), manufacturer Boehringer Ingelheim and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases revealed that some HIV positive mothers had developed resistance to the antiretroviral, making it uncertain whether transmission of the virus was being blocked or not.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New Youthnet online","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.fhi.org/en/Youth/YouthNet/Publications/YouthInfoNet/YIN7.htm","body":"YouthNet, a program of Family Health International, is pleased to announce Youth InfoNet No.  7, a one-stop monthly source for new publications and information on youth reproductive health and HIV prevention.  You can read the newsletter online at the URL provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Patents, access to medicines and the role of NGO's","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.accessmed-msf.org/documents/FordJGM.pdf","body":"One-third of the world\u2019s population lacks access to the most basic essential drugs.  For the destitute sick in the developing world, the price of medicines can determine whether they will be treated.  Patents drive drug prices up, the resultant monopoly status allowing the producer to charge whatever price the market will bear.  The World Trade OrganizationTrade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement, which provides 20 years\u2019 patent protection for pharmaceuticals, also includes safeguards such as compulsory licensing, to ensure that countries can override patents whenever they are a barrier to access to medicines. Experience from South Africa, Thailand, Kenya and Guatemala shows the enormous pressures countries face in implementing theTRIPS Agreement in a manner that protects public health and underscores the vital role played by civil society in defending the right to access affordable medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty and well being in Mozambique","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=373","body":"This report from the International Food Policy Research Institute has very focused objectives. It seeks to present the methodology and results of the poverty analysis of the 2002-03 IAF as well as comparisons with the 1996-97 survey results. The results point to a substantially improved poverty picture relative to 1996-97. The national poverty headcount, defined as the share of the population living in poverty, declines to 54 percent, a 15 percentage point decline from the levels registered in 1996-97. Poverty reductions are more rapid in rural than in urban zones, narrowing considerably the differences in poverty between the two zones, though poverty levels remain higher in rural compared with urban zones.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Private provision in its institutional context: Lessons from health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.dfidhealthrc.org/Shared/publications/Issues_papers/private-sector/Bloom.pdf","body":"One characteristic of discussions about strategies for the provision of services to poor people has been the persistence of ideological debates about the relative roles of public and private sectors. These debates are strongly influenced by the experiences of the advanced market economies and often do not reflect the reality of countries where most poor people live. This paper\u2019s aim is to contribute to the development of common understandings of this reality and to the formulation of practical strategies for meeting the needs of the poor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health in Complex Emergencies training programs for the remainder of 2004","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"* July 26-August 7 - Asian Disaster Preparedness Center, Bangkok, Thailand;\r\n* November 1-14 - Institute of Public Health, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.\r\nPlease click on the URL below for more information.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30500","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health in the new era: improving health through collective action","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol363/iss9426/full/llan.363.9426.editorial_and_review.29970.1","body":"The world is entering a new era in which, paradoxically, improvements in some health indicators and major reversals in other indicators are occurring simultaneously.  Rapid changes in an already complex global health situation are taking place in a context in which the global public-health workforce is unprepared to confront these challenges.  This lack of preparation is partly because the challenges are large and complex, the public-health workforce and infrastructure have been neglected, and training programmes are inadequate. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Reframing the HIV/AIDS debate in developing countries: an effective, equitable response","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://rrh.deakin.edu.au/articles/subviewnew.asp?ArticleID=283","body":"In Southern Africa, only 100 000 out of 4.1 million people who need HIV/AIDS anti-retroviral therapy (ART) are able to access it. The drop in the price of ART has led to opportunities to increase the numbers receiving treatment, but problems remain. Increasing health service focus on HIV might poach staff and resource from other important programs like TB, malaria or child health. Developing countries need to balance resources for treatment and prevention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional Conference on Youth and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"'Youth Net and Counselling' will be hosting a conference on youth, children and HIV/AIDS.  Below is the synopsis of the conference between August 24 - 27, 2004 at the Sun and Sand Holiday Resort, on the Shores of Lake Malawi, Malawi.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30508","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"SA HIV caregivers struggle to make a living","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=3569","body":"As the number of HIV-positive children and AIDS orphans continues to rise in South Africa's east-coast KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province, AIDS organisations have embarked on community-based projects aimed at generating income for the guardians of children affected by the virus. The goal is to create self-sufficiency and ultimately gain independence from funding agencies. But it has been difficult to sustain the programmes, especially those focusing on traditional crafts, such as beadwork and woodcarvings. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC heads of state and government summit on agriculture and food security","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on Agriculture and Food Security was held in Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania on 15 May 2004, and was chaired by His Excellency, Benjamin W. Mkapa, President of the United Republic of Tanzania. The Summit was held under the theme: Enhancing Agriculture and Food Security for Poverty Reduction in the SADC Region. \r\nIn his official opening statement, President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, the Chairperson of SADC underlined the need for the region to continue to fight together for economic liberation of Southern Africa, especially in finding a lasting solution to the pressing questions of food security and sustainable poverty reduction.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30512","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"SaFAIDS news call for papers","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Papers or articles are requested for SAfAIDS News newsletter. The newsletter targets:\r\n- professionals working in the HIV/AIDS sector\r\n- staff in ASOs, NGOs, FBOs, government bodies, UN agencies and \r\nuniversities in the region\r\n- policy makers\r\n- Community based organisations.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30485","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Slow motion robbery: The WTO and developing countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/society/s7brw1g2.html","body":"Developing countries are being shackled by regulations formulated and enforced by international organisations.  Policies to nurture domestic industry, which were used in Europe, north America and more recently the successful East Asian 'tiger' economies, are becoming illegal.  The three major agreements which emerged from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Uruguay Round of international trade talks - on investment measures (TRIMS), trade in services (GATS) and intellectual property rights (TRIPS) - are narrowing the powers of states.  Governments now find it difficult to combine profit-oriented actions of companies within their borders with complementing national development strategies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Steep Registration Fee Limits Access to Aids Conference","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200407020514.html","body":"A number of Namibian non-governmental organisations will not be represented at the largest-ever AIDS conference, being held in Thailand this month, because of the \"prohibitive\" registration fee.  The conference is being held under the theme 'Access For All'.  Sources from Namibian NGOs working with HIV-positive people this week described the US$1 000 registration fee as \"prohibitively expensive\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The HIV/AIDS Pandemic: Implications for Agricultural Policy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=372","body":"This paper considers how the design of agricultural policies and programmes might be modified to better achieve policy objectives in the context of severe HIV epidemics and underscores the central role of agricultural policy in mitigating the spread and impacts of the epidemic.  It is argued that - even though the absolute number of working age adults in the hardest-hit countries is projected to remain roughly the same over the next two decades - the cost of labour in agriculture may rise in some areas as increasing scarcity of capital (notably, animal draft power for land preparation and weeding) will increase the demand for labour in agricultural production or shift agricultural systems to less labour- and capital-intensive crops.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The WTO Global Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and Health Equity in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=336","body":"PART I of this paper provides a brief introduction of the link between trade and development as related to health in general. The history of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is also briefly introduced as it relates to the General Agreement of Trade in Services (GATS). Then a brief outline of the contents of GATS is given focusing on those areas relevant to public health generally, to health services and to their financing. PART II presents opportunities and threats posed by GATS for public health and health equity goals and policies in southern Africa, in terms of both general obligations and specific commitments across all modes of supply. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Thousands quit SA health service jobs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://capeargus.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=49&fArticleId=2113612","body":"The provincial health department [Western Cape] has lost nearly 4 000 staff in the past six years - and there are no plans to replace them.  But the department does not intend to let the numbers drop further.  In his budget speech in the provincial legislature, Health MEC Pierre Uys said the department was losing staff at the rate of 1 000 a year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Urgent funding needed in Angola for essential drugs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=41679","body":"Angola needs urgent funding for essential drugs if lives are to be saved, particularly among resettling populations, warned a mid-year review of the UN's Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP). The CAP review, prepared by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that at the end of April, funding for the essential drug component of the Minimum Health Care Package stood at approximately 50 percent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Using mid-level cadres as substitutes for internationally mobile health professionals in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/2/1/7/abstract","body":"Substitute health workers are cadres who take on some of the functions and roles normally reserved for internationally recognized health professionals such as doctors, pharmacists and nurses but who usually receive shorter pre-service training and possess lower qualifications.  The findings raise interest in expanding the use of substitute cadres, as the demands of expanding access to services such as antiretroviral treatment requires substantial human resources capacity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Valuable resources 'not adequately harnessed'","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sabcnews.com/africa/southern_africa/0,2172,81343,00.html","body":"Despite southern Africa being rich in resources, it had not adequately harnessed these for the people in the region, the Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (Equinet) said. Speaking at an international conference on Equity in Health, Rene Loewenson, Equinet's spokesperson, said with the common focus on poverty and ill health, it was often forgotten that southern Africa was one of the richest regions in Africa and - in resource terms - in the world.  \"Despite this wealth of potential, the value of these resources have not been adequately harnessed for the people of the region,\" she said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"  EQUINET NEWSLETTER 40: 08 June 2004  EQUINET NEWSLETTER 40: 08 June 2004\r\nEQUINET NEWSLETTER: 40: 1 June 2004: Reclaiming the state: reportback on equinet conference","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a  newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"** Confronting challenges in health personnel ","field_subtitle":"Abstract of paper presented at the Equinet conference, Durban, 8-9 June 2004, by Antoinette Ntuli,  Health Systems Trust, EQUINET theme co-ordinator","field_url":"","body":"The biggest and most important component of any health system is its human resources (HR). The effective, equitable and appropriate production, training and deployment of health workers has been associated with periods of high health gain in southern Africa.  Despite this, many health systems in southern Africa now face a variety of HR problems and personnel scarcities have become a critical limiting factor in health interventions. Health worker migration is further compounding inequities and stresses. Responding to economic and social triggers, personnel flow from rural to urban areas, from public to private sectors, from lower to higher income countries within southern Africa and from African countries to industrialized countries, exacerbating inequities and providing a reverse (poor to rich) subsidy.  However a new policy momentum exists in relation to human resources for health. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30455","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"** Ensuring universal treatment access through sustainable public health systems","field_subtitle":"Abstract of paper presented at the Equinet conference, Durban, 8-9 June 2004, by David McCoy and Rene Loewenson, Equinet","field_url":"","body":"There is no question that an effective and urgent response is needed to extend access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) in southern Africa. The efforts of treatment activists, national governments, the World Health Organisation and the Global Fund to highlight this unmet health need are commendable. However, after decades of under-investment, harmful structural adjustment programmes and de-skilling, many health systems face significant obstacles in rising to the challenge of meeting the treatment needs.  Treatment activism now needs to join with broader public health activism to ensure that treatment can be extended in ways that are sustainable, effective and equitable. This paper draws on work carried out by EQUINET and others to discuss the threats and opportunities entailed with the expansion of ART access in Southern Africa- threats that must be managed and opportunities tapped to realise aspirations of treatment access for more than a minority. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30454","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"** Fair financing in health systems","field_subtitle":"Abstract Of Paper Presented At The Equinet Conference, Durban, 8-9 June 2004, by Lucy Gilson, Centre for Health Policy, University of the Witwatersrand ","field_url":"","body":"The starting point of this paper is to briefly discuss alternative definitions of \u2018fair financing\u2019.  The term \u2018fair financing\u2019 was popularised by the WHO in their 2000 World Health Report, which set about evaluating and ranking health systems around the world.  The WHO has defined this concept as individuals paying for health services in proportion to their income.  Others suggest that a more \u2018progressive\u2019 definition of fair financing would be appropriate.  The focus of the paper is to review the key findings of work relating to health care financing that has been supported by Equinet over the past few years.  In addition, other striking health care financing trends in the SADC region will be referred to.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30458","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"** Food security and nutrition ","field_subtitle":"Abstract of paper presented at the Equinet conference, Durban, 8-9 June 2004, by Mickey Chopra, David Sanders, School of Public Health  University of Western Cape","field_url":"","body":"The lack of household food security, and the subsequent poor nutrition, continues to blight the lives of millions of people in Southern Africa. Adequate food and nutrition is a basic right. The deprivation of this right has immense consequences for addressing inequities across the region. Poor nutritional status stunts educational development as well as increasing the risk of acquiring, and the severity of, infectious diseases (including HIV/AIDS). The lack of household food security has led to increased vulnerability, especially of women, to diseases such as HIV. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30453","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"** Globalisation, Trade and Health","field_subtitle":"Abstract of paper presented at the Equinet conference, Durban, 8-9 June 2004, by R Tayob SEATINI, EQUINET theme co-ordinator","field_url":"","body":"This paper posits that the International Trading System (ITS) is biased in favour of richer northern states.  It argues that greater circumspection is required by developing countries within the ITS if they want to maintain their sovereign right to meet the needs of their people.  The inequitable system of \u201cglobalisation\u201d is imposed through the ideology of neo-liberalism, which the developed countries present as a \u201cnatural\u201d form of globalisation.  It is a very particular type of globalisation that is being imposed on the world by the major economic powers, i.e.  neo- liberal globalisation.  This form of globalisation has worsened material conditions in developing countries.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30457","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"** Health rights as a tool for health equity","field_subtitle":"Abstract of paper presented at the Equinet conference, Durban, 8-9 June 2004, by Leslie London, University of Cape Town, EQUINET theme co-ordinator","field_url":"","body":"Most public health practitioners acknowledge the value of human rights in promoting human well-being. However, there is potential for tension between human rights approaches and public health objectives such as equity, access and efficiency, particularly in developing countries where resource constraints exacerbate balancing of competing priorities.  This potential tension may stem from inappropriate conceptualizations of human rights and how they should be operationalised in a public health context. For example, where human rights are conceived as individual entitlements, public health officials could erroneously equate this to favouring individuals over the welfare of the community to the detriment of equity.  Health and health care are recognized as human rights, which span the full range of civil, political and socio-economic rights, many of which are essential requirements for health. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30452","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"** Impact Of Participatory Mechanisms And Structures In Equity And Quality Of Health Service Delivery ","field_subtitle":"Abstract of paper presented at the Equinet conference, Durban, 8-9 June 2004, by TJ Ngulube, R Loewenson, I Rusike, M Macwangi, C Njobu, A Ngwengwe, EQUINET GoVERN theme","field_url":"","body":"In 2002/3 EQUINET implemented a multi-country research study to examine the impact of Health Centre Committees (HCCs) and District Health Boards (DHBs) in bringing about equity in the primary health care services in Zambia and Zimbabwe. The research work sought to examine equity from an EQUINET perspective, with emphasis that equity related work needs to define and build a more active role for important stakeholders in health, and to incorporate the power and ability people (and social groups) have to make choices over health inputs and their capacity to use these choices towards health. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30456","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"** Reclaiming the state: Advancing peoples Health, Challenging Injustice","field_subtitle":"Abstract of EQUINET Steering committee paper presented at the Equinet conference, Durban, 8-9 June 2004","field_url":"","body":"This paper is the third overview produced by the Southern African Regional Network for Equity in Health  (EQUINET) steering committee since EQUINET\u2019s launch after the Kasane meeting in  1997. The first paper in 1998 identified a concept of health equity that would guide EQUINET work,  outlined the areas of policy commitment to this vision of equity  in southern Africa, and the gaps in delivery on these commitments.  The second paper in  2000 described the profile of poverty, inequality and  ill health in southern Africa despite these commitments, and proposed policy measures that would better direct resources towards health needs, and the forms of health care most appropriate and accessible to those with greatest health needs, particularly through primary health care strategies. This paper highlighted the important role played by the social forces that drive policy choices, and proposed specific measures for organising and investing in opportunities for informed, authoritative participation  of all social groups and particularly the poorest in their health systems, and for building health system responsiveness and accountability to social groups.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30451","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"10/90 health research gap may be closing","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews","body":"Spending on research on diseases of the poor, such as malaria, tuberculosis and dengue fever, has increased substantially over recent years, according to the annual report of the Global Forum for Health Research.  Major donations from governments and charities pushed global health research funding to more than US$100 billion in 2001, up from US$30 billion in 1987.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"11TH Canadian Conference on International Health","field_subtitle":"October 24 - 27, 2004, Ottawa, Canada","field_url":"http://www.csih.org","body":"The Canadian Conference on International Health, following the path set in the previous two years, further examines the global stage and the conflicting forces that shape the politics of health and impact our own health.  The Conference objective is to provide an open and stimulating forum for practitioners, researchers, educators, policy makers, and community advocates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"2004  SADC Heads of State and government summit on agriculture and food security ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on Agriculture and Food Security was held in Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania on 15 May 2004, and was chaired by His Excellency, Benjamin W.  Mkapa, President of the United Republic of Tanzania.  The Summit was held under the theme: Enhancing Agriculture and Food Security for Poverty Reduction in the SADC Region.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30439","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"African Nations To Be Compensated For Health Care Brain Drain ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unwire.org/UNWire/20040601/449_24403.asp","body":"Members of the African Union struck a deal with wealthy members of the World Health Organisation to be compensated for the loss of their health care workers to richer countries, the Nairobi Daily Nation reports.  The negotiations were held during the 57th World Health Assembly in Geneva May 17-22.  \"The African Union pushed the agenda of compensation as one voice and we will jointly negotiate the terms like the European Union does,\" said Gideon Konchella, Kenya's assistant minister for health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"ARV's and the prevention of MTCT in resource-constrained settings","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC14654","body":"Interventions focusing on HIV-infected pregnant women need to be complemented by interventions that address primary prevention of HIV infection, particularly in women of child-bearing age and their partners, and prevention of unintended pregnancies among HIV-infected women.  This is one of the findings of a paper that analyses the different alternatives that are available for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV in resource-constrained settings, and makes recommendations about the best course of action in a number of situations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Clinics in three Zimbabwe provinces lack water access","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=41429","body":"Only half of the health clinics in three Zimbabwean provinces have access to safe water and the majority of districts face shortages of essential drugs, according to an NGO monitoring group, the Food Security Network (FOSENET). Based on information drawn from 52 districts, FOSENET noted that clinics spread across central Zimbabwe - in Mashonaland West, the Midlands and Masvingo - had the poorest access to safe water out of the country's eight provinces. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community Assessment of the Socio-economic Situation in Zimbabwe: Health and Education ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Civic organisations have through the monitoring Group of the National NGO Food Security Network (FOSENET) been monitoring food security in Zimbabwe since July 2002. In 2004 this monitoring has been widened to cover other social and economic conditions, recognizing the wide range of conditions influencing social and economic wellbeing. The Civic Monitoring Programme is implemented through NGOs based within districts and community based monitors. Monthly reports from all areas of the country are compiled to provide a monthly situation assessment of food security and social welfare to enhance an ethical, effective and community focussed response to the current situation. Quarterly reports such as this one complement the monthly monitoring and provide more detailed information on specific areas of social and economic conditions at community level. Queries and feedback on these reports is welcomed and should be directed to the Civic Monitoring Programme at fsmt2@mweb.co.zw This is the first round of such quarterly monitoring and continuous measures are being implemented to improve data quality and relevance, including training and peer review, so feedback is welcomed. For the full report, please contact fsmt2@mweb.co.zw. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community involvement in medical practitioner recruitment and retention","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://rrh.deakin.edu.au/articles/subviewnew.asp?ArticleID=261","body":"The provision of health services to rural and remote communities has been the source of much concern and debate in recent times. One aspect of this is the universal problem of insufficient medical practitioners in rural areas and the associated issues of recruitment and retention. Rural communities can play an important role in the recruitment and retention of health professionals, particularly in terms of aiding the integration of health professionals and their families into the community. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Community-Based health financing: An overview","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.phrplus.org/Pubs/sp11.pdf","body":"In the context of inadequate public expenditure in the health sector, many countries have installed cost recovery systems, such as user fees, as a supplementary financing approach for health care services.  This practice has raised concerns over equity and access to health care for the poor, and the search for complementary financing solutions continues.  A 1997 review identified 81 documented CBHF schemes from throughout the world, with the majority in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.  This document aims to answer basic questions on CBHF that might be posed by policymakers and technical assistance providers interested in this topic.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Fatal Indifference: The G8, Africa, and Global Health ","field_subtitle":"Ronald Labonte, Ted Schrecker, David Sanders, and Wilma Meeus","field_url":"http://web.idrc.ca/en/ev-45682-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html","body":"The G8 (the United States, England, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Russia, the European Union, and Canada) represents the major political driver of contemporary globalization.  It is also the most powerful political force behind the multilateral institutions that are shaping global economic practice and governance.  The aid, trade, and investment policies and practices of G8 member nations largely shape the development possibilities of poorer countries around the world.  This book provides a \u201creport card\u201d of commitments over the past three G8 summits (1999, 2000, and 2001) with a preliminary assessment of the most recent 2002 summit in Kananaskis, Canada.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Fellowships on Sexuality and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) based in Nairobi, Kenya is an international non-profit, non-governmental organization committed to conducting high quality and policy relevant research on population and health issues facing sub-Saharan Africa.  Through funding from the Ford Foundation's Education and Sexuality Program, the Center seeks to facilitate development of scientific research on sexuality in sub-Saharan Africa.  The program is aimed at strengthening scholarly capacity to investigate the notions and perceptions of sexuality, the process of learning, and transmission of sexuality knowledge across generations in the region.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30435","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Food systems and security: helping the poor to cope ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/InsightsHealth5art3.html","body":"Food security can be defined as \u2018having enough physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food\u2019. Threats include the ability of people to deal with declining farm productivity or the loss of assets before or after harvest. Increasingly, the traditional rural focus of food security is shifting due to rapid urbanisation and growing urban slums. Approximately 800 million people in the developing world are undernourished and suffering from chronic hunger. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Growth, Inequality and Poverty","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC14827","body":"This paper raises some critical issues in the economic analysis of growth, inequality and poverty.  It explores the relationship between growth and inequality, and looks into policies and institutions that are causally related to equitable growth.  The author argues that in as much as progress has been made by economic literature, relatively little is known about how a society comes to acquire good policies and institutions, and exactly what is being offered when accepting the Millennium Development Goal of halving the incidence of income poverty by the year 2015.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health care commercialisation and inequality","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BCCF9/httpNetITFramePDF?ReadForm&parentunid=4023556AA730F778C1256DE500649E48&parentdoctype=paper&netitpath=80256B3C005BCCF9/%28httpAuxPages%29/4023556AA730F778C1256DE500649E48/%24file/mackinto.pdf","body":"Health care systems can embed and reinforce inequality within societies or, conversely, can be a platform for the public combatting of poverty and inequality. The objective of the paper is to argue that the process of health care commercialisation - a marked trend across the world since the 1970s for reasons that are explored - and the associated process of globalisation of both health care and health policy, changes the terms of these interactions. Commercialisation, sometimes discreditably sold as a policy for increasing equity, has generally acted to embed inequality in new forms.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Personnel in Southern Africa: Confronting Maldistribution and Brain Drain","field_subtitle":"Equinet, Health Systems Trust and Medact 2003","field_url":"http://216.198.233.143/tbx/docs/Padarath%20et%20al.%20-%20Medact-HST-Equient.pdf","body":"This report describes the exodus of healthcare workers from areas of poverty and low socio-economic development, to more highly developed areas.  The flows follow a hierarchy of \u2018wealth\u2019 and result in a global conveyor belt of health personnel moving from the bottom to the top, increasing inequity.  The report describes personnel flows and migration from rural to urban areas, from public to private sectors, from lower to higher income countries within southern Africa and from African countries to industrialized countries.  The report describes a variety of push and pull factors that impact on the movement of healthcare professionals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health systems approaches to treatment access in Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Equinet meeting report","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=353","body":"The meeting was focused on ensuring universal treatment access through sustainable public health systems. The goal of the meeting was to develop resolutions on the principles for strengthening health systems for treatment access, and to develop potential areas for work for EQUINET related to EQUINET\u2019s programme of work areas. In the introductory remarks, it was indicated that while there were various prevention activities, focused on for example, workplace education, condom promotion, sexually transmitted infection treatment and control, youth, women, commercial sex workers, men who have sex with men, etc, there was 2.2 million Tanzanians living with HIV out of which 800 000 have full-blown AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"How Do Patents And Economic Policies Affect Access To Essential Medicines ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/3/155?etoc","body":"This paper studies the relationship between patents and access to essential medicines. It finds that in sixty-five low- and middle-income countries, where four billion people live, patenting is rare for 319 products on the World Health Organisation\u2019s Model List of Essential Medicines. Only seventeen essential medicines are patentable, although usually not actually patented, so that overall patent incidence is low (1.4 percent) and concentrated in larger markets. This and other results shed light on the policy dialogue among public health activists, the pharmaceutical industry, and governments that is often based on mistaken premises about how patents affect corporate revenues or the health of the world\u2019s poorest. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Human rights related educational materials","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Department of International Law and Human Rights of the University for Peace, with the support of the Government of the Netherlands, has been working since October 2003 on an innovative human rights project, the Human Rights Educational Project (HREP).  The aim of the project is to develop and disseminate educational materials related to human rights in response to the need of individuals and organisations, particularly in developing countries, to obtain convenient access to up-to-date human rights instruments and academic materials.  Professionals, practitioners, volunteers, educators and human rights defenders can all benefit from the availability of human rights instruments through the use of a manual and a CD-ROM.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30460","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Local production of AIDS drugs begins in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=3499","body":"Access to anti-AIDS drugs is improving in Zimbabwe, due to recent initiatives to roll-out antiretroviral (ARV) therapy and to manufacture the medicines locally. A Zimbabwean pharmaceutical company has started manufacturing generic antiretroviral (ARV) drugs in a bid to significantly reduce the cost of the medication for people living with HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Meeting on Equity in Human Resources for Health in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"April 15-17, 2004","field_url":"","body":"The Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) and Health Systems Trust South Africa (HST) successfully held a review meeting on Equity in the Distribution of Personnel in Southern Africa. This meeting is part of the two-year research and advocacy programme of work in this area that aims to promote the equitable distribution of health personnel in southern Africa. Watch the site www.equinetafrica.org for a report of the meeting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Networking of SA municipalities critical for tackling HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=3512","body":"A new study commissioned by the South African Cities Network (SACN) urges local municipalities to develop a multi-sectoral strategy to tackle the effects of HIV/AIDS on their communities. The report, titled 'South African Cities and HIV/AIDS: Challenges and Responses', noted that while there had been a number of initiatives to support local government in developing an HIV/AIDS response, there was little attempt to assess the challenges facing the cities. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New WHO roadmap for primary health care incomplete, says PHM","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Twenty-five years ago WHO promised 'Health for All' through the Alma Ata declaration. However, the UN body abandoned the primary health care agenda in the later years. \u2018Health systems, including primary health care\u2019, a new WHO document, endorses the primary health care agenda. It is a welcome return to the basics. Grassroots movements like the People\u2019s Health Movement (PHM) offer a cautious welcome, but say this is not enough. The UN health body\u2019s new \u2018road map\u2019 that is being presented during the ongoing World Health Assembly endorses the importance of primary health care - something that grass roots movements like the PHM has been demanding for years.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30466","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Newsletter on poetry and HIV/AIDS launched","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A new newsletter of Poetry on HIV/AIDS in Africa has been launched.  The name of the newsletter is AIDS out of AFRICA.  AIDS out of AFRICA will be a bi-annual newsletter appearing in June and December.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Parliamentary Functions and Reforms and their application in promoting Health Equity ","field_subtitle":"Equinet discussion paper","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=357","body":"In response to demands by the public represented by Civil Society Organisations, Parliaments have been called upon to be more effective in carrying out their functions or representation, oversight and legislating. Beginning with the Parliament of South Africa in 1994 there has thus been a wave of Parliamentary reforms in the region with different levels of success. Parliaments have instituted changes in their committee systems and in the legislative process to allow greater participations from the public. In seeking to promote health equity and public health, legislatures, through their committees, have sought ways to engage with relevant stakeholders, and other organisations in order to broaden their knowledge base.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"PDA4HEALTH electronic forum","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"PDA4HEALTH, a new electronic forum setup by SATELLIFE, aims to share up-to-date information, knowledge, and experiences on the use of handheld computers for data collection and information dissemination in developing country health settings.  Organisations and institutions engaged in field projects are encouraged to exchange the lessons they have learned, challenges faced, and successes achieved.  Join for free by sending a message to the email address below.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Proposed SADC Code on Gender and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) is leading an initiative to establish a Code for the SADC region on Gender and HIV/AIDS.  This Code is similar to the 'Code on HIV/AIDS and Employment' that was adopted by SADC 1997, but focuses specifically on the gendered dimensions of the AIDS epidemic.  ARASA, in consultation with a number of human rights, gender and AIDS-services, has drawn up a draft Code entitled \"Urgent Measures needed to Promote the Equality of Women and the Reduction of Women's Risk of HIV infection\".  This Code is available in English http://www.alp.org.za/resctr/other/misc/20040405_ARASA4.doc and Portuguese http://www.alp.org.za/resctr/other/misc/20040405_ARASA3.doc.  A consultative meeting for experts in the fields of gender, HIV/AIDS and human rights in the region is planned for June 2004 in order to discuss and finalise the Code.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-Private partnerships: Monitoring the effects on healthcare","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.wemos.nl/index.asp?lang=en","body":"Aids, malaria, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases have reached enormous proportions in many developing countries.  Efforts to control and eradicate these diseases are extremely complex.  Increasingly, global public-private initiatives are set up to address these issues.  The question is whether global public-private initiatives are the most appropriate approach, and whether such partnerships can really serve the direct interests of the people.  Public-private cooperation is a relatively new phenomenon, but it has already gained considerable ground.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaiming the state: Advancing people's health, challenging injustice ","field_subtitle":"Facts, figures and quotes from the Equinet Conference, Durban, South Africa 8-9 June 2004 ","field_url":"","body":"* \u201cEquity in health implies addressing differences in health status that are unnecessary, avoidable and unfair.  Equity in health implies directing more resources for health to those with greater health need.  Equity in health means having the power to influence decisions over how resources for health are shared and allocated.\u201d - From a presentation 'Reclaiming the state: Advancing people's health, challenging injustice'. \r\n\r\n*  \u201cIn the highly unequal societies of southern Africa, our health challenges demand health systems that assertively redistribute the resources for health and policies that reflect values of equity, solidarity and universality.  This can be achieved through rising investment through the state and public sector.\u201d - From a presentation 'Reclaiming the state: Advancing people's health, challenging injustice'. \r\n\r\n* \u201cThe gains of neoliberal globalisation?\r\n- 4% GDP lost in unfair terms of trade 1970-1990\r\n- Africa's FDI share from MNC investment 25% in 1970's, 5% in 1990s.  \r\n- Income gap richest to poorest 53x in 1960 and 121x in 2000\r\n- 185 million people out of work \r\n- 55 million people live on ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaiming the State: Advancing Peoples Health, challenging Injustice ","field_subtitle":"Resolutions of the Third Southern African Conference on Equity in Health, Durban, South Africa, June 8 and 9, 2004 ","field_url":"","body":"Noting: \r\n\r\n* The 1997 Kasane meeting on Equity in Health that confirmed the commitment to equity in health at all levels in southern Africa; the 1999 Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Health, the 2003 Maseru Declaration on HIV and AIDS and the resolutions of the SADC Heads of States Summit on food security held in Tanzania, 2004; \r\n* The formation of EQUINET and our work since 1998 in support of these commitments, to strengthen the understanding of, the evidence for, advocacy of and implementation of this policy commitment to equity and social justice; \r\n* Our conception of equity and social justice in health, which aims to address unfair differences in health and in access to health care through the redistribution of the societal resources for health, including the power to claim and the capabilities to use these resources; \r\n* The widening constituency we are building for equity and social justice in health amongst governments, parliamentarians, health professionals, trade unions and other organs of civil society, researchers and communities at national and regional level; \r\n* The challenges posed by neoliberal globalisation to our values of equity and social justice, to government ability and flexibility to implement the public policies that we choose and to the public sector health and essential services and that are critical for our health; \r\n\r\nThe June 2004 EQUINET conference in Durban South Africa affirmed that we stand for: \r\n\r\n* Equity and social justice in health; \r\n* Public interests over commercial interests in health; \r\n* International and global relations that promote equity, social justice, people's health and public interests;\r\n* Increased unconditional resource flows from the North and fairer terms of trade; \r\n* Reduction and where possible restitution of flows of resources from South to North;\r\n* A conception of human rights that affirms the agency of communities in claiming social and economic entitlements, the primacy of vulnerable groups and that captures African traditions of communitarianism; \r\n* Equitable health systems that provide healthcare for all and redistribute and direct resources towards those with greatest needs; \r\n* Rising investments in the state and public sector in health; \r\n* Health (care) systems which promote collective, population oriented strategies for health and comprehensive primary health care; \r\n* Trade and agricultural policies that ensure food sovereignty and household food security through land redistribution and investment in small holder farming in ways that promote gender equity and sustainable food production; \r\n* At least 15% of government budgets invested in the public health sector, as committed in Abuja, together with debt cancellation; \r\n* Progressive tax-based funding of health systems;\r\n* Fair financing for health, in which the rich contribute a greater share of their income to health than the poor, with strengthened cross subsidies for solidarity and risk pooling; \r\n* Equitable and affordable access to generic drugs, with application of essential drug policies across all health providers; \r\n* Ethical and equitable human resource policies at national, regional and international level, backed by compensation for regressive south-north subsidies incurred through health personnel migration; \r\n* Equitable public health and multisectoral responses to HIV and AIDS for prevention and health promotion, treatment and care and to mitigate the impact of the epidemic, particularly within and for young people and vulnerable groups; \r\n*The expansion of access to anti-retroviral therapy for people living with AIDS in Southern Africa as an urgent priority, through funding and approaches that strengthen, and do not compromise, our public health services and systems; \r\n* Democratic and accountable states, with full authority to exercise policy measures necessary to protect the health of people; \r\n* Powerful and effective participatory and representative mechanisms at all levels of our health and social sectors and in the state more generally; \r\n* Effective and accountable mechanisms for public and stakeholder contribution to decision making in health; \r\n* Regional integration and co-operation within Africa to strengthen democratic states, advance the health of people and challenge injustices to health; \r\n* Values based leadership across organisations working to promote equity in health. \r\n\r\nThe conference set out a programme of work and action for EQUINET and its partners to implement these goals.   \r\n\r\n* * Visit the Values, Policies and Rights, Health equity in economic and trade policies, Poverty and health, Human Resources, Resource allocation and health financing, Equity and HIV/AIDS and Governance and participation in health sections of the newsletter for more details about papers presented at the conference. The full abstract book and other conference documents will be available on the EQUINET website (www.equinetafrica.org) by the end of this month. Please send all comments to admin@equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Reproductive Health and Human Rights: Integrating Medicine, Ethics, and Law","field_subtitle":"Rebecca J. Cook, Bernard M. Dickens and Mahmoud F. Fathalla","field_url":"http://www.oup.com.au/content/printer.asp?ContentID=257","body":"The concept of reproductive health promises to play a crucial role in improving health care provision and legal protection for women around the world. Here now is an authoritative and much-needed introduction to and defence of the concept that, though internationally endorsed, is still contested by conservative agencies. The authors of this book are leading authorities on reproductive medicine, women's health, human rights, medical law, and bioethics: they integrate their disciplines to provide an accessible but comprehensive picture. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Restoring a socially-conscious state ","field_subtitle":"Abstract of Equinet conference keynote address, Adebayo Olukoshi, Director, CODESRIA, Dakar Senegal ","field_url":"","body":"Historically, the state has played an important role as a social actor.  Indeed, the social function of the state was as critical to the constitution of the social contract as the quest for a secured territorial framework within which individuals and groups could exercise their livelihoods.  The high point of the development of the social state came in the period after the Second World War with the growth and spread of different variants of social democracy and welfare states.  \r\n\r\nNot surprisingly, African states at independence were invested with broad-ranging social responsibilities which they pursued with varying degrees of success.  However; the onset of the African economic crises in the period from the early 1980s onwards and the rise on a global scale of the forces of neo-liberalism encapsulated the confluence of factors that culminated in the retrenchment of the social state - including from an institutional and expenditure point of view - and the enthronement of a narrow, market-based logic in the provision of social services - including, among other things, the pursuit of cost recovery, the imposing of user fees, the promotion of privatisation, and the employment of new public sector management strategies in the social sectors.  \r\n\r\nAt the same time, the social sectors, including especially the health system, were to suffer a serious erosion of capacity that was connected to the drain of talents, the degradation of the infrastructure of service, and the collapse of professionalism.  Perhaps much more serious is the decoupling of social policy from macro-economic policy-making and its treatment as a residual category to which targeting strategies such as safety nets, various programmes for the alleviation of the social effects of economic structural adjustment and a plethora of poverty reduction strategies would be applied.  It is suggested that this decoupling of social and macro-economic policy making is at the root of the expansion of the boundaries of exclusion that defines the structural roots of injustice in the social sectors generally and the health sector in particular.  \r\n\r\nThe prospects for the restoration of a socially-conscious state will depend on the capacity of governments to adopt an approach in which social policy is treated as an integral part of macro-economic strategies for growth and development.  \r\n\r\n* Adebayo Olukoshi, Professor of International Economic Relations and currently the Executive Secretary of the pan-African Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) which is headquartered in Dakar, Senegal.  He has previously served as Director of Research at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos, Nigeria and as a Senior Fellow/Research Programme Coordinator at the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden.  His current research interests centre around the politics of reform and transition in African politics, economy and society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa Civil society network ready to help ARV rollout ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://medilinkz.org/news/news2.asp?NewsID=6853","body":"About 90 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province have teamed up to work with the government in rolling out antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, in the first structured civil society response of its kind in South Africa, and possibly even on the continent. When the government announced a national rollout plan for free ARVs in September 2003, Cati Vawda, director of the Durban-based Children's Rights Centre, and a number of her NGO colleagues, quickly realised that \"government alone cannot do it\". ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Strengthening health systems for treatment access","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/page.php?record=364","body":"This summary document presents: The principles for ensuring universal treatment access through sustainable public health systems; The major findings and issues from the work carried out in southern Africa on equity in health sector responses to HIV and AIDS, particularly in terms of access to antiretroviral treatment; The key challenges for follow up work identified at the southern African regional meeting on 'Strengthening Health systems for treatment access and equitable responses to HIV/AIDS' in Harare, Zimbabwe, February 2004.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Tackling health inequalities: turning policy into practice?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hda.nhs.uk/documents/tacklinghealthinequalities.pdf","body":"\"...As studies have shown, evidence is rarely applied to decision making in accordance with a rational, linear model. In practice, evidence is often generated through doing \u2013 in the enactment of policy. Evidence may be only one component of any decision making process, but it can be made an integral part of a culture of inquiry based on continual learning and development. Leaders and managers need to appreciate the complex relationship between research evidence and practice, and to ensure the right conditions are created to allow practitioners to reflect on, and learn from, the practice of what they do and how they do it. In this way, learning becomes a supply of evidence to be drawn on as practitioners continue to implement and reshape policy...\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The Chronic Poverty Report 2004-2005","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.chronicpoverty.org/chronic_poverty_report_2004.htm","body":"Between 300 and 420 million people are trapped in chronic poverty.  They experience deprivation over many years, often over their entire lives, and commonly pass poverty on to their children.  Many chronically poor people die prematurely from health problems that are easily preventable.  For them poverty is not simply about having a low income: it is about multidimensional deprivation \u2013 hunger, undernutrition, dirty drinking water, illiteracy, having no access to health services, social isolation and exploitation.  Such deprivation and suffering exists in a world that has the knowledge and resources to eradicate it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The General Agreement On Trade In Services: Implications For Health Policymakers ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/3/137?etoc","body":"The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), created under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation, aims to regulate measures affecting international trade in services - including health services such as health insurance, hospital services, telemedicine, and acquisition of medical treatment abroad. The agreement has been the subject of great controversy, for it may affect the freedom with which countries can change the shape of their domestic health care systems. This article explains the rationale behind the agreement and discusses its scope. It also addresses the major controversies surrounding the GATS and their implications for the U.S. health care system. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"The wealth gap in health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.prb.org/pdf04/TheWealthGapinHealth_Eng.pdf","body":"Despite improvements in public health in the last half-century, large disparities in health exist between and within countries.  Differences among socioeconomic groups can be pronounced, but are easily masked by national data that are used for monitoring and reporting progress.  A recent analysis of data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) program provides clear evidence of the gap between the rich and poor in a range of health and population indicators\u2014 fertility, infant and child mortality, nutrition, and the use of family planning and other health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards Unity for Health ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"What is The Network: Towards Unity for Health?  The Network: TUFH is a global association of individuals, groups, institutions and organisations committed to improving and maintaining health in the communities they have a mandate to serve.  The Network: TUFH is a Non-Governmental Organisation in official relationships with the World Health Organization (WHO).","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30438","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Trends In International Nurse Migration ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/3/69?etoc","body":"Predicted shortages and recruitment targets for nurses in developed countries threaten to deplete nurse supply and undermine global health initiatives in developing countries.  A twofold approach is required, involving greater diligence by developing countries in creating a largely sustainable domestic nurse workforce and their greater investment through international aid in building nursing education capacity in the less developed countries that supply them with nurses.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"US rejects global strategy on reproductive health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.planetwire.org/details/4801?PHPSESSID=bed573989599048df3bd15fd605166ea","body":"While the United States \u201cdissociated\u201d itself from the consensus, the World Health Organisation's first strategy on reproductive health was adopted by the 57th World Health Assembly (WHA). Reproductive and sexual ill-health accounts for 20% of the global burden of ill-health for women and 14% for men. \"Once again, the Bush Administration has shown their true colours by calling for a reproductive health policy that is more about ideology than reality,\u201d said Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA). \u201cWe have a moral responsibility to ensure the health and well-being of women and men around the world.\" ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Workshop on Proposal Development for Scientific Research Funding in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"16-20 August 2004, Nairobi, Kenya","field_url":"","body":"The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) based in Nairobi, Kenya, in collaboration with the University of Southampton are inviting nominations of senior social science or public health researchers to attend a workshop on research proposal development.  The main objective of the workshop is to strengthen the capacity of African scholars and institutions in developing good fundable proposals for scientific research.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30436","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Assembly Documentation","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/gb/","body":"To access a range of World Health Assembly documents, speeches and resolutions, click on the link below.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Youth InfoNet newsletter online","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.fhi.org/en/Youth/YouthNet/Publications/YouthInfoNet/YouthInfoNet6.htm","body":"Youth InfoNet No.  6 is now online.  This one-stop monthly source for new publications and information on youth reproductive health and HIV prevention is produced by Family Health International's (FHI) YouthNet program.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"2003 International Drug Price Indicator Guide with CD-ROM","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://erc.msh.org","body":"The 2003 edition of the International Drug Price Indicator Guide provides a spectrum of prices from 19 sources, including non-profit drug suppliers, commercial procurement agencies, international development organisations, and government agencies. The Guide helps supply officers determine the probable cost of pharmaceutical products for their programs, compare current prices paid to prices available on the international market, assess the potential financial impact of changes to a drug list, and support rational drug use education.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Accelerating response to AIDS in Swaziland","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=3309","body":"Accelerating its response to the AIDS challenge, the Swazi government has announced preferred suppliers of antiretroviral drugs, while the national AIDS funding agency says it has applied for a US $48.5 million grant from the Global Fund. \"The nearly $50 million we have requested is for a five-year period, with $7 million going toward our first-year projects, and the funds will enable us to significantly step up interventions, particularly our programmes directed toward youth, which are currently under-funded,\" National Emergency Response Committee on HIV/AIDS (NERCHA) director Dr Derek Von Wissell told PlusNews.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa needs 100,000 health workers to distribute AIDS drugs ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/04/28/international0958EDT0537.DTL","body":"At least 100,000 health workers are needed to distribute anti-AIDS drugs in Africa, where 70 percent of the world's HIV/AIDS sufferers live, the head of the World Health OrganiSation said Wednesday. \"It's difficult to grasp the magnitude of the problem,\" Dr. Lee Jong-Wook said while visiting Singapore. \"The 8,000 people dying every day from AIDS is equivalent to 30 jumbo jets crashing every day.\" The WHO's aim to provide 3 million HIV-infected people in Africa with the latest available drugs by the end of 2005 was achievable if workers are found to deliver the drugs, Lee said.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Antiretroviral therapy in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7434/280","body":"The experience of tuberculosis treatment in Africa shows that the potential short term gains from reducing individual morbidity and mortality may be far outweighed by the potential for the long term spread of drug resistance, says an article in the British Medical Journal.  Given the high levels of HIV prevalence and the lack of resources and infrastructures, HIV/AIDS antiretroviral therapy is likely to be introduced to Africa in a random and haphazard way, with inconsistent prescribing practices and poor monitoring of therapy and adherence: this risks the rapid development and transmission of drug resistance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Bush accused of blocking access to cheap AIDS drugs ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7443/783","body":"International health charities have accused George Bush's administration of trying to block developing countries' access to cheap AIDS drugs by questioning the quality of \"three in one\" generic combination drugs. At a meeting last month in Gaborone, Botswana, the US global AIDS coordinator, Randall Tobias, said that the World Health Organisation's drug pre-qualification programme is not a sufficiently stringent approval process to ensure consistency and quality of fixed dose combination drugs. M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res and other non-governmental organisations working with AIDS patients in Africa accused the US government of trying to escape the 2001 Doha agreement on affordable drugs by the side door.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges remain for MSF's South Africa ART programme","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=3325","body":"Three years after its inception, the first project to provide free AIDS drugs to South Africans put the 1,000th patient on antiretroviral treatment (ART). In May 2001 the Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and Western Cape Health Department project started providing people at an advanced stage of AIDS with ART at three HIV/AIDS clinics in Khayelitsha township, outside Cape Town. Today the clinics offer about 2,000 consultations every month in the sprawling township. \"We estimate that 5,000 people need treatment in Khayelitsha today,\" MSF campaign coordinator Marta Darder told PlusNews. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Cost-effectiveness Analysis Workshop","field_subtitle":"Durban, South Africa, 10:30 am - 12:30 pm, June 12","field_url":"","body":"Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) has become an increasingly important tool for analyzing health care systems and setting priorities. CEA was strongly endorsed by the World Bank in its 1993 report on Investing in Health as a way of ensuring that health systems provide \u201cvalue for money,\u201d and is now being promoted by other agencies as well, as in the case of the World Health Organisation\u2019s WHO-CHOICE initiative. But is CEA a reliable way of getting the most out of limited health system resources? Or does it, rather, distract attention from equity concerns, undermine initiatives to provide primary health care, and distract us from directly challenging political choices that limit resources available for health systems? ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30385","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Debt for Aids swaps","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/html/pub/publications/irc-pub06 /jc1020-debt4aids_en_pdf.pdf","body":"Debt swaps exchange debt for some other asset or obligation.  In the context of development, they normally involve countries negotiating cancellation of external debts in return for commitments on internal resource mobilization or some other government action.  There has been considerable international interest in debt swaps and their potential to create a new and additional financing mechanism to help overcome long-standing barriers to development.  The impact of AIDS on many developing countries, including many of the most indebted, has been severe.  In the worst cases, AIDS has caused development progress to be set back by decades.  There is therefore emerg\u00ading interest in examining whether debt swaps are potentially useful new instruments to apply to the problem of AIDS and development.  This is according to a UNAIDS policy brief on the issue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"e-discussion forum: Global reports","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Looking at global reports over time gives us a sense of the various issues that have captured sufficient attention from policy makers and civil society to justify the effort to produce and diffuse a global report. One way to interpret the growth in the number and widening range of issues covered by Global Reports is to suggest that this growth in global reporting reflects the fact that an increasing range of global challenges has emerged. The point up for debate is: Has there been a match or a mismatch between the two? To subscribe to this debate, and to share your views with over 350 people who have registered with this e-discussion forum, send a blank email to: subscribe-gpgnet-reports@groups.undp.org. Read the complete background paper at http://www.gpgnet.net/topic06.php","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Ensuring successful transfer of health policy between countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/2orzu","body":"How do health policies spread from one country to the next?  Transfer without ownership may make implementation difficult.  Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine look at the development of international policy on tuberculosis (TB) control over the last two decades. Do policy-makers adopt and adapt health policies voluntarily, after learning about experiences in other countries, or do international organisations or donors more often impose policies?  The researchers posed these and other questions during interviews with 40 key players in TB policy development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by\r\nFahamu - learning for change http://www.fahamu.org\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite:\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.\r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter/subscribe.php or send an email\r\nto info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET)","field_subtitle":"http://www.equinetafrica.org","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a \r\nnewsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the \r\nInternet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on \r\nEQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet \r\nCo-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, \r\npolicy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. \r\nFurther information on the materials in these briefings is available \r\nfrom TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWSLETTER 39: 01 May 2004\r\n\r\nCONTENTS: 1. Editorial, 2. Equity in Health, 3. Values, Policies and Rights, 4. Health equity in economic and trade policies, 5. Poverty and health, 6. Equitable health services, 7. Human Resources, 8. Public-Private Mix, 9. Resource allocation and health financing, 10. Equity and HIV/AIDS, 11. Governance and participation in health, 12. Monitoring equity and research policy, 13. Letters and Comments, 14. Useful Resources, 15. Jobs and Announcements","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Experts meet to discuss malaria drugs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unwire.org/UNWire/20040429/449_23307.asp","body":"Public health experts met in New York recently to discuss expanding access in developing nations to artemisinin-combination therapy (ACT), which offers one of the fastest and most effective cures for malaria, USA Today reports. Malaria parasites have become resistant to older drugs, but funding for the newer ACT remains a problem. ACT costs about $1.50 for a three-day course, compared with 10 cents for older drugs such as chloroquine and Fansidar. Many African governments can devote just $5 per person annually to public health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Extra spending on clean water promises eight-fold economic benefits, says WHO","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/releases/2004/pr28/en/index.html","body":"The economic benefits of better access to clean water outweigh the extra investment necessary eight-fold by creating a healthier workforce, the World Health Organisation said in a report.  An additional investment of around 11.3 billion dollars (9.5 billion euros) per year on top of the money already being spent on improving basic sanitation facilities could generate a total economic benefit of 84 billion dollars annually, the report said.  Such an investment would reduce the global occurrence of diarrhoea by an average of 10 percent, according to the study by the Swiss Tropical Institute, which was commissioned by the WHO.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Forced privatisation through Aid","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.waronwant.org/?lid=7540","body":"This report from War on Want looks at how conditionalities and pressures from aid agencies and development banks force developing countries to adopt privatisation policies in public services. It focuses specifically on the sectors of water, electricity, and healthcare, in six countries: Colombia; El Salvador; Indonesia; Mozambique; South Africa; and Sri Lanka. It examines the impact of the requirements and policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB), and other agencies including regional development banks, the European Commission (EC) and donor countries. It includes a specific examination of the various ways in which the UK\u2019s Department for International Development (DFID) supports privatisation in these services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Funds Hamper Those Who Need Malaria Drugs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.newsday.com/news/health/wire/sns-ap-malaria-drugs,0,1280044.story?coll=sns-ap-health-headlines","body":"Medicines to fight the rising malaria epidemic don't reach millions who need them because the money and the international commitment to supply the drugs are lacking, experts said at a conference. Although malaria kills more than a million people a year - most of them African children - national and international policy makers show a \"lack of urgency and political will\" to use new treatments in the face of drug resistance, conference organizers said in a statement. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender based violence and the risk of HIV infection","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol363/iss9419/full/llan.363.9419.original_research.29458.1","body":"Gender-based violence and gender inequality are increasingly cited as important determinants of women's HIV risk; yet empirical research on possible connections remains limited.  No study on women has yet assessed gender-based violence as a risk factor for HIV after adjustment for women's own high-risk behaviours, although these are known to be associated with experience of violence.  Women with violent or controlling male partners are at increased risk of HIV infection.  Research suggests that abusive men are more likely to have HIV and impose risky sexual practices on partners.  Research on connections between social constructions of masculinity, intimate partner violence, male dominance in relationships, and HIV risk behaviours in men, as well as effective interventions, are urgently needed.  (Access to this article requires registration.)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Getting research into practice in developing countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.inasp.info/health/workshop33.html","body":"Lessons from medical research may take years to get through to the frontline of healthcare. This is exacerbated in developing countries where there are difficulties in dissemination and barriers that prevent healthcare providers acting on new findings. Furthermore, most biomedical research is in high-income countries, and the results are not necessarily applicable in low-income countries. This is a according to a meeting at the Royal College of Physicians in London in January that explored these issues under the topics of \u2018Dynamics and barriers; Systematic reviews: do they have a role?\u2019; and \u2018Recent changes in healthcare information and emerging challenges\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Global funding for HIV/AIDS in resource poor settings","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC14593","body":"This fact sheet analyses current trends in the global funding of HIV/AIDS. It argues that funding to address the epidemic (provided by major donor governments, multilateral organisations, affected countries, and the private sector) has only recently increased to significant levels, but it is still less than estimated need. Actual spending is typically less than budgeted funding, and in 2003 both were well below the estimated need of $6.3 billion. Some key findings included the fact that budgeted funding for HIV/AIDS in 2003 totalled $4.2 billion while actual spending in 2003 totalled about $3.6 billion. In addition, donor governments provide 61% of budgeted funding to address HIV/AIDS in resource poor settings utilising bilateral and multilateral channels.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Watch due for launch in 2005","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Global Health Watch \u2013 a bi-annual production that will represent an alternative World Health Report will be launched at next year\u2019s World Health Assembly in May 2005 and at the People\u2019s Health Assembly in June 2005. The report is aimed to provide an alternative perspective on health that places equity, human and social rights; the politics and economics of development; and the centrality of health systems development at the forefront of international health debates.  In addition, the report aims to act as a monitor of the performance of global health institutions such as WHO and Global Fund; development and multi-lateral agencies such as the World Bank and WTO; multi-national corporations; and the nations of the G8/OECD.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30368","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalization, Health, WHO and IMF/WB ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/stop-imf/2004q2/000889.html","body":"The World Health Organisation should be faithful to its Constitution, making health care and access to health care a human right, confronting powerful governments including the US government, which is in clear violation of the WHO Charter's instruction that member countries should ensure their citizens' access to health care in time of need.  WHO should regain its credibility and moral standing, and could include growing movements of protest such as the anti-globalisation movement that are providing pointers to another possible world.  Membership of WHO should be conditional on governments' acceptance of a whole set of principles and practices, including the promotion of health as a human right and the obligations deriving from this right.  This is according to an article \"The world situation and WHO\", published in the Lancet.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Haart alone not enough to stop spread of HIV","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/news/newsdisplay2.asp?newsId=2667","body":"Less than 10% of HIV-positive individuals in South Africa will be eligible to receive antiretroviral therapy if World Health Organisation guidelines which mandate the use of anti-HIV therapy in patients with a CD4 cell count below 200 cells/mm3 are followed, according to a French-funded study published in the May 1st edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.  The study also found that this would have only a limited impact on the spread of HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Informatics conference","field_subtitle":"6-8 October 2003, Kimberly, South Africa - Abstracts due by 31 May","field_url":"http://www.epatientrecords.co.za/hisa2004/main.php","body":"The South Africa Health Informatics Association, in conjunction with the Computer Society of South Africa, is organising the \"Health Informatics: Southern Africa\" 2004 conference. This will be held from the 6-8 October 2004 in Kimberley in the Northern Cape Province.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health promotion through self-care and community participation","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/4/11/abstract","body":"The concepts of health promotion, self-care and community participation emerged during the 1970s, primarily out of concerns about the limitation of professional health systems. Since then there have been rapid growth in these areas in the developed world, and there is evidence of effectiveness of such interventions. These areas are still in their infancy in the developing countries. There is a window of opportunity for promoting self-care and community participation for health promotion. This article proposes elements of a programme for health promotion in the developing countries following key principles of self care and community participation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health research and human rights in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol363/iss9418/full/llan.363.9418.health_and_human_rights.29399.1","body":"The death of apartheid - symbolised by the multiracial elections in South Africa on April 27, 1994 - was a defining moment of the 20th century.  The tenth anniversary of this event is a time to consider how well the post-apartheid government is fostering health and human rights through reforms in health research policy.  The realisation of health care depends, to an extent, on the formulation of a rational and responsive national research agenda; this has proven a challenge in post-apartheid South Africa.  Notwithstanding its laudable attempts to redress the country's skewed national health research agenda, only when the South African government commits itself to transparent, competent research leadership free of ideological bias will the country truly graduate from erstwhile pariah nation to celebrated champion of health and human rights.  (This article requires registration.)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"IDRC Online courses: Designing and conducting Health Systems Research projects","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://web.idrc.ca/en/ev-33010-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html","body":"This two-volume set presents a course outline, in modular format, that deals step-by-step with the development of a Health Systems Research (HSR) proposal and field testing (Part 1) and with data analysis and report writing (Part 2).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the health of the world's poorest people","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC14527","body":"This bulletin, produced by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), highlights the poor-rich health divide that leaves more than 1 billion people worldwide excluded from both essential basic care and the benefits of advances in health and medical technology because of their extreme poverty.  Key factors that contribute to these persistent health inequalities include lack of responsiveness by health systems to the needs of the poor; low quality of care; and the reality that public spending on health (justified on equity grounds) benefits non-poor groups more than the poor.  In addition, few countries have taken measures to track progress in reducing socioeconomic disparities in health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"International Nurse Mobility: Trends and Policy Implications","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.rcn.org.uk/downloads/InternationalNurseMobility-April162003.doc","body":"This report examines the trends and policy issues relating to the international mobility of one key group of knowledge workers: nurses.  The increase in 'knowledge worker' migration, partly as a result of developed countries attempting to solve skill shortages by recruiting from developing countries, is a key component of current international migration patterns.  The report examines trends in international recruitment and migration of nurses.  It uses data from professional registers and censuses to examine the scale of the movement of nurses.  Core data from a selection of five 'destination countries' is used to track trends from source countries.  The five destination countries are Australia, Ireland, Norway, UK and USA.  Information is also assessed from four 'source' areas - the Caribbean, Ghana, South Africa and the Philippines.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Keeping in touch","field_subtitle":"Iwuozor Godwin, Sure Health Organisation (SHO)","field_url":"","body":"Thanks for the notification on your (new) web-site.  We are happy for this latest development and promise to always keep in touch as well as extending it to those in related fields.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Landmark agreement reached in Aids fight","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A historic agreement to adopt a unified global response to tackling HIV/AIDS was reached by the international community last month. Despite stepped up resources and the best intentions, the AIDS epidemic continues to be one of the greatest crises of the century, with 40 million people currently infected and over 25 million deaths to date. A major step was taken at a meeting in Washington D.C., co-chaired by UNAIDS, the UK and the US, where donors and developing countries agreed to three core principles to better coordinate the scale-up of national AIDS responses.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30402","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi Health Equity Network (MHEN)","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Malawi Health Equity Network (MHEN) was formed in 2000 as a grouping of individuals and organisations working to promote equity in health in Malawi.  This is a national network with central offices (secretariat) in Lilongwe.  The Network aims to achieve this goal through networking, research, policy dialogue and advocacy.  Key areas of interest by the Network include; essential drug availability in public health facilities, availability of health human resources, national budget formulation, linkages with parliamentary committees and HIV/AIDS.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30372","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Malnutrition the cause of disease burden","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC14676","body":"Improving nutrition would have broad and generally non-specific (or multipurpose) benefits in reducing the effects of infectious diseases.  Non-specific public health measures tend to be underestimated in their impact, as the benefits are spread among so many conditions.  The estimates in this paper try to capture this broad effect, using underweight (itself a non-specific measure) as an indicator of inadequate nutritional status, in part at least caused by inadequate diet. The results reinforce the case that SubSaharan Africa and Asia (especially South Asia) have the greatest needs.  The effects of malnutrition, particularly as a risk factor, are very extensive, implying large potential benefits to health from addressing malnutrition. More attention to public nutrition could be the most effective investment in preventing ill-health and premature mortality throughout much of the developing world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring growth in a poor world","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.wws.princeton.edu/%7Erpds/downloads/deaton_measuringpoverty_204.pdf","body":"The extent to which growth reduces global poverty has been disputed for 30 years.  It is possible for consumption of the poor to grow less rapidly than national consumption, without any increase in measured inequality.  Current statistical procedures in poor countries understate the rate of global poverty reduction, and overstate growth in the world, argues this research paper.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"More aid is needed to halve world poverty, says report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol363/iss9419/full/llan.363.9419.news.29501.1","body":"Poor people in developing countries have little hope of overcoming poverty and deprivation unless urgent action is taken, according to the 2004 Global Monitoring report. The report, whose purpose is to assess progress towards internationally agreed objectives for reducing poverty, was the focus of discussions by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during a meeting in Washington, April 24-25.  The report claims that most developing countries will not meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which include halving the proportion of the population in extreme poverty, ensuring primary education for all children, and decreasing child and maternal deaths by 2015. (This article requires registration.)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Nutrition for Improved development outcomes","field_subtitle":"United Nations System - Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN) report","field_url":"http://www.unsystem.org/scn/Publications/AnnualMeeting/SCN31/SCN5Report.pdf","body":"The 5th Report on the World Nutrition Situation outlines how reducing malnutrition is central to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), citing evidence that links nutrition to a range of other development outcomes.  It highlights how a nutrition perspective can strengthen key development mechanisms and instruments such as poverty reduction strategies, health sector reform, improving governance and human rights, and trade liberalization.  The Report makes specific suggestions about how nutrition can be engaged in a practical programme and policy context.  This contribution is timely, as progress towards the 2015 MDG targets has been slower than anticipated.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Patam sends letter to African finance ministers","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Finance Ministers that attended the World Bank spring meetings in Washington towards the end of April were urged by the Pan-African Treatment Access Movement (PATAM) to ensure that urgent attention be paid to building the internal capacity of African countries to marshal their own resources against HIV/AIDS, reject fiscal conditions that imply a decline in additional donated revenues for HIV/AIDS, demand full debt cancellation and upport efforts to highlight transparency, accountability and representation in the IMF and World Bank.  PATAM send a letter to African ministers of finance which can be read by clicking on the link below.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30407","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Reclaiming the state: Advancing peoples Health, Challenging Injustice","field_subtitle":"EQUINET Steering Committee ","field_url":"","body":"In just over a month delegates from all over southern African will be converging at the third EQUINET Southern African Regional Conference on Equity in Health being held in Durban, South Africa on the theme \u2018Reclaiming the state: Advancing peoples Health, Challenging Injustice\u2019.   This conference theme has been chosen to reflect the commitment by EQUINET to go beyond mapping the problems in and challenges to health equity and social justice in southern Africa and to proactively build the alternative vision, analysis, perspective and practice needed to meet those challenges. \r\n\r\nThe conference will debate the actions and systems needed to advance people\u2019s health equitably, fairly and within the broader context of social justice. EQUINET proposes that such systems must integrate principles and practice:\r\n- of public health, viz the protection and promotion of population health and prevention of ill health \r\n- of providing relevant, quality health services and care for all according to need and financed according to ability to pay\r\n- of building the human resources and knowledge to shape and deliver public health and health services, and\r\n- of protecting and ensuring the social values, ethics and rights that underlie health systems, including to participation and involvement.\r\n\r\nThe conference will also review through various areas of work the proposal that health must be supported by redistribution of the resources for health in an equity oriented policy agenda supported by the state. The conference will explore options for policies and systems that are explicitly centred on rising investment in health through the state and public sector. What does it mean conceptually and practically at national and global level to reclaim the central  role of the state for equitable health systems?  \r\n\r\nEfforts by states and citizens in the region to equitably meet the health needs of their people confront the challenge posed by a globalization process based on unfair global trade relations, dominance of transnational corporation interests, reduced role and authority of the state and political and economic marginalization of southern and low income populations. Such conditions contribute to a huge \u2018brain drain\u2019 of health personnel, growing household food insecurity, massive constraints in meeting the drug and other inputs to health care and privatization of essential services, all with damaging implications for equity in health.  \r\n\r\nThe conference will present and discuss the perspectives, shared values and options for challenging the injustices undermining people\u2019s health. We will draw from the experiences of work with government, parliaments and civil society. We will examine the rights and governance approaches that are needed to support such action for health. \r\n\r\nWe invite all those with ideas, issues and options to contribute to this process, whether or not you are coming to the conference!  Send us your feedback, resolutions, and contributions with your name and institution to admin@equinetafrica.org and we will integrate it into the inputs to the conference resolutions and keep you informed on the outcome. What do you see as the major challenges and contributions to advancing people\u2019s health in southern Africa?  What  policies and actions are needed to strengthen the role and performance of the state and public sector in health?  How can southern Africans more effectively challenge the injustices that undermine health?  What should EQUINET do, as a network based on shared vision and values of equity and social justice, to strengthen our analysis, actions and institutions to better deliver on our collective aspirations for health equity and social justice?  What role would you like to play in this?  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Resurgence of TB in Zimbabwe causes concern","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSReport.ASP?ReportID=3250","body":"Malnutrition due to the ongoing food crisis, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and overcrowded urban areas are all contributing to a rise in tuberculosis (TB) infections in Zimbabwe. Nicholas Siziba, the national coordinator of the Ministry of Health's special TB programme, sounded the alarm while visiting Matabeleland South province - one of the worst-affected in terms of TB rates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Risking HIV to access grant in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSReport.ASP?ReportID=3296","body":"The South African government expressed concern last month after a news report highlighted the story of a young woman who admitted she was thinking of contracting the HI virus to access a disability grant. The young woman, Thato, said she had ten 'boyfriends' with whom she slept for money. She was supporting two nieces, her own child and a grandmother suffering from diabetes on the money she made, by being what she described as a \"prostitute in disguise\". ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Senior Researcher Posts: Public Health Epidemiology and Health Information Systems","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The School of Public Health is a forerunner in the public health areas of health promotion, health equity, health information systems, nutrition, health programme development and human resource development.  Two senior researchers are required for a new project, aimed at assisting development of health programmes such as HIV/AIDS and nutrition, at health district level.  The senior researchers are expected to assist programme managers to develop information systems for their programmes.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30386","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern Africa: HIV/AIDS Programme Officer","field_subtitle":"Open Society Initiative For Southern Africa","field_url":"","body":"(OSISA) is a leading regional foundation, established in 1997 by investor and philanthropist George Soros, to create and sustain the institutions, policies and practices of an open society, where good governance, human rights and justice are respected and upheld. Its programmes broadly focus on Education, Media, Human Rights and Democracy as well as Information Communication Technologies. In addition to undertaking advocacy, and working through multi-level partnerships with others, OSISA oversees US$5 million in grants annually across a region made up of Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30375","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"TAC extends olive branch to health minister","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"South Africa's the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has welcomed the re-appointment of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, with whom the organisation has had a fraught relationship over the last four years. \u201cThe re-appointment of Health Minister, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang will be a disappointment for many of us, especially the range of actors in the health sector. However, we urge Minister Tshabalala-Msimang to re-establish a working relationship in the interest of fulfilling the mandate of our people,\u201d said the TAC.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30400","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The global response to Aids: Ten years on","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsalliance.org/_res/alliance/newsletter/December%202003%20(Eng).pdf","body":"Stigma and discrimination are still huge obstacles to progress on AIDS: the association of HIV/AIDS with marginalised populations has consistently been a major factor impeding action.  Furthermore, the involvement of HIV positive people in policymaking and programme delivery is essential to success, and such involvement requires partnership and respect, not sympathy and tolerance.  This is according to an article by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance (2003) that presents an assessment of the successes and failures of the global response to AIDS from 1993-2003.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The Impact of HIV/AIDS on the Health Sector ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hsrcpublishers.co.za/index.html?health_sector.html~content","body":"This report emanates from the results of a study that examined the impact of HIV/AIDS on the public and private health facilities in South Africa, and outlines the subsystems that are affected.  Both public and private sector health facilities have reported an increase in the number of patients seeking clinical care for people living with HIV/AIDS, leading to increased admissions to medical and paediatric wards and increased workloads.  This study addresses these issues and makes recommendations for managing the HIV/AIDS case load.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of wages in the migration of health care professionals from developing countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/2/1/3","body":"Several countries are increasingly relying on immigration as a means of coping with domestic shortages of health care professionals.  This trend has led to concerns that in many of the source countries - especially within Africa - the outflow of health care professionals is adversely affecting the health care system.  This paper examines the role of wages in the migration decision and discusses the likely effect of wage increases in source countries in slowing migration flows.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Training health service staff in developing countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/education/h1ps3g1.html","body":"The quality of health care is hugely dependent on the skills of health professionals.  Clinical skills centres are neutral and protected settings in which a variety of skills and techniques can be taught.  In developing countries, resource constraints and pressure to direct skilled staff away from teaching to working in health service facilities can limit the opportunities for developing and implementing an effective training curriculum.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Tuberculosis control needs strong national health services ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h4ym1g1.html","body":"The lack of health care resources is the most obvious barrier for developing countries to reach TB control targets.  However, there is a strong association between poverty and TB, say researchers from Belgium's Institute of Tropical Medicine.  The number of tuberculosis cases continues to rise worldwide and only a minority of people has access to high quality tuberculosis services.  Tuberculosis control cannot reach its targets without investing in an adequate network of accessible, effective and comprehensive health services, say the researchers.  However, only a small proportion of all TB patients in the world are detected and many are diagnosed and treated late.  The researchers identify many problems in the way in which care and support are delivered.  These include insufficient and rundown health facilities, lack of trained and motivated staff, shortages of drugs and medical supplies, poor supervision of health personnel and difficult communication and transport.  In many regions, the private health sector is growing rapidly while the regulatory system remains poor.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Turning science into action to improve people's health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/rpc/reports/WR2004AnnotatedOutline.pdf","body":"The objective of this World Health Organisation report is to describe strategies to reduce global disparities in health through improvements in health research systems at national and international levels and systematic application of evidence-based knowledge. The Report focuses on bridging of the \"know do\" gap, the gulf between what we know and what we do in practice, between scientific potential and health realization.  The bridging of this gap is central to achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDG\u2019s) by 2015.  The gap exists for each of the MDG\u2019s and represents a fundamental and pragmatic knowledge translation challenge that must be addressed to strengthen health systems performance towards achieving the MDG\u2019s.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Web Tips: Useful web sites","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"* http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/const.htm \r\nSearch engine for Constitutions, treaties and declarations at Political Science Resources, UK Contains international conventions and treaties and national constitutions listed by country, A to Z.\r\n* http://confinder.richmond.edu\r\n Search database for National constitutions, organized alphabetically. University of Richmond, School of Law, USA \r\n* http://doc-iep.univ-lyon2.fr/Resources/Liens/constitution-etr.html\r\nSearch database for national constitutions at University of Lyon. However, it is all in French, no obvious English option!\r\n* http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/\r\n The World Fact Book. You select a country and under the government section, you can locate the icon for constitution.  However, it only provides general information on when adopted, etc.  The actual constitution is not listed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"World Bank criticised for HIV/AIDS response","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.actionaid.org/resources/pdfs/HIVWorldBank2004.pdf","body":"The World Bank failed to protect social spending during its structural adjustment operations in the 1980s and 1990s, and this led to the deterioration of basic services - including those needed for the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS. And instead of focusing on HIV/AIDS, the World Bank sought improvements in the way goods and services were provided and financed through health sector reforms, such as user fees, privatisation, decentralisation and integration of services. These reforms frequently had the unintended effect of reducing access to effective health care, including services aimed at the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS. This is according to a paper Produced by ActionAid that evaluates the response to the HIV crisis by the World Bank.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"World Bank finds poverty is down","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unwire.org/News/328_426_23113.asp","body":"Rapid economic growth in East and South Asia over the last couple of decades has been responsible for a decrease in the number of people living in extreme poverty in developing countries, from 40 percent of global population in 1981 to 21 percent in 2001. However, Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Central Asia are still far from reaching the U.N. Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty levels by 2015, says a new World Bank report. According to World Development Indicators 2004, East and South Asia, particularly China and India, have lifted 500 million people out of extreme poverty - those living on less than $1 a day - in 20 years. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Academic publishing made more accessible for scientists in developing world","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Open Society Institute (OSI) and Public Library of Science (PLoS) has announced a new grants program to support open access publishing in developing and transition countries.  The grants will make it much easier for scientists based in developing and transition countries to submit articles to the premiere peer-reviewed research journals published by PLoS. \"Scientists in poorer countries have been virtually excluded from the journal publishing world,\" said Darius Cuplinskas, director of OSI's Information Program.  \"Open access journals will remove barriers and make these scientists full members of the international scientific community.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30327","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa: Too little, too late for ARV treatment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=3197","body":"The long-awaited rollout of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs through public health systems is at last becoming a reality in a growing number of African countries. But the initial excitement greeting the announcement of each new AIDS treatment programme is often tempered by a closer examination of the figures, and the realisation that only a fraction of those in need will initially be able to access therapy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"African Aids drug plan faces collapse ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1169196,00.html","body":"A United Nations plan to provide three million HIV-infected patients in Africa with anti-retroviral drugs by 2005 is in danger of collapsing owing to lack of funds, UN and World Health Organisation officials said.  Some countries, particularly the United States, are balking at supporting the project, Aids workers say, partly because the plan intends to use a form of medicine called fixed-dose combination antiretroviral drugs whose use is opposed by large pharmaceutical companies.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Book to help young people","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.jsiuk.com/wecare.htm","body":"This 78-page resource manual, produced by JSI(UK)-Zimbabwe and funded by DFID Zimbabwe, is designed to encourage and help groups of young people support either younger children or their peers who are living in communities and households affected by AIDS.  It contains a Training Guide for facilitators to use to prepare young people to implement community activities, and a Community Activities section that suggests activities young people can undertake in their communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Action on HIV/AIDS-related Human Rights Abuses against Women and Girls in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/africa1203/africa1203.pdf","body":"This report from Human Rights Watch details cases of abuse of women and girls that increase susceptibility to HIV/AIDS.  It reviews regional and national legal regimes and makes recommendations for policy action against manifestations of HIV/AIDS human rights abuses against women and girls.  The cases demonstrate that the illness, mortality, abuse, and stigma associated with HIV/AIDS are due, to a large extent, to a long tradition of subordination and violent abuse of women and girls in Africa.  It argues that reformed national laws and policies to date have not been effective in counteracting this tradition and abusive practices condoned in customary law have exacerbated the problem.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Campaign to support women's health rights","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In 1987, May 28th was proclaimed the International Day of Action for Women's Health.  Health is a human right for all and, as asserted in many international human rights covenants and agreements, the right to health cannot be fulfilled if women's sexual and reproductive rights are not addressed.  However, health sector reforms and privatisation of health services around the world are jeopardising women's access to health and sexual and reproductive rights.  Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR) invites you to support promoting women's sexual and reproductive health and rights by organising your own activity or event on the 28th of May.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30348","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Can developing countries achieve adequate improvements in child health outcomes without engaging the private sector?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC14010&resource=healthsystems","body":"The private sector exerts a significant and critical influence on child health outcomes in developing countries.  This article in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization reviews the available evidence on private sector utilisation and quality of care.  It provides a framework for analysing the private sector\u2019s influence, extending its analysis to include nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), pharmacies, drug sellers, private suppliers, and food producers.  The article analyses some of the most promising strategies for improving child health, and suggests a number of possible constraints to emulating these approaches more widely.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenging inequity in health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.rockfound.org/Documents/435/summary_challenging.pdf","body":"This volume, Challenging Inequities in Health, was conceived as a response to concerns about widening \u201chealth gaps\u201d both between and within countries; A disproportionate research focus on inequalities in health in the \u201cNorth\u201d to the relative neglect of the \u201cSouth\u201d; and Inadequate analytic tools and pragmatic policies to redress health inequities. Through a collective effort of researchers and practitioners called the Global Health Equity Initiative (GHEI), a set of in-depth country studies and conceptual analyses on health equity were undertaken.  The main findings of this effort are presented in this book with the central claim that issues of equity, or distributive justice, deserve primary consideration in health and social policy deliberations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Director Health Systems Research Unit","field_subtitle":"South African Medical Research Council","field_url":"","body":"The director should be a national leader in health systems research with a strong vision to 'improve the impact of health care on health'.  The unit currently focuses on evaluating healthcare interventions; but the mandate could be expanded beyond this scope.  Developing methodology and capacity in health systems research are key objectives.  The Unit collaborates widely with scientists in South Africa and overseas.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30329","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Ensuring universal treatment access through sustainable public health systems","field_subtitle":"Southern African Regional Network for Equity in Health  (EQUINET) Discussion Paper","field_url":"","body":"The Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET), Oxfam GB in co-operation with SADC, government, UN, civil society, health sector and international agency partners met in February 2004 to review the options for a sustainable and equitable path to realising the urgent imperative of making antiretroviral therapy (ART) available to southern Africans and the long term imperative of universal treatment access.  The organisations identified principles to guide a sustainable and equitable response that would address the urgency of the need to act and the demand to do this in ways that build and do no harm to the already fragile public health systems in southern Africa.  There is an opportunity for a virtuous cycle where programmes aimed at delivering ART strengthen health systems and thus widen access to ART.  There is also a threat of a vicious cycle of programmes aimed at delivering ART diverting scarce resources from wider health systems and undermining long term access both to ART and to other critical public health interventions.  These principles are the basis for the virtuous cycle.  They are presented as a discussion document for wider dissemination, discussion and feedback.  Feedback is welcomed!  Please email your feedback to admin@equinetafrica.org.\r\n\r\n1. WHY TREATMENT ACCESS THROUGH SUSTAINABLE PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEMS? \r\n\r\n-\tApproximately 15 million adults and children in southern Africa are currently infected with HIV and an estimated  700 000 - 1million currently have AIDS.  With only one eligible person in 25,000 currently on treatment with antiretroviral therapy (ART), the shortfall is enormous, and widest for the low income communities using peripheral and rural health services. Responding to this scale of disease and shortfall will not be possible through scattered programmes and projects. It requires a comprehensive and co-ordinated approach that embeds treatment within an effective, accessible health system.  \r\n-\tTreatment is only one of the multiple responses to the risk environments and factors that produce HIV and to the many areas of household vulnerability due to AIDS. Household food security, access to primary health care, social security, gender equity and income security are important factors linked to HIV and AIDS in southern Africa. Treatment programmes may excessively shift attention to drugs as the response to AIDS if they do not reinforce the prevention, care and socio-economic programmes that deal with these factors influencing HIV infection and the impacts of AIDS.  \r\n-\tAfter decades of macroeconomic measures weakening health systems, the capacities lost to public health systems, including the human resources for health,  need to be systematically rebuilt to plan, manage and use the significant global and international resources for treatment of AIDS coming into Africa. Treatment activism has opened a real window of opportunity for meeting rights of access to treatment and overcoming unjust barriers to ART. It now needs to join with broader public health activism to ensure that these goals can be realised for all through sustainable, effective and equitable health systems.  \r\n-\tAll southern African Development Community (SADC) member states have policies on AIDS and treatment guidelines and some are developing explicit treatment access policies. While legal, clinical and pharmaceutical aspects of these policies are now developed, there is a gap in the health system aspects. This gap needs to be filled if treatment policies are to be implemented in the practical conditions found in southern Africa health systems and to reinforce wider health and social goals. \r\n\r\nThe current situation does not lend itself to prescription. Southern African countries vary widely in socio-economic status, health system development and in the availability and organisation of resources for health. The choices around how scarce resources are used need to be made in an informed, transparent and participatory manner at the national level. These guiding principles are thus intended to support fair country level processes to develop strategies based on the capabilities, resources and demands of national health systems.    \r\n\r\n2. PROPOSED GUIDING PRINCIPLES \r\n\r\n2.1 Fair, transparent processes to make informed choices.\r\nThe choices to be made around use of resources, around the clinical, social and systems criteria for rationing and around opportunity costs and trade-offs call for governments and relevant international and national non-government organisations to provide clear, transparent and accountable mechanisms for public and stakeholder consultation and debate to develop policy and to make policy choices. \r\n\r\n2.2 Joint public health and HIV/AIDS planning.\r\nStrategic and operational plans as well as monitoring and evaluation frameworks at national and district levels should be produced through a process that integrates HIV / AIDS planning into broader public health planning. This includes integrating AIDS treatment programmes into HIV/AIDS prevention and social care programmes. Integrated planning should be supported by investments in public health leadership and in the management and monitoring capacities needed to implement plans. \r\n\r\n2.3 Integrating treatment into wider health systems.\r\nGovernments, international and national agencies should integrate HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment and care programmes into a programme of health systems strengthening and development. Key elements of this programme include:\r\nStrengthening inclusive public health systems:\r\n\u00b7 Prioritising district and primary level facilities and services as points of entry for ART services over tertiary level services. \r\n\u00b7 Locating treatment programmes within an effective District Health System, supported by effective district health management structures that provide all basic services for HIV and non-HIV related illness in an integrated and locally appropriate manner. \r\n\u00b7 Ensuring adequate human resources for treatment programmes integrated within district health systems. \r\n\u00b7 Co-ordinating and building national networking of information and experience from district sites.\r\n\u00b7 Services provided by non-profit organisations should be integrated in the public sector framework. \r\n\u00b7 Private sector provision should complement public provision and not compete for public funding.\r\n\r\n2.4 Realistic targets for treatment access with clear guidelines and monitoring systems for ensuring equity in access and quality of care. \r\nThe rapid expansion of ART can be achieved through targeting HIV positive current users of the health system, (particularly PMTCT, TB and VCT clients) and certain social and occupational groups (such as those with medical insurance or health workers). Such rapid expansion options should take place with simultaneous and equal investments to build the district health system and PHC infrastructure in areas without the current capacity to sustain effective ART services within clear time frameworks for wider rollout.\r\n\r\n2.5 Treatment resources integrated into regular budgets, supported by long term external commitments and through fair financing approaches \r\nDedicated AIDS funding should be integrated into regular budgets and comprehensive health sector plans. The transfer and use of earmarked funds for AIDS should be transparent. \u2018Emergency transfers\u2019 to meet specific system shortfalls should be time-limited with plans for their integration into regular budgets and comprehensive health sector plans. \r\n\r\nAdditional funds and resources dedicated to HIV/AIDS should be system supporting (covering prevention, treatment, district health system and PHC responses) and include expenditure on broader health care infrastructure where required. This calls for longer term commitments from international agencies (minimum 5 years), in support of joint national HIV/AIDS and health plans, linked to budget and sector wide support with agreed exit strategies. Global and international funds should build predictable, consistent, long term and co-ordinated funding. African governments should increase their health budgets to 15% of total budgets in accordance with the Abuja declaration, and strengthen their governance and management capacities for resource planning and management. Ministries of finance should now integrate health systems demands into financial planning and budget frameworks and review their Medium Term Expenditure Frameworks with the IMF to take account of additional resource inputs demanded for system strengthening.\r\n\r\n2.6 Prioritise human resource development in the health sector.\r\nStrategic plans, developed in consultation with health personnel, are required for the health personnel needs and commitments for a health systems approach to treatment access. This should include effective and sustainable in-service and institutional training approaches, provisions for clear career paths, effective human resource management (payroll management, supervision and training), incentives for health workers to work in under-staffed areas and provisions for safe work. Plans for treatment access should not involve deliberate policies of recruitment of staff from other African countries or diversion of scarce personnel from broader health systems into vertical programmes. Any proposed new investment in HIV/AIDS or treatment expansion should include resources and measures for the training, sustaining and retaining of relevant health personnel and for their safe work environments and infection control. \r\n\r\n2.7 Strengthen essential drugs policies and systems at national and regional level.\r\nNational legislation should now take full advantage of the TRIPS flexibilities and the Doha declaration, particularly provisions for parallel importation and compulsory licensing. Drug regulatory and medicine control authorities should be strengthened, together with drug procurement and distribution systems. The expansion of ART should be included within the essential drugs programmes, through review and update of the essential drugs list. The essential drugs policy should cover the private sector and provide where necessary for mandatory generic substitution (available generic equivalent drug provided when brand name drug prescribed). SADC as a regional body should use TRIPS flexibilities and the Doha commitments to support regional strategies for procurement, price monitoring and negotiation, and quality control of drug supplies. Southern African governments and civil society should promote monitoring, regulation and advocacy within the region and internationally to prevent excessive profiteering and unfair monopolies in the pharmaceutical sector.\r\n\r\n3. CONCLUSION \r\n \r\nThese principles are proposed as central to ensuring that actions to expand access to ART are reinforced, sustained and meet equity policy goals through strengthened health systems.  They are proposed:\r\n-\tfor national debate, \r\n-\tfor translation into practical strategies and programmes, \r\n-\tto gather and share evidence on options for good practice, \r\n-\tto provide a wider framework for understanding the costs and benefits of approaches to ART access, \r\n-\tto inform international agency policy and practice and \r\n-\tto inform advocacy and activism. \r\n\r\nThey are proposed as a framework for monitoring and evaluating our efforts to expand treatment access. They are as important as targets and are more directly linked to our longer term capacities and aspirations to sustain and expand access to treatment for all those who need it. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by\r\nFahamu - learning for change http://www.fahamu.org\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite:\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.\r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter/subscribe.php or send an email\r\nto info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET)","field_subtitle":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a \r\nnewsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the \r\nInternet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on \r\nEQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet \r\nCo-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, \r\npolicy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. \r\nFurther information on the materials in these briefings is available \r\nfrom TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWSLETTER 35: 01 March 2004\r\n\r\nCONTENTS: 1. Editorial, 2. Equity in Health, 3. Values, Policies and Rights, 4. Health equity in economic and trade policies, 5. Poverty and health, 6. Equitable health services, 7. Human Resources, 8. Public-Private Mix, 9. Resource allocation and health financing, 10. Equity and HIV/AIDS, 11. Governance and participation in health, 12. Monitoring equity and research policy, 13. Letters and Comments, 14. Useful Resources, 15. Jobs and Announcements","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Examining Prevalence of HIV in Workforces in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ajol.info/viewarticle.php?jid=76&id=7096&layout=abstract","body":"The authors surveyed workforces in southern Africa to determine HIV prevalence among formally employed, largely male populations. Voluntary, anonymous, unlinked seroprevalence surveys of 34 workforces with 44 000 employees were carried out in South Africa, Botswana, and Zambia in 2000-2001. Average HIV prevalence for the entire sample was 16.6%. Country-wide prevalence was 14.5% in South Africa, 17.9% in Zambia, and 24.6% in Botswana. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Generics challenge brand-name anti-AIDS drugs at Botswana meeting","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=40331","body":"US officials attending a major conference on anti-AIDS drugs in Botswana this week have dismissed allegations that they want to use the meeting to question the quality and safety of more affordable generic fixed-dose combinations (FDCs) of antiretrovirals. \"We want to see use of internationally accepted scientific principles that will be used in evaluation of Fixed Dose Combination drugs for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. The concern is the risk of resistance, because good drugs are not good enough with this disease,\" said Dr Mark Dybul, head of the US government's President's Programme for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Global TB effort doomed without new drugs and tests","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.accessmed-msf.org/prod/publications.asp?scntid=19320041115502%20&contenttype=PARA","body":"The international humanitarian medical organisation M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) has said that the battle against tuberculosis (TB) is being lost because of reliance on archaic diagnostic tests and drugs.  \"The HIV/AIDS pandemic has magnified this problem as TB often coincides with, and is made harder to treat by, HIV/AIDS.  MSF calls for an urgent increase in worldwide investment in TB research and development,\" the organisation said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalisation, the international poverty trap and chronic poverty","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.chronicpoverty.org/pdfs/Chronic%20Poverty1%20CGNo30.pdf","body":"This paper argues that the dollar-a-day poverty is pervasive and persistent in most Least Developed Countries because they are caught in an international poverty trap. It highlights the fact that poverty is perpetuated by vicious domestic circles through which the high incidence and severity of poverty constrain national economic growth, and that the current form of globalisation is tightening rather than loosening the international poverty trap. In response to this, the author states that policies underlying international development cooperation, focusing on Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) have not changed sufficiently to enable countries to escape the trap and realise the opportunity for fast poverty reduction through economic growth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Economics & HIV/AIDS Research Division (HEARD)","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http:// www.heard.org.za","body":"The Health Economics & HIV/AIDS Research Division (HEARD) is based at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal. HEARD conducts research on the socio-economic aspects of public health, especially the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The intent is to inspire health and development strategies that improve the welfare of people in and beyond Africa. HEARD's ethos is to share knowledge and transfer skills. This is accomplished by having a dedicated team of multi-skilled staff and a commitment to training African researchers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Now! No WTO! No War","field_subtitle":"Press statement","field_url":"","body":"A new global campaign, launched on March 18th, calls for throwing out the occupying forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and dismantling of the World Trade Organisation. \u201cWars and WTO are the greatest threat to health and peace,\u201d said a spokesperson. \u201cUnder the guise of a \u2018war on terror\u2019, the United States is trying to enforce global hegemony at a terrifying cost to people\u2019s health,\u201d she said. Wars, military interventions, occupation and militarization devastate public health and also waste precious resources - at the expense of health and other basic services.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30332","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health, Inequality, and Economic Development","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/conferences/socialcapital/Happiness%20Readings/DeatonNew.pdf","body":"The paper examines the relationships between income inequality, social inequalities and individual health.  The role of social cohesion is analysed vis-\u00e0-vis the status and provision of public goods as they foster the integration and formation of social capital.  In such paradigms, equality and equity constitute fundamental dynamics to understand or comprehend well-being, and the needs for equitable income redistribution as mediums for growth and social developments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS in the Workplace Research Symposium","field_subtitle":"29th and 30th June 2004, Wits University, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"The HIV/AIDS in the Workplace Research Symposium has opened registration for those interested.  This symposium will provide an opportunity for researchers in these fields to present and share their work.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30333","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS, food security and rural livelihoods","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ifpri.org/divs/fcnd/dp/papers/fcndp157.pdf","body":"HIV/AIDS is a development problem, not just a health problem, and change is required in attitudes and consciousness of what HIV/AIDS is doing at different levels and the pathways through which it moves through societies, argues a paper from the International Food Policy Research Institute.  This paper dicusses the impact of HIV/AIDS on development efforts, particularly in Africa, and presents a new approach to guide agriculture and food policies.  It further argues that one major set of responses is required from the agriculture sector, as the need to secure and provision food for populations affected by HIV/AIDS is rapidly increasing as the impact waves hit.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Human capacity-building plan for scaling up HIV/AIDS treatment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ds/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC14177&resource=healthsystems","body":"In order to meet the target of delivering simplified, standardised antiretroviral treatment services to 3 million people by the end of 2005, it is estimated that up to 100,000 people need to be trained.  These figures include those involved in managing and delivering antiretroviral treatment services; those working on testing and counselling and other entry points to antiretroviral treatment; and community treatment supporters assisting people who are receiving medication.  This document from the World Health Organization (WHO) outlines their strategic plan to support the development, strengthening and sustaining of the workforce.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of HIV/AIDS on SA health sector is severe, says study","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=40270","body":"South Africa's health sector stands to lose a large percentage of its workforce to HIV/AIDS, warns a report by the country's Human Sciences Research Council and the Medical University of South Africa. The study was conducted in four South African provinces - KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Mpumalanga and North West. \"We found that an estimated 15.7 percent of health workers employed in the public and private health facilities located [in the four provinces] were living with HIV/AIDS in 2002,\" the report said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving research for action","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC14220&Resource=f1health","body":"This article explores how health research can be improved to ensure that its results are translated into action. It is based on the author's experience of health research on HIV/AIDS in South Africa. The article argues that the question of how to translate health research into action should be broken down into four questions: How relevant is the project to health sector development in the short and in the long-term? Are all relevant stakeholders integrally involved in all stages of the research process? Are there skills development or capacity building aspects in the project? What are the strategies for dissemination of the research results? ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving the health of the world's poorest people","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.prb.org/pdf/ImprovingtheHealthWorld_Eng.pdf","body":"The Population Reference Bureau has recently produced the report, \"Improving the Health of the World's Poorest People.\" Despite the dramatic improvements in public health achieved in the 20th century, large disparities in health persist both within and between countries.  Although governments widely agree that improving the health of poor people is a priority, programs designed to benefit the poor have not been entirely successful.  This Bulletin examines facets of the poor-rich health divide, factors that play a role in health disparities, and approaches for improving the health of people living in extreme poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"IPHC/Medact international health newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The International People's Health Council and Medact have launched a clearinghouse on the politics and economics of international health. This comprises a website (the global economics and health folder at www.medact.org) and a monthly e-mail bulletin. Associated resources are also available at www.iphcglobal.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Issues and suggestions in trade and development","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/wto /2004/0322suggestions.pdf","body":"The Monterrey Consensus recognises the strong links between trade, finance and development issues.  The challenge is to make trade, trade policy and trade rules work for development.  This is a big challenge because many trade rules, for example in the WTO, and many trade policies, for example in structural adjustment conditionalities, are not yet aligned with development needs in the South, says a discussion paper submitted by the Third World Network to an informal meeting on financing for development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi National HIV/AIDS policy: a call for renewed action","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000702/index.php","body":"This recently published national policy document has eight chapters covering, inter alia, a multi-sectoral response to HIV/AIDS; issues of prevention, treatment and care; the empowerment of People Living with HIV/AIDS and of vulnerable populations; traditional and religious practices and services; HIV/AIDS in the workplace and research questions.  Will also be of interest to organisations outside Malawi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Marketization, Daily Life and HIV in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Request for proposals","field_url":"","body":"The Municipal Services Project (MSP) is a multi-partner research, policy and educational initiative examining the restructuring of municipal services in Southern Africa.  Research partners are the International Labour Research and Information Group (Cape Town), the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg), the Human Sciences Research Council (Durban), Equinet (Harare), the South African Municipal Workers Union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and Queen's University (Canada).  The project is funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada.  During the first phase of the project (2000 - 2003), the primary focus of our research was on the impact of policy reforms such as privatization and cost recovery on the delivery of basic municipal services (specifically water, sanitation, waste management and electricity).  Most of this research was conducted in South Africa.  We are now entering a second phase, which will focus more specifically on the impact of policy 'reform' on health and will expand the research to include more countries in Southern Africa.  \r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30364","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"MDG report on Zambia justifies more social sector involvement","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://africa.oneworld.net/article/view/82278 /1/","body":"Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR) has said the glaring failure revealed in the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) report on Zambia justifies the call for more investment in the social sector. Commenting on the contents of the MDG report that was released recently, CSPR assistant co-ordinator Gregory Chikwanka said the report's revelations heralded the need for the government to revisit the resource allocation procedures. The report states that of the 10 MDG targets, Zambia could probably achieve one while possessing the potential to achieve only six others.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Meeting the backlog in providing basic services in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000684/P757_Beating_backlog_012004.pdf","body":"This paper by the Southern African Regional Poverty Network examines the backlog in the delivery of water and electricity services for the rural population in South Africa. It argues that considerable additional resources to those currently assigned by the government are needed to make these services available to the rural poor. The paper identifies the backlogs in the water and electricity sectors, their location, and the additional investment needed to meet backlogs. It says that the backlog in electricity has proved stubborn: although it was predicted that at the end of the year 2000 about 2,75 million households would be without electricity, the total in that year was 3,65m. In 1994 the backlog in water delivery was some 12m people - now it has been calculated at 10,554,306.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Network for Action on TB and poverty","field_subtitle":"Request for proposal to host the secretariat","field_url":"","body":"The relationship between TB and poverty has been explored in depth as a result of the 2002 World TB Day theme \u201cStop TB, fight poverty\u201d.  With input from many international experts on health and equity, and with practical contributions from TB control managers in high burden countries the main barriers faced by poor people attempting access TB programmes have been identified.  It is clear that poor people face specific difficulties in accessing health services and experience long delays before the diagnosis of TB can be made. Based on these findings, the Coordinating Board of the Stop TB Partnership has endorsed the setting up of a Network for Action on TB and Poverty to become a platform for innovative implementation and sharing of experiences.  Furthermore the Network aims to be the catalyst for expansion of best practice as TB control activities extend and adapt the DOTS strategy to better meet the needs of the poor and help meet the global target of 70% TB case detection.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30363","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"New subscriber message","field_subtitle":"Ms Violet Mbuguah, Safina Health Development Network","field_url":"","body":"You are making a very useful contribution.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Pass or fail - ensuring successful transfer of health policy between countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h4jo1g1.html","body":"How do health policies spread from one country to the next?  Transfer without ownership may make implementation difficult.  Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine look at the development of international policy on tuberculosis (TB) control over the last two decades. Do policy-makers adopt and adapt health policies voluntarily, after learning about experiences in other countries, or do international organisations or donors more often impose policies?  The researchers posed these and other questions during interviews with 40 key players in TB policy development.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Pathways to Equity in Health: Using research for policy and advocacy","field_subtitle":"June 10, 11 and 12, 2004  - Durban, South Africa ","field_url":"http://www.iseqh.org/ThirdInternationalConference2.htm","body":"The 3rd International Conference of the International Society for Equity in Health will be hosted by the Health Systems Trust (HST), a South African-based NGO, the Southern African Regional Network on Equity in Health (EQUINET) and the Global Equity Gauge Alliance (GEGA), an international consortium of initiatives to support health equity. The meeting will bring together, researchers, policy-makers, practitioners and others concerned with equity in health to develop an international health agenda for governments, universities and organisations all over the world. The 3rd International Conference theme is \u201cPathways to equity in health: Using research for policy and advocacy\u201d. The Conference will explore this theme through a varied program of plenary sessions, forums, poster sessions and scientific sessions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy options to improve the economic access of low-income households to state-provided health care ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.wits.ac.za/chp/b49.pdf","body":"The purpose of this paper is to review a set of key policy options that aim to improve access to state-provided health care for poor households in low and middle income countries.  It has been developed as part of a broader initiative that seeks to improve understanding of how to tackle the cost-related burdens influencing low income households\u2019 access and use of health care.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy responses to skilled migration: Retention, return and circulation","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/migrant/downloa d/pom/pom5e.pdf","body":"This paper looks at different possible policy responses to the emigration of highly skilled persons from developing countries (the brain drain) with the goal of minimising its adverse effects and promoting the sharing of gains between source and host countries. It focuses on three policy approaches: retention, return and circulation of skills.  It argues that the best strategy to deal with the problem of loss of skilled labour is one based on the concept of circulation of skills, which yields mutual benefits for both sending and host countries.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor Countries Fail To Take Advantage of WTO Accord on AIDS Drugs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,date:03-08-2004~menuPK:34461~pagePK:34392~piPK:34427~theSitePK:4607,00.html#Story3","body":"Poor countries that fought to be able to import generic prescription drugs have failed to use changes to the WTO rules on intellectual property rights, reviving a row over who is to blame for the lack of treatment for millions of AIDS sufferers, reported Agence France Presse in March. According to Daniela Bagozzi, spokeswoman for the World Health Organisation in Geneva, \"nothing much has changed since August,\" when a compromise between the 146 members of the WTO broke an eight-month deadlock over the changes. \"From what we know and what we've heard, no country has issued a demand for a compulsory license as authorized within the agreement,\" she said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Population report available free","field_subtitle":"Dara Carr, Population Reference Bureau, Washington D.C., USA","field_url":"","body":"The PRB publication, Improving the Health of the World's Poorest People, is available (it's currently mentioned on your website -- thanks!). URL: www.prb.org/pdf/ImprovingtheHealthWorld_Eng.pdf  Print copies are available free to those in less developed countries. Contact PRB at popref@prb.org. The report mentions the EquinetAfrica website in its list of resources on p. 38.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-Public Partnerships: International Experiences and Lessons for SADC Countries ","field_subtitle":"Call for Research Proposals ","field_url":"","body":"The trend towards privatization and \"public-private partnerships\" (PPPs) in the delivery of basic municipal services and in primary and district level health service provision has received enormous research attention over the past two decades.  Less well studied (and less common in practice) are \"public-public partnerships\" (PuPs).  This research is intended to act as a baseline \"concept paper\" for additional research by the MSP and EQUINET.  It aims to provide information on the state of research on PuPs, an analysis of the conceptual and logistical framework of PuPs that have been implemented, and a discussion of the lessons to be learned from PuPs in SADC countries and elsewhere.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30342","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Re-launch of African Journals OnLine (AJOL)","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The International Network for Scientific Publications (INASP) launched AJOL in 1998 with only 14 journals.  By January 2004 it had over 175 African journals covering most subject areas.  It is now being re-launched on its own website that continues to provide free access to tables of contents and abstracts for all titles - but also provides a number of additional facilities.  AJOL offers a document delivery service, and full (improved) searching and browsing facilities, as well as a new Email alert function. The service remains free to both users and participating journals (with charges only for document delivery requests from outside developing countries).","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30334","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Robbing the poor to pay the rich","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC14209%20&Resource=f1health","body":"This paper argues that the government of the United States is contravening its commitment under the \"Doha Declaration\" of 2001by using technical assistance, bilateral and regional trade agreements, and the threat of trade sanctions to ratchet up patent protection in developing countries.  The paper states that the U.S.  is pressuring developing countries to implement patent laws which go beyond TRIPS obligations and do not take advantage of its public-health safeguards in order to benefit the influential U.S.  pharmaceutical industry.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Sabbatical Research Grants ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA) is offering Sabbatical Research Grants to successful applicants based in Eastern and Southern Africa. Proposals may be submitted by researchers from any of the disciplines in the social sciences involving applied social and economic analysis of contemporary development issues. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30312","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Scaling Up Access to Treatment in Southern Africa: A Way Forward","field_subtitle":"PATM conference statement","field_url":"","body":"\"We, members of the Pan African Treatment Access Movement (PATAM) who have gathered here in Harare from 3-5 March 2004 to draw up civil society strategies to ensure rapid scale-up of anti-retroviral therapy in Southern Africa understand that everyone in the world is vulnerable to HIV infection and know that HIV-positive people in Africa, particularly women and other vulnerable groups, experience great challenges that must be addressed urgently. We know and understand that there are numerous factors and actors that hamper the provision of affordable life-saving medicines. Some of these include profiteering by pharmaceutical companies, inequitable international trade relationships, poverty, extreme stigma, imbalance of power within patriarchal societies, macroeconomic policies that constrain spending for health care and other social services and a lack of commensurate political commitment by our governments and other leaders to match the scale of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30343","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa Makes AIDS Drugs Available Ahead of Polls","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=4698253&section=news","body":"The world's biggest AIDS treatment plan gets a boost this week as five pilot hospitals in South Africa's richest province roll out life-saving anti-retroviral medication.  Officials say the April 01 launch in Gauteng, which includes Johannesburg, shows the government fulfilling a pledge to make ARVs available in South Africa - the country most battered by HIV/AIDS with some 5.3 million of its 45 million people infected.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern African Treatment programmes skewed in favour of urban males","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=40321","body":"The shortfall in extending antiretroviral therapy (ART) to HIV positive people in Southern Africa is \"enormous\", with mostly educated, urban males benefiting from existing programmes, says a new report. The report was compiled by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (Equinet) and Oxfam GB, and focuses on equity in health sector responses to HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"US AIDS Czar Undermines WHO Initiative ","field_subtitle":"Sanjay Basu ","field_url":"","body":"In May 2003, at its annual World Health Assembly, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced a modest proposal: that it would provide the technical and organisational support to provide 3 million people in poor countries with antiretroviral treatment by the year 2005.  This \"3-by-5 initiative\" was minor in one sense, in that it would provide treatment to only about 5 percent of those in need.  But in another sense, it was a major step forward, particularly because the WHO proposed a novel manner of delivering the anti-HIV medicines: combining the drugs into a \"fixed-dose regimen\", a combination pill containing three drugs in one capsule, allowing an infected person to take only one pill twice per day for a complete HIV-treatment regimen.  Fixed-dose combinations are cheaper and easier to take than the existing HIV treatment protocol; taking two fixed-dose combination pills a day for a year costs $140 per patient, compared to about $600 per year for the normal regimen of six pills per day.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30350","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"US firms try to block cheap Aids drugs ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1174069,00.html","body":"The US, under pressure from its giant pharmaceutical companies, is trying to undermine the use in poor countries of cheap, copycat Aids drugs, made by \"pirate\", generic companies but validated by the World Health Organisation, campaigners claim.  US drug companies want the money promised for President George Bush's Aids plan to be spent on their products. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Using the constitution for social justice in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?2%2C22%2C5%2C376","body":"Zackie Achmat, the leader of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), spoke at the Centre for Civil Society's first Harold Wolpe Memorial lecture for 2004.  Achmat is famous for his passionate advocacy for wider access to HIV treatment in South Africa and globally.  Strategic use of South Africa's Constitutional provision for the right to access to health care has always been key to TAC's campaigns.  As South Africa moves towards celebrating ten years of a constitutional democracy, it was apt that such a high-profile civil society leader discussed the use of the constitution as a tactic to engage with the government on development issues.  In this review, the authors summarise Achmat's talk, the interesting critiques from the floor and offer their own critical analysis of the lecture and discussion which followed it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"What is driving the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Swaziland and what can we do about it?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000706/P786-Whiteside_AIDS_Swaziland_2003.pdf","body":"This report (April 2003) was commissioned by the National Emergency Response Committee on HIV/AIDS and UNAIDS. It examines various biologic, behavioural and socio-economic drivers and discusses the impact of the pandemic on health care, education, agriculture and the private sector. It concludes with some innovative responses. This report should be of interest to persons outside of the immediate Swaziland context.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"WTO members must commit to Doha, says MSF","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"MSF is concerned that further proliferation of so-called 'TRIPS plus' provisions in free trade agreeements negotiated by the United States may jeopardise the progress that has been made on access to medicines.  This may have enormous consequences for the health and life of millions of people, says MSF, and this is particularly so given the deadline of 1st January 2005 after which pharmaceutical product patent protection has to be provided by all non-Least Developing Country Members.  MSF says in a letter to EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy that the adequate protection of public health demands that WTO Members be permitted to give full effect to the letter and spirit of the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health (\u201cDoha Declaration\u201d) in their domestic and/or regional legislation.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30349","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambian nurses exodus condemned","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200403120186.html","body":"Norwegian Nurses Association International (NNAI) Secretary Per Godtland Kristensen has described as unethical the practice whereby rich countries rob poor nations of nurses through mass recruitment.  Speaking at a joint Press briefing for NNAI, Zambia Nurses Association (ZNA) and International Council of Nurses (ICN) in Lusaka, Mr Kristensen said rich nations must not be allowed to recruit nurses from developing countries en-masse.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"BRIEFING FROM THE EQUINET SECRETARIAT: EQUINET ANNOUNCES NEW WEBSITE ","field_subtitle":"R. LOEWENSON, TARSC, FIROZE MANJI, FAHAMU","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET is pleased to announce the launch of its new website.\r\n\r\nVisit http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nThe new website has been designed with minimal graphics to make it easier for those with low bandwidth connections to access the website with ease.\r\n\r\nThe full range of EQUINET's publications are available online. You will find a searchable database of all our publications, including our monthly newsletter, Equinet News, and Briefings, with archives of all previous issues. Policy papers, discussion documents, and other essential materials for the struggle for equity and health - all can be found at this easy-to-use website.\r\n\r\nOur Annotated Bibliography on Equity in Health in Southern Africa is now available online for the first time in a searchable database, and information will now be updated regularly by the EQUINET secretariat at TARSC and the steering committee.\r\n\r\nYou can find the latest information about EQUINET's activities, research grants, training courses and reports from theme and country coordinators.\r\n\r\nWe welcome submission of news and other information online. Please send us news of work on health equity, publications for the annotated bibliography, news, policies and reports of meetings and research within the theme areas, information on grants and training opportunities and other information on health equity work in the region. \r\n\r\nSend your contributions for the website and publications \r\nbibliography to admin@equinetafrica.org and send your news to editor@equinetafrica.org.\r\n\r\nWe hope that this makes the site more useful to you and helps you in your work. We hope that it contributes to a stronger, more informed and more organized region in support of health equity goals.\r\n\r\nFor general queries on Equinet please email admin@equinetafrica.org or visit the Equinet website at www.equinetafrica.org.\r\n\r\nThe EQUINET website has been developed and designed, and is maintained by:\r\n\r\nFahamu - learning for change (http://www.fahamu.org).\r\n\r\nFahamu uses information and communication technologies to serve the needs of organisations and social movements that aspire to progressive social change and that promote and protect human rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-29","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Briefing","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This briefing is published for the Secretariat of the Network for \r\nEquity in Health in Southern Africa by\r\nFahamu - learning for change http://www.fahamu.org\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.\r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter/subscribe.php or send an email\r\nto info@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to\r\neditor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-29","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"MARCH 2004 SECRETARIAT BRIEFING: EQUINET ANNOUNCES NEW WEBSITE","field_subtitle":"MONTHLY BRIEFING FROM THE EQUINET SECRETARIAT","field_url":"","body":"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-29","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"110 Cuban doctors expected in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.queensu.ca/samp/news.htm#Zimbabwe","body":"At least 110 Cuban doctors are expected to arrive in the country at the end of this month under the Zimbabwe-Cuba Joint Commission.  Head of the Cuban Medical Brigade in Zimbabwe Dr Felipe Delgado Bustillo said the doctors would serve in the country for two years.  \"The doctors will be working under the comprehensive health programme launched by President Fidel Castro in 1998, which is aimed at providing something like a donation to other people specially those in Africa in solving various health related problems,\" said Dr Bustillo.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa-wide action to improve access to HIV/AIDS treatment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Recognising the need for an Africa-wide movement, a Pan- African Treatment Access Movement (PATAM) has been founded. Zackie Achmat of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) of South Africa, and Milly Katana, lobbying and advocacy officer of the Health Rights Action Group in Uganda were among the founders. PATAM is a social movement comprised of individuals and organisations dedicated to mobilising communities, political leaders and all sectors of society to ensure access to anti-retroviral therapy, as a fundamental part of comprehensive care for all people living with HIV and AIDS in Africa. Since its inauguration on August 22, 2002, the movement has been growing. On March 4-6, PATAM will be hosting its third regional conference on Access to Treatment in Harare, Zimbabwe.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30293","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Aids quick fix won't save Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2004/january /aids.htm","body":"Short-term relief followed by long-term disaster is not sound policy. Nonetheless, that could be a result of the Aids strategy being contemplated by the World Health Organisation, which on December 1 - World Aids Day - announced a plan to treat 3-million people with HIV/Aids by 2005. The WHO is proposing that billions of dollars be spent on increasing access to anti-retroviral drugs. That is a noble intention. However, it may not be the most cost-effective way to stem the tide of HIV/Aids: it may even be counterproductive. Let's be clear. Reducing the cost and increasing the supply of medicines to the poor is a good thing. But on its own it is not enough. Nor should it be today's priority. The roots of Africa's health care crisis run far deeper and broader than a mere shortage of drugs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"ARV therapy due to be provided in Zimbabwe, say reports","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=22215","body":"Owen Mugurungi, program coordinator for the Zimbabwean Ministry of Health and Child Welfare Tuberculosis and AIDS Program, has announced that the government will begin providing antiretroviral drugs to some of its HIV-positive citizens as part of the country's implementation of the World Health Organisation's 3 by 5 Initiative, Xinhua News Agency reports. The $5.5 billion WHO plan aims to treat three million people throughout the world with antiretroviral drugs by 2005. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Basic services, democracy and human rights","field_subtitle":"Seminar report","field_url":"http://www.communitylawcentre.org.za/privatisation/documents2003/SeminarReportFinal1.doc","body":"The challenge for human rights academics, activists, and advocates is to make human rights relevant to the issue of privatisation of basic services. The human rights framework must be used to ensure that privatising basic services does not result in the denial of rights. This was identified as one of the challenges at a seminar hosted by the Socio-Economic Rights Project and the Local Government Project of the Community Law Centre on 2\u20133 October 2003, at the University of the Western Cape. The seminar looked at the privatisation of basic services, democracy and human rights. The need for collaborative efforts with social movements and community organisations for effective use of legal strategies in challenging ill-planned privatisation policies was emphasised.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Building evidence-based policies aimed at health systems development","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2003/9241562455.pdf","body":"Decision-makers in countries around the world face a series of common problems as they aim to make appropriate choices to improve the performance of their health systems. With eight per cent of the world's economic output invested in health systems, the way these systems are organized to collect resources and transform them into services for people in need can profoundly influence health outcomes for populations. Yet the scientific evidence-base to inform critical health system decisions is much weaker than the evidence-base to inform individual clinical decisions. This volume reports on a large body of work led by the World Health Organisation that is intended to strengthen the foundations for evidence-based policies aimed at health systems development. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Bush's Aids plan slammed by activists","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Bush Administration's Global AIDS strategy is based on selective and misleading use of science, evidence and rhetoric in support of an ideological approach to AIDS prevention and treatment that fails to address the needs of women and girls, who now represent the majority of those infected with HIV worldwide, asserts the Centre for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), a U.S.-based organisation focused on the effects of U.S. international policies on women's rights and health worldwide. \"This plan is all smoke and mirrors when it comes to responding to the spread of HIV among women and girls,\" asserted Jodi Jacobson, Executive Director of CHANGE. \"On one hand, the strategy correctly cites critical factors, such as violence and sexual coercion, that put women and girls at high risk of infection,\" notes Jacobson. \"Yet the plan fails to offer any concrete strategies for addressing these concerns.\" This posting also includes information from the latest issue of the Africa Focus Bulletin on the Aids plan, which was released in late February.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30266","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing countries and the private sector: What chances for improving child health?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/81/12/en/886-894.pdf","body":"The private sector exerts a significant and critical influence on child health outcomes in developing countries.  This article in the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation reviews the available evidence on private sector utilisation and quality of care.  It provides a framework for analysing the private sector's influence, extending its analysis to include nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), pharmacies, drug sellers, private suppliers, and food producers.  The article analyses some of the most promising strategies for improving child health, and suggests a number of possible constraints to emulating these approaches more widely. The article suggests that improving the impact of child health programmes in developing countries requires a more systematic analysis of the presence and potential of the private sector, including actors such as professional associations, producer organisations, community groups, and patients' organisations.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by\r\nFahamu - learning for change http://www.fahamu.org\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite:\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter\r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.\r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter/subscribe.php or send an email\r\nto info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\n* Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET)","field_subtitle":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a \r\nnewsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the \r\nInternet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on \r\nEQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet \r\nCo-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, \r\npolicy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. \r\nFurther information on the materials in these briefings is available \r\nfrom TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWSLETTER 35: 01 March 2004\r\n\r\nCONTENTS: 1. Editorial, 2. Equity in Health, 3. Values, Policies and Rights, 4. Health equity in economic and trade policies, 5. Poverty and health, 6. Equitable health services, 7. Human Resources, 8. Public-Private Mix, 9. Resource allocation and health financing, 10. Equity and HIV/AIDS, 11. Governance and participation in health, 12. Monitoring equity and research policy, 13. Letters and Comments, 14. Useful Resources, 15. Jobs and Announcements","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in the Distribution of Personnel in Southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"Reminder! Call for Proposals closes on March 12th! ","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za","body":"The Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) and Health Systems Trust South Africa (HST) have invited expressions of interest from individuals or organisations based within the region to contribute to a programme of work on Equity in the Distribution of Personnel in Southern Africa. This call for proposals is closing on March 12th. Full details about this call for proposals are available from the Equinet website: www.equinetafrica.org and from the HST website:www.hst.org.za ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30309","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Free trade agreements, Southern Africa and access to health services","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\n* Treatment Action Campaign (TAC)/AIDS Law Project (ALP) Memorandum on the United States/Southern African Customs Union Free Trade Agreement Negotiations. Prepared by: Jonathan Berger (Law and Treatment Access Unit, AIDS Law Project) and Njogu Morgan (International Desk, Treatment Action Campaign.\r\n\r\nIntroduction\r\n\r\nOn 4 November 2002, United States Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Zoellick formally notified US Congressional leaders of President Bush's intention to initiate negotiations for a free trade agreement (FTA) with the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), which includes Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland.  These negotiations are now underway, with the next round scheduled for 23 February 2004 in Namibia.  As far as we are able to ascertain, the negotiators plan to conclude their discussions in or around October 2004, with a US-SACU FTA being signed before the end of the year.\r\n\r\nThe Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the AIDS Law Project (ALP) believe that trade between nations, when conducted within the framework of a reasonable and fair set of rules that adheres to the triple-bottom line of environmental, social and commercial sustainability has the potential to act as a tool for attaining developmental priorities.  Our support for the ongoing negotiations would therefore be predicated on the agreement strictly adhering to these principles.  Yet the US position, as clarified in Mr Zoellick's correspondence with Congress, raises cause for concern.\r\n\r\nIn his letters to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate, Mr Zoellick set out reasons for entering into such negotiations, as well as the USTR's \u201cspecific objectives for negotiations with the SACU countries\u201d. In particular, Mr Zoellick raises the following US objectives:\r\n\r\n\u201cWe plan to use our negotiations with the SACU countries to address barriers in these countries to U.S.  exports - including high tariffs on certain goods, overly restrictive licensing measures, inadequate protection of intellectual property rights, and restrictions the SACU governments impose that make it difficult for our services firms to do business in these markets.  We also see the negotiations as an opportunity to advance U.S. objectives for the multilateral negotiations currently underway in the World Trade Organisation (WTO).\" In our view, a number of the specific objectives identified have the potential to undermine the financing and provision of health care services in SACU countries, both in the public and private health sectors, as well as the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS.  In particular, if translated in binding commitments, many of these objectives have the potential to limit the ability of the South African government in discharging its constitutional obligations, primarily in respect of the right of access to health care services.  In our view, such undertakings would be an unconstitutional exercise of power.\r\n\r\nThis memorandum highlights our concerns in respect of two key areas: intellectual property (IP) and trade in services.\r\n\r\nIntellectual property \r\n\r\nWith respect to intellectual property rights, the US government's specific objectives are as follows:\r\n\r\n\" - Seek to establish standards that reflect a standard of protection similar to that found in U.S.  law and that build on the foundations established in the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs Agreement) and other international intellectual property agreements, such as the World Intellectual Property Organisation Copyright Treaty and Performances and Phonograms Treaty, and the Patent Cooperation Treaty.\r\n\r\n\u201c - Establish commitments for SACU countries to strengthen significantly their domestic enforcement procedures, such as by ensuring that government agencies may initiate criminal proceedings on their own initiative and seize suspected pirated and counterfeit goods, equipment used to make or transmit these goods, and documentary evidence.  Seek to strengthen measures in SACU countries that provide for compensation of right holders for infringements of intellectual property rights and to provide for criminal penalties under the laws of SACU countries that are sufficient to have a deterrent effect on piracy and counterfeiting.\u201d\r\n\r\nQuite clearly, the US sees the SACU negotiations as an opportunity to extract standards of intellectual property protection in excess of what the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (or TRIPS) currently requires.  This is consistent with its approach to other regional and bilateral trade negotiations.  A review of a range of such trade negotiations initiated by the US indicates that it has sought to extract greater concessions than those provided under existing international trade rules, largely to the detriment of developing countries.\r\n\r\nTo meet \"standards of protection similar to that found in U.S.  law\", SACU nations would be required to adopt a range of TRIPS-plus provisions, including limiting compulsory licenses to national emergencies or to governmental, non-commercial use only.  This is clearly in conflict with the Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health adopted at the WTO Ministerial Conference at Doha in November 2001, which unambiguously states that \"[e]ach Member has the right to grant compulsory licences and the freedom to determine the grounds upon which such licences are granted\". Further, SACU members would be required to bar parallel trade, to extend patent monopolies for administrative delays, to link drug registration rights to patent status, to enhance protections for clinical trial testing data and to adopt criminal enforcement for patent violations, including improvidently granted compulsory licenses.\r\n\r\nIn short, the specific objectives in respect of IP would significantly undermine the ability of SACU member states' to make use of the regulatory flexibilities and public health safeguards identified in the Doha Declaration.  If implemented, the negotiating objectives would severely limit access to essential medicines used in the prevention and treatment of a range of health conditions, including but not limited to HIV/AIDS. In addition, by seeking to impose TRIPS-plus provisions on SACU members, the USTR would be violating the principal negotiating objectives in the US Trade Act of 2002, which require \"respect [for] the Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, adopted by the World Trade Organisation at the Fourth Ministerial Conference at Doha, Qatar on November 14, 2001\", as well as Executive Order 13155, which deals specifically with access to \"HIV/AIDS pharmaceuticals or medical technologies\".\r\n\r\nTrade in Services \r\n\r\nWith respect to trade in services, the US government's specific objectives include pursuing \"disciplines to address discriminatory and other barriers to trade in the SACU countries' services markets.\" As mentioned above, the US plans to use the negotiations to address \"overly restrictive licensing measures\" and \"restrictions the SACU governments impose that make it difficult for our services firms to do business in these markets.\"\r\n\r\nIf implemented, these negotiating objectives would render a range of legislative provisions in the South African Medical Schemes Act, for example, as unlawful.  Such provisions increase access to health care services, by ensuring that unfair discrimination on the basis of health status is prohibited and by ensuring that medical scheme beneficiaries are guaranteed a minimum package of care, regardless of financial contribution.\r\n\r\nIt is not only trade in health care services that is of concern to TAC and the ALP.  Similar arguments apply with equal effect, for example, to any regulatory steps taken by the state to ensure access to financial services for people living with HIV/AIDS.  In our view, the state has a constitutional obligation to regulate the insurance services industry in such a manner, to ensure that people with HIV/AIDS have access to life cover and funeral benefits, as well as access to insurance services necessary for accessing financing for housing. \r\n\r\nConclusion \r\n\r\nThe ALP and TAC are concerned that the US/SACU FTA negotiations have the potential to result in binding commitments on SACU member states that undermine access to health care services, the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS and the ability of such states to comply with their domestic, regional and international human rights obligations.  In our view, such an agreement would not only unlawfully conflict with certain national constitutions and human rights instruments, but would also serve to advance the interests of the US at the expense of the health and welfare of the people of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland.\r\n\r\n* Please send comments for publications in the Letters section of Equinet News to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender, AIDS, and ARV Therapies: Equitable access for women","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.genderhealth.org/pubs/TreatmentAccessFeb2004.pdf","body":"Even with increased commitment, funding, and coordination, U.S. AIDS treatment efforts will fall far short of what is needed to provide ARV treatment to those suffering from AIDS today, according to a document from the Centre for Health and Gender Equity. Given limited resources, choices will inevitably be made about who will be treated and when, raising the issues of equity in access to treatment for sub-groups of those infected. In turn, these considerations dramatically underscore the need to ensure that specific efforts be made to ensure that treatment programs reach those groups that already face a disproportionately higher risk of infection. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Great site! ","field_subtitle":"Salvador Bruiners","field_url":"","body":"Great site! I am a nurse by profession and currently following a full research Masters programme at the University of the Western Cape.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and Human Rights Publication","field_subtitle":"An International Journal Announcement","field_url":"http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/fxbcenter/journalorderform.htm","body":"The FXB Centre has published Health and Human Rights since 1994. The journal explores the reciprocal influences of health and human rights, including the impact public health programs and policies have on human rights, the consequences human rights violations have on health, the importance of health in realizing human rights, and the ways in which human rights can be integrated into public health strategies. Health and Human Rights may provide free or reduced-price, two-year subscriptions for individuals in developing countries upon request. Some institutions in developing countries - NGOs, universities, and libraries with restricted budgets - may also be eligible for a free or reduced-price subscription.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Equity Research to Action Short Course","field_subtitle":"offered June 7-9 and again June 15-17, Durban, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"The Global Equity Gauge Alliance (GEGA) is calling for participants in a short course focused on developing evidence-based responsive action to support pro-equity policy development and community empowerment.  This course is designed to support the development of programmes of work to enhance uptake of pro-equity policy, especially at the national level and also at the local level.  It is also intended to encourage sharing of information and experiences among participants, and provide opportunities to link with a larger community of researchers and advocates working in health equity around the world.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30264","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health information and training","field_subtitle":"Darryl Cowley","field_url":"","body":"Just to let you know that Teaching-aids at low cost is a charity providing low cost health information and training materials including books, CD-ROMS, videos and teaching slides and accessories, to developing countries Maybe you could let people attending your conference know about our services - you can see our full range of resources available at www.talcuk.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Health, Wealth and Welfare","field_subtitle":"Finance & Development - Quarterly magazine of the IMF","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2004/03/index.htm","body":"The authors explore the economics of health and development, arguing that new evidence coupled with a wider perspective suggest sizable economic returns to better health. Drawing on studies of human welfare, they say that past estimates of economic progress have been understated and that recent economic losses caused by HIV/AIDS are likewise being understated if economists rely on GDP per capita as a yardstick. A better indicator is \"full income\"- an assessment of economic welfare that captures both the value of changes in life expectancy and income as measured in national accounts. For Africa, they say, this new yardstick \"signals catastrophe ahead\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthcare for SA poor comes first, says HST","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://news.hst.org.za/view.php3?id=20040208","body":"Improvements in secondary and tertiary hospital capacity should not come at the expense of basic care for the poor, the Health Systems Trust (HST) says. The Durban based NGO was responding to a speech by Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, in which she said R2 billion would be spent on upgrading and revitalising hospital facilities next year, including the building of 18 new facilities. The minister also said inequities in the funding allocated to primary healthcare in different provinces would have to be addressed, with some provinces allocating R50 per person each year, and others R300. But Antoinette Ntuli, HST information dissemination and equity director, urged her to ensure resources and initiatives are \"fast-tracked in poor, rural areas\". ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Hiv/Aids Programme Planning Course","field_subtitle":"May 17\u201322, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.synergyaids.com/tc_devEss04.htm","body":"Using a variety of learning modalities, including case studies, this course is designed to build capacity at the country level for the management of expanded resources. It will assist program managers to formulate effective HIV/AIDS and STI intervention strategies, address priorities for rapid scale-up, use research-to-practice approaches to inform programming decisions, and establish systems for Strategic Information including surveillance, program improvement and health monitoring information systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"How can our research be improved to better ensure that results are translated into action?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC14220&Resource=f1health","body":"This article explores how health research can be improved to ensure that its results are translated into action.  It is based on the author's experience of health research on HIV/AIDS in South Africa.  The article pays particular attention to dissemination, and it argues that the most common approach to information dissemination adopted by research organisations, passive dissemination of information in the form of research reports and policy recommendations, is largely ineffective.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"INASP Health Links","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.inasp.info/health/links/","body":"INASP Health Links is an Internet Gateway to more than 600 websites selected for health professionals, medical libraries, and publishers in developing and transitional countries.  Several updates have recently been added.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Medicines, Patents and Trips","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2004/03/pdf/subraman.pdf","body":"The agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) introduced intellectual property rules into the multilateral trading system for the first time, with profound consequences for developing countries. But the high cost of AIDS treatments has injected an ethical element into the TRIPS debate, posing new problems for the pharmaceuticals industry. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"New wave of mass global migration expected","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ycsg.yale.edu/yaleglobal/index.html","body":"Immigration is an issue that elicits heated views from all sides of the political and economic spectrum. In the 21st century, how might we expect our lives and societies to be affected by changes in immigration? In Part One of a two-part series, economist Lant Pritchett argues that there are five irresistible forces setting the world up for a new wave of mass migration. Topping the list are the huge cross-national inequalities in wages and standards of living. Differences in labour demand across countries comprise another pressure promoting migration. Population growth imbalances also contribute to the trend, with aging populations of wealthy countries needing younger workers to help support national pension plans. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"NO War! NO WTO! Fight for people's health","field_subtitle":"International campaign information","field_url":"","body":"\"As health workers and health advocates, we are witness to the fact that unhampered economic globalization causes increasing poverty, while US-led wars of aggression maim and massacre millions of people and destroy social infrastructure and our planet Earth itself. We therefore call on the peoples of the world to junk the World Trade Organisation and regional trade agreements with a similar character. Key WTO agreements such as the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) promote the commercialization of health care and deprive the people of much needed basic health services.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30290","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Not a minute more: Ending violence against women","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unifem.org/index.php?f_page_pid=207","body":"Violence against women has become as much a pandemic as HIV/AIDS or malaria. But it is still generally downplayed by the public at large and by policymakers who fail to create and fund programmes to eradicate it. However, the achievements over the last few decades of women and men around the world who have worked to combat violence against women and promote women's empowerment are monumental. This report from Unifem also includes a focus on the problem of violence against women as a violation of human rights as well as a public health issue. \"In the last decade, gender-based violence moved from the shadows to the foreground. It is increasingly recognized as a violation of human rights, as a public health problem and as a crime against women and society,\" says the report.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Nurses strike impacts on healthcare in Swaziland","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A nurses' strike has shut down most of Swaziland's health care system, drawing attention to financial and technical shortcomings, and the problems besetting the nursing profession. \"While we continue our strike action, doctors and orderlies will have to take care of patients,\" said the president of the Swaziland Nurses Association, Masitsela Mhlanga, at a press conference. Nurses are striking over the government's inability to pay salaries on time, back pay and salary increases.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30265","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy options and access to healthcare by poor households","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.wits.ac.za/chp/b49.pdf","body":"A package of policies is required to deal with the multi-faceted nature of barriers to health care in developing countries, according to a paper from the Centre for Health Policy's School of Public Health, at the University of the Witwaterstrand, South Africa. This package would have higher levels of taxation of higher income groups, insurance in proportion to income and would allow greater cross-subsidisation across groups, with exemption schemes and low or no user fees.  Increasing health expenditure is another important means of increasing provision for the poor, but the impact of any increase will depend on how resources are allocated. The paper says most developing countries aim for universal access to health but in reality, health systems are often ineffective at reaching the poor, as the poor face greater cost-related barriers to accessing health care.\r\nThis paper reviews a set of key health policies and examines the factors that influence their effectiveness.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Predicting the Impact of Antiretrovirals in Resource-Poor Settings","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bentham.org/cdtid/cdtid3-4.htm#link-6","body":"The authors use mathematical models to predict the potential impact that low to moderate usage rates of antiretroviral (ARV) therapy might have in developing countries. They also review the current state of HIV/AIDS treatment programs in resource-poor settings and identify the essential elements of a successful treatment project, noting that one key element is integration with a strong prevention program. They apply program experience from Haiti and Brazil and the insights gleaned from their modelling to address the emerging debate regarding the increased availability of ARVs in developing countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Producing national health accounts: A guide for low income countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2003/9241546077.pdf","body":"National health accounts are designed to answer precise questions about a country's health system. They provide a systematic compilation and display of health expenditure. They can trace how much is being spent, where it is being spent, what it is being spent on and for whom, how that has changed over time, and how that compares to spending in countries facing similar conditions. They are an essential part of assessing the success of a health system and of identifying opportunities for improvement. This Guide to producing national health accounts from the World Health Organisation, with special applications for low-income and middle- income countries, provides practical help in developing this socio-economic information. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Realizing rights: transforming approaches to sexual and reproductive well-being","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=0&i=h6ac3g1&u=404336b3","body":"Sexual and reproductive rights for all are fundamental to transforming the lives of millions of adults and young people.  Changes in legislation, access to information and provision of services provide an essential route to bringing about wider change.  But alone, they are not enough for the most vulnerable to see themselves as having rights to safer and more fulfilling sexual and reproductive lives and to be able to claim them.  In a collection of experiences of using participatory approaches for work on sexual and reproductive health and rights, researchers from the UK's Institute of Development Studies and the International Community of Women Living with HIV and AIDS (ICW), show how involving vulnerable groups more directly in efforts to improve their well-being can make a real difference.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Robbing the poor to pay the rich?: how the United States keeps medicines from the world\u2019s poorest","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC14209&Resource=f1health","body":"This paper argues that the government of the United States is contravening its commitment under the \"Doha Declaration\" of 2001by using technical assistance, bilateral and regional trade agreements, and the threat of trade sanctions to ratchet up patent protection in developing countries. The paper states that the U.S. is pressuring developing countries to implement patent laws which go beyond TRIPS obligations and do not take advantage of its public-health safeguards in order to benefit the influential U.S. pharmaceutical industry.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"SA doctors certificates will stay, says health minister","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=125&art_id=vn20040210023604980C633876%20&set_id=1","body":"The proposed Certificate of Need (CoN) for doctors, which they claim intrudes on their right to freedom of movement, will remain. This was the word from Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang in a February media briefing. \"The government will move on the CoN framework to achieve our goals in terms of the constitution,\" the minister said. \"The CoN will remain. It is intended to transform the healthcare sector in South Africa.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC on track for free trade area by 2008","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.queensu.ca/samp/news.htm","body":"The SADC region is on track towards meeting the major objective of its trade protocol which is to \u201cachieve a Free Trade Area by 2008, when substantially all trade would be dutyfree.\u201d Implementation of the SADC Trade Protocol and other instruments affecting the economic development of the region has shown remarkable progress in 2003, the SADC Executive Secretary, Dr Prega Ramsamy said in his year-end briefing. The Trade Protocol is the most important legal instrument in the region\u2019s quest for economic integration, and is in its third year of implementation since ratification in January 2000.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa\u2019s antiretroviral rollout stalled","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/news/newsdisplay2.asp?newsId=2565","body":"Delays in the drug procurement process and lack of training for doctors are postponing the rollout of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in South Africa, the country\u2019s government has admitted. Except for the Western Cape Province (which has set aside its own funds to buy antiretroviral drugs), the celebrated South African HIV care and treatment programme has yet to treat a single patient. Activists are beginning to question the government\u2019s resolve to put the operational plan into action, citing statements made over the last week by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and President Thabo Mbeki. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Special allowances for SA health sector welcomed ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.queensu.ca/samp/news.htm#South%20Africa","body":"The SA Medical Association (Sama) has joined political parties in extending praise and support for government's introduction of the special allowances for some health professionals in a bid to stem the brain drain. This follows a decision reached between unions and the government to allocate R500-million towards providing incentives to 33,000 full-time rural healthcare workers. Sama chairman Dr Kgosi Letlape said: \"This is a step in the right direction in addressing the concerns that Sama has raised regarding the remuneration of doctors in the public sector, on numerous occasions.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategy to tax Zambian nurses abroad ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.queensu.ca/samp/news.htm#Zambia","body":"Government is considering engaging countries where nurses have migrated to enter into a formal memorandum of understanding for fixed contracts. Health minister Brian Chituwo says government is working out modalities on how to retain and motivate nurses and other medical personnel that have left the country. The countries in question would be required to pay the Zambian government a certain amount of money which will be re - invested in training. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"TAC and Aids Law Project hold health transformation seminar","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.tac.org.za/","body":"On the 10th of February, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the AIDS Law project held a joint seminar on transformation of the South African Health System, including both the public and private sectors. This is part of preparations for a conference to be held in May with the aim of developing detailed policy positions for TAC's Campaign for a People's Health Service. Presentations made at the workshop can be found on the TAC website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The domains of health responsiveness: a human rights analysis","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC14178&Resource=f1health","body":"Human rights and the domains of health system responsiveness share a common goal: furthering the rights of individuals and communities in the context of the health system. If a health system is responsive, it is possible that the interactions which people have within the health system will improve their well-being, irrespective of improvements to their health. This brief report from the World Health Organisation\u2019s Evidence and Information for Policy cluster discusses the human rights context to the provision of health services to the public.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The forgotten people: care for people dying of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=3&i=h5rh2g1&u=404336b3","body":"What care do sufferers of AIDS receive in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)? If their lives cannot be saved, are their last days made as comfortable as possible? As more funding is made available for the care of terminally-ill AIDS patients, it is important to look at the level of care currently available. King\u2019s College London, together with the US Office of National AIDS Policy, conducted a survey across 14 SSA countries to discover the end-of-life care AIDS patients are currently receiving. As hospitals cannot cope with the sheer numbers of patients, care must take place in the community. Nevertheless, while home-based care seems the only possible solution due to the scale of the epidemic, communities can be overwhelmed by the burden placed on them. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The gendered impact of globalisation on health","field_subtitle":"Call for submissions","field_url":"http://www.crwh.org/globalization.php","body":"The \"Globalization, Gender and Health\" project partners are currently drafting a discussion paper on behalf of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research-Institute of Gender and Health. The publication discusses the findings from a critical synthesis of a broad range of literature on globalization, gender and health, and also incorporates insights from diverse groups of professionals, scholars, activists and policy-makers worldwide. The purpose of this initiative is to formulate a global research and training agenda for the impact of globalization on gender and health. The report is available at the website below. Colleagues are invited to submit relevant case studies from different countries and regions (particularly developing or low income countries) that highlight the positive and/or negative differential impact the current wave of globalization has had on the health of women/girls and men/boys as outlined in the report. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The Medical Knowledge Institute","field_subtitle":"Dr. Harold E. Robles, Medical Knowledge Institute","field_url":"http://www.infomki.com/","body":"I am writing you this letter to inform you of the goals and the activities of the Medical Knowledge Institute, (www.infomki.com ) which I created together with my friend and colleague Dr. Peter Bittel a few years ago. \r\n\r\nThe Medical Knowledge Institute, committed to healthcare education and information as a human right, was founded to provide mature and practical solutions to organisations, governments, individuals, developing and transitional countries.  The programs of the Medical Knowledge Institute are dedicated to improve the quality of healthcare and promoting humanitarian values in healthcare. \r\n\r\nWe execute these activities in three different programs; \r\n\r\n- Healthcare Education - the MKI Faculty\r\nWe draw on a large international faculty, from public health and nursing to surgery, neurology, cardiology and anesthesiology, to participate in an extensive series of workshops at our Conference Centre. Our faculty members are leading experts in their field from all over the world. These workshops are designed with an interactive, practice-oriented format and responsive to local needs. \r\n\r\n- Healthcare Consulting and Support\r\nWe offer consultants, mediators, trainers and technical support to governments, institutions and organisations to assist them with their healthcare facilities, clinical services, public health projects and medical education curricula. \r\n\r\n- Healthcare Information and News\r\nHealthcare providers worldwide can acquire fast access to global up-to-date medical information and to experts with the MKI Medical ClipFinder\u00ae. This is a leading research tool for the medical sector, like hospitals, medical schools and faculties, general practitioners and medical research facilities. Content sources and expert information are updated and expanded continuously and cover the world's leading databases. \r\n\r\nOur faculty has been assisting organisations around the world for many years. \r\nPlease consider how we could help you and your organisation in accessing your education and information needs in healthcare. \r\n\r\nPlease feel free to contact me directly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"The Political Economy of Social Inequalities: Consequences for Health and Quality of Life ","field_subtitle":"Edited by Vicente Navarro","field_url":"http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/089503252X/103-8345636-7207834?v=glance","body":"The dramatic increase in social inequalities within and among countries in the last twenty years has had a most negative impact on the health and quality of life of large sectors of the world's populations. In The Political Economy of Social Inequalities, scholars from a variety of disciplines and countries analyse the political and economic causes of these inequalities, their consequences for health, and some proposed solutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The Poor-Rich Health Divide","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.prb.org/Template.cfm?Section=PRB&template=/Content/ContentGroups/Articles/04/The_Poor-Rich_Health_Divide.htm","body":"Sweeping changes in public health have transformed life over the past century.  On average, people live longer, healthier lives than ever before.  Even so, this past century's revolution in human health and well-being is incomplete.  For people living on less than US$1 per day - and according to the World Bank there are more than 1 billion of them - health services and modern medicines are still out of reach.  Moreover, many initiatives to improve the health of people in extreme poverty have been unsuccessful.  A forthcoming Population Reference Bureau publication, \"Improving the Health of the World's Poorest People,\" delves into the poor-rich health divide and what can be done to shrink it.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Social Medicine Portal","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.socialmedicine.org","body":"This website is devoted to promoting the principles and practice of social medicine.  The goal in developing this site is to put readers in touch with some of the diverse international resources available for health activists and those interested in the interactions between health and society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"To march or not to march: Protest sparks debate over health legislation","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The South African Medical Association (SAMA) organised a protest march by doctors to the opening of parliament on 6 February. Amongst other grievances, the march was over controversial new legislation that includes a proposed Certificate of Need (CON) that would impact on where doctors are able to practice. SAMA said in the build up to the march that the CON would intrude \"on doctors\u2019 right to human dignity; freedom of movement and residence; freedom of trade, occupation and profession; and property rights\". This sparked a debate when the Peoples' Health Movement came out in support of the CON, saying it represented an attempt to address the greatest inequity in S.A.'s health system, namely the widening gap between the public and private health sectors. Read the PHM press statement and a report from the SAMA website about the march by clicking on the link below.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30308","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Treating HIV & AIDS: A training toolkit","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/toolkit","body":"NAM, the publisher of http://www.aidsmap.com and the electronic newsletter \"HIV & AIDS Treatment in Practice\", has launched a major new resource, 'Treating HIV & AIDS: A Training Toolkit'. This project is a response to the scaling-up of antiretroviral therapy in resource-limited settings, and was developed with the support of doctors providing training on ARVs in Botswana, Kenya and South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"UN criticises developed countries for reneging on promises on sexual health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7435/310-a","body":"The developed world is breaking its pledges to fund sexual and reproductive health care in the developing world, says a new report published by the Alan Guttmacher Institute and the United Nations Population Fund. \"It is time for developed countries to live up to the pledges they made at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). In 2000, these countries provided $2.6 billion (\u00a31.4; \u20ac2.1bn) for sexual and reproductive health services in developing countries - less than half of what they had pledged at ICPD for that year,\" the report states. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Wealthy nations neglecting need, says AIDS envoy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=%20/chronicle/archive/2004/02/09/MNGL34S1AF1.DTL","body":"With pointed jabs at the United States, a U.N. special envoy told a gathering of leading AIDS scientists that wealthy nations must make up for a \"decade of financial abstinence'' to battle the global epidemic. Stephen Lewis, a Canadian diplomat who has been the United Nations' special representative for AIDS in Africa, made his case on Sunday for a dramatic increase in spending to fight the disease at the opening session of the 11th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, held in San Francisco. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Wits HIV/AIDS in the Workplace Research Symposium","field_subtitle":"29th and 30th June 2004, Wits University, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.alp.org.za/view.php?file=/resctr/other/20031208_Symposium.xml","body":"HIV/AIDS in the workplace constitutes an important research node for a wide range of disciples including business, economics, law, public health and the social sciences.  This symposium will provide an opportunity for researchers in these fields to present and cross-fertilise their work.  Within the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic it is important that research is orientated towards sustainable solutions.  Papers orientated to understanding underlying problems and how they should be addressed, along with papers from \u2018action researchers\u2019 including managers and trade unionists are welcomed.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CALL FOR APPLICANTS FOR STUDENT RESEARCH GRANTS ON EQUITY IN HEALTH, FEBRUARY 2004 ","field_subtitle":"EQUINET SECRETARIAT BRIEFING,  FEBRUARY 2004","field_url":"","body":"FIRST CALL CLOSES ON MARCH 31 2004. THE BEST APPLICANT WILL QUALIFY FOR\r\nSUPPORT TO ATTEND THE EQUINET JUNE 2004 CONFERENCE IN DURBAN SOUTH AFRICA \r\n\r\nThis briefing describes the new programme of student research grants in\r\nEQUINET and invites applicants for the first round of grants. \r\n\r\nThe Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET)\r\npromotes policies for equity in health across a range of priority theme\r\nareas (See www.equinetafrica.org)  EQUINET has over the years, organized its\r\nwork in various theme areas,  including: economic and trade policy and\r\nhealth; human rights, governance and participation, equity in health sector\r\nresponses to HIV/AIDS, human resources for health; monitoring and\r\nsurveillance and others. Within these areas of work EQUINET aims to\r\nidentify,  recruit and build capacity and analysis. After a  successful\r\npilot initiative in 2003 in co-operation with the Malawi Health Equity\r\nNetwork member in the EQUINET steering committee, EQUINET has now launched a\r\nprogramme of student research support that provides small research grants\r\nfor students at college or university in various programmes in east and\r\nsouthern Africa. The programme will give priority to student research\r\napplicants who propose projects in areas of research relevant to EQUINETs\r\npriority areas of theme work, and who provide evidence of supervision from\r\nexpertise in these areas.  \r\n\r\nThis first  round of the EQUINET student research grant programme (SRGP) is\r\nbeing implemented in February 2004.  EQUINET will award a number of small\r\ngrants to post graduate students and undergraduate students in East and\r\nSouthern Africa for research proposals in the areas of \r\n? Equity in Human Resources for Health \r\n? Equity in health sector responses to HIV/AIDS and treatment access\r\n? Using health rights as a tool for equity in health \r\n? Health equity in economic and trade policies \r\n? Fair financing in health \r\n? Governance issues in health equity\r\n? Understanding and analyzing policy processes \r\n? Equity issues in food security and nutrition\r\n\r\nThe grants are for students to carry out supervised, small research projects\r\nin the course of their studies and are set at a maximum of $750. Applicants\r\nare requested to provide brief information in 2-3 pages on \r\n? The name, institution, course and year of study  of the student\r\n? The name, department and institution and contact email/fax for the\r\nproposed supervisor for the study  \r\n? The theme area of the proposal\r\n? The hypothesis, research question or research objective(s)\r\n? The methods to be used, and indicators / (quantitative, qualitative\r\ninformation) to be collected and the intended analyses to be carried out \r\n? The time frames and budget \r\nThe application should be made jointly by mentors / supervisors and their\r\nstudents.  The grants will be open to all EQUINET members,  undergraduate\r\nand postgraduate students, students from all disciplines. Applications\r\nshould be submitted to admin@equinetafrica.org  with STUDENT GRANTS in the\r\nsubject line or by fax to 263-4-737220 by March 30 2004. \r\n\r\nIn this round the student providing the project proposal rated highest on\r\ngrounds of analytic and technical quality and relevance will qualify to be\r\nsupported to attend the EQUINET conference in Durban South Africa,  June 8-9\r\n2004 (see www.equinetafrica.org) and formally granted their award at the\r\nConference. \r\n\r\nThe selection of grants will be made on the basis of relevance of subject\r\narea and quality of proposal but with some attention to ensuring equity in\r\nthe distribution of grants across countries in the region. Applications in\r\nFrench or Portuguese  will be considered. \r\n\r\nEQUINET web based resources, newsletter and expertise in the theme areas\r\nwill be available to the students.  The reports of the research projects\r\nwill be made available on the EQUINET website. Publication from the research\r\nis encouraged, with acknowledgement of the  support from EQUINET. EQUINET\r\nwill also have the right to use the research in its theme work and will\r\nencourage the students participation in future EQUINET activities and\r\ninformation exchange.\r\n\r\nFocal points for queries on this programme are Dr R Loewenson/G Musuka at\r\nthe EQUINET Secretariat (TARSC) and Dr A Muula at  the Malawi College of\r\nMedicine/ Malawi Health Equity Network. Please send queries through\r\nadmin@equinetafrica.org. For general information on EQUINET and its work\r\nplease visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org or email the secretariat\r\nat  admin@equinetafrica.org. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-16","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by\r\nFahamu - learning for change http://www.fahamu.org\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite:\r\nhttp://www.lists.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/equinet-newsletter\r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.\r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter/subscribe.php or send an email\r\nto info@equinetafrica.org * Please send materials for inclusion in the\r\nEQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-16","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET)","field_subtitle":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a \r\nnewsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the \r\nInternet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on \r\nEQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet \r\nCo-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, \r\npolicy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. \r\nFurther information on the materials in these briefings is available \r\nfrom TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-16","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"A prescription for gender, health, and human rights ","field_subtitle":"Rosalind Pollack Petchesky. London: Zed Press, 2003.","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol363/iss9402/full/llan.363.9402.dissecting_room.28228.1","body":"In order to understand how and why social movements are fighting for women's health and rights you need to have a 21st century notion of these rights.  This is a central message of the book Global Prescriptions: Gendering Health and Human Rights.  The rights that Rosalind Pollack Petchesky discusses are not those determined by grey-suited lawyers and bureaucrats, and enshrined as fixed, universal, and unalienable principles.  They are rights that exist in an era of global capitalism; rights that are influenced by sex, race, class, geography, and ethnicity; rights that are dynamic and malleable; and rights that, above all, are a necessary and irrepressible element of movements for social change.  Petchesky views individual and social rights as \"two sides of the same coin\".  She ascribes equal importance to social and economic rights as to those related to reproduction, sexuality, and health; noting that together they form \"a single fabric of rights\".  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to antiretroviral treatment in Africa ","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson and David McCoy, Equinet","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7434/241","body":"The demand for people living with HIV and AIDS in Africa to access treatment cannot be ignored.  At the same time the challenges to meeting this demand are many.  They include the shortfalls in health services and lack of knowledge about treatment, making decisions about newer regimens, and the risk of resistance to antiretrovirals.  The challenges also include ensuring uninterrupted drug supplies, laboratory capacities for CD4 monitoring, accessible voluntary counselling and testing, trained healthcare workers, and effective monitoring of resistance to antiretroviral drugs.  A series of papers produced in 2003 through the southern African regional network on equity in health raised further concerns about measures to ensure fairness in the rationing of scarce treatment resources and the diversion of scarce resources from strained public health services into vertical treatment programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to antiretroviral treatment in Africa ","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson and David McCoy","field_url":"","body":"The demand for people living with HIV and AIDS in Africa to access treatment cannot be ignored. At the same time the challenges to meeting this demand are many. They include the shortfalls in health services and lack of knowledge about treatment, making decisions about newer regimens, and the risk of resistance to antiretrovirals highlighted in the paper by Stevens et al (p 280). (1 2) The challenges also include ensuring uninterrupted drug supplies, laboratory capacities for CD4 monitoring, accessible voluntary counselling and testing, trained healthcare workers, and effective monitoring of resistance to antiretroviral drugs.(3) A series of papers produced in 2003 through the southern African regional network on equity in health raised further concerns about measures to ensure fairness in the rationing of scarce treatment resources and the diversion of scarce resources from strained public health services into vertical treatment programmes.(4-8) \r\n\r\nThe reasons for these challenges are not a mystery. They stem from the chronic under-resourcing of health systems, the underdevelopment of strategic public health leadership, the attrition of health personnel, and the high prevalence of poverty, factors that already limit the delivery of many less complex primary healthcare services.(5-7) Given this context, how should resources best be allocated to ensure access to treatment for HIV/AIDS in Africa? \r\n\r\nExisting initiatives provide some indications of what to do and what not to do. Making treatment accessible through private and non-government sectors or through redeployment of personnel without addressing the staffing, pay levels, and working conditions of health personnel in public health services can further increase attrition from essential services and aggravate uncoordinated health planning. (7) \r\n\r\nProviding treatment on a \"first come, first served\" system favours urban, higher educated people who are not poor. It also unfairly delegates frontline healthcare workers to decide who does and does not access treatment, resulting in inconsistencies and even corruption. (8) \r\n\r\nProviding treatment at central hospitals without strong links to community outreach or primary healthcare services weakens the link between prevention and care. It also limits the benefits that treatment brings in reducing stigma to the higher income users of these hospital services. (5 7) Vertical programmes established to achieve rapid delivery against unrealistic targets can divert scarce resources from strained public health services and bring undesirable opportunity costs and inefficiencies through the creation of parallel management and administrative systems. \r\n\r\nIn contrast, approaches to expand access to treatment can simultaneously strengthen health systems; build synergies between treatment, prevention, and primary healthcare services; and reach vulnerable groups. For example, when treatment is linked to prevention of parent to child transmission of HIV, provided through maternal health services, the likelihood of women having enhanced access to treatment, reduced social stigma around AIDS in women, and strengthening general maternal health services for all women is greater. \r\n\r\nCriteria for selecting patients that explicitly target low income groups or particular subgroups of the population such as health workers and teachers (because their job promotes services for poor people), or that involve communities in decisions about selecting patients, can enhance equity and prevent the development of patronage or corrupt practices around treatment. Community health workers have had an important role in Africa in nutrition, immunisation, maternal health, child spacing, and many interventions that enhance health and treatment related literacy. Developing their role in access to treatment could strengthen primary health care and should be further explored. (7) \r\n\r\nSuch approaches to treatment access on a national scale will be possible only if the health system is properly organised, coordinated, and managed, and if it is adequately resourced. Organisationally, the principles of a district health system should remain paramount as a remedy to the destructive effects of uncoordinated, disease focused, vertical interventions. For such systems to be functional, we need to address the growing shortfalls and maldistribution of personnel and resources in African countries. (8 9) \r\n\r\nIf effective, equitable, and sustainable approaches to treatment access are to be replicated, considerable new resources will need to be channelled to Africa's health systems, particularly for district level services. Such resources should come from national public budgets, overseas development aid, global funds, and from the cancellation of debt. The International Monetary Fund and World Bank medium term expenditure framework constraints currently limiting the uptake of increased resources in the public health sector also need to be revisited. \r\n\r\nThe global recognition of rights to treatment reflects a significant shift in mindset. Another shift is now needed to deliver on those aspirations. Health systems cannot be built from a patchwork of non-government, vertical, ad hoc services around a crumbling public sector core. For treatment access to become a reality for more than a minority, a further step needs to be taken towards an explicit global and national commitment to refinance Africa's public health sector and district health systems. \r\n\r\n* For a list of references, please click on the link below. This article was an editorial in the 31 January issue of the British Medical Journal. http://bmj.bmjjournals.com","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30256","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa: Health for all?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In mid-December, the World Health Organisation (WHO) released its annual World Health Report, the first under the leadership of Director-General Jong-wook Lee.  Building on its earlier announcement of a plan to bring AIDS treatment to 3 million people by the end of 2005 (http://www.africafocus.org/docs03/who0312.php), the WHO called for a return to the goal of \"Health for All\" adopted twenty-five years ago.  The report calls for strengthening health systems across the board to address the widening gap between rich and poor countries, and it stresses that AIDS treatment will not be sustainable unless it is linked to the strengthening of primary health systems. The report thus presents a sharp contrast to the U.S.  model of commercialized health care and the bilateral approach stressed by President Bush's new AIDS initiative.  U.S.  officials have used the weaknesses of national health care systems in African and other developing countries as an argument for a slower pace in funding for AIDS programs.  The WHO reverses that argument, stressing the need for immediate steps to build additional health care capacity.  This posting from the AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from the WHO's World Health Report, as well as links to additional recent reports from late 2003. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30206","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"African Regional Youth Initiative (ARYI) newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aryi.interconnection.org/about.html","body":"The African Regional Youth Initiative (ARYI) is a collaboration of youth and community-based projects and organisations in Africa working to fight HIV/AIDS and malaria.  The ARYI releases a newsletter every two months full of latest activities and events being implemented by ARYI members around the world.  The January edition of the newsletter has just been released.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Aids activists plan to counter WTO","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/focus/tv_mumbai/viewstory.asp?idn=249","body":"HIV/AIDS awareness campaigners from developing nations are mobilising themselves to form a strong bloc to confront the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which they claim has made it difficult for people living with the disease to access treatment. They claim that the trade body articulates interests of western nations, which have suppressed developing states, giving way to unfair trade. This, the campaigners say, has made it impossible for poor nations to obtain cheap drugs, especially antiretrovirals (ARVs).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AMEDEO weekly emails","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.amedeo.com/","body":"AMEDEO has been created to serve the needs of healthcare professionals, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, administrators, other members of the health professions, and patients and their friends.  They can easily access timely, relevant information within their respective fields.  AMEDEO\u2019s core components include weekly emails with bibliographic lists about new scientific publications, personal Web pages for one-time download of available abstracts (see example), and an overview of the medical literature published in relevant journals over the past 12 to 24 months.  All these new information resources are free of charge.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Appeal for help","field_subtitle":"Roan Lisa","field_url":"","body":"I am working on my master's thesis and wish to address international nurse recruitment and its effects on poorer underdeveloped countries, particularly Botswana, and either Zambia or Zimbabwe and I am trying to look at this from an ethical perspective and the effects of brain drain on these countries.  Any help would be greatly appreciated! ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Are WHO and Global Fund supporting sub-standard malaria treatment?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/news/newsdisplay2.asp?newsId=2523","body":"\u201cAt least tens of thousands of children die every year\u201d because the World Health Organisation and the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (GFATM) continue to fund (or support the funding) the purchase of old drugs by African countries rather than the newer, more effective and dramatically more expensive artemisinin-class combination therapies (ACT), according to an editorial \u201cviewpoint\u201d published in the January 17th issue of The Lancet.  The editorial, written by academic malaria specialists and some researchers in the developing world accuses both organisations of \u201cmedical malpractice\u201d and blames them for caving into pressure from donor governments such as the USA, whose aid officials say that ACT is too expensive.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Barriers to Accessing Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Services: The Situation of Women with Disabilities in Lusaka, Zambia","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&eissn=1464-5165&volume=26&issue=2&spage=121","body":"Researchers examined how well Lusakan health services met the safe motherhood and reproductive health care needs of women with disabilities, using in-depth tape-recorded interviews with 24 women with disabilities and 25 safe motherhood service providers.  Social, attitudinal, and physical barriers to accessing safe motherhood and reproductive health services in this particular setting were experienced by the women, such as assumption among reproductive health service providers that women with disabilities will not be sexually active and will not require reproductive health services.  Beliefs about transmission of disabilities were also experienced, and nurse-midwives' feared delivery complications in women with physical impairments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Best wishes for 2004","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cohred.ch/","body":"At the beginning of this new year, and at the start of my appointment as Director of COHRED, I would like to send you my very best wishes for 2004. I also want to take this opportunity to inform you of the appointment of Sylvia de Haan as Deputy Director of COHRED. This is an important step in ensuring the continuity of future COHRED activities.\r\n\r\nThe COHRED team in Geneva and the members of the Board are looking forward to re-invigorating our activities and work this coming year. We believe that, jointly with our partners, we can make an essential and meaningful contribution in strengthening national and international health research for development, with the ultimate aim of achieving more equity in health and health care access, more effective and just health systems, and more and more relevant health research in, for, and by the south in particular.\r\n\r\nWe look forward to 2004 as a year full of challenges and opportunities, and we hope that we can continue and expand the collaboration we have with our partners and friends to ensure that we can achieve our goals.\r\nWith my very best regards,\r\nProf. Carel IJsselmuiden\r\nDirector: COHRED","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Brain drain now a gush in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1530340-6078-0,00.html","body":"A study by South Africa's Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) has confirmed earlier findings regarding the under reporting of emigration by highly skilled South Africans to major consuming countries such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, with the flow up to four times higher than the official figures of Statistics South Africa.  Releasing the study, entitled \"Flight of the Flamingos, the Study on Mobility of Research and Development (R&D) workers\" in Cape Town, the HSRC said a key finding was that, although emigration figures of highly skilled researchers remain high, the greatest mobility of high-level skills is now within the country.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Contributors needed","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"I am looking for contributors to a quarterly newsletter (SAFAIDS News). The Newsletter is an in-depth magazine that seeks to provide high quality information on HIV/AIDS gender, human rights and developmental issues. The newsletter has regular focus areas on research, access to treatment and HIV/AIDS in the workplace. Articles may focus on the mentioned topics but are not restricted to these areas. An honorarium will be given for published articles.\r\nTsitsi Singizi \r\nPublications Officer \r\nSAfAIDS \r\nSouthern Africa HIV/AIDS Information Dissemination Service \r\nHarare, Zimbabwe ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Democracy and the poor","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://econ.worldbank.org/view.php?type=5&id=31038","body":"Broad public services most important to the poor - health and education - are also the services most vulnerable to three distortions of the political marketplace: Lack of information among voters about politician performance; Social fragmentation among voters manifested as identity-based voting; and Lack of credibility of political promises to citizens. This is according to a World Bank Policy Research Working Paper. For decentralization to have a positive impact on social services, says the Paper, voters must be more likely to use information about the quality of local public goods in making their voting decisions for local elections, and political promises to voters at large must be more credible than when decision-making over local public goods was in the hands of regional or national governments. Support for better education and health outcomes, and support for political party development and the development of political institutions are important elements to enhance credibility in the political system. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Development and international capital flows","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/news/privcap.html","body":"The movement of private capital into developing economies has stalled.  Moreover, the flow of private capital is often concentrated, fickle and reversible.  Recent research has looked at the potential changes that could be made to the international financial system to influence private investors and lenders and increase the size, regularity and geographical spread of the flow of capital to poor countries. The expansion of private capital flows to developing countries which took place in the early 1990s has not continued.  Crises in emerging markets and an increased aversion to risk on the part of investors and bankers have led to developing countries having limited access to sufficient \u2013 and sufficiently long-term \u2013 flows of private capital.  The volatility of these flows to emerging markets has had a grave impact on economic development.  This is according to research from the Institute of Development Studies and the University of Oxford\u2019s Queen Elizabeth House.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Published for the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa by\r\nFahamu - learning for change http://www.fahamu.org\r\n\r\nContact EQUINET at TARSC c/o admin@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nEQUINET-Newsletter is hosted on Kabissa - Space for change in Africa\r\nTo post, write to: equinet-newsletter@equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nWebsite:\r\nhttp://www.lists.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/equinet-newsletter\r\n\r\nPlease forward this to others.\r\n\r\nTo subscribe, visit\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter/subscribe.php or send an email\r\nto info@equinetafrica.org * Please send materials for inclusion in the\r\nEQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET)","field_subtitle":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a \r\nnewsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the \r\nInternet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on \r\nEQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet \r\nCo-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, \r\npolicy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. \r\nFurther information on the materials in these briefings is available \r\nfrom TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWSLETTER 34: 01 FEBRUARY 2004\r\nCONTENTS: 1. Editorial, 2. Equity in Health, 3. Values, Policies and Rights, 4. Health equity in economic and trade policies, 5. Poverty and health, 6. Equitable health services, 7. Human Resources, 8. Public-Private Mix, 9. Resource allocation and health financing, 10. Equity and HIV/AIDS, 11. Governance and participation in health, 12. Monitoring equity and research policy, 13. Letters and Comments, 14. Useful Resources, 15. Jobs and Announcements","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in health care responses to HIV/AIDS in Malawi","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/Resources/downloads/discussionpaper6.pdf","body":"In Malawi, HIV/AIDS has created an increasing demand for healthcare, exacerbated by population pressure, chronic poverty and food insecurity.  This demand is set against a reduced capacity to supply healthcare.  With funding from the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), Malawi is now in a position to commence a programme of provision of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) using a public health approach, within an integrated programme of prevention, care and support. This technical paper, produced by Equinet in cooperation with Oxfam GB, analyses the equity issues in HIV/AIDS health sector responses in Malawi, including access to ART.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in the distribution of health personnel","field_subtitle":"Call for proposals: Research Grants/Awards  ","field_url":"","body":"The Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) and Health Systems Trust South Africa (HST) are inviting expressions of interest from individuals or organisations based within the region to contribute to a programme of work on Equity in the Distribution of Personnel in Southern Africa. Equinet is a network of research and advocacy organizations that have a specific concern for equity in health issues based within the SADC region  (see www.equinetafrica.org or email admin@equinetafrica.org).  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30232","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Fair play: removing inequities in child health ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h9cv1g2.html","body":"Gaps in child mortality between rich and poor are unacceptably wide and growing. Poorer children face disadvantages at every step from exposure and resistance to infectious disease, through care-seeking, and to effective treatment. How can policy-makers close these gaps? An international team of researchers explore the options of targeting and universal coverage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing HIV/AIDS in Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.synergyaids.com/documents/Finance_CompAnalys.pdf","body":"The gravity of the HIV/AIDS situation in Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe calls for prioritisation, protection and targeting of HIV/AIDS spending, says a comparative study by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), South Africa that assesses the readiness and ability of six African countries to respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  The study says revenue neutral efforts have not been very successful and that it will be important for all these countries to share lessons and experiences before and after they embark on the Global Fund process.  Furthermore, the ability to absorb the vastly increased resources will be a critical determinant of whether these resources are translated into increased outputs and ultimately increased outcomes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Frustration As SA Government Slashes AIDS Budget by Two Thirds","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040202/lam154_1.html","body":"AIDS activists from the advocacy group, AIDS Therapeutic Treatment Now, South Africa (ATTN SA) expressed outrage and frustration over the move by the South African government to cut by two-thirds its AIDS budget. According to the Financial Times (UK) newspaper (2/2/04), \"The initial budget of R296m (pounds Sterling 22m, $42m, euro 34m) for the first phase of the roll-out of treatment, up to the end of next month, has been cut to R90m by the Treasury, without explanation.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Generalized cost-effectiveness analysis for national-level priority-setting","field_subtitle":"Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 2003, 1:8 (19 Dec 2003)","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/1/1/8","body":"Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) is potentially an important aid to public health decision-making but, with some notable exceptions, its use and impact at the level of individual countries is limited. A number of potential reasons may account for this, among them technical shortcomings associated with the generation of current economic evidence, political expediency, social preferences and systemic barriers to implementation. However, health policy-makers and programme managers can use results as a valuable input into the planning and prioritization of services at national level, as well as a starting point for additional analyses of the trade-off between the efficiency of interventions in producing health and their impact on other key outcomes such as reducing inequalities and improving the health of the poor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS, Equity and health sector personnel in southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/Resources/downloads/discussionpaper12.pdf","body":"In the health sector, HIV/AIDS increases the demand for care, the level and complexity of work and the risk of infection, whilst also placing a strain on resources.  These burdens exacerbate problems of sickness, absenteeism and workload, increasing losses of health workers.  The stress and fear lowers health worker morale and adds to factors pushing them out of low-income countries and into the international labour market. This paper, produced by EQUINET, discusses the implications for health personnel of the HIV epidemic, and health sector responses to it, in southern Africa, using Malawi as a case study.  The paper first covers the context of health sector organisations in southern Africa, and then in Malawi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"How can the concept of community participation be effectively applied to improve health programmes?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC14008&Resource=f1health","body":"Community participation is widely advocated as a mechanism to allow health service users to be involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of activities, with the aim of increasing the responsiveness, sustainability and efficiency of health programmes. This exploratory study conducted by the National Institute For Medical Research (NIMR), Tanzania reviews nearly 100 studies, mainly from the developing world. Topics covered include the link between community participation, governance and equity in health; and the factors explaining poor community involvement, despite increasing emphasis on decentralisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of HIV on the health workforce","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://info.worldbank.org/etools/bspan/PresentationView.asp?PID=590&EID=289","body":"The devastating impact of HIV/AIDS on the general population in Africa is now well recognised but the extent to which it affects the health workforce is less understood and appreciated.  Recently two researchers from the Support for Analysis and Research in Africa (SARA) project, under the oversight of the Academy for Educational Development (AED), looked at the dual impact of HIV/AIDS on the health workforce and on health care systems. The result is a streaming video, produced by the World Bank, which records a discussion of the findings of this research with the SARA researchers, Dr.  Stephen Kinoti, a former professor of paediatrics at the University of Nairobi, and Oscar Picazo, a senior health economist on leave from the World Bank's Africa region.  The video includes a discussion of the real and perceived risks health care workers face with the pandemic and human resource factors that influence the supply of services, costs and data.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Impact of Public-Private Partnerships: addressing access to pharmaceuticals ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ippph.org/index.cfm?page=/ippph/publications&thechoice=show&id=195","body":"The UK Department for International Development (DFID) funded the Initiative on Public Private Partnerships for Health (IPPPH) to conduct a pilot study in Uganda to assess the health and health systems impact of public private partnerships (PPPs) for improving access to pharmaceuticals in relation to leprosy, lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, sleeping sickness, and HIV/AIDS.  The specific remit was to examine issues of ownership, integration, coordination, implementation and impact, with a particular focus on the unique strengths and problems of these access PPPs as distinct from other comparable programmes where drugs are competitively procured.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"International Health Summit (IHS) Symposium: Leadership Development for Public-Private Partnerships for Health Gain","field_subtitle":"Johannesburg, South Africa, 23 - 26 May, 2004","field_url":"http://www.ihsummit.com/article.cfm?id=91","body":"This South Africa Symposium on Private Sector Roles for the Public's Health is being held in cooperation with the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine, The African Health Forum, The Nuffield Trust of England, and the Cambridge International Health Leadership Programme of the Judge Institute of Management in Cambridge England.  The symposium will among other highlights showcase new insights into successful outsourcing of services from public hospitals and health plans to private sector organisations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"International Migration, Health and Human Rights","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hhr/activities/en/intl_migration_hhr.pdf","body":"This new publication draws attention to important human rights issues that migration poses for health policy-makers internationally, such as the health implications of forced migration as well as detaining and screening migrants at the borders.  The book will serve as a guide to emphasise important human rights principles by which governments, policy-makers and other actors can design and implement health policies and programmes in the context of migration.  It sets out to demonstrate the need for further attention, research and elaboration of policy approaches in this area.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Is there any hope for PRSP's in Malawi?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/society/s5cfe1g1.html","body":"Poverty reduction efforts in Malawi pivot on the twin strategies of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) and decentralisation.  Yet researchers argue that the Malawi PRSP represents a mixture of policies and generalities that could equally well have appeared in any strategic document of the past 30 years.  A paper from the University of East Anglia\u2019s Overseas Development Group takes a sceptical view of the PRSP and decentralisation processes in Malawi.  The authors argue that PRSP-generated poverty indicators cannot reveal causes and effects regarding the opportunities and constraints experienced by citizens.  The report shows that creating an enabling environment for people to construct their own routes out of poverty may be prevalent in many PRSPs, but the nature of public sector roles and modes of conduct required to build such an enabling environment are poorly articulated by both donors and governments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Many countries not on target to reach millennium goals  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol363/iss9404/full/llan.363.9404.news.28410.1","body":"Senior WHO and World Bank officials have warned donor countries and developing countries that many poor nations are behind in meeting the millennium development goals (MDGs) by the target date of 2015, and stressed that more resources and good policies and programmes are needed.  The health-related goals include: halving maternal and child mortality rates by 2015; halving the proportion of people who suffer hunger; combating HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases; and enhancing access to safe drinking water and essential drugs.  A recent study by the World Bank concluded that so far no sub-Saharan African country is on target to reach the MDGs.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring and Evaluation for Sexual and Reproductive Health Programmes","field_subtitle":"22 March-02 April 2004, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"Monitoring and Evaluation for Sexual and Reproductive Health examines the underlying principles of monitoring and evaluation for programme managers.  Participants explore the steps in establishing effective monitoring and evaluation systems and are guided in how to integrate gender analysis into their monitoring and evaluation plans.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30240","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring geographical imbalance in the health workforce: snapshots from three developing countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/2/1/11/abstract","body":"The problem of geographical imbalance among human resources for health (HRH) across countries in the developing world holds important implications at the local, national and international levels, in terms of constraints for the effective deployment, management and retention of HRH, and ultimately for the equitable delivery of health services.  This is according to a study that investigated the uses of demographic census data for monitoring geographical imbalance in the health workforce for three developing countries, as a basis for formulation of evidence-based health policy options.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mozambique health observatory","field_subtitle":"Yussuf Adam, Ph D,  Universidade Eduardo Mondlane-Faculdade de Medicina","field_url":"","body":"Our small working group has been going on for the last five years.  We have produced many analysis of the health situation in Mozambique.  We would like to launch an observatory of health policies in Mozambique.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Nursing and midwifery the champions in HIV/AIDS care in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC13973&Resource=f1health","body":"Commissioned by the SADC (Southern African Development Community) AIDS Network of Nurses and Midwives (SANNAM) in collaboration with UNAIDS, this report summarises the results of a month of field research in five countries in Southern Africa \u2013 Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia. It highlights the fact that, among health professionals, nurses and midwives shoulder most of the care, treatment and support responsibilities for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in Southern Africa. It also stresses the limited resources and constraints under which they deliver care. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Nutrition the foundation of basic health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/nutrition/index.html","body":"Proper nutrition is a powerful good: people who are well-fed are generally healthy. Healthy women can lead more fulfilling lives; healthy children learn more in school and out. Good nutrition benefits families, their communities and the world as a whole. Malnutrition is, by the same logic, devastating. It plays a part in more than half of all child deaths worldwide. It perpetuates poverty. Malnutrition blunts the intellect and saps the productivity of everyone it touches, said a new report released by Unicef for the World Economic Forum.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor drug supply causing treatment problems in South Africa, Nigeria","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/news/newsdisplay2.asp?newsId=2512","body":"Problems with drug supply of antiretrovirals have come to the surface in both Nigeria and South Africa in the past few weeks as the realities of implementing large-scale treatment access begin to hit home. In South Africa the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has issued a warning that supplies of the paediatric formulation of efavirenz (Stocrin) are running out, with no stock guaranteed to be brought into the country by the drug\u2019s manufacturer, Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD), before January 28. TAC claims that one patient has already had to interrupt treatment as a result of the drug `stock out`, and highlights the risk of resistance that may arise if efavirenz treatment is interrupted without planning. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Predictors of HIV/AIDS among Individuals with Tuberculosis: Health and Policy Implications","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2753.2003.00428.x/abs/","body":"The purpose of this report was to assess the application of clinical predictors for the diagnosis of the HIV infections, including AIDS, among TB-positive subjects enrolled within an urban heterosexual sero-discordant couple (one partner HIV-positive and the other HIV-negative) cohort study at an HIV prevention and research centre in Lusaka, Zambia. The report documents the relative effectiveness of the World Health Organisation clinical case definition for HIV/AIDS (WHOCCDA) in predicting HIV/AIDS cases and discusses the health and policy implications.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Probing the public purse - the role of public funds in reducing child mortality","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h9jr1g1.html","body":"What chance do poor countries have of reducing child mortality by two thirds between 1990 and 2015?  What contribution can public spending make to meeting this Millennium Development Goal (MDG)?  Research by the Overseas Development Institute suggests the need for a greater pro-poor focus in public health expenditure. The author argues that the state\u2019s role is to provide public goods, to regulate healthcare and health insurance, and to offer a safety net for the poor. Good health itself and many preventative and curative interventions have broader benefits for society. This justifies state funding of health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Providing ARV's in resource-limited settings","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/3by5/publications/documents/en/ARTpaper_DFID_WHO.pdf","body":"A paper developed by the Health Systems Resource Centre on behalf of the Department for International Development (DFID) and in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) aims to increase understanding of the requirements for introducing and scaling up provision of antiretroviral therapy (ART) as part of comprehensive HIV/AIDS programmes in resource-poor countries. The paper provides an overview of experience and lessons learned with regard to: The feasibility of ART in resource-poor settings; The different approaches being taken to delivery of ART; and The issues to be considered in scaling up ART provision. The review is based on published and unpublished literature, interviews with key informants, web searches and country information. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Scientific journal information","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.geocities.com/baskarc/2002JIF1a.htm","body":"This web site contains comprehensive information on scientific journals impact factor, science citation index, history of science and tips on good publication practice.  This information is relevant to health professionals in developing countries particularly those with academic affiliations/aspirations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Second African conference on the social aspects of HIV research","field_subtitle":"Conference Announcement and Call for Abstracts","field_url":"","body":"The conference will bring together stakeholders interested in the Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS Research in Africa.  The conference is expected to be all embracing of all institutions, networks and alliances and would be widely disseminated through AFRONETS, AFAIDS and other dissemination channels.  All interested stakeholders are urged to distribute the announcement of this meeting.  The outcome of the African Conference should be of specific interest to researchers and policymakers who would like to promote SAHARA within the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD).","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30234","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Sharing and generating knowledge","field_subtitle":"Christine Porter","field_url":"","body":"I was delighted to learn that you've reposted the summary of the brain drain discussion from HIF-net at WHO in your newsletter (www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter/newsletter.php?id=1678).  This kind of thing makes me believe that the best discussion forums really can and do function as conferences, both sharing and generating knowledge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Co-ordinator ","field_subtitle":"Global Equity Gauge Alliance (GEGA)","field_url":"","body":"Are you committed to equity in health and health care?  Would you like to work with skilled and committed individuals in developing countries around the world?  Are you willing to travel? This is an exciting opportunity for a committed, enthusiastic, and hard working public health professional to work with world-renowned researchers, advocates and policy-makers focused on cutting-edge public health work. GEGA, based out of Health Systems Trust in South Africa, is dedicated to the promotion of equity in health and health care through effective advocacy and community action, based upon reliable health monitoring information.  GEGA focuses on fairness in health and access to health care.  GEGA's 13 country-based Equity Gauge projects, located in South America, Africa, and Asia, monitor inequalities and injustices in the distribution of health and health care resources, and aim to ensure that countries and communities can use this information to make a difference to those with the poorest health and the greatest need.  More information on GEGA can be found at www.gega.org.za.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30222","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"TAC to campaign for equitable health system","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=21721","body":"The South African AIDS advocacy group Treatment Action Campaign, which has been nominated for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, announced plans in January for a new campaign in its battle for universal AIDS treatment that would target inequities between the country's public and private health care systems, Reuters reports. South Africa's health care system has retained its apartheid-era structure of \"elite\" private hospitals, which primarily care for wealthy whites, and public hospitals, which are overburdened in their attempts to care for the majority of blacks, Mark Heywood of TAC said. In its campaign, TAC plans to target private hospitals, which it says are \"too expensive,\" and push for a \"people's health service for a people's antiretroviral program,\" Heywood said. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Fund on AIDS, Malaria and Tuberclosis invites Funding","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has issued a call for a new round of proposals for grant funding. The new round of grants will contribute to a substantial increase in the amount of money available in the global fight against the three diseases.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30217","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The politics of poverty in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000613/P636_Politics-Poverty.pdf","body":"Long-term and vigorously pursued redistributive strategies and policy frameworks are key to eradicating poverty and inequality in South Africa.  In addition, sustainable poverty eradication programmes ought to be elaborated within a broader redistributive framework within which development activities would be located.  This would also create space for winning back the support of civil society, according to a paper from the Southern African Regional Poverty Network that reviews the status of poverty and inequality in South Africa before exploring the contestation over how to lessen both.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Time to get serious about debt relief","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.uneca.org/debtforum/Financing%203-12-03.pdf","body":"Debt relief should be financed as it is more efficient than new aid, and because it reduces the burden of managing aid, argues this paper from the UN Economic Commission for Africa. The paper says that debt relief is an important source of finance for African countries but on its own will be woefully insufficient to allow African countries to finance the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and achieve long-term debt sustainability. The paper also examines the rationale for further debt relief and the ways in which debt relief can be financed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards a global health workforce strategy","field_subtitle":"A new book on human resources for health issues ","field_url":"http://www.itg.be/itg/GeneralSite/InfServices/Downloads/shsop21.pdf","body":"The papers presented in the book cover the main dimensions of HRD in health: planning and managing the workforce, education and training, incentives and working conditions, managing the performance of personnel and policies needed to ensure that investments in human resources produce the benefits to which the investing populations are entitled.  Authors write from diverse professional, regional and cultural perspectives, and yet there is a high degree of consistency in their diagnosis of problems and proposals for strategies to address them.  They all agree on the multidimensionality of problems and on the need for solutions that take into account all dimensions.  They also agree that if problems tend to be similar in nature, they take forms that are time and context-determined.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Wars Deflect Resources from Public Health Crisis, WSF hears","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0115-08.htm","body":"War is devastating health standards around the world as resources are deflected from fighting disease, health activists said ahead of the World Social Forum.  The People's Health Movement, an international pressure group, said that more than 30,000 children over the world died of preventable diseases every day.  Nine billion dollars is needed to provide water and sanitation for poor nations, while the global military expenditure was 900 billion dollars a year, said K.  Unnikrishnan, spokesman for the movement.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Bank: Putting a price on health!","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This campaign aims to promote a universal access to healthcare and to reassert the role of the Government as guarantor of the universal right to health.  In order to do so we are asking the World Bank to :\r\n\u00b7\tCease promoting the privatization of health services and to redirect its financing towards public and supportive health system ; \r\n\u00b7\tStop supporting the utilization of user fees, which limit the access to health for the poorest populations ; \r\n\u00b7\tDeliver its aid through grants instead of loans, so that financing access to health no longer adds to States' indebtness.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30239","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"World Social Forum: Revealing the true face of neoliberalism","field_subtitle":"WSF 2004 Final Statement","field_url":"","body":"\"We denounce the unsustainable situation of debt in poor countries of the world, and the coercive use by governments, multinational corporations and international financial institutions.  We strongly demand the total and unconditional cancellation and rejection of the illegitimate debts of the Third World.  As a preliminary condition for the satisfaction of the fundamental economic, social, cultural and political rights, we also demand the restitution of the longstanding plunder of the Third World.  We especially support the struggle of the African peoples and their social movements.  Once again we raise our voices against the G8 Summit and the meetings of the IMF and World Bank, who bear the greatest responsibility for the plunder of entire communities. We reject the imposition of regional and bilateral free-trade agreements such as FTAA, NAFTA, CAFTA, AGOA, NEPAD, Euro-Med, AFTA and ASEAN.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30253","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Young, poor and sick: socioeconomic inequities and child health in rural Tanzania","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h9jas1g1.html","body":"What effect does the degree of a family's poverty have on the health of young children?  Are girls the losers when it comes to healthcare in Tanzania?  The Ifakara Health Research and Development Centre, together with colleagues from research groups in six countries, studied health care for children under five in poor rural areas of southern Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia to give free AIDS drugs to 100,000 patients","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ippph.org/index.cfm?page=/ippph/newsmedia/news&thechoice=show&id=313","body":"Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa announced his government will provide free anti-retroviral drugs to about 100,000 patients by next year through the public health system. In a state-of-the-nation address to parliament, Mwanawasa said 10,000 HIV-infected people have so far been put on anti-retroviral therapy provided by the government.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":" PUBLIC HEALTH APPROACHES TO EXPAND ANTIRETROVIRAL TREATMENT","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ahfgi.org/global_pdf/public_policy.pdf","body":"The objective of this paper is to review experiences of ARV programmes already under way in countries with very big HIV epidemics but severely constrained resources, as in most of Africa and part of the Caribbean.  Its aim is to show how some of the key policy issues for scaling up HIV/AIDS treatment have been dealt with and to identify common elements that should be considered by all who seek to provide HIV/AIDS care on a significant scale. The paper demonstrates that ARV programmes now under way in developing countries have successfully capitalised on existing resources and infrastructure through the use of standardised treatment regimens, simplified monitoring procedures and making use of available human resources, including communities and family members.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"ACTIVISM ESSENTIAL FOR SUCCESS IN ACCESS TO TREATMENT, says Achmat","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Africans must become more active in campaigning for HIV/AIDS treatment initiatives in their communities.  This was the key message emerging at a special discussion forum with Zackie Achmat, co-chair of the Treatment Action campaign, in Harare, Zimbabwe on Thursday, December 4,  2003.  SAfAIDS (Southern Africa HIV/AIDS Information Dissemination Service) and HIVOS hosted the forum.  The meeting was intended to be an opportunity for Zimbabweans to learn more about South Africa\u2019s experiences in the treatment campaign and explore practicable solutions for the Zimbabwean situation.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30163","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Addressing urban food and nutrition security ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=4&i=s3bjg1g1&u=3ffaa07e","body":"Urban policy-makers in developing countries face a growing problem. By 2020, the number of people in the developing world will grow from 5 billion to 7 billion, with 90 per cent of this growth occurring in cities and towns. The sheer volume of people will compromise the ability of the cities to meet basic needs, resulting in an increase of urban poverty, hunger and malnutrition. Previous urban development strategies focused on building infrastructure \u2013 yet improving lives for the urban poor is not just about where they live, but how they live. Urban hunger and malnutrition are problems that are all too often overlooked.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"African Partnerships Conference","field_subtitle":"24-26 March 2005, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"As an innovative development from the Annual Research Day of the Faculty of Health Sciences, the University of the Witwatersrand, there are plans to host a multi-stakeholder conference in 2005. The objective of the conference is to highlight ongoing health sciences research being conducted at WITS and other African universities and research institutions to local and international audiences able to participate.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30139","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS on the Agenda: Adapting Development and Humanitarian Programmes to Meet the Challenge of HIV ","field_subtitle":"Oxfam GB, in association with ActionAid and Save The Children","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/resources/downloads/aidspart1.pdf","body":"This book is written for policy-makers, managers, and programme staff in development and humanitarian organisations, to promote debate about the changes that need to be made to their programmes if they are to work effectively in a world which has been changed for ever by the pandemic of AIDS.  It is not concerned with AIDS-specific interventions such as home-based care, counselling and testing, condom promotion, or AIDS education.  It is about adapting mainstream development and humanitarian work to create a holistic response to the impact of AIDS on poor and marginalised communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS toll leads to flood of bogus \"miracle\" cures in Swaziland","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The authorities in Swaziland are doing little to stem a flood of bogus \"miracle AIDS cures\" in a country with one of the world's highest HIV infection rates. \"In a blink of an eye, it seems, Swazis have gone from deep denial of the existence of AIDS to panic as they realise all the people they are burying are not dying of witchcraft.  The plethora of AIDS 'cures' is a product of that,\" AIDS activist Thembi Dlamini told PlusNews.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30148","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Analysis of HIV/AIDS in Uganda","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ari.ucsf.edu/ARI/policy/countries.htm","body":"As part of its Country AIDS Policy Analysis Project, the AIDS Policy Research Centre at the University of California San Francisco has published a multidisciplinary, fully referenced, peer-reviewed analysis of HIV/AIDS in Uganda. The paper includes sections on epidemiology, political economy, socio-behavioural context, impact, and response - at household, sectoral, and macrolevels. It is accompanied by a comparative table of 70 key HIV/AIDS and socioeconomic indicators. The analysis is available in Word, PDF, and Text-only formats.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Anti-trust Litigation For Public Health Advocacy: Lessons From The South African Competition Commission Case","field_subtitle":"Sanjay Basu","field_url":"","body":"Two months ago, after heavy pressure (including non-violent street protest) from the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the South African government announced that it would provide antiretroviral treatment to 1.4 million people within the next five years. This massive victory for South Africans was followed by December\u2019s announcement that two major pharmaceutical companies - GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Boehringer-Ingelheim (BI) - who own more than half of the world AIDS drug market, would allow production of three of their antiretrovirals by generic companies in South Africa. The licensing deal - which will substantially drop the price of drugs throughout sub-Saharan Africa - was a result of a settlement after TAC filed anti-trust complaints to the Competition Commission, a unique South African government body.\r\n \r\nTAC\u2019s complaint was more than generous, arguing that a \u201creasonable profit\u201d for the two companies would be the average profit margin of the patent-based pharmaceutical industry. TAC calculated the \u201ceconomic value\u201d of each of the three drugs in question by adding the price of the lowest-priced generic equivalent (an estimate of production cost) to the cost of research and development, and adding to that number the average profit of the patent-based industry. Even when using this generous formula, TAC found that a 300mg pill of AZT was priced at 2.58 times its economic value and a 150mg pill of Lamivudine was priced at 4.01 times its economic value [1]. \r\n\r\nGSK and BI have monopoly patents on the drugs AZT, lamivudine and nevirapine; these patents would not have expired until 2005 (AZT) or 2010 (lamivudine and nevirapine). While all three drugs were produced through taxpayer funded- research at the National Institutes of Health (nevirapine and AZT) or Emory and Yale Universities (lamivudine), the NIH and universities gave the research to private entities for a 1 to 4% royalty, and the private companies sold the drugs at prices upwards of 173% of production cost without any form of competition to regulate prices [2]. \r\n\r\nThe companies, in pursuing their own profit motives, were therefore smart to settle the case rather than allow it to go to the South African Competition Tribunal. Had the Tribunal heard the case, the two companies would have been forced to defend their pricing, and therefore would have had to reveal their true production costs (estimated to be below 98% of drug price in many cases) and their profit margins (which are nearly three times higher than the rest of the Fortune 500 industry when calculated as a percentage of revenue, making the industry the most profitable in the world) [3, 4]. The Tribunal\u2019s hearing would have also affirmed the principles of the WTO\u2019s \u201cDoha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health\u201d (referring to the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement), which calls for patent rules to be subsumed in the case of public health needs (not only in emergency cases, as often wrongly stated) [5]. Thus, a precedent would have been created to allow for tighter regulation and increased competition to challenge the current global pharmaceutical monopoly. In settling the case with TAC, GSK and BI therefore agreed to some forms of regulation. The terms of the settlement required that: \r\n\r\n1. GSK will grant licenses to four generic companies (including Aspen Pharmacare and Thembalami Pharmaceuticals) to produce and/or import, sell and distribute the antiretroviral medicines AZT and lamivudine. Before the agreement with GSK was concluded and signed, GSK had only granted a license to Aspen Pharmacare, which included a massive royalty to GSK (increasing the price of the generic version of the drug) and had required Aspen to market exclusively to NGOs and the public sector, which is inappropriate in any sub- Saharan African countries, where the lack of public infrastructure in the wake of neoliberalism means that even the poorest classes often see private providers. \r\n\r\n2. BI will grant licenses to three generic companies to produce and/or import, sell and distribute the antiretroviral drug nevirapine. Before the agreement with BI was concluded and signed, BI had only granted a license to Aspen Pharmacare. This provision will produce competition between generics, likely lowering price. \r\n\r\n3. The royalty fee on the licenses will be no more than 5% of net sales of the antiretroviral medicines. Before the agreements with GSK and BI were concluded and signed, the royalty fee that GSK requested was 30% and with BI it was 15%. \r\n\r\n4. The licenses will be for both the private and public sectors. Before the agreements with GSK and BI were concluded and signed, the licenses granted by GSK and BI to Aspen were limited to the public sector only. \r\n\r\n5. The agreements with GSK and BI will also allow licensees to export AZT, lamivudine and nevirapine that are manufactured in South Africa to all 47 sub- Saharan African countries. Before the agreements with GSK and BI were concluded and signed, exports to sub-Saharan African countries were not permitted. \r\n\r\n6. The licensees will be able to manufacture AZT, lamivudine and/or nevirapine in combination with each other and/or any other medicines for which the licensees have contracts. This is critical because it will allow triple-drug fixed-dose combinations, currently manufactured by at least two generic producers, to come to the market, dramatically simplifying treatment protocols and reducing the number of pills that HIV+ persons have to take each week and the frequency of dosing. \r\n\r\nThese terms provide us with some insights about the power of threatening anti- trust litigation (if not actually using it in countries where such complaints are possible). But they also provide us with cautions about how such litigation must be constructed if it is to produce public health benefits. There are several terms of the South African settlement that are not ideal, giving evidence to the power of strong pharmaceutical company lawyers. As pointed out by James Love of the Consumer Project on Technology, we must wonder why the two companies still gain a royalty on taxpayer-funded research after gouging consumers in the context of a plague, and why the companies are allowed to choose their own competitors [6]. One of the most important generic companies - Cipla of India - has consistently operated under an \u201calternative\u201d business model of producing near or below cost to provide several drugs as quickly and safely as possible to poor countries, but has been excluded from this arrangement, limiting the ability of countries to make use of Cipla\u2019s excellent production capacities and to produce the sort of \u201cfree trade\u201d that might actually benefit consumers. \r\n\r\nNevertheless, the settlement is clearly beneficial for those in need of AZT, lamivudine and nevirapine in sub-Saharan Africa. The irony is that the day after the settlement was announced, a major study of HIV therapies was published in The New England Journal of Medicine, revealing that the best combination of drugs to treat HIV infection for those persons not yet receiving treatment was AZT, lamivudine and efavirenz [7]. Efavirenz and nevirapine are members of the same class of drugs, but are unlikely to work in the same manner. Efavirenz is also produced by DuPont, and is not part of the South African settlement. Therefore, as pointed out by Rahul Rajkumar of the Yale Medical School, South African physicians and their patients will still not be able to make use of the latest research on HIV therapies; such research is only beginning to emerge, as large trials of different combination therapies have taken years to conduct and evaluate. Treatment decisions in South Africa and elsewhere will be guided by trade rules and a patchwork of litigation, not by best practices and new research [8].\r\n \r\nThe context of the settlement and of this limitation faced by South African physicians and patients parallels the sort of problems faced by public health advocates after the US Trade Representative (USTR) resisted the implementation of the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health. A year after signing the Doha Declaration, the USTR began a long process of adding stipulations to the agreement, which have excluded most countries from allowing generic drug competition into their markets, as I have described elsewhere [9, 10, 11]. The result was a stringent and complex series of rules requiring countries to demonstrate a public health need and then submit themselves to a WTO tribunal before regulating their own drug markets. And so both in the case of the Competition Commission settlement, and in the case of Doha, those persons attempting to lower the prices of pharmaceuticals - both for AIDS and for other diseases -will have to bend-over-backwards to enter into specific drug-by-drug litigation, or disease-by-disease WTO approval processes that are unlikely to succeed. \r\n\r\nThe lesson here is that anti-trust litigation is immensely helpful, as is reform of WTO processes; but both are limited currently because they are so specific to AIDS, or to individual AIDS drugs, that their specific rulings will limit the flexibility needed for appropriate system-wide health improvements. Therefore, an appropriate second step for AIDS activists, beyond the kind of litigation that TAC has been so successful at, is to examine more critically the new sets of trade rules that are being proposed through the free-trade agreements crafted by the USTR. Challenging these new agreements (some of which call for over three decades of patent protection for new pharmaceuticals) will require joining with already-mobilized forces working against the South African Customs Union (SACU) trade deal and its accompanying New Economic Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), as well as those currently working to expose and transform the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and the Enterprise for ASEAN Initiative. I have reviewed the specifics of these agreements in a separate piece [10], and some student organisations have begun to join international NGOs to work on the issue (www.fightglobalaids.org, www.amsa.org/global). \r\n\r\nLinking our work on drug prices to the larger scheme of trade-associated problems promoting the spread of infectious and non-infectious diseases (such as forced migration [12], factory-labour-associated illness [13], and the crash in primary commodity prices that precedes changes in food use and subsequent diabetes rates [14]) will likely take us to a new level of public health advocacy, one that will hopefully move beyond our behaviouristic and disease- specific leanings and onto effective system-wide critiques that can offer a good complement to the work of groups like TAC [15]. So while anti-trust litigation offers the precedent we need to push the line of acceptable outcomes, our activism on trade agreements can extend specific cases to larger themes and wider practices that currently limit the success of our interventions. \r\n\r\n* Sanjay Basu is at the Yale University School of Medicine. http://omega.med.yale.edu/~sb493/ \r\n\r\n* This article was originally published on the website www.zmag.org and is reproduced here with permission of the author. Please send comments to editor@equinetafrica.org. Click on the link below for references.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30171","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"CENTRING THE DEVELOPMENT DEBATE","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A recently published book 'Health and Human Rights Readers' authored by Dr. Claudio Schuftan, an internationally known Public Health expert and health activist associated with the People's Health Movement offers a compilation of fifty-two 'Readers in Human Rights' essays which have been previously circulated on various electronic listservers. The goal underlying the Readers is \"to re-centre the development debate, and to convincingly articulate the reasons for centring it around human rights. The readers give you food for thought and for action for just that.\" The Readers discuss a wide range of issues such as Human Rights based planning; the role of the state, UN and civil society; Health sector reform and the unmet needs of the poor; Health Care Financing; vulnerability, access and discrimination; the role of NGOs; globalisation, health rights and health sector reform; the right to adequate nutrition; the difference between project and process; and health rights and the law.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30138","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenging health inequalities - forging progressive partnerships for public health","field_subtitle":"6 - 8 June 2004, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"The next International Association of Health Policy (IAHP) conference will be held in South Africa the 6, 7 and 8th June 2004. The conference theme is 'Challenging health inequalities - forging progressive partnerships for public health'.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30147","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"CODESRIA INSTITUTE ON HEALTH, POLITICS AND SOCIETY IN AFRICA","field_subtitle":"Call For Applications For The 2004 Inaugural Session","field_url":"","body":"The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) was established in 1973 as an initiative of African scholars for the promotion of multidisciplinary research that extends the frontiers of knowledge production in and about Africa, and also responds to the challenges of African development. As part of on-going programme innovation and expansion, the Council has decided to launch an experimental institute on Health, Politics and Society in Africa in a bid to promote an enhanced interest in multidisciplinary health research among African scholars. The initiative flows from the current CODESRIA strategic plan which has placed a considerable emphasis on the promotion of a social science approach to health studies in Africa and a structured dialogue between the Social Sciences and the Health/Biomedical Sciences.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30137","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Communication of Research for Poverty Reduction: A Literature Review","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/working_papers/wp227.pdf","body":"To improve communication of research to policy-makers it will be necessary to strengthen researchers' communication skills; aim for close collaboration between researchers and policy-makers; construct an appropriate platform from which to communicate and strengthen institutional policy capacity for uptake.  To improve communication of research to other researchers the strengthening of Southern research capacity is needed in order to enable Southern researchers to access Northern-produced research. Lastly, in order to improve communication of research to the poor and organisations working with the poor it will be necessary to incorporate communication activities into project design. This is according to a working paper from the Overseas Development Institute in the United Kingdom.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Community mobilisation key to success of 3 x 5","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/news/newsdisplay2.asp?newsId=2449","body":"The WHO 3 x 5 plan envisages that community-based organisations, including groups of people living with HIV, will play a key role in scaling up treatment.  This is not just a measure to plug gaps in the health services of heavily affected countries, but a response to evidence from early pilot programmes.  These programmes have demonstrated that community participation is a key element in ensuring the acceptability of treatment.  Making treatment part of the social fabric rather than a hidden enterprise is the only way to ensure long-term adherence.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Decentralization in Zambia: Resource Allocation and District Performance","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://heapol.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/18/4/357","body":"This article examines quality of services following decentralization to districts in Zambia, and an analysis of data assessing allocation choices, as well as some indicators of the performance of the health systems under decentralization. Decentralization allowed the districts to make decisions on internal allocation of resources and on user fee levels and expenditures. Findings suggest that decentralization may not have had either a positive or negative impact on services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"DEVELOPED COUNTRIES HOLD THE KEYS TO REVIVAL OF TRADE TALKS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The EU Trade Commissioner, Pascal Lamy concurred to the broad assumptions that the failure of Cancun was like an accident, which involved 148 cars on their way to a wedding.  In explaining the accident, he forgot to mention (although casualty levels still not clear) that some of the victims escaped unhurt and they stood aside instead of helping those who were hurt.  Among those who escaped unhurt, some were wearing helmets and others were putting on life jackets.  Those who were hurt, most of them wore ordinary clothing and had no any other form of protection.  But all of them still need to go to the wedding.  And those who escaped unhurt should not just stand aside and assume that those hurt will uplift themselves.  The unhurt must do something to ensure that everyone goes to the wedding where there is plenty of food and drink.  Unfortunately, we are seeing a situation where the law of the jungle is being applied: survival of the fittest and elimination of the unfit, yet all of them want to celebrate together at the wedding.  This is the stark reality that we find developed and developing countries in after the collapse of trade talks in Cancun, says this editorial from the Seatini Bulletin.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30160","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"DRUG PATENTS UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT: SHARING PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE ABOUT PHARMACEUTICAL PATENTS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.accessmed-msf.org/documents/patents_2003.pdf","body":"Patents often hamper the public's access to life-saving medicines and profits are being put before public health. Industrialised countries are concluding bilateral agreements with developing and least developed countries to prevent them from using the Doha Declaration safeguards. In addition, the US is trying to further limit the freedom of countries to grant compulsory licenses for public health reasons through ongoing negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) Agreement. This is according to a report produced by the Access to Essential Medicines Campaign of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), which aims to offer new approaches to those seeking to overcome patent barriers. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"e-3x5 discussion list","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The e-3x5 is an electronic discussion group and information network created by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNAIDS in collaboration with SATELLIFE.  The goal of e-3x5 is to provide a forum for dialogue and exchange of information on the WHO and partner-supported initiative to get 3 million people living with HIV/AIDS in resource-limited countries on antiretroviral therapy (ART) by the end of 2005, as a first step to achieving the goal of universal access to treatment as a human right.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30141","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter January 2004 Anti-trust Litigation For Public Health Advocacy: Lessons From The South African Competition Commission Case","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"GLOBALISATION, HEALTH AND FOREIGN POLICY","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ukglobalhealth.org/content/Text/lister30-01-03.doc","body":"\"Globalisation is bringing fundamental changes to society, some of which could be good for health and some bad. The issue is not whether globalisation should be resisted or supported but how it can be better managed to avoid harm to health and its basic social and environmental determinants. In exploring this topic we have been impressed by the range and complexity of the issues it raises. Perhaps the main conclusion we draw is that globalisation impacts on health at every level.\" This is according to the conclusion of a presentation from the UK Partnership for Global Health. The presentation explores issues such as: trade impacts on health, intellectual property rights and pharmaceutical supply, women's development, the impact of the EU's Common Agriculture Policy and the links between health and foreign policy. The focus is on policy and partnership actions as well as research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative: Letters of intent deadline","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.grandchallengesgh.org","body":"This is a reminder about a path-breaking research opportunity: the deadline for submitting Letters of Intent under the $200 million Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative is January 9.  A version of the announcement and detailed program information is available on the Grand Challenges in Global Health Web site.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Sector Responses to HIV/AIDS treatment in southern Africa: Confronting the challenge of equity","field_subtitle":"An Equinet paper","field_url":"","body":"This paper discusses a set of complex, inter-connecting issues related to the moral imperative to increase access to HIV care and treatment in southern Africa, with a particular focus on antiretroviral therapy (ART). It is argued in the paper that an equity-oriented approach is necessary not only from a moral and humanitarian perspective but also for public health reasons. Unless attention is paid to the redistribution of available resources and to the relative and absolute levels of disempowerment amongst individuals, communities and countries, we run the risk of failing to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and the targets that have been set for increasing access to ART. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30157","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HEALTHLINK WORLDWIDE LAUNCHES 2ND EDITION OF RESOURCE CENTRE MANUAL","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The second edition of Healthlink Worldwide's Resource Centre Manual was released on 20 October 2003.  Building on the success of the original manual launched in February 2000, the new version has been updated.  It is designed for health and disability workers planning to set up and develop a resource centre within resource-poor communities around the world, and will be particularly useful to people operating on a limited budget.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30152","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HOW MEDICAL GIANTS HOODWINK JOURNALS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://news.hst.org.za/view.php3?id=20031211","body":"Pharmaceutical giants hire ghostwriters to produce articles - then put doctors' names on them.  Hundreds of articles in medical journals claiming to be written by academics or doctors have been penned by ghostwriters in the pay of drug companies, an Observer inquiry reveals.  The journals, bibles of the profession, have huge influence on which drugs doctors prescribe and the treatment hospitals provide.  But The Observer has uncovered evidence that many articles written by so-called independent academics may have been penned by writers working for agencies which receive huge sums from drug companies to plug their products.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrating community priorities in health planning, resource allocation and service delivery","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/Resources/downloads/EquinetDiscussionPaper13.pdf","body":"The aim of this report commissioned by the Southern African Regional Network on Equity in Health (EQUINET)  was to review the evidence for community participation in health, in terms of community contribution to health planning, resource allocation, and service delivery. In terms of resource allocation, it has been observed that communities in Africa and other developing countries have mostly been mobilised to participate in cost recovery programs such as payment of user fees or community-based health care prepayment schemes, as stipulated under the Bamako Initiative of 1988 and as supported by the World Bank through its World Development Report of 1993 'Investing In Health'. Public participation in resource allocation has also been interpreted in terms of people's contributions of efforts such as labour or money to construct or renovate health facilities or other services such as water projects and schools, with substantial assistance from their governments or external donors. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Joseph D. Njau","field_subtitle":"Ifakara Health Research and Development Centre, Tanzania","field_url":"","body":"I am glad that there is this network devoted to looking at equity issues.  With Health Financing Reforms, equity issues become central, most especially to the marginalized groups and when the world is thinking to curb poverty as well as reaching the WHO and other UN goals on Health for All.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Lena Grahnquist","field_subtitle":"Sweden","field_url":"","body":"I am a Swedish paediatric gastro-enterologist leaving Mozambique, where I have been working for 2\u00bd years at the Paediatric Department at the Central Hospital, especially with research training. It was really interesting to find your web site with interesting articles about research and problems in the governmental health care system in Africa, which has been my reality the past years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Missing the message: Report on HIV communication","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.panos.org.uk/global/program_news.asp?ID=1001","body":"After years of neglect, more money and political interest is being directed towards AIDS than ever before.  But is today's response to the pandemic learning from the lessons of the past, lessons now stretching back over 20 years?  Missing the message?  provides an overview of the issues, and suggests how the problems of HIV Communication can begin to be addressed through work with policymakers, civil society and the media.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mozambique tests cholera vaccine","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1462519,00.html","body":"Mozambique has launched a widespread vaccination campaign against cholera to reduce the impact of the water-borne disease in the southern African state, the government said on Monday.  \"We want to check whether the use of this vaccine, already used by individual European travellers, can be effective in an epidemic situation,\" Health Minister Fransciso Songane told a news conference. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Namibian PWA'S HOPEFUL ABOUT TREATMENT PROGRAMME","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38337","body":"Plans to provide anti-AIDS drugs to HIV-positive Namibians are slowly taking shape, but the pace of implementing the government's treatment programme is still cause for concern, activists told IRIN on Wednesday.  \"Things are happening, but not at the pace we want; treatment is being rolled out, but it is still not country-wide,\" said Conny Samaria, advocacy manager for Lironga Eparu, an NGO assisting people living with HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New Web-Based \"Commonwealth Forum on Globalization and Health\"","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ukglobalhealth.org/","body":"Launched in April, the Commonwealth Forum consists of a number of articles and excerpts on various facets of globalization and health, available directly from the Forum's web-site or through links to other URLs.  Initial discussion questions are also suggested.  Participants are encouraged to suggest new readings for future postings.  New materials will be added on a monthly basis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"REGULATING FOR DEVELOPMENT","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights49/insights-iss49-art00.html","body":"Developing countries are now being asked to follow developed countries in the privatisation of goods and services previously provided by the state.  It is argued that these countries will gain from the creation of efficient markets which offer their best chance to establish competitiveness, leading to economic growth.  But critics claim that privatisation damages the quality of public services and undermines public accountability.  Conventional forms of regulation address these two issues; but is it also possible to regulate for development that reduces poverty?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Reproductive health and human rights ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol363/iss9402/full/llan.363.9402.editorial_and_review.28252.1","body":"One of the greatest disparities between rich and poor countries and, often, rich and poor people, is in maternal mortality. The risk of dying from maternal causes in sub-Saharan Africa is 1 in 16. In western Europe it is 1 in 4000. 70% of maternal deaths occur in only 13 countries. Why do more than 500 000 girls and women die every year - 99% in developing countries - from preventable conditions and injuries related to pregnancy and childbirth? Generally, countries with a poor record in reproductive health have weak health systems or constraining social environments, or both, often exacerbated by poverty. The underlying causes of maternal morbidity and mortality are complex. Prevention is correspondingly complex, involving not only expansion of preventive and clinical care, but also realignment of public health and funding priorities, protection of women's rights, and behavioural changes by individuals, families, and communities. (This article requires registration.)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Research Methodology Training Course - HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria","field_subtitle":"8 - 19 March 2004, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"This research training course is designed to prepare researchers and postgraduate students with requisite knowledge for formulating sound projects to meet the requirements of postgraduate training of the University of the Witwatersrand and other universities.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30116","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Risks to healthcare workers in developing countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://medilinks.org/publications/msagoe.pdf","body":"Health care workers are a crucial resource in the health care systems of developing nations. In many countries, including those in sub-Saharan Africa, workers are at high risk for preventable, life-threatening occupational infections. Yet the protection of health care workers in these countries is largely neglected in national priorities for health care and by the international organisations that fund health care initiatives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC disagrees with Commonwealth over Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38317","body":"The Southern African Development Community (SADC) voiced its concern in December over the Commonwealth's decision to maintain Zimbabwe's suspension, the South African news agency SAPA reported. A South African Foreign Affairs Department statement on behalf of Lesotho, as chair of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security, noted that \"as we warned, it has resulted in Zimbabwe withdrawing from the Commonwealth.\" ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"South African maize too expensive for WFP efforts in southern africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38497","body":"Increasing maize prices in South Africa, partly due to drought and currency fluctuations, have forced the WFP to look to foreign markets to procure food aid for its emergency operation in Southern Africa. \"It's unfortunate that South Africa may be heading into drought at a time when Southern Africa has a huge need for food,\" Mike Sackett, WFP Southern Africa Regional Director, said in a statement. WFP had sourced \"substantial amounts of maize from the South African market over the last 18 months to feed millions of people across the region\".  But South Africa is simply no longer competitive, he said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern Africa Humanitarian Crisis Update","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/10710553933.htm","body":"Ongoing drought, the impact of HIV/AIDS and lack of access to basic services, continue to affect millions of people in Southern Africa, according to Save the Children.  Women and children are particularly vulnerable.  Early in October the UN Secretary-General\u2019s Special Envoy for Humanitarian Needs in Southern Africa told journalists in South Africa that just 20% of the funds required for food aid and non-food relief items for 6.5 million vulnerable people in the region had been received.  Since then Australia, Sweden and the Netherlands have made pledges but the lack of funds still threatens to reverse the enormous gains made last year.  At current levels of funding the World Food Programme (WFP) predicts a 95% shortfall in its food aid pipeline by March 2004.  UN sources say that in Zimbabwe up to 5 million people \u2013 almost half the total population - are expected to require food assistance in the first few months of 2004.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTHERN AFRICA: A REVIEW OF REGIONAL STRATEGIES ADDRESSING POVERTY","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000637/index.php","body":"Strategies that governments in Sub-Saharan Africa have pursued over the last three to four decades have all sought to raise not only the Human Development Index but bring about comprehensive development as well.  These strategies started with national development plans and inward looking import substitutions and protectionist policies.  This review from the Malawi Economic Justice Network provides an overview of the process, outcomes and content, within the region's socio-political context, examining the pathways that were available to different stakeholders for engagement in the process, and how this participation and strategies are reflected in the policy outcomes.  The paper further endeavours to catalyse thinking in analysing how the relationship between the conception and practice of the 'popular' Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers to previous initiatives such as the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), the advent of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), let alone the new opportunities offered for poverty reduction in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTHERN AFRICA: PROGRAMME OFFICER","field_subtitle":"Equinet","field_url":"","body":"The Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) is seeking a dynamic and committed public health professional as a programme officer to support the work in EQUINET. EQUINET works on issues of equity in health in southern Africa and supports research, policy development and analysis, information dissemination, networking and advocacy through institutions across southern Africa.\r\nThe programme officer works closely with the programme manager, the co-ordinators of EQUINET\u2019s theme work and the steering committee. The work involves: \r\n- Reviewing and providing technical and administrative support to the research, publication and policy intervention work, within specific themes and across the network;\r\n- Preparing calls for grants, meeting and conference announcements, briefings and reports;\r\n- Implementation and reporting on network wide activities (skills workshops, training, student grants, cross cutting research and analysis, conferences, publications and policy intervention);\r\n- Ensuring the production and dissemination of EQUINET publications; \r\n- Organising and ensuring reporting on core EQUINET processes, including evaluation work, the steering committee meetings and the EQUINET conference;\r\n- Presenting EQUINET work and analysis in policy platforms, networks and joint alliance work in the Southern African Development Community (SADC);\r\n- Providing input to the EQUINET website, newsletter and data bases.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30140","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Speaking up for HIV-positive women in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h5rf1g1.html","body":"Women with AIDS face neglect and prejudice all over the world.  Many are denied healthcare during pregnancy or forced to have abortions.  Some are sent away by their husband's family to their parents' home.  How can their situation be improved?  The International Community of Women living with HIV/AIDS set up a research project to find out the needs of HIV-positive women in Zimbabwe.  Women with the virus were chosen as team leaders and trained to carry out interviews.  Following the project these women were better able to represent the rights of HIV positive women and play an active role in raising AIDS awareness in their communities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Stepping Back from the Edge: The Pursuit of Antiretroviral Therapy in Botswana, South Africa and Uganda","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.dec.org/pdf_docs/PNACU828.pdf","body":"This report, from the UNAIDS Best Practice Collection, looks at what is being done to challenge the snail's pace of progress on access to antiretrovirals in three very different African countries: Botswana, South Africa and Uganda. It describes who is taking the initiative at grass-roots level and how they face this daunting task.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Costs of Anti-Retroviral Treatment in Zambia","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.dec.org/pdf_docs/PNACU697.pdf","body":"This report analyses the costs and resource requirements associated with the provision of antiretroviral (ARV) therapy in the public health sector in Zambia. It provides per-patient cost estimates for highly active anti-retroviral therapy, voluntary counselling and testing, several opportunistic infections, and prevention of mother-to-child transmission services. These per-patient cost estimates are used to project total program costs, which are then compared to currently budgeted resources with an emphasis on financial sustainability. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The great brain drain discussion","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Some possible solutions to the brain drain include a greater investment in more research and policy study about the causes of the drain, educating policy makers about the causes, and a rethink of the nursing profession in relation to compensation. This is according to notes that summarize a 41-message discussion on the brain drain of health professionals from developing to developed countries. The discussion took place on the listserv HIF-net at WHO.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30119","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO report says AIDS offers healthcare opportunity","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7430/10","body":"Dr Lee Jong-wook, director general of the World Health Organisation, has said that the organisation's goal of getting lifesaving antiretroviral drugs to three million patients with HIV or AIDS in the developing world by 2005 presents a golden opportunity to put in place desperately needed basic healthcare systems.  In the preface to WHO's annual report on global health Dr Lee said that funds for tackling the AIDS crisis could in turn establish lasting health systems for the future treatment and prevention of disease in the developing world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health report 2003 launched","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/whr/2003/en/","body":"The World Health Organisation launched on 18 December The World Health Report 2003 - shaping the future, highlights the urgent need for investment and international support to strengthen the failing health care systems of most developing countries. \"These global health gaps are unacceptable,\" said Dr Lee Jong-wook, Director-General of WHO. \"Twenty-five years ago, the Declaration of Alma-Ata on Primary Health Care challenged the world to embrace the principles of health for all as the way to overcome gross health inequalities between and within countries,\" said Dr Lee. \"The principles defined at that time remain indispensable for a coherent vision of global health.\u201d ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe hospitals turn patients away","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=21521","body":"The strike by medical doctors and nurses in Zimbabwe is crippling the public health sector, at a time when the poor cannot afford high fees that private hospitals charge.  Monica Ngwere, an asthmatic patient from Shurugwi in central Zimbabwe, was last week turned away from Parirenyatwa Referral Hospital in the capital, Harare.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2004-01-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICAN CONFERENCE FOR SEXUAL HEALTH AND RIGHTS","field_subtitle":"25-29 February 2004, Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.acitravel.co.za/app.php?conf_id=17","body":"An invitation is extended to healthcare practitioners, educators, psychologists, social workers, sexual health and rights policymakers and advocates to attend this milestone congress. Sexual health and rights are fundamental human rights and this conference intends to promote the advancement of these throughout Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICAN TELEHEALTH SYMPOSIUM ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Africa Telehealth Group, in close collaboration with MED-e-TEL, will be holding a satellite symposium concurrently with the MED-e-TEL 2004 International Trade Fair.  The theme of the satellite symposium, as captured in its title, is: \u201cThe African Diaspora, Telehealth and Telemedicine: A Symposium for Joint Action\u201d.  While focusing on Africans in the Diaspora, the symposium would, nonetheless, seek to pool the energies of both continental Africans and those Africans born or living outside the African continent who have knowledge, expertise, or a passion to contribute to the effective development of e-health in Africa.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30100","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS epidemic update 2003 ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/html/pub/Publications/IRC-pub03/epiupdate2002_en_pdf.pdf","body":"The annual AIDS epidemic update reports on the latest developments in the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.  With maps and regional summaries, the 2003 edition provides the most recent estimates of the epidemic's scope and human toll, explores new trends in the epidemic's evolution, and features a special section examining stigma and discrimination.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS treatment must adapt to poor communities, says MSF","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"AIDS treatment procedures must be demystified, simplified, and adapted to the needs of the world's poorest communities in order to be effective, according to the NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). \"To scale up treatment on a large scale, we have to adapt treatment models to real life,\" Dr Morten Rostrup, President of MSF's International Council told reporters in Nairobi.  \"Adaptation means fewer pills per day, fewer lab tests and free treatment, dispensed in the communities where people, live, that is at district facilities and at community health posts.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30099","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"All Africa Telemedicine and Telehealth Conference","field_subtitle":"Yaounde, Cameroun June 12-16, 2004 ","field_url":"","body":"After more than three decades of independence, Africans continue to be overburdened by problems of underdevelopment, poverty and insecurity.  At the same time, for the most part efforts to evolve modern social and political institutions to respond to global changes, challenges, and opportunities have either failed or remained weak.  Yet, the continent's ability to attain a productive, flexible and responsive orientation to the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century depends, in part, on its collective ability to devise and utilize such institutions.  This conference seeks to act as a catalyst for continental institution building in the health sector, pulling together individuals and organizations with expertise in health and information technology, as well as those working towards the integration or sharing of health treatment systems across the continent.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30101","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Armed Conflict and Women\u2019s Access to Health and Reproductive Rights: Another Battle to Fight  ","field_subtitle":"Source: PHA-Exchange","field_url":"","body":"Health is a basic human right, recognized in international conventions and declarations, but access to health for women has been ignored and even directly violated by governments and international institutions.  The last two decades have seen the simultaneous rise of privatisation, structural adjustment programmes, unfair trade agreements and patents on drugs on the one hand and increased religious fundamentalism, terrorism and genocide of people on the other hand.  International and national policies that result in greater poverty of populations or promote use of violence and militarism have a direct impact on women\u2019s possibilities to stay healthy and enjoy their sexual and reproductive health and rights.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30083","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Applications: Young Researcher Grants - 2003-2004","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www2.alliance-hpsr.org/jahia/page2106.html","body":"The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research aims to promote the generation, dissemination and use of knowledge for enhancing health system performance.  One of its strategic objectives is to facilitate the development of capacity for the generation, dissemination and use of knowledge among researchers, policy makers and other stakeholders.  The Alliance is calling for applications for grants to strengthen the capacity of Masters or PhD teaching programs involved in the field of HPSR in developing countries.  A total of up to USD 25,000 will be provided for a period of one year, renewable on the basis of results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can victory on AIDS medicines catalyse wider change?","field_subtitle":"Patrick Bond (http://www.zmag.org)","field_url":"","body":"A rare activist-driven win for some of Africa's wretchedly poor women, men and children leaves me humbled. In June 2002, I wrote a Znet (www.zmag.org) column-'Corporate cost-benefit analysis and culpable HIV/AIDS homicide'-in which the main prediction proved partly wrong within a few weeks. I have been waiting for a chance to correct the mistake. My error, excessive pessimism, was compounded by another event I would not have considered possible: the November 19 announcement that the South African government will now finally begin providing anti-retroviral (ARV) medicines to hundreds of thousands of people who are HIV+.\r\n\r\nActivists hope that five million infected, who now account for more than a quarter of South Africa's adult population, will eventually get the desperately needed medicines, notwithstanding some practical barriers to implementation. Exultant relief was expressed by South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), along with allies including ACT UP, Oxfam and Medicins sans Frontiers, which is running successful treatment pilot projects in Cape Town township clinics, where compliance with treatment regimes is higher than 90%.\r\n\r\nTAC also restrained itself from launching protests against president Thabo Mbeki's extraordinary comment in late September to the New York Times: 'Personally, I don't know anybody who has died of AIDS.' In mid-November, the hated health minister, Manto Tshabala-Msimang, also revealed her reluctance to attribute AIDS to the HI Virus, just as she announced the medicines roll-out. In previous statements, she has termed ARVs 'poison.' Given such attitudes, I didn't think Pretoria or its corporate friends would get this far along the path to civilised behaviour, this fast. For the chance to commit these errors, I am delighted, because far worse would have been to claim deadly accuracy.\r\n\r\nMy prediction was that at least three structural forces in South African capitalism would overwhelm the struggle capacity of AIDS treatment activists. Structure/struggle is always a dialectic, but it's wonderful to see history written from the bottom up, for a change. I will briefly rehearse the argument that I confidently made in mid-2002; some of that analysis is still valid, even if my main point-that the dynamics of state power and corporate profits tend to overwhelm progressive resistance-must be revised.\r\n\r\nThe first factor is the pressure exerted by international and domestic financial markets to keep Pretoria's state budget deficit to 3% of Gross Domestic Product. This pressure led Mbeki's spokesperson Parks Mankahlana (who died of AIDS three years ago) to remark to Science magazine in early 2000 that pregnant, HIV+ women would not be receiving Nevirapine to prevent mother-to-child transmission, because 'That mother is going to die and that HIV-negative child will be an orphan. That child must be brought up. Who is going to bring the child up? It's the state, the state. That's resources, you see.' Second is the multinational pharmaceutical corporations' interest in maintaining exclusive patents on ARVs so as to monopolize profits, profits which come from sales to wealthy markets, not low-price deals for Africa. As the actions of US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick prove, pharmacorp pressure remains intense, although some firms have offered cheap drugs, but mainly so as to head off the possibility of mass imports (or local production) of generics. To illustrate, staff at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which provides medicines to some African countries, certainly don't want to see the World Trade Organisation's protections on 'Trade in Intellectual Property Rights' undermined, for obvious reasons.\r\n\r\nThird, South Africa's huge unemployed labour pool-more than 40% of the potential workforce-means that local capitalists can readily replace unskilled workers who start developing AIDS symptoms with desperate, jobless people. This is less expensive than providing medicines, with Anglo American Corporation's 2001 cost-benefit analysis demonstrating that only the highest-paid 12% or so of employees justified receiving AIDS medicines, given the cost of recruiting and training replacements at the higher end of the spectrum.\r\n\r\nBut within a few months, the calculus changed sufficiently for two of the largest employers in Africa, Anglo and Coca Cola. The main ingredient was protest-and in Anglo's case, I was reliably informed by insiders, the prospect of demonstrators at the August 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development dragging up many other bits of dirty laundry. Coke's main bottler in South Africa has failed to insure two-thirds of its 4,000-strong workforce at a sufficient level to allow the HIV+ workers access to ARVs, and it too was subject to international protest over African AIDS policies.\r\n\r\nHowever, even though the costs of HIV/AIDS-absenteeism, declining productivity, payouts for early death-have soared to as high as 25% of payroll, according to the Financial Times in a September 18 report this year, most employers are still hesitant to provide ARVs: 'Untreated, HIV typically takes four to five years to manifest itself as full-blown AIDS, and companies are reluctant to pay for a risk that they cannot see. Persuading managers to part with fees [AIDS treatment programmes] today for costs that will hit company earnings years down the line has been a hard sell.' In sum, all three structural factors are still deterrents to provision of treatment, though each has been mitigated recently. The budget deficit will climb this year from just over 1% of GDP to nearly 3%, allowing extra leeway for AIDS spending. Pharmacorps are cooperating with the World Health Organisation, Clinton Foundation and governments to lower prices for Africa, in part because Canada's outgoing prime minister Jean Chretien-spurred by UN advisor Stephen Lewis-has introduced legislation to promote generics. And employers are waking up, in part because of the dramatic rise of AIDS-related disability claims as a percentage of all disability claims, from 18% in 2001 to 31% last year.\r\n\r\nWhat, specifically, was behind the November 19 Cabinet statement? Pretoria cited factors which included: 'a fall in the prices of drugs over the past two years; new medicines and international and local experience in managing the utilisation of ARVs; [sufficient] health workers and scientists with skills and understanding; and the availability of fiscal resources to expand social expenditure in general, as a consequence of the prudent macro-economic policies pursued by government.' However, these factors are, in my view, minor compared to intensive activist pressure, which Pretoria did not dare mention lest it encourage further protests. TAC's victory statement was explicit: 'The combination of the Constitutional Court decision on mother-to-child transmission prevention, the Stand Up for Our Lives march [of 15,000 people on parliament] in February, the civil disobedience campaign and the international protests around the world have convinced Cabinet to develop and implement an ARV rollout plan.' Another factor, of course, is the 2004 presidential election, which Mbeki is expected to win easily but which will be characterised by high levels of apathy and no-vote campaigning by the Landless Peoples Movement. An AC Nielsen survey in November confirmed that Mbeki's AIDS policy is hurting the ruling African National Congress' chances of turning out the vote.\r\n\r\nHigh visibility is an important antidote, and the Cabinet promised that 'within a year, there will be at least one service point in every health district across the country and, within five years, one service point in every local municipality.' In addition to medicines, the state will provide an education and community mobilisation programme, promotion of good nutrition and traditional health treatments such as herbal remedies, support for families affected by HIV and AIDS, and funds for upgrading health infrastructure. The current health system is massively overextended, with far too few essential medicines, much less ARVs, available in South Africa's underfunded rural clinics.\r\n\r\nThe programme's resources-US$40 million through March, rising to US$680 million per year in 2007-are all new (not drawn from existing allocations to social programmes. The cost of medicines will rise from 20% to 33% of the programme budget.\r\n\r\nWill ARV availability generate negative unintended consequences? One would be noncompliance with treatment regimes by poor people, and the concomitant emergence of drug-resistant strains. Another would be the black-market smuggling of cheap drugs to Europe and North America which would reduce access in Africa. Another is that although stigmatisation will decline given the availability of hope-giving drugs, so too might the practice of safe sex. These are all major challenges to TAC and other health-sector groups.\r\n\r\nThe Cabinet also repeated one of Mbeki's tired truisims, namely that immune systems in townships and villages are 'assaulted by a host of factors related to poverty and deprivation.' In spite of a recently-published ten-year government review aiming to show increased delivery of old-age pensions and child support grants, there is no disguising the role of the allegedly 'prudent macro-economic policies pursued by government' in creating poverty and inequality.\r\n\r\nThe conflict between neoliberalism and life was rarely as explicit as in the case of AIDS medicines, and was compounded by patriarchy, traditional and modern sexual practices such as multiple partners for men, and domestic violence against women. Rape continues at scandalous levels. The TAC leaders, some of whom (like the brilliant activist Zackie Achmat) learned politics in highly vulnerable Trotskyist cells within the ruling party, are more than capable of simultaneously fighting capitalism, racism and sexism together. But a few other political choices may also become more urgent.\r\n\r\nOne relates to their alliances within South African politics, which have been effective in attracting the most forward-looking trade unions, the SA Communist Party, churches, NGO activists and technical supporters (lawyers, healthworkers, academics, journalists). Yet these alliances have not strayed far from the African National Congress.\r\n\r\nDoes TAC have sufficient linkages to non-ANC communities (especially those devoted to building the new independent left)? Will the myriad of problems that cause AIDS opportunistic infections-especially dirty water and air (thanks to coal/wood/paraffin)-also be addressed? At a time that the South African government is disconnecting water and electricity at a lethal rate, alongside evictions for those who cannot afford expensive rental and mortgage payments, addressing links between AIDS and diseases of poverty/homelessness are crucial.\r\n\r\nThis leads to another problem: will TAC and its allies make the case that access to ARVs is a human right and that people should not pay user-fees or partial cost-recovery for the medicines? They do make this case, but only in the event that people are too poor to pay for medicines. Yet 'means-testing' of black South Africans with irregular informal incomes is notoriously difficult. TAC may need to consider a more explicit 'free lifeline' strategy, as the water and electricity campaigners have done, partially successfully. After all, I see TAC as integral to the overall politics of 'decommodification' and 'deglobalisation' that are so crucial to social progress across the world. To decommodify is to take that which is life-giving-our medicines and healthcare, water and a decent environment, clean energy, education and childcare, support for the elderly, even food and culture, as well as employment-and remove them from the market, as much as is required to ensure a lifeline access to all, on a universal basis.\r\n\r\nSuch socio-economic human rights can be won, in my view, only through deglobalisation, namely the delinking of countries and regions of the world from the bureaucratic straightjackets designed in Washington and Geneva-structural adjustment, TRIPs, etc-on behalf of corporate interests.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, whether or not TAC continues to tackle the three structural impediments to ARV access-neoliberal fiscal policy, pharmacorps and corporate control of health perks-the immediate victory will make a huge difference. For the half million South Africans who are symptomatic with AIDS or who have a CD4 blood count less than 200, there is now hope. Across the world, for three million people who died this year of AIDS, this breakthrough has come too late. But for 40 million others infected, the treatment activists and their international allies deserve a standing ovation. Those who help Washington-based Africa Action protest Bush health policies on December 1, World AIDS Day, will gather strength from the South African breakthrough, and they will be louder and prouder than ever.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"DEBT AND THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/debt_aid /downloads/debt _mdgs.pdf","body":"As a one off investment in meeting the Millennial Development Goals, the World Bank and IMF, non-G7 bilaterals and private creditors must cancel the outstanding debts owed to them by low income countries whose feasible revenues and levels of donor aid are not sufficient to finance their nationally owned development goals. This is according to a paper from CAFOD; Christian Aid; Eurodad; and Jubilee Research that sets out the policy actions required by the World Bank, IMF, and bilateral donors if their stated commitment to the fulfilment of the MDGs is to be taken seriously. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Declaration - International Conference of People Living with AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\"We demand that the international community and our governments take all necessary steps to immediately and urgently ensure the following: That donor countries contribute 10 Billion dollars annually to fight HIV/AIDS in poor countries and fully fund the Global fund; That all governments and international agencies immediately collaborate with us to ensure the rapid expansion of access to ARV in line with the WHO goal of 3 million people in less economically developed countries by 2005.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30104","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"DEMYSTIFYING ANTIRETROVIRAL THERAPY IN RESOURCE- POOR SETTINGS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.accessmed-msf.org/documents/EDMARVkhayelitsha.pdf","body":"This paper produced by the Access to Essential Medicines Campaign uses the example of a poor township 30 kilometres outside Cape Town to find out if antiretroviral therapy is possible in severely resource-constrained environments and to discover the best ways to deliver these drugs. AZT first became available in Khayelitsha township's two maternity wards in early 1999, and the programme has subsequently become one of the continent's biggest. Treatment was initially limited to opportunistic infections, but in May 2001, this was broadened to include antiretroviral therapy (ART), making the project the first to use antiretrovirals in government health facilities outside the context of clinical trials.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing evidence-based ethical policies on the migration of health workers","field_subtitle":"Human Resources for Health 2003 ","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-1-8.pdf","body":"It is estimated that in 2000 almost 175 million people, or 2.9% of the world's population, were living outside their country of birth, compared to 100 million, or 1.8% of the total population, in 1995.  As the global labour market strengthens, it is increasingly highly skilled professionals who are migrating. Medical practitioners and nurses represent a small proportion of highly skilled workers who migrate, but the loss of health human resources for developing countries can mean that the capacity of the health system to deliver health care equitably is compromised.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Dr Magda M A Ali","field_subtitle":"Group for Guidelines for Alternative Policies for Sudan (GAPS) ","field_url":"","body":"GAPS is a think tank of Sudanese professionals who attempt to develop alternative policies for Sudan.  I coordinate the health sector.  We held a workshop in 1999 and presently are preparing for a second workshop on 26 and 27 December 2003.  The workshop aims to discuss policy framework for post war Sudan. I find EQUINET very useful and a great source of information for all health planners.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter December 2003 Can victory on AIDS medicines catalyse wider change?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Equity Gauge Alliance: Reflections on Early Experiences","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.icddrb.org/images/jhpn2103_Global-equity.pdf","body":"The paper traces the evolution and working of the Global Equity Gauge Alliance (GEGA) and its efforts to promote health equity. GEGA places health equity squarely within a larger framework of social justice, linking findings on socioeconomic and health inequalities with differentials in power, wealth, and prestige in society. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Watch - mobilising a fragmented global health community","field_subtitle":"Dave McCoy","field_url":"","body":"Global civil society does not participate strongly and consistently in international health advocacy. Whilst high-profile success has recently been achieved with the campaigns on access to medicines and the past twenty years have seen positive achievements due to pressure from civil society (for example, on breastfeeding and smoking), there is a striking lack of involvement and pressure from health campaigners on broad health and health systems issues. Where such pressures exist, they are inadequately drawn upon by the institutions of global health governance \u2013 notably the World Health Organisation \u2013 whose legitimacy and accountability to the world\u2019s population would be enhanced by more vigorous engagement with civil society.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30128","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Watch publication planned","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Dear Editor,\r\nMedact, together with the People's Health Movement and GEGA, is planning the publication of the Global Health Watch, a report providing a civil society view on the state of the world's health. In preparation for this report, Medact is calling for testimonies from civil society on the different issues covered by the report. We will launch this call in several waves: firstly, we are looking for testimonies on the effects of the marketization of:\r\n\r\n1. Health care provision in the developing world. Issues we are particularly interested in are: \r\n- the effects of privatisation and commercialisation on access to health care and the quality of health care. For example, has privatisation led health providers to see health care as a business rather than a public service? Has it resulted in an increase in user fees? Have profit-motives led to an increase in unethical practices such as using cheaper drugs that do not work? \r\n- ways in which advocacy has improved access to health services (such as report cards for public services; participatory budgeting; and health consumer protection groups).\r\n\r\n2. Water, sanitation and electricity services.\r\nWhat is the effect of privatisation on access to these services? How does reduced access to water, for example, affect the poor? What is the effect on cost and quality of these services?\r\n\r\nThe testimonies will feed into and support arguments put forward in the publication. They will also be organised thematically and geographically and available for public access on the web. Testimonies should be no more than 800 words in length.\r\n\r\nWe hope that the Global Health Watch will form a mechanism to express and amplify civil society's concerns about the increase in marketisation and commercialisation of key public services and goods. Join us in this venture by helping us collate the testimonies of the unheard. Please e-mail Patricia Morton at patriciamorton@medact.org\r\n\r\nWith many thanks\r\nPatricia Morton\r\nFor the Global Health Watch team","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Prescriptions: Gendering Health and Human Rights ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://zedweb.cybergecko.net/cgi-bin/a.cgi?1%2084277%20004%207","body":"This book reviews a decade of women's participation in UN conferences, transnational networks, national advocacy efforts and sexual and reproductive health provision, assessing both their strengths and weaknesses.  It contains trenchant critiques of the Cairo, Beijing, and Copenhagen conference documents and of World Bank, WHO, and health sector reform policies.  It also offers case studies of national-level reform and advocacy efforts and appraises the controversy concerning TRIPs, trade, and essential AIDS drugs.  That controversy, the author argues, starkly illuminates the \"collision course\" of transnational corporate and global trade agendas with the struggle for gender, racial, and regional equity and the human right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Graduate Scholarship in Poverty Alleviation and Community Development","field_subtitle":"Brandeis University: The Heller School for Social Policy and Management","field_url":"","body":"The Poverty and Development (P&D) Scholarship for the Master of Arts in Sustainable International Development will be awarded to an early to mid-career development planner committed to poverty alleviation and community development within Southern Africa.  The competition is open to nationals of the following countries:  Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.  The Scholarship begins in late August 2004.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30123","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Graduate Scholarship in Poverty Alleviation and Community Development","field_subtitle":"Brandeis University: The Heller School for Social Policy and Management","field_url":"","body":"The Poverty and Development (P&D) Scholarship for the Master of Arts in Sustainable International Development will be awarded to an early to mid-career development planner committed to poverty alleviation and community development within Southern Africa.  The competition is open to nationals of the following countries:  Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.  The Scholarship begins in late August 2004.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30121","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"HEALTH FOR ALL NOW !  Revive Alma Ata","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.phmovement.org/pubs/index.html#Alamataanniversarypack","body":"This book is a collection of papers, statements and campaign material to further the cause of Alma Ata.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"HEALTH WORSENS IN ZIMBABWE","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.africaonline.com/site/Articles/1,3,54594.jsp","body":"The faltering Zimbabwe public health system has been further reduced as nurses and senior doctors join junior and mid-level doctors on a month-long strike. The nurses briefly joined the doctors striking last month for higher pay. They returned to work after being promised an 800% pay rise. But the strike was on again after pay checks last Thursday showed no increase.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS has shaped the crisis in southern africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38174","body":"The impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on Southern Africa has shaped the current humanitarian crisis in the region, where more than 6 million people will need food aid to survive the beginning of next year. The UN has warned that this part of the world faces the triple threat of food insecurity, weakened government capacity and the impact of HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Knowledge for better health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/81/11/en/pangwa1103.pdf","body":"Health research generates knowledge that can be utilized to improve health system performance and, ultimately, health and health equity.  The authors of this article propose a conceptual framework for health research systems (HRSs) that defines their boundaries, components, goals, and functions.  The framework adopts a systems perspective towards HRSs and serves as a foundation for constructing a practical approach to describe and analyse HRSs.  The analysis of HRSs should, in turn, provide a better understanding of how research contributes to gains in health and health equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Medical research: a third-world casualty?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/Opinions/index.cfm?fuseaction=readOpinions&itemid=206&language=1","body":"Translating the discoveries of clinical research into practice is vital, as the UK\u2019s Academy of Medical Sciences says in a recent report. But what do doctors in developing countries face in trying to keep up with the task? In this article, the authors say the challenges are legion. Medical academics in the developing world tend to work far from clinics. They often teach huge classes and bear heavy workloads, and struggle with poor salaries and little access to new findings in biomedicine. The research they conduct is all too often underfunded and irrelevant to national needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"NEW ELDIS KEY ISSUES PAGE: ANTI-RETROVIRALS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/hivaids/ARVs/ARVindex.htm","body":"Anti-Retrovirals (ARVs), where accessible and affordable, have had a significant impact on HIV/AIDS related morbidity and mortality. This guide from Eldis, launched to coincide with World AIDS Day 2003, outlines the key issues related to ARVs including generic drugs vs. patents, scaling up access to ARVs, as well as the limitations associated with anti-retroviral therapy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Non-contributory pensions and poverty prevention","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://idpm.man.ac.uk/ncpps/Papers/report_english.pdf","body":"Extending non-contributory pension programmes could have an impact on reducing poverty. Pensions play a key role in old age support systems, but research and debate on pension policy has so far focused on contributory pension programmes. This research project jointly published by the Institute of Development and Policy Management and HelpAge International analyses non-contributory pension programmes in Brazil and South Africa, the two developing countries with the largest programmes. The research aims to provide evidence of the impact of these programmes upon the wellbeing, participation and security of older people and their households; and to identify lessons for other developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"POST-CANCUN EXCLUSION","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.focusweb.org/index.php?option=news%20&task=viewarticle&sid=138","body":"The main WTO negotiations carried out these days in Geneva, convened by the Chairman of the General Council, are held amongst only a very small group of about 30 delegations. This includes the all-important issue of agriculture. As one developing world negotiator informally commented: \u2018We have been excluded from all the consultations post-Cancun. The process also has to be inclusive. How else are we going to ensure that our concerns are taken on board?\u2019 ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Pro-poor macroeconomic policies require poverty and social impact analysis","field_subtitle":"Eurodad 2003","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC13456&Resource=f1poverty","body":"This paper shows that in the PRGF (Poverty Reduction Growth Facility) the IMF continues to use the same rigid economic model and fails to recognise that different macroeconomic policy options exist. It then provides examples of the considerable work also going on outside the IMF on developing techniques for Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) of macroeconomic frameworks, which the fund has failed to take an active role in. The paper concludes that unless the IMF takes clear steps to ensure policy flexibility and PSIA as soon as possible, the much hailed poverty focus of the PRGF will become largely discredited.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Proposal Writing Training Course in the Field of HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria","field_subtitle":"25- 28th March 2004   ","field_url":"","body":"This course is designed to equip researchers with managerial skills to meet competitive demands of proposal writing in response to local and international funding opportunities.  Proposal writing skills is of particular interest to researchers who intend to establish research groups/entities with the capacity for repeated grant funding.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30131","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"PROVIDE ANTI-RETROVIRAL THERAPY TO ALL IN NEED","field_subtitle":"Pan-African Treatment Access Movement (PATAM) Statement","field_url":"","body":"\"On this World Aids Day, the Pan-African Treatment Access Movement (PATAM), a grassroots social movement for access to anti-retroviral therapy and other essential medicines extends a hand to our grandparents, brothers, sisters, friends and many others in our communities who relentlessly bear the brunt of the epidemic with unending fortitude. They are the ones whose attention does not stray away from those who lie immobile, as their bodies slowly succumb to the wiles of the HI virus. They are the young who are forced to stop attending school so that they can look after their even younger brothers and sisters because mum and dad have long died of Aids. We salute you!\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30130","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"REFRAMING HIV AND AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://news.hst.org.za/view.php3?id=20031108","body":"Last month the World Health Organisation declared the HIV/AIDS epidemic a global health emergency. Should governments go one step further and treat it as a disaster? Over the past 20 years, the public health community has learnt a tremendous amount about the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Yet, despite widespread discussion about the epidemic and some measurable progress, the overall response has been insufficient: globally 42 million people are already infected with HIV, prevalence continues to rise, and less than 5% of those affected have access to lifesaving medicines, according to the British Medical Journal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Research Methodology Training Course in the Field of HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria","field_subtitle":"8-19th March 2004   ","field_url":"","body":"This research training course is designed to prepare researchers and postgraduate students with requisite knowledge for formulating sound projects to meet the requirements of postgraduate training of the University of the Witwatersrand and other universities.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30080","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Right to Health - From Alma Ata to Doha","field_subtitle":"Speech at the Seminar on the Right to Health at the European Social Forum in Paris","field_url":"","body":"\"The Alma Ata declaration in 1978 proposed a new concept of health, what we can call today the human rights approach to health, health seen as a human right.  Today, when health and health services are seen as a commodity, since they are \"non-productive\" expenses for the State and health care systems all over the world, not just in developing countries are threatened by market-economy thinking and are being prostituted, the declaration of Alma Ata and its emphasis on primary health care assumes special significance.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30105","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"ROUTINE BOTSWANA HIV TESTING INITIATIVE AIMS TO GET MORE PEOPLE INTO TREATMENT PROGRAM","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=20767","body":"Although Botswana, one of the African countries hit hardest by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, offers free antiretroviral drugs, has 16 treatment facilities and hundreds of trained doctors and nurses, the nation is \"barely making a dent\" in fighting the disease. However, a new initiative to provide HIV tests as part of routine medical checkups in public and private clinics may help to improve HIV testing rates in the country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Soul City expands Aids message to SADC","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1493800-6078-0,00.html","body":"The Soul City brand will be expanded to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries to help form a unified approach in combating HIV/Aids and other health related issues in the region.  The Soul City Institute for Health and Development Communication (IHDC) said health challenges faced by the SADC region as a whole were not dissimilar to those Soul City IHDC has sought to address in South Africa.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"South African AIDS ACTIVISTS SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCE AND HOPE","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?2%2C40%2C5%2C343","body":"Zackie Achmat, a South African who is a leading proponent of an international solution to the AIDS crisis, was in New York in November, just as his government at long last delivered on the demands that he and other activists have pushed for years - that it develop a comprehensive treatment plan for its 4.5 million citizens living with HIV. Achmat was blistering in his critique of the failure of world leaders to confront the scourge of HIV. At the top of his list was the American president. \"The greatest threat to public health in the world is George Bush staying in power,\" he said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"THE COSTS OF ANTI-RETROVIRAL TREATMENT IN ZAMBIA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.phrplus.org/Pubs/Tech029_fin.pdf","body":"This report from Partners for Health Reformplus analyses the costs and resource requirements associated with the provision of antiretroviral (ARV) therapy in the public health sector in Zambia. It provides per-patient cost estimates for highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART), voluntary counselling and testing, several opportunistic infections, and prevention of mother-to-child transmission services. These per-patient cost estimates are used to project total program costs, which are then compared to currently budgeted resources with an emphasis on financial sustainability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Influence Of Income On Health","field_subtitle":"Health Affairs, 2002","field_url":"http://www.healthaffairs.org/readeragent.php?ID=/usr/local/apache/sites/healthaffairs.org/htdocs/Library/v21n2/s7.pdf","body":"Income is related to health in three ways: through the gross national product of countries, the income of individuals, and the income inequalities among rich nations and among geographic areas.  A central question is the degree to which these associations reflect a causal association.  If so, redistribution of income would improve health.  This paper discusses two ways in which income could be causally related to health: through a direct effect on the material conditions necessary for biological survival, and through an effect on social participation and opportunity to control life circumstances. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"The interface between health sector reform and human resources in health","field_subtitle":"Human Resources for Health 2003","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-1-9.pdf","body":"The relationship between health sector reform and the human resources issues raised in that process has been highlighted in several studies. These studies have focused on how the new processes have modified the ways in which health workers interact with their workplace, but few of them have paid enough attention to the ways in which the workers have influenced the reforms. The impact of health sector reform has modified critical aspects of the health workforce, including labour conditions, degree of decentralization of management, required skills and the entire system of wages and incentives. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The role of public funds in reducing child mortality ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=2&i=h9jr1g1&u=3fcf4db8","body":"What chance do poor countries have of reducing child mortality by two thirds between 1990 and 2015?  What contribution can public spending make to meeting this Millennium Development Goal (MDG)?  Research by the Overseas Development Institute suggests the need for a greater pro-poor focus in public health expenditure. Over the last 40 years child mortality has halved in low-income countries.  However, it is increasing in sub-Saharan Africa and there are also large differences between the health status of poor and non-poor children within countries.  What can governments do to improve child survival?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"THE ROOTS OF SOUTHERN AFRICA'S FOOD CRISIS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/indepth/0307safrica /safoodcrisis.pdf","body":"Donor responses to the current food emergency in southern Africa need to start with an acknowledgement of their responsibility for the increase in poverty and vulnerability in southern Africa. \"They must be willing to explore, together with southern African governments and citizens, pro-poor macroeconomic, debt relief and budgetary policies, even where these differ from orthodox beliefs,\" says a paper from Christian Aid.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"The State of Food Insecurity in the World","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/j0083e/j0083e00.htm","body":"Worldwide, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that 842 million people were undernourished in 1999-2001, the most recent years for which figures are available.  This includes 10 million in industrialized countries, 34 million in countries in transition and 798 million in developing countries.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"THE TROPICAL INSTITUTE OF COMMUNITY HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT in AFRICA: THE 3RD TICH ANNUAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE ","field_subtitle":"CALL FOR ABSTRACTS","field_url":"","body":"Abstracts will highlight one or more of the following sub-themes: Strengthening health systmes and empowering local structures through partnerships; Counting and accounting for action: Striving for sustainable CB-HIS; Packaging and financing CBHC: A system for equitable resource generation, allocation and tracking; and Alternative models for CBHC workforce in the context of poverty and ill health.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30120","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"THE TROPICAL INSTITUTE OF COMMUNITY HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT in AFRICA: THE 3RD TICH ANNUAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE ","field_subtitle":"Call for Abstracts","field_url":"","body":"Abstracts will highlight one or more of the following sub-themes: Strengthening health systems and empowering local structures through partnerships; Counting and accounting for action: Striving for sustainable CB-HIS; Packaging and financing CBHC: A system for equitable resource generation, allocation and tracking; and Alternative models for CBHC workforce in the context of poverty and ill health.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30124","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Toolkit: Involving Men in Community Home Based Care for HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This toolkit, prepared by JSI (UK)'s Zimbabwe HIV and AIDS Programme and SafAIDS, is for programme managers in Community Home Based Care.  The toolkit is to encourage and guide men who take part in the care and support of family members living with HIV and AIDS.  The toolkit is available free of charge in hard copy format or on a CD-ROM.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WARM WELCOME FOR SOUTH AFRICAN PLAN TO PROVIDE AIDS DRUGS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"After years of delays, the South African government gave its stamp of approval November to a plan for providing free anti-AIDS drugs. Over the next five years, the state hopes to extend the programme to over a million people living with AIDS. The price of a year's supply of the life-prolonging drugs, also known as anti-retrovirals (ARV's), is about 100 dollars - fifty times less than it was in November 2002. \r\nRelated Link:\r\n* Link to full report\r\nhttp://www.gov.za/reports/2003/aidsoperationalplan.pdf","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Announces Details of 3 by 5 plan","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=21095","body":"The World Health Organisation as part of its World AIDS Day activities announced details of its \"three by five\" HIV/AIDS plan, which aims to treat three million HIV-positive people with antiretroviral drugs by 2005, the Washington Post reports.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WORLD AIDS DAY: INSTITUTIONALIZED AIDS AND THE QUEST FOR ACCOUNTABILITY","field_subtitle":"Sanjay Basu","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?category=Editorial","body":"There are few moments in the history of AIDS that can call for celebration. The recent decision of the South African government to begin rolling-out antiretrovirals is certainly near the top of the list. But many persons might be tempted to celebrate more widely as December 1st, World AIDS Day, arrives this year, if only because AIDS has received such mainstream appeal that funds now appear to be travelling in all directions, and new programs are announced nearly everyday. Bill Clinton, once the designer of trade sanctions stopping countries like Thailand and Argentina from importing AIDS medicines, now announces generic drug price negotiations. Randall Tobias, a former executive at multi-national drug company Eli Lilly now claims to advance a $15 billion U.S. foreign AIDS budget. If there is anything we can be certain of, it is that AIDS now travels as a key cultural commodity in the most established institutions. But is this cause for celebration?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe's Challenge: Equity in Health Sector Responses to HIV and AIDS in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"HIV has severely affected the overall health of people in the southern Africa region by impacting directly on individuals and their families, and by placing additional burdens on economies, social structures and health services.  Poorer people are disproportionately affected because they have fewer resources to deal with the impact of HIV on their daily lives. Now that international advocacy has led to reductions in process of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), there is concern that poorer people will not have access to these drugs.  To examine these issues, a study was commissioned by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) and Oxfam GB to highlight equity issues in HIV and AIDS, health sector responses and treatment access in four countries in southern Africa.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30097","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe: HIV/AIDS-related positions","field_subtitle":"ActionAid","field_url":"","body":"ActionAid is an international development Agency working in over 30 countries worldwide. Its mission is to \"work with poor and marginalized communities to control vulnerability, achieve sustained improvements in quality of life and for realisation of rights in the face of HIV/AIDS, by working through local, national and international partnerships\". ActionAid's HIV/AIDS work is increasingly working in partnership with governments, NGOs and the private sector to contribute significantly to commitments in UNGASS, Millennium Development Goals as well as undertaking large-scale management of contractual programs. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30087","field_issue_date":"2003-12-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":" THE IMPACT OF HIV/AIDS ON RURAL HOUSEHOLDS AND LAND ISSUES IN SOUTHERN AND EASTERN AFRICA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/livelihoods/landrights/d ownloads/hivba ckg.pdf","body":"Although access to land may not be the most effective strategy for HIV/AIDS affected households, in rural areas it is likely to remain central to their survival, according to a paper from Oxfam that develops a conceptual framework to holistically explore the impact of HIV/AIDS on land, particularly at the rural household level.  It is intended that this framework will provide a basis for pragmatic recommendations on this issue, which the paper argues is a neglected area in all Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"\"The Pop Reporter\" Launches Customized Edition","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://prds.infoforhealth.org/signup.php","body":"\"The Pop Reporter,\" The INFO Project's weekly, free e-zine for the world's reproductive health care professional, has announced the launch of the new customized edition.  This state-of-the-art feature allows subscribers to customize their subscriptions, tailoring issues to both topic and delivery preferences.  Now subscribers may choose from among 17 categories of the most important concerns of the world's reproductive health community today.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"$623M for Disease Fight comes up short","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aegis.org/news/newsday/2003/ND031002.html","body":"The board of the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis has voted to send grants of $623 million to poor countries, a $246-million decrease from grants made earlier this year. The amount is considered insufficient in the battle against HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"13th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA): complete list of reports now available","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Please find through the link below: A Complete list of 13th ICASA HDN KC Team on-site reports now available; Instructions how to request/obtain the articles by web/email; Note for newsletter/eForum/website editors.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30024","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"ACCELERATING ACTION AGAINST AIDS IN AFRICA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/html/pub/UNA-docs/ICASA_Report_2003_en_pdf.pdf","body":"Total funding for the response to AIDS in the world's low- and middle-income countries is only half of what will be required in 2005 to effectively confront the epidemic, according to a Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/ AIDS. This report, presented at ICASA 2003 in Nairobi, assesses current global commitments to addressing HIV/AIDS. It states that, despite the fact that the pandemic has recently reached the top of the African and international agenda, resources are still nowhere near sufficient.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): A Global Public Goods Perspective","field_subtitle":"Online discussion","field_url":"","body":"How could enhancing the provision of select global public goods facilitate achieving the MDGs at the set target date? Read the complete background paper at http://www.gpgnet.net/discussion.php. You may subscribe to the MDGs and Global Public Goods discussion forum by sending a blank email to:\r\nsubscribe-gpgnet-mdgs@groups.undp.org","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa to get online research database","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/","body":"A new African initiative is to be launched to make dissertations and theses by researchers and students across the continent available online.  The move is a bid to increase the worldwide profile and accessibility of research by African scholars.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid, public expenditure and the MILLENNIUM Development Goals: is collaboration possible?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/society/s8ajr1g2.html","body":"Is public expenditure in developing countries inefficient and biased against the poor?  How could better aid delivery enhance the likelihood of achieving Millenium Development Goals (MDGs)?  What changes are required in current patterns of public expenditure and monitoring and in donor-recipient relations?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR/PROFESSOR/SENIOR LECTURER IN HEALTH ","field_subtitle":"University of Pretoria","field_url":"","body":"The successful candidate will Head the Health Measurement track for the School and accept responsibility for the strategy, implementation and quality control of all teaching in health measurement and research methods. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30070","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Chemists leaving SA by the hundreds as US group dispenses big bucks","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://news.hst.org.za/view.php3?id=20031031","body":"Having difficulty getting an airline booking to the US?  The problem may well be that you're standing in line with a small army of pharmacists and their families due to leave SA over the next few weeks.  Behind this exodus is Albertson's, a $28bn/year turnover US retail pharmacy group with a staff of 200 000.  One of their recruits, Cape Town pharmacist Keith Hughes, will be leaving behind a 20-year career to begin afresh in Delaware.  As an \"intern\" Hughes can expect an immediate $2 000/month income boost.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"CONTROVERSY OVER NEW AIDS PROJECTIONS in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37388","body":"AIDS experts have raised doubts about a new study suggesting South Africa's HIV/AIDS epidemic peaked in 2002 and was expected to level off as fewer new infections were reported. The study, published in the recent issue of the African Journal of AIDS Research, said that the epidemic in South Africa peaked last year with about 4.69 million people living with HIV/AIDS and had started to level off.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Creating the will to practice participation: the role of donors, NGOs and recipient governments","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/society/s9ccl1g1.html","body":"All aid actors, whether donors, recipients or implementers, now talk of incorporating participation of the poor - but has there really been a paradigm shift?  What do the major multilateral and bilateral donors mean when they talk about 'participation' and 'stakeholders'?  What institutional and attitudinal changes are necessary to enable the poor to truly participate in decision-making?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing a new service?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/search/worldmap.asp","body":"Looking for an organisation in any area of the world? Follow the link provided for a searchable database of thousands of HIV agencies in over 150 countries, to network with those who have the experience you need. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing evidence-based ethical policies on the migration of health workers: conceptual and practical challenges","field_subtitle":"Human Resources for Health 2003 ","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/1/1/8/abstract","body":"It is estimated that in 2000 almost 175 million people, or 2.9% of the world's population, were living outside their country of birth, compared to 100 million, or 1.8% of the total population, in 1995.  As the global labour market strengthens, it is increasingly highly skilled professionals who are migrating.  Medical practitioners and nurses represent a small proportion of highly skilled workers who migrate, but the loss of health human resources for developing countries can mean that the capacity of the health system to deliver health care equitably is compromised.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Donor response still slow in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37316","body":"In spite of repeated calls for urgent funding to avert a humanitarian crisis in southern Africa, the money needed is not arriving, Chris Kaye, a senior humanitarian official has warned.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Down but not out: understanding poverty at the household level","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/society/s5adh1g1.html","body":"Does the 'average' poor person exist?  Do big units of analysis - aggregated information about thousands of households - obscure micro-level actors and processes and hinder our understanding of poverty?  What can be learned about current poverty eradication strategies from examination of the circumstances of a single household?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"DR POGULA DURGAPRASAD","field_subtitle":"National Institute of Rural Development, India","field_url":"","body":"Your work is commendable. Your network objective is laudable. I would like to learn more about equity and gender concerns etc. Will comment more after receiving your latest newsletter.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"drug firms abuse DOMINANT position in arv market, commission finds","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Competition Commission in South Africa has found that pharmaceutical firms GlaxoSmithKline South Africa and Boehringer Ingelheim have contravened the Competition Act of 1998.  The firms have been found to have abused their dominant positions in their respective anti-retroviral (ARV) markets.  For press releases from the Competition Commission, the Treatment Action Campaign and GlaxoSmithKline, please click on the link below.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30050","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter November 2003 The Dangerous Deradicalization of AIDS Discourse: Meanings and Implications for Representative Activism","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EXODUS OF PROFESSIONALS WORSENS HEALTH CARE in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.africaonline.com/site/Articles/1,3,54294.jsp","body":"The health delivery system in Zimbabwe is declining as medical personnel leave the country in search of better working conditions and more money. The exodus of nurses and doctors and other professionals from Zimbabwe for economic reasons is accelerating, with most of those leaving going to Britain, the country's former colonial master. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Experts Required","field_subtitle":"Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria","field_url":"","body":"The Global Fund was created to finance, attract, manage and disburse additional resources to make a sustainable and significant contribution to mitigate the impact caused by HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in countries in need, and contributing to poverty reduction.  The Technical Review Panel (TRP), which has 26 members, plays a crucial role in reviewing proposals submitted to the Global Fund and ensuring that those funded are of high quality.  The TRP consists of 11 cross-cutters, 7 HIV-AIDS experts, 4 Malaria experts and 4 Tuberculosis experts.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30028","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"FORGING A GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP FOR DEVELOPMENT: SOME CRITICAL ISSUES ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.socialwatch.org/en/informesTematicos /62.html","body":"Goal Eight of the Millennium Development Goals does not have detailed enough targets to define the objectives and actions that are needed in the area of global finance, including the problems of debt, capital flows and a healthy system of financing for development. The emerging paradigm calls for developing countries to take a pragmatic approach to globalisation and liberalisation and to integrate their domestic economies with the global economy in the areas of finance, trade and investment. However, the financial system as a whole -increasingly characterised by the absence of regulations, transparency or a fair set of rules for resolving the conflicts between debtor and creditor countries - requires an overhaul, says this article on the website www.socialwatch.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"generic aids drugs deal is secured","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www9.sbs.com.au/theworldnews/region.php?id=71439&region=4","body":"Former United States President Bill Clinton has announced a deal with four generic-drug companies to slash the price of AIDS drugs in parts of the developing world.  The agreement with three Indian pharmaceutical firms and a South African company will cut the price of a commonly used triple-drug treatment by almost a third, to about US$ 0.38 a day per patient.  They include nine countries in the Caribbean and the African nations of Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa and Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"global health watch","field_subtitle":"authors required","field_url":"","body":"Global civil society has not adequately participated in international health advocacy.  Although high-profile success has been achieved with some campaigns, most notably around access to medicines and breastfeeding and certain diseases, there has been a striking lack of involvement and pressure from health campaigners on broader public health and health systems issues.  In addition, disparities in health between the rich and the poor have grown at alarming rates both within and between countries, leaving society and the public health movement with a large humanitarian and moral challenge.  The People's Health Movement, the Global Equity Gauge Alliance and Medact therefore propose to mobilise a fragmented global health community through the publication of an annual Global Health Watch.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30052","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthlink Worldwide's Resource Centre Manual (2nd Edition)","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.healthlink.org.uk/pubs.html","body":"The fully updated edition of the Resource Centre Manual from Healthlink Worldwide is out now and available as a PDF document.  It is also available in text only.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS - A PROGRESS REPORT","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/html/pub/Topics/UNGASS2003 /UNGASS_Re port_2003_en_p df.pdf","body":"Using the mandates of the UN General Assembly Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS in 2001, the UNAIDS Secretariat and Cosponsors collaboratively developed a series of global/ regional and national indicators to measure the global community's progress in reaching the Declaration's targets in line with the Millennium Development Goals. This report, by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/ AIDS, which presents data from the first use of these indicators, represents the most comprehensive assessment to date of the state of global, regional and national responses on the broad range of challenges posed by HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Human Rights and HIV ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/InSite?page=kb-08-01-07#S1X","body":"HIV continues to spread throughout the world, shadowed by increasing challenges to human rights, at both national and global levels. The virus continues to be marked by discrimination against population groups: those who live on the fringes of society or who are assumed to be at risk of infection because of behaviours, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, or social characteristics that are stigmatised in a particular society. HIV/AIDS-related human rights issues are not only becoming more apparent, but also becoming increasingly diverse, according to the introduction to a chapter of a publication on health and human rights on the HIV InSite website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"INASP-Health Directory 2003/2004 ","field_subtitle":"Now available as a book and CDROM","field_url":"","body":"The INASP-Health Directory is the leading reference on health information development.  It provides detailed information on more than 240 international programmes working to increase the availability of relevant, reliable information.  The Directory includes sections on: providers of free and low-cost information, professional associations, distribution programmes and funding agencies. The book version of the Directory/Links is available for 20 pounds sterling and the CD-ROM costs 10 pounds.  Prices include postage and packing.  To order, please visit: http://www.inasp.info/pubs/index.html ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Letting Them Die: How HIV/AIDS Intervention Programmes Often Fail","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/africa/ma2003/sld-1024.html","body":"This book examines the context and social construction of sexuality, HIV prevention and community development, based on a three-year study of a large-scale HIV/AIDS prevention programme in a South African gold mining community. The Summertown Project was a well-resourced intervention that sought to promote sexual health through the treatment of STIs, community-led peer education, and the promotion of local participation and 'stakeholder' partnerships.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Making one billion count: investing in adolescents\\\\","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2003/","body":"Over 1.2 billion adolescents - one person in five - are making the transition from childhood to adulthood. How well they are prepared to face adult challenges in a fast changing world will shape humanity's common future. Adolescents must be enabled to avoid early pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS while being given skills, opportunities and a real say in development plans, stresses The State of World Population 2003 report by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal deaths disproportionately high in developing countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/reproductive-health/MNBH/maternal_mortality_2000/index.html","body":"New findings on maternal mortality by WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA show that a woman living in sub-Saharan Africa has a 1 in 16 chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth. This compares with a 1 in 2,800 risk for a woman from a developed region. These findings are contained in a new global report on maternal mortality just released online by the three agencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternal mortality stubbornly high in southern africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37386","body":"Women in sub-Saharan Africa face the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, with up to one in 16 women running the risk of dying in pregnancy or childbirth, a new study has found. The study, conducted by the World Health Organisation, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), found that in Angola and Malawi one in seven women faced the risk of dying due to pregnancy or childbirth, compared with one in 2,800 for a woman from a developed region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"New variant famine: AIDS and food crisis in southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol362/iss9391/full/llan.362.9391.editorial_and_review.27408.1","body":"Southern Africa is undergoing a food crisis of surprising scale and novelty. The familiar culprits of drought and mismanagement of national strategies are implicated. However, this crisis is distinct from conventional drought-induced food shortages with respect to those vulnerable to starvation, and the course of impoverishment and recovery. These new aspects to the food crisis can be attributed largely to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the region, argues this article in The Lancet. \"HIV/AIDS has created a new category of highly vulnerable households - namely, those with ill adults or those whose adults have died. The general burden of care in both AIDS-affected and non-AIDS-affected households has reduced the viability of farming livelihoods,\" say the authors. (This article requires registration.)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Panos Audit of Broadcasting Environments Across Africa ","field_subtitle":"Call for Researchers","field_url":"","body":"The Panos AIDS Programme in partnership with the Centre for Communications Programmes at Johns Hopkins University is carrying out a series of country assessments on media environments for public health across Africa.  The assessments will focus on broadcasting in particular. In each focus country Panos will work with local experts to research broadcasting policies and the broadcasting environment, and its impact on public health.  The results of the research will be presented in a number of policy and editorial outputs. If your organisation has expertise or current activities in this area we would very much like to contact you to share experiences and to investigate possible synergies. Feel free to contact Johanna Hanefeld johannah@panoslondon.org.uk ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Pressure on Southern African States to Manage Water Resources ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=20451","body":"Water wars are unlikely to be fought in Southern Africa, but as the region anxiously awaits the return of summer rains to accompany the new planting season, the current ongoing food security crisis has put new pressure on nations to manage their shared water resources. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Reaching the Poor  with Effective Health, Nutrition, and Population Services","field_subtitle":"Conference Announcement","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/healthandpopulation/Brochure/main.htm","body":"The World Bank, in cooperation with the Gates Foundation and the Dutch And Swedish Governments, is hosting a conference \"Reaching the Poor with Effective Health, Nutrition, and Population Services: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why.\"\r\nThe conference will take place 18-20 February 2004, in Washington, D.C.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"REVIEW OF THE 2004 WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT (WDR) - \u201cMAKING SERVICES WORK FOR POOR PEOPLE\u201d","field_subtitle":" Critique Of The World Development Report By Citizens\u2019 Network On Essential Services (CNES)","field_url":"http://www.servicesforall.org/html/tools/2004WDR_review.shtml","body":"On September 21, 2003, the World Bank unveiled its annual flagship publication, the 2004 World Development Report, entitled \u201cMaking Services Work for Poor People.\u201d The WDR\u2019s main premise is that basic services - primary education, basic health care, water and electricity services - fail to reach the poor because too many governments lack sound and representative institutions of governance. Ironically, the report expresses strong confidence in the ability of these same unaccountable governments to regulate private service provision. \r\nRelated Link:\r\n* STAND AND DELIVER! ANALYSES OF THE WORLD BANK'S WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2004\r\nhttp://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/news/WDR2004.html","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"RISING COSTS OF MEDICAL DRUGS IMPACTS ON POOR in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=37054","body":"The cost of health care in Zimbabwe finally went beyond the reach of most people this month when medical drug suppliers and pharmacies hiked prices by more than 1,000 percent, citing an increase by the same margin in import costs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Supply Initiative introduces text-only website","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.rhsupplies.org/textonly/index.html","body":"The Supply Initiative has introduced a \"text-only\" version of its web site, available at http://www.rhsupplies.org/textonly/index.html.  This simple low-technology web site is easy to print out and only needs a fraction of the time to load.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30068","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"TB Education and Training Resources Web Site","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This Web site includes a searchable database of TB education and training resources that can be used by TB and other health care professionals, patients, and the general public.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30071","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"TB WORKFORCE CRISIS A MAJOR OBSTACLE TO GLOBAL TREATMENT SUCCESS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/releases/2003/pr74 /en/","body":"A growing \"workforce crisis\" is a serious obstacle to achieving targets for global tuberculosis control set for 2005 by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Faster and more effective recruitment and training of TB health workers is needed to ensure vacancies in developing countries are filled quickly, says a draft report written by TB experts. Of the 22 high burden countries (HBCs) which account for 80% of the world's TB cases, 17 reported that their efforts to reach the 2005 targets are being hampered by staffing problems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Dangerous Deradicalization of AIDS Discourse: Meanings and Implications for Representative Activism","field_subtitle":"Sanjay Basu","field_url":"","body":"Earlier this week, the Clinton Foundation announced the dramatic reduction of AIDS drug prices after its negotiations with several \"generic\" pharmaceutical manufacturers; the result was a cutting in half of the price of antiretroviral treatment for AIDS patients in several poor countries.  While the news was welcome to most persons working on the issue, and while indeed many groups eagerly await specific details that might reveal problems or wonders in this deal, there is an underlying question that will remain unaddressed by technical evaluations of the new drug price reduction: what does it mean when a foundation headed by a person who--years ago--placed trade sanctions on countries attempting to import low-cost medicines now helps to procure such drugs and enters the spotlight of praise in the \"AIDS community\"?\r\n\r\nThe issue is not merely one of hypocrisy or even of repentant revelation and progressive reform.  At issue, more generally, is the question of what the meaning of AIDS has become as it has travelled through so many powerful institutions and been altered by so many professional \"institutionalists\", and what the implications of this are for those people genuinely concerned about human well-being.  The answer might be found in the frequently-expressed bitter remark from young public health students who now say that AIDS is getting \"too much attention.\" Those who disagree with this perspective will, quite rightly, point to the disease's devastating toll and suggest that such attention is certainly justified and perhaps not even provided in adequate magnitude or appropriate programs.  But, perhaps just as importantly, a second rebuttal is needed: that criticisms about one disease becoming too mainstream or too attractive for the institutional crowd assume that public health advocates are not fighting for general well-being, but rather battling against each other to steal the most funds from one another, like slaves competing for maximum output at the mill.  If there is one thing that the AIDS activist movement has taught us over the last several years, it is this: that rather than fighting amongst ourselves over a fixed pot of money, those of us who stop thinking through the \"cost-effective\" framework and think through politically strategic paradigms can make the overall pot of money significantly larger, and can make our set of available options much wider.  The funding provision may involve chaining ourselves to things, but the campaigns do in fact work, and few who review the history of AIDS activism can argue otherwise.  To expand our paradigms simultaneously has also meant addressing the plain fact that diseases are not isolated and singular entities, but agents with reciprocal effects--that HIV rates affect TB rates, which affect community well-being and family stability (and vice versa), which in turn affect vulnerability to other diseases and social stresses and nearly everything else that matters to living a decent life.\r\n\r\nYears ago, the paradigms used to address AIDS were focused on identifying specific \"risk groups\" and \"targeting\" them for interventions.  These interventions were almost exclusively constructed though a \"rational choice\" framework (or what I've called \"public health behaviourism\")--a framework that wrongly assumes that poor women in economically-dependent relationships can negotiate sex, or that assumes that depressed men in the all-male barracks of South African mines (with a 42% injury rate) will care more about a disease that can kill them 10 years down the line than about finding some minor satisfaction through alcohol or sex.  The paradigm even promotes \"models\" like Uganda, failing to account for the fact that much of the data coming out of such countries indicates that \"prevention-only\" measures were working only among the wealthier sectors, while the poor continue to suffer the greatest burden of disease.  I have compared the realities of poverty and the rhetoric of public health behaviourism elsewhere (1); my task here is to argue that something very strange is going on if this behaviouristic paradigm has finally shifted to a new paradigm that addresses the issue of resource (mal)distribution and inequality--in particular, \"access to antiretrovirals\"--but in the midst of this, the Clinton Foundation, of all groups, has emerged as a central hero.\r\n\r\nWhat is odd about this event is captured by the very framework of the Clinton initiative.  I am not, here, referring to the extensive patent law strengthening done under the Clinton administration, which now ironically undermines in some ways the Clinton Foundation's own initiative; this set of issues around hypocrisy is obvious enough.  What I am referring to is that the deal made by the Foundation was narrowed to one about AIDS, and more specifically, antiretroviral drugs.  This seems appropriate, but I will argue that while it may be technically competent, it is not politically so, and the press releases and narrowing of scope of the negotiations to just antiretroviral drugs avoided the core of the problem.  Not only was the scope merely \"narrowed\", but it was done in a way to suggest that such price negotiations could not lead to questioning of intellectual property issues, and more importantly, could not be used for diseases besides AIDS.  This was merely an \"AIDS drug access agreement\".  And AIDS will supposedly be solved through existing behaviouristic prevention measures and a few of these new types of drug negotiations.  In essence, the deal moves us back towards the days when AIDS was treated as a singular entity, a problem to be addressed without asking questions of why it has appeared the way it has, and why it continues to sustain itself in the way it does (that is, why it remains a disease of the poor).\r\n\r\nThe Foundation focused on the drug price reduction as an AIDS issue, and AIDS as now primarily an \"access to antiretrovirals\" issue.  If there is any sure indication that \"access to antiretrovirals\" has become a mainstream concern, this is it.  And yet, as someone who has advocated for such access for nearly 7 years, this is a frightening phenomenon.\r\n\r\nMy concern is that lack of access to antiretrovirals is an indicator of something much broader, and AIDS is also a symptom of much more nested problems.  If AIDS is appearing so often in the context of trade agreements, where the crash of primary commodity prices leads farmers to migrate to industrial centres and break off their marriages, making \"monogamy\" a nonsensical idea (2); if inequalities in access to jobs and education force women into prostitution as the means to survive (3); if the terms of inequitable worker contracts mean that depression and drug abuse are the two primary options for workers in the lowest income sectors (4, 5), then AIDS is not just a \"syndrome\", but an end-stage \"symptom\" of a much larger disease.\r\n\r\nWhat is problematic, then, is that as \"access to antiretrovirals\" has become part of the centre of AIDS discourse, two camps have appeared to negotiate the phrase's meaning.  On one side we have the Clinton Foundation, who through technical interventions and isolated negotiations will attempt to disguise its past and avoid coming to terms with patenting and other structural problems as it \"solves\" the pandemic through the most elite forms of politics: closed-door negotiations.  On the other hand, there are those that recognize that \"access to antiretrovirals\" is merely a group of code words that indicate, most broadly, \"the right to resources needed for a decent life.\" The lack of antiretrovirals in poor countries is part of a broader problem of lack of medicines; this, in turn, is symptomatic of a broader problem of inappropriate resource distribution, which in turn indicates dramatic power inequalities.  That form of thinking is precisely what the Clinton Foundation's press releases seem to try to hinder, arguing that this selective price reduction was AIDS-specific, and something that the elites can take care of.\r\n\r\nThe distinction is not minor, for it brings us to bear upon our role as self-described \"activists\"--a term that, all too often, carries with it the most extreme forms of self-promotion and self-righteousness, and often a vulnerability to injure those who we claim to advocate for.  The problem with treating AIDS as just a disease, and not a symptom of broader inequalities, is that this prescription is more frequently coming from \"activists\" who have lost touch with the context of the statements they receive from those they claim to represent.  In the letters and editorials of papers in neighbourhoods and cities most affected by AIDS, the disease is not merely a concern about drugs.  Drugs are crucial; but talk about inequality in access to drugs are also representative--they are indicators, social markers (like conspiracy theories or public protest) that something much deeper is going wrong.  And the hegemony exerted by activists who lose this sense is a hegemony that is indeed very dangerous, because it inflates a desire for personal heroism and self-promotion and neglects the structural inequalities few are willing to approach for fear of being left out of elite conversation.  The new public health advocates struggle with the task of understanding medicine distribution technicalities and little else; they do not ask if there are other avenues to approach, or even if this is merely one recipe torn apart and read in isolation, because they have forgotten (or have never learned) that this recipe was part of a much larger cookbook.  AIDS is reduced to an issue of \"access to antiretrovirals\", rather than having \"access to antiretrovirals\" be a representative AIDS issue that serves to hint at the direction of the fuel tanks supplying the biggest fire in human history.\r\n\r\nAll too often, the \"structural problems\" fuelling the fire are declared impossible for public campaigning; too difficult for effective activism, or--worse yet--the domain of lunatics and extremists.  Once again, the common, day-to-day forces in AIDS activism prove such contentions wrong.  At universities across the U.S., U.K., and Canada, students are engaging with activist groups in \"the South\" to alter university drug development policies in line with the community needs of those who have been excluded from research benefits (www.essentialmedicines.org); in other parts of the U.S., even as federal funds get shredded under neo-conservative fiscal policies, activists have kept pressure on local governments to preserve key social services by promoting ballot initiatives among the poor; elsewhere, labour policies are becoming central parts of AIDS activism movements, which are winning battles to improve housing and terms of contracts after involving mine workers and other affected persons more centrally in the campaigning process.  The key, then, to maintaining a representative discourse on AIDS is to diffuse power in this manner and consistently expand the meaning of AIDS to its structural causes rather than its most visible and easily acceptable end-points; the commonality between all of these effective \"structural interventions\" is that they are operated with a sense of caution, and a fear of exerting dangerous hegemony that forces those involved to re-think what it at stake.  Rather than taking a mainstream issue and carving out a field of power within it, these campaigns are directing themselves in the opposite direction: taking an issue that is already mainstream (\"access to antiretrovirals\") and asking what is unrepresentative about it, what is missing from its ranks (\"access to general resources needed for decent life\").  And who better to ask than those who are most affected; those who do not gain entrance into the drug price negotiations of the Clinton Foundation (but, importantly, have gained access to the core of South African AIDS activism, 6)?\r\n\r\nThis article may be written as a formulaic prescription, and the more educated groups will criticize my simplicity and extravagance even as I discuss hegemony and preach humility.  Their criticisms may be warranted; but in spite of that, a healthy warning should remain: that the fear of hegemony, the fear of being unrepresentative, can drive us much farther towards improving each others' livelihoods than any attempt to force our issues to be arbitrated by the mainstream sources of power in isolation from the core of active suffering, or to force social space into our preconceived visions by selectively filtering the voices and livelihood realities of those we claim to defend.\r\n\r\nReferences:\r\n\r\n(1) AIDS, Empire and Public Health Behaviorism: \r\nhttp://zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=2&ItemID=3988\r\n\r\n(2) Bello, W., S. Cunningham, et al. (1998). A Siamese Tragedy: Development \r\nand Disintegration in Modern Thailand. London, Zed Books.\r\n\r\n(3) Farmer, P. E., M. Connors, et al., Eds. (1996). Women, Poverty and \r\nAIDS: Sex, Drugs, and Structural Violence. Monroe, Common Courage Press.\r\n\r\n(4) Campbell, C. and B. Williams (1999). \"Beyond the biomedical and \r\nbehavioural: towards an integrated approach to HIV prevention in the \r\nSouthern African mining industry.\" Social Science and Medicine 48: 1625-39.\r\n\r\n(5) Connors, M. M. (1994). \"Stories of Pain and the Problem of AIDS \r\nPrevention: Injection Drug Withdrawal and Its Effect on Risk Behavior.\" \r\nMedical Anthropology Quarterly 8(1): 47-68.\r\n\r\n(6) www.tac.org.za","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The first world's ROLE IN THE THIRD WORLD BRAIN DRAIN","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/327/7407/170","body":"We in the third world are rarely willing to admit to our \"third worldliness.\" We aspire to first world standards, and the things we want more than anything else are hotels of international standard, a well reputed university, and, in particular, good medical and nursing schools.  We are greatly gratified by the recognition of our graduates as being of international standard - \"Our doctors and nurses are as good as any others\" - but there are difficulties with this.  As soon as a country produces graduates of an acceptable international standard then it is \"fishing in the same pond\" as first world countries for their services.  It is inevitable that doctors and nurses will be attracted to countries where salaries or working conditions are seen as better, says this article in the British Medical Journal.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"THE INTERNATIONAL GUIDELINES ON HIV/AIDS AND HUMAN RIGHTS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.apcaso.org/html/ReadFrame.asp?pDocument=../Documents/HumanRig%20hts/hiv-aids_and_human_rights.pdf","body":"More organisations in the community sector need to integrate a human rights based approach to their work and their advocacy.  This is according to a paper from the Asia Pacific Council of AIDS Service Organisations (APCASO) that offers an assessment of country responses in improving access to HIV/AIDS treatment within the framework of the International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights and the role played by the Community Sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The public health implications of world trade negotiations on the general agreement on trade in services and public services","field_subtitle":"Lancet  2003;362:1072-5","field_url":"http://pdf.thelancet.com/pdfdownload?uid=llan.362.9389.editorial_and_review.27286.1&x=x.pdf","body":"Trade ministries from the World Trade Organisation's 144 member states are presently deciding which public services to open to foreign competition under the complex liberalisation rules of the general agreement on trade in services (GATS). A frequent criticism of the WTO system is that it reduces national autonomy over public policy. However, respect for national sovereignty is asserted in the GATS treaty. Here, Professor Allyson Pollock and David Price examine claims made by the WTO and others that GATS exempts public services and does not require their privatisation. They discuss trade treaty processes that can subject public services to commercial rules, the treaty's flexibility with respect to national autonomy, and the effect of GATS in situations in which national autonomy is not protected. They conclude that national autonomy over health policy is not preserved under GATS, and that accordingly, there is a role for international standards that protect public services from the adverse effect of trade and market forces. (This article requires registration.)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The Ugandan success story? Evidence and claims","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/journal.isa","body":"Uganda is widely regarded as an HIV/AIDS success story, but the reality of this claim has rarely been critically investigated. Although evidence-based medicine is increasingly important, analysis of the Ugandan epidemiological situation shows that the so-called proof accepted for policy recommendations can be subject to creative interpretation. There are several policy lessons that can be learned from the response to HIV/AIDS in Uganda, where declining prevalence rates of HIV-1 have been reported in a number of surveillance sites around the country since 1992. (This article requires registration.)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"training programmes for program managers and trainers ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cedpa.org/publications/enable/","body":"The Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA) is pleased to introduce new training manuals for program managers and trainers working in reproductive health.  The manuals provide in-depth and step-by-step guidance to trainers working in workshop settings.  Topics include reproductive health awareness, female condom, dual protection and sustainability for community health organizations.  The manuals were produced under the Enabling Change for Women's Reproductive Health (ENABLE) project, funded by USAID.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"U.N. Report Outlines Devastating Cross-Sectoral Impact of AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/AIDSimpact/AIDS_PAPER_PART_ONE.pdf","body":"An October report released by the U.N.  Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs said HIV/AIDS will continue to have devastating consequences for decades to come for virtually every sector of society and that in many countries the disease is undermining achievements of the U.N.  Millennium Development Goals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WAIVERS AND EXEMPTIONS FOR HEALTH SERVICES IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES","field_subtitle":"World Bank 2003","field_url":"http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/HDNet/hddocs.nsf/65538a343139acab85256cb70055e6ed/2327dc75151b9f1385256cf0005e323c/$FILE/0308.pdf","body":"This paper asks how to make a much needed system of user fees for government health services compatible with the goal of preserving equitable access to services.  It demonstrates that different countries have tried different approaches and that those which have carefully designed and implemented waiver systems have had much greater success in terms of benefits incidence than countries that have improvised such systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Website on Health and Human Rights","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hhri.org/","body":"Health and Human Rights Info aims at making practical information and materials on health and human rights more easily accessible to health workers. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Hopes To Provide 3-in-1 AIDS Pill To Poor Nations","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unwire.org/UNWire/20031027/449_9797.asp","body":"The World Health Organisation was due to reveal the first details of its global strategy to bring low-cost HIV/AIDS drugs to 3 million people in poor countries towards the end of October, a plan that top officials said will eventually include endorsement of pills that combine three antiretroviral drugs in a single tablet, the Washington Post reported.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Women's HEALTH & HUMAN RIGHTS IN HIV PREVENTION RESEARCH","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/st2003/sld-7316.html","body":"This document explores ethical challenges associated with large-scale clinical trials of HIV interventions in Africa and the Caribbean. The authors say that in many trials women do not have access to basic medical services, are subjected to physical and sexual abuse, or are forced to relinquish reproductive rights due to deeply entrenched gender power imbalances. How can researchers reform guidelines so that research ethics and social justice are not in contradiction? \"Women's health and human rights issues should be discussed with female community members and their advice incorporated into the study protocol before launching HIV prevention trials in developing countries,\" the authors say.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"zimbabwe doctors want 8 000% pay increase","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=84&art_id=qw1067005086604B254&set_id=1","body":"Doctors at Zimbabwe's government hospitals have gone on an indefinite strike demanding an 8 000 percent pay increase, their union leader Phibion Manyanga said late in October. Manyanga, who heads the Hospital Doctors Association, told AFP that the strike would go on until their demands were addressed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-11-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":" ICTs and continuing education for rural health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In April 2003, IICD (International Institute for Communication and Development), Cordaid and CEDHA (Centre for Educational Development in Health Arusha) jointly organised a conference to explore ways in which ICTs (information and communication technologies) can be used to develop and deliver continuing medical education to rural healthcare workers in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.  The overall aim of the meeting was to identify concrete strategies and approaches where ICTs can be used to develop and deliver continuing medical education to healthcare workers in rural areas.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29975","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"\"The Pop Reporter\" Launches Customized Edition","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\"The Pop Reporter,\" The INFO Project's weekly e-zine for the world's reproductive health care professional, has announced the launch of a new customized edition.  This state-of-the-art feature allows subscribers to customize their subscriptions, tailoring issues to both topic and delivery preferences.  Now subscribers may choose from among 17 categories of the most important concerns of the world's reproductive health community today.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29973","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"13th ICASA winds to a close","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The take home messages rang loud and clear at the closing of the 13th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA) as speaker after speaker representing different constituencies challenged African leaders, Western governments and multilateral organisations to reappraise their commitment to reducing the spread of HIV.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30000","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"2003 SADC Heads of State and Government Summit on HIV/AIDS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000451/index.php","body":"The Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on HIV/AIDS was held in Maseru, Lesotho on 4 July 2003, and was chaired by Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, President of the Republic of Angola. It is estimated that to date, close to 10 million people have died of HIV/AIDS related diseases in the region with over one million having died in 2001 alone. The epidemic has increased levels of poverty, decimated households and resulted in high levels of school dropouts and child headed households. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"A Public Health Approach to Antiretroviral Treatment: Overcoming Constraints","field_subtitle":"Perspectives and Practice in Antiretroviral Treatment","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hiv/pub/prev_care/pub39/en/","body":"With 42 million people now living with HIV/AIDS, expanding access to antiretroviral treatment for those who urgently need it is one of the most pressing challenges in international health.  Providing treatment is essential to alleviate suffering and to mitigate the devastating impact of the epidemic.  It also presents unprecedented opportunities for a more effective response by involving people living with HIV/AIDS, their families and communities in care and will strengthen HIV prevention by increasing awareness, creating a demand for testing and counselling and reducing stigma and discrimination.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"access for 3m by 2005","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Will it be possible to meet the WHO goal of three million people having access to antiretrovirals by 2005?  Speaking at a roundtable discussion on 'Issues and debates in HIV testing' at the 13th ICASA, Nairobi, Kenya, Dr Catherine Sozi of UNAIDS said that 30 million HIV positive people would have to be identified and 300 million people tested at a cost of US$1.8 billion. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30004","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Activists protests poor access to treatment in Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Numbering just about a hundred, activists under the aegis of the Pan-African AIDS Treatment Access Movement (PATAM) spoke, kicked, railed and acted up against many 'enemies' of access to treatment for HIV/AIDS in Africa: Big Pharma, the unfeeling, profit-focused multinational corporations, and African leaders who have refused to provide treatment for their peoples. \"You talk, we die,\" yelled the activists, as they mounted a blockage of the VIP and heads of governments lounge at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, venue of the 13th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA), held in Nairobi, Kenya.   ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30003","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Fellowships","field_subtitle":"South African Medical Research Council and South African AIDS ","field_url":"","body":"The South African Medical Research Council (MRC) and the South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative (SAAVI) invite applications for one-year travelling research fellowships in health research, with preference given to proposals which address the MRC's research priorities (see below) and particularly to those addressing HIV/AIDS research. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29978","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"African leaders told: \"stop playing hide and seek whilst people are dying\"","field_subtitle":"Speech by Nomfundo Dubula on behalf of people living with HIV, closing ceremony, ICASA","field_url":"","body":"My name is Nomfundo Dubula.  I am a person living with HIV.  I am from the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa and I also represent the Pan African Treatment Access Movement.\r\n\r\nI want to say that as communities and people living with HIV we are angry.  Our people are dying unnecessarily.\r\n\r\nAfrican leaders, the ball is in your hands.  You have to decide whether you want to lead a continent without people.  So, stop playing hide and seek whilst people are dying.\r\n\r\nThe World Health Organisation has declared antiretroviral therapy a state of global emergency and our leaders are still in a state of denial.\r\n\r\nThe Doha and the UNGASS declarations have opened the way to decide about the future of Africa, so, when is your action?  The Doha declaration on health is hope, and it must be implemented.\r\n\r\nTwo years ago, the Abuja declaration promised 15% of the budget on health but up to now that has not happened.  How many people must die?  Please, move from talks to real action.\r\n\r\nGive women powers to decide and lead and they will overcome this epidemic.\r\n\r\nAfrican leaders, lead us.  Don't divide people living with HIV, as we all want to assist in this fight.\r\n\r\nWe need CCM's in each country with positive attitudes towards treatment, especially ARV's, so that we have effective and unequivocal treatment plans.\r\n\r\nWe need you to speak out about nutrition and not confuse us with the debate about nutrition versus ARVs.  Nutrition goes hand in hand with ARVs!\r\n\r\nI also want to address the WHO.  WHO has promised to give technical assistance in the procurement of drugs.  Now we need your assistance in our countries to ensure that cheaper generic drugs reach every country, with or without manufacturing capacity.\r\n\r\nYou also have a key role in ensuring resources for poor countries. The 3 by 5 plan should also ensure that all treatment programmes include treatment literacy efforts.  On our side, we commit ourselves in educating our people and ensureing adherence.\r\n\r\nWe need real leadership in the implementation of effective strategies to reach the 3 by 5 goal.  We will assist you in this effort if you show commitment and independence in prioritising people's health over any other interest.\r\n\r\nI want to refer to the drug companies, whose bags are full with profits.  Stop squeezing poor Africans which only represent 1.3% of your global market.\r\n\r\nDon't delay access by giving exclusive licenses that are only transferring the monopoly to local companies blocking competition.\r\n\r\nYour diagnostics are still too expensive and inaccessible.\r\n\r\nProvide low prices and allow our governments to bring us life-saving drugs and the necessary monitoring systems.\r\n\r\nI want to say to the donors that they should donate more money to the Global Fund.  We welcome the US initiative led by president Bush.  But we want money that is free of hidden agendas.  Put more money in the Global Fund and stop blocking our government's rights to import generic drugs.\r\n\r\nThe IMF and World Bank should cancel the debt, as Africa is fighting for its life.  Don't even pinch the last drop of its blood.\r\n\r\nAnd where was the Global Fund in this conference?  How can you communicate with our brothers and sisters, and what is going on with their countries proposals?  We need you to have a booth in the GNAP+ conference so that you can be visible, and we can ask questions.\r\n\r\nThe Pan African Treatment Access Movement - PATAM - is fighting for the lives of Africans.  So, we will continue to mobilize our people as we did in the court case of the Pharmaceutical companies against the South African Government.\r\n\r\nWe will continue to mobilize our people as we South Africans did in the PMTCT court case against our government.\r\n\r\nWe will continue to mobilize our communities to ensure access to treatment and care.\r\n\r\nWe will continue giving treatment literacy workshops to ensure adherence, promote VCT, prevent new infections and promote openness.\r\n\r\nWe will be watchdogs in ensuring real implementation.\r\n\r\nAMANDLA, AMANDLA POWER, TO THE PEOPLE.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: African Health Sciences","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This new journal from the Faculty of Medicine, Makerere Medical School in Kampala, was started in August 2001.  It has rapidly grown in reputation as a leading publication on health issues in Africa.  Just in March 2003 the journal was accepted for citation on MEDLINE, INDEX MEDICUS and PUBMED.  It is abstracted by African Journals online (AJOL).","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29984","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Chairperson's views on ICASA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\"We want to sensitise the scientists and African leaders in power to be more aware of the magnitude and impact of HIV/AIDS in Africa. Secondly, we want to bring in the community to be part and parcel of the fight. We want also to look at the HIV/AIDS network in Africa and to identify the key people, so we can talk with one voice; especially with regard to how we can collectively access HIV-related treatments.\" - Interview with Dr. D. M. Owili, Chairman of the 13th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA). ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30008","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"DOHA DERAILED: A Progress Report on TRIPS","field_subtitle":"MSF Cancun briefing","field_url":"http://www.accessmed-msf.org/documents/cancunbriefing.pdf","body":"At the 2001 Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, Members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) adopted the groundbreaking \u201cDeclaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health,\u201d which unequivocally recognised that access to medicines should have primacy over commercial interests. The Doha Declaration confirmed some of the key flexibilities in the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), and encouraged countries to interpret the treaty in a manner that would protect public health and promote access to medicines for all. Since Doha, some Members have attacked both the spirit and intent of the Declaration, putting the interests of their pharmaceutical industries ahead of the health of the world\u2019s poor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Dr.C.Venkatachalam","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The newsletter will be useful for me to enhance my research work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"dying for trade: why globalisation can be bad for our health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.socialjustice.org/pubs/pdfs/labonteTrade.pdf","body":"It is globalization\u2019s impact on national authority that cause health activists the greatest concern, since it can prevent governments from enacting policies that lead to health and equity at the local levels where people live, work and play. A concern for many health activists is the impact of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) on the growing trend towards health care privatization. This paper examines the impact of trade agreements on health and health care systems, and what governments can do to ensure that health and human development are not sacrificed at the altar of \u2018free trade.\u2019 ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWSLETTER OCTOBER 2003: STOP PLAYING HIDE AND\tSEEK WHILST PEOPLE ARE DYING","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Fairly fair? Approaches to health equity in Namibia","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=4&i=h1al1g2&u=3f792309","body":"Many health inequalities are due to unequal access to society's resources.  In theory, they are avoidable - but how?  The international community tends to define health equity as 'equality of health status'.  But is this the most useful approach in developing countries?  Researchers working with Namibia's Ministry of Health and Social Services (MHSS) think not.\r\nThe researchers suggest that developing countries should focus on improving fairness in the allocation of healthcare resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Finally a yes on ARV's","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"After years resisting demands to supply antiretroviral drugs, the South African government will soon begin to provide ARVs through the public health system. By the end of September, an operational plan for ARV roll-out should be unveiled.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30007","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"FROM SOCIAL CONTRACT TO PRIVATE CONTRACTS: THE PRIVATISATION OF HEALTH, EDUCATION AND BASIC INFRASTRUCTURE ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.socialwatch.org/en/noticias/noticia_33.htm","body":"Privatisation is being pushed by international governance institutions, the governments that control them, and the corporations that lobby both groups, even though the dangers that privatisation entails can seriously - and permanently - harm the livelihoods of the world's poorest people. The position of \"privatise first and ask questions later\" and the na\u00efve confidence in the processes and outcomes of market reform have imposed hardship on precisely the groups those organisations are entrusted to protect. It is time to shift the burden of proof from those who question risky solutions to those who propose them, says this article. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"GENDER MAINSTREAMING IN POVERTY ERADICATION AND THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS","field_subtitle":"International Development Research Centre, A Handbook for Policy-makers and Other Stakeholders","field_url":"http://web.idrc.ca/ev.php?URL_ID=33744&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC","body":"The handbook includes:\r\n* Gender, Poverty and Development Policy \r\nIntroduction; A Brief History of Poverty Reduction Policies; Putting Gender on the Policy \r\nhttp://web.idrc.ca/ev.php?ID=42962_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC \r\n* Approaches to Poverty Analysis and its Gender Dimensions \r\nIntroduction; The Poverty Line Approach; The Capabilities Approach; Participatory Poverty Assessments (PPAs); Conclusion \r\nhttp://web.idrc.ca/ev.php?ID=42965_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC \r\n* Gender Inequality and Poverty Eradication: Promoting Household Livelihoods \r\nIntroduction; Gender Inequality and Household Poverty in South Asia; Gender Inequality and Household Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa; Links Between Gender Inequality and Income Poverty: The Wider Picture; Conclusion\r\nhttp://web.idrc.ca/ev.php?ID=42966_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"GLOBAL FUND OBSERVER (GFO) NEWSLETTER","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidspan.org/gfo","body":"The GFO Newsletter is an independent source of news, analysis and commentary about the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. The GFO Newsletter is emailed to subscribers once or twice a month. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HALF OF AFRICA HAS NO MEDICINES","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://news.hst.org.za/view.php3?id=20030905","body":"Half of Africa's population, mostly the poor and disadvantaged, do not have access to existing essential medicines and many more are denied new medicines for treating common diseases like malaria and HIV, says a report released last Monday. \"Only 50 000 of the 4.5-million people who need antiretroviral therapy have access to treatment despite significant reductions in cost,\" states the annual report for 2002 of the regional director of the World Health Organisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HEALTH GAINS AT WHO REGIONAL COMMITTEE MEETING","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A five-day regional health meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, last month saw African health ministers pledging to give greater attention to women's health and scale up their HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis (TB) programmes. The World Health Organisation (WHO) regional committee session urged governments to develop \"appropriate policies and legislation to create a supportive environment for scaling up interventions\" for the three epidemics, a WHO statement said.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30013","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Hitting the mark: reducing child mortality","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights-h04/insights-issh04-art00.html","body":"In 2000, the nations of the world pledged to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.  These ambitious targets included a commitment over the period 1990 to 2015 to: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger (50% reduction in the numbers of people living on less than US$1/day); reduce under five mortality rate by two thirds and reduce maternal mortality rates by 75%.  As the World Bank estimates and projections for progress show, the goals for reduction in child mortality will be achieved in only a few countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS and Poverty: Major challenges","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A wide range of delegates from government officials to community activists packed the session on \"HIV/AIDS and Poverty\" at the 13th ICASA in Nairobi, Kenya , all looking for answers to the dilemma of how poverty and HIV/AIDS are driving each other. Anne Githuku from the UNDP said a reconceptualisation of current responses was urgently needed.  Poverty was defined as the inability of individuals and households to attain a sufficient standard of living through access to assets and income.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30001","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Household catastrophic health expenditure: a multicountry analysis","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/docdisplay.cfm?doc=DOC13089&resource=healthsystems","body":"Health systems can deliver health services - preventive and curative - that can make a difference to peoples\u2019 health. However, accessing these services can lead to individuals having to pay catastrophic proportions of their available income and push many households into poverty. In designing their health systems, policy-makers need to understand whether any characteristics make people more vulnerable to catastrophic payments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"how to bridge the gap between research results and provider practices","field_subtitle":"Network Vol.  23, No.  1 is now online.  This issue of Family Health International\\'s (FHI) scientific bulletin focuses on how to bridge the gap between research results and provider practices","field_url":"http://www.fhi.org/en/RH/Pubs/Network/v23_1/index.htm","body":"A gap often exists between research findings and the desired outcome of putting them into use to improve health service delivery, policies, and practices.  But this issue of Network highlights several factors that can facilitate the speed and ease of moving research to practice.  How various factors can coincide to produce rapid utilization of research findings is illustrated by acceptance of the antiretroviral nevirapine to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV in the developing world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Introducing the Rural and Remote Health Journal","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Rural and Remote Health, is an international, electronic journal of rural and remote health education, practice and policy.  The journal's aim is to provide an easily accessible, peer-reviewed, international evidence-base to inform improvement in health service delivery and health status in rural communities.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29987","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"LEARNING TO LIVE: MONITORING AND EVALUATING HIV/AIDS PROGRAMMES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/development/global_pub/Learning2live_cond.pdf","body":"This paper addresses the lack of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) procedures within HIV/AIDS programme design. It offers a practical guide to developing, monitoring and evaluating practice in HIV/AIDS-related programmes for young people, based on the experience of projects around the world. It focuses on recent learning from work with young people in peer education, school-based education, clinic-based service delivery reaching especially vulnerable children, and working with children affected by HIV/AIDS. Good examples of practice are included throughout.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Making Services Work for Poor People - World Development Report 2004 ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://econ.worldbank.org/wdr/wdr2004/","body":"The World Bank has released its annual World Development Report, which addresses why government services fail poor people and how they can be improved. Drawing on successful examples from around the globe, the report recommends putting poor people at the centre of the provision of basic services such as health, education, water and electricity.\r\nRelated Link:\r\n* Critique of the draft 2004 World Development Report\r\nhttp://www.servicesforall.org/html/tools/2004WDR_critique.shtml","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Marketization, Daily Life and HIV in South Africa: Call for Proposals","field_subtitle":"Municipal Services Project (MSP)","field_url":"","body":"The Municipal Services Project (MSP) (www.queensu.ca/msp) is a multi-partner research, policy and educational initiative examining the restructuring of municipal services in Southern Africa.  Research partners are the International Labour Research and Information Group (Cape Town), the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg), the Human Sciences Research Council (Durban), Equinet (Harare), the South African Municipal Workers Union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and Queen's University (Canada).  The project is funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada.  During the first phase of the project (2000 - 2003), the primary focus of our research was on the impact of policy reforms such as privatization and cost recovery on the delivery of basic municipal services (specifically water, sanitation, waste management and electricity).  Most of this research was conducted in South Africa.  We are now entering a second phase, which will focus more specifically on the impact of policy \u2018reform\u2019 on health and will expand the research to include more countries in Southern Africa. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29980","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Moses Mpaali -Taire","field_subtitle":"Teenage Health Education Centre, Uganda","field_url":"","body":"It is a pleasure for us to get associated with you.  Continue with the good work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"New Electronic Forum Shares Information on Nutrition and HIV/AIDS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aed.org/health/health_pronut.html","body":"\"The purpose of the discussion group is to enhance positive living through proper nutrition care and support for people living with AIDS (PLWA) and create a constructive dialogue among PLWA, front line workers, researchers, HIV/AIDS specialists, and policymakers,\" said Eleonore Seumo, HIV/AIDS senior program officer with the AED Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance project and moderator of the forum.  Dorcas Lwanga, a nutritionist with the Support for Analysis and Research in Africa project, is co-moderator. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"non-communicable diseases ignored by policy makers","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://pdf.thelancet.com/pdfdownload?uid=llan.362.9387.editorial_and_review.27126.1&x=x.pdf","body":"The growing global burden of non-communicable diseases in poor countries and poor populations has been neglected by policy makers, major multilateral and bilateral aid donors, and academics. Despite strong evidence for the magnitude of this burden, the preventability of its causes, and the threat it poses to already strained health care systems, national and global actions have been inadequate. A full range of policy responses is required from government and non-governmental agencies, but unfortunately the capacity and resources for this response are insufficient, and governments need to respond appropriately. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Only 23% of Global Fund allocations distributed","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"At a roundtable hosted by the UNDP at the 13th ICASA, Nairobi, Kenya, it was reported that of the US$50 million allocated to 53 countries in the first Round by the Global Fund for Aids, TB and Malaria, only 23% has been distributed.  Jerry van Nortick from the Fund reported that the money was being distributed based on results and progress in individual countries.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30002","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Promoting Behaviour Change in Botswana: An Assessment of the Peer Education HIV/AIDS Prevention Program at the Workplace","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?wasp=012c8nmurj6vu7j5nre7&referrer=parent&backto=issue%2C6%2C8%3Bjournal%2C2%2C36%3Blinkingpublicationresults%2Cid%3A100673%2C1","body":"Botswana has the highest rate of HIV prevalence in the world and AIDS has now reached crisis proportions in the country. Among the initiatives implemented as a response to promote sexual behaviour change, is the Peer Education HIV/AIDS Prevention Program (PEHAPP) at the workplace. This paper assesses the impact and outcome of the PEHAPP. It concludes that the PEHAPP is having a measurable positive impact in the key areas of improving knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to risky sexual behaviour which, in turn, should reduce the incidence of transmission of HIV/AIDS and other STDs over the long-term.   ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reproductive Freedom News","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.reproductiverights.org","body":"The Centre for Reproductive Rights invites you to subscribe to our monthly electronic newsletter, the Reproductive Freedom News. The Reproductive Freedom News reports on the latest developments on Capitol Hill, in the U.S. and around the world that affect reproductive rights. Just reply to rfn@reprorights.org with subscribe in the subject heading to receive the Reproductive Freedom News.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"sadc in trade negotiators must be transparent, says equity meeting","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Countries must protect their government authority in all trade agreements to safeguard public health and regulate services in the interests of public health. Government trade negotiators must consult health ministries, parliamentary health committees and civil society on positions to be taken to trade negotiations for their public health implications. These were two of the resolutions of the meeting on Parliamentary Alliances for Equity in Health in Southern Africa, held between 20-22 August 2003 in Gauteng, South Africa. Also available through the link below is meeting report.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29997","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Women Unite in Partnership Against Aids","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www2.womensnet.org.za/news/show.cfm?news_id=1408","body":"Women from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) met in Johannesburg last month to formulate a practical programme against HIV/AIDS in the region.  The Women in Partnership Against AIDS (WIPAA) Summit is also set to formulate a SADC Women\u2019s HIV and AIDS charter.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"SALVAGING WTO FROM CANCUN COLLAPSE","field_subtitle":"Bhagirath Lal Das, Third World Network","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/twninfo78.htm","body":"All concerned with international trade should work for salvaging the WTO from the debris of the Cancun collapse.  Even those considering the WTO framework as anti-development would certainly see the powerful signals emitted from Cancun indicating a new identity of the developing countries.  It will be some time before the WTO recovers from the shock of Cancun collapse.  And that too only if the main actors make sincere efforts for its recovery.  \r\n\r\nCancun was qualitatively different from Seattle.  In Cancun, the deep difference between the developed countries and the developing countries was at the core of the failure of the conference, whereas the chaos at Seattle was due to various other reasons.  Though the developing countries, particularly those of Latin America and Africa-Caribbean-Pacific, publicly expressed frustration and disgust at the Seattle process, the final failure was because of other factors, like handling of the conference by the chairperson, public insistence of the host country on some new issues like social clause, deep difference between the two majors, viz., the US and the EU and the chaotic atmosphere outside the conference venue due to several demonstrations.  There was really no intense engagement among the countries at the negotiating table.  In Cancun, on the other hand, there was engagement of the countries, but there were grave differences among the developed countries and the developing countries.  \r\n\r\nThe problem started because the Chairman of the General Council, and later the Chairman of the Ministerial Conference too, presented texts for the Ministerial Declaration that had almost fully included the proposals of the major developed countries and totally ignored the specific and firm proposals of the developing countries.  The US-EU were not ready to eliminate/substantially reduce their subsidies in agriculture, while demanding from the developing countries to cut their tariffs in agricultural products and industrial products significantly.  The EC was insistent until the near end that negotiations should start on the Singapore issues.  The developing countries finally got fed up with the unreasonable and unfair demands of the major developed countries when they themselves were not prepared to make material concessions.  \r\n\r\nThe collapse did appear to be sudden; but there was grave simmering discontent among the developing countries right from the final phases of the preparatory process in Geneva.  It all boiled over in Cancun.  One may be tempted to diagnose the reason for collapse in some sudden move here and there; but the reason appears to be more deep rooted.  Over the years, the major developed countries have followed the strategy of squeezing maximum concessions from the developing countries, but it cannot continue indefinitely.  The developing countries, if pushed to the wall, are bound to resist.  The governments of the developing countries cannot go on explaining to their people indefinitely that they have been pressurized into accepting one-sided and harmful results.  Their people will soon ask them firmly to resist pressures.  Cancun gave us a glimpse of this trend.  \r\n\r\nPressures on the developing countries by the developed countries in Cancun and in preparation to Cancun were no less than at the time of Doha.  But the imperatives on the developing countries gave them strength to resist these pressures.  This situation also worked as a cementing factor in the cohesion of some groups of the developing countries.  Moreover the developing countries are fast improving their understanding of the WTO and its processes.  They have been effectively aided in it by some dedicated NGOs.\r\nThe Cancun collapse is a symptom of the instability of the GATT/WTO system as it has been emerging lately.  A multilateral system has to be based on the perception among its members of the shared benefits.  Once the large membership feel that the system demands only \u201cgive\u201d from their side without any possibility of \u201ctake\u201d, the system is bound to be unstable.  And instability in the system will hurt all the countries, big and small.  \r\n\r\nThe much publicised parting statement of the U.S. Trade Representative in Cancun that they would follow different alternative tracks like bilateral and regional arrangements in the wake of the Cancun collapse has a certain emptiness in it.  The U.S. may have a multitude of bilateral and regional arrangements, but when it comes to enforcement of commitments in the areas of goods, services and Intellectual Property Rights, it has to take shelter in the WTO framework.  After all it has had tremendous gains in the Uruguay Round in all these areas and it continues to enjoy those gains.  In that background, its threat to give up or underplay the WTO route does not appear serious.  What is needed is to understand the deep-seated malady in the system and to take corrective measures quickly before it is too late.  All parts of the system, viz., the developed countries, the developing countries and the institutional machinery, have to play active role in it.  The developed countries should consider the following approach.\r\n\r\n1.  They should lower their sights and ambitions in the WTO.  They have already got a lot in their favour in the Uruguay Round.  They should consolidate these gains and stop demanding new concessions from the developing countries.  \r\n2.  They should allow the system to settle down and not destabilize it by insisting on introducing new subjects in the negotiations.  \r\n3.  They should be constructive in the area of agriculture and try to understand the sensitivity and importance of this sector in the economics and politics of the developing countries.  Positive action in this area is likely to result in spread of gain among the weak sections in the developing countries.  Hence agriculture is generally perceived as a test case for assessing the intentions of the developed countries.  \r\n4.  They should give up their old mind set of monopolizing the management of the GATT/WTO and realize that this organization has to keep in the forefront the interests of a large number of its membership, i.e., the developing countries.  \r\n5.  More basically, they should realize that their own growth will be helped by the development of the developing countries, because it is there that the prospect of future fast growth of demand lies.  They should come out of the thick shell that they have built around themselves over the last two decades or so, thinking that they can sustain their growth on their own without counting on the role of the developing countries.  In this mind set, their linkage with the developing countries is limited to their targeting them for extracting more and more concessions.\r\nThe institutional machinery of the WTO, including the Chairpersons and the Secretariat, have also to change their approach and style of functioning.  Some points are important for them to note.\r\n1.They should realize that the strategy of \u201cclean text\u201d is not always the best.  It is not the \u201cclumsy\u201d and \u201coverburdened\u201d text that hinders agreement, as is often alleged about the text for Seattle which accommodated the diverse view points and put them in square brackets.  Even the cleanest text, as for example the two texts for Cancun, can result in disaster, if the process of preparation has not been fair and objective.  A \u201cclean text\u201d can facilitate negotiations only if the process of preparation has been open and transparent and it is a fair and objective balance between the differing positions.  The General Council Chairman\u2019s text for Doha which was confidently taken as a model for the Cancun text also suffered from similar defects as the latter.  But there was a big difference in the two situations.  While the GC Chairman\u2019s text for Doha was mainly in the nature of a framework in most of its part (except Singapore issues), the texts for Cancun contained specificities of obligations which had been widely opposed by a large number of the developing countries and the alternative suggestions given by them had been totally ignored by the Chairmen of the General Council and the Conference.  \r\nThere was also the difference in the environment.  A large number of the developing countries got confused in Doha by the tactics of the US-EU, whereas, after having learnt their lesson in Doha and later, the developing countries could not be deviated from their determined track in Cancun.  Also, during the two years passage between Doha and Cancun, the developing countries had gone through a process of introspection and consolidation.  The NGOs of the world had a big role in it.  \r\n2.The institutional machinery of the WTO has to show without a trace of doubt that it is not influenced by the major developed countries.  It has to be neutral and objective and clearly appear to be so.  Much damage has been done by the perception that the machinery is being used by the major developed countries for advancing their own narrow interests.  The machinery should work for the system and not for individual countries, howsoever powerful.  \r\n\r\nThe developing countries have found a new identity in Cancun.  They showed they could not be pushed around any more.  The following steps may help them in future.  \r\n1.The various groups of the developing countries that became effective in Cancun should interact with one another to forge a broader and deeper alliance.  They should try to identify their common interests and also differences, if any.  It may be possible for them to build upon their commonness and smoothen their differences through the process of mutual understanding.  After all, one common factor with all of them is that they have all been serious losers in the Uruguay Round and have been the target of the major developed countries for squeezing concessions out of them even later.  Though it may be possible for these individual groups to stop some thing here and there and thereby reduce damage, their combination is essential for getting positive benefits.\r\n2.They should counter the divisive tendencies among them.  For example, often the division among them is promoted by urging that they should cut their tariffs on industrial and agricultural products in the interest of expanding south-south trade.  Though expansion of south-south trade is a laudable objective, undertaking obligation of tariff reduction in the WTO is not an appropriate way to go about it.  \r\n\r\nA preferred path should be to use the framework of Global System of Trade Preferences (GSTP) for reduction of tariffs among the developing countries.  It has two special benefits for the developing countries over reducing the tariffs in the WTO framework.  Firstly, a developing country while reducing its tariffs under the GSTP does not have to extend this benefit to the developed countries; thus there is less revenue loss for the committing importing developing country.  \r\n\r\nSecondly, the beneficiary exporting developing country will face less competition from the developed countries as the latter will not get the advantage of this lower tariff in the developing countries.  Over a course of time, this process is likely to enhance investment in the developing countries in manufactures and agriculture, because of larger market access opportunities among the developing countries.  The developing countries should give fresh impetus to the GSTP framework which is administered in the UNCTAD and is dormant at present.  \r\n\r\nThis is not to suggest that the developing countries should not engage in the tariff reduction exercise in the WTO framework at all.  Of course, they may engage in this exercise there, but only with the objective of getting tariff concessions from the developed countries. An attempt should be made by all to usher in a reformed WTO process.  International trade is important for all including the developing countries.  And a multilateral framework is useful for that purpose.  It is not practicable to create a totally new framework in the current international environment that is characterised by mutual suspicion, lack of goodwill and erosion of confidence.  It should be a much-preferred choice for all concerned to work for a reformed and improved WTO.  Foundation should be laid for it even before reverting to the Doha work programme in the post-Cancun phase. \r\nhttp://www.twnside.org.sg/title/twninfo78.htm \r\n\r\n'NO LONGER DINNER': AFRICAN ACTIVISTS SPEAK ON CANCUN\r\n\u201cYea, we are sick and tired of being dinner, we should make dinner for a change,\u201d declared Crystal Overson, a media activist with the Alternative Information and Development Centre-South Africa.  Overson was participating in a discussion with five other African activists about the recently collapsed WTO Ministerial meeting in Cancun.  The interview delves into the nuts and bolts of the African position at Cancun, the thrills and spills and the way forward to the next Inter-ministerial.  Read the full transcript of the interview at www.pambazuka.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTHERN AFRICA: PROGRAM MANAGER","field_subtitle":"LUTHERAN WORLD RELIEF","field_url":"","body":"LWR is now recruiting for a Program Manager for HIV/AIDS Projects - based in South Africa - to support churches and related ecumenical or faith-based organisations in Southern Africa to develop programs to address the AIDS crisis in impoverished communities - based on need rather than on race, ethnicity, religion, or creed. This is a temporary position with a two-year contract with no possibility of renewal.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29979","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern African nations adopt common GM strategy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/gateways/index.cfm?fuseaction=readitem&rgwid=4&item=News&itemid=1007&language=1","body":"Fourteen Southern African nations have agreed common guidelines on how they should handle genetically modified (GM) organisms and the products resulting from biotechnology.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"TB and HIV programmes prepared to merge at long last","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"HIV-associated illnesses are creating a six percent annual increase in the number of tuberculosis (TB) cases across sub-Saharan Africa. According to new joint programme planners, the TB/HIV co-epidemics will only be effectively addressed by integrated interventions for early detection and treatment of both diseases. A new policy document just released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) provides national governments and TB/HIV programme managers with immediate and crucial guidance on how this can be achieved under particular circumstances.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30006","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Equity Gauge: Concepts, Principles, and Guidelines","field_subtitle":"Booklet","field_url":"http://www.gega.org.za/download/gega_gauge.pdf","body":"This booklet provides an overview of the Equity Gauge Strategy. The Strategy supports policy and action for health equity using a three-pronged approach of Assessment & Monitoring, Advocacy, and Community Empowerment. The document shows how the Strategy can be used to develop a comprehensive plan for identifying priorities, produce empirical information on health inequities, relate health to socioeconomic and political environments, work with policy makers, and support the involvement of communities to promote health equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The GEGA Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The GEGA Newsletter is designed to provide information and resources to those working to support health equity through information collection and analysis, advocacy, and support for community empowerment, especially in countries of the South. To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-geganews 135173M@lists.gega.org.za This list is hosted by the Health Systems Trust: http://www.hst.org.za","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"THE NEW DEAL ON TRIPS AND DRUGS: WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR ACCESS TO MEDICINES?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/","body":"In November 2001, when Trade Ministers in Doha agreed on a special Declaration recognising the right of countries to take measures to protect public health and promote access to medicines, over and above the obligation to protect intellectual property rights, it was widely acclaimed. The Ministers at Doha could not however, agree on how to solve the problem of how those developing countries without domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity could effectively use the compulsory licences. This became popularly known as the Paragraph 6 problem, named after that paragraph dealing with this issue in the Doha Declaration. The Declaration instructed WTO Members to find \"an expeditious solution\" to this problem by December 2002. The deadline was then missed and negotiations then stalled on the proposed solution, known as the December 16 text. Recently in Geneva on August 30, WTO Members finally adopted the December 16 text, together with an accompanying Statement by the Chair of the WTO General Council. The reception to the decision may be more muted than that which greeted the Doha Declaration in 2001. Civil society organisations have expressed reservations that the Decision and the Chair's Statement represent a compromise that may have the potential of pushing back the gains made at Doha.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The Ugandan success story? Evidence and claims","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/journal.isa","body":"Uganda is widely regarded as an HIV/AIDS success story, but the reality of this claim has rarely been critically investigated.  Although evidence-based medicine is increasingly important, analysis of the Ugandan epidemiological situation shows that the so-called proof accepted for policy recommendations can be subject to creative interpretation.  There are several policy lessons that can be learned from the response to HIV/AIDS in Uganda. (registration needed)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"TRIPS, DRUG PATENTS AND ACCESS TO MEDICINES: BALANCING INCENTIVES FOR R&D WITH PUBLIC HEALTH CONCERNS","field_subtitle":"Produced by: Knowledge Economy node (Development Gateway)","field_url":"http://www.developmentgateway.org/download/206719/Maskus_on_TRIPS,_Drug _Patents,_Medicines.pdf","body":"This interview looks into the impacts of the agreed deal on implementing the Doha declaration on TRIPs and public health. The questioning focuses on the likely impacts of the agreement on pharmaceutical companies, generic producers and developing countries but also looks into some of the likely interpretations of the wording of the agreement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"U.S. ABORTION POLICY CLOSES AFRICAN CLINICS, SAYS STUDY","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N24287082.htm","body":"U.S. President George W. Bush's anti-abortion policy has forced family planning clinics in poor countries to close, leaving some communities without any healthcare, according to a report issued Wednesday. Under the policy, known as the Mexico City rule by supporters and the Global Gag rule by opponents, foreign family planning agencies cannot receive U.S. funds if they provide abortion services or lobby to make or keep abortion legal in their own country.\r\nRelated Link: Access Denied: The Global Gag Rule- http://64.224.182.238/globalgagrule/impacts.htm","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"UNAIDS Launches Progress Report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The UN Secretary General and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has released a report, which clearly states that the current pace of country activity on HIV/AIDS is insufficient to meet the 2005 goals agreed by all nations at the Special session on HIV/AIDS in 2001. The report was released at the international conference on AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases that took place in Nairobi Kenya.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29991","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"UNAIDS releases global HIV/AIDS performance scorecard","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A new UNAIDS global HIV/AIDS performance scorecard released at the ICASA conference in Nairobi, Kenya, has revealed that although most African countries have developed strategic frameworks for HIV prevention, only a fraction of people at risk still have meaningful access to basic prevention services.  Unless efforts are dramatically scaled up, many African and other member-states of the United Nations will be unable to meet their basic HIV/AIDS prevention and care goals as stated in the declaration adopted at the 2001 meeting of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS).","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30005","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Visiting Scholar in Feminist Perspectives on Globalization","field_subtitle":"2004-2005 Academic Year","field_url":"","body":"The Pauline Jewett Institute of Women's Studies at Carleton University and the Institute of Women's Studies at the University of Ottawa, with the support of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), are launching a four year project to allow scholars from the developing world, working in the field of \u201cGender and Development\u201d, to spend a research term at their institutions.  The \u201cVisiting Scholar in Feminist Perspectives on Globalization\u201d will contribute in facilitating the expansion of gender and development research at both universities, and also provide a unique opportunity for collaboration between feminist scholars in Canada and the developing world.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29993","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Waivers and Exemptions for Health Services in Developing Countries","field_subtitle":"The World Bank, 2003","field_url":"http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/HDNet/HDdocs.nsf/vtlw/2327dc75151b9f1385256cf0005e323c/$FILE/0308.pdf","body":"In response to shortages in public budgets for government health services, many developing countries around the world have adopted formal or informal systems of user fees for health care. In most countries user fee proceeds seldom represent more than 15 percent of total costs in hospitals and health centres, but they tend to account for a significant share of the resources required to pay for non-personnel costs. The problem with user fees is that the lack of provisions to confer partial or full waivers to the poor often results in inequity in access to medical care. The dilemma, then, is how to make a much-needed system of user fees compatible with the goal of preserving equitable access to services. Different countries have tried different approaches. Those which have carefully designed and implemented waiver systems (e.g., Thailand and Indonesia) have had much greater success in terms of benefits incidence than countries that have improvised such systems (Ghana, Kenya, Zimbabwe). ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"What the Global Fund Requires for Buying Medicines","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Health Action International (HAI) has produced this 7-page fact sheet, \"Assured Quality and Lowest Prices: What the Global Fund Requires for Buying Medicines,\" to give guidance to countries and organisations that are involved in the process of applying for and receiving funds to procure medicines from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund).","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/30018","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights","field_subtitle":"Report on development and activities","field_url":"","body":"The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) was formed at an inaugural meeting in Harare on November 23rd 2002. This followed discussions with members of the National Executive Committee (President and Secretary General) of the Zimbabwe Medical Association (ZiMA) at which it was agreed that further formal affiliation with ZiMA should follow the steps of (1) Formation of the Association, with ratification of the constitution at an open general meeting, after which ZADHR would proceed with its mandated activities; (2) Application to ZiMA for formal affiliation with the Council of Affiliated Associations (CAA), which might require; (3) Amendment of the ZiMA Constitution which to date has not included specific reference to human rights. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29996","field_issue_date":"2003-10-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A NEW FACE FOR PRIVATE PROVIDERS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: WHAT IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC HEALTH?","field_subtitle":"Produced by: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation  (WHO): the International Journal of Public Health (2003)","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/81/4/Palmer0403.pdf","body":"The use of private health care providers in low- and middle-income countries is widespread and is the subject of considerable debate.  This article, produced by the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, reviews a new model of private primary care provision emerging in South Africa, in which commercial companies provide standardised primary care services at relatively low cost.  The structure and operation of one such company is described, and features of service delivery are compared with the most probable alternatives: a private general practitioner or a public sector clinic.  In addition, implications for public health policy of the emergence of this new model of private provider are discussed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICA: Activists sceptical over global drug agreement","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"After two years of wrangling and delays, World Trade Organisation (WTO) members last week finally agreed on a deal that eases access to generic drugs for developing countries.  It will enable poorer countries to import generic versions of patented medicines from countries producing the cheaper drugs, such as India or Brazil, without violating patent rules.  Yet AIDS activists have called the agreement \"flawed\", as it still does not provide a \"workable solution\". ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29962","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"African AIDS programme threatened","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ippfnet.ippf.org/pub/IPPF_News/News_Details.asp?ID=2880","body":"The U.S.  government has cut off funds to an AIDS programme for refugees in Africa - six weeks after President George Bush toured the continent promising to fight AIDS and launching a US$15 billion initiative.  The U.S.  objects to one of the aid agencies involved, Marie Stopes International, which runs family planning programmes in China.  Organisations that work on reproductive health and AIDS argue that the decision betrays the Bush administration's wider hostility to abortion.  Its commitment to a rightwing Christian agenda has led to its promotion of abstinence rather than condoms as a strategy against HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"African People\u2019s Declaration On Africa and the World Trade Organisation ","field_subtitle":"Statement Issued At The End Of Joint Africa Trade Network (ATN) Southern African Peoples Solidarity Network (SAPSN) Pre-Cancun Strategy Conference, In Johannesburg 14-17 August 2003","field_url":"","body":"\r\n1.  From 14-17 August 2003, we activists from across Africa, representing African civil society organisations, labour unions and other social movements, gathered in Johannesburg, South Africa to evaluate the current state of negotiations in the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and to strategise and make known our positions on the 5th WTO Ministerial Conference due to be held in Cancun, Mexico from 10-14 September 2003.  \r\n\r\n2.  Our stand on WTO's role: We re-affirm our recognition of the WTO as a key instrument of transnational capital in its push for corporate globalisation.  We noted the many destructive effects of WTO agreements on the lives of working people and the poor, especially women, in Africa and throughout the world.  We renewed our determination to continue resisting corporate globalisation, and the WTO itself until it is replaced by a fully democratic institution.  \r\n\r\n3.  The context of Cancun Meeting: We noted that the forthcoming WTO Ministerial meeting is taking place against a background of a crisis of credibility of neo-liberal policies and global capitalism, that have been deepened by the Enron and other corporate scandals exposing the duplicity and venality of the bosses of transnational capital.  At the same time, the world is faced with the aggressive militarism of the United States under a political leadership whose illegal attack on Iraq under false pretences has shown that law and morality are no bar to what it will do to advance the interests of American capital.  Across Africa and in other developing countries neo-liberal economic policies are putting basic services, such as health and education, beyond the reach of ordinary people and deepening unemployment, poverty and social inequality.  We, however, take heart from the growing strength in the organised expression of all those around the world opposed to militarism and corporate globalisation.  \r\n\r\n4.  Conclusions on the current state of affairs in WTO: After our deliberations on the WTO Doha agenda and related issues, we concluded as follows: \r\na.  The WTO has ignored the continued and growing opposition by popular movements throughout the world to its policies and methods, such as the illegitimate ways by which the Doha Agenda was imposed on developing countries in the 4th Ministerial of the WTO.  \r\nb.  The failure of the WTO to meet agreed deadlines in various negotiations - notably Agriculture, TRIPS and Public Health, Special and Differential Treatment and the many Implementation Issues is primarily due to the refusal of the Quad (USA, EU, Japan and Canada) to accept the legitimate demands of developing countries.  \r\nc.  These failures are merely an aspect of the double standards the Quad countries apply in international trade issues; marked by one set of rules for themselves and another that they impose on developing countries, exposing the WTO as a thoroughly undemocratic institution.  \r\nd.  We particularly condemn both the EU and the US for their role in resisting the fulfilment of the deadlines and undertakings on Agriculture, and their refusal to honour the compromise consensus on TRIPS and Public Health.  \r\ne.  On the Singapore or New Issues (i.e.  Investment, Competition, Government Procurement and Trade Facilitation) we reiterate our total opposition to their inclusion in the WTO, or the initiation of discussions on modalities with a view to the launch of negotiations on these in Cancun.  We stand by our demand that these issues should be removed from the WTO's agenda altogether.  \r\nf.  It is clear that, as Cancun approaches, the Quad are accelerating the deployment of old and new undemocratic practices and pressures both in and outside the WTO so as to force their will on developing countries.  In order to limit such illegitimate and underhand practices by the powerful, we endorse the campaign for internal transparency and participation in the WTO recently launched by many NGOs.  \r\ng.  We note the opposition to the launch of negotiations on these issues expressed by African countries, especially the declaration by African Trade Ministers at the end of their meeting in Mauritius in June 2003.  We also note a new initiative taken at the WTO on 13 August by a group of African countries to demand that the official WTO text that goes to Cancun includes proposals for improving the decision-making process in the WTO; as well as repeating their opposition to the new issues.  We call on these countries to stand by these positions, as a matter of democratic principle, and also urge other African and developing countries to join them.  \r\n\r\n5.  Call to Action: In the light of the above we have agreed and call on other African civil society organisations, labour unions and other social movements who share our views to join us to: \r\na.  Mobilise the broadest possible sectors of African civil society to express their opposition to the continuing destructive role of the WTO in the lives of working people and the poor, and upon our countries' development aspirations and prospects; \r\nb.  Mobilise and sustain strong political pressure on our governmental representatives, in ways best suited to the specific conditions in our countries, before and during the Cancun ministerial meeting; actively holding our governments accountable for the positions they take in the Cancun Ministerial meeting, and expose any attempt to betray the best interests of the African peoples; \r\nc.  Pressure institutions of government, and our legislatures, and relevant public officials in our various countries so as to ensure the defence of our peoples' interests in the forthcoming Cancun ministerial meeting.  Especially important are i) blocking the launch of negotiations on the Singapore issues and ii) rejecting any attempt by the Quad to manipulate developing countries into accepting negotiations on the Singapore Issues by linking these to issues of concern to developing countries; \r\nd.  Pressure our respective governments to endorse the two proposals tabled at the WTO by 11 African countries on 13 August 2003; \r\ne.  Be alert to, and therefore resist, the inevitable attempts by representatives of Quad countries and other governments who, between now and Cancun, will be visiting our national capitals under various guises, and contacting groups within our own countries to bully African governments to take positions detrimental to the African people on the issues on the Cancun agenda; \r\nf.  Launch an information dissemination campaign in our various countries to publicise what is happening in and around the WTO in the run up to and during the Cancun Ministerial meeting; \r\ng.  Mobilise a strong team of African activists to give voice to African perspectives in the activities of civil society organisations who will gather from around the world in Cancun; \r\nh.  Affirm our links with our partners in organisations of civil society outside Africa, including in the global North, to pressure their governments (especially of the Quad) in the interest of working people and the poor throughout the world, and in the interest of our planet; \r\ni.  Work together across Africa on the WTO, before and during Cancun, under the umbrella of the Africa Trade Network (ATN) to ensure common focus and strength in unity.  \r\n\r\nWe issue this statement, and our call, as part of our commitment to the global movement against neo-liberalism and corporate globalisation, and the struggle for the establishment of alternative systems and institutions for all of humanity and the world.  Another Africa is possible!  Another world is possible!  \r\n\r\nIssued in Johannesburg, 17 August 2003 ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS WORSENS FOOD SHORTAGE in southern africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=19849","body":"Food shortages facing Southern Africa will worsen if actions are not taken urgently to stop the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, aid agencies warn. Margaret Nyirenda, head of the Food, Agriculture and Human Resources at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) secretariat, told journalists this week that the HIV/AIDS vulnerabilities at household levels impact on food production in the region. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS, AFRICA AND SELECTIVE VISION ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=30&ItemID=4083","body":"In a July 11th article, the British weekly The Economist recounts the latest grim statistics on AIDS, noting emphatically that the 9,000 people who die each day from AIDS represents three times the number killed in the World Trade Centre attacks. \"If all men are created equal, all avoidable deaths should be regarded as equally sad,\" says the editorial, adding that \"common decency suggests that the rich world should do whatever it can to help.\" The editorial concludes ominously: \"Cynics in the West might write Africa off. Are China, India, Indonesia and Russia to be written off as well?\" Translation? Africans are poor and black. Thus we (the Economist) realize, dear reader, your greed for profits is not whetted by viewing them as consumers. Nor is your compassion stirred sufficiently by viewing them as fellow human beings. However, be mindful that the fire that has scorched that continent is spreading and is now threatening places populated by people who are prosperous enough - barely, but still above the threshold - to count as potential consumers and pale enough -barely, but still above the threshold - to awaken your caring. Read this commentary from www.zmag.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"An Annotated Bibliography on Policy Processes ","field_subtitle":"Overseas Development Institute","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/working_papers/wp221.pdf","body":"The term 'policy process' is based on the notion that policies are formulated and implemented in particular social and historical contexts, and that these contexts matter - for which issues are put on the policy agenda, for the shape of policies and policy institutions, for budget allocations, for the implementation process and for the outcome of the policies.  The idea of 'policy process' stands opposed to that of 'policy as prescription', which assumes that policies are the result of a rational process of problem identification by a benevolent agency (usually the state).  While the 'policy as prescription' approach is still important - both in much of the public administration literature as well as in the heads of many policy-makers - there is a fast expanding body of literature that analyses, explains or conceptualises the process dimensions of policy.  This literature is a blend of political science, sociology and anthropology.  It does not assume that policies are 'natural phenomena' or 'automatic solutions' resulting from particular social problems and it does not privilege the state as an actor fundamentally different from other social actors.  The why, how and by whom questions are treated as empirical questions; it is only concrete empirical research that can generate the answers.  It is this body of literature that is included in this bibliography.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"BATTLE AGAINST MALARIA IS STILL A NIGHTMARE, EXPERTS SAY","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200308250758.html","body":"Conflicts, civil unrest, emergence of drug-resistant strains of parasites and insecticide-resistant vectors, mass population movements worsened by the refugee situation, and disintegration of health services, is exacerbating the malaria situation in sub-Saharan Africa. A one week workshop held in Nairobi between July 30 and August 4, bringing together regional heads of malaria control in sub-Saharan Africa, concluded that malaria is still \"an unfinished agenda in sub-Saharan African countries, and needs more attention than it has so far received\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"BRAIN DRAIN HITS ZIMBABWE'S HEALTH SERVICE","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=18891","body":"Zimbabwe's brain drain has hit the medical profession particularly hard. More than 80% of doctors, nurses and therapists who graduated from the University of Zimbabwe medical school since independence in 1980 have gone to work abroad, primarily in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States, according to recent surveys.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Building Blocks: Africa-wide briefing notes","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsalliance.org/building_blocks.htm","body":"Building Blocks: Africa-wide briefing notes is a set of six locally adaptable resources to help communities and local organisations in Africa support children orphaned and made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS.  These resources are based on the experience of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, its partners and other organisations and have been produced in English, French and Portuguese.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Case Study of the MTV Staying Alive Campaign","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.fhi.org/en/Youth/YouthNet/ProgramsAreas/MediaInterventions/index.htm","body":"Since 2002, YouthNet has partnered with MTV on the Staying Alive Campaign, which reached over 800 million households worldwide, making it the largest public health campaign ever.  The campaign produced five hours of television available to TV and radio stations around the world, and also produced a Web site with HIV/AIDS information, referrals, and programming in English, French, and Spanish.  A case study was recently published by YouthNet, detailing the successes and experiences of the 2002 Staying Alive Campaign.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenge of the world order and its implications for health personnel","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/2/1/6","body":"Non-governmental medical organisations, including Amnesty International medical groups, Physicians for Human Rights, and the World Health Organisation (WHO), have for years tried to forge a link between health and peace. Undermining of the rights and dignity of people creates implication for the health of the community and for the responsibilities of its health workers. The Global Burden of Disease Study predicts war will reach the list of 10 most frequent causes of loss of disability-adjusted life-years by the year 2020. But, despite the growing number of armed conflicts throughout the world, not enough attention has been paid to the local patterns of distress and the long-term health impact and psychosocial consequences of political violence against individuals or communities. It has to be emphasized that 90% of all deaths related to recent wars were among civilians. Every national physicians' organisation should establish a position responsible for human rights \u2013 protected by political immunity, and should issue regular reports to representative international bodies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Child survival strongly linked to maternal survival in Uganda","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Child mortality goals are unlikely to be met in societies which fail to pay attention to the survival of HIV-positive mothers, according to findings from the Uganda General Population cohort published this month in AIDS.  The authors note that \"the very high mortality of mothers who die within a few years of giving birth suggests that simply reducing vertical transmission might not proportionately reduce the mortality risks in children of infected mothers.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29931","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Chronology of south african HIV/AIDS treatment access debate","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=2401","body":"The South African cabinet finally approved the provision of AIDS drugs to HIV-positive citizens through the public health system on 8 August.  It instructed the health ministry to act \"with urgency\".  This announcement came after months of a bitter row between South Africa's AIDS activists and the department of health, over the delay in implementing a treatment policy.  The following is a chronology of events in the treatment access debate, from December 2001 through to the government's decision this month to introduce a treatment plan.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Chronology of south african HIV/AIDS treatment access debate","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=2401","body":"The South African cabinet finally approved the provision of AIDS drugs to HIV-positive citizens through the public health system on 8 August.  It instructed the health ministry to act \"with urgency\".  This announcement came after months of a bitter row between South Africa's AIDS activists and the department of health, over the delay in implementing a treatment policy.  The following is a chronology of events in the treatment access debate, from December 2001 through to the government's decision this month to introduce a treatment plan.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Contested WTO Compromise on Generic Drugs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A last-minute World Trade Organisation compromise in Geneva on intellectual property protection and access to medicines is being heralded by some as finally opening the doors to imports of generic medicines by poor countries without a manufacturing capability.  In intense negotiations in recent months, the U.S.  reached behind-the-scenes agreements with key countries such as Brazil, India, South Africa, and Kenya.  The U.S.  and the international pharmaceutical industry made some concessions after blocking an agreement for almost two years.  However, the compromise also imposes extremely complicated procedures designed to protect patent rights, which leave enormous obstacles to overcome before affordable medicines are actually made available. The World Health Organisation and treatment access activists stress that the real test will be whether affected countries and international agencies take full advantage of their right to put public health before patent rights.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29966","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Demand for ARVs gives rise to grey market in Malawi","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=2412","body":"The illegal sale of anti-AIDS drugs in Malawi was endangering the lives of many HIV-positive citizens who were desperate to access affordable treatment, a health official told PlusNews. \"Our major concern is that people are selling immune boosters and multivitamins, and cheating [HIV] positive people by saying they are antiretrovirals (ARVs),\" Dr Bizwick Mwale, director of Malawi's national AIDS commission, told PlusNews.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Demystifying ARV therapy in resource-poor settings","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/medicines/mon/32_11.pdf","body":"Few areas of public health have generated as much debate, controversy and protest in recent years as the drive to expand access to antiretroviral therapy \u2013 the drugs that have transformed AIDS from a death sentence to a chronic condition \u2013 in developing countries. Several years ago, it was a futile discussion: with a yearly cost of US$10,000 per patient, there was little possibility of widespread access in developing countries. But, largely as a result of a potent combination of generic competition and activism, prices have plummeted, with triple therapy now being available for as little as US$209 a year, causing a huge shift in the debate about availability. Today, the debate centres on if antiretroviral therapy is possible in severely resource-constrained environments, and, increasingly, on the best ways to deliver these drugs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"DEVELOP AN ARV PLAN FOR THE PUBLIC SECTOR IN ONE MONTH  - CABINET INSTRUCTION WELCOMED BY THE TREATMENT ACTION CAMPAIGN ","field_subtitle":"TAC statement on south african cabinet ARV decision","field_url":"","body":"The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) welcomes the Cabinet's instruction to the Department of Health to develop an operational plan within one month to provide ARVs in the public sector.  The Cabinet endorsed the findings of the Joint Health and Treasury Task Team Report that between 500,000 and 1.7 million lives will be saved with anti-retroviral therapy.  It also reaffirmed the science of HIV/AIDS pathogenesis and treatment.  The TAC National Executive will formally suspend the civil disobedience campaign and reconsider pending litigation early next week.  We welcome Cabinet's bold step today but we also remember the anguish, pain and unnecessary loss of lives over the last four years.\r\nRelated Link:\r\n* Full report of the South African ARV task force \r\nhttp://www.gov.za/reports/2003/ttr010803.pdf   ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29932","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter September 2003 African People\u2019s Declaration On Africa and the World Trade Organisation ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity and HIV/AIDS: ICASA Satellite Session","field_subtitle":"Tuesday 23 September, 6 - 8 pm","field_url":"","body":"Equinet and Oxfam would like to invite participants at the ICASA conference to a satellite session on equity and HIV/AIDS. The session is designed to discuss the often misunderstood meaning of 'equity' and how this is relevant to developing countries and their HIV/AIDS crisis.  It will discuss if there is a need to develop frames of reference that are equity-based and not just poverty-based; and it will bring to attention the inter-relationships between wealth and poverty; and between justice and aid.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29943","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Franchising in Health: Emerging Models, Experiences, and Challenges in Primary Care","field_subtitle":"Note No.263 - June 2003 World Bank","field_url":"http://rru.worldbank.org/viewpoint/HTMLNotes/263/263Ruste-063003.pdf","body":"In the past decade a growing number of health franchising schemes have emerged in developing countries.  Often reaching tens of thousands of poor households, these private schemes currently provide logistical, managerial, and sometimes financial support to small-scale providers (franchisees) of preventive care, such as family planning and maternal and child health services.  While franchising has attracted growing interest among governments and donors as a possible way to achieve health objectives, there is some debate about the ability of the model to reach the poorest people and the ability of franchisers to sustain themselves financially.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS AND WORKERS RIGHTS: UNDERSTANDING THE issues","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kirkensnodhjelp.no/filemanager/download/269/Nesten%20hele%20Workers%20rights.pdf","body":"This paper from Norwegian Church Aid states that established workers' rights are often not followed when facing an HIV positive employee and therefore need to be given a renewed focus. This report concludes that workers are seldom aware of their rights, and are therefore easy victims for unjust treatment from their employers. Workers' rights seldom regulate work in the informal sector. It is probably in this sector that we find the poorest of the poor, often at high risk of contracting HIV. And when infected, they have few or no possibilities of access to proper health care, and only very rarely access to any kind of social welfare. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Hospitals in Africa are getting worse, says WHO","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Shortages of essential medicines and medical equipment, a staffing crisis and inadequate infrastructure are undermining the quality of hospital care across sub-Saharan Africa.  This could jeopardise plans to provide anti-AIDS drugs to people living with the HI virus, delegates attending the World Health Organisation (WHO) regional committee meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, heard this week.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29968","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"massive population drop in southern africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/Aids_Focus/0,,2-7-659_1391163,00.html","body":"The population of HIV/Aids-ravaged southern Africa is expected to decline by 22% by 2050, according to a recent study.  The latest world population data sheet of the United States-based Population Reference Bureau estimates South Africa's population will drop from 44 million this year to 35.1 million in 2025, and to 32.5 million in 2050 - a 26% decline.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"massive population drop in southern africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/Aids_Focus/0,,2-7-659_1391163,00.html","body":"The population of HIV/Aids-ravaged southern Africa is expected to decline by 22% by 2050, according to a recent study.  The latest world population data sheet of the United States-based Population Reference Bureau estimates South Africa's population will drop from 44 million this year to 35.1 million in 2025, and to 32.5 million in 2050 - a 26% decline.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New Health-e website","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/","body":"The new Health-E website has print and broadcast stories that contextualise and analyse public health issues, especially HIV/AIDS in South Africa. The website provides easy access to a variety of resources that have relevance for other developing countries. Some of the new features on the website include: Transcripts of all audio reports; Resources page offering reports, speeches and book reviews; News briefs; Webcasts and archives of major events; Picture gallery; Direct email access to authors of Health-e stories; Instant download of audio from website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Pantaleon Shoki","field_subtitle":"Mwanza, Tanzania","field_url":"","body":"Equinet is a useful network for both academics and practitioners.  It has to be widely advertised.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Patent door opens for generic ARVs in Africa","field_subtitle":"Kelly Scott, reposted from http://archives.healthdev.net/af-aids","field_url":"","body":"On the contrary, the nature of the agreement is such that few barriers are lowered, as Oxfam has noted.  Some barriers are indeed dealt with, and this is good, especially in the short run perhaps, but in the main it will be much harder for generic drugs to continue to be produced for market and export: which means in the intermediate to long term, prices will be much higher than they otherwise could be.  The developing countries lose.  \r\n\r\nAlso, this agreement does absolutely nothing towards inventing drugs which poor nations need; for the moment, such drugs exist, because developed nations also needed them.  But drugs which address the diseases of the poor will not be produced under the current patent/system.  TRIPS needs to change, or a new system be put in its place, as TRIPS is not working.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Patents and health: a raw deal in Canc\u00fan?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/dossiers/index.cfm?fuseaction=dossierItem&Dossier=8","body":"World Trade Organisation (WTO) members will meet in Canc\u00fan, Mexico, at the most significant set of talks for two years.  On the agenda is a discussion of the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), and its impact on public health, in particular the availability of cheap drugs. Negotiations on this issue stalled last December when the United States failed to agree on a text presented by the TRIPS Council.  Developing countries have made clear that this outstanding issue must be resolved before the Mexico meeting.  But in this article, Aileen Kwa of the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South warns that even if the December text is agreed to, it still offers a raw deal to developing countries, and would result in a \"host of legal and bureaucratic red tape\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor","field_subtitle":"by Paul Farmer","field_url":"http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2003/08/12/a_doctor_cries_out_for_the_neglected_millions/","body":"This book is Farmer's account of the disenfranchised poor whose lives so often end in tragic and yet, he contends, wholly predictable ways. They are victims of \u201cstructural violence,'' falling prey to treatable illnesses, preventable hunger, and crime, all for the sole reason of having no money.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Peter Burgess, ATCnet in New York","field_subtitle":"Reposted from http://lists.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/pha-exchange","field_url":"","body":"The World Health Organisation announced that it will create a new model to buy antiretroviral AIDS drugs in hopes of dramatically speeding distribution and reducing the cost of the life-saving medication. (http://ippfnet.ippf.org/pub/IPPF_News/News_Details.asp?ID=2823) I am terribly sceptical.  I think the \"facts\" are spurious and reflect more spin than reality.  My background is numbers and understanding the impact of investment and expenditure on economic outcomes.  The article continued: \"Global health specialists have applauded the program because it created a larger market for TB drugs and spurred competition.  That in turn drove down the cost of TB drugs, 30 percent for front-line, or commonly used, medication and 95 percent for secondary drugs.\" That is a pretty impressive statement.  And totally out of line with the scale of the WHO intervention.  My view is that this statement is complete \"hogwash\" and the Boston Globe should have known better than to report it without some serious caveats.  Can this statement stand up to independent review and validation?","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29940","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Policy and Regulatory Options for Private Participation in developing countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://rru.worldbank.org/viewpoint/HTMLNotes/264/264Marek-063003.pdf","body":"Many developing countries face a critical gap between the demand for health care services and their supply.  Public resources often fall short of what is needed to provide universal health care, and the typical incentive structure in the public sector may not always be conducive to expanding access, improving the quality of care, and ensuring efficient use of limited funding and expertise.  This World Bank Note defines options for mobilizing private resources to achieve public health objectives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"POVERTY REDUCTION OUTCOMES IN EDUCATION AND HEALTH: PUBLIC EXPENDITURE AND AID","field_subtitle":"Overseas Development Institute (ODI) (2003)","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/working_papers/wp210.pdf","body":"This paper looks at the role of public expenditure programmes in the health and education sectors and their impact on poverty. It argues for a closer donor involvement at the sector level. The evidence reviewed shows that progress towards the Millennium Development Goals has slowed in some low income countries, notably in Sub-Saharan Africa. Public expenditure has a much less powerful impact on outcomes than demand-side factors. Policies and practices for making public programmes more effective that have been recognised for some time remain unimplemented.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty, equity, human rights and health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/81/7/en/Braveman0703.pdf","body":"Those concerned with poverty and health have sometimes viewed equity and human rights as abstract concepts with little practical application, and links between health, equity and human rights have not been examined systematically.  Examination of the concepts of poverty, equity, and human rights in relation to health and to each other demonstrates that they are closely linked conceptually and operationally and that each provides valuable, unique guidance for health institutions' work.  Equity and human rights perspectives can contribute concretely to health institutions' efforts to tackle poverty and health, and focusing on poverty is essential to operationalizing those commitments.  Both equity and human rights principles dictate the necessity to strive for equal opportunity for health for groups of people who have suffered marginalization or discrimination.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"POWER, KNOWLEDGE AND POLITICAL SPACES IN THE FRAMING OF POVERTY POLICY","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/bookshop/wp/wp143.pdf","body":"This paper explores the dynamics of the making and shaping of poverty policy.  It begins with a critique of linear versions of policy-making, highlighting the complex interplay of power, knowledge and agency in poverty policy processes, arguing that the policy process involves a complex configuration of interests whose interactions are shaped by power relations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health workforce: challenges and policy issues","field_subtitle":"Human Resources for Health 2003 1:4","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-1-4.pdf","body":"This paper reviews the challenges facing the public health workforce in developing countries and the main policy issues that need to be addressed in order to strengthen the public health workforce.  The public health workforce is diverse and includes all those whose prime responsibility is the provision of core public health activities, irrespective of their organisational base.  Although the public health workforce is central to the performance of health systems, very little is known about the composition, training or performance of the workforce.  The key policy question is: Should governments invest more in building and supporting the public health workforce and infrastructure to ensure the more effective functioning of health systems?  Other questions concern: the nature of the public health workforce including its size, composition, skills, training needs, current functions and performance; the appropriate roles of the workforce; and how the workforce can be strengthened to support new approaches to priority health problems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reproductive Health of Young Adults Module","field_subtitle":"Visit the module and test your knowledge and skills","field_url":"http://www.fhi.org/en/Youth/YouthNet/rhtrainmat/index.htm","body":"The Reproductive Health of Young Adults training module has been updated for 2003.  This module is available for either self-study or as a presentation for physicians, nurses, pharmacists, or other trained healthcare personnel.  Through slides and activities, this training module is designed to increase the awareness and understanding of the reproductive health needs of young adults among policy-makers, program directors, program planners, and healthcare providers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reproductive Health Outlook Website","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.rho.org/html/whatsnew.htm","body":"The Reproductive Health Outlook (RHO) website is designed for reproductive health program managers and decision-makers working in developing countries and low-resource settings. RHO provides up-to-date summaries of research findings, program experience, and clinical guidelines related to key reproductive health topics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Rose Kumwenda","field_subtitle":"Lilongwe, Malawi","field_url":"","body":"I would like to be on the mail list so that I can learn more about Equity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC moves to counter civil wars in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=84&art_id=vn20030827065145178C189636&set_id=1","body":"A new mutual security pact will permit members of the Southern African Development Community to intervene and prevent internal conflict.  The aim of the pact is to prevent conflict from destabilising other countries.  The pact, which effectively limits an individual country's sovereignty, enshrines the principle of strong joint action to enforce peace.  Officials of the 14-member SADC, which ended its summit on Tuesday, said they hoped this would avert civil war in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Pledges To Fight AIDS, Oppose Enforcement of Patents on Drugs at WTO Talks","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=19585","body":"The Southern African Development Community at the close of its 23rd Annual SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, pledged to fight HIV/AIDS in the region, Agence France-Presse reports.  The SADC Council of Ministers approved the SADC HIV/AIDS Framework and Program of Action, 2003-2007, and on Sunday announced that the group is seeking $10.5 million to implement the program.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTH AFRICA: DYING TO FIGHT ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?2%2C40%2C5%2C319","body":"'Avoid Aids, come inside' says the sign outside the sex shop near the Durban beachfront. Just 100 meters away 500 Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) activists, from 110 branches across South Africa, were meeting at the second TAC National Congress to plan how to carry on their fight for the roll out of a comprehensive treatment plan for the 5 million people living with HIV-AIDS. With the highest national HIV prevalence in the world, AIDS is estimated to have caused 40% of all adult deaths in 2001, as many as 1,000 people a day according to UNAIDS (a figure not challenged by the ANC government). Addressing the Congress on the final day, the historic nature of this campaign was underscored by the UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS, Stephen Lewis, who compared TAC with some of the greatest social movements of the twentieth century and the \"anti-globalisation\" movement of the twenty-first. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"south africa: HIV/AIDS Global Programme Coordinator","field_subtitle":"Oxfam","field_url":"","body":"Oxfam is implementing a global strategy to respond to HIV/AIDS based on programme experience and global analysis.  We are recruiting for a programme coordinator to support the integration of HIV/AIDS into Oxfam's programme and to establish and lead a global Centre of Learning based in South Africa.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29937","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"south african AIDS Meeting Ends with Call for Treatment ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aegis.com/news/re/2003/RE030808.html","body":"Scientists and activists at South Africa's first national AIDS conference, which drew to a close on August 6, urged the government to roll out rapid drug treatment for millions of South Africans dying from the disease.  \"The message is: don't wait.  You've got to do something, and you have got to do it now,\" Salim Abdool Karim, scientific chair of the conference, told Reuters.  \"This is not an attack on the government.  This is scientific fact.\" The four-day conference was a watershed in South Africa's public debate on AIDS policy, which is dominated by angry efforts to persuade the government to launch a national treatment program with antiretroviral drugs, which many scientists say represent the only way to avoid catastrophe.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative: A global initiative to develop drugs for those in need","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.accessmed-msf.org/dnd/dndi.asp","body":"Recent international efforts to revive pharmaceutical R&D for neglected diseases have focused mainly on malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.  These have relied heavily on market-based incentive mechanisms, including public-private partnerships.  The DND-WG's analysis clearly shows that this strategy will have limited impact for what we describe as the \"most neglected diseases\".  One strategy to address this fatal imbalance that is currently being pursued is the creation of a needs-driven global drug development network - the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi).  The DNDi is a not-for-profit research and development organisation that will manage global R&D networks with the goal of producing new, effective, affordable and field-relevant drugs for neglected diseases.  The Drugs for Neglected diseases Initiative is the brainchild from M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res' Drugs for Neglected Diseases Working Group.  The DNDi aims to take the development of drugs for neglected diseases out of the marketplace and encourage the public sector to assume greater responsibility.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"THE SOUTH AFRICAN OLD AGE PENSION: EXPLORING THE ROLE ON POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN HOUSEHOLDS AFFECTED BY HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.issa.int/pdf/anvers03/topic2/2legido-Quigley.pdf","body":"This paper by the International Social Security Association seeks to explore some pressing issues related to the consequences of the old age pension in households affected by HIV/AIDS in South Africa.  The paper examines the policy of the South African government to provide the elderly with a means-tested non-contributory old age pension, intended to be a poverty relief programme for the aged.  The paper argues that the migration and death caused by the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the middle generation has decreased the family income, giving the old age pension a much more prominent role.  The social old age pension makes elderly persons economically independent, allowing them to become valuable members of the family.  Nevertheless, the paper claims that the scheme has not proved to be enough to alleviate poverty in households affected by HIV/AIDS and reasons that a better solution should be explored.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Training Course in Consultancy Skills in International Cooperation in Health","field_subtitle":"10 - 28 November, 2003, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania","field_url":"","body":"In international development co-operation there is an increasing demand for regional experts and consultants to conduct formal evaluations and write comprehensive consultancy reports.  Despite the expert's professional competence, reports and documents often do not satisfy the expected quality standards of international agencies.  These weaknesses result from lack of familiarity with formal expectations and 'unwritten' rules of international agencies.  This course intends to improve knowledge and skills in planning, writing, editing as well as how to assess the quality of consultancy reports in the field of international public health.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29928","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Looks to Ease Access to AIDS Drugs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ippfnet.ippf.org/pub/IPPF_News/News_Details.asp?ID=2823","body":"The World Health Organisation announced last month that it will create a new model to buy antiretroviral AIDS drugs in hopes of dramatically speeding distribution and reducing the cost of the life-saving medication.  The plan comes from collaboration among tuberculosis experts, foremost among them the new WHO director general, Jong-wook Lee.  That program, called the TB Drug Facility, purchases drugs in bulk on behalf of countries and then oversees the distribution.  \r\nRead a response to this article in the Letters section of Equinet News.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Workshop on the Ethics of Research Related to Healthcare in Developing Countries","field_subtitle":"12 - 14 February 2004, Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"The Nuffield Council on Bioethics published a Report, the ethics of research related to healthcare in developing countries, in April 2002. The Report recommends that medical research in developing countries which is funded by organisations in wealthier countries is crucial but must be subject to rigorous ethical safeguards. The Report provides an ethical framework for anyone who is designing or conducting externally-sponsored research in the developing world. A follow-up Workshop will be held in February 2004 to explore developments in this area since the publication of the Report. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29930","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"zambian GOVERNMENT IMPLEMENTS CRITERIA FOR DISTRIBUTION OF FREE ARV'S","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=19466","body":"The Zambian government has instituted criteria to determine which of the country's 200,000 HIV/AIDS patients will have access to free antiretroviral drug treatment, Xinhua News Agency reports. Under the new guidelines, HIV-positive people wishing to access the drugs must undergo voluntary HIV testing and counselling as well as a clinical test to determine their viral load.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambian workers continue week-long strike","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=84&art_id=qw1062458641143B251&set_id=1","body":"Zambia's trade unions said on Monday that more than 10 000 civil servants and public service workers would continue with their strike despite threats from the government to fire them if they do not return to work.  Sylvester Tembo, general secretary of the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCFTU) said his union had written a letter to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions to register the government's intentions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"zimbabwean AIDS PREVALENCE NOT DOWN, SAY EXPERTS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200308250585.html","body":"Figures released by the government last week showing a drop in the number of Zimbabweans infected by HIV/AIDS were only a correction of flawed estimates from previous surveys and did not mean the prevalence of the disease was declining in the country, HIV/AIDS experts said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-09-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"'FOOD THE BIGGEST PROBLEM FOR AIDS ORPHANS'","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=84&art_id=qw1058542383139A162&set_id=1","body":"The UN food agency has said that Aids in sub-Saharan Africa would leave 20 million children without parents to feed them in less than a decade. The World Food Programme's executive director James Morris said 11 million Aids orphans already without a mother or father to cultivate crops in southern Africa would be joined by another nine million in seven years. The WFP earlier this month launched an appeal for $308-million to fund 540 000 tons of aid to prevent starvation in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"acute brain drain in zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=35578","body":"Zimbabwe is experiencing a debilitating flight of professional and skilled people escaping the country's economic crisis, a study funded by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has found.  A large number of Zimbabweans had taken up South African citizenship and there were probably more Zimbabweans in South Africa than in the United Kingdom, the country with the highest official tally of expatriate Zimbabweans.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa has a right to support from international community in its fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7407/124-e","body":"Africa has a right to demand support from the international community in its fight against AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, executive director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, told a meeting of African heads of state in Maputo, Mozambique in July. Professor Sachs said that only a very small fraction of the more than $10bn (\u00a36.2bn; \u20ac8.8bn) needed each year to effectively combat these illnesses had yet been allocated to African countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Aid agency to tackle disease in the developing world","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.com/cgi/content/abridged/327/7405/11","body":"The quest for drugs to fight the world's most neglected tropical infectious diseases gained fresh momentum with the formal launch of the \"drugs for neglected diseases\" initiative this week. M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res has teamed up with five international public organisations to promote affordable and effective drugs against leishmaniasis, human African trypanosomiasis, and Chagas' disease, among other infections that affect millions of people across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS in South Africa: The Invisible Cure","field_subtitle":"Helen Epstein","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/st2003/sld-8146.html","body":"This piece explores what the author describes as a \"striking and deeply mysterious\" denial of the reality of AIDS in South Africa.  This country has one of the highest infection rates in the world and an equally high level of awareness about how to avoid being infected.  Why, the author asks, have so many HIV prevention programmes - like those addressing high-risk youth - been so radically unsuccessful?  Epstein explains that many of the efforts to change the sexual behaviour of young people in South Africa have tapped into what youth seem to respond to most readily - material culture, images of beauty and glamour, and fun/play.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Aids protest poised to resume in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=129&fArticleId=191844","body":"Aids activists are angry about the government's indecision over providing anti-Aids drugs and look set to resume their civil disobedience campaign.  A final decision about returning to civil disobedience could be made at the Treatment Action Campaign's (TAC) national congress, which is to be held in Durban within the next two weeks.  Provincial meetings ahead of the congress have already voted overwhelmingly in favour of a return to the disobedience campaign, which was suspended in April after a meeting between TAC representatives and Deputy President Jacob Zuma.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS, Empire, and Public Health Behaviourism ","field_subtitle":"Sanjay Basu","field_url":"","body":"In the wake of U.S. President George Bush's trip to several African nations, and after his State of the Union speech declaring $15 billion of spending for global AIDS prevention and care, American newspapers have rallied in support of the \"compassionate conservatism\" represented by Bush's \"commitment\" to anti-AIDS efforts.  Certainly, the $15 billion number has turned out to be an inflated figure, as most of the money is recycled from existing spending and only $1.4 billion has been appropriated this year (with little indication of renewal in subsequent years) [1].  But where the money is actually going has been left mostly unexamined.  Not only is the funding circumventing the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria, being spent almost entirely through bilateral USAID initiatives known for their inefficacy (and diversion towards abstinence-only, anti-abortion initiatives), but more importantly the majority of funds are being spent in line with a common and fallacious public health dogma: that \"information is everything\", and preventing the spread of HIV means \"promoting education\" [1-5].\r\n\r\nThis \"health belief model\" seems intuitive and obvious: if people just know how HIV is transmitted (and stop being in \"denial\" about it) -- the rhetoric goes -- the transmission of HIV will diminish [6].  Sounds credible enough; but this argument has been consistently promoted by a group of public health workers and international financial institutions who ignore most of the available data we now have on AIDS prevention initiatives [2].  While the development banks and others have promoted the Ugandan case as a \"model\" (at one point claiming that effective \"bereavement counselling\" in the country was a reason for praise, rather than preventing the deaths to begin with [7]), the Ugandan \"model\" appears to be promoted without much examination of the data.  Certainly, prevention initiatives in Uganda have reduced HIV prevalence in certain populations.  But the prevalence rates have increased in some sections of Uganda while decreasing in others; in particular, the wealthier urban areas have seen a decrease in infection rates, while infection has rocketed upwards in the rural and poorer zones.  \r\n\r\nWhat is also often ignored is that even in sectors where prevalence has reduced, the reduction mathematically represents a decline in incidence well before the government's prevention initiatives began, and corresponds more to social demographic changes and economic reforms than \"education\" initiatives [8].  What is perhaps most problematic about the Ugandan case is that the so-called \"model\" it offers makes several wrong assumptions.  Given that the top epidemiological predictor for HIV infection around the world is not \"risk behaviour\" but rather a low income level, those most vulnerable to infection will not benefit from a model focused on \"education\" -- a model that assumes people in poverty have the agency to control the circumstances of their lives, even in the context of gender inequality or in environments without income opportunities other than trading sex for money [9-15].  As Dr.  Paul Farmer and colleagues recently noted, \"Their risk stems less from ignorance and more from the precarious situations in which hundreds of millions live\" [7].  And dozens of surveys support this fact, confirming that -- despite our presumptions -- those most at risk for HIV often do know how the virus is transmitted, and even in the highest prevalence areas have sex rates lower than in many regions of the U.S. and Japan [13, 16-20].  \r\n\r\nSex is not as much the issue as the context under which sex occurs, yet several social scientists studying AIDS are guilty of trying to define an African \"system of sexuality\" and render sexual behaviour the problem rather than examining why sex among the poor seems to lead to HIV transmission so much more often than sex among the wealthy [21-24].  In interviews, those most vulnerable regularly discuss other concerns about life (access to clean water and food, gaining financial independence, and so forth) that take precedence over preventing HIV transmission [19, 25-30].  Yet the \"targeted\" public health rhetoric ignores these and even equates the concerns of the poor with the rhetoric of politicians by labelling both \"in denial\" [30, 31].\r\n\r\nIn the South African mining sector, for example, a recent group of surveys established that the \"norm\" of masculinity (expressed through soliciting prostitutes) in \"South African culture\" increases the risk of HIV transmission [32].  To locate \"culture\" as the problem is to ignore the perspectives of the miners themselves (who, in fact, are from a variety of different locations as distinct as rural sectors of Malawi and Mozambique and urban areas like Johannesburg).  As one miner put it: \"Every time you go underground you have to wear a lamp on your head.  Once you take on that lamp you know that you are wearing death.  Where you are going you are not sure whether you will come back to the surface alive or dead.  It is only with luck if you come to the surface still alive because everyday somebody gets injured or dies\"[32].\r\n\r\nIn the context of a 42% injury rate, it would be natural to think that catching a disease that could kill you ten years down the road might be less pressing than trying to gain some control over life -- or perhaps even enjoying life in some minor way (through alcohol or sex) before getting crushed by falling rock.  But the psychologists who quoted this miner (and published their analysis in a top-ranked medical journal) labelled him \"in denial,\" and claimed that his \"low self-esteem\" was the cause of his increased risk for HIV infection [32].  A similar survey among prostitutes labelled them \"liars\" (in \"denial\" of their agency) when they attributed their prostitution to lack of opportunity and coercion [25].\r\n\r\n\"Culture\" (whether a distant African one or a \"culture of poverty\" among the poor in wealthy countries) is often described as a barrier to effective intervention, assumed to be a fixed, unalterable thing defined by the dominant groups in power, while the marginalized have no culture themselves or are guilty of having a sub-culture that renders them vulnerable to HIV or promotes crime and delinquency [20, 21, 33-38].  Culture, denial, stigma and conspiracy theories are taken to be the causes rather than the effects of social and economic problems.  At other points, culture is focused upon to devise \"culturally-competent\" solutions to change the low efficacy of HIV prevention initiatives [39, 40].  In both of these cases, \"culture\" is conflated with the structural violence of inequality and lack of access to resources -- and when these issues are un-addressed, even the most \"culturally-competent\" prevention initiatives still focus on merely co-opting local culture to suit the needs of \"targeted\" interventions [41].  In this context, even after messages are adapted to \"local norms\" (ignoring the universal context of HIV-transmission, that of inequality and lack of access to resources), \"providing information about health risks changes the behaviour of, at most, one in four people -- generally those who are more affluent and better educated\" [42].  \r\n\r\nIn response to accumulating data that the majority of education initiatives are failing, the public health community is now committing another behaviouristic mistake; instead of examining the political and economic contexts of prevention, it has now returned (unawares, I suspect) to a colonial rhetoric: claiming that the inefficacy of such initiatives is due to the individualistic nature of the interventions, ignoring the \"collectivist African traditions\" (thereby conflating all of the many social scenes in Africa into one \"African system\") [39, 42].  In colonial times, \"venereal\" syphilis among miners (which later turned out to be non-venereal syphilis and yaws) would be explained by the loss of \"African traditions\", which reportedly promoted female chastity by exerting group control over young women (paralleling the modern \"revival\" -- and partial invention -- of \"traditions\" like virginity testing in the context of AIDS [43]) [44, 45].  Mine workers were simultaneously taught to be individualistic and capitalistic in the mines, then returned to be collectivistic at their rural homes when they became ill (a very \"cost-effective\" strategy for mine owners to avoid paying for medical care) [18, 46].  The context of illness, and its relationship to their position in the economic field of relations, went unquestioned.  Now, public health behaviourism aims to solve HIV transmission by holding \"group rituals\" for education -- so, perhaps, the \"self-esteem\" problems can be pushed aside as \"traditions\" solve all of the barriers to effective HIV prevention [39, 42].\r\n\r\nWhat this rhetoric ignores and often disguises is that the background for increasing HIV transmission is a background of neoliberalism -- a context where the movement of capital is privileged above the ability of persons to secure their own livelihoods.  Increasing migration is correlated precisely to the break-up of marriages as rural farms are destroyed after the liberalization of markets results in sharp drops in primary commodity prices; (mostly male) labourers travel to urban areas to work [13, 47, 48].  In vast sectors of southern Africa, miners are housed in all-male barracks for months at a time, worked six days a week, and given alcohol to \"keep them happy\" (or keep them from rebelling) on the seventh day -- when intoxication and depression lead to the solicitation of prostitutes.  They are returned home to die, and find either their wives have left them to find a better source of income and support, or are waiting themselves to be infected with HIV [13].  The \"rural women's epidemic\" of HIV -- that is the sub-epidemics of women in rural zones who have been infected by their migrant male husbands (most of whom have already died at the time of surveys) -- is not so \"surprising\" or \"unusual\" in this context [47].\r\n\r\nAIDS, then, is a symptom as much as it is a disease.  In the context of the new South African Customs Union (SACU) trade agreement with the United States, it will be a most severe symptom.  The SACU deal promotes rapid liberalization and the movement of capital over the securing of stable employment and better livelihoods, privileging companies who wish to set-up base temporarily and shift the means of production at will.  If similar deals in East Asia and the Caribbean are any indication, both TB and HIV will increase markedly in this context as migration and poverty render \"monogamous marriage\" a nonsensical idea and force both women and men in poverty to move constantly and find new sources of income wherever they can [13, 47].  \r\n\r\nThe SACU deal also links this neoliberal context to the distribution of resources, particularly medicines, which are often discussed through a rhetoric divorced from the context of HIV prevention.  The trade deal will render generic medicines extremely difficult to procure, providing a more than two-decade-long monopoly for patented medicines [49].  Public health officials have not strongly voiced their opposition to this (leaving NGOs to take on the task), and have focused on the \"cost-effective\" prevention initiatives instead.  The \"prevention versus treatment\" dichotomy should have been defeated by the numerous models indicating that access to vital health resources like antiretroviral drugs is part of the process of improving livelihoods, rather than being dichotomously opposed to effective disease prevention.  Indeed, effective treatment provision often helps to reduce stigma, denial and blame, in addition to reducing HIV transmission [50, 51].  Brazil has certainly demonstrated this definitively, having reduced HIV prevalence (and incidence) after providing universal access to antiretrovirals.  Despite being threatened by the US Trade Representative for producing generic medicines, Brazil has allowed the use of generic medicines, saving the country hundreds of millions of dollars and reducing HIV prevalence by over 50% [51].\r\n\r\nThe claim has been that such measures are not \"cost-effective\" in the manner of education initiatives (which themselves are declared cost-effective by predicting \"high return on investments\" in spite of the emerging data to the contrary).  But \"cost-effectiveness\" is not based on a law of nature -- in its current form, the means for calculating such effectiveness assume that distinct health interventions are competing with one another, as if all health outcomes were pulling from the same pot of money, and the overall effect on society will be discrete, whether or not a plague is taking place [41, 52, 53].  The logic, like the \"health belief model\", seems intuitive, but it is notable that not all societies think this way; indeed, many assume instead that health is multiplicative -- that healthiness among some members of society contributes to healthiness among others as work-capacity and social esteem are promoted by the lack of disease [54].  As WHO senior advisor Jim Yong Kim recently declared, \"For years, we have assumed that health spending must be pulled from a fixed pot of money, without examining who determines how big the pot is or how ill health plays upon the maintenance of the economy and general society.\" Brazil decided to counter the World Bank claims about the \"cost-ineffectiveness\" of its programs by calculating the \"cost-effectiveness\" differently; when it took into account the cost of hospitalizations saved by properly treating AIDS patients and thereby preventing them from having recurring opportunistic infections (reducing hospital visits by 80%), and included the costs of mass death to the Brazilian economy, the cost of antiretrovirals suddenly seemed quite affordable [51].\r\n\r\nYet in this context, a new rhetoric against generic medicines was deployed to counter the idea that other countries could follow Brazil's path.  The US Trade Representative threatened Argentina, Thailand, South Africa and other countries when all of them attempted to regulate the prices of pharmaceuticals or introduce competition into the monopolistic patent regimes [55].  The USTR's claim was that generic drug use would reduce innovation, but like many claims about AIDS, this one ignored all available data.  According to the industry's own tax records (obtained from the Securities and Exchange Commission), Merck this year spent 13% of its revenue on marketing and only 5% on R&D, Pfizer spent 35% n marketing and only 15% on R&D, and the industry overall spent 27% on marketing and 11% on R&D [56].  \r\n\r\nMost AIDS drugs were produced under significant public funding, and 85% of the research (including clinical trials) for the top five selling drugs on the market were produced through taxpayer funding [57].  Meanwhile, all of sub-Saharan Africa constitutes only 1.3% of the pharmaceutical market, so as one former pharmaceutical executive put it, providing generics to this market would result in a profit loss equivalent to \"about three days fluctuation in exchange rates\" [58, 59].  But the drug industry's fight for this market and middle-income country markets is serious, as the growing inequality in poor countries under the context of neoliberalism manufactures a new market among the wealthy and a sector for industry expansion [60].\r\n\r\nRealizing the problems with claims about patents and pharmaceuticals, developing country trade ministers pushed through a deal at the November 2001 trade conference in Doha, Qatar.  The resulting \"Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health\" (referring to the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, or TRIPS, Agreement) would allow poor countries to import generic medicines, especially if they lacked the capacity to produce such medicines themselves [61].  Although it passed unanimously, the US Trade Representative managed to become the only trade minister out of the WTO's 145 member country ministers to block the implementation of the Doha accord [62].  A deadlock still exists as the US insists upon limiting the scope of countries eligible to import generics.  The US has once again co-opted the public health rhetoric, claiming that only a few iconic, extremely poor countries should be the focus for the deal [60].  Such an exclusionary policy would not only violate the Declaration itself (which claims that the WTO will promote \"access to medicines for all\" [61]) and deny medicine access to the majority of people who need it, but would destroy economies of scale and other necessary means to build efficient and effective generic drug production facilities, and prevent competition to lower prices and increase quality [63, 64].  Such is the nature of \"free trade\".\r\n\r\nThe \"culture\" rhetoric also re-appears in this framework.  U.S. presidential candidate Howard Dean, claiming to be the \"Democratic wing of the Democratic party\", has argued that antiretrovirals are of humanitarian importance but should not be emphasized because they are not as \"culturally appropriate\" as prevention initiatives.  Culture once again becomes the basis for justifying inequality.  And it is simultaneously blamed as reports are produced about the increasing prevalence of drug resistance in the U.S. and Europe.  Drug resistant strains of viruses emerge when patients intake medicines irregularly, and while the reports of resistance are all from Northern countries, they have been projected onto the South under the assumption that \"if drug resistance emerges here, it'll emerge there\", particularly in the \"cultures of denial\" (as The Boston Globe put it) [65-67].  Some public health workers have even suggested that antiretrovirals should only be accessible to those patients \"most likely to comply\", yet what this denies is that those most likely to comply are those least likely to have HIV -- they are the wealthy and the people with resources needed to control the circumstances of their own lives.  \r\n\r\nDrug resistance can be more effectively countered by scaling-up antiretroviral treatment and providing sustained and equitable distribution; resistance propagates most often because people who are denied medicine are desperate to get it, so a black market flourishes, allowing people to trade medicines and take improper regimens [50].  The drug resistance excuse is, like most excuses about AIDS, a vestige of past public health excuses, first deployed to suggest that persons with drug-resistant TB should not receive treatment (resulting in multi drug resistant TB as those people -- fated to die -- struggled to survive and receive pills wherever they could).  Only when multi-drug resistant TB hit New York City populations did treatment for it suddenly become \"cost-effective\" [68].\r\n\r\nYet the public health community uses examples like these to suggest that they have no options besides meagre education-based interventions.  As one group of health workers put it, \"as ordinary citizens, we are not in a position to change the political and economic system\" [69].  While such an analysis effectively loses the marathon before the race has even started, it also ignores the numerous health models (often constructed by activists rather than public health programs) that have effectively changed political and economic contexts for HIV transmission rather than subscribing to fatalism.  In the context of the poorest location in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere (the central plateau of Haiti), public health workers have managed to provide free antiretroviral treatment without producing primary resistance and have effectively begun to stem HIV transmission by providing new models for food provision, income generation and continuity of health care distribution [7, 50].  \r\n\r\nIn the context of southern Africa, campaigners have forced the Coca-Cola company to change its labour policies and provide family housing, reduce migration-based networks of product distribution, and provide complete health packages including antiretroviral drugs (www.treat-your-workers.org).  So the fatalism must be tempered by an awareness of such models, which are now abounding as those infected and affected by AIDS refuse to sick back and watch the inefficacy and behaviouristic prevention initiatives produced by the public health community.\r\n\r\nWhat the health community ignores is that that public health must be less about coercion and more about facilitation.  In addition, there are many campaigns focused exclusively on inequality between countries -- but these often present the idea that \"Third World\" starvation will be solved when \"First World\" people eat less ice cream.  Indeed, between country inequality is tremendously important.  But increasingly the First vs. Third World rhetoric produces claims that public health work has competing interests -- for example, between lowering prescription drug costs in wealthy countries and lowering them in poor countries (although the data indicate that the pharmaceutical industry can easily afford both) -- instead of questioning the rhetoric of \"cost-effectiveness\" and the zero-sum approach to health provision.  We must increasingly focus on the inequalities that take place within countries, as these point us toward routes to facilitate better health rather than attempt to coerce people whose life circumstances render the rhetoric of hygiene ineffective and often ridiculous [70-75].  \r\n\r\nWhen we examine within-country inequalities, we begin to see the major trends -- that the poor (even the relatively poor in wealthy nations) are consistently those marginalized in the context of AIDS, whether they are located in the poor neighbourhoods of Washington D.C. or the mining fields just outside of Johannesburg; that the wealthy in both rich and poor countries use migrant labour and threaten the health of the poor to increase their share of capital; and that AIDS is a symptom of the breakdown of social relations that occurs in the context of growing inequalities [12-14, 20, 25, 26, 28, 38, 41, 47, 48, 50, 53, 76-81].  AIDS is effectively a symptom of Empire, which operates by producing inequalities everywhere, keeping resources inequitably distributed so that they may be accumulated by a few, and rendering problems like disease a side-effect of capital accumulation [82].\r\n\r\nEmpire is threatened not simply by local resistance but by resistances that occur when people in similar circumstances between different nation-states -- people in both poor and rich countries -- realize that inequality is central to this issue.  Anti-AIDS efforts are funded currently to increase labour potential and prevent economic collapse by keeping workers economically productive, or by focusing so much on \"behaviour\" and \"culture\" that the context in which \"behaviour\" occurs is rendered unproblematic [82-84].  Therefore, the current anti-AIDS efforts bolster and disguise the mechanisms of Empire.  AIDS becomes the product of individual irresponsibility and anonymous Third World destitution -- the plague captured in pictures of dying babies and public health saviours desperate to convince the natives to adopt better hygiene practices.  To expose this rhetoric's basic fallacy will require serious questioning of public health's behaviouristic trends, as well as the dominant economic and political themes that render HIV a plague of the poor.\r\n\r\n* For a list of the references used in this article please click on the link provided.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29914","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"All in the mind? The emigration of South Africa\u2019s young professionals ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/society/s10cmb1g1.html","body":"South Africa is suffering from a \u2018brain drain\u2019, or loss of its professionals \u2013 but how serious is the problem and what effect is it having on the homeland?  This study attempts to assess the number of emigrants and the skills being lost, and asks whether the loss is permanent.  Skills loss due to emigration has recently become a high-profile public policy issue in South Africa.  A major, unresolved question is the actual scale of the problem and its impact.  There has been growing suspicion that South Africa\u2019s official emigration data, SSA, significantly underestimate the number of South Africans leaving the country to settle abroad.  This report by the University of Cape Town attempts to assess the true extent of emigration by examining data from the recipient countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Announcement: New Publication from Southern African AIDS Training","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Southern African AIDS Training Programme (SAT) is pleased to announce our latest publication \"Counselling Guidelines on Stress Management\".  SAT is a regional collaboration that supports community responses to HIV and AIDS through in-depth partnerships in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe and wider networking, skills exchange and lesson sharing throughout the region.  SAT funding and skills building activities support partners in a wide range of relevant activities - HIV prevention, HIV and AIDS care and support, impact mitigation, networking and information exchange, HIV-related advocacy on gender and human/child rights.  SAT partners are operating at community, national and regional levels.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29881","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Announcement: Selection of NGO Liaison Committee-UNAIDS PCB","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This is to inform you that the selection process for the vacancies in the NGO Liaison Committee of the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board from North America, Europe, LAC and Africa regions has been completed.  As you may know, the UNAIDS PCB has five seats reserved for NGO sector delegates on a regional basis.  Each delegate NGO has an Alternate.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29880","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"ANYTHING TO SAY?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Send your letters and comments to editor@equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Applying an equity lens to child health and mortality: more of the same is not enough","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol362/iss9379/full/llan.362.9379.child_survival.26472.1","body":"Gaps in child mortality between rich and poor countries are unacceptably wide and in some areas are becoming wider, as are the gaps between wealthy and poor children within most countries. Poor children are more likely than their better-off peers to be exposed to health risks, and they have less resistance to disease because of undernutrition and other hazards typical in poor communities. Regular monitoring of inequities and use of the resulting information for education, advocacy, and increased accountability among the general public and decision makers is urgently needed, but will not be sufficient. Equity must be a priority in the design of child survival interventions and delivery strategies, and mechanisms to ensure accountability at national and international levels must be developed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing human resources for health: what can be learned from labour force surveys?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-1-5.pdf","body":"Human resources are an essential element of a health system's inputs, and yet there is a huge disparity among countries in how human resource policies and strategies are developed and implemented. The analysis of the impacts of services on population health and well-being attracts more interest than analysis of the situation of the workforce in this area. This article presents an international comparison of the health workforce in terms of skill mix, socio demographics and other labour force characteristics, in order to establish an evidence base for monitoring and evaluation of human resources for health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE WTO: THE REAL WORLD OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS","field_subtitle":"Fatoumata Jawara And Aileen Kwa","field_url":"http://www.focusweb.org/publications/Books/Behind-the-Scenes-at-the-WTO.html","body":"This important book on the politics of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which takes the lid off how the WTO really works, and what really happened before, at, and after the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha in 2001, on the basis of interviews with 33 Geneva-based delegates to the WTO and 10 Secretariat staff members. This is the ammunition the critics of the WTO have been waiting for. It reveals the systematic subversion of an ostensibly democratic system to ensure that the \"agreements\" that are reached are those the major powers - primarily the US and the European Union - want, irrespective of the views of interests of most developing countries, who form the great majority of the membership.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Competing for business? Improving hospital services in Zambia with market forces","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h1pn1g1.html","body":"Does competition improve hospital services?  Do market forces in healthcare benefit the poorest members of society?  Reforms which involve exposing hospitals to market forces are being introduced in many developing countries.  However, very little is known about how these markets operate, particularly in developing countries.  The University of Zambia, together with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, considered the effect of competition among hospitals in Zambia. The study concludes that there is potential for competition in the hospital market to have beneficial effects in terms of prices, quality and efficiency.  However, there is also the risk that faced with this competition, hospitals will be less able to charge private prices which allow them to cross-subsidise public patients.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"creative routes used to supply arv's","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=18931","body":"Not-for-profit groups and some individuals are using \"creative routes\" to provide antiretroviral drugs to HIV-positive people in developing countries, the New York Times reports. Some organisations channel unused medications from U.S. patients who have changed medications, taken a break from treatment or died to patients in developing countries, and other organisations purchase low-cost generic versions of the drugs in other countries and import them, sometimes illegally, into neighbouring countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Data collection an effective weapon in anti-HIV/AIDS arsenal in Swaziland","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=2251","body":"A new information gathering programme will soon provide an essential database of medical and other humanitarian needs in the agricultural heart of Swaziland to fill gaps in the national records and bring much needed insight into how to best counter the spread of HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Deepening poverty threatens households in malawi","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=35546","body":"A household-level recovery from the past year's food security crisis in Malawi is being complicated by deepening levels of poverty, observers say.  In a recent interview with IRIN in the capital Lilongwe, World Food Programme (WFP) country representative, Gerard van Dijk, said \"poverty, combined with HIV/AIDS\" had worsened household vulnerability.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Economists tell scientists AIDS drug projects can be scaled up ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol362/iss9379/full/llan.362.9379.news.26540.1","body":"Economists said at the international AIDS conference on HIV pathogenesis and treatment in Paris on July 14 that nations with a high HIV/AIDS burden should spend more of their resources on antiretrovirals, a move which directly contradicts current medical opinion.  The medical community has said that handing out antiretrovirals would be a waste of resources; could worsen drug resistance; and instead it urged preventative measures.  Three pilot studies presented at the meeting from the Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Uganda--funded by UNAIDS--found that with a little help to set up medical infrastructure, drugs can be delivered, even to remote areas, without increasing drug resistance.  (Access requires registration.)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWSLETTER AUGUST 2003: AIDS, EMPIRE, AND PUBLIC HEALTH BEHAVIOURISM","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in\r\nHealth in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a\r\nnewsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on\r\nequity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's\r\nprincipal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre\r\nwill distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme\r\nwork to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the\r\nmaterials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email:\r\nadmin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Friends in deed - preventing HIV through peer education in South African ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"HIV is rampant among young people in South Africa, despite sound knowledge about sexual health risks.  Levels of perceived vulnerability among this group are low and unprotected sex is common.  Researchers from the London School of Economics studied a participatory programme seeking to empower young people to change gender norms as an HIV prevention strategy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Frustration over delay in namibian drug roll-out","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=2250","body":"Frustration is mounting among activists over the Namibian government's delay in providing anti-AIDS drugs to its HIV-positive citizens. The government announced in April this year that it had budgeted US $10.9 million for the purchase of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for HIV-positive people.  But while the health ministry has on numerous occasions indicated their intention to provide treatment, this had not been translated into action, activists told PlusNews.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"GLOBAL AIDS FUND FACES SERIOUS SHORTFALL","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200307160457.html","body":"The cash-strapped Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria fell under the spotlight in July, when ministers from 14 countries met in Paris, France, to address the fund's financial woes. The fund, which has committed US $1.5 billion to programmes in 92 countries in the last 18 months, faces a lack of money for proposals waiting to be funded in October.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS FUNDING STILL FALLS SHORT OF PROJECTED NEED, UNAIDS REPORT SAYS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=18518","body":"Governments, international organisations, foundations and nongovernmental organisations in 2003 will spend an estimated $4.7 billion to address the AIDS epidemic in low- and middle-income countries, but that amount is less than half of the more than $10.5 billion that will be needed each year by 2005 to fight the epidemic in those countries, according to a new UNAIDS report.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Household catastrophic health expenditure: a multicountry analysis ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/journal.isa","body":"Health policy makers have long been concerned with protecting people from the possibility that ill health will lead to catastrophic financial payments and subsequent impoverishment. Yet catastrophic expenditure is not rare. This research investigated the extent of catastrophic health expenditure as a first step to developing appropriate policy responses. The proportion of households facing catastrophic payments from out-of-pocket health expenses varied widely between countries. Catastrophic spending rates were highest in some countries in transition. Three key preconditions for catastrophic payments were identified: the availability of health services requiring payment, low capacity to pay, and the lack of prepayment or health insurance. The interpretation is that people, particularly in poor households, can be protected from catastrophic health expenditures by reducing a health system's reliance on out-of-pocket payments and providing more financial risk protection. (Access requires registration.)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"International Health Systems Management Program","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Galillee College, Israel, will hold an international workshop for health professionals, the Health Systems Management Program, between November 20 - December 8, 2003.  Tuition scholarships are available for qualified candidates that are citizens of a developing country in Africa (Living expenses and airfare are not included.) For more information, email rgottlieb@galilcol.ac.il or visit the Galillee College website: http://www.galilcol.ac.il/health.htm ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"International Society for Equity in Health (ISEqH) 3rd International Conference June 10, 11 and 12, 2004  - Durban, South Africa ","field_subtitle":"Call for Abstracts Deadline for Submission:  December 1st, 2003","field_url":"","body":"The 3rd International Conference of the International Society for Equity in Health will be hosted by the Health Systems Trust (HST), a South African-based NGO, the Southern African Regional Network on Equity in Health (EQUINET) and the Global Equity Gauge Alliance (GEGA), an international consortium of initiatives to support health equity.  The meeting will bring together researchers, policy-makers, practitioners and others concerned with equity in health to develop an international health agenda for governments, universities and organisations all over the world.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29871","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Invitation for Online Discussion on HIV/AIDS and Workforce Development","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"As part of the African Technologies for Education and Workforce Development Initiative (AFTECH), the Africa-America Institute is pleased to invite you to participate in our online discussion on HIV/AIDS and its Impact on Workforce Development (Southern Africa) that will run until August 13.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29876","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"KENYA: RESEARCH TRAINEE","field_subtitle":"African Population And Health Research Centre","field_url":"","body":"The Africa Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC) invites applications from qualified candidates for the position of Research Trainee. The description of the position is available through the link provided. For more information about APHRC, please visit the website: http://www.aphrc.org ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29877","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"MAINSTREAMING THE POVERTY-REDUCTION AGENDA ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/society/s5bmg1g1.html","body":"Several African governments have in recent years set themselves ambitious poverty reduction strategies.  What impact have the institutional mechanisms had for mainstreaming the goal of poverty-reduction into processes of government decision-making?  Preliminary findings from current research on institutional and process issues in national poverty policy at IDS suggests that practice on policy processes and institutions relating to poverty reduction has improved.  In many sub-Saharan African countries, there has been considerable progress in information collection about poverty levels, characteristics and trends and, increasingly, an attempt to find mechanisms to ensure that the evidence on poverty informs the design of policy.  Perhaps the most fundamental evidence of a heightened focus on poverty reduction in policy concerns the extent to which it is identified as a priority in a country\u2019s national development strategy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Mapping out a treatment programme in malawi","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) presented a challenge to African countries last year by setting a target of three million HIV-positive Africans to be on antiretroviral (ARV) HIV/AIDS therapy by 2005.  Almost a year later, a workshop on scaling up access to care and treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS (PWAs) in 17 East and Southern African countries has been held to assist them in reaching that goal.  HIV/AIDS programme managers and health officials from the 17 countries emerged with country-specific \"road maps\" to guide them in expanding their treatment programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ministerial In Mexico Looks Like Second Seattle","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.portoalegre2003.org/publique/cgi/public/cgilua.exe/web/templates/htm/1P1OO/view.htm?infoid=5853&editionsectionid=73&user=reader","body":"Only a little over 12 weeks remain before the tourist haven of Cancun in Mexico plays host to the fifth ministerial of the World Trade Organisation from September 9-14.  But negotiations in Geneva are practically at a stalemate.  The feeling is taking hold that Cancun will not be another Doha, where cooperation between the United States and European Union in the aftermath of the Sept 11 attacks pushed through an agenda for limited trade negotiations.  In the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) and public health controversy, there has been no give on the part of the US.  It maintains the position that patent rights should be loosened only in the case of drugs for HIV-Aids, malaria and tuberculosis.  Washington is now talking about loosening patent rights for public health crises'' instead of public health problems''.  US negotiators have reportedly told their developing country counterparts that if they want any movement in the negotiations, they should talk directly to the pharmaceutical giants.  Another disturbing occurrence is that WTO director-general Supachai Panitchpakdi himself is spreading the blame for the stalemate from the US to Brazil and India, whose manufacturers, he alleges, will be the ones that will benefit principally from looser patent rights.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Mugabe's new AU post sets tongues wagging","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=84&art_id=vn20030714031750383C208625&set_id=1","body":"The African Union's new ambassador for Southern Africa is Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.  The AU summit held in Mozambique at the weekend provided an opportunity for Africa to show a commitment to its noble ideals.  But it ended on an anticlimax, some observed, with no discussion on the political situation in strife-torn Zimbabwe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Multisectoral Responses to HIV/AIDS: A Compendium of Promising Practices from Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.dec.org/pdf_docs/PNACS870.pdf","body":"This document brings together promising practices identified by the USAID-Private Voluntary Organisation community. This includes many ideas and experiences of different organisations that seem likely to combat HIV/AIDS successfully. Several of these practices are new and as such, do not yet have hard evidence to show that they work. However, rather than wait for documented success, they are published here to share all the practices available to spur ideas and action. This compendium is aimed at any person or program interested in mitigating the spread of HIV/AIDS, though the emphasis is on those in Africa seeking new ways to act.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Oxfam Response to Draft Cancun Declaration: Text fails to deliver on development agenda","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The World Trade Organisation has released the first draft of the Ministerial Declaration that will be finalised at the WTO summit in Cancun in September. The draft comes out after nearly two years of glacial progress in the trade negotiations launched at the last summit in Doha. \"The draft is a barometer for judging the state of world trade talks, and it's falling fast,\" said Oxfam. \"There is very stormy weather ahead for the WTO unless the rich countries make some concessions to developing countries, and quickly.\" By now, the so-called Doha Development Round was supposed to deliver improved access to affordable generic medicines, open up rich-country markets to exports from the world's poorer countries, and reduce farm subsidies and dumping. On all counts, the Round is failing to deliver, and the level of frustration among developing countries is rising.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29894","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Programme costs in the economic evaluation of health interventions","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www3.who.int/whosis/cea/background_documents/pdf/Programmecosts.pdf","body":"Estimating the costs of health interventions is important to policy-makers for a number of reasons including the fact that the results can be used as a component in the assessment and improvement of their health system performance. Costs can, for example, be used to assess if scarce resources are being used efficiently or whether there is scope to reallocate them in a way that would lead to improvements in population health. As part of its WHO-CHOICE project, WHO has been developing a database on the overall costs of health interventions in different parts of the world as an input to discussions about priority setting. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Public health workforce: challenges and policy issues","field_subtitle":"Human Resources for Health 2003 1:4","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/1/1/4","body":"This paper reviews the challenges facing the public health workforce in developing countries and the main policy issues that need to be addressed in order to strengthen the public health workforce.  The public health workforce is diverse and includes all those whose prime responsibility is the provision of core public health activities, irrespective of their organizational base.  Although the public health workforce is central to the performance of health systems, very little is known about the composition, training or performance of the workforce.  The key policy question is: Should governments invest more in building and supporting the public health workforce and infrastructure to ensure the more effective functioning of health systems?  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Leaders Commit Themselves to Fight HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200307140257.html","body":"The Southern African Development Community (SADC) heads of state and government have adopted and signed the Maseru Declaration on the Fight against HIV/AIDS in the SADC region. The declaration reaffirms their commitment to the combating of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Sensitive matters: HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns in Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h1lg1g7.html","body":"How can we tell if teenagers are responding to HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns?  Is it acceptable to conduct randomised trials in schools to find out?  University College London, together with the University Zimbabwe and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, looked into the sensitive topic of interviewing and testing teenagers for sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) including HIV, in a feasibility study for a large community randomised trial.  It found that communities in Zimbabwe were enthusiastic about taking part in trials in schools and recognised the importance of these.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTH AFRICA: CHIEF SPECIALIST/HEAD OF SCHOOL/EPIDEMIOLOGIST ","field_subtitle":"FACULTY OF HEALTH SCIENCES, Wits University","field_url":"","body":"The Chief Specialist and/or head of school post may be filled by one person fulfilling both roles or by two separate people, one as the Chief Specialist and one Head of School. These appointments may be at Professorial or Associate Professorial level. The Epidemiologist will be a dynamic person with excellent skills in Epidemiology and/or Biostatistics who will lead the Epidemiological research and training undertaken by the School of Public Health. The incumbent will be expected to stimulate epidemiologic research within the School and the Faculty. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29867","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The Domains of Health Responsiveness: A Human Rights Analysis","field_subtitle":"EIP Discussion Paper No. 53 World Health Organisation - 2003","field_url":"http://www3.who.int/whosis/discussion_papers/pdf/paper53.pdf","body":"This brief report discusses the human rights context in the provision of health services to the public.  Human rights and the domains of health system responsiveness share a common goal: furthering the rights of individuals and communities in the context of the health system.  The authors establish the foundation for each of these domains in human rights principles set forth in declarations, treaties, and other legal instruments.  These principles include rights to security, health, life, privacy, free expression and association, nondiscrimination, and respect for human dignity.  Human rights principles can enhance, or justify, the relevance of responsiveness domains to the evaluation of public and private health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"THE MULTILATERAL TRADE REGIME SEEN THROUGH A GLOBAL PUBLIC GOODS LENS: NEW INSIGHTS ON OLD PROBLEMS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.gpgnet.net/discussion.php","body":"As the 5th WTO Ministerial meeting 2003 in Cancun, Mexico approaches, there is still a raging debate as to the net benefits that developing countries gain from membership in this regime. Many in the developing world argue that the last major round of trade negotiations-the Uruguay Round-generated skewed benefits in favour of the industrialized countries. Still there are those who support further trade liberalization and expansion of the WTO. Perhaps most important in the present context, the issue of whether and to what extent a new \"development round\" could be launched is at the centre of ongoing discussions. Prospects for a \"development round\" in Cancun seem bleak at present. Already, there appears to be a stalemate on many issues of interest to developing countries, including, among others, those on further agricultural liberalization in Northern countries and the balance between Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"THE NEW PLAGUE CZAR ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=2&ItemID=3859","body":"Just a few days before his visit to Africa, President Bush announced that Randall Tobias, the former chairman and CEO of Eli Lilly Co., will take the new position of \"Czar\" in charge of U.S. global HIV/AIDS funding. The move to position a drug company executive centrally in global health policymaking is nothing new for this administration, but the openness of this gesture to the industry suggests that there is little shame in reversing the progress of the last several years, particularly in the realm of medicine treatment access, says this commentary on the web site www.zmag.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Push Journal","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.pushjournal.org/register/newreg.cfm","body":"THE PUSH JOURNAL is an objective, free full-text online clipping service.  It's a great tool for journalists covering issues related to AIDS/HIV, reproductive health, issues relating to women and girls, global population or refugee issues and the environmental, medical and family issues which surround them.  If you work with slow or unpredictable Internet connections, you can choose to receive the full-text news stories in an easy-download text version.  Each day's edition of PUSH JOURNAL carries story headlines at the top and complete versions of each story below.  PUSH adds no text or commentary.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Supply Initiative Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Supply Initiative: meeting the need for reproductive health supplies, has a new monthly newsletter that provides updates on the Supply Initiative activities, as well as news, materials and events related to condom and contraceptive shortages.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29882","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"TUBERCULOSIS, PUBLIC HEALTH AND THE NEED FOR ARVS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/news/newsdisplay2.asp?newsId=2188","body":"Tuberculosis remains the single greatest public health challenge associated with HIV worldwide. Despite widespread recognition of this fact, and clinical trials showing that interventions can help few programmes exist to implement such measures, according to a view presented at the International Aids Society Conference in Paris in July.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"useful health links","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.inasp.info/health/links/","body":"For a selective list of HIV/AIDS websites for health professionals, libraries and publishers in developing countries, please visit the HIV/AIDS section of INASP Health Links: http://www.inasp.info/health/links/ INASP Health Links is an internet gateway to more than 500 selected websites, including more than 100 HIV/AIDS sites.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Using Data to Improve Service Delivery: A Self-Evaluation Approach","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.afronets.org/pubview.php/90/","body":"The Support for Analysis and Research in Africa Project (SARA) is a user-friendly guide that has been designed to help healthcare workers use data collected at their health facility to solve common problems in service delivery and improve their response to community needs. It is intended for doctors, nurses, and midwives in both community health centres and rehabilitated district health centres. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Violence against women: the health sector responds","field_subtitle":"Velzeboer, M.; Ellsberg, M.; Clavel Arcas, C.; Garc\u00eda-Moreno, C. / Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) , 2003","field_url":"http://www.eldis.ids.ac.uk/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpcgi.exe?QB0=AND&QF0=DOCNUM%40DOCNO&QI0=DOC12762&MR=15&TN=a1&DF=f1health&RF=f1health&DL=0&RL=0&NP=3&MF=eldismsg.ini&AC=QBE_QUERY&BU=http%3A//www.eldis.ids.ac.uk/search.htm","body":"Gender-Based Violence (GBV) is one of the most widespread human rights abuses and public health problems in the world today, affecting up to one out of three women. The consequences of GBV are often devastating and long-term, affecting women\u2019s and girls\u2019 physical health and mental well-being. At the same time, its ripple effects compromise the social development of other children in the household, the family as a unit, the communities where the individuals live, and society as a whole. This book, produced by the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), provides a strategy for addressing this complex problem. More specifically, it discusses issues such as gender-based violence as a public health problem. (The Introduction and Chapter One of this book are freely available online.)","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO report calls for free anti-tuberculosis drugs for AIDS patients","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7407/124-a","body":"A new report by the World Health Organisation in the style of a glossy but hard hitting brochure aims to draw attention to the global tuberculosis epidemic that has been spurred by the spread of HIV and multidrug resistant tuberculosis strains. The report aims to underline the programme\u2019s call for free anti-tuberculosis drugs, which have proved highly effective in curing tuberculosis in patients with HIV infection and AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Workshop on ethics of research related to healthcare in developing countries ","field_subtitle":"12 - 14 February 2004, Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/events/index.cfm?fuseaction=readevents&itemid=300&language=1","body":"The Nuffield Council on Bioethics published a Report, \u2018The ethics of research related to healthcare in developing countries\u2019, in April 2002. A follow-up workshop will be held in February 2004 to explore developments in this area since the publication of the report. The workshop, co-hosted by the South African MRC and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, will bring together researchers who are actively involved in externally-sponsored research related to healthcare in developing countries, for three days in Cape Town. The focus of the workshop will be to discuss and debate ethical and regulatory issues raised by new and recently revised guidelines and to identify obstacles to their effective implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"World Bank warns of AIDS economic crisis","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Some African countries may face complete collapse as a reult of the economic impact of HIV/AIDS being far worse than was previously thought.  The World Bank's newly-released \"The Long-Run Economic Costs of AIDS,\" study has warned that HIV/AIDS could destroy an economy within a few generations.  Shanta Devarajan, World Bank economist, said in a statement: \"If nothing is done to avert the epidemic, countries like South Africa could suffer a 50 percent decline in their per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in about 90 years.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zim government calls for food aid - report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=84&art_id=qw1058522941770B251&set_id=1","body":"The Zimbabwe government, faced with severe food shortages threatening nearly half the population, has appealed to international donors for continued food assistance, said a newspaper report.  The state-controlled Herald quoted Social Welfare Minister July Moyo as saying a request for aid had been made but could not state the quantities required.  The government blames the shortages purely on a drought that last year ravaged the entire southern African region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe, Malawi Excluded From Regional AIDS Project","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200307220346.html","body":"Zimbabwe has been left out of a project that is aimed at reducing the spread of HIV/Aids among long distance truck drivers operating along the Beira Development Corridor. Malawi is also said to have been omitted out of the project that is being run by the Southern African Transport Communications Commission (SATCC), which is a grouping of transport ministries in the Southern African Development Community.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-08-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"7th SANASO Conference / 6th Congress","field_subtitle":"5 - 8 August 2003, Mulungushi Conference Centre, Lusaka, Zambia","field_url":"","body":"The Southern African Network of AIDS Service Organisations (SANASO) is a Network of Non-governmental organisations (NGOs), Community based Organisations (CBOs), Faith based Organisations (FBOs) and groups of People living with HIV/AIDS (PWAs) involved in HIV/AIDS prevention, care and mitigation activities in 10 Southern African countries: Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The 7th SANASO Conference which will bring together many different sectors including NGOs, CBOs, FBOs, PWAs, the Media, Legal, Civil Rights groups, the Business Community and government representatives, is calling for Abstracts around the Theme and the following Sub-Themes: HIV/AIDS Stigma and the Family; Stigma in the Health Care Setting; Stigma and Faith Based Organisations; Stigma and Communication; Stigma in the Workplace.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29841","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A Disease-based Comparison of Health Systems: What is best and at what cost?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www1.oecd.org/publications/e-book/8103031E.PDF","body":"Health system performance is a function of how effective the health system's approach to treating diseases is in improving health outcomes and reducing resource costs, according to a document from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).  In an era when health systems account for increasing sums of money aiming to provide their citizens with the best healthcare possible, surprisingly little is known about how effective much of this spending is.  Health policy makers have extensive information available to them on how much is spent on healthcare at an aggregate level.  But their knowledge of what, in terms of health outcomes, they receive in return for this spending remains very limited, the document says.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to antiretroviral therapy in resource-poor settings","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iatec.nl/update.html?folder=3&page=43","body":"Of the 40 million people that are infected with HIV globally, approximately 95% live in severely resource-constrained settings. From a humanitarian perspective alone, not bringing antiretroviral therapy to those in need implies accepting a number of casualties that is difficult to imagine and impossible to accept. But there is another important argument to take up the challenge: HIV/AIDS mainly affects adults in their productive prime, leaving the very young and old to cope alone. This severely hampers economic growth and development of countries concerned. There is little doubt that poverty facilitates the spread of HIV/AIDS, but conversely HIV/AIDS perpetuates poverty. Generalizing HIV/AIDS into a problem of poverty will paralyze an effective and specific response to it, and conflicts with the \"art of the soluble\" principle that we should adhere to. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"ACCESS TO HIV PREVENTION: CLOSING THE GAP","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/publications/Prevention130503_en.pdf","body":"This report authored by the Global HIV Prevention Working Group assesses the shortfall in access to HIV prevention services worldwide, detailing the specific shortfall in the regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and North Africa and the Middle East.  It discusses regional prevention priorities for each and identifies funding gaps.  The document calls for the scale up of treatment and care programs, in coordination with prevention work.  The authors finally call on political leaders, both nationally and in donor countries, to increase their commitment to effective prevention programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"ACTION PLEDGED ON AIDS DRUGS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2995384.stm","body":"South Africa's health system will soon offer drugs blocking the Aids virus, the body that advises the government on HIV/Aids has said. The South African National Aids Council (Sanac) made the announcement following a meeting with the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) - a group that has been urging the government to supply the drugs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"ADHERENCE TO LONG-TERM THERAPIES: EVIDENCE FOR ACTION","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation - 2003","field_url":"http://www.who.int/chronic_conditions/adherence_report.pdf","body":"Adherence to therapies is an indicator of inequities as well as access to drugs. In average, 50% of patients in developed countries do not take their prescribed medicines after one year, despite having full access to medicines. In developing countries it is even worse, due to poor access to health services, medicines, lack of education and unhealthy lifestyles, which especially affects the poorest populations. Intended for policy-makers, health managers, and clinical practitioners, this report provides a concise summary of the consequences of poor adherence for health and economics. It also discusses the options available for improving adherence, and demonstrates the potential impact on desired health outcomes and health care budgets. It is hoped that this report will lead to new thinking on policy development and action on adherence to long-term therapies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICAN NATIONS TO LOBBY ON GENERIC DRUGS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=18282","body":"The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, Africa's major free trade bloc, plans to lobby the United States and pharmaceutical companies for the right to produce generic antiretroviral drugs, according to the group's secretary general, Reuters reports. COMESA Secretary-General Erastus Mwencha said that patent disputes in the World Trade Organisation are \"robbing the region of a key weapon against AIDS,\" according to Reuters.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AGRICULTURAL RESPONSE TO AIDS CRISIS URGENTLY NEEDED","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/whatsnew/press/eng/FAO_300603_en.html","body":"Agricultural institutions urgently need to respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which continues to ravage many rural areas in developing countries, jeopardizing the human right to food of millions of people, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).  FAO Director-General Dr Jacques Diouf and UNAIDS Executive Director Dr Peter Piot presented a new joint FAO/UNAIDS report at the end of June, which calls upon agricultural institutions to scale up their efforts to fight the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic.  The report was presented on the occasion of the UN Economic and Social Council's (ECOSOC) 2003 session, being held in Geneva until 25 July.  Close to 30 million of the 42 million people living with HIV/AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa, over half of them in rural areas.  \"Hunger and poverty, aggravated by HIV/AIDS, create a vicious spiral,\" Dr Diouf said.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS CASH FOR AFRICA WILL MAINLY GO TO DRUG COMPANIES","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://news.hst.org.za/view.php3?id=20030604","body":"Leaders of the world's richest countries agreed at the G8 summit to provide billions of dollars to help fight AIDS in Africa but, under present trade rules, much of that cash will go to multinational pharmaceutical companies. To the disappointment of pressure groups monitoring the summit, the leaders failed to make progress on new trade rules to allow poor countries to buy cheap, generic versions of new medicines - including the drugs which arrest AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS drugs on street corners in malawi","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=2208","body":"Malawi's government has issued a warning to vendors involved in the illegal sale of HIV/AIDS drugs, the Malawi Standard newspaper reported. Despite calls for their arrest, the informal businesses have maintained that these were the benefits of a liberal economy. However, the Registrar of the Pharmacies, Medicines and Poisons Board, Patrick Tembo, said: \"Liberalisation doesn't mean trading in pharmaceutical drugs. It is illegal. Only registered institutions like hospitals and pharmacies are allowed to sell pharmaceutical drugs.\" ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AMANET Workshop on Health Research Ethics in Africa","field_subtitle":"September 2003, Cameroon","field_url":"","body":"Applications are invited from African physicians/scientists in the employment of African health research, control, and/or training institutions.  Applicants must at least be middle to senior level investigators, key members of ethics (or scientific) review committees, study monitors, members of data safety monitoring boards, sponsors of research involving human subjects, members of regulatory bodies or writers/editors of biomedical journals. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29823","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing capacity for health policy and systems research in low and middle income countries","field_subtitle":"Health Research Policy and Systems 2003 1:1","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/1/1/1","body":"Health policy and systems research (HPSR) is increasing in prominence in low and middle income countries, stimulated by social and political pressure towards health system equity and efficiency. Yet the institutional capacity to fund and produce quality research and to have a positive impact on health system development has been little examined and touches mainly on specific areas such as malaria research or the impact of research on health reforms. This paper seeks to develop an empirical basis for assisting decisions on what are likely to be good investments to increase capacity in health policy and systems research (HPSR) in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"BUSH'S LOOK TO BIG PHARMA FOR AIDS CZAR EVOKES CONCERN ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=19078","body":"U.S. President George W. Bush's surprise pick of a former top executive of a major U.S. pharmaceutical company and major Republican contributor as his global AIDS co-ordinator has drawn expressions of concern and even outrage among Africa and AIDS activists.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Community participation and sexual health \u2013 is there a relationship? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h6cc1g5.html","body":"Is there a relationship between people\u2019s degree of community involvement and participation and their sexual behaviour? If this is the case, it may help to identify possible areas of HIV/AIDS intervention at community level. Researchers from the London School of Economics (LSE) investigated this relationship in a mining town in South Africa. The results were mixed. Whereas some forms of community participation were associated with safer sexual behaviour and lower levels of HIV infection, others acted in the opposite way. The findings highlight the need for further research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing Countries Journal Offer","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www3.oup.co.uk/jnls/devel/","body":"Oxford University Press has set up a program wherein scholars from developing nations are eligible for free or greatly discounted electronic access to a large number of professional journals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Don't import from Africa, says sa health minister","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1379441,00.html","body":"The South African Minister of Health Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has called on the South African Nursing Council to stop recruiting health workers from other countries in Africa.  Addressing the council in Pretoria, Tshabalala-Msimang said: \"We agreed that we would not recruit from other developing countries, particularly in Africa.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter July 2003 Solution on TRIPS and Public Health remains elusive ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Executive Director","field_subtitle":"SAfAIDS ","field_url":"","body":"Southern Africa HIV/AIDS Information Dissemination Service (SAfAIDS), is a dynamic regional NGO based in Harare.  Our mission is to use information as a change agent to support ethical and effective development responses for HIV prevention, care and long-term mitigation.  Central to this is an understanding of the HIV epidemic as a crucial issue for development rather than primarily as a health problem to be dealt with in isolation.  Underlying our mission is an emphasis on the three priority areas of gender, human rights and development.  The organisation seeks a dynamic leader to continue our development.  The successful candidate must bring dedication and commitment to the organisation and its mission.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29833","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Fellowship on Management of Public Health Training","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Nationals from the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region or WHO Africa Region are invited to apply for a 12-24 month career development fellowship on management of public health training.  The fellowship is a placement at the WHO Mediterranean Centre (Tunis, Tunisia) working with the professional staff located in the centre.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29827","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Focus on Zimbabwe's urban households and the economic crisis","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Zimbabwe's rapidly declining economy has prompted the humanitarian community to begin preparations for an urban vulnerability assessment to map the impact of poverty on households.  This IRIN Focus report presents the views of five people - a teacher, a nurse, a policeman, a businessman and a veteran of the liberation war - in the capital, Harare.  They discuss the economic crisis, and how they try and make ends meet.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29860","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Free Government Health Services: Are They the Best Way to Reach the Poor?","field_subtitle":"Davidson R. Gwatkin, March, 2003, World Bank","field_url":"http://poverty.worldbank.org/files/13999_gwatkin0303.pdf","body":"Equity is a frequently stated justification for government involvement in the health care market. This is often taken to mean directly providing all segments of the population with a wide range of government-operated health services at no cost: free universal care. Yet a look at the record suggests that this goal all too often remains elusive, especially in poor countries; that governments in fact serve only some of the population; and that the people served are disproportionately concentrated among the better-off. When this happens, government health services, far from promoting equity, work against it. The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate that there are many ways for governments to pursue the goal of ensuring that the poor receive adequate, affordable services through alternative approaches to resource allocation and purchasing. The first section summarizes the information known about the distribution of benefits from government health services across social groups in order to document the regressive pattern that now frequently exists and the need for significant changes in approach if the poor are to benefit. The second and third sections illustrate the kinds of changes that might be considered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV & AIDS Treatment in Practice #7, 12 June 2003 ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/components/subscribe.asp","body":"'HIV & AIDS Treatment in Practice' is an email newsletter for doctors, nurses, health care workers and community treatment advocates working in limited-resource settings.  The newsletter is published twice every month by NAM, the UK-based HIV information charity behind www.aidsmap.com.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Iwuozor Iheanyi","field_subtitle":"Sure Health Organisation","field_url":"","body":"I will enjoy using this material for health information, education and communication.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"LACK OF DRUG REGULATION 'SPURS HIV RESISTANCE'","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews&itemid=873&language=1","body":"The unregulated supply of AIDS drugs in the developing world could accelerate the development of drug-resistant HIV strains, according to an expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom. Better regulation of private-sector providers of drugs in poor nations is needed to ensure that patients use antiretroviral drugs correctly, thereby reducing the risk that a strain of drug-resistant HIV will develop.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring and evaluation of human resources for health: an international perspective","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/1/1/3/abstract","body":"Despite the undoubted importance of human resources to the functions of health systems, there is little consistency between countries in how human resource strategies are monitored and evaluated.  This paper, published in the journal Human Resources for Health, presents an integrated approach for developing an evidence base on human resources for health (HRH) to support decision-making, drawing on a framework for health systems performance assessment.  It concludes that evidence-based information is needed to better understand trends in HRH.  Although a range of sources exist that can potentially be used for HRH assessment, the information that can be derived from many of these individual sources precludes refined analysis.  A variety of data sources and analytical approaches, each with its own strengths and limitations, is required to reflect the complexity of HRH issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Neema Mgana","field_subtitle":"Founder, African Regional Youth Initiative","field_url":"","body":"I was wondering if you could include the African Regional Youth Initiative as a resource for an upcoming edition of Equinet. The website is www.aryi.interconenction.org. With the rise in not only youth populations but youth-led projects/organisations in Africa, organisations such as ARYI are trying to unite the work of these organisations and get the power of youth voice and action into the spotlight.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"NEW INITIATIVE TO RESEARCH AND DEVELOP DRUGS FOR THE WORLD\u2019S MOST NEGLECTED DISEASES","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/releases/2003/pr51/en/","body":"The Nobel Prize winning Organisation M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) and four eminent public research institutes from around the world have joined forces to address the lack of research and development in drugs for neglected diseases. A mere 10% of global health research is devoted to diseases that account for 90% of the global disease burden. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"OECD/WHO - Poverty and health guidelines","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and WHO have recently jointly published Poverty and Health in the Development Assistance Committee - DAC Guidelines and Reference Series.  This DAC Reference Document dedicated to health and poverty in developing countries expands on the DAC Guidelines on Poverty Reduction and provides a set of policy recommendations to a broad range of development agency staff working on policy and operations.  It provides a framework for action within the health system, and beyond it, through policies in other sectors and through global initiatives.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29832","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"PATENTS, INTERNATIONAL TRADE LAW AND ACCESS TO ESSENTIAL MEDICINES","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidslaw.ca/Maincontent/issues/cts/Patents-international-trade-law-and-access.doc","body":"Currently, over 42 million people worldwide have HIV, and 95% of them live in the developing world. Over 28 million people have already died from AIDS. Every day, 8000 more people die and another 14,000 are infected with HIV, devastating entire countries and regions. Similarly, tuberculosis and malaria kill massively, and many other diseases cause human suffering and economic loss \u2013 mainly among the world's poorest and most vulnerable. The vast majority of people living in developing countries have limited or no access to many medicines that have saved and extended the lives of people in wealthier developed countries. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that roughly 2 billion people \u2013 one-third of the world's population \u2013 still lack regular access to essential medicines. Only 5% of the world's people with HIV/AIDS in developing countries who need anti-retroviral treatment currently have access to it. In Africa, the figure is only 1%. This document answers some common questions about patents and international trade agreements. The rules on drug patents in international trade agreements and domestic laws affect the availability and affordability of medicines. This document explains the connection between patent issues and access to affordable drugs, to help inform advocates for the health of people in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"QUESTIONS PROMPT REVIEW OF DIRTY NEEDLES' ROLE IN AFRICAN HIV INFECTIONS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unwire.org/unwire/util/category_search.asp?objCat=health","body":"Questions about what percentage of Africa's HIV infections are caused by dirty needles has prompted U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson -- who is also the chairman of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria -- to order a review of all research linking HIV/AIDS and medical injections, Associated Press has reported. The review could affect how funding from the $15 billion U.S. initiative to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean is distributed, AP reported. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Rene Loewenson, Equinet","field_subtitle":"AF-AIDS eForum 2003: af-aids@healthdev.net","field_url":"","body":"HIV/AIDS has had a deep impact on health and health equity issues in Southern Africa, imposing challenges in mounting a response to the epidemic that cuts across its economic, social and public health dimensions.  Health care systems have been stressed by increased demand for care, while themselves suffering HIV/AIDS related losses in health personnel.  Household and community caring have complemented and sometimes substituted health care inputs.  Where these lack adequate support they increase burdens on already poor households.  As HIV/AIDS related mortality rates have fallen with new treatments available in high income countries, treatment access has become a central issue, with campaigns on this in South Africa recently widening through the Pan African HIV/AIDS Treatment Access Movement.  The Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET), Oxfam GB and other partners are keen to raise debate and provide evidence in resolving policy concerns around the equity issues in health sector responses to HIV/AIDS.  At a meeting held in February 2003 a number of issues were raised and are being posed for debate and feedback in addressing concerns around securing treatment access through equitable public health approaches.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29861","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Resource Management and Cost Containment ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://lists.kabissa.org/lists/archives/public/pha-exchange/msg00830.html","body":"Health care for all does not always mean increased health expenditure.  This article looks at various strategies that may be employed to save costs and maximise resources.  Health policy reforms alone have not been successful in containing health care cost.  While lack of money is often a governing constraint, it does not mean that progress is not possible without the injection of money into the system.  It is necessary to identify areas of wastage, inappropriate spending and strategies to contain health care cost while improving quality of health care provision.  It makes sense to start by spending money on cost-effective interventions that save a lot of lives.  A recent experiment in Tanzania illustrates the impact of rational spending.  Researchers were sent to the rural districts of Morogoro and Rufiji.  They carried out a door-to-door survey asking whether anyone had died or been laid low recently, and if so, with what symptoms.  They found that the amount of money local authorities spent on each disease had no relation whatsoever to the harm it inflicted on local people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Trade Ministers Express Concern Over WTO Negotiations","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200306090945.html","body":"Trade and industry deputy minister Lindiwe Hendricks says Southern African Trade Ministers have expressed concern at the 'slow progress' the developed countries are making to address public health issues and the European Union's agricultural subsidies.  The minister was referring to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations held in Geneva last month.\r\nThe deputy minister said the WTO negotiations failed to address public health issues like TB, Malaria and HIV/AIDS, which greatly hampered the ability of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries to fight against the diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Sensitive matters: HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns in Zimbabwe ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h6fc1g1.html","body":"How can we tell if teenagers are responding to HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns? Is it acceptable to conduct randomised trials in schools to find out? University College London, together with the University of Zimbabwe and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, looked into the sensitive topic of interviewing and testing teenagers for sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) including HIV, in a feasibility study for a large community randomised trial. It found that communities in Zimbabwe were enthusiastic about taking part in trials in schools and recognised the importance of these.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Shock SA figures on HIV/Aids in workplace","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200306050465.html","body":"About 3% of the South African workforce - or about 500 000 people -could have full-blown Aids by 2010, Department of Labour guidelines on HIV/Aids have forecast, reports the Mail and Guardian newspaper. The projected rate of 2,9% in the terminal stage of the illness represents a three-fold increase since 2001, when it stood at 0,93%.  Statistics South Africa estimates the current economically active population at 16,5-million, including a million in the informal sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Solution on TRIPS and Public Health remains elusive ","field_subtitle":"Rangarirai Machemedze ","field_url":"","body":"When US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick met representatives of the US pharmaceutical industry in April this year hopes were raised in the international community, particularly in developing countries, who viewed the meeting as a way forward in breaking the impasse in the WTO over how to provide developing countries with access to affordable generic drugs.\r\n\r\nIt is now six months after the Doha-mandated deadline passed on the 31st December 2002 for WTO members to come up with a solution to public health crises exacerbated by unaffordable patented drugs.  With only three months left before the 5th WTO Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico, nothing is expected to materialise before the conference.\r\n\r\nHopes were pinned on the US compromising on its earlier decision to limit the scope of diseases but nothing came out of that meeting, which Zoellick attended.  In fact industry representatives last year had pressurised Zoellick to reject a proposal that would be open-ended in terms of allowing developing countries (without or with limited manufacturing capacity) to grant compulsory licences for the manufacture and importation of generic drugs to combat a variety of health problems.  This made the US government issue a moratorium that carried the concerns of their pharmaceutical industries, basically on strict limits on the number of diseases covered by these new flexibilities.\r\n\r\nThe TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Council, which last met sometime in February, met again in Geneva to try and see how best to break the impasse.  The TRIPS Council meeting on June 4-6, in its last formal session before the Cancun Ministerial Conference in September, did not make progress towards agreement on a solution for the Paragraph 6 problem.\r\n\r\nReports coming from Geneva said although the WTO members had not expected a breakthrough at this meeting, many developing country negotiators expressed their frustration at the seemingly unbreakable impasse in the negotiations.  It is reported that the US had reinforced this perception by stating that a consensus was not yet possible, in response to the Kenyan negotiator's comment that there appeared to be no objection to the 16 December 2002 text.\r\n\r\nThe US objection to the December 16 text was based on the issue of scope of diseases and the reference to Paragraph 1 of the Doha Declaration which refers to \u201cthe public health problems afflicting many developing and least-developed countries, especially those resulting from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics.\u201d The reference to \"public health problems as recognised in Paragraph 1 of the Declaration\" was too broad for the US.  The US then proposed that the scope of diseases in the December 16 text should be limited to \"HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis or other infectious epidemics of comparable gravity and scale, including those that may arise in the future\".  This had been opposed by the majority of the WTO Members as an attempt to limit the scope of diseases already agreed to at Doha.\r\n\r\nThe TRIPS Council considered two submissions, one from the group of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, and the other, from the European Communities (EC).\r\n\r\nThe ACP countries basically reiterated their previous position that they would want to see a solution that covers all public health concerns, without limiting agreement to specific diseases.  The Group also rejected attempts to confine the application of the Paragraph 6 solution to national emergencies and other circumstances of extreme urgency.\r\n\r\nThe European Communities last year made a proposal on an initial list of diseases that would be covered under Paragraph 6 of the Declaration.  The EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy argued that other diseases applicable under the Declaration could be checked or approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as the situation arises.  Such proposals were nothing but measures to protect the corporate world.  In addition to limiting the scope of diseases, the EC effectively wanted to add bureaucratic and political hurdles for poor countries, who would have to go through the rigours of the WHO system to prove that a health problem actually exists in the country for a disease that is not on the initial WTO list.\r\n\r\nAgain in their submission to the TRIPS Council the EC did not move away from their previous position.  The EC suggested that WTO Members could agree on an initial list of diseases that would be covered by the December16 text, and any Member wishing to import medicines to meet a public health concern that was not explicitly covered in the list would be encouraged to seek WHO advice on the matter.  The ACP group rejected this, saying it was designed to place limits on the scope of diseases.\r\n\r\nWith the differences that exist between and amongst the WTO members, particularly the rift between the EU and the US and between both the developed and developing countries, it is highly unlikely that a solution will be found before Cancun.  It is reported that the TRIPS Council chairman, Ambassador Vanu Gopala Menon of Singapore, told the meeting that he would continue to hold consultations in small groups and bilaterally until a permanent solution is found.\r\n\r\nAt the Southern and Eastern African Trade, Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI) 6th Workshop held in Arusha (April 2003), participants from fifteen African countries urged African governments and delegations \u201cto stand firm before Cancun, by insisting on a solution that is true to the spirit and letter of the Doha Declaration\u201d.  They went on to say that whatever the final outcome of the negotiations, it must cover \u201call diseases and public health issues\u201d.  Governments must have the right, they argued, \u201cto determine what constitutes a public health problem\u201d.  The solution, in other words, should not be confined only to some diseases, or to emergencies, or to circumstances of extreme urgency.\r\n\r\nAgain this recommendation was apparently in reference to the 2002 year-end moratorium issued by the US, which effectively was not consistent with the spirit of Doha.  The US had rejected the text that primarily carried the concerns of developing countries due to concerns over the scope of diseases covered.\r\n\r\nWestern industrial and pharmaceutical corporations, aided by bilateral donors, in the meantime, are putting pressure on certain African countries to amend their patent laws so that they protect the property rights of these corporations.  This is the case, for example, with Uganda, where, alarmingly, under pressure from certain quarters, the Government is pressing for legislation in the Parliament - the Uganda Industrial Property Law (IPL) \u2013 that seeks to modify the laws of Uganda to conform to the TRIPS provisions of the WTO, when, in fact, Uganda, as an LDC, need not have such a law until 2016.\r\n\r\nMeanwhile, the Third World Network reports that WHO Member states meeting at the World Health Assembly (May 19-28, 2003) in Geneva adopted a resolution on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health, directing the WHO Director-General to establish a \"time-limited\" body that would study and make concrete proposals on the question of appropriate funding and incentive mechanisms to promote the creation of new medicines for diseases affecting developing countries.\r\n\r\nThe resolution also asks the WHO to cooperate with Member states to develop \"pharmaceutical and health policies and regulatory measures\" to \"mitigate the negative impacts\" of international trade agreements.\r\n\r\nOther operative parts of the resolution include references to the WTO TRIPS Agreement, in which Member states were urged to \"use to the full the flexibilities contained in the TRIPS Agreement\" in their national laws.  The resolution also called on governments to agree on a \"consensus solution\" for Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health before the Fifth WTO Ministerial Conference in September this year.\r\n\r\nThe Paragraph 6 problem refers to the inability of many developing countries to effectively use compulsory licences to obtain affordable medicines from domestic generic drug producers, since the majority of the developing countries do not have domestic manufacturing capacity in pharmaceutical products.  WTO Members have not been able to agree on the solution for this contentious issue, even though the end of 2002 deadline set in the Doha Declaration has passed.\r\n\r\nThe compromise text of the resolution was adopted only after prolonged consultations and negotiations, primarily between the US, Brazil and a number of African countries.  Developed countries, in particular the US, had not been in favour of a strong mandate for the WHO to address IPR issues.  Developing countries, on the other hand, had been pressing for a clearer mandate to permit the WHO to properly assess the public health implications of tightened IPR protection, as a result of obligations under the TRIPS Agreement, as well as regional and bilateral trade agreements.\r\n\r\n* Rangarirai Machemedze is the SEATINI Programmes Coordinator.\r\n\r\nFrom the SEATINI BULLETIN: Southern and Eastern African Trade, Information and Negotiations Institute \r\nProduced by SEATINI Director and Editor: Y.  Tandon; Advisor on SEATINI: B.  L.  Das Editorial Assistance: Helene Bank, Rosalina Muroyi, Percy F.  Makombe and Raj Patel.\r\nFor more information and subscriptions, contact SEATINI, Takura House, 67-69 Union Avenue, Harare, Zimbabwe, Tel: +263 4 792681, Ext.  255 & 341, Tel/Fax: +263 4 251648, Fax: +263 4 788078, email: seatini.zw@undp.org,Website: www.seatini.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"southern african food requirements still 'substantial'","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200306130683.html","body":"Southern Africa still requires substantial food aid despite the fact that more food was produced in the region than during last year's severe food crisis, according to reports released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP). This was the stark finding of joint FAO/WFP assessment missions announced at a meeting of United Nations agencies, government representatives, SADC, donors, and non-governmental organisations (NGO's) examining the humanitarian assistance needs in southern Africa.  The missions covered Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Zambia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern African Leaders to Plot Joint AIDS Strategy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ias.se/article/show.asp?article=2230","body":"Leaders of 14 southern African countries will gather in Lesotho this week to plan a joint strategy against HIV infection and AIDS.  All 14 countries have been unable to lower the new infection rate on their own.  In this first-of-its-kind meeting they hope that by \u201csharing our experiences in care, treatment, and education about HIV/AIDS, we might be able to come up with a successful common strategy,\u201d Reuters reports.  The UN estimates that 40% of people living in the 14 countries have HIV infection.  The countries are Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"STEPPING INTO THE NEW AGE OF THE RIGHT TO ADEQUATE NUTRITION: SNAIL","field_subtitle":"A posting from AFRO-NETS, http://www.afronets.org","field_url":"","body":"One of the key questions perhaps not yet clearly answered in nutrition circles is: Why is the commitment of nutrition professionals to a Human Rights approach, although sorely needed, still not a reality? Such a commitment was and is seen as needed as our reaction with the best chance for success to counter the increasingly perceived (and additive) negative impacts of the relentless process of Globalisation. Globalisation is creating and is accelerating poverty --most often with malnutrition as an accompanying outcome. This, at the same time that the negative effects of Globalisation are creating growing disparities, exclusion, unemployment, marginalization, alienation, environmental degradation, exploitation, corruption, violence and conflict, all - in one way or another - impinging on nutrition.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29818","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Steve Reid","field_subtitle":"Associate Professor, University of Natal, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"Thank you for an extremely informative and useful newsletter.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Survey of thirty key medicines relevant to global disease burden in developing countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.ids.ac.uk/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpcgi.exe?QB0=AND&QF0=DOCNUM%40DOCNO&QI0=DOC12560&MR=15&TN=a1&DF=f1health&RF=f1health&DL=0&RL=0&NP=3&MF=eldismsg.ini&AC=QBE_QUERY&BU=http%3A//www.eldis.ids.ac.uk/search.htm","body":"In developing countries, most medicines are paid out-of-pocket by individual patients rather than being subsidised through social insurance. High prices are a major barrier to the use of medicines and better health, yet too little is known about the prices that people pay for medicines in low- and middle-income countries. This manual and the accompanying workbook and database, produced by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Health Action International (HAI), provide a new approach to measuring the prices of medicines. The survey is focused on thirty key medicines covering the spectrum of the global disease burden, particularly as it falls on low- and middle-income countries. This manual results from the widely-felt need for greater transparency on prices in the global medicines marketplace. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Swimming against the tide \u2013 health reform in South Africa and Zambia ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=4&i=h1lg1g7&u=3f0028fe","body":"The transition periods of the 1990s provided South Africa and Zambia with windows of opportunity to implement much-needed health financing reform.  But is the end result of these reforms what was first envisaged?  Researchers examined the political factors that have influenced the outcome of policy implementation in these two southern African countries. The research carried out by the University of Witwatersrand, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the University of Cape Town and the University of Zambia investigated the process of health policy-making in South Africa and Zambia.  The research asks why the implementation of health sector reform policies often produces unexpected results.  The researchers conducted a policy analysis of health financing reform in South Africa and Zambia because \u2013 despite differences \u2013 both countries offered interesting cases of health reform after radical political change in the 1990s.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Synergy Project: HIV/AIDS Programming Toolkit Website and CD-ROM","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.synergyaids.com/apdime/index.htm","body":"The Synergy APDIME Toolkit is a resource to support programme designers and managers in HIV/AIDS prevention, care and support programming in the developing world.  It is a window through which you can learn about programme outcomes, training guides and research findings.  Tools include worksheets, budget templates, survey instruments, data and software produced by HIV/AIDS organisations from around the world.  It was developed in collaboration with the University of Washington and contains five modules covering Assessment, Planning, Design, Implementation Monitoring, and Evaluation.  Each module outlines a comprehensive step-by-step method and weblinks to hundreds of resources for programming.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Supply Challenge","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Throughout the world, reproductive health programmes are facing a growing crisis as a result of a lack of supplies which are essential for HIV/AIDS prevention, family planning, contraception and other vital sexual and reproductive health care services.  This threatens the lives and rights of millions of men, women and children.  The Supply Initiative has been set up to call attention to this crisis as well as to increase the availability and efficient use of human, institutional and financial resources for reproductive health supplies.  The Supply Initiative web site is online under http://www.rhsupplies.org.  Here you will find more details on reproductive health supply shortage and the activities of the Supply Initiative.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Trace amounts? Assessing hospital costs in Zimbabwe ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=0&i=h1ch2g1&u=3f0028fe","body":"Hospital costs are difficult to measure when there is limited or poor quality data.  Current accounting methods may miss key aspects of inefficiency.  Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine find that using \u2018tracer\u2019 illnesses is a more effective way to assess costs in Zimbabwe\u2019s hospitals. Crude methods of hospital costing do not consider case mix or severity \u2013 both vital to understanding cost structures and differences between hospitals.  They may miss unnecessary costs that stem from wasted staff time, over-prescription of drugs, needless diagnostic tests, inappropriate length of stay and other redundant activities.  Using the tracer approach may resolve some of these problems.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"U.N. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR HIV/AIDS IN AFRICA 'AGHAST' AT CONNECTION BETWEEN HUNGER, HIV/AIDS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=17998","body":"U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis, during a speech at the Global Health Council's annual conference in Washington, D.C., said that he was \"aghast\" at the way in which \"AIDS was deepening hunger and hunger was deepening AIDS\" in Southern Africa. According to Lewis, Africa \"reaps what the world sows, and with a vengeance.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Violence against Women: The Health Sector Responds","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.paho.org/English/DPM/GPP/GH/VAWhealthsector.htm","body":"Gender-Based Violence (GBV) is one of the most widespread human rights abuses and public health problems in the world today, affecting as many as one out of every three women.  It is also an extreme manifestation of gender inequity, targeting women and girls because of their subordinate social status in society.  The consequences of GBV are often devastating and long-term, affecting women's and girls' physical health and mental well-being.  At the same time, its ripple effects compromise the social development of other children in the household, the family as a unit, the communities where the individuals live, and society as a whole. Violence against Women: The Health Sector Responds provides a strategy for addressing this complex problem and concrete approaches for carrying it out, not only for those on the front lines attending to the women who live with violence, but also for the decision-makers who may incorporate the lessons in the development of policies and resources.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Macroeconomics and Health web site launched in May 2003","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/macrohealth/","body":"The new WHO Macroeconomics and Health website was launched in May 2003.  The website will provide detailed information on WHO macro-economics and health work, the latest action in countries, news and links with related sites, and links to the CMH Report and its Working Group Reports.  Published documents and reports can be downloaded from the site.  To ensure that the website becomes a forum for sharing ideas, information and news, readers are encouraged to submit their views and work on macroeconomic and health issues.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Widespread poverty exacerbates food crisis in lesotho","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=35023","body":"The declining capacity of agriculture to provide adequate food for Lesotho's 2.2 million people lay at the heart of the country's food crisis, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) said in a recent report.  The British-based think-tank noted that while in several southern African countries drought was seen as a trigger for the current food crisis, Lesotho had experienced completely different weather conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Assembly puts health over profit","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/news/newsdisplay2.asp?newsId=2096","body":"The World Health Assembly, the policy-framing body that gives guidance to the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the views of member states and sets global health policy, voted to support a resolution affirming that public health interests should remain paramount when framing policy on pharmaceuticals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"zambia TO ADOPT HUMAN RIGHTS CHARTER FOR HIV POPULATION","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/eflg","body":"Zambia, a country hit hard by HIV/ AIDS, will soon have a human rights charter to protect its HIV/AIDS-infected citizens from various forms of abuses and discrimination. Matrine Chuulu, coordinator of Women in Law in Southern Africa, a non-governmental organisation in Zambia working on the charter, said Wednesday that the charter will be launched in November this year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe state doctors' strike continues","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=84&art_id=qw1056550324713B251&set_id=1","body":"Zimbabwe state doctors went on strike for the third day running in the last week of June, adding to the woes of a struggling healthcare system and the government of President Robert Mugabe. Doctors started strike action in the second city, Bulawayo, complaining that a recent evaluation and pay review of public sector jobs had whittled away their monthly salaries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-07-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"'Hyper on SARS, silent on WARS' - Will the new WHO DG break the silence?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The World Health Organisation (WHO) would need to broaden its analysis to include the socio-economic and political determinants of people's health and identify and address the impact of global neo-liberal economic policies on the health of the poor, among other things, if it was to truly remain a 'world' body and address the real 'health' needs of ordinary people.  This is accroding to a statement by the People's Health Movement congratulating Dr.  Jong-Wook Lee as he assumed his position as the new Director-General of the World Health Organisation.  Dr Lee, noted the PHM, was taking over the organisation at a time when its relevance to the public health needs of the world's poor and marginalized were at its lowest point in recent history.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29812","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"2003 Strategies for Enhancing Access to Medicines (SEAM) Conference ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.msh.org/seam/conference/","body":"People living in developing nations continue to face significant barriers in access to essential medicines and health commodities.  Concerned members of the global health community will meet this June in Dar es Salaam to share ideas, experience, and plans for moving forward, with a focus on recent and ongoing efforts to confront this crisis.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"31% of African TB now due to HIV epidemic","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/news/newsdisplay2.asp?newsId=2068","body":"A new WHO study of the burden of tuberculosis has found that most of the world's largest and fastest-growing epidemics of TB, in Africa, are increasingly attributable to the effects of HIV.  The researchers, based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, use mathematical models to compile and assess information from published studies and a network of experts to estimate that 9% of the estimated 8.3 million new cases of TB in the year 2000 would not have happened, but for HIV.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A new face for private providers in developing countries: what implications for public health?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.ids.ac.uk/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpcgi.exe?QB0=AND&QF0=DOCNUM%40DOCNO&QI0=DOC12176&MR=15&TN=a1&DF=f1health&RF=f1health&DL=0&RL=0&NP=3&MF=eldismsg.ini&AC=QBE_QUERY&BU=http%3A//www.eldis.ids.ac.uk/search.htm","body":"The use of private health care providers in low- and middle-income countries is widespread and is the subject of considerable debate. This article, produced by the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, reviews a new model of private primary care provision emerging in South Africa, in which commercial companies provide standardised primary care services at relatively low cost. The structure and operation of one such company is described, and features of service delivery are compared with the most probable alternatives: a private general practitioner or a public sector clinic. In addition, implications for public health policy of the emergence of this new model of private provider are discussed. It is argued that encouraging the use of such clinics by those who can afford to pay for them might not help to improve care available for the poorest population groups, which are an important priority for the government. It is concluded that encouraging such providers to compete for government funding could, however, be desirable if the range of services presently offered, and those able to access them, could be broadened. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"ADVOCACY FOR REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH COURSE","field_subtitle":"4-15 AUGUST, 2003, Nairobi, Kenya","field_url":"","body":"The Centre for African Family Studies (CAFS) is pleased to announce the next offering of our popular regional advocacy course entitled \"Advocacy for Reproductive Health\".  This course was developed in collaboration with the Support for Analysis and Research in Africa Project (SARA) of the Academy for Education Development (AED), with financial support from USAID.  CAFS has adjusted the course to the African region situation.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29802","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"AN URGENT CALL TO CIVIL SOCIETY TO ADVOCATE FOR INCREASED FUNDING TO THE GLOBAL FUND TO FIGHT AIDS, TUBERCULOSIS AND MALARIA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Fund the Fund have produced an advocacy kit aimed at civil society organisations (including nongovernmental, community-based, people living with the diseases, faith-based, and trade unions) to promote their advocacy for increased investment in the Global Fund.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29809","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Anything to say?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Send your letters and comments to editor@equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"ARV DRUG TREATMENT AFFORDABLE in south africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=17686","body":"Antiretroviral drugs are \"affordable\" and launching a program to deliver the medicines to HIV-positive people throughout South Africa is \"feasible,\" according to a cost study completed by the country's national health and finance ministries.\r\nRelated Link:\r\n* Health Minister cool to drug plan\r\nhttp://allafrica.com/stories/200305140990.html","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing capacity for health policy and systems research in low and middle income countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/1/1/1","body":"Health policy and systems research (HPSR) is increasing in prominence in low and middle income countries, stimulated by social and political pressure towards health system equity and efficiency. Yet the institutional capacity to fund and produce quality research and to have a positive impact on health system development has been little examined and touches mainly on specific areas such as malaria research or the impact of research on health reforms. In general, however, there is increasing pressure to direct research investments on the basis of evidence of policy relevance and impact. Indeed, in this decade of efforts to link development, health and research world-wide, there is little enquiry into the role of scientific capacity in general. This paper seeks to develop an empirical basis for assisting decisions on what are likely to be good investments to increase capacity in health policy and systems research (HPSR) in developing countries. It presents the results of a survey undertaken by the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (Alliance-HPSR) in 2000 and 2001 to analyse institutional structure and characteristics, engagement with stakeholders, institutional capacity, level of attainment of critical mass and the process of knowledge production by institutions in low and middle income countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"botswana's radical arv treatment becomes test case","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=17576","body":"The success of Botswana's \"radical\" antiretroviral drug program has made the country a \"test case\" for AIDS treatment in sub-Saharan Africa, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Botswana, which has the world's highest HIV prevalence rate - 38.5% of people between the ages of 14 and 49 are estimated to be HIV-positive - began offering treatment last year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"CALL FOR NOMINATIONS","field_subtitle":"2003 Awards for Action on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights","field_url":"","body":"Established by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and Human Rights Watch, the Awards for Action on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights recognize individuals or organisations for excellence and long-term commitment to defending the human rights of those most vulnerable to and affected by HIV/AIDS. An award will be presented annually to a person or organisation in each of two categories: A person residing in Canada or a non-profit organisation based in Canada; A person or non-profit organisation from another country.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29801","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Cereal harvest \"generally favourable\" in southern africa- FAO","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33938","body":"The outlook for Southern Africa's cereal harvest is \"generally favourable\" with the exception of Zimbabwe, where production is expected to fall for the third consecutive year, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in a report released in early May.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Chirac 'sacrifice' to get Bush approval","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.capeargus.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=55&fArticleId=162442","body":"French President Jacques Chirac has sacrificed the health of Aids victims on the altar of mending relations with United States President George Bush which were broken over the war in Iraq, health NGOs charge.  The NGO Health Gap said the G8 action plan on health had been weakened after interventions by the US to water down references to increasing access to essential medicines and strengthening the financing of the Global Fund to fight Aids, malaria and tuberculosis. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"CHRONOLOGY OF  SOUTH AFRICAN HIV/AIDS TREATMENT ACCESS ROW","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33826","body":"Following a meeting with South African Deputy-President Jacob Zuma in May, AIDS lobby group, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), announced it would suspend its civil disobedience action aimed at forcing the government to introduce a national HIV/AIDS treatment programme. A chronology of events during 2002 and 2003 over South Africa's controversial HIV/AIDS treatment access programme is available by clicking on the link below.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"CIVIL SOCIETY AND HEALTH - ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SELECTED RESEARCH ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.tarsc.org/WHOCSI/index.php","body":"Civil society actors have become more visible, active and influential within health and health systems. Understanding their role, the factors influencing them and the health outcomes they produce is important to anyone wishing to improve public health. This website presents an annotated bibliography of research on civil society and health prepared as a collaboration between the World Health Organisation's Civil Society Initiative and Training and Research Support Centre. The research focused on three theme areas: Civil society - state interactions in national health systems; Civil society contributions to pro-poor, health equity policies; Civil society influence on global health policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Consumption, health, gender and poverty","field_subtitle":"World Bank, 2003","field_url":"http://www.eldis.ids.ac.uk/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpcgi.exe?QB0=AND&QF0=DOCNUM%40DOCNO&QI0=DOC12177&MR=15&TN=a1&DF=f1health&RF=f1health&DL=0&RL=0&NP=3&MF=eldismsg.ini&AC=QBE_QUERY&BU=http%3A//www.eldis.ids.ac.uk/search.htm","body":"Standard methods of poverty measurement assume that an individual is poor if he or she lives in a family whose income or consumption lies below an appropriate poverty line. Such methods can provide only limited insight into male and female poverty separately. It is also possible to link family expenditure patterns to the gender composition of the household, which this paper illustrates using data from India and South Africa. However, more can be gleaned from data on consumption by individual household members, and collecting such information is good survey practice. A more promising approach is likely to come within a broader definition of poverty that includes health as well as income. This paper, produced by the World Bank Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network, discusses recent work on collecting self-reported measures of non-fatal health, and argues that such measures are already useful for assessing the relative health status of males and females. This paper also emphasises the importance of simultaneously measuring poverty in multiple dimensions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Directory of Open Access Journals ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.doaj.org/","body":"The Directory of Open Access Journals service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter June 2003 Patents and Pharmaceutical Access","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Free Government Health Services: Are They the Best Way to Reach the Poor?","field_subtitle":"World Bank publication","field_url":"http://poverty.worldbank.org/files/13999_gwatkin0303.pdf","body":"Equity is a frequently stated justification for government involvement in the health care market. This is often taken to mean directly providing all segments of the population with a wide range of government-operated health services at no cost: free universal care. Yet a look at the record suggests that this goal all too often remains elusive, especially in poor countries; that governments in fact serve only some of the population; and that the people served are disproportionately concentrated among the better-off. When this happens, government health services, far from promoting equity, work against it. The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate that there are many ways for governments to pursue the goal of ensuring that the poor receive adequate, affordable services through alternative approaches to resource allocation and purchasing. The first section summarizes the information known about the distribution of benefits from government health services across social groups in order to document the regressive pattern that now frequently exists and the need for significant changes in approach if the poor are to benefit. The second and third sections illustrate the kinds of changes that might be considered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"G8 charged with global inequalities","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"As yet another meeting of G8 heads of states started on June 1, the People's Health Movement called upon people around the world to peacefully protest against the policies of neo-liberal globalisation imposed on them by the G8 rich countries. \"Over 90,000 children will die from preventable diseases during just the three days when G8 will be held.  Poverty, non-access to health care and lack of basic sanitation are the key reasons for these deaths.  The G 8 leaders should be doing a serious soul searching,\" said a PHM spokesperson.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29811","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"generic drugs talks deadlocked","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=17917","body":"Pharmaceutical industry officials said late last month that talks over access to generic drugs, including antiretrovirals, are \"deadlocked,\" despite optimism from officials at the World Trade Organisation, Reuters reports. The talks have been stalled since members missed a December 31, 2002, deadline to reach an agreement. U.S. negotiators in February refused to sign a deal under the Doha declaration to allow developing nations to override patent protections to produce generic versions of drugs to combat public health epidemics such as AIDS unless wording was included to specify which diseases constitute a public health epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global plagues and the Global Fund: Challenges in the fight against HIV, TB and malaria","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/3/2/abstract","body":"Although a grossly disproportionate burden of disease from HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria remains in the Global South, these infectious diseases have finally risen to the top of the international agenda in recent years. Ideal strategies for combating these diseases must balance the advantages and disadvantages of 'vertical' disease control programs and 'horizontal' capacity-building approaches. Nevertheless, it is clear that significant structural changes are required in such domains as global spending priorities, debt relief, trade policy, and corporate responsibility. HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria are global problems borne of gross socio-economic inequality, and their solutions require correspondingly geopolitical solutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health migration and sadc to be discussed at wha","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200305190513.html","body":"The South African delegation to the World Health Assembly (WHA) was expected to call for the adoption of a code for ethical recruitment of health workers that should be binding on all Commonwealth Nations. \"Migration of health professionals is one of the major problems affecting many of the health services in developing countries including the SADC region,\" the South African ministry said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Intellectual property rights, innovation and public health","field_subtitle":"World Health Organisation 2003","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpcgi.exe?AC=GET_RECORD&XC=/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpcgi.exe&BU=http%3A//www.eldis.org/search.htm&TN=a1&SN=AUTO31448&SE=321&RN=10&MR=20&RF=s1health&DF=f1health&RL=0&DL=0&NP=3&ID=&MF=eldismsg.ini&MQ=&TI=0","body":"This backgrounder to a session of the WHO 56th World Health Assembly looks at issues surrounding innovation in public health particularly focusing on biotechnology, including genomics, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and other diagnostics. The report argues that innovation to address conditions which particularly affect the poor are often held back by market failure and/or under investment by the public sector. The report highlights a number of mechanisms to stimulate innovation. These include: Investment in basic science in developing countries; Public / private partnerships to address neglected diseases; IP mechanisms to promote private sector investment such as advance-purchase funds; Flexibility in the application of TRIPS as advocated in the Doha Declaration particularly with regard to licensing and exemptions; Improved technology transfer from North to South; Increased capacity building in developing countries; Greater international cooperation; Clear, co-ordinated setting of research priorities; and A sound regulatory environment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"kenya: Associate Director, Health Equity, Africa Regional Program ","field_subtitle":"The Rockefeller Foundation ","field_url":"","body":"The Rockefeller Foundation is currently seeking an Associate Director for its office in Nairobi who will have overall responsibility for providing thematic leadership for grant activities in the AIDS area of work in the development of programs related to the Health Equity (HE) theme and the Africa Regional Program (ARP) in Eastern and Southern Africa.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29805","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"LARGE GAP BETWEEN HIV PREVENTION NEEDS AND CURRENT EFFORTS, SAYS NEW REPORT","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/whatsnew/press/eng/Prevention130503_en.doc","body":"Fewer than one in five people at risk of HIV infection today have access to prevention programs, and annual global spending on prevention falls $3.8 billion short of what will be needed by 2005, according to a new report released by the Global HIV Prevention Working Group. The report, Access to HIV Prevention: Closing the Gap, is the first-ever analysis of the gap between HIV prevention needs and current efforts, and provides recommendations for expanding access to information and services that could help save lives and reverse the global epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"launch of international HIV/AIDS Internet resource","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/InSite?page=Country","body":"The Centre for HIV Information (CHI) at the University of California, San Francisco has launched an internationally oriented, HIV/AIDS Internet resource. The pages feature detailed global and regional overviews of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, as well as 194 individual country profiles containing key documents and links. This information is complemented by the Database of Country and Regional Indicators, which allows users to create customized, comparative tables of epidemiological and socio-economic data. Through this continuously updated, \"one-stop\" resource, visitors can access the best online information on the international AIDS pandemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Leaked US Resolution on medicine patents leads to Ill-will at WHA","field_subtitle":"Joint NGO response to US proposal on Intellectual Property Rights","field_url":"","body":"The United States proposal asserts that strengthening intellectual property (IP) protection is the best way to stimulate investments in R&D.  This assertion disregards mounting evidence to the contrary: the emerging global consensus that the current system of IP protection is failing to stimulate R&D for diseases of the poor.  Of the 1,393 new drugs approved between 1975 and 1999, only 16 (or just over 1%) were specifically developed for tropical diseases and tuberculosis, diseases that account for 11.4% of the global disease burden.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29813","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Letting them die \u2013 why HIV/AIDS intervention programmes fail","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A new book entitled \u201cLetting them die \u2013 why HIV/AIDS intervention programmes fail\u201d, written by social psychologist Dr Catherine Campbell, addresses the questions of why people knowingly engage in sexual behaviour that could lead to a slow and painful premature death?; and why the best-intentioned HIV-prevention programmes often have little impact?  Dr Campbell is a Reader at the London School of Economics and a Research Fellow at HIVAN, (the Centre for HIV/AIDS Networking, based at the University of Natal in Durban).  The book's title is derived from South African satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys's comment that: \"In the old South Africa we killed people.  Now we're just letting them die.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29808","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Life after Doha: What now for developing countries? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/news/LifeafterDoha.html","body":"The World Trade Organisation (WTO) declaration signed at Doha in 2002 launched the current multilateral trade negotiations that put developing country interests and the concept of special and differential treatment (SDT) as its core.  Yet discussions on SDT are at an impasse.  Why is SDT so central to the creation of development friendly trade rules and why has there been such a lack of progress?  The latest edition of the IDS Bulletin 'Special and Differential Treatment in Terms of Trade', is a collection of articles that suggest ways in which WTO rules can be framed with the circumstances of developing countries very much in mind.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"message for WHO member country delegations to 56th World Health Assembly ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.msf.org/content/page.cfm?articleid=4E0DCA59-1E3E-4550-9A94836925349A15","body":"There is an urgent need for new vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments to address high mortality and morbidity associated with infectious disease.  The current system of motivating research and development favours the needs of people in developed countries, while neglecting many diseases that primarily affect people in developing countries.  This is according to a message from Medicines Sans Frontiers about access to medicines, made to the 56th World Health Assembly (WHA) to be held between May 19-28.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"MSF puts drug patents under the spotlight ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.msf.org/content/page.cfm?articleid=6BE04D00-C80E-461D-A42754072ABC74DC","body":"A few days before the 192 countries at the World Health Assembly (WHA) discussed \"intellectual property rights, innovation and public health\" (provisional agenda item 14.9), Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) released a report setting straight common misconceptions about patents and highlighting country efforts to overcome patent obstacles to accessing life-saving medicines. \"Patents are social policy tools,\" explained Ellen 't Hoen, MSF Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines. \"When patents are issued for a method of swinging sideways on a swing, no-one's life is in the balance. But when it comes to pharmaceuticals, intellectual property must be weighed against the needs of people whose lives depend on medicines.\" Most developing countries' patent laws are still modelled on developed country systems. But in developed countries, patents are regularly challenged in court and in some cases deemed invalid. In developing countries, the practice of contesting patents has not been established. As a result invalid patents remain in place. \"Developing countries should not hesitate to check and challenge the validity of patents,\" says Ellen 't Hoen. \"This is already beginning to happen in some countries, such as Kenya and Thailand.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"New Approaches Needed to Food Security in southern africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200305070727.html","body":"The impact of HIV/AIDS on food security in Southern Africa is now well recognised.  The critical question is what can be done to halt the slide into poverty by affected households, a report released on Wednesday by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) said.  \"Even in situations where the maize harvest is quite good, as it appears to be this season at the regional level, the fact that we have such high [HIV] infection rates requires more livelihood support interventions than otherwise would be the case.  Good [cereal] production may not be enough to sustain people as it would have been 10 years ago,\" Neil Marsland, one of the authors of the report, told IRIN.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"New leader, new hope for WHO ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7399/1100","body":"In the mid-1990s the World Health Organisation seemed doomed to either \"flounder in a morass of petty corruption and ineffective bureaucracy\" or to die. Neither of these happened. Instead, Gro Harlem Brundtland, who took office as director general in July 1998, restored the organisation's reputation as a credible force in global health. Last week the World Health Assembly approved Jong-Wook Lee as Brundtland's successor. Unlike Brundtland, Lee is not being charged with saving the organisation but with harnessing its potential to transform the lives of the poorest.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Open access medical journals","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.inasp.info/health/links/ejrlsdir.html","body":"For an overview of what ejournals are accessible in developing and transitional countries, go to the Fulltext Journals page of INASP Health.  The page contains numerous annotated links.  Of particular interest are: BMJ Journals: Countries with Free Access; FreeMedicalJournals.com; Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI); Highwire: Free Access to Developing Countries sites; and INASP: Programme for the Enhancement of Research Information (PERI).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Overcoming Fatalism: A Human Rights Approach to Maternal Mortality","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.jhuccp.org/popreporter/2003/05-05.shtml","body":"\u201cA woman who gives birth opens her own coffin.\u201d So goes an expression that is well known in parts of Mali, a country in which one in 19 women dies of pregnancy-related causes. In Mali and in other countries where the risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth are high and well known, men and women alike accept maternal mortality as a tragic but inevitable fact of life. Women are often expected to spend most of their adult lives having and caring for babies. The associated risks of pregnancy and childbirth are merely a condition of womanhood. If astounding numbers of maternal deaths alone -- over a half a million per year worldwide -- do not motivate governments to take urgent steps, their obligations under international law should. These international legal norms are powerful tools for promoting women's safety during pregnancy and childbirth. Women can claim their protected rights by demanding government action to support and expand maternal health services, repeal laws that restrict women's access to health care, invest in measures to promote women's status, and address social norms that limit women's ability to make choices affecting their reproductive lives. Government accountability for pregnancy-related deaths begins with recognition of women's rights and a refusal to view such deaths as inevitable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Overcoming obstacles in confronting torture ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol361/iss9368/full/llan.361.9368.health_and_human_rights.25530.1","body":"Television images of torture chambers in Iraq and reports of the escalating use of torture in Zimbabwe remind us that this form of state-sponsored abuse continues unabated in many parts of the world. At the same time, there are growing allegations that some developed nations with a tradition of defending human rights might be sanctioning the use of coercive measures akin to torture in dealing with suspected terrorists. It is timely, therefore, to consider the reasons for the inadequate attention given to the topic by health professionals. If torture is a global health problem, why does it not feature more prominently in medical and psychiatric textbooks and in teaching and training programmes for health professionals? One obvious reason is the difficulty in obtaining access to torture victims held in prisons or living under oppressive regimes. Nevertheless, although research in such settings is difficult, it is not impossible.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Patents and Pharmaceutical Access","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=13&ItemID=3694","body":"The 56th World Health Assembly - the annual health meeting at which the World Health Organisation's (WHO) directives are set for the year - ended last week in Geneva after a long round of discussions on the continuing SARS saga.  Press coverage of the Assembly also focused on the completion of a tobacco control resolution, which the U.S.  delegation agreed to sign in exchange for deals that will secure a future pact on sugar imports.  But the resolution receiving the longest debate among the delegates of the 192 member governments attending the WHO's Assembly received little attention outside of the business press.\r\n\r\nThe controversy was over a resolution mandating the WHO to advise governments about patent rules and access to medicines.  Patent laws in many developing countries are now set through a combination of World Trade Organisation (WTO) directives, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) advice, and U.S.  bilateral trade pressure.  But because the WTO's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement requires developing countries to pass national legislation guaranteeing patent terms of two decades for pharmaceuticals, the prices of new drugs for both common and rare conditions is expected to double soon after January 2005.  The TRIPS Agreement, passed more than a decade ago under the aegis of the WTO, was described as a \"free trade\" measure by its key architect, Pfizer CEO (and Ronald Reagan trade advisor) Edmund Pratt.  By definition, it is the complete opposite of competition-based trade: it grants pharmaceutical companies a monopoly on any new product they produce, and therefore allows drug prices to be set to the purchasing standards of the elite, to the obvious detriment of the poor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty and Inequity in the Era of Globalization: Our Need to Change and to Re-conceptualize","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/2/1/4","body":"The best way to improve the health and nutrition of the poor still is to have them move out of poverty.  For equity to be achieved, economic growth in the development process needs to be deliberately geared towards the needs of the poor.  Focusing on sustainable poverty alleviation is inseparable from bringing about greater equity.  A focus on both tasks is necessary to achieve the indispensable reduction in the existing rich-poor gap.  Focusing on poverty alleviation alone can end up as charity in disguise.  Focusing on equity is a step towards social justice.  Equity and social justice in health and nutrition are one and the same thing: in health and nutrition, social inequities are always unfair.  This is an extract from an article in the International Journal for Equity in Health 2003.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Primary Health Care: More Action Less Words please","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Neo-liberal economic policies and World Bank/IMF inspired 'health reforms' being pushed through in developing countries have resulted in: Privatisation of public health services; The introduction of user fees for patients; Lack of public investment in state-run primary health care systems; and Lack of attention to leadership and management development for PHC.  \"All this has obviously also resulted in the overall deterioration in quality and equitable delivery of public health services and had a devastating effect on the ability of the poor to access health care,\" says a recent press release from the People's Health Movement (PHM).  PHM has called for wider consultation between the World Health Organisation and civil society mem-\r\nbers.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29775","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"PROGRAMMING IN THE ERA OF HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iris.umd.edu/PPC_IDEAS/HIV_AIDS/Documents/wfp.pdf","body":"This policy paper by the United Nations (UN) World Food Programme (WFP) reflects what is known so far about HIV/ AIDS and food security and describes the practical considerations thus far identified that are necessary for successful project implementation. The authors state that little work has been carried out on how food, and specifically food aid, can be best integrated into programmes designed to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS on poor households' food security.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-Private Partnerships for Public Health","field_subtitle":"Harvard Series on Population and International Health","field_url":"http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hcpds/partnerbook/Partnershipsbook.PDF","body":"Global health problems require global solutions, and public-private partnerships are increasingly called upon to provide these solutions.  Such partnerships involve private corporations in collaboration with governments, international agencies, and non-governmental organizations.  They can be very productive, but they also bring their own problems.  This volume examines the organizational and ethical challenges of partnerships and suggests ways to address them.  How do organisations with different values, interests, and worldviews come together to resolve critical public health issues?  How are shared objectives and shared values created within a partnership?  How are relationships of trust fostered and sustained in the face of the inevitable conflicts, uncertainties, and risks of partnership?  This book focuses on public-private partnerships that seek to expand the use of specific products to improve health conditions in poor countries.  The volume includes case studies of partnerships involving specific diseases such as trachoma and river blindness, international organizations such as the World Health Organization, multinational pharmaceutical companies, and products such as medicines and vaccines.  Individual chapters draw lessons from successful partnerships as well as troubled ones in order to help guide efforts to reduce global health disparities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Strategic Research on Governance, Equity and Health for Eastern and Southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"Call for Letters of Intent: 8 July deadline","field_url":"","body":"The Alliance and the Governance, Equity and Health Program Initiative of the International Development Research Centre, Canada (GEH) invite letters of intent for strategic research in governance, equity and health for Eastern and Southern Africa. Health systems in Africa face special challenges given their development situation, their epidemiological profile and the opportunities to scale up disease control programmes. It is important that the new and larger policy and programme efforts currently being implemented improve the equity and responsiveness of health systems through approaches that strengthen and integrate actions at national and local levels.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29773","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The G8 and access to medicines: no more broken promises ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.msf.org/content/page.cfm?articleid=311298AD-34D0-4B39-BE9F5759A7E4EDB8","body":"On June 1, the G8 leaders will gather in Evian, France, where access to medicines is again at the top of the their agenda.  (The G8 countries are: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, UK, USA.) That same day, according to far too familiar disease statistics, 19,000 people will die from AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, African trypanosomiasis, and visceral leishmaniasis.  These five diseases represent the failure of the pharmaceutical industry to deliver medicines for the developing world, and the non-response from governments to this market failure. The G8 has an enormous political and financial potential to curb this death toll.  However, while several important commitments have been made to improve access to medicines in the past 3 years, few have been achieved, and many have been forgotten.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"U.N. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR HIV/AIDS IN AFRICA 'AGHAST' AT CONNECTION BETWEEN HUNGER, HIV/AIDS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=17998","body":"U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis, during a speech at the Global Health Council's annual conference in Washington, D.C., said that he was \"aghast\" at the way in which \"AIDS was deepening hunger and hunger was deepening AIDS\" in Southern Africa. According to Lewis, Africa \"reaps what the world sows, and with a vengeance.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"who dg pledges help in hiv/aids battle","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=17878","body":"Dr.  Jong-Wook Lee, the newly elected director general of the World Health Organisation, said that he would make combating HIV/AIDS in the developing world a major priority, the Boston Globe reports.  Lee said that he would fulfill the WHO's promise to provide three million HIV-positive people in resource-poor countries with antiretroviral drugs by 2005.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO to create international human resources database on health care ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7397/1004/a","body":"One in three countries in Africa and South East Asia has only one medical school for every 10 million people or more, a rate poorer than anywhere in Europe or the Americas, says a new report by researchers from the World Health Organisation. Nine out of 10 countries in the same two regions have fewer than 50 doctors per 100000 inhabitants, and about half of the countries have a similar density of nurses and midwives. The report outlines a series of major new WHO initiatives, which aim to provide better information to allow more meaningful international comparisons. \"Despite the undoubted importance of human resources to the functions of health systems, there is little consistency between countries in how human resource strategies are monitored and evaluated,\" say the authors, from WHO's department of health service provision. \"In many countries there is no regular recording of the numbers and activities of all health personnel, and some emphasize only the public sector or can have variable accuracy for rural areas.\" ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Why prioritise when there is not enough money?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.resource-allocation.com/content/1/1/5/abstract","body":"In an informal address to the 4th International Conference on Priorities in Health (Oslo, 23 September 2002), Professor Jeffrey Sachs \u2013 Chairperson of the WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health \u2013 maintained that the real causes of the inability of the world's poorest people to receive help for the lethal diseases that burden them did not include the \"usual suspects\" (corruption, mismanagement, and wrong priorities). Rather, the root cause was argued to be an inherent lack of money, indicating that the burden of disease would be lifted only if rich countries gave more money to poor ones. Without taking exception to anything that Sachs said in his address, there nevertheless remain a number of justifications for efforts to improve priority setting in the face of severe shortages of resources, including the following three defences: prioritisation is needed if we are to know that prioritisation is insufficient; prioritisation is most important when there is little money; prioritisation can itself increase resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"world bank website on health equity analysis","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/health/wbact/health_eq.htm","body":"The World Bank has launched a website containing technical notes on quantitative techniques for health equity analysis.  The site will eventually contain 20 notes covering: The measurement of key variables in health equity analysis; Generic tools in health equity analysis; and Applications to the health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"zambia hard hit by aids","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3016051.stm","body":"The southern African country of Zambia has set a new record - one which no country would wish to hold. The average life expectancy in the country is 33 years - by far the lowest in the world - and it is all due to Aids. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"ZARAN Online","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"ZARAN is a non-governmental organisation that was established in December 2001. ZARAN believes that successful HIV/AIDS interventions are those that protect and promote the rights of People Living With Aids (PLWA).  It is therefore committed to the implementation of the International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29807","field_issue_date":"2003-06-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"11th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE FOR PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS ","field_subtitle":"October 26-30, 2003, Kampala, Uganda","field_url":"","body":"The Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (GNP+) and the National Guidance and Empowerment Network of Uganda (NGEN+) invite HIV+ people worldwide and their allies to the 11th International Conference for People Living with HIV/AIDS, to be held October 26-30 at the Speke Resort and Country Lodge Munyonyo, Kampala, Uganda.  The theme of this conference is \"The Dawn of New Positive Leadership\".","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29760","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"24th African Health Sciences Congress ","field_subtitle":"28 September  - 2 October, 2003, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia","field_url":"","body":"The African Health Sciences Congress (AHSC) is a premier scientific meeting that has found a permanent place in Africa. Each year, the congress is hosted in different countries in Africa, by a National Health Research Institute in collaboration with other institutions interested in undertaking health related activities. Professional heath related bodies have also been instrumental in participation of hosting and managing the Congress. AHSC is one of the major forums on which Africans from all around the continent meet and share recent developments on health issues, disseminate and present their scientific findings, promote, encourage and coordinate research capabilities, exchange ideas, and network among members and institutions involved in heath research directly or otherwise. We are pleased to inform you that the Ethiopian Health & Nutrition Research Institute (EHNRI) in collaboration with national sister institutions, nationwide professional associations, governmental organisations, non-governmental organizations, UN related agencies and many significant stakeholders, established a National Organising Committee (NOC) that will take up the challenges and responsibilities of organising the 24th African Health Sciences Congress (AHSC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29740","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Activists continue HIV/AIDS protests in south africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1979","body":"South Africa's National Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS (NAPWA) on continued a protest outside the Johannesburg offices of a drug multinational as part of its \"Black Easter\" campaign. The campaign was launched to \"convince pharmaceutical companies to provide free antiretroviral drugs in the country\" and included demonstrations outside the offices of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Association (PMA), NAPWA national director, Nkululeko Nxesi, told PlusNews.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Chilean Initiative for Equity in Health ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equidadchile.cl","body":"The Chilean Initiative for Equity in Health cordially invites you to visit their renovated website, with exhaustive and diverse information on the theme of health equity not only relevant to Chile but also of general interest for those around the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Communicating Population and Health Research to Policymakers","field_subtitle":"17 August \u2013 29 August, 2003, Kampala, Uganda","field_url":"","body":"Population and health studies, demographic surveys, censuses, and other research findings can play a key role in guiding policy and resource-allocation decisions.  Yet every year, millions of dollars are spent to produce research results that fail to reach policymakers and, consequently, are not used to shape policies and programs.  To help bridge the gap between researchers and policymakers, Makerere University and the Population Reference Bureau are cosponsoring a communication workshop.  Sessions will help participants identify the policy implications of survey data and research findings, understand how research can influence the policy process, and communicate findings.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29743","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Competing for business? Improving hospital services in Zambia with market forces ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=3&i=h1pn1g1&u=3ead6339","body":"Does competition improve hospital services?  Do market forces in healthcare benefit the poorest members of society?  Reforms which involve exposing hospitals to market forces are being introduced in many developing countries.  However, very little is known about how these markets operate, particularly in developing countries.  The University of Zambia, together with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, considered the effect of competition among hospitals in Zambia. The study examined hospitals in Lusaka, Central and Copperbelt provinces.  Data on hospital use, revenues and expenditure, and charges for services were collected for the period 1996 to 1999 from each hospital using routine hospital records.  In addition, a patient questionnaire was used in facilities to elicit patients\u2019 views of the quality of services.  As well as private for-profit and mine hospitals (facilities operated by the mining industry), \"private\" services included the private fee-paying services provided in government hospitals (known in Zambia as \"high cost\" services\").","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Creating a healthy environment for children","field_subtitle":"A paper presented at The Human Rights Information Network (HURINET) to mark World Health Day, 2003","field_url":"","body":"Each year, on April 07, the world celebrates World Health Day, each time with a new theme. On this day, around the globe, thousands of events mark the importance of health for productive and happy lives. The theme of this year\u2019s celebration is \u201cHealthy Environments for children\u201d. There is no doubt that some of us might be tempted to ask why it is all about children, yet if we go round it well enough, we will not fail to understand that a healthy environment for them is also a healthy environment for all of us, though children have a unique vulnerability. Where do we then come in as civil society organisations, in this quest for a healthy environment? As a network, it does touch on two of our thematic areas; Human Rights and Environment and Human Rights education and Child Rights. Furthermore, human rights of whatever categorization are of everybody\u2019s concern. This is because they protect the essentials of human existence, and when violated, affect all facets of human life. Hence, we must, first of all, understand \u201cHealthy Environment for Children\u201d, as \u201chealthy environment for all\u201d.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29717","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"developing workplace policies that address HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.safaids.org.zw","body":"SAfAIDS offers technical assistance to institutions, the private sector and NGOs in the southern Africa region in developing workplace policies that address HIV and AIDS.  To date they have worked with several organisations on this using participatory methods that help to create staff ownership of their policy.  These policies can assist in preventing new infections, mitigating the impact of AIDS and giving guidelines on how to manage HIV in the world of work. One of the key lessons learnt is that there is a general reluctance to disclose HIV status by employees for fear of victimisation, making it difficult for them to get support from their employers.  Stigma and discrimination are still prevalent in the world of work both in the formal and informal sectors. To support their current work and also to disseminate information in the area of policy development they have written a brochure on \" Steps in developing a workplace policy that addresses HIV/AIDS.\" The brochure is currently available in hard copy but SAfAIDS are planning to post it on our website soon (www.safaids.org.zw).  To be included on the mailing list for this particular brochure please contact info@safaids.org.zw","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Drought And Aids Worsen Food Shortage, Says UN","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200304220252.html","body":"The double burden of drought and Aids has worsened food shortage in at least six countries in Southern Africa, a United Nations Population Fund official has noted.  Addressing a public discussion in Harare, Ms Helen Jackson said understanding the inter-relatedness of HIV and Aids among human, economic development and particularly food security was essential.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Email Course on Family Planning needs of HIV Clients","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"As of December 2002, an estimated 42 million people worldwide are infected with HIV/AIDS. Seventy percent of these people live in sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV/AIDS is now the leading cause of death. These devastating figures, and the fact that many of these people are of childbearing age, make it clear that this epidemic requires creative interventions that help prevent the spread of HIV and programs that address both the fragile healthcare workforce and the patients who need basic reproductive healthcare services. The JHPIEGO Corporation has begun developing education and training programs in response to this epidemic and the resulting need for a healthcare workforce educated about the family planning and reproductive health needs of clients with HIV/AIDS. JHPIEGO offered a 14-week e-mail course, \"Meeting the Family Planning and Reproductive Health (FP/RH) Needs of Clients with HIV/AIDS in Low-Resource Settings.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29730","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter May 2003 The long walk to civil disobedience","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Funding the fund","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/newsletter.php?%20id=14545","body":"This posting from Africa Action contains a news update and excerpts from two recent reports documenting the wide gap between the consensus on the need for greater funding for fighting the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the failure in practice to provide that funding. First, a report from the IMF/World Bank released for the spring meetings, summarized by the Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Reports and excerpted briefly below, documents that \"if current budgetary trends continue, donor support in 2003 will still be much less than the bare minimum required for basic prevention and care programs\". Secondly, an article from the Global Fund Observer newsletter notes the failure of the Global Fund itself to develop a fundraising strategy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Glaxo Will Further Cut Prices of AIDS Drugs to Poor Nations ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.globalhealth.org/news/article/3030","body":"GlaxoSmithKline, the world's largest maker of AIDS drugs, has announced that it is further cutting the prices of these drugs by as much as half in poor countries.  The price of Combivir, the company's popular AIDS therapy that combines two drugs in a single pill, has been cut to 90 cents a day, from $1.70, a reduction of 47 percent, the company said.  With the reduction, the medicine is available at a price roughly equivalent to some generic versions of AIDS drugs, it said.  The price of Combivir in the United States is about $18 a day.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and socioeconomic impact of HIV/AIDS on South African households","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12667263&dopt=Abstract","body":"South African households are severely affected by Human Immunodeficiency Virus / Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) but health and economic impacts have not been quantified in controlled cohort studies.  This study compared households with an HIV-infected member, and unaffected neighbouring households, in one rural and one urban area in Free State province, South Africa.  Members of affected households, compared to members of unaffected households, were independently more likely to be continuously ill.  Government clinics and hospitals were the main sources of health care.  Affected households, and households with ill members, were poorer than unaffected households at baseline.  Baseline morbidity was independently associated with lower income and expenditure at baseline but not at follow up.  The conclusions were that HIV/AIDS affects the health and wealth of households as well as infected individuals, and aggravates pre-existing poverty.  In such poor populations, however, short-term effects on income and expenditure are not clearly detectable.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Health equity information resource","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/eu/projectinfo/inforesourcemoser.htm","body":"\"Awareness of health equity as an international issue has reached the point where sufficient momentum has built up to stimulate the types of collaborative action that are necessary to monitor and advocate for health equity worldwide.\" (Whitehead M, Dahlgren G, Gilson L.  Developing the policy response to inequities in health: a global perspective.  In: Evans et al (eds), 2001).  Whitehead and Evans argue for practical initiatives including enlarging the health equity policy community, by building or strengthening networks of researchers and advocates.  As a step along these lines an information resource has been published detailing organisations, people, networks and resources relevant to work on health inequities, covering those with a strong interest in health inequities, as well as outlining the health equity interest of some of the large international and funding organisations.  The emphasis in this document is on low and middle income countries since work regarding health inequalities in the richer industrialised countries is advanced in comparison.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health inequalities: the legacy of apartheid in South Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=1&i=h1dm1g1&u=3ead6339","body":"How successful is South Africa at providing decent healthcare for all its citizens?  Is the gap in healthcare between the poorest members of society and the richest getting narrower?  The Universities of Cape Town and Witwatersrand, South Africa, looked at South Africa\u2019s efforts to ensure all sections of the population have proper access to health services.  A right to good health services is enshrined in the country\u2019s constitution and has played an important part in ensuring the health service remains a priority.  Nevertheless the study found certain problems have arisen in the drive to create an equitable health system.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV & AIDS Treatment in Practice","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/hit.asp?PHR=3AE9A2A9-558D-4319-A9E7-C9B896A67784","body":"'HIV & AIDS Treatment in Practice' is an email newsletter for doctors, nurses, health care workers and community treatment advocates working in limited-resource settings. It is published twice every month by NAM, the UK-based HIV information charity behind www.aidsmap.com. The newsletter is edited by Julian Meldrum, NAM's international editor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS AND FOOD SECURITY IN Southern AFRICA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000235/P227_AIDS_Food_Security.pdf","body":"This paper summarises existing evidence and experience concerning HIV/AIDS and food security in Africa. It deals with two major issues: the impact of HIV/AIDS on agrarian livelihoods and how this can be mitigated; the implications of a concurrent generalised HIV/AIDS epidemic and an episode of acute food insecurity, what is termed 'new variant famine'. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS crippling south african public health sector","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSReport.ASP?ReportID=1934","body":"With an increasing number of HIV/AIDS patients seeking health care from already over-stretched public sector facilities, the HIV/AIDS epidemic is undermining the quality of care in South Africa's health system.  According to The South African Health Review (SAHR) for 2002, published recently by the NGO Health Systems Trust (HST), HIV/AIDS is the \"single most important\" challenge to improving health care delivery in the country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS threatens democracy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1984","body":"The impact of HIV/AIDS could reverse democratic gains in Southern Africa, according to a report by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS).  A recently published research paper by the Pretoria-based institute found that lost incomes, increasing health and labour costs and decreasing productivity threatened the economic growth \"necessary to sustain democratic practice in poor countries\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"information for aids professionals","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iaen.org/files.cgi/9821_iaen_survey_summary.pdf","body":"The International AIDS Economics Network (IAEN /\r\nhttp://www.iaen.org) recently polled its members in 130 countries about the best information resources available to AIDS professionals worldwide.  The polling returned 85 completed surveys from 32 countries listing over 700 information resources.  Approximately half of the returned surveys were from developed countries, half from developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"International Society for Equity in Health (ISEqH) 3rd International Conference","field_subtitle":"June 10, 11 and 12, 2004, Durban, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"The 3rd International Conference of the International Society for Equity in Health will be hosted by the Health Systems Trust (HST), a South African-based NGO, the Southern African Regional Network on Equity in Health (EQUINET) and the Global Equity Gauge Alliance (GEGA), an international consortium of initiatives to support health equity. The meeting will bring together researchers, policy-makers, practitioners and others concerned with equity in health to develop an international health agenda for governments, universities and organisations all over the world. The 3rd International Conference theme is \u201cPathways to equity in health: Using research for policy and advocacy\u201d. The Conference will explore this theme through a varied program of plenary sessions, forums, poster sessions and scientific sessions. We invite and welcome your participation in the effort towards advancement of knowledge, fostering of the exchange of experiences and promotion of equity in health.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29761","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Malaria Journal Available Online","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.malariajournal.com/start.asp","body":"Malaria Journal is a peer-reviewed open access journal that publishes original research papers on all aspects of malaria.  The journal is edited by Marcel Hommel and a broad-based international editorial board.  Malaria Journal has now published 24 articles, all of which you can freely access over the internet.  Take a moment to browse the latest articles and consider sending your next manuscript to them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Monitoring and evaluation of human resources for health: an international perspective","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-1-3.pdf","body":"Despite the undoubted importance of human resources to the functions of health systems, there is little consistency between countries in how human resource strategies are monitored and evaluated.  This paper presents an integrated approach for developing an evidence base on human resources for health (HRH) to support decision-making, drawing on a framework for health systems performance assessment.  Major variations in the supply of health personnel and training opportunities are found to occur by region.  However, certain discrepancies are also observed in measuring the same indicator from different sources, possibly related to the occupational classification or to the sources\u2019 representation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"NEW ANALYSIS DECRIES LACK OF US SUPPORT FOR GLOBAL AIDS FUND","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.globalaidsalliance.org/analysis.html","body":"The fight against AIDS will need more resources from the US, with faster delivery, than what the President is proposing,\" says Dr. Paul Zeitz, Executive Director of the Global AIDS Alliance. \"We will need fast action by Republican and Democratic leaders in the US Congress to deliver on an appropriate package for 2003 and 2004. It's very disappointing the President (George W. Bush) is not calling for a more rapid increase in new funding. Plus, it's troubling that the President gives such short shrift to the Global Fund, which is fast running out of resources.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Obstacle course \u2013 constraints to scaling up health interventions for the poor ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=0&i=h1kh1g2&u=3ead652e","body":"The WHO\u2019s Commission on Macroeconomics and Health recommends a large increase in funding for health interventions in poor countries.  But money alone is unlikely to be able to address the constraints facing health systems.  What factors hamper the widespread implementation of health programmes for the poor and what options are available to tackle them? A relatively small number of health conditions are responsible for the majority of the burden of ill-health in poor countries.  Effective interventions exist to prevent and treat most of these conditions, but these interventions are not available or accessible to the world's poor.  A dramatic expansion in access to these priority services is urgently needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"On-Line AIDS Candlelight Memorial - Light a Virtual Candle","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"You are invited to light a virtual candle for someone who has been touched by HIV/AIDS. Visit http://www.candlelightmemorial.org/lightcandle to be a part of the fastest growing on-line AIDS Candlelight Memorial. The \"On-Line AIDS Candlelight Memorial\", which is part of the Global Health Council's International AIDS Candlelight Memorial Campaign, gives people from around the world the opportunity to join millions of others in remembering those who have been impacted by HIV/AIDS. Once you have lit your virtual candle, you will have the opportunity to join the world's largest grassroots AIDS event and register your community to be part of the \"International AIDS Candlelight Memorial\" on May 18, 2003. By organizing a Memorial for May 18, you will be lighting candles in solidarity with millions of other individuals in more than 90 countries around the world.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29725","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Participatory Learning and Action: Ethiopia Project Shows How a Participatory Process with Youth can Help Shape National Policy ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.fhi.org/en/youth/youthnet/pubs/pubspdf/ylenspartlearnactn.pdf","body":"To begin planning its program, the new Ethiopian Ministry of Youth, Sports, and Culture turned to an approach called participatory learning and action, or PLA. Officials involved young people throughout the country in a learning and planning process for the Ministry. The youth developed a national youth charter and a 3-year action plan to mobilize youth for improved sexual health and HIV/AIDS preventive behavior. Plus, the process led to the creation of a dynamic network of young people committed to the health and future of the country.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor","field_subtitle":"Paul Farmer","field_url":"http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9875.html","body":"Pathologies of Power uses harrowing stories of life--and death--in extreme situations to interrogate our understanding of human rights.  Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist with twenty years of experience working in Haiti, Peru, and Russia, argues that promoting the social and economic rights of the world's poor is the most important human rights struggle of our times.  With passionate eyewitness accounts from the prisons of Russia and the beleaguered villages of Haiti and Chiapas, this book links the lived experiences of individual victims to a broader analysis of structural violence.  Farmer challenges conventional thinking within human rights circles and exposes the relationships between political and economic injustice, on one hand, and the suffering and illness of the powerless, on the other.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"PROMISES MADE AND BROKEN: THE FIGHT AGAINST MALARIA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Three years after African leaders pledged to scrap a tax on bed nets that would greatly assist in the fight against malaria, many countries have not yet kept their promise and little progress seems to have been made in fighting the disease.  The African Summit on Roll Back Malaria (RBM), held in Abuja, Nigeria on April 25, 2000 was attended by 17 Heads of State of the 49 malaria-affected countries and territories in Africa.  African leaders promised to do much by signing The Abuja Declaration on Roll Back Malaria in Africa.  Donor agencies also promised to provide much greater financial support for controlling malaria.  At the conclusion of the meeting, world leaders acknowledged that malaria was causing nearly one million deaths every year in Africa even though the disease was preventable.  They also acknowledged that malaria was costing Africa more than US$12 billion annually, and that only a small amount of that would be needed to control it.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29755","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS FOR PUBLIC HEALTH","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hcpds/books/reichbook.html","body":"Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are becoming a popular mode of tackling large, complicated, and expensive public health problems.  However, little is known about the conditions when partnerships succeed, about the strategies for structuring partnerships, or about the ethical underpinnings of partnerships.  This book from the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies presents the results of a workshop examining questions about public-private partnerships in international public health, focusing on the organisational and ethical challenges of partnerships, and ways to address them.  The essays in this volume offer some new perspectives on partnerships and provide empirical evidence of both benefits and challenges of PPPs.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"RICH COUNTRIES DEPLETE AFRICA\u2019S MEDICAL RESOURSES","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/view.php3?id=20030405","body":"Conservative estimates by Wilma Meeus and David Sanders at the University of the Western Cape\u2019s School of Public Health show that the United States has saved at least U$3,86-million(R30,9 million) in training fees by employing doctors from Nigeria, which has lost 21 000 doctors to the superpower.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Rolling back reality: making malaria control accessible to all ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h4hg1g4.html","body":"Effective tools to control malaria are available now but are not being accessed by the populations in need.  The prime example is insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs).  Most malaria-carrying mosquitoes bite at night.  Thus ITNs have been proven to reduce malaria infection and death rates by forming both a physical barrier against mosquitoes and, in the words of the World Health Organisation (WHO) \u2018generating a chemical halo\u2019 around the bed, repelling and killing mosquitoes.  However, for people in rural Africa, bednets are hard to get hold of.  In these areas, access is often restricted to those with money to buy them from urban centres, or to those taking part in isolated research projects and localised bednet programmes.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC officials highlight fight against malaria","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sabcnews.com/africa/southern_africa/0,1009,56519,00.html","body":"Health officials from South Africa and other Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries began a two-week rally last month to highlight the fight against the malaria scourge in the region. The rally opened in the northern KwaZulu-Natal town of Ndumo and ended in Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania, on April the 25th to coincide with Africa Malaria Day. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"SERIOUS BRAIN DRAIN HITS MALAWI'S AILING HEALTH SECTOR","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200304010411.html","body":"While Malawi's health sector is already hurt by shortages of drugs due to a constrained government budget, and a rising death toll because of HIV/AIDS, an exodus of medical personnel to richer western nations is threatening to cripple the already ailing sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Setting global health research priorities: Burden of disease and inherently global health issues should both be considered","field_subtitle":"BMJ April 5, 2003;326:722-723 ","field_url":"http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7392/722?etoc","body":"The social and environmental contexts that determine disease are no longer simply domestic but increasingly global. The box in this article lists what we consider the main inherently global health issues, a term describing health determining phenomena that transcend national borders and political jurisdictions. Considerable research exists on each of these issues, although not always with health as a principal outcome. Greater attention in research is required to the linkages between these issues and to their economic and political drivers that are, like the issues, increasingly global in scope. Such drivers include macroeconomic policies associated with international finance institutions, liberalisation of trade and investment, global trade agreements, and technological innovations, all of which are creating greater interdependence between people and places. Assessing how these inherently global health issues affect health is a complex task. Recent work on locating these inherently global health issues in comprehensive health frameworks, however, will prove useful in identifying specific research questions that are useful to policy makers and civil society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SHADOW ON THE CONTINENT: PUBLIC HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS IN AFRICA IN THE 21ST CENTURY","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/bioethics/pdf/shadow_on_the_continent.pdf","body":"Approaches to the prevention and control of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa have been heavily based on early experiences and policies from industrialised countries, where the disease affects specific risk groups.  HIV/AIDS has been dealt with differently from other sexually transmitted or lethal infectious diseases, despite being Africa's leading cause of death.  This review from The Lancet discusses the evolution of the global response to the epidemic, and the importance of redefining HIV/AIDS in Africa as a public health and infectious disease emergency. The article also discusses reconsideration of policies and practice around HIV testing and partner notification, and emphasises the need for an increased focus on treatment.  It is found that human rights-based approaches to HIV/AIDS prevention might have reduced the role of public health and social justice, which offer a more applied and practical framework for HIV/AIDS prevention and care in Africa's devastating epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SHIFTING THE BURDEN: THE PRIVATE SECTOR REsponse to HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.international-health.org/AIDS_Economics/Papers/Shifting%20the%20Burden-WHO%20Bulletin%20Feb%2003.pdf","body":"As the economic burden of HIV/AIDS increases in sub-Saharan Africa, allocation of the burden among levels and sectors of society is changing. The private sector has more scope to avoid the economic burden of AIDS than governments, households, or nongovernmental organisations, and the burden is being systematically shifted away from the private sector. Common practices that transfer the burden to households and government include: Pre-employment screening; Reductions in employee benefits; Restructured employment contracts; Outsourcing of low skilled jobs; Selective retrenchments; and Changes in production technologies. This paper was produced by the Department of International Health at Boston School of Public Health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Small Grants Programme to Develop Health Policy and Systems Research","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research announces its 3rd call for Research for Policy Grants.  The topic for this round is Health System Development and Scaling-Up Priority Services.  Research proposals should aim to improve health in low and middle in-\r\ncome countries through applying quantitative and/or qualitative methods to the understanding and explanation of critical issues in the scaling-up and integration within national health systems of priority health services and disease control programmes.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29737","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Rights and Economic Claims to Health Care and Education in Developing Countries","field_subtitle":"World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3006, March 2003","field_url":"http://econ.worldbank.org/files/24988_wps3006.pdf","body":"The paper analyzes contemporary rights-based and economic approaches to health care and education in developing countries.  It assesses the foundations and uses of social rights in development, outlines an economic approach to improving health and education service provision, and then highlights differences, similarities, and the hard questions that the economic critique poses for rights.  The paper argues that the policy consequences of rights overlap considerably with a modern economic approach.  Both the rights and the economic approach are skeptical that electoral politics and de facto market rules by themselves provide sufficient accountability for the effective and equitable provision of health and education services, and that further intra-sectoral reforms in governance, particularly those that strengthen the hand of service recipients, are needed.  There remain differences between the two approaches.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Spread of tuberculosis relentless in Zambia, AIDS responsible ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The spread of tuberculosis has been relentless in Zambia, southern Africa in the last thirty seven years and the trend continues to date.  This disturbing fact was published recently in the South African Journal of Medicine by a group of Zambian doctors led by Dr.  Mwaba, working together with doctors from London.  The study reviewed official health records of TB cases reported throughout the country between January 1, 1964 to December 31, 2000.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29722","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Statement by the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights notes with great concern, and condemns the upsurge of violence of the last ten days of March.  The violence immediately followed and is seen as a response to a largely peaceful two day stayaway throughout the country on Tuesday 18th and Wednesday 19th March. In Harare alone, more than 250 victims of violence have been seen and treated at the Emergency Departments in the City.  More than 30 required admission for severe injuries, some requiring orthopaedic surgery.  All the victims examined had physical injuries consistent with the histories given, which were of severe beatings and torture.  To date about 200 people are known still to be in police custody, many with untreated injuries.  Some of those tortured were electrocuted using wires attached to parts of the body, including the genitalia.  Two women were assaulted with a rifle in their vaginas.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29741","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"tac holds international day of protest","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=17368","body":"The South African AIDS advocacy group Treatment Action Campaign held an international day of protest on April 24 against the South African government's handling of the AIDS epidemic, demanding that the government improve access to antiretroviral drugs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"THE COST OF HIV PREVENTION AND TREATMENT INTERVENTIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/cssr/papers/wp28.pdf","body":"What would be the cost of introducing AIDS-related prevention and treatment programmes in South Africa?  This paper, produced by the Centre for Social Science Research (CSSR) at the University of Cape Town, attempts to answer this question by combining detailed information about the costs of implementing several interventions with demographic projections of their impact.  Information about prices, wages and other cost components is drawn from a range of primary and secondary sources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"THE GAMBIA: SOCIAL SCIENTIST","field_subtitle":"MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL LABORTORIES","field_url":"","body":"Applications are invited for an appointment as a Social Scientist to manage the evaluation of the Stepping Stones programme.  This is the UNAIDS recommended best practice for community mobilisation in HIV prevention and has the long-term goal of reducing or restricting the growth of HIV prevalence in The Gambia.  You will be responsible for the smooth running of the study, which includes closely supervising the Field Assistants in data collection. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29763","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"THE HIGH COSTS OF PRIVATE HEALTH in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/view.php3?id=20030404","body":"Government attempts over the past five years to get private medical schemes to take care of more South Africans have failed as high costs have generally precluded those earning less than R5 000 from joining private schemes. Medical inflation has outpaced overall inflation by around 5% every year, and this has virtually nullified regulations introduced from January 1999 aimed at opening up the private sector. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"THE HIPC INITIATIVE: EXPERIENCES OF IMPLEMENTATION IN AFRICA ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.afrodad.org/HTML/HIPC%20-%20Experiences%20of%20implementation%20in%20Africa.htm","body":"With the very high expectations of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, one of the creditor-designed debt relief initiatives, The Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative, launched in 1996 by the IMF and World Bank, has failed to achieve the promised objective of a \u201crobust exit from the burden of unsustainable debts\u201d for developing countries. As a potential source of development finance, the debt relief through HIPC is not sufficient to guarantee poverty reduction in these countries let alone meet some of the goals of the MDGs. An analysis of key debt indicators shows that external debt and debt-servicing problems and poverty have become most severe and persistent in the heavily indebted poor countries, the so-called HIPCs, says Afrodad, a research, lobby and advocacy organisation, in a recent report.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of HIV/AIDS on governance in SADC region","field_subtitle":"Robyn Pharoah, Senior Researcher, Institute for Security Studies","field_url":"","body":"I am working on a project looking at the impact of HIV/AIDS on, amongst other things, governance in the SADC region.  Specifically, I am looking for any studies that may have been done on the demographic impact of HIV/AIDS on any government departments in Malawi - numbers on how many people may be dying and implications.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29738","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"The long walk to civil disobedience","field_subtitle":"Zackie Achmat","field_url":"","body":"When my comrades and I disrupted Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang\u2019s speech at the Health Systems Trust conference, a public health official taunted one of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) members by saying: \u201cHow did you get HIV anyway?\u201d We also received an angry letter from a man who feels our demand for treatment is unfair.  This article is written for them.  It is also written for people like Western Cape African National Congress health spokesperson, Cameron Dugmore, who called us bullies for disrupting the minister.\r\n\r\nFirst, I apologise unconditionally to the minister for referring to her personal appearance during our disruption.  Any reference to the personal appearance of an opponent to discredit them is wrong.  It\u2019s also wrong because it undermines the dignity of the protest of thousands of TAC volunteers and allows people who need to curry favour with officials a cover for their lack of courage and morality.  It is also no excuse to say that I was angry, because a few minutes before my own anger against indifference became uncontrollable I had told a comrade whose mother had been hospitalised with a CD4 count of 54 and raging tuberculosis that she should use her anger to demonstrate peacefully.  But there are many things I do not apologise for.  I do not apologise for holding Tshabalala-Msimang and Minister of Trade and Industry Alec Erwin responsible for thousands of HIV/Aids deaths.  Second, neither the TAC nor I will make any apology for making the minister of health, any politician or bureaucrat feel uncomfortable through a disruption of any meeting, office or event where they may find themselves.  Hundreds of premature, painful, awkward, silent and screaming deaths of children, men and women daily are caused by the failure of the government to implement a comprehensive treatment and prevention plan for HIV/Aids.\r\n\r\nTo Dugmore and the other detractors of our campaign who call us bullies, let me ask: were you at the many lawful marches to Parliament to give memoranda to the minister and the president begging for HIV treatment?  Perhaps you did not see our march of about 15 000 people on the South African Parliament asking the government to sign a treatment and prevention plan on February 14?  What about our early pickets of Parliament, drug companies and the United States government?  Civil disobedience is action of last resort for us, because exhaustive efforts at engagement have not worked.  Let me ask further: did you attend any of more than 10 submissions to various parliamentary portfolio committees begging, cajoling, charming and arguing for HIV treatment?  Did you attend any of more than 30 interfaith services held by the TAC and our allies across the country appealing to the conscience of the health minister and the government?  Do you know that we tried quietly to persuade Dr Ayanda Ntsaluba, Dr Nono Simelela, Dr Essop Jassat, Dr Ismail Cachalia, Dr Saadiq Kariem, Dr Kammy Chetty, Dr Abe Nkomo and other doctors who are members of the ANC to ensure that the government change its policies or to let their scientific training, their Hippocratic oaths and their consciences allow them to speak the truth?  Maybe you also tried to persuade them that real loyalty to the ANC and the ideals of the Freedom Charter required open criticism after numerous private pleas?  Have you reminded the ministers of health and trade and industry that they are undermining the ANC\u2019s traditions of freedom, equality, solidarity and dignity?\r\n\r\nDo you remember that the health minister and her supporters in Cabinet really represent the anti-democratic traditions of the former Stalinist states that supported them?  Perhaps one should expect people who denied the existence of the Gulag or applauded the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and East Germany by Soviet troops and called the latest Zimbabwean election legitimate to deny the existence of HIV/Aids and the efficacy of antiretrovirals?  Did you attend hundreds of community meetings addressed by TAC volunteers across the country to educate ourselves and our people about HIV, prevention and treatment?  Did you help late into the night, in support of the government, to develop a court case against the drug companies to reduce the prices of all medicines including HIV/Aids medicines?  Do you remember how the health minister spurned the TAC after the case?  Do you know the anguish of the person who made the poster that said: \u201cThabo your ideas are toxic\u201d?  Were you at the funeral of Queenie Qiza (one of the first TAC volunteers) or did you hear Christopher Moraka choke to death after appealing to Parliament to reduce the prices of medicines?  Maybe, like me, you avoided the funeral of my cousin Farieda because I cannot face the pain of death?  Did you feel as encouraged as we were by the Cabinet statement of April 17 2002?  Are you as disappointed a year later that so little has been done?  Were you there when we illegally imported a good quality generic anti-fungal drug (Fluconazole) and shamed drug company Pfizer for profiteering?\r\n\r\nMaybe you followed the TAC/Congress of South African Trade Unions\u2019s treatment congress where unemployed people, nurses, scientists, cleaners and trade unionists invited the government to develop a treatment plan?  Do you remember our meeting with Deputy President Jacob Zuma that led to a promise that a treatment and prevention plan would be developed by the end of February 2003?  Did you miss the word-games played by the government over negotiations at the National Economic and Development Labour Council (Nedlac)?  Are you one of the people who phone Nedlac regularly to hear when the government will return to the negotiating table?  Or, are you one of the people too busy taking care of someone dying but who have a little pride in your heart when an activist says to the president: \u201cComrade, you are not listening to our cries.  You are denying the cause of our illness.  You are not helping us get medicines.\u201d After countless attempts at talking, public pressure and even a court case to prevent HIV infection from mother-to-child, the government allows the deaths to continue while it plays the caring, right-minded diplomat in Africa and the Middle East.  Politeness disguises the moral and legal culpability of these politicians and officials.  We believe that the personal crises faced by many of our families, friends, nurses, doctors, colleagues and their children should be turned into discomfort and a crisis for the politicians and bureaucrats who continue to deny our people medicine.\r\n\r\nThe fact that the health minister is obstructing the departments of health, finance, labour and the deputy president\u2019s office from signing and implementing a treatment and prevention plan costs our society more than 600 lives and many new HIV infections every day.  The government uses Parliament, Cabinet, provincial governments and all its resources including the Government Communication and Information Service, in the person of comrade Joel Netshitenze, or health communications officer, Joanne Collinge, to justify its denial of life-saving medicines to people who need them.  It uses these resources to protect the reputation of the minister of health.  And you add your voices to their chorus?  When will you join reason, passion and anger to win treatment for people living with HIV/Aids and a decent public health system for all?\r\n\r\nThe TAC will win in this campaign because its members act in good faith.  And when we win, we will sit down on any day with the government for as long as it takes to tackle all the difficult problems of HIV/Aids and the health system.  These wounds between ourselves and the government will not be healed easily.  But they will heal easier than the pain of the millions who are denied life-saving treatment and those who have succumbed to that pain.\r\n\r\n* Zackie Achmat is the Treatment Action Campaign\u2019s chairperson\r\n\r\n* See the Equity and Health General section of Equinet News for more news on this issue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The Matrix: A human rights tool","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.policyproject.com/matrix/","body":"The Human Rights Matrix lists the international human rights documents that are important to reproductive and maternal health, family planning, and HIV/AIDS.  The Matrix permits you to access information about a POLICY country's human rights obligations.  You can: Select a POLICY country and see the RH/MH/FP/HIV/AIDS-related human rights documents this country has signed; Select a right and see what RH/MH/FP/HIV/AIDS-related human rights documents have to say about this right; Select a document and see which rights are listed in this document and the document's exact language about this right.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"THE RESPONSE OF AFRICAN BUSINESSES TO HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.international-health.org/AIDS_Economics/Papers/Response%20of%20African%20businesses%20to%20AIDS%20(Commonwealth).pdf","body":"This paper from the Department of International Health at Boston School of Public Health is to summarizes what is known about the internal costs of HIV/AIDS, such as increasing absenteeism, higher pension payouts, and breakdowns in worker discipline and morale, to companies in Commonwealth countries in sub-Saharan Africa.  The authors identify a dozen different types of workforce costs that HIV/AIDS will impose on African companies in the coming years.  After briefly reviewing existing estimates of the costs of HIV/AIDS to business, they present a model for assessing these costs and describe some of the strategies companies are adopting to reduce the costs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Tracking routes towards impact: id21 study on research to policy linkages","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/id21-info/impact.html","body":"This study aims to assess id21's success in increasing the influence of UK-funded research within international development policy.  It begins by examining the ways in which policy-makers access and employ research.  The study then uses these findings to assess the validity and performance of the dissemination methods id21 currently uses.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"UN AGENCY CONCERNED AT DROP IN RESOURCES FOR REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=6639&Cr=population&Cr1=","body":"The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has expressed concern that the world has dropped further behind commitments made at a 1994 global conference to invest $17 billion a year on population and reproductive health by 2000. \u201cGiven rising demands and HIV/AIDS infections, the mobilization of resources is more critical to the success of the Cairo Programme of Action and the Millennium Development Goals,\u201d UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Obaid said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"UN Launches First Comprehensive Web Site on Gender and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In an effort to place gender equality at the center of the fight against HIV/AIDS, the UN has launched its first comprehensive Web site that promotes understanding, knowledge and action on the epidemic as a gender and human rights issue.  \"By bringing knowledge and information to the global community, we are able to empower women,\" said Noeleen Heyzer, executive director of the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).  Designed to be user-friendly, informative and interactive, the site offers research, training materials, surveys, advocacy tools, current news and opinion pieces by leading experts.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29729","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"UNSAFE HEALTH CARE SPREADING HIV?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/newsletter.php?%20id=14430","body":"This posting by the Africa Policy E-Journal of Africa Action contains the executive summary of a new white paper from Physicians for Human Rights, on the transmission of HIV in Africa through unsafe medical care, including unsafe injections and blood transfusions. The paper concludes that AIDS prevention efforts need to take into account significant evidence that transmission through unsafe medical care has been significantly underestimated, and urgently recommends increased investment in adequately protecting blood supplies, preventing re-use of needles for injections, and taking other health care precautions that are considered standard in developed countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Virtual Campus for Public Health ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.campusvirtualsp.org/eng/index.html","body":"The Virtual Campus for Public Health (VCPH) is a virtual space for interchange, communication, information, generation of useful knowledge, education and discussions among individuals and institutions on topics and priority issues related to processes of health sector reform, performance of essential public health functions, public health management and the institutional development of public health education.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"World Development Report 2004: Making Services Work For Poor People: e-Discussion","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"During a 7-week period from April 14, 2003 through May 30, 2003, the World Bank and Public World will co-host a moderated electronic discussion on the forthcoming WDR 2004: \"Making Services Work for Poor People\".  The e-discussion is an opportunity for a wide range of stakeholders from government, business, and civil society to exchange views about the content and main ideas of the draft report.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29727","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Chart ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.globalhealth.org/sources/view.php3?id=361","body":"The World Health Chart is developed in collaboration between WHO and Swedish institutions.  The aim is to visualize world health development and thereby enable better use of international health data for learning, advocacy and hypothesis generation.  A first beta-version called WHC 2001 Public Beta 0.1 is now free to download for testing.  Please comment to whc@ki.se It can be used by: Teachers and students of health, economics and demography; Professionals and policy makers in the health sector; Staff of international organisations; Researchers and journalists.  It can be used to: Learn and teach about health development in the world; Illustrate projects, presentations, articles and campaigns; Advocacy and policy analysis; Generate ideas and hypotheses for research; Assessment of international health data.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Youth and HIV/AIDS: Access to Treatment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"We are currently engaged in the production of two bibliographies.  One on Youth and HIV/AIDS and the other on Access to Treatment.  We would value your input on these.  Any information on available publications, useful websites and any other resources related to youth or to access to treatment would be greatly appreciated.  The completed bibliographies will be available on both our websites: http://www.aidsconsortium.org.uk and http://www.stopaidscampaign.org.uk/ as well as via e-mail request.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29726","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambian PWAs sceptical about ARV roll-out","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSReport.ASP?ReportID=1921","body":"A government programme to provide anti-AIDS drugs to HIV-positive Zambians had ignored those who needed it most and was simply \"a lot of hot air\", activists told PlusNews.  Last year, the government announced that up to 10,000 people living with HIV/AIDS (PWAs) would receive free antiretroviral (ARV) drugs in nine provincial treatment centres.  The project would also provide a team consisting of a physician, faith healer, counsellor and social worker in each centre.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"ZIM AND MOZAMBIQUE PLACED ON MALARIA ALERT","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200304151001.html","body":"Zimbabwe and Mozambique have been placed on a very high alert for risk of increased malaria transmission and possible epidemics within the next few weeks. The World Health Organisation's Southern Africa Malaria Control Programme based in Harare has warned of a crisis resulting from cyclones and floods which hit the region in February and March.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-05-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"A SUMMARY CRITICAL APPRAISAL of the Commission ON MACROECONOMICS AND HEALTH","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Report of the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (CMH), set up by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to \"assess the place of health in economic development\", is likely to be influential given the high profile of the Commissioners, the weighty composition of its Working Groups and its endorsement by WHO.  Its description of the global health situation and of health systems in poor countries, as well as its key recommendations are strongly reminiscent of the central thrust of the World Bank's influential 1993 Report, \"Investing in Health\", which also emphasized the point that health is a major input to economic growth, but also studiously avoided any critical engagement with the global macroeconomic architecture which continues to generate economic growth accompanied by deepening inequalities.  A decade has elapsed since that influential global health policy document was published and promoted.  Yet in poor countries, particularly Africa, poverty has deepened and the health situation has further deteriorated, and health systems and their capacity have declined.  It is difficult to avoid asking the question: \"Why should things be different this time?\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29678","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Announcing ARASA (AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa)","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"We are proud to be able to announce the birth of the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) and the opening of its regional office.  You may recall that on 25 and 26 October 2002, the AIDS Law Unit of the Legal Assistance Centre of Namibia and the AIDS Law Project of South Africa co-hosted a meeting of organisations working on HIV/AIDS and Human rights in the SADC region.  The meeting was attended by 60 participants, representing 10 SADC countries, namely South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Swaziland, Tanzania,Zimbabwe, Malawi, Angola, Mozambique and Namibia.  Participants shared information on the work currently being undertaken on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights in the various SADC countries represented at the meeting and identified common needs.  Central to these was the need for sharing of expertise, materials and experiences in the region.  To meet these needs, the participants resolved to establish a regional alliance of organisations working on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights to facilitate sharing of information, materials and expertise between members, to act as a regional alert network to respond to human rights infringements in the region, to organise and facilitate training opportunities on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights for members, to disseminate information on regional developments on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights and to organise annual meetings on HIV/AIDS and Human rights in the region.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29679","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"ARV\u2019S - WHAT IT WOULD COST","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/view.php3?id=20030215","body":"The cost of a state supported anti-retroviral programme in South Africa in its most expensive year could be below R10-billion and still be highly effective, according to calculations by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and researchers at the University of Cape Town (UCT). TAC manager, Nathan Geffen, presented these figures to Parliament\u2019s Portfolio Committee on Health last month.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Beyond Capacity Analysis: Additional Element of a Human Rights Based Approach to Development","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This Human Rights Reader series distributed through AFRO-NETS (http://www.afronets.org), focuses on quite a few elements called for in the implementation of the emerging human rights-based approach to development -- mostly in health and nutrition. Additional conceptual and operational elements for its implementation are added at this time. \u201cAs said once earlier, the repetition of some human rights concepts is both inevitable and also part of this Reader's intention to have them 'sink-in' into the readers' everyday parlance by looking at these concepts from different angles.\u201d","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29655","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"BUDGET SHORTFALLS IN GLOBAL FUND COSTS LIVES ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/view.php3?id=20030310","body":"Between six and nine million people in developing countries currently urgently need anti-retroviral treatment while in reality only between 230 000 and 300 000 have access to these drugs, according to a report by HealthGAP, a US-based human rights group.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"cooperation urged in sadc poverty war","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200303060545.html","body":"Angolan parliamentary speaker Roberto de Almeida says 1.6 million tons of foodstuffs are needed to fight the food crisis threatening an estimated 15.2 million people in the Southern Africa region. He said lack of funds in the agriculture sector, drought, naturaul catastrophes, HIV/AIDS and malaria had contributed to the degradation of living standards in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"DEEPER DEBT RELIEF WILL BETTER HELP POOR COUNTRIES TO FIGHT AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In January 2003 President Bush proposed the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, calling on Congress to spend an additional $10 billion over the next five years to help countries in Africa and the Caribbean fight AIDS. The US announced that 14 countries with the highest rates of HIV infection in Africa and the Caribbean would be the targeted beneficiaries of the additional $10 billion. However, according to the United Nations Development Program statistics, in the same period these 14 countries would pay approximately $36 billion in total debt-servicing to their creditors in the rich countries.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29695","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Defining equity in health ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/57/4/254?etoc","body":"Inequities in health systematically put groups of people who are already socially disadvantaged (for example, by virtue of being poor, female, and/or members of a disenfranchised racial, ethnic, or religious group) at further disadvantage with respect to their health; health is essential to wellbeing and to overcoming other effects of social disadvantage. Equity is an ethical principle; it also is consonant with and closely related to human rights principles. The proposed definition of equity supports operationalisation of the right to the highest attainable standard of health as indicated by the health status of the most socially advantaged group. Assessing health equity requires comparing health and its social determinants between more and less advantaged social groups. These comparisons are essential to assess whether national and international policies are leading toward or away from greater social justice in health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Does duty call? Contracts and GPs in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights-h03/insights-issh03-art07.html","body":"Some experts argue that private healthcare providers are preferred by service-users, or are more efficient or accessible than the public sector, and hence that government should contract out services to them.  However, factors such as institutional capacity to write and manage contracts and market competition affect how contracts with private providers function.  This has major implications for contracting in low and middle-income countries (LMICs).  Research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine explored the operation of a long-standing contract with private GPs in South Africa.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Drug development for neglected diseases: a deficient market and a public-health policy failure","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.ids.ac.uk/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpcgi.exe?QB0=AND&QF0=DOCNUM%40DOCNO&QI0=DOC11722&MR=15&TN=a1&DF=f1health&RF=f1health&DL=0&RL=0&NP=3&MF=eldismsg.ini&AC=QBE_QUERY&BU=http%3A//www.eldis.ids.ac.uk/search.htm","body":"There is a lack of effective, safe, and affordable pharmaceuticals to control infectious diseases that cause high mortality and morbidity among poor people in the developing world. This article from The Lancet analyses the outcomes of pharmaceutical research and development over the past 25 years, and reviews current public and private initiatives aimed at correcting the imbalance in research and development that leaves diseases that occur predominantly in the developing world largely unaddressed. It found that of 1393 new chemical entities marketed between 1975 and 1999, only 16 were for tropical diseases and tuberculosis. The article concludes that private-sector research obligations should be explored, and a public-sector not-for-profit research and development capacity promoted. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"DYING FOR TREATMENT -THE TAC CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE CAMPAIGN","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This Briefing document is intended to help TAC activists and supporters to understand the background to TAC's decision to embark on a civil disobedience campaign in March 2003. Hundreds of pages could be written about TAC's efforts to persuade government to work with civil society on an HIV/AIDS treatment programme - but this is just a summary. In addition, although there is a great deal of independent research and information that could be cited to support TAC's demands, this document refers only to government's own research and policy statements to show how, in reality, the reluctance to commit to a treatment plan, including anti-retroviral medicines, contradicts its own findings, policies and constitutional duties.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29694","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"E-learning in Global Health - website established ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Dear Colleague, \r\nWe are pleased to inform you that up-to-date information regarding the \"E-learning Certification Programme in Global Health\" is now available at the following URL: \r\nhttp://tall.conted.ox.ac.uk/globalhealthprogramme \r\nThe programme is making good progress and would like to thank our many partners, particularly those based in Africa, for their significant contributions. \r\nWe plan to hold a CME workshop in Oxford during the week of May 12th, 2003. We would like to invite representatives from health and training institutions in Africa to formulate an action plan during the workshop for implementing the programme in their own institution. More information coming soon!  We hope that you will find the website interesting and would be very grateful for any comments that you may have regarding any aspects of the programme. \r\nRegards, \r\nSteve Allen and Sarah Davies.\r\n\r\nDr.  Stephen Allen \r\nCourse Director; \r\nE-learning Certification Programme in Global Health Centre for Tropical Medicine Level 7, \r\nJohn Radcliffe Hospital \r\nOxford OX3 9DU \r\nTel: +44 (0)1865 220279 \r\nFax: +44 (0) 1865 220984 \r\ne mail: stephen.allen@paediatrics.ox.ac.uk \r\nback-up e mail: sallengm@yahoo.co.uk ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Eldis Health Systems Resource Guide ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/healthsystems/","body":"A collaboration between Eldis and the Health Systems Resource Centre providing access to the latest and most relevant knowledge on health systems selected from practitioner and research networks on and off the web.  Current topic areas include health, poverty and vulnerability, priority diseases, aid policy and financing mechanisms, global initiatives and PPPs, access to medicines, and health service delivery.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Emerging Trends in International Disease Control","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol9no3/pdfs/02-0336.pdf","body":"International cooperation has become critical in controlling infectious diseases. This article in the March edition of Emerging Infectious Diseases examines emerging trends in international law concerning global infectious disease control. The role of international law in horizontal and vertical governance responses to infectious disease control is conceptualized; the historical development of international law regarding infectious diseases is described; and important shifts in how states, international institutions, and nonstate organisations use international law in the context of infectious disease control today are analysed. The growing importance of international trade law and the development of global governance mechanisms, most prominently in connection with increasing access to drugs and other medicines in unindustrialized countries, are emphasized. Traditional international legal approaches to infectious disease control\u2014embodied in the International Health Regulations\u2014may be moribund.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter April 2003 THE PEOPLE'S DOCKET","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"ESCAPING POVERTY: CAN POLICY REACH THE CHRONICALLY POOR?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights46/insights-iss46-art00.html","body":"The past few years have seen remarkable consensus on and commitment to poverty reduction from governments around the world. This has resulted in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which seek to reduce global absolute poverty by 50 per cent by 2015 and to reduce other forms of human deprivation. However, even if the MDGs are achieved - and the prospect of this happening is not good - some 900 million people will have an income of less than US$1 a day in 2015. Hundreds of millions of people will have suffered losses that severely reduce their capabilities and scores of millions will have died easily preventable deaths.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Examining HIV/AIDS THROUGH THE Eyes of Ordinary South Africans","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.und.ac.za/und/heard/papers/Final%20Working%20Paper.pdf","body":"This paper produced by the Centre for Social Science Research (CSSR) at the University of Cape Town compares public opinion survey data from the Afrobarometer with epidemiological data about the HIV/AIDS pandemic in seven Southern African countries.  The authors use this data to examine the degree to which people are aware of the pandemic, and are willing to speak about it.  They also use it to examine whether it yields any palpable consequences of the disease in terms of public health.  In turn, they also ask whether data on public awareness of AIDS deaths and individual health status corroborate, broadly, existing epidemiological data on HIV/AIDS.  Finally, they examine the degree to which HIV/AIDS affects southern Africans' political priorities, political participation and expectations for government action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Experts Plan Reproductive Health Response as HIV/AIDS Compounds Food Crisis in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unfpa.org/news/2003/features/africafood.htm","body":"When erratic weather in Southern Africa precipitated food shortages last year, they were initially blamed entirely on drought and, in some cases, misguided policies.  But the scale and depth of the crisis-which has left millions dependent upon UN-distributed food aid for survival-soon indicated that hunger was a symptom of a far deeper emergency.  As Bunwi Makinwa, head of UNAIDS for East and Southern Africa, told delegates at at a humanitarian strategy meeting organised by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, \"HIV/AIDS is diminishing the capacity of Africa to respond to any crisis, natural or conflict-related.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Fury at Zambia army HIV test","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2821873.stm","body":"The Zambian army's decision to turn away HIV positive applicants has been angrily criticised.  Health Minister Brian Chituwo said the new policy was introduced because \"with the excessive physical military activity recruiting HIV positive staff would be sending them to the grave faster\".  But this reasoning is rejected by medical experts who say good nutrition and effective medical treatment, including anti-retroviral drugs, will solve this dilemma.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and HIV/AIDS Adviser/Manager","field_subtitle":"Embassy of Ireland ","field_url":"","body":"The incumbent will be expected to advise the Development Attache on technical aspects of the Health and HIV/AIDS programme.  The advice will involve analysis of current sector policy debates and developments, both within South Africa and beyond.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29674","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health review details human resource development","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Health Systems Trust has released the eighth edition of the South African Health Review.  The review focuses on progress made in restructuring the South African health system and provides an annual and longer-term review of the implementation of South African health policies.  Twenty one chapters are grouped into the following four themes: framework for transformation, human resources, priority programmes and support systems.  The Review acts as a barometer for assessing the transformation processes and their impact on provision of equitable health care to all South Africans, and provides the most recent data on health status and health services, key opinions, and current thinking in Health in SA.  Chapters 7 to 10, discuss issues pertinent to human resources development, including implementation of Community Service for Health Professionals, the deployment of community based health workers in dealing with essential health and social issues, and the experiences of primary health care facility workers.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29665","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV and AIDS Treatment In Practice: a new e-mail newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"'HIV & AIDS Treatment in Practice' is an email newsletter for doctors, nurses, other health care workers and community treatment advocates working in limited-resource settings.  The newsletter is published by NAM, the UK-based HIV information charity behind www.aidsmap.com.   ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29657","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV TRANSMISSION IN THE MEDICAL SETTING","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.phrusa.org/campaigns/aids/who_031303.html","body":"This paper from Physicians for Human Rights calls for human rights law to be applied equally across developed and developing nations, which means that people in poorer countries should be able to access safe health care. The paper states that currently this is not the case in many settings because people living with HIV are often discriminated against, leading them not to access health care facilities and some health care providers to refuse treatment due to fear or lack of knowledge or equipment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"hiv/aids causes world population drop","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=16270","body":"The United Nations Population Division on Wednesday lowered its estimated world population projections for 2050 by 400 million, largely due to the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and \"lower than expected\" birthrates.  The \"World Population Prospects:\u00a0 The 2002 Revision\" report attributes about half of the decrease to a rising number of deaths due to AIDS-related complications and the other half to the fact that three out of four countries in less-developed regions will have fertility rates below replacement levels by 2050.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS workforce attack could lead to major economic decline","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=16781","body":"Not only is the HIV/AIDS pandemic a \"humanitarian disaster,\" but the disease could also cause an \"economic crisis\" in \"emerging markets\" such as South Africa, China and the former Soviet Union, where the virus is \"spreading fast,\" the Toronto Globe and Mail reports.  Labor-intensive industries, such as mining, have been particularly hard hit by HIV/AIDS, and service industries such as banking and food products may have to project slower growth in coming years due to a declining consumer base.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIVAN and KZNCAN Launch HIV/AIDS Directory","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In their ongoing effort to support and strengthen community initiatives to combat the HIV/AIDS crisis in KwaZulu-Natal, the Centre for HIV/AIDS Networking (HIVAN) and the KwaZulu Natal Churches AIDS Network (KZNCAN), have collaborated to produce the HIVAN/KZNCAN 2003 HIV/AIDS Directory. With over 600 organisations listed, the Directory provides a comprehensive reference resource for HIV/AIDS-related research, intervention and service organisations working in the province.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29670","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"human rights key to fighting aids, says piot","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=16704","body":"The global community must use an \"AIDS-lens to scrutinize the realization of human rights\" and use these rights \"as a platform to increase the effectiveness of AIDS responses,\" Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, said at the 59th Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Implications of WTO/TRIPS on human rights","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.gdnet.org/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpcgi.exe?AC=GET_RECORD&XC=/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpcgi.exe&BU=http%3A//www.gdnet.org/africa/index.html&TN=allgdn&SN=AUTO22537&SE=1068&RN=31&MR=15&RF=rioshort&DF=riofull&RL=0&DL=0&NP=3&ID=&MF=gdnmsg.ini&MQ=&TI=0","body":"What has the impact of the TRIPs agreement been in East Africa? This study examines how patent protection relates to the overall promotion and protection of human rights, and socio-economic rights, in particular. The author concentrates on pharmaceutical patent protection and the new life saving drugs that should be available for treatment of HIV/AIDS in the region. The main thrust of the study is that East African governments should be aware of the human rights implications of TRIPS so that they would be able to structure their intellectual property systems in a way that is consistent with their existing international human rights obligations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"improve access to drugs, investment groups say","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsmap.com/news/newsdisplay2.asp?newsId=1976","body":"A coalition of UK and European investment funds with $943 billion under management are calling on pharmaceutical companies to take swift steps to ensure that poor countries have access to essential medicines.  As major pharmaceutical company shareholders, the pension funds are concerned that the value of their investments will decline.  If the companies fail to address criticisms over patents and pricing, they will face greater regulation that could ultimately damage profits and also face more comprehensive threats to the current global patent system, in the view of some investors.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Intaids eForum structured discussion ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"It may be hard to believe, but the next International AIDS Conference (IAC) is only a little over a year away.  The 15th IAC will be held in Bangkok in July 2004.  Over the coming weeks, the Intaids eForum is hosting a series of structured discussions on the design, value and impact of the IACs.  The discussion will coincide with upcoming planning meetings that will determine the priorities and organisation of the Bangkok conference in 2004.  It will hopefully feed into decisions about the IAC2004 format, structure and content, and decisions about prioritisation and resource allocations among the various parts of the conference.\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29675","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"MSF CONCERNED ABOUT ATTEMPTS TO WEAKEN PROPOSALS FOR CHEAP DRUGS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33098","body":"The international NGO Medecines Sans Frontieres (MSF) has expressed concern that some EU member states are trying to water down proposals by the EC that would allow developing countries to buy essential drugs at prices far below the normal market rate. The EC proposed in October 2002 a price regulation scheme under which pharmaceutical companies would reduce their prices for essential medicines by at least 80 percent compared with the average prices in countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The reduction would enable developing countries - most of which are African \u2013 to buy drugs at affordable prices to fight diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS, whose present cost is often prohibitive for them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"OXFORD UNIVERSITY ACCREDITED COURSE:\"ACTION FOR CHANGE: ADVOCACY AND CITIZEN PARTICIPATION\"","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"FAHAMU, in association with the Department of Continuing Education at the University of Oxford, England, is offering courses specifically designed to meet the needs of non-profit human rights and advocacy organisations in the SADC region. Developed together with international and regional experts the last two of the six available courses will begin during April 2003. Applications are now open for Action for change: advocacy and citizen participation. The course's approach to advocacy is geared to improving the lives and participation of marginalized people and forging broad alliances for reform across society. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29671","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"OXFORD UNIVERSITY ACCREDITED COURSE:\"USING THE INTERNET FOR RESEARCH AND ADVOCACY\"","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"FAHAMU, in association with the Department of Continuing Education at the University of Oxford, England, is offering courses specifically designed to meet the needs of non-profit human rights and advocacy organisations in the SADC region. Developed together with international and regional experts, the last two of the six available courses will begin during April 2003. Applications are now open for \u2018Using the Internet for Research and Advocacy\u2019. This course is designed for people and organisations grappling with how to harness the power of the internet for research and advocacy. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29672","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Post-TRIPS Options for Access to Patented Medicines in Developing Nations ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www3.oup.co.uk/jielaw/hdb/Volume_05/Issue_04/050913.sgm.abs.html","body":"This article explores the tension between granting patent protection under the TRIPS Agreements and the availability of medicines at affordable prices to developing countries.  A crucial consideration under the TRIPS compulsory licensing option is the 'adequate remuneration' paid.  A theoretical and empirical analysis shows that the royalties set under past compulsory licenses have been much lower than those that would be established under the 'foregone profits' standard of US patent law.  To respect comparative advantage in the supply of licensed drugs, the TRIPS language requiring that compulsory licensing be predominantly for domestic supply needs clarification.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"PROFITING FROM AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/view.php3?id=20030212","body":"Drug companies are continuing to sell anti-retrovirals at hugely inflated prices in South Africa with some branded drugs selling for up to eight times more than generic versions available worldwide but that are not yet manufactured locally. The price for an annual course of triple therapy consisting of AZT, 3TC and Nevirapine in South Africa would cost around R20 000 (around R1 700 per month) before VAT and the chemist\u2019s mark-up is added. In contrast, the same course of generic ARVs would cost around R3 300 year (or R275 a month). The huge profit margins of the drug companies forms the basis of a complaint lodged last year at the Competition Commission by a group of people living openly with HIV/AIDS, health workers, labour and civil society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Protecting the Vulnerable: The Design and Implementation of Effective Safety Nets","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/socialsafetynets/courses/dc2002/readings/aldeman.pdf","body":"In response to shortages in public budgets for government health services many developing countries around the world have adopted formal or informal systems of user fees for health care. In most countries user fee proceeds seldom represent more than 15 percent of total costs in hospitals and health centres, but they tend to account for a significant share of the resources required to pay for non-personnel costs. The problem with user fees is that the lack of provisions to confer partial or full waivers to the poor often results in inequity in access to medical care. The dilemma, then, is how to make a much needed system of user fees compatible with the goal of preserving equitable access to services, says this paper from the World Bank.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"PUBLIC EXPENDITURE FOR DEVELOPMENT RESULTS AND POVERTY REDUCTION","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/working_papers/index.html","body":"Results-oriented or performance budgeting is the planning of public expenditures for the purpose of achieving explicit and defined results.  These policies have often been first implemented through sector-wide approaches (SWAps), particularly in health and education.  Concerns have been raised that results-focused management of public expenditure gives rise to unnecessary bureaucracy, causes distortions in the implementation of policies, and ignores the subtleties and complexities of public service provision. These papers look at 7 low income countries with PRSPs to establish how far performance budgeting and management are used in practice, and to relate these findings to features of macroeconomic and budget management, accountability structures, and administrative structures and practices.  The countries focused on are Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Ghana, Mali, Tanzania and Uganda.  The overall conclusion of the research programme is that low income countries are practicing performance budgeting and management, in some cases to useful, if unspectacular, effect.  They have, with modest external support, been finding their own solutions to the problem of how to translate public expenditure into pro-poor development results.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Putting equity in health back onto the social policy agenda: experience from South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.elsevier.com/locate/socscimed","body":"Over the past decade, international health policy debates have been dominated by efficiency considerations. There has been a recent resurgence of interest in health equity, including consideration of the notions of vertical equity and procedural justice. This paper explores the possible application of these notions within the context of South Africa, a country in which inequities in income and social service distribution between \u2018racial\u2019 groups were systematically promoted and entrenched during four decades of minority rule, guided by apartheid and related policies. The South African experience since 1994 provides useful insights into factors which may facilitate or constrain health equity progress. In particular, the constitutional entitlement to health and civil society action to maintain health equity\u2019s place on the social policy agenda are seen as important facilitating factors.      This paper concludes that health equity goals are critically dependent on the central involvement of the disadvantaged in decision-making about who should receive priority, what services should be delivered and how equity-promoting initiatives should be implemented. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"RESTRICTED CONTENT: EMAIL QUARANTINED","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"You wouldn\u2019t have thought that Equinet\u2019s last newsletter, containing the final statement of the World Social Forum held recently in Porto Allegre, Brazil, could be considered pornographic or indecent. But that\u2019s exactly what one Internet Service Provider decided when their email blocking software prevented the newsletter from being delivered to one of our subscribers because it contained the word \u201csex\u201d. Find out more about this issue and how it could impact on your access to information by clicking on the link provided.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29668","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"RESTRICTIONS IN TB CONTROL STRATEGY LEAVE THE POOREST UNTREATED","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/newsletter.php?id=14041","body":"Whilst the World Health Organisation-embraced strategy for controlling tuberculosis (TB) has been successful in treating and curing TB, its current format restricts the extension of this success to the poor: although TB treatment is free, diagnosis is not, and so the first gateway to treatment is often shut to the poorest. The restrictions, caused primarily by lack of funds, are outlined in a specially commissioned id21 report by Dr Bertie Squire of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, which points to the tasks ahead if the WHO target to halve TB deaths by 2010 is to be achieved.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Second edition of teaching-aids at low cost (TALC) health development CD-ROM launched","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.talcuk.org","body":"This CD-ROM is a free resource of material on subjects related to health and development.  The CD-ROMs allow users to select, adapt and tailor materials to meet local needs and develop their own library of materials at very low or zero cost.  Information on the CD-ROM can be downloaded, e-mailed or printed and freely reproduced and shared.  The project is supported by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Senior Program Specialist ","field_subtitle":"International Development Research Centre","field_url":"","body":"IDRC is recruiting a Senior Program Specialist for our Social and Economic Equity Program Area, to work with IDRC's new Governance, Equity and Health program initiative (GEH - 70%) and with the Micro Impacts of Macro and Adjustment Policies program initiative (MIMAP - 30%).  We are looking for a public health specialist with experience in health administration and/or health economics and/or health policy and systems research.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29656","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern Africa ponders gene-altered crops\u2019 safety ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.fingaz.co.zw/fingaz/2003/March/March27/3332.shtml","body":"Gene-altered crops pose a more immediate risk to the environment than to humans, says a study conducted by southern African countries where a debate has raged over the safety of biotech food aid.  The study was undertaken by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) after some of its famine-threatened member states refused to accept genetically-modified (GM) maize as part of foreign food aid packages. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria ","field_subtitle":"Technical Review Panel (TRP) Experts","field_url":"","body":"The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is recruiting experts to serve on the Technical Review Panel (TRP) to review the Third Round Proposals.  The TRP plays a crucial role in reviewing proposals for funding submitted to the Global Fund.  Individuals with expert technical knowledge and extensive experience in one of the following areas are sought: HIV/AIDS; Tuberculosis;  Malaria;  Cross cutting issues (such as institutional and governance issues, macro-economics in a health sector context, absorptive capacity).","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29703","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The HIV/AIDS Impact on Education Clearinghouse ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://iiep.tomoye.com/ev.php","body":"The HIV/AIDS Impact on Education Clearinghouse collects recent research and documentation and is working to build interactive information sharing. In addition to finding the latest studies and research for HIV/AIDS and education, you can access related websites, participate in discussion forums and even contact members. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"THE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmintdev/116/116.pdf","body":"In early 2002 southern Africa was gripped by food shortages. These were just one aspect of a complex humanitarian crisis, with impacts ranging across all sectors, from agriculture, to education and health. The trigger for the crisis was erratic rainfall. The vulnerability of the population meant that a moderate environmental shock was enough to push communities beyond the limits of their normal coping strategies, and over the edge. The report emphasises that tackling HIV/AIDS must be a priority as regards both short-term and long-term interventions. Food aid must not miss out the millions of AIDS orphans, and must be nutritionally appropriate. Longer-term development strategies must be based on labour-saving agricultural technologies.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"The Massive Effort Campaign ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/pdskdv72002/sld-5202.html","body":"Established in Sept 2001, this is a global movement that seeks to reduce the incidence of diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria among poor people. The campaign's goal is to advocate for and communicate best practices to stimulate social and political change. The campaign supports networks of existing organisations by providing strategic information, best practices, prototype messages, opportunities for collaboration and co-ordination.  A website facilitates this exchange of information. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"THE PEOPLE'S DOCKET","field_subtitle":"Treatment Action Campaign indictment against South African government ministers ","field_url":"","body":"We hereby demand that a police docket be opened to investigate the deaths of the many thousands of people who died from AIDS or AIDS related illnesses and whose deaths could have been prevented had they been given access to treatment.  We further demand that the Accused be arrested and charged with the offence of Culpable Homicide for negligently causing the deaths of these people.  The details of the charge and a summary of some of the facts which form the basis of the Charge are attached.  We believe that many thousands of people can bear witness to this horrible crime.  \r\n\r\nACCUSED NO.  1 \r\nNAME: MANTOMBAZANA EDMIE \r\nSURNAME: TSHABALALA-MSIMANG \r\nOCCUPATION: THE MINISTER OF HEALTH, SOUTH AFRICA \r\n\r\nACCUSED NO.  2 \r\nNAME: ALEXANDER \r\nSURNAME: ERWIN \r\nOCCUPATION: THE MINISTER OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY, SOUTH AFRICA \r\n\r\nTHE CHARGE \r\nTHE PEOPLE versus MANTOMBAZANA EDMIE TSHABALALA-MSIMANG alias \"MANTO\", MINISTER OF HEALTH (RSA) and ALEXANDER ERWIN alias \"ALEC\", MINISTER OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY (RSA).  Hereinafter respectively referred to as Accused No.  1 and Accused No.  2.  \r\n\r\nBoth accused are charged with the crime of culpable homicide in that during the period 21 March 2000 to 21 March 2003 in all health care districts of the Republic of South Africa, both accused unlawfully and negligently caused the death of men, women and children.  They also breached their constitutional duty to respect, protect, promote and fulfill the right to life and dignity of these people.  \r\n\r\n1. Both accused Ministers knew that failure to provide adequate treatment including anti-retroviral therapy for people living with HIV/AIDS would lead to their premature, predictable and avoidable deaths.  \r\n2.In their capacities as Ministers in the government of South Africa, both accused had the legal duty and power to prevent 70% of AIDS-related deaths during this period through developing a treatment and prevention plan, providing medicines and using their legal powers to reduce the prices of essential medicines for HIV/AIDS including anti-retroviral therapy.  \r\n3. Both accused Ministers had in their possession scientific, medical, epidemiological, legal, social and economic evidence of the devastation of potential and actual AIDS deaths on individuals and communities.  They not only ignored this evidence but suppressed it.  \r\n4. Both accused Ministers consciously ignored the efforts of scientists, doctors, nurses, trade unionists, people living with HIV/AIDS, international agencies, civil society organisations, communities and faith leaders to develop a treatment and prevention plan, to make anti-retroviral therapy available and to ensure that medicine prices in the public and private sector were reduced to save lives.  \r\n5. Both accused Ministers were under a legal duty, by virtue of their public office and the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, to provide access to health care services by reducing the price of essential medicines for HIV/AIDS including anti-retroviral therapy, and by providing them through the public health sector.  They remain under this legal duty.  \r\n6. Both accused Ministers negligently failed to carry out their legal duties.  Their conduct in failing to make these medicines available to people who need them does not meet the standards of a reasonable person, and in particular a reasonable person holding the position of Minister of Health or Minister of Trade and Industry.  \r\n7. During the period 21 March 2000 and 21 March 2003, this failure caused the death of between 250 and 600 people every day as a direct result of premature, avoidable and predictable AIDS-related illnesses.  \r\n\r\nTHE PEOPLE versus MANTOMBAZANA TSHABALALA-MSIMANG (Minister of Health) (hereinafter referred to as The Minister of Health) and ALEXANDER ERWIN (Minister of Trade and Industry) (hereinafter referred to as The Minister of Trade and Industry) \r\n\r\nCHARGE: Culpable Homicide (unlawfully and negligently causing the death of another human being) \r\n\r\nSUMMARY OF SUBSTANTIAL FACTS \r\n\r\n1. During the period 21 March 2000 to 21 March 2003, many people throughout the Republic of South Africa died from AIDS or diseases caused by AIDS.  \r\na.) Information on the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and HIV/AIDS related deaths each year has been available to both Accused Ministers throughout their terms in office.  \r\nb.) It is estimated that at least 600 people in South Africa die from AIDS-related illnesses each day.  \r\nc.) In the past 12 years, the HIV sero-prevalence among first time antenatal clinic attenders, as indicated by the Minister of Health's own Department's Annual Antenatal Clinic surveys has risen from 0.76% in 1990 to 10.44% in 1995 to 28.4% in 2001.  Based on these surveys, it is estimated that there are currently 5 million South Africans infected with HIV.  The latest survey estimates that 15,4 percent of women under 20 years, 28,4 percent of women between 20 and 24 years and 31,4 per cent of women between 25 and 29 years are living with HIV/AIDS.  The survey further notes that \"high HIV prevalence rates have significant implications on the future burden of HIV-associated disease and the ability of the health system to cope with provision of adequate care and support facilities.\" \r\nd.) In the Department of Health's Second Interim Report on Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths in South Africa (1999), non-pregnancy related sepsis mainly caused by AIDS was recorded as the leading cause of maternal deaths.  In the Report, 35.5 percent of women whose deaths were reported were tested for HIV and 68 percent of these were HIV positive.  The Report noted that HIV is significantly under-diagnosed.  \r\ne.) A study by the Medical Research Council, estimated that about 40 percent of adult deaths aged 15-49 that occurred in 2000 were due to HIV/AIDS and that, if combined with the deaths in childhood, it was estimated that AIDS accounted for about 25 percent of all deaths in 2000 and was the single biggest cause of death.  The Report continued that projections indicate that, without treatment to prevent AIDS, the number of AIDS deaths with grow within the next 10 years to double the number of deaths due to all other causes.  The Report estimates that approximately 200 000 people died of an AIDS-related illness in 2001 alone.  The Minister of Health was directly involved in attempts to suppress this report.  \r\nf.) A report issued by Statistics South Africa on 21 November 2002 entitled Causes of death in South Africa 1997-2001: Advance release of recorded causes of death, indicates that unnatural causes still remain the leading cause of death.  However, the report states that HIV-related deaths are significantly under-reported.  One reason advanced for the under-reporting is that such deaths are often recorded as TB or pneumonia-related.  Of particular significance is the finding that patterns of mortality shifted dramatically over this period, primarily as a result of HIV, TB and pneumonia-related deaths.  In 2001, for example, 8.2% of all recorded deaths were attributable to unspecified unnatural causes, down from 15.3%.\r\ng.) In contrast, 34.6% of all recorded deaths in 2001 were attributed to HIV, TB, influenza/pneumonia and \"ill-defined causes of death\", up from 29.5% in 1997.  \r\nh.) The largest single impact of HIV/AIDS on the public health sector lies in the hospital sector.  Research commissioned by the Department of Health (Abt Associates, 2000) indicates that, in the year 2000, an estimated 628 000 admissions to public hospitals were for AIDS related illnesses, which amounts to 24% of all public hospital admissions.  As more people who are already HIV positive become sick each year, this demand for hospitalisation will increase steadily every year in the absence of significant alternative interventions.  In financial terms, the cost of hospitalising AIDS patients in public facilities was estimated at the time to amount to at least 12.5% of the total public health budget.  \r\n\r\n2. Many of these people would not have died if they had access to anti-retrovirals \r\n\r\na.) HIV/AIDS is a progressive disease of the immune system that is caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).  \r\nb.) When left untreated HIV profoundly depletes the immune system and may prove fatal because of the inability of the body to fight opportunistic infections such as tuberculosis, pneumonia and meningitis.  \r\nc.) The scientific evidence indicates that without effective treatment, the majority of people with HIV/AIDS die prematurely of illnesses that further destroy their immune systems, quality of life and dignity.  \r\nd.) Early diagnosis, clinical management, medical treatment of opportunistic infections and the appropriate use of anti-retroviral therapy prolongs and improves the quality of life of people living with HIV/AIDS.  \r\ne.) Anti-retroviral drugs are a class of drugs that suppress viral load activity and replication.  When used effectively they reduce the volumes of HIV to undetectable levels in the blood.  This leads to immune reconstitution.  It also prevents and delays the destruction of a person's normal immune system.  \r\nf.) In its HIV/AIDS Policy Guideline, entitled Prevention and Treatment of Opportunistic and HIV-related diseases in Adults (August 2000), the Department of Health (which operates under the direction of The Minister of Health) has recognised the efficacy of anti-retroviral treatment, stating as follows: \"Current research also strongly indicates that suppressing HIV viral activity and replication with anti-retroviral therapy or Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) combinations prolongs life and prevents opportunistic infections\".  \r\ng.) The Medicines Control Council, has the statutory duty to investigate and determine whether medicines are suitable for the purpose for which they are intended, and whether their safety, quality and therapeutic efficacy is such that they should be made available in South Africa.  They have registered various anti-retroviral drugs for treatment of people who have HIV/AIDS.  \r\nh.) The World Health Organisation (WHO) has included anti-retrovirals on the Core List of its Model List of Essential Drugs (12th edition, April 2002).  The Minister of Health is aware of the inclusion of anti-retroviral medication in the World Health Organisation's Essential Drugs List.  \r\ni.) With access to anti-retrovirals people with HIV/AIDS are able to lead longer and healthier lives and it directly results in an improved quality of life and the restoration of dignity, allowing people with HIV/AIDS who were previously ill to resume ordinary everyday activities, such as work.  \r\nj.) A comprehensive plan to treat people living with HIV/AIDS as advocated by civil society organisations, faith based organisations, scientists, health care workers, trade unionists, activists and communities over the past four years, would have reduced the number of people dying of AIDS related illnesses and would have mitigated the horrendous impact of AIDS on people in South Africa.  \r\n\r\n3. Both Accused were aware of need to make anti-retrovirals available to prevent these deaths.  \r\n\r\na.) The Minister of Health has had direct knowledge of the serious impact of HIV/AIDS and the need for care and treatment of people living with HIV/AIDS, before she took up her position as Health Minister.  As early as 1994 The Minister of Health was a key drafter or the NACOSA National AIDS Plan for South Africa 1994 - 1995.  (The Plan states that \"The number of people becoming ill as a result of HIV infection is already high and will continue to increase dramatically over the next few years. The health care systems will have to cope with this increase and strengthen their ability to provide HIV/AIDS care in order to reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS on individuals, their families and communities\").  In terms of this Plan, it is also clear that The Minister of Health was fully aware of the need to broaden access to treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS (\"In dealing with HIV/AIDS, an essential drug list should be developed, based on the efficacy of the drugs in the clinical management of the disease, as well as on costs and availability?  As research develops and knowledge about treatment expands, it may be necessary to add drugs to those which are routinely supplied.  All drugs and medicines should be available as widely as possible\"). \r\nb.) The Minister of Health and the Minister of Trade and Industry were aware of the Joint Statement issued by the then Minister of Health, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Treatment Action Campaign, which confirmed that all treatment for HIV/AIDS and all related medical conditions is a basic human right (30 April 1999).  At the time, the Minister of Health called on all sectors to pressurise companies to unconditionally lower the price of all HIV/AIDS medications to an affordable price for poor people and countries.  \r\nc.) The Minister of Health has herself confirmed that \"access to affordable drugs is a matter of life and death in our region\" (World AIDS Day speech, 1 December 2000).  During this speech, The Minister of Health also emphasized that access to drugs should be improved and that \"drugs at current prices remain unaffordable\".  The Minister of Health, in her capacity as Minister of health, and as a doctor, knew that action had to be taken to reduce the prices and that she could use her legal power to procure or produce generic anti-retrovirals and other essential HIV medications.  \r\nd.) In its Cabinet statement of 17 April 2002, Cabinet, and the Accused as members of the Cabinet, recognised that anti-retrovirals can improve the conditions of people with HIV \"if administered at certain stages ...  in the progression of the condition, in accordance with international standards.\" \r\ne.) After taking up office, The Minister of Health and the Minister of Trade and Industry have consistently been reminded of the need to improve access to treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS since 1999 (e.g.  Speech by Edwin Cameron at the 2nd National Conference for People Living with HIV/AIDS on 8 March 2000, in the presence of the Minister of Health; the Call for a Global March issued in March 2000; COSATU's Submission on HIV Treatment to Health Portfolio Committee on 10 May 2000; letter by TAC requesting meeting with President and Minister of Health on access to treatment dated 20 March 2000).\r\n\r\n* To read the full indictment please click on the URL provided. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29704","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The People's Health Charter in 27 languages","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Looking for a copy of the People's Health Charter? What language do you want? It's now available on the People's Health Movement website http://www.phmovement.org in 27 language versions - everything from Arabic to Urdu.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The utilisation of health research in policy-making: concepts, examples and methods of assessment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/1/1/2","body":"Increasing global attention is focusing on ways to improve health systems and the contribution that research-informed policies can make to this.  It has long been recognised that a range of factors is involved in the interactions between health research and policy-makers.  The emerging focus on Health Research Systems (HRS) has identified additional mechanisms through which greater utilisation of research could be achieved.  Assessment of the role of health research in policy-making is best undertaken as part of a wider study that also includes utilisation of health research by industry, medical practitioners, and the public.  The utilisation of health research in policy-making should eventually lead to desired outcomes, including health gains, says an article in Health Research Policy and Systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The War Against the Terror of HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The world is facing up to the challenge of resisting the war-mongering of the United States and its British poodle who are hell-bent on invading Iraq to impose their hegemony over its resources. This is not by any means the most important task facing the people of the world. In the face of mounting poverty in the developing world and massive enrichment of global corporations, there is an AIDS pandemic that is affecting tens of millions right across the globe and killing millions every year.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29682","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"traditional medicines probed","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200303040431.html","body":"The South African health department and the Medical Research Council (MRC) have embarked on a joint research initiative to scientifically test the effectiveness, safety and quality of traditional medicines.  It is believed that about 80 percent of the population in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region use traditional therapies and many people have reported great benefit from their use.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Treatment preparedness summit closes","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"At the closing of the first International Treatment Preparedness Summit (ITPS) in Cape Town, South Africa, last month, participants detailed a number of priority actions to address the inequalities that prevent millions of people living with HIV/AIDS from securing access to treatment. At the end of the four-day meeting attended by over 120 representatives of treatment advocacy groups from 67 countries across the world, delegates agreed that current treatment efforts were insufficient. One of the things they called for was for national governments to develop treatment plans detailing how they intend to implement the World Health Organisation's goal of ensuring ARV treatment for at least 3 million people in the developing world by 2005.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29651","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"ugly sisters claim a life a minute, says unicef","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=68&art_id=vn20030305105559771C599063","body":"Southern Africa's \"ugly sisters\" - HIV/Aids and hunger - now claim a victim every minute, according to the United Nations Children's Fund.  Unicef said that the deadly combination of HIV/Aids and hunger continued to devastate lives across southern Africa, with the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance rising to 15 million across Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho.  The HIV pandemic is now claiming a life every minute in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"unsafe sex is primary mode of transmission of HIV in Africa, says expert group","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/statements/2003/statement5/en/","body":"An expert group has reaffirmed that unsafe sexual practices are responsible for the vast majority of HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa, and that safer sex promotion must remain the primary feature of prevention programmes in the region.  Following a review of evidence, which included recent articles suggesting that a majority of HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa are due to unsafe medical practices, particularly injections, the experts concluded that such suggestions are not supported by the vast majority of evidence and that unsafe sexual practices continue to be responsible for the overwhelming majority of infections.  While a combination of prevention measures are required to tackle all modes of HIV transmission, safer sex promotion must remain the primary feature of prevention programmes in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"What the patient ordered - meeting the needs of TB patients ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h4bs2g1.html","body":"There is a dangerous and persistent interplay between tuberculosis (TB) and poverty. TB infection is transmitted more readily in the environmental conditions of poverty: overcrowding, inadequate ventilation and malnutrition. Having TB makes poor people, their relatives and communities poorer still by preventing gainful employment and worsening their social relationships. Yet it is the poor who use proportionally more of their income in accessing treatment for TB than the less poor. This year's World TB Day theme is therefore welcome in emphasising the needs of TB patients, especially poor TB patients, in balance to the needs of TB services and their targets. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Where there is no regulator","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/news/healthregulator.html","body":"Until very recently, the healthcare sector in developed industrialised countries consisted largely of public services for curative and preventive care provided by governments and the regulated private sector.  These services were organised into different levels from primary care facilities up to tertiary hospitals providing specialist care, with a referral mechanism from one level to the next.  But in many low and middle income countries healthcare has moved away from this model.  People, including many of the poor, use a wide range of different service providers, all of which they have to pay.  The healthcare sector increasingly resembles an unregulated marketplace rather than an organised public service.  How has this come about, what does this marketplace look like and what does it mean for health policy and planning?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Who profits? Private healthcare - opportunity or risk?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights-h03/insights-issh03-art00.html","body":"As evidence about the importance of the private sector in healthcare delivery accumulates, emphasis is being placed on better understanding the opportunities and risks it creates.  Private providers are often key sources of treatment for diseases of public health importance, such as malaria, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and tuberculosis (TB).  They are also an important source of care for poor people, who may use private providers nearly as much as better-off groups.  But there are concerns about their quality and affordability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-04-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":" AFRICA: Activists cautiously welcome Bush pledge","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The enthusiasm surrounding last month's proposal by US President George W Bush to triple government spending on HIV/AIDS in Africa has been tempered with calls from activists for more practical details.  In his State of the Union address, Bush urged Congress to approve US $15 billion in funds to battle HIV/AIDS in the hardest-hit countries in Africa and the Caribbean over the next five years.  But activists were cautiously optimistic.  \"The exact details of the president's plan for global AIDS are still unclear.  We could be shipping AIDS medications to hospitals and clinics next month, not promising to treat two million people in five years,\" treatment lobby group, Act-Up Philadelphia said in a statement.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29596","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"6th HEARD Workshop - Planning for HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"One of a series of International Policy Research Workshops held over the last eleven years in the UK, East Asia and Africa, the 6th HEARD HIV/AIDS workshop focuses on the need to anticipate the medium and long-term social and economic consequences of HIV/AIDS.  We offer participants a unique opportunity over two weeks, to exchange ideas, review their experiences with strategies and tactics, and identify interventions appropriate to their local situation.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29633","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"6th International Conference on Home and Community Based Care for People Living with HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"8 -11 December, 2003, Dakar/Senegal","field_url":"","body":"The organisation of Conferences on Community and Home based Care stems from the realisation that the issue is hardly dealt with in international meetings.  This conference, initiated by PWAs, is convened every other year since 1993, in different countries, with different themes depending on PWA priority concerns.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29617","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A Patent Policy Proposal for Global Diseases ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://econ.worldbank.org/prr/globalization/library/doc?id=2884","body":"There are two identifiable types of diseases in developing countries. Some, such as malaria, are specific to poor countries, but many others, such as cancer, have a high incidence in all countries. These differences give rise to quite distinct drug markets. In particular, for global diseases, pharmaceutical industry profits derived from having a monopoly over sales in poor countries make only a marginal contribution to total world-wide profit and therefore the incentives to invest in research. At the same time, even a small price increase due to such a monopoly in a poor country can greatly reduce the number of people able to purchase patented drugs and the welfare of those who do. This paper describes a policy that could improve on the current patent regime by acknowledging these differences in markets and what they imply for optimal patent protection. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"ANTI-RETROVIRAL LESSONS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/view.php3?id=20030110","body":"While the South African Treasury and Department of Health number-crunch to determine whether government can afford anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment in public health, a number of small ARV programmes are already up and running. Several others are in the pipeline, the most ambitious being the SA Medical Association pledge to raise R80-million to set up two ARV pilot projects in each province to treat 9 000 people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Anything to Say?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Send your letters and comments to editor@equinetafrica.org ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"BEYOND PUBLIC AND PRIVATE? UNORGANISED MARKETS IN HEALTH CARE DELIVERY","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/govern/pdfs/standingbloomWDR.pdf","body":"This paper, Prepared and Presented at the 'Making Services Work for Poor People' World Development Report (WDR) 2003/04 Workshop, puts forward three arguments.  First our understanding of the health sector is handicapped by trying to fit it into language and concepts which do not adequately capture its changing realities and the political economies within which health sectors are embedded.  Second, this has disposed to putting forward decontextualised, and thus largely normative solutions, such as \u201cregulation,\u201d to the problem of improving service delivery in poorly performing environments.  Third, approaches need to move beyond the dualism of public versus private and work creatively with messy and sometimes contradictory realities. It concludes with a discussion of how this analysis can be applied to a major international intervention set up to benefit the poor \u2013 the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"bush announcement maintains industry monopoly","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\"Let us not be mistaken that the resounding announcement by G.W.  Bush, of a 10 billion dollars commitment to the fight against AIDS, serves essentially one objective: to renege on commitments made in November 2001, at the WTO conference in Doha, to allow access to generic drugs,\" says a statement from lobby group Act Up.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29597","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Bush Extends Global Gag Rule to AIDS Funds","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1233","body":"Women's rights advocates are condemning President George W.  Bush for using his promised AIDS relief package to expand the so-called global gag rule.  Calling the move the latest battle in the administration's war against women, many groups are mounting a campaign to draw attention to what they say are the Bush administration's plans to further restrict abortion rights.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applications: Strategic Social, Economic and Behavioural Research","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"TDR is inviting applications for the award of collaborative research grants to research institutions and scientists from least developed endemic countries (LDCs), and from high-burden countries for TDR target diseases on: Determinants of inequality of access to prevention, therapy and information; Implications of changing economic, social, political and civil structures (including health reforms) for disease persistence, emergence, resurgence and factors affecting them such as drug and insecticide resistance.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29625","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Changing roles - responding to health sector transformation in developing countries ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=4&i=h1gb1g5&u=3e6084c7","body":"Many low and middle-income countries (LMICs) have experienced changes in the provision of healthcare services.  Services are now provided by a variety of sources under market conditions.  In response to this shift, how have the roles of healthcare providers changed?  How have households adapted to these changes in order to meet their health needs?  What should governments do to provide good healthcare in these conditions? Research by the UK's Institute of Development Studies highlights that over the last few decades there have been profound changes in the ways that health goods are produced and consumed in LMICs.  This change is due to economic and political factors, such as crises in public sector financing and governance, that have reduced governments\u2019 capacity to fund infrastructure, supplies and salaries and competently manage healthcare.  The result in many countries is that it is difficult to maintain the distinction between public and private in the health sector.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Confusion in SA government AIDS policy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/view.php3?id=20030208","body":"Confusion is the only certain ingredient in government's approach to HIV/AIDS.  President Mbeki, his lapel no longer sporting an AIDS ribbon, said government would continue to implement its \"comprehensive HIV/AIDS strategy\" when he opened Parliament last week.  But his two dull sentences on the disease - as over 10 000 people massed outside to demand treatment for people with HIV - did little to convey the impression of a caring government committed to helping its 4,5 million citizens living with the disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"course in Reproductive Health with special emphasis on Family Planning ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Regional Training Programme for Reproductive Health with special emphasis on Family Planning is supported by the Government of Mauritius, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other international agencies. Its objective is to contribute to the health and socio-economic development in Africa and the region by improving the Reproductive Health (RH) status of the population through the provision of Training of Trainers programmes for Reproductive Health.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29598","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Critical Challenges in HIV Communication ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.panos.org.uk/aids/HIV_Communication_Policy_Paper.pdf","body":"More energy, money and international attention is now being focused on HIV/AIDS than on any other global public health issue.  A pandemic that was being quietly forgotten by the global community only three years ago has hurtled up national and international policy agendas. Equally, says this paper from Panos, there has never been a time when so much energy translates into so little hope. \"We believe \u2013 and the feeling seems widely shared \u2013 that the energy and commitment currently focused on fighting HIV/AIDS is in grave danger of being wasted.  If coherent, robust strategies are not directed at the root causes of the epidemic, rather than the symptoms, then the same level of energy and attention may never again be catalysed.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"DECLARATION OF THE II INTERNATIONAL FORUM FOR THE DEFENSE OF PEOPLES HEALTH","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Health is a human right and a fundamental part of the right to life, as well as the duty of the state and its obligation to fulfill international commitments.  Health is a right in and of itself, and not a means to promote so-called human capital.  Nor can it be seen as merchandise, but rather a public good. Health is an integral process that includes everything from decent living conditions, healthy employment with adequate conditions, access to basic services such as clean water, education to promote citizenship, adequate food, to a healthy environment free from violence, and accessible quality health care at all levels.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29612","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Does X Really cause Y?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://hcfo.net/pdf/xy.pdf","body":"Good public policy decisions require reliable information about the causal relationships among variables. Policymakers must understand the way the world works and the likely effects of manipulating the variables that are under their control. The purpose of this paper from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Changes in Health Care Financing and Organisation (HCFO) is to assist policymakers by providing an introduction to some of the problems associated with causal inference from empirical data. The paper also will be helpful to researchers who are attempting to draw causal inferences from data, or explain their results to policymakers. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Drop the Malaria Tax Campaign ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.massiveeffort.org","body":"Africa Malaria Day on 25 April 2003 is nearing, marking three years since African leaders met in Abuja, Nigeria and promised to help fight malaria by dropping taxes on treated mosquito nets. Research and experience prove beyond any doubt that Insect Treated Nets (ITNs) save lives by preventing new malarial infections. Recognizing their life-saving potential, African leaders pledged to drop all taxes and tariffs on ITNs. But despite this, many countries have yet to drop the malaria tax. At the website below there are a range of resources for finding out more about malaria and the campaign to drop the taxes on mosquito nets, information about the campaign to pressure African leaders to comply and a list of countries who have kept their promise about the tax and those who haven't.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Empirical Evidence for the Demographic and Socio-Economic Impact of AIDS","field_subtitle":"Notice of a Scientific Meeting, 26 - 28 March, 2003, Durban, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"This conference stems from the need for HIV/AIDS interventions to be based on sound information about the medium and long-term demographic, social and economic consequences of HIV/AIDS.  Towards that end, the organisers have invited 50 researchers to present papers derived from rigorous empirical research.  The conference offers a unique opportunity for an additional 50 participants to hear what is actually known about the socio-economic and demographic impacts of HIV/AIDS, to compare evidence from different countries and to exchange ideas on research and management strategies.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29628","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter March 2003 Life and Death at the WTO","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Famine, AIDS, Poverty Make Southern Africans Vulnerable","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=15892","body":"As hunger threatens more than 16 million people in Southern Africa, \"the extraordinary prevalence of AIDS\" in the region is also contributing to \"deep-rooted poverty that leaves people vulnerable to the slightest change in circumstance,\" Cox/Washington Times reports.  The effects of the disease \"are spreading into virtually every aspect of society,\" including educational efforts, economies and health care systems.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender and Health Equity Network ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/ghen/","body":"The Gender and Health Equity Network is a partnership of national and international institutions concerned with developing and implementing policies to improve gender and health equity, particularly in resource constrained environments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender Dimensions of User Fees: Implications for Women's Utilization of Health Care ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.genderhealth.org/pubs/NandaUserFeesNov2002.pdf","body":"This paper from Reproductive Health Matters looks at the implications of user fees for women's utilization of health care services, based on selected studies in Africa.  Lack of access to resources and inequitable decision-making power mean that when poor women face out-of-pocket costs such as user fees when seeking health care, the cost of care may become out of reach.  Even though many poor women may be exempt from fees, there is little incentive for providers to apply exemptions, as they too are constrained by restrictive economic and health service conditions.  If user fees and other out-of-pocket costs are to be retained in resource-poor settings, there is a need to demonstrate how they can be successfully and equitably implemented.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"global fund launches funding drive","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=15891","body":"Officials at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria have launched a \"new round of arm-twisting\" of its main donors -- the United States, Japan and European Union countries -- amid fears that the fund will \"wither away\" without new financing, the Financial Times reports.  The need for increased contributions to the fund will be on the agenda of both the G7 finance ministers meeting in May and the G8 summit in June, before a scheduled meeting of the donor countries in July, according to Richard Feachem, executive director of the fund.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Policy and Planning ","field_subtitle":"Volume 18, Issue 1: March 2003 ","field_url":"http://heapol.oupjournals.org/content/vol18/issue1/index.shtml?etoc","body":"Included in this issue:\r\n* Jonathan D Quick \r\nEssential medicines twenty-five years on: closing the access gap, Health Policy Plan. 2003 18: 1-3. \r\n* Damian Walker \r\nCost and cost-effectiveness of HIV/AIDS prevention strategies in developing countries: is there an evidence base? Health Policy Plan. 2003 18: 4-17. \r\n* David Ayuku, Wilson Odero, Charles Kaplan, Rene De Bruyn, and Marten De Vries \r\nSocial network analysis for health and social interventions among Kenyan scavenging street children, Health Policy Plan. 2003 18: 109-118.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Healthcare ratio of haves to have-nots is sickening","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://news.hst.org.za/view.php3?id=20030206","body":"The latest row about the use of state hospital beds by private medical schemes has raised again a contradiction between expressed constitutional aims on the one hand and government policy and practice on the other.  The rights to \"healthcare, food, water and social security\" are contained in clause 27 of the Bill of Rights.  This clause obliges the state to \"take reasonable legislative and other measures within its available resources to achieve the progressive realisation of these rights\".  In essence, this means every effort should be made to ensure that all South Africans have equal access to quality healthcare.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS a \"horrifying new disaster\" in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1699","body":"Although a humanitarian crisis had been mitigated in Southern Africa through swift food aid deliveries, a horrifying new disaster was looming in Southern Africa in the form of HIV/AIDS, James Morris, the UN Secretary-General's special envoy for humanitarian needs in Southern Africa has warned. \"The impact of HIV/AIDS on this part of the world is enormous and the impact on women and children is devastating,\" Morris told journalists after a visit to four of the six southern African countries battling critical food shortages affecting over 14 million people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Hospitals offer incentives in a bid to keep their staff","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://news.hst.org.za/view.php3?id=20030207","body":"Private hospitals are pulling out all the stops to keep nurses from taking up lucrative offers overseas.  Salary incentives and training programmes are just some of the carrots being dangled before staff to keep them loyal. Nursing Update, the journal of the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa), is overflowing with adverts for nursing positions in the UK (where the training background is similar), Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand.  Saudi Arabia also pays big money.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"IMPACT OF PATENTS ON ACCESS TO HIV/AIDS DRUGS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www2.cid.harvard.edu/cidwp/092.pdf","body":"This paper by the Center for International Development (CID), uses sales data on HIV/AIDS drugs in a sample of 34 low and middle income countries between 1995 and 1999 to assess empirically the impact of patents on unsubsidized access to a new drug therapy. The main finding is that patent rights do have a negative effect on unsubsidized access to HIV/AIDS drugs. Between 1995 and 1999, switching all HIV/AIDS drugs from a patent regime to a no patent regime would have actually increased access to therapy at least by 30%.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Implementing health financing reform in South Africa and Zambia ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://heapol.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/18/1/31","body":"This paper - published in Health Policy and Planning - explores the policy-making process in the 1990s in two countries, South Africa and Zambia, in relation to health care financing reforms.  The two countries\u2019 experiences indicate the strong influence of political factors and actors over which health care financing policies were implemented, and which not, as well as over the details of policy design.  Moments of political transition in both countries provided political leaders, specifically Ministers of Health, with windows of opportunity in which to introduce new policies.  However, these transitions, and the changes in administrative structures introduced with them, also created environments that constrained the processes of reform design and implementation and limited the equity and sustainability gains achieved by the policies.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequities among the very poor: health care for children in rural Tanzania","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://image.thelancet.com/extras/02art2280web.pdf","body":"The main difference between the poorest children and those who are better off is not in the likelihood of falling ill, but in the probability of obtaining suitable treatment once ill, says a study published in The Lancet.  Little is known about socioeconomic inequities and health in African countries.  Joanna Armstrong Schellenberg and colleagues did a baseline household survey to identify inequities in health care by sex and socioeconomic status for children living in a poor rural area of Tanzania.  Their findings showed that wealthier families were more likely to seek medical attention for their sick children, and that these families were more aware of health danger signs than poorer families.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"KENYA: Call to reject WTO proposal on drugs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1767","body":"Recent gains made in making HIV/AIDS treatment accessible and affordable to Kenyans are being threatened by a deal currently under discussion at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which would severely restrict access to such drugs, a group of local NGOs has warned.  ActionAid Kenya, EcoNews and Medecins Sans Frontieres on 14 February said the WTO meeting, convened in Tokyo, Japan, was negotiating a proposal to restrict use of compulsory licensing for many developing countries only to extreme national emergencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Life and Death at the WTO","field_subtitle":"Sanjay Basu","field_url":"","body":"If you cross paths with Robert Zoellick's mother over the next few weeks, please remind her that applications to George Washington University's School of Public Health are due soon.  Her son needs to hurry up and submit his paperwork.  Mrs.  Zoellick might be surprised at the suggestion that her son Robert, US Trade Representative, should go back to school.  She might tell you that her dear Robbie already graduated magna cum laude from Harvard's Law School and received an MPP from the Kennedy School of Government.  Mrs.  Zoellick might say that her son's overqualified for his job.  The only problem is that Robert Zoellick has been making a lot of decisions about public health lately - and in that realm, he is terribly uninformed.\r\n\r\nTake, for instance, his actions last month at the WTO council.  Trade representatives from the other 143 member countries of the WTO decided that the poorest of nations - those without any pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities - should be able to import cheap generic drugs, since they can't pay for the more expensive patented versions.  But  Mr.  Zoellick became the only minister at the WTO to refuse to agree to the measure.\r\n\r\nThis isn't the first time that's happened.  Back in December, Mr.  Zoellick did the same thing just before Christmas.  The issue was how to implement the WTO's \"Doha Declaration\" on public health, which the WTO (with Mr.  Zoellick's vote) passed in November 2001.  That agreement declared that the patent rights of drug companies should be secondary to public health concerns to \"promote access to medicines for all.\" In the agreement, the WTO promised to determine how countries without manufacturing facilities were going to import generic drugs.\r\n\r\nBut Mr.  Zoellick decided that he would \"reinterpret\" the Doha Declaration.  He claimed that the Declaration was not really about promoting \"access to medicines for all\" (in spite of the wording in the Declaration itself) but it was really only intended to cover a short list of diseases.  He came to the table with a list of 15 diseases he thought were suitable.  The only problem was that major killers like cervical cancer and pneumonia were not included.  Mr.  Zoellick said those diseases not on the list were \"lifestyle\" disorders.  So the three million kids who will die from pneumonia in Africa this year better whip themselves back into shape and learn to change their ways.  Some of the other trade ministers thought this was a bit perverse, and refused to agree to that deal.\r\n\r\nFebruary was supposed to be a finalization of the delayed negotiation process, but Mr.  Zoellick came to the table with a new set of rules, once again using his \"alternative\" theories of public health practice.  This time, medicine access would not be restricted to just a short list of diseases, but countries would also be restricted to importing generics only after a \"national emergency.\" So health ministers in Burkina Faso, which is currently in the beginning stages of a major meningitis epidemic, should sit tight and wait for a couple hundred thousand people to die - then they can begin the legislative process to get medicines.  Other rules proposed by Mr.  Zoellick would be extraordinarily cumbersome.  Under the system proposed, if Pakistan wanted to get cheaper drugs from an Indian generic manufacturer, the Indian government would have to pass legislation for Pakistani citizens.  How politically pragmatic!\r\n\r\nNo one mentions, of course, that the very measures Mr.  Zoellick is pushing on the poorest of countries are far more stringent than those followed by the United States.  Remember the anthrax scare?  After only four deaths, Congress was threatening to import generics immediately if Bayer Corporation didn't produce its anti-anthrax drug quickly enough.  But other countries, of course, aren't allowed to do the same when they have real public health crises.\r\n\r\nI pity Mr.  Zoellick's public relations officer, who will no doubt be working long hours to generate an entirely new system of logic justifying the nature of these deals.  But, of course, there's plenty of support for Mr.  Zoellick and his worker bees at the Washington trade office.  It comes from the pharmaceutical industry, as was made explicit at the WTO council.  Instead of negotiating with each other, the trade ministers declared they would just circumvent the whole process and start negotiating directly with Pfizer.  Companies like Pfizer don't want a break in their global monopoly on prices.  But if the most profitable industry in the world can't handle the fact that poor countries represent a tiny percentage of their pharmaceutical market, then our trade ministers need to be able to stand up to them and defend the Doha Declaration.\r\n\r\nThe industry, and the USTR, claims that generics would undermine their capacity to pay for research and development - that is, the research and development that American taxpayers actually foot most of the bill for.  The industry doesn't bother to release it's own tax information, however, which reveals that Merck this year used 13% of its profits on marketing and only 5% on R&D, Pfizer spent 35% on marketing and only 15% on R&D, and the industry overall spent 27% on marketing and 11% on R&D according the Securities and Exchange Commission.  That's not accounting for the fact that 52% of new drugs on the market aren't even the result of R&D, but are \"me too\" drugs that are simple reformulations of old products slapped with new stickers.\r\n\r\nThe industry still claims that generics will undermine its business, even as it continues to be ranked by Fortune Magazine as the world's most profitable industry for 11 years in a row (having profits as a percentage of revenue nearly three times the rest of the Fortune 500 industry).  When confronted with the fact that Africa comprises only 1.3% of the industry's revenues (making its loss equivalent to \"about three days fluctuation in exchange rates,\" according to an industry analyst quoted in The Washington Post), the industry claims that generic drugs will get diverted to the North to undermine its key markets, and cites GlaxoSmithKline's recent loss of AIDS drugs sent to Africa as a case in point.  But a look at the GSK case shows that Glaxo failed to even track the shipments and only discovered after a year that its packages to Africa had been shipped improperly, allowing them to be smuggled to Europe.  Tracking mechanisms, however, seem to be no trouble for neighbourhood flower shops.  Indian generic manufacturers, meanwhile, have shipped medicines for over two decades without a single case of \"diversion\".\r\n\r\nIt's time for Mr.  Zoellick to learn what it means when 24,000 people die a day from treatable diseases; otherwise, he should take a fraction of the $20 million in campaign contributions pharmaceutical companies donated last year and use it for his tuition at the School of Public Health.\r\n\r\n* Read more about the WTO negotiations in the 'Equity and Health General' and 'WTO, Economic and Social Policy' sections of Equinet News.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Major AIDS Group Files Complaint Against Drug Giant in South Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aegis.com/channel/s/AD030206.html","body":"AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the largest AIDS organisation in the United States has filed a complaint with South Africa\u2019s Competition Commission against GlaxoSmithKline. AHF filed the complaint over the company\u2019s drug pricing and AIDS policies in South Africa, which it described as \u201chaving a stranglehold on key AIDS drug patents\u201d and exercising \u201cunfettered monopoly pricing on these life-saving medications.\u201d AHF wants the commission, an independent body ensuring that companies compete fairly and do not abuse positions of power, to overturn GlaxoSmithKline\u2019s sole right of manufacturing drugs in the country.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Managing HIV/AIDS in the workplace","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.dpsa.gov.za/HIVAIDS/HIVguide.pdf","body":"This publication is designed to guide government departments in South Africa on the minimum requirements to effectively manage HIV/AIDS in the workplace and ensure a coordinated public service response.  It is expected to assist departments in planning, developing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating workplace HIV/AIDS policies and programs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Money to train aids doctors donated","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sabcnews.com/economy/business/0,1009,53818,00.html","body":"Electricity parastatal Eskom committed R6 million to train doctors in the treatment of HIV/Aids patients in Southern Africa.  The money, to be spent over three years on training medical practitioners in the Southern African Development Community region, will be managed by the Foundation of Professional Development (FPD) and the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Non-Food Items Needed to Mitigate Crisis","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200302140454.html","body":"There was urgent need for \"tens of millions of dollars\" for non-food items to combat Southern Africa's humanitarian crisis, the United Nations said in its mid-term review of the 2002/03 Consolidated Appeal (CAP). In July last year UN agencies along with implementing partners and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) launched a regional appeal for US $611 million - US $507 million for food and US $104 million for non-food items - to address the humanitarian needs of 12.8 million people in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"nurses leave south africa for overseas","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/view.php3?id=20030202","body":"In a recent article in the South African Medical Journal, Nicki Fouch\u00e9 of the Division of Nursing and Midwifery at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town warned that the haemorrhaging of professional nursing staff would have a catastrophic effect on the delivery of health care in South Africa over the next decade. She added that it was estimated that there are 2 300 registered nurses working overseas and that they receive about 200 applications per month for overseas registration. In 1999, 3 300 nurses left South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"PAHO Publications Available Online","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ingentaselect.com/pubjournals.htm?pb=paho","body":"PAHO has just launched a quick way for its readers to go straight to the source of what they are looking for in electronic format. They can now access one or more chapters of the organisation's most popular publications, such as Health in the Americas and Control of Communicable Diseases (Spanish version), among others, in a minimum of keystrokes. With this new service, readers can select only those chapters on the diseases that most interest them or select the chapter on a country for which they need the latest mortality or morbidity data.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"PESTICIDES TRAINING COURSE","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The course aims to provide participants with an understanding of the most important strategies available for the control of pesticide related morbidity and mortality. After the completion of the course participants will be able to apply their knowledge to their own settings, be it research, teaching, or as health and safety managers, planners or practitioners.  The course is intended to be adapted to the needs of different categories of participants, combining a mix of plenary sessions with working groups to address specific needs identified in a pre-course questionnaire.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29589","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Population and Related Information Online","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.jhuccp.org/popline/popline.shtml","body":"POPLINE\u00ae(POPulation information onLINE) provides citations with abstracts of the worldwide literature on population, family planning, and related health issues.  The world's largest bibliographic population database, POPLINE\u00ae brings together 300,000 records representing published and unpublished literature in the field.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"PROTECTION FOR THE POOR, NOT FOR PATENTS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.choike.org/cgi-bin/choike/links/page.cgi?p=ver_informe&id=956","body":"In November 2001, WTO members at a ministerial conference in Doha signed up to a 'Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health' which explicitly endorses the right of poorer countries to issue compulsory licences for the manufacture of patent-protected drugs in the face of a threat to public health. Also at the Doha conference, the TRIPS Council was told to find out, by the end of 2002, how a country can get access to generic drugs if it cannot manufacture them itself. At the end of November, talks on this question broke down, primarily because of the unbridgeable gap between the positions of the United States and the developing countries. The Doha 'Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health' calls for the Agreement to be interpreted in a way that promotes progress towards the goal of 'medicines for all'. It remains to be hoped that the industrialised nations will take this call to heart and heed it more fully in future negotiations within the TRIPS Council. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Region Urged to Come Up With Strategies to Combat Drought","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200301210556.html","body":"Southern African countries should immediately find strategies to deal with the drought situation in the 2002/2003 farming season, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Drought Monitoring Unit, has warned.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional Conference On HIV/Aids This Year","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200302120411.html","body":"Angola will this year host a Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) conference on HIV/AIDS, meant to focus on curbing the spread of the disease in the region.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Reproductive Health and Health Sector Reform in Developing Countries: Establishing a Framework for Dialogue","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/pdf/2002/bul-8-E-2002/bu1060.pdf","body":"There has been a marked lack of dialogue on policymaking between the areas of reproductive health and reform of the health sector. Policies in each area have been developed by different actors, pursuing different objectives. Consequently, disjointed policy-making has tended to predominate.  A framework is proposed for enhancing such dialogue and collaboration between the two fields, with reference to links between actors, an understanding of policy contexts, the development of compatible aims and the need for institutional strengthening.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Saving Grace: Why the poor can\\\\","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/aids/subsection/0,7370,897482,00.html","body":"London\u2019s Guardian has featured a special investigation into \"the people with the money, power and influence to save\" the lives of the nearly 30 million people in sub-Saharan Africa who do not have access to HIV/AIDS medications. The special supplement, titled \"Saving Grace,\" asks the question: \"Why can the poor not get the drugs to live with AIDS when the rich can?\" The main feature of the section is interviews with people who live and work on the forefront of the fight against HIV/AIDS and the section also features several articles on drug access.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SHARED - Useful information on health research","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://sharednew.collexis.net/main.asp","body":"SHARED started in 1996 as an EC concerted action.  SHARED's objective is to share essential information on health research and development for developing countries.  Everyone can contribute information to the database.  A network of Focal Points has a proactive role in information dissemination on a local level.  Visit their web site for more information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Shifting the Burden: The Private Sector\\\\","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/pdf/2003/bul-2-E-2003/81(2)131-137.pdf","body":"As the economic burden of HIV/AIDS increases in sub-Saharan Africa, allocation of the burden among levels and sectors of society is changing. The private sector has more scope to avoid the economic burden of AIDS than governments, households, or nongovernmental organisations, and the burden is being systematically shifted away from the private sector. The article suggests that the shift in the economic burden of AIDS is a predictable response by business to which a deliberate public policy response is needed. Countries should make explicit decisions about each sector's responsibilities if a socially desirable allocation is to be achieved.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"still no wto agreement on drug access","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=16088","body":"Although delegates from 22 World Trade Organization member nations failed to break gridlock on the issue of how to relax patent protection to give developing nations better access to drugs to fight public health epidemics, including HIV/AIDS, a proposal by Brazil may offer a \"glimmer of hope\" in the talks, Reuters reports. Under the new plan, introduced during a three-day meeting in Tokyo, the World Health Organisation would determine if low-income nations have the infrastructure to manufacture generic versions of drugs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of HIV/AIDS on agriculture in Swaziland","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A new study has established the link between AIDS and Swaziland's current food crisis, demonstrating that the epidemic is as damaging to agricultural production as drought and outmoded land policies.  \"The Swaziland household farming systems are vulnerable to the negative economic impact of HIV/AIDS because of the reliance on remittances (from family members at work at jobs elsewhere), in the face of poor soils and erratic rainfall,\" said the report's author, Fred Tusuubira Mawanga, from the Department of Epidemiology of the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, in the United States.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29615","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"The impact of privatisation on public services","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.socwatch.org.uy/en/informesTematicos/58.html","body":"This article produced by Social Watch analyses the impact of privatisation of health, education and basic infrastructure. It follows the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) report that urges WTO member nations to consider the human rights implications of liberalising trade in services, especially health, education and water. Social Watch is an international NGO watchdog network monitoring poverty eradication and gender equality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"The Links between Human Rights Abuses and HIV","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/zambia/zambia1202.pdf","body":"The catastrophe of HIV/AIDS in Africa has hit girls and women harder than boys and men.  In many countries of eastern and southern Africa, HIV prevalence among girls under age eighteen is four to seven times higher than among boys the same age, an unusual disparity that means a lower average age of death from AIDS, as well as more deaths overall, among women than men.  Abuses of the human rights of girls, especially sexual violence and other sexual abuse, contribute directly to this disparity in infection and mortality.  In Zambia, as in other countries in the region, tens of thousands of girls - many orphaned by AIDS or otherwise without parental care - suffer in silence as the government fails to provide basic protections from sexual assault that would lessen their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.  Policy makers should take the steps necessary to break this cycle of abuse and transmission and must make protection of girls\u2019 human rights a central part of their anti-HIV/AIDS strategies.  Allowing girls to suffer in silence not only perpetuates serious human rights violations; it ensures that the HIV/AIDS epidemic will continue on its destructive course, says this report from Human Rights Watch.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Links between Human Rights Abuses and HIV Transmission to Girls in Zambia","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/zambia/zambia1202.pdf","body":"The catastrophe of HIV/AIDS in Africa has hit girls and women harder than boys and men.  In many countries of eastern and southern Africa, HIV prevalence among girls under age eighteen is four to seven times higher than among boys the same age, an unusual disparity that means a lower average age of death from AIDS, as well as more deaths overall, among women than men. Abuses of the human rights of girls, especially sexual violence and other sexual abuse, contribute directly to this disparity in infection and mortality.  In Zambia, as in other countries in the region, tens of thousands of girls - many orphaned by AIDS or otherwise without parental care - suffer in silence as the government fails to provide basic protections from sexual assault that would lessen their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. International and national policymakers should muster the political will and take the steps necessary to break this cycle of abuse and transmission and must make protection of girls\u2019 human rights a central part of their anti-HIV/AIDS strategies. Allowing girls to suffer in silence not only perpetuates serious human rights violations; it ensures that the HIV/AIDS epidemic will continue on its destructive course, says this report from Human Rights Watch.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Politics of Health Knowledge Network - Invitation to Participate","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"HealthWrights - Workgroup for People's Health and Rights - is developing an online resource called 'Politics of Health Knowledge Network' (see www.politicsofhealth.org).  This will be a user-friendly information-sharing tool providing solid facts and informative analysis so that concerned people can better respond to the most urgent health-related issues confronting humanity. They are inviting participation in various areas.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29629","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The Right to Health and the Nevirapine Case in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://content.nejm.org/current.shtml","body":"Thanks to activists in South Africa, the right to health as a human right has returned to the international stage, just as it was being displaced by economists who see health through the prism of a globalized economy and by politicians who see it as an issue of national security or charity.  The current post-apartheid debate in South Africa is not about race but about health, and in this context, the court victory by AIDS activists in the nevirapine case has been termed not only, as stated in one British newspaper, \"the greatest defeat for [President Thabo] Mbeki's government\" but also the opening of \"legitimate criticism\" of the government \"over a host of issues from land rights to the pursuit of wealth.\" Using the nevirapine case as a centerpiece, this article in the New England Journal of Medicine explores the power of the human right to health in improving health generally.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"THOUSANDS DEMAND HIV TREATMENT in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Thousands marched in Cape Town in February in a massive show of support for the demand that the South African government sign and implement a national HIV treatment programme. Estimates on the amount of marchers attending the march organised by AIDS-lobby group the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and taking place on the occasion of the opening of South Africa's Parliament for 2003 ranged from between 10 000 and 30 000. The material available through the link below includes a report on the march, a letter from TAC activist Zackie Achmat about the march, the memorandum presented to government and a memorandum to President Bush and Members of US Congress dealing with the Doha agreement.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29613","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Unsafe sex still main cause of HIV infection in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"New research findings suggesting that unsafe medical practices are the main cause of HIV transmission have been rejected by medical experts in South Africa.  They insist that unsafe sex continues to be the main cause of infection.  The controversy began when a team of eight researchers from three countries who reviewed data on HIV infection in Africa estimated only about a third of adult cases are sexually transmitted.  They said healthcare practices, especially contaminated medical injections, could also be a major cause.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29614","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Vacancies - Fund Portfolio Managers in The Global Fund Secretariat","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"THE GLOBAL FUND, established in 2001, is an independent public-private partnership.  It is the largest global fund in the health domain, with over USD 2.0 billion currently committed.  The Fund is looking for staff with strong commitment, an open mind-set, entrepreneurial and flexible attitudes, proven emotional intelligence and the ability to work under pressure within tight deadlines.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29603","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"We Miss You All","field_subtitle":"Noerine Kaleeba ","field_url":"","body":"Veteran Ugandan AIDS activist Noerine Kaleeba is an angry woman. Anger propelled her into the frontline of HIV/AIDS activism in her country after her husband's death from HIV/AIDS. Sixteen years later Kaleeba is still angry, but her anger is now directed at the stigma and discrimination surrounding the disease. Kaleeba was speaking during the launch of the second edition of her acclaimed book 'We Miss You All' in Johannesburg. The book tells the story of her husband's death from AIDS, and how this led her to form The AIDS Support Organisation (TASO). It also relates how her family coped with the pain and stigma that the disease brought into their lives.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29604","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Weekly e-mail on Southern African health issues","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The HealthLink Bulletin is a free weekly electronic news bulletin of interest to health workers, policy makers, journalists, researchers, donor organisations, medical insurance and pharmaceutical companies, civil society organisations and consultants.  Information covered includes notice of new research findings, publications, conferences, events, news, job opportunities, resources (electronic and other), courses and news items relevant to health systems development, policy and practice in Southern Africa.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29645","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Rejects Charges Of Food Industry Infiltration","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://medilinks.org/news/news2.asp?NewsID=1498","body":"The World Health Organisation has rejected allegations in the London Guardian that its policies on diet and nutrition were unduly influenced by the food industry, saying it welcomed open debate with all stakeholders and had strengthened its procedures against covert lobbying. The agency said it welcomed open and transparent debate on the issue from all interested groups as the agency sought to develop a global strategy on diet, physical activity and health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-03-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":" Best Practices, Lessons Learned and Future Directions conference ","field_subtitle":"7 - 9 May 2003, nairobi, kenya","field_url":"","body":"The Training in Africa: Best Practices, Lessons Learned and Future Directions conference information is now available online.  On the website you can: Read about the conference; Register for the conference and sign up for workshops; Find information about hotel registration; Link to the hotel's website; See the conference agenda; Print out the conference brochure.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29566","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"\"Delegation\" Policies and the Building of a \\\\\"Rights-Based\\\\\" Approach to Maternal Mortality","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.jamwa.org/vol57/sec3/pdf/57_3_7.pdf","body":"\u201cRights-based\u201d approaches fold human rights principles into the ongoing work of health policy making and programming. The example of delegation of anesthesia provision for emergency obstetric care is used to demonstrate how a rights-based approach, applied to this problem in the context of high-mortality countries, requires decision makers to shift from an individual, ethics-based, clinical perspective to a structural, rights-based, public health perspective. This fluid and context-sensitive approach to human rights also applies at the international level, where the direction of overall maternal mortality reduction strategy is set. By contrasting family planning programs and maternal mortality programs, this commentary argues for choosing the human rights approach that speaks most effectively to the power dynamics underlying the particular health problem being addressed. In the case of maternal death in high mortality countries, this means a strategic focus on the health care system itself.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"\"New Kind of Famine\" in SADC","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200301210080.html","body":"Southern Africa was facing a new kind of famine, one \"exacerbated by HIV/Aids\", a Southern African Development Community (SADC) conference heard in January.  Bunmi Makinwa of the United Nations Aids agency UNAids told the meeting at Kempton Park that seven million agricultural workers have succumbed to HIV/Aids in 25 African countries since 1985.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"14M PEOPLE HUNGRY","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=15305","body":"Poverty and famine have left an estimated 14 million people across Southern Africa hungry, and hunger leaves people weak and vulnerable to disease, including HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. United Nations AIDS Agency (UNAIDS) representative, Bunmi Makinwa, explains that: \"A person with HIV needs better nutrition - more calories and more proteins - to stay healthy.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"2003 SEAM Conference: Targeting Improved Access to Essential Medicines","field_subtitle":"Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania June 16-18, 2003 ","field_url":"","body":"The 2003 Conference will serve as a forum for discussion of a wide range of pharmaceuticals-related intervention strategies that are of concern to developing nations.  The conference will also provide the opportunity to share information about the activities of the SEAM Program, which focus on enhancing access to essential medicines through collaboration between the private and public sectors.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29569","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A TRAINING MANUAL ON EFFECTIVE WRITING AVAILABLE ONLINE ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A major training resource designed to help those working in the not-for-profit sector hone their writing skills in order to influence, persuade and bring about positive social change has been made available free of charge on the internet, thanks to the support of IDRC. \u201cThe CDROM version has been so popular,\u201d said Firoze Manji, Director of Fahamu, \u201cIDRC and Fahamu decided to make the resource available in the public domain as well.\u201d Writing for Change, originally published as an interactive CDROM by Fahamu and Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC), is designed primarily for people working in the not-for-profit sector, including researchers, scientists, project managers, team members, campaigners, fundraisers, social activists and writers. Available in English, French and Spanish from Fahamu's web site (http://www.fahamu.org) the resource is thought to be one of the most comprehensive available, running at about 900 pages per language. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29537","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"ACTIVISTS \"FRUSTRATED\" BY DELAYS IN WTO TALKS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks held late last year failed to resolve the issue of access to generic medicines in developing countries after the United States blocked an agreement on granting easier access to the drugs. \"Its a tragedy that there is no solution after one year of talks ... millions of people have died from [infectious] diseases this year. The rich countries don't realise how much this has affected poor countries,\" head of international affairs for treatment lobby group Act-Up Paris, Ga\u00eblle Krikorian, told PlusNews.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29538","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICA ACTION DEMANDS DOLLARS TO MATCH ANNOUNCEMENT ON AIDS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Africa Action has welcomed the announcement of new money to fight HIV/AIDS by the Bush administration, but Africa Action Executive Director Salih Booker noted that this money must be made available immediately if it is to save lives and have a real impact on the course of the pandemic in Africa and globally. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29585","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS, GROWTH AND DISTRIBUTION IN SOUTH AFRICA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/cssr/papers/wp7.pdf","body":"How is the AIDS pandemic affecting growth and distribution in South Africa, and what are the economic impacts for workers likely to be? While the overall picture is murky, certain worrying trends and findings present themselves: If firms react by continuing to decrease their reliance on unskilled labour and by moving out of economic sectors whose customer-base comprises lower income consumers, then poor households will find themselves doubly disadvantaged, as their access to the labour market becomes ever more tenuous and the products that they purchase may become scarcer and more costly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"An Integrated Framework for Developing Health, Policy, and Research ","field_subtitle":"From the Milbank Quarterly, Volume 80 Number 3, 2002 ","field_url":"http://www.milbank.org/quarterly/8003feat.html","body":"This article describes the Life Course Health Development (LCHD) framework, which was created to explain how health trajectories develop over an individual\u2019s lifetime and how this knowledge can guide new approaches to policy and research. The Life Course Health Development (LCHD) framework offers a new approach to health measurement, health system design, and long-term investment in health development and also suggests new directions for research. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"ASSESSMENT AND MONITORING OF BEHAVIOR CHANGE COMMUNICATION (BCC) INTERVENTIONS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.fhi.org/en/aids/aidscap/aidspubs/handbooks/aidsbcc.html","body":"This is a handbook to help planners and implementors look at the effectiveness of their BCC interventions.  Implementors can use the handbook to help them monitor, since the handbook can point out both strengths and potential weaknesses of an ongoing intervention.  The handbook can also be used as a planning tool because it highlights important points for the design and development of effective BCC programming.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Church Supports Call for Cheaper AIDS Drugs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200301070584.html","body":"The Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) has appealed for the provision of cheaper antiretroviral drugs for HIV -positive people.  In a media statement, issued on Tuesday January 7, 2003, the AIDS Office of the SACBC said it \"supports the cause of the National Association of People living with AIDS (NAPWA) in the calling of government and pharmaceutical companies to provide cheaper generic antiretrovirals to all people living with AIDS.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"concern over impact of war on global health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"We, the participants at the 2nd Health Forum at Porto Alegre, Brazil are greatly alarmed by and unequivocally condemn, the preparations for a full-blown war against Iraq currently being undertaken by the United States of America and United Kingdom.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29588","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Coordinator","field_subtitle":"The Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED) ","field_url":"http://www.cohred.ch/cgi-bin/cohred?f=freshome&l=purple&m=sitedisp&p=guest&u=guest&a=showpage&v=newsmain","body":"The Council on Health Research for Development COHRED is looking for a Coordinator to lead the organisation into the next phase of its development.  COHRED's vision is to attain a system of effective health research as a tool for development, based on values of equity and social justice and targeting the health problems of those most in need.  COHRED works with numerous developing countries, research networks, UN agencies and other organizations to advocate for country-driven health research, based on the ENHR approach.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"DEADLINE PASSES AS DOHA DECLARATION NEGOTIATIONS STALL ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/ipr/news/2003january07.htm","body":"Back in 2001 the Doha declaration set the TRIPS council a deadline to find a solution to the issue of how developing countries - with limited or no production capacity - can take advantage of access to compulsory licences to respond to health emergencies. That deadline has now passed with no solution agreed and the post-Doha mood of optimism all but forgotten. This web page sifts through the political fallout of this failure to bring you analysis of how this situation came about and background to the declaration and the issues it aimed to address.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"DevMedicine 1st Annual Conference","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The theme of this premier conference will be eMEDICAL SCHOOLS - WAYS AND MEANS.  The goals are to discuss the best ways and means to augment medical education in developing countries using telecomputing methods of communication.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29556","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Dr. Jong Wook Lee Narrowly Defeats UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot for WHO Head Position","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=15714","body":"Dr.  Jong Wook Lee, 57, of South Korea, was on Tuesday January 28 chosen by a World Health Organisation executive committee vote of 17-15 to take over the position of WHO director general, BBC News reports.  Lee, who will succeed Norway's Dr.  Gro Harlem Brundtland, narrowly defeated Peter Piot, a Belgian epidemiologist who heads UNAIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"drug companies say they will increase arv supply","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=15509","body":"Six companies involved with the UNAIDS- and WHO-sponsored Accelerating Access program have said they would increase the antiretroviral drug supply to Africa, \"acknowledg[ing] that current efforts only scratched the surface\" of the continent's epidemic, Reuters reports. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter February 2003 Mass Murder By Complacency","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EU TRIES TO BREAK WTO MEDICINES DEADLOCK","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.europaworld.org/week111/euseeks10103.htm","body":"The EU has launched an initiative to break the current WTO deadlock on developing countries' access to affordable medicines. WTO members failed to meet the end of a 2002 deadline to find a solution for developing countries without manufacturing capacities, namely given the disagreement over the disease coverage. In a letter addressed to all WTO Trade Ministers, EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy proposes a multilateral solution which is workable, sustainable and legally secure, based both on the Doha mandate and on the chair's compromise text of 16 December 2002. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender Dimensions of User Fees: Implications for women's access to health care","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.genderhealth.org/pubs/NandaUserFeesNov2002.pdf","body":"In the current environment of shrinking global and domestic resources for health care, there is an overwhelming pressure to achieve financial sustainability in the health sectors of developing countries.  Within this context, there seems to be increasing acceptance of the view that individuals need to contribute to some of the costs of public health care through charges such as user fees and other cost-recovery mechanisms.  This paper looks at the implications of user fees for women's utilization of health care services, based on selected studies in Africa.  Lack of access to resources and inequitable decision-making power mean that when poor women face out-of-pocket costs such as user fees when seeking health care, the cost of care may become out of reach.  Even though many poor women may be exempt from fees, there is little incentive for providers to apply exemptions, as they too are constrained by restrictive economic and health service conditions.  If user fees and other out-of-pocket costs are to be retained in resource-poor settings, there is a need to demonstrate how they can be successfully and equitably implemented.  The lack of hard evidence on the impact of user fees on women's health outcomes and reproductive health service utilization reminds us of the urgent need to examine how women cope with health care costs and what trade-offs they make in order to pay for health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender Equity in Health Advocacy Pack","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.paho.org/english/hdp/hdw/advocacykits.htm","body":"As part of its Advocacy Pack series, the Women, Health and Development Program announces its new Gender Equity in Health Advocacy Pack! The kit consists of a fact sheet, an issue paper and a PowerPoint presentation, which present the ethical and empirical underpinnings of the effort to incorporate the gender perspective in health policies and programs.  This objective emphasizes the identification and resolution of gender inequities which impede the exercise of women and men's fundamental right to health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"health equity analyses and public resource allocation in south africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://heapol.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/17/suppl_1/30?maxtoshow=&HITS=&hits=&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=resource%20allocation&searchid=1044252722501_9781&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=1","body":"There is a growing interest in the use of small area analyses in investigating the relationship between socioeconomic status and health, and in informing resource allocation decision-making.  However, few such studies have been undertaken in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).  This paper reports on such a study undertaken in South Africa.  It both looked at the feasibility of developing a broad-based area deprivation index in a data scarce context and considered the implications of such an index for geographic resource allocations. The findings demonstrate clearly that in South Africa deprivation is multi-faceted, is concentrated in specific areas within the country and is correlated with ill-health.  However, the formula currently used by the National Treasury to allocate resources between geographic areas, biases these allocations towards less deprived areas within the country.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Policy and Planning: Volume 17, Suppl.  1 : December 2002 ","field_subtitle":"Supplement: Health sector reform and equity - learning from evidence?","field_url":"http://heapol.oupjournals.org/content/vol17/suppl_1/","body":"This supplement includes: \r\n* Health sector reform and equity \u2013 learning from evidence?  Health Policy Plan.  2002 17: 1-4.  \r\n* D McIntyre, D Muirhead, and L Gilson Geographic patterns of deprivation in South Africa: informing health equity analyses and public resource allocation strategies Health Policy Plan.  2002 17: 30-39.  \r\n* Nzapfurundi Chabikuli, Helen Schneider, Duane Blaauw, Anthony B Zwi, and Ruair\u00ed Brugha Quality and equity of private sector care for sexually transmitted diseases in South Africa Health Policy Plan. 2002 17: 40-46. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HEARD: all about it","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.und.ac.za/und/heard","body":"Issue No.  5, December 2002/January 2003 of Heard, The Newsletter of the Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division of the University of Natal, Durban, has been released.  Issue five of the newsletter provides a mixed-bag of articles, including reports on completed research, new project descriptions, project updates, and other generally useful information. The lead article is a report on HEARD\u2019s flagship annual workshop, \u201cPlanning for HIV/ AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa\u201d, which was held at the end of October 2002.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS AND FOOD INSECURITY IN SOUTHERN AFRICA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/eng/pdfs/pp021127_aids_safrica.pdf","body":"This policy briefing from Save the Children and Oxfam calls on the international community to recognise the relationship between the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the Southern African food crisis. The paper briefly provides an overview of prevalence in the region and states that HIV/AIDS has a particularly damaging relationship with food insecurity in that it impacts most heavily the key members of society who can produce food as well as health workers, teachers and others of working age. The relationship between hunger and vulnerability to HIV/AIDS is also discussed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS funding failed to make the leap in 2002","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Hailed as a \"quantum leap\" in the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has become a focal point for funding efforts to bring the epidemic to heal. But a year after issuing its first call for funding proposals, the Fund remains seriously under-resourced, and concern is mounting over its sustainability. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan estimated in 2001 that US $7-10 billion a year was needed to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic. \"At the end of the year (2002), we [Global Fund] had received US $2.1 billion in pledges and approximately US $800-850 million was available,\" Global Fund spokeswoman Mariangela Bavicchi told PlusNews.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29550","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"IDRC-RoKS Call for Proposals 2002-2003","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Research on Knowledge Systems (RoKS) exploratory initiative of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is launching its second annual research competition (2002-2003).  This year's theme: \"Strengthening Knowledge Policy for Small States: How can small states participate more effectively in local, regional, and global knowledge partnerships?\" requests concept notes. The competition will award up to seven grants, with a maximum value of CAD$ 80,000 each.  For joint proposals where researchers are located in two or more countries a maximum of CAD$ 160,000 will be awarded.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29587","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"IMF/World Bank Poverty Reduction Strategy: effective, participatory and locally owned? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=4&i=s5ckw2g1&u=3e3e0a6c","body":"Is there evidence that the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) is working? Can the PRS lead the least developed countries out of poverty? Are the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) nationally owned and participatory \u2013 or are they becoming just another hoop through which poor countries must jump to access funds? Looking for evidence in three case study countries that PRSPs have boosted progress towards accountable and democratic governance and sharpened the focus on poverty-reducing initiatives in education, health and rural infrastructure, the report notes: In Uganda, civil society consultation has been restricted; In Lesotho, state engagement is limited to one ministry; In Ethiopia, there is a suspicion that the Government started a PRSP to get debt relief rather than out of genuine anti-poverty commitment. The report contains many suggestions of ways that international financial institutions, governments and civil society could improve the PRSP process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"International Postdoctoral Fellowship ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The main goal of this Fellowship is to support training of foreign scientists in rigorous scientific research methodology at a clinical or basic research facility in the United States.  The purpose of this training is to prepare these scientists to successfully conduct high-quality research in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) when they return to their home countries. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29578","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"International Society for Infectious Diseases Small Grants Program","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) is accepting applications for the April 2003 round of Small Grants.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29568","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Invitation to suggest topics for the South African Health Review 2003","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The preparations for the South African Health Review 2003 are underway.  The theme for this year is equity.  We would like to invite you to submit your suggestions on what you think should be covered in this Review, by 15 Feb 2003.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29559","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Join ProNutrition-HIV - new electronic forum","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"ProNut-HIV, a new electronic forum, aims to share up-to-date information, knowledge and experiences on nutrition and HIV/AIDS.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29567","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"JOINT EFFORT CAN TURN PANDEMIC AROUND - LEWIS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa could be turned around, despite the devastating toll on human lives, UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis, says. Lewis noted that defeating the disease would require a combination of political will and resources. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29540","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Major Humanitarian Agencies issue urgent appeal for southern africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=15615","body":"The United Nations and several major humanitarian agencies have issued a plea to the international community to fund relief efforts for the \"dual human tragedy\" of HIV/AIDS and famine in Southern Africa, Agence France-Presse reports. A U.N. appeal for $611 million in aid for Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe has reached 58% of its target, Elizabeth Byrs, spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mass Murder By Complacency","field_subtitle":"Stephen Lewis, UN Secretary-General\u2019s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa","field_url":"","body":"Last month, I spent two weeks touring four countries in Southern Africa: Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia. The primary purpose was to view the link between hunger and AIDS. I want to look back at that visit, because little will have changed between then and now (except, perhaps, that things will have deteriorated further), and then look forward to the prospects for addressing the pandemic in 2003.\r\n\r\nAt the outset, however, let me express, yet again, the fundamental conviction I have every time I visit Africa: there is no question that the pandemic can be defeated. No matter how terrible the scourge of AIDS, no matter how limited the capacity to respond, no matter how devastating the human toll, it is absolutely certain that the pandemic can be turned around with a joint and Herculean effort between the African countries themselves and the international community.\r\n\r\nI am weary to the point of exasperated impatience at the endless expressions of doubt about Africa\u2019s resolve and Africa\u2019s intentions and Africa\u2019s capacities. The truth is that all over the continent, even in the most extreme of circumstances, such as those which prevail today in the four nations I visited, Africans are engaged in endless numbers of initiatives and projects and programmes and models which, if taken to scale, if generalized throughout the country, would halt the pandemic, and prolong and save millions of lives.\r\n\r\nWhat is required is a combination of political will and resources. The political will is increasingly there; the money is not. A major newspaper in the United States, reflecting on the paucity of resources, used the startling phrase \u201cmurder by complacency\u201d. I differ in only one particular: it\u2019s mass murder by complacency.\r\n\r\nYou will forgive me for the strong language. But as we enter the year 2003, the time for polite, even agitated entreaties is over. This pandemic cannot be allowed to continue, and those who watch it unfold with a kind of pathological equanimity must be held to account. There may yet come a day when we have peacetime tribunals to deal with this particular version of crimes against humanity.\r\n\r\nAs bad as things are in Southern Africa - and they are terrible - every country I visited exhibited particular strengths and hopes.\r\n\r\nThe little country of Lesotho has a most impressive political leadership, but is absolutely impoverished. If it had some significant additional resources, with which to build capacity, it could begin to rescue countless lives. I vividly remember the Prime Minister of Lesotho saying to me: \u201cWe\u2019re told repeatedly by donors that we don\u2019t have capacity. I know we have no capacity; give us some help and we\u2019ll build the capacity.\u201d It\u2019s worth remembering that Lesotho has a population greater than that of Namibia and Botswana, but it has nowhere near the same pockets of wealth. It has, however, one of the highest prevalence rates for HIV on the continent, higher than Namibia; almost as high as Botswana, and is fatally compromised in its response by the lack of resources.\r\n\r\nZimbabwe, whatever the levels of political turbulence, has created a sturdy municipal infrastructure for the purpose of dealing with AIDS. You will know that for the last couple of years, Zimbabwe has had a 3% surtax on corporate and personal income, devoted to work on AIDS. A good part of that money has been channelled down to district and village level, through a complex array of committees and structures which actually get the money to the grassroots. It\u2019s visible in the work of youth peer educators, outreach workers and home care through community-based and faith-based organisations. In other words, for all the convulsions to which Zimbabwe is subject, there remains an elaborate capacity to implement programmes, if only there were more programmes to implement.\r\n\r\nIn Malawi, we may be about to see the most interesting of experiments in the provision of anti-retroviral treatment in the public sector. The Government of Malawi had originally intended to treat 25,000 people based on receipt of monies from the Global Fund. They then realized that the calculation of 25,000 was based on the purchase of patent drugs, but now that it is possible to purchase generic drugs, the numbers eligible for treatment could rise to 50,000. There has been, predictably, a great deal of skepticism in the donor and other communities. However, while we were in Malawi, the country was visited by a WHO team which carefully examined the capacity and delivery issues, and came to the conclusion that treating 50,000 people, phased in of course, was entirely possible. This is an exciting prospect: the treatments are meant to be free of charge, and delivered through the public health sector.\r\n\r\nZambia, whatever the difficulties - and they are overwhelming - is emerging from the bleak and dark ages of denial into the light of recognition. The bitter truth is that in the regime of the previous President, nothing was done. He spent his time disavowing the reality of AIDS, and hurling obstacles in the way of those who were desperate to confront the pandemic. I can recall personally attending an annual OAU Summit on behalf of UNICEF, and sitting down with the then President Chiluba, and asking him what he intended to do about AIDS, and he simply wouldn\u2019t talk to me about it. Well there\u2019s a new President in Zambia. And although he\u2019s been in place for only one year, everyone agrees that there\u2019s a dramatic change in the voice of political leadership around the subject of AIDS.\r\n\r\nThe fact is that in every country, even under the most appalling of human circumstance, there are signs of determination and hope. Whether they can be harnessed in the name of social change will be known in the year 2003. God knows, there are incredible hurdles to leap.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29564","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Meningitis Vaccine Project","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Since www.equinetafrica.org seeks to disseminate information regarding public health issues in Africa, I thought you might be interested in learning about the Meningitis Vaccine Project.  The MVP mission is to eliminate epidemic meningitis as a public health problem in sub-Saharan Africa through the development, testing, introduction, and widespread use of conjugate meningococcal vaccines.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29574","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Observatory on Health Care ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/chronic_conditions/en/","body":"WHO's non-communicable diseases and mental health cluster has launched a resource centre to \"alert health leaders\" about global increases in chronic conditions such as diabetes, HIV/AIDS, and mental and neurological disorders, and to provide solutions for managing the growing burden.  \u00a0 ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"PATH's Reproductive Health Outlook (RHO): Winter 2002/2003 ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The RHO website (http://www.rho.org) is designed for reproductive health program managers and decision-makers working in developing countries and low-resource settings.  RHO provides up-to-date summaries of research findings, program experience, and clinical guidelines related to key reproductive health topics.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Patterns of Global Health Expenditures: Results for 191 Countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www3.who.int/whosis/discussion_papers/pdf/paper51.pdf","body":"Funding for health services is often cited as a major constraint for governments to be good stewards of health systems in their countries. Yet, in most cases, the data to support such claims is lacking. Making progress on a variety of health policy questions requires good national data on the sources and uses of funds in the health system, preferably comparable across countries. With such data, it is possible to begin answering questions such as the best ways to allocate limited resources toward improving health or what level of funding is needed in particular epidemiological and demographic contexts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty, Risky Sexual Behaviour, and Vulnerability to HIV Infection","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.icddrb.org/journal/jhpn_vol_204/jhpn_vol204_poverty-risky-sexual.pdf","body":"There is little evidence that poverty is associated with risky sexual behaviour, although poorer women are slightly less likely to have necessary knowledge on HIV/AIDS, which, of course, in itself increases the vulnerability of poor women to HIV.  More work is required to establish how specific factors other than knowledge on HIV/AIDS and socioeconomic status stand to enhance the vulnerability of women to HIV/AIDS, including gender and power relations, violence and coercion, and negative perceptions about condom use.  This is the conclusion of a study 'Poverty, Risky Sexual Behaviour, and Vulnerability to HIV Infection: Evidence from South Africa' conducted by the Department of Economics and Centre for Health Systems Research & Development, University of the Free State, South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Conference On Aids, Nutrition in Johannesburg","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200301200048.html","body":"The role of nutrition, food supplements and immune boosters in helping people infected with HIV/Aids, was discussed in Johannesburg last month at a two-day conference hosted by the Southern African Development Community (SADC).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC to Speed Up Free Trade Area","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200301230399.html","body":"Southern African Development Community's (SADC's) Executive Secretary, Dr.  Prega Ramsamy, renewed his call Tuesday for the organisation to speed up the implementation of free trade area and to accede to the customs union.  \"We are now saying the time-frame should be revisited in light of what is happening in Africa and the world at large.  The Americans are now talking about a free trade agreement with SACU (Southern African Customs Union) countries.  This could marginalise SADC, because SACU is at an advanced level of development,\" he said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"SMALL ARMS FLOOD SOUTHERN AFRICA ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=15249","body":"The 14 member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have a mutual security pact as the centerpiece of their organisation, and if for no other reason than the tide of destabilising illegal arms that passes through their countries. \u2018'The traffic in small arms and weapons of war through the region shows how closely linked our nations are in matters of security, and how vulnerable each state is to the security lapses in other countries, particularly neighbouring countries,'' an officer with the South African military told IPS this week. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"THE DOHA AGENDA AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.adb.org/Economics/pdf/doha/McCalman.pdf","body":"This paper reviews the possible outcomes of declarations made at the WTO Ministerial in Doha concerning the TRIPS agreement.  It tries to evaluate the extent to which these provide benefits for developing countries and determine the nature of any trade-offs that are likely to arise as a result of the subsequent negotiating process.  On TRIPS and public health the author concludes that while the TRIPS agreement can be modified to ensure that intellectual property rights are not an obstacle to dealing with public health emergencies, this action is not sufficient to ensure that the appropriate medicines will be available.  An effective approach to public health crises, such as the AIDS epidemic, will require other resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"THE IMPACT OF HIV/AIDS ON CIVIL SOCIETY: ASSESSING AND MITIGATING IMPACTS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.und.ac.za/und/heard/publications/NGO%20Report%20%20Toolkit.pdf","body":"This report is the result of research into the current impact of HIV/AIDS on NGOs and CBOs in KwaZulu-Natal, the worst-affected province of South Africa.  A survey of organisations found that most were aware that they eventually would have to grapple with HIV/AIDS among their own staff and volunteers, and they knew this could have serious consequences for their organisations' effectiveness and sustainability. This report aims to provide not just information on the status of the surveyed organisations, but also tools to help organisations in South Africa and elsewhere plan for and manage the epidemic among their own staff and volunteers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"THE ROLE OF THE STATE IN DEVELOPMENT IN THE SADC REGION: DOES NEPAD PROVIDE A NEW PARADIGM?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://twnafrica.org/resdetail.asp?twnID=225","body":"Academic discourse and development policy debates have grappled with the contentious issue of the state-market interactions in Africa\u2019s development agenda and process, particularly since the 1960s independence era. At the heart of this debate has been the contestation over agency for development: what is the key locomotive or engine of development? This article revisits this debate and critically interrogates the extent to which the New Partnership for Africa\u2019s Development (NEPAD) presents a new paradigm in development thinking in the African continent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"TWIN CRISES DEVASTATING FAMILIES IN LESOTHO ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Humanitarian Needs in Southern Africa, James T. Morris, has highlighted the plight of women and children amid the twin crises of HIV/AIDS and food shortages. Visiting Lesotho, as part of a tour of affected countries in the region, Morris said the deadly combination of widespread food shortages and Lesotho's rates of HIV/AIDS infection - the fourth highest in the world - meant humanitarian actors faced an \"enormous battle\". According to preliminary figures from November inter-agency vulnerability assessments, about 650,000 people are extremely vulnerable in Lesotho and are in need of food aid and other assistance until at least the end of March, when the next harvest is due. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29549","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"us senate Proposes $900M in Emergency Relief for Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=15555","body":"Senate Democrats have introduced the Africa Famine Relief Act, which would provide $900 million in emergency relief for Africa, including $600 million in food aid, $200 million in disaster assistance and $100 million in HIV/AIDS-related aid, the Associated Press reports.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"US-Based Aids Group Plans to File Complaint Against Glaxo in SA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200301280068.html","body":"US-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation is planning to file a complaint with the SA Competition Commission against pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, in a bid to widen access to AIDS drugs. The attorney representing the foundation in SA, Musa Ntsibande of law firm Strauss Daly, said that the complaint would argue that Glaxo abused its dominant market position in contravention of the Competition Act, and was engaging in excessive pricing of its drugs to the detriment of the consumer.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"User Fees and the impact on female children in rural zambia","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www3.oup.co.uk/tropej/current/480371.sgm.abs.html","body":"The World Bank and International Monetary Fund favour healthcare user fees.  User fees offer revenue and may decrease inappropriate care.  However, user fees may deter needed care, especially in vulnerable populations.  A cross-sectional analysis of healthcare utilization in a large Zambian hospital was conducted for children 3-6 years of age during a one-month observation period.  Trends suggest female children may be less likely to present for care when user fees are imposed.  This paper concludes that user fees appear to decrease differentially utilization of inpatient care for female children in rural Zambia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"using sms to fight tb","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A Cape Town doctor has dramatically helped the fight against tuberculosis (TB) by introducing a SMS service to remind patients to take their medication.  Dr.  David Green, a consultant in Managed Care, Disease Management and Information Systems, became so frustrated when his mother constantly forgot to take her medication for hypertension, that he started sending her SMS reminders -- and it worked.  It did not take him long to make the connection between the effectiveness that his SMS messages had on alerting his mother, the high incidence of TB in Cape Town, and the possibilities that bulk SMS messages could present.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29558","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"YOUTH, HIV/AIDS AND THE IMPORTANCE OF SEXUAL  CULTURE AND CONTEXT","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/cssr/papers/wp9.pdf","body":"This paper focuses on the socio-cultural context in which the enactment of 'high risk' youth sexual activity takes place.  The author maintains that understanding youth sexual culture and the context of high-risk sexual activity will provide the basis upon which programmes aimed at promoting safer sex practices are designed.  It is concluded that the future may quite literally depend on the extent to which the current culture/context in which young people are developing their ideas about sex, and enacting their sexuality, can be transformed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-02-01","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to medical reference information","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"DynaMed provides free access to medical reference information on 1,791 clinical topics via the Internet for health care professionals in developing countries.  The database has information on over 2,000 diseases with a primary care focus.  The information is updated daily through systematic literature surveillance.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29504","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Activists \"frustrated\" by delays in WTO talks","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks held late last year failed to resolve the issue of access to generic medicines in developing countries after the United States blocked an agreement on granting easier access to the drugs. \"Its a tragedy that there is no solution after one year of talks ... millions of people have died from [infectious] diseases this year. The rich countries don't realise how much this has affected poor countries,\" head of international affairs for treatment lobby group Act-Up Paris, Ga\u00eblle Krikorian, told PlusNews.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29530","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Broken Promises on Malaria","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Failure to provide adequate funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria is not only crippling the battle against the HIV/AIDS pandemic, but also weakening commitment to fight the chronic killer malaria. The failures of both African governments and rich countries to meet their commitments to prioritize health costs lives and undermines the prospects for economic development. This posting from the lobby group Africa Action contains two recent documents on malaria, one a report card on progress in the Fight against Malaria since the African summit on malaria in Abuja in April 2000, and the other a background briefing on malaria in Africa, from the Roll Back Malaria program of the World Health Organisation and other international agencies.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29510","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"CONTRACTING NGO's TO fight aids","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.phrproject.com/publicat/si/sir33ab.htm","body":"In many developing countries, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have taken the lead in responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis. As international funding to combat HIV/AIDS has increased, donors and government officials are looking for effective ways to distribute new funding to maximise impact. This report, by the Partners for Health Reform (PHR), examines the use of contracting NGOs as a mechanism to deliver HIV/AIDS services and programs in developing counties.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"COST-EFFECTIVENESS OF HIV/AIDS INTERVENTIONS IN AFRICA ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://pdf.thelancet.com/pdfdownload?uid=llan.359.9318.original_research.21040.1&x=x.pdf","body":"This Lancet article assesses the existing cost-effectiveness data for HIV/AIDS interventions and its implications for value-for-money strategies to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa. The researchers found that cost-effectiveness varied greatly between interventions. They argue that a strong economic case exists for prioritisation of preventive interventions and tuberculosis treatment. Where potentially exclusive alternatives exist, cost-effectiveness analysis points to an intervention that offers the best value for money. The article concludes that cost-effectiveness analysis is an essential component of informed debate about priority setting for HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED)","field_subtitle":"Vacancy notice for Post of Coordinator","field_url":"","body":"COHRED is looking for a Coordinator to lead the organisation into the next phase of its development.  COHRED's vision is to attain a system of effective health research as a tool for development, based on values of equity and social justice and targeting the health problems of those most in need.  COHRED works with numerous developing countries, research networks, UN agencies and other organisations to advocate for country-driven health research, based on the ENHR approach.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29527","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Do human rights have a role in public health work? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/journal.isa","body":"What role do human rights have in public health work?  Since the early stages of the women's health, reproductive health, and indigenous health movements it has been asserted that public health policies must incorporate human rights norms and standards.  Lack of respect for human rights has hampered development in such areas as mental health care and control of sexually transmitted infections. Lately, however, it has been argued that \"Human rights based approaches to HIV/AIDS prevention might have reduced the role of public health and social justice, which offer a more applied and practical framework .  .  .  in Africa's devastating epidemic\". The underlying assumption is that in a human rights approach individual rights are protected at all costs--even despite adverse effects on the public's health.  Yet a rights-based approach does not privilege protection of individual rights over the public good.  This apparent tension should be addressed to enable the creation of sound public health policies and programmes.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"DYING FOR CHANGE: POOR PEOPLES EXPERIENCE OF HEALTH AND ILL-HEALTH ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/voices/reports/dying/index.htm","body":"Poverty and health are closely linked. As people consider disease and ill-health to be a cause of poverty; they also consider good health of themselves and of the family breadwinner to be essential for economic survival and as a route out of poverty. This is one of the findings of a study produced as part of a collaboration between the World Bank and the World Health Organisation (WHO). The Voices of the Poor study also found that poor peoples values, networks and support mechanisms are being eroded by the strain of increasing poverty and urbanisation. In addition, poor people often feel that their voices are excluded or marginalised when considerations are made for improving public health and health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Effort to Fight HIV/AIDS and Famine in Africa Should Focus on Women, Annan Says","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?hint=1&DR_ID=15275","body":"In order to \"save Africa from two catastrophes\" - the HIV/AIDS epidemic and famine - \"we would do well to focus on saving Africa's women,\" U.N.  Secretary-General Kofi Annan writes in a New York Times opinion piece.  Women account for 50% of the individuals infected with HIV worldwide and 58% of the HIV-positive people in Africa.  According to Annan, AIDS is \"attacking the capacity of these countries to resist famine by eroding those mechanisms that enable populations to fight back - the coping abilities provided by women.\" ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter January 2003 Will a new leadership unleash new potentials for health? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity in HIV/AIDS, Health Sector Responses and Treatment Access","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) and Oxfam GB are inviting expressions of interest from individuals or organisations based within the region for a programme of work on Equity issues in HIV/AIDS, Health Sector Responses and Treatment Access in Southern Africa between February and July 2003.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29494","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"eu-africa summit faces collapse over harare","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200212200473.html","body":"An upcoming EU-Africa summit could collapse if Zimbabwe is not allowed to attend, a South African government minister has hinted, saying the ball was in Europe's court.  Leaders from the 15-member EU and Africa are scheduled to meet in Lisbon, Portugal, from April 3-4, but an EU travel ban imposed on Government and Zanu-PF officials has raised doubts that the meeting will take place.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Failure to tackle AIDS puts millions at risk of starvation ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/325/7375/1257","body":"Millions of people are on the brink of starvation in southern Africa, warns the United Nations this week, partly because attempts to limit the spread of HIV have failed.  The HIV/AIDS epidemic has left millions of agricultural workers dead, land unfarmed, and families with no money to buy food, it says, and unless concerted action is taken now to stem the spread of AIDS many other regions could face similar crises in the future.  According to a report by UNAIDS (the joint UN programme on HIV and AIDS) and the World Health Organisation, nearly one in five adults in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe has HIV or AIDS, and 14 million people in the region are threatened by famine.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Fresh donations boost UN food aid to southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.malawihere.com/viewnews.asp?id=1354&recnum=8&catid=0","body":"Fresh, end-of-year contributions totalling more than $25.2 million have boosted emergency operations in southern Africa out of a weeks-long funding slump, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said at the close of 2002.  The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has warned of potential problems across the region with lower than expected rainfall in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Zambia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"GLOBAL COALITION AIMS TO EXPAND ACCESS TO HIV/AIDS TREATMENT","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.itacoalition.org/content.html?folder=4&envelope=5&page=13","body":"A new international coalition - the International HIV Treatment Access Coalition (ITAC) - has been launched to boost efforts to provide access to antiretroviral drugs to the growing number of people with HIV/AIDS in low- and middle-income countries who need them.  According to WHO/UNAIDS estimates presented in a report launched by the Coalition, millions of people living with HIV/AIDS in low- and middle-income countries face death within the coming years unless they can access these life-saving medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HEALTH AND PRSPS: AN EARLY EXPERIENCE ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.healthsystemsrc.org/Pdfs/Health_PRSPs.pdf","body":"As Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) have become a prominent development tool it is important to consider how health is addressed in the PRSP process. This is examined in an issues paper produced on behalf the UK Department for International Development (DFID) by the DFID Health Systems Resource Centre (HSRC). The paper aims to provide a briefing on the PRSP process, discussing their role, the guidance on PRSP preparation related to health, and reviewing some recent experience. The PRSP process has typically been handled at a senior level and has led to a shift in responsibility for poverty issues to the Ministry of Finance. This has improved the potential to link poverty work to broader resource allocation decisions. However, while the PRSP process has high principles for country ownership and the participation of civil society, many civil society organisations (CSOs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are disappointed with the extent and nature of participation. The paper also stresses that the health sections of the PRSPs tend to be brief and contain standard types of statements of policy and strategy but they can have a major influence on health status and health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health-wealth unhappiness: healthcare inequalities in South Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h2lg1g1.html","body":"South Africa has relatively abundant health sector resources, but national health status indicators are poor.  How can resources be used more effectively to improve healthcare?  How does the unequal distribution of resources contribute to the poor performance of health services?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"HighWire Press ","field_subtitle":"a community of online scientific journals","field_url":"http://www.highwire.org/","body":"Stanford University Libraries' HighWire Press began in early 1995 with the online production of the weekly Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC), the most highly cited (and second largest) peer-reviewed journal. Scientists and societies rapidly saw the potential for new forms and features of scientific communication, and Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences soon joined JBC online. HighWire now (January 2003) produces 346 sites online, with many more planned. The journals HighWire supports focus on science, technology, and medicine (STM).  Under the guidance of its publishing partners, HighWire's approach to online publishing of scholarly journals is not simply to mount electronic images of printed pages; rather, by adding links among authors, articles and citations, advanced searching capabilities, high-resolution images and multimedia, and interactivity, the electronic versions provide added dimensions to the information provided in the printed journals. The site has recently been redesigned to help researchers comprehensively search and gain access to the literature easily and to help librarians support their researchers and institutions with more complete and improved services. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS Training Program for Medical Doctors in Africa","field_subtitle":"Call for Applications","field_url":"","body":"This is a call for applications for the HIV/AIDS Training Program for Medical Doctors in Africa for the year 2003.  The HIV/AIDS Training Program is a one-month, full-time, non-resident course with a 10-person capacity.  A total of 5 applicants from outside of Uganda and 5 applicants from Uganda will be selected.  The course entails a comprehensive overview of HIV/AIDS related basic science, epidemiology, care and treatment, and prevention for adult and paediatric populations.  The course includes clinical experience and classroom teaching with instruction provided by both national and international HIV/AIDS experts.  The course includes examinations.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29506","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"How IMF Policies Block the Global Fund","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\"It is very genocidal for one part of the world to have the cure for the AIDS disease while millions of people in another part are dying from the same. The developed world is challenged to make antiretroviral drugs available,\" declared Uganda's President Museveni in the New Vision newspaper of 11 December 2002. But only weeks before this declaration, Uganda's Ministry of Finance made it virtually impossible for the Ministry of Health to accept a grant from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, a grant that could help to make antiretroviral drugs available. \"Any new donor monies absorbed into a government sector must be accompanied by a similar reduction within the sector in order to keep the expenditure limit,\" said Francis Tumuheirwe, director of budget in Uganda's ministry of finance. In other words, if Uganda gets the $52 million it asked from the Global Fund, it will simply reduce its own contribution to the health budget, which will remain the same, with or without Global Fund monies. This means that President Museveni can call for as much international financial support for antiretroviral therapy as he wants, but as long as his own Ministry of Finance is firmly committed to an International Monetary Fund and World Bank public health budget that doesn't exceed $9 per person per year - \"no matter how much donors are willing to provide\" - the inaccessibility of antiretroviral therapy, described as a 'genocide' by the President himself, will continue. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29529","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Human resources impact assessment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/pdf/2002/bul-7-E-2002/80(7)525.pdf","body":"Many decision-makers readily point to human resource problems as the chief bottleneck they face in attempting to scale up health systems.  Yet time and again the reform agenda neatly skirts around the sensitive and difficult issues involved\u2014not least because there are major gaps in the knowledge base required for a realistic workforce strategy.  This editorial of the World Health Organisation Bulletin provides an overview of the role of human resources within the health sector, regardless of whether it is public or private. The editorial discusses the importance of human resources management within the health sector, and suggests that policy-makers and donors concerned with human resources problems may want to request those proposing a major new project or policy to make a systematic and formal \u2018human resource impact assessment\u2019 during its preparation.  Such assessments would examine the likely effects of the proposed project or policy on the health workforce.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"II International Forum for the Advocacy of Peoples\u2019 Health","field_subtitle":"Porto Alegre, January 20th \u2013 23rd, 2003","field_url":"","body":"Four hundred participants of the I International Forum for the Advocacy of Peoples' Health, performed in Porto Alegre in January 2002, soon before the II World Social Forum (WSF), recommended the accomplishment of a II International Forum for the Advocacy of Peoples' Health preceding the III WSF in January 2003.  This will allow a widened participation of all those interested, a preparation of the contributions on health issues for the III WSF, and, at the same time, to raise the health theme to a power in the several activities within the WSF itself. Conclusions of the I International Forum, available through the link below, summarize the objective and the motivation for this II Forum, where we want to build an International Agenda on the Defense of the Health Right, as well as to launch the basis for an international call for the accomplishment of the I World Forum for the Advocacy of Health in Porto Alegre \u2013 Brazil, in the first semester of 2004.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29511","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"INCREASING ACCESS TO ","field_subtitle":"POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS AND STRATEGY","field_url":"","body":"This report of the UK Working Group on Increasing Access to Essential Medicines in the Developing World proposes that pharmaceutical companies provide drugs at near to cost price for HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria to the poorest countries.  In return those governments would guarantee that tariffs are removed and reduced cost drugs will not be re-exported whilst development agencies commit to working with such governments to develop basic health care systems capable of delivering the drugs to the people in need.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29498","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"International Law, Human Rights and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/pdf/2002/bul-12-E-2002/80(12)964-969.pdf","body":"This article explores the relevance of international human rights law in the response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic at national and international levels.  Public health advocates can use arguments based on this body of law to promote responses to HIV/AIDS that reflect sound public health principles and documented best practices. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"INTERNSHIPS AVAILABLE ","field_subtitle":"THE WOMEN\u2019S DIGNITY PROJECT","field_url":"","body":"The Women\u2019s Dignity Project (WDP) is seeking two interns to work with WDP for six-month to one-year internships in 2003 and 2004 (internships for shorter periods are generally not available).  A modest stipend will be paid to interns, but the bulk of costs will be the responsibility of the intern.  If interested, please contact the Executive Director of WDP at wdp@cats-net.com or at PO Box 79402, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The Women\u2019s Dignity Project (WDP) was created to mobilize action for the prevention and management of obstetric fistula within a framework of health and gender equity, and human rights.\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29509","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Joint effort  can turn pandemic around - Lewis","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa could be turned around, despite the devastating toll on human lives, UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis, says.  Lewis noted that defeating the disease would require a combination of political will and resources.  \"The political will is increasingly there; the money is not,\" he said.  A key element that had emerged from his visit to Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Malawi and Zambia was the important role of the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.  The Global Fund was seen as the best way of financing the struggle against the pandemic, but it would soon face its \"moment of truth\", as a result of inadequate funding, Lewis warned.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29508","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Launch of new discussion group ProCAARE-ART","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"ProCAARE-ART, a new electronic forum, aims to develop an information and communication network that supports the rational prescription, appropriate use, and adherence to antiretroviral therapy for those infected with HIV.  Given the increasing access to antiretroviral drugs and the scaling up of treatment programs, the need to administer these drugs in a safe and effective manner is critical.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29503","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Llewellyn Leonard ","field_subtitle":"groundWork","field_url":"","body":"I work for an NGO called groundWork. groundWork is a young South African NGO working primarily on \"brown issues\". One of our projects is Health Care Waste and Incineration. groundWork is committed to the process of reducing the impacts of health care waste and incineration and the potential impacts that it poses towards enhancing a sustainable society. (For more information visit www.groundwork.org.za) groundWork's Health Care Waste and Incineration Project was established in 2001. The project aims to reduce and if possible eliminate the harmful effects of both health care waste and incineration on human health and the environment. Desktop studies have shown that almost half of health care waste being generated in the KwaZulu-Natal province cannot be accounted for, suggesting that it is being illegally dumped, thus affecting the health of people and the environment.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29493","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"MOBILISING NGOS, CBOS AND PLHA GROUPS FOR  IMPROVING ACCESS TO HIV/AIDS-RELATED TREATMENT ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsalliance.org/_docs/index_eng.htm","body":"This handbook, produced by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and downloadable in three parts, aims to provide practical, experience-based advice and examples for people and organisations working to improve access to HIV/AIDS treatment. The book explores care and treatment, providing an introduction to links between treatment and prevention and barriers to access to treatment.  It discusses both the practical and ethical factors involved with treatment work, including a factsheet on antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, choosing, sourcing and supplying them.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"more money and greater focus needed in aids battle","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=15432","body":"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29534","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"ONLINE TB FORUM ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"TB-EDucate is a forum that provides the opportunity to ask questions, share comments, and exchange information with other subscribers.  Discussions should be limited to questions, comments, and the exchange of information pertaining to tuberculosis health education and training issues.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29492","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Peace Takes Hold Across Southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://athena.tbwt.com/content/article.asp?articleid=2215","body":"With a little bit of trust and goodwill on the part of Southern Africa's leaders, 2003 could see peace take hold across the region.  \u2018'There have been a lot of developments in the region in the past year, and prospects for peace looks good, even if there is little to show for it right now,'' says South Africa's Institute for Security Studies researcher Hans Pienaar.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"PMTCT Advisor","field_subtitle":"Center for Disease Control ","field_url":"","body":"Incumbent will be working with the Global AIDS Program, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), South Africa.  Incumbent will provide technical assistance to CDC and the HIV/AIDS, STD and TB Directorate within the National Department of Health (NDOH) in the development, implementation and evaluation of PMTCT communication strategies, integration of HIV counseling activities and the monitoring and evaluation of PMTCT programs at the national and provincial levels.  The incumbent will work in close collaboration with the Deputy Director of Research, HIV/AIDS, STD and TB Directorate, and the Chief Directorate of MCWH and Nutrition.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29505","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Representing the African voice in health research","field_subtitle":"Africa Health Research Forum ","field_url":"","body":"The Africa Health Research Forum (AfHRF) aims to represent the African voice in health research in the continent and internationally; to serve as a platform for accelerating health research development in the African continent and in making the region an effective partner in the global health research system. To read more about \r\nAfHRF's activities click on the link provided below.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29533","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS ON THE LINE ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.crlp.org/pub_art_hiv.html","body":"There are seven key areas of concern for HIV positive women and girls in terms of their reproductive rights in the current response to HIV/AIDS, according to a document produced by the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP). Mother to child transmission (MTCT), argue the authors, overlooks the mother as a woman in her own right. They state that policies aimed at curbing MTCT may also hold women solely accountable for their child's HIV infection. Women and young people, especially adolescent girls, are particularly vulnerable to HIV infection due to an increased biological susceptibility and lower socioeconomic and political status. The report also states that the debate over breastfeeding or formula milk has ignored the health of mothers and that once a woman becomes HIV-positive, some national policies restrict her right to become pregnant, carry her pregnancy to term, or even marry. Meanwhile, many countries have a very limited right to abortion which does not include HIV status and that some countries have enacted national policies meant to curb MTCT that not only rely on inconclusive evidence but also curtail women's rights. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS ON THE LINE ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.crlp.org/pub_art_hiv.html","body":"There are seven key areas of concern for HIV positive women and girls in terms of their reproductive rights in the current response to HIV/AIDS, according to a document produced by the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP).  Mother to child transmission (MTCT), argue the authors, overlooks the mother as a woman in her own right.  They state that policies aimed at curbing MTCT may also hold women solely accountable for their child's HIV infection.  Women and young people, especially adolescent girls, are particularly vulnerable to HIV infection due to an increased biological susceptibility and lower socioeconomic and political status.  The report also states that the debate over breastfeeding or formula milk has ignored the health of mothers and that once a woman becomes HIV-positive, some national policies restrict her right to become pregnant, carry her pregnancy to term, or even marry. Meanwhile, many countries have very limited right to abortion which does not include HIV status and that some countries have enacted national policies meant to curb MTCT that not only rely on inconclusive evidence but also curtail women's rights.   ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SEX & SECRECY CONFERENCE","field_subtitle":"4TH Conference of the International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society (IASSCS)","field_url":"","body":"The conference will be hosted by the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER), the Gay and Lesbian Archives of South Africa (GALA) and the Graduate School for the Humanities and Social Sciences. For further details of the conference, including the call for papers (deadline for submission of abstracts 31 January 2003) visit the conference website:\r\nhttp://wiserweb.wits.ac.za/conf2003","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29507","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS TOO, SAYS IPPF ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A fundamental human right - the right to life - was being denied to the 600 000 women a year who died through pregnancy-related causes, said International Planned Parenthood Federation's Senior Human Rights Coordinator Karen Newman, who was speaking at a House of Commons, 'Health and Human Rights: The Role of International Organisations' event.  \"What makes this a human rights tragedy is that we have the technology and know-how to prevent the vast majority of these deaths, but saving these women's lives does not have the global priority that it should,\" she said.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29496","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS TOO, SAYS IPPF ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A fundamental human right - the right to life - was being denied to the 600 000 women a year who died through pregnancy-related causes, said International Planned Parenthood Federation's Senior Human Rights Coordinator Karen Newman, who was speaking at a House of Commons, 'Health and Human Rights: The Role of International Organisations' event.  \"What makes this a human rights tragedy is that we have the technology and know-how to prevent the vast majority of these deaths, but saving these women's lives does not have the global priority that it should,\" she said.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29501","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa's HIV/AIDS YOUTH PROGRAMMES PAY OFF","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200211260444.html","body":"The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) says South Africa's responses to the impact of the disease on young people, are paying off. Releasing its latest report on the epidemic, the UNAIDS said HIV prevalence among teenagers in South Africa shrank between 1998 and 2001.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTH AFRICA: STATE SOFTENS STANCE ON AIDS DRUGS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=13&art_id=vn20021212055920564C185218&set_id=1","body":"The government's stance on the use of anti-retroviral drugs is increasingly softening, with Deputy President Jacob Zuma saying their use could improve the condition of people living with AIDS.  This represents a major shift in the government's position, which had been that anti-retroviral drugs were toxic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SPOTTING THE DIFFERENCE: THE FIGHT AGAINST MEASLES IN SOUTHERN AFRICA ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h4rb4g1.html","body":"The measles vaccine is safe and highly effective, so why is this disease still the leading cause of death among African children?  The governments of seven countries in southern Africa have implemented targeted measles elimination campaigns over the past five years with help from the World Health Organisation (WHO).  How successful have they been?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Teaching-aids At Low Cost ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.talcuk.org","body":"We were very interested to see your newsletter which contains a wealth of up-to-date news on medical issues. TALC is a UK Charity dedicated to distributing health information and training to countries in the South in particular sub-Saharan Africa. Teaching-Aids At Low Cost produces and distributes low cost health materials (Books, slide sets, CD-ROMS and accessories) particularly for developing countries and you may like to inform your members of our website at www.talcuk.org which contains a complete list of all our materials.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"The Health of Nations: Why Inequality is Harmful to your Health ","field_subtitle":"Ichiro Kawachi, Bruce P Kennedy. New York: The New Press, 2002","field_url":"http://www.thenewpress.com/books/healthnation.htm","body":"Applying to the United States the kind of scrutiny that Nobel\u2013prize winning economist Amartya Sen has devoted to developing countries, The Health of Nations demonstrates that growing inequality is undermining health, welfare, and community life in America.  Harvard professors Ichiro Kawachi and Bruce P.  Kennedy review the social costs of inequality, revealing that the United States and other wealthy countries with high levels of social inequality have lower general health than do more equitable societies, rich or poor.  The Health of Nations makes an urgent argument for social justice as the necessary vehicle for the betterment of society, including improving the health of our bodies and our body politic.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Million Signature Campaign - Demanding Health For All Now!","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.TheMillionSignatureCampaign.org","body":"\"In the next 24 hours, over 30,000 children will die from preventable diseases on our planet earth.  Today, while the world is writing a collective obituary of the future generation, we know why they are dying and we know who are responsible for these deaths.  We also know how these deaths can be stopped. We urge you to join 'The Million Signature Campaign', - a march demanding health for all.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"TRACKING ROUTES TOWARDS IMPACT: RESEARCH TO POLICY LINKAGES ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/id21-info/impact/report.pdf","body":"Research on international development investigates new policies and strategies that can help in the fight against global poverty and for a better standard of living for all.  But there is little point to this research if it is not communicated effectively to the people who have the ability to act on its recommendations and implement the necessary changes.  Who are these people, what types of research are they interested in, and what are the best ways to communicate this research to them?  In early 2002, id21, the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, set about addressing these questions by surveying, interviewing and collecting comments from over 1900 NGO and aid agency staff, politicians, policy-makers, students and researchers.  The results of these surveys have now been analysed to produce a comprehensive set of insights into how development research and its effective communication can influence policy and help bring about social change.  A summary of reports is available from http://www.id21.org/id21-info/impact/summary.pdf, while the full report is available from the URL provided below.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"TRADITIONAL MEDICINE AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH IN AFRICA ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.inasp.org.uk/ajol/journals/ajrh/vol6no2abs.html","body":"There has been intense public health debate in many parts of Africa to determine the most appropriate official policy towards traditional medicines for reproductive health care.  The author of this editorial argues that because traditional practitioners work more closely with the grassroots compared to orthodox practitioners, traditional practitioners would be more able to advocate for changing behaviours that impact negatively on reproductive health in Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"WEB-BASED HIV/AIDS, TB AND MALARIA TOOL ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Global Health Initiative (GHI) of the World Economic Forum is developing a web-based networking tool, which is aimed at fostering new partnerships and greater private sector action against HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria.  The GHI Networking Directory, available at http://www.weforum.org/globalhealth/directory , enables businesses and other users to easily identify useful contacts and potential partners in the battle against HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria.  The directory lists NGOs working with the private sector, as well as companies that have existing programs or expertise to share.  It also includes academic institutions and other organisations that provide technical assistance or advice.  The target audience for this website is businesses and others wanting to start or improve programmes, usually in the workplace or in local communities.  There are no fees involved with participating.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29491","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"wfp Director Calls for Increased Funds To Fight AIDS, Famine in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=14932","body":"African nations need a \"massive infusion of funds\" to save 38 million people from starvation, World Food Programme Director James Morris told a public meeting of the United Nations Security Council last month, adding that food aid was \"crucial\" in the fight against AIDS, Agence France-Presse reports.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"What can be done about the private health sector in low-income countries?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/pdf/2002/bul-4-E-2002/80(4)325-330.pdf","body":"Improving the quality of private health care provision in developing countries is of major importance to the livelihoods of poor people.  This article was published in the \u2018Bulletin of the World Health Organisation\u2019 and summarises how the activities of the private health sector in low-income countries can be influenced so that national health objectives are met. The article begins with an overview of the characteristics of the private health sector in developing countries.  It continues with a summary of how to improve both the supply and the demand for private health care.  To close, the authors list the possibilities available to governments for improved stewardship of the private sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"who may intervene over drugs debacle","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=15434","body":"The European Union has proposed that the World Health Organisation serve as an objective third party in an attempt to stop the \"impasse\" in negotiations among 144 World Trade Organisation members about how to improve developing nations' access to drugs used to fight public health crises, including HIV/AIDS, the AP/Nando Times reports.  The United States' position that only certain types of diseases should be covered under the deal \"blocked\" ambassadors from meeting a self-imposed deadline of Dec.  31, 2002, according to the AP/Nando Times.  The negotiations focus on how to allow developing nations to import generic versions of patented drugs to fight diseases such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Will a new leadership unleash new potentials for health? ","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson,  EQUINET","field_url":"","body":"In August 2002 Gro Harlen Bruntland, Director General (DG) of WHO, announced that she would not seek a second term as DG.  This issue of the EQUINET newsletter compiles some of the debates and papers that have been presented around her record at WHO, the candidates for the new DG and the selection process itself.  The political moment created by the election of a new DG stimulates debate about WHO\u2019s priorities and role in international and global health, as the leadership qualities sought in a new DG should reflect those roles. \r\n\r\nBruntland\u2019s achievements at WHO are notable.  She raised the profile of health in the global agenda, including within economic and political forums and is reported to have restored WHO\u2019s credibility with donors. She launched a number of global health campaigns.  During her period as DG, WHO has reasserted itself as an international standard-setting body around areas such as tobacco control,  pre-qualification for procurement of antiretrovirals,  food safety standards, and essential drugs.  Bruntland had some success at negotiating partnerships with foundations and the private sector.  \r\n\r\nYet the debate on WHO priorities and the realities of health from the perspective of a southern African network indicate that there are many unresolved issues.  Whatever the changes that were achieved at global level, they have not been felt at country level.  Poverty and unavoidable and unfair inequalities in opportunities for and access to health are pronounced and persistent.   Despite this WHO is not perceived to have been a strong public advocate for health equity or for protecting public health in economic and trade policies. Neither is there a perception of the powerful advocacy of primary health care or of forms of  health financing that enhance access to health care in poor  communities, in women and other vulnerable groups. In contrast, in an environment of  rapid and powerfully driven market reforms and privatization, there is some criticism of WHO unwillingness to confront commercial interests over patient interests in access to medicines under TRIPs, or protect national authority rights to regulate private health providers under the WTO GATS agreement. \r\n\r\nHence even while the Macroeconomic Commission on Health raised the profile of the US$27bn shortfall in global resources for health, and the Global Health Fund (GHF) created one vehicle for responding to this shortfall, the impact  of these global shifts has been weak.  Beyond the insufficient and poorly sustained funding of the GHF, WHO has not yet made clear or put its international policy weight behind the public policy measures needed nationally and globally to ensure that health services and systems spend more on those with greatest need.  This has left a number of issues poorly addressed, such as for example the attrition and loss in health personnel from public to private sectors and from low to high income countries;  the  collapse of  primary care level services in some countries; the shift in the burden of caring for HIV/AIDS to poor households and inability to secure treatment access in many low income countries, or the still weak link between public health and the wider systems of rights and procedural justice needed to manage the contestation over scarce resources for health.  \r\n\r\nThe nature of the issues to be addressed, and their significance in Africa make the policies of the next  DG a matter of some concern for Africans.  The public policy shortfalls identified above do not simply call for business as usual with a bit more focus on Africa.  In the same way as poor people\u2019s health needs demand a wider review of public policy generally, so too does meeting the needs of health in Africa demand critical review of wider global, international  and national health policies for where they generate vulnerability and impede public health authorities in Africa making coherent responses to ill health.  \r\n\r\nThis editorial does not scrutinize the candidates \u2013 there are links to articles about the candidates at the end of this editorial. While effort has been made to make the process of selection of the DG more open to public debate through journal papers and email lists,  in fact the process is still tightly controlled within the 32 health ministers in the Executive Board.   It would however be important to make two comments.  The first is to note the presence as a candidate of Pascal Mocumbi, a southern African who has championed health equity for many years, both working on ways of providing incentives for health equity and articulating equity oriented policies,  including as at the 1997 Kasane meeting that launched EQUINET.  The second is to note that while individual attributes, perspectives and experience are clearly important, the challenges to be addressed by the new DG call for wider alliances for health.  Here perhaps WHO has untapped potential:  A number of partnerships for service delivery have been built by WHO. \r\n\r\nBruntland has mobilized resources and raised the political profile of health.  The challenge for a new DG is to bring in new strategic alliances and constituencies that advance WHOs role as global advocate for public health and that bridge global opportunity with national practice.  Beyond the technical and political support that has been raised,  this implies tapping into the massive social  support  that exists for health rights and values. \r\n\r\nLINKS: \r\n(Please note that links to articles from The Lancet require a short and easy registration process)\r\n\r\n* AND THE NOMINEES FOR DG ARE \u2026\r\n \r\nhttp://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol360/iss9348/full/llan.360.9347.news.23403.1\r\n\r\n* NINE CANDIDATES LINE UP FOR TOP POST\r\n \r\nhttp://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/325/7375/1259?ijkey=l5xSvpnNpSrp6 \r\n\r\n* WHO\u2019S NEXT DG \u2013 THE PERSON AND THE PROGRAMME\r\n \r\nhttp://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol360/iss9348/full/llan.360.9348.editorial_and_review.23505.1\r\n\r\n* HAVE THE LATEST REFORMS REVERSED THE WHO\u2019S DECLINE\r\n\r\nhttp://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/325/7372/1107?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=World+Health+Organisation+and+Bruntland&searchid=1040232817123_11702&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&fdate=12/1/1998&resourcetype=1,2,3,4,10 \r\n\r\n* ELECTION PROCEDURES LOW AND SECRETIVE\r\n\r\n http://www.thelancet.com/journal/journal.isa \r\n\r\n* LETTER TO THE LANCET ON ELECTION PROCEDURES\r\n \r\nhttp://www.afronets.org/afronets-hma/afro-nets.200210/msg00057.php","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"WORLD fails to grasp impact of Hiv/Aids, feachem says","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=15098","body":"The world \"has still not grasped\" the full \"devastation\" and threat of HIV/AIDS, which has killed 24 million people worldwide and is \"still nowhere near its peak,\" Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said in December.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Young Heed AIDS Warning","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://abcnews.go.com/wire/SciTech/reuters20021205_369.html","body":"More young South Africans are heeding safe sex campaigns and cutting their chances of getting AIDS or the HIV virus which causes it, a new survey said last month, heartening the nation worst hit by the pandemic. But despite the promising trend the survey highlighted high infection levels among young children.  It also urged the government to act quickly to give people with HIV the anti-retroviral drugs which can slow the onset of AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2003-01-09","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"ACCESS TO ESSENTIAL DRUGS MAY BE UNDERMINED BY GLOBAL PATENT AGREEMENT","field_subtitle":"December 1, World AIDS Day ","field_url":"","body":"A third of the world\u2019s population still has no access to essential drugs. In the poorest countries of Africa and Asia this figure rises to half. With the global agreement on intellectual property rights (TRIPS) forcing countries to introduce new patent protection laws over the next decade, this situation could worsen, according to a new report from the London-based Panos Institute. \r\n\r\nDeveloping countries have until 2005 or 2016 to implement TRIPS-compliant legislation on pharmaceuticals. So far many governments have drafted or enacted legislation that seems to prioritise patent rights over public health. Some countries are being pressurised into adopting policies that go further than TRIPS in protecting patents. Patents give big international pharmaceutical firms monopoly over production of new drugs, including, for example, those needed to treat HIV/AIDS. \r\n\r\nThere is concern they may push up prices, and the TRIPS rules could thus limit poor countries\u2019 freedom to buy cheaper \u201cgeneric\u201d versions of patented drugs. For example, in January 2001, South African HIV/AIDS treatment activist Zackie Ahmat went to Thailand to buy 5,000 pills of the generic version of an anti-fungal drug patented by the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. He paid $0.21 a pill. The price of the patented version in South Africa was $13.\r\n\r\nThe Panos Report, 'Patents, Pills and Public Health: can TRIPS deliver?' warns that patent legislation is not being debated widely enough in most developing countries, and the process of introducing it needs to be more consultative and transparent. In Uganda, for example, American consultants were brought in to review the country\u2019s patent laws and make proposals for reform. The result was the drafting of laws which, according to local campaigners, are skewed in favour of business interests rather than social or development needs. The principle of extending access to essential drugs in poor countries is widely supported, but the means of doing this is still hotly disputed, says the report. \r\n\r\nAccording to the World Bank, middle-income countries may benefit from increased foreign investment, but if the cost of drugs rises as a result of patent systems spreading throughout the developing world, there is a real danger of restricting access to drugs, such as anti-AIDS drugs, where they are most needed. The World Health Organisation suggests that implementing patent protection where it did not already exist would result in the average price of drugs rising, with projected increases ranging from 12 to 200 percent.\r\n\r\nThe pharmaceutical industry argues that patent systems promote innovation and investment in research and development. Without patents, new ones would not be developed to tackle diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. They believe the real barriers to making drugs more available are poverty, weak political leadership, lack of trained health personnel and poor health infrastructures.\r\n\r\nThe report examines alternative approaches and gives examples where differential pricing (where poorer countries pay considerably less for a product than wealthier ones) and compulsory licensing (where a patent is overridden in return for a payment of a royalty) have potential, although they are not free of problems. Two countries highlighted in the report, show how differently patent protection can impact on the nation\u2019s public health: Brazil is seen as a model for other countries of what can be achieved for public health by boosting local production of drugs such as the anti-AIDS drug AZT, lowering prices through competition and negotiating discounts on patented drugs. Between 1996 and 2001 around 358,000 AIDS hospitalisations were prevented, saving around $1.1 billion. On the other hand, Thailand\u2019s capacity to provide essential drugs for its people has been severely limited in the last decade due to relentless pressure from the US to tighten up its patent laws which, they complained, meant the loss of $30 million a year in sales for the American pharmaceutical industry because it referred only to pharmaceutical processes and not products. The US went as far as imposing $165 millions\u2019 worth of sanctions on eight Thai products exported to the US. The US continued to exert pressure until the patent laws were changed and made even more restrictive than the international TRIPS agreement requires. \r\n\r\n\u201cThis report should be a wake-up call to developing countries to look carefully at how they go about complying with TRIPS legislation and make sure that access to essential drugs is kept as an overriding right for the entire population \u2013 not just a wealthy few\u201d says Martin Foreman, author of the Panos report.\r\n\r\n* The full report and additional country studies can be downloaded from this website http://www.panos.org.uk/ \r\n\r\n* The Panos Institute is an independent, non-profit organisation specialising in communication for development. It works to catalyse informed public debate, particularly in developing countries. It has 12 offices in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to HIV/AIDS Treatment - and Human Rights","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/10/ftaa1029-bck.htm","body":"Though developing countries face inordinate barriers in their struggles against AIDS, one glimmer of hope has been the development of safe, effective anti-retroviral drugs by governments, research institutes, and private pharmaceutical companies.  These drugs are a vital part of the limited arsenal countries have in preventing and managing the medical effects of AIDS and thereby securing the human rights of their citizens.  By insisting on a particular patent regime at the behest of multinational pharmaceutical companies, one that goes beyond even what is contained in TRIPS, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is betraying an international consensus reached at Doha and arbitrarily interfering with developing countries\u2019 good faith efforts to improve and lengthen the lives of their citizens.  This is a conclusion of a briefing paper by Human Rights Watch, which begins by giving an outline of the WTO's Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreement (TRIPS) and of the Doha declaration by WTO members, which states that countries can bypass patents in medical emergencies.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICA: AIDS - WORST YET TO COME, BUT POSITIVE SIGNS EMERGING","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"For many African countries the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic is still to come, according to a new UN report. \"In the absence of massively expanded prevention, treatment and care efforts, the AIDS death toll on the continent is expected to continue rising before peaking around the end of this decade,\" the UNAIDS/World Health Organisation AIDS Epidemic Update 2002 said.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29480","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"africa: DEBT RELIEF AND THE HIV/AIDS CRISIS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/policy/papers/25aidsdebt/25aidsdebt.pdf","body":"HIV/AIDS is an enormous development crisis and debt repayment represents a remarkable obstacle to the fight against it.  HIV/AIDS claims more than one million lives each year in heavily indebted countries.  Half of the countries receiving debt relief under the Enhanced Heavily Indebted Countries Initiative are still spending 15 per cent or more of government revenue on debt repayment.  This paper, produced by Oxfam, highlights that repayments to creditors by these countries are diverting resources needed to find a solution to this terrible pandemic.  Debt repayment is taking precedence over human needs.  In order to convert debt transfers into public investments in health, a radical reform of the Enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative is required so that these countries can spend more on public health than on debt and so that debt relief can be seen as a strategy for creating more resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICA: PROSPECTIVE AID AND INDEBTEDNESS RELIEF","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eurodad.org/uploadstore/cms/docs/PAIRrevisedfinalfnoteversion.pdf","body":"This paper by the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) outlines a 15 year programme for implementing the 2015 human development targets and a potential solution for the indebtedness of 49 countries.  This proposal requires a multilateral collaboration among all the participants and additional contributions from 23 countries equal to 0.1 of 1% of their GNP over each of the 15 years.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICA: REAL IMPACT OF NEW POVERTY ANALYSIS UNCERTAIN","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/update/31/3101.html","body":"The first clear indications of how the World Bank and IMF are going to conduct Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) are now available. A number of the pilot studies have been completed and a conference was recently held in Washington DC. NGOs have expressed concern that their objectives of opening up debates about different social and economic policy options are not being met through the current approaches. The World Bank and the IMF, under pressure from NGOs and some governments, have agreed to introduce more systematic analysis of the likely poverty impact of policies proposed in their loans. NGOs have argued that PSIA should look at macro-level policy alternatives, not just at the 'fine-tuning', timing and sequencing of pre-determined policies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"African Epidemics of Famine and HIV/AIDS Must Be Fought Together","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=14662","body":"Africa's twin epidemics of HIV/AIDS and famine must be fought together because they are intertwined, Alex de Waal, director of Justice Africa and an adviser to the U.N.  Economic Commission for Africa, writes in a New York Times op-ed.  HIV/AIDS is crippling African nations' ability to resist famine because the disease is killing young people who make up the majority of farmers and other laborers, de Waal says.  Meanwhile, famine and malnutrition destroy health, making people more susceptible to disease, more likely to quickly progress from HIV to AIDS and less likely to respond well to existing treatments, de Waal states, adding that the epidemics have disrupted social structures and made it more difficult for affected populations to recover.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS epidemic update","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/entity/hiv/facts/epiupdate_en.pdf","body":"The annual AIDS epidemic update reports on the latest developments in the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.  With maps and regional summaries, the 2002 edition provides the most recent estimates of the epidemic's scope and human toll, explores new trends in the epidemic's evolution, and features a special section examining the links between HIV/ AIDS and humanitarian crises.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS Leading Cause of Death in South African Women","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=14731","body":"AIDS-related illnesses are now the leading cause of death among South African women ages 15 to 39, accounting for nearly 10% of deaths among South African women, according to new figures released by Statistics South Africa, SABCNews.com reports.  In addition, the proportion of South African deaths due to AIDS-related causes almost doubled from 4.6% in 1997 to 8.7% in 2001.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Bridging Research and Policy project ","field_subtitle":"call for preliminary case studies ","field_url":"","body":"The Global Development Network (GDN) are looking for case studies on the topic of bridging research and policy on development issues.  The Bridging Research and Policy project aims to collect 50 case studies of research-policy linkage during 2002.  Thirty case study proposals have now been approved, but more are urgently needed if the target of 50 cases by the end of the year is to be met.  The cases can focus on a specific project, a policy process or the work of an institution.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29456","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Bush Government Threatens To Roll Back Women's Reproductive Rights ","field_subtitle":"Sign the Petition","field_url":"","body":"\"As supporters of women's rights worldwide, we are deeply disturbed by the statement made by a US delegate at the recent Preparatory Meeting for the forthcoming Fifth Asian and Pacific Population Conference that will take place 11-17 December 2002 in Bangkok.  The US has threatened to withdraw from the Cairo Programme of Action of 1994 unless the words reproductive health services and reproductive rights are taken out or changed.  This is a shocking development which is a threat to women's rights and women's health world wide.  We demand that the Cairo Program of Action that has been endorsed by 179 nations be upheld.  Reproductive health services and reproductive rights are essential human rights.  Reproductive rights and reproductive health services are integral to the Cairo Program of Action.  If the US breaks their commitment to the United Nations and to the world community, there will be disastrous consequences for women in all parts of the world who are in need of safe and effective contraceptive and abortion information and services.  The position that the Bush administration has taken sets back the efforts of women's organisations by several decades and needs to be resisted.  We urge you to make your own statement of protest and send it to the US administration, to the UN and to sign our petition on line at: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/USantiWO/petition.html.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29433","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Bush Government Threatens To Roll Back Women's rights","field_subtitle":"Sign the Petition","field_url":"","body":"\"As supporters of women's rights worldwide, we are deeply disturbed by the statement made by a US delegate at the recent Preparatory Meeting for the forthcoming Fifth Asian and Pacific Population Conference that will take place 11-17 December 2002 in Bangkok.  The US has threatened to withdraw from the Cairo Programme of Action of 1994 unless the words 'reproductive health services' and 'reproductive rights' are taken out or changed.  This is a shocking development which is a threat to women's rights and women's health world wide.  We demand that the Cairo Program of Action that has been endorsed by 179 nations be upheld.  Reproductive health services and reproductive rights are essential human rights.  Reproductive rights and reproductive health services are integral to the Cairo Program of Action.  If the US breaks their commitment to the United Nations and to the world community, there will be disastrous consequences for women in all parts of the world who are in need of safe and effective contraceptive and abortion information and services.  The position that the Bush administration has taken sets back the efforts of women's organisations by several decades and needs to be resisted.  We urge you to make your own statement of protest and send it to the US administration, to the UN and to sign our petition on line at: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/USantiWO/petition.html.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29434","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"call for articles on poverty, health and development","field_subtitle":"Dr. Sunil Deepak, Director, Medical Support Department, AIFO","field_url":"","body":"We are planning the next issue of our periodic publication - Health Cooperation Papers -  planned for Spring 2003.  The theme of the publication is Poverty, Health and Development.  We are looking for small articles around this theme.  For example, the articles can be about: Personal experiences of growing up with poverty and what it meant for daily life; Experiences of working with poor and excluded population groups, especially for health-related activities; Successful strategies or failures in implementing activities aimed at poor population groups and the lessons learnt; Different concepts of development in different contexts and cultures; Poverty and gender.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29444","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"CONFERENCE DISCUSSES POVERTY AND AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=14463","body":"The United Nations held a two-day conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, in November to discuss the relationship between Africa's severe food shortages and the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Xinhua News Agency reports. More than 50 people, including U.N. delegates and representatives from local and international non-governmental agencies, were scheduled to meet at the conference. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Delivering HIV treatment - discussion summary available","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/hiv/report.html","body":"More than 120 individuals from many countries and diverse backgrounds joined this discussion list.  The debate covered a broad range of topics, focusing particularly on: HIV treatment as a priority relative to other health and development issues; Strategies for delivering treatment in resource-poor settings; The role and operation of the new Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria; Stigma as a barrier to access. The discussion provided a unique opportunity for a variety of stakeholders to share their views and contribute to this important and topical debate.  Hard copies of the report will be available soon.  To request a copy, email Tom Barker: tomb@ids.ac.uk ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Designing HIV/AIDS Intervention Studies","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/Materials/sld-6557.html","body":"This Operations Research Handbook shows how to use operations research (OR) to design programmes that effectively combat HIV/AIDS.  Written for programme administrators and researchers, the handbook draws on real-life lessons derived from projects implemented throughout the developing world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Engendering International Health: The Challenge of Equity","field_subtitle":"Gita Sen, Asha George and Piroska \u00d6stlin (Eds)","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/health/inthealthbook.pdf","body":"Engendering International Health presents the work of leading researchers on gender equity in international health.  Growing economic inequalities reinforce social injustices, stall health gains, and deny good health to many.  In particular, deep-seated gender biases in health research and policy institutions combine with a lack of well-articulated and accessible evidence to downgrade the importance of gender perspectives in health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter December 2002 ACCESS TO ESSENTIAL DRUGS MAY BE UNDERMINED BY GLOBAL PATENT AGREEMENT","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Famine \"Very Close\", WFP Warns","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200211280306.html","body":"The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe has deteriorated to the point where \"we are very close to famine\" among already weakened households, WFP Deputy Country Director Gawaher Atif told IRIN. WFP had aimed to feed three million vulnerable people in November, but does not have the food available to reach that target.  It will now have to prioritise who can be fed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Formula for success? Needs-based resource allocation in healthcare ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A country's policy on healthcare financing can help or hinder access to services by poor people.  How can different approaches to resource allocation enable poor people to access essential health services?  A report from the UK Department for International Development's Health Systems Resource Centre presents lessons from Cambodia, South Africa and Uganda. In many low-income countries resources are allocated through a mixture of political negotiation and incremental budgeting based on established patterns.  This can result in resources going disproportionately to more vocal and visible urban populations, perpetuating pre-existing inequity.  Allocation based on need would be a significant break with tradition. The report concludes that a needs-based approach is not necessarily pro-poor.  The definition of equity must be consistent with any existing pro-poor health policy.  Reallocation of resources takes time and should be incorporated into medium-term expenditure plans.  Using a formula is objective and transparent and preferable to more subjective alternatives.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Free Reproductive Health and Training Newsletter ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"JHPIEGO TrainerNews\u00a9 is a free monthly e-mail newsletter with current reproductive health training news, contraceptive briefs, training tips, announcements about reproductive health and training-related programs and activities, and profiles on Internet and CD-ROM resources of interest to reproductive health trainers.  The information is targeted to professionals working in low-resource settings.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29432","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"GROUP OF AFRICAN NATIONS APPLIES TO WTO FOR PERMISSION TO MANUFACTURE AIDS DRUGS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=14636","body":"The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, Africa's \"major free trade bloc,\" has applied to the World Trade Organisation for permission to manufacture generic versions of patented antiretroviral drugs, Reuters reports.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS Policy/Advocacy Specialist","field_subtitle":"Research Triangle Institute (RTI)","field_url":"","body":"The Research Triangle Institute (RTI) is looking for a HIV/AIDS Policy/Advocacy Specialist for a 4-year USAID project focusing on behaviour change to reduce HIV prevalence and reduce number of partners in Malawi to begin in January 2003.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29437","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving livelihoods for poor people in semi-arid areas: evidence from Zimbabwe ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=0&i=s1bkb1g1&u=3de9a6e1","body":"Do policymakers understand the coping and livelihood strategies of poor households in semi-arid areas?  What can be done to improve links between policy-makers and programme designers and poor farm households at risk from drought?  Does diversification into non-farming occupations offer a pathway out of poverty?  How can demand for new livelihood options be assessed? This report from the University of Birmingham\u2019s International Development Department sets out to model current livelihood strategies in three representative semi-arid areas of Zimbabwe.  Testing the hypothesis that diversification within farm enterprises and also into other sectors is the key pathway out of household poverty, it suggests new options and directions for understanding and supporting poor people\u2019s livelihoods.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Intl. J. for Equity in Health 2002, 1:1, 22 April 2002","field_subtitle":"Macinko J.A. and  Starfield B., \\'Annotated bibliography on Equity in Health\\'","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/1/1/1","body":"The purposes of this bibliography are to present an overview of the published literature on equity in health and to summarize key articles relevant to the mission of the International Society for Equity in Health (ISEqH).  The intent is to show the directions being taken in health equity research including theories, methods, and interventions to understand the genesis of inequities and their remediation.  Therefore, the bibliography includes articles from the health equity literature that focus on mechanisms by which inequities in health arise and approaches to reducing them where and when they exist.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"IRIN WEBSPECIAL ON WORLD AIDS DAY","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/webspecials/aids/","body":"AIDS threatens our very raison d'etre; our ability to live and our instinct to create life. Little wonder, therefore, that HIV and AIDS are so feared. As the articles in this IRIN World AIDS Day web special(http://www.irinnews.org/webspecials/aids/) illustrates, fear is at the heart of much of the stigma and discrimination that surrounds HIV and AIDS: fear of death, fear of the unknown, fear of rejection, and, as Eric Nachibanga, an HIV-positive Zambian points out, \"fear of helplessness\".\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Leading by example: lessons for the Global Fund ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=10&i=h1rb3g1&u=3de6021d","body":"Public-private partnerships are increasingly popular initiatives in international health.  The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) was launched in January 2000 with a donation of US$ 750 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  An assessment of its work by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine reveals important lessons for similar initiatives, including the new Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"local creation and adaption of health information","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iicd.org/news/","body":"Earlier this year, 'HIF-net at WHO' subscribers contributed ideas and perspectives around the theme of 'Local creation and adaptation of health information'.  This took the form of a vibrant discussion on 'HIF-net at WHO'.  Along with other material, the content of this discussion is helping to inform the G8 DOTS Force, a high-level international body 'addressing the global digital divide'.  In addition, 'HIF-net at WHO' subscribers and others worldwide contributed more than 30 detailed case stories on health information, which were collated by INASP.  These are now available in full at the URL provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Malaria in pregnancy \u2013 still high-risk after 20 years of research ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h8bo1g1.html","body":"Every year about 24 million African women become pregnant in areas where the risk of malaria is high.  They are more likely than other adults to become infected and this increases the risk of poor pregnancy outcome. Results of a study, funded by the UK Medical Research Council and conducted in The Gambia, emphasise the need for improved management of pregnancy and labour.  Since the first study 20 years ago, several trials have produced recommendations on strategies to tackle maternal malaria.  This serious public health problem may persist due to a lack of collaboration between scientists and policy-makers or because existing policy is not fully implemented. The researchers suggest that policy-makers should: Implement effective malaria control strategies for pregnant women, including the use of insecticide-treated bednets, and drugs to prevent and treat malaria; Ensure that control measures start as early as possible in pregnancy; Strengthen their working links with researchers and; Conduct community-level research to guide programmes, and monitor and evaluate success.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"MALAWI: HIV/AIDS project reaches out to prisoners","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"HIV/AIDS education and prevention campaigns often ignore prisoners but a project in Malawi is reaching out to educate them about the disease and treat those with sexually transmitted infections (STIs).  Malawi prisons are considered fertile grounds for transmission of HIV/AIDS and yet little has been done to prevent the spread of the virus or treat patients already infected, Walker Jiyani, programme director for the Health in Prisons (HIP) project, told PlusNews.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29447","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"MALAWI: TOWARDS TOTAL PRIVATISATION","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/topic/adjustment/mejn1.htm#knee","body":"Often some government and donor officials have denied that Malawi will privatise nearly every lifeline. But progress indicates that the government intends to privatise institutions providing food security in Malawi, water, electricity and more. This will translate into the livelihood of the people being at the mercy of 'forces of the market'. This privatisation behaviour has been opposed by civil society, says this briefing from the Malawi Economic Justice Network.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Mbeki's Nemesis: Mugabe And Nepad","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200212010078.html","body":"Despite indications South Africa is ready to offer Zimbabwe an economic rescue package as part of its diplomatic efforts to resolve the seemingly intractable local crisis, opinion in Pretoria remains deeply divided over how to tackle the meltdown unfolding north of the Limpopo.  Analysts say the ideological and political divisions within the ANC are widening as South Africa finds itself sucked into the vortex of Zimbabwe's problems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"MOZAMBIQUE: Living positively","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"People living with HIV/AIDS (PWAs) in Mozambique are learning how to live longer and more productive lives under a new programme currently being rolled out in the country.  The Vida Positiva/Positive Living programme is a \"social education\" project targeting those infected and affected by the disease, national coordinator for Vida Positiva, Nyeleti Mondlane, told PlusNews.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29448","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"mozambique: msf launches arv pilot plan","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) plans to launch a five-year pilot programme in collaboration with the Mozambican government to provide free antiretrovirals (ARVs) to a selected group of HIV-positive people in the northern province of Tete and in the capital, Maputo. The programme, to be introduced before the end of December, would begin with 350 people in Maputo and 350 in Tete during the first year, and gradually increase to 1,500 people by the end of the second year.  The MSF programme follows an announcement last month that an Indian manufacturing company, approved by the UN's World Health Organisation, would begin supplying Mozambican pharmacies with cheap generic ARVs.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29438","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"namibia: Resident Technical Advisor ","field_subtitle":"Margaret Sanger Centre International ","field_url":"","body":"The Margaret Sanger Centre International South Africa is currently recruiting a Resident Technical Advisor (RTA) for placement in Namibia.  This position will work closely with our office and that of our parent organization, the Margaret Sanger Centre International of Planned Parenthood, New York City, USA.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29454","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Narrowing the 10/90 gap: directing funding for health research towards those who need it most","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpcgi.exe?QB0=AND&QF0=DOCNUM%40DOCNO&QI0=DOC9783&MR=1&TN=a1&DF=f1&RF=f1health&DL=0&RL=0&NP=3&MF=eldismsg.ini&AC=QBE_QUERY&XC=/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpcgi.exe&BU=http%3A//www.eldis.org/search.htm","body":"Of the US$73 billion spent globally every year on health research only about 10% is actually allocated for research into 90% of the world\u2019s health problems.  This is what is known as the 10/90 gap.  This third landmark report of the Global Forum for Health Research underlines the crucial role that health and health research funding plays in breaking the cycle of poverty.The report covers progress towards narrowing this gap over the past two years and outlines plans for the coming years.  The report stresses that prioritisation of health research spending at the global and national levels is a necessity if research funds are to have the greatest impact possible on the level of world health.  However, it also notes that setting priorities in terms of individual diseases is not enough and that cross-cutting influences such as the capacity of a country to deliver health services, the necessity to look at gender differences, behaviour and lifestyles harmful to health, and environmental problems like indoor air pollution must also be considered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"North Puts Brakes on WTO Medicine Accord","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/36ef","body":"Negotiators at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) failed November to reach an agreement to ensure poor countries access to essential medicines.  Health activists blame the fiasco on opposition from the United States and a handful of other industrialized countries.  The WTO council on the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS), entrusted with the matter of pharmaceutical patents, ended its annual sessions without finding a solution that would guarantee developing countries access to generic medicines.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"preventing mother to child transmission a human rights issue","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/publications/documents/mtct/Gaberone_meeting_MTCT.doc","body":"The HIV/AIDS epidemic is resulting in more than 600,000 infants becoming infected each year, and in many countries the epidemic has become a major cause of infant and young child mortality.  From a human rights perspective, governments and UN agencies have an obligation to support action to prevent infants from becoming infected.  It has become clear from the increasing scientific evidence and recent results from countries such as Botswana, C\u00f4te d'Ivoire, Uganda, Rwanda and Zimbabwe, that it is possible to make a difference.  There is an urgent need for more countries to start implementing PMTCT interventions on a national scale in order to have a meaningful impact.  The summary of conclusions and recommendations of this report, based on a meeting held in Botswana, included the following: Countries should be supported in accelerating implementation of PMTCT programmes; Clearer advice and support of infant feeding options should be given to HIV-infected women; Programmes should ensure political commitment and create demand for VCT/PMTCT at the community level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Request for information on health and GATS","field_subtitle":"Riaz Tayob","field_url":"","body":"The EU has made a demand that South Africa and other countries in the region open up their health sectors to foreign service providers under the GATS.  Is anyone following the developments with regard to the health sector?  I am studying the GATS and would welcome sector specific information on this as it presents many challenges.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Rich Nations Not Doing Much to Help On Aids","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200211290119.html","body":"Rich nations have done little to help fight HIV-AIDS, the United Nations's top adviser on AIDS in Africa says. Stephen Lewis, the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for HIV-AIDS in Africa, said the rich nations were \"not serious\" when it came to contributions towards the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Roche slammed for failing on aids drug price slash","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=14610","body":"The nongovernmental organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres has criticized Swiss drug maker Roche Holding for not \"liv[ing] up to its promise\" to reduce the price of its antiretroviral drugs for developing nations, the Wall Street Journal reports.  The organisation said that of the five major drug makers that have announced plans to cut their prices of antiretroviral drugs in developing nations, Roche is the \"lone holdout\" in failing to follow through.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Source - A Health Resource Centre","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Source is a unique resource centre, designed to meet the information needs of those working in health, disability and development worldwide. Source is an innovative collaboration between an academic institution, the Centre for International Child Health (at the Institute of Child Health, UCL), and two international NGOs, Healthlink Worldwide (formerly AHRTAG) and Handicap International UK.  Source is aimed at health workers, researchers, rehabilitation workers, non-governmental and governmental organisations and disabled peoples' organisations worldwide and has a unique collection of over 20,000 health and disability related information resources.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29452","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"south africa: tac threatens civil disobedience campaign","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) will start a campaign of non-violent civil disobedience if Government has not adopted an HIV/AIDS treatment plan, that includes antiretroviral therapy in the public sector, by the end of February 2003.  In a document circulated on the Internet, the TAC said it had initially planned the campaign for December, but had been told that government needed until February to implement a national treatment plan, leading to the decision to postpone the disobedience campaign until February.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29458","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Spot the difference - the effect of anti-measles campaigns in southern africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h4rb4g1.html","body":"The measles vaccine is safe and highly effective, so why is this disease still the leading cause of death among African children? The governments of seven countries in southern Africa have implemented targeted measles elimination campaigns over the past five years with help from the World Health Organisation (WHO). How successful have they been? This study shows that the WHO-recommended strategies for measles elimination are feasible and effective in the region, even in very low-income countries and those with high HIV prevalence.  The report points out that lasting reduction in measles disease and deaths in southern Africa will require: Sustained national commitment; Continued high levels of routine and follow-up campaign vaccination coverage; Complete and timely surveillance of all suspected cases with laboratory confirmation; Careful community investigation of confirmed measles cases to assess the extent of secondary spread.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"STATS SA INCOME FIGURES MAKE GLOOMY READING","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/newsletter.php?issuedate=2002-11-28&admin=1","body":"The latest Statistics SA report on income distribution (Earning and Spending in SA) underlines one benefit of the transition to democracy: government's earnest effort to track developments relating to poverty and inequality. Beyond that, however, the report makes depressing reading. Its key finding that income inequalities worsened between 1995 and 2000 underscores the need for more vigorous action to create jobs. Perhaps the most shocking finding is that, in real terms, the average African household has seen a 19% fall in income, while the average white household has enjoyed a 15% increase.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Stigma in the Workplace","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200212010006.html","body":"South African law protects the rights of employees living with HIV/AIDS on paper, but the reality is that discrimination and denial still prevails in the workplace in a country which has one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the world.  \"We have the best legal frameworks around but this hasn't changed mindsets.  People still get dismissed because of their HIV status.  I handle HIV/AIDS discrimination cases almost every day,\" Jennifer Joni, an attorney for the AIDS Law Project told IRIN.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The State of the World's Vaccines and Immunisation report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/noteworthy/sowvi/","body":"This report warns that if urgent and strategic action is not taken to close the gaps in funding, research and global immunisation coverage, the world will see the re-introduction of old diseases and the emergence of new infections.  The report was launched in Dakar, Senegal, at the 2nd Partners' Meeting of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI).  Jointly produced by the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF and the World Bank, the report highlights remarkable achievements in immunisation over the last decade and outlines the challenges for the future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"urgent funding needed to fight TB","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.newsrx.net/welcome_680.cgi","body":"The countries worst hit by the worldwide TB epidemic, including South Africa and Zimbabwe, urgently need extra help if they are to meet ambitious global targets set for the year 2005, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says.  Experts working with WHO estimate that the total cost for TB control worldwide is $1.2 billion every year.  Three-quarters of that total is already covered by countries, donors and other sources.  The remaining $300 million each year is urgently needed if the targets are to be met by 2005.  WHO's World Health Assembly has set global targets of detecting 70% of TB patients and successfully curing 85% of these patients by 2005.  \"This is a race against time,\" said Dr.  J.W.  Lee, director of WHO's STOP TB Department in Geneva.  \"Poor control practices in many countries and the TB/HIV coepidemic mean that urgent action needs to be taken to control TB.\" \"This funding gap is clearly identified and affordable,\" he added.  \"If we are to meet these targets, we must act now.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"US BULLYING ON DRUG PATENTS: ONE YEAR AFTER DOHA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org/eng/pdfs/pp021112_bullying_patents.pdf","body":"This paper presents findings from an Oxfam commissioned review of US government bilateral policies on patents and medicines, pre and post Doha, to find out how far it has lived up to promises made in that agreement.  It focused on the annual 'Special 301' trade report of the US government which identifies countries it considers have inadequate intellectual property rights and which is widely feared by developing countries because of the attached threat of sanctions and associated diplomatic and political pressures.  Some of the findings from the Oxfam review show that, contrary to the spirit and the letter of the Doha agreement: US bilateral policy on patents and medicines is still heavily influenced by the narrow commercial interests of the giant pharmaceutical companies seeking to stave off generic competition for lucrative patented drugs; The US government continues to use bilateral and regional trade agreements outside the WTO to pressure developing countries to implement TRIPS-plus standards.  Oxfam argues that these continued bilateral pressures against developing countries delay or restrict the production of cheaper generic versions of new medicines.  This not only reduces poor people's access to medicines in these countries, but also chokes off the supply of cheap drugs to the vast majority of other drug importing poor countries leaving them entirely dependent on expensive patented medicines.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"We'll stay put on GMO's, say Zambians","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200211200055.html","body":"Zambian Health Minister Dr Brian Chituwo says a recent World Health Organisation (WHO) document which dispels risks to human health of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) will not change Zambia's stance on the issue.  In an interview in Lusaka Dr Chituwo said the document - which was produced after a Southern African Development Community (SADC) ministers of health meeting in Zimbabwe - was meant to assist individual governments make independent decisions on genetically modified foods.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health launches electronic newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (CMH) has created an electronic newsletter to provide up-to-date information about national efforts to increase investment in health and improve the effectiveness of health expenditure.  The MacroHealth Newsletter will feature Macroeconomics and Health Support Secretariat news, new findings on health investment and economic growth, country CMH launches and progress in implementing national work in macroeconomics and health.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29435","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Why does the world still need WHO? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/325/7375/1294?eaf","body":"The landscape of global health is changing.  New donor money, disease control initiatives, and trade laws have all had an impact on international health cooperation and the World Health Organisation (WHO) is being forced to rethink what its functions should be, says this article in the British Medical Journal.  WHO used to dominate international health.  But in the 1990s, the World Bank took its place as the premier global health agency, and a wide array of health initiatives were launched, bringing new money and fresh ideas to tackle disease.  Globalisation is presenting new challenges to an increasingly fragmented global health landscape.What are the implications for WHO of these changes?  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe Listed Among Most Repressive States","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200211300340.html","body":"Zimbabwe has been placed among the most repressive nations in the world.  According to an issue of Washington File, Heritage Foundation's 2003 Index of Economic Freedom rates Zimbabwe as being the third worst above Cuba and North Korea.  \"In contrast, Zimbabwe's neighbour, Botswana, was judged sub-Saharan Africa's \"freest country\".  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-12-02","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":" O&M of urban water and sanitation systems: is there a role for the poor? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/urban/U3ms1g2.html","body":"Urban services specialists are coming to realise that sustainability of infrastructure interventions depends on community engagement in operation and maintenance (O&M). But what progress has been made in getting urban communities involved in the planning, construction, repair and maintenance of water supply and sewerage systems? Are projects demand-driven and are communities willing to pay to look after them?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":" Trade in Health Services ","field_subtitle":"Global Regional and Country Perspectives  ","field_url":"http://www.paho.org/English/HDP/HDD/trade.htm","body":"The Inter-Regional Meeting on Health and Trade: Toward the Millennium Round, arranged by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), WHO Regional Office for the Americas (AMRO), was held from\r\n3 to 5 November 1999 at the PAHO Headquarters in Washington, D.C. The objective of the meeting was to explore possible cooperation mechanisms between the health service and trade sectors, in order to develop health protection and promotion strategies. The meeting was held just prior to the Third Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle, Washington. While a new round of comprehensive multilateral trade negotiations was not launched, the WTO did commence mediations in February 2000 to further liberalize trade in services under the General Agreement on Trade in Services. Discussions on issues specific to trade in health services were thus very timely. This publication gathers some of the papers presented at the Inter-Regional Meeting on Health and Trade: Toward the Millennium Round as well as a paper on trade and health services contributed by Rupa Chanda, and one from Dr. H\u00e9di Achouri, Ministry of Health of Tunisia, about health services in that country. Also included are general conclusions and recommendations from the meeting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"2nd National Multisectoral AIDS Conference","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.muchs.ac.tz/sa/index.htm","body":"16 - 20 December 2002, Arusha International Conference Centre, Tanzania\r\nTanzania AIDS Society and Tanzania Commission for AIDS in collaboration with the National AIDS Control Programme in the Ministry of Health and Universities and other Higher Learning Institutions in the country, International Development Partners on AIDS in Tanzania (DAC- HIV/AIDS), Community based organizations, non governmental organizations, civil societies and several other national institutions have seen it appropriate to organize the 2nd Multisectoral AIDS Conference in order to review the progress being made in responding to the AIDS crisis and deliberate on how the fight against AIDS can be intensified in the future. The conference will offer policy makers, professionals involved in HIV/AIDS prevention and control, researchers, private and business sectors, people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA), the affected communities, faith groups, international development partners including the United Nations system and other interested groups and individuals the opportunity to share the latest advances in knowledge, experiences, skills and technology in responding to the challenges brought about by the HIV/AIDS crisis. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29395","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Advocacy Coordinator ","field_subtitle":"Global Equity Gauge Alliance ","field_url":"http://www.gega.org.za","body":"The Global Equity Gauge Alliance is expanding its activities, and are looking for an experienced person to coordinate our global advocacy activities. The 2-year contract position for Advocacy Coordinator would be located in Durban, South Africa within the GEGA Secretariat, and would involve frequent international travel. For more details contact Lexi Bambas, Coordinator of the Global Equity Gauge Alliance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"africa: CONDOMS COUNT: MEETING THE NEED IN THE ERA OF HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.populationaction.org/resources/publications/condomscount/downloads/CondomsCount_English.pdf","body":"This report, produced by Population Action International, argues that condom promotion and provision is one of the most effective methods for preventing HIV/AIDS.  They state that 8 billion would have been the minimum number of condoms to have made a difference to the spread of HIV in 2000, and that the 950 million provided by donors were therefore hugely inadequate. The report says that a number of different interventions are necessary for effective prevention programmes: the authors highlight the need for addressing poverty, gender inequity and promoting the 'ABCs' of abstinence, fidelity and condom use.  However, they state that the mix of interventions must always include condoms.  In calling for universal access to condoms, the report states that public/private partnerships will be necessary and that market segmentation, whereby those who can afford to pay more than the poorest, should be encouraged.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"africa: lack of will and resources for aids fight, says report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.prb.org/Content/ContentGroups/Population_Bulletin/FacingAIDSPandem_Eng.pdf","body":"Unless there is a coordinated international response to the HIV/AIDS crisis there will be 45 million new infections by 2010, says a report in the latest Population Bulletin.  The report says that even as HIV/AIDS continues its rapid spread most countries still lack the will, the commitment, and the resources to create effective HIV/AIDS programs. \"It seems inconceivable that an infectious disease could so quickly reverse gains in health and development of the past five decades in less developed countries, but it is happening.  It is even more astounding that the world has been so slow to react to the threat,\" the report states.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS, ORPHANS, POVERTY AND THREAT TO SECURITY","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.medilinks.org/Features/Articles/oct2002/aidsorphans2002.asp","body":"One of the most devastating effects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic is the breakup of families, the creation of millions of orphans and the disintegration of social cohesion.  By the end of 2000, over 12.1 million African children had lost either their mother or both parents to AIDS.  This figure is set to double over the next two decades.  AIDS Orphans suffer from an absolute lack of access to education, health, shelter and nutrition.  Many are forced to live on the street and get involved in criminal activities and drug use just to survive.  They are at a serious risk of contracting HIV/AIDS themselves.  With the death of their parents, without the support of family, and community to offer guidance and education, many of these children are growing up at the margins of society without the normal socially accepted attitudes and behavior.  For many children the loss of parents means a plunge into absolute poverty, the end of formal education and diminished prospects for the future as economies shrink and the hard-won development gains of decades are rolled back.  This is according to an article enttled 'The Impact of the 9/11 Attacks on HIV/AIDS Care in Africa and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria' published in the Journal of the Association of Nurses in Aids Care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Annotated Bibliography on Equity in Health, 1980-2001","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/1/1/1","body":"James A Macinko , Barbara Starfield \r\nThe purposes of this bibliography are to present an overview of the published literature on equity in health and to summarize key articles relevant to the mission of the International Society for Equity in Health (ISEqH). The intent is to show the directions being taken in health equity research including theories, methods, and interventions to understand the genesis of inequities and their remediation. Therefore, the bibliography includes articles from the health equity literature that focus on mechanisms by which inequities in health arise and approaches to reducing them where and when they exist.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Book Power","field_subtitle":"Review of Essential Textbooks for Health Professionals in Africa","field_url":"http://www.bookpower.org","body":"I am carrying out a review on behalf of BookPower. The aim of this review is to come up with a list of textbooks that are considered essential for the effective training of health professionals in Africa. BookPower will then seek to make these books more available by offering them at subsidised prices. BookPower is a registered UK charity. It seeks to make available the best, most relevant, textbooks to university and vocational students in 37 low-income countries in English-speaking Africa, the Indian sub- continent and the Caribbean, at prices which they and their institution's libraries can afford. Until March 2002, BookPower was known as \r\nELST (Educational Low-Priced Sponsored Texts). ELST was set up as a charity in December 1996 in response to a clamour from academics and students in low income countries disturbed by the decision of the British government to close the scheme, ELBS, which it had funded since 1960. More details of BookPower and its work are available from its website.\r\n\r\nThe bulk of the work of this review will be conducted by e-mail, supported by some telephone conversations. Preliminary comments on any of the issues covered by this review would be welcomed. In particular, it would be helpful to have the names and contact details of any people who might be able to usefully contribute to this review. If you would like to be involved in this review please contact me on . Any comments you have or contributions you wish to make can also be sent to me at the same address.\r\n\r\nMany thanks,\r\n\r\nRoger Drew\r\nHealth and Development Consultant\r\n9a The Green\r\nMendlesham Green\r\nStowmarket, IP14 5RQ, UK\r\nTel: +44-1449-768947\r\nFax: +44-1449-767868\r\nMobile: +44-781-275-3152","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29387","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Catastrophe or controllable crisis? The impact of the AIDS epidemic on schooling in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.medilinks.org/updates/updates2.asp?ID=91","body":"It is widely believed that children who are directly affected by AIDS are greatly disadvantaged at school and that teachers are a high risk group for HIV infection. Research in Botswana, Malawi and Uganda suggests that the situation is much more complex. An international team of researchers surveyed 41 primary and secondary schools across the three countries and interviewed education managers, teachers and other stakeholders. They investigated the effectiveness of HIV prevention programmes and the impact of the AIDS epidemic on pupils and teachers. They found little evidence that education on HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and life skills has a major impact on behaviour. Economic and social pressures that fuel unsafe sexual practices among adolescents remain high. Teachers lack the training and commitment to integrate HIV/AIDS education into carrier subjects. The study identified an urgent need for full-time SRH/life skills teachers in both primary and secondary schools giving regular timetabled lessons.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Dateline Health-Africa.Net","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.datelinehealth-africa.net","body":"This substantial health and development portal for the Africa region has just launched. It aims to raise living standards in Africa by promoting communication and access to information needed to improve health and wellbeing. The site offers a unique one-stop source for diverse, up-to-date and credible health resources including: news, \r\ndisease outbreaks, health alerts, information on diseases and condi- tions, research reports, policy and reform oriented editorials, ask- expert services, as well as reports and best practices in RH and HIV/AIDS, 24/7 TI/HIV/AIDS/TB live help line, lively community com- munication services, Online continuing medical education training and training in advocacy and policy analysis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Director-General WHO","field_subtitle":"Lancet Debate","field_url":"","body":"The Lancet is starting an internet discussion on the election of DG Brundtlands successor, at next WHO Executive Board meeting in January 2002. Nominations will close in November. There are several persons who announced candidacy including Dr. Mocumbi, Peter Piot of UNAIDS and Bernard Kouchner of Medecin Sans Frontiere. There may be others who name yet to be known. The Lancet has devoted a special section  to the election campaign. The Lancet writes: \"We want to foster greater debate about the direction of global health in the 21st century and WHO's role in steering the best course. To start that debate, we invite readers to send in their comments (e-mail:whodg@lancet.com). All messages sent to this address will be posted on our website each week. Those individuals with the privilege of electing the next Director-General of WHO also carry a great responsibility--we hope that our coverage and your comments can help inform their decision.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Directory of Training Programs in Health Services Research and Health Policy ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://academyhealth.org/directory/index.htm","body":"The Directory of Training Programs in Health Services Research and Health Policy provides key information about U.S., Canadian, and European post-baccalaureate certificate, master's, doctoral, and postdoctoral programs in the fields of health services research and health policy. Each program profile lists: program objectives, program focus, degree(s) offered, program director(s), senior faculty and primary research interests, tuition, financial aid, average completion time, average number of students, start date, program structure, language of instruction, application requirements, and contact information. The training directory is an online resource that is updated continuously as we receive new and updated program information. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Down and out in Zomba: the situation and education of orphans in Malawi","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.medilinks.org/updates/updates2.asp?ID=78","body":"What does it mean to be a young orphan? Why and how are numbers burgeoning? Why are orphans socially excluded and how might education support their inclusion? This study investigates the lives of orphans in an area of Malawi, suggests why the numbers of orphans are exploding and indicates how the social unrest that may follow could be avoided. This small project conceives of education in the broadest possible sense to include what the orphans need to know to survive in the short term, to fruitfully participate in their surroundings in the medium term, and to prosper in the long term. It attempts to build a picture of their lives and aspirations, the particular perceptions of female orphans and also of their carers, organised in state registered, community level Orphan Care Groups (OCGs).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"E.U. Officials Unveil Plan to Regulate Shipping of Discounted AIDS drugs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=14348","body":"European Union officials have unveiled a plan to ensure that discounted antiretroviral drugs and other medicines earmarked for developing nations are not diverted back to wealthier nations to be sold at higher prices, the AP/Wall Street Journal reports. Under the proposal, pharmaceutical companies would have the option of registering and placing logos on shipments of discounted drugs slated for developing countries. The different packaging would help distinguish the cheaper drugs from higher-priced medicines destined for pharmacies in wealthier nations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWSLETTER 08 NOVEMBER 2002: SOUTHERN AFRICA: FAMINE AND AIDS: THE STRENGTH TO FIGHT IS AT THE GRASSROOTS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EU-SADC Summit Must Focus on Human Rights","field_subtitle":"Angola, Congo, Swaziland, Zimbabwe Should Top Agenda","field_url":"","body":"Safeguarding rights and responding robustly to the looming humanitarian disaster in southern Africa should top the agenda at this week\u2019s high level ministerial meeting between members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the European Union (EU), Human Rights Watch have said. Human Rights Watch highlighted crises in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Angola and Swaziland that should be addressed at the meeting, which will take place in Maputo, Mozambique. \u201cIt is vital that the SADC take unambiguous and decisive actions on human rights issues,\u201d said Bronwen Manby, deputy director of the Africa Division. \u201cOnly then will the organization\u2019s stated commitments to human rights be taken seriously.\u201d","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29416","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"global fund needs billions more","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol360/iss9341/full/llan.360.9341.news.22848.1","body":"After an initial burst of high-profile donations and pledges, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria is now running low on funds necessary to finance programmes against the epidemics which kill an estimated 16 000 people per day.  A board meeting said the fund would need an additional US$2 billion next year, and an additional $4.6 billion in 2004 as a result of the growing capacity of countries to absorb the resources and expand effective programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Plan to Stop TB ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.stoptb.org/GPSTB/default.asp","body":"The Stop TB Partnership is pleased to announce the publication of the Global Plan to Stop TB. Please click on the links below to access the report. Note that the full report has been broken up in to different sections as otherwise it is too heavy to open online.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health InterNetwork ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.healthinternetwork.org/","body":"The Health InterNetwork was created to bridge the \"digital divide\" in health, ensuring that relevant information - and the technologies to deliver it - are widely available and effectively used by health personnel: professionals, researchers and scientists, and policy makers. As the first phase of making vital health content available, the Health InterNetwork provides here a vast library of the latest and best information on public health: more than 2,000 scientific publications, one of the world's largest collections of biomedical literature.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Policy in a Globalising World","field_subtitle":"Edited by Kelley Lee, Kent Buse, Suzanne Fustukian","field_url":"http://www.cup.org/titles/catalogue.asp?isbn=052100943X","body":"September 2002, Paperback (Hardback), 362 pages, 9 line diagrams, 14 tables, ISBN: 052100943X\r\nIncreasing recognition of the impact that globalization may be having on public health has led to widespread concern about the risks arising from emerging and re-emerging diseases, environmental degradation and demographic change.  A distinguished, international team of contributors covers a comprehensive range of topics and geographic regions herein, arguing that health policy making is being affected by globalization and that these effects are, in turn, contributing to the global health issues faced today.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Policy in a Globalising World","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cup.org/titles/catalogue.asp?isbn=052100943X","body":"Edited by Kelley Lee, Kent Buse, Suzanne Fustukian\r\nIncreasing recognition of the impact that globalization may be having on public health has led to widespread concern about the risks arising from emerging and re-emerging diseases, environmental degradation and demographic change. A distinguished, international team of contributors covers a comprehensive range of topics and geographic regions herein, arguing that health policy making is being affected by globalization and that these effects are, in turn, contributing to the global health issues faced today.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa not explained by sexual or vertical transmission","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.rsm.ac.uk/pub/std.htm","body":"An expanding body of evidence challenges the conventional hypothesis that sexual transmission is responsible for more than 90% of adult HIV infections in Africa. Differences in epidemic trajectories across Africa do not correspond to differences in sexual behaviour. Studies among African couples find low rates of heterosexual transmission, as in developed countries. Many studies report HIV infections in African adults with no sexual exposure to HIV and in children with HIV-negative mothers. Unexplained high rates of HIV incidence have been observed in African women during antenatal and postpartum periods. Many studies show 20%-40% of HIV infections in African adults associated with injections (though direction of causation is unknown). These and other findings that challenge the conventional hypothesis point to the possibility that HIV transmission through unsafe medical care may be an important factor in Africa's HIV epidemic. More research is warranted to clarify risks for HIV transmission through health care.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29425","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Life Course Health Development: An Integrated Framework for Developing Health, Policy, and Research ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.milbank.org/quarterly/8003feat.html","body":"Neal Halfon and Miles Hochstein, The Milbank Quarterly, 2002 \r\nThis article describes the Life Course Health Development (LCHD) framework, which was created to explain how health trajectories develop over an individual\u2019s lifetime and how this knowledge can guide new approaches to policy and research. Based on the relationship between experience and the biology and psychology of development, the LCHD framework offers a conceptual model for health development and a more powerful approach to understanding diseases. The article illustrates how risk factors, protective factors, and early-life experiences affect people\u2019s long-term health and disease outcomes. A better understanding of health development should enable us to manipulate early risk factors and protective factors and help shift our emphasis on treatment in the later stages of disease to the promotion of earlier, more effective preventive strategies and interventions focused on maximizing optimal health development.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"MALAWI: UNFPA Stresses Reproductive Health Care Needs Amid Food Crisis ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.medilinks.org/news/news2.asp?NewsID=1106","body":"Slowing the spread of HIV/AIDS in Malawi and preventing the nation's already high maternal mortality rate from climbing must be addressed as an integral part of the humanitarian response to Southern Africa's famine, the U.N. Population Fund have warned. Widespread hunger and a related cholera epidemic have caused maternal death rates to rise sharply this year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"need to share information on hiv/aids and human rights in sadc region","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"On 25 and 26 October 2002, the AIDS Law Unit of the Legal Assistance Centre of Namibia and the AIDS Law Project of South Africa co-hosted a meeting of organisations working on HIV/AIDS and Human rights in the SADC region.  Participants shared information on the work currently being undertaken on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights in the various SADC countries represented at the meeting and identified common needs.\u00a0 Central to these was the need for sharing of expertise, materials and experiences in the region.  To meet these needs, the participants resolved to establish a regional alliance of organisations working on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights.\u00a0 The functions of this alliance will be to facilitate sharing of information, materials and expertise between members, to act as a regional alert network to respond to human rights infringements in the region, to organise and facilitate training opportunities on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights for members, to disseminate information on regional developments on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights and to organise annual meetings on HIV/AIDS and Human rights in the region.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29401","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Not just where we live, but how we live: addressing urban food and nutrition security ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=2&i=s3bjg1g1&u=3dc69841","body":"Urban policy-makers in developing countries face a growing problem. By 2020, the number of people in the developing world will grow from 5 billion to 7 billion, with 90 per cent of this growth occurring in cities and towns. The sheer volume of people will compromise the ability of the cities to meet basic needs, resulting in an increase of urban poverty, hunger and malnutrition. Previous urban development strategies focused on building infrastructure \u2013 yet improving lives for the urban poor is not just about where they live, but how they live.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Occupational hazard \u2013 protecting healthworkers from TB in Malawi ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=1&i=h4ah1g2&u=3dc69841","body":"High rates of TB and HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa increase the risk of healthworkers of catching TB from their patients. In mid-1998, Malawi\u2019s National Tuberculosis Control Programme produced guidelines for hospitals on TB control. Are hospitals sticking to the guidelines? Are they having any effect?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor pickings: the dangers of waste collection in developing countries ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=0&i=h10ch1g1&u=3dc69841","body":"Waste-picking is a survival strategy for up to three per cent of the total urban workforce in developing countries. It brings low pay and significant health hazards. A report from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine argues that waste-pickers should be recognised for the positive environmental work they do and protected from the risks they face from hazardous waste.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Reject Tighter Patents on AIDS Drugs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Parties to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) should reject any agreement that strengthens HIV/AIDS drug patents at the expense of public health measures permitted by existing global trade rules, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper.  The U.S. attempts to make the FTAA rules more protective than previously agreed WTO rules governing universal access are known as \"TRIPS-plus\" and have sparked opposition from AIDS treatment advocates around the world.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29400","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC: EU Grants More Humanitarian Aid to SADC","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200211050161.html","body":"The European Union has pledged a further 310 million Euros (about 310 million US dollars) to help Southern African countries face the current drought-related humanitarian crisis, according to a statement from the EU Maputo office in early November. The largest share of this amount is to go to Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia, described as the most needy countries in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC: National and Sector HIV/AIDS Policies ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.policyproject.com/abstract.cfm?ID=1032","body":"This report is a summary of the existing HIV/AIDS national policies and plans among countries in SADC. It is intended to provide a snapshot of the current status of policy formulation in the region and to suggest future steps to strengthen the policy environment for an effective response to the epidemic. Much of the information in this report is derived from national HIV/AIDS policies, strategic plans, HIV/AIDS policies for specific sectors and work plans. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Senegal:  President Sacks Head of Aid Group ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade has announced the dismissal of Latif Gueye, a Senegalese citizen and head of the humanitarian organization -Africa Helps Africa, on national television, accusing him of committing \"extremely serious errors\" for his alleged role in trafficking AIDS drugs that were meant for Africa but were sold in Europe. \"It is unfortunate that medicine meant for African AIDS patients is diverted and sold at higher prices in Europe,\" Wade has said ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29389","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Situation in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Second Regular Session of UNICEF Executive Board, September 2002","field_url":"","body":"Eastern and Southern Africa continues to be plagued by deepening poverty, continued armed conflicts and an increasingly devastating HIV/AIDS catastrophe. Given current trends the Millennium Development Goals will not be achieved in the region, or in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. And that means that these goals, endorsed by so many conferences, will not be achieved globally. In addition to all this, Southern Africa is experiencing a terrible crisis, manifested by extreme food shortages. It is important to understand that these different crises are interconnected and constantly reinforcing each other. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29394","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Snr Research Fellow, Health Economics & HIV/AIDS Research Division","field_subtitle":"University of Natal, Durban South Africa","field_url":"http://www.und.ac.za/und/heard","body":"Senior Research Fellow - 1 year contract (renewable). Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division (HEARD). HEARD was founded in 1998 under the Directorship of Professor Alan Whiteside. It has gained an international reputation for research and management planning on the socio-economic aspects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, particularly in Africa. HEARD is a self-funding, dynamic organisation with eight research posts. The Senior Research Fellow will: Undertake research into the Socio-Economic causes and consequences of HIV/AIDS in Africa; Guide research staff in the field of HIV/AIDS and Health Economics; Develop and run projects, including commissioned, academic and funded research projects; Liaise with the Research Director on the research agenda of HEARD. For further information about HEARD please consult Tim Quinlan, Research Director  or Samantha Willan, Project Director  or visit our website.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29361","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Reinsurance: A New Approach to Sustainable Community Health Financing ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://publications.worldbank.org/ecommerce/catalog/product?item_id=343845","body":"Edited by Alexander S. Preker , David M. Dror, World Bank\r\nTraditional sources of health care financing are often inadequate leaving many of the 1.3 billion poor people in low- and middle-income countries without access to the most basic health services. Governments in these countries have tried to reach these excluded populations through public clinics and hospitals. To help pay for these services, governments often use a combination of broad-based general revenues, contributions from the formal labor force, and user fees, similar to the financing mechanisms used by Western industrial countries. However, these mechanisms are not always effective in many developing countries, leaving many of the poor without essential health care or financial protection against the cost of illness. Social Reinsurance details community-based approaches to insuring people against medical risk not based on individual risk rating as in private insurance, but rather using decentralized social insurance based on the average risk. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"south africa: KZN HIV/AIDS money still out in the cold","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/view.php3?id=20021016","body":"It is still not clear whether people living with HIV/AIDS in KwaZulu-Natal will ever see any of the $72-million granted to the province in April by the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM).  The Global Fund has indicated that from this week it will start to disburse money to projects approved in its first round of applications \u2013 but unless procedural problems surrounding the KZN grant are cleared up, this province\u2019s money will not come through.  Health Minister Dr Manto Tshabalala- Msimang wants the $72-million to be distributed to all nine provinces and says the Global Fund violated its own rules by awarding the money directly to the KZN consortium, the Enhancing Care Initiative, when the application should have gone through the SA National AIDS Council (SANAC).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"south africa: THE USE OF THE MASS MEDIA for aids prevention","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/pdf/HIV-AIDS_south_africa_campaigns_report.pdf","body":"This paper describes and analyses three major programmes that utilise the South African national mass media platform for HIV/AIDS prevention.  These are the Beyond Awareness II campaign, the multimedia edutainment programme Soul City and the youth programme loveLife.  Overall, the author finds that there are strengths and weaknesses in the application of theory and research in South African campaigns.  A number of recommendations are made to help programmes: Improve the sharing of expertise across programmes; Develop best practice in new areas beyond prevention, namely human rights, stigma and care and support; Commission a review to establish what is happening in rural and very poor communities to ensure that they do not remain behind in prevention indices and to identify media gaps.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"South African AIDS Conference 2003","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Prof Jerry Coovadia, Chairperson of the 13th International AIDS Conference held in Durban July 2000 announces the launch of the South African AIDS Conference 2003. The Conference will be held at the ICC Durban from 4 - 8 August 2003. Chairperson of the first South African AIDS Conference 2003, Prof Jerry Coovadia, says, \"There is a complaint, probably justifiable, that there are too many meetings and conferences on HIV/AIDS. While this may seem to be so, we in South Africa are exposed to a catastrophe of massive proportions. This conference aims at nothing less than providing a comprehensive, holistic and precisely relevant programme for all stakeholders, including community representatives, business and the media. There is no equivalent meeting serving such a purpose. This conference leads directly from the hugely successful and landmark AIDS 2000; and one has the organisers promise of a worthy successor to the 2000 conference.\"","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29426","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern Africa: Famine and AIDS: The Strength to Fight is at the Grassroots","field_subtitle":"Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa","field_url":"http://sustainable.allafrica.com/stories/200210040603.html","body":"A Speech to the HIV/AIDS and \"Next Wave\" Countries Conference, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies Washington, DC, October 4, 2002, on the US National Intelligence Council report, 'The Next Wave of HIV/AIDS: Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russia, India and China', published September 1 2002.*\r\n \r\nFor more than a decade now, those who have chronicled the sweep of the pandemic have warned about the excruciating consequences of societies falling apart.  Now, more than ever, we have groups coming together to fashion scenarios of what will happen in the future.  The Next Wave study repeats in several places, that: \"The rise of HIV/AIDS in the next wave countries is likely to have significant economic, social, political and military implications\".  That seems to me to be unarguable.\r\n\r\nBut if the present teaches anything about the future, then just draw back and look at what is happening in Southern Africa.  It has been established that 14.4 million people are at risk of starvation in six countries: Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Malawi and Mozambique.  Now allow me to be personal for a moment.  Last week, I met with Mr. James Morris, head of the World Food Programme, who had just returned from a mission, as Special Envoy, to the six beleaguered countries.  He was a man physically and emotionally reeling from what he'd seen.  He had instantly recognized that food was only part of the problem; the heart of the problem was AIDS.\r\n\r\nThat should ring one of the most piercing alarm bells that we've yet heard during the course of the pandemic.  If you read the Mission report, it's like a revelation: \"What the mission team found was shocking. There is a dramatic and complex crisis unfolding in Southern Africa.  Erratic rainfall and drought can be identified as contributing factors to acute vulnerability, but in many cases the causes of the crisis can be linked to other sources. Worst of all, Southern Africa is being devastated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.  HIV/AIDS is a fundamental, underlying cause of vulnerability in the region, and represents the single largest threat to its people and societies\".\r\n\r\nAnd then, over and over again, in country after country, the report chronicles the way in which AIDS exacerbates the crisis.  The language is startling, allow me to quote one other section: \"The relationship between the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the reduced capacity of the people and governments of Southern Africa to cope with the current crisis is striking.  In every country of the region, HIV/AIDS is causing agricultural productivity to decline, forcing children to drop out of school, and placing an extraordinary burden on families and health systems\".\r\n\r\nI've read the report carefully.  I've talked to numerous colleagues.  I've discussed the matter with three people who were on the UN mission.  I've consulted a notable academic who is the pre-eminent scholar on AIDS in Southern Africa.  Let me tell you what I think - I obviously cannot prove - but what I think has happened.  I think it is reasonable to argue that AIDS has caused the famine; that what we all feared one day would happen, is happening.  So many people, particularly women, have died, or are desperately ill, or whose immune systems are like shrinking parchment, that there simply aren't enough farmers left to plant the seeds, till the soil, harvest the crops, provide the food.  We may be witness to one of those appalling, traumatic societal upheavals where the world shifts on its axis.\r\n\r\nWe've been predicting that you can't ravage the 15 to 49 year-old productive age group forever, without reaping the whirlwind.  The whirlwind is in Southern Africa.  And surely that has huge implications for the next wave.  If you watch while your educational systems are shattered, your health infrastructure is frayed, your agriculturalists are dying, your militaries and police have astronomic levels of infection, your private sector is atrophying, then it becomes impossible to escape the economic and social and political and military consequences.  For the so-called next wave countries, there is no time left to contemplate.  There is only time left to act.  Southern Africa is the canary in the pandemic [\u2026]\r\n\r\nI want to re-emphasize my conviction that this pandemic, in all its multivarious forms in the countries with which we're dealing, can be turned around.  There is tremendous knowledge and selflessness at the grass-roots; it just has to be given a chance.  We - and it's the royal, generic 'we' - know a great deal, if only we can apply it.  We know how to go about Voluntary Counselling and Testing; we know ways in which to reduce, dramatically, vertical (mother-to-child) transmission; we know how to administer anti-retroviral treatment; we know of excellent preventive interventions; we know the world of care at community level, provided by the women, and rooted in faith-based and community-based organizations; we know the knowledge and expertise that can be brought to bear by People Living with AIDS.  We know, as well, the huge challenges of mobilizing the political leadership, galvanizing the religious leadership, fighting the curse of stigma and strengthening advocacy on all fronts.\r\n\r\nWhat we don't have is the means to do it with.  We don't have the dollars. I've knocked this particular nail through the wall so many times that even I feel a certain ad nauseam quality merely to mention it; in fact, I feel like a minor clone of Jeffrey Sachs.  But the truth is that what's literally killing the women and men and children of Africa is the lack of resources.\r\n\r\nJust two weeks ago, I was meeting in Arusha, Tanzania, with a group of women living with AIDS. I asked them, as I always do, to tell me what they most needed and wanted, and as always the same replies came back: food, because everyone is hungry, especially the children; money for school fees, and some kind of guarantee to keep their kids in school, because when they die they want their children to be assured of an education. And drugs. Anti-retroviral drugs to prolong life ... so as not to leave their children so prematurely-orphaned. To be quite honest, I never know what to say in such a situation. I'm strangled by the double standard between developed and developing countries. I'm haunted by the monies available for the war on terrorism, and doubtless to be available for the war on Iraq, but somehow never available for the human imperative.\r\n\r\nI believe that all the things those women asked for could be provided, or at least provided in large measure, if we had the money. Next weekend, the Global Fund will pronounce on its financial needs. There will then ensue a tenacious, indefatigable effort to round up the dollars. I have no idea what to expect.\r\n\r\nI know only that if the Next Wave is to escape the wretched fate of the last wave, then the world and its governments will have to come to their senses.\r\n\r\n* 'The Next Wave of HIV/AIDS: Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russia, India and China', prepared for the National Intelligence Council of the CIA, highlights the rising HIV/AIDS problem in five countries of strategic importance to the United States: Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russia, India and China. It is available as a pdf file at: http://www.cia.gov/nic/pubs/other_products/ICA%20HIV-AIDS%20unclassified%20092302POSTGERBER.pdf","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29418","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Taking aim \u2013 did UNGASS set an impossible goal? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=1&i=h5js2g1&u=3dc69841","body":"One aim agreed at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) was a 25 per cent reduction in HIV-1 prevalence among young people - by 2005 in the most affected countries and by 2010 globally. Is this achievable? What strategies and resources are needed?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.stoptb.org/GPSTB/default.asp","body":"The Stop TB Partnership has announced the publication of the Global Plan to Stop TB.  The document describes the action and resources needed over the next five years to expand, adapt and improve directly-observed treatment, short-course (DOTS) - meeting the 2005 global targets to Stop TB, and setting the world on the road to the elimination of TB.  Nine billion dollars is needed to fulfill the objectives of the Plan, and with a gap of nearly four billion dollars, much work is needed to mobilise more resources. The Global Plan has been prepared over the last two years by a team from Partners in Health and the Stop TB Partnership secretariat, with funding from the Soros Foundation and USAID.  It incorporates contributions from over 150 writers around the world, and the backing of the WHO, the World Bank and other partners.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"U.N. Says Essential Drugs Not Sufficient","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Life-saving medicines are not available to one-third of the world's population despite a long international campaign for wider access to essential drugs, the World Health Organization have said. In the 25 years since WHO drew up its essential drugs and medicines list, the number of people able to obtain those medicines has doubled, but there remains \"a huge unfinished agenda,\" said Jonathan Quick, the head of the U.N. agency's project.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29352","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"U.S. May Abandon Support of U.N. Population Accord","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Bush administration, embroiling itself in a new fight at the United Nations, has threatened to withdraw its sup- port for a landmark family planning agreement that the United States helped write eight years ago. The reason for the threat is contained in two terms that the administration contends can be construed as promoting abortion. The terms - reproductive health services and reproductive rights - figure in the final declaration of the United Nations population conference in 1994 in Cairo, which embraced a new concept of population policy based on improving the legal rights and economic status of women. The declara- tion has since been endorsed by 179 nations. But during a population and development conference in Bangkok this week, the American delega- tion announced that Washington would not reaffirm its support for the Cairo \"program of action\" unless the disputed words were changed or removed, United States and United Nations officials said.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29427","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Unsafe Sex Ranks Second in WHO List of World health risks","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.medilinks.org/news/news2.asp?NewsID=1095","body":"Unsafe sex is the second-largest health risk worldwide, according to a World Health Organization report released recently. The report, titled \"Reducing Risks, Promoting Healthy Life,\" lists the top 10 major health risks worldwide that together account for approximately 40% of all deaths. The number one international health risk is being underweight, which results from a lack of food and can contribute to low birthweight infants and other health problems. According to the report, both underweight and unsafe sex are \"far more prevalent\" in developing nations than in developed nations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO-SADC call to action on food security in the SADC region","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"We, the SADC Health Ministers gathered at Roodevallei, Pretoria, on 30 August 2002 deliberated over the severe famine facing the SADC region [...]\r\n\r\nWe, the SADC Health Ministers [...] recognize that the famine is super-imposed on an already severe HIV/AIDS pandemic in the region. Both the famine and HIV will lead to deeper impoverishment of the people of the region, and further compound the magnitude of premature death of vulnerable groups namely children and women, from diseases aggravated by poverty like HIV/AIDS and malnutrition, such as malaria, TB and diarrhoeal diseases. \r\n\r\nNotwithstanding the effect of the famine on productivity, combined with the HIV/AIDS pandemic household food security through reduced productivity is further compromised and an additional burden placed on already overstretched health systems.\r\n\r\nWe, the Ministers, recognise the current severe shortfall in food production and food availability in the region, with a cereal deficit of 4,071,300 metric tonnes (MTs) in the region. We also recognise the complex causes of the famine but identify the high levels of poverty in the region as a key factor underlying the current disaster. In the countries affected by the famine, between 1996 and 2001, the number of people living below the poverty line has stayed the same or increased, with on average 68% of the population living below the poverty line in 2001. We further recognise that poor people are most vulnerable to any adverse events.\r\n\r\nWe note with great concern, the environmental and agricultural factors as a cause of the drought and famine in Africa, with an estimated 500 million hectares affected by soil degradation since 1950, including as much as 65% of agricultural land. A combination of inequitable distribution of land, poor farming methods and unfavourable land tenure and ownership systems have led to the decline in productivity of grazing land, falling crops and diminishing returns from water supplied. Nearly two- thirds of Africa is semi -arid, and Southern Africa is one of the sub regions that is most affected. This dryness makes the land vulnerable to degradation.\r\n\r\nEconomic factors contribute significantly to this situation. High debt burdens and unequal trade have undermined effective responses by Southern African countries. In particular, greatly increased subsidies to U.S. and European farmers threaten the viability of farming in the region [...]","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29431","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO: The World Health Report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/whr/en/","body":"The World Health Report 2002, officially launched on 30 October, represents one of the largest research projects ever undertaken by the World Health Organization. The report, subtitled Reducing risks, promoting healthy life, measures the amount of disease, disability and death in the world today that can be attributed to some of the most important risks to human health. It then goes on to calculate how much of this present burden could be avoided in the next 20 years, opening the door to a healthier future for people in all countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Women, Children and HIV: Resources for Prevention and Treatment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.globalstrategies.org/resources/guidelines.html","body":"This is a CD ROM containing over 5,000 pages of text related to prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care of HIV infected women and children.  Designed for ease of use for those who are seeking to establish, or have established, programs for women and children with HIV.  Topics include counseling and testing, primary prevention, care of women, perinatal interventions, nutrition and infant feeding, care of children, rape and violence, orphans and families affected by HIV.  Within each topic there are overviews, guidelines and policy analyses (WHO, CDC, NIH), community education information, research journal articles and reports, listings of organizations and related Internet sites.  Included are sample model brochures and healthcare training instructions.  Adobe Acrobat and a browser are included to allow for printing and searching.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-11-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"\"Drop the Malaria Tax\" campaign launched ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.MassiveEffort.org","body":"Two years ago, African leaders pledged to drop import taxes on treated mosquito nets in an attempt to reduce the continents' enormous malaria epidemic.  On the second anniversary of their meeting, fewer than half have kept that promise. In a declaration made in Abuja, Nigeria on 25 April 2000, Africa's leaders pledged to  reduce the cost of protecting mothers and their children from mosquitoes.  Of the one million people who die from malaria in Africa each year; the majority are children and pregnant women. According to the Massive Effort, a global initiative that is mobilizing society to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, 26 countries still have not removed taxes and tariffs on treated mosquito nets.  Responding to this lack of political commitment, the Massive Effort is waging a \"Drop the Malaria Tax\" campaign.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29355","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A Call for HIV/AIDS Artwork-2003 ","field_subtitle":"Candelight memorial poster contest ","field_url":"","body":"Are you an artist? Do you want your artwork to be seen in 1500 communities around the world? Do you have an image that the HIV/AIDS community can benefit from?  If the answer is YES, then participate in the Candlelight Memorial Poster Contest. The Global Health Council is inviting anyone interested to participate in the Candlelight Memorial 2003 Poster Contest.  We are asking individuals to submit artwork that addresses this year's theme of remembrance and renewal. The 2003 theme is \"Remembering the Cause, Renewing our Commitment,Mobilizing a Global Community\". We encourage you to take this contest to your communities and invite everyone to participate. It is a great way to get your community to express their ideas and thoughts about HIV/AIDS through art. All entries will be accepted until November 8, 2002 and we will announce the winner during our annual World AIDS Day event on December 1, 2002. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29357","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Access to environmental justice","field_subtitle":"Tackling human vulnerability and environmental management","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights43/insights-iss43-art03.html","body":"What is environmental justice? How can it tackle human vulnerability to environmental degradation? When is environmental justice accessible to the most vulnerable? What role does it play in environmental management? Environmental justice is a useful tool in tackling human vulnerability and environmental management, Capacity Global (Capacity), a UK-based, not-for-profit organisation working on poverty, environment and human rights, has found. Environmental justice for vulnerable communities is based on two main principles: Everyone has the right to a clean, safe and healthy environment and to manage their own resources. The most vulnerable people in society, the poorest in particular, should not suffer the disproportionate, negative effects of environmental omissions, actions, policies or law. Up until recently, the poorest people have often been seen as the reason for environmental degradation and bad management. In reality, the root of environmental degradation is more likely to be environmental injustices over which the most vulnerable have had little control. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"African Activists Unite Against HIV/Aids","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://sustainable.allafrica.com/stories/200210040165.html","body":"Treatment activists from 21 African countries have formed a movement to promote quality care and support for all Africans living with HIV/AIDS. At a meeting in Cape Town, South Africa recently over 70 activists gathered to inaugurate the Pan-African HIV/AIDS Treatment Access Movement (PHATAM). The organisation was founded by two of the world's leading activists, Zackie Achmat of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), South Africa and Milly Katana of the Health Rights Action Group in Uganda. PHATAM is dedicated to mobilising African communities, political leaders and all sectors of society to ensure that access to antiretroviral treatment is a fundamental part of comprehensive care for all peopie with HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Alarm over HIV resistance","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2249013.stm","body":"One in four new HIV infections in the UK may be resistant to current drug treatments, say experts. The annual conference of the Public Health Laboratory Service heard that the growing problem of resistance made measures to prevent initial HIV infection ever more important. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Angry Mugabe Flies Out After SADC Snub","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200210080451.html","body":"President Mugabe left the Angolan capital, Luanda, in anger last week after his regional allies turned on him and denied him the chance to be next year's chairman of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc), according to the latest issue of The Sunday Times of South Africa. The newspaper said other regional heads of state told Mugabe the way he was going about land reform made him unfit to be a future chairman of Sadc. Mugabe was next in line to be deputy chairman of the body, a position which would have made him chairman a year later.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Capacity for Development: new solutions to old problems","field_subtitle":"UNDP","field_url":"http://capacity.undp.org/books/Summary_en.pdf","body":"Edited by: Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Carlos Lopes and Khalid Malik, 2002.\r\nThe book contains a range of views from practitioners,academics and policy-makers about what has gone right with technical cooperation in recent years, what has gone wrong,and how to do it better and perhaps very differently.In so  doing,it focuses on the questions of indigenous capacity, ownership, civic engagement and new possibilities for knowledge-sharing, for which the revolution in information and communications technologies offers ample opportunities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Change:","field_subtitle":"Behaviour change and health","field_url":"http://www.changeproject.org/","body":"The CHANGE Project develops and applies practical solutions to behaviour change problems relevant to health and nutrition through collaborative  partnerships with local governments, private voluntary agencies, non-governmental organisations and USAID co-operating agencies. Examples of problems that CHANGE focuses on include the \"deadly delay\" in seeking \r\ntreatment for sick children or women with complications in childbirth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Clearing up confusion: peer-led AIDS education in Zambia ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h5psi1g4.html","body":"Do African adolescents know enough about AIDS to protect themselves against infection? What is the best way to educate them about the risks of HIV? A report from Population Services International evaluates a peer-led HIV prevention programme in a secondary school in Zambia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Corruption And Public Confidence in SADC Region","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200210080417.html","body":"Public confidence in government commitment to tackle corruption is low in the SADC (Southern African Development Community) region, and the public generally regards the governments as vulnerable to corruption, according to UN expert Ugi Zvekic. In a paper given to a Maputo forum on \"Transparency and Corruption\", Zvekic, who is a senior expert with the UN Office for drug control and crime prevention, said that political will to deal with corruption has been shown by the recent adoption of the SADC Protocol Against Corruption.\"Without exception, each member state in the region has professed determination to tackle corruption within their own countries, but in some states this has yet to be translated into anything more than tokenism\", he added","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Database on Mobile Populations and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cadre.org.za","body":"The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in partnership with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and the Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation (CADRE) have set up a searchable web-based bibliography database on mobile populations and HIV/AIDS. CADRE is a South African non-profit organisation working in the area of HIV/AIDS social research, project development and communications. CADRE is hosting the database on their website: http://www.cadre.org.za Click on bibliographies in the menu, and put a tick mark left of the database HIV/AIDS and Mobile Populations in Southern Africa and search. Some search results have hyperlinks to electronic documents and other websites. If you have a new entry please email CADRE, they will update the database regularly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Diversity not adversity: ","field_subtitle":"Sustaining livelihoods with biodiversity","field_url":"http://www.iied.org/blg/pubs.html#bprd","body":"The reduction of world poverty is a major challenge for the international community over the next decade. It is increasingly clear that the our capacity to successfully achieve this objective will be undermined if the natural resource base for development is threatened. Biodiversity is a fundamental characteristic of that resource base, defining many of its immediate and future potentials and vulnerabilities. The purpose of this document is to explore how biodiversity and people\u2019s interactions with it might either support or restrict poverty reduction processes. It does so by aiming to develop a better understanding of biodiversity, the values it holds, and how people respond to it. It attempts to shed light on the differing impacts of these values \u2013 and their associated management systems on people\u2019s livelihoods, especially those of the poorest groups. It ends with a presentation of possible future actions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET NEWSLETTER 14 OCTOBER 2002: TAC STATEMENT ON EXCESSIVE PRICING COMPLAINT TO COMPETITION COMMISSION","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EU Mounts Pressure On SADC to Isolate Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200210090457.html","body":"Pressure is mounting on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to isolate Zimbabwe from the regional body or risk sanctions from the European Union (EU) and the US. According to SABC news monitored in Lusaka, EU senior officials have been meeting to come up with a strong position demanding that Zimbabwe should not be included in all regional initiatives or meetings.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Feachem Says Global Fund Could Dry Up By the Middle of Next Year","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=13904","body":"Richard Feachem, director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said that the fund will run out of money by the middle of next year unless it receives new donations, the Boston Globe reports. The fund has received $2.1 billion in pledges but has collected only $500 million.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29384","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"FOURTH GLOBAL FORUM ON RESEARCH BIOETHICS","field_subtitle":"Brasilia, Brazil, October 29th-30th, 2002","field_url":"http://www.bioetica.ops-oms.org/global/global.htm","body":"International organizations, like the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), in association with the Fogarty International Center of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the Medical Research Council UK and other parties have initiated a worldwide effort to impulse moral debate around pressing and current issues in the bioethics of biological and biomedical research. This has taken the form, among other expressions, of a series of conferences termed Global Forum on Research Bioethics. The first conference was held in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1999. The second in Bangkok, Thailand, during the year 2000 and the third in The Gambia during November 2001. PAHO will host the Fourth Global Forum in Brasilia, October 2002.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Funeral feasts off Swazi menu","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"King Mswati has issued a royal decree, banning bereaved families from providing lavish food and drink to mourners at funerals. The ban which is intended to stop families living below the poverty level from entering into massive debt to cover funeral expenses is already being enforced in many of Swaziland's 500 chiefdoms.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29370","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender, rights and reproductive health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/reproductive-health/index.htm","body":"Produced by the WHO Transforming Health Systems is a training resource for health trainers to use with health managers, policy-makers and others with responsibilities in reproductive health. It offers a training curriculum designed to equip participants with the analytical tools and skills to integrate the promotion of gender equity and reproductive rights into their reproductive health policies, planning and programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Getting rights right","field_subtitle":"Is access to justice as important as access to health or education?","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights43/insights-iss43-art00.html","body":"A core government function is to provide an effective system of justice for its citizens. Yet many governments fail to deliver on the basic services of protecting physical safety, securing personal property and settling disputes quickly and fairly. Recent studies have highlighted the fact that for poor people, access to justice may be as important as access to healthcare or education. How can justice be made more accessible?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Equity Gauge Alliance","field_subtitle":"Assistant Coordinator ","field_url":"http://www.gega.org.za","body":"The Global Equity Gauge Alliance is looking for an Assistant Co-ordinator. The Global Equity Gauge Alliance (GEGA) focuses on fairness in health and access to health care. GEGA's 12 country-based Equity Gauge projects, located in South America, Africa, and Asia, monitor inequalities and injustices in the distribution of health and health care resources, and aim to ensure that countries and communities can use this information to make a difference to those with the poorest health and the greatest need. More information on GEGA can be found at www.gega.org.za. The GEGA Secretariat is housed within The Health Systems Trust, a Non-Government Organisation, which is a key role player in facilitating health systems research and development in South Africa.\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29366","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV Risk a Question of Place as Well as People","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A group of American researchers now suggest that the community in which one lives is as important as an individual's behavior in determining the risk of HIV infection. \"The risk of individual behavior is enhanced or lessened by the type of place in which it takes place,\" said study lead author Dr. Shelah S. Bloom of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Bloom and her colleagues reported their findings in Sexually Transmitted Infections (2002;78:261-266). The researchers analyzed data from surveys conducted in a rural northern Tanzanian region with about 20,000 inhabitants between 1994 and 1997. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29350","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS NGO/CBO support kit","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsalliance.org/ngosupport/","body":"The International HIV/AIDS Alliance has produced an electronic library of resources about NGO/CBO support that have been collated from a wide range of organisations, based on the many viable approaches to NGO/CBO support provision. The toolkit will be of interest to organisations that \r\nfund and/or provide technical support to local NGOs and CBOs. These resources are accessible on CD-ROM as well as on the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS, Democracy & Citizenship","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eisa.org.za/AIDS&democracy/HIV%20Aids%20&%20Elections.doc","body":"Edda Costarelli, Electorial Institute of Southern Africa\r\nAfrican citizens should certainly be empowered both economically as well as politically to make a valuable impact on policies that directly affect their health. Since, however, political and civil rights most often precede economic, social and cultural counterparts, the guarantee to maximum enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights justifies treating civil and political rights as a springboard towards socio-economic change, as an alternative enforcement approach to improve the fortunes of these rights. It therefore becomes a democratic imperative to enfranchise all citizens, notwithstanding the fact that this would foster positive, issue-based voting and representation, campaign reform, accountability of party policies and civic leadership. In Lesotho for instance, HIV/AIDS prevention and care are some of the issues that are set to dominate the campaign agenda for the Legislative election planned on 25 May. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have HIV/AIDS in your manifesto \u2013claimed a commentator emphatically \u2013 you may as well not be in the election. \u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Human health infrastructure information request","field_subtitle":"Eric Friedman, USA","field_url":"","body":"I work with Physicians for Human Rights, an American international human rights NGO.  We are seeking information about human health infrastructure needs in sub-Saharan countries, particularly those most heavily affected by HIV/AIDS, and hope that some of you will be able to help us find this information. We seek this information as part of our effort to greatly increase US funding for the Global Fund, as well as US bilateral funding for international HIV/AIDS programs.  We believe that our efforts, and those of our many partners who advocate for more funding for HIV/AIDS from the United States and other wealthy nations, will benefit from a better understanding of precisely what some of the money would be used for. In particular, we are interested in what countries\u2019 health systems need \u2013 as well as what they currently have \u2013 in terms of human resources \u2013 numbers of doctors, nurses, counselors, medical technicians, and other health workers; training capacity and needs for these health workers, including how many doctors are trained to provide anti-retroviral therapy [and how are they spread through the country] and how many need to be trained; what type of medical/nursing schools the countries have; what types of supplies, information and other resources the health workers need to be effective, and; any other related information.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29359","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Integrating Intellectual Property Rights and Development Policy","field_subtitle":"Report of the UK Commission on Intellectual Property Rights","field_url":"http://www.iprcommission.org/papers/text/final_report/execsumwebfinal.htm","body":"During the last 20 years or so, the level, scope, territorial extent, and role of IP protection have expanded at an unprecedented pace.  Genetic materials have become widely patented.  IP rights have been modified or created to cover new technologies, particularly biotechnology and information technology.  Technologies produced in the public sector are routinely patented.  The World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) has extended minimum standards for IP protection globally.  There are continuing discussions in WIPO aimed at further harmonisation of the patent system, which may supersede TRIPS.  Moreover, bilateral or regional trade and investment agreements between developed and developing countries often include mutual commitments to implement IP regimes that go beyond TRIPS minimum standards.  Thus there is sustained pressure on developing countries to increase the levels of IP protection in their own regimes, based on standards in developed countries. In this report from the UK Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, the Commission\u2019s fundamental task was to consider whether the rules and institutions of IP protection as they have evolved to date can contribute to development and the reduction of poverty in developing countries.  It states that IP protection of some kind is appropriate at some stage for developing countries.  The system provides incentives to invent and develop new technologies that may benefit society.  But incentives work differently, depending on the supply response they evoke.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"International Conference Poverty, Food and Health in Welfare: ","field_subtitle":"current issues, future perspectives","field_url":"http://www.pfh2003.org","body":"The International Conference Poverty, Food and Health in Welfare: current issues, future perspectives, which will be held in Lisbon, July 1-4, 2003. The PFH2003 Conference will be the forum to emphasise the role of poverty on food security and health in welfare. The Scientific Programme has to face the challenge of dramatic socio-economic transformations while leading experts will analyse the burden of poverty, hunger and disease and the challenges to social policy in welfare. This Conference offers an outstanding opportunity for the discussion and dissemination of research findings, reviews and theory in all areas of common interest to researchers, health professionals, social scientist, policymakers, educators and students through plenary sessions, workshops, poster sessions and social gatherings. submission of abstracts are welcomed. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29354","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"International Network on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights","field_subtitle":"ESCR-Net","field_url":"http://www.escr-net.org","body":"The International Network on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net) is a new collaborative initiative between groups from around the world working to secure economic and social justice. It seeks to promote the recognition of all rights but with a specific focus on economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR). Through ESCR-Net, groups and individuals can exchange information, develop a collective voice, amplify their actions, demonstrate the concrete advantage of an ESCR approach in working to eliminate poverty, and promote and advocate for fair economic, social and cultural policies and practices at all levels. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29365","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Legal empowerment","field_subtitle":"A rights-based strategy for improving governance and alleviating poverty ","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights43/insights-iss43-art01.html","body":"How can the poor use the law to their benefit? Should development agencies integrate legal services and grassroots development? What impact might this have on governance, poverty and human rights? ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Mozambique, Malawi Accept GM Food As Hunger Bites","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200210040462.html","body":"Two more southern African countries, Malawi and Mozambique, have followed Zimbabwe's example and have accepted genetically modified (GM) food as starvation takes its toll in the region. President Mugabe, who earlier this year had said he would not allow \"his people\" to consume GM food, as it was feared to cause negative reactions in human beings, made a U-turn last month by announcing that the country would begin consuming GMs because of the prevalent food crisis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Negotiating the trading maze: ","field_subtitle":"developing countries learn some of the pathways in WTO-GATT negotiations ","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/society/s7bsp1g2.html","body":"Cynics claim that developed states determine the outcome of WTO negotiations. Is this a fair judgement? Can developing countries benefit from engaging in international trade negotiations? Which tactics could boost their chances of success? How can developed countries offer them advice? A wide-ranging paper from the Overseas Development Institute reviews the evolution of trade negotiations and the changing role of developing countries. It assesses the pros and cons of working in groups, engaging in single issue coalitions, cutting deals with individual developed states and using the WTO\u2019s enforcement tools. It argues that the course of WTO negotiations since the Tokyo Round in the 1970s illustrates that the big powers can no longer have it entirely their own way \u2013 negotiation can alter the outcome.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Netherlands acts against re-sold AIDS drugs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Dutch government is to recall a large batch of AIDS drugs which were sold at cut-price rates in Africa and illegally re-exported to the lucrative European market. Dutch officials said that more than 35,000 packets of pills with a market value of close to 15m Euros had been re-sold in the Netherlands and Germany, where a similar investigation is being conducted. Two types of Aids drugs were involved, both made byGlaxoSmithKline.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29358","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"NGO participation in the Global Fund","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://archives.healthdev.net/af-aids/msg00564.html","body":"This paper summarises a review undertaken by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance (the Alliance) in August and September 2002, assessing the  participation of HIV non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in 6 country-level processes of the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria. These\r\nprocesses include the Country Coordinated  Mechanism (CCM), the Country Coordinated Proposal (CCP) and all other Global Fund related activities and consultations. The review was undertaken on  the basis of anonymity, so all quotes and experiences are not attributed to specific individuals or countries. Recommendations are made based on these NGO experiences and from broader Alliance experience in providing technical and financial support to NGOs and community-based organisations in over 40  developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Population and Sustainability","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Catherine Budgett-Meakin, Margaret Pyke Memorial Trust\r\nThe intersection between a human rights framework and the need to incorporate women\u2019s rights and gender concerns into the WSSD should be used to move away from the \u201cpopulation and environment\u201d nexus which has caused so much debate and dissension among women\u2019s groups and environment NGOs, and between the minority and majority worlds generally. The argument must be that, if human rights are a key component in sustainable development strategies, and if development concerns are best addressed through improving the status of women, then realisation and implementation of women\u2019s rights, including their sexual and reproductive rights, are essential to poverty eradication.  The realisation of many of the international development goals set over the past decade may then become a reality. The international community has agreed to reduce the alarming current annual maternal mortality (about 600,000 per year, over 99% of which is in the majority world) by three-quarters by 2015, infant and child mortality by two-thirds by 2015, and to ensure that all children have access to and complete a primary education of good quality by 2015. These targets will not be met without provision of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services.   The crucial importance of education for women in reduction in family size should be realised.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29367","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Private parts - treatment for STIs in Uganda","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h6jw3g8.html","body":"Effective treatment of curable sexually transmitted infections (STIs) is one of the few strategies available to reduce the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. Many people with STIs seek treatment from private practitioners. Why are patients turning to the private sector for help? Do they receive adequate care?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Responsible Research: A Systems Approach to Protecting Research Participants","field_subtitle":"US Institute of Medicine (IOM), 2002","field_url":"http://books.nap.edu/books/0309084881/html/1.html#pagetop","body":"A series of recommendations focuses on improving ethics review of protocols, reforming the informed consent process, improving access to information by participants and those responsible for review and monitoring of protocols,enhancing  safety monitoring, compensating those who are harmed as a result of their participation in  research; and developing a standard of quality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Reversing land dispossession in Southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/society/s1bma1g1.html","body":"How is land redistribution progressing in Southern Africa? How have people\u2019s livelihoods been affected over the past ten years? What will happen next? Research by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) looks at the reforms against the background of the recent land crisis in the region. This study describes problems faced by governments, such as: should large numbers of poor people be given small pieces of land, or should larger tracts of land be given to those who can contribute to economic development? It looks at how governments are dealing with these issues and asks what role donors might play in the process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC ministers seek WHO direction over GM relief aid","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18029/story.htm","body":"Southern African ministers said they wanted further clarification from the World Health Organisation on the safety of genetically modified foods needed to combat a crippling food crisis in the region. Some 14 million people from Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland are facing severe food shortages but a refusal or reluctance to accept GM-relief by some countries has led to lengthy delays in shipping supplies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Scientists close in on a mass murderer; ","field_subtitle":"Genome map a big advance but, for now, malaria is still best fought with bednets","field_url":"","body":"Malaria scythes a similarly deadly path across much of Africa, sparing only higher elevation areas that aren't hot enough or countries like South Africa and Zimbabwe, where it has been brought under control. The continent's annual malaria death toll is well over a million and could be as high as two million, with children five and under making up 90 per cent. So you might expect people like Graham Reid - a British tropical medicine expert who manages a Canadian-financed health project in two rural districts of Tanzania - to be very excited about the multi-million-dollar deciphering of the genetic codes for the most prevalent malaria mosquito and the deadliest malaria parasite, dual breakthroughs announced this week by huge teams involving 160 researchers in 10 countries. Experts generally agree that these gene catalogues should accelerate development of affordable malaria vaccines, improved drugs to treat the disease, more effective chemicals to repel the biting mosquitoes and a range of techniques to neutralize mosquitoes that carry the parasite, including designer insecticides. Instead Graham is thinking about $3 bednets and how many lives these could save while the malaria genome breakthroughs struggle through an expected decade-long development process before producing the promised new anti-malaria weapons.\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29356","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Save 3 Million Lives And Prevent 2.5 Million Infections! ","field_subtitle":"Treatment Action Campaign Statement","field_url":"http://www.tac.org.za/","body":"Urgent action by Government can save 3 million lives of people living with HIV/AIDS by 2015,  reduce the number of orphans and prevent new infections. New research demonstrates the enormous social and economic costs our country will face if government does not lead civil society and the private sector in the use of antiretroviral therapy. The Treatment Action Campaign's (TAC) call for a national treatment plan by government with clear budgets and time-frames is the only chance this government has to avoid a social catastrophe.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29349","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern Africa: AIDS information portal","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.afroaidsinfo.org/","body":"The South African Medical Research Council (MRC) in collaboration with several partners is in the process of establishing an Internet information portal on HIV/AIDS for Southern Africa. The portal will provide a unique knowledge resource to facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing among institutions and individuals in the prevention of HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern Africa: Public Health Services need urgent help to combat humanitarian crisis ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/disasters/emergency.cfm?emergencyID=34&doctypeID=2","body":"Four months after the first warnings of an imminent humanitarian catastrophe in Southern Africa, several hundred thousand people may die because funds to provide basic relief for those who suffer have not been raised. The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged international partners meeting at its Geneva headquarters to do more to help Southern African nations stem a tide of death and disease from the humanitarian crisis in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"TAC STATEMENT ON EXCESSIVE PRICING COMPLAINT TO COMPETITION COMMISSION  ","field_subtitle":"WE WILL SAVE LIVES AND END DRUG COMPANY PROFITEERING ","field_url":"http://www.tac.org.za","body":"The urgent need for medicines to save lives, families and the fabric of our communities today impels a group of applicants (which includes the Treatment Action Campaign, unions and doctors) to launch a complaint with the Competition Commission in South Africa against two major international drug companies, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Boehringer Ingelheim (BI).  The complaint charges these corporations with excessive pricing in respect of several key drugs for the treatment of AIDS. The drugs are: RetrovirAE (zidovudine or AZT), 3TCAE (lamivudine), CombivirAE (AZT/lamivudine) and ViramuneAE (nevirapine).\r\n\r\nThis is a novel step that engages South Africa's sophisticated competition regulatory system in an effort to secure justice and rationality in drug pricing in the AIDS epidemic. Tens of thousands of people in our country are dying every year because of excessive prices for these medicines and because of government's lack of determined action to reduce the prices.\r\n\r\nPeople living with HIV/AIDS, our doctors and nurses, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the Chemical Energy Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers Union (CEPPAWU) have decided to act jointly against continued, unjust and insupportable drug company profiteering. South Africa needs affordable medicines now.\r\n\r\nAccording to the World Health Organisation, the most commonly recommended triple drug therapy for HIV/AIDS is the combination of CombivirAE AZT/lamivudine) and ViramuneAE (nevirapine). We are placing the following powerful evidence before the Competition Commission: a month's supply of this treatment regimen at retail prices costs R1176.00 from Glaxo and Boehringer.  By contrasts, the best-priced generic internationally cost R276.00 per month. The stark fact is that for the cost of one treatment from the brand name companies four people with AIDS can be treated on generics. We have additional evidence of excessive pricing for individual drugs.\r\n\r\nExcessive pricing or profiteering by GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer Ingelheim is directly responsible for premature, predictable and avoidable deaths of people living with HIV/AIDS, both children and adults.\r\n\r\nFor nearly four years, TAC and our allies have campaigned globally for drug companies to issue unconditional voluntary licences, against a royalty payable to the corporations of 4-5%, to allow generic competition and the lowest prices.  This is a rational, fair and life-saving proposal.  The drug companies have ignored it. Now we are asking the Competition Commission to investigate the complaint and to refer it to the Competition Tribunal.\r\n\r\nWe seek the following relief:\r\n\r\nAn order that GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer Ingelheim stop the excessive pricing practices; A declaration that the excessive pricing conduct is a prohibited practice for purposes of damages claims by all persons who can establish that they have suffered loss or damage as a result of the prohibitive practice concerned; and An administrative penalty against the companies.\r\n\r\nWe are taking this action to ensure that:\r\n\r\nThe right to life is placed before profiteering; People living with HIV/AIDS who work can afford to buy medicines to save their lives; Children living with HIV/AIDS will get access to antiretroviral medicines; Medical schemes can afford to treat people living with HIV/AIDS without going bankrupt; Employers can treat their workers on a sustainable basis; and that Government shakes off the denialist paralysis and develop a national treatment plan.\r\n\r\nWe call on all people in South Africa and across the world to support this action taken by people living with HIV/AIDS, health care professionals, TAC, Cosatu and Ceppawu.  We urge everyone to call on all drug companies to immediately issue unconditional voluntary licences for antiretroviral medicines to save the lives of millions in our country and across the world.\r\n\r\n\r\n* Note: Equinet jointly with Oxfam GB will shortly be putting out a call for applicants for a grant looking at equity issues in relation to HIV/AIDS and particularly treatment access.\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29388","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The Role of UNGASS Declaration of Commitment in the Fight Against HIV/AIDS in Africa: ","field_subtitle":"Can We Sustain the Momentum? ","field_url":"","body":"Dr. Roland Msiska, Project Director for UNOPS executed UNDP Regional Project on HIV and Development in sub-Saharan Africa-Pretoria, South Africa. \r\nThis paper attempts to contribute to potential ways of ensuring that the momentum that has been generated by UNGASS and the creation of the GFATM for an effective well coordinated response to HIV, especially in Africa, is increased and sustained for at least 20 years. In order to achieve this, I am suggesting that we respond to the following questions: (a). What is the current situation of HIV/AIDS and what are the implications for achieving the global millennium goals? (b). What are the key areas of focus for sustaining the momentum of UNGASS implementation at global, regional and national levels? (c). How can we ensure that the GFATM facilitates the implementation of UNGASS at global, regional and national levels? (d). How can we ensure that wealthy nations facilitate countries in the sub-Saharan Africa to meet UNGASS commitments?","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29360","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Thumida Maistry ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Thumida Maistry will be leaving Equinet as at the end of October 2002. Equinet is grateful to Thumida for her energetic commitment to the network. She has been working for the past three months on background work for an advocacy plan for Equinet that will be more substantively taken up in 2003. Programme co-ordination will continue to managed through TARSC as always and communications should be directed to admin@equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Training Modules on Health Research for Policy, Action and Practice","field_subtitle":"The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research ","field_url":"http://www3.alliance-hpsr.org:8080/Jahia/engineName/core/site/alliance/op/normal/cache/off/pid/1855?language=en","body":"The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems research in Collaboration with the Council on health Research for Development, Global Forum for Health Research and INCLEN Trust have just published new training modules to support strategies aiming to increase the impact of health research on policy, programmes and practice. The modules focus on practical experience and best practices regarding:priority-setting in health research (6 training units);  knowledge management (5 training units); advocacy and leadership (5 training units). Those interested in increasing the impact of health research will benefit from the modules. In particular, research managers, policy analysts within ministries of health and research and continuing education officers may find that training in these subject areas will be a valuable investment. To download the modules visit the Alliance Web site. In addition, \r\nThe Alliance in collaboration with regional HPSR networks is preparing a series of research to policy workshops with the aim of strengthening capacity to demand high quality, timely and relevant HPSR. This effort will be supported with the training materials just published. Indra Pathmanathan will be leading this effort and will rely on her vast experience with HPSR capacity strengthening and policy development. Workshops will be celebrated between November 2002 and March 2003. Grants will be available for selected participants.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29334","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Transnational corporate accountability ","field_subtitle":"Insights from South Africa","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights43/insights-iss43-art08.html","body":"People in developing countries are increasingly affected by the activities of multinational companies, yet it is difficult for them to hold those companies to account in court. What lessons can be learnt from two recent foreign direct liability cases brought against northern multinationals? Globalisation implies that accessible justice has a transnational character in some cases. Foreign direct liability cases - when parent companies are sued at home over health and safety issues or environmental impacts in developing countries - provide some important insights. A report from the Royal Institute of International Affairs looks at two personal injury actions brought by South Africans against parent companies of English multinationals in the London High Court. Lack of financial support and restrictive workers' compensation legislation were among the most serious obstacles to accessing justice in South Africa. In England, the claimants were given legal assistance from public funds.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO: Candidates Lining Up To Replace Brundtland Next Year","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/util/display_stories.asp?objid=29113","body":"Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) Executive Director Peter Piot of Belgium is one of the leading candidates to head the World Health Organization when Director General Gro Harlem Brundtland steps down in July, the Belgian daily De Standaard has reported.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29362","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"ZAMBIA: Mwanawasa cracks down over food crisis","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30327","body":"Human rights groups this week condemned legal action against a Zambian legislator who alleged people had died of starvation in his constituency, thereby contradicting government assurances of no hunger-related deaths in the drought-hit countryside. Vitalis Mooya, the member of parliament (MP) for Moomba, about 240 km south of the capital Lusaka, faces charges of making false statements aimed at causing public alarm, a jailable offence under Zambian law.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe AIDS Network now online","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.zan.co.zw","body":"For more information about the organisation, its objectives as well as its Zimbabwe AIDS Network is pleased to announce that it is now electronically linked to the world through its new website! For members, upcoming events and publications, please go to http://www.zan.co.zw.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe: 30 Percent of Teachers HIV-Positive ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200210100147.html","body":"AT least 30 percent of all school teachers countrywide are HIV-positive, according to Mr Saul Murimba of the Southern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality. He told participants at a two-day workshop on management of HIV/Aids at the education district level that the teachers would eventually succumb to the pandemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe: Government defends HIV/AIDS programme","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=30212&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa","body":"The Zimbabwe government's HIV prevention mother-to-child transmission programme (PMTCT) has come under fire from AIDS activists over the slow pace of implementation. But government officials have warned that there was more to the programme than just dispensing nevirapine, the drug that can cut HIV transmission rates by 50 percent. Initially started as a pilot project in three urban sites in 1999, the PMTCT programme has been scaled-up. Thirty-five of the 59 registered health centres throughout the country are now administering nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant women, Dr Agnes Mahobva, the programme's technical Officer, told IRIN. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"\u201cIS THIS MANDELA\u2019S PARK?\u201d COMMUNITY STRUGGLES AND STATE RESPONSE IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?2%2C40%2C5%2C64","body":"There has been a growing corpus of literature tracking the ANC\u2019s adoption of neo-liberal economic policies. However very little has been written on the reaction of communities who face the consequences of this rightward shift that manifests in evictions, electricity and water cut-offs effected at gunpoint under the guise of cost-recovery. Across South Africa community movements have arisen to confront these attacks on the poor. This article focuses on one such movement in Cape Town, the Mandela Park Anti-Eviction Campaign (MPAEC) with particular emphasis on the militant forms of direct action undertaken in defense of \u201crights\u201d to water, electricity and shelter and the response of the post-apartheid state to these struggles. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-10-10","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"A Framework for Action on Health and the Environment","field_subtitle":"UN WEHAB Working Group","field_url":"http://sustainable.allafrica.com/resources/00010010.html","body":"United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan commissioned five papers on Water, Energy, Health and Agriculture from the relevant United Nations bodies for consideration at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in August 2002. These papers are intended to describe the current situation in a particular focus area, identify key gaps and challenges and highlight action where further action is needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"A Just and Sustainable World is Possible","field_subtitle":"Civil Society Declaration at Johannesburg","field_url":"","body":"We representatives of diverse civil society groups gathered in Johannesburg, affirm the value of the process of the Earth Summit, but we disassociate ourselves with deep concern from the outcomes of the world summit on Sustainable Development. We are alarmed that the governments of the world continue to show a tragic unwillingness to translate the RIO principles into concrete action and to display an appalling lack of determination to commit themselves to the objectives of Agenda 21. Instead they have shown an irresponsible subservience to corporate led globalisations and have made attempts to role back the commitments they reached in Rio.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29302","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Addressing shanty-town blues: guidelines for effective and sustainable sanitation ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/U3bf1g2.html","body":"UN Habitat estimates that by 2025 over a third of all people in developing countries will be living in informal urban settlements. How can municipalities and governments do more to provide the most marginalised of the urban poor with adequate sanitation services? Can linkages and dialogue between policymakers and residents be fostered? A paper from the University of Southampton\u2019s Institute of Irrigation and Development Studies (IIDS) reports the results of a study looking at policies, current service levels, attitudes, practices and expectations of residents and officials in 12 slums and shanty-towns in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Resultant guidelines suggest that unless agencies learn to be more responsive to the needs, demands and interests of poor communities, urban environments are likely to become ever more unsanitary.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS, Sustainability and Women's Rights","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Sustainable development in the face of the global HIV/AIDs epidemic essentially requires a process of social change, panellists at a session on how best to tackle the effects of the disease agreed. Access to benefits, security and economic empowerment must go together, said Kamogelo Lekubu-Wilderson from the South African NGO National Network on Violence against Women. On another front, as opposed to male condoms, female-controlled protection methods need to be developed, \u201cotherwise we are doomed\u201d, she said. Sixty percent of South African girls, nine to twelve years old are victims of sexual violence, often committed by close family members. And ninety percent of the girls between fourteen and nineteen are sexually active. Such social realities of violence make more girls than boys vulnerable to HIV infection, said Lekubu-Wilderson. Although South Africa has policies of gender equality, in everyday life women are in a position of subjugation and are often forced in sexual activity because of poverty, unemployment and other social and economic insecurities, said Wilderson. \u201cBe it in private or public sphere,\u201dshe added, \u201ca woman has no effective control over her reproductive health , which manifests another form of sexual violence, and puts her at risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections and HIV\u201d.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29333","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"CALL TO ACTION BY THE SADC HEALTH MINISTERS ON THE regional FAMINE ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Presented at session hosted by WHO at the WSSD.\r\nWe, the SADC Health Ministers gathered at Roodevallei, Pretoria, on 30 August 2002 deliberated over the severe famine facing the SADC region. The current famine was reviewed in the context of the World Summit on Sustainable Development taking place in Johannesburg on 26 August \u20134 September 2002.  Ministers noted that the Summit is committed to reinvigorating global commitment to sustainable development and the implementation of Agenda 21. In particular Ministers noted that some of the tenets of Agenda 21 included combating poverty, protection and promotion of human health and creation of conducive conditions for sustainable agriculture and rural development (SARD) with the objective of increasing sustainable food production and enhancing food security.\r\n\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29332","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative","field_subtitle":"Hosting the Secretariat","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/pages/index.asp","body":"Request for Proposals August 2002\r\nThe Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI) is a recently formed network of interested partners supported by the Global Forum for Health Research. CHNRI is actively working on methodological issues of priority setting on child health, nutrition and development research, and on a life-cycle approach to child health and nutrition research. It aims at increasing the level of communication and discussion among players working on research on child health and nutrition, such as nutritionists, child health specialists and child development specialists. It further stimulates research and supports the expansion of research into priority child health and nutrition problems on a global basis, especially in low and middle income countries. This request for proposals invites institutions, particularly in low or middle income countries, to express their interest in hosting the Secretariat for the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative for an initial period of two years, renewable by the CHNRI Board. The deadline for receipt of proposals is 30 September 2002.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society health caucus at the WSSD ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Civil society health caucus at the WSSD Global Forum hosted a Commission to discuss the Role of the of the state and water, sanitation and primary health care in the context of globalisation. The discussion included analysis of the situation which raised the following points.\r\n\r\n\u2022\tDebt and globalisation impact negatively on the distribution of all resources, including environment and health through their destruction and privatization. \r\n\u2022\tEnvironmental degradation increases the burden of ill health\r\n\u2022\tLack of knowledge about environment and health and hygiene are sorely lacking amongst many citizens, especially children.\r\n\u2022\tEnvironmental services are a basic right which every citizen should enjoy\r\n\u2022\tPrivatisation of services, including through public private partnerships, has been a very negative experience for many poor people, especially women and children, in countries as diverse as the UK and Argentina\r\n\u2022\tWar and military occupation both severely restrict access to health and basic services, and conflict and psychological stress are also increasingly a result of struggles for access to these services.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29330","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter September 2002 The Johannesburg Declaration of the African Civil Society Organisations attending the WSSD","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Famine, Fears Spark Debate Over Biotech Food ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2002/2002-08-30-06.asp","body":"Drought and famine stricken nations in southern Africa should not reject donations of genetically modified food, officials from the United States, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization argued at the WSSD last week. The statements come in response to recent decisions by Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe to reject offers of U.S. aid due to concerns about biotechnology.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Fighting Famine in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Steps out of the crisis","field_url":"http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/ib/ib8","body":"International Food Policy research Institute\r\nA year that country too has produced lower than normal yields. The immediate causes of the current crisis are drought, flooding, and low levels of crop planting.What has made these countries so vulnerable to famine, however, is chronic poverty and inadequate policies. Now these conditions have combined to result in severe shortfalls in food production and in turn high prices for maize, the staple food of the region. The key to overcoming this famine is appropriate and effective policies. Environmental shocks like drought bring collapse only to systems that are already weak owing to poor policies and governance.To mitigate the present famine in southern Africa and to prevent others in the future, governments in the region will have to adopt the well-being of their people as their central goal. If governments allow wars, corruption, and poor policies to continue, actions to mitigate and prevent famines will fail.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender, rights and reproductive health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/reproductive-health/index.htm","body":"Produced by the WHO Transforming Health Systems is a training resource for health trainers to use with health managers, policy-makers and others with responsibilities in reproductive health.  It offers a training curriculum designed to equip participants with the analytical tools and skills to integrate the promotion of gender equity and reproductive rights into their reproductive health policies, planning and programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund Survey for NGOs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://archives.healthdev.net/af-aids/msg00486.html","body":"Please find below a survey that has been developed to support the southern NGO representatives to the Board of the Global Fund to understand better the involvement of the civil society community in the process of accessing resources.  Since its inception, the Global Fund has recognized civil society as a key partner in the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.  Along with governments and the private sector,civil society representatives were involved in the Transitional Working Group (TWG),are on the Board, and are now integral to the Country Coordinating Mechanisms (CCMs).  As countries prepare proposals for the Second Round, we would like to learn more about civil society experiences with CCMs in the First Round and in the current Round.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global mobilization for HIV prevention:","field_subtitle":"a blueprint for action","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/health/","body":"The working group report that by rapidly scaling up existing, successful prevention programmes, it will be possible to contain and ultimately reverse the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The paper reviews successful prevention strategies but points out that such programmes reach less than one in five of those who are vulnerable. A number of scientific studies that measure the effectiveness of programmes in preventing infection via all forms of transmission are reviewed. The report discusses the major obstacles to the upscaling of effective prevention methods, which it identifies as:\r\nlimited resources\r\nlack of local capacity\r\nstigma\r\nlack of political commitment\r\nthe need for greater access to treatment\r\nthe need for new treatments and technologies\r\nRecommendations are made to tackle these obstacles through building capacity, increasing resources and accelerating research into new prevention technologies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Head of WHO to stand down ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/325/7362/457/a","body":"Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland is to stand down as director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) in July 2003, after only one term. This will be the first time that a WHO director general has not been in office for at least two consecutive terms. In an interview with the BMJ immediately after the announcement, she said that her decision reflected the fact that she would be 69 at the end of a second term. \"I don't want to get into a situation in my life where I'm not fully energetic and able to do my job,\" she said. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health care in poor countries ","field_subtitle":"For 80 cents more ","field_url":"","body":"Robert Guest, The Economist\r\nLast year, a group called the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (CMH), which is backed by the World Health Organisation, called for rich nations to donate an extra $27 billion a year towards grappling with poor countries' health problems.  It is an excellent idea, but there seems to be little chance that such a vast sum will actually be raised.  All hope is not lost, however.  A recent experiment in Tanzania has shown that a small health budget can go a long way, provided that the money is spent with care.  The results are so striking that they are worth examining in detail.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29327","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"How does Third World debt affect health care and HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In two destructive ways: First, governments with overwhelming foreign debt payment obligations must cut back on what they might otherwise allocate to the healthcare sector, including funds that may be used for HIV/AIDS prevention -- condoms, HIV testing, posters, STD treatment, etc.  They are utterly unable to address the challenge of HIV/AIDS treatment.  Second, export earnings that go to service foreign debts are not available to pay for imports of pharmaceuticals, equipment or other products. These problems are severely compounded by structural adjustment policies.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29328","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Impatient outpatients - breakdown of the referral process in Lusaka, Zambia ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h2sa2g1.html","body":"In many developing countries, the outpatient departments of national referral hospitals are swamped by patients from the local urban population. Do these people bypass primary health centres and go straight to outpatient departments when seeking care? Are perceptions of limited and poor quality primary level health services to blame?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving access to HIV/AIDS related treatment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsalliance.org/","body":"The International HIV/AIDS Alliance has produced a report to share experiences and lessons learnt from its work in with its partners in a number of countries.  As well as describing the experiences, the report looks at the different elements that contribute to good practice in HIV/AIDS-related treatment and concludes with an exploration of the key issues around improving access to treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Information source","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.asksource.info/","body":"Source has been designed to meet the information needs of those working in health, disability and development worldwide.  It is a collaboration between two international NGOs, Healthlink Worldwide and Handicap International UK and an academic institution, the Centre for International Child Health.  It is aimed at health workers, researchers, rehabilitation workers,non-governmental and governmental organisations and disabled peoples' organisations worldwide and has a unique collection of over 20,000 health and disability related information resources.  Source opens in September in London.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"IRIN Interview With Peter Piot, Unaids Executive Director","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200209030093.html","body":"Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) Executive Director, Peter Piot, attended the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg to deliver a simple message: until HIV/AIDS is brought under control, initiatives to promote sustainable development will be a waste of time. He spoke to IRIN about the need for political leadership, and the progress being made by African countries in dealing with the epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"It just won\u2019t wash - why hygiene education for women fails ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h10sk1g1.html","body":"Hygiene education for women is a standard component of water supply projects. However, evaluations frequently reveal little change in hygiene and sanitation behaviour and so water-borne illnesses persist. Why is it so hard to convey water-related health messages? Researchers from UK University of Bradford tackle this issue in an assessment of Ghana\u2019s Upper Region Water Supply Project (URWSP). They argue for a more rigorous analysis of the cultural and gender-related factors that influence women's acceptance and understanding of these messages.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mainstreaming HIV/AIDS across development sector in Africa","field_subtitle":"UNAIDS and GTZ","field_url":"http://archives.healthdev.net/af-aids/msg00489.html","body":"At the last ICASA in Ouagadougou, UNAIDS, the Union Economique et Monetaire de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (UEMOA), and GTZ, co-hosted a Satellite Conference on the theme: \"Concrete Experiences with Mainstreaming HIV/AIDS across Development Sectors in Africa\".  Starting from the material presented at the Conference, we have co-edited a document under the title \"Mainstreaming HIV/AIDS: A Conceptual Framework and Implementing Principles\" with the assistance of JSAConsultants, Ghana.  To obtain a copy of the document please contact us at gtzrap@ghana.com ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Much to be done: can water supply and sanitation targets be met? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/s2cWHO1g1.html","body":"The 1990 World Summit for Children pledged to provide universal access to safe water by the end of the century. Why then do 2.2 million people still die each year from preventable diseases associated with a lack of safe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Namibia: Swapo Urges Govt to Up Efforts On Providing Aids Drugs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200209030015.html","body":"Ruling party Swapo has asked Government to set aside more funds to buy drugs to prolong the lives of people infected with HIV - the virus that causes AIDS. The recently concluded Swapo Congress said all patients with AIDS-related illnesses should have access to AIDS drugs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"NASREC HEALTH DECLARATION","field_subtitle":"Revised Section on Health, Bali Declaration, August 2002","field_url":"","body":"Globalisation has fuelled impoverishment, ill health and marginalisation of the world\u2019s poor and in its wake many of the human development gains for poor countries have been reversed. The powers of international monetary and trade institutions that drive the globalisation agenda and supersede policies of national governments such as the WTO, IMF and World Bank need to be checked in line with human rights and social development goals. Particular, agreements such as TRIPS pose a dire threat for the health of millions of people by making it legal for access to live saving drugs to be blocked as with HIV/AIDS/STIs/TB. Declining health status under structural adjustment programmes provides ample evidence of the costs for humanity as national and government capabilities have been eroded.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29326","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Oneworld Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.oneworldhealth.org/","body":"The world's first non-profit pharmaceutical firm has been launched.  The Institute for OneWorld Health has been set-up to develop drugs for a range of parasitic diseases, including malaria, hookworm and African sleeping sickness.  It is collaborating with the WHO and other non-profit organisations, and has received nearly $4.7 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Pan-African HIV/AIDS Treatment Access Movement","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://archives.healthdev.net/af-aids/msg00493.html","body":"Against the backdrop of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa, over 70 African AIDS activists from 21 countries met in Cape Town from 22-24 August to inaugurate the Pan-African HIV/AIDS Treatment Access Movement (PHATAM).  PHATAM's co-founders are two of the world's leading AIDS activists, Zackie Achmat of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in South Africa and Milly Katana, lobbying and advocacy officer of the Health Rights Action Group in Uganda and member of Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria.  PHATAM is dedicated to mobilising communities, political leaders, and all sectors of society to ensure access to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, as a fundamental part of comprehensive care for all people with HIV/AIDS in Africa.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Patients or profits? Professional ethics, co-operation and competition in health systems ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h2ms1g5.html","body":"The concept of 'managed competition' to improve efficiency has been common in health sector reform in wealthy countries. It has also been exported to health systems in the South, involving privatisation and marketisation. Research from the UK Institute of Development Studies questions whether this competitive approach is appropriate in a sector where ethical behaviour, altruism and co-operation are essential for good quality services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Pills, Patents and Profits: The Fight for Affordable Medicines for All","field_subtitle":"TWN Briefings for WSSD No.7","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/jb7.htm","body":"Six years ago, the advent of antiretroviral (ARV) therapy revolutionized treatment for HIV/AIDS patients. ARV drugs now save, extend and improve the lives of people with AIDS. Yet, only 4% of the people in developing countries who need such treatment have access to it. Thousands die every day because they cannot the treatment. This daily tragedy raises the question of why these life-saving drugs are so expensive.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"POST SEASON CONSULTATIVE FORUM ON THE RESPONSE TO THE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN SADC","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sadc.int/english/news/comm08_15082002.html","body":"A special meeting of the SADC Post Season Regional Forum was held in Lusaka, Zambia from 14 -15 August, 2002 to review the regional response to the current Humanitarian Crisis and ensure that mechanisms are put in place in order to avert a major a catastrophe. A crisis of this magnitude has not been seen in the region since the 1991/1992 drought.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Researchers Explore Climate-Cholera Link ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ens-news.com/ens/aug2002/2002-08-28-19.asp#anchor2","body":"The link between climate and cholera outbreaks has become stronger in recent decades, say researchers from the University of Michigan in the United States, the University of Barcelona in Spain, and the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research in Bangladesh. In a previous study published in the journal \"Science,\" the researchers found evidence that El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a major source of climate variability from year to year, influences cycles of cholera. They looked only at climate and disease data from Bangladesh for the past two decades. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Region: Aids 'Key Cause of Famine'","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200209050684.html","body":"The International Federation of the Red Cross says the famine in Southern Africa is the worst food emergency in the world since the Balkan crisis in the 1990s. Yet the food emergency affecting Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique is a different type of scourge. There are no sprawling refugee camps or flyblown hospitals to be photographed. In this famine people die anywhere, any time. And it is often unclear if the victims died of starvation or an Aids-related cause. \"The lives of 13-million people in Southern Africa are hanging by a thread and 300000 people in the region could be dead by year's end,\" said Didier Cherpitel, secretary of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Second International Youth and Students Conference on HIV/AIDS (IYSCA)","field_subtitle":"Nairobi, Kenya, 9-13 June 2003","field_url":"http://archives.healthdev.net/af-aids/msg00498.html","body":"Nairobi will be the venue of the Second International Youth and Students Conference on HIV/AIDS (IYSCA 2003). The Conference will bring together youth, students, researchers, and NGOs from different parts of the world to reflect on the pandemic and expand the quality and scope of youth and student-based HIV/AIDS strategies  through sharing, identifying; promoting and applying best practices in short -term and long-term risk-reduction strategies and actions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern Africa: Fight Against Africa's Killer Diseases Boosted","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200209030361.html","body":"EFFORTS to combat three of Africa's most devastating diseases HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria have been given a major boost, with the announcement of a \u00e0 600m European Union (EU) programme to fund clinical trials in sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Southern Africa: WHO declares no danger from GM foods","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.afro.who.int/press/2002/pr2002082802.html","body":"WHO Director-General, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, told a meeting of health ministers from ten famine struck southern African countries that, based on available evidence, genetically modified grain being provided as food aid is not likely to negatively effect human health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"State of the art: AIDS and economics","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/health/","body":"The first section explores the role of economics in addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Essays address use of resources, globalisation and HIV and economic evaluations of social interventions. Papers in section two consider the impacts of the disease, especially economic impacts, and consider methods of measuring those impacts. The final part of the document considers how economics can be used to respond to the pandemic, through assessment of resource allocations, economic evaluation and cost effectiveness as well as analysis of trials looking at prevention and treatment options.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The 10/90 Report on Health Research 2001-2002","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.eldis.org/health/","body":"Of the US$73 billion spent globally every year on health research only about 10% is actually allocated for research into 90% of the world\u2019s health problems. This is what is known as the 10/90 gap. This third landmark report of the Global Forum for Health Research underlines the crucial role that health and health research funding plays in breaking the cycle of poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The Johannesburg Declaration of the African Civil Society Organisations attending the WSSD","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The World Summit on Sustainable Development included a strong civil society presence, although one, tellingly, kept separate from the governmental proceedings of the main conference. In hosting their own Peoples Summit, civil society groups drafted proposals that were aimed to feed directly into the governmental discussions on a daily basis. \r\n\r\nGroups at the Peoples Summit were gathered according to geographic or issue commonality. Equinet was represented in the health, womens and Africa caucus. As the summit drew to a close it became increasingly apparent that whilst NGOs achieved a great deal in their own deliberations, these discussions were becoming increasingly irrelevant in relation to influencing the outcomes within the main Sandton-based governmental discussions. This drew a great deal of anger from civil society groups, with many feeling forced to disassociate themselves from the event. At the same time others, under the banner of the Summit Civil Society Secretariat, seemed to display greater willingness to concede success for the summit, despite clear indications that the critical issues for civil society and sustainable development were being blatantly ignored.\r\n\r\nFor the Africa caucus, this division paralleled differing views held on the effectiveness of NEPAD. Despite much discussion and agreement on a number of priority areas, their declaration, printed in full below, failed to agree on a unified position and it was eventually agreed that, where NEPAD is mentioned, the draft should contain both points of view.\r\n\r\nThe Johannesburg Declaration of African Civil Society Organisations \r\n\r\nWe representatives of African Civil Society organisations meeting during the World Summit on Sustainable Development reaffirm our demand for commitment to the achievement of sustainable and equitable development in Africa.\r\n\r\nThe Rio Summit marked international commitment to providing political, financial, and technological support for its version of achieving the interlinked goals for human centred, environmentally sustainable and culturally sensitive development, and, poverty reduction.\r\n\r\nA decade later, it is evident that the development situation particularly, poverty in Africa has escalated. There has been insufficient commitment by African governments to the ideals of Rio and inadequate financial and technological support by development partners for Africa\u2019s development priorities. The capacity of the people of Africa to lift themselves out of poverty, food insecurity and illiteracy has been undermined by many factors, including declining levels and terms of trade, increasing debt burden, declining overseas development assistance and private investment flows, increasing marginalisation in world relations from globalisation, unfavourable prescriptive donor policies, environmental deterioration, partly from increased exploitation of the natural resource base of the continent, HIV/AIDS prevalence, and, conflict and wars.\r\n\r\nWe resolve to fully utilise the opportunity offered by the Johannesburg commitment on sustainable development to work towards ensuring urgent and renewed commitment, by African governments and development partners, backed by time bound implementation actions, monitorable deliverable and identified sources and levels of resources, that will assure the achievement of the Millenium Development Goals and Targets in Africa and accelerate the realisation of our sustainable development vision for Africa within ten years.\r\n\r\nWe, civil society organisations of Africa, envision an African society, characterised by unity in diversity, equality, equity and justice that guarantees the fundamental needs of its people, is participatory and accommodates the interests of all stakeholders in decision-making processes, including  the empowerment of women in all areas, and ensures democracy and human rights in which poverty is reduced to a minimal level through knowledge based, culture sensitive and people centred development that is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable..\r\n\r\nWe recognise the UN secretary General Kofi Annan\u2019s WEHAB initiative as a contribution to the Draft Plan of Implementation of the Johannesburg summit for the WSSD while it seeks to provide focus and impetus to action in the key thematic areas of Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture and Biodiversity that are integral to a global approach to the implementation of sustainable development.\r\n\r\nWe call for clear processes and transparent criteria to be defined and adopted through the participation of stakeholders in the implementation of partnerships emerging from the Johannesburg Summit\r\n\r\nWe urge all African Governments to commit themselves to the challenges posed in the \u201cEarth Charter\u201d.\r\n\r\nWe acknowledge that for the WSSD to ensure the achievement of our vision of Africa it should address the following issues:\r\n\r\na) poverty eradication, b)emergence of African regional groupings and alliances, including the Africa Union and NEPAD c.)human resource development including education, health and combating HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria and avoidable diseases of poverty, d)Africa and globalisation, e.)sustainable agriculture and food security, f.) water and sanitation, g)natural resource management, including desertification and land degradation, h.)energy, I) science and technology including indigenous knowledge systems and the legal recognition of the rights of local communities, j) democratic governance, k) rule of law, respect for human rights and freedoms, l) gender equity, m) armed conflict and warfare\r\n\r\nWe call for a commitment by all Governments to reach agreement for a timetable for the phasing out of harmful subsidies of fossil fuels and agree on targets and timeframes for increasing the share of renewable energy supply for Africa.\r\n\r\nWe recognise that achieving our sustainable development goals requires a supportive international environment, particularly in the areas of macro-economic policy, market access and fair trade, debt relief, ODA and conditions for leveraging private capital flows, human development, technology transfer, capacity development and full implementation of multilateral environmental and sustainable development Conventions and their Protocols. We call for strong and immediate action.\r\n\r\nWe recognise that while globalisation may bring new opportunities and challenges for sustainable development in Africa, the uneven distribution of wealth and apparent benefits further marginalizes the continent\u2019s role in the world economy. Special attention should be given to grassroots communities where such benefits do accrue.\r\n\r\nWe acknowledge that peace is a prerequisite for sustainable development and call on African Governments and the international community to adopt measures to ensure a peaceful and stable environment for Africa\u2019s sustainable development.\r\n\r\nWe reaffirm our engagement with NEPAD, despite our insufficient involvement in its formulation, and urge African leaders to partner with African Civil Society organisations in all processes for its refinement, implementation and monitoring. We are concerned that NEPAD does not replicate structural adjustment programmes, which have increased poverty and inequality on the Continent.\r\n\r\nWe reaffirm that sustainable development requires active participation of women and men on equal footing at all levels of decision making, implementation. Monitoring and evaluation. We call for the integration of gender equity in all aspects encompassed within Agenda 21, the Millenium Development Goals and the Johannesburg commitment on Sustainable Development.\r\n\r\nWe reaffirm the unconditional need for African Governments themselves to initiate appropriate steps to ensure good governance as a major prerequisite for sustainable development.\r\n\r\nWe commit ourselves to the monitoring of the implementation of Agenda 21, the Millenium Development Goals and the Johannesburg commitment on Sustainable Development through existing and newly formed African regional, National and Local NGO coalitions on sustainable development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"The Recognition of Access to Health Care as a Human Right in South Africa: ","field_subtitle":"Is it Enough?","field_url":"http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/fxbcenter/V5N1ngwena.htm","body":"Charles Ngwena, Health and Human Rights, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2000\r\nA right of access to health care services is among the economic and social rights guaranteed by the Constitution of South Africa. Given the jurisprudential novelty of such a right and its dependence on economic resources, however, its realization is likely to be difficult to secure. The article discusses the scope and limitations of the right of access to health care in South Africa. Though the country's courts have yet to develop clear principles for interpreting a right of access to health care services, the more significant obstacles to the full enjoyment of this right are the country's pervasive poverty, gross income disparities, and extremely high burden of disease. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Right to Development as a Human Right","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/fxbcenter/working_papers.htm","body":"Arjun Sengupta, Paper for Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard School of Public Health\r\nHow does it help the process of development if it is identified as a human right? In other words, is there a value addition in looking at programs for development as a process of realization of human rights, as spelled out in the Declaration on the Right to Development? The third question that naturally comes up would be: why, then, has it been so hard to secure a consensus on this subject so far? Are the differences due to some misunderstandings in interpretations of these texts, or are they due to some deeper conflict between the political and economic groups ffected by the process? I would like to show that both the cold war issues and the call for the New International Economic Order by the developing countries raised questions which were not very pertinent to the process of realization of the right to development. Instead, the right to development as a human right raises issues about which the world has been fundamentally divided\u2014such as issues related to the ideas of justice, equity, and priorities of international policy. Finally, I shall try to point out that because of its association with these issues related to justice and equity, realizing the right to development is fundamentally different from conventional policies and programs for development, whether seen as increasing the growth of gross national product (GNP), supplying basic needs, or improving the index of human development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"the ROLE OF THE STATE IN HEALTH ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Presented to the commission on health hosted by civil society at WSSD by BUPENDRA MAKAN of The Equity Project.\r\nDevelopment is inextricably linked to social justice & equity. Health is a basic human right.\r\n\u201cIt should never be that the anger of the poor, should be the finger of accusation pointed at all of us because we failed to respond to the cries of the people for food, for shelter, for the dignity of the individual\u201d former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela to US Congress in 1990. Poverty in a world of plenty is the greatest barrier to health as shown in the huge inequities in health status. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29331","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Twelve Million Die Each Year for Lack of Water","field_subtitle":"World Bank","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200209040001.html","body":"The world leaders at the World Summit on Sustainable Development must sharpen their focus on one issue that runs through all of the discussions on sustainability - water. Water is literally a matter of life and death. Some 12 million people die each year from a lack of water, including 3 million children who die tragically from waterborne diseases. Today, some 1.1 billion people in the world lack access to clean water, while 2.4 billion people live without decent sanitation, and 4 billion without sound wastewater disposal. Access to clean water can be the key to climbing out of grinding poverty. Go into the favelas of Brazil, the slums of India, or the bairros populares of Mozambique everywhere you see the same thing. It is the poor who do not have access to water. It is the poor who are at the end of every empty pipe. It is the poor who must buy water from vendors at many times the price paid by better-off people who have service.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"UNAIDS: AIDS Chain Reaction Threatens Sustainable Development","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://archives.healthdev.net/af-aids/msg00492.html","body":"The head of the United Nations AIDS programme has warned that meaningful sustainable development cannot be achieved if the AIDS epidemic is allowed to devastate human resources and capacities. \"If we continue to allow AIDS to drain human resources at an increasing rate, sustainable development will be impossible,\" said Dr Peter Piot, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). \"Quite simply, if you do not survive, you cannot develop.\"Dr Piot was speaking to the plenary session of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), taking place from 26 August to 4 September. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"US pushes moratorium proposal on TRIPS and public health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/twe283d.htm","body":"The United States has presented, with some more restrictive specificity, its earlier moratorium proposal on measures to enable people in countries with insufficient or no pharmaceutical manufacturing capacities to get access to essential drugs at affordable prices from those countries that have the capacity to produce and supply but are precluded under the TRIPS Agreement from exporting. Before Doha, the US had floated the idea of a moratorium for the least developed countries (LDCs) and other sub-Saharan African countries, trying to head them off from supporting the efforts of developing countries as a whole to get a declaration and decision at Doha for restoring the public-interest balance in the TRIPS regime. The latest proposal by the US, presented at the TRIPS Council meeting on 25-27 June, has been described by US civil society groups campaigning on these issues and forming a broad coalition, the Health GAP, as a proposal to narrow the scope of the production-for-export solution promised at Doha and as a move creating \u201ca procedural morass leading to mass graves.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Water and WSSD - ","field_subtitle":"Privatisation is not the only answer","field_url":"http://www.wdm.org.uk/presrel/current/wssd_privatisation.htm","body":"The British government and its EU allies were accused at the WSSD of pushing privatisation as a one size fits all model for delivery of vital basic services such as water, despite considerable evidence that it has failed to deliver affordable, clean water to poor communities around the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO: Good Health for All","field_subtitle":"Vital for reducing poverty and sustaining development ","field_url":"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/goodhealth/en/","body":"The World Summit on Sustainable Development will set the agenda for the coming decade on improving people's lives, conserving our natural resources and safeguarding our common future. In its presentation on the Summit's first day, WHO presented a road map for how health can be used as a powerful and undervalued tool for sustainable development. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WSSD: Civil Society Global Forum","field_subtitle":"Commission Reports","field_url":"http://www.worldsummit.org.za/","body":"Delegates to the Civil Society Global Forum at the WSSD deabted a series of issues, including debt relief, economic sustainability, corporate accountability, land reform, biodiversity, poverty and racism - in order to demonstrate that alternatives to the compromises of the main event are possible. The reports are available for download here.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"WSSD: Summit Axes Renewable Energy Goals","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://sustainable.allafrica.com/stories/200209030263.html","body":"In a deep disappointment to many developing countries and the European Union (EU), targets and time frames for the adoption of renewable energy have been scrapped from the final text of the world summit implementation plan. The US and the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), with Venezuela and Saudi Arabia at the fore, joined forces with Japan and Canada to sink an attempt, led by the EU, for a global renewable energy target. With the energy issue out of the way, ministers were finalising the clause on health care the sole outstanding issue. The US and the Vatican were still voicing adamantly their opposition to text that could in any way be interpreted to include abortion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WSSD: Summit deal on drinking water","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2232878.stm","body":"African ministers at the world summit in Johannesburg have agreed on action aimed at halving the number of people on the continent without water and sanitation by 2015. Richard Jolly, a UN adviser on water, said a permanent African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW) would meet regularly \"to find ways of providing water to all Africans\". ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WTO is biggest threat to sustainable development","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.wdm.org.uk/presrel/current/wssd_threat.htm","body":"The World Trade Organisation is the single biggest threat to sustainable development UK development campaigners, the World Development Movement (WDM) have said. Appealing to negotiators in Johannesburg to prioritise sustainable development over trade liberalisation, WDM's Director, Barry Coates said: \"The iron fist of the WTO is stopping any progress on shaping economics to promote sustainable development. Instead, the WTO is undermining efforts for poverty reduction and environmental sustainability. The WSSD must accord priority to the urgent needs of the world's poor and the planet, not the corporate interests that dominate the WTO.\" ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"WTO: The New Threats to Developing Countries and Sustainability","field_subtitle":"TWN Briefings for WSSD No.13","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/jb13.htm","body":"Martin Khor\r\nThe WTO, its agreements and its expansionary grasp, is possibly the most dangerous threat to sustainable development. Added to the already imbalanced agreements that exist are now the tremendous pressures by the EU, US, Japan and other rich nations to expand the WTO\u2019s powers to new and treacherous waters. New agreements are being pushed on investment, competition and government procurement. If these materialise, the new rules would further damage or destroy the development prospects of developing countries. The old and new agreements would spell the end of sustainable development. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Zim Set to Get Global AIDS Funds","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200209010114.html","body":"THE long awaited Global Fund on HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria is now ready to disburse money to five countries that are still to be named, while working out mechanisms on the rest, a senior World Health Organisation official has said. Zimbabwe is one of the few African countries whose proposal was approved and is set to get $1,3 billion (US$22 million). The first tranche of $55 million is expected to be made available soon.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-09-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A bold proposal for poor African nations: Forget the debt","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/216/focus/A_bold_proposal_for_poor_African_nations_Forget_the_debt+.shtml","body":"Some activists have begun encouraging African nations to stop paying debt payments and instead spend the money on health, education and social programs, such as anti-AIDS efforts, the Boston Globe reports. Although development specialists have suggested that the debt of sub-Saharan African nations be forgiven, others doubt that such a move will happen and have suggested a \"more provocative\" solution for the nations. Both Poland and Bolivia in the 1980s stopped paying their debts and later had their debts cancelled because they used the money to fund \"social causes,\" according to the Globe. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"A commentary on the WSSD from South Africa","field_subtitle":"Mohau Pheko, Gender and Trade in Africa","field_url":"","body":"International Trade and Gender Network Bulletin, Volume 2, No. 7, July 2002\r\n\r\nThere are many opportunities and challenges facing women in the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development. Perhaps it is worth reflecting on the whole notion of what our forefathers and foremothers meant when they conceptualised what freedom and emancipation for the African people would mean to future generations in Africa.\r\n\r\nThe most common word we heard in terms of development during the independence explosion, and the fight to decolonise and kill apartheid in South Africa, was self-determination. Where has this discourse gone? What is the difference between sustainable development and self-determination? It is critical to reflect on this in order to locate the gender perspectives in the upcoming summit. \r\n\r\nSelf-determination is the right to determine our future, to shape it, nurture it in ways that reflect our desires, goals and aspirations as African people. Self-determination opens the space for us to innovate, experiment with new ideas, to fail and from these failures reconceptualise our destiny until it fulfils the vision we have as a people. The vision and hope of preserving the sky, the land, and placing adequate food for everybody to consume not just a few, security of body, mind and soul above everything a peaceful stable environment where everybody can earn a living. Some people call this idealism and are skeptical about attaining this equilibrium.  \r\n\r\nSustainable development is a new term. It takes on different nuances depending on who happens to be articulating this concept. How do women fit into this agenda? What sort of development are we sustaining? Is this notion of sustainable development an environment that can promote gender equality?\r\n\r\nIn reading through the Chairperson\u2019s text towards the summit on sustainable development a number of concerns arise. I want to flag just a few issues that need to be interrogated by gender activists in general and feminists specifically.\r\n\r\n1.\tThe concept of sustainable development as framed in for WSSD repositions development perspectives within economic globalisation. This is extremely problematic for women because research is emerging that women have experienced globalisation more negatively than other sectors of society. There is increased feminisation of poverty. Increased flexible labour among women and more women have entered the informal sector. The privatisation of services like water, electricity, healthcare and education has increased rather than decreased women\u2019s work as more people fall through the social safety net. Repositioning development within globalisation introduces a new form of sustainability - sustaining poverty, not eradicating it, and sustaining debt relief, not debt cancellation. \r\n\r\n2.\tThe Chairperson\u2019s text reinterprets sustainable development within the neoliberal trade paradigm and the liberalised trade system. This is happening with the background of Africa experiencing the worst terms of trade. For example, industrialised countries control 68.4% of global trade with 15% of the world population. \r\n\r\n3.\tDeveloping countries control 27.5% of global trade with a world population of 75%. Africa\u2019s share of this is 1.6% with 11% of world population. Africa produces the bulk of raw materials in the world. Women produce sugar, corn, coffee, cotton, tea and many other products yet, the prices of these products has declined steadily in terms of the way they are traded. It is not the producers who set the prices, but the stock exchange in London and New York. There is no access for women farmers to these institutions. Women have no power to negotiate the price of these products. The returns on their products in monetary terms are not sufficient to sustain livelihoods nor bring about development in the true sense. \r\n\r\nIt is critical to note that the repositioning of development in the WSSD also creates a relocation of development issues from the United Nations to other institutions. This is an important shift for gender activists to study. The World Bank and the World Trade Organisation specifically are the two institutions that are in explicit and implicit ways taking over the development agenda as we once knew it. Under the new term of global governance the World Trade Organisation in particular is attempting to take on issues of environment, labour, and agriculture to name a few. In the meantime, the World Bank is whittling away the power of the state through its\u2019 policy advise. It is advising countries to privatise basic social services through, for example, introducing user fees to healthcare services and education. It is advising countries to sell water, electricity and telecommunications to the private sector. Using the efficiency argument it is convincing governments that the state has no capacity to provide basic services and that this function should be taken over by the private sector. After all, the World Bank claims the private sector has a tradition of running business more efficiently than governments and governments, it says, are corrupt. This dysfunctional ideology of placing profit before people\u2019s development, and gender equality particularly reinforces the exclusionary manner in which the state treats women.\r\n\r\nLinked to NEPAD, the New Partnership for Africa\u2019s Development, the new development framework offers the same market-oriented economies that are not compatible with the protection of women\u2019s rights, nor do they promote gender equality in Africa. Framed with a neoliberal stance, this plan strengthens the principle of private property. African women have never had any entitlements under this paradigm. NEPAD, like the new development framework being put forth at the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development, does not address the social relations within the market in terms of women\u2019s access to and control of resources in this space.   The World Summit on Sustainable Development must be a space that allows for the self-determination of peoples and nation states and promotes sustainable development that incorporates human development and gender equality into its definition and implementation. However, as it currently stands the WSSD further pushes the Northern trade agenda and role of the International Financial Institutions while marginalizing the role of the United Nations.  This process will further threaten national sovereignty and further marginalize women. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"AVOID USING CRIMINAL LAW FOR HIV, SAYS NEW UNAIDS REPORT","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/whatsnew/press/eng/pressarc02/Criminallaw_100702.html","body":"Countries should generally refrain from using criminal law to deal with conduct that carries the risk of HIV transmission, according to a new report released by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). Instead, they should use public health laws accompanied by appropriate safeguards for human and civil rights. The Criminal Law, Public Health and HIV Transmission report calls for considered, reasoned approaches by law-makers in using criminal law to prevent HIV transmission. It also stresses that any legal response to HIV must be informed by, and consistent with, international human rights principles.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Child-to-child: children as partners for health ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/e5ppg1.html","body":"Child-to-Child (CTC) is an innovative approach to health education practised in more than 80 countries worldwide. Relying, as it does, on the promotion of children as agents for change, the book asks how successful CTC can be in developing country contexts where children are often the least powerful members of their communities. A new book from the Institute of Education reviews the CTC approach in which children are seen as active promoters and not just passive receivers of health information. Comparing theory with practice, it examines how far CTC can work in cultures where people do not necessarily share current Western assumptions about the role of the child in society. Demonstrating the rich diversity of practice that characterises CTC, the book concludes with lessons to strengthen the approach.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Children on the Brink","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/barcelona/presskit/childrenonthebrink/index.html","body":"Children on the Brink, a major international report released at the XIVth International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, finds that an already grim global orphan crisis is set to get much worse as more and more adults with children die from AIDS, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The report is published jointly by USAID, UNAIDS and UNICEF, with estimates from the US Census Bureau.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Community control in health: what difference does it make to equity?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"I Rusike, R Loewenson, CWGH, TARSC.\r\nEquity in health is a long stated policy goal in Southern Africa, and some significant advances were made often through joint and complimentary action between the public health sector and communities. However, the health and health care gap between communities is still wide or widening, with differences based on gender, geographical area, income, access to public or private services, education and other factors. More recently,the combined impact of AIDS, structural adjustment, and real reductions in the health budget and in household incomes, has reversed many health gains. The quality of health care has declined and health workers and their clients have become demoralised. While these issues demand technical responses, reversing inequities depends in the main on social and political factors. This goes beyond the fact that social networking is important for service outreach and health seeking behaviour, and that social exclusion as a dimension of deprivation or poverty affects health outcomes. What we argue is that unless people affected by ill health have greater control over the resources needed for health care or to be healthy, equity goals will remain a dream.  Equity without this socio-political dimension is not equity. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29250","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Criteria for evaluating evidence on public health interventions ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/56/2/119","body":"L Rychetnik, M Frommer, P Hawe and A Shiell\r\nPublic health interventions tend to be complex, programmatic, and context dependent. The evidence for their effectiveness must be sufficiently comprehensive to encompass that complexity. This paper asks whether and to what extent evaluative research on public health interventions can be adequately appraised by applying well established criteria for judging the quality of evidence in clinical practice. It is adduced that these criteria are useful in evaluating some aspects of evidence. However, there are other important aspects of evidence on public health interventions that are not covered by the established criteria. The evaluation of evidence must distinguish between the fidelity of the evaluation process in detecting the success or failure of an intervention, and the success or failure of the intervention itself. Moreover, if an intervention is unsuccessful, the evidence should help to determine whether the intervention was inherently faulty (that is, failure of intervention concept or theory), or just badly delivered (failure of implementation). Furthermore, proper interpretation of the evidence depends upon the availability of descriptive information on the intervention and its context, so that the transferability of the evidence can be determined. Study design alone is an inadequate marker of evidence quality in public health intervention evaluation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Delivering HIV treatment to the poor","field_subtitle":"Report from an id21 email discussion","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h5psi1g9.html","body":"What are the best strategies for HIV treatment delivery in developing countries? What barriers prevent poor people from accessing care? What role should the international community play in treatment programmes? In the run-up to the 14th International AIDS Conference, id21 asked participants to consider these and related questions.\r\n\r\nMore than 120 individuals from many countries and diverse backgrounds joined the discussion list. The debate covered a broad range of topics, focusing particularly on:\r\n\r\nHIV treatment as a priority relative to other health and development issues \r\nstrategies for delivering treatment in resource-poor settings \r\nthe role and operation of the new Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria \r\nstigma as a barrier to access. \r\nThe discussion provided a unique opportunity for a variety of stakeholders to share their views and contribute to this important and topical debate. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Drugs, youth and the fairer sex in the face of AIDS 2002 ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidschannel.org/front.shtml","body":"Access to treatment, women and young people, those were the key points of the 14th International Conference on AIDS held in Barcelona, Spain. More than half of new infections occur among young people between the ages of 15 and 24 worldwide, yet young people's needs and concerns are rarely taken into account when planning strategic interventions to halt the spread of HIV. This was clear in regards to the number of young people attending the conference; out of the 15,000 delegates only 200 were young people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet at WSSD","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Equinet will be involved in a small way in the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, August 26 - September 4. If anyone is intending to go to Johannesburg to attend the WSSD, could they please contact Thumida Maistry, Regional Coordinator, about attending some of the sessions with Equinet.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter August 2002 A commentary on the WSSD from South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EU to donate funds to fill gap left by withdrawal US funding","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=12518","body":"The European Union will grant 32 million euros, or about $31.8 million, to the United Nations Population Fund and the International Planned Parenthood Federation in an effort to \"fill the gap\" left by the Bush administration's decision to withdraw the United States' $34 million contribution to UNFPA. The funding will go to reproductive health care projects operated by UNFPA and IPPF in 22 developing nations. The money will be used to fund pre- and postnatal care programs, family planning services, sexually transmitted disease prevention, counseling on \"avoiding [unintended] pregnancies and unsafe abortion\". ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"First aid: Lessons from health economics for economic evaluation in social welfare","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.paho.org/Project.asp?SEL=TP&LNG=ENG&CD=289EG","body":"Beyond health care, the economic evaluation of social welfare programmes is rare but the demand for such evaluation is rising. To encourage greater use of economic evaluation, undoubtedly social welfare researchers need to gain a better understanding of the philosophy behind such evaluation and the methodologies necessary to carry these out in practice. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Genomics and World Health ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www3.who.int/whosis/genomics/genomics_report.cfm","body":"The most up-to-date WHO publication on the subject, the report attempts to help WHO Member States to ensure that genome technology is used to reduce rather than exacerbate global inequalities in health status.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and freedom from discrimination","field_subtitle":"WHO\\'s Contribution to the World Conference Against Racism","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hhr/activities/publication_series/en/","body":"\"Respect for human rights,the standards of which are contained in numerous international human rights instruments,is an important tool for protecting health.It is those who are most vulnerable in society \u2014women,children, the poor,persons with disabilities,the internally displaced,migrants and refugees \u2014who are most  exposed to the risk factors which cause ill-health. Discrimination,inequality,violence and poverty exacerbate their vulnerability. It is therefore crucial not only to defend the right to health but to ensure that all human rights are respected and that the root economic, social and cultural factors that lead to ill-health are addressed.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and Human Rights:","field_subtitle":"25 Questions and Answers","field_url":"http://www.who.int/hhr/news/en/","body":"Human rights violations such as harmful traditional practices, torture or violence against women and children can have serious health consequences. Protecting human rights, however, can reduce vulnerability to and the impact of ill health. To acknowledge and spell out the linkages between health and human rights, the World Health Organization (WHO) is publishing 25 Questions and Answers on Health and Human Rights. This is the first time WHO suggests answers to key questions in this area which lately has received added focus and attention. The booklet will guide WHO and others concerned, such as governments, in developing a human rights approach to public health work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving livelihoods for poor people in semi-arid areas: evidence from Zimbabwe ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/society/s1bkb1g1.html","body":"Do policymakers understand the coping and livelihood strategies of poor households in semi-arid areas? What can be done to improve links between policy-makers and programme designers and poor farm households at risk from drought? Does diversification into non-farming occupations offer a pathway out of poverty? How can demand for new livelihood options be assessed?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequality: ignored for too long in the fight against poverty ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/society/s5cgac1g1.html","body":"The drive to reduce poverty has stalled in many developing countries. The United Nations\u2019 target \u2013 to reduce income-related poverty to 15 percent by 2015 \u2013 will probably not be met. This policy brief, reporting the main findings of a UNU/WIDER study on changes in income equality, argues that the slowdown is in part the result of a failure to include inequality within the growth-poverty equation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"International Aids Economics Network","field_subtitle":"Newsletter","field_url":"http://www.iaen.org/newsl/","body":"As part of its effort to encourage research on the economics of HIV/AIDS, IAEN prepares a newsletter featuring updates to this site and news of interest on the topic. The information is gathered from a variety of sources, including online electronic databases.  The newsletter is sent approximately once per month, and helps us carry out one of our missions: To provide data, tools, and analysis on the economics of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment for compassionate, cost-effective responses to a global epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Invitation for submission of manuscripts on health equity-related issues ","field_subtitle":"Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition (JHPN)","field_url":"http://www.icddrb.org/jhpn","body":"The editorial board of the Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition has decided to publish a special issue in March 2003 on Health and Equity. The special issue on health and equity may include original research articles on concepts, measurement and other methodological issues, empirical findings on the situation of health equity, and interventions to reduce health inequity. Reports on global, national, or sub-national pro-equity activities and the experiences gained by way of impact and the process of implementation are also of interest. Potential authors are requested to express their interest to contribute by writing a note with tentative title of the paper to jhpn@icddrb.org by 30 June 2002. The final manuscript should be available by end of September 2002. While preparing the manuscript, please follow the Vancouver Style. Information for Contributors can be seen at or downloaded from the website of the Journal (http://www.icddrb.org/jhpn). The enclosed brochure will provide additional information about the Journal. JHPN is a peer-reviewed quarterly journal and is indexed by the major international indexing systems. The Journal is freely available through the Internet (http://www.icddrb.org/jhpn). For any further information or queries, please do not hesitate to contact our Guest Editor Dr. Abbas Bhuiya (abbas@icddrb.org) for this special issue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"MALAWI: Home based care eases pressure on public health sector","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1400","body":"Faced with the devastating impact of an HIV/AIDS epidemic compounded by abject poverty, Malawians have eased the pressure on state hospitals by caring for chronically ill family and neighbours at home. A home based care (HBC) project in Northern Malawi has assembled 225 young volunteers in the region's nine districts to provide community based support to homes and guardians looking after people living with AIDS (PWAs). The aim is to ease their suffering and prolong their lives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Municipal public private partnerships: promises and pitfalls ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/urban/U3jp1g3.html","body":"What checks should municipalities make before signing up to public private partnerships (PPPs) in solid waste management (SWM)? How can they judge the merits of technologies touted by international operators? Can private operators be persuaded to target the poor? How can the poor be involved in the collection of solid waste?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"New UNAIDS report warns AIDS epidemic still in early phase","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/barcelona/presskit/report.html","body":"A new report released by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) warns that the AIDS epidemic is still in an early phase. HIV prevalence is climbing higher than previously believed possible in the worst-affected countries and is continuing to spread rapidly into new populations in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New website from Marie Stopes International","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.mariestopes.org.uk/","body":"The re-designed and up-graded website is designed to keep concerned members of the public, international organisations and policy makers up to date on MSI's sexual and reproductive health programmes in 38 countries worldwide, as well as its advocacy and policy activities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"No excuses: facing up to the AIDS orphans crisis ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/s5bml1g1.html","body":"Of the 21 million deaths from AIDS to date, three quarters were people living in sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS in Africa is fuelled by poverty, and it is causing a humanitarian and economic crisis in which children orphaned by the disease are growing up without parents, schooling or adequate food. What should African governments and the international community be doing to tackle this growing catastrophe?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Not just \"women\" - better gender analysis for health sector programme support ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h2be1g1.html","body":"New approaches to healthcare funding often rely on outdated attitudes to gender. How can donors ensure that gender analysis is effective? Should they move beyond a narrow focus on women as a separate group? Researchers from the UK University of Manchester argue for a new approach to gender in healthcare funding. In many countries, donors are changing the way they finance health programmes. They are moving away from funding individual health projects and now encourage aid for government-managed health sector programmes. This new form of funding requires innovative forms of gender analysis and gender-sensitive interventions in the health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty, Health & Equity: From Global Challenges to Innovative Solutions ","field_subtitle":"October 27- 30th, 2002 in Ottawa, Canada","field_url":"http://www.csih.org/what/conferences.html","body":"To provide a forum for practitioners, researchers, educators, policy makers and community mobilizers, interested in health and development issues, to share knowledge, experience and promote innovation and collaborative action. Each day's plenary will focus on a different theme (e.g. Day 1 - Challenges; Day 2 - Research; Day 3 - Innovation and Action). In addition, this year's CCIH will offer three streams running all three days of the conference. The Capacity Building stream will feature workshops and symposia aimed at knowledge and skills transfer (e.g. workshops on participatory evaluation techniques and how to build effective partnerships). The Knowledge Development stream will include a variety of papers and presentations on topics such as research with developing countries, using appropriate and innovative methodologies; and evidence-based decision-making. The Action stream will feature papers, presentations and workshops on innovative programs, projects and policy-related activities with disadvantaged groups in the developed and developing world. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"QUALITATIVE RESEARCH FOR IMPROVED HEALTH PROGRAMS:","field_subtitle":" A Guide to Manuals for Qualitative and Participatory research on Child Health, Nutrition and Reproductive Health","field_url":"http://sara.aed.org/publications/cross_cutting/qualitative/qualitative","body":"Author(s): Winch, P.J.; Wagman, J.A; .Malouin, R.A.; Mehl, G.L.\r\nThis guide is designed for program managers, researchers, funders of health programs, and others who are considering using qualitative research methods to help them design more effective health programs and/or evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of existing programs. It is assumed that the reader already has some familiarity with the basic methods in the \"qualitative research toolbox\" such as in-depth interviews, focus groups, and participant observation. This guide describes some of the existing manuals for conducting qualitative research on health and provides information to help would-be users select the manuals that are  most appropriate to their needs. This guide does not attempt to review the available qualitative research tools related to prevention and treatment of chronic and non-infectious diseases, including tobacco control, obesity prevention, or management of such diseases as diabetes or epilepsy. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Grants Diamond Certification Go-Ahead","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200208050424.html","body":"Emboldened by relative peace in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Southern African Development Community minerals and mining ministers have declared that SADC diamondproducing states are ready for international diamond certification. Diamond producing states, nongovernmental organisations, trade regulator, polishers, cutters and industry will launch the certificate on November 5 in Geneva, Switzerland. The aim is to block the entry of so-called conflict diamonds into the legitimate market.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Region: El Nino Threat Grows","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200208010511.html","body":"The Flood and Drought Network of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has warned that there is a 90 percent chance that El Nino conditions will prevail during the remainder of 2002 and into early 2003. El Nino occurrences are global climatic anomalies that in Southern Africa have been linked to severe droughts, flooding and hurricanes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Same difference? Effects of health sector reforms on women\u2019s access to reproductive healthcare ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h2hs1g1.html","body":"What are the implications for reproductive health of health reforms in low and middle-income countries? The last decade has seen a change in approach from supply-side health sector reforms to an emphasis on demand-driven and anti-poverty interventions. But has this increased access to reproductive healthcare and have services improved as a result? A report from the UK Institute of Development Studies argues that the impacts of health reform depend heavily on the local context in different countries. This includes economic, political, demographic and epidemiological factors. Different strategies are therefore needed to ensure further improvements in reproductive healthcare.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTHERN AFRICA: Malaria threat on heels of drought","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The coming of the rains in Southern Africa in the next few months will end the region's drought but usher in a new threat - an upsurge in malaria, Africa's number one killer. \"Our past experiences from the '92 drought and other droughts is that after the drought breaks and the first rains fall there is a natural biological response from the mosquitoes. They move in large numbers. We must prepare to keep malaria down when the rains come,\" said Shiva Marugasampillay, chairman of the World Health Organisation's (WHO) 2002 Southern Africa Malaria Control Conference.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29261","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTHERN AFRICA: Plans to test health workers slammed","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Plans to make HIV testing compulsory for foreign health workers aiming to work in Britain are \"discriminatory\" and insulting to African nurses, nursing unions said on Tuesday. \"We are strongly opposed to mandatory testing because this will exacerbate the stigma of HIV positive nurses. We are worried about what will happen to them when they are found to be positive,\" the President of the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA), Ephraim Mafalo, told PlusNews.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29260","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Stop blaming the poor ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.oneworld.net/africa/","body":"The state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world, but if the world focused on it - we could heal it\". These were the words of the British Prime Minister at the Labour Party Conference in 2001. They did not correspond with his actions, and those of his colleagues, at the G8 summit recently. The world's richest leaders wined and dined, talked about terrorism, gave $20 billion to clean up nuclear sites in Russia, but failed to take action on any of the ways in which the G8 exploits Africa and inhibits its development. They failed to deliver anything to the 300 million people in Africa living on less than $1 a day, the 28 million who are HIV positive and the one third of Africa's children who are malnourished.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"TANZANIA: Government stands by malaria policy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Following recent confusion over the potential side effects of a new malaria drug - Sulphadoxine-Pyrimethamine (SP)-  the Tanzanian health ministry has reiterated its faith in the drug as the most effective method of treating the deadly disease.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29259","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Testing the market for the female condom in Zambia ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h5psi1g8.html","body":"The female condom could reduce the spread of HIV by increasing the prevention options available to sexually active adults. Marketing of the female condom at subsidised prices began in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1997. How effective has this been? Do people know about female condoms and are they likely to use them?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"TRACKING EQUITY IN HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA ","field_subtitle":"The case of the Global Fund ","field_url":"","body":"Dr Godfrey Swai, Tanzania Public Health Association.\r\nHIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria are diseases of poverty or deprivation. Effective rolling back of the three diseases must also roll back poverty.  The intimate link between equity in health and poverty reduction cannot be ignored by the international community and poses the challenge for effectiveness of the Global Fund. The share of the global burden of the three diseases for Sub Sahara Africa is unacceptably high, and increasing, deepening poverty and threatening human survival. This region deserves special consideration under the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM).","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29249","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Treatment Action Campaign Threatens Court Action","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200208060014.html","body":"The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) on Monday threatened to challenge the Medicines Control Council (MCC) in court if it decided to ban the anti-Aids drug, nevirapine. \"We haven't decided on an exact legal route yet but we will make sure that any reverse decision is heard. We're not going to quietly sit by if this is a serious threat,\" the TAC's Mark Heywood told reporters in Johannesburg. He was reacting to newspaper reports at the weekend that the MCC was reviewing its approval of nevirapine because it had concerns about its effectiveness and toxicity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"UN/WHO: Updated list of HIV/AIDS-related products","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/medicines/organization/par/edl/access-hivdrugs.shtml","body":"UNICEF, UNAIDS, WHO and Medicins Sans Frontieres have produced an updated list of HIV medications, HIV testing kits and suppliers of HIV/AIDS-related products designed to help procurement agencies and national governments obtain such products for the best value.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Week-Old Infant Raped in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_hiv_recent_rep.cfm?dr_cat=1&show=yes&dr_DateTime=01-Aug-02#12640","body":"Police are investigating the rape of a one-week-old South African baby girl, the youngest child ever to be raped in the country, Reuters/Toronto Star reports. The attack occurred on Sunday in the city of Kwaminya in KwaZulu-Natal province. The infant is seriously injured but is in stable condition, Police Superintendent Lawrence Zondi said. It is not known who committed the rape. The incident is the latest in a \"spate of child rapes fueled by the myth that sex with a virgin\" can cure HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WSSD: Briefing paper on HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.earthsummit2002.org/es/issues/AIDS/hiv.htm","body":"In a briefing paper for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the devastating toll of the HIV/AIDS pandemic is examined.  Its present and future impact on global sustainable development, especially for the poorest members of society and least developed countries, is discussed. Some of the suggested strategies for dealing with the most critical aspects of the disease are also reviewed. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe: Nurses Under Pressure","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Stella Zengwa, President of Zimbabwe Nurses Association.\r\nZimbabwean nurses face difficult decisions in their day-to-day work.  Health Services are now client centred and are being provided by a workforce, which is performance driven. A shortage of nurses means that at present all our new nurse graduates are bonded for 3 years, but experienced nurses continue to be lost to neighbouring countries and abroad. Hospital wards are still run with only one or two nurse per shift for a 40-bedded ward with the result that nurses continue to be overworked. Lack of transport has become a critical issue and poses a risk to nurses\u2019 lives when arriving or knocking off duty given the shift work. Lack of accommodation at institutions is making retention of nurses very difficult since in some areas, rented accommodation is not available.  Nurses have been pushed out of the traditional nurse\u2019s residences. Inadequate and erratic supplies of drugs, surgical sundries and equipment including protective clothing like gloves are exposing nurses to HIV infection. Burnout syndrome is widespread with nurses overwhelmed with the stress of nursing a full ward of very ill patients with so little support. Unlike other health workers who are visitors to the ward, nurses spend long hours with patients. This requires ways of dealing with burnout so that nurses continue to provide quality health care services.Upholding of nursing ethics is critical building a positive image as desired by the communities that we serve. As a professional association, ZINA aspires to ensure that the services nurses provide in support of public protection and health care are exemplary and community driven.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29251","field_issue_date":"2002-08-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Activists Criticize Global Fund Director's Statements Regarding Fund's Financial Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_hiv.cfm#11979","body":"Some activists have already called for the resignation of Richard Feachem, even though he has not yet signed a contract to become the first director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Boston Globe reports. Feachem, the founding director of the Institute for Global Health at the University of California-San Francisco, was named as the fund's first director in April by the fund's board but has come \"under fire\" from some activists because of comments regarding the amount of money in the fund. According to comments that first appeared in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Feachem said that the fund had \"plenty\" of money to get started. Northeastern University law professor Brook Baker and Gorik Ooms, head of Medicins Sans Frontieres in Tanzania, last week in an e-mail demanded that Feachem step down from his prospective position unless he \"distanced himself\" from his comments. Baker said that Feachem, as the head of the \"grotesquely underfunded\" fund, should be \"a drum major who is marching at the head of the pack and demanding the money\" and should not be \"making 'nice nice' with politicians in the hope that they will become more forthcoming in the future.\" Feachem, who could \"as early as today\" sign a $200,000 annual tax-free contract to become the fund's first director, responded to both Baker and Ooms by e-mail, saying that he \"understood ... the activists' frustration\" and acknowledging that the fund \"needed much more money.\" ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Launches Own AIDS Vaccine Initiative","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_7912.html","body":"Africa launches a campaign for a fairer share of funding into the development of an AIDS vaccine, saying it was unacceptable that the world's poorest continent received so little attention. Though more than 28 million Africans carry the virus that causes AIDS, less than 2% of world research funding goes towards fighting the unique strains of the disease in Africa. The AAVP (African Aids Vaccine Programme) is being coordinated by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva, with African scientists leading the search. The African vaccine initiative requires $233 million over the 7 years that AAVP participants have given themselves to test and produce a cheap, effective and safe vaccine for the HIV/AIDS strains common in Africa, she said.\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29207","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICA: 28 million Africans now living with HIV/AIDS - UNAIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1353","body":"More than 28 million Africans are now living with HIV/AIDS and in some countries over 30 percent of the adult population is infected, a UNAIDS statement has warned. \"The devastating impact of HIV/AIDS is rolling back decades of development progress in Africa,\" said Peter Piot, UNAIDS executive director. \"Every element of African society - from teachers to soldiers to farmers - is under attack by AIDS,\" he added.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICA: NEPAD criticised for not focusing on HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1351","body":"Stephen Lewis, the UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS, has criticised the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) for its modest references to HIV/AIDS. Speaking at the opening of the People's Summit, an alternative to the G-8 Summit taking place last week, he said: \"How can you talk about the future of sub-Saharan Africa without AIDS at the heart of the analysis?\"  Africa's development goals would remain an \"impossible hope\" until the HIV/AIDS pandemic was addressed, despite initiatives such as NEPAD, he warned. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS.Edumela","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.AIDS.edumela.com","body":"AIDS.Edumela is a new website aimed at providing information on the HIV/AIDS situation in Botswana and other parts of Southern Africa. Their page \"About Condoms\" contains user contributions about the use of condoms and other issues related to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Botswana.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Anthropologist, Medical Research Council Laboratories","field_subtitle":"Farafenni, The Gambia","field_url":"http://www.mrc.ac.uk/index/about/about-research_centres/about-unit_details.htm?ID=17","body":"Applications are invited from suitably qualified West Africans for a two-year appointment as an Anthropologist to work on a project studying the economic and socio-economic determinants of the demand for malaria treatment. The candidate will be based at the MRC's Field Station at Farafenni but will need to spend periods living and working in the surrounding villages. There is a possibility that the candidate will be appointed a Gates Research Training Fellow linked to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Fellows will receive mentoring from staff at LSHTM as well as local supervision and support for further appropriate training. Qualifications: a) Masters degree in anthropology or a related discipline; b) Experience in carrying out qualitative research; c) Experience of training and supervising staff at different levels; d) Computer literacy in word processing and email; e) Proficiency in at least one of the main languages of The Gambia; f) Excellent command of English; g) Ability to work independently as well as in a team; h) Flexible approach to work; i) Excellent communication skills; j) Ability to work independently and co-operatively in a team; k) Willingness to live and work in a rural setting. Salary will be in Occupational Group D1/D2 commensurate with qualifications and experience and will be within the range D73, 340 per annum - D110, 800 per annum plus a composite allowance of 50 per cent of basic salary. Further details and applications forms are available from the Personnel Officer, MRC Laboratories Fajara, P.O. Box 273, Banjul, The Gambia, West Africa. Telephone: (+220) 495442/6 & 494072/9; Fax: (+220) 495919; email: personnel@mrc.gm. Please also send a copy of your application to: Dr. Tracey Henshaw, Assistant Manager Gates Malaria Partnership, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, 50 Bedford Square, London, UK. WC1B 3DP; Fax: +44 020 7299 4720; email: Tracey.Henshaw@lshtm.ac.uk. Closing date for applications is 21 Jun 2002.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Barcelona: XIV International AIDS conference","field_subtitle":"Follow the developments","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/aids2002","body":"Kaisernetwork.org will feature daily coverage of the XIV International AIDS conference, all of which is available for you not only to view at www.kaisernetwork.org/aids2002, but also to link to and/or post on your website, free of charge, including:\r\n\r\n* Webcasts and transcripts of plenary sessions, satellite meetings, press conferences, and other sessions, along with in-depth related resources\r\n* Daily updates and highlights of the day's events\r\n* Interviews with newsmakers and perspectives from those who have been fighting or covering AIDS.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29229","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Barriers to Accessing Free Condoms at Public Health Facilities Across South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12040950&dopt=Abstract","body":"The authors studied the determinants of condom procurement at 12 health facilities in four health regions. Potential barriers to condom procurement included female gender and perceived risk of HIV. The authors conclude that because barriers to condom procurement vary from region to region, national-level interventions to promote condom procurement and use may be less appropriate than specialised interventions addressing locally relevant factors.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29204","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Botswana: Washington Times Examines AIDS Epidemic","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=11937","body":"Botswana's AIDS epidemic, which affects approximately one-third of the nation's population, \"threatens to undermine one of [Africa's] most democratic and best educated countries,\" the Washington Times reports in a profile of the country. According to a Harvard University Gazette article published in April, between 36% and 38% of Botswanan adults have HIV/AIDS, and 50% of women \"most likely to become pregnant\" -- those between the ages of 25 and 30 -- are estimated to be HIV-positive. The average life expectancy in the country is expected to fall from 64 years in 1998 to 42 years by 2010, the Times reports. In addition, health officials say the infant mortality rate will increase from 41 infant deaths to 65 per 1,000 live births. During a recent broadcast calling on residents to \"come forward\" to receive free medical supplies and prescription drugs, Botswana's President Festus Mogae said, \"We are the most hideously affected country in the world. The pandemic is not abating\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"CD-ROM: Media/Materials for Health Communication","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Media/Materials Clearinghouse at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs is pleased to make available a new CD-ROM: \"Media/Materials for Health Communication\" which is a CD-ROM of the M/MC's website.  The CD-ROM is a \"carry-along\" resource center with many databases of health communication materials, photographs, videos, etc., as well as several of the M/MC's newsletters.  Also included is a checklist that walks the user through the planning and establishment of a multi-media resource center.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29222","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Choosing a Birth Control Method:","field_subtitle":"An Interactive Program to Help You Choose the Birth Control Method That\\'s Right for You (web-based questionnaire) ","field_url":"http://www.arhp.org/successv2/question3.pl","body":"This site offers recommendations on which methods may be best suited for an individual answering 20 questions about lifestyle choices and medical history. Once the questions are anonymously submitted, a list of contraceptive options that best suit these needs is generated. The program also offers a general descriptions, effectiveness rates, side effects and approximate cost for each contraceptive method.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Cities going organic: does it work? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/urban/Insights41art4.html","body":"Cuba\u2019s response to growing food insecurity, caused by the collapse of the eastern European bloc and intensified US economic blockades in the early 1990s, offers many useful lessons. Cuba faced a 30 percent fall in average calorific intake, rocketing prices, a burgeoning black market and collapsing transport and distribution channels due to fuel shortages. Today, food is more available, prices are down, quality is up and per capita consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables is increasing. The recovery is largely due to the policy of encouraging urban and peri-urban organic farming at a community level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Closing the rural-urban nutrient cycle? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/urban/Insights41art5.html","body":"Fast-growing cities in sub-Saharan Africa challenge rural food production. Consumption-related waste, however, ends up in urban latrines, drains or landfills, transforming cities into vast nutrient sinks. Composting this waste for agriculture could bring \u2018rural\u2019 nutrients back to the farmer. But how might this work?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Consensus Statement of National HIV/AIDS Treatment Congress","field_subtitle":"June 29th 2002","field_url":"","body":"Between June 27th and 29th 2002, 750 delegates from all over South Africa attended the TAC/COSATU National Treatment Congress.  Delegates heard presentations from many of South Africa's leading HIV scientists but also the day-to-day experiences of the epidemic of nurses, doctors and people living with HIV/AIDS.  Delegates heard of many of the best practices South Africans are using to combat the epidemic, but there was also a belief that most people with HIV are not receiving adequate treatment, care and support. Furthermore HIV is already having a dramatic and negative impact on the health service.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29214","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Contraceptive Funding Faces Crisis in Developing Countries","field_subtitle":" Hopkins Report","field_url":"http://www.jhuccp.org/news/060602.shtml","body":"The number of contraceptive users in developing countries is expected to surge by more than a third within the next 13 years, reaching 764 million by 2015. Without more funding for contraceptives, many couples will be unable to plan how many children to have and when, or to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS or other sexually transmitted infections, according to a new report from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Counting the cost of HIV in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h5mh1g1.html","body":"Southern Africa is the region with the highest rates of HIV infection in the world. An estimated 9.4 million of the total population of 97 million were HIV-positive in 1999. What impact will the HIV/AIDS epidemic have on the provision of health services in the region? Is there any scope for improving access to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in low-income countries? A study by the International Monetary Fund warns that health services in southern Africa are already over-stretched. The current cost of providing health services to HIV patients accounts for a very large proportion of total health expenditure for most countries in the region. As the number of AIDS patients increases, the situation will deteriorate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Death, data and demographics: AIDS and adult mortality in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h5it1g1.html","body":"Adult mortality is increasing in many parts of Africa. Is this due to AIDS? Can existing data answer this question? What other statistics are needed to document the spread of the AIDS epidemic in Africa? Research from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine examines the impact of HIV/AIDS on adult mortality in five African countries. It shows that increases in adult mortality correspond to high levels of HIV infection. However, there is a pressing need to collect more data on adult mortality in Africa, and to exploit more fully existing data sources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Defying Predictions, HIV in Africa Has Not Yet Peaked","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200207020718.html","body":"\"The scale of the Aids crisis now outstrips even the worst-case scenarios of a decade ago,\" according to a new UNAIDS Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic, and Africa continues as \"the worst-affected region in the world.\" By 2020, according to UNAIDS numbers, over 25% of the workforce may be lost to Aids in some severely affected countries. \"I wish I could come up with better news,\" said UNAIDS Executive Director, Peter Piot, briefing reporters Tuesday. \"The Aids epidemic continues its expansion. It's now clear to me that we are only at the beginning of the Aids epidemic.\" This conclusion was unexpected, said Piot. Epidemiological modeling used to project the expansion of Aids had predicted that the spread of the disease would have \"peaked\" by now.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Deputy Director, South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative ","field_subtitle":"Cape Town","field_url":"","body":"The South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative (SAAVI), which is a key strategic project of the Medical Research Council, Department of Health, ESKOM and other stakeholders, is tasked with developing an affordable, effective and locally relevant HIV vaccine for Southern Africa.  SAAVI comprises of a tightly coordinated group of approximately 150 scientists/ clinicians/immunologist/ethicists/layers/community educators/manufacturers/funders, etc.\r\n\r\nSAAVI is a multimillion dollar R & D initiative which has experienced significant growth, and requires the services of a highly motivated individual to join the SAAVI directorate to assist with the management and direction of the initiative.  The incumbent will report to the SAAVI director and will work closely with the director in maintaining, expanding and directing the initiative.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29221","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"E-conference on Agricultural use of untreated urban wastewater in low income countries ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ruaf.org/conference/","body":"June 24 -July 5 2002.  Globally on an average 47% of the population live in urban areas.  Even at the lower consumption figures of 100 -150 litres per capita per day the water consumption in Africa would be 45 mill m3 and in Asia 200 mill (Water and sanitation assessment report prepared for the 2nd World Water Forum).  Most of this water returns as waste.  On the other hand agriculture consumes more than 70 percent of exploited water resources globally and cities are increasingly competing for water with agriculture.  See the RUAF website for more information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter July 2002 Why half the planet is hungry","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EU Pushes for Tougher Action On Mugabe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200206200157.html","body":"THE 15-nation European Union (EU) will pursue dialogue with the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) to identify further action to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe. The resolution was made recently at a meeting of the EU's General Affairs Council, which expressed concern at the increasing political and social polarisation in Zimbabwe. It follows a visit by an EU delegation to Malawi, Mozambique and South Africa last month to persuade SADC leaders to act on lawlessness in Zimbabwe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Feedback on Equinet Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"We asked our subscribers for feedback on the newsletter. Here are a selection of your comments.\r\n\r\nQuincy Maonde , Project Coordinator,HM Consultancy Services, Lusaka\r\nvalue the information coming from and i am using most it especially on governance, gender and poverty.  Please keep it that way and keep the fire burning towards equity in all our human endeavors.\r\n\r\n\u00a0Eric Buch,School of Health Systems and Public Health,University of Pretoria \r\nIncredibly useful and insightful \r\n\r\nDavid Werner , HealthWrights,USA \r\nVery useful \r\n\r\nThor Erik MAEDER, Country Coordinator, INTERTEAM-TANZANIA \r\nHigh quality input to our work and that of our Tanzanian partners.  Thank you \r\n\r\nDebabar Banerji, Professor Emeritus, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi\u00a0 \r\nvery informative \r\n\r\nHilary Brown, The Rockefeller Foundation , New York \r\nThe listserve is an excellent way to disseminate information as well as keep up to date on the work of others in the field of equity!\r\n\r\nMaureen Mackintosh , Open University, UK\u00a0 \r\nExcellent, I really learn a great deal, thank you very much for it all.\r\n\r\nROELAND MONASCH, UNICEF-New York \r\nAppreciate it \r\n\r\nMarcia Souza, Swiss Development Co-operation, Maputo \r\nGood, reliable, serious ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29231","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"G8 Approves Plan to Increase Development Aid, Offer Help to Battle AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_hiv_recent_rep.cfm?dr_cat=1&show=yes&dr_DateTime=28-Jun-02#11958","body":"The leaders of the world's major industrial nations have said they would provide about $6 billion in foreign aid -- some of which would be used to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS -- to African countries that meet specific reform criteria, the Los Angeles Times reports. The plan, called the New Partnership for Africa's Development, was proposed at the G8 summit meeting near Calgary, Canada, by leaders from South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria and Senegal and was accepted by the G8 members, including the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States. The plan requires African countries that wish to receive aid to \"demonstrate they are pursuing free market reforms and democracy.\" Starting in the next four years, the G8 will offer countries that meet such criteria \"help in the battle against the AIDS epidemic,\" in addition to assistance to end civil wars and improve market access for African goods.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy and Tuberculosis Control in Africa: Synergies and Potential","field_subtitle":"Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2002, 80 (6): 464","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/pdf/2002/bul-6-E-2002/80(6)464-470.pdf","body":"WHO, 2002. Anthony D. Harries, Technical Adviser, National Tuberculosis Control Programme, Ministry of Health, Lilongwe, Malawi; Nicola J. Hargreaves, Coordinator, PROTEST Project, National Tuberculosis Control Programme, Lilongwe, Malawi and Lecturer in Tropical Medicine, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, England; Rehab Chimzizi, Coordinator, PROTEST Project, National Tuberculosis Control Programme, Lilongwe, Malawi; and Felix M. Salaniponi, Programme Manager, National Tuberculosis Control Programme, Ministry of Health, Lilongwe, Malawi. \r\nA decline in TB is unlikely to occur unless strategies to combat HIV and TB simultaneously are implemented. HIV/AIDS and TB are two of the world?s major pandemics, the brunt of which falls on sub-Saharan Africa. Efforts aimed at controlling HIV/AIDS have largely focused on prevention, little attention having been paid to care. Work on TB control has concentrated on case detection and treatment. HIV infection has complicated the control of tuberculosis. There is unlikely to be a decline in the number of cases of TB unless additional strategies are developed to control both this disease and HIV simultaneously. Such strategies would include active case-finding in situations where TB transmission is high, the provision of a package of care for HIV-related illness, and the application of highly active antiretroviral therapy. The latter is likely to have the greatest impact, but for this therapy to become more accessible in Africa the drugs would have to be made available through international support and a programme structure would have to be developed for its administration. TB programmes could contribute towards the development and implementation of a comprehensive HIV/AIDS management strategy complementing the preventive work already being undertaken by AIDS control programmes. Correspondence should be addressed to Anthony D. Harries, c/o British High Commission, PO Box 30042, Lilongwe 3, Malawi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS workshop, University of Natal, Durban","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"An HIV/AIDS workshop will be held at the University of Natal, Durban, from 16-18 July The need for this workshop evolved from a \"Think Tank\" held earlier this year in Durban.  The workshop is for all nurses - whether they be practitioners, educators or managers.  The focus of the workshop will be on HIV immunology, clinical manifestations and antiretroviral therapies and care for the caregiver.  The workshop will be facilitated by Professor Donna Gallagher from the University of Massachusetts and Sheila Davis, an adult nurse practitioner in the Partners Aids Research.\r\nWorkshop attendance will be restricted.\r\nPlease direct enquiries to maharajs35@nu.ac.za Cost: R200,00.  Delegates will be responsible for their own accommodation and travel arrangements.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"How To Survive Peer Review","field_subtitle":"New Title from BMJ Books","field_url":"","body":"Elizabeth Wager, Fiona Godlee and Tom Jefferson\r\n* How to survive the peer review of journal articles, conference abstracts and grant proposals\r\n* How to be a reviewer\r\n* Professional peer review\r\n* Informal peer review\r\nISBN number 0 7279 1686 6 \r\n80 Pages\r\nPrice (in Pounds Sterling) 12.95 \r\nPublished 2002\r\nFor orders contact:orders@bmjbooks.com \r\nTel: +44-207-383-6185\r\nFax: +44-207-383-6662","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi: HIV/AIDS Makes Food Crisis Worse","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=28162&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=MALAWI","body":"HIV/AIDS is hitting the Southern African farm sector hard, with stricken families struggling to produce enough food to survive. A recent Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report states that \"The disease is no longer a health problem alone, but is having a measurable impact on food production, household food security, and rural people's ability to make a living.\" Jennie Mueller, leader of the Hope project funded by Development Aid from People to People (DAPP), which helps communities implement programmes to cope with the disease explained: \"Communities rely on agriculture and [the income of] agricultural labour. If one person goes down then they all go down.\" Every person that becomes sick represents a loss of income and of food produced.  She also explains how \"Skilled workers are dying\", for example teachers and police who can't be replaced. Thirty-eight percent of Malawians who have HIV/AIDS are in the productive age group. There are between 600,000 and 700,000 children orphaned by the disease in Malawi and there are \"simply not enough resources\" to help them. With one of the highest infection rates in Southern Africa, Malawi's HIV/AIDS initiatives are, nonetheless, ahead of many other countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Malawi: Pfizer to Offer Diflucan Free of Charge","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_hiv_recent_rep.cfm?dr_cat=1&show=yes&dr_DateTime=28-Jun-02#11960","body":"Pfizer Inc. has announced that it will provide its antifungal drug Diflucan at no cost to people with AIDS in Malawi, Reuters reports. The drug maker stated that Diflucan will be provided free of charge for Malawians being treated in hospitals operated by either the government or by the Christian Health Association of Malawi. The drug will be provided \"for as long as it is required\" for these patients, and there is \"no dollar or time limit\" on the offer, Pfizer stated. Diflucan treats two opportunistic infections: cryptococcal meningitis, a brain infection which affects 10% of people with AIDS, and oral thrush, which affects between 20% and 40% of people with AIDS. Malawi is the seventh African nation to participate in the program, which also helps train health workers. South Africa, Uganda, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Lesotho have already signed on to the program. Tanya Elston, communications manager at Pfizer, said that the company plans to offer the program soon in Mozambique and Zambia. Pfizer hopes eventually to expand the program to 50 of the world's poorest nations, Elston said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Medical Schemes: Research Conducted by TAC and CARE","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) welcomes the results of the research done on HIV Benefits in Medical Schemes in 2002 by the Centre for Actuarial Research at the University of Cape Town in association with our organisation. One of the most important pieces of legislation promulgated by South Africa's first democratic government is the Medical Schemes Act (Act 131 of 1998). Unfair discrimination against people on a range of grounds including \"any medical condition\" is prohibited by private medical schemes.  The AIDS Law Project, AIDS Consortium and current TAC members supported the passage of the legislation against powerful forces including the insurance industry, the Chamber of Mines and others.  This survey shows conclusively that the Medical Schemes Act has been successful in ensuring coverage by medical schemes of people with HIV/AIDS.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29235","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Nonoxynol-9 Not Effective in Preventing HIV Transmission, WHO/CONRAD Report Says","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_hiv.cfm#11980","body":"The chemical nonoxynol-9, which is found in at least 18 over-the-counter spermicides sold worldwide, does not reduce the spread of HIV as once thought and could increase the likelihood of HIV transmission, according to a joint report released last week by the World Health Organization and Eastern Virginia Medical School's Contraceptive Research and Development Program.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Protect Knowledge to Feed the World?","field_subtitle":"Conference, September 26, Muri-bei-Bern, Switzerland","field_url":"http://www.infoagrar.ch/ipr-symposium/","body":"InfoAgrar (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation)is organizing this international symposium to foster exchange of experience between important stakeholders and promote the debate on strategies for the future.  How can farmers in developing countries protect their traditional knowledge? Who controls the use of seeds? Do patents foster or hinder agricultural research for development? Lively discussions about such questions are currently taking place. One of the key issues in the debate is the increasing use of genetic engineering techniques in agriculture and the related trend to introduce patents to protect achievements. Another issue is the increased importance attributed to traditional knowledge and farmers? rights. Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and rural development is a concern shared by many different groups: farmers in the South, public research centres, the private industry, government agencies and NGOs working in development cooperation. The symposium seeks to contribute to the development of a system of intellectual property protection that benefits food security at the global level.The results of the symposium will serve as input for future discussions at the political level. The symposium will also provide a civil society audience with a good opportunity to learn about the state of the debate on a controversial issue. Registration fee is US$100. For more information, contact InfoAgrar, L\u00e4nggasse 85, 3052 Zollikofen, Switzerland - Phone: +41 31 910 21 90/91","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Reversing development gains - the impact of AIDS in southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h5ciir1g1.html","body":"How has AIDS affected development in the world's poorest regions? How can we reduce the devastation caused by the epidemic? The Zimbabwe-based NGO, SAfAIDS, examined the impact of HIV in Southern Africa where the disease affects a quarter of the adult population. The AIDS epidemic is assuming crisis proportions in the region and is reversing advances made against poverty and under-development. As the cost of care for people with AIDS escalates, donors find it difficult to provide adequate funding for support and care efforts. Communities have a critical role to play in looking after the sick.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Risking health? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/urban/Insights41art2.html","body":"Peri-urban natural resource development projects can have both positive and negative consequences for residents and workers. There are various possible health risks, argues this new report summary from iD21.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Jail Sentences Possible for Illegal Circumcision School Operators","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200206010181.html","body":"New laws are in effect regarding circumcision in South Africa's Northern province. Legislation includes the need for parental consent for youth under 21, and a 10-year jail sentence for people forcibly abducting people and taking them for circumcision.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Special Initiative on Governance in Africa - Consultation Report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.uneca.org/eca_resources/Publications/Publications_DMD.htm","body":"This was an NGO/CSO Regional Consultation on Governance in Africa, published in 1997. UNDP and ECA shared responsibility under the UNSSIA for improving coordination in the areas of capacity building, peace-building, conflict resolution and national reconciliation, and strengthening civil society for development, all linked to the governance agenda. Effective good governance and sustainable development is predicated on efficient public sector management systems and practices; establishment of appropriate legal frameworks that guarantee the rule of law; instalment of systems that ensure both economic and financial accountability; and ensure transparency. The consultation noted both the state and non-state sectors must reach a consensus on a common definition, priority agenda and practical modalities for popular participation in governance. It also noted that defining the nexus between popular participation, governance, peace, and development must invariably include the collaborative initiatives of various actors including ECA, UNDP, and the OAU on one hand and representative African governments, African NGOs and other civic organizations in the continent. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Centre for HIV/AIDS Networking (HIVAN) website","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hivan.org.za","body":"HIVAN aims to showcase the positive, creative and proactive approaches in the fight against HIV/AIDS.  They have currently focused largely on KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, but have drawn in from national sources, the rest of Africa and abroad.  They've also tried to highlight partnerships, especially those which are multisectoral and multidisciplinary. The site also contain a comprehensive database of HIV/AIDS-related organisations and individuals and regularly updated listings of international funding opportunities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Initiative for Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Health Reforms","field_subtitle":"CALL FOR INFORMATION","field_url":"http://www.wits.ac.za/whp","body":"Barbara Klugman, Women's Health Project, South Africa, is co-ordinating an international research and advocacy Initiative for Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Health Reforms and is looking for contacts in different African countries who are working in this field, particularly focusing on health financing; public/private partnerships; priority setting in relation to the primary care package; decentralisation of services; integration of services at primary care level; service accountability and consumer / community participation in design and monitoring of policy and service implementation and to assess if and how these impact on sexual and reproductive rights and health services. In addition to networking with colleagues, they will contract people in different countries to gather material for that. Please complete and submit the Reply form which can be found online [long equinet web version] or requested via email. Contact details: 'Rights and Reforms', Women's Health Project - PO Box 1038, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa - Fax: +27-11-489-9922 - rightsandreforms@sn.apc.org\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29210","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Primacy of Land Conflicts ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/urban/Insights41art11.html","body":"Peri-urban areas in Southern and East Africa are characterised by: rapid change and spiraling socio-economic polarisation; divergent claims, competing interests and identities; and conflicts, disputes and tensions concerning the access, control and use of land resources. Research by South Bank University and African partners in the Urban and Peri-Urban Research Network (Peri-NET), shows that land resource based conflicts are critically important in peri-urban transformations \u2013 whether in Kampala, Lusaka, Nairobi, Durban or Johannesburg.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The Spread and Effect of HIV-1 Infection in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol359/iss9322/full/llan.359.9322.editorial_and_review.21341.1","body":"A detailed analysis of HIV-1 epidemiology in sub-Saharan Africa traces the spread of the virus to four factors: the subordinate position of women, poverty and the breakdown of social services, rapid urbanization, and war.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Top UN Team Jets in to Assess Food Shortages","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200206270607.html","body":"A top United Nations delegation arrived in Harare recently on the first leg of a three-nation tour of Southern African countries to assess food shortages in the region. The delegation, led by the secretary-general for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, Mr Kenzo Oshima, is expected to meet Government officials, diplomats and civic organisations to discuss the humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe. The United Nations Development Programme resident co-ordinator, Mr Victor Angelo, said the delegation would also visit Malawi and Zambia to help in contingency planning and support for the co-ordination of humanitarian assistance.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Treating HIV-Positive South Africans More Cost-Effective Than Not Providing Medications, TAC Says","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=11898","body":"Treating people with HIV/AIDS is more cost effective than not providing them with medications because \"if you manage HIV properly, it would cut costs and have social benefits,\" Mark Heywood, secretary of the Treatment Action Campaign, has said in Johannesburg, the South African Press Association reports.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Treatment Action Campaign on the 12th National Antenatal Survey","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) welcomes the publication of the 12th antenatal survey on HIV and syphilis sero-prevalence in South Africa.  The survey is an important scientific instrument for measuring HIV prevalence and thereby testing the efficacy of South Africa's prevention programmes.  TAC notes the marginal increase in HIV prevalence from 24,5% to 24,8% between 2000 and 2001, but welcomes the drop in HIV prevalence that appears to be taking place amongst people under the age of 20.  We also welcome the survey's finding of a continued decline in national syphilis prevalence.  Despite these promising signs, TAC believes that no comfort can be drawn from the results.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29230","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"U.S. Sponsors Agricultural Trade Forum","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200206250671.html","body":"The U.S. Government has recently sponsored a public-private sector agricultural trade forum for representatives from eleven SADC member countries. The forum, held in Johannesburg from June 25-27 at the Hilton Hotel, focused upon cooperative efforts to facilitate agricultural trade, particularly issues involving plant and animal health requirements in the SADC region. The seminar also sought to enhance coordination of trade initiatives between the public and private sector. Over seventy participants, including SADC secretariat representatives, public sector officials, and private sector representatives from the region participated in the forum.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Why half the planet is hungry","field_subtitle":"Amartya Sen","field_url":"http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=4553","body":"Widespread hunger in the world is primarily related to poverty. It is not principally connected with food production at all. Indeed, over the course of the last quarter of a century, the prices of the principal staple foods (such as rice, wheat etc) have fallen by much more than half in 'real' terms. If there is more demand for food, in the present state of world technology and availability of resources, the production will correspondingly increase. The demand for food is restrained mainly by lack of income. And the same factor explains the large number of people who are hungry across the world. Given their income levels, they are not able to buy enough food, and as a consequence these people (including their family members) live with hunger.\r\n\r\nBut it is not adequate to look only at incomes. There is need to look also at the political circumstances that allow famine and hunger. If the survival of a government is threatened by the prevalence of hunger, the government has an incentive to deal with the situation. Incomes can be expanded both by policies that raise overall income and also by redistributive policies which provide employment, and thus tackle one of the principal reasons for hunger (to wit, unemployment in a country without an adequate social security system). In democratic countries, even very poor ones, the survival of the ruling government would be threatened by famine, since elections are not easy to win after famines; nor is it easy to withstand criticism of opposition parties and newspapers. That is why famine does not occur in democratic countries. Unfortunately, there are a great many countries in the world which do not yet have democratic systems.\r\n\r\nIndeed, as a country like Zimbabwe ceases to be a functioning democracy, its earlier ability to avoid famines in very adverse food situations (for which Zimbabwe had an excellent record in the 1970s and 1980s) becomes weakened. A more authoritarian Zimbabwe is now facing considerable danger of famine. Alas, hunger in the non-acute form of endemic under-nourishment often turns out to be not particularly politically explosive. Even democratic governments can survive with a good deal of regular under-nourishment. For example, while famines have been eliminated in democratic India (they disappeared immediately in 1947, with Independence and multi-party elections), there is a remarkable continuation of endemic under-nourishment in a non-acute form. Deprivation of this kind can reduce life expectancy, increase the rate of morbidity, and even lead to under-development of mental capacities of children. If the political parties do not succeed in making endemic hunger into a politically active issue, hunger in this non-acute form can go on even in democratic countries.\r\n\r\nWhat should rich countries do, and is trade liberalisation the answer?\r\n\r\nThe rich countries can do a great deal to reduce hunger in the world. First, the displacement of democracies in poor countries, particularly in Africa, often occurred during the Cold War with the connivance of the great powers. Whenever a military strongman displaced a democratic government, the new military dictatorship tended to get support from the Soviet Union (if the new military rulers were pro-Soviet) or from the United States and its allies (if the new rulers were anti-Soviet and pro-West). So there is culpability on the part of the dominant powers in the world, given past history, and there is some responsibility now for rich countries to help facilitate the expansion of democratic governance in the world.\r\n\r\nSecond, hunger is related to low income and often to unemployment. Poverty could be very substantially reduced if the richer countries were more welcoming to imports from poorer countries, rather than shutting them out by tariff barriers and other exclusions. Fairer trade can reduce poverty in the poor countries (as the recent Oxfam report Rigged Rules, Double Standards discusses in detail). Third, there is a need for a global alliance not just to combat terrorism in the world, but also for positive goals, such as combating illiteracy and reducing preventable illnesses that so disrupt economic and social lives in the poorer countries. Trade liberalisation on the part of the richer countries could certainly make a difference to employment and income prospects of poorer countries. The situation is a little more complex in the case of liberalisation of the poorer countries. Even those countries which have greatly benefited from the expansion of world trade (such as South Korea or China) often went through a phase of protecting industries before vigorous expansion of exports and trade. So, trade liberalisation is partly an answer, but the economic steps involved have to be carefully assessed: the policies cannot be driven by simple slogans.\r\n\r\nWhat is the solution?\r\n\r\nThere is no 'magic bullet' to deal with the entrenched problem of hunger in the world. It requires political leadership in encouraging democratic governments in the world, including support for multi-party elections, open public discussions, elimination of press censorship, and also economic support for independent news media and rapid dissemination of information and analysis. It also requires visionary economic policies which both encourage trade (especially allowing exports from poorer countries into the markets of the rich), but also reforms (involving patent laws, technology transfer etc.) to dramatically reduce deprivation in the poorer countries. The problem of hunger has to be seen as being embedded in larger issues of global poverty and deprivation.\r\n\r\nCountries of the South increasingly seek food self-sufficiency. Could this solve the problem of hunger and starvation?\r\n\r\nFood self-sufficiency is a peculiarly obtuse way of thinking about food security. There is no particular problem, even without self-sufficiency, in achieving nutritional security through the elimination of poverty (so that people can buy food) and through the availability of food in the world market (so that countries can import food if there is not an adequate stock at home). The two problems get confused, because many countries which are desperately poor also happen to earn most of their income from food production. This is the case, for example, for many countries in Africa. But if these countries were able to produce a good deal of income (for example through diversification of production, including industrialisation), they can become free of hunger even without producing all the food that is needed for domestic consumption. The focus has to be on income and entitlement, and the ability to command food rather than on any fetishist concern about food self-sufficiency.\r\n\r\nThere are situations in which self-sufficiency is important, such as during wars. At one stage in the Second World War, there was a real danger of Britain not being able to get enough food into the country. But that is a very peculiar situation, and we are not in one like that now, nor are we likely to be in the near future. The real issue is whether a country can provide enough food for its citizens - either from domestic production or imports or both - and that is a very different issue from self-sufficiency. We have to look at ways and means of eliminating poverty, and to undertake the economic, social and political processes that can achieve that.\r\n\r\nAmartya Sen, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998, is Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. This is a longer version of an article, expanded by the author, that appeared in Le Monde","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"[HIF-net at WHO] Effective use of English in health publications","field_subtitle":"Can anyone help?","field_url":"","body":"TALC is producing a series of free CD-Roms on health. David Morley, Professor Emeritus, Institute of Child Health, Tropical Child Health Unit, is looking for help addressing his concern that the English in these be appropriate for those to whom it is a second language. Does anyone know of a vocabulary list for those who have had secondary school education? Is there a computer programme which would identify words in a text outside this vocabulary, print them in a different font and take those that are unfamiliar with the word to a glossary with a click? Please send any imput to David Morley via email.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29211","field_issue_date":"2002-07-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":" SWAZILAND: AIDS campaign to be led from the grassroots ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSReport.ASP?ReportID=1317","body":"Swaziland's mayors are adopting a novel method in the fight against HIV/AIDS. They are reversing the usual top-down approach and are being led instead by their constituents, ordinary Swazis. \"The voice of the people will determine how we will combat AIDS in the towns,\" explained chairman of the Ezulwini town board, Nokuthula Mthembu. The first woman to hold the top government post in her municipality, Mthembu is chair of the Executive Council of the Alliance of Mayors' Initiative for Community Action on AIDS at the Local Level (AMICAALL). \"There has never been a project like this one,\" Mthembu told PlusNews. \"But we absolutely must have an innovative approach to combat the deadly disease that is attacking our municipalities. We desperately need fresh ideas.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"A handbook for advocacy in the African human rights system: Advancing reproductive and sexual health","field_subtitle":"Now available","field_url":"http://www.ipas.org","body":"Prepared by eminent legal scholars under the auspices of the International Programme on Reproductive and Sexual Health Law at the University of Toronto, this 193-page manual aims to facilitate use of Africa's human rights system to  promote and protect reproductive and sexual health. A rich resource for women's health and rights advocates working in Africa, it provides an overview of the context of reproductive and sexual health in Africa; an introduction to the African regional human rights system; \"how to\" information on using the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights; background on the Commission's \r\ncasework relevant to advocacy; and basic human rights documents of the African human rights system, as well as other interpretive documents. In English. Available online. Limited hard copies are available free of charge and can be requested from the Ipas African Regional Office via email.\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29180","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICA: Africans demand more funds for AIDS research","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1325","body":"An HIV/AIDS vaccine offers the best hope of controlling the pandemic in Africa, leading scientists have said at the opening of a two-day meeting of the African AIDS Vaccine Programme (AAVP) in Cape Town, South Africa. HIV/AIDS was a \"nightmare\" for Africa but the development of a vaccine for the continent was a \"dream worth dreaming\", Jose Esparaza, coordinator of the World Health Organisation (WHO)/UNAIDS HIV Vaccine Initiative, told about 200 delegates attending the meeting. Two-thirds of all people living with HIV are in Africa, yet African vaccine research received only 1.6 percent of the US $2.5 billion spent on HIV research annually, he said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICAN CONFERENCE ON SOCIAL ASPECTS OF HIV/AIDS RESEARCH","field_subtitle":"1st ?4th September 2002; Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"","body":"A Unique Opportunity For African Stakeholders to discuss emergent social aspects Of HIV/AIDS research at a meeting preceding the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). 1st ?4th SEPTEMBER 2002; JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA. The Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa, is establishing SOCIAL ASPECTS OF HIV/AIDS RESEARCH ALLIANCE (SAHARA), an alliance of partners to conduct, support and use social sciences research to prevent further spread of HIV and mitigate the impact of its devastation on South Africa, SADC and other regions of Africa. The African Conference will be a vehicle to improve the effectiveness of the SAHARA and to integrate its activities more closely with those of other organizations and individuals active in HIV and AIDS control within SADC and the African continent, through sharing information on progress and experience on social aspects of HIV/AIDS research.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29156","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Article: Insurance Benefit Preferences of the Low-income Uninsured","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nMarion Danis, MD, Andrea K. Biddle, PhD, Susan Dorr Goold, MD. Journal of General Internal Medicine\r\nVolume 17 Issue 2 Page 125 - February 2002. A frequently cited obstacle to universal insurance is the lack of consensus about what benefits to offer in an affordable insurance package. This study was conducted  to assess the feasibility of providing uninsured patients the opportunity to define their own  benefit package within cost constraints.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29182","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Defining health inequality: why Rawls succeeds where social welfare theory fails","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6V8K-44VG4WC-1-S&_cdi=5873&_orig=search&_coverDate=05/31/2002&_qd=1&_sk=999789996&wchp=dGLSlS-lSzBA&_acct=C000029798&_version=1&_userid=735457&md5=b1890101038b2c0b5581ca6df6b034dc&ie=f.pdf","body":"Journal Of Health Economics Vol. 21 (Issue3 - May 2002) pp. 497-513. Copyright (c) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. Antoine Bommier, Guy Stecklov. Institut National d'etudes D\u00e9mographiques (INED), INRA-Jourdan, Paris, France; and Department of Population Studies, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Mount Scopus Campus, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. While there has been an important increase in methodological and empirical studies on health inequality, not much has been written on the theoretical foundation of health inequality measurement the authors discuss several reasons why the classic welfare approach, which is the foundation of income inequality analysis, fails to provide a satisfactory foundation for health inequality analysis. They propose an alternative approach which is more closely linked to the WHO concept of equity in health and is also consistent with the ethical principles espoused by Rawls [A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1971]. This  approach in its simplest form, is shown to be closely related to the concentration curve when health and income are positively related. Thus, the criteria presented in the paper provide an important theoretical foundation for empirical analysis using the concentration curve. They explore the properties of these approaches by developing policy scenarios and examining how various ethical criteria affect government strategies for targeting health interventions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter June 2002 Municipal Services Project Conference: A Report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Genomics and World Health ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www3.who.int/whosis/genomics/genomics_report.cfm","body":"The most up-to-date who publication on the subject, the report may help 191 WHO Member States to ensure that genome technology is used to reduce rather than exacerbate global inequalities in health status. In the coming decades, information generated by genomics will have major benefits for the prevention, diagnosis and management of many diseases which have been difficult or impossible to control. At the same time, this new field presents a series of highly complex scientific, economic, social and ethical issues which are dealt with in the report. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Economics: ","field_subtitle":"Bridging Research and Reforms","field_url":"http://www.healtheconomics.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/ihea.woa/6/wo/aqdc3IKvoYVu2hN2Dfe3ft7eCJV/2.14","body":"4th World Congress - San Francisco - 2003\r\nJune 15th - June 18th, 2003\r\nHilton San Francisco and Towers, California, USA \r\nWith the expansion of the world economy and increasing migration, parallel flows have occurred in health systems, medical technology and infectious pathogens. Globalism has increased the need for the development and transfer of accurate health economics research and careful policy analysis. Without it, lessons will go unlearned and mistakes will be repeated. Global health economics offers the potential to improve health for both donor and recipient countries. This is a new and important challenge in the application of economics to health and health care.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/Aids Crisis Demands Reproductive Health Care in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200206040059.html","body":"The HIV/AIDS pandemic has spurred significant advances in reproductive health policies across Africa, however, governments do not allocate sufficient legal and financial resources to ensure that the policies are effective, according to a report launched by advocates from seven African countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, and the U.S.-based Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP). The report is based on two years of collaborative research and analysis of laws and policies related to women's reproductive lives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care in Resource-Constrained Settings:","field_subtitle":"A Handbook for the Design and Management of Programs","field_url":"http://www.fhi.org","body":"Edited by Peter R Lamptey, MD, DrPH and Helene Gayle, MD, MPH. The Handbook is a comprehensive source of information on how to design and manage HIV/AIDS prevention and care programs, especialy in developing countries. For a copy of this handbook or a CD ROM version, please contact Shawna Brown by email or telephone (USA)703.516.9779.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequality does Cause Underdevelopment: ","field_subtitle":"New evidence","field_url":"http://www.cgdev.org/wp/wp001.pdf","body":"William Easterly, Center for Global Development - Institute for International Economics, Working Paper No.1, January 2002.\r\nThis paper argues that the conflicting results in the voluminous recent literature on inequality and growth are missing the big picture on inequality and long-run economic development. Consistent with the provocative hypothesis of Engerman and Sokoloff 1997 and Sokoloff and Engerman 2000, this paper confirms with cross-country data that commodity endowments predict the middle class share of income and the middle class share predicts development. The use of commodity endowments as instruments for middle class share addresses problems of measurement and endogeneity of inequality. The paper tests the mechanisms - institutions, redistributive policies, and schooling - by which the literature has argued that a higher middle class share raises per capita income. It tests the inequality hypothesis for institutional quality, redistributive policies, and schooling against other recent hypotheses in the literature. The results were subjet to testing for over-identifying restrictions, reverse causality, and other checks for robustness. While finding some evidence consistent with other development fundamentals, the paper finds high inequality to independently be a large and statistically significant barrier to developing the mechanisms by which prosperity is achieved.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29172","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Inputs from African Researchers and Health Professionals sought","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cghrc.ca","body":"The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) requests your assistance in identifying African researchers/professionals involved in grassroots/national/international health issues of Africans. CIHR is taking a lead, through a Global Health Research Initiative partnership, on the consultative process leading up to the G8 meeting in June where the approval of the Africa Action Plan will take place. This Plan will define how G8 member countries will meet the objectives of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). CIHR seek to inform the G8 process by providing a recommendation and supporting background paper on how increased investment in health research contributes to improved health and  economic development in Africa. The partners and the Coalition are seeking additional input through consultative processes that are designed to coordinate the views of the developing country researcher community, and invite the views of international and national research organizations with shared interest in global health research. Interested participants could provide input through the website of the Coalition for Global Health Research.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29178","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"International Law and Global Infectious Disease Control","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cmhealth.org/docs/wg2_paper18.pdf","body":"D. Fidler, CMH Working Paper Series Paper No. WG2: 18, 2002.  At the beginning of the 21 st century, the global public good of infectious disease control is increasingly under-produced. The World Health Organization (WHO) warned of a global infectious disease crisis in 1996,  and the crisis has deepened in succeeding years. The HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to devastate the developing world; and old scourges such as tuberculosis, malaria, cholera, and pneumonia continue to cause morbidity and mortality around the world.2 The anthrax attacks on the United States in 2001 raise the terrifying reality of bioterrorism and its threat to national and global public health. Attention to improving production of the global public good of infectious disease control has become imperative.  The paper is also available online as PDF file.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"IPH EQUITY PROGRAM POSITIONS","field_subtitle":"12 research posts with a new equity program in Ottawa","field_url":"","body":"The Institute of Population Health recently established by the University of Ottawa is seeking applications for Senior and Junior Research Chairs and Postdoctoral Research Fellows. The Institute involves investigators from seven faculties within the University of Ottawa: Administration, Engineering, Health Sciences, Law, Medicine, Science, and Social Sciences. The Institute involves investigators from seven faculties within the University of Ottawa: Administration, Engineering, Health Sciences, Law, Medicine, Science, and Social Sciences. The Institute will carry out a transdisciplinary academic program of research and training in Equity studies, and will serve as a resource to the public, consumers, clinicians, government and industry.  Enquiries should be addressed to Liz Lacasse Executive Assistant to Peter Tugwell, Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa, via telephone 613-562-5346 or email.   \r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29166","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Migrants Against HIV/AIDS (MAHA) website","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hivnet.ch/migrants/","body":"Migrants Against HIV/AIDS (MAHA), is a small, informal network of immigrant rights and AIDS activitists from Arab, African and other third world communities settled in Europe. This site gives access to some back issues of the MAHA Newsletter and information on how to subscribe to the free migrants-weekly mailing list which has articles and information about \"AIDS, racism, and Third World community struggles for Health\".\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mobile HIV/AIDS Health Clinic Design Competition","field_subtitle":"Submit entries by November 1, 2002","field_url":"","body":"New York, NY (May 1, 2002) -- Architecture for Humanity, a non-profit organization that promotes architecture and design solutions to global, social \r\nand humanitarian crises, announces its 2002 International Design Competition. For this year's competition, participants are asked to develop designs for a fully equipped, mobile, medical unit and HIV/AIDS treatment center specifically for use in Africa. \"Architects and designers have not only an opportunity,\" said Frank Gehry, Architecture for Humanity advisory board member, \"but a professional obligation to help to end this crisis. We need to employ the same caliber of design talent and innovative use of materials we use in commercial projects to create a viable solution to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.\" The deadline for design submissions is November 1, 2002. There is a $35 entry fee which will be waived for submissions from developing countries. Contact Cameron Sinclair, Executive Director/Founder. Phone: 1 646 654 0906 or via email.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29179","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Municipal Services Project Conference: A Report","field_subtitle":"Rene Loewenson/Thumida Maistry, Equinet","field_url":"","body":"A recent conference hosted by the Municipal Services Project in Johannesburg highlighted a growing tide of defiance from people around South Africa over privatisation and its impact on access to basic services. People travelled from all parts of South Africa to testify in the workshop on their experiences of hardship as a result of privatisation and unaffordable service costs, noting stories of evictions, and water and electricity cut offs. Most of these testimonies articulated the view that basic needs, such as water and electricity, are basic rights. Many highlighted the negative impact of reduced access to basic services such as water supplies on health and quality of life.\r\n\r\nAmong the delegates were representatives of non government organisations (NGO\u2019s), academics, community based organisations (CBOs), and unionists. They consistently raised the constraints to service delivery under globalisation, privatisation  and cost recovery measures, and their negative health impacts. Eddie Cottle of the Rural Services Development Network reported, for example,  on the link between the cholera outbreak in South Africa and the introduction of user fees for water.  \r\n\r\nDuring the workshops, delegates discussed strategies to address the issue. Would a rights based approach or one centred  on claiming legal redress for deprivation of basic rights be successful? Glen Farred  from the Community Legal Centre noted that while the establishment of a constitution and a bill of rights provided certain opportunities,  They were difficult to apply in the case of access to safe water. The meeting identified the need for a new wave of social mobilisation  as being more important than legal battles in achieving constitutional rights around basic services. \r\n\r\nThe impact of foreign  intervention in basic services was also explored. It was noted that the world\u2019s water management continues to be taken up by foreign companies. Large dam projects funded by international finance institutions were also reported to undermine service access in poor communities.  Medha Patkar from the Narmada valley India reported at the meeting on the struggle of people in the catchment area of one such large dam to stop the dam from being built. This dam was reported to be threatening 40 000 families, with thousands more homes reported to have been submerged since construction began. She described passionately the irreversible loss of a way of life, livelihood and wellbeing for indigent people and said globalisation, privatisation, and centralised management of the world\u2019s natural resources made humanity itself one of the greatest threats to itself. \r\n\r\nPatkar and others noted that the response to such challenges called for a social movement, able to strategise, resisting co-option by international agencies and able to resist neoliberal policies.  Some role models were presented of health systems arising out of social movements, such as Daniel Chavez\u2019s description of Porto Allegro,  where strong mechanisms exist for citizen participation in municipal affairs. \r\n\r\n\r\nThe conference explored how such social forces for health are organised \u2013 and growing. Community struggles around access to basic services were seen to be snowballing, particularly when they have support from social movements around the world. More well established movements, like the  youth activists and organised labour all noted their roles internationally in targeting access to serves and in building alliances with other community based organisations. \r\n\r\nA growing social movement to pressure for basic services was thus seen as the greatest predictor of service cover. This was particularly the case as neoliberal forces have grown. As Yash Tandon noted: \r\n \u201cAt Doha first world countries recaptured the gains won in Seattle through pressure and manipulation and aggressive tactics. The outcome was the pursuit of neoliberalism such that the markets must be opened to international competitors even for public goods. \u201c\r\n\r\nMarket policies and inequitable development were viewed as primary threats to increasing cover of basic services.  This drew attention to the potential impact of the proposed new African recovery plan - NEPAD  - on access to basic services. Delegates observed features within NEPAD, including its commitment to  deepen neoliberal market policies, that are likely to have negative effects for basic service access and generate increased social conflict over access to water, electricity and other basic rights.  Whether poor communities obtain or lose access to safe water and electricity will certainly be one litmus test of whether NEPAD brings real recovery for African households.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"New Journal - A Voice for the People","field_subtitle":"call for submissions","field_url":"","body":"The Global Initiative on AIDS, Inc. and the Global Initiative on AIDS in Africa is calling on African journalists, writers, physicians, scientists, researchers, health care providers, grassroots activists and citizens in general who are involved on every level of the struggle against HIV/AIDS in African and throughout the Diaspora to submit articles, issues, opinions, research findings, and news about HIV/AIDS related matters. GIAA will publish \"The Voice of the People,\" An International Journal Chronicling the Battle Against HIV/AIDS from the Perspective of Africans, African-Americans, African-Carribeans and Africans Around the World. Anyone interested in submitting articles and/or contributing to this effort should contact Angele Kwemo or Patricia Okolo.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"PAHO/WHO  -  2002 Bioethics Award  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.paho.org/English/PAHEF/velasco.htm","body":"The Pan American Health and Education Foundation is pleased to announce  the introduction of  a new international award to recognize and stimulate excellence in the field of bioethics. The 2002 Manuel Velasco-Suarez Bioethics Award is intended to stimulate young scholars or researchers in the development of their capacities for bioethical analysis. The award carries a cash prize of US$10,000. More information can be obtained on the web. Nominations must be received by 15 June 2002 at the Foundation's US office: The Manuel Velasco-Suarez Bioethics Award Committee c/o Pan American Health and Education Foundation - 525 23rd Street NW - Washington, DC 20037","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29167","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Publish Windhoek Resolution On Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200205310254.html","body":"A resolution passed by ruling parties from eight Southern African countries at a recent meeting in Windhoek needs to be given the widest possible circulation. It points to exactly why the much-touted Nepad project will fail \u00f9 in this region if not elsewhere. Nepad ties investment and trade to improved governance in Africa. In language that is now wearyingly familiar, the ruling parties of Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe congratulated President Mugabe on his \"convincing\" win \"against all odds\" in the recent presidential election. They condemned the \"grossly fabricated and far-fetched propaga-nda deliberately perpetrated against the government\" and \"attempts to install puppet regimes that guarantee the exploitation of our resources\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Rating the Strength of Scientific Research Findings","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ahrq.gov/news/press/pr2002/strengpr.htm","body":"The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Report No.47, 2002 AHRQ's Evidence-based Practice Center at Research Triangle Institute/University of North Carolina.\r\nThe report identifies and compares systems that rate the quality of evidence in individual research studies and compilations of studies addressing a common scientific issue.  The report also provides guidance on the leading approaches currently in use for improving the quality of scientific evidence.  Using well-specified criteria, the researchers identified 19 study-quality and 7 strength-of-evidence grading systems that people conducting systematic reviews and technology assessments can use as starting points for future evidence-based research projects.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29174","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Reproline Tutorials:","field_subtitle":"Care of Women with HIV Living in Limited-Resource Settings","field_url":"http://www.reproline.jhu.edu/english/4morerh/4hivaid/hivreal.htm","body":"Six new tutorials on HIV and Pregnancy, HIV and Breastfeeding, and HIV and Nutrition. In response to the international HIV/AIDS epidemic, the JHPIEGO Corporation has begun working with the Department of Health and Human Services1(DHHS) and USAID to develop training and education programs in limited-resource settings on the Care of Women with HIV. The first product of this collaboration is a series of tutorials designed to provide physicians, faculty and healthcare trainers with the technical knowledge they need to provide high quality healthcare services to women with HIV/AIDS and to train other healthcare providers. To date, eight tutorials have been developed. A CD-ROM with all eight tutorials is also available and may be obtained by contacting JHPIEGO via email.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC in Need of 3,5 Million Tonnes of Maize","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200205300614.html","body":"The Southern African Development Community countries require more than 3,5 million tonnes of maize worth over US$770 million (about $43 billion) up to April next year, a United Nations resident co-ordinator has said. Of that amount, Zimbabwe would need an estimated 1,5 million tonnes of maize worth more than US$330 million (about $18,1 billion).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Short Term Professional Positions at WHO:","field_subtitle":"Global Burden of Disease 2000 project ","field_url":"","body":"WHO is looking for people with experience in descriptive epidemiology and analysis to work on the Global Burden of Disease 2000 project.  This project involves systematic reviews of available data and epidemiological studies on specific diseases, development of disease models for ensuring consistency of mortality data with other epidemiological data, and the preparation of reports and publications.  Please send curriculum vitae to Dr. Colin Mathers, Acting Coordinator, Epidemiology and Burden of Disease, World Health Organization.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29170","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Social inequalities in health within countries: not only an issue for affluent nations","field_subtitle":"Social Science & Medicine - Volume 54, Issue 11 Pages 1621-1635: June 2002 ","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBF-44CN141-6&_user=735457&_coverDate=06/30/2002&_alid=42111707&_rdoc=1&_fmt=full&_orig=search&_qd=1&_cdi=5925&_sort=d&_acct=C000029798&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=735457&md5=135c5e7a94827151683cfc7fc2d7f0c0","body":"Paula Braveman,  Department of Family & Community Medicine, University of California, USA; Eleuther Tarimo, Consultant, Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, Harare, Zimbabwe. Available online at the Social Science & Medicine website. While interest in social disparities in health within affluent nations has been growing, discussion of equity in health with regard to low- and middle-income countries has generally focused on north-south and between-country differences, rather than on gaps between social groups within the countries where most of the world's population lives. This paper aims to articulate a rationale for focusing on within- as well as between-country health disparities in nations of all per capita income levels, and to suggest relevant reference material, particularly for developing country researchers. explicit concerns about equity in health and its determinants need to be placed higher on the policy and research agendas of both international and national organizations in low-, middle-, and high-income countries. International agencies can strengthen or undermine national efforts to achieve greater equity. The Primary Health Care strategy is at least as relevant today as it was two decades ago; but equity needs to move from being largely implicit to becoming an explicit component of the strategy, and progress toward greater equity must be carefully monitored in countries of all per capita income levels. Particularly in the context of an increasingly globalized world, improvements in health for privileged groups should suggest what could, with political will, be possible for all. \r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29169","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa, Senegal Strengthen Health Relationship","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200206050328.html","body":"South Africa and Senegal will now exchange medical experts with regard to the recruitment of doctors for underserved areas. This follows the signing of a Declaration of Intent in Parliament yesterday by health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and her Senegalese counterpart Professor Awa Marie Coll-Seck. According to the agreement, the two countries will co-operate on the prevention of communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. They will further work together in the strengthening of health systems and human resource development, including sharing information and experience on rural doctors, postgraduate medical education and the exchange of health experts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Few Medical Scheme Members Using HIV Cover'","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200206060132.html","body":"More than 95% of medical aid scheme members have access to HIV/AIDS cover exceeding the state's proposed package of minimum benefits, but less than 1% of them are coming forward to take advantage of the available care. This is one of the key findings of a study released by the Centre for Actuarial Research at the University of Cape Town in association with the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTH AFRICA: Insurance controversy for people living with HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"When Mercy Makhalemele's husband died of HIV/AIDS seven years ago her home was taken away after the insurance company refused to pay out his life cover. \"At the time, I decided not to fight it because I had too many things to deal with,\" she told IRIN. As the executive director of a local community organisation, Makhalemele has been working with members to create a burial scheme for people with HIV/AIDS. Through her work, Makhalemele said she has encountered people who have been treated with injustice and a lack of respect, because of their status.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29168","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Medical Research Council and South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative Africa Fellowships","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.mrc.ac.za/research/ourresearch.htm","body":"The South African Medical Research Council (MRC) and the South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative (SAAVI) invite applications or one-year travelling research fellowships in health research, with preference given to proposals which address the MRC's research priorities (available on the wed at the URL below) and particularly to those addressing HIV/AIDS research. The fellowship may be held in South Africa for non-South African applicants, or in any other African country for South African applicants. The award will cover the fellow's return travel from home to host country, the fellow's salary (calculated on South African scales, in US$) in the host country, and reasonable research costs in the host country. Five such fellowships may be awarded. Applicants providing proof of a research doctorate or equivalent in a health-related area including, health economics, nursing or public health will be considered. Applicants that do not hold a research doctorate or equivalent must have proven research capabilities. They must be citizens of an African country, currently working in that country, and must be able to provide assurance that there is a position to return to in their home country on completion of the fellowship. To be considered for this fellowship, applicants must submit a preliminary application with the following information: a) full curriculum vitae of the visiting fellow and host researcher,including full publications lists and reliable telephone, cellullar/mobile 'phone, fax and e-mail contact details; b) a letter of support from the host researcher; c) a letter from the home institution assuring a post to return to after completion of the fellowship; d) a 2-page project outline prepared in consultation with the host researcher; e) a preliminary budget in US$ to cover the fellows return airfare and reasonable research costs. Applicants must send a preliminary application to the MRC by Friday 28 June 2002. Applicants will be notified of the outcome of the preliminary application by Friday 19 July 2002. The full application must reach the MRC by Thursday 31  October 2002. Applicants will be notified of the nominating committee's final decision by the end of January 2003. Medical Research Council of South Africa, 2001 - PO Box 19070, 7505 Tygerberg, South Africa - Tel +27 (0)21 9380911 / Fax +27 (0)21 9380200.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29177","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The conceptual basis for measuring and reporting on health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www3.who.int/whosis/discussion_papers/pdf/paper45.pdf","body":"Somnath Chatterji, Bedirhan L Ust\u00fcn, Ritu Sadana, Joshua A Salomon, Colin D Mathers, Christopher JL Murray, Global Programme on Evidence for Health, Policy Discussion Paper No. 45, World Health Organization, 2002. Health is an attribute of individuals, which is best operationalized as a multidimensional set of domains; To obtain meaningful information on health and health interventions, the boundaries of the notion of health must be determined by identifying a set of core domains of health. The threshold for loss of health in any given domain reflects norms or standards. Health state description and measurement must be distinguished from (1) subjective evaluations of health; (2) consequences of health states; and (3) environmental impacts on health and other proximate or distal determinants of health.\r\nIn keeping with the above conclusions, WHO thus recommends that for measurement  purposes, health be understood as a multidimensional phenomenon that can be narrowed to a core set of health domains, each characterized by a single cardinal scale of capacity (measured or latent, and including currently available personal aids). The overall level of health associated with the set of abilities (or capacities) on the core health domains may be characterized by a cardinal scale of health state valuations. These valuations quantify level of health, not quality of life, well-being or utility.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards better stewardship: ","field_subtitle":"concepts and critical issues","field_url":"http://www3.who.int/whosis/discussion_papers/pdf/paper48.pdf","body":"Phyllida Travis, Dominique Egger, Philip Davies, Abdelhay Mechbal. Evidence and Information for Policy, World Health Organization, 2002.\r\nThe paper proposes that stewards should have access to reliable, up-to-date information on: Current and future trends in health and health system performance?  For example, on levels, trends and inequalities in key areas such as national health expenditures; human resources; health system outcomes; health risk factors; vulnerable groups; coverage; provider performance; organisational / institutional challenges in provision, financing, resource generation, stewardship Important contextual factors and actors the political, economic and institutional context; the roles and motivation of different actors; user / consumer preferences; opportunities and constraints for change.  Events / reforms in other sectors with implications for the health sector Possible policy options, based on national and international evidence and experience?  For example, intelligence on different policy tools and instruments for similar problems; on their effects in different settings, and on managing change.  It includes information on relatively specific things such as cost-effective interventions; and on possible institutional arrangements for different functions.\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29173","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"User\u2019s Guide to Poverty and Social Impact Analysis of Policy Reform ","field_subtitle":"Draft for comments -  April 19, 2002 ","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/psia/","body":"World Bank Poverty Reduction Group and Social Development Department. This draft User's Guide is intended to help policy makers and analysts in developing countries, as well as representatives of donor agencies and civil society organizations in undertaking poverty and social impact analysis of policy reforms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO LAUNCHES THE FIRST GLOBAL STRATEGY ON TRADITIONAL AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE","field_subtitle":"WHO, Geneva, May, 2002","field_url":"http://www.who.int/medicines/library/trm/trm_strat_eng.pdf","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) released on May 16,2002 a global plan to address those issues. The strategy provides a framework for policy to assist countries to regulate traditional or complementary/alternative medicine (TM/CAM) to make its use safer, more accessible to their populations and sustainable. \"Traditional Medicine: Growing Needs and Potential\" is the core of the WHO Strategy for Traditional Medicine for 2002-2005. It provides brief information on the growing needs and challenges faced by traditional medicine worldwide. It also gives key messages and a checklist for the safety, efficacy and quality to policy-makers. It sets out WHO's role and how the WHO Strategy could meet the  challenges to support WHO Member States in the proper use of traditional and complementary/alternative medicine.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29162","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"XIV International AIDS Conference, July 7 \u2013 12","field_subtitle":"2002 Barcelona, Spain","field_url":"http://www.aids2002.com/rugg","body":"The XIV International AIDS Conference has received almost 10 500 abstract submissions from the world's leading scientists, clinicians, community representatives and people living with HIV/AIDS. This is the highest number of submissions ever received in the history of the series of international AIDS conferences.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29176","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Zim Health Scheme for All Workers On the Cards","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200206060062.html","body":"THE government, workers and employers have entered into negotiations that could result in the launch of a medical aid scheme to provide health cover for Zimbabwean workers, according to National Social Security Authority (NSSA) general manager Amod Takawira. He said NSSA, the government's main investment arm, was involved in the negotiations but would not indicate how long the consultations had been going on. \"The national health insurance scheme is being finalised by the relevant stakeholders and will benefit all employees who meet the required conditions,\" Takawira told the Financial Gazette.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Zim's Land Reform Triggers Agrarian Revolution in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200206060405.html","body":"Zimbabwe's land reform programme has triggered an agrarian revolution in the Southern African Development Community region and the African continent. The redistribution of land to the black majority has set in motion demands for land by many citizens of other neighbouring countries, who are now reclaiming their heritage. Sadc ministers of land recently said the agrarian reform was the basis for peace, stability and economic development in the region. At a meeting in Namibia, the ministers recognised the complexity of the land question in the region, noting that in some Sadc member states, the problem was caused by colonial land ownership imbalances, which had to be speedily rectified.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"ZIMBABWE: State declares emergency, allows use of generics","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1318","body":"Zimbabwe's government has declared a state of emergency over HIV/AIDS and will allow the importation and manufacture of generic drugs, a local state-controlled newspaper reported. However, Lindy Francis, director of The Centre, an NGO working with people living with AIDS (PWAs) in Harare said that if true, the declaration was \"five years too late\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-06-07","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":" WORKING TOWARD GREATER EQUITY IN THE FIGHT AGAINST HIV/AIDS, MALARIA, AND TUBERCULOSIS","field_subtitle":"Statement by Participants in a November 2001 Bellagio Workshop","field_url":"","body":"Organized by the Rockefeller Foundation in collaboration with the World Bank and the World Health Organization. The growing efforts to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis have the potential to bring major benefits to the disadvantaged, as well as produce an important reduction in overall disease burden. However, realizing this potential and securing better health among less favored populations will require a determined effort. There is need both to modify the inequitable patterns of disease risks and consequences and to pursue aggressively a more equitable distribution of benefits from programs dealing with HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29123","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"'From Many Lands' - Final Volume in the Voices of the Poor Series","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/voices/reports.htm#lands","body":"Narayan, Deepa and Patti Petesch, 2002. Voices of   the Poor: From Many Lands. New York, N.Y: Published for the World Bank, Oxford University Press. \"From Many Lands,\" the third and last volume of the Voices of the Poor series, presents 14 country case studies in Africa (Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria), South and East Asia (Bangladesh, India, Indonesia), Europe and Central Asia (Bosnia, Bulgaria, Kyrgyz Republic, Russia), and Latin  America and the Caribbean (Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Jamaica). Using participatory and qualitative research methods, the study presents the  realities of poor people's lives directly through their own voices, with a  concluding chapter on an empowering approach to development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Malaria Day: Mobilized communities and use of effective new drug combinations vital","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int","body":"25 April 2002 | Geneva | To meet the 2010 target of cutting malaria deaths in half - agreed in Abuja by African leaders on this day two years ago - community mobilization is essential in controlling the disease and providing prompt access to treatment. Powerful new combination therapies, including the Chinese herb derivative artemisinin, are highly effective against malaria and the parasite does not easily develop resistance to them. New financial arrangements are needed so that developing countries can make use of these medicines, which are much more expensive than conventional, increasingly ineffective ones.\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29152","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICA: Global Fund Announces grants","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1284","body":"The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced its first round of grants to country programmes to prevent and treat the three diseases on Thursday. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS TREATMENT MARCH FOR LIFE, July 7, 2002","field_subtitle":"ATTN: AIDS THERAPEUTIC TREATMENT NOW!","field_url":"","body":"ATTN MARCH FOR LIFE July 7 2002 at 4:00pm in Barcelona, Spain. We ask for your and your organization's endorsement of the July 7th 2002 ATTN(AIDS Therapeutic Treatment Now) March to take place in Barcelona, Spain immediately prior to the opening ceremonies of the WorldAIDS Conference. If you are able to do so, please complete the endorsement information and respond via email. GOAL: To secure a global commitment for the treatment of 2 million people living with and dying from HIV/AIDS before the next International AIDS\r\nConference in Bangkok, Thailand in 2004. Please join us, through your endorsements, your presence in Barcelona on July 7, and through your ongoing contribution and commitment to this struggle for AIDS Therapeutic Treatment Now.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29125","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Annual meeting of the Global Forum for Health Research  - Forum 6","field_subtitle":"12 - 15 November 2002","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/pages/content_frame.asp?thepage=page1_00030001_1.htm&nav=00030001","body":"Arusha, Tanzania. Global Forum launches invitations to Forum 6 - a policy meeting on the 10/90 gap - will bring together decision-makers in the field of health,  health research, development, foreign aid and media to present their latest results and contribute ideas for the next stages of work in health research for development and the fight against poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Awards for Action on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights ","field_subtitle":"Call for Nominations ","field_url":"http://www.pambazuka.org/newsletter.php?id=7015","body":"The Awards for Action on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights have been established this year by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and Human Rights Watch to recognize individuals or organisations that have made an outstanding contribution to addressing HIV/AIDS and human rights issues.  An award will be presented annually to a person or organisation in each of two categories:\r\n- a person residing in Canada or a non-profit organization based in Canada;\r\n- a person or non-profit organization from another country.\r\nThese non-monetary awards are intended to recognise excellence and long-term commitment to work having a direct impact on HIV/AIDS and human rights issues \u2013 in particular work that is of direct relevance to marginalised individuals and communities living with or affected by HIV/AIDS.  The awards will be presented in Montr\u00e9al on 13 September 2002 during the opening plenary of the Legal Network's Annual General Meeting.\r\nThe awards include travel and accommodation costs to allow winners to attend the presentation ceremony.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Bodies to add weight to TAC's court battle","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://news.hst.org.za/view.php3?id=20020412","body":"Three high-profile organisations are throwing their weight behind the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in its protracted legal battle with the government to widen access to the anti-HIV drug, Nevirapine. Cotlands, one of SA's best-known baby sanctuaries, the Institute for Democracy in SA (Idasa) and the Community Law Centre (CLC) are hoping to add their arguments to next month's Constitutional Court case, which will settle the long-running dispute between TAC and the government over the provision of Nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant women in public healthcare facilities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Championing \"The Role of Health Research in Contributing to Global Health and Economic Development in Africa\"","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cihr.ca/partnerships/international/championing_e.shtml","body":"The Canadian Institute of Health Research and its partners in the Global Health Research Initiative (GHRI) IDRC, CIDA and Health Canada in collaboration with the ever growing Coalition for Global Health Research-Canada invite you share your views. Help us inform the G-8 process, currently developing the Africa Action Plan, how increased coordination and investment in health research contributes to improved health and economic development in Africa. In June 2002, G8 Leaders will meet in Kananaskis, Alberta to approve an Africa Action Plan that defines how G8 members countries will meet the objectives of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), a report produced for the last G8 meeting in Genoa in 2001. The process of developing the Action Plan for Africa has begun with consultations taking place around the world. CIHR and its partners seek to informthe G8 process by providing a recommendation and supporting background paper on how increased investment in health research contributes to improved health and economic development in Africa. The partners and the Coalition are seeking additional input through consultative processes that are designed to coordinate the views of the developing country researcher community, and invite the views of international and national research organizations with shared interest in global health research. We will be inviting input through the following mechanisms: Electronic consultations and Face-to-face consultations. For more information on the consultation process, please visit the Coalition for Global Health Research Canada website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Cities and Towns: Women, Poverty and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Third Forum of the World Alliance of Cities against Poverty (WACAP) held in Huy, Belgium, from 10-12 April, provided an opportunity for representatives to develop partnerships. Participants from 96 countries shared experiences on how they are becoming increasingly involved in addressing the impact of HIV/AIDS, particularly on women. The Alliance of Mayors Initiative for Community Action on AIDS (AMICAALL), set up with support from UNAIDS to help translate the goals of the IPAA into concrete actions, is multisectoral and emphasises partnerships between local government, civil society, including the private sector and communities, mayors and municipal leaders in Africa. Through their strategy they are working through exiting cities' networks as well as with other partners and networks to ensure that HIV/AIDS is integrated into municipal agendas. For more information please contact Mina Mauerstein-Bail.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Condoms website","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://condoms.jhuccp.org/","body":"This new website from the John Hopkins Centre for Communication Programmes is an update and expansion of the Condoms CD-ROM first published in 1999 by JHU/CCP's POPLINE Digital Services. The website has ideas on designing condom promotion campaigns and putting together condom counselling information. You will also find calendars, flipcharts, kits and manuals, novelties, pamphlets, posters, research abstracts, and audio-visual materials from around the world.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"eHealth2002: eHealth In Action","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ehealth2002.org","body":"18-20 September 2002, The Barbican Centre, London UK.\r\nThe second annual conference and exhibition of the International eHealth Association (IeHA), eHealth2002 promises to be the most significant international eHealth event to date with presentations from more than 80 eminent leaders in global health, health technology, research and education and participants from 40 different countries.  The IeHA is a non-profit organization whose mission is to improve the health and quality of life for all through the effective electronic support of healthcare, on-line medical education, health information and medical research.  The eHealth2002 programme will consist of three tracks, eHealth in Practice, eGlobal Health, and Research & eLearning, and will include a three-day accredited course on Applying Technology to Healthcare Management.  \r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29148","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter April 2002 Hazardous to Health: The World Bank and IMF in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Harare Women Hit Most By HIV/ Aids Within SADC","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200202200045.html","body":"The United Nations says Zimbabwe has the highest number of women with the Aids virus in the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) region. The international organisation points out that Zimbabwe is among the countries in which 24 to 36 percent of their population between the ages of 15 and 49 are living with Aids.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Hazardous to Health: The World Bank and IMF in Africa","field_subtitle":"Action Position Paper","field_url":"http://www.africaaction.org/action/sap0204.htm","body":"Ann-Louise Colgan, Research Associate, Africa Action April, 2002.\r\nHealth is a fundamental human right, recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), and the Constitution of the World Health Organization (1946).  Health is also an essential component of development, vital to a nation's growth and internal stability.  Over the past two decades, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) have undermined Africa's health through the policies they have imposed.  The dependence of poor and highly indebted African countries on World Bank and IMF loans has given these institutions leverage to control economic policy-making in these countries.  The policies mandated by the World Bank and IMF have forced African governments to orient their economies towards greater integration in international markets at the expense of social services and long-term development priorities.  They have reduced the role of the state and cut back government expenditure.\r\n\r\nWhile many African countries succeeded in improving their health care systems in the first decades after independence, the intervention of the World Bank and IMF reversed this progress.  Investments in health care by African governments in the 1970s achieved improvements in key health indicators.  In Kenya, for example, child mortality was reduced by almost 50% in the first two decades after independence in 1963 [1].  Across sub-Saharan Africa, the first decades after independence saw significant increases in life expectancy, from an average of 44 years to more than 50 years [2].\r\n\r\nIn the 1980s and 1990s, however, African governments had to cede control over their economic decision-making in order to qualify for World Bank and IMF loans.  The conditions attached to these loans undid much of the progress achieved in public health.  The policies dictated by the World Bank and IMF exacerbated poverty, providing fertile ground for the spread of HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases.  Cutbacks in health budgets and privatization of health services eroded previous advances in health care and weakened the capacity of African governments to cope with the growing health crisis.  Consequently, during the past two decades the life expectancy of Africans has dropped by 15 years [3].\r\n\r\nAfrica Action calls for an end to World Bank and IMF policies that undermine health.  This requires canceling the debts that prevent African governments from making their full contribution to addressing the health crisis.  It also requires ending the imposition of harmful economic policies as conditions for future loans or grants.  This position paper provides a brief background overview of World Bank and IMF policies.  It focuses particularly on their impact on health.\r\n\r\n1.  The World Bank and IMF in Africa The World Bank and IMF were created at the Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire, U.S.A., in 1944.  They were designed as pillars of the post-war global economic order.  The World Bank's focus is the provision of long-term loans to support development projects and programs.  The IMF concentrates on providing loans to stabilize countries with short-term financial crises.  The World Bank and IMF became increasingly powerful in Africa with the economic crisis of the early 1980s.  In the late 1970s, rising oil prices, rising interest rates, and falling prices for other primary commodities left many poor African countries unable to repay mounting foreign debts.  In the early 1980s, Africa's debt crisis worsened.  The ratio of its foreign debt to its export income grew to 500% [4].  African countries needed increasing amounts of \"hard currency\" to repay their external debts (i.e.\r\nconvertible foreign currencies such as dollars and deutschmarks).  But their share of world trade was decreasing and their export earnings dropped as global prices for primary commodities fell.  The reliance of many African countries on imports of manufactured goods, which they themselves did not produce, left them importing more while they exported less.  Their balance of payments problems worsened and their foreign debt burdens became unsustainable.\r\n\r\nAfrican governments needed new loans to pay their outstanding debts and to meet critical domestic needs.  The World Bank and IMF became key providers of loans to countries that were unable to borrow elsewhere.  They took over from wealthy governments and private banks as the main source of loans for poor countries.  These institutions provided \"hard currency\" loans to African countries to insure repayment of their external debts and to restore economic stability.  The World Bank and IMF were important instruments of Western powers during the Cold War in both economic and political terms.  They performed a political function by subordinating development objectives to geostrategic interests.  They also promoted an economic agenda that sought to preserve Western dominance in the global economy.  Not surprisingly, the World Bank and IMF are directed by the governments of the world's richest countries.  Combined, the \"Group of 7\" (U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan)\r\nhold more than 40% of the votes on the Boards of Directors of these institutions.  The U.S.  alone accounts for almost 20% [5].  It was U.S.  policy during the Reagan Administration in the early\r\n1980s, to expand the role of the World Bank and IMF in managing developing economies [6].  The dependence of African countries on new loans gave the World Bank and IMF great leverage.  The conditions attached to these loans required African countries to submit to economic changes that favored \"free markets.\" This standard policy package imposed by the World Bank and IMF was termed \"structural adjustment.\" This referred to the purpose of correcting trade imbalances and government deficits.  It involved cutting back the role of the state and promoting the role of the private sector.  The ideology behind these policies is often labeled \"neo-liberalism,\" \"free market fundamentalism,\"or the \"Washington Consensus.\" From the 1970s on, this orientation became the dominant economic paradigm for rich country governments and for the international financial institutions.  The basic assumption behind structural adjustment was that an increased role for the market would bring benefits to both poor and rich.  In the Darwinian world of international markets, the strongest would win out.  This would encourage others to follow their example.  The development of a market economy with a greater role for the private sector was therefore seen as the key to stimulating economic growth.  The crisis experienced by African countries in the early 1980s did expose the need for economic adjustments.  With declining incomes and rising expenses, African economies were becoming badly distorted.  Corrective reforms became increasingly necessary.  The key issue with adjustments of this kind, however, is whether they build the capacity to recover and whether they promote long-term development.  The adjustments dictated by the World Bank and IMF did neither.\r\n\r\nAfrican countries require essential investments in health, education and infrastructure before they can compete internationally.  The World Bank and IMF instead required countries to reduce state support and protection for social and economic sectors.  They insisted on pushing weak African economies into markets where they were unable to compete with the might of the international private sector.  These policies further undermined the economic development of African countries.  \r\n2.  What is Structural Adjustment?  Structural adjustment refers to a package of economic policy changes designed to fix imbalances in trade and government budgets.\r\nIn trade, the objective is to improve a country's balance of payments, by increasing exports and reducing imports.  For budgets, the objective is to increase government income and to reduce expenses.  In theory, achieving these goals will enable a country to recover macroeconomic stability in the short-term.  It will also set the stage for long-term growth and development.  The structural adjustment programs of the early 1980s were meant to provide temporary financing to borrowing countries to stabilize their economies.  These loans were intended to enable governments to repay their debts, reduce deficits in spending, and close the gap between imports and exports.  Gradually, these loans evolved into a core set of economic policy changes required by the World Bank and IMF.  They were designed to further integrate African countries into the global economy, to strengthen the role of the international private sector, and to encourage growth through trade.  Typical components of adjustment programs included cutbacks in government spending, privatization of government-held enterprises and services, and reduced protection for domestic industry.  Other types of adjustment involved currency devaluation, increased interest rates, and the elimination of food subsidies.  The underlying intention was to minimize the role of the state.\r\n\r\nWorld Bank and IMF adjustment programs differ according to the role of each institution.  In general, IMF loan conditions focus on monetary and fiscal issues.  They emphasize programs to address inflation and balance of payments problems, often requiring specific levels of cutbacks in total government spending.  The adjustment programs of the World Bank are wider in scope, with a more long-term development focus.  They highlight market liberalization and public sector reforms, seen as promoting growth through expanding exports, particularly of cash crops.  Despite these differences, World Bank and IMF adjustment programs reinforce each other.  One way is called \"cross-conditionality.\" This means that a government generally must first be approved by the IMF, before qualifying for an adjustment loan from the World Bank.  Their agendas also overlap in the financial sector in particular.  Both work to impose fiscal austerity and to eliminate subsidies for workers, for example.  The market-oriented perspective of both institutions makes their policy prescriptions complementary.\r\n\r\nAdjustment lending constitutes 100% of IMF loans.  In 2001, approximately 27% of World Bank lending to African countries was for \"adjustment.\" In the World Bank's total loan portfolio, adjustment lending generally accounts for between one-third and one-half [7].  The remainder of World Bank loans are disbursed for development projects and programs.  The project portfolio of the Bank covers such areas as infrastructure, agricultural and environmental development, and human resource development.  In some cases, the projects supported by World Bank loans do make useful contributions to development.  But these occasional successes must be weighed against the negative effects of increasing debt, imposed economic policies and their consequences.  The past two decades of World Bank and IMF structural adjustment in Africa have led to greater social and economic deprivation, and an increased dependence of African countries on external loans.  The failure of structural adjustment has been so dramatic that some critics of the World Bank and IMF argue that the policies imposed on African countries were never intended to promote development.  On the contrary, they claim that their intention was to keep these countries economically weak and dependent.  The most industrialized countries in the world have actually developed under conditions opposite to those imposed by the World Bank and IMF on African governments.  The U.S.  and the countries of Western Europe accorded a central role to the state in economic activity, and practiced strong protectionism, with subsidies for domestic industries.  Under World Bank and IMF programs, African countries have been forced to cut back or abandon the very provisions which helped rich countries to grow and prosper in the past.  Even more significantly, the policies of the World Bank and IMF have impeded Africa's development by undermining Africa's health.  Their free market perspective has failed to consider health an integral component of an economic growth and human development strategy.  Instead, the policies of these institutions have caused a deterioration in health and in health care services across the African continent.\r\n\r\n3.  Poverty and Health Care Cuts Health status is influenced by socioeconomic factors as well as by the state of health care delivery systems.  The policies prescribed by the World Bank and IMF have increased poverty in African countries and mandated cutbacks in the health sector.  Combined, this has caused a massive deterioration in the continent's health status.\r\n\r\nThe health care systems inherited by most African states after the colonial era were unevenly weighted toward privileged elites and urban centers.  In the 1960s and 1970s, substantial progress was made in improving the reach of health care services in many African countries.  Most African governments increased spending on the health sector during this period.  They endeavored to extend primary health care and to emphasize the development of a public health system to redress the inequalities of the colonial era.  The World Health Organization (WHO) emphasized the importance of primary healthcare at the historic Alma Ata Conference in 1978.  The Declaration of Alma Ata focused on a community-based approach to health care and resolved that comprehensive health care was a basic right and a responsibility of government.  These efforts undertaken by African governments after independence were quite successful.  There were increases in the numbers of health professionals employed in the public sector, and improvements in health care infrastructure in many countries.  There was also some success in extending care to formerly unserved areas and populations.  Across the continent, there were improvements in key health care indicators, such as infant mortality rates and life expectancy.  In Zambia, the post-independence government expanded public health care services throughout the country.  The number of doctors and nurses was also significantly increased during this time.  Infant mortality was reduced from 123 per 1,000 live births in 1965, to 85 in 1984 [8].  In Tanzania, during the first two decades of independence, the government succeeded in expanding access to health care nationwide.  By 1977, more than three-quarters of Tanzania's population lived within 5 km of a health care facility [9].  While the progress across the African continent was uneven, it was significant, not only because of its positive effects on the health of African populations.  It also illustrated a commitment by African leaders to the principle of building and developing their health care systems.\r\n\r\nWith the economic crisis of the 1980s, much of Africa's economic and social progress over the previous two decades began to come undone.  As African governments became clients of the World Bank and IMF, they forfeited control over their domestic spending priorities.  The loan conditions of these institutions forced contraction in government spending on health and other social services.  Poverty and Health The relationship between poverty and ill-health is well established.  The economic austerity policies attached to World Bank and IMF loans led to intensified poverty in many African countries in the 1980s and 1990s.  This increased the vulnerability of African populations to the spread of diseases and to other health problems.  The public sector job losses and wage cuts associated with World Bank and IMF programs increased hardship in many African countries.  During the 1980s, when most African countries came under World Bank and IMF tutelage, per capita income declined by 25% in most of sub-\r\nSaharan Africa [10].  The removal of food and agricultural subsidies caused prices to rise and created increased food insecurity.  This led to a marked deterioration in nutritional status, especially among women and children.  In Zambia, for instance, following the elimination of food subsidies, many poor families had to reduce the number of meals per day from two to one [11].  Malnutrition resulted in low birth weights among infants and stunted growth among children in many countries.  It is currently estimated that one in every three children in Africa is underweight [12].  In general, between one-quarter and one-third of the population of sub-Saharan Africa is chronically malnourished.  The deepening poverty across the continent has created fertile ground for the spread of infectious diseases.  Declining living conditions and reduced access to basic services have led to decreased health status.  In Africa today, almost half of the population lacks access to safe water and adequate sanitation services [13].  As immune systems have become weakened, the susceptibility of Africa's people to infectious diseases has greatly increased.  A joint release issued by the WHO and the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in April 2001 reports that the number of cases of tuberculosis in Africa will reach 3.3 million per year by 2005 [14].  The WHO reported in 2001 that almost 3,000 Africans die each day of malaria.  Each year in Africa, the disease takes the lives of more than 500,000 children below the age of five [15].  Most devastating of all has been the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.  The spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa has been facilitated by worsening poverty and by the conditions of inequality intensified by World Bank and IMF policies.  Economic insecurity has reinforced migrant labor patterns, which in turn have increased the risk of infection.  Reduced access to health care services has increased the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and the vulnerability to HIV infection.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29143","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Health: perception versus observation","field_subtitle":"Self reported morbidity has severe limitations and can be extremely misleading","field_url":"","body":"Amartya Sen, master of Trinity College. BMJ 2002;324:860-861 - 13 April, 2002. Critical scrutiny of public health care and medical strategy depends, among other things, on how individual states of health and illness are assessed. One of the complications in evaluating health states arises from the fact that a person's own understanding of his or her health may not accord with the appraisal of medical experts. More generally, there is a conceptual contrast between \"internal\" views of health (based on the patient's own perceptions) and \"external\" views (based on the observations of doctors or pathologists). Although the two views can certainly be combined (a good practitioner would be interested in both), major tension often exists between evaluations based respectively on the two perspectives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV in South Africa: from research to policy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net/gateways/newsSSA.asp?t=C&gw=SSA&gwname=Sub-Saharan%20Africa","body":"\"As scientists and clinicians, we share a deep commitment to our patients and the public health of our nation. We have conducted and/or supported research aimed at decreasing vertical transmission. We remain fully committed to the implementation, within the broader government programme for AIDS prevention and care, of a national programme against vertical transmission, and to do further research in support of this goal. There is strong evidence in support of the use of antiretrovirals to reduce vertical transmission. The challenge remains in translating these research findings into policy and practice in South Africa.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"INITIATIVE TO PROMOTE ACCESS TO QUALITY HIV MEDICINES RELEASES FIRST BATCH OF RESULTS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/whatsnew/press/eng/pressarc02/HIVmedicines_200302.html","body":"A new effort to assess the quality of HIV medicines could make treatment services more accessible to poor countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) has evaluated several HIV-related medicines and has published the first list of products which were found to meet WHO recommended standards. This initial phase of the project includes forty products from eight branded and generic manufacturers. Managed by WHO, the initiative counts on the expertise of UNICEF and the UNAIDS Secretariat, and is supported by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Bank.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"International HIV/AIDS Alliance","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidsalliance.org","body":"The International HIV/AIDS Alliance is an international development non-governmental organisation which was established to respond to the need for a specialist, professional intermediary organisation which would work in effective partnership with non-governmental and community-based organisations in developing countries, as well as with governments, donors and the UN system. The Alliance's mission is to support communities in developing countries to play a full and effective role in the global response to AIDS. In some countries the Alliance supports linking organisations, in others the Alliance supports field partners. The Alliance currently has three field offices: in India, Ukraine and Zambia. The secretariat is based at Queensberry House, 104-106 Queens Road, Brighton BN1 3XF, United Kingdom, and the Alliance website has a number of useful links, updates and publications.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Internet and CD-ROM-based Minicourses on HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.engenderhealth.org/minicourses/","body":"EngenderHealth, a nonprofit agency working to improve women's health worldwide, today (9 April, 2002) released two online minicourses to support the international network of family planning and sexual and reproductive health providers in their efforts to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). The two new courses, entitled Sexually Transmitted Infections and HIV and AIDS, are part of EngenderHealth's Web-based series Topics in Reproductive Health (the first course in the series, Sexuality and Sexual Health, was released last fall). They will provide health care providers, especially those in resource-poor settings, with knowledge and strategies for addressing HIV/AIDS and STI prevention, management, and counseling with their clients. Developed by EngenderHealth through a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the courses are now available online or on CD-ROM. For more information, contact Carrie Svingen, EngenderHealth, NY, at 212-561-8538 or by email.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"KENYA: Drug shortages 'critical' - MSF","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1264","body":"\r\nA severe shortage of two antiretrovirals (ARVs) produced by leading pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb in Kenya could have critical repercussions for patients, says Medecines sans Frontieres (MSF). Patients with no access to the drugs could put their health at risk by having their treatment interrupted because the drugs needed to be taken continuously, Daniel Berman of the MSF's Access to Essential Medecines Campaign, told PlusNews. According to the Kenya Coalition for the Access to Essential Medicines, a survey of seven district hospitals revealed that six of the hospitals were either completely out of stock of both drugs, or experienced irregular supply shortages.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Manuscripts for HSR Special Issue on Social Determinants of Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.academyhealth.org/publications/hsr.htm","body":"With the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Health Services Research (HSR) is planning a special issue focusing on the social determinants of health, to provide a forum for presenting the latest research and policy analysis to a broad audience of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. There is ample evidence that most health policymakers, both at state and federal levels, do not understand how policy relating to non-medical determinants of health can be incorporated into health policy. Conversely, policymakers in such fields as education, transportation, or housing rarely see that there are major health implications to the choices that they make. Education is needed in both directions. Topics of interest include but are not limited to social inequalities in health by socioeconomic position, race/ethnicity, gender, etc.; the role of a broad range of psychosocial factors in health at the level of individuals, neighborhoods, and communities, and broader sociopolitical units; the interconnections and interactions between and among social and biological-chemical-physical determinants of health; and implications of social determinants of health for health care or health services research, practice, and policy. Jim House, Nicole Lurie, and Catherine McLaughlin will serve as co-editors of the special HSR issue. September 1, 2002 is the deadline for submission. The planned publication date is July 2003.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"New JECH online submission and review system","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.jech.com/","body":"The Editors of the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health are pleased to inform authors and reviewers of its new online submission and review system. Bench>Press is a fully integrated electronic system which uses the internet to allow rapid and efficient submission of manuscripts, as well as the entire peer review process to be conducted online. Authors can submit their manuscript in any standard word processing software. Graphic formats acceptable are: .jpg, .tiff, .gif, and eps. Text and graphic files are automatically converted to PDF for ease of distribution and reviewing purposes. Authors are asked to approve their submission before it formally enters the reviewing process. Full instructions can be found on Bench>Press, and JECH Online. Please contact Natalie Davies, Project Manager, for further information.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29108","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New MASSIVE EFFORT CAMPAIGN website launched","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.MassiveEffort.org","body":"The first phase of the new MASSIVE EFFORT CAMPAIGN website was recently launched. The site will soon be featuring: 1) World reports, photos and interviews from World TB Day activities around the world. 2) Opportunities to lobby decision makers about the importance of controlling TB. 3) A means to involve others in a global campaign against AIDS, TB, malaria\r\nand other diseases of poverty. 4) Background on the new global campaign to mobilise society against diseases that keep people in poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"OSISA's ICT Program subsidises access to Electronic Journals for southern Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ebsco.com","body":"The Open Society Institute (OSI) teamed with EBSCO Publishing to launch the Electronic Information For Libraries Direct (EIFL Direct) project in october of 1993.  With funding from the Soros Foundation, EIFL Direct provided a variety of the world's finest full text and bibliographic databases to Public and Academic libraries in 39 participating countries, including 10 countries in Southern Africa. But funding for continuation of this project was not made available for several Southern African countries in 2001. Recently, however, OSISA (Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa)'s ICT Program has provided the necessary funding to once again allow these libraries to enjoy access to these large collections. Moreover, the number of developing nations now accessing these databases is even larger than the original group that participated in EIFL Direct. For further details and enquiries on how your NGO can access Electronic journals, do contact Colleen Mills at EBSCO.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29112","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Pfizer Foundation","field_subtitle":"Call for proposals","field_url":"","body":"The Pfizer Foundation is launching the International HIV/AIDS Health Literacy grants initiative. The Pfizer Foundation will award a total of up to US $1,000,000 in 2002 to support five to eight organisations with one year grants. Final decisions will be made in July 2002. The goal of the Pfizer Foundation International HIV/AIDS Health Literacy grants initiative is to strengthen existing health promotion programmes and develop new programmes to improve patients\u2019 and communities\u2019 understanding of their health, self management of health, treatment adherence, health outcomes and quality of life. The Foundation will support programmes that use creative approaches to effectively convey key messages regarding HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29138","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"PLANNING FOR HIV/AIDS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA","field_subtitle":"THE 5th HEARD HIV/AIDS DURBAN WORKSHOP 28 October - 15 November 2002","field_url":"http://www.und.ac.za/und/heard/","body":"[HEARD, University of Natal, Durban] One of a series of International Policy Research Workshops held over the last eleven years in the UK, East Asia and Africa, the 5th HEARD HIV/AIDS workshop focuses on the need to anticipate the medium and long-term social and economic consequences of HIV/AIDS. We offer participants a unique opportunity over two weeks, to exchange ideas, review their experiences with strategies and tactics, and identify interventions appropriate to their local situation. In response to much demand, the 2002 workshop will include an optional third week which aims to provide participants with the tools to project the impact of HIV/AIDS using computer modelling. The workshop is designed for senior professionals concerned with planning for the economic, social, demographic and human resource implications of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Previous workshop participants have included economists and planners from government ministries; AIDS programme managers; donors; NGO programme managers; private sector representatives; local government officers; academics and other special interest groups. A maximum of 40 places are available. The closing date for applications is 27 September 2002. There is the possibility of sponsorship of the course fee in a few instances.\r\nAn application form can be requested: 1)By phone:                        +27(0)31 260 2592. 2)By fax: +27 (0)31 260 2587. 3)By mail: The Course Coordinator, HEARD, University of Natal, 4041, Republic of South Africa. 4)By email: freeman@nu.ac.za. 5)By Download from website.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Producing an Improved Geographic Profile of Poverty:","field_subtitle":"Methodology and Evidence from Three Developing Countries","field_url":"http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/dps/dps2002/dp2002-39.pdf","body":"Gabriel Demombynes,University of California, Berkeley and World Bank; Chris Elbers, Vrije (Free)  University, Amsterdam; Jenny Lanjouw, Yale University and Brookings Institution; Peter Lanjouw, World Bank; Johan Mistiaen, University of Maryland and World Bank; Berk \u00d6zler World Bank UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU/WIDER). Discussion Paper No. 2002/39 - March 2002. Available online as pdf [30p.]. This paper implements a methodology for estimating poverty in Ecuador, Madagascar and South Africa, at levels of disaggregation that to date have not generally been available. The methodology is based on a statistical procedure to combine household survey data with population census data, imputing into the latter a measure of per capita consumption from the former. The countries are very unlike each other?with different geographies, stages of development, quality and types of data, and so on. Yet the paper demonstrates that in all three countries the poverty estimates produced from census data are both plausible (in that they match well stratum-level estimates calculated directly from the household surveys) and satisfactorily precise (at a level of disaggregation far below that allowed by household surveys). ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29127","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health Ethics: Towards a Research Agenda","field_subtitle":"An International Symposium and Workshop May 17 & 18, 2002","field_url":"","body":"May 17 & 18, 2002, Victoria College - University of Toronto, Canada. Keynote Speaker: Lawrence Gostin, Professor of Law, Georgetown University, Professor of Public Health, the Johns Hopkins University, Director, Center for Law & the Public's Health, CDC Collaborating Center Promoting Health Through Law. This interdisciplinary symposium and workshop is the first of its kind to bring together those involved in public health, bioethics, law and policy-making. With plenary sessions by key figures followed by participatory workshops, the symposium aims to (1) explore major issues in public health ethics; and (2) identify a research agenda for this emerging field. This meeting represents a unique opportunity to forge an international dialogue about public health ethics that will continue well into the new millennium. Enrolment is limited; kindly register early to avoid disappointment. For more information and registration materials, please contact Alison Thompson.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional meeting on HIV/AIDS, Human Rights and Law","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/mfigueira%40lac.org.na","body":"The AIDS Law Unit of the Legal Assistance Centre in Windhoek, Namibia, is planning to host a meeting of organisations in sub-Saharan Africa which work on HIV/AIDS, human rights and law with a view to providing a forum for sharing experiences and ideas, and to establishing a regional network of organisations working in this field. Organisations in the region which are interested in getting involved, should contact: Michaela.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Region Faces Maize Deficit","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200204250733.html","body":"SADC region faces a net maize deficit of between 3,22 million tonnes and 3,67 million tonnes, the regional early warning unit has said. The early warning unit said in comparison with the Sadc maize deficit of 1,16 million tonnes assessed for last year, the region was facing an increased maize shortfall of up to 3,67 million tonnes for the 2002-2003 marketing year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Social capital, class gender and race conflict, and population health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ije.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/31/1/261","body":"Bowling Alone. The collapse and revival of American community. RD Putnam. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000, pp.544, ISBN: 0 684 83283 6. Carles Muntanera, Department of Behavioral and Community Health, and Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, University of Maryland-Baltimore, USA. John Lynchb, Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Michigan, USA. International Journal of Epidemiology Vol;31:261-267 - 2002. The authors present an overview of Putnam's claims, their supporting evidence, and several consequences of the BA hypothesis for epidemiology and public health. They argue that the omission of class, race and gender relations and political variables from research on community trust and norms of reciprocity limits the usefulness of social capital as framework for social epidemiology. Next, they link the current theoretical emphasis on social cohesion to earlier social science attempts at advancing the beneficial effects of lack of conflict in Europe and the US.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Social inequalities in health within countries:","field_subtitle":"not only an issue for affluent nations ","field_url":"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBF-44CN141-6&_user=735457&_coverDate=06/30/2002&_alid=42111707&_rdoc=1&_fmt=full&_orig=search&_qd=1&_cdi=5925&_sort=d&_acct=C000029798&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=735457&md5=135c5e7a94827151683cfc7fc2d7f0c0","body":"Paula Braveman, Department of Family & Community Medicine, University of California, USA Eleuther Tarimo, Consultant, Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, Harare, Zimbabwe Social Science & Medicine - Volume 54, Issue 11 Pages 1621-1635 June 2002.\r\nWhile interest in social disparities in health within affluent nations has been growing, discussion of equity in health with regard to low- and middle-income countries has generally focused on north\u00afsouth and between-country differences, rather than on gaps between social groups within the countries where most of the world's population lives.  This paper aims to articulate a rationale for focusing on within- as well as between-country health disparities in nations of all per capita income levels, and to suggest relevant reference material, particularly for developing country researchers.  Routine health information can obscure large inter-group disparities within a country.  While appropriately disaggregated routine information is lacking, evidence from special studies reveals significant and in many cases widening disparities in health among more and less privileged social groups within low- and middle- as well as high-income countries; avoidable disparities are observed not only across socioeconomic groups but also by gender, ethnicity, and other markers of underlying social disadvantage.  Globally, economic inequalities are widening and, where relevant information is available, generally accompanied by widening or stagnant health inequalities.  Related global economic trends, including pressures to cut social spending and compete in global markets, are making it especially difficult for lower-income countries to implement and sustain equitable policies.  For all of these reasons, explicit concerns about equity in health and its determinants need to be placed higher on the policy and research agendas of both international and national organizations in low-, middle-, and high-income countries.  International agencies can strengthen or undermine national efforts to achieve greater equity.  \r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29141","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTH AFRICA: Focus on the virgin myth and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1283","body":"In a country long-sickened by the level of sexual violence, a shocking series of child rapes has stunned South Africa and left people grasping for answers. Among the theories advanced to explain the phenomenon is the apparently accepted myth that sex with a virgin cleanses one of HIV/AIDS. But that has ignited a renewed controversy over whether the folk tale alone is behind the sexual assaults against children that in some cases have been literally babies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTH AFRICA: GOVERNMENT STAGES A DRAMATIC ABOUT-TURN ON ITS HIV/AIDS POLICY ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200204180048.html","body":"President Thabo Mbeki and his cabinet have at last backed off from their controversial stance on antiretroviral drugs, with a high-powered government delegation announcing before journalists that the health department is working on a universal roll-out plan of nevirapine.  In a first admission of the efficacy of the drugs, Health Minister Manto Tshabala-Msimang read from the executive's statement: \"Cabinet noted that they (antiretrovirals) could help improve the conditions of people living with AIDS if administered at certain stages in the progression of the condition, in accordance with international standards.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Nevirapine Probe to Go Ahead","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200205020252.html","body":"THE Medicines Control Council says it is to go ahead with an investigation into the safety of nevirapine, the drug that prevents motherto-child transmission of HIV. The council's investigation comes a month after nevirapine's manufacturers, Boehringer Ingelheim, informed the council that it had withdrawn its application to register the drug with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South African agreement extends Public-Private Partnership","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"US Secretary of Health Tommy G. Thompson signed a cooperative agreement that will provide nearly $1 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to fight HIV/AIDS in a public-private partnership in South Africa. The agreement with the American Center for International Labor Solidarity reflects the department's commitment to continue the HIV/AIDS employee outreach programme at the Ford Motor Company's operations in South Africa. The signing of the agreement came during Thompson's week-long trip to Africa that included stops in Mozambique, South Africa, Botswana and Cote d'Ivoire. Thompson's visit builds upon the Bush administration's strong support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. For more information, please contact Richard Delate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Survey on HIV/AIDS Prevention Programs in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"A Pilot Study","field_url":"","body":"My name is Barry Smith and I recently worked with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Namibia and Zimbabwe. I am now a graduate student in the department of Community Health at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. I am requesting the participation of all agencies involved in HIV/AIDS prevention programs to participate in a study on HIV/AIDS prevention programs in southern Africa. The study will require you to complete an online questionnaire (or via email attachment for those without Internet access). If you are interested, please email me at  and I will forward you the instructions. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"TANZANIA: HIV/AIDS prevalence increasing in Zanzibar","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1279","body":"United Nations HIV/AIDS experts believe HIV/AIDS prevalence in Zanzibar is on a steady increase, but are worried that currently available data could be underestimating the actual magnitude of the pandemic in the semi-autonomous islands.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"TANZANIA: Shipment of 10 million condoms blocked","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1280","body":"A shipment of 10 million condoms, imported by the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) for free distribution across Tanzania, is currently being held in Dar es Salaam harbour, awaiting clearance after confusion as to whether they have passed quality control requirements. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Alliance of Mayors and Municipal Leaders on HIV/AIDS in Africa (AMICAALL) website launched","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.amicaall.org","body":"The Alliance of Mayors and Municipal Leaders on HIV/AIDS in Africa (AMICAALL) website was launched this month to facilitate information dissemination and the sharing of experiences. The website is available in French and English. It includes information on AMICAALL strategy, the UN/AMICAALL Partnership Programme, country activities, Alliance contacts, documents and publications. For more information, please contact Milica Tomasevic.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29144","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"THE GLOBAL FUND: WHICH COUNTRIES OWE HOW MUCH?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Tim France, Gorik Ooms and Bernard Rivers (21 April 2002).\r\nNearly one year ago, the majority of the world's nations resolved at `UNGASS', a major UN conference on AIDS, to increase annual expenditure on the AIDS epidemic to $7-10 billion by 2005, with much of this money to be raised and disbursed by a new global fund.  When the fund was eventually set up, its mandate was extended, and it was named the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. AIDS, an unprecedented and accelerating emergency, is already having a devastating impact in Africa, with similar impacts unfolding on other continents.  Every day, 8,000 die, and 13,000 more become infected.  Experts agree that reasonable expenditures on prevention and treatment of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria can be of dramatic benefit not only to human health, but also to economic development. Thus far, efforts have been made to raise the money needed by the Global Fund through ad hoc voluntary donations.  These efforts have failed.  Governments have pledged a mere $1.8 billion.  Contributions from the private sector have been even more disappointing, with not a single meaningful pledge since the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation offered $100 million ten months ago. It's time for a new approach.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29149","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"THE PEOPLE'S HEALTH MOVEMENT (PHM):","field_subtitle":"TIME TO TAKE STOCK","field_url":"","body":"Claudio Schuftan\r\nThe People's Charter for Health (PCH), The PHM's manifesto, is one and a half years old.  It has been disseminated quite widely world-wide.\r\n\r\n2.  The world has moved on since.  But, clearly, for the worse in almost all fronts the PHM has strong feelings about.  Most worrisome is the fact that most of the world's shifts for the worse have become so depressingly predictable, and nobody seems to be succeeding in doing much about them.\r\n\r\n3.  The PCH's 'Call for Action' predicted much of what we are witnessing; we were \"on the dot\".  So, to continue to be \"on the dot\", we simply have to reassess where we are and what we have, and have not, achieved.  Just to make yet further predictions of doom would be to utterly fail all that and those we stand for.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29145","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The South African Health Review 2001","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sahr/2001/; http://www.hst.org.za/indic","body":"The South African Health Review 2001 was launched on the 26th of March 2002. It consists of 17 Chapters dealing with various aspects of the Health Care System. Also, the section on Health Indicators has been updated and is also available for searching purposes.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29107","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"UN Commission resolution on the right to health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/(Symbol)/E.CN.4.2002.L.47.En?Opendocument","body":"A resolution on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health (E/CN.4/2002/L.47), sponsored by the Brazilian Delegation, was adopted by consensus on 22 April 2002 at the Fifty-Eighth Session of the Commission on Human Rights. The Resolution urges States to take steps, individually and through international assistance and co-operation, to achieve progressively the full realization of the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; calls upon the international community to assist, without discrimination, the developing countries to this end; and appoints, for a period of three years, a Special Rapporteur on the right to health.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29140","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Violence against women: global scope and magnitude","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://pdf.thelancet.com/pdfdownload?uid=llan.359.9313.editorial_and_review.20680.1&x=x.pdf","body":"Charlotte Watts, Cathy Zimmerman - Health Policy Unit, Department of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK. Lancet Volume 359: 1232-37, Number 9313 - April 2002. Available online as PDF. Understanding gender-based violence and the appropriate case management of women with a current or previous history of violence are now recognised as core competencies for health workers. In the next six editions of The Lancet, different authors will discuss current challenges and debates on violence against women and public health. As an introduction, this article presents an overview of the different forms of violence against women to convey an idea of its global magnitude, and discusscharacteristics that distinguish violence against women from other forms of violence.\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29124","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Weak Links in the Chain II: A Prescription for Health Policy in Poor Countries ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://wbro.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/17/1/47","body":"In an earlier article, the authors outline some reasons for the disappointingly small effects of primary health care programs and identified two weak links standing between spending and increased health care. The first was the inability to translate public expenditure on health care into real services due to inherent difficulties of monitoring and controlling the behavior of public employees. The second was the \"crowding out\" of private markets for health care, markets that exist predominantly at the primary health care level. This article presents an approach to public policy in health that comes directly from the literature on public economics. It identifies two characteristic market failures in health. The first is the existence of large externalities in the control of many infectious diseases that are mostly addressed by standard public health interventions. The second is the widespread breakdown of insurance markets that leave people exposed to catastrophic financial losses. Other essential considerations in setting priorities in health are the degree to which policies address poverty and inequality and the practicality of implementing policies given limited administrative capacities. Priorities based on these criteria tend to differ substantially from those commonly prescribed by the international community. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"What can be done about the private health sector in low-income countries?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/pdf/2002/bul-4-E-2002/80(4)325-330.pdf","body":"Anne Mills, Health Policy Unit, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Ruairi Brugha, Kara Hanson, Barbara McPake. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2002;80(4):325-330. April 2002. Available on PDF. A very large private health sector exists in low-income countries. It consists of a great variety of providers and is used by a wide cross-section of the population. There are substantial concerns about the quality of care given, especially at the more informal end of the range of providers. This is particularly true for diseases of public health importance such as tuberculosis, malaria, and sexually transmitted infections. How can the activities of the private sector in these countries be influenced so that they help to meet national health objectives? Although the evidence base is not good, there is a fair amount of information on the types of intervention that are most successful in directly influencing the behaviour of providers and on what might be the necessary conditions for success. There is much less evidence, however, of effective approaches to interventions on the demand side and policies that involve strengthening the purchasing and regulatory roles of governments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO and UNAIDS still support the use of nevirapine, despite 'Irregularities' On Kampala Trials","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200203250268.html","body":"Despite flaws in documentation and reporting in clinical trials of HIVNET 012 found by the United States' National Institute for Health, the World Health Organization and UNAIDS say they will still back prevention of mother to child transmission with the use of Nevirapine.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO International Consultation on Assessment of Trade in Health Services and GATS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/health-services-trade/","body":"In January 2002, WHO held an international consultation to identify research and monitoring priorities for assessing trade in health services and the impact of the World Trade Organization?s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).  Although international trade in health services appears to be increasing, and GATS and other forms of service liberalization are on the rise, there remains a dearth of empirical evidence on their health or economic impacts.  The meeting convened experts from three professional fields ? trade, health and statistics ? to develop a focused research and monitoring agenda in this area. The consultation had three objectives: 1)Identify public policy issues and questions ? at the national and international level ? on which better information, data and research on trade in health services should be focused. 2)In line with these public policy issues, propose multi-country, regional or global research projects to assess the health system impacts of trade in health-related services, and of GATS commitments and other forms of trade liberalization. 3)To support research, propose strategies for comparable data collection across countries on trade in health-related services, and on health system impact measures. Documents and presentations prepared for the WHO International Consultation on Assessment of Trade in Health Services and GATS 9-11 January 2002 are now available for downloading on a special web page. For information contact Debra J. Lipson, Department of Health and Development, WHO.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO TAKES MAJOR STEPS TO MAKE HIV TREATMENT ACCESSIBLE","field_subtitle":"Treatment Guidelines and AIDS Medicines List Announced by WHO","field_url":"http://www.who.int/","body":"22 April 2002, Geneva. In a decisive move to strengthen action against AIDS in developing countries, WHO today announced the first treatment guidelines for HIV/AIDS in poor settings. Parallel to that, WHO has endorsed the inclusion of AIDS medicines in its Essential Medicines List. The action is a breakthrough in a comprehensive ?prevention through care? package that could contribute to drastically widening access to treatment over the coming years. The Guidelines for Scaling Up Antiretroviral Therapy and the 2002 WHO Model List of Essential Drugs are available on the WHO web site.\r\n\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Development Indicators 2002","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/data/wdi/","body":"[World Bank Press release: April 20, 2002] Despite progress in recent years, both poor and rich countries need to do much more if the international community is to meet its commitment of halving global poverty in all the world's regions by 2015, says the new World Bank report. At the United Nations International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico, world leaders confirmed their support for the goals of the UN Millennium Declaration, which call for reducing world poverty in all its forms. Current estimates say that brisk economic growth in China and India will enable the world to reach the overall goal of halving global poverty by 2015. But the data in the new study?which covers all eight of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)?say progress is uneven and that too many regions and countries are falling far short of the goals. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"World Development Report 2003: Sustainable  Development in a Dynamic Economy","field_subtitle":"Invitation to Provide Comments and Suggestions - April 2002","field_url":"http://econ.worldbank.org/wdr/subpage.php?sp=2433","body":"Sustainable Development in a Dynamic Economy, the World Development Report (WDR) 2003, is the World Bank?s contribution to an ongoing international dialogue on sustainable development. To make the report as useful and comprehensive as possible, the WDR 2003 team is seeking the views of a wide range of key stakeholders: government, civil society, academia, and the private sector world wide. Consultations include face-to-face meetings and video conferences described on the web site, and this global invitation for comments and suggestions via e-mail and the web. The WDR is normally released in late September ahead of the World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings. This year it will be released in mid-August in time for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in  Johannesburg. The draft report will remain online for one month (until early May).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"World Urbanization Prospects: The 2001 Revision","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.un.org/esa/population/unpop.htm","body":"Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, March 2002. Available online. The \"2001 Revision\" presents estimates and projections of urban and rural populations for major areas, regions and countries of the world for the period 1950-2030. It also provides population estimates and projections of urban agglomerations with 750,000 or more inhabitants in 2000 for the period 1950-2015, and the population of all capitals in 2001. Virtually all the population growth expected at the world level during the next 30 years will be concentrated in urban areas. Also, for the first time in the world?s history, the number of urban dwellers will equal the number of rural dwellers in 2007. These findings are from just-released United Nations official estimates and projections of urban, rural and city populations, prepared by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. \r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29132","field_issue_date":"2002-04-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"14th Conference of the IUATLD Africa Region","field_subtitle":"Access to care in tuberculosis and lung health","field_url":"","body":"11-14 June 2002, International Convention Centre\r\nDurban, South Africa.\r\nWe are pleased to invite you to attend the 14th Conference of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD) Africa Region to be held in Durban on 11-14 June 2002, in collaboration with the Department of Health of the Republic of South Africa. There is increased interest in tackling the tuberculosis, AIDS and  tobacco epidemics in low income countries. WHO, NGOs and donor agencies are coordinating their efforts to reduce the burden affecting  many low income countries by joining forces. Deadline for submission of abstracts: 20 April 2002. Early-bird registration: 10 May 2002.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29076","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Abstract news from Barcelona 2002 conference ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nigeria-aids.org/MsgRead.cfm?ID=518","body":"The XIV International AIDS Conference (Barcelona, Spain, July 2002) has received almost 10 500 abstract submissions from the world\u2019s leading scientists, clinicians, community representatives and people living with HIV/AIDS. This is the highest number of submissions ever received in the history of the series of international AIDS conferences. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing Participation in Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers: ","field_subtitle":"A Desk-Based Synthesis of Experience in Sub-Saharan Africa","field_url":"http://server.ntd.co.uk/ids/bookshop/details.asp?id=677","body":"This desk review provides an update on practice and experiences of civil society participation in the development of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). It was commissioned by Department for International Development (DFID) and conducted from August\u2013October 2001 by the Participation Group at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in the UK.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Demanding Innovation:","field_subtitle":"articulating policies for demand-led research and research capacity building in the South","field_url":"http://www.demanding-innovation.org/","body":"This website has supported the high-level international seminar \u2018Demanding Innovation: articulating policies for demand-led research and research capacity building in the South\u2019 .\r\nUnder the Main Menu you will find basic information on the workshop, such as the programme, the names of the participants, keynote speeches, proceedings and background documents.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Elijah Mwaba ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Thank you for keeping me updated with the World Health and Equity. I am really enjoying the articles.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Environmental hazards kill 3 million children under five every year ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/inf/en/pr-2002-12.html","body":"Inadequate drinking water and sanitation, indoor air pollution, and accidents, injuries and poisonings, are a few of the causes of the 3 million deaths per year of children under five due to environmental hazards. WHO is addressing environmental hazards which specifically affect children at the International Conference on Environmental Threats to the Health of Children. This opens today in Bangkok. WHO is also monitoring these issues through the Task Force for the Protection of Children\u2019s Environmental Health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter March 2002 Health \u2013 a global public good?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evaluating the Poverty Impact of Economic Policies: Some Analytical Challenges","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/np/res/seminars/2002/poverty/ns.pdf","body":"F. Bourguignon, L. Pereira da Silva and N. Stern \r\nWorld Bank, Washington DC,  March 2002\r\nWhere redistribution and anti-poverty policies consist of cash transfers allocated according to some pre-specified rules, evaluating their impact on the distribution of living standards and poverty might seem straightforward. It seems sufficient to apply the transfer rules to some representative sample of households. This is the essence of 'incidence analysis' and micro-simulation techniques used in many countries. In practice, however, things are not so easy. There are various reasons for this: a) cash transfers are likely to modify behavior, which in turn can generate economy-wide changes through general equilibrium effects; b) in most developing countries, transfers are made only indirectly, through public spending or indirect taxation, with allocation rules which are often far from transparent and may themselves depend on behavior; and c) implementation may be partial or distorted. More fundamentally, poverty reduction policies often go through both macro-economic and structural instruments aimed at enhancing economic activity and growth The actual change in individuals\u2019 standard of living generated by these instruments is not easy to work out because of the fundamental difficulty of establishing satisfactory linkages between micro and macro analysis, whether the latter refers to aggregate demand, medium -run growth or general equilibrium in a somewhat disaggregated framework. This paper reviews the various tools presently available to evaluate the impact of economic policies in general on poverty reduction, or on the distribution of living standards, and explores directions for improvement. It is organized around the common thread of 'incidence analysis'. But this basic micro-economic evaluation tool is used in different contexts and in different ways so as to accommodate a wide range of policies with some potential impact on poverty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"First African AIDS Vaccine Programme (AAVP) Forum","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"3-4 June, 2002, Cape Town, South Africa.\r\nThe WHO-UNAIDS HIV Vaccine Initiative is organizing the First African AIDS Vaccine Programme (AAVP) Forum which is planned to be held at the Golden Tulip The Lord Charles Hotel, Cape Town, South Africa on 3-4 June 2002. The African AIDS Vaccine Programme (AAVP) is a network of scientists, working to promote and facilitate HIV vaccine research and evaluation in Africa, through capacity building and regional and international collaboration. The principal objective of this programme is to actively involve African scientists and communities in all stages of HIV vaccine development and evaluation.\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29082","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Competitiveness Report 2001-2002","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cr/pdf/GCR0102%20Exec%20Summary.pdf","body":"Published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in collaboration with the Center for International Development (CID) at Harvard University and the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, Harvard Business School. One of the principal goals of the Global Competitiveness Report is to identify the policy challenges that face governments at various levels of development. Some tasks are common to all governments: macroeconomic stability, provision of basic medical and health care,  openness of the economy, and a competitive exchange rate that supports export growth. Some tasks are critical for countries attempting to move from beyond a traditional primary commodity base: improvements of infrastructure, universal secondary education, improved technical education, and flexibility of labor markets. Special tasks are required for countries attempting to move from technology -using to technology-innovating economies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund Names Technical Review Panel to Review Funding Proposals ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.globalhealth.org/news/article/1741","body":"The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a new initiative to combat the epidemics that kill six million people each year, today [11 March] announced the appointment of an international panel of experts that will review all grant proposals and make recommendations to the Board for funding. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health financing: designing and implementing pro-poor policies","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.healthsystemsrc.org/Pdfs/Health_financing_pro-poor.pdf","body":"Sara Bennett, Lucy Gilson\r\nDFID Health Systems Resource Centre\r\nUK Department for International Development,  2001\r\nHealth financing reforms are a core part of health sector development in low and middle income countries.The current focus of the international debate is on the need to move away from excessive reliance on out-of-pocket payment towards a system which incorporates a greater element of risk pooling (for example through health insurance) and thus affords a greater protection for the poor. This paper summarises what is known about the effects of the main health care financing systems, and how they can be designed and implemented to be 'pro-poor'.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29090","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Health provides a model for more effective development aid","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/inf/en/pr-2002-20.html","body":"The experience of bringing essential health interventions to the poorest people offers lessons for improving development assistance in other areas. At the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, WHO outlined key factors for making aid for health work, such as setting quantifiable, time-based goals and linking funding to performance. This approach can be adopted in areas as diverse as education, nutrition and environmental management. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Health \u2013 a global public good?","field_subtitle":"IPHN bulletin Number 10: March 2002","field_url":"http://www.iphn.org/bulletin10.htm#note","body":"The World Health Organisation is calling for a massive investment by the rich governments of the world into the health of the world\u2019s poor.  This is the conclusion of a report by the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (CMH, 2001a), launched in London on 20.12.01.  The report calls for an increased investment in health of US$27 billion per year by the year 2007.  It is estimated that such an investment would save 8 million lives per year.  Speaking at the launch, Jeffrey Sachs, the Commission\u2019s chair reported that the new Global Fund for AIDS, TB and malaria (see IPHN bulletin 8 http://www.iphn.org/bulletin8.html) could be one of several vehicles for delivering such funds, delivering perhaps up to 30% of the total fund needed.  He said, \u201cWe need to bankrupt the Global Fund as soon as possible to demonstrate that poor countries have the absorptive capacity and to force the US government to act.\u201d This argument has strong similarities with calls from the United Nations Development Programme [UNDP] for health to be considered a \u2018global public good\u2019 (Kaul et al., 1999).  The Commission itself refers to global public goods and defines them as \u2018goods whose characteristics of publicness (nonrivalry in consumption and nonexcludability of benefits) extend to more than one set of countries or more than one geographic regions (CMH, 2001a, p.190).\u2019 One of the six working groups was specifically focused on the subject of global public goods for health (CMH, 2001a, p.151 \u2013 see http://www.cmhealth.org/wg2.htm).  A particularly strong emphasis in the commission\u2019s report was on the status of health knowledge and information as a global public good (CMH, 2001a, pp.76-86).\r\n\r\nWhat are Public Goods?\r\n\r\nThe concept of dividing goods into \u2018public\u2019 and \u2018private\u2019 goods arises from classical economics and can be dated back to the 18th century.  According to this concept, characteristics of public goods include:\r\n\r\n\u00b7 Non-rivalry in consumption which means that one person\u2019s use of a good does not prevent another person from using it (Kaul et al, 1999).  This is termed by some as non-divisibility (Chen et al, 1999)\r\n\r\n\u00b7 Non-excludability, i.e.  use of item is available to all people/groups of people (Kaul et al, 1999)\r\n\r\n\u00b7 Non-rejectability, individuals are unable to choose to forego consumption (Preker et al, 2000)\r\n\r\nAn example of a private good might be a piece of cake.  If I eat it, no-one else can (i.e.  it is rival).  I may chose to share it with my friends, excluding others (i.e.  excludable).  I may choose not to eat cake (i.e.  it is rejectable).  On the other hand, traffic lights might be considered an example of a public good.  My use of a traffic light does not prevent others from using it (i.e.  it is non-rival).  Traffic lights apply to all people (i.e.  it is non-excludable) and it would be almost impossible to not use traffic lights (i.e.  it is non-rejectable).  Other examples of public goods might include peace, law and order and good macroeconomic management.  However, this distinction between private and public goods is not always that clear cut.  Although some goods might be purely private or purely public, there will be some that are mixed/impure.  Goods which are non-rival amongst a certain group of people can be termed \u2018club goods\u2019 and those which are available to all but are rival can be termed \u2018common pool resources\u2019 (see figure 1).  These \u2018impure\u2019 goods are more common than the pure type.  Consequently, the term public good is often used to include both pure and impure public goods (i.e.  the shaded area in figure 1 ) (Kaul et al, 1999).  Commonly, five sectors of public goods can be identified, namely environment, health, governance, security and knowledge (Te Velde, 2002).\r\n\r\nAccording to neo-classical economic theory, attempting to provide pure public goods through competitive markets will lead to sub-optimal quality, quantity and price (Preker et al, 2000).  Two reasons for this can be identified for this.  First, individuals motivated by self-interest only will tend to \u2018free ride\u2019 concerning the provision of these goods.  Secondly, individuals will tend to make sub-optimal decisions on these issues if those decisions are made in isolation from others.  Effective provision of public goods requires co-operation and measures which promote communication and build trust (Kaul et al, 1999).  What are Global Goods?\r\n\r\nIn many cases, it is assumed that responsibility for provision of public goods rests with the nation state.  However, there may be some cases where goods are global rather than national.  Suggested criteria for deciding this include the requirement that global goods are quasi-universal in terms of:\r\n\r\n\u00b7 Countries, that is they involve more than one group \u00b7 People, that is they involve several/all population groups, e.g. socio-economic groups, ethnic groups, gender, religion etc.\r\n\r\n\u00b7 Generations, that is they affect current and future generations In order to assess what kind of goods might be global in this regard, it may be useful to consider problems (i.e.  global \u2018bads\u2019) which fulfil those criteria, for example banking crises, Internet crime and fraud, Ill-health due to increased trade and travel, drug abuse, smoking etc.  (Kaul et al, 1999).  Global public goods may be considered of two types.  There are final global public goods which consist of desired outcomes and may be tangible, e.g.  the environment or intangible, e.g.  peace.  For example, the World Bank recognizes five global public goods priorities, namely communicable diseases, environmental commons, information & knowledge, trade & integration and international financial architecture (World Bank, 2001).  Secondly, there are intermediate global public goods which consist of international regimes, agreements and institutions which have the aim of delivering final global public goods.  Examples might include frameworks for international transport and communication, health, the environment, demographics, judicial systems, human rights and macroeconomic policy (Kaul et al, 1999).\r\n\r\nIs an Economics-based Definition of Global Public Goods Adequate?\r\n\r\nSo far, this paper has considered the concept of global public goods from the perspective of neo-classical economics.  However, the validity of defining global public goods in this way has been challenged by some people.  For example, Wolfgang Reinicke, Director of the Global Public Policy Project, an economist with long experience of working in the World Bank, said, \u201cIn most societies, the spectrum of public goods goes far beyond what a classic economic definition of joint consumption and non-excludability would capture.  It is far more important for the members of each society to determine - in a transparent, democratic process - what is and what is not in the public interest (Reinicke, 2001).\u201d Supplying Global Public Goods As seen earlier, classical economic theory predicts that competitive markets will provide public goods in a sub-optimal way.  This leads to the problem of how public goods, in general and global public goods, in particular can be supplied.  Two key factors have been identified in determining how sub-optimal provision through markets will be.  These factors are the \u2018degree of publicness\u2019 of the goods and the number of beneficiaries.  The latter factor is a particular problem for global public goods whose beneficiaries number billions and who are represented by more than 180 nation states.  These states have their own self-interests and there are a diverse range of interest groups within the world\u2019s population (Kaul et al, 1999).  There is therefore a strong argument for international aid to be used to finance global public goods.  Three building blocks for this argument are that:\r\n\r\n\u00b7 The private sector will not provide a sufficient amount of public goods \u00b7 Individual countries have insufficient incentives to make an optimal contribution to global public goods because benefits do not accrue equally nationally \u00b7 Poor countries lack the resources to make a full contribution to global public goods (Te Velde, 2002)\r\n\r\nIncreasingly, the World Bank is seen as a financing mechanism through which global public goods can be provided.  The Global Environment Fund would be one such example and it has been proposed that the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria be administered in a similar way (Unknown, 2002).  Global public policy networks are also seen as having an important role in the area of supply of global public goods because they bring together diverse interest groups and can address transnational issues which no single group can address alone.  Examples include:\r\n\r\n\u00b7 Placing issues on the global agenda, e.g.  landmines, Jubilee 2000 \u00b7 Facilitating setting of global standards, e.g. World Commission on Dams \u00b7 Developing mechanisms for producing/sharing critical knowledge, e.g.  Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research [CGIAR] \u00b7 Creating markets where they are lacking, e.g.  GAVI \u00b7 Developing mechanisms for innovative implementation , e.g.  Global Environment Facility \u00b7 Creating trust and promote participation - reducing democratic deficit \u2013 an example of what happens when this fails would be the demonstrations in Seattle and against the workings of the World Bank (Reinicke, 2001).\r\n\r\nIs health a global public good?\r\n\r\nTraditionally, diseases can be divided into three groups, communicable diseases, communicable diseases and injuries.  Because treatment of infectious diseases produces benefits to people other than those treated (termed positive externalities by economists), the control of communicable diseases has been widely considered a public good.  However, because most of the determinants of non-communicable disease appear to be individual lifestyle choices, e.g.  diet, tobacco use, exercise etc.  treatment of these diseases is widely seen as a private good (Chen et al, 1999).  However, applying strict classical economic criteria to health goods would result in very few being considered \u2018pure public goods\u2019 because most have some degree of excludability, rivalry and rejectability.  For example, a vaccine given to one person is not available for another and people may choose not to be vaccinated (Preker etal, 2000).\r\n\r\nHowever, even if health is accepted as a public good, much of it is likely to be seen as a national public good rather than one with global implications.  For example, Te Velde considers primary health care as a national public good and only the prevention of disease spread across borders as a global public good (Te Velde, 2002).  However, others have argued that health has become much more of a global public good because of a number of influences of globalization.  First, increased international linkages through trade, migration and information flows not only provide opportunity for cross-border transmission of infectious agents but also allow \u2018transmission\u2019 of behavioural and environmental risks.  Secondly, increased pressure on common-pool global resources, e.g.  air and water, brings its own threats (Chen et al, 1999).  Examples of health effects which can be considered global public goods as a result of globalization might include:\r\n\r\n\u00b7 Health effects of environmental change, e.g.  global warming, ozone depletion, toxic waste disposal \u00b7 Tobacco usage \u2013 this is not only influenced by individual behaviour but by global marketing campaigns \u00b7 Illicit drug use \u2013 globalization has made control of drug trafficking more difficult (Chen et al, 1999)\r\n\r\nHowever, all these issues are based on the same logic as focusing on the cross-border transmission of infectious disease as a global public good, namely that the causes and effects of disease, particularly in an era of globalization, are not limited to national boundaries and need to be approached on a global level.  Another logic for considering health as a global public good can be considered in terms of the global imperative for poverty reduction (Te Velde, 2002).  This is being used by a number of politicians as a basis for investment in health and development, for example Gordon Brown, the UK\u2019s Finance Minister.  The basis of this argument is that investment in health is a key element of an effective poverty reduction strategy and reducing poverty in poorer countries is essential if conflict is to be reduced, communicable disease controlled and environmental damage minimized.  In a presentation to the UK Health and Development Forum in London in February 2002, a WHO economist distinguished between \u2018health as a global public good\u2019 and \u2018global public goods for health\u2019.  For an area of health to be considered a global public good he explained that efforts to promote it would need to produce global health and economic benefits.  On this basis, control of communicable disease, e.g.  polio eradication is widely considered a global public good.  On the other hand, there are many global public goods for health, that is global public goods which have health effects.  Examples would include medical technologies, tobacco control and trade agreements.  He also stressed the importance of \u2018access goods\u2019 \u2013 those goods which allow a person to benefit from a global public good.  For example, a radio allows a person access to the radio waves which can be considered a global public good.  He argued for health systems to be considered an access good in relation to many of the technological advances in health which could be considered global public goods (Woodward, 2002).\r\n\r\nConclusions It seems uncontroversial that certain aspects of health can be considered a global public good, particularly the control of infectious diseases which can spread across national borders.  However, in an increasingly globalised world, it can be argued that, more and more, the cause and effects of disease are transnational.  Finally, it can be argued that all of health should be considered a global public good because it is a key component of another global public good, poverty reduction, and because the global community has determined that it should so be considered.  The report of the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health is not always explicit about the way it is interpreting health as a global public good.  The main argument of the report is that rich countries should invest in the health of poorer countries as a way of supporting economic development and contributing to poverty alleviation.  This is presumably of value to the international community and could therefore be considered a global public good.  Some of this thinking is seen in statements associated with the commission which claim that controlling the diseases of the poor will promote political and social stability (CMH, 2001b).  This is also seen in some of the quotes attributed to the Commissioners.  For example, Manmohan Singh, a former Indian Finance Minister said, \u201cWe have an historical opportunity to combine and use resources and know-how to ensure better health and greater economic growth in just a couple of decades.  If we want equity and security in our lifetime and for future generations, we cannot afford to miss this opportunity.\u201d Takatoshi Kato of the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi said, \u201cWe must begin to see development assistance more in terms of an investment in the future \u2013 in the protection of the global well-being, including peace, healthy populations, a healthy environment and a more equitable economic system (CMH, 2001c).\u201d These statements clearly see investment in the health of poor people as contributing to a wide range of global public goods including equity, security, peace and a healthy environment.  However, when the report refers explicitly to global public goods, it does so in a much more limited way, for example to refer to the work of global institutions (p.13) and the importance of health information and knowledge (pp.76-86) (CMH, 2001a).\r\n\r\nUNDP is perhaps the lead agency in trying to promote a broadening of the concept of public goods to embrace all aspects of health, presumably in an attempt to encourage rich governments to provide additional non-aid funds for global health based on self-interest arguments.  However, many NGOs have reservations about this approach.  These reservations include:\r\n\r\n\u00b7 Concerns about pursuing arguments based on classical economic models \u00b7 Fear of marginalizing more basic concepts such as equity and health as a human right \u00b7 Fear of promoting inappropriate solutions, e.g.  more stringent immigration controls as a way of controlling infectious disease \u00b7 Fear of promoting vertical programmes \u00b7 Risk of promoting northern agendas and further marginalizing country priorities \u00b7 The confusing nature of the concepts and terms (Keith, 2002)\r\n\r\nDiscussion questions Is the concept of global public goods useful to us?  How do we wish to define this?  Do we see health as a global public good?  On what basis do we come to that conclusion?  Does this cover all aspects of health or just certain parts?  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/Aids in Africa: Rethinking Current Strategies","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200203220259.html","body":"According to the UN agency coordinating the HIV/AIDS epidemic (UNAIDS) at least 28.1 million Africans are living with the disease. Since the beginning of the epidemic in early 1980's, more than 19 million Africans have perished from AIDS. Largely due to AIDS, the average life expectancy in Sub-Sahara Africa is only 47 years instead of 62 years, if the disease were not a factor.  Without any doubt, HIV/AIDS is a serious threat to the future well being of the continent. The specter of 14 million AIDS orphans, and counting, complicates an already dicey situation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS: WHO Publishes First List of Recommended Drugs ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/medicines/organization/qsm/activities/pilotproc/suppliers.doc","body":"Access to HIV/AIDS Drugs and Diagnostics of Acceptable Quality Pilot. Procurement Quality and Sourcing Project. Suppliers whose HIV-related medicines have been found acceptable, in principle, for procurement by UN agencies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"How do consumers search for and appraise health information on the world wide web?","field_subtitle":"Qualitative study using focus groups, usability tests, and in-depth interviews","field_url":"http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7337/573","body":"Gunther Eysenbach, senior researcher, Christian K\u00f6hler, researcher,  Unit for Cybermedicine and eHealth, Department of Clinical Social Medicine, University of Heidelberg, Germany BMJ 2002;324:573-577 ( 9 March, 2002 ) Little is known about how consumers retrieve and assess health information on the world wide web. Some surveys have elicited data by using semistructured questionnaires or focus groups, but little (if any) unobtrusive observational research has been done to explore how consumers are actually surfing the web. Although several criteria for quality of health websites have been proposed, including disclosure of site owners, authors, and update cycle  little or nothing is known about whether and to what degree such markers are recognised or even looked at by consumers or what other credibility markers consumers are looking for. The authors aimed to obtain qualitative and semiquantitative data to generate some hypotheses on how consumers might search for and appraise health information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequalities in Health in Developing Countries: ","field_subtitle":"Swimming against the Tide? ","field_url":"http://econ.worldbank.org/view.php?type=5&id=12290","body":"Adam Wagstaff \r\nInequalities in health have recently started to receive a good deal of attention in the developing world. But how large are they? And how large are the differences across countries? Recent data from a 42-country study show large but varying inequalities in health across countries. Wagstaff explores the reasons for these intercountry differences and concludes that large inequalities in health are not apparently associated with large inequalities in income or with small shares of publicly financed health spending. But they are associated with higher per capita incomes. Evidence from trends in health inequalities\u2014in both the developing and the industrial world\u2014supports the notion that health inequalities rise with rising per capita incomes. The association between health inequalities and per capita incomes is probably due in part to technological change going hand-in-hand with economic growth, coupled with a tendency for the better-off to assimilate new technology ahead of the poor. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Is anyone listening?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www2.ids.ac.uk/gdnet/subpages/projects_underresearch.html","body":"As researchers, we struggle constantly to \u2018publish\u2019, \u2018disseminate\u2019, \u2018communicate\u2019, or \u2018influence\u2019. We write short pieces which summarise our work. We organise and attend meetings. We give radio or television interviews. We offer evidence to parliamentary committees. Occasionally, we even answer the phone and find a decision-maker on the other end of the line. So much activity, for so uncertain an impact. And so little guidance on how to use our scarce resources. Surely, we can do better.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Journalism Fellowship Programme","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization","field_url":"http://www.who.int/inf/en/fellowship_programme.html","body":"Reporters will be able to explore a range of topics at the headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva during a two week fellowship in October. An optional third week will be available to fellows to enable them to pursue their research in the field anywhere in the world. The WHO Journalism Fellowship is composed of two components to give reporters a broad and deep understanding of the forces shaping global public health. First, WHO Fellows will attend morning briefings on a range of international public health issues. The briefings will be held daily from 10 a.m. to noon. Then, during the remaining time, the fellows will have the freedom to roam WHO, to attend lectures and seminars, to interview staff, and to use WHO's extensive research resources to pursue their own special interests.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Making Globalization Work for the Poor","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2002/03/watkins.htm","body":"Economists are sometimes chastised for their inability to reach a consensus view. George Bernard Shaw, the Irish playwright, captured the mood rather neatly when he wrote: \"If all economists were laid end to end, they wouldn't reach a conclusion.\" If he were writing today, he would be forced to concede the rider \"unless they were discussing the benefits for the poor of openness to trade.\" ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"New Gender and Health Website  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.paho.org/genderandhealth","body":"March, 2002. Women, Health and Development Program, Division of Health and Human Development (HDP), Pan-American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO Announces  the launch of our new website devoted to Gender and Health issues. Join our listserv GENSALUD and have the latest Gender and Health news e-mailed to you. Download one of our Gender and Health Fact Sheets or Advocacy Kits. Browse through our Virtual Library on Gender and Health - SIMUS. Find a training course, seminar or workshop on gender and health. Visit our Education page for information about gender and women's studies programs throughout the Americas. Check out our Gender and Health Calendar to find out what's happening this month. Look for links to other organizations working on gender and women's health issues. Learn more about the Women, Health and Development Program!","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29106","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Norman Nyazema","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Just to say this is a most welcome development from EQUINET. Keep it up. I certainly find the articles interesting.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Paper: At The End Of The Beginning: Eliciting Cardinal Values For Health States","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/lsehsc/pdf_files/DP2adam.pdf","body":"Adam Oliver, LSE Health and Social Care, London School of Economics and Political Science ISBN [07530 1932 9] Discussion Paper 2, February 2002. Health care resources are scarce, and there are competing moral claims on how the available resources ought to be distributed. Many of the claims focus upon the distribution of health outcomes, and thus assume that different health outcomes arising from disparate health care programmes can in some sense be compared. If cardinal values for health states could be elicited, they would help us to distribute resources more accurately towards our chosen health care objectives (whatever they might be).","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29072","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Paper: Health, Human Productivity and Long-Term Economic Growth","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Suchit Arora. The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 61, No.3, 699-749, September 2001. This article investigates the influence of the growth paths of ten industrializes countries over the course of 100 to 125 years. Changes in health increased their pace of growth by 30 to 40 percent, altering permanently the slope of their growth paths. This finding is robust across five measures of long-term health and it remains largely unchanged when \"controlled\" for investment in physical capital. Health-related variables correlate positively with years of schooling. However, schooling variables by themselves do not replicate the results obtained from health-related measures. Health improvements thus do not merely follow economic progress.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health:","field_subtitle":"Options for TRIPS Council","field_url":"http://www2.cid.harvard.edu/cidwp/087.pdf","body":"Amir Attaran, CID Working Paper No. 87, February 2002 - Draft. Center for International Development, Harvard University. The Doha Declaration is a success for the highly visible, international activist movement that over the last three years has illuminated the problem of pharmaceutical access in poor countries. International NGOs such as Action Aid, Doctors Without Borders (M\u00e9decins Sans Frontier\u00e8s) and Oxfam have campaigned strongly in support of the thesis that the TRIPS agreement of the WTO, which binds developing countries to offer patent protection for pharmaceuticals, has had and will have a chilling effect on access to live-saving pharmaceuticals in poor countries. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29070","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Project to Assess and Learn How Well Health, Nutrition, and Population Activities Are Reaching Disadvantaged Groups","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.paho.org/English/HDP/HDD/wb-poor-proj.doc","body":"The World Bank's Thematic Group on Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) and  Poverty is pleased to invite applications for participation in a project designed to determine how well programs to improve Health, Nutrition and Population status are reaching disadvantaged population groups, and to find ways of reaching those groups more effectively. Financial support of up to $40,000 for each of 10-12 submissions, to be selected through open competition; the application deadline is April 19, 2002.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29086","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Research report: Measuring social capital within health surveys: key issues","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://heapol.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/17/1/106","body":"Trudy Harpham, Emma Grant,  South Bank University, London, UK and Elizabeth Thomas, Medical Research Council, Johannesburg, South Africa. Health Policy and Planning; 17(1): 106-111 Oxford University Press 2002. With growing recognition of the social determinants of health, social capital is an increasingly important concept in international health research. Although there is relatively little experience of measuring social capital, particularly in developing countries, there are now a number of studies that allow the identification of some key issues that need to be considered when measuring social capital.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29073","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC CALENDAR OF ACTIVITIES : JANUARY \u2013 APRIL  2002","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"1.\tExtra-ordinary Council of Ministers Meeting\tSecretariat\t11-12 January\tBlantyre, Malawi\r\n2.\tExtra-ordinary Summit of SADC Heads of State and Government \t\u201c\t14 January\tBlantyre, Malawi\r\n3.\tPlanning Meeting on Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) Programme\tFood, Agriculture and Natural Resources\t17-18 January\tPretoria, South Africa\r\n4.\tSeed Security Network Meeting\t\u201c\t28-29 January\tNyanga, Zimbabwe\r\n5.\tMeeting of the Technical Committee of Small Arms & Light Weapons\tSpecial Programmes\t30-31 January\tPretoria, South Africa\r\n6.\tLaunching of the Mine Action Database Project\t\u201c\t4-5 February\tMaputo, Mozambique\r\n7.\tCommittee of Fisheries\t\u201c\tFebruary\tFAO, HQ\r\n8.\tSub-Finance Committee \tSecretariat\t8-9      February\tZanzibar, Tanzania\r\n9.\tSADC Standing Committee of Senior Officials \t\u201c\t10-11  February\tZanzibar, Tanzania\r\n10.\tFinance Committee\t\u201c\t12       February\tZanzibar, Tanzania\r\n11.\tSADC Council of Ministers \t\u201c\t13-14 February\tZanzibar, Tanzania\r\n12.\tForum For Agricultural Research Retreat\tFood, Agriculture and Natural Resources\t18 February\tCape Town, South Africa\r\n13.\tSADC Epidemiological Network on Drug Use (SENDU) Training Workshop\tSpecial Programmes\t18-22 February\tMaputo, Mozambique\r\n14.\tConference on Disaster Management & Dissemination of the Regional Disaster Strategy\t\u201c\t26-29 February\tMaseru, Lesotho\r\n15.\tMacroeconomic Sub-Committee\tTrade, Industry, Finance and Investment\t28 February- 1March\tGaborone, Botswana\r\n16.\tConference on the SADC Mine Action Operators & 7th Meeting of the Mine Action Committee\tSpecial Programmes\t18-22 March\tLuanda, Angola\r\n17.\t45th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women\tGender\tMarch\tNew York, USA\r\n18.\t 3rd SADC-US Forum\tSecretariat\tMarch\tWashington, USA\r\n19.\t3rd Steering Committee Meeting of the Regional Training Statistical Programme\tStatistics\tMarch\tCape Town, South Africa\r\n20.\tAnnual SADC Statistics Committee Meeting\tStatistics\tMarch\tCape Town, South Africa\r\n21\tMeeting of the SADC/EU Working on Small Arms\tSpecial Programmes\t28-29 March\tPretoria, South Africa\r\n22.\tForum For Agricultural Research\tFood, Agriculture and Natural resources\tMarch\tMaputo, Mozambique\r\n23.\tForum on Wildlife Protocol Implementation Plan\t\u201c\tMarch/April\tTBA\r\n24.\tFisheries Technical Meeting\t\u201c\tApril\tTBA\r\n25.\tDemining Technology Evaluation\tSpecial Programmes\t11-12 April\tHarare, Zimbabwe\r\n26.\tTrade Statistics Meeting\tStatistics\tApril\tGaborone, Botswana\r\n27\tLivestock Technical meeting\tFood, Agriculture and Natural Resources \tApril\tTBA\r\n28.\t7th SADC Drug Control Meeting\tSpecial Programmes\t22-23 April\tCape Town, South Africa \r\n29.\tSENDU Regional Report Back Meeting\tSpecial Programmes\t24-25 April\tCape Town, South Africa\r\n30\tStatistics/User Producer Meeting\tStatistics\tApril\tTBA\r\n31\tSENDU Training Workshop\tSpecial Programmes\t6-10 May\tLilongwe, Malawi\r\n32.\tCongress to monitor the Regional Programme of Action for Women in Politics\tGender\tApril/May\tTBA\r\n33.\tMeeting of SADC Ministers Responsible for Gender/Women\u2019s Affairs\tGender\tMay\tWindhoek, Namibia","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Determinants Of Health: Meeting At The Crossroads ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://130.94.25.113/freecontent/s37.htm","body":"Lisa F. Berkman and Kimberly A. Lochner \r\nHealth Affairs, March/April 2002  \r\nEvery once in a while people start thinking the same thoughts at the same time in a way that changes how we do science. Such confluence often serves to reconfigure how we interpret and what we infer from facts we have known for a long time. This confluence is what we found in six recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) and National Research Council (NRC) reports. On the surface, these  reports seem to cover very different issues. Nevertheless, they share a deep, common understanding of how social conditions  influence health and behavior across the life cycle. What emerges from our reading is an articulation of five common themes, by more than 100 researchers, relating to the central importance of social conditions in shaping the health of the public: (1) a population perspective on health   determinants, (2) the complex interactions among multiple levels of influence, (3) the social context that  shapes behavior, (4) a life course and developmental perspective, and (5) identifying biological mechanisms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTH AFRICA: AIDS policy shifts","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1234","body":"A rebellion against government policy on the treatment of HIV/AIDS is taking place in South Africa, with four provinical governments openly defying national policy and announcing the provision of nevirapine to all pregnant women in the public sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: De-Registration of Nevirapine Unlikely: TAC","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200203220665.html","body":"The Treatment Action Campaign had no reason to believe that the Medicines Control Council would withdraw the registration of the anti-retroviral drug nevirapine, the Pretoria High Court has heard.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Home Care Slashes HIV/Aids Costs, Report Says","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200203250203.html","body":"Latest review reveals that voluntary community care can help and prevent SA losing R6bn a year to AIDS. IF SA began a massive home-based care programme for people infected with HIV/AIDS, it could slash hospital costs and relieve a fiscus already losing R6bn a year to AIDS. The losses are recorded in the latest intergovernmental review, while the cost benefits of using Home-Based Care are being proved by a two-year programme, Enhancing Care Initiative (ECI), run by the University of Natal, with the US's Harvard University and the KwaZulu-Natal government.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Jimmy Carter and William Gates accompany Madiba to Soweto clinic","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200203070756.html","body":"Former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, went to Zola Clinic to inspect the Bill and Melinda Gates supported programme, where he announced that he would defend the Gauteng Premier's decision to provide pregnant mothers with nevirapine.  Madiba was accompanied by Former US President Jimmy Carter and William Gates senior along with their wives.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Makgoba Squares Up to ANC On HIV/Aids","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200203250227.html","body":"SCIENTISTS and health professionals are squaring up to do battle with government and the African National Congress (ANC) on HIV/AIDS policy. This follows the release last week by the ANC's national executive committee (NEC) of a 10page document setting out its views on HIV/AIDS and signalling a retreat from what was seen as a tentative move towards liberalising policy on antiretroviral drugs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South African government undecided about Nevirapine order","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200203140853.html","body":"The South African government has not yet decided whether to comply with the courts order to supply nevirapine to HIV positive pregnant mothers or to\r\nappeal the order.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Special Issue of the Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition","field_subtitle":"Invitation for Submission of Manuscripts on Health and Equity","field_url":"","body":"The Journal of Health,Population and Nutrition (JHPN) will publish theme-based issues, beginning in its March 2003 Issue to highlight findings of some important emergent research issues from different regions of the world. The first theme-based issue (March 2003) will be on Equity and Health.This special issue may include original research articles on concepts,measurements,and methodological issues, empirical findings on the situation of health equity,and interventions to reduce health inequity Reports on global evaluation,national,or subnational pro-equity activities and the experiences gained by way of impact and the process of implementation are also of interest. Potential authors are requested to express their interest to contribute by writing a note with tentative title of the paper by 30 June 2002.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29062","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The 2002 Directory of Training Programs in Health Services Research and Health Policy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.academyhealth.org/directory/search.cfm.","body":"With more than 115 programs profiled, this new, updated version responds to a growing interest in health services research and health policy and increasing demand for information about Post Baccalaureate certificates, Master's programs, Doctoral programs, and Postdoctoral programs in these fields. It has been expanded to include health policy research programs and the health policy tracks in public policy programs as well as the core health services research programs included in our two earlier editions-1997 and 1992. While the 2002 edition does not include international programs, other than the eight Canadian programs profiled, future editions may be expanded to include programs outside North America. Print copies will be available this spring. If Interested in profiling your program, please visit our website for detailed information. Contact Information: Virginia Van Horne,Academy for Health Services Research and Health Policy,1801 K Street, NW, Suite 701-L,Washington, DC 20006. Tel: 202-292-6744 Fax: 202-292-6844 \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"THE GLOBAL FUND UPDATE","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.globalfundatm.org","body":"20 March, 2002. The first issue of The Global Fund Update in the newsletter of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will provide the latest information about the progress of this historic initiative. The inaugural issue includes an introduction to the Global Fund and a brief update on plans to announce the first round of grants.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Impact of Resource Allocation and Purchasing (RAP) Reforms on Equity","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/hdnet/hddocs.nsf/c840b59b6982d2498525670c004def60/b99aec924fb5f1d185256a9b00774d2d/$file/equity4a.doc","body":"Paolo Belli, Research Fellow, Department of Population and International Health Harvard School of Public Health - August 2001, Professor at Pavia University, Pavia Italy, and Lecturer at Bocconi University. This paper introduces a conceptual framework to investigate into the equity consequences of resource allocation, strategic purchasing and payment system reforms in health. It also presents a selective survey of the evidence available on the distribution of health, on utilization of public health services across socio-economic groups, and on the equity impact of RAP reforms in a number of developing countries. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29068","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The importance of an African Union for HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200203050724.html","body":"A report by a correspondent of Af-Aids Forum from the third African Development Forum in Addis Ababa, Maaaarch 3-8, 2002\r\n\"The HIV/AIDS pandemic is a survival issue not just for tens of millions of Africans, but also for some of our nations themselves... The HIV/AIDS pandemic will test those survival skills to the limit, but I have no doubt that Africa will overcome this pandemic, hopefully sooner rather than later.\" - Abdul Mohammed, Keynote Presentation.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29088","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Influence Of Income On Health: ","field_subtitle":"Views Of An Epidemiologist","field_url":"http://130.94.25.113/freecontent/s7.htm","body":"Michael Marmot\r\nIncome is related to health in three ways: through the gross national product of countries, the income of individuals, and the income inequalities among rich nations and among geographic areas. A central question is the degree to which these associations reflect a causal association. If so, redistribution of income would improve health. This paper discusses two ways in which income could be causally related to health: through a direct effect on the material conditions necessary for biological survival, and through an effect on social participation and opportunity to control life circumstances. The fewer goods and services are provided publicly by the community, the more important individual income is for health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards health with justice: ","field_subtitle":"Litigation and public inquiries as tools for tobacco control","field_url":"http://tobacco.who.int/repository/stp69/final_jordan_report.pdf","body":"Report prepared by D. Douglas Blanke, Director of the Tobacco Law Project,William Mitchell College of Law, for the Tobacco Free Initiative, WHO.\r\n2002 World Health Organization (WHO)\r\nUsed properly, the law can help transform the paradigms of tobacco control, awaken public outrage, strengthen public policies and redress injuries. A new report \"Towards health with justice: Litigation and public inquiries as tools for tobacco control\"  looks at past and current tobacco litigation around the world and analyses its impact on public health. The report says it is time  to make the law, and inquiries into the behavior of tobacco transnationals, an integral component of the comprehensive global  tobacco control agenda, in a way that advances both health and justice.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Voices of the Poor: Crying Out for Change ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://server.ntd.co.uk/ids/bookshop/details.asp?id=626","body":"Deepa Narayan, Robert Chambers, Meera K. Shah and Patti Petesch - 2001\r\nThis book is based on the realities of poor people. It draws upon research conducted in 1999 involving 20,000 poor women and men from 23 countries. Despite very different political, social and economic contexts, there are striking similarities in poor people's experiences. The common theme underlying poor people's experiences is one of powerlessness. Powerlessness consists of multiple and interlocking dimensions of illbeing or poverty. The organisation of this book roughly follows the 10 dimensions of powerlessness and illbeing that emerge from the study. The remainder of the book presents methodology and the challenges faced in conducting the study.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia: Breakdown in Health Services Worsens Impact of TB - WHO","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200203250189.html","body":"THE breakdown in health services, the spread of the HIV/AIDS and multi-drug resistance have worsened the impact of TB, World Health Organisation (WHO) has noted.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia: Traditional Healers Worry THAZ Over HIV/Aids","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200203250027.html","body":"THE Traditional Healers Association of Zambia (THAZ) should find ways of punishing its members who are misleading their patients that they can be cured of HIV/AIDS by having sex with children, the Child Care and Adoption Society of Zambia has demanded.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-03-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":" DOTS -Availability and Implementation  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ctrlaltesc.org/fighttb/02/02/11/102207.shtml","body":"Nearly 2 billion people, one-third of the world's population, is infected with the tuberculosis bacillus and at risk of developing active disease. Of the 8.4 million people who develop active TB every year 2 million die from it. There are two types of problems associated with DOTS. One is the non-availability of the treatment program and the other, the less than satisfactory implementation of it. Despite the proven potency DOTS (directly-observed treatment short-course) strategy and widespread agreement on its efficacy, many developing countries have failed proper implementation and expansion of the DOTS program. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"\"ACCESS TO RESEARCH\" INTERNET INITIATIVE FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.healthinternetwork.net","body":"Opening of the Health InterNetwork website.\r\nMany thousands of doctors, researchers, health policy-makers and others in about 70 developing countries will from today gain free access through the Internet to one of the world's largest collections of biomedical literature. They will benefit from an initiative launched by the World Health Organization and the world's six biggest medical journal publishers, which WHO Director-General Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland has described as \"perhaps the biggest step ever taken towards reducing the health information gap between rich and poor countries.\" The \"Access to Research\" initiative enables accredited universities, medical schools, research centres and other public institutions in the developing countries to gain access to the wealth of scientific information contained in more than 1000 different biomedical journals produced by the six publishers. Until now, subscriptions to these journals, both electronic and print, have been priced uniformly for such institutions, irrespective of geographical location. Many key titles cost more than US$1500 per year, and the average subscription costs several hundred dollars, putting the journals beyond the reach of the large majority of health and research institutions in the poorest countries. Last year WHO, working with the British Medical Journal, approached the six biggest medical journal publishers: Blackwell, Elsevier Science, the Harcourt Worldwide STM Group, Wolters Kluwer International Health & Science, Springer Verlag and John Wiley. The aim was to bring them together with the countries concerned to seek a more affordable pricing structure for online access to their international biomedical journals. The first stage of the initiative will make more than 1,000 of their journals available free or at significantly reduced charges to institutions in those countries. That availability begins today with the opening of the Health InterNetwork website: A second stage will involve similar access at significantly reduced prices for institutions in the other countries. WHO and the publishers will work with the Open Society Institute of the Soros foundation network and other public and private partners to extend the initiative; for example, through training for research staff, and improving Internetconnectivity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"'Nothing about us, without us': ","field_subtitle":"including disabled people in poverty reduction work ","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/society/s6bry1g1.html","body":"The WHO estimates that one in ten of the world's people are disabled. There has been some improvement in the extent to which disabled people figure in the rhetoric of development actors. But have disabled people themselves seen any practical change? What is the legacy of ongoing medical and charitable approaches to disability issues? Can international development targets be reached if disabled people remain excluded? A report from Action on Disability and Development (ADD) looks at the vicious circle linking poverty and disability. It argues that the basic cause of disabled people's poverty is social, economic, and political exclusion. The poverty reduction aspirations of donors, governments and agencies cannot be taken seriously until they learn to work with, not just on behalf of, disabled people.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"2002 Training of Trainers Courses for Reproductive Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ncb.intnet.mu/mih/index.htm","body":"2002 Training of Trainers Course for Reproductive Health with emphasis on Family Planning.\r\n52nd Course (Anglophone): 3 June -12 July\r\n53rd Course (Francophone): 23 September - 1 November.\r\nThe Mauritius Institute of Health is pleased to announce its Training of Trainers courses for Reproductive Health with emphasis on Family Planning. The present programme, adapted to better meet the WHO Regional Training activities in Family Health initiated in 1982, and those of the UNFPA Regional Project RAF/96/P01.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29030","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Activists in South Africa welcome increase in AIDS budget","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1229","body":"AIDS activists welcomed the increased expenditure on HIV/AIDS in the South African 2002-2003 budget released last week, but expressed concern that the funds could be misused at provinical level.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICA: Life expectancy set to reach lowest levels ever","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1213&SelectRegion=Africa&SelectCountry=AFRICA","body":"The life expectancy of Africans is set to reach one of its lowest levels ever, it was revealed on Monday. By the year 2005, most Africans will die before they reach their 48th birthday, the fourth general assembly of the African Population Commission (APC) heard.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AFROTBNET Dissemination Workshop Report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"From the period of September 1999 to date the Biomedical Research and Training Institute (BRTI) based in Harare, with financial support from International Development and Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada has been engaged in a multi-centre study which has strong public health implications: to find out the personal and system related determinants of access to health services by suspected and confirmed tuberculosis patients in developing countries. Tuberculosis being one of the most common killer disease before and present times once again is in the centre of attention of national health authorities, researchers as well as donor community as a re-\r\nemerging phenomenon. To achieve maximum relevance of the study for the Southern African Region, four SADC countries, where tuberculosis is a major public health problem especially in association with HIV/AIDS were selected to participate in this multi-centre study.  These countries are South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe being the coordinating centre. Research teams of the above mentioned countries held a workshop in Harare last year to discuss and disseminate the results of the study.\r\nThe workshop report and recommendations were compiled are now open for further discussion and review from a wider audience.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29032","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Armed conflict as a public health problem","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7333/346","body":"Armed conflict between warring states and groups within states have been major causes of ill health and mortality for most of human history. Conflict obviously causes deaths and injuries on the battlefield, but also health consequences from the displacement of populations, the breakdown of health and social services, and the heightened risk of disease transmission. Despite the size of the health consequences, military conflict has not received the same attention from public health research and policy as many other causes of illness and death. In contrast, political scientists have long studied the causes of war but have primarily been interested in the decision of elite groups to go to war, not in human death and misery. We review the limited knowledge on the health consequences of conflict, suggest ways to improve measurement, and discuss the potential for risk assessment and for preventing and ameliorating the consequences of conflict. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Auntie Stella launched","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.tarsc.org/auntstella/index.html","body":"The Training and Research Centre (TARSC) based in Harare, Zimbabwe has launched a website, Auntie Stella, created specifically for young people related to their reproductive health in order to help them discuss and solve problem related to this issue.  The site is an adaptation of the print version of Auntie Stella that has been hugely successful with in and out of school youths.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Basic patterns in national health expenditure","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/pdf/2002/bul-2-E-2002/80(2)134-142.pdf","body":"Musgrove P, Zeramdini R. A summary description of health financing in WHO Member States(CMH Working Paper Series, Paper No. WG3: 3. \r\nAnalysed in this paper are national health accounts estimates for 191 WHO Member States for 1997, using simple comparisons and linear regressions to describe spending on health and how it is financed. The data cover all sources\u2014out-of-pocket spending, social insurance contributions, financing from government general revenues and voluntary and employment-related private insurance \u2014 classified according to their completeness and reliability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Breast-feeding Site Added To Namibia MoHSS Web Site","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.healthnet.org.na/bfeed","body":"The Food and Nutrition unit of the Namibia Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS)recently received WHO support to contract a local Web site developer to create a very comprehensive site addressing breast-feeding in Namibia. The site's content was developed by MoHSS staff, and includes a wide variety of information on the Baby and Mother Friendly Facility Initiative in Namibia, Government policies and strategies for promoting breast-feeding and maternal and baby health, facts and figures relating to breast feeding, and a resource guide for health workers that details reasons for and ways to promote breast-feeding.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29044","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Building Skills for Implementing Health Reform and Strengthening Health Systems in East and Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"8-20 April, 2002, Arusha, Tanzania","field_url":"http://www.abt-train.org","body":"Offered by: Abt Associates Health Policy Training Institute (AAHPTI)\r\nThe first of a series of regional training courses offered by the Abt Associates Health Policy Training Institute (AAHPTI), in addition to AAHPTI's annual US-based course. The first regional course, \"Building Skills for Implementing Health Reform and Strengthening Health Systems in East and Southern Africa,\" will be held at the East and Southern Africa Management Institute (ESAMI) in Arusha, Tanzania, April 8-20, 2002. Details about both the US-based and regional courses can be found on the website.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29057","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"COHRED web site: new feature","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cohred.ch","body":"COHRED regularly receives requests to fund health research projects. Although we are not a donor agency we have a commitment to act as broker for countries applying Essential National Health Research. In response to this, COHRED has compiled a database of development partners in health research. This database is now accessible through the COHRED web site and includes valuable information for each organisation such as the activities most funded, specified priority regions or countries, and a summary of guidelines for proposals. The database is an ongoing project and will be updated continuously. The aim is to refine the data and add development partners to better serve the needs of COHRED's stakeholders. Readers are invited to provide suggestions, improvements and more up-to-date information. Organisations who wish to be included in the database are also welcome to contact us.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"CONCLUSIONS OF THE 1ST INTERNATIONAL FORUM FOR THE DEFENSE OF THE HEALTH OF PEOPLE ","field_subtitle":"HEALTH AS AN ESSENTIAL HUMAN NEED, A RIGHT OF CITIZENS AND A PUBLIC GOOD ","field_url":"","body":"\u2018HEALTH FOR ALL IS POSSIBLE AND NECESSARY\u2019\r\nThe participants of this Forum held in Porto Alegre \u2013 Brazil, January 29th and 30th, 2002, call on all the people of the world, who feel the imperative to build a fairer and more equitable societies to rally around this declaration to publicize it and to engage on sustained actions along its lines. We understand that this 2nd World Social Forum starts a new step on the fight for the universal respect of social rights, particularly the right to health since we understand health as the expression of the overall quality of life, and not only the issue of access to health services. We denounce to the world the devastating effects the macroeconomic adjustment policies and now the militarization of international relationships are having over the quality of people\u2019s life. We affirm that these effects are not the neoliberal economic policies\u2019 exceptional, accidental outcome, but the real essence of its logic that aims at maximizing profits, regardless of states\u2019 aim at social welfare measures; these policies are dividing the world into a huge social apartheid where countries and regions are relegated to the condition of spectators of the immense accumulation of international capital; they invariably result in deep inequalities and a perpetuating social injustice. The rich ARE getting richer and the desperately poor poorer, more so women, children and the elderly. The poor of the world are left looking at the rich as \u2018from the other side of the shopping mall windows\u2019, searching for an elusive paradise which is denied to them by the economic order that socially segregates the world and ecologically disregards it. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29018","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Could chloroquine have the answer? Malaria drug combats HIV","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.mg.co.za/mg/za/archive/2002feb/features/14feb-malaria.html","body":"Researchers at the University of Turin have found that chloroquine and the related compound hydroxychloroquine appear to curb the HI virus in laboratory settings. Dr Andrea Savarino and his team say that chloroquine affects the production of the envelope around the virus. This means that although the virus may be able to hijack human cells to produce fresh viral genetic material, without the envelope it cannot complete the reproduction cycle. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Criteria for evaluating evidence on public health interventions ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/56/2/119","body":"Public health interventions tend to be complex, programmatic, and context dependent. The evidence for their effectiveness must be sufficiently comprehensive to encompass that complexity. This paper asks whether and to what extent evaluative research on public health interventions can be adequately appraised by applying well established criteria for judging the quality of evidence in clinical practice. It is adduced that these criteria are useful in evaluating some aspects of evidence. However, there are other important aspects of evidence on public health interventions that are not covered by the established criteria. The evaluation of evidence must distinguish between the fidelity of the evaluation process in detecting the success or failure of an intervention, and the success or failure of the intervention itself. Moreover, if an intervention is unsuccessful, the evidence should help to determine whether the intervention was inherently faulty (that is, failure of intervention concept or theory), or just badly delivered (failure of implementation). Furthermore, proper interpretation of the evidence depends upon the availability of descriptive information on the intervention and its context, so that the transferability of the evidence can be determined. Study design alone is an inadequate marker of evidence quality in public health intervention evaluation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Dying for Change","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization and World Bank, January 2002 ","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/voices/reports/dying/index.htm","body":"The World Bank study Voices of the Poor, which gathered the views of more than 60,000 poor people across the globe, looks broadly at poverty, its determinants and consequences. Health and ill-health emerged as central concerns of those consulted, prompting WHO and the World Bank to collaborate on a separate publication that would highlight the relationship between poverty and poor health from the perspective of poor people. Dying for Change is the result. It aims to illuminate from a human, qualitative perspective what many quantitative studies have already recorded: how poverty creates ill-health, and how ill-health leads to poverty. It also highlights the link between good health and economic survival. Poor people everywhere say how much they value good health. A fit, strong body is an asset that allows poor adults to work and poor children to learn. A sick, weak body is a liability, both to individuals and those who must support them. In particular, poor families are concerned about the health of their breadwinner \u2013 when he or she dies, or needs expensive medical treatment, the costs can be devastating. The family may be thrown into a cycle of poverty from which it cannot escape. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter February 2002 WTO, health and equity ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"GFATM Guidelines","field_subtitle":"proposal format revised and available","field_url":"http://www.globalfundatm.org","body":"The guidelines, call for proposals, and proposal format has been finalized and are out!  Deadline is March 10th.  See attached documents or refer to the GFATM web site mentioned below.  Again, this Fund is not for \"business as usual\".  NGOs, including people living with HIV, private sector, civil society are to be full partners in the development and the implementation of the proposal through setting up a country-coordinating mechanism.  The Fund is to build, complement, and scale up on existing efforts including innovative and pilot project.  The fund will support treatment costs, including anti-retrovirals.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29033","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Forum for Health Research - Forum 6","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org","body":"12-15 November 2002, Arusha, Tanzania\r\nHealth research is essential to improve the design of health interventions, policies and service delivery. Every year more than US$ 70 billion is spent on health research and development by the public and private sectors combined. However, only about 10% of this is devoted to 90% of the world's health problems, a misallocation often referred to as the \"10/90 gap\". Throughout the year and particularly at its annual meeting, the Global Forum for Health Research acts as a marketplace where problems of the 10/90 gap can be examined by a broad range of partners, i.e. representatives from governments, multilateral and bilateral aid agencies, international and national foundations and NGOs, women's organizations, research institutions and universities, pharmaceutical companies and the media. Forum 6 is the sixth annual meeting of the Global Forum for Health Research and the first to be held in Africa. Presentations will address the latest thinking on the 10/90 gap and act as a catalyst for action during the coming year. The global objective is to review progress in helping correct the 10/90 gap and plan further actions. In November 2002, Arusha will be the centre of world attention on health research, with Forum 6 followed by the third MIM Pan-African Malaria Conference. The National Institute for Medical Research of Tanzania is the local partner for the organization of both meetings. For further information and registration, please see the website.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29021","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Harare Women Hit Most By HIV/ Aids Within SADC","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200202200045.html","body":"The United Nations says Zimbabwe has the highest number of women with the Aids virus in the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) region. The international organisation points out that Zimbabwe is among the countries in which 24 to 36 percent of their population between the ages of 15 and 49 are living with Aids.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"HEALTH WORKER CRISIS UNDERMINES HIV/AIDS EFFORTS IN AFRICA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The emerging crisis of health manpower in Africa could defeat the efforts of governments, private health care providers, NGOs, and donors in controlling the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This was one of the principal findings of a consultative meeting on improving collaboration amongst health professionals, government and other stakeholders on health workers issues, recently held by WHO and the World Bank in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29031","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIF-net at WHO: creation and adaptation of health information for healthcare workers in developing countries","field_subtitle":"@Half time\\' summary of discussions","field_url":"","body":"Neil Pakenham-Walsh, Moderator, HIF-net at WHO\r\nMany thanks to all contributors on this subject so far.  22 messages have been posted from 30/1/02 to 15/2/02. Further messages are encouraged through to Friday 8 March, in time for the 'eContent for eDevelopment' workshop in Dar es salaam (11-13 March). After that time, I shall post further summaries and a report of the workshop. Here is a list of contributors and a summary of the discussion so far. All contributors to this discussion (through to Friday 8 March) will be offered a complimentary printed copy of INASP Health Links, a gateway to information for health professionals in developing countries (INASP Health Links will be published in early March 2002).","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29023","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"IDRC CALL FOR PROPOSALS: ","field_subtitle":"PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR SECTOR SUPPORT TO RESEARCH","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/research/xroks_e.html","body":"Changing Roles And Policy Responses. Applications must be submitted by March 29, 2002. \r\nThe International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is launching a competition to support research on the changing balance between public and private sector funding of research, and its implications for developing country governments and research institutions. This research competition is being organized by IDRC as part of a new program of \"Research on Knowledge Systems\"  (RoKS). The competition is open to researchers throughout the developing world, and will award up to seven grants, with a maximum value of CA $80,000 each.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29034","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequality Aversion, Health Inequalities, and Health Achievement ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://econ.worldbank.org/files/3616_wps2765.pdf","body":"Adam Wagstaff. World Bank - Working Paper No.:2765, January 18, 2002\r\nThis paper shows how value judgments can be explicitly recognized in measuring health inequalities between the poor and the better-off, and how such inequalities can be included in assessments of countries\u2019 health indicators. The author addresses two issues. First, how can health inequalities be measured so as to take into account policymakers\u2019 attitudes toward inequality? The Gini coefficient and the related concentration index embody one particular set of value judgments. Generalizing these indexes allows alternative sets of value judgments to be reflected. And second, how can information on health inequality be combined with information on the mean of the relevant distribution to obtain an overall measure of health \u201cachievement?\u201d Applying the approach developed by Wagstaff shows how much worse some countries perform when the focus switches from average health to an achievement index that also reflects the health gap between the poor and the better-off.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Is More Information Better? The Effects of 'Report Cards' on Health Care Providers ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://papers.nber.org/papers/W8697","body":"Health care report cards - public disclosure of patient health outcomes at the level of the individual physician and/or hospital - may address important informational asymmetries in markets for health care, but they may also give doctors and hospitals incentives to decline to treat more difficult, severely ill patients. Whether report cards are good for patients and for society depends on whether their financial and health benefits outweigh their costs in terms of the quantity, quality, and appropriateness of medical treatment that they induce. Using national data on Medicare patients at risk for cardiac surgery, we find that cardiac surgery report cards in New York and Pennsylvania led both to selection behavior by providers and to improved matching of patients with hospitals. On net, this led to higher levels of resource use and to worse health outcomes, particularly for sicker patients. We conclude that, at least in the short run, these report cards decreased patient and social welfare.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"JOINT CALL FOR EC GOVERNMENT TO PROVIDE NEVIRAPINE IN PUBLIC HEALTH FACILITIES","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) call on the Eastern Cape Premier to follow the example of his Kwa-Zulu Natal counterpart and provide the anti-retroviral drug, nevirapine, to HIV-positive pregnant mothers in the province.  This joint call is made after careful consideration of the resources available to the Department of Health in the province. Research published by the Eastern Cape Department of Health, in the journal Epidemiological Notes, recognises that over 20% of women attending antenatal clinics in the province tested HIV positive in 2000.  As a result it is estimated that in excess of 10 500 babies are born HIV positive in the Eastern Cape each year. TAC/PSAM believe that on the strength of the pilot studies conducted in Kwa-Zulu Natal, which delivered a 100% success rate, the lives of these infants could have been saved through the provision of nevirapine to pregnant mothers in the Eastern Cape.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29043","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"MATERNAL MORTALITY UPDATE 1998-1999","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unfpa.org/mothers/documents/index.htm","body":"Preventing maternal death and disability is not only a health issue \u2013 it is also a moral issue underpinned by guiding principles of human rights, social responsibility, participation, and equity.  UNFPA Publication presents its experience in preventing maternal  deaths and disabilities, also presents UNFPA's policy, and the current consensus on effective strategies to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity. The report includes an overview of UNFPA's support to country-level programmes, country by country, and to regional and global activities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring Income Inequality: a New Database ","field_subtitle":"Year(s) 1890 -1996 138 countries","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/research/growth/dddeisqu.htm","body":"by Klaus Deininger and Lyn Squire. Economic Growth Research, World Bank \r\nThis file contains data on Gini coefficients, cumulative quintile shares,  explanations regarding the basis on which the Gini coefficient was computed, and the source of the information. There are two data-sets, one containing the \"high quality\" sample and the other one including all the information (of lower quality) that had been collected. Field definitions and abbreviations used are:   Quality, Country and country code, year, gini coefficient, cumulative quintile shares, whether the coefficient is based on income or consumption, whether  -in cases where income is used- this is gross or net of taxes, the populatoin covered by the data (national for all the coefficients in the high quality set), and the sources of the data.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty and health sector inequalities","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/pdf/2002/bul-2-E-2002/80(2)97-105.pdf","body":"Adam Wagstaff, Bulletin of the World Health Organization February, 2002; 80:97-105\r\nPoverty and ill-health are intertwined. Poor countries tend to have worse health outcomes than better-off countries. Within\r\ncountries, poor people have worse health outcomes than better-off people. This association reflects causality running in both directions:\r\npoverty breeds ill-health, and ill-health keeps poor people poor. The evidence on inequalities in health between the poor and non-poor\r\nand on the consequences for impoverishment and income inequality associated with health care expenses is discussed in this article. An\r\noutline is given of what is known about the causes of inequalities and about the effectiveness of policies intended to combat them. It is argued that too little is known about the impacts of such policies, notwithstanding a wealth of measurement techniques and\r\nconsiderable evidence on the extent and causes of inequalities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Private Health Insurance Schemes in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/sahr/","body":"Health Systems Trust will be publishing a couple of chapters and indicators covering this area in the upcoming South African Health Review (2001) - but this will only be available at the end of March. Meanwhile you may wish to look at previous editions which also cover  the topic.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29040","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"PROPOSED STRATEGIES FOR HEALTH SYSTEMS PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT ","field_subtitle":"SUMMARY DOCUMENT","field_url":"http://www.who.int/health-systems-performance/peer_review_docs/Final%20SPRG%205.pdf","body":"Policy makers have long been concerned with improving the performance of their health systems, with reforms targeting all system functions - financing, provision, stewardship and resource generation. An increasing number of studies have assessed the impact of reforms in different settings, but these studies have used varying frameworks and methods to assess and measure the effect of changes in policies and strategies. This makes it difficult to separate out the true variations in impact from variations stemming from the different methods that were used.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"PUTTING THIRD FIRST:","field_subtitle":"VACCINES, ACCESS TO TREATMENT & THE LAW","field_url":"http://www.aidslaw.ca/barcelona2002/e-barcelona2002.htm","body":"Satellite Meeting, Barcelona, Spain, 5 July 2002\r\nA one-day satellite meeting on vaccines, access to treatment and the law will be held on Friday, 5 July 2002, in Barcelona, Spain, just prior to AIDS 2002.  The meeting is being organized by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, the AIDS Law Project (South Africa), and the HIV/AIDS Unit of The Lawyers Collective (India), and will be co hosted by UNAIDS. Two issues will be examined in substantial depth:\r\n\r\n1.  HIV VACCINES: Participants will discuss the inadequacies of current approaches; the obstacles to vaccine development; strategies to mobilize greater support for vaccine development; and strategies to facilitate the widest possible access to HIV vaccines once they are developed.\r\n\r\n2.  ACCESS TO TREATMENT:  Participants will discuss strategies for using the law to advance access to treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries \u2013 both directly through the use of legal proceedings, and indirectly by using legal norms to complement other forms of advocacy.\r\n\r\nBackground papers on each issue will be distributed in advance to participants and presented in plenary.  Most of the day will be spent in workshops where each issue can be explored in detail. Registration is limited to 100 participants on a first-come, first-served basis.  To register or obtain more information, visit the website of the Canadian\r\nHIV/AIDS Legal Network or contact Glen Bugg.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29019","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Report on Survey Methods for the Community Tracking Study\u2019s Final Report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/PDFs/commtrack.pdf","body":"November 2001\r\nRichard Strouse, Barbara Carlson, John Hall, Center for Studying Health System Change, Washington, DC Peter Cunningham, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. Princeton, NJ \r\nIn this report, the authors describe site selection, sample design, instrumentation and survey preparation, data collection methods, response rates, and sample weights. The Community Tracking Study (CTS) addresses two broad questions that are important to public and private health decision makers:\r\n1. How is the health system changing? How are hospitals, health plans, physicians, safety net providers, and other provider groups restructuring, and what key forces are driving organizational change?\r\n2. How do these changes affect people? How are insurance coverage, access to care, use of services, health care costs, and perceived quality of health care changing over time?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC 'Must Intensify Angolan Peace Efforts'","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200202260328.html","body":"A LOCAL political analyst has urged the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to intensify efforts to revive the Lusaka peace accord following the death of Jonas Savimbi. \"There is a greater challenge for SADC to engage in a much more active role in reviving the peace accord,\" said Professor Andre du Pisani.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Health Ministers Discuss World Summit Priorities","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200201220494.html","body":"In preparation for the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), South African Development Community (SADC) health ministers recently met in Sandton, north of Johannesburg to discuss the link between health and sustainable development. The two-day meeting was aimed at ensuring that health is placed high on the agenda of the Summit, set to take place in Sandton from 26 August to 4 September.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Scaling Up the Response to Infectious Diseases: A Way out of Poverty","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/infectious-disease-report/2002/framesintro.html","body":"WHO, UNICEF, UNAIDS, World Bank, UNESCO, and UNFPA, 2/1/02.\r\nIn December 2001, the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health presented the results of its two-year work to the World Health Organization in a publication titled Macroeconomics and Health: Investing in Health for Economic Development. The Commissioners present a new global blueprint for health that is both compassionate and cost-effective. Millions of deaths occur each year in the developing world due to conditions which can be prevented or treated. The Commissioner's outline a plan of action to save millions of these lives every year at a small cost relative to the vast improvements in health and increased prosperity. The Report shows that just a few conditions are responsible for a high proportion of the avoidable deaths in poor countries - and that well-targeted measures, using existing technologies, could save around 8 million lives per year and generate economic benefits of more than $360 billion per year, by 2015\u00ad2020. The aggregate cost of scaling up essential health interventions in low-income countries would be around $66 billion per year, with the costs roughly divided between high-income donor countries and low-income countries. Thus, the economic benefits would vastly outstrip the cost. Scaling Up the Response to Infectious Diseases: A way Out of Poverty takes up the Commission's challenge. It outlines how increased investment in health can be well spent, stressing how interventions, health system strengthening and behaviour change together can help achieve the goals we are setting ourselves. This report takes forward the Commission's action agenda. It will help decision makers see how we can turn increased investment in health into concrete results.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Inequalities in Health ","field_subtitle":"Disentangling the Underlying Mechanisms ","field_url":"http://www.annalsnyas.org/cgi/content/full/954/1/118","body":"Differentials in health and longevity by socioeconomic status and by the nature of social relationships have been found in innumerable studies in the social and medical sciences. Three categories of explanations for the observed patterns have been proposed: causal mechanisms through which the social environment affects health status or the risk of dying; selection or reverse causal pathways whereby a person's health status affects their social position; and artifactual mechanisms, such as measurement error. The general consensus among researchers is that the observed disparities in health are driven largely by a complex set of causal processes rather than by selection or by artifactual mechanisms. This paper explores the set of arguments and strategies that researchers have used to arrive at this conclusion. As part of this undertaking, we assess whether inferences regarding the minor contribution of selection to the overall association between social factors and health are justifiable. In addition, we identify current avenues of research that are providing new insights into the causal pathways linking social factors and health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTH AFRICA: AIDS village causes \"more harm than good\" - NAPWA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1219","body":"The opening of South Africa's first \"AIDS village\" on Thursday was not what people living with HIV/AIDS needed, and would cause \"more harm than good\", the spokesperson for the National Association of PWAs (NAPWA) told PlusNews on Friday.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Majority of Sex Workers in Gold Mining Community are HIV Positive","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ippfnet.ippf.org/pub/IPPF_News/News_Details.asp?ID=1750","body":"Health education programmes and free condom distribution have not stopped South African commercial sex workers from having unprotected sex. A study conducted by the London School of Economics found that 69% of local commercial sex workers (CSWs) in the South African gold mining community of Carletonville are HIV-positive.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Mandela attacks Mbeki's Aids policy ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/aids/story/0,7369,652082,00.html","body":"Nelson Mandela is wading into the increasingly bitter dispute over the South African government's Aids policies by meeting the ruling African National Congress leadership to press for an end to prevarication over a catastrophe he likened to a war. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Mbeki's State of the Nation address barely touches the country's HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200202090001.html","body":"What was hoped to be key in President Thabo Mbeki changing the face of his government's stance on HIV/AIDS was a dismal disappointment.  Though Mbeki acknowledged the fact that HIV/AIDS is a problem in South Africa, he still insisted that his government would not change its policy on administering antiretroviral drugs to reduce mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS. Mbeki's speech came a day after his predecessor Mandela had rebuked the Mbeki administration's HIV policy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Virgin Myth Worries ANC Committee","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200202080295.html","body":"An African National Congress-dominated (ANC-dominated) parliamentary committee has noted that 25% of young people believe child rape cures AIDS, and urgently called for anti-AIDS drugs to be used to prevent HIV infection by rape.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SWAZILAND: Focus on social impact of AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1226","body":"\"Panic breeding\" is the inelegant term given to a response by some Swazis to an AIDS epidemic that is decimating the population of the small Southern Africa kingdom. The impulse to make-up for AIDS deaths by having more babies is exacerbating both the health crisis and the kingdom's ongoing problem with overpopulation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Testimony to Senate on 'Halting the Global Spread of HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Peter Piot, UNAIDS Executive Director ","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/whatsnew/speeches/eng/2002/PiotSenate_130202.html","body":"The AIDS epidemic is different from any other epidemic the world has faced, and as such, requires a response from the global community that is broader and deeper than has ever before been mobilized against a disease. Twenty years since the world first became aware of AIDS three things have become clear: that humanity is facing the most devastating epidemic in human history, the impact of which threatens development and prosperity in major regions of the world; that for all the devastation it has already caused, the AIDS epidemic is still in its early stages; and that we are in a position to bring the epidemic under control.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Third MIM Pan-African Conference","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://mim.nih.gov","body":"On-line registration is now available for the Third MIM Pan-African Conference to be held in Arusha, Tanzania, November 18-22, 2002.  We would like to invite you to participate in the Conference.  The Conference is expected to attract more than 600 participants from around the world, making it one of the largest conferences devoted to malaria research and control held on the African continent. The Conference will focus on scientific progress and potential in malaria research with the aim of promoting the exchange of scientific ideas within Africa.  It will consist of plenary presentations by world-renowned experts, parallel sessions on a broad range of topics, and daily poster sessions.  There will be ample opportunity to ex-\r\nchange ideas with malaria research faculty in \"Meet-the-Professor\" sessions.  The diversity of participants will provide a global per-\r\nspective on scientific solutions for effectively preventing malaria and reducing its burden.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29045","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Woman-focused HIV prevention product may be ready 2007 ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nigeria-aids.org/MsgRead.cfm?ID=489","body":"A woman-focused method to prevent HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections can be available by 2007, according to a series of reports by the Rockefeller Foundation-funded Initia- tive on Microbicides. \"We have the science and the road map, now we need the political will to fund this effort,\" said Geeta Rao Gupta, President of the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), one of several groups participating in the Initiative.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Women's Rights - World Report 2002","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hrw.org/wr2k2/women.html","body":"The international women's rights community moved forward, pressing to protect women's bodily integrity and right to sexual autonomy, to examine the ways that race or ethnicity and gender intersect to deny women human rights, and to protect women from gender-specific violations of the laws of war.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WTO, health and equity ","field_subtitle":"Meri Koivusalo","field_url":"","body":"The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is concerned with equity and provides regulatory measures to maintain it; it is just not the kind of equity we mean when we talk about social equity or equity in health. The WTO concern with equity is that of trading services and goods, in which services and goods should be treated equally whether produced by multinational corporations or local communities as we have seen in the banana dispute settlement case. At a more general level the WTO social policies are based implicitly on a residualist model, where social policies are seen as poor relief rather than policies dealing with e.g. inequalities. Some agreements, such as the Agreement on Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), are also considerably biased towards the corporate sector and its needs. \r\n\r\nThe TRIPS positions reflected in the Doha declaration appear to be a step forward in compulsory licensing in comparison to the positions of the EU and the US some years ago. On the other hand the relevance of the Doha public health declaration - and its interpretation - in practice remains to be seen. Further debates around TRIPS concerning parallel importing, compulsory licensing and exports and differential pricing are also taking place in the TRIPS council. These results of these debates may show to what extent measures to address problems of access to pharmaceuticals have become a means of supporting corporate greed of the pharmaceutical industry via regulatory requests rather than means to address health needs. \r\n\r\nIn health TRIPS is important, but we can expect that the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) may become even more important. The WTO negotiations on the GATS are underway and pose many important questions both in terms of health services and equity as well as the possibilities to implement broad public policies e.g. regulatory prohibition of advertising of products hazardous to health. One example of the latter is a problem of health regulations and trade in advertising services. Those countries which have included advertising services under GATS commitments may have limited significantly their possibilities of regulating or prohibiting advertising of products hazardous to health. Many aspects of health services are also dealt with under other categories of services, such as professional or financial services. It is also important to note that while GATS is marketed as a regulatory agreement this regulatory role remains in the context of ensuring equity and equal treatment of service providers (NGOs/corporations - local/international). This regulatory role is thus concerned more about service provider interests than with social rights of citizens and equity in access to services.  \r\n\r\nOther matters relate to the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS). Important items in these discussions relate to the extent to which precautionary measures as well as public health policies can be seen as trade barriers of rich countries by poorer countries with high implementation costs to poorer countries. The problem is that these arguments may become means of down regulation in health protection rather than ensure that all countries have sufficient support and resources for implementation of the SPS Agreement.  The Doha declaration also successfully broadened the trade agenda to include some new areas, such as competition and investments, to the WTO negotiation agenda. There are some concerns that the negotiations on the new areas may in practice be means for inclusion of aspects of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) to the WTO Agreements. These aspects could include such which could allow that in addition to countries also private sector corporations could be able to appeal to WTO dispute settlement. \r\n\r\nIn many ways health policies are easily undermined by corporate export and trade interests which are in practice an integral part of WTO negotiations. The WTO debates are thus biased towards the promotion of private sector interests.  The usual  emphasis on countries and their interests in trade policy debates also limits opportunities to see the common systematic health issues that affect most countries. While there is no point of taking all health matters to the WTO, it is a task for health activists to ensure that national and international health policies and measures to maintain equity are not compromised by trade policies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia: Budget And Aids","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200202260633.html","body":"HIV/AIDS will and must surely be on the mind of the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning as he prepares the budget for fiscal year 2002. Emmanuel Kasonde is the immediate past Chairman of the National HIV/AIDS/STD/TB Council. As past chairman of the National HIV/AIDS Council he must have agonized and formed some ideas on how Zambia must respond to this devastating socioeconomic imperative. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe: Global Campaign to End Catholic Bishops' Ban on Condoms Launched","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200202180397.html","body":"The first global campaign to end the Catholic bishops' ban on condoms has been launched in Zimbabwe with a billboard in Harare and ad in The Herald carrying the message \"Banning Condoms Kills\" and \"Catholic People Care-Do Our Bishops?\" The prominently placed advertisements are part of an unprecedented worldwide public education effort aimed at Catholics and non-Catholics alike to raise public awareness about the devastating effect of the Catholic bishops' ban on condoms in preventing new HIV/AIDS infections. The campaign is being sponsored by Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-02-21","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":" World Health Organization Grants 'Official Relations' to Corporate Watchdog","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In an important step by the World Health Organization (WHO), the international health body is granting official WHO relations status to Infact, the US-based corporate accountability organization. In approving the admission of Infact and INGCAT (the International Non Governmental Coalition Against Tobacco), the WHO's governing board noted both organizations' advocacy work in support of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). With a 25 year history of challenging life-threatening abuses of giant corporations, Infact will bring its corporate accountability expertise into its formalized relationship with WHO.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29007","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS and Land Reforms ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.aidschannel.org/","body":"Dan Mullins\r\nBe it the violent farm invasions in Zimbabwe, the hundreds of poor urban people briefly occupying empty land last June in Bredell, South Africa, or the Namibian government's grumbling about concentration of land in few hands, land reform is a simmering issue in southern Africa. But few are factoring into land reform the impact and trends of HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Asbestos: Cape may die and not pay","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1004770-6078-0,00.html","body":"As if asbestos was not enough, 72-year old Gideon Mkhonto may soon find himself worrying about the financial health of the company that made him sick. Mkhonto is one of 7500 South African asbestos victims anxiously waiting for hard-won compensation from London-listed Cape Plc, which used to mine asbestos in Northern Province and Northern Cape. His problem is that Cape the company might not survive long enough to pay him the R55000 he is expecting. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Bridging the gap between research and policy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cohred.ch/cgi-bin/cohred?f=freshome&l=purple&m=docudisp&p=guest&u=guest&a=docu&v=372","body":"COHRED, Geneva, 2001\r\nThis learning brief is based on a paper which reviews the literature assessing how research impacts on policy, and how policy draws on research. The paper provides insight into the various modes of advocacy that researchers can adopt, methods of communication and dissemination they can use, and a number of new lessons about knowledge utilisation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Communities Organising for Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.tarsc.org/","body":"Community Working Group on Health and TARSC. Editors: M. McCartney and R. Loewenson. November 2001\r\nThe story of the first years of the Community Working Group on Health in Zimbabwe, describing how the CWGH surveyed and met with over 20 membership-based community groups across Zimbabwe in 1997, to identify the major community concerns about health, and to devise effective strategies for dealing with them. Providing a concise and comprehensive overview of the issues facing the health sector in Zimbabwe, problems associated with community participation, and a discussion of the best strategies for community based advocacy and action.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing countries face uphill struggle after Doha","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cafod.org.uk/livefromdoha/doha_uphillstruggle20011115.shtml","body":"The Catholic Aid Agency CAFOD says the final declaration of the WTO Summit in Doha places a heavy negotiating burden on developing countries. They will struggle to build on its positive words and to avoid pitfalls in new and complex areas. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter January 2002 Globalisation on trial: world health warning ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Forging Links for Health Research ","field_subtitle":"Perspectives from the Council on Health Research for Development ","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/acb/showdetl.cfm?&DID=6&User_ID=310138&st=2622&st2=55550533&st3=173462532&Product_ID=584&CATID=15","body":"As part of the lead up to the October 2000 International Conference on Health Research for Development in Bangkok, the Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED) called upon its associates around the world to reflect on achievements and setbacks in the 1990s. This book is the result of those reflections. In Forging Links for Health Research, a team of international experts record the important lessons of the past decade and suggest what must be done in the research arena to ensure a healthy future for all. It follows up on the landmark publication Health Research: Essential Link to Equity in Development (Oxford University Press, 1990) and is unique in its combination of evocative human stories and expert insight from international health researchers. Forging Links for Health Research will be of interest to academics, researchers, students, and policymakers in public health, epidemiology, health sciences, international health, development studies, and international affairs; professionals in donor organizations, development organizations, and NGOs worldwide; and concerned citizens, particularly health-care workers, interested in international affairs and Third World development. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Free Resources from the EQUITY Project","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.equityproject.co.za","body":"The EQUITY Project is a joint Project between the Government of the Republic of South Africa and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/South Africa. The mission of the EQUITY Project is one of collegial empowerment building capacity in the Eastern Cape Department of Health that assures a dynamic, responsive, sustainable and equitable health system with full participation of all people of Eastern Cape based on the global principles of primary health care. Copies of the following documents are available free of charge from the EQUITY Project by phoning Cathy or Melissa on (040) 635 1310 or writing to: Management Sciences for Health, P O Box 214, Bisho, 5605. Many of the publications can also be downloaded in PDF format from the website.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28979","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Health Council Invites Nominations for Health and Human Rights Award ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.globalhealth.org/awards/mann_info.php3","body":"Deadline: February 1, 2002 \r\nPresented by the Global Health Council, the Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights is designed to honor outstanding work in the area of global health and human rights and to call continued attention to the vital links between health and human rights. The award, a $20,000 cash prize, is presented annually to a leading practitioner in health and human rights, be it an individual or organization. Nominations of an individual and/or an organization may be submitted by anyone from any country.  In reviewing the nominees, the following criteria will be considered and evaluated: practical work in the field and in difficult circumstances; actual relevance to the linkage of health with human rights; predominant activities in developing countries and with marginalized people; evidence of serious and long-term commitment; potential for the award to strengthen a nominee's work; potential for receipt of the award raising the profile of the Mann Award itself; potential funding to enhance visibility and public awareness of the issue or project the nominee is addressing; and potential for attracting additional resources toward resolution of the issue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalisation on trial: world health warning ","field_subtitle":"David Legge, School of Public Health, La Trobe University, Australia","field_url":"http://users.bigpond.net.au/sanguileggi/PrelimAnalCMHReport.html","body":"A high level WHO commission has warned the rich world that unless there is a dramatic increase in development assistance for health the legitimacy and stability of the current regime of global economic governance may be seriously threatened. \r\n\r\nThe WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (CMH) was established by the Director-General of WHO in January 2000. The Commission was chaired by Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Harvard. It members and helpers included former ministers of finance, people from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, the United Nations Development Program, the Economic Commission on Africa and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The Commission was financially supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the UN Foundation and by the governments of the UK, Luxembourg, Ireland, Norway and Sweden. The CMH presented its final report to Dr Bruntland in December 2001.\r\n\r\nThe Commission set up six working groups, on: health, economic growth, and poverty reduction; international public goods for health; mobilisation of domestic resources for health; health and the international economy; improving health outcomes of the poor; development assistance and health.\r\n \r\nWHO Director-General Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland welcomed the report of the WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health on December 20th 2001: \"This report is a turning point,\" she said. \"It will influence how development assistance is prioritized and coordinated in the years to come.\" \r\n\r\nThe Commission\u2019s report is an important health policy statement. It may prove to be as significant as the 1993 World Bank Report, Investing in Health , in providing a \u2018credible\u2019 policy narrative proclaiming concern about the health of the poor while reconciling health development objectives with the continuing operation of a brutal and unfair global economic regime. \r\n\r\nIt is a difficult report to analyse. The argument is tortuous and selective in its use of evidence. For example, despite its commission about the relations between macro economics and health, there is no reference in the whole report to the population health progress of Cuba which has not been as closely integrated into the global economy as most developing countries (see Lobe, 2001). There is one reference only to Kerala where it is suggested that the excellent health outcomes achieved there may have been due to the adequacy of the water supply (page 122). \r\n\r\nIn places it stretches fact, logic and credulity to the point of combustion. More challenging is the task of interpreting the strategic purpose of the DG in commissioning the report and that of the members of the Commission in framing their presentation. It is clear that the report is meant to be read at several different levels. \r\n\r\nIt is a big report and is accompanied by dozens of working group reports. There is a lot of material to absorb and consider. This raises questions about how Third World governments, health activists, NGOs and academics might respond to the report. \r\n\r\nThis commentary is prepared as an initial contribution to (what I hope might develop as) a collaborative process of analysis involving health activists, practitioners and academics associated with the struggle for health in the Third World. We may not be able to match the resources available to the Commission but through an internet collaboration we can draw upon a wide range of expertise and experience in considering the Commission\u2019s report and participating in the wider discussion which will unfold. (See accompanying notes about how this internet collaboration might operate.)\r\n\r\nThis commentary has three parts. In the first part I summarise the broad argument presented in the report. In the second part I discuss this argument exploring some of their assumptions of fact and movements of logic. Finally I explore the politics of the report; what is the subtext; what are the hidden messages; what were the strategic purposes and expectations of the DG and of the Commission? \r\n\r\nThis is a preliminary commentary, explicitly designed to stimulate a wider discussion and more broadly based analysis of the report. I am looking forward to hearing what other critics think about the report. I have not read all of the working papers and my judgements should be understood as tentative at this stage.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/29001","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"health? A contribution to the PRSP review","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Ellen Verheul, Wemos, the Netherlands \r\nMike Rowson, Medact, UK \r\nOnly 11% of the global health budget is spent in the low- and middle- income countries, where 84% of the global population lives. 1,1 billion people do not have access to clean water. 2,4 billion people lack access to sanitation. One third of deaths in developing countries are due to preventable and/or treatable conditions.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28984","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV Resistance: Data and Spin","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thebody.com/atn/376/resistance.html","body":"On December 18 the first report was presented from a new study of the prevalence of drug-resistant HIV in U.S. patients in early 1999.1 This study found that somewhere between 50 and 78 percent of these patients (depending on how you count patients whose viral resistance could not be measured) had some degree of reduced susceptibility to at least one antiretroviral. White, gay, middle class, insured patients had the most resistance, on the average, while those with less access to care had less. The national press eagerly picked up that story; and when we got home from the ICAAC conference in Chicago where the preliminary report was presented, we found that people all over the country had heard it -- and little else from the conference. A closer look shows that while the study results are valid (though not as surprising as they might appear), the central messages that carried the press story appear to be misinterpretations -- ones that could have future consequences for society's political will to deal with the HIV epidemic, both in the U.S. and abroad.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Income inequality and population health ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7328/1","body":"In 1992, the BMJ published a now famous paper showing a strong negative correlation between income inequality and life expectancy. Among nine Western industrialised countries those which had less income inequality seemed to have higher life expectancy. A few years later this was replicated in analyses looking at income inequality and mortality in states within the United Statesanalyses which seemed more secure because of having more and better quality data. These findings, which suggested that income inequality is bad for the health of the whole population and not only for those with the lowest incomes, were seen to have important implications. Reducing the inequality would be in everyone's interest, including those with higher incomes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"International Journal for Equity in Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iseqh.org/journal.htm","body":"ISEqH will launch the International Journal for Equity in Health by Spring 2002. This will be a peer-reviewed, electronic journal under the auspices of BiomedCentral (www.biomedcentral.com). Articles published in the journal will be cited in PubMed. The purpose of the journal will be to further the state of knowledge about equity in health, defined as systematic and potentially remediable differences in health across populations and population groups defined socially, economically, demographically, or geographically.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Ipas's vision: Protecting women's health, advancing women's reproductive rights ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ipas.org/","body":"This 12-page booklet provides a general description of Ipas and its worldwide activities in training, research, advocacy, distribution of reproductive health technologies, and information dissemination.  It includes highlights of Ipas programs in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, North America and Europe, and at the global level.  The brochure also articulates Ipas's vision of, and leadership in, a global initiative to mobilize commitment and resources at all levels to improve the quality and accessibility of abortion care in the context of comprehensive reproductive health care, to ensure sustainable access to reproductive health technologies, and to create social and policy environments that support women's reproductive health and rights.  Hard copies are available free of charge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"ISEqH international meeting ","field_subtitle":"Submission deadline","field_url":"http://www.iseqh.org/","body":"International Society for Equity in Health (ISEqH) would like to remind everyone that the due date for abstract submission for the ISEqH international meeting is JANUARY 28, 2002 Instructions and other information about the meeting, including applications for financial assistance, and about the Society are on the website. The Conference theme is Equity: Research in the Service of Policy and  Advocacy for Health and Health Services.  June 14-16, 2002 - Toronto, Canada.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"KwaZulu-Natal: Cases of cholera on the rise","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1000367-6099-0,00.html","body":"The provincial health department has appealed to communities to take particular care against contracting cholera as another 260 new cases of the disease were reported. KwaZulu-Natal has battled a cholera outbreak since August 2000, with 108687 confirmed cases reported and 235 deaths related to the disease recorded. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Macroeconomics and Health: Investing in Health for Economic Development ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Report from the chair of the Commission, Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, to Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of the World Health Organization.\r\nA drastic scaling up of investments in health for the world\u2019s poor will not only save millions of lives but also produce enormous economic gains, say experts in a landmark Report presented to the World Health Organization (WHO). A group of leading economists and health experts maintain that, by 2015\u20132020, increased health investments of $66 billion per year above current spending will generate at least $360 billion annually. About half of this will be as a result of direct economic benefits: the world\u2019s poorest people will live longer, have many more days of good health and, as a result, will be able to earn more. The other half will be as a consequence of the indirect economic benefits from this greater individual productivity.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28989","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mobilizing to protect worker\u2019s health:","field_subtitle":"The WHO Global Strategy onOccupational Health and Safety","field_url":"http://www.occuphealth.fi/e/info/anl/","body":"G. Goldstein, R. Helmer, M. Fingerhut\r\nWHO, African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety, Volume 11, December 2001.\r\nConditions at work, and especially occupational health and safety have improved substantially during the past few decades in many parts of the world. But the overall global situation remains poor. Working conditions for the majority of workers do not meet the minimum standards and guidelines set by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the World Health Organization for occupational health, safety and social protection. As an example the majority of the world\u2019s workforce is still not served by competent occupational health services. As a result the global burden of occupational disease and injury remains unacceptably high, on a par with the burden from malaria. Yet occupational health programmes receive only a tiny fraction of the resources devoted to combating malaria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"People's Summit - Health Committee for G6B (Group of 6 Billion)","field_subtitle":"International Society for Peace and Human Rights ","field_url":"http://www.peaceandhumanrights.org","body":"We are organizing a People's Summit, the G6B Conference to be held just prior to the G8 meeting in June, 2002 in Calgary, Canada.  The People's Summit will address issues of global importance. In researching HIV in Africa for the People's Summit, we are requesting information regarding the following:\r\n\r\n* What are the areas of interest for your organization?  \r\n* Can you provide us with specific information in the areas of your work regarding HIV in Africa?  \r\n* Are you interested in collaborating with the People's Summit Conference?  \r\n* Can your organization join the Conference?  Are you able to fund the participation of a delegate to the Conference?  We are looking for experts in this area to join a Health Committee Panel during the Conference.  Do you know of any such persons who would be suitable for this?\r\nMore information on the G6B Conference can be found at the website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty, Income Inequality and Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.treasury.govt.nz/workingpapers/2001/twp01-29.pdf","body":"The purpose of this report is to consider the legitimacy of the assumption that communities or societies with more unequal income distributions have poorer health outcomes. The report presents a critical review of the existing international literature on the relationship between income, income inequality and health, in terms of conceptual approaches, research methods and the policy implications drawn from it. The report also offers some guidance for judging between policy priorities based on the relative importance of income inequality versus other potential causal factors in determining population levels of health. An overview of the potential relationship between income, income inequality and health is set out, followed by a discussion of the methodological and technical issues required to explore these links.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Research into Action, Issue 26","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cohred.ch/cgi-bin/cohred?f=freshome&l=purple&m=docudisp&p=guest&u=guest&a=docu&v=371","body":"Research into Action is COHRED's quarterly Newsletter. Some of the articles included in this issue are:\r\n* Bali meeting confirms establishment of the Asian and Pacific Forum for Health Research\r\n* Latest steps towards the establishment of the African Health Research Forum\r\n* Prioritised health research in support of health systems development in Mali\r\n* Global health studies based on local realities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC and COMESA Task Force  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sadc.int/","body":"The Chairpersons of SADC and COMESA have agreed on a proposal to establish a Task Force at the level of the two Secretariats reporting to the appropriate institutional structures on the areas of cooperation and joint activities. The proposal will be taken to the SADC Council of Ministers and Summit of Heads of State and Government in Blantryre, Malawi in August this year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"SciDev: New website on science and technology ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.scidev.net","body":"A new website dedicated to science, technology, and development was launched in London, UK on \r\nDec. 3, 2001. Called SciDev.Net, the site aims to be both a source of information and a forum for the exchange of ideas of  relevance to the developing world. Two prestigious journals, Nature and Science, are backing the initiative and will give free access to selected articles each week. In addition, a network of correspondents will bring news about scientific and technological developments in the South to a global audience. Its broad objective is to help empower individuals, communities and  decision-makers in developing countries, in particular by increasing their  ability to ensure the effective contribution of science and technology to public health and economic well-being in an environmentally sustainable way. An integral part of the website will be a series of 'dossiers'. These will  bring together various types of material - ranging from short news items  and opinion articles to authoritative 'policy briefs' - on key topics at  the interface between science, technology and society, with a particular  focus on the relevance of these topics to developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Protection For The Poor: Lessons From Recent International Experience","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/bookshop/wp/wp142.pdf","body":"Governments and donor agencies increasingly recognise the need to provide protection for the poor against income fluctuations or livelihood shocks. In this context, \u2018social protection\u2019 is an umbrella term covering a range of interventions, from formal social security systems to ad hoc emergency interventions to project food aid (e.g. school feeding, public works). This paper synthesises current thinking and evidence on a number of issues around the design and impact of social protection programmes, including: the case for and against targeting resource transfers; alternative approaches to targeting; what form resource transfers should take (cash, food, agricultural inputs); the \u2018crowding out\u2019 debate; cost-efficiency of transfer programmes; whether these programmes meet the real and articulated needs of their \u2018beneficiaries\u2019; impacts on poverty and vulnerability, and fiscal and political sustainability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Experts advocate midlevel health care providers' role in abortion care","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"At a recent landmark conference in South Africa, 50 prominent health care providers, public health researchers, policymakers and representatives of technical agencies from around the world issued a call to action in support of advancing the role of midlevel health care providers in menstrual regulation and safe abortion care.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28990","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Mtshali Unwilling to Back Down On Nevirapine Issue","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200201240794.html","body":"KwaZulu-Natal premier Lionel Mtshali on Thursday remained resolute that the anti-retoriviral drug Nevirapine would be made available to HIV-positive pregnant mothers in the province's state hospitals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"TB information on CD-ROM","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/tb","body":"The TB Information Guide, Version 2.0 CD-ROM is now available with updated content and improved usability.  The CD-ROM provides ready access to education and training materials, major CDC TB guidelines, Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Reports, surveillance reports, slide sets, and publications ordering information.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28991","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Commission on Macroeconomics and health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cmhealth.org/docs/activity_report.pdf","body":"The Commission on Macroeconomics and Health is a collaborative effort led by eighteen of the world\u2019s leading economists and policymakers from academia, governments, and international agencies to assess the place of health in global economic development and offer a new strategy for investing in health for economic development, especially in the world\u2019s poorest countries. The Commission is a crucial part of the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) strategy to meet the challenge of assembling and analyzing the evidence linking health status and poverty reduction. In this regard the Commission is a source of advice and analysis for WHO and the broader development community on the relationship between health, economics, and poverty reduction and will communicate its findings to policy makers in national governments and in development agencies. This document provides an overview of the CMH purpose, composition, and activities during the period January 2000 to October 2001.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Household Entitlements Revolution","field_subtitle":"A Women-Centered Approach to Family Security","field_url":"","body":"Claudio Schuftan.\r\nThe Household Entitlements Revolution here proposed looks at the challenges we face in nutrition work from a more comprehensive perspective; it focuses not only on nutrition per se, but on how to simultaneously address a host of related (non-upheld) household members' rights.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28997","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"THE INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHT TO HEALTH","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://indylaw.indiana.edu/programs/CLH/kinneyihrh.pdf","body":"Indiana Law Review; 2001, Vol.  34; pp.1457-1475, 18 January 2002.\r\nAn article in the Indiana Law Review offers some ideas about how the international human right to health, established in a variety of sources of international human rights law and general international law, creates a right to health care in the nations of the world. The article, after describing the international human rights treaties and customary international law that establish a human right to health for all people, suggests ideas for the implementation of a right to health throughout the world.  In conclusion it offers observations about the potential impact of full recognition of the international human right to health on the people of all nations, including the United States. The three approaches to implementation proposed are: (1) define universal outcome measures that measure compliance with the core state obligations of the human right to health; (2) establish systematic reporting to responsible international bodies to monitor progress on implementation and compliance with international human rights obligations, and (3) highlight civil rights violations, such as discrimination against protected groups, that inhibit access to health care services. These three approaches are realistic given the economic, social and cultural differences among the nations of the world.  While these approaches are not comprehensive, they can do much to advance recognition and implementation of the international human right to health throughout the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Lancet ","field_subtitle":"Journalists sought","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com","body":"The Lancet is looking for experienced journalists to write for their news pages. They are  particularly interested in hearing from health policy writers with a biomedical background and 5-10 years experience on a national newspaper or newswire service. They are only interested in hearing from writers from Africa. Contact Haroon Ashraf with a CV and four recent examples of your work including news and features.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28973","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The Rising Inequality of World Income Distribution","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2001/12/wade.htm","body":"Does it matter what is happening to world income distribution (among all 6.2 billion people, regardless of where they live)? Amartya Sen, the recent Nobel laureate in economics, warns that arguing about the trend deflects attention from the central issue, which is the sheer magnitude of inequality and poverty on a world scale. Regardless of the trend, the magnitude is unacceptable. He is right, up to a point. The concentration of world income in the wealthiest quintile (fifth) of the world's population is indeed shocking and cannot meet any plausible test of legitimacy. The chart shows the distribution of world income by population quintiles. Ironically, it resembles a champagne glass, with a wide, shallow bowl at the top and the slenderest of stems below. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Health Report 2000: ","field_subtitle":"Can Health Care Systems Be Compared Using a Single Measure of Performance? ","field_url":"http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/full/92/1/30","body":"Joseph S. Coyne, DrPH, PhD, Health Policy and Administration Program, Washington State University, Spokane. \r\nPeter Hilsenrath, Department of Health Management and Policy, School of Public Health, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth. \r\nComparative studies have been part of health services research literature for decades. The benefits of these analyses include documenting how the more successful practices can be adapted in another country. Such has been the case in France, where many US health care delivery practices have been adopted in market reforms. \r\nThe World Health Organization (WHO) studied the health systems of 191 countries for its World Health Report 2000. The study is provocative and has stimulated significant analysis of the structure and performance of health systems. We examine the variables and methodology used by the WHO to measure efficiency and performance of health systems. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The World Health Report 2000:","field_subtitle":"Can Health Care Systems Be Compared Using a Single Measure of Performance? ","field_url":"http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/full/92/1/31","body":"Vicente Navarro, MD, PhD, DrPH \r\nDirector of the Public Policy Program jointly sponsored by the School of Public Health of The Johns Hopkins University\r\nThe major criticisms that can be made of the WHO report are conceptual and methodological in nature and can be made for each of the components (effectiveness, responsiveness, and fairness) of the single indicator of performance used in the report. Regarding effectiveness of health care, for example, the WHO report assumes erroneously that health care is the primary force responsible for the decline of mortality and morbidity in both developed and developing countries. That assumption is evident in statements such as \"[If] Sweden enjoys better health than Uganda\u2014life expectancy is almost exactly twice as long\u2014it is in large part because it spends exactly 35 times as much in its health systems.\" Not surprisingly, the report concludes that what is needed to eradicate disease in less-developed countries is a greater investment in health care: \"with investment in health care of $12 per person, one third of the disease burden in the world in 1990 would have been averted.\" Such statements reveal a medicalization of the concept of health that is worrisome and surprising, coming as it does from the major international health agency of the United Nations. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO: Civil Society Initiative ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The World Health Organisation's new Civil Society Initiative [CSI] has launched a consultative process with civil society organisations about its work and would like to include IPHN in its work.  A meeting was held in London in December 2001 to discuss a document produced by CSI for this purpose.  The notes of that meeting are attached. There is now an ongoing period of consultation based on the document which CSI have produced and a number of questions they have drafted.  Copies of these are also included.  I have been asked to collect and collate responses and to forward them to CSI. Could I ask you to let me have any comments/thoughts you have by 30.1.02. We are happy to have individual/organisational/network comments.  Please feel free to circulate widely to other contacts you may have.\r\nRoger Drew\r\nExecutive Director\r\nHealthlink Worldwide","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28993","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia: HIV/Aids Hampers Poverty Reduction","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200201240385.html","body":"POVERTY cannot be reduced in the current environment where HIV/AIDS prevalence is high, a Ministry of Finance report to the World Bank has stated.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia: N/West, West On Polio Alert","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200201240132.html","body":"THE Central Board of Health (CBoH) has placed North-Western and Western provinces on alert following an outbreak of a wild polio virus among refugees entering Zambia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe: Unemployment Rate to Reach 70%","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200201230656.html","body":"Zimbabwe's unemployment rate is set to reach an unprecedented 70% in 2002 due to company closures, labour economists said this week. The economic analysts said that it was imminent that failure by the economic stakeholders labour, business and government in creating opportunities to stimulate industrial expansion would lead to increases in unemployment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2002-01-25","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"'Africa is Poised to Launch a Wide-Scale And Integrated Response to the Aids Epidemic'","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200112120001.html","body":"The 12th International Conference on AIDS and STDs in Africa opened on Sunday night - amidst all the logistic problems that many participants are still experiencing - in an impressive display of pomp and protocol. But not one openly HIV positive person stood on that platform to address the overflowing hall. We are told that there are 28.1 million people living with HIV in Africa now, perhaps one of those millions could have spoken to us?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"140 Million FGM Victims Globally","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200112130487.html","body":"It is estimated that globally, between 100 and 140 million women and girls have undergone some form of female genital mutilation (FGM) with two million being at risk each year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICA: Drugs debate takes centre stage at ICASA","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1161&SelectRegion=Africa&SelectCountry=AFRICA","body":"The debate over access to affordable drugs has dominated the 12th International Conference on AIDS and STDs in Africa (ICASA), with participants at the Ouagadougou meeting calling on rich countries to provide the South with the funds to buy life-prolonging antiretrovirals.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS Orphans Assistance Database (AOAD)","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.orphans.fxb.org/db/","body":"The Association Francois-Xavier Bagnoud (AFXB) and the World Bank Early Child Development Team have launched the revised AIDS Orphans Assistance Database (AOAD). The purpose of the AOAD is to facilitate communication among organisations and individuals worldwide which provide assistance to children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS and to their caregivers. The AOAD is an online tool that allows users to enter information, search for, learn about and contact others interested in helping children affected by HIV/AIDS. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28949","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS still Africa's biggest killer","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://news.hst.org.za/view.php3?id=20011201","body":"HIV/AIDS is still the main cause of deaths in sub-Saharan Africa, but the region has been overtaken by Eastern Europe, especially the Russian Federation, as the place where the epidemic is growing the fastest, according to a new United Nations (UN) report.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Are human rights good for your health? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol358/iss9296/full/llan.358.9296.news.18526.1","body":"Scott Burris, Zita Lazzarini, Bebe Loff \r\nThe Lancet Volume 358, Number 9296 - 01 December 2001 \r\nThe links between human rights, law, and health are often asserted but have not been justified with research and empirical evidence. In the Health and Human Rights section, Scott Burris and colleagues report from an international conference on \"Health, Law, and Human Rights: Exploring the Connection\". The conference investigated the effectiveness of human-rights initiatives and law reform in public-health advocacy. Despite positive examples such as the use of human-rights laws in battles for affordable access to HIV treatments, the conference concluded that the gap between rhetoric and resources often remains vast.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Charity begins at home ","field_subtitle":"community care for HIV and TB patients in Zambia ","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=1&i=h5en1g1&u=3c21c1e3","body":"Hospital care is unaffordable and inaccessible for many HIV patients in sub-Saharan Africa. Home-based care (HBC) provides a practical alternative, but demand is growing rapidly. Can existing services expand to meet this need? What role should governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play? Researchers from the UK Nuffield Institute for Health investigate HBC services in Zambia.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Commission on Macroeconomics and Health","field_subtitle":"Activity Report 2001","field_url":"http://www.cmhealth.org/docs/activity_report.pdf","body":"The Commission on Macroeconomics and Health is a collaborative effort led by eighteen of the world\u2019s leading economists and policymakers from academia, governments, and international agencies to assess the place of health in global economic development and offer a new strategy for investing in health for economic development, especially in the world\u2019s poorest countries. This document provides an overview of the CMH purpose, composition, and activities during the period January 2000 to October 2001.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Coordinator","field_subtitle":"The Global Equity Gauge Alliance","field_url":"http://www.hst.org.za/hlink/equity","body":"Are you committed to equity? Would you like to work with skilled and committed individuals in developing countries around the world? Are you willing to travel? The Global Equity Gauge Alliance (GEGA) is dedicated to the promotion of equity in health and health care through effective advocacy and community action, based upon reliable monitoring information. There are currently 11 Equity Gauges in countries in Africa, Asia and South America and GEGA is committed to providing support and technical assistance to these Gauges as well as becoming an international force for promoting equity in health. GEGA is temporarily housed in the Health Systems Trust, a South African NGO based in Durban. GEGA wishes to appoint a co-ordinator for a period of two years. The main tasks of the co-ordinator will include supporting individual Gauges, and helping to develop the further institutional establishment of GEGA. This is an exciting and challenging job for any person with an interest in international health and the promotion of equity. It will include the opportunity to travel and work closely with projects on the ground as well as with major international agencies in the field of health and development. The two-year consultancy post will be based in South Africa, preferably in Durban. The consultancy fee will reflect local practice and be commensurate with the skills and experience of the person appointed. More information about GEGA and the co-ordinator\u2019s post can be found on the website. Please send your C.V., together with a letter of motivation highlighting why you feel you would be suitable for this post, and the names of three referees to:\r\nDawn McDonald: Fax 031 304 0775\r\nemail: dawn@hst.org.za by December 14th. \r\nInterviews will be held during the third week of January 2002.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Declaration for a Framework for Action:","field_subtitle":"Improving Access to HIV/AIDS ","field_url":"","body":"This declaration is the product of a year-long consultative process involving 155 experts from 27 countries and 57 national and international organizations. It is the consensus of the participants who convened in Paris at the invitation of the French Ministry of Foreign  Affairs with the support of UNAIDS secretariat and WHO on 29 November to 1st December 2001.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28933","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"DOES GLOBALIZATION MAKE THE WORLD MORE UNEQUAL?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nber.org/books/global/lindert10-4-01.pdf","body":"Peter H. Lindert, University of California, Davis\r\nand Jeffrey G. Williamson, Harvard University\r\nNational Bureau of Economic Research,  October 2001 draft\r\nThe world economy has become more unequal over the last two centuries. Since within-country inequality exhibits no ubiquitous trend, it follows that virtually all of the observed rise in world income inequality has been driven by widening gaps between nations, rather than within nations. Meanwhile, the world economy has become much more globally integrated. If correlation meant causation, these facts would imply that globalization has raised inequality between nations, but that it has had no clear effect on inequality within nations. This essay argues that the likely impact of globalization on world inequality has been very different from what these simple correlations suggest. Globalization probably mitigated rising inequality between participating nations. The nations that gained the most from globalization have been those poor ones that changed their policies to exploit it, while the ones that gained the least did not, or were too isolated to do so. The effect of globalization on inequality within nations has gone both ways, but here too those who have gained the least from globalization have typically been non-participants. Thus, the net impact of globalization has been far too small to explain the long run rise in world inequality since 1800.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter December 2001 EQUINET: DOMAIN NAME CHANGE","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET: DOMAIN NAME CHANGE","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Equinet\u2019s domain name has changed to equinetafrica.org \u2013 our website has now moved to http://www.equinetafrica.org\r\n\r\nPlease bookmark that for future reference.\r\n\r\nWe end the year, regrettably, with an apology to you all.  Many (if not most) of you have not been receiving the newsletters for the last couple of months.  Unfortunately we have experienced a number of problems related to a decision made by Kabissa, who have hitherto hosted our website, to move their server.  As a result of this change, we were unable to transfer our domain name \u2013 equinet.org.zw \u2013 to  the new server.  To make matters worse, we have been happily proceeding with the production and distribution of the newsletter only to discover that, for reasons we were not able to fathom, mail was not being sent to you through the mail server.\r\n\r\nWe know that many of you find the newsletter useful, and we are sorry that you haven\u2019t been getting it regularly.  We hope that you will receive this, and that in the New Year, you will once again receive the newsletter regularly.\r\n\r\nWe take this opportunity to wish you all season\u2019s greetings and wish you good health in the New Year.\r\n\r\nFiroze Manji\r\nFahamu","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Ethnic inequalities in health: social class, racism and identity","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.lancs.ac.uk/users/apsocsci/hvp/newsletters/10findings.htm","body":"James Y. Nazroo and Saffron Karlsen. Health Variations , September 2001. The Official Newsletter of the ESRC Health Variations Programme\r\nEthnic identity is formed in relation to a number of dimensions: self-description, being traditional, participation in the ethnic community, and racialisation. So, rather than being something based solely on country of origin, as would be suggested by definitions of ethnicity used in earlier studies, ethnic identity can be seen to be influenced by the wider social structure. Any measure of ethnicity needs to allow for this. These analyses suggest that the relationship between ethnicity and health is also mediated by structural factors, explored here in terms of socio-economic position, and racial harassment and discrimination. This would suggest that while traditional measures of ethnic group can allow us to recognise the existence of ethnic inequalities in health, in order to fully investigate the relationship between ethnicity and health, it is required a more sophisticated assessment of ethnicity, which can both adequately account for the different forms of social disadvantage experienced by ethnic minority groups and the various ways in which racism itself can impact on physical and mental health. Racism and its accompanying social disadvantage are important aspects of the lives of people from ethnic minority groups, and this must be incorporated into strategies to address ethnic inequalities in health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Expanding Community Action on HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"NGO/CBO strategies for scaling-up","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/Materials/sld-3482.html","body":"EThis report shares the highlights and lessons learned from the third year of \"Community Lessons, Global Learning\", a collaboration between the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and Positive Action, GlaxoSmithKline. The report includes approaches to the HIV/AIDS pandemic over the past twenty years that work. It highlights applications for moving from successful small scale projects that reach relatively few individuals to effective strategies that really make an impact on the pandemic is the challenge. Posing the question, \u201cHow can individual NGOs/CBOs scale-up their own contribution to effective responses.\u201d","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Gabon: New Ebola Outbreak Confirmed","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200112120718.html","body":"The World Health Organization says the Ebola virus has killed several people in Gabon in recent days. Kenya, Uganda, and the DR Congo have also reported the outbreak. The disease, first identified in 1976 near the Congo's Ebola River, has no known cure and is transmitted by direct contact with the blood and secretions of infected persons.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalization, Growth and Poverty:","field_subtitle":"Building an Inclusive World Economy","field_url":"http://econ.worldbank.org/prr/structured_doc.php?sp=2477&st=&sd=2857","body":"Paul Collier, David Dollar. A copublication of the World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2001\r\nThe study, Globalization, Growth and Poverty: Building an Inclusive World Economy, shows that 24 developing countries that increased their integration into the world economy over two decades ending in the late 1990s achieved higher growth in incomes, longer life expectancy and better schooling. These countries, home to some 3 billion people, enjoyed an average 5 percent growth rate in income per capita in the 1990s compared to 2 percent in rich countries. The study puts forth a seven-point plan to help all developing countries better take advantage of the benefits of globalization while managing the risks. It calls on poor countries to improve their investment climates and put in place better social protection to support poor people in adapting to and taking advantage of opportunities in a changing economic environment. It also calls upon rich countries to open their markets to exports from developing countries and to slash their large agricultural subsidies, which undercut\r\npoor country exports. The report argues for a substantial increase in development assistance, particularly to address problems in education and health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS AND HUMAN RIGHTS AFRICAN REGIONAL TRAINING WORKSHOP","field_subtitle":"9 - 15 February 2002, Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.angelcities.com/members/samsa/","body":"UNESCO, in consultation with different youth organisations, especially IFMSA has developed a kit entitled  \"HIV/AIDS and Human Rights - Young People in Action' to aid youth organisations involved in HIV/AIDS prevention, promotion and advocacy campaigns.  The manual is based on the international guidelines on Human Rights and HIV/AIDS and is intended to serve as a tool in the development and initiation of appropriate youth activities. The purpose of the workshop to be held in Cape Town, South Africa is multifaceted.  Primarily, it aims to train participants on how to use the \"Youth to Youth\" manual effectively, and thus to empower them to initiate youth activities around HIV/AIDS and Human Rights in their own communities.  It is also hoped that the workshop will equip participants with the necessary skills to ensure that they, as future community leaders, will advocate the care of people living with HIV/AIDS in an ethical, judicious and most appropriate manner. The training workshop will train 50 participants, with the participants being young, dynamic youth leaders from regional countries.  About 10 African countries will be included, with each country being represented by 4 participants.  The workshop will last 7 days, during which time participants will receive intensive training on skills and capacity building and problem solving with regards to the psychosocial and cultural aspect of the connection between HIV/AIDS and Human Rights.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28941","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"How can the allocation of public resources for health be made more pro-poor?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.healthsystemsrc.org/Pdfs/Res_alloc.pdf","body":"Mark Pearson, 2001. HSRC Health Systems Research Center,  Institute for Health Sector Development (IHSD), DFID's Health Population Department, London, UK\r\nThe way in which a country finances its health care can have a major bearing on the access to health services enjoyed by its poor. National health policies generally set out a strategic goal of ensuring equal access to essential health services for all, on the basis of need and irrespective of ability to pay or some variation on this theme. Health financing impacts on this goal in two ways: on the supply side by ensuring that essential services are adequately financed and delivered, and on the demand side by reducing financial barriers to access and by making sure that funds are raised and services delivered in ways which are affordable to all. In a typical low income country, where only $3 - $5 of public funds per head is available for the health sector, such an ambitious goal is probably unrealistic no matter how well resources are allocated and used. In practice, there will often be significant inefficiency and inequity in both allocation and use of resources. This clearly raises the question as to whether, and how, financing policies could be made more pro-poor.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28938","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"How health referral systems are bypassed in Namibia ","field_subtitle":"- and why it matters ","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=2&i=h2al1g1&u=3c21c273","body":"An effective referral system is a key element of health services based on primary healthcare (PHC). If referral steps are bypassed, treatment costs are greater than necessary. Higher level hospitals become overloaded while lower level facilities are underused. Why do referral systems fail and how can they be improved?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Kwazulu-Natal Cholera Cases On the Increase","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200112120508.html","body":"The KwaZulu-Natal health department has expressed concern over the upward trend of new cholera infections. The department said yesterday that 15 new cases had been reported over a 24-hour period, adding that although it was considerably less than over the same period last year, it was a matter of concern.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mapping a Global Pandemic: ","field_subtitle":" Review of Current Literature on Violence Against Women  ","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/Non_compliant_pages/vaw/litrevmain.html","body":"Linda Rae Bennett, Lenore Manderson and Jill Astbury, Global Forum for Health Research \r\nViolence against women (VAW), alternatively referred to as gender-based violence (GBV), has been acknowledged as a global health problem in part because of its impact on reproductive health, and hence on fetal outcome and child health as well as  women's health. Over the past 25 years, however, there has also been growing recognition of its under-reporting and high prevalence, and increased acknowledgement that it can affect women at any stage of their lives and can occur in various forms that may involve physical, psychological, sexual and/or economic abuse. This review is based on an extensive survey of recently published literature on sexual violence against women, located primarily with electronic databases. As a result, the review concentrates on the published literature, although we have cited some other public documents and \"grey\" literature.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28939","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"MOZAMBIQUE: PlusNews Country Profile","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1138&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=MOZAMBIQUE","body":"UNAIDS/WHO Epidemiological Fact sheets on HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"No longer the poor relation ","field_subtitle":"the orphanhood method for measuring AIDS-related mortality ","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=4&i=h5it1g4&u=3c21c3ca","body":"What do we know about the impact of AIDS on mortality rates in developing countries? Do existing methods of data collection provide enough information? Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the UK Medical Research Council look into these questions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"PhD/DrPH studentships Gates Malaria Programme","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This is the final opportunity to apply for a PhD/Dr PH studentship to undertake a research project in any area of clinical, field, social science or associated laboratory work that is relevant to the control of malaria. Applications are invited for a number of PhD or DrPH studentships to be held at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM),  the Centre for Medical Parasitology, University of Copenhagen (CMP) and the Danish Bilharziasis Laboratory (DBL). Scholarships will cover 'home' fees, living expenses as appropriate, some research expenses and may include a re-entry grant following satisfactory completion of the PhD/DrPH. Application Deadline: 15 January 2002.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28934","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Power, Knowledge and Political Spaces in the Framing of  Poverty Policy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/bookshop/wp/wp143.pdf","body":"Karen Brock, Andrea Cornwall and John Gaventa \r\nISBN 1 85864 393 7  -  IDS Working Papers - 143 -October 2001. Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK\r\nThis paper explores the dynamics of the making and shaping of poverty policy. It takes as its starting point a critique of linear  versions of policy-making, highlighting the complex interplay of power, knowledge and agency in poverty policy processes.   Section One argues that the policy process involves a complex  configuration of interests between a range of differently positioned actors, whose agency matters, but whose interactions are shaped by power relations. \r\nSection Two of this paper provides an overview of differing narratives on the causes of and solutions to poverty, especially as they have emerged in dominant development discourses. Section Three of this paper examine two broad kinds of policy spaces \u2013 those that are found in invited forums of participation created \u2018from above\u2019 by powerful institutions and actors, and those more autonomous spaces created \u2018from below\u2019 through more independent forms of social action on poverty related issues. By examining how different narratives of poverty and different actors interact in such spaces \u2013 as well as how they may be excluded from  them \u2013 we can better understand the ways in which power and knowledge frame the policy process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Public versus private sector supply of contraceptives:","field_subtitle":"balancing conflicting objectives ","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h7kh1g1.html","body":"Universal access to contraceptives is a key goal of sexual and reproductive health programmes. But what is the best way to supply them? Donated or subsidised contraceptive supplies raise questions of sustainability whereas there are concerns that market-based distribution has negative impacts on equity and access.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional Conflicts Derail Progress","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200112060256.html","body":"The Zambia Botswana Joint Permanent Commission for defence and security has said conflicts in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have continued to deny Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) the opportunity to fully harness immense natural resources for the emancipation of its people from hunger, poverty and disease.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Same difference?","field_subtitle":"Effects of health sector reforms on women\u2019s access to reproductive healthcare ","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=2&i=h2hs1g1&u=3c21c2e7","body":"What are the implications for reproductive health of health reforms in low and middle-income countries? The last decade has seen a change in approach from supply-side health sector reforms to an emphasis on demand-driven and anti-poverty interventions. But has this increased access to reproductive healthcare and have services improved as a result?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Security Organ Reborn","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200112130244.html","body":"After years of controversy, southern Africa's reconstituted regional security organ is to meet in Angola next week, a South African foreign ministry statement said on Thursday. The 17-18 December meeting will be the first fully fledged meeting of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation since the SADC protocol that formally established the organ was signed in August in Blantyre, Malawi.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Government Welcomes Bank's Decision Not to Evict HIV/Aids Orphans","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200112120496.html","body":"The Department of Social Development says it welcomes the decision by Cashbank to write off an outstanding housing loan of AIDS orphans living in Protea Glen in Soweto.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: No Deal Between UK Group And Victims","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200112120172.html","body":"A LONDON lawyer representing SA's asbestosis victims said yesterday there was no settlement agreement between British group Cape plc and the victims. However, negotiations were proceeding \"in a constructive manner\" and at a fairly developed stage\", said Richard Meeran, lawyer for the victims.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTHERN AFRICA: IFRC appeals for US $13 million","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=1154&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=SOUTHERN_AFRICA","body":"The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is appealing for more than US $13 million to fund its humanitarian programmes in southern Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"TAC Court victory","field_subtitle":"Cosatu statement","field_url":"http://www.cosatu.org.za/press/latest.html","body":"The Congress of South African Trade Unions welcomes the Court judgement in favour of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC). It is a victory for all mothers who are HIV positive, to whom the court has ordered the government to extend the provision of anti-retroviral drugs to prevent mother-to-child-transmission of the virus. The government must now comply with the judgement and make the drugs available to all those mothers who need them, as quickly as possible.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28958","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Body","field_subtitle":"A website on HIV/AIDS","field_url":"http://www.thebody.com/","body":"The Body's mission is to: Use the Web to lower barriers between patients and clinicians. Demystify HIV/AIDS and its treatment. Improve patients' quality of life. Foster community through human connection. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Trade in Health Services (THS) in the Americas: ","field_subtitle":"Trends and Opportunities","field_url":"http://www.paho.org/English/HDP/trade.pdf","body":"Juan Antonio Casas, Division of Health Systems and Services Development, Director PAHO/WHO \r\nPresentation at International Summit on the Private Health  Sector December 2-5, 2001, Miami, Florida, USA \r\nProvides an overview of the nature of international trade in health service. It also outlines some of the main barriers constraining trade in health services. More information about  the Summit: http://www.internationalhealthsummit.com/index.html","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Trade, gender and poverty","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.undp.org/mainundp/propoor/docs/pov_tradegenderpoverty_doc.pdf","body":"\u00c7agatay, N. UNDP - United Nations Development Programme, October 2001\r\nThis paper focuses on the relationship of trade, on the one hand, with gender and poverty, on the other, within the context of the human development paradigm. Specifically, it examines the impact of trade liberalization on gender inequalities (primarily via employment, wages and the care economy) and the impact of gender inequality on trade performance. These interactions are discussed in light of mainstream literature on trade, growth and poverty reduction, which defines poverty in terms of income or consumption and largely ignores gender. The paper also considers the policy implications of a gender-aware approach to international trade analysis and the current world trade regime. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Turning Research into Action ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://erc.msh.org/mainpage.cfm?file=2.1.1.htm&module=health&language=English","body":"For over twenty years, managers of health programs have relied on many types of research to help answer strategic and programmatic questions. Demographic surveys, rapid assessments, operations research, and sociological and economic studies contribute significantly to the manager's ability to formulate appropriate goals, determine strategies, and assess the achievement of program goals. Such contributions are leading program managers to appreciate research as an important management tool. To use this tool effectively, managers must be able to systematically transform research results into decisions. They will need support from decision makers who understand the implications of research findings, and who are ready to advocate for action. This issue of The Manager presents a process known as \"decision-linked research,\" the goal of which is to establish effective partnerships between researchers and decision makers so that the research findings can be transformed into programmatic actions. The issue focuses on how to formulate these partnerships, how to forge common interests between researchers and the users of research results, how to make research understandable to those who will be affected by the results, and finally, how to transform research results into actions aimed at improving policies, strategies, and programs. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Wising Up to the Business Implications of HIV/Aids","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200112130461.html","body":"South African companies are missing out on lucrative returns by failing to see that money spent on HIV/Aids is an investment, rather than a cost, according to a new study into major Southern African companies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Workshop: Intensive Introduction to Medical Informatics","field_subtitle":"January 28th - February 1st 2002","field_url":"","body":"Nelson Mandela School of Medicine, University of Natal, Durban, KZN, South Africa\r\nThe New England Medical Center-Tufts University School of Medicine International Training Program in Medical Informatics in conjunction with the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine at the University of Natal is hosting this intensive one week workshop. The workshop will be taught by faculty from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Brigham and Women's Hospital Harvard Medical School, Children's Hospital Harvard Medical School, New England Medical Center-Tufts University School of Medicine (all in Boston, USA) and faculty from the  University of Natal and the Medical Research Council of South Africa. This is an intensive 5-day workshop aimed at introducing participants to the major areas of medical informatics science through a series of lectures, lab session's and evening tutorials. Participants will be expected to have some basic computer skills (use of e-mail, Internet, word-processing etc). The workshop will attempt to focus on applications and examples with the potential to impact public health problems in sub-Saharan Africa. The course is being offered for 8 credits for students in the Master of Public Health degree program at the University of Natal. Students registering for credit will be charged a registration fee of South African Rand 350 and tuition of ZAR 520. It is also being offered for 8 credits for students who subsequently enter the new ITMI sponsored post-graduate degree program in Medical Informatics at the University of Natal, scheduled to begin in July 2002.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28942","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe: SADC And US Against Sanctions","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200112130589.html","body":"The United States does not support any form of sanctions against Zimbabwe, but some set of restrictions will be imposed on Zimbabwe if changes on the rule of law are not implemented in that country. Speaking to journalists in Pretoria yesterday, the American Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Walter Kansteiner said the US' take on the Zimbabwean situation was the Southern African Development Community (SADC)'s view of Zimbabwe.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-12-20","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa: Right to health campaign","field_subtitle":"Africa Action","field_url":"http://www.africapolicy.org/action/campaign.htm","body":"Africa Action will fight for the following goals: \r\n1. unconditional cancellation of Africa\u2019s illegitimate foreign debt, 2. equal access to drugs and treatment, 3. an end to IMF/ World Bank colonialism, 4. an end to discrimination on the basis of race, gender, and HIV status, and 5. promotion of a public discourse on reparations (the need for the West to invest in Africa\u2019s health care as an obligation\u2014 not charity). For a wide range of campaign resources, visit the Africa Action website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"African Journal of AIDS Research (AJAR)","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nisc.co.za/Journals/journalhome.htm","body":"This new journal will publish papers that make an original contribution to understanding the social dimensions of HIV/AIDS in African contexts. AJAR should be of interest to researchers in sociology, demography, epidemiology, psychology, anthropology, media, cultural studies, nursing, health promotion, social work, and economics.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS and human security","field_subtitle":"Statement by Peter Piot, UNAIDS Executive Director ","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/whatsnew/speeches/eng/piot021001tokyo.html","body":"There is a world of difference between the root causes of terrorism and the impact of AIDS on security. But at some deep level, we should be reminded that in many parts of the world, AIDS has caused a normal way of life to be called into question. As a global issue, therefore, we must pay attention to AIDS as a threat to human security, and redouble our efforts against the epidemic and its impact. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS risk cover for South African companies","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/africapartnership/bulletin/apb240901.html","body":"According to a report in the UN's IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Network) humanitarian information unit, Capital Alliance, an insurance company, has produced South Africa's first insurance product that allows employers to take out insurance against the risk of their employees contracting HIV/AIDS. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Anthrax Scare Hits Cape Town","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200110180235.html","body":"The global anthrax scare has hit Cape Town in several separate events which included threatening letters coated in white powder, and suspicious white powder in a rubbish bin at a local police station. Provincial MEC for community safety Hennie Bester said the events were most likely hoaxes intended to sow panic among civilians.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Bridging research and policy","field_subtitle":"Critical examination of the current thinking on the research to policy process ","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/eldis/policymaking/index.htm","body":"Stone, D; Maxwell, S.; Keating, M. Produced by: Bridging Research and Policy: workshop and research project (2001)  \r\nThis paper reviews some of the existing literature in various disciplines exploring the relationship beteen research and policy, and draws out the implications for both researchers and policy-makers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Bridging research and policy: ","field_subtitle":"from workshops to an international programme","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/eldis/policymaking/index.htm","body":"Young, J.Produced by: Bridging Research and Policy: workshop and research project (2001)  \r\nThis proposal describes a participatory 4-month process to develop a bridging programme to improve linkages between development research and policy. The process will continue the discussions started at the Global Development Network conference in Tokyo (December 2000), and continued at the workshop on Bridging Research and Policy in Warwick (July 2001), to develop a programme including a number of fundable proposals for specific activities with wide ownership.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for proposals: ","field_subtitle":"Poverty, Equity and Health in Southern Africa","field_url":"https://equinetafrica-cms.versantus.co.uk/rloewenson%40healthnet.zw","body":"Equinet Grants/Awards: Paper On Poverty- Equity And Health In Southern Africa. Closing date for applications: November 1 2001\r\nThe Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) has played a role over the past three years in highlighting issues of equity in health in southern Africa. It does so by networking professionals, civil society and policy makers to promote policies for equity in health, undertaking research, initiating conferences, workshops, and discussions through the internet, and providing inputs at the SADC forums. Noting the already significant work taking place on poverty, poverty reduction strategy papers and the links to health, and equally the strength of policy commitment to equity in health, and noting work already done by EQUINET in this area (which will be provided), EQUINET seeks to commission a paper to inform policy and research work on poverty, equity and health in southern Africa. Time frame: Six months, with an expected work time of three months. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28921","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Change for the better: ","field_subtitle":"improving health service standards in Tanzania ","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=4&i=h2fa1g1&u=3bd02f44","body":"Under-resourced government health systems in sub-Saharan Africa often provide poor quality services. How can policy-makers improve healthcare standards without unsustainable increases in expenditure? The Tanzania Family Health Project implemented a range of interventions involving staff, facilities and services in the Mbeya region. Within two years, substantial progress has been made.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"COMMONWEALTH AWARDS FOR ACTION ON HIV/AIDS ","field_subtitle":"WINNERS ANNOUNCED","field_url":"http://www.para55.org","body":"President Museveni of Uganda is one of the twelve winners of the Commonwealth Awards for Action on HIV/AIDS. His award was announced by Dr Neal Blewett, the former Australian Minister for Health, at an awards ceremony held at the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre in Australia on 4 October.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28923","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"CONTENT OF 2002 'SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE' INFLUENZA VACCINE DECIDED ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2001/en/pr2001-41.html","body":"The recommendation for the composition of the vaccine for the 2002 Southern Hemisphere influenza season has been decided and communicated to vaccine manufacturers by the World Health Organization (WHO), following agreement by international experts at a WHO meeting held in Cannes, France.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Driving home the message ","field_subtitle":"HIV prevention among African truck drivers ","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=2&i=h5jw3g4&u=3bd030f2","body":"African truck drivers have long been implicated in the spread of HIV. They stop at towns along major routes to eat, sleep, sell goods and have sex. Intermediaries are often involved in negotiations between drivers and commercial sex workers (CSWs). Could these middlemen contribute to HIV prevention efforts?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Economic and social determinants of disease","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/pdf/2001/issue10/bu1409.pdf","body":"Michael Marmot. Volume 79, Number 10,  October 2001, 906-1004 World Health Organization  - Bulletin of the World Health Organization.\r\nMichael Marmot comments on the 1985 paper by Geoffrey Rose:  \"Sick Individuals and Sick Populations\" on the study of the determinants of disease in individuals and in populations. The original paper is reproduced by permission of The International Journal of Epidemiology.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28915","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Electronic Delivery Kit Guide Announcement","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.path.org","body":"Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH) has just published the Basic Delivery Kit Guide, a step-by-step manual for developing delivery kit programs. Designed for program managers who wish to develop a basic delivery kit as part of their integrated maternal and child health programs, this resource provides comprehensive and practical information on the design, development, distribution, and promotion of single-use, disposable delivery kits.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28886","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter October 2001 PATENTS DO MATTER IN AFRICA ACCORDING TO NGOS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"GATES AWARD FOR GLOBAL HEALTH: ","field_subtitle":"CALL FOR NOMINATIONS","field_url":"http://www.globalhealth.org/awards/GatesIntro.php3","body":"The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has issued a call for nominations for the Gates Award  for Global Health. The award comes with a $1 million honorarium and is presented annually to an organization that has made an extraordinary contribution to the improvement of health around the world. Deadline: December 5, 2001 ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28924","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"GICO: Public Health Support vacancies","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.gico.ws","body":"GICO - Gruppo Internazionale di Consulenza is an international engineering company that operates in rural and urban development sectors, both in Italy and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia. The Company offers services, consultancy and technical assistance to international organisations such as the European Union, The World Bank, FAO and UNIDO, as well as to government administrations and to private sector investors. For a long-term project of Public Health Support in Africa, we are looking for candidates in the following areas: economist; manager and administrator; public health medic; communication and IT specialists. Deadline for submission of candidatures: 29th November 2001 / Duration of the assignment: 1 to 2 years, Starting date: to be confirmed.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28908","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"GIVE US YOUR FEEDBACK ON THIS NEWSLETTER!","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Send in information and articles on the work of your organisation, and on equity and health issues in Southern Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria","field_subtitle":"First Meeting of the Transitional Working Group","field_url":"","body":"The Transitional Working Group (TWG) to establish a new Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, convened for the first time on Thursday and Friday (10/11-12) in Brussels. The TWG agreed on the name of the Fund, conceived as a financial entity for leveraging resources to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria for countries and groups in the greatest need. The Fund will support programs for strengthening health systems and country-level partnerships involving governments, the private sector, and civil society. In addition, the Fund will support the purchase of critical health products, such as bed-nets, condoms, antiretroviral drugs, anti-TB and anti-malarial drugs, on the basis of an independent review of local realities.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28922","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalisation and the health of the poor","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.medact.org/tbx/pages/sub.cfm?id=318","body":"Speech by Medact director Mike Rowson at a debate with Clare Short on globalisation, October 2001.\r\n\"Where economic and trade policies are demonstrably hurting people\u2019s health they should be changed. So, whilst we agree that globalisation and increasing interconnectedness should be made to work for the poor, we go further. We argue that certain elements of globalisation may have to slowed down, their effects mitigated and poor countries protected. And agreements that purport to be about free trade, but which in fact uphold the interests of industrial nations and big corporations have to be altered...\" ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28918","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and Human Rights Organization Survey ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/fxbcenter/survey.htm","body":"The Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights (FXB Center), with support from the World Health Organization (WHO), is currently assembling a database of organizations working in the area of health and human rights. The aim of this project is to gather information on current sources of institutional experience and information in support of efforts to \"mainstream\" the consideration of health and human rights in national and international programs and policies. Organizations or institutions working in the areas of health, human rights, or human development are encouraged to complete a brief survey about their programs in the areas of health and human rights. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health before wealth","field_subtitle":"Demand the WTO change its patent rules","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.co.uk/e-campaigns/unclesam/uspetition.html","body":"Every day 37,000 people die from preventable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.* Most of these deaths are in the developing world where many life-saving drugs are unaffordable because they are patented under rules set by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). There is now a strong movement of governments, charities, churches, activist groups and health bodies urging the WTO to change these rules to allow countries the right to make vital medicines more cheaply. However a few rich WTO members - particularly the United States - are blocking these moves, and pressurising developing countries to apply even more restrictive rules at national level. Oxfam, Third World Network and Health Gap Coalition are part of a global alliance which is urging WTO members, in particular the US, to demonstrate their commitment to put people's health before the profits of powerful drugs companies. Will you help us change the WTO rules? Add your name to our petition which we will present to the WTO at its forthcoming summit. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Link Worldwide","field_subtitle":"CONSULTANCY UNIT UPDATE","field_url":"http://www.healthlink.org.uk","body":"Bulletin 2, September 2001\r\nWelcome to Consultancy Unit Update! The update aims to provide an insight into the range and scope of services available to clients, and to enable general readers to follow the progress of the consultancy unit, in accordance with Healthlink\u2019s drive toward greater transparency. This month\u2019s update focuses on the effective development of resource centres; and the need for monitoring and evaluation. In STAFF PROFILE we talk to Victoria Richardson (Information Systems Officer), and Christine Kalume (IP&M Team Leader) about the launch of SOURCE and their role in Healthlink Worldwide. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28916","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Promotion through Entertainment Education ","field_subtitle":"Module of the CMS Graduate Program ","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/events_cal/2002/521-event.html","body":"(Feb 22 2002 - 12 week course). Start Date: February 22, 2002 Location: Durban \r\nThe purpose of this Honours/MA module is to acquaint students with broad approaches to communicating for health promotion, focusing specifically on the role of entertainment education. The module can also be taken on its own for certificate rather than degree purposes.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"IPPF Reaffirms Opposition to FGM","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ippfnet.ippf.org/pub/IPPF_News/News_Details.asp?ID=1462","body":"The International Medical Advisory Panel of IPPF has renewed its commitment to the right of all females to be free from sexual and gender based violence, including genital mutilation, at its latest meeting in London.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Is globalization dangerous to our health?","field_subtitle":"Stephen Bezruchka (adapted)","field_url":"","body":"When asked about globalization, Margaret Thatcher replied: \"There is no alternative.\" Her reply was shortened to \"TINA,\" which some people think is a newly discovered law of nature... Yet, public resistance to this new corporate-centered trade is increasing. What relevance does this have to health? or Does globalization affect health?","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28884","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Mayson Castigates Church Leaders' 'Disgusting Ploy' ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200110180602.html","body":"The head of the African National Congress's religious desk, Cedric Mayson, has attacked other South African church leaders for using the HIV/Aids epidemic to make \"political attacks\" on President Thabo Mbeki, describing them as \"a disgusting ploy\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Meeting Young Women's Reproductive and Sexual Health Needs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Today's young women are the healthiest and most educated to date, but they still face obstacles to achieving their full potential. This four-page fact sheet discusses the sexual and reproductive health of young women and the steps that countries can take to meet young women's needs for reproductive health information and services.\r\nDocument code: PRBIWOKIT01. To obtain, put document code in the body of an e-mail.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New World Trade Terms Leave Africa Poorer","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200109250099.html","body":"Declining aid and terms of trade, mounting debt and ineffective adjustment policies have left sub-Saharan Africa poorer than two decades ago. Bolstering growth and halving poverty in Africa over the next 15 years will require a dramatic increase in aid and trade for the continent, says a new UNCTAD report just released.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"NGOs debate Global Health Fund  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iphn.org/news.html#hadf","body":"On the 4th October 2001, more than 30 participants gathered at the Healthlink Worldwide offices in London to discuss and debate plans to establish a \u2018Global Health Fund\u2019.  The event was jointly organised by the Health and Development Forum and British Overseas NGOs in Development [BOND].  Participants came from a wide range of organisations including British and international NGOs, academic institutions, the World Health Organisation and concerned individuals. The intention of the meeting was to update participants on developments concerning the establishment of the Fund, share views on this and identify key views and issues which could be fed into the consultation process.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"PATENTS DO MATTER IN AFRICA ACCORDING TO NGOS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.co.uk/e-campaigns/unclesam/statement2.html","body":"Joint Statement by Oxfam, Treatment Action Campaign, Consumer Project on Technology (CPT), M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) and Health GAP NGOs which are treating people with AIDS and working to improve access to medicines say patents block affordable, easier-to-take medicines from reaching people who need them. This is in sharp contrast to a 17 October communication co-authored by Amir Attaran of the Harvard Center for International Development and Lee Gillespie-White of the International Intellectual Property Institute, \"Do Patents for Antiretroviral Drugs Constrain Access to AIDS Treatment in Africa\". The publication claims that \"patents in Africa have generally not been a factor in either pharmaceutical economics and antiretroviral drug treatment access.\"\r\n\r\nThe findings of this paper have been extensively used by industry to back their claim that patents are not an issue. The pharmaceutical company Merck has also funded one of the authors.\r\n\r\nThe NGOs agree with the \"special communication's\" claim that many barriers impede access to health care in Africa, and support their call for international financial aid to fund antiretroviral treatment.\r\n\r\nHowever, they believe that the data presented in the paper do not support the conclusions drawn, but actually shed light on the extent of patent barriers to treatment. In African countries, the most practical and sought after combinations include fixed dose medicines (2 drugs in one pill) and affordable non-nucleosides. The most popular combination of AZT/3TC is patented in 37 out of 53 countries and the only affordable non-nucleoside (nevirapine in generic form) is patented in 25 out of 53 countries.\r\n\r\nMany of the non-patented drugs listed in the study, including some of the protease inhibitors, are not practical as first-line treatments in resource-poor settings because of side effects (which need to be monitored) and cumbersome dietary requirements. The study data show that patents are concentrated in countries where pharmaceutical markets are the largest. In South Africa, which has 4.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS and represents half of the pharmaceutical market in Africa, 13 out of 15 antiretroviral treatments are patent protected. In fact, half of the people with HIV/AIDS in Africa live in countries with significant patent barriers on antiretroviral drugs.\r\n\r\nThe authors claim that even if prices of patented ARVs come down, African countries cannot afford them. But since generic triple therapies can now cost as little as US$ 30 a month, significant numbers of individuals and employers can afford the treatment, if it were not for patents. Patented prices are still three times higher than generic prices. This means that for a given amount of international aid, three times as many people can be treated if generic production is allowed.\r\n\r\nThis misleading \"communication\" seems to be an attempt to sabotage a process initiated by the developing world, which seeks to ensure that patents will no longer be a barrier for access to medicines. A draft declaration calling for a pro-public health interpretation of TRIPS was put forward by 60 developing countries in the September 2001 TRIPS council session on access to medicines. The declaration, signed by 41 African nations, states that \"nothing in the TRIPS agreements shall prevent members from taking measures to protect public health.\" The declaration, which will be considered at the next WTO ministerial conference, has been opposed by the United States, Switzerland, Japan and Canada.\r\n\r\nIf nothing changes, beginning in 2006, all WTO Members will be obligated to grant twenty-year minimum patents for medicines. For this reason, it is critical that the false conclusions drawn from the data do not lead people to believe that patents are not an issue in access to life-saving medicines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Poor health? Poverty and illness in sub-Saharan Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h9gb1g1.html","body":"Poverty and ill health are intimately linked, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where public health services are severely strained. A report by the UK Institute of Development Studies suggests that public healthcare services often provide limited benefits to the poor.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty and health","field_subtitle":"Mike Rowson","field_url":"http://www.medact.org/tbx/pages/section.cfm?index_id=32","body":"Poverty is the number one killer in the world today, outranking smoking as the leading cause of death. This is hardly surprising given the number of people in the world who survive on meagre incomes, often in appalling conditions. This article briefly surveys several areas, including definitions of poverty and the numbers of people who are poor; the causes of poverty; the links from poverty to ill health; and what can be done to tackle poverty both inside and outside the health sector.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Private sector participation in water and sanitation:  ","field_subtitle":"promises and pitfalls ","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=0&i=S2alw1g1&u=3bc57070","body":"The perception that governments cannot efficiently provide water and sanitation (WSS) services has led to greatly increased private sector participation (PSP). Are regulatory regimes ensuring that service providers do not exploit their customers? Can PSPs save water and make it safer? Are the poor getting basic services?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"PROFILES ON SADC COMMUNITY HEALTH MINISTERS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://196.36.153.56/doh/department/sadc/","body":"In order to foster a better understanding of the views of SADC Health Ministers, the SADC Health Sector News will be running features on the Ministers. In this issue, we run features on three SADC Health Ministers: Honorable Minister Mr. A Banda of Malawi; Honorable Minister Dr P Dlamini of Swaziland and Honorable Minister Dr T Stamps of Zimbabwe.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Public versus private sector supply of contraceptives: ","field_subtitle":"balancing conflicting objectives ","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/zinter/id21zinter.exe?a=1&i=h7kh1g1&u=3bd03021","body":"Universal access to contraceptives is a key goal of sexual and reproductive health programmes. But what is the best way to supply them? Donated or subsidised contraceptive supplies raise questions of sustainability whereas there are concerns that market-based distribution has negative impacts on equity and access.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Randomised Controlled Trials training course","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Date: December 6-8, Venue: Cape Town, S.Africa\r\nThe Health Systems Research Unit at the Medical Research Council, South Africa's pleased to announce a three-day training course: \"Randomised Controlled Trials\" 6-8 Dec, 2001. Randomised controlled trials are the most reliable way to evaluate the effects of an intervention, be it a drug, a new technology, a new way of training health care providers or organising health care. Over 10 000 RCT's are published in the scientific medical literature every year, and they have become an important aspect of the advance of knowledge. The course is designed for people, who may not have yet conducted an RCT, or who wish to deepen their knowledge. The course is open to all. There is no cost for the training course itself for participants from developing countries. The course fee for developed country participants, or employees of agencies able to sponsor such training will be R5000. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28909","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"reproductive health","field_subtitle":"Tracking Changes and Optimising Performance","field_url":"http://www.asia-initiative.org/news_fact_sheets.html.","body":"How do you measure the value of a specific reproductive health (RH) programme? What indicates the value of NGO interventions in the field of RH? What is the difference between monitoring and evaluating? These and many more questions are answered in the eleventh EC/UNFPA Initiative for Reproductive Health in Asia (RHI) Fact Sheet on Monitoring and Evaluation in a sexual and reproductive health (SRH) context, written by Megan Douthwaite and Ronald Horstman of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI), respectively.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28913","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Sadc ministers discuss cholera ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sabcnews.com/africa/southern_africa/0,1009,21377,00.html","body":"Southern African Development Community (Sadc) representatives, including two health ministers, met in Zimbabwe recently to discuss cholera prevention. The Health Department said the meeting was aimed at strengthening co-operation among affected countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Sector Reform in Transition Countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2001/wp0135.pdf","body":"Peter S. Heller and Christian Keller, 2001 Washington: International Monetary Fund IMF Working Paper No. 01/35 \r\nThe high unemployment rates seen in many of the transition economies make it difficult for households to improve their living standards and escape from poverty, while existing labor market regimes at times appear to be obstacles to job creation. Labor laws must be examined to see whether they strike the right balance between protecting workers' rights, on the one hand, and allowing for sufficient labor market flexibility, on the other. Overly restrictive employment protection legislation might have to be liberalized, minimum wage practices reevaluated, and flexible fixed-term contracts permitted in order to increase labor market flexibility and make labor codes more appropriate for prevailing labor market conditions. The transition countries' often extensive menus of active labor market policies must be continually reassessed with respect to their cost and effectiveness.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28885","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Aids is Number One Killer Says Report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200110160517.html","body":"A disputed new report on mortality rates in South Africa, released on Tuesday, said Aids was the biggest killer in the country, and predicted that it would account for the death of between 5 and 7 million people by 2010.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Fiscal Review Reveals Impact of HIV/AIDS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ippfnet.ippf.org/pub/IPPF_News/News_Details.asp?ID=1472","body":"The review of provincial and local government finances released this week by South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, revealed the impact of HIV/AIDS on service delivery, budget forecasts and personnel planning throughout government, saying the affects of the pandemic were becoming visible. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Presidential Advisor Rejects MRC HIV/Aids Report ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200110180603.html","body":"Professor Sam Mhlongo, a member of the Presidential Aids Advisory Council, has said the The Medical Research Council (MRC) report on HIV/Aids and adult mortality in South Africa,  is \"unacceptable\" because it does not define what Aids is. Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala Msimang said the report was a \"work in progress\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Steps in the Right Direction","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200110040016.html","body":"The war on Aids takes a new turn with local filmmakers involving themselves in the largest HIV-awareness television series to date, writes Jann Turner.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SWAZILAND: Teenage girls angered over five year sex ban","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Teenaged girls in Swaziland reacted with anger at the five-year ban on their sex lives this week, complaining that their boyfriends \"won't wait\". The ban was introduced two weeks ago as a measure to curb spread of HIV/AIDS in the kingdom. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28881","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tanzania: MPs move forward to fight AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/africapartnership/bulletin/apb240901.html","body":"More than 80 members of parliament have formed a movement, The Tanzania Parliamentarians Aids Coalition (TAPAC), intended to battle the HIV/AIDS scourge. The movement, formed in the last parliament session, will be launched by President Benjamin Mkapa in Dodoma in November. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Bitterest Pill of All: ","field_subtitle":"The Collapse of Health Systems in Africa","field_url":"http://idss.com.au/news.cfm?article=78","body":"Chris Simms, Mike Rowson and Siobhan Peattie (Save the Children UK and Medact), 34pp \r\nThis report, informed by consultations with 50 donor representatives involved in health reform in Africa, welcomes the global initiative to tackle HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria. The report warns that lessons learned over the past 30 years should be heeded before huge sums are committed. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The Elusive Quest for Growth: ","field_subtitle":"Economists\u2019 Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics ","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/research/growth/elusive%20quest%20for%20growth.htm","body":"by William Easterly, MIT Press, July 2001\r\nSince the end of World War II, economists have tried to figure out how poor countries in the tropics could attain standards of living approaching those of countries in Europe and North America. Attempted remedies have included providing foreign aid, investing in machines, fostering education, controlling population growth, and making aid loans as well as forgiving those loans on condition of reforms. None of these solutions has delivered as promised. The problem is not the failure of economics, but the failure to apply economic principles to practical policy work. This book shows how these solutions all violate the basic principle of economics, that people--private individuals and businesses, government officials, even aid donors--respond to incentives. Easterly first discusses the importance of growth. He then analyzes the development solutions that have failed. Finally, he suggests alternative approaches to the problem. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28880","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The Health Sector Policy Framework","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://196.36.153.56/doh/department/sadc/","body":"The Health Sector Policy Framework Document was developed by the SADC Health Ministers and approved by the SADC Council of Ministers in GrandBaie, Mauritius, in September 2000\r\nPublished by: SADC Health Sector Coordinating Unit\r\nCopies of the document are available from: The Director SADC Health Sector Coordinating Unit Room 1830, Civitas Building Corner Struben and Andries Street Pretoria. Tel no: +27 12 312-0901/0434. Fax no: +27 12 324-7416","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"The People Have Spoken","field_subtitle":"by Phiroshaw Camay and Anne J. Gordon","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/Materials/sld-3069.html","body":"The book is a review of the June 1999 democratic elections in South Africa and has extensive chapters on the role of civil society and voter education and election monitoring of the elections as well as a 25 page chapter on the role of the media in the election process.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Toward Higher Levels of Analysis:  ","field_subtitle":"Progress and Promise in Research on Social and Cultural Dimensions of Health","field_url":"http://obssr.od.nih.gov/Conf_Wkshp/higherlevel/HigherLevels_Final.PDF","body":"The Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has released a report,  August 2001, that proposes a research agenda for the NIH related to the social and cultural dimensions of health. The focus of the report is on the development of health-related research in the social sciences. The report, \"Toward Higher Levels of Analysis: Progress and Promise in Research on Social and Cultural Dimensions of Health,\" is based on recommendations made by participants in an OBSSR-sponsored conference held on June 27-28, 2000. The report reflects the belief that the continuing development and advancement of social sciences research are critical to the \"future success of studies integrating all levels of analysis, from the molecular to the community or nation\". ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"UNAIDS and IOM address the vulnerability of mobile populations ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/africapartnership/bulletin/oct_01/apb031001.html","body":"UNAIDS' Intercountry Team for Eastern and Southern Africa (UNAIDS ICTESA) and the International Organisation for Migration -Regional Office for Southern Africa (IOM) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen collaboration to address the vulnerability of migrant populations, and improve their access to HIV/AIDS prevention and care. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"US IN TALKS ON ANTHRAX PATENT MEDICINES","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The US government admitted yesterday that it had held discussions with a German drugs company about overriding the patent on its anthrax drug, Cipro, in a move that could throw wide open the\r\ndebate about the cost of medicines in poor countries. The administration has also contacted an Indian generic drugs manufacturer to see if it can produce a large supply of the anthrax antibiotic in wake of the growing panic about bioterrorism in the US.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28925","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"What price health? ","field_subtitle":"User fees and the poor in Sierra Leone ","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h1am1g1.html","body":"User fees are an increasingly common component of public health financing. The intention is to provide patients with a cheaper but high quality alternative to private healthcare. But does it work? What is the impact on the poorest households? Do poor people still use public health services when they have to pay fees?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Youth in Sub-Saharan Africa: ","field_subtitle":"A Chartbook on Sexual Experience and Reproductive Health","field_url":"","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa has one of the world's youngest populations. At the beginning of the 21st century, about one out of every four people in sub-Saharan Africa is 10 to 19 years old. This is the largest group of young people ever in the region. To what extent are young people in the region prepared for adulthood? This chartbook examines factors that are important to a healthy transition, including education and exposure to information, sexual experience and marriage, HIV/AIDS, childbearing, contraception, and maternal health. Document code: PRBIYSSAENG\r\nTo obtain, put document code in the body of an e-mail.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-10-11","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Regional Director","field_subtitle":"International Planned Parenthood Federation ","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/vacancy499.html","body":"The International Planned Parenthood Federation is looking for a Africa Regional Director. For more information Contact: Dick Irish -Ref: DB_09.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICA: Global AIDS Fund to start disbursing money by late 2001 ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unfoundation.org/campaigns/aids/index.asp","body":"The Global AIDS and Health Fund - an initiative of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, would become operational by the end of this year, a UN statement said on Wednesday. The fund would be responsible for mobilising and managing funds in the battle against HIV/AIDS, the UN said.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28875","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"And So The Babies Die","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200109260010.html","body":"The Transkei's infant mortality rate speaks volumes about the poverty of the people and their services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenges of New Era of Medical Aid","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200109260277.html","body":"HEALTH care worldwide was traditionally based on a fee-for-service model, with no incentive for doctors to restrict the amount of medicines prescribed or for members to stay healthy, says Ricardo Rosa, chief operating officer of IQ Health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Corridors of Hope in Southern Africa: ","field_subtitle":"HIV Prevention Needs and Opportunities in Four Border Towns ","field_url":"http://www.fhi.org/en/aids/impact/corrhope/corrsum.html","body":"This report summarizes the findings of an assessment conducted for the United States Agency for International Development\u2019s \"Corridors of Hope\" Initiative, a regional HIV/AIDS prevention project focusing on key sites along the Durban-Lusaka highway in southern Africa. Conducted in November 1999 in Messina, South Africa, Chirundu, Zambia, and Beitbridge and Chirundu in Zimbabwe, the assessment sought to develop, test, refine and package a standard participatory methodology for evaluating HIV risk, identifying prevention opportunities and designing grounded, coordinated regional prevention initiatives. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Counting the world's Poor: Problems and Possible Solutions","field_subtitle":"How does trade openness affects poverty? ","field_url":"http://www.wws.princeton.edu/~rpds/worldpov3b.pdf","body":"Angus Deaton,  Research Program in Development Studies, Princeton University - December 2000 \r\nThis paper discusses how the World Bank poverty estimates are constructed, and asks whether they can bear the burden placed on them. One specific difficulty is the use of purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates, whose revision induces large changes in poverty estimates for the same countries in the same years. Another area of dispute is the discrepancy in many countries between national accounts statistics, which are used to compute growth rates, and survey estimates, which are used to compute poverty estimates. To a considerable extent, the failure of world poverty to fall in the face of world growth is a failure of household survey data to be consistent with national income data. The details of survey design are also important. In India, changing the reference period for reporting consumption removes around 200 million people, a sixth of the world total, if not from poverty, at least from the poverty counts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Dealing with Terrorism: A Public Health Agenda ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/55/10/DC1#EL2","body":"For the public health community, the terrorism wreaked on the United States is stunning, but not necessarily surprising. It was a shrieking reminder to us all that desperate and hopeless peoples will follow extremist minorities, that poverty and insecurity, compounded by smoldering pockets of war and the cautious engagement, if any, by the rich world breeds the destruction of September 11. That horror spread its message in nanoseconds across the world, evoking cries of alarm and sorrow, life-sacrificing rescues, and loud calls for vengeance and a \"crusade\" to counter the \"jihad\", expending more material and human resources for more death, disability, and damage to the lives and futures of thousands, perhaps millions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Drug Firms Say Easing Patent Restrictions Could Hurt Research","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/2001/09/20/current.asp#18358","body":"Leaders of the international pharmaceutical industry said yesterday that if global trading rules on patents are loosened, it could negatively impact research and development of AIDS drugs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter September 2001 Special Issue on Globalisation, Equity and Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet: Call for proposals: Poverty, Equity and Health in Southern Africa","field_subtitle":"Roger Drew","field_url":"http://www.iphn.org/news.html#equinet","body":"This sounds like a really good initiative. I would be very interested in the paper when it is available.  I presume you are looking for someone from within Southern Africa.  I would be happy to supply any information we have to the person/people who write the paper.  For example, they might find the paper I wrote on PRSPs and health useful - also there is a recent DFID publication looking at civil society participation in the PRSP process in which Zambia is used as a case study along with Ghana and Vietnam. I have advertised this call on the IPHN website.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"France Helping African States to Acquire Military Capabilities","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200109240098.html","body":"PROPAGATION of the multinational military strengthening exercise for SADC countries also called TANZANITE, which is part of the French program, RECAMP, to help African countries to acquire military capabilities, is now gaining its momentum.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Global public goods and health: ","field_subtitle":"taking the agenda forward","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/tableofcontents/2001/vol.79no.9.html","body":"Inge Kaul & Michael Faust. Bulletin of the World Health Organization  Volume 79, Number 9, September 2001 \r\nWe examined recent special health initiatives to control HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, and make four policy recommendations for improving the sustainability of such initiatives. First, international cooperation on health should be seen as an issue of global public goods that concerns both poor and rich countries. Second, national health and other sector budgets should be tapped to ensure that global health concerns are fully and reliably funded; industrialized countries should lead the way. Third, a global research council should be established to foster more efficient health-related knowledge management. Fourth, managers for specific disease issues should be appointed, to facilitate policy partnerships. Policy changes in these areas have already begun and can provide a basis for further reform.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalization and health: ","field_subtitle":"results and options","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/tableofcontents/2001/vol.79no.9.html","body":"Giovanni Andrea Cornia. Bulletin of the World Health Organization Volume 79, Number 9, September 2001. \r\nThe last two decades have witnessed the emergence and consolidation of an economic paradigm which emphasizes domestic deregulation and the removal of barriers to international trade and finance. If properly managed, such an approach can lead to perceptible gains in health status. Where markets are non-exclusionary, regulatory institutions strong and safety nets in place, globalization enhances the performance of countries with a good human and physical infrastructure but narrow domestic markets. Health gains in China, Costa Rica, the East Asian \u2018\u2018tiger economies\u2019\u2019 and VietNam can be attributed in part to their growing access to global markets, savings and technology. However, for most of the remaining countries, many of them in Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe, globalization has not lived up to its promises due to a combination of poor domestic conditions, an unequal distribution of foreign investments and the imposition of new conditions further limiting the access of their exports to the OECD markets. In these developing countries, the last twenty years have brought about a slow, unstable and unequal pattern of growth and stagnation in health indicators. Autarky is not the answer to this situation, but neither is premature, unconditional and unselective globalization. Further unilateral liberalization is unlikely to help them to improve their economic performance and health conditions. For them, a gradual and selective integration into the world economy linked to the removal of asymmetries in global markets and to the creation of democratic institutions of global governance is preferable to instant globalization.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalization and health: ","field_subtitle":"a framework for analysis and action","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/tableofcontents/2001/vol.79no.9.html","body":"David Woodward, Nick Drager, Robert Beaglehole,\r\n& Debra Lipson. Bulletin of the World Health Organization  Volume 79, Number 9, September 2001 \r\nGlobalization is a key challenge to public health, especially in developing countries, but the linkages between globalization and health are complex. Although a growing amount of literature has appeared on the subject, it is piecemeal, and suffers from a lack of an agreed framework for assessing the direct and indirect health effects of different aspects of globalization. This paper presents a conceptual framework for the linkages between economic globalization and health, with the intention that it will serve as a basis for synthesizing existing relevant literature, identifying gaps in knowledge, and ultimately developing national and international policies more favourable to health. The framework encompasses both the indirect effects on health, operating through the national economy, household economies and health-related sectors such as water, sanitation and education, as well as more direct effects on population-level and individual risk factors for health and on the health care system. Proposed also is a set of broad objectives for a programme of action to optimize the health effects of economic globalization. The paper concludes by identifying priorities for research corresponding with the five linkages identified as critical to the effects of globalization on health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalization and occupational health: ","field_subtitle":"a perspective from southern Africa","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/tableofcontents/2001/vol.79no.9.html","body":"Rene Loewenson. Bulletin of the World Health Organization  Volume 79, Number 9, September 2001 \r\nIncreased world trade has generally benefited industrialized or strong economies and marginalized those that are weak. This paper examines the impact of globalization on employment trends and occupational health, drawing on examples from southern Africa. While the share of world trade to the world\u2019s poorest countries has decreased, workers in these countries increasingly find themselves in insecure, poor-quality jobs, sometimes involving technologies which are obsolete or banned in industrialized countries. The occupational illness which results is generally less visible and not adequately recognized as a problem in low income countries. Those outside the workplace can also be affected through, for example, work related environmental pollution and poor living conditions. In order to reduce the adverse effects of global trade reforms on occupational health, stronger social protection measures must be built into production and trade activities, including improved recognition, prevention, and management of work-related ill-health. Furthermore, the success of production and trade systems should be judged on how well they satisfy both economic growth and population health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Heredity","field_subtitle":"An International Journal of Genetics","field_url":"","body":"From 2002, Nature Publishing Group will publish Heredity, a journal of the Genetics Society. Focusing on eukaryotes, the journal publishes key papers on ecological, population and evolutionary \r\ngenetics, including human population genetics; genomics and post-genomics as applied to evolutionary questions; biometrical and statistical genetics; animal and plant breeding and cytogenetics. For submission and subscription enquiries e-mail us. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS and human rights","field_subtitle":"New reports on consequences of HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination ","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/humanrights/index.html","body":"These reports from UNAIDS use case studies from India and Uganda to explore discrimination and stigma related to HIV/AIDS. They were launched at the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban on 5th September.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HOSPICAL - tool for allocating hospital costs","field_subtitle":"From Management Sciences for Health ","field_url":"http://www.msh.org/features/books/hospical/index.html","body":"Hospital managers, policymakers and provincial health officers can use HOSPICAL to analyse current costs and revenue. It consists of a user's guide and an electronic spreadsheet file that allows managers to manage resources more effectively. It is available free of charge to institutions in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Inequalities in Health in Developing Countries: ","field_subtitle":"Swimming Against the Tide?","field_url":"http://newweb.www.paho.org/English/HDP/HDD/wagstaff-01.PDF","body":"Adam Wagstaff, The World Bank, University of Sussex, UK - August 2001. Paper to be presented at British Society for Population Studies (BSPS) Conference September 2001\r\nHealth inequalities have recently started to receive a good deal of attention in the developing world. But how large are they? And how large are the differences across countries? The paper reviews some recent data from a 42-country study and finds large but varying inequalities across countries. It explores the reasons for these inter-country differences and concludes that high health inequalities are not apparently associated with high income inequalities, or with low shares of health spending financed publicly. They are, however, associated with higher per capita incomes. Evidence from trends in health inequalities\u2014in both the developing and developed world\u2014supports the notion that health inequalities rise with rising per capita incomes. The paper suggests the association between health and inequality and per capita income is probably due in part to technological change going hand in hand with economic growth, coupled with a tendency for the better-off to assimilate new technology ahead of the poor. The paper argues for facing up to the fact that whilst the increased health inequality associated rising per capita incomes is a bad thing, increased average health levels associated with rising incomes are a good thing. It outlines a way of quantifying the trade-off between health inequalities and health levels. The paper also suggests that successful anti-inequality policies can be devised, but that their success cannot be established simply by looking at \u2018headline\u2019 health inequality figures, since these reflect the effects of differences and changes in other variables, including per capita income. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28833","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Infectious Diseases and Women's Health:","field_subtitle":"Link to Social and Economic Development ","field_url":"http://www.jamwa.org/vol56/56_3_ed2.htm","body":"Among other social constructs, such as poverty and migration related to conflict and civil strife, AIDS is inextricably tied to the status of women. Worldwide, more than 90% of adults newly infected with HIV have acquired the infection from heterosexual exposure. Prostitution, with its strong links to women's gender subordination and the feminization of poverty, is a major impediment in controlling the spread of HIV/AIDS.A paradox exists, whereby low socioeconomic status among women facilitates the heterosexual spread of AIDS and then ties women to their caring roles, limiting their access to education and income-generating activities.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28858","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Is globalization good for your health?","field_subtitle":"David Dollar","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/tableofcontents/2001/vol.79no.9.html","body":"Bulletin of the World Health Organization Volume 79, Number 9, September 2001 \r\nFour points are made about globalization and health. First, economic integration is a powerful force for raising the incomes of poor countries. In the past 20 years several large developing countries have opened up to trade and investment, and they are growing well \u2014faster than the rich countries. Second, there is no tendency for income inequality to increase in countries that open up. The higher growth that accompanies globalization in developing countries generally benefits poor people. Since there is a large literature linking income of the poor to health status, we can be reasonably confident that globalization has indirect positive effects on nutrition, infant mortality and other health issues related to income. Third, economic integration can obviously have adverse health effects as well: the transmission of AIDS through migration and travel is a dramatic recent example. However, both relatively closed and relatively open developing countries have severe AIDS problems. The practical solution lies in health policies, not in policies on economic integration. Likewise, free trade in tobacco will lead to increased smoking unless health-motivated disincentives are put in place. Global integration requires supporting institutions and policies. Fourth, the international architecture can be improved so that it is more beneficial to poor countries. For example, with regard to intellectual property rights, it may be practical for pharmaceutical innovators to choose to have intellectual property rights in either rich country markets or poor country ones, but not both. In this way incentives could be strong for research on diseases in both rich and poor countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Join the tobacco and development email discussion list","field_subtitle":"24th September - 2nd November, 2001","field_url":"","body":"Is tobacco control a development issue? How will the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) affect developing countries? What new research is needed to explore these issues? What do YOU think? id21 Health's email discussion aims to bring a broader development perspective to the tobacco control debate. Participants will include international and national policy-makers, health professionals, tobacco control agencies, NGOs and researchers from diverse academic disciplines. A summary of the discussion will be distributed to participants at the next round of negotiations on the FCTC in late November. To join the discussion, send an email to lyris@lyris.ids.ac.uk, with the message: ''subscribe tobacco Firstname Lastname\", e.g. \"subscribe tobacco Emily Smith\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Liberalisation, health and the World Trade Organisation ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.jech.com/cgi/content/full/55/9/620","body":"Ronald Labonte - J Epidemiol Community Health 2001;55:620-1 \r\nThe contemporary globalisation project of which Baum writes rests on the promise that economic growth benefits all. Originally enforced through Structural Adjustment Programs' trinity of privatisation, reduced public spending and increased trade liberalisation, it is the benefits of the latter that now dominate the \"globalisation is good\" argument. So dominant is this claim that it deserves closer scrutiny.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"MALARIA: Disease Kills Record Number In Namibia","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/2001/09/18/current.asp#18255","body":"A record number of people have died in Namibia so far this year from malaria, the government announced Friday, with the number of deaths up 70 percent from last year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mandate the Future ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.mandatethefuture.org","body":"This Worldview International project is a youth Internet forum on global issues. Every fortnight, they cover pertinent issues, chosen by youth themselves through an offline and online poll. Recent discussions have included Sexuality Education: If Not Now, Then When?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mbeki plays down AIDS and orders a rethink on spending","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7314/650/b","body":"South African president Thabo Mbeki has once again alarmed doctors and health professionals with a letter he wrote to his health minister last month ordering a re-examination of health and social policy, spending, and research in the light of figures on deaths from AIDS. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring Equity in Health Care Financing:","field_subtitle":"Reflections on and Alternatives to the World Health Organization\u2019s Fairness of Financing Index","field_url":"http://econ.worldbank.org/files/1411_wps2550.pdf","body":"Adam Wagstaff. Development Research Group and Human Development Network World Bank\r\nIn its latest World Health Report, the World Health Organization argues that a key dimension of a health system's performance is the fairness of its financing system. In addition to discussing the ways policymakers can improve this aspect of performance, the report proposes an index of fairness, discusses how it should be operationalized, and presents a league table of countries ranked by the fairness with which their health services are financed. This paper provides a critical assessment of the WHO index. It shows that the index cannot discriminate between health financing systems that are regressive and those that are progressive, and cannot discriminate between horizontal inequity and progressivity/regressivity. The paper compares the WHO index to an alternative and more illuminating approach developed in the income redistribution literature in the early 1990s and used in the late 1990s to study the fairness of various OECD countries\u2019 health financing systems.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Mini-portal on environmental health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ehproject.org/live/Infoser.html","body":"The Info Services page on the Environmental Health Project website has been changed to a mini-portal on environmental health to hopefully provide a more organized and convenient method for obtaining information on environmental health. Please check it out and contact Dan Campbell if you find it useful and if you have suggestions and other categories or resources to add.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Pluralism and Marketisation in the Health Sector:","field_subtitle":"Meeting Health Needs in Contexts of Social Change in Low and Middle Income Countries ","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/bookshop/wp/wp136.pdf","body":"Gerald Bloom and Hilary Standing. ISBN 1 85864 361 9 - IDS Working Papers - 136, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex,  2001\r\nThis paper is part of a broader attempt to identify the key producers of social goods and how social policy interventions can support them. This paper is focused on the health sector. It   \r\nexamines the changing roles of health care providers and the management of health expertise in the context of pluralism and increasing marketisation of health goods and services; explores how pluralism of provisioning and increasing markets for health goods have affected the ways households meet their health needs; stimulates a reassessment of what governments should or could do to enable delivery of competent health care under conditions of pluralism and marketisation.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28849","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Regional Technical Advisor for HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Catholic Relief Services ","field_url":"","body":"Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is looking for a Regional Technical Advisor for HIV/AIDS. The top priority for this post is to provide assistance to the South Africa HIV/AIDS Programme Office, which is responsible for programmes in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland. For more information contact: Dawn Sheckells. Include req. no. I 01 009 and source code DRUMBEAT.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC GoesSADC Goes to G8 Meetings As a Block","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200109260410.html","body":"MINISTERS of finance and foreign affairs of Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states have unanimously agreed to participate in the forthcoming G8 meeting as a regional bloc and not as individual countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC: AIDS Expected to Claim 10 Million Southern Africans By 2015","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200109170081.html","body":"African economies could be devastated by the 10 million AIDS deaths forecast for southern Africa over the next 15 years, researchers warned this week. African Eye News Service reported that according to Southern African Development Community {SADC} researchers, crucial human development projects were already suffering as a result of the drain on financial and other resources in southern Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Scientists react to US attacks with shock and fears for the future","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nature.com/nsu/010920/010920-13.html","body":"Scientific leaders must now think beyond their immediate emotional responses and consider the practical consequences of the current crisis. Today's scientific enterprise relies heavily on international collaboration, the free exchange of data, and unrestricted travel. In the current unstable geopolitical climate, it is unclear how each of these will be affected.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual Initiation and Childbearing Among Adolescent Girls in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.blackwell-science.com/products/journals/freepdf/rhm/manzini.pdf","body":"This paper is based on a 1999 survey in South Africa which identified age of sexual debut and childbearing among adolescent girls in KwaZulu Natal. Of a sample of 796 girls, almost half had already had first sexual intercourse at a mean age of 16. Of these, 44 per cent reported having communicated with their first partner about preventing pregnancy, of whom 36 per cent were able to use a contraceptive method. The majority used a male condom, the pill or injectable. Similarly, 30 per cent had used a method, almost all of them a male condom, to prevent a sexually transmitted disease at first sex. About half of the girls had ever been pregnant and a large percentage of these indicated that the pregnancy had been unwanted. If sexuality education were to begin before puberty, at age 9-10 and in primary school, then many more girls would be in a better position to make informed choices about their sexual activities by the time they begin to engage in sex or reach menarche.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Health Mec Admits Appalling State of Public Hospitals ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200109260102.html","body":"Health MEC Dr Bevan Goqwana admitted the legislature's health committee report damning the appalling state of public hospitals in the province reflected the \"reality of the situation\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTH AFRICA: Religious leaders and AIDS activists urge government to declare AIDS national emergency ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"South African religious leaders and AIDS activists appealed to the government on Thursday to declare the HIV pandemic a national emergency and to provide the leadership needed to fight it. \"No one in our country can afford to deny the terrible extent of this epidemic,\" the group said in a statement. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28876","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa: Technology Benefits Not Available to All","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200109260278.html","body":"Technology is not delivering healthcare services to a large number of lowincome groups covered by medical aid, says Robert Dale, marketing director of Telg Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Spatial Inequality and Development Conference","field_subtitle":"London School of Economics - June 27-29, 2002","field_url":"","body":"CALL FOR PAPERS\r\nAmidst a growing concern about increasing inequality, the spatial dimensions of inequality have begun to attract considerable policy interest. In China, Russia, India, Mexico and South Africa, as well as most other developing and transition economies, there is a sense that spatial and regional inequality, of economic activity, incomes and social indicators, is on the increase. Despite these important popular and policy concerns, there is remarkably little systematic and coherent documentation of the facts of what has happened to spatial and regional inequality over the past ten to twenty years. Correspondingly, there is insufficient understanding of the determinants of internal spatial inequality in a globalizing world. To meet this gap in knowledge, Cornell University, London School of Economics and WIDER are sponsoring a conference on \"Spatial Inequality and Development,\" to be held at the London School of Economics on June 27-29, 2002. The conference seeks to attract contributions, which document and analyze the facts of within country spatial inequality, and its determinants, especially during the period of globalization of the last two decades. A broad view is taken of inequality, covering the distribution of such variables as economic activity, economic structure, population, income, social indicators, infrastructure and public expenditure. While the main focus of the conference is on empirical analysis of recent history, contributions which conceptualize the measurement of spatial inequality, or analyze its evolution in a longer historical frame, will also be considered. It is intended to collect the papers selected for and presented to the conference, in a volume to be edited by Professor Ravi Kanbur, Cornell University, and Professor Tony Venables, London School of Economics, and to be published by a leading academic press.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28844","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Special Issue on Globalisation, Equity and Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This issue of Equinet is dedicated to covering some of the recent research and comment on the complex issue of globalisation and equity in health. Recent events signal that health has gained some profile as a global issue, whether in relation to the deliberations and campaigns around World Trade Organisation provisions on intellectual property rights and access to essential drugs, or in relation to the United Nations launch up of the Global Health Fund.\r\n\r\nThere are many questions about the impact of such initiatives in dealing with the real impact of globalisation on health, and its potential \u2013 or otherwise - to deliver greater equity in health. The conflict over TRIPS has highlighted contradictions between free trade provisions and access to existing technologies for health. Questions exist of how far a Global Health Fund addresses or diverts attention from the economic policies that generate the debt, poverty and marginalisation that produces a major share of the global burden of disease. As Fran Baum has written recently in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health \"Can you imagine a world in which the spread of globalisation meant the world becoming a more just and equitable place? This seems like an impossible dream. All the indications are that the current forms of globalisation are making the world a safe place for unfettered market liberalism and the consequent growth of inequities. This economic globalisation is posing severe threats to both people's health and the health of the planet\u201d (1).\r\n\r\nThere is debate on the health impacts of globalisation:  David Dollar, in a recent World Health Organisation Bulletin on health and globalisation argues that economic globalisation has raised the incomes of poor countries, and that this has generally benefited poor people. Others argue that while globalisation has brought economic growth-promoting potential, these benefits have been restricted to a small number of countries, and have left the majority of developing countries excluded or even negatively effected by such growth potential. (2).\r\n\r\nThere is perhaps more wide consensus that changes are required to ensure that health outcomes are factored more centrally within globalisation processes. This means providing for measures to promote and protect health in globalisation as global public goods, and not as market or aid. It also means not waiting to act on those areas where health burdens are already accumulating under global economic and trade processes - such as in transfer of tobacco risks to youth in developing countries, or in the shift towards more casual jobs that lack adequate social protection.  Nick Drager and Robert Beaglehole point out in the editorial of a special World Health Organisation Bulletin on globalisation and health:\r\n\r\n\u201cPublic health scientists are still in the early stages of gathering concrete evidence on the effects of globalisation on population health. This evidence is required to inform policies and actions to protect and promote the health of the poor. The productivity of this research would be improved if there was an agreed framework for considering the various mechanisms by which economic globalisation affects population health status\u2026 It is already evident, however, that policy measures are required to rectify the adverse effects of globalisation on health and strengthen the positive ones. Policy should be guided by the following principles:(i) growth needs to be inclusive, equitable and sustainable, and this requires policy coherence between economic, social and environment sectors; (ii) opening up of borders should be gradual and preceded by appropriate protective conditions; (iii) international rules and institutions should promote the production of global public goods and the control of global public \u2018\u2018bads\u2019\u2019; (iv) special attention is needed to increase the transfer of financial and technical resources to those left behind in the development process; (v) strong national health policies, institutions, regulations and programmes are essential; (vi) the public health workforce must be equipped with the knowledge and skills to engage with partners across sectors and across borders to achieve health and other social goals.\u201d (3)\r\n\r\nIn the EQUINET September 2000 conference it was noted that during several decades of structural adjustment in southern Africa health scientists argued about the extent of negative impacts while populations became poorer, hungrier, more at risk of disease and less able to afford or access basic health services. By the time the negative impacts were acknowledged structural adjustment had been replaced by the much wider and more sweeping liberalisation and privatisation of the current phase of globalisation. Globalisation has increased the visibility and evidence of the global resources and opportunities available for health. This makes the contrast with the deprivation of such resources where they are most needed extremely stark.\r\n\r\n1. Health, equity, justice and globalisation: some lessons from the People's Health Assembly.  F Baum - J Epidemiol Community Health 2001;55:613-6. http://www.jech.com/cgi/content/full/55/9/613\r\n2. Is globalization good for your health? David Dollar; Globalization and health: results and options; Giovanni Andrea Cornia. Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, Volume 79, Number 9, September 2001. http://www.who.int/bulletin/tableofcontents/2001/vol.79no.9.html\r\n3. Editorial: Globalization: changing the public health landscape. Nick Drager & Robert Beaglehole. Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, Volume 79, Number 9, September 2001. http://www.who.int/bulletin/tableofcontents/2001/vol.79no.9.html","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Swaziland: Five Year Sex Ban Imposed for Young Women","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200109170562.html","body":"The Swaziland government has announced a five-year sex ban for young women in a bid to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country. The ban was announced on Sunday evening by the leader of Swaziland's young women, Lungile Ndlovu, who said the elders of the nation had deemed it fitting, AFP reported.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"TANZANIA: HIV-POSITIVE WOMEN FEAR PARTNER VIOLENCE","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"A study of women attending a health clinic in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, revealed that fear of violence or abandonment was the major reason they did not tell their partners their HIV status.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28863","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The globalization of public health: ","field_subtitle":"the first 100 years of international health diplomacy","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/tableofcontents/2001/vol.79no.9.html","body":"David P. Fidler. Bulletin of the World Health Organization  Volume 79, Number 9, September 2001 \r\nGlobal threats to public health in the 19th century sparked the development of international health diplomacy. Many international regimes on public health issues were created between the mid 19th and mid-20th centuries. The present article analyses the global risks in this field and the international legal responses to them between 1851 and 1951, and explores the lessons from the first century of international health diplomacy of relevance to contemporary efforts to deal with the globalization of public health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"THE NEED FOR EQUITY-ORIENTED HEALTH SECTOR REFORMS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ije.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/30/4/720","body":"Davidson R Gwatkin International Journal of Epidemiology, August - 2001\r\nThere is a need for a new wave of major equity-oriented health sector reforms undertaken with even more passion and determination than the efficiency-oriented reforms of the 1990s. The objective of this paper is to simulate further thought about how to achieve such reforms by presenting three arguments: First, a rapidly-increasing body of documentation indicates that the health interventions that typically constitute the leading components of poverty-oriented health programs benefit the better-off more than the poor. This points to a need for reforms that are far deeper than often appreciated if health systems are to serve the poor effectively. Second, the current movement toward debt relief in poor countries is creating a climate considerably more favorable to a consideration of such deeper changes than was earlier the case. Third, there is a pressing need for a firm evidence base concerning interventions that reach the poor more effectively if the potential that the present climate represents is to be realized.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"The Scorecard on Globalization 1980-2000: ","field_subtitle":"Twenty Years of Diminished Progress  ","field_url":"http://www.cepr.net/globalization/Scorecard.pdf","body":"Mark Weisbrot, Dean Baker, Egor Kraev and Judy Chen Mark Weisbrot and Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) Washington D.C., 2001\r\nThis paper looks at the major economic and social indicators for all countries for which data are available, and compares the last 20 years of globalization (1980-2000) with the previous 20 years (1960-1980). These indicators include: the growth of income per person, life expectancy, mortality among infants, children, and adults, literacy, and education. For economic growth and almost all of the other indicators, the last 20 years have shown a very clear decline in progress as compared with the previous two decades. For each indicator, countries were divided into five roughly equal groups, according to what level the countries had achieved by the start of the period (1960 or 1980).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards a more sustainable globalisation: ","field_subtitle":"the role of the public health community ","field_url":"http://www.jech.com/cgi/content/full/55/9/617","body":"DOUGLAS W BETTCHER and HEATHER WIPFLI - J Epidemiol Community Health 2001;55:617-8 \r\nIn her article Fran Baum is correct in pointing out that the political complexities of our globalised world must be taken into account by public health professionals. Global health futures are directly or indirectly associated with the transnational economic, social, and technological changes taking place in the world. Issues such as poverty, equity, and justice must be firmly rooted in any discussions aimed at improving global public health. However, globalisation is a \"janus faced\" creature: the double face of globalisation, one promising and the other threatening, is a fact of life as humanity is being catapulted into a more interdependent future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Report 2000","field_subtitle":"Commentary: comprehensive approaches are needed for full understanding  ","field_url":"http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7314/678#resp1","body":"Christopher J L Murray, executive director. Evidence and Information for Policy, World Health Organization, 1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland \r\nBraveman et al criticise the World Health Organiztion's approach of measuring the full spectrum of health inequalities in a population. They argue for a selective approach in which only health inequalities correlated with factors such as income, social class, or race should matter. Such a selective approach runs counter to the literature on inequality in other disciplines and runs the risk of discouraging scientific inquiry into the causes of inequality. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Report 2000: ","field_subtitle":"how it removes equity from the agenda for public health monitoring and policy ","field_url":"http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7314/678","body":"Paula Braveman, professor of family and community medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA; Barbara Starfield, university distinguished professor, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, MA, USA; H Jack Geiger, Logan professor of community medicine, emeritus c., City University of New York Medical School, Department of Community Health and Social Medicine, New York, NY, USA. BMJ September 22, 2001;323 678-681.\r\nThe World Health Organization\u2019s World Health Report 2000 deserves praise for recommending that national health systems be assessed not only by the average health status of a country\u2019s population but also by the extent to which health varies within the population.  We are concerned, however, that the report\u2019s approach to measuring health inequalities does not support -- and actually undermines --  efforts to achieve greater equity in health within nations, according to any meaningful definition of equity. We believe that the report\u2019s measure of health inequalities lacks practical utility in general for guiding national policy because it provides no information to guide resource allocation or to target policies.  In addition, it does not measure socioeconomic or other social disparities in health within countries.  It therefore -- when used, as its authors implicitly and explicitly recommend, as a substitute for monitoring social inequalities in health -- removes consideration of equity and human rights from the routine measurement and reporting of health disparities within nations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World's ageing population could lead to permanent recession","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20010919/694943.html","body":"Over the next few decades, one of the most pressing issues, at both the national and international levels, will be the undeniable ageing of the world's richest peoples. Last month, at a Tokyo conference entitled Aging and the Global Economy, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies warned us that the world's wealthiest countries are ageing too quickly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-27","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS expert challenges ethical stance on drug trials ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7312/531/a","body":"Measures to protect people in developing countries from being exploited in medical research trials may prevent some projects going ahead that could improve the health of poor people, a leading scientist has warned. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Angola: Plans to Launch HIV/AIDS Testing Project","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200108220385.html","body":"The Angolan government plans to launch an HIV/AIDS testing and counselling project to analyse the prevalence of the disease in the country, official news agency Angop has reported.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR","field_subtitle":"DIVISION OF FAMILY MEDICINE, UCT","field_url":"http://www.uct.ac.za","body":"UCT is seeking a senior Family Medicine Physician with appropriate postgraduate qualifications, and clinical experience in urban and rural settings for this post for appointment as soon as possible.\r\nThe successful candidate will have proven research, teaching, clinical and managerial ability in this field.  She/he will need to play a major role in the restructuring of the regional joint health services teaching platform, affecting training and research programmes in the\r\nfaculty,  and district based public sector health services.  This will include leading and developing the present Division of Family Medicine in the School of Public Health and Primary Health Care, and involves undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, initiating an active research programme, and promoting staff development. Closing date: 21 September 2001.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28791","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"BBC: \"Tobacco On Trial\" ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/sci_tech/features/health/tobaccotrial","body":"The tobacco industry claims to employ 30 million people worldwide. But it produces a product that has serious health implications for millions more. Governments are negotiating new international controls. This website helps you to understand the health, political and economic issues at stake as tobacco goes on trial.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Botswana: Government to Test Students for HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200108310308.html","body":"The Botswana government may soon test all prospective students for HIV/AIDS, reported the 'Botswana Gazette' on Thursday. Addressing first year students of the University of Botswana last week, career guidance officers from the Ministry of Education said the government was considering testing students compulsorily.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Botswana: Interview With National AIDS Coordinator","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200108290545.html","body":"Botswana has one of the world's highest percentages of people living with HIV/AIDS. Latest figures from UNAIDS suggest more than 35 percent of Botswana's adult population carry the virus. Stigma and denial remain huge impediments to fighting the disease. A recent government report found that many Batswana still believe that HIV/AIDS was a foreign disease, which is not in Botswana or is only found in urban areas. Head of the National AIDS Coordinating Group (NACG), Babu Khan, spoke to IRIN about the challenges associated with tackling the epidemic.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Curbing the Epidemic: ","field_subtitle":"Governments and the Economics of Tobacco Control","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/Materials/sld-506.html","body":"A World Bank study on tobacco in developing countries. \"Developing countries can prevent millions of premature deaths and much disability if they adopt measures to reduce the demand for tobacco\" according to the study. \"To effectively reduce demand, governments can raise cigarette taxes, ban the advertising and promotion of tobacco products, and provide information on the health risks smoking causes directly or through research.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Developing Countries See Increase in Birth Defects ","field_subtitle":"More Women Use Misoprostol in Effort to End Pregnancies","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_repro_recent_reports.cfm?dr_cat=2&show=yes&dr_DateTime=30-Aug-01#6681","body":"Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa and the Philippines are experiencing a \"minor epidemic of birth defects\" because poor women are taking misoprostol in an attempt to end their pregnancies, the New Scientist reports.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Directory of International Grants and Fellowships in the Health Sciences ","field_subtitle":"Updated August 1, 2001","field_url":"http://www.nih.gov/fic/news/directory.html","body":"Fogarty International Center National Institutes of Health - USA\r\nThe National Institutes of Health is one of many public and private organizations across the globe that provide international support for biomedical research and training.  Since 1988, the Fogarty International Center has published the Directory of International Grants and Fellowships in the Health Sciences.  This directory is a comprehensive compilation of international opportunities in biomedical research.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Discrimination Against People With HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ippfnet.ippf.org/pub/IPPF_News/News_Details.asp?ID=1368","body":"In the first half of 2000, the German national AIDS organization Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe e.V. (DAH) in Berlin presented the results of a study into international entry and residence regulations and the availability of medical treatment for people with HIV infection and AIDS. DAH had succeeded in collecting information from 166 countries. The results are disturbing.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Drug firm is to supply AIDS drug free in South Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7311/472/c","body":"As the legal campaign against the South African government\u2019s decision not to provide antiretroviral drugs grows apace, it has emerged that the manufacturer of one of the drugs is about to supply the drug free of charge. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Economics, Health and Development: ","field_subtitle":"Some Ethical Dilemmas Facing the World Bank and the International Community","field_url":"http://www.healthsystemsrc.org/Pdfs/Wagstaff%202.pdf","body":"By Adam Wagstaff, The World Bank, The University of Sussex, UK\r\nThe aim of the World Bank, often referred to in development circles simply as \"the Bank\", is \"to help to help each developing country onto a path of stable, sustainable and equitable growth in the fight against poverty\". Financial services are its core activity, but in support of these the Bank undertakes various analytical and advisory services, and capacity-building. The work of the Bank\u2019s health sector\u2014or more precisely, its health, nutrition and population (HNP)1 sector\u2014is guided by the Bank\u2019s broad mission of poverty-reduction and by the specific objectives set out in its recent health sector strategy paper. The two overarching objectives outlined there are: (a) to help countries improve the health of the poor, and (b) to help them reduce the impoverishing effects of illness. Ethical issues arise in the interpretation of both, and in helping countries formulate strategies and policies geared towards these objectives. It is these ethical issues\u2014which are often not acknowledged by commentators\u2014that are the subject of this paper. Before addressing them, however, the paper provides a short background section on what and how much the Bank does\u2014in general and in the health sector specifically.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET GRANTS/AWARDS","field_subtitle":"POVERTY- EQUITY AND HEALTH IN SOUTHERN AFRI","field_url":"","body":"Closing date for applications:  October 20 2001\r\n\r\nThe Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) has played a role over the past three years in highlighting issues of equity in health in southern Africa. It does so by networking professionals, civil society and policy makers to promote policies for equity in health, undertaking research, initiating conferences, workshops, and discussions through the internet, and providing inputs at the SADC forums.  \r\n\r\nNoting the already significant work taking place on poverty, poverty reduction strategy papers and the links to health, and equally the strength of policy  commitment to equity in health, and noting work already done by EQUINET in this area (which will be provided),  EQUINET seeks to commission a paper to inform policy and research work on poverty, equity and health in southern Africa. More specifically the paper should  address the following issues:\r\n\r\n1.\tUsing existing work done by EQUINET, WHO etc on poverty-equity-human rights links, briefly outline a conceptual framework relevant to public policy and practice for linking poverty and equity in health in southern Africa, where both poverty and inequality are extremely high.  This should show both the points of distinction and of linkage between poverty and equity. \r\n2.\tIdentify from this, and supported where possible by evidence gathered by EQUINET, MAP and major poverty monitoring initiatives, where public policy priorities lie in dealing with the poverty-equity issues in health. \r\n3.\tOn the basis of the above, discuss the specific health sector measures / policies and features of policy processes that are pro-poor or enhance equity outcomes and those that exacerbate both inequity and poverty. \r\n4.\tCritically assess the extent to which these measures and processes are present in PRSPs in southern Africa (using available web documentation of PRSPs and PRSP processes) and the implications for ensuring that PRSPs better integrate poverty-equity linkages.  \r\n\r\nTime frame:  Six months, with an expected work time of three months. \r\nFee:   Usd4 500\r\nProcess:  Applicants are asked to submit a proposal for the grant that includes\r\ni.\ta CV, clearly identifying previous work and documents authored in the areas of poverty, equity and health\r\nii.\ta  sample of  a paper produced by the applicant\r\niii.\tin one page a list in bullet form of the points to be considered in preparing the conceptual outline in item (1) of the paper and a paragraph of the broad issues most likely to be covered in item (4) \r\n\r\nApplications should be sent, with contact postal, fax and email address  to \r\n \r\nTARSC 47 Van Praagh Ave, Milton Park, Harare, Zimbabwe\r\nPh: 263-4-708835 Fax: 263-4-737 220  Email: rloewenson@healthnet.zw\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter September 2001 Equity and inequity today: some contributing social factors","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity and inequity today: some contributing social factors","field_subtitle":"PHA background paper 2 ","field_url":"http://www.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/pha-exchange","body":"Nadine Gasman and Maxine Hart\r\n\r\nINTRODUCTION\r\n\r\nThe 1999 United Nations Human Development report begins: 'The real wealth of a nation is its people. And the purpose of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives. This simple but powerful truth is too often forgotten in the pursuit of material and financial wealth.'\r\n\r\nThe current trend of globalisation has contradictory implications. While the last 50 years have witnessed developments that augur better for the future of humanity-child death rates have fallen by half since 1965, and a child born today can expect to live a decade longer than a child born 20 years ago; the combined primary and secondary school enrolment ratio in developing countries has more than doubled-the world faces huge amounts of deprivation and inequality. Poverty is everywhere. Measured on the human poverty index-more than a quarter of the 4.5 billion people in developing countries still do not enjoy some of life's basic rights-survival beyond the age of 40, access to knowledge and adequate private and public services.\r\n\r\nThe quickening pace of globalisation has generated enormous social tensions that development policies have failed to tackle. The underlying assumption has been that once economic fundamentals are corrected, social issues will resolve themselves of their own accord, and that well-functioning markets will not just create wealth, but will also resolve problems of human welfare.\r\n\r\nCurrent events reveal with awful clarity the depth of this fallacy. Millions of people are poorer than ever before, with growing indices of  inequality between countries and within countries. Most countries report erosion of their social fabric, with social unrest, more crime, and more violence in the home.\r\n\r\nNeoliberal advisors in the 1980s developed a vision of the ideal country: its economy would be largely self-regulating through open competition between private firms; its public sector would be relatively passive-providing the minimum services necessary to conduct private business efficiently and to protect society's weakest members.\r\n\r\nThis dogmatic economic prescription, concludes the United Nations Research Institute in Social Development (UNRISD), has not only had limited value, but has been dangerous. Even those countries that have been held up as economic success stories have been social failures. Most people in highly indebted African and Latin American countries have suffered a sharp drop in living standards.\r\n\r\nBetween 1980 and 1990 the per capita income declined markedly in developing countries. An International Labour Organization study of 28 African countries showed that the real minimum wage fell by 20% and more than half of Africa's people now live in absolute poverty.  In most Latin American countries the real minimum wage fell by 50% or more. Coupled with this, people have suffered from severe cuts in public services-affecting nutrition, health, education and transport.\r\n\r\nThe UN Human Development Report of 1999 goes further: a comparison between the size of income of the fifth of the world's people living in the richest countries and that of the fifth in the poorest showed a ratio of 74 to 1 in 1997, up from 60 to 1 in 1990 and 30 to 1 in 1960.\r\n\r\nThe advocates of adjustment had hoped for a trade-off: long-term economic gain in return for short-term social cost. What they did not foresee was that the social impact could itself frustrate the desired economic effect. This temporary sacrifice for the poor is beginning to look like a permanent intensification of poverty.\r\n\r\nUNRISD explains: 'When the market goes too far in dominating social and political outcomes, the opportunities for and rewards of globalisation spread unequally and inequitably-concentrating power and wealth in a select group of people, nations and corporations, marginalising others. Globalisation in this era seeks to promote economic efficiency, generate growth and yield profits. But it fails on the goals of equity, poverty eradication and enhanced human security.'\r\n\r\nEconomic growth, an important input for human development, can only translate into human development if the expansion of private income is equitable, and only if growth generates public provisioning that is invested in human development-in schools and health centres rather than arms. Reduced public spending weakens institutions of redistribution-leading to inequalities.\r\n\r\nTHE FUTURE\r\n\r\nWe face the challenge of setting up rules and institutions for stronger governance-local, national, regional and global-that put the health and well-being of each individual, community and nation at the centre. We need to create enough space for human, community and environmental resources to ensure that development works for people and not just for profit.\r\n\r\nGlobalisation expands the opportunities for unprecedented human advance for some, but shrinks those opportunities for others and erodes human security. It is integrating economies, culture and governance, but is fragmenting societies and ignoring the goals of equity, poverty eradication and human development.\r\n\r\nOvercoming poverty must be seen as the main ethical and political challenge. Experience shows that the most appropriate programmes are long-term initiatives of a comprehensive/ multi-dimensional and multi-sectoral nature, aimed at breaking down the mechanisms that perpetuate poverty from one generation to another.\r\n\r\nDevelopment patterns need to be oriented to make equity-that is, the reduction of social inequality-the central pillar. This should be the basic yardstick against which we measure development. Education and employment present two master keys for development. Education has an impact on equity, development and citizenship, and therefore needs to be assigned top priority in terms of social policy and public spending, especially important is education of girls. Latin American studies have indicated that 11-12 years of schooling (completed secondary education) are required if people are to have a chance of escaping poverty. At the same time, a high-quality job-creation process needs to be put in place.\r\n\r\nSome questions?\r\n\r\nWhat are the social factors that influence the health situation in your community or countries?\r\nIs violence a problem in your community?\r\nWhat is the status of Women and children?\r\nIs government responding to the people's needs? Why?","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28794","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Exploring the Link: HIV/AIDS, Stigma,  Discrimination, and Racism","field_subtitle":"A UNAIDS, WHO, HCHR panel, WCAR","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/humanrights/BPracism.doc","body":"This session was a stark reminder of the terrible racial and gender implications of the AIDS pandemic. The panelists made clear that at the UN, it is becoming increasingly clear that AIDS is a human rights catastrophe.  The challenge is clear for human rights educators, at the family, community, national, and international levels, to make the fight against HIV a human rights struggle.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28811","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Food and Nutrition Library:","field_subtitle":"Information on CD Roms","field_url":"","body":"300+ publications (more than 30.000 pages) of\r\nfood, nutrition, food policy and research is available on CD from international organisations supplied by Human Info NGO in Belgium. The costs participation system is designed to maximize redistribution by partner multipliers who purchase 70 up to 900 and redistribute them free.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28814","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Ghana: Government Plans to Manufacture HIV/AIDS Medicine","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200108270006.html","body":"Ghana hopes to begin manufacturing generic versions of HIV/AIDS drugs soon, the Accra radio JOY FM reported Minister of Health Richard Anane as saying. Two local pharmaceutical companies have been short-listed but the government plans to contract only one.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"GIVE US YOUR FEEDBACK ON THIS NEWSLETTER!","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Send in information and articles on the work of your organisation, and on equity and health issues in Southern Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Hungry for tobacco: ","field_subtitle":"an analysis of the economic impact of tobacco consumption on the poor in Bangladesh","field_url":"http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/10/3/212","body":"Debra Efroymson, Saifuddin Ahmed, Joy Townsend, Syed Mahbubul Alam, Amit Ranjan Dey, Ranjit Saha, Biplob Dhar, Aminul Islam Sujon, Kayum Uddin Ahmed, Oliur Rahman.\r\nTwenty years ago, it was suggested that \"the nutrition-mediated effects of smoking, in terms of chronic undernutrition as well as survival, are likely to be far more important than the direct consequences of smoking on health\". Although some statistics exist on tobacco use and household expenditures as part of national household expenditure data collection, we are unaware of any research specific to this area in Bangladesh. Tobacco has remained an issue of health and drug addiction, rather than being\r\ninvestigated in its relation to poverty.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28818","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"In the dark over privatisation?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,920709-6078-0,00.html","body":"The Congress of South African Trade Unions' (Cosatu's) strike action against privatisation has placed a large question mark over the effectiveness of South Africa's efforts to privatise parastatals - or at least communicate to the broader community the need to restructure. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"International Conference on Health Policy Research (ICHPR): ","field_subtitle":"Methodological Issues in Health Services and Outcomes Research","field_url":"http://dcc2.bumc.bu.edu/chqoer/hpss/hpss4.htm","body":"Boston, MA, USA - December 7 - 9, 2001. Health Policy Statistics Section (HPSS) - American Statistical Association. \r\nThe conference provides a forum for discussing research needs and solutions to the methodological challenges in health services research. Its specific aim is to create the interface for methodologists and health service researchers. The Program will cover several technical areas including hierarchical models, longitudinal data, causal inference, techniques for assessing quality of care and for profiling providers, techniques for inferring disparities, decision making, data mining, and survey design. The deadline for abstracts: September 17, 2001. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Is that study really necessary?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nature.com/nsu/010906/010906-3.html","body":"Stuck for a punchy conclusion to a scientific paper? Best avoid the mantra 'more research is needed' - a US epidemiologist has now devised a way to work out whether, for any given study, this claim is justified.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Johns Hopkins POPLINE Database Now Available Online","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.popline.org","body":"Looking for the latest information on female genital mutilation? Need a journal article on adolescent reproductive health and HIV/AIDS?\r\nTrying to track down an article on population and the environment? The answers to these questions and much more are now just a few mouse clicks away on the new Internet POPLINE database. POPLINE, the world's largest bibliographic database on population, family planning, and related issues, is now available free of charge on the Internet. All 280,000 citations, representing published and unpublished literature, can be accessed for no charge.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28812","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Liberalisation Throws Women Onto the Streets","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200109040324.html","body":"For a stranger using George Road, two kilometres west of Lusaka, the Zambian capital, the old military Bedford lorries that idle along the road are just another case of careless parking. That could also be the interpretation of the similarly aged and unroadworthy Land Rovers parked nearby. But these monsters are not a testimony to poor road manners..They are parked here to transact business: ferrying gravel that is mined by poor quarry workers in the nearby area. Most of these workers are single or widowed women who are either employed in these mines or they own small mines.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Mbeki Asks Churches to Promote Conflict Resolution","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200109040319.html","body":"Speaking to a World Council of Churches WCC delegation and representatives of the South African Council of Churches SACC recently, South African President Thabo Mbeki urged both the WCC and all other religious bodies in Southern Africa to help resolve conflicts in the Southern African Development Community SADC region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Nutrition in Africa:","field_subtitle":"2 CDs giving 12 training modules on African nutrition","field_url":"http://www.nutrition.uu.se","body":"2 CDs on African nutrition are available from Dr Britta Ogle, Dept of Rural Development Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P O Box 7005, 75007 Uppsala, Sweden. The costs are free but there is limited availability so\r\npriority will be given to Africans. The CD Roms can be copied.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"PAARL AIDS PROGRAMME A WORLD-BEATER ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://196.14.83.3/briefing/nw20010824/29.html","body":"A programme being run in Paarl in the Western Cape to reduce the risk of babies contr!acting HIV from their mothers during birth is setting standards not only for the rest of South Africa, but for the world. The programme is offered at the provincial administration's TC Newman health care centre, one of 18 sites countrywide designated by the national health ministry as pilots for testing \"operational issues\" around the use of the anti-retroviral Nevirapine. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Partnership for  Global Health Equity","field_subtitle":"2001 Call for Proposals  ","field_url":"http://www.idrc.ca/health","body":"The Partnership for Global Health Equity is a small grants facility created to provide seed funding for Canada-South partnerships that involve the production or utilisation of equity-oriented research for health. The Partnership is housed at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and has a number of contributors, including IDRC, RITC, CIDA, CSIH, CPHA, and other Canadian and developing country health research organisations. The inaugural October 2001 competition will be administered by the Canadian Society for International Health. The Partnership seeks to encourage a range of innovative health research related activities and partnerships that are focussed on the health priorities faced by Southern countries and are pro-equity, gender-sensitive, participatory, and trans-disciplinary. Priority research areas include tobacco control policy, population health and community-based approaches to HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, health equity, and globalisation and health. The Partnership intends to fund research whose current theme, approach, and/or partnerships do not readily fit under already existing funding frameworks, and thus to identify some of the current gaps in health research funding and to explore mechanisms to increase the resources available for important and innovative health research activities. The application deadline is October 1st 2001.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28810","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"PERI: Full Access to Online Journals and Databases in Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.inasp.org.uk/peri/","body":"The International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) is pleased to announce the completion of the first phase of the Programme for the Enhancement of Research Information (PERI). This is an important programme aimed at the wider access and dissemination of scientific and scholarly information and knowledge with and between developing and transitional countries. Researchers, academics, scholars and librarians in Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda are now invited to access current awareness databases, full-text online journals and document delivery for free. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28788","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty and tobacco","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/10/3/210","body":"Joy de Beyer, Chris Lovelace, Ayda Y\u00fcrekli, World Bank, Washington DC, USA.\r\nConcern about the harm that tobacco use causes usually focuses on the risks of serious illness and premature death that smokers and their families face. The statistics are probably well known to readers of this journal. An estimated 4 million deaths are caused by tobacco each year, with the figure expected to reach 10 million per year by 2030 given current trends in tobacco use. The proportion of that burden borne by people living in low and middle income countries is rapidly increasing from 50% to 70%. Countries\r\nstill grappling with infectious diseases traditionally associated with low incomes, increasingly also face a rising epidemic of cancers, and respiratory and circulatory diseases caused by tobacco.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28817","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty, Inequality, and Health: An International Perspective ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Leon DA, Walt G, eds. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001.\r\nThe editors identify four themes: health consequences of social and economic change; conceptual issues associated with health and wealth, including the role of health services; emerging and neglected priorities, e.g., the significance of mental illness and injuries; and evidence for policy and interventions. The role of the health care system is considered to be a central issue. The editors argue that access to health care is typically viewed as being more likely to affect health differences in developing than in developed nations, where, relatively speaking, access is more readily available. In contrast, in the developed world, health disparities, they argue, are more likely to be viewed as being due to differences in lifestyle and environmental exposures. Later, they acknowledge that health disparities, in fact, are due to the independent and joint effects of access to health care, as well as to other factors, including lifestyle and the effects of the physical environment.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28824","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Private health care in developing countries ","field_subtitle":"If it is to work, it must start from what users need","field_url":"http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7311/463","body":"BMJ September, 2001 )\r\nThree objectives are recommended in relation to the private provision of care for conditions of public health importance: widening access, improving quality, and ensuring non-exploitative prices. None of these will be simple to achieve; and multifaceted interventions, involving policymakers, providers, and users will be required. Increasingly service users (or \"consumers\") are being highlighted as the key to driving improvements to achieve these goals. Their role has, however, been little evaluated in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Public\u2013private partnerships for health: ","field_subtitle":"their main targets, their diversity, and their future directions","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/pdf/2001/issue8/vol79.no.8.713-720.pdf","body":"Roy Widdus, Public\u2013Private Partnerships for Health, Global Forum for Health Research\r\nBulletin of the World Health Organization, August 2001, 79 (8)\r\nA large variety of public\u2013private partnerships, combining the skills and resources of a wide range of collaborators, have arisen for product development, disease control through product donation and distribution, or the general strengthening or coordination of health services. Administratively, such partnerships may either involve affiliation with international organizations, i.e. they are essentially public-sector programmes with private-sector participation, or they may be legally independent not-for-profit bodies. These partnerships should be regarded as social experiments; they show promise but are not a panacea. New ventures should be built on need, appropriateness, and lessons on good practice learnt from experience. Suggestions are made for public, private, and joint activities that could help to improve the access of poor populations to the pharmaceuticals and health services they need.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Reinsurance of health insurance for the informal sector","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/pdf/2001/issue7/bu0980.pdf","body":"David M. Dror, International Labour Organization (ILO) Bulletin of the World Health Organization, July 2001, 79: 672\u2013678.\r\nDeficient financing of health services in low-income countries and the absence of universal insurance coverage leaves most of the informal sector in medical indigence, because people cannot assume the financial consequences of illness. The role of communities in solving this problem has been recognized, and many initiatives are under way. However, community financing is rarely structured as health insurance. Communities that pool risks (or offer insurance) have been described as micro-insurance units. The sources of their financial instability and the options for stabilization are explained. Field data from Uganda and the Philippines, as well as simulated situations, are used to examine the arguments. The article focuses on risk transfer from micro-insurance units to reinsurance. The main insight of the study is that when the financial results of micro-insurance units can be estimated, they can enter reinsurance treaties and be stabilized from the first year. The second insight is that the reinsurance pool may require several years of operation before reaching cost neutrality.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Researchers, Institute of Development Studies, UK","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/news/recruit/index.html","body":"The Institute of Development Studies, UK, is seeking to appoint two or three researchers to strengthen and expand its health and social change team. We encourage applications from outstanding applicants with a broad interest in issues of health and development. We particularly encourage people who can contribute to our work on one of the following: gender and health equity, health sector reform and development in China, or new approaches to health development in Africa. Closing Date: 8th October 2001. Interview Date: 29th & 30th October 2001.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28729","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Responding to the Burden of Mental Illness","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cmhealth.org/docs/wg1_paper12.pdf","body":"Harvey Whiteford, M. Teeson, R. Scheurer, Dean Jamison. CMH Working Paper No. WG1 : 12, July 2001 Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, WHO \r\nMental Disorders are found in all cultures, are prevalent, cause considerable disability and rank high on the league table of world disease burden. By extension, they constitute a significant economic burden in all countries. Better understanding the extent of this economic burden and the development of frameworks to deliver cost effective interventions will provide a basis for programs which not only reduce the disability associated with these disorders but also promote human development and economic productivity. International agencies such as the World Health Organisation are intensifying their focus on mental illness with the World Health Report 2001 dedicated to mental health. The World Bank has identified neuropsychiatric disorders as an important emerging public health problem for developing market economies.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Rights and the Struggle for Health","field_subtitle":"Human Rights Dialogue, Series 2 Number 6, Summer 2001","field_url":"http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/themes/hrdsummer2001.html","body":"Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs. Summer 2001 - Human Rights Dialogue.\r\nDoes it help to think of poverty or inadequate health care as violations of basic rights? As several recent articles -- including the August 18 cover story of the Economist -- will attest, the definition of human rights has expanded to include economic and social rights, such as the right to health and the right to food. Human rights campaigners -- such as such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International -- are increasingly lobbying for this, pointing out that there are currently more than 880 million people who lack access to basic health services, and 790 million who lack adequate nutrition. About 11 million children under age five die from preventable causes. The Summer 2001 issue of Human Rights Dialogue explores the challenges posed by incorporating the struggle for health into human rights campaigns. On the face of it, tying health to human rights concerns is a mark of progress. Health professionals, policymakers and activists should feel compelled to reevaluate their medical practices and health systems, which in many cases means reforming those medical practices and challenging institutional barriers. By the same token, those who are deprived of the basic right to health will be empowered to argue for access to adequate healthcare.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Seeks to Harmonise Aims","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200109100460.html","body":"MINISTERS from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have agreed on negotiating objectives for the fourth World Trade Organisation ministerial conference that takes place in Dohar, Qatar, between November 9 and 13.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Socioeconomic Inequalities in Child Malnutrition in the Developing World","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://econ.worldbank.org/docs/1189.pdf","body":"Adam Wagstaff, Naoko Watanabe, Poverty and Human Resources, Development  Research Group World Bank, September, 2000. \r\nDespite the development community's shift in emphasis toward the poor, malnutrition, like other dimensions of poor health, is concentrated among the worst off. Yet targets are still defined in terms of population averages. Consider, then, this information about malnutrition rates among different economic groups in 20 developing countries. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28796","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Government Sued ","field_subtitle":"\\'Refusal\\' to Provide HIV-Positive Pregnant Women With Access to Nevirapine","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_hiv_recent_rep.cfm?dr_cat=1&show=yes&dr_DateTime=22-Aug-01#6526","body":"The South African AIDS advocacy group Treatment Action Campaign and two other parties filed a lawsuit Tuesday against South African Health Minister Dr. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and nine provincial health ministers in an effort to require the South African government to provide nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant women cared for in the public health sector, Reuters/South African Broadcasting Corporation reports. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"TANZANIA: Prostitutes Press For Legalization Of Trade","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/2001/08/22/current.asp#16967","body":"A Tanzanian prostitute who addressed an International Labor Organization-sponsored conference in Tanzania described the dangers faced by sex workers and demanded the immediate legalization of prostitution.  It was the first time in Tanzania that a woman publicly described the experiences of prostitutes, African Eye News Service reports.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Telephone Hotlines Provide HIV/AIDS Information in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ippfnet.ippf.org/pub/IPPF_News/News_Details.asp?ID=1353","body":"Two African nations struggling to cope with the HIV/AIDS epidemic have launched telephone hotline systems to provide the most up-to-date and accurate information about the disease. Callers in Nigeria and South Africa concerned about such basic questions as how the virus is transmitted, where to get tested, and how effective condoms are in preventing HIV/AIDS now have the answers at their fingertips. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Medical Profession and Human Rights ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.jrsm.org/cgi/content/full/94/8/420","body":"Review by Derek Summerfield Department of Psychiatry, St George's Hospital Medical School, London, UK J R Soc Med 2001;94:420-421\r\n\u00a9 2001 The Royal Society of Medicine \r\nAttempting to encompass a yet wider and evolving set of debates, including the question of whether it is useful to consider \u2018health\u2019 as a human rights objective, to stimulate cooperation between medical bodies, non-governmental organizations and others who recognize that political and social reform is the best medicine, and to provide practical guidance in areas as varied as protective measures for whistleblowers, ethics training, the medical examination of asylum-seekers and the creation of support systems for prison doctors...Do some rights matter more than others? As the economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen points out, no simple equation can be made about which rights confer most benefit to most people. Intuitively, he says, all societies experience much greater outrage at serious violations of civil and political rights than at neglect of economic, social and cultural rights. Political imprisonment, torture and assassinations seem more shocking and more \u2018wrong\u2019 than the failure of States to provide basic means of survival, even though the latter typically causes far greater loss of life. Sen has also shown that no substantial famine has ever occurred in a country with a democratic form of government and a relatively free press.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Provider Perspective: Human After All ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/journals/2715201.html","body":"By James D. Shelton \r\nFor more than 20 years, the family planning and reproductive health field has promoted the understanding of the \"user perspective,\"1 and rightly so. We've learned that in order to have successful programs that serve clients well, we need a better understanding of the people being served. But what of providers? Although providers are obviously essential partners in service programs, their perspectives have received remarkably little attention. That is a major gap. In the early 1990s, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) put forward its seminal work on the \"needs of the provider\" to complement its \"rights of the client.\"2 But to improve programs further, we need to see the world through the providers' eyes and understand them better. Who are they? How do they see their jobs, their roles and their programs? What are their needs and motivations? What aspects of their work environments challenge them? What is the human dimension of their overall lives, and how can we best enlist their help to improve access to services and the quality of programs? ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Trade in Health Services","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cmhealth.org/docs/wg4_paper5.pdf","body":"Rupa Chanda. CMH Working Paper No. WG 4: 5 - June 2001. Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, WHO.\r\nThe objective of this study is to provide an overview of the nature of international trade in health services and the lessons that can be learnt from the national, regional, and multilateral experience in this context. This study discusses the various ways in which health services can be traded, the main global players in this trade, and the positive as well as negative implications of this trade for equity, efficiency, quality, and access to health services. It also outlines some of the main barriers constraining trade in health services. The study also highlights the experiences of various countries as well as regional trading blocs with regard to trade in health services and the progress made thus far in liberalizing trade in health services under the WTO\u2019s General Agreement on Trade in Services. Based on the national, regional, and multilateral experience with trade in health services, the study draws broad conclusions about the main issues and concerns which characterize this trade and recommends policy measures to ensure that gains from trade in health services are realized while mitigating the potential adverse consequences of such trade.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28825","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Who's misunderstanding whom?  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.esrc.ac.uk/whom/whofirst.html","body":"ESRC/ Economic and Social Research Council and British Academy, London, UK - 2000 \r\nAn inquiry into the relationship between science and the media, presents an agenda of current issues for examination by social science researchers, science policy experts, the media and scientists.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Workers Without Health Insurance: ","field_subtitle":"Who Are They and How Can Policy Reach Them?","field_url":"http://www.urban.org/pdfs/workershealthins.pdf","body":"Urban Institute - August, 2001, Washington, D.C., USA.\r\nA new Urban Institute report on workers without health insurance suggests that the most efficient way to increase coverage is to target subsidies toward low-income workers. The report offers the most detailed picture yet of the uninsured working population\u2014now numbering more than 16 million\u2014and compares the relative merits of two key vehicles for expanding coverage: tax credits or public programs. Researchers Bowen Garrett, Len Nichols and Emily Greenman, characterizes today\u2019s uninsured and examines the policy implications. The report, based on analyses of 1999 Current Population Survey data and a survey of the literature on the working uninsured, was developed for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation as part of its Community Voices: HealthCare for the Underserved initiative series.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE - ","field_subtitle":"US TRADE POLICY ROBS POOR PEOPLE OF THEIR HEALTH!","field_url":"http://www.oxfam.org.uk/unclesam/","body":"Third World Network, Oxfam International and Health Gap Coalition are launching a global online petition which we hope will demonstrate the strength of global public support for WTO patent rules that put people before the profits of powerful drug companies. The petition is addressed to George Bush as a leading international figure whose government is blocking changes and clarifications to the TRIPS Agreement that would mean cheaper medicines for people in developing countries. The petition will run from September 1st through to the WTO Ministerial in Quatar in November where it will be handed over to the US Government. Sign and support the petition which is online at the Oxfam website.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28784","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe: Health Minister Rules Out Compulsory HIV/AIDS Tests","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200108310002.html","body":"Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Timothy Stamps, has turned down a call by the Zimbabwe Medical Association (ZIMA) to introduce compulsory HIV/AIDS testing of all patients, the 'Daily News' reported on Thursday.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe: New Sex Law to Curb HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200108290002.html","body":"Zimbabwe has passed a new law that criminalises the deliberate transmission of HIV/AIDS, recognises rape in marriages, and imposes heavy penalties for other sexual offenses, AFP reported on Monday.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe: SADC to Monitor Dialogue","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200109120314.html","body":"Zimbabwe's government and opposition will embark on a \"national dialogue\" aimed at ending 18 months of violent unrest, the chairman of a summit of regional leaders meeting on the crisis in Harare said on Wednesday. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-09-13","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"29th Annual Conference - The Global Health Council","field_subtitle":"28-31 May 2002, Washington DC, USA","field_url":"http://www.globalhealth","body":"The Global Health Council invites healthcare providers, community organizers, program managers, policy makers, researchers, and advocates from around the world to submit abstracts for presentation at their 29th Annual Conference, 28-31 May 2002, in Washington, D.C. Abstracts are being solicited to present research and experience (in Panel Sessions, Roundtable Sessions, and/or Poster Presentations)that: 1) Further defines the challenges of global health in times of crisis, and 2) Identifies effective policies and programs to improve the health status of populations, especially of vulnerable groups. For full description refer to the online Call for Abstracts available in the Annual Conference section on GHC's website. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28742","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A new chapter for Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,892584-6096-0,00.html","body":"THE highly visible Group of Eight (G-8) summit has come and gone. The sight of tens of thousands of demonstrators in the coastal city of Genoa, Italy, still lingers in the mind. The world was watching closely as the leaders of the most economically influential countries deliberated. The massive protests should not cloud the fact that the leaders chose to embark on an irreversible path of dialogue with leaders of the developing south. In Italy we saw Africa's new initiatives the Millennium Africa Recovery Programme (MAP) and the Omega Plan indelibly placed on the map of world attention. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, HARARE, ZIMBABWE ","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/vacancy428.html","body":"Provide administrative support for operation of DPM's office. Contact Human Resources.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Africa Would Need EU-Style Pacts","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200107170035.html","body":"Conditions required for the creation of an African central bank were discussed yesterday by central bank governors from the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The talks in Johannesburg, chaired by SA Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni, were to prepare an SADC position for a three-day meeting next month of African central bankers.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Article reproduction request","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"I read your newsletter with great interest and great sadness. With so little information coming to us from Africa unless the BBC starts a campaign, your newsletter provides a refining and\r\nrebalancing of perceptions.\r\n\r\nWith my editor's hat on I was particularly interested in the story about \"Asbestos workers buried in mass graves\". This is atrocious\r\nand I would like to include the story, or an expanded story, in Safety At Work. Who should I contact for permission to reproduce the article, or where can I go for further information on this\r\nspecific issue.\r\n\r\nBest Regards\r\n\r\nKevin Jones\r\nWorkplace Safety Services, publisher of Safety At Work\r\nAustralia\r\nwww.worksafety.com.au\r\n\r\nOur reply: As far as quoting material from Equinet is concerned, you are free to use what you want, so long as you quote the original source when you do so.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"ATCnet Database for the African Health and HIV-AIDS Crisis ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.atcnet.org","body":"ATCnet has launched an easily accessible Internet database for the African Health and HIV-AIDS Crisis to consolidate information about organizations and individuals that are working to combat the crisis. There is a growing global appreciation of the enormity of the health and HIV-AIDS crisis in Africa. With this database it will be possible to publicize the enormous amount of work that African organizations and individuals are doing in Africa to address the pandemic.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28733","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Cesarean Birth a \"Human Right\"","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/hivaids/section3_2.shtml","body":"Discrimination against, and inadequate treatment for those living with HIV, especially pregnant women, remains a major problem in the developing South, says Rita Arauz, one of Central America\"s leading experts on HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Chemists round on malaria","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nature.com/nsu/010719/010719-7.html","body":"A molecular loop is looking like a promising candidate for the much-needed malaria vaccine. Developed by scientists in Colombia and Switzerland, the protein-like molecule primes a monkey's immune system, at least, to defend itself against the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"CHIEF OF PARTY FOR A PROGRAM OF ORPHANS CARE & SUPPORT","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/vacancy447.html","body":"Manage a program to advance the learning and practice of community-based support and care of children affected by HIV/AIDS and oversee the development of relationships with stakeholders. \r\nContact Jenny Marion.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Children Affected by HIV/AIDS: Rights and responses in the developing world ","field_subtitle":"Save the Children Working Paper 23","field_url":"http://193.129.255.93/development/global_pub/workingpapers.htm","body":"13 million the of world's children under the age of 15 have lost one or both parents to AIDS. The majority of people infected with HIV are young people in their reproductive years and most of them are parents. The size of this crisis is eroding the hard-won social development successes of the past few decades - as well as threatening child development.  This Working Paper from Save the Children examines the situation of children affected by  HIV/AIDS living in resource poor countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Children's Environmental Health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.prb.org/press/ChildrensEnvironmentalHealth.html","body":"This overview is the first in a series of articles to be published concerning children's environmental health.  This article discusses an array of threats to children's health, resulting in illnesses such as asthma, childhood cancers, lead poisoning, developmental disorders, and endocrine disruption, underscoring children's unique vulnerability to toxicants in the environment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Climate widens the gulf","field_subtitle":"Global warming could make the rich richer and the poor poorer","field_url":"http://www.nature.com/nsu/010712/010712-7.html","body":"Climate change may hit food production in the some of the world's poorest countries hardest while increasing it in many developed countries, according to a report released today that combines the latest climate-change models with detailed data on global land use.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Condom gap in Africa: evidence from donor agencies and key informants ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7305/139","body":"Public discussions on combating HIV in Africa seem to be focusing on antiretroviral drugs rather than condoms, which are the mainstay of prevention. In sub-Saharan Africa most condoms are bought with funds from donors, although a few countries (such as South Africa and Botswana) buy them from national funds. We assessed provision of condoms in these countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Cracks in ANC's alliance widening","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,893734-6078-0,00.html","body":"DIVISIONS within the African National Congress (ANC), and between the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the SA Communist Party (SACP) over privatisation have been thrown into sharp relief at a top-level meeting called to iron out differences in the alliance on the issue. The meeting came as the ANC tries to head off next month's anti privatisation strike by Cosatu. At the same time it is seeking consensus on the restructuring of state assets in the run-up to a two-day alliance meeting scheduled for August 17- 18.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter July 2001 ZAMBIA: Poverty and AIDS forces children onto streets ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Explaining the epidemic: social and economic features of HIV","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h5tb1g1.html","body":"The pattern of the HIV/AIDS epidemic varies between and within world regions. What are the social and economic factors that drive epidemics? Researchers from the UK University of East Anglia and the South African University of Natal use data from Botswana, India, Uganda, the UK and Ukraine to develop a conceptual framework for understanding epidemic patterns.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"GENITAL MUTILATION:  Thousands To Undergo Ritual In Tanzania ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/2001/07/19/index.asp#16110","body":"Approximately 4,000 girls and women between the ages of 12 and 26 from Tanzania's Mara region are scheduled to undergo ritual female genital mutilation (FGM) in October in spite of a government ban on the practice. Mara region elder Marwa Mohabe said last week that the circumcision season, which begins in mid-October and runs until December, was established by traditional \"prophets.\"\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Global DOTS expansion plan","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This report provides the first assessment of the status of TB control financing and the resources needed to expand DOTS coverage in the 22 countries with the highest estimated number of cases. Available from the CDS Information Resource Centre.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Global forum for health research 5","field_subtitle":"Geneva, 9-12 October 2001","field_url":"http://www.globalforumhealth.org/Forum5","body":"The overall objective of Forum 5 is to review progress in addressing the fact that less than ten percent of health research funding tackles 90 percent of the world's health problems. Participants will include policy-makers, researchers, donors and administrators. See the website or email for more information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health Department to Employ Iingcibi in Bid to Curb Deaths","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200107250477.html","body":"In a move to curb Xhosa initiate deaths and mutilations the Health Department would employ experienced iincgibi (traditional surgeons) to perform circumcisions said Eastern Cape Health Department spokesperson Mahlubandile Magida yesterday.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV Impairs Malaria Treatment in Children","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010711/hl/malaria_1.html","body":"Young children who have two of the world's most deadly infectious diseases--malaria and HIV (news - web sites)/AIDS (news - web sites)--may need to be treated with a more potent antimalarial drug than chloroquine, the most widely available and cheapest treatment for malaria, a new report suggests.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS:  Pfizer Drops Vaccine Partnership, More Research Threatened ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/2001/07/10/index.asp#15897","body":"After reviewing results from a clinical trial, pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. Friday pulled out of its partnership with research company Immune Response to produce an AIDS vaccine.  More than a decade of research failed to yield convincing evidence that the vaccine known as Remune helps patients.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS: Women and girls carry the heaviest burden","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/hivaids/section1_3.shtml","body":"When Mariah's husband died late last year of AIDS, she decided not to tell anyone for fear of isolation. \"I first knew of my HIV status when my husband got ill. We both went for HIV testing and we were counseled and given our results. We were both found HIV positive,'' recalls the 35 year-old mother of three. \"My husband got worse and finally died late last year. His relatives insisted that I should be inherited by one of his brothers. This is when I decided to tell them that I was HIV positive and that my husband had died of AIDS.'' Then all hell broke loose.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Information and resources on hepatitis A and hepatitis E","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/hepatiti/","body":"Overviews of the virus, the disease, surveillance and control, prevention and treatment. A glossary and extensive list of references are also provided.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"IPPF AFRICA REGION INTENSIFIES HIV/AIDS EFFORTS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"IPPF Africa Regional Council declared a total commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa at a one day Special Session on HIV/AIDS during its meeting held in Nairobi, Kenya, between 2-4 July 2001. Opening the session, Hon, Major Marsden Madoka, the Minister of State, Office of the President, Government of Kenya, congratulated IPPFAR for taking a bold step in addressing  HIV/AIDS and underscored the importance of NGOs like IPPF in providing leadership in some of the strategies for combating HIV/AIDS in Africa.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28734","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"LECTURER","field_subtitle":"SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, UNIVERSITY OF THE WESTERN CAPE","field_url":"","body":"UWC's School of Public Health provides health and welfare personnel with the necessary tools to facilitate the process of transformation in the country's health and welfare sectors.  The UWC SOPH has established itself as a national leader in public health teaching, research and service development: Its innovative educational and research activities focus on the implementation of district health systems. To qualify for this post, you will need a qualification in the Health Sciences gained at tertiary level, together with a minimum of a Masters degree, preferably in public health, primary health care or a related field. Possession of a doctoral degree would be an advantage. Proven experience in the development and management of health systems and programmes, as well as in health systems research is highly desirable, as is experience in the teaching and supervision of postgraduate students. Closing date: 3 August 2001.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28766","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"LoveLife: Working to Protect South African Youth from HIV","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kff.org/docs/sections/safrica/loveLife.html","body":"This Web site details the loveLife initiative, which attempts to reduce HIV infection among South African adolescents by promoting sexual health and healthy futures for young people. The National Survey of South African Youth is available (you need Adobe Acrobat reader to access the chapters of the report), as well as a resource guide to HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Lastly, information about how the project is reaching out to youth--as well as adults--is detailed. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"MALAWI SUSPENDS PRIVATIZATION PROGRAMME ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://196.14.83.3/briefing/nw20010724/6.html","body":"Malawian authorities said Monday the countrys privatisation programme had been suspended for review following a cabinet decision early this month. \"It's a moment of soul searching. We want to look back at what we have done and see whether we are in the right direction,\" Charles Msosa, principal secretary for privatisation, told AFP. Malawi has privatised 36 of its 100 loss-making parastatals since the program begun in 1995. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"MEDICAL OFFICER/SCIENTIST","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization, Department of Reproductive Health & Research ","field_url":"http://www.comminit.com/vacancy453.html","body":"11-month appointment.  Lead the clinical research program and further develop the network of collaborating centres in developing countries. Contact TMM Farley. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Mozambique: Warning On AIDS Risk for Child Labour","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200107250016.html","body":"UNICEF warned on Monday that child labourers in Mozambique were at a high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and said it would encourage the government to find ways to stop child labour.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Nature or nurture? Child survival after the death of a sibling","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h9fs1g2.html","body":"Why do children have a lower chance of survival if one of their brothers or sisters has died? Are biological or cultural factors responsible for this phenomenon? Research by Macro International, USA and the UK University of Southampton compared the incidence and causes of infant deaths in Bolivia, Kenya, Peru and Tanzania.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Nigerian Government to Exclude People With HIV/AIDS from National Health Insurance Plan","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_hiv_recent_rep.cfm?dr_cat=1&show=yes&dr_DateTime=13-Jul-01#5772","body":"The Nigerian government has drafted a plan for a national health insurance program that would eventually provide coverage for \"all Nigerians,\" but certain individuals with \"[h]igh-cost illnesses\" such as HIV/AIDS would not be eligible to join, the Lancet reports. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"No Right Treatment For Abused Women","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/hivaids/section4_3.shtml","body":"Two killer trends in South African society have combined to heighten women's vulnerability. Grafted onto what activists call an \"endemic\" rate of sexual and domestic violence, the spread of HIV/AIDS has brought a double jeopardy. In a country where a woman is raped every 26 seconds, the horror is exacerbated as rape survivors now deal with a second trauma - that the rapist has passed on his HIV infection.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Orphan Children, Dilapidated Farms","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/hivaids/section5_3.shtml","body":"Drive around Masaka and Rakai districts, along the shores of Lake Victoria, in Uganda, and quickly you see the effects of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) on agriculture: overgrown coffee, dilapidated banana plantations, and empty plots the bush has reclaimed. Around Mulanje district in southern Malawi, collapsed homesteads tell the same story. AIDS killed the parents, the children scattered, and now the family home is a pile of rubble. \"Families affected by chronic illness and death go through increased workloads and impoverishment, leading to the dissolution of the original household unit,\" says an assessment of the impact of AIDS in Mulanje, done by the British charity, Oxfam.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"PRSPs: Should they carry a health warning?","field_subtitle":"IPHN Bulletin Number 6: July 2001 ","field_url":"http://www.iphn.org/bulletin6.htm","body":"PRSPs are Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers.  A poor country is required to produce one of these before it can receive assistance in the form of loans from the World Bank.  These papers are said to differ from Structural Adjustment Policies in that their focus is poverty reduction and that they are to be developed through a process which involves a broad range of local stakeholders, rather than being imposed in a top-down manner by the Bretton-Woods institutions.  It can be argued that their introduction is a response to some of the critical feedback received by the World Bank/IMF through initiatives such as Jubilee 2000.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Public-private partnerships: illustrative examples","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/tdr/publications/publications/partnerships.htm","body":"This background paper by Adetokunbo Lucas describes how collaboration between the public and private sectors can be productive and successful, providing opportunities to achieve goals that could not be achieved by either sector working alone.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Putting policy into practice: can local government cope?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights37/insights-iss37-policy.html","body":"Increasingly, the debate over private sector involvement in the delivery of urban water services is addressing pro-poor policies and transactions. Yet, improvements in policy are not being accompanied by support for implementation and little emphasis is being placed on how local governments will cope with such complex processes. What capacity do municipalities need to make policy frameworks work in practice? How do municipalities change from 'providers' to 'enablers' and 'promoters'? How do municipalities focus partnerships on the poor? ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Rights For Women Can Stem The Spread Of HIV/AIDS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ipsnews.net/hivaids/section1_6.shtml","body":"For women's rights activists, the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS among women and girls reveals shortcomings in the way governments have tried to stem the spread of this pandemic. Among such shortcomings, they point out, is the greater emphasis on perceiving the disease as simply a health issue, consequently ignoring the reasons for its spread - which is \"a gender issue.\" \"Gender-related discrimination and a denial of women's economic, social and cultural rights contribute to women's vulnerability to HIV infections,\" says Geeta Rao Gupta, president of the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW), a Washington-based non-profit organisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SA: GREAT GAPS IN LAND AND HOUSING ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.fm.co.za/01/0713/opinion/guest.htm","body":"Since 1994, government has implemented a subsidised housing programme on a scale that is large by any standard. Why, then, do we see land invasions such as those at Bredell? The gap is this: there is not adequate provision for the very poor, or for absolutely basic needs. The striking thing about Bredell is that the people are not demanding a government-provided house or services, but a piece of land on which they can build a home for themselves, in which they can be secure, and where services can be provided in due course. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"SA: Pregnant Women Refusing AIDS Test","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200107160361.html","body":"A LARGE number of pregnant women attending ante-natal clinics in Gauteng are refusing to take HIV-Aids tests, according to figures from four centres running intervention programmes on mother-to-child transmission.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SA: Trials Show Antiretroviral Therapy Can Benefit the Poor","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200107130306.html","body":"According to a 'Sunday Independent' report, clinical trials conducted in Johannesburg and Cape Town have shown that despite poverty and scarce clinical resources, antiretrovirals can be used successfully by poor people. These findings come after the government's repeated refusal to offer antiretroviral therapy to all saying the majority of South Africans were poor and would misuse the drugs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC: Most Important Region in Terms of FDI Flows to Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200107160186.html","body":"FOREIGN Direct Investment (FDI) inflows to Africa declined by more than 13% in 2000, according to UNCTAD estimates released late last week. Within sub-Saharan Africa, the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) remained the most important sub-region in terms of FDI inflows, which nonetheless dropped from $5.3 billion in 1999 to $3.9 billion in 2000.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Search global population and health data","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.worldpop.org/prbdata.htm","body":"This database contains data on 85 demographic variables for 221 countries in the world, for 28 world regions and sub-regions, for the world as a whole, for the United States as a whole, and for the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Variables include data on family planning, reproductive health, youth sexual activity, breastfeeding, and women's political participation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Services for children with communication disorders ","field_subtitle":"parents and professionals speak out","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h3sh1g2.html","body":"How can health services meet the needs of children with communication disorders in developing countries? What can health professionals and parents add to the debate? A study by the UK Institute of Child Health sought the opinions of specialist professionals and parents of children with communication disorders in Nigeria.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Slow progress? Monitoring HIV disease in Uganda","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h5cg1g1.html","body":"Understanding HIV disease progression is critical for planning healthcare strategies in developing countries. What is the best way to monitor disease progression in the absence of laboratory tests? How does HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa differ from developed regions? A study by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the Uganda Virus Research Institute addressed these issues.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Sorting Dire Need From Opportunism","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200107180327.html","body":"Confronted with a massive movement of people to South Africa, Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi has called on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to address the problems that lead to people seeking asylum.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Bishops Consider Condom Use","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://ippfnet.ippf.org/pub/IPPF_News/News_Details.asp?ID=1256","body":"With millions of Africans dying from AIDS and millions more infected every year, a group of Roman Catholic clergy in southern Africa is debating whether the church should relax its ban on condom use. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South African Court Orders Man to Pay Wife Damages for Infecting Her With HIV ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_hiv_recent_rep.cfm?dr_cat=1&show=yes&dr_DateTime=17-Jul-01#5833","body":"South African High Court acting Judge Naren Pandya last week ordered a man to pay his wife $116,400 (one million rand) in damages for infecting her with HIV, marking the first time in South Africa a woman has \"claimed damages\" for being \"wilfully\" infected with HIV by her husband.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The rich and the poor ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,893573-6096-0,00.html","body":"SHOW us the money. That is the sceptic's response to claims of a breakthrough in the fight against global poverty after the weekend Group of 8 (G-8) meeting. On the face of it, the rich countries' summit yielded negligible benefits. The announcement of a $1bn fund to help fight HIV/Aids and other illnesses is disappointing not only because the number is pitifully small. The inadequate gesture underlines the rich countries' failure to acknowledge that spending on aid should be redirected. The rich world's aid culture needs a radical rethink to ensure that the cash available to the developing world is spent most effectively. The idea should be for rich countries to channel more money into the health fund, and less into ad hoc aid projects. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"UN Examines Conditions Related To Falling Birth Rates ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/2001/07/16/index.asp#16042","body":"Fertility rates in most high-fertility countries are declining, a UN workshop concluded last week, though some participants questioned whether this trend would continue, saying the decline was driven by crisis-- either by economic conditions or civil strife -- rather than by developments in social and economic conditions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"What mothers do: responses to childhood fever on the Kenyan Coast","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h9sm1g1.html","body":"Do rural and urban mothers differ in their choice of health providers when their children are ill? How does proximity to different health facilities affect a mother's decision? These questions are important for health planners responding to rising urban poverty and ill health, as sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of urbanisation in the developing world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO CIVIL SOCIETY INTIATIVE","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"In a response to pressures from civil society organisations (CSOs) internationally, especially through the People's Health Assembly held in Dhaka in December 2000, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has finally conceded the importance of engaging with CSOs. Commenting on the formation of the WHO Civil Society Intiative, Eva Wallstam, Director, said: \"This is a time when the Health for All core values of equity, dignity and human rights, need to be more clearly articulated ... For WHO this means reaching out, beyond the formal health sector to other partners and to a wide range of civil society actors.\" The full text of her speech is available below.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28765","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Why should governments serve the poor?  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/insights/insights37/insights-iss37-government.html","body":"Is government responsible for ensuring public health? Is it necessary for public entities to  deliver this public good? Who else might serve the unprofitable urban poor? ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Experts Fly in With TB Lifeline","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200107250044.html","body":"World Health Organisation representatives will visit South Africa next month to assess whether the country qualifies for drugs being made available at hugely discounted prices which are effective against drug-resistant tuberculosis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WTO Conference Ends, As Stakeholders Are Pessimistic","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200107250047.html","body":"The World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial conference which was taking place in Zanzibar ended yesterday as ministers from the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are still pessimistic on the effectiveness and workability of globalization initiatives to address marginalisation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"ZAMBIA: Poverty and AIDS forces children onto streets ","field_subtitle":"LUSAKA, 17 July (IRIN) ","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/pubsgen/aids/","body":"Pint-sized Edgar was 10 when he left his mother's shack in eastern Zambia to seek his fortune in Lusaka, the bustling capital of 1.3 million people.\r\n\r\nThe puny but plucky youngster had no inkling about life in the city, but he was not perturbed.  Nothing, he thought, could be worse than the miserable life he had led in Lundazi.\r\n\r\nIt was an existence of few pleasures and endless chores.  From morning, when he hauled several bucketfuls of water from a communal well half a kilometre away, to midnight, when the neighbourhood tavern at which he tried to sell his mother's hard-boiled eggs closed, the little boy knew no respite.  When business was slow, his mother held him personally responsible and whipped him or denied him his supper, or both.\r\n\r\nTwo years on, Edgar has given up the quest for his fortune.  He starts his day in the central business district, where he alternatively begs and runs errands to raise enough money for the imperative dose of \"glue\" - an intoxicating concoction of petrol and adhesives that the destitute sniff to dull the harsh realities of life on the streets.  At midday, he walks over to Fountain of Hope, a non-governmental organisation outside the city centre that rehabilitates street children, for a free meal.\r\n\r\nEdgar's life, multiplied many times over, represents the lot of thousands of the children that swarm the streets of Lusaka in a desperate quest for survival.  Their number has risen markedly over the past few years, doubling to 75,000 since 1991.\r\n\r\nThe conventional wisdom is that the increase in their number is a direct consequence of HIV/AIDS.  It is generally assumed that most of the children are forced onto the streets by poverty after one or both of their parents died of AIDS-related complications.  According to the ministry of health, Zambia had around 520,000 AIDS orphans in 1999.  That number is expected to rise to 895,000 by 2009 and to 974,000 by 2014.\r\n\r\n\"Perhaps half of all street children are orphaned children, indicating growing pressures on extended families to cope with the rapidly increasing orphan population,\" the ministry said in a report entitled 'HIV/AIDS in Zambia'.\r\n\r\nHowever, new evidence suggests the HIV/AIDS pandemic is not necessarily the main reason that a growing number of Zambian children are living on the streets.  To begin with, around half of the 75,000 street children in Lusaka are not orphans.  Moreover, recent studies have revealed the lot of Zambian children with parents is no different from that of orphaned ones.\r\n\r\n\"There is little difference in economic status between orphan and non-orphan children.  Seventy-five percent of orphan children are found in households living below the poverty line and 73 percent of non-orphan children are also living in households below the poverty line,\" the government's 1999 Situational Analysis of Orphans and Vulnerable Children points out.  \"These problems (of food shortages, poor health, inadequate education and bedding) actually affect all the children, orphan and non-orphan, and indeed, all the community members,\" the report added.\r\n\r\nMoreover, there is a growing realisation that poverty is not the only factor that forces children to live on the streets.  That, at least, has been the experience of Foundation of Hope, which deals with an average 500 street children per day, providing them with food, schooling and shelter.\r\n\r\n\"A lot of other factors besides poverty, including psychological pressures, force children to leave their homes.  Some leave to escape abuse of one sort or another, and others are compelled to go on the streets by peer pressure,\"\r\nFountain of Hope administrative officer Emmanuel Mukanda told IRIN.\r\n\r\nAccording to Mukanda, children who leave their homes for reasons other than economic pressure tend to be more difficult to rehabilitate than those forced on the streets by poverty.  \"Those children who ran away from home often require intensive counselling.  The others, who are forced onto the streets by poverty, are relatively easy to reform.  Once their basic material needs are met, their main problems are over,\" he said.\r\n\r\nThe realisation that many children end up on the streets because of psychological pressures prompted Fountain of Hope to extend its counselling services to the parents of runaway children.  \"Many parents come here to look for their missing children, and we try to counsel them along with the children.  Sometimes, we succeed in bridging their differences, and the children return home,\" said Mukanda.\r\n\r\nObservers, including the government and UNICEF, see the misconception that destitution among Zambian children is largely AIDS-related as sometimes diverting communities away from effective interventions.  They argue that while the plight of orphan and non-orphan poor children is broadly similar, their specific needs can be different.\r\n\r\n\"There is ...  value in distinguishing between orphans and other vulnerable children when considering psychological support, protection of rights, interventions targeted to their specific status as orphans and epidemiological surveys,\" notes the government's Situational Analysis of Orphans and Vulnerable Children.\r\n\r\nMoreover, Zambia, a country of 10 million people, has 19 non-governmental organisations whose core missions are to alleviate the plight of AIDS orphans.  Few such organisations exist to address the concerns of destitute non-orphan children.  However, there are signs that society is beginning to appreciate the fact that the problem of destitute children goes beyond AIDS orphans.\r\n\r\n\"Although communities start by looking at the needs of orphans, they soon reformulate their criteria to include other vulnerable children, namely those who are extremely poor,\" UNICEF notes in a report entitled, 'Children Orphaned by AIDS'.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28754","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Zimbabwe: Health Services Crippled As Doctors, Nurses Strike","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200107250466.html","body":"A strike by government doctors and nurses crippled state hospital services in the country's main cities on Wednesday, AP reported. Quoting the Hospital Doctors Association, the agency said about 350 doctors stopped work on Tuesday in the cities of Harare, the capital, and Bulawayo, the second city, demanding better salaries and allowances.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-26","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":" World Disasters Report 2001: Focuses on recovery","field_subtitle":"The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies","field_url":"http://www.ifrc.org/publicat/wdr2001/","body":"Disasters disrupt life, livelihoods, economies, political systems, belief systems - in short, everything that makes society work. The 2001\r\nedition of the World Disasters Report looks at how humanitarian agencies and governments can best help disaster-affected communities to recover, to become stronger and more disaster resilient. How can the gaps between short-term relief and longer-term recovery be bridged?Published annually since 1993, the World Disasters Report brings together the latest trends, facts and analysis of the world's ever-growing humanitarian crises.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"'HIV Statistics Are Starting to Improve'","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200107050257.html","body":"Latest statistics on the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Zambia indicate that slowly things are starting to move in the right direction, out-going first development secretary at the Norwegian Embassy in Lusaka Kikkan Haugen has said. Speaking at his farewell party organised by the Family Health Trust yesterday, Haugen said prevalence rates among young girls were down and overall levels of the pandemic were also levelling off.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"'Poor People Are Not Stupid'","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200107050433.html","body":"In the face of increasing land hunger among South Africa's poor, the government has appealed for patience while pursuing strong-arm tactics against those who illegally invade land. Many of the thousands of East Rand squatters who paid the Pan Africanist Congress R25 for their own plot of land were charged with trespassing on Thursday as the government's legal proceedings to obtain an eviction order from the Pretoria High Court were pending.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"2nd international health conference: ","field_subtitle":"reshaping the nursing landscape","field_url":"http://www.wits.ac.za/fac/med/nursing","body":"Johannesburg, South Africa, 19/20 June 2002\r\nThis conference calls on the profession to respond with a new frame of mind and new insights on: educating health professionals; clinical practice, care and research; health informatics and technology; and new contexts and trends. Email Robbie Cameron for more information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A Patent Policy Proposal for Global Diseases ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://brook.edu/views/papers/lanjouw/20010611.htm","body":"Jean Lanjouw1, Associate Professor of Economics, Yale University, Visiting Fellow, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution \r\nJune 11, 2001\r\nThere are two identifiable types of diseases in developing countries. Some, such as malaria, are specific to poor countries, but many others, such as cancer, have a high incidence in all countries. These differences give rise to quite distinct drug markets. In particular, for global diseases, pharmaceutical industry profits derived from having a monopoly over sales in poor countries make only a marginal contribution to total world-wide profit and therefore the incentives to invest in research. At the same time, even a small price increase due to such a monopoly in a poor country can greatly reduce the number of people able to purchase patented drugs and the welfare of those who do. This paper describes a policy that could improve on the current patent regime by acknowledging these differences in markets and what they imply for optimal patent protection. It allows protection to strengthen for diseases specific to developing countries where a clear argument can be made that some form of new incentives are warranted. At the same time, it effectively keeps protection at its current level in situations where increased profits are less likely to generate new innovation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"African Groups Disappointed by UN AIDS Declaration ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.oneworld.net/ips2/june01/03_22_009.html","body":"African civil society groups packed their bags to return home distressed that commitments made at the recent UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV- AIDS would amount to mere rhetoric. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"ARE WOMEN OVERREPRESENTED AMONG THE POOR?  ","field_subtitle":"AN ANALYSIS OF POVERTY IN TEN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ","field_url":"http://www.cgiar.org/ifpri/divs/fcnd/dp.htm","body":"By Agnes R.  Quisumbing, Lawrence Haddad, and Christine. \r\nThis paper presents new evidence on the proportion of women in poverty in ten developing countries.  It compares poverty measures for males and females and male- and female-headed households, and investigates the sensitivity of these measures to the use of per-capita and per-adult equivalent units and different definitions of the poverty line.  While poverty measures are higher for female-headed households and for females, the differences are significant in only a fifth to a third of the datasets.  Due to their low population share, the contribution of female-headed households to aggregate poverty is less than that of females.  Stochastic dominance analysis reveals that differences between male- and female-headed households, and between males and females, are often insignificant, except for Ghana and Bangladesh, where females are consistently worse off.  These results suggest that cultural and institutional factors may be responsible for higher poverty among women in these countries.  Our results point to the need to analyze determinants of household income and consumption, using multivariate methods and to give greater attention to the processes underlying female headship.\r\nFor hard copy, please write to Bonnie McClafferty.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Asbestos workers buried in mass graves ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,879504-6080-0,00.html","body":"HUNDREDS of former Cape Plc workers who died from asbestos related diseases before 1968 were buried in unmarked mass graves in the Northern Cape and the Northern Province, it was reported on Sunday. According to the television report about 15 000 people, including children as young as seven, were employed by the company between 1893 and 1979. SABC said documents in its possession indicated that the company colluded with the apartheid government to continue its mining operations in SA from 1968.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Biology or behaviour? HIV reduces the fertility of African women","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h7bz1g1.html","body":"Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been hardest hit by the AIDS pandemic. As the tragedy unfolds, there is growing evidence that HIV affects fertility and may influence fertility change across the sub-region. But what are the mechanisms underlying these changes and how should data be used to calculate more accurately the effect of HIV on fertility?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"CD-ROM on Importance of Safe Blood","field_subtitle":"Safe Blood Starts With Me, Blood Saves Lives ","field_url":"","body":"Today, information sharing is getting simpler and getting better. The Blood Transfusion Safety Team at WHO is pleased to make available - free of charge - a CD-ROM containing facts, figures and photos on the importance of safe blood. This material, produced for World Health Day 2000 on Blood Safety, is an excellent educational tool for\r\nschools or health mangers alike. Ask for Mac or PC versions, indicating the quantity requested, from: The Blood Transfusion Safety Team, Blood Safety and Clinical Technology, World Health Organization, 1211 Geneva 19, Switzerland.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28707","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"COMMONWEALTH AWARDS FOR ACTION ON HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hivnet.ch:8000/africa/af-aids/viewR?1123","body":"The Commonwealth Secretariat, Commonwealth Foundation, Commonwealth Business Council and the Para 55 Group are jointly planning an Awards Ceremony for outstanding work, activities or projects in the area of HIV/AIDS. The Ceremony will take place in Melbourne, Australia on the evening of Thursday 4 October 2001, prior to the next meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government. Nominations are invited for awards in the following categories:(a) Policy and Advocacy (b) Prevention (c) Comprehensive Care. Groups: a maximum of 12 awards will be made, one in each of the above three categories to individuals or organisations within the following four groups:\r\n(1) Government (2) Civil society/NGOs/community-based organisations (3) The private sector (4) The media. Nominations for awards must be received by 31 July 2001.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Epidemic May Lead To 40% GNP Drop In Some States ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/2001/06/28/index.asp#15702","body":"The global HIV/AIDS pandemic could cause gross national product in some hard-hit countries to shrink by 40% over the next 20 years, according to a report launched yesterday in New York by the UN Development Program.  That development setback would jeopardize goals set at last year's UN Millennium Summit, including halving poverty by 2015.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter July 2001 HIV/AIDS Implications for Poverty Reduction","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Global employment situation remains flawed, says report","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,885686-6099-0,00.html","body":"In a regional breakdown of employment trends, the International Labour Organisation's (ILO's) World Employment Report 2001 says that in southern Africa, the latest unemployment rates are 19,5% in Namibia, 23,3% in SA and 42% in Lesotho. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be characterised by the highest incidence of extreme poverty in the world and faces the spectre of HIV/AIDS, which threatens the fortune of the entire continent. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV Test Kits to Be Given On Priority Basis","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200107070036.html","body":"The high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Zambia combined with the inconsistent and sometimes limited availability of HIV test kits has prompted the Churches Medical Association of Zambia (CMAZ) to recommend to its member institutions an HIV prioritisation scheme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS and the eye","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"This teaching slide/text set is produced by The International Resource Centre for the Prevention of Blindness and addresses the ocular complications that affect more than half of patients with HIV. It is available at a discouted rate to healthworkers in developing countries.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS Implications for Poverty Reduction","field_subtitle":"Background paper prepared for the  United Nations Development Programme, for the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS, 25-27 June 2001","field_url":"http://www.undp.org/dpa/frontpagearchive/2001/june/27june01/index.html","body":"by Dr. Rene Loewenson, Director, Training and Research Support Centre, Zimbabwe and Professor Alan Whiteside Director, Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division, University of Natal, South Africa.\r\nIntroduction\r\nHIV/AIDS is having a disastrous impact on the social and economic development of countries most affected by the epidemic. In much of Africa and other affected regions, this epidemic will prove to be the biggest single obstacle to reaching national poverty reduction targets and the development goals agreed on at the United Nations\r\nMillennium Summit. The challenge is immense: How do countries reduce the proportion of people living in poverty when up to a quarter of households are decimated by AIDS? How do countries\r\ndeliver on policies aimed at equity in access to economic opportunities and social services when AIDS widens economic differentials and undermines service delivery? How do countries deliver on promises to improve quality of life for coming generations when 40 million children will grow up orphaned by AIDS? How does a country like South Africa deliver on its goal of being a regional engine of growth with over 4 million HIV-positive people and the fastest growing infection rate in the world? The devastation caused by HIV/AIDS is unique because it is depriving families, communities and entire nations of their young and most productive people. The epidemic is deepening poverty, reversing human development achievements, worsening gender inequalities, eroding the ability of governments to maintain essential services, reducing labour productivity and supply, and putting a brake on economic growth. These worsening conditions in turn make people and households even more at risk of, or vulnerable to, the epidemic, and sabotages global and national efforts to improve access to treatment and care. This cycle must be broken to ensure a sustainable solution to the HIV/AIDS crisis. The response to HIV/AIDS so far has focused, rightly so, on the challenge of containing the epidemic and preventing new infections through advocacy, information and education campaigns, behaviour change communication, condom distribution, programmes targeting groups that are particularly vulnerable to infection, and other key interventions. The other part of the response is focusing on treatment and care for people living with HIV and AIDS \u2014 efforts that are expected to intensify as new treatments become more accessible and affordable. Both prevention and treatment are top priorities in not only saving lives and reducing human suffering, but also in limiting the future impact on human development and poverty reduction efforts.\r\n\r\nHowever, despite intensifying efforts focused on\r\nprevention and care, the epidemic continues to spread unabatedly, and as people infected by HIV become ill and die, its devastating impact is now being felt in the worst affected countries. Assuming that life-prolonging treatment will not be universally available in poor countries \u2018overnight\u2019, death rates from AIDS will continue to soar before leveling off. Recent estimates from the UN Population Division show that the population of the 45 most affected countries will be 97 million smaller in 2015 than it would have been in the absence of HIV/AIDS. Most of this loss is due to sharp increases in mortality among young adults. In the absence of national and global action to mitigate the developmental impact of HIV/AIDS, households, communities and civil society organizations will continue to bear the brunt of this tragic disaster. They are at the front lines of coping with the impact of HIV/AIDS, responding directly to the needs of people and often working with little government support. Communities are mobilizing themselves, showing great resilience and solidarity, despite their vulnerability to external shocks such as premature death of their most productive members. The response to HIV/AIDS has tended to ignore the bigger picture of the implications for development and poverty reduction. Research has been undertaken to study the impact of the epidemic, but very little has been done about it. Discussions on the implications of HIV/AIDS among development experts and policy makers has been extremely limited, and both national and global development targets and goals have been formulated without taking into account the added challenges resulting from sharp increases in AIDS-related adult mortality rates. With the same inevitability as the cyclonic and heavy rains which caused catastrophic floods in Mozambique twice in the last 18 months, with widespread devastation and loss of life, the current HIV prevalence forewarns an AIDS epidemic that is only beginning in many countries. The scale and scope of this epidemic over the next decade can be broadly predicted, planned for and mitigated. However, like people living on the riverbanks, we seem unable or unwilling to take action on the flood until we are knee-deep in water. This is not helped by the denial and the chronic, slow-moving and dispersed nature of both the epidemic and its impacts. It takes significant leadership to plan ahead, sometimes ahead of public perceptions, to deal with AIDS, and in so doing to divert resources from other more apparent problems. Yet taking meaningful steps towards mitigation demands visionary leadership armed with information on the scope and nature of the epidemic, its impacts and on options for responding. Creative, albeit scattered, individual, community and national efforts provide examples of good practice. The time is overdue to apply these more widely in those areas where we must make a difference, put in place plans to achieve this, and back them with resources. \r\n\r\nNote: The Equinet Newsletter will pause for the month of August","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Human Development Report 2001 ","field_subtitle":"Making new technologies work for human development","field_url":"http://www.undp.org/hdr2001/","body":"Technology networks are transforming the traditional map of development, expanding people's horizons and creating the potential to realize in a decade progress that required generations in the past.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Human Rights and the Aids Crisis: the debate over resources","field_subtitle":"Kenneth Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch","field_url":"http://www.hrw.org/editorials/2000/aids-p1.htm","body":"Delivered on July 11, 2000, at plenary session of the XIII International AIDS Conference, Durban, South Africa\r\nCan a human-rights perspective help us confront the AIDS crisis? More specifically, can human rights help us meet the urgent challenge of securing the vast resources we need for treatment and prevention? I believe they can. Human rights are a powerful tool for meeting basic human needs. But their contribution to the fight against AIDS is not as simple or straightforward as many often assume. In my talk today, I will explain why. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Importance of Safe Blood ","field_subtitle":"- autologous blood transfusion","field_url":"http://www.eatset.com","body":"The eatset webpage is dedicated to safe blood transfusion practice using patients own blood in cases of internal haemorrhage. We have worked on over 75 patients who suffered from ruptured internal bleeding from tubal pregnancy.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"improving access to information for healthcare workers in developing and transitional countries ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.inasp.org.uk/newslet/feb01.html#6","body":"Between October 1999 and November 2000, WHO's Department of Health Information Management and Dissemination worked with participants of the Health Information Forum to elaborate ways in which WHO and other health information organizations might work together more effectively to improve access to information for healthcare workers in developing and transitional countries. Based on a series of five structured meetings and a questionnaire survey of health information organizations, the following document from the WHO-HIF collaboration is intended as a basis for the cooperative development of needs-driven action plans in each of six priority areas. Proceedings of meetings and survey reports are available at http://www.inasp.org.uk. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Living With AIDS - Mabeye's Story","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200106270171.html","body":"The United Nations says Senegal leads Africa in combating AIDS on the continent and is one of only three nations worldwide to successfully contain the pandemic. AllAfrica.com's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, focuses on Senegal with a series of special reports on the country's battle against HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Management Strategy: HIV/AIDS in prisons","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.pmg.org.za","body":"The Department Department of Correctional Services, South Africa is conducting a review of the 1996 Management Strategy for HIV/AIDS in prisons in order to keep up with international and national HIV/AIDS prevention programmes and strategies. A copy of the draft policy can be viewed on the PMG website under the \"current minutes\" button. (Minutes of the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services of 8 May 2001). For more information, contact:Ms MagoroDirector of Health and Physical CareDepartment of Correctional ServicesTel: 012 - 307 2000.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28721","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Mango tree investigators fight sleeping sickness ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/repo/eha/ftp/18386.html","body":"Thousands of people in Sub Saharan Africa are dying and being damaged by a disease thought banished 30 years ago. Now in the war-scarred lands of the Democratic Republic of Congo, health workers are fighting back and hoping the outbreak of peace in the human war will let them do more. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Miners may claim for illness ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.dispatch.co.za/2001/07/10/easterncape/MINERS.HTM","body":"Thousands of desperately ill migrant mine workers in the Eastern Cape may be eligible for large sums of money in compensation. However, a concerted drive by health and community workers is needed to find the workers, and to assist them in claiming the money due to them. This is the recommendation of a team of scientists following a research project involving the migrant mine workers of Libode in the former Transkei. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"New Prepayment Schemes for Health in Rwanda ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/healthflagship/journal/index.htm","body":"by Pia Schneider and Miriam Schneidman (August, 2000. Rwanda's prepayment schemes with large membership pools have become important interest groups. Besides improving members' access to quality care, in a post-genocide society, where the social fabric was seriously destroyed, the introduction of the mutual health schemes has the potential to rebuild trust and democratic processes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"On measuring inequalities in health","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/pdf/2001/issue6/vol.79.no.6.553-560.pdf","body":"Michael Wolfson, Assistant Chief Statistician, Statistics Canada and Geoff Rowe, Senior Analyst, Socioeconomic Modelling Group, Statistics Ottawa, Canada. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, June 2001, 79(6): 553-560\r\nIn a recent series of papers, Murray et al. have put forward a number of important ideas regarding the measurement of inequalities in health. In this paper we agree with some of these ideas but draw attention to one key aspect of their approach -measuring inequalities on the basis of small area data -which is flawed. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the problem. An alternative approach drawing on longitudinal data is outlined, which preserves and enhances the most desirable aspects of their proposal. These include the use of a life course perspective, and the consideration of non-fatal health outcomes as well as the more usual information on mortality patterns.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Oral sex and sexually transmitted infections: ","field_subtitle":"know about the risks! ","field_url":"http://www.phls.co.uk/news/pressreleases/01pr/010705pr.htm","body":"For many years it has been known that unprotected oral sex carries a risk, albeit relatively small, of HIV transmission. Recent work in the USA and in the UK has suggested that this risk may contribute to 3-8% of HIV infections among men who have sex with men.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Reproducing national trends? Maasai fertility in Kenya and Tanzania","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h7ec1g1.html","body":"Do the fertility rates of the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania reflect the national levels in those countries? Or is there an independent \"Maasai fertility regime\"? Research at the London School of Economics has examined fertility among the Maasai and compared it with national trends.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"RESOLUTIONS: NAPWA CONGRESS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hivnet.ch:8000/africa/af-aids/viewR?1108","body":"The 1st NAPWA CONGRESS which took place on the 25-27 May 2001, in Crown Mines resolved the following: Noting that there is still no clear policies with regard to treatment protocols for opportunistic infections and administration of antiretroviral drugs for people living with HIV/AIDS at public institutions, and NAPWA is not yet fully represented in all decision making structures of care and support, we therefore resolve that:\r\n- The Government should make relevant policies coupled with the provision of treatment that is affordable to people living with HIV/AIDS.\r\n- The health institutions should start providing a user friendly service which is conducive to unhindered healing process for PWAs.\r\n- The Government produces a clear programme on home based care And offer relevant financial support to the program.\r\n- Provide ongoing counselling to those who want to disclose.\r\n- The government should provide nutritional and vitamin supplement\r\n- And NAPWA to begin a process of participating in all government structures that make decisions on treatment, care and support at all levels of government from local clinic committees to South African National Aids Council.\r\n- And that NAPWA should advocate and explore alternative treatment programmes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Ruling Alliance to Hold Key Policy Talks","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200107010025.html","body":"The leadership of South Africa's ruling alliance will meet in August to resolve policy differences on the economy and privatisation that have strained the partnership, Reuters reported on Friday. \"There will be a meeting of the alliance leaders on 18 and 19 August to exchange views,\" Patrick Craven, spokesman for the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), was quoted saying. Cosatu and the South African Communist Party (SACP) are the partners in a ruling alliance with the dominant African National Congress (ANC).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"SA: NEDLAC, COSATU MEET ON PRIVATISATION ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://196.14.83.3/briefing/nw20010702/12.html","body":"The National Economic Development and Labour Council's (Nedlac) standing committee on Friday met representatives of the Congress of SA Trade Unions and the Department of Public Enterprises on Cosatu's notice of possible protest action against privatisation. Last week Cosatu notified Nedlac that it was planning mass action in protest against the privatisation of state assets. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SA: No use asking the arsonist to put out the fire","field_subtitle":"Jubilee SA","field_url":"http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,880802-6096-0,00.html","body":"ANC MP Ben Turok is correct in calling for debate on the proposed World Bank loan for hospital restructuring. The secret negotiations between the World Bank and the ministries of health and finance for the amount of $200m are nothing short of unacceptable. The hospital loan is reportedly denominated in US dollars, and would thus violate the reconstruction and development programme promise (section 6.5.16) that \"the RDP must use foreign debt financing only for those elements of the programme that can potentially increase our capacity to earn foreign exchange\". ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SA: Unions demand Aids drugs for civil servants","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.news24.co.za/News24/Health/0,1113,2-14_1049665,00.html","body":"Civil service unions are demanding action from the government in what they term as a \"life threatening crisis\" by making anti-retroviral drugs available to civil servants who have contracted HIV/Aids as a result of their work. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Free Trade Process to Begin in August","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200107050045.html","body":"Implementation of the commercial protocol to establish a free trade zone in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) should begin in August, according to Mozambican trade and industry minister Carlos Morgado. Sapa news agency reported on Tuesday that Morgado made the announcement on the sidelines of yet another negotiating round on the application of the protocol. The talks were attended by his 13 SADC counterpart ministers, the report said.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Seeks Common WTO Stand","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200107060358.html","body":"SADC trade and industry ministers have met to discuss preparations for a co-ordinated position at the forthcoming World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial conference later in the year. The ministers stated the urgency to clearly define the Southern African Development Community (SADC) position on issues of interest to the region and in this regard, agreed to meet for a special session in South Africa some time this month.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Survey of HIV/AIDS programmes for mobile populations - Africa wave","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hivnet.ch:8000/africa/af-aids/viewR?1121","body":"Dear Colleague, \r\n\r\nWe would like to ask for your help in a survey of HIV/AIDS prevention and care programmes for migrants and mobile populations. The survey is being conducted throughout Africa and will gather information on the organisations or institutions involved in such programmes, as well as on the programmes themselves. \r\n\r\nIn collaboration with UNAIDS, the survey is being carried out in Africa by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). A similar survey is being carried out in Asia by the UNDP/UNOPS South East Asia HIV and Development Project.\r\n \r\nThe questionnaire is being sent to National AIDS programmes, AIDS Service Organisations, national and international NGOs, migrant NGOs, international organisations and other relevant organisations, as well as being posted on AF-AIDS and SAFCO. \r\n\r\nHaving information about HIV/AIDS prevention and care programmes for migrants and mobile populations is important for both advocacy and for information sharing. Knowing what programmes already exist is essential to highlight gaps, and for strategic planning. More importantly, the survey will create networks of exchange between programmes, Government Departments, NGOs and other institutions/organisations involved in HIV/AIDS and mobility. \r\n\r\nA summary of the survey results will be posted on AF-AIDS. \r\n\r\nDo you have information that could help with the survey? \r\n\r\nWe would like to ask you to take a few minutes to fill in the questionnaire attached below. \r\n\r\nIt can be filled out either electronically and sent back by email or printed and sent back by post to the address below. Please feel free to make copies and fill out several if your organization runs several programmes. We would also very much appreciate it if you would send this message and the questionnaire to others you may know who are working on HIV/AIDS prevention and care programmes for mobile and migrant populations. \r\n\r\nPlease do not hesitate to contact us at the address below with any questions you might have. \r\n\r\nThank you very much for your participation in the survey.\r\nBest regards, \r\n\r\nKatrin Cowan\r\nHIV/AIDS Focal Point\r\nIOM Regional Office Pretoria","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"TANZANIA: President confident of halting spread of HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN","body":"President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, where two million people are infected with the HIV virus, has said he is confident the country should be able to reverse the spread of the disease in the next five years, given the current level of nationwide mobilisation against the epidemic. \"We are now at a stage of all-round mobilisation that will result in the total reversal of the trend in the next five years,\" the UNDP quoted Mkapa as saying at a press conference in New York to coincide with the UN General Assembly's special session on HIV/AIDS. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28700","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The challenge to Sustainable Development in Africa: ","field_subtitle":"The gender dimension of HIV/AIDS, peace and economic security","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200106250088.html","body":"UNIFEM (Geneva)\r\nAn understanding of the gender dimensions of HIV/AIDS is one of the key challenges to sustainable development in Africa. This is not simply a \"body count\" of who has died or is dying from the disease- but of how women are affected through loss of family and community structures, loss of income and security, (including land and food security), increased responsibilities for caring for the ill, the social and economic costs that are not calculated in traditional economics, and the complex interactions between armed conflict and the spread of the HIV virus through sexual acts of violence and abuse.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Timing of First Intercourse","field_subtitle":"Implications for Contraceptive Use","field_url":"http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/journals/2705601.html","body":"By Mouhamadou Gueye, Sarah Castle and Mamadou Kani Konat\u00e9\r\nThe social and economic context in which Malian adolescents begin sexual activity is different from that experienced by previous generations. Little is known about the forces that currently shape adolescents' sexuality and affect their reproductive health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"UNION WANTS COMPREHENSIVE SANTA PROBE ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://196.14.83.3/briefing/nw20010711/24.html","body":"The National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) on Tuesday urged government to launch a wide-ranging and transparent probe into the South African National Tuberculosis Association (Santa). It was reacting to the government's decision on Monday to suspend Santa's R6,6-million subsidy and to undertake a forensic audit of the organisation. \"We call on government to have a comprehensive and transparent investigation into how Santa uses money, quality of patient care, adherence to clinical protocols, quality of food given to clients, and all other related matters,\" the union said in a statement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO HEALTH INFORMATION","field_subtitle":"International videoconference","field_url":"http://www.healthcomms.org","body":"You are warmly invited to participate in an international videoconference that is bringing together organizations worldwide who are working to improve access to relevant practical information for healthcare providers and health professionals in low-income countries. 'Universal Access to Health Information' (UAHI) will provide real-time video links between providers, infomediaries, and end-users of information in Cape Town, Harare (to be confirmed), London, Nairobi, Sao Paulo, and Washington DC. Participation is open to all with an interest, subject to availability of space. To register, and for further information email your name, affiliation, and a brief note of your professional\r\ninterests to Linda Berkowitz.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28701","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Waste disposal - local information makes hygiene promotion more effective ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h10vc1g1.html","body":"Over three million children die from diarrhoea every year in developing countries and a third of the world's population is infected with parasitic worms. Simple improvements in hygiene could drastically cut infection rates. But what is the best way to develop hygiene promotion programmes? How can health promoters identify target populations and risk factors?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO AND TOP PUBLISHERS ANNOUNCE BREAKTHROUGH ON  DEVELOPING COUNTRIES' ACCESS TO LEADING BIOMEDICAL JOURNALS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2001/en/pr2001-32.html","body":"The World Health Organization and the world's six biggest medical journal publishers today announce a new initiative which will enable close to 100 developing countries to gain access to vital scientific information that they otherwise could not afford. The arrangement agreed to by the six publishers would allow almost 1000 of the world's leading medical and scientific journals to become available through the Internet to medical schools and research institutions in developing countries for free or at deeply-reduced rates.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Youth in sub-Saharan Africa: ","field_subtitle":"a chartbook on sexual experience and reproductive health","field_url":"","body":"This book reviews data from demographic and health surveys in 11 countries in the region, focusing on adolescents aged 15 to 19. It aims to provide decisionmakers with a better understanding of the experiences and needs of adolescents in the region, and to inform public debate on these issues. It is available free to people working in developing countries, email Donna Clifton.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia: Health workers Conflict Resolved","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200107100277.html","body":"The confrontation that ensued between health workers in Livingstone and the provincial health directorate in Southern Province over the withdrawal of labour has now been resolved. The matter concerned the disciplinary letters which were handed to striking workers while the Civil Servants Union of Zambia (CSUZ) was concluding negotiations with Government.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Zim doctors on strike","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.news24.co.za/News24/Zimbabwe/0,1113,2-259_1047619,00.html","body":"Medical consultants and specialists at all public hospitals throughout Zimbabwe are on an indefinite strike over low salaries and poor working conditions, plunging an already ailing heath sector into deeper crisis. The senior doctors went on strike on Sunday following an ultimatum they issued to the government to address their grievances by last Saturday. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-07-12","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"2001 World Conference on Health Promotion: Investing for Health  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iuhpe.nyu.edu/conferences/secondannouncement/index.html","body":"From July 15 to 20, 2001, the French Committee for Health Education (CFES) is organising the XVIIth World Conference on Health Promotion and Health Education on behalf of the International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) to be held at the Palais des Congr\u00e8s in Paris.  \r\nThe XVIIth World Conference intends to take up the challenge of health for all by adopting the overall theme: Health, an investment for a just society.  Investing for health is a way of expressing an approach to addressing the private and public policies that influence the social, economic and environmental determinants of health. The conference will examine questions concerning traditional foci on  practice, policy, research and training, those that are pertinent for the improvement of global health, while remaining sensitive to their  local and regional implications.  These foci will be explored through plenary sessions, forums and workshops in the context of each of   the four major themes of the conference:  - Ethics: Health, a focus of civil debate and democracy. - Evidence: Models, frames of reference, evaluation:  upon what should good policies be based?  - Advocacy: How to use the media for health advocacy? How to promote healthy public policies?   - Partnership: Partnership as an essential element in health promotion. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"58 COUNTRIES TO BOOST HIV/AIDS CARE & TREATMENT","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/whatsnew/press/eng/pressarc01/UNGASScare_250601.html","body":"Efforts to improve and speed up access to care for people living with HIV/AIDS are gaining new momentum, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) said today. A total of 58 countries have now expressed interest in gaining access to lower-price drugs \u2013 including treatments for opportunistic infections and antiretroviral therapy \u2013 in the context of the public-private partnership started in May 2000 by five United Nations agencies and five private sector companies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AFRICA'S AIDS ACTIVISTS TAKE THE FIGHT TO THE GROUND ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://196.14.83.3/briefing/nw20010626/42.html","body":"His skin itches madly from shingles, the thrush in his mouth makes it difficult to talk or eat and he has had chronic diarrhea for weeks, but South Africa's most prominent AIDS activist fights on. \"There is no holiday from HIV,\" said Zackie Achmat, chairman of the Treatment Action Campaign, a group lobbying for affordable treatment for the 4.7 million South Africans infected by the epidemic. While 3,000 health experts, politicians and scientists gathered at the United Nations in New York this week to discuss ways to fight AIDS, Achmat and other activists remained on the ground in Africa, prodding their governments and their people into tackling the pandemic. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Aids could rob SA of half its workers ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.dispatch.co.za/2001/06/28/easterncape/EAIDSC.HTM","body":"South Africa could lose between 40 and 50percent of its current workforce to Aids, according to new research released by the HIV-Aids organisation LoveLife. Funded jointly by the Henry J Kaiser and Bill and Melinda Gates foundations, the study also confirms previous findings that HIV infections could cost individual companies between two and sixpercent of the wage bill per year. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS to Slash Life Expectancy By 17 Years","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200106130184.html","body":"THE United Nations Population Division has painted a grim picture of the HIV-AIDS epidemic spreading through Namibia and other countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In a new chart released by the UN Population Division, Namibia is said to be among eight countries where the life expectancy will have dropped by at least 17 years by 2005.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS, poverty reduction and debt relief","field_subtitle":"Mainstreaming the response to HIV/AIDS","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/debt/index.html","body":"As the epidemic is increasingly recognized as a major development problem, more and more countries have begun to integrate HIV/AIDS programmes into their main development instruments. UNAIDS supports these efforts through its work programme \"Mainstreaming the response to HIV/AIDS\". The programme aims to enable client countries, with support from partner agencies, to develop and include effective materials for combating HIV/AIDS in their development instruments. These instruments include the poverty reduction strategies, debt relief agreements and public sector expenditure frameworks. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"ANGOLA: HIV/AIDS - Fighting the unknown","field_subtitle":"A special report from IRIN plusnews","field_url":"http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN","body":"Angola's civil war, which has isolated thousands of communities from the outside world for long periods over the past three decades, might also have prevented the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS across the country.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28653","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Apartheid regime backed Cape plc activities despite health warnings  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.sabcnews.co.za/SABCnews/south_africa/health/0,1009,16820,00.html","body":"It has been discovered that the former apartheid regime colluded with the mining giant, British Cape Asbestos Property Limited to run South African mines for another decade even though it impacted negatively on the workers' health. The company, which is now known as Cape Plc, has been sued by 6 500 South Africans who have contracted asbestosis. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Bush and Mbeki Discuss HIV/AIDS, 'Defend Positions' on the Issue ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://report.kff.org/hivaids/#1","body":"President Bush and South African President Thabo Mbeki \"defended their positions on AIDS\" yesterday when they met to discuss the epidemic and other issues pertinent to Africa, the AP/Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Mbeki said that he \"supported a comprehensive approach to South Africa's problems\" -- a strategy that tackles \"not just AIDS, but malaria, tuberculosis and various social problems deepened by poverty\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"CADRE WEBSITE","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cadre.org.za/","body":"The Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation (Cadre) is a South African non-profit organisation working in the area of HIV/AIDS social research, project development and communications. Cadre has offices in Johannesburg, Grahamstown and Cape Town. Cadre's main objective is to ensure that relevant social research is applied to developing a coherent and systematic response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Southern Africa. The Cadre website offers a wide range of downloadable publications and a searchable bibliographic database.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Civic Leaders Call for Cancellation of Africa's Debt","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200106180472.html","body":"Africa Action today issued a letter to President Bush, signed by 67 leadership figures from across the United States, calling for US support for the full cancellation of the debts owed by African countries to the World Bank and IMF. Africa Action Board President, Rev. Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker, stated today, \"Africa's massive external debt burden diverts money directly from basic human needs like health care, and therefore any serious attempt to address the AIDS pandemic in Africa must begin with debt cancellation.\"","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil Society Seeks to Strengthen Democracy in the SADC Region","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200106140327.html","body":"A Regional Roundtable meeting opened in Lusaka recently as part of an on-going process to develop tools and strategies to enhance gender-mainstreaming processes in elections in the Southern African region. In a statement released at the opening of the workshop, Tanzania Gender Networking (TNGP) programme officer Aggripina Mosha said the roundtable was part of the projects of SADC Electoral Support Network, a group of civil society actors whose aim is to strengthen the role and participation of civil society in the region in the quest for democracy through free and fair elections.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Does inequality matter?","field_subtitle":"The new rich may worry about envy, but everyone should worry about poverty","field_url":"http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=655998","body":"Share prices have fallen and much of the industrialised world is heading either for recession or for slower growth. At such times, inequality of wealth tends to narrow, though not necessarily that of incomes. But such times also tend to be those when anger about inequality comes to the fore, and starts to have political and social consequences. For in good economic times, even the poor feel better off. In bad ones, the rich may lose the most money but the poor lose their jobs, their houses, even their families. And then their acceptance of the way the system works?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Drug price battle shifts to WTO","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,873023-6078-0,00.html","body":"The battleground between health groups and pharmaceutical giants over the high price of life-saving drugs in poor countries shifts on Wednesday to the World Trade Organisation in Geneva, which is holding its first debate on the WTO's intellectual property agreement and affordable medicines. Calling for the debate last April, the WTO's African members said the WTO's accord on trade-related aspects of intellectual property (Trips) faced a \"crisis of legitimacy\". ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter June 2001 Tobacco Control and the FCTC in Developing Countries: ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity and Health: Views from the Pan American Sanitary Bureau","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.paho.org/English/DBI/OP08.htm","body":"2001, 169p., ISBN 92 75 12288 1\r\nThe concept of equity has emerged as a primary guiding for the work of the Pan American Sanitary Bureau. The Bureau has been gathering information on and examining issues related to disparities in health in the Americas, especially as they relate to socioeconomic factors. The articles gathered in this publication represent an important step toward a more equitable distribution of health conditions and health related services, insofar as they represent the status of the issues and dilemmas faced by that Bureau in making equity an operational concept for its work in the Region. The authors have attempted to show how equity and the insights it yields into the distribution of health-dependent as this is on differences in education, income, class, ethnicity and race, geographic location, gender, and other distinctions-can underpin the Bureau's work at the operational level and be incorporated into technical cooperation activities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Free access to journals of BMJ Group ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bmjjournals.com:80/subscriptions/countries.shtml","body":"The following countries are entitled to free access to our sites. This list is compiled of countries defined by the World Bank as \"Low\r\nIncome Economies\". Potential subscribers should follow the standard subscription procedure as our subscription system will automatically recognise the origin of access; countries in the list below will automatically qualify for free access. For further details on this policy, please refer to the relevant editorial in each journal. The following electronic editions of journals are freely available on the net: (see: http://www.bmjjournals.com/)","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28668","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"GIVE US YOUR FEEDBACK ON THIS NEWSLETTER!","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Send in information and articles on the work of your organisation, and on equity and health issues in Southern Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Global health fund debated ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/topic/social/s23healthfund.html","body":"A new global fund to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria will be administered by the World Bank in collaboration with WHO and UNAIDS. Officially announced by UN secretary general Kofi Annan in May, discussions have so far focused on raising the US$10 billion experts say is needed. Less clear are details on how it will fit into national processes and poverty reduction strategies. Some NGOs, academics and officials are worried the fund reflects donors' priorities and the desire to apply \"quick fixes\" to complex problems. Welcoming the fund in principle, Save the Children, UK, and MEDACT warn in a joint report that lessons of the past 30 years must be taken into account or \"billions of dollars could be wasted\". \"Donor led programmes that focus on specific diseases rather than taking a holistic approach to building services and resources have contributed to the collapse of developing countries' health systems,\" comments Regina Keith, health adviser to Save the Children, UK. The report The Bitterest Pill of All: The Collapse of Africa's Health System, argues that a significant amount of any new global health fund should be dedicated to the long term strengthening of health systems. European Commissioner for Development Poul Nielson also warns that, without efficient delivery systems, \"there is a big risk of this whole discussion being hijacked by PR-politics in rich countries\". ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalization and Inequality: A Long History ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://papers.nber.org/papers/W8228","body":"Peter H. Lindert University of California-Davis and Jeffrey G. Williamson Harvard University\r\nApril 2001. Invited address to be delivered at the World Bank Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics - Europe, Barcelona \r\n(June 25-27, 2001. A much longer and somewhat different version of this paper is available as \"Does Globalization Make the World More Unequal?\" NBER Working Paper 8228, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Mass. (April 2001).\r\nGlobalization has evolved in fits and starts since Columbus and de Gama sailed from Europe more than 500 years ago. This paper surveys these fits and starts so as to place contemporary events in better perspective. It also explores the connection between globalization and world inequality. Who gained and who lost from globalization? That question can be split into three more: What happened to income gaps between nations? What happened to income gaps within nations? What happened to world inequality when individuals moved between countries? This paper stresses the first and last questions, although a longer one does all three in much greater detail (Lindert and Williamson 2001).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Government Disputes Life Expectancy Figures","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200106140546.html","body":"Zimbabwe has dismissed as \"exaggerated\" a UN report asserting that life expectancy will drop to 27 years in a decade as a result of HIV/AIDS, the news agency IPS reported. The UNICEF Progress Report on Zimbabwe 2000, released in Harare this week, said that overall life expectancy has already dropped to 44 years from its peak of 62 years in 1990.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"HEALTH AND LEADERSHIP TRAINING PROGRAMS","field_subtitle":"August-November 2001, Atlanta, Georgia ","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.org","body":"Global Health Action, a non-profit organization located in Atlanta, Georgia with a strong 29-year history of conducting health and leadership training, offers three courses this year:\r\nINTERNATIONAL HEALTH MANAGEMENT COURSE (IHMC), August 6 - September 14, 2001 The goal of this six-week course is to enhance and develop the leadership, management and project planning skills that will allow each participant to work with their community and effectively plan, direct, implement, and evaluate programs and activities.\r\nCOMMUNITY HEALTH SERVICES IN RURAL AREAS COURSE (CHS), September 17-28, 2001 This is a two-week add-on course immediately following the IHMC.  ONE MUST COMPLETE THE IHMC IN ORDER TO ATTEND THIS COURSE.  This special companion course offers participants diverse experiences in the field of community health. \r\nHEALTH LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT COURSE (HLMC), October 22 - November 2, 2001 The goal of this intensive two-week course is to provide each participant with the basic leadership and management skills necessary to plan and implement health and development programs in their countries.  This course is open to senior-level health management personnel.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28666","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health, inequality, and economic development","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.wws.princeton.edu/~rpds/inequ-heal-all.pdf","body":"Angus Deaton, Research Program in Development Studies and Center for Health and Wellbeing Princeton University, May 2001. Prepared for Working Group 1 of the WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health. \r\nThis paper explores the connection between income inequality and health in both poor and rich countries. It discusses a range of mechanisms, including nonlinear income effects, credit restrictions, nutritional traps, public goods provision, and relative deprivation. It reviews the evidence on the effects of income inequality on the rate of decline of mortality over time, on geographical pattens of mortality, and on individual-level mortality. Much of the literature needs to be treated skeptically, if only because of the low quality of much of the data on income inequality. Although there are many puzzles that remain, the author conclude that there is no direct link from income inequality to ill-health; individuals are no more likely to die if they live in more unequal places. The raw correlations that are sometimes found are likely the result of factors other than income inequality, some of which are intimately linked to broader notions of inequality and unfairness. That income inequality itself is not a health risk does not deny the importance for health of other inequalities, nor of the social environment. Whether income redistribution can improve population health does not depend on a direct effect of income inequality and remains an open question.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"ILO to launch new Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work","field_subtitle":"New data shows some 23 million workers infected with HIV worldwide ","field_url":"http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/trav/aids/pdf/acodeen.pdf","body":"Citing new data showing some 23 million workers \r\nworldwide now infected with HIV/AIDS, the Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Juan Somavia plans to formally launch a pioneering Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work at the U.N General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS in New York on 25-27 June. The ILO Code of Practice will provide workers, employers and governments with new global guidelines - based on international labour standards - for addressing HIV/AIDS and its impact at the enterprise, community and national levels where most infections occur. It will also help boost efforts to prevent the spread of HIV, manage its impact, provide care and support for those suffering from its effects and staunch stigma and discrimination which arise from it. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28656","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"International Health and Human Rights","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/fxbcenter/international_hhr.htm","body":"In conjunction with core activities, this program seeks to enhance the capacity of intergovernmental agencies, governments, non-governmental organizations and concerned health and human rights professionals to develop, implement and evaluate policies, programs and strategies consonant with sound public health and human rights principles and practice. The program promotes and catalyzes thinking and action in health and human rights by impacting governmental and nongovernmental action both in countries and through the work of international organizations. The program seeks to provide frameworks to stimulate the translation of governmental commitments into policies and programs and to ensure that governments are held legally accountable for these commitments under national and international law. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Kavindele Urges China to Invest in SADC, Comesa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200106200207.html","body":"Vice-President Enoch Kavindele yesterday urged China to take advantage of the economic developments in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) region. Opening the Chinese Centre for the promotion of Investment Development and Trade in Zambia, Kavindele said there was large potential for Zambia and China in trade and investment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Lean times add pounds","field_subtitle":"Lack of food puts poor women at risk of obesity","field_url":"http://www.nature.com/nsu/010621/010621-1.html","body":"Women struggling to put food on the table are more likely to be overweight than those with a reliably full refrigerator, according to new research. From a US government survey of food intake of almost 10,000 Americans nationwide Marilyn Townsend of the University of California, Davis and her colleagues find that the prevalence of obesity increases among women as their household income nears the poverty line. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Mobilizing billions to fight AIDS in Africa: the way forward ","field_subtitle":"Presentation to Conference of African Ministers of Finance Algiers, Algeria, 8 to 10 May 2001","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/debt/index.html","body":"A sustained campaign on a vast scale, building on pockets of success, is needed to reverse the destructive tide of HIV/AIDS in Africa. Such a campaign would include a broad range of actions to prevent new infections, care for the infected, and mitigate the negative impacts of the pandemic \u2013 all underpinned by expressions of the highest political will and by the commitment of substantial sums of money.   This short paper outlines the case for billions of dollars for AIDS in Africa, puts forward a bold but achievable financing plan for mobilizing resources on such a scale, and points to a number of the actions that need to be taken today to implement large-scale resource mobilization for the fight against AIDS.  ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28643","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Nature Science Update ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nature.com/nsu","body":"Now rebuilt and redesigned to feature easier navigation and searching, richer internal and external linking and more images, animations, audio and video, Nature Science Update is a free, authoritative and accessible online round-up of what's new in scientific research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Nelson Mandela Award Goes to UNAIDS Chief Peter Piot","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kff.org/content/2001/20010625a/","body":"On June 25, Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS, received the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights for his outstanding leadership in the global struggle against HIV/AIDS. Since his appointment as Executive Director of UNAIDS in 1994, Dr. Piot has coordinated a more effective global response to the pandemic and expanded worldwide awareness of its impact. Dr. Piot has won the confidence of political leaders around the globe, helping to forge meaningful commitments in many countries to address HIV/AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Nigeria: Doctors and Nurses Call Off Crippling 18-day Strike","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200106160001.html","body":"Doctors and nurses in Nigeria Friday called off their 18-day strike action, called to protest against the government's failure to offer better conditions of service, according to report by the state-owned Federal Radio Corporation Network news.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Resources for Primary Health Care and Other Health","field_subtitle":"Revised edition now available","field_url":"http://www.ngonetworks.org/","body":"NGO Networks for Health (Networks) is pleased to present the second edition of its Resources series. The Resources series describes useful training manuals, reference materials, and documentation of best practices and emerging lessons through many years of international, national, and community-based health programs. It is hoped that the series will help non governmental and private voluntary organizations (NGOs/PVOs) plan and strengthen health programs for women, children, and families in developing countries. The series also includes references that will help community-based organizations,\r\nhealth workers, and policy-makers advocate for improved delivery of health information and services. The first edition of the Resources series documented resources for family planning, maternal and child health, and HIV/AIDS programs. This second edition is broken into two sections. Section I describes resources available on the topic of primary health care. Section II describes newsletters and periodicals on a range of health issues, including family planning, reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, child health, primary health care, pharmaceuticals, disabilities, and eye health. We hope you will find this edition of Resources full of valuable information to assist you in your work.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Sanctions and Civil Conflict","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2001/wp0166.pdf","body":"Gershenson, Dmitriy, International Monetary Fund, IMF Institute Working Paper WP/01/66, May 2001\r\nUsing a general equilibrium framework, this paper analyses how sanctions imposed on the contestants in civil conflict affect the welfare of these contestants and the allocation of resources to conflict. It is shown that weak sanctions can hurt the contestants they are supposed to help, while strong sanctions augment the expected welfare of their intended beneficiaries. Moreover, sanctions are more likely to be sucessful if the contestant who is subject to sanctions can expect to derive a positive income in case of compliance. The likehood of success rises as this income increases.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Scandal of fake and substandard drugs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol357/iss9272/full/llan.357.9272.talking_points.16602.5","body":"During the past 100 years, disasters associated with prescription drugs have led to the introduction of laws to protect the consumer. The Biologics Control Act, for example, was passed by US Congress in 1902 after the death of ten children given diphtheria antitoxin contaminated with live tetanus organisms. Such tragedies are rare nowadays, but two reports in The Lancet this week signal renewed concern about the quality of orthodox medicines in some countries. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"South Africa will not pay for antiretroviral therapy ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/322/7300/1441","body":"South Africa's health minister has dashed any remaining hopes that her government will provide antiretroviral treatment for the estimated five million people who are infected with HIV. Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has told parliament again, and repeated in several group meetings, that her government cannot afford the drugs regardless of how low the price goes. She repeated the government's view that the infrastructure necessary to deliver the treatment is not uniformly available, and she expressed the government's continuing fears of \"toxicity\" and the development of resistance. The government is also afraid that patients taking the treatment will not fully comply with the regimen. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTH AFRICA: Business wakes up to the HIV/AIDS threat","field_subtitle":"A special report from IRIN plusnews","field_url":"http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN","body":"The Ethembeni Care Centre in northern KwaZulu-Natal is set in a pleasant forest clearing just outside the industrial hub of Richards Bay. The region is in the eye of the HIV/AIDS storm in a province soon to experience negative population growth due to the disease. The hospice is currently home to nineteen patients, most are dying of AIDS-related illnesses. Volunteers lay their frail bodies out on the veranda every morning so they can enjoy the view and listen to the birds, between frequent bouts of TB-induced coughing. Ethembeni is the first industry-funded AIDS hospice in South Africa, and its symbolic of changing attitudes towards the epidemic on the part of sub-Saharan Africa's biggest business community. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28652","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTH AFRICA: Communities battle with explosion of AIDS orphans","field_subtitle":"A special report from IRIN plusnews","field_url":"http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN","body":"As Africa struggles to cope with the enormity of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the grim legacy of the disease - the millions of orphans it leaves behind - remains one of the most pressing socio-economic concerns for the continent. Data from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) suggests that 19 sub-Saharan African countries will have a total of 40 million orphans by 2010, due in large part to HIV/AIDS.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28655","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The new wealth of nations","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=654053","body":"THE past decade was probably the most exuberant period of wealth creation in human history. It also produced an unprecedented number of wealthy people. Despite the recent disappearance of some well-known dotcom tycoons, the count of millionaires and billionaires still went up last year. The world now has 7.2m people with investable assets of at least $1m, up from 5.2m in 1997. Those 7.2m dollar millionaires control about a third of the world\u2019s wealth. According to Forbes magazine\u2019s \u201crich list\u201d, there are also 425 billionaires, 274 of them in America alone.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"To Stop AIDS, Africa Must Start Talking About Sex  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iht.com/articles/23452.html","body":"In the special United Nations session on AIDS next week, there will be much discussion about international aid, about drugs and vaccines. But there is likely to be too little said about what is the primary means by which AIDS is spread in sub-Saharan Africa: risky heterosexual sex.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Tobacco Control and the FCTC in Developing Countries: ","field_subtitle":"Millions Dying but Where\\'s the Outrage?","field_url":"http://www.fctc.org","body":"According to the World Health Organisation, tobacco use is set to cause an epidemic of heart disease and cancer in developing countries. Currently, 4 million people die each year from tobacco use, but that number is set to rise to 10 million a year by 2030. In addition to premature death, smokers suffer from an ongoing health problems due to smoking and inflict health problems on others due to secondhand smoke. Yet few countries are taking concrete actions to stem this epidemic. This is in part because of the political and economic power of multinational tobacco companies which have tried to define tobacco control as solely an issue for rich countries in order to protect their enormous profits from the developing world.\r\n\r\nThe aggressive marketing tactics of the multinational tobacco companies have greatly contributed to the tremendous increases in smoking in developing countries, particularly amongst women. These companies use their enormous political and financial power to influence governments and promote their products in every corner of the globe. The expansion of these companies into the developing world has meant that in the near future it is developing countries which will carry the majority of the burden of disease due to tobacco use.\r\n\r\nCurrently, approximately 80% of the world's smokers live in developing countries where smoking rates have risen dramatically in the past few decades. Yet it is the poor who can least afford to waste money on the purchase of tobacco products. Much of the tobacco industry is dominated by multinationals, so profits flow from poor to rich countries. Since most poor countries are net importers of tobacco, precious foreign exchange is being wasted. In addition poor countries are less able to afford the medical and other costs attributable to tobacco use.\r\n\r\nThe tobacco industry has become a pariah industry. For decades it has denied the truth about the harmful effects of tobacco addiction in order to protect its profits. However whilst it has come under attack in the courts and the parliaments of some countries, the majority of countries have felt powerless to restrain the industry with effective legislation and litigation. In fact, many continue to offer the industry tax breaks and other incentives.\r\n\r\nWhilst some jobs are created by the tobacco industry those which are offered to people in developing countries are usually dangerous and badly paid. Tobacco farm workers are often exposed to dangerous pesticides and other chemicals and small farmers are often chained to a cycle of debt by a tobacco industry system whereby loan schemes are run to help farmers start farming tobacco, but then low prices are offered for the tobacco. In a number of countries the tobacco industry exploits the poor and powerless, employing children and paying starvation wages.\r\n\r\nThe Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is a global treaty currently being negotiated by governments which will address trans-national and trans-border issues, such as global advertising, smuggling and trade. Yet the FCTC will also serve as an important catalyst in strengthening national tobacco legislation and control programmes. The process of negotiating and implementing the FCTC will also help to mobilise technical and financial support for tobacco control and raise awareness among many government ministries about tobacco issues.\r\n\r\nIf properly negotiated, the FCTC could help turn the tide against the tobacco industry by weakening its political power and helping to end its reckless behaviour through regulation and legislation. But this will only occur if the voices of the people are heard.\r\n\r\nThe next FCTC negotiation is scheduled for November 2001 in Geneva, Switzerland. At this meeting, WHO member states will debate the draft treaty. It is paramount that NGOs from around the world lobby their governments and mobilise public support for a strong FCTC.\r\n\r\nTo ensure the success of the WHO FCTC in combating the global tobacco epidemic, non-governmental organizations must play a key role in the development and negotiation of the treaty.\r\n\r\n\u00b7 Join the Framework Convention Alliance;\r\n\u00b7 Educate yourself and your constituencies about global tobacco issues and the FCTC - the Alliance Website (www.fctc.org) has links to many good resources;\r\n\u00b7 Inform and get the support of the media in your country;\r\n\u00b7 Get resolutions passed in support of the FCTC;\r\n\u00b7 Find out what your country's delegates to the FCTC have said so far and meet with them in order to influence their future positions.\r\n\r\nThe Framework Convention Alliance (FCA), a coalition of over 150 organizations and networks from over 50 countries, serves as an umbrella for networks and individual organizations working on the FCTC. The Alliance facilitates communication between NGOs already engaged in the FCTC process and reaches out to NGOs not yet engaged in the process (especially those in developing countries) who could both benefit from and contribute to the creation of a strong FCTC.\r\n\r\nBelinda Hughes, Coordinator, Framework Convention Alliance (FCA). Tel: (66-2) 278 1828 or (66-2) 278 1829. Fax: (66-2) 278 1830","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"TOP BUSINESSES PLEDGE TO ACT ON HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/whatsnew/press/eng/pressarc01/GBC_260601.html","body":"Following a meeting today with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan during the U.N. Special Session on AIDS, leaders of some of the world\u2019s biggest companies, including The Coca-Cola Company and MTV Networks International, announced their commitments to fight the global AIDS epidemic, and called upon other business leaders to join the cause.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Trilingual educational malaria CD-ROM now available free of charge","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.rph.wa.gov.au/labs/haem/malaria/index.html","body":"The malaria educational site from Royal Perth Hospital, is now available in French, English and Spanish. The site contains sections on Diagnosis, Prophylaxis, Treatment and History as well as an innovative interactive \"Test & Teach\" self assessment module. It is an ideal site for Clinicians, Scientists, Healthcare Professionals and Students. The MK IV version of a trilingual (English/Spanish/French) CD-ROM (sponsored by Abbott Diagnostics) with the same content as the website is now ready for distribution (FREE) to institutions without, or with only limited internet access. (The CD-ROM is now being used by medical/educational institutions in 112 countries). For further details please contact Graham Icke.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"TWN REPORT ON THE WTO DISCUSSION ON TRIPS AND PUBLIC HEALTH, 20 JUNE 2001","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/drugs1.htm","body":"On 20 June 2001 the WTO's TRIPS Council held a special one-day discussion on TRIPS and public health. The meeting was in response to public concerns worldwide on how patents were causing monopoly situations enabling exorbitant prices of medicines for treating AIDS and other diseases, making them unaffordable especially in developing countries. This Report is written by Cecilia Oh, Legal Advisor of the Third World Network. The report is written from Geneva, 25 June 2001. The Report covers the Special Discussion of the TRIPS Council on TRIPS and Public Health on 20 June, 2001, the follow-up decision, some media conferences held by governments, and the NGO media conference on 19 June (preceding the WTO meeting).  There are also two annexes:  a summary of the submission of 47 developing countries to the TRIPS Council on TRIPS and Public Health;  and a joint NGO statement.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"U.N. General Assembly to Vote Today on Declaration of Commitment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://report.kff.org/hivaids/#6","body":"Following Monday's long day of debate over draft language that included references to specific HIV \"vulnerable groups,\" such as sex workers, homosexuals and intravenous drug users, a finalized version of the United Nations' Declaration of Commitment for fighting HIV/AIDS on a global scale was submitted last night to delegates of the U.N. General Assembly special session on HIV/AIDS, who are expected to vote to adopt the document this afternoon at the conference's closing session, the Washington Post reports. Islamic groups and the Vatican had objected to the inclusion of such groups in the 20-page document, saying it would be \"difficult\" for them to endorse a plan that referred to behavior that is \"illegal and against religious norms\" in their countries. The language was removed after a lengthy debate that threatened to \"overshadow\" the conference's achievements and replaced with references to \"risk behaviors, including sexual activity and drug use,\" the Post reports.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"UN slated by Short for 'hyped' Aids fund ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4211163,00.html","body":"The global health fund conceived by the UN secretary general to combat HIV/Aids has been vastly over-hyped, will not get near its $7bn-$10bn target, and should not be seen as the answer to the pandemic in the developing world, Clare Short, Britain's international development secretary, told the Guardian yesterday. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"UN SPECIAL SESSION ON AIDS: DECLARATION OF COMMITMENT ON HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Global Crisis \u2013 Global Action","field_url":"http://www.unaids.org/whatsnew/others/un_special/Declaration2706_en.htm","body":"We, Heads of State and Government and Representatives of States and Governments, assembled at the United Nations, from 25 to 27 June 2001, for the twenty-sixth special session of the General Assembly convened in accordance with resolution 55/13, as a matter of urgency, to review and address the problem of HIV/AIDS in all its aspects as well as to secure a global commitment to enhancing coordination and intensification of national, regional and international efforts to combat it in a comprehensive manner.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WEF: Barriers to Trade, Business in SADC Region","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200106140448.html","body":"The title of this year's World Economic Forum (WEF), held last week in Durban, was \"Acting on Realities, Confronting Perceptions\". Ostensibly, it was an attempt to confront and deal with the widely held view in South and Southern Africa that the rest of the world, and the Western world in particular, retains a confused and biased perception of this region. This, it was argued, leads to negative sentiments, culminating in an unwillingness to commit resources and investment to the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"WORK IT OUT OR WATCH IT DIE","field_subtitle":"Drastic change is needed to save SA\\'s system of health care","field_url":"http://www.fm.co.za/01/0629/cover/coverstory.htm","body":"The cost of private health care is rising so rapidly that it is in danger of becoming unaffordable to all but the wealthy. The punch-drunk public health sector is, however, failing to provide an alternative for the average salaried person. Everyone, from blue-collar workers to senior executives, is clamouring for more affordable, quality health care. A radical new deal is needed for the private and public sectors. New ways of delivering and funding health care must be created. Both sectors are on the ropes and are being forced to act. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"XIIth International Conference on AIDS and STDs in Africa. ","field_subtitle":"9 - 13 December 2001 - Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso ","field_url":"http://www.cisma2001.bf/us/historique.htm","body":"It is clear that over the last several years, a lot of new frontiers of knowledge have been crossed in the medical, pharmaceutical, social, economic and related fields in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. These developments provide new hope against a backdrop of a continuing and devastating HIV/AIDS pandemic. The epidemic continues to threaten the existence and development of humankind, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Insights and experiences gained in HIV/AIDS/STD control and management strategies need to be shared within the African context in order to facilitate greater regional and inter-regional collaboration. The diversity of concepts, practices and solutions to the HIV/AIDS epidemic compels us to seek ways in which we can learn from each other for better responses to the epidemic. In particular, the conference will aim to: 1. Review, discuss and provide updates on the major advances in understanding the HIV/AIDS/STD epidemic from a community, socio-economic, cultural, political, epidemiological, clinical and basic science standpoint.2. Provide a forum for a critical analysis of various responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and to discuss the extent to which these responses have impacted on the course and status of the epidemic. 3. In the light of the above, suggest and set new (or strengthen old) strategies and priorities for dealing with the epidemic from an African perspective and resource context.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"ZAMBIA'S STRIKING PUBLIC WORKERS SCALE DOWN DEMANDS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://196.14.83.3/briefing/nw20010626/18.html","body":"Striking public workers in Zambia have scaled down their demands from a 100 percent pay hike to a \"reasonable\" salary increment, a union leader said Monday. \"We have come down from our initial demand. We have asked the government to give us a reasonable offer,\" Darison Chaala, secretary general of the Civil Servants Union of Zambia, told AFP. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia: Social Services Crippled by Three-Week Strike","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200106160007.html","body":"A three-week long strike by Zambian public sector workers has crippled hundreds of schools and hospitals and slowed the delivery of other key government services in this impoverished southern African country. However, a preoccupation with an unfolding political crisis that could see a parliamentary motion to impeach embattled President Frederick Chiluba being passed appears to have diverted official attention from the resultant social crisis.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"ZAMBIA: Youths against AIDS","field_subtitle":"A special report from IRIN plusnews","field_url":"http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN","body":"A concerted campaign anchored to popular teenage\r\nculture is slowing down the rate of HIV-infection among one of Zambia's most vulnerable demographic groups: older teenagers in urban areas.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28654","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"\u2018PATENTS AND MEDICINES: THE WTO MUST ACT NOW!\u2019","field_subtitle":"PLEASE JOIN IN THE NGO STATEMENT","field_url":"http://www.twnside.org.sg/","body":"This is a letter introducing a Joint NGO Statement on Patents and Medicines, and requesting you to consider signing on to it. As you may be aware, the WTO TRIPS Council held a Special Discussion on patents and access to medicines on 20 June this year. The Africa Group of countries in the WTO asked the TRIPS Council in April to hold a meeting specifically to address rising concerns over the impact of the TRIPS Agreement on the price and affordability of medicines. The Africa Group proposal reflects the concerns of developing countries, as well as public outrage over the exorbitant prices of patented medicines, many of which are needed to treat life-threatening diseases. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-28","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"'Global Gag Rule' Faces Legal Challenge ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://oneworld.org/ips2/june01/02_10_007.html","body":"Opening a new front in the battle to promote international women's rights, a prominent US group filed a lawsuit Wednesday against President George W. Bush for curbing the free-speech rights of overseas groups which provide reproductive health services to women. The New York-based Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP) claims that by barring all US aid from foreign health groups which provide abortion services or lobby their governments to ease anti- abortion laws, Bush is violating CRLP's freedoms of expression and association guaranteed under the US constitution's first amendment. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"20 years of AIDS:","field_subtitle":"CNN special week of programming","field_url":"http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/aids/","body":"In June 5, 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a notice on page two of its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report about a strange outbreak of killer pneumonia striking homosexual men. From that obscure beginning, AIDS grew into the public health disaster of our time, a global phenomenon that has tested social, cultural, religious and scientific beliefs. Twenty years later -- with expensive drug therapies but no cure or vaccine in sight -- AIDS continues to spread rapidly, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Many researchers warn that the worst is yet to come.  ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"ABC of AIDS","field_subtitle":"Treatment of infections ","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/322/7298/1350","body":"In those who are severely immunosuppressed, the treatment and prophylaxis of opportunistic infections remains important. This article, an adaptation of the 5th edition of the \"ABC of AIDS,\" covers the management of opportunistic infections such as Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, toxoplasmosis, cryptosporidiosis, as well as various viral, bacterial, and fungal infections in those with AIDS.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS Strikes Five Nations Hardest: UN Study","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010608/hl/study_2.html","body":"India, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa each have at least 2 million adults suffering from AIDS or infected with the HIV virus, according to a new UN statistical analysis released on Thursday.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS-drug cocktail to be given to poor South Africans","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.msf.org/","body":"The French humanitarian group Medicines Sans Frontieres (MSF) has launched an independently run and financed programme in Khayelitsha township outside Cape Town, South Africa, that provides a small group of impoverished people with AIDS access to a cocktail of three antiretroviral drugs. The programme will assess the feasibility of providing the therapy in a poor township from primary health-care centers run by local government. \"Given the heatedpolitical context, we will be monitoring the project carefully,\" said Toby Kasper, coordinator of MSF's Access to Essential Medicines Campaign.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Amusaa Counsels SADC MPs On Elections","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200106050202.html","body":"The governance system that has evolved in a particular state influences the choice of options regarding free and fair elections, Speaker of the National Assembly Amusaa Mwanamwambwa has said.\r\nSpeaking when he opened the second election observation training and orientation seminar for members of parliament from Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries in Lusaka yesterday, Mwanamwambwa said he was sure participants appreciated the role that elections and election observation play in the management of the affairs of any state.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Antenatal care reborn? Healthcare for pregnant women in developing countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h8nm1g1.html","body":"Antenatal care is important for identifying and responding to risk factors in pregnancy. But do mothers in the developing world receive adequate and appropriate antenatal care? Researchers from the Population Council and the UK University of Southampton investigated antenatal services in Kenya.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Catherine Fisher, GDNet","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Dear Equinet\r\n\r\nA number of your papers have been added to GDNet, the Global Development Network's online community linking local development research and policy at\r\nhttp://www.ids.ac.uk/gdn/index.htm .  Currently in its prototype period GDNet wants to highlight development research, researchers and research\r\ninstitutes and provide on-line services to members. You can view the Equinet record by doing a search for the organisation which generates a short description of Equinet linked to its website.  You can change or update our record using the correct this information link on the\r\nleft of the screen.  You will see that abstracts for documents are linked to the record which in turn link to the full-text versions of the documents on the Equinet site. (At present organisations and documents featured in GDNet\r\nalso appear in Eldis http://www.eldis.org  which has over 25,000 users worldwide.) If you have any researchers who would like to promote themselves and their work through the site (and in the future receive benefits of membership such as access to on-line journals and funding alerts) they can create a personal profile at http://www.ids.ac.uk/gdn/researchers.htm which will link to documents they have produced and the Equinet record.  Researchers with documents in the database and complete personal profiles are featured on the front of the GDNet Global page or the GDNet Africa regional window\r\nhttp://www.ids.ac.uk/gdn/afrwindow.htm  and may be profiled in the GDN newsletter which is sent to development researchers worldwide. Finally you may be interested in GDNet's weekly list of funding opportunities for development research which can be found at\r\nhttp://www.ids.ac.uk/gdn/coslink.htm for African specific opportunities, or\r\nat http://www.ids.ac.uk/gdn/opportunities.htm on the Global site. Absolutely finally, the paper on your site entitled \"World Trade Organisation agreements: implications for equity and health in Southern Africa\" has been distorted slightly by the PDF writer so that the table \"TRIPS Fair or Unfair\" has lost some of the text in the right hand column. I hope that you will have a look at the site, if you have any further questions please don't hestitate to contact me personally.\r\nRegards\r\n\r\nCatherine Fisher\r\nGDNet at Institute of Development Studies\r\nUniversity of Sussex\r\nBrighton BN1 9RE\r\nUK","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Challenging Inequities in Health: from ethics to action","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.rockfound.org/Documents/435/summary_challenging.pdf","body":"Edited by Timothy Evans, Margaret Whitehead, Finn Diderichsen, Abbas Bhuiya and Meg Wirth. \r\nChallenging Inequities in Health: From Ethics to Action provides new perspectives on the idea of health equity, the scale of the inequalities and the ways in which gender, social context and globalization impact the health of populations in thirteen countries. The studies seek to expose health disparities within countries, revealing stark social inequalities in life expectancy and health status. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Disease May Cause Zero Population Growth In Zimbabwe ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/2001/06/05/index.asp#15075","body":"Zimbabwe could face zero population growth next year due to the rising death rate caused by HIV/AIDS, state television reported Saturday.\"It is hitting us where it hurts most,\" said Health Minister Timothy Stamps, noting that AIDS is killing the country's skilled and productive youth. According to Stamps, 100,000 people died of AIDS last year in Zimbabwe. Official statistics put the weekly AIDS death toll at 2,000 in Zimbabwe, where one-fourth of the population is infected with HIV.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter June 2001 WTO Patent Rules and Acess to Medicines: The Pressure Mounts","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Female Circumcision in Sudan: ","field_subtitle":"Future Prospects and Strategies for Eradication","field_url":"http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/journals/2707101.html","body":"Female circumcision--also known as female genital mutilation--is widely practiced in some parts of Sudan. Information about attitudes toward the practice, the reasons why women support it and the social and demographic predictors associated with support for it are needed for development of eradication strategies. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Fund to focus on Aids prevention","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT371JCMKNC&liv","body":"A proposed new multi-billion dollar global fund for health will concentrate on Aids prevention rather than the mass purchase of expensive anti-retroviral drugs, a United Nations conference in Geneva concluded on Monday. The proposed fund is likely to be formally launched later this month at a UN conference on Aids in New York or at the Group of Eight meeting in Genoa in July. Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, has said the fund needs $7bn-$10bn, but it seems likely to raise only around $1bn this year, with the US pledging $200m. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender and Growth: Africa's Missed Potential ","field_subtitle":"By Alan Gelb","field_url":"http://www1.worldbank.org/devoutreach/article.asp?id=114","body":"In the study Can Africa Claim the 21st Century?, we made the argument that Africa has enormous unexploited potential. It has hidden growth reserves in its people, especially its women, who now provide more than half the region\u2019s labor but lack equal access to education and factors of production. We concluded that gender equality can be a potent force for accelerated poverty reduction in Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender, Policy and HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"Training course","field_url":"","body":"The Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP) in collaboration with the Regional AIDS Training Network (RATN) and Southern Africa AIDS TrainingProgramme (SAT) are organising a new comprehensive training course on \"Gender, Policy and HIV/AIDS\". The course is for two weeks, June-July 2001, it will take place in Dar es Salaam, at the premises of the TGNP Resource Centre-Mabibo. Contact Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP) P.O.Box 8921 Dar es Salaam\r\nTel: +255 22 2443205, 2443450 Fax: +255 22 244244 ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Glaxo Offers AIDS Drugs to More Countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010611/bs/aids_glaxo_dc_1.html","body":"GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK.L) said on Monday it was extending its offer of cheap AIDS drugs to a total of 63 countries, following pressure from activists and charity groups. The medicines will be offered at the cost of production to governments, aid agencies and churches in all Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and any country in sub-Saharan Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Globalisation, Patents and Drugs","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Treatment-Access has released the second edition of its \"Globalisation, Patents and Drugs - An annotated bibliography\". The bibliography aims to inform people in the health sector, with no particular legal background, about the impact of globalisation and trade agreements on access to drugs. Copies can be obtained free of charge from:\r\nThe Documentation Centre, Department of Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy, World Health Organisation, 20 Avenue Appia, CH-1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland. Tel:  + 41 22 791 3521, Fax:  + 41 22 791 4167, or via email.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Helping hand - easing the burden of HIV on child health services in Africa ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h5it1g2.html","body":"How are hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) coping with the large number of children infected with HIV? Can hospital staff deal with the increasing workload? What can hospitals in the developed world do to help?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"How are African hospitals coping with the rising burden of HIV? ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h5cg1g3.html","body":"How is the HIV/AIDS epidemic affecting healthcare systems in developing countries? Can existing services cope? Two-thirds of people infected with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa. Research by the UK Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine has examined the effect of high HIV prevalence on healthcare services in Kenya and South Africa.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Hyde Proposes $1 Billion to Fight HIV/AIDS ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_hiv_recent_rep.cfm?dr_cat=1&show=yes&dr_DateTime=07-Jun-01#5038","body":"House International Relations Committee Chair Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) yesterday introduced a bill to authorize more than $1 billion to fight HIV/AIDS internationally and initiate a $50 million pilot program for AIDS treatment, part of \"a comprehensive strategy to combat the global pandemic,\" the Washington Times reports.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Interactive learning tool on participatory processes ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/participation/web/index.htm","body":"An interactive learning tool on participatory processes at the national level for the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRSP) and other government strategies and actions to reduce poverty is currently under development. It is designed to provide staff from country governments, World Bank and the Fund, and civil society leaders guidance on participatory processes and outcomes at the national level through the 4 building blocks: poverty diagnostics, public expenditure management, macroeconomic reform and monitoring implementation and results of policies. This interactive learning guide on participation was prepared by the Action Learning Team of the Participation Thematic Group in the Social Development Department of ESSD Network. Please send your feedback and share your learning experiences with us: the Participation Group, Social Development Department, the World Bank.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Learning from local farmers and healers ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.earthtimes.org/may/healthlearningfromlocalmay29_01.htm","body":"The World Bank's Indigenous Knowledge for Development Program, the US National Institute of Health and representatives of African traditional healers have agreed to work together on validating herbal treatments of HIV/AIDS-related opportunistic infections. In a seminar hosted by the World Bank's indigenous knowledge program earlier this week, the Tanga AIDS Working Group (TAWG) of Tanzania and the Center for Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Agricultural Byproducts (CIKSAP) of Kenya presented their approaches to healthcare, based on indigenous knowledge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Leprosy - learning from success","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/lep/Elimination/Leprosy-18.pdf","body":"This document draws together the experiences of seven countries that have successfully eliminated leprosy as a public health problem, often under\r\nextremely challenging conditions. A hard copy is available via email.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Money matters - can microfinance reduce poverty?  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/society/S7arm1g1.html","body":"Microfinance, or small-scale credit and savings services, is widely acclaimed as a sustainable means of reducing poverty. Its potential for redistribution appeals to the political left and its promotion of entrepreneurship to the right. As a tool to aid social and economic development, microfinance has been vigorously promoted. But can microfinance programmes do enough to eliminate poverty? ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"New global health fund ","field_subtitle":"BMJ Editorial 2 June","field_url":"http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/322/7298/1321","body":"The gap between the rich and poor has widened steadily. Estimates based on World Bank data suggest that over 40% of the 614 million people in less developed countries live in absolute poverty and that average life expectancy is now 25 years less than it is in developed countries. Ten years ago the countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) promised to scale up their development assistance. Since then the flow of aid has actually decreased to its lowest level (in relation to members' combined gross national product) for 20 years. Oxfam describes the rich country record on aid as \"derisory\" and their trade policies akin to \"highway robbery. The recent announcement at the World Health Assembly of a massive new global health fund to combat infectious disease in poor countries has therefore attracted much attention.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Pfizer offers free drugs to poor countries","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/sa/countrystories/other/20010607.phtml","body":"United States pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced on Wednesday that it would provide unlimited supplies of the drug Diflucan free of charge to treat HIV/AIDS sufferers in 50 of the world's poorest countries. \"This is a lifetime of work not just a one-day press release,\" Dr Henry McKinnell, Chairman and CEO of Pfizer, said at UN headquarters. \"We will continue to work with the UN, the WHO and other international organisations on how public/private partnerships like the Diflucan programme can be most effective.\" ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Prof. D Banerji, Nehru University, New Delhi","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Dear Dr Manji I am grateful to you for sending the latest newsletter.  I congratulate you very warmly for bringing out such an excellent number.  You can always be assured of full solidarity and moral support from one who has been working in this field for so long.  I am enclosing a copy of my response to the Bulletin No.4 of IPHN. Regards, Sincerely yours, D Banerji ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28627","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Research Work On HIV Jabs In Grave Jeopardy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200105300355.html","body":"Reports that Kenya's controversy-prone Aids vaccine trials recently hit a major snag with the resignation of the leading Kenyan researcher, Dr Ephantus Njagi, raise disturbing questions about the entire vaccine development programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Commander Dismisses Accusations of Looting","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200106080010.html","body":"The Commander of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Major-General Edzai Chimonyo, has dismissed reports that top SADC military officials stationed in the DRC are looting its resources, particularly diamonds. In an interview on Wednesday with the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation in the eastern diamond-mining town of Mbuji-Mayi, Major-General Chimonyo said that the reports were false and meant to demoralise and tarnish the image of the SADC coalition forces in the DRC.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Ministers Meet to Discuss Human Resources","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200106040089.html","body":"MINISTERS and senior officers in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) responsible for Human Resources Sector hold their joint meeting in Arusha town northeast Tanzania. The meeting brings together 14 nations south of the Sahara and according to a press statement, some 80 delegates were expected to attend the annual conference.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Seeing red: training healthworkers to screen for anaemia in pregnancy ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h3rb1g2.html","body":"Anaemia affects around two billion people worldwide. Pregnant women and children are the major groups at risk. The World Health Organisation  (WHO)recommends anaemia screening for all pregnant women and has developed a simple Haemoglobin Colour Scale test. Can this test be used reliably in regions with limited resources? How effective is the WHO-recommended training programme?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Capital, Disorganized Communities, and the Third Way:","field_subtitle":"Understanding the Retreat from Structural Inequalities in Epidemiology and Public Health","field_url":"http://www.baywood.com/search/PreviewArticle.asp?qsRecord=1465","body":"Carles Muntaner, John Lynch, and George Davey Smith, International Journal of Health Services Volume: 31 Issue: 2,  May 2001\r\nThe construct of social capital has recently captured the interest of researchers in social epidemiology  and public health. The authors review current hypotheses on the social capital and health link, and examine the  empirical evidence and its implications for health policy.\r\nThe construct of social capital employed in the public health literature lacks depth compared with its uses in social science. It presents itself as an alternative to materialist structural  inequalities (class, gender, and race) and invokes a romanticized view of communities without social conflict that favors an idealist psychology over a psychology connected to material resources and social structure. The evidence on social capital as a determinant of better health is scant or ambiguous. Even if confirmed, such hypotheses call for attention to  social determinants beyond the proximal realm of individualized sociopsychological infrastructure. Social capital is used in public health as an alternative to both state-centered economic redistribution and party politics, and represents a  potential privatization of both economics and politics. Such uses of social capital mirror recent \"third way\" policies in  Germany, the United Kingdom, and United States. If third way policies lose support in Europe, the prominence of  social capital there might be short lived. In the United States, where the working class is less likely to influence social policy, interest in social capital could be longer lived or could drift into academic limbo like other psychosocial constructs once heralded as the next big idea.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Social, Cultural and Environmental Contexts and the Measurement of the Burden of Disease","field_subtitle":"AN EXPLORATORY COMPARISON IN THE DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING WORLD","field_url":"http://www.kcwh.unimelb.edu.au/BOD%20Report.pdf","body":"Daniel D. Reidpath, Pascale Allotey, Aka Kouame, Robert A. Cummins March 2001. Funding Agencies: Global Forum for Health Research, The University of Melbourne (MRCEG Scheme). \r\nInternationally, there is growing commitment to health policies and programs that are \"evidence-based\": that is, that they derive from a body of research that has been proven true, effective or successful. In establishing an evidence-base, there is a continued concern with replicability of research, with the robustness of findings across time and place, and in the absence of replication, with an explanation for the lack of fit. In this endeavour, considerable attention has been paid to common tools, common protocols and consistent, shared measures \u2013 validated questionnaires, common tools to assess physical and mental health and summary indices for quality of life, health inputs and health outcomes. This concern for comparability in public health matches a concern by economists and health planners, locally, nationally and internationally, to rationalise, to set priorities and goals, to allocate funds on the objective basis of need and impact, and to direct resources where the outcome will be most effective.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28616","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"State of the Cities of the World","field_subtitle":"The United Nations Center for Human Settlements ","field_url":"http://www.unchs.org/Istanbul+5/statereport.htm","body":"Three billion people - nearly every other person on earth - already live in cities. Today the planet hosts 19 cities with 10 million or more people; 22 cities with 5 to 10 million people; 370 cities with 1 to 5 million people; and 433 cities with 0.5 to 1 million people. By 2030, over 60 percent of the world's population (4.9 billion out of 8.1 billion people) will live in cities. Developed country cities are rapidly disappearing from the list of the world's largest cities. Between 1980 and 2000, Lagos, Dhaka, Cairo, Tianjin, Hyderabad and Lahore, among others, joined the list of 30 largest cities in the world. By 2010, Lagos is projected to become the third largest city in the world, after Tokyo and Mumbai, Milan, Essen and London will disappear from the 30 largest cities list, and New York, Osaka and Paris will have slipped farther down the list by 2010. The current worldwide rate of urbanization (that is, the percentage, per year, that the urban share of the total population is expanding) is about 0.8 percent, varying between 1.6 percent for all African countries to about 0.3 percent for all highly industrialized countries. Urbanization of poverty is a growing phenomenon; it is estimated that between one-quarter and one-third of all urban households in the world live in absolute poverty. Starting with this 2001 edition, the State of the World's Cities Report takes the reader through Africa, the Arab States, Asia and the Pacific, the highly industrialized countries, Latin America and the Caribbean and countries with economies in transition to understand better how shelter, society,  environment, economy, and, above all, systems of governance can contribute to urban vibrancy and viability in a globalizing world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Stigma, Denial, Shame and Discrimination: HIV in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hdnet.org/","body":"HDN is working with UNAIDS to facilitate the development of an operational research agenda on stigma, denial, shame and discrimination in the African region. Activities include a specialised email forum on stigma, group discussions and key informant interviews with health care providers, religious organisations, people living with HIV/AIDS and media in Botswana, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.  A review paper of stigma issues and responses in the Africa region is being developed and a regional consultation meeting will be held from 4-6 June 2001. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"The Center for Disease Control","field_subtitle":"20 years of AIDS","field_url":"http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/od/20years.htm.","body":"The Center for Disease Control's National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention has developed a Web site to assist organisations and individuals wishing to mark 5 June as the 20th commemoration of AIDS. The site includes significant articles, streaming Web videos, a 20-year timeline and other significant information.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"The Links of Public Health and Economic Development","field_subtitle":"Prof. Jeremy Sachs","field_url":"http://www.ohe.org/sachs%20edited%20OHE%20transcript%20final%20230501doc.pdf","body":"Professor Jeffrey  Sachs, a Harvard economist and chair of the World Health Organization's commission on macroeconomics and health, believes  that it is no coincidence that most of the world's poorest countries are in tropical climate zones. At a meeting last month  organised by the Office of Health Economics in London he\r\nemphasised that these zones experience much higher rates of  infectious disease than temperate zones. He believes that malaria has been the single most important factor in shaping the  modern world economy. It is also evident that the HIV-AIDS pandemic, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, is having an equally devastating impact on economic development as well as on\r\nhealth.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"The price of women's health: safe motherhood in low-income countries ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.id21.org/health/h8mj1g2.html","body":"Every day an estimated 1600 women die world-wide as a result of problems during pregnancy or childbirth. Many of these deaths are preventable. But which safe motherhood interventions are the most cost-effective in resource-poor settings?","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Violence against Women: With an End in Sight ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www1.worldbank.org/devoutreach/article.asp?id=111","body":"Gender violence is a daily, and often deadly, fact of life for millions of women and girls around the world. Women are attacked on the street, in the workplace, in the home, in war and armed conflict, and while in state custody. The actual and human costs of this violence are tremendous; violence devastates lives, fractures communities and inhibits development in every nation. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Women and Power","field_subtitle":"by Irene Santiago ","field_url":"http://www1.worldbank.org/devoutreach/article.asp?id=112","body":"Underdevelopment as well as gender inequality is the story of power and powerlessness. The goal is to transform politics and leadership, so that women can contribute in the redefinition of power.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Women of the World ","field_subtitle":"Laws and Policies Affecting Their Reproductive Lives","field_url":"http://www.crlp.org/pub_bo_wowafrica.html","body":"Reproductive rights are internationally recognized as critical both to advancing women's human rights and to promoting development. Governments from all over the world have, in recent years, both acknowledged and pledged to advance reproductive rights to an unprecedented degree. But for governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and concerned advocates to work towards reforming laws and policies so as to implement the mandates of these international conferences, they must be informed about the current state of national level formal laws and policies affecting reproductive rights. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Bank, IMF 'Are Not Consulting Civil Society'","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200106040193.html","body":"The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund IMF are being blamed for downplaying the need to consult the civil society and include social dimensions of the African people in economic reform measures. The General Secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions ICTU cast the blame at the leading financial institutions as he addressed the 13th ICTU-AFRO Congress held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on May 23.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Assembly, 2001 ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/wha-1998/EB_WHA/english/newANG_navigat.htm","body":"The World Health Assembly met in Geneva from 14 to 22 May. The Assembly charts the global course for the WHO and its 191 Member States in dealing with major public health threats. This year's event featured an address by the UN Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WTO Patent Rules and Acess to Medicines: The Pressure Mounts","field_subtitle":"Oxfam Policy paper on WTO Patent Rules and Access to Medicines","field_url":"http://oxfam.org.uk/policy/papers/wtorules.htm","body":"Public outrage over the exorbitant prices of HIV/AIDS drugs in Africa is focussing public attention on the harmful role of global patent rules in blocking poor people's access to vital medicines. In response to mounting public pressure, World Trade Organisation (WTO) members have taken an unprecedented step in agreeing to hold a special meeting to discuss the impact of global patent rules on access to medicines. They will meet on 20 June at the WTO in Geneva.\r\n\r\nThe WTO has the power to change patent rules. As a result, this meeting, and the forthcoming WTO Ministerial in Qatar, offers the best opportunity yet to shift the balance of global patent rights in the interests of public health. The outcome of the meeting will have a critical effect on poor people's access to medicines.\r\n\r\nInventors need some protection but under the WTO\u2019s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) they are getting far too much. Briefly stated, the Agreement, which is the product of one of the most successful corporate lobbying campaigns in history, creates effective legal monopolies for patent holders across the world, enforceable by trade sanctions. This will drive up the price of vital medicines in poor countries, benefiting narrow corporate interests at the expense of public health. \r\n\r\nThe winners will be the large northern-based companies where innovation is concentrated and which account for 90 per cent of pharmaceutical patents. The strengthened protection provided by the Agreement allows them to sell their new medicines at higher prices for longer periods in more countries. The losers are the millions of people in poor countries who will be further excluded from access to these vital medicines, and their cash-strapped government health services. \r\n\r\nIt is not suprising that the TRIPS Agreement is fast becoming the epicentre of a battle which pitches some of the world's most powerful pharmaceutical companies, backed by rich governments, against some of the world's most vulnerable people. More widely, there is a growing sense that the Agreement is fundamentally unfair and unbalanced - a fact which threatens to bring not only the patent system but also the whole multilateral rules-based system into disrepute, and which policy makers ignore at their peril. \r\n\r\nWhat is certain is that TRIPS will need serious revision if it is to stem the growing public backlash against patent rules. The recent controversy over the attempts by 39 pharmaceutical companies to block a law which allowed the South African government to shop around for cheaper patented products in other countries, and which the companies claimed violated the TRIPS Agreement, gave the world a graphic illustration of why the rules need to change. \r\n\r\nOxfam is calling for TRIPS to be reformed so that developing-country governments have the unambiguous right to obtain the cheapest possible life-saving medicines without facing the threats of legal challenges or trade sanctions experienced by South Africa and Brazil. To this end, Oxfam is asking WTO members to agree to:\r\n\r\n- an in-depth review of the health and development impacts of TRIPS, with a view to reducing the length and scope of pharmaceutical patent protection in developing countries, or exempting developing countries from pharmaceutical patenting\r\n- a moratorium on trade disputes with developing countries over TRIPS compliance until a review of TRIPS is concluded, and the concerns of developing countries about its implementation are addressed\r\n- a commitment by rich countries not to exert bilateral pressure on developing countries to implement unnecessarily strict and potentially harmful intellectual property standards (whether through bilateral or regional trade agreements, or by other means)\r\n- outlaw the use, or threatened use, of bilateral trade sanctions for enforcing unnecessarily strict and potentially harmful levels of intellectual property protection in developing countries, such as the 'Special 301' provisions of the USA's trade act\r\n- stronger public-health safeguards and exceptions to give developing countries the option of reducing the length and scope of pharmaceutical patenting on public health grounds. These should include:\r\n- a strengthened and meaningful public-health safeguard in Article 8;\r\n- the option to exempt vital medicines from patenting on public-health grounds under Article 30;\r\n- an easing of the conditions for compulsory licensing, including restrictions on the production of medicines for export to another country where a compulsory licence has been issued, and the development of fast-track procedures for public-health purposes. \r\nlonger transition periods for developing countries before they have to implement TRIPS, based on their attainment of development milestones rather than arbitrary dates. \r\nThese are modest proposals. If agreed, they would merely mark a return to the situation for poor countries prior to TRIPS. This would not, as the pharmaceutical companies claim, significantly reduce R&D into the diseases of poverty, nor jeopardise patent protection in richer countries.\r\n\r\nOf course, reforming TRIPS is not a panacea. A broad package of measures is needed to improve access to medicines and to ensure adequate R&D into treatments for poverty-related diseases. These include massive investment in public-health services, public funding of R&D, and comprehensive systems of tiered pricing. \r\n\r\nNor will reform of TRIPS provide any guarantee that all governments will take positive action to improve poor people's access to medicines. It will, however, remove a key legal obstacle that currently constrains poor governments from obtaining the cheapest possible medicines for their citizens, and allow market forces to reduce prices through generic competition.\r\n\r\nHowever, attempts by developing countries to change TRIPS so that it better reflects broader social and developmental objectives have been blocked by some rich countries, particularly the US. These countries continue to repeat pharmaceutical industry scaremongering that any tampering with new global patent rules will reduce company profits and undermine R&D. \r\n\r\nIf the USA or other rich countries block proposals to reform patent rules aimed at protecting public health, developing countries should push the issue to a vote at the forthcoming 4th Ministerial. They have little to lose. It is true that if the USA believes its commercial interests are being prejudiced at the WTO, it's commitment to multilateralism may weaken. But it would be far more damaging for public health and the multilateral system if developing countries renounced their efforts to seek pro-health and development reforms of TRIPS on these grounds. Moreover, the USA is already using bilateral pressure, including the threat of trade sanctions to ratchet up intellectual property standards outside the WTO. \r\n\r\nYou can download an .rtf format file (48 Kb) of this paper from:\r\nhttp://oxfam.org.uk/policy/papers/wtorules.rtf","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Zambia paralysed by by workers' strike ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.dispatch.co.za/2001/06/06/foreign/WORKERS.HTM","body":"Some 80000 striking state workers in Zambia vowed yesterday to pursue a work stoppage which has paralysed operations in ministries and hospitals if their pay demands were not met, a trade union leader said. Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) deputy president Japhet Moonde said union leaders presented their demands for a 100 percent pay hike to Vice President Enos Kavindele yesterday, as the strike entered its second week. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-06-14","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"2 women speak up for Aids victims ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.dispatch.co.za/2001/05/22/easterncape/BAIDS.HTM","body":"THE death of their loved ones from Aids, and the controversy and alienation that followed, has prompted two unemployed women in Kubusi village near Stutterheim to call upon parents and partners to stop discriminating and rejecting people with Aids. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"4th International Workshop on Kangaroo Mother Care","field_subtitle":"26 - 29 November 2002 Cape Town, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.uct.ac.za/depts/pgc","body":"The focus of the Workshop will be: Recent, current and future research; Policies and guidelines at Health Management level; Marketing and social acceptance of KMC. For further information please contact: Ms Deborah McTeer.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"9th International Cochrane Colloquium","field_subtitle":"9-13 October 2001, Palais des Congres, Lyon - France","field_url":"http://spc-10.univ-lyon1.fr/citccf/colloque2001/ANGLAIS/Sommaireang.htm","body":"The overall theme of the 9th International Cochrane Colloquium is 'The evidence dissemination process: how to make it more efficient'. The Colloquium will focus on identifying the barriers preventing the use of evidence, and means of overcoming these. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28539","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"AIDS Drugs Act Differently on African HIV Strains","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010517/hl/aids_1.html","body":"Researchers report that genetic variations in the HIV (news - web sites) strains most common in Africa seem to make it harder for drugs called protease inhibitors to fight them. But the results do not mean that the drugs are powerless against these strains of HIV, according to the study's lead author, who noted that other factors are involved in determining the effectiveness of protease inhibitors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Beyond Our Means? The Cost of Treating HIV/AIDS in the Developing World ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.panos.org.uk/aids/BeyondOurMeans.pdf","body":"Millions of people in the developing world are in urgent need of the antiretroviral drugs that suppress HIV and indefinitely postpone symptoms of AIDS. But the majority live in the world's poorest countries and cannot afford the cost of these drugs, medical tests, and consultations. The price of these antiretrovirals is not the only factor preventing treatment for AIDS reaching those who need them. In many countries, health care systems are weak, with far too few doctors, nurses, and medical facilities. This report provides an overview of the issues surrounding HIV in the developing world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for Letters of Intent - MIM in Africa","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/tdr/grants/workplans/mim.htm","body":"MIM/TDR is a multi-partner programme promoting research capability strengthening activities in the context of the Multilateral Initiative for Malaria in Africa. The goal is to promote human and institutional resource development by supporting innovative collaborative research projects and networks in malaria endemic countries focused on strategic research areas. \r\nProjects supported to date have addressed critical issues related to chemotherapy, pathogenesis, vector control and epidemiology of malaria transmission and morbidity in Africa. The Task Force is initiating a new cycle of partnership projects expanding the scope of priorities to include the development of new interventions, strategies and policies, and the evaluation of large-scale interventions in support of malaria control.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28567","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Cholera epidemic slowing down, but not over yet - ","field_subtitle":"KZN health dept","field_url":"http://www.iclinic.co.za/may01/news/cholera30.asp","body":"The daily number of new cholera cases continues to drop, and it appears the epidemic is tailing off, the KwaZulu-Natal health department said in a statement on Tuesday. But, it says, the epidemic can only be considered over if there are no new cases reported for 10 days in a row. The total of new cases in the last 24 hours is 231, a low number compared to January 30, which saw 1 010 new cholera infections in the beleaguered province, the highest figure recorded in one day since the outbreak of the disease in mid-August last year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Early Births, Poverty Stresses Linked","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/hsn/20010517/hl/early_births_poverty_stresses_linked_1.html","body":"When you're pregnant, having no time or money for those extras in life -- dinner out with friends or a new hair style, for instance -- might affect whether you give birth prematurely. Especially if you're poor. \"Lacking what might be deemed 'non-essential' may lead to a woman feeling stressed or hopeless, without control or power,\" says Dawn Misra, an assistant professor of population and family health sciences at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. \"These feelings, in turn, increase her risk of delivery preterm.\" ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"EAST AFRICA: Tapping into traditional health practices","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/afr/ik/index.htm","body":"NAIROBI, 21 May (IRIN) - The World Bank, representatives of US complementary health institutes and African traditional healers have\r\nagreed to collaborate on the analysis and validation of indigenous health practices, including herbal treatments of HIV/AIDS-related opportunistic infections. Western health institutes and the Bank also agreed to discuss ways in which to build partnerships between traditional health practitioners and the scientific community, according to a press release from the World Bank's Indigenous Knowledge for Development (IK) Programme on 17 May.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28556","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"EAST AFRICA: Tapping into traditional health practices","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.worldbank.org/afr/ik/index.htm","body":"NAIROBI, 21 May (IRIN) - The World Bank, representatives of US complementary health institutes and African traditional healers have\r\nagreed to collaborate on the analysis and validation of indigenous health practices, including herbal treatments of HIV/AIDS-related opportunistic infections. Western health institutes and the Bank also agreed to discuss ways in which to build partnerships between traditional health practitioners and the scientific community, according to a press release from the World Bank's Indigenous Knowledge for Development (IK) Programme on 17 May.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28554","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Equinet Newsletter May 2001 World Health Report 2000 ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS is the electronic mailing list of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) http://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\rEQUINET NEWS is published twice a month. Once a month, we distribute a newsletter designed to keep you informed about materials on the Internet on equity and health in southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. Every alternative issue the Equinet Co-ordinating Centre will distribute a briefing on Equinet activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on the materials in these briefings is available from TARSC (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Equity and Health: Views from the Pan American Sanitary Bureau ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://publications.paho.org/english/moreinfo.cfm?Product_ID=546","body":"The concept of equity has emerged as a primary guiding for the work of the Pan American Sanitary Bureau. The Bureau has been gathering information on and examining issues related to disparities in health in the Americas, especially as they relate to socioeconomic factors. The articles gathered in this publication represent an important step toward a more equitable distribution of health conditions and health related services, insofar as they represent the status of the issues and dilemmas faced by that Bureau in making equity an operational concept for its work in the Region. The authors have attempted to show how equity and the insights it yields into the distribution of health-dependent as this is on differences in education, income, class, ethnicity and race, geographic location, gender, and other distinctions-can underpin the Bureau's work at the operational level and be incorporated into technical cooperation activities. This publication can be obtain at PAHO Online Bookstore or through the Paho Distribution Center: Fax: (301) 206-9789","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"First international conference on access to HIV generic drugs ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.genericsnow.org/","body":"The conference was held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso 3-7 May. Conference documentation is now available on-line. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Gender and Health Equity Resource Guide","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.ids.ac.uk/bridge/Reports/Geneq.pdf","body":"by Elaine Baume, Mercedes Juarez, Hilary Standing,\r\nInstitute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, April 2001\r\nA resource from the Gender and Health Equity Network, a partner of the Health and Social  Change Programme at IDS. The purpose of this resource guide is to give an overview of gender sensitive interventions and initiatives directly or indirectly related to health that have been tried at macro and micro levels. Through mapping different experiences, the guide provides information on lessons learned, results achieved, and the challenges that have emerged in promoting gender and health equity. It includes information on gender-sensitive approaches, working methods, practical methodologies and tools which can be incorporated into policies and programmes. In pulling these resources together our aim is to create a practical reference mechanism for those involved in implementing programmes and policies worldwide. We felt that a guide to existing resources that could be periodically updated and reviewed would be more useful than commissioning more exhaustive but perhaps less accessible review papers.\r\n\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Give us your feedback on this newsletter! ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"Send in information and articles on the work of your organisation, and on equity and health issues in Southern Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Comments"}},{"node":{"title":"Grant to develop research and training centers/networks","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/tdr/grants/grants/bioinformatics.htm","body":"Universities, research institutions and research organizations in Africa, Asia and Latin America are invited to apply for TDR programme grants to develop training centres/networks for research and training in bioinformatics and applied genomics. The centres will focus on in-\r\nfectious and parasitic diseases, and be developed to support and train scientists from the three regions. The ultimate goal is to establish sustainable research and training facilities by promoting utilization of genomics in developing disease endemic countries.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28562","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"HEALTH AND LEADERSHIP TRAINING PROGRAMS","field_subtitle":"August-November 2001, Atlanta, Georgia","field_url":"http://www.globalhealthaction.org","body":"Global Health Action, a non-profit organization located in Atlanta, Georgia with a strong 29-year history of conducting health and leadership training, offers three courses this year: INTERNATIONAL HEALTH MANAGEMENT COURSE (IHMC), August 6 - September 14, 2001 \r\nCOMMUNITY HEALTH SERVICES IN RURAL AREAS COURSE (CHS), September 17-28, 2001\r\nHEALTH LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT COURSE (HLMC), October 22 - November 2, 2001\r\nThere is a tuition fee for the courses. Some limited scholarships are available for the IHMC and CHS. There are no scholarships offered for the HLMC. Additional information and applications are available from the website or via email.\r\n","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28532","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Health, nutrition and economic prosperity:   A microeconomic perspective","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www2.cid.harvard.edu/cidcmh/wg1_paper7.pdf","body":"Paper prepared for WHO\u2019s Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, Duncan Thomas RAND and UCLA, April, 2001\r\nRelative to the links between nutrition and labor outcomes, these links have not been as well established in the scientific literature. In part, this is a reflection of limited data on non-nutrient physical health indicators, particularly in observational studies. In part, it is a reflection of the difficulties associated with using self-reported health status. Creative design of experimental studies that might shed new light on the meaning of different health indicators is long overdue.\r\n\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS and Rural Development: what can we do?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.afronets.org/docs/snrd-aids.pdf","body":"The Sector Network Rural Development (SNRD) is comprised of representatives from different GTZ-supported rural development projects in \r\nSub-Saharan Africa. At an SNRD annual meeting held in Mombasa in January 2000, participants agreed to form a working group (WG) on HIV/AIDS and its impact on rural development. The purpose of this WG is to further investigate the links between HIV/AIDS and rural development, with a view to making recommendations on how rural development projects can integrate the fight against HIV/AIDS in their range of activities. The focus should be both on reducing the spread of the epidemic, and, as far as possible, its negative impacts. The WG on HIV/AIDS decided to organise a workshop which brought together experiences on the integration of the subject of HIV/AIDS in RD activities, not only in GTZ supported projects, but also in projects supported by other multi-lateral and bilateral organisations, and in similar activities implemented by NGOs and government agencies. This workshop, titled \"HIV/AIDS and Rural Development: what can we do?\", took place in Harare, Zimbabwe, from 02 to 05 April, 2001. The Executive Summary (12 pages, Adobe PDF format, 62 kb) of the \r\nworkshop is available for downloading from the AFRO-NETS server.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"HIV/AIDS: S. African Drug Maker Requests Right To Copy Drugs ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/archives/UNWIRE010518.cfm#1","body":"South Africa's largest generic drug producer, Aspen Pharmacare, is planning to request permission from major global pharmaceutical companies to produce copies of their patented AIDS drugs, the Associated Press reports. Although several multinational pharmaceutical firms have recently cut prices, such drugs remain unaffordable for most patients in developing countries where the brunt of the global AIDS pandemic is being felt, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"IDM Chosen By SADC for Food Security Training","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200105210442.html","body":"As one of its objectives to improve food security in member states the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has mandated the Institute of Development Management (IDM) with the implementation of its training programme on Project Management for Food Security and Poverty Alleviation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"International Journal of Epidemiology April 2001; Vol. 30, No. 2 ","field_subtitle":"Special Theme: Socioeconomic Differentials in Health","field_url":"http://ije.oupjournals.org/content/vol30/issue2/index.shtml","body":"Editorial: Evolution and inequality, James S Chisholm and Victoria K Burbank. Some scientists remain wary of evolutionary theory because of its supposed genetic determinism and insensitivity to the inequalities often associated with gender, race and class. Our aim is to show that such fears are outdated and to foster a role for evolutionary theory in public health. We use complex adaptive systems theory and the concept of a tradeoff between current and future reproduction to argue that when the future is objectively risky and uncertain the optimal reproductive strategy will often be to reproduce at a young age and/or high rate. Because reproducing early and/or often can lead to ill health and shortened lives, and because inequality is a major source of environmental risk and uncertainty, we argue that any attempt to use evolutionary theory to understand human reproduction, health or wellbeing must include considerations of inequality and social capital. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"Introduction to Health and Human Rights ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/fxbcenter/introtoHHR.htm","body":"The highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being. Health and well-being are nearly impossible to achieve when other fundamental rights are neglected or violated, which is the fate of millions of people around the globe. For example, in southern Africa, where HIV/AIDS exists in catastrophic dimensions, women continue to be infected at disproportionately high rates and often lack legal protection against discrimination and neglect of their rights. People fleeing war-torn regions are often politically and socially marginalized and subject to violence and neglect or violation of many of their rights, including those relating to access to basic social services. Despite advances in developing countries, the disparity between the fortunate few and the huge population of the poor results in the lack of adequate food, shelter, and health care for millions. The collaboration of scholars and activists working in human rights, public health, and humanitarian relief in recent years is a powerful force to bolster human rights and health. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Rights and Health"}},{"node":{"title":"JHPIEGO: Work In Policy: A Comprehensive Review","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.jhpiego.org/pubs/TR/tr111sum.htm","body":"Changes in policy at all levels of a healthcare system are often necessary to achieve program objectives and secure the success of performance improvement activities. In the course of our work, JHPIEGO has helped to develop, implement and evaluate policy in many countries and at a variety of levels. The latest technical report, \"JHPIEGO's Work In Policy: A Comprehensive Review\", documents JHPIEGO's efforts in policy development (particularly through the Training in Reproductive Health Project), and reveals a scope that was underestimated even by many JHPIEGO staff. To obtain a copy of the technical report, please contact Kathleen Hines.\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Maternity Issues a National Obligation","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200105220439.html","body":"This week, Nairobi hosted an important workshop to discuss the International Labour Organisation's Maternity Protection Convention.\r\nA striking feature of the meeting was the low-level of involvement by both the Government and the Central Organisation of Trade Unions (Cotu).\r\nAs one speaker reminded the participants, women - biologically the only ones equipped to carry and bear children - should not be penalised for this vital role. Thus the campaign to provide better maternity protection is not a women's issue. It is a social responsibility that should be borne by all. ILO Convention 183 aims to provide better working conditions and terms for expectant and nursing mothers, including adequate paid leave and protection from discrimination, and a working environment that may harm the health of mother and child.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Mcgreed Refuses to Help Raped Employee","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200105240237.html","body":"American fast food giant McDonald's has been dubbed \"McGreed\" in Mpumalanga after refusing to supply anti-Aids drugs to a staff member who was raped after working a late shift. The transnational corporation refuses to supply transport for staff who knock off between midnight and 2am, and who are regularly ambushed by criminals. A 29-year-old waitress who was gang-raped in February is so terrified of going home after work at the McDonald's Nelspruit branch that she spends her nights hiding in the local mall and only leaves after sunrise.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Nature debate: Future e-access to the primary literature ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/","body":"The topic of this Nature forum \u2014 the impact of the Web on the publishing of the results of original research \u2014 has, since the emergence of the Internet, filled volumes in the reports of conference proceedings and reams of individual articles. The main aim of this forum is to bring some of the substance of this Brownian motion of Internet issues to a broader grassroots audience and debate the implications for the future dissemination of scientific information. We have invited leading representatives of the main groups of stakeholders and observers from the mainstream Internet industries to express their views in 1,000-word articles. We hope to help identify some of the best opportunities offered by the Internet, and explore what the best public and private strategies might be, in economic and other terms, to ensure that science reaps the most benefits.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"New cholera cases in KwaZulu-Natal","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iclinic.co.za/may01/news/cholera28.asp","body":"A total of 228 new cholera cases have been\r\nreported in KwaZulu-Natal since Saturday, the provincial health department said on Sunday. No news deaths had been reported. The highest number of new cases had been reported in Lower Umfolozi District with 86, followed by Eshowe with 82. The lowest number of cases were reported on the South Coast and Pietermaritzburg with six each.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"New Journals from Nature","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.nature.com/reviews","body":"The Nature Publishing Group is pleased to announce the launch of three new review journals: Nature Reviews Immunology and Nature Reviews Cancer will launch in October 2001 and Nature Reviews Drug Discovery in January 2002 - ensuring that you receive high quality overviews whatever your discipline. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Patients' Distress Deepens As Lagos Doctors Join Strike ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200105300278.html","body":"As expected, the traditional toll on human lives and welfare that usually attends doctors' strike has set in nationwide with patients and their\r\nrelations running hither and you for succour but getting none-except in private hospitals. Yet, the gladiators - the federal government and the Nigerian Medical Association - are showing no signs of calling a truce.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Procedural hearings in asbestos case begin in UK","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,853052-6099-0,00.html","body":"A PROCEDURAL hearing to limit the issues and determine the trial date and length of the asbestos case against Cape plc began in the London High Court yesterday. The court will determine the timetable of the trial. The high court in London was told at yesterday's hearing that more than 6500 South Africans had registered for claims in the multimillion-dollar compensation battle against Cape plc. However, more than 150 of the claimants have died since the case started. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Public sector bosses could face super union","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,858107-6099-0,00.html","body":"PUBLIC sector management should brace itself to face a much stronger union if the merger plans by affiliates of the Congress of SA Trade Unions organising in this sector succeed. All Cosatu public service unions will meet in the middle of June to discuss forming a single public sector union. This development is in line with Cosatu's resolution, adopted by the federation's 1991 and 1997 congresses, which called for the establishment of super unions or cartels by way of mergers. Two other Cosatu affiliates, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union (Nehawu) and the SA Municipal Workers' Union (Samwu), are already involved in a merger plan. \r\n\r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reference guide to anti-retrovirals","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://hiv.medscape.com/updates/quickguide","body":"Medscape HIV/AIDS has posted a new overview of prescribing information, drug-drug interactions, and resistance data.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Relative deprivation, inequality, and mortality","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.wws.princeton.edu/~rpds/relative_depriv.pdf","body":"Angus Deaton, Research Program in Development Studies & Center for Health and Wellbeing Princeton University. \r\nA model of mortality and income which attempts to integrate the \"gradient,\" the negative relationship between income and mortality, with the Wilkinson hypothesis, that income inequality poses a risk to health. The author postulates that individual health is negatively affected by relative deprivation within a reference group, defined as the ratio to group mean income of the total \"weight\" of incomes of group members better-off than the individual; and argues that such a model is consistent with what we know about the way in which social status affects health, based on both animal and human models. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"RESEARCHERS","field_subtitle":"Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town","field_url":"http://www.uct.ac.za/depts/cmh/heu1.htm","body":"RESEARCHERS: Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town\r\n\r\nThe Health Economics Unit (HEU) is one of the few of its kind in Africa. It conducts a wide range of research applied to health policy and health care evaluation. Current research focuses on health sector reform (financing, public/private mix and decentralisation), health equity issues and economic evaluation of public health problems. The HEU also offers a Masters in Health Economics, a Doctoral program (by dissertation research), short courses and other training programs. The HEU is involved in a range of capacity development and collaborative networks within the African region.\r\n\r\nResearchers are required for the followingc ontract posts:\r\nJunior Research Fellow (2-year contract: This is an exciting opportunity for a recent graduate / young researcher. The appointed researcher will conduct original research under the guidance of senior HEU staff, and will also undertake some research assistance activities for, and work closely with, the HEU Director. Applicants should have a Masters in Health Economics or related qualification, an interest in applied research and some research experience.  Willingness to participate in HEU training activities would be an advantage.\r\n\r\nSenior Researcher/Researcher (3-year contract: This researcher will be responsible for undertaking a substantive research project and for contributing to other research activities, particularly through supporting junior researchers.  S/he will also contribute to HEU training programs, particularly the Masters in Health Economics program and the research internship program (devoted to research capacity development for recent South African graduates from historically disadvantaged backgrounds). The successful applicant will also contribute to collaborative capacity development and research activities in the African region. Applicants should preferably have a PhD in health economics and experience in health economics/policy research.  Experience in postgraduate teaching would be a distinct advantage.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"SA: Employees face skyrocketing healthcare costs - ","field_subtitle":"shock report","field_url":"http://www.iclinic.co.za/may01/news/medaids23.asp","body":"Healthcare costs are likely to skyrocket and employers are becoming less and less prepared to carry the burden, according to the fifth in a series of surveys done by Old Mutual and released in Johannesburg on Wednesday. With findings based on in-depth interviews with 60 leading SA companies, representing close to 600 000 medical scheme lives, and focus group discussions with members of medical schemes, Old Mutual's bi-annual survey provides valuable insight into the challenges facing SA's private healthcare industry.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"SA: World Bank team to weigh up loan","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,853109-6099-0,00.html","body":"A TEAM from the World Bank is due in the country next month to assess a possible $200m loan to revitalise the health sector. Taking up the loan would mark a shift in government's view on financing from the World Bank as this would be the first World Bank loan of any significance since the democratic elections in 1994. SA has received a number of World Bank-administered grants since 1994, but only one loan. In 1997, the bank lent government R25,6m for the trade and industry department's competitiveness fund. In addition to the $200m the World Bank is expected to lend, government will contribute $70m to the project to revitalise the sector. The loan to rehabilitate the health sector has been in the pipeline since July last year. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"WTO, Economic and Social Policy"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Conference launches Windhoek plan of action","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"On behalf of Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA), an organisation of about 1,300 Members of Parliament from 99 countries, I am forwarding to your attention the Windheok Plan of Action on ICC Ratifcation and Implementation in SADC and the first two annexes thereto. A short summary-report of the proceedings of the Conference on ICC\r\nRatification and Implementation in the SADC region organised by the Ministry of Justice of Namibia, the Parliament of Namibia, PGA and the ICC Technical Programme Assistance (ICCTAP-Canada), with the support the Government of Canada the European Commission, will be soon available. The enclosed final document was drafted, discussed, amended and adopted by representatives of the legislatures, governments, civil society and media from most SADC States.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28571","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"SADC Nurses Launch HIV/AIDS Network","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/200105230231.html","body":"Nurses from the Southern African Development Community will launch the SADC HIV/AIDS Network of Nurses and Midwives (Sannam) in Pretoria on Wednesday. More than 10 SADC countries will be represented at the meeting, held at the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa) offices in Pretoria. Denosa President, Professor Philda Dudu Nzimande, told iClinic that the network is not only going to establish a regional network for sharing information, building capacity and promoting the best practices in dealing with the pandemic, but it also promises to for the first time, unify African nurses' voice in the world.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"SADC News"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual Mores Fuel AIDS Spread: African Official ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010516/hl/mores_1.html","body":"Attitudes toward sex and sexuality are at the core of the African AIDS pandemic, according to a leading South African health official. He argues that researchers and politicians must involve the African public in an open discussion of human behavior if they hope to combat the disease successfully.``Sex is regarded as a taboo in Africa--you don't speak openly about it,'' said Dr. Malegapuru William Makgoba, president of the Medical Research Council of South Africa. ``We all know that this is a sexually transmitted disease and that's the bottom line, and we're doing everything except focusing on the real major factor that determines whether or not you get the disease.''","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Social Capital and Civil Society ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2000/wp0074.pdf","body":"Fukuyama, Francis; IMF Institute International Monetary Fund - Working Paper WP/00/74, 2000\r\nSocial capital is important to the efficient functioning of modern economies and is the sine qua non of stable liberal democracy. It constitutes the cultural component of modern societies,  which in other respects have been organized since the Enlightenment on the basis of formal institutions, the rule of law,  and rationality. Building social capital  has typically been seen as a task for \"second generation\" economic reform; but unlike economic policies or even economic institutions, social capital can not be so easily created or shaped by public policy. This paper define social capital, explore its economic and political functions, as well as its origins and make some suggestions for can it be cultivated.   ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"SOCIAL EXCLUSION: CONCEPT, APPLICATION, AND SCRUTINY","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.adb.org/documents/books/social_exclusion/Social_exclusion.pdf","body":"Amartya Sen, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge,and Lamont University Professor Emeritus,Harvard University Social Development Papers No.1 Office of Environment and Social Development Asian Development Bank, June 2000\r\nThis paper examines critically what new insight \u2014if any \u2014is provided by the approach of social exclusion. Does it contribute to our understanding of the nature of poverty? Does it help in identifying causes of poverty that may be otherwise neglected? Does it enrich thinking on policy and social action in alleviating poverty? How would our understanding of poverty be any different if we were to ignore the literature of social exclusion altogether? How would the policies chosen be any different? These critical issues are central to an appropriate evaluation and assessment of the idea of social exclusion.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Household Poverty"}},{"node":{"title":"SOUTH AFRICA: Rural communities fight back against HIV/AIDS","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN","body":"EASTERN CAPE, 21 May (IRIN) - The Daliwonga clinic in South Africa's impoverished Eastern Cape province has become the area's best-known\r\nlandmark. The pristine brick-built structure stands in stark contrast to the dusty thatched huts that surround it. The clinic, funded by big business, was opened a year ago by former President Nelson Mandela, in his drive to\r\nbring development to communities like Daliwonga, 50 km from the nearest tarred road.","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28553","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Talks on global AIDS plan near completion in advance of UN special session","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iclinic.co.za/may01/aids/un28.asp","body":"With talks on a draft global plan of action to fight AIDS set to conclude on Friday, two of the chief negotiators said the text was near completion and should be ready for adoption by a General Assembly session next month. Ambassador Penny Wensley of Australia and Ambassador Ibra Degu\u00e8ne Ka of Senegal said agreement remained elusive on certain key issues, including financing the plan of action, but both expressed hope that progress would be achieved before the expected conclusion of the talks on Saturday.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The DA presents its own HIV/AIDS policy","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iclinic.co.za/may01/aids/da30.asp","body":"The Democratic Alliance (DA) has set out steps it intends to take around HIV/AIDS that may have far-reaching implications for people living with HIV/AIDS, in its policy document released on Wednesday. Government\u2019s approach has been simplistic and heavy-handed, the DA says. Although the DA accepts the health department's stance that it cannot supply antiretrovirals to all infected citizens, it says that there must be no compromise on providing antiretroviral drugs to pregnant mothers and rape survivors.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The Global Directory of Health Information Resource Centres","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iwsp.org","body":"This is the first edition of the largest global listing of health information resource centres, with data pertaining to about 1,000 centres. The focus is on their missions and objectives, with particular reference to their attitudes to technology, and their capabilities and requirements. You may consult or download the entire Directory at the site, or just pick out letters of the alphabet to select countries that are of interest. The Directory is an ongoing work, and will be updated. We aim to refine the data, and invite all readers to suggest improvements and provide better information. There are questionnaires available on the site in English, French, Russian, Spanish, Swahili.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Towards A Dynamic Concept of Health - CPRN Report ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.cprn.org/docs/health/tnp_e.pdf","body":"Sholom Glouberman, Director of Canadian Policy Research Networks, May 2001\r\nOne characteristic stands out above all in the history of our developing understanding of health, - its complexity. \"We now realize that health is shaped by numerous, perhaps countless, forces from many different spheres of influence, ranging from the molecular to the socioeconomic,\" says Sholom Glouberman, Director of CPRN's Health Network. Glouberman is the author of Towards a New Perspective on Health Policy, the final report of a three-year research project at CPRN. The report ties together a number of separate studies and the results of discussions involving some 3,500 people at more than 90 events held over the course of developing the research conclusions. Judith Maxwell, President of CPRN, says Glouberman's study points to the importance of placing the reform of the health care system in this broader context. \"All of us want to feel secure in the knowledge that health care will be there for us should we need it.\" says Maxwell. \"What Sholom's study underlines is that further investment in the health care system should consider how to regain public confidence in it. It is this interactive sense of security that has a significant impact on health along with other factors such as biological condition, social relationships, economic status, work experience and culture.\" \r\n","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Training Program in International Health ","field_subtitle":"PAHO/WHO - 2002 ","field_url":"http://www.paho.org/English/HSP/HSR/pfsiabout.htm","body":"Application Deadline: July 31, 2001. The purpose of the Program is to promote leadership in international public health by enabling participants to develop a broader vision of international and regional health trends, and a more profound understanding of technical cooperation in this field. The Program is oriented towards young health professionals from the Americas who possess a demonstrated capacity for leadership and an interest in deepening the international dimension of their activities in the health area. Participants in the Program are known as \"residents\" and are incorporated into the work of PAHO for a period of eleven months starting at the end of January 2002. ","php":"Further details: /newsletter/id/28570","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"VIOLENCE: AN ENORMOUS, BUT PREVENTABLE GLOBAL HEALTH PROBLEM","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2001/en/note2001-WHA6.html","body":"Violence - whether self-inflicted, interpersonal or collective - constitutes a global health problem of enormous dimensions, but much of it is preventable, an audience was told at a technical briefing followed by a discussion during the Fifty-fourth World Health Assembly.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHICH PUBLIC POLICIES IMPACT ON HEALTH INEQUALITIES?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www2.cid.harvard.edu/cidcmh/wg1_paper5.pdf","body":"Paper prepared for WHO\u2019s Commission on Macroeconomics and Health by Adam Wagstaff The World Bank, The University of Sussex, UK\r\nThere are three key levels of government action\u2014the macro level, the health system, and the micro level. Government decisions and actions at each level influence the amount households pay for their health care (financing), and the quantity, quality and type of services they receive (delivery). At the macro level, governments decide how much to spend on health care (and related services) and where, and how to raise the revenues to finance them. At the system level, they decide the mode of service delivery and how to regulate the private sector, and how much to charge for different services and how far to exempt the poor from fees. At the micro level, they influence the accountability of providers and the services and interventions they deliver, and how best to implement facility-based revenue collection schemes. There are, in short, many ways that governments can potentially influence both health gaps between the poor and better-off, and the degree to which poor households are affected disproportionately by the costs of health services.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO AND NOVARTIS JOIN FORCES TO COMBAT DRUG RESISTANT MALARIA ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2001/en/pr2001-26.html","body":"In a joint effort to provide essential medicines at affordable prices, the World Health Organization and Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis have agreed to provide developing countries with a new treatment for drug resistant malaria. The drug, co-developed by Novartis, will serve as a powerful tool against an illness that afflicts over 300 million people and kills more than one million each year.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO urges countries to prevent a tobacco epidemic among women and girls","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.iclinic.co.za/may01/news/smoke30.asp","body":"If countries don't implement serious measures soon, tobacco-related deaths among women are going to increase substantially. Exposure to second-hand smoke and aggressive tobacco marketing and promotion are among the factors leading to a potential epidemic of tobacco-related diseases among women, said the World Health Organisation ahead of World No Tobacco Day (31 May).","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Why rank countries by health performance?  ","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/journal.isa","body":"In 1978, from a little-known region of what was then the USSR, emerged a WHO/UNICEF statement of intent with the slogan \"Health for all by the year 2000\". That year has passed, leaving the Alma-Ata declaration largely unfulfilled. Indeed in some parts of the world the situation has worsened, and not just because of AIDS and civil unrest. Yet the failure of Alma-Ata is often viewed positively: the declaration was never meant to be taken literally as a target that everyone would be healthy by last year, and it is argued, reasonably, that the slogan has kept the issue of primary care to the forefront of the debate in WHO and other United Nations agencies. But this is a card--labelling a failure a success because the matter was worth raising--that must be played sparingly. As this week's Lancet shows (pp 1671,1685), The world health report 2000, published a year ago, continues to attract critical attention. Does it matter that the criticisms are serious provided the underlying objective, which is the use of national performance indices to improve health in all countries, is worthy, as it clearly is? If WHO is to become a science-led global policy body, the answer has to be Yes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Women and HIV/AIDS in the 2nd Draft of the Declaration of Commitment","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"The Global Alliance for Women's Health submits the following proposals concerning women and HIV/ AIDS in the revised draft Declaration of Commitment on HIV /AIDS: The DECLARATION OF COMMITMENT ON HIV/AIDS would be greatly strengthened by citing explicitly Article 12 of the CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMATION AGAINST WOMEN (CEDAW) in the pre-ambular section with text from the article and by incorporating equality language in at least the section, \"Care Support and Treatment.\" Care, support and treatment are fundamental elements of an effective response and should be available [equally] to men and women [in conformity with CEDAW, Article 12].States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of health care in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, access to health care services. CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMATION AGAINST WOMEN (CEDAW), Article 12.1\r\nIf you or your organization would like to sign on to these proposals please contact us by e-mail.","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"WORLD HEALTH ASSEMBLY ENDORSES WHO\u2019S STRATEGIC PRIORITIES","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2001/en/pr2001WHA-6.html","body":"After eight days of intense deliberations the 54th World Health Assembly closed its business in Geneva today. The biggest event in the annual calendar for the World Health Organization (WHO), the Assembly charts the global course for the Organization and its 191 Member States in dealing with major public health threats. For the first time in the history of the Organization, the United Nations Secretary-General addressed the Assembly. In his AIDS-focused speech, Mr Kofi Annan outlined the structure of a multi-billion dollar Global AIDS and Health Fund to fight HIV/AIDS and \"other infectious diseases that blight the prospects for many developing countries \u2013 starting with TB and malaria\".","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Report 2000 ","field_subtitle":"Methodological concerns and recommendations on policy consequences of the World Health Report 2000   ","field_url":"http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol357/iss9268/full/llan.357.9268.editorial_and_review.16378.1","body":"Celia Almeida, Paula Braveman, Marthe R Gold, Celia L Szwarcwald, Jose Mendes Ribeiro, Americo Miglionico, John S Millar, Silvia Porto, Nilson do Rosario Costa, Vincente Ortun Rubio, Malcolm Segall, Barbara Starfield, Claudia Travessos, Alicia Uga, Joaquim Valente, Francisco Viacava.\r\n\r\nThis article will be published in the May 26 issue of The Lancet. \r\n\r\nIntroduction\r\n\r\nThe authors of the WHO's World Health Report 20001 have placed on the WHO agenda a commitment to the laudable goals of assessing health systems, monitoring inequalities in health, and achieving equity in health-care financing. Their proposition that health services should be responsive to people's expectations is a welcome one. While these commitments should be sustained, we believe that the approaches taken toward these ends in the World Health Report are seriously flawed. We aim to suggest changes to the approach in the World Health Report to ensure that measurement strategies supporting public health policy throughout the world are scientifically sound, socially responsible, and practical. \r\n\r\nBoth the conceptual basis and methodological approaches to the World Health Report composite index of health system goal attainment and its individual components, and the indices of health system performance, have major problems. Data needed to calculate four of the five component measures for overall goal attainment were absent for 70-89% of countries, but this was not acknowledged in the report. Because all the measures are new, and imputed values for the 70-89% of countries without data were based on new methods involving multiple non-standard assumptions, readers deserve to know the underlying assumptions, methods, and key limitations, which were not adequately acknowledged. The measures of health inequalities and fair financing do not seem conceptually sound or useful to guide policy; of particular concern are some ethical aspects of the methodology for both these measures, whose implications for social policy are cause for concern. The use of the composite indices for guiding policy is not evident, mainly because of the opacity of the component measures. \r\n\r\nIn response to criticisms of the report from member states, the WHO Executive Board on Jan 19, 2001, recognised the need to establish a technical consultation process that would obtain input from member states and a small advisory group for the cross-country assessments of health systems (www.who.org, accessed May 15, 2001); we do not know what steps have been taken in that process. The Lancet published an article by Navarro in November, 2000,2 that analysed the World Health Report, focusing mainly on a series of important policy concerns. Little attention was given to methodological discussion. We therefore focus on the methodological and related conceptual issues of the report, in the hope of making an additional, constructive contribution to a thorough process of consultation that must now be opened up by WHO. \r\n\r\nConclusion  \r\n\r\nThe positive contribution of the World Health Report 2000 is its stimulation of fresh thinking about a range of issues relevant to measuring health-system performance. The goals to improve average levels of health as well as distribution of health in populations, and to monitor progress toward these goals, are sound ones. Our comments are offered in the hope that they will help WHO, guided by its member states, to move ahead with an open process of conceptualisation, measurement, and documentation in studying health systems that can serve as a sound basis for policy, planning, and advocacy in the search for health and equity; unfortunately, the World Health Report 2000 does not provide such a basis. As researchers, our recommendations have largely focused on methodological concerns. However, we firmly believe that a strong and sustained response will be needed not only from the research community but from advocates for health and development globally, and particularly from the member states to whom WHO must be accountable. We hope that this paper helps to clarify key concerns on several serious issues related to the methodology of the report. Although we have focused on methodological concerns, these issues are not simply matters of technical and scientific concern, but are profoundly political and likely to have major social consequences. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"2001-05-31","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"6th International ISEQH Conference: Making Policy a Health Equity Building Process ","field_subtitle":"Cartagena de Indias, Colombia - September 26-28, 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.iseqh.org/congreso.html","body":"The International Society for Equity in Health- ISEqH - will hold its 6th International Conference: Making Policy a Health Equity Building Process in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia - September 26-28, 2011. Equity is an important issue to champion for, however nobody disagrees with it because is too broad. The conferebce aims to provide more detail, to be more specific and, at the same time, offer a multi disciplinary look. The organisers call for submissions for organised sessions by March 4th and individual abstracts by April 15. All participants are invited to submit an abstract for symposia and/or oral and/or poster presentations to abstracts@iseqh.org. It is not necessary to be a member of the International Society for Equity in Health to submit an abstract. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"A checklist for health research priority setting: Nine common themes of good practice","field_subtitle":"Viergever RF, Olifson S, Ghaffar A, Terry RF: Health Research Policy and Systems 8(36), 15 December 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/8/1/36","body":"Following a literature review and an analysis of health research priority-setting exercises that have been organised or coordinated by the World Health Organization since 2005, this article proposes a checklist for health research priority-setting that allows for informed choices on different approaches and ensures good practice. The list is intended to provide generic assistance for planning health research prioritisation processes. The nine themes in the checklist are: identifying contextual factors; using a comprehensive approach; ensuring inclusiveness in decision-making processes; identifying and gathering relevant information; planning for implementation; selecting criteria for setting priorities; choosing methods for selecting priorities; evaluating priorities; and writing a report that will make the process that was followed transparent.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"A Global Framework Convention on Health: Would it help developing countries to fulfill their duties on the right to health? A South African perspective","field_subtitle":"Heywood M and Shija J: Section 27, Joint Action and Learning Initiative, 2009","field_url":"http://www.section27.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Heywood-Shija.pdf","body":"The authors of this paper argue that current forms of co-operation are often ineffective, insufficient and incapable of achieving progressive realisation of the right to health. They propose that, after the many international and regional Commissions, Declarations, and institutional innovations of the last 20 years, the logical next step for the promotion of the right to health is the drafting and enforcement of a Global Framework Convention on Health (GFCH). Significant contemporary international challenges make national health an issue that needs to be protected by global agreements. Such challenges include the international but unequal market for health workers that result in the recruitment of health workers from developing countries and the prohibitive cost of essential medicines and of meeting the health needs and rights of migrants and refugees. Developing countries are struggling to bear these financial burdens. The authors call for a GFCH that broadly sets out national and international duties towards health, health challenges and their cost, and helps make people of low income countries less vulnerable to shifting developed-world priorities.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"A question of choice","field_subtitle":"Editor, EQUINET Newsletter","field_url":"","body":"Hermann Biggs, a pioneering public health practitioner, said in 1894 that countries get the public health outcomes they invest in. \u201cWithin natural limitations, every community can determine its own death rate\u201d. In this newsletter there are many facets of the choices made around this. The papers in all sections reveal a tension between the possibilities for significantly improved health, through new technologies and examples of promising practice, and of the resource and other barriers to their application. At national level, Charlotte Muheki Zikusooka questions in her editorial whether, for example, Ugandans are making adequate investment in \u201chealth for all\u201d to get to \u201cprosperity for all\u201d.  Other inputs focus on how the limited resources available are being allocated and spent. In 1894, when Hermann Biggs made his comment, global policies and practices had a less significant influence on health.  Today their influence is growing. Various contributions in this newsletter recognise this, for example in the country call for WHO leadership in ensuring coherence in global health and for predictable innovative and mandatory international financing for health. The recently passed UN Resolution on the right to water and sanitation recognises both national and international roles in progressively realising the right to these profoundly important determinants of health. So if today we are adding to Biggs\u2019 comment \u201c\u2026 and we can globally determine the death rates of us all\u201d,  what rights and duties towards meeting public health costs does that imply?","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Amanzi Ngawethu (The Water is Ours)","field_subtitle":"Coalition Against Water Privatisation, Centre for Applied Legal Studies, Anti-Privatisation Forum, Friction Films, Phiri Concerned Residents and Unitarian Universalist Service Committee: 2010","field_url":"http://frictionfilms.blip.tv/file/2544478/","body":"In September 2009, the Constitutional Court of South Africa heard the final appeal in a case brought by five Soweto residents challenging prepaid water meters and insufficient free basic water. The Bill of Rights of the South African Constitution guarantees right of access to sufficient water. However, poor communities in Johannesburg's townships do not have sufficient water and do not receive the same water service as the richer suburbs. Amanzi Ngawethu (The Water is Ours) is a short documentary representing the six-year legal battle against water privatisation. It brings together protest songs, photos and video from people and organisations involved in the struggle and working in solidarity.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Assessing the use of an essential health package in a sector wide approach in Malawi ","field_subtitle":"Bowie C and Mwase T: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(4), 17 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/9/1/4","body":"In this paper, the authors assessed Malawi\u2019s sector-wide approach (SWAp) through its essential health package (EHP) in terms of coverage and choice of interventions. A review of the cost-effectiveness of 55 EHP interventions was undertaken to assess the appropriateness of each intervention used in the EHP, using WHO recommended protocols for burden of disease and performance and National Health Accounts data for cost. The authors found that 33 of the 55 EHP interventions were potentially cost-effective, while 12 were not so cost-effective, and cost-effective estimates were not available for 10 interventions. The paper suggests further areas of potentially high cost effectiveness for future inclusion in the EHP. Overall, the authors conclude that the SWAp had invested in some very cost-effective health interventions. In terms of numbers of patients treated, the EHP had delivered two-thirds of the services required, despite serious under-funding of the EHP, an increase in the population and shortage of staff. In conclusion, the identification of interventions of proven effectiveness and good value for money and earmarked funding through a SWAp process can produce measurable improvement in health service delivery at extremely low cost.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for abstracts: First International HIV Social Science and Humanities Conference","field_subtitle":"Submission Date: 25 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.iaohss.org/index.php/abstract.html","body":"The International Association of HIV Social Scientists is calling for abstracts for the First International HIV Social Science and Humanities Conference. Abstracts should cover any of the following themes: treatment as prevention, HIV and the body, social epidemiology and social networks, global politics, responsibility and risk governance, and new directions for HIV and AIDS treatment. The abstracts should be original contributions to any of the themes listed above and demonstrate the contribution of the social sciences or humanities to any aspect of the HIV epidemic. The conference welcomes papers, session proposals and events that are innovative in their delivery, organization, range of topics and type of public or audience. As well as traditional research papers, proposals are open for sessions and papers using \u2018new media\u2019 or other new forms of presentation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics","field_subtitle":"5-19 May 2011: Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.aporde.org.za","body":"The African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE) is a high-level training programme in development economics that aims to build capacity in economics and economic policy-making. The course will run for two weeks and consist of lectures and seminars taught by leading international and African economists. This call is directed at African, Asian and Latin American economists, policy makers and civil society activists who, if selected, will be fully funded. Only 30 applicants will be selected.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for applicants: Developing country scholarships","field_subtitle":"Closing Date: 14 February 2011","field_url":"http://www.cud.be/content/view/339/208/lang,/","body":"The CUD (Cutting-edge International Trainings and Courses for Development) Scholarships Programme for the year 2011-2012 is available for applicants from developing countries. Courses include Masters in Public Health, Master in Development, Environment and Society, Master of Science and Supplementary Environmental Management in Developing Countries, Management Systems in Health Services, and Methodology in Support of Innovation in Family Planning. Some of these courses and trainings are in French and candidates should be familiar with the language before applying for them. Nevertheless, selected candidates also need to learn French while participating in the programme. Only candidates from specific countries may apply, including South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Eligible candidates will be those holding a graduate degree comparable to a Belgian University graduate degree. After completion of the programme, selected candidates should return to their country and pursue work in the field in which they have undergone the course or training.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for papers: African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines","field_subtitle":"No closing date given","field_url":"http://journals.sfu.ca/africanem/index.php/ajtcam/index","body":"The African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines will publish a special issue in 2011 entitled \u2018Reviews of Modern Tools in Traditional Medicines\u2019. Experts may write on any of the following topics: specific case management studies in traditional medicines, traditional medical practice in different systems of traditional medicines, African, Chinese or Indian traditional medicines, complementary and alternative medicines, other systems of traditional medicines, evaluation of herbal products as potential medicines/drugs, clinical trials of herbal medicines, traditional medicines and HIV and AIDS, chemical profiling of herbal medicines, cultivation of medicinal plants, safety evaluation of herbal products/medicines, standardisation of herbal medicines, packaging of herbal products, economics of herbal medicines, and biotechnology and traditional medicines. Accepted papers after review will be published without the usual publication fees. Abstracts of accepted papers may also appear in French. Authors should please read the instructions for authors on the journal\u2019s website in preparing their manuscripts. Papers should be uploaded online on the journal\u2019s website or sent to the editor and marked \u2018Paper for Special Issue\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Call for signatures on letter to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation","field_subtitle":"Pambazuka News (509), 9 December 2010","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/69470","body":"All concerned parties are invited by AGRA Watch/Community Alliance for Global Justice & La Via Campesina to add their signatures to this open letter to the Gates Foundation. It acknowledges that signatories to the letter share recognition with the Foundation that hunger, poverty and climate change are inter-related through the medium of agricultural policies, but express reservations that the Foundation\u2019s approach to these issues \u2013 directly and through its Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) subsidiary \u2013 is unlikely to adequately address them and may well aggravate their underlying causes. The letter states that the Foundation is mistakenly funding an inappropriate effort to industrialise agriculture in Africa, including the use of chemical fertilisers, pesticides, monocropping of \u2018improved\u2019 and genetically engineered crop varieties, further deregulation of trade, and regulatory frameworks that will privatise seed. The authors of the letter warn that science and historical precedents indicate that these changes will come at the expense of the hungry, small farmers, consumer health and the environment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Can Ugandans get to \u201cprosperity for all\u201d without addressing \u201chealth for all\u201d?","field_subtitle":"Charlotte Muheki Zikusooka, HealthNet Consult, Uganda","field_url":"","body":"\r\nAs we turn the corner of 2010 and make our personal plans for 2011, it\u2019s also appropriate to think about the plans and actions we will take to improve our lives as a nation. With election fever raging in my country, Uganda, there are more than enough promises on how to make Uganda a better country. However, some questions remain unanswered. For me, and possibly for many others, one area we need to give more attention to is the current and future health of our population. The question I pose is: are we heading towards \u201chealth for all\u201d? Are we taking steps to achieve health care for all, more recently referred to as \u201cuniversal health coverage\u201d? \r\n\r\nThe World Health Organisation defines universal health coverage as \u201csecuring access for all to appropriate promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative services at an affordable cost\u201d.  In 2005, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution urging its member states to work towards universal coverage and to ensure that their populations have access to the health interventions they need without the risk of financial calamity. This means that people should be protected from the costs of health care when they fall ill, that all people should access the services that are available to meet their health needs, and that services should meet conditions of quality and dignity, regardless of people\u2019s ability to pay. \r\n\r\nThe goal for universal health coverage is; \u2018No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should be made poorer because they get sick.\u2019 The questions we should grapple with are:  how far has Uganda moved towards achieving this? And what specific plans are being laid for gradual movements towards achieving this? \r\n\r\nIt\u2019s surprising to find that preventive and public health and health care were conspicuously missing from the principles and pillars of Uganda\u2019s poverty reduction strategy of \u201cProsperity for All\u201d (Bonna Bagagawale). For a long time, wealth creation and health have been considered to be inextricably inter-linked. People with ill-health cannot produce at their most desirable abilities, and poor people face many threats to their health. It can be a vicious cycle. Health or lack of health can be the difference between wealth and bankruptcy, especially when we consider the fact that one of the most common causes of poverty can be health care costs. In Uganda, households contribute about 49% of total health expenditure. We need to better understand the impact our health systems are having on people's health and wealth, and therefore on our economic growth as a nation. \r\n\r\nIn pursuing the goal of universal coverage for health, we should also look at how our health services are financed. In 2001, government officially abolished fee payment at public health facilities. This is one of the most commendable steps in moving towards achieving universal coverage. However, such an action would have been even more beneficial if was followed by additional actions that enhance faster movement towards \u201chealth for all\u201d. Uganda spends about $27 per person on health per year, which is below the $40 per person recommended by the World Health Organisation for provision of a basic package. A significant proportion of the $27 spent on each person comes from external sources that are sometimes unsustainable. Sadly, even though fees have been lifted, about half of our total health funding still comes from direct cash spending by households at private health providers whose services are usually viewed to be a relatively better quality than those provided in government facilities. \r\n\r\nThis financing situation poses two problems. The first is obvious; our health sector is severely under-funded. Ministry of Health estimates current expenditure per person on essential medicines as only US$ 0.87 against an estimated requirement of US$ 10 per person. It is therefore not surprising that only 35% of the health facilities have six tracer medicines and supplies. The second is less obvious: financing a health system from people\u2019s cash payments (out-of-pocket) is the most unfair, fragmented and least likely approach to take us towards \u201chealth for all\u201d. Experts in health financing, in Uganda and the world over, acknowledge that universal health coverage cannot be achieved in contexts were countries have not effectively addressed the issue of equitable health financing. \r\n\r\nSo what do we need to do? Equitable financing is based on set of principles, namely: financial protection (no one in need of health services should be denied access due to inability to pay and households\u2019 livelihoods should not be threatened by the costs of health care); progressive financing (contributions should be distributed according to ability-to-pay, and those with greater ability-to-pay should contribute a higher proportion of their income than those with lower incomes); and cross-subsidies (from the healthy to the ill and from the wealthy to the poor).  Uganda\u2019s current financing systems may still be far from what we need to achieve \u201chealth for all\u201d, but it is also possible for us to take the necessary steps to achieve it.  \r\n\r\nAs Uganda turns a new corner into 2011, hopefully we can start building the road map and taking these steps to move towards \u201chealth for all\u201d.\r\n\r\nThis editorial first appeared in New Vision Uganda on 4th Jan 2011.  Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat: admin@equinetafrica.org. For more information on the issues raised in this op-ed please visit  the EQUINET website at www.equinetafrica.org.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Editorial"}},{"node":{"title":"Children and AIDS: Fifth Stocktaking Report, 2010","field_subtitle":"United Nations Children\u2019s Fund: October 2010","field_url":"http://www.unicef.org/aids/files/ChildrenAndAIDS_Fifth_Stocktaking_Report_2010_EN.pdf","body":"In this report, the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF) and its partners note progress on preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT), with most women around the world getting anti-retroviral drugs to prevent transmission to newborns. However, globally, AIDS remains the leading cause of death amongst women of childbearing age and UNICEF\u2019s goal now is to help eliminate vertical mother-to-child transmission so that fewer or no newborns will be infected, especially in Africa, where 1,000 babies acquire the virus every day. UNICEF notes general progress in four priority areas: prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV; paediatric treatment; prevention among adolescents and young people; and protection for orphans and vulnerable children. The report emphasises that reaching the poorest, most marginalised and least served has been at the core of successful AIDS programming. That imperative is even greater in an era of static resources and ever more complex competing priorities. The AIDS-free generation that is now in sight can be achieved \u2013 but only if governments accelerate the scale-up of proven measures, and only if they are viewed as part of a rights-based, results-focused drive to reach all those in need. Integrating interventions into existing systems without losing the capacity to address the specific needs of children affected by AIDS remains a significant challenge.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Citizens\u2019 agenda for Africa\u2019s development","field_subtitle":"African Monitor: 2010","field_url":"http://www.africanmonitor.org/Site/docs/Citizens_Agenda.pdf","body":"Five years remain for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and more needs to be done in Africa to meet the goals for governance and economic and social development. This document reports grassroots opinions from across Africa for shaping the policy agenda for the forthcoming decade, 2011\u20132020. African Monitor argues that the current development paradigm is exclusionary and does not reach the intended beneficiaries, hence their minimal access to basic services such as health, education, water and sanitation. The report provides a number of recommendations, proposing a values-based and sustainable development ideal to replace the current one and arguing that the MDGs need to be spelt out properly for the African and Western public, with the emphasis on public benefits. African governments should operate with financial transparency and civil society, professional associations, social movements and business entrepreneurs should be catalysts for engendering accountability. Agriculture, food security and the informal sector should also be prioritised by African governments and those who support Africa\u2019s development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Civil society organisations: Perspectives and priorities ","field_subtitle":"Action Group for Health, Human Rights and HIV/AIDS: January 2011","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/ACTgov210111.pdf","body":"This report documents perspectives from civil society organisations (CSOs) on the performance of the health sector in Uganda, against the background of the government\u2019s Health Sector Strategic and Investment Plan III (HSSIP). Researchers found that most priority areas are in the integrated health systems, including health workforce development, increasing production and equitable deployment of health workers, increasing financial resources, strengthening the role of civil society in monitoring and accountability, and ensuring reliable access to medicines and health supplies. They call for the Ministry of Health to demonstrate its leadership, stewardship, and political will to push forward the recommendations not only elucidated in this report, but also in the HSSIP. Specific critical areas of intervention are also highlighted, including mental health and non-communicable diseases (including cancer and sickle cell disease), malaria, HIV and AIDS, health promotion and human rights. The authors recommend critical interventions in health financing, human resources for health, essential medicines and health supplies, and delivery of the Uganda Minimum Health Care Package (UMHCP).","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Claims on health care: A decision-making framework for equity, with application to treatment for HIV/AIDS in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Susan M Cleary, Gavin H Mooney and Diane E McIntyre. Health Policy Plan. (2010) Published: 24 December 2010","field_url":"http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2010/12/23/heapol.czq081.full.pdf+html","body":"Trying to determine how best to allocate resources in health care is especially difficult when resources are severely constrained, as is the case in all developing countries. This is particularly true in South Africa currently where the HIV epidemic adds significantly to a health service already overstretched by the demands made upon it. This paper proposes a framework for determining how best to allocate scarce health care resources in such circumstances, which is based on communitarian claims. The basis of possible claims considered include: the need for health care, specified both as illness and capacity to benefit; whether or not claimants have personal responsibility in the conditions that have generated their health care need; relative deprivation or disadvantage; and the impact of services on the health of society and on the social fabric. Ways of determining these different claims in practice and the weights to be attached to them are also discussed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Contagion, liberalisation, and the optimal structure of globalisation","field_subtitle":"Stiglitz JE: Journal of Globalization and Development 1(2): Article 2, 2010","field_url":"http://www.bepress.com/jgd/vol1/iss2/art2","body":"Advocates of capital market liberalisation argue that it leads to greater stability, as countries faced with a negative shock borrow from the rest of the world, allowing cross-country smoothing. However, the author of this paper argues that there is considerable evidence against this conclusion. He explores in detail the ways in which market integration can exacerbate contagion, whereby a failure in one country can more easily spread to others. The author examines the conditions under which such adverse effects overwhelm the putative positive effects, illustrating how capital controls can be welfare enhancing, reducing the risk of adverse effects from contagion. This paper is intended to provide an analytic framework within which policy makers can begin to address broader questions of optimal economic architectures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Cost-effectiveness analysis for priority-setting in South Africa: What are the possibilities?","field_subtitle":"Doherty J: South African Medical Journal 100(12):816\u2013821, December 2010 ","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/4440/3031","body":"This study explores the role of cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) in supporting decision-making around health care priorities in South Africa by referring to South African studies that have provided clinical and policy guidance at the levels of the patient, the service and the population. In her analysis, the author positions cost-effectiveness evidence in relation to other concerns such as equity and the overall performance of the health system. At the level of the patient, CEA helps to decide which of several alternative interventions is the most cost-effective in addressing a specific problem. CEA can also assist in identifying interventions that need to be introduced to respond to emerging conditions, as well as help policy makers adjudicate between different modes of service delivery, for example by assessing costs of different types of service integration.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Delivering interventions for newborn and child survival at scale: A review of research evidence","field_subtitle":"Barker P, Sifrim ZK, Mate K, Larson C, Kirkwood BR, Peterson S et al: World Health Organization, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/images/stories/7child_survival.pdf","body":"This review examined approaches for delivering child and newborn interventions to large populations and how research can help achieve universal coverage of essential maternal, newborn and child health interventions. The literature review included 87 articles, which described 79 discrete studies, mostly in developing countries. The authors found that interventions are available that can prevent serious illness and save the lives of millions of infants and children living in low- and middle-income countries but achieving universal coverage of these interventions depends on a functional health system, the delivery approach used by that system, and community or individual considerations such as access, demand for and acceptability of the intervention, and ability to comply. The authors found that little is known about the process of scaling up, namely, moving from delivery in one district to national coverage \u2013 more research is needed. They recommend that any intervention aimed at reducing financial or physical barriers should consider questions of affordability, equity and sustainability. Strategies taking health interventions directly to communities and individual homes can increase the uptake and improve the quality of local services, helping to reduce maternal, newborn and infant mortality, though findings were inconsistent. The authors call for knowledge and training to be linked with establishing conditions that encourage health workers to change their practices in terms of leadership, motivation, opportunity and accountability.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Do poorer countries have less capacity for redistribution?","field_subtitle":"Ravallion M: Journal of Globalization and Development 1(2): Article 1, 2010","field_url":"http://www.bepress.com/jgd/vol1/iss2/art1","body":"According to this paper, development aid and policy discussions often assume that poorer countries have less internal capacity for redistribution in favour of their poorest citizens. The author tested this assumption for 90 developing countries. He found that most countries fall into one of two groups: those with little or no realistic prospect of addressing extreme poverty through redistribution from the wealthy, and those that would appear to have ample scope for such redistribution.  He found that increased per capita income tends to move countries from the first group to the second. The author argues that the marginal tax rates needed to fill the poverty gap for the international poverty line of $1.25 a day are clearly prohibitive (marginal tax rates of 100% or more) for the majority of countries with consumption per capita under $2,000 per year at 2005 PPP. Even covering half the poverty gap would require prohibitive marginal tax rates in the majority of poor countries. Yet amongst better-off developing countries\u2014over $4,000 per year (say)\u2014the marginal tax rates needed for substantial pro-poor redistribution are very small\u2014less than 1% on average, and under 6% in all cases. He found that economic growth tends to move countries from the first group to the second, concluding that the appropriate balance between growth and redistribution strategies can be seen to depend on the level of economic development.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Does mass drug administration for the integrated treatment of neglected tropical diseases really work? Assessing evidence for the control of schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminths in Uganda","field_subtitle":"Parker M and Allen T: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(3), 6 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-3.pdf","body":"The authors of this paper drew upon local-level research to examine the roll out of treatment for two neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) \u2013 schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminthes \u2013 in Uganda. Ethnographic research was undertaken over a period of four years between 2005-2009 in north-west and south-east Uganda to determine the effectiveness of mass drug administration (MDA) for the two NTDs. In addition to participant observation, survey data recording self-reported take-up of drugs was collected from a random sample of at least 10% of households at study locations. The comparative analysis of take-up among adults revealed that, although most long-term residents have been offered treatment at least once since 2004, the actual take-up of drugs varies considerably from one district to another and often also within districts. The authors argue that this is due to local dynamics and highlight the need to adapt MDA to local circumstances. They call for improvements in health education, drug distribution and more effective use of existing public health legislation. Current standard practices of monitoring, evaluation and delivery of MDA for NTDs were found to be inconsistent and inadequate.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Draft WHO HIV/AIDS strategy 2011\u20132015","field_subtitle":"World Health Organization: 23 December 2011","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/EB128/B128_10-en.pdf","body":"This global strategy is intended to guide the response of the health sector to HIV epidemics to achieve universal access to treatment, prevention, care and support, improve related health outcomes and strengthen health systems. In order to achieve the twin goals of no new HIV infections and long, healthy lives for all people living with HIV, the strategy takes four steps. First, it reaffirms global goals for the health-sector response to HIV. Second, it proposes four strategic directions to guide national responses and to provide a framework for action by the World Health Organization (WHO). Third, it prioritises five key contributions that underpin the strategic directions and that will be the focus of WHO\u2019s efforts in the next five years. Fourth, it positions the health-sector response to HIV within the broader public health agenda and as part of a multisectoral response to HIV. The strategy is global in scope but recognises differences in types and stages of epidemics, contexts, needs and responses across regions and countries that require targeted and contextual approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET discussion paper 85: Experiences of implementation of a deprivation-based resource allocation formula in Zambia: 2004\u20132009","field_subtitle":"Chitah BM, Department of Economics, University of Zambia, December 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/Zambia_RA%20rep%20Dec%202010.pdf","body":"This study was undertaken by University of Zambia within the Health Financing theme work of the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa (EQUINET) within a regional programme that is exploring progress in integrating equity into resource allocation. The study was undertaken to update the experiences and progress on the design, review and implementation of an equity-based resource allocation formula in the Zambian health sector. The author found that the formula has only been implemented in partial form,  and that second and third generation formulae have not been adjusted in the implementation process. A severe lack of funding for the public health system, whose funding is smaller than the financing for specific health programmes like HIV and AIDS, remains a significant concern.  The study makes a number of recommendations. The author calls for more research evaluating the changes in health outcomes, outputs or processes as a consequence of implementing resource allocation formulae. He calls for integration of financing and expansion of the pooled funding for the health sector to raise possibilities for a realistic implementation of the resource allocation formula. Richer districts should not have to risk a revenue reduction. The way to achieve the formula should rather use limited revenue growth in these districts relative to accelerated revenue growth for the poorer districts. A clear time line should be established with regard to the transformation of resource allocation and this should be updated based on emerging evidence. A monitoring and evaluation process should track performance of both resource allocation and health and health care outcomes. Finally, the Ministry of Health should evaluate the effect of structural changes with regard to resource management and performance so as to ensure optimum implementation.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"\r\nContact EQUINET at admin@equinetafrica.org and visit our website at www.equinetafrica.org Website: http://www.equinetafrica.org/newsletter \r\n\r\nSUBMITTING NEWS: Please send materials for inclusion in the EQUINET NEWS to editor@equinetafrica.org Please forward this to others. \r\n\r\nSUBSCRIBE: The Newsletter comes out monthly and is delivered to subscribers by e-mail. Subscription is free. To subscribe, visit http://www.equinetafrica.org or send an email to info@equinetafrica.org \r\n\r\nThis newsletter is produced under the principles of 'fair use'. We strive to attribute sources by providing direct links to authors and websites. When full text is submitted to us and no website is provided, we make the text available as provided. The views expressed in this newsletter, including the signed editorials, do not necessarily represent those of EQUINET or the institutions in its steering committee. While we make every effort to ensure that all facts and figures quoted by authors are accurate, EQUINET and its steering committee institutions cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies contained in any articles. Please contact editor@equinetafrica.org immediately regarding any issues arising.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Footer"}},{"node":{"title":"EQUINET Newsletter 120: Can Ugandans get to \u201cprosperity for all\u201d without addressing \u201chealth for all\u201d?","field_subtitle":"","field_url":"","body":"EQUINET NEWS IS THE ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST OF THE NETWORK FOR EQUITY IN HEALTH IN EAST AND SOUTHERN AFRICA (EQUINET)\r\n\r\nhttp://www.equinetafrica.org/\r\n\r\nEQUINET NEWS is designed to keep you informed about materials on equity and health in east and southern Africa, focusing primarily on EQUINET's principal themes. It includes news about EQUINET activities, policy debates or theme work to keep you updated on work taking place. Further information on EQUINET activities is available from the EQUINET secretariat at Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) (email: admin@equinetafrica.org).","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Header"}},{"node":{"title":"Evidence summaries tailored to health policy-makers in low- and middle-income countries","field_subtitle":"Rosenbaum SE, Glenton C, Wiysonge CS, Abalos E, Mignini L, Young T et al: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 89(1): 54\u201361, January 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/1/10-075481.pdf","body":"This paper describes how the SUPPORT collaboration developed a short summary format for presenting the results of systematic reviews to policy-makers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). SUPPORT carried out 21 user tests in six countries \u2013 including South Africa and Uganda \u2013 to explore users\u2019 experiences with the summary format. They found that policy makers liked a graded entry format (i.e. short summary with key messages up front). Policy makers particularly valued the section on the relevance of the summaries for LMICs, which compensated for the lack of locally relevant detail in the original review. The authors conclude that presenting evidence from systematic reviews to policy makers in LMICs in the form of short summaries can render the information easier to assimilate and more useful, but summaries must be clear and easy to read or scan quickly. Policy makers should also be sensitised to the nature of the information provided by systematic reviews and its relevance for policy decisions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Expanding access to ART in South Africa: The role of nurse-initiated treatment","field_subtitle":"Colvin CJ, Fairall L, Lewin S, Georgeu D, Zwarenstein M, Bachmann M et al: South African Medical Journal 100(4): 210\u2013212, April 2010","field_url":"http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/viewFile/4124/2744","body":"Although task-shifting is widely promoted as the solution to expanding anti-retroviral therapy (ART) access, this article notes that the evidence for non-physician-provided ART in Africa is limited, with few studies comparing the performance of non-physicians with doctors. However, field reports from programmes that have used non-physicians to deliver ART, including from rural settings in South Africa, are more plentiful and report similarly positive (although less reliable) results in terms of both ART outcomes and improved access. The authors argue that positive results from trials in South Africa regarding nurse initiation and management of patients on ART may mean that this may become a key strategy for expanding ART access. Along with basic training and support and an appropriately phased implementation, the authors recommend drafting guidelines that are designed for and specific to nurses and that clarify referral options, so that nurses will feel adequately prepared and supported for their ART tasks.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Financing Global Health 2010: Development assistance and country spending in economic uncertainty","field_subtitle":"Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME): 2010 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/68nbtor","body":"This report offers a comprehensive view of trends in public and private financing of development assistance for health (DAH), with preliminary estimates of how the economic downturn is affecting health financing in 2010. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) notes that the global economic recession appears to be contributing to a slowing of the rate of growth in DAH. Estimates show continued growth through 2010 to a total of $26.87 billion by year\u2019s end, but the rate of growth was cut by more than half from an annual average of 13% between 2004 and 2008 to 6% annually between 2008 and 2010. Spending on HIV and AIDS programmes continued to rise at a strong rate, making HIV and AIDS the most funded of all health focus areas. Maternal, newborn and child health received about half as much funding as HIV and AIDS in 2008. Tuberculosis funding grew steadily from 1990 through 2008. Malaria funding rose more dramatically than any other health focus area between 2007 and 2008. Despite much discussion about the need for general health sector support, funding for that area has grown slowly since 2006, according to the report. Non-communicable diseases receive the least amount of funding compared with other health focus areas. Uncertainty about the future of DAH underscores the importance of tracking global health spending to ensure resources are directed as efficiently as possible to the world\u2019s most pressing health needs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"First International HIV Social Science and Humanities Conference: 11-13 June 2011: South Africa","field_subtitle":"Registration Dates: Early: Early Registration Fee Prior To 25 February 2011 Regular Fee: By 4 June 2011","field_url":"http://www.iaohss.org/index.php/register.html","body":"This conference will consider the link between and contributions of the social sciences and humanities to HIV research and action. The International Association of HIV Social Scientists, which is organising the event, argues that social science emphasises a critical, reflexive stance and willingness to confront the social, ethical, and political dimensions of scientific investigations of the HIV epidemic, which has made it instrumental in successful HIV prevention efforts such as the normalisation of condom use against sexual transmission and the introduction of safe injecting equipment for injecting drug use. Social scientific research has also provided insights into issues related to the treatment and care of people living with HIV and AIDS, and has addressed the broader social and political barriers to effective responses to HIV. Yet there have been few forums in which scholars from different social science and humanities disciplines can come together to develop connections among the various phenomena we study, and between ourselves and our biomedical, policy and community based colleagues. This conference is a forum for those keen to extend the scope of the social sciences and its capacity to trace connections between all kinds of phenomenon, notably those that contribute to the complexity and changing nature of the epidemic. Themes include: treatment as prevention, HIV and the body, social epidemiology and social networks, global politics, and responsibility and risk governance, as well as new directions for HIV and AIDS treatment.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Food prices highest since 2008","field_subtitle":"Food and Agriculture Organization: January 2011","field_url":"http://www.fao.org/giews/english/gfpm/GFPM_01_2011.pdf","body":"Food prices are at their highest since the 2008 global food crisis, according to this report released by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In mid-2008, international food prices reached their highest level in 30 years, sparking one of the worst food crises in recent times and pushing more than a billion people into hunger. The global average price of food - including cereals, cooking oil, meat and dairy products - was 25% higher in December 2010 than in December 2009, according to the report. FAO suggests that countries with bumper crops or ample stocks of staple foods should maintain strategic reserves, and food-importing countries should think strategically and negotiate favourable trading terms. Rising fuel prices could also have a negative impact on food production and distribution in 2011. In Kenya and Tanzania, maize prices remained stable and at low levels in December 2010, mostly reflecting the good 2010 main harvests. However, in Uganda prices have risen considerably, driven by demand from Kenya, a traditional importer, as well as from southern Sudan and Rwanda. In Mozambique, maize prices continued their upward trend during December 2010. Madagascar also reported a significant increase in the price of the country\u2019s main staple, rice, which is imported.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Foreign aid drying up in Africa","field_subtitle":"Abubkar J: All Africa News, 29 November 2010","field_url":"http://allafrica.com/stories/201011290412.html","body":"Chief Economist of the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) Professor, Mthuli Ncube, noted that several economic factors that are redefining economic relations around the world, including the economic recession in Europe and America, and Africa's new economic partner \u2013 China. From 1960 to 2008, foreign donors have put over US$650 billion in external funding into the Africa, but Global Financial Integrity put the total capital flight from the continent from 1960 to date at US$844 billion, representing a net loss. Professor Ncube said African countries must focus on building infrastructure and strengthening intra-continent economic ties to help cover an anticipated drop in foreign aid.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Fourth World Social Forum on Social Security and Health","field_subtitle":"3\u20136 February 2011: Dakar Senegal","field_url":"http://www.fsms.org.br/ingles/","body":"The Fourth World Social Forum on Social Security and Health will be held immediately before of the IX Edition of the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal from 3\u20136 February 2011. The theme of the Forum will be \u2018Towards universal social security: A right without borders, a system without barriers: Africa in the centre of the world\u2019. Those at the Forum will debate the collective process that tries to project the concerns and proposals of a wide range of organisations that work in different fields related to of social security and the right to health, including work protection, social assistance and economic security.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Global Fund gets increase in funding","field_subtitle":"Molenaar B: Health Diplomacy Monitor 1(5): 2\u20133, January 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6cjecju","body":"Funders came together in New York, October 4-5, 2010, for the third replenishment meeting of the Global Fund. They pledged US$ 11.69 billion for continued work for the years 2011-2013. The contributions represent the highest level of funding in the history of the Global Fund, with an increase of 20% from the previous replenishment meeting held in Berlin in 2007. At a press conference, Richard Manning, the vice-chair of the replenishment meeting, emphasised the good news. Noting that, despite difficult financial times, many donors had demonstrated their continued commitment to the Global Fund. For example, the United States increased its contribution by 38%. A board member commented that the Global Fund has more funding than ever, but that it will be necessary to look for more innovative and sustainable sources of funding in the future.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Health and social justice","field_subtitle":"Ruger JP: Oxford University Press, 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/64dvtol","body":"Societies make decisions and take actions that profoundly impact the distribution of health. Why and how should collective choices be made, and policies implemented, to address health inequalities under conditions of resource scarcity? How should societies conceptualise and measure health disparities, and determine whether they've been adequately addressed? Who is responsible for various aspects of this important social problem? In her book, Jennifer Prah Ruger elucidates principles to guide these decisions, the evidence that should inform them, and the policies necessary to build equitable and efficient health systems world-wide. This book weaves together original insights and disparate constructs to produce a foundational new theory, the health capability paradigm, in which all people should have access to the means to avoid premature death and preventable morbidity. Ruger's theory takes the ongoing debates about the theoretical underpinnings of national health disparities and systems in a new rights-based direction. She shows the limitations of existing approaches (utilitarian, libertarian, Rawlsian, communitarian), and effectively balances a consequentialist focus on health outcomes and costs with a proceduralist respect for individuals' health agency. Through what Ruger calls \u2018shared health governance\u2019, her approach emphasises responsibility and choice. It allows broader assessment of injustices, including attributes and conditions affecting individuals' ability to \u2018flourish\u2019, as well as societal structures within which resource distribution occurs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Health at the G20: A small but significant step in Seoul","field_subtitle":"Gubert J and Lennox R: Health Diplomacy Monitor 1(5): 9\u201311, January 2011 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6cjecju","body":"The G20, a group of wealthy, industrialised nations, met for their fifth summit on 11\u201312 November 2010, in Seoul, Korea. On par with previous summits, the leaders\u2019 primary focus was on economic and financial issues. While the leaders did not discuss health in a major way, it was specifically referenced in their final summit documents. Most notably, non-communicable diseases and the importance of health issues were highlighted in both the Seoul Development Consensus and the Multi-Year Action Plan for Shared Growth. The related issue of development was a prominent theme, culminating in the Seoul Development Consensus for Shared Growth. Other health-related issues, including climate change, food security, and poverty reduction, were also discussed. At the Seoul Summit, while still very limited, the G20 referenced health \u2013 directly and indirectly \u2013 more than it had at any previous meeting. According to this article, health is likely to continually increase in importance on the G20 agenda. If so, the G20 could have a major impact on global health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Health workforce: The critical pathway to universal health coverage ","field_subtitle":"Jimba M, Cometto G, Yamamoto T, Shiao L, Huicho L, Sheikh M: Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/images/stories/10health_workforce.pdf","body":"In the absence of benchmarks on the density and distribution of health workers required to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) in developing countries, the authors of this study call for more specific targets that consider country needs and realities, as well as the potential contribution of non-traditional cadres, such as community health workers and mid-level health providers. Multi-pronged approaches for health workforce development, such as task shifting, training and retention efforts, were found to have led to progress in improving coverage for infectious disease control. The authors argue that comprehensive strengthening of the health workforce, and scaling up workforce production for the continuum of maternal, newborn and child health care should be central to the UHC agenda. They recommend that governments and other stakeholders should implement policies and approaches of proven efficacy, such as those enshrined in the Kampala Declaration and Agenda for Global Action, and strengthen the evidence base to better inform policy making. The authors report success stories in the literature review in achieving universal health coverage, but they call for further research into contextual differences enabling these successes before findings may be extrapolated to other contexts.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Home-based care for Swaziland\u2019s HIV/TB sufferers","field_subtitle":"Phakathi M: Inter Press Service, 15 December 2010","field_url":"http://www.ips.org/africa/2010/12/community-caregivers-administer-mdr-tb-injections-in-swaziland","body":"In 2007, when M\u00e9dicins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) came to Swaziland to assist the Ministry of Health in its response to HIV co-infection with tuberculosis (TB) in the Shiselweni region, treatment for co-infection was not available at any of the rural region\u2019s 21 clinics. Instead, patients had to travel to urban facilities. MSF worked with government to bring services to the clinics, but some patients were either too weak or too poor to reach the clinics. So the organisation trained 80 community caregivers, who live close to the patients, on how to administer multi-drug resistant TB injections. Experts from MSF, from time to time, visit the patients and their caregivers to monitor if the medication is administered properly. MSF reports that task-shifting has helped in the decentralisation of HIV/TB services in the region, where trained lay people help with basic responsibilities such as collecting sputum, counselling and education. Critics maintain that administering a TB injection incorrectly can cause complications, and the legal implications of a lay person administering the injection incorrectly are not clear, but MSF argues that a health service provided by a lay person is better than no service at all.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"How to scale up delivery of malaria control interventions: A systematic review using insecticide-treated nets, intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy, and artemisinin combination treatment as tracer interventions","field_subtitle":"Willey B, Smith L and Schellenberg JA: World Health Organization, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/images/stories/5scale_up_delivery_malaria_control.pdf","body":"The aim of this study was to synthesise recent evidence on how to scale up the delivery of malaria interventions in endemic regions through a systematic review of the available literature. The researchers included 39 papers, including 19 African countries, related to scaling up the delivery of intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp), artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) or insecticide-treated nets (ITNs). They found that relatively few strategies for scaling up have been reported in published literature and acute knowledge gaps exist for scale up of diagnostics and treatment. In terms of coverage and equity, the evidence to link changes in coverage to any specific strategy was found to be weak. IPTp coverage was low, while a 15% increase in ACT among children was reported with delivery through accredited drug dispensing outlets and health facilities in Tanzania. For ITN programmes, reaching programme targets was associated with free delivery through campaigns. There was a shortage of information on facilitators and barriers to scale up and what little was available was setting-specific. The researchers conclude that, to prioritise strengthening of health system elements for scale up, additional research methods and new studies are needed to fill the knowledge gap.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Implications of the new WHO guidelines on HIV and infant feeding for child survival in South Africa","field_subtitle":"Doherty T, Sanders D, Goga A and Jackson D: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 89(1): 62\u201367, January 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/1/10-079798.pdf","body":"The World Health Organization released revised principles and recommendations for HIV and infant feeding in November 2009. The recommendations are based on programmatic evidence and research studies that have accumulated over the past few years within African countries. This document urges national or sub-national health authorities to decide whether health services should mainly counsel and support HIV-infected mothers to breastfeed and receive antiretroviral interventions, or to avoid all breastfeeding, based on estimations of which strategy is likely to give infants in those communities the greatest chance of HIV-free survival. South Africa has recently revised its clinical guidelines for prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission, adopting many of the recommendations in the November 2009 World Health Organization\u2019s rapid advice on use of antiretroviral drugs for treating pregnant women and preventing HIV infection in infants. However, one aspect of the new South African guidelines gives cause for concern: the continued provision of free formula milk to HIV-infected women through public health facilities. This paper presents the latest evidence regarding mortality and morbidity associated with feeding practices in the context of HIV and provides suggestions for the modification of current policy to prioritise child survival for all South African children.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Improving Ministry of Health and Ministry of Finance relationships for increased health funding","field_subtitle":"Clarke G and Ostrowski C: Global Health Initiative Policy Brief: Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, June 2009","field_url":"http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/Policy%20Brief.pdf","body":"To meet African countries\u2019 massive health burdens, national budget resources are often supplemented by mechanisms that cut across sectors, such as debt-relief proceeds and budgetary support. This requires the Ministry of Health (MoH) to participate in prioritisation debates and compete for resources with other ministries. The authors analysed the MoHs and MoFs of Ghana, Senegal and Uganda. Their findings pointed to the importance of the Ministries working together to build consensus during budget planning and policymaking. The MoH representatives faced capacity and skills constraints for this, such as in cash-flow management and budget preparation. In relation to the MoF, the budget process was still perceived as rigid and predetermined. The authors recommend that the Ministries should each designate an officer to serve as a liaison for informal information sharing, increased accountability, and collaborative budget planning. Governments should institutionalise a forum for promoting dialogue between the Ministries to increase mutual understanding and align goals. They also proposed that MoHs need to strengthen their evidence for increased budget support by linking specific health indicators to budget line items and improving their monitoring and evaluation of programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"Increasing health worker capacity through distance learning: A comprehensive review of programmes in Tanzania ","field_subtitle":"Nartker AJ, Stevens L, Shumays A, Kalowela M, Kisimbo D and Potter K: Human Resources for Health 8(30), 31 December 2010","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-8-30.pdf","body":"This review and assessment of Tanzania\u2019s current distance learning programmes for health care workers, as well as those in countries with similar human resource challenges, was undertaken to determine the feasibility of using distance learning to meet the need of an increased and more skilled health workforce. Data was collected from 25 distance learning programmes at health training institutions, universities and non-governmental organizations throughout Tanzania from May to August 2008. The authors identified a number of challenges, including: a lack of guidelines for administrators, instructors and preceptors of distance learning programmes regarding roles and responsibilities; absence of competencies for clinical components of curricula; and technological constraints such as lack of access to computers and to the internet. Insufficient funding resulted in personnel shortages, lack of appropriate training for personnel and lack of materials for students. Nonetheless, current and prospective students expressed overwhelming enthusiasm for scale-up of distance learning. The authors argue that a blended print-based distance learning model is most feasible at the national level due to current resource and infrastructure constraints.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"India rejects patents for two key AIDS drugs","field_subtitle":"M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res: 7 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=4949&cat=press-release","body":"The Indian Patent Office has rejected patent applications related to two AIDS medicines \u2013 lopinavir/ritonavir and atazanavir - on the basis that they did not merit patents under India\u2019s patents law. The decisions mark a major victory for public health, and keep the door open for the production of more affordable generics for patients across the developing world. The patent for atazanavir bisulphate was rejected because it \u2018lacked inventive ingenuity\u2019 and the patent for lopinavir/ritonavir was rejected because it did not involve an \u2018inventive step\u2019. However the companies have filed other patent applications in relation to these two drugs which are still pending. These decisions show how India\u2019s patent law, which prevents routine improvements from being patented, works in favour of public health by only granting patents for drugs that are truly innovative, according to M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res. The article highlights the need to safeguard India\u2019s role as \u2018pharmacy of the developing world.\u2019 But as a part of ongoing free trade agreement negotiations, the European Union is pushing for India to accept \u2018data exclusivity\u2019 provisions that would effectively block the production of more affordable generics \u2013 even when a drug does not merit a patent under Indian law.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Institutional innovation or institutional imitation? The impacts of TRIPs on India\u2019s patent law and practice","field_subtitle":"Sampat BN: Columbia University, July 2010","field_url":"http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/mdocs/en/wipo_ip_econ_ge_6_10/wipo_ip_econ_ge_6_10_ref_sampat.pdf","body":"The implementation of intellectual property protection for pharmaceutical products in developing countries have led to concerns on access to medicine, and some countries, such as India, have tailored their legislation to limit the effect of intellectual property (IP) rights, in particular to prevent patents on incremental innovations. However, this strategy might not be yielding the desired effect, according to this study. The author examined all patent applications during the transition period allowed under the Agreement of Trade-related Aspects of IP Rights (TRIPS) before the implementation of the agreement in 2005. India is the main provider of generic medicines to developing countries, and production is legislatively supported by the prevention of patents on incremental innovations and the use of flexibilities to TRIPS rules. The laws on the book do not map neatly with laws in practice, the author found, as it appeared that, in complex cases, the Indian Patent Office lacked resources and expertise to determine whether or not a patent may be granted. He argues that the tailoring of Indian patent standards to limit patents on incremental innovations, which dominate drug patenting in the developed world, can be seen as an institutional innovation. However, in practice, resource constraints and other pressures may lead to institutional imitation, where the Indian Patent Office would simply copy developed-country practices and standards. The author predicts that the impact of TRIPS in India will be determined by the extent to which India sticks to, or departs from, international patentability standards.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Integration of tuberculosis and HIV services in low- and middle- income countries: A systematic review","field_subtitle":"Legido-Quigley H, Montgomery CM, Khan P, Fakoya A, Getahun H, Grant AD et al: World Health Organization, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/images/stories/6tuberculosis_hiv_services.pdf","body":"The aim of this study was to synthesise knowledge concerning various models for the integrated delivery of TB/HIV services at health facility level in low- and middle-income countries. The authors conducted a systematic review of literature, selecting 63 papers and 70 abstracts for inclusion, which described 136 examples of models of integration. Strengths and weaknesses of different models of integration are identified. Models based on referral only are easiest to implement, requiring as little as additional staff training and supervision, if a functional referral system exists, but optimal communication is necessary. Models with closer integration are more efficient but require more staff training and may also require additional infrastructure, e.g. private space for HIV counselling. The authors conclude that their comparison of different models of integration of tuberculosis and HIV services was undermined by a lack of rigorous studies. More research is needed to investigate potential efficiencies of integrated care from the perspective of both provider and service user.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Intellectual property: Pharmaceuticals, public health and subtle exploitation","field_subtitle":"Christensen J and Sharife K: Pambazuka News (509), 8 December 2010","field_url":"http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/69449","body":"International intellectual property (IP) rights are increasingly serving the needs of the global pharmaceutical industry, the authors of this article argue. IP constitutes the most substantial class of intangible assets. They are geographically mobile sources of vast corporate income that remain difficult to financially evaluate via arms length transfer pricing. This is especially true concerning transactions between subsidiaries of the same corporation. Intangible assets are often shifted to secrecy jurisdictions that specialise in IP holding companies that provide 100% tax exemption on royalty income as one of several tax holidays. The authors report that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), drawn up by an ad-hoc group of high income countries and endorsed in March 2010, seeks to further lock down any loopholes on IP that may diminish the power of big pharmaceutical companies. Vessels passing through rich countries carrying generic goods for poor countries - irrespective of whether such goods are legal at source and destination jurisdictions - may be held up for seemingly as long as the intermediary nation deems fit.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Interview with Sheila Tlou, UNAIDS director for east and southern Africa ","field_subtitle":"Plus News: 29 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91231","body":"In this interview with Sheila Tlou, who took over as UNAIDS director for east and southern Africa in November 2010, Tlou notes that only two countries in east and southern Africa \u2013 Rwanda and Botswana \u2013 have achieved universal access to anti-retroviral treatment. In 2015, UNAIDS and other health governance bodies are expected to set more targets, according to Tlou. She believes that the region will reach Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 6 by 2015, namely to halt and reverse the spread of HIV. However, she emphasises that the region will not have reached its goals of zero new HIV infections, zero deaths and zero discrimination. She identifies the greatest barriers to achieving HIV and AIDS goals in the region as stigma and discrimination. Key populations have been criminalised, including men who have sex with men, sex workers, injecting drug users and transgender populations, despite statistics that indicate that, in Africa, 34% men who have sex with men also reported that they were married and 54% reported that they had had sex with both men and women in the past six months.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Kenyan researchers say indigenous crops can improve food security","field_subtitle":"Gathigah M: Inter Press Service, 20 December 2010","field_url":"http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53907","body":"According to Vision 2030, the Kenyan government\u2019s strategic plan on how to boost growth and development in Kenya, there are an estimated five million out of an estimated eight million households who depend directly on agriculture, despite the fact that agriculture continues to be one of the most under-budgeted ministries. Under the current financial year, agriculture has only been awarded a meagre 3.6% of the national budget, which a long way off the 10% mark that the government had committed to set aside for the agricultural sector. With an overdependence on agriculture for both subsistence and commercial purposes, a large number of the population is in dire need of food aid. Aid organisations such as the World Food Programme say an estimated 1.6 million Kenyans face starvation. The situation has deteriorated due to drastic climatic changes, whereby the rains are no longer reliable and most Kenyans are yet to adapt to innovative and sustainable means of trapping rainwater. According to the Kenya Food Security Meeting - the main co-ordinating body that brings together food security actors in a forum to map out various strategies to improve food security - while there has been a notable improvement of short rains in severely drought-affected pastoral areas, there have been a general rain failure in the country since 2007, which has resulted in the deterioration in food security. It is against this background that researchers have intensified research on crops that can grow in most parts of the country and that can be used to alleviate food insecurity. This research has led many Kenyans to accommodate traditional vegetables that in past years were dismissed in favour of Western vegetables, including highly nutritious and easy-to-grow indigenous crops like African eggplant, nightshades and cow peas. According to this article, most Western vegetables are unaffordable to poor people, who account for an estimated 60% of the rural population.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Measuring impact in the Millennium Development Goal era and beyond: A new approach to large-scale effectiveness evaluations","field_subtitle":"Victora CG, Black RE, Boerma JT and Bryce J: The Lancet 377(9759): 85\u201395, 1 January 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6guc7ts","body":"Evaluation of large-scale programmes and initiatives aimed at improvement of health in countries of low- and middle-income needs a new approach, according to this article. Traditional designs, which compare areas with and without a given programme, are no longer relevant at a time when many programmes are being scaled up in virtually every district in the world. The authors propose an evolution in evaluation design: a national platform approach that uses the district as the unit of design and analysis, is based on continuous monitoring of different levels of indicators and gathers additional data before, during, and after the period to be assessed by multiple methods. The approach uses several analytical techniques to deal with various data gaps and biases and includes interim and summative evaluation analyses. It is intended to promote country ownership, transparency and coordination of external funding, while providing a rigorous comparison of the cost-effectiveness of different scale-up approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Migration and health in South Africa: A review of the current situation and recommendations for achieving the World Health Assembly Resolution on the Health of Migrants","field_subtitle":"Vearey J and Nunez L: Forced Migration Studies Programme, University of the Witwatersrand, 2010","field_url":"http://www.migration.org.za/sites/default/files/reports/2010/MH_Report_0.pdf","body":"This paper focuses on migration in South Africa, and explores the links between health and the movements of people within the county and across its borders. The authors found that most migrants send remittances to their families back home or provide reciprocal care in times of sickness. Current health system planning within South Africa did not appear to adequately engage with the health of migrants in urban and transition areas. The authors emphasise the importance of engaging with a place-based approach to address the health of those affected by the migration process in South Africa. They argue that South Africa needs to develop, implement and monitor an evidence-based, coordinated, multi-level national response to migration and health, with an emphasis on the role of local government. Planning should address the needs of those who return home to die when they are too sick to work and government should also work towards developing a co-ordinated regional response to migration and health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Nations closer to pandemic vaccine framework, key negotiator says","field_subtitle":"New W: Intellectual Property Watch, 24 December 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/64xbre2","body":"The second meeting of the Open-Ended Working Group on Pandemic Influenza Preparedness was held from 13-17 December 2010 at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Switzerland. The working group is part of a longstanding effort to agree on a global framework on pandemic influenza preparedness. A key sticking point in past negotiations has been a standard material transfer agreement (SMTA), including intellectual property rights provisions, for the sharing of viruses and other pandemic-related materials and for sharing related benefits. At the meeting, some countries put an SMTA into a larger context as one part of the solution, rather than the only solution. One concern is that developed countries are not increasing efforts to ensure access and benefit sharing, despite the new agreement \u2013 the Nagoya Protocol \u2013 at the United Nations (UN) Convention on Biological Diversity. This article notes that, instead of collaborating collectively under the auspices of WHO to develop an ambitious framework that delivers sharing of viruses as well as equitable benefits to facilitate pandemic preparedness, the positions taken by developed countries on a range of issues \u2013 including benefit sharing by recipients of influenza biological materials, intellectual property and issues of transparency \u2013 indicated a lack of interest towards protecting global public health and a focus on protecting the profits of their industries and safeguarding developed countries\u2019 access to vaccines and other treatments in the event of a pandemic. The Mexican Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, a leader in the negotiating process, said he expected an agreement to be reached by the annual World Health Assembly in May 2011.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"New global momentum for universal coverage and for bringing evidence on health systems into policymaking","field_subtitle":"Loewenson R: Health Diplomacy Monitor 1(5): 11\u201313, January 2011 ","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6cjecju","body":"In November 2010, the first Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR) on \u2018Science to Accelerate Universal Health Coverage\u2019 shared evidence and identified priorities for strengthening HSR to achieve universal health coverage (UHC). The focus and alliance that emerged from the conference and the high-level support from many global and national agencies suggest the potential for greater visibility and inclusion of evidence on health systems in future global health policy debates. While the many global forums advocating UHC indicate that there is a consistent focus on policy on universality, different perspectives on UHC indicate that the term \u2018universal\u2019 cannot simply be assumed to include the same interests, meanings, and values for all who use it.  The author argues that UHC as a goal \u2013 and the health systems strengthening it \u2013 should inform policy dialogue on specific global agendas, and that stakeholders should make clear and discuss their different positions on UHC, their policy options and consequences, and the political views and values that lie behind them. (EQUINET through TARSC and SEATINI regularly contributes to the Global Health Monitor.)","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"Pan-African Symposium on Infectious Diseases","field_subtitle":"9-11 May 2011: Johannesburg, South Africa","field_url":"http://www.africahealthexhibition.com/Site-Root /Forms/ConferenceEnquiryForm/","body":"This symposium considers infectious diseases in Africa, including bacterial, viral, fungal and parasitic diseases, which comprise a major cause of death, disability, and social and economic disruption for millions of people in Africa\u2019s developing countries. This conference will aim to look at the borderless effect of infection, its impact on children and the importance of intervention. International speakers will talk about how to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases and discuss new diagnostics vaccines and drug treatments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Patent rights and economic growth: Evidence from cross-country panels of manufacturing industries","field_subtitle":"Hu AGZ and Png IPL: National University of Singapore, August 2010","field_url":"http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~ipng/research/patent_text.pdf","body":"The primary objective of patent rights is to foster innovation and economic growth, but the authors of this study conclude that there is little robust evidence that patents \u2018work\u2019 as intended. The authors found that stronger patent rights were related to greater patenting or research and development but could not find a direct link to economic growth. Instead, the role of stronger patent rights in generating growth and adding value at the industry level is relatively greater in richer countries, confirming that the impact of intellectual property (IP) rights may be only positive in richer countries and, conversely, negative or insignificant in poorer countries. The authors focused their research on the efficiency of patents at country and industry levels, noting that patent-intensive industries such as pharmaceuticals and chemicals respond more to patent rights and will require further research. They found that most of the existing patent-related literature contains the statistical problem of reverse causation, where the reasoning of stronger patent rights providing more research and development, innovation and economic growth can be challenged by the reverse reasoning of richer countries being more controlled by industries, such as the pharmaceutical industry, that lobby legislators to pass stronger patent laws \u2018to make sure they get wealthier\u2019.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Health equity in economic and trade policies"}},{"node":{"title":"Petition to reduce transfer costs for remittances","field_subtitle":"Avaaz: 30 December 2010","field_url":"https://secure.avaaz.org/en/make_giving_powerful/?vl","body":"According to this petition, an estimated US$44.3 billion worldwide was lost in transfer fees in 2010. This amount includes transfer fees on remittances paid by workers in developed countries who are sending money to families back home in developing countries. Western Union, a major international transfer company responsible for a large share of international transfers, charges 20% on transfers, the article notes. The World Bank recommends that costs not exceed 5% of the total amount transferred, but Western Union has never faced serious pressure to lower its charges. By signing this petition, you can help can expose these exorbitant charges and hopefully result in the company lowering its charges to the World Bank rate. Reducing the profits of companies like Western Union would dramatically increase assistance flowing into developing countries. The neediest countries coming out of war or disaster suffer the greatest losses, because of transfer companies' monopolistic privileges and exclusive deals with local banks, the authors of the petition argue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"Pooled funds: Assessing new models for global health R&D financing ","field_subtitle":"Grace C and Pearson M: Centre for Global Health R&D Policy Assessment, 30 November 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4dco7t7","body":"Product development partnerships, non-profit research institutes and private sector groups have come together over the past years to conduct research and development (R&D) in the areas of the development of drugs, vaccines and diagnostics for neglected diseases, including tropical diseases and other major infectious diseases like HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. However, arguments have been put forward that their efforts are disjointed and that funding flows inefficiently to individual research projects resulting in insufficient resources, funding volatility, poor resource allocation, and duplicated and unnecessary efforts. In response, several pooled funding mechanisms have been proposed to address what proponents see as the key problem(s) in the current system: the Industry R&D Facilitation Fund (IRFF) originally proposed by the George Institute; the Fund for Research in Neglected Diseases (FRIND) proposed by Novartis; and the Product Development Partnership Financing Facility (PDP-FF) proposed by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). The goal of this paper is to provide insight into the extent to which these three proposed mechanisms would have a positive effect on accelerating R&D for neglected diseases. It considers how these proposals are likely to perform against two criteria: their capacity to raise additional money for neglected disease R&D and their capacity to improve the efficient allocation of those funds. The authors of the paper use a literature review, interviews with key stakeholders and illustrative modelling to assess the proposals against these two criteria. Most interviewees expressed doubts that common ground could be found with regard to the metrics on resource allocation if the fund were covering a large and diverse part of the R&D space. However, stakeholders overwhelmingly agreed that a pooled fund focused on late stage work only would be a more feasible and useful proposition.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Public-Private Mix"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty and wellbeing in Mozambique: Third national poverty assessment","field_subtitle":"Mozambique Ministry of Planning and Development and National Directorate of Studies and Policy Analysis: October 2010","field_url":"http://aec.msu.edu/%5C/fs2/mozambique/caadp/THIRD_NATIONAL_POVERTY_ASSESSMENT_october1.pdf","body":"This report provides a quantitative assessment of the poverty situation in Mozambique in 2008/09 and associated trends. It indicates no improvement in poverty levels at the national level, which remained essentially the same as levels in 2002/03, at slightly less than 55% of the population. Nutrition indicators for children under five years also showed little progress at the national level during the same period. In rural areas, distance to the nearest primary health facility was significantly reduced, while access in urban areas to primary health facilities appears to have worsened slightly. Access to safe water also showed no improvement, with less than one third of all households in the rural centre and rural north of the country having access.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Poverty levels in Swaziland show no improvement","field_subtitle":"IRIN News: 7 December 2010","field_url":"http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91311","body":"Swaziland's declining revenue from customs tax in the face of growing unemployment is exerting pressure on public health services and food production. According to this article, the government recently conceded that unemployment was running at 40%, but economists expect this to rise, pushing up already high poverty levels - about two-thirds of Swazis live in chronic poverty. Agricultural production has been reduced in line with government cuts in essential programmes, but government spending on non-essential programmes has not been cut. Despite having the world's highest HIV prevalence rate, Swaziland has reportedly announced plans to cut spending on HIV and AIDS programmes by 10% in 2011.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Poverty and health"}},{"node":{"title":"Preparing for the future of HIV/AIDS in Africa: A Shared responsibility","field_subtitle":"Institute of Medicine: Report Brief, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2010/Preparing-for-the-Future-of-HIVAIDS-in-Africa-A-Shared-Responsibility.aspx","body":"According to this report, projections indicate that new HIV infections will surpass the global community\u2019s capacity to provide treatment. If the burden of HIV and AIDS does reach the projected levels, it will confront decision makers with tough choices about who receives life-saving treatment and who does not. The Institute of Medicine (IoM) argues that capabilities need to be expanded to enable professionals overseeing HIV and AIDS policies, programmes and resource allocation to receive ethical training and to carry out their responsibilities within the structures needed to ensure transparency and accountability in these life-altering decisions. No single strategy will offer a magic bullet to meet the challenge of HIV/AIDS, therefore coun\u00actries will need to adopt multi-pronged approaches. In particular, African nations should plan now for how to respond to this rapidly growing epidemic. IOM concludes that shared responsibility between the United States and African nations will empower these nations to take ownership of the challenge of HIV and AIDS and to work together to address the issues. For African nations, the focus should be on strengthening health care systems by making the most of existing capacities, such as health care workers on the ground and local institutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Progress against AIDS threatened by rising ARV prices and donor retreat","field_subtitle":"M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res: 29 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=4887&cat=press-release","body":"HIV and AIDS treatment in developing countries is being dealt a double blow that will mean treatment recommendations cannot be implemented and the promise of new scientific research will remain unfulfilled, according to the international medical humanitarian organization, M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF). The prices of the newer anti-retrovirals (ARVs) are expected to be astronomical, while donors are retreating from their commitments to expand AIDS treatment. The World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) latest recommendations for treatment include treating people with better tolerated drugs, and earlier. The revised strategy calls for treating people before they become ill from opportunistic infections such as tuberculosis. MSF data from Lesotho shows the value of this new strategy: providing people with treatment earlier led to a 68% reduction in deaths, a 27% reduction in new diseases, a 63% reduction in hospitalisation and a 39% reduction in people defaulting from care. Even South Africa, a middle-income country with the largest ARV treatment programme in the world, is expected to struggle to implement the full WHO recommendations if its proposal to the Global Fund is not approved.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Protection: Men and condoms in the time of HIV and AIDS","field_subtitle":"Lewis J: November 2010","field_url":"http://protectionthefilm.com/","body":"In this documentary, the stories of three \u2018ordinary men' from South Africa, Kenya and Sierra Leone are presented as they deal with the realities of HIV. The producer of the documentary is a gender activist who deliberately avoided using experts and non-governmental organisation workers to provide facts and advice, instead relying on personal narrative to reveal the relevant social and economic issues surrounding condom use and to make the documentary more relatable to its intended audience \u2013 African men. The film was envisioned as a way to stimulate debate about the challenges and complexities these men face on condom use. It may be useful as a tool for local civil society organisations, which could use the film to aid discussions about condoms.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Public Health: Disconnections between policy, practice and research ","field_subtitle":"Jansen MW, Van Oers HA, Kok G and de Vries NK: Health Research Policy and Systems 8(37), 31 December 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-8-37.pdf","body":"Collaboration between policy, practice and research is imperative to obtaining more solid evidence in public health. However, the three domains do not easily work together because they emanate from three more-or-less independent 'niches', the authors of this study argue. They conducted a literature review of qualitative descriptive research published in English and Dutch between 1980 and 2006, and analysed literature according to the four steps of the policy, practice and research work cycles: problem recognition, approach formulation, implementation and evaluation. They found conspicuous differences in approach formulation and implementation that strengthen the niche character of each domain and hamper integration and collaboration. Disconnections ranged from formulating priorities in problem statements to power roles, appraisal of evidence, work attitudes, work pace, transparency of goals, evaluation and continuation strategies and public accountability. Creating awareness of these disconnections may result in more compatibility between researchers, policy makers and practitioners. This analysis can be used by public health services-related researchers, practitioners and policy makers to take into account the risk for disconnections. The authors recommend practice- and policy-based research networks to establish strong links between researchers, policy makers and practitioners to improve public health.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Reducing child mortality: A moral and environmental imperative","field_subtitle":"Rosling H: Gapminder, 20 September 2010","field_url":"http://www.gapminder.org/videos/reducing-child-mortality-a-moral-and-environmental-imperative/","body":"This presentation by Hans Rosling of Gapminder was presented on 20 September 2010 at an event reflecting on the progress made against the Millennium Development Goals, hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation TEDxChange. Using United Nations data on child mortality, he pointed out the reduction in child mortality at an accelerating speed by African countries like Kenya, after poor performance in the 1990s. In this video of his lecture, he says that the time has come to \u2018stop talking about sub-Saharan Africa as one place\u2019, as statistics vary so widely between countries on the continent. He also questions the definitions of \u2018developed\u2019 and \u2018developing\u2019 countries, arguing that the distinction is no longer strictly valid given that countries with lower incomes have better performance on child mortality than others with higher incomes. ","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Report on Tenth Meeting of the States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty: 29 November to 3 December 2010","field_subtitle":"International Campaign to Ban Landmines: December 2010","field_url":"http://www.icbl.org/index.php/icbl/Treaties/MBT/Annual-Meetings/10MSP/summary-va","body":"From 29 November to 3 December 2010, the Tenth Meeting of the States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty took place in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss implementation of the global Mine Ban Treaty of 1997. Twenty-three states parties with significant numbers of landmine survivors presented their activities and the challenges faced so far in implementing the victim assistance actions of the Cartagena Action Plan (CAP), which is the plan devised to help countries implement the requirements of the Ban Treaty. The CAP stresses the need to improve quality of and access to services \u2013 including health and rehabilitation services \u2013 by disabled people. Reports indicated that, by the end of 2009, most survivors had not experienced significant overall improvements in quality or access to a range of necessary services, while nearly as many countries reported a decline in services, due mostly to deteriorating security and the downturn in the global economy. A number of east, central and southern African countries participated in the meeting. Uganda reported that its victim assistance plans had been revised or redrafted according to CAP principles, while the Democratic Republic of Congo reported drafting victim assistance plans that were pending adoption and also noted establishing a national commission for the rehabilitation of survivors. Mozambique reported that survivors are assisted through the national disability framework but failed to describe its efforts to assist persons with disabilities in any detail.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"Resolutions of the SANNAM 2010 Network Meeting and Policy Conference ","field_subtitle":"Southern African Network of Nurses and Midwives: December 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/SANhum220111.pdf","body":"The Southern African Network of Nurses and Midwives (SANNAM) met in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 2\u20134 December 2010, and made a number of resolutions for 2011. SANNAM called on the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Southern African Development Community to recognise the network as a partner in monitoring the implementation of WHO\u2019s Global Code of Practice for recruiting health workers, and resolved to maintain a database on information on health worker migration in the southern African region. To help countries in the region to reach their child and maternal health Millennium Development Goal targets, SANNAM will lobby for midwifery to be declared a specialisation after midwives have completed their basic training, as well as lobby for nursing regulatory bodies in countries that don\u2019t have them and help to implement these bodies. SANNAM will also develop a position statement that seeks to remove bureaucratic obstacles to free movement of nurses wishing to work in different countries in the region.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Reviewing the benefits of health workforce stability ","field_subtitle":"Buchan J: Human Resources for Health 8(29), 14 December 2010","field_url":"http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-8-29.pdf","body":"This paper examines the issue of workforce stability and turnover in the context of policy attempts to improve retention of health workers. The author argues that there are significant benefits to supporting policy makers and managers to develop a broader perspective of workforce stability and methods of monitoring it. The objective of the paper is to contribute to developing a better understanding of workforce stability as a major aspect of the overall policy goal of improved retention of health workers. Some of the limited research is examined on the complex interaction between staff turnover and organisational performance or quality of care in the health sector, with details and examples of the measurement of staff turnover and stability, and an illustration of an approach to costing staff turnover. The paper concludes with the author advocating that these types of assessment can be valuable to managers and policy makers as they examine which policies may be effective in improving stability and retention, by reducing turnover. They can also be used as part of advocacy for the use of new retention measures. The very action of setting up a local working group to assess the costs of turnover can in itself give managers and staff a greater insight into the negative impacts of turnover, and can encourage them to work together to identify and implement stability measures.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Rights-based health equity website","field_subtitle":"Section 27: Joint Action and Learning Initiative","field_url":"http://www.section27.org.za/2010/11/23/jali/","body":"Joint Action and Learning Initiative on National and Global Responsibilities for Health (JALI) is a global coalition of civil society organisations and academia collaborating to challenge inequality in access to health care around the world and to develop strategies to promote and fulfill the human right to health. JALI\u2019s ultimate goal is to develop and see implemented a Framework Convention on Global Health that will serve to guide all countries on their global responsibilities \u2013 both individually and collectively \u2013 to ensuring access to health care. Discussions around the initiative began in late 2009 and the website is regularly updated with new documents and articles by JALI members. If you would like to join or contribute to JALI, please contact JALI at the email address given.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Second Conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association","field_subtitle":"15-17 March 2011: Senegal ","field_url":"http://afhea.org/","body":"The Second Conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) will be held in Saly Portudal (Palm Beach), Senegal from 15-17 March 2011. The overall theme of this conference is \u2018Toward universal health coverage in Africa\u2019. Universal coverage is understood to mean providing financial protection against health care costs for all, as well as ensuring access to quality health care for all when needed.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}},{"node":{"title":"SECTION27 and TAC welcome SA\u2019s successful ARV medicine tender","field_subtitle":"SECTION27: 15 December 2010","field_url":"http://www.section27.org.za/2010/12/15/section27-and-tac-applaud-successful-arv-medicine-tender/","body":"South African AIDS activist organisations, SECTION27 and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), have welcomed the government\u2019s successful new anti-retroviral (ARV) tender, which covers the period 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2012 and will see the state procuring ARVs at the best prices available globally. This is in stark contrast to the previous tender, which resulted in South Africa paying significantly more than necessary for ARVs.  For example, South Africa will now be paying \u2013 on average \u2013 about R115 per patient per month on standard combination treatment of three ARVs, compared to a previous cost of R110 for just one ARV. Also, the price of the paediatric version of abacavir has nearly halved since the last tender. SECTION27 notes, however, that the tender did not include any TDF-containing three-in-one fixed dose combinations, which would allow patients the convenience of taking all their medications in just one pill. The organisation calls for call for greater transparency in future tenders, with more autonomy for the Department of Health and less influence on the tendering process by the Treasury.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Sexual behaviour does not reflect HIV-1 prevalence differences: A comparison study of Zimbabwe and Tanzania","field_subtitle":"Mapingure MP, Msuya S, Kurewa NE, Munjoma MW, Sam N, Chirenje MZ et al: Journal of the International AIDS Society 13(45), 16 November 2010","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/13/1/45","body":"The aim of this study was to identify risk factors that could explain the large differences in HIV-1 prevalence among pregnant women in Harare, Zimbabwe, and Moshi, Tanzania. Cross-sectional data from a two-centre study that enrolled pregnant women in Harare and Moshi was used. Consenting women were interviewed about their socio-demographic background and sexual behaviour, and tested for presence of sexually transmitted infections and reproductive tract infections. The prevalence of HIV-1 among pregnant women was 26% in Zimbabwe and 7% in Tanzania. The HIV prevalence in both countries rises constantly with age up to the 25-30 year age group. After that, it continues to rise among Zimbabwean women, while it drops for Tanzanian women. Risky sexual behaviour was more prominent among Tanzanians than Zimbabweans. Mobility and such infections as HSV-2, trichomoniasis and bacterial vaginosis were more prevalent among Zimbabweans than Tanzanians. In conclusion, the higher HIV-1 prevalence among pregnant women in Zimbabwe compared with Tanzania could not be explained by differences in risky sexual behaviour: all risk factors tested for in the study were higher for Tanzania than Zimbabwe. Non-sexual transmission of HIV might have played an important role in variation of HIV prevalence.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"Social sciences research in neglected tropical diseases 2: A bibliographic analysis","field_subtitle":"Reidpath DD, Allotey P and Pokhrel S: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(1), 6 January 2011","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-1.pdf","body":"The authors of this study reviewed social science and interdisciplinary research in neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). They conducted a bibliographic analysis of neglected NTD-related research papers published over the past 10 years in biomedical and social sciences, focusing on specific NTDs, namely chikungunya, dengue, visceral leishmaniasis and onchocerciasis. According to the review, there is substantial variation in the number of publications associated with each disease. The proportion of the research that is social science based appears remarkably consistent. A textual analysis, however, revealed a degree of misclassification by the abstracting service, where a surprising proportion of the \u2018social sciences\u2019 research was actually pure clinical research. Much of the social sciences research also tends to be \u2018hand maiden\u2019 research focused on the implementation of biomedical solutions. The authors conclude there is little evidence that scientists pay any attention to the complex social, cultural, biological and environmental dynamic involved in human pathogenesis. They found little investigator-driven social science research and a poor presence of interdisciplinary science. NTD research needs more sophisticated funders and priority setters who are not beguiled by uncritical biomedical promises, they argue.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"Social sciences research in neglected tropical diseases 3: Investment in social science research in neglected diseases of poverty: A case study of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ","field_subtitle":"Pokhrel S, Reidpath D and Allotey P: Health Research Policy and Systems 9(2), 6 January 2011 ","field_url":"http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-9-2.pdf","body":"In this study, the authors analysed the spending of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a major independent international funder, on neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). They included 67 projects funded between October 1998 and November 2008, 55% of which were from Africa. Projects were categorised as social science or non-social science research. The authors found that 26 projects (39%) were social science related while 41 projects (61%) were basic science or other translational research, including drug development. A total of US$697 million was spent to fund the projects, of which 35% (US$241 million) went to social science research. Although the level of funding for social science research has generally been lower than that for non-social science research over the past ten years, social science research attracted more funding in 2004 and 2008. The authors argue that, due to the high demand for improved delivery and utilisation of current NTD drugs/technologies, which are informed by social science-based research, funding priorities need to reflect greater investment in this type of research into NTDs.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Monitoring equity and research policy"}},{"node":{"title":"South African community health workers not receiving salaries","field_subtitle":"Bodibe K: health-e News, 2 December 2010","field_url":"http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20033041","body":"A total of 65,000 South African community health workers (CHWs) are largely responsible for providing counselling services in the government\u2019s HIV counselling and testing programme, which aims to test 15 million South Africans for HIV by April 2011. Many other government health programmes also rely on this cadre of workers for their success. Most of them are employed by non-governmental organisations through funding from provincial health departments and others. But their contribution to public health may be at risk, as this article reports that CHWs are working full time without any payment, sometimes waiting up to six months without receiving their salaries. There is uncertainty about whether the non-governmental organisations that manage funds for the salaries of CHWs are receiving these funds from government and, if they are, why they are not paying them out as salaries. The Health Department has registered its concern about the problem. Health Department Director-General, Precious Matsoso, said the department is working on a solution and cited an overlap of responsibility between her department and social development services as to blame for the lack of action to address the claims of failed salary payments.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Human Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"Supporting strategic leadership in global health diplomacy in east, central and southern Africa : Report of the Ministerial and Senior Leadership Scoping Workshop, Harare, Zimbabwe","field_subtitle":"ECSA Health Community, Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation Kenya, University of Nairobi, South Africa Dept of International Relations and Cooperation, EQUINET, TARSC, SEATINI: December 2010","field_url":"http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/GHD%20Ministers%20Meeting%20Rep%20October%202010.pdf","body":"A Ministers\u2019 and Senior Leadership Scoping Workshop was held to provide an opportunity for Ministers of Health and senior leadership teams in ECSA member states to be briefed on and review the Global Health Diplomacy (GHD) Initiative in the ECSA region, to identify synergies and opportunities for collaboration with on-going and planned country and partner activities and to agree on modalities for implementation. The meeting reviewed the experiences in GHD to date, the international initiatives on GHD and the proposed programme activities. The Ministers and senior officials made recommendations for the implementation of the programme.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Latest Equinet Updates"}},{"node":{"title":"The Eighth Plenary Meeting of the Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development: Tokyo, 16-17 December 2010","field_subtitle":"The Leading Group: December 2010","field_url":"http://www.leadinggroup.org/IMG/pdf_Chairman_summary.pdf","body":"At this meeting, the Leading Group, an innovative financing advocacy group with 63 member countries, called on the G20 to focus more on innovative financing in its development agenda and pledged to conduct several technical studies in 2011. Participants at the meeting took note of the significant impact of innovative financing in the health sector including the international finance facility for immunisation, advanced market commitment, the air ticket levy and private sector initiatives. New ideas were also introduced, like a tobacco tax and possible new public-private partnerships. The setting up of a dedicated task force was put forward for consideration. In order to meet the Millennium Development Goals and other challenges related to sustainable development, participants agreed to explore innovative financing that is stable, predictable and additional to the existing resources, tapping into various mechanisms, including mandatory contributions, voluntary contributions, loan guarantees, debt swaps, market mechanisms and private sector investments. They also highlighted the need to reduce the cost of migrants\u2019 remittances, and the improvement of their impact on development in recipient countries, including through microcredit institutions.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The future of financing for WHO","field_subtitle":"Director General, WHO, EB128/INF.DOC./3 January 22 2011","field_url":"http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/EB128/B128_ID3-en.pdf","body":"This brief outlines the Director General's closing summary remarks on a discussion at the 128th Executive Board (EB) on the future of financing for WHO. It notes that a vision for WHO includes coherence in global health, with WHO leading in enabling the many different actors to play an active and effective role in contributing to the health of all people, WHO meeting the expectations of its Member States in addressing agreed\r\nglobal health priorities, focused on the actions and areas where it has a unique function or comparative advantage, and financed in a way that facilitates this focus; and as an organization which is fit for purpose \u2013 efficient, responsive, objective, transparent and accountable. The EB proposed a programme of reform that includes a plan for strengthening WHO\u2019s central role in global health governance, comprising a proposal to hold a regular multi-stakeholder forum (the first in May 2012, subject to the guidance of the World Health Assembly); a clear articulation of WHO\u2019s unique role and functions, and a detailed plan for managerial reforms. This will be presented to the 64th World Health Assembly in May 2011.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Resource allocation and health financing"}},{"node":{"title":"The history of AIDS exceptionalism","field_subtitle":"Smith JH and Whiteside A: Journal of the International AIDS Society 13(47), 3 December 2010","field_url":"http://www.jiasociety.org/content/pdf/1758-2652-13-47.pdf","body":"AIDS exceptionalism is the idea that the disease requires a response above and beyond \u2018normal\u2019 health interventions. More recently, the term has come to refer to the disease-specific global response and the resources dedicated to addressing the epidemic. The authors of this study argue that AIDS exceptionalism began as a Western response to the originally terrifying and lethal nature of the virus. There has been a backlash against this exceptionalism, with critics claiming that HIV and AIDS receive a disproportionate amount of international aid and health funding. This paper situations this debate in historical perspective. By reviewing histories of the disease, policy developments and funding patterns, it charts how the meaning of AIDS exceptionalism has shifted over three decades. The authors argue that, while the connotation of the term has changed, the epidemic has maintained its course, and therefore some of the justifications for exceptionalism remain.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity and HIV/AIDS"}},{"node":{"title":"The movement of patients across borders: Challenges and opportunities for public health","field_subtitle":"Helble M: Bulletin of the World Health Organization 89(1): 68\u201372, January 2011","field_url":"http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/1/10-076612.pdf","body":"In a globalising world, public health can no longer be confined to national borders, the author of this paper argues. Recent years have seen an increasing movement of patients across international borders. The full extent of this trend is yet unknown, as data is sparse and anecdotal. If this trend continues, experts are convinced that it will have major implications for public health systems around the globe. Despite the growing importance of medical travel, little empirical evidence exists on its impact on public health, especially on health systems. This paper summarises the most recent debates on this topic. It discusses the main forces that drive medical travel and its implications on health systems, in particular the impacts on access to health care, financing and the health workforce. The author offers guidance on how to define medical travel and how to improve data collection. He advocates for more scientific research that will enable countries to harness benefits and limit the potential risks to public health arising from medical travel.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"The political economy of universal health coverage ","field_subtitle":"Stuckler D, Feigl AB, Basu S and McKee M: Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/images/stories/8political_economy.pdf","body":"Out of 192 countries studied in this review, 75 had legislation mandating universal access to health care services independent of income. Of these, 58 met the criteria based on available measures of coverage that serve as broader proxies for access to care. The authors of the review found that most countries have adopted legal commitments to achieve universal health coverage at low- and middle-income stages of development. When they have not, healthcare has tended to expand gradually, leaving many members of the population vulnerable for extended periods of time. However, the authors caution that a legal commitment is insufficient on its own and must be translated into policies that establish a comprehensive, largely publicly financed system. An over-reliance on partial and private sector-focused care appears to disproportionately benefit richer groups, reducing both efficacy and access to coverage. It also creates groups with strong vested interests in the status quo that can block further progress, they argue. Public financing is more equitable and pro-poor, and reflects the shared value of providing care based on need rather than ability to pay.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"The potential roles of African Union Mechanisms in aid accountability and effectiveness","field_subtitle":"Amadasun AB: Reality of Aid Network, 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/65psrgl","body":"Amadasun reviews several of the important international mechanisms which channel aid to Africa, finding that the many instruments developed outside Africa are ineffective because they have design, accountability and ownership flaws. These criticisms apply to International Monetary Fund (IMF) programmes, debt relief and also budget support. Despite some changes in the way that the IMF and other international agencies operate \u2013 for example linking their interventions to Poverty Reduction Strategies \u2013 their fundamental way of working remains to pressure governments to take certain actions even at the expense of citizens\u2019 views. Amadasun suggests that new mechanisms that originate in Africa, for Africa, stand a better chance of enabling decisions that empower and support large numbers of impoverished people. These mechanisms include the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). However these institutions are nascent and have yet to fulfill their full potential. To reach their potential these African bodies must develop authority to scrutinise the interventions of the international financial institutions (IFIs). These bodies will have to overcome several challenges. These include improving who is selected to represent African citizens, increasing public awareness and discussion of the bodies, and developing an independent source of financing for their own operations. If they overcome these challenges the PAP and APRM may be able to prevent international agencies from imposing policies and pressures from outside the region and enable a flourishing of democracy from below.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Governance and participation in health"}},{"node":{"title":"The right to water and sanitation: Two new resolutions by the UN","field_subtitle":"Pearcey P: Health Diplomacy Monitor 1(5): 4\u20136, January 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/6cjecju","body":"The United Nations (UN) has passed two resolutions on the right to water and sanitation. The resolution, \u2018The human right to water and Sanitation\u2019, was passed by the General Assembly on 28 July 2010, and the resolution, \u2018Human rights and access to safe drinking water and sanitation\u2019 was passed by by the Human Rights Council on 30 September 2010. By framing access to water and sanitation as a human right, these resolutions seek to promote \u2018national and international justifiable approaches that promote accountability and transparency and provide mechanisms to progressively realise increasing peoples access to water and sanitation\u2019. However, critics point out that the legal basis for recognising the right to water is not adequately established by the resolutions. According to this article, the primary issue confronting the international community will be translating the resolutions into reality. Proposals by the UN include developing tools/mechanisms to achieve the right to safe water and sanitation, ensuring full transparency in the implementation process of delivering safe drinking water and sanitation, focusing on marginalised groups, adopting/implementing effective regulatory frameworks, and putting in place accountability mechanisms to remedy human rights violations.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"Universal health coverage with equity: what we know, don\u2019t know and need to know","field_subtitle":"Frenz P and Vega J: Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, November 2010","field_url":"http://www.hsr-symposium.org/images/stories/9coverage_with_equity.pdf","body":"In this paper, the authors review the extensive body of literature regarding health systems research on equity of access as it relates to universal health coverage, identifying the issues addressed, methods used and specific findings. Most of the studies that were reviewed interpreted equitable access as equal utilisation for equal need across socio-economic groups and report that poorer social groups experience less health care than their needs require. However, the authors noted that evidence on the causes and specific barriers to access faced by specific groups is often lacking in the literature. Only a few studies evaluated the impact of specific policies or interventions on equitable access, but they had significant methodological limitations. These findings suggest a need to strengthen policy relevant research, which should go beyond simply reporting inequities in health care utilisation and assess equity in the overall process of access to explain the causes of differential access. The framework devised by the authors is proposed as a useful reference scheme for future research, providing guidance on areas and methodological approaches.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equity in Health"}},{"node":{"title":"Website for African development policy","field_subtitle":"Africa Portal","field_url":"http://www.africaportal.org/","body":"The Africa Portal is an online knowledge resource for policy-related issues on Africa. An undertaking by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), Makerere University (MAK), and the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), the portal offers open access to a suite of features including an online library collection; a resource for opinion and analysis; an experts directory; an international events calendar; and a mobile technology component\u2014all aimed to equip users with research and information on Africa\u2019s current policy issues. A key feature to the Africa Portal is the online library collection holding over 2,500 books, journals, and digital documents related to African policy issues. The entire online repository is open access and available for free full-text download. A portion of the digital documents housed in the library have been digitised for the first time as an undertaking of the Africa Portal project. Facilitating new digitisation projects is a core feature of the Africa Portal, which aims to improve access and visibility for African research.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Useful Resources"}},{"node":{"title":"WHO\u2019s global immunisation vision and strategy","field_subtitle":"Childs M: M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, 18 January 2011","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/4sejmvq","body":"M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res welcomes the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) proposed Global Immunization Vision and Strategy, which encourages a rebalancing of the global vaccine strategy so that support for the introduction of the newer vaccines does not mean momentum is lost as regards the need to ensure basic immunisation. New vaccines such as pneumococcal vaccines have the potential to avert millions of deaths worldwide, but MSF argues that the need for their medical teams to intervene in several measles outbreak responses illustrates the weak coverage of traditional vaccines, and is a clear indication of the failure of routine basic immunisation, despite the global decrease in measles morbidity and mortality. National immunisation programmes should be supported to leverage every interaction with young children to provide \u2018catch-up\u2019 vaccinations. The report lacks strategies and concrete actions to bring vaccine prices down, according to MSF, despite the fact that the WHO admits that vaccine prices continue to be a major obstacle. MSF notes that the current funding crisis at the GAVI Alliance is partly due to overpriced vaccines. Too much emphasis has been put on incentivising multinational pharmaceutical companies, at the expense of investing in support to emerging producers that can produce quality vaccines at dramatically reduced prices.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Equitable health services"}},{"node":{"title":"Women maimed by landmines need to be heard by United Nations","field_subtitle":"Piloya M: WeNews, 28 November 2010","field_url":"http://tinyurl.com/5tgstto","body":"Government officials, representatives of United Nations agencies and members of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines met from 29 November to 3 December 2010 in Geneva to discuss their efforts and plans to implement the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. This article is a call to stakeholders at the meeting to address the barriers facing women with disabilities, and to take a participatory approach to policy making that will include the opinions of these women and their self-defined needs. According to the author, a Ugandan activist, women with disabilities have been left out of the agenda to ban landmines over the past decade, in the same way they have been left out of development programmes and shunned in their own communities. Challenges faced by women with disabilities include social isolation, being ignored by relief and recovery efforts and suffering sexual violence. Abuse and abandonment are common, and a lack of access to health care, education and employment opportunities are the reality for most. Unless policymakers take the needs of disabled women into account, the author concludes, these women cannot share fully in the benefits of any new programmes, including employment and health rehabilitation programmes.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Values, Policies and Rights"}},{"node":{"title":"World Health Organization call for papers: Violence against women as a health issue","field_subtitle":"Submissions may be made throughout 2011","field_url":"http://submit.bwho.org","body":"The World Health Organization (WHO) is inviting submissions of papers describing research that addresses violence against women. WHO is particularly interested in research with a strong intervention focus, including ways to get violence against women onto different policy agendas, lessons about how to address some of the challenges policy-makers face, and innovative approaches to prevention or service provision, including community-based programmes in both conflict- and crises-affected and more stable settings. Papers may address more neglected forms of violence against women or provide evidence on the costs and cost-effectiveness of intervention responses. Descriptive research that contributes to a better understanding of the global prevalence and costs of violence, or that provides evidence about the root causes of such violence, will also be considered.","php":"","field_issue_date":"","field_equinet":"","category":"Jobs and Announcements"}}]}